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Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine" Author(s): Barbara Hardy Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Apr., 1952), pp. 203-208 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3718807 . Accessed: 28/06/2014 09:47 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.31.195.33 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 09:47:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"

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Page 1: Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"

Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"Author(s): Barbara HardySource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Apr., 1952), pp. 203-208Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3718807 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 09:47

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto The Modern Language Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.31.195.33 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 09:47:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"

Miscellaneous Notes 203

'The charity of London of M. Megs / twice taken '. There is no dedicatory epistle, and the text begins on A 2r, below a head ornament and the head-title, 'Wards first Fight go- / ing foorth from Plimouth in a man / of Warre, & of his practises & pro- / ceedings in the Streights, and of his / comming to Argier. Chap. 1'. After five chapters devoted to Ward's career, Chapter 6 introduces Sir Anthony Sherley, as in the British Museum copy; the text is apparently the same, for the passages quoted by Sisson and Brown from Ward's reply and Danseker's challenge (p. 343) cor- respond verbally but not in spelling and punctuation to those on B lv of the Folger copy.1 After Chapter 10, which ends at the foot of B 3v, follows 'A Letter sent from the Masters of / certaine shippes to the worshipfull Owners, / the Merchants of London: of what hath / happened to him and his confederates to / the sixt of Aprill. 1609'. The narrative concludes on D 3v. On D 4r is A Catalogue of all such Shippes, as haue been taken by these two [pi-] / rates, Captaine Ward, and Captaine Dansker, or there Confe[-] / derates, to the sixt of Aprill. 1609. D 4v is adorned with the woodcut of an unidentified sailing vessel that flies the cross of St George.

The identity of the Folger text with the passages quoted by Sisson and Brown suggests that one book is a reprint of the other. Almost certain proof of this is provided at the foot of B 3v of the Folger text, where the first section of the book ends with the conclusion of Chapter 10, and the catchword is 'Newes'. This agrees with the first word in the head-title of the British Museum copy, ' Newes from Sea...', but has no relation to the first words of the head-title or of the text on B 4r of the Folger copy, which are 'A Letter sent...', and 'Beeing by you...', respectively. Such a mistake could hardly have occurred if the compositor had been setting from manuscript copy but might readily have been made if the Folger copy were a reprint.

Apparently Butter's first edition sold out rapidly, and a second was called for. He issued a reprint that used two and one-half fewer sheets of paper than the first by omitting the Dedicatory Epistle and the two unsigned leaves on which were woodcuts of some of the ships captured by the pirates, by using the verso of the title-page for the cuts of Ward's first skiff and the Charity of London, and by putting the woodcut of another ship on the verso of the last leaf. He also printed 38 lines of text on the normal page and used a long measure, so that the letterpress (ex- cluding running-title, catchword, and signature) occupies a space of 90 x 155 mm. Perhaps the second edition was called forth by the publication in October or November 1609 of Andrew Barker's book, A true and certen report of the begynninge proceedinges ouerthrowes and nowe present estate of Captain WARD and DANSEKER the two late famous Pirates....

JAMES G. MCMANAWAY

WASHINGTON, D.C.

COLERIDGE'S MARGINALIA IN FULLER'S 'PISGAH-SIGHT OF PALESTINE'

In December 1948 a copy of the first edition of Thomas Fuller's Pisgah-Sight of Palestine (folio, published in 1650) was bought by the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies. It contains twelve manuscript notes in Coleridge's hand, one with the signature 'S.T.C.'. The second fly-leaf recto has a note by Coleridge's

1 The other passages quoted by Sisson and Folger copy, but again there are differences in Brown from the British Museum copy agree spelling. verbally with the corresponding passages in the

Miscellaneous Notes 203

'The charity of London of M. Megs / twice taken '. There is no dedicatory epistle, and the text begins on A 2r, below a head ornament and the head-title, 'Wards first Fight go- / ing foorth from Plimouth in a man / of Warre, & of his practises & pro- / ceedings in the Streights, and of his / comming to Argier. Chap. 1'. After five chapters devoted to Ward's career, Chapter 6 introduces Sir Anthony Sherley, as in the British Museum copy; the text is apparently the same, for the passages quoted by Sisson and Brown from Ward's reply and Danseker's challenge (p. 343) cor- respond verbally but not in spelling and punctuation to those on B lv of the Folger copy.1 After Chapter 10, which ends at the foot of B 3v, follows 'A Letter sent from the Masters of / certaine shippes to the worshipfull Owners, / the Merchants of London: of what hath / happened to him and his confederates to / the sixt of Aprill. 1609'. The narrative concludes on D 3v. On D 4r is A Catalogue of all such Shippes, as haue been taken by these two [pi-] / rates, Captaine Ward, and Captaine Dansker, or there Confe[-] / derates, to the sixt of Aprill. 1609. D 4v is adorned with the woodcut of an unidentified sailing vessel that flies the cross of St George.

The identity of the Folger text with the passages quoted by Sisson and Brown suggests that one book is a reprint of the other. Almost certain proof of this is provided at the foot of B 3v of the Folger text, where the first section of the book ends with the conclusion of Chapter 10, and the catchword is 'Newes'. This agrees with the first word in the head-title of the British Museum copy, ' Newes from Sea...', but has no relation to the first words of the head-title or of the text on B 4r of the Folger copy, which are 'A Letter sent...', and 'Beeing by you...', respectively. Such a mistake could hardly have occurred if the compositor had been setting from manuscript copy but might readily have been made if the Folger copy were a reprint.

Apparently Butter's first edition sold out rapidly, and a second was called for. He issued a reprint that used two and one-half fewer sheets of paper than the first by omitting the Dedicatory Epistle and the two unsigned leaves on which were woodcuts of some of the ships captured by the pirates, by using the verso of the title-page for the cuts of Ward's first skiff and the Charity of London, and by putting the woodcut of another ship on the verso of the last leaf. He also printed 38 lines of text on the normal page and used a long measure, so that the letterpress (ex- cluding running-title, catchword, and signature) occupies a space of 90 x 155 mm. Perhaps the second edition was called forth by the publication in October or November 1609 of Andrew Barker's book, A true and certen report of the begynninge proceedinges ouerthrowes and nowe present estate of Captain WARD and DANSEKER the two late famous Pirates....

JAMES G. MCMANAWAY

WASHINGTON, D.C.

COLERIDGE'S MARGINALIA IN FULLER'S 'PISGAH-SIGHT OF PALESTINE'

In December 1948 a copy of the first edition of Thomas Fuller's Pisgah-Sight of Palestine (folio, published in 1650) was bought by the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies. It contains twelve manuscript notes in Coleridge's hand, one with the signature 'S.T.C.'. The second fly-leaf recto has a note by Coleridge's

1 The other passages quoted by Sisson and Folger copy, but again there are differences in Brown from the British Museum copy agree spelling. verbally with the corresponding passages in the

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Page 3: Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"

Miscellaneous Notes

nephew, John Taylor Coleridge, who bought the book for thirty shillings at 'a sale by Mrs Gillman of books, part of her late husband's library, which contained many of S.T.C.'s books-in April 1843'. This must have been the Southgate sale, 30 March to 1 April. John seems to assume that the book belonged to Coleridge but as there is no fly-leaf inscription apart from his own note it may equally well have belonged to the Gillmans, who owned the two volumes of Fuller with Coleridge marginalia which are now in the British Museum, The Holy State and The Profane State, and The Church-History of Britain.

The notes from these two books were first published (with H. N. Coleridge's silent emendations and omissions) in Literary Remains (1836-9), and again in Derwent Coleridge's collection Notes on English Divines (1853). In his other collection of 1853, Notes Theological, Political, and Miscellaneous, Derwent also published, for the first time, Coleridge's marginal notes on two of Fuller's sermons and on The Worthies. But although the Pisgah-Sight was presumably in Gillman's possession when Sara and H. N. Coleridge were making the collection for Literary Remains, and in John Taylor Coleridge's possession when Derwent was making his collections, these notes were never published. This may have been an accidental oversight, though there is a possibility that the notes were withheld or rejected because of their particularly strong attacks on Fuller's credulity.

Derwent Coleridge's publication of the Worthies' marginalia was strangely ignored by T. J. Wise in his catalogue of his Wordsworth and Coleridge collection, Two Lake Poets, 1927. Wise also overlooked T. A. Trollope's publication of the Worthies' notes in Notes and Queries, December 1888 (Series 7, vI, 501). Trollope added several notes not printed by Derwent.1 But Wise wrote as if nothing was known of any marginalia in The Worthies, said that there was a 'probability' that Coleridge had annotated the copy mentioned by Lamb, and added: 'It would be pleasant to record the present whereabouts of the third of the three volumes, Fuller's Worthies, which Lamb read.' Trollope, who lived in Budleigh Salterton, bought The Worthies in 1888. Is the book still in Budleigh Salterton?

The mention of Lamb introduces a small problem. Lamb wrote to Bernard Barton in December 1829, and spoke of having borrowed 'three folios of old Fuller'; and in a letter to Gillman in November of the same year, he mentions two of these by name, The Worthies, and The Church-History. Wise quite naturally assumed that The Worthies was one of the three folios mentioned to Barton, but Trollope tells us that the book he bought was 'the 2 vols., 4to, London, 1811, not the pleasantest edition'. Did Lamb, the self-conscious bibliophile, use the word 'folio' carelessly or loosely, and at the same time confuse two volumes quarto with one folio ? Or were there two editions of The Worthies in Gillman's or in Coleridge's library? Did Lamb borrow more Fullers than he mentions, The Worthies in addition to the three folios; or did he perhaps borrow only two books, The Church-History and the two volumes of The Worthies, and muddle quarto and folio but not number?

It is a very small matter, but I mention this discrepancy because, if Lamb meant what he said, and borrowed three folios of Fuller from Gillman, there is a possibility that one of these folios was the Pisgah-Sight. But even if it was not one of those

'golden works of the dear, fine, silly old angel' from which Lamb 'parted, bleeding'

1 Another selection from The Worthies marginalia was made by T. M. Raysor in Coleridge's Miscellaneous Criticism, 1936.

204

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Page 4: Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"

Miscellaneous Notes

as he told Gillman in a letter of the spring of 1830, the Pisgah-Sight is an interesting addition to Coleridge's marginalia, and to the Fuller volumes in particular.

Throughout Coleridge's marginal jottings runs a unique display of unstudied reaction. It is true that he is sometimes writing notes for books or lectures, but there are many occasions when he is simply making a rubbing from his immediate response to the printed page. The comments range from the simple exclamation of admiration or abuse to more elaborate attempts at explanation, and they give us the opportunity of comparing different stages, versions, and varieties of similar response. This comparison is one of the excitements of reading the marginalia. It is, of course, no good trying to fit together all the fragments in the margins and on the fly-leaves because their relation is not the edge-to-edge relation of the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle: they are repetitions and contradictions and reshufflings. What they can show are the fiddlings and fumblings of the mind, backstage of the printed word-what Lamb meant by the mind in 'undress'.

In The Holy State, The Church-History, and Pisgah-Sight we are presented with three versions of Coleridge's critical response to Fuller's wit. In The Holy State he suggests that Fuller's reputation for good sense has been sacrificed to his reputation for wit, and he describes this wit as 'alike in quantity, quality and perpetuity, surpassing that of the wittiest in a witty age'. In The Church-History he says again that Fuller's sense is neglected because of his wit, but that is as far as repetition goes. (I say 'again' and 'repetition' only for convenience: we do not know the order of the annotations.) Here he is not content to state the 'quantity, quality, and perpetuity' but attempts a definition-though definition is not quite the word for Coleridge's habit of measuring an idea against metaphor or simile. The comment overlaps only up to a point, and then Coleridge says: 'Wit was the stuff and substance of Fuller's intellect. It was the element, the earthen base, the material which he worked in.'

In the Pisgah-Sight Coleridge's amazement is still fresh. ('Still' for convenience, without prejudice to date.) Here there is nothing about Fuller's reputation for sense and wit. He is drawn to definition this time by the irrepressibility with which Fuller's conceits pop up in unexpected and even dangerous places. But the poetic nature of his search for definition, the thinking in metaphor, is very closely connected with the other Fuller notes. The trying out of different images or emblems of wit is common to all three sets of marginalia, and the untiring exercise in analogy is typical of Coleridge. When he seeks for a definitive expression of the artist's power to create organic form he tries several images: a river, a serpent, a plant, a meteor. And he does the same thing in the Fuller notes. In note 4, below, he begins by seizing his image, with a Shakespearean economy, from the nearest subject. Fuller is talking about a fish, and Coleridge says: 'Fuller lived in Wit, as a Fish in Water.' But it will not quite do: Coleridge looked for images which had more than one point of resemblance to the object being imaged. Next he plays for time, and in exactly the way he plays for it in the Church-History notes: 'It was his Element.' And just as he moves in the Church-History notes from the image of the element to the image of building (the earthen base) so he does the same thing here. But the result is not the same metaphor. Fuller's wit is more than a base, a foundation, it is the whole erection. Coleridge wants to say this, and to say at the same time that this erection carries with it the suggestion that it is built of the only possible material. Not by a rational step-by-step, but by the

205

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Page 5: Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"

206 Mliscellaneous Notes

imaginative reworking of other images, he finds the perfect image which can say all this at once-the image of the Eskimo who must build his whole house of

nothing but snow. Everything is here: 'quantity, quality and perpetuity.' The Pisgah-Sight notes are undated but the relation of the metaphors is a strong

suggestion that this book was annotated after The Holy State (where the notes are

undated) and The Church-History (where one note is dated 1824 and another 1829). In transcribing I have left out four notes which seem too trivial or too technically

theological, namely: p. 17: a note on the theory of Divine Script, a subject with which readers of Coleridge's Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit will be familiar; p. 31: a note on the phrase 'The twelve tribes of Israel' as a generic title for the Jewish race; p. 94: a learned reference to a discussion of the Nazarites; p. 95: another learned reference to the fate of Jephtha's daughter, who is apparently believed by some commentators to have been condemned not to death but to virginity. The main interest of these notes is their demonstration of Coleridge's intimate knowledge of Biblical criticism. The note on p. 271, on the fate of Lot's wife, might perhaps have been excluded with these other notes, but I have left it in as a pleasant example of Coleridge's occasionally misplaced literary ingenuity as a Biblical critic.

1. P. 16. Fuller is comparing the ancient and modern Jew, and says: ... the cleare and lovely complexions, the handsome and proper persons, the bold

and valiant Spirits... of the ancient Jews, are not to be measured by the suspicious and louring looks, the low and crooked statures... of the Jews nowadays;

Coleridge: It seems, prima facie at least, somewhat difficult to reconcile the Aversion, and

Contempt, with which the Jews are spoken of by the Greek and Roman Writers, with this handsome portrait of worthy Master Fuller. The misanthropic, and supercilious demeanour of the Jews, will, I admit, go a good way toward accounting for it. By the bye, handsome and even beautiful Jews and Jewesses are not uncommon, but I do not recollect to have ever seen a very handsome Jew. S.T.C.1

2. Pp. 30-1. Fuller discusses and accepts the story that the King of Egypt employed seventy-two Jews (six from each tribe) to translate the Bible into Greek.

Coleridge: One great evil from the early perusal of ecclesiastical history, when the Student has

been trained up to take for grave truths whatever he finds gravely narrated, is the Obtunding the natural Sense of probability.... This takes place to such a degree, that the Rule and Measure of Judgement is actually inverted-the anticipation of marvellous stories from the frequency of their occurrence in our previous Reading supplies the place of probability... for we cannot but find that probable, which we had expected to meet with-In this way I account for Fuller's adhesion to the absurd Legend, which Josephus had borrowed from Aristeas, and his censuring Joseph Scaliger's anim- adversion [i.e. detection of Aristeas's mendacity] as causeless.... N.B. Joseph Scaliger was among the earliest Enlighteners, and asserters of fearless Thinking-a Freethinker, in the best sense-

3. P. 33. Fuller:

For, whilst the Babylonish Captivity did onely snuffe Judah, for seventy years, (blazing the brighter when they returned from banishment) the Assyrian conquest utterly extinguished Israel, from ever appearing again, in a formed Common-Wealth, in their own Countrey.

1 I have expanded a few contractions and these notes to discriminate between capital and retained Coleridge's spelling, punctuation, and small letter). capitals (though it is not always possible in

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Page 6: Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"

Miscellaneous Notes 207

Coleridge: Egregious falsification of History! Consult Ezra and Nehemiah-especially the prayer

at the opening of the Temple. What could Fuller be thinking of? The metaphor, 'snuffe'-and that joke required an Antithesis for its completion. 4. P. 110. Fuller is commenting on the account of the taxation of Christ (Matthew xvii. 37), and says:

Hence Peter was sent to sea, where a fish, which probably had plundered a peece of money out of the Pocket of some shipwrecked fisherman, lost his life for the fact, and the felon goods found in him were justly forfeited to Christ, Lord Paramount both of sea and soil.

Coleridge: Fuller lived in Wit, as a Fish in Water. It was his Element....Or as in sundry places

of the Frozen Zone the Esquimeaux fabricates [sic] their Houses, Windows, Furniture, of Snow, because it is utter Snow-land-so and much more might Fuller's Brain be termed Wit-land. Any other Man this paragraph would convict of Prophaneness: in him it was the necessity of his Materials.

5. Pp. 111-12. Fuller comments on the miracle of the healing of the blind man

(Mark viii. 25) and attempts to explain why the blind man saw imperfectly ('I see men as trees walking') after Christ first spat upon his eyes and put his hands upon him, and saw perfectly only after his eyes had been touched a second time:

Let us not raise cavills where we should rather return thanks, seeing Christ, that our dull meditations might keep pace with his actions, did not onely goe slowly on set purpose, but even stayed in the mid way of a miracle, doing it first by halves, that our conceptions might the better overtake him.

Coleridge: This whimsical confusion of slowness in an Act and a slow and distinct manner in the

exposition of the Act, an accommodation to the slow apprehensions of the persons to be instructed, is truly characteristic of Fuller-the motive, or rationale, of Christ's action in this instance having been premised as inconceivable... i.e. Christ acted in an incon- ceivable way in order to help us to conceive it! But Fuller would mount an Irish Bull rather than lose a witty turn.

6. Pp. 114-15. Fuller is giving up the attempt to decide who or what or where was Meroz ('nothing survives of the thing but the name'), and says:

For the exact position whereof we refer the reader to those our learned Divines, which in these unhappy dissensions have made that text so often the subject of their Sermons.

Coleridge: A good hit. It is amusing to see the Cavalier peep out, every now and then-but

Fuller was no bigot-and wisely considered that by shewing a full face he should do more harm to Thomas Fuller than good to Charles Stuart. By parading his Loyalty, and popping Head and Shoulders out of his Hiding Hole, he might occasion a Schism between them, a separation and falling off-which he was too good a Churchman to hazard.

7. P. 161. The domestic politics of Solomon's reign remind Fuller of his own time: Thus, let those, who have once been desperately sick of a Princes displeasure, and

recovered, know, that the least relapse will prove deadly unto them.

Coleridge: How thankful to divine Providence ought we to be, that remarks like these so frequent

in our Writers before the Revolution are now foreign to us, and read like translations from Russian or Arabic!

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Page 7: Coleridge's Marginalia in Fuller's "Pisgah-Sight of Palestine"

208 208 Miscellaneous Notes Miscellaneous Notes

8. P. 271. Fuller mentions the transformation of Lot's wife.

Coleridge: Curious instance of a metaphor turned into a miracle! The sacred Historian simply

says, that she became a pillar of Salt-i.e. in that shower of fire in which she was overtaken, she dissolved as a pillar of Salt would do in an ordinary shower.

BARBARA HARDY1 LONDON

'RUGBY CHAPEL' AND EXODUS

The deep moral sense and strong feeling which inspire Rugby Chapel have evoked frequent comment. The prophetic tone of the poem is also patent. Yet no explana- tion has adequately joined all these elements to account for Arnold's basic imagery.

Professors Tinker and Lowry (The Poetry of Matthew Arnold, New York, 1940, p. 239) have suggested that 'the metaphor of Arnold guiding a small company through a pass in the mountains... is peculiarly appropriate to the Lake District, with which the memory of his father was closely associated in the poet's mind'. This association does not adequately, in the opinion of the present writer, account for the metaphoric frame in which the poem develops. It is submitted that this religious quality is achieved by a close parallelism to Old Testament story and prayer.

The imagery of the last half of the poem (starting with 1. 124) deals with a multi- tude spending long years in the wilderness, overawed and frequently dispirited, but re-inspired and refreshed by a great leader-a situation strikingly reminiscent of the role of Moses and of the narrative in Exodus and Numbers relating the journey of the Hebrews from Egypt. Further details support the analogy to the Biblical experience. The poem praises those saviours and redeemers of humanity, servants of God, who lead 'the host of mankind, / A feeble wavering line', out of the wild to the promised city. '.. .--A God / Marshalled them, gave them their goal. / Ah, but the way is so long! / Years they have been in the wild!' (R.C. 11. 175-7.)

Without the heroic leader '... of the Myriads who fill / That army, not one shall arrive'. Repeatedly it was the leader's wisdom and prayers which saved the Israelite host from destruction and God's wrath. When Moses was told that he was to be spared, he refused to go to the promised land alone (Exod. xxxii. 32); so similarly, Arnold says of his father: 'But thou would'st not alone / Be saved... (R.C. 11. 124-5). Sore thirst plagued the people (R.C. 1. 178; Exod. xv. 22-3; xvii. 1-4); the rocks overawed them (R.C. 1l. 178-9; Exod. xvii. 6); factions and rebellion divided them (R.C. 1. 180; Exod. xiv. 11; xv. 24; Num. xvi. 1-3). They were led by an angel (R.C. 1. 190; Exod. xxiii. 20); and when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he was 'radiant with ardour divine!' (R.C. 1. 191), for the 'skin of his face shone' (Exod. xxxiv. 29-30).

The directness and simplicity of Arnold's phrasing are Biblical (see Isa. xxxv. 3-9; xlii. 7), and he was certainly thinking of his father as a great spiritual leader, like a Moses. And because Arnold had known in his own experience so noble a character, he could 'believe / In the noble and great who are gone; / Pure souls

8. P. 271. Fuller mentions the transformation of Lot's wife.

Coleridge: Curious instance of a metaphor turned into a miracle! The sacred Historian simply

says, that she became a pillar of Salt-i.e. in that shower of fire in which she was overtaken, she dissolved as a pillar of Salt would do in an ordinary shower.

BARBARA HARDY1 LONDON

'RUGBY CHAPEL' AND EXODUS

The deep moral sense and strong feeling which inspire Rugby Chapel have evoked frequent comment. The prophetic tone of the poem is also patent. Yet no explana- tion has adequately joined all these elements to account for Arnold's basic imagery.

Professors Tinker and Lowry (The Poetry of Matthew Arnold, New York, 1940, p. 239) have suggested that 'the metaphor of Arnold guiding a small company through a pass in the mountains... is peculiarly appropriate to the Lake District, with which the memory of his father was closely associated in the poet's mind'. This association does not adequately, in the opinion of the present writer, account for the metaphoric frame in which the poem develops. It is submitted that this religious quality is achieved by a close parallelism to Old Testament story and prayer.

The imagery of the last half of the poem (starting with 1. 124) deals with a multi- tude spending long years in the wilderness, overawed and frequently dispirited, but re-inspired and refreshed by a great leader-a situation strikingly reminiscent of the role of Moses and of the narrative in Exodus and Numbers relating the journey of the Hebrews from Egypt. Further details support the analogy to the Biblical experience. The poem praises those saviours and redeemers of humanity, servants of God, who lead 'the host of mankind, / A feeble wavering line', out of the wild to the promised city. '.. .--A God / Marshalled them, gave them their goal. / Ah, but the way is so long! / Years they have been in the wild!' (R.C. 11. 175-7.)

Without the heroic leader '... of the Myriads who fill / That army, not one shall arrive'. Repeatedly it was the leader's wisdom and prayers which saved the Israelite host from destruction and God's wrath. When Moses was told that he was to be spared, he refused to go to the promised land alone (Exod. xxxii. 32); so similarly, Arnold says of his father: 'But thou would'st not alone / Be saved... (R.C. 11. 124-5). Sore thirst plagued the people (R.C. 1. 178; Exod. xv. 22-3; xvii. 1-4); the rocks overawed them (R.C. 1l. 178-9; Exod. xvii. 6); factions and rebellion divided them (R.C. 1. 180; Exod. xiv. 11; xv. 24; Num. xvi. 1-3). They were led by an angel (R.C. 1. 190; Exod. xxiii. 20); and when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he was 'radiant with ardour divine!' (R.C. 1. 191), for the 'skin of his face shone' (Exod. xxxiv. 29-30).

The directness and simplicity of Arnold's phrasing are Biblical (see Isa. xxxv. 3-9; xlii. 7), and he was certainly thinking of his father as a great spiritual leader, like a Moses. And because Arnold had known in his own experience so noble a character, he could 'believe / In the noble and great who are gone; / Pure souls

1 I am grateful to the authorities of the School of Oriental and African Studies for

1 I am grateful to the authorities of the School of Oriental and African Studies for

giving me permission to transcribe and publish these notes. giving me permission to transcribe and publish these notes.

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