I could multiply these excerpts; but here are sufficient specimens of the competent judgments of eminent scholars and divines, testifying to the intellectual and moral grandeur of this work. Let it be remembered that there is nothing in the book that in one form or another is not contained in all great poetic or universal literature. It has nothing either in quantity or quality so offensive as everybody knows is in Shakespeare. All that this poet has done is to mention, without levity, without low language, very seriously, often devoutly, always simply, certain facts in the natural history of man and of life; and sometimes, assuming their sanctity, to use them in illustration or imagery. Far more questionable mention and use of these facts are common to the greatest literature. Shall the presence in a book of eighty lines, similar in character to what every great and noble poetic book contains, be sufficient to shove it below even the lewd writings of Petronius Arbiter, the dirty dramas of Shirley, or the scrofulous fiction of Louvet de Couvray—to lump it in with the anonymous lascivious trash spawned in holes and sold in corners, too witless and disgusting for any notice but that of the police—and to entitle its author to treatment such as only the nameless wretches of the very sewers of authorship ought to receive?
If, rising to the utmost cruelty of conception, I can dare add to the calamities of genius a misery so degrading and extreme as to imagine the great authors of the world condemned to clerkships under Mr. Harlan, I can at least mitigate that dream of wretchedness and insult by adding the fancy of their fate under the action of his principles. Let me suppose them there, and he still magnifying the calling of the Secretary into that of the literary headsman. He opens the great book of Genesis. Everywhere “indecent passages.” The mother hushes the child, and bids him skip as he reads aloud that first great history. It cannot be read aloud in “drawing-rooms” by “gentlemen” and “ladies.” The freest use of language, the plainest terms, frank mention of forbidden subjects; the story of Onan; of Hagar and Sarai; of Lot and his daughters; of Isaac, Rebekah, and Abimelech; of Jacob and Leah; of Reuben and Bilhah; of Potiphar’s wife and Joseph; tabooed allusion and statement everywhere; no veils, no euphemism, no delicacy, no meal in the mouth anywhere. Out with Moses! The cloven splendor on that awful brow shall not save him.—Mr. Harlan takes up the Iliad and the Odyssey. The loves of Jupiter and Juno; the dalliance of Achilles and Patroclus with their women; the perfectly frank, undraped reality of Greek life and manners naïvely shown without regard to the feelings of Christian civilizees—horrible! Out with Homer!—Here is Lucretius: Mr. Harlan opens the De Rerum Natura, and reads the vast, benign, majestic lines, sad with the shadow of the unintelligible universe upon them; sublime with the tragic problems of the Infinite; august with their noble love and compassion for mankind. But what is this? “Ut quasi transactis sœpe omnibus rebus,” &c. And this: “Morè ferarum, quadrupedumque magis ritu,” &c. And this: “Nam mulier prohibet se concipere atque repugnat,” &c. And this: “Quod petiere, premunt arcte, faciuntque dolorem,” &c. Enough. Fine language, fine illustrations, fine precepts, pretty decency! Out with Lucretius! Out with the chief poet of the Tiber side!—Here is Æschylus: a dark magnificence of cloud, all rough with burning gold, which thunders and drips blood! The Greek Shakespeare. The gorgeous and terrible Æschylus! What is this in the Prometheus about Jove and Iö? What sort of detail is that which, at the distance of ten years, I remember amazed Mr. Buckley as he translated the Agamemnon? What kind of talk is this in the Chœphori, in The Suppliants, and in the fragments of the comic drama of The Argians? Out with Æschylus!—Here is the sublime book of Ezekiel. All the Hebrew grandeur at its fullest is there. But look at this blurt of coarse words, hurled direct as the prophet-mouth can hurl them—this familiar reference to functions and organs voted out of language—this bread for human lips baked with ordure—these details of the scortatory loves of Aholah and Aholibamah. Enough. Dismiss this dreadful majesty of Hebrew poetry. He has no “taste.” He is “indecent.” Out with Ezekiel!—Here is Dante. Open the tremendous pages of the Inferno. What is this about the she-wolf Can Grande will kill? What picture is this of strumpet Thais?—ending with the lines—
“Taida è, la puttana che rispose
Al drudo suo, quando disse: Ho io grazie
Grandi appo te? Anzi meravigliose.”
What is this, also, in the eighteenth canto?—
“Quivi venimmo, e quindi giù nel fosso
Vidi gente attuffata in uno sterco,
Che dagli uman privati parea mosso:
E mentre ch’ ìo là giù con l’occhio cerco,