New-York tribune., 1876-07-24
"TJyE FLESYLY SCHOOL,

The English reading public has recently
been edited by the great quarrel between Mr'
Buchanan and Mr.. Swnburne, Arcades dn'0o'
both poets. TO tell the story as briefly as
DossibIe, Mr.. Buchanan, IN an aruclc SiSheu
by pscudonym in The Contemporary her'e"'
charged Mr. Swinburnc with writing indecent
verses. I'm n counter article Mr. Swlnbu!ne
CHARGED Mr.. Buchanan with writing indecent
verses. Four years after, the quarrel which
had slupbcrcd. was revived. An anonymous
pocm called Jonas Fisher" Mr.. Swlnbulne
assumed to have been written by Mr. Bu-
chanan, and he reviewed it with great sever
ity. ealing the writer "suk,' ShulIIer,"
..iiar." and "idyllist of the gutter" Unfor-
tmatcly it turned out that Jonas Fisher W
w,s written by Lord Southcsk. Mr.. Buchanan
brought an action for libel against the Journal
in which AIr. Swnbune's review ap-
prarcd. and he had the great good luck Cor
4 Scotclman) to rccOycr Gl5O from the
proprictor of The Examiner, who was the de
fcpdant in the case. And so ends the legi
episode of this trumpery literary quarrel 1t
is not itself of any great consequence, but IL
suggests a fair consideration Of the question
of loose wrifing-a topic which the eccentrlci-
tics of one American writer at least have also
forced upon our attention. \ verse maker Is
responsible for the quality Of his manuiae-
tuTc,. He may have his theories; he may
claim the merit of good intentions; he may
insist that his critics are unnecessarily Sqheam-
ish; bat, after all, he must he judged by the
old-fa,liDncd cJnonS of morality ANA by thc
well established laws of common sense. There
have, it is true, been schools of poetry winch,
setting these at defiance, have maintained a
temporary vitality before sinking INTO merited
oblivion; but nothing is better settled tban
that the merely grOj"squc the outre, the al
frctcd, and the cX;rayagant IN letters
are always destined TO speedy NOR
,alitv. Not that ndccacy necessarily
implies weakness, for, on the contrary, as III
Rab.lais, Swift, Stcgne, or Fielding, 1t may
indicate an uncommon originality and Vlgor;
but these can hardly be found, even to a
limited degree, in the works of any writer
who makes his defiance of dcccncy the Alpha
and Omega OF his literary theory. Mere au-
dacity oC phrase or incident settles nothing,
cyccpt that the author is determined to be
notorious if he cannot he hOncIably famous.
Indeed, Spa.modic contortion suggests rather
the weakness of disease than the vgor of an
H.,
ecccntricity, but nothing is more irritating
than the mere ailcctatlom OF II. Only four or
five great poems have been written in all ages,
and every one of these is clcanly and deco
rous and some of them are severely 50. There
is love enough in the Had, and an unhallowcd
passion is the great motive Of the poem and yet
how little obtrlsiye is it, and how seldom doc, its
fever warm the stately severity of the epic
There are passages of amorouS tenderness in
Paradise Lost, but Mr.. SwiHburr could no
more have written them than a child with It's
toy pqint-box could copy the TRANSPORTATION
or Rafael Shakespeare il sometimes broad,
bu, he is never coarse, and never presents rs
with the foiblcs of humanity worked in Berlin
wool as Mr.. SwinburHc does Fielding is not
always decent, but how fresh and wholesome
lac is compared with some modem typhoid
writers of trumpcry novels Ga the other
hand, Strrnc who was IN his way quite as
great n genius. is 50 propensity unclCan that
we are often tempted to give mp Uncle Toby
and Mf. Shandy, and Corporal Trim, and even
the Widow Wadman, for the sake OF Il purcr
atmosphere.
But, To return tosmodcm poetry Are We
not pas'i through period oi transition
from the cOldly philosophical school of the be-
ginning OF the century to ir'cr and more
genuine inspiration We had nature enough,
it. is true, in Wordsworth, but that singular
person insisted that we should look mt 1t with
his eyes, and take it piccrmeal, as he was ac-
cus,omcd 70 do lie thought his works Il
great Improvement UDon tlt SUN ItSl"'GDllIly