18 FEBRUARY 1871, Page 14

BOOKS.

THE PARADISE OF BIRDS.*

MR. COURTHOFE'S second excursion into the now almost untrodden region of refined extravaganza is a much more decided success than his first. This poem has the same excellences that we noted in Ludibria Lunz, independence, ease, and mastery of style, and a fertile and graceful fancy. But it is better constructed and more carefully executed ; in many passages the felicity of phrase and dexterity of versification leave nothing to be desired. The piece is a professed imitation of the Birds of Aristophanes, and in one or two points, such as the obstinate Toryism which the birds are made to preach, and the droll travesty of modern scientific theories, very happily introduced, it is more Aristophanic than the particular play imitated. Still, the model has operated purely as a support, and in no way as a restraint, to Mr. Courthope's muse. And indeed, the result, though it is full of pleasant reminiscences of the Athenian stage, is not, on the whole, at all like a comedy of Aristophanes. It is rather a happy development and reproduction of a single element of that complex genius ; an element, moreover, which is very commonly ignored.

The common view of Aristophanes is that he was a great genius, who proved his greatness by producing imperishable works in a genre in which immortality is peculiarly hard to earn. And the common view is in the main true ; most of his work is primarily adapted to tickle the ears of the groundlings, and is elevated into high art only by the extraordinary force, vividness, and profusion of comic imagination shown in it. The staple of many of his plays is buffoonery, always wild, and often coarse, mixed with personal satire of the most reckless kind. But his genius, though it revels with infectious enjoyment in this muddier element, and almost raises ribaldry into a fine art by a more than Shakespearian mastery over a more plastic language than Shakespeare's, could not be satisfied with such work. It is not merely that his power over the public was directed by serious purpose. Had he been but a politi-

* The Paradise of Birds. By W. J. Courthope. Edinburgh and Landon W. Blackwood and Sons.

cian in motley, the epigrammatist would scarcely have told us that " the Graces seeking an imperishable temple, found it in the soul of Aristophanes." It must be admitted that it is only at rare intervals that his power to attract the fastidious sisters appears in the plays which we possess. Of these, Mr. Courthope's model,.

the "Birds," stands pre-eminent. Here the comedian's imagination,

without losing in vitality or fertility, seems to have gained from. the subject a rarer and more romantic charm. It is tinged with a tender sympathy for the loveliest part of creation, which finds expression in the most delicious songs ; nor is there wanting suggestion of a subtle melancholy, born of the eternal contrast between the strivings of men and the harmonious immobility a nature.

It is this essentially graceful element of the Aristophanic comedy which Mr. Courthope has developed, with very success- ful adaptation, to modern thought and feeling. For the broader comic effects of his author he has little aptitude. There is no hearty rollicking fun, no " concussive cachinnations" in the piece ; nor does he attempt sharp satire or farcically extravagant in- vective. Instead of a sort of genius of gamins, flinging rapid handfuls of literary stones and mud, amid peals of laughter, at his temporary foes, we have a well-bred gentleman mildly poking at them with the end of a stick. In his jokes he wants the knack of surprising, essential condition of a jest that would be rewarded by laughter. There is only one passage where he attempts the grotesque. The soul of a French cook is introduced describing rapturously a monster dish of birds. The conception is Aristo-- phanic enough, but in Mr. Courthope's hands the figure fails to be amusing, and is simply repulsive.

On the other hand, there is no want of quiet playfulness and• delicate drollery in the extravaganza. The two human characters of the piece, Maresnest, disciple of Darwin, and Windbag, romantic poet, are very well conceived, and the dialogue and alternate action of this oddly assorted couple, is entertaining throughout. The opening scene shows us the pair on an iceberg, in Arctic night, which a hundred white bears are dragging to-- wards the Pole, in search of the Paradise of Birds. It appears that Man has shortsightedly exterminated his feathered friends ; in consequence, the insect tribes, increasing steadily in size and numbers, threaten to exterminate him ; hence Maresnest (whom

Windbag, by ingenious logic, has persuaded of the existence of the- Paradise of Birds at the Pole) has conceived the sublime notion of repeopling the air of the human region by eggs obtained at the- Pole. He feels, however, less at home in his actual situation than the romantic Windbag, who endeavours to console him by the- assurance that,— "Suppose the worst, say we are lost ;—what then

We 'scape at least Oblivion's harder fate.

Hugo himself our story will relate, How will he paint the great contrasted scene, Our human agony, the heavens serene !

The iceberg glittering o'er the darksome tide And all we feared, felt, fancied when we died !

Immortal monument ! The world will mock At Valjean's sewer and Gillyat on the rock.

Such polar winds in every thought will blow, Each word a spasm, each full stop a throe ;

While, to close all, some huge stage-thunder phrase

Will make the simple gape, and Swinburne praise."

However, they presently arrive at the Cyclone of Purgatory, where- the souls of men who have been cruel to birds are driven eternally by frozen winds. Through this they reach "The Limbo of the Obsolete," a barrier that separates the purgatory of man from the- paradise of birds, formed of embryos and specimens of imperfectly- developed races dwelling in

"The ancient, divine, unimprovable egg" (no bad emblem of the conservatism which the poet affects to commend). The gate of this barrier is formed by a Roe's egg,. with the inmate of which Maresnest parleys for admittance ; but getting provoked by his crass ignorance of his origin, is moved to- give him the following lecture on development :—

" Ho ! ye obsolete wings, in the outset of things, which the clergy' Creation miscall, There was naught to perplex by shape, species, or sex ; indeed, there- was nothing at all, But a motion most comic of dust-motes atomic, a chaos of decimals fractions, Of which each under Fate was impelled to his mate by Love or the law of Attractions.

So jarred the old world, in blind particles hurled, and Love was the first to attune it, Yet not by prevision, but simple collision—and this was the cause of the• Unit.

Of the worlds thus begun the first was the Sun, who, wishing to round off his girth, Began to perspire with great circles of fire—and this was the cause of the Earth.

Soon desiring to pair, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, to monogamous custom unused, All joined by collusion in fortunate fusion, and so the Sponge-puzzle produced.

Now the Sponge had of yore many attributes more than the power to imbibe or expunge. And his leisure beguiled with the hope of a child.

" CHORUS.

" 0 philoprogenitive Sponge !

" MARESNEST.

"Then Him let us call the first Parent of all, though the clergy desire to hoodwink us ; For he gave to the Earth the first animal birth, and conceived the Ornithorhyncus.

CHORUS.

"Conceived the Ornithorhyncus !

The Roc's pride of race is dangerously disturbed, but Windbag soothes him by a song in honour of the Obsolete, which gains the pair admittance into Paradise. Here the birds are heralding the return of the vernal sun with some pretty singing. We will quote -a part of the Nightingale's strain " on Man" :—

"NIGHTINGALE.

" Man that is born of a woman, Man, her un-web-footed drake, Featherless, beakless, and human, Is what he is by mistake.

For they say that a sleep fell on Nature In midst of the making of things ; And she left him a two-legged creature, But wanting in wings.

" CHORUS.

-" Kluk-uk-uk ! kio! coo !

Peeweet! caw, caw! cuckoo!

Tio ! tuwheet! tuwhoo ! pipitopan !

Chilly, unfeathered, wingless, short-tethered, Restless, bird-nestless, unfortunate Man !

" NIGHTINGALE.

"Therefore, ye birds, in all ages, Man, in his hopes of the sky, Caught us, and clapped us in cages, Seeking instruction to fly.

But neither can cloister nor college Accord to the scholar this boon, Nor centuries give him the knowledge We get in a moon.

"CHORUS.

Klak-uk-uk! &c.

Moon-and-star-hoping, doomed to low groping, Fretting, bird-netting, tyrannical Man!

" NIGHTINGALE.

"Thoughts he sends to each planet, Uranus, Venus, and Mars, Soars to the centre to span Numbers the infinite stars.

But he never will mount as the swallows, Who dashed round his steeples to pair, Or hawked the bright flies in the hollows Of delicate air.

" Omens.

Kluk-tik-uk ! &c.

Gross, astronomical, star-gazing, comical, Hazy, moon-crazy, fantastical Man!

" NIGHTINGALE..

" Custom he does not cherish :

Eld makes room for the young ; Kingdoms prosper and perish ; Tongue gives place unto tongue.

But we lived by the laws that were shown us ; In England the song in my beak Was the same that my sire at Colonus Had sung to the Greek.

" CHORUS.

"Kluk-uk-uk ! &c.

Mushroom in dating, ancestor-hating, Smattering, much-chattering, competitive Man !"

At this pessimist view of his race Maresnest breaks out again ; and the ultimate result is that the pair are tried by jury for their in- trusion. The end of the poem is the only part which can be charged with being at all deficient in liveliness ; it is perhaps too much spun out with rather monotonous singing. But the songs are all prettily written, and the metres, especially the substitute for the long anapm3tics of Aristophanes, seem to us skilfully chosen. We have given a specimen of the latter in Maresnest's lecture, but 'we cannot forbear quoting part of another chorus chorus:— "We wish to declare how the Birds of the air all high institutions designed,

And holding in awe, art, science, and law, delivered the same to mankind. To begin with : of old Man went naked and cold whenever it pelted or froze, Till we showed him how feathers were proof against weathers ; with that he bethought him of hose.

And next it was plain that he in the rain was forced to sit dripping and blind,

While the reed-warbler swung in a nest with her young, deep-sheltered and warm from the wind.

So our homes in the boughs made him think of the house : and the swallow, to help him invent, Revealed the best way to economize clay, and bricks to combine with cement.

The owl's dark retreats showed sages the sweets of brooding to spin or unravel Fine webs in one's brain, philosophical, vain,—the swallows the pleasures of travel.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . "And whence arose love ? Go ask of the dove, or behold how the titmouse, unresting, Still early and late ever sings by his mate, to lighten her labours of nesting.

Their bonds never gall, though the leaves shoot and fall, and the seasons roll round in their course, For their Marriage each year grows more lovely and dear, and they know not decrees of Divorce.

That these things are Truth we have learned from our youth, for our hearts to our customs incline, Aa the rivers that roll from the fount of our soul, immortal, unchanging, divine.

Man, simple and old, in his ages of gold, derived from our teaching true light,

And deemed it his praise in his ancestors' ways to govern his footsteps aright.

But the fountain of woes, Philosophy, rose, and what betwixt Reason and Whim, He has splintered our rules into sections and schools, so the world is made bitter for him.

But the Birds, since on earth they discovered the worth of their souls, and resolved, with a vow, No custom to change for a new or a strange, have attained unto Paradise now."

It is impossible to imagine more sweetly persuasive conservatism.

The defect of Mr. Courthope's work in general, is one to which an independent and self-complacent writer is liable ; he is rather too easily pleased with the natural flow of his ideas. We find no fault with his expression, which in some passages—the chorus of the nightingale's song is a conspicuous instance—is singularly skilful, without ever becoming stiff. But here and there the purity and careless grace of the style cannot conceal from us a certain pointless garrulity in the matter. Such passages, however, are not fair specimens of the whole. If any one is really in the humour to enjoy refined extravaganza, if he can feel that the reply in the following couplet is completely satisfactory,

Maresnest. "Die! how's that possible, if he's a soul ? Windbag. " How ? Why by paradox, you ass! you mole!"

let him instantly sit down to this poem. He can nowhere hope to get more delicate entertainment.