CHAPTER EXTRAORDINARY.

PROCEEDINGS AT A BOOK CLUB. THE AUTHOR ACCUSED OF ‘LESE DELICATESSE,’ OR WHAT IS CALLED AT COURT ‘TUM-TI-TEE.’ HE UTTERS A MYSTERIOUS EXCLAMATION, AND INDIGNANTLY VINDICATES HIMSELF.

Rem profecto mirabilem, longeque stupendam, rebusque veris veriorem describo.

HIERONYMUS RADIOLENSIS.             

A circumstance has come to my knowledge so remarkable in itself and affecting me so deeply, that on both accounts I feel it necessary to publish a Chapter Extraordinary on the occasion.

There is a certain Book-Club, or Society, (no matter where) in which the Volumes of this Opus have been regularly ordered as they appeared, and regularly perused, to the edification of many Readers, the admiration of more, and the amusement of all. But I am credibly informed that an alarm was excited in that select literary Circle by a Chapter in the fourth volume, and that the said volume was not allowed to circulate by the Managing Directors or Committee, of the said Book Club, till the said Chapter had been exscinded, that is to say, cut out.

Aballiboozo!

When a poor wretch fell into the hands of that hellish Tribunal which called itself the Holy Office, the Inquisitors always began by requiring him to tell them what he was accused of; and they persisted in this course of examination time after time, till by promises and threats, long suspense and solitary confinement, with the occasional aid of the rack, they had extorted from him matter of accusation against himself and as many of his friends, relations and acquaintances as they could induce, or compel, or entrap him to name. Even under such a judicial process I should never have been able to discover what Chapter in this Opus could have been thought to require an operation, which, having the fear of the expurgatorial scissars before my eyes I must not venture to mention here, by its appropriate name, tho' it is a Dictionary word and the use of it is in this sense strictly technical. My ignorance however has been enlightened, and I have been made acquainted with what in the simplicity of my heart I never could have surmised.

The Chapter condemned to that operation, the chapter which has been not bisked, but semiramised, is the hundred and thirty-sixth Chapter, concerning the Pedigree and Birth of Nobs; but whether the passage which called forth this severe sentence from the Censors were that in which Moses and Miss Jenny, the Sire and Dam of Nobs, are described as meeting in a field near Knavesmire Heath, like Dido dux et Trojanus; or whether it were the part where the consequences of that meeting are related as coming unexpectedly to light in a barn between Doncaster and Adwick-in-the-Street, my informant was not certain.

From another quarter I have been assured, that the main count in the indictment was upon the story of Le Cheval de Pierre, et les Officiers Municipaux. This I am told it was which alarmed the Literary Sensitives. The sound of the foot-steps of the Marble Statue in Don Juan upon the boards of the stage never produced a more aweful sense of astonishment in that part of the audience who were fixed all eyes and ears upon its entrance, than this Cheval de Pierre produced among the Board of Expurgators. After this I ought not to be surprized if the Publishers were to be served with a notice that the Lord Mayors of London and York, and the simple Mayors of every corporate town in England, reformed or unreformed, having a Magistrate so called, whether gentle or simple, had instituted proceedings against them for Scandalum Magnatum. This however I have the satisfaction of knowing, that Miss Graveairs smiled in good humour when she heard the Chapter read; the only serious look put on was at the quotation from Pindar, as if suspecting there might be something in the Greek which was not perfectly consistent with English notions of propriety. Nothing however could be more innocent than that Greek. And even after what has passed, she would agree with me that this Chapter which made the Elders blush, is one which Susanna would have read as innocently as it was written.

Nevertheless I say, O tempora! O mores! uttering the words exultantly, not in exprobration. I congratulate the age and the British Public. I congratulate my Country-men, my Country-women, and my Country-children. I congratulate Young England upon the March of Modesty! How delightful that it should thus keep pace with the March of Intellect! Redeunt Saturnia regna. In these days Liberality and Morality appear hand-in-hand upon the stage like the Two Kings of Brentford; and Piety and Profit have kissed each other at religious Meetings.

We have already a Family Shakespeare; and it cannot be supposed that the hint will always be disregarded which Mr. Matthew Gregory Lewis introduced so properly some forty years ago into his then celebrated novel called the Monk, for a Family Bible, upon the new plan of removing all passages that could be thought objectionable on the score of indelicacy. We may look to see Mr. Thomas Moore's Poems adapted to the use of Families; and Mr. Murray cannot do less than provide the Public with a Family Byron.

It may therefore be matter of grave consideration for me whether under all circumstances it would not be highly expedient to prepare a semiramised edition of this Opus, under the Title of the Family Doctor. It may be matter for consultation with my Publishers, to whose opinion as founded on experience and a knowledge of the public taste, an author will generally find it prudent to defer. Neither by them or me would it be regarded as an objection that the title might mislead many persons, who supposing that the “Family Doctor” and the “Family Physician” meant the same kind of Book, would order the Opus under a mistaken notion that it was a new and consequently improved work, similar to Dr. Buchan's, formerly well known as a stock-book. This would be no objection I say, but on the contrary an advantage to all parties. For a book which directs people how to physic themselves ought to be entitled Every Man his own Poisoner, because it cannot possibly teach them how to discriminate between the resemblant symptoms of different diseases. Twice fortunate therefore would that person have reason to think him or herself, who under such a misapprehension of its title should purchase the Family Doctor!

Ludicrous mistakes of this kind have sometimes happened. Mr. Haslewood's elaborate and expensive edition of the Mirror for Magistrates was ordered by a gentleman in the Commission of the Peace, not an hundred miles from the Metropolis; he paid for it the full price, and his unfortunate Worship was fain to take what little he could get for it from his Bookseller under such circumstances, rather than endure the mortification of seeing it in his bookcase. A lady who had a true taste as well as a great liking for poetry, ordered an Essay on Burns for the Reading Society of which she was a member. She opened the book expecting to derive much pleasure from a critical disquisition on the genius of one of her favourite Poets; and behold it proved to be an Essay on Burns and Scalds by a Surgeon!

But in this case it would prove an Agreeable Surprize instead of a disappointment; and if the intention had been to mislead, and thereby entrap the purchaser, the end might be pleaded, according to the convenient morality of the age, as justifying the means. Lucky indeed were the patient who sending for Morrison's Pills should be supplied with Tom D'Urfey's in their stead; happy man would be his dole who when he had made up his mind in dismal resolution to a dreadful course of drastics, should find that gelastics had been substituted, not of the Sardonian kind, but composed of the most innocent and salutiferous ingredients, gently and genially alterative, mild in their operation, and safe and sure in their effects.

On that score therefore there could be no objection to the publication of a Family Doctor. But believing as I believe, or rather, knowing as I know, that the Book is free from any such offence,

        mal cupiera alli
tal aspid en tales flores; 1

maintaining that it is in this point immaculate, which I will maintain as confidently because as justly, and as publicly were it needful, (only that my bever must be closed) as Mr. Dymock at the approaching Coronation will maintain Queen Victoria's right to the Crown of these Kingdoms (God save the Queen!),—it is impossible that I should consent to a measure which must seem like acknowledging the justice of a charge at once ridiculous and wrongful.

                 I must not disesteem
My rightful cause for being accused, nor must
Forsake myself, tho I were left of all.
Fear cannot make my innocence unjust
Unto itself, to give my Truth the fall.2

1 LOPE DE VEGA.

2 DANIEL.

The most axiomatic of English Poets has said

Do not forsake yourself; for they that do,
Offend and teach the world to leave them too.

Of the Book itself,—(the Opus) I can say truly, as South said of the Sermon which he preached in 1662 before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, “the subject is inoffensive, harmless, and innocent as the state of innocence itself;” and of the particular chapter, that it is “suitable to the immediate design, and to the genius of the book.” And in saying this I call to mind the words of Nicolas Perez, el Setabiense;—el amor propio es nuestro enemigo mas perjudicial; es dificil acabar con el, por lo mismo un sabio le compara à la camisa, que es el ultimo de los vestidos que nos quitamos.

Bear witness incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas! that I seek not to cover myself with what the Spaniard calls Self-Love's last Shirt; for I am no more guilty of Lese Modestie than of Lese Majesté. If there were a Court of Delicacy as there has been a Court of Honour, a Court Modest as there is a Court Martial, I would demand a trial, and in my turn arraign my arraigners,

“Porque en este limpio trigo
Siembren zizaña y estrago.”3

3 LOPE DE VEGA.

It is said in the very interesting and affecting Memoir of Mr. Smedley's Life that he had projected with Mr. Murray “a castigated edition of the Faery Queen.” He was surprized, says the biographer “to find how many passages there were in this the most favourite poem of his youth, which a father's acuter vision and more sensitive delicacy discovered to be unfit for the eyes of his daughters.” It appears too that he had actually performed the task; but that “Mr. Murray altered his opinion as to the expediency of the publication, and he found to his annoyance that his time had been employed to no purpose.”

Poor Smedley speaks thus of the project in one of his letters. “I am making the Faery Queen a poem which may be admitted into family reading, by certain omissions, by modernizing the spelling and by appending, where necessary, brief glossarial foot-notes. I read Spenser so very early and made him so much a part of the furniture of my mind, that until I had my attention drawn to him afresh, I had utterly forgotten how much he required the pruning-knife, how utterly impossible it is that he should be read aloud: and I cannot but think that when fitted for general perusal, he will become more attractive by a new coat and waistcoat. If we were to print Shakespeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher, or even Milton, literatim from the first editions, the spelling would deter many readers. Strange to say, when Southey was asked some time ago whether he would undertake the task, he said, ‘No, I shall print every word of him!’ and he has done so, in a single volume. Can he have daughters? Or any who, like my Mary, delight in such portions as they are permitted to open?”

Did Southey say so?—Why then, well said Southey! And it is very like him; for he is not given to speak, as his friends the Portugueze say, enfarinhadamente—which is being interpreted, mealy-mouthedly. Indeed his moral and intellectual constitution must be much feebler than I suppose it to be, if his daughters are not ‘permitted to open’ any book in his library. He must have been as much astonished to hear that the Faery Queen was unfit for their perusal as he could have been when he saw it gravely asserted by an American Professor, Critic and Doctor of Divinity, that his Life of Wesley was composed in imitation of the Iliad!

Scott felt like Southey upon this subject, and declared that he would never deal with Dryden as Saturn dealt with his father Uranus. Upon such publications as the Family Shakespeare he says,—“I do not say but that it may be very proper to select correct passages for the use of Boarding-Schools and Colleges, being sensible no improper ideas can be suggested in these seminaries unless they are introduced or smuggled under the beards and ruffs of our old dramatists. But in making an edition of a Man of Genius's Works for libraries and collections, (and such I conceive a compleat edition of Dryden to be,) I must give my author as I find him, and will not tear out the page even to get rid of the blot, little as I like it. Are not the pages of Swift, and even of Pope, larded with indecency and often of the most disgusting kind, and do we not see them upon all shelves, and dressing-tables and in all boudoirs? Is not Prior the most indecent of tale-tellers, not even excepting La Fontaine, and how often do we see his works in female hands. In fact it is not passages of ludicrous indelicacy that corrupt the manners of a people; it is the sonnets which a prurient genius like Master Little sings virginibus puerisque,—it is the sentimental slang, half lewd, half methodistic, that debauches the understanding, inflames the sleeping passions, and prepares the reader to give way as soon as a tempter appears.”

How could Mr. Smedley have allowed himself to be persuaded that a poem like the Faery Queen which he had made from early youth ‘a part of the furniture of his own mind,’ should be more injurious to others than it had proved to himself? It is one of the books which Wesley in the plan which he drew up for those young Methodists who designed to go through a course of academical learning, recommended to students of the second year. Mr. Todd has noticed this in support of his own just estimate of this admirable poet. “If,” says he, “our conceptions of Spenser's mind may be taken from his poetry, I shall not hesitate to pronounce him entitled to our warmest approbation and regard for his gentle disposition, for his friendly and grateful conduct, for his humility, for his exquisite tenderness, and above all for his piety and morality. To these amiable points a fastidious reader may perhaps object some petty inadvertencies; yet can he never be so ungrateful as to deny the efficacy which Spenser's general character gives to his writings,—as to deny that Truth and Virtue are graceful and attractive, when the road to them is pointed out by such a guide. Let it always be remembered that this excellent Poet inculcates those impressive lessons, by attending to which the gay and the thoughtless may be timely induced to treat with scorn and indignation the allurements of intemperance and illicit pleasure.”

When Izaak Walton published ‘Thealma and Clearchus,’ a pastoral history written long since in smooth and easy verse by John Chalkhill, Esq., he described him in the Title page as “An Acquaintant and Friend of Edmund Spenser.” He says of him “that he was in his time a man generally known and as well beloved, for he was humble and obliging in his behaviour, a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent, and indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.” Yet to have been the friend of Edmund Spenser was considered by the biographer of Hooker and Donne and Bishop Sanderson and George Herbert, as an honourable designation for this good man, a testimonial of his worth to posterity, long after both Chalkhill and Spenser had been called to their reward.

It was well that Mr. Murray gave up the project of a Family Faery Queen. Mr. Smedley when employed upon such a task ought to have felt that he was drawing upon himself something like Ham's malediction.

With regard to another part of these projected emendations there is a fatal objection. There is no good reason why the capricious spelling of the early editions should be scrupulously and pedantically observed in Shakespeare, Milton, or any author of their respective times;—no reason why words which retain the same acceptation, and are still pronounced in the same manner should not now be spelt according to the received orthography. Spenser is the only author for whom an exception must be made from this obvious rule. Malone was wrong when he asserted that the language of the Faery Queen was that of the age in which Spenser lived; and Ben Jonson was not right when, saying that Spenser writ no language, he assigned as the cause for this, his ‘affecting the Ancients.’ The diction or rather dialect which Spenser constructed, was neither like that of his predecessors, nor of his contemporaries. Camoens also wrote a language of his own and thereby did for the Portugueze tongue the same service which was rendered to ours by the translators of the Bible. But the Portugueze Poet, who more than any other of his countrymen refined a language which was then in the process of refining, attempted to introduce nothing but what entirely accorded with its character, and with the spirit of that improvement which was gradually taking place: whereas both the innovations and renovations which Spenser introduced were against the grain. Yet such is the magic of his verse, that the Faery Queen if modernized, even though the structure of its stanza—(the best which has ever been constructed) were preserved, would lose as much as Homer loses in the best translation.

Mr. Wordsworth has modernized one of Chaucer's Poems with “no farther deviation from the original than was necessary for the fluent reading and instant understanding of the author, supplying the place of whatever he removed as obsolete with as little incongruity as possible.” This he has done very skilfully. But the same skill could not be exercised upon the Faery Queen with the same success. The peculiarities of language there are systematic; to modernize the spelling as Mr. Smedley proposed would in very many cases interfere with the rhyme and thus dislocate the stanza. The task therefore would have been extremely difficult; it would have been useless, because no one who is capable of enjoying that delightful Poem ever found any difficulty in understanding its dialect, and it would have been mischievous because it would have destroyed the character of the Poem. And this in the expectation of rendering Spenser more attractive by a new coat and waistcoat! Spenser of whom it has been truly said that more poets have sprung from him than from all other English writers; Spenser by whom Cowley tells us he was made a Poet; of whom Milton acknowledged to Dryden that he was his original; and in whom Pope says “there is something that pleases one as strongly in ones old age as it did in ones youth. I read the Faery Queen,” he proceeds, “when I was about twelve with a vast deal of delight, and I think it gave me as much when I read it over about a year or two ago.”

No, a new suit of clothes would not render Spenser more attractive, not even if to a coat and waistcoat of Stultz's fabric, white satin pantaloons were added, such as the handsomest and best dressed of modern patriots, novelists and poets was known by on the public walk of a fashionable watering place.

Save us from the Ultradelicates and the Extrasuperfines! for if these are to prevail—

What can it avail
To drive forth a snail
Or to make a sail
Of a herring's tail?
To rhyme or to rail,
To write or to indite
Either for delight
Or else for despite?
Or books to compile
Of divers manner of style,
Vice to revile,
And sin to exile,
To teach or to preach
As reason will reach?

So said Skelton three centuries ago, and for myself I say once more what Skelton would have been well pleased to have heard said by any one.

Aballiboozo!

Dear Author, says one of those Readers who deserve to be pleased, and whom therefore there is a pleasure in pleasing, dear Author! may I not ask wherefore you have twice in this Chapter Extraordinary given us part of your long mysterious word, and only part, instead of setting it before us at full length?

Dear Reader! you may; and you may also ask unblamed whether a part of the word is not as good, that is to say as significant, as the whole? You shall have a full and satisfactory answer in the next Chapter.