—is the divinity of the extract assured to us by its being made at leisure, and in a reclining attitude—as compared with the meditations of otherwise active men, in an erect one? Or are we perchance, many of us, still erring somewhat in our notions alike of Divinity and Humanity,—poetical extraction, and moral position?
On the chance of its being so, might I ask hearing for just a few words more of the school of Belial?
Their occasion, it must be confessed, is a quite unjustifiable one. Some very wicked people—mutineers, in fact—have retired, misanthropically, into an unfrequented part of the country, and there find themselves safe, indeed, but extremely thirsty. Whereupon Byron thus gives them to drink:
'A little stream came tumbling from the height
And straggling into ocean as it might.
Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray
And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray,
Close on the wild wide ocean,—yet as pure
And fresh as Innocence; and more secure.
Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep
As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep,
While, far below, the vast and sullen swell
Of ocean's Alpine azure rose and fell.'[189]
Now, I beg, with such authority as an old workman may take concerning his trade, having also looked at a waterfall or two in my time, and not unfrequently at a wave, to assure the reader that here is entirely first-rate literary work. Though Lucifer himself had written it, the thing is itself good, and not only so, but unsurpassably good, the closing line being probably the best concerning the sea yet written by the race of the sea-kings.
But Lucifer himself could not have written it; neither any servant of Lucifer. I do not doubt but that most readers were surprised at my saying, in the close of my first paper, that Byron's 'style' depended in any wise on his views respecting the Ten Commandments. That so all-important a thing as 'style' should depend in the least upon so ridiculous a thing as moral sense: or that Allegra's father, watching her drive by in Count G.'s coach and six, had any remnant of so ridiculous a thing to guide,—or check,—his poetical passion, may alike seem more than questionable to the liberal and chaste philosophy of the existing British public. But, first of all, putting the question of who writes, or speaks, aside, do you, good reader, know good 'style' when you get it? Can you say, of half-a-dozen given lines taken anywhere out of a novel, or poem, or play, That is good, essentially, in style, or bad, essentially? and can you say why such half-dozen lines are good, or bad?
I imagine that in most cases, the reply would be given with hesitation, yet if you will give me a little patience, and take some accurate pains, I can show you the main tests of style in the space of a couple of pages.
I take two examples of absolutely perfect, and in manner highest, i. e. kingly, and heroic, style: the first example in expression of anger, the second of love.
(1) 'We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us,
His present, and your pains, we thank you for.
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God's grace, play a set,
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.'