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diff --git a/19367.txt b/19367.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..43164d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/19367.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2011 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Romance, by Walter Raleigh + + +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: Romance + Two Lectures + + +Author: Walter Raleigh + + + +Release Date: September 25, 2006 [eBook #19367] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1916 Princeton University Press edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + +LOUIS CLARK VANUXEM FOUNDATION + + + + + +ROMANCE + + +TWO LECTURES BY + +SIR WALTER RALEIGH + +M.A., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE +UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, FELLOW OF +MERTON COLLEGE + +LECTURES DELIVERED AT PRINCETON +UNIVERSITY, MAY 4TH AND 6TH, 1915 + +PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS +PRINCETON + +LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD +OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + +1916 + +Copyright, 1916, by +PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS + +Published October, 1916 + + + + +THE ORIGIN OF ROMANCE + + +The period of English political history which falls between Pitt's +acceptance of office as prime minister, in 1783, and the passing of the +Reform Bill, in 1832, is a period rich in character and event. The same +period of fifty years is one of the most crowded epochs of our national +literature. In 1783 William Blake produced his _Poetical Sketches_, and +George Crabbe published _The Village_. In 1832 Scott died, not many +months after the death of Goethe. Between these two dates a great +company of English writers produced a literature of immense bulk, and of +almost endless diversity of character. Yet one dominant strain in that +literature has commonly been allowed to give a name to the whole period, +and it is often called the Age of the Romantic Revival. + +We do not name other notable periods of our literature in this fashion. +The name itself contains a theory, and so marks the rise of a new +philosophical and aesthetic criticism. It attempts to describe as well +as to name, and attaches significance not to kings, or great authors, but +to the kind of writing which flourished conspicuously in that age. A +less ambitious and much more secure name would have been the Age of +George III; but this name has seldom been used, perhaps because the +writers of his time who reverenced King George III were not very many in +number. The danger of basing a name on a theory of literature is that +the theory may very easily be superseded, or may prove to be inadequate, +and then the name, having become immutable by the force of custom, is +left standing, a monument of ancient error. The terminology of the +sciences, which pretends to be exact and colourless, is always being +reduced to emptiness by the progress of knowledge. The thing that struck +the first observer is proved to be less important than he thought it. +Scientific names, for all their air of learned universality, are merely +fossilized impressions, stereotyped portraits of a single aspect. The +decorous obscurity of the ancient languages is used to conceal an immense +diversity of principle. Mammal, amphibian, coleoptera, dicotyledon, +cryptogam,--all these terms, which, if they were translated into the +language of a peasant, would be seen to record very simple observations, +yet do lend a kind of formal majesty to ignorance. + +So it is with the vocabulary of literary criticism: the first use of a +name, because the name was coined by someone who felt the need of it, is +often striking and instructive; the impression is fresh and new. Then +the freshness wears off it, and the name becomes an outworn print, a +label that serves only to recall the memory of past travel. What was +created for the needs of thought becomes a thrifty device, useful only to +save thinking. The best way to restore the habit of thinking is to do +away with the names. The word Romantic loses almost all its meaning and +value when it is used to characterize whole periods of our literature. +Landor and Crabbe belong to a Romantic era of poetry; Steele and Sterne +wrote prose in an age which set before itself the Classic ideal. Yet +there is hardly any distinctively Classical beauty in English verse which +cannot be exemplified from the poetry of Landor and Crabbe; and there are +not very many characteristics of Romantic prose which find no +illustration in the writings of Steele and Sterne. Nevertheless, the +very name of romance has wielded such a power in human affairs, and has +so habitually impressed the human imagination, that time is not misspent +in exhibiting its historical bearings. These great vague words, invented +to facilitate reference to whole centuries of human history--Middle Ages, +Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Revival of Romance--are very often +invoked as if they were something ultimate, as if the names themselves +were a sufficient explanation of all that they include. So an imperfect +terminology is used to gain esteem for an artificial and rigid conception +of things which were as fluid as life itself. The Renaissance, for +instance, in its strict original meaning, is the name for that renewed +study of the classical literatures which manifested itself throughout the +chief countries of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In +Italy, where the movement had its origin, no single conspicuous event can +be used to date it. The traditions inherited from Greece and Rome had +never lost their authority; but with the increase of wealth and leisure +in the city republics they were renewed and strengthened. From being +remnants and memories they became live models; Latin poetry was revived, +and Italian poetry was disciplined by the ancient masters. But the +Renaissance, when it reached the shores of England, so far from giving +new life to the literature it found there, at first degraded it. It +killed the splendid prose school of Malory and Berners, and prose did not +run clear again for a century. It bewildered and confused the minds of +poets, and blending itself with the national tradition, produced the rich +lawlessness of the English sixteenth century. It was a strong tributary +to the stream of our national literature; but the popular usage, which +assigns all that is good in the English literature of the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries to a mysterious event called the Renaissance, is +merely absurd. Modern scholars, if they are forced to find a beginning +for modern literature, would prefer to date it from the wonderful +outburst of vernacular poetry in the latter part of the twelfth century, +and, if they must name a birthplace, would claim attention for the Court +of King Henry II. + +In some of its aspects, the Romantic revival may be exhibited as a +natural consequence of the Renaissance. Classical scholarship at first +scorned the vernacular literatures, and did all its work of criticism and +imitation in the Latin tongue. By degrees the lesson was widened, and +applied to the modern languages. Study; imitation in Latin; extension of +classical usages and principles to modern literature,--these were the +regular stages in the progress of the classical influence. When the +poets of France and England, to name no others, had learned as much as +they were able and willing to learn from the masters of Greece and Rome, +the work of the Renaissance was done. By the middle of the eighteenth +century there was no notable kind of Greek or Latin +literature--historical, philosophical, poetical; epic, elegy, ode, +satire--which had not worthy disciples and rivals in the literatures of +France and England. Nothing remained to do but to go further afield and +seek for new masters. These might easily have been found among the poets +and prophets of the East, and not a few notable writers of the time began +to forage in that direction. But the East was too remote and strange, +and its languages were too little known, for this attempt to be carried +far; the imitation of Chinese and Persian models was practised chiefly by +way of fantasy and joke. The study of the neglected and forgotten matter +of mediaeval times, on the other hand, was undertaken by serious +scholars. The progress of the mediaeval influence reproduced very +exactly the successive phases of the Classical Renaissance. At first +there was study; and books like Sainte Palaye's _Memoirs of Ancient +Chivalry_, and Paul Henri Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, enjoyed a +European reputation. Then followed the period of forgery and imitation, +the age of Ossian and Chatterton, Horace Walpole and Bishop Percy. +Lastly, the poets enrolled themselves in the new school, and an original +literature, suggested by the old, was created by Sir Walter Scott, +Coleridge, and Keats. It was the temper of the antiquary and the +sceptic, in the age of Gibbon and Hume, that begot the Romantic Revival; +and the rebellion of the younger age against the spirit of the eighteenth +century was the rebellion of a child against its parents. + +It is not needful, nor indeed is it possible, to define Romance. In the +mathematical sciences definitions are all-important, because with them +the definition is the thing. When a mathematician asks you to describe a +circle, he asks you to create one. But the man who asks you to describe +a monkey is less exacting; he will be content if you mention some of the +features that seem to you to distinguish a monkey from other animals. +Such a description must needs be based on personal impressions and ideas; +some features must be chosen as being more significant than the rest. In +the history of literature there are only two really significant +things--men, and books. To study the ascertained facts concerning men +and books is to study biography and bibliography, two sciences which +between them supply the only competent and modest part of the history of +literature. To discern the significance of men and books, to classify +and explain them, is another matter. We have not, and we never shall +have, a calculus sufficient for human life even at its weakest and +poorest. Let him who conceives high hopes from the progress of knowledge +and the pertinacity of thought tame and subdue his pride by considering, +for a moment, the game of chess. That game is played with thirty-two +pieces, of six different kinds, on a board of sixty-four squares. Each +kind of piece has one allotted mode of action, which is further cramped +by severe limitations of space. The conditions imposed upon the game are +strict, uniform, and mechanical. Yet those who have made of chess a life- +long study are ready to confess their complete ignorance of the +fundamental merits of particular moves; one game does not resemble +another; and from the most commonplace of developments there may spring +up, on the sudden, wild romantic possibilities and situations that are +like miracles. If these surprising flowers of fancy grow on the chess- +board, how shall we set a limit to the possibilities of human life, which +is chess, with variety and uncertainty many million times increased? It +is prudent, therefore, to say little of the laws which govern the course +of human history, to avoid, except for pastime, the discussion of +tendencies and movements, and to speak chiefly of men and books. If an +author can be exhibited as the effect of certain causes (and I do not +deny that some authors can plausibly be so exhibited) he loses his virtue +as an author. He thought of himself as a cause, a surprising intruder +upon the routine of the world, an original creator. I think that he is +right, and that the profitable study of a man is the study which regards +him as an oddity, not a quiddity. + +A general statement of the law that governs literary history may perhaps +be borrowed from the most unreasonable of the arts--the art of dress. One +of the powerful rulers of men, and therefore of books, is Fashion, and +the fluctuations of literary fashion make up a great part of literary +history. If the history of a single fashion in dress could ever be +written, it would illuminate the literary problem. The motives at work +are the same; thoughtful wearers of clothes, like thoughtful authors, are +all trying to do something new, within the limits assigned by practical +utility and social sympathy. Each desires to express himself and yet in +that very act to win the admiration and liking of his fellows. The great +object is to wear the weeds of humanity with a difference. Some authors, +it is true, like timid or lazy dressers, desire only to conform to usage. +But these, as M. Brunetiere remarks in one of his historical essays, are +precisely the authors who do not count. An author who respects himself +is not content if his work is mistaken for another's, even if that other +be one of the gods of his idolatry. He would rather write his own +signature across faulty work than sink into a copyist of merit. This +eternal temper of self-assertion, this spirit of invention, this +determination to add something or alter something, is no doubt the +principle of life. It questions accepted standards, and makes of +reaction from the reigning fashion a permanent force in literature. The +young want something to do; they will not be loyal subjects in a kingdom +where no land remains to be taken up, nor will they allow the praise of +the dead to be the last word in criticism. Why should they paraphrase +old verdicts? + +The sway of Fashion often bears hardest on a good author just dead, when +the generation that discovered him and acclaimed him begins to pass away. +Then it is not what he did that attracts the notice of the younger sort, +but what he left undone. Tennyson is discovered to be no great thinker. +Pope, who, when his star was in the ascendant, was "Mr. Pope, the new +Poet," has to submit to examination by the Headmaster of Winchester, who +decides that he is not a poet, except in an inferior sense. Shakespeare +is dragged to the bar by Thomas Rymer, who demonstrates, with what degree +of critical ability is still disputed, but certainly in clear and +vigorous English, that Shakespeare has no capacity for tragic writing. +Dante is banished, by the critics of the Renaissance, into the Gothic +darkness. So the pendulum of fashion swings to and fro, compelled, even +in the shortest of its variable oscillations, to revisit the greatest +writers, who are nearest to the centre of rest. Wit and sense, which are +raised by one age into the very essentials of good poetry, are denied the +name of poetry by the next; sentiment, the virtue of one age, is the +exploded vice of another; and Romance comes in and goes out with secular +regularity. + +The meaning of Romance will never come home to him who seeks for it in +modern controversies. The name Romance is itself a memorial of the +conquest of Europe by the Romans. They imposed their language on half +Europe, and profoundly influenced the other half. The dialectical, +provincial Latin, of various kinds, spoken by the conquered peoples, +became the Romance speech; and Romance literature was the new literature +which grew up among these peoples from the ninth century onwards,--or +from an earlier time, if the fringe of Celtic peoples, who kept their +language but felt the full influence of Christianity, be taken into the +account. The chief thing to be noted concerning Romance literature is +that it was a Christian literature, finding its background and +inspiration in the ideas to which the Christian Church gave currency. +While Rome spread her conquests over Europe, at the very heart of her +empire Christianity took root, and by slow process transformed that +empire. During the Middle Ages the Bishops of Rome sat in the seat of +the Roman Emperors. This startling change possessed Gibbon's +imagination, and is the theme of his great work. But the whole of +Gibbon's history was anticipated and condensed by Hobbes in a single +sentence--"If a man considers the original of this great ecclesiastical +dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the +ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave +thereof. For so did the Papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of +that heathen power." + +Here, then, is the answer to a question which at once suggests itself. +How do we get this famous opposition between the older Latin literature +and the literature of those countries which had inherited or accepted the +Latin tradition? Why did not the Romans hand over their literature and +teach it, as they handed over and taught their law? They did teach it in +their schools; grammar and rhetoric, two of the chief subjects of a +liberal education, were purely literary studies, based on the work of the +literary masters of Rome. Never was there an education so completely +literary as the organized education of Rome and of her provinces. How +came it that there was any breach between the old and the new? + +A question of this kind, involving centuries of history, does not admit +of a perfectly simple answer. It may be very reasonably maintained that +in Rome education killed literature. A carefully organized, universal +system of education, which takes for its material the work of great poets +and orators, is certain to breed a whole army of slaves. The teachers, +employed by the machine to expound ideas not their own, soon erect +systems of pedantic dogma, under which the living part of literature is +buried. The experience of ancient Rome is being repeated in the England +of to-day. The officials responsible for education, whatever they may +uneasily pretend, are forced by the necessities of their work to +encourage uniformity, and national education becomes a warehouse of +second-hand goods, presided over by men who cheerfully explain the mind +of Burke or of Shakespeare, adjusting the place of each, and balancing +faults against merits. But Roman education throughout the Empire had +further difficulties to encounter. To understand these it must be +remembered what Latin literature was. The Latins, when we first discern +them in the dim light of the past, were a small, strenuous, political +people, with a passion for government and war. They first subdued Italy, +and no very serious culture-problem resulted from that conquest. The +Etruscans certainly contributed much to Latin civilization, but their +separate history is lost. No one knows what the Etruscans thought. The +Romans do not seem to have cared. They welded Italy together, and +thereafter came into contact with the older, richer civilizations of the +Mediterranean shores. The chief of these, in its influence, was the +Greek civilization, as it had developed in that famous group of free city +states, fostered by the sun and air, and addicted to life. In Athens, at +the time of her glory, life was not a habit, but an experiment. Even the +conservative Romans were infected. They fell under the sway of Greek +thought. When a practical man of business becomes intimate with an +artist, he is never the same man again. The thought of that +disinterested mode of life haunts his dreams. So Rome, though she had +paid little regard to the other ancient peoples with whom she had had +traffic and war, put herself to school to the Greeks. She accepted the +Greek pantheon, renamed the Greek gods and goddesses, and translated and +adopted Greek culture. The real Roman religion was a religion of the +homestead, simple, pious, domestic, but they now added foreign ornaments. +So also with literature; their own native literature was scanty and +practical--laws and rustic proverbs--but they set themselves to produce a +new literature, modelled on the Greek. Virgil followed Homer; Plautus +copied Menander; and Roman literature took on that secondary and +reminiscent character which it never lost. It was a literature of +culture, not of creed. This people had so practical a genius that they +could put the world in harness; for the decoration of the world they were +willing to depend on foreign loans. + +In so far as Latin literature was founded on the Greek, that is, in so +far as it was a derivative and imitative literature, it was not very fit +for missionary purposes. One people can give to another only what is its +own. The Greek gods were useless for export. An example may be taken +from the English rule in India. We can give to the peoples of India our +own representative institutions. We can give them our own authors, +Shakespeare, Burke, Macaulay. But we cannot give them Homer and Virgil, +who nevertheless continue to play an appreciable part in training the +English mind; and we can hardly give them Milton, whose subtlest beauties +depend on the niceties of the Latin speech. The trial for Latin +literature came when obscurely, in the purlieus and kennels of Rome, like +a hidden fermentation, Christianity arose. The earliest Christians were +for the most part illiterate; but when at last Christianity reached the +high places of the government, and controlled the Empire, a problem of +enormous difficulty presented itself for solution. The whole elaborate +educational system of the Romans was founded on the older literature and +the older creeds. All education, law, and culture were pagan. How could +the Christians be educated; and how, unless they were educated, could +they appeal to the minds of educated men? So began a long struggle, +which continued for many centuries, and swayed this way and that. Was +Christianity to be founded barely on the Gospel precepts and on a way of +life, or was it to seek to subdue the world by yielding to it? This, the +religious problem, is the chief educational problem in recorded history. +There were the usual parties; and the fiercest, on both sides, counselled +no surrender. Tertullian, careful for the purity of the new religion, +held it an unlawful thing for Christians to become teachers in the Roman +schools. Later, in the reign of Julian the Apostate, an edict forbade +Christians to teach in the schools, but this time for another reason, +lest they should draw away the youth from the older faith. In the end +the result was a practical compromise, arranged by certain ecclesiastical +politicians, themselves lovers of letters, between the old world and the +new. It was agreed, in effect, that the schools should teach humane +letters and mythology, leaving it to the Church to teach divine doctrine +and the conduct of life. All later history bears the marks of this +compromise. Here was the beginning of that distinction and apportionment +between the secular and the sacred which is so much more conspicuous in +Christian communities than ever it has been among the followers of other +religions. Here also was the beginning of that strange mixture, familiar +to all students of literature, whereby the Bible and Virgil are quoted as +equal authorities, Plato is set over against St. Paul, the Sibyl confirms +the words of David, and, when a youth of promise, destined for the +Church, is drowned, St. Peter and a river-god are the chief mourners at +his poetic obsequies. This mixture is not a fantasy of the Renaissance; +it has been part and parcel, from the earliest times, of the tradition of +the Christian church. + +History is larger than morality; and a wise man will not attempt to pass +judgment on those who found themselves in so unparalleled a position. A +new religion, claiming an authority not of this world, prevailed in this +world, and was confronted with all the resources of civilization, +inextricably entangled with the ancient pagan faiths. What was to be +done? The Gospel precepts seemed to admit of no transaction. "They that +say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if +they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they +might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a +better country, that is an heavenly." The material prosperity and social +order which Law and Politics take such pains to preserve and increase are +no part of their care. They are strangers and pilgrims in the country +where they pitch their tent for a night. How dare they spend time on +cherishing the painted veil called Life, when their desires are fixed on +what it conceals? When Tacitus called the Christian religion "a deadly +superstition," he spoke as a true Roman, a member of the race of Empire- +builders. His subtle political instinct scented danger from those who +looked with coldness on the business and desire of this world. The +Christian faith, which presents no social difficulties while it is +professed here and there by a lonely saint or seer, is another thing when +it becomes the formal creed of a nation. The Christians themselves knew +that to cut themselves off from the country of their birth would have +been a fatal choice, so far as this world is concerned. Their ultimate +decision was to accept Roman civilization and Roman culture, and to add +Christianity to it. + +Then followed an age-long attempt to Christianize Latin literature, to +supply believers with a new poetry, written in polished and accomplished +verse, and inspired by Christian doctrine. Of those who attempted this +task, Prudentius is perhaps the greatest name. The attempt could never +have been very successful; those who write in Latin verse must submit to +be judged, not by the truth of their teaching, but by the formal beauties +of their prosody, and the wealth of their allusive learning. Even +Milton, zealot though he be, is esteemed for his manner rather than for +his matter. But the experiment was cut short by the barbarian invasions. +When the Empire was invaded, St. Jerome and St. Augustine, Prudentius and +Symmachus, Claudian and Paulinus of Nola, were all alive. These men, in +varying degrees, had compounded and blended the two elements, the pagan +and the Christian. The two have been compounded ever since. The famous +sevententh century controversy concerning the fitness of sacred subjects +for poetic treatment is but a repetition and an echo of that older and +more vital difference. The two strains could never be perfectly +reconciled, so that a certain impurity and confusion was bequeathed to +modern European literature, not least to English literature. Ours is a +great and various literature, but its rarest virtue is simplicity. Our +best ballads and lyrics are filled with the matter of faith, but as often +as we try the larger kinds of poetry, we inevitably pass over into +reminiscence, learning, criticism,--in a word, culture. + +The barbarians seized, or were granted, land; and settled down under +their chiefs. They accepted Christianity, and made it into a warlike +religion. They learned and "corrupted" the Latin language. In their +dialects they had access neither to the literature of ancient Rome, nor +to the imitative scholarly Christian literature, poetry and homily, which +competed with it. Latin continued to be the language of religion and +law. It was full of terms and allusions which meant nothing to them. +They knew something of government,--not of the old republic, but of their +own men and estates. They believed wholly and simply in Christianity, +especially the miraculous part of it. To them (as to all whom it has +most profoundly influenced) it was not a philosophy, but a history of +marvellous events. When, by the operation of society, their dialect had +formed itself, a new literature, unlike anything that had flourished in +ancient Rome, grew up among them. This was Romance, the great literary +form of the Middle Ages. It was a sincere literature, expressive of +their pride in arms and their simple religious faith. The early songs +and ballads, chanted in the Romance speech, have all perished. From a +later time there have come down to us the _Chansons de Geste_, narrative +poems composed by the professional caste of poets to celebrate the deeds +and adventures of the knights who fought the battles of Charlemagne +against the Saracen invader. + +The note of this Romance literature is that it was actual, modern, +realistic, at a time when classical literature had become a remote +convention of bookish culture. It was sung in the banqueting-hall, while +Latin poetry was read in the cells of monks. It flourished enormously, +and extended itself to all the matter of history and legend, to King +Arthur, Theseus, Alexander, ancient heroes and warriors who were brought +alive again in the likeness of knights and emperors. Its triumph was so +complete, that its decadence followed swiftly. Like the creatures that +live in the blood of man, literary forms and species commonly die of +their own excess. Romances were multiplied, and imitated; professional +poets, not content with marvels that had now become familiar, sought for +a new sensation in extravagant language and incident. The tales became +more and more sophisticated, elaborate, grotesque, and unreal, until, in +the fourteenth century, a stout townsman, who ticketed bales in a custom- +house, and was the best English poet of his time, found them ridiculous. +In _Sir Thopas_ Chaucer parodies the popular literature of his day. Sir +Thopas is a great reader of romances; he models himself on the heroes +whose deeds possess his imagination, and scours the English countryside, +seeking in vain for the fulfilment of his dreams of prowess. + +So Romance declined; and by the end of the seventeenth century the +fashion is completely reversed; the pendulum has swung back; now it is +the literature inspired by the old classical models that is real, and +handles actual human interests, while Romantic literature has become +remote, fictitious, artificial. This does not mean that the men of the +later seventeenth century believed in the gods and Achilles, but not in +the saints and Arthur. It means that classical literature was found best +to imitate for its form. The greater classical writers had described the +life of man, as they saw it, in direct and simple language, carefully +ordered by art. After a long apprenticeship of translation and +imitation, modern writers adopted the old forms, and filled them with +modern matter. The old mythology, when it was kept, was used +allegorically and allusively. Common-sense, pointedly expressed, with +some traditional ornament and fable, became the matter of poetry. + +A rough summary of this kind is enough to show how large a question is +involved in the history of Romance. All literary history is a long +record of the struggle between those two rival teachers of man--books, +and the experience of life. Good books describe the world, and teach +whole generations to interpret the world. Because they throw light on +the life of man, they enjoy a vast esteem, and are set up in a position +of authority. Then they generate other books; and literature, receding +further and further from the source of truth, becomes bookish and +conventional, until those who have been taught to see nature through the +spectacles of books grow uneasy, and throw away the distorting glasses, +to look at nature afresh with the naked eye. They also write books, it +may be, and attract a crowd of imitators, who produce a literature no +less servile than the literature it supplants. + +This movement of the sincere and independent human mind is found in the +great writers of all periods, and is called the Return to Nature. It is +seen in Pope no less than in Wordsworth; in _The Rape of the Lock_ no +less than in _Peter Bell_. Indeed the whole history of the mock-heroic, +and the work of Tassoni, Boileau, and Pope, the three chief masters in +that kind, was a reassertion of sincerity and nature against the stilted +conventions of the late literary epic. The _Iliad_ is the story of a +quarrel. What do men really quarrel about? Is there any more +distinctive mark of human quarrels than the eternal triviality of the +immediate cause? The insulting removal of a memorial emblem from an +Italian city; the shifting of a reading-desk from one position to another +in a French church; the playful theft of a lock of hair by an amorous +young English nobleman--these were enough, in point of fact, to set whole +communities by the ears, and these are the events celebrated in _The Rape +of the Bucket_, _The Rape of the Lectern_, _The Rape of the Lock_. How +foolish it is to suppose that nature and truth are to be found in one +school of poetry to the exclusion of another! The eternal virtues of +literature are sincerity, clarity, breadth, force, and subtlety. They +are to be found, in diverse combinations, now here and now there. While +the late Latin Christian poets were bound over to Latin models--to +elegant reminiscences of a faded mythology and the tricks of a +professional rhetoric--there arose a new school, intent on making +literature real and modern. These were the Romance poets. If they +pictured Theseus as a duke, and Jason as a wandering knight, it was +because they thought of them as live men, and took means to make them +live for the reader or listener. The realism of the early literature of +the Middle Ages is perhaps best seen in old Irish. The monk bewails the +lawlessness of his wandering thoughts, which run after dreams of beauty +and pleasure during the hour of divine service. The hermit in the wood +describes, with loving minuteness, the contents of his larder. Never was +there a fresher or more spontaneous poetry than the poetry of this early +Christian people. But it is not in the direct line of descent, for it +was written in the Celtic speech of a people who did not achieve the +government of Europe. The French romances inherited the throne, and +passed through all the stages of elaboration and decadence. They too, in +their turn, became a professional rhetoric, false and tedious. When they +ceased to be a true picture of life, they continued in esteem as a school +of manners and deportment for the fantastic gallantry of a court. Yet +through them all their Christian origin shines. Their very themes bear +witness to the teaching of Christian asceticism and Christian idealism. +The quest of a lady never seen; the temptations that present themselves +to a wandering knight under the disguise of beauty and ease;--these, and +many other familiar romantic plots borrow their inspiration from the same +source. Not a few of the old fairy stories, preserved in folk-lore, are +full of religious meaning--they are the Christian literature of the Dark +Ages. Nor is it hard to discern the Christian origins of later Romantic +poetry. Pope's morality has little enough of the religious character: + + Know then this truth (enough for Man to know), + Virtue alone is Happiness below. + +But Coleridge, when he moralizes, speaks the language of Christianity: + + He prayeth best, who loveth best + All things both great and small; + For the dear God who loveth us + He made and loveth all. + +The like contrast holds between Dryden and Shelley. It is perhaps hardly +fair to take an example from Dryden's poems on religion; they are +rational arguments on difficult topics, after this fashion: + + In doubtful questions 'tis the safest way + To learn what unsuspected ancients say; + For 'tis not likely we should higher soar + In search of heaven than all the church before. + +When Dryden writes in his most fervent and magnificent style, he writes +like this: + + I will not rake the Dunghill of thy Crimes, + For who would read thy Life that reads thy rhymes? + But of King _David's_ Foes be this the Doom, + May all be like the Young-man _Absalom_; + And for my Foes may this their Blessing be, + To talk like _Doeg_ and to write like Thee. + +Nor is it fair to bring Shelley's lame satires into comparison with these +splendors. When Shelley is inspired by his demon, this is how he writes: + + To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; + To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; + To defy Power which seems omnipotent; + To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates + From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; + Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; + This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be + Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; + This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory. + +Some of the great poets of the Romantic Revival took mediaeval literature +for their model, but they did more than that. They returned to the cult +of wild nature; they reintroduced the supernatural, which is a part of +the nature of man; they described seas, and deserts, and mountains, and +the emotions of the soul in loneliness. But so soon as it passed out of +the hands of the greater poets, this revived Romance became as bookish as +decadent Classicism, and ran into every kind of sentimental extravagance. +Indeed revived Romance also became a school of manners, and by making a +fashion and a code of rare emotions, debased the descriptive parts of the +language. A description by any professional reporter of any Royal +wedding is further from the truth to-day than it was in the eighteenth +century. The average writer is looser and more unprincipled. + +The word Romance supplies no very valuable instrument of criticism even +in regard to the great writers of the early nineteenth century. +Wordsworth, like Defoe, drew straight from the life. Those who will may +call him a Romantic. He told of adventures--the adventures of the mind. +He did not write of Bacchus, Venus, and Apollo; neither did he concern +himself with Merlin, Tristram, and the Lady of the Lake. He shunned what +is derived from other books. His theme is man, nature, and human life. +Scott, in rich and careless fashion, dealt in every kind of material that +came his way. He described his own country and his own people with +loving care, and he loved also the melodrama of historical fiction and +supernatural legend. "His romance and antiquarianism," says Ruskin, "his +knighthood and monkery, are all false, and he knows them to be false." +Certainly, _The Heart of Midlothian_ and _The Antiquary_ are better than +_Ivanhoe_. Scott's love for the knighthood and monkery was real, but it +was playful. His heart was with Fielding. + +There is nothing inconsistent in the best of the traditions of the two +parties. The Classical school taught simplicity, directness, and modesty +of speech. They are right: it is the way to tell a ghost story. The +Romantic school taught a wider imaginative outlook and a more curious +analysis of the human mind. They also are right: it is the way to +investigate a case in the police courts. Both were cumbered, at times, +with the dead things that they found in the books they loved. All +literature, except the strongest and purest, is cumbered with useless +matter--the conventional epithet, the grandiose phrase, the outworn +classical quotation, the self-conscious apology, the time-honored joke. +But there are only two schools of literature--the good, and the bad. As +for national legend, its growth is the same in all ages. The Greeks told +tales of Achilles, the Romans of Aeneas, the French of Charlemagne, the +British of Arthur. It is a part of the same process, and an expression +of the same humanity. + +I have tried to show that the Renaissance bears the same relation to +classical literature as the Revival of Romance bears to mediaeval +literature, and that the whole history of the literature of Europe is an +oscillation between Christian and Pagan ideals during that long and +wavering process whereby Christianity was partially established as the +creed and way of life of a group of diverse nations. The historical +meaning of the word Romance is exact and easy to define. But in common +usage the word means something much vaguer than this. It is a note, an +atmosphere, a kind of feeling that is awakened not only by literature but +by the behavior of men and the disposition of material objects. John +Evelyn, the diarist, enjoys the reputation of having been the first to +speak of a "romantic site,"--a phrase which leads the way to immeasurable +possibilities in the application of the word. Accuracy in the definition +of this larger meaning is unattainable; and would certainly be false, for +the word has taken its meaning from centuries of usage by inaccurate +thinkers. A whole cluster of feelings, impressions, and desires, dimly +recognized as cognate, has grown around the word, which has now been a +centre of critical discussion and controversy for the better part of a +century. Heine, in his dissertation on the Romantic School, takes the +Christianity of the Middle Ages as his starting-point, and relates +everything to that. Perhaps he makes too much of allegory and symbolism, +which have always been dear to the church, but are not conspicuous in +early Romance. Yet no one can go far astray who keeps in touch, as Heine +does, with the facts of history. Goethe, impatient of the wistful +intensities of youth, said that the Classical is health, and the Romantic +disease. Much has been made, by many critics, of the statue and the +picture, as types of ancient and modern art, the one complete in itself, +the other suggesting more than it portrays. Mr. Walter Pater, borrowing +a hint from a sentence of Bacon, finds the essence of Romance in the +addition of strangeness to beauty, of curiosity to desire. It would be +easy to multiply these epigrammatic statements, which are all not +obscurely related to the fundamental changes wrought on the world by +Christian ideas. No single formula can hope to describe and distinguish +two eras, or define two tempers of mind. If I had to choose a single +characteristic of Romance as the most noteworthy, I think I should choose +Distance, and should call Romance the magic of Distance. What is the +most romantic line in Virgil? Surely it is the line which describes the +ghosts, staying for waftage on the banks of the river, and stretching out +their hands in passionate desire to the further shore: + + Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore. + +Scott expounds the harmonizing power of distance in his _Journal_, where +he describes the funeral of his friend Laidlaw's infant: + + I saw the poor child's funeral from a distance. Ah, that Distance! + What a magician for conjuring up scenes of joy or sorrow, smoothing + all asperities, reconciling all incongruities, veiling all absurdness, + softening every coarseness, doubling every effect by the influence of + the imagination. A Scottish wedding should be seen at a distance; the + gay band of the dancers just distinguished amid the elderly group of + the spectators,--the glass held high, and the distant cheers as it is + swallowed, should be only a sketch, not a finished Dutch picture, when + it becomes brutal and boorish. Scotch psalmody, too, should be heard + from a distance. The grunt and the snuffle, and the whine and the + scream, should be all blended in that deep and distant sound, which + rising and falling like the Eolian harp, may have some title to be + called the praise of our Maker. Even so the distant funeral: the few + mourners on horseback with their plaids wrapped around them--the + father heading the procession as they enter the river, and pointing + out the ford by which his darling is to be carried on the last long + road--not one of the subordinate figures in discord with the general + tone of the incident--seeming just accessories, and no more--this _is_ + affecting. + +The same idea is the subject of T. E. Brown's poem, _The Schooner_: + + Just mark that schooner westward far at sea-- + 'Tis but an hour ago + When she was lying hoggish at the quay, + And men ran to and fro, + And tugged, and stamped, and shoved, and pushed and swore, + And ever and anon, with crapulous glee, + Grinned homage to viragoes on the shore. + * * * * * + And now, behold! a shadow of repose + Upon a line of gray, + She sleeps, that transverse cuts the evening rose-- + She sleeps, and dreams away, + Soft blended in a unity of rest + All jars, and strifes obscene, and turbulent throes, + 'Neath the broad benediction of the West. + +Shelley finds the suggestion of distance in beautiful music: + + Though the sound overpowers, + Sing again, with thy sweet voice revealing + A tone + Of some world far from ours, + Where music and moonlight and feeling + Are one. + +Wordsworth hears it in the song of the Highland Girl: + + Will no one tell me what she sings?-- + Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago. + +These quotations are enough to show what a width of view is given to +modern Romantic poetry. Man is, in one sense, more truly seen in a wide +setting of the mountains and the sea than close at hand in the street. +But the romantic effect of distance may delude and conceal as well as +glorify and liberate. The weakness of the modern Romantic poet is that +he must keep himself aloof from life, that he may see it. He rejects the +authority, and many of the pleasures, along with the duties, of society. +He looks out from his window on the men fighting in the plain, and sees +them transfigured under the rays of the setting sun. He enjoys the +battle, but not as the fighters enjoy it. He nurses himself in all the +luxury of philosophic sensation. He does not help to bury the child, or +to navigate the schooner, or to discover the Fortunate Islands. The +business of every poet, it may be said, is vision, not action. But the +epic poet holds his reader fast by strong moral bonds of sympathy with +the actors in the poem. "I should have liked to do that" is what the +reader says to himself. He is asked to think and feel as a man, not as a +god. + +The weakness of revived Romance found the most searching of its critics +in Tennyson, who was fascinated, when he was shaping his own poetic +career, by the picture and the past, yet could not feel satisfied with +the purely aesthetic attitude of art to life. In poem after poem he +returns to the question, Is poetry an escape from life? Must it lull the +soul in a selfish security? The struggle that went on in his mind has +left its mark on _The Lady of Shalott_, _The Palace of Art_, _The +Voyage_, _The Vision of Sin_, _The Lotos-Eaters_, and others of his +poems. The Lady of Shalott lives secluded in her bower, where she weaves +a magic web with gay colors. She has heard that a curse will fall on her +if she looks out on the world and down to the city of Camelot. She sees +the outer world only in a mirror, and + + In her web she still delights + To weave the mirror's magic sights + +--villages, market-girls, knights riding two and two, funerals, or pairs +of lovers wandering by. At last she grows half-sick of seeing the world +only in shadows and reflections. Then a sudden vivid experience breaks +up this life of dream. Sir Lancelot rides past, in shining armor, +singing as he rides. She leaves her magic web and mirror, and looks upon +the real world. + + Out flew the web and floated wide; + The mirror crack'd from side to side; + "The curse is come upon me," cried + The Lady of Shalott. + +She goes into the world, and there she meets her death. The poem is not +an allegory, but there is no mistaking the thought that generated it. The +mirror and the web are the emblems of Romantic art. The feelings which +stir the heart to action, which spring to meet the occasion or the +object, are contrasted, in the poem, with the more pensive feelings which +are excited by the sight of the object in a mirror, and the suggestions +of color and design which are to be transferred to the embroidery. The +mirror is a true and subtle symbol. When Shakespeare treated the same +problem, he made King Richard II, the most romantically minded of all his +kings, call for a mirror. The thing that it is easiest for a man to see +in a mirror is himself; egotism in its many forms, self-pity, +self-cultivation, self-esteem, dogs Romanticism like its shadow. The +desire to be the spectator of your own life, to see yourself in all kinds +of heroic and pathetic attitudes, is the motive-power of Romantic poetry +in many of its later developments. Yet life must be arrested and +falsified before the desire can be fulfilled. No one has ever seen +himself in a mirror as he is seen by others. He cannot catch himself +looking away, self-forgetful, intent on something outward; yet only when +he is in these attitudes does his true character show itself in his face. +Nor, if he could so see himself, would he be a witness of the truth. The +sensation of drowning, or of leading an assault in war, is very unlike +the sentiment which is aroused in the spectator of either of these +adventures. Romanticism, in its decline, confuses the sentiment with the +sensation, and covets the enjoyment of life on the easy terms of a by- +stander. + +These faults and failings of late Romance are far enough removed from the +simple heroism of the death of Roland in the pass of Roncesvalles. Later +Romance is known everywhere by its derivative, secondary, consciously +literary character. Yet it draws sometimes from the original source of +inspiration, and attains, by devious ways, to poetic glories not inferior +to the old. + + + + +IMITATION AND FORGERY + + +Romance is a perennial form of modern literature, and has passed through +many phases. No period has been without it, though the esteem in which +it is held has varied a good deal from age to age. English literature is +strong in romance; there is something in the English temper which makes +scepticism ungrateful to it, and disposes it to treat even dreams +seriously. Chaucer, who laughed at the romantic writers of his day, yet +gave a new lease of life to Romance in _Troilus and Cressida_ and _The +Knightes Tale_. Many of the poets of the seventeenth century chose +romantic themes for their most serious work; if Davenant and Chamberlayne +and others had been as successful as they were ambitious, they would have +anticipated the Revival of Romance. Even in the age of Pope, the old +romance subjects were still popular, though they were celebrated in books +which have long been forgotten. Everyone who has studied the Troy legend +of the Middle Ages knows how great a share in the popularization of the +legend belongs to the Sicilian lawyer, Guido delle Colonne, who +summarized, in the dull style of a Latin chronicle, and without +acknowledgment, the brilliant _Roman de Troie_ which the French poet, +Benoit de Sainte-More had written for Queen Eleanor of England. Guide's +matter-of-fact compilation had an enormous vogue; Chaucer, Lydgate, and +Shakespeare treated it as an authority; and Caxton translated it into +English prose. Through all the changes of fashion Caxton's version +continued in esteem; it was repeatedly revised and reissued; and, in the +very age of Pope, found what was doubtless a large public under the title +_The Destruction of Troy_, _In Three Books . . . With many Admirable Acts +of Chivalry and Martial Prowess_, _effected by Valiant Knights_, _in the +Defence and Love of distressed Ladies. The Thirteenth Edition_, +_Corrected and much Amended_. London, _Printed for Eben. Tracey_, _at +the Three Bibles on London-Bridge_. _1708_. In the underworld of +literature Romance never died out. The Revival of Romance took its +special character from a gradual and powerful reaction against Dryden and +Pope and all those masters of Classical method who, during half a +century, had legislated for English poetry. It began very early in the +eighteenth century, long before the death of Pope. No sooner did a +dynasty of moralists and satirists claim possession of the high places, +and speak in the name of English literature, than all the other interests +and kinds, which survived among the people, began to range themselves in +opposition, and to assert their right to be heard. The supremacy of +Dryden and Pope was the most despotic rule that English poetry has ever +known, and the revolt was strong in proportion. Satire and morality very +easily becomes tedious, especially when they are in close alliance. +Despotism may be tempered by epigrams, and so become tolerable, but it is +important that the epigrams should not be made by the despot. Outside +the charmed circle of his friendships, Pope was ready enough to use his +wit against any pretender. + +The change began gradually, and in very innocent fashion. Poetry had +been taught to be scholarly, self-conscious, experimental; and it showed +its skill in half-playful imitations of the older English masters. Pope +himself imitated Chaucer and Spenser in burlesque fashion. John Philips, +in _The Splendid Shilling_, used Milton's heightened style to describe +the distresses of an impecunious poet. William Shenstone in _The School- +mistress_, parodied Spenser, yet the parody is in no way hostile, and +betrays an almost sentimental admiration. Spenser, like Milton, never +lost credit as a master, though his fame was obscured a little during the +reign of Dryden. His style, it must be remembered, was archaic in his +own time; it could not grow old, for it had never been young. Addison, +in _An Account of the Greatest English Poets_, says that Spenser's verse + + Can charm an understanding age no more; + The long-spun allegories fulsome grow, + While the dull moral lies too plain below. + +But the _Account_ is a merely juvenile work; its dogma is not the sword +of judgment, but the shield of ignorance. "The character he gives of +Spenser," said Pope, "is false; and I have heard him say that he never +read Spenser till fifteen years after he wrote it." As for Pope himself, +among the English poets Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were his childhood's +favorites, in that order; and the year before his death he said to +Spence--"I don't know how it is; there is something in Spenser that +pleases one as strongly in one's old age as it did in one's youth. I +read the Faerie Queene, when I was about twelve, with infinite delight; +and I think it gave me as much when I read it over, about a year or two +ago." + +The lyrical Milton and the romantic Spenser found disciples among poets +in the early half of the eighteenth century. Two of these disciples may +be mentioned, both born about the year 1700, only twelve years later than +Pope. John Dyer, the son of a solicitor in Wales, was bred to the law, +but gave it up to study painting under Jonathan Richardson. His earlier +and better poems were written while he wandered about South Wales in +pursuit of his art. _Grongar Hill_, the most notable of them, was +published in 1726. Love of the country is what inspires his verses, +which have a very winning simplicity, only touched here and there by the +conventions deemed proper for poetry: + + Grass and flowers Quiet treads, + On the meads and mountain-heads, + Along with Pleasure, close ally'd, + Ever by each other's side; + And often, by the murmuring rill, + Hears the thrush, while all is still, + Within the groves of Grongar Hill. + +The truth of his observation endeared him to Wordsworth; and his moral, +when he finds a moral, is without violence: + + How close and small the hedges lie! + What streaks of meadows cross the eye! + A step methinks may pass the stream, + So little distant dangers seem; + So we mistake the Future's face, + Ey'd thro' Hope's deluding glass; + As yon summits soft and fair, + Clad in colours of the air, + Which, to those who journey near, + Barren, and brown, and rough appear, + Still we tread tir'd the same coarse way, + The present's still a cloudy day. + +It takes a good poet to strike a clear note, with no indecision, in the +opening lines of his poem, as Dyer does in _The Country Walk_: + + I am resolv'd, this charming day, + In the open fields to stray; + And have no roof above my head + But that whereon the Gods do tread. + +His landscapes are delicately etched, and are loved for their own sake: + + And there behold a bloomy mead, + A silver stream, a willow shade, + Beneath the shade a fisher stand, + Who, with the angle in his hand, + Swings the nibbling fry to land. + +It would be absurd to speak solemnly of Dyer's debt to Milton; he is an +original poet; but the writer of the lines quoted above can never have +been blind to the beauties of _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_. His two +arts brought him little material prosperity; in 1740 he took orders in +the Church of England, and in his later years did harm to his fame by a +long industrial poem called _The Fleece_, which has on it none of the dew +that glistens on his youthful verses. + +James Thomson, who won a great reputation in his own age, was the son of +a parish minister in Scotland. He was educated in Edinburgh, and came to +London to seek his fortune. All Thomson's work shows the new tendencies +in poetry struggling with the accepted fashions. His language in _The +Seasons_ is habitually rhetorical and stilted, yet there is hardly a page +without its vignettes of truth and beauty. When he forgets what he has +learned in the Rhetoric class, and falls back on his own memories and +likings, the poet in him reappears. In _The Castle of Indolence_, +published just before his death in 1748, he imitates Spenser. One stanza +of this poem is more famous than all the rest; it is pure and high +romance: + + As when a shepherd of the Hebrid-Isles, + Placed far amid the melancholy main, + (Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles, + Or that aerial beings sometimes deign + To stand embodied to our senses plain), + Sees on the naked hill, or valley low, + The whilst in ocean Phoebus dips his wain, + A vast assembly moving to and fro; + Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show. + +Many who are familiar with this simile have never been at the pains to +remember, or enquire, what it illustrates. Indeed its appearance in the +poem is almost startling, as if it were there for no purpose but to +prophesy of the coming glories of English poetry. The visitors to the +Castle of Indolence are met at the gate by the porter, who supplies them +with dressing-gowns and slippers, wherein to take their ease. They then +stroll off to various parts of the spacious grounds, and their +disappearance is the occasion for this wonderful verse. Thomson cared no +more than his readers for the application of the figure; what possessed +him was his memory of the magic twilight on the west coast of Scotland. + +Pope and Prior were metropolitan poets; it is worth noting that Dyer +belonged to Wales, and Thomson to Scotland. It is even more significant +that Dyer was by profession a painter, and that Thomson's poems were +influenced by memories of the fashionable school of landscape painting. +The development of Romantic poetry in the eighteenth century is +inseparably associated with pictorial art, and especially with the rise +of landscape painting. Two great masters of the seventeenth century, +Salvator Rosa and Claude Lorrain, are more important than all the rest. +We have here to do not with the absolute merits of painting, nor with its +technical beauties and subtleties, but with its effect on the popular +imagination, which in this matter does not much differ from the poetic +imagination. The landscapes of Salvator Rosa and Claude were made +familiar to an enormous public by the process of engraving, and poetry +followed where painting led. There are exquisite landscapes in the +backgrounds of the great Italian masters; Leonardo, Titian, and others; +but now the background became the picture, and the groups of figures were +reduced to serve as incidents in a wider scheme. Exactly the same +change, the same shift of the centre of interest, may be seen in +Thomson's poetry compared with Spenser's. No doubt it would be difficult +to balance the creditor and debtor account as between poetry and +painting; the earlier pictorial landscapes borrowed some hints from the +older romances; but in England, at least, landscapes of wild rocks, and +calm lakes, and feudal castles lit up by the glow of the setting sun were +familiar before the reaction in poetry set in. Romance, in its modern +development, is largely a question of background. A romantic love-affair +might be defined as a love-affair in other than domestic surroundings. +Who can use the word "romantic" with more authority than Coleridge? In +_Kubla Khan_, a poem which some would choose as the high-water mark of +English romantic poetry, he gets his effect from the description of a +landscape combining the extremes of beauty and terror: + + But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted + Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! + A savage place! as holy and enchanted + As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted + By woman wailing for her demon lover! + And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, + * * * * * + It flung up momently the sacred river. + Five miles meandering with a mazy motion + Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, + Then reached the caverns measureless to man, + And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; + And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far + Ancestral voices prophesying war! + +Romance demands scenery; and it should never be forgotten that the age of +Pope, the age of symmetry and correctness in poetry, was an age when the +taste for wild scenery in painting and in gardening was at its height. If +the house was set in order, the garden broke into a wilderness. Addison +in the _Spectator_ (No. 414) praises the new art of landscape gardening: + + There is generally in nature something more grand and august, than + what we meet with in the curiosities of art. When, therefore, we see + this imitated in any measure, it gives us a nobler and more exalted + kind of pleasure, than what we receive from the nicer and more + accurate productions of art. On this account our _English_ gardens + are not so entertaining to the fancy as those in _France_ and _Italy_, + where we see a larger extent of ground covered over with an agreeable + mixture of garden and forest, which represent everywhere an artificial + wildness, much more charming than that neatness and elegancy which we + meet with in those of our own country. + +Addison would have hesitated to apply this doctrine to poetry; indeed the +orthodoxy of that age favored the highest possible contrast between the +orderly works of man, and the garden, which it chose to treat as the +outpost of rebellious nature. Pope was a gardener as well as a poet, and +his gardening was extravagantly romantic. He describes his ideal garden +in the _Epistle to the Earl of Burlington_: + + Let not each beauty everywhere be spy'd, + Where half the skill is decently to hide. + He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds, + Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds. + Consult the genius of the place in all; + That tells the waters or to rise, or fall; + Or helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale, + Or scoops in circling theatres the vale; + Calls in the country, catches opening glades, + Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades; + Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines; + Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs. + +Pope carried out these ideas as well as he could in his garden at +Twickenham, where he attempted to compress every variety of scenic effect +within the space of five acres, so that it became a kind of melodramatic +peep-show. The professional landscape-gardeners worked on a larger +scale; the two chief of them perhaps were Bridgeman, who invented the +haha for the purpose of concealing the bounds; and William Kent, Pope's +associate and contemporary, who disarranged old gardens, and designed +illustrations for Spenser's _Faerie Queene_. Kent was an architect and +bad painter, much favored by George I. Lord Chesterfield compares him to +Apelles, who alone was permitted to paint the portrait of Alexander: + + Equal your varied wonders! save + This difference we see, + One would no other painter have-- + No other would have thee. + +From 1716 onward he was much employed by the Earl of Burlington. He +helped to lay out Stowe, in Buckinghamshire, with a fresh and surprising +view at every turn; the wandering visitor was introduced, among other +delights, to the Hermitage, the Temple of Venus, the Egyptian pyramid, +St. Augustine's cave (artfully constructed of roots and moss), the Saxon +Temple, the Temple of Bacchus, and Dido's cave. The craze for romantic +gardening, with its illusions of distance, and its ruins and groves, +persisted throughout the eighteenth century. Shenstone's garden at The +Leasowes enjoyed a higher reputation even than his poetry, and it is well +known how he strained his slender means in the effort to outshine his +neighbors. "In time," says Johnson, "his expenses brought clamours about +him that overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and his +groves were haunted by beings very different from fauns and fairies." + +The chief of Kent's successors was Launcelot Brown, commonly called +"Capability Brown" from his habit of murmuring to himself, as he gazed on +a tract of land submitted for his diagnosis--"It has capabilities; it has +capabilities." He laid out Kew and Blenheim. Gazing one day on one of +his own made rivers, he exclaimed, with an artist's rapture,--"Thames! +Thames! Thou wilt never forgive me." He certainly imposed himself upon +his own time, and, so far, was a great man. "Mr. Brown," said Richard +Owen Cambridge, "I very earnestly wish that I may die before you." "Why +so?" said Brown with some surprise. "Because," said he, "I should like +to see Heaven before you had improved it." Among the romantic writers +who were bitten by the mania for picturesque improvement were Horace +Walpole and even Sir Walter Scott. Everyone knows how Walpole bought +from Mrs. Chevenix, the toy-shop woman, a little house called "Chopp'd +Straw Hall" which he converted into the baronial splendors of Strawberry +Hill; and how Scott transmitted a mean Tweedside farm, called Clarty +Hole, into the less pretentious glories of Abbotsford. + +After the practice came the theory. The painters and landscape-gardeners +were followed by a school of philosophers, who expounded Taste and the +laws of the Picturesque. Some extracts from the work of one of these, +Thomas Whately, whose _Observations on Modern Gardening_ appeared in +1770, will show to what excesses the whole nonsensical business had been +carried. "In wild and romantic scenes," says Whately, "may be introduced +a ruined stone bridge, of which some arches may be still standing, and +the loss of those which are fallen may be supplied by a few planks, with +a rail, thrown over the vacancy. It is a picturesque object: it suits +the situation; and the antiquity of the passage, the care taken to keep +it still open, though the original building is decayed, the apparent +necessity which thence results for a communication, give it an imposing +air of reality." The context of this passages shows that the bridge +leads nowhither. On the management of rocks Whately is a connoisseur. +"Their most distinguished characters," he says, "are _dignity_, _terror_, +and _fancy_: the expressions of all are constantly wild; and sometimes a +rocky scene is only wild, without pretensions to any particular +character." But ruins are what he likes best, and he recommends that +they shall be constructed on the model of Tintern Abbey. They must be +obvious ruins, much dilapidated, or the visitors will examine them too +closely. "An appendage evidently more modern than the principal +structure will sometimes corroborate the effect; the shed of a cottager +amidst the remains of a temple, is a contrast both to the former and the +present state of the building." It seems almost impossible that this +should have been offered as serious advice; but it was the admired usage +of the time. Whately's book was a recognized authority, and ran through +several editions. He is also known as a Shakespeare critic, of no +particular mark. + +A more influential writer than Whately was William Gilpin, an industrious +clergyman and schoolmaster, who spent his holidays wandering and +sketching in the most approved parts of England, Wales and Scotland. His +books on the Picturesque were long held in esteem. The earliest of them +was entitled _Observations on the River Wye and several parts of South +Wales . . . relative chiefly to picturesque beauty_ (1782). Others, +which followed in steady succession, rendered a like service to the Lake +district, the Highlands of Scotland, the New Forest, and the Isle of +Wight. Those books taught the aesthetic appreciation of wild nature to a +whole generation. It is a testimony to their influence that for a time +they enslaved the youth of Wordsworth. In _The Prelude_ he tells how, in +early life, he misunderstood the teaching of Nature, not from +insensibility, but from the presumption which applied to the impassioned +life of Nature the "rules of mimic art." He calls this habit "a strong +infection of the age," and tells how he too, for a time, was wont to +compare scene with scene, and to pamper himself "with meagre novelties of +colour and proportion." In another passage he speaks of similar +melodramatic errors, from conformity to book-notions, in his early study +of poetry. + + The dignities of plain occurrence then + Were tasteless, and truth's golden mean, a point, + Where no sufficient pleasure could be found. + +But imaginative power, and the humility which had been his in childhood, +returned to him-- + + I shook the habit off + Entirely and for ever. + +Yet in one curious respect Gilpin's amateur teaching did leave its mark +on the history of English poetry. When Wordsworth and Coleridge chose +the Wye and Tintern Abbey for their walking tour, they were probably +determined in that direction by the fame of the scenery; and when they +and Southey settled in the Lake district, it may be surmised that they +felt other and stronger attractions than those that came from +Wordsworth's early associations with the place. The Wye, Tintern Abbey, +the English Lakes, the Scottish Highlands--these were the favored places +of the apostles of the picturesque, and have now become memorial places +in our poetic history. + +All these gardeners and aesthetic critics who busied themselves with wild +nature were aiming at an ideal which had been expressed in many painted +landscapes, and had been held up as the top of admiration by one of the +greatest English poets. The influence of Milton on the new landscape +interest must be held to be not less than the influence of his +contemporaries, Salvator Rosa and Claude. His descriptions of Paradise +did more than any painting to alter the whole practice of gardening. They +are often appealed to, even by the technical gardeners. In garden-lore +Milton was a convinced Romantic. He has two descriptions of the Garden +of Eden; the slighter of the two occurs on the occasion of Raphael's +entry, and merely resumes the earlier and fuller account: + + Their glittering tents they passed, and now is come + Into the blissful field, through Groves of Myrrhe, + And flowering Odours, Cassia, Nard, and Balme; + A Wilderness of Sweets; for Nature here + Wantoned as in her prime and plaid at will + Her Virgin Fancies, pouring forth more sweet, + Wilde above rule or art; enormous bliss. + +Coleridge has some remarks, in his _Table Talk_, on Milton's disregard of +painting. There are only two pictures, he says, in Milton; Adam bending +over the sleeping Eve, and the entrance of Dalilah, like a ship under +full sail. Certainly the above lines are no picture; but they are more +exciting than any clear delineation could be; they are full of scent, and +air, and the emotions of ease and bliss. The other passage has more of +architectural quality in it, and describes what first met Satan's gaze, +when he entered the Garden and sat, perched like a cormorant, upon the +Tree of Life. + + The crisped Brooks + With mazie error under pendant shades + Ran Nectar, visiting each plant, and fed + Flours worthy of Paradise which not nice Art + In Beds and curious Knots, but Nature boon + Poured forth profuse on Hill and Dale and Plaine + Both where the morning sun first warmly smote + The open field, and where the unpierc't shade + Imbround the noontide Bowers: Thus was this place, + A happy rural seat of various view: + Groves whose rich Trees wept odorous Gumms and Balme, + Others whose fruit burnisht with Golden Rinde + Hung amiable, _Hesperian_ Fables true, + If true, here onely, and of delicious taste: + Betwixt the Lawns, or level Downs, and Flocks + Grasing the tender herb, were interpos'd, + Or palmie hilloc, or the flourie lap + Of some irriguous Valley spread her store, + Flours of all hue, and without Thorn the Rose: + Another side, umbrageous Grots and Caves + Of coole recess, o'er which the mantling Vine + Layes forth her purple Grape, and gently creeps + Luxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall + Down the slope hills, disperst, or in a Lake, + That to the fringed Bank with Myrtle crown'd, + Her chrystall mirror holds, unite their streams. + The Birds their quire apply; aires, vernal aires, + Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune + The trembling leaves, while Universal _Pan_ + Knit with the _Graces_ and the _Hours_ in dance + Led on th' Eternal Spring. + +Here is all the variety of hill and valley, wood and lawn, rock and +meadow, waterfall and lake, rose and vine, which the landscape artists +also loved to depict, and which, together with ruined temples and +castles, unknown in Paradise, became the cherished ideal of landscape +gardening. By the influence of _Paradise Lost_ upon the gardeners, no +less than by the influence of _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_ upon the +poets, Milton may claim to be regarded as one of the forefathers of the +Romantic Revival. There is no need to distinguish carefully between +poetry and painting in discussing their contributions to Romance. A +great outcry was raised, in the last age, against literary criticism of +pictures. But in this question we are concerned with this effect of +pictures on the normal imagination, which is literary, which cares for +story, and suggested action, and the whole chain of memories and desires +that a picture may set in motion. Do not most of those who look at a +romantic landscape imagine themselves wandering among the scenes that are +portrayed? And are not men prone to admire in Nature what they have been +taught by Art to notice? The landscape art of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries taught them to imagine themselves in lonely scenes, +among old ruins or frowning rocks, by the light of sunrise or sunset, +cast on gleaming lakes. These were the theatre of Romance; and the +emotions awakened by scenes like these played an enormous part in the +Revival. It was thus that poets were educated to find that exaltation in +the terrors of mountainous regions which Gray expressed when he said: +"Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with +religion and poetry." + +The weaker side of modern Romance, the play-acting and pretence that has +always accompanied it, may be seen in the gardening mania. It was not +enough to be a country gentleman; the position must be improved by the +added elegances of a hermit's cell and an Egyptian pyramid. It is like +children's play; the day is long, the affairs of our elders are tedious, +we are tired of a life in which there is no danger and no hunger; let us +pretend that we are monks, or ancient Romans. The mature imagination +interprets the facts; this kind of imagination escapes from the facts +into a world of make-believe, where the tyranny and cause and effect is +no longer felt. It is not a hard word to call it childish; the +imagination of these early Romantics had a child's weakness and a child's +delightful confidence and zest. + +The same play activity expressed itself in literature, where an orgy of +imitation ushered in the real movement. The antiquarian beginnings of +Romantic poetry may be well illustrated by the life and works of Thomas +Warton. He passed his life as a resident Fellow of Trinity College, +Oxford, and devoted his leisure, which was considerable, to the study of +English poetry and Gothic architecture. He was not yet thirty when, in +1757, he was elected Professor of Poetry, a post which he held for ten +years. During this time he planned a complete History of English Poetry, +a task which Pope and Gray in turn had contemplated and abandoned. The +historical interest which is so conspicuous in early Romanticism owed not +a little, it may be remarked in passing, to the initiative of Pope, who +must therefore be given a place in any full genealogy of the Romantic +family. Warton's _History_, so far as it was completed, was published +between 1774 and 1781, when he relaxed his efforts, and took up lesser +tasks. In 1785 he was made Poet Laureate on the strength of his early +poems and later scholarship. He died in 1790. + +Warton's poems are a curious study. Spenser and Milton are his masters, +and he is a docile pupil. His poetry is all derivative, and might be +best described as imitation poetry. Christopher North said of him that +"the gods had made him poetical, but not a poet," a saying which contains +the whole truth. He puts together a mosaic of phrases borrowed from his +teachers, and frames them in a sentimental setting of his own. Here are +some passages from _The Pleasures of Melancholy_, which, though he wrote +it at the age of seventeen, does not differ in method or inspiration from +the rest of his poetical work: + + Beneath yon ruin'd abbey's moss-grown piles + Oft let me sit, at twilight hour of eve, + Where thro' some western window the pale moon + Pours her long-levell'd rule of streaming light; + While sullen sacred silence reigns around, + Save the lone screech-owl's note, who builds his bow'r + Amid the mould'ring caverns dark and damp, + Or the calm breeze, that rustles in the leaves + Of flaunting ivy, that with mantle green + Invests some wasted tow'r. . . . + Then, when the sullen shades of ev'ning close, + Where thro' the room a blindly-glimm'ring gleam + The dying embers scatter, far remote + From Mirth's mad shouts, that thro' th' illumin'd roof + Resound with festive echo, let me sit, + Blest with the lowly cricket's drowsy dirge. . . . + O come then, Melancholy, queen of thought! + O come with saintly look, and steadfast step, + From forth thy cave embower'd with mournful yew, + Where ever to the curfeu's solemn sound + List'ning thou sitt'st, and with thy cypress bind + Thy votary's hair, and seal him for thy son. + +Melancholy seems not to have answered these advances. In later life +Warton was a short, squat, red-faced man, fond of ale, and a cheerful +talker, with a thick utterance, so that he gobbled like a turkey-cock. +Some of his verses are cheerful. This is from the _Ode on the Approach +of Summer_: + + Haste thee, Nymph! and hand in hand + With thee lead a buxom band; + Bring fantastic-footed Joy, + With Sport, that yellow-tressed boy: + Leisure, that through the balmy sky + Chases a crimson butterfly. + Bring Health, that loves in early dawn + To meet the milk-maid on the lawn; + Bring Pleasure, rural nymph, and Peace, + Meek, cottage-loving shepherdess! + +It is all like this, fluent and unnecessary. Perhaps no verses in +English were ever made so exactly in the approved fashion of modern Latin +verses. Warton writes pleasantly, his cento of reminiscences is skilful, +and his own epithets are sometimes happy, yet nothing comes of it. His +work suggests the doubt whether any modern Latin verse, even the best, +would deceive an intelligent citizen of ancient Rome. + +The strange thing about the Romantic Revival is that an epidemic of this +sort of imitation at last produced real poetry and real romance. The +industrious simulation of the emotions begot the emotions simulated. Is +there not a story told of a young officer who, having dressed himself in +a sheet to frighten his fellows, was embarrassed by the company of a real +ghost, bent on the same errand; and retired from the enterprise, leaving +it wholly to the professional? That, at any rate, is very much what +happened to the Romantic impersonators. + +Another parallel may perhaps be found in the power of vulgarity to +advance civilization. Take, for instance, the question of manners. +Politeness is a codification of the impulses of a heart that is moved by +good will and consideration for others. If the impulses are not there, +the politeness is so far unreal and insincere--a cheap varnish. Yet it +is insisted on by society, and enforced by fear and fashion. If the +forms are taught, the soul of them may be, and sometimes is, breathed in +later. So this imitative and timid artifice, this conformity to opinions +the ground and meaning of which is not fully understood, becomes a great +engine of social progress. Imitation and forgery, which are a kind of +literary vulgarity, were the school of Romanticism in its nonage. Some +of the greater poets who passed this way went on to express things +subtler and more profound than had found a voice in the poetry that they +imitated. + +The long debate on the so-called poems of Ossian is now ended. They are +known to be a not very skilful forgery by James Macpherson. Yet their +importance in literary history remains undiminished, and the life of +Macpherson has a curious kind of pathos. He was the creature and victim +of the Romantic movement, and was led, by almost insensible degrees, into +supplying fraudulent evidence for the favorite Romantic theory that a +truer and deeper vein of poetry is to be found among primitive peoples. +Collins's _Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland_ +and Gray's _Bard_ show the literary world prepared to put itself to +school to Celtic tradition. Macpherson supplied it with a body of poetry +which exactly fulfilled its expectations. The crucial date in his +history is his meeting in 1759 with John Home, the author of the once +famous tragedy of _Douglas_. In the summer of that year Home was +drinking the waters at Moffat, and among the visitors assembled there +found Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch, then a boy of ten, and his +tutor, James Macpherson, a young Highlander, shy and ambitious, who had +been educated at Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and had dabbled in verse. Home, +full of the literary gossip of the hour, seized upon the opportunity to +question Macpherson concerning the poems that were rumored to have +survived among the Gaelic-speaking population of Scotland. In the light +of what we now know it is not difficult to understand the genesis of this +great European fraud. Macpherson was proud of his race, which he had +celebrated in an heroic poem called _The Highlander_. He had interested +himself in Gaelic poetry, though his knowledge of the tongue was not +good, and he had by him some fragments of genuine Gaelic poems. He was +flattered by Home's appeal to him, and, feeling perhaps that the few and +slight genuine poems which he could produce would hardly warrant the +magnificence of his allusions to Gaelic literature, he forged a tale in +poetic prose, called _The Death of Oscar_, and presented it to Home as a +translation from the Gaelic. The poem was much admired, and Macpherson, +unable now to retrace his steps without declaring himself a cheat, soon +produced others from the same source. These were submitted to the +literary society of Edinburgh, with the great Dr. Blair at its head, and +were pronounced to be the wonder of the world. From this point onward, +during a long and melancholy life, poor Macpherson was enslaved to the +fraud which had its beginning in the shyness and vanity of his own +character. He was bound now to forge or to fail; and no doubt the +consciousness that it was his own work which called forth such rapturous +applause supported him in his labors and justified him to his own +conscience. A subscription was easily raised in Edinburgh to enable him +to travel and collect the remains of Celtic poetry. For a few months he +perambulated the western highlands and islands, and returned to Edinburgh +bringing with him _Fingal_, a complete epic poem in six books. This was +followed by _Temora_, in eight books, also attributed to the great Gaelic +bard Ossian; and the new Celtic fashion was established. + +These poems had an immense success. Everyone knows how they influenced +the youth of Goethe, and captured the imagination of Napoleon. It is +less surprising that they enraptured the poet Gray, and were approved by +the professor Blair, for they were exactly modelled on the practice and +theory of these two critics. All the fashionable doctrine of that age +concerning the history of poetry was borne out by these works. Poetry, +so it was held, is to be found in its perfection only in primitive +society, before it is overlaid by the complexities of modern +civilization. Its most perfect, and therefore its earliest, form, is the +epic; and Dr. Blair must have been delighted to find that the laws of the +epic, which he so often explained to his class in Edinburgh University, +were minutely observed by the oldest of Scottish bards. He died without +suspecting that the inspiration of the Ossianic poems had come partly +from himself. + +The belief that Celtic literature is essentially and eternally +melancholy,--a belief which persisted down to the time of Matthew Arnold, +also drew its strength from the poems of Ossian. Here again theory +showed the way to practice. The melancholy of the Ossianic poems is not +the melancholy of the Celt, but a melancholy compounded of many simples, +and extracted from works that were held in high esteem in the eighteenth +century--Young's _Night Thoughts_, Blair's _Grave_, Gray's _Bard_, and +the soliloquies of Milton's Satan. + +Macpherson was soon challenged, and his whole life was passed in a brawl +of controversy. Two famous men dismissed him contemptuously. Dr. +Johnson, who knew what honesty means among scholars, treated him as an +impudent impostor. Wordsworth, who knew what simplicity means in poetry, +declared that all the imagery of the poems is false and spurious. But +the whole question early became a national quarrel, and the honor of +Scotland was involved in it. There are signs that Macpherson would +gladly have escaped from the storm he had raised. Aided by his early +literary success, he became a prosperous man, held a well-paid post at +court, entered Parliament, and was pensioned by the government. Still +the controversy persisted. He had found it easy to take up a haughty +attitude towards those hostile critics who had doubted his good faith and +had asked him to produce his Gaelic originals. But now the demand for +the originals came from his champions and friends, who desired to place +the fame of Scotland's oldest and greatest poet on a sure foundation. He +wriggled on the hook, and more than once timidly hinted that the poems +owed not a little to the poetic genius of the translator. But this half- +hearted attempt to rob the great Ossian of a part of his fame stirred the +Caledonian enthusiasts to a frenzy of indignation. At last, when he was +no longer able to restrain his supporters, the wretched Macpherson found +no escape but one. In middle age, some twenty years after his first +appearance on the poetic horizon, he sat down, with a heavy heart and an +imperfect knowledge of the Gaelic tongue, to forge the originals. In +1807, eleven years after his death, these were at last published. The +progress of genuine Celtic scholarship during the succeeding century did +the rest; and the old blind bard rejoined the mists and vapors which were +the inspiration of his Muse. {78} The poems of Ossian are only one, +though perhaps the most signal, instance of the forgeries which prevailed +like an epidemic at the time of the Romantic Revival. Some of these, +like Ireland's Shakespeare forgeries, were little better than +cold-blooded mercenary frauds. Others, like Chatterton's Rowley Poems +and Horace Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_, are full of the zest and +delight of play-acting. Even Coleridge's _Ancient Mariner_, though it is +free from the reproach of forgery, is touched by the same spirit. The +severe morality of scholarship had not yet been applied to mediaeval or +modern matter. Scholars are the trustees of poets; but where this trust +is undertaken by men who are poets themselves, there is usually a good +deal of gaiety and exuberance in its performance. + +I have now traced some of the neglected sources of revived Romance, and +have shown how in this movement, more notably, perhaps, than in any other +great movement in literature, it was not the supply which created the +demand, but the demand which created the supply. The Romantic change was +wrought, not by the energy of lonely pioneers, but by a shift in public +taste. Readers of poetry knew what it was they wanted, even before they +knew whether it existed. Writers were soon at hand to prove that it had +existed in the past, and could still be made. The weakness of vague +desire is felt everywhere in the origins of the change. Out of the +weakness came strength; the tinsel Gothic castle of Walpole was enlarged +to house the magnanimous soul of Scott; the Sorrows of Werther gave birth +to _Faust_. + +The weakness of the Romantic movement, its love of mere sensation and +sentiment, is well exhibited in its effect upon the sane and strong mind +of Keats. He was a pupil of the Romantics; and poetry, as he first +conceived of it, seemed to open to him boundless fields of passive +enjoyment. His early work shows the struggle between the delicious swoon +of reverie and the growing pains of thought. His verse, in its +beginnings, was crowded with "luxuries, bright, milky, soft, and rosy." +He was a boy at the time of England's greatest naval glory, but he thinks +more of Robin Hood than of Nelson. If Robin Hood could revisit the +forest, says Keats, + + He would swear, for all his oaks + Fallen beneath the dockyard strokes, + Have rotted on the briny seas. + +His use of a word like "rich," as Mr. Robert Bridges has remarked, is +almost inhuman in its luxurious detachment from the human situation. + + Now more than ever seems it rich to die, + To cease upon the midnight with no pain. + Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, + Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave. + +By his work in this kind Keats became the parent and founder of the +Aesthetic School of poetry, which is more than half in love with easeful +death, and seeks nothing so ardently as rest and escape from the world. +The epilogue to the Aesthetic movement was written by William Morris +before ever he broke out from those enchanted bowers: + + So with this earthly paradise it is, + If ye will read aright, and pardon me + Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss + Midmost the beating of the steely sea, + Where tossed about all hearts of men must be, + Whose ravening monsters mighty men must slay, + Not the poor singer of an empty day. + +Yet there is another side to the work of Keats, more wonderful in its +broken promise than all the soft perfections of his tender Muse. He grew +tired of imitation and ease. Weakness may exclude the world by +forgetting it; only strength can conquer the world. What if this law be +also the law of beauty? The thought inspires his last great attempt, the +fragment of _Hyperion_. Men have their dynasties and revolutions; but +the immortals also, whom men worship, must change to live. + + So on our heels a fresh perfection treads, + A power more strong in beauty. + +And this power cannot be won by those who shirk the challenge of ugly +facts. + + O folly! for to bear all naked truths, + And to envisage circumstance, all calm, + That is the top of sovereignty. + +As if to enforce his thought by repetition, Keats made an allegorical +framework for his revised version of the poem. There he exhibits himself +as wandering among the delights of the garden of this life, and indulging +himself to the point of drunkenness. Awaked from his swoon, he finds +himself at the steps of the temple of fame. He is told he must climb or +die. After an agony of struggle he mounts to the top, and has speech +there with a veiled figure, who tells him that this temple is all that +has been spared in the war between the rival houses of the Gods. When he +asks why he has been saved from death, the veiled figure makes reply: + + "None can usurp this height," return'd that shade, + "But those to whom the miseries of the world + Are misery, and will not let them rest." + * * * * * + "Are there not thousands in the world," said I, + Encourag'd by the sooth voice of the shade, + "Who love their fellows even to the death, + Who feel the giant agony of the world, + And more, like slaves to poor humanity, + Labour for mortal good? I sure should see + Other men here, but I am here alone." + "Those whom thou spakest of are no visionaries," + Rejoined that voice; "they are no dreamers weak; + They seek no wonder but the human face, + No music but a happy-noted voice: + They come not here, they have no thought to come; + And thou art here, for thou art less than they. + What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe, + To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing, + A fever of thyself: think of the earth; + What bliss, even in hope, is there for thee? + What haven? every creature hath its home, + Every sole man hath days of joy and pain, + Whether his labours be sublime or low-- + The pain alone, the joy alone, distinct: + Only the dreamer venoms all his days, + Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve." + +In this, which is almost his last deliberate utterance, Keats expresses +his sense of the futility of romance, and seems to condemn poetry itself. +A condemnation of the expression of profound thought in beautiful forms +would come very ill from Keats, but this much he surely had learned, that +poetry, the real high poetry, cannot be made out of dreams. The worst of +dreams is that you cannot discipline them. Their tragedy is night-mare; +their comedy is nonsense. Only what can stand severe discipline, and +emerge the purer and stronger for it, is fit to endure. For all its sins +of flatness and prosiness the Classical School has always taught +discipline. No doubt it has sometimes trusted too absolutely to +discipline, and has given us too much of the foot-rule and the tuning- +fork. But one discipline, at least, poetry cannot afford to neglect--the +discipline of facts and life. The poetry that can face this ordeal and +survive it is rare. Some poets are tempted to avoid the experience and +save the dream. Others, who were poets in their youth, undergo the +experience and are beaten by it. But the poetry which can bear all naked +truth and still keep its singing voice is the only immortal poetry. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{78} For some of the facts in this account of Ossian I am indebted to +Mr. J. S. Smart's fascinating book, _James Macpherson_, _an Episode in +Literature_ (David Nutt, 1905). + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANCE*** + + +******* This file should be named 19367.txt or 19367.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/3/6/19367 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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