Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844

The story of “Sir Hubert” finishes the volume. This tale is versified from Boccacio’s story of the Falcon, with which many of our readers may be acquainted; if not, they will find it in the fifth day, novel ninth, of the Decameron. We can only afford space for a short outline of its incidents, and shall substitute Mr Patmore’s names for those of the personages who figure in Boccacio’s story. This will save both ourselves and readers the trouble of threading the minutiæ of Mr Patmore’s senseless and long-winded version of the tale. A few specimens will suffice to exhibit the manner in which he deals with it. Sir Hubert is a rich gentleman, who squanders almost all his substance in giving grand entertainments to the Lady Mabel, whom he makes love to without meeting with any return. Finding his suit unsuccessful, and his money being all spent, he retires to a small and distant farm, having nothing left but one poor hawk, upon which he depends for his means of subsistence. Meanwhile, the Lady Mabel marries, and has a son. After a time, (her husband being dead,) she comes to reside in a castle in the neighbourhood of Sir Hubert’s cottage, where her son, who has often remarked the prowess and beauty of the above-mentioned hawk, falls sick, assuring his mother that nothing can save his life except the possession of the bird. The lady very reluctantly pays a visit to Sir Hubert, and tells him that she has a request to proffer, which she will make known to him after dinner. Though Sir Hubert is delighted to see her, the mention of dinner throws him into a state of great perplexity, as he has nothing in the house which they can make a meal of. Going out of doors, “he espies his hawk upon the perch, which he seizes, and finding it very fat, judges it might make a dish not unworthy of such a lady. Without further thought, then, he pulls his head off, and gives it to a girl to dress and roast carefully.”

This being done, the lady and her admirer sit down to dinner, and make an excellent repast. When their meal is over, then comes the éclaircissement. The lady proffers her petition for the hawk; and discovers from Sir Hubert’s answer, and to her own consternation, that she has eaten the very article she came in quest of, and which she had expected to carry home alive; as the only means of saving the life of   her son. The young gentleman dies on finding that he cannot obtain what he wants; and Mabel marries Sir Hubert, and settles upon him all her possessions, as a reward for his magnanimity in sacrificing that which (next to herself) he held dearest in the whole world, rather than that she should go without a dinner.

Such is a short sketch of Boccacio’s tale of the Falcon—a good enough story in its way; and more creditable than many that were circulated among the loose fish, male and female, that play their parts in the Decameron. This novel has been versified by Mr Patmore, and versified (as our specimens shall show) as he alone could have versified it. The following is his description of the much-longed-for, but sorely-ill-treated, hawk of Sir Hubert.

“It served him, too, of evenings:On a sudden he would rise,From book or simple music,And awake his hawk’s large eyes,(Almost as large as Mabel’s)Teasing out its dumb replies,“In sulky sidelong glances,And reluctantly flapp’d wings,Or looks of slow communion,To the lightsome questioningsThat broke the drowsy sameness,And the sense, like fear, which springs“At night, when we are consciousOf our distance from the strifeOf cities; and the memoryOf the spirit of all things rife,Endues the chairs and tablesWith a disagreeable life.”

A Scotch lyrist, who, we are told, sings his own songs to perfection, has also recorded the very singular fact of various articles of household furniture (not exactly tables) being occasionally endued “with a disagreeable life.” One of his best ballads, in which he describes the bickerings which, even in the best-regulated families, will at times take place between man and wife, and in which various domestic missiles come into play, contains the following very excellent line—

“The stools pass the best o’ their time i’ the air”—

than which no sort of life appertaining to a stool can be more disagreeable, we should imagine—to the head which it is about to come in contact with. We doubt whether Mr Patmore’s, or rather Sir Hubert’s, chairs and tables ever acquired such a vigorous and unpleasant vitality as that. What may have happened to the “stools” after Mabel was married to Sir Hubert, we cannot take it upon us to say. At any rate, we prefer the Scotch poet’s description, as somewhat the more pithy, and graphic, and intelligible of the two. The coincidence, however, is remarkable.

After Sir Hubert has retired to his farm, the state of his feelings is described in the following stanzas. We suspect that the metaphysical acumen of Boccacio himself would have been a good deal puzzled to unravel the meaning of some of them.

“He gather’d consolation,As before, where best he might:But though there was the differenceThat he now could claim a rightTo grieve as much as pleased him,It was six years, since his sight“Had fed on Mabel’s features;So that Hubert scarcely knewWhat traits to give the visionWhich should fill his eyes with dew:—For she must needs, by that time,Have become another, who,“In girlhood’s triple glory,(For a higher third outflowsWhenever Promise marriesWith Completion,) troubled thoseThat saw, with trouble sweeterThan the sweetest of repose.“It, therefore, was the businessOf his thoughts to try to traceThe probable fulfilmentOf her former soul and face,—From buds deducing blossoms.For, although an easy space“Led from the farm of HubertTo where Mabel’s castle stood,Closed in, a league on all sides.With wall’d parks and wealthy wood,No chance glimpse could be look’d for,So recluse her widowhood.“Hence seasons past, and HubertEarn’d his bread, but leisure spentIn loved dissatisfaction,Which he made his elementOf choice, as much as, till then,He had sought it in content.”

If the verses above would have baffled the sagacity of the father of Italian literature, what would he have thought of the following, in which the interview between Sir Hubert and Mabel is described, when the lady comes to negotiate with him about the hawk? She accosts him, “Sir Hubert!” and then there is presented to our imaginations such a picture of female loveliness, as (thank Heaven!) can only be done justice to in the language which is employed for the occasion.

“‘Sir Hubert!’—and, that instant,Mabel saw the fresh light flushOut of her rosy shoulders,And perceived her sweet blood hushAbout her, till, all over,There shone forth a sumptuous blush—“‘Sir Hubert, I have sought you,Unattended, to requestA boon—the first I everHave entreated.’ Then she press’dHer small hand’s weight of whitenessTo her richly-sloping breast.”

At first we thought that it should have been Hubert, and not Mabel, who saw “the fresh light flush out of her rosy shoulders”—particularly if the blush extended, as no doubt it did, to the lady’s back: but on further consideration we saw that we were wrong; for Sir Hubert could not have perceived “her sweet blood hush about her”—this hushing of the blood about one being, as all great blushers know, a fact discernible only by the person more immediately concerned in the blush. The propriety, therefore, of making Mabel perceive the blush, rather than Sir Hubert, is undeniable. The writer must either have left out the hushing altogether, which would have been a great blemish in the picture, or he must have written as he has done. How profoundly versed in the physiology of blushing he must be! We are doubtful, however, whether the costume of the picture is altogether appropriate; for we question very much whether the Italian ladies of the thirteenth, or any other century, were in the habit of paying forenoon visits in low-necked gowns; and whether Mabel could have walked all the way from her castle to Sir Hubert’s cottage, in an attire which revealed so many of her charms, without attracting the general attention of the neighbourhood. She had no time, be it observed, to divest herself of shawl or mantilla in order to show how sumptuously she could blush—for her salutation is made to Sir Hubert, and its roseate consequences ensue the very first moment she sees him. But let that pass. We should have been very sorry if such a “splendiferous” phenomenon had been obscured by envious boa or pelisse, or lost to the proprieties of costume. The Lady then

“Said that she was weariedWith her walk—would stay to dine,And name her wishes after.”

Meanwhile the poet asks—

“How was it with Sir Hubert?—Beggarly language! I could burstFor impotence of effort:Those who made thee were accurst!Dumb men were gods were all dumb.But go on, and do thy worst!—“His life-blood stopp’d to listen—Her delivering lips dealt sound—Oh! hungrily he listen’d,But the meaning meant was drown’d;For, to him, her voice and presenceMeaning held far more profound.“He gave his soul to feasting,And his sense, (which is the soulMore thoroughly incarnate,)Backward standing, to controlHis object, as a painterViews a picture in the whole.“She stood, her eyes cast downwards,And, upon them, dropp’d halfway,Lids, sweeter than the bosomOf an unburst lily, lay,With black abundant lashes,To keep out the upper day.“A breath from out her shouldersMade the air cool, and the groundWas greener in their shadow;All her dark locks loll’d, unbound,About them, heavily liftedBy the breeze that struggled round.“As if from weight of beauty,Gently bent—but oh, how drawThis thousand-featured splendour—Thousand-featured without flaw!—At last, his vision revelingOn her ravishing mouth, he saw“It closed; and then remember’dThat she spoke not.—‘Stay to dine,And name her wishes after’—To these sounds he could assignA sense, for still he heard them,Echoing silvery and divine.”

Sir Hubert having reveled on her ravishing mouth, and having, by a strong effort of intelligence, mastered the meaning of the very occult proposition which issued therefrom, namely, that the lady would “stay to dine, and name her wishes after;” and, moreover, having seen—“It closed”—he shortly afterwards saw it opened, for the purpose of eating his hawk, which, as the reader knows, he had felt himself under the necessity of killing for the fair widow’s entertainment. We pass over the relation of the circumstances which, as the lady discovers, render her mission fruitless, and which are detailed in a strain of the most vapid silliness—and proceed to the interview which brings about the union of Mabel and Sir Hubert. The latter, some time after these occurrences, pays a visit to the castle.

“Half reclinedAlong a couch leans Mabel,Deeply musing in her mindSomething her bosom echoes.O’er her face, like breaths of wind“Upon a summer meadow,Serious pleasures live; and eyesLarge always, slowly largen,As if some far-seen surpriseApproach’d,—then fully orb them,At near sound of one that sighs.”

Her eyes having recovered their natural size, a good deal of conversation ensues, the result of which is given in the following stanza, which forms a fit conclusion for the story of such a passion—

“Her hands are woo’d with kisses,They refuse not the caress,Closer, closer, ever closer,Vigorous lips for answer press!Feasting the hungry silenceComes, sob-clad, a silver ‘yes.’”

There are several smaller poems interspersed throughout the volume. Mr Tennyson has his “Claribels,” and “Isabels,” and “Adelines,” and “Eleanores”—ladies with whom he frequently plays strange, though, we admit, by no means ungraceful vagaries; and Mr Patmore, as in duty bound, and following the imitative bent of his genius, must also have his Geraldine to dally with. The two following stanzas of playful namby-pambyism, are a specimen of the manner in which this gentleman dandles his kid:—

“We are in the fields. Delight!Look around! The bird’s-eyes bright;Pink-tipp’d daisies; sorrel red,Drooping o’er the lark’s green bed;Oxlips; glazed buttercups,Out of which the wild bee sups;See! they dance about thy feet!Play with, pluck them, little Sweet!Some affinity divineThou hast with them, Geraldine.“Now, sweet wanton, toss them high;Race about, you know not why.Now stand still, from sheer excessOf exhaustless happiness.I, meanwhile, on this old gate,Sit sagely calm, and perhaps relateLore of fairies. Do you knowHow they make the mushrooms grow?Ah! what means that shout of thine?You can’t tell me, Geraldine.”

Our extracts are now concluded; and in reviewing them in the mass, we can only exclaim—this, then, is the pass to which the poetry of England has come! This is the life into which the slime of the Keateses and Shelleys of former times has fecundated! The result was predicted about a quarter of a century ago in the pages of this Magazine; and many attempts were then made to suppress the nuisance at its fountainhead. Much good was accomplished: but our efforts at that time were only partially successful; for nothing is so tenacious of life as the spawn of frogs—nothing is so vivacious as corruption, until it has reached its last stage. The evidence before us shows that this stage has been now at length attained. Mr Coventry Patmore’s volume has reached the ultimate terminus of poetical degradation; and our conclusion, as well as our hope is, that the fry must become extinct in him. His poetry (thank Heaven!) cannot corrupt into any thing worse than itself.

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN

Part XIII

“Have I not in my time heard lions roar?Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,And Heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?Have I not in the pitched battle heardLoud ’larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?”Shakspeare.

I had been familiar with the debates of the French Convention, and had witnessed the genius of French eloquence in its highest exertions. Nothing will cure this people of their aversion to nature. With them, all that is natural is poor—simplicity is meanness. The truth of things wants the picturesque, and thus wants every charm. I had listened to some of their public speakers with strong interest, while they were confined to detail. No man tells a story better than a French conteur. There lies the natural talent of the people. Nothing can be happier than their seizure of slight circumstances, passing colours of events, and those transient thoughts which make a story as pretty as a piece of ladies’ embroidery—a delicate toil, a tasteful display of trivial difficulties gracefully surmounted. But even in their higher order of speakers, I could perceive a constant dissatisfaction with themselves, unless they happened to produce some of those startling conceptions which roused their auditory to a stare, a start, a clapping of hands. I had seen Mirabeau, with all his conscious talent, look round in despair for applause, as a sailor thrown overboard might look for a buoy; I had seen him as much exhausted, and even overwhelmed, by the want of applause, as if he had dropped into an exhausted receiver. If some lucky epigram did not come to his rescue, he was undone.

I was now to be the spectator of a different scene. There was passion and resentment, the keenness of rivalry and the ardour of triumph—but there was no affectation. Men spoke as men speak when their essential interests are engaged—plainly, boldly, and directly—vigorously always, sometimes vehemently; but with that strong sincerity which administers eloquence to even the most untaught orders of mankind, and without which the most decorated eloquence is only the wooden sword and mask of harlequin.

Pitt took the lead, in all senses of the phrase. He was magnificent. His exposition of the state of Europe, perfectly unadorned, had yet an effect upon the House not unlike that of opening a volume to a multitude who had but just learned to read. All was novelty, conviction, and amazement. His appeal to the principles by which a great people should shape its conduct, had all the freshness and the strength of feelings drawn at the moment from the depths of his own blameless bosom; and his hopes of the victory of England over the temptations to public overthrow, exhibited all the fire, and almost all the sacred assurance of prophecy.

He described the system of France as “subversion on principle,” its purpose universal tumult, its instrument remorseless bloodshed, and its success a general reduction of society to the wild fury and the squalid necessities of the savage state. “This,” he exclaimed, turning his full front to the House, raising his hand, and throwing up his eyes to heaven with the solemnity of an adjuration—“This we must resist, in the name of that Omnipotent Disposer who has given us hearts to feel the blessings of society, or we must acknowledge ourselves unworthy to hold a name among nations. This we must resist—live or die. This system we must meet by system—subtlety by sincerity—intrigue by resolution—treachery by good faith-menace by courage. We must remember that we have been made trustees of the honour of the past, and of the hopes of the future. A   great country like ours has no alternative but to join the enemy of all order, or to protect all order—to league against all government, or to stand forth its champion. This is the moment for our decision. Empires are not afforded time for delay. All great questions are simple. Shrink, and you are undone, and Europe is undone along with you; be firm, and you will have saved the world!”

The feelings with which this lofty language was heard were intense. The House listened in a state of solemn emotion, hour after hour, deeply silent, but when some chord was so powerfully touched that it gave a universal thrill. But those involuntary bursts of admiration were as suddenly hushed by the anxiety of the House to listen, and the awful sense of the subject. It was not until the great minister sat down that the true feeling was truly exhibited; the applause was then unbounded—a succession of thunder-peals.

I had now leisure to glance at the Opposition. Fox, for a while, seemed good-humouredly inclined to give up the honour of the reply to some of the popular speakers round him; but the occasion was too important to be entrusted to inferior powers, and, on a general summons of his name, he at length rose. The world is too familiar with the name of this celebrated man to permit more than a sketch of his style. It has been said that he had no style. But this could be said only by those who regard consummate ability as an accident.

Of all the public speakers whom I have ever heard, Fox appeared to me the most subtle—of course, not in the crafty and degrading sense of the word; but in the art of approaching an unexpected case, he was a master. He loitered, he lingered, he almost trifled by the way, until the observer began to believe that he had either no object in view, or had forgotten it altogether. In the next moment he rushed to the attack, and carried all by storm. On this occasion he had a difficult part to play; for the hourly violences of the French capital had begun to alienate the principal aristocracy of England, and had raised abhorrence among that most influential body, the middle class. The skill with which the orator glided over this portion of his subject was matchless; no Camilla ever “flew o’er the unbending corn” with a lighter foot. He could not altogether evade the topic. But he treated it as one might treat the narrative of a distressing casualty, or a disease to be touched on with the pity due to human infirmity, or even with the respect due to a dispensation from above. He often paused, seemed to find a difficulty of breathing, was at a loss for words, of which, however, he never failed to find the most pungent at last; and assumed, in a remarkable degree, the appearance of speaking only from a strong compulsion, a feeling of reluctant duty, a sense of moral necessity urging him to a task which burdened all his feelings. I will acknowledge that, when he had made his way through this difficult performance, I followed him with unequivocal delight, and acknowledged all the orator. He had been hitherto Milton’s lion “pawing to get free his hinder parts.” He was now loose, in all his symmetry and power, and with the forest and the plain before him. “Why has the monarchy of France fallen?” he explained, “because, like those on whom the malediction of Scripture has been pronounced, it had eyes and yet would not see, and ears, yet would not hear. An immense population was growing up round it year after year, yet it could see nothing but nobles, priests, and princes. In making this war,” said he, “you are beginning a contest of which no man can calculate the means, no man can state the objects, and no man can predict the end. You are not warring against the throne of France, nor even against the people of France; but warring against every people of the earth which desires to advance its own prosperity, to invigorate its own constitution, and to place itself in that condition of peace, purity, and freedom, which is not more the desire of man than the command of Providence.”

The House burst into loud reprobations of the name of aristocrat and democrat, which he declared to be mere inventions of party prejudice. “Do you require to make political hostilities immortal, give them names; do you wish to break   down the national strength, divide it in sections: arm against your enemy, if you will, but here you would arm one hand against the other.”

To the charge of defending the French mob, his answer was in the most prompt and daring style.

“Who are the French mob? The French nation. Dare you put eight and twenty millions of men into your bill of attainder? No indictment ever drawn by the hand of man is broad enough for it. Impeach a nation, you impeach the Providence that made it. Impeach a nation, you are impeaching only your own rashness and presumption. You are impeaching even the unhappy monarch whom you profess to defend. Man is every where the creature of circumstances. Nations are what their governments make them. But France is in a state of revolt. Be it so. I demand what nation ever revolted against justice, truth, and honour? You might as well tell me, that they rebelled against the light of heaven; that they rejected the fruits of the earth; that they refused to breathe the air. Men do not thus war against their natural benefactors; they are not mad enough to repel the very instincts of preservation. I pronounce it, fearlessly, that no nation ever rose, or ever will rise, against a sincere, national, and benevolent authority. No nation was ever born blind. Infatuation is not a law of human nature. The monarchy of France was the criminal.”

Another burst, which produced vast effect on the House, referred to the exclusiveness of the chief public employments.

“The people have overthrown the titles and dignities of France. I admit it. But was it from a natural hatred of those distinctions? That I deny. They are congenial to the heart of man. The national hatred lay in the sense of that intolerable injustice which turns honour into shame. For centuries, those titles and dignities were to the people not badges of honour, but brands of scorn. They were not public calls to generous emulation, but royal proclamations of everlasting contempt. They were not ramparts surrounding the state, but barriers shutting out the people. How would such insults to the common origin of man, to the common powers of the human mind, to the common desires of distinction born with every man, be endured in this country? Is it to be wondered at, that France should have abolished them by acclamation? I contend, that this was a victory gained, not for a populace, but for a people, for all France, for twenty-eight millions of men—over a portion of society who had lost their rank, a body already sentenced by their personal inefficiency—a caste, who, like a famished garrison, had been starved by the sterility of the spot in which they had inclosed themselves; or, like the Indian devotees, had turned themselves into cripples by their pretence of a sacred superiority to the habits of the rest of mankind.”

Opposition still exhibited its ranks but slightly diminished, and the chief passages of this impassioned appeal, which continued for three hours, were received with all the fervour of party. Burke then rose. Strong interest was directed to him, not merely for his eminent name, but from the public curiosity to hear his explanation of that estrangement which had been for some time spreading, under his auspices, through the leading personages of the Opposition. Like most men who have made themselves familiar with the works of a great writer, I had formed a portraiture of him by anticipation. I never was more disappointed. Instead of the expressive countenance and commanding figure, I saw a form of the middle size, and of a homely appearance, a heavy physiognomy, and the whole finished by two appurtenances which would have been fatal to the divinity of the Apollo Belvidere, spectacles and a wig. His voice and manner were scarcely less prepossessing; the one was as abrupt and clamorous, as the other was rustic and ungraceful. He had the general look of a farmer of the better order; and seemed, at best, made to figure on a grand jury.