The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal estimate when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any rate modern. The exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in themselves, perhaps, of very much gravity. Their report hardly enters the general ear; probably they do not always impose even on the literary men who adopt them. But they lead to a dangerous abuse of language. So we hear Cadmon, amongst our own poets, compared to Milton. I have already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished French critic for 'historic origins.' Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet, comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, the Chanson de Roland. It is indeed a most interesting document. The joculator or jongleur Taillefer, who was with William the Conqueror's army at Hastings, marched before the Norman troops, so said the tradition, singing of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and of the vassals who died at Roncevaux;' and it is suggested that in the Chanson de Roland by one Turoldus or Théroulde, a poem preserved in a manuscript of the twelfth century in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of the words, of the chaunt which Taillefer sang. The poem has vigour and freshness; it is not without pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied with seeing in it a document of some poetic value, and of very high historic and linguistic value; he sees in it a grand and beautiful work, a monument of epic genius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in its details he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, which are the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish it from the artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this is the sort of praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higher praise there cannot well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry of the highest order only, and to no other. Let us try, then, the Chanson de Roland at its best. Roland, mortally wounded, lays himself down under a pine-tree, with his face turned towards Spain and the enemy: 'De plusurs choses à remembrer li prist, That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. But now turn to Homer: “Ως φάτο· τοὺς δ ̓ ἤδη κατέχεν φυσίζους ανα ἐν Λακεδαίμονι αὖθι, φίλῃ ἐν πατρίδι γαίῃ. We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the Chanson de Roland. If our words are to have any meaning, if our judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise upon poetry of an order immeasurably inferior. Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may be very 'Then began he to call many things to remembrance,—all the lar.ds which his valour conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his lineage, and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him.'—Chanson de Roland, iii. 939-942. 'So said she; they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, Iliad, iii. 243-4 (translated by Dr. Hawtrey). dissimilar. But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we have lodged them well in our minds, an infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also the degree of this quality, in all other poetry which we may place beside them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from Homer, the poet's comment on Helen's mention of her brothers ;- or take his Α δειλώ, τί σφῶι δόμεν Πηλῆϊ ἄνακτι θνητῷ; ὑμεῖς δ ̓ ἐστὸν ἀγήρω τ ̓ ἀθανάτω τε. ἦ ἵνα δυστήνοισι μετ ̓ ἀνδράσιν ἄλγε ̓ ἔχητον'; the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus ;-or, take finally, his Καὶ σέ, γέρον, τὸ πρὶν μὲν ἀκούομεν ὄλβιον εἶναι 2. the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that incomparable line and a half of Dante, Ugolino's tremendous words: 'Io no piangeva; sì dentro impietrai. take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil:- Che la vostra miseria non mi tange, Nè fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale..." take the simple, but perfect, single line:In la sua volontade è nostra pace" 'Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? but ye are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to misery ye might have sorrow?'-Iliad, xvii. 443 -5. 2 Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, happy.' -Iliad, xxiv. 543. 'I wailed not, so of stone grew I within;—they wailed.'—Inferno, xxxiii. 39, 40. 'Of such sort hath God, thanked be his mercy, made me, that your misery toucheth me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike me.'Inferno, ii. 91-3. 5 In His will is our peace.'-Paradiso, iii. 85. Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth's expostulation with sleep: Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge...' and take, as well, Hamlet's dying request to Horatio: If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story... Take of Milton that Miltonic passage: 'Darken'd so, yet shone Above them all the arch angel; but his face add two such lines as: And courage never to submit or yield And what is else not to be overcome ... and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world.' These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate. The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labour to draw out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of poetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete examples; to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest quality, and to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed there. They are far better recognised by being felt in the verse of the master, than by being perused in the prose of the critic. Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some critical account of them, we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying down, not indeed how and why the characters arise, but where and in what they arise. They are in the matter and substance of the poetry, and they are in its manner and style. Both of these, the substance and style and manner on the other, matter on the one hand, the have a mark, an accent, of high beauty, worth, and power. But if we are asked to define this mark and accent in the abstract, our answer must be: No, for we should thereby be darkening the question, not clearing it. The mark and accent are as given by the substance and matter of that poetry, by the style and manner of that poetry, and of all other poetry which is akin to it in quality. Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, guiding ourselves by Aristotle's profound observation that the superiority of poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher truth and a higher seriousness (φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σTоνdαLÓтEрov). Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that the substance and matter of the best poetry acquire their special character from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and seriousness. We may add yet further, what is in itself evident, that to the style and manner of the best poetry their special character, their accent, is given by their diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. And though we distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, of superiority, yet |