But his verdict was mild. After sitting up all night over the work; and diligently taking notes:--"Lombardo, my friend! here, take your sheets. I have run through them loosely. You might have done better; but then you might have done worse. Take them, my friend; I have put in some good things for you:"

MEDIA--And who was Pollo?

BABBALANJA--Probably some one who lived in Lombardo's time, and went by that name. He is incidentally mentioned, and cursorily immortalized in one of the posthumous notes to the Koztanza.

MEDIA--What is said of him there?

BABBALANJA--Not much. In a very old transcript of the work--that of Aldina--the note alludes to a brave line in the text, and runs thus:-- "Diverting to tell, it was this pa.s.sage that an old prosodist, one Pollo, claimed for his own. He maintained he made a free-will offering of it to Lombardo. Several things are yet extant of this Pollo, who died some weeks ago. He seems to have been one of those, who would do great things if they could; but are content to compa.s.s the small. He imagined, that the precedence of authors he had established in his library, was their Mardi order of merit. He condemned the sublime poems of Vavona to his lowermost shelf. 'Ah,' thought he, 'how we library princes, lord it over these beggarly authors!' Well read in the history of their woes, Pollo pitied them all, particularly the famous; and wrote little essays of his own, which he read to himself."

MEDIA--Well: and what said Lombardo to those good friends of his,-- Zenzori, Hanto, and Roddi?

BABBALANJA--Nothing. Taking home his ma.n.u.script, he glanced it over; making three corrections.

ABRAZZA--And what then?

BABBALANJA--Then, your Highness, he thought to try a conclave of professional critics; saying to himself, "Let them privately point out to me, now, all my blemishes; so that, what time they come to review me in public, all will be well." But curious to relate, those professional critics, for the most part, held their peace, concerning a work yet unpublished. And, with some generous exceptions, in their vague, learned way, betrayed such base, beggarly notions of authorship, that Lombardo could have wept, had tears been his. But in his very grief, he ground his teeth. Muttered he, "They are fools. In their eyes, bindings not brains make books. They criticise my tattered cloak, not my soul, caparisoned like a charger. He is the great author, think they, who drives the best bargain with his wares: and no bargainer am I. Because he is old, they worship some mediocrity of an ancient, and mock at the living prophet with the live coal on his lips. They are men who would not be men, had they no books. Their sires begat them not; but the authors they have read. Feelings they have none: and their very opinions they borrow. They can not say yea, nor nay, without first consulting all Mardi as an Encyclopedia. And all the learning in them, is as a dead corpse in a coffin. Were they worthy the dignity of being d.a.m.ned, I would d.a.m.n them; but they are not. Critics?--a.s.ses! rather mules!--so emasculated, from vanity, they can not father a true thought. Like mules, too, from dunghills, they trample down gardens of roses: and deem that crushed fragrance their own.--Oh! that all round the domains of genius should lie thus unhedged, for such cattle to uproot! Oh! that an eagle should be stabbed by a goose-quill! But at best, the greatest reviewers but prey on my leavings. For I am critic and creator; and as critic, in cruelty surpa.s.s all critics merely, as a tiger, jackals. For ere Mardi sees aught of mine, I scrutinize it myself, remorseless as a surgeon. I cut right and left; I probe, tear, and wrench; kill, burn, and destroy; and what's left after that, the jackals are welcome to. It is I that stab false thoughts, ere hatched; I that pull down wall and tower, rejecting materials which would make palaces for others. Oh! could Mardi but see how we work, it would marvel more at our primal chaos, than at the round world thence emerging. It would marvel at our scaffoldings, scaling heaven; marvel at the hills of earth, banked all round our fabrics ere completed.--How plain the pyramid! In this grand silence, so intense, pierced by that pointed ma.s.s,--could ten thousand slaves have ever toiled? ten thousand hammers rung?--There it stands, --part of Mardi: claiming kin with mountains;--was this thing piecemeal built?--It was. Piecemeal?--atom by atom it was laid. The world is made of mites."

YOOMY (_musing._)--It is even so.

ABRAZZA--Lombardo was severe upon the critics; and they as much so upon him;--of that, be sure.

BABBALANGA--Your Highness, Lombardo never presumed to criticise true critics; who are more rare than true poets. A great critic is a sultan among satraps; but pretenders are thick as ants, striving to scale a palm, after its aerial sweetness. And they fight among themselves.

Essaying to pluck eagles, they themselves are geese, stuck full of quills, of which they rob each other.

ABRAZZA (_to Media._)--Oro help the victim that falls in Babbalanja's hands!

MEDIA.--Ay, my lord; at times, his every finger is a dagger: every thought a falling tower that whelms! But resume, philosopher--what of Lombardo now?

BABBALANJA--"For this thing," said he, "I have agonized over it enough.--I can wait no more. It has faults--all mine;--its merits all its own;--but I can toil no longer. The beings knit to me implore; my heart is full; my brain is sick. Let it go--let it go--and Oro with it. Somewhere Mardi has a mighty heart---_that_ struck, all the isles shall resound!"

ABRAZZA--Poor devil! he took the world too hard.

MEDIA.-As most of these mortals do, my lord. That's the load, self- imposed, under which Babbalanja reels. But now, philosopher, ere Mardi saw it, what thought Lombardo of his work, looking at it objectively, as a thing out of him, I mean.

ABRAZZA--No doubt, he hugged it.

BABBALANJA--Hard to answer. Sometimes, when by himself, he thought hugely of it, as my lord Abrazza says; but when abroad, among men, he almost despised it; but when he bethought him of those parts, written with full eyes, half blinded; temples throbbing; and pain at the heart--

ABRAZZA--Pooh! pooh!

BABBALANJA--He would say to himself, "Sure, it can not be in vain!"

Yet again, when he bethought him of the hurry and bustle of Mardi, dejection stole over him. "Who will heed it," thought he; "what care these fops and brawlers for me? But am I not myself an egregious c.o.xcomb? Who will read me? Say one thousand pages--twenty-five lines each--every line ten words--every word ten letters. That's two million five hundred thousand _a_'s, and _i_'s, and _o_'s to read! How many are superfluous? Am I not mad to saddle Mardi with such a task?

Of all men, am I the wisest, to stand upon a pedestal, and teach the mob? Ah, my own Kortanza! child of many prayers!--in whose earnest eyes, so fathomless, I see my own; and recall all past delights and silent agonies-thou may'st prove, as the child of some fond dotard:-- beauteous to me; hideous to Mardi! And methinks, that while so much slaving merits that thou should'st not die; it has not been intense, prolonged enough, for the high meed of immortality. Yet, things immortal have been written; and by men as me;--men, who slept and waked; and ate; and talked with tongues like mine. Ah, Oro! how may we know or not, we are what we would be? Hath genius any stamp and imprint, obvious to possessors? Has it eyes to see itself; or is it blind? Or do we delude ourselves with being G.o.ds, and end in grubs?

Genius, genius?--a thousand years hence, to be a household-word?--I?-- Lombardo? but yesterday cut in the market-place by a spangled fool!-- Lombardo immortal?--Ha, ha, Lombardo! but thou art an a.s.s, with vast ears brushing the tops of palms! Ha, ha, ha! Methinks I see thee immortal! 'Thus great Lombardo saith; and thus; and thus; and thus:-- thus saith he--ill.u.s.trious Lombardo!--Lombardo, our great countryman!

Lombardo, prince of poets--Lombardo! great Lombardo!'--Ha, ha, ha!-- go, go! dig thy grave, and bury thyself!"

ABRAZZA--He was very funny, then, at times.

BABBALANJA--Very funny, your Highness:--amazing jolly! And from my nethermost soul, would to Oro, thou could'st but feel one touch of that jolly woe! It would appall thee, my Right Worshipful lord Abrazza!

ABRAZZA (_to Media_)--My dear lord, his teeth are marvelously white and sharp: some she-shark must have been his dam:--does he often grin thus? It was infernal!

MEDIA--Ah! that's Azzageddi. But, prithee, Babbalanja, proceed.

BABBALANJA--Your Highness, even in his calmer critic moods, Lombardo was far from fancying his work. He confesses, that it ever seemed to him but a poor scrawled copy of something within, which, do what he would, he could not completely transfer. "My canvas was small," said he; "crowded out were hosts of things that came last. But Fate is in it." And Fate it was, too, your Highness, which forced Lombardo, ere his work was well done, to take it off his easel, and send it to be multiplied. "Oh, that I was not thus spurred!" cried he; "but like many another, in its very childhood, this poor child of mine must go out into Mardi, and get bread for its sire."

ABRAZZA (_with a sigh_)--Alas, the poor devil! But methinks 'twas wondrous arrogant in him to talk to all Mardi at that lofty rate.--Did he think himself a G.o.d?

BABBALANJA--He himself best knew what he thought; but, like all others, he was created by Oro to some special end; doubtless, partly answered in his Koztanza.

MEDIA--And now that Lombardo is long dead and gone--and his work, hooted during life, lives after him--what think the present company of it? Speak, my lord Abrazza! Babbalanja! Mohi! Yoomy!

ABRAZZA (_tapping his sandal with his scepter__)--I never read it.

BABBALANJA (_looking upward_)--It was written with a divine intent.

Mohi (_stroking his beard_)--I never hugged it in a corner, and ignored it before Mardi.

Yoomy (_musing_)--It has bettered my heart.

MEDIA (_rising_)--And I have read it through nine times.

BABBALANJA (_starting up_)--Ah, Lombardo! this must make thy ghost glad!

CHAPTER LXXVII They Sup

There seemed something sinister, hollow, heartless, about Abrazza, and that green-and-yellow, evil-starred crown that he wore.

But why think of that? Though we like not something in the curve of one's brow, or distrust the tone of his voice; yet, let us away with suspicions if we may, and make a jolly comrade of him, in the name of the G.o.ds. Miserable! thrice miserable he, who is forever turning over and over one's character in his mind, and weighing by nice avoirdupois, the pros and the cons of his goodness and badness. For we are all good and bad. Give me the heart that's huge as all Asia; and unless a man, be a villain outright, account him one of the best tempered blades in the world.

That night, in his right regal hall, King Abrazza received us. And in merry good time a fine supper was spread.

Now, in thus nocturnally regaling us, our host was warranted by many ancient and ill.u.s.trious examples.

For old Jove gave suppers; the G.o.d Woden gave suppers; the Hindoo deity Brahma gave suppers; the Red Man's Great Spirit gave suppers:-- chiefly venison and game.

And many distinguished mortals besides.

Ahasuerus gave suppers; Xerxes gave suppers; Montezuma gave suppers; Powhattan gave suppers; the Jews' Pa.s.sovers were suppers; the Pharaohs gave suppers; Julius Caesar gave suppers:--and rare ones they were; Great Pompey gave suppers; Nabob Cra.s.sus gave suppers; and Heliogabalus, surnamed the Gobbler, gave suppers.

It was a common saying of old, that King Pluto gave suppers; some say he is giving them still. If so, he is keeping tip-top company, old Pluto:--Emperors and Czars; Great Moguls and Great Khans; Grand Lamas and Grand Dukes; Prince Regents and Queen Dowagers:--Tamerlane hob-a- n.o.bbing with Bonaparte; Antiochus with Solyman the Magnificent; Pisistratus pledging Pilate; Semiramis eating bon-bons with b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, and her namesake of Medicis; the Thirty Tyrants quaffing three to one with the Council of Ten; and Sultans, Satraps, Viziers, Hetmans, Soldans, Landgraves, Bashaws, Doges, Dauphins, Infantas, Incas, and Caciques looking on.

Again: at Arbela, the conqueror of conquerors, conquering son of Olympia by Jupiter himself, sent out cards to his captains,-- Hephestion, Antigonus, Antipater, and the rest--to join him at ten, p.m., in the Temple of Belus; there, to sit down to a victorious supper, off the gold plate of the a.s.syrian High Priests. How majestically he poured out his old Madeira that night!--feeling grand and lofty as the Himmalehs; yea, all Babylon nodded her towers in his soul!

Spread, heaped up, stacked with good things; and redolent of citrons and grapes, hilling round tall vases of wine; and here and there, waving with fresh orange-boughs, among whose leaves, myriads of small tapers gleamed like fire-flies in groves,--Abrazza's glorious board showed like some banquet in Paradise: Ceres and Pomona presiding; and jolly Bacchus, like a recruit with a mettlesome rifle, staggering back as he fires off the bottles of vivacious champagne.