The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

A.YTOUN ON POPTRY,

LECTURE THE FIFTH.

Yesterday brought together, in Willis's Rooms, per-
haps the largest and certainly about the most attentive
audience which has yet assembled to welcome Professor
Aytoun in the metropolis, during the delivery of his
course of Lectures on Poetry and Dramatic Literature.
Nevertheless, though the audience upon these occasions
has hitherto been, as we have intimated, both numerous
and attentive—it has, nevertheless, invariably contrived
to be, at the same time, the most sedate and phlegmatic
we ever remember to have seen collected together.
This, possibly, by reason of its being so pecu-
liarly fashionable, the majority present consisting of
the creme de la creme of Belgravia—members of that
great world " about three miles round" described, in
the last number of Bleak House, as revolving on its own
axis, during the height of the Season, while the planets
and the rest of the celestial bodies circulate at their
appointed distances. The result is that the Lecturer ob-
tains scarcely a word of applause from his exordium to
his peroration. Even those who have temerity enough
to adventure upon some nervous little token of apprecia-
tion recoil before their own rashness, startled, like Fear
in the Ode of Collins, even by the sounds themselves have
made. We miss the cordial plaudits of the Pit—and
yearn even for some vulgar enthusiasm to break the lull
of that refined and recollected self-possession.
Dramatic Literature was the subject of yesterday's
dissertation meaning, of course, English Dramatic
Literature. And, although Professor Aytoun in this
lecture took a comprehensive survey of the whole pro-
gress of the Drama in this country, from the time of its
rise to the period of its decline, his observations were
principally confined to a consideration of its supreme
glory during the ever-memorable reign of Elizabeth.
He referred at the outset to the dramatic crudities of the
mediaeval epoch—the old Monkish Mysteries, in which
the principal personages introduced upon the stage were
celestial beings, or the chief actors in the stupendous
tragedy of the Redemption. He alluded, before
the close of his discourse, to the dramatic productions
of some among the more eminent of his literary contem-
poraries —commending in a particular manner several of
the effusions of the genius of Bulwer Lytton and of She-
ridan Knowles as worthy of being numbered with the
masterpieces previously contributed to this department
of our national literature. But in the one instance it
was only a cursory reference, and in the other merely a
passing allusion. Little fell from the lips of Professor
Aytoun yesterday, but had some bearing, sometimes re-
mote, it is true, but more frequently immediate, upon
Shakspere and his contemporaries. He spoke, no doubt,
in a very express and earnest manner both of their pre-
decessors and of their successors, But he appeared to
do so, simply that he might accord to them—to Shak-
spere and his contemporaries—a more marked and a
more emphatic preference. He lamented, in a toch-
ing and tender tone of regret, the obscenities
of such men as Greene and Marlowe, who had
stooped to wallow in the mire, when they pos-
sessed genius, on the wings of which they might
have soared through the empyrean of imagination.
Subsequently, he mentioned in terms of mingled con-
tempt and loathing, the prurient wit of writers like
Wycherley and Farquhar. Here, however, we would
venture to take exception to the iconoclastic fury of
Professor Aytoun's comprehensive and uncompromising
condemnation. He would apparently establish in this
country an Index Expurgatorius. He condemns the last-
mentioned dramatists as unworthy of admission into any
respectable library. He would have them swept from
our bookshelves. Even of their wit he says we have beard
a little too much. We don't feel quite certain, but he
would be glad to witness them burnt at the city gates
by the hands of the common hangman. Now, while we
admire the noble ire of the lecturer, in pronouncing his
detestation of all this notorious impurity, we would, at
the same time, presume to hint that the adoption of his
ideas would jeopardise some of the most glorious produc-
tions of the human intellect, if it did not tend to extin-
guish altogether some of the most notable names in the
world's literature. Destroy Wycherley and Farquhar,
because of their indisputable, and, we will add, even
execrable grossness—and how about Rabelais ? How
about Boccaccio ? If we dedicated horrible old Mother
Mandrake to oblivion how, possibly, could we
dream of preserving afterwards, with any consistency,
the " immortal memories " of Gargantua and Panta-
gruel ? Supposing we were to act upon this principle—
what flaws would be rendered necessary in the " De-
cameron !" And how much would be left of "Candide ?"
—of " Don Juan ?"—of " Tom Jones ?"—of " Ernest
Maltravers ?" What havoc there would be.among the
classics'! We should have left to us, in each instance, only
"a thing of shreds and patches" as the effigy, here of
Greek, and there of Roman literature. The extrava-
gant severity of the sentence pronounced yesterday
upon Farquhar and Wycherley, was only sur-
passed, to our thinking, by the yet more exaggerated
harshness with which Professor Aytoun declared that he
regarded what are commonly termed the misfortunes of
genius, as in the vast majority of instances, the fruits of
actual culpability, the results of either criminality or
improvidence.,

Speaking of Shakspere, the lecturer may be said, in
several particulars, to have exhausted the vocabulary of
paneygric. Honestly, we will admit that we had scarcely
expected this full and fervent appreciation. Professor
Aytoun had already pronounced Homer to be one
who .has „remained until now, as a poet, not
merely unrivalled, bit unapproached. Either he
forgot that he ever said so, or he resolved to make some
amende honorable to the shade of the "gentle Willy "
—but, whatever his reason for so doing, he, yesterday,
commenced his remarks upon Shakspere, by speaking of
him in simple terms, as " the greatest poet this world
has ever known." Another—and, to us, not the least
welcome, of Professor Aytoun's contradictions ! It was
with a subtle and winning apprehension of the mar-
vellous scope of that mighty intellect, that the lecturer
afterwards drew especial attention to his wonderful
locality, or power of local association. His recog-
nition, moreover, of the unexampled capacity of
Shakspere's mind as shown in the equal facility with
which he portrayed every conceivable diversity of cha-
racter, was delightfully contrasted with his depreciation
of old Ben Jonson's men and women—described by.
Professor Aytoun very merrily as a crowd of conven-
tional bores who are perpetually belabouring each other
with their idiocyncrasies ! Nothing possibly could have
been in more exquisite taste than the lecturer's allusion
to the really extraordinary and matchless genius
displayed by Shakspere in the delineation of fe-
male character. Let us admit, however, that the
mere mention of Scott's name at this portion
of the discourse was, to our thinking, simply absurd.
We were rejoiced, howbeit, to hear that graceful and
well-deserved tribute to Mrs. Jameson—as one of those
women who have in modern times, according to the
elegant phrase of the lecturer, " vindicated the sex of
the Muses "—with particular reference to a work which
has long been among our own especial favourites, we
mean, of course, that relating to " the Female
characters of Shakspere." It would be difficult
without giving Professor Aytoun's remarks upon Shak-
spere verbatim to do anything like justice to this part of
yesterday's dissertation. Enough perhaps if, in its re-
gard, we add here, that it appeared to us conceived
throughout in a spirit not unworthy of its inimitable
subject. It was remarkable that immediately the Pro-
fessor arrived at this portion of his discourse, there was
perceptible on the part of the audience the breathless
stillness of expectation. It was another tribute to the
world-wide fame of that supreme and golden reputation.
It reminds us of a little Parian statuette exhibited the
other day in a shop window in Regent-street, ticketted
simply—