CHAP. IX. Remarks on consulting friends on a Composition when in Manuscript-Two great defects of the Revisors of the Jerusalem Delivered-Various objections to this Poem-Anguish of its Author from this source-His suspicions of treachery-He falls sick-Proposes to visit Rome-Intense employment of his mind on the Jerusalem. A. D. 1575-1576. Aet. 31-32. CHAP. IX. Aet. 31. It seems now to be very generally agreed, and we have the authority and experience of Tasso in support of this A. D. 1575. opinion, that (except perhaps where a man is to speak of himself,) nothing is more useless than consulting literary friends on the value of a manuscript performance. * “ I was * M'è rincresciuto che col mostrar le mie cose, si sia dato occasione di cianciare a i pedanti, Oper. vol. X. p. 131. « The vexation, (says Cowper,) the perplexity, that attends a multiplicity of criticisms by various hands, many of which are sure to be futile, CHAP. IX. A. D. 1575. soon tired, (says Gibbon, when speaking of his history, in the memoirs of his life,) I was soon tired with the modest practice of reading the manuscript to my friends. Of such friends, some will praise from politeness, and some will criticise from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on Remarks upon the subject, no one is so sincerely interested in the event." When a composition, indeed, reaches a certain degree of merit, nothing is so indeterminate as individual blame or approbation; and the late S. Johnson, (a man of infinite literary experience,) was accustomed to confess, that he was unable to decide a priori on the success of a work. No writer can be mentioned who meets with universal approba consulting friends on a MS. many of them ill-founded, and some of them contradictory to others, is inconceivable, except by the author whose ill-fated work happens to be the subject of them. This also appears to me self-evident, that, if a work have past under the review of one man of taste and learning, and have had the good fortune to please him, his approbation gives security for that of all others qualified like himself. I speak thus, my dear, after having just escaped from such a storm of trouble, occasioned by endless remarks, hints, suggestions, and objections, as drove me almost to despair, and to the very verge of a resolution to drop my undertaking for ever."-Life, vol. II. p. 358. 8°. In fact, whoever sits down to examine a book critically, unless a production of pure intellect, renders himself in some degree incapable of judging it; since he analyses coldly what he ought to feel. In every production of taste, sentiment is preferable, as a judge, to discussion; at least it ought to precede, and the other ought to follow. Criticism is almost a mere exercise of judgment; it suspends for a while the impression made on the feelings and imagination, and overpowers the emotions which correspond with beauty and sublimity. Hence it gives rise to fastidiousness, blinds to all other views but those of design and correctness, and (though the destruction of a work is not its faults, but its frigidity,) renders it impossible to be pleased with productions, however admirable, in which there is a mixture of imperfection and irregularity.-See some highly excellent reflections on this subject, Life of Lord Kames, vol. I, book II. c. 4. tion, and who might not have been conscientiously advised to destroy his performance by critics, unperverted by the wish to please by flattery, or to give pain by asperity. It has sometimes, indeed, been said, that an author, (by which I at present mean an author of genius,) is a very bad judge of the relative value of his own writings; but I am apt to think, that this, with a very few exceptions, is hardly ever the case. It may happen, indeed, that he speaks more warmly of one of his indifferent, than of his perfect performances; as a mother may be more loud in extolling the charms of a daughter, who is neglected by the world, than of one whose perfections are so great as to procure universal admiration. She does this, not because she thinks the least interesting really superior to the other, but the one is independent, the other needs her eulogies. As a Richelieu received more pleasure by being flattered as a poet, than as a politician; so a Milton may be more satisfied with the applause of his Paradise Regained, than of his Paradise Lost. In the one case praise is a tribute, in the other it is a gift; but, so far from considering the preference of an indifferent to an excellent performance as an evidence of want of discernment in its author, it is a proof rather of a suspicion that the difference of their value is immense. At the conclusion of the foregoing chapter, I have mentioned that the letters of Tasso, relative to the opinions of the revisors of his Jerusalem, have been preserved; and they are of very high value to the student of poetry. From these, amongst other things, it will evidently appear what CHAP. IX. A. D. 1575. Aet. 31. CHAP. IX A. D. 1575. minute care, and incessant labour, must be undergone by him who aspires to erect a monument for posterity. Nothing is more difficult than to escape oblivion; and Tasso, like Milton, was of opinion, that to leave to "aftertimes a work which they would not willingly let die, it is necessary to join labour and intense study, to the strong propensity of nature."* No ancient geometer seems to have been more anxious than he was to connect his propositions, no historian to render his narrative more consistent with the truth. Nor was he studious only of the connection of episodes, and the probability of narration; but the dignity of words, the harmony of sounds, the justness of sentiments, every thing, in short, which can embellish a work, or render it valuable, alternately occupied the attention of the poet. as * P. Works, vol. I. p. 120. Milton always represents labour as a necessary associate with genius in his combats with Time. Thus, when speaking of his own design of writing an epic poem, he says, "the accomplishment lies not but in a power above man's to promise; but that none hath, by more studious ways, endeavoured, and with more unwearied spirit, that none shall that I dare almost aver of myself, as far as life and free leisure will extend," being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame Memory, and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases; to this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs."-P. Works, vol. I. P. 123. "Giudichi (says Tasso) che il divino Ariosto, e per felicità di natura, e per l'accurata sua diligenza, e per la varia cognizione di cose, e per la lunga pratica degli eccellenti scrittori, dalla quale acquistò un esatto gusto del buono, e del bello, arrivasse a quel segno di poetare eroicamente a cui nessun moderno, e pochi fra gli antichi son pervenuti."-Oper. vol. V. p. 503. << Tantæ molis erat Romanam condere gentem." Such was the toil to found imperial Rome. There were two great defects of the critics fixed upon by Tasso as the revisors of his Jerusalem; the one of which was common to them with their age in general, the other arose from their peculiar condition in life. Of these, the first was the habit of judging, not according to the feelings of nature, but the rules of Aristotle. These poetical rules are, however, valuable; they were deduced from examples very perfect in their kind; and the principal defect of those who continually appealed to them, was the precision of their application. They limited every kind of excellence to the models which had been furnished by the Grecian artists; and as, like all the writings of its great author, the Poetics is mutilated and obscure; many rules were established by the commentators, of which the meaning in the original is extremely dubious. “I cannot,” says the illustrious Metastasio, (in his inestimable Abstract of the Poetics,)" I cannot sufficiently regret, that our venerable master has had so much confidence in our perspicacity in several passages of this treatise. Hence it happens that his instructions, ill understood, confound instead of enlightening. Thus they serve as arms for people of mean talents to insult the greatest genius, and to condemn and despise, in an authoritative manner, what in the highest degree merits admiration and respect."* In fact, * Estratto della Poetica D'Aristotile, cap. XXII. "For my part," says Gray, (Letter, Dec. 11, 1746,)" I read Aristotle, his Poetics, Politics, and Morals, though I do not well CHAP. IX. A. D. 1575. |