Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864




And thus much having been said of "Enoch Arden," we find no space for
consideration of the other poems contained in the new volume. "Aylmer's
Field" is in some respects, perhaps, more remarkable than the poem which
precedes it, since the poet never loses sight of England, in its course,
nor the old familiar scenes, but tugs at the fetid roots of shallow
aristocracy with the relentless clutch of one of God's noblemen laboring
for the right.

Shut in these few pages we find the substance of a three-volume novel;
and while the mind sways slowly to the music of its "sculptured lines,"
the lives of men move on from birth to death, leaving their meaning
stamped in rhythmic beauty on our heart and brain.

Nor must we forget, while contemplating the two principal poems in the
volume,--finished heroic lessons of the poet's mature life,--the songs,
singing themselves like summer ripples on the strand, which are their
melodious companions. Among them we dare to mention "In the Valley of
Cauteretz,"--

"Sweeter thy voice, though every sound is sweet."

FOOTNOTES:

[A] _Madame Recamier, with a Sketch of the History of Society in
France_. By Madame M----. London. 1862.

[B] _Causeries de Lundi_.

[C] _Coppet et Weimar: Madame de Stael et la Grande Duchesse Louise_.

[D] Madame de Chateaubriand.

[E] This term designated a larger class of young men than that to which
it is now confined. It took in the articled clerks of merchants and
bankers, the George Barnwells of the day.

[F] Since writing this article, we have been informed that the object of
our funeral oration is not definitively dead, but only moribund. So much
the better: we shall have an opportunity of granting the request made to
Walter by one of the children in the wood, and "kill him two times." The
Abbe de Vertot, having a siege to write, and not receiving the materials
in time, composed the whole from his invention. Shortly after its
completion, the expected documents arrived, when he threw them aside,
exclaiming, "You are of no use to me now: I have carried the town."

[G] _Cornhill Magazine_, June, 1864, Vol. IX. p. 654.

[H] Gates was an Englishman, and has a damaged reputation. Lee was
another, who has no reputation at all. Conway was an Irishman, and the
same is true of him. But these men all did something to forfeit esteem.
Jones never did. Montgomery died in the full flush of his deserved
honors. He was Irish by birth.

[I] Not bound to the Baltic, as Mr. Thackeray supposes. Cf. Beatson's
_Naval Memoirs_, Vol. IV. pp. 550-553.

[J] The bad character that is commonly given to the Athenian polity by
the enemies of popular government is by no means deserved if we can
trust the definition of that polity by Pericles, as reported by
Thucydides, and translated by that eminent scholar and great historian,
Mr. Grote. "We live under a constitution," says Pericles, in the
famous funeral speech, "such as noway to envy the laws of our
neighbors,--ourselves an example to others, rather than mere imitators.
It is called a democracy, since its permanent aim tends toward the Many
and not toward the Few: in regard to private matters and disputes, the
laws deal equally with every man: while looking to public affairs and to
claims of individual influence, every man's chance of advancement is
determined, not by party favor, but by real worth, according as his
reputation stands in his own particular department: nor does poverty, or
obscure station, keep him back, if he really has the means of benefiting
the city." This wellnigh makes a political Arcadia of Athens. Yet there
is no good reason, after making due allowance for the imperfection of
human action, when compared with the theory of a given polity, for
doubting the correctness of the picture.

[K] One of our English Friends, a man of well-earned eminence, says that
"extracts from the contemporary literature of America seem to show,
that, if the result of the Presidential election of 1860 had been
different, separation would have come, not from the South, but from the
North." (See _Essays on Fiction_, by Nassau W. Senior, p. 397.) Mr.
Senior is mistaken, as much so as when he says that "a total abstinence
from novel-reading pervades New England," where there is more
novel-reading than in any other community of the same numbers in the
world. With the exception of "the old Abolitionists," there were not
five hundred disunionists in all the Free States in 1860; and the
Abolitionists would neither fight nor vote, and, though possessed of
eminent abilities, they had no influence. If Mr. Senior were right, we
do not see how the South could be blamed for what it has done; for, if
we could secede because of Mr. Lincoln's defeat, it follows that the
South could secede because of his election.

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