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IT seems to have been in
August 1861 that Professor Blackie, on his way from Sudbrooke to South- sea,
stopped at Winchfield and tramped over the brown heath to Eversley, to visit
Kingsley.
At half-past seven I
found myself before the dear, rustic, old English rectory, gracefully
shaded by acacias and Scotch firs; and entering in by the open door of
the dining-room, found the rector sitting alone over the remains of his
dinner in a down-bent musing way. On my apparition, up lie started
immediately, and with an English shake of the hand called out "Blackie!"
I sat down and helped him to drain a bottle of Burgundy. He had been out
fishing all day, and was glowing in face like a tropical copper sky. He
was extremely agreeable all evening, and swung in a Manilla grass
hammock which stretched across his study, in a style of the most
complete negligé. His brother Henry came in about half-past eight, and
we all smoked, and drank tea, and talked, and went early to bed. My room
was low, with rafters in the old style, straw carpets, and engravings of
the Madonna on the walls. I slept soundly; and next morning we had a
bevy of bright-faced daughters at breakfast, with excellent bacon,
fruit, and Devonshire cream. At tell bolted back to the train.
"Lectures on Education," on
"Ancient and Modern Poetry," articles for 'Macmillan's' and other magazines,
a paper on "Athens" for the Daily Review,' supplemented his work on Homer
and his academical duties that year and the next. He spent May 1862 in
London, and the summer months were divided between Methven, Dollar, and
Lowland rambles. In October he paid Sheriff Glassford Bell a visit, and
cemented his acquaintance with Dr Norman Macleod, who wrote in humorous
allusion to Dr Guthrie's eloquence:-
I have neither grace nor
rhetoric, sunsets nor sailors, wounded soldiers nor drunken mothers,
Homerics nor Bucolies, but plain things in plain English to plain
people. I utterly hate all critics; they are almost as great infidels as
the clergy. So leave me alone with my mechanics, in Heaven with prose!
But I should like to hear your poetry and to see your phiz. I am engaged
every Monday night from eight till ten in my church singing with 300 of
my people. But could you lunch with me on Monday at one sharp? Say Yes
and "Yir a Gintleman."
The winter which followed was
active and varied as usual, but it brought him a touch of bronchitis. This
short illness gave him leisure for a study of the German influence on
English literature, his reflections upon which took the form of a lecture.
It was necessary to find subjects for the lectures which were demanded from
him throughout Scotland—his modes of attack, his excellent common-sense, his
effervescence of jocular personalities provoked by immediate conditions,
making his appearance on provincial platforms especially welcome. But the
habit of these appearances into which he fell - at first from good-nature
and afterwards from enjoyment— had a deteriorating influence upon his study
and treatment of the matters, literary, political, and historical, on which
he dwelt. He got, from the enthusiastic welcome accorded him, a fixed
impression that his somewhat crude meditations upon all subjects were of
value, and this generated a tendency to lecture without sufficient
preparation, trusting to a buoyant flow of irrelevant allusions, of nimble
asides, of bold and uncompromising digressions, to sustain the credit of a
really superficial prelection.
Rustic audiences delighted in
the crackle of platform squibs, were contented with a small modicum of
opinion which generally represented their own, were pleased with his good
looks and hilarity, responded to his patriotism, and enjoyed his prejudices.
These seldom wrung the withers of the middle-class Scot, who went home with
a sense of being roused and entertained, flattered and counselled, and
scarcely asked himself whether he had been enlightened. This was, however, a
decadence from the rigorous industry and serious conscientiousness which
were the hallmarks of his earlier work, and which still distinguished all
his more important undertakings. No doubt this popular lecturing, of which
these years were full, relieved him from the strain of strenuous study, gave
him the movement and variety which were as needful to him as air, and
freshened him with the breeze of social intercourse and popularity.
When the session was over,
the Blackies, joined by Miss Fanny Stoddart, went to the Highlands in May
1863. They took up their quarters at Kinlochewe, in the comfortable little
inn at the head of Loch Maree. There a sprained ankle kept Miss Stoddart a
prisoner for some weeks, and the proposed excursion to Skye fell to the
Professor's lonely lot. It was at Kinlochewe that his ear was opened to the
philological importance of Gaelic. The post-laddie was waiting for letters
at the inn door, and holding his pony by the bridle. "What is the Gaelic for
horse?" asked the Professor, as he handed him a packet for the post. "Each,"
said the boy, and the sound set his questioner's mind aworking. Surely this
was first cousin to equus, and was worthy of further research. And so
germinated his interest in Gaelic, which grew to such purpose in after
years. Later they settled in Oban for a couple of months, enchanted with the
beauty of its bay and its marvellous sunsets. The little town had waxed, and
modest lodgings were available, but it was still next neighbour to sweet
solitude, and its heights were undefiled. The burnet rose perfumed seaward
shelves of grass; the bogbean filled damp corners of the pastures; ferns
fringed the old stone walls; in the niches by the rocks rose the slim purple
butterwort. On the moors tottered and stumbled the baby peewits, and
overhead from time to time there wheeled a golden eagle.
A first vague longing for a
summer home was born in those July rambles along the Sound of Kerrera. One
evening Miss Stoddart pointed to a little plateau which stretched between
cliff and upland,—"There," she said, "build your cottage there."
Miss Bird and her sister,
beloved in the islands, and Mr Hutcheson, the "Admiral of the West," were at
Oban too that year, and piloted by them, they grew familiar with the beauty
in which the town was set as in a ring.
An article on "Pulpit
Eloquence" for the 'Musteum' occupied the Professor's leisure in October,
and drew an appreciative letter from Dr Robert Lee. But that true friend
commented wisely on the scene which the inaugural lecture of November
excited in the Greek class-room:
If you put a large
audience, especially a youthful audience, into roars of laughter in the
beginning, it is almost impossible afterwards to get them to listen to
anything sober and didactic. On the whole, I cannot help thinking that
you do yourself an injustice by these opening lectures. Many hear them
who never hear your steady, sober, and practical proceeding in your
everyday work, and go away with an impression which is equally false and
pernicious. None of the rest of us invite such gatherings—why do you?
It was matter for regret to
all who knew his worth that his palate itched for this dubious popularity,
and that the craving grew upon him. Boyhood in him survived its proper term,
and its incalculable impulses, noisy, impish, laughter- loving,
inconsiderate, checkered his character as a professor and as a lecturer. The
presence of a motley audience, amongst whom were the grave and sensitive as
well as the young and provocative, was like a match to these lines of
explosives which veined the seriousness known best to his household. Gentle,
tender, unselfish, tranquil, and wise at home, the intervention of a
stranger transformed him into an excited, reckless, and startling being, and
unfortunately many who saw him in a phase which themselves provoked, went
away with an indelible impression as untrue as had been his behaviour. Only
his friends could both tolerate and enjoy these extravagances, knowing
through what sound and lovable reality they bubbled up into momentary
effervescence.
On the 22d and 26th of April
1864 he lectured to the Royal institution of London on Lycurgus and the
Spartan laws. He wrote from Dr Hodgson's house in St John's Wood, where he
stayed during this epoch, to Mrs Blackie :—
The first London lecture
is over, as comfortably as if it had been an address to my own students.
Wilson and Christison were there to see how their colleague behaved.
Wilson said there was no impropriety. I saw hosts of friends—the
Archers, Mrs Gregory, the Kinglakes, John Stuart Glennie, Dr Priestley,
Dallas, &c. I had some pleasant talk with Faraday and Bence Jones, a
fine jolly Englishman. But the greatest luck was the presence of Bishop
Thirlwall, who is on my side as against Grote, and who would be
delighted to hear his old-fashioned sensible view of the Spartan
agrarian laws vindicated against the brilliant novelties of a sceptical
generation.
On the 25th he met Mr Herbert
Spencer, not yet solemnised into his role of a philosophical Atlas, but the
author of a series of essays on education in varied aspects, of whom. great
things were expected.
He is quiet and
unassuming [wrote the Professor], and most clear, accurate, and
well-adjusted in his expressions, —a very lovable sort of man, logical
without being angular. Yesterday, my second lecture went off with
greater swing than the first. At all events, the subject was more
interesting and more popular. The job is done. I made no great blunder,
and the people seemed marvel- lously pleased. Only one gentleman was so
offended by the eulogy that I made of war—as according to the order of
Providence a great school of manhood—that he lifted up his voice openly
against my doctrine and then walked out.
A very interesting habit was
inaugurated during this visit to London. He wrote on May 5th :--
Yesterday I breakfasted
with Gladstone in his Carleton Terrace house, just next door to where I
so often enjoyed the sunlight of dear old Bunsen's countenance.
Gladstone was extremely agreeable, easy, cheerful, and talkative, and
not at all so wiry and dark as his photographs represent him. Present
were his fair lady and daughter, Whewell of Trinity and his lady, before
whom I exploded emphatically about the absurdity of English
pronunciation of Greek and Latin, Gladstone being distinctly on my side,
and the Cambridge don more than half. I told him roundly that the
English schoolmasters were as hard-hided as a rhinoceros, and utterly
impenetrable to reason, nature, and common-sense. The Lord Advocate, who
was also present, told me he was perfectly delighted with the manner in
which I walked round about the mighty Cambridge don. I did not mean to
do anything of the kind; but of all exhibitions of poor, pretentious
humanity, donnism is to me the most odious, so there was no harm done. I
am sure I was not impertinent, only decidedly and distinctly explosive.
A. dinner with Kinglake, a
visit to the Do- bells, a talk with Thiriwall on early Greek history—his
memory of which was troubled by the misgiving that in the heat of argument
he had put his hand in friendly fashion upon the episcopal knee—a call upon
Grote, and a supper at Covent Garden Club, where he met a group of literary
men perhaps less dignified and more entertaining, made up the sum of new,
impressions during this eventful month in London.
On May 10th he wrote from
Farringford, Freshwater:-
As soon as my London
engagements were satisfied, I came down here. After half an hour's sail,
quarter of an hour's drive brought me to this quiet and truly English
little mansion. The lady of the house received me in the most gentle,
gracious manner. She is of the genuine, sweet - blooded, sweet - voiced
English style, dressed in black and white, loose-flowing. By this time
it was five o'clock. The poet [Tennyson] came down-stairs from a hot
bath which he had just been taking, quite in an easy unaffected style; a
certain slow heaviness of motion be- longs essentially to his character,
and contrasts strikingly with the alert quickness and sinewy energy of
Kingsley; head Jovian, eye dark, pale face, black flowing locks, like a
Spanish ship-captain or a captain of Italian brigands,— something not at
all common and not the least English. We dined, talked, and smoked
together, and got on admirably. He reads Greek readily, and has been
translating bits of Homer lately in blank verse. This morning after
breakfast we walked about, inspecting the beauties of the park and
adjacent village; having a fine look-out through the trees to the sea
both on the north and the south side of the island; quite an English
scene—water, wood, and softly rounded green hills.
Long after, in his old age,
the Professor spoke of this visit with a reverence very unusual to him in
allusion to his contemporaries, and a few flowers gathered in Tennyson's
garden were carefully pressed and affixed to his copy of "In Memoriam."
On the way home he spent a
few days at Oxford, and met John Bright at a dinner-party given by the
Professor of Political Economy.
I have seen only a
glimpse of Jowett [he wrote]; he makes himself a perfect slave to his
work, and is seldom visible.
Some weeks of autumn were
spent in the West Highlands, and Oban began to weave meshes of association
about them. The dream of a summer home by its bay grew familiar, and crept
into their plans for the future as a cherished possibility, which was
emboldened by the hearty welcome which it received in the place, by the
smoothing away of obstacles, and by the discovery that the very plateau
which suggested the dream was to be had for a building site. When they
returned to Edinburgh it was with all the information needed for decision,
and they had but to give the alternative freedom of movement its due weight.
The Professor was strongly attracted by the scheme of a Highland home. There
were mighty hens to be topped; there were breezy moors and heather-scented
downs over which to stride in daily converse with the Muse; there were seas
and islands for exploration; there were people in every glen who spoke a
language of ancient origin, which bore the very features of its ancestral
kinship millenniums back. Here was matter for contemplation, for study, for
emotion, for new ventures in human intercourse, for a fresh world into which
to withdraw when spring hung her scented tassels on the larch. Of all these
lures the most powerful was the Gaelic language.
For Mrs Blackie the thought
of a home by the blue sound, which should look over to the purple hills of
Mull and Morven, a place of rest from the wearisome round of winter duties,—
"A resting-place from worries,
Door bells, dinners, notes, and hurries,"—
had become a craving. There
was only one de- terrent consideration. If they built this cottage by the
sea their wings would be clipped, and they must forbear variety. Already Mrs
Blackie's health had begun to give way, and she had ceased to accept the
invitations which were showered upon her husband and herself. It was the
rule for him, justified by rare exception, to dine out alone. Her courage
was daunted by illness into desire for rest. But she had still stores of
energy, which found vent within her house in active hospitality. The
Professor found only evening visitors convenient while he was engrossed with
the work of the session, with his lectures and Homeric studies, but welcomed
the prospect of a country home dedicated to guests. Deliberation swayed to
the plan of a cottage at Oban; and their income, now increased from sources
outside the emoluments of the chair, had left a margin, saved during several
years, which sufficed for the cost of building.
That autumn, when the session
began, his in augural lecture included—in its survey of philological
topics—a special discourse on Gaelic as important to the study of language.
This was fully reported, and drew from many educated Highlanders a warm
acknowledgment. He had only begun to study Gaelic; but already its beauty,
its poetic capabilities, its kinship to Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin,
convinced him of the recklessness of letting the language perish. Amongst
those who responded to his rally was Mr David Hutcheson, who sent the
Professor a free pass for the year 1865 in all his West Highland steamers,
reiterating the hope that Oban might soon claim him as a townsman. But the
plan could not be immediately put into execution. There was first of all the
publication of' Homer' to be arranged. He was in correspondence with Mr
Theodore Martin, Mr Dallas, and Dr John Carlyle on the subject. All three
urged on him the issue of his work by Murray, or failing that eminent
publisher, by an Edinburgh firm. The manuscript had attained colossal
proportions. In addition to three volumes of translation and notes, there
was an introductory volume of Dissertations, ten in number, on the whole
subject of the personal Homer, the Epic Cycle, the minstrel and epic artist,
the authenticity of the text, and the various forms of translation. He
decided to go to London and interview the publishers himself. A visit from
the Henry Bunsens delayed him at home till the middle of May 1865, when he
accepted an invitation to stay with Mr and Mrs James Archer in PhiIlirnore
Gardens until his quest should be ended. Mr Dallas and Mr Martin introduced
him to Messrs Longman, and his old acquaintance with the Macmillans gave him
an opportunity to offer them his Homer' for publication. But both of these
firms declined the risk attached to so bulky a production. Mr Grote gave him
a letter to Murray which procured him an interview, and he was asked to
forward Parts of both the introductory volume and of the translation for
decision. This gave him courage to enjoy the remainder of his stay in town,
which formed, as usual, a lively record of dinners and social successes. At
home with artists, whose society he always preferred to that of scholars,
lie enjoyed meeting and visiting the Faeds, Erskine Nicol, Spanish Phillip,
and others of the genial and natural confraternity.
On his way home he spent a
few days at Cambridge; but the absence of the Grecians whom he wished to
consult was disappointing, and but for an encounter with the Miss Thackerays
and Paley, and for the kind attentions of Mr Clark and Mr Aldis Wright, his
halt would have proved unprofitable.
In Edinburgh, pending
Murray's decision, he occupied himself with correspondence on the
pronunciation of Greek, provoked by letters sent earlier in the year to both
the 'Times' and the 'Scotsman.' But towards the end of June he was invited
to be one of the examiners at the Inverness Academy, and received an
honourable welcome from the local authorities. While there he went out to
Blackhills, near Elgin, to see his colleague, Professor Aytoun, who was then
dying, although he cheered up at sight of an old friend, and gave no sign of
the approaching end. In August 1865 Mrs Aytoun wrote:-
You were the last of his
Edinburgh friends to see him, and I am sure you could have had little
idea that it was for the last time. Your visit was a real pleasure to
him he thought it so kind of you to come so far out of your way to pay
it. And lie had so much fellow-feeling for all his colleagues that the
sight of one of them cheered him.
The 8th of July brought him
Mr Murray's letter declining to publish 'Homer' on the ground of its bulk. A
suggestion that the Dissertations might be issued without the translation
was opposed to the Professor's aim, which it did not occur to him to modify.
The blow was smart. Every London publisher of standing to whom he applied
refused the enterprise, and his hope of impressive issue was checked.
Doubtless the appearance of Lord Derby's 'Homer' two years earlier had
forestalled what popular demand existed for a new translation. The classical
readers to whom his manuscript had been submitted were averse to the ambling
pace of his ballad measure, as unsuited to express the majestic march of the
Homeric line. But it was just to that comfortable amble that he pinned his
faith. His horizon was now narrowed to Scotland, and he proposed the
publication to Messrs Edmonston & Douglas, who undertook it on the condition
that they should be guaranteed against loss.
His acceptance of this
disappointment illustrates one of the most beautiful features in a very
lovable character. Its spirit is breathed in the closing lines of the
Dissertations, which run :-
Whether or not I shall be
judged to have made any thankworthy contribution to the translated
literature of my country, the man who has spent twelve years of honest
toil in the study of such an author as Homer has already received the
better half of his reward.
No words of those who knew
him well could better portray his constant attitude towards work and
relatively towards success. The superficial effusive enjoyment of
popularity, which led observers to credit him with vanity, was but the
honest expression of what little vanity he had. At heart no man was ever
more modest, was ever less tormented by over-estimate of himself, was ever
more free from wounded egotism. He worked for work's sake, and kept his mind
in sound activity, his disposition in love and tolerance toward all men. If
rare invective whetted his sallies, it was against those only who would have
cramped the flow and ebb of human thought into the dull ditch of their own
dogmatism, never against those who depreciated himself.
A week after he received Mr
Murray's letter he was at Broughton in Peebles, climbing hills, singing his
new songs, exploring the Tweed to its source, making Mossfennan ring with
sympathetic laughter.
'Homer' disposed of for the
nonce, he and Mrs Blackie started for the Highlands in August. They went to
Oban, where the site for their house had been secured. A walk of half a mile
from the town round the southern horn of the bay led by the Sound of Kerrera
to a cliff from whose brow retired a green and sheltered plateau. A bank led
up to it on the townward side, flanked by a rocky gorge down which rattled a
burn. The bank was flattened out below into a triangular field, where 'a
mill utilised the stream. This field was unattainable, but the bank and the
plateau and a bit of the rolling upland at its back were secured. The plan
had outgrown its first projection, and promised a comfortable turreted
house, whose many bedrooms were to express unstinted welcome. The architect,
inspired by Mrs Blackie, achieved a complete and symmetrical design, and
their stay was much engrossed with all the details of its execution. Larches
and firs were set where the ground was exposed, the bank was laid out in
grassy terraces, and shrubs which sea-air fosters were planted at every
point of vantage. When all was set agoing they went to Mull, an island
always magnetic to the Professor.
They returned to Edinburgh to
the growing interest of Carlvle's installation as Lord Rector of the
University.
DEAR BLACKIE [Carlyle
wrote on November 13],—I am thinking seriously about the assessorship;
also about studying the Installation speech, if that be at all feasible.
Assist me in that if you humanly can ! From Sir D. Brewster I have a
note, brief as your own and touching upon the same topics. Is that to be
the commencement to me of this fine Dignity; or am I to expect something
more formally official?
The world knows all the
details of that installation now, and of the tragedy so soon to overshadow
its chief actor.
The proofs of the
Dissertations and the translation were issuing from the press. Professor
Blackie sent copies to Dr George Macdonald, to Theodore Martin, to Dr
Donaldson, and to Sheriff Trotter at Dumfries, asking for ample criticism.
From these friends he received both excellent amendments and comments upon
the looseness of his versification, on the ground of which he corrected many
lines, and these obligations he has recorded in his preface. Of them all
Sheriff Trotter seems to have spoken most plainly, and to have effected the
largest number of corrections, but to Dr Donaldson's fine scholarship he
owed a thorough revisal of the notes. The winter was occupied with
proof-correcting, and a correspondence with Mr Scaramanga points to a
vigorous revival of the Hellenic Society, for the further hellenisation of
whose members he ordered some dozeis of various Greek wines.
The Baroness Bunsen had
begged him to translate for her a number of poems by her husband, which were
the expression of strong feeling at different crises of Bunsen's life, and
he was able to return them to her in English dress at Christmas-time.
In January 1866 he was much
encouraged by a letter from Mr Theodore Martin, with an opinion on the
Dissertations, which had been sent to him in proof-sheets :-
I feel confident that the
hook will be welcome to all who care about good literature, be they
scholars or no. I think your chapter on the Wolfian theory masterly.
Another interest of the month
was the impeachment of Dr Norman Macleod by the Judaic party in the Scottish
Church, and a very natural outburst of sympathy reached the culprit at
Osborne, from which dignified sanctuary he responded:-
I am in a sort of way
acknowledging the kind letters sent to inc during this time of, let me
frankly confess it, severe trial to me. I thank you very cordially for
yours. God bless you for it. A day of freedom is coming—I could die to
usher it sooner in by an hour. As I write I see the white houses of
Portsmouth and the big black ships like Leviathans afloat, but my
heart's in the Highlands. Hurrah! there screams the bagpipe! Ross, bless
him, is pouring forth his notes like the cries of sea-birds in a storm.
I wish I saw Drs Muir, Gibson, and company dancing the Reel of Hoolachan.
It would humanise them more than all the presbyteries in Scotland. I
begin to dislike the clergy! Heaven forgive me - I suppose there is some
wicked inspiration in me!
The correcting of 'Homer'
lasted through the session and occupied the summer months. Early in August
they returned to Oban. Altnacraig was nearly finished, and had received its
name from the burn which dashed down its rocky glen. All Mrs Blackie's art
was given to its plenishing; and already the promise of a home with comfort
and beauty for twin presences smiled upon its owners. While her orders were
in execution, they made a Hebridean tour, first taking Mull, where they paid
Dr Cumming a visit at the "Parva Domus," abode of "Magna Ques."
The Constables were at
Greshornish, and attracted them thither, so that the royal Cuchullins in
sunset purple and gold became familiar to them. When they returned to Oban,
it was to take possession of their Highland home. Miss Henrietta Bird was
the welcoming bard :-
"Thus at last hath the ideal
On this rock become the real,
Born of bright imagination,
Outlined forth by contemplation,
Reared in fancies vague.
Now at last in fair expansion
Standeth it,— a goodly mansion.
Blessings on its walls and towers,
On its gardens and its bowers,
Beauteous Altnacraig!"
One of its towers was the
Professor's own domain, and was soon lined with books and supplied with
writing-table and easy-chairs. Here he could croon over Gaelic and shout
over Greek, and fill his soul with thankful adoration, when he gazed from
the window over green Kerrera and the Sound to the dreamy Bens of Mull.
Downstairs three large sitting-rooms, all looking to the sea, opened one
into the other, and breathed warmth, comfort, home in every nook. The road,
which ran below, was lost, to sight, but voices and laughter reached the
loungers on the heather- cushioned verge of the cliff, and there a seat was
set to watch the white yachts as they stole along the Sound, or glided like
spectres beyond Kerrera. Through the young firs glowed the crimson sunset,
flushing the long vista of waves in Morven Sound. The seat upon the cliff
became the tryst- ing-place of hosts and guests at teatime, and on balmy
nights they reassembled there, sometimes to look on the moonlit sea, often
to waft on high a hymn of praise.
Almost simultaneous with this
home - coming was the appearance of the four Homeric volumes. They were
dedicated to Professor Weicker at Bonn, to Dr George Finlay at Athens, and
to Mr W. G. Clark of Trinity College, Cambridge. The first copies were sent
to them, and to all who had assisted the Professor in correcting the proofs.
Mr Robert Horn, Mr David Hutcheson, Mr Duncan M'Laren. Professor Daniel
Wilson at Toronto, are conspicuous amongst the friends outside that group of
helpful Homerids who received copies.
The aim of the whole
undertaking was to exhibit the Homeric Epics to the intelligent readers of
our country, so translated and so complemented by treatise and explanation
that the lack of Greek might prove no barrier to full enjoyment of their
themes. It was therefore to a popular and not to an academical public that
Professor Blackie appealed. This aim, so far as he was concerned, was amply
fulfilled; but the apathy of a full-fed middle class to the banquets of gods
and heroes, its aversion to the lofty survivals of remote ages—an aversion
extended to the Bible, as well as to Homer, the Vedas, the Shastras—defeated
the better half of an unselfish purpose. Four stout volumes full of however
readable matter weighed deterrently on the imagination. The epoch of serials
had begun to run its stormy course, and the nation liked its literature
cheap. Inevitably the book was bought by men who knew and cared for Greek,
and its estimate was decided by the very class for whom it was not written.
The class is small, and the sale failed to cover the cost of publication.
The Professor lost £200 by the venture, and doubtless most of those writers
who devote themselves to classical literature have paid a like penalty for
their preference.
The ten dissertations which
occupy the first volume are brimming with the interest which inspired their
author. No more vivid chapter was ever written than that which deals with
the historic personality of Homer. Of the personal Homer he had no manner of
doubt. '' The Greeks did not forget Homer. He was as living in their memory,
through their whole history, as the person of Robert Burns is in the heart
of every true Scot." Wolf and his followers had indeed raised the question,
but the "taint of misty negation" was wont to come from Germany on each and
every subject of intrinsic evidence. He did not despise the research and the
discoveries of Wolf, but he refused his conclusions, for which these
discoveries afforded scanty ground. Faith in Homer "rests directly and
naturally on the double fact that there exists a great poem, which demands
the existence of a great author, and that this authorship has been
constantly recognised by the consciousness of the Greek people in the person
of Homer."
Having championed the man
Homer against all comers,—German heretics and their English proselytes,—he
proceeded to make prominent his dramatic methods. These were illustrated by
fifteen marks of Epic poetry, such as magnitude, national significance,
grandeur of expression, unity, rapidity of movement, the superhuman element,
and other cognate and dependent conditions. Homer's acceptance with the
Greeks, who reverenced him in a common national sentiment which overbore all
tribal feud, admitted him to the highest rank amongst poets for ever,
because the Greeks were nothing if not critical, and what they placed above
the scathe of criticism cannot be challenged. Homer lasted as the main
influence over the best Hellenic mind, and when his loftier theology and his
robuster manliness ceased to educate, the doom of Greece was at hand. The
preservation of the Homeric text; the interpolations, continuations, and
corruptions due to successive generations of Homerids; the various English
translations; the choice of rhythm in each,—these occupied the concluding
dissertatiors. In the last Professor Blackie justified his adoption of the
ballad-couplet on the ground that the poems were ballads, arid that,
transferred from the ballad hexameters of Homer to the ballad measure of the
English popular songs, they can best render their character and significance
to the English mind.
Corning to that transference,
we find a comfortable version of the great epics, sometimes rising to their
own candid grandeur, but on the whole more fluent than impressive. It is
difficult to acknowledge Homer's supremacy, if the language employed in this
translation keenly conveys the original. Only now and then do the epithets
satisfy the ear; only now and then do they overtop the level of easy
descriptive verse. None the less the series of scenic episodes is well
presented, and if robed in less than epic majesty, their heroes condescend
the more readily to the sympathies of the general. An impression is left on
the mind of too facile execution, and the attention wearies somewhat of the
long, low rise and fall of the ballad couplets, varied here and there by
prolongation and by triplets. But in spite of a form which depresses the
"strong- wing'd music of Homer," making it flag with drooping pinion, the
purpose of popularising its subject - matter is fully achieved, and would
have been widely recognised had Professor Blackie issued a work more
moderate in bulk and cost. Admirable as are the Dissertations, they are
swollen with analogies and illustrations sometimes far-fetched, and often
amplified at the expense of their argumentative value. Had all these
superfluities, these vague reiterations, been eliminated, there would have
remained a small volume of the greatest worth, the outcome of rare industry
and scholarship, couched in clear and vigorous language, and conveying to
every educated reader the very pith and marrow of its subject. Perhaps this
audacious criticism, of a labour vast beyond the critic's ken, may be ended
by quoting a fine and well-known passage from the second book of the 'Iliad'
as a specimen of the many successful transmutations achieved :-
"And now the war was sweeter
far to each well-greaved Achean,
Than to seek his home across the foam of the billowy broad Ęgean.
As when destroying fire bath caught a stretch of dry old pines
High on a hill-top, and afar the blazing forest shines;
So shone the copper-coated host, as rank on rank advances,
While flash quick brands in a thousand hands, and gleam the eager lances.
And as the uncounted tribes that scour the sky with mighty vans
Of geese or vagrant-banded cranes, or the long-necked race of swans,
Where far the Asian lowland spreads, and by Cajster's flow,
Freely on joyful pinions sail, and wander to and fro,
And with their clanging wings loud rings the mead where they alight;
Thus swarmed the Greeks from ship and tent, to find the fateful fight
Far o'er Scamander's plain and earth rebellowed to the sound,
As the mail-clad men and the four-hoofed horse tramped o'er the hollow
ground,
Till on the broad grass mead they stood, a marshalled multitude,
Countless as flowers in flowery spring, or leaves in a leafy wood.
And even as swarms of busy flies on buzzing wings are spread,
Drifting in clusters through the air, close by some shepherd's shed,
In the spring-time, when in the pail the creaming milk doth flow
Not fewer then the Argive men in many a glittering row
Stood; while each long-haired warrior pants to pierce some Trojan foe." |
