Instead of being intelligible and vulgar, how much better to wrap up our Christian philosophy in a style as rare and curious, and undecipherable, as the hieroglyphic cerements of an Egyptian mummy!
"The precepts of Christianity are holy and imperative; its mysteries vast, undiscoverable, unimaginable; and, what is still worthier of consideration, these two limbs of our religion are not severed, or even laxly joined, but, after the workmanship of the God of nature, so 'lock in with and over-wrap one another' that they cannot be torn asunder without rude force. Every mystery is the germ of a duty: every duty has its motive in a mystery. So that if I may speak of these things in the symbolical language of ancient wisdom, every thing divine being circular, every right thing human straight—the life of the Christian may be compared to a chord, each end of which is supported by the arc it proceeds from and terminates in." (P. 214.)
Literary criticism occupies a portion of these pages. Here also there is a singular air of pretension, but nothing done. A vague indefinite claim is made to very superior taste, and an exclusive appreciation of the great poets, but nothing is ever attempted to support this claim. The solitary criticism on a passage in Milton, where the poet says of the great palace of Pandemonium, that it "rose like an exhalation," is the only instance we remember where these authors have put forth any positive criticism; and this example does not appear to evince any very delicate or refined appreciation of poetic imagery. A comparison is drawn (where there is very little room for one) between this passage and the expression νυκτι εοικως, which Homer uses in describing the coming of Apollo,—and the ηυτ' ομιχλη, which he employs when speaking of Thetis rising from the sea. "How inferior," says the writer, "in grandeur, in simplicity, in beauty and grace, to the Homeric! which moreover has better caught the spirit and sentiment of the natural appearances. For Apollo does come with the power and majesty, and with the terrors of night; and the soft waviness of an exhalation is a much fitter image for the rising of the goddess, than for the massiness and hard stiff outline of a building." It is the hard stiff outline which the very image of Milton conceals from us, as the angel-built structure rises gradually, continuously, like an exhalation from the earth.
Of Shakspeare we are, of course, told that neither we, nor any other Englishmen, understand him.
"How many Englishmen admire Shakspeare? Doubtless all who understand him, and, it is to be hoped, a few more; for how many Englishmen understand Shakspeare? Were Diogenes to set out on his search through the land, I trust he would bring home many hundreds, not to say thousands, for every one I should put up. To judge from what has been written about him, the Englishmen who understand Shakspeare are little more numerous than those who understand the language spoken in Paradise. You will now and then meet with ingenious remarks on particular passages, and even in particular characters, or rather in particular features in them. But these remarks are mostly as incomplete and unsatisfactory as the description of a hand or foot would be, unless received with reference to the whole body. He who wishes to trace the march and to scan the operations of this most marvellous genius, and to discern the mysterious organisation of his wonderful works, will find little help but what comes from beyond the German Ocean." (P. 267.)
We are very much disposed to think that the age which follows ours, though still admiring Shakspeare as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of poets, will look upon this present age as eminently distinguished for having talked a marvellous deal of nonsense about that great man—whether with or without help from beyond the German Ocean. There is, however, confessedly some light to be got from another quarter, though still a very remote one. We are rather affectedly told in the preceding page:—
"Were nothing else to be learnt from the rhetoric and ethics of Aristotle, they should be studied by every educated Englishman as the best of commentaries on Shakspeare."
To Coleridge, indeed, whose snatches of literary criticism are admirable, (when he is not evidently led away by some capricious paradoxical spirit,) we have a debt to acknowledge on this subject. He first taught us, if we mistake not, to appreciate the structure of Shakspeare's plays, and vindicated them from that charge of rudeness and irregularity which had been so frequently made that it had passed for an admitted truth. He showed that there was a harmony in his intricate plots of a far higher order than the disciples of the unities had ever dreamed of.
Whatever may be their critical appreciation of the poetic language of others, these writers display very little taste themselves in the use of imagery, or illustration, or metaphor. What is intended for wit or pleasantry proves to be a cumbrous allegory or unwieldy simile; we feel that we are to smile, but we do not smile. Instances of this may be found at page 111, in a sort of fable about "leather" and "stockings;" and at page 133 about "four-sided and five-sided fields." The examples are too long to quote. At page 260, great men are compared to mountains. The simile is not new, but the manner of dealing with it has more of novelty than of grace.—"Mountains never shake hands," &c.—like great men, they stand alone. "But if mountains do not shake hands, neither do they kick each other." And here, at page 259, is an instance, not too long to quote entire, which shows how little tact and delicacy these writers have in dealing with metaphorical language.
"It is a mistake to suppose the poet does not know truth by sight quite as well as the philosopher. He must; for he is ever seeing her in the mirror of nature. The difference between them is, that the poet is satisfied with worshipping her reflected image, while the philosopher traces her out, and follows her to her remote abode between cause and consequence, and there impregnates her."