| | | | | Although writers about whose pretensions to | originality there can be no question have great | latitude allowed them in laying the works of | their predecessors under contribution, we | cannot afford to allow the same license to the | smaller fry of literature. These, when they once | begin to borrow from their betters, soon | overpass the bounds that separate the venial | sin of copyism from the mortal crime of | plagiarism. Ignorant of the principles which | ought to influence all such appropriations, | they rush in like fools, and lay violent hands | on what even angels fear to touch. | We had scarcely turned over the first | leaf of Griselda | before we felt a burning desire that | some stringent law could be enacted | which would render it felony for any | poetaster to take in vain the words and | works of real poets. Mr. Arnold will | doubtless be highly indignant, and equally | astonished, to find that there are some persons | who, instead of thinking his | tragedy, as | he calls it, an improvement upon | Chaucer's story, look upon it as exactly the | reverse, and are even inclined to cry out |

"stop thief,"

before they have followed him | through half-a-dozen pages. Any writer is, of | course, at liberty to choose a subject which | has already been treated by another | hand; but he is bound to give his own version | of it, and we have a right to expect he will | not palm upon us a lifeless imitation or | barefaced repetition of the one with which we | are already familiar. If Mr. Arnold had | prefaced his miscalled tragedy with an | intimation that it was a mere adaptation, there | would have been one count less in the | indictment which we have to bring against | him; but he does not give us the slightest hint | of the kind. Nay, he goes further even than | this. He is not only a servile adaptator, but | throughout his drama he steals line after line | from the earlier poem, and, as might have | been expected, constantly spoils them | in the stealing ~~ so that the whole | performance produces the same sort of effect | that would result from overlaying a | magnificent antique dress with paltry | modern imitation lace and tinsel trimmings. | We are quite aware that specimens of | parallel passages do not possess much | interest for the general reader, but for the | honour of the illustrious dead, and in order to | give some notion of the shameless way in | which Mr. Arnold has manufactured his |

"tragedy,"

we feel bound to put down a | few of his wholesale plagiarisms. The story | being universally known, we will not | take up the time of our readers in giving a | sketch of it. | On the Marquis requiring Griselda to | give up her daughter, she replies, according | to Chaucer ~~ | | Mr. Arnold's Griselda also makes answer ~~ | | The remainder of the passage is too long to | quote; and we proceed to another instance. | Chaucer's Griselda begs the sergeant, | when he takes away her child, to ~~ | | Mr. Arnold's Griselda says ~~ | | Chaucer remarks, in dwelling on the | Marquis's tyranny, that ~~ | | Mr. Arnold puts the same sentiment into the | mouth of a certain Lenette, for, more | thoughtful than Chaucer, he allows | Griselda a | ~~ | | Chaucer's Marquis speaks thus to his wife ~~ | | Mr. Arnold's Marquis says ~~ | | In Chaucer's verse, Griselda thus | admonishes her husband in regard to | his pretended bride ~~ | | In Mr. Arnold's version Griselda says ~~ | | This last quotation is an excellent specimen of | the writer's paraphrastic style, and | of his utter misconception of | where lies the chief beauty of Chaucer's | story ~~ namely, in a touching earnestness | and statuesque simplicity, which is | wide as the poles apart from this | namby-pamby, wordy dilution of sentimentality. | We can only afford space for one specimen of the | blundering way in which this would-be | rival of Chaucer sometimes deals with | his stolen goods. When Griselda is about to be | sent away from her husband's house, she | thus addresses him; ~~ | | Observe how Mr. Arnold introduces the | concluding line of the passage: ~~ | | Thus, by its connexion with material things, | jewels, and raiment, the sad beauty and | simple pathos of the sentiment are utterly | marred. Readers of Chaucer will remember | the request which Griselda makes, to be | allowed to retain a certain article of | apparel on her being sent away from her | husband. The language she makes use of, | being in harmony with the feelings and | customs of the time, is natural and | appropriate; but it has evidently cost Mr. | Arnold a world of trouble, and great | searching of mind, to modernise it, and | render it fit for the more refined ears and | fastidious tastes of modern readers. One | word, however, he has, for some reason | or other, thought himself under the | necessity of retaining; but it is unfortunately | so much out of place amongst the forms of | expression by which it is surrounded, that, as | will be seen in the quotation, the effect | produced ~~ and it is, be it remembered, the | crowning word of the climax ~~ is most | ludicrous: ~~ | | Thereto her husband makes answer: ~~ | | or, as Chaucer has it: ~~ | | We believe it is the opinion of most people | who are familiar ~~ as who is not? ~~ with | the story of Griselda, that she had troubles | enough to contend with. Such, however, is | not Mr. Arnold's notion; and accordingly, he not | only out-Chaucers Chaucer by killing old | Janicola the night after his daughter's enforced | banishment to his cottage, but he adds a | gross insult to the injuries which the meek | ~~ weak, we were almost going to have | written ~~ spirited creature had already | sustained, by making her read, in the | presence of her lord's serfs, the counterfeited | bull annulling her marriage. These, and | the substitution of twins for a daughter and son | born with an interval of four years between | them, are the only points, so far as we | remember, in which Mr. Arnold departs | from his text ~~ with the exception of | making up a few lay figures, which he | doubtless imagined were required to | convert a story which has no dramatic | element whatever about it, into a |

"tragedy."

| It is impossible not to regard without | suspicion and apprehension this new | form of literary picking and stealing which is | daily gaining ground amongst us, and which, | if it be not very speedily

"put down,"

| will soon render literature void of all the | truth, honesty, purity of purpose, originality of | thought and invention, which ought to | distinguish it. Moreover, it is so easy | a matter to manufacture poetry after this fashion, | that if the practice be not stopped at once, our | writers will soon be infected by a spirit of | indolence which will result in modern | literature sinking to a far lower level of stupid | mediocrity than, even in these days of | mediocrity, it has ever yet occupied. | We are sorry that, after having said so much in | dispraise of Mr. Arnold's

"tragedy,"

we | have not a good word for his

"other poems"

| ~~ with the exception of a translation from | the German of Uhland's Three | Students, which is rendered with | fidelity, grace, and spirit. The rest of these | attempts have nothing noticeable about them, | exception that they bear evidence of the | author's familiarity with the writings of | contemporary poets. The | Lost Pleiad, for instance, unpleasantly | reminds us, by its likeness or unlikeness, | of Tennyson's Enone | ~~ the burden of it ~~ | | | Being simply an echo of ~~ | | That Mr. Arnold has some facility in stringing | smooth sounding words together, we do | not question; but mere sound signifies nothing, | and it requires something beyond |

"words, words, words,"

to constitute a | poem. Those which he has given us in the | present volume might pass muster in a | periodical, where they would be read one day | and forgotten the next; but they were certainly | not worth collecting into a separate book, | excepting, perhaps, for one purpose ~~ merely | to render it easier to make a bonfire of | them. Some young people may very likely | be inclined to protest against so harsh a | sentence; but we cannot think it is too | severe a one, when we reflect upon the effect | produced by productions of this | order and the harm they may do in vitiating | the taste, emasculating the mind, and injuring | the mental digestion, as is certain to be the case | when it is fed on sugar-plums instead of the | bread and the good old wine of our elder and | true poets. | We have yet something to say on the poems | entitled Songs of | the Times, none of which are superior | to these we are accustomed to meet | with in the poet’s corner of a newspaper. | There is however, one amongst them which | has other and far graver faults than that | of mediocrity, and which would fully | justify all the censures we would pass on its | infamous bad taste and utter want of delicacy, | if we thought that a quotation from it would | not be its own best comment. It first | appeared, in common with several other of | the lesser poems, in the | Press. The subject is the Empress | of Russia keeping vigil beside the corpse of | her husband. She is thus apostrophised by | the poet, speaking in the name of the people | of England: ~~ | | Who can read this without a cry of | indignation bursting from his lips? Not even | a savage would have the barbarity thus to | insult the widow of his direct personal enemy. | We had intended concluding our notice | of Mr. Arnold’s book with this quotation; but | on glancing anew over its pages, we lit upon | the following verse, which we commend to | the notice of our readers who may | perhaps prove more successful than | ourselves in comprehending it. It is | from a poem entitled All | Saint's Day ~~ |