MR. SWINBURNE ' S SONNETS IN THE EXAllINER. [TO THE EDITOR OF
THE "SPECTATOR:] SIR,—I do not write to defend myself against the remarks in your journal called forth by my sonnets in the Examiner of May 17, on Louis Napoleon. It is to me a matter of absolute indifference whether or not you may see fit to publish the disclaimer of the imputations made on them which I think it worth while to address to you. I do not believe that any man who reads my verses can doubt, or can otherwise than wilfully and malignantly misinter- Fret, the feeling which inspired them, and which they strive, though most inadequately and imperfectly, to express. That -feeling is the simple one of disgust at the insult —I might honestly say, and fear no misconstruction from any honest man, of horror at the blasphemy—offered to the name and memory or tradition of Christ by the men who, in grati- tude for the support given to the Church by Louis Bonaparte and his empire, bestowed on the most infamous of all public criminals the names till then reserved- for one whom they pro- fessed to worship as God, of " Saviour " and "Messiah." To confute the imbecile dishonesty—for by no utmost stretch of -charity can I assume it to be honest imbecility—which would bring against me the calumnious charge of a similar insult or blasphemy on my own account, I need not remind any one who and what they were who first bailed the son of Hortense by the titles of the Son of Mary. It is not, in my humble opinion, necessary to sub- scribe to the creeds or articles of any Church to earn the right of feeling and of expressing horror and disgust at this desecration of terms which must in some sense be sacred to all who have any faith or hope in the higher life of man, if it were only for their association with so much that was most noble, most venerable, and most precious in the past records of that life. And this, and nothing else, is the feeling expressed in my sonnets ; feebly expressed indeed, but at least in terms as bitter and as strong as could be supplied by my reverence for the associations thus out - raged, and my indignation at once against the perpetrators of the outrage and against the object of their hideous adulation. There are two classes of men to whom I can imagine that my expressions may reasonably give offence, as uncalled for or improper ; those to whom the name of Christ and all memories connected with it are hateful, and those to whom the name of Bonaparte and all memories connected with it are not. I belong to neither class.— I am, Sir, &c., Ball. Coll., Oxford, May 25, 1873. A. C. SWINBURNF..
[We should not have dreamt of referring to the character of Mr. Swinburne's sonnets, had we not feared that Mr. John Stuart Mill's reputation would be injured in the eyes of unthinking persons by the close association of the high estimates formed of him by his friends with so gross a parody on the most sacred of subjects as Mr. Swinburne had written. As we should not choose to print the sonnets in these columns, we must leave our readers without the means of judging of the justice of a remark which we think was mild, rather than harsh. Of "wilful malignity" and "imbecile dishonesty" Mr. Swinburne probably does not now, even in his own heart, accuse us, and we can allow for his discontent, partly perhaps with us, and still more, though less consciously, with himself.—En. Spectator.]
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