Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 407, September, 1849

BULLER

Hear Virgil —

"Mœnia lata, videt, triplici circumdata muro,
Quæ rapidus flammis ambit torrentibus amnis
Tartareus Phlegethon, torquetque sonantia saxa."

No Phlegethon with torrents of fire surrounding and shaking Byron's Hell. I do not understand it – an unaccountable blunder.

NORTH

In next stanza, what is gained by

"How profound
The gulf! and how the giant element
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound"?

Nothing. In the First Stanza, we had the "abyss," "the gulf," and the agony – all and more than we have here.

SEWARD

Check-mate.

TALBOYS

Confound the board! – no, not the board – but Hurwitz himself could not play in such an infernal clatter.

NORTH

Buller has not got to the word "infernal" yet, Phillidor – but he will by-and-by. "Crushing the Cliffs" – crushing is not the right word – it is the wrong one – for not such is the process – visible or invisible. "Downward worn" is silly. "Fierce footsteps," to my imagination, is tame and out of place – though it may not be to yours; – and I thunder in the ears of the Chess-players that the first half of the next stanza – the third – is as bad writing as is to be found in Byron.

TALBOYS

Or in North.

NORTH

Seward – you may give him likewise a Bishop —

"Look back:

Lo! where it comes like an Eternity!"

I do not say that is not sublime. If it is an image of Eternity – sublime it must be – but the Poet has chosen his time badly for inspiring us with that thought – for we look back on what he had pictured to us as falling into hell – and then flowing diffused "only thus to be parents of rivers that flow gushingly with many windings through the vale" – images of Time.

"As if to sweep down all things in its track,"

is well enough for an ordinary cataract, but not for a cataract that comes "like an Eternity."

TALBOYS

"Charming the eye with dread – a matchless cataract,

Horribly beautiful."

SEWARD

One game each.

TALBOYS

Let us go to the Swiss Giantess to play out the Main.

NORTH

In Stanza Fourth – "But on the verge," is very like nonsense —

TALBOYS

Not at all.

NORTH

The Swiss Giantess is expecting you – good-bye, my dear Talboys. Now, Buller, I wish you, seriously and calmly, to think on this image —

"An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,
Like Hope upon a death-bed."

Did Hope – could Hope ever sit by such a death-bed! The infernal surge – the hell of waters – the howling – the hissing – the boiling in endless torture – the sweat of the great agony wrung out – and more of the same sort —these image the death-bed. Hope has sat beside many a sad – many a miserable death-bed – but not by such as this; and yet, here, such a death-bed is hinted at as not uncommon – in a few words – "like Hope upon a death-bed." The simile came not of itself – it was sought for – and had far better have been away. There is much bad writing here, too – "unworn" – "unshorn" – "torn" – "dyes" – "hues" – "beams" – "torture of the scene" – epithet heaped on epithet, without any clear perception, or sincere emotion – the Iris changing from Hope upon a death-bed to Love watching Madness – both of which I pronounce, before that portion of mankind assembled in this Tent, to be on the FALSETTO – and wide from the thoughts that visit the suffering souls of the children of men remembering this life's greatest calamities.

SEWARD

Yet throughout, sir, there is Power.

NORTH

Power! My dear Seward, who denies it? But great Power – true poetical Power – is self-collected – not turbulent though dealing with turbulence – in its own stately passion dominating physical nature in its utmost distraction – and in her blind forces seeing a grandeur – a sublimity that only becomes visible or audible to the senses, through the action of imagination creating its own consistent ideal world out of that turmoil – making the fury of falling waters appeal to our Moral Being, from whose depths and heights rise emotions echoing all the tones of the thundering cataract. In these stanzas of Byron, the main Power is in the Cataract – not in the Poetry – loud to the ear – to the eye flashing and foaming – full of noise and fury, signifying not much to the soul, as it stuns and confounds the senses – while its more spiritual significations are uncertain, or unintelligible, accepted with doubt, or rejected without hesitation, because felt to be false and deceitful, and but brilliant mockeries of the Truth.

TALBOYS

Spare Byron, who is a Poet – and castigate some popular Versifier.

NORTH

I will not spare Byron – and just because he is a Poet. For popular Versifiers, they may pipe at their pleasure, but aloof from our Tents – chirp anywhere but in this Encampment; and if there be a Gowdspink or Yellow-hammer among them, let us incline our ear kindly to his chattering or his yammering, "low doun in the broom," or high up on his apple-tree, in outfield or orchard, and pray that never naughty schoolboy may harry his nest.

SEWARD