Certain it is, at any rate, that the _cenacle_ of politicians, whose interests are to be thrown in relief against this ma.s.s of grovelling corruption, forms but a feeble contrast, even in the purely artistic sense. We have no right to doubt that Disraeli thought that Coningsby and his friends represented the true solution of the difficulty; yet if anybody had wished to demonstrate that a genuine belief might sometimes make a man more contemptible than hypocritical selfishness, he could scarcely have defended the paradox more ingeniously. "Unconscious cerebration" has become a popular explanation of many phenomena; and it would hardly be fanciful to a.s.sume that one lobe of Disraeli"s brain is in the habit of secreting bitter satire unknown to himself, and cunningly inserting it behind the thin veil of sentiment unconsciously elaborated by the other. We are prepared, indeed, to accept the new doctrine, as cleverly as Balzac could have inoculated us with a provisional belief in animal magnetism, to heighten our interest in a thrilling story of wonder. We have judicious hints of esoteric political doctrine, which has been partially understood by great men at various periods of our history. The whole theory is carefully worked out in the opening pages of "Sybil." The most remarkable thing about our popular history, so Disraeli tells us, is, that it is "a complete mystification;" many of the princ.i.p.al characters never appear, as, for example, Major Wildman, who was "the soul of English politics from 1640 to 1688." It is not surprising, therefore, that two of our three chief statesmen in later times should be systematically depreciated. The younger Pitt, indeed, has been extolled, though on wrong grounds. But Bolingbroke and Shelburne, our two finest political geniuses, are pa.s.sed over with contempt by ordinary historians. A historian might amuse himself by tracing the curious a.n.a.logy between the most showy representatives of the old race of statesmen and the modern successor who delights to sing his praises. The Patriot King is really to some extent an antic.i.p.ation of Disraeli"s peculiar democratic Toryism. But the chief merit of Shelburne would seem to be that the qualities which earned for him the nickname of Malagrida made him convenient as a hypothetical depository of some esoteric scheme of politics. For the purposes of fiction, at any rate, we may believe that English politics are a riddle of which only three men have guessed the true solution since the "financial" revolution of 1688. Pitt was only sound so far as he was the pupil of Shelburne; but Bolingbroke, Shelburne, and Disraeli possessed the true key, and fully understood, for example, that Charles I. was the "holocaust of direct taxation." But frankly to expound this theory would be to destroy its charm, and to cast pearls before political economists. And, therefore, its existence is dimly adumbrated rather than its meaning revealed; and we have hints that there are wheels within wheels, and that in the lowest deep of mystery there is a yet deeper mystery. Coningsby and his a.s.sociates, the brilliant Buckhurst and the rich Catholic country gentleman, Eustace Lyle, are but unripe neophytes, feeling after the true doctrine, but not yet fully initiated. The superlative Sidonia, the man who by thirty has exhausted all the sources of human knowledge, become master of the learning of every nation, of all tongues, dead or living, and of every literature, western and oriental; who has pursued all the speculations of science to their last term; who has lived in all orders of society, and observed man in every phase of civilisation; who has a penetrative intellect which enables him to follow as by intuition the most profound of all questions, and a power of communicating with precision the most abstruse ideas; whose wealth would make Monte Cristo seem a pauper; who is so far above his race that woman seems to him a toy, and man a machine,--this thrice miraculous Sidonia, who can yet stoop from his elevation to win a steeplechase from the Gentiles, or return their hospitality by an exquisite dinner, is the fitting depository of the precious secret. No one can ever accuse Disraeli of a want of audacity. He does not, like weaker men, shrink from introducing men of genius because he is afraid that he will not be able to make them talk in character; and when, in "Venetia," he introduces Byron and Sh.e.l.ley, he is kind enough to write poetry for them, which produces as great an effect as the original.
And now having a true prophet, having surrounded him with a band of disciples, so that the transmitted rays of wisdom may be bearable to our mortal eyes, we expect some result worthy of this startling machinery.
Let the closed casket open, and the magic light stream forth to dazzle the gazing world. We know, alas! too well that our expectation cannot be satisfied. There is not any secret doctrine in politics. Bolingbroke may have been a very clever man, but he could not see through a stone wall.
The whole hypothesis is too extravagant to admit of any downright prosaic interpretation. But something might surely be done for the imagination, if not for the reason. Some mystic formula might be p.r.o.nounced which might pa.s.s sufficiently well for an oracle so long as we are in the charmed world of fiction. Let Sidonia only repeat some magniloquent gnome from Greek, or Hebrew, or German philosophers, give us a sc.r.a.p of Hegel, or of the Talmud, and we will willingly take it to be the real thing for imaginative purposes, as we allow ourselves to believe that some theatrical goblet really contains a fluid of magical efficacy. Unluckily, however, and the misfortune ill.u.s.trates the inconvenience of combining politics with fiction, Disraeli had something to say, and still more unluckily that something was a mere nothing. It was the creed of Young England; and even greater imaginative power might have failed in the effort to instil the most temporary vitality into that flimsy collection of sham beliefs. A mere sentimentalist might possibly have introduced it in such a way as to impress us at least with his own sincerity. But how is such doctrine to be uttered by lips which are, at the same time, pouring out the shrewdest of sarcasms against politicians who, if more pachydermatous, were at least more manly? In a newfangled church, amidst incense and genuflexions and ecclesiastical millinery, one may listen patiently to a ritualist sermon; but no mortal skill could make ritualism sound plausible in regions to which the outer air of common sense is fairly admitted. The only mode of escape is by slurring over the doctrine, or by proclaiming it with an air of burlesque. Disraeli keeps most dexterously in the region of the ambiguous. He does at last produce his political wares with a certain _aplomb_; but a doubtful smile about his lips encourages some of the spectators to fancy that he estimates their value pretty accurately. His last book of "Coningsby" opens with a Christmas scene worthy of an ill.u.s.trated keepsake. We have b.u.t.tery-hatches, and beef, and ale, and red cloaks, and a lord of misrule, and a hobby-horse, and a boar"s head with a canticle.
Caput apri defero, Reddens laudes Domino,
sing the n.o.ble ladies, and we are left to wonder whether Disraeli blushed or sneered as he wrote. Certainly we find it hard to recognise the minister who proposed to put down ritualism by an Act of Parliament.
He does his very best to be serious, and antic.i.p.ates critics by a pa.s.sing blow at the utilitarians; but we have a shrewd suspicion that the blow is mere swagger, to keep up his courage, or perhaps a covert hint that though he can at times fool his friends, he is not a man to be trifled with by his enemies. What, we must ask, would Sidonia say to this dreariest of all shams? When Coningsby meets Sidonia in the forest, and expresses a wish to see Athens, the mysterious stranger replies, "The age of ruins is past; have you seen Manchester?" It would, indeed, be absurd to infer that Disraeli does not see the weak side of Manchester. After dilating, in "Tancred," upon the vitality of Damascus, he observes, "As yet the disciples of progress have not been able exactly to match this instance; but it is said that they have great faith in the future of Birkenhead." Perhaps the true sentiment is that the Semitic races, the unchanging depositaries of eternal principles, look with equal indifference upon the mushroom growths of Aryan civilisation, whether an Athens or a Birkenhead be the product, but admit that the living has so far an advantage over the dead. To find the moral of "Coningsby" may be impracticable and is at any rate irrelevant.
The way to enjoy it is to look at the world through the eyes of Sidonia. The world--at least the Gentile world--is a farce. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred are fools. Some are prosy and reasoning fools, and make excellent b.u.t.ts for stinging sarcasms; others are flighty and imaginative fools, and can best be ridiculed by burlesquing their folly.
As for the hundredth man--the youthful Coningsby or Tancred--his enthusiasm is refreshing, and his talent undeniable; let us watch his game, applaud his talents, and always remember that great talent is almost as necessary for consummate folly as for consummate success.
Adopting such maxims, we can enjoy "Coningsby" throughout; for we need not care whether we are laughing at the author or with him. We may heartily enjoy his admirable flashes of wit, and, when he takes a serious tone, may oscillate agreeably between the beliefs that he is in solemn earnest, or in his bitterest humour; only we must not quite forget that the farce has a touch in it of tragedy, and that there is a real mystery somewhere. Satire, pure and simple, becomes wearisome. If a latent sense of humour is necessary to prevent a serious man from becoming a bore, it is still more true that some serious creed, however misty and indefinite, is required to raise the mere mocker into a genuine satirist. That is the use of Sidonia. He is ostensibly but a subordinate figure, and yet, if we struck him out, the whole composition would be thrown out of harmony. Looking through his eyes, we can laugh, but we laugh with that sense of dignity which arises out of the consciousness of a secret wisdom, shadowy and indefinite in the highest degree, perilously apt to sound like nonsense if cramped by a definite utterance, but yet casting over the whole picture a kind of magical colouring, which may be mere trickery or may be a genuine illumination, but which, whilst we are not too exacting, brings out pleasant and perplexing effects. The lights and shadows fluctuate, and solid forms melt provokingly into mist; but we must learn to enjoy the uncertain twilight which prevails on the border-land between romance and reality, if we would enjoy the ambiguities and the ironies and the mysteries of "Coningsby."
The other two parts of the trilogy show the same qualities, but in different proportions. "Sybil" is chiefly devoted to what its author calls "an accurate and never-exaggerated picture of a remarkable period in our social history." We need not inquire into the accuracy. It is enough to say that in this particular department Disraeli shows himself capable of rivalling in force and vivacity the best of those novelists who have tried to turn blue-books upon the condition of the people into sparkling fiction. If he is distinctly below the few novelists of truer purpose who have put into an artistic shape a profound and first-hand impression of those social conditions which statisticians try to tabulate in blue-books,--if he does not know Yorkshiremen in the sense in which Miss Bronte knew them, and still less in the sense in which Scott knew the Borderers--he can write a disguised pamphlet upon the effects of trades" unions in Sheffield with a brilliancy which might excite the envy of Mr. Charles Reade. But in "Tancred" we again come upon the true vein of mystery in which is Disraeli"s special idiosyncrasy; and the effect is still more bewildering than in "Coningsby." Giving our hands to our singular guide, we are to be led into the most secret place, and be initiated into the very heart of the mystery. Tancred is Coningsby once more, but Coningsby no longer satisfied with the profound political teaching of Bolingbroke, and eager to know the very last word of that riddle which, once solved, all theological and social and political difficulties will become plain. He is exalted to the pitch of enthusiasm at which even supernatural machinery may be introduced without a sense of discord. And yet, intentionally or from the inevitable conditions of the scheme, the satire deepens with the mystery; and the more solemn become the words and gestures of our high priest, the more marked becomes his ambiguous air of irony. Good, innocent Tancred fancies that his doubts may be solved by an English bishop; and Disraeli revels in the ludicrous picture of a young man of genius taking a bishop seriously. Yet it must be admitted that Tancred"s own theory sounds to the vulgar Saxon even more nonsensical than the episcopal doctrine. His notion is that "inspiration is not only a divine but a local quality," and that G.o.d can only speak to man upon the soil of Palestine--a theory which has afterwards to be amended by the hypothesis, that even in Palestine, G.o.d can only speak to a man of Semitic race. Lest we should fancy that this belief contains an element of irony, it is approved by the great Sidonia; but even Sidonia is not worthy of the deep mysteries before us.
He intimates to Tancred that there is one from whose lips even he himself has derived the sacred knowledge. The Spanish priest, Alonzo Lara, Jewish by race, but, as a Catholic prelate, imbued with all the later learning--a member of that Church which was founded by a Hebrew, and still retains some of the "magnetic influence"--this great man, in whom all influences thus centre, is the only worthy hierophant. And thus, after a few irresistible blows at London society, we find ourselves fairly on the road to Palestine, and listen for the great revelation. We scorn the remark of the simple Lord Milford, that there is "absolutely no sport of any kind" near Jerusalem; and follow Tancred where his ancestors have gone before him. We bend in reverence before the empty tomb of the Divine Prince of the house of David, and fall into ecstasies in the garden of Bethany. Solace comes, but no inspiration.
Though the marvellous Lara is briefly introduced, and though a beautiful young woman comes straight out of the "Arabian Nights," and asks the insoluble question, What would have become of the Atonement, if the Jews had not persuaded the Romans to crucify Jesus? we are still tantalised by the promised revelation, which melts before us like a mirage. Once, indeed, on the sacred mountain of Sinai, a vision greets the weary pilgrim, in which a guardian angel talks in the best style of Sidonia or Disraeli. But we are constantly distracted by our guide"s irresistible propensity for a little political satire. A Syrian Vivian Grey is introduced to us, whose intrigues are as audacious and futile as those of his English parallel, but whose office seems to be the purely satirical one of interpreting Tancred"s lofty dreams into political intrigues suited to a shrewd but ignorant Oriental. Once we are convinced that the promise is to be fulfilled. Tancred reaches the strange tribe of the Ansarey, shrouded in a more than Chinese seclusion.
Can they be the guardians of the "Asian mystery"? To our amazement it turns out that they are of the faith of Mr. Phoebus of "Lothair." They have preserved the old G.o.ds of paganism; and their hopes, which surely cannot be those of Disraeli, are that the world will again fall prostrate before Apollo (who has a striking likeness to Tancred) or Astarte. What does it all mean? or does it all mean anything? The most solemn revelation has been given by that mysterious figure which appeared in Sinai, in "the semblance of one who, though not young, was still untouched by time; a countenance like an Oriental night, dark yet l.u.s.trous, mystical yet clear. Thought, rather than melancholy, spoke from the pensive pa.s.sion of his eyes; while on his lofty forehead glittered a star that threw a solemn radiance on the repose of his majestic forehead." After explaining that he was the Angel of Arabia, this person told Tancred to "announce the sublime and solacing doctrine of Theocratic Equality." But when Tancred, after his startling adventures, got back to Jerusalem, he found his anxious parents, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Bellamont, accompanied by the triumvirate of bear-leaders which their solicitude had appointed to look after him--Colonel Brace, the Rev. Mr. Bernard, and Dr. Roby. And thus the novel ends like the address of Miss Hominy. "Out laughs the stern philosopher," or, shall we say, the incarnation of commonplace, "What, ho! arrest me that wandering agency; and so, the vision fadeth."
Theocratic equality has not yet taken its place as an electioneering cry.
Has our guide been merely blowing bubbles for our infantile amus.e.m.e.nt?
Surely he has been too solemn. We could have sworn that some of the pa.s.sages were written, if not with tears in his eyes, at least with a genuine sensibility to the solemn and romantic elements of life. Or was he carried away for a time into real mysticism for which he seeks to apologise by adopting the tone of the man of the world? Surely his satire is too keen, even when it causes the collapse of his own fancies.
Even Coningsby and Lord Marney, the heroes of the former novels, appear in "Tancred" as shrewd politicians, and obviously Tancred will accept the family seat when he gets back to his paternal mansion. We can only solve the problem, if we are prosaic enough to insist upon a solution, by accepting the theory of a double consciousness, and resolving to pray with the mystic, and sneer with the politician, as the fit takes us. It is an equal proof of intellectual dulness to be dead to either aspect of things. Let us agree that a brief sojourn in the world of fancy or in the world of blue-books is a qualification for a keener enjoyment of the other, and not brutally attempt to sever them by fixed lines. Each is best seen in the light reflected from the other, and we had best admit the fact without asking awkward questions; but they are blended after a perfectly original fashion in the strange phantasmagoria of "Tancred." Let the images of crusaders and modern sportsmen, Hebrew doctors and cla.s.sical artists, mediaeval monks and Anglican bishops, perform their strange antics before us, and the scenery shift from Manchester to Damascus, or Pall Mall to Bethany, in obedience to laws dictated by the fancy instead of the reason; let each of the motley actors be alternately the sham and the reality, and our moods shift as arbitrarily from grave to gay, from high-strung enthusiasm to mocking cynicism, and we shall witness a performance which is always amusing and original, and sometimes even poetical, and of which only the harshest realist will venture to whisper that, after all, it is a mere mystification.
But it is time to leave stories in which the critic, however anxious to observe the purely literary aspect, is constantly tempted to diverge into the political or theological theories suggested. The "trilogy" was composed after Disraeli had become a force in politics, and the didactic tendency is constantly obtruding itself. In the period between "Vivian Grey" (1826-7) and "Coningsby" (1844) he had published several novels in which the prophet is lost, or nearly lost, in the artist. Of the "Wondrous Tale of Alroy" it is enough to say that it is a very spirited attempt to execute an impossible task. All historical novels--except Scott"s and Kingsley"s--are a weariness to the flesh, and when the history is so remote from any a.s.sociation with modern feeling, even Mr.
Disraeli"s vivacity is not able to convert shadows into substances. An opposite error disturbs one"s appreciation of "Venetia." Byron and Sh.e.l.ley were altogether too near to the writer to be made into heroes of fiction. The portraits are pale beside the originals; and though Lord Cadurcis and Marmion Herbert may have been happier men than their prototypes, they are certainly not so interesting. "Henrietta Temple"
and "Contarini Fleming" may count as Mr. Disraeli"s most satisfactory performances. He has worked without any secondary political purpose, and has, therefore, produced more harmonious results. The aim is ambitious, but consistent. "Contarini Fleming" is the record of the development of a poetic nature--a theme, as we are told, "virgin in the imaginative literature of every country." The praises of Goethe, of Beckford, and of Heine gave a legitimate satisfaction to its author. "Henrietta Temple"
professes to be a love-story pure and simple. Love and poetry are certainly themes worthy of the highest art; and if Disraeli"s art be not the highest, it is more effective when freed from the old alloy. The same intellectual temperament is indeed perceptible, though in this different field it does not produce quite the same results. One prominent tendency connects all his stories. When "Lothair" made its appearance, critics were puzzled, not only by the old problem as to the seriousness of the writer, but by the extraordinary love of glitter.
Were the palaces and priceless jewels and vast landed estates, distributed with such reckless profusion amongst the characters, intended as a covert satire upon the vulgar English worship of wealth, or did they imply a genuine instinct for the sumptuous? Disraeli would apparently parody the old epitaph, and write upon the monument of every ducal millionaire, "Of such are the kingdom of heaven." Vast landed estates and the Christian virtues, according to him, naturally go together; and he never dismisses a hero without giving him such a letter of credit as Sidonia bestowed upon Tancred. "If the youth who bears this requires advances, let him have as much gold as would make the right-hand lion, on the first step of the throne of Solomon the king; and if he wants more, let him have as much as would form the lion that is on the left; and so on through every stair of the royal seat." The theory that so keen a satirist of human follies must have been more or less ironical in his professed admiration for boundless wealth, though no doubt tempting, is probably erroneous. The simplest explanation is most likely to be the truest. Disraeli has a real, unfeigned delight in simple splendour, in "ropes of pearls," in priceless diamonds, gorgeous clothing, and magnificent furniture. The phenomenon is curious, but not uncommon. One may sometimes find an epicure who stills retains an infantile taste for sweetmeats, and is not afraid to avow it. Experience of the world taught Disraeli the hollowness of some objects of his early admiration, but it never so dulled his palate as to make pure splendour insipid to his taste. It is as easy to call this love of glitter vulgar, as to call his admiration for dukes sn.o.bbish; but the pa.s.sion is too sincere to deserve any harsh name. Why should not a man have a taste for the society of dukes, or take a child"s pleasure in bright colours for their own sake? There is nothing intrinsically virtuous in preferring a dinner of herbs to the best French cookery. So long as the taste is thoroughly genuine, and is not gratified at the cost of unworthy concessions, it ought not to be offensive.
Disraeli"s pictures may be, or rather they certainly are, too gaudy in their colouring, but his lavish splendour is evidently prompted by a frank artistic impulse, and certainly implies no grovelling before the ordinary British duke. It is this love of splendour, it may be said parenthetically, combined with his admiration for the non-scientific type of intellect, which makes the Roman Catholic Church so strangely fascinating for Disraeli. His most virtuous heroes and heroines are members of old and enormously rich Catholic families. His poet, Contarini Fleming, falls prostrate before the splendid shrines of a Catholic chapel, all his senses intoxicated by solemn music and sweet incense and perfect pictures. Lothair, wanting a Sidonia, only escaped by a kind of miracle from the attractions of Rome. The sensibility to such influences has a singular effect upon Disraeli"s modes of representing pa.s.sion. He has frankly explained his theory. The peasant-n.o.ble of Wordsworth had learnt to know love "in huts where poor men lie," and a long catena of poetical authorities might be adduced in support of the principle. That is not Disraeli"s view. "Love," he says, "that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that sheds a ray of enchanting light over the close and busy city, seems to mount with a lighter and more glittering pinion in an atmosphere as bright as its own plumes. Fortunate the youth, the romance of whose existence is placed in a scene befitting its fair and marvellous career; fortunate the pa.s.sion that is breathed in palaces, amid the enn.o.bling creations of surrounding art, and quits the object of its fond solicitude amidst perfumed gardens and in the shade of green and silent woods"--woods, that is, which ornament the stately parks of the aforesaid palaces. All Disraeli"s pa.s.sionate lovers--and they are very pa.s.sionate--are provided with fitting scenery. The exquisite Sybil is allowed, by way of exception, to present herself for a moment in the graceful character of a sister of charity relieving a poor family in their garret; but we can detect at once the stamp of n.o.ble blood in every gesture, and a coronet is ready to descend upon her celestial brow. Everywhere else we make love in gilded palaces, to born princesses in gorgeous apparel; terraced gardens, with springing fountains and antique statues, are in the background; or at least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the pa.s.sion is suitable to such accessories. "There is no love but at first sight,"[5]
says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as wealth, and who need never condescend to thoughts of their natural needs. It is the love of Romeo and Juliet amidst the gardens of Verona; or rather the love of Aladdin of the wondrous lamp for some incomparable beauty, deserving to be enshrined in a palace erected by the hands of genii. The pa.s.sion of the lover must be vivid and splendid enough to stand out worthily against so gorgeous a background; and it must flash and glitter, and dazzle our commonplace intellects.
In the "Arabian Nights" the lover repeats a pa.s.sage of poetry and then faints from emotion, and Disraeli"s lovers are apt to be as demonstrative and ungovernable in their behaviour. Their happy audacity makes us forget some little defects in their conduct. Take, for example, the model love-story in "Henrietta Temple." Told by a cold and unimaginative person, it would run to the following effect:--Ferdinand Armine was the heir of a decayed Catholic family. Going into the army, he raised great sums, like other thoughtless young men, on the strength of his expectations from his maternal grandfather, a rich n.o.bleman. The grandfather, dying, left his property to Armine"s cousin, Katherine Grandison. Armine instantly made up his mind to marry his cousin and the property, and his creditors were quieted by news of his engagement.
Meanwhile he met Henrietta Temple, and fell in love with her at first sight. In spite of his judicious reticence, Miss Temple heard of his engagement to Miss Grandison, and naturally broke off the match. She fell into a consumption, and he into a brain fever. The heroes of novels are never the worse for a brain fever or two, and young Armine, though Miss Grandison becomes aware of the Temple episode, has judgment enough to hide it from everybody else, and the first engagement is not ostensibly broken off. Nay, Armine still continues to raise loans on the strength of it--a proceeding which sounds very like obtaining money on false pretences. His creditors, however, become more pressing, and at last he gets into a sponging-house. Meanwhile Miss Temple has been cured of her consumption by the heir to a dukedom, and herself becomes the greatest heiress in England by an unexpected bequest. She returns from Italy, engaged to her new lover, and hears of her old lover"s misfortunes. And then a "happy thought" occurs to the two pairs of lovers. If Miss Temple"s wealth had come earlier, she might have married Armine at first: why should she not do it now? It only requires an exchange of lovers, which is instantly effected. The heir to the dukedom marries the rich Miss Grandison; the rich Miss Temple marries Ferdinand Armine; and everybody lives in the utmost splendour ever afterwards. The moral to this edifying narrative appears to be given by the waiter at the sponging-house. "It is only poor devils nabbed for their fifties and their hundreds that are ever done up," says this keen observer. "A n.o.b was never nabbed for the sum you are, sir, and never went to the wall.
Trust my experience, I never knowed such a thing."
This judicious observation, translated into the language of art, gives Disraeli"s secret. His "n.o.bs" are so splendid in their surroundings, such a magical light of wealth, magnificence, and rhetoric is thrown upon all their doings, that we are cheated into sympathy. Who can be hard upon a young man whose behaviour to his creditors may be questionable, but who is swept away in such a torrent of gorgeous hues?
The first sight of Miss Temple is enough to reveal her dazzling complexion, her violet-tinted eyes, her lofty and pellucid brow, her dark and l.u.s.trous locks. Love for such a being is the "transcendent and surpa.s.sing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy." It is a rapture and a madness; it is to the feelings of the ordinary mortal what sunlight is to moonlight, or wine to water. What wonder that Armine, "pale and trembling, withdrew a few paces from the overwhelming spectacle, and leant against a tree in a chaos of emotion? A delicious and maddening impulse thrilled his frame; a storm raged in his soul; a big drop quivered on his brow; and a slight foam played upon his lip."
But "the tumult of his mind gradually subsided; the fleeting memories, the saddening thoughts, that for a moment had coursed about in such wild order, vanished and melted away, and a feeling of bright serenity succeeded--a sense of beauty and joy, and of hovering and circ.u.mambient happiness." In short, he asked the lady in to lunch. That is the love which can only be produced in palaces. Your Burns may display some warmth of feeling about a peasant-girl, and Wordsworth cherish the domestic affections in a cottage; but for the dazzling, brilliant forms of pa.s.sion we must enter the world of magic, where diamonds are as plentiful as blackberries, and all surrounding objects are turned to gold by the alchemy of an excited imagination. The only difference is that, while other men a.s.sume that the commonest things will take a splendid colour as seen through a lover"s eyes, Disraeli takes care that whatever his lovers see shall have a splendid colouring.
Once more, if we consent for the time to take our author"s view--and that is the necessary condition for enjoying most literature--we must admit the vivacity and, at times, the real eloquence of Disraeli"s rhetoric. In "Contarini Fleming" he takes a still more ambitious flight, and with considerable success. Fleming, the embodiment of the poetic character, is, we might almost say, to other poets what Armine is to other lovers. He has the same love of brilliant effects, and the same absence of genuine tenderness. But one other qualification must be made.
We feel some doubts as to his being a poet at all. He has indeed that amazing vitality with which Disraeli endows all his favourite heroes, and in which we may recognise the effervescence of youthful genius. But his genius is so versatile that we doubt its true destination. His first literary performance is to write a version of "Vivian Grey," a reckless and successful satire; his most remarkable escapade is to put himself at the head of a band of students, apparently inspired by Schiller"s Robbers to emulate the career of Moor; his greatest feat is a sudden stroke of diplomacy which enables him to defeat the plans of more veteran statesmen. And when he has gone through his initiation, wooed and won his marvellous beauty, and lost her in an ideal island, the final shape of his aspirations is curiously characteristic. Having become rich quite unexpectedly--for he did not know that he was to be the hero of one of Disraeli"s novels--he resolved to "create a paradise." He bought a Palladian pile, with a large estate and beautiful gardens. In this beautiful scene he intends to erect a Saracenic palace full of the finest works of modern and ancient art; and in time he hopes to "create a scene which may rival in beauty and variety, though not in extent, the villa of Hadrian, whom I have always considered the most accomplished and sumptuous character of antiquity." He has already laid the foundation of a tower which is to rise to a height of at least a hundred and fifty feet, and is to equal in solidity and design the most celebrated works of antiquity. Certainly the scheme is magnificent; but it is scarcely the ambition which one might have expected from a poet.
Rather it is the design of a man endowed with a genuine artistic temperament, but with a strange desire to leave some showy and tangible memorial of his labours. His ambition is not to stir men"s souls with profound thought, or to soften by some new harmonies the weary complaints of suffering humanity, but to startle the world by the splendid embodiment in solid marble of the most sumptuous dreams of a cultivated imagination. Contarini Fleming, indeed, as he shows by a series of brilliant travellers" sketches, is no mean master of what may be called poetical prose. His pictures of life and scenery are vivacious, rapid, and decisive. In later years, the habit of parliamentary oratory seems to have injured Disraeli"s style. In "Lothair" there is a good deal of slipshod verbiage. But in these earlier stories the style is generally excellent till it becomes too ambitious. It has a kind of metallic glitter, brilliant, sparkling with numerous flashes of wit and fancy, and never wanting in sharpness of effect, though it may be deficient in delicacy. Yet the author, who is of necessity to be partly identified with the hero of "Contarini Fleming," is distinctly not a poet; and the incapacity is most evident when he endeavours to pa.s.s the inexorable limits. The distinction between poetry and rhetoric is as profound as it is undefinable. A true poet, as possessing an exquisite sensibility to the capacities of his instrument, does not try to get the effects of metre when he is writing without its restrictions and its advantages. Disraeli shows occasionally a want of this delicacy of perception by breaking into a kind of compromise between the two which can only be called Ossianesque. The effect, for example, of such a pa.s.sage as the following is, to my taste at least, simply grotesque:--
"Still the courser onward rushes; still his mighty heart supports him.
Season and s.p.a.ce, the glowing soil, the burning ray, yield to the tempest of his frame, the thunder of his nerves, and lightning of his veins.
"Food or water they have none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that h.o.a.ry desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the jackal"s felon cry might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight gleams with glee. This is their sole society."
And so on. Some great writers have made prose as melodious as verse; and Disraeli can at times follow their example successfully. But one likes to know what one is reading; and the effect of this queer expression is as if, in the centre of a solemn march, were incorporated a few dancing-steps, _a propos_ to nothing, and then subsiding into a regular pace. Milton wrote grand prose and grand verse; but you are never uncertain whether a fragment of "Paradise Lost" may or may not have been inserted by mere accident in the "Areopagitica."
Not to dwell upon such minor defects, n.o.body can read "Contarini Fleming" or "Henrietta Temple" without recognising the admirable talent and exuberant vitality of the author. They have the faults of juvenile performances; they are too gaudy; the author has been tempted to turn aside too frequently in search of some brilliant epigram; he has mistaken bombast for eloquence, and mere flowery brilliance for warmth of emotion. But we might hope that longer experience and more earnest purpose might correct such defects. Alas! in the year of their publication, Disraeli first entered Parliament. His next works comprised the trilogy, where the artistic aim has become subordinate to the political or biological; and some thirty years of parliamentary labours led to "Lothair," of which it is easiest to a.s.sume that it is a practical joke on a large scale, or a prolonged burlesque upon Disraeli"s own youthful performances. May one not lament the degradation of a promising novelist into a Prime Minister?
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Perhaps I ought to subst.i.tute "Lord Beaconsfield" for Disraeli; but I am writing of the author of "Coningsby," rather than of the author of "Endymion:" and I will therefore venture to preserve the older name.
[5] "He never loved that loved not at first sight," says Marlowe, and Shakespeare after him. I cannot say whether this be an undesigned literary coincidence or an appropriation. Disraeli, we know, was skilful in the art of annexation. One or two instances may be added. Here is a clear case of borrowing. Fuller says in the character of the good sea-captain in the "Holy State"--"Who first taught the water to imitate the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, the stye of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things, the sea is the ape of the land?" Essper George, in "Vivian Grey," says to the sea: "O thou indifferent ape of earth, what art thou, O bully ocean, but the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of cow-fishes, the stye of hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?" Other cases may be more doubtful. On one occasion, Disraeli spoke of the policy of his opponents as a combination of "blundering and plundering." The jingle was thought to be adapted from a previous epigram about "meddling and muddling;" but here is the identical phrase: Coleridge wrote in the "Courier:" "The writer, whilst abroad, was once present when most bitter complaints were made of the ----government. "Government!" exclaimed a testy old captain of a Mediterranean trading-vessel, "call it _blunderment_ or _plunderment_ or what you like--only not a _government_!""--Coleridge"s "Essays on his own Times," p. 893. Disraeli is sometimes credited with the epigram in "Lothair" about critics being authors who have failed. I know not who said this first; but it was certainly not Disraeli. Landor makes Porson tell Southey: "Those who have failed as writers turn reviewers." The cla.s.sical pa.s.sage is in Sainte-Beuve. Balzac, he says, said somewhere of a sculptor who had become discouraged: "Redevenu artiste _in partibus_, il avait beaucoup de succes dans les salons, il etait consulte par beaucoup d"amateurs; _il pa.s.sa critique comme tous les impuissants qui mentent a leurs debuts_." Sainte-Beuve, naturally indignant at a phrase aimed against his craft, if not against himself, says that this may be true of a sculptor or painter who deserts his art in order to talk; "mais, dans l"ordre de la pensee, cette parole de M.
de Balzac qui revient souvent sous la plume de toute une ecole de jeunes litterateurs, est a la fois (je leur en demande pardon) une injustice et une erreur."--"Causeries du Lundi," vol. ii. p. 455. A very similar phrase is to be found in a book where one would hardly look for such epigrams, Marryat"s "King"s Own." But to trace such witticisms to their first source is a task for "Notes and Queries."
_Ma.s.sINGER_
In one of the best of his occasional essays, Kingsley held a brief for the plaintiffs in the old case of Puritans _versus_ Playwrights. The litigation in which this case represents a minor issue has lasted for a period far exceeding that of the most pertinacious lawsuit, and is not likely to come to an end within any a.s.signable limits of time. When the discussion is pressed home, it is seen to involve fundamentally different conceptions of human life and its purposes; and it can only cease when we have discovered the grounds of a permanent conciliation between the ethical and the aesthetic elements of human nature. The narrower controversy between the stage and the Church has itself a long history. It has left some curious marks upon English literature. The prejudice which uttered itself through the Puritan Prynne was inherited, in a later generation, by the High-Churchmen Collier and William Law.
The attack, it is true, may be ostensibly directed--as in Kingsley"s essay--against the abuse of the stage rather than against the stage itself. Kingsley pays the usual tribute to Shakespeare whilst denouncing the whole literature of which Shakespeare"s dramas are the most conspicuous product. But then, everybody always distinguishes in terms between the use and the abuse; and the line of demarcation generally turns out to be singularly fluctuating and uncertain. You can hardly demolish Beaumont and Fletcher without bringing down some of the outlying pinnacles, if not shaking the very foundations, of the temple sacred to Shakespeare.
It would be regrettable, could one stop to regret the one-sided and illogical construction of the human mind, that a fair judgment in such matters seems to require incompatible qualities. Your impartial critic or historian is generally a man who leaves out of account nothing but the essential. His impartiality means sympathy with the commonplace, and incapacity for understanding heroic faith and overpowering enthusiasm.
He fancies that a man or a book can be judged by balancing a list of virtues and vices as if they were separate ent.i.ties lying side by side in a box, instead of different aspects of a vital force. On the other hand, the vivid imagination which restores dead bones to life makes its possessor a partisan in extinct quarrels, and as short-sighted and unfair a partisan as the original actors. Roundheads and Cavaliers have been dead these two centuries.
Dumb are those names erewhile in battle loud; Dreamfooted as the shadow of a cloud, They flit across the ear.
Yet few even amongst modern writers are capable of doing justice to both sides without first making both sides colourless. Hallam judges men in the throes of a revolution as though they were parties in a lawsuit to be decided by precedents and parchments, and Carlyle cannot appreciate Cromwell"s magnificent force of character without making him all but infallible and impeccable. Critics of the early drama are equally one-sided. The exquisite literary faculty of Charles Lamb revelled in detecting beauties which had been covered with the dust of oblivion during the reign of Pope. His appreciation was intensified by that charm of discovery which finds its typical utterance in Keats"s famous sonnet.
He was scarcely a more impartial judge of Fletcher or Ford than "Stout Cortes" of the new world revealed by his enterprise. We may willingly defer to his judgment of the relative value of the writers whom he discusses, but we must qualify his judgment of their intrinsic excellence by the recollection that he speaks as a lover. To him and other thoroughgoing admirers of the old drama the Puritanical onslaught upon the stage presented itself as the advent of a gloomy superst.i.tion, ruthlessly stamping out all that was beautiful in art and literature.
Kingsley, an admirable hater, could perceive only the opposite aspect of the phenomena. To him the Puritan protest appears as the voice of the enlightened conscience; the revolution means the troubling of the turbid waters at the descent of the angel; Prynne"s "Histriomastix" is the blast of the trumpet at which the rotten and polluted walls of Jericho are to crumble into dust. The stage, which represented the tone of aristocratic society, rightfully perished with the order which it flattered. Courtiers had learnt to indulge in a cynical mockery of virtue, or to find an unholy attraction in the acc.u.mulation of extravagant horrors. The English drama, in short, was one of those evil growths which are fostered by deeply-seated social corruption, and are killed off by the breath of a purer air. That such phenomena occur at times is undeniable. Mr. Symonds has recently shown us, in his history of the Renaissance, how the Italian literature to which our English dramatists owed so many suggestions was the natural fruit of a society poisoned at the roots. Nor, when we have shaken off that spirit of slavish adulation in which modern antiquarians and critics have regarded the so-called Elizabethan dramatists, can we deny that there are symptoms of a similar mischief in their writings. Some of the most authoritative testimonials have a suspicious element. Praise has been lavished upon the most questionable characteristics of the old drama.
Apologists have been found, not merely for its daring portrayal of human pa.s.sion, but for its wanton delight in the grotesque and the horrible for its own sake; and some critics have revenged themselves for the straitlaced censures of Puritan morality by praising work in which the author strives to atone for imaginative weakness by a choice of revolting motives. Such adulation ought to have disappeared with the first fervour of rehabilitation. Much that has been praised in the old drama is rubbish, and some of it disgusting rubbish.
The question, however, remains, how far we ought to adopt either view of the situation? Are we bound to cast aside the later dramas of the school as simply products of corruption? It may be of interest to consider the light thrown upon this question by the works of Ma.s.singer, nearly the last of the writers who can really claim a permanent position in literature. Ma.s.singer, born in 1584, died in 1639. His surviving works were composed, with one exception, after 1620. They represent, therefore, the tastes of the playgoing cla.s.ses during the rapid development of the great struggle which culminated in the rebellion. In a literary sense it is the period when the imaginative impulse represented by the great dramatists was running low. It is curious to reflect that, if Shakespeare had lived out his legitimate allowance of threescore years and ten, he might have witnessed the production, not only of the first, but of nearly all the best works of his school; had his life been prolonged for ten years more, he would have witnessed its final extinction. Within these narrow limits of time the drama had undergone a change corresponding to the change in the national mood. The difference, for example, between Marlowe and Ma.s.singer at the opening and the close of the period--though their births were separated by only twenty years--corresponds to the difference between the temper of the generation which repelled the Armada and the temper of the generation which fretted under the rule of the first Stuarts. The misnomer of Elizabethan as applied to the whole school indicates an implicit perception that its greater achievements were due to the same impulse which took for its outward and visible symbol the name of the great Queen. But it has led also to writers being too summarily cla.s.sed together who really represent very different phases in a remarkable evolution. After making all allowances for personal idiosyncrasies, we can still see how profoundly the work of Ma.s.singer is coloured by the predominant sentiment of the later epoch.
As little is known of Ma.s.singer"s life as of the lives of most of the contemporary dramatists who had the good or ill fortune to be born before the days of the modern biographical mania. It is known that he, like most of his brethren, suffered grievously from impecuniosity; and he records in one of his dedications his obligations to a patron without whose bounty he would for many years have "but faintly subsisted." His father had been employed by Henry, Earl of Pembroke; but Ma.s.singer, though acknowledging a certain debt of grat.i.tude to the Herbert family, can hardly have received from them any effective patronage. Whatever their relations may have been, it has been pointed out by Professor Gardiner[6] that Ma.s.singer probably sympathised with the political views represented by the two sons of his father"s patron, who were successively Earls of Pembroke during the reigns of the first James and Charles. On two occasions he got into trouble with the licenser for attacks, real or supposed, upon the policy of the Government. More than one of his plays contain, according to Professor Gardiner, references to the politics of the day as distinct as those conveyed by a cartoon in "Punch." The general result of his argument is to show that Ma.s.singer sympathised with the views of an aristocratic party who looked with suspicion upon the despotic tendencies of Charles"s Government, and thought that they could manage refractory parliaments by adopting a more spirited foreign policy. Though in reality weak and selfish enough, they affected to protest against the materialising and oppressive policy of the extreme Royalists. How far these views represented any genuine convictions, and how far Ma.s.singer"s adhesion implied a complete sympathy with them, or might indicate that kind of delusion which often leads a mere literary observer to see a lofty intention in the schemes of a selfish politician, are questions which I am incompetent to discuss, and which obviously do not admit of a decided answer. They confirm, as far as they go, the general impression as to Ma.s.singer"s point of view which we should derive from his writings without special interpretation. "Shakespeare," says Coleridge, "gives the permanent politics of human nature" (whatever they may be!), "and the only predilection which appears shows itself in his contempt of mobs and the populace. Ma.s.singer is a decided Whig; Beaumont and Fletcher high-flying, pa.s.sive-obedience Tories." The author of "Coriola.n.u.s," one would be disposed to say, showed himself a thoroughgoing aristocrat, though in an age when the popular voice had not yet given utterance to systematic political discontent. He was still a stranger to the sentiments symptomatic of an approaching revolution, and has not explicitly p.r.o.nounced upon issues hardly revealed even to
The prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming of things to come.
The sense of national unity evolved in the great struggle with Spain had not yet been lost in the discord of the rising generation. The other cla.s.sifications may be accepted with less reserve. The dramatists represented the views of their patrons. The drama reflected in the main the sentiments of an aristocratic cla.s.s alarmed by the growing vigour of the Puritanical citizens. Fletcher is, as Coleridge says, a thoroughgoing Tory; his sentiments in "Valentinian" are, to follow the same guidance, so "very slavish and reptile" that it is a trial of charity to read them. Nor can we quite share Coleridge"s rather needless surprise that they should emanate from the son of a bishop, and that the duty to G.o.d should be the supposed basis. A servile bishop in those days was not a contradiction in terms, and still less a servile son of a bishop; and it must surely be admitted that the theory of Divine Right may lead, illogically or otherwise, to reptile sentiments. The difference between Fletcher and Ma.s.singer, who were occasional collaborators and apparently close friends (Ma.s.singer, it is said, was buried in Fletcher"s grave), was probably due to difference of temperament as much as to the character of Ma.s.singer"s family connection. Ma.s.singer"s melancholy is as marked as the buoyant gaiety of his friend and ally. He naturally represents the misgivings which must have beset the more thoughtful members of his party, as Fletcher represented the careless vivacity of the Cavalier spirit. Ma.s.singer is given to expatiating upon the text that
Subjects" lives Are not their prince"s tennis-b.a.l.l.s, to be bandied In sport away.
The high-minded Pulcheria, in the "Emperor of the East," administers a bitter reproof to a slavish "projector" who
Roars out All is the King"s, his will above the laws;
who whispers in his ear that n.o.body should bring a salad from his garden without paying "gabel," or kill a hen without excise; who suggests that, if a prince wants a sum of money, he may make impossible demands from a city and exact arbitrary fines for its non-performance.
Is this the way To make our Emperor happy? Can the groans Of his subjects yield him music? Must his thresholds Be wash"d with widows" and wrong"d orphans" tears, Or his power grow contemptible?
Professor Gardiner tells us that at the time at which these lines were written they need not have been taken as referring to Charles. But the vein of sentiment which often occurs elsewhere is equally significant of Ma.s.singer"s view of the political situation of the time. We see what were the topics that were beginning to occupy men"s minds.