Caxton's Book: A Collection of Essays, Poems, Tales, and Sketches.

by W. H. Rhodes

  [Decoration]

  XXIII.

  _SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND ART DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTHCENTURY._

  Looking back into the past, and exploring by the light of authentichistory, sacred as well as profane, the characteristics of former ages,the merest tyro in learning cannot fail to perceive that certain epochsstand prominently out on the "sands of time," and indicate vast activityand uncommon power in the human mind.

  These epochs are so well marked that history has given them adesignation, and to call them by their name, conjures up, as by the wandof an enchanter, the heroic representatives of our race.

  If, for instance, we should speak of the era of Solomon, in sacredhistory, the memory would instantly picture forth the pinnacles of theHoly Temple, lifting themselves into the clouds; the ear would listenintently to catch the sweet intonations of the harp of David, vocal atonce with the prophetic sorrows of his race, and swelling into sublimeecstasy at the final redemption of his people; the eye would glisten atthe pomp and pageantry of the foreign potentates who thronged his court,and gloat with rapture over the beauty of the young Queen of Sheba, whojourneyed from a distant land to seek wisdom at the feet of the wisestmonarch that ever sat upon a throne. We should behold his shipstraversing every sea, and pouring into the lap of Israel the gold ofOphir, the ivory of Senegambia, and the silks, myrrh, and spices of theEast.

  So, too, has profane history its golden ages, when men all seemed to begiants, and their minds inspired.

  What is meant when we speak of the age of Pericles? We mean all that isglorious in the annals of Greece. We mean Apelles with his pencil,Phidias with his chisel, Alcibiades with his sword. We seem to bestrolling arm-in-arm with Plato, into the academy, to listen to thedivine teachings of Socrates, or hurrying along with the crowd towardthe theatre, where Herodotus is reading his history, or Euripides ispresenting his tragedies. Aspasia rises up like a beautiful apparitionbefore us, and we follow willing slaves at the wheels of her victoriouschariot. The whole of the Peloponnesus glows with intellect like a forgein blast, and scatters the trophies of Grecian civilization profuselyaround us. The Parthenon lifts its everlasting columns, and the Venusand Apollo are moulded into marble immortality.

  Rome had her Augustan age, an era of poets, philosophers, soldiers,statesmen, and orators. Crowded into contemporary life, we recognize thegreatest general of the heathen world, the greatest poet, the greatestorator, and the greatest statesman of Rome. Caesar and Cicero, Virgil andOctavius, all trod the pavement of the capitol together, and lent theirblended glory to immortalize the Augustan age.

  Italy and Spain and France and England have had their golden age. Theeras of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of Ferdinand and Isabella, of LouisQuatorze and of Elizabeth, can never be forgotten. They loom up from thesurrounding gloom like the full moon bursting upon the sleeping seas;irradiating the night, clothing the meanest wave in sparkling silver,and dimming the lustre of the brightest stars. History has also left inits track mementoes of a different character. In sacred history we havethe age of Herod; in profane, the age of Nero. We recognize at a glancethe talismanic touch of the age of chivalry, and the era of theCrusades, and mope our way in darkness and gloom along that opaquetrack, stretching from the reign of Justinian, in the sixth century, tothe reign of Edward the Third, in the fourteenth, and known throughoutChristendom as the "Dark Ages." Let us now take a survey of the field weoccupy, and ascertain, if possible, the category in which our age shallbe ranked by our posterity.

  But before proceeding to discuss the characteristics of our epoch, letus define more especially what that epoch embraces.

  It does not embrace the American nor the French Revolution, nor does itinclude the acts or heroes of either. The impetus given to the humanmind by the last half of the eighteenth century, must be carefullydistinguished from the impulses of the first half of the nineteenth. Thefirst was an era of almost universal war, the last of almostuninterrupted peace. The dying ground-swell of the waves after a stormbelong to the tempest, not to the calm which succeeds. Hence the wars ofNapoleon, the literature and art of his epoch, must be excluded fromobservation, in properly discussing the true characteristics of our era.

  De Stael and Goethe and Schiller and Byron; Pitt and Nesselrode,Metternich and Hamilton; Fichte and Stewart and Brown and Cousin;Canova, Thorwaldsen and La Place, though all dying since the beginningof this century, belong essentially to a former era. They were theripened fruits of that grand uprising of the human mind which firsttook form on the 4th day of July, 1776. Our era properly commences withthe downfall of the first Napoleon, and none of the events connectedtherewith, either before or afterward, can be philosophically classed inthe epoch we represent, but must be referred to a former period. Ageshence, then, the philosophic critic will thus describe the first half ofthe nineteenth century:

  "The normal state of Christendom was peace. The age of steel that immediately went before it had passed. It was the Iron age.

  "Speculative philosophy fell asleep; literature declined; Skepticism bore sway in religion, politics, and morals; Utility became the universal standard of right and wrong, and the truths of every science and the axioms of every art were ruthlessly subjected to the _experimentum crucis_. Everything was liable to revision. The verdicts pronounced in the olden time against Mohammed and Mesmer and Robespierre were set aside, and a new trial granted. The ghosts of Roger Bacon and Emanuel Swedenborg were summoned from the Stygian shore to plead their causes anew before the bar of public opinion. The head of Oliver Cromwell was ordered down from the gibbet, the hump was smoothed down on the back of Richard III, and the sentence pronounced by Urban VIII against the 'starry Galileo' reversed forever. Aristotle was decently interred beneath a modern monument inscribed thus: '_In pace requiescat_;' whilst Francis Bacon was rescued from the sacrilegious hands of kings and peers and parliament, and canonized by the unanimous consent of Christendom. It was the age of tests. Experiment governed the world. Germany led the van, and Humboldt became the impersonation of his times."

  Such unquestionably will be the verdict of the future, when the presenttime, with all its treasures and trash, its hopes and realizations,shall have been safely shelved and labeled amongst the musty records ofbygone generations.

  Let us now examine into the grounds of this verdict more minutely, andtest its accuracy by exemplifications.

  I. And first, who believes now in _innate ideas_? Locke has beencompletely superseded by the materialists of Germany and France, and allspeculative moral philosophy exploded. The audiences of Edinburgh andBrown University interrupt Sir William Hamilton and Dr. Wayland in theirdiscourses, and, stripping off the plumage from their theses,inquisitively demand, "_Cui bono_?" What is the use of all this? How canwe apply it to the every-day concerns of life? We ask you for bread andyou have given us a stone; and though that stone be a diamond, it isvalueless, except for its glitter. No philosopher can speculatesuccessfully or even satisfactorily to himself, when he is met at everyturn by some vulgar intruder into the domains of Aristotle and Kant, whoclips his wings just as he was prepared to soar into the heavens, by anoffer of copartnership to "speculate," it may be, in the price of pork.Hence, no moral philosopher of our day has been enabled to erect anytheory which will stand the assaults of logic for a moment. Each schoolrises for an instant to the surface, and sports out its little day intoss and tribulation, until the next wave rolls along, with foam on itscrest and fury in its roar, and overwhelms it forever. As with itspredecessor, so with itself.

  "The eternal surge Of Time and Tide rolls on and bears afar Their bubbles: as the old burst, new emerge, Lashed from the foam of ages."

  II. But I have stated that this is an age of _literary decline_. It istrue that more books are written and published, more newspapers andperiodicals printed and circulated, more extensive libraries collectedand incorporated, and more ink indiscriminately spilt, than at anyformer period of the world's hist
ory. In looking about us we areforcibly reminded of the sarcastic couplet of Pope, who complains--

  "That those who cannot write, and those who can, All scratch, all scrawl, and scribble to a man."

  Had a modern gentleman all the eyes of Argus, all the hands of Briareus,all the wealth of Croesus, and lived to the age of Methuselah, hiseyes would all fail, his fingers all tire, his money all give out, andhis years come to an end, long before he perused one tenth of the annualproduct of the press of Christendom at the present day. It is no figureof rhetoric to say that the press groans beneath the burden of itslabors. Could the types of Leipsic and London, Paris and New York, speakout, the Litany would have to be amended, and a new article added, towhich they would solemnly respond: "Spare us, good Lord!"

  A recent publication furnishes the following statistical facts relatingto the book trade in our own country: "Books have multiplied to such anextent in the United States that it now takes 750 paper-mills, with 2000engines in constant operation, to supply the printers, who work day andnight, endeavoring to keep their engagements with publishers. Thesetireless mills produce 270,000,000 pounds of paper every year. Itrequires a pound and a quarter of old rags for one pound of paper, thus340,000,000 pounds of rags were consumed in this way last year. Thereare about 300 publishers in the United States, and near 10,000book-sellers who are engaged in the task of dispensing literary pabulumto the public."

  It may appear somewhat paradoxical to assert that literature isdeclining whilst books and authors are multiplying to such a fearfulextent. Byron wrote:

  "'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't."

  True enough; but books are not always literature. A man may become anauthor without ceasing to be an ignoramus. His name may adorn atitle-page without being recorded _in aere perenne_. He may attempt towrite himself up a very "lion" in literature, whilst good master Slendermay be busily engaged "in writing him down an ass."

  Not one book in a thousand is a success; not one success in ten thousandwreathes the fortunate author with the laurel crown, and lifts him upinto the region of the immortals. Tell me, ye who prate about the_literary glory_ of the nineteenth century, wherein it consists? Whoseare

  "The great, the immortal names That were not born to die?"

  I cast my eyes up the long vista toward the Temple of Fame, and I beholdhundreds of thousands pressing on to reach the shining portals. Theyjostle each other by the way, they trip, they fall, they are overthrownand ruthlessly trampled into oblivion, by the giddy throng, as they rushonward and upward. One, it may be two, of the million who started out,stand trembling at the threshold, and with exultant voices cry aloud foradmittance. One perishes before the summons can be answered; and theother, awed into immortality by the august presence into which heenters, is transformed into imperishable stone.

  Let us carefully scan the rolls of the literature of our era, andselect, if we can, poet, orator, or philosopher, whose fame will deepenas it runs, and brighten as it burns, until future generations shalldrink at the fountain and be refreshed, and kindle their souls at thevestal flame and be purified, illuminated and ennobled.

  In poetry, aye, in the crowded realms of song, who bears thesceptre?--who wears the crown? America, England, France and Germany canboast of bards _by the gross_, and rhyme _by the acre_, but not a singlepoet. The _poeta nascitur_ is not here. He may be on his way--and I haveheard that he was--but this generation must pass before he arrives. Ishe in America? If so, which is he? Is it Poe, croaking sorrowfully withhis "Raven," or Willis, cooing sweetly with his "Dove"? Is it Bryant,with his "Thanatopsis," or Prentice, with his "Dirge to the Dead Year"?Perhaps it is Holmes, with his "Lyrics," or Longfellow, with his"Idyls." Alas! is it not self-evident that we have no poet, when it isutterly impossible to discover any two critics in the land who can findhim?

  True, we have lightning-bugs enough, but no star; foot-hills, it may be,in abundance, but no Mount Shasta, with its base built upon theeverlasting granite, and its brow bathed in the eternal sunlight.

  In England, Tennyson, the Laureate, is the spokesman of a clique, thepet poet of a princely circle, whose rhymes flow with the docility andharmony of a limpid brook, but never stun like Niagara, nor rise intosublimity like the storm-swept sea.

  Beranger, the greatest poet of France of our era, was a meresong-writer; and Heine, the pride of young Germany, a mere satirist andlyrist. Freiligrath can never rank with Goethe or Schiller; and VictorHugo never attain the heights trodden by Racine, Corneille, or Boileau.

  In oratory, where shall we find the compeer of Chatham or Mirabeau,Burke or Patrick Henry? I have not forgotten Peel and Gladstone, norLamartine and Count Cavour, nor Sargent S. Prentiss and Daniel Webster.But Webster himself, by far the greatest intellect of all these, was amere debater, and the spokesman of a party. He was an eloquent speaker,but can never rank as an orator with the rhetoricians of the lastcentury.

  And in philosophy and general learning, where shall we find the equal ofthat burly old bully, Dr. Sam Johnson? and yet Johnson, with all hislearning, was a third-rate philosopher.

  In truth, the greatest author of our era was a mere essayist. Beyond allcontroversy, Thomas Babington Macaulay was the most polished writer ofour times. With an intellect acute, logical and analytic; with animagination glowing and rich, but subdued and under perfect control;with a style so clear and limpid and concise, that it has become astandard for all who aim to follow in the path he trod, and with alearning so full and exact, and exhaustive, that he was nicknamed, whenan undergraduate, the "Omniscient Macaulay;" he still lacks the giantgrasp of thought, the bold originality, and the intense, earnestenthusiasm which characterize the master-spirits of the race, andidentify them with the eras they adorn.

  III. As in literature, so in what have been denominated by scholars the_Fine Arts_. The past fifty years has not produced a painter, sculptor,or composer, who ranks above mediocrity in their respective vocations.Canova and Thorwaldsen were the last of their race; Sir JoshuaReynolds left no successor, and the immortal Beethoven has beensuperseded by negro minstrelsy and senseless pantomime. The greatestarchitect of the age is a railroad contractor, and the first dramatist acobbler of French farces.

  IV. But whilst the highest faculty of the mind--the imagination--hasbeen left uncultivated, and has produced no worthy fruit, the nexthighest, the casual, or the one that deals with causes and effects, hasbeen stimulated into the most astonishing fertility.

  Our age ignores fancy, and deals exclusively with fact. Within itschosen range it stands far, very far pre-eminent over all that havepreceded it. It reaps the fruit of Bacon's labors. It utilizes all thatit touches. It stands thoughtfully on the field of Waterloo, andestimates scientifically the manuring properties of bones and blood. Itdisentombs the mummy of Thotmes II, sells the linen bandages for themanufacture of paper, burns the asphaltum-soaked body for firewood, andplants the pint of red wheat found in his sarcophagus, to try anagricultural experiment. It deals in no sentimentalities; it has noappreciation of the sublime. It stands upon the ocean shore, but withits eyes fixed on the yellow sand searching for gold. It confrontsNiagara, and, gazing with rapture at its misty shroud, exclaims, in anecstasy of admiration, "Lord, what a place to sponge a coat!" Having nosoul to save, it has no religion to save it. It has discovered thatMohammed was a great benefactor of his race, and that Jesus Christ was,after all, a mere man; distinguished, it is true, for his benevolence,his fortitude and his morality, but for nothing else. It does notbelieve in the Pope, nor in the Church, nor in the Bible. It ridiculesthe infallibility of the first, the despotism of the second, and thechronology of the third. It is possessed of the very spirit of Thomas;it must "touch and handle" before it will believe. It questions theexistence of spirit, because it cannot be analyzed by chemical solvents;it questions the existence of hell, because it has never been scorched;it questions the existence of God, because it has never beheld Him.

 
It does, however, believe in the explosive force of gunpowder, in theevaporation of boiling water, in the head of the magnet, and in theheels of the lightnings. It conjugates the Latin verb _invenio_ (to findout) through all its voices, moods and tenses. It invents everything;from a lucifer match in the morning to kindle a kitchen fire, up throughall the intermediate ranks and tiers and grades of life, to a telescopethat spans the heavens in the evening, it recognizes no chasm or hiatusin its inventions. It sinks an artesian well in the desert of Sahara fora pitcher of water, and bores through the Alleghanies for a hogshead ofoil. From a fish-hook to the Great Eastern, from a pocket deringer to acolumbiad, from a sewing machine to a Victoria suspension bridge, itoscillates like a pendulum.

  Deficient in literature and art, our age surpasses all others inscience. Knowledge has become the great end and aim of human life. "Iwant to know," is inscribed as legibly on the hammer of the geologist,the crucible of the chemist, and the equatorial of the astronomer, as itis upon the phiz of a regular "Down-Easter." Our age has inherited thechief failing of our first mother, and passing by the "Tree of Life inthe midst of the Garden," we are all busily engaged in mercilesslyplundering the Tree of Knowledge of all its fruit. The time is rapidlyapproaching when no man will be considered a gentleman who has not filedhis _caveat_ in the Patent Office.

  The inevitable result of this spirit of the age begins already to beseen. The philosophy of a cold, blank, calculating materialism has takenpossession of all the avenues of learning. Epicurus is worshiped insteadof Christ. Mammon is considered as the only true savior. _Dum VivimusVivamus_, is the maxim we live by, and the creed we die by. We are alliconoclasts. St. Paul has been superseded by St. Fulton; St John by St.Colt; St. James by St. Morse; St. Mark by St. Manry; and St. Peter hassurrendered his keys to that great incarnate representative of this age,St. Alexandre Von Humboldt.

  [Decoration]