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GEORGE HENRY MILES

[1824-1871]

G

P. L. DUFFY

EORGE HENRY MILES was born in Baltimore, Maryland,

July 31, 1824, and died July 23, 1871, at Thornbrook, his beautiful country home, near his beloved college, where he had spent more than six years as a student, and seven as professor. He entered Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, in his twelfth year, and was graduated June 28, 1843. The picturesque situation of the College, on the side of the Blue Ridge sloping down to the "loveliest valley in the land," as Miles afterward called it, greatly influenced his love of nature, which flowered in many of his poems, notably in that exquisite lyric "Said the Rose." While a student he was received into the Catholic Church, and the environment and traditions of the college enhanced the spiritual quality which he possessed in an exceptional degree, and markedly idealized his vision.

Ethically, there is no American poet of purer taste or greater delicacy and refinement; none freer from blighting realism and withering pessimism. His vision was vitalized by faith, illuminated by hope, and quickened by love of the beautiful in man and in nature; and with him beauty was Plato's "splendor veri."

Immediately after graduation he began the study of law in Baltimore, and afterward practiced at its Bar. But he was a born littérateur and found the law irksome. He was always industrious and energetic, and conjointly with his profession he devoted much of his labor to letters. In 1844, when just entering his twenty-first year, he began his first tragedy, "Michael di Lando, Gonfalonier of Florence." Upon its completion, in 1847, it received the commendation of Edwin Forrest. In the meantime he wrote three short novels: 'Truce of God,' 'Loretto,' and 'The Governess.' All were popular; all have passed through several editions, and are still read. Besides these, he published many fugitive poems and stories. In 1847 Edwin Forrest offered a prize of one thousand dollars for the best original tragedy in five acts. Miles won the prize from a hundred competitors with his tragedy of "Mohammed." In 1854 he wrote a comedy, "Blight and Bloom," which had a successful run in New York and elsewhere. In 1855 he produced "Inkermann," a long and spirited ballad of the Crimean War. In 1856 his tragedy "De

Soto" was produced with great success in Baltimore, and long continued popular there and in other cities.

Meanwhile he continued writing poems, among them "Sleep On, or, Beatrice," highly praised by Lowell, and the splendid "Raphael Sanzio." In 1858 he wrote "Señor Valiente," his most successful drama, which had a great run in the principal cities of the country. In 1859 he wrote a three-act comedy, "Mary's Birthday," and a play, "The Seven Sisters," symbolizing the States that were agitating withdrawal from the Union.

In 1858 he was tendered the chair of English literature at his old college, Mount St. Mary's. His acceptance being coincident with the celebration of the semi-centennial of the college, he composd for that occasion and recited "Aladdin's Palace," one of the finest satires in American literature. In 1859 he married Miss Adeline Tiers and took up his residence at Thornbrook, an ideal home for a poet, about a mile from the college. While engaged as professor he continued to write, producing his fine tragedy "Oliver Cromwell," several songs set to music by himself, his fifth tragedy, "Afraja the Sorcerer," and the drama "The Parish Clerk," "Emily Chester," "Love and Honor," "The Old Curiosity Shop," and a five-act tragedy, “Thiodolf the Icelander." Some of these, as the names denote, were dramatized from novels of well-known authors.

In 1864 he went for the second time to Europe, and visited Florence, where he wrote the weird little poem "La Velata," inspired by one of the pictures in the Pitti Palace. His sojourn in Florence intensified the influence of his favorite poet, Browning, who lived so many years there, and who so thoroughly assimilated its artistic, historical, and literary atmosphere. This influence of Browning is very marked in some of Miles's poems, notably in "Raphael Sanzio" and "San Sisto," both suggestive of Browning's "Andrea del Sarto" and similar poems; but Miles's poems are far more than imitations, and could be achieved only by genius. In 1866 he yielded

to the

requests of friends, and published a selection of the poems he had so profusely scattered through periodicals and magazines. He bestowed more than ordinary care on the poem "Christine, a Troubadour's Song," which gave its title to the volume.

In 1866 he resigned his chair of English literature at Mount St. Mary's to devote himself exclusively to literature, and especially to

make critical studies of Shakespeare. While engrossed in

these

deeper studies he found relaxation in the production of "Abou Hassan, the Wag," from the 'Arabian Nights,' with his own music for

its song, "The Maid of Mayence," also "Behind the Scenes, of,

The

Girl of the Period," and, last of all, "The Picture of Innocence." In the autumn of 1868 he finished his "Essay on Hamlet," intended

for a popular lecture to be delivered by Edwin Forrest and afterward to serve as a text-book for higher classes in English literature. It was his intention to follow this "Essay on Hamlet" with others on Macbeth, Lear, Othello, and Henry IV, but he died when the essay on Macbeth was about half completed. His "Essay on Hamlet," first published in the Southern Review, is an original study, profound in its learning and analysis and an invaluable contribution to Shakespearean literature. This essay demonstrates the possession by Miles of the critical faculty in a rare degree, united to wide and deep scholarship. He could not but look forward to concentrated effort in that direction; and had he not died in the prime of manhood he would have taken a front rank among the critics in our American literature.

Contemporary critics credited him with dramatic vigor, as well as grace and beauty of style. His purity and elevation of sentiment caused him always to write like a gentleman. He was variously gifted, and his writings in subject and treatment indicate his versatility. His plots were skilfully worked out, and, when evoked by the subject, invested with an imagination almost oriental in its richness. His lyrics are of rare excellence in structure and sweetness, and his exquisite "Said the Rose" ranks with the choicest in our language. His hymn, "God Save the South," was very dear to Southern hearts during the war, and was sung in the schools of the Confederacy.

While Miles may not rank among the poets of the first class, a high place is conceded to him in the literature of America, while the South claims him as one of her most gifted sons.

Keenly revived interest and growing appreciation found expression last year in a new edition of his works in several volumes by Longmans, Green and Company.

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A STUDY OF HAMLET

From "An Essay on Hamlet."

IN all of Shakespeare's finer plays there is sure to be at least one master mind among the characters. Lear, even in grotesque dilapidation, is a master mind, Iago is another, Macbeth, or rather his Demon Lady, is another, but the tragedies themselves are far from owing their chief dramatic force and interest to this individual ascendancy. In the calm, vindictive envy of Iago, in the rage and desolation of Lear, in the remorse of Macbeth, passion or plot is the governing motive of interest; but there is never a storm in "Hamlet" over which the "noble and most sovereign reason" of the young prince is not as visibly dominant as the rainbow, the crowning grace and glory of the scene. Richard is the mind nearest Hamlet in scope and power; but it is the jubilant wickedness, the transcendent dash and courage of the last Plantagenet, that rivet his hold on an audience; whereas, the most salient phase of Hamlet's character is his superb intellectual superiority to all comers, even to his most dangerous assailant, madness. The fundamental charm of Hamlet is its amazing eloquence; its thoughts are vaster than deeds, its eloquence mightier than action. The tragedy, in its most imposing aspect, is a series of intellectual encounters. The Crusaders of Ashby de la Zouche, engaging all the challengers, is not more picturesque than this Desdichado of Denmark consecutively overthrowing every antagonist, from Polonius in the Castle to Laertes in the grave.

But the difficulty of representing this! The enormous difficulty of achieving a true tragic success, less by the passions and trials than by the pure intellectual splendor of the hero! The almost superhuman difficulty of imparting dramatic interest to a long war of words—for the part of Hamlet is well nigh twice the length of any other on the stagealmost superhuman power whereby the prince, instead of degenerating into a mere senior wrangler, is so exalted by the witchery of speech, that the lit brow of the young academiIcian for once outshines the warrior's crest, for once compels

a more than equal homage from the masses!

-the

Perhaps Shakespeare never asked himself the question, never precisely recognized the difficulty. But, as the vision of the unwritten Drama loomed vaguely before him, he must have been conscious of a summons to put forth all his strength. With a central figure of such subtle spirituality, with a plot subordinating action to eloquence, or rather substituting eloquence for action, the great dramatist instinctively employed a Saracenic richness and variety of detail. The structure of Macbeth is Egyptian, massive as the Pyramids, or Thebes; of Othello, unadorned, symmetrical, classic; of Lear, wild, unequal, fantastic, straggling as a Druid Grove; but Hamlet resembles some limitless Gothic Cathedral with its banners and effigies, its glooms and floods of stained light, and echoes of unending dirges. I never read "Act I. Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle. Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernardo," without, somehow, beholding the myriad-minded poet at his desk, pale, peaceful, conscientious, yet pausing as in the Stratford bust, with lips apart, and pen and eye awhile uplifted, as organists pause that silence may settle into a deeper hush—the longest pause at such a moment that Shakespeare ever made. But though not embarrassed by the difficulty, he must surely have been awed by the immensity of his undertaking. For the fundamental idea of the tragedy is not only essentially non-dramatic, but peculiarly liable to misinterpretation; since any marked predominance of the intellectual over the animal nature is constantly mistaken for weakness.

The difference between a strong man and a weak one, though indefinable, is infinite. The prevalent view of Hamlet is, that he is weak. We hear him spoken of as the gentle prince, the doomed prince, the meditative prince, but never as the strong prince, the great prince, the terrible prince. He is commonly regarded as more of a dreamer than a doer; something of a railer at destiny; a blighted, morbid existence, unequal either to forgiveness or revenge; delaying action till action is of no use, and dying the victim of mere circumstance and accident. The exquisite metaphor of Goethe's about the oak tree and the vase predestined for a rose, crystallizes and perpetuates both the critical and the popular estimate of Hamlet. The Wilhelm Meister view is, practically, the only view;

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