The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
"I say, continuing, that long before unto
the foot of that high tower we came, our eyes
unto its summit upward went, cause of two
flamelets that we saw there placed; while
signal back another gave from far; so far the
eye a glimpse could hardly catch. Then I to
the Sea of all wisdom turned, and said: What
sayeth this and what replies that other fire?
And who are they that made it?"
We open again in Cantos Nine and Ten, and find a like resemblance
between Dr. Carlyle's prose and Mr. Peabody's metre; but we have
perhaps quoted enough to enable our readers to form a just idea of
the latter person's "labor and plodding." It is not, however, in the
text alone that the resemblance exists. J. C. Peabody's notes bear a
striking conformity to Dr. Carlyle's. There are fourteen notes to the
Second Canto in Mr. Peabody's book,--_all_ taken, with more or less
unimportant alteration and addition, from Dr. Carlyle, without
acknowledgment. Of the twelve notes to Canto Eight, nine are, with
little change, from Dr. Carlyle. We have compared no farther;
_ex uno omnes_. Now and then Mr. Peabody gives us a note of his own.
In the First Canto, for instance; he explains the allegorical
greyhound as "A looked for reformer. 'The Coming Man.'" The
appropriateness and elegance of which commentary will be manifest to
all readers familiar with the allusion. In the Fourth Canto, where
Virgil speaks of the condition of the souls in limbo, our professed
translator says: "Dante says this in bitter irony. He ill brooks the
narrow bigotry of the Church," etc. etc., showing an utter ignorance
of Dante's real adherence to the doctrine of the Church. He has here
read Dr. Carlyle's note with less attention than usual; for a
quotation contained in it from the "De Monarchià" would have set him
right. The quotation is, however, in Latin, and though Mr. Peabody
has transferred many quotations from the "Aeneid" (through Dr. Carlyle)
to his own notes, they are often so printed as not to impress one
with a strong sense of his familiarity with the Latin language. We
give one instance for the sake of illustration. On page 40 appear
the following lines:--
Terribili squarlore Charon eni plurina mento
Canities inculta jucet; staut lumina flaurina
Nor is he happier in his quotations from Italian, or in his other
displays of learning. Having occasion to quote one of Dante's most
familiar lines, he gives it in this way:--
Lasciatte ogni speranzi, voi ch'entrate.
Anacreon is with him "Anachreon"; Vallombrosa is "Vallambroso";
Aristotelian is "Aristotleian." Five times (all the instances in
which the name occurs) the Ghibelline appears as the "Ghiberlines";
and Montaperti is transformed into "Montapesti."
Nor is J.C. Peabody's poetic capacity superior to his honesty or his
learning; witness such lines as these:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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