SOURCE: "Alexander's Smith's Poems," in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. LXXV, No. CCCCLXI, March, 1854, pp. 345-51.

[In the review below, Aytoun became one of the first to label Smith a "Spasmodic" poet, a term that would remain with Smith his entire life. The critic characterized Spasmodic poetry as unoriginal and profane. In this essay, he criticizes Smith for using an excessive amount of imagery that does not further the thematic development of his poems. Several months after publishing this piece, Aytoun continued his attack on the Spasmodic poets by writing a parody of a Spasmodic tragedy (see following essay).]

Some time ago a volume of poems appeared, over which there arose a great roar of critical battle, like the conflict over the dead Valerius, when "Titus pulled him by the foot, and Aulus by the head." Many hailed the author as a true poet, and prophesied his coming greatness; others fastened on obvious defects, and moused the book like Snug the joiner tearing Thisbe's mantle in his character of lion. Now that the hubbub has subsided, our still small voice may be heard.

The poet in question has at once deprecated and defied criticism in a sonnet, (p. 232).

"There have been vast displays of critic wit
O'er those who vainly flutter feeble wings,
Nor rise an inch 'bove ground,—weak poet-lings!
And on them to the death men's brows are knit.
Ye men! ye critics! seems't so very fit
They on a storm of Laughter should be blown
O'er the world's edge to Limbo? Be it known,
Ye men! ye critics! that beneath the sun
The chiefest woe is this,—when all alone,
And strong as life, a soul's great currents run
Poesy-ward, like rivers to the sea,
But never reach't. Critic, let that soul moan
In its own hell, without a kick from thee.
Kind Death, kiss gently, ease this weary one?"

Alexander Smith is partly right and partly wrong. It is true that, throned in his judicial chair, the critic, more intent on displaying his own powers than on doing justice to his subject, is apt to drop the mild and equal scales, and brandish the trenchant glittering sword. He ought to say in his heart, Peradventure there shall be found ten fine lines in this book—I will not destroy it for ten's sake.

But, on the other hand, there is a class to which forbearance would be misapplied and criminal. It would too much resemble our prison discipline, where Mr. William Sykes, after a long course of outrages on humanity, is shut up in a palace, treated like a prodigal son, and presently converted to Christianity. An absurd monomaniac, who, like Joanna Southcote, mistaking a dropsical disorder for the divine afflatus, and demanding worship on no better grounds than the greatness of his own blown conceit, may, by mere force of impudent pretension, induce a host of ignorant followers to have faith in him, ought to be exposed and ridiculed. Not savagely, perhaps, for the first offence; the pantaloons should be loosed with a paternal hand, and the scourge mildly applied. If he still persists in misdoing, it should be laid on till the blood comes.

But Alexander Smith is far from coming under the latter denomination. A writer, especially a young writer, should be judged by his best; and there is enough excellence in the volume to cover many more sins than it contains, though they are numerous. And while it is a mistake to suppose that a fine poetic soul, however sensitive will "let itself be snuffed out by an article," yet there have been instances where undue severity has defrauded a writer of his just fame for many a long year; and though the critic in the end, has been compelled to render up the mesne profits of applause, yet that is small consolation for the sense of wrong, and the deprivation of merited influence and reputation.

While foreign writers sketch us as the most matter-of-fact and pudding-eating of peoples—while we pique ourselves on sturdy John Bullism, and cheerfully accept the portrait of an absurd old gentleman in a black coat, and a broad-brimmed hat and gaiters, with his hands in his well-filled breeches pockets, as a just impersonation of the genius of the nation, it is an obvious fact that a poet never had such a certainty of being appreciated in England as now. Fit audience is no longer few. Let him sound as high a note as he can for the life of him, he will yet find echoes enough to constitute fame. There are homes in England almost as common as hothouses, where fine criticism is nightly conversation—where appreciators, as true as any one who review in newspapers, hail a good and great writer as a personal friend. Here may be found all the elements necessary for the recognition of merit and the detection of imposture. Sturdy good sense refuses to believe in gaudy pretension; keen logic exposes emptiness; enthusiastic youth glows at the high thought, the splendid image; and the soft feminine nature responds, with ready tears and unsuppressed sighings, to all legitimate appeals to the heart.

With such tribunals more plentiful than county courts, a man is no longer justified in decrying fame, or appealing for justice to posterity. It must be an outward accident, indeed, that cheats an author of his due, when so many are eager to exchange praise for his fine gold. The demand for excellence in authorship exceeds the supply; and there are plenty of keen readers who, having traversed the realms of English poesy, yet thirst for fresh fields and pastures new. Therefore, if an ardent spirit finds the world deaf to his utterances, let him search uncomplainingly for the fault in his own mind, and never rashly conclude that for his fondly believed-in powers of thought and expression there is, as yet, no sympathetic public. Especially in poetry is the appetite of the time unsatisfied; mediocrity, which should be inadmissible, is indulgently received, and the poets of established reputation are on every shelf. Editions of Shakspeare appear in perplexing numbers, and the rusty armour in which a champion for his text appears, is contended for as if it were the heaven-forged panoply of Achilles.

Mr. Smith leaves his feelings on the subject of fame open to doubt. One might almost faney him a poet who, having desired fame too ardently in his hot youth, had discovered its emptiness in riper age. A sonnet is devoted to the depreciation of fame; whereas Walter, in the Life-Drama is more than enthusiastic to achieve it. We have no doubt the ardent wishes which Mr. Smith expresses through his hero are genuine, and that the philosophy of the sonnet is a philosophy he only fancies he has acquired. Combativeness may inspire the soldier to achievement, rivalry the statesman; both may be, in some measure, indifferent to other fame than the applause of their contemporaries. But it is in vain for the poet to express indifference to the opinion of the world and of posterity. Why has he written, except that thoughts bearing his impress may sound in the ears of the future, and that the echoes they arouse may convey to him, in his silent resting-place, tidings of the cheerful day, assuring him of a tenure in the earth he loved, and a lasting position among the race who were his brothers? What would not man do to secure remembrance after death? For this Erostratus burnt Diana's temple; for this the Pyramids were built, and built in vain; for this kings have destroyed nations; for this the care-worn money-getter gives his life to the founding of a wealthy name; and if a man may gain it more effectually by the simple publishing of thoughts, whose conception was to him a pleasure, let him be thankful that what all so ardently desire was granted to him on such easy terms, and that he may continue to be a real presence on this earth, when most of his contemporaries are as though they had never been.

Taking it for granted, then, that when a young poet publishes a work wherein the hero expresses an ardent desire for fame, the poet is himself speaking through the character, it will be interesting to see how he proposes to achieve it. Mr. Smith tells us, through his hero, that his plan for immortalising himself is "to set this age to music." That, he says, is the great work before the poet now.

To set this age to music!—'tis a phrase we have heard before of late years. Never was an age so intent upon self glorification as this. Like the American nation, it spends half its time looking in the glass; and, like it, always with the same loudly-expressed approbation of what the mirror reveals. It has long been its habit to talk its own praises, and now they must be sung. When polkas were first introduced, many familiar sounds were parodied, to give character to tunes of the new measure. Among these was the Railway-polka, in which the noise of the wheels and the clatter of machinery were admirably imitated; while a startling reality was given to the whole, by the occasional hoarse scream of the engine. Now, we fear that the effort of a poet to set the age to music would result in something resembling the railway polka—something more creditable as a work of ingenuity than of art, and embodying more appeals to the sense than to the heart or the imagination. To him who stands apart from the rush and roar, the many voices of the age convey a mingled sound that would scarcely seem musical even to the dreaming ear of a poet.

We see the spirit of the middle ages—the spirit of religious intolerance and superstitious faith—of deepest earnestness, and of bigotry springing out of that earnestness—reflected in Dante's page. Spenser shows us the days of the plume and the spear, when the beams of chivalry yet gilded the earth, when the motto of noble youth was—God and my lady. Another phase of the same era—the era of romantic discovery and adventure, when there were yet fairies on the green, and enchanted isles in the ocean—reappears in the works of Shakespeare. Pope has fixed for ever the time of courtliness, of external polish and artificial graces—the time when woman was no more divine—when Una had degenerated into Chloe—when love had given place to intrigue, devotion to foppery, faith to reasoning; yet a pleasant and graceful time. And it is no wonder that the poet, now, feeling that he too possesses "the vision and the faculty divine," should long to leave his name, not drifting over space, but anchored firmly on the times he lived in.

But none of these old poets went to work with the deliberate intention of setting his age to music. Where that, so far as we can see the meaning of the phrase, has been done, it is because the poet lived so much among the characteristic men and scenes of his age, that his mind, more impressionable and more true in its impressions than others, was imbued with its spirit, and moulded to its forms; so that, whatever his mind transmitted was coloured by those hues, and swayed by those outlines. The poet did not hunt about for the characteristics of his age, and then deliberately embody them: he chose a congenial theme when it offered itself, and it, unconsciously to him, became a picture of a phase of the time. When our age, too, is set to music, if ever, it will be in this way.

If ever—For ages of the world, as worthy of note perchance as this, and more rich in materials for poetry, have passed away without being set to music. Every great change of society, and of mankind's opinion, does not necessarily call for a poet to sing it. It may be more suitably reproduced through some other medium than verse—in newspapers, for instance, or in advertising vans. Of course, no man in his senses would say a word against this age of ours; he could expect nothing less than to be immediately bonneted, like an injudicious elector who has hissed the popular candidate: yet we would have liked Alexander Smith to indicate the direction in which he intends to seek his materials. Does he see anything heroic in an ardent desire to secure ease and comfort at the cost of many old and once respectable superstitions, such as honour and duty? Can he throw over the cotton trade "the light that never was on sea or shore?" Or is popular oratory distinguished by "thoughts that breathe and words that burn?" Will the railway station and the electric telegraph figure picturesquely in the poet's dream? Yet, when the age is set to music, these chords will be not the most subdued in the composition. Mr. Macaulay said about as much as could be said for the spirit of the age, when he drew a contrast in popular prose between the present and the past. Had he tried the subject in poetry, he would have found the task much less congenial than when he sung so manfully "how well Horatius kept the bridge, in the brave days of old."

Alexander Smith has one characteristic in common with Tennyson, the author of Festus, and some other poets of the time. All seem to have great power in the regions of the dreary. Their gaiety is spasmodic; when they smile, 'tis like Patience on a monument, as if Grief were sitting opposite. If this is their way of setting the age to music, 'tis, if most musical, yet most melancholy. Tennyson, who possesses the power of conveying the sentiment of dreariness beyond most poets that ever lived, generally selects some suitable subject for the exercise of it, such as Mariana in the Moated Grange; but Mr. Smith's hero, and Festus, are miserable from choice, and revel in their unaccountable woe, like the character in Peacock's novel, whose notion of making himself agreeable consists in saying, "Let us all be unhappy together." Not thus, O Alexander? sounds the keynote of the genial soul of a great poet.

Our author's notion of what constitutes a crushing affliction is altogether peculiar. A particular friend of his hero, after becoming quite blasphemous because he wanted "to let loose some music on the world," and couldn't (p. 137), commits suicide on a mountain, though whether by rope, razor, or prussic acid, we are not informed. However, being deranged, he no doubt received Christian burial. And Mr. Smith, speaking for himself in the sonnet already quoted, says that—

"Beneath the sun
The chiefest woe is this—When all alone,
And strong as life, a soul's great currents run
Posey-ward, like rivers to the sea,
But never reach it."

The chiefest woe!—the chiefest, Alexander! Neither Job nor Jeremiah have enrolled it among human afflictions. Is there no starvation, nor pain, nor death in the world? Is the income-tax repealed? We appeal from Alexander in travail of a sonnet, with small hope of safe delivery to Alexander in the toothache, and we are confident he will change his opinion. Let him look at Hogarth's "Distressed Poet," and see what it is that moves his sympathy there. Not the perplexity of the poor poet himself—that raises only an irreverent smile—but the poor good pretty wife raising her household eyes meekly and wonderingly to the loud milkwoman, their inexorable creditor—the piece of meat that was to form their scanty dinner, abstracted by the felonious starveling of a cur,—these touch on deeper woes than the head-scratching distress of the unproductive poet.

To return to Mr. Smith's idea of setting the age to music. The first requisite clearly is, that the musician shall be pre-eminently a man of the age. It is at once evident that old-fashioned people, with any lingering remnants of the heroic or dark ages about their ideas, would be quite out of place here. None but liberals and progressionists need apply. These are so plentiful that there will be no difficulty in finding a great number who embody the most prominent characteristics of the time. Having got the man of the age, a tremendous difficulty occurs. We are very much afraid there will not only be nothing poetical in the cast of his ideas, but that he will be the embodiment of everything that is prosaic. Call to mind, O Alexander! the qualities essential to a poet—at the same time, picture to yourself a Man of the Age—and then fancy what kind of music you will extract from him. Set the age to music, quotha! Set the Stocks to music.

Having thus signally failed to point out how the thing is to be done, we will tell Alexander how it will not be done. Not by uttering unmeaning complaints against Fate and Heaven, and other names of similar import which we will not set down here, like a dog baying the moon. Not by uttering profane rant, which as it would not have been justified by the mad despair of a Lear or an Othello, is horribly nonsensical in the mouth of a young gentleman who ought to have taken a blue pill because his liver was out of order. Not by pouring forth floods of images and conceits which afford no perception of the idea their author would convey. Not by making the moon and the sea appear in such a variety of ridiculous characters that we shall never again stroll by moonlight on the shore without seeing something comical in the aspect of the deep and the heavenly bodies. Not by—But we have just lighted on a passage which proves that Mr. Smith knows what is right as well as anybody can tell him:—

"Yet one word more—
Strive for the poet's crown, but ne'er forget
How poor are fancy's blooms to thoughtful fruits."

And again—

"Poet he was not in the larger sense—
He could write pearls, but he could never write
A poem round and perfect as a star.

That is the point. Not to dismiss images unprotected on the world, like Mr. Winkle's shots—which, we are informed, were "unfortunate foundlings cast loose upon society, and billeted nowhere"—but to mature a worthy leading idea, waiting, watching, fostering it till it is full-grown and symmetrical in its growth; and from which the lesser ideas and images shall spring as naturally, necessarily, and with as excellent effect of adornment, as leaves from the tree.

Whether Alexander can do this, yet remains to be proved. Some of the requisites he possesses in a high degree. Force, picturesqueness of conception, and musical expression, all of which he has displayed, will do great things when giving utterance to a theme well chosen and well designed; but at present they only tell us, like a harp swept by the wind, of the melodies slumbering in the chords. Such is the Eolian character of the Life-drama—fitful, wild, melancholy, often suggestive of something exquisitely sweet and graceful, but faint, fugitive, and incoherent. When our poet sounds a strain worthy of the instrument, our paeans shall accompany and swell the chorus of applause.

The sonnets, as conveying tangible ideas, and such as excite interest and sympathy, have greatly exalted our opinion of the poet's powers. They have not been much quoted as yet by any of his discerning admirers, perhaps because there is little or nothing in them but what a plain man may understand, and they contain few allusions to the ocean or any of the planets. But here is one showing a fine picture—a picture that appeals to the imagination and the heart. It is at once manly and pathetic, representing a friendless, but independent and aspiring genius:—

"Joy, like a stream flows through the Christmas streets,
But I am sitting in my silent room—
Sitting all silent in congenial gloom.
To-night, while half the world the other greets
With smiles, and grasping hands, and drinks, and meats,
I sit and muse on my poetic doom.
Like the dim scent within a budded rose,
A joy is folded in my heart; and when
I think on poets nurtured 'mong the throes,
And by the lowly hearths of common men—
Think of their works, some song, some swelling ode,
With gorgeous music glowing to a close,
Deep-muffled as the dead-march of a god—
My heart is burning to be one of those."

As Mercurio says, "Is not this better, now, than groaning? Now art thou sensible—now art thou Romeo." We hope he will be "one of those," and think he may. Only he must believe that, however fine and rare the poetic faculties he has evinced, they cannot produce anything for posterity of themselves, but must build on a foundation of thought and art.

We are afraid, though we have not descended to verbal criticism, but have only indicated essential faults, that Alexander will think we have treated his book in an irreverent spirit; but, nevertheless, it is a truly paternal one. Even in such mood did we deal, of late, with our own beloved first-born, heir of his mother's charms and his father's virtues—a fine, clever fellow, in whom his parents take immense pride, though we judiciously conceal it for fear of increasing the conceit which is already somewhat conspicuous in his bearing. We rather think he had been led astray by the example of that young scoundrel Jones, who threatened to hang himself if his mother didn't give him five-and-twenty shillings to pay his score at the pastry cook's, and so terrified the poor lady into compliance. However that may be, our offspring, George, being denied of late, some unreasonable requests, straightway went into sulky heroics—spoke of himself as an outcast—stalked about with a gloomy air in dark corners of the shrubbery with his arms folded—smiled about twice a-day, in a withering and savage manner, though his natural disposition is cheerful and inclined to fun—and begged to decline to hold any further intercourse with his relatives. He kept up the brooding and injured character with great consistency (except that he always came regularly to meals, and eat them with his customary appetite, which is a very fine and healthy one), and was encouraged in it by his grandmother, who, between ourselves, reader, is a rather silly old woman, much given in her youth to maudlin sentimentalism, and Werterism, and bad forms of Byronism. She would take him aside, pat his head, kiss his cheek, and call him her poor dear boy, and slip money into his pocket, which he neither thanked her for, nor offered to refuse; and he became more firmly persuaded than ever, that he was one of the most ill-used young heroes that ever existed. This we were sorry to see—like Mrs. Quickly, we cannot abide swaggerers—and we bethought ourselves of a remedy. Some parents would have got in a rage and thrashed him—but he is a plueky young fellow, and this would only have caused him to consider himself a martyr; others would have mildly reasoned with him—but this would have given his fault too in portant and serious an air, so we treated him to a little irony and ridicule—caustic, not contemptuous, and more comical than spiteful. Just before beginning this course of treatment, we happened to overhear him making love, in the library, to Charlotte Jones (sister of the before-mentioned admirer of confectionary), a great, fat, lymphatic girl, who was spending a few days with her sisters, and who has no more sentiment or passion in her than so much calipee. However, he seemed to have quite enough for both, and poured forth his romantic devotion with a fervid fluency which I suspect must be the result of practice—for the young scamp is precocious, and conceived his first passion, at the age of nine, for a fine young woman of four-and-twenty. Charlotte, working away the white at a great cabbage-rose, not unlike herself, which she is embroidering in worsted, listened to his raptures with a lethargic calmness contrasting strongly with the impassioned air of the youth, who was no doubt ready, like Walter, Mr. Smith's hero, for the consideration of a kiss (if the placid object of his affections would have consented to such an impropriety), to "take Death at a flying-leap"—which is undoubtedly the most astonishing instance of agility on record since the cow jumped over the moon to the tune of "Hi, diddle, diddle." Our entrance, just when he had got on his knees, and was going to take her hand, somewhat disconcerted him; and we turned the incident to such advantage, that our very first jest at him in the presence of the family caused him (the boy has a fine sense of humour) to retire precipitately from the room, for fear he should compromise his dignity by exploding in laughter. He strove to preserve his gloomy demeanour for a day or two; but finding it of no effect to maintain a stern scowl on his forehead, while his mouth expanded in an unwilling grin, he gave up the attempt; and now greets any allusion to his former tragedy airs with as hearty a laugh as anybody.

Our impression is very strong that Mr. Smith is not himself satisfied with his work, and that the undiscriminating applause he has met with in some quarters will not deceive him. He must know that the ornaments of the Life-Drama are out of all proportion to the framework, and that the latter is too loosely put together to float far down the crowded stream of time. He has a strong leaning to mysticism, a common vice of the times, and should therefore exclude carefully all ideas which he cannot render clear to himself, and all expressions which fail to convey his meaning clearly to others. He should remember that, though a fine image may be welcomed for its own sake, yet, as a rule, similes and images are only admissible as illustrations, and if they do not render the parent thought more clear, they render it more cloudy. His great want is a proper root-idea, and intelligible theme which shall command the sympathies of other minds; these obtained, he will shake his faults like dewdrops from his mane; and he will find that his tropes, thus disciplined, will not only obtain double force from their fitness, but will also be intrinsically finer than the random growths of accident. It is true that Mr. Smith, through his spokesman, Walter, mentions a plan for a poem, his "loved and chosen theme," (p. 38). He says,

"I will begin in the oldest—Far in God,
When all the ages, and all suns and worlds,
And souls of men and angels lay in Him,
Like unborn forests in an acorn cup."

A prospect, the mere sketch of which fills us with concern. If we thought he would listen, we would say—No, Mr. Smith; don't begin in the oldest—leave the "dead eternities" alone, and don't let your "first chorus," on any account, be "the shouting of the morning stars." Rather begin, as you propose to end, with "silence," than in this melancholy way. Let your thoughts be based on the unalterable emotions of the heart, not on the wild driftings of the fancy. Observe all that strongly appeals to the feelings of others and of yourself—let art assist you to select and to combine—your warm imagination will give life to the conception, and your powers of fancy and language will vividly express it. Don't set down any odd conceit that may strike you about the relation of the sea and the stars, and the moon; but when you conceive an image which, besides being fine in itself, shall bear essential, not accidental, relation to some part of your theme, put it by till your main subject, in its natural expansion, affords it a fitting place.

Following this course, we trust that Alexander will prove worthy of the many illustrious scions of the house of Smith who have distinguished themselves since Adam, and maintain, its precedence over the houses of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. Sydney the Reverend—Horace and James of the Rejected Addresses—and William, of the modest and too obscure dramas (noticed by us before), might well become prouder of the patronymic to which they have already lent lustre, when Alexander, mellowed by time, and taught by thought and experience, shall have produced his next and riper work.