The Press. — London, England, 1858-01-16 00:00:00

THE PRESS, tTANUARY 16, 1858. new regime, for the new voters will be actuated by different motives and pursue differentone in terests to the present ten-pounders. As instance, it will be the interest of a five-pound constituency to do away with indirect taxa tion, which at present eats up one•third of their incomes, and substitute direct taxation in its place, since from it they will altogether be e xempt, their small fortunes not bringing them within the scope of any workable minimum of assessment. We think it therefore probable that the Whigs would rather join the Conservatives than the Democrats, if the option we have mentioned were fairly proposed to them We doubt whether our author's scheme would have so good a chance. The principle of his scheme is the recognition of the in equalities of influences in society. This he calls the timocratic principle. He proposes to give the franchise to all orders of men who possess social influence, on that ground alone, irrespective of any other, and as nearly as possible in proportion to the degree of in fluence they possess. Barristers, physicians, and engineers, and in general the members of all learned professions, are to have a definite voice in the Administration; and skilled artisans are to have votes, which are to be denied to ordinary workmen. Now, excepting that his scheme is more complex, and is based on less tangible grounds, we do not believe it would in practice differ much from a simple property-graduated franchise. A man's social influence is, if not doubtful. certainly dis putable, if he has not managed to acquire property or income ; and where a ground of preference cannot be justified to the vulgar by vulgar methods, it will be found very difficult to reconcile them to it. A learned weaver or a philosophic shoemaker will very naturally question the equity of a law which gives a political superiority over them to a brielless lawyer or an unfeed doctor; and if the prin ciple is to be carried out, as our author pro- poses, to the recognition of social influences, even when separate from any supposed intel lectual as well as from any property status, then we shall certainly introduce into the arena of politics the paltry rivalries and hatreds of cliques and coteries. Besides, those whom this timocratic principle would endow with votes, although fortune or merit has not en dowed them with property, have the same anti-indirect taxation instincts as the five pound voters, with, we will suppose, more acuteness to detect and a more important position in society to enable them to wive effect to their wishes. Perhaps the highest praise we can bestow on Mr. Lorimer's book is that it is eminently suggestive. If too abstract in its teaching, too much conversant with the politics of- the schools, too little with those of the world, it is at least suggestive of practical lines of thought which may be applied to existing questions. The spirit pervading it is on the whole emi nently Conservative; and in the attempt to reconcile Conservatism with Progress the author addresses himself to one of the most important topics of the day. Merope. A Tragedy. By Matthew Arnold. London: Longmans. MR. ARNOLD has many claims upon the atten tion of the public, which are too generally recognised to demand enumeration here. His opinion upon any literary question is entitled to great respect; and we cannot doubt but the preface to his new tragedy will be read with a disposition to allow full weight to his argu ments. On the acceptance or rejection of these depends our estimate of the tragedy itself ; and we have, therefore, thought it better to lay before our readers in limine so much of the preface as may acquaint them with the Professor's own reason for undertaking a classical drains. : I am not about to defend myself for having taken the story of the following tragedy from classical antiquity. On this subject I have already said all which appears to me to be necessary. For those readers to whom my tragedy will give pleasure, no argument on such a matter is re quired ; one critic, whose tine intelligence it would hive been an honour to convince, lives, alas' no longer : there are others, upon whom no arguments which I could pos sibly use would prxlace any impression. The Athenians fined Phrynichtts for representing to them their own suf. rerings : there are critics who would fine us fur represent ing to them anything else. But, as often as it has happened to me to be blamed or praised for my supposed addiction to the classical school in poetry, I have thought, with real humiliation, how little any works of mine were entitled to rank among the genuine works of that school; how little they were calculated to give, to readers unacquainted with the great creations of classical antiquity, any adequate impression of their iurm or of their spirit. And yet, whatever the critics may say, there exists, I am convinced, even in England, even in this stronghold of the romantic school, a wide though an ill-informed curiosity on the subject of the so-called classical school, meriting a more complete satisfaction than it has hitherto obtained. Greek art—the antique—classical beauty—a nameless hope and interest attaches, I can often see, to these words, even in the minds of those who have beet. brought up among the productions of the romantic school ; of those who have been taught to consider clas sicalism as inseparable from coldness, and the antique as another phrasi for the unreal. So immortal, so inde structible is the power of true beauty, of consummate form : it may be submerged, but the tradition of it sur vives : nations arise which know it not, which hardly believe in the report of it : but they, too, are haunted with an indefinable interest in its name, with an inexplicable curiosity as to its nature. But however the case may be with regard to the curiosity of the public, I have long had the strongest desire to at tempt, for my own satisfaction, to come to closer quarters with the form which produces such grand effects in the hands of the Greek masters; to try to obtain, through the medium of a living, familiar language, a fuller and more intense feeling of that beauty, which, even when appre hended through the medium of a dead language, so power fully affected me. In his delightful " Life of Goethe," Mr. Lewes has most truly observed that Groeihe's" Iphigeneia " enjoys au inestimable advantage in being written in a language which, being a modern language, is in some sort our own. Not only is it vain to expect that the vast majo rity of mankind will ever undertake the toil of mastering a dead language, above all a dead language so difficult as the Greek; but it may be doubted whether even those, whose enthusiasm shrinks from no toil, can ever so tho roughly pens into the intimate feeling of works composed is a dead language as their enthusiasm would desire. I desired to try, therefore, how much of the effectiveness of the Greek poetical forms I could retain in an English poem constructed under the conditions of those forms; of those forms, too, in their severest and most definite expres sion, in their application to dramatic poetry. The question at issue is certainly among the most interesting which can be presented to the lovers of classical literature. Can this " curiosity on the subject of the so-called " classical school" be better gratified through the medium of a dead or a living language? And here we feel how limited is our own province. We do not perceive that either theory is necessarily at variance with any of the laws of either taste or composition. It would almost seem a question to which no very decisive answer can be returned, and to admit of different solution by persons of different temperament. We shall, however, state to which side we believe the balance of argument to incline, and justify. as far as we can, our dissent from Mr. Arnold's view. In the first place, may we not say of this " antique classical beauty" that the language is a part of it? May we not doubt how far the " form" can be separated from the mate rial without injury? Certainly it is the two together by which that " nameless hope, inde " finable interest, and inexplicable curiosity" have been generated. The embarrassments of a dead language may he compared to the diffi culties and dangers of penetrating to remote countries. Yet the curiosity and interest at taching to the Chinese or the American Indians was little satisfied by a visit to the Chinese Exhibition or Mr. Catlin's Ojibbe ways. It was still felt that those difficulties and dangers must be undergone if we would fully comprehend either the mysterious civi lisation of the one race or the rude grandeur of the other. The interest wo felt in them, derived from the report of eyewitnesses, per suaded us to visit their representatives. Their representatives alone would never have per suaded us to visit them. In like manner, we cannot believe that Mr. Arnold's " Merope," though it may prove interesting to persons already acquainted with classical literature, would ever lead those who are unfamiliar with it to seek out its treasures for themselves. His own ideas upon this point are at all events completely contradictory of those which have hitherto been entertained by poets who were also scholars. I try to obtain. he says, " through " the medium of a living, familiar language, " a fuller and more intense feeling of that " beauty which, even when apprehended " through the medium of a dead lan , " guage, so powerfully affected me." Stu• dents have generally been told that they 65 will obtain through the medium of the ori ginal language a fuller and more intense feel ing of that beauty which, even when appre hended through the medium of a translation, so powerfully affected them; an.l the dif ference between Mr. Arnold's poem and a translation, though we admit it to be ail that he claims, is scarcely perceptible beside its difference from the old Greek. But, whether Mr. Arnold be right or wrong in this fundamental idea, it seems to us that tragedy is nearly the worst form he could have chosen for its exposition. In the first place, the present condition of dramatic poetry in Eng land is one strong impediment to the success of his design. But more than this, between particular schools of poetry, and the con ditions of the national mind under which they flourish, there must surely be a close affinity. The conditions may change, and with theta the power of producing a kindred literature ; while the admiration of mankind for the latter may still continue. Admiration is often mis taken for the power of reproducing something similar to the admired object, and we cannot but fear that such is the error into which Mr. Arnold has fallen. The best Greek tragedies were interwoven with those awful religious traditions which had not yet lost their hold upon the popular heart. As they declined, tragedy declined with them. It was not so much because Euripides had less dramatic power in himself, as because the old material was slipping from his grasp, that he fell below the standard of his predecessors ; and the admiration, and even preference, accorded him by his contemporaries are much akin to the preference which the dramatists of. the Re storation once enjoyed over Shakespeare. The latter, like .eEschylus and Sophocles, wrote when the old superstitions and the new civilisation were first coming into contact; the former, like Euripides, in an age of novel, and therefore fashionable scepticism. The present age may be an improvement on the Caroline, but has not regained the simpler faith of the Elizabethan era. The popular mind, what ever its craving after Greek art, is not attuned to the Greek drama. Nor have we generally much faith in an attempt to transplant the poetry or sentiments of one age into another. —parvam Trajam, simulataque townie Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognounne Trojan Agnosco It is with the utmost reluctance, not to say diffidence, that we apply these remarks to Mr. Arnold. We have now, however, stated our own view of the case. It is time to let Mr. Arnold speak through his own performance. The following is his account of the plot : Messenia was at this time ruled by Melantbus, a de scendant of Nelms. This ancestor, a prince of the great house of Lotus, had come from Thessalv, and suc ceeded to the Messenian throne on the failure of the previous dynasty. Melanthns and his race sere thus foreigners in Messenia, and were unpopular. His subjects offered little or no opposition to the invading Dorians : Melanthus abandoned his kingdom to Cres phontes, and retired to Athens. Cresphontes married Merope, whose native country, Arcadia, was not affected by the Dorian invasion. This marriage, the issue of which was three sons, connected him with the native population of Peloponnesus. He built a new capital of Messenia, Stenyclaros, and trans ferred thither, from Pylos, the seat of government : he at first proposed, it is said by Pausanias, to divide Messenia into five states, and to confer on the native Meseenians equal privileges with their Dorian oonquerora. The Dorians complained that his administration unduly favoured the vanquished people : his chief magnates, headed by Polyphontes, himself a descendant of Hercules, formed a cabal against him, in which he was slain with his two eldest sons. The youngest son of Cresphuntes, -Epytus, then an infant, was saved b hi h s moter, who sent him to her father, Cypselus, the king of :Arcadia, under whose protection he was brought up. The drama begins at the moment wheni/Epytus, grown to manhood, returns secretly to Messenia to take vengeance on his father's murderers. At this period Temenus was no longer reigning at Argos : be had been murdered by his sons, jealous of their brotherin-law, Deiphontes : the sons of Aristodemus, Procles and Eurysthenes, at variance with their guardian, were reigning at Sparta. To say that Mr. Arnold has produced an excellent imitation of the Attic drama is very slight praise to a gentleman in his position. In all external respects it is complete. Yet we must confess that, however greater in degree, its excellence is the same in kind as we attribute to May's continu'ttion of Lueau, or Rapin's of the Georgics. We have selected the following passage from the " discovery .