The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-03-10

which. at first. was a child of the en-
I lightenment of the eighteenth century
The early ideas of Coleridge were tn
| ideas of Rousseau and OF Bernardin d.
st. Pierre, who was like Coleridge. bu
more energetically. seeker for an idea
land where Pantisocracy might flourish
and clown might be the poets broth
err
In poetry, in poetic form. Coleridge wa
the real and daring snnovator, inspired
by the eighteenth century reaction agains
convention and played on like an aeolial
harp 10y every wind Of his mystic spirit
His reaction was too violent even fol
Lamb; his originality too extreme ever
for Wordsworth. In him, of all our later
poets, the unconscious self was th'
strongest and the most free and of all oul
poets he had the hardest battle with the
dull Augustan survival in such critics a!
Jeffrey. To them all the ripened fruit OF
the blossoming time Of the late eighteenth
century, the poetry Of Scott and of Words
worth, was but dimly Ineligible, bu
COleridge was the most unintelligible OF
all. From the Germany of the late eight
zenith century came one of SCOTS springs
of poetic action; from the "Lenore" OF
Burger "a popular ballad rewritten and
Goethe These were the days when Scott
/ longed to possess a skull and crossbones.
and in a love letter dilated on his choice
of a sepulchre. But what came to Cole
ridge from Germany was the late eight
( zenith century's reaction against the truly
/ common sense" ideas of Hume the phi
/ losophy of Kant, Schelling. and Fichte. In
( this field. too. he was unintelligible land
/ no wonder), but he was but adapting the
/ ideas of I770-1S00 and the neo-Hegelians
l of oxford are doing the same thing. a
reaction against the materialism of COM
mon sense was inevitable; Mesmer, Swe-
denborg. and Kant began what survives
in the hands of the Master of Balliol and
of Prof. William James.
In a more recent generation Byron pro-
longed the Wertherism of Werther, Byron
being thus a grandson of Rousseau, while
he borrowed his form, and borrowed it
very ILL., from what Scott borrowed of Cole
ridge. The genius of Byron is not con-
tested by the sane, but except in satire it
seldom found clear and adequate, because
ii sought hurried needless. and tumultu-
Gus, expression. Scott had a better ear
and was not SO reckless an improvisatore.
Poems that can endure are not written
like Byron's, in the brief leisure of fash
ionable industry. We admire the native
impetus of Byron. his gift of satire, his
constituencies TO elemental force Of nature
and in man, but We cannot understand
the furore which was so much the child
of his title. his beauty, his recklessness,
and his studiously cultivated air of mys-
terry. Mr.. Lenvile, as reported by Mr..
Folair, said that Nicholas Nickleby was
"a regular stick of an actor, and it's only
the mystery about him that has caused
him to go down with the people here,
though Lenvile says he don't believe
there's anything at all in it, A later age
must partly adopt the same theory of
Byrons original and unparalleled success
in Europe as well as in England. He was
mysterious Manfred, he was Childe Har-
old. he was the Corsair; hero of Mrs. Rad
cliffe's, with an oriental air and a gloomy
secret and a heart burning with indigna-
ton against the unworthy species Of men.
What had Byron done? Even Goethe was
curious, believing wild anecdotes; now we
really do not care what Byron did, recog-
MIXING in him his genius and his pose, not
so much the Satanic" as the result of
hysteria and madness in his race. Satan
ism, from of old. has been mainly hyste-
ria. The element of personal reclame in
reputation as an earth-shaking poet At
tempts to revive that fame in our day
attempts to bring us back to the noble
poet" are respectable. being based on 10y
atty to the taste of our great grandfathers
and grandmothers in all civilized coun-
tries. But the efforts are futile. BY
rom" says Mr.. Saintsbury, seems to me
a poet distinctly of the second class. and
not even Of the best kind of second in |
asmuch as his greatness is chiefly derived
from sort Of parody, n sort Of imitation |
of the qualities of the first. His verse is |
to the greatest poetry what melodrama |
is to tragedy, what plaster is TO marble, |
what pinchbeck is to gold" Such, how |
ever unpopular they may be, are my own !
candid sentiments, for though from child |
hood l could and did read all our great |
poets with pleasure. II was not with the
kind of pleasure which Byron In his satire
and his defamation could casionalIy
give me He is monotOnous, he is rhetori-
cal, his versifcation is often incredibly
bad, and he is more obscure. mainly by
lint Of hurry, bad printing, and bad gram
mar, than Mr.. Browning. Thus Byron
leaves us impressed as with a vast even
yet dandified force, unframed
and often misdirected. Either by nature,
IT in reaction, he professed sympathy With
he Augustan school of Queen Anne's
reign, and sided with Pope in the long
quarrel as to whether Pope is a poet.
Even the modern opponents of Byron
must recognize in him qualities which
won the admiration and affection of Scott
md Shelley. In Shelley we had a true
hid of the Revolution, the Anfklarung,
md the later eighteenth century. His boy
rood trifed with chemical science (proba-
'ly not then popular with the human boy),
lis adolescence was given to converting
schoolgirls into dear little atheists"
lis social ideas, Ike those of some ad-
'anced moderns, aimed at the absolute
OF the family: and the moral
f "Laon and Cynthna" went far behind
he morals of the most backward saw
ges, who make incest a capital offence
shelley, a boy all his life. was more boy
silly devoted to destruction than even the
ewest writers on the relations of the
exes. In making all things new" both |
e and they are, In fact. relapsing on a
ondition Of society which, If IL ever ex-
sted, is so old that It may be called pre- ,
uman," and is contrary to nature, as far ,
s we can study human nature in the ,,
EAST developed of tribes. His ideas con-
ucted Shelley to the tragedy and farce
( his career; his desertion of one young 7,
life, followed by her suicide, and his mar D.,
iage with another, in entire opposition !,
} his own opinions. In literature he be- :
an at school with n devout following of
frs. Radcliffe; while, in Queen Nab" :
nd "Alastor" Vigorous but vague and :
listy "Childe Harold" wandering in NO l
fans Land he first displayed HIS origi- {
ality in poetical form. His personal J
being noble and penerous n, thu 7