Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

us we meet with much real fruit, we fully as often have our teeth set on edge by a cheat in stone, or an imitation in ice.

Dryden, to a facility equal to that of Cowley, in the exhibition of original and unexpected turns, has added the most exquisite judgment in using them. He was the first, and is perhaps the greatest master of that style of writing poetry which, in reality, is almost as far removed from simplicity as that of Cowley, but in which, by the better adaptation of the materials to the subject, the art of the poet is either altogether concealed, or else rendered pleasing by the very way in which it is exerted. The world, to be sure, had seen the two early pieces of Milton, L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso; but, before the publication of " Para dise Lost," Dryden had written much, and well. It remains to select a few passages, and first, as an instance of daring simile admirably adapted to the subject, take these couplets.

"I call'd thee, Nile; the parallel will stand;
Thy tides of wealth o'erflow the fatten'd land,
Yet monsters from thy large increase we find
Engender'd on the slime thou leav'st behind."
Medal.

The next would be out of taste in any thing but a satire.

"In fireworks give him leave to vent his spite, Those are the only serpents he can write."

Absalom & Achitophel.

The passages that follow are not a little Cowleian, excepting in the occasions of their introduction.

"The souls of friends, like kings, in progress are
Still in their own, though from the palace far:
Thus her friend's heart her country dwelling was,
A sweet retirement in a coarser place,
Where pomp and ceremonies entered not,
Where greatness was shut out, and business well
forgot."
Eleanora.

"One I beheld, the fairest of her kind,
And still the sweet idea charms my mind;
True, she was dumb; for Nature gazed so long,
Pleas'd with her work, that she forgot her tongue;
But smiling said, she still shall gain the prize,
I only have transferred it to her eyes."

Epistle to Kneller.

"Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers
Is reason to the soul; and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,

Not light us here; so Reason's glimm'ring ray
Was lent not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as these nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright Lord ascends our hemisphere,
So pale grow's reason at religion's sight,
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light."
Religio Laici.

Such is the style of Dryden, the great principle of which has, since his time, continued, and probably will continue, to be that of all successful English poets. This assertion, however, must of course be taken quite ge

That

nerally, and the word style understood in its most general sense, and not, by any means, as including those peculi arities of rythm or versification which are more properly classed under the denomination of mannerism. criticism, which turns back for models to the works of the early poets, is certainly most mistaken. The regions of poetical simplicity are quickly exhausted, and to expect further discoveries there, is to expect them in a country which has been surveyed and mapped over and over. Another reason for the gradual dereliction of simplicity in poetry is that general tendency to abstract ideas, which civilization and knowledge are always inducing.

The mind, less and less accustomed to details, with difficulty condescends to the consideration of simple impres sions, however beautiful and however new, and finds more excitement in the bringing together of ideas which are usually apart, and the generalizing of sensations which are at first naturally distinct. This evidently leads to what is called a metaphysical or artificial style of writing. To use the term, "artificial," however, as descriptive of a deviation from some fixed standard of style, is to give it a strictness which it has really never borne. There can hardly be a general or national artificial style, in any reasonable meaning of the word; nor is there any fixed standard of the natural and familiar. Those thoughts which are now farfetched must, as the minds of men become more accustomed to poetical images and expressions, grow gradually common. Some of our most familiar phrases, which are now trite and vulgar, are, in fact, in their elements, highly figurative and poetical, and probably were at first popular for that very reason. In short, it would appear, that future adventurers in metaphor will be less and less able than their predecessors have been, to leave behind the idioms of common use, and that the common place has a perpetual tendency to outstrip the artificial. If the principles of criticism, deducible from the foregoing, were applied to living poets, Mr Moore would perhaps be found too much, and Mr Wordsworth too little, addicted to the search of originality of point and metaphor. This, however, is dangerous ground, nor are such comparisons within the intention of the present remarks.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS OF EDINBURGH.

EDINBURGH is a city of palaces. The imposing natural grandeur of her situation has excited a kindred spirit in her architects; the dark huge masses of the old town, and the open and airy splendour of the new, associate with the surrounding magnificence of nature, and make "mine own romantic town" the wonder of Europe.-The spirit of public improvement is visibly abroad, and national taste seeks to associate with its pure and impressive literature the sister productions of architecture, painting, and sculpture. To accomplish this, we must be prudently patient-we cannot create architects like soldiers, by a conscription-nor rear splendid edifices by a spell-nor rob Athens to decorate Edinburgh, as Constantine did Rome to ornament Byzantium; we must maintain the same air of originality in our buildings which reigns in our literature, and make the one worthy of the other.-I confess, Mr North, I perused, with some pain, an article in your last Number, recommending the restoration of the Parthenon in the national monument, and pressing its reception at great length and with great learning. But there is no occasion to array a line of eminent names-of ancient nations, and famous edifices-the question lies at the very surface, and is decided by the natural good taste which is more or less in the bosom of every individual. I love the warm heartedness with which your correspondent presses the matter; I perfectly agree with him concerning the object; but we differ widely about the meanshe reasons wisely-but he reasons from wrong principles.

It is asserted, there is a wide-an unapproachable difference betwixt literature and art; and Homer and Virgil are pointed out as the well-springs of poetical genius, at which the muse has refreshed herself through all succeeding generations. But while we are called upon to imitate those immortal men—to do for Scotland what they did for Greece and Rome-hallow her deeds and her heroes, we are not permitted to adapt their verse to our achievements, and by a mere alteration of names, transfer at once the eminent poems of the Heathen into Christian service.-How this privilege is denied to poets and conceded to

architects I cannot comprehend.-All people, whose taste and genius influence and lead public opinion, are as well acquainted with the noble edifices of Europe, as they are with the works of Homer and Virgil-and the tables and shelves of architects are loaded and encumbered with drawings of all the buildings Greece or Italy possess.They accumulate there, till native taste is terrified at the contemplation-rebuked as the spirit of the Roman Triumvir was under the eye of Cæsar-till original talent is frightened into servile imitation-and then the nation is desired to build the columns of Trajan and Antonine, as beacons to light the way for public taste-an expensive mode of instruction, sacrificing ready money, and originality together-for the sake of erecting something that means nothing, unless accompanied with a spiral supplemental bas-relief, to represent the deeds it is designed to celebrate.-A Trajan's column will appear in Edinburgh, without its sculptural explanations, with as much propriety as the female quaker appeared naked in the streets of London as a sign to the people !-You will observe the ancients had always an obvious meaning in their works.-What is the difference, for it seems your correspondent has discovered there is one, between building an exact Parthenon, and carving an exact Apollo,-they are both servile plagiarisms-proofs, perhaps, of delicate hands and degenerate heads; and the carver is as original as the mason, and the mason as the carver.I should also think a Parthenon in Scotch freestone, will still be more like the original than the English Homer of Pope or Cowper is like the illustrious Greek, and millions claim their acquaintance with the divine poet through that medium alone I for one-a much more questionable mode of acquaintance than contemplating the Parthenon in drawings or models, to which I hope the taste of the country will always keep it confined.-That Michael Angelo, who proudly wrote Michael, poet, sculptor, and architect;" studied the Grecian buildings I have no doubtbut he was no servile borrower-in his borrowing he shewed the exuberance of his native riches-he did not borrow because of abject poverty-he

66

did not advise a resurrection of the Parthenon-nor accurate copies of triumphant columns-he had a prouder, a nobler aim-and he attained it.Your correspondent calls the poverty of England in superb structures an "extraordinary problem," and seeks to solve it, by saying it is from the absence of works of art—and so it is. How does he suppose Greece obtained her buildings? There was a time, I dare say, when she was poor in these ornaments-but Greece created them for herself-she was no importer of the architecture of other nations; her footsteps can only be traced in Egypt, and that faintly. In Greece and Italy the public money was lavished on public edifices-the noblest modern works in Britain are the result of private subscription-a demand for grandeur would soon command the attention of genius-but no demand is made the public offices of the most powerful nation on earth are like brick-stacks, and our proudest palaces are like barns and barracks.

But it seems this is the golden moment to introduce this piece of borrowed dignity-the only period when an edifice of " precisely the same description, and destined to exactly the same purpose, as the Parthenon of Athens," can be obtained; public encouragement calls loudly for something, and must, it seems, be gratified -must have a stolen morsel put into its mouth till something better can be made ready. Your correspondent calls out, like the cook at Camacho's wedding, to the impatient Sancho"Here friend, comfort thyself with this scum till the pot boils;" but a temple in honour of Minerva is one thing, and a monument in honour of Christian glory another. Why not advise at once a triumphal arch ? a structure quite in point-ready made-no cost for invention-can, like the Parthenon, be taken, "cut and dry," from the architect's portfolio, and will form a grand entrance through which the titled men of the south can approach "old Lady Edinburgh on her throne of rock." These were erections which ages and great names have consecrated; but their time has passed away-they stand memorials of ancient usage-and a Christian people have found out a better way of acknowledging the protection of providence. But a traveller, it seems, has discovered some resemVOL. VI.

blance between the Acropolis and the Calton-hill-they are both rocky ele vations-overlook two ancient cities→→→ "they are both rivers, look you," says Fluellen, " and there be salmons in both." And this unfortunate resemblance must be punished by the infliction of a corresponding edifice; and something of the same kind of threat is held darkly forth against the rock of Stirling. Can you tell me where Phidias sought for a precedent in choosing his site? and what temple he plundered to ornament it? But it seems we have quarries capable of being la boured into any forms which architects may be driven to borrow, and be cause our native rocks have submitted to every species of imitation which the carver's chisel can accomplish-because Waterloo-place possesses capitals delicately carved, exactly resembling some Athenian antiques, we must have an imitation on a grander scale; we have been but puny thieves of porticos and capitals hitherto-despise these petty larcenies-make a bold grasp, and be come the greatest and most unlimited architectural thieves of the age. But then, this will enable Edinburgh to have a school of architecture-to become the centre of taste, and the mis tress of chaste design-and you cannot imagine what wonderful things Scottish genius may accomplish, by placing a Parthenon before it. It may teach us to be honest, but we begin basely-it may instruct architects in the honourable feeling of the genius of one land to another to abandon their predatory inroads on broken down nations-but it sets a bad example; and instead of holding up a wise and salutary lesson, it will be hailed as a precedent, not as a warning; and there will be no end to the importation of ancient temples, while folly has a pound in her pocket, or Scotland an acre of rock for a foundation.

Your correspondent, however, confesses a kind of lurking suspicion, that, inasmuch as a poem equal in beauty to the Æneid, a statue as peerless as the Apollo, and a work as sublime as the Principia, might be produced in a few years, so might an edifice be imagined, rivalling the wonders of the Parthenon; but he has far less faith in the genius of architects than in the imagination of poets and sculptors-and lest some lucky creation of the kind should occur-some gifted

3 A

architect arise he calls loudly to "lay the vile clutch of restoration on the Parthenon," and occupy this classical rock-this Caledonian Acropolis, before native and original genius can come modestly forward with her proposal of a rival edifice. But Marcus Aurelius and Trajan repaired to Athens, to the foot of the Acropolis, to do what millions did, and what millions do, admire the grandeur of the Parthenon, and to borrow-not the whole edifice, like our Caledonian admirer-but conceptions worthy of the imperial dignity. This was rational and wise—just to the majesty of Rome and the dignity of Greece; these illustrious men did not distrust national taste like your correspondent, and though ages had passed away, and universal admiration was warm and unabated, though the worshippers of Minerva still thronged her porch, this admiration was not seized on as a pretext for transferring the building to one of the seven hills. But Dante, it seems, and Petrarch, admired the ancients so much, that they rather sought to restore their works to their original splendour and purity, than publish their own productions. Had they limited their genius to this generous labour, their names would have been silent to-day-they would not have figured in your correspondent's list of eminent men. And pray, what works did they restore? That they studied the ancient poets, there is evidence in their works, but they reared permanent structures of their own; and the Inferno, as far as I can judge from an imperfect translation, is one of the most original works that ever issued from the mind of man. All that can be quoted from tale or history-which poetry can give, or tradition supply

and all the illustrious names that can be ranked together, and the example of eminent nations added to the whole, go only to prove, that one man of genius admired another, and sought to rival not to plunder him. The want of variety in the forms and combinations of architecture is complained of, and the reproach of copyism endeavoured to be mitigated by the assurance, that originality is a most difficult thing-a beauty of rare emergence among architects. All that is very true, and nothing to the purpose-originality of any kind is a great rarity, and thousands of men have acquired

great names without being wholly original. I think there is a French critic, who proves the Eneid to be a mere cento from Homer and others, and yet who denies the charm which the great Roman has diffused over that tender and beautiful poem? His poem is not an Iliad in a less lofty language, as your Caledonian Parthenon would only be a Greek Parthenon, dégraded in a baser material. Eminence in architecture, according to your correspondent, can easily be obtained; there is no need of study to create-no waste of thought wanted;" he thinks best who never thinks at all." You have only to put forth your hand and steal

only steal what is valuable, and steal extensively. Why then, if to be original is a hopeless matter, seek you to establish a school for architecture, and purchase a model for forty thousand pounds? Acts of depredation may be committed without the extravagance of such an establishment. But then, the power of choosing well among the remains of ancient art seems, to your correspondent, almost as rare a gift as the faculty of original conception. But a structure decidedly original in its conception and detail is not desired, perhaps ought not to be expected; yet I should suspect that the Doric order is capable of assuming many beautiful arrangements equally sublime and simple as the Parthenon. No one is called on to invent new orders-much merit lies in making use of created things in a new and beautiful manner. As an order of architecture may be degraded by applying it to a mean purpose or injudiciously, so may it be elevated and honoured in being dedicated to a noble purpose, and applied in a masterly and unborrowed manner. This principle of tasteful selection and judicious admiration of other people's productions I never heard questioned or contradicted till I saw it in your Miscellany. That an architect wishes for edifices that cost no study, may be natural enough to those who are more alive to money than fame-who have no noble ambition within them-and who think that the glories of a nation are transferable things, mere matters to let-and the plunderer can inherit, with honour and renown, the spoils he has snatched. I should as soon think of monopolizing the glory of Marathon or Salamislaying claim at once to the retreat of

the ten thousand, as I would to the fame of the Parthenon; and I am sure the world would concede me the first as soon as the last. That many build ings in Edinburgh are copies from the Greeks shall not serve your correspon dent's turn, though he is willing enough to forget that, when he is calling out for an example one grand example, to instruct and elevate the grovelling intellects of the Caledonian architects. That the county-hall of Edinburgh is copied from the Eryctheum of Athens-that something else has been stolen from the Temple of Neptune, and another building, on which admiration has been lavished, is a fac simile of the Temple of Ceres, proves nothing but the unblushing servility of the whole race of architects, and which nothing can equal but the imprudent fortitude with which the restoration of the Parthenon has been proposed and pressed. What copy has ever equalled the original? or what copy is and has any pretension to share in the fame of the first maker. Take one example among ten thousand-a Christ in the Garden, supposed by many, and asserted by some, to be the divine work of that name by Corregio, was sold in London for a prodigious sum; but when Lord Wellington captured the real Corregio among the baggage of the French at Vittoria, the false Corregio lost all his lustre, and all his value. This glorious achievement of an uninstructed man, who studied in no school save that of nature, and who was indebted to his own hand and head alone for his fame, is now in Apsley-house, and is worth I am going an hundred miles to see. sorry, for the sake of your correspondent, that I cannot name the lucky holder of the copy. In walking through Edinburgh, a person, acquainted with other architecture, has his recollection continually exercised, and there is little time for admiration, in apportioning to each nation the bits of borrowed lustre which arise before him in all shapes-from a simple portico to an entire edifice. Like Constantine, your correspondent, in the haste to make his city great, consents to plunder what he has not leisure to create; the sameness of the buildings of Constantinople has been often censured, and the monotony of Prince's-street and George'sstreet, where

[ocr errors]

"Each alley has its brother,
"And half the platform just reflects the
other,"

has been felt by every admirer of
Edinburgh. I certainly think that
the want of originality in some of the
buildings which your correspondent
mentions, is a great drawback on their
fame. But he forgets the fame of
Scotland whenever he thinks of the
Greeks-he loves a Doric portico bet-
ter than he loves his country, and the
dust of Athens, or the cinders of Her-
culaneum have more of his reverence
than the dust of all the Douglasses.
He considers that the keystone in the
arch of Scottish renown is not in its
place till a successful inroad has been
made on the Doric-he contemplates
former thefts with a rapture he seeks
not to suppress-still his joy is not
perfect-nobody has stolen an entire
Doric temple-how blind we have
been to our own greatness! To select
with taste, to single out an object
worthy of being stolen, is the greatest
proof, in his eyes, of good taste and
genius, and as no person has ventured
so fearlessly and far as himself, he
hopes to outstrip all former achieve-
ments, and eclipse all other renown.

I come now to an important matter, a view of the Parthenon, which your correspondent has not taken, or rather carefully avoided. Perhaps he prefers it plundered of its brightest jewels, and robbed by time and the hand of man of its chief attractions, to what it was in its proudest hour, when its pediments and friezes spoke audibly in sculpture as with a tongue, and the divine statue of Minerva seemed by its awful majesty to justify the superstition of the Athenians. He has been silent about the sculpture, without which his Parthenon would be a crown deprived of its gems, or a nocturnal firmament without stars. He exultingly tells us of the crowds which its fame collected, but it never entered his head that the half of their delight arose from contemplating the matchless sculptures which filled the pediments and the tops, and the exterior and interior friezes. All their admiration is set down to the stately Doric-but had the friezes been emptied of their historical processions, and the pediments of their majestic figures, which represented great and momentous events the crowds of gazers

« ZurückWeiter »