CHAPTER VIII.
'It is an odd thing, my dear Herbert,' said Cadurcis to his friend, inone of these voyages, 'that destiny should have given you and me thesame tutor.'
'Masham!' said Herbert, smiling. 'I tell you what is much moresingular, my dear Cadurcis; it is, that, notwithstanding being ourtutor, a mitre should have fallen upon his head.'
'I am heartily glad,' said Cadurcis. 'I like Masham very much; Ireally have a sincere affection for him. Do you know, during myinfernal affair about those accursed Monteagles, when I went to theHouse of Lords, and was cut even by my own party; think of that, thepolished ruffians! Masham was the only person who came forward andshook hands with me, and in the most marked manner. A bishop, too! andthe other side! that was good, was it not? But he would not see hisold pupil snubbed; if he had waited ten minutes longer, he might havehad a chance of seeing him massacred. And then they complain of myabusing England, my mother country; a step-dame, I take it.'
'Masham is in politics a Tory, in religion ultra-orthodox,' Herbert.'He has nothing about him of the latitudinarian; and yet he is themost amiable man with whom I am acquainted. Nature has given him akind and charitable heart, which even his opinions have not succeededin spoiling.'
'Perhaps that is exactly what he is saying of us two at this moment,'said Cadurcis. 'After all, what is truth? It changes as you changeyour clime or your country; it changes with the century. The truth ofa hundred years ago is not the truth of the present day, and yet itmay have been as genuine. Truth at Rome is not the truth of London,and both of them differ from the truth of Constantinople. For my part,I believe everything.'
'Well, that is practically prudent, if it be metaphysically possible,'said Herbert. 'Do you know that I have always been of opinion, thatPontius Pilate has been greatly misrepresented by Lord Bacon in thequotation of his celebrated question. 'What is truth?' said jestingPilate, and would not wait for an answer. Let us be just to PontiusPilate, who has sins enough surely to answer for. There is noauthority for the jesting humour given by Lord Bacon. Pilate wasevidently of a merciful and clement disposition; probably anEpicurean. His question referred to a declaration immediatelypreceding it, that He who was before him came to bear witness to thetruth. Pilate inquired what truth?'
'Well, I always have a prejudice against Pontius Pilate,' said LordCadurcis; 'and I think it is from seeing him, when I was a child,on an old Dutch tile fireplace at Marringhurst, dressed like aburgomaster. One cannot get over one's early impressions; but when youpicture him to me as an Epicurean, he assumes a new character. I fancyhim young, noble, elegant, and accomplished; crowned with a wreath andwaving a goblet, and enjoying his government vastly.'
'Before the introduction of Christianity,' said Herbert, 'thephilosophic schools answered to our present religious sects. You saidof a man that he was a Stoic or an Epicurean, as you say of a man nowthat he is a Calvinist or a Wesleyan.'
'I should have liked to have known Epicurus,' said Cadurcis.
'I would sooner have known him and Plato than any of the ancients,'said Herbert. 'I look upon Plato as the wisest and the profoundest ofmen, and upon Epicurus as the most humane and gentle.'
'Now, how do you account for the great popularity of Aristotle inmodern ages?' said Cadurcis; 'and the comparative neglect of these, atleast his equals? Chance, I suppose, that settles everything.'
'By no means,' said Herbert. 'If you mean by chance an absence ofaccountable cause, I do not believe such a quality as chance exists.Every incident that happens, must be a link in a chain. In the presentcase, the monks monopolised literature, such as it might be, and theyexercised their intellect only in discussing words. They, therefore,adopted Aristotle and the Peripatetics. Plato interfered with theirheavenly knowledge, and Epicurus, who maintained the rights of man topleasure and happiness, would have afforded a dangerous and seducingcontrast to their dark and miserable code of morals.'
'I think, of the ancients,' said Cadurcis; 'Alcibiades and Alexanderthe Great are my favourites. They were young, beautiful, andconquerors; a great combination.'
'And among the moderns?' inquired Herbert.
'They don't touch my fancy,' said Cadurcis. 'Who are your heroes?'
'Oh! I have many; but I confess I should like to pass a day withMilton, or Sir Philip Sidney.'
'Among mere literary men,' said Cadurcis; 'I should say Bayle.'
'And old Montaigne for me,' said Herbert.
'Well, I would fain visit him in his feudal chateau,' said Cadurcis.'His is one of the books which give a spring to the mind. Of moderntimes, the feudal ages of Italy most interest me. I think that was aspringtide of civilisation, all the fine arts nourished at the samemoment.'
'They ever will,' said Herbert. 'All the inventive arts maintain asympathetic connection between each other, for, after all, they areonly various expressions of one internal power, modified by differentcircumstances either of the individual or of society. It was so inthe age of Pericles; I mean the interval which intervened betweenthe birth of that great man and the death of Aristotle; undoubtedly,whether considered in itself, or with reference to the effects whichit produced upon the subsequent destinies of civilised man, the mostmemorable in the history of the world.'
'And yet the age of Pericles has passed away,' said Lord Cadurcismournfully, 'and I have gazed upon the mouldering Parthenon. OHerbert! you are a great thinker and muse deeply; solve me theproblem why so unparalleled a progress was made during that periodin literature and the arts, and why that progress, so rapid and sosustained, so soon received a check and became retrograde?'
'It is a problem left to the wonder and conjecture of posterity,' saidHerbert. 'But its solution, perhaps, may principally be found in theweakness of their political institutions. Nothing of the Atheniansremains except their genius; but they fulfilled their purpose. Thewrecks and fragments of their subtle and profound minds obscurelysuggest to us the grandeur and perfection of the whole. Their languageexcels every other tongue of the Western world; their sculpturesbaffle all subsequent artists; credible witnesses assure us that theirpaintings were not inferior; and we are only accustomed to considerthe painters of Italy as those who have brought the art to its highestperfection, because none of the ancient pictures have been preserved.Yet of all their fine arts, it was music of which the Greeks werethemselves most proud. Its traditionary effects were far more powerfulthan any which we experience from the compositions of our times. Andnow for their poetry, Cadurcis. It is in poetry, and poetry alone,that modern nations have maintained the majesty of genius. Do we equalthe Greeks? Do we even excel them?'
'Let us prove the equality first,' said Cadurcis. 'The Greeks excelledin every species of poetry. In some we do not even attempt to rivalthem. We have not a single modern ode, or a single modern pastoral. Wehave no one to place by Pindar, or the exquisite Theocritus. As forthe epic, I confess myself a heretic as to Homer; I look upon theIliad as a remnant of national songs; the wise ones agree that theOdyssey is the work of a later age. My instinct agrees with the resultof their researches. I credit their conclusion. The Paradise Lost is,doubtless, a great production, but the subject is monkish. Dante isnational, but he has all the faults of a barbarous age. In general themodern epic is framed upon the assumption that the Iliad is an orderlycomposition. They are indebted for this fallacy to Virgil, who calledorder out of chaos; but the Aeneid, all the same, appears to me aninsipid creation. And now for the drama. You will adduce Shakspeare?'
'There are passages in Dante,' said Herbert, 'not inferior, in myopinion, to any existing literary composition, but, as a whole, I willnot make my stand on him; I am not so clear that, as a lyric poet,Petrarch may not rival the Greeks. Shakspeare I esteem of ineffablemerit.'
'And who is Shakspeare?' said Cadurcis. 'We know of him as much as wedo of Homer. Did he write half the plays attributed to him? Did heever write a single whole play? I doubt it. He appears to me to havebeen an inspired adapter for the theatres, which were then not asgood as barns. I take him
to have been a botcher up of old plays.His popularity is of modern date, and it may not last; it would havesurprised him marvellously. Heaven knows, at present, all that bearshis name is alike admired; and a regular Shaksperian falls intoecstasies with trash which deserves a niche in the Dunciad. For mypart, I abhor your irregular geniuses, and I love to listen to thelittle nightingale of Twickenham.'
'I have often observed,' said Herbert, 'that writers of an unbridledimagination themselves, admire those whom the world, erroneously,in my opinion, and from a confusion of ideas, esteems correct. I ammyself an admirer of Pope, though I certainly should not ever think ofclassing him among the great creative spirits. And you, you are thelast poet in the world, Cadurcis, whom one would have fancied hisvotary.'
'I have written like a boy,' said Cadurcis. 'I found the public bite,and so I baited on with tainted meat. I have never written for fame,only for notoriety; but I am satiated; I am going to turn over a newleaf.'
'For myself,' said Herbert, 'if I ever had the power to impress mycreations on my fellow-men, the inclination is gone, and perhaps thefaculty is extinct. My career is over; perhaps a solitary echo from mylyre may yet, at times, linger about the world like a breeze that haslost its way. But there is a radical fault in my poetic mind, and I amconscious of it. I am not altogether void of the creative faculty, butmine is a fragmentary mind; I produce no whole. Unless you do this,you cannot last; at least, you cannot materially affect your species.But what I admire in you, Cadurcis, is that, with all the faultsof youth, of which you will free yourself, your creative power isvigorous, prolific, and complete; your creations rise fast and fair,like perfect worlds.'
'Well, we will not compliment each other,' said Cadurcis; 'for, afterall, it is a miserable craft. What is poetry but a lie, and what arepoets but liars?'
'You are wrong, Cadurcis,' said Herbert, 'poets are the unacknowledgedlegislators of the world.'
'I see the towers of Porto Venere,' said Cadurcis directing the sail;'we shall soon be on shore. I think, too, I recognise Venetia. Ah! mydear Herbert, your daughter is a poem that beats all our inspiration!'
Venetia Page 76
