SYNCRETIC LITERATURE.
“The Loves of Giles Scroggins and Molly Brown:” an Epic Poem. London: CATNACH.
The great essentials necessary for the true conformation of the sublimest effort of poetic genius, the construction of an “Epic Poem,” are numerically three; viz., a beginning, a middle, and an end. The incipient characters necessary to the beginning, ripening in the middle, and, like the drinkers of small beer and October leaves, falling in the end.
The poem being thus divided into its several stages, the judgment of the writer should emulate that of the experienced Jehu, who so proportions his work, that all and several of his required teams do their own share and no more—fifteen miles (or lengths) to a first canto, and five to a second, is as far from right as such a distribution of mile-stones would be to the overworked prads. The great fault of modern poetasters arises from their extreme love of spinning out an infinite deal of nothing. Now, as “brevity is the soul of wit,” their productions can be looked upon as little else than phantasmagorial skeletons, ridiculous from their extreme extenuation, and in appearance more peculiarly empty, from the circumstance of their owing their existence to false lights. This fault does not exist with all the master spirits, and, though “many a flower is born to blush unseen,” we now proceed to rescue from obscurity the brightest gem of unfamed literature.
Wisdom is said to be found in the mouths of babes and sucklings. So is the epic poem of Giles Scroggins. Is wisdom Scroggins, or is Scroggins wisdom? We can prove either position, but we are cramped for space, and therefore leave the question open. Now for our author and his first line—
“Giles Scroggins courted Molly Brown.”
Beautiful condensation! Is or is not this rushing at once in medias res? It is; there’s no paltry subterfuge about it—no unnecessary wearing out of “the waning moon they met by”—“the stars that gazed upon their joy”—“the whispering gales that breathed in zephyr’s softest sighs”—their “lover’s perjuries to the distracted trees they wouldn’t allow to go to sleep.” In short, “there’s no nonsense”—there’s a broad assertion of a thrilling fact—
“Giles Scroggins courted Molly Brown.”
So might a thousand folks; therefore (the reader may say) how does this establish the individuality of Giles Scroggins, or give an insight to the character of the chosen hero of the poem? Mark the next line, and your doubts must vanish. He courted her; but why? Ay, why? for the best of all possible reasons—condensed in the smallest of all possible space, and yet establishing his perfect taste, unequalled judgment, and peculiarly-heroic self-esteem—he courted her because she was
“The fairest maid in all the town.”
Magnificent climax! overwhelming reason! Could volumes written, printed, or stereotyped, say more? Certainly not; the condensation of “Aurora’s blushes,” “the Graces’ attributes,” “Venus’s perfections,” and “Love’s sweet votaries,” all, all is more than spoken in the emphatic words—
“The fairest maid in all the town.”
Nothing can go beyond this; it proves her beauty and her disinterestedness. The fairest maid might have chosen, nay, commanded, even a city dignitary. Does the so? No; Giles Scroggins, famous only in name, loves her, and—beautiful poetic contrivance!—we are left to imagine he does “not love unloved.” Why should she reciprocate? inquires the reader. Are not truth and generosity the princely paragons of manly virtue, greater, because unostentatious? and these perfect attributes are part and parcel of great Giles. He makes no speeches—soils no satin paper—vows no vows—no, he is above such humbug. His motto is evidently deeds, not words. And what does he do? Send a flimsy epistle, which his fair reader pays the vile postage for? Not he; he
“Gave a ring with posy true!”
Think of this. Not only does he “give a ring,” but he annihilates the suppositionary fiction in which poets are supposed to revel, and the ring’s accompaniment, though the child of a creative brain—the burning emanation from some Apollo-stricken votary of “the lying nine,” imbued with all his stern morality, is strictly “true.” This startling fact is not left wrapped in mystery. The veriest sceptic cannot, in imagination, grave a fancied double meaning on that richest gift. No—the motto follows, and seems to say—Now, as the champion of Giles Scroggins, hurl I this gauntlet down; let him that dare, uplift it! Here I am—
“If you loves I, as I loves you!”
Pray mark the syncretic force of the above line. Giles, in expressing his affection, felt the singular too small, and the vast plural quick supplied the void—Loves must be more than love.
“If you loves I, as I loves you,
No knife shall cut our loves in two!”
This is really sublime! “No knife!” Can anything exceed the assertion? Nothing but the rejoinder—a rejoinder in which the talented author not only stands proudly forward as a poet, but patriotically proves the amor propriæ, which has induced him to study the staple manufactures of his beloved country! What but a diligent investigation of the cutlerian process could have prompted the illustration of practical knowledge of the Birmingham and Sheffield artificers contained in the following exquisitely explanatory line. But—pray mark the but—
“But scissors cut as well as knives!”
Sublime announcement! startling information! leading us, by degrees, to the highest of all earthly contemplations, exalting us to fate and her peculiar shears, and preparing us for the exquisitely poetical sequel contained in the following line:—
“And so unsartain’s all our lives.”
Can anything exceed this? The uncertainty of life evidently superinduced the conviction of all other uncertainties, and the sublime poet bears out the intenseness of his impressions by the uncertainty of his spelling! Now, reader, mark the next line, and its context:—
“The very night they were to wed!”
Fancy this: the full blossoming of all their budding joys, anticipations, death, and hope’s accomplishment, the crowning hour of their youth’s great bliss, “the very night they were to wed,” is, with extra syncretic skill, chosen as the awful one in which
“Fate’s scissors cut Giles Scroggins’ thread!”
Now, reader, do you see the subtle use of practical knowledge? Are you convinced of the impotent prescription from knives only? Can you not perceive in “Fate’s scissors” a parallel for the unthought-of host “that bore the mighty wood of Dunsinane against the blood-stained murderer of the pious Duncan?” Does not the fatal truth rush, like an unseen draught into rheumatic crannies, slick through your soul’s perception? Are you not prepared for this—to be resumed in our next?