Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 70, No. 433, November 1851

THE DRAMAS OF HENRY TAYLOR

There is no living writer whose rank in literature appears to be more accurately determined, or more permanently secured to him, than the author of Philip Van Artevelde.1 Not gifted with the ardent temperament, the very vivid imagination, or the warmth of passion which are supposed necessary to carry a poet to the highest eminences of his art, he has, nevertheless, that intense reflection, that large insight into human life, that severe taste, binding him always to a most select, accurate, and admirable style, which must secure him a lofty and impregnable position amongst the class of writers who come next in order to the very highest.

There have been greater poems, but in modern times we do not think there has appeared any dramatic composition which can be pronounced superior to the masterpiece of Henry Taylor. Neither of the Sardanapalus of Lord Byron, nor the Remorse of Coleridge, nor the Cenci of Shelley, could this be said. We are far from asserting that Taylor is a greater poet than Byron, or Coleridge, or Shelley; but we say that no dramatic composition of these poets surpasses, as a whole, Philip Van Artevelde. These writers have displayed, on various occasions, more passion and more pathos, and a command of more beautiful imagery, but they have none of them produced a more complete dramatic work; nor do any of them manifest a profounder insight, or a wider view of human nature, or more frequently enunciate that pathetic wisdom, that mixture of feeling and sagacity, which we look upon as holding the highest place in eloquence of every description, whether prose or verse. The last act of Shelley's drama of the Cenci has left a more vivid impression upon our mind than any single portion of the modern drama; but one act does not constitute a play, and this drama of the Cenci is so odious from its plot, and the chief character portrayed in it is, in every sense of the word, so utterly monstrous, (for Shelley has combined, for purposes of his own, a spirit of piety with the other ingredients of that diabolical character, which could not have co-existed with them,) that, notwithstanding all its beauty, we would willingly efface this poem from English literature. If one of those creatures, half beautiful woman and half scaly fish, which artists seem, with a traditional depravity of taste, to delight in, were really to be alive, and to present itself before us, it would hardly excite greater disgust than this beautifully foul drama of the Cenci.

The very fact of our author having won so distinct and undisputed a place in public estimation, must be accepted as an excuse for our prolonged delay in noticing his writings. The public very rapidly passed its verdict upon them: it was a sound one. The voice of encouragement was not needed to the author; nor did the reading world require to be informed of the fresh accession made to its stores. If we now propose to ourselves some critical observations on the dramas of Mr Taylor, we enter upon the task in exactly the same spirit that we should bring to the examination of any old writer, any veritable ancient, of established celebrity. We are too late to assist in creating a reputation for these dramas, but we may possibly throw out some critical suggestions which may contribute to their more accurate appreciation.

In Philip Van Artevelde, the great object of the author appears to have been to exhibit, in perfect union, the man of thought and the man of action. The hero is meditative as Hamlet, and as swift to act as Coriolanus. He is pensive as the Dane, and with something of the like cause for his melancholy; but so far from wasting all his energies in moody reflection, he has an equal share for a most enterprising career of real life. He throws his glance as freely and as widely over all this perplexing world, but every footstep of his own is planted with a sure and certain knowledge, and with a firm will. His thoughts may seem to play as loose as the air above him, but his standing-place is always stable as the rock. Such a character, we need not say, could hardly have been selected, and certainly could not have been portrayed with success, by any but a deeply meditative mind.

It is often remarked that the hero is the reflection of the writer. This could not be very correctly said in instances like the present. A writer still lives only in his writings, lives only in his thoughts, whatever martial feats or bold enterprises he may depict. We could not prophesy how the poet himself would act if he had been the citizen of Ghent. It is more accurate to content ourselves with saying that the delineation of his hero has given full scope to the intellectual character of the author, and to his own peculiar habits of thought. For if the great citizen of Ghent combines in an extraordinary degree the reflective and the energetic character, our author unites, in a manner almost as peculiar, two modes of thinking which at first appear to be opposed: he unites that practical sagacity which gives grave, and serious, and useful counsels upon human conduct, with that sad and profound irony – that reasoned despondency – which so generally besets the speculative mind. All life is – vanity. Yet it will not do to resign ourselves to this general conclusion, from which so little, it is plain, can be extracted. From nothing, nothing comes. We must go back, and estimate by comparison each form and department of this human life – which, as a whole, is so nugatory. Thus, practical sagacity is reinstated in full vigour, and has its fair scope of action, though ever and anon a philosophic despondency will throw its shadow over the scene.

As it is a complete man, so it is a whole life, that we have portrayed in the drama of Philip Van Artevelde. The second part is not what is understood by a "continuation" of the first, but an essential portion of the work. In the one we watch the hero rise to his culminating point; in the other we see him sink – not in crime, and not in glory, but in a sort of dim and disastrous twilight. We take up the hero from his student days; we take him from his philosophy and his fishing-line, and that obstinate pondering on unsolvable problems, which is as much a characteristic of youth as the ardent passions with which it is more generally accredited; we take him from the quiet stream which he torments, far more by the thoughts he throws upon it, than by his rod and line.

says a sarcastic enemy, who knew nothing of the trains of thought for which that angling was often a convenient disguise. A hint given in the drama will go far to explain what their hue and complexion must have been. The father of Philip had headed the patriotic cause of the citizens of Ghent; it had triumphed in his person; the same citizens of Ghent had murdered him on the threshold of his door. When he was a boy, the stains of his father's blood were still visible on that threshold: the widowed mother would not suffer them to be removed, and, nursing her revenge, loved to show them to the child. There was something here to colour the thoughts of the young fisherman.

But passion and the world are now knocking at the heart of the meditative student. Love and ambition are there, and, moreover, the turbulent condition of the city of Ghent seems to forbid the continuance of this life of quietude. The passions of the world crave admittance. Shall he admit them? The great theatre of life claims its new actor. Shall he go? Shall he commit himself once and for ever to the turmoil and delusions of that scene – delusions that will not delude, but which will exercise as great a tyranny over him as if they did? Yes; he will go. As well do battle with the world without, as eternally with his own thoughts; for this is the only alternative youth presents to us. Yes, he will go; but deliberately: he will not be borne along, he will govern his own footsteps, and, come what may, will be always master of himself.

Launoy, one of Ghent's bravest patriots, has been killed. The first reflection we hear from the lips of Artevelde is called forth by this intelligence. It does not surprise him.

If ambition wears this ambiguous aspect to his mind, it is not because he is disposed to regard the love of woman too enthusiastically.

Yet Artevelde is at this time on his way to Adriana to make that declaration which the Lady Adriana is so solicitous to hear. This a lover! Yes; only one of that order who hang over and count the beatings of their own heart.

Launoy being destroyed, and the people of Ghent having lost others of their leaders, and growing discontented with the stern rule of Van Den Bosch, some new captain or ruler of the town is looked for. The eyes of men are turned to Philip Van Artevelde. He shall be captain of the Whitehoods, and come to the rescue of the falling cause; for, of late, the Earl of Flanders has been everywhere victorious. Van Den Bosch himself makes the proposal. It is evident, from hints that follow, that Artevelde had already made his choice; he saw that the time was come when, even if he desired it, there was no maintaining a peaceful neutrality. But Van Den Bosch meets with no eager spirit ready to snatch at the perilous prize held out to him. He is no dupe to the nature of the offer, nor very willing that others should fancy him to be one —

It is worth noticing how the passion of revenge, like the others, is admitted to its post; admitted, yet coldly looked upon. He will revenge his father. Two knights, Sir Guisebert Grutt and Simon Bette, (we wish they had better names,) were mainly instrumental in his murder. These men have been playing false, by making treacherous overtures to the Earl of Flanders; they will be in his power. But they cannot, he reflects, render back the life they have destroyed —

Still less does the patriotic harangue of Van Den Bosch find an enthusiastic response. He was already too much a statesman to be a demagogue; not to mention that his father's career had taught him a bitter estimate of popularity, and of all tumultuary enthusiasm: —

He had already resolved. Such a man would not have suffered himself to be hemmed in within the space of two hours to make so great a decision; but he would not rush precipitately forward; he would feel his own will at each step. He had already resolved; but his love to Adriana troubles him at heart: he must first make all plain and intelligible there, before he becomes captain of the Whitehoods. From this interview he goes to Adriana; and then follows a dialogue, every sentence of which, if we were looking out for admirable passages for quotation, would offer itself as a candidate. We quote only, from a drama so well known, for the purpose of illustrating the analytic view we would present of its chief hero; but the passages selected for this purpose can hardly fail of being also amongst the most beautiful in themselves. Artevelde is alone, waiting for the appearance of Adriana —

Adriana appears, and in the course of the dialogue he addresses her thus: —

Adri. Oh, Artevelde, my choice is free no more."

And now he is open to hear Van Den Bosch. That veteran in war and insurrection brings him news that the people are ready to elect him for their captain or ruler.

The time of action is at hand. We now see Van Artevelde in a suit of armour; he is reclining on a window-seat in his own house, looking out upon the street. There is treason in the town; of those who flock to the market-place, some have already deserted his cause.

They join the assembly; they take their stand each by one of the traitor knights; the debate on the proposal of the Earl proceeds; three hundred citizens are to be given up to him, and on this, and other conditions, peace is to be granted. Artevelde addresses the assembly, and then turning to these knights, he continues: —

He can do "what is needful." It is admirable; everything that is said and done is admirable; but an involuntary suspicion at times creeps into the mind, that such a man as Philip Van Artevelde never lived, or could live. No man could move along such a line of enterprise with such a weight of reflection on all the springs of action. We see the calm statesman at the head of a tumultuary movement; and the meditative man, to whom revenge is the poorest of our passions, striking a blow from which an old warrior might shrink. Could a man be really impelled along a path of life like this by passions that are admitted, indeed, into the bosom, but watched like prisoners? The suspicion, we say, creeps involuntarily into the mind; but we will not entertain it – we will not yield to it. That the reflective and energetic characters are, in certain degrees, combined together, we all know; and who shall say within what degrees only this is possible? And why may not an ideal perfection of this kind be portrayed as well as an ideal patriot, or an ideal monk, or an ideal warrior? We throw the suspicion aside, and continue our analysis.

There is a passage which is often quoted for its great beauty: we quote it also for its great appropriateness. Philip Van Artevelde is master of the city; he is contemplating it at night-time from the tower of St Nicholas. The reflection here put into the mouth of the anxious captain brings back to us, in the midst of war and the cares of government, the meditative man: —

The famous scene, which has for its place the summit of this tower, between Artevelde and Van Den Bosch, is fresh in the recollection of every reader: we must pass it by, and the admirable and pathetic description of the famine that is raging in Ghent, and proceed to the last act of this part of the drama. Artevelde has stimulated the citizens to make one brave effort more – to sally from the walls, and meet the Earl in battle before Bruges. He has arranged in order of battle his lean and famine-stricken, but desperate little army. He knows the extreme peril in which they stand: no food in the camp; fearful odds to be encountered; yet the only hope lying in immediate battle. He does not delude himself for a moment; he sees the danger clear, and entertains it with a certain sarcastic levity. He does not hope, but he acts as if he did. He is not a man given to hope, but he has a tempered despondency, which sits with him at the council-board, and rides with him to the field, and which he compels to do the services of hope.

We like this last expression. What in another man would have been a mere petulance, is in Artevelde an assumed confidence – consciously assumed, as the only tone of mind in which to pass through the present crisis. Nor can we omit to notice the following passage, which, to our apprehension, is very characteristic of our contemplative politician and warrior; it shows the sardonic vein running through his grave and serious thoughts: —

The battle is fought and a victory won. Justice is executed with stern and considerate resolve on the villains of the piece, and we leave Van Artevelde triumphant in his great contest, and happy in the love of Adriana.

The subordinate characters who are introduced into this first part of the drama, we have no space to examine minutely. The canvass is well filled, though the chief figure stands forward with due prominence. Adriana is all that an amiable and loving woman should be. The lighter-hearted Clara is intended as a sort of contrast and relief. Her levity and wit are not always graceful; they are not so in the early scene where she jests with the page: afterwards, when in presence of her lover, she has a fitter and more genial subject for her playful wit, and succeeds much better. In the course of the drama, when the famine is raging in Ghent, she appears as the true sister of Philip Van Artevelde. At her first introduction she is somewhat too hoydenish for the mistress of the noble D'Arlon. D'Arlon is all that a knight should be, and Gilbert Matthew is a consummate villain.

Between the first and second parts is a poem in rhyme, called "The Lay of Elena." This introduces us to the lady who is to be the heroine of the second part of the drama. All the information it gives, might, we think, have been better conveyed in a few lines of blank verse, added to that vindication of herself which Elena pours forth in the first act, when Sir Fleureant of Heurlée comes to reclaim her on the part of the Duke of Bourbon. This poem is no favourite of ours; but the worst compliment we would pay it implies, in one point of view, a certain fitness and propriety – we were glad to return to the blank verse of our author, in which we find both more music and more pathos than in these rhymes.

If we are tempted to suspect, whilst reading the first part of this drama, that the character of Philip Van Artevelde combines in a quite ideal perfection the man of thought with the man of action, we, at all events, cannot accuse the author, in this second part, of representing an ideal or superhuman happiness as the result of this perfect combination. It is a very truthful sad-coloured destiny that he portrays. The gloomy passionate sunset of life has been a favourite subject with poets; but what other author has chosen the clouded afternoon of life, the cheerless twilight, and the sun setting behind cold and dark clouds? It was a bold attempt. It has been successfully achieved. But no amount of talent legitimately expended on it could make this second part as attractive as the first. When the heroic man has accomplished his heroic action, life assumes to him, more than to any other, a most ordinary aspect: his later years bring dwarfish hopes and projects, or none at all; they bring desires no longer "gay," and welcomed only for such poor life as they may have in them. Philip Van Artevelde is now the Regent of Flanders, and, like other regents, has to hold his own: Adriana he has lost; her place is supplied by one still fair but faded, and who, though she deserved a better fate, must still be described as lately the mistress of the Duke of Bourbon. It is the hero still, but he has descended into the commonplace of courts and politics.