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ESSAYS


_OTHER WORKS BY Mr. A. C. BENSON_

_In Verse_

POEMS, 1893

LYRICS, 1895

_In Prose_

MEMOIRS OF
ARTHUR HAMILTON, 1886

ARCHBISHOP LAUD: A STUDY,
1887

MEN OF MIGHT (in conjunction
with H. F. W. TATHAM), 1890




ESSAYS

BY
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
OF ETON COLLEGE

_Post aliquot, mea regna videns, mirabor aristas!_

LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1896

_All rights reserved_


    _To_
    HENRY JAMES
    THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
    BY
    HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND
    THE AUTHOR




PREFACE


It would be easy, if need were, to devise a theory of coherence for the
Essays here selected for re-publication, but the truth is that they are
fortuitous. The only claim that I can consistently make, is that I have
always chosen, for biographical and critical study, figures whose
personality or writings have seemed to me to possess some subtle,
evasive charm, or delicate originality of purpose or view. Mystery,
inexplicable reticence, haughty austerity, have a fascination in life
and literature, that is sometimes denied to sanguine strength and easy
volubility. I am well aware that vitality and majesty are the primary
qualities to demand both in life and literature. I have nothing but
rebellious horror for the view that languor, if only it be subtle and
serpentine, is in itself admirable. But there are two kinds of languor.
Just as the poverty of a man born needy, and incapable of acquiring
wealth, is different in kind from the poverty of one who has sacrificed
wealth in some noble cause, so the deliberate, the self-conscious
languor "about three degrees on this side of faintness," of which Keats
wrote in his most voluptuous mood, is a very different thing from the
languor of Hamlet, the fastidious despair of ever realising some lofty
conception, the prostrate indifference of one who has found the world
too strong. I do not say that the note of failure is a characteristic of
all the figures in my narrow gallery of portraits. But I will say that
they were most of them persons about whom hung an undefined promise of
greater strength than ever issued in performance. The causes of their
comparative failure are difficult to disentangle. With one perhaps it
was the want of a sympathetic _entourage_; with another a dreamy or
mystical habit of thought; with this one, the immersion in uncongenial
pursuits; with that a certain failure in physical vitality; with
another, the work, accomplished in dignified serenity, has fallen too
swiftly into neglect, and we must endeavour to divine the cause: and yet
in no case can we trace any inherent weakness, any moral obliquity, any
degrading or enervating concession.

Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes we make in literature and art is
the passionate individualism into which we are betrayed. We cannot bring
ourselves to speak or think very highly of the level of a man's work,
unless the positive and tangible results of that work are in themselves
very weighty and pure. We forget all about the inspirers and teachers of
poets and artists. How often does the poet, and the artist too, in
autobiographical allusion, speak with absorbing gratitude and devotion
of some humble name of which we take no note, as the "fons et origo" to
himself of enthusiasm and proficiency.

It is with no affectation of fastidious superiority, but with a frank
confession of conscious pettiness, that I say that this book will only
appeal to a few. The critic is no hero: he is at best but a skipping
peltast, engaged as often as not in inglorious flight. To flounder in
images, criticism is nothing but a species of mistletoe, sprouting in a
sleek bunch in the chink of a lofty forest tree. I had rather have been
Lovelace than Sainte-Beuve, and write one immortal lyric than
thirty-five volumes of the acutest discrimination. But a minority has a
right to its opinions, and may claim to be amused: a man who thinks the
Rhine vulgar, and the Jungfrau exaggerated, may be foolishly delighted
with a backwater on the Thames, and a view of the Berkshire downs. In
fact, the only kind of criticism of which one may be impatient is the
criticism which abuses an author for not writing something else. What
critics can do, what I have attempted to do, is to strengthen and define
the impression that a casual reader may derive from a book, a reader who
wishes to see what is good, but has not the knack described by the poet,
who says "what is best he firmly lights upon, as birds on sprays."

On the other hand we may reasonably doubt what is the exact worth of the
cultivation, of the point of view which we meekly accept at the hands
of a convincing critic. Does it not require a special insight to
understand even criticism? After all, we agree with, we do not accept
criticism: we select from it some preference, strongly and convincingly
stated, which jumps with our own preconceived ideas. If we merely
swallow it down, like the camel, to be reproduced in fetid stagnation,
whenever a necessity for it arises, are we so much higher after all? The
delicate psychologist who has accepted my dedication, speaks in one of
his latest stories of the expression on the face of a Royal Princess,
who had been _told_ everything in the world, and had never _perceived_
anything. Culture, criticism, in certain sterile natures, are like
Sheridan's famous apophthegm: they lie "like lumps of marl on a barren
moor, encumbering what it is not in their power to fertilise."

In art, in literature, it is the periods of republicanism that have left
their mark on the world: the periods that have been very conscious of,
and very deferential to authority, have been invariably retrograde.
What a dreary period in English literature was the reign of Dr. Johnson.
The chief legacies of that era to literature are the letters of Gray and
Horace Walpole, and the life of the Dictator himself. But these are not
creative literature at all. Gray, as a poet, was comparatively sterile.
Imagination, the jewel of the soul, had fallen from its elaborate
setting. But the more that literature declined, the more sententious
grew the critics. Nowadays, when literature is very active, and not very
profound--impressionist, journalistic, supremely content if it can
produce lively and superficial sensations--the bludgeoning of the early
part of the century has gone out: no longer does the critic feel it a
duty, as the oracle said to Oenomaus, to "draw the bow and slaughter the
innumerable geese that graze upon the green." Indeed would not some have
us believe that criticism of contemporaries is all a matter of private
interest, apart from any just or earnest conviction?

But there is still a class of readers, not very large or important
perhaps, haunted by a native instinct for literature, a relish for fine
phrases, a hankering for style--to whom the manner of saying a thing is
as important, or more important than the matter, readers, who are not
satisfied with fiction, unless it be combined, as by Robert Louis
Stevenson, with a wealth, a curiousness, a preciosity of phrase, to
which in criticism only Walter Pater can lay claim, and which may secure
for these two a station in literature to which the majority of our busy,
voluble, graphic writers must aspire in vain.

A. C. B.

ETON, _July, 1895_.




CONTENTS


                                PAGE

THE EVER-MEMORABLE JOHN HALES      1

A MINUTE PHILOSOPHER              19

HENRY MORE, THE PLATONIST         35

ANDREW MARVELL                    68

VINCENT BOURNE                    96

THOMAS GRAY                      119

WILLIAM BLAKE                    147

THE POETRY OF KEBLE              180

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING       203

THE LATE MASTER OF TRINITY       238

HENRY BRADSHAW                   252

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI               268

THE POETRY OF EDMUND GOSSE       292

EPILOGUE                         310




_Eight of these Essays have appeared in "Macmillan's Magazine," viz.:
"The Ever-Memorable John Hales," "A Minute Philosopher," "Andrew
Marvell." "Vincent Bourne," "Thomas Gray," "Elizabeth Barrett Browning,"
"Henry Bradshaw," "The Late Master of Trinity"; two in the "Contemporary
Review," viz.: "Henry More, the Platonist" and the "Poetry of Keble";
one in the "National Review," "Christina Rossetti"; and one in the "New
Review," the "Poetry of Edmund Gosse." My acknowledgements and thanks
are due to the proprietors and editors of these periodicals for the
leave kindly accorded me to republish them. The Study, "William Blake,"
is now printed for the first time._

_I desire also to record my gratitude to F. E. B. Duff, Esq., of King's
College, Cambridge, who has revised the book throughout, and made many
valuable suggestions._




THE EVER-MEMORABLE JOHN HALES


The churchyard at Eton is a triangular piece of ground, converging into
a sharp remote angle, bordered on one side by the Long Walk, and
screened from it by heavy iron railings. On the second side it is
skirted and overlooked by tall irregular houses, and on the third side
by the deep buttressed recesses of the chapel, venerable with ivy and
mouldering grey stone.

It is a strangely quiet place in the midst of bustling life; the
grumbling of waggons in the road, the hoarse calling of the jackdaws,
awkwardly fluttering about old red-tiled roofs, the cracked clanging of
the college clock, the voices of boys from the street, fall faintly on
the ear: besides, it has all the beauty of a deserted place, for it is
many years since it has been used for a burial-ground: the grass is long
and rank, the cypresses and yews grow luxuriantly out of unknown vaults,
and push through broken rails; the gravestones slant and crumble; moss
grows into the letters of forgotten names, and creepers embrace and
embower monumental urns; here and there are heaps of old carven,
crumbling stones; on early summer mornings a resident thrush stirs the
silence with flute-notes marvellously clear; and on winter evenings when
wet, boisterous winds roll steadily up, and the tall chapel windows
flame, the organ's voice is blown about the winding overgrown paths, and
the memorials of the dead.

Just inside the gate, visible from the road among the dark evergreens,
stands a tall, conspicuous altar-tomb, conspicuous more for the
miserable way in which a stately monument has been handled, than for its
present glories. It has been patched and slobbered up with grey stucco;
and the inscription scratched on the surface is three-quarters
obliterated. Let into the sides are the grey stone panels of the older
tomb, sculptured with quaint emblems of life and death, a mattock and an
uncouth heap of bones, an hourglass and a skull, a pot of roses and
lily-flowers--such is the monument of one of Eton's gentlest servants
and sons. "I ordain," runs the quaint conclusion of his will, "that at
the time of the next evensong after my departure (if conveniently it may
be), my body be laid in the church-yard of the town of Eton (if I chance
to die there), as near as may be [a strangely pathetic touch of love
from the childless philosopher, the friend of courtiers and divines], to
the body of my little godson, Jack Dickenson the elder; and this to be
done in plain and simple manner, without any sermon or ringing the bell,
or calling the people together; without any unseasonable commessation or
compotation, or other solemnity on such occasions usual; _for as in my
life I have done the church no service, so I will not that in my death
the church do me any honour_."

And the prophecy is fulfilled to the letter; in such a tomb he rests;
and by a strange irony of fate, the pompous title claiming so universal
and perennial a fame--the "ever-memorable"--is the only single fact
which is commonly mentioned about him--he has even been identified with
Sir Matthew Hale of just memory.

John Hales was neither an Etonian nor a Kingsman: he was of a
Somersetshire family; and was educated at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, where he spent no less than six years before taking his degree
(in 1603), from the age of thirteen to the age of nineteen.

The Warden of Merton at that time was Sir Henry Savile, Queen
Elizabeth's Greek tutor, supposed the most learned savant of the time,
founder of the Savilian professorships for astronomy and geometry, a
severe, clear-headed student. It is recorded of him that he had a great
dislike for brilliant instinctive abilities, and only respected the slow
cumulative processes. "Give me the plodding student," he said: "if I
would look for wits, I would go to Newgate: there be the wits." He was
not popular among the rising young men in consequence; John Earle, the
author of the _Microcosmography_, that delightful gallery of characters
that puts Theophrastus into the shade, was the only man he ever
admitted, on his reputation as a wit, into the sacred society of Merton.
For such intellects as he desired, he made search in a way that was then
described as "hedge-beating."

Savile was attracted by Hales; he found in him a mind which, young as it
was, showed signs of profundity. Savile's choice is a great testimony to
the _depth_ of Hales' attainments; for his later reputation was acquired
more by his grace and originality of mind than for his breadth of
learning. Savile was then at work on his _Chrysostom_, printed privately
at Eton in the grave collegiate house in Weston's Yard, now the most
inconvenient residence of the Praecentor. Hales became a congenial
fellow-labourer, and in 1613 was moved to a fellowship at Eton, of which
College Savile had for seventeen years been Provost.

A Fellow of Eton is now a synonym for a member of the Governing Body,
that is to say, a gentleman in some public position, who is willing to
give up a fraction of his time to the occasional consideration and
summary settlement of large educational problems. Twenty years ago a
Fellowship meant a handsome competence, light residence, a venerable
house, and a good living in the country. In Hales's time it meant a few
decent rooms, a small dividend, home-made bread and beer at stated
times, a constant attendance at the church service, and the sustaining
society of some six or seven earnest like-minded men, grave
students,--at least under Savile,--mostly celibates. To such the life
was dignified and attractive. Early rising, and a light breakfast. A
long, studious morning, with Matins, an afternoon dinner, a quiet talk
round the huge fire, or a stroll in the stately college garden with
perhaps some few promising boys from the school--then merely an adjunct
of the more reverend college, not an absorbing centre of life--more
quiet work and early to bed. Busy, congenial monotony! There is no
secret like that for a happy life!

After three years, this was broken into by a piece of vivid
experience--Hales accompanied Sir Dudley Carleton, Ambassador to
Holland, as his chaplain, and was despatched by him in 1618 to the Synod
of Dort.

It must be clearly borne in mind that theological and religious problems
then possessed a general interest for the civilised world, and for
Englishmen in particular, which it cannot be pretended that they possess
now. Political gossip has taken the place of theological discussion.
Then, contemporary writers thought fit to lament the time that common
folk wasted in such disputes; when the Trinitarian controversy could be
discussed on the benches of an alehouse, and apprentices neglect their
work to argue the question of prevenient grace, we feel that we are in
an atmosphere which if not religious, was at any rate theological.

Hales went to Dort a Calvinist--that, in those days, is equivalent to
saying that he had never given his theological position much attention.
What he heard there is uncertain, for a more unbusinesslike meeting was
never held; "ignorance, passion, animosity, injustice," said Lord
Clarendon, were its characteristics. There was no one to whose ruling
speakers deferred. No one knew what subject was to be discussed next,
often hardly what was under discussion. A third of the members
disappeared, after what an eye-witness called a "pondering speech" from
the President. Such a theological schooling is too severe for a
reflective mind. Hales came home what was called a Latitudinarian,
having, as he quaintly says, at the "well pressing" of St. John iii. 16,
by Episcopius (a divine, present at the Synod), "bid John Calvin
good-night." A Latitudinarian translated into modern English would be a
very broad churchman indeed. For it is evident that Haley's native
humour, which was very strong, prevented him from even considering
religious differences in a serious light; "theological scarecrows!" he
said, half bitterly, half humorously. When in later years he was found
reading one of Calvin's books, he said playfully, "Formerly I read it to
reform myself, but now I read it to reform him." And the delightful
comparison which he makes in one of his tracts is worth quoting, as
showing the natural bent of his mind to the ludicrous side of these
disputes; he compares the wound of sin and the supposed remedy of
confession, to Pliny's cure for the bite of a scorpion--to go and
whisper the fact into the ear of an ass.

Only once did he encounter the little restless, ubiquitous,
statesman-priest, who so grievously mistook and under-rated the forces
with which he had to deal, and the times in which he had fallen--Laud.

The whole incident is dramatic and entertaining in the highest degree.
Hales, for the edification of some weak-minded friends, wrote out his
views on schism, treating the whole subject with a humorous contempt for
Church authority. This little tract got privately printed, and a copy
fell into Laud's hands (as indeed, what dangerous matter did not?),
which he read and marked. He instantly sent for his recalcitrant
subaltern, to be rated and confuted and silenced. The matter is
exquisitely characteristic of Laud, both in the idea and in the method
of carrying it out. "Mr. Hales came," says Heylyn, "about nine o'clock
to Lambeth on a summer morning," with considerable heart-sinking no
doubt. The Archbishop had him out into the garden, giving orders that
they were on no account to be disturbed. The bell rang for prayers, to
which they went by the garden door into the chapel, and out again till
dinner was ready--hammer and tongs all the time: then they fell to
again, but Lord Conway and several other persons of distinction having
meantime arrived, the servants were obliged to go and warn the
disputants how the time was going. It was now about four in the
afternoon. "So in they came," says Heylyn, "high  and almost
panting for want of breath; enough to show that there had been some
heats between them not then fully cooled." The two little cassocked
figures (both were very small men), with their fresh complexions, set
off by tiny mustachios and imperials such as churchmen then wore, pacing
up and down under the high elms of the garden, and arguing to the verge
of exhaustion, form a wonderful picture.

Hales afterwards confessed that the interview had been dreadful. "He had
been ferreted," he said, "from one hole to another, till there was none
left to afford him any further shelter; that he was now resolved to be
orthodox, and declare himself a true son of the Church of England both
for doctrine and discipline."

Laud evidently saw the mettle of the man with whom he had to deal, and
what a very dangerous, rational opponent he was, so he made him his own
chaplain, and got the king to offer him a canonry at Windsor in such a
way that refusal, much to Hales's distaste, was out of the question thus
binding him to silence in a manner that would make further speech
ungracious. "And so," said Hales, quietly grumbling at his wealthy loss
of independence, "I had a hundred and fifty more pounds a year than I
cared to spend."

During all these years Hales was a member of the celebrated Mermaid
Club, so called from the tavern of that name in Friday Street. Thither
Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Donne, and many more repaired. There he
must have seen the coarse, vivacious figure of Ben Jonson, the presiding
genius of the place, drinking his huge potations of canary, and warming
out of his native melancholy into wit and eloquence, merging at last
into angry self-laudation, and then into drunken silence, till at last
he tumbled home with his unwieldy body, rolling feet, and big, scorbutic
face, to sleep and sweat and write far into the night; a figure
strangely similar down to the smallest characteristics, in his gloom,
his greediness, his disputatious talk, to the great Samuel of that ilk,
in all but the stern religious fibre that is somehow the charm of the
latter.

It was in London, at one of these convivial gatherings, that Suckling,
Davenant, Endymion Porter, Ben Jonson, and Hales were talking together;
Jonson, as was his wont, railing surlily at Shakespeare's fame,
considering him to be much overrated,--"wanting art," as he told
Drummond at Hawthornden.

Suckling took up the cudgels with great warmth, and the dispute
proceeded; Hales in the background, sitting meekly, with the dry smile
which he affected--deliberately dumb, not from want of enthusiasm or
knowledge, but of choice. Ben Jonson, irritated at last beyond the
bounds of patience, as men of his stamp are wont to be, by a silent
humorous listener, turned on him suddenly and began to taunt him with "a
want of Learning, and Ignorance of the Ancients." Hales at last emerged
from his shell, and told Jonson, with considerable warmth, that if Mr.
Shakespeare had not read the ancients, he had likewise not stolen
anything from them--"a fault," adds the biographer, "the other made no
conscience of--and that if he would produce any one topic finely treated
of by any of them, he would undertake to show something upon the same
subject, at least as well written by Shakespeare."

This is an extraordinary instance of perspicuity of literary judgment;
that Hales should draw a favourable comparison between Shakespeare and
his contemporaries, would not be surprising; but to find him, classicist
as he was, deliberately putting Shakespeare above all writers of any
date is a very notable proof of critical acumen.

Neither did the combat end here. The enemies of Shakespeare would not
give in: so it came to a trial of skill. The place agreed on for these
literary jousts was Hales's rooms at Eton; a number of books were sent
down, and on the appointed day Lord Falkland and Suckling, and several
other persons of wit and quality came down; the books were opened, and
Shakespeare was arraigned before antiquity, and unanimously (except for
Sir John) awarded the palm. We may be sure it would have been different
if old Ben Jonson had been present; there would have been less unanimity
and more heat; but he was much troubled with symptoms of an old,
recurrent paralysis, of which he had only partly got the better, and he
was melancholic and therefore kept away. Still it is a scene to think of
with envy--little Lord Falkland with his untuneable voice, brisk wit,
and sweet manner, moderating the assembly; the summer afternoon, the
stately collegiate room, overlooking the studious garden, girdled about
by the broad and even-flowing Thames, among sedge and osier-beds, and
haunted by no human presence. This period was probably the happiest
time of Hales's life; he was at the height of his social reputation.

He was a man of an inveterately companionable disposition. He disliked
being alone, except for study--in congenial company a sympathetic
talker; once a year for a short time he used to resort to London for the
polite conversation which he so much enjoyed, and when the Court was at
Windsor he was greatly in request, being not only a good talker, but a
better listener, as his biographer says; not only divines and scholars
resorting to the rooms of this _bibliotheca ambulans_, as Provost Wotton
called