The same most favourite subject—of the early feelings of a poet—he encounters in another scene of the drama, where he meets the very Muse herself. We prefer to select from these parts, because, though more extraordinary passages might be found elsewhere, yet on those occasions the extraordinary or unsuitable nature of his theme may be thought to have betrayed him into the violent style of writing we have to condemn. Festus meets the Muse in some one of the happy planets that he visits. She speaks in rhyme. We give a part of her address, and part of the answer of Festus. But first we must premise, that the Muse had that morning watched a particular ray of light, as it travelled from the sun to the earth—had "listened" to this ray, and reports what it said upon its unwilling journey downwards. She then sees this ray enter a cottage where a young poet is sitting, and in this original manner introduces her description:—
"Muse. A boyish bard
Sate suing night and stars for his reward.
The sunbeam swerved and grew, a breathing, dim,
For the first time, as it lit and looked on him:
His forehead faded—pale his lip, and dry—
Hollow his cheek—and fever-fed his eye.
Clouds lay about his brain, as on a hill,
Quick with the thunder thought and lightning will.
His clenched hand shook from its more than midnight clasp,
Till his pen fluttered like a wingèd asp;
Save that no deadly poison blacked its lips:
'Twas his to life-enlighten, not eclipse;
Nor would he shade one atom of another,
To have a sun his slave, a god his brother.
The young moon laid her down as one who dies,
Knowing that death can be no sacrifice,
For that the sun, her god, through nature's night,
Shall make her bosom to grow great with light.
Still he sat, though his lamp sunk; and he strained
His eyes, to work the nightness that remained.
Festus. Yes, there was a time
When tomes of ancient song held eye and heart—
Were the sole lore I reeked of: the great bards
Of Greece, of Rome, and mine own master land,
And they who in the Holy Book are deathless—
Men who have vulgarised sublimity,
And bought up truth for the nations—parted it
As soldiers lotted once the garb of God;
Men who have forged gods—uttered, made them pass;
In whose words, to be read with many a heaving
Of the heart, is a power, like wind in rain:
Sons of the sons of God, who, in olden days,
Did leave their passionless heaven for earth and woman,
Brought an immortal to a mortal breast;
And, like a rainbow clasping the sweet earth,
And melting in the covenant of love,
Left here a bright precipitate of soul,
Which lives for ever through the lines of men,
Flashing by fits, like fire from an enemy's front:
Whose thoughts, like bars of sunshine in shut rooms,
Mid gloom, all glory, win the world to light;
Who make their very follies like their souls;
And, like the young moon with a ragged edge,
Still in their imperfection beautiful;
Whose weaknesses are lovely as their strengths,
Like the white nebulous matter between stars,
Which, if not light, at least is likest light."
We do not attempt to analyse these passages, it would take up too much space; and the reader, if he thinks fit, can do it for himself. Neither have we, except on one or two occasions, resorted to the usual expedient of marking in italics all we would censure, for almost the whole of our extracts would then have been printed in italics. Of course there is something better than this in the poem, or we should not have given it such praise as we have; but there is also a great deal that is worse. The various specimens we have presented are no bad average of what constitutes a very large portion of the book. Yet this is the poem which, we are told, has been received with most applausive welcome, both by the public and the critics! In the edition we have before us—the third, and, we believe, the latest—there is appended at the conclusion a series of laudatory extracts from Reviews and Magazines, and also of opinions, most eulogistic, given by men of literary celebrity. In what shape these last were originally expressed, whether in print or in private letter, we are not informed. If extracts from private letters, though doubtless published with the writer's permission, their publication strikes us as a novelty, even in these advertising days. Mr Tennyson is set down as saying—"I can scarcely trust myself to say how much I admire it, for fear of falling into extravagance." Sir E. Bulwer Lytton speaks with more caution—"A most remarkable poem, of great beauty, and greater promise. My admiration of it is deep and sincere." Ebenezer Elliott exclaims—"It contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets." The ladies are still more enthusiastic. Mrs S. C. Hall outbids Mr Elliott. "There is matter enough in it to float a hundred volumes of the usual prosy poetry. It contains some of the most wonderful things I ever read." Eulogistic extracts from Reviews, and Magazines, and newspapers, follow in abundance; it is a universal clapping of hands and shout of triumph. The whole vocabulary of applause is exhausted. An American critic "classes it with the Iliad, and Macbeth, and Paradise Lost!"—a classification not quite so lucid as it is flattering. Our more sober and Dissenting brethren seem to have pardoned all its heresies, or not to have seen them, in the dazzling and unintermitting blaze of its genius. Its critics catch the tone of their applauded poem, and speak in hyperbolics, as the only language capable of expressing the intensity of their admiration. "Who," exclaims one, "that has ever read Festus, has forgotten that prodigious poem? You find in it all contradictions reconciled—all improbabilities accomplished—all opposites paired—all formulas swallowed—all darings of thought and language attempted"—a rapture of criticism, which took us with much surprise, when we saw the respectable authority attached to it.
Well, let the reader now turn back to the specimens we have given him—or look into the poem itself—he may take up whole handfuls of the same description. Has all sincerity, all truth and candour, died out of criticism? Or, because it stands on record that some judgments too severe were lately passed on the first efforts of youthful genius, has criticism become all at once exceeding timid, quite tame, humbled, and subdued? Are we so afraid of being thought blind to novel and original displays of genius, that we are all resolved to praise—to do nothing but praise—as the only safe course to pursue? Some have entertained angels, it seems, unawares, and entertained them but rudely; therefore, henceforth, let us do homage to every new comer—the more mysterious, the more homage. Such a stir, it appears, has been made about the obtuseness of reviewers to the more subtle or sublime beauties of poetry, that the poor critic dares not use his own eyes—nor tell what he sees with them—nor whisper what he does not see.
Hans Andersen, in one of his tales for children, tells an admirable story, how two rogues pretended to weave for the royal person a tissue of gold and silk, of a novel and most beautiful description. It had, however, this peculiar property—it was invisible to fools. Of course, it is needless to say that every one at court saw and was charmed with its surpassing beauty. The rogues had a pleasant time of it: pensions from the crown, applause from all the world. They threw an empty shuttle through an empty loom, and the connoisseurs and critics looked on with intense delight, and out-rivalled each other in extolling the growing splendours of this exquisite fabric. Wonderful! Prodigious! Poetry for fifty! Poetry for a hundred! Prodigious! Wonderful!
But we have not, all this time, given any account of the plot or purpose of Festus. It is a hard task, but it must be undertaken. In imitation of the Faust of Goethe—or say, adopting, like it, the proem to the Book of Job—the drama opens with a scene in heaven, wherein Lucifer appears, and asks permission to tempt Festus. The mortal whom the Spirit of Evil here selects for his especial temptation, has the thirst for knowledge, and the contempt for human life, which distinguish the whole family of the Fausts. But whereas the German poet adopted a philosophical indifferentism as his position, or standing-point, from which to survey the scene of human life and of human thought, Mr Bailey has a positive and very intricate creed to enunciate, and has made his poem a vehicle for teaching a dogmatical system of theology, which, if not altogether orthodox, certainly does not fail from the paucity, or the too great simplicity, of its doctrines. Instead of doubt, we have a heresy. A most extraordinary medley of Christian tenets and transcendental or Hegelian metaphysics, is taught, and chiefly by the devil himself! Lucifer, who assumes at first something of the mocking vein of Mephistopheles, proves to be a learned professor of Göttingen or Berlin, and the preacher of a very refined and spiritual, though somewhat heterodox, Christianity. When we add that—interweaving, as it were, some scenes from quite a different drama, on the loves of the angels—Mr Bailey has represented his great Spirit of Evil falling desperately in love with a mortal maid, Elissa—"sighing like furnace"—outheroding mere human lovers—yet jilted, and suffering (as it seems in a most genuine manner) the pangs of despised passion—our readers will be prepared to agree with us that never was so strange a Satan conceived or delineated, either in prose or verse.
The drama opens, as we have said, in heaven.
"God.—What wouldst thou, Lucifer?
Lucifer. There is a youth
Among the sons of men, I fain would have
Given up wholly to me.
God. He is thine,
To tempt.
Lucifer. I thank thee, Lord!
God. Upon his soul
Thou hast no power. All souls are mine for aye."