The Poetical Works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes. Edited, with a
Memoir, by Edmund Grosse. 2 vols. (Dent and Co.)—It may be doubted whether these attractive-looking volumes will do much for the fame of Beddoes, whose eccentricities and affectations are more conspicuous than his genius. He was brilliantly clever, and the labour expended on a drama such as Death's Jest-Book must have been immense ; but whatever power it possesses is due to the Elizabethan dramatists from whom Beddoes caught his fire. As a poetical artificer struggling to reproduce Elizabethan art, he is perhaps an interesting figure ; but the dramatist who builds upon the foundat on of other men lacks the vitality of a genuine poet, and Mr. Gosse admits that he wears borrowed plumes. Curiosity may attract readers to Beddoes, but this feeling is not likely to merge in the appreciation coveted by a poet. Strange to say, Beddoes was as conscious of the uselessness of attempting a revival of the Elizabethan drama as any of his critics. Writing to his friend Kelsall, he remarks :—" Say what you will, I am convinced the man who is to awaken the drama must be a bold, tramping fellow—no creeper into worm-holes—no reviver even, however good. These reanimations are vampire cold. Such ghosts as Marlow, Webster, /re., are better dramatists, better poets, I dare say, than any contemporary of ours; but they are ghosts,—the worm is in their pages With the greatest reverence for all the antiquities of the drama, I still think that we had better beget and revive, attempt to give the literature of this age an idiosyncrasy and spirit of its own, and only raise a ghost to gaze on, not to live with." These are sensible words; but Beddoes forgot, or was unable to follow, his own teaching, and his plays are without spontaneity, and without human interest. His songs, on the other hand, despite much grotesque absurdity, which the editor kindly calls "grisly humour," have sometimes the freedom and freshness of poetical life. In Mr. Ward's "English Poets," Mr. Goose has already done justice to Beddoes as a lyric poet, and the verses now printed for the first time illustrate his art without changing our im- pression of it. The introduction contains some fresh and pitiful facts with regard to this unhappy poet. The Beddoes papers were handed over to Mr. Browning by the poet's executor and original editor in 1883. Mr. Gosse was asked to assist Browning in ex- amining the MSS., and the result is seen in these volumes, for. which the editor is wholly responsible. It has been known that
Beddoes died in a Swiss hospital under mysterious circumstances ; but it now appears that he committed suicide in a peculiarly painful way. He appears to have suffered at Basle from great dejec- tion, and to have inflicted a deep wound on his leg with a razor. He was then taken to the hospital, but the wound proved incurable, for the patient tore off the bandages, gan- grene of the foot followed, and the leg was amputated. After the operation Beddoes seems for a time to have been more cheer- ful; but the first day he was able to leave the house he used his authority as a physician to procure kawara, and with this deadly poison destroyed his life. A letter was found upon him addressed to a friend which contained these words :—" I am food for what I am good for—worms I ought to have been„ among other things, a good poet. Life was too great a bore on one peg, and that a bad one." A good poet Beddoes would never have made, and Mr. Geese's criticism of his genius is somewhat contradictory. He has no sustained invention, we are told, and
is powerless in evolution. Even his Death's Jest-Book, on which he laboured "for many years in season and out of season," is "a huge domestic Frankenstein which by adroit editing could be forced into the likeness of a tragedy," and "the passions with
which he deals are positively obsolete." Yet he was, at the same time, "a poetical artist of consummate ability." In a kindred art there are clever copyists of the old masters whose paintings may deceive' an unskilled eye. The simulation of genius is on the canvas, but the creative force of a great artist is lacking. It is, at its best, clever manipulation, and does not rise into the region of art. A similar verdict may be passed on the quaint and laboured dramas of Beddoes.
Previous page
