LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 13411, 1 May 1909, Page 7

LITERARY GOSSIP.

A DEFENCE OF SWINBURNE. In the course of a fine article in the Melbourne "Argus," Mr Walter Murdoch thus speaks of Swinburne's poetry:— In tho many volumes of his verso and prose there is much, no doubt, which will not survive, and which does not deserve to survive; but of his best wo may say, with assurance, that it will live as long as tho English race retains the capacity for delight in tho magic of speech, and a heart to be moved by that noble utterance of noble passion which vtti call poetry But lie has yet to come to his. own. To the vast majority of those who read —and to a considerable majority, I believe, even of those who read poetry— the news of Mr Swinburne's death means nothing, or next to nothing. He is not, in nny sense of the term, a popular poet. It is truo that he won from tho first the enthusiastic admiration of those whose admiration ho probably regarded as more precious than the world's acclaim. It is true, also, that the leaders of critical opinion, however they may have differed among themselves as to his precise place in the roll of English poets, have long since agreed in accepting him as one whose best poems are among the treasures of our literature. But popularity—even that limited kind of popularity which is all that, in our time, the true poet may hope to achieve—has assuredly not yet come to the poet of "Atalanta in Calydon." This may bo due, in part, to a simple material cause —the mere expensiveness of his books. It is somewhat paradoxical that the fervently democratic "Songs Before Sunrise" should have been published at a price which makes them practically inaccessible to the elomocracy ; that this fiery champion of the cause of "the people" should have taken core to keep his works out of reach of the people's hands. But perhaps one is here mi; taking cause tor effect: it may have been the unpopularity of his work that has prevented his publishers from taking the risk of a cheap edition. Probably the real cause of his unpopularity is rather to be looked for in a certain aloofness, a certain remoteness from the modern world, which is undoubtedly one of the marks of Swinburne's best verse. The fact that he is not much read is to mc conclusively proved by tlie pcr.«kt"nco of sundry misunderstandings which could not possibly survive an intelligent reading of his work. For example, in his first volume of lyrical poems there were one or two youthful nieces which were undoubtedly sickly in tone. These, eagerly laid holel of and held up to condemnation by the more prurient-minded among his critics, cave rise to the still prevalent idea of Swinburne as the monotonous singer of an unhealthy eroticism. One passage from a poem in that volume—the passage about changing "The lilies and languors of virtue For tho raptures and rose.* of vice—" torn from its context, remains to this day the most famous phrase of Swinburne's fashioning, with the result that tlie poet of '"The Altar of Righteousness'' —that trumpet-toned assertion of the majesty and permanence of the moral law —is widely regarded as a. kind of schoolboy rebel "against morality. 1 shall not here touch on tho dangerous ground of theology, except to say t'.-.at the""popu!ar conception of Swinburne as a reckless and graceless person who is addicted to the mouthing of cheap blasphemies, for tho childish pleasure of looking brave, is another gross and unpardonable blunder. Again, because of his love for a dignified fulness and amplitude of style, he is charged with verbosity; and because of his delight in the formal side of his art this most thoughtful poet is

accused of writing meaningless "jingles, a kind of mclodioiur nonsense verses. Because when ho feels he feels intense- | ly. because most of his work is written I under the inspiration of a high passion, he is accused of shrieking; the popular imagination conceives him as for ever tearing his hair and foaming at the mouth. "Bee? use oi his astonish- ; ing wealth of vocabulary ho is oftAn accused of grandiloquence, whereas the fact is tihat he is unusually fond of monosyllables, and in the matter of simplicity, when he wishes to be simple, has nothing to learn from Wordsworth. I open ''Songs Before Sunrise at random, and light at once upon this Rtanza, which is entirely typical of him, both in thought and in style: — "A creed is a rod. And <v crown. is of night; But this thing i» Gcd. To be man with thy mieht, To grow Btrr.ijti-.t in tUv '.(rer.gth of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light." (In this characteristic stanza every word save one is a monosyllable.) The obstinate persistence of these and many other mistaken notions about Swinburne's work is a clear indication that his poetry is really very ill-known. Mr R. S. Crockett has confessed to the "Bookman," in connection with its n.cent symposium on "The Early Struggles of Popular Novelists." that ho had his full share of struggles at the beginning of his literary career. He says:--"I edited a paper for £40 v. year—oh. so badly!—but then I wrote most ol" it myself, so I cannot think I was overpaid. From another paper I received 7s Gd a column of 1000' words for my 'Stickit Minister' 6tories, which makes about a guinea a story. But, then, for the latter ones I was not paid. I bargained for £60 for tho entire serial rights of 'The Lilac Sunbonnet,' but—l never saw a farthing of the money. As soon, however, as I reached book form I had no trouble, the publisher being satisfied with ten edition* of 'Tlie Stickit Minister' in a year, and I, for one, astonished as well. Then I put my work into the hands of Messrs , and lived happy ever after." On occasions Mr Frank Harris, who now edits "Vanity Fair,'' can develop a fine vein of denunciation. In a recent issue he refers to "creatures who spit venom in the dark," and continues:— "Thero would seem to be many such. Their slime fouls many beautiful things. ! Tlie rank odour of their presence | poisons the air in many otherwise fair I places. Their cold, dank, scaly folds crush out tho life of many a delicate, fragrant flower." With some mixture of metaphor he adds that these venomspitters "invariably miss tho target, whi' ;t they are so afraid of the weapons they try to wield, and handle them so awkwardly, that any recoil is bound to knock them down." "This is pretty good," observes another paper, also given to forcible expressions—the . "Academy—"from a journal which, in its anxiety not to hurt anybody's feeling, goes out of its way on the next page to call his Majesty the German Emperor 'Windy Bill,' and to explain that now that the Prince of Wales has dined at the Savage Club 'the Savages intend to re- | form and live cleanly.' And it seems but yesterday that our contemporary observed that Mr Watts-Dunton looked like a sick walrus, and described an- | other literary gentleman as a wooden fool, or words to that effect. The persons who have spit venom at this tender, pelican should be severely reprimanded at once." . Despite? the fact that the Temple letters—thoso written by Je.mes Boswell to the Rev. W. J. Temple—placed the -writer of Johnson's matchless biography in a much mora favourable light than that-in which he was viewed by Macaulay, they loft ->cjuitek undisturbed the evidence ~of his amorous proclivities.; In the new edition of the letters just issued, under tho editorship of Mr Seccombe, thero are discreet omissions, but enough remains to enow Boswell a quite worthy rival to Mr Pepys ns an amateur in affairs of tho heart and affairs of the senses.. "What a fortunate follow am I!' he writes rapturously after a flirtation -with a pretty Irish girl. ""What a variety of adventures in all countries!" After giving Temple somo highly-edifying advice on the subject of a virtuous marriage, he adds the information that ho in himself happy in tho society of a "dear infidel," a married lady separated from her husband, for whom Boswell has set up an establishment. To his own wife ho seems to have been really attached, and his grief over her final illness and death was obviously sincere; but his affection for the excellent Mrs Boswell did not prevent him from indulging in miscellaneous amoroisities. "Thero is a Miss Silvorton in the Fly with mc, an amiable creature," who has been in France. I can unite little fondnesses with .perfect conjugal love." Whilo his wife lay dying, he reproached himself with ins "frequent scenes of what I must call dissolute conduct;" his repentance, however, was a good deal quickened by tho fact that ho had gone out to dinner, got drunk, tumbled off his horse on the way home* and'dislocated his shoulder. Boswell's drinking habits were incurable. He was always making strenuous; vows of amendment, and always, giving way again; especially at tlie least appearance of anxiety, embarrassment, uneasiness, or self-reproach, from which conditions he was seldom free for long.