Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 436, February 1852

"He's bolted – him and all the kit."

"And are they not at rehearsal on the stage?"

"No; they're fitting up nests for the young poultry, and won't let you in at no price. You needn't kick at the door; you'll disturb the old hens, and p'raps they wouldn't do their duty to-night."

So saying, the man passed on to ornament the neighbouring walls with the announcements of the Incubitorium. The passengers must have thought me mad, so continued and powerful were my kicks upon the unopening door. I paused for breath – tried to laugh myself out of the belief that the whole proceeding wasn't a ludicrous mistake; and just as I was going at it again with fresh vigour, a hand was laid on my arm.

"Are you going to crack the eggs before they're hatched?" said Miss Claribel. "They'll take you up for a housebreaker, if you're not quiet."

"For heaven's sake," I said, "tell me what is all this?"

"It is that you are swindled by Mr Montalban; and if you have only lost the money you advanced, you may hold yourself very fortunate."

"But he is to give me a hundred pounds," I said.

"You've accepted a bill?"

"I have."

"I thought so. Do you see that man with the fishy kind of eyes, the large nose beginning in the middle of his forehead, and the white hat perched on one side of his head?"

"Yes; I see him. A blackguard Jew-looking fellow he is."

"He has been taking note of you for some time, that he may know you when the bill is due. He is a bailiff, and, I believe, brother-in-law of Mr Montalban."

"But I have not had a farthing; how can they ask me to pay it?"

"O, that makes no difference. I hear a great deal of talk on these subjects, and I fear you will have to advance the full amount. When was it due?"

"In two months. The amount a hundred and fifty pounds."

"We must make the money," she said, "before that time. We must make our debût in Hamlet. Now I am free from the Stepney Star, I feel that I am certain of success. Have you any friend who could get us an engagement in some country theatre, for our first appearance? I want nothing more than an opportunity of showing what I can do."

"Ha!" I said; "yes. I have a friend – a German. His name is Catsbach. I know he can do what we require. Long before the two months are over we shall both be rolling in wealth; and who knows, after all, if this disappointment may not turn out the best piece of good fortune that could have befallen us?"

Full of brighter anticipations than ever, I went up stairs that evening to consult with Mr Tooks. He entered most warmly into the scheme; undertook to get us permission to give a taste of our quality at a theatre a few miles from town, to act as leader of the band; and, in short, was the very best man I could have applied to on the subject. In return, however, he insisted on my accompanying him to his musical engagements, where he felt sure my flute would be as popular as it had proved on the last occasion. He added, also, that he could not allow me to be so useful without being paid; and, in short, I saw the good fellow's design was to be useful to me, at the same time that he put it entirely on the awkward position it put him into if I declined all compensation. I told him he might arrange about that entirely as he pleased, and we shook hands half-a-dozen times in satisfaction of the new agreement.

"Consider, my dear fellow," he said, as he made me my fourth tumbler, "consider what respectability it brings to the profession that we have the heir of the De Bohuns first flute in the orchestra. I feel as the tailors must have felt when the King of Prussia and Alexander of Russia used to cut out the soldiers' jackets. It isn't the profession that makes the gentleman, it's the gentleman that makes the profession."

LONGFELLOW'S GOLDEN LEGEND

There must, after all, be some occult but irresistible charm in the leading idea of old Goethe's Faust. We say this, not on account of the numerous translations of that poem which have appeared in our language – though the names of Shelley, Gower, Anstey, Hayward, Blackie, Syme, and perhaps two dozen more, testify that it has been selected by a large section of German scholars, as a master-piece every way worthy of being converted into our native tongue – but from the numerous efforts which have been made to produce imitations of it. From Byron to Festus Bailey – a sad declension, we admit – poets and poetasters have thought it their privilege to make free with the Satanic character, and to introduce the author of evil, or at least one of his subordinate imps, in the capacity of a tempter. Leaving Byron altogether out of the question, we must say that most of the imitators of Goethe have represented their fiends as taking a great deal of unnecessary trouble. In perusing their grand dramatic efforts, the question ever and anon occurs to us, what temptation the tempter could have in besetting such pitiable milksops and nincompoops as the gentlemen who are selected for seduction? Astaroth may assault Saint Anthony, Apollyon wrestle with Bunyan, or Sathanas disturb Martin Luther at his meditations with perfect propriety – there is at least some measure of equality between the two contending parties. But why Lucifer, fallen angel though he be, should stoop so low as to attach himself personally to a hazy maunderer like Festus, when he might be doing an infinite deal of more effectual mischief elsewhere, entirely baffles our comprehension. We had given him credit for a keener sense of his own dignity and position. However, as Mr Bailey is no doubt an inspired poet, we must suppose that he knows best; though certainly, Lucifer, in his hands, is anything but a Morning Star.

It is rather remarkable that the majority of the poets who make free with Satan, or rather with Lucifer – for they affect the more dazzling and less murky name – restrict his apparition and familiar intercourse with their heroes to the Middle Ages. Their poems exhibit a sprinkling of alchemists, minnesingers, and crusaders, which abundantly mark out the period; and they seem to think that, by throwing back the epoch of the infernal visitation, they increase the elements of credulity, and establish a certain fitness of relation between Diabolus and his proposed victim. In this they commit a gross mistake. The fiend of the Middle Ages was not, as they represent him, a mere metaphysical atheist – a tiresome arguer on abstract principles, who could do little else than reproduce the most pernicious doctrines of a depraved scholastic philosophy for the recreation of his particular pupil. He was, on the contrary, a fellow of infinite fancy. Rely upon it, Saint Dunstan took him by the nose for something else than a mere foreshadowing of the opinions of Kant or Hegel. He did not visit Saint Anthony to pester him with perplexing questions. His allurements were of the flesh, fleshly; and, if monkish legends say true, they were oftentimes difficult to resist. He ensnared the avaricious through promises of gold, the sensual by pandering to their lusts, the ambitious by false pretences of worldly pre-eminence and honour. But everything was based on delusion. None of the Devil's gifts turned out worth the having; and Johann Faust himself in his conjuring-book, which still exists, and which we have seen, has borne sad testimony to the juggling of the infernal agents. As to the gifts of knowledge which the tempter could convey, these were limited to such feats of hocus-pocus as Hermann Boaz or the Wizard of the North could rival. To bring wine out of a wooden table – to change a truss of straw into a steed – or to produce the phantasm of a deer-hunt in a banqueting hall – were the masterpieces of demoniacal lore: and, paltry as they were, it must be confessed that, if any gentleman was willing to subscribe a scroll with his blood, such acquirements were a more likely bribe than the privilege of conversing with an imp as stupid as any lecturer on modern German rationalism. Therefore, in selecting the Middle Ages for their time, our poetasters have greatly erred. Lucifer, as they portray him, might possibly have cut a figure in a mechanics' institute – he is sadly out of place in the part and period which they have assigned him. In our deliberate opinion, they had better have let the Devil alone.

We repeat it – they had better let Lucifer alone. It is dangerous meddling with edge-tools. Temptations enough beset even the best of us, without the realisation of the actual corporeality of the tempter. Most hideously alarmed, we doubt not, would Mr Bailey be, if his poetical imaginations became practical realities, and Lucifer were to enter his study some time about midnight, when every other light in the house was extinguished, in the garb of a travelling scholasticus! If not more loftily elevated than the second story, he would bolt through the window like an arrow. We mean no reflection upon his personal valour; under such circumstances we should do the same, and consider it to be our bounden duty, even though a whole legion of cats were serenading beneath. But we have this safeguard against such visits, that we never represented ourselves as intimate with the opinions of Abaddon. Mr Bailey, on the contrary, knows all about him – nay, has no doubt whatever as to his ultimate felicitous destination. He is several universes beyond Milton. He foresees restoration to the whole powers of evil; and having thus, in his philosophy, kindly reinstated the fallen angels, of course those who have fallen by their agency become at once immaculate. But the subject is too grave to be pursued in a light strain. Great allowance is always to be made for poetic license; but there is a bound to everything; and we are compelled to record our deliberate opinion, that nowhere, in literature, can we find passages more hideously and revoltingly presumptuous than occur in the concluding pages of the Festus of Mr Bailey.

We have not now to deal with Mr Bailey. The author before us, Professor Longfellow, is infinitely his superior in poetical accomplishment, in genius, in learning, and in delicacy of sentiment. It was, we think, very well remarked by a former critic in this Magazine, that "he has studied foreign literature with somewhat too much profit." We adopt that observation as rather addressed to the form or shape of his compositions, than to the intrinsic value of his thoughts, or to their expression. For, in perfect candour, we must own that, in our opinion, Longfellow at this moment stands, beyond comparison, at the head of the poets of America, and may be considered as an equal competitor for the palm with any one of the younger poets of Great Britain. We cannot pass a higher eulogy; and it is not the less impartial, because in this his latest poem, The Golden Legend, he has laid himself open to censure, not only on the ground of palpable imitation of design, from the model of Goethe, but in other respects more nearly and more seriously affecting his ultimate reputation as a creative poet.

We have no hesitation in expressing our opinion that there is nearly as much fine poetry in Mr Longfellow's Golden Legend as in the celebrated drama of Goethe. In the latter there are, unquestionably, isolated scenes of singular power and magnificence. The opening song of the angels is, in point of diction, a grand effort of genius; and the wonderful conception of the "Walpurgis-Nacht on the Brocken," with all its weird and fantastic accessories, has been, and will be, cited by the admirers of the German poet as a proof of the vastness of his imagination, and of his consummate dexterity as an artist. To these, as specimens of first-class poetry, we may add the lyrical passages which are put into the mouth of Gretchen; but, granting all this, much matter still remains of inferior merit. The scenes in the witch's apartment, and in Auerbach's cellar – the conversations of Wagner, and even some of the more recondite dialogue between Faust and Mephistopheles – are clearly unworthy of Goethe. Notwithstanding an occasional affected mysticism, as if they conveyed, or were intended to convey, some occult or allegorical significance to the reader, these latter passages are, take them all in all, both dull and monotonous. In a drama like the Faust, we do not insist upon continuous action; but where action is excluded, we expect at least to find the absence of that grand source of interest compensated by a more than common display of poetical accomplishment. In the later Greek drama, the chorus, by the splendour of its lyrical outbursts, causes us to overlook the fact that it does not materially aid the action of the piece; but, in order to achieve this, who does not perceive that the genius of Euripides was strained to its utmost point? Sometimes, according to our view, Goethe is too metaphysical – at other times he condescends to a style beneath the dignity of a poet. Humour was by no means his forte. Whenever he intended to be humorous he failed; and a failure in that respect, as we all know, is peculiarly distressing. Out of the orgies of the drunken Leipzigers, and the hocus-pocus which is practised upon them, we can extract no food for merriment – the German Canidia, with her filthy attendants, is simply sickening – and Wagner is no better than an ass. Again, if we look to the relation which the represented characters bear to the world without, it is impossible to deny that Goethe has failed in giving extrinsic interest to his drama. There is nothing in it to indicate time, which, as much as locality, is an implied requisite in a poem, especially if it be cast in the dramatic form. The reason of this is obvious. Unless time and locality be distinctly marked, there is no room for that interest which is created by our willing surrender of belief to the poet. What we require from him is, that he shall establish that degree of probability which gives life and animation to the poem, by identifying it, to a certain extent, with human action and character. This hardly can be accomplished, unless, within the poem itself, we find distinct and unmistakeable materials for ascertaining the period to which it properly refers. Whatever may be the genius of the author, and however beautiful may be the form and disposition of his abstract conceptions, we still maintain that he sacrifices much, if he dispenses with or rejects those peculiar associations which enable the reader at once to recognise the tale as belonging to some known period of the world's history. Now, in the Faust, there is very little to mark the period. We may not feel the want, accepting the poem as we have it, on account of its intrinsic beauty: nevertheless it does appear to us that the effect might have been materially heightened, had Goethe introduced some accessories characteristic of the age in which Johann Faust of Wittenberg really lived; and that thus a greater degree of energy, as well as of verisimilitude, would have been imparted to his poem.

Many, we are well aware, will dissent from the opinions we have just expressed. The thorough disciple of Goethe has such an unbounded and obstinate admiration of his master, that he can discern beauties in passages which, to the sense of the ordinary reader, appear essentially commonplace; and he never will admit that any one of his works could have been improved by the adoption of a different plan. We honour such enthusiasm, though we cannot share in it now. A good many years have gone by since we, in the first fervour of our Teutonic zeal, actually accomplished a complete translation of the Faust, a treasure which we would very willingly have submitted to the public gaze, had we been intimately acquainted with a publisher of more than common daring. At that time we should have done eager battle with any man who ventured to impugn the merit of any portion of the drama. But, since then, our opinions on matters of taste have undergone considerable modification; and, whilst expressing, as we hope we have distinctly done, the highest admiration for the genius displayed in many parts of the work, we cannot regard it, on the whole, either as a perfect poem, or as one which, from its form, should recommend itself to later poets as a model.

Mr Longfellow will, in all probability, not receive that credit which is really his due, for the many exquisite passages contained in his Golden Legend, simply on account of its manifest resemblance to the Faust. Men in general look upon the inventive faculty as the highest gift of genius, and are apt to undervalue, without proper consideration, everything which appears to be not original, but imitative. This is hardly fair. The inventive faculty is not always, indeed it is very rarely, combined with adequate powers of description. The best inventors have not always taken the trouble to invent for themselves. Shakspeare stole his plots – so did Scott; and perhaps no more imitative poet than Virgil ever existed. Even in the instance before us, Goethe can hardly be said to have a right to the priority of invention, since Marlowe preceded him in England, and Friedrich Müller in Germany. But it must be confessed that Mr Longfellow does not possess the art of disguising his stolen goods. It is one thing to take a story, and to dress it up anew, and another to adopt a story or a plot, which, throughout, shall perpetually put you in mind of some notorious antecedent. Could we endure a second Hamlet, even though, in respect of genius, it were not inferior to the first? We do not think so. The fault lies, not in the conveyance of ideas, but in the absence of their proper disguise. No man can read six pages of The Golden Legend, without being reminded of the Faust, and that so strongly that there is a perpetual challenge of comparison. So long as the popularity of the elder poem continues, the later one must suffer in consequence.

Whether Mr Longfellow could have avoided this, is quite another question. We confess that we entertain very great doubts as to that point. In respect of melody, feeling, pathos, and that exquisite simplicity of expression which is the criterion of a genuine poet, Mr Longfellow need not shun comparison with any living writer. He is not only by nature a poet, but he has cultivated his poetical powers to the utmost. No man, we really believe, has bestowed more pains upon poetry than he has. He has studied rhythm most thoroughly; he has subjected the most beautiful strains of the masters of verbal melody, in many languages, to a minute and careful analysis; he has arrived at his poetical theories by dint of long and thoughtful investigation; and yet, exquisite as the product is which he has now given us, there is a large portion of it which we cannot style as truly original. In the honey which he presents to us – and a delicious compound it is – we can always detect the flavour of the parent flowers. He possesses, more than any other writer, the faculty of assuming, for the time, or for the occasion, the manner of the poet most qualified by nature to illustrate his immediate theme. He not only assumes his manner, but he actually adopts his harmonies. Those who do not understand the subject of poetic harmonies will be able, perhaps, to realise our meaning, if they will imagine what effect would be excited on their minds by hearing the air of "The Flowers of the Forest" reproduced with the accompaniment of new words. Just so is it with Mr Longfellow. He is a great master of harmonies, but he borrows them too indiscreetly. He gives us a very splendid concert; but then the music is not always, nor indeed in the majority of instances, his own.

Do we complain of this? By no manner of means. We are thankful that the present age is graced by such a poet as Mr Longfellow, whose extraordinary accomplishment, and research, and devotion to his high calling, can hardly be overrated. His productions must always command our deep attention, for in them we are certain to meet with great beauty of thought, and very elegant diction. He ought to be one of the best of translators; for, in consequence of the peculiarity which we have noticed, many of his original poems sound exactly like translations. At one time we hear the music of Uhland, at another of Grillparzer, at another of Goethe, and at another of Calderon. He has even thrown some of his poetry into the mould of Massinger and Decker; and, if we mistake not much, Paul Gerhard is one of his especial favourites. To the wideness of this harmonic range we should be inclined to ascribe many of his shortcomings. It is not an unqualified advantage to a poet to be able to assume at will the manner of another, and even, as Mr Longfellow frequently does, to transcend him. Every poet should have his own style, by which he is peculiarly distinguished. He should have his own harmonies, which cannot be mistaken for another's. When such is not the case, the poet is apt to go on experimenting too far. He is tempted, in versification, to adopt new theories, which, upon examination, will not bear to be tried by any æsthetical test. Southey was one instance of this, and Mr Longfellow is another. Southey had a new theory for every poem; Mr Longfellow, within the compass of the same poem, presents us with various theories. This surely is a blemish, because it necessarily detracts from unity of tone and effect. We are no advocates for close poetical precision, or the maintenance of those notes which, a century ago, were deemed almost imperative; but we think that poetic license may sometimes be carried too far. In various passages of The Golden Legend, Mr Longfellow, acting no doubt upon some principle, but one which is wholly unintelligible to us, discards not only metre, but also rhyme and rhythm – an experiment which has rarely been tried since Karl Wilhelm Justi presented the German public with the Song of Solomon in the novel form of an opera. The following dialogue may be sweetly and naturally expressed, but the reader will no doubt be at a loss to determine whether it belongs to the domain of poetry, or to that of prose: —

ELSIE

"Here are flowers for you,
But they are not all for you.
Some of them are for the Virgin,
And for Saint Cecilia.

PRINCE HENRY

As thou standest there
Thou seemest to me like the angel
That brought the immortal roses
To Saint Cecilia's bridal chamber.

ELSIE

But these will fade.

PRINCE HENRY

Themselves will fade,
But not their memory;
And memory has the power
To recreate them from the dust.
They remind me, too,
Of martyred Dorothea,
Who, from celestial gardens, sent
Flowers as her witnesses
To him who scoffed and doubted.

ELSIE

Do you know the story
Of Christ and the Sultan's daughter?
That is the prettiest legend of them all.

PRINCE HENRY

Then tell it to me;