Famous Reviews by Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

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How two swains one nymph her vows may give,
And how two damsels with one lover live.

Love is represented as a passion conceived without any ground of
reasonable preference, and as entirely irresistible in its sway. Tina
bestows her affections on Captain Wybrow, while the Captain, without
caring for anybody but himself, is paying his addresses to Miss Assher;
and Mr. Gilfil is pining for Tina, whom, if he had any discernment at
all, he could not but see to be quite unfitted for him. Adam Bede is in
love with the utterly undeserving Hetty, while Dinah Morris and Mary
Burge are both in love with Adam, Hetty with Arthur Donnithorne, and
Seth Bede with Dinah. At last, Hetty is got out of the way, Dinah comes
to a clearer understanding of her feelings towards Adam, and Adam, on
being made aware of this, is set on by his mother to make a successful
proposal; but "quiet Mary Burge" subsides into a bridesmaid, and Seth,
the "poor wool-gatherin' Methodist," is left without any other
consolation than that of worshipping his sister-in-law.

But it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the unwholesome view which we
have mentioned finds its most startling development. Maggie is in love
with Philip, and Philip with Maggie; Stephen Guest is in love with Lucy
Deane, and Lucy with Stephen, while at the same time she has an
undeclared admirer in Tom Tulliver. But as soon as Maggie and Stephen
become acquainted with each other, they exercise a powerful mutual
attraction, and the mischief of love (as the passion is represented by
our authoress) breaks loose in terrible force. The reproach which Tom
Tulliver had coarsely thrown in Philip's teeth, that he had taken
advantage of Maggie's inexperience to secure her affections before she
had had any opportunity of comparing him with other men, turns out to be
entirely just. Stephen is a mere underbred coxcomb, and is intended to
appear as such (for we do not think that the authoress has failed in any
attempt to make him a gentleman); his only merit, in so far as we can
discover, is a foolish talent for singing, and, except as to person, he
is infinitely inferior to Philip. But for this mere physical superiority
the lofty-souled Maggie prefers him to the lover whom she had before
loved for his deformity; and the passion is represented as one which no
considerations of moral or religious principle, no regard to the claims
of others, no training derived from the hardships of her former life or
from the ascetic system to which she had at one time been devoted, can
withstand. Here is a delicate scene, which is described as having taken
place in a conservatory, to which the pair had withdrawn on the night of
a ball:--

Maggie bent her arm a little upward towards the large half-opened rose
that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm?
--the unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled
elbow, and the varied gently-lessening curves down to the delicate
wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm
softness?

A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted towards the arm and
showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.

But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glanced at him
like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation.

"How dare you?" she spoke in a deeply-shaken, half-smothered voice:
"what right have I given you to insult me?"

She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the
sofa panting and trembling.[1]

[1] iii. 156.

We should not have blamed the young lady if, like one of Mr. Trollope's
heroines, she had made her admirer feel not only "the beauty of a
woman's arm," but its weight. But, unwarned by the grossness of his
behaviour on this occasion, she is represented as admitting Stephen to
further intercourse; and, although she rescues herself at last, it is
not until after having occasioned irreparable scandal. A good-natured
ordinary novelist might have found an easy solution for the difficulties
of the case at an earlier stage by marrying Stephen to Maggie, and
handing over Lucy (who is far too amiable to object to such a transfer)
to her admiring cousin Tom; while Philip, left in celibacy, might either
have been invested with a pathetic interest, or represented as justly
punished for the offence of forestalling. But George Eliot has higher
aims than ordinary novelists, and to her the transfer which we have
suggested would appear as a profanation. Her characters, therefore,
plunge into all manner of sacrifices of reputation and happiness; and it
is not until Maggie and Tom have been drowned, and Philip's whole life
embittered, that we catch a final view of Mr. Stephen Guest visiting the
grave of the brother and sister in company with the amiable wife, _nee_
Lucy Deane. If we are to accept the natural moral of this story, it
shows how coarse and immoral a very fastidious and ultra-refined
morality may become.

It is with reluctance that we go on to notice the religion of these
books; but since religion appears so largely in them, we must not
decline the task. To us, at least, the theory of the writer's "High-Church
tendencies" could never have appeared plausible; for even in the
"Scenes of Clerical Life" the chief religious personage is the
"evangelical" curate Mr. Tryan, and whatever good there is in his parish
is confined to the circle of his partisans and converts; while in "Adam
Bede" the Methodess preacheress, Dinah Morris, is intended to shine with
spotless and incomparable lustre. Yet, although the highest characters,
in a religious view, are drawn from "evangelicism" and Methodism, we
find that neither of these systems is set forth as enough to secure the
perfection of everybody who may choose to profess it....

Mr. Parry, although agreeing with Mr. Tryan in opinion, is represented
as no less unpopular and inefficient than Mr. Tryan was the reverse; and
the Reverend Amos Barton is a hopeless specimen of that variety of
"evangelical" clergymen to which the late Mr. Conybeare gave the name of
"low and slow,"--a variety which, we believe, flourishes chiefly in the
midland counties. On the other hand, Mr. Gilfil and Mr. Irwine,
clergymen of the "old school," are held up as objects for our respect
and love; and Mr. Irwine is not only vindicated by Adam Bede in his old
age, in comparison with his evangelical successor Mr. Ryde, but the
question between high and low church, as represented by these two, is
triumphantly settled by a quotation which Adam brings from our old
friend Mrs. Poyser:--

Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know she would have her word about
everything--she said Mr. Irwine was like a good meal o' victual, you
were the better for him without thinking on it; and Mr. Ryde was like
a dose o' physic, he griped and worrited you, and after all he left
you much the same.[1]

[1] "Adam Bede," i. 269.

In "The Mill on the Floss," too, the "brazen" Mr. Stelling is
represented as "evangelical," in so far as he is anything; while Dr.
Kenn, a very high Anglican, is spoken of with all veneration; although,
perhaps, "George Eliot's" opinion as to the efficiency of the high
Anglican clergy may be gathered from the circumstance that when the
Doctor interferes for the benefit of Maggie Tulliver, he not only fails
to be of any use, but exposes himself to something like the same kind of
gossip which had arisen from Mr. Amos Barton's hospitality to Madame
Czerlaski. As to Methodism, again, the reader need hardly be reminded of
the sayings which we have quoted from Mrs. Poyser. And while the feeble
and "wool-gathering" Seth Bede becomes a convert, the strong-minded Adam
holds out, even although he is so tolerant as to marry a female
Methodist preacher, and to let her enjoy her "liberty of prophesying"
until stopped by a general order of the Wesleyan Conference.

From all these things the natural inference would seem to be that the
authoress is neither High-Church nor Low-Church nor Dissenter, but a
tolerant member of what is styled the Broad-Church party--a party in
which we are obliged to say that breadth and toleration are by no means
universal. It would seem that, instead of being exclusively devoted to
any one of the religious types which she has embodied in the persons of
her tales (for as yet she has not presented us with a clergyman of any
liberal school), she regards each of them as containing an element of
pure Christianity, which, although in any one of them it may be alloyed
by its adjuncts and by the faults of individuals, is in itself of
inestimable value, and may be held alike by persons who differ widely
from each other as to the forms of religious polity and as to details of
Christian doctrine.

But what is to be thought of the fact that the authoress of these tales
is also the translator of Strauss's notorious book? Is the Gospel which
she has represented in so many attractive lights nothing better to her,
after all, than "fabula ista de Christo"? Are the various forms under
which she has exhibited it no more for her than the Mahometan and Hindoo
systems were for the poet of Thalaba and Kehama? Has she been carrying
out in these novels the precepts of that chapter in which Dr. Strauss
teaches his disciples how, while believing the New Testament narrative
to be merely mythical, they may yet discharge the functions of the
Christian preacher without exposing themselves by their language to any
imputation of unsoundness? But, even apart from this distressing
question, there is much to interfere with the hope and the interest with
which we should wish to look forward to the future career of a writer so
powerful and so popular as the authoress of these books--much to awaken
very serious apprehensions as to the probable effect of her influence.
No one who has looked at all into our late fictitious literature can
have failed to be struck with the fondness of many of the writers of the
day for subjects which at an earlier time would not have been thought
of, or would have been carefully avoided. The idea that fiction should
contain something to soothe, to elevate, or to purify seems to be
extinct. In its stead there is a love for exploring what would be better
left in obscurity; for portraying the wildness of passion and the
harrowing miseries of mental conflict; for dark pictures of sin and
remorse and punishment; for the discussion of questions which it is
painful and revolting to think of. By some writers such themes are
treated with a power which fascinates even those who most disapprove the
manner in which it is exercised; by others with a feebleness which shows
that the infection has spread even to the most incapable of the
contributors to our circulating libraries. To us the influence of the
"Jack Shepherd" school of literature is really far less alarming than
that of a class of books which is more likely to find its way into the
circles of cultivated readers, and, most especially, to familiarize the
minds of our young women in the middle and higher ranks with matters on
which their fathers and brothers would never venture to speak in their
presence. It is really frightful to think of the interest which we have
ourselves heard such readers express in criminals like Paul Ferroll, and
in sensual ruffians like Mr. Rochester: and there is much in the
writings of "George Eliot" which, on like grounds, we feel ourselves
bound most earnestly to condemn. Let all honour be paid to those who in
our time have laboured to search out and to make known such evils of our
social condition as Christian sympathy may in some degree relieve or
cure. But we do not believe that any good end is to be effected by
fictions which fill the mind with details of imaginary vice and distress
and crime, or which teach it--instead of endeavouring after the
fulfilment of simple and ordinary duty--to aim at the assurance of
superiority by creating for itself fanciful and incomprehensible
perplexities. Rather we believe that the effect of such fictions must be
to render those who fall under their influence unfit for practical
exertion; while they most assuredly do grievous harm in many cases, by
intruding on minds which ought to be guarded from impurity the
unnecessary knowledge of evil.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE

In the early days of the nineteenth century Edinburgh certainly aspired
to prouder eminence as a centre of light and learning than it has
continued to maintain. Tory energy, provoked by the arrogance of
Jeffrey, had found its earliest expression in London, but the northern
capital evidently determined not to be left behind in the game of
unprincipled vituperation. _Blackwood_, unlike its rivals in infancy,
was issued monthly, and its closely printed double columns add something
to the impression of heaviness in its satire.

JOHN WILSON
(1785-1854)

There is admittedly something incongruous in any association between the
genial and laughter-loving Christopher North and the reputation incurred
by the periodical with which he was long so intimately associated. He
had contributed--as few of his confederates would have been permitted--
to the _Edinburgh_; but he was Literary Editor to _Blackwood_ from
October, 1817, to September, 1852. Originally a disciple of the Lake
School, at whom he was frequently girding, he migrated to Edinburgh
(where he became Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1820), and attracted
to himself many brilliant men of letters, including De Quincey.

The "mountain-looking fellow," as Dickens called him, the patron of
"cock-fighting, wrestling, pugilistic contests, boat-racing, and
horse-racing" left his mark on his generation for a unique combination
of
boisterous joviality and hardhitting. Well known in the houses of the
poor; more than one observer has said that he reminded them of the
"first man, Adam." He "swept away all hearts, withersoever he would."
"Thor and Balder in one," "very Goth," "a Norse Demigod," "hair of the
true Sicambrian yellow"; Carlyle describes him as "fond of all
stimulating things; from tragic poetry down to whiskey-punch. He snuffed
and smoked cigars and drank liqueurs, and talked in the most
indescribable style.... He is a broad sincere man of six feet, with long
dishevelled flax-coloured hair, and two blue eyes keen as an eagle's ...
a being all split into precipitous chasms and the wildest volcanic
tumults ... a noble, loyal, and religious nature, not _strong_ enough to
vanquish the perverse element it is born into."

The foundation of Wilson's criticism, unlike most of his contemporaries,
was generous and wide-minded appreciation, yet he "hacked about him,
distributing blows right and left, delivered sometimes for fun, though
sometimes with the most extraordinary impulse of perversity, in the
impetus of his career." With all a boy's love of a good fight, he shared
with youth its thoughtless indifference to the consequences.

His not altogether unfriendly criticisms inspired one of Tennyson's
lightest effusions--

You did late review my lays,
Crusty Christopher;
You did mingle blame and praise
Rusty Christopher.
When I learnt from whence it came,
I forgave you all the blame,
Musty Christopher;
I could not forgive the praise
Fusty Christopher.

The _Noctes Ambrosianae_ is certainly a unique production. Though
ostensibly a dialogue mainly between himself, Tickler (i.e., Lockhart),
and Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd--with other occasional dramatis personae;
the main bulk of them (including everything here quoted) was written by
Wilson himself--in this form, to produce an original effect. The
conversations are, for the most part, thoroughly dramatic, and cover
every conceivable subject from politics and literature to the beauty of
scenery, dress, cookery, and the various sports beloved of Christopher.
There is much boisterous interruption for eating, drinking, and personal
chaff.

Of the longer quotations selected we would particularly draw attention
to the humorous and epigrammatic parody of Wordsworth, on whom Wilson
elsewhere bestows generous enthusiasm; and the broad-minded outlook
which can appreciate the contrasted virility of Byron and Dr. Johnson.
But it would be impossible to give an approximately fair impression of
the _Noctes_, without many examples of those paragraph criticisms
scattered broadcast on every page, which we have presented as "Crumbs"
from the feast. The magnificent recantation to Leigh Hunt--on whom
_Blackwood_ had bestowed even more than its share of abuse--has passed
into a proverb.

ANONYMOUS

As in the case of the _Quarterly_ these untraced effusions may be
assigned, with fair confidence, to the principal originators of the
magazine: Wilson himself, Lockhart, and William Maginn (1793-1842), a
thriftless Irishman who helped to start _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1830, and
stood for Captain Shandon in Pendennis; author of _Bob Burke's Duel with
Ensign Brady_, "perhaps the raciest Irish story ever written."

They almost certainly combined in the heated attack on "The Cockney
School," of which Leigh Hunt's generous, but not always judicious,
advertisement was an obvious temptation to satire, embittered by
political bias. Coleridge, also, provided easy material for scorn from
vigorous manhood; and Shelley, as Wilson remarks elsewhere, was "the
greatest sinner of the oracular school--because the only true poet."

CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON POPE[1]
[1] A Discussion of the Edition by Bowles.

[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, March, 1825]

_Tickler._ Pope was one of the most amiable men that ever lived. Fine
and delicate as were the temper and temperament of his genius, he had a
heart capable of the warmest human affection. He was indeed a loving
creature.

_North._ Come, come, Timothy, you know you were sorely cut an hour or
two ago--so do not attempt characteristics. But, after all, Bowles does
not say that Pope was unamiable.

_Tickler._ Yes, he does--that is to say, no man can read, even now, all
that he has written about Pope, without thinking on the whole, somewhat
indifferently of the man Pope. It is for this I abuse our friend Bowles.

_Shepherd._ Ay, ay--I recollect now some of the havers o' Boll's about
the Blounts,--Martha and Theresa, I think you call them. Puir wee bit
hunched-backed, windle-strae-legged, gleg-eed, clever, acute, ingenious,
sateerical, weel-informed, warm-hearted, real philosophical, and maist
poetical creature, wi' his sounding translation o' a' Homer's works,
that reads just like an original War-Yepic,--His Yessay on Man that, in
spite o' what a set o' ignoramuses o' theological critics say about
Bolingbroke and Croussass, and heterodoxy and atheism, and like haven,
is just-ane o' the best moral discourses that ever I heard in or out o'
the poupit,--His yepistles about the Passions, and sic like, in the
whilk he goes baith deep and high, far deeper and higher baith than mony
a modern poet, who must needs be either in a diving-bell or a balloon,--
His Rape o' the Lock o' Hair, wi' a' these Sylphs floating about in the
machinery o' the Rosicrucian Philosophism, just perfectly yelegant and
gracefu', and as gude, in their way, as onything o' my ain about
fairies, either in the _Queen's Wake_ or _Queen Hynde_,--His Louisa to
Abelard is, as I said before, coorse in the subject-matter, but, O sirs!
powerfu' and pathetic in execution--and sic a perfect spate o'
versification! His unfortunate lady, who sticked hersel for love wi' a
drawn sword, and was afterwards seen as a ghost, dim-beckoning through
the shade--a verra poetical thocht surely, and full both of terror and
pity....

_North._ Pope's poetry is full of nature, at least of what I have been
in the constant habit of accounting nature for the last threescore and
ten years. But (thank you, James, that snuff is really delicious)
leaving nature and art, and all that sort of thing, I wish to ask a
single question: what poet of this age, with the exception, perhaps, of
Byron, can be justly said, when put in comparison with Pope, to have
written the English language at all....

_Tickler._ What would become of Bowles himself, with all his elegance,
pathos, and true feeling? Oh! dear me, James, what a dull, dozing,
disjointed, dawdling, dowdy of a drawe would be his muse, in her very
best voice and tune, when called upon to get up and sing a solo after
the sweet and strong singer of Twickenham!

_North._ Or Wordsworth--with his eternal--Here we go up, and up, and up,
and here we go down, down, and here we go roundabout, roundabout!--Look
at the nerveless laxity of his _Excursion!_--What interminable prosing!--
The language is out of condition:--fat and fozy, thick-winded, purfled
and plethoric. Can he be compared with Pope?--Fie on't! no, no, no!--
Pugh, pugh!

_Tickler._ Southey--Coleridge--Moore?

_North._ No; not one of them. They are all eloquent, diffusive, rich,
lavish, generous, prodigal of their words. But so are they all deficient
in sense, muscle, sinew, thews, ribs, spine. Pope, as an artist, beats
them hollow. Catch him twaddling.

_Tickler._ It is a bad sign of the intellect of an age to depreciate the
genius of a country's classics. But the attempt covers such critics with
shame, and undying ridicule pursues them and their abettors. The Lake
Poets began this senseless clamour against the genius of Pope.

ON BYRON

[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, October, 1825]

_North._ People say, James, that Byron's tragedies are failures. Fools!
Is Cain, the dark, dim, disturbed, insane, hell-haunted Cain, a failure?
Is Sardanapalus, the passionate, princely, philosophical, joy-cheated,
throne-wearied voluptuary, a failure? Is Heaven and Earth, that
magnificent confusion of two worlds, in which mortal beings mingle in
love and hate, joy and despair, with immortal--the children of the dust
claiming alliance with the radiant progeny of the skies, till man and
angel seem to partake of one divine being, and to be essences eternal in
bliss or bale--is Heaven and Earth, I ask you, James, a failure? If so,
then Appollo has stopt payment--promising a dividend of one shilling in
the pound--and all concerned in that house are bankrupts.

_Tickler._ You have nobly--gloriously vindicated Byron, North, and in
doing so, have vindicated the moral and intellectual character of our
country. Miserable and pernicious creed, that holds possible the lasting
and intimate union of the first, purest, highest, noblest, and most
celestial powers of soul and spirit, with confirmed appetencies, foul
and degrading lust, cowardice, cruelty, meanness, hypocrisy, avarice,
and impiety! You,--in a strong attempt made to hold up to execration the
nature of Byron as deformed by all these hideous vices,--you, my friend,
reverently unveiled the countenance of the mighty dead, and the
lineaments struck remorse into the heart of every asperser.

ON DR. JOHNSON

[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, April, 1829]

_North._ I forgot old Sam--a jewel rough set, yet shining like a star,
and though sand-blind by nature, and bigoted by Education, one of the
truly great men of England, and "her men are of men the chief," alike in
the dominions of the understanding, the reason, the passions, and the
imagination. No prig shall ever persuade me that _Rasselas_ is not a
noble performance--in design and execution. Never were the expenses of a
mother's funeral more gloriously defrayed by son, than the funeral of
Samuel Johnson's mother by the price of _Rasselas_, written for the
pious purpose of laying her head decently and honourably in the dust.

_Shepherd._ Ay, that was pittin' literature and genius to a glorious
purpose indeed; and therefore nature and religion smiled on the wark,
and have stamped it with immortality.

_North._ Samuel was seventy years old when he wrote the _Lives of the
Poets_.

_Shepherd._ What a fine old buck! No unlike yoursel'.

_North._ Would it were so! He had his prejudicies, and his partialities,
and his bigotries, and his blindnesses,--but on the same fruit-tree you
see shrivelled pears or apples on the same branch with jargonelles or
golden pippins worthy of paradise. Which would ye show to the
Horticultural Society as a fair specimen of the tree?

_Shepherd._ Good, kit, good--philosophically picturesque. (_Mimicking
the old man's voice and manner._)

_North._ Show me the critique that beats his on Pope, and on Dryden--
nay, even on Milton; and hang me if you may not read his essay on
Shakespeare even after having read Charles Lamb, or heard Coleridge,
with increased admiration of the powers of all three, and of their
insight, through different avenues, and as it might seem almost with
different bodily and mental organs, into Shakespeare's "old exhausted,"
and his "new imagined worlds." He was a critic and a moralist who would
have been wholly wise, had he not been partly--constitutionally insane.
For there is blood in the brain, James--even in the organ--the vital
principle of all our "eagle-winged raptures"; and there was a taint of
the black drop of melancholy in his.