paired of his visitor; but shortly after, just as the mid-day clock struck twelve, he saw a countenance looking out from behind his fire place like a shadow, at first he thought it was a man, but he soon beheld it change its form so as to demonstrate its being a Spirit; whereupon he again fell to conjuring and demanded of the Spirit to let him see him at full length. the Spirit came from behind the fire place, put out his head like a man, and made to the Doctor several salaams. CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. On this Of the Conversation held by Dr. Faustus with the Spirit. When the Doctor saw the Spirit behind the chimney he demanded after a little consideration that he should come out and according to his promise tell him what were to be the conditions of his service. This the Spirit stoutly refused, saying, that he was not so far off, but that they could discuss every thing that was necessary. Thereupon the Doctor bristled up and was going to fall to his conjurations again, yet more vehemently than before; this the Spirit was not prepared for, (at least so he pretended,) and accordingly came from behind the chimney. But now the Doctor saw more than he wished for; his study was in a moment filled with flames, which spread out on all sides. It is true the Spirit had a natural man's head, but his whole body was bestial like a bear and with fiery eyes gazed he on the Doctor, who upon this was terrified out of his wits, and begged he would go behind the chimney again, which proposition the Spirit acceded to. Thereupon the Doctor asked him if he could not shew himself otherwise than in such a horrible shape. The Spirit answered no, for I am not, said he, a Servant but a Chiet among the Spirits, if however, you will tell me what is your pleasure, I will send you a Spirit, who will serve you to your dying day, and will never quit you, but will serve you in every desire of your heart. THE LAMENT. NOTE BY THE EDITOR. We have to apologize to our readers for the accidental insertion of the LAMENT (by Robert Burns) at page 418 of our last number. It was sent to us for a specific literary purpose by a gentleman since deceased, and one of whose initials is attached to it. Its having been placed among the original articles without a word of comment was a piece of inadvertence which we discovered too late, and which bas given us much vexation, especially as a whole verse has been omitted. CANONS OF CRITICISM. Magazine was to have been preceding sheets had gone to [The original department of this number of our closed with the opposite page, and the whole of the press before we received the following communication. As however, it refers to an article that appeared so far back as our fifth number, we think it advisable to secure it from any further delay, which might diminish the interest of the subject. It is accordingly inserted in our present number in the space usually occupied by selected matter. The Editorial notes will be found at the conclusion of the article, We must apologize for their length with a remark suggested by a quotation in the critique on L. E. L., that if we had had more time, we should have made them shorter.-EDITOR.] 'Tis with our judgements as our watches, none TO THE EDITOR OF THE CALCUTTA MAGAZINE. SIR,-When I first read your article in Number five, on the poetry of L. E. L. my impulse was to have answered you not only on the personal part of the critique, that is, as it related to the individual, author; but also on the broader basis of the deviation, from the true and established rules of criticism which the hastiest perusal of your article made manifest. [NOTE 1.] I reflected, however, that the first part of this design it would be in a great measure needless to execute; because it was obvious to me that the fame [2] of L. E. L. could not suffer any diminution from this attempt to lower [3] it, while the distance at which I reside from the scene of action, and the infrequent appearance of the Magazine would have rendered it difficult to have preserved that interest in the question which a reader should have to enable him to judge of it. On the rules of the general criticism, however, a paper I considered might at any time be written, and appropriately inserted in a work professing to practise them; and as it is of consequence that your readers should be made aware of the fallibility of one who naturally expects them to be guided by his dicta, I resolved on at length throwing together a few observations, founded on the critical essay already mentioned, but not wholly with reference to the soundness or otherwise of your disparaging estimate of that most popular writer. Some of your contemporaries have expressed their approbation of your essay in terms which greatly surprise me while I suppose them versed in the true laws of criticism, which they either are or are not; but if I do not assume their full acquaintance with a science to obtain perfection in which it requires to be studied with long perseverance, then inust I charge them with the heedless commission of injustice towards your author, by giving to your opinions the authority of their sanction, in a manner so plausible as to impose upon the mass of Newspaper readers, and yet so erroneous as to mislead the ordinary judgment. Before proceeding to the main business of this communication, let me premise that I am not meaning to find fault with either you or your disciples for declaring you do not admire L. E. L. as much as do the mass of poetical readers; for what is a matter of taste with each, no one has a right to take offence at because it differs from his own; and had you merely declared so much, on the Doctor Fell principle, I might have wondered at your* distaste but should never have assailed it. Some there are who do not like Milton ;[4] some who do not like Shakespeare; some who neither like nor understand Hudibras; and some who even suppose that to be the name of the writer! [5] and of even the most elegant and deservedly popular authors, there will be found some readers who are but qualified admirers. The old maxim de gustibus, however, is a sufficient moderator of all disputes on that head; but when you come to say you do not concur in the unqualified applause bestowed on a Poet; and, conceiving that (unlike Doctor Fell's foe) you can tell the reasons of your dissent, then you must suffer your judgment to be valued according as those reasons bear well or ill the test of such fair scrutiny as any peruser may choose to try them by, while your method of estimating your author's merits must necessarily, if questioned at all, be subjected to a similar ordeal. First, then, your manner of taking to pieces the groundwork, or what is technically called the plot, of the story you have a view to depreciate, is one so unfair that scarcely any plot would bear it. [6] You do not affect to be what is called a witty writer; your style is of a different description, and seems to me to aim at being sententious. But in the hands of a witty writer, I maintain that there is no plot in our literature which could not be made to appear ridiculous, if taken to pieces on the principle you have adopted in considering L. E. L.'s. Here, I know, I have made an assertion which must put me into the dilemma of being retorted upon for proof; because I cannot pretend to illustrate the point, without ipso facto pronouncing myself to be the witty writer I refer to; but let any person, conscious that he possesses a cast of humour and causticity, run over in his mind the nature of any of our principal plots, and see into what ridicule a malicious stroke or two of his pen could turn their structure. Take Venice Preserved, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Paradise Lost itself, or almost any of Walter Scott's or Byron's, and a moment's thought will make a witty person smile at the fantastic positions in which his fancy can throw the hero, heroine, and the principal characters of the remaining actors; either by flippant allusions, or affectedly serious recitations of the tale. The plots of Lalla Rookh (instar omnium) are very good and sufficient plots, and yet observe how the caustic wit of the author, anticipating the critics, fritters them into absurdity through the medium of Fadladeen! But to enter on another of your methods of disparagement, which I can discuss without the fear of a dilemma raised by a constructive self compliment, let me ask you, and those who agree with you, from what writer on criticism, or from what known rule, do you derive your authority for giving to poetry, the mechanical appearance of prose, by printing it as prose, and for then judging of its poetical merits in its prosaic garb? What sense is there in the plan, or what criterion does yield of judging merit? [7] As far as the eye is concerned, the worst poetry that was ever written, will form into as good prose as the best; but the alteration of its shape will neither add to nor deduct from its literary merit; [8] though the good poet is deprived by such a process of the praise due to his skill in the proper management of rhyme and metre. I know you are not the inventor of this mode of valuation. It has been employed occasionally before your time; but there is no rule for it, and by no acknowledged and able critic has it ever been applied to the ascertainment of genius. It is indeed altogether too much in the manner of Sterne's critic who measured the duration of Garrick's pauses by the stop watch;-keeping his eye on the instrument all the time, but never attending to the actor's countenance. "Admirable Critic!" The diamond which looks beautiful, set in gold or silver, will not appear so splendid in a tin or copper setting, yet will its intrinsic value be equal in each metallic garb, though no one will deny that by being placed in either of the latter two a crying injustice would be done to the gem. This illustration will apply particularly well to the poetry of Miss Landon which you have shown to us as prose. It does not loose any of its literary beauty, the value which her genius has already conferred upon it-but the new setting has diminished its apparent beauty, and an inexperienced eye may be deceived by the artifice. That injury you had no right, as a critic, to do; and after all you must be said to have done it wantonly, because you have not gained your meditated end, which appears to have been to have undervalued her knowledge of the construction of poetry, in its metrical character. [9] You must either have forgotten, or have never been aware, that the most beautiful, and the most accurately constructed poetry, will easily and gracefully take a prose appearance, without detriment to its sense, or qualification of its sentiment; but that the converse of this will not hold, though unless it will, your principle is worthless. [10] If a critic could be allowed to do (what, indeed, no true critic ever thought of doing) that is to pronounce a writer incapable of exercising one necessary branch of his art, [11] because his metrical lines were transformable into prosaic ones, I shall presently say as much as should convince you that none of our greatest Poets could withstand the test; and that circumstance proves its impropriety. But first let me request of you to reprint the following extract from the "Love's Last Lesson" of L. E. L. in the prosified state you formerly presented it, but freed from the superadded disfiguration of interspersed italics : Teach it me if you can-forgetfulness. I surely shall forget if you can bid me; I who have worshipped thee, my god on earth, I who have bowed me at your lightest word. Your last command, "forget me," will it not sink deeply down within my inmost soul? Forget thee!-ay, forgetfulness will be a mercy to me. By the many nights when I have wept, for that I dared not sleep,—a dream had made me live my woes again, acting my wretchedness, without the hope my foolish heart still clings to, though that hope is like the opiate that may lull awhile then wake to double torture; by the days passed in lone watching and in anxious fears, when a breath sent the crimson to my cheek like the red gushing of a sudden wound; by all the careless looks and careless words which have to me been like the scorpions stinging; by happiness blighted, and by thee, for ever; by the eternal work of wretchedness; by all my withered feelings, ruined health, crushed hopes, and rifled heart, I will forget thee! alas! my words are vanity. Forget thee! &c. &c. Now let me enquire of you what you have gained by that, or to what it has in reality tended, but to assure the reader that L. E. L.'s poetry is capable of being written in the most delightful prose? [12] From her poetic genius there is nothing deducted. Her nature and her tenderness remain unvitiated, and her beautiful similes are still as ornamental; so that the experiment is puerile in as far as it is intended to reduce her merit; and superfluous, as a proof that beautiful poetry must needs make beautiful prose. Yet such a modus operandi has to superficial judges a specious appearance; and they are convinced that what can be turned into prose, has been too much applauded when it was termed exquisite poetry !* * If, indeed, it were provable, by this species of transposition, that an author wanted the essentials of a Poet, you could not have selected a passage from all the writings of Miss Landon so totally uncalculated as the foregoing to advance your hypothesis; for it triumphs over all your efforts to render it common place, and is irresistibly impressive as a mere prose address. Imagine, if you can, the feelings of any man to be so utterly depraved and hardened, as to withstand such an appeal made to him in a letter, from a young and devoted girl, beautiful, artless, loving, and-forsaken: and, by all the depth of sentiment a poet ought to have, and all the keen and delicate perception of the elegant and pure, I adjure you to tell me |