William Hazlitt

“ It is not art in its ‘high and palmy state,’ with its boasted refinements about it, that we look at with envy and wonder, so much as in its first rude attempts and conscious yearning after excellence. They were, indeed, the favoured of the earth, into whom genius first breathed the breath of life; who, born in a night of ignorance, first beheld the sacred dawn of light—those Deucalions of art, who, after the deluge of barbarism and violence had subsided, stood alone in the world, and had to sow the seeds of countless generations of knowledge. ”

“ If we are superficial, let us be brilliant. If we cannot be profound, let us at least be popular.
Why should we dismiss the reading public with contempt, when we have so little chance with the next generation? Literature formerly was a sweet Heremitress, who fed on the pure breath of Fame, in silence and in solitude; far from the madding strife, in sylvan shade or cloistered hall, she trimmed her lamp or turned her hourglass, pale with studious care, and aiming only to ‘make the age to come her own!’ She gave her life to the perfecting some darling work, and bequeathed it, dying, to posterity! ”

“ When art is a blank, then we want genius, enthusiasm, and industry to fill it up: when it is teeming with beauty and strength, then we want an eye to gaze at it, hands to point out its striking features, leisure to luxuriate in, and be enamoured of, its divine spirit. When we have Shakespeare, we do not want more Shakespeares: one Milton, one Pope or Dryden, is enough. Have we not plenty of Raphael’s, of Rubens’s, of Rembrandt’s pictures in the world? ”

“ But the lovers, whose memory the muse of the Italian poet had consecrated in the other world, are here restored to earth, with the graces and the sentiments that became them in their lifetime. Mr. Hunt, in accompanying them to its fatal close, has mingled every tint of many-coloured life in the tissue of their story—blending tears with smiles, the dancing of the spirits with sad forebodings, the intoxication of hope with bitter disappointment, youth with age, life and death together. He has united something of the voluptuous pathos of Boccacio with Ariosto’s laughing graces. ”

“ If Shakespear falls occasionally into the opposite extreme, it is a noble error, originating in the fulness of a gigantic strength: And yet this tragical Titan, who storms the heavens, and threatens to tear the world from off its hinges; who, more fruitful than Æschylus, makes our hair stand on end, and congeals our blood with horror, possessed, at the same time, the insinuating loveliness of the sweetest poetry. He plays with love like a child; and his songs are breathed out like melting sighs. He unites in his genius the utmost elevation and the utmost depth ”

“ What is virtue? It is the soul listening to, and revering and obeying a law which belongs to its very essence—the law of duty. We sometimes smile when we hear men decrying human nature, and in the same breath extolling religion to the skies, as if religion were any thing more than human nature acting in obedience to its chief law. Religion and virtue, as far as we possess them, are ourselves; and the homage which is paid to these attributes, is in truth a tribute to the soul of man. Self-crucifixion, then, should it exclude self-reverence, would be any thing but virtue. ”

“ Every painter and sculptor feels a conviction that a considerable portion of science is requisite to the productions of liberal art; but he will be equally convinced, that whatever is produced from principles and rules only, added to the most exquisite manual labour, is no more than a mechanical work. Sentiment is the life and soul of fine art; without which it is all a dead letter! Sentiment gives a sterling value, an irresistible charm to the rudest imagery or most unpractised scrawl. By this quality a firm alliance is formed with the affections in all works of art. ”

“ One great proof and beauty of works of true genius, is the ease, simplicity, and freedom from conscious effort which pervades them. Not only in different things is there this difference of skill and aptness displayed; but in the same thing, to which a man’s attention is continually directed, how narrow is the sphere of human excellence, how distinct the line of pursuit which nature has marked out even for those whom she has most favoured! Thus in painting, Raphael excelled in drawing, Titian in colouring, Rembrandt in chiaroscuro. ”

“ What is it that the poets of elder times have indeed done for us, besides paying awkward compliments and writing fulsome dedications to their patrons? They spread out a brighter heaven above our heads, a softer and a greener earth beneath our feet. They do in truth ‘paint the lily,’ they ‘throw a perfume on the violet, and add another hue unto the rainbow.’ From them the murmuring stream borrows its thoughtful music; they steep the mountain’s head in azure, and the nodding grove waves in visionary grandeur in their page. Solitude becomes more solitary, silence eloquent, joy extatic ”

“ But it is by no means so easy to dispose of Richardson, who was neither an observer of the one, nor a describer of the other; but who seemed to spin his materials entirely out of his own brain, as if there had been nothing existing in the world beyond the little shop in which he sat writing. There is an artificial reality about his works, which is nowhere to be met with. They have the romantic air of a pure fiction, with the literal minuteness of a common diary. The author had the strangest matter-of-fact imagination that ever existed, and wrote the oddest mixture of poetry and prose. ”

“ As art rose high then, so did it sink low afterwards: and the Vatican overlooks modern Italian art, stagnant, puny, steril, unwholesome, ague-struck, as Rome itself overlooks the marshes of the Campagna. What then? Does not the Vatican remain, the wonder of succeeding ages and surrounding nations? And when it yields (as yield it must) to time’s destructive rage, and its glories crumble into dust, a new Vatican will arise, and other Raphaels and Michael Angelos will breathe the inspiration of genius upon its walls! ”

“ The palm-tree waves over the untrodden path of luxuriant fiction; we tread with tiptoe elevation and throbbing heart the high hill-tops of boundless existence; and the dawn of hope and renovated life makes strange music in our breast, like the strings of Memnon’s harp, touched by the morning’s sun. After these two works, he fell off; he could not sustain himself at that height by the force of genius alone, and Mr. Godwin has unfortunately no resources but his genius. ”

“ Is there not Lord Byron? Are there not many more?—only that we are too near them to scan the loftiness of their pretensions, or to guess at their unknown duration. Genius carries on an unequal strife with Fame; nor will our bare word (if we durst presume to give it) make the balance even. Time alone can show who are the authors of mortal or immortal mould; and it is the height of wilful impertinence to anticipate its award, and assume, because certain living authors are new, that they never can become old. ”

“ He calls back time past, and anticipates the future: the visions of antiquity pass before him, Babylon in all its glory, Paris and Œnone: all the projects of philosophers, or creations of the poet, pay tribute at his feet: all the delights of fortune, of ambition, of pleasure and of learning, are centred in his person; and, from a short-lived dream of supreme felicity and drunken power, he sinks into an abyss of darkness and perdition. ”

“ Some leading truth, some master-passion, is the secret of his daring and his success, which he winds and turns at his pleasure, like Perseus his winged steed. An idea having once taken root in his mind, grows there like a germ: ‘at first no bigger than a mustard-seed, then a great tree overshadowing the whole earth.’ The progress of his reflections resembles the circles that spread from a centre when a stone is thrown into the water. ”

“ The love of a man like Petrarch would have been less in character, if it had been less ideal. For the purposes of inspiration, a single interview was quite sufficient. The smile which sank into his heart the first time he ever beheld her, played round her lips ever after: the look with which her eyes first met his, never passed away. The image of his mistress still haunted his mind, and was recalled by every object in nature. Even death could not dissolve the fine illusion: for that which exists in the imagination is alone imperishable. ”

“ An inordinate, restless, incorrigible self-love, is the key to all their actions and opinions, extravagancies, and meannesses, servility and arrogance. Whatever sooths and pampers this they applaud; whatever wounds or interferes with it they utterly and vindictively abhor. If an author is read and admired, they decry him; and if he is obscure or forgotten, or unintelligible, they extol him to the skies. But if they should succeed in bringing him into notice, and fixing him in the firmament of fame, they soon find out that there are spots in the sun, and draw the cloud of envy over his merits. ”

“ Haydon is a young artist of great promise, and much ardour and energy; and has lately painted a picture which has carried away universal admiration. Without wishing to detract from that tribute of deserved applause, we may be allowed to suggest (and with no unfriendly voice) that he has there, in our judgment, laid in the groundwork, and raised the scaffolding, of a noble picture; but no more. There is spirit, conception, force, and effect: but all this is done by the first going over of the canvas. It is the foundation, not the superstructure of a first-rate work of art. ”

“ The parent gives us few days and sorrowful; the poet many and glorious: the one (supposing him discreet and kindly) best reproves our faults; the other best remunerates our virtues. A page of poesy is a little matter—be it so—but of a truth I do tell thee, Cecil, it shall master full many a bold heart that the Spaniard cannot trouble—it shall win to it full many a proud and flighty one, that even chivalry and manly comeliness cannot touch. I may shake titles and dignities by the dozen from my breakfast-board—but I may not save those upon whose heads I shake them from rottenness and oblivion. ”

“ One would think so much gravity of style might be accompanied with more steadiness and weight of opinion. But the Times conforms to the changes of the time. It bears down upon a question, like a first-rate man of war, with streamers flying and all hands on deck; but if the first broadside does not answer, turns short upon it, like a triremed galley, firing off a few paltry squibs to cover its retreat. It takes up no falling cause; fights no up-hill battle; advocates no great principle; holds out a helping hand to no oppressed or obscure individual. ”

“ Rather do thou walk with him, ride with him, play with him, be his faery, his page, his every thing that love and poetry have invented; but watch him well, sport with his fancies; turn them about like the ringlets round his cheeks; and if ever he meditate on power, go, toss up thy baby to his brow, and bring back his thoughts into his heart by the music of thy discourse. ”

“ But this is not all; self-crucifixion has an object, an end. And what is it? Its great end is to give liberty and energy to our nature. Its aim is not to break down the soul, but to curb those lusts and passions which “war against the soul,” that the moral and intellectual faculties may rise into new life, and may manifest their divine original. Self-crucifixion, justly viewed, is the suppression of the passions, that the power and progress of thought, and conscience, and pure love, may be unrestrained. It is the destruction of the brute, that the angel may unfold itself within. ”

“ He took the whole duty of man—all other passions, affections, rules, weaknesses, oaths, gratitude, promises, friendship, natural piety, patriotism,—infused them in the glowing cauldron of universal benevolence, and ground them into powder under the unsparing weight of the convictions of the individual understanding. The entire and complicated mass and texture of human society and feeling was to pass through the furnace of this new philosophy, and to come out renovated and changed without a trace of its former Gothic ornaments, fantastic disproportions, embossing, or relief. ”

“ But a different fate awaited poor Keats! His fine fancy and powerful invention were too obvious to be treated with mere neglect; and as he had not been ushered into the world with the court-stamp upon him, he was to be crushed as a warning to genius how it keeps company with honesty, and as a sure means of inoculating the ingenuous spirit and talent of the country with timely and systematic servility! We sometimes think that writers are alarmed at the praises that even we bestow upon them, lest it should preclude them from the approbation of the authorized sources of fame! ”

“ He is excellent, whenever excellence is compatible with singularity. It is the fault of the school to which he belongs, not that they are blind to truth, or indifferent to good—but truth to be welcome must be a rare discovery of their own; they only woo her as a youthful bride; and are too soon satiated with the possession of what they desire, out of fickleness, or as the gloss of novelty wears off—or sue out a divorce from jealousy, and a dread of rivals in the favour of their former mistress! ”

“ There is something in their fictions that chills the imagination. The formidable objects of nature with which they were familiarized in their northern solitudes, their precipices and frozen mountains and gloomy forests, acted on their fancy, and gave a tincture of horror to their imagery. Spirits who send storms over the deep, who rejoice in the shriek of the drowning mariner, or diffuse irresistible pestilence; spells which preserve from poison, blunt the weapons of an enemy, or call up the dead from their tombs—these are the ornaments of northern poetry. ”

“ The pathos and dignity of the sentiments are often disguised under the ludicrousness of the subject; and provoke laughter when they might well draw tears. The character of Don Quixote itself is one of the most perfect disinterestedness. He is an enthusiast of the most amiable kind—of a nature equally open, gentle and generous; a lover of truth and justice, and one who had brooded over the fine dreams of chivalry and romance, till the dazzling visions cheated his brain into a belief of their reality. ”

“ Do we not neglect the standard works to hunt after mere novelty? This is not wisdom, but affectation or caprice. Learning becomes, by degrees, an undigested heap, without pleasure or use. We do not see the absolute necessity why another work should be written, or another picture painted, till those that we already have are becoming worm-eaten, or mouldering into decay. We can hardly expect a new harvest till the old crop is off the ground. If we insist on absolute originality in living writers or artists, we should begin by destroying the works of their predecessors. ”

“ Farther, the Fine Arts, by their spread, interfere with one another, and hinder the growth of originality. All the greatest things are done by the division of labour—by the intense concentration of a number of minds, each on a single and chosen object. But by the progress of cultivation, different arts and exercises stretch out their arms to impede, not to assist one another. Politics blend with poetry, painting with literature; fashion and elegance must be combined with learning and study: and thus the mind gets a smattering of every thing, and a mastery in none. ”

“ It is in the beginning of the Flower and the Leaf, where he describes the delight of that young beauty, shrouded in her bower, and listening in the morning of the year to the singing of the nightingale, while her joy rises with the rising song, and gushes out afresh at every pause, and is borne along with the full tide of pleasure, and still increases, and repeats, and prolongs itself, and knows no ebb. ”

“ Dante is a striking instance of the essential excellences and defects of modern genius. The immediate objects he presents to the mind, are 62not much in themselves;—they generally want grandeur, beauty, and order; but they become every thing by the force of the character which he impresses on them. His mind lends its own power to the objects which it contemplates, instead of borrowing it from them. He takes advantage even of the nakedness and dreary vacuity of his subject. His imagination peoples the shades of death, and broods over the barren vastnesses of illimitable space. ”