Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

such quick succession that there was not | dently a great comfort to him. He seems time for any one to have a strong predom- to say liberavi animam meam — it is my inance. The poem which goes by the religious exercise. We remember to have name of the "İbis " - the outpouring of heard a story about a Roman Catholic in his wrath against a treacherous friend a distant colony who had not seen a is too much of a literary exercise, too rich priest for many years. When one arrived, in historical and literary illustrations, to he at once went to confession, the satisallow of our regarding it as a genuine ex-faction of which he presently conveyed pression of passion at white heat. to his friends in the words, "Light as a feather! light as a feather! concerned to draw the Protestant moral associated with the story, but there is something similar in Ovid's“ In mea nunc demens crimina fassus ero," except that "demens" is light-headed rather than light-hearted, and that Ovid, unlike the colonist, harbors some Protestant doubts about the value of confession.*

And in the second place we may well believe that a miserly and grasping spirit was foreign to his nature-no common merit in Augustan Rome, where, if Ovid is to be trusted, the worship of the "almighty dollar" was the one worship which defied the sceptics and philosophers. Still we are rather weary of listening to this Aristides, calling himself the just, and wickedly suspect that he is not ill pleased to

Compound for sins he's most inclined to,
By damning those that he's no mind to.

None we think can doubt that the poet himself was aware now and then of a certain ludicrous inconsistency in the insertion of his copy-book maxims when he is in the very act of recommending all that is basest in practice. If we turn to the "Heroides" we shall see that he makes some of his dramatis persona go through the same farce. Helen feels that the goddess of Spartan respectability insists on indignation, and she declaims about the insult offered to a stainless life by the proposals of the Phrygian stranger; but soon "coming down from her Iambics," as Lucian says, she is satisfied with discussing the practical difficulties of escaping detection. Ovid cynical is Ovid at his worst. He reminds us of the fearful picture drawn by Thucydides of the moral results of the faction war in Corcyra, "where virtue was laughed down and silenced." It is this that makes the "Ars Amandi" so much worse than the "Amores." "For Heaven's sake," he says, "in a love affair don't make a confidant of your dearest friend. Ten to one he will supplant you. I have done it my self before now. "" And then with the true Ovidian humor "Dear! dear! what have I done! laying bare my heart's deepest secrets," as if he ever had a secret for more than ten seconds! With a slight change of meaning we might apply to his autobiographical confidences the old lines: :

His Cupid is a blackguard boy That runs his link full in your face. These confessions, however, are evi

we are not

His humor is hardly to be guessed at by those who only know the "Fasti." It is seldom or never absent from the "Ars Amandi" and the "Amores," and lights up some of the most sombre epistles of the "Tristia." The saying in the "Amores," "Apte jungitur herous cum breviore modo," may be applied generally to his way of blending the ludicrous with the pathetic. Ariadne mourning for Theseus is really pathetic; but Ovid goes on to describe how she is consoled by Bacchus; and, for the life of him, he cannot help introducing his motley train, with old Silenus and his donkey, and the deep cups which have made him so "malus" an "eques." Again he is miserable and despondent over the barbarism which surrounds his exile. There are the imbecile Scythians who find Latin words ridiculous (not unlike some other barbarians who greet the intelligent foreigner at Folkestone), and the would-be Greeks who wear Persian trousers; but he is consoled with the thought, "Sovereignty even among the blind is something," and he concludes, "Inter Sauromatas ingeniosus ero."

And how modern is the feeling in some of the following hints!

Ladies should be cheerful; the poet never could stand Tecmessa and Andromache (this, by the way, explains why tragedy thought better of offering Ovid the buskin). He cannot fancy Tecmessa whispering lux mea, and other pretty little lovers' phrases.

In letter-writing you must not be too eloquent. Declamation is horrid and makes you detested. Ladies must, however, learn to write; solecisms are shocking in a love-letter.

"Si quid prodest delicta fateri."

66

How amusing it is to see the biter bit, and Venus laughing from her temple hard by the Forum at the lawyers, at the advocates turned clients. Love, he says in another place, is an admirable legal adviser, and will make a scoundrel of you in no time.

The waters of Baiæ are not always | know you for their father. They do not wholesome. Some have come away com- indeed know how to deceive, but all else plaining (like the Frenchman who found is their father's." Or the picture of Hersociety sweet, but too sweet") that the mione's desolate childhood: " She only climate is anything but salubrious. knew Helen for her mother, because she was so beautful; " or Leander's "light of love, the only star in heaven above; or Laodamia's charming dream of Protesilaus narrating his "moving accidents by flood and field," and the delightful kisses that interrupted the narrator; or Dido's "Let me be called your hostess, not your bride. Dido will bear to be anything, so she be yours;" or again, Canace's petition for the "urn however tiny" to hold the ashes of guilty mother and slaughtered child; or lastly, Briseis' pitiful en

This last phrase is from the "Heroides," and there is no lack of humor in that correspondence. Helen understands Paris, and lets him know it. She begs him to lay aside military boasting, he does not look the part. He must remem-treaty to Achilles: "I shall not be a ber too that he has not deeper feelings than her other admirers, but only more fluency.† Cydippe, ill and miserable, and bored with the post, wonders that her lover Acontius has more of the favor of the gods than herself. "Perhaps to them too he has written a long letter, and they are captivated with the reading of it!"

The second book of the "Tristia" contains a most curious justification of the "Ars Amandi," based on the amount of questionable Roman literature in every body's hands, and the still more questionable lives of certain men of letters; as well as an enumeration of discreditable precedents in history and mythology, not excluding the origin of the imperial family. Besides, "if every sinner was hit, Jove's arsenal would be empty." Finally the "Tristia" opens with a half-ludicrous, half-pathetic warning to his book, to take its place on his Roman shelves, without holding intercourse with a certain trio it will find there. It is true, he says, that the unhappy poems which cost him his exile only taught what everybody knew, "but I would not have you show affection for them, even though they offer to inspire you with it."

But we have said enough in illustration of our poet's humor, and must before we conclude give a few examples of his tenderness. What can be more pathetic than Hypsipele's appeal to Jason: "Your children are very like you, any one would

"Bella gerant fortes-tu, Pari semper ama." "Nec tibi plus cordis, sed magis oris adest."

heavy burden on your fleet." Each and all of these show the real elegiac feeling, genuine self-compassion, or tearful reproach; or else, as in the instance of Laodamia's tremulous joy, there is the true tragic irony of a partly-told tale, whose sad catastrophe all the world knows.

There is much surely in all this, in his humor, in his naïveté, in his modern tone, in the music of his verse, and the sweetness of his pathos, to command for Ovid at least the respectful mention of lovers of poetry: they may grant that he is not profound and still retain for him his rights among the "Heliconiadum comites."

We may recall an English poet who has not consulted Ovid in vain, and to whom one of the first of living critics has not hesitated to assign a very high place in our poetry. Against Herrick this same charge of want of depth must be brought, yet he is rarely disparaged on this account. Though these two poets are dif ferent in many ways, they have this in common, that the ruling divinities of their style are simplicity and brightness. And if any one compares, by way of criticism, "the shallow streams that run dimpling all the way," we freely confess our gratitude for the dimples, and our preference for such a Highland burn over the unlit gulfs, the abysmal profundities of the obscurantists, which rarely emit one ray of intelligence, and then only to the initiated.

"Publica non curat sidera noster amor."

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

Kemittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co.

Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

[This fine Latin version of the "Rock of Ages," almost an impromptu, we believe, by Mr. Gladstone, was first published about twenty-five years ago, in the Guardian; but as it has often since been asked for, our readers will, we are sure, thank us for republishing it, which we do with the author's permission. -ED. Spectator.]

JESUS, pro me perforatus,
Condar intra tuum latus :
Tu, per lympham profluentem,
Tu, per sanguinem tepentem,
In peccata mî redunda,
Tolle culpam, sordes munda.

[blocks in formation]

3

From The Edinburgh Review.
SHELLEY AND MARY."

extreme complexity of Shelley's character and from the exceptional incidents which marked his short but eventful life. It is not our intention on the present occasion to add anything to what has already been written in this journal on his poetical genius, or to anticipate what we hope to say on a future occasion of his prose writings; for in our judgment Shelley's prose compositions are, in beauty of style and vigor of thought, only one degree less remarkable than his poetry. Our present object is to endeavor to present to our readers a more faithful picture of the character of the man - a character which, in his lifetime, was totally misun

working its way through the mists of time to its meridian lustre. We have been incited and encouraged to attempt this task because we have had access, through the indulgence of the Shelley family, to papers and documents not previously pub. lished or divulged, which enable us to add some important facts and original documents to the record of a life at once so

THE biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley has been repeatedly attempted, but never written. The memorials we possess of a most interesting life are disjointed and imperfect. No one has had the skill or the opportunity to weave them into a lifelike portrait of a man remarkable not only for the lustre of his poetical genius, but for the singular charm of his character and the strange and tragical incidents of his existence. The notes appended by Mrs. Shelley to her edition of his poems and essays are valuable, but she was herself a personage in the drama of his life, who deserves to figure in the place near-derstood, and which even now is slowly est her husband. Mr. Hogg had access to some of the Shelley papers, and he was selected to write the life because he had been one of Shelley's earliest friends; but the vulgarity and egotism with which he executed a portion of his task were intolerable, and it was broken off at the very period when the life of the poet became most interesting. Mr. Garnett's "Relics of Shelley are marked by a higher feel-interesting and so imperfectly known. ing of the subject. Mr. Rossetti's edition of Shelley's poems, with notes, is more characteristic of the ingenuity of the editor than of the genius of the poet. Mr. Buxton Forman has collected with scrupulous and conscientious care, from various sources, in his great classical edition of the poems and prose works of Shelley, every detail that can throw light on the purity of the text and the circumstances under which they were composed. Lady Shelley herself, the daughter-in-law of the poet and the faithful guardian of his relics and his fame, published in 1859 a small volume entitled " Shelley Memorials, from Authentic Sources," which has gone through several editions, and is, thus far, the most ample disclosure of the Shelley papers and correspondence. But the record is still incomplete, partly because some of the most important materials to be derived from the family archives have not been made public, and partly from the

[ocr errors]

• Shelley and Mary. A Collection of Letters and Documents of a Biographical Character, in the possession of Sir Percy and Lady Shelley, for private circulation only. 3 vols. 8vo. 1882.

The volumes, whose title we have prefixed
to these pages have been prepared for the
press by Lady Shelley, with the object of
preserving from destruction the precious
records in her possession. They com-
prise all the letters and other documents
of a biographical character at present in
the hands of Shelley's representatives.
The collection extends to twelve hundred
and forty-three pages, and it is probable
that even these memorials may hereafter
be enlarged. A good many of these pa-
pers have already been published, espe-
cially the letters from Italy, in the works
to which we have referred. Some of them
are of too private and confidential a na-
ture to be placed before the public.
we are persuaded that the selection we
feel ourselves justified in making from
the remainder, with the permission of
those who are most deeply interested in
the subject, will not only gratify the ever-
extending circle of admirers of Shelley's
genius, but will raise and ennoble the es-
timate of his disposition and character.

But

But the task is a difficult one, and can only, within these limits, be very imper

« VorigeDoorgaan »