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Fiction, Fair and Foul
by
[189] Island, iii. 3, and compare, of shore surf, the ‘slings its high flakes, shivered into sleet’ of stanza 7.
[190] A modern editor–of whom I will not use the expressions which occur to me–finding the ‘we’ a redundant syllable in the iambic line, prints ‘we’re.’ It is a little thing–but I do not recollect, in the forty years of my literary experience, any piece of editor’s retouch quite so base. But I don’t read the new editions much; that must be allowed for.
[191] Island, ii. 5. I was going to say, ‘Look to the context.’ but am fain to give it here; for the stanza, learned by heart, ought to be our school-introduction to the literature of the world.
‘Such was this ditty of Tradition’s days,
Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys
In song, where fame as yet hath left no sign
Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine;
Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye,
But yields young history all to harmony;
A boy Achilles, with the centaur’s lyre
In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire.
For one long-cherish’d ballad’s simple stave
Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,
Or from the bubbling streamlet’s grassy side,
Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide,
Hath greater power o’er each true heart and ear,
Than all the columns Conquest’s minions rear;
Invites, when hieroglyphics are a theme
For sages’ labours or the student’s dream;
Attracts, when History’s volumes are a toil–
The first, the freshest bud of Feeling’s soil.
Such was this rude rhyme–rhyme is of the rude,
But such inspired the Norseman’s solitude,
Who came and conquer’d; such, wherever rise
Lands which no foes destroy or civilise,
Exist; and what can our accomplish’d art
Of verse do more than reach the a waken’d heart?’
[192] Shepherd’s Calendar. ‘Coronation,’ loyal-pastoral for Carnation; ‘sops in wine,’ jolly-pastoral for double pink; ‘paunce,’ thoughtless pastoral for pansy; ‘chevisaunce’ I don’t know, (not in Gerarde); ‘flowre-delice’–pronounce dellice–half made up of ‘delicate’ and ‘delicious.’
[193] Herrick, Dirge for Jephthah’s Daughter.
[194] Passionate Pilgrim.
[195] In this point, compare the Curse of Minerva with the Tears of the Muses.
[196] ‘He,’–Lucifer; (Vision of Judgment, 24). It is precisely because Byron was not his servant, that he could see the gloom. To the Devil’s true servants, their Master’s presence brings both cheerfulness and prosperity;–with a delightful sense of their own wisdom and virtue; and of the ‘progress’ of things in general:–in smooth sea and fair weather,–and with no need either of helm touch, or oar toil: as when once one is well within the edge of Maelstrom.
[197] Island, ii. 4; perfectly orthodox theology, you observe; no denial of the fall,–nor substitution of Bacterian birth for it. Nay, nearly Evangelical theology, in contempt for the human heart; but with deeper than Evangelical humility, acknowledging also what is sordid in its civilisation.