Winterslow: Essays and Characters Written There

ESSAY IX MATTER AND MANNER

Nothing can frequently be more striking than the difference of style or manner, where the matter remains the same, as in paraphrases and translations. The most remarkable example which occurs to us is in the beginning of the Flower and Leaf, by Chaucer, and in the modernisation of the same passage by Dryden. We shall give an extract from both, that the reader may judge for himself. The original runs thus:

‘And I that all this pleasaunt sight ay sie,
Thought sodainly I felte so sweet an aire
Con of the eglentere, that certainely
There is no heart, I deme, in such dispaire,
Ne with no thoughtes froward and contraire
So overlaid, but it shoulde soone have bote,
If it had ones felt this savour sote.

And as I stood and cast aside mine eie,
I was of ware the fairest medler tree,
That ever yet in all my life I sie,
As full of blossomes as it mighte be;
Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile
Fro bough to bough; and, as him list, gan eete
Of buddes here and there and floures sweete.

And to the herber side ther was joyninge
This faire tree, of which I have you told;
And at the last the brid began to singe,
When he had eaten what he eate wolde,
So passing sweetly, that by manifolde,
It was more pleasaunt than I coude devise.
And when his song was ended in this wise,

The nightingale with so mery a note
Answered him, that all the woode rong
So sodainly, that, as it were a sote,
I stood astonied; so was I with the song
Thorow ravished, that till late and longe,
Ne wist I in what place I was, ne where;
And ay, me thoughte, she song even by mine ere.

Wherefore about I waited busily,
On every side, if that I her mighte see;
And, at the last, I gan full well aspie
Where she sat in a fresh grene laurer tree,
On the further side, even right by me,
That gave so passing a delicious smell,
According to the eglentere full well.

Whereof I hadde so inly great pleasure,
That, as me thought, I surely ravished was
Into Paradice, where as my desire
Was for to be, and no ferther to passe
As for that day; and on the sote grasse
I sat me downe; for, as for mine entent,
The birddes song was more convenient,

And more pleasaunt to me by many fold,
Than meat or drinke, or any other thing.
Thereto the herber was so fresh and cold,
The wholesome savours eke so comforting
That, as I demede, sith the beginning
Of thilke world was never seene or than
So pleasaunt a ground of none earthly man.

And as I sat, the birddes harkening thus,
Me thoughte that I hearde voices sodainly,
The most sweetest and most delicious
That ever any wight, I trow truly,
Heard in here life; for sothe the armony
And sweet accord was in so good musike,
That the voices to angels most was like.’

In this passage the poet has let loose the very soul of pleasure. There is a spirit of enjoyment in it, of which there seems no end. It is the intense delight which accompanies the description of every object, the fund of natural sensibility which it displays, which constitutes its whole essence and beauty. Now this is shown chiefly in the manner in which the different objects are anticipated, and the eager welcome which is given to them; in his repeating and varying the circumstances with a restless delight; in his quitting the subject for a moment, and then returning to it again, as if he could never have his fill of enjoyment. There is little of this in Dryden’s paraphrase. The same ideas are introduced, but not in the same manner, nor with the same spirit. The imagination of the poet is not borne along with the tide of pleasure—the verse is not poured out, like the natural strains it describes, from pure delight, but according to rule and measure. Instead of being absorbed in his subject, he is dissatisfied with it, tries to give an air of dignity to it by factitious ornaments, to amuse the reader by ingenious allusions, and divert his attention from the progress of the story by the artifices of the style:

‘The painted birds, companions of the spring,
Hopping from spray to spray, were heard to sing.
Both eyes and ears receiv’d a like delight,
Enchanting music, and a charming sight.
On Philomel I fix’d my whole desire;
And listen’d for the queen of all the quire;
Fain would I hear her heavenly voice to sing;
And wanted yet an omen to the spring.
Thus as I mus’d I cast aside my eye,
And saw a medlar-tree was planted nigh.
The spreading branches made a goodly show,
And full of opening blooms was every bough:
A goldfinch there I saw with gawdy pride
Of painted plumes, that hopp’d from side to side,
Still pecking as she pass’d; and still she drew
The sweets from every flower and suck’d the dew:
Suffic’d at length, she warbled in her throat,
And tun’d her voice to many a merry note,
But indistinct, and neither sweet nor clear,
Yet such as sooth’d my soul, and pleas’d my ear.
Her short performance was no sooner tried,
When she I sought, the nightingale, replied:
So sweet, so shrill, so variously she sung,
That the grove echoed, and the valleys rung:
And I so ravish’d with her heavenly note,
I stood entranced, and had no room for thought.
But all o’erpower’d with ecstasy of bliss,
Was in a pleasing dream of paradise;
At length I wak’d, and looking round the bower,
Search’d every tree, and pry’d on every flower,
If any where by chance I might espy
The rural poet of the melody:
For still methought she sung not far away:
At last I found her on a laurel spray.
Close by my side she sat, and fair in sight,
Full in a line, against her opposite;
Where stood with eglantine the laurel twin’d;
And both their native sweets were well conjoin’d.
On the green bank I sat, and listen’d long
(Sitting was more convenient for the song);
Nor till her lay was ended could I move,
But wish’d to dwell for ever in the grove.
Only methought the time too swiftly pass’d,
And every note I fear’d would be the last.
My sight, and smell and hearing were employ’d,
And all three senses in full gust enjoy’d.
And what alone did all the rest surpass
The sweet possession of the fairy place;
Single, and conscious to myself alone
Of pleasures to the excluded world unknown:
Pleasures which no where else were to be found,
And all Elysium in a spot of ground.
Thus while I sat intent to see and hear,
And drew perfumes of more than vital air,
All suddenly I heard the approaching sound
Of vocal music on the enchanted ground:
A host of saints it seem’d, so full the quire;
As if the bless’d above did all conspire
To join their voices, and neglect the lyre.’

Compared with Chaucer, Dryden and the rest of that school were merely verbal poets. They had a great deal of wit, sense, and fancy; they only wanted truth and depth of feeling. But I shall have to say more on this subject, when I come to consider the old question which I have got marked down in my list, whether Pope was a poet.

Lord Chesterfield’s character of the Duke of Marlborough is a good illustration of his general theory. He says, ‘Of all the men I ever knew in my life (and I knew him extremely well) the late Duke of Marlborough possessed the graces in the highest degree, not to say engrossed them; for I will venture (contrary to the custom of profound historians, who always assign deep causes for great events) to ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough’s greatness and riches to those graces. He was eminently illiterate: wrote bad English, and spelt it worse. He had no share of what is commonly called parts; that is, no brightness, nothing shining in his genius. He had, most undoubtedly, an excellent good plain understanding, with sound judgment. But these alone would probably have raised him but something higher than they found him, which was page to King James II.’s Queen. There the graces protected and promoted him; for while he was Ensign of the Guards, the Duchess of Cleveland, then favourite mistress of Charles II., struck by these very graces, gave him five thousand pounds; with which he immediately bought an annuity of five hundred pounds a year, which was the foundation of his subsequent fortune. His figure was beautiful, but his manner was irresistible by either man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner, that he was enabled during all his wars to connect the various and jarring powers of the grand alliance, and to carry them on to the main object of the war, notwithstanding their private and separate views, jealousies, and wrongheadedness. Whatever court he went to (and he was often obliged to go himself to some resty and refractory ones) he as constantly prevailed, and brought them into his measures.’

Grace in women has often more effect than beauty. We sometimes see a certain fine self-possession, an habitual voluptuousness of character, which reposes on its own sensations, and derives pleasure from all around it, that is more irresistible than any other attraction. There is an air of languid enjoyment in such persons, ‘in their eyes, in their arms, and their hands, and their face,’ which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by a secret sympathy towards them. Their minds are a shrine where pleasure reposes. Their smile diffuses a sensation like the breath of spring. Petrarch’s description of Laura answers exactly to this character, which is indeed the Italian character. Titian’s pictures are full of it; they seem sustained by sentiment, or as if the persons whom he painted sat to music. There is one in the Louvre (or there was) which had the most of this expression I ever remember. It did not look downward; ‘it looked forward beyond this world.’ It was a look that never passed away, but remained unalterable as the deep sentiment which gave birth to it. It is the same constitutional character (together with infinite activity of mind) which has enabled the greatest man in modern history to bear his reverses of fortune with gay magnanimity, and to submit to the loss of the empire of the world with as little discomposure as if he had been playing a game at chess.

After all, I would not be understood to say that manner is everything.[9] Nor would I put Euclid or Sir Isaac Newton on a level with the first petit-maÎtre we might happen to meet. I consider Æsop’s Fables to have been a greater work of genius than Fontaine’s translation of them; though I am not sure that I should not prefer Fontaine, for his style only, to Gay, who has shown a great deal of original invention. The elegant manners of people of fashion have been objected to me, to show the frivolity of external accomplishments, and the facility with which they are acquired. As to the last point, I demur. There are no class of people who lead so laborious a life, or who take more pains to cultivate their minds as well as persons, than people of fashion. A young lady of quality who has to devote so many hours a day to music, so many to dancing, so many to drawing, so many to French, Italian, etc., certainly does not pass her time in idleness: and these accomplishments are afterwards called into action by every kind of external or mental stimulus, by the excitements of pleasure, vanity, and interest. A Ministerial or Opposition Lord goes through more drudgery than half-a-dozen literary hacks; nor does a reviewer by profession read half the same number of publications as a modern fine lady is obliged to labour through. I confess, however, I am not a competent judge of the degree of elegance or refinement implied in the general tone of fashionable manners. The successful experiment made by Peregrine Pickle, in introducing his strolling mistress into genteel company, does not redound greatly to their credit.

1815.

FOOTNOTE

[9] Sheer impudence answers almost the same purpose. ‘Those impenetrable whiskers have confronted flames.’ Many persons, by looking big and talking loud, make their way through the world without any one good quality. I have here said nothing of mere personal qualifications, which are another set-off against sterling merit. Fielding was of opinion that ‘the more solid pretensions of virtue and understanding vanish before perfect beauty.’ ‘A certain lady of a manor’ (says Don Quixote in defence of his attachment to Dulcinea, which, however, was quite of the Platonic kind), ‘had cast the eyes of affection on a certain squat, brawny lay brother of a neighbouring monastery, to whom she was lavish of her favours. The head of the order remonstrated with her on this preference shown to one whom he represented as a very low, ignorant fellow, and set forth the superior pretensions of himself, and his more learned brethren. The lady having heard him to an end, made answer: All that you have said may be very true; but know that in those points which I admire, Brother Chrysostom is as great a philosopher, nay greater, than Aristotle himself!’ So the Wife of Bath:

‘To chirche was myn housbond brought on morwe
With neighebors that for him made sorwe,
And Jankyn oure clerk was oon of tho.
As help me God, whan that I saugh him go
After the beere, methought he had a paire
Of legges and of feet so clene and faire,
That al myn hert I yaf unto his hold.’

‘All which, though we most potently believe, yet we hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.’

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