So is it now I am a man,
So shall it be till I grow old and die;’
but Lord Byron does not understand this, for he does not understand Mr. Wordsworth’s poetry, and we cannot make him. His Lordship’s nature, as well as his poetry, is something arabesque and outlandish.—Again, once more, what, we would ask, makes the difference between an opera of Mozart’s, and the singing of a thrush confined in a wooden cage at the corner of the street in which we live? The one is nature, and the other is art: the one is paid for, and the other is not. Madame Fodor sings the air of Vedrai Carino in Don Giovanni so divinely, because she is hired to sing it; she sings it to please the audience, not herself, and does not always like to be encored in it; but the thrush that awakes us at daybreak with its song, does not sing because it is paid to sing, or to please others, or to be admired or criticised. It sings because it is happy: it pours the thrilling sounds from its throat, to relieve the overflowings of its own breast—the liquid notes come from, and go to, the heart, dropping balm into it, as the gushing spring revives the traveller’s parched and fainting lips. That stream of joy comes pure and fresh to the longing sense, free from art and affectation, the same that rises over vernal groves, mingled with the breath of morning, and the perfumes of the wild hyacinth; that waits for no audience, that wants no rehearsing, that exhausts its raptures, and still—
‘Hymns its good God, and carols sweet of love.’
There is this great difference between nature and art, that the one is what the other seems, and gives all the pleasure it expresses, because it feels it itself. Madame Fodor sings, as a musical instrument may be made to play a tune, and perhaps with no more real delight: but it is not so with the linnet or the thrush, that sings because God pleases, and pours out its little soul in pleasure. This is the reason why its singing is (so far) so much better than melody or harmony, than base or treble, than the Italian or the German School, than quavers or crotchets, or half-notes, or canzonets, or quartetts, or any thing in the world but truth and nature!
To give one more instance or two of what we understand by a natural interest ingrafted on artificial objects, and of the principle that still keeps them distinct. Amelia’s ‘hashed mutton’ in Fielding, is one that I might mention. Hashed mutton is an article in cookery, homely enough in the scale of art, though far removed from the simple products of nature; yet we should say that this common delicacy which Amelia provided for her husband’s supper, and then waited so long in vain for his return, is the foundation of one of the most natural and affecting incidents in one of the most natural and affecting books in the world. No description of the most splendid and luxurious banquet could come up to it. It will be remembered, when the Almanach des Gourmands, and even the article on it in the last Edinburgh Review, are forgotten. Did Lord Byron never read Boccacio? We wish he would learn refinement from him, and get rid of his hard bravura taste, and swashbuckler conclusions. What makes the charm of the Story of the Falcon? Is it properly art or nature? The tale is one of artificial life, and elegant manners, and chivalrous pretensions; but it is the fall from these, the decline into the vale of low and obscure poverty,—the having but one last loop left to hang life on, and the sacrifice of that to a feeling still more precious, and which could only give way with life itself,—that elevates the sentiment, and has made it find its way into all hearts. Had Frederigo Alberigi had an aviary of Hawks, and preserves of pheasants without end, he and his poor bird would never have been heard of. It is not the expence and ostentation of the entertainment he set before his mistress, but the prodigality of affection, squandering away the last remains of his once proud fortunes, that stamps this beautiful incident on the remembrance of all who have ever read it. We wish Lord Byron would look it over again, and see whether it does not most touch the chords of pathos and sentiment in those places where we feel the absence of all the pomp and vanities of art. Mr. Campbell talks of a ship as a sublime and beautiful object in art. We will confess we always stop to look at the mail-coaches with no slight emotion, and, perhaps, extend our hands after some of them, in sign of gratulation. They carry the letters of friends, of relations; they keep up the communication between the heart of a country. We do not admire them for their workmanship, for their speed, for their livery—there is something more in it than this. Perhaps we can explain it by saying, that we once heard a person observe—‘I always look at the Shrewsbury mail, and sometimes with tears in my eyes: that is the coach that will bring me the news of the death of my father and mother.’ His Lordship will say, the mail-coach is an artificial object. Yet we think the interest here was not founded upon that circumstance. There was a finer and deeper link of affection that did not depend on the red painted pannels, or the dyed garments of the coachman and guard. At least it strikes us so.
This is not an easy subject to illustrate, and it is still more difficult to define. Yet we shall attempt something of the sort.
1. Natural objects are common and obvious, and are imbued with an habitual and universal interest, without being vulgar. Familiarity in them does not breed contempt, as it does in the works of man. They form an ideal class; their repeated impression on the mind, in so many different circumstances, grows up into a sentiment. The reason is, that we refer them generally and collectively to ourselves, as links and mementos of our various being; whereas, we refer the works of art respectively to those by whom they are made or to whom they belong. This distracts the mind in looking at them, and gives a petty and unpoetical character to what we feel relating to them. When the works of art become poetical, it is when they are emancipated from this state of ‘circumscription and confine,’ by some circumstance that sets aside the idea of property and individual distinction. The sound of village bells,—
‘——The poor man’s only music,’[[63]]
excites as lively an interest in the mind, as the warbling of a thrush: the sight of a village spire presents nothing discordant with the surrounding scenery.