imagination, while they chafe and restrain it, that its thoughts and combinations in the world of concrete circumstance are more rich, more rare, more occult, more beautiful, and more incomprehensible, than they would otherwise be. Like the effect of the music on the fountain and the company of Bacchanals in Tennyson's strange vision, is the effect of verse on poetical thought. "Then methought I heard a mellow sound, But here we must stop our discussions on the Theory of Poetry. For much that we have left undiscussed, and especially for a philosophical division of poetry according to its kinds, we must refer to Mr. Dallas. We recommend his book highly and cordially. There is perhaps a stronger dash of what may be called Okenism in his style of speculation, than some readers may like; as, for example, in his systematic laying out of everything into corresponding threes or triads. Thus, poetry figures throughout his treatise as a compound result of three laws-the law of unconsciousness, the law of harmony, and the law of imagination; which laws are supreme respectively in three kinds of poetry-lyrical poetry, epic poetry, and dramatic poetry; which three kinds of poetry, again, correspond historically with Eastern, primitive, or divine art, Grecian, antique, or classical art, and Western, modern, or romantic art; which historical division, again, corresponds philosophically with such trinities as these-I, he, you; time future, time past, time present; immortality, God, freedom; the good, the true, the beautiful. All this, stated thus abruptly and without explanation, may seem more hopeless sort of matter to some than it would to us; but even they will find in the book much that will please them, in the shape of shrewd observation, and lucid and deep criticism, valuable on its own account, and very different from what used to be supplied to the last age by its critics. PROSE AND VERSE DE QUINCEY.* IN the Preface to this series of volumes (which is intended to be a more perfect accomplishment, under the author's own editorship, of a scheme of literary collection already executed very creditably by an American publisher), Mr. De Quincey ventures on something rather unusual-a theoretical classification of his own writings for the benefit of critics. The following is the passage in which he states this classification and the grounds of it : 66 Taking as the basis of my remarks the collective American edition, I will here attempt a rude general classification of all the articles which compose it. I distribute them grossly into three classes : "First, into that class which proposes primarily to amuse the reader; but which, in doing so, may or may not happen occasionally to reach a higher station, at which the amusement passes into an impassioned interest. Some papers are merely playful; but others have a mixed character. These present Autobiographic Sketches illustrate what I mean. Generally, they pretend to little beyond that sort of amusement which attaches to any real story, thoughtfully and faithfully related, moving through a succession of scenes sufficiently varied, that are not suffered to remain too long upon the eye, and that connect themselves at every stage with intellectual objects. But, even here, I do not scruple to claim from the reader, occasionally, a higher consideration. At times, the narrative rises into a far higher key. "Into the second class I throw those papers which address themselves purely to the understanding as an insulated faculty; or do so primarily. Let me call them by the general name of essays. These, as in other cases of the same kind, must have their value measured by two separate questions. A.-What is the problem, and of what rank in dignity or use, which the essay undertakes? And next-that point being settled-B.-What is the success obtained? and (as a separate question) What is the executive ability displayed in the solution of the problem? This latter question is naturally no question for myself, as the answer would involve a verdict upon my own merit. But, generally, there will be quite enough in the answer to Question A for establishing the value of any essay on its soundest basis. Prudens interrogatio est dimidium scientia. Skilfully to frame your question, is half-way towards insuring the true answer. Two or three of the problems treated in these essays I will here rehearse [Mr. De Quincey here cites, as examples of the * BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW; July, 1854.-Selections Grave and Gay, from Writings published and unpublished. By THOMAS DE QUINCEY. Vols. I. and II.; containing "Autobiographic Sketches." Edinburgh, 1853-4. 66 kind of writings which he refers to the second class, his essays on the following subjects:-Essenism, The Casars, and Cicero.] These specimens are sufficient for the purpose of informing the reader that I do not write without a thoughtful consideration of my subject; and, also, that to think reasonably upon any question, has never been allowed by me as a sufficient ground for writing upon it, unless I believed myself able to offer some considerable novelty. Generally, I claim (not arrogantly, but with firmness) the merit of rectification applied to absolute errors, or to injurious limitations of the truth. Finally, as a third class, and, in virtue of their aim, as a far higher class of compositions, included in the American collection, I rank The Confessions of an Opium-Eater, and also (but more emphatically) the Suspiria de Profundis. On these, as modes of impassioned prose, ranging under no precedents that I am aware of in any literature, it is much more difficult to speak justly, whether in a hostile or a friendly character. As yet neither of these two works has ever received the least degree of that correction and pruning which both require so extensively; and of the Suspiria, not more than perhaps onethird has yet been printed. When both have been fully revised, I shall feel myself entitled to ask for a more determinate adjudication on their claims as works of art. At present I feel authorized to make haughtier pretensions in right of their conception than I shall venture to do, under the peril of being supposed to characterize their execution. Two remarks only I shall address to the equity of my reader. First, I desire to remind him of the perilous difficulty besieging all attempts to clothe in words the visionary scenes derived from the world of dreams, where a single false note, a single word in a wrong key, ruins the whole music; and, secondly, I desire him to consider the utter sterility of universal literature in this one department of impassioned prose, which certainly argues some singular difficulty suggesting a singular duty of indulgence in criticising any attempt that even imperfectly succeeds. The sole Confessions, belonging to past times, that have at all succeeded in engaging the attention of men, are those of St. Austin and of Rousseau. The very idea of breathing a record of human passion, not into the ear of the random crowd, but of the saintly confessional, argues an impassioned theme. Impassioned, therefore, should be the tenor of the composition. Now, in St. Augustine's Confessions is found one most impassioned passage-viz., the lamentation for the death of his youthful friend in the fourth book; one, and no more. Farther, there is nothing In Rousseau, there is not even so much. In the whole work there is nothing grandly affecting but the character and the inexplicable misery of the writer." No one acquainted with Mr. De Quincey's writings, will deny the soundness and the completeness of this classification; nor do we think that a critic, proposing to himself so ambitious a task as an appreciation of Mr. De Quincey's genius as a whole, could do better than quietly assume it, and proceed to examine Mr. De Quincey's merits, first, as a writer of interesting memoirs; secondly, as an essayist or elucidator of difficult historical and other problems; and, lastly, as an almost unique practitioner of a peculiar style of imaginative or highly impassioned prose. Such an examination, conducted ever so rigorously, if by a competent person, would confirm the impression now entertained on all hands, that among the most remarkable names in the history of English literature for many a day, must be ranked that of Thomas De Quincey. Our purpose, however, is by no means so extensive. We do not mean to comment on Mr. De Quincey as a writer of memoirs and narratives, nor to cull from his numerous contributions in that department-the present two volumes included—any of the delightful reminiscences with which they abound. We do not mean, either, to follow Mr. De Quincey through any of the various tracks of speculation into which his pure intellectual activity has led him, and thus to exhibit the delicacy and subtlety of his thinking faculty, the range of his observation and knowledge, and the value of his conclusions on obscure and vexed questions. In this department, we believe, he would be found fully entitled to the praise which he has claimed for himselfthe praise of having been practically faithful to that theory of literature which maintains that no man is entitled to write upon a subject merely by having something reasonable to say about it, unless that something is also, to some extent, novel. It is with Mr. De Quincey, however, in the last of the three aspects in which he has presented himself to notice in the foregoing passage that we propose exclusively to concern ourselves. We thank Mr. De Quincey for having so presented himself. Not only, in so doing, has he indicated, with all due modesty, what he esteems his peculiar and characteristic place in English literature, and the scene and nature of his highest triumphs as a writer; he has also, at the same time, suggested a very curious subject for critical discussion. As it is a subject we have sometimes thought of, we are glad to have so fit an opportunity for saying a few words upon it. By the established custom of all languages, there is an immense interval between the mental state accounted proper in prose composition, and that allowed, and even required, in verse. A man, for the most part, would be ashamed of permitting himself in prose the same freedom of intellectual whimsy, the same arbitrariness of combination, the same riot of imagery, the same care for the exquisite in sound and form, perhaps even the same depth and fervour of feeling, that he would exhibit unabashed in verse. There is an idea, as it G G were, that if the matter lying in the mind waiting for expression is of a very select and rare kind, or if the mood is peculiarly fine and elevated, a writer must quit the platform of prose, and ascend into the region of metre. To use a homely figure, the feeling is that, in such circumstances, one must not remain in the plainly-furnished apartment on the ground-floor where ordinary business is transacted, but must step up-stairs to the place of elegance and leisure. Take, for example, the following passage from Comus: "Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, Goddess of the silver lake- What we say is, that if any man, having preconceived exactly the tissue of meaning involved in this passage, had tried to express it in prose, he would have had a sense of shame in doing so, and would have run the risk of being regarded as a coxcomb. Only in verse will men consent, as a general rule, to receive such specimens of the intellectually exquisite; but offer them never so tiny a thing of the kind in verse, and they are not only satisfied, but charmed. Nor is it only with regard to the peculiarly exquisite, or the ресиliarly luscious in meaning, that this is true; it is true, also, to a certain extent, of the peculiarly sublime, or the peculiarly magnificent. Thus Samson, soliloquizing on his blindness— "The vilest here excel me; They creep, yet see. I, dark, in light exposed In power of others, never in my own, Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. Without all hope of day! O, first-created beam, and thou great Word, And silent as the moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave." |