And now when he has run the whole toilsome yet giddy round and arrived at the goal, there arises, even though that goal be religion, or because it is religion, a yearning after human sympathies and affections, which would not have assorted with any state or moment of the previous experience; he could not have loved before; at one time it would have been only a fancy, a cold, and yet perhaps extravagant imagining; at another, a low and selfish passion. Some souls are purified by love, others are purified for love. Othello needed not Desdemona to listen to his tale of disastrous chances; they were only external perils, rapid by elevated station; but the mind that has gone through more than his vicissitudes, been in deeper dangers, and deadlier struggles, even when it rests at last in a far higher repose and dignity, yearns for some one who will "seriously incline" to listen to the "strange eventful history," one who will sympathise and soothe, who will receive the confession, and give the absolution of heaven its best earthly ratification, that of a pure and loving heart. The poem is addressed to Pauline; with her it begins, and ends; and her presence is felt throughout, as that of a second conscience, wounded by evil, but never stern, and incorporate in a form of beauty, which blends and softens the strong contrasts of different portions of the poem, so that all might be murmured by the breath of affection.
The author cannot expect such a poem as this to be popular, to make a "hit," to produce a "sensation." The public are but slow in recognising the claims of Tennyson whom in some respects he resembles; and the common eye scarcely yet discerns among the laurel-crowned, the form of Shelley, who seems (how justly, we stop not now to discuss), to have been the god of his early idolatory. Whatever inspiration may have been upon him from that deity, the mysticism of the original oracles has been happily avoided. And whatever resemblance he may bear to Tennyson (a fellow worshipper probably at the same shrine) he owes nothing of the perhaps inferior melody of his verse to an employment of archaisms which it is difficult to defend from the charge of affectation. But he has not given himself the chance for popularity which Tennyson did, and which it is evident that he easily might have done. His poem stands alone, with none of those light but taking accompaniments, songs that sing themselves, sketches that everybody knows, light little lyrics, floating about like humming birds, around the trunk and foliage of the poem itself; and which would attract so many eyes, and delight so many ears, that will be slow to perceive the higher beauty of that composition, and to whom a sycamore is no sycamore, unless it be "musical with bees."
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
(1785-1859)
De Quincey has been said to have "taken his place in our literature as the author of about 150 magazine articles," and, though chiefly remembered by his Confessions of an Opium Eater and by his wonderful experiments in "impassioned prose," there can be no question that his critical work occupied much of his attention, and was nearly always original. In many respects his point of view was perverse, and towards his contemporaries occasionally spiteful; while his tendency to dwell upon disputed points was apt to obscure the general impression.
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It is interesting to compare his unmeasured condemnation of Pope with Kingsley's eulogy: since both were, more or less, directly inspired by the contrast of eighteenth century correctness to the poetical gospel of the Lake Poets. From the two articles we can obtain a fair and emphatic statement of "both sides of the case."
DE QUINCEY ON POPE
[From Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, May, 1851]
Whom shall we pronounce a fit writer to be laid before an auditory of working-men, as a model of what is just in composition—fit either for conciliating their regard to literature at first or afterwards for sustaining it? The qualifications for such a writer are apparently these two; first, that he should deal chiefly with the elder and elementary affections of man, and under those relations which concern man's grandest capacities; secondly, that he should treat his subject with solemnity, and not with sneer—with earnestness, as one under a prophet's burden of impassioned truth, and not with the levity of a girl hunting a chance-started caprice. I admire Pope in the very highest degree; but I admire him as a pyrotechnic artist for producing brilliant and evanescent effects out of elements that have hardly a moment's life within them. There is a flash and a startling explosion, then there is a dazzling coruscation, all purple and gold; the eye aches under the suddenness of a display that, springing like a burning arrow out of darkness, rushes back into the darkness with arrowy speed, and in a moment is all over. Like festal shows, or the hurrying music of such shows—