Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

gin with saying: Let us set their faults out of our view; not that they are never to be considered, but that this makes no part of what is most peculiar in them. Faults are like paper and ink; no book can exist without them; but they have nothing to do, in the first instance, with deciding upon the merits of an author. Put a new book into my hands, and the first question I shall ask you, if I question you wisely, is: What are its excellencies? Does it exhibit any grand views? Does it contain any beautiful passages? Here all the good and all the honor lies. Just so is man. I am bound first to examine whether there were really great and high qualities in Cato, in Regulus, in Brutus, in Solon, in Themistocles; and when I have made my very heart familiar with the conception of these, I will then proceed, if you like, to the examination of those defects by which they were allied to the weakness and errors of our common nature. A true student is a man seated in his chair, and surrounded with a sort of intrenchment and breastwork of books. It is for boarding-school misses to read one book at a time. Particularly when I am sifting out facts, either of science or history, I must place myself in the situation of a man making a book, rather than reading books. When I have studied the Grecian history in Homer, in Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch, together with those of the moderns that are most capable, or most elaborate, in unfolding or appreciating the materials the ancients have left us, I shall then begin to know what Greece was. I need not, of course, mention how superior is the in- . formation and representation of contemporaries to those who come afterwards and write their stories over again. The compilers are a sort of middle class between the real authors and the makers of dictionaries. True reading is investigation not a passive reception of what our author gives us, but an active inquiry, appreciation, and digestion of his subject.

"Yet there is a certain difficulty in this. We ought first to take a comprehensive survey of every subject, and a private

view of every author who, for his own merits, is worth our studying. Hence it follows that there are various processes to be successively performed by him who would master the history of any one country or memorable period; and hence it appears (what has been observed in various forms by many writers) that it is almost impossible for any man to get fully to the end of any subject. There is another rule, that, both from experience and reason, I should strongly recommend to any one desirous of becoming a student, and that is, to have three or four different studies for different parts of the day, or, if you will, to be taken up in a sort of rotation in each day. Such a plan adds wonderfully to the stimulus moving us, and to the progress actually made. I have for the greater part of my life read at least for one hour a day in some Greek, and for one hour in some Latin, author; and I am sure I have done twice as much as I should have done in any other way of proceeding.

"You ask me concerning some of our elder writers, and I will therefore very briefly mention a few. I observed to you that Shakspeare had many contemporary dramatists, any one of which would have done for almost the best man of any other age. Such were Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Ford, Dekker, Heywood, and Massinger. Then what illustrious poets had those times in Spenser, Drayton, and Daniel! not to mention the minor poets (I mean in quantity), such as Davies and Donne. Chapman's Homer has infinitely more fire than any other translation I have ever read. He was thoroughly invested and penetrated with the sacredness of the poetic character.

"To proceed from poetry to prose. Shakspeare, Bacon, and Milton are the three greatest contemplative characters that this island has produced. Therefore, as I put Shakspeare and Milton at the head of our poetry, I put Bacon and Milton at the head of our prose. Yet what astonishing prose writers had we in Sir Thomas Browne and Jeremy Taylor! not to mention two others, only inferior to them, Robert Burton and

Isaac Walton. Hobbes and Shelton, also, as prose translators may almost rank with Chapman in verse.

"Those were the times when authors thought. Every line is pregnant with sense, and the reader is inevitably put to the expense of thinking likewise. The writers were richly furnished with conception, imagination, and feeling; and out of the abundance of their hearts flowed the lucubrations they committed to paper. You have what appears to me a false taste in poetry. You love a perpetual sparkle and glittering, such as are to be found in Darwin, and Southey, and Scott, and Campbell."

The

Some light is thrown on the peculiar literary tastes and antipathies of Shelley by a letter which he wrote about this time to Mr. Hookham, commissioning that gentleman to purchase certain books for him. disgust of history here confessed has probably been shared by all minds which have longed for a state of ideal perfection; but the young student resolved to follow the advice of his self-chosen guide, whose words the reader has just perused.

"MY DEAR SIR,

"Tanyralt, Dec. 17th, 1812.

"You will receive the Biblical Extracts* in a day or two by the twopenny post. I confide them to the care of a person going to London. Would not Daniel J. Eaton publish them? Could the question be asked him in any manner?

"I am also preparing a volume of minor poems, respecting whose publication I shall request your judgment, both as publisher and friend. A very obvious question would be-Will Subjoined is a list of books which I wish you to send me very soon. I am determined to apply myself

they sell or not?

*This work has never been published. - ED.

to a study that is hateful and disgusting to my very soul, but which is, above all studies, necessary for him who would be listened to as a mender of antiquated abuses. I mean that record of crimes and miseries, History. You see that the metaphysical works to which my heart hankers are not numerous in this list. One thing will you take care of for me? that those standard and respectable works on history, &c., be of the cheapest possible editions. With respect to metaphysical works, I am less scrupulous.

"Spinoza you may or may not be able to obtain. Kant is translated into Latin by some Englishman. I would prefer that the Greek classics should have Latin or English versions printed opposite. If not to be obtained thus, they must be sent otherwise.

"Mrs. Shelley is attacking Latin with considerable resolution, and can already read many odes in Horace. She unites with her sister and myself in best wishes to yourself and brother.

"Your very sincere friend,

"P. B. SHELLEY.

"T. Hookham, Esq.,

"15 Bond Street, London."

CHAPTER VI.

POETICAL LABORS AND DOMESTIC SORROWS.

[ocr errors]

That

THE poetical element in Shelley's nature that faculty by which we mainly know him, though he himself conceived it to be secondary to his love of logic and metaphysics was now beginning to develop itself more fully and systematically than it had yet done. he must have felt an intense pleasure in the gradual unfolding of that gorgeous imagination which afterwards produced so many images of almost supernatural loveliness, cannot be doubted; but, at the same time, his keen, critical perceptions detected with remarkable accuracy the faults of his early productions. In writing to Mr. Hookham, during the January of 1813, he says: "My poems will, I fear, little stand the criticism even of friendship. Some of the later ones (it should be recollected that these "later ones" must now be regarded as among the early fruit) "have the merit of conveying a meaning in every word, and all are faithful pictures of my feelings at the time of writing them; but they are in a great measure obscure. One fault they are indisputably exempt from - that of being a volume of fashionable literature. I doubt not but your friendly hand will clip the wings of my Pegasus considerably."

[ocr errors]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »