Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose

Hubert, disabled by a wound in his arm, is dishonoured by receiving his life from his conqueror; upon which occasion the poet thus beautifully apostrophises:

O Honour, frail as life, thy fellow flower!Cherish’d, and watch’d, and hum’rously esteem’d,Then worn for short adornments of an hour;And is, when lost, no more than life redeem’d.

The two chiefs are still left closely engaging; and when Hurgonil approaches to assist his lord, he is warmly commanded to retire. At length, after many mutual wounds, Oswald falls.

The death of the Prince at the same time takes off all restraint from his party, and incites them to revenge. Led by the wounded Hubert, old Vasco, and Borgio, they attack the hunters, who, besides the fatigue of the chace, are represented as somewhat inferior in number. A furious battle, the subject of the fifth canto, now ensues. Gondibert shines forth in all the splendor of a hero. By his prowess his friends are rescued, and the opposite leaders overthrown in various separate encounters; and by his military skill the brave veterans of Oswald are defeated. The whole description of the battle is warm and animated.

In Gondibert’s generous lamentation over the fallen, every heart must sympathize with the following pathetic tribute to the rival lovers:

Brave Arnold and his rival strait remove,Where Laura shall bestrew their hallow’d ground;Protectors both, and ornaments of love;This said, his eyes out wept his widest wound.Tell her now these, love’s faithful saints, are gone,The beauty they ador’d she ought to hide;for vainly will love’s miracles be shewn,Since lover’s faith with these brave rivals dy’d.Say little Hugo never more shall mourn,In noble numbers, her unkind disdain;Who now, not seeing beauty, feels no scorn;And wanting pleasure, is exempt from pain.When she with flowers Lord Arnold’s grave shall strew,And hears why Hugo’s life was thrown away,She on that rival’s hearse will drop a few,Which merits all that April gives to May.

The Duke now draws off his remaining friends towards Bergamo: but on the journey, overcome by fatigue and loss of blood, he falls into a deadly swoon. His attendants, amidst their anxiety and confusion upon this event, are surprised, in the sixth canto, with the approach of a squadron of horse. This, however, proves to be a friendly body, led by old Ulfin, who, after recovering the Duke by a cordial, declares himself to have been a page to his grandsire, and gives a noble relation of the character and exploits of his great master. The rumour of Oswald’s attack brought him to the relief of Gondibert; and we have a description, which will be thought too much bordering upon the ludicrous, of the strange confusion among his maimed veterans, who in their haste had seized upon each other’s artificial limbs. This unsightly troop, with the deficiencies of hands, arms, legs and eyes, can scarcely, with all the poet’s art, be rendered a respectable object. Such instances of faulty judgment are frequent in the writings of an age which was characterized by vigour of imagination rather than correctness of taste. Ulfin leads the Duke to the house of the sage Astragon, where, with the approach of night, the canto and the first book conclude.

In the beginning of the second book, the poet carries us with Hurgonil and Tybalt and their noble dead, to Verona. The distant turrets first appearing, and then the great objects opening, one by one; the river, the palace, the temple, and the amphitheatre of Flaminius, form a landscape truly noble and picturesque. The view of the temple gives occasion to one of those elevated religious sentiments which dignify this poem.

This to soothe heaven the bloody Clephes built;As if heaven’s king so soft and easy were,So meanly hous’d in heaven, and kind to guilt,That he would be a tyrant’s tenant here.

We have then a lively description of a city morning; with the various and uncertain rumours of the late event, among the people. The rest of the canto is employed in a debate, rather tedious, though intermixed with fine sentiments, concerning the propriety of granting funeral rites to those who had perished in the quarrel.

The progress of the fatal news is traced in the next canto. Aribert appears sitting in council in all the regal dignity. Tybalt relates the story. The king, in a majestic speech, complains of the toils and cares of empire, and predicts the baneful consequences likely to ensue. A more interesting scene is then disclosed, in which Tybalt declares the melancholy events of the combat to Rhodalind and the other ladies of the court. Great art is shewn in the delicate ambiguity by which they are prepared to receive the tidings. Laura is overpowered by her loss; and, calling on Arnold’s name, is conveyed away by her female attendants. This tender scene of sorrow is finely contrasted by the abrupt entrance of Gartha, in all the wild pomp of mingled rage and grief.

No sooner was the pity’d Laura gone,But Oswald’s sister, Gartha the renown’d,Enters as if the world was overthrown,Or in the tears of the afflicted drown’d.Unconquer’d as her beauty was her mind,Which wanted not a spark of Oswald’s fire;Ambition lov’d, but ne’er to love was kind;Vex’d thrones did more than quiet shades desire.Her garments now in loose neglect she wore,As suited to her wild dishevell’d hair.

In the fury of her passion she breaks out into execrations against the innocent.

Blasted be all your beauties, Rhodalind!Till you a shame and terror be to sight;Unwing’d be Love, and slow as he is blind,Who with your looks poison’d my brother’s sight!

At length she mounts her chariot, and flies with the wings of revenge to the veteran camp at Brescia. The terror impressed on the people by her hasty departure is imaged with great sublimity.

She seem’d their city’s Genius as she pass’d,Who, by their sins expell’d, would ne’er return.

The third canto brings us to Brescia, where Hubert’s arrival with the dead body of Oswald excites every emotion of surprize, grief and fury in the breasts of the brave veterans. They spend the night in this storm of contending passions; and at day-break assemble round the tent of Hubert, who by a noble harangue gives additional fire to their revenge. They instantly arm, and demand to be led to Bergamo; when Gartha arrives. She turns their vengeance against the court, where she represents the triumph of Gondibert’s faction, and the dishonour cast upon their own. The rage discovered in her countenance, overpowering the symptoms of grief, is painted with amazing grandeur in the following simile:

The Sun did thus to threat’ned nature showHis anger red, whilst guilt look’d pale in all,When clouds of floods did hang about his brow;And then shrunk back to let that anger fall.

This tempest is, however, allayed in the next canto by the arrival of the wife Hermegild; who, though grown aged in war and politics, is possessed with a youthful passion for Gartha. He solemnly binds his services to their party, for the reward of Gartha’s love; but persuades them to submit to more cautious and pacific measures. Gartha returns with him to the court; and the funeral of Oswald with Roman rites, “Which yet the world’s last law had not forbid,” is described in the remaining part of the canto.

From scenes of rage and tumult the poet then leads us to the quiet shades of philosophy in the house of Astragon. This change is not better calculated for the reader’s relief, than for a display of the richness and elevation of the writer’s mind. That the friend of Hobbes should despise the learned lumber of the schools will not be thought extraordinary; but that he should distinctly mark out such plans of acquiring knowledge as have since been pursued with the greatest success, may well be deemed a remarkable proof of high and comprehensive genius. In Astragon’s domain is a retired building, upon which is written in large letters, GREAT NATURE’S OFFICE. Here sit certain venerable sages, stiled Nature’s Registers, busied in recording what is brought them by a throng called their Intelligencers. These men are diversly employed in exploring the haunts of beasts, of birds, and of fishes, and collecting observations of their manners, their prey, their increase, and every circumstance of their œconomy. Near this place is NATURE’S NURSERY, stocked with every species of plants, of which the several properties and virtues are diligently examined. Is it not striking to find, in the house of Astragon so exact a model of the school of Linnæus?

We are next led to the CABINET OF DEATH; a receptacle for skeletons and anatomical curiosities of every kind: and from thence, by a pleasing analogy, to the library, or, as it is termed, the MONUMENT OF BANISH’D MINDS. The feelings of his guests on entering this room are thus described:

Where, when they thought they saw in well-sought booksTh’ assembled souls of all that men held wise,It bred such awful rev’rence in their looksAs if they saw the bury’d writers rise.

The poet then goes through a particular survey of the authors, distinguished into their several periods, countries, and professions; in which he exhibits a great extent of learning, and, much more to his honour, a sound and liberal judgment of what is truly valuable in learning. Of this, his account of the polemic divines will be thought no unfavourable specimen.

About this sacred little book did standUnwieldy volumes, and in number great;And long it was since any reader’s handHad reached them from their unfrequented seat.For a deep dust (which time does softly shed,Where only time does come) their covers bear;On which grave spiders streets of webs had spread,Subtle, and slight, as the grave writers were.In these heaven’s holy fire does vainly burn,Nor warms, nor lights, but is in sparkles spent;Where froward authors with disputes have tornThe garment seamless as the firmament.

If the subjects of this canto appear more noble and elevated than those which usually employ the episodes of heroic poetry, that of the ensuing one must strike with still superior dignity. Having acquainted us with the philosophy of his admired sage, the poet now, by a beautiful kind of allegory, instructs us in his religion. Astragon had dedicated three temples, to PRAYER, to PENITENCE, and to PRAISE. The Temple of Prayer is described as a building quite plain, open, and without bells; since nothing should tempt or summon to an office to which our own wants invite us. The duty of Penitence being a severity unpleasing to nature, its temple is contrived, by its solemn and uncommon appearance, to catch the sense. It is a vast building of black marble, hung with black, and furnished with that “dim religious light” which poets have so finely employed to excite kindred ideas of gloom and melancholy: but none, I think, have painted it with such strength of colouring as our author:

Black curtains hide the glass; whilst from on highA winking lamp still threatens all the room,As if the lazy flame just now would die:Such will the sun’s last light appear at doom.

A tolling bell calls to the temple; and every other circumstance belonging to it is imagined with great propriety and beauty.

But the poet’s greatest exertions are reserved for his favourite temple of Praise. A general shout of joy is the summons to it. The building, in its materials and architecture, is gay and splendid beyond the most sumptuous palace. The front is adorned with figures of all kinds of musical instruments; all, as he most beautifully expresses it,

That joy did e’er invent, or breath inspir’d,Or flying fingers touch’d into a voice.

The statues without, the pictures within, the decorations, and the choir of worshippers, are all suited with nice judgment, and described with genuine poetry. This distinguished canto concludes with these noble stanzas, the sum and moral, as it were, of the whole.

Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds;The diff’ring world’s agreeing sacrifice;Where heaven divided faiths united finds:But prayer in various discord upward flies.For Prayer the ocean is, where diverslyMen steer their course, each to a sev’ral coast;Where all our interests so discordant beThat half beg winds by which the rest are lost.By penitence when we ourselves forsake,’Tis but in wise design on piteous heav’n;In praise we nobly give what God may take,And are without a beggar’s blush forgiv’n.Its utmost force, like powder’s, is unknown;And tho’ weak kings excess of Praise may fear,Yet when ’tis here, like powder, dangerous grown,Heav’n’s vault receives what would the palace tear.

The last thought will be termed, in this cold age, a conceit; and so may every thing that distinguishes wit and poetry from plain sense and prose.

The wonders of the house of Astragon are not yet exhausted.

To Astragon heaven for succession gaveOne only pledge, and Birtha was her name.

This maid, her father’s humble disciple and assistant, educated in the bosom of rural simplicity, is rendered a more charming object than even the renowned Rhodalind upon her throne.

Courts she ne’er saw, yet courts could have undoneWith untaught looks and an unpractis’d heart;Her nets the most prepar’d could never shun,For Nature spread them in the scorn of Art.

But I check my desire of copying more from this exquisitely pleasing picture. My intention is to excite curiosity, not to gratify it. I hope I have already done enough for that purpose; and since the rest of this unfinished story may be comprized in a short compass, I shall proceed, with but few interruptions, to conclude a paper already swelled to an unexpected bulk.

That the unpractised Birtha should entertain an unresisted passion for the noblest of his sex; and that Gondibert, whose want of ambition alone had secured him from the charms of Rhodalind, should bow to those of his lovely hostess and handmaid, will be thought a very natural turn in the story; upon which, however, the reader may foresee the most interesting events depending. The progress of their love, though scarcely known to themselves, is soon discovered by the sage Astragon. This is expressed by the poet with a very fine turn of a common thought.

When all these symptoms he observ’d, he knows,From Alga, which is rooted deep in seas,To the high Cedar that on mountains grows,No sov’reign herb is found for their disease.

The remainder of this poem, consisting of a third book, written during the author’s imprisonment, is composed of several detached scenes, in which the main plot lies ripening for future action. Rivals are raised to Birtha. Flattering advances from the court, and more open declarations of love from Rhodalind, are in vain employed to assail the constancy of Gondibert. Various conflicts of passion arise, and interesting situations, well imagined, and painted in lively colours. Much is given, as in the former parts, to the introduction of elevated sentiment; with one example of which I shall finish my quotations. Several well-born youths are placed about the person of Gondibert as his pages, whose education consists of the following great lessons from their lord:

But with the early sun he rose, and taughtThese youths by growing Virtue to grow great,Shew’d greatness is without it blindly sought,A desperate charge which ends in base retreat.He taught them shame, the sudden sense of ill;Shame, nature’s hasty conscience, which forbidsWeak inclination ere it grows to will,Or stays rash will before it grows to deeds.He taught them Honour, Virtue’s bashfulness;A fort so yieldless that it fears to treat;Like power it grows to nothing, growing less;Honour, the moral conscience of the great.He taught them Kindness; soul’s civility,In which, nor courts, nor cities have a part;For theirs is fashion, this from falshood free,Where love and pleasure know no lust nor art.And Love he taught; the soul’s stol’n visit madeTho’ froward age watch hard, and law forbid;Her walks no spy has trac’d, nor mountain staid;Her friendship’s cause is as the loadstone hid.He taught them love of Toil; Toil which does keepObstructions from the mind, and quench the blood;Ease but belongs to us like sleep, and sleep,Like opium, is our med’cine, not our food.

The plot is at length involved in so many intricate and apparently unsurmountable difficulties, that it is scarce possible to conceive a satisfactory termination. Perhaps the poet was sensible of a want of power to extricate himself, and chose thus to submit to a voluntary bankruptcy of invention, rather than hazard his reputation by going further. In his postscript, indeed, he excuses himself on account of sickness and approaching dissolution. However disappointed we may be by his abrupt departure from scenes which he has filled with confusion, we ought not to forget the pleasures already received from them. “If (says he to his reader, with more than the spirit of a dying man) thou art one of those who has been warmed with poetic fire, I reverence thee as my judge.” From such a judicature, this NOBLE FRAGMENT, would, I doubt not, acquire for him what the critic laments his having lost, “the possession of that true and permanent glory of which his large soul appears to have been full2.”

AN ENQUIRY INTO THOSE KINDS OF DISTRESS WHICH EXCITE AGREEABLE SENSATIONS

It is undoubtedly true, though a phænomenon of the human mind difficult to account for, that the representation of distress frequently gives pleasure; from which general observation many of our modern writers of tragedy and romance seem to have drawn this inference, that in order to please, they have nothing more to do than to paint distress in natural and striking colours. With this view, they heap together all the afflicting events and dismal accidents their imagination can furnish; and when they have half broke the reader’s heart, they expect he should thank them for his agreeable entertainment. An author of this class sits down, pretty much like an inquisitor, to compute how much suffering he can inflict upon the hero of his tale before he makes an end of him; with this difference, indeed, that the inquisitor only tortures those who are at least reputed criminals; whereas the writer generally chooses the most excellent character in his piece for the subject of his persecution. The great criterion of excellence is placed in being able to draw tears plentifully; and concluding we shall weep the more, the more the picture is loaded with doleful events, they go on, telling

– of sorrows upon sorrowsEven to a lamentable length of woe.

A monarch once proposed a reward for the discovery of a new pleasure; but if any one could find out a new torture, or non-descript calamity, he would be more entitled to the applause of those who fabricated books of entertainment.

But the springs of pity require to be touched with a more delicate hand; and it is far from being true that we are agreeably affected by every thing that excites our sympathy. It shall therefore be the business of this essay to distinguish those kinds of distress which are pleasing in the representation, from those which are really painful and disgusting.

The view or relation of mere misery can never be pleasing. We have, indeed, a strong sympathy with all kinds of misery; but it is a feeling of pure unmixed pain, similar in kind, though not equal in degree, to what we feel for ourselves on the like occasions; and never produces that melting sorrow, that thrill of tenderness, to which we give the name of pity. They are two distinct sensations, marked by very different external expression. One causes the nerves to tingle, the flesh to shudder, and the whole countenance to be thrown into strong contractions; the other relaxes the frame, opens the features, and produces tears. When we crush a noxious or loathsome animal, we may sympathize strongly with the pain it suffers, but with far different emotions from the tender sentiment we feel for the dog of Ulysses, who crawled to meet his long-lost master, looked up, and died at his feet. Extreme bodily pain is perhaps the most intense suffering we are capable of, and if the fellow-feeling with misery alone was grateful to the mind, the exhibition of a man in a fit of the tooth-ach, or under a chirurgical operation, would have a fine effect in a tragedy. But there must be some other sentiment combined with this kind of instinctive sympathy, before it becomes in any degree pleasing, or produces the sweet emotion of pity. This sentiment is love, esteem, the complacency we take in the contemplation of beauty, of mental or moral excellence, called forth and rendered more interesting, by circumstances of pain and danger. Tenderness is, much more properly than sorrow, the spring of tears; for it affects us in that manner, whether combined with joy or grief; perhaps more in the former case than the latter. And I believe we may venture to assert, that no distress which produces tears is wholly without a mixture of pleasure. When Joseph’s brethren were sent to buy corn, if they had perished in the desart by wild beasts, or been reduced (as in the horrid adventures of a Pierre de Vaud) to eat one another, we might have shuddered, but we should not have wept for them. The gush of tears breaks forth when Joseph made himself known to his brethren, and fell on their neck, and kissed them. When Hubert prepares to burn out prince Arthur’s eyes, the shocking circumstance, of itself, would only affect us with horror; it is the amiable simplicity of the young prince, and his innocent affection to his intended murderer, that draws our tears, and excites that tender sorrow which we love to feel, and which refines the heart while we do feel it.

We see, therefore, from this view of our internal feelings, that no scenes of misery ought to be exhibited which are not connected with the display of some moral excellence, or agreeable quality. If fortitude, power, and strength of mind are called forth, they produce the sublime feelings of wonder and admiration: if the softer qualities of gentleness, grace, and beauty, they inspire love and pity. The management of these latter emotions is our present object.

And let it be remembered, in the first place, that the misfortunes which excite pity must not be too horrid and overwhelming. The mind is rather stunned than softened by great calamities. They are little circumstances that work most sensibly upon the tender feelings. For this reason, a well-written novel generally draws more tears than a tragedy. The distresses of tragedy are more calculated to amaze and terrify, than to move compassion. Battles, torture and death are in every page. The dignity of the characters, the importance of the events, the pomp of verse and imagery interest the grander passions, and raise the mind to an enthusiasm little favourable to the weak and languid notes of pity. The tragedies of Young are in a fine strain of poetry, and the situations are worked up with great energy; but the pictures are in too deep a shade: all his pieces are full of violent and gloomy passions, and so over-wrought with horror, that instead of awakening any pleasing sensibility, they leave on the mind an impression of sadness mixed with terror. Shakespeare is sometimes guilty of presenting scenes too shocking. Such is the trampling out of Gloster’s eyes; and such is the whole play of Titus Andronicus. But Lee, beyond all others, abounds with this kind of images. He delighted in painting the most daring crimes, and cruel massacres; and though he has shewn himself extremely capable of raising tenderness, he continually checks its course by shocking and disagreeable expressions. His pieces are in the same taste with the pictures of Spagnolet, and there are many scenes in his tragedies which no one can relish who would not look with pleasure on the slaying of St. Bartholomew. The following speech of Marguerite, in the massacre of Paris, was, I suppose, intended to express the utmost tenderness of affection.

Die for him! that’s too little; I could burnPiece-meal away, or bleed to death by drops,Be slay’d alive, then broke upon the wheel,Yet with a smile endure it all for Guise:And when let loose from torments, all one wound,Run with my mangled arms and crush him dead.

Images like these will never excite the softer passions. We are less moved at the description of an Indian tortured with all the dreadful ingenuity of that savage people, than with the fatal mistake of the lover in the Spectator, who pierced an artery in the arm of his mistress as he was letting her blood. Tragedy and romance-writers are likewise apt to make too free with the more violent expressions of passion and distress, by which means they lose their effect. Thus an ordinary author does not know how to express any strong emotion otherwise than by swoonings or death; so that a person experienced in this kind of reading, when a girl faints away at parting with her lover, or a hero kills himself for the loss of his mistress, considers it as the established etiquette upon such occasions, and turns over the pages with the utmost coolness and unconcern; whereas real sensibility, and a more intimate knowledge of human nature, would have suggested a thousand little touches of grief, which though slight, are irresistible. We are too gloomy a people. Some of the French novels are remarkable for little affecting incidents, imagined with delicacy, and told with grace. Perhaps they have a better turn than we have for this kind of writing.