Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

On the other hand, in the Continental castles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as Heidelberg, Perronne, and Plessis la Tour, as the old representations give it, we see the flanking system extending itself laterally, until it forms something between the Norman keep and the modern fortress. It was on Plessis that Philip de Comines moralises, as a large prison into which the great King Louis had virtually immured himself, becoming, by his own exertions for the enlargement of his power, and his protection from secret enemies, nothing better than the hapless immured prisoner, whose lot he forced upon so many others.

The one great leading step which modern fortification took beyond the mere flanking system, is the discovery of the glacis for covering the stone-work, and protecting it from the attacks of cannon. The whole system, it appears, is now on trial. The charge against it is, that every addition made to it in the way of protecting works, only renders a fort the more certain of ultimate capture, since these protecting works are themselves easily taken. It is said that they save the main work from a general escalade which is never likely to be attempted, but facilitate a deliberate siege, which is the proper method of taking fortified places. It is said that in fortification we must, as in other matters of war, recur to the first principle, that the best way to protect ourselves is to kill our enemy. Of old, the main defences of a vessel were to protect the deck by castles stem and stern from a boarding enemy; now the arrangement is directed to the destruction of the enemy before he can board. Our old knights in armour were a sort of moving fortresses made more for protection than destruction. In Italy, the steel encasement was brought to such perfection, that at the battle of Tornoue, under Charles VIII., we are told by Father Daniel that a number of Italian knights were overthrown, but could not be killed until the country people brought huge stones and sledge-hammers and broke their shells, like those of so many lobsters. It sounds like an odd accompaniment of civilisation that she should make the external form of warfare more destructive and less defensive—but so it is; and a reform in fortification is proposed, which, by the abandonment of the flanking system, and something like a restoration of the primitive form, is to make the fort more terrible to the invader, as a means of making it a more effective defence.

We profess not to enter on so great a question. Mere theories we have herein offered to our reader; and as they are given in all innocence and good-humour, all we pray is, that he will not, if they differ from his own, condemn us to some dire mysterious fate. Let him, if we displease him, simply content himself with the old established remedy, and mutter to himself, “Pooh! humbug!” And we on our part engage that we shall live in all charity with all men who accept not our theory; and will by no means endeavour to prove that they are sensual, lewd, dishonourable people, deserving of some dire punishment.

FIRMILIAN: A TRAGEDY.[23]

We have great pleasure in announcing to our readers the fact, that we have at last discovered that long-expected phenomenon, the coming Poet, and we trust that his light will very soon become visible in the literary horizon. We cannot, however, arrogate to ourselves any large share of merit in this discovery—indeed, we must confess, with a feeling akin to shame, that we ought to have made it at a much earlier date. _Firmilian_ is not altogether new to us. We have an indistinct recollection of having seen the tragedy in manuscript well-nigh two years ago; and, if we remember aright, a rather animated correspondence took place on the subject of the return of the papers. We had, by some untoward accident, allowed them to find their way into the Balaam-box, which girnel of genius was at that particular time full up to the very hinges. We felt confident that _Firmilian_ lay under the weight of some twenty solid layers of miscellaneous literature; and we should as soon have thought of attempting to disinter an ichthyosaurus from a slate-quarry, as of ransacking the bowels of the chest for that treasury of rare delights. However, we took care, on the occasion of the next incremation, to make search for the missing article, and had the pleasure of returning it to Mr Percy Jones, from whom we heard nothing further until we received his tragedy in print. Our first perusal having been rather of a cursory nature, we are not able to state with certainty whether the author has applied himself during the intervening period to the work of emendation; but we think it exceedingly probable that he has done so, as we now remark a degree of vivacity and force of expression, however extravagant many of the ideas may be, which had escaped our previous notice. We hope that, by a tardy act of justice, we shall offer no violence to that amiable modesty which has, in the mean time, restrained him from asking the verdict of the general public.

As to the actual amount of poetic genius and accomplishment which Mr Percy Jones possesses, there may, even among the circle of his friends, be considerable difference of opinion. Those who admire spasmodic throes and writhings may possibly be inclined to exalt him to a very high pinnacle of fame; for certainly, in no modern work of poetry—and there have been several recently published which might have borne the _imprimatur_ of Bedlam—have we found so many symptoms of unmistakable lunacy. Still there is a method in his madness—a rapidity of perception and originality of thought, which contrasts very favourably with the tedious drivellings of some other writers of the same school. His taste is not one whit better than theirs, but he brings a finer fancy and a more vivid imagination to the task; nor is he deficient in a certain rude exaggerated dramatic power, which has more than once reminded us of the early style of Marlowe and the other predecessors of Shakespeare.

It is not very easy to comprehend the exact creed and method of the new school of poets, who have set themselves to work upon a principle hitherto unknown, or at all events unproclaimed. This much we know from themselves, that they regard poetry not only as a sacred calling, but as the most sacred of any—that, in their opinion, every social relation, every mundane tie, which can interfere with the bard’s development, must be either disregarded or snapped asunder—and that they are, to the fainting race of Adam, the sole accredited bearers of the Amreeta cup of immortality. Such is the kind of nonsense regarding the nature of his mission which each fresh poetaster considers it his duty to enunciate; and as there is nothing, however absurd, which will not become credited by dint of constant repetition, we need not be surprised that some very extraordinary views regarding the “rights of genius” should of late years have been countenanced by men who ought to have known better. Poets are, like all other authors or artisans, valuable according to the quality of the article which they produce. If their handiwork be good, genuine, and true, it will pass at once into circulation and be prized—if the reverse, what title can they prefer to the name which they so proudly arrogate to themselves?

We do not, however, quarrel with a poet for having an exalted idea of his art—always supposing that he has taken any pains to acquire its rudiments. Without a high feeling of this kind, it would be difficult to maintain the struggle which must precede eminent success; nor would we have alluded to the subject but for the affectation and offensive swaggering of some who may indeed be rhymsters, but who never could be poets even if their days were to be prolonged to the extent of those of Methusaleh. When the painter of the tavern sign-post, whereon is depicted a beer-bottle voiding its cork, and spontaneously ejecting its contents right and left into a couple of convenient tumblers, talks to us of high art, Raphael, and the effects of _chiaroscuro_, it is utterly impossible to control the action of the risible muscles. And, in like manner, when one of our young poetical aspirants, on the strength of a trashy duodecimo filled with unintelligible ravings, asserts his claim to be considered as a prophet and a teacher, it is beyond the power of humanity to check the intolerable tickling of the midriff.

But, apart from their exaggerated notions of their calling, let us see what is the practice of the poets of the Spasmodic School. In the first place, they rarely, if ever, attempt anything like a plot. After you have finished the perusal of their verses, you find yourself just as wise as when you began. You cannot tell what they would be at. You have a confused recollection of stars, and sunbeams, and moonbeams, as if you had been staring at an orrery; but sun, moon, and stars, were intended to give light to something—and what that something is, in the poet’s page, you cannot, for the life of you, discover. In the second place, we regret to say that they are often exceedingly profane, not, we suppose, intentionally, but because they have not sense enough to see the limits which decency, as well as duty, prescribes. In the third place, they are occasionally very prurient. And, in the fourth place, they are almost always unintelligible.

Now, although we cannot by any means aver that Mr Percy Jones is entirely free from the faults which we have just enumerated, we look upon him as a decidedly favourable specimen of his tribe. There is, in _Firmilian_, if not a plot, at least some kind of comprehensible action; and in it he has portrayed the leading features of the poetical school to which he belongs with so much fidelity and effect, that we feel called upon to give an outline of his tragedy, with a few specimens from the more remarkable scenes.

The hero of the piece, Firmilian, is a student in the university of Badajoz, a poet, and entirely devoted to his art. He has been engaged for some time in the composition of a tragedy upon the subject of Cain, which is “to win the world by storm;” but he unfortunately discovers, after he has proceeded a certain length in his task, that he has not yet thoroughly informed himself, by experience, of the real nature of the agonies of remorse. He finds that he cannot do justice to his subject without steeping his own soul in guilt, so as to experience the pangs of the murderer; and as, according to the doctrines of the spasmodic school of poetry, such investigations are not only permitted, but highly laudable, he sets himself seriously to ponder with what victim he should begin. All our spasmodic poets introduce us to their heroes in their studies, and Mr Percy Jones follows the tradition. He does not, however, like some of them, carry his imitative admiration of Goethe’s _Faust_ so far, as personally to evoke Lucifer or Mephistopheles—an omission for which we are really thankful. Firmilian begins by a soliloquy upon his frame of mind and feelings; and states himself to be grievously perplexed and hindered in his work by his comparative state of innocence. He then meditates whether he should commence his course of practical remorse by putting to death Mariana, a young lady to whom he is attached, or three friends and fellow-students of his, with whom he is to dine next day. After much hesitation, he decides on the latter view, and, after looking up “Raymond Lullius” for the composition of a certain powder, retires to rest after a beautiful but somewhat lengthy apostrophe to the moon. There is nothing in this scene which peculiarly challenges quotation. The next is occupied by love-making; and certainly, if Mr Percy Jones had intended to exhibit his hero throughout in the most amiable and romantic light, nothing could be better than his appearance in the bower of Mariana. If, here and there, we encounter an occasional floridness, or even warmth of expression, we attribute that in a great measure to the sunny nature of the clime; just as we feel that the raptures of Romeo and Juliet are in accordance with the temperament of the land that gave them birth. But we presently find that Firmilian, though a poet, is a hypocrite and traitor in love. The next scene is laid in a tavern, where he and his friends, Garcia Perez, Alphonzo D’Aguilar, and Alonzo Olivarez are assembled, and there is a discussion, over the winecup, on the inexhaustible subject of knightly love. Alphonzo, claiming to be descended from the purest blood of Castile, asserts the superiority of European beauty over the rest of the universe; to which Firmilian, though known to be betrothed to Mariana, makes the following reply—

FIRMILIAN.

I knew a poet once; and he was young,
And intermingled with such fierce desires
As made pale Eros veil his face with grief,
And caused his lustier brother to rejoice.
He was as amorous as a crocodile
In the spring season, when the Memphian bank,
Receiving substance from the glaring sun,
Resolves itself from mud into a shore.
And—as the scaly creature wallowing there,
In its hot fits of passion, belches forth
The steam from out its nostrils, half in love,
And half in grim defiance of its kind;
Trusting that either, from the reedy fen,
Some reptile-virgin coyly may appear,
Or that the hoary Sultan of the Nile
May make tremendous challenge with his jaws,
And, like Mark Anthony, assert his right
To all the Cleopatras of the ooze—
So fared it with the poet that I knew.

He had a soul beyond the vulgar reach,
Sun-ripened, swarthy. He was not the fool
To pluck the feeble lily from its shade
When the black hyacinth stood in fragrance by.
The lady of his love was dusk as Ind,
Her lips as plenteous as the Sphinx’s are,
And her short hair crisp with Numidian curl.
She was a negress. You have heard the strains
That Dante, Petrarch, and such puling fools
As loved the daughters of cold Japhet’s race,
Have lavished idly on their icicles.
As snow melts snow, so their unhasty fall
Fell chill and barren on a pulseless heart.
But, would you know what noontide ardour is,
Or in what mood the lion, in the waste,
All fever-maddened, and intent on cubs,
At the oasis waits the lioness—
That shall you gather from the fiery song
Which that young poet framed, before he dared
Invade the vastness of his lady’s lips.

Judging from the implied character of the ditty in question, we are not sorry that we cannot lay it before our readers—indeed it does not appear in the volume, for D’Aguilar was so disgusted with the introduction that he openly reviled Firmilian as a pupil of Mahound, and bestowed a buffet on him, whereupon there was a flashing of swords. These, however, were sheathed, and the students again sate down amicably to drink. Firmilian, being suddenly called away, entreats his friends to amuse themselves, during his absence, with a special bottle of “Ildefronso”—a vintage which we do not remember having seen in any modern list of wines. They comply—feel rather uncomfortable—and the scene concludes by the chaunt of a funeral procession beneath the window; an idea which we strongly suspect has been borrowed from Victor Hugo’s tragedy of _Lucrèce Borgia_.

The next scene exhibits Firmilian pacing the cloisters. His three friends have died by poison, but he is not able by any means to conjure up a feeling of adequate remorse. He does not see that he is at all responsible in the matter. If he had poured out the wine into their glasses, and looked upon their dying agonies, then, indeed, he might have experienced the desired sensation of guilt. But he did nothing of the kind. They helped themselves, of their own free will and accord, and died when he was out of the way. On the whole, then, his first experiment was a blunder. During his reverie, an old preceptor of his, the Priest of St Nicholas, passes; and certain reminiscences of stripes suggest him as the next victim. The reader will presently see by what means this scheme is carried into execution. Suffice it to say, that the mere anticipation of it sheds a balm upon Firmilian’s disappointed spirit, who, being now fully convinced that in a few days he will be able to realise the tortures of Cain, departs for an interview with Lilian, a young lady for whom he entertains a clandestine attachment. The next scene speaks for itself.

EXTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF ST NICHOLAS.

_Choir heard chaunting within._

_Enter_ FIRMILIAN.

How darkly hangs yon cloud above the spire!
There’s thunder in the air—
What if the flash
Should rend the solid walls, and reach the vault
Where my terrestrial thunder lies prepared,
And so, without the action of my hand,
Whirl up those thousand bigots in its blaze,
And leave me guiltless, save in the intent?

That were a vile defraudment of my aim,
A petty larceny o’ the element,
An interjection of exceeding wrong!
Let the hoarse thunder rend the vault of heaven,
Yea, shake the stars by myriads from their boughs,
As autumn tempests shake the fruitage down;—
Let the red lightning shoot athwart the sky,
Entangling comets by their spooming hair,
Piercing the zodiac belt, and carrying dread
To old Orion, and his whimpering hound;—
But let the glory of this deed be mine!

ORGAN _and_ CHOIR.

Sublimatus ad honorem
Nicholai presulis:
Pietatis ante rorem
Cunctis pluit populis:
Ut vix parem aut majorem
Habeat in seculis.

FIRMILIAN.

Yet I could weep to hear the wretches sing!
There rolls the organ anthem down the aisle,
And thousand voices join in its acclaim.
All they are happy—they are on their knees;
Round and above them stare the images
Of antique saints and martyrs. Censers steam
With their Arabian charge of frankincense,
And every heart, with inward fingers, counts
A blissful rosary of pious prayer!
Why should they perish then? Is’t yet too late?
O shame, Firmilian, on thy coward soul!
What! thou, the poet!—thou, whose mission ’tis
To send vibration down the chord of time,
Until its junction with eternity—
Thou, who hast dared and pondered and endured,
Gathering by piecemeal all the noble thoughts
And fierce sensations of the mind—as one
Who in a garden culls the wholesome rose,
And binds it with the deadly nightshade up;
Flowers not akin, and yet, by contrast kind—
Thou, for a touch of what these mundane fools
Whine of as pity, to forego thine aim,
And never feel the gnawing of remorse,
Like the Promethean vulture on the spleen,
That shall instruct thee to give future voice
To the unuttered agonies of Cain!
Thou, to compare, with that high consequence
The breath of some poor thousand knights and knaves,
Who soaring, in the welkin, shall expire!
Shame, shame, Firmilian! on thy weakness, shame!

ORGAN _and_ CHOIR.

Auro dato violari
Virgines prohibuit:
Far in fame, vas in mari
Servat et distribuit:
Qui timebant naufragari
Nautis opem tribuit.

FIRMILIAN.

A right good saint he seems, this Nicholas!
And over-worked too, if the praise be just,
Which these, his votaries, quaver as his claim.
Yet it is odd he should o’erlook the fact
That underneath this church of his are stored
Some twenty barrels of the dusky grain,
The secret of whose framing, in an hour
Of diabolic jollity and mirth,
Old Roger Bacon wormed from Belzebub!
He might keep better wardship for his friends;
But that to me is nothing. Now’s the time!
Ha! as I take the matchbox in my hand,
A spasm pervades me, and a natural thrill
As though my better genius were at hand,
And strove to pluck me backwards by the hair.
I must be resolute. Lose this one chance,
Which bears me to th’ Acropolis of guilt,
And this, our age, foregoes its noblest song.
I must be speedy—

ORGAN _and_ CHOIR.

A defunctis suscitatur
Furtum qui commiserat:
Et Judæus baptizatur
Furtum qui recuperat:
Illi vita restauratur,
Hic ad fidem properat.

FIRMILIAN.

No more was needed to confirm my mind!
That stanza blows all thoughts of pity off,
As empty straws are scattered by the wind!
For I have been the victim of the Jews,
Who, by vile barter, have absorbed my means.
Did I not pawn—for that same flagrant stuff,
Which only waits a spark to be dissolved,
And, having done its mission, must disperse
As a thin smoke into the ambient air—
My diamond cross, my goblet, and my books?
What! would they venture to baptise the Jew?
The cause assumes a holier aspect, then;
And, as a faithful son of Rome, I dare
To merge my darling passion in the wrong
That is projected against Christendom!
Pity, avaunt! I may not longer stay.

[_Exit into the vaults. A short pause, after which he reappears._

’Tis done! I vanish like the lightning bolt!

ORGAN _and_ CHOIR.

Nicholai sacerdotum
Decus, honor, gloria:
Plebem omnem, clerum totum—

[_The Cathedral is blown up_].

We back that scene, for intensity, against anything which has been written for the last dozen of years. Nay, we can even see in it traces of profound psychological observation. Firmilian, like Hamlet, is liable, especially on the eve of action, to fits of constitutional irresolution; and he requires, in order to nerve him to the deed, a more direct and plausible motive than that which originally prompted him. Hence we find him wavering, and almost inclined to abandon his purpose, until a casual passage in the choral hymn jars upon an excitable nerve, and urges him irresistibly forward. We shall presently find the same trait of character even more remarkably developed in another scene.

We then come to the obsequies of the students, which, being episodical, we may as well pass over. There are two ways of depicting grief—one quiet and impressive, the other stormy and clamorous. Mr Percy Jones, as might have been expected, adopts the latter method; and we are bound to say that we have never perused anything in print so fearful as the ravings of the bereaved Countess D’Aguilar, mother of the unfortunate Alphonzo. She even forgets herself so far as to box the ears of the confessor who is officiously whispering consolation.

Meanwhile, where is the hero of the piece—the successful Guy Fawkes of the cathedral? Perched on a locality which never would have occurred to any but the most exalted imagination.

SUMMIT OF THE PILLAR OF ST SIMEON STYLITES.

FIRMILIAN.

’Twas a grand spectacle! The solid earth
Seemed from its quaking entrails to eruct
The gathered lava of a thousand years,
Like an imposthume bursting up from hell!
In a red robe of flame, the riven towers,
Pillars and altar, organ-loft and screen,
With a singed swarm of mortals intermixed,
Were whirled in anguish to the shuddering stars,
And all creation trembled at the din.
It was my doing—mine alone! and I
Stand greater by this deed than the vain fool
That thrust his torch beneath Diana’s shrine.
For what was it inspired Erostratus
But a weak vanity to have his name
Blaze out for arson in the catalogue?
I have been wiser. No man knows the name
Of me, the pyrotechnist who have given
A new apotheosis to the saint
With lightning blast, and stunning thunder knell!

And yet—and yet—what boots the sacrifice?
I thought to take remorse unto my heart,
As the young Spartan hid the savage fox
Beneath the foldings of his boyish gown,
And let it rive his flesh. Mine is not riven—
My heart is yet unscarred. I’ve been too coarse
And general in this business. Had there been
Amongst that multitude a single man
Who loved me, cherished me—to whom I owed
Sweet reciprocity for holy alms
And gifts of gentle import—had there been
Friend,—father,—brother, mingled in that crowd,
And I had slain him—then indeed my soul
Might have acquired fruition of its wish,
And shrieked delirious at the taste of sin!
But these—what were the victims unto me?
Nothing! Mere human atoms, breathing clods,
Uninspired dullards, unpoetic slaves,
The rag, and tag, and bobtail of mankind;
Whom, having scorched to cinders, I no more
Feel ruth for what I did, than if my hand
Had thrust a stick of sulphur in the nest
Of some poor hive of droning humble-bees,
And smoked them into silence!
I must have
A more potential draught of guilt than this,
With more of wormwood in it!
Here I sit,
Perched like a raven on old Simeon’s shaft,
With barely needful footing for my limbs—
And one is climbing up the inward coil,
Who was my friend and brother. We have gazed
Together on the midnight map of heaven,
And marked the gems in Cassiopea’s hair—
Together have we heard the nightingale
Waste the exuberant music of her throat,
And lull the flustering breezes into calm—
Together have we emulously sung
Of Hyacinthus, Daphne, and the rest,
Whose mortal weeds Apollo changed to flowers.
Also from him I have derived much aid
In golden ducats, which I fain would pay
Back with extremest usury, were but
Mine own convenience equal to my wish.
Moreover, of his poems he hath sold
Two full editions of a thousand each,
While mine remain neglected on the shelves!
Courage, Firmilian! for the hour has come
When thou canst know atrocity indeed,
By smiting him that was thy dearest friend.
And think not that he dies a vulgar death—
’Tis poetry demands the sacrifice!
Yet not to him be that revealment made.
He must not know with what a loving hand—
With what fraternal charity of heart
I do devote him to the infernal gods!
I dare not spare him one particular pang,
Nor make the struggle briefer! Hush—he comes.

HAVERILLO, _emerging from the staircase_.

How now, Firmilian!—I am scant of breath;
These steps have pumped the ether from my lungs,
And made the bead-drops cluster on my brow.
A strange, unusual rendezvous is this—
An old saint’s pillar, which no human foot
Hath scaled this hundred years!

FIRMILIAN.

Aye—it is strange!

HAVERILLO.

’Faith, sir, the bats considered it as such:
They seem to flourish in the column here,
And are not over courteous. Ha! I’m weary:
I shall sleep sound to-night.

FIRMILIAN.

You _shall_ sleep sound!

HAVERILLO.

Either there is an echo in the place,
Or your voice is sepulchral.

FIRMILIAN.

Seems it so?

HAVERILLO.

Come, come, Firmilian—Be once more a man!
Leave off these childish tricks, and vapours bred
Out of a too much pampered fantasy.
What are we, after all, but mortal men,
Who eat, drink, sleep, need raiment and the like,
As well as any jolterhead alive?
Trust me, my friend, we cannot feed on dreams,
Or stay the hungry cravings of the maw
By mere poetic banquets.

FIRMILIAN.

Say you so?
Yet have I heard that by some alchemy
(To me unknown as yet) you have transmuted
Your verses to fine gold.

HAVERILLO.

And all that gold
Was lent to you, Firmilian.

FIRMILIAN.

You expect,
Doubtless, I will repay you?

HAVERILLO.

So I do.
You told me yesterday to meet you here,
And you would pay me back with interest.
Here is the note.

FIRMILIAN.

A moment.—Do you see
Yon melon-vender’s stall down i’ the square?
Methinks the fruit that, close beside the eye,
Would show as largely as a giant’s head,
Is dwindled to a heap of gooseberries!
If Justice held no bigger scales than those
Yon pigmy seems to balance in his hands,
Her utmost fiat scarce would weigh a drachm!
How say you?

HAVERILLO.

Nothing—’tis a fearful height!
My brain turns dizzy as I gaze below,
And there’s a strange sensation in my soles.

FIRMILIAN.

Ay—feel you that? Ixion felt the same
Ere he was whirled from heaven!

HAVERILLO.

Firmilian!
You carry this too far. Farewell. We’ll meet
When you’re in better humour.

FIRMILIAN.

Tarry, sir!
I have you here, and thus we shall not part.
I know your meaning well. For that same dross,
That paltry ore of Mammon’s mean device
Which I, to honour you, stooped to receive,
You’d set the Alguazils on my heels!
What! have I read your thought? Nay, never shrink,
Nor edge towards the doorway! You’re a scholar!
How was’t with Phaeton?

HAVERILLO.

Alas! he’s mad.
Hear me, Firmilian! Here is the receipt—
Take it—I grudge it not! If ten times more,
It were at your sweet service.

FIRMILIAN.

Would you do
This kindness unto me?

HAVERILLO.

Most willingly.

FIRMILIAN.

Liar and slave! There’s falsehood in thine eye!
I read as clearly there, as in a book,
That, if I did allow you to escape,
In fifteen minutes you would seek the judge.
Therefore, prepare thee, for thou needs must die!

HAVERILLO.

Madman—stand off!

FIRMILIAN.

There’s but four feet of space
To spare between us. I’m not hasty, I!
Swans sing before their death, and it may be
That dying poets feel that impulse too:
Then, prythee, be canorous. You may sing
One of those ditties which have won you gold,
And my meek audience of the vapid strain
Shall count with Phœbus as a full discharge
For all your ducats. Will you not begin?

HAVERILLO.

Leave off this horrid jest, Firmilian!

FIRMILIAN.

Jest! ’Tis no jest! This pillar’s very high—
Shout, and no one can hear you from the square—
Wilt sing, I say?

HAVERILLO.

Listen, Firmilian!
I have a third edition in the press,
Whereof the proceeds shall be wholly thine—
Spare me!

FIRMILIAN.

A third edition! Atropos—
Forgive me that I tarried!

HAVERILLO.

Mercy!—Ah!—

[FIRMILIAN _hurls him from the column_.

There is a grand recklessness and savage energy displayed in this scene, which greatly increases our admiration of the author’s abilities. He seems, indeed, in the fair way of making the spasmodic school famous in modern literature. With the death of Haverillo an ordinary writer would have paused—not so Percy Jones, who, with a fine aptitude for destruction, makes his hero, Firmilian, kill two birds with one stone. The manner in which he accomplishes this feat is most ingenious. He maintains the unity of the design by a very slight alteration of the locality. Whilst the two poets are ominously conversing on the summit of the pillar, a critic, affected by an intolerable itch for notoriety, is prowling in the square beneath—

SQUARE BELOW THE PILLAR.

_Enter_ APOLLODORUS, _a Critic_.

Why do men call me a presumptuous cur,
A vapouring blockhead, and a turgid fool,
A common nuisance, and a charlatan?
I’ve dashed into the sea of metaphor
With as strong paddles as the sturdiest ship
That churns Medusæ into liquid light,
And hashed at every object in my way.
My ends are public. I have talked of men
As my familiars, whom I never saw.
Nay—more to raise my credit—I have penned
Epistles to the great ones of the land,
When some attack might make them slightly sore,
Assuring them, in faith, it was not I.
What was their answer? Marry—shortly this:
“Who, in the name of Zernebock, are you?”
I have reviewed myself incessantly—
Yea, made a contract with a kindred soul
For mutual interchange of puffery.
Gods—how we blew each other! But, ’tis past—
Those halcyon days are gone; and, I suspect,
That, in some fit of loathing or disgust,
Mine ancient playmate hath deserted me.
And yet I am Apollodorus still!
I search for genius, having it myself,
With keen and earnest longings. I survive
To disentangle, from the imping wings
Of our young poets, their crustaceous slough.
I watch them, as the watcher on the brook
Sees the young salmon wrestling from its egg,
And revels in its future bright career.
Ha! what seraphic melody is this?

_Enter_ SANCHO, _a Costermonger, singing_.

Down in the garden behind the wall,
Merrily grows the bright-green leek;
The old sow grunts as the acorns fall,
The winds blow heavy, the little pigs squeak.
One for the litter, and three for the teat—
Hark to their music, Juanna my sweet!

APOLLODORUS.

Now, heaven be thanked! here is a genuine bard,
A creature of high impulse, one unsoiled
By coarse conventionalities of rule.
He labours not to sing, for his bright thoughts
Resolve themselves at once into a strain
Without the aid of balanced artifice.
All hail, great poet!

SANCHO.

Save you, my merry master! Need you any leeks or onions? Here’s the primest cauliflower, though I say it, in all Badajoz. Set it up at a distance of some ten yards, and I’ll forfeit my ass if it does not look bigger than the Alcayde’s wig. Or would these radishes suit your turn? There’s nothing like your radish for cooling the blood and purging distempered humours.

APOLLODORUS.

I do admire thy vegetables much,
But will not buy them. Pray you, pardon me
For one short word of friendly obloquy.
Is’t possible a being so endowed
With music, song, and sun-aspiring thoughts,
Can stoop to chaffer idly in the streets,
And, for a huckster’s miserable gain,
Renounce the urgings of his destiny?
Why, man, thine ass should be a Pegasus,
A sun-reared charger snorting at the stars,
And scattering all the Pleiads at his heels—
Thy cart should be an orient-tinted car,
Such as Aurora drives into the day,
What time the rosy-fingered Hours awake—
Thy reins—

SANCHO.

Lookye, master, I’ve dusted a better jacket than yours before now, so you had best keep a civil tongue in your head. Once for all, will you buy my radishes?

APOLLODORUS.

No!

SANCHO.

Then go to the devil and shake yourself!

[_Exit._

APOLLODORUS.

The foul fiend seize thee and thy cauliflowers!
I was indeed a most egregious ass
To take this lubber clodpole for a bard,
And worship that dull fool. Pythian Apollo!
Hear me—O hear! Towards the firmament
I gaze with longing eyes; and, in the name
Of millions thirsting for poetic draughts,
I do beseech thee, send a poet down!
Let him descend, e’en as a meteor falls,
Rushing at noonday——

[_He is crushed by the fall of the body of_ HAVERILLO.

We then find Firmilian wandering among the mountains, and lavishing a superfluity of apostrophe upon the rocks, forests, and cataracts around him. Whatever may be his moral deficiencies, we are constrained to admit that he must have studied the phenomena of nature to considerable purpose at the University of Badajoz, since he explains, in no fewer than twelve pages of blank verse, the glacier theory, entreating his own attention—for no one is with him—to the striated surface of rocks and the forcible displacement of boulders. He then, by way of amusement, works out a question in conic sections. But, notwithstanding these exercitations, he is obviously not happy. He is still as far as ever from his grand object, the thorough appreciation of remorse—for he can assign a distinct moral motive for each atrocity which he has committed. He at last reluctantly arrives at the conclusion that he is not the party destined—

To shrine that page of history in song,
And utter such tremendous cadences,
That the mere babe who hears them at the breast,
_Sans_ comprehension, or the power of thought,
Shall be an idiot to its dying hour!
I deemed my verse would make pale Hecate’s orb
Grow wan and dark; and into ashes change
The radiant star-dust of the milky-way.
I deemed that pestilence, disease, and death
Would follow every strophe—for the power
Of a true poet, prophet as he is,
Should rack creation!

If this view of the powers of poets and poetry be correct, commend us to the continuance of a lengthened period of prose!

Firmilian then begins to look about him for a new subject, and a new course of initiative discipline. Magic first occurs to him—but he very speedily abandons that idea, from a natural terror of facing the fiend, and a wholesome dread of the Inquisition. He admits having made already one or two experiments in that line, and narrates, with evident horror, how he drew a chalk circle in his apartments, kindled a brazier, and began an incantation, when suddenly a lurid light appeared in the sockets of a skull upon the shelf, and so nearly threw him into convulsions that he could barely mutter the exorcism. (It appears, from another part of the poem, that this exploit had been detected by his servant, a spy of the Inquisition, in consequence of his having neglected to erase the cabalistic markings in chalk, and was of course immediately reported.) At last he determines to fall back upon sensuality, and to devote his unexampled talents to a grand poem upon the amours of the Heathen deities. He states, with much show of truth, that the tone of morals which an exclusively classical education is apt to give, cannot but be favourable to an extensive and sublime erotic undertaking—and that the youthful appetite, early stimulated by the perusal of the Pantheon, and the works of Ovid, Juvenal, and Catullus, will eagerly turn to anything in the vernacular which promises still stronger excitement. We shall not venture, at the present, to apply ourselves seriously to that question.

That Firmilian—for we shall not say Mr Percy Jones—was well qualified for such an undertaking as he finally resolved to prosecute, must be evident to every one who has perused the earliest extract we have given; and we shall certainly hold ourselves excused from quoting the terms of the course of study which he now proposes to himself. Seriously, it is full time that the prurient and indecent tone which has liberally manifested itself in the writings of the young spasmodic poets should be checked. It is so far from occasional, that it has become a main feature of their school; and in one production of the kind, most shamefully bepuffed, the hero was represented as carrying on an intrigue with the kept-mistress of Lucifer! If we do not comment upon more recent instances of marked impurity, it is because we hope the offence will not be repeated. Meantime, let us back to Firmilian.

As he approaches the catastrophe, we remark, with infinite gratification, that Mr Percy Jones takes pains to show that he is not personally identified with the opinions of his hero. Up to the point which we have now reached, there has been nothing to convince us that Jones did not intend Firmilian to be admired—but we are thankful to say that before the conclusion we are undeceived. Jones, though quite as spasmodic as the best of them, _has_ a sense of morals; and we do not know that we ever read anything better, in its way, than the following scene:—

A GARDEN.

FIRMILIAN. MARIANA.

FIRMILIAN.

My Mariana!

MARIANA.

O my beautiful!
My seraph love—my panther of the wild—
My moon-eyed leopard—my voluptuous lord!
O, I am sunk within a sea of bliss,
And find no soundings!

FIRMILIAN.

Shall I answer back?
As the great Earth lies silent all the night,
And looks with hungry longing on the stars,
Whilst its huge heart beats on its granite ribs
With measured pulsings of delirious joy—
So look I, Mariana, on thine eyes!

MARIANA.

Ah, dearest! wherefore are we fashioned thus?
I cannot always hang around thy neck
And plant vermilion kisses on thy brow;
I cannot clasp thee, as yon ivy bush—
Too happy ivy!—holds, from year to year,
The stalwart oak within her firm embrace,
Mixing her tresses fondly up with his,
Like some young Jewish maid with Absalom’s.
Nay, hold, Firmilian! do not pluck that rose!

FIRMILIAN.

Why not? it is a fair one.

MARIANA.

Are fair things
Made only to be plucked? O fie on thee!
I did not think my lord a libertine!

FIRMILIAN.

Yet, sweetest, with your leave I’ll take the rose,
For there’s a moral in it.—Look you here.
’Tis fair, and sweet, and in its clustered leaves
It carries balmy dew: a precious flower,
And vermeil-tinctured, as are Hebe’s lips.
Yet say, my Mariana, could you bear
To gaze for ever only upon this,
And fling the rest of Flora’s casket by?

MARIANA.

No, truly—I would bind it up with more,
And make a fitting posy for my breast.
If I were stinted in my general choice,
I’d crop the lily, tender, fresh, and white,—
The shrinking pretty lily—and would give
Its modest contrast to the gaudier rose.
What next? some flower that does not love the day—
The dark, full-scented night-stock well might serve
To join the other two.

FIRMILIAN.

A sweet selection!
Think’st thou they’d bloom together on one breast
With a united fragrance?

MARIANA.

Wherefore not?
It is by union that all things are sweet.

FIRMILIAN.

Thou speakest well! I joy, my Mariana,
To find thy spirit overleaps the pale
Of this mean world’s injurious narrowness!
Never did Socrates proclaim a truth
More beautiful than welled from out thy lips—
“It is by union that all things are sweet.”
Thou, darling, art my rose—my dewy rose—
The which I’ll proudly wear, but not alone.
Dost comprehend me?

MARIANA.

Ha! Firmilian—
How my eyes dazzle!

FIRMILIAN.

Let me show you now
The lily I have ta’en to bind with thee.

[_He brings_ LILIAN _from the summer-house_.

MARIANA.

Is this a jest, Firmilian?

FIRMILIAN.

Could I jest
With aught so fair and delicate as this?
Nay, come—no coyness! Both of you embrace.
Then to my heart of hearts—

MARIANA.

Soft you a moment!
Methinks the posy is not yet complete.
Say, for the sake of argument, I share
My rights with this pale beauty—(for she’s pretty;
Although so fragile and so frail a thing,
That a mere puff of April wind would mar her)—
Where is the night-stock?

FIRMILIAN _brings_ INDIANA _from the tool-house_.

Here!

MARIANA.

A filthy negress!
Abominable!

LILIAN.

Mercy on me! what blubber lips she has!

MARIANA, _furiously to_ FIRMILIAN.

You nasty thing! Is this your poetry—
Your high soul-scheming and philosophy?
I hate and loathe you! (_To Indiana_).—Rival of my shoe,
Go, get thee gone, and hide thee from the day
That loathes thine ebon skin! Firmilian—
You’ll hear of this! My brother serves the king.

LILIAN.

My uncle is the chief Inquisitor,
And he shall know of this ere curfew tolls!
What! Shall I share a husband with a coal?

MARIANA.

Right, girl! I love thee even for that word—
The Inquisition makes most rapid work,
And, in its books, that caitiff’s name is down!

FIRMILIAN.

Listen one moment! When I was a babe,
And in my cradle puling for my nurse,
There fell a gleam of glory on the floor,
And in it, darkly standing, was a form—

MARIANA.

A negress, probably! Farewell awhile—
When next we meet—the faggot and the pile!
Come, Lilian!

[_Exeunt._

INDIANA.

I shake from head to foot with sore affright—
What will become of me?

FIRMILIAN.

Who cares? Good night!

[_Scene closes._

Bravo, Percy! The first part of that scene is managed with a dexterity which old Dekker might have applauded, and the conclusion shows a perfect knowledge of womanly character and feeling. Firmilian is now cast beyond the pale of society, and in imminent danger, if apprehended, of taking a conspicuous part in an _auto-da-fé_. An author of inferior genius would probably have consigned him to the custody of the Familiars, in which case we should have had a dungeon and rack scene, if not absolute incremation as the catastrophe. But Jones knew better. He felt that such a cruel fate might, by the effect of contrast, revive some kind of sympathy in the mind of the reader for Firmilian, and he has accordingly adopted the wiser plan of depicting him as the victim of his own haunted imagination. The closing scene is so eminently graphic, and so perfectly original, that we give it entire.

A BARREN MOOR.

_Night—Mist and fog._

_Enter_ FIRMILIAN.

They’re hot upon my traces! Through the mist I heard their call and answer—and but now, As I was crouching ’neath a hawthorn bush, A dark Familiar swiftly glided by, His keen eyes glittering with the lust of death.

If I am ta’en, the faggot and the pile Await me! Horror! Rather would I dare, Like rash Empedocles, the Etna gulf, Than writhe before the slaves of bigotry. Where am I? If my mind deceives me not, Upon that common where, two years ago, An old blind beggar came and craved an alms, Thereby destroying a stupendous thought Just bursting in my mind—a glorious bud Of poesy, but blasted ere its bloom! I bade the old fool take the leftward path, Which leads to the deep quarry, where he fell— At least I deem so, for I heard a splash— But I was gazing on the gibbous moon, And durst not lower my celestial flight To care for such an insect-worm as he! How cold it is! The mist comes thicker on. Ha!—what is that? I see around me lights Dancing and flitting, yet they do not seem Like torches either—and there’s music too! I’ll pause and listen.

_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.

Follow, follow, follow!
Over hill and over hollow;
It is ours to lead the way,
When a sinner’s footsteps stray—
Cheering him with light and song,
On his doubtful path along.
Hark, hark! The watch-dogs bark.
There’s a crash, and a splash, and a blind man’s cry,
But the Poet looks tranquilly up at the sky!

FIRMILIAN.

Is it the echo of an inward voice,
Or spirit-words that make my flesh to creep,
And send the cold blood choking to my heart?
I’ll shift my ground a little—

_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.

Flicker, flicker, flicker!
Quicker still, and quicker.
Four young men sate down to dine,
And still they passed the rosy wine;
Pure was the cask, but in the flask
There lay a certain deadly powder—
Ha! his heart is beating louder!
Ere the day had passed away,
Garcia Perez lifeless lay!
Hark! his mother wails Alphonzo,
Never more shall strong Alonzo
Drink the wine of Ildefronso!

FIRMILIAN.

O horror! horror! ’twas by me they died!
I’ll move yet farther on—

_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.

In the vaults under
Bursts the red thunder;
Up goes the cathedral,
Priest, people, and bedral!
Ho! ho! ho! ho!

FIRMILIAN.

My brain is whirling like a potter’s wheel!
O Nemesis!

_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.

The Muses sing in their charmed ring,
And Apollo weeps for him who sleeps,
Alas! on a hard and a stony pillow—
Haverillo! Haverillo!

FIRMILIAN.

I shall go mad!

_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.

Give him some respite—give him some praise— One good deed he has done in his days; Chaunt it, and sing it, and tell it in chorus— He has flattened the cockscomb of Apollodorus!

FIRMILIAN.

Small comfort that! The death of a shard-beetle,
Albeit the poorest and the paltriest thing
That crawls round refuse, cannot weigh a grain
Against the ponderous avalanche of guilt
That hangs above me! O me miserable!
I’ll grope my way yet further.

_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.

Firmilian! Firmilian!
What have you done to Lilian?
There a cry from the grotto, a sob by the stream,
A woman’s loud wailing, a little babe’s scream!
How fared it with Lilian,
In the pavilion,
Firmilian, Firmilian?

FIRMILIAN.

Horror! I’m lost!—

_Chorus of_ IGNES FATUI.

Ho! ho! ho!
Deep in the snow
Lies a black maiden from Africa’s shore!
Hasten, and shake her—
You never shall wake her—
She’ll roam through the glens of the Atlas no more!
Stay, stay, stay!
This way—this way—
There’s a pit before, and a pit behind,
And the seeing man walks in the path of the blind!

[FIRMILIAN _falls into the quarry. The_ IGNES FATUI _dance as the
curtain descends_.

And so ends the tragedy of Firmilian.

It is rather difficult to give a serious opinion upon the merits of such a production as this. It is, of course, utterly extravagant; but so are the whole of the writings of the poets of the Spasmodic school; and, in the eyes of a considerable body of modern critics, extravagance is regarded as a proof of extraordinary genius. It is, here and there, highly coloured; but that also is looked upon as a symptom of the divine afflatus, and rather prized than otherwise. In one point of proclaimed spasmodic excellence, perhaps it fails. You can always tell what Percy Jones is after, even when he is dealing with “shuddering stars,” “gibbous moons,” “imposthumes of hell,” and the like; whereas you may read through twenty pages of the more ordinary stuff without being able to discern what the writers mean—and no wonder, for they really mean nothing. They are simply writing nonsense-verses; but they contrive, by blazing away whole rounds of metaphor, to mask their absolute poverty of thought, and to convey the impression that there must be something stupendous under so heavy a canopy of smoke. If, therefore, intelligibility, which is the highest degree of obscurity, is to be considered a poetic excellence, we are afraid that Jones must yield the palm to several of his contemporaries; if, on the contrary, perspicuity is to be regarded as a virtue, we do not hesitate in assigning the spasmodic prize to the author of _Firmilian_. To him the old lines on Marlowe, with the alteration of the name, might be applied—

“Next Percy Jones, bathed in the Thespian Springs,
Had in him those brave sublunary Things
That your first Poets had; his Raptures were
All Air and Fire, which made his Verses clear;
For that fierce Madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a Poet’s Brain.”

THE QUIET HEART.