LECTURE VIII.
franchise.
191. In my first lecture of this course, you remember that I showed you (§ 17) the Lion of St. Mark's with Niccola Pisano's, calling the one an evangelical-preacher lion, and the other a real, and naturally affectionate, lioness.
And the one I showed you as Byzantine, the other as Gothic.
So that I thus called the Greek art pious, and the Gothic profane.
Whereas in nearly all our ordinary modes of thought, and in all my own general references to either art, we assume Greek or classic work to be profane, and Gothic pious, or religious.
192. Very short reflection, if steady and clear, will both show you how confused our ideas are usually on this subject, and how definite they may within certain limits become.
First of all, don't confuse piety with Christianity. There are pious Greeks and impious Greeks; pious Turks and impious Turks; pious Christians and impious Christians; pious modern infidels and impious modern infidels. In case you do not quite know what piety really means, we will try to know better in next lecture; for the present, understand that I mean distinctly to call Greek art, in the true sense of the word, pious, and Gothic, as opposed to it, profane.
193. But when I oppose these two words, Gothic and Greek, don't run away with the notion that I necessarily mean to oppose Christian and Greek. You must not confuse Gothic blood in a man's veins, with Christian feeling in a man's breast. There are unconverted and converted Goths; unconverted and converted Greeks. The Greek and Gothic temper is equally opposed, where the name of Christ has never been uttered by either, or when every other name is equally detested by both.
I want you to-day to examine with me that essential difference between Greek and Gothic temper, irrespective of creed, to which I have referred in my preface to the last edition of the "Stones of Venice" (1873), saying that the Byzantines gave law to Norman license. And I must therefore ask your patience while I clear your minds from some too prevalent errors as to the meaning of those two words, law and license.
194. There is perhaps no more curious proof of the disorder which impatient and impertinent science is introducing into classical thought and language, than the title chosen by the Duke of Argyll for his interesting study of Natural History—'The Reign of Law.' Law cannot reign. If a natural law, it admits no disobedience, and has nothing to put right. If a human one, it can compel no obedience, and has no power to prevent wrong. A king only can reign;—a person, that is to say, who, conscious of natural law, enforces human law so far as it is just.
195. Kinghood is equally necessary in Greek dynasty, and in Gothic. Theseus is every inch a king, as well as Edward III. But the laws which they have to enforce on their own and their companions' humanity are opposed to each other as much as their dispositions are.
The function of a Greek king was to enforce labour.
That of a Gothic king, to restrain rage.
The laws of Greece determine the wise methods of labour; and the laws of France determine the wise restraints of passion.
For the sins of Greece are in Indolence, and its pleasures; and the sins of France are in Fury, and its pleasures.
196. You are now again surprised, probably, at hearing me oppose France typically to Greece.
More strictly, I might oppose only a part of France,—Normandy. But it is better to say, France,[1] as embracing the seat of the established Norman power in the Island of our Lady; and the province in which it was crowned,—Champagne.
France is everlastingly, by birth, name, and nature, the country of the Franks, or free persons; and the first source of European frankness, or franchise. The Latin for franchise is libertas. But the modern or Cockney-English word, liberty,—Mr. John Stuart Mill's,—is not the equivalent of libertas; and the modern or Cockney-French word liberté,—M. Victor Hugo's,—is not the equivalent of franchise.
197. The Latin for franchise, I have said, is libertas; the Greek is ἐλευθερία. In the thoughts of all three nations, the idea is precisely the same, and the word used for the idea by each nation therefore accurately translates the word of the other: ἐλευθερία—libertas—franchise—reciprocally translate each other. Leonidas is characteristically ἐλεύθερος; among Greeks; Publicola, characteristically liber, among Romans; Edward III. and the Black Prince, characteristically frank among French. And that common idea, which the words express, as all the careful scholars among you will know, is, with all the three nations, mainly of deliverance from the slavery of passion. To be ἐλεύθερος, liber, or franc, is first to have learned how to rule our own passions; and then, certain that our own conduct is right, to persist in that conduct against all resistance, whether of counter-opinion, counter-pain, or counter-pleasure. To be defiant alike of the mob's thought, of the adversary's threat, and the harlot's temptation,—this is in the meaning of every great nation to be free; and the one condition upon which that freedom can be obtained is pronounced to you in a single verse of the 119th Psalm, "I will walk at liberty, for I seek Thy precepts."
198. Thy precepts:—Law, observe, being dominant over the Gothic as over the Greek king, but a quite different law. Edward III. feeling no anger against the Sieur de Ribaumont, and crowning him with his own pearl chaplet, is obeying the law of love, restraining anger; but Theseus, slaying the Minotaur, is obeying the law of justice, and enforcing anger.
The one is acting under the law of the charity, χάρις, or grace of God; the other under the law of His judgment. The two together fulfil His κρίσις and ἀγάπη.
199. Therefore the Greek dynasties are finally expressed in the kinghoods of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus, who judge infallibly, and divide arithmetically. But the dynasty of the Gothic king is in equity and compassion, and his arithmetic is in largesse,
"Whose moste joy was, I wis,
When that she gave, and said, Have this."
So that to put it in shortest terms of all, Greek law is of Stasy, and Gothic of Ec-stasy; there is no limit to the freedom of the Gothic hand or heart, and the children are most in the delight and the glory of liberty when they most seek their Father's precepts.
200. The two lines I have just quoted are, as you probably remember, from Chaucer's translation of the French Romance of the Rose, out of which I before quoted to you the description of the virtue of Debonnaireté. Now that Debonnaireté of the Painted Chamber of Westminster is the typical figure used by the French sculptors and painters for 'franchise,' frankness, or Frenchness; but in the Painted Chamber, Debonnaireté, high breeding, 'out of goodnestedness,' or gentleness, is used, as an English king's English, of the Norman franchise. Here, then, is our own royalty,—let us call it Englishness, the grace of our proper kinghood;—and here is French royalty, the grace of French kinghood—Frenchness, rudely but sufficiently drawn by M. Didron from the porch of Chartres. She has the crown of fleur-de-lys, and William the Norman's shield.
201. Now this grace of high birth, the grace of his or her Most Gracious Majesty, has her name at Chartres written beside her, in Latin. Had it been in Greek, it would have been ἐλευθερία. Being in Latin, what do you think it must be necessarily?—Of course, Libertas. Now M. Didron is quite the best writer on art that I know,—full of sense and intelligence; but of course, as a modern Frenchman,—one of a nation for whom the Latin and Gothic ideas of libertas have entirely vanished,—he is not on his guard against the trap here laid for him. He looks at the word libertas through his spectacles;—can't understand, being a thoroughly good antiquary,[2] how such a virtue, or privilege, could honestly be carved with approval in the twelfth century;—rubs his spectacles; rubs the inscription, to make sure of its every letter; stamps it, to make surer still;— and at last, though in a greatly bewildered state of mind, remains convinced that here is a sculpture of 'La Liberté' in the twelfth century. "C'est bien la liberté!" "On lit parfaitement libertas."
202. Not so, my good M. Didron!—a very different personage, this; of whom more, presently, though the letters of her name are indeed so plainly, 'Libertas, et non liberalitas,' liberalitas being the Latin for largesse, not for franchise.
This, then, is the opposition between the Greek and Gothic dynasties, in their passionate or vital nature; in the animal and inbred part of them;—Classic and romantic, Static and ex-static. But now, what opposition is there between their divine natures? Between Theseus and Edward III., as warriors, we now know the difference; but between Theseus and Edward III., as theologians; as dreaming and discerning creatures, as didactic kings,—engraving letters with the point of the sword, instead of thrusting men through with it,—changing the club into the ferula, and becoming schoolmasters as well as kings; what is, thus, the difference between them?
Theologians I called them. Philologians would be a better word,—lovers of the Δογος, or Word, by which the heavens and earth were made. What logos, about this Logos, have they learned, or can they teach?
203. I showed you, in my first lecture, the Byzantine Greek lion, as descended by true unblemished line from the Nemean Greek: but with this difference: Heracles kills the beast, and makes a helmet and cloak of his skin; the Greek St. Mark converts the beast, and makes an evangelist of him.
Is not that a greater difference, think you, than one of mere decadence?
This 'maniera goffa e sproporzionata' of Vasari is not, then, merely the wasting away of former leonine strength into thin rigidities of death? There is another change going on at the same time,—body perhaps subjecting itself to spirit.
I will not tease you with further questions. The facts are simple enough. Theseus and Heracles have their religion, sincere and sufficient,—a religion of lion-killers, minotaur-killers, very curious and rude; Eleusinian mystery mingled in it, inscrutable to us now,—partly always so, even to them.
204. Well; the Greek nation, in process of time, loses its manliness,— becomes Graeculus instead of Greek. But though effeminate and feeble, it inherits all the subtlety of its art, all the cunning of its mystery; and it is converted to a more spiritual religion. Nor is it altogether degraded, even by the diminution of its animal energy. Certain spiritual phenomena are possible to the weak, which are hidden from the strong;—nay, the monk may, in his order of being, possess strength denied to the warrior. Is it altogether, think you, by blundering, or by disproportion in intellect or in body, that Theseus becomes St. Athanase? For that is the kind of change which takes place, from the days of the great King of Athens, to those of the great Bishop of Alexandria, in the thought and theology, or, summarily, in the spirit of the Greek.
Now we have learned indeed the difference between the Gothic knight and the Greek knight; but what will be the difference between the Gothic saint and Greek saint?
Franchise of body against constancy of body.
Franchise of thought, then, against constancy of thought.
Edward III. against Theseus.
And the Frank of Assisi against St. Athanase.
205. Utter franchise, utter gentleness in theological thought. Instead of, 'This is the faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved,' 'This is the love, which if a bird or an insect keep faithfully, it shall be saved.'
Gentlemen, you have at present arrived at a phase of natural science in which, rejecting alike the theology of the Byzantine, and the affection of the Frank, you can only contemplate a bird as flying under the reign of law, and a cricket as singing under the compulsion of caloric.
I do not know whether you yet feel that the position of your boat on the river also depends entirely on the reign of law, or whether, as your churches and concert-rooms are privileged in the possession of organs blown by steam, you are learning yourselves to sing by gas, and expect the Dies Irae to be announced by a steam-trumpet. But I can very positively assure you that, in my poor domain of imitative art, not all the mechanical or gaseous forces of the world, nor all the laws of the universe, will enable you either to see a colour, or draw a line, without that singular force anciently called the soul, which it was the function of the Greek to discipline in the duty of the servants of God, and of the Goth to lead into the liberty of His children.
206. But in one respect I wish you were more conscious of the existence of law than you appear to be. The difference which I have pointed out to you as existing between these great nations, exists also between two orders of intelligence among men, of which the one is usually called Classic, the other Romantic. Without entering into any of the fine distinctions between these two sects, this broad one is to be observed as constant: that the writers and painters of the Classic school set down nothing but what is known to be true, and set it down in the perfectest manner possible in their way, and are thenceforward authorities from whom there is no appeal. Romantic writers and painters, on the contrary, express themselves under the impulse of passions which may indeed lead them to the discovery of new truths, or to the more delightful arrangement or presentment of things already known: but their work, however brilliant or lovely, remains imperfect, and without authority. It is not possible, of course, to separate these two orders of men trenchantly: a classic writer may sometimes, whatever his care, admit an error, and a romantic one may reach perfection through enthusiasm. But, practically, you may separate the two for your study and your education; and, during your youth, the business of us your masters is to enforce on you the reading, for school work, only of classical books; and to see that your minds are both informed of the indisputable facts they contain, and accustomed to act with the infallible accuracy of which they set the example.
207. I have not time to make the calculation, but I suppose that the daily literature by which we now are principally nourished is so large in issue that though St. John's "even the world itself could not contain the books which should be written" may be still hyperbole, it is nevertheless literally true that the world might be wrapped in the books which are written; and that the sheets of paper covered with type on any given subject, interesting to the modern mind, (say the prospects of the Claimant,) issued in the form of English morning papers during a single year, would be enough literally to pack the world in.
208. Now I will read you fifty-two lines of a classical author, which, once well read and understood, contain more truth than has been told you all this year by this whole globe's compass of print.
Fifty-two lines, of which you will recognize some as hackneyed, and see little to admire in others. But it is not possible to put the statements they contain into better English, nor to invalidate one syllable of the statements they contain.[3]
209. Even those, and there may be many here, who would dispute the truth of the passage, will admit its exquisite distinctness and construction. If it be untrue, that is merely because I have not been taught by my modern education to recognize a classical author; but whatever my mistakes, or yours, may be, there are certain truths long known to all rational men, and indisputable. You may add to them, but you cannot diminish them. And it is the business of a University to determine what books of this kind exist, and to enforce the understanding of them,
210. The classical and romantic arts which we have now under examination therefore consist,—the first, in that which represented, under whatever symbols, truths respecting the history of men, which it is proper that all should know; while the second owes its interest to passionate impulse or incident. This distinction holds in all ages, but the distinction between the franchise of Northern, and the constancy of Byzantine, art, depends partly on the unsystematic play of emotion in the one, and the appointed sequence of known fact or determined judgment in the other.
You will find in the beginning of M. Didron's book, already quoted, an admirable analysis of what may be called the classic sequence of Christian theology, as written in the sculpture of the Cathedral of Chartres. You will find in the treatment of the facade of Orvieto the beginning of the development of passionate romance,—the one being grave sermon writing; the other, cheerful romance or novel writing: so that the one requires you to think, the other only to feel or perceive; the one is always a parable with a meaning, the other only a story with an impression.
211. And here I get at a result concerning Greek art, which is very sweeping and wide indeed. That it is all parable, but Gothic, as distinct from it, literal. So absolutely does this hold, that it reaches down to our modern school of landscape. You know I have always told you Turner belonged to the Greek school. Precisely as the stream of blood coming from under the throne of judgment in the Byzantine mosaic of Torcello is a sign of condemnation, his scarlet clouds are used by Turner as a sign of death; and just as on an Egyptian tomb the genius of death lays the sun down behind the horizon, so in his Cephalus and Procris, the last rays of the sun withdraw from the forest as the nymph expires.
And yet, observe, both the classic and romantic teaching may be equally earnest, only different in manner. But from classic art, unless you understand it, you may get nothing; from romantic art, even if you don't understand it, you get at least delight.
212. I cannot show the difference more completely or fortunately than by comparing Sir Walter Scott's type of libertas, with the franchise of Chartres Cathedral, or Debonnaireté of the Painted Chamber.
At Chartres, and Westminster, the high birth is shown by the crown; the strong bright life by the flowing hair; the fortitude by the conqueror's shield; and the truth by the bright openness of the lace:
"She was not brown, nor dull of hue,
But white as snowe, fallen newe."
All these are symbols, which, if you cannot read, the image is to you only an uninteresting stiff figure. But Sir Walter's Franchise, Diana Vernon, interests you at once in personal aspect and character. She is no symbol to you; but if you acquaint yourself with her perfectly, you find her utter frankness, governed by a superb self-command; her spotless truth, refined by tenderness; her fiery enthusiasm, subdued by dignity; and her fearless liberty, incapable of doing wrong, joining to fulfil to you, in sight and presence, what the Greek could only teach by signs.
213. I have before noticed—-though I am not sure that you have yet believed my statement of it—the significance of Sir Walter's as of Shakspeare's names; Diana 'Vernon, semper viret,' gives you the conditions of purity and youthful strength or spring which imply the highest state of libertas. By corruption of the idea of purity, you get the modern heroines of London Journal—or perhaps we may more fitly call it 'Cockney-daily'—literature. You have one of them in perfection, for instance, in Mr. Charles Reade's 'Griffith Gaunt'—"Lithe, and vigorous, and one with her great white gelding;" and liable to be entirely changed in her mind about the destinies of her life by a quarter of an hour's conversation with a gentleman unexpectedly handsome; the hero also being a person who looks at people whom he dislikes, with eyes "like a dog's in the dark;" and both hero and heroine having souls and intellects also precisely corresponding to those of a dog's in the dark, which is indeed the essential picture of the practical English national mind at this moment,—happy if it remains doggish,—Circe not usually being content with changing people into dogs only. For the Diana Vernon of the Greek is Artemis Laphria, who is friendly to the dog; not to the swine. Do you see, by the way, how perfectly the image is carried out by Sir Walter in putting his Diana on the border country? "Yonder blue hill is in Scotland," she says to her cousin,—not in the least thinking less of him for having been concerned, it may be, in one of Rob Roy's forays. And so gradually you get the idea of Norman franchise carried out in the free-rider or free-booter; not safe from degradation on that side also; but by no means of swinish temper, or foraging, as at present the British speculative public, only with the snout.
214. Finally, in the most soft and domestic form of virtue, you have Wordsworth's ideal:
"Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty."
The distinction between these northern types of feminine virtue, and the figures of Alcestis, Antigone, or Iphigenia, lies deep in the spirit of the art of either country, and is carried out into its most unimportant details. We shall find in the central art of Florence at once the thoughtfulness of Greece and the gladness of England, associated under images of monastic severity peculiar to herself.
And what Diana Vernon is to a French ballerine dancing the Cancan, the 'libertas' of Chartres and Westminster is to the 'liberty' of M. Victor Hugo and Mr. John Stuart Mill.
- ↑ "Normandie, la franche,"—"France, la solue;" (chanson de Roland.) One of my good pupils referred me to this ancient and glorious French song.
- ↑ Historical antiquary; not art-antiquary I must limitedly say, however. He has made a grotesque mess of his account of the Ducal Palace of Venice, through his ignorance of the technical characters of sculpture.
- ↑ 'The Deserted Village,' lines 251 to 302.