Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. John H. Ingram), “R. H. Horne,” The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. IV: Autography & Criticisms (1875), 4:89-105

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MR. R. H. HORNE, the author of “Orion,” has, of late years, acquired a high and extensive home reputation, although, as yet, he is only partially known in America. He will be remembered, however, as the author of a very well-written Introduction to Black's Translation of Schlegel's “Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature,” and as a contributor with Wordsworth, Hunt, Miss Barrett, and others, to “Chaucer Modernized.” He is the author, also, of “Cosmo de Medici,” of “The Death of Marlowe,” and, especially, of “Gregory the Seventh,” a fine tragedy, prefaced with an “Essay on Tragic Influence.” “Orion” was originally advertised to be sold for a farthing; and, at this price, three large editions were actually sold. The fourth edition, (a specimen of which now lies before us) was issued at a shilling, and also sold . A fifth is promised at half a crown; this likewise, with even a sixth at a crown, may be disposed of — partly through the intrinsic merit of the work itself — but, chiefly, through the ingenious novelty of the original price.

We have been among the earliest readers of Mr. Horne among the most earnest admirers of his high genius; — for a man of high, of the highest genius, he unquestionably is. With an eager wish to do justice to his “Gregory the Seventh,” we have never yet found exactly that opportunity we desired. Meantime, we looked, with curiosity, for what the British critics would say of a work which, in the boldness of its conception, and in the fresh originality of its management, would necessarily fall beyond the routine of their customary verbiage. We saw nothing, however, that either could or should be understood — nothing, certainly, that was worth understanding. The tragedy itself was, unhappily, not devoid of the ruling cant of the day, and its critics (that cant incarnate) took their cue from some of its infected passages, and proceeded forthwith to rhapsody and [page 90:] æsthetics, by way of giving a common-sense public an intelligible idea of the book. By the “cant of the day” we mean the disgusting practice of putting on the airs of an owl, and endeavouring to look miraculously wise; — the affectation of second sight — of a species of ecstatic prescience — of an intensely bathetic penetration into all sorts of mysteries, psychological ones in especial; — an Orphic — an ostrich affectation, which buries its head in balderdash, and, seeing nothing itself, fancies, therefore, that its preposterous carcass is not a visible object of derision for the world at large.

Of “Orion” itself, we have, as yet, seen few notices in the British periodicals, and these few are merely repetitions of the old jargon. All that has been said, for example, might be summed up in some such paragraph as this:

“ ‘Orion’ is the earnest outpouring of the oneness of the psychological MAN. It has the individuality of the true SINGLENESS. It is not to be regarded as a Poem, but as a WORK — as a multiple THEOGONY — as a manifestation of the WORKS and the DAYS. It is a pinion in the PROGRESS — a wheel in the MOVEMENT that moveth ever and goeth alway a mirror of SELF -INSPECTION, held up by the SEER of the Age essential — of the Age in esse — for the SEERS of the Ages possible — in posse. We hail a brother in the work.”

Of the mere opinions of the donkeys who bray thus — of their mere dogmas and doctrines, literary, Æsthetical, or what not — we know little, and, upon our honour, we wish to know less. Occupied, Laputically, in their great work of a progress that never progresses, we take it for granted, also, that they care as little about ours. But whatever the opinions of these people may be — however portentous the “IDEA “ which they have been so long threatening to “evolve” — we still think it clear that they take a very roundabout way of evolving it. The use of Language is in the promulgation of Thought. If a man — if an Orphicist — or a SEER — or whatever else he may choose to call himself, while the rest of the world calls him an ass — if this gentleman have an idea which he does not understand himself, the best thing he can do is to say nothing about it; for, of course, he can entertain no hope that what he, the [page 91:] SEER, cannot comprehend, should be comprehended by the mass of common humanity; but if he have an idea which is actually intelligible to himself, and if he sincerely wish to render it intelligible to others, we then hold it as indisputable that he should employ those forms of speech which are the best adapted to further his object. He should speak to the people in that people's ordinary tongue. He should arrange words, such as are habitually employed for the several preliminary and introductory ideas to be conveyed he should arrange them in collocations such as those in which we are accustomed to see those words arranged.

But to all this the Orphicist thus replies: “I am a SEER. My IDEA — the idea which by Providence I am especially commissioned to evolve — is one so vast — so novel — that ordinary words, in ordinary collocations, will be insufficient for its comfortable evolution.” Very true. We grant the vastness of the Idea — it is manifested in the sucking of the thumb — but, then, if ordinary language be insufficient — the ordinary language which men understand — à fortiori will be insufficient that inordinate language which no man has ever understood, and which any well-educated baboon would blush in being accused of understanding. The “Seer,” therefore, has no resource but to oblige mankind by holding his tongue, and suffering his Idea to remain quietly “unevolved,” until some Mesmeric mode of intercommunication shall be invented, whereby the antipodal brains of the Seer and of the man of Common Sense shall be brought into the necessary rapport. Meantime we earnestly ask if bread-and-butter be the vast Idea in question — if bread-and-butter be any portion of this vast Idea; for we have often observed that when a Seer has to speak of even so usual a thing as bread-and-butter, he can never be induced to mention it outright. He will, if you choose, say any thing and every thing but bread-and-butter. He will consent to hint at buckwheat cake. He may even accommodate you so far as to insinuate oatmeal porridge — but, if bread-and-butter be really the matter intended, we never yet met the Orphicist who could get out the three individual words “bread-and-butter.” [page 92:]

We have already said that “Gregory the Seventh” was, unhappily, infected with the customary cant of the day — the cant of the muddle-pates who dishonour a profound and ennobling philosophy by styling themselves transcendentalists. In fact, there are few highly sensitive or imaginative intellects for which the vortex of mysticism, in any shape, has not an almost irresistible influence, on account of the shadowy confines which separate the Unknown from the Sublime. Mr. Horne, then, is, in some measure, infected. The success of his previous works had led him to attempt, zealously, the production of a poem which should be worthy his high powers. We have no doubt that he revolved carefully in mind a variety of august conceptions, and from these thoughtfully selected what his judgment, rather than what his impulses, designated as the noblest and the best. In a word, he has weakly yielded his own poetic sentiment of the poetic — yielded it, in some degree, to the pertinacious opinion, and talk, of a certain junto by which he is surrounded — a junto of dreamers whose absolute intellect may, perhaps, compare with his own very much after the fashion of an ant-hill with the Andes. By this talk — by its continuity rather than by any other quality it possessed — he has been badgered into the attempt at commingling the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and of Truth. He has been so far blinded as to permit himself to imagine that a maudlin philosophy (granting it to be worth enforcing) could be enforced by poetic imagery, and illustrated by the jingling of rhythm; or, more unpardonably, he has been induced to believe that a poem, whose single object is the creation of Beauty — the novel collocation of old forms of the Beautiful and of the Sublime — could be advanced by the abstractions of a maudlin philosophy.

But the question is not even this. It is not whether it be not possible to introduce didacticism, with effect, into a poem, or possible to introduce poetical images and measures, with effect, into a didactic essay. To do either the one or the other, would be merely to surmount a difficulty — would be simply a feat of literary sleight of hand. But the true question is, whether the author who shall attempt either [page 93:] feat, will not be labouring at a disadvantage — will not be guilty of a fruitless and wasteful expenditure of energy. In minor poetical efforts, we may not so imperatively demand an adherence to the true poetical thesis. We permit trifling to some extent, in a work which we consider a trifle at best. Although we agree, for example, with Coleridge, that poetry and passion are discordant, yet we are willing to permit Tennyson to bring, to the intense passion which prompted his “Locksley Hall,” the aid of that terseness and pungency which are derivable from rhythm and from rhyme. The effect he produces, however, is a purely passionate, and not, unless in detached passages of this magnificent philippic, a properly poetic effect. His “Œnone,” on the other hand, exalts the soul not into passion, but into a conception of pure beauty, which in its elevation its calm and intense rapture — has in it a foreshadowing of the future and spiritual life, and as far transcends earthly passion as the holy radiance of the sun does the glimmering and feeble phosphorescence of the glow-worm. His “Morte D’Arthur” is in the same majestic vein. The “Sensitive Plant” of Shelley is in the same sublime spirit. Nor, if the passionate poems of Byron excite more intensely a greater number of readers than either the “œ none” or the “Sensitive Plant” does this indisputable fact prove any thing more than that the majority of mankind are more susceptible of the impulses of passion than of the impressions of beauty. Readers do exist, however, and always will exist, who, to hearts of maddening fervour, unite, in perfection, the sentiment of the beautiful that divine sixth sense which is yet so faintly understood that sense which phrenology has attempted to embody in its organ of ideality — that sense which is the basis of all Fourier's dreams — that sense which speaks of God through his purest, if not his sole attribute — which proves, and which alone proves his existence.

To readers such as these — and only to such as these — must be left the decision of what the true Poesy is. And these with no hesitation — will decide that the origin of Poetry lies in a thirst for a wilder Beauty than Earth supplies — that Poetry itself is the imperfect effort to quench [page 94:] this immortal thirst by novel combinations of beautiful forms (collocations of forms) physical or spiritual, and that this thirst when even partially allayed — this sentiment when even feebly meeting response — produces emotion to which all other human emotions are vapid and insignificant.

We shall now be fully understood. If, with Coleridge, who, however erring at times, was precisely the mind fitted to decide a question such as this — if, with him, we reject passion from the true — from the pure poetry — if we reject even passion — if we discard as feeble, as unworthy the high spirituality of the theme, (which has its origin in a sense of the Godhead) if we dismiss even the nearly divine emotion of human love — that emotion which, merely to name, now causes the pen to tremble — with how much greater reason shall we dismiss all else? And yet there are men who would mingle with the august theme the merest questions of expediency — the cant topics of the day — the doggerel æsthetics of the time — who would trammel the soul in its flight to an ideal Helusion, by the quirks and quibbles of chopped logic. There are men who do this lately there are a set of men who make a practice of doing this — and who defend it on the score of the advancement of what they suppose to be truth. Truth is, in its own essence, sub-lime — but her loftiest sublimity, as derived from man's clouded and erratic reason, is valueless — is pulseless — is utterly ineffective when brought into comparison with the unerring sense of which we speak; yet grant this truth to be all which its seekers and worshipers pretend — they forget that it is not truth, per se, which is made their thesis, but an argumentation, often maudlin and pedantic, always shallow and unsatisfactory (as from the mere inadaptation of the vehicle it must be) by which this truth, in casual and indeterminate glimpses, is or is not — rendered manifest.

We have said that, in minor poetical efforts, we may tolerate some deflection from the true poetical thesis; but when a man of the highest powers sets himself seriously to the task of constructing what shall be most worthy those powers, we expect that he shall so choose his theme as to [page 95:] render it certain that he labour not at disadvantage. We regret to see any trivial or partial imperfection of detail; but we grieve deeply when we detect any radical error of conception.

In setting about “Orion,” Mr. Horne proposed to himself, (in accordance with the views of his junto) to “elaborate a morality” — he ostensibly proposed this to himself — for, in the depths of his heart, we know that he wished all juntos and all moralities in Erebus. In accordance with the notions of his set, however, he felt a species of shame-facedness in not making the enforcement of some certain dogmas or doctrines (questionable or unquestionable) about Progress, the obvious or apparent object of his poem. This shame-facedness is the cue to the concluding sentence of the Preface. “Meantime, the design of this poem of ‘Orion’ is far from being intended as a mere echo or reflection of the past, and is, in itself, and in other respects, a novel experiment upon the mind of a nation.” Mr. Horne conceived, in fact, that to compose a poem merely for that poem's sake — and to acknowledge such to be his purpose — would be to subject himself to the charge of imbecility — of triviality — of deficiency in the true dignity and force; but, had he listened to the dictates of his own soul, he could not have failed to perceive, at once, that under the sun there exists no work more intrinsically noble, than this very poem written solely for the poem's sake.

But let us regard “Orion” as it is. It has an under and an upper current of meaning; in other words, it is an allegory. But the poet's sense of fitness (which, under no circumstances of mere conventional opinion, could be more than half subdued) has so far softened this allegory as to keep it, generally, well subject to the ostensible narrative. The purport of the moral conveyed is by no means clear — showing conclusively that the heart of the poet was not with it. It vacillates. At one time a certain set of opinions predominate — then another. We may generalize the subject, however, by calling it a homily against supineness or apathy in the cause of human progress, and in favour of energetic action for the good of the race. This is precisely [page 96:] the IDEA of the present school of canters. How feebly the case is made out in the poem — how insufficient has been all Mr. Horne's poetical rhetoric in convincing even himself — may be gleaned from the unusual bombast, rigmarole, and mystification of the concluding paragraph, in which he has thought it necessary to say something very profound, by way of putting the sting to his epigram, the point to his moral. The words put us much in mind of the “nonsense verses” of Du Bartas.

The upper current of the theme is based upon the various Greek fables about Orion. The author, in his brief preface, speaks about “writing from an old Greek fable” — but his story is, more properly, a very judicious selection and modification of a great variety of Greek and Roman fables concerning Orion and other personages with whom these fables bring Orion in collision. And here we have only to object that the really magnificent abilities of Mr. Horne might have been better employed in an entirely original conception. The story he tells is beautiful indeed, — and nil tetigit, certainly, quod non ornavit — but our memories — our classic recollections are continually at war with his claims to regard, and we too often find ourselves rather speculating upon what he might have done, than admiring what he has really accomplished.

The narrative, as our poet has arranged it, runs nearly thus: Orion, hunting on foot amid the mountains of Chios, encounters Artemis (Diana) with her train. The goddess, at first indignant at the giant's intrusion upon her grounds, becomes, in the second place, enamored. Her pure love spiritualizes the merely animal nature of Orion, but does not render him happy. He is filled with vague aspirations and desires. He buries himself in sensual pleasures. In the mad dreams of intoxication, he beholds a vision of Merope, the daughter of Œnopion, king of Chios. She is the type of [page 97:] physical beauty. She cries in his ear, “Depart from Artemis! She loves thee not — thou art too full of earth.” Awaking, he seeks the love of Merope. It is returned. Œnopion, dreading the giant and his brethren, yet scorning his pretensions, temporizes. He consents to bestow upon Orion the hand of Merope, on condition of the island being cleared, within six days, of its savage beasts and serpents. Orion, seeking the aid of his brethren, accomplishes the task. Œnopion again hesitates. Enraged, the giants make war upon him, and carry off the princess. In a remote grove Orion lives, in bliss, with his earthly love. From this delirium of happiness, he is aroused by the vengeance of Œnopion, who causes him to be surprised while asleep, and deprived of sight. The princess, being retaken, immediately forgets and deserts her lover, who, in his wretchedness, seeks, at the suggestion of a shepherd, the aid of Eos (Aurora) who, also becoming enamored of him, restores his sight. The love of Eos, less earthly than that of Merope, less cold than that of Artemis, fully satisfies his soul. He is at length happy. But the jealousy of Artemis destroys him. She pierces him with her arrows while in the very act of gratefully renovating her temple at Delos. In despair, Eos flies to Artemis, reproves her, represents to her the bareness of her jealousy and revenge, softens her, and obtains her consent to unite with herself — with Eos — in a prayer to Zeus (Jupiter) for the restoration of the giant to life. The prayer is heard. Orion is not only restored to life, but rendered immortal, and placed among the constellations, where he enjoys forever the pure affection of Eos, and becomes extinguished, each morning, in her rays.

In ancient mythology, the giants are meant to typify various energies of Nature. Pursuing, we suppose, this idea, Mr. Horne has made his own giants represent certain principles of human action or passion. Thus Orion himself is the Worker or Builder, and is the type of Action or Movement itself — but, in various portions of the poem, this allegorical character is left out of sight, and that of speculative philosophy takes its place; a mere consequence of the general uncertainty of purpose, which is the chief defect [page 98:] of the work. Sometimes we even find Orion a Destroyer in place of a Builder up — as, for example, when he destroys the grove about the temple of Artemis, at Delos. Here he usurps the proper allegorical attribute of Rhexergon, (the second of the seven giants named) who is the Breaker-down, typifying the Revolutionary Principle. Autarces, the third, represents the Mob, or, more strictly, Waywardness — Capricious Action. Harpax, the fourth, serves for Rapine — Briastor, the fifth, for Brute Force — Encolyon, the sixth, the “Chainer of the Wheel,” for Conservatism — and Akinetos, the seventh, and most elaborated, for Apathy. He is termed “The Great Unmoved,” and in his mouth is put all the “worldly wisdom,” or selfishness, of the tale. The philosophy of Akinetos is, that no merely human exertion has any appreciable effect upon the Movement; and it is amusing to perceive how this great Truth (for most sincerely do we hold it to be such) speaks out from the real heart of the poet, through his Akinetos, in spite of all endeavour to overthrow it by the example of the brighter fate of Orion.

The death of Akinetos is a singularly forcible and poetic conception, and will serve to show how the giants are made to perish, generally, during the story, in agreement with their allegorical natures. The “Great Unmoved” quietly seats himself in a cave after the death of all his brethren, except Orion.

The italicized conclusion of this fine passage affords an [page 99:] instance, however, of a very blameable concision, too much affected throughout the poem.

In the deaths of Autarces, Harpax, and Encolyon, we recognize the same exceeding vigour of conception. These giants conspire against Orion, who seeks the aid of Artemis, who, in her turn, seeks the assistance of Phoibos (Phœbus.) The conspirators are in a cave, with Orion. The deaths of Rhexergon and Biastor seem to discard (and this we regret not) the allegorical meaning altogether, but are related with even more exquisite richness and delicacy of imagination, than even those of the other giants. Upon this occasion it is the jealousy of Artemis which destroys.

There are several minor defects in “Orion,” and we may as well mention them here. We sometimes meet with an instance of bad taste in a revolting picture or image; for example, at page 59, of this edition:

Sometimes — indeed very often — we encounter an altogether purposeless oddness or foreignness of speech. For example, at page 78:

Mr. Horne will find it impossible to assign a good reason for not here using “because.”

Purevaguenesses of speech abound. For example, page 89:

Now and then sentences are rendered needlessly obscure through mere involution — as at page 103:

The versification throughout is, generally, of a very remarkable excellence. At times, however, it is rough, to no purpose; as at page 44; [page 100:]

And here, at page 81:

The above is an unintentional and false Alexandrine — including a foot too much, and that a trochee in place of an iambus. But here, at page 106, we have the utterly unjustifiable anomaly of half a foot too little:

All these are mere inadvertences, of course; for the general handling of the rhythm shows the profound metrical sense of the poet. He is, perhaps, somewhat too fond of “making the sound an echo to the sense.” “Orion” embodies some of the most remarkable instances of this on record; but if smoothness — if the true rhythm of a verse be sacrificed, the sacrifice is an error. The effect is only a beauty, we think, where no sacrifice is made in its behalf. It will be found possible to reconcile all the objects in view. Nothing can justify such lines as this, at page 69:

We might urge, as another minor objection, that all the giants are made to speak in the same manner — with the same phraseology. Their characters are broadly distinctive, while their words are identical in spirit. There is sufficient individuality of sentiment, but little, or none, of language.

We must object, too, to the personal and political allusions — to the Corn-Law question, for example — to Wellington's statue, etc. These things, of course, have no business in a poem.

We will conclude our fault-finding with the remark that, as a consequence of the one radical error of conception upon which we have commented at length, the reader's attention, throughout, is painfully diverted. He is always pausing, amid poetical beauties, in the expectation of detecting among [page 101:] them some philosophical, allegorical moral. Of course, he does not fully, because he cannot uniquely, appreciate the beauties. The absolute necessity of re-perusing the poem, in order thoroughly to comprehend it, is also, most surely, to be regretted, and arises, likewise, from the one radical sin.

But of the beauties of this most remarkable poem, what shall we say? And here we find it a difficult task to be calm. And yet we have never been accused of enthusiastic encomium. It is our deliberate opinion that, in all that regards the loftiest and holiest attributes of the true Poetry, “Orion” has never been excelled. Indeed we feel strongly inclined to say that it has never been equaled. Its imagination — that quality which is all in all — is of the most refined — the most elevating — the most august character. And here we deeply regret that the necessary limits of this review will prevent us from entering, at length, into specification. In reading the poem, we marked passage after passage for extract — but, in the end, we found that we had marked nearly every passage in the book. We can now do nothing more than select a few. This, from page 3, introduces Orion himself, and we quote it, not only as an instance of refined and picturesque imagination, but as evincing the high artistical skill with which a scholar in spirit can paint an elaborate picture by a few brief touches.

These shadows are those of the coming Orion and his [page 102:] game. But who can fail to appreciate the intense beauty of the heralding shadows? Nor is this all. This “Hunter of shadows, he himself a shade,” is made symbolical, or suggestive, throughout the poem, of the speculative character of Orion; and occasionally, of his pursuit of visionary happiness. For example, at page 81, Orion, possessed of Merope, dwells with her in a remote and dense grove of cedars. Instead of directly describing his attained happiness — his perfected bliss — the poet, with an exalted sense of Art, for which we look utterly in vain in any other poem, merely introduces the image of the tamed or subdued shadow-stag, quietly browsing and drinking beneath the cedars.

There is nothing more richly — more weirdly — more chastely — more sublimely imaginative — in the wide realm of poetical literature. It will be seen that we have enthusiasm but we reserve it for pictures such as this.

. . . . . . . . . .

At page 9, Orion thus describes a palace built by him for Hephæstos (Vulcan.)

The description of the Hell in “Paradise Lost” is altogether inferior in graphic effect, in originality, in expression, in the true imagination — to these magnificent — to these unparalleled passages. For this assertion there are tens of thousands who will condemn us as heretical; but there are a “chosen few” who will feel, in their inmost souls, the simple truth of the assertion. The former class would at least be silent, could they form even a remote conception of that contempt with which we hearken to their conventional jargon.

We have room for no farther extracts of length; but we refer the reader who shall be so fortunate as to procure a copy of “Orion,” to a passage at page 22, commencing

It is descriptive of a group of lolling hounds, intermingled with sylvans, fawns, nymphs and oceanides. We refer him also to page 25, where Orion, enamored of the naked beauty of Artemis, is repulsed and frozen by her dignity. These lines end thus:

We refer, especially, too, to the description of Love, at page 29; to that of a Bacchanalian orgie, at page 34; to that of drought succeeded by rain, at page 70; and to that of the palace of Eos, at page 104.

Mr. Horne has a very peculiar and very delightful faculty of enforcing, or giving vitality to a picture, by some one vivid and intensely characteristic point or touch. He seizes the most salient feature of his theme, and makes this feature convey the whole. The combined n;auaiveté and picturesqueness of some of the passages thus enforced, cannot be sufficiently admired. For example:

Now, it is this thrusting forward of the bow-arm which is the idiosyncrasy of the action of a mass of archers. Again: Rhexergon and his friends endeavour to persuade Akinetos to be king. Observe the silent refusal of Akinetos — the pecu-liar passiveness of his action — if we may be permitted the paradox.

Here again: Merope departs from Chios in a ship.

The fleeing of the sea beneath the face of one who gazes into it from a ship's side, is the idiosyncrasy of the action of the subject. It is that which chiefly impresses the gazer.

. . . . . . . .

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But we are positively forced to conclude. It was our design to give “Orion” a careful and methodical analysis — thus to bring clearly forth its multitudinous beauties to the eye of the American public. Our limits have constrained us to treat it in an imperfect and cursory manner. We have had to content ourselves chiefly with assertion, where our original purpose was to demonstrate. We have left unsaid a hundred things which a well-grounded enthusiasm would have prompted us to say. One thing, however, we must and will say, in conclusion. “Orion” will be admitted, by every man of genius, to be one of the noblest, if not the very noblest poetical work of the age. Its defects are trivial and conventional — its beauties intrinsic and supreme.