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THE STEALTHY SCHOOL OF CRITICISM.
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THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW
AND THE
STEALTHY SCHOOL OF CRITICISM.
A LETTER
TO
ROBERT BUCHANAN, ESQ.
(
AliasThomas Maitland, Esq.)
BY
D. G. ROSSETTI.
- As a critic, the poet Buchanan
- Thinks the Pseudo worth two of the Anon—
- Into Maitland he's slunk;
- Yet what gift of the skunk
- Guides the shuddering nose to Buchanan?
LONDON:
ELLIS & GREEN, 33 KING ST.
, COVENT GARDEN.
1871.
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STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN, PRINTERS,
Castle St. Leicester Sq.
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Sir, or Sirs,
It is necessary at times, I believe, for the
guardians of public safety to
search all kinds of unsavoury
accumulations; and doubtless it must be no
uncommon
case for two dead dogs to lie there, one beneath the other.
Were the hidden one conceivably wanted for some purpose
of judicial
evidence, the task of digging it out would not be
a pleasant one; and more
time would inevitably be lost than
if the upper carcass, perhaps purposely
paraded, happened
to be the one required. A kindred operation to this is
the
cause why my present favour has not reached you earlier;
but I still
trust that, for all that, you may prove no loser
by the delay.
The expedients of ordinary delinquency might furnish
many illustrations
to my present subject. For instance,
‘It worn't me, it were
'im,’ is not an elevated plea of self-
defence; nor does it
suggest, at first hearing, either the
expression of truth or the protection
of honesty. It is
generally heard by a policeman; and his usual answer is
a
grip of the speaker's collar, resulting finally, as the case may
be,
in a roll in the gutter, a night in the station-house, or a
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term of penal servitude.
Every man, Sir, must be his own
‘Force’ on occasion.
As you read this, you feel the first
clutch; and I assure you I am going to
‘run you in.’
It is now some years since a good deal began to be said
as to the
irresponsible nature of anonymous criticism; and
some literary journals were
established in which the man
who spoke for or against another was no more
nameless at
length than the man he spoke of. Such journals there are
still, honestly pursuing their new course; and among these,
the
Contemporary Review might, for anything I know to
the
contrary, have been fairly reckoned till now. But in
October of this year
at any rate (whether or not for the
first time I do not know,) this Review
seems desirous to
prove that, if the anonymous in criticism was but a
creeping
caterpillar stage, the nominate too was no better than a
homely transitional chrysalis, and that the ultimate butterfly
form for a
critic who likes to sport in sunlight and yet to
elude the grasp, is after
all the pseudonymous. And yet,
capitally as this seems to combine apparent
fearlessness with
real safety, there are dangers too even here. What cap
,
flung at random, brought the gay wings down? I cannot
tell; but I
know that they have somehow come into my
hand for dissection, and that I
find the interests of entomo-
logical science too much concerned to let the
creature
go again.
With the odds on this footing, I feel there is no great
merit on my
part if I at once give you one or two points at
the outset of the game.
Accordingly, for one thing, I shall
abstain from all opportunities of
calling you a Stealthy
Person. I know, and you know, and the reader knows
that
such you are; and it is only untruths or uncertainties that
call
for repeated proclamation. One other point I have no
choice but to forgo. I
have never read a single line of
your acknowledged works, or even set eyes
on one of them;
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therefore whatever sport they might afford I must cheerfully
resign, feeling no more able to claim such a privilege than
would a
sportsman who had a glorious day's hunting offered
him on condition of his
repeating the Church Catechism one
hundred times. Nevertheless, when I take
up your pseu-
donymous writings, and, as it were, glance from my seat
in
the saddle over a fine hunting country, teeming everywhere
with the
Common Skunk and the Scotch Fox, I feel that,
with such game before me, I
have no cause to complain.
The two animals above-named present no very salient
points of generic
distinction; yet the question between
Thomas Maitland and Robert Buchanan,
as spokesman in
this instance, was doubtless of some moment to you. I
am not the only individual attacked in your article; and
(taking advantage
of my commended modesty to put my-
self out of the question for the
moment,) I am disposed to
concur heartily in your own view, that what
Robert
Buchanan might have to say about Algernon Swinburne
or William
Morris was exactly what no mortal out of
Bedlam could be expected to listen
to. A wild whirl
towards the fire-grate, amid an atmosphere highly
charged
with the more explosive parts of our language, would be
the
fate, with most readers, of any Review which should
furnish, in an
undisguised form, that particular commodity
to its public. Thomas Maitland,
on the other hand,—
unheard-of and indeed non-existent,
— merely embodied
himself unobtrusively with the obvious
features of the situa-
tion: as, firstly, — a Publisher who has
some expensive
poetic copyrights to uphold, and is quite indifferent
to
their author's dignity or wishes in the means he takes for
their
supposed advantage: secondly, — some other poetry,
published
elsewhere, and causing palpitations to this Pub-
lisher: thirdly,
— a Review at command, to abuse such poets
in: and lastly,
— a Critic just suited to serve the Publisher's
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turn, and be paid for it. The
proceedings of all parties
here seemed of a kind too well known in the
‘literary’
world to excite much remark.
However, as it is, by help of some new electric light, we
have both
Robert and Thomas, — Scotch Bard and English
Reviewer in one,
— to contemplate; and what better fun
than to interpret between
you and your double, now that
one can see the puppets dallying? In the very
first page,
Thomas, having vowed Fee Fo Fum against certain poets,
thinks it wise, by the first law of nature, to give Robert a
gentle slap
too, all of course for self-preservation and for his
own good in the end.
Poor anxious little soul! What
man that has a laugh in him but must half
forgive you?
For does one not here see you lying back for a moment
with
a rapid rub of the hands, and hear you chuckle, ‘Catch
them
nosing me out after that!’ Further on, Robert, having
stood in his corner like a good boy for some time, gets a
sudden pat on the
back from Thomas at my expense, and is
informed that whatever merit may
exist in an otherwise
worthless poem called
‘Jenny,’ he alone is responsible for.
This question can, no doubt, be easily
settled by others
who have read your acknowledged writings. For me,
not
being in that position, I must rank myself with those —
pro-
bably a minority — who cannot pretend to an opinion on
the subject. You tell me, however, that the poem of yours
thus plagiarized
by me is entitled, ‘Artist and Model.’
This reminds me that my ‘true profession’ is that of
an
Artist; and without ever having seen you, I would venture
to
predict that, as a Model for certain characters, you would
be invaluable.
Thus, should it chance to be the case that
your calling as poet had
somewhat failed you before you took
to criticism, and that your calling as
critic were to languish
a little henceforward, I would invite you to drop
in on me
some light day in the slack season, when I would at once
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gladly commence a ‘Leprosy of Gehazi’ or a ‘Death of
Ananias.’ You already know that I am shy of exhibiting
my pictures; so I need
not remind you that the above pseu-
donyms, while profitable (a shilling an
hour is the profes-
sional fee), might really pass unnoticed.
I observe that, on reading this poem of
‘Jenny,’ Robert-
Thomas ‘fairly lost patience.’ Why,
you sorry trickster!
Do you think anyone will believe, with the facts and
your
precious farrago of malice before him, that you ever lost
patience in your life? You are nothing but patience, to
your own little
ends. What man but yourself would not
indeed have lost patience much less
than midway, when he
found himself betrayed by envy into skulking and
shuffling
behind a wretched mask, and all to traduce another man
because he too writes verses as best he may?
So this brings us to our true ground, Robert-Thomas;
and I will now
tell you what I mean and do not mean. I do
not mean to object for a moment
to whatever any well-
hidden Scotch head, or ‘well-known American
hand’ ap-
proved by it, may have to say against the poetic value
of
what I write for my own satisfaction. I publish it, and
there it is
as a prey for the gods and dogs. Whether at
present any accepting fire
descend on it, or it be merely
digested by the consumers of carrion, that
can matter
little. It has a soul to be blessed or damned, and one
fate
or the other it will meet in the long run, quite inde-
pendently of what may
be said or done to it now. It is
amusing, doubtless, to see the very same
contempt now
brought to bear on one's own writings that one has long
ago
seen lavished on the same poets who are now cited against
one in
scornful comparison: yet is not this also written in
the book of Dishonest
Mediocrity, and has not every one
read it there too often to pay it much
attention now?
‘Morbidity,’
‘Self-consciousness,’
‘Affectation’—why, these
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are catch-words that have
been almost identified by turns, in
the mouths of fools and liars (and that
but yesterday), with
every name one most warms to, — Shelley,
Keats, Coleridge,
Browning, Tennyson, and who not else besides? If one
has
no pretension to share the fulness of their glory, this at least
is something that one clearly has attained to in common with
them. It is
pitiful enough to see the would-be successors of
such a critic as
Christopher North, — that ‘bantam
Thun-
derer,’ as ‘a modern writer’ has
called him, — now reduced to
exorcising new verse-makers in the
very name of the great
poet who wrote —
- ‘When I heard from whom it came,
- I forgave you all the blame,
- Musty Christopher;
- I could not forgive the praise,
- Fusty Christopher.’
Another silly device which has been tried a thousand
times is the one
which you re-exemplify by calling all poetic
work of this immediate day
‘sub-Tennysonian.’ This, if
it has any meaning, must
mean that, were it not for
Tennyson's exemplar, this English generation
would present
the unusual phenomenon of giving birth to no leading
faculty in verse. This is improbable on the face of it;
and as
‘mute inglorious Miltons’ are also improbable in
these days of increased opportunity, it is most likely that the
poets who
have written with Tennyson in the field are the
very same who would have
written without him. Besides,
real analogies are easy to trace, in every
poet, to his pre-
decessors, and especially his immediate ones; in
addition
to that other large class of critical accusations of plagia-
rism which are mere untruth and nothing else.
To dwell on any charges against myself of poetic in-
feriority, is
what, as I have said, I do not intend doing.
Any one has a perfect right to
make these, so long as he
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confines himself to the literary question; and if he does
so
under a mask, that merely shows timidity and lack of
self-confidence from
one cause or another, and need not of
itself invalidate his criticism,
though it must of course,
when discovered, place him at a disadvantage with
the reader.
But in this instance, under the guise of criticism, the
use made by
me of poetic means has been grossly and
unscrupulously misrepresented; and
it is my intention to
show that your article in the
Contemporary Review, put
forward as it is under an outer
cover of falsehood, is no less
in itself throughout an example of literary
duplicity. I
need hardly say that it is not for your benefit that I
take
this course, since you know just as well as I do how true
it is
that you have spoken in great measure untruly; but
certain honest people
will read what you have said without
any means of discovering its bad
faith; and that means
I will afford them if they like to hear me.
In many phases of outward nature, the principle of chaff
and grain
holds good, — the base enveloping the precious
continually; but
a lie was never yet the husk of a truth.
Thresh and riddle and winnow it as
you may, — let it fly
in shreds to the four winds, —
falsehood only will be that
which flies and that which stays. Thus the
sheath of deceit
which this undertaking of yours presents at the
outset
insures in fact what we shall find to be its real character
to
the core.
[But here, parenthetically, let me address the general
reader; for a
certain impatience soon becomes inevitable in
speaking on points of moment
to one whose personal conduct
makes it impossible to address him without
some contempt.
The primary accusation, on which this writer grounds all
the rest,
seems to be that others and myself ‘extol fleshliness
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as the distinct and supreme end of poetic and pictorial art;
aver that poetic expression is greater than poetic thought;
and by
inference that the body is greater than the soul, and
sound superior to
sense.’ As my own writings are alone
formally dealt with in the
article, I shall confine my an-
swer to myself; and this must first take
unavoidably the
form of a challenge to prove so broad a statement. It
is
true, some fragmentary pretence at proof is put in here
and there
throughout the attack, and thus far an oppor-
tunity is given of contesting
the assertion; so let this be
undertaken as rapidly as possible.
A Sonnet entitled
‘Nuptial Sleep,’ is quoted and abused
at page 338 of the Review, and is there dwelt
upon as a
‘whole poem’ describing ‘merely
animal sensations.’ It
is no more a whole poem in reality than
is any single stanza
of any poem throughout the book. The poem, written
in
sonnets and of which this is one sonnet stanza, is entitled
‘The House of Life;’ and even in my first published in-
stalment of the whole work (as
contained in the volume
under notice,) ample evidence is included that no
such
passing phase of description as the one headed
‘Nuptial
Sleep’
could possibly be put forward by the author of the
House of Life as
his own representative view of the subject
of Love. In proof of this, I will
direct attention (among
the love-sonnets) to Nos. 2, 8, 11, 17, 28, and
more espe-
cially 13, which, indeed, I had better print here.
- Sweet dimness of her loosened hair's downfall
- About thy face: her sweet hands round thy head
- In gracious fostering union garlanded;
- Her tremulous smiles; her glances' sweet recall
- Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial;
- Her mouth's culled sweetness by thy kisses shed
- On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led
- Back to her mouth which answers there for all:—
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- What sweeter than these things, except the thing
-
10In lacking which all these would lose their sweet:—
- The confident heart's still fervour; the swift beat
- And soft subsidence of the spirit's wing,
- Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,
- The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?
Any reader may bring any artistic charge he pleases
against the above
sonnet; but one charge it would be im-
possible to maintain against the
writer of the series in which
it occurs; and that is, the wish on his part
to assert that the
body is greater than the soul. For here all the
passionate
and just delights of the body are declared —
somewhat
figuratively, it is true, but unmistakably — to be as
nought
if not ennobled by the concurrence of the soul at all times.
Moreover, nearly one half of this series of Sonnets has
nothing to do with
love, but treats of quite other life-
influences. I would defy any one to
couple with fair quo-
tation of Sonnets 29, 30, 31, 39, 40, 41, 43, or
others, the
slander that their author was not impressed, like all
other
thinking men, with the responsibilities and higher mysteries
of
life; while Sonnets 35, 36, and 37, entitled
‘The Choice,’
sum up the general view taken in a manner only to be evaded
by
conscious insincerity. Thus much for the
House of Life,
of which the Sonnet
‘Nuptial Sleep’ is one stanza, embody-
ing, for its small constituent share, a
beauty of natural uni-
versal function, only to be reprobated in art if
dwelt on (as I
have shown that it is not here) to the exclusion of those
other
highest things of which it is the harmonious concomitant.
At page 342 an attempt is made to stigmatize four short
quotations as
being specially ‘my own property,’ that is, (for
the
context shows the meaning,) as being grossly sensual;
though all guiding
reference to any precise page or poem in
my book is avoided here. The first
of these unspecified
quotations is from the
‘Last Confession,’ and is the descrip-
tion referring to the harlot's laugh, the
hideous character of
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which, together with its
real or imagined analogy to the
laugh heard soon afterwards from the lips
of one long
cherished as an ideal, is the immediate cause which makes
the maddened hero of the poem a murderer. Assailants
may say what they
please; but no poet or poetic reader will
blame me for making the incident
recorded in these seven
lines as repulsive to the reader as it was to the
hearer and
beholder. Without this, the chain of motive and result
would remain obviously incomplete. Observe also that these
are but seven
lines in a poem of some five hundred, not one
other of which could be
classed with them.
A second quotation gives the last two lines
only of
the
following sonnet, which is the first of four sonnets in the
House of Life, jointly entitled
‘Willowwood.’
- I sat with Love upon a woodside well,
- Leaning across the water, I and he;
- Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me,
- But touched his lute wherein was audible
- The certain secret thing he had to tell:
- Only our mirrored eyes met silently
- In the low wave; and that sound seemed to be
- The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell.
- And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers;
-
10And with his foot and with his wing feathers
- He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth.
- Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair,
- And as I stooped, her own lips rising there
- Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.
The critic has quoted (as I said) only the last two
lines, and he has
italicized the second as something un-
bearable and ridiculous. Of course
the inference would
be that this was really my own absurd
bubble-and-squeak
notion of an actual kiss. The reader will perceive at
once,
from the whole sonnet transcribed above, how untrue such
an
inference would be. The sonnet describes a dream or
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trance of divided love
momentarily reunited by the longing
fancy; and in the imagery of the dream,
the face of the
beloved rises through deep dark waters to kiss the
lover.
Thus the phrase, ‘Bubbled with brimming kisses,
&c.’ bears
purely on the special symbolism employed,
and from that
point of view will be found, I believe, perfectly simple
and just.
- “What more prize than love to impel thee?
- Grip and lip my limbs as I tell thee!”
Here again no reference is given, and naturally the reader
would suppose
that a human embrace is described. The em-
brace, on the contrary, is that
of a fabled snake woman and
a snake. It would be possible still, no doubt,
to object on
other grounds to this conception; but the ground inferred
and relied on for full effect by the critic is none the less
an absolute
misrepresentation. These three extracts, it will
be admitted, are
virtually, though not verbally, garbled
with malicious intention; and the
same is the case, as I
have shown, with the sonnet called
‘Nuptial Sleep,’ when
purposely treated as a ‘whole poem.’
The last of the four quotations grouped by the critic as
conclusive
examples consists of two lines from
‘Jenny.’
Neither some thirteen years ago when I wrote this poem,
nor last year
when I published it, did I fail to foresee
impending charges of
recklessness and aggressiveness, or to
perceive that even some among those
who could really
read
the poem and acquit me on these grounds might still hold
that the
thought in it had better have dispensed with the
situation which serves it
for framework. Nor did I fail to
consider how far a treatment from without
might here be
possible. But the motive powers of art reverse the
require-
ment of science, and demand first of all an
inner
standing
point. The heart of such a mystery as this must be plucked
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from the very world in
which it beats or bleeds; and the beauty
and pity, the self-questionings
and all-questionings which
it brings with it, can come with full force only
from the
mouth of one alive to its whole appeal, such as the speaker
put forward in the poem,— that is, of a young and thought-
ful
man of the world. To such a speaker, many half cynical
revulsions of
feeling and reverie, and a recurrent presence
of the impressions of beauty
(however artificial) which
first brought him within such a circle of
influence, would
be inevitable features of the dramatic relation
portrayed.
Here again I can give the lie, in hearing of honest
readers,
to the base or trivial ideas which my critic labours to
connect with the poem, as easily as to his pardonable
personal vanity in
the attribution of its origin.
It would be humiliating, need one come to serious detail,
to have to
refute such an accusation as that of ‘binding
oneself by solemn
league and covenant to extol fleshliness
as the distinct and supreme end of
poetic and pictorial art;’
and one cannot but feel that here
every one will think it
allowable merely to pass with a smile by the
foolish fellow
who has brought a charge thus framed against any
reasonable
man. Indeed, what I have said already is substantially
enough to refute it, even did I not feel sure that a fair
balance of my
poetry must, of itself, do so in the eyes of
every candid reader. I say
nothing of my pictures; but
those who know them will laugh at the idea.
That I may,
nevertheless, take a wider view than some poets or critics,
of
how much, in the material conditions absolutely given to man
to
deal with as distinct from his spiritual aspirations, is ad-
missible within
the limits of art, — this, I say, is possible
enough, nor do I
wish to shrink from such responsibility.
But to state that I do so to the
ignoring or overshadowing of
spiritual beauty is an absolute falsehood,
impossible to put
forward except in the indulgence of prejudice or rancour.
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I have selected, amid much railing on my critic's part,
what seemed
the most representative indictment against me,
and have so far answered it.
Its remaining clauses set forth
how others and myself ‘aver that
poetic expression is greater
than poetic thought . . . . and sound superior
to sense;’
an accusation elsewhere, I observe, expressed by
saying that
we ‘wish to create form for its own
sake.’ If writers of verse
are to be listened to in such
criticism on each other, it might
be quite competent to me to prove from
the works of my
friends in question that no such thing is the case with
them;
but my present function is to confine myself to my own
defence.
This, again, it is difficult to do quite seriously.
It is no part of my
undertaking to dispute the verdict of any
contemptuous contemporary on my
own executive success or
non-success: but the accusation here is not
against the
poetic value of certain work, but against its primary and
(by assumption) its admitted aim. And to this I must
reply that so
far, assuredly, not even Shakspeare himself
could desire more arduous human
tragedy for development
in art than belongs to the themes I venture to
embody, how-
ever incalculably higher might be his power of dealing
with
them. What more inspiring for poetic effort than the
terrible
Love turned to Hate,— perhaps the deadliest of all
passion-woven
complexities,— which is the theme of
‘Sister
Helen,’
and in a more fantastic form of
‘Eden Bower,’— the
surroundings of both poems being the mere machinery
of a
central universal meaning? — What again more so than the
savage penalty exacted for a lost ideal, as expressed in the
‘Last Confession’? — than the outraged love for man and
burning
compensations in art and memory of
‘Dante at
Verona’
; than the baffling problems which the face of
‘Jenny’ conjures up; or than the analysis of passion and
feeling attempted
in the
‘House of Life’ and others among
the more purely lyrical poems? I speak here, as
does my
page: 18
critic in the clause cited,
of
aim not of
achievement; and so
far,
the mere summary is instantly subversive of the prepos-
terous imputation.
To assert that the poet whose matter is
such as this
, aims
chiefly at ‘creating form for its own sake,’
is in
fact almost an ingen
i
uous kind of dishonesty; for surely
it delivers up the asserter
at once, bound hand and foot, to
the tender mercies of contradictory proof.
Yet this may
fairly be taken as an example of the spirit in which a
con-
stant effort is here made against me to appeal to those who
either
are ignorant of what I write or else belong to the
large class too easily
influenced by an assumption of autho-
rity in addressing them. The false
name appended to the
article must, as is evident, aid this position vastly:
for who,
after all, would not be apt to laugh at seeing one poet
confessedly come forward as aggressor against another in the
field of criticism?
It would not be worth while to lose time and patience in
noticing
minutely how the system of misrepresentation is
carried into points of
artistic detail; giving us, for example,
such statements as that the
burthen employed in the ballad
of
‘Sister Helen’ ‘is repeated with little or no alteration
through thirty
four verses,’ whereas the fact is that the
alteration of it in
every verse is the very scheme of the
poem. But these are minor matters,
quite thrown into the
shade by the critic's more daring sallies. In
addition to the
class of attack I have answered above, the article contains
of
course an immense amount of personal paltriness; as, for
instance,
attributions of my work to this that or the other
absurd derivative source;
or again, pure nonsense (which
can have no real meaning even to the writer)
about ‘one art
getting hold of another and imposing on it its
conditions and
limitations’; or indeed what not besides? To all
this, no
more attention is possible than that which Virgil enjoined
Dante to bestow on the meaner phenomena of his pilgrimage.
page: 19
Thus far therefore, reader,
and no further, my parenthesis
addresses you.]
And now, Robert-Thomas, the question arises, whether
to leave you to
seek cover again, or to accept a little more
of the sport you so lavishly
afford. The reader who has
kept my side till now may fairly claim you for a
closing
run, so I choose the latter course.
I observe, pseudonymous Sir, that one point on which
you feel bound
to be inexorable is that of ‘sincerity.’ You
would
‘rather believe that Mr. Rossetti lacks comprehension
than that
he is deficient in sincerity.’ He has, for his part,
no
pretensions to resemble Mr. Thomas Maitland so strikingly
as the latter
deficiency would indicate, and he must once
more leave it to the reader to
decide whether he can claim
to comprehend Mr. Robert Buchanan. He thinks he
can,
— motive, action, and all; and he had tried to give an
oppor-
tunity of judging on some points between himself and you.
Let
us see if perhaps a few others may still remain to con-
sider.
You are prodigiously alive to the scale of comparison
among poets. Not
only can you by this time clearly dis-
cern the greatness of Tennyson and
the suggestive value
of Buchanan to the plagiarists of his day, but you are
able
to assure us confidently that ‘the great poet is Dante,
full
of the Thunder of a great Idea;’ (what gastric antidote may
so serious a case demand?) ‘Milton, unapproachable in the
serene white light of thought and sumptuous wealth of
style; Shakspeare,
all poets by turns and all men in suc-
cession; and Goethe, always
innovating and ever indifferent
to innovation for its own sake.’
By the bye, might not
these last three powerful definitions of poets
furnish us with
some instructive symbolic analogy to our own Poet-Critic?
page: 20
Whether the latter is like
Shakspeare, ‘all poets in turn,’
I cannot tell, for
his lays are unknown to me; but I will
undertake to say that he can
sometimes be at least two
‘men in succession,’ and,
let us hope, with all deserved
success; that, like Goethe, he sometimes
innovates, as when,
for instance, he supersedes anonymity by pseudonymity
in
criticism, being also perhaps indifferent to the innovation
for its
own sake, but presumably loving it for the sake of
his so beloved mistress
Sincerity; and that, like Milton, he
occasionally has some
‘serene white light’ cast upon his
‘sumptuous wealth of style,’ as in the present humble
epistle, which for its own part has no prouder pretension
than to show
him unmistakeably as he is.
On the other hand, Sir, a poet of the third or even of the
second
order is a thing you cannot tolerate. Indeed, how
could it be hoped that
you should view with any degree of
forbearance such poetunculi as some you
enumerate, to wit,
Gower, Skelton, Waller, Cowley, Gascoigne,
Silvester,
Carew, Donne, or ‘the fantastic Fletcher’?
But mercy
upon us, Robert-Thomas, how about Ben Jonson and Pope?
Why,
Sir, Jonson may indeed not be a Shakspeare, nor Pope
a Milton; but for all
that, each of them still goes singing
down the path of fame with the
Roberts of his day in one
pocket and the Thomases in the other, and feels
the weight
of them no more than of a pocket-handkerchief or suchlike
advisable provision.
However I find I have nearly done with you; for indeed,
once
identified, do you not become in the sight of all men
your own best
‘sworn tormentor’? Who will then fail to
see clearly
all the palpitations which preceded your final
resolve in the great
question whether to be or not to be your
acknowledged self when you became
an assailant? And
yet you are he who, from behind your mask, ventures
to
charge another with ‘bad blood,’ with
‘insincerity,’ and
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Manuscript Addition: 499997
Editorial Description: A number (not in DGR's hand) written in the bottom right corner of the
MS.
the rest of it, (and this where poetic fancies are alone in
question); while every word on your own tongue is envious
rancour, and
every stroke from your pen perversion of truth.
Yet after all, there is
nothing wonderful in the lengths to
which a fretful poet-critic will carry
such grudges as he may
bear, while publisher and editor can both be found
who are
willing to make such means available for business purposes,
even to the clear subversion of the first professed principle
of the Review
which they conduct. Well, ‘Mr. Rossetti,’
you say,
“
‘has nothing particular to tell or teach you;
’
” yet
he has told you here and there a thing, and
others may
prove willing to enforce the teaching still further. He has
‘extreme self-control’ too, as I learn from you, and
‘a
careful choice of diction’; gifts which, you see,
he has not
refused to turn to your advantage. Lastly I notice that
‘there is not a drop of piteousness in Mr. Rossetti.’
And
no more there is — for a Stealthy Critic.
It is well to find that great achievements can still call
forth at
times the runic fervour of the Skald. The facts of
your pseudonymous career
would seem already to have been
thrown into the form of a spirited
mono-duologue, which
runs as follows: —
- I am two brothers with one face,
- So which is the real man who can trace?
- (My wrongs are raging inside of me.)
- Here are some poets and they sell,
- Therefore revenge becomes me well.
- (O Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)
- My books aren't bought; it's a burning shame,
- But it doesn't pay to puff my name:
- (My wrongs are boiling inside of me.)
page: 22
-
10So at least all other bards I'll slate
- Till no one sells but the Laureate.
- (O Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)
- I took a beast of a poet's tome
- And nailed a cheque, and brought them home;
- (My wrongs were howling inside of me.)
- And after supper, in lieu of bed,
- I wound wet towels round my head.
- (O Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)
- Of eyelids kissèd and all the rest,
-
20And rosy cheeks that lie on one's breast,
- (My wrongs were yelling inside of me.)
- I told the worst that pen can tell, —
- And won't the Laureate love me well?
- (O Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)
- I crowed out loud in the silent night,
- I made my digs so sharp and bright:
- (My wrongs were gnashing inside of me.)
- In our Contemptible Review
- I stuck the beggar through and through.
-
30(O Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)
- I tanned his hide and combed his head
- And that bard, for one, I left for dead.
- (My wrongs are hooting inside of me.)
- And now he's wrapped in a printer's sheet,
- Let's fling him at the Laureate's feet.
- (O Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)
As only three among our living poets, you know, (and
these
comparatively recent ones,) were ever so weak as to
write a ballad with a
burthen, the above must obviously be,
for once, an original and unsuggested
poem by one of the
three; but by which of them, I leave you to determine.
And now, how to conclude? You are fond of a
Shaksperian illustration.
Well, Lucio, as you may remem-
ber, was but a foul-mouthed nobody; but in an
evil hour he
page: 23
lied against things above
him, and his sentence was whipping
and hanging. I have whipped you; but you
have shown
such a faculty for securing rope enough that you may be
left
to hang yourself.
I remain, Sir, or Sirs,
Your obedient humble servant,
D.G. Rossetti.
November, 1871.
P.S. I have spared you this much of my time and
patience, and it is
all that I can afford. Therefore (turning
for the last time an untruth of
yours to truer purposes,) let
me say that you may for the future, in either
of your cha-
racters, responsively ‘bite, scratch, scream,
bubble, sweat,
writhe, twist, wriggle, or foam,’ to your
indignant heart's
content, but neither thought of mine nor lash of mine
will
be turned your way again.
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