And the Age itself,does it not,beyond most ages,demand and require clear speech;an Age incapable of being sung to,in any but a trivial manner,till these convulsive agonies and wild revolutionary overturnings readjust themselves?Intelligible word of command,not musical psalmody and fiddling,is possible in this fell storm of battle.Beyond all ages,our Age admonishes whatsoever thinking or writing man it has:Oh,speak to me some wise intelligible speech;your wise meaning in the shortest and clearest way;behold I am dying for want of wise meaning,and insight into the devouring fact:speak,if you have any wisdom!As to song so called,and your fiddling talent,--even if you have one,much more if you have none,--we will talk of that a couple of centuries hence,when things are calmer again.Homer shall be thrice welcome;but only when Troy is _taken_:
alas,while the siege lasts,and battle's fury rages everywhere,what can I do with the Homer?I want Achilleus and Odysseus,and am enraged to see them trying to be Homers!"--Sterling,who respected my sincerity,and always was amenable enough to counsel,was doubtless much confused by such contradictory diagnosis of his case.The question,Poetry or Prose?became more and more pressing,more and more insoluble.He decided,at last,to appeal to the public upon it;--got ready,in the late autumn,a small select Volume of his verses;and was now busy pushing it through the press.Unfortunately,in the mean while,a grave illness,of the old pulmonary sort,overtook him,which at one time threatened to be dangerous.This is a glance again into his interior household in these circumstances:--_To his Mother_.
"_December 21st_,1839.--The Tin box came quite safe,with all its miscellaneous contents.I suppose we are to thank you for the _Comic Almanac_,which,as usual,is very amusing;and for the Book on _Watt_,which disappointed me.The scientific part is no doubt very good,and particularly clear and ******;but there is nothing remarkable in the account of Watt's character;and it is an absurd piece of French impertinence in Arago to say,that England has not yet learnt to appreciate men like Watt,because he was not made a peer;which,were our peerage an institution like that of France,would have been very proper.
"I have now finished correcting the proofs of my little Volume of Poems.It has been a great plague to me,and one that I would not have incurred,had I expected to be laid up as I have been;but the matter was begun before I had any notion of being disabled by such an illness,--the severest I have suffered since I went to the West Indies.The Book will,after all,be a botched business in many respects;and I much doubt whether it will pay its expenses:but Itry to consider it as out of my hands,and not to fret myself about it.I shall be very curious to see Carlyle's Tractate on _Chartism_;which"--But we need not enter upon that.
Sterling's little Book was printed at his own expense;[23]published by Moxon in the very end of this year.It carries an appropriate and pretty Epigraph:--"Feeling,Thought,and Fancy be Gentle sister Graces three:
If these prove averse to me,They will punish,--pardon Ye!"He had dedicated the little Volume to Mr.Hare;--and he submitted very patiently to the discouraging neglect with which it was received by the world;for indeed the "Ye"said nothing audible,in the way of pardon or other doom;so that whether the "sister Graces"were averse or not,remained as doubtful as ever.