'THE CITY OF DREAM.'
CERTAIN votaries of literary art, who apparently desire to keep their goddess within the contracted ' sphere ' which man is apt to assign to his mortal and immortal divinities, have recently protested against her inclination to overstep the barriers which confine her — or, let us rather say, to wander from the shrine in which she is worshipped. She may weave graceful patterns of emotion and incident, but woe to her if she touch the proscribed subjects of religious and philosophic doctrine ! One of her most zealous guardians, Mr. W. L. Courtney, tells us that the pi'o- blem of art ' is the action and reaction of circumstances upon ' human character, and that ' the particular reli- gious opinions are, from the point of vieiv of art, either of secondary importance, or absolutely immaterial.' - It would be interesting to apply this canon to the Divina Commedia, Paradise Lost, and Goethe's Faust. But, without appealing to these illustrious precedents, it is surely clear that phases of belief act and react on character not less effectively than the trivial incidents which are the small change of the novelist, or the play of sunshine and shadow which mirrors the poet's moods. The devout and rigid Puritanism instilled into Cather- ine Leyburn's mind had a greater share in moulding her character than the outward influences of her moun- tain home. Greater tragedies than any depicted by Mrs. Humphry Ward have resulted from the close interweaving of dogmas with moral principles ; but whether such tragedies are more or less interesting than those which spring from animal passion or from insensate jealousy, must, of course, depend on the mental habits of the reader. In the meantime, if we may judge from such works as Roberl Elsmere, Mr. Alfred Austin's Prince Lucifer, and Mr. Robert Buchanan's City of Dream, Literature is enfranchising herself with or without the permission of her warders. If authors insist on producing works of genius which not only mean something, but mean it with obvious intention; if they refuse to concentrate their powers on millinery and scandal, on balls and flirtations, and obstinately busy themselves with recent developments of the human mind, it would seem that the critic must acquiesce in their decision. Criticism, however leonine may be its preliminary growls, always ends by following the footsteps of genius in a truly lamblike fashion. ' This will never do ' becomes in the course of a genera- tion ' Nothing else will do.' It is wise, therefore, to examine poems like the City of Dream as nineteenth- century products, without inquiring into their legiti- macy — an inquiry which is always futile, as the canons of art are inductions from actually existing forms of art, and are liable to modification every time an original 1 T/i£ City of Dream : An Epic Poem, by Robert Buclianan. - ' The Agnostic in Fiction,' Universal Review for September. The italics are Mr. Courtney's. type makes its appearance. It is, however, permissible to speculate upon the class of readers who will welcome the new intellectual poetry with genuine appreciation, and upon the measure in which the especial poem before us is likely to gain their sympathy. In a prose note appended to his book, Mr. Buchanan states that it ' attempts to be for the inquiring modern spirit what the lovely vision of Bunyan is for those who still exist in the fairyland of dogmatic Christianity ' ; and further, that it ' represents the thought and speculation of many years.' These two sentences indicate the strength and weakness of the entire poem. It is the work of a man who has passed through many stages of belief and emotion, and whose mind has reflected with varying clearness the difl^erent tendencies of his day. Yet there must be a defect of earnestness and profundity in one who can apply the epithet ' lovely ' to Bunyan's allegorical version of his grim spiritual experiences, and who can regard orthodox Christianity, with its stern Calvinism, its deep convic- tion of sin, and its everlasting hell, as a fairyland of aesthetic gratifications.
The poem, dedicated ' to the sainted spirit of John Bunyan,' openly challenges comparison with the Pil- grim s Progress, as the story of a soul's pilgrimage. Ishmael, born in a City by the Sea, has heard that
' up among the hills There stands the City christened Beautiful, Green-sited, golden, and with heaven above it. Soft as the shining of an angel's hair ' —
a somewhat weak and inadequate comparison. He hastens forth, is blindfolded by Evangelist, relieved of the bandage by Iconoclast, meets the gentle nature-worshipper Eglantine, and enters the gloiious city of Christopolis. But even
' Amid the shining temples, silver shrines, Solemn cathedrals, shadowy cloister-walls,'
he encounters terrible forms of poverty, hunger, and disease; he finds men's hearts full of rapine and cruelty; he sees ' a hunt of kings, with bloody priests for hounds,' chasing a heretic. In neither division of Christopolis can he find peace, and he is at last driven forth as a blasphemer to the dreary region without the walls. With ' the outcasts of all the creeds ' the wanderer takes refuge in a dreary wayside inn. Journeying onward, he joins ' the wild horseman, Esau,' an outcast more fiery and untamable than the rest. Pictures of weird and vivid power abound in this section of the book ; and the midnight ride with Esau is, perhaps, unsurpassed in its swift motion and gleaming chiaroscuro. But in the ' Wayside Inn ' there is at least one faulty personification. A ' marble-featured serving-maiden, . . . sleepy, half-yawning, holding in her hand a dismal light,' is an absurdly poor embodi-
