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Leigh Hunt, George Henry Lewes and
Henry Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of
Europe
by
William Baker
In his often copious annotations found in most of the books with which he came in contact Leigh Hunt, intimate of most of the great literary figures of the Romantic and post-Romantic period, recorded his direct responses to the material before him.[1] George Henry Lewes was another inveterate
The four volumes contain innumerable markings, well over one thousand in all, taking the form of underscorings, perpendicular lines, marginal exclamation marks, a marginal "q" representing question, and detailed comments. Largely the annotations are the work of two hands—Leigh Hunt and George Henry Lewes. On the fly-leaf of volume two in black ink is the note
In the first volume there are approximately twenty-one main divisions of marginalia ranging from notes on Hallam's cyclical theory of cultural development and decline to those on Dante, and fifteenth-century Italian poetry, Ariosto, the Spanish poet Cortegiano of Castiglione, the philosophical realists and nominalists of the 1440-1500 period, and general literary criticism. There are also, as has been noted factual corrections, and miscellaneous comments. Those on Italian poetry focus upon Dante and the influences upon him. Hallam comments that "The subject of Dante is truly mediaeval, but his style, the clothing of poetry, bears the strongest marks of his acquaintance with antiquity." In pencil in the right hand margin Lewes notes (in the text he has underlined the words "Dante," and "marks of his acquaintance with antiquity"):
Hallam's comment on the lack of great Italian poetry during the 1440 to 1500 period draws a response from Lewes who in pencil underlines Hallam's "nature does not think fit to produce them" in the explanation "It is vain to seek a general cause for this sterility in the cultivation of Latin and Greek literature, which we know did not obstruct the brilliancy of Italian poetry in the next age. There is only one cause for the want of great men in any period;—nature does not think fit to produce them. They are no creatures of education and circumstances." This fundamental belief of Hallam is criticised in pencil in the left hand margin of his copy by Lewes who comments "This is but saying that they are not & to defining this truism with the name of a cause can only be done by dragging in old nature as the solution of all possible problems" (I, 222). Ariosto, Amadis de Gaul, and Cortegiano of Castiglione also create annotative interest. By Hallam's statement "Ariosto has been, after Homer, the favourite poet of Europe" (I, 420), Hunt in blue ink in the left hand margin puts his "q" representing questionable. On the next page he questions Hallam's assertion that "Above sixty editions of the Orlando Furioso were published in the sixteenth century" by underlining "sixty" and in his right hand margin in bold blue ink placing two broad exclamation marks. His extensive marginal remarks are reserved for the sections on Amadis de Gaul and Castiglione. The former Romance was translated in French and in 1619 by Munday into English. Its "want of deep or permanent sympathy" must Hallam believes "alienate a reader of mature years" however "Amadis at least obtained the laurel at the hands of Cervantes." In black ink in his right hand margin and extending to the foot of the page following "alienate a reader of mature years" Leigh Hunt writes:
There is evidence of other annotative hands at work in volume one.[11] Hallam at times reflects nationalist views. Talking of the period between 1400 to 1440 he notes that "the English language was slowly refining itself, and growing into general use." The "forced introduction of French words by Chaucer," and other contemporary influences, "has given English a copiousness and variety which perhaps no other language possesses." In pencil "copiousness" and "no other language" are underlined. The right hand margin contains an attack on this attitude: "On the contrary English is not admitted to be one of the richest of all familiar languages." In what to my eye seems to be G. Eliot's hand[12] she continues "The German is the richest of all from its excessive variety of possible combinations as well as possessing many thousand more original words than any other" (I, 171-172).[13] A further example of G. Eliot's pencilled annotation may be found on the next page. Hallam the sceptic advocates what Wellek in his "English Literary Historiography during the Nineteenth Century" (see Discriminations, 1970), refers to as "the alternative theory of cyclical progress. . . . Progress in literature, though genuine, is accomplished only in leaps and jerks or in an undulating way, with relapses and retrogressions" (p. 147). For Hallam "taking Europe generally, far from being in a more advanced stage of learning at the beginning of the fifteenth century than two hundred years before, she had, in many respects, gone backwards." G. Eliot in pencil underlines "taking Europe generally," "fifteenth," "two hundred years before" and "gone backwards." Hallam's
Of philosophers and philosophical systems discussed in this first section Hallam's comments on the realist and nominalist controversy of the 1440 to 1500 period, on Averroism, and Ficinus, attract marginal attention. The whole of Hallam's chapter III, paragraph 86 explanation of "a doctrine first held by Averroes; that there is one common intelligence, active, immortal, indivisible, unconnected with matter . . . but which yet assists in the rational operation of each man's personal soul" receives a marginal vertical line. At the end of the paragraph G. Eliot notes in pencil "See Bayle-Averroes note E"—a somewhat curious reference which must remain for the time being obscure.[15] By the end of the next paragraph on Ficinus, an opponent of the Averroists, Lewes's marginalia is again in evidence. Hallam's comment that Ficinus' "own treatise, of which a very copious account will be found in Buhle, soon fell into oblivion; but it belongs to a class of literature, which, in all its extension, has, full as much as any other, engaged the human mind" elicites in the right hand margin his note "Far greater than any other Metaphysical speculations reigned almost universally Paramount till the time of Bacon" (I, 275). Lewes cannot refrain from directly contradicting Hallam's explanation of the nature of the Realist-Nominalist controversies. According to Hallam the former represented by "Plato and Aristotle, maintained their objective or external reality, either, as it was called, ante rem, as eternal archetypes in the Divine Intelligence, or in re, as forms inherent in matter." The Nominalists "with Zeno, gave them only a subjective existence as ideas conceived
Two additional notations in the first volume attract attention. The first exhibits Lewes's sense of humour, the second his sense of pathos. By Hallam's mention of Erasmus' meeting with Sir Thomas More "who could not then have been eighteen years old" Lewes adds the anecdote: "Who subsequently told him that his name betrayed his original state of Being on the theory of Metempsychosis for said he Thou wert a Mouse Eras-mus." (I, 323). The story of Lady Jane Grey is a sad one. Hallam writes that "Every one knows the behaviour of Lady Jane Grey's parents towards their accomplished and admirable child; the slave of their temper in her brief life, the victim of their ambition in death." Partially underlined in pencil is the word "temper" and in pencil in the left hand margin Lewes writes "And her own (poor soul!)" (I, 554).
There are over 200 different kinds of linings in this first volume not to mention detailed pencilled lists of subjects on the flyleaf and the end back papers of the volume. In the next volume the annotations are much more detailed and extensive and extend over a wider range of material. Annotations are provoked by material on music, the Reformation and Religion, Iberian, Italian, Elizabethan and Shakespearian literature. The most extensive marginalia in volume two relate to early Elizabethan writers, general comments on Elizabethan literature and Shakespeare. Hunt often disagrees with Hallam on points of detail. For instance when Hallam writes "Sackville is far above the frigid elegance of Surrey" in pencil he underlines "igi" and "ele" of "frigid elegance" and in the right hand margin registers his disagreement: "A mistake. See his lines on a mother thinking of her son at sea" (II, 305).[16] Similarly Hallam's comment on Sidney's Astrophel and Stella that "it is not a work of genius" cannot escape Leigh Hunt's pen. He underlines "it is not a work of" and comments "It is: but of a tender & delicate [grooming] wielding too large a [subject]" (II, 312-313). Hallam is more sympathetic to the Arcadia which "displays a superior mind, rather complying with a temporary taste than affected by it, and many pleasing passages occur, especially in the tender and innocent loves of Pyrocles and Philocles." This time G. H. Lewes rather than Hunt observes in pencil in the left hand margin aside this passage: "I have read it with delight myself & know others who have done so, I never met with a woman who had read it & was not fond of it" (II, 440). Hunt too has his moments of agreement with Henry Hallam for whom "the best of" the early Elizabethan writers "like Reginald Scot, express their meaning well, but with no attempt at a rhythmical structure or figurative language." The remainder of Hallam's point Leigh Hunt marginally lines in his right hand margin in blue ink and adds "Very good distinction." Hallam's passage reads: "they are not bad writers, because their solid sense is aptly conveyed to
Edmund Spenser was one of Leigh Hunt's favourite poets. "He constantly" quotes Spenser "in his essays" or makes "admiring allusions to him," and "through his lifelong devotion to Spenser, Hunt helped to foster the romantic enthusiasm for Elizabethan literature" (L.C. p. 678, fn. 1). Hallam's exuberant praise of Spenser is marginally matched and capped by Hunt's. Thus Hallam's slight criticism of Spenser—"His versification is in many passages beautifully harmonious; but he has frequently permitted himself, whether for the sake of variety, or from some other cause, to baulk the ear in the conclusion of a stanza"—receives Leigh Hunt's black ink left hand marginal defense "Where? It was a delicacy of music" (II, 328). Again Hallam's view that Spenser is unable to maintain the purple passages of the early books of The Faery Queen and that "There is perhaps less reason than some have imagined, to regret that Spenser did not complete his original design" receives in the right hand margin a pained "Oh! Oh!" Leigh Hunt's right hand marginal rejoinder to Hallam's objection to the length of Spenser's poetry is "Immensely abroad. He thinks we are to read it all at once! Who thinks of travelling through Arcadia all at once? The thing is, to loiter & to return, & perpetually return: to live in it all your life" (II, 329).
Hallam's method is comparative. He weighs and balances Spenser with the Orlando Furioso, Ovid, Tasso and others. Spenser's and Ariosto's allegories "are each in the spirit of" their age, "but the one was for Italy in the days of Leo, the other for England under Elizabeth, before, though but just before, the severity of the Reformation had been softened away." Hallam adds "The lay of Britomart, in twelve cantos, in praise of chastity, would have been received with a smile at the court of Ferrara, which would have had almost as little sympathy with the justice of Arthegal." Such an analogy ignores a crucial element in Spenser. Hunt writes in the left hand margin, extending himself to the foot of the page: "But there is a great deal of voluptuousness in Spenser; & his love of it is quite as great as that of chastity, & a little more sincere" (II, 330). Hallam objects to those images of Spenser, which he suspects have an Ovidian influence, as being "hideous as well as untrue" (II, 331). Among the examples he gives are Cantos 8 and 9 from the first book of the Faery Queen, commenting that "Every one knows . . . a natural forest never contains such a variety of species; nor indeed could such a medley as Spenser, treading in the steps of Ovid, has brought together from all soils and climates, exist long if planted by the hands of man." Such "Leavisite" strictures receive Leigh Hunt's left hand marginally black ink double exclamation marks followed by the comment "In Fairyland." Hallam attacks "the celebrated stanza" in the final canto (71) of the second book of the Faery Queen on the same grounds. In this stanza "winds, waves, birds, voices, and musical instruments are supposed to conspire in one harmony" (II, 332). Hallam cites Twining in his translation of Aristotle's Poetics on this—"to a person listening to a concert of voices and instruments, the interruption of singing birds, winds, and waterfalls, would be little better than the torment
Spenser is placed by Henry Hallam in his league of great poets above Ariosto and Tasso. He believes that following Shakespeare and Milton Spenser "is still the third name in the poetical literature of our country, and that he has not been surpassed, except by Dante, in any other." Hallam then adds that "If we place Tasso and Spenser apart, the English poetry of Elizabeth's reign will certainly not enter into competition with that of the corresponding" Italian period. Hunt objects to this by underlining "If" and in the left hand margin asking two questions: "But why the 'if'? and what becomes of Shakspere?" In the footnote appended to these passages Hallam cites Thomas Campbell's assessment of Spenser in his Specimens of the British Poets as "discriminating and in general sound." For Campbell Spenser in his descriptive passages "exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and robust power, which characterise the very greatest poets." Hunt underlines "th" of "nothing" and places two exclamation marks in his left hand margin. Campbell continues "but we shall nowhere find more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in the colours of language, than in this Rubens of English poetry." Leigh Hunt underlines "Rubens" and in the right hand margin in an annotation, which is now slightly cropped by rebinding of the volume, quips "!! He has far more grace & beauty than Rubens" (Hallam, II, 334, citing Campbell Specimens of the British Poets [1819] I, 125).
Hallam's discussion of Shakespeare extends over two volumes: the sixteenth-century Shakespeare in the second volume; the post-1600 Shakespeare in the third volume. Shakespeare's name is "the greatest in our literature—it is the greatest in all literature. No man ever came near him in the creative powers of the mind" (III, 574). In the second volume Hallam's comments on A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and As You Like It draw Hunt's and Lewes's attention. Whilst "perhaps no play of Shakspere has fewer blemishes" than the Midsummer Night's Dream (II, 388) it still exhibits some instances to support the contention that Shakespeare "possessed rather more acquaintance with the Latin language than many believe." Hallam gives as examples of "Latinisms": "things base and vile, holding no quantity," the last word standing "for value"; and "rivers, that 'have overborn their continents," the continente ripa of Horace." In his right hand margin, aside these illustrations, in black ink, Leigh Hunt comments "But he, Shakspere, might have got at these words by profoundly looking & inquiring into their meanings with the help of a very little Dictionary Scholarship." Beneath Lewes responds, "True but whence the necessity of this 'might' when other facts
If Hallam's footnotes are a reliable guide, the literary source of his interest in Iberian, Italian and Spanish literature is to be found in Schlegel, Bouterwek, Sismondi, and nearer home, Robert Southey. The Iberian certainly attracted Hunt and Lewes whose 1846 The Spanish Drama Lope de Vega and Calderon exhibits his wide reading in the field. From the evidence of the annotations on the subject in the second volume of Introduction to the Literature of Europe Hallam and Hunt must be an important source for Lewes's interest in the subject. Hallam's account of the sixteenth-century Portuguese epic, Camoens' poem the Lusiad and its English translation,[18] attracts Hunt's and Lewes's annotative attention. Southey's Quarterly Review essay on Mickle's translation is cited at length in a footnote by Hallam. For Southey "there is a magic of words as untranslatable as the Sesame in the Arabian tale,—you may retain the meaning, but if the words be changed the spell is lost. The magic has its effect only upon those to whom the language is as familiar as their mother tongue." Southey refines this point more clearly "hardly indeed upon any but those to whom it is really such. Camoens possesses it in perfection, it is peculiar excellence," (Quarterly Review, 27 [1821], 38). In his right hand margin Lewes in pencil marginally lines this footnote and agrees with Southey by commenting "I take this to be sp[l]endidly true" (II, 287). Hunt's interest is aroused by Hallam's comment that "the most celebrated passage in the Lusiad is that wherein the Spirit of the Cape, rising in the midst of his stormy seas, threatens the daring adventurer that violates their unploughed waters." For Hallam the spirit of the Cape's speech is "feeble and prolix . . . the awful vision answers no purpose but that of ornament,
Of Spanish late sixteenth-century dramatists Lope de Vega is the "most renowned" and comparable to Shakespeare. He also is, as Cervantes has pointed out, "'a prodigy of nature." With such praise Leigh Hunt is in accord commenting in his right hand margin in thick black ink: "Good. Particularly to me at any rate, if not so in fact." Accounts of Lope de Vega's alleged productivity naturally attract Leigh Hunt—also a far from lazy writer. Apparently de Vega's "astonishing facility enabled him to supply the Spanish theatre with upwards of 2000 original dramas, of which not more than 300 have been preserved by printing." Further, de Vega required not more than twenty-four hours to compose one of his verse dramas. Hunt's comment is "Typography wants a new note of admiration to express one's astonishment at Lope de Vega" (II, 353). This "peculiar gift of rapid composition" Hallam writes appears "more extraordinary when we attend to the nature of Lope's versification, very unlike the irregular lines of our old drama, which it is not perhaps difficult for a practised hand to write or utter extemporaneously." Not surprisingly Hunt asks in the margin "Which are they?" (II, 354). He reserves two exclamation marks surrounded by two vertical black ink lines and a "√" of approval in the right hand margin for Hallam's quip that "some of the Italian improvisatori . . . have been said to carry on at the same time three independent sonnets, uttering, in their unpremeditated strains, a line of each in alternate succession. There is reason to believe, that their extemporaneous poetry is as good as anything in Lope de Vega" (II, 355). Compared with such obvious relish for these Paganini virtuosi performance, Lewes's right hand marginal pencil "Bravissimo" by Hallam's note that Cervantes' Numancia in which "there is a moral power, for the sake of which the sufferings of sympathy must not be flinched from" (II, 363), seems dull in comparison.
The third volume published in 1839 with, on its title page, the underlined blue ink signature of "G. H. Lewes 1840," has also extensive marginalia. Subjects attracting attention range from Bacon, Hobbes and J. S. Mill, Descartes and Astrée, Cervantes and Calderon to Shakespeare and English early seventeenth-century poetry and drama. Hallam's extensive section on Shakespeare ranging from discussion of the Falstaff of The Merry Wives, through Measure for Measure, Lear, and Timon receives only G. H. Lewes's and not Leigh Hunt's marginal linings and markings rather than annotative comments. Where Lewes shows signs of disagreement with Hallam is with his general comments on Shakespeare as a comic dramatist. The Merry Wives receives high praise: "in wit and humorous detail no other" play "goes beyond it." Lewes in the left hand margin places a "q" (III, 562). Again when Hallam regards Shakespeare as vastly superior to Ben Jonson Lewes puts a
The most extensive marginalia in the volume are reserved for Hallam's strictures on Calderon and Cervantes. It is with reference to Calderon that Hallam generally, in the words of René Welleck in the "Preface" of his 1970 Johnson Reprint Corporation edition of Hallam, "rejects the extreme consequences of consistent historicism" (p. xv).[19] For Hallam "It will not convert bad writing into good to tell us, as is perpetually done, that we must place ourselves in the author's position, and make allowances for the taste of his age, or the temper of his nation." Lewes fundamentally disagrees with such a notion. In blue ink in his right margin, following his marginal lining of the passage, Lewes exclaims "Oh! Oh! Oh!" and continues "Calderon then should have written not for his age, but for this? It was because he made so lasting an impression on his age that this takes the trouble of looking at him" (III, 539).[20] Hallam's assessment of Cervantes also comes in for Lewes's serious reservations. For Hallam "Don Quixote is the only book in the Spanish Language" written during the 1600 to 1650 period "which can now be said to possess much of an European reputation. It has, however, enjoyed enough to compensate for the neglect of all the rest." In black ink in the left hand margin Lewes scrawls "Pooh! Calderon, Lope de Vega, Mariana Vese" (III, 666). Lewes makes several marginal lines by Hallam's account of Don Quixote (see III, 669, paragraph 46). Hallam takes issue with Sismondi and Bouterwek who believe that Don Quixote "a perfect man . . . is nevertheless the constant object of ridicule" (III, 668), and that "The fundamental idea of Don Quixote is the eternal contrast between the spirit of poetry and that of prose." This view "gliding too much into refinement and conjectured hypothesis" leads to "mere paradox and absurdity" (III, 667). Don Quixote is simply a comic lunatic.
Hallam writes "I must . . . venture to think as, I believe, the world has generally thought for two centuries, that Cervantes had no more profound aim than he proposes to the reader." Hallam's next sentence provokes Lewes, beginning in the left hand margin and extending over to the foot of the next but one page, in grey ink to lengthy marginal comment. Hallam writes "If the fashion of reading bad romances of chivalry perverted the taste of his contemporaries, and rendered their language ridiculous, it was natural that a zealous lover of good literature should expose this folly to the world by exaggerating its effects on a fictitious personage." Lewes underlines "reading
Why Lewes should spend so much time disagreeing with Hallam and arguing that Don Quixote is a serious tragic hero remains open to conjecture. From the present evidence it does not seem that Lewes wrote an essay solely devoted to Cervantes. His "The Rise and Fall of the European Drama," Foreign Quarterly Review, 35 (1845) does mention Cervantes but only in the company of a host of other great dramatists. Hallam's commonsense debunking approach does draw out elements evident in much of Lewes's best literary criticism: his awareness of the artistic presuppositions of a different period and country from his own; Lewes's insistence upon the serious nature of genius, and his use of the criteria of realism. It is clear that Lewes has a high opinion of Cervantes. Hallam comments that "We have only to compare" Cervantes "with Le Sage or Fielding, to judge of his vast superiority." Aside this in his left hand margin Lewes writes "!!! Scott & Cervantes!" When Hallam adds "To Scott indeed he must yield in the variety of his power; but in the line of comic romance, we should hardly think Scott his equal" Lewes underlines "hardly" and "Scott his equal" and writes "hardly think it!"[21] His
Hallam's touchstone of commonsense leads him, when dealing with early seventeenth-century poetry, into some curious positions. As Kathleen Tillotson notes in her 'Donne's Poetry in the Nineteenth Century," (Mid-Victorian studies, 1965), Hallam's "merely contemptuous tone" when speaking of Donne "is exceptional" (p. 289). For Hallam
Another early Victorian admirer of John Donne was G. H. Lewes who borrowed Leigh Hunt's copy of Donne. In his "Retrospective Reviews—No. VIII," National Magazine and Monthly Critic (April 1838), Lewes cites some of Hunt's marginalia and speaks of "Honest John Donne—rough—hearty—pointed and sincere." The Good Morrow exhibits "the true language of passion" (cited Mid-Victorian Studies, p. 292). Hunt's sympathies also were nothing if not Catholic and they extend to Suckling and Herrick as well as to Donne. In his "On Poems of Impulse" of 15 March 1854 Hunt writes that "Herrick is remarkable for his spirit of enjoyment" although "Herrick did not always, or perhaps ever, hit the flesh and blood of the thing like Suckling" (L.C. p. 545). Hunt had also a preference for Carew, whose figure he uses in his romantic novel Sir Ralph Esher (1832)—(see L. Landré, II, 348). It is consequently slightly surprising to find a lack of his annotations or markings beside Hallam's discussion of these Cavalier figures. Lewes's comments on Suckling and Herrick show however that some of his friend's enthusiasms had left their mark upon the younger man. Hallam says that "Sir John Suckling is acknowledged to have left far behind him all former writers of song in gaiety and ease." Furthermore "it is not equally clear that he has ever since been surpassed. His poetry aims at no higher praise; he shows no sentiment or imagination" (III, 509-510). It is with this last point that Hallam and his reader part company. Lewes underlines in pencil "no sentiment" and in his left hand margin writes "mistake" (III, 510). Hallam points to Herrick's poetry being somewhat sensuously wanting. For Hallam "Herrick has as much variety as the poetry of kisses can well have; but his love is in a very slight degree that of sentiment; or even any intense passion; his mistresses have little to recommend them, even in his own eyes, save their beauties." Lewes too responds to this lack in Herrick. In pencil he underlines "the poetry of kisses" and in the right hand margin comments "well expressed; but the remark is not true. Nobody has yet done justice to the 'poetry of kisses'; much less they who but write profusely [word erased] on the subject" (111, 511).
On figures perhaps now relegated to the depths of obscure footnotes Lewes has some interesting marginal disagreements with Hallam. The latter finds Phineas Fletcher's The Purple Island "insuperably wearisome." This Lewes underlines and also in pencil in the left hand margin disagrees: "by no means. I [superated] it without any weariness at all; I desired more" (III, 486). Hallam finds that Gondibert whilst "very little read . . . is better worth reading than the Purple Island." To this Lewes remarks in pencil in the left hand margin "Eminently No!" (III, 500). And there is an interesting piece of footnote annotative literary critical debate during Hallam's discussion of Johnson's essay on the "Metaphysicals." In his footnote Hallam cites Denham's lines on the Thames
My bright example, as it is my theme:—
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.
Lewes, Hunt, and Hallam, part company in their assessment of English drama during the 1600-50 period. Reviewing a performance of The Duchess of Malfi at Sadler's Wells on November 20 in the Leader (30 November 1850, p. 859), Lewes praises Webster's poetry yet finds the play a "motiveless and false exhibition of human nature."[25] Of course such a response might have been to a very bad production and performance rather than to the text of the play. Be that as it may, Hunt in his October 1842, Church of England Quarterly Review piece on Tennyson's poems, classes Webster with Beaumont and Fletcher and others as examples of "the genuine intermediate good stuff, whether of thought or feeling" (L.C. p. 526) in literature. For Hallam "Webster . . . possessed very considerable powers, and ought to be ranked . . . the next below Ford." The last three words Hunt underlines in black ink and in the right hand margin boldly writes "Oh! Oh!" (III, 619). Unfortunately his comments on Ford are difficult to find—a reflection perhaps of his feelings about this writer? He has left us though in his annotations his general reaction to Hallam's sixth chapter of his third volume—the chapter is entitled "On the English Drama [1600 to 1650]." At its conclusion Hunt adds in grey ink: "Mr. Hallam either grudges, or does not see, the superiority of Hazlitt & Lamb over such criticasters as Gifford. In either case he shews himself unequal to the subjects of this chapter." (III, 622). Hunt's reference is to William Gifford (1756-1826), editor of the Quarterly Review, whose opinions are continually cited in Hallam's chapter. But Hunt's preference for Hazlitt and Lamb may not be entirely a literary one. His personal dealings with Gifford were mixed and they mutually disliked each other.[26] Hallam, a wellknown Whig, frequently contributed to the Edinburgh Review, the rival of Gifford's Tory review,[27] which, according to Ian Jack, in 1828, two years after Gifford's death, published Southey's scathing Tory attack on Hallam's The
As with Shakespeare, Hallam's section on Milton extends across two volumes. There is a feeling when reading Hunt, Lewes and Hallam on Milton, that they are paying homage to an accepted genius rather than waxing with enthusiasm, as is clearly the case of Hunt with Spenser, or Lewes with Cervantes. Lewes's comments on Milton are sparse. In The Leader, June 22, 1850, he places Tennyson's In Memoriam above Milton's Lycidas in its expression of the depths of elegiac feeling. But is careful to add that this does not imply that Tennyson is in Milton's class (pp. 303-304). Hence by Hallam's comment that poems such as Lycidas "pretend to no credibility, they aim at no illusion; they are read with the willing abandonment of the imagination to a waking dream," Lewes in pencil in the left hand margin observes "The point is to be much better defended than this" (III, 514). He disagrees with Hallam's reservations about Warton's idea of Ovid's influence upon Milton: "Why Warton should have at once supposed Ovid to be Milton's favourite model in Hexameters, and yet so totally different, as he represents him to be, seems hard to say." To which Lewes replies in pencil in his left hand margin: "Was it not on account of a certain luxuriance & a love of mythological allusion?" (III, 526). Milton's musical knowledge is one of his assets. Of Samson Agonistes Hallam notes: "Milton seems to have forgotten that the ancient chorus had a musical accompaniment." Lewes lines the passage and in his right hand margin in pencil writes: "no; it was precisely because he remembered this I take it; chamitz or recitative will explain it" (IV, 429). For Hallam Milton "describes visible things, and often with great powers of rendering them manifest, what the Greeks called εναξγεια, though seldom with so much circumstantial exactness of observation, as Spenser or Dante; but he feels music." Lewes underlines the Greek term and in pencil in the left hand margin notes "poetical phantasy?" (IV, 426). At one point Lewes corrects a point of Hallam's detail when he writes "Of his Latin poetry some was written at the age of seventeen; in English we have nothing" to which in pencil in the right hand margin Lewes adds that "A translation of [ ] (very fine) came earlier: [& some] lines of change in the original language" (III, 511.[29] Hunt's hand is not present in these sections on Milton, but his comments on Milton, scattered throughout his writings, seem to be akin to Hallam's and
The Introduction to the Literature of Europe, is as much a history of ideas, as a history of literature. It is hardly surprising then that Lewes's attention in the third and fourth volumes should be drawn to Hallam's passages on Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, and Spinoza. Hunt is not primarily attracted by such thinkers. With the exception of a comment in his "Sketches of the living Poets: No. 4 Mr. Coleridge," Examiner, 21 October 1821, where he notes that "it might have been better for Lord Bacon had his being all for experiment not tempted him to take leave of sentiment and imagination in trying to raise his paltry worldly greatness,"[30] Hunt seems to leave philosophers well alone—as he does in his marginalia. There is one noticeable instance where Hunt marginally indicates an element of dogmatism occasionally exhibited by Hallam despite his general stance of "anti doctrinaire empiricism."[31] Hallam writes that "I have somewhere read a profound remark of Wesley, that, considering the sagacity which many animals display, we cannot fix upon reason as the distinction between them and man: the true difference is, that we are formed to know God, and they are not." Underlined in pencil is "a profound remark" plus "and they are not." At the foot of the page Hunt asks "How does he know that? Did a jackass ever say to him, 'Sir, I have no conception of a God?'" (III, 161 fn). Hallam's assertion is in strong contrast to remarks elsewhere in the Introduction. In the final volume he writes "If man was made in the image of God, he was also made in the image of an ape" (IV, 51).
Bacon is admired by Hallam and his account attracted Lewes who cites him as an authority on the subject of Bacon in his section on the philosopher in his A Biographical History of Philosophy.[32] Marginalia shows that Lewes whilst reading Hallam is creatively reacting to him. A seemingly trivial comment on Bacon—"it was by his hours of leisure, by time hardly missed from
Hallam disapproves of Hobbes as a crude materialist and defender of despotism. But, Lewes comments in his Biographical History, Hallam "has noticed the acuteness and originality which often characterize Hobbes's remarks" (p. 443). Many of these are marginally lined in Lewes's copy of the Introduction. (see Hallam, III, 284-285, 301). It is however Hallam's commentary on Lewes's beloved Spinoza which produce the richest and most
There are occasions when Lewes praises Hallam. His account of the third part of the Ethics, on the passions, comes in for especial commendation, receiving Lewes's "Bravissimo!" (IV, 258). Such praise does not preclude Lewes from attacking Hallam soon afterwards. In a footnote Hallam cites "Cudworth's Treatise on Free-will . . . where the will and understanding are purposely, and, I think, very erroneously confounded" (the reference is to the 1838 edition). The words "purposely" and "very erroneously confounded" are underlined. In the left hand margin extending to the foot of the page Lewes quips—"Poor Hallam! Why did it not strike his modesty that on so subtle a point the agreement of two such intellects as Spinoza & Cudworth was rather more efficient than any incompatibility of apprehension on his part?" (IV, 258). Hallam's commentary does give Lewes the opportunity to explicate Spinozistic ideas. He underlines Hallam's "considered under different attributes" and in the right hand margin scores his "The mind and body are but one thing, considered . . . attributes" and annotates "Extension is visible thought & thought is invisible Extension" (IV, 259).
Lewes's most extensive and impassioned comments are reserved for disagreement. During the conclusion of his Spinoza section Hallam criticises Spinoza whose metaphysical theory and moral system demonstrate "how an undeviating adherence to strict reasoning may lead a man of great acuteness and sincerity from the paths of truth." Marginally scored, this comment leads Lewes to exclaim in the left hand margin "Good God! What an assertion! A man who would seek truth must then occasionally reason inaccurately? but would not the end be better attained by always reasoning inaccurately?" For Henry Hallam "A few leading theorems, too hastily taken up as axiomatic, [underlined by Lewes] were sufficient to make" Spinoza "sacrifice, with no
The remainder of Lewes's markings have less substance and value than those on Spinoza. Hallam's comment, whilst discussing Racine's Iphigénie, that Euripides characterization "has been censured by Aristotle as inconsistent; her extreme distress at the first prospect of death being followed by an unusual display of courage" receives Lewes's right hand pencilled marginal addition "Very natural, & frequent" (IV, 457). Hallam's judgment that "In point of diction, the Spanish Friar in its tragic scenes, & All for Love, are certainly the best plays of Dryden" is followed by four right hand marginal pencilled "!!!!" 's (IV, 487). The footnote that "we can hardly think that Balzac was not gravely ironical in some of the strange hyperboles which Bouhours quotes from him" elicites Lewes's "It is amazing to me that anybody ever doubted it" (IV, 512). Two "!!" in the left hand margin are the response to the stricture that the dramas of the late Restoration period are not "less course in expression, or less impudent in their delineation of low debauchery, than those of the preceding period" (IV, 490). Finally, Hallam's low assessment of Evelyn provokes Lewes to write at the foot of the page "Evelyn (to say the worst of him; but it is as true as the best) was a moral prig, who went poking about everywhere for subjects to be shocked at" (IV, 532).
The Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries contains the considered distillations of a long life of reading and reflection by a man of letters who in the words of Leslie Stephen "commands respect by his honest, accuracy, and masculine common sense in regard to all topics within his range." (D.N.B. VIII, 981). Upwards of a thousand or more markings in the four volumes by G. H. Lewes and Leigh Hunt clearly demonstrate the assiduity of attention, which Hallam commanded by his contemporary Hunt, and the representative of the succeeding
Notes
Leigh Hunt's marginalia has not gone unnoticed. For accounts see especially L. A. Brewer's Marginalia (1926), My Leigh Hunt Library (1932), and More Marginalia ed., A. F. Trams (1931), W. J. Burke's "Leigh Hunt's Marginalia," Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 37 (February 1933), 87-107, reprints Hunt's marginalia in his copy of J. C. L. de Sismondi's Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe and has a check-list of seventy-five works in which Hunt's marginalia may be found. Of more recent studies, F. H. Ristine, "Leigh Hunt's Horace," M.L.N., 66 (1951), 540-543, and W. B. Todd, "Leigh Hunt's Annotations in Johnson's Dictionary," Modern Philology, 73 (May 1976)—"a supplement to honor Arthur Friedman," S110-S112, concentrate on Hunt's marginal responses to specific authors and not, as is the case with the present study, on his reactions to various writers from differing periods.
Lewes's marginal mania has largely been neglected. See my "G. H. Lewes's Annotations to Coleridge's The Friend (1837)," The Library, 31 (March 1976), 31-36.
For Lewes's relationship with the Hunts see A. T. Kitchell, George Lewes and George Eliot (1933), pp. 11-16, 150, and Gordon S. Haight, George Eliot: A Biography (1968), pp. 131-132. For a good general account of Leigh Hunt, his life and opinions, see K. N. Cameron, Shelley and his Circle 1773-1822 (1961- ), I, 261-275.
Shelved at B.2. 35-38. Item 927 of my The George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Library: an annotated catalogue of their books at Dr. Williams's Library London (1977) records the presence of notations in some of the volumes. Lewes's annotations on Hallam's interpretation of Spinoza, volume IV, 251-254 are cited without comment. Plate V of the catalogue reproduces annotations in Hallam volume I, 427, and IV, 251.
L. A. Brewer's description of Hunt's reading habits also fits Lewes's: "It was his custom, evidently, to read with pen in hand and to mark passages that appealed to him because of one thing or another. These markings at times took the form of underscorings; frequently a perpendicular line was drawn down the page; a "q" was placed in the margin; and again a check mark, "√" was used by him." Marginalia, p. 29. When reproducing the marginalia in the Hallam volumes, material which I have been unable to decipher is represented by [ ]. The precise dating of these annotations presents problems. It is unlikely that any of them were made prior to 1837 when Murray published the first volume. The first title page has Lewes's "1837" dating, the second volume, (published in 1839), his "June 1840" dating. The third and fourth volumes were also published in 1839. The former has Lewes's "1840" dating. But it cannot be assumed that Lewes read the volumes at these dates. His friendship with Hunt, who got crustier as he grew older, and rarely mentions Lewes in his letters, could have lasted till the 1850-51 break with his wife Agnes over her relationships with Thornton Hunt. In the Leader for July 6, 1850 he praises Leigh Hunt highly (cited Kitchel, p. 150). Lewes in a 1846 Foreign Quarterly Review essay "Leigh Hunt on the Italian Poets" criticizes Hunt's view on Dante and writes that Hunt "judges works absolutely; the effect they produce on him is taken as a test of their excellence" (vol. 36, p. 338; cited A. R. Kaminsky, Gorge Henry Lewes as Literary Critic [1969] p. 28). This could have been written during a periodical turbulent point in their relationship. Lewes's concentration in his marginalia with Iberian literature and philosophy does point towards a pre-1846 date— Lewes's work in these areas appeared in 1846. One of the contemporaries Lewes cites in his marginalia, is John Stuart Mill, with whom he seems to have been most preoccupied with in the early 1840's. Lewes's citation in the third volume of Hallam p. 253 from Mill's A System of Logic, published in March 1843, points to the probability that he wrote that particular annotation after that date.
When describing Hunt's marginalia his "L. H." signature, characteristically following his annotations, has been omitted.
Lewes's reference is to William Robertson's The History of the reign of the Emperor Charles V, first published in 1769, and which went through various editions. Hallam's omission is a surprising one.
Cf. fn. 5 above: for Hunt on Dante see C. D. Thorpe, "Leigh Hunt as Man of Letters," in Leigh Hunt's Literary Criticism, ed., L. H. Houtchens, C. W. Houtchens, pp. 23-24. This volume is henceforth referred to as L.C.
George Eliot's and Captain John Willim's. The latter, Lewes's step-father, scrawlings of content lists are found in the end back papers. The fly leaf has G. Eliot's pencilled list of 21 items of interest ranging from "Publication of translations & parts of the Bible condemned p. 258" to "Atheism in the University of Padua p. 436."
For photographic examples of George Eliot's, Lewes's, Leigh Hunt's and Willim's hand see the reproductions in my The George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Library.
Of course George Eliot was steeped in German and one can be forgiven for sometimes feeling that the prolixity which occasionally infects her prose is due to her immersion in German a language which, as she comments in "German Wit: Heinrich Heine," Westminster Review, 55 (January 1856), "easily lands itself to all the purposes of poetry" and "generally appears awkward and unmanageable in the hands of prose writers" (cited Essays of George Eliot, ed. T. Pinney, [1963], p. 250, henceforth referred to as Pinney, Essays).
In her "German Wit: Heinrich Heine" George Eliot comments that "A great deal of humour may co-exist with a great deal of barbarism, as we see in the Middle Ages." In her review of W. E. H. Lecky's History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Fortnightly Review, I (15 May 1865) she cites volume one, pp. 312, 320, of Hallam's Introduction—his section on Jean Bodin (see Pinney, Essays, 405). The Dr. Williams's copy shows no markings on these pages, nor does G. Eliot instance them in her fly leaf listing. I have not found references to Hallam's Introduction in the G. Eliot holograph notebooks that I have seen.
The form of G. Eliot's marginalia here is curious. The reference might possibly be to Pierre Bayle's Commentaire philosophique . . . ou Traité de la tolérance universelle. Rotterdam, 1713. (Dr. Williams's catalogue, item 156). Ernest Renan's Averroes et l'Averroism: essai historique was published in Paris in 1852. For G. Eliot's marked copy see Dr. Williams's catalogue, item 1792. Hallam (I, 274-275) is surprisingly sympathetic to Averroes metaphysical strictures on the soul: Emerson remarks in his "English Traits" (1856) that Hallam "is unconscious of the deep worth which lies in the mystics" (The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed., B. Atkinson, [1956], p. 653). This is, of course, not the case with George Eliot.
Probably a reference to stanza 12 in the induction to A Mirror for Magistrates, see R. Bell ed., The Annotated Edition of the English Poets, (1854) pp. 269-270. J. Haslewood's edition of Sackville appeared in 1815.
Thomas Twining's translation of Aristotle's Poetics with Twining's "'two dissertations, on poetical, and musical, imitation" was published in 1789. Hallam's reference is probably to Daniel Twining's two-volume second edition published by L. Hunnard and Sons in 1812.
Hallam's reference is to William Julius Mickle's translation of Os Lusiadas-The Lusiad; or The Discovery of India. This first appeared in 1776 and by 1820 had gone through at least three editions. John Murray published in 1826 Thomas Moore Musgrave's translation of the same work. There is a copy of Luiz de Camoens Os Lusiadas, 2 vols., Avinhaŏ, 1818, in the Lewes collection at Dr. Williams's Library. The first volume has some of Lewes's linings, the second is unopened—see item 360.
I should like to thank Professor René Wellek for sending me an inscribed copy of his "Preface."
A. R. Kaminsky in her George Henry Lewes as Literary Critic discusses at some length Lewes's writings on Calderon and Lope de Vega, see pp. 163-166.
In his "Recent Novels," Fraser's Magazine, 35 (1847) Lewes placed Fielding's Tom Jones above the Waverly novels (p. 687), but in his "Historical Romance: The Foster Brother, and Whitehall," Westminster Review, 45 (1846) he wrote that Scott "divined important historical truths which have escaped the sagacity of all historians" (p. 37). George Eliot's attitude to Scott is reflected in Lewes's inscription in the fly leaf of the first of the 48 volume set of the Waverly Novels he gave her: "To Marian Evans Lewes, The best of Novelists and Wives. These works of longest-venerated and best-loved Romancist are given by her grateful Husband 1 January 1860." Cited G. S. Haight, George Eliot A Biography. (1968), p. 319.
Louis Landré in his Leigh Hunt (1784-1859): 2 vols (1936), quotes a letter Hunt wrote to his friend Shelley on 20 September 1819: "Do you know Donne? I should like to have some more talk with you about him. He was one of those over-metaphysical-headed men, who can find out connections between everything and anything, and allowed himself at last to become a clergyman after he had (to my conviction, at least) been as free and deep a speculator in morals as yourself" (II, 168). Hunt does seem to have revised his opinion on Donne.
Reviewing Tennyson's Poems, chiefly Lyrical in the Tatler (March 1, 1831), Hunt writes that "Supposed Confessions of a Second-Rate Sensitive Mind Not in Unity with Itself" is "a very striking" poem. "It is such as Crashaw might have written in a moment of scepticism, had he possessed vigour enough." Cited L.C. p. 352. Such evidence contrasted with marginalia tempts speculation that a shift in Hunt's attitudes to the Metaphysicals took place in the 1830's.
In Johnson's "Denham," Lives of the English Poets (1779-81). For a modern text see A. Waugh ed., (1968), I, 59.
For Hallam's contributions to the Edinburgh Review see The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900, I, ed., W. E. Houghton (1966), 922. For William Gifford and the Quarterly Review see H. and H. C. Shine, The "Quarterly Review" Under Gifford. Identification of Contributors, 1809-24 (1949).
The Quarterly Review highly praised the Introduction to the Literature of Europe, see I. Jack, p. 353, and H. H. Milman's review, Quarterly Review, 65 (March 1840), 340-383.
Lewes's reference is probably to Milton's "A Paraphrase on Psalm 114" or to "Psalm 136" both of which were composed when Milton was fifteen and appeared in the 1673 edition of the Minor Poems: see The Complete Poetry of John Milton, ed., J. T. Shawcross (1971), pp. 3, 4. For Hunt's opinion see his "On the Latin Poems of Milton," Literary Examiner, 30 August 1823—pp. 178ff.
L.C. pp. 269-270. C. D. Thorpe places Leigh Hunt "quite clearly in the empirical tradition in English criticism which had made progress from at least Hobbes down." Ibid., p. 46. Carl R. Woodring's "Leigh Hunt as Political Essayist," in Leigh Hunt's Political and Occasional Essays, ed., C. W. Houtchens (1962) writes "Machiavelli and the Tractatus of Spinoza, starting points for many of Hunt's poetic contemporaries, lay beyond his goal as a political journalist" p. 9.
David M. Fahey, "Henry Hallam—A Conservative As Whig Historian," The Historian, 28 (August 1966), p. 638, fn. 52.
Published by Charles Knight in 1846. My references are to the Routledge (1900) single volume reprint—for Bacon see p. 359 fn., 381 (citing Hallam III, 169, 182).
Mill writes "the philosopher who more than all others made professions of rejecting authority, Descartes, constructed his system on this very basis. His favourite device for arriving at truth, even in regard to outward things, was by looking into his own mind for it. 'Credidi me,' says his celebrated maxim, 'pro regulâ generali sumere posse, omne id quod valdè et distinctè concipiebam, verum esse;' whatever can be very clearly conceived must certainly exist; that is as he afterwards explains it, 'if the idea includes existence.'" My reference is to A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, ed., J. M. Robson (1973), II, 751. I have been unable to locate Mill's comment on Bacon and Latin. For Lewes and J. S. Mill see A. T. Kitchell, George Lewes and George Eliot, pp. 27-43, and G. Tillotson, "A Mill-Lewes Item," Mill Newsletter, 5 (1969), 17-18.
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