Now, we are not inclined to go quite so far as this. There are many subjects with respect to which the multitude are cognizant of truth, or at least of some truth; and those subjects may be generally characterized as everything which materially concerns themselves or their interests. The public are acquainted with the nature of their own passions, and the point of their own calamities—can laugh at the weakness they feel, and weep at the miseries they have experienced; but all the sagacity they possess, be it how great soever, will not enable them to judge of likeness to that which they have never seen, nor to acknowledge principles on which they have never reflected. Of a comedy or a drama, an epigram or a ballad, they are judges from whom there is no appeal; but not of the representation of facts which they have never examined, of beauties which they have never loved. It is not sufficient that the facts or the features of nature be around us, while they are not within us. We may walk day by day through grove and meadow, and scarcely know more concerning them than is known by bird and beast, that the one has shade for the head, and the other softness for the foot. It is not true that “the eye, it cannot choose but see,” unless we obey the following condition, and go forth “in a wise passiveness,”[21] free from that plague of our own hearts which brings the shadow of ourselves, and the tumult of our petty interests and impatient passions, across the light and calm of Nature. We do not sit at the feet of our mistress to listen to her teaching; but we seek her only to drag from her that which may suit our purpose, to see in her the confirmation of a theory, or find in her fuel for our pride. Nay, do we often go to her even thus? Have we not rather cause to take to ourselves the full weight of Wordsworth’s noble appeal—
“Vain pleasures of luxurious life!
Forever with yourselves at strife,
Through town and country, both deranged
By affections interchanged,
And all the perishable gauds
That heaven-deserted man applauds.
When will your hapless patrons learn
To watch and ponder, to discern
The freshness, the eternal youth
Of admiration, sprung from truth,
From beauty infinitely growing
Upon a mind with love overflowing:
To sound the depths of every art
That seeks its wisdom through the heart?”[22]
When will they learn it? Hardly, we fear, in this age of steam and iron, luxury and selfishness. We grow more and more artificial day by day, and see less and less worthiness in those pleasures which bring with them no morbid excitement, in that knowledge which affords us no opportunity of display. Your correspondent may rest assured that those who do not care for nature, who do not love her, cannot see her. A few of her phenomena lie on the surface; the nobler number lie deep, and are the reward of watching and of thought. The artist may choose which he will render: no human art can render both. If he paint the surface, he will catch the crowd; if he paint the depth, he will be admired only—but with how deep and fervent admiration, none but they who feel it can tell—by the thoughtful and observant few.
There are some admirable observations on this subject in your December number (“An Evening’s Gossip with a Painter”[23]); but there is one circumstance with respect to the works of Turner which yet further limits the number of their admirers. They are not prosaic statements of the phenomena of nature—they are statements of them under the influence of ardent feeling; they are, in a word, the most fervent and real poetry which the English nation is at present producing. Now not only is this proverbially an age in which poetry is little cared for; but even with those who have most love of it, and most need of it, it requires, especially if high and philosophical, an attuned, quiet, and exalted frame of mind for its enjoyment; and if dragged into the midst of the noisy interests of every-day life, may easily be made ridiculous or offensive. Wordsworth recited, by Mr. Wakley, in the House of Commons, in the middle of a financial debate, would sound, in all probability, very like Mr. Wakley’s[24] own verses. Wordsworth, read in the stillness of a mountain hollow, has the force of the mountain waters. What would be the effect of a passage of Milton recited in the middle of a pantomime, or of a dreamy stanza of Shelley upon the Stock Exchange? Are we to judge of the nightingale by hearing it sing in broad daylight in Cheapside? For just such a judgment do we form of Turner by standing before his pictures in the Royal Academy. It is a strange thing that the public never seem to suspect that there may be a poetry in painting, to meet which, some preparation of sympathy, some harmony of circumstance, is required; and that it is just as impossible to see half a dozen great pictures as to read half a dozen great poems at the same time, if their tendencies or their tones of feeling be contrary or discordant. Let us imagine what would be the effect on the mind of any man of feeling, to whom an eager friend, desirous of impressing upon him the merit of different poets, should read successively, and without a pause, the following passages, in which lie something of the prevailing character of the works of six of our greatest modern artists:
Landseer.
“His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
Show’d he was nane o’ Scotland’s dougs,
But whalpit some place far abroad
Whar sailors gang to fish for cod.”[25]
Martin.
“Far in the horizon to the north appear’d,
From skirt to skirt, a fiery region, stretched
In battailous aspéct, and nearer view
Bristled with upright beams innumerable
Of rigid spears, and helmets throng’d, and shields
Various, with boastful argument portray’d.”
Wilkie.
“The risin’ moon began to glowr
The distant Cumnock hills out owre;
To count her horns, wi’ a’ my pow’r,
I set mysel’;
But whether she had three or fowr,
I couldna tell.”
Eastlake.
“And thou, who tell’st me to forget,
Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.”
Stanfield.
“Ye mariners of England,
Who guard our native seas,
Whose flag has braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze.”