make a noble poem of it, it will be their own fault.
I mean that sad and fantastic tragedy of Fra Dolcino
and Margaret, which Signor Mariotti has lately given
to the English public, in a book which, both for its
matter and its manner, should be better known than
it is. Elsley’s soul had been filled (it
would have been a dull one else) with the conception
of the handsome and gifted patriot-monk, his soul
delirious with, the dream of realising a perfect Church
on earth; battling with tongue and pen, and at last
with sword, against the villanies of pope and kaiser,
and all the old devourers of the earth, cheered only
by the wild love of her who had given up wealth, fame,
friends, all which render life worth having, to die
with him a death too horrible for words. And
he had conceived (and not altogether ill) a vision,
in which, wandering along some bright Italian bay,
he met Dolcino sitting, a spirit at rest but not yet
glorified, waiting for the revival of that dead land
for which he had died; and Margaret by him, dipping
her scorched feet for ever in the cooling wave, and
looking up to the hero for whom she had given up all,
with eyes of everlasting love. There they were
to prophesy to him such things as seemed fit to him,
of the future of Italy and of Europe, of the doom
of priests and tyrants, of the sorrows and rewards
of genius unappreciated and before its age; for Elsley’s
secret vanity could see in himself a far greater likeness
to Dolcino, than Dolcino—the preacher,
confessor, bender of all hearts, man of the world and
man of action, at last crafty and all but unconquerable
guerilla warrior—would ever have acknowledged
in the self-indulgent dreamer. However, it was
a fair conception enough; though perhaps it never
would have entered Elsley’s head, had Shelley
never written the opening canto of the Revolt of Islam.
So Elsley, on a burning July forenoon, strolled up
the lane and over the down to King Arthur’s
Nose, that he might find materials for his sea-shore
scene. For he was not one of those men who live
in such quiet, everyday communication with nature,
that they drink in her various aspects as unconsciously
as the air they breathe; and so can reproduce them,
out of an inexhaustible stock of details, simply and
accurately, and yet freshly too, tinged by the peculiar
hue of the mind in which they have been long sleeping.
He walked the world, either blind to the beauty round
him, and trying to compose instead some little scrap
of beauty in his own self-imprisoned thoughts; or
else he was looking out consciously and spasmodically
for views, effects, emotions, images; something striking
and uncommon which would suggest a poetic figure,
or help out a description, or in some way re-furnish
his mind with thought. From which method it befell,
that his lamp of truth was too often burnt out just
when it was needed; and that, like the foolish virgins,
he had to go and buy oil when it was too late; or
failing that, to supply its place with some baser
artificial material.