The Bridling of Pegasus: Prose Papers on Poetry

by Alfred Austin

Nor is it just to assert that Milton neglected the Muse during his career of worldly importance. It would be as fair to say the same of Dante, between whom and Milton, in point of genius as well as in vicissitudes of life, there is a striking similarity. Dante wrote the Vita Nuova at a comparatively early age, just as Milton wrote L’Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas in the springtime of his life. Then came a pause, indeed a long silence, for each of them, and it was not till they had reached the meridian of intellectual life that they betook themselves each to his magnum opus, Dante to the Divina Commedia, Milton to Paradise Lost. Any one observant of the habit of our best English song-birds must be aware that after singing, with a rapturous lyrical carelessness, through the vernal months, they become silent during the heat of summer. Then in early autumn they sing again, with more measure, more continence, let us say with more self-criticism and fastidiousness; and though the note may not be so boisterous, it is more mellow and mature.

No doubt Dante and Milton did not take this course, of deliberate purpose; with them, too, it was an instinct; but may we not suspect that poets would give themselves a better chance of writing works that posterity will not willingly let die, by observing a “close time,” a season of summer silence between the April of the soul when sing they must, and the advent of the early autumn days, with auburn tints, meditative haze, and grave tranquil retrospects. Who shall say when the fruits of harvest-time begin to ripen? But this clearly one may affirm, that but for the summer months, when they seem almost to be stationary in colour, they would never ripen at all. We know, I think, as a fact, that Milton commenced writing Paradise Lost some years before the restoration of the Monarchy, but no one can tell how much earlier still it was really commenced. Milton himself could not have told. The children of the Muse are conceived long before they quicken; and even a lyric, apparently born in a moment, was often begotten in the darkness and the silence of the days gone by. Works as colossal as the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost have deep and distant foundations, and the noblest passages of human verse are the unpremeditated outpourings of men who are habitually plunged in meditation. The least serious reflection upon the subject, if coupled with any insight into the methods and operations of imaginative genius, will satisfy anybody that in the very midst of his political controversies and ecclesiastical polemics Milton was in reality already composing Paradise Lost. Dante never returned to Florence after he was exiled, and it was in banishment that he wrote the Divina Commedia. Yet the “Sasso di Dante,” the stone on which he used to sit, gazing intently at the Duomo and at Giotto’s Campanile, is one of the sacred sights of the profane Tuscan city, and his townsmen had already learnt to speak of him as “One who had seen Hell.” What enabled him to see it so clearly was his familiarity with the ways of men and the uncelestial politics of Florence. It was through Beatrice and the passion of Love—Amor, che il ciel governi—that he gained access to Paradise, and a knowledge of those things of which he says:

... che ridire
Nè sa nè può qual di lassù discende.

But the sadness of Purgatory, and the horrors of Hell, these he learned from the wrangles of Guelph and Ghibelline, of these he obtained mastery by being, in A.D. 1300, Priore of the fairest, but most mercurial of cities. We have the authority of Shakespeare, who ought to have been well informed on that subject, that the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact, and the brisk air of public policy is the best corrective for the disease of narrow intensity to which both alike are peculiarly subject.

There would be no difficulty, I think, in showing that all the greater men of letters of the eighteenth century were largely indebted for the literary success they attained to the vivid interest they displayed in public affairs. To mention Dryden, Swift, Pope, Addison is to conjure up before the mind chapter upon chapter of English political history. Pope says:

Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory;

and not without some reason, for, like his friend Swift, he cared more for his own career than for either Party in the State. But no one can read the valuable notes appended by Mr. Courthorpe to his edition of the great satirist, without seeing how alive Pope was to the quidquid agunt homines of his generation. As for Swift, he was for a time, as the writer of an admirable paper upon him in the Quarterly Review asserts, the political dictator of Ireland. When Gibbon betook himself to the task of writing that monumental work which, I find, many persons to-day declare to be unreadable, but which, I suspect, will be read when the most popular books of this generation are forgotten, he wisely retired to the studious quietude of Lausanne. But he narrates how the description of the tactics of Roman legions and the victories of Roman Proconsuls was rendered more facile and familiar to him by his previous experience as a Captain of Yeomanry at home, while even his brief tenure of a seat in the British Parliament enabled him to grasp with more alacrity and precision the legislative conduct of the Conscript Fathers.

In the nineteenth century which, despite its many privileges—not the least of which, perhaps, was that of being able to express a very high opinion of itself, without at the time being contradicted—enjoyed no immunity from the general laws of human nature, I think the proposition still holds good that men of letters who aspire to high distinction do well not to disdain altogether the politics of their time. I have already referred to Wordsworth, and ventured to suggest that he suffered in some degree, as a poet, from being nothing but a poet. Byron presents a marked contrast in this respect; and I am still of opinion, which I am comforted to find is shared by most persons who are men of the world, and by men of letters who are something more than men of letters, that Byron is, on the whole, the most considerable English poet since Milton. Art for Art’s sake is a creed that has been embraced by too many critics of our time. Do we not find in this circumstance an explanation of their tendency to extol the quietistic and solitary poets, and, on the other hand, to depreciate the poets who deal with action and the more complex features of life? It is the business of poets to deal with the relation of the individual to himself, to the silent uniform forces of nature, and to other individuals, singly and collectively: in other words, to be dramatic or epic, as well as lyrical or idyllic. All poets of the first rank are both; yet the quietistic and purely introspective critics assign a place, and a prior place as a rule, in the front rank, to poets who are only second. I cannot think that conclusions reposing on such demonstrably unsound canons of criticism will permanently hold their ground. Byron contrived to crowd into a very short life a vast amount both of poetry and of public activity; acting upon his own recorded opinion that a man was sent into the world to do something more than to write poetry. A writer who, I fancy, belongs to the school, now happily becoming obsolete, whose verdict was that Byron’s poetry, though good enough for Scott, Shelley, and Goethe, is only “the apotheosis of common-place,” has recently expressed the opinion that “Byron would not have gone to Greece if he had not become tired of the Contessa Guiccioli.” As far as she is concerned, I can only say, as one who knew her, and has many letters written by her on the subject of Byron, that if at any time she ever became indifferent to him, her affection for him experienced a marvellous revival. As for the suggestion that he went to Greece because he was tired of his companion, it surely was not necessary for a man to go to Greece to get rid of a woman of whom he was tired, and certainly Byron was not the man to consider the “world well lost” for a woman. But the letters he wrote to his “companion” from Greece attest that his affection for her was still not slight. In any case there is no necessity to cast about one for any reason to explain Byron’s going to Greece, beyond the exceedingly simple one that he was a man of action as well as a poet. Had he lived, instead of dying, for Greece, I cannot doubt that English poetry would have reaped a yet more glorious harvest from him, thanks to his incidental experiences as a soldier and a statesman.

The theme is one that easily lends itself to illustration; but enough perhaps has been said to justify the conclusion that it is for the best and highest interests of literature that those who love it before all other things, and cherish it beyond all other considerations, should nevertheless take a large and liberal view of what constitutes life, and should include in the excursions of their experience and in the survey of their contemplation what are called politics, or the business and interests of the State. I do not propose that they should be vestrymen, though I cannot forget that Shakespeare did not disdain to concern himself in the local business of Stratford-upon-Avon. For men of letters to be willing to interest themselves in politics, politics generally, must be interesting. The issues raised must be issues of moment and dignity, issues affecting the greatness of an Empire, the stability of a State, or the general welfare of humanity. In a country like our own, where Party Government prevails, it is not easy, indeed it is impossible, for a man of letters to interest himself in politics without inclining, through sympathy and conviction, to one Party in the State rather than to the other; and there are occasions, no doubt, when Party issues are synonymous with the greatness of the Empire, the stability of the State, and the welfare of mankind. But a wise man of letters will do well to stand more or less aloof from all smaller issues, and to avoid, as degrading to the character and lowering to the imagination, Party wrangles that are mere Party wrangles and nothing more.

There have been seasons in the history of the human race, melancholy seasons for the human mind, the “evil days” spoken of by Milton, when men of letters could not, with any self-respect, mix in politics. How much more highly we should think of Seneca if that literary Stoic had not been a minister of Nero. There was no room for a self-respecting man of letters in French politics during the reign of Napoleon I., none during the earlier years of the reign of Napoleon III., unless he happened to be a sincere admirer of a corrupt and brilliant despotism. There are despotisms that are corrupt, or what is equally bad, vulgar and servile, without being brilliant; and I am not alone in entertaining the fear lest unadulterated Democracy—that is to say, the passions, interests, and power of a homogeneous majority, acting without any regard to the passions and interests that exist outside of it, and purged of all respect for intellect that does not provide it with specious reasons and feed it with constant adulation—should inflict upon us a despotism under which, again, there will be no room in the domain of politics for men of letters who respect themselves. It is not the business of a man of letters to take his politics either from a Monarch or a Mob, or to push his fortunes—slightly to alter a celebrated phrase—by those services which demagogues render to crowds. If the love and pursuit of literature do not make a man more independent in character, more disinterested in his reasonings, more elevated in his views, they will not have done for him what I should have expected from them. That politicians pure and simple are becoming less imbued with the literary spirit is, I think, certain, and it is to be regretted, because polite Politics are almost as much to be desired as polite Literature, and should be little less imbued with the Horatian sentiment, Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros. Many years ago I heard a prominent politician in the House of Commons reproach Disraeli, then Leader of the House, with servility to the Crown, for no other reason that I could see than that, in explaining certain communications that had passed between the Queen and the Prime Minister, he had made use of the customary mode of speaking of the Sovereign. The imperturbability of Disraeli in debate under the strongest provocation was notoriously one of the secrets of his authority and influence. But it was plain on that occasion, when he rose to reply, that he had been irritated by the charge. But how did he rebut it? “The right honourable gentleman,” he said, “has been pleased to accuse me of servility to the Crown. Well, Sir, I appeal to gentlemen on both sides of the House, for they are gentlemen on both sides of the House——” There was a sudden outburst of cheering. He did not finish the sentence, but turned away to another matter. Could there have been a more crushing yet a more parliamentary and well-bred rebuke? Mr. Gladstone did not possess the same quiet power of reproval. But his courtesy was uniformly faultless, even when he most indulged in indignant invective. It is told of Guizot, that, when President of the Council in France, on being interrupted by his opponents with unseemly clamour, he observed, “I do not think, gentlemen, the solution of the controversy will be assisted by shouting; and such clamour, however loud, will never reach the height of my disdain.” One does not ask politicians to disarm; but they must use the rapier, not the tomahawk; and it is Literature, and Literature only, that can adequately teach them how to employ with ample effect the seemly weapons of debate. If politicians and even Monarchs are wise, they will respect Literature. After all, Literature has always the last word. “A hundred years hence,” said a French poet to a rather saucy beauty, “you will be just as beautiful as I choose to say you were”; and the verses in which he said this have survived. Politicians whom Literature ignores are in the same position. If Literature ignores them they will be forgotten. If Literature condemns them they will stand condemned. But Literature, in turn, should be fair-minded and sincere, not disingenuous, not a partisan. It wields, in the long run, enormous power, and therefore has corresponding responsibilities. If the public taste in any direction, in politics, in letters, or any of the other Arts grows debased, and current critical opinion follows the debasement, Literature can only stand apart, or loftily reprehend them. Of all influences, Literature is the most patient, the most persistent, and the most enduring. Unfairness cannot long injure, malevolence cannot permanently damage or depreciate it; for, as I have said, Literature, lofty self-respecting Literature, always has the last word, the final hearing, political partisanship having no power over the final estimation in which it is held. At the beginning of the nineteenth century current Tory criticism strove to belittle men of letters who happened to be Liberals; and, since Toryism was then in the ascendant, it for a time, but only for a time, partially succeeded. In our day, and for some few years past, the influence of Liberalism has been visibly uppermost in current criticism, which has in turn done scant justice to men of letters suspected of holding different views. To the latter, as to the great Liberal poets and other men of letters in the earlier days of the nineteenth century, such patent partisanship can do no lasting injury. Perhaps men of letters might themselves raise the standard of dispassionate criticism were they always fair to each other, and not, as I fear sometimes happens, be ungenerous to contemporaries, who for one reason or another are not much favoured by them. There is a curious passage in the 11th Canto of the Purgatorio of the Divina Commedia, where Dante recognises a certain Oderesi, and compliments him on the talent he showed when on earth as an illuminator or miniature painter. Oderesi replies that Franco Bolognese was his superior in that art, but that from jealousy he had failed to allow as much, and adds