CHAPTER XVI. Striking points of difference between the Poets of the present age and those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries-Wish expressed for the union of the characteristic merits of both. CHRISTENDOM, from its first settlement on feudal rights, has been so far one great body, however imperfectly organized, that a similar spirit will be found in each period to have been acting in all its members. The study of Shakspeare's poems (I do not include his dramatic works, eminently as they too deserve that title) led me to a more careful examination of the contemporary poets both in England and in other countries. But my attention was especially fixed on those of Italy, from the birth to the death of Shakspeare; that being the country in which the fine arts had been most sedulously, and hitherto most successfully cultivated. Abstracted from the degrees and peculiarities of individual genius, the properties common to the good writers of each period seem to establish one striking point of difference between the poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that of the present age. The remark may perhaps be extended to the sister art of painting. At least the latter will serve to illustrate the former. In the present age the poet (I would wish to be understood as speaking generally, and without allusion to individual names)-seems to propose to himself as his main object, and as that which is the most characteristic of his art, new and striking images; with incidents that interest the affections or excite the curiosity. Both his characters and his descriptions he renders, as much as possible, specific and individual, even to a degree of portraiture. In his diction and metre, on the other hand, he is comparatively careless. The measure is either constructed on no previous system, and acknowledges no justifying principle but that of the writer's convenience; or else some mechanical movement is adopted, of which one couplet or stanza is so far an adequate specimen, as that the occasional differences appear evidently to arise from accident, or the qualities of the language itself, not from meditation and an intelligent purpose. And the language from Pope's translation of Homer, to Darwin's Temple of Nature,' may, notwithstanding some illustrious exceptions, be too faithfully characterized, as claiming to be poetical for no better reason than that it would be intolerable in conversation or in prose. Though alas! even our prose writings, nay even the style of our more set discourses, strive to be in the fashion, and trick themselves out in the soiled and over-worn finery of the meretricious muse. It is true that of late a great improvement in this respect is observable in our most popular writers. But it is equally true, that this recurrence to plain sense and genuine mother English is far from being general; and that the composition of our novels, magazines, public harangues, and the like, is commonly as trivial in thought, and yet enigmatic in expression, as if Echo and Sphinx had laid their heads together to construct it. Nay, even of those who have most rescued themselves from this contagion, I should plead inwardly guilty to the charge of duplicity or cowardice, if I withheld my conviction, that few have guarded the purity of their native tongue with that jealous care, which the sublime Dante, in his tract De la volgare Eloquenza, declares to be the first duty of a poet. For language is the armory of the human mind; and 1 First published in 1803. 2 [See I., c. xix., s. ii., c. i. The spirit breathing in this Fragment may justify what Mr. C. says; but Dante does not appear to have used the expression attributed to him in the text. Ed. It seems probable that Mr. Coleridge alluded to the following passage, which I found written by his hand in a copy of the first edition of Joan of Arc. Degne di sommo stilo sono le somme Cose, ciò è, l'Amore, la Libertà, la Virtù, l'Immortalità, e quelle altre Cose che per cagion di esse sono nella Mente nostra conceputi; per che per niun Accidente non siano fatte vili. Guardisi adunque ciascuno, e discerna quello che dicemo: e quando vuole queste somme Cose puramente cantare, prima* bevendo nel Fonte di Eli * That is, waiting for, and seizing the moment of deep Feeling, and stirring Imagina. tion, after having, by steadfast accurate Observation, and by calm and profound Meditation, filled himself, as i were, vith his subject. 8. T. C. at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future conquests. Animadverte, says Hobbes, quam sit ab improprietate verborum pronum hominibus prolabi in errores circa ipsas res !" Sat [vero], says Sennertus, in hâc vitæ brevitate et naturæ obscuritate, rerum est, quibus cognoscendis tempus impendatur, ut [confusis et multivocis] sermonibus intelligendis illud consumere opus non sit. [Eheu! quantas strages paravere verba nubila, quæ tot dicunt ut nihil dicunt ;-nubes potius, e quibus et in rebus politicis et in ecclesia turbines et tonitrua erumpunt!] Et proinde recte dictum putamus a Platone in Gorgia: ὃς ἂν τὰ ὀνήματα εἰδεὶ, εἴσεται καὶ τὰ πράγματα : et ab Epicteto, ἀρχὴ παιδεύσεως ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπίσκεψις : et prudentissime Galenus scribit, ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων χρῆσις ταραχθεῖσα καὶ τὴν τῶν πραγμάτων ἐπιταράττει γνῶσιν. Egregie vero J. C. Scaliger, in Lib. I. de Plantis: Est primum, inquit, sapientis officium, bene sentire, ut sibi vivat: proximum, bene loqui, ut patriæ vivat." Something analogous to the materials and structure of modern poetry I seem to have noticed (but here I beg to be understood cona, ponga sicuramente a l'accordata Lyra il sommo Plettro, e costumatamente cominci. Ma a fare questa Canzone, e questa Divisione, come si dee-quì è la Difficoltà, quì è la Fatica: perciò che mai senza Acume d'Ingegno, ne senza Assiduità d'Arte, ne senza Abito di Scienze, non si potrà fare. E questi sono quelli, che 'l Poeta nel L. VI. de la Eneide chiami Diletti da Dio, e da la ardente Virtù alzati al Cielo, e Figliuoli di Dio, avegna che figuratamente parli. E però si confessa la Sciocchezza di coloro, i quali senza Arte, e senza Scienza, confidando si solamente del loro Ingegno, si pongono a cantar sommamente le Cose somme. Adunque cessino questi tali da tanta loro Presunzione, e se per la loro naturale Desidia sono Oche, non vogliano l'Aquila, che altamente vola, imitare. Dante, de la volgare Eloquenza, . ii., c. 4.* S. C.] 3 [Examinatio et Emendatio Mathematicæ hodiernæ. (Dial. ii., vol. iv., p. 83 of Molesworth's edit.) S. C.] 4 [See the chapter p. 193, De nominibus novis Paracelsicis in his folio works, Leyden, 1676. The words in brackets are not in the original, and there are several omissions.-Ed.. The sentence cited as from the Gorgias, is not contained, I believe, in that dialogue. S. C.] *(This Italian version of the treatise De vulg. Eloq. was by Trissino, according to A. Zeno, who says that the translator has, in many places, confounded and altered the sense. The Latin ractate, which the Editor refers to, is by Dante himself. S. C.. as speaking with the utmost diffidence)-in our common landscape painters.. Their foregrounds and intermediate distances are comparatively unattractive: while the main interest of the land. scape is thrown into the back ground, where mountains and torrents and castles forbid the eye to proceed, and nothing tempts it to trace its way back again. But in the works of the great Italian and Flemish masters, the front and middle objects of the landscape are the most obvious and determinate, the interest gradually dies away in the back ground, and the charm and peculiar worth of the picture consists, not so much in the specific objects which it conveys to the understanding in a visual language formed by the substitution of figures for words, as in the beauty and harmony of the colors, lines, and expression, with which the objects are represented. Hence novelty of subject was rather avoided than sought for. Superior excellence in the manner of treating the same subjects was the trial and test of the artist's merit. Not otherwise is it with the more polished poets of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially those of Italy. The imagery is almost always general: sun, moon, flowers, breezes, murmuring streams, warbling songsters, delicious shades, lovely damsels cruel as fair, nymphs, naiads, and goddesses, are the materials which are common to all, and which each shaped and arranged according to his judgment or fancy, little solicitous to add or to particularize. If we make an honorable exception in favor of some English poets, the thoughts too are as little novel as the images; and the fable of their narrative poems, for the most part drawn from mythology, or sources of equal notoriety, derive their chief attractions from the manner of treating them; from impas sioned flow, or picturesque arrangement. In opposition to the present age, and perhaps in as faulty an extreme, they placed the essence of poetry in the art. The excellence, at which they aimed, consisted in the exquisite polish of the diction, combined with perfect simplicity. This their prime object they attained by the avoidance of every word, which a gentleman would not use in lignified conversation, and of every word and phrase, which none but a learned man would use; by the studied position of words and phrases, so that not only each part should be melodious in itself, but contribute to the harmony of the whole, each note re. ferring and conducting to the melody of all the foregoing and following words of the same period or stanza; and lastly with equal labor, the greater because unbetrayed, by the variation and various harmonies of their metrical movement. Their measures, however, were not indebted for their variety to the introduction of new metres, such as have been attempted of late in the Alonzo and Imogen, and others borrowed from the German, having in their very mechanism a specific overpowering tune, to which the generous reader humors his voice and emphasis, with more indulgence to the author than attention to the meaning or quantity the words; but which, to an ear familiar with the numerous unds of the Greek and Roman poets, had an effect not unlike that of galloping over a paved road in a German stage-wagon without springs. On the contrary, the elder bards both of Italy and England produced a far greater as well as more charming variety by countless modifications, and subtle balances of sound in the common metres of their country. A lasting and enviable reputation awaits that man of genius, who should attempt and realize a union; who should recall the high finish, the appropriateness, the facility, the delicate proportion, and above all, the perfusive and omnipresent grace, which have preserved, as in a shrine of precious amber, the Sparrow of Catullus, the Swallow, the Grasshopper, and all the other little loves of Anacreon; and which, with bright, though diminished glories, revisited the youth and early manhood of Christian Europe, in the vales of Arno, [Here is a stanza of this overpowering metre :— A warrior so bold and a virgin so bright Conversed as they sat on the green; The maid's was the fair Imogene. Mr. Southey adopted this metre for his popular ballad—Mary the Maid of the Inn. Poet. Works, 1838, vol. vi., p. 3. S. C.] • These thoughts were suggested to me during the perusal of the Madrigals of Giovambatista Strozzi published in Florence in May, 1593, by his sons Lorenzo and Filippo Strozzi, with a dedication to their paternal uncle, Signor Leone Strozzi, Generale delle battaglie di Santa Chiesa. As I do not remember to have seen either the poems or their author mentioned |