Tristo. “The difference is this, Shakspeare brings together improbable occurrences in almost impossible conjunctions; yet he always makes the words and actions of his characters consistent. Other dramatists have their plots sufficiently probable, and their junctures and transitions natural and easy—this is the effect of study; but their actors have no individuality—and this is a defect of genius, that no study nor midnight watchings can supply: their figures are sometimes one thing, sometimes another: the contour, air, and attitude, are all shifting and various. This is more particularly observable in works of the tragic or semi-tragic cast, than in the comic productions of the older writers. In Dryden, for instance, the comedies are many of them laughable and good; but the tragedies, saving here and there a splendid spangle, are cold, inflated fustian. Even in scenes of the most intense excitement, when grief is wrought up to agony, and passion foams with ungovernable rage, he makes his characters talk, talk, talk, instead of acting. In place of some brief and stormy exclamation, such as nature prompts and passion utters, they stand still, gesticulate by rule, and bring out long similitudes of studied elegance, and elaborate perfection. Their ruined hopes they liken to a blighted tree, and coolly pursue the track of the lightning from the topmost leaf to the downmost root, showing you how here it grazed, and there cut to the very heart. Oh agony! Their words are hot—hot enough in all conscience, when taken one by one—minutatim—but collectively they are verbiage, not pathos.”
Nescio. “I have been thinking that a natural may be distinguished from an unnatural author, in that you can not only clearly conceive, but distinctly remember the form and bearing of the characters in the one, while the actors in the other leave no definite impression. The Falstaff of Shakspeare, and the Arbaces of Bulwer, are good illustrations of my meaning. Both are characters, which, we are certain, never did exist. How, then, is Falstaff natural, and Arbaces the reverse? The former might exist; the latter never could have being. The former is a collection of qualities, carried, it may be, to excess; the latter is a union of contradictions. The former is witty and sensual and boastful beyond reality, but not beyond possibility; the latter is a lumbering conception of a grand and gloomy something—a shadow of magnificent shapelessness—it has no identity, and its shifting outline it would puzzle Proteus to trace. In the language of the schools, Falstaff is in posse, but not in esse—while Arbaces is neither in esse, nor posse, nor any where else save in Bulwer’s head.”
Tristo. “I believe you are right. But I was about to state why poetry is a valuable—aye, an in-valuable gift. Now, observe—I mean, not rhyme, ‘the drowsy tintinnabulum of song’—nor the display of those poetical words, which, like trite coins, have no image nor superscription left—nor yet, ‘in linked sweetness long-drawn out,’ those brilliant figures, which have come down unimpaired from Homer, and serve to conceal the deficiency of sense—but I mean the pure ‘poetry of the heart’—the rich essence of feeling and of thought—whether its expression be prose or verse, ‘oratio soluta,’ vel ‘constricta.’ It is true, without exception, that the purer and less hackneyed are the feelings, the richer and more gushing is this ‘poetry of the heart.’ And this proves its excellence. To the eye and the ear of childhood, the ‘visible face of nature,’ the green beneath, and the ‘skyey blue’ above, with the thousand voices, that come quivering from the forest-depths, are all one vast poem, modulated to a measure of dulcet melody, and awakening sympathies inexplicably sweet. Thought to them is a rambling revery, and existence is a thrilling dream. As they lie upon the green grass, and view the sky, and gaze, and gaze upon the unutterable depths, the yearnings for something beyond, beyond, beyond, are quick, and strange, and powerful within them. As they grow old, and hardened, and thankless, and wicked, does not poetry vanish, and fancy flee? Are not the dreams of purity, and kindness, and affection, which were but the strugglings of the youthful spirit to attain the blessedness it was made for, supplanted by hard plans, and cold calculations of wealth, and luxury, and restlessness, and pride? Hope and Love, the birds of Paradise, that nestled in the boyish heart, and fluttered with many-colored wings over their warm progeny of kindling wishes, and bright resolves, are banished from their early home, and in their place, with gloomy pinions, settle a thousand cormorant birds, with the vultures of remorseless Ambition, and Greediness for more. Who does not feel that it is only in his holier and nobler hours that poesy creeps through him like a spirit, and thoughts of grandeur cause his flesh to quiver, even as the forest is shaken by the footsteps of the wind? Can one, who has but now stained his soul with knavery or meanness, read that unparalleled monologue of Hamlet, and surrender his heart to the greatness of its power? Can any, save he whose spirit is daily and deeply filled with the sublimity of rectitude, appreciate Milton’s sonnet upon his blindness, a specimen of moral grandeur in thought and purpose, which has found no equal in the walks of mind? I say not that even in the bosoms of the vicious and the hardened, the perusal of sublime or lovely conceptions will fail to produce emotion—deep, strong emotion—for, wound and abuse it as you may, there will still, even at three-score years and ten, remain something of that ardent pulse, which, in boyhood, burned at the sight of beauty, and bounded at the voice of song. But poesy will no longer gush continually upward from the fountains of his heart, like refreshing waters from a perennial spring. And what a glorious thing must it be for a Pitt or a Webster, when worn in the defense of Freedom, and weary with the hopelessness of their toil, in the pages of Scott to bury for a time the projects of ambition, and the chicanery of courts! When they bow their own mighty intellects at the still mightier shrines of Milton or of Shakspeare, is not theirs the sacred thrill of the eastern pilgrim, when he falls and worships at the tomb of his fathers? Wo be to him, who would lessen his hours of poetic enthusiasm; for those hours are a backward vista to an earlier and better state. True poetry is the basis of devotion; and devotion added to poetry is the ‘Pelion upon Ossa,’ by which mortals may climb once more to the heaven from which they fell.”
Ego.
HORA ODONTALGICA.
“Again the play of pain
Shoots o’er his features, as the sudden gust
Crisps the reluctant lake.”
Byron.
(Throb—throb—throb—) Oh this marrow-piercing, jaw-torturing, peace-destroying pain!—(throb—throb—throb—) Sure the rack were a plaything, lunar-caustic a balsam, aqua-fortis the very essence of pleasure, compared with this soul-and-body-distracting torment—this anguish double-refined, this agony of agonies. “A little patience, my dear sir,” interrupted a soothing voice. ‘Patience!’ exclaimed I, ‘talk of patience to a cubless bear, a dinnerless wolf, an officeless demagogue—but not to me. Would you look for moderation in a maniac? wisdom in an idiot? gentility in a clown? Who expects patience of a man driven to distraction by the tooth-ache?—(Throb—throb—throb—) Oh! that arrow-like pang——the most excruciating of all!—And I clapped my hands to my jaws, and springing from my chair, shrieked in agony. “Let’s see your tooth,” grumbled a rough unfeeling voice—and before me stood a veteran Esculapian, with his lancet and forceps fearfully conspicuous. ‘On with your instrument, Doctor,’ exclaimed I, ‘and out with it, though I die under the operation.’ My head was soon made stationary between two brawny hands, and my jaws extended to their widest angle; the knife had unbared the offending dental, and the dreaded instrument was ready for its work—but suddenly the pain subsided—my feelings changed—I looked on the ‘cold iron’ with horror—‘No! I’ll not have it out now;’—and the man of forceps left me.