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diff --git a/16209.txt b/16209.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e300e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/16209.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8097 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lectures on the English Poets, by William +Hazlitt, Edited by Alfred Rayney Waller and Ernest Rhys + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Lectures on the English Poets + Delivered at the Surrey Institution + + +Author: William Hazlitt + +Editor: Alfred Rayney Waller and Ernest Rhys + +Release Date: July 5, 2005 [eBook #16209] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS*** + + +E-text prepared by R. W. Jones <rwj@freeshell.org> + + + +Transcriber's note: This file was proofed, using a text-to-speech reader, + against the hard copy 2nd. edition published in 1819. + No attempt has been made to change the text of any of + the quoted verse to reflect later editors' amendments. + _Italics_ are indicated thus. The footnotes are + serially numbered from the first to the last Lecture, + unlike in the original. + + + + + + +LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS + +Delivered at the Surrey Institution + +by + +WILLIAM HAZLITT + + + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + LECTURE I. + INTRODUCTORY.--ON POETRY IN GENERAL. + + LECTURE II. + ON CHAUCER AND SPENSER. + + LECTURE III. + ON SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON. + + LECTURE IV. + ON DRYDEN AND POPE. + + LECTURE V. + ON THOMSON AND COWPER. + + LECTURE VI. + ON SWIFT, YOUNG, GRAY, COLLINS &c. + + LECTURE VII. + ON BURNS, AND THE OLD ENGLISH BALLADS. + + LECTURE VIII. + ON THE LIVING POETS. + + + + +LECTURE I.--INTRODUCTORY +ON POETRY IN GENERAL. + + +The best general notion which I can give of poetry is, that it is the +natural impression of any object or event, by its vividness exciting an +involuntary movement of imagination and passion, and producing, by +sympathy, a certain modulation of the voice, or sounds, expressing it. + +In treating of poetry, I shall speak first of the subject-matter of +it, next of the forms of expression to which it gives birth, and +afterwards of its connection with harmony of sound. + +Poetry is the language of the imagination and the passions. It +relates to whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to the human mind. +It comes home to the bosoms and businesses of men; for nothing but what +so comes home to them in the most general and intelligible shape, can be +a subject for poetry. Poetry is the universal language which the heart +holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot +have much respect for himself, or for any thing else. It is not a mere +frivolous accomplishment, (as some persons have been led to imagine) the +trifling amusement of a few idle readers or leisure hours--it has been +the study and delight of mankind in all ages. Many people suppose that +poetry is something to be found only in books, contained in lines of ten +syllables, with like endings: but wherever there is a sense of beauty, +or power, or harmony, as in the motion of a wave of the sea, in the +growth of a flower that "spreads its sweet leaves to the air, and +dedicates its beauty to the sun,"--_there_ is poetry, in its birth. If +history is a grave study, poetry may be said to be a graver: its +materials lie deeper, and are spread wider. History treats, for the most +part, of the cumbrous and unwieldly masses of things, the empty cases in +which the affairs of the world are packed, under the heads of intrigue +or war, in different states, and from century to century: but there is +no thought or feeling that can have entered into the mind of man, which +he would be eager to communicate to others, or which they would listen +to with delight, that is not a fit subject for poetry. It is not a +branch of authorship: it is "the stuff of which our life is made." The +rest is "mere oblivion," a dead letter: for all that is worth +remembering in life, is the poetry of it. Fear is poetry, hope is +poetry, love is poetry, hatred is poetry; contempt, jealousy, remorse, +admiration, wonder, pity, despair, or madness, are all poetry. Poetry is +that fine particle within us, that expands, rarefies, refines, raises +our whole being: without it "man's life is poor as beast's." Man is a +poetical animal: and those of us who do not study the principles of +poetry, act upon them all our lives, like Moliere's _Bourgeois +Gentilhomme_, who had always spoken prose without knowing it. The child +is a poet in fact, when he first plays at hide-and-seek, or repeats the +story of Jack the Giant-killer; the shepherd-boy is a poet, when he +first crowns his mistress with a garland of flowers; the countryman, +when he stops to look at the rainbow; the city-apprentice, when he gazes +after the Lord-Mayor's show; the miser, when he hugs his gold; the +courtier, who builds his hopes upon a smile; the savage, who paints his +idol with blood; the slave, who worships a tyrant, or the tyrant, who +fancies himself a god;--the vain, the ambitious, the proud, the +choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and the king, the rich +and the poor, the young and the old, all live in a world of their own +making; and the poet does no more than describe what all the others +think and act. If his art is folly and madness, it is folly and madness +at second hand. "There is warrant for it." Poets alone have not "such +seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cooler +reason" can. + + "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet + Are of imagination all compact. + One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; + The madman. While the lover, all as frantic, + Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. + The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling, + Doth glance from heav'n to earth, from earth to heav'n; + And as imagination bodies forth + The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen + Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing + A local habitation and a name. + Such tricks hath strong imagination." + +If poetry is a dream, the business of life is much the same. If it is +a fiction, made up of what we wish things to be, and fancy that they +are, because we wish them so, there is no other nor better reality. +Ariosto has described the loves of Angelica and Medoro: but was not +Medoro, who carved the name of his mistress on the barks of trees, as +much enamoured of her charms as he? Homer has celebrated the anger of +Achilles: but was not the hero as mad as the poet? Plato banished the +poets from his Commonwealth, lest their descriptions of the natural man +should spoil his mathematical man, who was to be without passions and +affections, who was neither to laugh nor weep, to feel sorrow nor anger, +to be cast down nor elated by any thing. This was a chimera, however, +which never existed but in the brain of the inventor; and Homer's +poetical world has outlived Plato's philosophical Republic. + +Poetry then is an imitation of nature, but the imagination and the +passions are a part of man's nature. We shape things according to our +wishes and fancies, without poetry; but poetry is the most emphatical +language that can be found for those creations of the mind "which +ecstacy is very cunning in." Neither a mere description of natural +objects, nor a mere delineation of natural feelings, however distinct or +forcible, constitutes the ultimate end and aim of poetry, without the +heightenings of the imagination. The light of poetry is not only a +direct but also a reflected light, that while it shews us the object, +throws a sparkling radiance on all around it: the flame of the passions, +communicated to the imagination, reveals to us, as with a flash of +lightning, the inmost recesses of thought, and penetrates our whole +being. Poetry represents forms chiefly as they suggest other forms; +feelings, as they suggest forms or other feelings. Poetry puts a spirit +of life and motion into the universe. It describes the flowing, not the +fixed. It does not define the limits of sense, or analyze the +distinctions of the understanding, but signifies the excess of the +imagination beyond the actual or ordinary impression of any object or +feeling. The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite +sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is +impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link +itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine +itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the +aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner, and by +the most striking examples of the same quality in other instances. +Poetry, according to Lord Bacon, for this reason, "has something divine +in it, because it raises the mind and hurries it into sublimity, by +conforming the shows of things to the desires of the soul, instead of +subjecting the soul to external things, as reason and history do." It is +strictly the language of the imagination; and the imagination is that +faculty which represents objects, not as they are in themselves, but as +they are moulded by other thoughts and feelings, into an infinite +variety of shapes and combinations of power. This language is not the +less true to nature, because it is false in point of fact; but so much +the more true and natural, if it conveys the impression which the object +under the influence of passion makes on the mind. Let an object, for +instance, be presented to the senses in a state of agitation or fear-- +and the imagination will distort or magnify the object, and convert it +into the likeness of whatever is most proper to encourage the fear. "Our +eyes are made the fools" of our other faculties. This is the universal +law of the imagination, + + "That if it would but apprehend some joy, + It comprehends some bringer of that joy: + Or in the night imagining some fear, + How easy is each bush suppos'd a bear!" + +When Iachimo says of Imogen, + + "------The flame o' th' taper + Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids + To see the enclosed lights"-- + +this passionate interpretation of the motion of the flame to accord with +the speaker's own feelings, is true poetry. The lover, equally with the +poet, speaks of the auburn tresses of his mistress as locks of shining +gold, because the least tinge of yellow in the hair has, from novelty +and a sense of personal beauty, a more lustrous effect to the +imagination than the purest gold. We compare a man of gigantic stature +to a tower: not that he is any thing like so large, but because the +excess of his size beyond what we are accustomed to expect, or the usual +size of things of the same class, produces by contrast a greater feeling +of magnitude and ponderous strength than another object of ten times the +same dimensions. The intensity of the feeling makes up for the +disproportion of the objects. Things are equal to the imagination, which +have the power of affecting the mind with an equal degree of terror, +admiration, delight, or love. When Lear calls upon the heavens to avenge +his cause, "for they are old like him," there is nothing extravagant or +impious in this sublime identification of his age with theirs; for there +is no other image which could do justice to the agonising sense of his +wrongs and his despair! + +Poetry is the high-wrought enthusiasm of fancy and feeling. As in +describing natural objects, it impregnates sensible impressions with the +forms of fancy, so it describes the feelings of pleasure or pain, by +blending them with the strongest movements of passion, and the most +striking forms of nature. Tragic poetry, which is the most impassioned +species of it, strives to carry on the feeling to the utmost point of +sublimity or pathos, by all the force of comparison or contrast; loses +the sense of present suffering in the imaginary exaggeration of it; +exhausts the terror or pity by an unlimited indulgence of it; grapples +with impossibilities in its desperate impatience of restraint; throws us +back upon the past, forward into the future; brings every moment of our +being or object of nature in startling review before us; and in the +rapid whirl of events, lifts us from the depths of woe to the highest +contemplations on human life. When Lear says of Edgar, "Nothing but his +unkind daughters could have brought him to this;" what a bewildered +amazement, what a wrench of the imagination, that cannot be brought to +conceive of any other cause of misery than that which has bowed it down, +and absorbs all other sorrow in its own! His sorrow, like a flood, +supplies the sources of all other sorrow. Again, when he exclaims in the +mad scene, "The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, +they bark at me!" it is passion lending occasion to imagination to make +every creature in league against him, conjuring up ingratitude and +insult in their least looked-for and most galling shapes, searching +every thread and fibre of his heart, and finding out the last remaining +image of respect or attachment in the bottom of his breast, only to +torture and kill it! In like manner, the "So I am" of Cordelia gushes +from her heart like a torrent of tears, relieving it of a weight of love +and of supposed ingratitude, which had pressed upon it for years. What a +fine return of the passion upon itself is that in Othello--with what a +mingled agony of regret and despair he clings to the last traces of +departed happiness--when he exclaims, + + ------"Oh now, for ever + Farewel the tranquil mind. Farewel content; + Farewel the plumed troops and the big war, + That make ambition virtue! Oh farewel! + Farewel the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, + The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife, + The royal banner, and all quality, + Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war: + And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats + Th' immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, + Farewel! Othello's occupation's gone!" + +How his passion lashes itself up and swells and rages like a tide in +its sounding course, when in answer to the doubts expressed of his +returning love, he says, + + "Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic sea, + Whose icy current and compulsive course + Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on + To the Propontic and the Hellespont: + Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, + Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love, + Till that a capable and wide revenge + Swallow them up."-- + +The climax of his expostulation afterwards with Desdemona is at that +line [sic], + + "But there where I had garner'd up my heart, + To be discarded thence!"-- + +One mode in which the dramatic exhibition of passion excites our +sympathy without raising our disgust is, that in proportion as it +sharpens the edge of calamity and disappointment, it strengthens the +desire of good. It enhances our consciousness of the blessing, by making +us sensible of the magnitude of the loss. The storm of passion lays bare +and shews us the rich depths of the human soul: the whole of our +existence, the sum total of our passions and pursuits, of that which we +desire and that which we dread, is brought before us by contrast; the +action and re-action are equal; the keenness of immediate suffering only +gives us a more intense aspiration after, and a more intimate +participation with the antagonist world of good; makes us drink deeper +of the cup of human life; tugs at the heart-strings; loosens the +pressure about them; and calls the springs of thought and feeling into +play with tenfold force. + +Impassioned poetry is an emanation of the moral and intellectual part +of our nature, as well as of the sensitive--of the desire to know, the +will to act, and the power to feel; and ought to appeal to these +different parts of our constitution, in order to be perfect. The +domestic or prose tragedy, which is thought to be the most natural, is +in this sense the least so, because it appeals almost exclusively to one +of these faculties, our sensibility. The tragedies of Moore and Lillo, +for this reason, however affecting at the time, oppress and lie like a +dead weight upon the mind, a load of misery which it is unable to throw +off: the tragedy of Shakspeare, which is true poetry, stirs our inmost +affections; abstracts evil from itself by combining it with all the +forms of imagination, and with the deepest workings of the heart, and +rouses the whole man within us. + +The pleasure, however, derived from tragic poetry, is not any thing +peculiar to it as poetry, as a fictitious and fanciful thing. It is not +an anomaly of the imagination. It has its source and ground-work in the +common love of strong excitement. As Mr. Burke observes, people flock to +see a tragedy; but if there were a public execution in the next street, +the theatre would very soon be empty. It is not then the difference +between fiction and reality that solves the difficulty. Children are +satisfied with the stories of ghosts and witches in plain prose: nor do +the hawkers of full, true, and particular accounts of murders and +executions about the streets, find it necessary to have them turned into +penny ballads, before they can dispose of these interesting and +authentic documents. The grave politician drives a thriving trade of +abuse and calumnies poured out against those whom he makes his enemies +for no other end than that he may live by them. The popular preacher +makes less frequent mention of heaven than of hell. Oaths and nicknames +are only a more vulgar sort of poetry or rhetoric. We are as fond of +indulging our violent passions as of reading a description of those of +others. We are as prone to make a torment of our fears, as to luxuriate +in our hopes of good. If it be asked, Why we do so? the best answer will +be, Because we cannot help it. The sense of power is as strong a +principle in the mind as the love of pleasure. Objects of terror and +pity exercise the same despotic control over it as those of love or +beauty. It is as natural to hate as to love, to despise as to admire, to +express our hatred or contempt, as our love or admiration. + + "Masterless passion sways us to the mood + Of what it likes or loathes." + +Not that we like what we loathe; but we like to indulge our hatred +and scorn of it; to dwell upon it, to exasperate our idea of it by every +refinement of ingenuity and extravagance of illustration; to make it a +bugbear to ourselves, to point it out to others in all the splendour of +deformity, to embody it to the senses, to stigmatise it by name, to +grapple with it in thought, in action, to sharpen our intellect, to arm +our will against it, to know the worst we have to contend with, and to +contend with it to the utmost. Poetry is only the highest eloquence of +passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our +conception of any thing, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or +dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of +the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot +get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the +thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and +tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic. When Pope says of the Lord Mayor's +shew,-- + + "Now night descending, the proud scene is o'er, + But lives in Settle's numbers one day more!" + +--when Collins makes Danger, "with limbs of giant mould," + + ------"Throw him on the steep + Of some loose hanging rock asleep:" + +when Lear calls out in extreme anguish, + + "Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, + How much more hideous shew'st in a child + Than the sea-monster!" + +--the passion of contempt in the one case, of terror in the other, and +of indignation in the last, is perfectly satisfied. We see the thing +ourselves, and shew it to others as we feel it to exist, and as, in +spite of ourselves, we are compelled to think of it. The imagination, by +thus embodying and turning them to shape, gives an obvious relief to the +indistinct and importunate cravings of the will.--We do not wish the +thing to be so; but we wish it to appear such as it is. For knowledge is +conscious power; and the mind is no longer, in this case, the dupe, +though it may be the victim of vice or folly. + +Poetry is in all its shapes the language of the imagination and the +passions, of fancy and will. Nothing, therefore, can be more absurd than +the outcry which has been sometimes raised by frigid and pedantic +critics, for reducing the language of poetry to the standard of common +sense and reason: for the end and use of poetry, "both at the first and +now, was and is to hold the mirror up to nature," seen through the +medium of passion and imagination, not divested of that medium by means +of literal truth or abstract reason. The painter of history might as +well be required to represent the face of a person who has just trod +upon a serpent with the still-life expression of a common portrait, as +the poet to describe the most striking and vivid impressions which +things can be supposed to make upon the mind, in the language of common +conversation. Let who will strip nature of the colours and the shapes of +fancy, the poet is not bound to do so; the impressions of common sense +and strong imagination, that is, of passion and indifference, cannot be +the same, and they must have a separate language to do justice to +either. Objects must strike differently upon the mind, independently of +what they are in themselves, as long as we have a different interest in +them, as we see them in a different point of view, nearer or at a +greater distance (morally or physically speaking) from novelty, from old +acquaintance, from our ignorance of them, from our fear of their +consequences, from contrast, from unexpected likeness. We can no more +take away the faculty of the imagination, than we can see all objects +without light or shade. Some things must dazzle us by their +preternatural light; others must hold us in suspense, and tempt our +curiosity to explore their obscurity. Those who would dispel these +various illusions, to give us their drab-coloured creation in their +stead, are not very wise. Let the naturalist, if he will, catch the +glow-worm, carry it home with him in a box, and find it next morning +nothing but a little grey worm; let the poet or the lover of poetry +visit it at evening, when beneath the scented hawthorn and the crescent +moon it has built itself a palace of emerald light. This is also one +part of nature, one appearance which the glow-worm presents, and that +not the least interesting; so poetry is one part of the history of the +human mind, though it is neither science nor philosophy. It cannot be +concealed, however, that the progress of knowledge and refinement has a +tendency to circumscribe the limits of the imagination, and to clip the +wings of poetry. The province of the imagination is principally +visionary, the unknown and undefined: the understanding restores things +to their natural boundaries, and strips them of their fanciful +pretensions. Hence the history of religious and poetical enthusiasm is +much the same; and both have received a sensible shock from the progress +of experimental philosophy. It is the undefined and uncommon that gives +birth and scope to the imagination; we can only fancy what we do not +know. As in looking into the mazes of a tangled wood we fill them with +what shapes we please, with ravenous beasts, with caverns vast, and +drear enchantments, so in our ignorance of the world about us, we make +gods or devils of the first object we see, and set no bounds to the +wilful suggestions of our hopes and fears. + + "And visions, as poetic eyes avow, + Hang on each leaf and cling to every bough." + +There can never be another Jacob's dream. Since that time, the heavens +have gone farther off, and grown astronomical. They have become averse +to the imagination, nor will they return to us on the squares of the +distances, or on Doctor Chalmers's Discourses. Rembrandt's picture +brings the matter nearer to us.--It is not only the progress of +mechanical knowledge, but the necessary advances of civilization that +are unfavourable to the spirit of poetry. We not only stand in less awe +of the preternatural world, but we can calculate more surely, and look +with more indifference, upon the regular routine of this. The heroes of +the fabulous ages rid the world of monsters and giants. At present we +are less exposed to the vicissitudes of good or evil, to the incursions +of wild beasts or "bandit fierce," or to the unmitigated fury of the +elements. The time has been that "our fell of hair would at a dismal +treatise rouse and stir as life were in it." But the police spoils all; +and we now hardly so much as dream of a midnight murder. Macbeth is only +tolerated in this country for the sake of the music; and in the United +States of America, where the philosophical principles of government are +carried still farther in theory and practice, we find that the Beggar's +Opera is hooted from the stage. Society, by degrees, is constructed into +a machine that carries us safely and insipidly from one end of life to +the other, in a very comfortable prose style. + + "Obscurity her curtain round them drew, + And siren Sloth a dull quietus sung." + +The remarks which have been here made, would, in some measure, lead to a +solution of the question of the comparative merits of painting and +poetry. I do not mean to give any preference, but it should seem that +the argument which has been sometimes set up, that painting must affect +the imagination more strongly, because it represents the image more +distinctly, is not well founded. We may assume without much temerity, +that poetry is more poetical than painting. When artists or connoisseurs +talk on stilts about the poetry of painting, they shew that they know +little about poetry, and have little love for the art. Painting gives +the object itself; poetry what it implies. Painting embodies what a +thing contains in itself: poetry suggests what exists out of it, in any +manner connected with it. But this last is the proper province of the +imagination. Again, as it relates to passion, painting gives the event, +poetry the progress of events: but it is during the progress, in the +interval of expectation and suspense, while our hopes and fears are +strained to the highest pitch of breathless agony, that the pinch of the +interest lies. + + "Between the acting of a dreadful thing + And the first motion, all the interim is + Like a phantasma or a hideous dream. + The mortal instruments are then in council; + And the state of man, like to a little kingdom, + Suffers then the nature of an insurrection." + +But by the time that the picture is painted, all is over. Faces are +the best part of a picture; but even faces are not what we chiefly +remember in what interests us most.--But it may be asked then, Is there +anything better than Claude Lorraine's landscapes, than Titian's +portraits, than Raphael's cartoons, or the Greek statues? Of the two +first I shall say nothing, as they are evidently picturesque, rather +than imaginative. Raphael's cartoons are certainly the finest comments +that ever were made on the Scriptures. Would their effect be the same if +we were not acquainted with the text? But the New Testament existed +before the cartoons. There is one subject of which there is no cartoon, +Christ washing the feet of the disciples the night before his death. But +that chapter does not need a commentary! It is for want of some such +resting place for the imagination that the Greek statues are little else +than specious forms. They are marble to the touch and to the heart. They +have not an informing principle within them. In their faultless +excellence they appear sufficient to themselves. By their beauty they +are raised above the frailties of passion or suffering. By their beauty +they are deified. But they are not objects of religious faith to us, and +their forms are a reproach to common humanity. They seem to have no +sympathy with us, and not to want our admiration. + +Poetry in its matter and form is natural imagery or feeling, combined +with passion and fancy. In its mode of conveyance, it combines the +ordinary use of language with musical expression. There is a question of +long standing, in what the essence of poetry consists; or what it is +that determines why one set of ideas should be expressed in prose, +another in verse. Milton has told us his idea of poetry in a single +line-- + + "Thoughts that voluntary move + Harmonious numbers." + +As there are certain sounds that excite certain movements, and the +song and dance go together, so there are, no doubt, certain thoughts +that lead to certain tones of voice, or modulations of sound, and change +"the words of Mercury into the songs of Apollo." There is a striking +instance of this adaptation of the movement of sound and rhythm to the +subject, in Spenser's description of the Satyrs accompanying Una to the +cave of Sylvanus. + + "So from the ground she fearless doth arise + And walketh forth without suspect of crime. + They, all as glad as birds of joyous prime, + Thence lead her forth, about her dancing round, + Shouting and singing all a shepherd's rhyme; + And with green branches strewing all the ground, + Do worship her as queen with olive garland crown'd. + + And all the way their merry pipes they sound, + That all the woods and doubled echoes ring; + And with their horned feet do wear the ground, + Leaping like wanton kids in pleasant spring; + So towards old Sylvanus they her bring, + Who with the noise awaked, cometh out." + _Faery Queen_, b. i. c. vi. + +On the contrary, there is nothing either musical or natural in the +ordinary construction of language. It is a thing altogether arbitrary +and conventional. Neither in the sounds themselves, which are the +voluntary signs of certain ideas, nor in their grammatical arrangements +in common speech, is there any principle of natural imitation, or +correspondence to the individual ideas, or to the tone of feeling with +which they are conveyed to others. The jerks, the breaks, the +inequalities, and harshnesses of prose, are fatal to the flow of a +poetical imagination, as a jolting road or a stumbling horse disturbs +the reverie of an absent man. But poetry makes these odds all even. It +is the music of language, answering to the music of the mind, untying as +it were "the secret soul of harmony." Wherever any object takes such a +hold of the mind as to make us dwell upon it, and brood over it, melting +the heart in tenderness, or kindling it to a sentiment of enthusiasm;-- +wherever a movement of imagination or passion is impressed on the mind, +by which it seeks to prolong and repeat the emotion, to bring all other +objects into accord with it, and to give the same movement of harmony, +sustained and continuous, or gradually varied according to the occasion, +to the sounds that express it--this is poetry. The musical in sound is +the sustained and continuous; the musical in thought is the sustained +and continuous also. There is a near connection between music and +deep-rooted passion. Mad people sing. As often as articulation passes +naturally into intonation, there poetry begins. Where one idea gives a +tone and colour to others, where one feeling melts others into it, there +can be no reason why the same principle should not be extended to the +sounds by which the voice utters these emotions of the soul, and blends +syllables and lines into each other. It is to supply the inherent defect +of harmony in the customary mechanism of language, to make the sound an +echo to the sense, when the sense becomes a sort of echo to itself--to +mingle the tide of verse, "the golden cadences of poetry," with the tide +of feeling, flowing and murmuring as it flows--in short, to take the +language of the imagination from off the ground, and enable it to spread +its wings where it may indulge its own impulses-- + + "Sailing with supreme dominion + Through the azure deep of air--" + +without being stopped, or fretted, or diverted with the abruptnesses and +petty obstacles, and discordant flats and sharps of prose, that poetry +was invented. It is to common language, what springs are to a carriage, +or wings to feet. In ordinary speech we arrive at a certain harmony by +the modulations of the voice: in poetry the same thing is done +systematically by a regular collocation of syllables. It has been well +observed, that every one who declaims warmly, or grows intent upon a +subject, rises into a sort of blank verse or measured prose. The +merchant, as described in Chaucer, went on his way "sounding always the +increase of his winning." Every prose-writer has more or less of +rhythmical adaptation, except poets, who, when deprived of the regular +mechanism of verse, seem to have no principle of modulation left in +their writings. + +An excuse might be made for rhyme in the same manner. It is but fair +that the ear should linger on the sounds that delight it, or avail +itself of the same brilliant coincidence and unexpected recurrence of +syllables, that have been displayed in the invention and collocation of +images. It is allowed that rhyme assists the memory; and a man of wit +and shrewdness has been heard to say, that the only four good lines of +poetry are the well known ones which tell the number of days in the +months of the year. + + "Thirty days hath September," &c. + +But if the jingle of names assists the memory, may it not also quicken +the fancy? and there are other things worth having at our fingers' ends, +besides the contents of the almanac.--Pope's versification is tiresome, +from its excessive sweetness and uniformity. Shakspeare's blank verse is +the perfection of dramatic dialogue. + +All is not poetry that passes for such: nor does verse make the whole +difference between poetry and prose. The Iliad does not cease to be +poetry in a literal translation; and Addison's Campaign has been very +properly denominated a Gazette in rhyme. Common prose differs from +poetry, as treating for the most part either of such trite, familiar, +and irksome matters of fact, as convey no extraordinary impulse to the +imagination, or else of such difficult and laborious processes of the +understanding, as do not admit of the wayward or violent movements +either of the imagination or the passions. + +I will mention three works which come as near to poetry as possible +without absolutely being so, namely, the Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson +Crusoe, and the Tales of Boccaccio. Chaucer and Dryden have translated +some of the last into English rhyme, but the essence and the power of +poetry was there before. That which lifts the spirit above the earth, +which draws the soul out of itself with indescribable longings, is +poetry in kind, and generally fit to become so in name, by being +"married to immortal verse." If it is of the essence of poetry to strike +and fix the imagination, whether we will or no, to make the eye of +childhood glisten with the starting tear, to be never thought of +afterwards with indifference, John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe may be +permitted to pass for poets in their way. The mixture of fancy and +reality in the Pilgrim's Progress was never equalled in any allegory. +His pilgrims walk above the earth, and yet are on it. What zeal, what +beauty, what truth of fiction! What deep feeling in the description of +Christian's swimming across the water at last, and in the picture of the +Shining Ones within the gates, with wings at their backs and garlands on +their heads, who are to wipe all tears from his eyes! The writer's +genius, though not "dipped in dews of Castalie," was baptised with the +Holy Spirit and with fire. The prints in this book are no small part of +it. If the confinement of Philoctetes in the island of Lemnos was a +subject for the most beautiful of all the Greek tragedies, what shall we +say to Robinson Crusoe in his? Take the speech of the Greek hero on +leaving his cave, beautiful as it is, and compare it with the +reflections of the English adventurer in his solitary place of +confinement. The thoughts of home, and of all from which he is for ever +cut off, swell and press against his bosom, as the heaving ocean rolls +its ceaseless tide against the rocky shore, and the very beatings of his +heart become audible in the eternal silence that surrounds him. Thus he +says, + + "As I walked about, either in my hunting, or for viewing the +country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me +on a sudden, and my very heart would die within me to think of the +woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in; and how I was a prisoner, +locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, in an +uninhabited wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the greatest +composures of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm, and +make me wring my hands, and weep like a child. Sometimes it would take +me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, +and look upon the ground for an hour or two together, and this was still +worse to me, for if I could burst into tears or vent myself in words, it +would go off, and the grief having exhausted itself would abate." P. +50. + +The story of his adventures would not make a poem like the Odyssey, +it is true; but the relator had the true genius of a poet. It has been +made a question whether Richardson's romances are poetry; and the answer +perhaps is, that they are not poetry, because they are not romance. The +interest is worked up to an inconceivable height; but it is by an +infinite number of little things, by incessant labour and calls upon the +attention, by a repetition of blows that have no rebound in them. The +sympathy excited is not a voluntary contribution, but a tax. Nothing is +unforced and spontaneous. There is a want of elasticity and motion. The +story does not "give an echo to the seat where love is throned." The +heart does not answer of itself like a chord in music. The fancy does +not run on before the writer with breathless expectation, but is dragged +along with an infinite number of pins and wheels, like those with which +the Lilliputians dragged Gulliver pinioned to the royal palace.--Sir +Charles Grandison is a coxcomb. What sort of a figure would he cut, +translated into an epic poem, by the side of Achilles? Clarissa, the +divine Clarissa, is too interesting by half. She is interesting in her +ruffles, in her gloves, her samplers, her aunts and uncles--she is +interesting in all that is uninteresting. Such things, however intensely +they may be brought home to us, are not conductors to the imagination. +There is infinite truth and feeling in Richardson; but it is extracted +from a _caput mortuum_ of circumstances: it does not evaporate of +itself. His poetical genius is like Ariel confined in a pine-tree, and +requires an artificial process to let it out. Shakspeare says-- + + "Our poesy is as a gum + Which issues whence 'tis nourished, our gentle flame + Provokes itself, and like the current flies + Each bound it chafes." [1] + +I shall conclude this general account with some remarks on four of +the principal works of poetry in the world, at different periods of +history--Homer, the Bible, Dante, and let me add, Ossian. In Homer, +the principle of action or life is predominant; in the Bible, the +principle of faith and the idea of Providence; Dante is a +personification of blind will; and in Ossian we see the decay of life, +and the lag end of the world. Homer's poetry is the heroic: it is full +of life and action: it is bright as the day, strong as a river. In the +vigour of his intellect, he grapples with all the objects of nature, and +enters into all the relations of social life. + +___ +[1] Burke's writings are not poetry, notwithstanding the vividness of +the fancy, because the subject matter is abstruse and dry, not natural, +but artificial. The difference between poetry and eloquence is, that the +one is the eloquence of the imagination, and the other of the +understanding. Eloquence tries to persuade the will, and convince the +reason: poetry produces its effect by instantaneous sympathy. Nothing is +a subject for poetry that admits of a dispute. Poets are in general bad +prose-writers, because their images, though fine in themselves, are not +to the purpose, and do not carry on the argument. The French poetry +wants the forms of the imagination. It is didactic more than dramatic. +And some of our own poetry which has been most admired, is only poetry +in the rhyme, and in the studied use of poetic diction. +___ + +He saw many countries, and the manners of many men; and he has brought +them all together in his poem. He describes his heroes going to battle +with a prodigality of life, arising from an exuberance of animal +spirits: we see them before us, their number, and their order of battle, +poured out upon the plain "all plumed like estriches, like eagles newly +bathed, wanton as goats, wild as young bulls, youthful as May, and +gorgeous as the sun at midsummer," covered with glittering armour, with +dust and blood; while the Gods quaff their nectar in golden cups, or +mingle in the fray; and the old men assembled on the walls of Troy rise +up with reverence as Helen passes by them. The multitude of things in +Homer is wonderful; their splendour, their truth, their force, and +variety. His poetry is, like his religion, the poetry of number and +form: he describes the bodies as well as the souls of men. + +The poetry of the Bible is that of imagination and of faith: it is +abstract and disembodied: it is not the poetry of form, but of power; +not of multitude, but of immensity. It does not divide into many, but +aggrandizes into one. Its ideas of nature are like its ideas of God. It +is not the poetry of social life, but of solitude: each man seems alone +in the world, with the original forms of nature, the rocks, the earth, +and the sky. It is not the poetry of action or heroic enterprise, but of +faith in a supreme Providence, and resignation to the power that governs +the universe. As the idea of God was removed farther from humanity, and +a scattered polytheism, it became more profound and intense, as it +became more universal, for the Infinite is present to every thing: "If +we fly into the uttermost parts of the earth, it is there also; if we +turn to the east or the west, we cannot escape from it." Man is thus +aggrandised in the image of his Maker. The history of the patriarchs is +of this kind; they are founders of a chosen race of people, the +inheritors of the earth; they exist in the generations which are to come +after them. Their poetry, like their religious creed, is vast, unformed, +obscure, and infinite; a vision is upon it--an invisible hand is +suspended over it. The spirit of the Christian religion consists in the +glory hereafter to be revealed; but in the Hebrew dispensation, +Providence took an immediate share in the affairs of this life. Jacob's +dream arose out of this intimate communion between heaven and earth: it +was this that let down, in the sight of the youthful patriarch, a golden +ladder from the sky to the earth, with angels ascending and descending +upon it, and shed a light upon the lonely place, which can never pass +away. The story of Ruth, again, is as if all the depth of natural +affection in the human race was involved in her breast. There are +descriptions in the book of Job more prodigal of imagery, more intense +in passion, than any thing in Homer, as that of the state of his +prosperity, and of the vision that came upon him by night. The metaphors +in the Old Testament are more boldly figurative. Things were collected +more into masses, and gave a greater _momentum_ to the imagination. + +Dante was the father of modern poetry, and he may therefore claim a +place in this connection. His poem is the first great step from Gothic +darkness and barbarism; and the struggle of thought in it to burst the +thraldom in which the human mind had been so long held, is felt in every +page. He stood bewildered, not appalled, on that dark shore which +separates the ancient and the modern world; and saw the glories of +antiquity dawning through the abyss of time, while revelation opened its +passage to the other world. He was lost in wonder at what had been done +before him, and he dared to emulate it. Dante seems to have been +indebted to the Bible for the gloomy tone of his mind, as well as for +the prophetic fury which exalts and kindles his poetry; but he is +utterly unlike Homer. His genius is not a sparkling flame, but the +sullen heat of a furnace. He is power, passion, self-will personified. +In all that relates to the descriptive or fanciful part of poetry, he +bears no comparison to many who had gone before, or who have come after +him; but there is a gloomy abstraction in his conceptions, which lies +like a dead weight upon the mind; a benumbing stupor, a breathless awe, +from the intensity of the impression; a terrible obscurity, like that +which oppresses us in dreams; an identity of interest, which moulds +every object to its own purposes, and clothes all things with the +passions and imaginations of the human soul,--that make amends for all +other deficiencies. The immediate objects he presents to the mind are +not much in themselves, they want grandeur, beauty, and order; but they +become every thing by the force of the character he impresses upon them. +His mind lends its own power to the objects which it contemplates, +instead of borrowing it from them. He takes advantage even of the +nakedness and dreary vacuity of his subject. His imagination peoples the +shades of death, and broods over the silent air. He is the severest of +all writers, the most hard and impenetrable, the most opposite to the +flowery and glittering; who relies most on his own power, and the sense +of it in others, and who leaves most room to the imagination of his +readers. Dante's only endeavour is to interest; and he interests by +exciting our sympathy with the emotion by which he is himself possessed. +He does not place before us the objects by which that emotion has been +created; but he seizes on the attention, by shewing us the effect they +produce on his feelings; and his poetry accordingly gives the same +thrilling and overwhelming sensation, which is caught by gazing on the +face of a person who has seen some object of horror. The improbability +of the events, the abruptness and monotony in the Inferno, are +excessive: but the interest never flags, from the continued earnestness +of the author's mind. Dante's great power is in combining internal +feelings with external objects. Thus the gate of hell, on which that +withering inscription is written, seems to be endowed with speech and +consciousness, and to utter its dread warning, not without a sense of +mortal woes. This author habitually unites the absolutely local and +individual with the greatest wildness and mysticism. In the midst of the +obscure and shadowy regions of the lower world, a tomb suddenly rises up +with the inscription, "I am the tomb of Pope Anastasius the Sixth": and +half the personages whom he has crowded into the Inferno are his own +acquaintance. All this, perhaps, tends to heighten the effect by the +bold intermixture of realities, and by an appeal, as it were, to the +individual knowledge and experience of the reader. He affords few +subjects for picture. There is, indeed, one gigantic one, that of Count +Ugolino, of which Michael Angelo made a bas-relief, and which Sir Joshua +Reynolds ought not to have painted. + +Another writer whom I shall mention last, and whom I cannot persuade +myself to think a mere modern in the groundwork, is Ossian. He is a +feeling and a name that can never be destroyed in the minds of his +readers. As Homer is the first vigour and lustihed, Ossian is the decay +and old age of poetry. He lives only in the recollection and regret of +the past. There is one impression which he conveys more entirely than +all other poets, namely, the sense of privation, the loss of all things, +of friends, of good name, of country--he is even without God in the +world. He converses only with the spirits of the departed; with the +motionless and silent clouds. The cold moonlight sheds its faint lustre +on his head; the fox peeps out of the ruined tower; the thistle waves +its beard to the wandering gale; and the strings of his harp seem, as +the hand of age, as the tale of other times, passes over them, to sigh +and rustle like the dry reeds in the winter's wind! The feeling of +cheerless desolation, of the loss of the pith and sap of existence, of +the annihilation of the substance, and the clinging to the shadow of all +things as in a mock-embrace, is here perfect. In this way, the +lamentation of Selma for the loss of Salgar is the finest of all. If it +were indeed possible to shew that this writer was nothing, it would only +be another instance of mutability, another blank made, another void left +in the heart, another confirmation of that feeling which makes him so +often complain, "Roll on, ye dark brown years, ye bring no joy on your +wing to Ossian!" + + + + +LECTURE II. +ON CHAUCER AND SPENSER. + + +Having, in the former Lecture, given some account of the nature of +poetry in general, I shall proceed, in the next place, to a more +particular consideration of the genius and history of English poetry. I +shall take, as the subject of the present lecture, Chaucer and Spenser, +two out of four of the greatest names in poetry, which this country has +to boast. Both of them, however, were much indebted to the early poets +of Italy, and may be considered as belonging, in a certain degree, to +the same school. The freedom and copiousness with which our most +original writers, in former periods, availed themselves of the +productions of their predecessors, frequently transcribing whole +passages, without scruple or acknowledgment, may appear contrary to the +etiquette of modern literature, when the whole stock of poetical +common-places has become public property, and no one is compelled to +trade upon any particular author. But it is not so much a subject of +wonder, at a time when to read and write was of itself an honorary +distinction, when learning was almost as great a rarity as genius, and +when in fact those who first transplanted the beauties of other +languages into their own, might be considered as public benefactors, and +the founders of a national literature.--There are poets older than +Chaucer, and in the interval between him and Spenser; but their genius +was not such as to place them in any point of comparison with either of +these celebrated men; and an inquiry into their particular merits or +defects might seem rather to belong to the province of the antiquary, +than be thought generally interesting to the lovers of poetry in the +present day. + +Chaucer (who has been very properly considered as the father of +English poetry) preceded Spenser by two centuries. He is supposed to +have been born in London, in the year 1328, during the reign of Edward +III. and to have died in 1400, at the age of seventy-two. He received a +learned education at one, or at both of the universities, and travelled +early into Italy, where he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit and +excellences of the great Italian poets and prose-writers, Dante, +Petrarch, and Boccace; and is said to have had a personal interview with +one of these, Petrarch. He was connected, by marriage, with the famous +John of Gaunt, through whose interest he was introduced into several +public employments. Chaucer was an active partisan, a religious +reformer, and from the share he took in some disturbances, on one +occasion, he was obliged to fly the country. On his return, he was +imprisoned, and made his peace with government, as it is said, by a +discovery of his associates. Fortitude does not appear, at any time, to +have been the distinguishing virtue of poets.--There is, however, an +obvious similarity between the practical turn of Chaucer's mind and +restless impatience of his character, and the tone of his writings. Yet +it would be too much to attribute the one to the other as cause and +effect: for Spenser, whose poetical temperament was an effeminate as +Chaucer's was stern and masculine, was equally engaged in public +affairs, and had mixed equally in the great world. So much does native +disposition predominate over accidental circumstances, moulding them to +its previous bent and purposes! For while Chaucer's intercourse with the +busy world, and collision with the actual passions and conflicting +interests of others, seemed to brace the sinews of his understanding, +and gave to his writings the air of a man who describes persons and +things that he had known and been intimately concerned in; the same +opportunities, operating on a differently constituted frame, only served +to alienate Spenser's mind the more from the "close-pent up" scenes of +ordinary life, and to make him "rive their concealing continents," to +give himself up to the unrestrained indulgence of "flowery tenderness." + +It is not possible for any two writers to be more opposite in this +respect. Spenser delighted in luxurious enjoyment; Chaucer, in severe +activity of mind. As Spenser was the most romantic and visionary, +Chaucer was the most practical of all the great poets, the most a man of +business and the world. His poetry reads like history. Every thing has a +downright reality; at least in the relator's mind. A simile, or a +sentiment, is as if it were given in upon evidence. Thus he describes +Cressid's first avowal of her love. + + "And as the new abashed nightingale, + That stinteth first when she beginneth sing, + When that she heareth any herde's tale, + Or in the hedges any wight stirring, + And after, sicker, doth her voice outring; + Right so Cresseide, when that her dread stent, + Open'd her heart, and told him her intent." + +This is so true and natural, and beautifully simple, that the two things +seem identified with each other. Again, it is said in the Knight's +Tale-- + + "Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day, + Till it felle ones in a morwe of May, + That Emelie that fayrer was to sene + Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene; + And fresher than the May with floures newe, + For with the rose-colour strof hire hewe: + I n'ot which was the finer of hem two." + +This scrupulousness about the literal preference, as if some question of +matter of fact was at issue, is remarkable. I might mention that other, +where he compares the meeting between Palamon and Arcite to a hunter +waiting for a lion in a gap;-- + + "That stondeth at a gap with a spere, + Whan hunted is the lion or the bere, + And hereth him come rushing in the greves, + And breking both the boughes and the leves:"-- + +or that still finer one of Constance, when she is condemned to death:-- + + "Have ye not seen somtime a pale face + (Among a prees) of him that hath been lad + Toward his deth, wheras he geteth no grace, + And swiche a colour in his face hath had, + Men mighten know him that was so bestad, + Amonges all the faces in that route; + So stant Custance, and loketh hire aboute." + +The beauty, the pathos here does not seem to be of the poet's seeking, +but a part of the necessary texture of the fable. He speaks of what he +wishes to describe with the accuracy, the discrimination of one who +relates what has happened to himself, or has had the best information +from those who have been eye-witnesses of it. The strokes of his pencil +always tell. He dwells only on the essential, on that which would be +interesting to the persons really concerned: yet as he never omits any +material circumstance, he is prolix from the number of points on which +he touches, without being diffuse on any one; and is sometimes tedious +from the fidelity with which he adheres to his subject, as other writers +are from the frequency of their digressions from it. The chain of his +story is composed of a number of fine links, closely connected together, +and rivetted by a single blow. There is an instance of the minuteness +which he introduces into his most serious descriptions in his account of +Palamon when left alone in his cell: + + "Swiche sorrow he maketh that the grete tour + Resouned of his yelling and clamour: + The pure fetters on his shinnes grete + Were of his bitter salte teres wete." + +The mention of this last circumstance looks like a part of the +instructions he had to follow, which he had no discretionary power to +leave out or introduce at pleasure. He is contented to find grace and +beauty in truth. He exhibits for the most part the naked object, with +little drapery thrown over it. His metaphors, which are few, are not for +ornament, but use, and as like as possible to the things themselves. He +does not affect to shew his power over the reader's mind, but the power +which his subject has over his own. The readers of Chaucer's poetry feel +more nearly what the persons he describes must have felt, than perhaps +those of any other poet. His sentiments are not voluntary effusions of +the poet's fancy, but founded on the natural impulses and habitual +prejudices of the characters he has to represent. There is an inveteracy +of purpose, a sincerity of feeling, which never relaxes or grows vapid, +in whatever they do or say. There is no artificial, pompous display, but +a strict parsimony of the poet's materials, like the rude simplicity of +the age in which he lived. His poetry resembles the root just springing +from the ground, rather than the full-blown flower. His muse is no +"babbling gossip of the air," fluent and redundant; but, like a +stammerer, or a dumb person, that has just found the use of speech, +crowds many things together with eager haste, with anxious pauses, and +fond repetitions to prevent mistake. His words point as an index to the +objects, like the eye or finger. There were none of the common-places of +poetic diction in our author's time, no reflected lights of fancy, no +borrowed roseate tints; he was obliged to inspect things for himself, to +look narrowly, and almost to handle the object, as in the obscurity of +morning we partly see and partly grope our way; so that his descriptions +have a sort of tangible character belonging to them, and produce the +effect of sculpture on the mind. Chaucer had an equal eye for truth of +nature and discrimination of character; and his interest in what he saw +gave new distinctness and force to his power of observation. The +picturesque and the dramatic are in him closely blended together, and +hardly distinguishable; for he principally describes external +appearances as indicating character, as symbols of internal sentiment. +There is a meaning in what he sees; and it is this which catches his eye +by sympathy. Thus the costume and dress of the Canterbury Pilgrims--of +the Knight--the Squire--the Oxford Scholar--the Gap-toothed Wife +of Bath, and the rest, speak for themselves. To take one or two of these +at random: + + "There was also a nonne, a Prioresse, + That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy; + Hire gretest othe n'as but by seint Eloy: + And she was cleped Madame Eglentine. + Ful wel she sange the service divine + Entuned in hire nose ful swetely; + And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly, + After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, + For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe. + At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle; + She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle, + Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe. + + * * * * * * + + And sikerly she was of great disport, + And ful plesant, and amiable of port, + And peined hire to contrefeten chere + Of court, and ben estatelich of manere, + And to ben holden digne of reverence. + But for to speken of hire conscience, + She was so charitable and so pitous, + She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous + Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde. + Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde + With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel brede. + But sore wept she if on of hem were dede, + Or if men smote it with a yerde smert: + And all was conscience and tendre herte. + Ful semely hire wimple ypinched was; + Hire nose tretis; hire eyen grey as glas; + Hire mouth ful smale; and therto soft and red; + But sickerly she hadde a fayre forehed. + It was almost a spanne brode, I trowe." + + "A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie, + An out-rider, that loved venerie: + A manly man, to ben an abbot able. + Ful many a deinte hors hadde he in stable: + And whan he rode, men mighte his bridel here, + Gingeling in a whistling wind as clere, + And eke as loude, as doth the chapell belle, + Ther as this lord was keper of the celle. + The reule of Seint Maure and of Seint Beneit, + Because that it was olde and somdele streit, + This ilke monk lette olde thinges pace, + And held after the newe world the trace. [*] + He yave not of the text a pulled hen, + That saith, that hunters ben not holy men;-- + Therfore he was a prickasoure a right: + Greihoundes he hadde as swift as foul of flight: + Of pricking and of hunting for the hare + Was all his lust, for no cost wolde he spare. + I saw his sleves purfiled at the hond + With gris, and that the finest of the lond. + And for to fasten his hood under his chinne, + He had of gold ywrought a curious pinne: + A love-knotte in the greter end ther was. + His hed was balled, and shone as any glas, + And eke his face, as it hadde ben anoint. + He was a lord ful fat and in good point. + His eyen stepe, and rolling in his hed, + That stemed as a forneis of a led. + His botes souple, his hors in gret estat, + Now certainly he was a fayre prelat. + He was not pale as a forpined gost. + A fat swan loved he best of any rost. + His palfrey was as broune as is a bery." + +___ +[*] PG transcriber's note: +"space" instead of "trace" in some editions. +___ + +The Serjeant at Law is the same identical individual as Lawyer +Dowling in Tom Jones, who wished to divide himself into a hundred +pieces, to be in a hundred places at once. + + "No wher so besy a man as he ther n'as, + And yet he semed besier than he was." + +The Frankelein, in "whose hous it snewed of mete and drinke"; the +Shipman, "who rode upon a rouncie, as he couthe"; the Doctour of +Phisike, "whose studie was but litel of the Bible"; the Wif of Bath, in + + "All whose parish ther was non, + That to the offring before hire shulde gon, + And if ther did, certain so wroth was she, + That she was out of alle charitee;" + +--the poure Persone of a toun, "whose parish was wide, and houses fer +asonder"; the Miller, and the Reve, "a slendre colerike man," are all of +the same stamp. They are every one samples of a kind; abstract +definitions of a species. Chaucer, it has been said, numbered the +classes of men, as Linnaeus numbered the plants. Most of them remain to +this day: others that are obsolete, and may well be dispensed with, +still live in his descriptions of them. Such is the Sompnoure: + + "A Sompnoure was ther with us in that place, + That hadde a fire-red cherubinnes face, + For sausefleme he was, with eyen narwe, + As hote he was, and likerous as a sparwe, + With scalled browes blake, and pilled berd: + Of his visage children were sore aferd. + Ther n'as quicksilver, litarge, ne brimston, + Boras, ceruse, ne oile of tartre non, + Ne oinement that wolde clense or bite, + That him might helpen of his whelkes white, + Ne of the knobbes sitting on his chekes. + Wel loved he garlike, onions, and lekes, + And for to drinke strong win as rede as blood. + Than wolde he speke, and crie as he were wood. + And whan that he wel dronken had the win, + Than wold he speken no word but Latin. + A fewe termes coude he, two or three, + That he had lerned out of som decree; + No wonder is, he heard it all the day.-- + In danger hadde he at his owen gise + The yonge girles of the diocise, + And knew hir conseil, and was of hir rede. + A gerlond hadde he sette upon his hede + As gret as it were for an alestake: + A bokeler hadde he made him of a cake. + With him ther rode a gentil Pardonere-- + That hadde a vois as smale as hath a gote." + +It would be a curious speculation (at least for those who think that +the characters of men never change, though manners, opinions, and +institutions may) to know what has become of this character of the +Sompnoure in the present day; whether or not it has any technical +representative in existing professions; into what channels and conduits +it has withdrawn itself, where it lurks unseen in cunning obscurity, or +else shews its face boldly, pampered into all the insolence of office, +in some other shape, as it is deterred or encouraged by circumstances. +_Chaucer's characters modernised_, upon this principle of historic +derivation, would be an useful addition to our knowledge of human +nature. But who is there to undertake it? + +The descriptions of the equipage, and accoutrements of the two kings +of Thrace and Inde, in the Knight's Tale, are as striking and grand, as +the others are lively and natural: + + "Ther maist thou se coming with Palamon + Licurge himself, the grete king of Trace: + Blake was his berd, and manly was his face, + The cercles of his eyen in his hed + They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red, + And like a griffon loked he about, + With kemped heres on his browes stout; + His limmes gret, his braunes hard and stronge, + His shouldres brode, his armes round and longe + And as the guise was in his contree, + Ful highe upon a char of gold stood he, + With foure white bolles in the trais. + Instede of cote-armure on his harnais, + With nayles yelwe, and bright as any gold, + He hadde a beres skin, cole-blake for old. + His longe here was kempt behind his bak, + As any ravenes fether it shone for blake. + A wreth of gold arm-gret, of huge weight, + Upon his hed sate full of stones bright, + Of fine rubins [sic] and of diamants. + About his char ther wenten white alauns, + Twenty and mo, as gret as any stere, + To hunten at the leon or the dere, + And folwed him, with mosel fast ybound.-- + With Arcita, in stories as men find, + The grete Emetrius, the king of Inde, + Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele, + Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele, + Came riding like the god of armes Mars. + His cote-armure was of a cloth of Tars, + Couched with perles, white, and round and grete. + His sadel was of brent gold new ybete; + A mantelet upon his shouldres hanging + Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling. + His crispe here like ringes was yronne, + And that was yelwe, and glitered as the Sonne. + His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin, + His lippes round, his colour was sanguin, + A fewe fraknes in his face yspreint, + Betwixen yelwe and blake somdel ymeint, + And as a leon he his loking caste. + Of five and twenty yere his age I caste. + His berd was wel begonnen for to spring; + His vois was as a trompe thondering. + Upon his hed he wered of laurer grene + A gerlond freshe and lusty for to sene. + Upon his hond he bare for his deduit + An egle tame, as any lily whit.-- + About this king ther ran on every part + Ful many a tame leon and leopart." + +What a deal of terrible beauty there is contained in this +description! The imagination of a poet brings such objects before us, as +when we look at wild beasts in a menagerie; their claws are pared, their +eyes glitter like harmless lightning; but we gaze at them with a +pleasing awe, clothed in beauty, formidable in the sense of abstract +power. + +Chaucer's descriptions of natural scenery possess the same sort of +characteristic excellence, or what might be termed _gusto_. They have a +local truth and freshness, which gives the very feeling of the air, the +coolness or moisture of the ground. Inanimate objects are thus made to +have a fellow-feeling in the interest of the story; and render back the +sentiment of the speaker's mind. One of the finest parts of Chaucer is +of this mixed kind. It is the beginning of the Flower and the Leaf, +where he describes the delight of that young beauty, shrowded in her +bower, and listening, in the morning of the year, to the singing of the +nightingale; while her joy rises with the rising song, and gushes out +afresh at every pause, and is borne along with the full tide of +pleasure, and still increases, and repeats, and prolongs itself, and +knows no ebb. The coolness of the arbour, its retirement, the early time +of the day, the sudden starting up of the birds in the neighbouring +bushes, the eager delight with which they devour and rend the opening +buds and flowers, are expressed with a truth and feeling, which make the +whole appear like the recollection of an actual scene: + + "Which as me thought was right a pleasing sight, + And eke the briddes song for to here, + Would haue rejoyced any earthly wight, + And I that couth not yet in no manere + Heare the nightingale of all the yeare, + Ful busily herkened with herte and with eare, + If I her voice perceiue coud any where. + + And I that all this pleasaunt sight sie, + Thought sodainly I felt so sweet an aire + Of the eglentere, that certainely + There is no herte I deme in such dispaire, + Ne with thoughts froward and contraire, + So ouerlaid, but it should soone haue bote, + If it had ones felt this savour sote. + + And as I stood and cast aside mine eie, + I was ware of the fairest medler tree + That ever yet in all my life I sie + As full of blossomes as it might be, + Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile + Fro bough to bough, and as him list he eet + Here and there of buds and floures sweet. + + And to the herber side was joyning + This faire tree, of which I haue you told, + And at the last the brid began to sing, + Whan he had eaten what he eat wold, + So passing sweetly, that by manifold + It was more pleasaunt than I coud deuise, + And whan his song was ended in this wise, + + The nightingale with so merry a note + Answered him, that all the wood rong + So sodainly, that as it were a sote, + I stood astonied, so was I with the song + Thorow rauished, that till late and long, + I ne wist in what place I was, ne where, + And ayen me thought she song euen by mine ere. + + Wherefore I waited about busily + On euery side, if I her might see, + And at the last I gan full well aspie + Where she sat in a fresh grene laurer tree, + On the further side euen right by me, + That gaue so passing a delicious smell, + According to the eglentere full well. + + Whereof I had so inly great pleasure, + That as me thought I surely rauished was + Into Paradice, where my desire + Was for to be, and no ferther passe + As for that day, and on the sote grasse, + I sat me downe, for as for mine entent, + The birds song was more conuenient, + + And more pleasaunt to me by manifold, + Than meat or drinke, or any other thing, + Thereto the herber was so fresh and cold, + The wholesome sauours eke so comforting, + That as I demed, sith the beginning + Of the world was neur seene or than + So pleasaunt a ground of none earthly man. + + And as I sat the birds harkening thus, + Me thought that I heard voices sodainly, + The most sweetest and most delicious + That euer any wight I trow truly + Heard in their life, for the armony + And sweet accord was in so good musike, + That the uoice to angels was most like." + +There is here no affected rapture, no flowery sentiment: the whole is +an ebullition of natural delight "welling out of the heart," like water +from a crystal spring. Nature is the soul of art: there is a strength as +well as a simplicity in the imagination that reposes entirely on nature, +that nothing else can supply. It was the same trust in nature, and +reliance on his subject, which enabled Chaucer to describe the grief and +patience of Griselda; the faith of Constance; and the heroic +perseverance of the little child, who, going to school through the +streets of Jewry, + + "Oh _Alma Redemptoris mater_, loudly sung," + +and who after his death still triumphed in his song. Chaucer has more of +this deep, internal, sustained sentiment, than any other writer, except +Boccaccio. In depth of simple pathos, and intensity of conception, never +swerving from his subject, I think no other writer comes near him, not +even the Greek tragedians. I wish to be allowed to give one or two +instances of what I mean. I will take the following from the Knight's +Tale. The distress of Arcite, in consequence of his banishment from his +love, is thus described: + + "Whan that Arcite to Thebes comen was, + Ful oft a day he swelt and said Alas, + For sene his lady shall he never mo. + And shortly to concluden all his wo, + So mochel sorwe hadde never creature, + That is or shall be, while the world may dure. + His slepe, his mete, his drinke is him byraft. + That lene he wex, and drie as is a shaft. + His eyen holwe, and grisly to behold, + His hewe salwe, and pale as ashen cold, + And solitary he was, and ever alone, + And wailing all the night, making his mone. + And if he herde song or instrument, + Than wold he wepe, he mighte not be stent. + So feble were his spirites, and so low, + And changed so, that no man coude know + His speche ne his vois, though men it herd." + +This picture of the sinking of the heart, of the wasting away of the +body and mind, of the gradual failure of all the faculties under the +contagion of a rankling sorrow, cannot be surpassed. Of the same kind is +his farewel to his mistress, after he has gained her hand and lost his +life in the combat: + + "Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge, + That I for you have suffered, and so longe! + Alas the deth! alas min Emilie! + Alas departing of our compagnie; + Alas min hertes quene! alas my wif! + Min hertes ladie, ender of my lif! + What is this world? what axen men to have? + Now with his love, now in his colde grave + Alone withouten any compagnie." + +The death of Arcite is the more affecting, as it comes after triumph +and victory, after the pomp of sacrifice, the solemnities of prayer, the +celebration of the gorgeous rites of chivalry. The descriptions of the +three temples of Mars, of Venus, and Diana, of the ornaments and +ceremonies used in each, with the reception given to the offerings of +the lovers, have a beauty and grandeur, much of which is lost in +Dryden's version. For instance, such lines as the following are not +rendered with their true feeling. + + "Why shulde I not as well eke tell you all + The purtreiture that was upon the wall + Within the temple of mighty Mars the rede-- + That highte the gret temple of Mars in Trace + In thilke colde and frosty region, + Ther as Mars hath his sovereine mansion. + First on the wall was peinted a forest, + In which ther wonneth neyther man ne best, + With knotty knarry barrein trees old + Of stubbes sharpe and hidous to behold; + In which ther ran a romble and a swough, + As though a storme shuld bresten every bough." + +And again, among innumerable terrific images of death and slaughter +painted on the wall, is this one: + + "The statue of Mars upon a carte stood + Armed, and looked grim as he were wood. + A wolf ther stood beforne him at his fete + With eyen red, and of a man he ete." + +The story of Griselda is in Boccaccio; but the Clerk of Oxenforde, +who tells it, professes to have learned it from Petrarch. This story has +gone all over Europe, and has passed into a proverb. In spite of the +barbarity of the circumstances, which are abominable, the sentiment +remains unimpaired and unalterable. It is of that kind, "that heaves no +sigh, that sheds no tear"; but it hangs upon the beatings of the heart; +it is a part of the very being; it is as inseparable from it as the +breath we draw. It is still and calm as the face of death. Nothing can +touch it in its ethereal purity: tender as the yielding flower, it is +fixed as the marble firmament. The only remonstrance she makes, the only +complaint she utters against all the ill-treatment she receives, is that +single line where, when turned back naked to her father's house, she +says, + + "Let me not like a worm go by the way." + +The first outline given of the character is inimitable: + + "Nought fer fro thilke paleis honourable, + Wher as this markis shope his marriage, + Ther stood a thorpe, of sighte delitable, + In which that poure folk of that village + Hadden hir bestes and her herbergage, + And of hir labour toke hir sustenance, + After that the erthe yave hem habundance. + + Among this poure folk ther dwelt a man, + Which that was holden pourest of hem all: + But highe God sometime senden can + His grace unto a litel oxes stall: + Janicola men of that thorpe him call. + A doughter had he, faire ynough to sight, + And Grisildis this yonge maiden hight. + + But for to speke of vertuous beautee, + Than was she on the fairest under Sonne: + Ful pourely yfostred up was she: + No likerous lust was in hire herte yronne; + Ful ofter of the well than of the tonne + She dranke, and for she wolde vertue plese, + She knew wel labour, but non idel ese. + + But though this mayden tendre were of age, + Yet in the brest of hire virginitee + Ther was enclosed sad and ripe corage: + And in gret reverence and charitee + Hire olde poure fader fostred she: + A few sheep spinning on the feld she kept, + She wolde not ben idel til she slept. + + And whan she homward came she wolde bring + Wortes and other herbes times oft, + The which she shred and sethe for hire living, + And made hire bed ful hard, and nothing soft: + And ay she kept hire fadres lif on loft + With every obeisance and diligence, + That child may don to fadres reverence, + + Upon Grisilde, this poure creature, + Ful often sithe this markis sette his sye, [sic] + As he on hunting rode paraventure: + And whan it fell that he might hire espie, + He not with wanton loking of folie + His eyen cast on hire, but in sad wise + Upon hire chere he wold him oft avise, + + Commending in his herte hire womanhede, + And eke hire vertue, passing any wight + Of so yong age, as wel in chere as dede. + For though the people have no gret insight + In vertue, he considered ful right + Hire bountee, and disposed that he wold + Wedde hire only, if ever he wedden shold. + + Grisilde of this (God wot) ful innocent, + That for hire shapen was all this array, + To fetchen water at a welle is went, + And cometh home as sone as ever she may. + For wel she had herd say, that thilke day + The markis shulde wedde, and, if she might, + She wolde fayn han seen som of that sight. + + She thought, "I wol with other maidens stond, + That ben my felawes, in our dore, and see + The markisesse, and therto wol I fond + To don at home, as sone as it may be, + The labour which longeth unto me, + And than I may at leiser hire behold, + If she this way unto the castel hold." + + And she wolde over the threswold gon, + The markis came and gan hire for to call, + And she set doun her water-pot anon + Beside the threswold in an oxes stall, + And doun upon hire knees she gan to fall. + And with sad countenance kneleth still, + Till she had herd what was the lordes will." + +The story of the little child slain in Jewry, (which is told by the +Prioress, and worthy to be told by her who was "all conscience and +tender heart,") is not less touching than that of Griselda. It is simple +and heroic to the last degree. The poetry of Chaucer has a religious +sanctity about it, connected with the manners and superstitions of the +age. It has all the spirit of martyrdom. + +It has also all the extravagance and the utmost licentiousness of +comic humour, equally arising out of the manners of the time. In this +too Chaucer resembled Boccaccio that he excelled in both styles, and +could pass at will "from grave to gay, from lively to severe"; but he +never confounded the two styles together (except from that involuntary +and unconscious mixture of the pathetic and humorous, which is almost +always to be found in nature,) and was exclusively taken up with what he +set about, whether it was jest or earnest. The Wife of Bath's Prologue +(which Pope has very admirably modernised) is, perhaps, unequalled as a +comic story. The Cock and the Fox is also excellent for lively strokes +of character and satire. January and May is not so good as some of the +others. Chaucer's versification, considering the time at which he wrote, +and that versification is a thing in a great degree mechanical, is not +one of his least merits. It has considerable strength and harmony, and +its apparent deficiency in the latter respect arises chiefly from the +alterations which have since taken place in the pronunciation or mode of +accenting the words of the language. The best general rule for reading +him is to pronounce the final _e_, as in reading Italian. + +It was observed in the last Lecture that painting describes what the +object is in itself, poetry what it implies or suggests. Chaucer's +poetry is not, in general, the best confirmation of the truth of this +distinction, for his poetry is more picturesque and historical than +almost any other. But there is one instance in point which I cannot help +giving in this place. It is the story of the three thieves who go in +search of Death to kill him, and who meeting with him, are entangled in +their fate by his words, without knowing him. In the printed catalogue +to Mr. West's (in some respects very admirable) picture of Death on the +Pale Horse, it is observed, that "In poetry the same effect is produced +by a few abrupt and rapid gleams of description, touching, as it were +with fire, the features and edges of a general mass of awful obscurity; +but in painting, such indistinctness would be a defect, and imply that +the artist wanted the power to pourtray the conceptions of his fancy. +Mr. West was of opinion that to delineate a physical form, which in its +moral impression would approximate to that of the visionary Death of +Milton, it was necessary to endow it, if possible, with the appearance +of super-human strength and energy. He has therefore exerted the utmost +force and perspicuity of his pencil on the central figure."--One might +suppose from this, that the way to represent a shadow was to make it as +substantial as possible. Oh, no! Painting has its prerogatives, (and +high ones they are) but they lie in representing the visible, not the +invisible. The moral attributes of Death are powers and effects of an +infinitely wide and general description, which no individual or physical +form can possibly represent, but by a courtesy of speech, or by a +distant analogy. The moral impression of Death is essentially visionary; +its reality is in the mind's eye. Words are here the only _things_; and +things, physical forms, the mere mockeries of the understanding. The +less definite, the less bodily the conception, the more vast, unformed, +and unsubstantial, the nearer does it approach to some resemblance of +that omnipresent, lasting, universal, irresistible principle, which +every where, and at some time or other, exerts its power over all +things. Death is a mighty abstraction, like Night, or Space, or Time. He +is an ugly customer, who will not be invited to supper, or to sit for +his picture. He is with us and about us, but we do not see him. He +stalks on before us, and we do not mind him: he follows us close behind, +and we do not turn to look back at him. We do not see him making faces +at us in our life-time, nor perceive him afterwards sitting in +mock-majesty, a twin-skeleton, beside us, tickling our bare ribs, and +staring into our hollow eye-balls! Chaucer knew this. He makes three +riotous companions go in search of Death to kill him, they meet with an +old man whom they reproach with his age, and ask why he does not die, to +which he answers thus: + + "Ne Deth, alas! ne will not han my lif. + Thus walke I like a restless caitiff, + And on the ground, which is my modres gate, + I knocke with my staf, erlich and late, + And say to hire, "Leve mother, let me in. + Lo, how I vanish, flesh and blood and skin, + Alas! when shall my bones ben at reste? + Mother, with you wolde I changen my cheste, + That in my chambre longe time hath be, + Ye, for an heren cloute to wrap in me." + But yet to me she will not don that grace, + For which ful pale and welked is my face." + +They then ask the old man where they shall find out Death to kill +him, and he sends them on an errand which ends in the death of all +three. We hear no more of him, but it is Death that they have +encountered! + +The interval between Chaucer and Spenser is long and dreary. There is +nothing to fill up the chasm but the names of Occleve, "ancient Gower," +Lydgate, Wyatt, Surry, and Sackville. Spenser flourished in the reign of +Queen Elizabeth, and was sent with Sir John Davies into Ireland, of +which he has left behind him some tender recollections in his +description of the bog of Allan, and a record in an ably written paper, +containing observations on the state of that country and the means of +improving it, which remain in full force to the present day. Spenser +died at an obscure inn in London, it is supposed in distressed +circumstances. The treatment he received from Burleigh is well known. +Spenser, as well as Chaucer, was engaged in active life; but the genius +of his poetry was not active: it is inspired by the love of ease, and +relaxation from all the cares and business of life. Of all the poets, he +is the most poetical. Though much later than Chaucer, his obligations to +preceding writers were less. He has in some measure borrowed the plan of +his poem (as a number of distinct narratives) from Ariosto; but he has +engrafted upon it an exuberance of fancy, and an endless voluptuousness +of sentiment, which are not to be found in the Italian writer. Farther, +Spenser is even more of an inventor in the subject-matter. There is an +originality, richness, and variety in his allegorical personages and +fictions, which almost vies with the splendor of the ancient mythology. +If Ariosto transports us into the regions of romance, Spenser's poetry +is all fairy-land. In Ariosto, we walk upon the ground, in a company, +gay, fantastic, and adventurous enough. In Spenser, we wander in another +world, among ideal beings. The poet takes and lays us in the lap of a +lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hills and +fairer valleys. He paints nature, not as we find it, but as we expected +to find it; and fulfils the delightful promise of our youth. He waves +his wand of enchantment--and at once embodies airy beings, and throws +a delicious veil over all actual objects. The two worlds of reality and +of fiction are poised on the wings of his imagination. His ideas, +indeed, seem more distinct than his perceptions. He is the painter of +abstractions, and describes them with dazzling minuteness. In the Mask +of Cupid he makes the God of Love "clap on high his coloured winges +_twain_": and it is said of Gluttony, in the Procession of the Passions, + + "In green vine leaves he was right fitly clad." + +At times he becomes picturesque from his intense love of beauty; as +where he compares Prince Arthur's crest to the appearance of the almond +tree: + + "Upon the top of all his lofty crest, + A bunch of hairs discolour'd diversely + With sprinkled pearl and gold full richly drest + Did shake and seem'd to daunce for jollity; + Like to an almond tree ymounted high + On top of green Selenis all alone, + With blossoms brave bedecked daintily; + Her tender locks do tremble every one + At every little breath that under heav'n is blown." + +The love of beauty, however, and not of truth, is the moving principle +of his mind; and he is guided in his fantastic delineations by no rule +but the impulse of an inexhaustible imagination. He luxuriates equally +in scenes of Eastern magnificence; or the still solitude of a hermit's +cell--in the extremes of sensuality or refinement. + +In reading the Faery Queen, you see a little withered old man by a +wood-side opening a wicket, a giant, and a dwarf lagging far behind, a +damsel in a boat upon an enchanted lake, wood-nymphs, and satyrs, and +all of a sudden you are transported into a lofty palace, with tapers +burning, amidst knights and ladies, with dance and revelry, and song, +"and mask, and antique pageantry." What can be more solitary, more shut +up in itself, than his description of the house of Sleep, to which +Archimago sends for a dream: + + "And more to lull him in his slumber soft + A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down, + And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, + Mix'd with a murmuring wind, much like the sound + Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swound. + No other noise, nor people's troublous cries. + That still are wont t' annoy the walled town + Might there be heard; but careless Quiet lies + Wrapt in eternal silence, far from enemies." + +It is as if "the honey-heavy dew of slumber" had settled on his pen in +writing these lines. How different in the subject (and yet how like in +beauty) is the following description of the Bower of Bliss: + + "Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound + Of all that mote delight a dainty ear; + Such as at once might not on living ground, + Save in this Paradise, be heard elsewhere: + Right hard it was for wight which did it hear, + To tell what manner musicke that mote be; + For all that pleasing is to living eare + Was there consorted in one harmonee: + Birds, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree. + + The joyous birdes shrouded in chearefull shade + Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet: + The angelical soft trembling voices made + To th' instruments divine respondence meet. + The silver sounding instruments did meet + With the base murmur of the water's fall; + The water's fall with difference discreet, + Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; + The gentle warbling wind low answered to all." + +The remainder of the passage has all that voluptuous pathos, and languid +brilliancy of fancy, in which this writer excelled: + + "The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay; + Ah! see, whoso fayre thing dost thou fain to see, + In springing flower the image of thy day! + Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly she + Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty, + That fairer seems the less ye see her may! + Lo! see soon after, how more bold and free + Her bared bosom she doth broad display; + Lo! see soon after, how she fades and falls away! + + So passeth in the passing of a day + Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower; + Ne more doth flourish after first decay, + That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower + Of many a lady and many a paramour! + Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime, + For soon comes age that will her pride deflower; + Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time, + Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime. [2] + + He ceased; and then gan all the quire of birds + Their divers notes to attune unto his lay, + As in approvance of his pleasing wordes. + The constant pair heard all that he did say, + Yet swerved not, but kept their forward way + Through many covert groves and thickets close, + In which they creeping did at last display [3] + That wanton lady with her lover loose, + Whose sleepy head she in her lap did soft dispose. + + Upon a bed of roses she was laid + As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin; + And was arrayed or rather disarrayed, + All in a veil of silk and silver thin, + That hid no whit her alabaster skin, + But rather shewed more white, if more might be: + More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; + Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see + Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee. + + Her snowy breast was bare to greedy spoil + Of hungry eyes which n' ote therewith be fill'd, + And yet through languor of her late sweet toil + Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill'd, + That like pure Orient perles adown it trill'd; + And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight + Moisten'd their fiery beams, with which she thrill'd + Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light, + Which sparkling on the silent waves does seem more bright." + +___ +[2] Taken from Tasso. +[3] This word is an instance of those unwarrantable freedoms which +Spenser sometimes took with language. +___ + +The finest things in Spenser are, the character of Una, in the first +book; the House of Pride; the Cave of Mammon, and the Cave of Despair; +the account of Memory, of whom it is said, among other things, + + "The wars he well remember'd of King Nine, + Of old Assaracus and Inachus divine"; + +the description of Belphoebe; the story of Florimel and the Witch's son; +the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and +Colin Clout's vision, in the last book. But some people will say that +all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account +of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it +would bite them: they look at it as a child looks at a painted dragon, +and think it will strangle them in its shining folds. This is very idle. +If they do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle +with them. Without minding it at all, the whole is as plain as a +pike-staff. It might as well be pretended that we cannot see Poussin's +pictures for the allegory, as that the allegory prevents us from +understanding Spenser. For instance, when Britomart, seated amidst the +young warriors, lets fall her hair and discovers her sex, is it +necessary to know the part she plays in the allegory, to understand the +beauty of the following stanza? + + "And eke that stranger knight amongst the rest + Was for like need enforc'd to disarray. + Tho when as vailed was her lofty crest, + Her golden locks that were in trammels gay + Upbounden, did themselves adown display, + And raught unto her heels like sunny beams + That in a cloud their light did long time stay; + Their vapour faded, shew their golden gleams, + And through the persant air shoot forth their azure streams." + +Or is there any mystery in what is said of Belphoebe, that her hair was +sprinkled with flowers and blossoms which had been entangled in it as +she fled through the woods? Or is it necessary to have a more distinct +idea of Proteus, than that which is given of him in his boat, with the +frighted Florimel at his feet, while + + "------the cold icicles from his rough beard + Dropped adown upon her snowy breast!" + +Or is it not a sufficient account of one of the sea-gods that pass by +them, to say-- + + "That was Arion crowned:-- + So went he playing on the watery plain." + +Or to take the Procession of the Passions that draw the coach of Pride, +in which the figures of Idleness, of Gluttony, of Lechery, of Avarice, +of Envy, and of Wrath speak, one should think, plain enough for +themselves; such as this of Gluttony: + + "And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony, + Deformed creature, on a filthy swine; + His belly was up blown with luxury; + And eke with fatness swollen were his eyne; + And like a crane his neck was long and fine, + With which he swallowed up excessive feast, + For want whereof poor people oft did pine. + + In green vine leaves he was right fitly clad; + For other clothes he could not wear for heat: + And on his head an ivy garland had, + From under which fast trickled down the sweat: + Still as he rode, he somewhat still did eat. + And in his hand did bear a bouzing can, + Of which he supt so oft, that on his seat + His drunken corse he scarce upholden can; + In shape and size more like a monster than a man." + +Or this of Lechery: + + "And next to him rode lustfull Lechery + Upon a bearded goat, whose rugged hair + And whaly eyes (the sign of jealousy) + Was like the person's self whom he did bear: + Who rough and black, and filthy did appear. + Unseemly man to please fair lady's eye: + Yet he of ladies oft was loved dear, + When fairer faces were bid standen by: + O! who does know the bent of woman's fantasy? + + In a green gown he clothed was full fair, + Which underneath did hide his filthiness; + And in his hand a burning heart he bare, + Full of vain follies and new fangleness; + For he was false and fraught with fickleness; + And learned had to love with secret looks; + And well could dance; and sing with ruefulness; + And fortunes tell; and read in loving books; + And thousand other ways to bait his fleshly hooks. + + Inconstant man that loved all he saw, + And lusted after all that he did love; + Ne would his looser life be tied to law; + But joyed weak women's hearts to tempt and prove, + If from their loyal loves he might them move." + +This is pretty plain-spoken. Mr. Southey says of Spenser: + + "------Yet not more sweet + Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise; + High priest of all the Muses' mysteries!" + +On the contrary, no one was more apt to pry into mysteries which do not +strictly belong to the Muses. + +Of the same kind with the Procession of the Passions, as little +obscure, and still more beautiful, is the Mask of Cupid, with his train +of votaries: + + "The first was Fancy, like a lovely boy + Of rare aspect, and beauty without peer; + + His garment neither was of silk nor say, + But painted plumes in goodly order dight, + Like as the sun-burnt Indians do array + Their tawny bodies in their proudest plight: + As those same plumes so seem'd he vain and light, + That by his gait might easily appear; + For still he far'd as dancing in delight, + And in his hand a windy fan did bear + That in the idle air he mov'd still here and there. + + And him beside march'd amorous Desire, + Who seem'd of riper years than the other swain, + Yet was that other swain this elder's sire, + And gave him being, common to them twain: + His garment was disguised very vain, + And his embroidered bonnet sat awry; + Twixt both his hands few sparks he close did strain, + Which still he blew, and kindled busily, + That soon they life conceiv'd and forth in flames did fly. + + Next after him went Doubt, who was yclad + In a discolour'd coat of strange disguise, + That at his back a broad capuccio had, + And sleeves dependant _Albanese-wise_; + He lookt askew with his mistrustful eyes, + And nicely trod, as thorns lay in his way, + Or that the floor to shrink he did avise; + And on a broken reed he still did stay + His feeble steps, which shrunk when hard thereon he lay. + + With him went Daunger, cloth'd in ragged weed, + Made of bear's skin, that him more dreadful made; + Yet his own face was dreadfull, ne did need + Strange horror to deform his grisly shade; + A net in th' one hand, and a rusty blade + In th' other was; this Mischiefe, that Mishap; + With th' one his foes he threat'ned to invade, + With th' other he his friends meant to enwrap; + For whom he could not kill he practiz'd to entrap. + + Next him was Fear, all arm'd from top to toe, + Yet thought himselfe not safe enough thereby, + But fear'd each shadow moving to and fro; + And his own arms when glittering he did spy + Or clashing heard, he fast away did fly, + As ashes pale of hue, and winged-heel'd; + And evermore on Daunger fixt his eye, + 'Gainst whom he always bent a brazen shield, + Which his right hand unarmed fearfully did wield. + + With him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid, + Of chearfull look and lovely to behold; + In silken samite she was light array'd, + And her fair locks were woven up in gold; + She always smil'd, and in her hand did hold + An holy-water sprinkle dipt in dew, + With which she sprinkled favours manifold + On whom she list, and did great liking shew, + Great liking unto many, but true love to few. + + Next after them, the winged God himself + Came riding on a lion ravenous, + Taught to obey the menage of that elfe + That man and beast with power imperious + Subdueth to his kingdom tyrannous: + His blindfold eyes he bade awhile unbind, + That his proud spoil of that same dolorous + Fair dame he might behold in perfect kind; + Which seen, he much rejoiced in his cruel mind. + + Of which full proud, himself uprearing high, + He looked round about with stern disdain, + And did survey his goodly company: + And marshalling the evil-ordered train, + With that the darts which his right hand did strain, + Full dreadfully he shook, that all did quake, + And clapt on high his colour'd winges twain, + That all his many it afraid did make: + Tho, blinding him again, his way he forth did take." + +The description of Hope, in this series of historical portraits, is one +of the most beautiful in Spenser: and the triumph of Cupid at the +mischief he has made, is worthy of the malicious urchin deity. In +reading these descriptions, one can hardly avoid being reminded of +Rubens's allegorical pictures; but the account of Satyrane taming the +lion's whelps and lugging the bear's cubs along in his arms while yet an +infant, whom his mother so naturally advises to "go seek some other +play-fellows," has even more of this high picturesque character. Nobody +but Rubens could have painted the fancy of Spenser; and he could not +have given the sentiment, the airy dream that hovers over it! With all +this, Spenser neither makes us laugh nor weep. The only jest in his poem +is an allegorical play upon words, where he describes Malbecco as +escaping in the herd of goats, "by the help of his fayre hornes on +hight." But he has been unjustly charged with a want of passion and of +strength. He has both in an immense degree. He has not indeed the pathos +of immediate action or suffering, which is more properly the dramatic; +but he has all the pathos of sentiment and romance--all that belongs +to distant objects of terror, and uncertain, imaginary distress. His +strength, in like manner, is not strength of will or action, of bone and +muscle, nor is it coarse and palpable--but it assumes a character of +vastness and sublimity seen through the same visionary medium, and +blended with the appalling associations of preternatural agency. We need +only turn, in proof of this, to the Cave of Despair, or the Cave of +Mammon, or to the account of the change of Malbecco into Jealousy. The +following stanzas, in the description of the Cave of Mammon, the grisly +house of Plutus, are unrivalled for the portentous massiness of the +forms, the splendid chiaro-scuro, and shadowy horror. + + "That house's form within was rude and strong, + Like an huge cave hewn out of rocky clift, + From whose rough vault the ragged breaches hung, + Embossed with massy gold of glorious gift, + And with rich metal loaded every rift, + That heavy ruin they did seem to threat: + And over them Arachne high did lift + Her cunning web, and spread her subtle net, + Enwrapped in foul smoke, and clouds more black than jet. + + Both roof and floor, and walls were all of gold, + But overgrown with dust and old decay, [4] + And hid in darkness that none could behold + The hue thereof: for view of cheerful day + Did never in that house itself display, + But a faint shadow of uncertain light; + Such as a lamp whose life doth fade away; + Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night + Does shew to him that walks in fear and sad affright. + + * * * * * * * + + And over all sad Horror with grim hue + Did always soar, beating his iron wings; + And after him owls and night-ravens flew, + The hateful messengers of heavy things, + Of death and dolour telling sad tidings; + Whiles sad Celleno, sitting on a clift, + A song of bitter bale and sorrow sings, + That heart of flint asunder could have rift; + Which having ended, after him she flieth swift." + +___ +[4] "That all with one consent praise new-born gauds, + Tho' they are made and moulded of things past, + And give to Dust, that is a little gilt, + More laud than gold o'er-dusted." + _Troilus and Cressida_. +___ + + +The Cave of Despair is described with equal gloominess and power of +fancy; and the fine moral declamation of the owner of it, on the evils +of life, almost makes one in love with death. In the story of Malbecco, +who is haunted by jealousy, and in vain strives to run away from his own +thoughts-- + + "High over hill and over dale he flies"-- + +the truth of human passion and the preternatural ending are equally +striking.--It is not fair to compare Spenser with Shakspeare, in point +of interest. A fairer comparison would be with Comus; and the result +would not be unfavourable to Spenser. There is only one work of the same +allegorical kind, which has more interest than Spenser (with scarcely +less imagination): and that is the Pilgrim's Progress. The three first +books of the Faery Queen are very superior to the three last. One would +think that Pope, who used to ask if any one had ever read the Faery +Queen through, had only dipped into these last. The only things in them +equal to the former, are the account of Talus, the Iron Man, and the +delightful episode of Pastorella. + +The language of Spenser is full, and copious, to overflowing; it is +less pure and idiomatic than Chaucer's, and is enriched and adorned with +phrases borrowed from the different languages of Europe, both ancient +and modern. He was, probably, seduced into a certain license of +expression by the difficulty of filling up the moulds of his complicated +rhymed stanza from the limited resources of his native language. This +stanza, with alternate and repeatedly recurring rhymes, is borrowed from +the Italians. It was peculiarly fitted to their language, which abounds +in similar vowel terminations, and is as little adapted to ours, from +the stubborn, unaccommodating resistance which the consonant endings of +the northern languages make to this sort of endless sing-song.--Not +that I would, on that account, part with the stanza of Spenser. We are, +perhaps, indebted to this very necessity of finding out new forms of +expression, and to the occasional faults to which it led, for a poetical +language rich and varied and magnificent beyond all former, and almost +all later example. His versification is, at once, the most smooth and +the most sounding in the language. It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds, +"in many a winding bout of linked sweetness long drawn out"--that +would cloy by their very sweetness, but that the ear is constantly +relieved and enchanted by their continued variety of modulation-- +dwelling on the pauses of the action, or flowing on in a fuller tide of +harmony with the movement of the sentiment. It has not the bold dramatic +transitions of Shakspeare's blank verse, nor the high-raised tone of +Milton's; but it is the perfection of melting harmony, dissolving the +soul in pleasure, or holding it captive in the chains of suspense. +Spenser was the poet of our waking dreams; and he has invented not only +a language, but a music of his own for them. The undulations are +infinite, like those of the waves of the sea: but the effect is still +the same, lulling the senses into a deep oblivion of the jarring noises +of the world, from which we have no wish to be ever recalled. + + + + +LECTURE III. +ON SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON. + + +In looking back to the great works of genius in former times, we are +sometimes disposed to wonder at the little progress which has since been +made in poetry, and in the arts of imitation in general. But this is +perhaps a foolish wonder. Nothing can be more contrary to the fact, than +the supposition that in what we understand by the _fine arts_, as +painting, and poetry, relative perfection is only the result of repeated +efforts in successive periods, and that what has been once well done, +constantly leads to something better. What is mechanical, reducible to +rule, or capable of demonstration, is progressive, and admits of gradual +improvement: what is not mechanical, or definite, but depends on +feeling, taste, and genius, very soon becomes stationary, or retrograde, +and loses more than it gains by transfusion. The contrary opinion is a +vulgar error, which has grown up, like many others, from transferring an +analogy of one kind to something quite distinct, without taking into the +account the difference in the nature of the things, or attending to the +difference of the results. For most persons, finding what wonderful +advances have been made in biblical criticism, in chemistry, in +mechanics, in geometry, astronomy, &c. _i.e._ in things depending on +mere inquiry and experiment, or on absolute demonstration, have been led +hastily to conclude, that there was a general tendency in the efforts of +the human intellect to improve by repetition, and, in all other arts and +institutions, to grow perfect and mature by time. We look back upon the +theological creed of our ancestors, and their discoveries in natural +philosophy, with a smile of pity: science, and the arts connected with +it, have all had their infancy, their youth, and manhood, and seem to +contain in them no principle of limitation or decay: and, inquiring no +farther about the matter, we infer, in the intoxication of our pride, +and the height of our self-congratulation, that the same progress has +been made, and will continue to be made, in all other things which are +the work of man. The fact, however, stares us so plainly in the face, +that one would think the smallest reflection must suggest the truth, and +overturn our sanguine theories. The greatest poets, the ablest orators, +the best painters, and the finest sculptors that the world ever saw, +appeared soon after the birth of these arts, and lived in a state of +society which was, in other respects, comparatively barbarous. Those +arts, which depend on individual genius and incommunicable power, have +always leaped at once from infancy to manhood, from the first rude dawn +of invention to their meridian height and dazzling lustre, and have in +general declined ever after. This is the peculiar distinction and +privilege of each, of science and of art:--of the one, never to attain +its utmost limit of perfection; and of the other, to arrive at it almost +at once. Homer, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Dante, and Ariosto, +(Milton alone was of a later age, and not the worse for it)--Raphael, +Titian, Michael Angelo, Correggio, Cervantes, and Boccaccio, the Greek +sculptors and tragedians,--all lived near the beginning of their arts +--perfected, and all but created them. These giant-sons of genius stand +indeed upon the earth, but they tower above their fellows; and the long +line of their successors, in different ages, does not interpose any +object to obstruct their view, or lessen their brightness. In strength +and stature they are unrivalled; in grace and beauty they have not been +surpassed. In after-ages, and more refined periods, (as they are called) +great men have arisen, one by one, as it were by throes and at +intervals; though in general the best of these cultivated and artificial +minds were of an inferior order; as Tasso and Pope, among poets; Guido +and Vandyke, among painters. But in the earlier stages of the arts, as +soon as the first mechanical difficulties had been got over, and the +language was sufficiently acquired, they rose by clusters, and in +constellations, never so to rise again! + +The arts of painting and poetry are conversant with the world of +thought within us, and with the world of sense around us--with what we +know, and see, and feel intimately. They flow from the sacred shrine of +our own breasts, and are kindled at the living lamp of nature. But the +pulse of the passions assuredly beat as high, the depths and soundings +of the human heart were as well understood three thousand, or three +hundred years ago, as they are at present: the face of nature, and "the +human face divine" shone as bright then as they have ever done. But it +is _their_ light, reflected by true genius on art, that marks out its +path before it, and sheds a glory round the Muses' feet, like that which + + "Circled Una's angel face, + And made a sunshine in the shady place." + +The four greatest names in English poetry, are almost the four first +we come to--Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton. There are no +others that can really be put in competition with these. The two last +have had justice done them by the voice of common fame. Their names are +blazoned in the very firmament of reputation; while the two first +(though "the fault has been more in their stars than in themselves that +they are underlings") either never emerged far above the horizon, or +were too soon involved in the obscurity of time. The three first of +these are excluded from Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets (Shakspeare +indeed is so from the dramatic form of his compositions): and the +fourth, Milton, is admitted with a reluctant and churlish welcome. + +In comparing these four writers together, it might be said that +Chaucer excels as the poet of manners, or of real life; Spenser, as the +poet of romance; Shakspeare as the poet of nature (in the largest use of +the term); and Milton, as the poet of morality. Chaucer most frequently +describes things as they are; Spenser, as we wish them to be; +Shakspeare, as they would be; and Milton as they ought to be. As poets, +and as great poets, imagination, that is, the power of feigning things +according to nature, was common to them all: but the principle or moving +power, to which this faculty was most subservient in Chaucer, was habit, +or inveterate prejudice; in Spenser, novelty, and the love of the +marvellous; in Shakspeare, it was the force of passion, combined with +every variety of possible circumstances; and in Milton, only with the +highest. The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity; of Spenser, +remoteness; of Milton, elevation; of Shakspeare, every thing.--It has +been said by some critic, that Shakspeare was distinguished from the +other dramatic writers of his day only by his wit; that they had all his +other qualities but that; that one writer had as much sense, another as +much fancy, another as much knowledge of character, another the same +depth of passion, and another as great a power of language. This +statement is not true; nor is the inference from it well-founded, even +if it were. This person does not seem to have been aware that, upon his +own shewing, the great distinction of Shakspeare's genius was its +virtually including the genius of all the great men of his age, and not +his differing from them in one accidental particular. But to have done +with such minute and literal trifling. + +The striking peculiarity of Shakspeare's mind was its generic +quality, its power of communication with all other minds--so that it +contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself, and had no +one peculiar bias, or exclusive excellence more than another. He was +just like any other man, but that he was like all other men. He was the +least of an egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in +himself; but he was all that others were, or that they could become. He +not only had in himself the germs of every faculty and feeling, but he +could follow them by anticipation, intuitively, into all their +conceivable ramifications, through every change of fortune or conflict +of passion, or turn of thought. He had "a mind reflecting ages past," +and present:--all the people that ever lived are there. There was no +respect of persons with him. His genius shone equally on the evil and on +the good, on the wise and the foolish, the monarch and the beggar: "All +corners of the earth, kings, queens, and states, maids, matrons, nay, +the secrets of the grave," are hardly hid from his searching glance. He +was like the genius of humanity, changing places with all of us at +pleasure, and playing with our purposes as with his own. He turned the +globe round for his amusement, and surveyed the generations of men, and +the individuals as they passed, with their different concerns, passions, +follies, vices, virtues, actions, and motives--as well those that they +knew, as those which they did not know, or acknowledge to themselves. +The dreams of childhood, the ravings of despair, were the toys of his +fancy. Airy beings waited at his call, and came at his bidding. Harmless +fairies "nodded to him, and did him curtesies": and the night-hag +bestrode the blast at the command of "his so potent art." The world of +spirits lay open to him, like the world of real men and women: and there +is the same truth in his delineations of the one as of the other; for if +the preternatural characters he describes could be supposed to exist, +they would speak, and feel, and act, as he makes them. He had only to +think of any thing in order to become that thing, with all the +circumstances belonging to it. When he conceived of a character, whether +real or imaginary, he not only entered into all its thoughts and +feelings, but seemed instantly, and as if by touching a secret spring, +to be surrounded with all the same objects, "subject to the same skyey +influences," the same local, outward, and unforeseen accidents which +would occur in reality. Thus the character of Caliban not only stands +before us with a language and manners of its own, but the scenery and +situation of the enchanted island he inhabits, the traditions of the +place, its strange noises, its hidden recesses, "his frequent haunts and +ancient neighbourhood," are given with a miraculous truth of nature, and +with all the familiarity of an old recollection. The whole "coheres +semblably together" in time, place, and circumstance. In reading this +author, you do not merely learn what his characters say,--you see their +persons. By something expressed or understood, you are at no loss to +decypher their peculiar physiognomy, the meaning of a look, the +grouping, the bye-play, as we might see it on the stage. A word, an +epithet paints a whole scene, or throws us back whole years in the +history of the person represented. So (as it has been ingeniously +remarked) when Prospero describes himself as left alone in the boat with +his daughter, the epithet which he applies to her, "Me and thy _crying_ +self," flings the imagination instantly back from the grown woman to the +helpless condition of infancy, and places the first and most trying +scene of his misfortunes before us, with all that he must have suffered +in the interval. How well the silent anguish of Macduff is conveyed to +the reader, by the friendly expostulation of Malcolm--"What! man, +ne'er pull your hat upon your brows!" Again, Hamlet, in the scene with +Rosencrans and Guildenstern, somewhat abruptly concludes his fine +soliloquy on life by saying, "Man delights not me, nor woman neither, +though by your smiling you seem to say so." Which is explained by their +answer--"My lord, we had no such stuff in our thoughts. But we smiled +to think, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the +players shall receive from you, whom we met on the way":--as if while +Hamlet was making this speech, his two old schoolfellows from Wittenberg +had been really standing by, and he had seen them smiling by stealth, at +the idea of the players crossing their minds. It is not "a combination +and a form" of words, a set speech or two, a preconcerted theory of a +character, that will do this: but all the persons concerned must have +been present in the poet's imagination, as at a kind of rehearsal; and +whatever would have passed through their minds on the occasion, and have +been observed by others, passed through his, and is made known to the +reader.--I may add in passing, that Shakspeare always gives the best +directions for the costume and carriage of his heroes. Thus to take one +example, Ophelia gives the following account of Hamlet; and as Ophelia +had seen Hamlet, I should think her word ought to be taken against that +of any modern authority. + + "_Ophelia_. My lord, as I was reading in my closet, + Prince Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd, + No hat upon his head, his stockings loose, + Ungartred, and down-gyved to his ancle, + Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, + And with a look so piteous, + As if he had been sent from hell + To speak of horrors, thus he comes before me. + _Polonius_. Mad for thy love! + _Oph_. My lord, I do not know, + But truly I do fear it. + _Pol_. What said he? + _Oph_. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard, + Then goes he to the length of all his arm; + And with his other hand thus o'er his brow, + He falls to such perusal of my face, + As he would draw it: long staid he so; + At last, a little shaking of my arm, + And thrice his head thus waving up and down, + He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound, + As it did seem to shatter all his bulk, + And end his being. That done, he lets me go, + And with his head over his shoulder turn'd, + He seem'd to find his way without his eyes; + For out of doors he went without their help, + And to the last bended their light on me." + _Act. II. Scene 1_. + +How after this airy, fantastic idea of irregular grace and bewildered +melancholy any one can play Hamlet, as we have seen it played, with +strut, and stare, and antic right-angled sharp-pointed gestures, it is +difficult to say, unless it be that Hamlet is not bound, by the +prompter's cue, to study the part of Ophelia. The account of Ophelia's +death begins thus: + + "There is a willow hanging o'er a brook, + That shows its hoary leaves in the glassy stream."-- + +Now this is an instance of the same unconscious power of mind which is +as true to nature as itself. The leaves of the willow are, in fact, +white underneath, and it is this part of them which would appear "hoary" +in the reflection in the brook. The same sort of intuitive power, the +same faculty of bringing every object in nature, whether present or +absent, before the mind's eye, is observable in the speech of Cleopatra, +when conjecturing what were the employments of Antony in his absence:-- +"He's speaking now, or murmuring, where's my serpent of old Nile?" How +fine to make Cleopatra have this consciousness of her own character, and +to make her feel that it is this for which Antony is in love with her! +She says, after the battle of Actium, when Antony has resolved to risk +another fight, "It is my birth-day; I had thought to have held it poor: +but since my lord is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra." What other poet +would have thought of such a casual resource of the imagination, or +would have dared to avail himself of it? The thing happens in the play +as it might have happened in fact.--That which, perhaps, more than any +thing else distinguishes the dramatic productions of Shakspeare from all +others, is this wonderful truth and individuality of conception. Each of +his characters is as much itself, and as absolutely independent of the +rest, as well as of the author, as if they were living persons, not +fictions of the mind. The poet may be said, for the time, to identify +himself with the character he wishes to represent, and to pass from one +to another, like the same soul successively animating different bodies. +By an art like that of the ventriloquist, he throws his imagination out +of himself, and makes every word appear to proceed from the mouth of the +person in whose name it is given. His plays alone are properly +expressions of the passions, not descriptions of them. His characters +are real beings of flesh and blood; they speak like men, not like +authors. One might suppose that he had stood by at the time, and +overheard what passed. As in our dreams we hold conversations with +ourselves, make remarks, or communicate intelligence, and have no idea +of the answer which we shall receive, and which we ourselves make, till +we hear it: so the dialogues in Shakspeare are carried on without any +consciousness of what is to follow, without any appearance of +preparation or premeditation. The gusts of passion come and go like +sounds of music borne on the wind. Nothing is made out by formal +inference and analogy, by climax and antithesis: all comes, or seems to +come, immediately from nature. Each object and circumstance exists in +his mind, as it would have existed in reality: each several train of +thought and feeling goes on of itself, without confusion or effort. In +the world of his imagination, every thing has a life, a place, and being +of its own! + +Chaucer's characters are sufficiently distinct from one another, but +they are too little varied in themselves, too much like identical +propositions. They are consistent, but uniform; we get no new idea of +them from first to last; they are not placed in different lights, nor +are their subordinate _traits_ brought out in new situations; they are +like portraits or physiognomical studies, with the distinguishing +features marked with inconceivable truth and precision, but that +preserve the same unaltered air and attitude. Shakspeare's are +historical figures, equally true and correct, but put into action, where +every nerve and muscle is displayed in the struggle with others, with +all the effect of collision and contrast, with every variety of light +and shade. Chaucer's characters are narrative, Shakspeare's dramatic, +Milton's epic. That is, Chaucer told only as much of his story as he +pleased, as was required for a particular purpose. He answered for his +characters himself. In Shakspeare they are introduced upon the stage, +are liable to be asked all sorts of questions, and are forced to answer +for themselves. In Chaucer we perceive a fixed essence of character. In +Shakspeare there is a continual composition and decomposition of its +elements, a fermentation of every particle in the whole mass, by its +alternate affinity or antipathy to other principles which are brought in +contact with it. Till the experiment is tried, we do not know the +result, the turn which the character will take in its new circumstances. +Milton took only a few simple principles of character, and raised them +to the utmost conceivable grandeur, and refined them from every base +alloy. His imagination, "nigh sphered in Heaven," claimed kindred only +with what he saw from that height, and could raise to the same elevation +with itself. He sat retired and kept his state alone, "playing with +wisdom"; while Shakspeare mingled with the crowd, and played the host, +"to make society the sweeter welcome." + +The passion in Shakspeare is of the same nature as his delineation of +character. It is not some one habitual feeling or sentiment preying upon +itself, growing out of itself, and moulding every thing to itself; it is +passion modified by passion, by all the other feelings to which the +individual is liable, and to which others are liable with him; subject +to all the fluctuations of caprice and accident; calling into play all +the resources of the understanding and all the energies of the will; +irritated by obstacles or yielding to them; rising from small beginnings +to its utmost height; now drunk with hope, now stung to madness, now +sunk in despair, now blown to air with a breath, now raging like a +torrent. The human soul is made the sport of fortune, the prey of +adversity: it is stretched on the wheel of destiny, in restless ecstacy. +The passions are in a state of projection. Years are melted down to +moments, and every instant teems with fate. We know the results, we see +the process. Thus after Iago has been boasting to himself of the effect +of his poisonous suggestions on the mind of Othello, "which, with a +little act upon the blood, will work like mines of sulphur," he adds-- + + "Look where he comes! not poppy, nor mandragora, + Nor all the drowsy syrups of the East, + Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep + Which thou ow'dst yesterday."-- + +And he enters at this moment, like the crested serpent, crowned with his +wrongs and raging for revenge! The whole depends upon the turn of a +thought. A word, a look, blows the spark of jealousy into a flame; and +the explosion is immediate and terrible as a volcano. The dialogues in +Lear, in Macbeth, that between Brutus and Cassius, and nearly all those +in Shakspeare, where the interest is wrought up to its highest pitch, +afford examples of this dramatic fluctuation of passion. The interest in +Chaucer is quite different; it is like the course of a river, strong, +and full, and increasing. In Shakspeare, on the contrary, it is like the +sea, agitated this way and that, and loud-lashed by furious storms; +while in the still pauses of the blast, we distinguish only the cries of +despair, or the silence of death! Milton, on the other hand, takes the +imaginative part of passion--that which remains after the event, which +the mind reposes on when all is over, which looks upon circumstances +from the remotest elevation of thought and fancy, and abstracts them +from the world of action to that of contemplation. The objects of +dramatic poetry affect us by sympathy, by their nearness to ourselves, +as they take us by surprise, or force us upon action, "while rage with +rage doth sympathise"; the objects of epic poetry affect us through the +medium of the imagination, by magnitude and distance, by their +permanence and universality. The one fill us with terror and pity, the +other with admiration and delight. There are certain objects that strike +the imagination, and inspire awe in the very idea of them, independently +of any dramatic interest, that is, of any connection with the +vicissitudes of human life. For instance, we cannot think of the +pyramids of Egypt, of a Gothic ruin, or an old Roman encampment, without +a certain emotion, a sense of power and sublimity coming over the mind. +The heavenly bodies that hang over our heads wherever we go, and "in +their untroubled element shall shine when we are laid in dust, and all +our cares forgotten," affect us in the same way. Thus Satan's address to +the Sun has an epic, not a dramatic interest; for though the second +person in the dialogue makes no answer and feels no concern, yet the eye +of that vast luminary is upon him, like the eye of heaven, and seems +conscious of what he says, like an universal presence. Dramatic poetry +and epic, in their perfection, indeed, approximate to and strengthen one +another. Dramatic poetry borrows aid from the dignity of persons and +things, as the heroic does from human passion, but in theory they are +distinct.--When Richard II. calls for the looking-glass to contemplate +his faded majesty in it, and bursts into that affecting exclamation: +"Oh, that I were a mockery-king of snow, to melt away before the sun of +Bolingbroke," we have here the utmost force of human passion, combined +with the ideas of regal splendour and fallen power. When Milton says of +Satan: + + "------His form had not yet lost + All her original brightness, nor appear'd + Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess + Of glory obscur'd;"-- + +the mixture of beauty, of grandeur, and pathos, from the sense of +irreparable loss, of never-ending, unavailing regret, is perfect. + +The great fault of a modern school of poetry is, that it is an +experiment to reduce poetry to a mere effusion of natural sensibility; +or what is worse, to divest it both of imaginary splendour and human +passion, to surround the meanest objects with the morbid feelings and +devouring egotism of the writers' own minds. Milton and Shakspeare did +not so understand poetry. They gave a more liberal interpretation both +to nature and art. They did not do all they could to get rid of the one +and the other, to fill up the dreary void with the Moods of their own +Minds. They owe their power over the human mind to their having had a +deeper sense than others of what was grand in the objects of nature, or +affecting in the events of human life. But to the men I speak of there +is nothing interesting, nothing heroical, but themselves. To them the +fall of gods or of great men is the same. They do not enter into the +feeling. They cannot understand the terms. They are even debarred from +the last poor, paltry consolation of an unmanly triumph over fallen +greatness; for their minds reject, with a convulsive effort and +intolerable loathing, the very idea that there ever was, or was thought +to be, any thing superior to themselves. All that has ever excited the +attention or admiration of the world, they look upon with the most +perfect indifference; and they are surprised to find that the world +repays their indifference with scorn. "With what measure they mete, it +has been meted to them again."-- + +Shakespeare's imagination is of the same plastic kind as his +conception of character or passion. "It glances from heaven to earth, +from earth to heaven." Its movement is rapid and devious. It unites the +most opposite extremes; or, as Puck says, in boasting of his own feats, +"puts a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes." He seems always +hurrying from his subject, even while describing it; but the stroke, +like the lightning's, is sure as it is sudden. He takes the widest +possible range, but from that very range he has his choice of the +greatest variety and aptitude of materials. He brings together images +the most alike, but placed at the greatest distance from each other; +that is, found in circumstances of the greatest dissimilitude. From the +remoteness of his combinations, and the celerity with which they are +effected, they coalesce the more indissolubly together. The more the +thoughts are strangers to each other, and the longer they have been kept +asunder, the more intimate does their union seem to become. Their +felicity is equal to their force. Their likeness is made more dazzling +by their novelty. They startle, and take the fancy prisoner in the same +instant. I will mention one or two which are very striking, and not much +known, out of Troilus and Cressida. AEneas says to Agamemnon, + + "I ask that I may waken reverence, + And on the cheek be ready with a blush + Modest as morning, when she coldly eyes + The youthful Phoebus." + +Ulysses urging Achilles to shew himself in the field, says-- + + "No man is the lord of any thing, + Till he communicate his parts to others: + Nor doth he of himself know them for aught, + Till he behold them formed in the applause, + Where they're extended! which like an arch reverberates + The voice again, or like a gate of steel, + Fronting the sun, receives and renders back + Its figure and its heat." + +Patroclus gives the indolent warrior the same advice. + + "Rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid + Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, + And like a dew-drop from the lion's mane + Be shook to air." + +Shakspeare's language and versification are like the rest of him. He has +a magic power over words: they come winged at his bidding; and seem to +know their places. They are struck out at a heat, on the spur of the +occasion, and have all the truth and vividness which arise from an +actual impression of the objects. His epithets and single phrases are +like sparkles, thrown off from an imagination, fired by the whirling +rapidity of its own motion. His language is hieroglypnical. It +translates thoughts into visible images. It abounds in sudden +transitions and elliptical expressions. This is the source of his mixed +metaphors, which are only abbreviated forms of speech. These, however, +give no pain from long custom. They have, in fact, become idioms in the +language. They are the building, and not the scaffolding to thought. We +take the meaning and effect of a well-known passage entire, and no more +stop to scan and spell out the particular words and phrases, than the +syllables of which they are composed. In trying to recollect any other +author, one sometimes stumbles, in case of failure, on a word as good. +In Shakspeare, any other word but the true one, is sure to be wrong. If +any body, for instance, could not recollect the words of the following +description, + + "------Light thickens, + And the crow makes wing to the rooky wood," + +he would be greatly at a loss to substitute others for them equally +expressive of the feeling. These remarks, however, are strictly +applicable only to the impassioned parts of Shakspeare's language, which +flowed from the warmth and originality of his imagination, and were his +own. The language used for prose conversation and ordinary business is +sometimes technical, and involved in the affectation of the time. +Compare, for example, Othello's apology to the senate, relating "his +whole course of love," with some of the preceding parts relating to his +appointment, and the official dispatches from Cyprus. In this respect, +"the business of the state does him offence."--His versification is no +less powerful, sweet, and varied. It has every occasional excellence, of +sullen intricacy, crabbed and perplexed, or of the smoothest and +loftiest expansion--from the ease and familiarity of measured +conversation to the lyrical sounds + + "------Of ditties highly penned, + Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, + With ravishing division to her lute." + +It is the only blank verse in the language, except Milton's, that for +itself is readable. It is not stately and uniformly swelling like his, +but varied and broken by the inequalities of the ground it has to pass +over in its uncertain course, + + "And so by many winding nooks it strays, + With willing sport to the wild ocean." + +It remains to speak of the faults of Shakspeare. They are not so many +or so great as they have been represented; what there are, are chiefly +owing to the following causes:--The universality of his genius was, +perhaps, a disadvantage to his single works; the variety of his +resources, sometimes diverting him from applying them to the most +effectual purposes. He might be said to combine the powers of AEschylus +and Aristophanes, of Dante and Rabelais, in his own mind. If he had been +only half what he was, he would perhaps have appeared greater. The +natural ease and indifference of his temper made him sometimes less +scrupulous than he might have been. He is relaxed and careless in +critical places; he is in earnest throughout only in Timon, Macbeth, and +Lear. Again, he had no models of acknowledged excellence constantly in +view to stimulate his efforts, and by all that appears, no love of fame. +He wrote for the "great vulgar and the small," in his time, not for +posterity. If Queen Elizabeth and the maids of honour laughed heartily +at his worst jokes, and the catcalls in the gallery were silent at his +best passages, he went home satisfied, and slept the next night well. He +did not trouble himself about Voltaire's criticisms. He was willing to +take advantage of the ignorance of the age in many things; and if his +plays pleased others, not to quarrel with them himself. His very +facility of production would make him set less value on his own +excellences, and not care to distinguish nicely between what he did well +or ill. His blunders in chronology and geography do not amount to above +half a dozen, and they are offences against chronology and geography, +not against poetry. As to the unities, he was right in setting them at +defiance. He was fonder of puns than became so great a man. His +barbarisms were those of his age. His genius was his own. He had no +objection to float down with the stream of common taste and opinion: he +rose above it by his own buoyancy, and an impulse which he could not +keep under, in spite of himself or others, and "his delights did shew +most dolphin-like." + +He had an equal genius for comedy and tragedy; and his tragedies are +better than his comedies, because tragedy is better than comedy. His +female characters, which have been found fault with as insipid, are the +finest in the world. Lastly, Shakspeare was the least of a coxcomb of +any one that ever lived, and much of a gentleman. + +Shakspeare discovers in his writings little religious enthusiasm, and +an indifference to personal reputation; he had none of the bigotry of +his age, and his political prejudices were not very strong. In these +respects, as well as in every other, he formed a direct contrast to +Milton. Milton's works are a perpetual invocation to the Muses; a hymn +to Fame. He had his thoughts constantly fixed on the contemplation of +the Hebrew theocracy, and of a perfect commonwealth; and he seized the +pen with a hand just warm from the touch of the ark of faith. His +religious zeal infused its character into his imagination; so that he +devotes himself with the same sense of duty to the cultivation of his +genius, as he did to the exercise of virtue, or the good of his country. +The spirit of the poet, the patriot, and the prophet, vied with each +other in his breast. His mind appears to have held equal communion with +the inspired writers, and with the bards and sages of ancient Greece and +Rome;-- + + "Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides, + And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old." + +He had a high standard, with which he was always comparing himself, +nothing short of which could satisfy his jealous ambition. He thought of +nobler forms and nobler things than those he found about him. He lived +apart, in the solitude of his own thoughts, carefully excluding from his +mind whatever might distract its purposes or alloy its purity, or damp +its zeal. "With darkness and with dangers compassed round," he had the +mighty models of antiquity always present to his thoughts, and +determined to raise a monument of equal height and glory, "piling up +every stone of lustre from the brook," for the delight and wonder of +posterity. He had girded himself up, and as it were, sanctified his +genius to this service from his youth. "For after," he says, "I had from +my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, been +exercised to the tongues, and some sciences as my age could suffer, by +sundry masters and teachers, it was found that whether aught was imposed +upon me by them, or betaken to of my own choice, the style by certain +vital signs it had, was likely to live; but much latelier, in the +private academies of Italy, perceiving that some trifles which I had in +memory, composed at under twenty or thereabout, met with acceptance +above what was looked for; I began thus far to assent both to them and +divers of my friends here at home, and not less to an inward prompting +which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intense study (which I +take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity +of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times as +they should not willingly let it die. The accomplishment of these +intentions, which have lived within me ever since I could conceive +myself anything worth to my country, lies not but in a power above man's +to promise; but that none hath by more studious ways endeavoured, and +with more unwearied spirit that none shall, that I dare almost aver of +myself, as far as life and free leisure will extend. Neither do I think +it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years +yet, I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now +indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the +vapours of wine; like that which flows at waste from the pen of some +vulgar amourist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be +obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but +by devout prayer to that eternal spirit who can enrich with all +utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed +fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases: to +this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, +and insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs. Although it +nothing content me to have disclosed thus much beforehand; but that I +trust hereby to make it manifest with what small willingness I endure to +interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and +pleasing solitariness, fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to +embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes, from beholding +the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful +studies." + +So that of Spenser: + + "The noble heart that harbours virtuous thought, + And is with child of glorious great intent, + Can never rest until it forth have brought + The eternal brood of glory excellent." + +Milton, therefore, did not write from casual impulse, but after a +severe examination of his own strength, and with a resolution to leave +nothing undone which it was in his power to do. He always labours, and +almost always succeeds. He strives hard to say the finest things in the +world, and he does say them. He adorns and dignifies his subject to the +utmost: he surrounds it with every possible association of beauty or +grandeur, whether moral, intellectual, or physical. He refines on his +descriptions of beauty; loading sweets on sweets, till the sense aches +at them; and raises his images of terror to a gigantic elevation, that +"makes Ossa like a wart." In Milton, there is always an appearance of +effort: in Shakespeare, scarcely any. + +Milton has borrowed more than any other writer, and exhausted every +source of imitation, sacred or profane; yet he is perfectly distinct +from every other writer. He is a writer of centos, and yet in +originality scarcely inferior to Homer. The power of his mind is stamped +on every line. The fervour of his imagination melts down and renders +malleable, as in a furnace, the most contradictory materials. In reading +his works, we feel ourselves under the influence of a mighty intellect, +that the nearer it approaches to others, becomes more distinct from +them. The quantity of art in him shews the strength of his genius: the +weight of his intellectual obligations would have oppressed any other +writer. Milton's learning has the effect of intuition. He describes +objects, of which he could only have read in books, with the vividness +of actual observation. His imagination has the force of nature. He makes +words tell as pictures. + + "Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat + Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks + Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams." + +The word _lucid_ here gives to the idea all the sparkling effect of the +most perfect landscape. + +And again: + + "As when a vulture on Imaus bred, + Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds, + Dislodging from a region scarce of prey, + To gorge the flesh of lambs and yeanling kids + On hills where flocks are fed, flies towards the springs + Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams; + But in his way lights on the barren plains + Of Sericana, where Chineses [sic] drive + With sails and wind their cany waggons light." + +If Milton had taken a journey for the express purpose, he could not have +described this scenery and mode of life better. Such passages are like +demonstrations of natural history. Instances might be multiplied without +end. + +We might be tempted to suppose that the vividness with which he +describes visible objects, was owing to their having acquired an unusual +degree of strength in his mind, after the privation of his sight; but we +find the same palpableness and truth in the descriptions which occur in +his early poems. In Lycidas he speaks of "the great vision of the +guarded mount," with that preternatural weight of impression with which +it would present itself suddenly to "the pilot of some small +night-foundered skiff": and the lines in the Penseroso, describing "the +wandering moon," + + "Riding near her highest noon, + Like one that had been led astray + Through the heaven's wide pathless way," + +are as if he had gazed himself blind in looking at her. There is also +the same depth of impression in his descriptions of the objects of all +the different senses, whether colours, or sounds, or smells--the same +absorption of his mind in whatever engaged his attention at the time. It +has been indeed objected to Milton, by a common perversity of criticism, +that his ideas were musical rather than picturesque, as if because they +were in the highest degree musical, they must be (to keep the sage +critical balance even, and to allow no one man to possess two qualities +at the same time) proportionably deficient in other respects. But +Milton's poetry is not cast in any such narrow, common-place mould; it +is not so barren of resources. His worship of the Muse was not so simple +or confined. A sound arises "like a steam of rich distilled perfumes"; +we hear the pealing organ, but the incense on the altars is also there, +and the statues of the gods are ranged around! The ear indeed +predominates over the eye, because it is more immediately affected, and +because the language of music blends more immediately with, and forms a +more natural accompaniment to, the variable and indefinite associations +of ideas conveyed by words. But where the associations of the +imagination are not the principal thing, the individual object is given +by Milton with equal force and beauty. The strongest and best proof of +this, as a characteristic power of his mind, is, that the persons of +Adam and Eve, of Satan, &c. are always accompanied, in our imagination, +with the grandeur of the naked figure; they convey to us the ideas of +sculpture. As an instance, take the following: + + "------He soon + Saw within ken a glorious Angel stand, + The same whom John saw also in the sun: + His back was turned, but not his brightness hid; + Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar + Circled his head, nor less his locks behind + Illustrious on his shoulders fledge with wings + Lay waving round; on some great charge employ'd + He seem'd, or fix'd in cogitation deep. + Glad was the spirit impure, as now in hope + To find who might direct his wand'ring flight + To Paradise, the happy seat of man, + His journey's end, and our beginning woe. + But first he casts to change his proper shape, + Which else might work him danger or delay: + And now a stripling cherub he appears, + Not of the prime, yet such as in his face + Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb + Suitable grace diffus'd, so well he feign'd: + Under a coronet his flowing hair + In curls on either cheek play'd; wings he wore + Of many a colour'd plume sprinkled with gold, + His habit fit for speed succinct, and held + Before his decent steps a silver wand." + +The figures introduced here have all the elegance and precision of a +Greek statue; glossy and impurpled, tinged with golden light, and +musical as the strings of Memnon's harp! + +Again, nothing can be more magnificent than the portrait of +Beelzebub: + + "With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear + The weight of mightiest monarchies:" + +Or the comparison of Satan, as he "lay floating many a rood," to "that +sea beast," + + "Leviathan, which God of all his works + Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream!" + +What a force of imagination is there in this last expression! What an +idea it conveys of the size of that hugest of created beings, as if it +shrunk up the ocean to a stream, and took up the sea in its nostrils as +a very little thing? Force of style is one of Milton's greatest +excellences. Hence, perhaps, he stimulates us more in the reading, and +less afterwards. The way to defend Milton against all impugners, is to +take down the book and read it. + +Milton's blank verse is the only blank verse in the language (except +Shakspeare's) that deserves the name of verse. Dr. Johnson, who had +modelled his ideas of versification on the regular sing-song of Pope, +condemns the Paradise Lost as harsh and unequal. I shall not pretend to +say that this is not sometimes the case; for where a degree of +excellence beyond the mechanical rules of art is attempted, the poet +must sometimes fail. But I imagine that there are more perfect examples +in Milton of musical expression, or of an adaptation of the sound and +movement of the verse to the meaning of the passage, than in all our +other writers, whether of rhyme or blank verse, put together, (with the +exception already mentioned). Spenser is the most harmonious of our +stanza writers, as Dryden is the most sounding and varied of our +rhymists. But in neither is there any thing like the same ear for music, +the same power of approximating the varieties of poetical to those of +musical rhythm, as there is in our great epic poet. The sound of his +lines is moulded into the expression of the sentiment, almost of the +very image. They rise or fall, pause or hurry rapidly on, with exquisite +art, but without the least trick or affectation, as the occasion seems +to require. + +The following are some of the finest instances: + + "------His hand was known + In Heaven by many a tower'd structure high;-- + Nor was his name unheard or unador'd + In ancient Greece: and in the Ausonian land + Men called him Mulciber: and how he fell + From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove + Sheer o'er the chrystal battlements; from morn + To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, + A summer's day; and with the setting sun + Dropt from the zenith like a falling star + On Lemnos, the AEgean isle: thus they relate, + Erring."-- + + "------But chief the spacious hall + Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air, + Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees + In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides, + Pour forth their populous youth about the hive + In clusters; they among fresh dews and flow'rs + Fly to and fro: or on the smoothed plank, + The suburb of their straw-built citadel, + New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer + Their state affairs. So thick the airy crowd + Swarm'd and were straiten'd; till the signal giv'n, + Behold a wonder! They but now who seem'd + In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, + Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room + Throng numberless, like that Pygmean race + Beyond the Indian mount, or fairy elves, + Whose midnight revels by a forest side + Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, + Or dreams he sees, while over-head the moon + Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth + Wheels her pale course: they on their mirth and dance + Intent, with jocund music charm his ear; + At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds." + +I can only give another instance, though I have some difficulty in +leaving off. + + "Round he surveys (and well might, where he stood + So high above the circling canopy + Of night's extended shade) from th' eastern point + Of Libra to the fleecy star that bears + Andromeda far off Atlantic seas + Beyond the horizon: then from pole to pole + He views in breadth, and without longer pause + Down right into the world's first region throws + His flight precipitant, and winds with ease + Through the pure marble air his oblique way + Amongst innumerable stars that shone + Stars distant, but nigh hand seem'd other worlds; + Or other worlds they seem'd or happy isles," &c. + +The verse, in this exquisitely modulated passage, floats up and down as +if it had itself wings. Milton has himself given us the theory of his +versification-- + + "Such as the meeting soul may pierce + In notes with many a winding bout + Of linked sweetness long drawn out." + +Dr. Johnson and Pope would have converted his vaulting Pegasus into a +rocking-horse. Read any other blank verse but Milton's,--Thomson's, +Young's, Cowper's, Wordsworth's,--and it will be found, from the want +of the same insight into "the hidden soul of harmony," to be mere +lumbering prose. + +To proceed to a consideration of the merits of Paradise Lost, in the +most essential point of view, I mean as to the poetry of character and +passion. I shall say nothing of the fable, or of other technical +objections or excellences; but I shall try to explain at once the +foundation of the interest belonging to the poem. I am ready to give up +the dialogues in Heaven, where, as Pope justly observes, "God the Father +turns a school-divine"; nor do I consider the battle of the angels as +the climax of sublimity, or the most successful effort of Milton's pen. +In a word, the interest of the poem arises from the daring ambition and +fierce passions of Satan, and from the account of the paradisaical +happiness, and the loss of it by our first parents. Three-fourths of the +work are taken up with these characters, and nearly all that relates to +them is unmixed sublimity and beauty. The two first books alone are like +two massy pillars of solid gold. + +Satan is the most heroic subject that ever was chosen for a poem; and +the execution is as perfect as the design is lofty. He was the first of +created beings, who, for endeavouring to be equal with the highest, and +to divide the empire of heaven with the Almighty, was hurled down to +hell. His aim was no less than the throne of the universe; his means, +myriads of angelic armies bright, the third part of the heavens, whom he +lured after him with his countenance, and who durst defy the Omnipotent +in arms. His ambition was the greatest, and his punishment was the +greatest; but not so his despair, for his fortitude was as great as his +sufferings. His strength of mind was matchless as his strength of body; +the vastness of his designs did not surpass the firm, inflexible +determination with which he submitted to his irreversible doom, and +final loss of all good. His power of action and of suffering was equal. +He was the greatest power that was ever overthrown, with the strongest +will left to resist or to endure. He was baffled, not confounded. He +stood like a tower; or + + "------As when Heaven's fire + Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines." + +He was still surrounded with hosts of rebel angels, armed warriors, who +own him as their sovereign leader, and with whose fate he sympathises as +he views them round, far as the eye can reach; though he keeps aloof +from them in his own mind, and holds supreme counsel only with his own +breast. An outcast from Heaven, Hell trembles beneath his feet, Sin and +Death are at his heels, and mankind are his easy prey. + + "All is not lost; th' unconquerable will, + And study of revenge, immortal hate, + And courage never to submit or yield, + And what else is not to be overcome," + +are still his. The sense of his punishment seems lost in the magnitude +of it; the fierceness of tormenting flames is qualified and made +innoxious by the greater fierceness of his pride; the loss of infinite +happiness to himself is compensated in thought, by the power of +inflicting infinite misery on others. Yet Satan is not the principle of +malignity, or of the abstract love of evil--but of the abstract love +of power, of pride, of self-will personified, to which last principle +all other good and evil, and even his own, are subordinate. From this +principle he never once flinches. His love of power and contempt for +suffering are never once relaxed from the highest pitch of intensity. +His thoughts burn like a hell within him; but the power of thought holds +dominion in his mind over every other consideration. The consciousness +of a determined purpose, of "that intellectual being, those thoughts +that wander through eternity," though accompanied with endless pain, he +prefers to nonentity, to "being swallowed up and lost in the wide womb +of uncreated night." He expresses the sum and substance of all ambition +in one line. "Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, doing or +suffering!" After such a conflict as his, and such a defeat, to retreat +in order, to rally, to make terms, to exist at all, is something; but he +does more than this--he founds a new empire in hell, and from it +conquers this new world, whither he bends his undaunted flight, forcing +his way through nether and surrounding fires. The poet has not in all +this given us a mere shadowy outline; the strength is equal to the +magnitude of the conception. The Achilles of Homer is not more distinct; +the Titans were not more vast; Prometheus chained to his rock was not a +more terrific example of suffering and of crime. Wherever the figure of +Satan is introduced, whether he walks or flies, "rising aloft incumbent +on the dusky air," it is illustrated with the most striking and +appropriate images: so that we see it always before us, gigantic, +irregular, portentous, uneasy, and disturbed--but dazzling in its +faded splendour, the clouded ruins of a god. The deformity of Satan is +only in the depravity of his will; he has no bodily deformity to excite +our loathing or disgust. The horns and tail are not there, poor emblems +of the unbending, unconquered spirit, of the writhing agonies within. +Milton was too magnanimous and open an antagonist to support his +argument by the bye-tricks of a hump and cloven foot; to bring into the +fair field of controversy the good old catholic prejudices of which +Tasso and Dante have availed themselves, and which the mystic German +critics would restore. He relied on the justice of his cause, and did +not scruple to give the devil his due. Some persons may think that he +has carried his liberality too far, and injured the cause he professed +to espouse by making him the chief person in his poem. Considering the +nature of his subject, he would be equally in danger of running into +this fault, from his faith in religion, and his love of rebellion; and +perhaps each of these motives had its full share in determining the +choice of his subject. + +Not only the figure of Satan, but his speeches in council, his +soliloquies, his address to Eve, his share in the war in heaven, or in +the fall of man, shew the same decided superiority of character. To give +only one instance, almost the first speech he makes: + + "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, + Said then the lost archangel, this the seat + That we must change for Heaven; this mournful gloom + For that celestial light? Be it so, since he + Who now is sov'rain can dispose and bid + What shall be right: farthest from him is best, + Whom reason hath equal'd, force hath made supreme + Above his equals. Farewel happy fields, + Where joy for ever dwells: Hail horrors, hail + Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell, + Receive thy new possessor: one who brings + A mind not to be chang'd by place or time. + The mind is its own place, and in itself + Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. + What matter where, if I be still the same, + And what I should be, all but less than he + Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least + We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built + Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: + Here we may reign secure, and in my choice + To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: + Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven." + +The whole of the speeches and debates in Pandemonium are well worthy +of the place and the occasion--with Gods for speakers, and angels and +archangels for hearers. There is a decided manly tone in the arguments +and sentiments, an eloquent dogmatism, as if each person spoke from +thorough conviction; an excellence which Milton probably borrowed from +his spirit of partisanship, or else his spirit of partisanship from the +natural firmness and vigour of his mind. In this respect Milton +resembles Dante, (the only modern writer with whom he has any thing in +common) and it is remarkable that Dante, as well as Milton, was a +political partisan. That approximation to the severity of impassioned +prose which has been made an objection to Milton's poetry, and which is +chiefly to be met with in these bitter invectives, is one of its great +excellences. The author might here turn his philippics against Salmasius +to good account. The rout in Heaven is like the fall of some mighty +structure, nodding to its base, "with hideous ruin and combustion down." +But, perhaps, of all the passages in Paradise Lost, the description of +the employments of the angels during the absence of Satan, some of whom +"retreated in a silent valley, sing with notes angelical to many a harp +their own heroic deeds and hapless fall by doom of battle," is the most +perfect example of mingled pathos and sublimity.--What proves the truth +of this noble picture in every part, and that the frequent complaint of +want of interest in it is the fault of the reader, not of the poet, is +that when any interest of a practical kind take a shape that can be at +all turned into this, (and there is little doubt that Milton had some +such in his eye in writing it,) each party converts it to its own +purposes, feels the absolute identity of these abstracted and high +speculations; and that, in fact, a noted political writer of the present +day has exhausted nearly the whole account of Satan in the Paradise +Lost, by applying it to a character whom he considered as after the +devil, (though I do not know whether he would make even that exception) +the greatest enemy of the human race. This may serve to shew that +Milton's Satan is not a very insipid personage. + +Of Adam and Eve it has been said, that the ordinary reader can feel +little interest in them, because they have none of the passions, +pursuits, or even relations of human life, except that of man and wife, +the least interesting of all others, if not to the parties concerned, at +least to the by-standers. The preference has on this account been given +to Homer, who, it is said, has left very vivid and infinitely +diversified pictures of all the passions and affections, public and +private, incident to human nature--the relations of son, of brother, +parent, friend, citizen, and many others. Longinus preferred the Iliad +to the Odyssey, on account of the greater number of battles it contains; +but I can neither agree to his criticism, nor assent to the present +objection. It is true, there is little action in this part of Milton's +poem; but there is much repose, and more enjoyment. There are none of +the every-day occurrences, contentions, disputes, wars, fightings, +feuds, jealousies, trades, professions, liveries, and common handicrafts +of life; "no kind of traffic; letters are not known; no use of service, +of riches, poverty, contract, succession, bourne, bound of land, tilth, +vineyard none; no occupation, no treason, felony, sword, pike, knife, +gun, nor need of any engine." So much the better; thank Heaven, all +these were yet to come. But still the die was cast, and in them our doom +was sealed. In them + + "The generations were prepared; the pangs, + The internal pangs, were ready, the dread strife + Of poor humanity's afflicted will, + Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny." + +In their first false step we trace all our future woe, with loss of +Eden. But there was a short and precious interval between, like the +first blush of morning before the day is overcast with tempest, the dawn +of the world, the birth of nature from "the unapparent deep," with its +first dews and freshness on its cheek, breathing odours. Theirs was the +first delicious taste of life, and on them depended all that was to come +of it. In them hung trembling all our hopes and fears. They were as yet +alone in the world, in the eye of nature, wondering at their new being, +full of enjoyment and enraptured with one another, with the voice of +their Maker walking in the garden, and ministering angels attendant on +their steps, winged messengers from heaven like rosy clouds descending +in their sight. Nature played around them her virgin fancies wild; and +spread for them a repast where no crude surfeit reigned. Was there +nothing in this scene, which God and nature alone witnessed, to interest +a modern critic? What need was there of action, where the heart was full +of bliss and innocence without it! They had nothing to do but feel their +own happiness, and "know to know no more." "They toiled not, neither +did they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of +these." All things seem to acquire fresh sweetness, and to be clothed +with fresh beauty in their sight. They tasted as it were for themselves +and us, of all that there ever was pure in human bliss. "In them the +burthen of the mystery, the heavy and the weary weight of all this +unintelligible world, is lightened." They stood awhile perfect, but they +afterwards fell, and were driven out of Paradise, tasting the first +fruits of bitterness as they had done of bliss. But their pangs were +such as a pure spirit might feel at the sight--their tears "such as +angels weep." The pathos is of that mild contemplative kind which arises +from regret for the loss of unspeakable happiness, and resignation to +inevitable fate. There is none of the fierceness of intemperate passion, +none of the agony of mind and turbulence of action, which is the result +of the habitual struggles of the will with circumstances, irritated by +repeated disappointment, and constantly setting its desires most eagerly +on that which there is an impossibility of attaining. This would have +destroyed the beauty of the whole picture. They had received their +unlooked-for happiness as a free gift from their Creator's hands, and +they submitted to its loss, not without sorrow, but without impious and +stubborn repining. + + "In either hand the hast'ning angel caught + Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate + Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast + To the subjected plain; then disappear'd. + They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld + Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, + Wav'd over by that flaming brand, the gate + With dreadful faces throng'd, and fiery arms: + Some natural tears they dropt, but wip'd them soon; + The world was all before them, where to choose + Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." + + + + +LECTURE IV. +ON DRYDEN AND POPE. + + +Dryden and Pope are the great masters of the artificial style of +poetry in our language, as the poets of whom I have already treated, +Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, were of the natural; and +though this artificial style is generally and very justly acknowledged +to be inferior to the other, yet those who stand at the head of that +class, ought, perhaps, to rank higher than those who occupy an inferior +place in a superior class. They have a clear and independent claim upon +our gratitude, as having produced a kind and degree of excellence which +existed equally nowhere else. What has been done well by some later +writers of the highest style of poetry, is included in, and obscured by +a greater degree of power and genius in those before them: what has been +done best by poets of an entirely distinct turn of mind, stands by +itself, and tells for its whole amount. Young, for instance, Gray, or +Akenside, only follow in the train of Milton and Shakspeare: Pope and +Dryden walk by their side, though of an unequal stature, and are +entitled to a first place in the lists of fame. This seems to be not +only the reason of the thing, but the common sense of mankind, who, +without any regular process of reflection, judge of the merit of a work, +not more by its inherent and absolute worth, than by its originality and +capacity of gratifying a different faculty of the mind, or a different +class of readers; for it should be recollected, that there may be +readers (as well as poets) not of the highest class, though very good +sort of people, and not altogether to be despised. + +The question, whether Pope was a poet, has hardly yet been settled, +and is hardly worth settling; for if he was not a great poet, he must +have been a great prose-writer, that is, he was a great writer of some +sort. He was a man of exquisite faculties, and of the most refined +taste; and as he chose verse (the most obvious distinction of poetry) as +the vehicle to express his ideas, he has generally passed for a poet, +and a good one. If, indeed, by a great poet, we mean one who gives the +utmost grandeur to our conceptions of nature, or the utmost force to the +passions of the heart, Pope was not in this sense a great poet; for the +bent, the characteristic power of his mind, lay the clean contrary way; +namely, in representing things as they appear to the indifferent +observer, stripped of prejudice and passion, as in his Critical Essays; +or in representing them in the most contemptible and insignificant point +of view, as in his Satires; or in clothing the little with mock-dignity, +as in his poems of Fancy; or in adorning the trivial incidents and +familiar relations of life with the utmost elegance of expression, and +all the flattering illusions of friendship or self-love, as in his +Epistles. He was not then distinguished as a poet of lofty enthusiasm, +of strong imagination, with a passionate sense of the beauties of +nature, or a deep insight into the workings of the heart; but he was a +wit, and a critic, a man of sense, of observation, and the world, with a +keen relish for the elegances of art, or of nature when embellished by +art, a quick tact for propriety of thought and manners as established by +the forms and customs of society, a refined sympathy with the sentiments +and habitudes of human life, as he felt them within the little circle of +his family and friends. He was, in a word, the poet, not of nature, but +of art; and the distinction between the two, as well as I can make it +out, is this--The poet of nature is one who, from the elements of +beauty, of power, and of passion in his own breast, sympathises with +whatever is beautiful, and grand, and impassioned in nature, in its +simple majesty, in its immediate appeal to the senses, to the thoughts +and hearts of all men; so that the poet of nature, by the truth, and +depth, and harmony of his mind, may be said to hold communion with the +very soul of nature; to be identified with and to foreknow and to record +the feelings of all men at all times and places, as they are liable to +the same impressions; and to exert the same power over the minds of his +readers, that nature does. He sees things in their eternal beauty, for +he sees them as they are; he feels them in their universal interest, for +he feels them as they affect the first principles of his and our common +nature. Such was Homer, such was Shakspeare, whose works will last as +long as nature, because they are a copy of the indestructible forms and +everlasting impulses of nature, welling out from the bosom as from a +perennial spring, or stamped upon the senses by the hand of their maker. +The power of the imagination in them, is the representative power of all +nature. It has its centre in the human soul, and makes the circuit of +the universe. + +Pope was not assuredly a poet of this class, or in the first rank of +it. He saw nature only dressed by art; he judged of beauty by fashion; +he sought for truth in the opinions of the world; he judged of the +feelings of others by his own. The capacious soul of Shakspeare had an +intuitive and mighty sympathy with whatever could enter into the heart +of man in all possible circumstances: Pope had an exact knowledge of all +that he himself loved or hated, wished or wanted. Milton has winged his +daring flight from heaven to earth, through Chaos and old Night. Pope's +Muse never wandered with safety, but from his library to his grotto, or +from his grotto into his library back again. His mind dwelt with greater +pleasure on his own garden, than on the garden of Eden; he could +describe the faultless whole-length mirror that reflected his own +person, better than the smooth surface of the lake that reflects the +face of heaven--a piece of cut glass or a pair of paste buckles with +more brilliance and effect, than a thousand dew-drops glittering in the +sun. He would be more delighted with a patent lamp, than with "the pale +reflex of Cynthia's brow," that fills the skies with its soft silent +lustre, that trembles through the cottage window, and cheers the +watchful mariner on the lonely wave. In short, he was the poet of +personality and of polished life. That which was nearest to him, was the +greatest; the fashion of the day bore sway in his mind over the +immutable laws of nature. He preferred the artificial to the natural in +external objects, because he had a stronger fellow-feeling with the +self-love of the maker or proprietor of a gewgaw, than admiration of +that which was interesting to all mankind. He preferred the artificial +to the natural in passion, because the involuntary and uncalculating +impulses of the one hurried him away with a force and vehemence with +which he could not grapple; while he could trifle with the conventional +and superficial modifications of mere sentiment at will, laugh at or +admire, put them on or off like a masquerade-dress, make much or little +of them, indulge them for a longer or a shorter time, as he pleased; and +because while they amused his fancy and exercised his ingenuity, they +never once disturbed his vanity, his levity, or indifference. His mind +was the antithesis of strength and grandeur; its power was the power of +indifference. He had none of the enthusiasm of poetry; he was in poetry +what the sceptic is in religion. + +It cannot be denied, that his chief excellence lay more in +diminishing, than in aggrandizing objects; in checking, not in +encouraging our enthusiasm; in sneering at the extravagances of fancy or +passion, instead of giving a loose to them; in describing a row of pins +and needles, rather than the embattled spears of Greeks and Trojans; in +penning a lampoon or a compliment, and in praising Martha Blount. + +Shakspeare says, + + "------In Fortune's ray and brightness + The herd hath more annoyance by the brize + Than by the tyger: but when the splitting wind + Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, + And flies fled under shade, why then + The thing of courage, + As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathise; + And with an accent tuned in the self-same key, + Replies to chiding Fortune." + +There is none of this rough work in Pope. His Muse was on a +peace-establishment, and grew somewhat effeminate by long ease and +indulgence. He lived in the smiles of fortune, and basked in the favour +of the great. In his smooth and polished verse we meet with no prodigies +of nature, but with miracles of wit; the thunders of his pen are +whispered flatteries; its forked lightnings pointed sarcasms; for "the +gnarled oak," he gives us "the soft myrtle": for rocks, and seas, and +mountains, artificial grass-plats, gravel-walks, and tinkling rills; for +earthquakes and tempests, the breaking of a flower-pot, or the fall of a +china jar; for the tug and war of the elements, or the deadly strife of +the passions, we have + + "Calm contemplation and poetic ease." + +Yet within this retired and narrow circle how much, and that how +exquisite, was contained! What discrimination, what wit, what delicacy, +what fancy, what lurking spleen, what elegance of thought, what pampered +refinement of sentiment! It is like looking at the world through a +microscope, where every thing assumes a new character and a new +consequence, where things are seen in their minutest circumstances and +slightest shades of difference; where the little becomes gigantic, the +deformed beautiful, and the beautiful deformed. The wrong end of the +magnifier is, to be sure, held to every thing, but still the exhibition +is highly curious, and we know not whether to be most pleased or +surprised. Such, at least, is the best account I am able to give of this +extraordinary man, without doing injustice to him or others. It is time +to refer to particular instances in his works.--The Rape of the Lock is +the best or most ingenious of these. It is the most exquisite specimen +of _fillagree_ work ever invented. It is admirable in proportion as it +is made of nothing. + + "More subtle web Arachne cannot spin, + Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see + Of scorched dew, do not in th' air more lightly flee." + +It is made of gauze and silver spangles. The most glittering appearance +is given to every thing, to paste, pomatum, billet-doux, and patches. +Airs, languid airs, breathe around;--the atmosphere is perfumed with +affectation. A toilette is described with the solemnity of an altar +raised to the Goddess of vanity, and the history of a silver bodkin is +given with all the pomp of heraldry. No pains are spared, no profusion +of ornament, no splendour of poetic diction, to set off the meanest +things. The balance between the concealed irony and the assumed gravity, +is as nicely trimmed as the balance of power in Europe. The little is +made great, and the great little. You hardly know whether to laugh or +weep. It is the triumph of insignificance, the apotheosis of foppery and +folly. It is the perfection of the mock-heroic! I will give only the two +following passages in illustration of these remarks. Can any thing be +more elegant and graceful than the description of Belinda, in the +beginning of the second canto? + + "Not with more glories, in the ethereal plain, + The sun first rises o'er the purpled main, + Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams + Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames. + Fair nymphs, and well-drest youths around her shone, + But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone. + On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, + Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore. + Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, + Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those: + Favours to none, to all she smiles extends; + Oft she rejects, but never once offends. + Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike; + And like the sun, they shine on all alike. + Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, + Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide: + If to her share some female errors fall, + Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all. + + This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, + Nourish'd two locks, which graceful hung behind + In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck + With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck." + +The following is the introduction to the account of Belinda's assault +upon the baron bold, who had dissevered one of these locks "from her +fair head for ever and for ever." + + "Now meet thy fate, incens'd Belinda cry'd, + And drew a deadly bodkin from her side. + (The same his ancient personage to deck, + Her great, great grandsire wore about his neck, + In three seal-rings; which after, melted down, + Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown: + Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew, + The bells she jingled, and the whistle blew; + Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs, + Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears)." + +I do not know how far Pope was indebted for the original idea, or the +delightful execution of this poem, to the Lutrin of Boileau. + +The Rape of the Lock is a double-refined essence of wit and fancy, as +the Essay on Criticism is of wit and sense. The quantity of thought and +observation in this work, for so young a man as Pope was when he wrote +it, is wonderful: unless we adopt the supposition, that most men of +genius spend the rest of their lives in teaching others what they +themselves have learned under twenty. The conciseness and felicity of +the expression are equally remarkable. Thus in reasoning on the variety +of men's opinion, he says-- + + " 'Tis with our judgments, as our watches; none + Go just alike, yet each believes his own." + +Nothing can be more original and happy than the general remarks and +illustrations in the Essay; the critical rules laid down are too much +those of a school, and of a confined one. There is one passage in the +Essay on Criticism in which the author speaks with that eloquent +enthusiasm of the fame of ancient writers, which those will always feel +who have themselves any hope or chance of immortality. I have quoted the +passage elsewhere, but I will repeat it here. + + "Still green with bays each ancient altar stands, + Above the reach of sacrilegious hands; + Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, + Destructive war, and all-involving age. + Hail, bards triumphant, born in happier days, + Immortal heirs of universal praise! + Whose honours with increase of ages grow, + As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow." + +These lines come with double force and beauty on the reader, as they +were dictated by the writer's despair of ever attaining that lasting +glory which he celebrates with such disinterested enthusiasm in others, +from the lateness of the age in which he lived, and from his writing in +a tongue, not understood by other nations, and that grows obsolete and +unintelligible to ourselves at the end of every second century. But he +needed not have thus antedated his own poetical doom--the loss and +entire oblivion of that which can never die. If he had known, he might +have boasted that "his little bark" wafted down the stream of time, + + "------With _theirs_ should sail, + Pursue the triumph and partake the gale"-- + +if those who know how to set a due value on the blessing, were not the +last to decide confidently on their own pretensions to it. + +There is a cant in the present day about genius, as every thing in +poetry: there was a cant in the time of Pope about sense, as performing +all sorts of wonders. It was a kind of watchword, the shibboleth of a +critical party of the day. As a proof of the exclusive attention which +it occupied in their minds, it is remarkable that in the Essay on +Criticism (not a very long poem) there are no less than half a score +successive couplets rhyming to the word _sense_. This appears almost +incredible without giving the instances, and no less so when they are +given. + + "But of the two, less dangerous is the offence, + To tire our patience than mislead our sense."--_lines_ 3, 4. + + "In search of wit these lose their common sense, + And then turn critics in their own defence."--_l._ 28, 29. + + "Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, + And fills up all the mighty void of sense."--_l._ 209, 10. + + "Some by old words to fame have made pretence, + Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense."--_l._ 324, 5. + + " 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence; + The sound must seem an echo to the sense."--_l._ 364, 5. + + "At every trifle scorn to take offence; + That always shews great pride, or little sense."--_l._ 386, 7. + + "Be silent always, when you doubt your sense, + And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence."--_l._ 366, 7. + + "Be niggards of advice on no pretence, + For the worst avarice is that of sense."--_l._ 578, 9. + + "Strain out the last dull dropping of their sense, + And rhyme with all the rage of impotence."--_l._ 608, 9. + + "Horace still charms with graceful negligence, + And without method talks us into sense."--_l._ 653, 4. + +I have mentioned this the more for the sake of those critics who are +bigotted idolisers of our author, chiefly on the score of his +correctness. These persons seem to be of opinion that "there is but one +perfect writer, even Pope." This is, however, a mistake: his excellence +is by no means faultlessness. If he had no great faults, he is full of +little errors. His grammatical construction is often lame and imperfect. +In the Abelard and Eloise, he says-- + + "There died the best of passions, Love and Fame." + +This is not a legitimate ellipsis. Fame is not a passion, though love +is: but his ear was evidently confused by the meeting of the sounds +"love and fame," as if they of themselves immediately implied "love, and +love of fame." Pope's rhymes are constantly defective, being rhymes to +the eye instead of the ear; and this to a greater degree, not only than +in later, but than in preceding writers. The praise of his versification +must be confined to its uniform smoothness and harmony. In the +translation of the Iliad, which has been considered as his masterpiece +in style and execution, he continually changes the tenses in the same +sentence for the purposes of the rhyme, which shews either a want of +technical resources, or great inattention to punctilious exactness. But +to have done with this. + +The epistle of Eloise to Abelard is the only exception I can think +of, to the general spirit of the foregoing remarks; and I should be +disingenuous not to acknowledge that it is an exception. The foundation +is in the letters themselves of Abelard and Eloise, which are quite as +impressive, but still in a different way. It is fine as a poem: it is +finer as a piece of high-wrought eloquence. No woman could be supposed +to write a better love-letter in verse. Besides the richness of the +historical materials, the high _gusto_ of the original sentiments which +Pope had to work upon, there were perhaps circumstances in his own +situation which made him enter into the subject with even more than a +poet's feeling. The tears shed are drops gushing from the heart: the +words are burning sighs breathed from the soul of love. Perhaps the poem +to which it bears the greatest similarity in our language, is Dryden's +Tancred and Sigismunda, taken from Boccaccio. Pope's Eloise will bear +this comparison; and after such a test, with Boccaccio for the original +author, and Dryden for the translator, it need shrink from no other. +There is something exceedingly tender and beautiful in the sound of the +concluding lines: + + "If ever chance two wandering lovers brings + To Paraclete's white walls and silver springs," &c. + +The Essay on Man is not Pope's best work. It is a theory which +Bolingbroke is supposed to have given him, and which he expanded into +verse. But "he spins the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple +of his argument." All that he says, "the very words, and to the +self-same tune," would prove just as well that whatever is, is _wrong_, +as that whatever is, is _right_. The Dunciad has splendid passages, but +in general it is dull, heavy, and mechanical. The sarcasm already quoted +on Settle, the Lord Mayor's poet, (for at that time there was a city as +well as a court poet) + + "Now night descending, the proud scene is o'er, + But lives in Settle's numbers one day more"-- + +is the finest inversion of immortality conceivable. It is even better +than his serious apostrophe to the great heirs of glory, the triumphant +bards of antiquity! + +The finest burst of severe moral invective in all Pope, is the +prophetical conclusion of the epilogue to the Satires: + + "Virtue may chuse the high or low degree, + 'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me; + Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king, + She's still the same belov'd, contented thing. + Vice is undone if she forgets her birth, + And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth. + But 'tis the Fall degrades her to a whore: + Let Greatness own her, and she's mean no more. + Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess, + Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless; + In golden chains the willing world she draws, + And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws; + Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head, + And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead. + Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car, + Old England's Genius, rough with many a scar, + Dragged in the dust! his arms hang idly round, + His flag inverted trains along the ground! + Our youth, all livery'd o'er with foreign gold, + Before her dance; behind her, crawl the old! + See thronging millions to the Pagod run, + And offer country, parent, wife, or son! + Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim, + That _not to be corrupted is the shame_. + In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in pow'r, + 'Tis av'rice all, ambition is no more! + See all our nobles begging to be slaves! + See all our fools aspiring to be knaves! + The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, + Are what ten thousand envy and adore; + All, all look up with reverential awe, + At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law; + While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry: + Nothing is sacred now but villainy. + Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) + Show there was one who held it in disdain." + +His Satires are not in general so good as his Epistles. His enmity is +effeminate and petulant from a sense of weakness, as his friendship was +tender from a sense of gratitude. I do not like, for instance, his +character of Chartres, or his characters of women. His delicacy often +borders upon sickliness; his fastidiousness makes others fastidious. But +his compliments are divine; they are equal in value to a house or an +estate. Take the following. In addressing Lord Mansfield, he speaks of +the grave as a scene, + + "Where Murray, long enough his country's pride, + Shall be no more than Tully, or than Hyde." + +To Bolingbroke he says-- + + "Why rail they then if but one wreath of mine, + Oh all-accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine?" + +Again, he has bequeathed this praise to Lord Cornbury-- + + "Despise low thoughts, low gains: + Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains; + Be virtuous and be happy for your pains." + +One would think (though there is no knowing) that a descendant of this +nobleman, if there be such a person living, could hardly be guilty of a +mean or paltry action. + +The finest piece of personal satire in Pope (perhaps in the world) is +his character of Addison; and this, it may be observed, is of a mixed +kind, made up of his respect for the man, and a cutting sense of his +failings. The other finest one is that of Buckingham, and the best part +of that is the pleasurable. + + "------Alas! how changed from him, + That life of pleasure and that soul of whim: + Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove, + The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love!" + +Among his happiest and most inimitable effusions are the Epistles to +Arbuthnot, and to Jervas the painter; amiable patterns of the delightful +unconcerned life, blending ease with dignity, which poets and painters +then led. Thus he says to Arbuthnot-- + + "Why did I write? What sin to me unknown + Dipp'd me in ink, my parents' or my own? + As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, + I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. + I left no calling for this idle trade, + No duty broke, no father disobey'd: + The muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not wife; + To help me through this long disease, my life? + To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care, + And teach the being you preserv'd to bear. + + But why then publish? Granville the polite, + And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write; + Well-natur'd Garth inflam'd with early praise, + And Congreve lov'd, and Swift endur'd my lays; + The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read; + E'en mitred Rochester would nod the head; + And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before) + With open arms receiv'd one poet more. + Happy my studies, when by these approv'd! + Happier their author, when by these belov'd! + From these the world will judge of men and books, + Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks." + +I cannot help giving also the conclusion of the Epistle to Jervas. + + "Oh, lasting as those colours may they shine, + Free as thy stroke, yet faultless as thy line; + New graces yearly like thy works display, + Soft without weakness, without glaring gay; + Led by some rule, that guides, but not constrains; + And finish'd more through happiness than pains. + The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire, + One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre. + Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, + And breathe an air divine on ev'ry face; + Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll + Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul; + With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie, + And these be sung till Granville's Myra die: + Alas! how little from the grave we claim! + Thou but preserv'st a face, and I a name." + +And shall we cut ourselves off from beauties like these with a +theory? Shall we shut up our books, and seal up our senses, to please +the dull spite and inordinate vanity of those "who have eyes, but they +see not--ears, but they hear not--and understandings, but they +understand not,"--and go about asking our blind guides, whether Pope +was a poet or not? It will never do. Such persons, when you point out to +them a fine passage in Pope, turn it off to something of the same sort +in some other writer. Thus they say that the line, "I lisp'd in numbers, +for the numbers came," is pretty, but taken from that of Ovid--_Et +quum conabar scribere, versus erat_. They are safe in this mode of +criticism: there is no danger of any one's tracing their writings to the +classics. + +Pope's letters and prose writings neither take away from, nor add to +his poetical reputation. There is, occasionally, a littleness of manner, +and an unnecessary degree of caution. He appears anxious to say a good +thing in every word, as well as every sentence. They, however, give a +very favourable idea of his moral character in all respects; and his +letters to Atterbury, in his disgrace and exile, do equal honour to +both. If I had to choose, there are one or two persons, and but one or +two, that I should like to have been better than Pope! + +Dryden was a better prose-writer, and a bolder and more varied +versifier than Pope. He was a more vigorous thinker, a more correct and +logical declaimer, and had more of what may be called strength of mind +than Pope; but he had not the same refinement and delicacy of feeling. +Dryden's eloquence and spirit were possessed in a higher degree by +others, and in nearly the same degree by Pope himself; but that by which +Pope was distinguished, was an essence which he alone possessed, and of +incomparable value on that sole account. Dryden's Epistles are +excellent, but inferior to Pope's, though they appear (particularly the +admirable one to Congreve) to have been the model on which the latter +formed his. His Satires are better than Pope's. His Absalom and +Achitophel is superior, both in force of invective and discrimination of +character, to any thing of Pope's in the same way. The character of +Achitophel is very fine; and breathes, if not a sincere love for virtue, +a strong spirit of indignation against vice. + +Mac Flecknoe is the origin of the idea of the Dunciad; but it is less +elaborately constructed, less feeble, and less heavy. The difference +between Pope's satirical portraits and Dryden's, appears to be this in a +good measure, that Dryden seems to grapple with his antagonists, and to +describe real persons; Pope seems to refine upon them in his own mind, +and to make them out just what he pleases, till they are not real +characters, but the mere driveling effusions of his spleen and malice. +Pope describes the thing, and then goes on describing his own +description till he loses himself in verbal repetitions. Dryden recurs +to the object often, takes fresh sittings of nature, and gives us new +strokes of character as well as of his pencil. The Hind and Panther is +an allegory as well as a satire; and so far it tells less home; the +battery is not so point-blank. But otherwise it has more genius, +vehemence, and strength of description than any other of Dryden's works, +not excepting the Absalom and Achitophel. It also contains the finest +examples of varied and sounding versification. I will quote the +following as an instance of what I mean. He is complaining of the +treatment which the Papists, under James II. received from the church of +England. + + "Besides these jolly birds, whose corpse impure + Repaid their commons with their salt manure, + Another farm he had behind his house, + Not overstocked, but barely for his use; + Wherein his poor domestic poultry fed, + And from his pious hand "received their bread." + Our pampered pigeons, with malignant eyes, + Beheld these inmates, and their nurseries; + Though hard their fare, at evening, and at morn, + (A cruise of water, and an ear of corn,) + Yet still they grudged that _modicum,_ and thought + A sheaf in every single grain was brought. + Fain would they filch that little food away, + While unrestrained those happy gluttons prey; + And much they grieved to see so nigh their hall, + The bird that warned St. Peter of his fall; + That he should raise his mitred crest on high, + And clap his wings, and call his family + To sacred rites; and vex the ethereal powers + With midnight mattins at uncivil hours; + Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molest, + Just in the sweetness of their morning rest. + Beast of a bird! supinely when he might + Lie snug and sleep, to rise before the light! + What if his dull forefathers us'd that cry, + Could he not let a bad example die? + The world was fallen into an easier way: + This age knew better than to fast and pray. + Good sense in sacred worship would appear, + So to begin as they might end the year. + Such feats in former times had wrought the falls + Of crowing chanticleers in cloister'd walls. + Expell'd for this, and for their lands they fled; + And sister Partlet with her hooded head + Was hooted hence, because she would not pray a-bed." + + +There is a magnanimity of abuse in some of these epithets, a fearless +choice of topics of invective, which may be considered as the heroical +in satire. + +The _Annus Mirabilis_ is a tedious performance; it is a tissue of +far-fetched, heavy, lumbering conceits, and in the worst style of what +has been denominated metaphysical poetry. His Odes in general are of the +same stamp; they are the hard-strained offspring of a meagre, +meretricious fancy. The famous Ode on St. Cecilia deserves its +reputation; for, as piece of poetical mechanism to be set to music, or +recited in alternate strophe and antistrophe, with classical allusions, +and flowing verse, nothing can be better. It is equally fit to be said +or sung; it is not equally good to read. It is lyrical, without being +epic or dramatic. For instance, the description of Bacchus, + + "The jolly god in triumph comes, + Sound the trumpets, beat the drums; + Flush'd with a purple grace, + He shews his honest face"-- + +does not answer, as it ought, to our idea of the God, returning from the +conquest of India, with satyrs and wild beasts, that he had tamed, +following in his train; crowned with vine leaves, and riding in a +chariot drawn by leopards--such as we have seen him painted by Titian +or Rubens! Lyrical poetry, of all others, bears the nearest resemblance +to painting: it deals in hieroglyphics and passing figures, which depend +for effect, not on the working out, but on the selection. It is the +dance and pantomime of poetry. In variety and rapidity of movement, the +Alexander's Feast has all that can be required in this respect; it only +wants loftiness and truth of character. + +Dryden's plays are better than Pope could have written; for though he +does not go out of himself by the force of imagination, he goes out of +himself by the force of common-places and rhetorical dialogue. On the +other hand, they are not so good as Shakspeare's; but he has left the +best character of Shakspeare that has ever been written. [5] + +His alterations from Chaucer and Boccaccio shew a greater knowledge +of the taste of his readers and power of pleasing them, than +acquaintance with the genius of his authors. He ekes out the lameness of +the verse in the former, and breaks the force of the passion in both. +The Tancred and Sigismunda is the only general exception, in which, I +think, he has fully retained, if not improved upon, the impassioned +declamation of the original. The Honoria has none of the bewildered, +dreary, preternatural effect of Boccaccio's story. Nor has the Flower +and the Leaf any thing of the enchanting simplicity and concentrated +feeling of Chaucer's romantic fiction. Dryden, however, sometimes seemed +to indulge himself as well as his readers, as in keeping entire that +noble line in Palamon's address to Venus: + + "Thou gladder of the mount of Cithaeron!" + +His Tales have been, upon the whole, the most popular of his works; +and I should think that a translation of some of the other serious tales +in Boccaccio and Chaucer, as that of Isabella, the Falcon, of Constance, +the Prioress's Tale, and others, if executed with taste and spirit, +could not fail to succeed in the present day. + +___ +[5] "To begin then with Shakspeare: he was the man who of all modern, +and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. +All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not +laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see +it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give +him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned: he needed not +the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards and found her +there. I cannot say, he is every where alike; were he so, I should do +him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times +flat, and insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious +swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion +is presented to him. No man can say, he ever had a fit subject for his +wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, + _Quantum lenta solent inter Viburna Cupressi_." +___ + +It should appear, in tracing the history of our literature, that +poetry had, at the period of which we are speaking, in general declined, +by successive gradations, from the poetry of imagination, in the time of +Elizabeth, to the poetry of fancy (to adopt a modern distinction) in the +time of Charles I.; and again from the poetry of fancy to that of wit, +as in the reign of Charles II. and Queen Anne. It degenerated into the +poetry of mere common places, both in style and thought, in the +succeeding reigns: as in the latter part of the last century, it was +transformed, by means of the French Revolution, into the poetry of +paradox. + +Of Donne I know nothing but some beautiful verses to his wife, +dissuading her from accompanying him on his travels abroad, and some +quaint riddles in verse, which the Sphinx could not unravel. + +Waller still lives in the name of Sacharissa; and his lines on the +death of Oliver Cromwell shew that he was a man not without genius and +strength of thought. + +Marvel is a writer of nearly the same period, and worthy of a better +age. Some of his verses are harsh, as the words of Mercury; others +musical, as is Apollo's lute. Of the latter kind are his boat-song, his +description of a fawn, and his lines to Lady Vere. His lines prefixed to +Paradise Lost are by no means the most favourable specimen of his +powers. + +Butler's Hudibras is a poem of more wit than any other in the +language. The rhymes have as much genius in them as the thoughts; but +there is no story in it, and but little humour. Humour is the making +others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously: wit is the pointing out +and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less +ill-nature. The fault of Butler's poem is not that it has too much wit, +but that it has not an equal quantity of other things. One would suppose +that the starched manners and sanctified grimace of the times in which +he lived, would of themselves have been sufficiently rich in ludicrous +incidents and characters; but they seem rather to have irritated his +spleen, than to have drawn forth his powers of picturesque imitation. +Certainly if we compare Hudibras with Don Quixote in this respect, it +seems rather a meagre and unsatisfactory performance. + +Rochester's poetry is the poetry of wit combined with the love of +pleasure, of thought with licentiousness. His extravagant heedless +levity has a sort of passionate enthusiasm in it; his contempt for every +thing that others respect, almost amounts to sublimity. His poem upon +Nothing is itself no trifling work. His epigrams were the bitterest, the +least laboured, and the truest, that ever were written. + +Sir John Suckling was of the same mercurial stamp, but with a greater +fund of animal spirits; as witty, but less malicious. His Ballad on a +Wedding is perfect in its kind, and has a spirit of high enjoyment in +it, of sportive fancy, a liveliness of description, and a truth of +nature, that never were surpassed. It is superior to either Gay or +Prior; for with all their _naivete_ and terseness, it has a Shakspearian +grace and luxuriance about it, which they could not have reached. + +Denham and Cowley belong to the same period, but were quite distinct +from each other: the one was grave and prosing, the other melancholy and +fantastical. There are a number of good lines and good thoughts in the +Cooper's Hill. And in Cowley there is an inexhaustible fund of sense and +ingenuity, buried in inextricable conceits, and entangled in the cobwebs +of the schools. He was a great man, not a great poet. But I shall say no +more on this subject. I never wish to meddle with names that are sacred, +unless when they stand in the way of things that are more sacred. + +Withers is a name now almost forgotten, and his works seldom read; +but his poetry is not unfrequently distinguished by a tender and +pastoral turn of thought; and there is one passage of exquisite feeling, +describing the consolations of poetry in the following terms: + + "She doth tell me where to borrow + Comfort in the midst of sorrow; + Makes the desolatest place [6] + To her presence be a grace; + And the blackest discontents + Be her fairest ornaments. + In my former days of bliss + Her divine skill taught me this, + That from every thing I saw, + I could some invention draw; + And raise pleasure to her height, + Through the meanest object's sight, + By the murmur of a spring, + Or the least bough's rusteling, + By a daisy whose leaves spread + Shut when Titan goes to bed; + Or a shady bush or tree, + She could more infuse in me, + Than all Nature's beauties can, + In some other wiser man. + By her help I also now + Make this churlish place allow + Some things that may sweeten gladness + In the very gall of sadness. + The dull loneness, the black shade, + That these hanging vaults have made, + The strange music of the waves, + Beating on these hollow caves, + This black den which rocks emboss, + Overgrown with eldest moss, + The rude portals that give light + More to terror than delight, + This my chamber of neglect, + Wall'd about with disrespect, + From all these and this dull air, + A fit object for despair, + She hath taught me by her might + To draw comfort and delight. + Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, + I will cherish thee for this. + Poesie; thou sweet'st content + That ere Heav'n to mortals lent: + Though they as a trifle leave thee, + Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee, + Though thou be to them a scorn, + That to nought but earth are born: + Let my life no longer be + Than I am in love with thee. + Though our wise ones call thee madness, + Let me never taste of sadness, + If I love not thy maddest fits, + Above all their greatest wits. + And though some too seeming holy, + Do account thy raptures folly, + Thou dost teach me to contemn + What makes knaves and fools of them." + +___ +[6] Written in the Fleet Prison. +___ + + + + +LECTURE V. +ON THOMSON AND COWPER. + + +Thomson, the kind-hearted Thomson, was the most indolent of mortals +and of poets. But he was also one of the best both of mortals and of +poets. Dr. Johnson makes it his praise that he wrote "no line which +dying he would wish to blot." Perhaps a better proof of his honest +simplicity, and inoffensive goodness of disposition, would be that he +wrote no line which any other person living would wish that he should +blot. Indeed, he himself wished, on his death-bed, formally to expunge +his dedication of one of the Seasons to that finished courtier, and +candid biographer of his own life, Bub Doddington. As critics, however, +not as moralists, we might say on the other hand--"Would he had +blotted a thousand!"--The same suavity of temper and sanguine warmth +of feeling which threw such a natural grace and genial spirit of +enthusiasm over his poetry, was also the cause of its inherent vices and +defects. He is affected through carelessness: pompous from unsuspecting +simplicity of character. He is frequently pedantic and ostentatious in +his style, because he had no consciousness of these vices in himself. He +mounts upon stilts, not out of vanity, but indolence. He seldom writes a +good line, but he makes up for it by a bad one. He takes advantage of +all the most trite and mechanical common-places of imagery and diction +as a kindly relief to his Muse, and as if he thought them quite as good, +and likely to be quite as acceptable to the reader, as his own poetry. +He did not think the difference worth putting himself to the trouble of +accomplishing. He had too little art to conceal his art: or did not even +seem to know that there was any occasion for it. His art is as naked and +undisguised as his nature; the one is as pure and genuine as the other +is gross, gaudy, and meretricious.--All that is admirable in the +Seasons, is the emanation of a fine natural genius, and sincere love of +his subject, unforced, unstudied, that comes uncalled for, and departs +unbidden. But he takes no pains, uses no self-correction; or if he seems +to labour, it is worse than labour lost. His genius "cannot be +constrained by mastery." The feeling of nature, of the changes of the +seasons, was in his mind; and he could not help conveying this feeling +to the reader, by the mere force of spontaneous expression; but if the +expression did not come of itself, he left the whole business to chance; +or, willing to evade instead of encountering the difficulties of his +subject, fills up the intervals of true inspiration with the most vapid +and worthless materials, pieces out a beautiful half line with a +bombastic allusion, or overloads an exquisitely natural sentiment or +image with a cloud of painted, pompous, cumbrous phrases, like the +shower of roses, in which he represents the Spring, his own lovely, +fresh, and innocent Spring, as descending to the earth. + + "Come, gentle Spring! ethereal Mildness! come, + And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, + While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower + Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend." + +Who, from such a flimsy, round-about, unmeaning commencement as this, +would expect the delightful, unexaggerated, home-felt descriptions of +natural scenery, which are scattered in such unconscious profusion +through this and the following cantos? For instance, the very next +passage is crowded with a set of striking images. + + "And see where surly Winter passes off + Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts: + His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, + The shatter'd forest, and the ravag'd vale; + While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch + Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost, + The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. + As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed, + And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, + Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets + Deform the day delightless; so that scarce + The bittern knows his time with bill ingulpht + To shake the sounding marsh, or from the shore + The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath, + And sing their wild notes to the list'ning waste." + +Thomson is the best of our descriptive poets: for he gives most of +the poetry of natural description. Others have been quite equal to him, +or have surpassed him, as Cowper for instance, in the picturesque part +of his art, in marking the peculiar features and curious details of +objects;--no one has yet come up to him in giving the sum total of +their effects, their varying influences on the mind. He does not go into +the _minutiae_ of a landscape, but describes the vivid impression which +the whole makes upon his own imagination; and thus transfers the same +unbroken, unimpaired impression to the imagination of his readers. The +colours with which he paints seem yet wet and breathing, like those of +the living statue in the Winter's Tale. Nature in his descriptions is +seen growing around us, fresh and lusty as in itself. We feel the effect +of the atmosphere, its humidity or clearness, its heat or cold, the glow +of summer, the gloom of winter, the tender promise of the spring, the +full overshadowing foliage, the declining pomp and deepening tints of +autumn. He transports us to the scorching heat of vertical suns, or +plunges us into the chilling horrors and desolation of the frozen zone. +We hear the snow drifting against the broken casement without, and see +the fire blazing on the hearth within. The first scattered drops of a +vernal shower patter on the leaves above our heads, or the coming storm +resounds through the leafless groves. In a word, he describes not to the +eye alone, but to the other senses, and to the whole man. He puts his +heart into his subject, writes as he feels, and humanises whatever he +touches. He makes all his descriptions teem with life and vivifying +soul. His faults were those of his style--of the author and the man; +but the original genius of the poet, the pith and marrow of his +imagination, the fine natural mould in which his feelings were bedded, +were too much for him to counteract by neglect, or affectation, or false +ornaments. It is for this reason that he is, perhaps, the most popular +of all our poets, treating of a subject that all can understand, and in +a way that is interesting to all alike, to the ignorant or the refined, +because he gives back the impression which the things themselves make +upon us in nature. "That," said a man of genius, seeing a little shabby +soiled copy of Thomson's Seasons lying on the window-seat of an obscure +country alehouse--"That is true fame!" + +It has been supposed by some, that the Castle of Indolence is +Thomson's best poem; but that is not the case. He has in it, indeed, +poured out the whole soul of indolence, diffuse, relaxed, supine, +dissolved into a voluptuous dream; and surrounded himself with a set of +objects and companions, in entire unison with the listlessness of his +own temper. Nothing can well go beyond the descriptions of these inmates +of the place, and their luxurious pampered way of life--of him who +came among them like "a burnished fly in month of June," but soon left +them on his heedless way; and him, + + "For whom the merry bells had rung, I ween, + If in this nook of quiet, bells had ever been." + +The in-door quiet and cushioned ease, where "all was one full-swelling +bed"; the out-of-door stillness, broken only by "the stock-dove's plaint +amid the forest deep," + + "That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale"-- + +are in the most perfect and delightful keeping. But still there are no +passages in this exquisite little production of sportive ease and fancy, +equal to the best of those in the Seasons. Warton, in his Essay on Pope, +was the first to point out and do justice to some of these; for +instance, to the description of the effects of the contagion among our +ships at Carthagena--"of the frequent corse heard nightly plunged amid +the sullen waves," and to the description of the pilgrims lost in the +deserts of Arabia. This last passage, profound and striking as it is, is +not free from those faults of style which I have already noticed. + + "------Breath'd hot + From all the boundless furnace of the sky, + And the wide-glitt'ring waste of burning sand, + A suffocating wind the pilgrim smites + With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil, + Son of the desert, ev'n the camel feels + Shot through his wither'd heart the fiery blast. + Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad, + Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands, + Commov'd around, in gath'ring eddies play; + Nearer and nearer still they dark'ning come, + Till with the gen'ral all-involving storm + Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise, + And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown, + Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep, + Beneath descending hills the caravan + Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets, + Th' impatient merchant, wond'ring, waits in vain; + And Mecca saddens at the long delay." + +There are other passages of equal beauty with these; such as that of +the hunted stag, followed by "the inhuman rout," + + "------That from the shady depth + Expel him, circling through his ev'ry shift. + He sweeps the forest oft, and sobbing sees + The glades mild op'ning to the golden day, + Where in kind contest with his butting friends + He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy." + +The whole of the description of the frozen zone, in the Winter, is +perhaps even finer and more thoroughly felt, as being done from early +associations, than that of the torrid zone in his Summer. Any thing more +beautiful than the following account of the Siberian exiles is, I think, +hardly to be found in the whole range of poetry. + + "There through the prison of unbounded wilds, + Barr'd by the hand of nature from escape, + Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around + Strikes his sad eye but deserts lost in snow, + And heavy-loaded groves, and solid floods, + That stretch athwart the solitary vast + Their icy horrors to the frozen main; + And cheerless towns far distant, never bless'd, + Save when its annual course the caravan + Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay, + With news of human kind." + +The feeling of loneliness, of distance, of lingering, slow-revolving +years of pining expectation, of desolation within and without the heart, +was never more finely expressed than it is here. + +The account which follows of the employments of the Polar night--of +the journeys of the natives by moonlight, drawn by rein-deer, and of the +return of spring in Lapland-- + + "Where pure Niemi's fairy mountains rise, + And fring'd with roses Tenglio rolls his stream," + +is equally picturesque and striking in a different way. The traveller +lost in the snow, is a well-known and admirable dramatic episode. I +prefer, however, giving one example of our author's skill in painting +common domestic scenery, as it will bear a more immediate comparison +with the style of some later writers on such subjects. It is of little +consequence what passage we take. The following description of the +first setting in of winter is, perhaps, as pleasing as any. + + "Through the hush'd air the whitening shower descends, + At first thin wav'ring, till at last the flakes + Fall broad and wide, and fast, dimming the day + With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields + Put on their winter-robe of purest white: + 'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts + Along the mazy current. Low the woods + Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid Sun, + Faint, from the West emits his ev'ning ray, + Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill, + Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide + The works of man. Drooping, the lab'rer-ox + Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then demands + The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heav'n, + Tam'd by the cruel season, crowd around + The winnowing store, and claim the little boon + Which Providence assigns them. One alone, + The red-breast, sacred to the household Gods, + Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, + In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves + His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man + His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first + Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights + On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor, + Eyes all the smiling family askance, + And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is: + Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs + Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds + Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, + Though timorous of heart, and hard beset + By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs, + And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, + Urg'd on by fearless want. The bleating kind [sic] + Eye the bleak heav'n, and next, the glist'ning earth, + With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispers'd, + Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of snow." + +It is thus that Thomson always gives a _moral sense_ to nature. + +Thomson's blank verse is not harsh, or utterly untuneable; but it is +heavy and monotonous; it seems always labouring up-hill. The selections +which have been made from his works in Enfield's Speaker, and other +books of extracts, do not convey the most favourable idea of his genius +or taste; such as Palemon and Lavinia, Damon and Musidora, Celadon and +Amelia. Those parts of any author which are most liable to be stitched +in worsted, and framed and glazed, are not by any means always the best. +The moral descriptions and reflections in the Seasons are in an +admirable spirit, and written with great force and fervour. + +His poem on Liberty is not equally good: his Muse was too easy and +good-natured for the subject, which required as much indignation against +unjust and arbitrary power, as complacency in the constitutional +monarchy, under which, just after the expulsion of the Stuarts and the +establishment of the House of Hanover, in contempt of the claims of +hereditary pretenders to the throne, Thomson lived. Thomson was but an +indifferent hater; and the most indispensable part of the love of +liberty has unfortunately hitherto been the hatred of tyranny. Spleen is +the soul of patriotism, and of public good: but you would not expect a +man who has been seen eating peaches off a tree with both hands in his +waistcoat pockets, to be "overrun with the spleen," or to heat himself +needlessly about an abstract proposition. + +His plays are liable to the same objection. They are never acted, and +seldom read. The author could not, or would not, put himself out of his +way, to enter into the situations and passions of others, particularly +of a tragic kind. The subject of Tancred and Sigismunda, which is taken +from a serious episode in Gil Blas, is an admirable one, but poorly +handled: the ground may be considered as still unoccupied. + +Cowper, whom I shall speak of in this connection, lived at a +considerable distance of time after Thomson; and had some advantages +over him, particularly in simplicity of style, in a certain precision +and minuteness of graphical description, and in a more careful and +leisurely choice of such topics only as his genius and peculiar habits +of mind prompted him to treat of. The Task has fewer blemishes than the +Seasons; but it has not the same capital excellence, the "unbought +grace" of poetry, the power of moving and infusing the warmth of the +author's mind into that of the reader. If Cowper had a more polished +taste, Thomson had, beyond comparison, a more fertile genius, more +impulsive force, a more entire forgetfulness of himself in his subject. +If in Thomson you are sometimes offended with the slovenliness of the +author by profession, determined to get through his task at all events; +in Cowper you are no less dissatisfied with the finicalness of the +private gentleman, who does not care whether he completes his work or +not; and in whatever he does, is evidently more solicitous to please +himself than the public. There is an effeminacy about him, which shrinks +from and repels common and hearty sympathy. With all his boasted +simplicity and love of the country, he seldom launches out into general +descriptions of nature: he looks at her over his clipped hedges, and +from his well-swept garden-walks; or if he makes a bolder experiment now +and then, it is with an air of precaution, as if he were afraid of being +caught in a shower of rain, or of not being able, in case of any +untoward accident, to make good his retreat home. He shakes hands with +nature with a pair of fashionable gloves on, and leads "his Vashti" +forth to public view with a look of consciousness and attention to +etiquette, as a fine gentleman hands a lady out to dance a minuet. He is +delicate to fastidiousness, and glad to get back, after a romantic +adventure with crazy Kate, a party of gypsies or a little child on a +common, to the drawing room and the ladies again, to the sofa and the +tea-kettle--No, I beg his pardon, not to the singing, well-scoured +tea-kettle, but to the polished and loud-hissing urn. His walks and +arbours are kept clear of worms and snails, with as much an appearance +of _petit-maitreship_ as of humanity. He has some of the sickly +sensibility and pampered refinements of Pope; but then Pope prided +himself in them: whereas, Cowper affects to be all simplicity and +plainness. He had neither Thomson's love of the unadorned beauties of +nature, nor Pope's exquisite sense of the elegances of art. He was, in +fact, a nervous man, afraid of trusting himself to the seductions of the +one, and ashamed of putting forward his pretensions to an intimacy with +the other: but to be a coward, is not the way to succeed either in +poetry, in war, or in love! Still he is a genuine poet, and deserves all +his reputation. His worst vices are amiable weaknesses, elegant +trifling. Though there is a frequent dryness, timidity, and jejuneness +in his manner, he has left a number of pictures of domestic comfort and +social refinement, as well as of natural imagery and feeling, which can +hardly be forgotten but with the language itself. Such, among others, +are his memorable description of the post coming in, that of the +preparations for tea in a winter's evening in the country, of the +unexpected fall of snow, of the frosty morning (with the fine satirical +transition to the Empress of Russia's palace of ice), and most of all, +the winter's walk at noon. Every one of these may be considered as +distinct studies, or highly finished cabinet-pieces, arranged without +order or coherence. I shall be excused for giving the last of them, as +what has always appeared to me one of the most feeling, elegant, and +perfect specimens of this writer's manner. + + "The night was winter in his roughest mood; + The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon + Upon the southern side of the slant hills, + And where the woods fence off the northern blast, + The season smiles, resigning all its rage, + And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue, + Without a cloud, and white without a speck + The dazzling splendour of the scene below. + Again the harmony comes o'er the vale; + And through the trees I view th' embattled tow'r, + Whence all the music. I again perceive + The soothing influence of the wafted strains, + And settle in soft musings as I tread + The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms, + Whose outspread branches overarch the glade. + The roof, though moveable through all its length, + As the wind sways it, has yet well suffic'd, + And, intercepting in their silent fall + The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. + No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. + The redbreast warbles still, but is content + With slender notes, and more than half suppress'd. + Pleas'd with his solitude, and flitting light + From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes + From many a twig the pendent drop of ice, + That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below. + Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, + Charms more than silence. Meditation here + May think down hours to moments. Here the heart + May give a useful lesson to the head, + And Learning wiser grow without his books. + Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, + Have oft-times no connection. Knowledge dwells + In heads replete with thoughts of other men; + Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. + Books are not seldom talismans and spells, + By which the magic art of shrewder wits + Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall'd. + Some to the fascination of a name + Surrender judgment hood-wink'd. Some the style + Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds + Of error leads them, by a tune entranc'd. + While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear + The insupportable fatigue of thought, + And swallowing therefore without pause or choice + The total grist unsifted, husks and all. + But trees, and rivulets whose rapid course + Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, + And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, + And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time + Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root, + Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, + Not shy, as in the world, and to be won + By slow solicitation, seize at once + The roving thought, and fix it on themselves." + +His satire is also excellent. It is pointed and forcible, with the +polished manners of the gentleman, and the honest indignation of the +virtuous man. His religious poetry, except where it takes a tincture of +controversial heat, wants elevation and fire. His Muse had not a +seraph's wing. I might refer, in illustration of this opinion, to the +laboured anticipation of the Millennium at the end of the sixth book. He +could describe a piece of shell-work as well as any modern poet: but he +could not describe the New Jerusalem so well as John Bunyan;--nor are +his verses on Alexander Selkirk so good as Robinson Crusoe. The one is +not so much like a vision, nor is the other so much like the reality. + +The first volume of Cowper's poems has, however, been less read than +it deserved. The comparison in these poems of the proud and humble +believer to the peacock and the pheasant, and the parallel between +Voltaire and the poor cottager, are exquisite pieces of eloquence and +poetry, particularly the last. + + "Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door, + Pillow and bobbins all her little store; + Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, + Shuffling her threads about the live-long day, + Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night, + Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light; + She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, + Has little understanding, and no wit, + Receives no praise; but, though her lot be such, + (Toilsome and indigent) she renders much; + Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true-- + A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew; + And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes + Her title to a treasure in the skies. + + O happy peasant! Oh unhappy bard! + His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward; + He prais'd, perhaps, for ages yet to come, + She never heard of half a mile from home: + He lost in errors his vain heart prefers, + She safe in the simplicity of hers." + +His character of Whitfield, in the poem on Hope, is one of his most +spirited and striking things. It is written _con amore_. + + "But if, unblameable in word and thought, + A man arise, a man whom God has taught, + With all Elijah's dignity of tone, + And all the love of the beloved John, + To storm the citadels they build in air, + To smite the untemper'd wall ('tis death to spare,) + To sweep away all refuges of lies, + And place, instead of quirks, themselves devise, + Lama Sabachthani before their eyes; + To show that without Christ all gain is loss, + All hope despair that stands not on his cross; + Except a few his God may have impressed, + A tenfold phrensy seizes all the rest." + +These lines were quoted, soon after their appearance, by the Monthly +Reviewers, to shew that Cowper was no poet, though they afterwards took +credit to themselves for having been the first to introduce his verses +to the notice of the public. It is not a little remarkable that these +same critics regularly damned, at its first coming out, every work which +has since acquired a standard reputation with the public.--Cowper's +verses on his mother's picture, and his lines to Mary, are some of the +most pathetic that ever were written. His stanzas on the loss of the +Royal George have a masculine strength and feeling beyond what was usual +with him. The story of John Gilpin has perhaps given as much pleasure to +as many people as any thing of the same length that ever was written. + +His life was an unhappy one. It was embittered by a morbid affection, +and by his religious sentiments. Nor are we to wonder at this, or bring +it as a charge against religion; for it is the nature of the poetical +temperament to carry every thing to excess, whether it be love, +religion, pleasure, or pain, as we may see in the case of Cowper and of +Burns, and to find torment or rapture in that in which others merely +find a resource from _ennui_, or a relaxation from common occupation. + +There are two poets still living who belong to the same class of +excellence, and of whom I shall here say a few words; I mean Crabbe, and +Robert Bloomfield, the author of the Farmer's Boy. As a painter of +simple natural scenery, and of the still life of the country, few +writers have more undeniable and unassuming pretensions than the +ingenious and self-taught poet, last-mentioned. Among the sketches of +this sort I would mention, as equally distinguished for delicacy, +faithfulness, and _naivete_, his description of lambs racing, of the +pigs going out an acorning, of the boy sent to feed his sheep before the +break of day in winter; and I might add the innocently told story of the +poor bird-boy, who in vain through the live-long day expects his +promised companions at his hut, to share his feast of roasted sloes with +him, as an example of that humble pathos, in which this author excels. +The fault indeed of his genius is that it is too humble: his Muse has +something not only rustic, but menial in her aspect. He seems afraid of +elevating nature, lest she should be ashamed of him. Bloomfield very +beautifully describes the lambs in springtime as racing round the +hillocks of green turf: Thomson, in describing the same image, makes the +mound of earth the remains of an old Roman encampment. Bloomfield never +gets beyond his own experience; and that is somewhat confined. He gives +the simple appearance of nature, but he gives it naked, shivering, and +unclothed with the drapery of a moral imagination. His poetry has much +the effect of the first approach of spring, "while yet the year is +unconfirmed," where a few tender buds venture forth here and there, but +are chilled by the early frosts and nipping breath of poverty.--It +should seem from this and other instances that have occurred within the +last century, that we cannot expect from original genius alone, without +education, in modern and more artificial periods, the same bold and +independent results as in former periods. And one reason appears to be, +that though such persons, from whom we might at first expect a +restoration of the good old times of poetry, are not encumbered and +enfeebled by the trammels of custom, and the dull weight of other men's +ideas; yet they are oppressed by the consciousness of a want of the +common advantages which others have; are looking at the tinsel finery of +the age, while they neglect the rich unexplored mine in their own +breasts; and instead of setting an example for the world to follow, +spend their lives in aping, or in the despair of aping, the hackneyed +accomplishments of their inferiors. Another cause may be, that original +genius alone is not sufficient to produce the highest excellence, +without a corresponding state of manners, passions, and religious +belief: that no single mind can move in direct opposition to the vast +machine of the world around it; that the poet can do no more than stamp +the mind of his age upon his works; and that all that the ambition of +the highest genius can hope to arrive at, after the lapse of one or two +generations, is the perfection of that more refined and effeminate style +of studied elegance and adventitious ornament, which is the result, not +of nature, but of art. In fact, no other style of poetry has succeeded, +or seems likely to succeed, in the present day. The public taste hangs +like a millstone round the neck of all original genius that does not +conform to established and exclusive models. The writer is not only +without popular sympathy, but without a rich and varied mass of +materials for his mind to work upon and assimilate unconsciously to +itself; his attempts at originality are looked upon as affectation, and +in the end, degenerate into it from the natural spirit of contradiction, +and the constant uneasy sense of disappointment and undeserved ridicule. +But to return. + +Crabbe is, if not the most natural, the most literal of our descriptive +poets. He exhibits the smallest circumstances of the smallest +things. He gives the very costume of meanness; the nonessentials +of every trifling incident. He is his own landscape-painter, +and engraver too. His pastoral scenes seem pricked on paper +in little dotted lines. He describes the interior of a cottage +like a person sent there to distrain for rent. He has an eye to the +number of arms in an old worm-eaten chair, and takes care to inform +himself and the reader whether a joint-stool stands upon three legs or +upon four. If a settle by the fire-side stands awry, it gives him as +much disturbance as a tottering world; and he records the rent in a +ragged counterpane as an event in history. He is equally curious in his +back-grounds and in his figures. You know the Christian and surnames of +every one of his heroes,--the dates of their achievements, whether on a +Sunday or a Monday,--their place of birth and burial, the colour of +their clothes, and of their hair, and whether they squinted or not. He +takes an inventory of the human heart exactly in the same manner as of +the furniture of a sick room: his sentiments have very much the air of +fixtures; he gives you the petrifaction of a sigh, and carves a tear, to +the life, in stone. Almost all his characters are tired of their lives, +and you heartily wish them dead. They remind one of anatomical +preservations; or may be said to bear the same relation to actual life +that a stuffed cat in a glass-case does to the real one purring on the +hearth: the skin is the same, but the life and the sense of heat is +gone. Crabbe's poetry is like a museum, or curiosity-shop: every thing +has the same posthumous appearance, the same inanimateness and identity +of character. If Bloomfield is too much of the Farmer's Boy, Crabbe is +too much of the parish beadle, an overseer of the country poor. He has +no delight beyond the walls of a workhouse, and his officious zeal would +convert the world into a vast infirmary. He is a kind of Ordinary, not +of Newgate, but of nature. His poetical morality is taken from Burn's +Justice, or the Statutes against Vagrants. He sets his own imagination +in the stocks, and his Muse, like Malvolio, "wears cruel garters." He +collects all the petty vices of the human heart, and superintends, as in +a panopticon, a select circle of rural malefactors. He makes out the +poor to be as bad as the rich--a sort of vermin for the others to hunt +down and trample upon, and this he thinks a good piece of work. With him +there are but two moral categories, riches and poverty, authority and +dependence. His parish apprentice, Richard Monday, and his wealthy +baronet, Sir Richard Monday, of Monday-place, are the same individual-- +the extremes of the same character, and of his whole system. "The latter +end of his Commonwealth does not forget the beginning." But his parish +ethics are the very worst model for a state: any thing more degrading +and helpless cannot well be imagined. He exhibits just the contrary view +of human life to that which Gay has done in his Beggar's Opera. In a +word, Crabbe is the only poet who has attempted and succeeded in the +_still life_ of tragedy: who gives the stagnation of hope and fear-- +the deformity of vice without the temptation--the pain of sympathy +without the interest--and who seems to rely, for the delight he is to +convey to his reader, on the truth and accuracy with which he describes +only what is disagreeable. + +The best descriptive poetry is not, after all, to be found in our +descriptive poets. There are set descriptions of the flowers, for +instance, in Thomson, Cowper, and others; but none equal to those in +Milton's Lycidas, and in the Winter's Tale. + +We have few good pastorals in the language. Our manners are not +Arcadian; our climate is not an eternal spring; our age is not the age +of gold. We have no pastoral-writers equal to Theocritus, nor any +landscapes like those of Claude Lorraine. The best parts of Spenser's +Shepherd's Calendar are two fables, Mother Hubberd's Tale, and the Oak +and the Briar; which last is as splendid a piece of oratory as any to be +found in the records of the eloquence of the British senate! Browne, who +came after Spenser, and Withers, have left some pleasing allegorical +poems of this kind. Pope's are as full of senseless finery and trite +affectation, as if a peer of the realm were to sit for his picture with +a crook and cocked hat on, smiling with an insipid air of no-meaning, +between nature and fashion. Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia is a lasting +monument of perverted power; where an image of extreme beauty, as that +of "the shepherd boy piping as though he should never be old," peeps out +once in a hundred folio pages, amidst heaps of intricate sophistry and +scholastic quaintness. It is not at all like Nicholas Poussin's picture, +in which he represents some shepherds wandering out in a morning of the +spring, and coming to a tomb with this inscription--"I also was an +Arcadian!" Perhaps the best pastoral in the language is that prose-poem, +Walton's Complete Angler. That well-known work has a beauty and romantic +interest equal to its simplicity, and arising out of it. In the +description of a fishing-tackle, you perceive the piety and humanity of +the author's mind. It is to be doubted whether Sannazarius's Piscatory +Eclogues are equal to the scenes described by Walton on the banks of the +river Lea. He gives the feeling of the open air: we walk with him along +the dusty road-side, or repose on the banks of the river under a shady +tree; and in watching for the finny prey, imbibe what he beautifully +calls "the patience and simplicity of poor honest fishermen." We +accompany them to their inn at night, and partake of their simple, but +delicious fare; while Maud, the pretty milk-maid, at her mother's +desire, sings the classical ditties of the poet Marlow; "Come live with +me, and be my love." Good cheer is not neglected in this work, any more +than in Homer, or any other history that sets a proper value on the good +things of this life. The prints in the Complete Angler give an +additional reality and interest to the scenes it describes. While +Tottenham Cross shall stand, and longer, thy work, amiable and happy old +man, shall last!--It is in the notes to it that we find that character +of "a fair and happy milkmaid," by Sir Thomas Overbury, which may vie in +beauty and feeling with Chaucer's character of Griselda. + + "A fair and happy milk-maid is a country wench that is so far from +making herself beautiful by art, that one look of her's is able to put +all face-physic out of countenance. She knows a fair look is but a dumb +orator to commend virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellences +stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her +knowledge. The lining of her apparel (which is herself) is far better +than outsides of tissue; for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of +the silkworm, she is decked in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth +not, with lying long in bed, spoil both her complexion and conditions. +Nature hath taught her, too immoderate sleep is rust to the soul: she +rises therefore with chanticleer, her dame's cock, and at night makes +the lamb her curfew. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year +long of June, like a new-made haycock. She makes her hand hard with +labour, and her heart soft with pity; and when winter evenings fall +early (sitting at her merry wheel) she sings a defiance to the giddy +wheel of Fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems +ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well. +She bestows her year's wages at next fair; and in choosing her garments, +counts no bravery in the world like decency. The garden and bee-hive are +all her physic and chirurgery, and she lives the longer for't. She dares +go alone, and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill, +because she means none: yet, to say the truth, she is never alone, for +she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, +but short ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not +palled with ensuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste, +that she dare tell them; only a Friday's dream is all her superstition; +that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she; and all her care is +she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her +winding-sheet." + +The love of the country has been sung by poets, and echoed by +philosophers; but the first have not attempted, and the last have been +greatly puzzled to account for it. I do not know that any one has ever +explained, satisfactorily, the true source of this feeling, or of that +soothing emotion which the sight of the country, or a lively description +of rural objects hardly ever fails to infuse into the mind. Some have +ascribed this feeling to the natural beauty of the objects themselves; +others to the freedom from care, the silence and tranquillity which +scenes of retirement afford; others to the healthy and innocent +employments of a country life; others to the simplicity of country +manners, and others to a variety of different causes; but none to the +right one. All these, indeed, have their effect; but there is another +principal one which has not been touched upon, or only slightly glanced +at. I will not, however, imitate Mr. Horne Tooke, who after enumerating +seventeen different definitions of the verb, and laughing at them all as +deficient and nugatory, at the end of two quarto volumes does not tell +us what the verb really is, and has left posterity to pluck out "the +heart of his mystery." I will say at once what it is that distinguishes +this interest from others, and that is its _abstractedness_. The +interest we feel in human nature is exclusive, and confined to the +individual; the interest we feel in external nature is common, and +transferable from one object to all others of the same class. Thus. + +Rousseau in his Confessions relates, that when he took possession of +his room at Annecy, he found that he could see "a little spot of green" +from his window, which endeared his situation the more to him, because, +he says, it was the first time he had had this object constantly before +him since he left Boissy, the place where he was at school when a child. +[7] Some such feeling as that here described will be found lurking at +the bottom of all our attachments of this sort. Were it not for the +recollections habitually associated with them, natural objects could not +interest the mind in the manner they do. No doubt, the sky is beautiful, +the clouds sail majestically along its bosom; the sun is cheering; there +is something exquisitely graceful in the manner in which a plant or tree +puts forth its branches; the motion with which they bend and tremble in +the evening breeze is soft and lovely; there is music in the babbling of +a brook; the view from the top of a mountain is full of grandeur; nor +can we behold the ocean with indifference. Or, as the Minstrel sweetly +sings, + + "Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store + Of charms which Nature to her votary yields! + The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, + The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; + All that the genial ray of morning gilds, + And all that echoes to the song of even, + All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, + And all the dread magnificence of heaven, + Oh, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!" + +___ +[7] Pope also declares that he had a particular regard for an old post +which stood in the court-yard before the house where he was brought up. +___ + +It is not, however, the beautiful and magnificent alone that we +admire in Nature; the most insignificant and rudest objects are often +found connected with the strongest emotions; we become attached to the +most common and familiar images, as to the face of a friend whom we have +long known, and from whom we have received many benefits. It is because +natural objects have been associated with the sports of our childhood, +with air and exercise, with our feelings in solitude, when the mind +takes the strongest hold of things, and clings with the fondest interest +to whatever strikes its attention; with change of place, the pursuit of +new scenes, and thoughts of distant friends; it is because they have +surrounded us in almost all situations, in joy and in sorrow, in +pleasure and in pain; because they have been one chief source and +nourishment of our feelings, and a part of our being, that we love them +as we do ourselves. + +There is, generally speaking, the same foundation for our love of +Nature as for all our habitual attachments, namely, association of +ideas. But this is not all. That which distinguishes this attachment +from others is the transferable nature of our feelings with respect to +physical objects; the associations connected with any one object +extending to the whole class. Our having been attached to any particular +person does not make us feel the same attachment to the next person we +may chance to meet; but, if we have once associated strong feelings of +delight with the objects of natural scenery, the tie becomes +indissoluble, and we shall ever after feel the same attachment to other +objects of the same sort. I remember when I was abroad, the trees, and +grass, and wet leaves, rustling in the walks of the Thuilleries, seemed +to be as much English, to be as much the same trees and grass, that I +had always been used to, as the sun shining over my head was the same +sun which I saw in England; the faces only were foreign to me. Whence +comes this difference? It arises from our always imperceptibly +connecting the idea of the individual with man, and only the idea of the +class with natural objects. In the one case, the external appearance or +physical structure is the least thing to be attended to; in the other, +it is every thing. The springs that move the human form, and make it +friendly or adverse to me, lie hid within it. There is an infinity of +motives, passions, and ideas, contained in that narrow compass, of which +I know nothing, and in which I have no share. Each individual is a world +to himself, governed by a thousand contradictory and wayward impulses. I +can, therefore, make no inference from one individual to another; nor +can my habitual sentiments, with respect to any individual, extend +beyond himself to others. A crowd of people presents a disjointed, +confused, and unsatisfactory appearance to the eye, because there is +nothing to connect the motley assemblage into one continuous or general +impression, unless when there is some common object of interest to fix +their attention, as in the case of a full pit at the play-house. The +same principle will also account for that feeling of littleness, +vacuity, and perplexity, which a stranger feels on entering the streets +of a populous city. Every individual he meets is a blow to his personal +identity. Every new face is a teazing, unanswered riddle. He feels the +same wearisome sensation in walking from Oxford Street to Temple Bar, as +a person would do who should be compelled to read through the first leaf +of all the volumes in a library. But it is otherwise with respect to +nature. A flock of sheep is not a contemptible, but a beautiful sight. +The greatest number and variety of physical objects do not puzzle the +will, or distract the attention, but are massed together under one +uniform and harmonious feeling. The heart reposes in greater security on +the immensity of Nature's works, "expatiates freely there," and finds +elbow room and breathing space. We are always at home with Nature. There +is neither hypocrisy, caprice, nor mental reservation in her favours. +Our intercourse with her is not liable to accident or change, suspicion +or disappointment: she smiles on us still the same. A rose is always +sweet, a lily is always beautiful: we do not hate the one, nor envy the +other. If we have once enjoyed the cool shade of a tree, and been lulled +into a deep repose by the sound of a brook running at its foot, we are +sure that wherever we can find a shady stream, we can enjoy the same +pleasure again; so that when we imagine these objects, we can easily +form a mystic personification of the friendly power that inhabits them, +Dryad or Naiad, offering its cool fountain or its tempting shade. Hence +the origin of the Grecian mythology. All objects of the same kind being +the same, not only in their appearance, but in their practical uses, we +habitually confound them together under the same general idea; and +whatever fondness we may have conceived for one, is immediately placed +to the common account. The most opposite kinds and remote trains of +feeling gradually go to enrich the same sentiment; and in our love of +nature, there is all the force of individual attachment, combined with +the most airy abstraction. It is this circumstance which gives that +refinement, expansion, and wild interest, to feelings of this sort, when +strongly excited, which every one must have experienced who is a true +lover of nature. + +It is the same setting sun that we see and remember year after year, +through summer and winter, seed-time and harvest. The moon that shines +above our heads, or plays through the checquered shade, is the same moon +that we used to read of in Mrs. Radcliffe's romances. We see no +difference in the trees first covered with leaves in the spring. The dry +reeds rustling on the side of a stream--the woods swept by the loud +blast--the dark massy foliage of autumn--the grey trunks and naked +branches of the trees in winter--the sequestered copse, and +wide-extended heath--the glittering sunny showers, and December snows +--are still the same, or accompanied with the same thoughts and +feelings: there is no object, however trifling or rude, that does not in +some mood or other find its way into the heart, as a link in the chain +of our living being; and this it is that makes good that saying of the +poet-- + + "To me the meanest flower that blows can give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." + +Thus nature is a kind of universal home, and every object it presents to +us an old acquaintance with unaltered looks; for there is that consent +and mutual harmony among all her works, one undivided spirit pervading +them throughout, that to him who has well acquainted himself with them, +they speak always the same well-known language, striking on the heart, +amidst unquiet thoughts and the tumult of the world, like the music of +one's native tongue heard in some far-off country. + + "My heart leaps up when I behold + A rainbow in the sky: + So was it when my life began, + So is it now I am a man, + So shall it be when I grow old and die. + The child's the father of the man, + And I would have my years to be + Linked each to each by natural piety." + +The daisy that first strikes the child's eye in trying to leap over +his own shadow, is the same flower that with timid upward glance +implores the grown man not to tread upon it. Rousseau, in one of his +botanical excursions, meeting with the periwinkle, fell upon his knees, +crying out--_Ah! voila de la pervenche!_ It was because he had thirty +years before brought home the same flower with him in one of his rambles +with Madame de Warens, near Chambery. It struck him as the same +identical little blue flower that he remembered so well; and thirty +years of sorrow and bitter regret were effaced from his memory. That, or +a thousand other flowers of the same name, were the same to him, to the +heart, and to the eye; but there was but one Madame Warens in the world, +whose image was never absent from his thoughts; with whom flowers and +verdure sprung up beneath his feet, and without whom all was cold and +barren in nature and in his own breast. The cuckoo, "that wandering +voice," that comes and goes with the spring, mocks our ears with one +note from youth to age; and the lapwing, screaming round the traveller's +path, repeats for ever the same sad story of Tereus and Philomel! + + + + +LECTURE VI. +ON SWIFT, YOUNG, GRAY, COLLINS, &c. + + +I shall in the present Lecture go back to the age of Queen Anne, and +endeavour to give a cursory account of the most eminent of our poets, of +whom I have not already spoken, from that period to the present. + +The three principal poets among the wits of Queen Anne's reign, next +to Pope, were Prior, Swift, and Gay. Parnell, though a good-natured, +easy man, and a friend to poets and the Muses, was himself little more +than an occasional versifier; and Arbuthnot, who had as much wit as the +best of them, chose to shew it in prose, and not in verse. He had a very +notable share in the immortal History of John Bull, and the inimitable +and praiseworthy Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. There has been a great +deal said and written about the plagiarisms of Sterne; but the only real +plagiarism he has been guilty of (if such theft were a crime), is in +taking Tristram Shandy's father from Martin's, the elder Scriblerus. The +original idea of the character, that is, of the opinionated, captious +old gentleman, who is pedantic, not from profession, but choice, belongs +to Arbuthnot.--Arbuthnot's style is distinguished from that of his +contemporaries, even by a greater degree of terseness and conciseness. +He leaves out every superfluous word; is sparing of connecting +particles, and introductory phrases; uses always the simplest forms of +construction; and is more a master of the idiomatic peculiarities and +internal resources of the language than almost any other writer. There +is a research in the choice of a plain, as well as of an ornamented or +learned style; and, in fact, a great deal more. Among common English +words, there may be ten expressing the same thing with different degrees +of force and propriety, and only one of them the very word we want, +because it is the only one that answers exactly with the idea we have in +our minds. Each word in familiar use has a different set of associations +and shades of meaning attached to it, and distinguished from each other +by inveterate custom; and it is in having the whole of these at our +command, and in knowing which to choose, as they are called for by the +occasion, that the perfection of a pure conversational prose-style +consists. But in writing a florid and artificial style, neither the same +range of invention, nor the same quick sense of propriety--nothing but +learning is required. If you know the words, and their general meaning, +it is sufficient: it is impossible you should know the nicer inflections +of signification, depending on an endless variety of application, in +expressions borrowed from a foreign or dead language. They all impose +upon the ear alike, because they are not familiar to it; the only +distinction left is between the pompous and the plain; the +_sesquipedalia verba_ have this advantage, that they are all of one +length; and any words are equally fit for a learned style, so that we +have never heard them before. Themistocles thought that the same +sounding epithets could not suit all subjects, as the same dress does +not fit all persons. The style of our modern prose writers is very fine +in itself; but it wants variety of inflection and adaptation; it hinders +us from seeing the differences of the things it undertakes to describe. + +What I have here insisted on will be found to be the leading +distinction between the style of Swift, Arbuthnot, Steele, and the other +writers of the age of Queen Anne, and the style of Dr. Johnson, which +succeeded to it. The one is English, and the other is not. The writers +first mentioned, in order to express their thoughts, looked about them +for the properest word to convey any idea, that the language which they +spoke, and which their countrymen understood, afforded: Dr. Johnson +takes the first English word that offers, and by translating it at a +venture into the first Greek or Latin word he can think of, only +retaining the English termination, produces an extraordinary effect upon +the reader, by much the same sort of mechanical process that Trim +converted the old jack-boots into a pair of new mortars. + +Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man, who liked to think and talk, +better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too +often by rote. His long compound Latin phrases required less thought, +and took up more room than others. What shews the facilities afforded by +this style of imposing generalization, is, that it was instantly adopted +with success by all those who were writers by profession, or who were +not; and that at present, we cannot see a lottery puff or a quack +advertisement pasted against a wall, that is not perfectly Johnsonian in +style. Formerly, the learned had the privilege of translating their +notions into Latin; and a great privilege it was, as it confined the +reputation and emoluments of learning to themselves. Dr. Johnson may be +said to have naturalised this privilege, by inventing a sort of jargon +translated half-way out of one language into the other, which raised the +Doctor's reputation, and confounded all ranks in literature. + +In the short period above alluded to, authors professed to write as +other men spoke; every body now affects to speak as authors write; and +any one who retains the use of his mother tongue, either in writing or +conversation, is looked upon as a very illiterate character. + +Prior and Gay belong, in the characteristic excellences of their +style, to the same class of writers with Suckling, Rochester, and +Sedley: the former imbibed most of the licentious levity of the age of +Charles II. and carried it on beyond the Revolution under King William. +Prior has left no single work equal to Gay's Fables, or the Beggar's +Opera. But in his lyrical and fugitive pieces he has shown even more +genius, more playfulness, more mischievous gaiety. No one has exceeded +him in the laughing grace with which he glances at a subject that will +not bear examining, with which he gently hints at what cannot be +directly insisted on, with which he half conceals, and half draws aside +the veil from some of the Muses' nicest mysteries. His Muse is, in fact, +a giddy wanton flirt, who spends her time in playing at snap-dragon and +blind-man's buff, who tells what she should not, and knows more than she +tells. She laughs at the tricks she shews us, and blushes, or would be +thought to do so, at what she keeps concealed. Prior has translated +several of Fontaine's Tales from the French; and they have lost nothing +in the translation, either of their wit or malice. I need not name them: +but the one I like the most, is that of Cupid in search of Venus's +doves. No one could insinuate a knavish plot, a tender point, a loose +moral, with such unconscious archness, and careless raillery, as if he +gained new self-possession and adroitness from the perplexity and +confusion into which he throws scrupulous imaginations, and knew how to +seize on all the ticklish parts of his subject, from their involuntarily +shrinking under his grasp. Some of his imitations of Boileau's servile +addresses to Louis XIV. which he has applied with a happy mixture of wit +and patriotic enthusiasm to King William, or as he familiarly calls him, +to + + "Little Will, the scourge of France, + No Godhead, but the first of men," + +are excellent, and shew the same talent for _double-entendre_ and the +same gallantry of spirit, whether in the softer lyric, or the more +lively heroic. Some of Prior's _bon mots_ are the best that are +recorded.--His serious poetry, as his _Solomon_, is as heavy as his +familiar style was light and agreeable. His moral Muse is a Magdalen, +and should not have obtruded herself on public view. Henry and Emma is a +paraphrase of the old ballad of the Nut-brown Maid, and not so good as +the original. In short, as we often see in other cases, where men thwart +their own genius, Prior's sentimental and romantic productions are mere +affectation, the result not of powerful impulse or real feeling, but of +a consciousness of his deficiencies, and a wish to supply their place by +labour and art. + +Gay was sometimes grosser than Prior, not systematically, but +inadvertently--from not being so well aware of what he was about; nor +was there the same necessity for caution, for his grossness is by no +means so seductive or inviting. + +Gay's Fables are certainly a work of great merit, both as to the +quantity of invention implied, and as to the elegance and facility of +the execution. They are, however, spun out too long; the descriptions +and narrative are too diffuse and desultory; and the moral is sometimes +without point. They are more like Tales than Fables. The best are, +perhaps, the Hare with Many Friends, the Monkeys, and the Fox at the +Point of Death. His Pastorals are pleasing and poetical. But his capital +work is his Beggar's Opera. It is indeed a masterpiece of wit and +genius, not to say of morality. In composing it, he chose a very +unpromising ground to work upon, and he has prided himself in adorning +it with all the graces, the precision, and brilliancy of style. It is a +vulgar error to call this a vulgar play. So far from it, that I do not +scruple to say that it appears to me one of the most refined productions +in the language. The elegance of the composition is in exact proportion +to the coarseness of the materials: by "happy alchemy of mind," the +author has extracted an essence of refinement from the dregs of human +life, and turns its very dross into gold. The scenes, characters, and +incidents are, in themselves, of the lowest and most disgusting kind: +but, by the sentiments and reflections which are put into the mouths of +highwaymen, turnkeys, their mistresses, wives, or daughters, he has +converted this motley group into a set of fine gentlemen and ladies, +satirists and philosophers. He has also effected this transformation +without once violating probability, or "o'erstepping the modesty of +nature." In fact, Gay has turned the tables on the critics; and by the +assumed licence of the mock-heroic style, has enabled himself to _do +justice to nature_, that is, to give all the force, truth, and locality +of real feeling to the thoughts and expressions, without being called to +the bar of false taste and affected delicacy. The extreme beauty and +feeling of the song, "Woman is like the fair flower in its lustre," are +only equalled by its characteristic propriety and _naivete_. _Polly_ +describes her lover going to the gallows, with the same touching +simplicity, and with all the natural fondness of a young girl in her +circumstances, who sees in his approaching catastrophe nothing but the +misfortunes and the personal accomplishments of the object of her +affections. "I see him sweeter than the nosegay in his hand; the +admiring crowd lament that so lovely a youth should come to an untimely +end:--even butchers weep, and Jack Ketch refuses his fee rather than +consent to tie the fatal knot." The preservation of the character and +costume is complete. It has been said by a great authority--"There is +some soul of goodness in things evil":--and the _Beggar's Opera_ is a +good-natured but instructive comment on this text. The poet has thrown +all the gaiety and sunshine of the imagination, all the intoxication of +pleasure, and the vanity of despair, round the shortlived existence of +his heroes; while _Peachum_ and _Lockitt_ are seen in the back-ground, +parcelling out their months and weeks between them. The general view +exhibited of human life is of the most subtle and abstracted kind. The +author has, with great felicity, brought out the good qualities and +interesting emotions almost inseparable from the lowest conditions; and +with the same penetrating glance, has detected the disguises which rank +and circumstances lend to exalted vice. Every line in this sterling +comedy sparkles with wit, and is fraught with the keenest sarcasm. The +very wit, however, takes off from the offensiveness of the satire; and I +have seen great statesmen, very great statesmen, heartily enjoying the +joke, laughing most immoderately at the compliments paid to them as not +much worse than pickpockets and cut-throats in a different line of life, +and pleased, as it were, to see themselves humanised by some sort of +fellowship with their kind. Indeed, it may be said that the moral of the +piece is _to shew the vulgarity of vice_; or that the same violations of +integrity and decorum, the same habitual sophistry in palliating their +want of principle, are common to the great and powerful, with the +meanest and most contemptible of the species. What can be more +convincing than the arguments used by these would-be politicians, to +shew that in hypocrisy, selfishness, and treachery, they do not come up +to many of their betters? The exclamation of _Mrs. Peachum_, when her +daughter marries _Macheath_, "Hussy, hussy, you will be as ill used, and +as much neglected, as if you had married a lord," is worth all Miss +Hannah More's laboured invectives on the laxity of the manners of high +life! + +I shall conclude this account of Gay with his verses on Sir Richard +Blackmore, which may serve at once as a specimen of his own manner, and +as a character of a voluminous contemporary poet, who was admired by Mr. +Locke, and knighted by King William III. + + "See who ne'er was nor will be half-read, + Who first sung Arthur, then sung Alfred; + Praised great Eliza in God's anger, + Till all true Englishmen cried, 'Hang her!'-- + Maul'd human wit in one thick satire; + Next in three books spoil'd human nature: + Undid Creation at a jerk, + And of Redemption made damn'd work. + Then took his Muse at once, and dipt her + Full in the middle of the Scripture. + What wonders there the man, grown old, did? + Sternhold himself he out Sternholded. + Made David seem so mad and freakish, + All thought him just what thought King Achish. + No mortal read his Solomon + But judg'd Re'boam his own son. + Moses he serv'd as Moses Pharaoh, + And Deborah as she Siserah, + Made Jeremy full sore to cry, + And Job himself curse God and die. + What punishment all this must follow? + Shall Arthur use him like King Tollo? + Shall David as Uriah slay him? + Or dextrous Deborah Siserah him? + No!--none of these! Heaven spare his life! + But send him, honest Job, thy wife!" + +Gay's Trivia, or Art of Walking the Streets, is as pleasant as walking +the streets must have been at the time when it was written. His ballad +of Black Eyed Susan is one of the most delightful that can be imagined; +nor do I see that it is a bit the worse for Mr. Jekyll's parody on it. + +Swift's reputation as a poet has been in a manner obscured by the +greater splendour, by the natural force and inventive genius of his +prose writings; but if he had never written either the Tale of a Tub or +Gulliver's Travels, his name merely as a poet would have come down to +us, and have gone down to posterity with well earned honours. His +Imitations of Horace, and still more his Verses on his own Death, place +him in the first rank of agreeable moralists in verse. There is not only +a dry humour, an exquisite tone of irony, in these productions of his +pen; but there is a touching, unpretending pathos, mixed up with the +most whimsical and eccentric strokes of pleasantry and satire. His +Description of the Morning in London, and of a City Shower, which were +first published in the Tatler, are among the most delightful of the +contents of that very delightful work. Swift shone as one of the most +sensible of the poets; he is also distinguished as one of the most +nonsensical of them. No man has written so many lack-a-daisical, +slip-shod, tedious, trifling, foolish, fantastical verses as he, which +are so little an imputation on the wisdom of the writer; and which, in +fact, only shew his readiness to oblige others, and to forget himself. +He has gone so far as to invent a new stanza of fourteen and sixteen +syllable lines for Mary the cookmaid to vent her budget of nothings, and +for Mrs. Harris to gossip with the deaf old housekeeper. Oh, when shall +we have such another Rector of Laracor!--The Tale of a Tub is one of +the most masterly compositions in the language, whether for thought, +wit, or style. It is so capital and undeniable a proof of the author's +talents, that Dr. Johnson, who did not like Swift, would not allow that +he wrote it. It is hard that the same performance should stand in the +way of a man's promotion to a bishopric, as wanting gravity, and at the +same time be denied to be his, as having too much wit. It is a pity the +Doctor did not find out some graver author, for whom he felt a critical +kindness, on whom to father this splendid but unacknowledged production. +Dr. Johnson could not deny that Gulliver's Travels were his; he +therefore disputed their merits, and said that after the first idea of +them was conceived, they were easy to execute; all the rest followed +mechanically. I do not know how that may be; but the mechanism employed +is something very different from any that the author of Rasselas was in +the habit of bringing to bear on such occasions. There is nothing more +futile, as well as invidious, than this mode of criticising a work of +original genius. Its greatest merit is supposed to be in the invention; +and you say, very wisely, that it is not _in the execution_. You might +as well take away the merit of the invention of the telescope, by saying +that, after its uses were explained and understood, any ordinary +eyesight could look through it. Whether the excellence of Gulliver's +Travels is in the conception or the execution, is of little consequence; +the power is somewhere, and it is a power that has moved the world. The +power is not that of big words and vaunting common places. Swift left +these to those who wanted them; and has done what his acuteness and +intensity of mind alone could enable any one to conceive or to perform. +His object was to strip empty pride and grandeur of the imposing air +which external circumstances throw around them; and for this purpose he +has cheated the imagination of the illusions which the prejudices of +sense and of the world put upon it, by reducing every thing to the +abstract predicament of size. He enlarges or diminishes the scale, as he +wishes to shew the insignificance or the grossness of our overweening +self-love. That he has done this with mathematical precision, with +complete presence of mind and perfect keeping, in a manner that comes +equally home to the understanding of the man and of the child, does not +take away from the merit of the work or the genius of the author. He has +taken a new view of human nature, such as a being of a higher sphere +might take of it; he has torn the scales from off his moral vision; he +has tried an experiment upon human life, and sifted its pretensions from +the alloy of circumstances; he has measured it with a rule, has weighed +it in a balance, and found it, for the most part, wanting and worthless +--in substance and in shew. Nothing solid, nothing valuable is left in +his system but virtue and wisdom. What a libel is this upon mankind! +What a convincing proof of misanthropy! What presumption and what +_malice prepense_, to shew men what they are, and to teach them what +they ought to be! What a mortifying stroke aimed at national glory, is +that unlucky incident of Gulliver's wading across the channel and +carrying off the whole fleet of Blefuscu! After that, we have only to +consider which of the contending parties was in the right. What a shock +to personal vanity is given in the account of Gulliver's nurse +Glumdalclitch! Still, notwithstanding the disparagement to her personal +charms, her good-nature remains the same amiable quality as before. I +cannot see the harm, the misanthropy, the immoral and degrading tendency +of this. The moral lesson is as fine as the intellectual exhibition is +amusing. It is an attempt to tear off the mask of imposture from the +world; and nothing but imposture has a right to complain of it. It is, +indeed, the way with our quacks in morality to preach up the dignity of +human nature, to pamper pride and hypocrisy with the idle mockeries of +the virtues they pretend to, and which they have not: but it was not +Swift's way to cant morality, or any thing else; nor did his genius +prompt him to write unmeaning panegyrics on mankind! + +I do not, therefore, agree with the estimate of Swift's moral or +intellectual character, given by an eminent critic, who does not seem to +have forgotten the party politics of Swift. I do not carry my political +resentments so far back: I can at this time of day forgive Swift for +having been a Tory. I feel little disturbance (whatever I might think of +them) at his political sentiments, which died with him, considering how +much else he has left behind him of a more solid and imperishable +nature! If he had, indeed, (like some others) merely left behind him the +lasting infamy of a destroyer of his country, or the shining example of +an apostate from liberty, I might have thought the case altered. + +The determination with which Swift persisted in a preconcerted +theory, savoured of the morbid affection of which he died. There is +nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid +of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an +obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable. Swift +was not a Frenchman. In this respect he differed from Rabelais and +Voltaire. They have been accounted the three greatest wits in modern +times; but their wit was of a peculiar kind in each. They are little +beholden to each other; there is some resemblance between Lord Peter in +the Tale of a Tub, and Rabelais' Friar John; but in general they are all +three authors of a substantive character in themselves. Swift's wit +(particularly in his chief prose works) was serious, saturnine, and +practical; Rabelais' was fantastical and joyous; Voltaire's was light, +sportive, and verbal. Swift's wit was the wit of sense; Rabelais', the +wit of nonsense; Voltaire's, of indifference to both. The ludicrous in +Swift arises out of his keen sense of impropriety, his soreness and +impatience of the least absurdity. He separates, with a severe and +caustic air, truth from falsehood, folly from wisdom, "shews vice her +own image, scorn her own feature"; and it is the force, the precision, +and the honest abruptness with which the separation is made, that +excites our surprise, our admiration, and laughter. He sets a mark of +reprobation on that which offends good sense and good manners, which +cannot be mistaken, and which holds it up to our ridicule and contempt +ever after. His occasional disposition to trifling (already noticed) was +a relaxation from the excessive earnestness of his mind. _Indignatio +facit versus_. His better genius was his spleen. It was the biting +acrimony of his temper that sharpened his other faculties. The truth of +his perceptions produced the pointed coruscations of his wit; his +playful irony was the result of inward bitterness of thought; his +imagination was the product of the literal, dry, incorrigible +tenaciousness of his understanding. He endeavoured to escape from the +persecution of realities into the regions of fancy, and invented his +Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians, Yahoos, and Houynhyms, as a diversion +to the more painful knowledge of the world around him: _they_ only made +him laugh, while men and women made him angry. His feverish impatience +made him view the infirmities of that great baby the world, with the +same scrutinizing glance and jealous irritability that a parent regards +the failings of its offspring; but, as Rousseau has well observed, +parents have not on this account been supposed to have more affection +for other people's children than their own. In other respects, and +except from the sparkling effervescence of his gall, Swift's brain was +as "dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." He hated absurdity-- +Rabelais loved it, exaggerated it with supreme satisfaction, luxuriated +in its endless varieties, rioted in nonsense, "reigned there and +revelled." He dwelt on the absurd and ludicrous for the pleasure they +gave him, not for the pain. He lived upon laughter, and died laughing. +He indulged his vein, and took his full swing of folly. He did not baulk +his fancy or his readers. His wit was to him "as riches fineless"; he +saw no end of his wealth in that way, and set no limits to his +extravagance: he was communicative, prodigal, boundless, and +inexhaustible. His were the Saturnalia of wit, the riches and the +royalty, the health and long life. He is intoxicated with gaiety, mad +with folly. His animal spirits drown him in a flood of mirth: his blood +courses up and down his veins like wine. His thirst of enjoyment is as +great as his thirst of drink: his appetite for good things of all sorts +is unsatisfied, and there is a never-ending supply. _Discourse is dry_; +so they moisten their words in their cups, and relish their dry jests +with plenty of Botargos and dried neats' tongues. It is like Camacho's +wedding in Don Quixote, where Sancho ladled out whole pullets and fat geese +from the soup-kettles at a pull. The flagons are setting a running, +their tongues wag at the same time, and their mirth flows as a river. +How Friar John roars and lays about him in the vineyard! How Panurge +whines in the storm, and how dexterously he contrives to throw the +sheep overboard! How much Pantagruel behaves like a wise king! How +Gargantua mewls, and pules [sic], and slabbers his nurse, and demeans +himself most like a royal infant! what provinces he devours! what seas +he drinks up! How he eats, drinks, and sleeps--sleeps, eats, and +drinks! The style of Rabelais is no less prodigious than his matter. His +words are of marrow, unctuous, dropping fatness. He was a mad wag, the +king of good fellows, and prince of practical philosophers! + +Rabelais was a Frenchman of the old school--Voltaire of the new. +The wit of the one arose from an exuberance of enjoyment--of the +other, from an excess of indifference, real or assumed. Voltaire had no +enthusiasm for one thing or another: he made light of every thing. In +his hands all things turn to chaff and dross, as the pieces of silver +money in the Arabian Nights were changed by the hands of the enchanter +into little dry crumbling leaves! He is a Parisian. He never +exaggerates, is never violent: he treats things with the most provoking +_sang froid_; and expresses his contempt by the most indirect hints, and +in the fewest words, as if he hardly thought them worth even his +contempt. He retains complete possession of himself and of his subject. +He does not effect his purpose by the eagerness of his blows, but by the +delicacy of his tact. The poisoned wound he inflicted was so fine, as +scarcely to be felt till it rankled and festered in its "mortal +consequences." His callousness was an excellent foil for the antagonists +he had mostly to deal with. He took knaves and fools on his shield well. +He stole away its cloak from grave imposture. If he reduced other things +below their true value, making them seem worthless and hollow, he did +not degrade the pretensions of tyranny and superstition below their true +value, by making them seem utterly worthless and hollow, as contemptible +as they were odious. This was the service he rendered to truth and +mankind! His _Candide_ is a masterpiece of wit. It has been called "the +dull product of a scoffer's pen"; it is indeed the "product of a +scoffer's pen"; but after reading the Excursion, few people will think +it _dull_. It is in the most perfect keeping, and without any appearance +of effort. Every sentence tells, and the whole reads like one sentence. +There is something sublime in Martin's sceptical indifference to moral +good and evil. It is the repose of the grave. It is better to suffer +this living death, than a living martyrdom. "Nothing can touch him +further." The moral of Candide (such as it is) is the same as that of +Rasselas: the execution is different. Voltaire says, "A great book is a +great evil." Dr. Johnson would have laboured this short apophthegm into +a voluminous common-place. Voltaire's traveller (in another work) being +asked "whether he likes black or white mutton best," replies that "he is +indifferent, provided it is tender." Dr. Johnson did not get at a +conclusion by so short a way as this. If Voltaire's licentiousness is +objected to me, I say, let it be placed to its true account, the manners +of the age and court in which he lived. The lords and ladies of the +bedchamber in the reign of Louis XV. found no fault with the immoral +tendency of his writings. Why then should our modern _purists_ quarrel +with them?--But to return. + +Young is a gloomy epigrammatist. He has abused great powers both of +thought and language. His moral reflections are sometimes excellent; but +he spoils their beauty by overloading them with a religious horror, and +at the same time giving them all the smart turns and quaint expression +of an enigma or repartee in verse. The well-known lines on +Procrastination are in his best manner: + + "Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer; + Next day the fatal precedent will plead; + Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life. + Procrastination is the thief of time; + Year after year it steals, till all are fled, + And to the mercies of a moment leaves + The vast concerns of an eternal scene. + + Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears + The palm, "That all men are about to live," + For ever on the brink of being born. + All pay themselves the compliment to think + They, one day, shall not drivel; and their pride + On this reversion takes up ready praise; + At least, their own; their future selves applauds; + How excellent that life they ne'er will lead! + Time lodg'd in their own hands is Folly's vails: + That lodg'd in Fate's, to Wisdom they consign; + The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone. + 'Tis not in Folly, not to scorn a fool; + And scarce in human Wisdom to do more. + All Promise is poor dilatory man, + And that through every stage. When young, indeed, + In full content we, sometimes, nobly rest, + Un-anxious for ourselves; and only wish, + As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. + At thirty man suspects himself a fool; + Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; + At fifty chides his infamous delay, + Pushes his prudent purpose to Resolve; + In all the magnanimity of thought + Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same. + + And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. + All men think all men mortal, but themselves; + Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate + Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread; + But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, + Soon close; where past the shaft, no trace is found. + As from the wing no scar the sky retains; + The parted wave no furrow from the keel; + So dies in human hearts the thought of death. + Ev'n with the tender tear which nature sheds + O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave." + +His Universal Passion is a keen and powerful satire; but the effort +takes from the effect, and oppresses attention by perpetual and violent +demands upon it. His tragedy of the Revenge is monkish and scholastic. +Zanga is a vulgar caricature of Iago. The finest lines in it are the +burst of triumph at the end, when his revenge is completed: + + "Let Europe and her pallid sons go weep, + Let Afric on her hundred thrones rejoice," &c. + +Collins is a writer of a very different stamp, who had perhaps less +general power of mind than Young; but he had that true _vivida vis_, +that genuine inspiration, which alone can give birth to the highest +efforts of poetry. He leaves stings in the minds of his readers, certain +traces of thought and feelings which never wear out, because nature had +left them in his own mind. He is the only one of the minor poets of +whom, if he had lived, it cannot be said that he might not have done the +greatest things. The germ is there. He is sometimes affected, unmeaning, +and obscure; but he also catches rich glimpses of the bowers of +Paradise, and has lofty aspirations after the highest seats of the +Muses. With a great deal of tinsel and splendid patch-work, he has not +been able to hide the solid sterling ore of genius. In his best works +there is an attic simplicity, a pathos, and fervour of imagination, +which make us the more lament that the efforts of his mind were at first +depressed by neglect and pecuniary embarrassment, and at length buried +in the gloom of an unconquerable and fatal malady. How many poets have +gone through all the horrors of poverty and contempt, and ended their +days in moping melancholy or moody madness! + + "We poets in our youth begin in gladness, + But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness." + +Is this the fault of themselves, of nature in tempering them of too fine +a clay, or of the world, that spurner of living, and patron of dead +merit? Read the account of Collins--with hopes frustrated, with +faculties blighted, at last, when it was too late for himself or others, +receiving the deceitful favours of relenting Fortune, which served only +to throw their sunshine on his decay, and to light him to an early +grave. He was found sitting with every spark of imagination +extinguished, and with only the faint traces of memory and reason left +--with only one book in his room, the Bible; "but that," he said, "was +the best." A melancholy damp hung like an unwholesome mildew upon his +faculties--a canker had consumed the flower of his life. He produced +works of genius, and the public regarded them with scorn: he aimed at +excellence that should be his own, and his friends treated his efforts +as the wanderings of fatuity. The proofs of his capacity are, his Ode on +Evening, his Ode on the Passions (particularly the fine personification +of Hope), his Ode to Fear, the Dirge in Cymbeline, the Lines on +Thomson's Grave, and his Eclogues, parts of which are admirable. But +perhaps his Ode on the Poetical Character is the best of all. A rich +distilled perfume emanates from it like the breath of genius; a golden +cloud envelopes it; a honeyed paste of poetic diction encrusts it, like +the candied coat of the auricula. His Ode to Evening shews equal genius +in the images and versification. The sounds steal slowly over the ear, +like the gradual coming on of evening itself: + + "If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song + May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, + Like thy own solemn springs, + Thy springs and dying gales, + + O nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-haired sun + Sits on yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts + With brede ethereal wove, + O'erhang his wavy bed: + + Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat, + With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, + Or where the beetle winds + His small but sullen horn, + + As oft he rises midst the twilight path, + Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum. + Now teach me, maid compos'd, + To breathe some soften'd strain, + + Whose numbers stealing through thy darkling vale + May not unseemly with its stillness suit, + As musing slow, I hail + Thy genial, lov'd return! + + For when thy folding star arising shews + His paly circlet, at his warning lamp + The fragrant Hours and Elves + Who slept in flow'rs the day, + + And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, + And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and lovelier still, + The pensive Pleasures sweet + Prepare thy shadowy car; + + Then lead, calm Votress, where some sheety lake + Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow'd pile, + Or upland fallows grey + Reflect its last cool gleam. + + But when chill blust'ring winds, or driving rain, + Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut, + That from the mountain's side + Views wilds and swelling floods, + + And hamlets brown, and dim discover'd spires, + And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all + Thy dewy fingers draw + The gradual dusky veil. + + While Spring shall pour his show'rs, as oft he wont, + And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! + While Summer loves to sport + Beneath thy lingering light; + + While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; + Or Winter yelling through the troublous air, + Affrights thy shrinking train, + And rudely rends thy robes; + + So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed, + Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipp'd Health, + Thy gentlest influence own, + And hymn thy favourite name." + +Hammond, whose poems are bound up with Collins's, in Bell's pocket +edition, was a young gentleman, who appears to have fallen in love about +the year 1740, and who translated Tibullus into English verse, to let +his mistress and the public know of it. + +I should conceive that Collins had a much greater poetical genius +than Gray: he had more of that fine madness which is inseparable from +it, of its turbid effervescence, of all that pushes it to the verge of +agony or rapture. Gray's Pindaric Odes are, I believe, generally given +up at present: they are stately and pedantic, a kind of methodical +borrowed phrenzy. But I cannot so easily give up, nor will the world be +in any haste to part with his Elegy in a Country Church-yard: it is one +of the most classical productions that ever was penned by a refined and +thoughtful mind, moralising on human life. Mr. Coleridge (in his +Literary Life) says, that his friend Mr. Wordsworth had undertaken to +shew that the language of the Elegy is unintelligible: it has, however, +been understood! The Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College is more +mechanical and common-place; but it touches on certain strings about the +heart, that vibrate in unison with it to our latest breath. No one ever +passes by Windsor's "stately heights," or sees the distant spires of +Eton College below, without thinking of Gray. He deserves that we should +think of him; for he thought of others, and turned a trembling, +ever-watchful ear to "the still sad music of humanity."--His Letters +are inimitably fine. If his poems are sometimes finical and pedantic, +his prose is quite free from affectation. He pours his thoughts out upon +paper as they arise in his mind; and they arise in his mind without +pretence, or constraint, from the pure impulse of learned leisure and +contemplative indolence. He is not here on stilts or in buckram; but +smiles in his easy chair, as he moralises through the loopholes of +retreat, on the bustle and raree-show of the world, or on "those +reverend bedlams, colleges and schools!" He had nothing to do but to +read and to think, and to tell his friends what he read and thought. His +life was a luxurious, thoughtful dream. "Be mine," he says in one of his +Letters, "to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon." And +in another, to shew his contempt for action and the turmoils of +ambition, he says to someone, "Don't you remember Lords ------ and ------, +who are now great statesmen, little dirty boys playing at cricket? For +my part, I do not feel a bit wiser, or bigger, or older than I did +then." What an equivalent for not being wise or great, to be always +young! What a happiness never to lose or gain any thing in the game of +human life, by being never any thing more than a looker-on! + +How different from Shenstone, who only wanted to be looked at: who +withdrew from the world to be followed by the crowd, and courted +popularity by affecting privacy! His Letters shew him to have lived in a +continual fever of petty vanity, and to have been a finished literary +coquet. He seems always to say, "You will find nothing in the world so +amiable as Nature and me: come, and admire us." His poems are +indifferent and tasteless, except his Pastoral Ballad, his Lines on +Jemmy Dawson, and his School-mistress, which last is a perfect piece of +writing. + +Akenside had in him the materials of poetry, but he was hardly a +great poet. He improved his Pleasures of the Imagination in the +subsequent editions, by pruning away a great many redundances of style +and ornament. Armstrong is better, though he has not chosen a very +exhilarating subject--The Art of Preserving Health. Churchill's +Satires on the Scotch, and Characters of the Players, are as good as the +subjects deserved--they are strong, coarse, and full of an air of +hardened assurance. I ought not to pass over without mention Green's +Poem on the Spleen, or Dyer's Grongar Hill. + +The principal name of the period we are now come to is that of +Goldsmith, than which few names stand higher or fairer in the annals of +modern literature. One should have his own pen to describe him as he +ought to be described--amiable, various, and bland, with careless +inimitable grace touching on every kind of excellence--with manners +unstudied, but a gentle heart--performing miracles of skill from pure +happiness of nature, and whose greatest fault was ignorance of his own +worth. As a poet, he is the most flowing and elegant of our versifiers +since Pope, with traits of artless nature which Pope had not, and with a +peculiar felicity in his turns upon words, which he constantly repeated +with delightful effect: such as-- + + "------His lot, though small, + He sees that little lot, the lot of all." + + * * * * * + + "And turn'd and look'd, and turn'd to look again." + +As a novelist, his Vicar of Wakefield has charmed all Europe. What +reader is there in the civilised world, who is not the better for the +story of the washes which the worthy Dr. Primrose demolished so +deliberately with the poker--for the knowledge of the guinea which the +Miss Primroses kept unchanged in their pockets--the adventure of the +picture of the Vicar's family, which could not be got into the house-- +and that of the Flamborough family, all painted with oranges in their +hands--or for the story of the case of shagreen spectacles and the +cosmogony? + +As a comic writer, his Tony Lumpkin draws forth new powers from Mr. +Liston's face. That alone is praise enough for it. Poor Goldsmith! how +happy he has made others! how unhappy he was in himself! He never had +the pleasure of reading his own works! He had only the satisfaction of +good-naturedly relieving the necessities of others, and the consolation +of being harassed to death with his own! He is the most amusing and +interesting person, in one of the most amusing and interesting books in +the world, Boswell's Life of Johnson. His peach-coloured coat shall +always bloom in Boswell's writings, and his fame survive in his own!-- +His genius was a mixture of originality and imitation: he could do +nothing without some model before him, and he could copy nothing that he +did not adorn with the graces of his own mind. Almost all the latter +part of the Vicar of Wakefield, and a great deal of the former, is taken +from Joseph Andrews; but the circumstances I have mentioned above are +not. + +The finest things he has left behind him in verse are his character +of a country school-master, and that prophetic description of Burke in +the Retaliation. His moral Essays in the Citizen of the World, are as +agreeable chit-chat as can be conveyed in the form of didactic +discourses. + +Warton was a poet and a scholar, studious with ease, learned without +affectation. He had a happiness which some have been prouder of than he, +who deserved it less--he was poet-laureat. + + "And that green wreath which decks the bard when dead, + That laurel garland crown'd his living head." + +But he bore his honours meekly, and performed his half-yearly task +regularly. I should not have mentioned him for this distinction alone +(the highest which a poet can receive from the state), but for another +circumstance; I mean his being the author of some of the finest sonnets +in the language--at least so they appear to me; and as this species of +composition has the necessary advantage of being short (though it is +also sometimes both "tedious and brief"), I will here repeat two or +three of them, as treating pleasing subjects in a pleasing and +philosophical way. + + _Written in a blank leaf of Dugdale's Monasticon_ + + "Deem not, devoid of elegance, the sage, + By Fancy's genuine feelings unbeguil'd, + Of painful pedantry the poring child; + Who turns of these proud domes the historic page, + Now sunk by Time, and Henry's fiercer rage. + Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smil'd + On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage + His thoughts, on themes unclassic falsely styl'd, + Intent. While cloister'd piety displays + Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores + New manners, and the pomp of elder days, + Whence culls the pensive bard his pictur'd stores. + Not rough nor barren are the winding ways + Of hoar Antiquity, but strewn with flowers." + + _Sonnet. Written at Stonehenge._ + + "Thou noblest monument of Albion's isle, + Whether, by Merlin's aid, from Scythia's shore + To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore, + Huge frame of giant hands, the mighty pile, + T'entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile: + Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, + Taught mid thy massy maze their mystic lore: + Or Danish chiefs, enrich'd with savage spoil, + To victory's idol vast, an unhewn shrine, + Rear'd the rude heap, or in thy hallow'd ground + Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line; + Or here those kings in solemn state were crown'd; + Studious to trace thy wondrous origin, + We muse on many an ancient tale renown'd." + +Nothing can be more admirable than the learning here displayed, or the +inference from it, that it is of no use but as it leads to interesting +thought and reflection. + +That written after seeing Wilton House is in the same style, but I +prefer concluding with that to the river Lodon, which has a personal as +well as poetical interest about it. + + "Ah! what a weary race my feet have run, + Since first I trod thy banks with alders crown'd, + And thought my way was all through fairy ground, + Beneath the azure sky and golden sun: + When first my Muse to lisp her notes begun! + While pensive memory traces back the round + Which fills the varied interval between; + Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.-- + Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure + No more return, to cheer my evening road! + Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure + Nor useless, all my vacant days have flow'd + From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature, + Nor with the Muse's laurel unbestow'd." + +I have thus gone through all the names of this period I could think +of, but I find that there are others still waiting behind that I had +never thought of. Here is a list of some of them--Pattison, Tickell, +Hill, Somerville, Browne, Pitt, Wilkie, Dodsley, Shaw, Smart, Langhorne, +Bruce, Greame, Glover, Lovibond, Penrose, Mickle, Jago, Scott, +Whitehead, Jenyns, Logan, Cotton, Cunningham, and Blacklock.--I think +it will be best to let them pass and say nothing about them. It will be +hard to persuade so many respectable persons that they are dull writers, +and if we give them any praise, they will send others. + +But here comes one whose claims cannot be so easily set aside: they +have been sanctioned by learning, hailed by genius, and hallowed by +misfortune--I mean Chatterton. Yet I must say what I think of him, and +that is not what is generally thought. I pass over the disputes between +the learned antiquaries, Dr. Mills, Herbert Croft, and Dr. Knox, whether +he was to be placed after Shakspeare and Dryden, or to come after +Shakspeare alone. A living poet has borne a better testimony to him-- + + "I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, + The sleepless soul that perished in his pride; + And him [8] who walked in glory and in joy + Beside his plough along the mountain side." + +I am loth to put asunder whom so great an authority has joined together; +but I cannot find in Chatterton's works any thing so extraordinary as +the age at which they were written. They have a facility, vigour, and +knowledge, which were prodigious in a boy of sixteen, but which would +not have been so in a man of twenty. He did not shew extraordinary +powers of genius, but extraordinary precocity. Nor do I believe he would +have written better, had he lived. He knew this himself, or he would +have lived. Great geniuses, like great kings, have too much to think of +to kill themselves; for their mind to them also "a kingdom is." With an +unaccountable power coming over him at an unusual age, and with the +youthful confidence it inspired, he performed wonders, and was willing +to set a seal on his reputation by a tragic catastrophe. He had done his +best; and, like another Empedocles, threw himself into AEtna, to ensure +immortality. The brazen slippers alone remain!-- + +___ +[8] Burns.--These lines are taken from the introduction to Mr. +Wordsworth's poem of the LEECH-GATHERER. +___ + + + + +LECTURE VII. +ON BURNS, AND THE OLD ENGLISH BALLADS. + + +I am sorry that what I said in the conclusion of the last Lecture +respecting Chatterton, should have given dissatisfaction to some +persons, with whom I would willingly agree on all such matters. What I +meant was less to call in question Chatterton's genius, than to object +to the common mode of estimating its magnitude by its prematureness. The +lists of fame are not filled with the dates of births or deaths; and the +side-mark of the age at which they were done, wears out in works +destined for immortality. Had Chatterton really done more, we should +have thought less of him, for our attention would then have been fixed +on the excellence of the works themselves, instead of the singularity of +the circumstances in which they were produced. But because he attained +to the full powers of manhood at an early age, I do not see that he +would have attained to more than those powers, had he lived to be a man. +He was a prodigy, because in him the ordinary march of nature was +violently precipitated; and it is therefore inferred, that he would have +continued to hold on his course, "unslacked of motion." On the contrary, +who knows but he might have lived to be poet-laureat? It is much better +to let him remain as he was. Of his actual productions, any one may +think as highly as he pleases; I would only guard against adding to the +account of his _quantum meruit_, those possible productions by which the +learned rhapsodists of his time raised his gigantic pretensions to an +equality with those of Homer and Shakspeare. It is amusing to read some +of these exaggerated descriptions, each rising above the other in +extravagance. In Anderson's Life, we find that Mr. Warton speaks of him +"as a prodigy of genius," as "a singular instance of prematurity of +abilities": that may be true enough, and Warton was at any rate a +competent judge; but Mr. Malone "believes him to have been the greatest +genius that England has produced since the days of Shakspeare." Dr. +Gregory says, "he must rank, as a universal genius, above Dryden, and +perhaps only second to Shakspeare." Mr. Herbert Croft is still more +unqualified in his praises; he asserts, that "no such being, at any +period of life, has ever been known, or possibly ever will be known." He +runs a parallel between Chatterton and Milton; and asserts, that "an +army of Macedonian and Swedish mad butchers fly before him," meaning, I +suppose, that Alexander the Great and Charles the Twelfth were nothing +to him; "nor," he adds, "does my memory supply me with any human being, +who at such an age, with such advantages, has produced such +compositions. Under the heathen mythology, superstition and admiration +would have explained all, by bringing Apollo on earth; nor would the God +ever have descended with more credit to himself."--Chatterton's +physiognomy would at least have enabled him to pass _incognito_. It is +quite different from the look of timid wonder and delight with which +Annibal Caracci has painted a young Apollo listening to the first sounds +he draws from a Pan's pipe, under the tutelage of the old Silenus! If +Mr. Croft is sublime on the occasion, Dr. Knox is no less pathetic. "The +testimony of Dr. Knox," says Dr. Anderson, (Essays, p. 144.), "does equal +credit to the classical taste and amiable benevolence of the writer, and +the genius and reputation of Chatterton." "When I read," says the +Doctor, "the researches of those learned antiquaries who have +endeavoured to prove that the poems attributed to Rowley were really +written by him, I observe many ingenious remarks in confirmation of +their opinion, which it would be tedious, if not difficult, to +controvert." + +Now this is so far from the mark, that the whole controversy might +have been settled by any one but the learned antiquaries themselves, who +had the smallest share of their learning, from this single circumstance, +that the poems read as smooth as any modern poems, if you read them as +modern compositions; and that you cannot read them, or make verse of +them at all, if you pronounce or accent the words as they were spoken at +the time when the poems were pretended to have been written. The whole +secret of the imposture, which nothing but a deal of learned dust, +raised by collecting and removing a great deal of learned rubbish, could +have prevented our laborious critics from seeing through, lies on the +face of it (to say nothing of the burlesque air which is scarcely +disguised throughout) in the repetition of a few obsolete words, and in +the mis-spelling of common ones. + +"No sooner," proceeds the Doctor, "do I turn to the poems, than the +labour of the antiquaries appears only waste of time; and I am +involuntarily forced to join in placing that laurel, which he seems so +well to have deserved, on the brow of Chatterton. The poems bear so many +marks of superior genius, that they have deservedly excited the general +attention of polite scholars, and are considered as the most remarkable +productions in modern poetry. We have many instances of poetical +eminence at an early age; but neither Cowley, Milton, nor Pope, ever +produced any thing while they were boys, which can justly be compared to +the poems of Chatterton. The learned antiquaries do not indeed dispute +their excellence. They extol it in the highest terms of applause. They +raise their favourite Rowley to a rivalry with Homer: but they make the +very merits of the works an argument against their real author. Is it +possible, say they, that a boy should produce compositions so beautiful +and masterly? That a common boy should produce them is not possible," +rejoins the Doctor; "but that they should be produced by a boy of an +extraordinary genius, such as was that of Homer or Shakspeare, though a +prodigy, is such a one as by no means exceeds the bounds of rational +credibility." + +Now it does not appear that Shakspeare or Homer were such early +prodigies; so that by this reasoning he must take precedence of them +too, as well as of Milton, Cowley, and Pope. The reverend and classical +writer then breaks out into the following melancholy raptures:-- + + "Unfortunate boy! short and evil were thy days, but thy fame shall +be immortal. Hadst thou been known to the munificent patrons of +genius . . . + "Unfortunate boy! poorly wast thou accommodated during thy short +sojourning here among us;--rudely wast thou treated--sorely did thy +feelings suffer from the scorn of the unworthy; and there are at last +those who wish to rob thee of thy only meed, thy posthumous glory. +Severe too are the censures of thy morals. In the gloomy moments of +despondency, I fear thou hast uttered impious and blasphemous thoughts. +But let thy more rigid censors reflect, that thou wast literally and +strictly but a boy. Let many of thy bitterest enemies reflect what were +their own religious principles, and whether they had any at the age of +fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Surely it is a severe and an unjust +surmise that thou wouldst probably have ended thy life as a victim to +the laws, if thou hadst not ended it as thou didst." + +Enough, enough, of the learned antiquaries, and of the classical and +benevolent testimony of Dr. Knox. Chatterton was, indeed, badly enough +off; but he was at least saved from the pain and shame of reading this +woful lamentation over fallen genius, which circulates splendidly bound +in the fourteenth edition, while he is a prey to worms. As to those who +are really capable of admiring Chatterton's genius, or of feeling an +interest in his fate, I would only say, that I never heard any one speak +of any one of his works as if it were an old well-known favourite, and +had become a faith and a religion in his mind. It is his name, his +youth, and what he might have lived to have done, that excite our wonder +and admiration. He has the same sort of posthumous fame that an actor of +the last age has--an abstracted reputation which is independent of any +thing we know of his works. The admirers of Collins never think of him +without recalling to their minds his Ode on Evening, or on the Poetical +Character. Gray's Elegy, and his poetical popularity, are identified +together, and inseparable even in imagination. It is the same with +respect to Burns: when you speak of him as a poet, you mean his works, +his Tam o'Shanter, or his Cotter's Saturday Night. But the enthusiasts +for Chatterton, if you ask for the proofs of his extraordinary genius, +are obliged to turn to the volume, and perhaps find there what they +seek; but it is not in their minds; and it is of _that_ I spoke. The +Minstrel's song in AElla is I think the best. + + "O! synge untoe my roundelaie, + O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee, + Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie, + Lycke a rennynge ryver bee. + Mie love ys dedde, + Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, + Al under the wyllowe-tree. + + Black hys cryne as the wyntere nyght, + Whyte hys rode as the sommer snowe, + Rodde hys face as the mornynge lyghte, + Cale he lyes ynne the grave belowe. + Mie love ys dedde, + Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, + Al under the wyllowe-tree. + + Swote hys tongue as the throstles note, + Quycke ynne daunce as thought cann bee, + Defte his taboure, codgelle stote, + O! hee lys bie the wyllowe-tree. + Mie love ys dedde, + Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, + Al under the wyllowe-tree. + + Harke! the ravenne flappes hys wynge, + In the briered dell belowe; + Harke! the dethe-owle loude dothe synge, + To the nygthe-mares as theie goe. + Mie love ys dedde, + Gone to hys deathe-bedde, + Al under the wyllowe-tree. + + See! the whyte moone sheenes onne hie; + Whyterre ys mie true loves shroude; + Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie, + Whyterre yanne the evenynge cloude. + Mie love ys dedde, + Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, + Al under the wyllowe-tree. + + Heere, upon mie true loves grave, + Schalle the baren fleurs be layde, + Ne one hallie seyncte to save + Al the celness of a mayde. + Mie love ys dedde, + Gonne to his deathe-bedde, + Al under the wyllowe-tree. + + Wythe mie hondes I'll dent the brieres + Rounde hys hallie corse to gre, + Ouphante fairies, lyghte your fyres, + Heere mie boddie stille schalle bee. + Mie love ys dedde, + Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, + Al under the wyllowe-tree. + + Comme, wythe acorne-coppe and thorne, + Drayne my hartys blodde awaie; + Lyfe and all yttes goode I scorne, + Daunce bie nete, or feaste by daie. + Mie love ys dedde, + Gonne to hys deathe-bedde, + Al under the wyllowe-tree. + + Water wytches, crownede whthe reytes, + Bere mee to yer leathalle tyde. + I die; I comme; mie true love waytes. + Thos the damselle spake, and dyed." + +To proceed to the more immediate subject of the present Lecture, the +character and writings of Burns.--Shakspeare says of some one, that "he +was like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring." Burns, the poet, +was not such a man. He had a strong mind, and a strong body, the fellow +to it. He had a real heart of flesh and blood beating in his bosom-- +you can almost hear it throb. Some one said, that if you had shaken +hands with him, his hand would have burnt yours. The Gods, indeed, "made +him poetical"; but nature had a hand in him first. His heart was in the +right place. He did not "create a soul under the ribs of death," by +tinkling siren sounds, or by piling up centos of poetic diction; but for +the artificial flowers of poetry, he plucked the mountain-daisy under +his feet; and a field-mouse, hurrying from its ruined dwelling, could +inspire him with the sentiments of terror and pity. He held the plough +or the pen with the same firm, manly grasp; nor did he cut out poetry as +we cut out watch-papers, with finical dexterity, nor from the same +flimsy materials. Burns was not like Shakspeare in the range of his +genius; but there is something of the same magnanimity, directness, and +unaffected character about him. He was not a sickly sentimentalist, a +namby-pamby poet, a mincing metre ballad-monger, any more than +Shakspeare. He would as soon hear "a brazen candlestick tuned, or a dry +wheel grate on the axletree." He was as much of a man--not a twentieth +part as much of a poet as Shakspeare. With but little of his imagination +or inventive power, he had the same life of mind: within the narrow +circle of personal feeling or domestic incidents, the pulse of his +poetry flows as healthily and vigorously. He had an eye to see; a heart +to feel:--no more. His pictures of good fellowship, of social glee, of +quaint humour, are equal to any thing; they come up to nature, and they +cannot go beyond it. The sly jest collected in his laughing eye at the +sight of the grotesque and ludicrous in manners--the large tear rolled +down his manly cheek at the sight of another's distress. He has made us +as well acquainted with himself as it is possible to be; has let out the +honest impulses of his native disposition, the unequal conflict of the +passions in his breast, with the same frankness and truth of +description. His strength is not greater than his weakness: his virtues +were greater than his vices. His virtues belonged to his genius: his +vices to his situation, which did not correspond to his genius. + +It has been usual to attack Burns's moral character, and the moral +tendency of his writings at the same time; and Mr. Wordsworth, in a +letter to Mr. Gray, Master of the High School at Edinburgh, in +attempting to defend, has only laid him open to a more serious and +unheard-of responsibility. Mr. Gray might very well have sent him back, +in return for his epistle, the answer of Holofernes in Love's Labour's +Lost:--"_Via_ goodman Dull, thou hast spoken no word all this while." +The author of this performance, which is as weak in effect as it is +pompous in pretension, shews a great dislike of Robespierre, Buonaparte, +and of Mr. Jeffrey, whom he, by some unaccountable fatality, classes +together as the three most formidable enemies of the human race that +have appeared in his (Mr. Wordsworth's) remembrance; but he betrays very +little liking to Burns. He is, indeed, anxious to get him out of the +unhallowed clutches of the Edinburgh Reviewers (as a mere matter of +poetical privilege), only to bring him before a graver and higher +tribunal, which is his own; and after repeating and insinuating +ponderous charges against him, shakes his head, and declines giving any +opinion in so tremendous a case; so that though the judgment of the +former critic is set aside, poor Burns remains just where he was, and +nobody gains any thing by the cause but Mr. Wordsworth, in an increasing +opinion of his own wisdom and purity. "Out upon this half-faced +fellowship!" The author of the Lyrical Ballads has thus missed a fine +opportunity of doing Burns justice and himself honour. He might have +shewn himself a philosophical prose-writer, as well as a philosophical +poet. He might have offered as amiable and as gallant a defence of the +Muses, as my uncle Toby, in the honest simplicity of his heart, did of +the army. He might have said at once, instead of making a parcel of wry +faces over the matter, that Burns had written Tam o'Shanter, and that +that alone was enough; that he could hardly have described the excesses +of mad, hairbrained, roaring mirth and convivial indulgence, which are +the soul of it, if he himself had not "drunk full ofter of the ton than +of the well"--unless "the act and practique part of life had been the +mistress of his theorique." Mr. Wordsworth might have quoted such lines +as-- + + "The landlady and Tam grew gracious, + Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious";-- + +or, + + "Care, mad to see a man so happy, + E'en drown'd himself among the nappy";-- + +and fairly confessed that he could not have written such lines from a +want of proper habits and previous sympathy; and that till some great +puritanical genius should arise to do these things equally well without +any knowledge of them, the world might forgive Burns the injuries he had +done his health and fortune in his poetical apprenticeship to +experience, for the pleasure he had afforded them. Instead of this, Mr. +Wordsworth hints, that with different personal habits and greater +strength of mind, Burns would have written differently, and almost as +well as _he_ does. He might have taken that line of Gay's, + + "The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets,"-- + +and applied it in all its force and pathos to the poetical character. He +might have argued that poets are men of genius, and that a man of genius +is not a machine; that they live in a state of intellectual +intoxication, and that it is too much to expect them to be distinguished +by peculiar _sang froid_, circumspection, and sobriety. Poets are by +nature men of stronger imagination and keener sensibilities than others; +and it is a contradiction to suppose them at the same time governed only +by the cool, dry, calculating dictates of reason and foresight. Mr. +Wordsworth might have ascertained the boundaries that part the provinces +of reason and imagination:--that it is the business of the +understanding to exhibit things in their relative proportions and +ultimate consequences--of the imagination to insist on their immediate +impressions, and to indulge their strongest impulses; but it is the +poet's office to pamper the imagination of his readers and his own with +the extremes of present ecstacy or agony, to snatch the swift-winged +golden minutes, the torturing hour, and to banish the dull, prosaic, +monotonous realities of life, both from his thoughts and from his +practice. Mr. Wordsworth might have shewn how it is that all men of +genius, or of originality and independence of mind, are liable to +practical errors, from the very confidence their superiority inspires, +which makes them fly in the face of custom and prejudice, always rashly, +sometimes unjustly; for, after all, custom and prejudice are not without +foundation in truth and reason, and no one individual is a match for the +world in power, very few in knowledge. The world may altogether be set +down as older and wiser than any single person in it. + +Again, our philosophical letter-writer might have enlarged on the +temptations to which Burns was exposed from his struggles with fortune +and the uncertainty of his fate. He might have shewn how a poet, not +born to wealth or title, was kept in a constant state of feverish +anxiety with respect to his fame and the means of a precarious +livelihood: that "from being chilled with poverty, steeped in contempt, +he had passed into the sunshine of fortune, and was lifted to the very +pinnacle of public favour"; yet even there could not count on the +continuance of success, but was, "like the giddy sailor on the mast, +ready with every blast to topple down into the fatal bowels of the +deep!" He might have traced his habit of ale-house tippling to the last +long precious draught of his favourite usquebaugh, which he took in the +prospect of bidding farewel for ever to his native land; and his +conjugal infidelities to his first disappointment in love, which would +not have happened to him, if he had been born to a small estate in land, +or bred up behind a counter! + +Lastly, Mr. Wordsworth might have shewn the incompatibility between +the Muses and the Excise, which never agreed well together, or met in +one seat, till they were unaccountably reconciled on Rydal Mount. He +must know (no man better) the distraction created by the opposite calls +of business and of fancy, the torment of extents, the plague of receipts +laid in order or mislaid, the disagreeableness of exacting penalties or +paying the forfeiture; and how all this (together with the broaching of +casks and the splashing of beer-barrels) must have preyed upon a mind +like Burns, with more than his natural sensibility and none of his +acquired firmness. + +Mr. Coleridge, alluding to this circumstance of the promotion of the +Scottish Bard to be "a gauger of ale-firkins," in a poetical epistle to +his friend Charles Lamb, calls upon him in a burst of heartfelt +indignation, to gather a wreath of henbane, nettles, and nightshade, + + "------To twine + The illustrious brow of Scotch nobility." + +If, indeed, Mr. Lamb had undertaken to write a letter in defence of +Burns, how different would it have been from this of Mr. Wordsworth's! +How much better than I can even imagine it to have been done! + +It is hardly reasonable to look for a hearty or genuine defence of +Burns from the pen of Mr. Wordsworth; for there is no common link of +sympathy between them. Nothing can be more different or hostile than the +spirit of their poetry. Mr. Wordsworth's poetry is the poetry of mere +sentiment and pensive contemplation: Burns's is a very highly sublimated +essence of animal existence. With Burns, "self-love and social are the +same"-- + + "And we'll tak a cup of kindness yet, + For auld lang syne." + +Mr. Wordsworth is "himself alone," a recluse philosopher, or a reluctant +spectator of the scenes of many-coloured life; moralising on them, not +describing, not entering into them. Robert Burns has exerted all the +vigour of his mind, all the happiness of his nature, in exalting the +pleasures of wine, of love, and good fellowship: but in Mr. Wordsworth +there is a total disunion and divorce of the faculties of the mind from +those of the body; the banns are forbid, or a separation is austerely +pronounced from bed and board--_a mensa et thoro_. From the Lyrical +Ballads, it does not appear that men eat or drink, marry or are given in +marriage. If we lived by every sentiment that proceeded out of mouths, +and not by bread or wine, or if the species were continued like trees +(to borrow an expression from the great Sir Thomas Brown), Mr. +Wordsworth's poetry would be just as good as ever. It is not so with +Burns: he is "famous for the keeping of it up," and in his verse is ever +fresh and gay. For this, it seems, he has fallen under the displeasure +of the Edinburgh Reviewers, and the still more formidable patronage of +Mr. Wordsworth's pen. + + "This, this was the unkindest cut of all." + +I was going to give some extracts out of this composition in support +of what I have said, but I find them too tedious. Indeed (if I may be +allowed to speak my whole mind, under correction) Mr. Wordsworth could +not be in any way expected to tolerate or give a favourable +interpretation to Burns's constitutional foibles--even his best +virtues are not good enough for him. He is repelled and driven back into +himself, not less by the worth than by the faults of others. His taste +is as exclusive and repugnant as his genius. It is because so few things +give him pleasure, that he gives pleasure to so few people. It is not +every one who can perceive the sublimity of a daisy, or the pathos to be +extracted from a withered thorn! + +To proceed from Burns's patrons to his poetry, than which no two +things can be more different. His "Twa Dogs" is a very spirited piece of +description, both as it respects the animal and human creation, and +conveys a very vivid idea of the manners both of high and low life. The +burlesque panegyric of the first dog, + + "His locked, lettered, braw brass collar + Shew'd him the gentleman and scholar"-- + +reminds one of Launce's account of his dog Crabbe, where he is said, as +an instance of his being in the way of promotion, "to have got among +three or four gentleman-like dogs under the Duke's table." The +"Halloween" is the most striking and picturesque description of local +customs and scenery. The Brigs of Ayr, the Address to a Haggis, Scotch +Drink, and innumerable others are, however, full of the same kind of +characteristic and comic painting. But his master-piece in this way is +his Tam o'Shanter. I shall give the beginning of it, but I am afraid I +shall hardly know when to leave off. + + "When chapman billies leave the street, + And drouthy neebors, neebors meet, + As market-days are wearing late, + And folk begin to tak the gate; + While we sit bousing at the nappy, + And getting fou and unco happy, + We think na on the lang Scots miles, + The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, + That lie between us and our hame, + Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame, + Gathering her brows like gathering storm, + Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. + + This truth fand honest Tam o'Shanter, + As he frae Ayr ae night did canter; + (Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, + For honest men and bonny lasses.) + + O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise, + As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! + She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, + A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; + That frae November till October + Ae market-day thou was na sober; + That ilka melder, wi' the miller, + Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; + That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on, + The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; + That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday, + Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday-- + She prophesy'd, that late or soon, + Thou wad be found deep drown'd in Doon; + Or catch't wi' warlocks in the mirk, + By Alloway's auld haunted kirk. + + Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet, + To think how mony counsels sweet, + How mony lengthen'd, sage advices, + The husband frae the wife despises! + + But to our tale: Ae market night, + Tam had got planted unco right + Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, + Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely; + And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, + His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; + Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither; + They had been fou for weeks thegither. + The night drave on wi' sangs an clatter, + And aye the ale was growing better: + The landlady and Tam grew gracious + Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious: + The Souter tauld his queerest stories; + The landlord's laugh was ready chorus: + The storm without might rair and rustle, + Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. + + Care, mad to see a man sae happy, + E'en drown'd himsel amang the nappy; + As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, + The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure: + Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, + O'er a' the ills of life victorious! + + But pleasures are like poppies spread, + You seize the flow'r--its bloom is shed; + Or like the snow, falls in the river, + A moment white--then melts for ever; + Or like the Borealis race, + That flit ere you can point their place; + Or like the rainbow's lovely form, + Evanishing amid the storm.-- + Nae man can tether time or tide, + The hour approaches, Tam maun ride; + That hour o' night's black arch the key-stane, + That dreary hour he mounts his beast in, + And sic a night he taks the road in, + As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. + + The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last; + The rattling showers rose on the blast, + The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd, + Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd: + That night a child might understand, + The Deil had business on his hand. + + Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg, + A better never lifted leg, + Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, + Despising wind, and rain, and fire; + Whiles haulding fast his gude blue bonnet; + Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet; + Whiles glowring round wi' prudent cares, + Lest bogles catch him unawares; + Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, + Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.-- + + By this time Tam was cross the ford, + Whare in the snaw, the chapman smoor'd; + And past the birks and meikle stane, + Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane; + And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, + Where hunters fand the murder'd bairn; + And near the thorn, aboon the well, + Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel.-- + Before him Doon pours all his floods; + The doubling storm roars thro' the woods; + The lightnings flash from pole to pole; + Near and more near the thunders roll: + Whan, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, + Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze; + Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing; + And loud resounded mirth and dancing. + + Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! + What dangers thou canst make us scorn! + Wi' Tippenny, we fear nae evil, + Wi' Usqueba, we'll face the devil! + The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle, + Fair play, he car'd na de'ils a boddle. + But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd, + Till by the heel and hand admonish'd, + She ventur'd forward on the light, + And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight! + Warlocks and witches in a dance, + Nae light cotillion new frae France, + But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, + Put life and mettle in their heels. + As winnock-bunker, in the east, + There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast; + A touzie tyke, black, grim, and large, + To gie them music was his charge; + He screw'd the pipes, and gart them skirl, + Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.-- + Coffins stood round like open presses, + That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; + And, by some devilish cantrip slight, + Each in its cauld hand held a light-- + By which heroic Tam was able + To note upon the haly table, + A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns; + Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns; + A thief, new cutted frae a rape, + Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; + Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red rusted; + Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; + A garter, which a babe had strangled; + A knife, a father's throat had mangled, + Whom his ain son o' life bereft, + The grey hairs yet stack to the heft; + Wi' mair, o' horrible and awfu', + Which e'en to name wad be unlawfu'. + + As Tammie glowr'd amaz'd, and curious, + The mirth and fun grew fast and furious: + The Piper loud and louder blew; + The dancers quick and quicker flew; + They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit, + Till ilka Carlin swat and reekit, + And coost her duddies to the wark, + And linket at it in her sark! + + Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans + A' plump and strapping in their teens; + Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, + Been snaw-white seventeen hundred linen! + Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, + That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, + I wad hae gi'en them aff my hurdies, + For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies! + + But wither'd beldams, auld and droll, + Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, + Louping and flinging on a crummock, + I wonder did na turn thy stomach. + + But Tam ken'd what was what fu' brawly, + There was ae winsome wench and waly, + That night enlisted in the core, + (Lang after ken'd on Carrick shore; + For mony a beast to dead she shot, + And perish'd mony a bonnie boat, + And shook baith meikle corn and bear, + And kept the country-side in fear--) + Her cutty sark o' Paisley harn, + That while a lassie she had worn, + In longitude tho' sorely scanty, + It was her best, and she was vaunty.-- + Ah! little ken'd thy reverend grannie, + That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, + Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches), + Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches! + + But here my Muse her wing maun cour; + Sic flights are far beyond her power: + To sing how Nannie lap and flang, + (A souple jade she was, and strang) + And how Tam stood like ane bewitch'd, + And thought his very een enrich'd; + Ev'n Satan glowr'd and fidg'd fu' fain, + And hotch't, and blew wi' might and main; + Till first ae caper, syne anither, + Tam tint his reason a' thegither, + And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty Sark!" + And in an instant all was dark; + And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, + When out the hellish legion sallied. + + As bees biz out wi' angry fyke + When plundering herds assail their byke; + As open pussie's mortal foes, + When, pop! she starts before their nose; + As eager rins the market-crowd, + When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud; + So Maggie rins--the witches follow, + Wi' mony an eldritch skreech and hollow, + + Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou 'll get thy fairin'! + In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'! + In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin'! + Kate soon will be a waefu' woman! + Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, + And win the key-stane o' the brig; + There, at them thou thy tail may toss, + A running stream they dare na cross; + But ere the key-stane she could make, + The fient a tail she had to shake! + For Nannie, far before the rest, + Hard upon noble Maggie prest, + And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle; + But little wist she Maggie's mettle-- + Ae spring brought off her master hale, + But left behind, her ain grey tail: + The Carlin claught her by the rump, + And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. + + Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, + Ilk man and mother's son tak heed: + Whane'er to drink you are inclin'd, + Or Cutty Sarks rin in your mind, + Think, ye may buy the joys owre dear; + Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare." + +Burns has given the extremes of licentious eccentricity and convivial +enjoyment, in the story of this scape-grace, and of patriarchal +simplicity and gravity in describing the old national character of the +Scottish peasantry. The Cotter's Saturday Night is a noble and pathetic +picture of human manners, mingled with a fine religious awe. It comes +over the mind like a slow and solemn strain of music. The soul of the +poet aspires from this scene of low-thoughted care, and reposes, in +trembling hope, on "the bosom of its Father and its God." Hardly any +thing can be more touching than the following stanzas, for instance, +whether as they describe human interests, or breathe a lofty devotional +spirit. + + "The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, + This night his weekly moil is at an end, + Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, + Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, + And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. + + At length his lonely cot appears in view, + Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; + Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through + To meet their dad, wi' flichterin noise and glee. + His wee-bit ingle, blinkin bonilie, + His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, + The lisping infant, prattling on his knee, + Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, + And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil. + + Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, + At service out, amang the farmers roun', + Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin + A cannie errand to a neebor town; + Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown, + In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, + Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown, + Or deposit her sair-won penny-fee, + To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. + + Wi' joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet, + An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers; + The social hours, swift-winged, unnotic'd fleet; + Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears: + The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; + Anticipation forward points the view; + The mither, wi' her needle an' her shears, + Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; + The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. + + * * * * * * * + + But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door; + Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, + Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor, + To do some errands, and convoy her hame. + The wily mother sees the conscious flame + Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; + With heart-struck, anxious care, inquires his name, + While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; + Weel pleas'd the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake. + + Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben; + A strappan youth; he taks the mother's eye; + Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; + The father craks of horses, pleughs, and kye. + The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, + But blate an' laithfu', scarce can weel behave; + The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy + What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; + Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave. + + But now the supper crowns their simple board, + The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food: + The soupe their only hawkie does afford, + That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood: + The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, + To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell, + An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid; + The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, + How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. + + The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, + They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; + The sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace, + The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride: + His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, + His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; + Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, + He wales a portion wi' judicious care; + And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air. + + They chant their artless notes in simple guise; + They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: + Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise, + Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; + Or noble Elgin beets the heav'n-ward flame, + The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: + Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame; + The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise; + Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise."-- + +Burns's poetical epistles to his friends are admirable, whether for +the touches of satire, the painting of character, or the sincerity of +friendship they display. Those to Captain Grose, and to Davie, a brother +poet, are among the best:--they are "the true pathos and sublime of +human life." His prose-letters are sometimes tinctured with affectation. +They seem written by a man who has been admired for his wit, and is +expected on all occasions to shine. Those in which he expresses his +ideas of natural beauty in reference to Alison's Essay on Taste, and +advocates the keeping up the remembrances of old customs and seasons, +are the most powerfully written. His English serious odes and moral +stanzas are, in general, failures, such as The Lament, Man was made to +Mourn, &c. nor do I much admire his "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled." In +this strain of didactic or sentimental moralising, the lines to +Glencairn are the most happy, and impressive. His imitations of the old +humorous ballad style of Ferguson's songs are no whit inferior to the +admirable originals, such as "John Anderson, my Joe," and many more. But +of all his productions, the pathetic and serious love-songs which he has +left behind him, in the manner of the old ballads, are perhaps those +which take the deepest and most lasting hold of the mind. Such are the +lines to Mary Morison, and those entitled Jessy. + + "Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear-- + Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear-- + Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, + And soft as their parting tear--Jessy! + + Altho' thou maun never be mine, + Altho' even hope is denied; + 'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, + Than aught in the world beside--Jessy!" + +The conclusion of the other is as follows. + + "Yestreen, when to the trembling string + The dance gaed through the lighted ha', + To thee my fancy took its wing, + I sat, but neither heard nor saw. + Tho' this was fair, and that was bra', + And yon the toast of a' the town, + I sighed and said among them a', + Ye are na' Mary Morison." + +That beginning, "Oh gin my love were a bonny red rose," is a piece of +rich and fantastic description. One would think that nothing could +surpass these in beauty of expression, and in true pathos: and nothing +does or can, but some of the old Scotch ballads themselves. There is in +them a still more original cast of thought, a more romantic imagery-- +the thistle's glittering down, the gilliflower on the old garden-wall, +the horseman's silver bells, the hawk on its perch--a closer intimacy +with nature, a firmer reliance on it, as the only stock of wealth which +the mind has to resort to, a more infantine simplicity of manners, a +greater strength of affection, hopes longer cherished and longer +deferred, sighs that the heart dare hardly heave, and "thoughts that +often lie too deep for tears." We seem to feel that those who wrote and +sung them (the early minstrels) lived in the open air, wandering on from +place to place with restless feet and thoughts, and lending an ever-open +ear to the fearful accidents of war or love, floating on the breath of +old tradition or common fame, and moving the strings of their harp with +sounds that sank into a nation's heart. How fine an illustration of this +is that passage in Don Quixote, where the knight and Sancho, going in +search of Dulcinea, inquire their way of the countryman, who was driving +his mules to plough before break of day, "singing the ancient ballad of +Roncesvalles." Sir Thomas Overbury describes his country girl as still +accompanied with fragments of old songs. One of the best and most +striking descriptions of the effects of this mixture of national poetry +and music is to be found in one of the letters of Archbishop Herring, +giving an account of a confirmation-tour in the mountains of Wales. + + "That pleasure over, our work became very arduous, for we were to +mount a rock, and in many places of the road, over natural stairs of +stone. I submitted to this, which they told me was but a taste of the +country, and to prepare me for worse things to come. However, worse +things did not come that morning, for we dined soon after out of our own +wallets; and though our inn stood in a place of the most frightful +solitude, and the best formed for the habitation of monks (who once +possessed it) in the world, yet we made a cheerful meal. The novelty of +the thing gave me spirits, and the air gave me appetite much keener than +the knife I ate with. We had our music too; for there came in a harper, +who soon drew about us a group of figures that Hogarth would have given +any price for. The harper was in his true place and attitude; a man and +woman stood before him, singing to his instrument wildly, but not +disagreeably; a little dirty child was playing with the bottom of the +harp; a woman in a sick night-cap hanging over the stairs; a boy with +crutches fixed in a staring attention, and a girl carding wool in the +chimney, and rocking a cradle with her naked feet, interrupted in her +business by the charms of the music; all ragged and dirty, and all +silently attentive. These figures gave us a most entertaining picture, +and would please you or any man of observation; and one reflection gave +me a particular comfort, that the assembly before us demonstrated, that +even here, the influential sun warmed poor mortals, and inspired them +with love and music." + +I could wish that Mr. Wilkie had been recommended to take this group +as the subject of his admirable pencil; he has painted a picture of +Bathsheba, instead. + +In speaking of the old Scotch ballads, I need do no more than mention +the name of Auld Robin Gray. The effect of reading this old ballad is as +if all our hopes and fears hung upon the last fibre of the heart, and we +felt that giving way. What silence, what loneliness, what leisure for +grief and despair! + + "My father pressed me sair, + Though my mother did na' speak; + But she looked in my face + Till my heart was like to break." + +The irksomeness of the situations, the sense of painful dependence, is +excessive; and yet the sentiment of deep-rooted, patient affection +triumphs over all, and is the only impression that remains. Lady Ann +Bothwell's Lament is not, I think, quite equal to the lines beginning-- + + "O waly, waly, up the bank, + And waly, waly, down the brae, + And waly, waly, yon burn side, + Where I and my love wont to gae. + I leant my back unto an aik, + I thought it was a trusty tree; + But first it bow'd, and syne it brak, + Sae my true-love's forsaken me. + + O waly, waly, love is bonny, + A little time while it is new; + But when its auld, it waxeth cauld, + And fades awa' like the morning dew. + When cockle-shells turn siller bells, + And muscles grow on every tree, + Whan frost and snaw sall warm us aw, + Then sall my love prove true to me. + + Now Arthur seat sall be my bed, + The sheets sall ne'er be fyld by me: + Saint Anton's well sall be my drink, + Since my true-love's forsaken me. + Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw, + And shake the green leaves aff the tree? + O gentle death, whan wilt thou cum, + And tak' a life that wearies me! + + 'Tis not the frost that freezes sae, + Nor blawing snaw's inclemencie, + 'Tis not sic cauld, that makes me cry, + But my love's heart grown cauld to me. + Whan we came in by Glasgow town, + We were a comely sight to see, + My love was clad in black velvet, + And I myself in cramasie. + + But had I wist before I kist, + That love had been sae hard to win; + I'd lockt my heart in case of gowd, + And pinn'd it with a siller pin. + And oh! if my poor babe were born, + And set upon the nurse's knee, + And I mysel in the cold grave! + Since my true-love 's forsaken me." + +The finest modern imitation of this style is the Braes of Yarrow; and +perhaps the finest subject for a story of the same kind in any modern +book, is that told in Turner's History of England, of a Mahometan woman, +who having fallen in love with an English merchant, the father of Thomas +a Becket, followed him all the way to England, knowing only the word +London, and the name of her lover, Gilbert. + +But to have done with this, which is rather too serious a subject.-- +The old English ballads are of a gayer and more lively turn. +They are adventurous and romantic; but they relate chiefly to good +living and good fellowship, to drinking and hunting scenes. Robin Hood +is the chief of these, and he still, in imagination, haunts Sherwood +Forest. The archers green glimmer under the waving branches; the print +on the grass remains where they have just finished their noon-tide meal +under the green-wood tree; and the echo of their bugle-horn and twanging +bows resounds through the tangled mazes of the forest, as the tall slim +deer glances startled by. + + "The trees in Sherwood Forest are old and good; + The grass beneath them now is dimly green: + Are they deserted all? Is no young mien, + With loose-slung bugle, met within the wood? + + No arrow found--foil'd of its antler'd food-- + Struck in the oak's rude side?--Is there nought seen + To mark the revelries which there have been, + In the sweet days of merry Robin Hood? + + Go there with summer, and with evening--go + In the soft shadows, like some wand'ring man-- + And thou shalt far amid the forest know + The archer-men in green, with belt and bow, + Feasting on pheasant, river-fowl, and swan, + With Robin at their head, and Marian." [9] + +___ +[9] Sonnet on Sherwood Forest, by J.H. Reynolds, Esq. +___ + + + + +LECTURE VIII. +ON THE LIVING POETS. + + + "No more of talk where God or Angel guest + With man, as with his friend, familiar us'd + To sit indulgent."------ + +Genius is the heir of fame; but the hard condition on which the +bright reversion must be earned is the loss of life. Fame is the +recompense not of the living, but of the dead. The temple of fame stands +upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the +ashes of great men. Fame itself is immortal, but it is not begot till +the breath of genius is extinguished. For fame is not popularity, the +shout of the multitude, the idle buzz of fashion, the venal puff, the +soothing flattery of favour or of friendship; but it is the spirit of a +man surviving himself in the minds and thoughts of other men, undying +and imperishable. It is the power which the intellect exercises over the +intellect, and the lasting homage which is paid to it, as such, +independently of time and circumstances, purified from partiality and +evil-speaking. Fame is the sound which the stream of high thoughts, +carried down to future ages, makes as it flows--deep, distant, +murmuring evermore like the waters of the mighty ocean. He who has ears +truly touched to this music, is in a manner deaf to the voice of +popularity.--The love of fame differs from mere vanity in this, that +the one is immediate and personal, the other ideal and abstracted. It is +not the direct and gross homage paid to himself, that the lover of true +fame seeks or is proud of; but the indirect and pure homage paid to the +eternal forms of truth and beauty as they are reflected in his mind, +that gives him confidence and hope. The love of nature is the first +thing in the mind of the true poet: the admiration of himself the last. +A man of genius cannot well be a coxcomb; for his mind is too full of +other things to be much occupied with his own person. He who is +conscious of great powers in himself, has also a high standard of +excellence with which to compare his efforts: he appeals also to a test +and judge of merit, which is the highest, but which is too remote, +grave, and impartial, to flatter his self-love extravagantly, or puff +him up with intolerable and vain conceit. This, indeed, is one test of +genius and of real greatness of mind, whether a man can wait patiently +and calmly for the award of posterity, satisfied with the unwearied +exercise of his faculties, retired within the sanctuary of his own +thoughts; or whether he is eager to forestal his own immortality, and +mortgage it for a newspaper puff. He who thinks much of himself, will be +in danger of being forgotten by the rest of the world: he who is always +trying to lay violent hands on reputation, will not secure the best and +most lasting. If the restless candidate for praise takes no pleasure, no +sincere and heartfelt delight in his works, but as they are admired and +applauded by others, what should others see in them to admire or +applaud? They cannot be expected to admire them because they are _his_; +but for the truth and nature contained in them, which must first be inly +felt and copied with severe delight, from the love of truth and nature, +before it can ever appear there. Was Raphael, think you, when he painted +his pictures of the Virgin and Child in all their inconceivable truth +and beauty of expression, thinking most of his subject or of himself? Do +you suppose that Titian, when he painted a landscape, was pluming +himself on being thought the finest colourist in the world, or making +himself so by looking at nature? Do you imagine that Shakspeare, when he +wrote Lear or Othello, was thinking of any thing but Lear and Othello? +Or that Mr. Kean, when he plays these characters, is thinking of the +audience?--No: he who would be great in the eyes of others, must first +learn to be nothing in his own. The love of fame, as it enters at times +into his mind, is only another name for the love of excellence; or it is +the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest +authority--that of time. + +Those minds, then, which are the most entitled to expect it, can best +put up with the postponement of their claims to lasting fame. They can +afford to wait. They are not afraid that truth and nature will ever wear +out; will lose their gloss with novelty, or their effect with fashion. +If their works have the seeds of immortality in them, they will live; if +they have not, they care little about them as theirs. They do not +complain of the start which others have got of them in the race of +everlasting renown, or of the impossibility of attaining the honours +which time alone can give, during the term of their natural lives. They +know that no applause, however loud and violent, can anticipate or +over-rule the judgment of posterity; that the opinion of no one +individual, nor of any one generation, can have the weight, the +authority (to say nothing of the force of sympathy and prejudice), which +must belong to that of successive generations. The brightest living +reputation cannot be equally imposing to the imagination, with that +which is covered and rendered venerable with the hoar of innumerable +ages. No modern production can have the same atmosphere of sentiment +around it, as the remains of classical antiquity. But then our moderns +may console themselves with the reflection, that they will be old in +their turn, and will either be remembered with still increasing honours, +or quite forgotten! + +I would speak of the living poets as I have spoken of the dead (for I +think highly of many of them); but I cannot speak of them with the same +reverence, because I do not feel it; with the same confidence, because I +cannot have the same authority to sanction my opinion. I cannot be +absolutely certain that any body, twenty years hence, will think any +thing about any of them; but we may be pretty sure that Milton and +Shakspeare will be remembered twenty years hence. We are, therefore, not +without excuse if we husband our enthusiasm a little, and do not +prematurely lay out our whole stock in untried ventures, and what may +turn out to be false bottoms. I have myself out-lived one generation of +favourite poets, the Darwins, the Hayleys, the Sewards. Who reads them +now?--If, however, I have not the verdict of posterity to bear me out +in bestowing the most unqualified praises on their immediate successors, +it is also to be remembered, that neither does it warrant me in +condemning them. Indeed, it was not my wish to go into this ungrateful +part of the subject; but something of the sort is expected from me, and +I must run the gauntlet as well as I can. Another circumstance that adds +to the difficulty of doing justice to all parties is, that I happen to +have had a personal acquaintance with some of these jealous votaries of +the Muses; and that is not the likeliest way to imbibe a high opinion of +the rest. Poets do not praise one another in the language of hyperbole. +I am afraid, therefore, that I labour under a degree of prejudice +against some of the most popular poets of the day, from an early habit +of deference to the critical opinions of some of the least popular. I +cannot say that I ever learnt much about Shakspeare or Milton, Spenser +or Chaucer, from these professed guides; for I never heard them say much +about them. They were always talking of themselves and one another. Nor +am I certain that this sort of personal intercourse with living authors, +while it takes away all real relish or freedom of opinion with regard to +their contemporaries, greatly enhances our respect for themselves. Poets +are not ideal beings; but have their prose-sides, like the commonest of +the people. We often hear persons say, What they would have given to +have seen Shakspeare! For my part, I would give a great deal not to have +seen him; at least, if he was at all like any body else that I have ever +seen. But why should he; for his works are not! This is, doubtless, one +great advantage which the dead have over the living. It is always +fortunate for ourselves and others, when we are prevented from +exchanging admiration for knowledge. The splendid vision that in youth +haunts our idea of the poetical character, fades, upon acquaintance, +into the light of common day; as the azure tints that deck the +mountain's brow are lost on a nearer approach to them. It is well, +according to the moral of one of the Lyrical Ballads,--"To leave Yarrow +unvisited." But to leave this "face-making," and begin.-- + +I am a great admirer of the female writers of the present day; they +appear to me like so many modern Muses. I could be in love with Mrs. +Inchbald, romantic with Mrs. Radcliffe, and sarcastic with Madame +D'Arblay: but they are novel-writers, and, like Audrey, may "thank the +Gods for not having made them poetical." Did any one here ever read Mrs. +Leicester's School? If they have not, I wish they would; there will be +just time before the next three volumes of the Tales of My Landlord come +out. That is not a school of affectation, but of humanity. No one can +think too highly of the work, or highly enough of the author. + +The first poetess I can recollect is Mrs. Barbauld, with whose works +I became acquainted before those of any other author, male or female, +when I was learning to spell words of one syllable in her story-books +for children. I became acquainted with her poetical works long after in +Enfield's Speaker; and remember being much divided in my opinion at that +time, between her Ode to Spring and Collins's Ode to Evening. I wish I +could repay my childish debt of gratitude in terms of appropriate +praise. She is a very pretty poetess; and, to my fancy, strews the +flowers of poetry most agreeably round the borders of religious +controversy. She is a neat and pointed prose-writer. Her "Thoughts on +the Inconsistency of Human Expectations," is one of the most ingenious +and sensible essays in the language. There is the same idea in one of +Barrow's Sermons. + +Mrs. Hannah More is another celebrated modern poetess, and I believe +still living. She has written a great deal which I have never read. + +Miss Baillie must make up this trio of female poets. Her tragedies +and comedies, one of each to illustrate each of the passions, separately +from the rest, are heresies in the dramatic art. She is a Unitarian in +poetry. With her the passions are, like the French republic, one and +indivisible: they are not so in nature, or in Shakspeare. Mr. Southey +has, I believe, somewhere expressed an opinion, that the Basil of Miss +Baillie is superior to Romeo and Juliet. I shall not stay to contradict +him. On the other hand, I prefer her De Montfort, which was condemned on +the stage, to some later tragedies, which have been more fortunate--to +the Remorse, Bertram, and lastly, Fazio. There is in the chief character +of that play a nerve, a continued unity of interest, a setness of +purpose and precision of outline which John Kemble alone was capable of +giving; and there is all the grace which women have in writing. In +saying that De Montfort was a character which just suited Mr. Kemble, I +mean to pay a compliment to both. He was not "a man of no mark or +likelihood": and what he could be supposed to do particularly well, must +have a meaning in it. As to the other tragedies just mentioned, there is +no reason why any common actor should not "make mouths in them at the +invisible event,"--one as well as another. Having thus expressed my +sense of the merits of this authoress, I must add, that her comedy of +the Election, performed last summer at the Lyceum with indifferent +success, appears to me the perfection of baby-house theatricals. Every +thing in it has such a _do-me-good_ air, is so insipid and amiable. +Virtue seems such a pretty playing at make-believe, and vice is such a +naughty word. It is a theory of some French author, that little girls +ought not to be suffered to have dolls to play with, to call them +_pretty dears_, to admire their black eyes and cherry cheeks, to lament +and bewail over them if they fall down and hurt their faces, to praise +them when they are good, and scold them when they are naughty. It is a +school of affectation: Miss Baillie has profited of it. She treats her +grown men and women as little girls treat their dolls--makes moral +puppets of them, pulls the wires, and they talk virtue and act vice, +according to their cue and the title prefixed to each comedy or tragedy, +not from any real passions of their own, or love either of virtue or +vice. + +The transition from these to Mr. Rogers's Pleasures of Memory, is not +far: he is a very lady-like poet. He is an elegant, but feeble writer. +He wraps up obvious thoughts in a glittering cover of fine words; is +full of enigmas with no meaning to them; is studiously inverted, and +scrupulously far-fetched; and his verses are poetry, chiefly because no +particle, line, or syllable of them reads like prose. He differs from +Milton in this respect, who is accused of having inserted a number of +prosaic lines in Paradise Lost. This kind of poetry, which is a more +minute and inoffensive species of the Della Cruscan, is like the game of +asking what one's thoughts are like. It is a tortuous, tottering, +wriggling, fidgetty translation of every thing from the vulgar tongue, +into all the tantalizing, teasing, tripping, lisping _mimminee-pimminee_ +of the highest brilliancy and fashion of poetical diction. You have +nothing like truth of nature or simplicity of expression. The fastidious +and languid reader is never shocked by meeting, from the rarest chance +in the world, with a single homely phrase or intelligible idea. You +cannot see the thought for the ambiguity of the language, the figure for +the finery, the picture for the varnish. The whole is refined, and +frittered away into an appearance of the most evanescent brilliancy and +tremulous imbecility.--There is no other fault to be found with the +Pleasures of Memory, than a want of taste and genius. The sentiments are +amiable, and the notes at the end highly interesting, particularly the +one relating to the Countess Pillar (as it is called) between Appleby +and Penrith, erected (as the inscription tells the thoughtful traveller) +by Anne Countess of Pembroke, in the year 1648, in memory of her last +parting with her good and pious mother in the same place in the year +1616-- + + "To shew that power of love, how great + Beyond all human estimate." + +This story is also told in the poem, but with so many artful innuendos +and tinsel words, that it is hardly intelligible; and still less does it +reach the heart. + +Campbell's Pleasures of Hope is of the same school, in which a +painful attention is paid to the expression in proportion as there is +little to express, and the decomposition of prose is substituted for the +composition of poetry. How much the sense and keeping in the ideas are +sacrificed to a jingle of words and epigrammatic turn of expression, may +be seen in such lines as the following:--one of the characters, an old +invalid, wishes to end his days under + + "Some hamlet shade, to yield his sickly form + Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm." + +Now the antithesis here totally fails: for it is the breeze, and not the +tree, or as it is quaintly expressed, _hamlet shade_, that affords +health, though it is the tree that affords shelter in or from the storm. +Instances of the same sort of _curiosa infelicitas_ are not rare in this +author. His verses on the Battle of Hohenlinden have considerable spirit +and animation. His Gertrude of Wyoming is his principal performance. It +is a kind of historical paraphrase of Mr. Wordsworth's poem of Ruth. It +shews little power, or power enervated by extreme fastidiousness. It is + + "------Of outward show + Elaborate; of inward less exact." + +There are painters who trust more to the setting of their pictures than +to the truth of the likeness. Mr. Campbell always seems to me to be +thinking how his poetry will look when it comes to be hot-pressed on +superfine wove paper, to have a disproportionate eye to points and +commas, and dread of errors of the press. He is so afraid of doing +wrong, of making the smallest mistake, that he does little or nothing. +Lest he should wander irretrievably from the right path, he stands +still. He writes according to established etiquette. He offers the Muses +no violence. If he lights upon a good thought, he immediately drops it +for fear of spoiling a good thing. When he launches a sentiment that you +think will float him triumphantly for once to the bottom of the stanza, +he stops short at the end of the first or second line, and stands +shivering on the brink of beauty, afraid to trust himself to the +fathomless abyss. _Tutus nimium, timidusque procellarum_. His very +circumspection betrays him. The poet, as well as the woman, that +deliberates, is undone. He is much like a man whose heart fails him just +as he is going up in a balloon, and who breaks his neck by flinging +himself out of it when it is too late. Mr. Campbell too often maims and +mangles his ideas before they are full formed, to fit them to the +Procustes' bed of criticism; or strangles his intellectual offspring in +the birth, lest they should come to an untimely end in the Edinburgh +Review. He plays the hypercritic on himself, and starves his genius to +death from a needless apprehension of a plethora. No writer who thinks +habitually of the critics, either to tremble at their censures or set +them at defiance, can write well. It is the business of reviewers to +watch poets, not of poets to watch reviewers.--There is one admirable +simile in this poem, of the European child brought by the sooty Indian +in his hand, "like morning brought by night." The love-scenes in +Gertrude of Wyoming breathe a balmy voluptuousness of sentiment; but +they are generally broken off in the middle; they are like the scent of +a bank of violets, faint and rich, which the gale suddenly conveys in a +different direction. Mr. Campbell is careful of his own reputation, and +economical of the pleasures of his readers. He treats them as the fox in +the fable treated his guest the stork; or, to use his own expression, +his fine things are + + "Like angels' visits, few, and far between." [10] + +There is another fault in this poem, which is the mechanical structure +of the fable. The most striking events occur in the shape of antitheses. +The story is cut into the form of a parallelogram. There is the same +systematic alternation of good and evil, of violence and repose, that +there is of light and shade in a picture. The Indian, who is the chief +agent in the interest of the poem, vanishes and returns after long +intervals, like the periodical revolutions of the planets. He +unexpectedly appears just in the nick of time, after years of absence, +and without any known reason but the convenience of the author and the +astonishment of the reader; as if nature were a machine constructed on a +principle of complete contrast, to produce a theatrical effect. _Nec +Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus_. Mr. Campbell's savage never +appears but upon great occasions, and then his punctuality is +preternatural and alarming. He is the most wonderful instance on record +of poetical _reliability_. The most dreadful mischiefs happen at the +most mortifying moments; and when your expectations are wound up to the +highest pitch, you are sure to have them knocked on the head by a +premeditated and remorseless stroke of the poet's pen. This is done so +often for the convenience of the author, that in the end it ceases to be +for the satisfaction of the reader. + +___ +[10] There is the same idea in Blair's Grave. + + "------Its visits, + Like those of angels, short, and far between." + +Mr. Campbell in altering the expression has spoiled it. "Few," and "far +between," are the same thing. +___ + +Tom Moore is a poet of a quite different stamp. He is as heedless, +gay, and prodigal of his poetical wealth, as the other is careful, +reserved, and parsimonious. The genius of both is national. Mr. Moore's +Muse is another Ariel, as light, as tricksy, as indefatigable, and as +humane a spirit. His fancy is for ever on the wing, flutters in the +gale, glitters in the sun. Every thing lives, moves, and sparkles in his +poetry, while over all love waves his purple light. His thoughts are as +restless, as many, and as bright as the insects that people the sun's +beam. "So work the honey-bees," extracting liquid sweets from opening +buds; so the butterfly expands its wings to the idle air; so the +thistle's silver down is wafted over summer seas. An airy voyager on +life's stream, his mind inhales the fragrance of a thousand shores, and +drinks of endless pleasures under halcyon skies. Wherever his footsteps +tend over the enamelled ground of fairy fiction-- + + "Around him the bees in play flutter and cluster, + And gaudy butterflies frolic around." + +The fault of Mr. Moore is an exuberance of involuntary power. His +facility of production lessens the effect of, and hangs as a dead weight +upon, what he produces. His levity at last oppresses. The infinite +delight he takes in such an infinite number of things, creates +indifference in minds less susceptible of pleasure than his own. He +exhausts attention by being inexhaustible. His variety cloys; his +rapidity dazzles and distracts the sight. The graceful ease with which +he lends himself to every subject, the genial spirit with which he +indulges in every sentiment, prevents him from giving their full force +to the masses of things, from connecting them into a whole. He wants +intensity, strength, and grandeur. His mind does not brood over the +great and permanent; it glances over the surfaces, the first impressions +of things, instead of grappling with the deep-rooted prejudices of the +mind, its inveterate habits, and that "perilous stuff that weighs upon +the heart." His pen, as it is rapid and fanciful, wants momentum and +passion. It requires the same principle to make us thoroughly like +poetry, that makes us like ourselves so well, the feeling of continued +identity. The impressions of Mr. Moore's poetry are detached, desultory, +and physical. Its gorgeous colours brighten and fade like the rainbow's. +Its sweetness evaporates like the effluvia exhaled from beds of flowers! +His gay laughing style, which relates to the immediate pleasures of love +or wine, is better than his sentimental and romantic vein. His Irish +melodies are not free from affectation and a certain sickliness of +pretension. His serious descriptions are apt to run into flowery +tenderness. His pathos sometimes melts into a mawkish sensibility, or +crystallizes into all the prettinesses of allegorical language, and +glittering hardness of external imagery. But he has wit at will, and of +the first quality. His satirical and burlesque poetry is his best: it is +first-rate. His Twopenny Post-Bag is a perfect "nest of spicery"; where +the Cayenne is not spared. The politician there sharpens the poet's pen. +In this too, our bard resembles the bee--he has its honey and its +sting. + +Mr. Moore ought not to have written Lalla Rookh, even for three +thousand guineas. His fame is worth more than that. He should have +minded the advice of Fadladeen. It is not, however, a failure, so much +as an evasion and a consequent disappointment of public expectation. He +should have left it to others to break conventions with nations, and +faith with the world. He should, at any rate, have kept his with the +public. Lalla Rookh is not what people wanted to see whether Mr. Moore +could do; namely, whether he could write a long epic poem. It is four +short tales. The interest, however, is often high-wrought and tragic, +but the execution still turns to the effeminate and voluptuous side. +Fortitude of mind is the first requisite of a tragic or epic writer. +Happiness of nature and felicity of genius are the pre-eminent +characteristics of the bard of Erin. If he is not perfectly contented +with what he is, all the world beside is. He had no temptation to risk +any thing in adding to the love and admiration of his age, and more than +one country. + + "Therefore to be possessed with double pomp, + To guard a title that was rich before, + To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, + To throw a perfume on the violet, + To smooth the ice, or add another hue + Unto the rainbow, or with taper light + To seek the beauteous eye of heav'n to garnish, + Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." + +The same might be said of Mr. Moore's seeking to bind an epic crown, or +the shadow of one, round his other laurels. + +If Mr. Moore has not suffered enough personally, Lord Byron (judging +from the tone of his writings) might be thought to have suffered too +much to be a truly great poet. If Mr. Moore lays himself too open to all +the various impulses of things, the outward shews of earth and sky, to +every breath that blows, to every stray sentiment that crosses his +fancy; Lord Byron shuts himself up too much in the impenetrable gloom of +his own thoughts, and buries the natural light of things in "nook +monastic." The Giaour, the Corsair, Childe Harold, are all the same +person, and they are apparently all himself. The everlasting repetition +of one subject, the same dark ground of fiction, with the darker colours +of the poet's mind spread over it, the unceasing accumulation of horrors +on horror's head, steels the mind against the sense of pain, as +inevitably as the unwearied Siren sounds and luxurious monotony of Mr. +Moore's poetry make it inaccessible to pleasure. Lord Byron's poetry is +as morbid as Mr. Moore's is careless and dissipated. He has more depth +of passion, more force and impetuosity, but the passion is always of the +same unaccountable character, at once violent and sullen, fierce and +gloomy. It is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune, or +the hopelessness of its desires, but of a mind preying upon itself, and +disgusted with, or indifferent to all other things. There is nothing +less poetical than this sort of unaccommodating selfishness. There is +nothing more repulsive than this sort of ideal absorption of all the +interests of others, of the good and ills of life, in the ruling passion +and moody abstraction of a single mind, as if it would make itself the +centre of the universe, and there was nothing worth cherishing but its +intellectual diseases. It is like a cancer, eating into the heart of +poetry. But still there is power; and power rivets attention and forces +admiration. "He hath a demon:" and that is the next thing to being full +of the God. His brow collects the scattered gloom: his eye flashes livid +fire that withers and consumes. But still we watch the progress of the +scathing bolt with interest, and mark the ruin it leaves behind with +awe. Within the contracted range of his imagination, he has great unity +and truth of keeping. He chooses elements and agents congenial to his +mind, the dark and glittering ocean, the frail bark hurrying before the +storm, pirates and men that "house on the wild sea with wild usages." He +gives the tumultuous eagerness of action, and the fixed despair of +thought. In vigour of style and force of conception, he in one sense +surpasses every writer of the present day. His indignant apothegms are +like oracles of misanthropy. He who wishes for "a curse to kill with," +may find it in Lord Byron's writings. Yet he has beauty lurking +underneath his strength, tenderness sometimes joined with the phrenzy of +despair. A flash of golden light sometimes follows from a stroke of his +pencil, like a falling meteor. The flowers that adorn his poetry bloom +over charnel-houses and the grave! + +There is one subject on which Lord Byron is fond of writing, on which +I wish he would not write--Buonaparte. Not that I quarrel with his +writing for him, or against him, but with his writing both for him and +against him. What right has he to do this? Buonaparte's character, be it +what else it may, does not change every hour according to his Lordship's +varying humour. He is not a pipe for Fortune's finger, or for his +Lordship's Muse, to play what stop she pleases on. Why should Lord Byron +now laud him to the skies in the hour of his success, and then peevishly +wreak his disappointment on the God of his idolatry? The man he writes +of does not rise or fall with circumstances: but "looks on tempests and +is never shaken." Besides, he is a subject for history, and not for +poetry. + + "Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread, + But as the marigold at the sun's eye, + And in themselves their pride lies buried; + For at a frown they in their glory die. + The painful warrior, famoused for fight, + After a thousand victories once foil'd, + Is from the book of honour razed quite, + And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd." + +If Lord Byron will write any thing more on this hazardous theme, let him +take these lines of Shakspeare for his guide, and finish them in the +spirit of the original--they will then be worthy of the subject. + +Walter Scott is the most popular of all the poets of the present day, +and deservedly so. He describes that which is most easily and generally +understood with more vivacity and effect than any body else. He has no +excellences, either of a lofty or recondite kind, which lie beyond the +reach of the most ordinary capacity to find out; but he has all the good +qualities which all the world agree to understand. His style is clear, +flowing, and transparent: his sentiments, of which his style is an easy +and natural medium, are common to him with his readers. He has none of +Mr. Wordsworth's _idiosyncracy_. He differs from his readers only in a +greater range of knowledge and facility of expression. His poetry +belongs to the class of _improvisatori_ poetry. It has neither depth, +height, nor breadth in it; neither uncommon strength, nor uncommon +refinement of thought, sentiment, or language. It has no originality. +But if this author has no research, no moving power in his own breast, +he relies with the greater safety and success on the force of his +subject. He selects a story such as is sure to please, full of +incidents, characters, peculiar manners, costume, and scenery; and he +tells it in a way that can offend no one. He never wearies or +disappoints you. He is communicative and garrulous; but he is not his +own hero. He never obtrudes himself on your notice to prevent your +seeing the subject. What passes in the poem, passes much as it would +have done in reality. The author has little or nothing to do with it. +Mr. Scott has great intuitive power of fancy, great vividness of pencil +in placing external objects and events before the eye. The force of his +mind is picturesque, rather than _moral_. He gives more of the features +of nature than the soul of passion. He conveys the distinct outlines and +visible changes in outward objects, rather than "their mortal +consequences." He is very inferior to Lord Byron in intense passion, to +Moore in delightful fancy, to Mr. Wordsworth in profound sentiment: but +he has more picturesque power than any of them; that is, he places the +objects themselves, about which _they_ might feel and think, in a much +more striking point of view, with greater variety of dress and attitude, +and with more local truth of colouring. His imagery is Gothic and +grotesque. The manners and actions have the interest and curiosity +belonging to a wild country and a distant period of time. Few +descriptions have a more complete reality, a more striking appearance of +life and motion, than that of the warriors in the Lady of the Lake, who +start up at the command of Rhoderic Dhu, from their concealment under +the fern, and disappear again in an instant. The Lay of the Last +Minstrel and Marmion are the first, and perhaps the best of his works. +The Goblin Page, in the first of these, is a very interesting and +inscrutable little personage. In reading these poems, I confess I am a +little disconcerted, in turning over the page, to find Mr. Westall's +pictures, which always seem _fac-similes_ of the persons represented, +with ancient costume and a theatrical air. This may be a compliment to +Mr. Westall, but it is not one to Walter Scott. The truth is, there is a +modern air in the midst of the antiquarian research of Mr. Scott's +poetry. It is history or tradition in masquerade. Not only the crust of +old words and images is worn off with time,--the substance is grown +comparatively light and worthless. The forms are old and uncouth; but +the spirit is effeminate and frivolous. This is a deduction from the +praise I have given to his pencil for extreme fidelity, though it has +been no obstacle to its drawing-room success. He has just hit the town +between the romantic and the fashionable; and between the two, secured +all classes of readers on his side. In a word, I conceive that he is to +the great poet, what an excellent mimic is to a great actor. There is no +determinate impression left on the mind by reading his poetry. It has no +results. The reader rises up from the perusal with new images and +associations, but he remains the same man that he was before. A great +mind is one that moulds the minds of others. Mr. Scott has put the +Border Minstrelsy and scattered traditions of the country into easy, +animated verse. But the Notes to his poems are just as entertaining as +the poems themselves, and his poems are only entertaining. + +Mr. Wordsworth is the most original poet now living. He is the +reverse of Walter Scott in his defects and excellences. He has nearly +all that the other wants, and wants all that the other possesses. His +poetry is not external, but internal; it does not depend upon tradition, +or story, or old song; he furnishes it from his own mind, and is his own +subject. He is the poet of mere sentiment. Of many of the Lyrical +Ballads, it is not possible to speak in terms of too high praise, such +as Hart-leap Well, the Banks of the Wye, Poor Susan, parts of the +Leech-gatherer, the lines to a Cuckoo, to a Daisy, the Complaint, +several of the Sonnets, and a hundred others of inconceivable beauty, of +perfect originality and pathos. They open a finer and deeper vein of +thought and feeling than any poet in modern times has done, or +attempted. He has produced a deeper impression, and on a smaller circle, +than any other of his contemporaries. His powers have been mistaken by +the age, nor does he exactly understand them himself. He cannot form a +whole. He has not the constructive faculty. He can give only the fine +tones of thought, drawn from his mind by accident or nature, like the +sounds drawn from the AEolian harp by the wandering gale.--He is +totally deficient in all the machinery of poetry. His _Excursion_, taken +as a whole, notwithstanding the noble materials thrown away in it, is a +proof of this. The line labours, the sentiment moves slow, but the poem +stands stock-still. The reader makes no way from the first line to the +last. It is more than any thing in the world like Robinson Crusoe's +boat, which would have been an excellent good boat, and would have +carried him to the other side of the globe, but that he could not get it +out of the sand where it stuck fast. I did what little I could to help +to launch it at the time, but it would not do. I am not, however, one of +those who laugh at the attempts or failures of men of genius. It is not +my way to cry "Long life to the conqueror." Success and desert are not +with me synonymous terms; and the less Mr. Wordsworth's general merits +have been understood, the more necessary is it to insist upon them. This +is not the place to repeat what I have already said on the subject. The +reader may turn to it in the Round Table. I do not think, however, there +is any thing in the larger poem equal to many of the detached pieces in +the Lyrical Ballads. As Mr. Wordsworth's poems have been little known to +the public, or chiefly through garbled extracts from them, I will here +give an entire poem (one that has always been a favourite with me), that +the reader may know what it is that the admirers of this author find to +be delighted with in his poetry. Those who do not feel the beauty and +the force of it, may save themselves the trouble of inquiring farther. + +HART-LEAP WELL. + + The knight had ridden down from Wensley moor + With the slow motion of a summer's cloud; + He turned aside towards a vassal's door, + And, "Bring another horse!" he cried aloud. + + "Another horse!"--That shout the vassal heard, + And saddled his best steed, a comely gray; + Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third + Which he had mounted on that glorious day. + + Joy sparkled in the prancing courser's eyes: + The horse and horseman are a happy pair; + But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies, + There is a doleful silence in the air. + + A rout this morning left Sir Walter's hall, + That as they galloped made the echoes roar; + But horse and man are vanished, one and all; + Such race, I think, was never seen before. + + Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind, + Calls to the few tired dogs that yet remain: + Brach, Swift, and Music, noblest of their kind, + Follow, and up the weary mountain strain. + + The knight hallooed, he chid and cheered them on + With suppliant gestures and upbraidings stern; + But breath and eye-sight fail; and, one by one, + The dogs are stretched among the mountain fern. + + Where is the throng, the tumult of the race? + The bugles that so joyfully were blown? + --This chase it looks not like an earthly chase; + Sir Walter and the hart are left alone. + + The poor hart toils along the mountain side; + I will not stop to tell how far he fled, + Nor will I mention by what death he died; + But now the knight beholds him lying dead. + + Dismounting then, he leaned against a thorn; + He had no follower, dog, nor man, nor boy: + He neither smacked his whip, nor blew his horn, + But gazed upon the spoil with silent joy. + + Close to the thorn on which Sir Walter leaned, + Stood his dumb partner in this glorious act; + Weak as a lamb the hour that it is yeaned; + And foaming like a mountain cataract. + + Upon his side the hart was lying stretched: + His nose half-touched a spring beneath a hill, + And with the last deep groan his breath had fetched + The waters of the spring were trembling still. + + And now, too happy for repose or rest, + (Was never man in such a joyful case!) + Sir Walter walked all round, north, south, and west, + And gazed, and gazed upon that darling place. + + And climbing up the hill--(it was at least + Nine roods of sheer ascent) Sir Walter found, + Three several hoof-marks which the hunted beast + Had left imprinted on the verdant ground. + + Sir Walter wiped his face and cried, "Till now + Such sight was never seen by living eyes: + Three leaps have borne him from this lofty brow, + Down to the very fountain where he lies. + + I'll build a pleasure-house upon this spot, + And a small arbour, made for rural joy; + 'Twill be the traveller's shed, the pilgrim's cot, + A place of love for damsels that are coy. + + A cunning artist will I have to frame + A bason for that fountain in the dell; + And they, who do make mention of the same + From this day forth, shall call it HART-LEAP WELL. + + And, gallant brute! to make thy praises known, + Another monument shall here be raised; + Three several pillars, each a rough-hewn stone, + And planted where thy hoofs the turf have grazed. + + And, in the summer-time when days are long, + I will come hither with my paramour; + And with the dancers, and the minstrel's song, + We will make merry in that pleasant bower. + + Till the foundations of the mountains fail, + My mansion with its arbour shall endure;-- + The joy of them who till the fields of Swale, + And them who dwell among the woods of Ure!" + + Then home he went, and left the hart, stone-dead, + With breathless nostrils stretched above the spring. + --Soon did the knight perform what he had said, + And far and wide the fame thereof did ring. + + Ere thrice the moon into her port had steered, + A cup of stone received the living well; + Three pillars of rude stone Sir Walter reared, + And built a house of pleasure in the dell. + + And near the fountain, flowers of stature tall + With trailing plants and trees were intertwined,-- + Which soon composed a little sylvan hall, + A leafy shelter from the sun and wind. + + And thither, when the summer-days were long, + Sir Walter journeyed with his paramour; + And with the dancers and the minstrel's song + Made merriment within that pleasant bower. + + The knight, Sir Walter, died in course of time, + And his bones lie in his paternal vale.-- + But there is matter for a second rhyme, + And I to this would add another tale." + +PART SECOND. + + "The moving accident is not my trade: + To freeze the blood I have no ready arts: + 'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade, + To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts. + + As I from Hawes to Richmond did repair, + It chanced that I saw standing in a dell + Three aspens at three corners of a square, + And one, not four yards distant, near a well. + + What this imported I could ill divine: + And, pulling now the rein my horse to stop, + I saw three pillars standing in a line, + The last stone pillar on a dark hill-top. + + The trees were gray, with neither arms nor head; + Half-wasted the square mound of tawny green; + So that you just might say, as then I said, + "Here in old time the hand of man hath been." + + I looked upon the hill both far and near, + More doleful place did never eye survey; + It seemed as if the spring-time came not here, + And Nature here were willing to decay. + + I stood in various thoughts and fancies lost, + When one, who was in shepherd's garb attired, + Came up the hollow:--Him did I accost, + And what this place might be I then inquired. + + The shepherd stopped, and that same story told + Which in my former rhyme I have rehearsed. + "A jolly place," said he, "in times of old! + But something ails it now; the spot is curst. + + You see these lifeless stumps of aspen wood-- + Some say that they are beeches, others elms-- + These were the bower; and here a mansion stood, + The finest palace of a hundred realms! + + The arbour does its own condition tell; + You see the stones, the fountain, and the stream; + But as to the great lodge! you might as well + Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream. + + There's neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep, + Will wet his lips within that cup of stone; + And oftentimes, when all are fast asleep, + This water doth send forth a dolorous groan. + + Some say that here a murder has been done, + And blood cries out for blood: but, for my part, + I've guessed, when I've been sitting in the sun, + That it was all for that unhappy hart. + + What thoughts must through the creature's brain have passed! + Even from the top-most stone, upon the steep, + Are but three bounds--and look, Sir, at this last-- + --O Master! it has been a cruel leap. + + For thirteen hours he ran a desperate race; + And in my simple mind we cannot tell + What cause the hart might have to love this place, + And come and make his death-bed near the well. + + Here on the grass perhaps asleep he sank, + Lulled by this fountain in the summer-tide; + This water was perhaps the first he drank + When he had wandered from his mother's side. + + In April here beneath the scented thorn + He heard the birds their morning carols sing; + And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born + Not half a furlong from that self-same spring. + + But now here's neither grass nor pleasant shade; + The sun on drearier hollow never shone; + So will it be, as I have often said, + Till trees, and stones, and fountain all are gone." + + "Gray-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well; + Small difference lies between thy creed and mine: + This beast not unobserved by Nature fell; + His death was mourned by sympathy divine. + + The Being, that is in the clouds and air, + That is in the green leaves among the groves, + Maintains a deep, and reverential care + For the unoffending creatures whom he loves. + + The pleasure-house is dust:--behind, before, + This is no common waste, no common gloom; + But Nature, in due course of time, once more + Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom. + + She leaves these objects to a slow decay, + That what we are, and have been, may be known; + But at the coming of the milder day, + These monuments shall all be overgrown. + + One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide, + Taught both by what she shews, and what conceals, + Never to blend our pleasure or our pride + With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." + +Mr. Wordsworth is at the head of that which has been denominated the +Lake school of poetry; a school which, with all my respect for it, I do +not think sacred from criticism or exempt from faults, of some of which +faults I shall speak with becoming frankness; for I do not see that the +liberty of the press ought to be shackled, or freedom of speech +curtailed, to screen either its revolutionary or renegado extravagances. +This school of poetry had its origin in the French revolution, or rather +in those sentiments and opinions which produced that revolution; and +which sentiments and opinions were indirectly imported into this country +in translations from the German about that period. Our poetical +literature had, towards the close of the last century, degenerated into +the most trite, insipid, and mechanical of all things, in the hands of +the followers of Pope and the old French school of poetry. It wanted +something to stir it up, and it found that some thing in the principles +and events of the French revolution. From the impulse it thus received, +it rose at once from the most servile imitation and tamest common-place, +to the utmost pitch of singularity and paradox. The change in the +belles-lettres was as complete, and to many persons as startling, as the +change in politics, with which it went hand in hand. There was a mighty +ferment in the heads of statesmen and poets, kings and people. According +to the prevailing notions, all was to be natural and new. Nothing that +was established was to be tolerated. All the common-place figures of +poetry, tropes, allegories, personifications, with the whole heathen +mythology, were instantly discarded; a classical allusion was considered +as a piece of antiquated foppery; capital letters were no more allowed +in print, than letters-patent of nobility were permitted in real life; +kings and queens were dethroned from their rank and station in +legitimate tragedy or epic poetry, as they were decapitated elsewhere; +rhyme was looked upon as a relic of the feudal system, and regular metre +was abolished along with regular government. Authority and fashion, +elegance or arrangement, were hooted out of countenance, as pedantry and +prejudice. Every one did that which was good in his own eyes. The object +was to reduce all things to an absolute level; and a singularly affected +and outrageous simplicity prevailed in dress and manners, in style and +sentiment. A striking effect produced where it was least expected, +something new and original, no matter whether good, bad, or indifferent, +whether mean or lofty, extravagant or childish, was all that was aimed +at, or considered as compatible with sound philosophy and an age of +reason. The licentiousness grew extreme: Coryate's Crudities were +nothing to it. The world was to be turned topsy-turvy; and poetry, by +the good will of our Adam-wits, was to share its fate and begin _de +novo_. It was a time of promise, a renewal of the world and of letters; +and the Deucalions, who were to perform this feat of regeneration, were +the present poet-laureat and the two authors of the Lyrical Ballads. The +Germans, who made heroes of robbers, and honest women of cast-off +mistresses, had already exhausted the extravagant and marvellous in +sentiment and situation: our native writers adopted a wonderful +simplicity of style and matter. The paradox they set out with was, that +all things are by nature equally fit subjects for poetry; or that if +there is any preference to be given, those that are the meanest and most +unpromising are the best, as they leave the greatest scope for the +unbounded stores of thought and fancy in the writer's own mind. Poetry +had with them "neither buttress nor coigne of vantage to make its +pendant bed and procreant cradle." It was not "born so high: its aiery +buildeth in the cedar's top, and dallies with the wind, and scorns the +sun." It grew like a mushroom out of the ground; or was hidden in it +like a truffle, which it required a particular sagacity and industry to +find out and dig up. They founded the new school on a principle of sheer +humanity, on pure nature void of art. It could not be said of these +sweeping reformers and dictators in the republic of letters, that "in +their train walked crowns and crownets; that realms and islands, like +plates, dropt from their pockets": but they were surrounded, in company +with the Muses, by a mixed rabble of idle apprentices and Botany Bay +convicts, female vagrants, gipsies, meek daughters in the family of +Christ, of ideot boys and mad mothers, and after them "owls and +night-ravens flew." They scorned "degrees, priority, and place, +insisture, course, proportion, season, form, office, and custom in all +line of order":--the distinctions of birth, the vicissitudes of +fortune, did not enter into their abstracted, lofty, and levelling +calculation of human nature. He who was more than man, with them was +none. They claimed kindred only with the commonest of the people: +peasants, pedlars, and village-barbers were their oracles and bosom +friends. Their poetry, in the extreme to which it professedly tended, +and was in effect carried, levels all distinctions of nature and +society; has "no figures nor no fantasies," which the prejudices of +superstition or the customs of the world draw in the brains of men; "no +trivial fond records" of all that has existed in the history of past +ages; it has no adventitious pride, pomp, or circumstance, to set it +off; "the marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe;" neither tradition, +reverence, nor ceremony, "that to great ones 'longs": it breaks in +pieces the golden images of poetry, and defaces its armorial bearings, +to melt them down in the mould of common humanity or of its own upstart +self-sufficiency. They took the same method in their new-fangled "metre +ballad-mongering" scheme, which Rousseau did in his prose paradoxes-- +of exciting attention by reversing the established standards of opinion +and estimation in the world. They were for bringing poetry back to its +primitive simplicity and state of nature, as he was for bringing society +back to the savage state: so that the only thing remarkable left in the +world by this change, would be the persons who had produced it. A +thorough adept in this school of poetry and philanthropy is jealous of +all excellence but his own. He does not even like to share his +reputation with his subject; for he would have it all proceed from his +own power and originality of mind. Such a one is slow to admire any +thing that is admirable; feels no interest in what is most interesting +to others, no grandeur in any thing grand, no beauty in anything +beautiful. He tolerates only what he himself creates; he sympathizes +only with what can enter into no competition with him, with "the bare +trees and mountains bare, and grass in the green field." He sees nothing +but himself and the universe. He hates all greatness and all pretensions +to it, whether well or ill-founded. His egotism is in some respects a +madness; for he scorns even the admiration of himself, thinking it a +presumption in any one to suppose that he has taste or sense enough to +understand him. He hates all science and all art; he hates chemistry, he +hates conchology; he hates Voltaire; he hates Sir Isaac Newton; he hates +wisdom; he hates wit; he hates metaphysics, which he says are +unintelligible, and yet he would be thought to understand them; he hates +prose; he hates all poetry but his own; he hates the dialogues in +Shakespeare; he hates music, dancing, and painting; he hates Rubens, he +hates Rembrandt; he hates Raphael, he hates Titian; he hates Vandyke; he +hates the antique; he hates the Apollo Belvidere; he hates the Venus of +Medicis. This is the reason that so few people take an interest in his +writings, because he takes an interest in nothing that others do!--The +effect has been perceived as something odd; but the cause or principle +has never been distinctly traced to its source before, as far as I know. +The proofs are to be found every where--in Mr. Southey's Botany Bay +Eclogues, in his book of Songs and Sonnets, his Odes and Inscriptions, +so well parodied in the Anti-Jacobin Review, in his Joan of Arc, and +last, though not least, in his Wat Tyler: + + "When Adam delved, and Eve span, + Where was then the gentleman?" + +(--or the poet laureat either, we may ask?)--In Mr. Coleridge's Ode to +an Ass's Foal, in his Lines to Sarah, his Religious Musings; and in his +and Mr. Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, _passim_. + +Of Mr. Southey's larger epics, I have but a faint recollection at +this distance of time, but all that I remember of them is mechanical and +extravagant, heavy and superficial. His affected, disjointed style is +well imitated in the Rejected Addresses. The difference between him and +Sir Richard Blackmore seems to be, that the one is heavy and the other +light, the one solemn and the other pragmatical, the one phlegmatic and +the other flippant; and that there is no Gay in the present time to give +a Catalogue Raisonne of the performances of the living undertaker of +epics. Kehama is a loose sprawling figure, such as we see cut out of +wood or paper, and pulled or jerked with wire or thread, to make sudden +and surprising motions, without meaning, grace, or nature in them. By +far the best of his works are some of his shorter personal compositions, +in which there is an ironical mixture of the quaint and serious, such as +his lines on a picture of Gaspar Poussin, the fine tale of Gualberto, +his Description of a Pig, and the Holly-tree, which is an affecting, +beautiful, and modest retrospect on his own character. May the +aspiration with which it concludes be fulfilled! [11]--But the little +he has done of true and sterling excellence, is overloaded by the +quantity of indifferent matter which he turns out every year, "prosing +or versing," with equally mechanical and irresistible facility. His +Essays, or political and moral disquisitions, are not so full of +original matter as Montaigne's. They are second or third rate +compositions in that class. + +___ +[11] + "O reader! hast thou ever stood to see + The Holly Tree? + The eye that contemplates it well perceives + Its glossy leaves, + Ordered by an intelligence so wise + As might confound the Atheist's sophistries. + + Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen + Wrinkled and keen; + No grazing cattle through their prickly round + Can reach to wound; + But as they grow where nothing is to fear, + Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear. + + I love to view these things with curious eyes, + And moralize; + And in the wisdom of the Holly Tree + Can emblems see + Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme, + Such as may profit in the after time. + + So, though abroad perchance I might appear + Harsh and austere, + To those who on my leisure would intrude + Reserved and rude, + Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be, + Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree. + + And should my youth, as youth is apt I know, + Some harshness show, + All vain asperities I day by day + Would wear away, + Till the smooth temper of my age should be + Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree. + + And as when all the summer trees are seen + So bright and green, + The Holly leaves their fadeless hues display + Less bright than they, + But when the bare and wintry woods we see, + What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree? + + So serious should my youth appear among + The thoughtless throng, + So would I seem amid the young and gay + More grave than they, + That in my age as cheerful I might be + As the green winter of the Holly Tree."-- +___ + + +It remains that I should say a few words of Mr. Coleridge; and there +is no one who has a better right to say what he thinks of him than I +have. "Is there here any dear friend of Caesar? To him I say, that +Brutus's love to Caesar was no less than his." But no matter.--His +Ancient Mariner is his most remarkable performance, and the only one +that I could point out to any one as giving an adequate idea of his +great natural powers. It is high German, however, and in it he seems to +"conceive of poetry but as a drunken dream, reckless, careless, and +heedless, of past, present, and to come." His tragedies (for he has +written two) are not answerable to it; they are, except a few poetical +passages, drawling sentiment and metaphysical jargon. He has no genuine +dramatic talent. There is one fine passage in his Christobel, that which +contains the description of the quarrel between Sir Leoline and Sir +Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine, who had been friends in youth. + + "Alas! they had been friends in youth, + But whispering tongues can poison truth; + And constancy lives in realms above; + And life is thorny; and youth is vain; + And to be wroth with one we love, + Doth work like madness in the brain: + And thus it chanc'd as I divine, + With Roland and Sir Leoline. + Each spake words of high disdain + And insult to his heart's best brother, + And parted ne'er to meet again! + But neither ever found another + To free the hollow heart from paining-- + + They stood aloof, the scars remaining, + Like cliffs which had been rent asunder: + A dreary sea now flows between, + But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, + Shall wholly do away I ween + The marks of that which once hath been. + + Sir Leoline a moment's space + Stood gazing on the damsel's face; + And the youthful lord of Tryermaine + Came back upon his heart again." + +It might seem insidious if I were to praise his ode entitled Fire, +Famine, and Slaughter, as an effusion of high poetical enthusiasm, and +strong political feeling. His Sonnet to Schiller conveys a fine +compliment to the author of the Robbers, and an equally fine idea of the +state of youthful enthusiasm in which he composed it. + + "Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die, + If through the shudd'ring midnight I had sent + From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, + That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry-- + + That in no after moment aught less vast + Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout + Black Horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout + From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd. + + Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! + Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood, + Wand'ring at eve, with finely frenzied eye, + Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! + Awhile, with mute awe gazing, I would brood, + Then weep aloud in a wild ecstacy!"-- + +His _Conciones ad Populum_, Watchman, &c. are dreary trash. Of his +Friend, I have spoken the truth elsewhere. But I may say of him here, +that he is the only person I ever knew who answered to the idea of a man +of genius. He is the only person from whom I ever learnt any thing. +There is only one thing he could learn from me in return, but _that_ he +has not. He was the first poet I ever knew. His genius at that time had +angelic wings, and fed on manna. He talked on for ever; and you wished +him to talk on for ever. His thoughts did not seem to come with labour +and effort; but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings +of his imagination lifted him from off his feet. His voice rolled on the +ear like the pealing organ, and its sound alone was the music of +thought. His mind was clothed with wings; and raised on them, he lifted +philosophy to heaven. In his descriptions, you then saw the progress of +human happiness and liberty in bright and never-ending succession, like +the steps of Jacob's ladder, with airy shapes ascending and descending, +and with the voice of God at the top of the ladder. And shall I, who +heard him then, listen to him now? Not I! . . . That spell is broke; that +time is gone for ever; that voice is heard no more: but still the +recollection comes rushing by with thoughts of long-past years, and +rings in my ears with never-dying sound. + + "What though the radiance which was once so bright, + Be now for ever taken from my sight, + Though nothing can bring back the hour + Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flow'r; + I do not grieve, but rather find + Strength in what remains behind; + In the primal sympathy, + Which having been, must ever be; + In the soothing thoughts that spring + Out of human suffering; + In years that bring the philosophic mind!"-- + +I have thus gone through the task I intended, and have come at last +to the level ground. I have felt my subject gradually sinking from under +me as I advanced, and have been afraid of ending in nothing. The +interest has unavoidably decreased at almost every successive step of +the progress, like a play that has its catastrophe in the first or +second act. 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