CHAPTER XLIII.
Veteres revocavit artes.—Horace.
Since I came hither I have heard strange news.—King Lear.
Two days after my long conversation with Tyrrell, I called again upon that worthy. To my great surprise he had left Cheltenham. I then strolled to Vincent: I found him lolling on his sofa, surrounded, as usual, with books and papers.
“Come in, Pelham,” said he, as I hesitated at the threshold—“come in. I have been delighting myself with Plato all the morning; I scarcely know what it is that enchants us so much with the ancients. I rather believe, with Schlegel, that it is that air of perfect repose—the stillness of a deep soul, which rests over their writings. Whatever would appear common-place amongst us, has with them I know not what of sublimity and pathos. Triteness seems the profundity of truth—wildness the daring of a luxuriant imagination. The fact is, that in spite of every fault, you see through all the traces of original thought; there is a contemplative grandeur in their sentiments, which seems to have nothing borrowed in its meaning or its dress. Take, for instance, this fragment of Mimnermus, on the shortness of life,—what subject can seem more tame?—what less striking than the feelings he expresses?—and yet, throughout every line, there is a melancholy depth and tenderness, which it is impossible to define. Of all English writers who partake the most of this spirit of conveying interest and strength to sentiments, subjects, and language, neither novel in themselves, nor adorned in their arrangement, I know none that equal Byron; it is indeed the chief beauty of that extraordinary poet. Examine Childe Harold accurately, and you will be surprised to discover how very little of real depth or novelty there often is in the reflections which seem most deep and new. You are enchained by the vague but powerful beauty of the style; the strong impress of originality which breathes throughout. Like the oracle of Dodona, he makes the forest his tablets, and writes his inspirations upon the leaves of the trees: but the source of that inspiration you cannot tell; it is neither the truth nor the beauty of his sayings which you admire, though you fancy that it is: it is the mystery which accompanies them.”
“Pray,” said I, stretching myself listlessly on the opposite sofa to Vincent, “do you not imagine that one great cause of this spirit of which you speak, and which seems to be nothing more than a thoughtful method of expressing all things, even to trifles, was the great loneliness to which the ancient poets and philosophers were attached? I think (though I have not your talent for quoting) that Cicero calls the consideratio naturae, the pabulum animi; and the mind which, in solitude, is confined necessarily to a few objects, meditates more closely upon those it embraces: the habit of this meditation enters and pervades the system, and whatever afterwards emanates from it is tinctured with the thoughtful and contemplative colours it has received.”
“Heus Domine!” cried Vincent: “how long have you learnt to read Cicero, and talk about the mind?”
“Ah,” said I, “I am perhaps less ignorant than I affect to be: it is now my object to be a dandy; hereafter I may aspire to be an orator—a wit, a scholar, or a Vincent. You will see then that there have been many odd quarters of an hour in my life less unprofitably wasted than you imagine.”
Vincent rose in a sort of nervous excitement, and then reseating himself, fixed his dark bright eyes steadfastly upon me for some moments; his countenance all the while assuming a higher and graver expression than I had ever before seen it wear.
“Pelham,” said he, at last, “it is for the sake of moments like these, when your better nature flashes out, that I have sought your society and your friendship. I, too, am not wholly what I appear: the world may yet see that Halifax was not the only statesman whom the pursuits of literature had only formed the better for the labours of business. Meanwhile, let me pass for the pedant, and the bookworm: like a sturdier adventurer than myself, ‘I bide my time.’—Pelham—this will be a busy session! shall you prepare for it?”