Part 9 (2/2)
But Chatterton is more talked of than read, and this has been so from the first. The antiques are all but unknown; certain of the acknowledged poems are remembered, and regarded as fervid and vigorous, and many of the lesser pieces are thought slight, weak, and valueless. People do not measure the poorer things in Chatterton with his time and opportunities, or they would see only amazing strength and knowledge of the world in all he did. Those lesser pieces were many of them dashed off to answer the calls of necessity, to flatter the egotism of a troublesome friend, or to wile away a moment of vacancy. Certainly they must not be set against his best efforts. As for Chatterton's life, the tragedy of it is perhaps the most moving example of what Coleridge might have termed the material pathetic. Pathetic, however, as his life was, and marvellous as was his genius, I miss in him the note of personal purity and majesty of character. I told Rossetti that, in my view, Chatterton lacked sincerity, and on this point he wrote:
I must protest finally about Chatterton, that he lacks nothing because lacking the gradual growth of the emotional in literature which becomes evident in Keats--still less its excess, which would of course have been pruned, in Oliver.
The finest of the Rowley poems--_Eclogues, Ballad of Charity, etc_., rank absolutely with the finest poetry in the language, and gain (not lose) by moderation. As to what you say of C.'s want of political sincerity (for I cannot see to what other want you can allude), surely a boy up to eighteen may be pardoned for exercising his faculty if he happens to be the one among millions who can use grown men as his toys. He was an absolute and untarnished hero, but for that reckless defying vaunt. Certainly that most vigorous pa.s.sage commencing--
”Interest, thou universal G.o.d of men,” etc.
reads startlingly, and comes in a questionable shape. What is the answer to its enigmatical aspect? Why, that he _meant_ it, and that all would mean it at his age, who had his power, his daring, and his hunger. Still it does, perhaps, make one doubt whether his early death were well or ill for him. In the matter of Oliver (whom no one appreciates more than I do), remember that it was impossible to have more opportunities than _he_ had, or on the other side _fewer_ than Chatterton had. Chatterton at seventeen or less said--
”Flattery's a cloak, and I will put it on.”
Blake (probably late in life) said--
”Innocence is a winter gown.”
... I _have_ read the Chatterton article in the review mentioned. If Watts had done it, it would have been immeasurably better. There seems to me, who am very well up in Chatterton, no point whatever made in the article. Why does no one ever even allude to the two attributed portraits of Chatterton--one belonging to Sir H. Taylor, and the other in the Salford Museum? Both seem to be the same person clearly, and a good find for Chatterton, but not conceivably done from him. Nevertheless, I _suspect_ there may be a sidelong genuineness in them. Chatterton was acquainted with one Alc.o.c.k, a miniature painter at Bristol, to whom he addressed a poem. Had A. painted C. it would be among the many recorded facts; but it would be singular even if, in C.'s rapid posthumous fame, A. had never been asked to make a reminiscent likeness of him. Prom such likeness by the miniature painter these _portraits might_ derive--both being life-sized oil heads. There is a savour of Keats in them, though a friend, taking up the younger-looking of the two, said it reminded him of Jack Sheppard! And not such a bad Chatterton-compound either! But I begin to think I have said all this before.... Oliver, or ”Nolly,” as he was always called, was a sort of spread-eagle likeness of his handsome father, with a conical head like Walter Scott. I must confess to you, that, in this world of books, the only one of his I have read, is _Gabriel Denver_, afterwards reprinted in its original and superior form as _The Black Swan_, but published with the former t.i.tle in his lifetime.
Rossetti formed no such philosophic estimate of Chatterton's contribution to the romantic movement in English poetry as has been formulated in the essay in Ward's _Poets_. A critic, in the sense of one possessed of a natural gift of a.n.a.lysis, Rossetti a.s.suredly! was not. No man's instinct for what is good in poetry was ever swifter or surer than that of Rossetti. You might always distrust your judgment if you found it at variance with his where abstract power and beauty were in question. Sooner or later you would inevitably find yourself gravitating to his view. But here Rossetti's function as a critic ended. His was at best only the criticism of the creator. Of the gift of ultimate cla.s.sification he had none, and never claimed to have any, although now and again (as where he says that Chatterton was the day-spring of modern romantic poetry), he seems to give sign of a power of critical synthesis.
Rossetti's interest in Blake, both as poet and painter, dates back to an early period of his life. I have heard him say that at sixteen or seventeen years of age he was already one of Blake's warmest admirers, and at the time in question, 1845, the author of the _Songs of Innocence_ had not many readers to uphold him. About four years later, Rossetti made an exceptionally lucky discovery, for he then found in the possession of Mr. Palmer, an attendant at the British Museum, an original ma.n.u.script sc.r.a.p-book of Blake's, containing a great body of unpublished poetry and many interesting designs, as well as three or four remarkably effective profile sketches of the author himself. The Mr. Palmer who held the little book was a relative of the landscape painter of the same name, who was Blake's friend, and hence the authenticity of the ma.n.u.script was ascertainable on other grounds than the indisputable ones of its internal evidences. The book was offered to Rossetti for ten s.h.i.+llings, but the young enthusiast was at the time a student of art, and not much in the way of getting or spending even so inconsiderable a sum. He told me, however, that at this period his brother William, who was, unlike himself, engaged in some reasonably profitable occupation, was at all times nothing loath to advance small sums for the purchase of such literary or other treasures as he used to hunt up out of obscure corners: by his help the Blake ma.n.u.script was bought, and proved for years a source of infinite pleasure and profit, resulting, as it did, in many very important additions to Blake literature when Gilchrist's _Life and Works_ of that author came to be published. It is an interesting fact, mention of which ought not to be omitted, that at the sale of Rossetti's library, which took place a little while after his decease, the sc.r.a.p-book acquired in the way I describe was sold for one hundred and five guineas.
The sum was a large one, but the little book was undoubtedly the most valuable literary relic of Blake then extant. About the time when a new edition of Gilchrist's _Life_ was in the press, Rossetti wrote:
My evenings have been rather trenched upon lately by helping Mrs. Gilchrist with a new edition of the _Life of Blake_....
I don't know if you go in much for him. The new edition of the _Life_ will include a good number of additional letters (from Blake to Hayley), and some addition (though not great) to my own share in the work; as well as much important carrying-on of my brother's catalogue of Blake's works. The ill.u.s.trations will, I trust, receive valuable additions also, but publishers are apt to be cautious in such expenses. I am writing late at night, to fill up a f.a.g-end of bedtime, and shall write again on this head.
Rossetti's ”own share” in this work consisted of the writing of the supplementary chapter (left by Gilchrist, with one or two unimportant pa.s.sages merely, at the beginning), and the editing of the poems. When there arose, subsequently, some idea of my reviewing the book, Rossetti wrote me the following letter, full of disinterested solicitude:
You will be quite delighted with an essay on Blake by Jas.
Smetham, which occurs in vol ii.; it is a n.o.ble thing; and at the stupendous design called _Plague_ (vol. i.). I have extracted a pa.s.sage properly belonging to the same essay, which is as fine as English _can_ be, and which I am sorry to perceive (I think) that Mrs. G. has omitted from the body of the essay because quoted in another place. This essay is no less than a masterpiece. I wrote the supplementary chapter (vol. i.), except a few opening paragraphs by Gilchrist,--and in it have now made some mention of Smetham, an old and dear friend of mine.
You will admire s.h.i.+elds's paper on the wonderful series of Young's _Night Thoughts_. My brother and I both helped in this new edition, but I added little to what I had done before. I brought forward a portentous series of pa.s.sages about one ”Scofield” in Blake's _Jerusalem_, but did not otherwise write that chapter, except as regards the ill.u.s.trations. However, don't mention what I have done (in case you write on the subject) except so far as the indices show it, and of course I don't wish to be put forward at all. What I do wish is, that you should say everything that can be gratifying to Mrs. G. as to her husband's work. There is a plate of Blake's Cottage by young Gilchrist which is truly excellent.
As I have already said, Rossetti traversed the bypaths of English literature (particularly of English poetry) as few can ever have traversed them. A favourite work with him was Gilfillan's _Less-Read British Poets_, a copy of which had been presented by Miss Boyd. He says:
Did you ever read Christopher Smart's _Song to David_, the only great _accomplished_ poem of the last century? The accomplished ones are Chatterton's,--of course I mean earlier than Blake or Coleridge, and without reckoning so exceptional a genius as Burns.... You will find Smart's poem a masterpiece of rich imagery, exhaustive resources, and reverberant sound. It is to be met with in Gilfillan's _Specimens of the Less-Read British Poets_ (3 vols. Nichol, Edin., 1860)....
I remember your mentioning Gilfillan as having encouraged your first efforts. He was powerful, though sometimes rather ”tall” as a writer, generally most just as a critic, and lastly, a much better man, intellectually and morally, than Aytoun, who tried to ”do for” him. His notice of Swift, in the volume in question, has very great force and eloquence.
His whole edition of the _British Poets_ is the best of any to read, being such fine type and convenient bulk and weight (a great thing for an arm-chair reader). Unfortunately, he now and then (in the _Less-Read Poets_) cuts down the extracts almost to nothing, and in some cases excises objectionabilities, which is unpardonable. Much better leave the whole out. Also, the edition includes the usual array of n.o.bodies--Addison, Akenside, and the whole alphabet down to Zany and Zero; whereas a great many of the _less-read_ would have been much-read by every worthy reader if they had only been printed in full. So well printed an edition of Donne (for instance) would have been a great boon; but from him Gilfillan only gives (among the _less-read_) the admirable _Progress of the Soul_ and some of the pregnant _Holy Sonnets_. Do you know Donne? There is hardly an English poet better worth a thorough knowledge, in spite of his provoking conceits and occasional jagged jargon.
The following paragraph on Whitehead is valuable:
Charles Whitehead's princ.i.p.al poem is _The Solitary_, which in its day had admirers. It perhaps most recalls Goldsmith.
He also wrote a supernatural poem called _Ippolito_. There was a volume of his poems published about 1848, or perhaps a little later, by Bentley. It is disappointing, on the whole, from the decided superiority of its best points to the rest.... But the novel of _Richard Savage_ is very remarkable,--a real character really worked out.
To aid me in certain researches I was at the time engaged in making in the back-numbers of almost forgotten periodicals, Rossetti wrote:
The old _Monthly Mag._ was the precursor of the _New Monthly_, which started about 1830, or thereabouts I think, after which the old one ailed, but went on till fatal old Heraud finished it off by editing it, and fairly ma.s.sacred that elderly innocent. You speak, in a former letter (touching the continuation of _Christabel_), of ”a certain European magazine.” Are you aware that it was as old a thing as _The Gentleman's_, and went on _ad infinitum?_ Other such were the _Universal Magazine, the Scots' Magazine_--all endless in extent and beginning time out of mind,--to say nothing of the _Ladies' Magazine and Wits' Magazine_. Then there was the _Annual Register_. All these are quarters in which you might prosecute researches, and might happen to find something about Keats. _The Monthly Magazine_ must have commenced almost as early, I believe. I cannot help thinking there was a similar _Imperial Magazine_.
The following letter possesses an interest independent of its subject, which to me, however, is interest enough. Mr. William Watson had sent Rossetti a copy of a volume of poems he had just published, and had received a letter in acknowledgment, wherein our friend, with characteristic appreciativeness, said many cordial words of it:
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