登陆注册
5406800000152

第152章 SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES(2)

Like them, it has something, of invention, grandeur, and brilliancy.But, like them, it is grotesque and extravagant, and perpetually violates even that conventional probability which is essential to the effect of works of art.

The warmest admirers of Mr.Southey will scarcely, we think, deny that his success has almost always borne an inverse proportion to the degree in which his undertakings have required a logical head.His poems, taken in the mass, stand far higher than his prose works.His official Odes indeed, among which the Vision of Judgement must be classed, are, for the most part, worse than Pye's and as bad as Cibber's; nor do we think him generally happy in short pieces.But his longer poems, though full of faults, are nevertheless very extraordinary productions.We doubt greatly whether they will be read fifty years hence; but that, if they are read, they will be admired, we have no doubt whatever.

But, though in general we prefer Mr.Southey's poetry to his prose, we must make one exception.The Life of Nelson is, beyond all doubt, the most perfect and the most delightful of his works.

The fact is, as his poems most abundantly prove, that he is by no means so skilful in designing as in filling up.It was therefore an advantage to him to be furnished with an outline of characters and events, and to have no other task to perform than that of touching the cold sketch into life.No writer, perhaps, ever lived, whose talents so precisely qualified him to write the history of the great naval warrior.There were no fine riddles of the human heart to read, no theories to propound, no hidden causes to develop, no remote consequences to predict.The character of the hero lay on the surface.The exploits were brilliant and picturesque.The necessity of adhering to the real course of events saved Mr, Southey from those faults which deform the original plan of almost every one of his poems, and which even his innumerable beauties of detail scarcely redeem.The subject did not require the exercise of those reasoning powers the want of which is the blemish of his prose.It would not be easy to find, in all literary history, an instance of a more exact hit between wind and water.John Wesley and the Peninsular War were subjects of a very different kind, subjects which required all the qualities of a philosophic historian.In Mr.

Southey's works on these subjects, he has, on the whole, failed.

Yet there are charming specimens of the art of narration in both of them.The Life of Wesley will probably live.Defective as it is, it contains the only popular account of a most remarkable moral revolution, and of a man whose eloquence and logical acuteness might have made him eminent in literature, whose genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu, and who, whatever his errors may have been, devoted all his powers, in defiance of obloquy and derision, to what he sincerely considered as the highest good of his species.The History of the Peninsular War is already dead; indeed, the second volume was dead-born.The glory of producing an imperishable record of that great conflict seems to be reserved for Colonel Napier.

The Book of the Church contains some stories very prettily told.

The rest is mere rubbish.The adventure was manifestly one which could be achieved only by a profound thinker, and one in which even a profound thinker might have failed, unless his passions had been kept under strict control.But in all those works in which Mr.Southey has completely abandoned narration, and has undertaken to argue moral and political questions, his failure has been complete and ignominious.On such occasions his writings are rescued from utter contempt and derision solely by the beauty and purity of the English.We find, we confess, so great a charm in Mr.Southey's style, that, even when be writes nonsense, we generally read it with pleasure except indeed when he tries to be droll.A more insufferable jester never existed.He very often attempts to be humorous, and yet we do not remember a single occasion on which he has succeeded further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull.In one of his works he tells us that Bishop Sprat was very properly so called, inasmuch as he was a very small poet.And in the book now before us he cannot quote Francis Bugg, the renegade Quaker, without a remark on his unsavoury name.A wise man might talk folly like this by his own fireside;but that any human being, after having made such a joke, should write it down, and copy it out, and transmit it to the printer, and correct the proof-sheets, and send it forth into the world, is enough to make us ashamed of our species.

The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which Mr.Southey manifests towards his opponents is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attributed to the manner in which he forms his opinions.

Differences of taste, it has often been remarked, produce greater exasperation than differences on points of science.But this is not all.A peculiar austerity marks almost all Mr.Southey's judgments of men and actions.We are far from blaming him for fixing on a high standard of morals, and for applying that standard to every case.But rigour ought to be accompanied by discernment; and of discernment Mr.Southey seems to be utterly destitute.His mode of judging is monkish.It is exactly what we should expect from a stern old Benedictine, who had been preserved from many ordinary frailties by the restraints of his situation.No man out of a cloister ever wrote about love, for example, so coldly and at the same time me so grossly.His descriptions of it are just what we should hear from a recluse who knew the passion only from the details of the confessional.

同类推荐
  • 奇方类编

    奇方类编

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 三论玄义

    三论玄义

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Night and Day

    Night and Day

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛祖纲目

    佛祖纲目

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 江月松风集

    江月松风集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 临时应急会话宝典

    临时应急会话宝典

    本书主要是为英语口语学习者准备的,以句子的形式表达各种情况。句子中包括了实用的词汇及短语。对于有相同说法的词语或句子,书中也做了说明。本书以主题划分,分为十大主题,主题以下又划分为具体的状况,比如:逛街购物时如何讨价还价,挑选衣服;面试找工作时,应聘者如何自我介绍,面试者如何提问;身在外国时需要去药店、去医院等等,涉及日常生活、工作、出国等方方面面,读者可以很轻松地找到应急的那句话。同时还配备MP3,让你听到原汁原味的英音。
  • 时时好念佛

    时时好念佛

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Z组织之恋

    Z组织之恋

    “Z”组织,现在在全球相当受欢迎的一个神秘组织。七位成员竟然在一年的时间里全部都红鸾星动,一个接一个的恋爱结婚了。看看在别人眼中这群怪胎们的恋爱史吧!
  • 精明人说话的150个小绝招

    精明人说话的150个小绝招

    一个人一生的成功与否,与这个人的口才有很大的关系。口若悬河、滔滔不绝的口才,在气势上就可赢得人们的一份尊敬,就能赢得比别人多一份的机会。特别是那些语言精练而又伟大的演说家们,他们的一言一行甚至将决定着世界历史的进程。社会中的每个人都想获得成功,不想碌碌无为地度过一生,好的口才就是人成功的辅助器,练好了,可以遨游于人际交往之间,左右逢源,游刃有余;练砸了,处处受人厌恶,明明是好心,到他那儿反成了恶意。
  • 爸爸的高度,决定孩子的起点

    爸爸的高度,决定孩子的起点

    本书选取了父亲教育的成功法则,告诉你如何教育孩子,做一个好父亲。全书从多个方面入手,为父亲教育孩子提供了诊断、指导,帮助父亲认识自己的角色,明确自己的责任,掌握教育的方法,打破以往错误的教育观念。
  • 末世之魔女横行霸道

    末世之魔女横行霸道

    余青青一觉醒来就到了末世,求生存,自己送上门,金大腿却不要,盖棉被,纯聊天,隔天起床还撩她。送她到家后,以为从此不再相会,想不到成了傻子?看女主怎么变魔女,在末世横行霸道,看男神怎么变傻子,又怎么变丧尸。女主:你是丧尸,我是魔女,总而言之,我们都不是人。男主:!!!怎么一清醒,他们都不是人了?
  • 憨包老三的家世

    憨包老三的家世

    憨包老三名叫马金贵。为哪样被人叫作憨包老三?按村里人的说法,是“种”不好,因为他老爹就憨。他老爹生于光绪末年,叫马滇生,是滇池边小水村人氏,五岁才会说话。五岁之前,张开嘴除了吃奶,就只会“啊哩啊哩”地叫。他爹把香油灯放在他脸面前,他连眼睛都不眨。
  • 像林徽因一样优雅,像张爱玲一样强大

    像林徽因一样优雅,像张爱玲一样强大

    女人想让自己时刻散发出优雅的气质,不仅要修饰自己的美貌,还要增加自己的智慧。因为优雅需要充实的内涵和丰富的文化底蕴来支撑。“腹有诗书气自华”,自身的智慧和修养可以让你拥有独到的见解和追求,拥有自己的事业。生活,忍受是过,享受也是过。一个人的自信来自一个人内心的淡定和坦然,要做到内心强大,前提是看轻身外之物的得与失。而真正内心强大的人,不是能力有多强,而是敢于向前走。蔡少惠著的《像林徽因一样优雅,像张爱玲一样强大》通过描写林徽因与张爱玲的生平事迹,告诉你如何修炼自己,让自己变成如同林徽因一样优雅,如同张爱玲一样内心强大的女人。
  • 证道诸天

    证道诸天

    孟凡,一个收集癖穿越诸天大世界,求仙问道的故事!
  • 当心!浣熊出没

    当心!浣熊出没

    16岁的少女霍美夕在国外意外邂逅了一只捣蛋的浣熊,并结下特殊的“人熊情缘”的故事。为了营救被监禁的浣熊,霍美夕想方设法把它带回国,之后,历经诸多考验,为它营造了舒适安全的环境。里面涉及关于人性的探讨、关于大自然的探讨,这部题材不失趣味性,也有一定的思想和深意在。