Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam; With a Preface and Memoir

Boston. Ticknor & Fields.

A PERMANENT, though modest, place in the literature of the English language will be accorded to this little volume. Judged upon their intrinsic merits as compositions, the “Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam ” would, nevertheless, bold no abiding position among the many pleasing poems, clever dissertations, and brilliant essays annually given to the press in Great Britain and America. Were they brought to us as the writings of a young man dying at thirty-two, instead of ten years earlier, we might hastily say, that, sacred as they must be to the personal friends of the author, there was in them no excellency sufficiently marked or marketable to warrant republication. But there gather other interests about them when we are told that these compositions came from the son of a very eminent man, and were written at an age at which we congratulate ourselves, if our college-boys are not oppressively foolish. For the rare instances of hereditary transmission of distinguished mental power are well worth attention, and the maturity of thought and the suhtile trains of reflection in this youth now afford that large promise of genius which may not be confounded with those specious precocities of talent the world never lacks. Yet it is not probable that even these attractions could give to the literary remains of young Hallam that permanent place in letters which we have made bold to promise them. Only the inspirations of a great poet could wake the noblest sympathies of noblest hearts in perennial tribute to this friend so early called from life.

The student of Shakspeare’s sonnets — poems having much in common with those written in memory of Arthur Hallam — is never tired of conjecturing the person to whom they were addressed. Who was the “ only begetter ” of these passionate offerings of the poet’s love ? Might he be recognized as he walked, a man among men ? or was he the splendid idealization of genius and friendship ? There are but faint answers to these questions. After the claims of Mr. Hart, Mr. Hughes, and the Earls of Southampton and Pembroke have been duly examined, there comes the conclusion that we may not know who and what he was towards whom the august soul of Shakspeare yearned with such exceeding love. Future readers of the “In Memoriam ” of Tennyson will be more favored in their knowledge of the young man there given to fame. It will be known that he was worthy of the deep sorrow breathed into exquisite verse, — worthy also of those noble half-lights flashing above the sombre atmosphere, to show the instruction, the blessedness, the beauty, which grow from human grief. We are compelled to confess that those keen poetic glimpses into the high regions of philosophy and science, with which the memories of his friend inspired Tennyson, seem just dues to the brilliant auguries of a future which this world was not permitted to see.

An outline of Arthur’s life has already been given to the American public. Little can be added to it from his father’s touching preface to the unpublished edition of these writings in 1834, which is now reprinted. The childhood of young Hallam exhibits facility in the acquisition of knowledge, sweetness of temper, and scrupulous adherence to a sense of duty. At the age of nine he reads Latin and Greek with tolerable facility, and achieves dramatic compositions which excite the admiration of the father, — a thoroughly competent, unless partial, critic. This luxuriance of fancy is judiciously received ; no display is made of, it, and Arthur is sent to school at Putney, where he remains for two years. The common routine of English education is more than once broken by tours upon the Continent. When the boy leaves Eton in 1827, his father pronounces him “a good, though not, perhaps, first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek languages.” As certain Latin verses referred to are, for some inscrutable reason, omitted in this American edition, the reader has no means of deciding whether it is the modest reserve of the parent which pronounces them “good, without being excellent,” or the fond partiality of the father which discovers them to be “ good ” at all. In any case, we must consider Arthur’s “ comparative deficiency in classical learning,” for which the eminent historian seems almost to apologize, as one of his especial felicities. The liberalizing effect of travel, and a varied contact with men and things, prevented his powers from contracting themselves to a merely academical reputation. When at Cambridge, he renounces all competition in the niceties of classical learning, and does not attempt Latin or Greek composition during his stay at Trinity. Thus he escapes the fate of many quick minds, which, running easily upon college grooves, that end in the indorsement of a corporation, never make out to accept their own individuality for better and for worse. Arthur enters upon legal studies with acuteness, and not without interest. A few anonymous writings occupy his leisure. He is now just rising upon the world, — a brilliant orb, as yet seen only by a few watchers, who congratulate each other upon the light to be. A fatal tour to Germany, and all ends in darkness and mystery.

Judging from the writings before us, we should say that this young man was destined to a greater eminence in philosophy than in poetry. His father’s opinion, in reverse of this, was perhaps based upon average tendencies of character, instead of selected specimens of production. The best prose papers here printed, the “ Essay on the Philosophical Writings of Cicero,” and the “ Review of Professor Rossetti,” are far more remarkable for the ease with which accurate information is subjected to original, and even profound thought, than are the poems for brilliancy of imagination or mastery over the capacities of language. Still, it must be confessed, that the sonnets are full of melody and refinement,—indeed, we can recall no poet who has written much better at the same age. In all Arthur’s compositions we recognize an exquisite delicacy of feeling, without any of the daintiness of mind commonly found in intellectual youths. He seems to have acquired much of his father’s command of reading, and to have inherited those rarer faculties of selection and generalization which give to learning its coherence and significance. In contrast to the precise and somewhat hard literary style of the elder Hallam, the diction of the son glows with the sensitiveness of a highly artistic nature. Arthur’s attainments in the modern languages appear to have been considerable. He is said to have spoken French readily, and to have ranged its literature as familiarly as that of England. His Italian sonnets are pronounced by competent authority to be very remarkable for a foreigner. They are certainly marvellous for a boy of seventeen after an eight months’ visit to Italy. In fine, upon the testimony presented in this volume, we think that no considerate reader will hesitate to credit Arthur Hallam with a rich and generous character, a wide sweep of thought rising from the groundwork of solid knowledge, and the delicate aerial perceptions of high imaginative genius.

Surely the life whose untimely end called forth “ In Memoriam ” was not lost to the world. Perhaps it was by dying that the moral and intellectual gifts of this youth could most effectively reach the hearts of men. He was not unworthy his noble monument. As we turn to the familiar lyrics, they swell and deepen with a new harmony. Again, the genius of Tennyson bears us onward through tenderest allegory and subtlest analogy, until, breaking from cares and questionings so melodiously uttered, his soul soars upward through thin philosophies of the schools, and at length, in grandest spiritual repose, rests beside the friend “ who lives with God.” It is good to know that the “A. H. H.” forever encircled by the halo of that matchless verse does not live only as the idealization of the poet.