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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poetic diction, by Thomas Quayle

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and

-most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you

-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before

-using this eBook.

-

-Title: Poetic diction

-       A study of eighteenth century verse

-

-Author: Thomas Quayle

-

-Release Date: June 28, 2022 [eBook #68420]

-

-Language: English

-

-Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

-             https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images

-             generously made available by The Internet Archive)

-

-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETIC DICTION ***

-

-

-

-

-

-

-POETIC DICTION

-

-

-

-

-                              POETIC DICTION

-

-                   A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VERSE

-

-                                    BY

-                              THOMAS QUAYLE

-

-                            METHUEN & CO. LTD.

-                           36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

-                                 LONDON

-

-                        _First Published in 1924_

-

-                         PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

-

-

-

-

-CONTENTS

-

-

-    CHAPTER                                   PAGE

-

-       I. THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON            1

-

-      II. THE THEORY OF DICTION                  5

-

-     III. THE “STOCK” DICTION                   25

-

-      IV. LATINISM                              56

-

-       V. ARCHAISM                              80

-

-      VI. COMPOUND EPITHETS                    102

-

-     VII. PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION      132

-

-    VIII. THE DICTION OF POETRY                181

-

-          INDEX                                207

-

-

-

-

-PREFACE

-

-

-The studies on which this book is based were begun during my tenure of

-the “William Noble” Fellowship in English Literature at the University of

-Liverpool, and I wish to thank the members of the Fellowship Committee,

-and especially Professor Elton, under whom I had for two years the great

-privilege of working, for much valuable advice and criticism. I must also

-express my sincere obligation to the University for a generous grant

-towards the cost of publication.

-

-

-

-

-POETIC DICTION

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER I

-

-THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON

-

-

-From the time of the publication of the first Preface to the “Lyrical

-Ballads” (1798) the poetical language of the eighteenth century, or

-rather of the so-called “classical” writers of the period, has been more

-or less under a cloud of suspicion. The condemnation which Wordsworth

-then passed upon it, and even the more rational and penetrating criticism

-which Coleridge later brought to his own analysis of the whole question

-of the language fit and proper for poetry, undoubtedly led in the

-course of the nineteenth century to a definite but uncritical tendency

-to disparage and underrate the entire poetic output of the period, not

-only of the Popian supremacy, but even of the interregnum, when the old

-order was slowly making way for the new. The Romantic rebels of course

-have nearly always received their meed of praise, but even in their

-case there is not seldom a suspicion of critical reservation, a sort

-of implied reproach that they ought to have done better than they did,

-and that they could and might have done so if they had reacted more

-violently against the poetic atmosphere of their age. In brief, what

-with the Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads” and its successive expansions

-at the beginning of the century, and what, some eighty years later,

-with Matthew Arnold’s calm description of the eighteenth century as

-an “age of prose and reason,” the poetry of that period, and not only

-the neo-classical portion of it, fared somewhat badly. There could be

-no better illustration of the influence and danger of labels and tags;

-“poetic diction,” and “age of prose and reason” tended to become a sort

-of critical legend or tradition, by means of which eighteenth century

-verse, alike at its highest and its lowest levels, could be safely and

-adequately understood and explained.

-

-Nowadays we are little likely to fall into the error of assuming that any

-one cut and dried formula, however pregnant and apt, could adequately

-sum up the literary aspects and characteristics of an entire age; the

-contributory and essential factors are too many, and often too elusive,

-for the tabloid method. And now that the poetry of the first half or

-so of the eighteenth century is in process of rehabilitation, and more

-than a few of its practitioners have even been allowed access to the

-slopes, at least, of Parnassus, it may perhaps be useful to examine, a

-little more closely than has hitherto been customary, one of the critical

-labels which, it would almost seem, has sometimes been taken as a sort of

-generic description of eighteenth century verse, as if “poetic diction”

-was something which suddenly sprang into being when Pope translated

-Homer, and had never been heard of before or since.

-

-This, of course, is to overstate the case, the more so as it can hardly

-be denied that there is much to be said for the other side. It may

-perhaps be put this way, by saying, at the risk of a laborious assertion

-of the obvious, that if poetry is to be written there must be a diction

-in which to write it—a diction which, whatever its relation to the

-language of contemporary speech or prose may be, is yet in many essential

-respects distinct and different from it, in that, even when it does not

-draw upon a special and peculiar word-power of its own, yet so uses or

-combines common speech as to heighten and intensify its possibilities of

-suggestion and evocation. If, therefore, we speak of the “poetic diction”

-of the eighteenth century, or of any portion of it, the reference ought

-to be, of course, to the whole body of language in which the poetry of

-that period is written, viewed as a medium, good, bad, or indifferent,

-for poetical expression. But this has rarely or never been the case;

-it is not too much to say that, thanks to Wordsworth’s attack and its

-subsequent reverberations, “poetic diction,” so far as the eighteenth

-century is concerned, has too often been taken to mean, “bad poetic

-diction,” and it has been in this sense indiscriminately applied to the

-whole poetic output of Pope and his school.

-

-In the present study it is hoped, by a careful examination of the poetry

-of the eighteenth century, by an analysis of the conditions and species

-of its diction, to arrive at some estimate of its value, of what was

-good and what was bad in it, of how far it was the outcome of the age

-which produced it, and how far a continuation of inherited tradition

-in poetic language, to what extent writers went back to their great

-predecessors in their search for a fresh vocabulary, and finally, to what

-extent the poets of the triumphant Romantic reaction, who had to fashion

-for themselves a new vehicle of expression, were indebted to their

-forerunners in the revolt, to those who had helped to prepare the way.

-

-It is proposed to make the study both a literary and a linguistic one. In

-the first place, the aim will be to show how the poetic language, which

-is usually labelled “the eighteenth century style,” was, in certain of

-its most pronounced aspects, a reflex of the literary conditions of its

-period; in the second place, the study will be a linguistic one, in that

-it will deal also with the words themselves. Here the attention will

-be directed to certain features characteristic of, though not peculiar

-to, the diction of the eighteenth century poetry—the use of Latinisms,

-of archaic and obsolete words, and of those compound words by means of

-which English poets from the time of the Elizabethans have added some of

-the happiest and most expressive epithets to the language; finally, the

-employment of abstractions and personifications will be discussed.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER II

-

-THE THEORY OF POETICAL DICTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

-

-

-About the time when Dryden was beginning his literary career the

-preoccupation of men of letters with the language as a literary

-instrument was obvious enough. There was a decided movement toward

-simplicity in both prose and poetry, and, so far as the latter was

-concerned, it was in large measure an expression of the critical reaction

-against the “metaphysical” verse commonly associated with the names

-of Donne and his disciples. Furetière in his “Nouvelle Allegorique ou

-Histoire des dernier troubles arrivez au Royaume d’Eloquence,” published

-at Paris in 1658,[1] expresses the parallel struggle which had been

-raging amongst French poets and critics, and the allegory he presents may

-be taken to symbolize the general critical attitude in both countries.

-

-Rhetoric, Queen of the Realm of Eloquence, and her Prime Minister, Good

-Sense, are represented as threatened by innumerable foes. The troops of

-the Queen, marshalled in defence of the Academy, her citadel, are the

-accepted literary forms, Histories, Epics, Lyrics, Dramas, Romances,

-Letters, Sermons, Philosophical Treatises, Translations, Orations, and

-the like. Her enemies are the rhetorical figures and the perversions

-of style, Metaphors, Hyperboles, Similes, Descriptions, Comparisons,

-Allegories, Pedantries, Antitheses, Puns, Exaggerations, and a host

-of others. Ultimately the latter are defeated, and are in some cases

-banished, or else agree to serve as dependents in the realm of Eloquence.

-

-We may interpret the struggle thus allegorically expressed by saying that

-a new age, increasingly scientific and rational in its outlook, felt

-it was high time to analyze critically and accurately the traditional

-canons and ideals of form and matter that classical learning, since

-the Renaissance, had been able to impose upon literature. This is not

-to say that seventeenth century writers and critics suddenly decided

-that all the accepted standards were radically wrong, and should be

-thrown overboard; but some of them at least showed and expressed

-themselves dissatisfied, and, alongside of the unconscious and, as it

-were, instinctive changes that reflected the spirit of the age, there

-were deliberate efforts to re-fashion both the matter and the manner

-of literary expression, to give creative literature new laws and new

-ideals.[2]

-

-The movement towards purity and simplicity of expression received its

-first definite statement in Thomas Sprat’s “History of the Royal Society,

-1667.” One section of the History contains an account of the French

-Academy, and Sprat’s efforts were directed towards the formation of a

-similar body in England as an arbiter in matters of language and style.

-The ideal was to be the expression of “so many _things_ almost in an

-equal number of _words_.”[3] A Committee of the Royal Society, which

-included Dryden, Evelyn, and Sprat amongst its members, had already met

-in 1664, to discuss ways and means of “improving the English tongue,”

-and it was the discussions of this committee which had doubtless led up

-to Evelyn’s letter to Sir Peter Wyche, its chairman, in June 1665.[4]

-Evelyn there gives in detail his ideas of what an English academy,

-acting as arbiter in matters of vocabulary and style, might do towards

-purifying the language. Twenty-three years later Joseph Glanvill defined

-the new ideal briefly in a passage of his “Essay Concerning Preaching”:

-“Plainness is a character of great latitude and stands in opposition,

-First to _hard words_: Secondly, to _deep and mysterious notions_:

-Thirdly, to _affected Rhetorications_: and Fourthly, to _Phantastical

-Phrases_.”[5] In short, the ideal to be aimed at was the precise and

-definite language of experimental science, but the trend of the times

-tended to make it more and more that ideal of poetry also which was

-later to be summed up in Dryden’s definition of “wit” as a “propriety of

-thoughts and words.”[6]

-

-It is of some little interest perhaps to note that it is not until the

-end of the seventeenth century that the word _diction_ definitely takes

-on the sense which it now usually bears as a term of literary criticism.

-In the preface to “Sylvae, or The Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies”

-(1685), Dryden even seems to regard the term as not completely

-naturalized.[7] Moreover, the critics and poets of the eighteenth century

-were for the most part quite convinced that the special language of

-poetry had begun with Dryden. Johnson asserted this in his usual dogmatic

-fashion, and thus emphasized the doctrine, afterwards vigorously opposed

-by Wordsworth, that between the language of prose, and that proper to

-poetry, there is a sharp distinction. “There was therefore before the

-time of Dryden no poetical diction.... Those happy combinations of words

-which distinguished poetry from prose had been rarely attempted; we had

-few elegancies or flowers of speech.”[8] Gray moreover, while agreeing

-that English poetry had now a language of its own, declared in a letter

-to West that this special language was the creation of a long succession

-of English writers themselves, and especially of Shakespeare and Milton,

-to whom (he asserts) Pope and Dryden were greatly indebted.[9]

-

-It is not very difficult to understand Dryden’s own attitude, as

-laid down in the various Prefaces. He is quite ready to subscribe

-to the accepted neo-classical views on the language of poetry, but

-characteristically reserves for himself the right to reject them,

-or to take up a new line, if he thinks his own work, or that of his

-contemporaries, is likely to benefit thereby. Thus in the preface to

-“Annus Mirabilis” (1666) he boldly claims the liberty to coin words on

-Latin models, and to make use of technical details.[10] In his apology

-for “Heroic Poetry and Poetic License” (1677) prefixed to “The State of

-Innocence and Fall of Man,” his operatic “tagging” of “Paradise Lost,” he

-seems to lay down distinctly the principle that poetry demands a medium

-of its own, distinct from that of prose,[11] whilst towards the end of

-his literary career he reiterates his readiness to enrich his poetic

-language from any and every source, for “poetry requires ornament,” and

-he is therefore willing to “trade both with the living and the dead for

-the enrichment of our native language.”[12] But it is significant that at

-the same time he rejects the technical terms he had formerly advocated,

-apparently on the grounds that such terms would be unfamiliar to “men and

-ladies of the first quality.” Dryden has thus become more “classical,” in

-the sense that he has gone over or reverted to the school of “general”

-terms, which appeared to base its ideal of expression on the accepted

-language of cultured speakers and writers.[13]

-

-Toward the establishment of this principle of the pseudo-classical creed

-the theory and practice of Pope naturally contributed; indeed, it has

-been claimed that it was in large measure the result of the profound

-effect of the “Essay on Criticism,” or at least of the current of thought

-which it represents, on the taste of the age.[14] In the Essay, Pope,

-after duly enumerating the various “idols” of taste in poetical thought

-and diction, clearly states his own doctrine; as the poets’ aim was the

-teaching of “True Wit” or “Nature,” the language used must be universal

-and general, and neologisms must be regarded as heresies. For Pope, as

-for Dryden, universal and general language meant such as would appeal to

-the cultured society for whom he wrote,[15] and in his practice he thus

-reflected the traditional attitude towards the question of language as a

-vehicle of literary expression. A common “poetics” drawn and formulated

-by the classical scholars mainly (and often incorrectly) from Aristotle

-had established itself throughout Western Europe, and it professed to

-prescribe the true relation which should exist between form and matter,

-between the creative mind and the work of art.[16]

-

-The critical reaction against these traditional canons had, as we have

-noted, already begun, but Pope and his contemporaries are in the main

-supporters of the established order, in full agreement with its guiding

-principle that the imitation of “Nature” should be the chief aim and end

-of art. It is scarcely necessary to add that it was not “Nature” in the

-Wordsworthian sense that was thus to be “imitated”; sometimes, indeed,

-it is difficult to discover what was meant by the term. But for Pope and

-his followers we usually find it to mean man as he lives his life in this

-world, and the phrase to “imitate Nature” might thus have an ethical

-purpose, signifying the moral “improvement” of man.

-

-But to appreciate the full significance of this “doctrine,” and its

-eighteenth century interpretation, it is necessary to glance at the

-Aristotelian canon in which it had its origin. For Aristotle poetry

-was an objective “imitation” with a definite plan or purpose, of human

-actions, not as they are, but as they ought to be. The ultimate aim,

-then, according to the _Poetics_, is ideal truth, stripped of the local

-and the accidental; Nature is to be improved upon with means drawn from

-Nature herself. This theory, as extracted and interpreted by the Italian

-and French critics of the Renaissance, was early twisted into a notion

-of poetry as an agreeable falsity, and by the end of the seventeenth

-century it had come to mean, especially with the French, the imitation

-of a selected and embellished Nature, not directly, but rather through

-the medium of those great writers of antiquity, such as Homer and Virgil,

-whose works provided the received and recognized models of idealized

-nature.[17]

-

-As a corollary to this interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of

-ideal imitation, there appeared a tendency to ignore more and more the

-element of personal feeling in poetry,[18] and to concentrate attention

-on the formal elements of the art. This tendency, reinforced by the

-authority of the Horatian tag, _ut pictura poesis_ (“as is painting, so

-is poetry”), led naturally, and in an ever-increasing degree, to the

-formal identification of poetry with painting. Critics became accustomed

-to discussing the elements in the art of writing that correspond to the

-other elements in pictorial art, such as light, colour, expression, etc.

-And as the poet was to be an imitator of accepted models, so also he was

-to be imitative and traditional in using poetical colouring, in which

-phrase were included, as Dryden wrote, “the words, the expressions, the

-tropes and figures, the versification, and all the other elegancies of

-sound.”[19] That this parallelism directly encourages the growth of a

-set “poetic diction” is obvious; the poet’s language was not to be a

-reflection of a genuine emotion felt in the mind for his words, phrases,

-and figures of speech, his _operum colores_,[20] he must not look to

-Nature but to models. In brief, a poetical _gradus_, compiled from

-accepted models, was to be the ideal source on which the poet was to draw

-for his medium of expression.

-

-It is not necessary to dwell long on this pseudo-classical confusion of

-the two arts, as revealed in the critical writings of Western Europe down

-to the very outbreak of the Romantic revolt.[21] In English criticism,

-Dryden’s “Parallel” was only one of many. Of the eighteenth century

-English critics who developed a detailed parallelism between pictorial

-and plastic art on the one hand and poetry on the other, maintaining

-that their standards were interchangeable, the most important perhaps

-is Spence, whose “Polymetis” appeared in 1747, and who sums the general

-position of his fellow-critics on this point in the remark, “Scarce

-anything can be good in a poetical description which would appear absurd

-if represented in a statue or picture.”[22] The ultimate outcome of this

-confusion of poetry and painting found its expression in the last decade

-of the eighteenth century in the theory and practice of Erasmus Darwin,

-whose work, “The Botanic Garden,” consisted of a “second part,” “The

-Loves of the Plants,” published in 1789, two years before its inclusion

-with the “first part” the “Economy of Vegetation,” in one volume.

-Darwin’s theory of poetry is contained in the “Interludes” between the

-cantos of his poems, which take the form of dialogues between the “Poet”

-and a “Bookseller.” In the Interlude to Canto 1 of Part II (“The Loves of

-the Plants”) he maintains the thesis that poetry is a process of painting

-to the eye, and in the cantos themselves he proceeds with great zeal to

-show in practice how words and images should be laid on like pigments

-from the outside. The young Wordsworth himself, as his early poems show,

-was influenced by the theory and practice of Darwin, but Coleridge was

-not slow to detect the danger of the elaborate word-painting that might

-arise from the confusion of the two arts. “The poet,” he wrote,[23]

-“should paint to the Imagination and not to the Fancy.” For Coleridge

-Fancy was the “Drapery” of poetic genius, Imagination was its “Soul” or

-its “synthetic and magical power,”[24] and he thus emphasized what may be

-regarded as one of the chief distinctions between the pseudo-classical,

-and the romantic, interpretations of the language of poetry. In its

-groping after the “grand style,” as reflected in a deliberate avoidance

-of accidental and superficial “particularities,” and in its insistence on

-generalized or abstract forms, eighteenth century poetry, or at least the

-“neo-classical” portion of it, reflected its inability to achieve that

-intensity of imaginative conception which is the supreme need of all art.

-

-The confusion between the two arts of poetry and painting which Coleridge

-thus condemned did not, it is needless to say, disappear with the

-eighteenth century. The Romanticists themselves finally borrowed that

-much-abused phrase “local colour” from the technical vocabulary of the

-painter, and in other respects the whole question became merged in the

-symbolism of the nineteenth century where literature is to be seen

-attempting to do the work of both music and painting.[25]

-

-As regards the language of poetry then—its vocabulary, the actual

-_words_ in which it was to be given expression—the early eighteenth

-century had first this pseudo-classical doctrine of a treasury of select

-words, phrases, and other “ornaments,” a doctrine which was to receive

-splendid emphasis and exemplification in Pope’s translation of Homer.

-But alongside of this ideal of style there was another ideal which Pope

-again, as we have seen, had insisted upon in his “Essay on Criticism,”

-and which demanded that the language of poetry should in general

-conform to that of cultivated conversation and prose. These two ideals

-of poetical language can be seen persisting throughout the eighteenth

-century, though later criticism, in its haste to condemn the _gradus_

-ideal, has not often found time to do justice to the other.

-

-But, apart from these general considerations, the question of poetic

-diction is rarely treated as a thing _per se_ by the writers who, after

-Dryden or Pope, or alongside of them, took up the question. There are no

-attempts, in the manner of the Elizabethans,[26] to conduct a critical

-inquiry into the actual present resources of the vernacular, and its

-possibilities as a vehicle of expression. Though the attention is

-more than once directed to certain special problems, on the whole the

-discussions are of a general nature, and centre round such points as the

-language suitable for an Heroic Poem, or for the “imitation” of aspects

-of nature, or for Descriptive Poetry, questions which had been discussed

-from the sixteenth century onwards, and were not exhausted by the time of

-Dr. Johnson.[27]

-

-Goldsmith’s remarks, reflecting as they do a sort of half-way attitude

-between the old order and the new, are interesting. Poetry has a language

-of its own; it is a species of painting with words, and hence he will

-not condemn Pope for “deviating in some instances from the simplicity

-of Homer,” whilst such phrases as _the sighing reed_, _the warbling

-rivulet_, _the gushing spring_, _the whispering breeze_ are approvingly

-quoted.[28] It is thus somewhat surprising to find that in his “Life

-of Parnell” he had pilloried certain “misguided innovators” to whose

-efforts he attributed the gradual debasing of poetical language since the

-happy days when Dryden, Addison, and Pope had brought it to its highest

-pitch of refinement.[29] These writers had forgotten that poetry is “the

-language of life” and that the simplest expression was the best: brief

-statements which, if we knew what Goldsmith meant by “life,” would seem

-to adumbrate the theories which Wordsworth was to expound as the Romantic

-doctrine.

-

-Dr. Johnson has many things to say on the subject of poetic language,

-including general remarks and particular judgments on special points,

-or on the work of the poets of whom he treated in his “Lives.” As

-might be expected, he clings tenaciously to the accepted standards of

-neo-classicism, and repeats the old commonplaces which had done duty for

-so long, pays the usual tribute to Waller and Denham, but ascribes the

-actual birth of poetical diction to the practice of Dryden. What Johnson

-meant by “poetical diction” is clearly indicated; it was a “system of

-words at once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and free from

-the harshness of terms appropriated to different arts,”[30] that is, the

-language of poetry must shun popular and technical words, since language

-is “the dress of thought” and “splendid ideas lose their magnificence if

-they are conveyed by low and vulgar words.”[31] From this standpoint, and

-reinforced by his classical preference for regular rhymes,[32] all his

-particular judgments of his predecessors and contemporaries were made;

-and when this is remembered it is easier to understand, for instance, his

-praise of Akenside[33] and his criticism of Collins.[34]

-

-Gray, however, perhaps the most scrupulous and precise of all our poets

-with regard to the use of words in poetry,[35] has some pertinent things

-to say on the matter. There is his important letter to West, already

-referred to, with its dogmatic assertion that “the language of the age

-is never the language of poetry,” and that “our poetry has a language

-to itself,” an assertion which, with other remarks of Gray, helps to

-emphasize the distinction to be made between the two ideals of poetical

-diction to be seen persisting through the eighteenth century. It was

-generally agreed that there must be a special language for poetry, with

-all its artificial “heightening,” “licenses,” and variations from the

-language of prose, to serve the purpose of the traditional “Kinds,”

-especially the Epic and the Lyric. This is the view taken by Gray, but

-with a difference. He does not accept the conventional diction which

-Pope’s “Homer” had done so much to perpetuate, and hence he creates a

-poetic language of his own, a glittering array of words and phrases,

-blending material from varied sources, and including echoes and

-reminiscences of Milton and Dryden.

-

-The second ideal of style was that of which, as we have seen, the canons

-had been definitely stated by Pope, and which had been splendidly

-exemplified in the satires, essays, and epistles. The aim was to

-reproduce “the colloquial idiom of living society,”[36] and the result

-was a plain, unaffected style, devoid of the ornaments of the poetic

-language proper, and, in its simplicity and directness, equally suitable

-for either poetry or prose. Gray could make use of this vehicle of

-expression, whenever, as in “The Long Story,” or the fragmentary

-“Alliance of Education and Government,” it was suitable and adequate

-for his purpose; but in the main his own practice stood distinct from

-both the eighteenth century ideals of poetical language. Hence, as it

-conformed to neither of the accepted standards, Goldsmith and Johnson

-agreed in condemning his diction, which was perhaps in itself sufficient

-proof that Gray had struck out a new language for himself.

-

-Among the special problems connected with the diction of poetry to which

-the eighteenth century critics directed their attention, that of the

-use of archaic and obsolete words was prominent. It had been one of the

-methods by which the Elizabethans had hoped to enrich their language, but

-contemporary critics had expressed their disapproval, and it was left to

-Jonson, in this as in other similar matters, to express the reasonable

-view that “the eldest of the present and the newest of the past language

-is best.”[37] Dryden, when about to turn the “Canterbury Tales” “into our

-language as it is now refined,”[38] was to express a similar common-sense

-view. “When an ancient word,” he said, with his Horace no doubt in his

-mind, “for its sound and significancy deserves to be revived, I have that

-reasonable veneration for antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is

-superstition.”

-

-A few years later the long series of Spenserian imitations had begun,

-so that the question of the poetic use of archaic and obsolete words

-naturally came into prominence. Pope, as might be expected, is to be

-found among the opposition, and in the “Dunciad” he takes the opportunity

-of showing his contempt for this kind of writing by a satiric gird,

-couched in supposedly archaic language:

-

-    But who is he in closet close y-pent

-    Of sober face with learned dust besprent?

-    Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight

-    On parchment scraps y-fed and Wormius hight—

-

-                                                     (Bk. III, ll. 185-8)

-

-an attack which is augmented by the ironic comment passed by “Scriblerus”

-in a footnote.[39] Nevertheless, when engaged on his translation of Homer

-he had an inclination, like Cowper, towards a certain amount of archaism,

-though it is evident that he is not altogether satisfied on the point.[40]

-

-In Gray’s well-known letter to West, mentioned above, there is given a

-selection of epithets from Dryden, which he notes as instances of archaic

-words preserved in poetry. Gray, as we know, had a keen sense of the

-value of words, and his list is therefore of special importance, for

-it appears to show that words like _mood_, _smouldering_, _beverage_,

-_array_, _wayward_, _boon_, _foiled_, etc., seemed to readers of 1742

-much more old-fashioned than they do to us. Thirty years or so later

-he practically retracts the views expressed in this earlier letter, in

-which he had admirably defended the use in poetry of words obsolete in

-the current language of the day. “I think,” he wrote to James Beattie,

-criticizing “The Minstrel,”[41] “that we should wholly adopt the language

-of Spenser or wholly renounce it.” And he goes on to object to such

-words as _fared_, _meed_, _sheen_, etc., objections which were answered

-by Beattie, who showed that all the words had the sanction of such

-illustrious predecessors as Milton and Pope, and who added that “the

-poetical style in every nation abounds in old words”—exactly what Gray

-had written in his letter of 1742.

-

-Johnson, it need hardly be said, was of Pope’s opinion on this matter,

-and the emphatic protest which he, alarmed by such tendencies in the

-direction of Romanticism, apparent not only in the Spenserian imitations,

-but still more in such signs of the times as were to culminate in Percy’s

-“Reliques,” the Ossianic “simplicities” of Macpherson, and the Rowley

-“forgeries,” is evidence of the strength which the Spenserian revival had

-by then gained. “To imitate Spenser’s fiction and sentiments can incur no

-reproach,” he wrote: “but I am very far from extending the same respect

-to his diction and his stanza.”[42] To the end he continued to express

-his disapproval of those who favoured the “obsolete style,” and, like

-Pope, he finally indulges in a metrical fling at the innovators:

-

-    Phrase that time has flung away

-    Uncouth words in disarray;

-    Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet,

-    Ode and Elegy and Sonnet.[43]

-

-Goldsmith too had his misgivings. “I dislike the imitations of our

-old English poets in general,” he wrote with reference to “The

-Schoolmistress,” “yet, on this minute subject, the antiquity of the style

-produces a very ludicrous solemnity.”[44]

-

-On this matter of poetic archaism, the point of view of the average

-cultured reader, as distinct from the writer, is probably accurately

-represented in one of Chesterfield’s letters. Writing to his son,[45] he

-was particularly urgent that those words only should be employed which

-were found in the writers of the Augustan age, or of the age immediately

-preceding. To enforce his point he carefully explained to the boy the

-distinction between the pedant and the gentleman who is at the same

-time a scholar; the former affected rare words found only in the pages

-of obscure or antiquated authors rather than those used by the great

-classical writers.

-

-This was the attitude adopted in the main by William Cowper, who, after

-an early enthusiasm for the “quaintness” of old words, when first engaged

-on his translation of Homer, later repented and congratulated himself

-on having, in his last revisal, pruned away every “single expression of

-the obsolete kind.”[46] But against these opinions we have to set the

-frankly romantic attitude of Thomas Warton, who, in his “Observations

-on the Faerie Queen” (1754), boldly asserts that “if the critic is not

-satisfied, yet the reader is transported,” whilst he is quite confident

-that Spenser’s language is not so difficult and obsolete as it is

-generally supposed to be.[47]

-

-Here and there we also come across references to other devices by which

-the poet is entitled to add to his word-power. Thus Addison grants the

-right of indulging in coinages, since this is a practice sanctioned by

-example, especially by that of Homer and Milton.[48] Pope considered that

-only such of Homer’s compound epithets as could be “done literally into

-English without destroying the purity of our language” or those with good

-literary sanctions should be adopted.[49] Gray, however, enters a caveat

-against coinages; in the letter to Beattie, already quoted, he objects to

-the word “infuriated,” and adds a warning not to “make new words without

-great necessity; it is very hazardous at best.”

-

-Finally, as a legacy or survival of that veneration for the “heroic

-poem,” which had found its latest expression in Davenant’s “Preface to

-Gondibert”[50] (1650), the question of technical words is occasionally

-touched upon. Dryden, who had begun by asserting that general terms were

-often a mere excuse for ignorance, could later give sufficient reasons

-for the avoidance of technical terms,[51] and it is not surprising to

-find that Gray was of a similar opinion. In his criticism of Beattie’s

-“Minstrel” he objects to the terms _medium_ and _incongruous_ as being

-words of art, which savour too much of prose. Gray, we may presume, did

-not object to such words because they were not “elegant,” or even mainly

-because they were “technical” expressions. He would reject them because,

-for him, with his keen sense of the value of words, they were too little

-endowed with poetic colour and imagination. When these protests are

-remembered, the great and lasting popularity of “The Shipwreck” (1762) of

-William Falconer, with its free employment of nautical words and phrases,

-may be considered to possess a certain significance in the history of the

-Romantic reaction. The daring use of technical terms in the poem must

-have given pleasure to a generation of readers accustomed mainly to the

-conventional words and phrases of the accepted diction.

-

-When we review the “theory” of poetical language in the eighteenth

-century, as revealed in the sayings, direct and indirect, of poets and

-critics, we feel that there is little freshness or originality in the

-views expressed, very little to suggest the changes that were going on

-underneath, and which were soon to find their first great and reasoned

-expression. Nominally, it would seem that the views of the eighteenth

-century “classicists” were adequately represented and summed up in those

-of Johnson, for whom the ideal of poetical language was that which Dryden

-had “invented,” and of which Pope had made such splendid use in his

-translation of Homer. In reality, the practice of the “neo-classical”

-poets was largely influenced by the critical tenets of the school to

-which they belonged, especially by that pseudo-Aristotelian doctrine

-according to which poetry was to be an “imitation” of the best models,

-whilst its words, phrases, and similes were to be such as were generally

-accepted and consecrated by poetic use. It was this conventionalism,

-reinforced by, as well as reflecting, the neo-classical outlook on

-external nature, that resulted in the “poetic diction” which Wordsworth

-attacked, and it is important to note that a similar stereotyped language

-is to be found in most of the contemporary poetry of Western Europe, and

-especially in that of France.[52]

-

-We need not be surprised, therefore, to find that neither Johnson, nor

-any of his “classical” contemporaries, appears to attach any importance

-to the fact that Pope in his essays and epistles had set up a standard

-of diction, of which it is not too much to say that it was an ideal

-vehicle of expression for the thoughts and feelings it had to convey.

-So enamoured were they of the pomp and glitter of the “Homer” that

-they apparently failed to see in this real “Pope style” an admirable

-model for all writers aiming at lucidity, simplicity, and directness of

-thought. We may see this clearly by means of an instructive comparison

-of Johnson’s judgments on the two “Pope styles.” “It is remarked by

-Watts,” he writes, “that there is scarcely a happy combination of words

-or a phrase poetically elegant in the English language which Pope has not

-inserted into his version of Homer.”[53] On the other hand, he is perhaps

-more than unjust to Pope’s plain didactic style when he speaks of the

-“harshness of diction,” the “levity without elegance” of the “Essay on

-Man.”[54]

-

-It was not until the neo-classical poetry was in its death-agony that

-we meet with adequate appreciation of the admirable language which

-Pope brought to perfection and bequeathed to his successors. “The

-familiar style,” wrote Cowper to Unwin,[55] “is of all the styles the

-most difficult to succeed in. To make verse speak the language of prose

-without being prosaic—to marshal the words of it in such an order as they

-might naturally take in falling from the lips of an extemporary speaker,

-yet without meanness, harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming

-to displace a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the most

-arduous tasks a poet can undertake.” The “familiar style,” which Cowper

-here definitely characterizes, was in its own special province as good

-a model as was the beautiful simplicity of Blake when “poetical poetry”

-had once more come into its own; and it is important to remember that

-this fact received due recognition from both Wordsworth and Coleridge.

-“The mischief,” wrote the former,[56] “was effected not by Pope’s

-satirical and moral pieces, for these entitle him to the highest place

-among the poets of his class; it was by his ‘Homer.’... No other work

-in the language so greatly vitiated the diction of English poetry.” And

-Coleridge, too, called attention to the “almost faultless position and

-choice of words” in Pope’s original compositions, in comparison with

-the absurd “pseudo-poetic diction” of his translations of Homer.[57]

-The “Pope style” failed to produce real poetry—poetry of infinite and

-universal appeal, animated with personal feeling and emotion not merely

-because of its preference for the generic rather than the typical, but

-because its practitioners for the most part lacked those qualities of

-intense imagination in which alone the highest art can have its birth.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER III

-

-THE “STOCK” DICTION OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY

-

-

-Since the time when Wordsworth launched his manifestoes on the language

-fit and proper for poetry, it may almost be said that whenever the term

-“poetic diction” is found used as a more or less generic term of critical

-disparagement, it has been with reference, implied or explicit, to the

-so-called classical poetry of the Augustan ages. But the condemnation has

-perhaps been given too wide an application, and hence there has arisen a

-tendency to place in this category all the language of all the poets who

-were supposed to have taken Pope as their model, so that “the Pope style”

-and “eighteenth century diction” have almost become synonymous terms, as

-labels for a lifeless, imitative language in which poets felt themselves

-constrained to express all their thoughts and feelings. This criticism is

-both unjust and misleading. For when this “false and gaudy splendour” is

-unsparingly condemned, it is not always recognized or remembered that it

-is mainly to be found in the descriptive poetry of the period.

-

-It is sufficient to glance at the descriptive verse of practically

-all the typical “classical” poets to discover how generally true this

-statement is. We cannot say, of course, that the varied sights and sounds

-of outdoor life made no appeal at all to them; but what we do feel is

-that whenever they were constrained to indulge in descriptive verse

-they either could not, or would not, try to convey their impressions in

-language of their very own, but were content in large measure to draw

-upon a common stock of dead and colourless epithets. Local colour, in the

-sense of accurate and particular observation of natural facts, is almost

-entirely lacking; there is no writing with the eye on the object, and it

-has been well remarked that their highly generalized descriptions could

-be transferred from poet to poet or from scene to scene, without any

-injustice. Thus Shenstone[58] describes his birthplace:

-

-    Romantic scenes of pendent hills

-    And verdant vales, and falling rills,

-    And mossy banks, the fields adorn

-    Where Damon, simple swain, was born—

-

-a quatrain which, with little or no change of epithet, was the common

-property of the versifiers, and may be met with almost everywhere in

-early eighteenth century poetry. Every type of English scenery and every

-phase of outdoor life finds its description in lines of this sort, where

-the reader instinctively feels that the poet has not been careful to

-record his individual impressions or emotions, but has contented himself

-with accepting epithets and phrases consecrated to the use of natural

-description. A similar inability or indifference is seen even in the

-attempts to re-fashion Chaucer, or the Bible, or other old material,

-where the vigour and freshness and colour of the originals might have

-been expected to exercise a salutary influence. But to no purpose: all

-must be cast in the one mould, and clothed in the elegant diction of

-the time. Thus in Dryden’s modernization of the “Canterbury Tales” the

-beautiful simplicity of Chaucer’s descriptions of the sights and sounds

-of nature vanishes when garbed in the rapid and conventional phrases and

-locutions of the classicists. Chaucer’s “briddes” becomes “the painted

-birds,” a “goldfinch” is amplified into a “goldfinch with gaudy pride of

-painted plumes,” whilst a plain and simple mention of sunrise, “at the

-sun upriste,” has to be paraphrased into

-

-    Aurora had but newly chased the night

-    And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light.

-

-The old ballads and the Psalms suffered severely in the same way.[59]

-

-The fact that the words most frequently used in this stock poetic

-diction have usually some sort of connexion with dress or ornament has

-not escaped notice, and it has its own significance. It is, as it were,

-a reflex of the fact that the nature poetry of the period is in large

-measure the work of writers to whom social life is the central fact of

-existence, for whom meadow, and woodland, and running water, mountain

-and sea, the silent hills, and the starry sky brought no inspiration, or

-at least no inspiration powerful enough to lead them to break through

-the shackles of conventionality imposed upon them by the taste of their

-age. Words like “paint” and “painted,” “gaudy,” “adorn,” “deck,” “gilds”

-and “gilded,” “damasked,” “enamelled,” “embroidered,” and dozens similar

-form the stock vocabulary of natural description; apart from the best of

-Akenside, and the works of one or two writers such as John Cunningham,

-it can safely be said that but few new descriptive terms were added to

-the “nature vocabulary” of English poetry during this period. How far

-English poetry is yet distant from a recognition of the sea as a source

-of poetic inspiration may be perhaps seen from the fact that its most

-frequent epithet is the feeble term “watery,” whilst the magic of the sky

-by night or day evokes no image other than one that can be expressed by

-changes rung on such words as “azure,” “concave,” “serene,” “ætherial.”

-Even in “Night Thoughts,” where the subject might have led to something

-new and fresh in the way of a “star-vocabulary,” the best that Young can

-do is to take refuge in such periphrases as “tuneful spheres,” “nocturnal

-sparks,” “lucid orbs,” “ethereal armies,” “mathematic glories,” “radiant

-choirs,” “midnight counsellors,” etc.

-

-And the same lack of direct observation and individual expression is

-obvious whenever the classicists have to mention birds or animals. Wild

-life had to wait for White of Selborne, and for Blake and Burns and

-Cowper and Wordsworth, to be observed with accuracy and treated with

-sympathy; and it has been well remarked that if we are to judge from

-their verse, most of the poets of the first quarter of the eighteenth

-century knew no bird except the goldfinch or nightingale, and even these

-probably only by hearsay. For the same generalized diction is usually

-called upon, and birds are merely a “feathered,” “tuneful,” “plumy”

-or “warbling” choir, whilst a periphrasis, allowing of numerous and

-varied labels for the same animal, is felt to be the correct thing. In

-Dryden sheep are “the woolly breed” or “the woolly race”; bees are the

-“industrious kind” or “the frugal kind”; pigs are “the bristly care” or

-“the tusky kind”; frogs are “the loquacious race”; crows, “the craven

-kind,” and so on: “the guiding principle seems to be that nothing must be

-mentioned by its own name.”[60]

-

-Many of these stock epithets owed their appearance of course to the

-requirements imposed upon poets by their adherence to the heroic couplet.

-Pope himself calls attention to the fact that the necessities of rhyme

-led to the unceasing repetition of stereotyped phrases and locutions:

-

-    Where’er you find the “cooling western breeze.”

-    In the next line it “whispers through the trees”;

-    If crystal streams “with pleasing murmur creep”

-    The reader’s threaten’d, not in vain, with “sleep”—

-

-adducing, with unconscious irony, the very rhymes prevalent in much of

-his own practice.[61]

-

-It was also recognized by the versifiers that the indispensable polish

-and “correctness” of the decasyllabic line could only be secured by a

-mechanical use of epithets in certain positions. “There is a vast beauty

-[to me],” wrote Shenstone, “in using a word of a particular nature in

-the 8th and 9th syllable of an English verse. I mean what is virtually a

-dactyl. For instance,

-

-    And pykes, the tyrants of the wat’ry plains.

-

-Let any person of any ear substitute _liquid_ for _wat’ry_ and he will

-find the disadvantage.”[62] Saintsbury has pointed out[63] that the

-“drastic but dangerous device of securing the undulating penetration

-of the line by the use of the _gradus_ epithet was one of the chief

-causes of the intensely artificial character of the versification and

-its attendant diction.... There are passages in the ‘Dispensary’ and

-‘The Rape of the Lock,’ where you can convert the decasyllable into the

-octosyllable for several lines together without detriment to sense or

-poetry by simply taking out these specious superfluities.”

-

-In the year of Dryden’s death (or perhaps in the following year) there

-had appeared the “Art of Poetry” by Edward Bysshe, whose metrical

-laws were generally accepted, as authoritative, during the eighteenth

-century. During the forty years of Dryden’s literary career the

-supremacy of the stopped regular decasyllabic couplet had gradually

-established itself as the perfect form of verse. But Bysshe was the first

-prosodist to formulate the “rules” of the couplet, and in doing so he

-succeeded, probably because his views reflected the general prosodic

-tendencies of the time, in “codifying and mummifying” a system which

-soon became erected into a creed. “The foregoing rules (_of accent on

-the even places and pause mainly at the 4th, 5th, or 6th syllable_)

-ought indispensably to be followed in all our verses of 10 syllables:

-and the observation of them will produce Harmony, the neglect of them

-harshness and discord.”[64] Into this rigid mechanical mould contemporary

-and succeeding versifiers felt themselves constrained to place their

-couplets. But to pad out their lines they were nearly always beset with

-a temptation to use the trochaic epithets, of which numerous examples

-have been given above. As a natural result such epithets soon became part

-and parcel of the poetic stock of language, and hence most of them were

-freely used by poets, not because of any intrinsic poetic value, but

-because they were necessary to comply with the absurd mechanics of their

-vehicle of expression.

-

-Since the “Lives of the Poets” it has been customary to regard this

-“poetic diction” as the peculiar invention of the late seventeenth and

-early eighteenth century, and especially of Dryden and Pope, a belief

-largely due to Johnson’s eulogies of these poets. As an ardent admirer of

-the school of Dryden and Pope, it was only natural that Johnson should

-express an exalted opinion of their influence on the poetic practice

-of his contemporaries. But others—Gray amongst them—did not view their

-innovations with much complacency, and towards the end of the century

-Cowper was already foreshadowing the attack to be made by Wordsworth and

-Coleridge in the next generation. To Pope’s influence, he says in effect,

-after paying his predecessor a more or less formal compliment, was due

-the stereotyped form both of the couplet and of much of the language in

-which it was clothed. Pope had made

-

-        poetry a mere mechanic art

-    And every warbler had his tune by heart;

-

-and in one of his letters he stigmatizes and pillories the inflated and

-stilted phraseology of Pope, and especially his translation of Homer.[65]

-Finally, Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed in ascribing the “poetical

-diction,” against which their manifestoes were directed, to that source.

-

-It is to be admitted that Pope’s translation is to some extent open

-to the charge brought against it of corrupting the language with a

-meretricious standard of poetic diction. In his Preface he expresses his

-misgivings as to the language fit and proper for an English rendering of

-Homer, and indeed it is usually recognized that his diction was, to a

-certain extent, imposed upon him both by the nature of his original, as

-well as by the lack of elasticity in his closed couplet. To the latter

-cause was doubtless due, not only the use of stock epithets to fill out

-the line, but also the inevitable repetition of certain words, due to

-the requirements of rhyme, even at the expense of straining or distorting

-their ordinary meaning. Thus _train_, for instance, on account of its

-convenience as a rhyming word, is often used to signify “a host,” or

-“body,” and similarly _plain_, _main_, for the ocean. In this connexion

-it has also been aptly pointed out that some of the defects resulted from

-the fact that Pope had founded his own epic style on that of the Latin

-poets, whose manner is most opposed to Homer’s. Thus he often sought to

-deck out or expand simple thoughts or commonplace situations by using

-what he no doubt considered really “poetical language,” and thus, for

-instance, where Homer simply says, “And the people perished,” Pope has

-to say, “And heaped the camp with mountains of the dead.” The repeated

-use of periphrases: _feathered fates_, for “arrows”; _fleecy breed_ for

-“sheep”; _the wandering nation of a summer’s day_ for “insects”; _the

-beauteous kind_ for “women”; _the shining mischief_ for “a fascinating

-woman”; _rural care_ for “the occupations of the shepherd”; _the social

-shades_ for “the ghosts of two brothers,” may be traced to the same

-influence.[66]

-

-But apart from these defects the criticisms of Coleridge and Wordsworth,

-and their ascribing of the “poetical diction,” which they wished to

-abolish, to the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” are to a large extent

-unjust. Many of the characteristics of this “spurious poetic language”

-were well established long before Pope produced his translation. It is

-probable that they are present to a much larger extent, for instance, in

-Dryden; _painted_, _rural_, _finny_, _briny_, _shady_, _vocal_, _mossy_,

-_fleecy_, come everywhere in his translations, and not only there. Some

-of his adjectives in y are more audacious than those of Pope: _spongy

-clouds_, _chinky hives_, _snary webs_, _roomy sea_, etc. Most of the

-periphrases used by Pope and many more are already to be found in Dryden:

-“summer” is _the sylvan reign_; “bees,” _the frugal_ or _industrious

-kind_; “arrows,” _the feathered wood_ or _feathered fates_; “sheep,” _the

-woolly breed_; “frogs,” _the loquacious race_! From all Pope’s immediate

-predecessors and contemporaries similar examples may be quoted, like Gay’s

-

-    When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain

-

-                                                         (“Rural Sports”)

-

-or Ambrose Philips:

-

-    Hark: how they warble in the brambly bush

-    The gaudy goldfinch or the speckly thrush

-

-                                                      (“Fourth Pastoral”)

-

-and that “Epistle to a Friend,” in which he ridicules the very jargon so

-much used in his own Pastorals.[67]

-

-Pope then may justly be judged “not guilty,” at least “in the first

-degree,” of having originated the poetic diction which Johnson praised

-and Wordsworth condemned; in using it, he was simply using the stock

-language for descriptive poetry, whether original or in translations,

-which had slowly come into being during the last decade of the

-seventeenth century. If it be traced to its origins, it will be found

-that most of it originated with that poet who may fairly be called the

-founder of the English “classical” school of poetry—to Milton, to whom

-in large measure is due, not merely the invention, but also, by the very

-potency of the influence exercised by his great works, its vogue in the

-eighteenth century.

-

-Before the time of Milton, it is not too much to say, even when we

-remember the practice of Spenser and Donne and their followers, that

-there was no special language for poetry, little or nothing of the

-diction consecrated solely to the purposes of poets. The poets of the

-Elizabethan age and their immediate successors had access to all diction,

-upon which they freely drew. But it seems natural, indeed inevitable,

-that for Milton, resolved to sing of things “unattempted yet in prose

-or rhyme,” the ordinary language of contemporary prose or poetry should

-be found lacking. He was thus impelled, we may say, consciously and

-deliberately to form for himself a special poetical vocabulary, which, in

-his case, was abundantly justified, because it was so essentially fitted

-to his purpose, and bore the stamp of his lofty poetic genius.

-

-This poetical vocabulary was made up of diverse elements. Besides the

-numerous “classical” words, which brought with them all the added charm

-of literary reminiscence, there were archaisms, and words of Latin

-origin, as well as words deliberately coined on Latin and Greek roots.

-But it included also most of the epithets of which the eighteenth

-century versifiers were so fond. Examples may be taken from any of the

-descriptive portions of the “Paradise Lost”:

-

-    On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers

-

-                                                                (IV, 334)

-

-or

-

-        About me round I saw

-    Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,

-    And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.

-

-                                                          (VIII, 260-263)

-

-Other phrases, like “vernal bloom,” “lucid stream,” “starry sphere,”

-“flowery vale,” “umbrageous grots,” were to become the worn-out

-penny-pieces of the eighteenth century poetical mint. Milton indeed

-seems to have been one of the great inventors of adjectives ending in

-y, though in this respect he had been anticipated by Browne and others,

-and especially by Chapman, who has large numbers of them, and whose

-predilection for this method of making adjectives out of nouns amounts

-almost to an obsession.[68]

-

-Milton was also perhaps the great innovator with another kind of

-epithet, which called forth the censure of Johnson, who described it

-as “the practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the

-terminations of participles,” though the great dictator is here attacking

-a perfectly legitimate device freely used by the Jacobeans and by most of

-the poets since their time.[69] Nor are there wanting in Milton’s epic

-instances of the idle periphrases banned by Wordsworth: _straw-built

-citadel_ for “bee-hive,” _vernal bloom_ for “spring flowers,” _smutty

-grain_ for “gunpowder,” _humid train_ for the flowery waters of a river,

-etc.[70]

-

-With Milton, then, may be said to have originated the “poetic diction,”

-which drew forth Wordsworth’s strictures, and which in the sequel

-proved a dangerous model for the swarm of versifiers who essayed to

-borrow or imitate it for the purpose of their dull and commonplace

-themes. How much the Miltonic language, as aped and imitated by the

-“landscape gardeners and travelling pedlars” of the eighteenth century,

-lost in originality and freshness, may be felt, rather than described,

-if we compare so well-known a passage as the following with any of the

-quotations given earlier:

-

-                  Yet not the more

-    Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt

-    Clear Spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,

-    Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief

-    Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,

-    That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow.

-

-                                                        (P.L. III, 26-30)

-

-But the minor poets of the eighteenth century, who, by their mechanical

-imitations, succeeded in reducing Milton’s diction to the level of

-an almost meaningless jargon, had had every encouragement from their

-greater predecessors and contemporaries. The process of depreciation may

-be seen already in Dryden, and it is probably by way of Pope that much

-of the Miltonic language became part of the eighteenth century poetic

-stock-in-trade. Pope was a frequent borrower from Milton, and, in his

-“Homer” especially, very many reminiscences are to be found, often used

-in an artificial, and sometimes in an absurd, manner.[71] Moreover,

-Pope’s free and cheapened use of many of Milton’s descriptive epithets

-did much to reduce them to the rank of merely conventional terms, and

-in this respect the attack of Wordsworth and Coleridge was not without

-justice. But on the whole the proper conclusion would seem to be that

-what is usually labelled as “the _Pope_ style” could with more justice

-and aptness be described as “the pseudo-Miltonic style.” It is true that

-the versifiers freely pilfered the “Homer,” and the vogue of much of the

-stock diction is thus due to that source, but so far as Pope himself is

-concerned there is justice in his plea that he left this style behind him

-when he emerged from “Fancy’s maze” and “moralized his song.”

-

-To what extent this catalogue of lifeless words and phrases had

-established itself as the poetical thesaurus is to be seen in the

-persistency with which it maintained its position until the very end of

-the century, when Erasmus Darwin with a fatal certainty evolved from

-it all its worst features, and thus did much unconsciously to crush it

-out of existence. James Thomson is rightly regarded as one of the most

-important figures in the early history of the Romantic Revolt, and he

-has had merited praise for his attempts to provide himself with a new

-language of his own. In this respect, however, he had been anticipated

-by John Philips, whose “Splendid Shilling” appeared in 1705, followed by

-“Cyder” a year later. Philips, though not the first Miltonic imitator,

-was practically the first to introduce the Miltonic diction and phrases,

-whilst at the same time he acquired the knack of adding phrases of his

-own to the common stock. He was thus an innovator from whom Thomson

-himself learned not a little.

-

-But though the “Seasons” is ample testimony to a new and growing

-alertness to natural scenery, Thomson found it hard to escape from the

-fetters of the current poetic language. We feel that he is at least

-trying to write with his eye steadily fixed upon the object, but he could

-perhaps hardly be expected to get things right from the very beginning.

-Thus a stanza from his “Pastoral Entertainment” is purely conventional:

-

-    The place appointed was a spacious vale

-    Fanned always by a cooling western gale

-    Which in soft breezes through the meadow stray

-    And steal the ripened fragrances away—

-

-while he paraphrases a portion of the sixth chapter of St. Matthew into:

-

-    Observe the rising lily’s snowy grace,

-    Observe the various vegetable race,

-    They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow

-    Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow,

-

-where the stock terms scarcely harmonize with the simple Biblical

-diction. He was well aware of the attendant dangers and difficulties,

-and in the first book of “The Seasons” he gives expression to the need

-he feels of a language fit to render adequately all that he sees in

-Nature.[72] But though there is much that is fresh and vivid in his

-descriptive diction, and much that reveals him as a bold pioneer in

-poetic outlook and treatment, the tastes and tendencies of his age were

-too strong entirely to be escaped. Birds are the _plumy_, or _feathered

-people_, or _the glossy kind_,[73] and a flight of swallows is _a

-feathered eddy_; sheep are _the bleating kind_, etc. In one passage

-(“Spring,” ll. 114-135) he deals at length with the insects that attack

-the crops without once mentioning them by name: they are _the feeble

-race_, _the frosty tribe_, _the latent foe_, and even _the sacred sons

-of vengeance_. He has in general the traditional phraseology for the

-mountains and the sea, though a few of his epithets for the mountains,

-as _keen-air’d_ and _forest-rustling_, are new. He speaks of the Alps as

-_dreadful_, _horrid_, _vast_, _sublime_. _Shaggy_ and _nodding_ are also

-applied to mountains as well as to rocks and forests; winter is usually

-described in the usual classical manner as _deformed_ and _inverted_.

-Leaves are the _honours_ of trees, paths are _erroneous_, caverns

-_sweat_, etc., and he also makes large use of Latinisms.[74]

-

-John Dyer (1700-1758), though now and then conventional in his diction,

-has a good deal to his credit, and is a worthy contemporary of the author

-of “The Seasons.” Thus in the “Country Walk” it is the old stock diction

-he gives us:

-

-    Look upon that _flowery plain_

-    How the sheep surround their _swain_;

-      And there behold a _bloomy mead_,

-      A silver stream, a willow shade;

-

-and much the same thing is to be found in “The Fleece,” published in 1757:

-

-    The crystal dews, impearl’d upon the grass,

-    Are touched by Phœbus’ beams and mount aloft,

-    With various clouds to paint the azure sky;

-

-whilst he has almost as many adjectives in y as Ambrose Philips. But

-these are more than redeemed by the new descriptive touches which appear,

-sometimes curiously combined with the stereotyped phrases, as in “The

-Fleece” (Bk. III):

-

-    The scatter’d mists reveal the dusky hills;

-    Grey dawn appears; the golden morn ascends,

-    And paints the glittering rocks and purple woods.

-

-Nor must we forget “Grongar Hill,” which has justly received high praise

-for its beauties and felicities of description.

-

-It is scarcely necessary to illustrate further the vogue of this sort of

-diction in the first half of the eighteenth century; it is to be found

-everywhere in the poetry of the period, and the conventional epithets

-and phrases quoted from Dyer and Thomson may be taken as typical of the

-majority of their contemporaries. But this lifeless, stereotyped language

-has also invaded the work of some of the best poets of the century,

-including not only the later classicists, but also those who have been

-“born free,” and are foremost among the Romantic rebels. The poetic

-language of William Collins shows a strange mixture of the old style

-and the new. That it was new and individual is well seen from Johnson’s

-condemnation, for Johnson recognized very clearly that the language of

-the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands” did not conform

-to what was probably his own view that the only language fit and proper

-for poetry was such as might bear comparison with the polish and elegance

-of Pope’s “Homer.” It is not difficult to make due allowance for Johnson

-when he speaks of Collins’s diction as “harsh, unskilfully laboured, and

-injudicially selected”; we deplore the classical bias, and are content

-enough to recognize and enjoy for ourselves the matchless beauty and

-charm of Collins’s diction at its best. Yet much of the language of his

-earlier work betrays him as more or less a poetaster of the eighteenth

-century. The early “Oriental Eclogues” abound in the usual descriptive

-details, just as if the poet had picked out his words and phrases from

-the approved lists. Thus,

-

-    Yet midst the blaze of courts she fixed her love

-    On the cool fountain or the shady grove

-    Still, with the shepherd’s innocence her mind

-    To the sweet vale and flowery mead inclined;

-

-and even in the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions” there were expressions

-like _watery surge_, _sheeny gold_, though now and then the “new” diction

-is strikingly exemplified in a magnificent phrase such as _gleamy

-pageant_.

-

-When Collins has nothing new to say his poetic language is that of

-his time, but when his inspiration is at its loftiest his diction is

-always equal to the task, and it is then that he gives us the unrivalled

-felicities of “The Ode to Evening.”

-

-Amongst all the English poets there has probably never been one, even

-when we think of Tennyson, more careful and meticulous (or “curiously

-elaborate,” as Wordsworth styled it) about the diction of his verses, the

-very words themselves, than Gray. This fact, and not Matthew Arnold’s

-opinion that it was because Gray had fallen on an “age of prose,” may

-perhaps be regarded as sufficient to explain the comparative scantiness

-of his literary production. He himself, in a famous letter, has clearly

-stated his ideal of literary expression: “Extreme conciseness of

-expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one of the grand

-beauties of lyrical poetry.”[75] Hence all his verses bear evidence

-of the most painstaking labour and rigorous self-criticism, almost as

-if every word had been weighed and assessed before being allowed to

-appear. His correspondence with Mason and Beattie, referred to in the

-previous chapter, shows the same fastidiousness with regard to the work

-of others. Gray indeed, drawing freely upon Milton and Dryden, created

-for himself a special poetic language which in its way can become almost

-as much an abuse as the otiosities of many of his predecessors and

-contemporaries—the “cumbrous splendour” of which Johnson complained. Yet

-he is never entirely free from the influence of the “classical” diction

-which, for Johnson, represented the ideal. His earliest work is almost

-entirely conventional in its descriptions, the prevailing tone being

-exemplified in such phrases as _the purple year_, _the Attic Warbler

-pours her throat_ (Ode on “The Spring”), whilst in the “Progress of

-Poesy,” lines like

-

-    Through verdant vales and Ceres’ golden reign

-

-are not uncommon, though of course the possibility of the direct

-influence of the classics, bringing with it the added flavour of

-reminiscence, is not to be ignored in this sort of diction. Moreover, a

-couplet from the fragmentary “Alliance of Education and Government”:

-

-    Scent the new fragrance of _the breathing rose_

-    And quaff _the pendent vintage_ as it grows—

-

-is almost typical, apart from the freshness of the epithet _breathing_,

-of what Wordsworth wished to abolish. Even the “Elegy” has not escaped

-the contagion: _storied urn_ or _animated bust_ is perilously akin to the

-pedantic periphrases of the Augustans.

-

-Before passing to a consideration of the work of Johnson and Goldsmith,

-who best represent the later eighteenth century development of the

-“classical” school of Pope, reference may be made to two other writers.

-The first of these is Thomas Chatterton. In that phase of the early

-Romantic Movement which took the form of attempts to revive the past,

-Chatterton of course played an important part, and the pseudo-archaic

-language which he fabricated for the purpose of his “Rowley” poems is

-interesting, not only as an indication of the trend of the times towards

-the poetic use of old and obsolete words, but also as reflecting, it

-would seem, a genuine endeavour to escape from the fetters of the

-conventional and stereotyped diction of his day. On the other hand, in

-his avowedly original work, Chatterton’s diction is almost entirely

-imitative. He has scarcely a single fresh image or description; his

-series of “Elegies” and “Epistles” are clothed in the current poetic

-language. He uses the stock expressions, _purling streams_, _watery

-bed_, _verdant vesture of the smiling fields_, along with the usual

-periphrases, such as _the muddy nation_ or _the speckled folk_ for

-“frogs.” One verse of an “Elegy” written in 1768 contains in itself

-nearly all the conventional images:

-

-    Ye variegated children of the Spring,

-    Ye blossoms blushing with the pearly dew;

-    Ye birds that sweetly in the hawthorn sing;

-    Ye flowery meads, lawns of verdant hue.

-

-It can be judged from these examples how a stereotyped mode of expression

-may depreciate to a large extent the value of much of the work of a

-poet of real genius. Chatterton is content in most of his avowedly

-“original” work to turn his poetic thoughts into the accepted moulds,

-which is all the more surprising when we remember his laborious methods

-of manufacturing an archaic diction for his mediaeval “discoveries,”[76]

-even if we may assume that it reflected a strong desire for something

-fresh and new.

-

-A poet of much less genius, but one who enjoyed great contemporary

-fame, was William Falconer, whose “Shipwreck,” published in 1762, was

-the most popular sea-poem of the eighteenth century. The most striking

-characteristic of the descriptive parts of the poem is the daring and

-novel use of technical sea-terms, but apart from this the language is

-purely conventional. The sea is still the same _desert-waste_, _faithless

-deep_, _watery way_, _world_, _plain_, _path_, or _the fluid plain_, _the

-glassy plain_, whilst the landscape catalogue is as lifeless as any of

-the descriptive passages of the early eighteenth century:

-

-                      on every spray

-    The warbling birds exalt their evening lay,

-    Blithe skipping o’er yon hill the fleecy train

-    Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain.

-

-When he leaves this second-hand description, and describes scenes

-actually experienced and strongly felt, Falconer’s language is

-correspondingly fresh and vivid, the catastrophe of the shipwreck itself,

-for example, being painted with extraordinary power.[77]

-

-When we come to Johnson and Goldsmith, here again a distinction must be

-made between the didactic or satiric portion of their work and that which

-is descriptive. Johnson’s didactic verse, marked as it is by a free use

-of inversion and ellipsis, rarely attains the clearness and simplicity of

-Goldsmith’s, whilst he has also much more of the stock descriptive terms

-and phrases. His “Odes” are almost entirely cast in this style. Thus in

-“Spring”:

-

-    Now o’er the rural Kingdom roves

-        Soft Pleasure with her laughing train,

-    Love warbles in the vocal groves

-        And vegetation plants the plains,

-

-whilst exactly the same stuff is turned out for a love poem, “To Stella”:

-

-    Not the soft sighs of vernal gales

-    The fragrance of the flowery vales

-    The murmurs of the crystal rill

-    The vocal grove, the verdant hill.

-

-Though there is not so much of this kind of otiose description in the

-poems of Goldsmith, yet Mr. Dobson’s estimate of his language may be

-accepted as a just one: “In spite of their beauty and humanity,” he

-says, “the lasting quality of ‘The Traveller’ and ‘The Deserted Village’

-is seriously prejudiced by his half-way attitude between the poetry of

-convention and the poetry of nature—between the _gradus_ epithet of Pope

-and the direct vocabulary of Wordsworth.”[78] Thus when we read such

-lines as

-

-    The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,

-    The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail

-

-                                                 (“Traveller,” ll. 293-4)

-

-we feel that Goldsmith too has been writing with his eye on the object,

-and even in such a line as

-

-    The breezy covert of the warbling grove

-

-                                                           (_Ibid._, 360)

-

-there is a freshness of description that compensates for the use of the

-hackneyed _warbling grove_. On the other hand, there are in both pieces

-passages which it is difficult not to regard as purely conventional in

-their language. Thus in “The Traveller,” the diction, if not entirely of

-the stock type, is not far from it:

-

-    Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned

-    Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round

-    Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale

-    Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale,

-

-and so on for another dozen lines.[79]

-

-Only the slightest traces, however, of this mechanical word-painting

-appear in “The Deserted Village,” almost the only example of the

-stereotyped phrase being in the line

-

-    These simple blessings of _the lowly train_

-

-                                                                (l. 252).

-

-Thus whilst Goldsmith in much of his work continues the classical school

-of Pope, alike in his predilection for didactic verse and his practice of

-the heroic couplet, in his poetic language he is essentially individual.

-In his descriptive passages he rarely uses the conventional jargon, and

-the greater part of the didactic and moral observations of his two most

-famous poems is written in simple and unadorned language that would

-satisfy the requirements of the Wordsworthian canon.

-

-That pure and unaffected diction could be employed with supreme effect

-in other than moral and didactic verse was soon to be shown in the lyric

-poetry of William Blake, who, about thirty years before Wordsworth

-launched his manifestoes, evolved for himself a poetic language,

-wonderful alike in its beauty and simplicity. In those of the “Songs

-of Innocence” and “The Songs of Experience,” which are concerned with

-natural description, the epithets and expressions that had long been

-consecrated to this purpose find little or no place. Here and there we

-seem to catch echoes of the stock diction, as in the lines,

-

-    the starry floor

-    the watery shore

-

-of the Introduction to the “Songs of Experience,” or the

-

-    happy, silent, _moony_ beams

-

-of “The Cradle Song”; but in each case the expressions are redeemed and

-revitalized by the pure and joyous singing note of the lyrics of which

-they form part. Only once is Blake to be found using the conventional

-epithet, when in his “Laughing Song” he writes

-

-    the _painted_ birds laugh in the shade,

-

-whilst with his usual unerring instinct he marks down the monotonous

-smoothness of so much contemporary verse in that stanza of his ode “To

-the Muses” in which, as has been well said, the eighteenth century dies

-to music:[80]

-

-    How have you left the ancient love

-    That bards of old enjoyed in you!

-    The languid strings do scarcely move,

-    The sound is forced, the notes are few.

-

-Not that he altogether escaped the blighting influence of his time. In

-the early “Imitation of Spenser,” we get such a couplet as

-

-    To sit in council with his modern peers

-    And judge of tinkling rhimes and elegances terse,

-

-whilst the “vicious diction” Wordsworth was to condemn is also to be seen

-in this line from one of the early “Songs”:

-

-    and Phœbus fir’d my vocal rage.

-

-Even as late as 1800 Blake was capable of writing

-

-    Receive this tribute from a harp sincere.[81]

-

-But these slight blemishes only seem to show up in stronger light the

-essential beauty and nobility of his poetical style.

-

-But the significance of Blake’s work in the purging and purifying of

-poetic diction was not, as might perhaps be expected, recognized by his

-contemporaries and immediate successors. For Coleridge, writing some

-thirty years later, it was Cowper, and his less famous contemporary

-Bowles, who were the pioneers in the rejecting of the old and faded

-style and the beginning of the new, the first to combine “natural

-thoughts with natural diction.”[82] Coleridge’s opinion seems to us

-now to be an over-statement, but we rather suspect that Cowper was not

-unwilling to regard himself as an innovator in poetic language. In his

-correspondence he reveals himself constantly pre-occupied with the

-question of poetic expression, and especially with the language fit and

-proper for his translation of Homer. His opinion of Pope’s attempt has

-already been referred to, but he himself was well aware of the inherent

-difficulties.[83] He had, it would seem, definite and decided opinions

-on the subject of poetic language; he recognized the lifelessness of the

-accepted diction, which, rightly or wrongly, he attributed especially to

-the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” and tried to escape from its bondage.

-His oft-quoted thesis that in the hands of the eighteenth century poets

-poetry had become a “mere mechanic art,” he developed at length in his

-ode “Secundum Artem,” which comprises almost a complete catalogue of the

-ornaments which enabled the warblers to have their tune by heart. What

-Cowper in that ode pillories—“the trim epithets,” the “sweet alternate

-rhyme,” the “flowers of light description”—were in the main what were to

-be held up to ridicule in the _Lyrical Ballads_ prefaces; Wordsworth’s

-attack is here anticipated by twenty years.

-

-But, as later in the case of Wordsworth, Cowper in his early work has

-not a little of the language which he is at such pains to condemn. Thus

-Horace again appears in the old familiar guise,

-

-    Now o’er the spangled hemisphere,

-    Diffused the starry train appear

-

-                                                         (“Fifth Satire”)

-

-whilst even in “Table Talk” we find occasional conventional descriptions

-such as

-

-    Nature...

-    Spreads the fresh verdure of the fields and leads

-    The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.

-

-But there is little of this kind of description in “The Task.” Now

-and then we meet with examples of the old periphrases, such as the

-_pert voracious kind_ for “sparrows,” or the description of kings

-as the _arbiters of this terraqueous swamp_, though many of these

-pseudo-Miltonic expressions are no doubt used for playful effect. In

-those parts of the poem which deal with the sights and sounds of outdoor

-life the images are new and fresh, whilst in the moral and didactic

-portions the language is, as a rule, uniformly simple and direct. But for

-the classical purity of poetical expression in which the poet is at times

-pre-eminent, it is perhaps best to turn to his shorter poems, such as “To

-Mary,” or to the last two stanzas of “The Castaway,” and especially to

-some of the “Olney Hymns,” of the language of which it may be said that

-every word is rightly chosen and not one is superfluous. Indeed, it may

-well be that these hymns, together with those of Watts and Wesley,[84]

-which by their very purpose demanded a mode of expression severe in its

-simplicity, but upon which were stamped the refinement and correct taste

-of the scholars and gentlemen who wrote them—it may well be that the

-more natural mode of poetic diction which thus arose gave to Wordsworth

-a starting point when he began to expound and develop his theories

-concerning the language of poetry.[85]

-

-Whilst Cowper was thus at once heralding, and to a not inconsiderable

-extent exemplifying, the Romantic reaction in form, another poet, George

-Crabbe, had by his realism given, even before Cowper, an important

-indication of one characteristic aspect of the new poetry.

-

-But though the force and fidelity of his descriptions of the scenery

-of his native place, and the depth and sincerity of his pathos, give

-him a leading place among those who anticipated Wordsworth, other

-characteristics stamp him as belonging to the old order and not to the

-new. His language is still largely that perfected by Dryden and Pope,

-and worked to death by their degenerate followers. The recognized

-“elegancies” and “flowers of speech” still linger on. A peasant is still

-a _swain_, poets are _sons of verse_, fishes _the finny tribe_, country

-folk _the rural tribe_. The word _nymph_ appears with a frequency that

-irritates the reader, and how ludicrous an effect it could produce by its

-sudden appearance in tales of the realistic type that Crabbe loved may be

-judged from such examples as

-

-    It soon appeared that while this nymph divine

-    Moved on, there met her rude uncivil kine.

-

-Whilst he succeeds in depicting the life of the rustic poor, not as

-it appears in the rosy tints of Goldsmith’s pictures, but in all its

-reality—sordid, gloomy and stern, as it for the most part is—the old

-stereotyped descriptions are to be found scattered throughout his grimly

-realistic pictures of the countryside. Thus when Crabbe writes of

-

-                    tepid meads

-    And lawns irriguous and the blooming field

-

-                                                             (“Midnight”)

-

-or

-

-    The lark on quavering pinion woo’d the day

-    Less towering linnets fill’d the vocal spray

-

-                                                        (“The Candidate”)

-

-we feel that he has not had before his eyes the real scenes of his

-Suffolk home, but that he has been content to recall and imitate the

-descriptive stock-in-trade that had passed current for so many years;

-even the later “Tales,” published up to the years when Shelley and Keats

-were beginning their activities, are not free from this defect.

-

-About ten years before Wordsworth launched his manifestoes, there were

-published the two works of Erasmus Darwin, to which reference has already

-been made, and in which this stock language was unconsciously reduced to

-absurdity, not only because of the themes on which it was employed, but

-also because of the fatal ease and facility with which it was used. It

-is strange to think that but a few years before the famous sojourn of

-Coleridge and Wordsworth on the Quantocks, “The Loves of the Plants,” and

-its fellow, should have won instant and lasting popularity.[86]

-

-That Darwin took himself very seriously is to be seen from “The

-Interludes,” in which he airs his views,[87] whilst in his two poems he

-gave full play to his “fancy” (“‘theory’ we cannot call it,” comments

-De Quincey) that nothing was strictly poetic except what is presented in

-visual image. This in itself was not bad doctrine, as it at least implied

-that poetry should be concrete, and thus reflected a desire to escape

-from the abstract and highly generalized diction of his day. But Darwin

-so works his dogma to death that the reader is at first dazzled, and

-finally bewildered by the multitude of images presented, in couplets of

-monotonous smoothness, in innumerable passages, such as

-

-    On twinkling fins my pearly nations play

-    Or wind with sinuous train their trackless way:

-    My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed

-    Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest.

-

-                                                    (“Botanic Garden,” I)

-

-Still there is something to be said for the readers who enjoyed having

-the facts and theories of contemporary science presented to them in so

-coloured and fantastic a garb.

-

-Nor must it be forgotten that the youthful Wordsworth was much influenced

-by these poems of Darwin, so that his early work shows many traces of

-the very pseudo-poetic language which he was soon to condemn. Thus in

-“An Evening Walk”[88] there are such stock phrases as “emerald meads,”

-“watery plains,” the “forest train.”

-

-In “Descriptive Sketches” examples are still more numerous. Thus:

-

-    Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs

-    And amorous music on the water dies,

-

-which might have come direct from Pope, or

-

-    Here all the seasons revel hand-in-hand

-    ’Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned.

-

-The old epithet _purple_ is frequently found (_purple_ lights and vernal

-plains, the _purple_ morning, the fragrant mountain’s _purple_ side), and

-there are a few awkward adjectives in y (“the _piny_ waste”), whilst a

-gun is described as the _thundering tube_.

-

-Few poems indeed are to be found in the eighteenth century with so many

-fantastic conceits as these 1793 poems of Wordsworth. Probably, as has

-been suggested, the poet was influenced to an extent greater than he

-himself imagined by “The Botanic Garden,” so that the poetical devices

-freely employed in his early work may be the result of a determination

-to conform to the “theory” of poetry which Darwin in his precept and

-practice had exemplified. Later, the devices which had satisfied him

-in his first youthful productions must have appeared to him as more or

-less vicious, and altogether undesirable, and in disgust he resolved to

-exclude at one stroke all that he was pleased to call “poetic diction.”

-But, little given to self-criticism, when he penned his memorable

-Prefaces, he fixed the responsibility for “the extravagant and absurd

-diction” upon the whole body of his predecessors, unable or unwilling to

-recognize that he himself had begun his poetic career with a free use of

-many of its worst faults.[89]

-

-Of the stock diction of eighteenth century poetry we may say, then, that

-in the first place it is in large measure a reflection of the normal

-characteristic attitude of the poets of the “neo-classical” period

-towards Nature and all that the term implies. The “neo-classical” poets

-were but little interested in Nature; the countryside made no great

-appeal to them, and it was the Town and its teeming life that focused

-their interest and attention. Man, and his life as a social being, was

-their “proper study”; and this concentration of interest finds its

-reflection in the new and vivid language of the “essays,” satires, and

-epistles, whilst in the “nature poetry” the absence of genuine feeling is

-only too often betrayed by the dead epithets of the stock diction each

-poet felt himself at liberty to draw upon according to his needs. It is

-scarcely necessary to remind ourselves that it is in Pope’s “Pastorals”

-and the “Homer,” not in the “Dunciad” or “The Essay on Man,” that the

-stock words, phrases, and similes are to be found, and the remark is

-equally true of most of the poets of his period. But Pope has been

-unjustly pilloried, for the stock diction did not originate with him. It

-is true that the most masterly and finished examples of what is usually

-styled “the eighteenth century poetic diction” are to be found in his

-work generally, and no doubt the splendour of his translation of Homer

-did much to establish a vogue for many of the set words and phrases. At

-the same time the supremacy of the heroic couplet which he did so much to

-establish played its part in perpetuating the stock diction, the epithets

-of which were often technically just what was required to give the

-decasyllabic verse the desired “correctness” and “smoothness.” But it is

-unjust to saddle him with the responsibility for the lack of originality

-evident in many of his successors and imitators.

-

-The fact that this stock language is not confined to the neo-classical

-poets proper, but is found to a large extent persisting to the very end

-of the eighteenth century, and even invading the early work of the writer

-who led the revolt against it, is indicative of another general cause of

-its widespread prevalence. Briefly, it may be said that not only did the

-conventional poetic diction reflect in the main the average neo-classical

-outlook on external nature; it reflected also the average eighteenth

-century view as to the nature of poetical language, which regarded its

-words and phrases as satisfying the artistic canon, not in virtue of the

-degree in which they reflected the individual thought or emotion of the

-poet, but according as they conformed to a standard of language based on

-accepted models.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER IV

-

-LATINISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY

-

-

-There is now to be noticed another type of eighteenth century poetic

-diction which was in its way as prevalent, and, it may be added, as

-vicious, as the stock diction which has been discussed in the previous

-chapter. This was the use of a latinized vocabulary, from the early years

-of the century down to the days when the work of Goldsmith, Cowper, and

-Crabbe seemed to indicate a sort of interregnum between the old order and

-the new.

-

-This fashion, or craze, for “latinity” was not of course a sudden and

-special development which came in with the eighteenth century: it was

-rather the culmination of a tendency which was not altogether unconnected

-with the historic development of the language itself. As a factor in

-literary composition, it had first begun to be discussed when the

-Elizabethan critics and men of letters were busying themselves with the

-special problem of diction. Latinism was one of the excesses to which

-poets and critics alike directed their attention, and their strictures

-and warnings were such as were inevitable and salutary in the then

-transitional confusion of the language.[90] In the early years of the

-seventeenth century this device for strengthening and ornamenting the

-language was adopted more or less deliberately by such poets as Phineas

-and Giles Fletcher, especially the latter, who makes free use of such

-coinages as _elamping_, _appetence_, _elonging_, etc.[91]

-

-The example of the Fletchers in thus adding to their means of literary

-expression was soon to be followed by a greater poet. When Milton came to

-write his epics, it is evident, as has been said, that he felt the need

-for a diction in keeping with the exalted theme he had chosen, and his

-own taste and temperament, as well as the general tendencies of his age,

-naturally led him to make use of numerous words of direct or indirect

-“classical” origin. But his direct coinages from Latin and Greek are much

-less than has often been supposed.[92] What he seems to have done in many

-cases was to take words the majority of which had been recently formed,

-usually for scientific or philosophic purposes, and incorporate them

-in his poetical vocabulary. Thus _Atheous_, _attrite_, _conflagrant_,

-_jaculation_, _myrrhine_, _paranymph_, _plenipotent_, etc., are instances

-of classical formations which in most cases seem, according to “The New

-English Dictionary,” to have made their first literary appearance shortly

-before the Restoration. In other instances Milton’s latinisms are much

-older.[93] What is important is the fact that Milton was able to infuse

-these and many similar words with a real poetic power, and we may be sure

-that the use of such words as _ethereal_, _adamantine_, _refulgent_,

-_regal_, whose very essence, as has been remarked, is suggestiveness,

-rather than close definition, was altogether deliberate.[94] In addition

-to this use of a latinized vocabulary, there is a continuous latinism

-of construction, which is to be found in the early poems, but which,

-as might be expected, is most prominent in the great epics, where

-idioms like _after his charge received_ (P.L., V 248), _since first her

-salutation heard_ (P.R., II, 107) are frequent.[95]

-

-Milton, we may say, of purpose prepense made or culled for himself a

-special poetical vocabulary which was bound to suffer severely at the

-hands of incompetent and uninspired imitators. But though the widespread

-use of latinized diction is no doubt largely to be traced to the

-influence of Milton at a time when “English verse went Milton mad,” it

-may perhaps also be regarded as a practice that reflected to a certain

-extent the general literary tendencies of the Augustan age.

-

-When Milton was writing his great epics Dryden was just beginning his

-literary career, but though there are numerous examples of latinisms

-in the works of the latter, they are not such as would suggest that he

-had been influenced to any extent by the Miltonic manner of creating a

-poetical vocabulary. There is little or no coinage of the “magnificent”

-words which Milton used so freely, though latinized forms like

-_geniture_, _irremeable_, _praescious_, _tralineate_, are frequent.

-Dryden, however, as might be expected, often uses words in their original

-etymological sense. Thus besides the common use of _prevent_, _secure_,

-etc., we find in the translation of the “Metamorphoses”:

-

-    He had either _led_

-    Thy mother then,

-

-where _led_ is used in the sense of Latin _ducere_ (marry) and “_refers_

-the limbs,” where “refers” means “restores.”[96] Examples are few in

-Dryden’s original works, but “Annus Mirabilis” furnishes instances like

-the _ponderous ball expires_, where “expires” means “is blown forth,”

-and “each wonted room _require_” (“seek again”), whilst there is an

-occasional reminiscence of such Latin phrases as “manifest of crimes” for

-_manifestus sceleris_ (“Ab. and Achit.”).

-

-What has been said of the latinisms of Dryden applies also to those of

-Pope. Words like _prevent_, _erring_, _succeed_, _devious_, _horrid_,

-_missive_, _vagrant_, are used with their original signification, and

-there are passages like

-

-    For this he bids the _nervous_ artists vie.

-

-Imitations of Latin constructions are occasionally found:

-

-    Some god has told them, or themselves survey

-        _The bark escaped_.

-

-Phrases like “_fulgid_ weapons,” “roseate _unguents_,” “_circumfusile_

-gold,” “_frustrate_ triumphs,” etc., are probably coinages imposed by

-the necessities of translation. Other similar phrases, such as (tears)

-“_conglobing_ on the dust,” “with _unctuous_ fir _foment_ the flame,”

-seem to anticipate something of the absurdity into which this kind of

-diction was later to fall.[97]

-

-On the whole, the latinisms found in the works of Dryden and Pope are not

-usually deliberate creations for the purpose of poetic ornament. They

-are such as would probably seem perfectly natural in the seventeenth

-and early eighteenth century, when the traditions of classical study

-still persisted strongly, and when the language of prose itself was still

-receiving additions from that source. Moreover, the large amount of

-translation done by both poets from the classics was bound to result in

-the use of numerous classical terms and constructions.

-

-In 1705 there appeared the “Splendid Shilling” of John Philips, followed

-by his “Cyder” and other poems a year later. These poems are among the

-first of the Miltonic parodies or imitations, and, being written in

-blank verse, they may be regarded as heralding the struggle against the

-tyranny of the heroic couplet. Indeed, blank verse came to be distinctly

-associated with the Romantic movement, probably because it was considered

-that its structure was more encouraging to the unfettered imagination

-than the closed couplets of the classicists. It is thus interesting

-to note that the reaction in form, which marks one distinct aspect of

-Romanticism, was really responsible for some of the excesses against

-which the manifestoes afterwards protested; for it is in these blank

-verse poems especially that there was developed a latinism both of

-diction and construction that frequently borders on the ludicrous, even

-when the poet’s object was not deliberately humorous.

-

-In “Blenheim” terms and phrases such as _globous iron_, _by chains

-connexed_, etc., are frequent, and the attempts at Miltonic effects is

-seen in numerous passages like

-

-              Upborne

-    By frothy billows thousands float the stream

-    In cumbrous mail, with love of farther shore;

-    Confiding in their hands, that sed’lous strive

-    To cut th’ outrageous fluent.

-

-In “Cyder” latinisms are still more abundant: _the nocent brood_ (of

-snails), _treacle’s viscuous juice_, _with grain incentive stored_, _the

-defecated liquour_, _irriguous sleep_, as well as passages like

-

-    Nor from the sable ground expect success

-      Nor from cretacious, stubborn or jejune,

-

-or

-

-    Bards with volant touch

-    Traverse loquacious strings.

-

-This kind of thing became extremely common and persisted throughout the

-eighteenth century.

-

-Incidentally, it may here be remarked that the publication of Philips’s

-poems probably gave to Lady Winchilsea a hint for her poem “Fanscombe

-Barn.”[98] Philips, as has been noted, was one of the very first to

-attempt to use Milton’s lofty diction, and his latinized sentence

-structure for commonplace and even trivial themes, and no doubt his

-experiment, having attracted Lady Winchilsea’s attention, inspired her

-own efforts at Miltonic parody, though it is probably “Cyder” and “The

-Splendid Shilling,” rather then “Paradise Lost,” that she takes as her

-model. Thus the carousings of the tramps forgathered in Fanscombe Barn

-are described:

-

-          the swarthy bowl appears,

-    Replete with liquor, globulous to fight,

-    And threat’ning inundation o’er the brim;

-

-and the whole poem shows traces of its second-hand inspiration.

-

-Even those who are now remembered chiefly as Spenserian imitators indulge

-freely in a latinized style when they take to blank verse. Thus William

-Thompson, who in his poem “Sickness” has many phrases like “the arm

-_ignipotent_,” “_inundant_ blaze” (Bk. I), “terrestrial stores medicinal”

-(Bk. III), with numerous passages, of which the following is typical:

-

-                              the poet’s mind

-    (Effluence essential of heat and light)

-    Now mounts a loftier wing when Fancy leads

-    The glittering track, and points him to the sky

-    Excursive.

-

-                                                                 (Bk. IV)

-

-William Shenstone, the author of one of the most successful of the

-Spenserian imitations, is more sparing in this respect, but even in his

-case passages such as

-

-              Of words indeed profuse,

-    Of gold tenacious, their torpescent soul

-    Clenches their coin, and what electric fire

-    Shall solve the frosty grip, and bid it flow?

-

-                                                      (“Economy,” Part I)

-

-are not infrequent.

-

-But it is not only the mere versifiers who have succumbed to this

-temptation. By far the most important of the early blank verse poems

-was Thomson’s “Seasons,” which, first appearing from 1726-1730, was

-subsequently greatly revised and altered up to the edition of 1746,

-the last to be issued in the author’s lifetime.[99] The importance and

-success of “The Seasons” as one of the earliest indications of the

-“Return to Nature” has received adequate recognition, but Thomson was

-an innovator in the style, as well as in the matter, of his poem. As

-Dr. Johnson remarked, he saw things always with the eyes of a poet,

-and the quickened and revived interest in external nature which he

-reflects inevitably impelled him to search for a new diction to give it

-expression. We can see him, as it were, at work trying to replace the

-current coinage with a new mintage of his own, or rather with a mixed

-currency, derived partly from Milton, and partly from his own resources.

-His diction is thus in some degrees as artificial as the stock diction

-of his period, especially when his attempts to emulate or imitate the

-magnificence of Milton betray him into pomposity or even absurdity; but

-his poetical language as a whole is leavened with so much that is new and

-his very own as to make it clear that the Romantic revival in the style,

-as well as in the contents, of poetry has really begun. The resulting

-peculiarities of style did not escape notice in his own time. He was

-recognized as the creator of a new poetical language, and was severely

-criticized even by some of his friends. Thus Somerville urged with

-unusual frankness a close revision of the style of “The Seasons”:

-

-    Read Philips much, consider Milton more

-    But from their dross extract the purer ore:

-    To coin new words or to restore the old

-    In southern lands is dangerous and bold;

-    But rarely, very rarely, will succeed

-    When minted on the other side of Tweed.[100]

-

-Thomson’s comment on this criticism was emphatic: “Should I alter my

-ways I should write poorly. I must choose what appears to be the most

-significant epithet or I cannot proceed.”[101] Hence, though lines and

-whole passages of “The Seasons” were revised, and large additions made,

-the characteristics of the style were on the whole preserved. And one

-of the chief characteristics, due partly to the influence of Milton,

-and partly to the obvious fact that for Thomson with new thoughts and

-impressions to convey to his readers, the current and conventional

-vocabulary of poetry needed reinforcement, is an excessive use of

-latinisms.[102]

-

-Thus in “Spring” we find, e.g., “_prelusive_ drops,” “the _amusive_ arch”

-(the rainbow), “the torpid sap _detruded_ to the root,” etc., as well as

-numerous passages such as

-

-              Joined to these

-    Innumerous songsters in the freshening shade

-    Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix

-    Mellifluous.

-

-                                                    (“Spring,” 607 foll.)

-

-In “Summer” the epithet _gelid_ appears with almost wearisome iteration,

-with other examples like _flexile_ wave, _the fond sequacious bird_,

-etc., while the cloud that presages a storm is called “the small

-prognostic” and trees are “the noble sons of potent heat and floods.”

-Continuous passages betray similar characteristics:

-

-    From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes

-    Its hue cerulean and of evening tinct.

-

-                                                    (“Summer,” 149 foll.)

-

-_Autumn_ furnishes even more surprising instances: the stag “_adhesive_

-to the track,” the sands “strowed _bibulous_ above,” “forests huge

-_incult_,” etc., as well as numerous passages of sustained latinism.[103]

-

-In “Winter,” which grew from an original 405 lines in 1726 to 1,069 lines

-in 1746, latinism of vocabulary is not prominent to the same extent as in

-the three previous books, but the following is a typical sample:

-

-    Meantime in sable cincture shadows vast

-    Deep-tinged, and damp and congregated clouds

-    And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven

-    Involves the face of things.

-

-                                                      (ll. 54 foll.)[104]

-

-The revisions after 1730 do not show any great pruning, or less

-indulgence in these characteristics; rather the contrary, for many of

-them are additions which did not appear until 1744. Now and then Thomson

-has changed his terms and epithets. Thus in the lines

-

-                the potent sun

-    _Melts into_ limpid air the high-raised clouds

-

-                                                          (“Summer,” 199)

-

-the expression “melts into” has replaced the earlier “attenuates

-to.”[105] One of the best of the emendations, at least as regards the

-disappearance of a latinism, is seen in “Summer” (48-9), where the second

-verse of the couplet,

-

-    The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,

-    At first _faint-gleaming_ in the dappled east

-

-has replaced the

-

-    _Mildly elucent_ in the streaky east

-

-of the earlier version. Often Thomson’s latinisms produce no other effect

-on the reader than that of mere pedantry. Thus in passages such as

-

-    See, where the winding vale its lavish stores

-    _Irriguous_ spreads. See, how the lily drinks

-    The _latent_ rill.

-

-                                                          (“Spring,” 494)

-

-or

-

-                    the canvas smooth

-    With glowing life _protuberant_.

-

-                                                          (“Autumn,” 136)

-

-or

-

-    The fallow ground laid open to the sun

-    _Concoctive_.

-

-                                                           (_Ibid._, 407)

-

-or the description of the tempest

-

-    Struggling through the _dissipated_ grove

-

-                                                     (“Winter,” 185)[106]

-

-(where there is Latin _order_ as well as diction), it is certain that

-the terms in question have little or no poetic value, and that simpler

-words in nearly every case would have produced greater effects. Now and

-then, as later in the case of Cowper, the pedantry is, we may suppose,

-deliberately playful, as when he speaks of the cattle that

-

-    ruminate in the contiguous shade

-

-                                                           (“Winter,” 86)

-

-or indicates a partial thaw by the statement

-

-          Perhaps the vale

-    relents awhile to the reflected ray.

-

-                                                           (_Ibid._, 784)

-

-The words illustrated above are rarely, of course, Thomson’s own coinage.

-Many of them (e.g. _detruded_, _hyperborean_, _luculent_, _relucent_,

-_turgent_) date from the sixteenth century or earlier, though from the

-earliest references to them given in the “New English Dictionary” it

-may be assumed that Thomson was not always acquainted with the sources

-where they are first found, and that to him their “poetic” use is first

-due. In some cases Milton was doubtless the immediate source from which

-Thomson took such words, to use them with a characteristic looseness of

-meaning.[107]

-

-It would be too much to say that Thomson’s use of such terms arises

-merely out of a desire to emulate the “grand style”; it reflects rather

-his general predilection for florid and luxurious diction. Moreover, it

-has been noted that an analysis of his latinisms seems to point to a

-definite scheme of formation. Thus there is a distinct preference for

-certain groups of formations, such as adjectives in “-ive” (_affective_,

-_amusive_, _excursive_, etc.), or in “-ous” (_irriguous_, _sequacious_),

-or Latin participle forms, such as _clamant_, _turgent_, _incult_, etc.

-In additions Latin words are frequently used in their original sense,

-common instances being _sordid_, _generous_, _error_, _secure_, _horrid_,

-_dome_, while his blank verse line was also characterized by the free use

-of latinized constructions.[108] Thomson’s frequent use of the sandwiched

-noun, “flowing rapture bright” (“Spring,” 1088), “gelid caverns

-woodbine-wrought,” (“Summer,” 461), “joyless rains obscure” (“Winter,”

-712), often with the second adjective used predicatively or adverbially,

-

-    High seen the Seasons lead, _in sprightly dance_

-      _Harmonious knit_, the rosy-fingered hours

-

-                                                         (“Summer,” 1212)

-

-is also worthy of note.

-

-Yet it can hardly be denied that the language of “The Seasons” is in

-many respects highly artificial, and that Thomson was to all intents

-and purposes the creator of a special poetic diction, perhaps even more

-so than Gray, who had to bear the brunt of Wordsworth’s fulminations.

-But on the whole his balance is on the right side; at a time when the

-majority of his contemporaries were either content to draw drafts on

-the conventional and consecrated words, phrases, and similes, or were

-sedulously striving to ape the polished plainness of Pope, he was able to

-show that new powers of expression could well be won from the language.

-His nature vocabulary alone is sufficient proof of the value of his

-contributions to the poetic wealth of the language, not a few of his

-new-formed compounds especially being expressive and beautiful.[109] His

-latinisms are less successful because they can hardly be said to belong

-to any diction, and for the most part they must be classed among the

-“false ornaments” derided by Wordsworth;[110] not only do they possess

-none of that mysterious power of suggestion which comes to words in

-virtue of their employment through generations of prose and song, but

-also not infrequently their meaning is far from clear. They are never the

-spontaneous reflection of the poet’s thought, but, on the contrary, they

-appear only too often to have been dragged in merely for effect.

-

-This last remark applies still more forcibly to Somerville’s “Chase,”

-which appeared in 1735. Its author was evidently following in the wake of

-Thomson’s blank verse, and with this aim freely allows himself the use of

-an artificial and inflated diction, as in many passages like

-

-    Cull each salubrious plant, with bitter juice

-    Concoctive stored, and potent to allay

-    Each vicious ferment.

-

-About the same time Edward Young was probably writing his “Night

-Thoughts,” though the poem was not published until 1742. Here again

-the influence of Thomson is to be seen in the diction, though no

-doubt in this case there is also not a little that derives direct

-from Milton. Young has Latin formations like _terraqueous_, _to

-defecate_, _feculence_, _manumit_, as well as terms such as _avocation_,

-_eliminate_, and _unparadize_, used in their original sense. In the

-second instalment of the “Night Thoughts” there is a striking increase in

-the number of Latin terms, either borrowed directly, or at least formed

-on classical roots, some of which must have been unintelligible to many

-readers. Thus _indagators_ for “seekers,” _fucus_ for “false brilliance,”

-_concertion_ for “intimate agreement,” and _cutaneous_ for “external,”

-“skin deep”:

-

-    All the distinctions of this little life

-    Are quite cutaneous.[111]

-

-It is difficult to understand the use of such terms when simple native

-words were ready at hand, and the explanation must be that they were

-thought to add to the dignity of the poem, and to give it a flavour of

-scholarship; for the same blemishes appear in most of the works published

-at this time. Thus in Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (1744)

-there is a similar use of latinized terms: _pensile planets_, _passion’s

-fierce illapse_, _magnific praise_, though the tendency is best

-illustrated in such passages as

-

-                    that trickling shower

-    Piercing through every crystalline convex

-    Of clustering dewdrops to their flight opposed,

-    Recoil at length where, concave all behind

-    The internal surface of each glassy orb

-    Repels their forward passage into air.

-

-In “The Poet” there is a striking example of what can only be the

-pedantic, even if playful, use of a cumbrous epithet:

-

-    On shelves _pulverulent_, majestic stands

-    His library.

-

-Similar examples are to be found in “The Art of Preserving Health” by

-John Armstrong, published in the same year as Akenside’s “Pleasures.”

-The unpoetical nature of this subject may perhaps be Armstrong’s excuse

-for such passages as

-

-    Mournful eclipse or planets ill-combined

-    Portend disastrous to the vital world;

-

-but this latinizing tendency was perhaps never responsible for a more

-absurd periphrasis than one to be found in the second part of the poem,

-which treats of “Diet”:

-

-    Nor does his gorge the luscious bacon rue,

-    Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste

-    Of solid milk.[112]

-

-The high Miltonic manner was likewise attempted by John Dyer in “The

-Fleece,” which appeared in 1757, and by James Grainger in “The Sugar

-Cane” (1764), to mention only the most important. Dyer, deservedly

-praised for his new and fresh descriptive diction, has not escaped this

-contagion of latinism: _the globe terraqueous_, _the cerule stream_,

-_rich sapinaceous loam_, _detersive bay salt_, etc., while elsewhere

-there are obvious efforts to recapture the Miltonic cadence. In “The

-Sugar Cane” the tendency is increased by the necessity thrust upon the

-poet to introduce numerous technical terms. Thus

-

-                though all thy mills

-    Crackling, o’erflow with a redundant juice

-    Poor tastes the liquor; coction long demands

-    And highest temper, ere it saccharize.

-

-Meanwhile Joseph Warton had written his one blank verse poem “The

-Enthusiast” (1740), when he was only eighteen years old. But though both

-he and his brother Thomas are among the most important of the poets

-who show the influence of Milton most clearly, that influence reveals

-itself rather in the matter of thought than of form, and there is in

-“The Enthusiast” little of the diction that marred so many of the blank

-verse poems. Only here and there may traces be seen, as in the following

-passage:

-

-                  fairer she

-    In innocence and homespun vestments dress’d

-    Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears

-    Shone pendent.

-

-There is still less in the poems of Thomas Warton, who was even a more

-direct follower of Milton than his elder brother. There is scarcely one

-example of a Latinism in “The Pleasures of Melancholy,” which is really

-a companion piece to “The Enthusiast.” The truth is that it was Milton’s

-early work—and especially “Il Penseroso”—that affected most deeply these

-early Romanticists, and even their blank verse is charged with the

-sentiments and phrases of Milton’s octosyllabics. Thus the two poets, who

-were among the first to catch something of the true spirit of Milton,

-have little or nothing of the cumbersome and pedantic diction found so

-frequently in the so-called “Miltonics” of the eighteenth century, and

-this in itself is one indication of their importance in the earlier

-stages of the Romantic revival.

-

-This is also true in the case of Collins and Gray, who are the real

-eighteenth century disciples of Milton. Collins’s fondness for

-personified abstractions may perhaps be attributed to Milton’s influence,

-but there are few, if any, traces of latinism in his pure and simple

-diction. Gray was probably influenced more than he himself thought by

-Milton, and like Milton he made for himself a special poetical language,

-which owes not a little to the works of his great exemplar. But Gray’s

-keen sense of the poetical value of words, and his laborious precision

-and exactness in their use, kept him from any indulgence in coinages.

-Only one or two latinisms are to be found in the whole of his work, and

-when these do occur they are such as would come naturally to a scholar,

-or as were still current in the language of his time. Thus in “The

-Progress of Poesy” he has

-

-    this _pencil_ take,

-

-where “pencil” stands for “brush” (Latin, _pensillum_); whilst in a

-translation from Statius he gives to _prevent_ its latinized meaning

-

-    the champions, trembling at the sight

-    _Prevent_ disgrace.

-

-There is also a solitary example in the “Elegy” in the line

-

-    Can Honour’s voice _provoke_ the silent dust.

-

-The contemporary fondness for blank verse had called forth the strictures

-of Goldsmith in his “Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning,”

-and his own smooth and flowing couplets have certainly none of the

-pompous epithets which he there condemns. His diction, if we except an

-occasional use of the stock descriptive epithets, is admirable alike in

-its simplicity and directness, and the two following lines from “The

-Traveller” are, with one exception,[113] the only examples of latinisms

-to be found in his poems:

-

-    While sea-born gales their _gelid_ wings expand,

-

-and

-

-    Fall blunted from each _indurated_ heart.

-

-Dr. Johnson, who represented the extreme classicist position with regard

-to blank verse and other tendencies of the Romantic reaction, had a

-good deal to say in the aggregate about the poetical language of his

-predecessors and contemporaries. But the latinism of the time, which

-was widespread enough to have attracted his attention, does not seem to

-have provoked from him any critical comment. His own poetical works,

-even when we remember the “Vanity of Human Wishes,” where plenty of

-instances of Latin idiom are to be found, are practically free from this

-kind of diction, though this does not warrant the inference that he

-disapproved of it. We know that his prose was latinized to a remarkable

-extent, so that his “sesquipedalian terminology” has been regarded as

-the fountain-head of that variety of English which delights in “big,”

-high-sounding words. But his ideal, we may assume, was the polished and

-elegant diction of Pope, and his own verse is as free from pedantic

-formations as is “The Lives of the Poets,” which perhaps represents his

-best prose.

-

-It is in the works of a poet who, though he continues certain aspects of

-neo-classicism, yet announces unmistakably the coming of the new age,

-that we find a marked use of a deliberately latinized diction. Cowper has

-always received just praise for the purity of his language; he is, on the

-whole, singularly free from the artificialities and inversions which had

-marked the accepted poetic diction, but, on the other hand, his language

-is latinized to an extent that has perhaps not always been fully realized.

-

-This is, however, confined to “The Task” and to the translation of

-the “Iliad.” In the former case there is first a use of words freely

-formed on Latin roots, for most of which Cowper had no doubt abundant

-precedents,[114] but which, in some cases, must have been coined by

-him, perhaps playfully in some instances; _twisted form vermicular_,

-_the agglomerated pile_, _the voluble and restless earth_, etc. Other

-characteristics of this latinized style are perhaps best seen in

-continuous passages such as

-

-                  he spares me yet

-    These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines;

-    And, though himself so polished, still reprieves

-    The obsolete prolixity of shade

-

-                                                   (Bk. I, ll. 262 foll.)

-

-or in such a mock-heroic fling as

-

-    The stable yields a stercoraceous heap

-    Impregnated with quick fermenting salts

-    And potent to resist the freezing blast.

-

-                                                      (Bk. III, 463)[115]

-

-On these and many similar occasions Cowper has turned his predilection to

-playful account, as also when he diagnoses the symptoms of gout as

-

-    pangs arthritic that infest the toe

-    Of libertine excess,

-

-or speaks of monarchs and Kings as

-

-    The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp.

-

-There is still freer use of latinisms in the “Homer”:[116] _her eyes

-caerulean_, _the point innocuous_, _piercing accents stridulous_, _the

-triturated barley_, _candent lightnings_, _the inherent barb_, _his

-stream vortiginous_, besides such passages as

-

-    nor did the Muses spare to add

-    Responsive melody of vocal sweets.

-

-The instances given above fully illustrate on the whole the use of

-a latinized diction in eighteenth century poetry.[117] It must not,

-however, be supposed that the fashion was altogether confined to the

-blank verse poems. Thus Matthew Prior in “Alma,” or “The Progress of the

-Mind,” has passages like

-

-            the word obscene

-    Or harsh which once elanced must ever fly

-    Irrevocable,

-

-whilst Richard Savage in his “Wanderer” indulges in such flights as

-

-                            his breath

-    A nitrous damp that strikes petrific death.

-

-One short stanza by William Shenstone, from his poem “Written in Spring,

-1743,” contains an obvious example in three out of its four lines:

-

-        Again the labouring hind inverts the soil,

-    Again the merchant ploughs the tumid wave,

-    Another spring renews the soldier’s toil,

-    And finds me vacant in the rural cave.

-

-But it is in the blank verse poems that the fashion is most prevalent,

-and it is there that it only too often becomes ludicrous. The blind

-Milton, dying, lonely and neglected, a stranger in a strange land, is

-hardly likely to have looked upon himself as the founder of a “school,”

-or to have suspected to what base uses his lofty diction and style were

-to be put, within a few decades of his death, by a swarm of poetasters

-who fondly regarded themselves as his disciples.[118] The early writers

-of blank verse, such as John Philips, frankly avowed themselves imitators

-of Milton, and there can be little doubt that in their efforts to

-catch something of the dignity and majesty of their model the crowd of

-versifiers who then appeared on the scene had recourse to high-sounding

-words and phrases, as well as to latinized constructions by which they

-hoped to elevate their style. The grand style of “Paradise Lost” was

-bound to suffer severely at the hands of imitators, and there can be

-little doubt but that much of the preposterous latinizing of the time

-is to be traced to this cause. At the same time the influence of the

-general literary tendencies of the Augustan ages is not to be ignored in

-this connexion. When a diction freely sprinkled with latinized terms is

-found used by writers like Thomson in the first quarter, and Cowper at

-the end of the century, it may perhaps also be regarded as a mannerism

-of style due in some degree to influences which were still powerful

-enough to affect literary workmanship. For it must be remembered that in

-the eighteenth century the traditional supremacy of Latin had not yet

-altogether died out: pulpit and forensic eloquence, as well as the great

-prose works of the period, still bore abundant traces of the persistency

-of this influence.[119] Hence it need not be at all surprising to find

-that it has invaded poetry. The use of latinized words and phrases gave,

-or was supposed to give, an air of culture to verse, and contemporary

-readers did not always, we may suppose, regard such language as a mere

-display of pedantry.

-

-In this, as in other respects of the poetic output of the period, we may

-see a further reflex of the general literary atmosphere of the first half

-or so of the eighteenth century. There was no poetry of the highest

-rank, and not a great deal of _poetical_ poetry; the bulk of the output

-is “poetry without an atmosphere.” The very qualities most admired in

-prose—lucidity, correctness, absence of “enthusiasm”—were such as were

-approved for poetry; even the Romantic forerunners, with perhaps the

-single exception of Blake, felt the pressure of the prosaic atmosphere of

-their times. No doubt had a poet of the highest order appeared he would

-have swept away much of the accumulated rubbish and fashioned for himself

-a new poetic language, as Thomson tried, and Wordsworth later thought to

-do. But he did not appear, and the vast majority of the practitioners

-were content to ring the changes on the material they found at hand, and

-were not likely to dream of anything different.

-

-It is thus not sufficient to say that the “rapid and almost simultaneous

-diffusion of this purely cutaneous eruption,” to borrow an appropriate

-description from Lowell, was due solely to the potent influence of

-Milton. It reflects also the average conception of poetry held throughout

-a good part of the eighteenth century, a conception which led writers

-to seek in mere words qualities which are to be found in them only when

-they are the reflex of profound thought or powerful emotion. In short,

-latinism in eighteenth century poetry may be regarded as a literary

-fashion, akin in nature to the stock epithets and phrases of the

-“descriptive” poetry, which were later to be unsparingly condemned as the

-typical eighteenth century poetical diction.

-

-Of the poetic value of these latinized words little need be said. Whether

-or no they reflect a conscious effort to extend, enrich, or renew the

-vocabulary of English poetry, they cannot be said to have added much

-to the expressive resources of the language. This is not, of course,

-merely because they are of direct Latin origin. We know that around

-the central Teutonic core of English there have slowly been built up

-two mighty strata of Latin and Romance formations, which, in virtue of

-their long employment by writers in prose and verse, as well as on the

-lips of the people, have slowly acquired that force and picturesqueness

-which the poet needs for his purpose. But the latinized words of the

-eighteenth century are on a different footing. To us, nowadays, there

-is something pretentious and pedantic about them: they are artificial

-formations or adoptions, and not living words. English poets from time

-to time have been able to give a poetical colouring to such words,[120]

-and the eighteenth century is not without happy instances of this power.

-James Thomson here and there wins real poetic effects from his latinized

-vocabulary, as in such a passage as

-

-    Here lofty trees to ancient song unknown

-    The noble sons of potent heat and floods

-    Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven

-    Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw

-    Meridian gloom.

-

-                                               (“Summer,” 653 foll.)[121]

-

-The “return to Nature,” of which Thomson was perhaps the most noteworthy

-pioneer, brought back all the sights and sounds of outdoor life as

-subjects fit and meet for the poet’s song, and it is therefore of some

-interest, in the present connexion, to note that Wordsworth himself, who

-also knew how to make excellent use of high-sounding Latin formations,

-has perhaps nowhere illustrated this faculty better than in the famous

-passage on the Yew Trees of Borrowdale:

-

-    Those fraternal Four of Borrowdale

-    Joined in one solemn and capacious grove:

-    Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth

-    Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

-    Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved;

-    Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks

-    That threaten the profane.

-

-But the bulk of eighteenth century latinisms fall within a different

-category; rarely do they convey, either in themselves or in virtue

-of their context, any of that mysterious power of association which

-constitutes the poetic value of words and enables the writer, whether in

-prose or verse, to convey to his reader delicate shades of meaning and

-suggestion which are immediately recognized and appreciated.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER V

-

-ARCHAISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY

-

-

-One of the earliest and most significant of those literary manifestations

-which were to culminate in the triumph of Romanticism was a new enkindled

-interest in the older English writers. The attitude of the great body

-of the so-called “Classicists” towards the earlier English poetry was

-not altogether one of absolute contempt: it was rather marked by that

-indifference which is the outcome of ignorance. Readers and authors, with

-certain illustrious exceptions, were totally unacquainted with Chaucer,

-and though Spenser fared better, even those who did know him did not at

-first consider him worthy of serious study.[122] Yet the Romantic rebels,

-by their attempts to imitate Spenser, and to reveal his poetic genius to

-a generation of unbelievers, did work of immediate and lasting value.

-

-It is perhaps too much to claim that some dim perception of the poetic

-value of old words contributed in any marked degree to this Spenserian

-revival in the eighteenth century. Yet it can hardly be doubted that

-Spenser’s language, imperfectly understood and at first considered

-“barbarous,” or “Gothic,” or at best merely “quaint,” came ultimately to

-be regarded as supplying something of that atmosphere of “old romance”

-which was beginning to captivate the hearts and minds of men. This

-is not to say that there was any conscious or deliberate intention of

-freshening or revivifying poetic language by an infusion of old or

-“revived” words. But the Spenserian and similar imitations naturally

-involved the use of such words, and they thus made an important

-contribution to the Romantic movement on its purely formal side; they

-played their part in destroying the pseudo-classical heresy that the

-best, indeed the only, medium for poetic expression was the polished

-idiom of Pope and his school.

-

-The poets and critics of Western Europe, who, as we have seen, in the

-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries had busied themselves with the

-question of refining and embellishing their mother tongue, had advocated

-among other means the revival of archaic and obsolete words. Spenser

-himself, we know, had definitely adopted this means in the “Shepherds

-Kalendar,” though the method of increasing his poetical vocabulary

-had not been approved by all of his contemporaries and successors.

-Milton, when forming the special poetical language he needed for his

-immense task, confined himself largely to “classical” coinages, and

-his archaisms, such as _swinkt_, _rathe_, _nathless_, _frore_, are

-comparatively few in number.[123]

-

-Dryden’s attitude towards old words was stated with his customary

-good sense, and though his modernization of Chaucer gave him endless

-opportunities of experimenting with them, he never abused the advantage,

-and indeed in all his work there is but little trace of the deliberate

-revival of obsolete or archaic words. In the “Fables” may be found a few

-words such as _sounded_[124] (swounded) which had been used by Malory

-and Spenser, _laund_ for (lawn), _rushed_ (cut-off), etc., and he has

-also Milton’s _rathe_. Dryden, however, is found using a large number of

-terms which were evidently obsolete in the literary language, but which,

-it may be supposed, still lingered in the spoken language, and especially

-in the provincial dialects. He is fond of the word _ken_ (to know), and

-amongst other examples are _stead_ (place), _to lease_ (glean), _shent_

-(rebuked), _hattered_ (worn out), _dorp_ (a village), _buries_ (burrows),

-etc. Dryden is also apparently responsible for the poetic use of the term

-“_doddered_,” a word of somewhat uncertain meaning, which, after his time

-and following his practice, came into common use as an epithet for old

-oaks, and, rarely, for other trees.[125]

-

-As might be expected, there are few traces of the use of obsolete or

-archaic words in the works of Pope. The “correct” style did not favour

-innovations in language, whether they consisted in the formation of

-new words or in the revival of old forms. Pope stated in a letter to

-Hughes, who edited Spenser’s works (1715), that “Spenser has been ever a

-favourite poet to me,”[126] but among the imitations “done by the Author

-in his Youth,” there is “The Alley,” a very coarse parody of Spenser,

-which does not point to any real appreciation or understanding on the

-part of Pope. In the first book of the “Dunciad” as we have seen, he

-indulged in a fling at the antiquaries, especially Hearne and those who

-took pleasure in our older literature, by means of a satiric stanza

-written in a pseudo-archaic language.[127] But his language is much

-freer than that of Dryden from archaisms or provincialisms. He has forms

-like _gotten_, _whelm_ (overwhelm), _rampires_ (ramparts), _swarths_,

-_catched_ (caught), _thrice-ear’d_ (ploughed), etc. Neither Dryden nor

-Pope, it may be said, would ever have dreamed of reviving an archaic

-word simply because it was an old word, and therefore to be regarded as

-“poetical.” To imagine this is to attribute to the seventeenth and early

-eighteenth centuries a state of feeling which is essentially modern,

-and which lends a glamour to old and almost forgotten words. Dryden

-would accept any word which he considered suitable for his purpose, but

-he always insisted that old words had to prove their utility, and that

-they had otherwise no claim to admission to the current vocabulary.

-Pope, however, we may suspect, would not admit any words not immediately

-intelligible to his readers, or requiring a footnote to explain them.

-

-Meanwhile, in the year 1715, there had appeared the first attempt to

-give a critical text of Spenser, when John Hughes published his edition

-of the poet’s works in six volumes, together with a biography, a

-glossary, and some critical remarks.[128] The obsolete terms which Hughes

-felt himself obliged to explain[129] include many, such as _aghast_,

-_baleful_, _behest_, _bootless_, _carol_, _craven_, _dreary_, _forlorn_,

-_foray_, _guerdon_, _plight_, _welkin_, _yore_, which are now for the

-most part familiar words, though forty years later Thomas Warton in his

-“Observations on The Faerie Queene” (1754) is found annotating many

-similar terms. The well-known “Muses’ Library,” published thirteen years

-previously, had described itself as “A General Collection of almost all

-the old and valuable poetry extant, now so industriously inquir’d after”;

-it begins with Langland and reflects the renewed interest that was

-arising in the older poets. But there is as yet little evidence of any

-general and genuine appreciation of either the spirit or the form of the

-best of the earlier English poetry. The Spenserian imitators undoubtedly

-felt that their diction must look so obsolete and archaic as to call for

-a glossary of explanation, and these glossaries were often more than

-necessary, not only to explain the genuine old words, but also because

-of the fact that in many cases the supposedly “Spenserian” terms were

-spurious coinages devoid of any real meaning at all.

-

-Before considering these Spenserian imitations it must not be forgotten

-that there were, prior to these attempts and alongside of them, kindred

-efforts to catch the manner and style of Chaucer. This practice received

-its first great impulse from Dryden’s famous essay in praise of Chaucer,

-and the various periodicals and miscellanies of the first half of the

-eighteenth century bear witness to the fact that many eminent poets, not

-to mention a crowd of poetasters, thought it their duty to publish a

-poetical tribute couched in the supposed language and manner of Chaucer.

-

-These attempts were nearly all avowedly humorous,[130] and seemed based

-on a belief that the very language of Chaucer was in some respects

-suitable comic material for a would-be humorous writer. Such an attitude

-was obviously the outcome of a not unnatural ignorance of the historical

-development of the language. Chaucer’s language had long been regarded

-as almost a dead language, and this attitude had persisted even to

-the eighteenth century, so that it was felt that a mastery of the

-language of the “Canterbury Tales” required prolonged study. Even Thomas

-Warton, speaking of Chaucer, was of the opinion that “his uncouth and

-unfamiliar language disgusts and deters many readers.”[131] Hence it

-is not surprising that there was a complete failure to catch, not only

-anything of the real spirit of Chaucer, but also anything that could

-be described as even a distant approach to his language. The imitators

-seemed to think that fourteenth century English could be imitated by the

-use of common words written in an uncommon way, or of strange terms with

-equally strange meanings. The result was an artificial language that

-could never have been spoken by anybody, often including words to which

-it is impossible to give any definite sense. It would seem that only two

-genuine Chaucerian terms had really been properly grasped, and this pair,

-ne and eke, is in consequence worked to death. Ignorance of the earlier

-language naturally led to spurious grammatical forms, of which the most

-favoured was a singular verb form ending in -_en_. Gay, for instance,

-has, in a poem of seventeen lines, such phrases as “It maken doleful

-song,” “There _spreaden_ a rumour,”[132] whilst Fenton writes,

-

-    If in mine quest thou _falsen_ me.[133]

-

-The general style and manner of these imitations, with their “humorous”

-tinge, their halting verse, bad grammar, and impossible inflections

-are well illustrated in William Thompson’s “Garden Inscription—Written

-in Chaucer’s Bowre,” though more serious efforts were not any more

-successful.

-

-The death of Pope, strangely enough, called forth more than one attempt,

-among them being Thomas Warton’s imitation of the characterization of the

-birds from the “Parliament of Fowles.”[134] Better known at the time

-was the monody “Musæus,” written by William Mason, “To the memory of Mr.

-Pope.” Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton are represented as coming to mourn

-the inevitable loss of him who was about to die, and Mason endeavoured to

-reproduce their respective styles, “Tityrus” (Chaucer) holding forth in

-this strain:

-

-    Mickle of wele betide thy houres last

-    For mich gode wirke to me don and past.

-    For syn the days whereas my lyre ben strongen,

-    And deftly many a mery laie I songen,

-    Old Time which alle things don maliciously,

-    Gnawen with rusty tooth continually,

-    Grattrid my lines, that they all cancrid ben

-    Till at the last thou smoothen hem hast again.

-

-It is astonishing to think that this mechanical imitation, with its

-harsh and forced rhythm, and its almost doggerel language, was regarded

-at the time as a successful reproduction of Chaucer’s manner and style.

-But probably before 1775, when Tyrwhitt announced his rediscovery of the

-secret of Chaucer’s rhythm, few eighteenth century readers suspected its

-presence at all.

-

-But the Chaucerian imitations were merely a literary fashion predoomed

-to failure. It was not in any way the result of a genuine influence

-of the early English poetry on contemporary taste, and thus it was

-not even vitalized, as was the Spenserian revival, by a certain vague

-and undefined desire to catch something at least of the spirit of the

-“Faerie Queene.” The Spenserian imitations had a firmer foundation, and

-because the best of them did not confine their ambition altogether to

-the mechanical imitation of Spenser’s style in the narrower sense they

-achieved a greater measure of success.

-

-It is significant to note that among the first attempts at a Spenserian

-imitation was that made by one of the foremost of the Augustans. This

-was Matthew Prior, who in 1706 published his “Ode, Humbly Inscribed to

-the Queen on the Glorious success of Her Majesty’s Arms, Written in

-Imitation of Spenser’s Style.”[135] We are surprised, however, to find

-when we have read his Preface, that Prior’s aim was in reality to write

-a poem on the model of Horace and of Spenser. The attitude in which he

-approached Spenser’s language is made quite clear by his explanation.

-He has “avoided such of his words as I found too obsolete. I have

-however retained some few of them to make the colouring look more like

-Spenser’s.” Follows then a list of such words, including “_behest_,

-command; _band_, army; _prowess_, strength; _I weet_, I know; _I ween_, I

-think; _whilom_, heretofore; and two or three more of that kind.” Though

-later in his Preface Prior speaks of the _curiosa felicitas_ of Spenser’s

-diction, it is evident that there is little or no real understanding or

-appreciation.

-

-Now began a continuous series of Spenserian imitations,[136] of which,

-with a few exceptions, the only distinguishing characteristic was a small

-vocabulary of obsolete words, upon which the poetasters could draw for

-the “local colour” considered necessary. In the majority of cases the

-result was a purely artificial language, probably picked haphazard from

-the “Faerie Queene,” and often used without any definite idea of its

-meaning or appropriateness.[137] Fortunately, one or two real poets were

-attracted by the idea, and in due course produced their “imitations.”

-

-William Shenstone (1714-1763) is perhaps worthy of being ranked amongst

-these, in virtue at least of “The Schoolmistress,” which appeared in its

-final shape in 1742. Shenstone himself confesses that the poem was not

-at first intended to be a serious imitation, but his study of Spenser

-led him gradually to something like a real appreciation of the earlier

-poet.[138]

-

-“The Schoolmistress” draws upon the usual common stock of old words:

-_whilom_, _mickle_, _perdie_, _eke_, _thik_, etc., but often, as in the

-case of Spenser himself, the obsolete terms have a playful and humorous

-effect:

-

-    For they in gaping wonderment abound

-    And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground.

-

-Nor is there lacking a quaint, wistful tenderness, as in the description

-of the refractory schoolboy, who, after being flogged,

-

-    Behind some door, in melancholy thought,

-    Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff, pines,

-    Ne for his fellows joyaunce careth aught,

-    But to the wind all merriment resigns.

-

-Hence “The Schoolmistress” is no mere parody or imitation: there is

-a real and tender humanity in the description of the village school

-(adumbrating, it would seem, Goldsmith’s efforts with a similar theme),

-whilst the judicious use of Spenser’s stanza and the sprinkling of his

-old words help to invest the whole poem with an atmosphere of genuine and

-unaffected humour.

-

-The next Spenserian whose work merits attention is William Thompson, who,

-it would seem, had delved not a little into the Earlier English poetry,

-and who was one of the first to capture something of the real atmosphere

-of the “Faerie Queene.” His “Epithalamium”[139] and “The Nativity,”[140]

-which appeared in 1736, are certainly among the best of the imitations.

-It is important to note that, while there is a free use of supposedly

-archaic words, with the usual list of _certes_, _perdie_, _sikerly_,

-_hight_, as well as others less common, such as _belgards_ (“beautiful

-looks”), _bonnibel_ (“beautiful virgin”), there is no abuse of the

-practice. Not a little of the genuine spirit of Spenser’s poetry, with

-its love of nature and outdoor life, has been caught and rendered without

-any lavish recourse to an artificial and mechanical diction, as a stanza

-from “The Nativity,” despite its false rhymes, will perhaps show:

-

-    Eftsoons he spied a grove, the Season’s pride,

-    All in the centre of a pleasant glade,

-    Where Nature flourished like a virgin bride,

-        Mantled with green, with hyacinths inlaid,

-    And crystal-rills o’er beds of lilies stray’d:

-    The blue-ey’d violet and King-cup gay,

-    And new blown roses, smiling sweetly red,

-    Out-glow’d the blushing infancy of Day

-    While amorous west-winds kist their fragrant souls away.

-

-This cannot altogether be said of the “Hymn to May” published over twenty

-years later,[141] despite the fact that Thompson himself draws attention

-to the fact that he does not consider that a genuine Spenserian imitation

-may be produced by scattering a certain number of obsolete words through

-the poem. Nevertheless, we find that he has sprinkled his “Hymn”

-plentifully with “obsolete” terms, though they include a few, such as

-_purfled_, _dispredden_, _goodlihead_, that were not the common property

-of the poetasters. His explanations of the words so used show that not a

-few of them were used with little knowledge of their original meaning, as

-when he defines _glen_[142] as “a country hamlet,” or explains _perdie_

-as “an old word for saying anything.” It is obvious also that many

-obsolete terms are often simply stuck in the lines when their more modern

-equivalents would have served equally well, as for instance,

-

-    Full suddenly the seeds of joy _recure_ (“recover”),

-

-or

-

-    Myrtles to Venus _algates_ sacred been.

-

-With these reservations the diction of Thompson’s poems is pure and

-unaffected, and the occasional happy use of archaism is well illustrated

-in more than one stanza of “The Nativity.”

-

-It is generally agreed that the best of all the Spenserian imitations

-is “The Castle of Indolence,” which James Thomson published two months

-before his death in 1748.[143] Yet even in this case there is evident a

-sort of quiet condescension, as if it were in Thompson’s mind that he

-was about to draw the attention of his eighteenth century audience to

-something quaint and old-fashioned, but which had yet a charm of its

-own. “The obsolete words,” he writes in his “advertisement” to the poem,

-“and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines, which borders on the

-ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect.” Hence

-he makes use of a number of words intended to give an archaic air to

-his poem, including the usual _certes_, _withouten_, _sheen_, _perdie,_

-_weet_, _pleasaunce_, _ycleped_, etc. To the first edition was appended

-a page of explanation of these and other “obsolete words used in this

-poem”: altogether between seventy and eighty such words are thus glossed,

-the large majority of which are familiar enough nowadays, either as part

-of the ordinary vocabulary, or as belonging especially to the diction of

-poetry.

-

-Though the archaisms are sometimes scattered in a haphazard manner, they

-are not used with such mechanical monotony as is obvious in the bulk

-of the Spenserian imitations. In both cantos there are long stretches

-without a single real or pseudo-archaism, and indeed, when Thomson is

-indulging in one of the moral or the didactic surveys characteristic

-of his age, as, for instance, when the bard, invoked by Sir Industry,

-breaks into a long tirade on the Supreme Perfection (Canto II, 47-61)

-his diction is the plain and unadorned idiom perfected by Pope.[144] Yet

-Thompson occasionally yields to the fascination of the spurious form in

-_-en_,[145] as

-

-    But these I _passen_ by with nameless numbers moe

-

-                                                           (Canto I., 56)

-

-or

-

-    And taunts he _casten_ forth most bitterly.

-

-                                                           (Canto II, 78)

-

-Sometimes it would seem that his archaisms owe their appearance to the

-necessities of rhyme, as in

-

-    So worked the wizard wintry storms to swell

-    As heaven and earth they would together _mell_

-

-                                                            (Canto I, 43)

-

-and

-

-    Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem:

-    The same to him glad summer, or the winter _breme_.

-

-                                                            (Canto II, 7)

-

-There are lines too where we feel that the archaisms have been dragged

-in; for example,

-

-    As _soot_ this man could sing as morning lark

-

-                                                            (Canto I, 57)

-

-(though there is here perhaps the added charm of a Chaucerian

-reminiscence); or

-

-                        _replevy_ cannot be

-    From the strong, iron grasp of vengeful destiny.

-

-                                                           (Canto II, 32)

-

-But, on the whole, he has been successful in his efforts, half-hearted

-as they sometimes seem, to give an old-world atmosphere to his poem by

-a sprinkling of archaisms, and it is then that we feel in _The Castle

-of Indolence_ something at least of the beauty and charm of “the poet’s

-poet,” as in the well-known stanza describing the valley of Idlesse with

-its

-

-                                      waters sheen

-    That, as they bickered[146] through the sunny glade,

-    Though restless still, themselves a lulling murmur made.

-

-                                                             (Canto I, 3)

-

-Though the Spenserian imitations continued beyond the year which saw

-the birth of Wordsworth,[147] it is not necessary to mention further

-examples, except perhaps that of William Mickle, who, in 1767, published

-“The Concubine,” a Spenserian imitation of two cantos, which afterwards

-appeared in a later edition (1777) under the title “Sir Martyn.” Like

-his predecessors, Mickle made free use of obsolete spellings and words,

-while he added the usual glossary, which is significant as showing at

-the end of the eighteenth century, about the time when Tyrwhitt was

-completing his edition of Chaucer, not only the artificial character of

-this “Spenserian diction,” but also the small acquaintance of the average

-man of letters with our earlier language.[148]

-

-It must not be assumed, of course, that all the “obsolete” words used by

-the imitators were taken directly from Spenser. Words like _nathless_,

-_rathe_, _hight_, _sicker_, _areeds_, _cleeped_, _hardiment_, _felly_,

-etc., had continued in fairly common use until the seventeenth century,

-though actually some of them were regarded even then as archaisms.

-Thus _cleoped_, though never really obsolete, is marked by Blount in

-1656 as “Saxon”; _sicker_, extensively employed in Middle English, is

-rarely found used after 1500 except by Scotch writers, though it still

-remains current in northern dialects. On the other hand, not a few words

-were undoubtedly brought directly back into literature from the pages

-of Spenser, among them being _meed_, _sheen_ (boasting an illustrious

-descent from _Beowulf_ through Chaucer), _erst_, _elfin_, _paramour_.

-Others, like _scrannel_, and apparently also _ledded_, were made familiar

-by Milton’s use the former either being the poet’s own coinage or his

-borrowing from some dialect or other. On the other hand, very many of the

-“revived” words failed to take root at all, such as _faitours_, which

-Spenser himself had apparently revived, and also his coinage _singult_,

-though Scott is found using the latter form.

-

-As has been said, the crowd of poetasters who attempted to reproduce

-Spenser’s spirit and style thought to do so by merely mechanical

-imitation of what they regarded as his “quaint” or “ludicrous” diction.

-Between them and any possibility of grasping the perennial beauty

-and charm of the “poet’s poet” there was a great gulf fixed, whilst,

-altogether apart from this fatal limitation, then parodies were little

-likely to have even ephemeral success, for parody presupposes in its

-readers at least a little knowledge and appreciation of the thing

-parodied. But there were amongst the imitators one or two at least who,

-we may imagine, were able to find in the melody and romance of “The

-Faerie Queene” an avenue of escape from the prosaic pressure of their

-times. In the case of William Thompson, Shenstone, and the author of

-the “Castle of Indolence,” the influence of Spenser revealed itself as

-in integral and vital part of the Romantic reaction, for these, being

-real poets, had been able to recapture something at least of the colour,

-music, and fragrance of their original. And not only did these, helped

-by others whose names have all but been forgotten restore a noble stanza

-form to English verse. Even their mechanical imitation of Spenser’s

-language was not without its influence, for it cannot be doubted that

-these attempts to write in an archaic or pseudo-archaic style did not a

-little to free poetry from the shackles of a conventional language.

-

-This process was greatly helped by that other aspect of the eighteenth

-century revival of the past which was exemplified in the publication of

-numerous collections of old ballads and songs.[149] There is, of course,

-as Macaulay long ago noted, a series of conventional epithets that is

-one mark of the genuine ballad manner, but the true ballad language

-was not a lifeless stereotyped diction. It consisted of “plain English

-without any trimmings.” The ballads had certain popular mannerisms

-(_the good greenwood_, _the wan water_, etc.), but they were free from

-the conventional figures of speech, or such rhetorical artifices as

-personification and periphrasis.

-

-Hence it is not surprising that at first their fresh and spontaneous

-language was regarded, when contrasted with the artificial and refined

-diction of the time, as “barbarous” or “rude.” Thus Prior thought it

-necessary to paraphrase the old ballad of the “Nut Brown Maid” into his

-insipid “Henry and Emma” (1718), but a comparison of only a few lines of

-the original with the banality of the modernized version is sufficient

-testimony to the refreshing and vivifying influence of such collections

-as the “Reliques.”

-

-The tendency to present the old ballads in an eighteenth century dress

-had soon revealed itself; at least, the editors of the early collections

-often felt themselves obliged to apologize for the obsolete style of

-their material.[150] But in 1760 the first attempt at a critical text

-appeared when Edward Capell, the famous Shakespearian editor, published

-his “Prolusions”; or “Select Pieces of Antient Poetry—compil’d with

-great Care from their several Originals, and offer’d to the Publick as

-specimens of the Integrity that should be found in the Editions of worthy

-Authors.” Capell’s care was almost entirely directed to ensuring textual

-accuracy, but the “Nut-Browne Maid,” the only ballad included, receives

-sympathetic mention in his brief _Preface_.[151]

-

-Five years later, the most famous of all the ballad collections appeared,

-Thomas Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” (1765). The nucleus

-of Percy’s collection was a certain manuscript in a handwriting of

-Charles I’s time, containing 191 songs and ballads, but he had also had

-access to various other manuscript collections, whilst he was quite ready

-to acknowledge that he had filled gaps in his originals with stanzas and,

-in some cases, with nearly entire poems of his own composition. Much

-censure has been heaped upon Percy for his apparent lax ideas on the

-functions of an editor, but in decking out his “parcel of old ballads”

-in the false and affected style of his age, he was only doing his best

-to meet the taste of his readers. He himself passes judgment on his own

-labours, when, alongside of the genuine old ballads, with their freshness

-and simplicity of diction, he places his own “pruned” or “refined”

-versions, or additions, garbed in a sham and sickly idiom.

-

-It was not until over a century later, when Percy’s folio manuscript was

-copied and printed,[152] that the extent of his additions, alterations,

-and omissions were fully realized, though at the same time it was

-admitted that the pruning and refining was not unskilfully done.

-

-Nevertheless the influence of the “Reliques,” as a vital part of the

-Romantic revival, was considerable:[153] it was as if a breath of “the

-wind on the heath” had swept across literature and its writers, bringing

-with it an invigorating fragrance and freshness, whilst, on the purely

-formal side, the genuine old ballads, which Percy had culled and printed

-untouched, no doubt played their part in directing the attention of

-Wordsworth to the whole question of the language of poetry. And when the

-great Romantic manifestoes on the subject of “the language of metrical

-composition” were at length launched, their author was not slow to bear

-witness to the revivifying influence of the old ballads on poetic form.

-“Our poetry,” he wrote, “has been absolutely redeemed by it. I do not

-think that there is an able writer in verse of the present day who would

-not be proud to acknowledge his obligations to the “Reliques.”[154]

-

-The year before the appearance of the “Reliques,” Thomas Chatterton had

-published his “Rowley Poems,” and this attempt of a poet of genius to

-pass off his poems as the work of a mediaeval English writer is another

-striking indication of the new Romantic spirit then asserting itself. As

-for the pseudo-archaic language in which Chatterton with great labour

-clothed his “revivals,” there is no need to say much. It was a thoroughly

-artificial language, compiled, as Skeat has shown, from various sources,

-such as John Kersey’s “Dictionarium Anglo-Brittanicum,” three editions

-of which had appeared before 1721. In this work there are included a

-considerable number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and his

-contemporaries, marked “O,” and in some cases erroneously explained. This

-dictionary was the chief source of Chatterton’s vocabulary, many words of

-which the young poet took apparently without any definite idea of their

-meaning.[155]

-

-Yet in the Rowley poems there are passages where the pseudo-archaic

-language is quite in keeping with the poet’s theme and treatment, whilst

-here and there we come across epithets and lines which, even in their

-strange dress, are of a wild and artless sweetness, such as

-

-    Where thou mayst here the sweete night-lark chant,

-      Or with some mocking brooklet sweetly glide,

-

-or the whole of the first stanza of the famous “An Excelente Balade

-of Charitie,” where the old words help to transport us at once into

-the fictitious world which Chatterton had made for himself. Perhaps,

-as has been suggested, the “Rowley dialect” was not, as we nowadays,

-with Skeat’s analysis in our minds, are a little too apt to believe, a

-deliberate attempt to deceive, but rather reflected an attempt to escape

-from the dead abstract diction of the period.[156]

-

-Apart from this special aspect of the Romantic revival marked by a

-tendency to look back lovingly to the earlier English poetry, there are

-few traces of the use of archaic and obsolete words, at least of such

-words used consciously, in eighteenth century poetry. The great poets of

-the century make little or no use of them. Collins has no examples, but

-Gray, who began by advocating the poet’s right to use obsolete words,

-and later seemed to recant, now and then uses an old term, as when in his

-translation from Dante he writes:

-

-    The anguish that unuttered _nathless_ wrings

-    My inmost heart.

-

-Blake, however, it is interesting to note, often used archaic forms, or

-at least archaic spellings,[157] as _Tyger_, _antient_ (“To the Muses”),

-“the _desart_ wild” (“The Little Girl Lost”), as well as such lines as

-

-    In lucent words my darkling verses dight

-

-                                                 (“Imitation of Spenser”)

-

-or

-

-    So I piped with merry _chear_.

-

-                                   (Introduction to “Songs of Innocence”)

-

-Perhaps by these means the poet wished to give a quaint or old-fashioned

-look to his verses, though it is to be remembered that most of them occur

-in the “Poetical Sketches,” which are avowedly Elizabethan.

-

-The use of archaic and obsolete words in the eighteenth century was

-then chiefly an outcome of that revival of the past which was one of

-the characteristics of the new Romantic movement, and which was later

-to find its culmination in the works of Scott. The old words used by

-the eighteenth century imitators of Spenser were not often used, we may

-imagine, because poets saw in them poetical beauty and value; most often

-they were the result of a desire to catch, as it were, something of the

-“local colour” of the “Faerie Queene,” just as modern writers nowadays,

-poets and novelists alike, often draw upon local dialects for new means

-of expression. The Spenserian imitations recovered not a few words,

-such as _meed_, _sheen_, _dight_, _glen_,[158] which have since been

-regarded as belonging especially to the diction of poetry, and when the

-Romantic revival had burst into life the impulse, which had thus been

-unconsciously given, was continued by some of its great leaders. Scott,

-as is well known, was an enthusiastic lover of our older literature,

-especially the ballads, from which he gleaned many words full of a beauty

-and charm which won for them immediate admission into the language of

-poetry; at the same time he was able to find many similar words in the

-local dialects of the lowlands and the border. Perhaps in this work he

-had been inspired by his famous countryman, Robert Burns, who by his

-genius had raised his native language, with its stores of old and vivid

-words and expressions, to classical rank.[159]

-

-Nevertheless it is undoubted that the main factor in the new Romantic

-attitude towards old words had been the eighteenth century imitations

-and collections of our older English literature. Coleridge, it is to

-be remembered, made free use of archaisms; in the “Ancient Mariner,”

-there are many obsolete forms: _loon_, _eftsoons_, _uprist_, _gramercy_,

-_gossameres_, _corse_, etc., besides those which appeared in the first

-edition, and were altered or omitted when the poem reappeared in

-1800. Wordsworth, it is true, made no use of archaic diction, whether

-in the form of deliberate revivals, or by drafts on the dialects,

-which, following the great example of Burns, and in virtue of his

-own “theories,” he might have been expected to explore. Nevertheless

-the “theories” concerning poetical language which he propounded and

-maintained are not without their bearing on the present question.

-Reduced to their simplest terms, the manifestoes, while passing judgment

-on the conventional poetical diction, conceded to the poet the right of

-a style in keeping with his subject and inspiration, and Wordsworth’s

-successors for the most part, so far as style in the narrower sense of

-_vocabulary_ is concerned, did not fail to reap the benefits of the

-emancipation won for them. And among the varied sources upon which they

-began to draw for fresh reserves of diction were the abundant stores of

-old words, full of colour and energy, to be gleaned from the pages of

-their great predecessors.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER VI

-

-COMPOUND EPITHETS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY

-

-

-It is proposed in this chapter to examine in some detail the use of

-compound epithets in the poetry of the eighteenth century. For this

-purpose the following grammatical scheme of classification has been

-adopted from various sources:[160] _First Type_, noun _plus_ noun;

-_Second Type_, noun _plus_ adjective; _Third Type_, noun _plus_ present

-participle; _Fourth Type_, noun _plus_ past participle; _Fifth Type_,

-adjective, or adjective used adverbially, _plus_ another part of speech,

-usually a participle; _Sixth Type_, true adverb _plus_ a participle;

-_Seventh Type_, adjective _plus_ noun plus -_ed_. Of these types it

-will be evident in many cases that the first (noun _plus_ noun) and the

-sixth (true adverb _plus_ participle) are not compounds at all, for the

-hyphen could often be removed without any change or loss of meaning.

-Occasionally the compounds will be regarded from the point of view of the

-logical relation between the two elements, when a formal classification

-may usually be made as follows: (_a_) _Attributive_, as in “anger-glow”;

-(_b_) _Objective_, as in “anger-kindling”; (_c_) _Instrumental_, as in

-“anger-boiling.” This scheme of classification permits of an examination

-of the compounds from the formal point of view, whilst at the same time

-it does not preclude an estimate of the æsthetic value of the new words

-thus added to the language of poetry.[161]

-

-It may be said, to begin with, that the formation and use of compound

-epithets has always been one of the distinguishing marks of the special

-language of poetry in English, as distinct from that of prose. The very

-ease with which they can be formed out of the almost inexhaustible

-resources of the English vocabulary has been a constant source of

-temptation to poets with new things to say, or new impressions to

-describe. Moreover, the partial disappearance of inflections in modern

-English has permitted of a vagueness in the formation of compound words,

-which in itself is of value to the word-maker. Though, of course, it is

-possible in most cases accurately to analyse the logical relation between

-the elements of a compound, yet it sometimes happens, especially with the

-compound epithets of poetry, that this cannot be done with certainty,

-because the new formation may have been the result of a hasty but happy

-inspiration, with no regard to the regular rules of composition.[162]

-Hence, from one point of view, the free formation of compounds is

-a legitimate device allowed to the poets, of which the more severe

-atmosphere of prose is expected to take less advantage; from another

-point of view, the greater prevalence of the compound in poetry may not

-be unconnected with the rhythm of verse. Viewed in this light, the use

-of compound epithets in our poetry at any period may well have been

-conditioned, in part at least, by the metrical form in which that poetry

-received expression; and thus in the poetry of the eighteenth century it

-connects itself in some degree—first, with the supremacy of the heroic

-couplet, and later with the blank verse that proved to be the chief rival

-of the decasyllabic.

-

-The freedom of construction which facilitates the formation of compounds

-had already in the earliest English period contributed to that special

-poetic diction which is a distinguishing mark of Anglo-Saxon verse, as

-indeed of all the old Germanic poetry; of the large number of words not

-used in Anglo-Saxon prose, very many are synonymous compounds meaning

-the same thing.[163] During the Middle English period, and especially

-before the triumph of the East Midland dialect definitely prepared

-the way for Modern English, it would seem that the language lost much

-of its old power of forming compounds, one explanation being that the

-large number of French words, which then came into the language, drove

-out many of the Old English compounds, whilst at the same time these

-in-comers, so easily acquired, tended to discourage the formation of new

-compounds.[164] It was not until the great outburst of literary activity

-in the second half of the sixteenth century that a fresh impetus was

-given to the formation of compound nouns and epithets. The large number

-of classical translations especially exercised an important influence in

-this respect: each new translation had its quota of fresh compounds, but

-Chapman’s “Homer” may be mentioned as especially noteworthy.[165] At

-the same time the plastic state of Elizabethan English led to the making

-of expressive new compounds of native growth, and from this period date

-some of the happiest compound epithets to be found in the language.[166]

-From the Elizabethans this gift of forming imaginative compounds was

-inherited, with even greater felicity by Milton, many of whose epithets,

-especially those of Type VII such as “_grey-hooded even_,” “_coral-paven

-floor_,” “_flowery-kirtled_ Naiades” reveal him as a consummate master of

-word-craft.

-

-With Dryden begins the period with which we are especially concerned,

-for it is generally agreed that from nearly every point of view the

-advent of what is called eighteenth century literature dates from the

-Restoration. During the forty years dominated by Dryden in practically

-every department of literature, the changes in the language, both of

-prose and poetry, which had been slowly evolving themselves, became

-apparent, and, as the sequel will show, this new ideal of style, with its

-passion for “correctness,” and its impatience of innovation, was not one

-likely to encourage or inspire the formation of expressive compounds; the

-happy audacities of the Elizabethans, of whose tribe it is customary to

-seal Milton, are no longer possible.

-

-The compounds in the poems of Dryden show this; of his examples of Type

-I—the substantive compounds—the majority are merely the juxtaposition of

-two appositional nouns, as _brother-angels_ (“Killigrew,” 4); or, more

-rarely, where the first element has a descriptive or adjectival force,

-as _traitor-friend_ (“Palamon,” II, 568). Not much more imaginative

-power is reflected in Dryden’s compound epithets; his instances of Types

-III and IV include “_cloud-dispelling_ winds” (“Ovid,” Met. I, 356),

-“_sun-begotten_ tribe” (_ibid._, III, 462), with more original examples

-like “_sleep-procuring_ wand.” Next comes a large number of instances

-of Types V and VI: “_thick-spread_ forest” (“Palamon,” II, 123),

-“_hoarse-resounding_ shore” (“Iliad” I, 54), as well as many compounded

-with _long_-, _well_-, _high_-, etc. Most of these examples of Types V

-and VI are scarcely compounds at all, for after such elements as “long,”

-“well,” “much,” the hyphen could in most cases be omitted without any

-loss of power. Of Dryden’s compound epithets it may be said in general

-that they reflect admirably his poetic theory and practice; they are

-never the product of a “fine frenzy.” At the same time not a few of them

-seem to have something of that genius for satirical expression with which

-he was amply endowed. Compounds like _court-informer_ (“Absalom,” 719),

-“the rebels’ _pension-purse_” (_ibid._, Pt. II, 321),

-

-    Og, from a _treason-tavern_ rolling home

-

-                                                           (_Ibid._, 480)

-

-play their part in the delivery of those “smacks in the face” of which

-Professor Saintsbury speaks in his discussion of Dryden’s satiric

-manipulation of the heroic couplet.[167]

-

-In the verse of Pope, compound formations are to be found in large

-numbers. This may partly be attributed, no doubt, to the amount of

-translation included in it, but even in his original poetry there

-are many more instances than in the work of his great predecessor.

-When engaged on his translation of Homer the prevalence of compounds

-naturally attracted his attention, and he refers to the matter more

-than once in his Preface.[168] As might be expected from the apostle

-of “correctness,” he lays down cautious and conservative “rules” of

-procedure. Such should be retained “as slide easily of themselves into an

-English compound, without violence to the ear, or to the received rules

-of composition, as well as those which have received the sanction from

-the authority of our best poets, and are become familiar through their

-use of them.”[169]

-

-An examination of Pope’s compounds in the light of “the received rules of

-composition,” shows his examples to be of the usual types. Of noun _plus_

-noun combinations he has such forms as “_monarch-savage_,” (“Odyss.”

-IV), whilst he is credited with the first use of “the _fury-passions_”

-(Epistle III). More originality and imagination is reflected in his

-compound epithets; of those formed from a noun and a present participle,

-with the first element usually in an objective relation to the second,

-his instances include “_love-darting_-eyes” (“Unfortunate Lady”), as well

-as others found before his time, like the Elizabethan “_heart-piercing_

-anguish” (_ibid._, XII) and “_laughter-loving_ dame” (_ibid._, III).

-He has large numbers of compounded nouns and past-participles, many of

-which—“_moss-grown_ domes” (“Eloisa”), “_cloud-topped_ hills” (“Essay

-on Man,” I, 100), “_Sea-girt_ isles” (“Iliad,” III)—were common in

-the seventeenth century, as well as “borrowed” examples, such as

-“_home-felt_ joys” (Epistle II) or “_air-bred_ people” (“Odyss.,” LX,

-330), presumably from Milton and Drayton respectively. But he has a few

-original formations of this type, such as “_heaven-directed_ spire”

-(Epistle III), “_osier-fringed_ bank,” (“Odyss.,” XIII), the latter

-perhaps a reminiscence of Sabrina’s song in “Comus,” as well as happier

-combinations, of which the best examples are “_love-born_ confidence”

-(“Odyss.,” X) and “_love-dittied_ airs” (“Odyss.,” II).

-

-Pope, however, makes his largest use of that type of compound which

-can be formed with the greatest freedom—an adjective, or an adjective

-used adverbially, joined to a present or past participle. He has

-dozens of examples with the adverbial _long_, _wide_, _far_, _loud_,

-_deep_, _high_, etc., as the first element, most of the examples

-occurring in the Homer translations, and being attempts to reproduce

-the Greek compounds.[170] Other instances have a higher æsthetic

-value: “_fresh-blooming_ hope” (“Eloisa”), “_silver-quivering_ rills”

-(Epistle IV), “_soft-trickling_ waters” “Iliad,” IX), “sweet airs

-_soft-circling_” (_ibid._, XVII), etc. Of the formations beginning with

-a true adverb, the most numerous are the quasi-compounds beginning

-with “_ever_”—“_ever-during_ nights,” “_ever-fragrant_ bowers”

-(“Odyss.,” XII), etc.; or “_well_”—“_well-sung_ woes” (“Eloisa”) or

-“_yet_”—“_yet-untasted_ food” (“Iliad,” XV), etc. These instances do

-not reveal any great originality, for the very ease with which they can

-be formed naturally discounts largely their poetic value. Occasionally,

-however, Pope has been more successful; perhaps his best examples of

-this type are “_inly-pining_ hate” (“Odyss.,” VI—where the condensation

-involved in the epithet does at least convey some impression of power—and

-“the _softly-stealing_ space of time,” (“Odyss.,” XV), where the compound

-almost produces a happy effect of personification.

-

-Of the irregular type of compound, already mentioned in connexion with

-Dryden, Pope has a few instances—“_white-robed_ innocence” (“Eloisa”),

-etc. But perhaps Pope’s happiest effort in this respect is to be seen in

-that quatrain from the fourth book of the “Dunciad,” containing three

-instances of compound epithets, which help to remind us that at times he

-had at his command a diction of higher suggestive and evocative power

-than the plain idiom of his satiric and didactic verse:

-

-    To isles of fragrance, _lily-silver’d_ vales

-    Diffusing languor in the panting gales;

-    To lands of singing or of dancing slaves

-    _Love-whisp’ring_ woods and _lute-resounding_ waves.

-

-Of the poets contemporary with Pope only brief mention need be made from

-our present point of view. The poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea

-contain few instances and those of the ordinary type, a remark which is

-equally applicable to the poems of Parnell and John Phillips. John Gay

-(1685-1732), however, though he has many formations found in previous

-writers, has also some apparently original compound epithets which have

-a certain charm: “_health-breathing_ breezes” (“A Devonshire Hill,” 10),

-“_dew-besprinkled_ lawn” (“Fables,” 50), and “the lark _high-poised_ in

-the air” (“Sweet William’s Farewell,” 13). More noteworthy is John Dyer;

-“Grongar Hill” has no very striking examples, but his blank verse poems

-have one or two not devoid of imaginative value: “_soft-whispering_

-waters” (“Ruins of Rome”) and “_plaintive-echoing_ ruins” (_ibid._); he

-has been able to dispense with the “classical” descriptive terms for

-hills and mountains (“shaggy,” “horrid,” “terrible,” etc.), and his new

-epithets reflect something at least of that changing attitude towards

-natural scenery, of which he was a foremost pioneer: “_slow-climbing_

-wilds” (“Fleece,” I), “_cloud-dividing_ hill” (_ibid._), and his

-irregular “_snow-nodding_ crags” (_ibid._, IV).

-

-Neglecting for the moment the more famous of the blank verse poems,

-we may notice Robert Blair’s “Grave” (published 1743), with a few

-examples, which mainly allow him to indulge in “classical” periphrases,

-such as the “_sight-invigorating_ tube” for “a telescope.” David

-Mallet, who imitated his greater countryman James Thomson, has one

-or two noteworthy instances: “pines _high-plumed_” (“Amyntor,” II),

-“_sweetly-pensive_ silence” (“Fragment”), “spring’s _flower-embroidered_

-mantle” (“Excursion,” I)—suggested, no doubt, by Milton’s

-“violet-embroidered”—“the morn _sun-tinctured_” (_ibid._), compound

-epithets which betray the influence of the “Seasons.” Of the other minor

-blank verse poems their only aspect noteworthy from our present point of

-view is their comparative freedom from compounds of any description. John

-Armstrong’s “Art of Preserving Health” (1744) has only a few commonplace

-examples, and the same may be said of the earlier “The Chase” (1735)

-by William Somerville, though he finds a new epithet in his expression

-“the strand _sea-lav’d_” (Bk. III, 431). James Grainger’s “The Sugar

-Cane” (1764) shows a similar poverty, but the “_green-stol’d_ Naiad,

-of the tinkling rill” (Canto I), “_soft-stealing_ dews” (Canto III),

-“_wild-careering_ clouds” (Canto II), and “_cane-crowned_ vale” (Canto

-IV) are not without merit. These blank verse poems, avowedly modelled

-on Milton, might have been expected to attempt the “grandeur” of their

-original by high-sounding compounds; but it was rather by means of

-latinized words and constructions that the Miltonic imitators sought to

-emulate the grand style; and moreover, as Coleridge pointed out, Milton’s

-great epics are almost free from compound epithets, it being in the

-early poems that “a superfluity” is to be found.[171]

-

-Before turning to the more famous blank verse poems of the first half

-of the eighteenth century it will be convenient at this point to notice

-one or two poets whose work represents, on its formal side at least, a

-continuation or development of the school of Pope. The first of these

-is Richard Savage, whose only poem of any real merit, “The Wanderer”

-(apart perhaps from “The Bastard”), appeared in 1729. He has only one

-or two new compounds of noun and part-participle, such as “the robe

-_snow-wrought_” (“The Wanderer,” I, 55), his favourite combination being

-that of an adjective or adverb with a participle, where, amidst numerous

-examples of obvious formations, he occasionally strikes out something

-new: “eyes _dim-gleaming_” (Canto I), “_soft-creeping_ murmurs” (Canto

-V), etc. Of his other types the only other noteworthy compound is the

-“past-participle” epithet in his phrase “the _amber-hued_ cascade” (Canto

-III), though a refreshing simplicity of expression is found in such lines

-as

-

-    The bull-finch whistles soft his _flute-like_ note.

-

-The poetical work of Dr. Johnson contains scarcely any instances of

-compounds, and none either newly invented or applied. “London” and “The

-Vanity of Human Wishes” have each not more than two or three instances,

-and even the four poems, in which he successively treats of the seasons,

-are almost destitute of compound epithets, “_snow-topped_ cot” (“Winter”)

-being almost the only example.

-

-There are many more instances of compound formations in the works of

-Oliver Goldsmith, most of which, like “_nut-brown_ draughts” (“Deserted

-Village,” II), “_sea-borne_ gales” (“Traveller,” 121), “_grass-grown_

-footway” (“Deserted Village,” 127), had either been long in the language,

-or had been used by earlier eighteenth century poets. There are,

-however, instances which testify to a desire to add to the descriptive

-power of the vocabulary; in “The Traveller” we find mention of “the

-_hollow-sounding_ bittern” (l. 44), “the _rocky-crested_ summits” (l.

-85), “the _yellow-blossomed_ vale” (l. 293), and the “_willow-tufted_

-bank” (l. 294). For the rest, Goldsmith’s original compounds are,

-like so many of this type, mere efforts at verbal condensation, as

-“_shelter-seeking_ peasant” (“Traveller,” 162), “_joy-pronouncing_ eye”

-(_ibid._, 10), etc.

-

-Of the more famous blank verse poems of the eighteenth century the first

-and most important was “The Seasons” of James Thomson, which appeared in

-their original form between 1726 and 1730. The originality of style, for

-which Johnson praised him,[172] is perhaps to be seen especially in his

-use of compound formations; probably no other poet has ever used them so

-freely.

-

-As a general rule, Thomson’s compounds fall into the well-defined groups

-already mentioned. He has a number of noun _plus_ noun formations (Type

-I), where the first element has usually a purely adjectival value;

-“_patriot-council_” (“Autumn,” 98), “_harvest-treasures_” (_ibid._,

-1217), as well as a few which allow him to indulge in grandiose

-periphrasis, as in the “_monarch-swain_” (“Summer,” 495) for a shepherd

-with his “_sceptre-crook_” (_ibid._, 497). These are all commonplace

-formations, but much more originality is found in his compound epithets.

-He frequently uses the noun _plus_ present participle combinations

-(Type III), “_secret-winding_, _flower-enwoven_ bowers” (“Spring,”

-1058) or “_forest-rustling_ mountains” (“Winter,” 151), etc. Moreover,

-the majority of his compounds are original, though now and then he

-has taken a “classical” compound and given it a somewhat curious

-application, as in “_cloud-compelling_ cliffs” (“Autumn,” 801). A few of

-this class are difficult to justify logically, striking examples being

-“_world-rejoicing_ state” (“Summer,” 116) for “the state of one in whom

-the world rejoices,” and “_life-sufficing_ trees” (_ibid._, 836) for

-“trees that give sustenance.”

-

-Thomson has also numerous instances of the juxtaposition of nouns

-and past-participles (Type IV): “_love-enlivened_ cheeks” (“Spring,”

-1080), “_leaf-strewn_ walks” (“Autumn,” 955), “_frost-concocted_ glebe”

-(“Winter,” 706); others of this type are somewhat obscure in meaning,

-as “_mind-illumined_ face” (“Spring,” 1042), and especially “_art

-imagination-flushed_” (“Autumn,” 140), where economy of expression is

-perhaps carried to its very limit.

-

-Thomson’s favourite method of forming compounds however is that of

-Type V, each book of “The Seasons” containing large numbers, the first

-element (_full_, _prone_, _quick_, etc.) often repeated with a variant

-second element. Sometimes constant repetition in this way produces

-the impression of a tiresome mannerism. Thus “many” joined to present

-and past-participles is used irregularly with quasi-adverbial force,

-apparently meaning “in many ways,” “many times,” or even “much,” as

-“_many-twinkling_ leaves” (“Spring,” 158), “_many-bleating_ flock”

-(_ibid._, 835), etc. In the same way the word “mazy” seems to have had

-a fascination for Thomson. Thus he has “the _mazy-running_ soul of

-melody” (“Spring,” 577), “the _mazy-running_ brook” (“Summer,” 373),

-“and _mazy-running_ clefts” (“Autumn,” 816), etc. Not all of this

-type, however, are mere mechanical formations; some have real poetic

-value and bear witness to Thomson’s undoubted gift for achieving happy

-expressive effects. Thus the “_close-embowering_ wood” (“Autumn,” 208),

-“the lonesome muse _low-whispering_” (_ibid._, 955), “the _deep-tangled_

-copse” (“Spring,” 594), “the _hollow-whispering_ breeze” (_ibid._,

-919), “the _grey-grown_ oaks” (“Summer,” 225), “_flowery-tempting_

-paths” (“Spring,” 1109), “the morn _faint-gleaming_” (“Summer,” 48),

-“_dark-embowered_ firs” (“Winter,” 813), “the winds _hollow-blustering_”

-(_ibid._, 988), “the _mossy-tinctured_ streams” (“Spring,” 380), as well

-as such passages as

-

-          the long-forgotten strain

-    At first _faint-warbled_

-

-                                                          (“Spring,” 585)

-

-and

-

-    Ships _dim-discovered_ dropping from the clouds.

-

-                                                          (“Summer,” 946)

-

-Thomson’s compound epithets with a true adverb as the first element

-(Sixth Type), such as “_north-inflated_ tempest” (“Autumn,” 892), are not

-particularly striking, and some of them are awkward and result in giving

-a harsh effect to the verse, as

-

-            goodness and wit

-    In _seldom-meeting_ harmony combined.

-

-                                                         (“Summer,” 25-6)

-

-Finally, in “The Seasons” there are to be found many examples of the

-type of compound epithet, already referred to, modelled on the form

-of a past-participle; here Thomson has achieved some of his happiest

-expressions, charged with real suggestive power.[173] Among his instances

-are such little “word-pictures” as “_rocky-channelled_ maze” (“Spring,”

-401), “the _light-footed_ dews” (“Summer,” 123); “the _keen-aired_

-mountain” (“Autumn,” 434) “the _dusky-mantled_ lawn” (_ibid._, 1088),

-“the _dewy-skirted_ clouds” (_ibid._, 961) Even when he borrows a

-felicitous epithet he is able to apply it without loss of power, as when

-he gives a new setting to Milton’s “meek-eyed” applied to “Peace” as

-an epithet for the quiet in-coming of the dawn; the “_meek-eyed_ Morn”

-(“Summer,” 47).

-

-Thomson makes good and abundant use of compound epithets, and in this

-respect, as in others he was undoubtedly a bold pioneer. His language

-itself, from our present point of view, apart from the thought and

-outlook on external nature it reflects, entitles him to that honourable

-position as a forerunner in the Romantic reaction with which he is

-usually credited. He was not content to accept the stereotyped diction

-of his day, and asserted the right of the poet to make a vocabulary for

-himself. There is thus justice in the plea that it is Thomson, rather

-than Gray, whom Wordsworth should have marked down for widening the

-breach between the language of poetry and that of prose.

-

-No doubt the prevalence of the compound epithets in “The Seasons” is

-due, to some extent at least, to the requirement of his blank verse

-line; they helped him, so to speak, to secure the maximum of effect with

-the minimum of word-power; and at times we can almost see him trying

-to give to his unrhymed decasyllabics something of the conciseness and

-polish to which Pope’s couplet had accustomed his generation. But they

-owe their appearance, of course, to other causes than the mere mechanism

-of verse. Thompson’s fondness for “swelling sound and phrase” has often

-been touched upon, and this predilection finds full scope in the compound

-epithets; they play their part in giving colour and atmosphere to “The

-Seasons,” and they announce unmistakably that the old dead, descriptive

-diction is doomed.

-

-Of the blank verse poems of the period only “The Seasons” has any real

-claim to be regarded as announcing the Romantic revolt that was soon to

-declare itself unmistakably. But three years after the appearance of

-Thomson’s final revision of his poem the first odes of William Collins

-were published, at the same time as those of Joseph Warton, whilst the

-work of Thomas Gray had already begun.

-

-There are some two score of compound formations in the poems of

-Collins, but many of these—as “_love-darting_” (“Poetic Character,” 8),

-“_soul-subduing_” (“Liberty,” 92)—date from the seventeenth century. One

-felicitous compound Collins has borrowed from James Thomson, but in doing

-so he has invested it with a new and beautiful suggestiveness. Thomson

-had written of

-

-    Ships _dim-discovered_ dropping from the clouds.

-

-                                                          (“Summer,” 946)

-

-The compound is taken by Collins and given a new beauty in his

-description of the landscape as the evening shadows gently settle upon it:

-

-    Hamlets brown and _dim-discovered_ spires

-

-                                                          (“Evening,” 37)

-

-where the poetic and pictorial force of the epithet is perhaps at its

-maximum.[174]

-

-Collins, however, has not contented himself with compounds already in the

-language; he has formed himself, apparently, almost half of the examples

-to be found in his poems. His instances of Types I, as of Types V and

-VI, are commonplace, and he has but few examples of Type II, the most

-noteworthy being “_scene-full_ world” (“Manners,” 78), where the epithet,

-irregularly formed, seems to have the meaning of “abounding in scenery.”

-Most of his instances of Type III are either to be found in previous

-writers, or are obvious formations like “_war-denouncing_ trumpets”

-(“Passions,” 43).

-

-Much more originality is evident in his examples of Type IV, which

-is apparently a favourite method with him. He has “_moss-crowned_

-fountain” (“Oriental Ecl.,” II, 24), “_sky-worn_ robes” (“Pity,”

-II), “_sedge-crowned_ sisters” (“Ode on Thomson,” 30), “_elf-shot_

-arrows” (“Popular Superstitions,” 27), etc. Some instances here are,

-strictly speaking, irregular formations, for the participles, as in

-“_sphere-descended_,” are from intransitive verbs; in other instances the

-logical relation must be expressed by a preposition such, as “_with_”

-in “_moss-crowned_,” “_sedge-crowned_”; or “_by_” in “_fancy-blest_,”

-“_elf-shot_”; or “_in_” in “_sphere-found_,” “_sky-worn_.” He has some

-half-dozen examples of Type VII, three at least of which—“_gay-motleyed_

-pinks” (“Oriental Eclogues,” III, 17), “_chaste-eyed_ Queen” (“Passions,”

-75), and “_fiery-tressed_ Dane” (“Liberty,” 97)—are apparently his own

-coinage, whilst others, such as “_rosy-lipp’d_ health” (“Evening,” 50)

-and “_young-eyed_ wit,” have been happily used in the service of the

-personifications that play so great a part in his Odes.

-

-There is some evidence that the use of compounds by certain writers

-was already being noticed in the eighteenth century as something of an

-innovation in poetical language. Thus Goldsmith, it would seem, was

-under the impression that their increasing employment, even by Gray,

-was connected in some way with the revived study of the older poets,

-especially Spenser.[175] This supposition is unfounded. Gray, it is

-true, uses a large number of compounds, found in previous writers, but

-it is chiefly from Milton—e.g. “_solemn-breathing_ airs” (“Progress

-of Poesy,” 14; cp. “Comus,” 555), “rosy-bosomed hours” (“Spring,” I),

-or from Pope—e.g. “_cloud-topped_ head” (“Bard,” 34) that he borrows.

-Moreover, he has many compounds which presumably he made for himself.

-Of Type I he has such instances as “the _seraph-wings_ of Ecstasy”

-(“Progress,” 96), “the _sapphire-blaze_” (_ibid._, 99), etc.; he has one

-original example of Type II in his “_silver-bright_ Cynthia” (“Music,”

-32), and two of Type III, when he speaks of the valley of Thames as a

-“_silver-winding_ way” (“Eton Ode,” 10), and he finds a new epithet

-for the dawn in his beautiful phrase “the _incense-breathing_ Morn”

-(Elegy XVII). Of Type IV, he has some half-dozen examples, only two of

-which, however, owe their first appearance to him—the irregularly formed

-“_feather-cinctured_ chiefs” (“Progress,” 62) and “the _dew-bespangled_

-wing” (“Vicissitude,” 2). The largest number of Gray’s compound

-epithets belong to Type V, where an adjective is used adverbially with

-a participle: “_rosy-crowned_ loves” (“Progress,” 28) and “_deep-toned_

-shell” (“Music,” 23). One of Gray’s examples of this class of compound,

-evidently formed on a model furnished by Thomson, came in for a good

-deal of censure. He speaks of “_many-twinkling_ feet” (“Progress,” 35),

-and the compound, which indeed is somewhat difficult to defend, aroused

-disapproval in certain quarters. Lyttleton was one of the first to object

-to its use, and he communicated his disapproval to Walpole, who, however,

-at once took sides for the defence. “In answer to your objection,” he

-wrote,[176] “I will quote authority to which you will yield. As Greek as

-the expression is, it struck Mrs. Garrick; and she says that Mr. Gray

-is the only poet who ever understood dancing.” Later, the objection was

-revived in a general form by Dr. Johnson. “Gray,” he says,[177] “is too

-fond of words arbitrarily compounded. ‘Many-twinkling’ was formerly

-censured as not analogical: we may say ‘_many-spotted_’ but scarcely

-‘_many_-spotting.’” The incident is not without its significance;

-from the strictly grammatical point of view the epithet is altogether

-irregular, unless the first element is admitted to be an adverb meaning

-“very much” or “many times.” But Gray’s fastidiousness of expression is

-a commonplace of criticism, and we may be sure that even when he uses

-compounds of this kind he has not forgotten his own clearly expressed

-views on the language fit and proper for poetry.

-

-Johnson also objected to another device by which Gray had sought

-to enrich the vocabulary of poetry, as reflected in his use of the

-“participal” epithet in -_ed_.[178] If this device for forming new

-epithets cannot be grammatically justified, the practice of the best

-English poets at least has always been against Johnson’s dictum, and,

-as we have seen, it has been a prolific source of original and valuable

-compound epithets. Of this type Gray has some six or seven examples, the

-majority of which, however, had long been in the language, though in the

-new epithet of “the _ivy-mantled_ tower” (Elegy IX) we may perhaps see

-an indication of the increasing Romantic sensibility towards old ruins.

-

-Though not admitted to the same high rank of poets as Collins and Gray,

-two of their contemporaries, the brothers Warton, are at least of as

-great importance in the history of the Romantic revival.[179] From our

-present point of view it is not too fanciful to see a reflection of

-this fact in the compound epithets freely used by both of the Wartons.

-Thomas Warton is especially noteworthy; probably no other eighteenth

-century poet, with the exception of James Thomson, has so many instances

-of new compound formations, and these are all the more striking in that

-few of them are of the mechanical type, readily formed by means of a

-commonplace adjective or adverb. Instances of compound substantives

-(Type I) are almost entirely lacking, and the same may be said of the

-noun _plus_ adjective epithets (Type II). There are, however, a few

-examples of Type III (noun _plus_ present participle), some of which, as

-“_beauty-blooming_ isle” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “_twilight-loving_

-bat” (_ibid._), and “the woodbines _elm-encircling_ spray” (“On a New

-Plantation”), no doubt owe something to the influence of Thomson.

-Instances of Type IV are plentiful, and here again there is a welcome

-freshness in Warton’s epithets: “Fancy’s _fairy-circled_ shrine” (“Monody

-Written near Stratford-on-Avon”), “morning’s _twilight-tinctured_

-beam” (“The Hamlet”), “_daisy-dappled_ dale” (“Sonnet on Bathing”).

-One instance of this class of compound epithet, “the _furze-clad_

-dale,” is certainly significant as indicative of the changes that were

-going on from the “classical” to the Romantic outlook towards natural

-scenery.[180]

-

-Of the other class of compound epithets, Warton has only a few instances,

-but his odes gave plenty of scope for the use of the “participial

-epithet” (Type VII), and he has formed them freely: “Pale Cynthia’s

-_silver-axled_ car” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “the _coral-cinctured_

-stole” (“Complaint of Cherwell”), “Sport, the _yellow-tressed_ boy”

-(_ibid._). No doubt many of Thomas Warton’s compound formations were the

-result of a conscious effort to find “high-sounding” terms, and they

-have sometimes an air of being merely rhetorical, as in such instances

-as “_beauty-blooming_,” “_gladsome-glistering_ green,” “_azure-arched_,”

-“_twilight-tinctured_,” “_coral-cinctured_,” “_cliff-encircled_,”

-“_daisy-dappled_,” where alliterative effects have obviously been sought.

-Yet he deserves great credit for his attempts to find new words at a time

-when the stock epithets and phrases were still the common treasury of the

-majority of his contemporaries.

-

-His brother, Joseph Warton, is less of a pioneer, but there is evident

-in his work also an effort to search out new epithets. His compounds

-include (Type II) “_marble-mimic_ gods” (“The Enthusiast”); (Type III)

-“_courage-breathing_ songs” (“Verses, 1750”), with many instances of Type

-IV, some commonplace, as “_merchant-crowded_ towns” (“Ode to Health”),

-others more original, as “mirth and youth nodding _lily-crowned_ heads”

-(“Ode to Fancy”), joy, “the _rose-crowned, ever-smiling_ boy” (“Ode

-Against Despair”), “the _beech-embowered_ cottage” (“On The Spring”).

-Moreover, there are a number in “The Enthusiast,” which reflect a genuine

-love of Nature (“_thousand-coloured_ tulips,” “_pine-topp’d_ precipice”)

-and a keen observation of its sights and sounds.

-

-It is not forcing the evidence of language too much to say that a similar

-increasing interest in external nature finds expression in some of the

-compound epithets to be found in much of the minor poetry of the period.

-Thus Moses Mendez (_d._ 1758)[181] has in his poem on the various seasons

-(1751) such conventional epithets as

-

-    On every hill the _purple-blushing_ vine,

-

-but others testify to first hand observation as

-

-    The _pool-sprung_ gnat on sounding wings doth pass.

-

-Richard Jago (1715-1781)[182], in his “Edgehill” (1767), has such

-instances as “the _woodland-shade_,” “the _wave-worn_ face,” and “the

-tillag’d plain _wide-waving_.” The Rev. R. Potter,[183] who imitated

-Spenser in his “Farewell Hymn to the Country” (1749), has happy examples

-like “_mavis-haunted_ grove” and “this _flowre-perfumed_ aire.” In

-William Whitehead’s poems[184] there are numerous formations like

-“_cloud-enveloped_ towers” (“A Hymn”) and “_rock-invested_ shades”

-(“Elegy,” IV). A few new descriptive terms appear in the work of John

-Langhorne (1735-1779),[185] “_flower-feeding_ rills” (“Visions of

-Fancy,” I), “_long-winding_ vales” (“Genius and Valour”), etc. Michael

-Bruce (1746-1767) in his “Lochleven”[186] has, e.g., “_cowslip-covered_

-banks,” and fresh observation of bird life is seen in such phrases

-as “_wild-shrieking_ gull” and “_slow-wing’d_ crane.” James Graeme

-(1749-1772)[187] has at least one new and happy compound in his line

-

-    The _blue-gray_ mist that hovers o’er the hill.

-

-                                              (“Elegy written in Spring”)

-

-John Scott (1730-1783)[188] makes more use of compound formations than

-most of his minor contemporaries. He has many instances of Type IV (noun

-_plus_ participle), including “_rivulet-water’d_ glade” (Eclogue I),

-“_corn-clad_ plain,” “_elder-shaded_ cot” (“Amwell”). His few instances

-of Type VI (e.g. “_wildly-warbled_ strain,” (“Ode” IV)), and of Type VII

-(e.g. “_trefoil-purpled_ field” (“Elegy,” III)); “_may-flower’d_ hedges”

-(“Elegy,” IV); and “_golden-clouded_ sky,” (“Ode,” II), are also worthy of

-notice.

-

-Meanwhile another aspect of the rising Romantic movement was revealing

-itself in the work of Chatterton. With the “antiquarianism” of the

-Rowley poems we are not here concerned, but the language of both the

-“original” work and of the “discovered” poems contains plenty of material

-relevant to our special topic. Chatterton, indeed, seems to have had a

-predilection for compound formations, though he has but few instances of

-compound substantives (e.g. “_coppice-valley_” (“Elegy”), and instances

-of Type II (noun _plus_ adjective) are also rare. The other types of

-epithets are, however, well represented: “_echo-giving_ bells” (“To Miss

-Hoyland”), “_rapture-speaking_ lyre” (“Song”), etc. (Type III), though it

-is perhaps in Type IV that Chatterton’s word-forming power is best shown:

-“_flower-bespangled_ hills” (“Complaint”), “_rose-hedged_ vale” (“Elegy

-at Stanton-Drew”), etc., where the first compound epithet is a new and

-suggestive descriptive term. His examples of Type V are also worth

-noting: “_verdant-vested_ trees” (“Elegy,” V), “_red-blushing_ blossom”

-“Song”), whilst one of the best of them is to be found in those lines,

-amongst the most beautiful written by Chatterton, which reflect something

-of the new charm that men were beginning to find in old historic churches

-and buildings:

-

-    To view the cross-aisles and the arches fair

-    Through the half-hidden _silver-twinkling_ glare

-    Of yon bright moon in foggy mantle dress’d.

-

-                                     (“Parliament of Sprites,” Canto XXI)

-

-The remaining examples of Chatterton’s compound formations do not

-call for much attention, though “_gently-plaintive_ rill” (“Elegy on

-Phillips”) and “_loudly-dinning_ stream” (“Ælla,” 84) are new and fresh.

-Chatterton has much of the conventional poetical language and devices of

-his time throughout his work, and his compound epithets do not in the

-mass vary much from contemporary usage in this respect. But some of them

-at least are significant of the position which he occupies in the history

-of the Romantic revival.

-

-The greatest figure in this revival, as it appears to us now, was William

-Blake, but from our present point of view he is almost negligible. It

-may safely be said that few poets of such high rank have made less

-use of compound formations: in his entire poetical work scarcely half

-a dozen instances are to be found. Yet the majority of these, such

-as “_angel-guarded bed_” (“A Dream,” 2), “_mind-forg’d_ manacles”

-(“London,” 8), “Winter’s _deep-founded_ habitation” (“Winter,” 3),

-“_softly-breathing_ song” (“Song,” 2: “Poetical Sketches”) are a

-sufficiently striking tribute to his ability to form expressive compounds

-had he felt the need. But in the beautiful purity and simplicity of his

-diction, for which he has in our own time at least received adequate

-praise, there was no place for long compound formations, which, moreover,

-are more valuable and more appropriate for descriptive poetry, and likely

-to mar the pure singing note of the lyric.

-

-It is curious to find a similar paucity of compound formations in the

-poems of George Crabbe, the whole number being well represented by

-such examples as “_dew-press’d_ vale” (“Epistle to a Friend,” 48),

-“_violet-wing’d_ Zephyrs” (“The Candidate,” 268), and “_wind-perfuming_

-flowers” (“The Choice”). No doubt the narrative character of much of

-Crabbe’s verse is the explanation of this comparative lack of compounds,

-but the descriptions of wild nature that form the background for many of

-“The Tales” might have been expected to result in new descriptive terms.

-

-Two lesser poets of the time are more noteworthy as regards our especial

-topic. William Mickle (1735-1788), in his “Almada Hill” (1781) and

-his “May Day,” as well as in his shorter poems, has new epithets for

-hills and heights, as in such phrases as “_thyme-clad_ mountains” and

-“_fir-crown’d_ hill” (“Sorcerers,” 4). His Spenserian imitation “Syr

-Martyn,” contains a few happy epithets:

-

-    How bright emerging o’er yon _broom-clad_ height

-    The silver empress of the night appears

-

-                                                           (Canto II, 31)

-

-and “_daisie-whitened_ plain,” “_crystal-streamed_ Esk” are among his new

-formations in “Eskdale Braes.”

-

-James Beattie has a large number of compounds in his poems, and though

-many of these are mechanical formations, he has a few new “nature”

-epithets which are real additions to the vocabulary of poetical

-description, as “_sky-mixed_ mountain” (“Ode to Peace,” 38), the lake

-“_dim-gleaming_” (“Minstrel,” 176), “the _wide-weltering_ waves”

-(_ibid._, 481), the wave “_loose-glimmering_” (“Judgment of Paris,” 458).

-He has also a few instances of Type VII chiefly utilized, as often with

-compounds of this type, as personifying epithets: “the frolic moments

-_purple_-pinioned” (“Judgment of Paris,” 465) and “_loose-robed_ Quiet”

-(“Triumph of Melancholy,” 64).

-

-The “Pleasures of Memory” (1792) by Samuel Rogers has one or two

-compound formations: “_moonlight-chequered_ shade” (Part II). Hope’s

-“_summer-visions_” (_ibid._) and “the _fairy-haunts_ of long-lost hours”

-(_ibid.)_, have a trace at least of that suggestive power with which

-Keats and Shelley were soon to endow their epithets. Brief reference only

-need be made to the works of Erasmus Darwin, which have already been

-mentioned as the great example of eighteenth century stock diction used

-to the utmost possible extent. He has plenty of instances of compound

-epithets of every type, but his favourite formation appears to be that

-of a noun _plus_ part-participle, as “_sun-illumined_ fane” (“Botanic

-Garden,” I, 157), “_wave-worn_ channels” (_ibid._, I, 362), and as seen

-in such lines as

-

-    Her _shell-wrack_ gardens and her _sea-fan_ bowers.

-

-                                        (“Economy of Vegetation,” VI, 82)

-

-Many of Darwin’s compounds have a certain charm of their own; in the mass

-they contribute towards that dazzling splendour with which eighteenth

-century diction here blazed out before it finally disappeared.

-

-Cowper, like Blake and Crabbe, is not especially distinguished for his

-compound epithets. Though he has a large number of such formations, very

-few of them are either new or striking, a remark which applies equally to

-his original work and his translations. Many instances of all the types

-are to be found in the “Homer,” but scarcely one that calls for special

-mention, though here and there we come across good epithets well applied:

-“accents _ardour-winged_” (IV, 239) or “_silver-eddied_ Peneus” (II, 294).

-

-Before attempting to sum up the use of compound epithets in eighteenth

-century poetry, brief reference may be made to their use in the early

-work of the two poets who announced the definite advent of the new age.

-Wordsworth in his early poems has many instance of compound words,

-most of which are either his own formations, or are rare before his

-time. The original and final drafts both of the “Evening Walk” and the

-“Descriptive Sketches” show some divergence in this respect, compounds

-found in the 1793 version being omitted later, whilst on the other new

-formations appear in the revised poems. Besides imitative instances

-such as “_cloud-piercing_ pine trees” (D.S., 63), there are more

-original and beautiful compounds, such as the “_Lip-dewing_ song and the

-_ringlet-tossing_ dance” (_ibid._, 132), which does not appear until the

-final draft.

-

-Examples of Type IV are “_holly-sprinkled_ steeps” (E.W., 10), “The

-sylvan cabin’s _lute-enlivened_ gloom” (D.S., 134, final); and of Types

-V and VI, “_green-tinged_ margin” (D.S., 122), “_clear-blue_ sky” (D.S.,

-113), “_dim-lit_ Alps” (D.S., 1793 only, 217), and “the _low-warbled_

-breath of twilight lute” (D.S., 1793, 749). Wordsworth’s early poems,

-it has been noted, are almost an epitome of the various eighteenth

-century devices for producing what was thought to be a distinctively

-poetical style,[189] but he soon shakes off this bondage, and “Guilt and

-Sorrow,” perhaps the first poem in which his simplicity and directness

-of expression are fully revealed, is practically without instances of

-compound epithets.

-

-The critics, it would appear, had already marked down as a fault a

-“profusion of new coined double epithets”[190] in a “small volume of

-juvenile poems” published by Coleridge in 1794. In replying to, or rather

-commenting on, the charge, Coleridge makes an interesting digression on

-the use of such formations, defending them on “the authority of Milton

-and Shakespeare,” and suggesting that compound epithets should only be

-admitted if they are already “denizens” of the language, or if the new

-formation is a genuine compound, and not merely two words made one by

-virtue of the hyphen. “A Language,” he adds, “which like the English

-is almost without cases, is indeed in its very genius unfitted for

-compounds. If a writer, every time a compounded word suggests itself

-to him, would seek for some other mode of expressing the same sense,

-the chances are always greatly in favour of his finding a better word.”

-Though there is a good deal of sound sense in these remarks, we have only

-to recall the wealth of beautiful compound epithets with which Keats, to

-take only one example, was soon to enrich the language, to realize that

-English poetry would be very much the poorer if the rule Coleridge lays

-down had been strictly observed. It would perhaps be truer to say that

-the imaginative quality of the compound epithets coined by a poet is a

-good test of his advance in power of expression.[191]

-

-As regards his own practice, Coleridge goes on to say[192] that

-he “pruned the double epithets with no sparing hand”; but the

-pruning was not very severe, judging from a comparison of the two

-volumes. Yet these early poems are not without examples of good

-compound epithets: “_zephyr-haunted_ brink,” (“Lines to a Beautiful

-Spring”), “_distant-tinkling_ stream” (“Song of the Pixies,” 16),

-“_sunny-tinctured_ hue” (_ibid._, 43), “_passion-warbled_ strain,” (“To

-the Rev. W. J. H.”), etc.

-

-When we review the use of compound epithets in the poetry of the

-eighteenth century we are bound to admit that in this, as in other

-aspects of the “purely poetical,” the eighteenth century stands apart

-from other periods in our literary history. Most readers could probably

-at will call to their mind half a dozen compound epithets of Shakespeare

-and the Elizabethan period, of Milton, or of more modern writers, such as

-Keats, that are, as it were, little poems in themselves, Shakespeare’s

-“_young-eyed cherubim_,” or Milton’s “_grey-hooded even_,” or Keats’s

-“_soft-conched shell_.” It is safe to say that few eighteenth century

-words or phrases of this nature have captured the imagination to a

-similar degree; Collins’s “_dim-discovered spires_” is perhaps the only

-instance that comes readily to the mind.

-

-There are, of course, as our study has shown, plenty of instances of

-good compound epithets, but in the typical eighteenth century poetry

-these are rarely the product of a genuine creative force that endows the

-phrase with imaginative life. Even the great forerunners of the Romantic

-revolt are not especially remarkable in this respect; one of the greatest

-of them, William Blake, gave scarcely a single new compound epithet to

-the language, and whilst this fact, of course, cannot be brought as a

-reproach against him, yet it is, in some respects at least, significant

-of the poetical atmosphere into which he was born. It has often been

-remarked that when Latin influence was in the ascendant the formation of

-new and striking compound epithets has been very rare in English poetry,

-whilst it has been always stimulated, as we know from the concrete

-examples of Chapman and Keats, by the influence of a revived Hellenism.

-

-Another fact is worthy of attention. Many of the most beautiful compound

-epithets in the English language are nature phrases descriptive of

-outdoor sights and sounds. The arrested development, or the atrophy of

-the sense of the beauty of the external world, which is a characteristic

-of the neo-classical school, was an unconscious but effective bar to

-the formation of new words and phrases descriptive of outdoor life. The

-neo-classical poet, with his eye fixed on the town and on life as lived

-there, felt no necessity for adding to the descriptive resources of his

-vocabulary, especially when there was to his hand a whole _gradus_ of

-accepted and consecrated words and phrases. It is in the apostles of “the

-return to Nature” that we find, however inadequately, to begin with, a

-new diction that came into being because these poets had recovered the

-use of their eyes and could sense the beauty of the world around them.

-

-And this fact leads to a further consideration of the use of compound

-epithets from the formal viewpoint of their technical value. It has

-already been suggested that their use may not be unconnected with the

-mechanism of verse, and the æsthetic poverty of eighteenth century poetry

-in this respect may therefore be not unjustly regarded as an outcome of

-the two great prevailing vehicles of expression. In the first place,

-there was the heroic couplet as brought to perfection by Pope. “The

-uniformity and maximum swiftness that marked his manipulation of the

-stopped couplet was achieved,” says Saintsbury, “not only by means of

-a large proportion of monosyllabic final words, but also by an evident

-avoidance of long and heavy vocables in the interior of the lines

-themselves.”[193] Moreover, perhaps the commonest device to secure the

-uniform smoothness of the line was that use of the “_gradus_ epithet”

-which has earlier been treated; these epithets were for the most part

-stock descriptive adjectives—_verdant_, _purling_, _fleecy_, _painted_,

-and the like—which were generally regarded by the versifiers as the only

-attendant diction of the couplet. If we compare a typical Pope verse such

-as

-

-    Let _vernal_ airs through trembling osiers play

-

-with the line already quoted,

-

-    Love-whisp’ring woods and lute-resounding waves

-

-we may perhaps see that the free use of compound epithets was not

-compatible with the mechanism of the couplet as illustrated in the

-greater part of Pope’s practice; they would tend to weaken the balanced

-antithesis, and thus spoil the swing of the line.

-

-The most formidable rival of the heroic couplet in the eighteenth

-century was blank verse, the advent of which marked the beginning of the

-Romantic reaction in form. Here Thomson may be regarded as the chief

-representative, and it is significant that the large number of compound

-epithets in his work are terms of natural description, which, in addition

-to their being a reflex of the revived attitude to natural scenery, were

-probably more or less consciously used to compensate readers for the

-absence of “the rhyme-stroke and flash” they were accustomed to look

-for in the contemporary couplet. “He utilizes periodically,” to quote

-Saintsbury again,[194] “the exacter nature-painting, which in general

-poetic history is his glory, by putting the distinctive words for colour

-and shape in notable places of the verse, so as to give it character

-and quality.” These “distinctive words for colour and shape” were, with

-Thomson, for the most part, compound epithets; almost by the time of

-“Yardley Oak,” and certainly by the time of “Tintern Abbey,” blank verse

-had been fully restored to its kingdom, and no longer needed such aid.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER VII

-

-PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY

-

-

-In the Preface of 1798, when Wordsworth formulated his theories with

-regard to poetical language, the first “mechanical device of style”

-against which he directed his preliminary attack was the use of

-“personifications of abstract ideas.”[195] Such personifications, he

-urged, do not make any natural or regular part of “the very language

-of men,” and as he wished “to keep the reader in the company of flesh

-and blood,” he had endeavoured “utterly to reject them.” He was ready

-to admit that they were occasionally “prompted by passion,” but his

-predecessors had come to regard them as a sort of family language, upon

-which they had every right to draw. In short, in Wordsworth’s opinion,

-abstractions and personifications had become a conventional method of

-ornamenting verse, akin to the “vicious diction,” from the tyranny of

-which he wished to emancipate poetry. The specific point on which he thus

-challenged the practice of his predecessors could hardly be gainsaid, for

-he had indicted a literary device, or artifice, which was not only worked

-to death by the mere poetasters of the period, but which disfigures not a

-little the work of even the great poets of the century.

-

-The literary use of abstraction and personification was not, it is

-needless to say, the invention of the eighteenth century. It is as old

-as literature itself, which has always reflected a tendency to interpret

-or explain natural phenomena or man’s relations with the invisible

-powers that direct or influence human conduct, by means of allegory,

-English poetry in the Middle Ages, especially that of Chaucer, Langland,

-and their immediate successors, fitly illustrates the great world

-of abstraction which had slowly come into being, a world peopled by

-personified states or qualities—the Seven Deadly Sins, the Virtues, Love,

-etc.—typifying or symbolizing the forces which help man, or beset and

-ensnare him as he makes his pilgrim’s progress through this world.

-

-Already the original motive power of allegory was considerably

-diminished, even if it had not altogether disappeared, and, by the time

-of the “Faerie Queene,” the literary form which it had moulded for itself

-had become merely imitative and conventional, so that even the music

-and melody of Spenser’s verse could not altogether vitalize the shadowy

-abstractions of his didactic allegory. With “Paradise Lost” we come to

-the last great work in which personified abstractions reflect to any real

-extent the original allegorical motive in which they had their origin.

-Milton achieves his supreme effects in personification in that his

-figures are merely suggestive, strongly imagined impressions rather than

-clean-cut figures. For nothing can be more dangerous, from the poetic

-point of view, than the precise figures which attempt to depict every

-possible point of similarity between the abstract notion and the material

-representation imagined.[196]

-

-It is sometimes considered that the mania for abstraction was due

-largely to the influence of the two poets who are claimed, or regarded,

-as the founders or leaders of the new classical school—Dryden and Pope.

-As a matter of fact, neither makes any great use of personification.

-Dryden has a few abstractions in his original works, such as,

-

-    Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife and Pride

-    And Envy did but look on

-

-                                                        (“First Epistle”)

-

-but his examples are mainly to be found in his modernizations or

-translations, where of necessity he takes them from his originals.[197]

-

-Pope makes a greater use of the figure, but even here there is no excess.

-There is not a single personification in the four pastorals of “The

-Seasons,” a subject peculiarly adapted to such treatment. In “Eloisa to

-Abelard” there are two instances where some attempt at characterization

-is made.[198] More instances, though none very striking, are to be found

-in “Windsor Forest,” but the poem ends with a massed group, forming a

-veritable catalogue of the personified vices which had done so much

-service in poetry since the days of the Seven Deadly Sins.

-

-In other poems Pope uses the device for humorous or satiric effect, as in

-the “Pain,” “Megrim,” and “Ill nature like an ancient maid” (l. 24) of

-“The Rape of the Lock;” or the “Science,” “Will,” “Logic,” etc., of “The

-Dunciad,” where all are invested with capital letters, but with little

-attempt to work up a definite picture, except, as was perhaps to be

-expected, in the case of “Dullness,” which is provided with a bodyguard

-(Bk. I, 45-52).

-

-Though, as we have already said, there is no great use of such figures in

-the works of Pope, they are present in such numbers in his satiric and

-didactic works as to indicate one great reason for their prevalence in

-his contemporaries and successors. After the Restoration, when English

-literature entered on a new era, the changed and changing conditions

-of English life and thought soon impressed themselves on poetry. The

-keynote to the understanding of much that is characteristic of this new

-“classical” literature has been well summed up in the formula that “the

-saving process of human thought was forced for generations to beggar the

-sense of beauty.”[199] The result was an invasion of poetry by ideas,

-arguments, and abstractions which were regarded both as expressing

-admirably the new spirit of rationalism, as well as constituting in

-themselves dignified subjects and ornaments of poetry.

-

-This is well illustrated in the case of several of Pope’s contemporaries.

-In the works of Thomas Parnell (1679-1718) abstractions of the

-conventional type are plentiful, usually accompanied by a qualifying

-epithet: “Fortune fair-array’d” (“An Imitation”), “Impetuous Discord,”

-“Blind Mischief,” (“On Queen Anne’s Peace”), “the soft Pathetic” (“On

-the Different Styles of Poetry”). These are only a few of the examples

-of the types favoured by Parnell, where only here and there are human

-traits added by means of qualifying epithets or phrases. In one or two

-instances, however, there are more detailed personifications. Thus,

-in the “Epistle to Dr. Swift,” which abounds in shadowy abstractions,

-Eloquence is fully described for us:

-

-    Upon her cheek sits Beauty ever young

-    The soul of music warbles on her tongue.

-

-Moreover, already in Parnell it is evident that the influence of Milton

-is responsible for some of his personifications. In the same poem we get

-the invocation:

-

-    Come! country Goddess come, nor thou suffice

-    But bring thy mountain-sister Exercise,

-

-figures which derive obviously from “L’Allegro.”

-

-In the case of Richard Savage (1696-1743) there is still greater freedom

-in the use of personified abstractions, which, as here the creative

-instinct is everywhere subjected to the didactic purpose, become very

-wearisome. The “Wanderer” contains long catalogues of them, in some

-instances pursued for over fifty lines.[200]

-

-The device continued to be very popular throughout the eighteenth

-century, especially by those who continue or represent the “Ethical”

-school of Pope. First amongst these may be mentioned Edward Young

-(1681-1765), whose “Night Thoughts” was first published between

-1742-1744. Young, like his contemporaries, has recourse to

-personifications, both for didactic purposes and apparently to add

-dignity to his style. It is probable, too, that in this respect he owes

-something to “Paradise Lost”; from Milton no doubt he borrowed his

-figure of Death, which, though poetically not very impressive, seems to

-have captured the imagination of Blake and other artists who have tried

-to depict it. The figure is at first only casually referred to in the

-Fourth Book (l. 96), where there is a brief and commonplace reference to

-“Death, that mighty hunter”; but it is not until the fifth book that the

-figure is developed. Yet, though the characterization is carried to great

-length, there is no very striking personification: we are given, instead,

-a long-drawn-out series of abstractions, with an attempt now and then to

-portray a definite human figure. Thus

-

-    Like princes unconfessed in foreign courts

-    Who travel under cover, Death assumes

-    The name and look of life, and dwells among us.

-

-And then the poet describes Death as being present always and everywhere,

-and especially

-

-        Gaily carousing, to his gay compeers

-    Inly he laughs to see them laugh at him

-    As absent far.

-

-But Young has not, like Milton, been able to conjure up a definite and

-convincing vision, and thus he never achieves anything approaching the

-overwhelming effect produced by the phantom of Death in “Paradise Lost,”

-called before us in a single verse:

-

-    So spake the grisly Terror.

-

-                                                          (P.L., II. 704)

-

-For the rest, Young’s personifications, considering the nature of his

-subject, are fewer than might be expected. Where they occur they often

-seem to owe their presence to a desire to vary the monotony of his moral

-reflections; as a result we get a number of abstractions, which may be

-called personifications only because they are sometimes accompanied by

-human attributes.

-

-Young has also certain other evocations which can scarcely be called

-abstractions, but which are really indistinct, shadowy beings, like the

-figures of a dream, as when he describes the phantom of the past:

-

-    The spirit walks of every day deceased

-    And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns

-

-                                                            (ll. 180-181)

-

-or the grief of the poet as he ever meets the shades of joys gone for

-ever:

-

-                      The ghosts

-    Of my departed joys: a numerous train.

-

-Here the poet has come near to achieving that effect which in the hands

-of the greatest poets justifies the use of personification as a poetic

-figure. The more delicate process just illustrated is distinct both from

-the lifeless abstraction and the detailed personification, for in these

-cases there is a tinge of personal emotion which invests these shadowy

-figures with something of a true lyrical effect.

-

-The tendency, illustrated in the “Night Thoughts,” to make a purely

-didactic use of personification and abstraction is found to a much

-greater extent in Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination,” first

-published in 1744, to be considerably enlarged in 1767. The nature of

-Akenside’s subject freely admitted of the use of these devices, and he

-has not been slow to avail himself of them.

-

-Large portions of the “Pleasures of the Imagination” resolve themselves

-into one long procession of abstract figures. Very often Akenside

-contents himself with the usual type of abstraction, accompanied by a

-conventional epithet: “Wisdom’s form celestial” (I, 69), “sullen Pomp”

-(III, 216), etc., though sometimes by means of human attributes or

-characteristics we are given partial personifications such as:

-

-    Power’s purple robes nor Pleasure’s flowery lap.

-

-                                                                 (l. 216)

-

-And occasionally there are traces of a little more imagination:

-

-            thy lonely whispering voice

-    O faithful Nature![201]

-

-But on the whole it is clear that with Akenside abstraction and

-personification are used simply and solely for moral and didactic

-purposes, and not because of any perception of their potential artistic

-value. Incidentally, an interesting side-light on this point is revealed

-by one of the changes introduced by the poet into his revision of his

-chief work. In the original edition of 1740 there is an invocation to

-Harmony (Bk. I, ll. 20 foll.), with her companion,

-

-    Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come

-    Her sister Liberty will not be far.

-

-Before the publication of the revised edition, Akenside, who at one time

-had espoused the cause of liberty with such ardour as to lead to his

-being suspected of republicanism, received a Court appointment. In the

-revised edition the concluding lines of the invocation became

-

-                    for with thee comes

-    The guide, the guardian of their majestic rites

-    Wise Order and where Order deigns to come

-    Her sister Liberty will not be far.

-

-                                                              (138 foll.)

-

-The same lavish use of abstractions is seen, not only in the philosophic

-poetry proper, but also in other works, which might perhaps have been

-expected to escape the contagion. Charles Churchill (1731-1764), if we

-set aside Johnson and Canning, may be regarded as representing eighteenth

-century satire in its decline, after the great figures of Pope and Swift

-have disappeared from the scene, and among the causes which prevent his

-verse from having but little of the fiery force and sting of the great

-masters of satire is that, instead of the strongly depicted, individual

-types of Pope, for example, we are given a heterogeneous collection

-of human virtues, vices, and characteristics, most often in the form

-of mere abstractions, sometimes personified into stiff, mechanical

-figures.[202] Only once has Churchill attempted anything novel in the

-way of personification, and this in humorous vein, when he describes the

-social virtues:

-

-    With belly round and full fat face,

-    Which on the house reflected grace,

-    Full of good fare and honest glee,

-    The steward Hospitality.

-

-Churchill had no doubt a genuine passion for poetry and independence,

-but the _saeva indignatio_ of the professed censor of public morals and

-manners cannot be conveyed to the reader through the medium of mechanical

-abstractions which, compared with the flesh-and-blood creations of Dryden

-and Pope, show clearly that for the time being the great line of English

-satire has all but come to an end.

-

-Eighteenth century ethical poetry was represented at this stage by

-Johnson and Goldsmith, at whose work it will now be convenient to

-glance. The universal truths which Johnson as a stern, unbending

-moralist wished to illustrate in “London” (1738) and “The Vanity of

-Human Wishes” (1749), might easily have resulted in a swarm of the

-abstractions and personifications fashionable at the time.[203] From this

-danger Johnson was saved by the depth of feeling with which he unfolds

-the individual examples chosen to enforce his moral lessons. Not that

-he escapes entirely; “London” has a few faint abstractions (“Malice,”

-“Rapine,” “Oppression”); but though occasionally they are accompanied

-by epithets suggesting human attributes (“surly Virtue,” “persecuting

-Fate,” etc.), as a rule there is no attempt at definite personification,

-a remark which also applies to the “Vanity of Human Wishes.” In his

-odes to the different seasons he has not given, however, any elaborate

-personifications, but has contented himself with slight human touches,

-such as

-

-    Now Autumn bends a cloudy brow.

-

-Of Johnson’s poetical style, regarded from our present point of view, it

-may be said to be well represented in the famous line from “London”:

-

-    Slow rises Worth by Poverty depressed,

-

-where there is probably no intention or desire to personify at all, but

-which is a result of that tendency towards Latin condensation which the

-great Doctor and his contemporaries had introduced into English prose.

-

-Goldsmith’s poetry has much in common with that of Johnson, in that both

-deal to some extent with what would now be called social problems. But it

-is significant of Goldsmith’s historical position in eighteenth century

-poetry as representing a sort of “half-way attitude,” in the matter of

-poetical style, between the classical conventional language and the

-free and unfettered diction advocated by Wordsworth, that there are few

-examples of personified abstractions in his works, and these confined

-mainly to one passage in “The Traveller”:

-

-    Hence Ostentation here with tawdry Art

-    Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart, etc.

-

-At this point it is necessary to hark back for the purpose of considering

-other works which had been appearing alongside of the works just

-discussed. It has already been remarked that in this matter of the use of

-abstraction and personification the influence of Milton early asserted

-itself, and there can be no doubt that a good deal of it may be traced

-to the influence more especially of the early poems. Indeed, the blank

-verse poems, which attempted to imitate or parody the “grand style” of

-the great epics, furnish few examples of the personified abstraction.

-The first of these, the “Splendid Shilling” and “Cyder” of John Philips

-(1705-1706) contains but few instances. In Somerville’s “Chase” there is

-occasionally a commonplace example, such as “brazen-fisted Time,” though

-in his ode “To Marlborough” he falls into the conventional style quickly

-enough. In the rest of the blank verse poems Mallet’s “Excursion” (1738),

-and his “Amyntor and Theodora” (1744), comparatively little use is made

-of the device, a remark also applicable to Dyer’s “Ruins of Rome” (1740),

-and to Grainger’s “Sugar Cane” (1764).

-

-The fashion for all these blank verse poems had been started largely by

-the success of “The Seasons,” which appeared in its original form from

-1726 to 1730, to undergo more than one revision and augmentation until

-the final edition of 1744. Though Thomson’s work shows very many traces

-of the influence of Milton, there is no direct external evidence that

-his adoption of blank verse was a result of that influence. Perhaps, as

-has been suggested,[204] he was weary of the monotony of the couplet,

-or at least considered its correct and polished form incapable of any

-further development. At the same time it is clear that having adopted

-“rhyme-unfettered verse,” he chose to regard Milton as a model of

-diction and style, though he was by no means a slavish imitator.

-

-With regard to the special problems with which we are here concerned,

-it must be noted that when Thomson was first writing “The Seasons,” the

-device of personified abstraction had not become quite so conventional

-and forced in its use as at a later date. Nevertheless examples of the

-typical abstraction are not infrequent; thus, in an enumeration of the

-passions which, since the end of the “first fresh dawn,” have invaded

-the hearts and minds of men, we are given “Base Envy,” withering at

-another’s joy; “Convulsive Anger,” storming at large; and “Desponding

-Fear,” full of feeble fancies, etc. (“Spring,” 280-306). Other examples

-are somewhat redeemed by the use of a felicitous compound epithet, “Art

-imagination-flushed” (“Autumn,” 140), “the lonesome Muse, low-whispering”

-(_ibid._, 955), etc. In “Summer” (ll. 1605 foll.) the poet presents one

-of the usual lists of abstract qualities (“White Peace, Social Love,”

-etc.), but there are imaginative touches present that help to vitalize

-some at least of the company into living beings:

-

-    The tender-looking Charity intent

-    On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles—

-

-and the passage is thus a curious mixture of mechanical abstractions with

-more vivid and inspired conceptions.

-

-Occasionally Thomson employs the figure with ironical or humorous

-intention, and sometimes not ineffectively, as in the couplet,

-

-    Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst

-    Produce the mighty bowl.

-

-                                                          (“Autumn,” 512)

-

-He is also fond of the apostrophic personification, often feebly, as

-when, acting upon a suggestion from Mallet,[205] he writes:

-

-    Comes, Inspiration, from thy hermit seat,

-    By mortal seldom found, etc.

-

-                                                        (“Summer,” l. 15)

-

-As for the seasons themselves, we do not find any very successful

-attempts at personification. Thomson gives descriptive impressions rather

-than abstractions: “gentle Spring, ethereal mildness” (“Spring,” 1),

-“various-blossomed Spring” (“Autumn,” 5); or borrowing, as often, an

-epithet from Milton, “refulgent Summer” (“Summer,” 2); or “surly Winter”

-(“Spring,” 11).

-

-But in these, and similar passages, the seasons can hardly be said

-to be distinctly pictured or personified. In “Winter,” however,

-there is perhaps a more successful attempt at vague but suggestive

-personification:[206]

-

-    See Winter comes, to rule the varied year,

-    Sullen and sad, with all his rising train

-    Vapours, and clouds and storms.

-

-But on the whole Thomson’s personifications of the seasons are not,

-poetically, very impressive. There is little or no approach to the

-triumphant evocation with which Keats conjures up Autumn for us, with

-all its varied sights and sounds, and its human activities vividly

-personified in the gleaner and the winnower

-

-        sitting careless on a granary floor

-    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,

-

-or the couplet in which Coleridge brings before us a subtle suggestion

-of the spring beauty, to which the storms and snows are but a prelude:

-

-    And winter, slumbering in the open air

-    Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring.

-

-                                                    (“Work without Hope”)

-

-Yet Thomson, as might be expected in a forerunner of the Romantic school,

-is not altogether without a gift for these embryonic personifications,

-as they have been called, when by means of a felicitous term or epithet

-the whole conception which the poet has in mind is suddenly galvanized

-into life and endowed with human feelings and emotions. Such evocations

-are of the very stuff of which poetry is made, and at their highest

-they possess the supreme power of stirring or awakening in the mind of

-the reader other pictures or visions than those suggested by the mere

-personification.[207]

-

-Though some of Thomson’s instances are conventional or commonplace, as in

-the description of

-

-                the grey grown oaks

-    That the calm village in their verdant arms

-    Sheltering, embrace,

-

-                                                      (“Summer,” 225-227)

-

-and others merely imitative, as,

-

-                  the rosy-footed May

-    Steals blushing on,

-

-                                                      (“Spring,” 489-490)

-

-yet there are many which call up by a single word a vivid and picturesque

-expression, such as the “hollow-whispering breeze” (“Summer,” 919) or the

-poet’s description of the dismal solitude of a winter landscape

-

-                  It freezes on

-    Till Morn, late rising o’er the drooping world

-    Lifts her pale eyes unjoyous

-

-                                                          (“Winter,” 744)

-

-or the beautiful description of a spring dawn:

-

-    The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews

-    At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.

-

-                                                        (“Summer,” 48-49)

-

-Adverting to the question of Milton’s influence on the prevalent mania

-for personification, it is undoubted that the early poems may be held

-largely responsible. Their influence first began noticeably to make

-itself felt in the fifth decade of the century, when their inspiration

-is to be traced in a great deal of the poetic output of the period,

-including that of Joseph and Thomas Warton, as well as of Collins and

-Gray. Neglecting for the moment the greater poets who drew inspiration

-from this source, it will be as well briefly to consider first the

-influence of Milton’s minor poems on the obscure versifiers, for it

-is very often the case that the minor poetry of an age reflects most

-distinctly the peculiarities of a passing literary fashion. As early as

-1739 William Hamilton of Bangour[208] imitated Milton in his octosyllabic

-poem “Contemplation,” and by his predilection for abstraction

-foreshadowed one of the main characteristics of the Miltonic revival

-among the lesser lights. A single passage shows this clearly enough:

-

-    Anger with wild disordered pace

-    And malice pale of famish’d face:

-    Loud-tongued Clamour get thee far

-    Hence, to wrangle at the bar:

-

-and so on.

-

-Five or six years later Mason’s Miltonic imitations appeared—“Il

-Bellicoso” and “Il Pacifico”—which follow even more slavishly the style

-of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” so that there is no need for Mason’s

-footnote to “Il Bellicoso” describing the poem with its companion piece

-as this “very, very juvenile imitation.”[209] “Il Bellicoso” begins with

-the usual dismissal:

-

-    Hence, dull lethargic Peace

-    Born in some hoary beadsman’s cell obscure,

-

-and subsequently we are introduced to Pleasure, Courage, Victory, Fancy,

-etc. There is a similar exorcism in “Il Pacifico,” followed by a faint

-personification of the subject of the ode, attended by a “social smiling

-train” of lifeless abstractions.

-

-The pages of Dodsley[210] furnish abundant testimony to the prevalence

-of this kind of thing. Thus “Penshurst”[211] by F. Coventry is

-another close imitation of Milton’s companion poems, with the usual

-crowd of abstractions. The same thing is met with in the anonymous

-“Vacation,”[212] and in the “Valetudinarian,” said to be written by Dr.

-Marriott.[213]

-

-It is unnecessary to illustrate further the Milton vogue, which thus

-produced so large a crop of imitations,[214] except to say that there is

-significant testimony to the widespread prevalence of the fashion in the

-fact that a parody written “in the Allegoric, Descriptive, Alliterative,

-Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and Diabolical Style of our

-modern Ode writers and monody-mongers”[215] soon appeared. This was

-the anonymous “Ode to Horror,” a humorous burlesque, especially of the

-“Pleasures of Melancholy.” The Wartons stand high above the versifiers at

-whose productions we have just looked, but nevertheless there was some

-justification for the good-humoured parody called forth by their works.

-

-In 1746 there appeared a small volume entitled “Odes on Various

-Subjects,” a collection of fourteen odes by Joseph Warton.[216] The

-influence of Milton is especially seen in the odes “To Fancy,” “To

-Health,” and to “The Nightingale,” but all betray definitely the source

-of their inspiration. Thus in the first named:

-

-    Me, Goddess, by the right hand lead

-    Sometimes thro’ the yellow mead

-    Where Joy and White-robed Peace resort

-    And Venus keeps her festive court.

-

-All the odes of Warton betray an abundant use of abstractions, in the

-midst of which he rarely displays anything suggestive of spontaneous

-inspiration. His few personifications of natural powers are clearly

-imitative. “Evening” is “the meek-eyed Maiden clad in sober gray” and

-Spring comes

-

-    array’d in primrose colour’d robe.

-

-We feel all the time that the poet drags in his stock of personified

-abstractions only because he is writing odes, and considers that such

-devices add dignity to his subject.

-

-At the same time it is worth noting that almost the same lavish use of

-these lay figures occurs in his blank verse poem, “The Enthusiast,” or

-“The Lover of Nature” (1740), likewise written in imitation of Milton,

-and yet in its prophetic insight so important a poem in the history of

-the Romantic revival.[217] Lines such as

-

-            Famine, Want and Pain

-    Sunk to their graves their fainting limbs

-

-are frequent, while there is a regular procession of qualities, more

-or less sharply defined, but not poetically suggestive enough to be

-effective.

-

-The younger of the two brothers, Thomas Warton, who by his critical

-appreciation of Spenser did much in that manner to help forward the

-Romantic movement, was perhaps still more influenced by Milton. His ode

-on “The Approach of Summer” shows to what extent he had taken possession

-of the verse, language, and imagery of Milton:

-

-        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.

-

-But nearly all his poems provide numerous instances of personified

-abstraction, especially the lines “Written at Vale Abbey,” which seems

-to exhaust, and present as thin abstractions, the whole gamut of human

-virtues and vices, emotions and desires.[218]

-

-There is a certain irony in the fact that the two men who, crudely,

-perhaps, but nevertheless unmistakably, adumbrated the Romantic doctrine,

-should have been among the foremost to indulge in an excess against

-which later the avowed champion of Romanticism was to inveigh with all

-his power. This defect was perhaps the inevitable result of the fact

-that the Wartons had apparently been content in this respect to follow

-a contemporary fashion as revealed in the swarm of merely mechanical

-imitations of Milton’s early poems. But their subjects were on the whole

-distinctly romantic, and this fact, added to their critical utterances,

-gives them real historical importance. Above all, it is to be remembered

-that they have for contemporaries the two great poets in whom the

-Romantic movement was for the first time adequately exemplified—William

-Collins and Thomas Gray.

-

-The first published collection of Collins’s work, “Odes on Several

-Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects” (1746), was, as we have seen, if

-not neglected or ignored by the public, at least received with marked

-indifference, owing largely no doubt to the abstract nature of his

-subjects, and the chiselled severity of his treatment.[219] In other

-words, Collins was pure classical and not neo-classical; he had gone

-direct back to the “gods of Hellas” for his inspiration, and his verse

-had a Hellenic austerity and beauty which could make little or no appeal

-to his own age. At the same time it was permeated through and through

-with new and striking qualities of feeling and emotion that at once

-aroused the suspicions of the neo-classicists, with Johnson as their

-mentor and spokesman. The “Odes” were then, we may say, classical in form

-and romantic in essence, and it is scarcely a matter for surprise that a

-lukewarm reception should have been their lot.[220]

-

-Collins has received merited praise for the charm and precision of his

-diction generally, and the fondness for inverting the common order of

-his words—Johnson’s chief criticism of his poetical style[221]—is to

-the modern mind a venial offence compared with his use of personified

-abstractions. On this point Johnson has nothing to say, an omission which

-may be regarded as significant of the extent to which personification had

-invaded poetry, for the critic, if we may judge from his silence, seems

-to have considered it natural and legitimate for Collins also to have

-made abundant use of this stock and conventional device.

-

-It is probable, however, that the extensive use which Collins makes of

-the figure is the result in a large measure of his predilection for the

-ode—a form of verse very fashionable towards the middle of the century.

-As has already been noted, odes were being turned out in large numbers

-by the poetasters of the time, in which virtues and vices, emotions and

-passions were invoked, apostrophized, and dismissed with appropriate

-gestures, and it is probable that the majority of these turgid and

-ineffective compositions owed their appearance to the prevalent mania for

-personification. Young remarked with truth[222] that an ode is, or ought

-to be, “more spontaneous and more remote from prose” than any other kind

-of poetry; and doubtless it was some vague recognition of this fact, and

-in the hope of “elevating” their style, that led the mere versifiers to

-adopt the trick. But as they worked the mechanical personification to

-death, they quickly robbed it of any impressiveness it may ever have had.

-

-This might quite fairly be described as the state of affairs with regard

-to the use of personified abstraction when Collins was writing his

-“odes,” but while it is true that he indulges freely in personification,

-it is scarcely necessary to add that he does so with a difference; his

-Hellenic training and temperament naturally saved him from the inanities

-and otiosities of so much contemporary verse. To begin with, there are

-but few examples of the lifeless abstraction, and even in such cases

-there is usually present a happy epithet, or brief description that sets

-them on a higher level than those that swarm even in the odes of the

-Wartons. Thus in the “Ode on the Poetical Character,” “the shadowy tribes

-of mind,” which had been sadly overworked by Collins’s predecessors and

-contemporaries, are brought before us with a new and fresh beauty that

-wins instant acceptance for them:

-

-    But near it sat ecstatic Wonder

-    Listening the deep applauding thunder

-    And truth in sunny vest arrayed

-    By whom the tassel’s eyes were made

-    All the shadowy tribes of mind

-    In braided dance their murmurs joined.

-

-Instances of the mechanical type so much in favour are, however, not

-lacking, as in this stanza from the “Verses” written about bride-cake:

-

-    Ambiguous looks that scorn and yet relent,

-    Denial mild and firm unaltered truth,

-    Reluctant pride and amorous faint consent

-    And melting ardours and exulting youth.[223]

-

-The majority of Collins’s personified abstractions are, however, vague

-in outline, that is to say, they suggest, but do not define, and are

-therefore the more effective in that the resulting images are almost

-evanescent in their delicacy. Thus in the “Ode to Pity” the subject is

-presented to us in magic words:

-

-    Long pity, let the nations view

-    Thy sky-worn robes of tender blue

-        And eyes of dewy light,

-

-whilst still another imaginative conception is that of “Mercy”:

-

-        who sitt’st a smiling bride

-    By Valour’s armed and awful side

-    Gentlest of sky-born forms and best adorned.

-

-The “Ode to the Passions” is in itself almost an epitome of the various

-ways in which Collins makes use of personification. It is first to be

-noted that he rarely attempts to clothe his personifications in long and

-elaborate descriptions; most often they are given life and reality by

-being depicted, so to speak, moving and acting:

-

-    Revenge impatient rose,

-    He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,

-    And with a withering look

-    The war-denouncing trumpet took;

-    Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien

-    Whilst his strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.

-

-Even the figures, seen as it were but for a moment, are flashed before us

-in this manner:

-

-        With woful measures wan Despair

-    Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled

-

-and

-

-    Dejected Pity at his side

-    Her soul-subduing voice applied

-

-and the vision of hope with “eyes so fair” who

-

-    smiled and waved her golden hair.

-

-In this ode Collins gives us also imaginative cameos, we might call them,

-vividly delineated and presented like the figures on the Grecian urn that

-inspired Keats. Thus:

-

-    While as his flying fingers kissed the strings,

-    Love framed with mirth a gay fantastic round.

-

-and, with its tinge of probably unconscious humour—

-

-        Brown exercise rejoiced to hear,

-    And Sport leapt up and seized his beechen spear.

-

-From these and similar instances, we receive a definite impression of

-that motion, which is at the same time repose, so characteristic of

-classical sculptuary.

-

-Most of the odes considered above are addressed to abstractions. In the

-few instances where Collins invokes the orders or powers of nature even

-greater felicity is shown in the art with which he calls up and clothes

-in perfect expression his abstract images. The first of the seasons is

-vaguely but subtly suggested to us in the beautiful ode beginning “How

-sleep the brave”:

-

-          When Spring with dewy fingers cold

-    Returns to deck their hallowed mould,

-        She there shall dress a sweeter sod

-    Than fancy’s feet have ever trod.

-

-This is rather a simile than a personification, but yet there is conveyed

-to us a definite impression of a shadowy figure that comes to deck the

-earth with beauty, like a young girl scattering flowers as she walks

-along.

-

-But the workmanship of Collins in this respect is seen in its perfection

-in the “Ode to Evening.” There is no attempt to draw a portrait or chisel

-a statue; the calm, restful influence of evening, its sights and sounds

-that radiate peace and contentment, even the very soul of the landscape

-as the shades of night gather around, are suggested by master touches,

-whilst the slow infiltration of the twilight is beautifully suggested:

-

-    Thy dewy fingers draw

-    The gradual dusky veil.

-

-The central figure is still the same evanescent being, the vision of a

-maiden, endowed with all the grace of beauty and dignity, into whose lap

-“sallow Autumn” is pouring his falling leaves, or who now goes her way

-slowly through the tempest, while

-

-    Winter, yelling through the troublous air

-    Affrights thy shrinking train,

-    And rudely rends thy robe.

-

-If we had no other evidence before us, Collins’s use of personified

-abstraction would be sufficient in itself to announce that the new poetry

-had begun. He makes use of the device as freely, and even now and then

-as mechanically, as the inferior versifiers of his period, but instead

-of the bloodless abstractions, his genius enabled him to present human

-qualities and states in almost ethereal form. Into them he has breathed

-such poetic life and inspiration that in their suggestive beauty and

-felicity of expression they stand as supreme examples of personification

-used as a legitimate poetical device, as distinct from a mere rhetorical

-figure or embellishment.

-

-This cannot be said of Gray, in whose verse mechanical personifications

-crowd so thickly that, as Coleridge observed in his remarks on the lines

-from “The Bard,”

-

-    In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes

-    Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm

-

-it depends “wholly on the compositors putting or not putting a small

-Capital, both in this and in many other passages of the same poet,

-whether the words should be personifications or mere abstractions.”[224]

-

-It is difficult to account for this devotion of Gray to the “new

-Olympus,” thickly crowded with “moral deities” that his age had brought

-into being, except on the assumption that contemporary usage in this

-respect was too strong for him to resist. For it cannot be denied that

-very many of the beings that swarm in his odes do not differ in their

-essential character from the mechanical figures worked to death by the

-ode-makers of his days; even his genius was not able to clothe them

-all in flesh and blood. In the “Eton College” ode there is a whole

-stanza given over to a conventional catalogue of the “fury passions,”

-the “vultures of the mind”; and similar thin abstractions people all

-the other odes. Nothing is visualized: we see no real image before

-us.[225] Even the famous “Elegy” is not without its examples of stiff

-personification, though they are not present in anything like the excess

-found elsewhere. The best that can be said for abstractions of this kind

-is that in their condensation they represent an economy of expression

-that is not without dignity and effectiveness, and they thus sometimes

-give an added emphasis to the sentiment, as in the oft-quoted

-

-        Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

-    Their homely joys and destiny secure,

-        Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

-    The short and simple annals of the poor.

-

-Gray rarely attempts to characterize his figures other than by the

-occasional use of a conventional epithet, and only here and there has the

-personification been to any extent filled in so as to form at least an

-outline picture. In the “Hymn to Adversity,” Wisdom is depicted

-

-          in sable garb arrayed

-    Immersed in rapturous thought profound,

-

-whilst other slight human touches are to be found here and there: as

-in “Moody Madness, laughing wild” (“Ode on a Distant Prospect”). His

-personifications, however, have seldom the clear-cut outlines we find

-in Collins, nor do they possess more than a tinge of the vividness and

-vitality the latter could breathe into his abstractions. Yet now and then

-we come across instances of the friezes in which Collins excels, moving

-figures depicted as in Greek plastic art

-

-          Antic sports and blue-eyed Pleasures,

-    Frisking light in frolic measures

-

-                                                    (“Progress of Poesy”)

-

-or the beautiful vision in the “Bard,”

-

-        Bright Rapture calls and soaring as she sings,

-    Waves in the eyes of heaven her many-coloured wings.

-

-And in the “Ode on Vicissitude” Gray has one supreme example of the

-embryonic personification, when the powers or orders of nature are

-invested with human attributes, and thus brought before us as living

-beings, in the form of vague but suggestive impressions that leave to the

-imagination the task of filling in the details:

-

-        Now the golden Morn aloft

-    Waves her dew-bespangled wing

-    With vernal cheek and whisper soft

-        She woos the tardy spring.

-

-But in the main, and much more than the poet with whom his name is

-generally coupled, it is perhaps not too much to say that Gray was

-content to handle the device in the same manner as the uninspired

-imitators of the “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.” Not that he was

-unaware of the danger of such a tendency in himself and others. “I

-had rather,” he wrote to Mason[226] when criticizing the latter’s

-“Caractacus,” “some of the personages—‘Resignation,’ ‘Peace,’ ‘Revenge,’

-‘Slaughter,’ ‘Ambition’—were stripped of their allegorical garb. A

-little simplicity here and there in the expression would better prepare

-the high and fantastic harpings that follow.” In the light of this most

-salutary remark, Gray’s own procedure is only the more astonishing. His

-innumerable personifications may not have been regarded by Johnson as

-contributory to “the kind of cumbrous splendour” he wished away from the

-odes, but the fact that they are scarce in the “Elegy” is not without

-significance. The romantic feeling which asserts itself clearly in the

-odes, the new imaginative conceptions which these stock figures were

-called upon to convey, the perfection of the workmanship—these qualities

-were more than sufficient to counterweigh Gray’s licence of indulgence in

-a mere rhetorical device. Yet Coleridge was right in calling attention

-to this defect of Gray’s style, especially as his censure is no mere

-diatribe against the use of personified abstraction: it is firmly and

-justly based on the undeniable fact that Gray’s personifications are for

-the most part cold and lifeless, that they are mere verbal abstractions,

-utterly devoid of the redeeming vitality, which Collins gives to his

-figures.[227] It is for this reason perhaps that his poetry in the

-mass has never been really popular, and that the average reader, with

-his impatience of abstractions, has been content, with Dr. Johnson, to

-pronounce boldly for “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”

-

-Before proceeding to examine the works of the other great poets who

-announce or exemplify the Romantic revival, it will be convenient at

-this point to look at some of the Spenserian imitations, which helped to

-inspire and vitalize the revival.

-

-Spenser was the poet of mediaeval allegory. In the “Faerie Queene,”

-for the first time a real poet, endowed with the highest powers of

-imagination and expression, was able to present the old traditional

-abstractions wonderfully decked up in a new and captivating guise. The

-personages that move like dream figures through the cantos of the poem

-are thus no mere personified abstractions: they are rather pictorial

-emblems, many of which are limned for us with such grandeur of conception

-and beauty of execution as to secure for the allegorical picture a

-“willing suspension of disbelief,” whilst the essentially romantic

-atmosphere more than atones for the cumbrous and obsolete machinery

-adopted by Spenser to inculcate the lessons of “virtuous and gentle

-discipline.”

-

-Though the eighteenth century Spenserians make a plentiful use of

-personified abstraction, on the whole their employment of this device

-differs widely from its mechanical use by most of their contemporaries:

-in the best of the imitations there are few examples of the lifeless

-abstraction. Faint traces at least of the music and melody of the “Faerie

-Queene” have been caught and utilized to give a poetic charm even to

-the personified virtues and vices that naturally appear in the work of

-Spenser’s imitators. Thus in William Thompson’s “Epithalamium” (1736),

-while many of the old figures appear before us, they have something of

-the new charm with which Collins was soon to invest them. Thus,

-

-    Liberty, the fairest nymph on ground

-      The flowing plenty of her growing hair

-    Diffusing lavishly ambrosia round

-    Earth smil’d, and Gladness danc’d along the sky.

-

-The epithets which accompany the abstractions are no longer conventional

-(“Chastity meek-ey’d,” “Modesty sweet-blushing”) and help to give touches

-of animation to otherwise inanimate figures. In the “Nativity” (1757)

-there is a freer use of the mere abstraction that calls up no distinct

-picture, but even here there are happy touches that give relief:

-

-      Faith led the van, her mantle dipt in blue,

-    Steady her ken, and gaining on the skies.

-

-In the “Hymn to May” (1787) Thompson personified the month whose charms

-he is singing, the result being a radiant figure, having much in common

-with the classical personifications of the orders or powers of nature:

-

-    A silken camus, em’rald green

-    Gracefully loose, adown her shoulder flow.

-

-In Shenstone’s “Schoolmistress” (1737-1742) instances of personification

-are rare, and, where they do occur, are merely faint abstractions like

-“Learning near her little dome.” It is noteworthy that one of the most

-successful of the Spenserian imitations should have dispensed with the

-cumbrous machinery of abstract beings that, on the model of the “Faerie

-Queene,” might naturally have been drawn upon. The homely atmosphere of

-the “Schoolmistress,” with its idyllic pictures and its gentle pathos,

-would, indeed, have been fatally marred by their introduction.

-

-The same sparing use of personification is evident in the greatest of

-the imitations, James Thomson’s “Castle of Indolence” (1748). A theme

-of this nature afforded plenty of opportunity to indulge in the device,

-and Thomson, judging from its use of the figure in some of his blank

-verse poems, might have been expected to take full advantage. But there

-are less than a score of examples in the whole of the poem. Only vague

-references are made to the eponymous hero: he is simply “Indolence” or

-“tender Indolence” or “the demon Indolence.” For the rest Thomson’s few

-abstractions are of the stock type, though occasionally more realistic

-touches result, we may suppose, from the poet’s sense of humour as

-

-    The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cock.

-

-Only here and there has Thomson attempted full-length portraits in the

-Spenserian manner, as when Lethargy, Hydropsy, and Hypochondria are

-described with drastic realism.[228]

-

-The works of the minor Spenserians show a greater use of personified

-abstraction, but even with them there is no great excess. Moreover,

-where instances do occur, they show imaginative touches foreign to the

-prevalent types. Thus in the “Vision of Patience” by Samuel Boyce (d.

-1778),

-

-    Silence sits on her untroubled throne

-    As if she left the world to live and reign alone,

-

-while Patience stands

-

-    In robes of morning grey.

-

-Occasionally the personified abstractions, though occurring in

-avowedly Spenserian imitations, obviously owe more to the influence of

-“L’Allegro”; as in William Whitehead’s “Vision of Solomon” (1730), where

-the embroidered personifications are much more frequent than the detailed

-images given by Spenser.[229]

-

-The work of Chatterton represents another aspect of this revival of the

-past, but it is curious to find that, in his acknowledged “original”

-verse there are not many instances of the personified abstraction,

-whilst they are freely used in the Rowley poems. Where they do occur

-in his avowedly original work they are of the usual type, though more

-imaginative power is revealed in his personification of Winter:

-

-    Pale rugged Winter bending o’er his tread,

-    His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew:

-    His eyes a dusky light congealed and dead,

-    His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.

-

-From our special point of view the “antiquarianism” of the Rowley

-poems might almost be disproved by the prevalence of abstractions and

-personifications, which in most instances are either unmistakably of

-the eighteenth century or which testify to the new Romantic atmosphere

-now manifesting itself. The stock types of frigid abstraction are all

-brought on the stage in the manner of the old Moralities, and each is

-given an ample speaking part in order to describe his own characteristics.

-

-But in addition to these lifeless abstractions, there are to be

-found in the Rowley poems a large number of detailed and elaborate

-personifications. Some of these are full length portraits in the

-Spenserian manner, and now and then the resulting personification is

-striking and beautiful, as when, in “Ælla” (59), Celmond apostrophizes

-Hope, or the evocation of Truth in “The Storie of William Canynge.”

-

-Chatterton has also in these poems a few personifications of natural

-powers, but these are mainly imitative as in the lines (“Ælla,” 94)

-reminiscent of Milton and Pope[230]:

-

-    Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight

-    From the red east he flitted with his train,

-    The hours drew away the robe of night,

-    Her subtle tapestry was rent in twain.

-

-But the evocation of the seasons themselves, as in “Ælla” (32),

-

-    When Autumn sere and sunburnt doth appear

-      With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf

-    Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year

-      Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf,

-

-conveys a fresh and distinct picture that belongs to the new poetry, and

-has in it a faint forecast of Keats.

-

-It remains to look at the work of the later eighteenth century poets,

-who announce that if the Romantic outburst is not yet, it is close at

-hand. The first and greatest of these is William Blake. His use of

-personification in the narrower sense which is our topic, is, of course,

-formally connected with the large and vital question of his symbolism, to

-treat of which here in any detail is not part of our scheme.

-

-In its widest sense, however, Blake’s mysticism may be connected with

-the great mediaeval world of allegory: it is “an eddy of that flood-tide

-of symbolism which attained its tide-mark in the magic of the Middle

-Ages.”[231] But the poet himself unconsciously indicates the vital

-distinction between the new symbolism, which he inaugurates, and the

-old, of which the personified abstractions of his eighteenth century

-predecessors may be regarded as faint and faded relics. “Allegory

-addressed to the intellectual powers,” he wrote to Thomas Butts,[232]

-“while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal understanding, is my

-definition of the most surprising poetry.”

-

-On its formal side, and reduced to its simplest expression, we may narrow

-down for our present purpose the whole system to the further distinction

-drawn by Blake between Allegory and Vision. Allegory is “formed by the

-daughters of Memory” or the deliberate reason; Vision “is surrounded by

-the daughters of Inspiration.” Here we have a key to the classification

-of personified abstractions in the eighteenth century, and, for that

-matter, at any and every period. Abstractions formed by the deliberate

-reason are usually more or less rhetorical embellishments of poetry, and

-to this category belong the great majority of the personifications of

-eighteenth century verse. They are “things that relate to moral virtues”

-or vices, but they cannot truly be called allegorical, for allegory is a

-living thing only so long as the ideas it embodies are real forces that

-control our conduct. The inspired personification, which embodies or

-brings with it a real vision, is the truly poetical figure.

-

-In Blake’s own practice we find only a few instances of the typical

-eighteenth century abstraction. In the early “Imitation of Spenser” there

-are one or two examples:

-

-      Such is sweet Eloquence that does dispel

-    Envy and Hate that thirst for human gore,

-

-whilst others are clearly Elizabethan reminiscences, like

-

-    Mournful lean Despair

-    Brings me yew to deck my grave,

-

-or

-

-    Memory, hither come

-    And tune your merry notes.

-

-“The Island in the Moon” furnishes grotesque instances, such as that

-of old Corruption dressed in yellow vest. In “The Divine Image,” from

-the “Songs of Innocence,” while commonplace virtues are personified,

-the simple direct manner of the process distinguishes them from their

-prototypes in the earlier moral and didactic poetry of the century:

-

-    For Mercy has a human heart

-    Pity a human face

-    And Love, the human form divine

-    And Peace the human dress.[233]

-

-An instance of personification raised to a higher power is found in

-Blake’s letter to Butts[234] beginning

-

-    With Happiness stretch’d across the hills,

-    In a cloud that dewy sweetness distils,

-

-whilst elsewhere personified abstractions appear with new epithets, the

-most striking example being in “Earth’s Answer,” from the “Songs of

-Experience”:

-

-    Prison’d on watry shore

-    _Starry_ Jealousy does keep my den.

-

-Moreover, Blake’s figures are often presented in an imaginative guise

-that helps to emphasize the gulf fixed between him and the majority of

-his contemporaries and predecessors. Thus “Joy” is twice depicted as a

-bird:

-

-    Joys upon our branches sit

-    Chirping loud and singing sweet

-

-                                             (“Song”—“Poetical Sketches”)

-

-and

-

-    Welcome, stranger, to this place

-    Where Joy doth sit on every bough.

-

-                                                   (“Song by a Shepherd”)

-

-In Blake’s youthful work the personifications of natural powers, though

-in most cases clearly imitative are yet striking in their beauty and

-power of suggestion. The influence of “Ossian” is seen in such “prose”

-personifications as “The Veiled Evening walked solitary down the Western

-hills and Silence reposed in the valley” (“The Couch of Death”), and

-“Who is this that with unerring step dares to tempt the wild where only

-Nature’s foot has trod, ’Tis Contemplation, daughter of the Grey Morning”

-(“Contemplation”). Here also are evocations of the seasons which,

-whatever they may owe to Thomson or Collins, are new in that we actually

-get a picture of Spring with “dewy locks” as she looks down

-

-    Thro’ the clear windows of the morning

-

-of summer with

-

-    ruddy limbs and flourishing hair,

-

-of the “jolly autumn,”

-

-      laden with fruits and stained

-    With the blood of the grape;

-

-and of winter,

-

-      a dreadful monster whose skin clings

-    To her strong bones.

-

-Thomson, we have seen, had not been altogether successful in his

-personification of the seasons: here they are brought vividly and

-fittingly before us. When we think of the hosts of puppets that in the

-guise of personified abstractions move mechanically through so much of

-eighteenth century verse, and compare them with the beautiful visions

-evoked by Blake, we know from this evidence alone that the reign of

-one of the chief excesses of the poetical language of the time is near

-its end. It is not that Blake’s conceptions are all flesh and blood

-creations: often they are rather ethereal beings, having something in

-common with the evanescent images of Collins. But the rich and lofty

-imagination that has given them birth is more than sufficient to secure

-their acceptance as realities capable of living and moving before us; the

-classical abstraction, cold and lifeless, has now become the Romantic

-personification clothed in beauty and animated with life and inner

-meaning.

-

-In the year of the “Poetical Sketches” (1783) George Crabbe published

-“The Village,” his first work to meet with any success. But whilst Blake

-gloriously announces the emancipation of English poetry, Crabbe for the

-most part is still writing on in the old dead style. The heroic couplets

-of his earliest works have all the rhetorical devices of his predecessors

-in that measure, and amongst these the prevalence of personified

-abstractions is not the least noteworthy. The subject of his first poem

-of any length, “Inebriety” (1775), afforded him plenty of scope in this

-direction, and he availed himself fully of the opportunity.[235] The

-absence of capital letters from some of the instances in this poem may

-perhaps be taken to reflect a confusion in the poet’s mind as to whether

-he was indulging in personification or in mere abstraction, to adopt

-Coleridge’s remark anent Gray’s use of this figure.[236]

-

-In “The Village,” Crabbe’s first poem of any real merit, there is a

-more sparing use, yet instances are even here plentiful, whilst his

-employment of the device had not died out when in the early years of the

-nineteenth century he resumed his literary activities. Among the poems

-published in the 1807 volume there is a stiff and cumbrous allegory

-entitled “The Birth of Flattery,” which, introduced by three Spenserian

-stanzas, depicts Flattery as the child of Poverty and Cunning, attended

-by guardian satellites, “Care,” “Torture,” “Misery,” _et hoc omne genus_.

-They linger on to the time of the “Posthumous Tales,” where there is a

-sad, slow procession of them, almost, we might imagine, as if they were

-conscious of the doom pronounced years before, and of the fact that they

-were strangers in a strange land:

-

-    Yet Resignation in the house is seen

-    Subdued Affliction, Piety serene,

-    And Hope, for ever striving to instil

-    The balm for grief, “It is the heavenly will.”

-

-                                                       (XVIII, 299 foll.)

-

-It is not perhaps too fanciful to see in this lament a palinode of the

-personifications themselves, sadly resigning themselves to an inevitable

-fate.

-

-Towards the ultimate triumph of the new poetry the work of William Cowper

-represents perhaps the most important contribution, judging at least from

-the viewpoint both of its significance as indicating new tendencies in

-literature, and of its immediate influence on readers and writers. In

-the narrow sense of style the “simplicity” which was Cowper’s ideal was

-only occasionally marred by the conventional phraseology and bombastic

-diction which he himself laid to the charge of the “classical” school,

-and his gradual emancipation from the tenets and practices of that school

-is reflected in his steady advance towards the purity of expression for

-which he craved. And in this advance it is to be noted that the gradual

-disappearance of personified abstractions is one of the minor landmarks.

-

-The earlier work furnishes instances of the common type of mere

-abstraction where there is no attempt to give any real personification.

-Even in the “Olney Hymns” (1779) such verses as

-

-    But unbelief, self-will

-      Self-righteousness and pride,

-    How often do they steal

-      My weapon from my side

-

-only seem to present the old mechanical figures in a new setting.[237]

-The long series of satiric poems that followed draw freely upon the same

-“mythology,” and indeed the satires that appear in this 1782 volume

-recall to some extent the style of Churchill.[238] There is a somewhat

-similar, though more restricted, use of personified abstraction, and, as

-in Churchill’s satires, virtues and vices are invested with slight human

-qualities and utilized to enforce moral and didactic truths. Thus,

-

-      Peace follows Virtue as its sure reward

-    And Pleasure brings as surely in her train

-    Remorse and Sorrow and Vindictive Pain.

-

-                                                    (“Progress of Error”)

-

-Among the short pieces in this volume are the famous lines put into

-the mouth of Alexander Selkirk, which contain a fine example of the

-apostrophic personification, the oft-quoted

-

-    O Solitude! where are thy charms

-    That sages have seen in thy face,

-

-where the passion and sincerity of the appeal give dignity and animation

-to an otherwise lifeless abstraction, and, despite the absence of detail,

-really call up a definite picture.

-

-From the blank verse of his most famous work nearly every trace of the

-mechanical abstraction has disappeared—a great advance when we remember

-that “The Task” is in the direct line of the moral and didactic verse

-that had occupied so many of Cowper’s predecessors.

-

-The first Books (“The Sofa”) contain but one instance and that in a

-playful manner:

-

-    Ingenious Fancy, never better pleased

-    Than when employed to accommodate the fair.

-

-                                                           (ll. 72 foll.)

-

-The Fourth Book (“The Winter Evening”) is entirely free from instances of

-the mechanical abstraction, but the vision of Oriental Empire, and the

-fascination of the East, is effectively evoked in the personification of

-the land of the Moguls:

-

-    Is India free? and does she wear her plumed

-      And jewelled turban with a smile of peace.

-

-                                                               (ll. 28-9)

-

-“The Task,” however, has two examples of the detailed personification.

-The first is an attempt, in the manner of Spenser, to give a full length

-portrait of “a sage called Discipline”:

-

-    His eye was meek and gentle and a smile

-    Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard

-    Paternal sweetness

-

-                                                   (Bk. II, l. 702 foll.)

-

-where there is a depth of feeling, as well as a gentle satiric touch in

-the delineation, that animate it into something more than a mere stock

-image; it embodies perhaps a reminiscence of one who at some time or

-other had guided the destinies of the youthful Cowper.

-

-The second instance is of a more imaginative kind. It is the

-presentation, in the Fourth Book, of Winter, with

-

-          forehead wrapt in cloud

-    A leafless branch thy sceptre,

-

-almost the only occasion on which Cowper, despite the nature of his

-subject, has personified the powers and orders of nature.[239] Cowper

-has also invested the Evening with human attributes, and despite the

-imitative ring of the lines,[240] and the “quaintness” of the images

-employed, there is a new beauty in the evocation:

-

-    Come, Evening, once again, season of peace;

-    Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!

-    Methinks I see thee in the streaky west

-    With matron step slow-moving, while the night

-    Treads on thy sweeping train.

-

-The darkness soon to fall over the landscape is suggested in the added

-appeal to Evening to come

-

-      Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid

-    Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems,

-

-where the compound epithet emphasizes the contrast between the quiet

-beauty of the twilight skyscape and the star-sprinkled gloom of the night.

-

-Finally, one of the last instances of the personified abstraction to be

-found in the work of Cowper may perhaps be taken to reflect something of

-the changes that have been silently working underneath. This is in the

-lines that suddenly bring “Yardley Oak” to an end:

-

-          History not wanted yet

-    Leaned on her elbow watching Time whose course

-    Eventful should supply her with a theme.

-

-At first glance we seem to have here but the old conventional figures,

-but there is an imaginative touch that helps to suggest a new world of

-romance. “History leaning on her elbow” has something at least of that

-mysterious power of suggestion that Wordsworth himself was to convey by

-means of the romantic personification, such as those shadowy figures—Fear

-and Trembling Hope, and Death the Skeleton, and Time the Shadow—which

-gathered round and hallowed the shade of the yew trees in Borrowdale.

-

-But even while the old poetry was in its death agony a champion was at

-hand, daring to maintain a lost cause both by precept and example. This

-was Erasmus Darwin, whose once-famous work “The Botanic Garden,” with

-its two parts, “The Loves of the Plants” (1789), and “The Economy of

-Vegetation” (1791), has earlier been mentioned.

-

-It met with immediate success. Darwin seems to have fascinated his

-contemporaries, so that even Coleridge was constrained in 1802 to call

-him “the first literary character in Europe.”[241] He had, however,

-little real admiration for “The Botanic Garden,” and later expressed

-his opinion unmistakably.[242] “The Botanic Garden” soon died a natural

-death, hastened no doubt by the ridicule it excited, but inevitably

-because of the fact that the poem is an unconscious _reductio ad

-absurdum_ of a style already doomed.[243] The special matter with which

-we are concerned in this chapter had for Darwin a marked significance,

-since it fitted in admirably with his general doctrine or dogma that

-nothing is strictly poetic except what is presented in visual image. His

-“theory” was that, just as the old mythologies had created a whole world

-of personified abstractions to explain or interpret natural phenomena

-of every description, exactly by the same method the scientific thought

-and developments of his own age could be poetically expounded so as

-to captivate both the hearts and minds of his readers. It was his

-ambition, he said, “to enlist imagination under the banner of science.”

-This “theory” is expounded in one of the interludes placed between the

-different cantos. “The poet writes principally to the eye,” and allegory

-and personifications are to be commended because they give visible

-form to abstract conceptions.[244] Putting his theory into practice,

-Darwin then proceeds with great zeal to personify the varied and various

-scientific facts or hypotheses of physics, botany, etc., metamorphosing

-the forces of the air and other elements into sylphs and gnomes and so

-on. Thus,

-

-    Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered

-            Steam afar

-    Drag the slow barge or drive the

-            Rapid car.

-

-                                                (E.V., Canto I, 289, 290)

-

-In the same way all the plants, as classified by Linnæus, are personified

-as “swains” or “belles” who “love” and quarrel, and finally make it up

-just as ordinary mortals do:

-

-    All wan and shivering in the leafless glade

-    The sad Anemone reclin’d her head

-

-                                                   (L.P., Canto I, 315-6)

-

-or

-

-    Retiring Lichen climbs the topmost stone

-    And drinks the aerial solitude alone.

-

-                                                         (_Ibid._, 347-8)

-

-The whole poem is thus one long series of mechanical personifications

-which baffle and bewilder and finally wear out the reader. It is strange

-now to think that “The Botanic Garden” was at the height of its vogue

-when the “Lyrical Ballads” were being planned and written, but the

-easy-flowing couplets of Darwin, and the “tinsel and glitter” of his

-diction, together with most of the “science” he was at such pains to

-expound (though he was a shrewd and even prophetic inquirer in certain

-branches, such as medicine and biology), have now little more than a

-faint historical interest. Yet his theory and practice of poetry—the

-“painted mists that occasionally rise from the marshes at the foot of

-Parnassus,” Coleridge called them—so dominated the literature of the last

-decade of the eighteenth century as to be capable of captivating the mind

-of the poet who was about to sound their death-knell.

-

-While Wordsworth inveighed against “personification” in the great

-manifesto, his earliest poetry shows clearly, as has been noted, that in

-this as in other respects he had fallen under the spell and influence of

-“The Botanic Garden.” The “Evening Walk” and the “Descriptive Sketches”

-swarm with instances of personifications of the type that had flourished

-apace for a hundred years, “Impatience,” “Pain,” “Independence,” “Hope,”

-“Oppression,” and dozens similar.[245] There is thus a certain comic

-irony in the fact that the poet, who was the first to sound the revolt

-against “personifications” and similar “heightenings” of style, should

-have embarked on his literary career with the theft of a good deal of

-the thunder of the enemy. Later, when Wordsworth’s true ideal of style

-had evolved itself, this feature of the two poems was in great measure

-discarded. The first (1793) draft of the “Descriptive Sketches” contains

-over seventy examples of more or less frigid abstractions; in the final

-draft of the poem these have dwindled down to about a score.[246]

-

-In our detailed examination of personification in eighteenth century

-poetry we have seen that in general it includes three main types. There

-is first the mere abstraction, whose distinctive sign is the presence

-of a capital letter; it may be, and often is, qualified by epithets

-suggestive of human attributes, but there is little or no attempt to give

-a definite picture or evoke a distinctive image. This is the prevalent

-type, and it is against these invertebrates that the criticism of

-Wordsworth and Coleridge was really directed.

-

-Their widespread use in the eighteenth century is due to various causes.

-In the first place they represent a survival, however artificial and

-lifeless, of the great mediaeval world of allegory, with its symbolic

-representation derived from the pagan and classical mythologies, of

-the attributes of the divine nature, and of the qualities of the human

-mind, as living entities. But by now the life had departed from them;

-they were hopelessly effete and had become consciously conventional and

-fictitious.[247]

-

-They also owed their appearance, as indicated above, to more definite

-literary causes and “fashions”; they swarm especially, for instance, in

-the odes of the mid-century, the appearance of which was mainly due to

-the influence of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.” The virtues and vices,

-the “shadowy tribes of the mind,” which are there unceasingly invoked

-and dismissed are mechanical imitations of the figures that the genius

-of Milton had been able to inspire with real poetic value and life. They

-play their part similarly and just as mechanically in the didactic and

-satirical verse characteristic of the period.

-

-But whether regarded as a sort of literary flotsam and jetsam, or as one

-of the symptoms of “Milton-mad” verse, these personifications are nearly

-all enfeebled by weaknesses inherent in their very genesis. Only a deep

-and intense conception of a mental abstraction can justify any attempt

-to personify it poetically; otherwise the inevitable result is a mere

-rhetorical ornament, which fails because it conveys neither the “vast

-vagueness” of the abstract, nor any clear-cut pictorial conception of the

-person. Even with Gray, as with the mere poetasters who used this figure

-to excess, it has the effect of a dull and wearisome mannerism; only

-here and there, as in the sonorous lines in which Johnson personified

-Worth held down by Poverty, does the display of personal emotion give any

-dignity and depth to the image.

-

-Again, the very freedom with which the conventional abstractions are

-employed, allowing them to be introduced on every possible occasion,

-tends to render the device absurd, if not ludicrous. For the versifiers

-seemed to have at their beck and call a whole phantom army upon which

-they could draw whenever they chose; for them they are veritable gods

-from the machines. But so mechanical are their entrances and exits

-that the reader rarely suspects them to be intended for “flesh and

-blood creations,” though, it may be added, the poetaster himself

-would be slow to make any such claim. To him they are merely part of

-his stock-in-trade, like the old extravagances, the “conceits,” and

-far-fetched similes of the Metaphysical school.

-

-The second type of personification found in eighteenth century verse

-needs but brief mention here. It is the detailed personification where

-a full-length portrait is attempted. Like the mere abstraction it, too,

-is a survival of mediaeval allegory, and it is also most often a merely

-mechanical literary process, reflecting no real image in the poet’s mind.

-It is not found to any large extent, and in a certain measure owes its

-presence to the renewed interest in Spenser. The Spenserian imitations

-themselves are comparatively free from this type, a sort of negative

-indication of the part played by the revival in the new Romantic movement.

-

-The third type is perhaps best described as the embryonic

-personification. It consists in the attributing of an individual and

-living existence to the visible forms and invisible powers of nature, a

-disposition, deeply implanted in the human mind from the very dawn of

-existence, which has left in the mythologies and creeds of the world a

-permanent impress of its power. In eighteenth century literature this

-type received its first true expression in the work of Thompson and

-Collins, whilst its progress, until it becomes merged and fused in the

-pantheism of Wordsworth and Shelley, may be taken as a measure of the

-advance of the Romantic movement in one of its most vital aspects.

-

-Regarded on its purely formal side, that is, as part and parcel of the

-_language_ of poetry, the use of personification may then be naturally

-linked up with the generally literary development of the period. In the

-“classical” verse proper the figure employed is, as it were, a mere word

-and no more; it is the reflex of precisely as much individual imagination

-as the stock phrases of descriptive verse, _the flowery meads_, _painted

-birds_, and so on. There was no writing with the inner eye on the

-object, and the abstraction as a result was a mere rhetorical label,

-corresponding to no real vision of things.

-

-The broad line of advance in this, as in other aspects of eighteenth

-century literature, passes through the work of those who are now looked

-upon as the forerunners of the Romantic revolt. The frigid abstraction,

-a mere word distinguished by a capital letter, is to be found in “The

-Seasons,” but alongside there is also an approach to definite pictorial

-representation of the object personified. In the odes of Collins the

-advent of the pictorial image is definitely and triumphantly announced,

-and though the mechanical abstractions linger on even until the new

-poetry has well established itself, they are only to be found in the

-work of those who either, like Johnson and Crabbe, belong definitely as

-regards style to the old order, or like Goldsmith and, to a less extent,

-Cowper, reflect as it were sort of half-way attitude towards the old and

-the new.

-

-With Blake the supremacy of the artistic personification is assured. His

-mystical philosophy in its widest aspect leads him to an identification

-of the divine nature with the human, but sometimes this signification

-is to be seen merging into a more conscious symbolism, or even sinking

-into that “totally distinct and inferior kind of poetry” known as

-allegory. Yet with Blake the poet, as well as Blake the artist, the

-use of personified abstraction is an integral part of the symbolism he

-desired to perpetuate. His imagination ran strongly in that direction,

-and it has been aptly pointed out that his most intense mental and

-emotional experiences became for him spiritual persons. But even where

-the presence of a capital letter is still the only distinguishing mark

-of the personification, he is able, either by the mere context or by

-the addition of a suggestive epithet, to transform and transfigure the

-abstraction into a poetical emblem of the doctrine whose apostle he

-believed himself to be.

-

-It is hardly necessary to say that the use of personification and

-abstraction, even in their narrower applications as rhetorical ornaments

-or artifices of verse, were not banished from English poetry as a result

-of Wordsworth’s criticism. Ruskin has drawn a penetrating distinction

-between personification and symbolism,[248] and it was in this direction

-perhaps that Wordsworth’s protest may be said to have been of the

-highest value. His successors, for the most part, distrustful of mere

-abstractions, and impatient of allegory, with its attendant dangers of

-lifeless and mechanical personification, were not slow to recognize

-the inherent possibilities of symbolism as an artistic medium for the

-expression of individual moods and emotions, and it is not too much to

-say that in its successful employment English poetry has since won some

-of its greatest triumphs.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER VIII

-

-THE DICTION OF POETRY

-

-

-After years of comparative neglect, and, it must be admitted, a good

-deal of uncritical disparagement, the “age of prose and reason” would

-seem at last to have come into its own. Or at any rate during recent

-years there has become evident a disposition to look more kindly on a

-period which has but seldom had justice done to it. The label which

-Matthew Arnold’s dictum attached to a good portion, if not the whole,

-of the eighteenth century seems to imply a period of arid and prosaic

-rationalism in which “the shaping spirit of imagination” had no abiding

-place, and this has no doubt been partly responsible for the persistency

-of an unjust conception. But it is now more generally recognized that,

-in prose and even in poetry, the seventy or eighty years, which begin

-when Dryden died, and end when William Blake was probably writing down

-the first drafts of his “Poetical Sketches,” had some definite and far

-from despicable legacies to pass on to its successors, to the writers in

-whom the Romantic revival was soon to be triumphantly manifested. The

-standards in all branches of literature were to be different, but between

-“classical” and “romantic” there was not to be, and indeed could not be,

-any great gulf fixed. There was continuity and much was handed on. What

-had to be transformed (and of course the process is to be seen at work in

-the very height of the Augustan supremacy) were the aims and methods of

-literature, both its matter in large measure, and its style.[249]

-

-It is the poetry of the period with which we are specially concerned,

-and it is in poetry that the distinction between the old order and the

-new was to be sharpest; for the leaders of the revolt had been gradually

-winning new fields, or re-discovering old ones, for poetry, and thus in

-more than one sense the way had been prepared for both the theory and

-practice of Wordsworth. Then came the great manifestoes, beginning with

-the Preface of 1798, followed by an expansion in 1800 and again in 1802;

-fifteen years later, Coleridge, with his penetrating analysis of the

-theories advanced by his friend and fellow-worker, began a controversy,

-which still to-day forms a fruitful theme of discussion.

-

-Wordsworth, in launching his famous declaration of principle on the

-language fit and proper for metrical composition, had no doubt especially

-in mind the practice of his eighteenth century predecessors. But it has

-to be remembered that the _Prefaces_ deal in reality with the whole

-genesis of “what is usually called poetic diction,” and that the avowed

-aim and object was to sweep away “a large portion of phrases and figures

-of speech, which from father to son have long been regarded as the common

-inheritance of poets.” The circumstances of the time, and perhaps the

-examples chosen by Wordsworth to illustrate his thesis, have too often

-led to his attack being considered as concerned almost entirely with the

-poetical language of the eighteenth century. Hence, whenever the phrase

-“poetic diction” is mentioned as a term of English literary history,

-more often than not it is to the eighteenth century that the attention

-is directed, and the phrase itself has taken on a derogatory tinge,

-expressive of a stereotyped language, imitative, mechanical, lifeless.

-For in the reaction against eighteenth century styles, and especially

-against the polished heroic couplet, there arose a tendency to make the

-diction of the period an object of undistinguishing depreciation, to

-class it all in one category, as a collection of conventional words and

-phrases of which all poets and versifiers felt themselves at liberty to

-make use.

-

-An actual analysis of eighteenth century poetry shows us that this

-criticism is both deficient and misleading; it is misleading because it

-neglects to take any account of that eighteenth century poetical language

-which Pope, inheriting it from Dryden, brought to perfection, and which

-was so admirable a vehicle for the satiric or didactic thought it had to

-convey; it is deficient in that it concentrates attention mainly on one

-type or variety of the language, used both by poets and poetasters, and

-persists in labelling this type either as the “eighteenth century style

-proper,” or, as if the phrases were synonymous, “the Pope style.”

-

-One formula could no more suffice in itself for the poetic styles of the

-eighteenth century than for those of the nineteenth century; we may say,

-rather, that there are then to be distinguished at least four distinct

-varieties or elements of poetical diction, in the narrow sense of the

-term, though of course it is scarcely necessary to add that none of them

-is found in complete isolation from the others. There is first the stock

-descriptive language, the usual vehicle of expression for that large

-amount of eighteenth century verse where, in the words of Taine, we can

-usually find “the same diction, the same apostrophes, the same manner of

-placing the epithet and rounding the period,” and “regarding which we

-know beforehand with what poetic ornaments it will be adorned.”[250] In

-reading this verse, with its lifeless, abstract diction, we seldom or

-never feel that we have been brought into contact with the real thoughts

-or feelings of living men. Its epithets are artificial, imitative,

-conventional; though their glare and glitter may occasionally give

-us a certain pleasure, they rarely or never make any appeal to our

-sensibility. As someone has said, it is like wandering about in a land of

-empty phrases. Only here and there, as, for instance, in Dyer’s “Grongar

-Hill,” have the _gradus_ epithets taken on a real charm and beauty in

-virtue of the spontaneity and sincerity with which the poet has been

-inspired.

-

-The received doctrine that it was due in the main to Pope’s “Homer”

-is unjust; many of the characteristics of this conventional poetical

-language were established long before Pope produced his translation.

-They are found to an equal, if not greater, extent in Dryden, and if

-it is necessary to establish a fountain-head, “Paradise Lost” will be

-found to contain most of the words and phrases which the eighteenth

-century versifiers worked to death. If Pope is guilty in any degree it

-is only because in his work the heroic couplet was brought to a high

-pitch of perfection; no doubt too the immense popularity of the “Homer”

-translation led to servile imitation of many of its words, phrases, and

-similes. Yet it is unjust to saddle Pope with the lack of original genius

-of so many of his successors and imitators.

-

-But the underlying cause of this conventional language must be sought

-elsewhere than in the mere imitation of any poet or poets. A passage

-from the “Prelude” supplies perhaps a clue to one of the fundamental

-conditions that had enslaved poetry in the shackles of a stereotyped

-language. It takes the form of a sort of literary confession by

-Wordsworth as to the method of composing his first poems, which, we have

-seen, are almost an epitome of the poetical vices against which his

-manifestoes rebelled. He speaks of

-

-                        the trade in classic niceties

-    The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase

-    From languages that want the living voice

-    To carry meaning to the natural heart.

-

-                                         (“Prelude,” Bk. VI, ll. 109-112)

-

-In these lines we have summed up one of the main Romantic indictments

-against the practice of the “classical” poets, who were too wont to

-regard the language of poetry as a mere collection or accepted aggregate

-of words, phrases, and similes, empty of all personal feeling and

-emotion.[251]

-

-Wordsworth, too, in this passage not unfairly describes the sort of

-atmosphere in which diction of the stock eighteenth century type

-flourished. The neo-classical interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine

-of poetry as an imitation had by the time of Pope and his school resulted

-in a real critical confusion, which saw the essence of poetry in a

-slavish adherence to accepted models, and regarded its ideal language as

-choice flowers and figures of speech consecrated to poetry by traditional

-use, and used by the poet very much as the painter uses his colours, that

-is, as pigments laid on from the outside. That this doctrine of imitation

-and parallelism directly encourages the growth of a set poetic diction

-is obvious; the poet’s language need not be the reflection of a genuine

-emotion felt in the mind: he could always find his words, phrases, and

-figures of speech in accepted and consecrated models.

-

-The reaction against this artificial diction is fundamental in the

-Romantic revolt from another cause than that of poetic form. The stock

-poetic language, we have seen, occurs mainly in what may be called the

-“nature” poetry of the period, and its set words and phrases are for

-the most part descriptive terms of outdoor sights and sounds. Among the

-many descriptions or explanations of the Romantic movement is that it

-was in its essence a “return to Nature,” which is sometimes taken to

-imply that “Nature,” as we in the twentieth century think of it, was a

-sudden new vision, of which glimpses were first caught by James Thomson,

-and which finally culminated in Wordsworth’s “confession of faith.” Yet

-there was, of course, plenty of “nature poetry” in the neo-classical

-period; but it was for the most part nature from the point of view of the

-Town, or as seen from the study window with a poetical “Thesaurus” at

-the writer’s side, or stored in his memory as a result of his reading.

-It was not written with “the eye on the object.” More fatal still, if

-the neo-classical poets did look, they could see little beauty in the

-external world; they “had lost the best of the senses; they had ceased to

-perceive with joy and interpret with insight the colour and outline of

-things, the cadence of sound and motion, the life of creatures.”[252]

-

-This sterility or atrophy of the senses had thus a real connexion with

-the question of a conventional poetical language, for the descriptive

-diction with its stock words for the sea, the rivers, the mountains, the

-sky, the stars, the birds of the air and their music, for all the varied

-sights and sounds of outdoor life—all this is simply a reflex of the lack

-of genuine feeling towards external nature. Keats, with his ecstatic

-delight in Nature, quickly and aptly pilloried this fatal weakness in

-the eighteenth century versifiers:

-

-    The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d

-    Its gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blue

-    Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew

-    Of summer nights collected still to make

-    The morning precious: beauty was awake!

-    Why were ye not awake! But ye were dead

-    To things ye knew not of—were closely wed

-    To musty laws lined out with wretched rule

-    And compass vile: so that ye taught a school

-    Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip and fit

-    Till, like the certain wands of Jacob’s wit,

-    Their verses tallied; Easy was the task

-    A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask

-    Of Poesy.[253]

-

-It is obvious that two great changes or advances were necessary, if

-poetry was to be freed from the bondage of this conventional diction. In

-the first place, the poet must reject root and branch the traditional

-stock of words and phrases that may once have been inspiring, but had

-become lifeless and mechanical long before they fell into disuse; he

-must write with his eye on the object, and translate his impressions

-into fresh terms endowed with real, imaginative power. And this first

-condition would naturally lead to a second, requiring every word and

-phrase to be a spontaneous reflection of genuine feeling felt in the

-presence of Nature and her vast powers.

-

-The neo-classical poetry proper was not without verse which partly

-satisfied these conditions; direct contact with nature was never entirely

-lost. Wordsworth, as we know, gave honourable mention[254] to “The

-Nocturnal Reverie” of Anne, Countess Winchilsea, written at the very

-height of the neo-classical supremacy, in which external nature is

-described with simplicity and fidelity, though there is little trace

-of any emotion roused in the writer’s mind by the sights and sounds

-of outdoor life. And every now and then, amid the arid and monotonous

-stretches of so much eighteenth century verse, we are startled into

-lively interest by stumbling across, often in the most obscure and

-unexpected corners, a phrase or a verse to remind us that Nature, and

-all that the term implies, was still making its powerful appeal to the

-hearts and minds of men, that its beauty and mystery was still being

-expressed in simple and heartfelt language. Thomas Dyer’s “Grongar Hill”

-has already been mentioned; it was written in 1726, the year of the

-publication of Thompson’s “Winter.” Dyer, for all we know, may have the

-priority, but in any case we see him here leading back poetry to the

-sights and sounds and scents of external nature, which he describes, not

-merely as a painter with a good eye for landscape, but as a lover who

-feels the thrill and call of the countryside, and can give exquisite

-expression to his thoughts and emotions. We have only to recall such

-passages as

-

-    Who, the purple evening lie,

-    On the mountain’s lonely van;

-

-or even his tree catalogue,

-

-    The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,

-    The yellow beech, the sable yew,

-    The slender fir, that taper grows,

-    The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;

-

-or

-

-    How close and small the hedges lie;

-    What streaks of meadow cross the eye!

-

-or

-

-    A little rule, a little sway,

-    A sun-beam on a winter’s day,

-    Is all the proud and mighty have

-    Between the cradle and the grave—

-

-to recognize that already the supremacy of Pope and his school of town

-poets is seriously threatened.

-

-Here too is a short passage which might not unfairly be assigned to

-Wordsworth himself.

-

-    Would I again were with you, O ye dales

-    Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands, where,

-    Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides

-    And his banks open, and his lawns extend,

-    Stops short the pleased traveller to view,

-    Presiding o’er the scene, some rustic tower

-    Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands:

-    O ye Northumbrian shades, which overlook

-    The rocky pavement and the mossy falls

-    Of solitary Wensbeck’s limpid stream,

-    How gladly I recall your well-known seats

-    Beloved of old, and that delightful time

-    When all alone, for many a summer’s day,

-    I wandered through your calm recesses, led

-    In silence by some powerful hand unseen.

-

-It is from Mark Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (Bk IV, ll. 31

-foll.). And so, too, is this:

-

-            the meadow’s fragrant hedge,

-    In spring time when the woodlands first are green

-

-                                                         (Book II, 175-6)

-

-which takes us far away from the formal conventional landscapes of the

-Augustans.

-

-These two are among the more famous of their time, but a close search

-amongst the minor poetry of the mid-eighteenth century will bring to

-light many a surprising instance of poetry written with an eye on the

-object, as in John Cunningham’s (1729-1773) “Day,”[255] where the sights

-and sounds of the countryside are simply and freshly brought before us:

-

-    Swiftly from the mountain’s brow,

-        Shadows, nurs’d by night, retire:

-    And the peeping sun-beam, now,

-        Paints with gold the village spire.

-

-    Philomel forsakes the thorn,

-        Plaintive where she prates at night;

-    And the Lark, to meet the morn,

-        Soars beyond the shepherd’s sight.

-

-    From the low-roof’d cottage ridge,

-        See the chatt’ring Swallow spring;

-    Darting through the one-arch’d bridge,

-        Quick she dips her dappled wing.

-

-But the great bulk of neo-classical verse is unaffected by the regained

-and quickened outlook on the external world. It is in the forerunners of

-the Romantic revolt that this latter development is to be most plainly

-noted: when, as the result of many and varied causes English poets

-were inspired to use their eyes again, they were able, slowly and in a

-somewhat shallow manner at first, afterwards quickly and profoundly,

-to “sense” the beauty of the external world, its mysterious emanations

-of power and beauty. This quickening and final triumph of the artistic

-sense naturally revealed itself in expression; the conventional words

-and epithets were really doomed from the time of “Grongar Hill” and

-“The Seasons,” and a new language was gradually forged to express the

-fresh, vivid perceptions peculiar to each poet, according as his senses

-interpreted for him the face of the world.

-

-A second variety of eighteenth century diction, or, more strictly

-speaking, another conventional embellishment of the poetry of the period,

-is found in that widespread use of personified abstraction which is

-undoubtedly one of the greatest, perhaps _the_ greatest, of its faults.

-Not only the mere versifiers, but also many of its greatest poets, make

-abundant use of cut and dried personifications, whose sole claim to

-vitality rests most often on the presence of a capital letter. It is a

-favourite indulgence of the writers, not only of the old order, but

-also of those who, like Collins and Gray, announce the advent of the

-new, and not even the presence of genius could prevent its becoming a

-poetical abuse of the worst kind. Whether it be regarded as a survival

-of a symbolic system from which the life had long since departed, or

-as a conventional device arising from the theory of poetical ornament

-handed down by the neo-classicists, its main effect was to turn a large

-proportion of eighteenth century poetry into mere rhetorical verse. It is

-this variety of poetical language that might with justice be labelled as

-the eighteenth century style in the derogatory sense of the term. In its

-cumulative effect on the poetry of the period it is perhaps more vicious

-than the stock diction which is the usual target of criticism.

-

-Two other varieties of eighteenth century diction represent an endeavour

-to replace, or rather reinforce the stereotyped words, phrases, and

-similes by new forms. The first of these is the widespread use of

-latinized words and constructions, chiefly in the blank verse poems

-written in imitation of Milton, but not only there. The second is the use

-of archaic and pseudo-archaic words by the writers whose ambition it was

-to catch something of the music and melody of the Spenserian stanza. Both

-these movements thus reflected the desire for a change, and though the

-tendencies, which they reflect, are in a certain sense conventional and

-imitative in that they simply seek to replace the accepted diction by new

-forms derived respectively from Milton and Spenser, one of them at least

-had in the sequel a real and revivifying influence on the language of

-poetry.

-

-The pedantic and cumbrous terms, which swarm in the majority of the

-Miltonic imitations, were artificial creations, rarely imbued with any

-trace of poetic power. Where they do not actually arise from deliberate

-attempts to imitate the high Miltonic manner, they probably owe their

-appearance to more or less conscious efforts to make the new blank verse

-as attractive as possible to a generation of readers accustomed to the

-polished smoothness of the couplet. Though such terms linger on until

-the time of Cowper, and even invade the works of Wordsworth himself,

-romanticism utterly rejected them, not only because of a prejudice in

-favour of “Saxon simplicity,” but also because such artificial formations

-lacked almost completely that mysterious power of suggestion and

-association in which lies the poetical appeal of words. Wordsworth, it is

-true, could win from them real poetic effects, and so occasionally could

-Thomson, but in the main they are even more dead and dreary than the old

-abstract diction of the neo-classicals.

-

-The tendency towards archaism was much more successful in this respect,

-because it was based on a firmer foundation. In harking back to “the

-poet’s poet,” the eighteenth century versifiers were at least on a right

-track, and though it was hardly possible, even with the best of them,

-that more than a faint simulacrum of the music and melody of the “Faerie

-Queene” could be captured merely by drawing drafts on Spenser’s diction,

-yet they at least helped to blaze a way for the great men who were to

-come later. The old unknown writers of the ballads and Spenser and the

-Elizabethans generally were to be looked upon as treasure trove to which

-Keats and Scott and Beddoes and many another were constantly to turn in

-their efforts to revivify the language of poetry, to restore to it what

-it had lost of freshness and vigour and colour.

-

-The varieties or embellishments of poetical diction, which have just

-been characterized, represent the special language of eighteenth

-century poetry, as distinct from that large portion of language which

-is common alike to prose and poetry. For it is scarcely necessary

-to remind ourselves that by far the largest portion of the poetry of

-the eighteenth century (as indeed of any century) is written in the

-latter sort of language, which depends for its effects mainly upon the

-arrangement of the words, rather than for any unique power in the words

-themselves. In this kind of poetical diction, it is not too much to say

-that the eighteenth century is pre-eminent, though the effect of the

-Wordsworthian criticism has led to a certain failure or indisposition to

-recognize the fact. Just as Johnson and his contemporaries do not give

-direct expression to any approval of the admirable language, of which

-Pope and some of his predecessors had such perfect command, so modern

-criticism has not always been willing to grant it even bare justice,

-though Coleridge’s penetrating insight had enabled him, as we have seen,

-to pay his tribute to “the almost faultless position and choice of words,

-in Mr. Pope’s _original_ compositions, particularly in his Satires and

-Moral Essays.” It was, we may imagine, the ordinary everyday language,

-heightened by brilliance and point, in which Pope and his coterie carried

-on their dallyings and bickerings at Twickenham and elsewhere, and it was

-an ideal vehicle, lucid and precise for the argument and declamation it

-had to sustain. But it was more than that, as will be readily recognized

-if we care to recall some of the oft-quoted lines which amply prove

-with what consummate skill Pope, despite the economy and condensation

-imposed by the requirements of the closed couplet, could evoke from this

-plain and unadorned diction effects of imagination and sometimes even of

-passion. Such lines as

-

-    He stooped to Truth and moralised his song,

-

-or

-

-    In lazy apathy let stoics boast

-    Their virtue fixed: ’tis fixed as in a frost,

-

-or

-

-    In Folly’s cup still laughs the bubble joy,

-

-and dozens similar, show the lucidity, energy, and imaginative

-picturesqueness with which Pope could endow his diction when the occasion

-required it.[256] Such language is the “real language of men”; nearly

-every word would satisfy the Wordsworthian canon.

-

-And the same thing is true to a large extent of the poets, who are

-usually considered as having taken Pope for their model. Whenever there

-is a real concentration of interest, whenever they are dealing with the

-didactic and moral questions characteristic of the “age of prose and

-reason,” whenever they are writing of man and of his doings, his thoughts

-and moods as a social member of civilized society, their language is,

-as a rule, adequate, vivid, fresh, because the aim then is to present a

-general thought in the language best adapted to bring it forcibly before

-the mind of the reader. Here, as has been justly said,[257] rhetoric

-has passed under the influence and received the transforming force of

-poetry. “The best rhetorical poetry of the eighteenth century is not the

-best poetry, but it is poetry in its own way, exhibiting the glow, the

-rush, the passion which strict prose cannot, and which poetry can, give.”

-Judged on the basis of this kind of poetical diction, the distinctions

-usually drawn between the neo-classical “kind” of language in the

-eighteenth century and the romantic “kind” all tend to disappear; at the

-head (though perhaps we should go back to the Dryden of the “Religio

-Laici” and “The Hind and the Panther”) is the “Essay on Criticism”;

-in the direct line of descent are Akenside’s “Epistle to Curio,” large

-portions of “The Seasons,” “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”

-“The Vanity of Human Wishes,” the “Deserted Village,” and at the end of

-the century, the “Village” of Crabbe. And in another _genre_, but just

-as good in its own way, is that light verse, as it may perhaps best be

-called, successfully ushered in, at the very beginning of the century, by

-John Pomfret’s “The Choice,” and brought to perfection by Matthew Prior

-in his lines “To a Child of Quality,” and many another piece.

-

-Nor must it be forgotten that there is a large amount of eighteenth

-century minor poetry which, whilst reflecting in the main the literary

-tendency of the age in its fondness for didactic verse, presented in

-the guise of interminably long and dull epics and epistles, yet reveals

-to us, if we care to make the pilgrimage through the arid stretches of

-Anderson’s “British Poets,” or Dodsley’s “Collection of Poets by Several

-Hands,” or Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry,” or similar collections, the simple,

-unambitious works of poets more or less unknown when they wrote and

-now for the most part forgotten, who, unconscious or ignorant of the

-accepted rules and regulations of their time, wrote because they felt

-they must, and thus had no care to fetter themselves with the bondage of

-the “classical” diction.[258] Their range was limited, but they were able

-to express their thoughts and fancies, their little idylls and landscapes

-in plain English without any trimmings, akin in its unaffected diction

-and simplicity of syntax to the language of the genuine old ballads,

-which were so largely and, for the most part, ineffectively, if not

-ludicrously, imitated throughout the eighteenth century.

-

-The Augustan age, then, was not without honour, even in poetry, where,

-looking back after Romanticism had won and consolidated its greatest

-triumphs, it would seem everything had gone wrong, there was not a little

-from which the rebels themselves might well have profited. Nowadays we

-are accustomed, perhaps too often, to think of the Romantic forerunners,

-the poet of “The Seasons,” and Gray, and Collins, and Goldsmith, and the

-rest, as lonely isolated outposts in hostile territory. So they were to

-a large extent, but they could not, of course, altogether escape the

-form and pressure of their age; and what we now admire in them, and

-for which we salute them as the heralds of the Romantic dawn, is that

-which shows them struggling to set themselves free from the “classical”

-toils, and striving to give expression to the new ideas and ideals that

-were ultimately to surge and sing themselves to victory. It is scarcely

-necessary to recall many a well-known passage, in which, within a decade

-of the death of Pope, or even before the mid-century, these new ideas

-and ideals had found expression in language which really sounded the

-death-knell of the old diction. Fine sounds, Keats within a few decades

-was to proclaim exultantly, were then to be heard “floating wild about

-the earth,” but already as early as Collins and Gray, and even now and

-then in “The Seasons,” words of infinite appeal and suggestiveness were

-stealing back into English poetry.

-

-And this leads us to a consideration of the poetic diction of the

-eighteenth century from a more general standpoint. For no discussion of

-poetical language can be complete unless an attempt is made to consider

-the question in its entirety with a view to the question of what really

-constitutes poetic diction, what it is that gives to words and phrases,

-used by certain poets in certain contexts, a magic force and meaning. The

-history of poetic diction from the very beginning of English literature

-down to present times has yet to be written, and it would be a formidable

-task. Perhaps a syndicate of acknowledged poets would be the only fit

-tribunal to pass judgment on so vital an aspect of the craft, but even

-then we suspect there would be a good deal of dissension, and probably

-more than one minority report. But the general aspects of the question

-have formed a fruitful field of discussion since Wordsworth launched his

-theories[259] and thus began a controversy as to the exact nature of

-poetic language, the echoes of which, it would seem, have not yet died

-away. For the Prefaces were, it may be truly said, the first great and

-definite declaration of principle concerning a question which has been

-well described as “the central one in the philosophy of literature, What

-is, or rather what is not, poetic diction?”[260]

-

-Judged from this wider standpoint, the diction of the “classical” poetry

-of the eighteenth century, and even of a large portion of the verse

-that announces the ultimate Romantic triumph, seems to have marked

-limitations. The widespread poverty and sterility of this diction was

-not, of course, merely the result of an inability to draw inspiration

-from Nature, or of a failure to realize the imaginative possibilities of

-words and phrases: it was, it would almost seem, the inevitable outcome

-and reflex of an age that, despite great and varied achievements, now

-appears to us narrow and restricted in many vital aspects. If poetry

-is a criticism of life, in the sense in which Matthew Arnold doubtless

-meant his dictum to be taken, the age of Pope and his successors is not

-“poetic”; in many respects it is a petty and tawdry age—the age of the

-coffee-house and the new press, of the club and the coterie. There are

-great thinkers like Hume, great historians like Gibbon, great teachers

-and reformers like John Wesley; but these names and a few others seem

-only to throw into stronger light the fact that it was on its average

-level an age of talk rather than of thought, of “fickle fancy” rather

-than of imaginative flights, of society as a unit highly organized for

-the pursuit of its own pastimes, pleasures, and preoccupations, in which

-poetry, and literature generally, played a social part. Poetry seems to

-skim gracefully over the surface of life, lightly touching many things

-in its flight, but never soaring; philosophy and science and satire all

-come within its purview, but when the eternally recurring themes of

-poetry[261]—love and nature and the like—are handled, there is rarely or

-never poignancy or depth.

-

-The great elemental facts and thoughts and feelings of life seldom

-confront us in the literature of the century as we make our way down the

-decades; even in the forerunners of the Romantic revolt we are never

-really stirred. “The Seasons,” and “The Elegy Written in a Country

-Churchyard,” touch responsive chords, but are far from moving us to

-thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls. Not until Blake and Burns is

-the veneer of convention and artificiality, in both matter and manner,

-definitely cast aside, and there is to be caught in English verse again,

-not only the authentic singing note, but, what is more, the recognition

-and exemplification of the great truth that the finest poetry most often

-has its “roots deep in the common stuff,” and it is not to be looked for

-in an age and environment when, with rationality apparently triumphant,

-men seemed careless of the eternal verities, of the thoughts and feelings

-that lie too deep for tears, or sadly recognized their impotence, or

-their frustrated desires, to image them forth in poetry.

-

-“What is it,” asks Gilbert Murray,[262] “that gives words their character

-and makes a style high or low? Obviously, their associations: the

-company they habitually keep in the minds of those who use them. A word

-which belongs to the language of bars and billiard-saloons will become

-permeated by the normal standard of mind prevalent in such places; a

-word which suggests Milton or Carlyle will have the flavour of those

-men’s minds about it. I therefore cannot resist the conclusion that if

-the language of Greek poetry has, to those who know it intimately, this

-special quality of keen austere beauty, it is because the minds of the

-poets who used that language were habitually toned to a higher level both

-of intensity and of nobility than ours. It is a finer language because

-it expresses the mind of finer men. By ‘finer men’ I do not necessarily

-mean men who behaved better, either by our standards or by their own:

-I mean the men to whom the fine things of the world, sunrise and sea

-and stars, and the love of man for man, and strife and the facing of

-evil for the sake of good, and even common things like meat and drink,

-and evil things like hate and terror had, as it were, a keener edge

-than they have for us, and roused a swifter and nobler reaction.” This

-passage has been quoted in full because it may be said to have a direct

-and definite bearing on the question of the average level of poetic

-language during the greater part of the eighteenth century: there were

-few or no _trouvailles_, no great discoveries, no sudden releasings of

-the magic power often lurking unsuspectedly in the most ordinary words,

-because the poets and versifiers for the most part had all gone wrong

-in their conception of the medium they essayed to mould. “The substance

-of poetry,” writes Professor Lowes,[263] “is also the very stuff of

-words. And in its larger sense as well the language of poetry is made up

-inevitably of symbols—of symbols for things in terms of other things,

-for things in terms of feelings, for feelings in terms of things. It is

-the language not of objects, but of the complex relations of objects.

-And the agency that moulds it is the ceaselessly active power that is

-special to poetry only in degree—_imagination_—that fuses the familiar

-and the strange, the thing I feel and the thing I see, the world within

-and the world without, into a _tertium quid_, that interprets both.” The

-eighteenth century was not perhaps so emphatically and entirely the “age

-of prose and reason” as is sometimes thought, but it could scarcely be

-called the “age of imagination,” and poetry, in its highest sense (“high

-poetry,” as Maeterlinck would call it), being of imagination all compact,

-found no abiding place there.

-

-Most words, we may say, potentially possess at least two or more

-significations, their connotative scope varying according to the

-knowledge or culture of the speaker or reader. First of all, there is

-the logical, their plain workaday use, we might call it; and next, and

-above and beyond all this, they have, so to speak, an exciting force,

-a power of stimulating and reviving in the mind and memory all the

-associations that cluster around them. Nearly all words carry with them,

-in vastly varying degrees, of course, this power of evocation, so that

-even commonplace terms, words, and phrases hackneyed and worn thin by

-unceasing usage, may suddenly be invested with a strange and beautiful

-suggestiveness when they are pressed into the service of the highest

-poetic imagination. And in the same way the æsthetic appeal of words of

-great potential value is reinforced and strengthened, when in virtue of

-their context, or even merely of the word or words to which they are

-attached, they are afforded a unique opportunity of flashing forth and

-bringing into play all the mysterious powers and associations gathered to

-themselves during a long employment in prose and verse, or on the lips of

-the people:

-

-    All the charm of all the muses

-        often flowering in a lonely word.

-

-Poetry of the highest value and appeal may be, and often is, as we know

-from concrete examples that flash into the mind, written in commonplace,

-everyday terms, and we ask ourselves how it is done.[264] There are the

-mysterious words of the dying Hamlet:

-

-    The rest is silence,

-

-or the line quoted by Matthew Arnold[265] as an instance when

-Wordsworth’s practice is to be found illustrating his theories:

-

-    And never lifted up a single stone,

-

-or the wonderful lines which seem to bring with them a waking vision of

-the beauty of the English countryside, radiant with the promise of Spring:

-

-                          daffodils,

-    That come before the swallow dares, and take

-    The winds of March with beauty.

-

-In these and many similar passages, which the reader will recall for

-himself, it would seem that the mere juxtaposition of more or less plain

-and ordinary words has led to such action and reaction between them as

-to charge each with vastly increased powers of evocation and suggestion,

-to which the mind of the reader, roused and stimulated, instinctively

-responds.

-

-Similarly, the satisfaction thus afforded to our æsthetic sense, or

-our emotional appreciation, is often evoked by a happy conjunction of

-epithet and noun placed together in a new relation, instantly recognized

-as adding an unsuspected beauty to an otherwise colourless word. The

-poets and versifiers of the eighteenth century were not particularly

-noteworthy for their skill or inspiration in the matter of the choice of

-epithet, but the genius of Blake, in this as in other respects of poetic

-achievement, raised him “above the age” and led him to such felicities of

-expression as in the last stanza of “The Piper”:

-

-    And I made a _rural pen_

-    And I stained the water clear,

-

-where, as has been aptly remarked,[266] a commonplace epithet is

-strangely and, apparently discordantly, joined to an equally commonplace

-noun, and yet the discord, in virtue of the fact that it sets the mind

-and memory working to recover or recall the faint ultimate associations

-of the two terms, endows the phrase with infinite suggestiveness. In the

-same way a subtle and magic effect is often produced by inversion of

-epithet, when the adjective is placed after instead of before the noun,

-and this again is a practice or device little favoured in the eighteenth

-century; the supremacy of the stopped couplet and its mechanical

-requirements were all against it.

-

-But the eighteenth century had little of this magic power of evocation;

-the secret had departed with the blind Milton, and it was not till the

-Romantic ascendancy had firmly established itself, not until Keats and

-Shelley and their great successors, that English poetry was once more

-able so to handle and fashion and rearrange words as to win from them

-their total and most intense associations. Yet contemporary criticism,

-especially in France, had not failed altogether to appreciate this

-potential magic of words. Diderot, for instance, speaks of the magic

-power that Homer and other great poets have given to many of their

-words; such words are, in his phrase, “hieroglyphic paintings,” that is,

-paintings not to the eye, but to the imagination.[267] What we feel about

-all the so-called classical verse of the eighteenth century, as well as

-of a good deal of the earlier Romantic poetry, is that writers have not

-been able to devise these subtle hieroglyphics; lack of real poetical

-inspiration, or the pressure of the prosaic and unimaginative atmosphere

-of their times, has led to a general poverty in the words or phrases that

-evoke some object before the inner eye, or charm the ear by an unheard

-melody, terms that, like the magic words of Keats, or the evanescent

-imagery of Shelley, stir us both emotionally and æsthetically. The

-verse of Pope and his followers is not without something of this power,

-but here the effect is achieved by the skill and polish with which the

-words are selected and grouped within the limits of the heroic couplet.

-Crabbe had marked down, accurately enough, this lack of word-power in his

-description of Dryden’s verse as “poetry in which the force of expression

-and accuracy of description have neither needed nor obtained assistance

-from the fancy of the writer,” and again, more briefly, as “poetry

-without an atmosphere.”[268] One negative indication of this “nudity”

-is the comparative poverty of eighteenth century poetry in new compound

-epithets, those felicitous terms which have added to the language some of

-its most poetical and pictorial phrases.

-

-The Prefaces of Wordsworth and the kindred comments and remarks of

-Coleridge were not, it is hardly necessary to say, in themselves powerful

-enough to effect an instant and complete revolution in poetical theory

-and practice. But it was all to the good that inspired craftsmen were at

-last beginning to worry themselves about the nature and quality of the

-material which they had to mould and fashion and combine into poetry;

-still more important was it that they were soon to have the powerful aid

-of fellow-workers like Shelley and Keats, whose practice was to reveal

-the magic lurking in words and phrases, so arranged and combined as to

-set them reverberating in the depths of our sensibility. And, on the

-side of form at least, this is the distinctively Romantic achievement;

-the æsthetic possibilities and potentialities of the whole of our

-language, past and present, were entrancingly revealed and magnificently

-exemplified; new and inexhaustible mines of poetical word-power were thus

-opened up, and the narrow and conventional limits of the diction within

-which the majority of the eighteenth century poets had “tallied” their

-verses were transcended and swept away.

-

-

-

-

-FOOTNOTES

-

-

-[1] A brief summary, which is here utilized, is given by Spingarn,

-“Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century,” I, Intro. xxxvi, foll.

-(Oxford, 1908).

-

-[2] _Vide_ Spingarn, _op. cit._, _Intro._ XXXVI-XLVIII; and also

-Robertson, “Studies in the Genesis of Romantic Theory in the XVIIIth

-Century” (Cambridge, 1924), an attempt “to show that the Movement which

-led to the dethronement of Reason, in favour of the Imagination, chief

-arbiter in poetic creation, and which culminated with Goethe and Schiller

-in Germany and the Romantic Revival in England, is to be put to the

-credit not of ourselves, but of Italy, who thus played again that pioneer

-rôle which she had already played in the sixteenth century.”

-

-[3] Spingarn, _op. cit._, II, p. 118.

-

-[4] _Ibid._, II, p. 310.

-

-[5] _Ibid._, II, p. 273.

-

-[6] “Apology for Heroic Poetry”: “Essays of John Dryden,” ed. W. P. Ker

-(1909), Vol. I, p. 190.

-

-[7] “There appears in every part of his [Horace’s] diction, or (to

-speak English) in all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold

-purity.”—_Ibid._, p. 266.

-

-[8] “Lives”: Dryden, ed. G. B. Hill (1905), Vol. I, p. 420; and cp.

-Goldsmith, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous

-Works), 1821, Vol. IV, p. 381 foll.

-

-[9] “Letters” (To R. West), 1742, ed. Tovey (1900); Vol. II, pp. 97-8.

-

-[10] Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. I, pp. 17-8.

-

-[11] _Ibid._, pp. 188 foll.

-

-[12] Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 234.

-

-[13] Edward Young, the author of “Night Thoughts,” was later to express

-this tersely enough: “Words tarnished, by passing through the mouths of

-the vulgar, are laid aside as inelegant and obsolete”—”Conjectures on

-Original Composition,” 1759 (“English Critical Essays,” Oxford, 1922, p.

-320).

-

-[14] Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin: “Life,” Vol. V, p. 69.

-

-[15] That is to say, as Mr. John Drinkwater has recently put it, it

-was “the common language, but raised above the common pitch, of the

-coffee-houses and boudoirs.”—“Victorian Poetry,” 1923, pp. 30-32.

-

-[16] _Vide_ Elton, “The Augustan Ages,” 1889, pp. 419 foll.

-

-[17] Cp. “Essay on Criticism,” I, ll. 130-140.

-

-[18] John Dennis, of course, at the beginning of the century, is to

-be found pleading that “passion is the chief thing in poetry,” (“The

-Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry,” 1701); but it is to be

-feared that he is only, so to speak, ringing the changes on the Rules.

-

-[19] “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” ed. Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II,

-p. 147.

-

-[20] “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” Ker, _op cit._, Vol. II, p.

-148. “_Operum Colores_ is the very word which Horace uses to signify

-words and elegant expressions.” etc.

-

-[21] Lessing’s “Laokoon,” which appeared in 1766, may in this, as in

-other connexions, be regarded as the first great Romantic manifesto.

-The limitations of poetry and the plastic arts were analysed, and the

-fundamental conditions to which each art must adhere, if it is to

-accomplish its utmost, were definitely and clearly laid down.

-

-[22] “Polymetis” (1747), p. 311.

-

-[23] “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. XXII.

-

-[24] _Ibid._, Chap. IV.

-

-[25] _Vide_ especially Babbitt, “The New Laocoon, An Essay on the

-Confusion of the Arts” (1910), to which these paragraphs are indebted;

-and for a valuable survey of the relations of English poetry with

-painting and with music, see “English Poetry in Its Relation to Painting

-and the other Arts,” by Laurence Binyon (London, 1919), especially pp.

-15-19.

-

-[26] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Gregory Smith, Vol. I,

-Intro. (Oxford, 1904).

-

-[27] _Vide_, e.g., Addison, “Spectator” papers on “Paradise Lost” (No.

-285, January 26, 1712).

-

-[28] Essay, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous

-Works, 1820, Vol. IV, pp. 408-14).

-

-[29] _Ibid._, p. 22.

-

-[30] “Lives,” Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 420.

-

-[31] “Lives”: Cowley; cp. “The Rambler,” No. 158.

-

-[32] Cp. Boswell’s “Life” (1851 edition), Vol. I, p. 277: “He enlarged

-very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in

-English poetry”; also _ibid._, Vol. II, p. 84.

-

-[33] “Lives,” ed. Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, pp. 416 foll.

-

-[34] _Ibid._, p. 341.

-

-[35] This is of course exemplified in his own poetic practice, and it

-has been held sufficient to explain the oft-debated scantiness of his

-literary production. But for remarkable examples of his minuteness and

-scrupulosity in the matter of poetic diction see the letter to West

-referred to above; to Mason, January 13, 1758 (Tovey, _op. cit._, II, p.

-12), and to Beattie, March 8, 1771 (_ibid._, II, p. 305).

-

-[36] Cp. Courthope, “History of English Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 218 foll.

-

-[37] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” _op. cit._, Intro., pp. LV-LX.

-

-[38] Preface to the “Fables,” Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 266-67.

-

-[39] _Vide_ Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, Vol. II.

-

-[40] _Vide_ “Translation of Homer,” ed. Buckley, Intro., p. 47; and cp.

-“The Guardian,” No. 78, “A Receipt to make an Epic Poem.”

-

-[41] Tovey, _op. cit._, March 8, 1771 (Vol. II, pp. 305 foll.); Beattie’s

-comments are given by Tovey, _ibid._, footnotes.

-

-[42] “Rambler,” No. 121, May 14, 1751.

-

-[43] “Lines written in Imitation of Certain Poems Published in 1777”;

-and cp. William Whitehead’s “Charge to the Poets” (1762), which may be

-taken to reflect the various attitudes of the reading public towards the

-“revivals.”—(“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. XI, pp. 935-7.)

-

-[44] Works (1820), _op. cit._, Vol. IV, p. 124.

-

-[45] September 27, 1788 (“Letters,” 4 vols, 1806, Vol. II, p. 106).

-

-[46] Letter to Lady Hesketh, March 22, 1790 (“Correspondence of

-William Cowper—Arranged in Chronological Order by T. Wright,” 4 vols.,

-1904).—Vol. III, pp. 446, foll.

-

-[47] 1807 ed., Vol. I, pp. 21 and 24; cp. also Campbell, “The Philosophy

-of Rhetoric” (London, 1776), Vol. I, pp. 410-411.

-

-[48] “Spectator,” 285, January 26, 1712.

-

-[49] “Homer”; ed. Buckley, Intro., 49.

-

-[50] Spingarn, _op. cit._, II, pp. 1-51; for Hobbes “Answer,” and

-Cowley’s “Preface to Poems,” see _ibid._, pp. 54-90.

-

-[51] “Dedication of the Æneis,” Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 154, foll.;

-cp. Addison, “Spectator,” 297, January 9, 1712.

-

-[52] _Vide_, e.g., E. Barat, “Le Style poétique et la Révolution

-Romantique” (Paris, 1904), pp. 5-35.

-

-[53] “Lives of the Poets. Pope,” ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 251.

-

-[54] _Ibid._, p. 244.

-

-[55] January 17, 1782 (Wright, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 429-30).

-

-[56] Prose Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. II, pp. 101 foll.

-

-[57] “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross (1907), p. 26, Note; cp. also

-Southey, “Works of Cowper” (1884 edition), Vol. I, p. 313.

-

-[58] “The Progress of Taste,” III, ll. 7-10.

-

-[59] Wordsworth himself of course stigmatized the “hubbub of words”

-which was often the only result of these eighteenth century attempts to

-paraphrase passages from the Old and the New Testament “as they exist in

-our common translation.”—_Vide_ Prefaces, etc., “Poetical Works,” ed.

-Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916). p. 943.

-

-[60] For a detailed description of the stock diction of English

-“Classical” poetry, see especially Myra Reynolds, “Nature in English

-Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1912), to which the foregoing

-remarks are indebted.

-

-[61] “Essay on Criticism,” I, l. 350 foll.

-

-[62] “Essay on Men and Manners” (Works, 1764), Vol. II.

-

-[63] “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.

-

-[64] Bysshe, “Art of Poetry,” Third Edition (1708), Chap. I, par. 1

-(quoted by Saintsbury, “Loci Critici,” 1903, p. 174).

-

-[65] To the Rev. John Newton, December 10, 1785 (Wright, _op. cit._, Vol.

-II, pp. 404-406).

-

-[66] _Vide_ Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin (1889), Vol. V., p. 166.

-

-[67] Philips has large supplies of the poetical stock-in-trade. He speaks

-of “honeysuckles of a _purple_ dye,” and anticipates Gray in his couplet,

-

-    Like woodland Flowers which paint the desert glades

-    And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades.

-

-                                                   (“The Fable of Thule”)

-

-(_Vide_ “Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. IX, 384-407.)

-

-[68] But, as de Selincourt points out in “Poems of John Keats” (1905,

-Appendix C, p. 580), it is only the excessive and unnatural use of these

-adjectives that calls for censure.

-

-[69] Especially in the case of compound epithets. Cf. Earle, “Philology

-of the English Tongue,” p. 601, for examples from the works of the poets

-from Shakespeare to Tennyson. For Shakespeare’s use of this form, see

-Schmidt, “Shakespeare Lexicon,” Vol. II, pp. 147 foll. (2nd Ed., London

-and Berlin, 1886).

-

-[70] But compare “Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (p. 249), where it is justly

-pointed out that not a few of these circuitous phrases are justified by

-“considerations of dramatic propriety.”

-

-[71] Cf. Raleigh, “Milton,” _op. cit._, pp. 252-3.

-

-[72] “Spring,” ll. 478 foll.

-

-[73] In “Summer,” Thomson had first used _feathery race_ which was later

-amended into _tuneful race_—apparently the best improvement he could

-think of!

-

-[74] For a detailed study of Thomson’s diction, see especially Leon

-Morel, “James Thomson. Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres” (Paris, 1895), Chap. IV, pp.

-412 foll.

-

-[75] To Mason, January 13, 1758 (“Letters of Gray,” ed. Tovey, Vol. II,

-pp. 13-14).

-

-[76] _Vide_ “The Poems of Chatterton, with an Essay on the Rowley Poems,”

-by W. W. Skeat (1871).

-

-[77] Canto III, 652 foll.

-

-[78] “A Paladin of Philanthropy” (1899), p. 59 (quoted by Courthope,

-“History English Poetry,” V, 216).

-

-[79] But cf. Courthope, “History English Poetry” (1910), Vol. V, p. 218.

-

-[80] Arthur Symons, “William Blake” (1907), p. 39.

-

-[81] To Mrs. Butts: “Poetical Works,” ed. Sampson (Oxford, 1914), p. 187.

-

-[82] “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, p. 16. (Oxford, 1907.)

-

-[83] Cf. “Letters,” to Samuel Rose, December 13, 1787: “Correspondence”

-arranged by W. Wright (1904), Vol. III, p. 190. To C. Rowley, February

-21, 1788, _ibid._, pp. 231 foll.

-

-[84] E.g. Charles Wesley’s “Wrestling Jacob,” or Watts’s “When I Survey

-the Wondrous Cross.”

-

-[85] _Vide_ Courthope, _op. cit._, Book V, Ch. XI; and cp. the confident

-and just claims put forward by John Wesley himself on behalf of the

-language of the hymns, in his “Preface to the Collection of Hymns for the

-Use of the People called Methodists,” 1780.

-

-[86] Cf. Coleridge “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, _op. cit._, p.

-11.

-

-[87] _Vide_ especially the dialogue with a Bookseller on the language of

-poetry.

-

-[88] In both the first and the final forms “Poetical Works,” ed.

-Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916) Appendix, pp. 592 foll.

-

-[89] For a detailed account see E. Legouis, “La Jeunesse de Wordsworth”

-(English translation, 1897; Revised edition, 1921).

-

-[90] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, Intro., pp.

-lv foll.

-

-[91] Both the Fletchers also used many other latinized forms found before

-their time, and which in some cases they probably took direct from

-Spenser.

-

-[92] E.g. by Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. III, p.

-339, where a list is given (“only a few of the examples”) of Milton’s

-“coinages” and “creations.” Of this list only some half dozen (according

-to the N.E.D.) owe their first literary appearance to Milton.

-

-[93] E.g. _debel_, _disglorified_, _conglobe_, _illaudable_, etc., date

-from the sixteenth century; _Battailous_ goes back to Wycliff (N.E.D.).

-

-[94] Cf.“Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (1915), pp. 247 foll.

-

-[95] _Vide_ Masson, “Milton’s Poetical Works,” Vol. III, pp. 77-78

-(1890-).

-

-[96] Similarly the “Virgil” translation has, e.g., _in a round error_ for

-“wandering round and round,” etc.

-

-[97] That it could easily become absurd was not unperceived in the

-eighteenth century. Vide Leonard Welsted: “Epistle to Mr. Pope,” May,

-1730 (“Works in Verse and Prose,” London, 1787, p. 141).

-

-[98] _Vide_ “Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,” ed. Myra Reynolds,

-pp. 210-213 (Chicago, 1903).

-

-[99] _Vide_ “Complete Poetical Works,” edited J. L. Robertson (Oxford,

-1908), which includes a variorum edition of “The Seasons.”

-

-[100] “Poetical Epistle to Mr. Thomson on the First Edition of his

-‘Seasons’” (P.G.B., Vol. VIII, p. 504).

-

-[101] “Letter to Mallett,” August 11, 1726.

-

-[102] Cp. Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 419-424.

-

-[103] E.g. ll. 766 foll., 828 foll., 881 foll.

-

-[104] Cp. also ll. 126 foll.; 711 foll.

-

-[105] Cp. also the respective versions of “Autumn,” ll. 748 and 962.

-

-[106] Cp. also “Summer,” ll. 353, 376, 648; “Autumn,” ll. 349, 894-895.

-

-[107] Cp. “Milton,” Raleigh, _op. cit._, pp. 252-3.

-

-[108] One of the most noteworthy is the constant employment of adjectives

-as adverbs in opposition (e.g., “the grand etherial bow, Shoots up

-_immense_”) a device used both by Milton and Pope, but by neither with

-anything like the freedom seen in “The Seasons.”

-

-[109] Cf. Chapter VI, _infra._

-

-[110] In the “Essay Supplementary to the Preface,” Hutchinson, _op.

-cit._, p. 949.

-

-[111] That Young’s readers and even his editors were occasionally puzzled

-is seen by the history of the term “concertion.” This was the spelling

-of the first and most of the subsequent editions, including that of

-1787, where the Glossary explains it as meaning “contrivance.” But some

-editions (e.g. 1751) have “consertion,” and some, according to Richardson

-(“New Dictionary,” 1836), have “conception.”

-

-[112] Armstrong’s “gelid cistern” for “cold bath” has perhaps gained the

-honour of an unidentified quotation.

-

-[113] _Vacant_ in the oft-quoted line from “The Deserted Village” (“The

-loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind”), where the word is used in its

-Latin sense of “free from care.”

-

-[114] As in the case of Milton, Cowper’s latinized words appear to have

-been floating about for a considerable period, though in most cases their

-first poetic use is apparently due to him.

-

-[115] Cp. also III, 229, 414; IV, 494.

-

-[116] Apparently after he had done some pruning amongst them (_vide_

-“Letter” to Joseph Hill, March 29, 1793, Wright, _op. cit._, Vol. IV,

-p. 390), and compare his footnote to the “Iliad,” VII, 359, where he

-apologizes for his coinage _purpureal_.

-

-[117] For an account of the parallelism between certain of the eighteenth

-century stock epithets and various words and phrases from the Latin

-poets, especially Virgil (e.g. “hollow” and “_cavus_”: “liquid fountain”

-and _liquidi fontes_), see Myra Reynolds, “Nature in English Poetry from

-Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1909), pp. 46-49.

-

-[118] Cf. Some apt remarks by Raleigh, “Milton,” _op. cit._, pp. 247 and

-255.

-

-[119] Cp. Saintsbury, “History of Literary Criticism” (1900-1904), Vol.

-II, p. 479, note 1.

-

-[120] Cp. Elton, “Survey of English Literature,” 1830-1880 (1920), Vol.

-II, p. 17, remarks on Rossetti’s diction.

-

-[121] Cp. also Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 423-424.

-

-[122] _Vide_ Lounsbury, “Studies in Chaucer” (1892), Vol. III.

-

-[123] “Scrannel” is either Milton’s coinage or a borrowing from some

-dialect (N.E.D.).

-

-[124] This of course is used by many later writers, and was perhaps not

-regarded in Dryden’s time as an archaism.

-

-[125] “New English Dictionary.”

-

-[126] “Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. X, p. 120.

-

-[127] The prevailing ignorance of earlier English is illustrated in that

-stanza by Pope’s explanation of the expression “mister wight,” which he

-had taken from Spenser, as “uncouth mortal.”

-

-[128] “The Works of Mr. Edmund Spenser, in 6 Vols. with a glossary

-explaining the old and obscure words. Published by Mr. Hughes, London.”

-

-[129] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 115-140.

-

-[130] As in Prior’s “Susanna and the Two Elders” and “Erle Robert’s Mice”

-(1712).

-

-[131] “Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser,” 1754.

-

-[132] “An Answer to the Sompner’s Prologue in Chaucer,” printed anon, in

-“Lintott’s Miscellany,” entitled “Poems on Several Occasions” (1717), p.

-147.

-

-[133] “A Tale Devised in the Plesaunt manere of Gentil Maister Jeoffrey

-Chaucer” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. VII, p. 674).

-

-[134] “Poems on Several Occasions,” by the Rev. Thomas Warton, 1748, p.

-30.

-

-[135] “Poems on Several Occasions,” London, 1711, pp. 203-223.

-

-[136] _Vide_ List given by Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English

-Romantic Movement” (1899), Appendix I, p. 175; and cf. an exhaustive

-list, including complete glossaries, given in “Das Altertümliche im

-Wortschatz der Spenser-Nachahmungen des 18 Jahrhunderts,” by Karl Reining

-(Strassburg, 1912).

-

-[137] E.g. Robert Lloyd, 1733-1764, in his “Progress of Envy” (Anderson,

-Vol. V), defines _wimpled_ as “hung down”; “The Squire of Dames,” by

-Moses Mendez (1700-1738) has many old words (“benty,” etc.), which are

-often open to the suspicion of being manufactured archaisms.

-

-[138] _Vide_ his letter to Graves, June, 1742.—“Works,” Vol. III, p. 63

-(1769).

-

-[139] “Poems on Several Occasions,” by William Thompson, M.A., etc.,

-Oxford, 1757, pp. 1-13.

-

-[140] _Ibid._, pp. 58-68.

-

-[141] “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper,” by Dr.

-Samuel Johnson, 21 Vols. (London, 1810), Vol. XV, p. 32.

-

-[142] Thompson has taken this wrong meaning direct with the word itself

-from Spenser, “Shepherds Kalendar,” April, l. 26, where _glen_ is glossed

-by E.K. as “a country hamlet or borough.”

-

-[143] Cp. Joseph Warton’s “Essay on Pope,” Vol. I, p. 366 (4th edition,

-1782). Wordsworth, too, as we know, called it a “fine poem” and praised

-it for its harmonious verse and pure diction, but we may imagine that

-he was praising it for its own sake without regard to its merits as a

-Spenserian imitation (_vide_ Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 949).

-

-[144] There are at least forty stanzas in the First Canto, without a

-single archaic form, and an equal proportion in Canto Two: Cf. Morel,

-_op. cit._, pp. 629-630.

-

-[145] “The letter _y_,” he naïvely says in his “Glossary,” “is frequently

-placed at the beginning of a word by Spenser, to lengthen it a syllable,

-and _en_ at the end of a word, for the same reason.”

-

-[146] Thompson seems to have been the first to use the word _bicker_ as

-applied to running water, an application which was later to receive the

-sanction of Scott and Tennyson (N.E.D.).

-

-[147] Among the last examples was Beattie’s “Minstrel” (1771-74), which

-occasioned some of Gray’s dicta on the use of archaic and obsolete words.

-

-[148] Spenserian “forgeries” had also made their appearance as early as

-in 1713, when Samuel Croxall had attempted to pass off two Cantos as the

-original work of “England’s Arch-Poet, Spenser” (2nd edition, London,

-1714). In 1747, John Upton made a similar attempt, though probably in

-neither case were the discoveries intended to be taken seriously.

-

-[149] See Phelps, _op. cit._, Chap. VIII, and Grace R. Trenery, “Ballad

-Collections of the Eighteenth Century,” “Modern Language Review,” July,

-1915, pp. 283 foll.

-

-[150] _Vide_ “Preface to A Collection of Old Ballads,” 3 vols. (1723-52),

-and cf. Benjamin Wakefield’s “Warbling Muses” (1749), Preface.

-

-[151] Yet thirty years later the collections of Joseph Ritson, the last

-and best of the eighteenth century editors, failed to win acceptance.

-His strictly accurate versions of the old songs and ballads were

-contemptuously dismissed by the “Gentleman’s Magazine” (August, 1790) as

-“the compilation of a peevish antiquary.”

-

-[152] “Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript,” edited Furnivall and Hales, 4

-vols. (1867-68).

-

-[153] _Vide_ Henry A. Beers, “A History of English Romanticism in the

-Eighteenth Century,” 1899, Chap. VIII, pp. 298-302.

-

-[154] Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 950.

-

-[155] “Chatterton—Poetical Works,” with an Essay on the Rowley Poems,

-by W. W. Skeat, and a memoir by Bell (2 vols., 1871-1875); and _vide_

-Tyrwhitt, “Poems supposed to have been written at Bristol by Thomas

-Rowley and others in the fifteenth century” (London, 1777).

-

-[156] _Vide_ Oswald Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason” (1922),

-p. 251.

-

-[157] _Vide_ John Sampson, “The Poetical Works of William Blake” (Oxford,

-1905), Preface, viii.

-

-[158] Until the middle of the eighteenth century the form _glen_ occurs

-in English writers only as an echo of Spenser (N.E.D.).

-

-[159] _Vide_ “The Dialect of Robert Burns,” by Sir James Wilson

-(Oxford Press, 1923), and for happy instances of beautiful words still

-lingering on in the Scots dialects, _vide_ especially “The Roxburghshire

-Word-Book,” by George Watson (Cambridge, 1923).

-

-[160] Sweet, “New English Grammar” (1892), Part II, pp. 208-212, and

-Skeat, “Principles of English Etymology” (1887), Part I, pp. 418-420.

-

-[161] The first literary appearance of each compound has been checked

-as far as possible by reference to the “New English Dictionary.” It is

-hardly necessary to say that the fact of a compound being assigned, as

-regards its first appearance, to any individual writer, is not in itself

-evidence that he himself invented the new formation, or even introduced

-it into literature. But in many cases, either from the nature of the

-compound itself, or from some other internal or external evidence, the

-assumption may be made.

-

-[162] Cp. Sweet, _op. cit._, p. 449.

-

-[163] In the “Beowulf” there are twenty-three compounds meaning “Ocean,”

-twelve meaning “Ship,” and eighteen meaning “Sword” (_vide_ Emerson,

-“Outline History of the English Language,” 1906, p. 121).

-

-[164] Cp. Champney’s “History of English” (1893), p. 192 and Note; and

-Lounsbury, “History of the English Language” (1909), p. 109.

-

-[165] Cp. Sidney’s remarks in the “Defence of Poesie—Elizabethan Critical

-Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, p. 204.

-

-[166] E.g. Spenser’s “_sea-shouldering_ whales” (an epithet that

-especially pleased Keats), Nashe’s “_sky-bred_ chirpers,” Marlowe’s

-“_gold-fingered_ Ind,” Shakespeare’s “_fancy-free_,” “_forest-born_,”

-“_cloud-capt_,” etc.

-

-[167] Dryden, “English Men of Letters” (1906), p. 76.

-

-[168] Pope’s “Homer,” ed. Buckley, Preface, p. xli.

-

-[169] _Ibid._, p. 47; and cp. Coleridge, “Biographia Literaria,” ed.

-Shawcross (Oxford, 1907), Vol. I, p. 2, Footnote.

-

-[170] Here it may be noted that many of Pope’s compounds in his “Homer”

-have no warrant in the original; they are in most cases supplied by Pope

-himself, to “pad out” his verses, or, more rarely, as paraphrases of

-Greek words or phrases.

-

-[171] Shawcross, _op. cit._, p. 2, Footnote.

-

-[172] “Lives” ed. Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, p. 298.

-

-[173] _Vide_ Leon Morel, _op. cit._, Ch. IV, pp. 412 foll., for a

-detailed examination of Thomson’s compound formations.

-

-[174] It would appear that this epithet had particularly caught the

-fancy of Collins. He uses it also in the “Ode on the Manners,” this time

-figuratively, when he writes of “_dim-discovered_ tracts of mind.”

-

-[175] “Works,” _op. cit._, Vol. IV, p. 203. In point of fact, there is

-little or no evidence in favour of it. Even the Spenserian imitations

-that flourished exceedingly at this time have little interest in this

-respect. Shenstone has very few instances of compounds, but the poems

-of William Thompson furnish a few examples: “_honey-trickling_ streams”

-(“Sickness,” Bk. I), “_Lily-mantled_ meads” (_ibid._), etc. Gilbert

-West’s Spenserian poems have no instances of any special merit; but

-a verse of his Pindar shows that he was not without a gift for happy

-composition: “The _billow-beaten_ side of the _foam-besilvered_ main.”

-

-[176] “Letters,” Vol. III, p. 97.

-

-[177] Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, p. 437.

-

-[178] _Ibid._, p. 434.

-

-[179] _Vide_ Edmund Gosse, “Two Pioneers of Romanticism” (Warton

-Lecture), 1915.

-

-[180] It is a coincidence to find that the N.E.D. assigns the first use

-of the compound _furze-clad_ to Wordsworth.

-

-[181] Bell’s “Fugitive Poets” (London, 1789), Vol. VI.

-

-[182] Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. XI.

-

-[183] Bell, _op. cit._

-

-[184] Anderson, _op. cit._

-

-[185] “British Poets,” Vol. X.

-

-[186] _Ibid._, Vol. XI, Pt. I.

-

-[187] _Ibid._, Pt. II.

-

-[188] “British Poets,” Vol. XI, Pt. II.

-

-[189] _Vide_ Legouis, _op. cit._ (English translation, 1897), pp. 133

-foll.

-

-[190] Shawcross, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 2, Note.

-

-[191] See, e.g., de Selincourt’s remarks on Keats’ compound epithets;

-“Poems” (1904), Appendix C, p. 581.

-

-[192] “Biog. Lit.,” _op. cit._, and cp. “Poetical Works,” ed. Dykes

-Campbell, Appendix K, p. 540.

-

-[193] “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.

-

-[194] “History of English Prosody,” _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 480; and cp.

-_ibid._, p. 496.

-

-[195] Prefaces, “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916), p. 936.

-

-[196] _Vide_ Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. I, Chap.

-IX, for an account of mediaeval allegory and personification.

-

-[197] E.g. “Palamon,” II, 480, 564, 565; Æneas XII, 505-506.

-

-[198] “Black Melancholy” (ll. 163-168) and “Hope” (l. 278), the former of

-which especially pleased Joseph Warton (“Essay on Pope”: Works, Vol. I,

-p. 314).

-

-[199] Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 209.

-

-[200] Cf. “Suicide” (Canto II, 194-250).

-

-[201] Cf. also Bk. I, ll. 10, 11; 548, etc.

-

-[202] Especially in Book III of “The Duellist,” where the reader is

-baffled and wearied by the unending array of bloodless abstractions.

-

-[203] It may be noted incidentally that, according to the “New English

-Dictionary,” the term _personification_ owes its first literary

-appearance to the famous “Dictionary” of 1755, where it is thus defined,

-and (appropriately enough) illustrated: “_Prosopopeia_, the change of

-things to persons, as ‘Confusion heard his voice.’”

-

-[204] Phelps, _op. cit._, pp. 37-38.

-

-[205] “Letter” to Mallet, August 11, 1726: “I thank you heartily for your

-hint about personizing of Inspiration: it strikes me.”

-

-[206] Cf. also “Winter,” 794 and “Autumn,” 143.

-

-[207] For some happy instances of its use in English poetry, as well

-as for a detailed account of Thomson’s use of personification, see

-especially Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 444-455.

-

-[208] Poets of Great Britain (1793), Vol. IX, p. 414.

-

-[209] “British Poets,” Vol. XXII (1822), p. 117.

-

-[210] “A Collection of Poems by several hands,” 3 vols., 1748; 2nd

-edition, with Vol. IV, 1749; Vol. V and VI, 1758; Pearch’s continuations,

-Vol. VII and VIII, 1768, and Vol. IX and X, 1770.

-

-[211] “Dodsley” (1770 ed.), Vol. IV, p. 50.

-

-[212] _Ibid._, VI, 148.

-

-[213] “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 5.

-

-[214] _Vide_ also Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry” (1791). Vol. XI, where there

-is a section devoted to “Poems in the manner of Milton.”

-

-[215] “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 269.

-

-[216] At the same time there appeared a similar volume of the Odes of

-William Collins, “Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric Subjects,”

-the original intention having been to publish in one volume. Collins’s

-collection had a lukewarm reception, so that the author soon burned the

-unsold copies. But see Articles in “The Times Literary Supplement,”

-January 5th (p. 5) and January 12, 1922 (p. 28), by Mr. H. O. White,

-on “William Collins and his Contemporary Critics,” from which it would

-appear that the Odes were not received with such indifference as is

-commonly believed.

-

-[217] Cf. “Pope’s Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V, p. 365.

-

-[218] _Vide_ also “The Triumph of Isis” (1749), and “The Monody written

-near Stratford-on-Avon.” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. XI, pp.

-1061-4.)

-

-[219] Cf. Gosse, “A History of Eighteenth Century Literature” (1889), p.

-233.

-

-[220] Cf. Courthope, “Hist. Engl. Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 397-8.

-

-[221] “Lives,” ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 341.

-

-[222] “On Lyric Poetry—Poetical Works,” ed. Mitford (Aldine, ed. 1896),

-Vol. II, p. 147.

-

-[223] In the Aldine edition, ed. Thomas (1901) these personified

-abstractions are not invested with a capital letter.

-

-[224] “Biographia Literaria” (ed. Shawcross, 1907), p. 12; cf. also

-“Table Talk” (October 23, 1833), ed. H. N. Coleridge (1858), p. 340.

-“Gray’s personifications,” he said, “were mere printer’s devil’s

-personifications,” etc.

-

-[225] Two of Gray’s mechanical figures were marked down for special

-censure by Dr. Johnson (“Lives,” Gray, ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p.

-440), whose criticism was endorsed by Walpole (“Letters,” Vol. III, p.

-98), who likened “Fell Thirst and Famine” to the devils in “The Tempest”

-who whisk away the banquets from the shipwrecked Dukes.

-

-[226] “Letters” (December 19, 1786), Tovey, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 322.

-

-[227] In this connexion mention may be made of “William Blake’s Designs

-for Gray’s Poems,” recently published for the first time with a valuable

-introduction by H. J. C. Grierson (Oxford, 1922). “Blake’s imagination,”

-says Professor Grierson, “communicates an intenser life to Gray’s

-half-conventional personifications” (Intro., p. 17).

-

-[228] Canto I: LXXIV-LXXV.

-

-[229] Cp. also the detailed personification of “Thrift,” given by Mickle

-in his “Syr Martyn” (1787).—“Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. XI, p.

-645.

-

-[230] Cf. “Paradise Lost,” VI, 3; and Pope’s “Iliad,” V, 297.

-

-[231] “Works” ed. Ellis and Yeats, Vol. I, Pref., x.

-

-[232] July 6, 1803, “Letters,” ed. A. G. B. Russell (1906), p. 121.

-

-[233] In the parallel verses of “The Songs of Experience” the human

-attributes are attributed respectively to _Cruelty_, _Jealousy_,

-_Terror_, and _Secrecy_.

-

-[234] “Poetical Works,” ed. John Sampson (Oxford), 1914, p. 187.

-

-[235] _Vide_, e.g., ll. 18-26.

-

-[236] See also, e.g., “Midnight,” l. 272 foll, and l. 410 foll.

-

-[237] A similar type of abstraction is found here and there in the

-stanzas of the “Song to David” (1763), e.g.:

-

-    ’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned

-    And heavenly melancholy tuned

-        To bless and bear the rest.

-

-But on the whole Smart’s famous poem is singularly free from the bane,

-though the “Hymn to the Supreme Being” (_vide_ “A Song to David,” edited

-Tutin (1904), Appendix, p. 32), has not escaped the contagion. But better

-instances are to be found in the Odes (“Works,” 1761-1762), e.g., “Strong

-Labour ... with his pipe in his mouth,” “Health from his Cottage of

-thatch,” etc. _Vide_ also article on “Christopher Smart,” “Times Literary

-Supplement,” April 6, 1922, p. 224.

-

-[238] Cf. “Poems of William Cowper,” ed. J. C. Bailey (1905), Intro., p.

-xl.

-

-[239] There are faint personifications of the other seasons in Book

-III, ll. 427 foll., but none perhaps as effective as William Mickle had

-already given in his ode, “Vicissitude,” where he depicts Winter staying:

-

-          his creeping steps to pause

-    And wishful turns his icy eyes

-    On April meads.

-

-[240] _Streaky_, for instance, is due to Thomson who, in the first draft

-of “Summer” (ll. 47-48) had written:

-

-    Mildly elucent in the streaky east,

-

-later changed to

-

-    At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.

-

-[241] “Letters,” edited E. Coleridge, 1895, p. 215.

-

-[242] “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. I.

-

-[243] The ridicule was crystallized in Canning’s famous parody, “The

-Loves of the Triangles,” which appeared in “The Anti-Jacobin,” Nos. 23,

-24 and 26, April to May, 1798. (_Vide_ “The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin,”

-edited C. Edmonds, 1854, 3rd edition, 1890.)

-

-[244] “The Botanic Garden” (4th edition, 1799), Interlude I, Vol. II, p.

-64. Cp. also _ibid._, Interlude III, p. 182 foll.

-

-[245] For details see Legouis, _op. cit._

-

-[246] Both the original and the final versions of the “Evening Walk” and

-the “Descriptive Sketches” are given by Hutchinson, _op. cit._, Appendix,

-pp. 592, 601.

-

-[247] But the artistic possibilities of Personification were not

-unrecognized by writers and critics in the eighteenth century. _Vide_

-Blair’s lecture on “Personification” (“Lectures on Rhetoric”) 9th

-edition, 1803; Lec. XVI, p. 375.

-

-[248] “The Stones of Venice” (1851), Vol. II, Chap. VIII, pp. 312

-foll.—The Ducal Palace, “Personification is, in some sort, the reverse

-of symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of

-a great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign ... and it is almost

-always employed by men in their most serious moods of faith, rarely in

-recreation.... But Personification is the bestowing of a human or living

-form upon an abstract idea; it is in most cases, a mere recreation of

-the fancy, and is apt to disturb the belief in the reality of the thing

-personified.”

-

-[249] For an illuminating analysis, see Elton, “A Survey of English

-Literature,” 1780-1830 (1912), pp. 1-29.

-

-[250] “Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise,” Vol. IV, pp. 175-178.

-

-[251] Cf. Coleridge’s remarks in “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross,

-Chap. I (Oxford, 1907).

-

-[252] Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 211.

-

-[253] “Sleep and Poetry,” ll. 188-201.

-

-[254] Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 948.

-

-[255] “Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. X, p. 709.

-

-[256] Cf. “Works” (1889), ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V., p. 360-364.

-

-[257] George Saintsbury, “Eighteenth Century Poetry” (“The London

-Mercury,” December, 1919, pp. 155-163); an article in which a great

-authority once again tilts an effective lance on behalf of the despised

-Augustans.

-

-[258] The best of them have been garnered by Mr. Iola A. Williams into

-a little volume, “By-ways Round Helicon” (London, 1922), where the

-interested reader may browse with much pleasure and profit, and where he

-will no doubt find not a little to surprise and delight him. For a still

-more complete anthology, _vide_ “The Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth

-Century” (1923) by the same editor. But for the devil’s advocacy see

-Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason” (London, 1922)

-

-[259] The fountain head of all such studies is, of course, the

-“Biographia Literaria,” for which see especially Shawcross’s edition,

-1907, Vol. II, pp. 287-297. Of recent general treatises, Lascelles

-Abercrombie, “Poetry and Contemporary Speech” (1914); Vernon Lee,

-“The Handling of Words” (1923); Ogden and Richards, “The Meaning of

-Meaning”(1923), may be mentioned.

-

-[260] Elton, “Survey of English Literature” (1780-1830), Vol. II, pp. 88

-foll.

-

-[261] Cf. Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1899), p. 209.

-

-[262] “The Legacy of Greece” (Oxford, 1921), p. 11.

-

-[263] “Convention and Revolt in Poetry” (London, 1921), p. 13.

-

-[264] Just as this book was about to go to press, there appeared “The

-Theory of Poetry,” by Professor Lascelles Abercrombie, in which a poet

-and critic of great distinction has embodied his thoughts on his own art.

-Chaps. III and IV especially should be consulted for a most valuable

-account and analysis of how the poetical “magic” of words is achieved.

-

-[265] “Essays in Criticism,” Second Series (1888): “Wordsworth” (1913

-ed.), p. 157.

-

-[266] O. Barfield, “Form in Poetry” (“New Statesman” August 7, 1920, pp.

-501-2).

-

-[267] “Œuvres” (ed. Assézat), I, p. 377 (quoted by Babbitt), _op. cit._,

-p. 121.

-

-[268] Preface to “The Tales” (Poems), ed. A. W. Ward, (Cambridge, 1906),

-Vol. II, p. 10.

-

-

-

-

-INDEX

-

-

-  Abercrombie, Lascelles, 197 n., 201 n.

-

-  Addison, Joseph, 21

-

-  “Ælla” (T. Chatterton’s), 163

-

-  Akenside, Mark, 16, 27, 69-70, 138-9, 189, 195

-    Dr. Johnson’s criticism, 16

-    “Epistle to Curio,” 195

-    Latinism, 69-70

-    Personification, 138-9

-    “Pleasures of the Imagination,” 69

-

-  “Alma” (M. Prior’s), 75

-

-  “Amyntor and Theodora,” 142

-

-  “Anti-Jacobin, The,” 173 n.

-

-  “Approach of Summer, The,” 179

-

-  “Archaism,” 17-21, 80-101

-

-  Aristotle, 10-12, 185

-

-  Armstrong, John, 69-70, 110

-

-  Arnold, Matthew, 2, 41, 181, 198, 201

-

-  “Art of Preserving Health,” 69, 110

-

-

-  Babbitt, I., 13 n., 203 n.

-

-  Bailey, J. C., 169 n.

-

-  Ballads, 95-7, 196

-

-  Barfield, Owen, 202 n.

-

-  “Bastard, The,” 111

-

-  Beattie, James, 19, 93 n., 125

-

-  Beers, H. A., 97 n.

-

-  “Beowulf, The,” 104 n.

-

-  Binyon, Laurence, 13 n.

-

-  “Biographia Literaria,” 13 n., 24 n., 48 n., 51 n., 127 n., 156 n.,

-        173 n., 185 n.

-

-  “Birth of Flattery, The” (G. Crabbe’s), 168

-

-  Blair, Robert, 110, 176 n.

-

-  Blake, William, 28, 46-7, 77, 99, 124, 129, 136-59, 163-7, 179-80,

-        181, 187 n., 198, 202

-    Allegory and Vision, remarks on, 165

-    Artist, as, 136, 159 n.

-    Compounds, 124, 129

-    Felicity of diction, 46-7, 202

-    “Imitation of Spenser,” 47, 165

-    “Letters,” 47 n., 164 n., 187 n.

-    “Muses, To the,” 47

-    Mysticism, 164

-    Personifications, 163-7, 179-80

-    “Piper, The,” 202

-    “Songs of Experience,” 46, 165 n., 166

-    “Songs of Innocence,” 46, 165

-    Stock diction, 46-7

-

-  Blount, T., 93

-

-  Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” 16 n.

-

-  “Botanic Garden” (E. Darwin’s), 12, 51-2, 126, 173-5

-

-  Bowles, William Lisle, 48

-

-  Boyce, S., 162

-

-  Bruce, Michael, 122

-

-  Burns, Robert, 28, 100, 198

-

-  Bysshe, Edward, 30

-

-  “By-ways Round Helicon”, 195 n.

-

-

-  Campbell, Dykes, 128 n.

-

-  Canning, George, 139, 173 n.

-

-  Capell, Edward, 95-6

-

-  “Castaway, The,” 49, 170

-

-  “Castle of Indolence,” 90-2, 161

-

-  Chapman, George, 105

-

-  “Charge to the Poets” (W. Whitehead’s), 20 n.

-

-  “Chase, The” (W. Somerville’s), 68, 110, 142

-

-  Chatterton, Thomas, 19, 42-3, 97-8, 123-4, 162-3

-    Compounds, 123-4

-    Personifications, 162-3

-    “Rowley Poems,” 97-8

-    Stock diction, 42-3

-

-  Chaucer, Geoffrey, 26, 84-6, 133

-

-  Chaucerian imitations, 84-6

-

-  Chesterfield, Lord, 20

-

-  “Child of Quality, Lines to” (M. Prior’s), 195

-

-  “Choice, The” (J. Pomfret’s), 195

-

-  Churchill, John, 139-40, 169-70

-

-  Classical literature (connexion with romantic), 181-2

-

-  Coleridge, H. N., 156 n.

-

-  Coleridge, S. T., 1, 13, 24, 31, 32, 51, 100, 127-8, 156, 173, 182,

-        193, 204

-    Archaisms, 100

-    Compounds, 127-8

-    Darwin, E., remarks, on, 13, 173

-    Gray’s personifications, on, 156

-    Imagination, on, 13

-    “Letters,” 173 n.

-    Pope’s style, on, 24, 32, 193

-

-  Collins, William, 16, 40-1, 71, 98, 116-7, 129, 149, 150-5, 166, 167,

-        191, 196

-    Archaisms, 98

-    Compounds, 116-7, 129

-    Dr. Johnson’s criticisms of, 16, 40, 151

-    “Odes,” 149 n., 150-5

-    Personifications, 150-5, 166, 167, 178, 179, 191

-    Romantic forerunner, a, 196

-    Stock diction, 40-1

-

-  Compound epithets, 4, 102-31, 204

-

-  “Convention and Revolt in Poetry,” 200 n.

-

-  Courthope, W. J., 9 n., 17 n., 45 n., 50 n., 57 n., 133 n., 149 n.,

-        194 n.

-

-  Coventry, F., 147

-

-  Cowper, William, 20, 24, 31, 48-50, 73-4, 76, 126, 168-73

-    Archaism, on, 20

-    Compounds, 126

-    Familiar style, on the, 24

-    “Homer” translation, 48, 74, 126

-    Latinism, 73-5

-    “Letters,” 20 n., 48 n., 74 n.

-    “Olney Hymns,” 49, 169

-    Personifications, 169-73, 179

-    Stock diction, 48-9

-    “Table Talk,” 49

-    “Task, The,” 49, 73-4, 170-1

-

-  Crabbe, George, 50-1, 124-5, 167-8, 179, 195, 204

-    Compounds, 124-5

-    Dryden’s style, on, 204

-    Personifications, 167-8, 179

-    Stock diction, 50-1

-

-  Croxall, Samuel, 93 n.

-

-  Cunningham, John, 27, 189

-

-

-  Darwin, Erasmus, 12, 37, 51-2, 53, 120, 173-5

-

-  Davenant, Sir William, 21

-

-  Denham, Sir John, 15

-

-  Dennis, John, 11 n.

-

-  De Quincey, Thomas, 52

-

-  “Descriptive Sketches,” 52, 175, 176 n.

-

-  “Deserted Village, The,” 45-6, 111-2, 195

-

-  Diderot, Denis, 203

-

-  Dodsley, Robert, 147, 195

-

-  Doughty, Oswald, 98 n., 195 n.

-

-  Drayton, Michael, 107

-

-  Drinkwater, John, 9 n.

-

-  Dryden, John, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 26-7, 28, 30, 31,

-        32, 33, 36, 58-9, 81-2, 83, 105-6, 109, 134, 181, 194, 204

-    “Annus Mirabilis,” 8

-    Archaisms, 18, 81-2

-    Chaucer “translations,” 26-7

-    Compounds, 105-6

-    “Essays” and “Prefaces,” 7-11

-    “Hind and Panther,” 195

-    Language of poetry, on, 8-9

-    Latinism, 58-9

-    Periphrasis, use of, 28, 33

-    Personifications, 134

-    “Religio Laici,” 194

-    Royal Society, 7

-    Satire, 106, 140

-    Technical terms, on, 21

-

-  “Duellist, The” (Charles Churchill’s), 140 n.

-

-  Dyer, John, 39, 70, 109, 142, 188-9

-

-

-  Earle, J., 35 n.

-

-  “Economy of Vegetation,” 12, 126, 173-4

-

-  Edmonds, C., 173 n.

-

-  “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” 42, 72, 157, 159, 195, 198

-

-  “Eloisa to Abelard,” 134

-

-  Elton, Oliver, 10 n., 135 n., 182 n., 186 n., 197 n.

-

-  Emerson, O., 104 n.

-

-  “English Lyric in the Age of Reason,” 195

-

-  “Enthusiast, The,” 71, 121, 149

-

-  “Epistle to Curio” (M. Akenside’s), 195 n.

-

-  Epithalamium (W. Thompson’s), 160

-

-  “Essay on Criticism,” 9-10, 29 n., 195

-

-  “Eton College, Ode on a Distant View of,” 156

-

-  Evelyn, John, 7

-

-  “Evening, Ode to,” 41, 116, 155

-

-  “Evening Walk, The,” 52, 127, 175-6

-

-  “Excursion, The” (David Mallet’s), 142

-

-

-  “Faerie Queene,” 87, 94, 99, 133, 159-60, 192

-

-  Falconer, William, 22, 43-4

-

-  “Fleece, The,” (J. Dyer’s), 39, 70

-

-  Fletcher, Giles, 57

-

-  Fletcher, Phineas, 57

-

-  “Fugitive Poets” (Bell’s), 122, 147 n., 195

-

-  Furetière, Antoine, 5

-

-

-  Gay, John, 33, 109

-

-  Gibbon, Edward, 198

-

-  Glanvill, Joseph, 7

-

-  Goldsmith, Oliver, 14-15, 20, 44-6, 72, 111-2, 140-1, 195

-    Archaism, on, 20

-    Compounds, in, 117-8

-    Diction of poetry, on, 15

-    Latinism, 72-3

-    Personifications, 141-2, 179

-    Stock diction, 44-6

-

-  Graeme, James, 122

-

-  Grainger, James, 70, 110, 142

-

-  “Grave,” the (Robert Blair’s), 110

-

-  Gray, Thomas, 8, 16-17, 18-19, 21-2, 31, 41-2, 67, 71-2, 93 n., 98-9,

-        117-20, 146, 155-9, 177, 196

-    Archaisms, on, 18-19, 98-9

-    Coinages, on, 21

-    Compounds, 117-20

-    Diction of poetry, on, 8, 16-17

-    “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” 42, 72, 157, 159, 195, 198

-    Latinism, 71-2

-    Letters, 8 n., 16 n.

-    Personifications, 155-9, 177, 191

-    Plain colloquial style, 17, 195

-    Romantic forerunner, A, 150, 196

-    Stock diction, 41-2

-    Technical terms, on, 22

-

-  Grierson, H. J. C., 159 n.

-

-  “Grongar Hill,” 39, 109, 184, 188, 190

-

-

-  Hamilton, William (of Bangor), 146

-

-  Hill, G. B., 8 n., 15 n., 16 n., 23 n., 112 n., 151 n.

-

-  “Hind and Panther, The,” 195

-

-  “Horror, Ode to,” 148

-

-  Hughes, John, 83

-

-  Hume, David, 198

-

-  Hutchinson, T., 52 n., 68 n., 97 n., 132 n., 176 n.

-

-  “Hymn to May” (W. Thompson’s), 160

-

-

-  “Il Bellicoso,” 147

-

-  “Il Pacifico,” 147

-

-  “Il Penseroso,” 71, 176

-

-  “Inebriety,” 167

-

-

-  Jago, R., 122

-

-  Johnson, Dr., 15-16, 17, 19-20, 23, 31, 40-2, 44, 72-3, 111, 119,

-        140-1, 151, 159, 177, 179

-    Archaism, 19-20

-    Collins, on, 150, 151

-    Compounds, 111, 119-20

-    Diction, on, 15-16

-    “Dictionary,” 140 n.

-    Dryden, on, 8

-    Gray’s personifications, on, 156 n.

-    Latinism, 73

-    Personifications, 140-1, 177, 179

-    Pope’s style, on, 23, 31, 193

-    Satire, 139

-    Stock diction, 45

-

-  Jonson, Ben, 17-18

-

-

-  Keats, John, 126, 128, 129, 144, 187, 188, 192, 196, 203, 204

-

-  Ker, W. P., 7 n., 8 n., 9 n., 11 n., 18 n., 21 n.

-

-  Kersey, John, 97

-

-

-  “L’Allegro,” 162, 176

-

-  Langhorne, J., 122

-

-  Langland, William, 133

-

-  Latinism, 56-79, 191-2

-

-  Lee, Vernon, 197 n.

-

-  “Legacy of Greece, The,” 199

-

-  Legouis, E., 53 n., 127 n., 175 n.

-

-  Lessing’s “Laokoon,” 12 n.

-

-  Lloyd, Robert, 88 n.

-

-  “London” (Dr. Johnson’s), 111, 140-1

-

-  “Loves of the Plants” (E. Darwin’s), 12, 173

-

-  “Loves of the Triangles” (G. Canning’s), 173 n.

-

-  Lowes, Professor J. L., 200

-

-  “Lyrical Ballads,” 1, 2, 175

-

-  Lyttleton, G., 119

-

-

-  Maeterlinck, M., 200

-

-  Mallet, D., 110, 144 n., 142

-

-  Marlowe, Christopher, 105 n.

-

-  Marriott, Dr., 147

-

-  Mason, William, 86, 146-7

-

-  Masson, David, 58 n.

-

-  Mendez, Moses, 88, 122

-

-  Mickle, William, 93, 125, 162 n., 171 n.

-

-  Milton, John, 8, 33-6, 41, 57-8, 60, 61, 62, 66, 70, 71, 72, 76, 77,

-        81, 94, 107, 133, 136, 142, 146-7, 148, 149, 150, 176-7, 191-2

-    Archaism, 81, 94

-    Compound epithets, 105

-    Diction, 34-6, 57-8

-    Imitated in eighteenth century, 60-70, 76-7, 146-50, 191-2

-    Latinism, 57-8, 177

-    Personification, 133, 137, 142, 146-7, 176-7

-

-  “Monody written near Stratford-on-Avon,” 149 n.

-

-  Morel, Leon, 39 n., 63 n., 78 n., 91 n., 114 n., 145 n.

-

-  Murray, Gilbert, 199

-

-

-  Nashe, Thomas, 105 n.

-

-  Neo-classicism, 9-13, 53-4

-

-  “Night Thoughts” (E. Young’s), 28, 68-9, 136-8

-

-  “Nocturnal Reverie” (Countess of Winchilsea’s), 187

-

-

-  Old English Compounds, 104

-

-  “Ossian” poems, 19, 166

-

-

-  “Paradise Lost,” 34-6, 57-8, 76, 133, 136, 184

-

-  Parnell, Thomas, 135-6

-

-  “Passions, Ode to the,” 153

-

-  “Penshurst” (F. Coventry’s), 147

-

-  Percy, Bishop, 96-7

-

-  Personification and abstraction, 133-80, 190-1

-

-  Phelps, W. L., 142 n.

-

-  Philips, John, 37, 60-1, 86, 109, 142

-

-  “Pity, Ode to” (W. Collins’), 153

-

-  “Pleasures of the Imagination” (M. Akenside’s), 69, 138-9, 189

-

-  “Pleasures of Melancholy, The” (T. Warton’s), 71, 121

-

-  “Poetical Character, Ode on the” (W. Collins’s), 152

-

-  “Poetical Sketches” (W. Blake’s), 99, 167, 181

-

-  Pomfret, John, 195

-

-  Pope, Alexander, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21-2, 23-4,

-        25, 29, 31-4, 36-7, 40, 42, 45, 46, 48, 50, 54, 59-60, 67, 73,

-        81, 82-3, 85, 106-9, 111, 115, 130, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140,

-        183, 184, 185, 189, 193-4, 204

-    Archaism, 18, 82-3

-    Compounds, 21, 106-9

-    Diction, 33, 36-7

-    “Dunciad,” 18, 134

-    “Essay on Criticism,” 14, 29 n., 195

-    Heroic couplet, 29-30, 31-2

-    “Homer,” 2, 14, 17, 31-2, 40, 48, 184

-    Language of poetry, 9-10

-    Latinism, 59-60

-    Personifications, 134

-    Satire, 139, 140

-

-  Potter, R., 122

-

-  Prior, Matthew, 75, 87, 95, 195

-

-  “Progress of Error” (W. Cowper’s), 170

-

-  “Progress of Poetry” (Thomas Gray’s), 72

-

-  “Prolusions” (E. Capell’s), 95-6

-

-

-  Raleigh, Sir Walter, 35 n., 58 n., 66 n.

-

-  “Rape of the Lock,” 134

-

-  “Religio Laici,” 194

-

-  “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” 19, 96-7

-

-  Reynolds, Myra, 28 n., 61 n., 75 n.

-

-  Ritson, Joseph, 96 n.

-

-  Robertson, J. L., 6 n., 62

-

-  Rogers, Samuel, 125-6

-

-  Romanticism, connexion with classicism, 181-2

-

-  Rowley poems, 42-4, 97-8, 162-3

-

-  “Ruins of Rome” (J. Dyer’s), 109, 142

-

-  Ruskin, John, 180

-

-  Russell, A. J. B., 164 n.

-

-

-  Saintsbury, George, 29-30, 76 n., 106, 130, 131, 194 n.

-

-  Sampson, John, 47 n., 99 n., 165 n.

-

-  Savage, Richard, 75, 111, 136

-

-  Schmidt’s “Shakespeare Lexicon,” 35

-

-  “Schoolmistress, The,” 88-9, 161

-

-  Scott, John, 123

-

-  Scott, Sir Walter, 100, 192

-

-  “Seasons, The” (J. Thomson’s), 37-9, 62-8, 112-6, 142-6, 190, 196, 198

-

-  Selincourt, B. de, 35 n., 128 n.

-

-  Shakespeare, William, 35, 105 n., 129

-

-  Shawcross, T. (_see_ “Biographia Literaria”).

-

-  Shelley, P. B., 126, 178, 203, 204

-

-  Shenstone, W., 26, 29, 75, 88-9, 118 n., 161

-

-  “Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century,” 195 n.

-

-  Sidney, Sir Philip, 105 n.

-

-  Skeat, W. W., 43 n., 97, 98 n., 102 n.

-

-  Smart, Christopher, 169 n.

-

-  Smith, Gregory, 14 n., 18 n., 56 n.

-

-  Somerville, William, 110, 142

-

-  “Song to David,” 169 n.

-

-  Spence, Joseph, 12

-

-  Spenser, Edmund, 80-1, 105 n., 133, 159-60, 191, 192

-

-  Spenserian imitations, 18, 84, 86-94, 160-2, 178, 191, 192

-

-  Spingarn, J. E., 5 n., 6 n., 7 n.

-

-  Sprat, Thomas, 6, 7

-

-  Stock diction, The, 25-55, 183-7

-

-  “Stones of Venice, The” (J. Ruskin’s), 180 n.

-

-  “Storie of William Canynge,” 163

-

-  “Sugar Cane, The,” 70, 110, 142

-

-  Sweet, Henry, 102 n., 103 n.

-

-  Swift, Jonathan, 139

-

-  Symbolism, 13, 164, 179, 180

-

-  Symons, Arthur, 47 n.

-

-  “Syr Martin,” 93, 125, 162 n.

-

-

-  “Table Talk” (S. T. Coleridge’s), 156 n.

-

-  “Table Talk” (W. Cowper’s), 49, 170

-

-  Taine, H., 183

-

-  “Task, The” (W. Cowper’s), 49, 73-4, 170-1

-

-  Theory of diction, 5-24

-

-  Thomson, James, 37-9, 62-8, 76, 77, 78, 90-2, 94, 112-6, 131, 142-6,

-        161, 167, 179, 186, 188

-    “Castle of Indolence,” 90-2, 161

-    Compounds, 112-6, 131

-    Diction generally, 37, 67

-    Latinism, 62-8, 78, 192

-    Miltonic borrowings, 37, 66

-    Nature poet, a, 37, 78, 186

-    Personifications, 142-6, 161, 166, 178-9

-    Romantic forerunner, a, 196

-    “Seasons, The,” 37-9, 62-8, 112-6, 142-6, 190, 195, 196, 198

-    Stock diction, 37-8

-

-  Thompson, W., 61-2, 85, 89-90, 118 n.

-

-  “Tintern Abbey, Lines written above,” 131

-

-  “Traveller, The” (O. Goldsmith’s), 45, 72, 112, 141

-

-  Trenery, Grace R., 95 n.

-

-  “Triumph of Isis,” 149 n.

-

-  Tyrwhitt, Thomas, 86, 98 n.

-

-

-  Upton, John, 93 n.

-

-

-  “Vacation, The,” 147

-

-  “Vale Abbey, Lines written at” (T. Warton’s), 149

-

-  “Valetudinarian, The,” 147

-

-  “Vanity of Human Wishes,” 73, 111, 140-1, 195

-

-  “Village, The” (G. Crabbe’s), 167, 168, 195

-

-  “Vision of Patience” (S. Boyce’s), 162

-

-  “Vision of Solomon” (W. Whitehead’s), 162

-

-

-  Wakefield, Benjamin, 95 n.

-

-  Waller, Edmund, 15

-

-  Walpole, Horace, 119, 156 n.

-

-  “Wanderer, The” (R. Savage’s), 111, 136

-

-  Ward, A. W., 204 n.

-

-  Warton, Joseph, 21, 70-1, 121, 134, 148-9

-

-  Warton, Thomas, 71, 83, 84, 85, 86, 120-1, 149

-

-  Watson, George, 100 n.

-

-  Watts, Isaac, 49

-

-  Welsted, Leonard, 59 n.

-

-  Wesley, John, 49, 50, 198

-

-  Wesley, Charles, 49

-

-  West, Gilbert, 118 n.

-

-  White, Gilbert (of Selborne), 28

-

-  White, H. O., 148 n.

-

-  Whitehead, W., 20 n., 122, 162

-

-  Williams, I. O., 195 n.

-

-  Wilson, Sir James, 100 n.

-

-  Winchilsea, Anne, Countess of, 61, 109, 187-8

-

-  “Windsor Forest,” 134

-

-  Wordsworth, William, 1, 3, 13, 15, 24, 25, 27 n., 28, 31, 32, 33, 35,

-        36, 48, 51-3, 67, 68, 77, 79, 97, 115, 132, 175, 182, 185, 187,

-        189, 192, 193, 197, 201, 204

-    Archaism, 100

-    Compounds, 127

-    Darwin’s (Erasmus) influence, 52-4, 175

-    Latinism, 79, 192

-    Percy’s “Reliques,” on, 97

-    Personifications, 133, 175-6, 178, 180

-    Pope’s style, on, 24

-    “Prefaces,” 1, 53, 132, 182, 197, 204

-    “Prelude, The,” 184-5

-

-  Wyche, Sir Peter, 7

-

-

-  “Yardley Oak” (W. Cowper’s), 131, 172

-

-  Yeats, W. B., 164 n.

-

-  Young, Edward, 9 n., 28, 68-9, 136-8, 151

-

-

-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETIC DICTION ***

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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68420 ***
+
+POETIC DICTION
+
+
+
+
+                              POETIC DICTION
+
+                   A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VERSE
+
+                                    BY
+                              THOMAS QUAYLE
+
+                            METHUEN & CO. LTD.
+                           36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+                                 LONDON
+
+                        _First Published in 1924_
+
+                         PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+
+       I. THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON            1
+
+      II. THE THEORY OF DICTION                  5
+
+     III. THE “STOCK” DICTION                   25
+
+      IV. LATINISM                              56
+
+       V. ARCHAISM                              80
+
+      VI. COMPOUND EPITHETS                    102
+
+     VII. PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION      132
+
+    VIII. THE DICTION OF POETRY                181
+
+          INDEX                                207
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The studies on which this book is based were begun during my tenure of
+the “William Noble” Fellowship in English Literature at the University of
+Liverpool, and I wish to thank the members of the Fellowship Committee,
+and especially Professor Elton, under whom I had for two years the great
+privilege of working, for much valuable advice and criticism. I must also
+express my sincere obligation to the University for a generous grant
+towards the cost of publication.
+
+
+
+
+POETIC DICTION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON
+
+
+From the time of the publication of the first Preface to the “Lyrical
+Ballads” (1798) the poetical language of the eighteenth century, or
+rather of the so-called “classical” writers of the period, has been more
+or less under a cloud of suspicion. The condemnation which Wordsworth
+then passed upon it, and even the more rational and penetrating criticism
+which Coleridge later brought to his own analysis of the whole question
+of the language fit and proper for poetry, undoubtedly led in the
+course of the nineteenth century to a definite but uncritical tendency
+to disparage and underrate the entire poetic output of the period, not
+only of the Popian supremacy, but even of the interregnum, when the old
+order was slowly making way for the new. The Romantic rebels of course
+have nearly always received their meed of praise, but even in their
+case there is not seldom a suspicion of critical reservation, a sort
+of implied reproach that they ought to have done better than they did,
+and that they could and might have done so if they had reacted more
+violently against the poetic atmosphere of their age. In brief, what
+with the Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads” and its successive expansions
+at the beginning of the century, and what, some eighty years later,
+with Matthew Arnold’s calm description of the eighteenth century as
+an “age of prose and reason,” the poetry of that period, and not only
+the neo-classical portion of it, fared somewhat badly. There could be
+no better illustration of the influence and danger of labels and tags;
+“poetic diction,” and “age of prose and reason” tended to become a sort
+of critical legend or tradition, by means of which eighteenth century
+verse, alike at its highest and its lowest levels, could be safely and
+adequately understood and explained.
+
+Nowadays we are little likely to fall into the error of assuming that any
+one cut and dried formula, however pregnant and apt, could adequately
+sum up the literary aspects and characteristics of an entire age; the
+contributory and essential factors are too many, and often too elusive,
+for the tabloid method. And now that the poetry of the first half or
+so of the eighteenth century is in process of rehabilitation, and more
+than a few of its practitioners have even been allowed access to the
+slopes, at least, of Parnassus, it may perhaps be useful to examine, a
+little more closely than has hitherto been customary, one of the critical
+labels which, it would almost seem, has sometimes been taken as a sort of
+generic description of eighteenth century verse, as if “poetic diction”
+was something which suddenly sprang into being when Pope translated
+Homer, and had never been heard of before or since.
+
+This, of course, is to overstate the case, the more so as it can hardly
+be denied that there is much to be said for the other side. It may
+perhaps be put this way, by saying, at the risk of a laborious assertion
+of the obvious, that if poetry is to be written there must be a diction
+in which to write it—a diction which, whatever its relation to the
+language of contemporary speech or prose may be, is yet in many essential
+respects distinct and different from it, in that, even when it does not
+draw upon a special and peculiar word-power of its own, yet so uses or
+combines common speech as to heighten and intensify its possibilities of
+suggestion and evocation. If, therefore, we speak of the “poetic diction”
+of the eighteenth century, or of any portion of it, the reference ought
+to be, of course, to the whole body of language in which the poetry of
+that period is written, viewed as a medium, good, bad, or indifferent,
+for poetical expression. But this has rarely or never been the case;
+it is not too much to say that, thanks to Wordsworth’s attack and its
+subsequent reverberations, “poetic diction,” so far as the eighteenth
+century is concerned, has too often been taken to mean, “bad poetic
+diction,” and it has been in this sense indiscriminately applied to the
+whole poetic output of Pope and his school.
+
+In the present study it is hoped, by a careful examination of the poetry
+of the eighteenth century, by an analysis of the conditions and species
+of its diction, to arrive at some estimate of its value, of what was
+good and what was bad in it, of how far it was the outcome of the age
+which produced it, and how far a continuation of inherited tradition
+in poetic language, to what extent writers went back to their great
+predecessors in their search for a fresh vocabulary, and finally, to what
+extent the poets of the triumphant Romantic reaction, who had to fashion
+for themselves a new vehicle of expression, were indebted to their
+forerunners in the revolt, to those who had helped to prepare the way.
+
+It is proposed to make the study both a literary and a linguistic one. In
+the first place, the aim will be to show how the poetic language, which
+is usually labelled “the eighteenth century style,” was, in certain of
+its most pronounced aspects, a reflex of the literary conditions of its
+period; in the second place, the study will be a linguistic one, in that
+it will deal also with the words themselves. Here the attention will
+be directed to certain features characteristic of, though not peculiar
+to, the diction of the eighteenth century poetry—the use of Latinisms,
+of archaic and obsolete words, and of those compound words by means of
+which English poets from the time of the Elizabethans have added some of
+the happiest and most expressive epithets to the language; finally, the
+employment of abstractions and personifications will be discussed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE THEORY OF POETICAL DICTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+About the time when Dryden was beginning his literary career the
+preoccupation of men of letters with the language as a literary
+instrument was obvious enough. There was a decided movement toward
+simplicity in both prose and poetry, and, so far as the latter was
+concerned, it was in large measure an expression of the critical reaction
+against the “metaphysical” verse commonly associated with the names
+of Donne and his disciples. Furetière in his “Nouvelle Allegorique ou
+Histoire des dernier troubles arrivez au Royaume d’Eloquence,” published
+at Paris in 1658,[1] expresses the parallel struggle which had been
+raging amongst French poets and critics, and the allegory he presents may
+be taken to symbolize the general critical attitude in both countries.
+
+Rhetoric, Queen of the Realm of Eloquence, and her Prime Minister, Good
+Sense, are represented as threatened by innumerable foes. The troops of
+the Queen, marshalled in defence of the Academy, her citadel, are the
+accepted literary forms, Histories, Epics, Lyrics, Dramas, Romances,
+Letters, Sermons, Philosophical Treatises, Translations, Orations, and
+the like. Her enemies are the rhetorical figures and the perversions
+of style, Metaphors, Hyperboles, Similes, Descriptions, Comparisons,
+Allegories, Pedantries, Antitheses, Puns, Exaggerations, and a host
+of others. Ultimately the latter are defeated, and are in some cases
+banished, or else agree to serve as dependents in the realm of Eloquence.
+
+We may interpret the struggle thus allegorically expressed by saying that
+a new age, increasingly scientific and rational in its outlook, felt
+it was high time to analyze critically and accurately the traditional
+canons and ideals of form and matter that classical learning, since
+the Renaissance, had been able to impose upon literature. This is not
+to say that seventeenth century writers and critics suddenly decided
+that all the accepted standards were radically wrong, and should be
+thrown overboard; but some of them at least showed and expressed
+themselves dissatisfied, and, alongside of the unconscious and, as it
+were, instinctive changes that reflected the spirit of the age, there
+were deliberate efforts to re-fashion both the matter and the manner
+of literary expression, to give creative literature new laws and new
+ideals.[2]
+
+The movement towards purity and simplicity of expression received its
+first definite statement in Thomas Sprat’s “History of the Royal Society,
+1667.” One section of the History contains an account of the French
+Academy, and Sprat’s efforts were directed towards the formation of a
+similar body in England as an arbiter in matters of language and style.
+The ideal was to be the expression of “so many _things_ almost in an
+equal number of _words_.”[3] A Committee of the Royal Society, which
+included Dryden, Evelyn, and Sprat amongst its members, had already met
+in 1664, to discuss ways and means of “improving the English tongue,”
+and it was the discussions of this committee which had doubtless led up
+to Evelyn’s letter to Sir Peter Wyche, its chairman, in June 1665.[4]
+Evelyn there gives in detail his ideas of what an English academy,
+acting as arbiter in matters of vocabulary and style, might do towards
+purifying the language. Twenty-three years later Joseph Glanvill defined
+the new ideal briefly in a passage of his “Essay Concerning Preaching”:
+“Plainness is a character of great latitude and stands in opposition,
+First to _hard words_: Secondly, to _deep and mysterious notions_:
+Thirdly, to _affected Rhetorications_: and Fourthly, to _Phantastical
+Phrases_.”[5] In short, the ideal to be aimed at was the precise and
+definite language of experimental science, but the trend of the times
+tended to make it more and more that ideal of poetry also which was
+later to be summed up in Dryden’s definition of “wit” as a “propriety of
+thoughts and words.”[6]
+
+It is of some little interest perhaps to note that it is not until the
+end of the seventeenth century that the word _diction_ definitely takes
+on the sense which it now usually bears as a term of literary criticism.
+In the preface to “Sylvae, or The Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies”
+(1685), Dryden even seems to regard the term as not completely
+naturalized.[7] Moreover, the critics and poets of the eighteenth century
+were for the most part quite convinced that the special language of
+poetry had begun with Dryden. Johnson asserted this in his usual dogmatic
+fashion, and thus emphasized the doctrine, afterwards vigorously opposed
+by Wordsworth, that between the language of prose, and that proper to
+poetry, there is a sharp distinction. “There was therefore before the
+time of Dryden no poetical diction.... Those happy combinations of words
+which distinguished poetry from prose had been rarely attempted; we had
+few elegancies or flowers of speech.”[8] Gray moreover, while agreeing
+that English poetry had now a language of its own, declared in a letter
+to West that this special language was the creation of a long succession
+of English writers themselves, and especially of Shakespeare and Milton,
+to whom (he asserts) Pope and Dryden were greatly indebted.[9]
+
+It is not very difficult to understand Dryden’s own attitude, as
+laid down in the various Prefaces. He is quite ready to subscribe
+to the accepted neo-classical views on the language of poetry, but
+characteristically reserves for himself the right to reject them,
+or to take up a new line, if he thinks his own work, or that of his
+contemporaries, is likely to benefit thereby. Thus in the preface to
+“Annus Mirabilis” (1666) he boldly claims the liberty to coin words on
+Latin models, and to make use of technical details.[10] In his apology
+for “Heroic Poetry and Poetic License” (1677) prefixed to “The State of
+Innocence and Fall of Man,” his operatic “tagging” of “Paradise Lost,” he
+seems to lay down distinctly the principle that poetry demands a medium
+of its own, distinct from that of prose,[11] whilst towards the end of
+his literary career he reiterates his readiness to enrich his poetic
+language from any and every source, for “poetry requires ornament,” and
+he is therefore willing to “trade both with the living and the dead for
+the enrichment of our native language.”[12] But it is significant that at
+the same time he rejects the technical terms he had formerly advocated,
+apparently on the grounds that such terms would be unfamiliar to “men and
+ladies of the first quality.” Dryden has thus become more “classical,” in
+the sense that he has gone over or reverted to the school of “general”
+terms, which appeared to base its ideal of expression on the accepted
+language of cultured speakers and writers.[13]
+
+Toward the establishment of this principle of the pseudo-classical creed
+the theory and practice of Pope naturally contributed; indeed, it has
+been claimed that it was in large measure the result of the profound
+effect of the “Essay on Criticism,” or at least of the current of thought
+which it represents, on the taste of the age.[14] In the Essay, Pope,
+after duly enumerating the various “idols” of taste in poetical thought
+and diction, clearly states his own doctrine; as the poets’ aim was the
+teaching of “True Wit” or “Nature,” the language used must be universal
+and general, and neologisms must be regarded as heresies. For Pope, as
+for Dryden, universal and general language meant such as would appeal to
+the cultured society for whom he wrote,[15] and in his practice he thus
+reflected the traditional attitude towards the question of language as a
+vehicle of literary expression. A common “poetics” drawn and formulated
+by the classical scholars mainly (and often incorrectly) from Aristotle
+had established itself throughout Western Europe, and it professed to
+prescribe the true relation which should exist between form and matter,
+between the creative mind and the work of art.[16]
+
+The critical reaction against these traditional canons had, as we have
+noted, already begun, but Pope and his contemporaries are in the main
+supporters of the established order, in full agreement with its guiding
+principle that the imitation of “Nature” should be the chief aim and end
+of art. It is scarcely necessary to add that it was not “Nature” in the
+Wordsworthian sense that was thus to be “imitated”; sometimes, indeed,
+it is difficult to discover what was meant by the term. But for Pope and
+his followers we usually find it to mean man as he lives his life in this
+world, and the phrase to “imitate Nature” might thus have an ethical
+purpose, signifying the moral “improvement” of man.
+
+But to appreciate the full significance of this “doctrine,” and its
+eighteenth century interpretation, it is necessary to glance at the
+Aristotelian canon in which it had its origin. For Aristotle poetry
+was an objective “imitation” with a definite plan or purpose, of human
+actions, not as they are, but as they ought to be. The ultimate aim,
+then, according to the _Poetics_, is ideal truth, stripped of the local
+and the accidental; Nature is to be improved upon with means drawn from
+Nature herself. This theory, as extracted and interpreted by the Italian
+and French critics of the Renaissance, was early twisted into a notion
+of poetry as an agreeable falsity, and by the end of the seventeenth
+century it had come to mean, especially with the French, the imitation
+of a selected and embellished Nature, not directly, but rather through
+the medium of those great writers of antiquity, such as Homer and Virgil,
+whose works provided the received and recognized models of idealized
+nature.[17]
+
+As a corollary to this interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of
+ideal imitation, there appeared a tendency to ignore more and more the
+element of personal feeling in poetry,[18] and to concentrate attention
+on the formal elements of the art. This tendency, reinforced by the
+authority of the Horatian tag, _ut pictura poesis_ (“as is painting, so
+is poetry”), led naturally, and in an ever-increasing degree, to the
+formal identification of poetry with painting. Critics became accustomed
+to discussing the elements in the art of writing that correspond to the
+other elements in pictorial art, such as light, colour, expression, etc.
+And as the poet was to be an imitator of accepted models, so also he was
+to be imitative and traditional in using poetical colouring, in which
+phrase were included, as Dryden wrote, “the words, the expressions, the
+tropes and figures, the versification, and all the other elegancies of
+sound.”[19] That this parallelism directly encourages the growth of a
+set “poetic diction” is obvious; the poet’s language was not to be a
+reflection of a genuine emotion felt in the mind for his words, phrases,
+and figures of speech, his _operum colores_,[20] he must not look to
+Nature but to models. In brief, a poetical _gradus_, compiled from
+accepted models, was to be the ideal source on which the poet was to draw
+for his medium of expression.
+
+It is not necessary to dwell long on this pseudo-classical confusion of
+the two arts, as revealed in the critical writings of Western Europe down
+to the very outbreak of the Romantic revolt.[21] In English criticism,
+Dryden’s “Parallel” was only one of many. Of the eighteenth century
+English critics who developed a detailed parallelism between pictorial
+and plastic art on the one hand and poetry on the other, maintaining
+that their standards were interchangeable, the most important perhaps
+is Spence, whose “Polymetis” appeared in 1747, and who sums the general
+position of his fellow-critics on this point in the remark, “Scarce
+anything can be good in a poetical description which would appear absurd
+if represented in a statue or picture.”[22] The ultimate outcome of this
+confusion of poetry and painting found its expression in the last decade
+of the eighteenth century in the theory and practice of Erasmus Darwin,
+whose work, “The Botanic Garden,” consisted of a “second part,” “The
+Loves of the Plants,” published in 1789, two years before its inclusion
+with the “first part” the “Economy of Vegetation,” in one volume.
+Darwin’s theory of poetry is contained in the “Interludes” between the
+cantos of his poems, which take the form of dialogues between the “Poet”
+and a “Bookseller.” In the Interlude to Canto 1 of Part II (“The Loves of
+the Plants”) he maintains the thesis that poetry is a process of painting
+to the eye, and in the cantos themselves he proceeds with great zeal to
+show in practice how words and images should be laid on like pigments
+from the outside. The young Wordsworth himself, as his early poems show,
+was influenced by the theory and practice of Darwin, but Coleridge was
+not slow to detect the danger of the elaborate word-painting that might
+arise from the confusion of the two arts. “The poet,” he wrote,[23]
+“should paint to the Imagination and not to the Fancy.” For Coleridge
+Fancy was the “Drapery” of poetic genius, Imagination was its “Soul” or
+its “synthetic and magical power,”[24] and he thus emphasized what may be
+regarded as one of the chief distinctions between the pseudo-classical,
+and the romantic, interpretations of the language of poetry. In its
+groping after the “grand style,” as reflected in a deliberate avoidance
+of accidental and superficial “particularities,” and in its insistence on
+generalized or abstract forms, eighteenth century poetry, or at least the
+“neo-classical” portion of it, reflected its inability to achieve that
+intensity of imaginative conception which is the supreme need of all art.
+
+The confusion between the two arts of poetry and painting which Coleridge
+thus condemned did not, it is needless to say, disappear with the
+eighteenth century. The Romanticists themselves finally borrowed that
+much-abused phrase “local colour” from the technical vocabulary of the
+painter, and in other respects the whole question became merged in the
+symbolism of the nineteenth century where literature is to be seen
+attempting to do the work of both music and painting.[25]
+
+As regards the language of poetry then—its vocabulary, the actual
+_words_ in which it was to be given expression—the early eighteenth
+century had first this pseudo-classical doctrine of a treasury of select
+words, phrases, and other “ornaments,” a doctrine which was to receive
+splendid emphasis and exemplification in Pope’s translation of Homer.
+But alongside of this ideal of style there was another ideal which Pope
+again, as we have seen, had insisted upon in his “Essay on Criticism,”
+and which demanded that the language of poetry should in general
+conform to that of cultivated conversation and prose. These two ideals
+of poetical language can be seen persisting throughout the eighteenth
+century, though later criticism, in its haste to condemn the _gradus_
+ideal, has not often found time to do justice to the other.
+
+But, apart from these general considerations, the question of poetic
+diction is rarely treated as a thing _per se_ by the writers who, after
+Dryden or Pope, or alongside of them, took up the question. There are no
+attempts, in the manner of the Elizabethans,[26] to conduct a critical
+inquiry into the actual present resources of the vernacular, and its
+possibilities as a vehicle of expression. Though the attention is
+more than once directed to certain special problems, on the whole the
+discussions are of a general nature, and centre round such points as the
+language suitable for an Heroic Poem, or for the “imitation” of aspects
+of nature, or for Descriptive Poetry, questions which had been discussed
+from the sixteenth century onwards, and were not exhausted by the time of
+Dr. Johnson.[27]
+
+Goldsmith’s remarks, reflecting as they do a sort of half-way attitude
+between the old order and the new, are interesting. Poetry has a language
+of its own; it is a species of painting with words, and hence he will
+not condemn Pope for “deviating in some instances from the simplicity
+of Homer,” whilst such phrases as _the sighing reed_, _the warbling
+rivulet_, _the gushing spring_, _the whispering breeze_ are approvingly
+quoted.[28] It is thus somewhat surprising to find that in his “Life
+of Parnell” he had pilloried certain “misguided innovators” to whose
+efforts he attributed the gradual debasing of poetical language since the
+happy days when Dryden, Addison, and Pope had brought it to its highest
+pitch of refinement.[29] These writers had forgotten that poetry is “the
+language of life” and that the simplest expression was the best: brief
+statements which, if we knew what Goldsmith meant by “life,” would seem
+to adumbrate the theories which Wordsworth was to expound as the Romantic
+doctrine.
+
+Dr. Johnson has many things to say on the subject of poetic language,
+including general remarks and particular judgments on special points,
+or on the work of the poets of whom he treated in his “Lives.” As
+might be expected, he clings tenaciously to the accepted standards of
+neo-classicism, and repeats the old commonplaces which had done duty for
+so long, pays the usual tribute to Waller and Denham, but ascribes the
+actual birth of poetical diction to the practice of Dryden. What Johnson
+meant by “poetical diction” is clearly indicated; it was a “system of
+words at once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and free from
+the harshness of terms appropriated to different arts,”[30] that is, the
+language of poetry must shun popular and technical words, since language
+is “the dress of thought” and “splendid ideas lose their magnificence if
+they are conveyed by low and vulgar words.”[31] From this standpoint, and
+reinforced by his classical preference for regular rhymes,[32] all his
+particular judgments of his predecessors and contemporaries were made;
+and when this is remembered it is easier to understand, for instance, his
+praise of Akenside[33] and his criticism of Collins.[34]
+
+Gray, however, perhaps the most scrupulous and precise of all our poets
+with regard to the use of words in poetry,[35] has some pertinent things
+to say on the matter. There is his important letter to West, already
+referred to, with its dogmatic assertion that “the language of the age
+is never the language of poetry,” and that “our poetry has a language
+to itself,” an assertion which, with other remarks of Gray, helps to
+emphasize the distinction to be made between the two ideals of poetical
+diction to be seen persisting through the eighteenth century. It was
+generally agreed that there must be a special language for poetry, with
+all its artificial “heightening,” “licenses,” and variations from the
+language of prose, to serve the purpose of the traditional “Kinds,”
+especially the Epic and the Lyric. This is the view taken by Gray, but
+with a difference. He does not accept the conventional diction which
+Pope’s “Homer” had done so much to perpetuate, and hence he creates a
+poetic language of his own, a glittering array of words and phrases,
+blending material from varied sources, and including echoes and
+reminiscences of Milton and Dryden.
+
+The second ideal of style was that of which, as we have seen, the canons
+had been definitely stated by Pope, and which had been splendidly
+exemplified in the satires, essays, and epistles. The aim was to
+reproduce “the colloquial idiom of living society,”[36] and the result
+was a plain, unaffected style, devoid of the ornaments of the poetic
+language proper, and, in its simplicity and directness, equally suitable
+for either poetry or prose. Gray could make use of this vehicle of
+expression, whenever, as in “The Long Story,” or the fragmentary
+“Alliance of Education and Government,” it was suitable and adequate
+for his purpose; but in the main his own practice stood distinct from
+both the eighteenth century ideals of poetical language. Hence, as it
+conformed to neither of the accepted standards, Goldsmith and Johnson
+agreed in condemning his diction, which was perhaps in itself sufficient
+proof that Gray had struck out a new language for himself.
+
+Among the special problems connected with the diction of poetry to which
+the eighteenth century critics directed their attention, that of the
+use of archaic and obsolete words was prominent. It had been one of the
+methods by which the Elizabethans had hoped to enrich their language, but
+contemporary critics had expressed their disapproval, and it was left to
+Jonson, in this as in other similar matters, to express the reasonable
+view that “the eldest of the present and the newest of the past language
+is best.”[37] Dryden, when about to turn the “Canterbury Tales” “into our
+language as it is now refined,”[38] was to express a similar common-sense
+view. “When an ancient word,” he said, with his Horace no doubt in his
+mind, “for its sound and significancy deserves to be revived, I have that
+reasonable veneration for antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is
+superstition.”
+
+A few years later the long series of Spenserian imitations had begun,
+so that the question of the poetic use of archaic and obsolete words
+naturally came into prominence. Pope, as might be expected, is to be
+found among the opposition, and in the “Dunciad” he takes the opportunity
+of showing his contempt for this kind of writing by a satiric gird,
+couched in supposedly archaic language:
+
+    But who is he in closet close y-pent
+    Of sober face with learned dust besprent?
+    Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight
+    On parchment scraps y-fed and Wormius hight—
+
+                                                     (Bk. III, ll. 185-8)
+
+an attack which is augmented by the ironic comment passed by “Scriblerus”
+in a footnote.[39] Nevertheless, when engaged on his translation of Homer
+he had an inclination, like Cowper, towards a certain amount of archaism,
+though it is evident that he is not altogether satisfied on the point.[40]
+
+In Gray’s well-known letter to West, mentioned above, there is given a
+selection of epithets from Dryden, which he notes as instances of archaic
+words preserved in poetry. Gray, as we know, had a keen sense of the
+value of words, and his list is therefore of special importance, for
+it appears to show that words like _mood_, _smouldering_, _beverage_,
+_array_, _wayward_, _boon_, _foiled_, etc., seemed to readers of 1742
+much more old-fashioned than they do to us. Thirty years or so later
+he practically retracts the views expressed in this earlier letter, in
+which he had admirably defended the use in poetry of words obsolete in
+the current language of the day. “I think,” he wrote to James Beattie,
+criticizing “The Minstrel,”[41] “that we should wholly adopt the language
+of Spenser or wholly renounce it.” And he goes on to object to such
+words as _fared_, _meed_, _sheen_, etc., objections which were answered
+by Beattie, who showed that all the words had the sanction of such
+illustrious predecessors as Milton and Pope, and who added that “the
+poetical style in every nation abounds in old words”—exactly what Gray
+had written in his letter of 1742.
+
+Johnson, it need hardly be said, was of Pope’s opinion on this matter,
+and the emphatic protest which he, alarmed by such tendencies in the
+direction of Romanticism, apparent not only in the Spenserian imitations,
+but still more in such signs of the times as were to culminate in Percy’s
+“Reliques,” the Ossianic “simplicities” of Macpherson, and the Rowley
+“forgeries,” is evidence of the strength which the Spenserian revival had
+by then gained. “To imitate Spenser’s fiction and sentiments can incur no
+reproach,” he wrote: “but I am very far from extending the same respect
+to his diction and his stanza.”[42] To the end he continued to express
+his disapproval of those who favoured the “obsolete style,” and, like
+Pope, he finally indulges in a metrical fling at the innovators:
+
+    Phrase that time has flung away
+    Uncouth words in disarray;
+    Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet,
+    Ode and Elegy and Sonnet.[43]
+
+Goldsmith too had his misgivings. “I dislike the imitations of our
+old English poets in general,” he wrote with reference to “The
+Schoolmistress,” “yet, on this minute subject, the antiquity of the style
+produces a very ludicrous solemnity.”[44]
+
+On this matter of poetic archaism, the point of view of the average
+cultured reader, as distinct from the writer, is probably accurately
+represented in one of Chesterfield’s letters. Writing to his son,[45] he
+was particularly urgent that those words only should be employed which
+were found in the writers of the Augustan age, or of the age immediately
+preceding. To enforce his point he carefully explained to the boy the
+distinction between the pedant and the gentleman who is at the same
+time a scholar; the former affected rare words found only in the pages
+of obscure or antiquated authors rather than those used by the great
+classical writers.
+
+This was the attitude adopted in the main by William Cowper, who, after
+an early enthusiasm for the “quaintness” of old words, when first engaged
+on his translation of Homer, later repented and congratulated himself
+on having, in his last revisal, pruned away every “single expression of
+the obsolete kind.”[46] But against these opinions we have to set the
+frankly romantic attitude of Thomas Warton, who, in his “Observations
+on the Faerie Queen” (1754), boldly asserts that “if the critic is not
+satisfied, yet the reader is transported,” whilst he is quite confident
+that Spenser’s language is not so difficult and obsolete as it is
+generally supposed to be.[47]
+
+Here and there we also come across references to other devices by which
+the poet is entitled to add to his word-power. Thus Addison grants the
+right of indulging in coinages, since this is a practice sanctioned by
+example, especially by that of Homer and Milton.[48] Pope considered that
+only such of Homer’s compound epithets as could be “done literally into
+English without destroying the purity of our language” or those with good
+literary sanctions should be adopted.[49] Gray, however, enters a caveat
+against coinages; in the letter to Beattie, already quoted, he objects to
+the word “infuriated,” and adds a warning not to “make new words without
+great necessity; it is very hazardous at best.”
+
+Finally, as a legacy or survival of that veneration for the “heroic
+poem,” which had found its latest expression in Davenant’s “Preface to
+Gondibert”[50] (1650), the question of technical words is occasionally
+touched upon. Dryden, who had begun by asserting that general terms were
+often a mere excuse for ignorance, could later give sufficient reasons
+for the avoidance of technical terms,[51] and it is not surprising to
+find that Gray was of a similar opinion. In his criticism of Beattie’s
+“Minstrel” he objects to the terms _medium_ and _incongruous_ as being
+words of art, which savour too much of prose. Gray, we may presume, did
+not object to such words because they were not “elegant,” or even mainly
+because they were “technical” expressions. He would reject them because,
+for him, with his keen sense of the value of words, they were too little
+endowed with poetic colour and imagination. When these protests are
+remembered, the great and lasting popularity of “The Shipwreck” (1762) of
+William Falconer, with its free employment of nautical words and phrases,
+may be considered to possess a certain significance in the history of the
+Romantic reaction. The daring use of technical terms in the poem must
+have given pleasure to a generation of readers accustomed mainly to the
+conventional words and phrases of the accepted diction.
+
+When we review the “theory” of poetical language in the eighteenth
+century, as revealed in the sayings, direct and indirect, of poets and
+critics, we feel that there is little freshness or originality in the
+views expressed, very little to suggest the changes that were going on
+underneath, and which were soon to find their first great and reasoned
+expression. Nominally, it would seem that the views of the eighteenth
+century “classicists” were adequately represented and summed up in those
+of Johnson, for whom the ideal of poetical language was that which Dryden
+had “invented,” and of which Pope had made such splendid use in his
+translation of Homer. In reality, the practice of the “neo-classical”
+poets was largely influenced by the critical tenets of the school to
+which they belonged, especially by that pseudo-Aristotelian doctrine
+according to which poetry was to be an “imitation” of the best models,
+whilst its words, phrases, and similes were to be such as were generally
+accepted and consecrated by poetic use. It was this conventionalism,
+reinforced by, as well as reflecting, the neo-classical outlook on
+external nature, that resulted in the “poetic diction” which Wordsworth
+attacked, and it is important to note that a similar stereotyped language
+is to be found in most of the contemporary poetry of Western Europe, and
+especially in that of France.[52]
+
+We need not be surprised, therefore, to find that neither Johnson, nor
+any of his “classical” contemporaries, appears to attach any importance
+to the fact that Pope in his essays and epistles had set up a standard
+of diction, of which it is not too much to say that it was an ideal
+vehicle of expression for the thoughts and feelings it had to convey.
+So enamoured were they of the pomp and glitter of the “Homer” that
+they apparently failed to see in this real “Pope style” an admirable
+model for all writers aiming at lucidity, simplicity, and directness of
+thought. We may see this clearly by means of an instructive comparison
+of Johnson’s judgments on the two “Pope styles.” “It is remarked by
+Watts,” he writes, “that there is scarcely a happy combination of words
+or a phrase poetically elegant in the English language which Pope has not
+inserted into his version of Homer.”[53] On the other hand, he is perhaps
+more than unjust to Pope’s plain didactic style when he speaks of the
+“harshness of diction,” the “levity without elegance” of the “Essay on
+Man.”[54]
+
+It was not until the neo-classical poetry was in its death-agony that
+we meet with adequate appreciation of the admirable language which
+Pope brought to perfection and bequeathed to his successors. “The
+familiar style,” wrote Cowper to Unwin,[55] “is of all the styles the
+most difficult to succeed in. To make verse speak the language of prose
+without being prosaic—to marshal the words of it in such an order as they
+might naturally take in falling from the lips of an extemporary speaker,
+yet without meanness, harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming
+to displace a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the most
+arduous tasks a poet can undertake.” The “familiar style,” which Cowper
+here definitely characterizes, was in its own special province as good
+a model as was the beautiful simplicity of Blake when “poetical poetry”
+had once more come into its own; and it is important to remember that
+this fact received due recognition from both Wordsworth and Coleridge.
+“The mischief,” wrote the former,[56] “was effected not by Pope’s
+satirical and moral pieces, for these entitle him to the highest place
+among the poets of his class; it was by his ‘Homer.’... No other work
+in the language so greatly vitiated the diction of English poetry.” And
+Coleridge, too, called attention to the “almost faultless position and
+choice of words” in Pope’s original compositions, in comparison with
+the absurd “pseudo-poetic diction” of his translations of Homer.[57]
+The “Pope style” failed to produce real poetry—poetry of infinite and
+universal appeal, animated with personal feeling and emotion not merely
+because of its preference for the generic rather than the typical, but
+because its practitioners for the most part lacked those qualities of
+intense imagination in which alone the highest art can have its birth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE “STOCK” DICTION OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+Since the time when Wordsworth launched his manifestoes on the language
+fit and proper for poetry, it may almost be said that whenever the term
+“poetic diction” is found used as a more or less generic term of critical
+disparagement, it has been with reference, implied or explicit, to the
+so-called classical poetry of the Augustan ages. But the condemnation has
+perhaps been given too wide an application, and hence there has arisen a
+tendency to place in this category all the language of all the poets who
+were supposed to have taken Pope as their model, so that “the Pope style”
+and “eighteenth century diction” have almost become synonymous terms, as
+labels for a lifeless, imitative language in which poets felt themselves
+constrained to express all their thoughts and feelings. This criticism is
+both unjust and misleading. For when this “false and gaudy splendour” is
+unsparingly condemned, it is not always recognized or remembered that it
+is mainly to be found in the descriptive poetry of the period.
+
+It is sufficient to glance at the descriptive verse of practically
+all the typical “classical” poets to discover how generally true this
+statement is. We cannot say, of course, that the varied sights and sounds
+of outdoor life made no appeal at all to them; but what we do feel is
+that whenever they were constrained to indulge in descriptive verse
+they either could not, or would not, try to convey their impressions in
+language of their very own, but were content in large measure to draw
+upon a common stock of dead and colourless epithets. Local colour, in the
+sense of accurate and particular observation of natural facts, is almost
+entirely lacking; there is no writing with the eye on the object, and it
+has been well remarked that their highly generalized descriptions could
+be transferred from poet to poet or from scene to scene, without any
+injustice. Thus Shenstone[58] describes his birthplace:
+
+    Romantic scenes of pendent hills
+    And verdant vales, and falling rills,
+    And mossy banks, the fields adorn
+    Where Damon, simple swain, was born—
+
+a quatrain which, with little or no change of epithet, was the common
+property of the versifiers, and may be met with almost everywhere in
+early eighteenth century poetry. Every type of English scenery and every
+phase of outdoor life finds its description in lines of this sort, where
+the reader instinctively feels that the poet has not been careful to
+record his individual impressions or emotions, but has contented himself
+with accepting epithets and phrases consecrated to the use of natural
+description. A similar inability or indifference is seen even in the
+attempts to re-fashion Chaucer, or the Bible, or other old material,
+where the vigour and freshness and colour of the originals might have
+been expected to exercise a salutary influence. But to no purpose: all
+must be cast in the one mould, and clothed in the elegant diction of
+the time. Thus in Dryden’s modernization of the “Canterbury Tales” the
+beautiful simplicity of Chaucer’s descriptions of the sights and sounds
+of nature vanishes when garbed in the rapid and conventional phrases and
+locutions of the classicists. Chaucer’s “briddes” becomes “the painted
+birds,” a “goldfinch” is amplified into a “goldfinch with gaudy pride of
+painted plumes,” whilst a plain and simple mention of sunrise, “at the
+sun upriste,” has to be paraphrased into
+
+    Aurora had but newly chased the night
+    And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light.
+
+The old ballads and the Psalms suffered severely in the same way.[59]
+
+The fact that the words most frequently used in this stock poetic
+diction have usually some sort of connexion with dress or ornament has
+not escaped notice, and it has its own significance. It is, as it were,
+a reflex of the fact that the nature poetry of the period is in large
+measure the work of writers to whom social life is the central fact of
+existence, for whom meadow, and woodland, and running water, mountain
+and sea, the silent hills, and the starry sky brought no inspiration, or
+at least no inspiration powerful enough to lead them to break through
+the shackles of conventionality imposed upon them by the taste of their
+age. Words like “paint” and “painted,” “gaudy,” “adorn,” “deck,” “gilds”
+and “gilded,” “damasked,” “enamelled,” “embroidered,” and dozens similar
+form the stock vocabulary of natural description; apart from the best of
+Akenside, and the works of one or two writers such as John Cunningham,
+it can safely be said that but few new descriptive terms were added to
+the “nature vocabulary” of English poetry during this period. How far
+English poetry is yet distant from a recognition of the sea as a source
+of poetic inspiration may be perhaps seen from the fact that its most
+frequent epithet is the feeble term “watery,” whilst the magic of the sky
+by night or day evokes no image other than one that can be expressed by
+changes rung on such words as “azure,” “concave,” “serene,” “ætherial.”
+Even in “Night Thoughts,” where the subject might have led to something
+new and fresh in the way of a “star-vocabulary,” the best that Young can
+do is to take refuge in such periphrases as “tuneful spheres,” “nocturnal
+sparks,” “lucid orbs,” “ethereal armies,” “mathematic glories,” “radiant
+choirs,” “midnight counsellors,” etc.
+
+And the same lack of direct observation and individual expression is
+obvious whenever the classicists have to mention birds or animals. Wild
+life had to wait for White of Selborne, and for Blake and Burns and
+Cowper and Wordsworth, to be observed with accuracy and treated with
+sympathy; and it has been well remarked that if we are to judge from
+their verse, most of the poets of the first quarter of the eighteenth
+century knew no bird except the goldfinch or nightingale, and even these
+probably only by hearsay. For the same generalized diction is usually
+called upon, and birds are merely a “feathered,” “tuneful,” “plumy”
+or “warbling” choir, whilst a periphrasis, allowing of numerous and
+varied labels for the same animal, is felt to be the correct thing. In
+Dryden sheep are “the woolly breed” or “the woolly race”; bees are the
+“industrious kind” or “the frugal kind”; pigs are “the bristly care” or
+“the tusky kind”; frogs are “the loquacious race”; crows, “the craven
+kind,” and so on: “the guiding principle seems to be that nothing must be
+mentioned by its own name.”[60]
+
+Many of these stock epithets owed their appearance of course to the
+requirements imposed upon poets by their adherence to the heroic couplet.
+Pope himself calls attention to the fact that the necessities of rhyme
+led to the unceasing repetition of stereotyped phrases and locutions:
+
+    Where’er you find the “cooling western breeze.”
+    In the next line it “whispers through the trees”;
+    If crystal streams “with pleasing murmur creep”
+    The reader’s threaten’d, not in vain, with “sleep”—
+
+adducing, with unconscious irony, the very rhymes prevalent in much of
+his own practice.[61]
+
+It was also recognized by the versifiers that the indispensable polish
+and “correctness” of the decasyllabic line could only be secured by a
+mechanical use of epithets in certain positions. “There is a vast beauty
+[to me],” wrote Shenstone, “in using a word of a particular nature in
+the 8th and 9th syllable of an English verse. I mean what is virtually a
+dactyl. For instance,
+
+    And pykes, the tyrants of the wat’ry plains.
+
+Let any person of any ear substitute _liquid_ for _wat’ry_ and he will
+find the disadvantage.”[62] Saintsbury has pointed out[63] that the
+“drastic but dangerous device of securing the undulating penetration
+of the line by the use of the _gradus_ epithet was one of the chief
+causes of the intensely artificial character of the versification and
+its attendant diction.... There are passages in the ‘Dispensary’ and
+‘The Rape of the Lock,’ where you can convert the decasyllable into the
+octosyllable for several lines together without detriment to sense or
+poetry by simply taking out these specious superfluities.”
+
+In the year of Dryden’s death (or perhaps in the following year) there
+had appeared the “Art of Poetry” by Edward Bysshe, whose metrical
+laws were generally accepted, as authoritative, during the eighteenth
+century. During the forty years of Dryden’s literary career the
+supremacy of the stopped regular decasyllabic couplet had gradually
+established itself as the perfect form of verse. But Bysshe was the first
+prosodist to formulate the “rules” of the couplet, and in doing so he
+succeeded, probably because his views reflected the general prosodic
+tendencies of the time, in “codifying and mummifying” a system which
+soon became erected into a creed. “The foregoing rules (_of accent on
+the even places and pause mainly at the 4th, 5th, or 6th syllable_)
+ought indispensably to be followed in all our verses of 10 syllables:
+and the observation of them will produce Harmony, the neglect of them
+harshness and discord.”[64] Into this rigid mechanical mould contemporary
+and succeeding versifiers felt themselves constrained to place their
+couplets. But to pad out their lines they were nearly always beset with
+a temptation to use the trochaic epithets, of which numerous examples
+have been given above. As a natural result such epithets soon became part
+and parcel of the poetic stock of language, and hence most of them were
+freely used by poets, not because of any intrinsic poetic value, but
+because they were necessary to comply with the absurd mechanics of their
+vehicle of expression.
+
+Since the “Lives of the Poets” it has been customary to regard this
+“poetic diction” as the peculiar invention of the late seventeenth and
+early eighteenth century, and especially of Dryden and Pope, a belief
+largely due to Johnson’s eulogies of these poets. As an ardent admirer of
+the school of Dryden and Pope, it was only natural that Johnson should
+express an exalted opinion of their influence on the poetic practice
+of his contemporaries. But others—Gray amongst them—did not view their
+innovations with much complacency, and towards the end of the century
+Cowper was already foreshadowing the attack to be made by Wordsworth and
+Coleridge in the next generation. To Pope’s influence, he says in effect,
+after paying his predecessor a more or less formal compliment, was due
+the stereotyped form both of the couplet and of much of the language in
+which it was clothed. Pope had made
+
+        poetry a mere mechanic art
+    And every warbler had his tune by heart;
+
+and in one of his letters he stigmatizes and pillories the inflated and
+stilted phraseology of Pope, and especially his translation of Homer.[65]
+Finally, Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed in ascribing the “poetical
+diction,” against which their manifestoes were directed, to that source.
+
+It is to be admitted that Pope’s translation is to some extent open
+to the charge brought against it of corrupting the language with a
+meretricious standard of poetic diction. In his Preface he expresses his
+misgivings as to the language fit and proper for an English rendering of
+Homer, and indeed it is usually recognized that his diction was, to a
+certain extent, imposed upon him both by the nature of his original, as
+well as by the lack of elasticity in his closed couplet. To the latter
+cause was doubtless due, not only the use of stock epithets to fill out
+the line, but also the inevitable repetition of certain words, due to
+the requirements of rhyme, even at the expense of straining or distorting
+their ordinary meaning. Thus _train_, for instance, on account of its
+convenience as a rhyming word, is often used to signify “a host,” or
+“body,” and similarly _plain_, _main_, for the ocean. In this connexion
+it has also been aptly pointed out that some of the defects resulted from
+the fact that Pope had founded his own epic style on that of the Latin
+poets, whose manner is most opposed to Homer’s. Thus he often sought to
+deck out or expand simple thoughts or commonplace situations by using
+what he no doubt considered really “poetical language,” and thus, for
+instance, where Homer simply says, “And the people perished,” Pope has
+to say, “And heaped the camp with mountains of the dead.” The repeated
+use of periphrases: _feathered fates_, for “arrows”; _fleecy breed_ for
+“sheep”; _the wandering nation of a summer’s day_ for “insects”; _the
+beauteous kind_ for “women”; _the shining mischief_ for “a fascinating
+woman”; _rural care_ for “the occupations of the shepherd”; _the social
+shades_ for “the ghosts of two brothers,” may be traced to the same
+influence.[66]
+
+But apart from these defects the criticisms of Coleridge and Wordsworth,
+and their ascribing of the “poetical diction,” which they wished to
+abolish, to the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” are to a large extent
+unjust. Many of the characteristics of this “spurious poetic language”
+were well established long before Pope produced his translation. It is
+probable that they are present to a much larger extent, for instance, in
+Dryden; _painted_, _rural_, _finny_, _briny_, _shady_, _vocal_, _mossy_,
+_fleecy_, come everywhere in his translations, and not only there. Some
+of his adjectives in y are more audacious than those of Pope: _spongy
+clouds_, _chinky hives_, _snary webs_, _roomy sea_, etc. Most of the
+periphrases used by Pope and many more are already to be found in Dryden:
+“summer” is _the sylvan reign_; “bees,” _the frugal_ or _industrious
+kind_; “arrows,” _the feathered wood_ or _feathered fates_; “sheep,” _the
+woolly breed_; “frogs,” _the loquacious race_! From all Pope’s immediate
+predecessors and contemporaries similar examples may be quoted, like Gay’s
+
+    When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain
+
+                                                         (“Rural Sports”)
+
+or Ambrose Philips:
+
+    Hark: how they warble in the brambly bush
+    The gaudy goldfinch or the speckly thrush
+
+                                                      (“Fourth Pastoral”)
+
+and that “Epistle to a Friend,” in which he ridicules the very jargon so
+much used in his own Pastorals.[67]
+
+Pope then may justly be judged “not guilty,” at least “in the first
+degree,” of having originated the poetic diction which Johnson praised
+and Wordsworth condemned; in using it, he was simply using the stock
+language for descriptive poetry, whether original or in translations,
+which had slowly come into being during the last decade of the
+seventeenth century. If it be traced to its origins, it will be found
+that most of it originated with that poet who may fairly be called the
+founder of the English “classical” school of poetry—to Milton, to whom
+in large measure is due, not merely the invention, but also, by the very
+potency of the influence exercised by his great works, its vogue in the
+eighteenth century.
+
+Before the time of Milton, it is not too much to say, even when we
+remember the practice of Spenser and Donne and their followers, that
+there was no special language for poetry, little or nothing of the
+diction consecrated solely to the purposes of poets. The poets of the
+Elizabethan age and their immediate successors had access to all diction,
+upon which they freely drew. But it seems natural, indeed inevitable,
+that for Milton, resolved to sing of things “unattempted yet in prose
+or rhyme,” the ordinary language of contemporary prose or poetry should
+be found lacking. He was thus impelled, we may say, consciously and
+deliberately to form for himself a special poetical vocabulary, which, in
+his case, was abundantly justified, because it was so essentially fitted
+to his purpose, and bore the stamp of his lofty poetic genius.
+
+This poetical vocabulary was made up of diverse elements. Besides the
+numerous “classical” words, which brought with them all the added charm
+of literary reminiscence, there were archaisms, and words of Latin
+origin, as well as words deliberately coined on Latin and Greek roots.
+But it included also most of the epithets of which the eighteenth
+century versifiers were so fond. Examples may be taken from any of the
+descriptive portions of the “Paradise Lost”:
+
+    On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers
+
+                                                                (IV, 334)
+
+or
+
+        About me round I saw
+    Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,
+    And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.
+
+                                                          (VIII, 260-263)
+
+Other phrases, like “vernal bloom,” “lucid stream,” “starry sphere,”
+“flowery vale,” “umbrageous grots,” were to become the worn-out
+penny-pieces of the eighteenth century poetical mint. Milton indeed
+seems to have been one of the great inventors of adjectives ending in
+y, though in this respect he had been anticipated by Browne and others,
+and especially by Chapman, who has large numbers of them, and whose
+predilection for this method of making adjectives out of nouns amounts
+almost to an obsession.[68]
+
+Milton was also perhaps the great innovator with another kind of
+epithet, which called forth the censure of Johnson, who described it
+as “the practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the
+terminations of participles,” though the great dictator is here attacking
+a perfectly legitimate device freely used by the Jacobeans and by most of
+the poets since their time.[69] Nor are there wanting in Milton’s epic
+instances of the idle periphrases banned by Wordsworth: _straw-built
+citadel_ for “bee-hive,” _vernal bloom_ for “spring flowers,” _smutty
+grain_ for “gunpowder,” _humid train_ for the flowery waters of a river,
+etc.[70]
+
+With Milton, then, may be said to have originated the “poetic diction,”
+which drew forth Wordsworth’s strictures, and which in the sequel
+proved a dangerous model for the swarm of versifiers who essayed to
+borrow or imitate it for the purpose of their dull and commonplace
+themes. How much the Miltonic language, as aped and imitated by the
+“landscape gardeners and travelling pedlars” of the eighteenth century,
+lost in originality and freshness, may be felt, rather than described,
+if we compare so well-known a passage as the following with any of the
+quotations given earlier:
+
+                  Yet not the more
+    Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
+    Clear Spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
+    Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
+    Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
+    That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow.
+
+                                                        (P.L. III, 26-30)
+
+But the minor poets of the eighteenth century, who, by their mechanical
+imitations, succeeded in reducing Milton’s diction to the level of
+an almost meaningless jargon, had had every encouragement from their
+greater predecessors and contemporaries. The process of depreciation may
+be seen already in Dryden, and it is probably by way of Pope that much
+of the Miltonic language became part of the eighteenth century poetic
+stock-in-trade. Pope was a frequent borrower from Milton, and, in his
+“Homer” especially, very many reminiscences are to be found, often used
+in an artificial, and sometimes in an absurd, manner.[71] Moreover,
+Pope’s free and cheapened use of many of Milton’s descriptive epithets
+did much to reduce them to the rank of merely conventional terms, and
+in this respect the attack of Wordsworth and Coleridge was not without
+justice. But on the whole the proper conclusion would seem to be that
+what is usually labelled as “the _Pope_ style” could with more justice
+and aptness be described as “the pseudo-Miltonic style.” It is true that
+the versifiers freely pilfered the “Homer,” and the vogue of much of the
+stock diction is thus due to that source, but so far as Pope himself is
+concerned there is justice in his plea that he left this style behind him
+when he emerged from “Fancy’s maze” and “moralized his song.”
+
+To what extent this catalogue of lifeless words and phrases had
+established itself as the poetical thesaurus is to be seen in the
+persistency with which it maintained its position until the very end of
+the century, when Erasmus Darwin with a fatal certainty evolved from
+it all its worst features, and thus did much unconsciously to crush it
+out of existence. James Thomson is rightly regarded as one of the most
+important figures in the early history of the Romantic Revolt, and he
+has had merited praise for his attempts to provide himself with a new
+language of his own. In this respect, however, he had been anticipated
+by John Philips, whose “Splendid Shilling” appeared in 1705, followed by
+“Cyder” a year later. Philips, though not the first Miltonic imitator,
+was practically the first to introduce the Miltonic diction and phrases,
+whilst at the same time he acquired the knack of adding phrases of his
+own to the common stock. He was thus an innovator from whom Thomson
+himself learned not a little.
+
+But though the “Seasons” is ample testimony to a new and growing
+alertness to natural scenery, Thomson found it hard to escape from the
+fetters of the current poetic language. We feel that he is at least
+trying to write with his eye steadily fixed upon the object, but he could
+perhaps hardly be expected to get things right from the very beginning.
+Thus a stanza from his “Pastoral Entertainment” is purely conventional:
+
+    The place appointed was a spacious vale
+    Fanned always by a cooling western gale
+    Which in soft breezes through the meadow stray
+    And steal the ripened fragrances away—
+
+while he paraphrases a portion of the sixth chapter of St. Matthew into:
+
+    Observe the rising lily’s snowy grace,
+    Observe the various vegetable race,
+    They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow
+    Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow,
+
+where the stock terms scarcely harmonize with the simple Biblical
+diction. He was well aware of the attendant dangers and difficulties,
+and in the first book of “The Seasons” he gives expression to the need
+he feels of a language fit to render adequately all that he sees in
+Nature.[72] But though there is much that is fresh and vivid in his
+descriptive diction, and much that reveals him as a bold pioneer in
+poetic outlook and treatment, the tastes and tendencies of his age were
+too strong entirely to be escaped. Birds are the _plumy_, or _feathered
+people_, or _the glossy kind_,[73] and a flight of swallows is _a
+feathered eddy_; sheep are _the bleating kind_, etc. In one passage
+(“Spring,” ll. 114-135) he deals at length with the insects that attack
+the crops without once mentioning them by name: they are _the feeble
+race_, _the frosty tribe_, _the latent foe_, and even _the sacred sons
+of vengeance_. He has in general the traditional phraseology for the
+mountains and the sea, though a few of his epithets for the mountains,
+as _keen-air’d_ and _forest-rustling_, are new. He speaks of the Alps as
+_dreadful_, _horrid_, _vast_, _sublime_. _Shaggy_ and _nodding_ are also
+applied to mountains as well as to rocks and forests; winter is usually
+described in the usual classical manner as _deformed_ and _inverted_.
+Leaves are the _honours_ of trees, paths are _erroneous_, caverns
+_sweat_, etc., and he also makes large use of Latinisms.[74]
+
+John Dyer (1700-1758), though now and then conventional in his diction,
+has a good deal to his credit, and is a worthy contemporary of the author
+of “The Seasons.” Thus in the “Country Walk” it is the old stock diction
+he gives us:
+
+    Look upon that _flowery plain_
+    How the sheep surround their _swain_;
+      And there behold a _bloomy mead_,
+      A silver stream, a willow shade;
+
+and much the same thing is to be found in “The Fleece,” published in 1757:
+
+    The crystal dews, impearl’d upon the grass,
+    Are touched by Phœbus’ beams and mount aloft,
+    With various clouds to paint the azure sky;
+
+whilst he has almost as many adjectives in y as Ambrose Philips. But
+these are more than redeemed by the new descriptive touches which appear,
+sometimes curiously combined with the stereotyped phrases, as in “The
+Fleece” (Bk. III):
+
+    The scatter’d mists reveal the dusky hills;
+    Grey dawn appears; the golden morn ascends,
+    And paints the glittering rocks and purple woods.
+
+Nor must we forget “Grongar Hill,” which has justly received high praise
+for its beauties and felicities of description.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to illustrate further the vogue of this sort of
+diction in the first half of the eighteenth century; it is to be found
+everywhere in the poetry of the period, and the conventional epithets
+and phrases quoted from Dyer and Thomson may be taken as typical of the
+majority of their contemporaries. But this lifeless, stereotyped language
+has also invaded the work of some of the best poets of the century,
+including not only the later classicists, but also those who have been
+“born free,” and are foremost among the Romantic rebels. The poetic
+language of William Collins shows a strange mixture of the old style
+and the new. That it was new and individual is well seen from Johnson’s
+condemnation, for Johnson recognized very clearly that the language of
+the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands” did not conform
+to what was probably his own view that the only language fit and proper
+for poetry was such as might bear comparison with the polish and elegance
+of Pope’s “Homer.” It is not difficult to make due allowance for Johnson
+when he speaks of Collins’s diction as “harsh, unskilfully laboured, and
+injudicially selected”; we deplore the classical bias, and are content
+enough to recognize and enjoy for ourselves the matchless beauty and
+charm of Collins’s diction at its best. Yet much of the language of his
+earlier work betrays him as more or less a poetaster of the eighteenth
+century. The early “Oriental Eclogues” abound in the usual descriptive
+details, just as if the poet had picked out his words and phrases from
+the approved lists. Thus,
+
+    Yet midst the blaze of courts she fixed her love
+    On the cool fountain or the shady grove
+    Still, with the shepherd’s innocence her mind
+    To the sweet vale and flowery mead inclined;
+
+and even in the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions” there were expressions
+like _watery surge_, _sheeny gold_, though now and then the “new” diction
+is strikingly exemplified in a magnificent phrase such as _gleamy
+pageant_.
+
+When Collins has nothing new to say his poetic language is that of
+his time, but when his inspiration is at its loftiest his diction is
+always equal to the task, and it is then that he gives us the unrivalled
+felicities of “The Ode to Evening.”
+
+Amongst all the English poets there has probably never been one, even
+when we think of Tennyson, more careful and meticulous (or “curiously
+elaborate,” as Wordsworth styled it) about the diction of his verses, the
+very words themselves, than Gray. This fact, and not Matthew Arnold’s
+opinion that it was because Gray had fallen on an “age of prose,” may
+perhaps be regarded as sufficient to explain the comparative scantiness
+of his literary production. He himself, in a famous letter, has clearly
+stated his ideal of literary expression: “Extreme conciseness of
+expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one of the grand
+beauties of lyrical poetry.”[75] Hence all his verses bear evidence
+of the most painstaking labour and rigorous self-criticism, almost as
+if every word had been weighed and assessed before being allowed to
+appear. His correspondence with Mason and Beattie, referred to in the
+previous chapter, shows the same fastidiousness with regard to the work
+of others. Gray indeed, drawing freely upon Milton and Dryden, created
+for himself a special poetic language which in its way can become almost
+as much an abuse as the otiosities of many of his predecessors and
+contemporaries—the “cumbrous splendour” of which Johnson complained. Yet
+he is never entirely free from the influence of the “classical” diction
+which, for Johnson, represented the ideal. His earliest work is almost
+entirely conventional in its descriptions, the prevailing tone being
+exemplified in such phrases as _the purple year_, _the Attic Warbler
+pours her throat_ (Ode on “The Spring”), whilst in the “Progress of
+Poesy,” lines like
+
+    Through verdant vales and Ceres’ golden reign
+
+are not uncommon, though of course the possibility of the direct
+influence of the classics, bringing with it the added flavour of
+reminiscence, is not to be ignored in this sort of diction. Moreover, a
+couplet from the fragmentary “Alliance of Education and Government”:
+
+    Scent the new fragrance of _the breathing rose_
+    And quaff _the pendent vintage_ as it grows—
+
+is almost typical, apart from the freshness of the epithet _breathing_,
+of what Wordsworth wished to abolish. Even the “Elegy” has not escaped
+the contagion: _storied urn_ or _animated bust_ is perilously akin to the
+pedantic periphrases of the Augustans.
+
+Before passing to a consideration of the work of Johnson and Goldsmith,
+who best represent the later eighteenth century development of the
+“classical” school of Pope, reference may be made to two other writers.
+The first of these is Thomas Chatterton. In that phase of the early
+Romantic Movement which took the form of attempts to revive the past,
+Chatterton of course played an important part, and the pseudo-archaic
+language which he fabricated for the purpose of his “Rowley” poems is
+interesting, not only as an indication of the trend of the times towards
+the poetic use of old and obsolete words, but also as reflecting, it
+would seem, a genuine endeavour to escape from the fetters of the
+conventional and stereotyped diction of his day. On the other hand, in
+his avowedly original work, Chatterton’s diction is almost entirely
+imitative. He has scarcely a single fresh image or description; his
+series of “Elegies” and “Epistles” are clothed in the current poetic
+language. He uses the stock expressions, _purling streams_, _watery
+bed_, _verdant vesture of the smiling fields_, along with the usual
+periphrases, such as _the muddy nation_ or _the speckled folk_ for
+“frogs.” One verse of an “Elegy” written in 1768 contains in itself
+nearly all the conventional images:
+
+    Ye variegated children of the Spring,
+    Ye blossoms blushing with the pearly dew;
+    Ye birds that sweetly in the hawthorn sing;
+    Ye flowery meads, lawns of verdant hue.
+
+It can be judged from these examples how a stereotyped mode of expression
+may depreciate to a large extent the value of much of the work of a
+poet of real genius. Chatterton is content in most of his avowedly
+“original” work to turn his poetic thoughts into the accepted moulds,
+which is all the more surprising when we remember his laborious methods
+of manufacturing an archaic diction for his mediaeval “discoveries,”[76]
+even if we may assume that it reflected a strong desire for something
+fresh and new.
+
+A poet of much less genius, but one who enjoyed great contemporary
+fame, was William Falconer, whose “Shipwreck,” published in 1762, was
+the most popular sea-poem of the eighteenth century. The most striking
+characteristic of the descriptive parts of the poem is the daring and
+novel use of technical sea-terms, but apart from this the language is
+purely conventional. The sea is still the same _desert-waste_, _faithless
+deep_, _watery way_, _world_, _plain_, _path_, or _the fluid plain_, _the
+glassy plain_, whilst the landscape catalogue is as lifeless as any of
+the descriptive passages of the early eighteenth century:
+
+                      on every spray
+    The warbling birds exalt their evening lay,
+    Blithe skipping o’er yon hill the fleecy train
+    Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain.
+
+When he leaves this second-hand description, and describes scenes
+actually experienced and strongly felt, Falconer’s language is
+correspondingly fresh and vivid, the catastrophe of the shipwreck itself,
+for example, being painted with extraordinary power.[77]
+
+When we come to Johnson and Goldsmith, here again a distinction must be
+made between the didactic or satiric portion of their work and that which
+is descriptive. Johnson’s didactic verse, marked as it is by a free use
+of inversion and ellipsis, rarely attains the clearness and simplicity of
+Goldsmith’s, whilst he has also much more of the stock descriptive terms
+and phrases. His “Odes” are almost entirely cast in this style. Thus in
+“Spring”:
+
+    Now o’er the rural Kingdom roves
+        Soft Pleasure with her laughing train,
+    Love warbles in the vocal groves
+        And vegetation plants the plains,
+
+whilst exactly the same stuff is turned out for a love poem, “To Stella”:
+
+    Not the soft sighs of vernal gales
+    The fragrance of the flowery vales
+    The murmurs of the crystal rill
+    The vocal grove, the verdant hill.
+
+Though there is not so much of this kind of otiose description in the
+poems of Goldsmith, yet Mr. Dobson’s estimate of his language may be
+accepted as a just one: “In spite of their beauty and humanity,” he
+says, “the lasting quality of ‘The Traveller’ and ‘The Deserted Village’
+is seriously prejudiced by his half-way attitude between the poetry of
+convention and the poetry of nature—between the _gradus_ epithet of Pope
+and the direct vocabulary of Wordsworth.”[78] Thus when we read such
+lines as
+
+    The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
+    The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail
+
+                                                 (“Traveller,” ll. 293-4)
+
+we feel that Goldsmith too has been writing with his eye on the object,
+and even in such a line as
+
+    The breezy covert of the warbling grove
+
+                                                           (_Ibid._, 360)
+
+there is a freshness of description that compensates for the use of the
+hackneyed _warbling grove_. On the other hand, there are in both pieces
+passages which it is difficult not to regard as purely conventional in
+their language. Thus in “The Traveller,” the diction, if not entirely of
+the stock type, is not far from it:
+
+    Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned
+    Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round
+    Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale
+    Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale,
+
+and so on for another dozen lines.[79]
+
+Only the slightest traces, however, of this mechanical word-painting
+appear in “The Deserted Village,” almost the only example of the
+stereotyped phrase being in the line
+
+    These simple blessings of _the lowly train_
+
+                                                                (l. 252).
+
+Thus whilst Goldsmith in much of his work continues the classical school
+of Pope, alike in his predilection for didactic verse and his practice of
+the heroic couplet, in his poetic language he is essentially individual.
+In his descriptive passages he rarely uses the conventional jargon, and
+the greater part of the didactic and moral observations of his two most
+famous poems is written in simple and unadorned language that would
+satisfy the requirements of the Wordsworthian canon.
+
+That pure and unaffected diction could be employed with supreme effect
+in other than moral and didactic verse was soon to be shown in the lyric
+poetry of William Blake, who, about thirty years before Wordsworth
+launched his manifestoes, evolved for himself a poetic language,
+wonderful alike in its beauty and simplicity. In those of the “Songs
+of Innocence” and “The Songs of Experience,” which are concerned with
+natural description, the epithets and expressions that had long been
+consecrated to this purpose find little or no place. Here and there we
+seem to catch echoes of the stock diction, as in the lines,
+
+    the starry floor
+    the watery shore
+
+of the Introduction to the “Songs of Experience,” or the
+
+    happy, silent, _moony_ beams
+
+of “The Cradle Song”; but in each case the expressions are redeemed and
+revitalized by the pure and joyous singing note of the lyrics of which
+they form part. Only once is Blake to be found using the conventional
+epithet, when in his “Laughing Song” he writes
+
+    the _painted_ birds laugh in the shade,
+
+whilst with his usual unerring instinct he marks down the monotonous
+smoothness of so much contemporary verse in that stanza of his ode “To
+the Muses” in which, as has been well said, the eighteenth century dies
+to music:[80]
+
+    How have you left the ancient love
+    That bards of old enjoyed in you!
+    The languid strings do scarcely move,
+    The sound is forced, the notes are few.
+
+Not that he altogether escaped the blighting influence of his time. In
+the early “Imitation of Spenser,” we get such a couplet as
+
+    To sit in council with his modern peers
+    And judge of tinkling rhimes and elegances terse,
+
+whilst the “vicious diction” Wordsworth was to condemn is also to be seen
+in this line from one of the early “Songs”:
+
+    and Phœbus fir’d my vocal rage.
+
+Even as late as 1800 Blake was capable of writing
+
+    Receive this tribute from a harp sincere.[81]
+
+But these slight blemishes only seem to show up in stronger light the
+essential beauty and nobility of his poetical style.
+
+But the significance of Blake’s work in the purging and purifying of
+poetic diction was not, as might perhaps be expected, recognized by his
+contemporaries and immediate successors. For Coleridge, writing some
+thirty years later, it was Cowper, and his less famous contemporary
+Bowles, who were the pioneers in the rejecting of the old and faded
+style and the beginning of the new, the first to combine “natural
+thoughts with natural diction.”[82] Coleridge’s opinion seems to us
+now to be an over-statement, but we rather suspect that Cowper was not
+unwilling to regard himself as an innovator in poetic language. In his
+correspondence he reveals himself constantly pre-occupied with the
+question of poetic expression, and especially with the language fit and
+proper for his translation of Homer. His opinion of Pope’s attempt has
+already been referred to, but he himself was well aware of the inherent
+difficulties.[83] He had, it would seem, definite and decided opinions
+on the subject of poetic language; he recognized the lifelessness of the
+accepted diction, which, rightly or wrongly, he attributed especially to
+the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” and tried to escape from its bondage.
+His oft-quoted thesis that in the hands of the eighteenth century poets
+poetry had become a “mere mechanic art,” he developed at length in his
+ode “Secundum Artem,” which comprises almost a complete catalogue of the
+ornaments which enabled the warblers to have their tune by heart. What
+Cowper in that ode pillories—“the trim epithets,” the “sweet alternate
+rhyme,” the “flowers of light description”—were in the main what were to
+be held up to ridicule in the _Lyrical Ballads_ prefaces; Wordsworth’s
+attack is here anticipated by twenty years.
+
+But, as later in the case of Wordsworth, Cowper in his early work has
+not a little of the language which he is at such pains to condemn. Thus
+Horace again appears in the old familiar guise,
+
+    Now o’er the spangled hemisphere,
+    Diffused the starry train appear
+
+                                                         (“Fifth Satire”)
+
+whilst even in “Table Talk” we find occasional conventional descriptions
+such as
+
+    Nature...
+    Spreads the fresh verdure of the fields and leads
+    The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.
+
+But there is little of this kind of description in “The Task.” Now
+and then we meet with examples of the old periphrases, such as the
+_pert voracious kind_ for “sparrows,” or the description of kings
+as the _arbiters of this terraqueous swamp_, though many of these
+pseudo-Miltonic expressions are no doubt used for playful effect. In
+those parts of the poem which deal with the sights and sounds of outdoor
+life the images are new and fresh, whilst in the moral and didactic
+portions the language is, as a rule, uniformly simple and direct. But for
+the classical purity of poetical expression in which the poet is at times
+pre-eminent, it is perhaps best to turn to his shorter poems, such as “To
+Mary,” or to the last two stanzas of “The Castaway,” and especially to
+some of the “Olney Hymns,” of the language of which it may be said that
+every word is rightly chosen and not one is superfluous. Indeed, it may
+well be that these hymns, together with those of Watts and Wesley,[84]
+which by their very purpose demanded a mode of expression severe in its
+simplicity, but upon which were stamped the refinement and correct taste
+of the scholars and gentlemen who wrote them—it may well be that the
+more natural mode of poetic diction which thus arose gave to Wordsworth
+a starting point when he began to expound and develop his theories
+concerning the language of poetry.[85]
+
+Whilst Cowper was thus at once heralding, and to a not inconsiderable
+extent exemplifying, the Romantic reaction in form, another poet, George
+Crabbe, had by his realism given, even before Cowper, an important
+indication of one characteristic aspect of the new poetry.
+
+But though the force and fidelity of his descriptions of the scenery
+of his native place, and the depth and sincerity of his pathos, give
+him a leading place among those who anticipated Wordsworth, other
+characteristics stamp him as belonging to the old order and not to the
+new. His language is still largely that perfected by Dryden and Pope,
+and worked to death by their degenerate followers. The recognized
+“elegancies” and “flowers of speech” still linger on. A peasant is still
+a _swain_, poets are _sons of verse_, fishes _the finny tribe_, country
+folk _the rural tribe_. The word _nymph_ appears with a frequency that
+irritates the reader, and how ludicrous an effect it could produce by its
+sudden appearance in tales of the realistic type that Crabbe loved may be
+judged from such examples as
+
+    It soon appeared that while this nymph divine
+    Moved on, there met her rude uncivil kine.
+
+Whilst he succeeds in depicting the life of the rustic poor, not as
+it appears in the rosy tints of Goldsmith’s pictures, but in all its
+reality—sordid, gloomy and stern, as it for the most part is—the old
+stereotyped descriptions are to be found scattered throughout his grimly
+realistic pictures of the countryside. Thus when Crabbe writes of
+
+                    tepid meads
+    And lawns irriguous and the blooming field
+
+                                                             (“Midnight”)
+
+or
+
+    The lark on quavering pinion woo’d the day
+    Less towering linnets fill’d the vocal spray
+
+                                                        (“The Candidate”)
+
+we feel that he has not had before his eyes the real scenes of his
+Suffolk home, but that he has been content to recall and imitate the
+descriptive stock-in-trade that had passed current for so many years;
+even the later “Tales,” published up to the years when Shelley and Keats
+were beginning their activities, are not free from this defect.
+
+About ten years before Wordsworth launched his manifestoes, there were
+published the two works of Erasmus Darwin, to which reference has already
+been made, and in which this stock language was unconsciously reduced to
+absurdity, not only because of the themes on which it was employed, but
+also because of the fatal ease and facility with which it was used. It
+is strange to think that but a few years before the famous sojourn of
+Coleridge and Wordsworth on the Quantocks, “The Loves of the Plants,” and
+its fellow, should have won instant and lasting popularity.[86]
+
+That Darwin took himself very seriously is to be seen from “The
+Interludes,” in which he airs his views,[87] whilst in his two poems he
+gave full play to his “fancy” (“‘theory’ we cannot call it,” comments
+De Quincey) that nothing was strictly poetic except what is presented in
+visual image. This in itself was not bad doctrine, as it at least implied
+that poetry should be concrete, and thus reflected a desire to escape
+from the abstract and highly generalized diction of his day. But Darwin
+so works his dogma to death that the reader is at first dazzled, and
+finally bewildered by the multitude of images presented, in couplets of
+monotonous smoothness, in innumerable passages, such as
+
+    On twinkling fins my pearly nations play
+    Or wind with sinuous train their trackless way:
+    My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed
+    Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest.
+
+                                                    (“Botanic Garden,” I)
+
+Still there is something to be said for the readers who enjoyed having
+the facts and theories of contemporary science presented to them in so
+coloured and fantastic a garb.
+
+Nor must it be forgotten that the youthful Wordsworth was much influenced
+by these poems of Darwin, so that his early work shows many traces of
+the very pseudo-poetic language which he was soon to condemn. Thus in
+“An Evening Walk”[88] there are such stock phrases as “emerald meads,”
+“watery plains,” the “forest train.”
+
+In “Descriptive Sketches” examples are still more numerous. Thus:
+
+    Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs
+    And amorous music on the water dies,
+
+which might have come direct from Pope, or
+
+    Here all the seasons revel hand-in-hand
+    ’Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned.
+
+The old epithet _purple_ is frequently found (_purple_ lights and vernal
+plains, the _purple_ morning, the fragrant mountain’s _purple_ side), and
+there are a few awkward adjectives in y (“the _piny_ waste”), whilst a
+gun is described as the _thundering tube_.
+
+Few poems indeed are to be found in the eighteenth century with so many
+fantastic conceits as these 1793 poems of Wordsworth. Probably, as has
+been suggested, the poet was influenced to an extent greater than he
+himself imagined by “The Botanic Garden,” so that the poetical devices
+freely employed in his early work may be the result of a determination
+to conform to the “theory” of poetry which Darwin in his precept and
+practice had exemplified. Later, the devices which had satisfied him
+in his first youthful productions must have appeared to him as more or
+less vicious, and altogether undesirable, and in disgust he resolved to
+exclude at one stroke all that he was pleased to call “poetic diction.”
+But, little given to self-criticism, when he penned his memorable
+Prefaces, he fixed the responsibility for “the extravagant and absurd
+diction” upon the whole body of his predecessors, unable or unwilling to
+recognize that he himself had begun his poetic career with a free use of
+many of its worst faults.[89]
+
+Of the stock diction of eighteenth century poetry we may say, then, that
+in the first place it is in large measure a reflection of the normal
+characteristic attitude of the poets of the “neo-classical” period
+towards Nature and all that the term implies. The “neo-classical” poets
+were but little interested in Nature; the countryside made no great
+appeal to them, and it was the Town and its teeming life that focused
+their interest and attention. Man, and his life as a social being, was
+their “proper study”; and this concentration of interest finds its
+reflection in the new and vivid language of the “essays,” satires, and
+epistles, whilst in the “nature poetry” the absence of genuine feeling is
+only too often betrayed by the dead epithets of the stock diction each
+poet felt himself at liberty to draw upon according to his needs. It is
+scarcely necessary to remind ourselves that it is in Pope’s “Pastorals”
+and the “Homer,” not in the “Dunciad” or “The Essay on Man,” that the
+stock words, phrases, and similes are to be found, and the remark is
+equally true of most of the poets of his period. But Pope has been
+unjustly pilloried, for the stock diction did not originate with him. It
+is true that the most masterly and finished examples of what is usually
+styled “the eighteenth century poetic diction” are to be found in his
+work generally, and no doubt the splendour of his translation of Homer
+did much to establish a vogue for many of the set words and phrases. At
+the same time the supremacy of the heroic couplet which he did so much to
+establish played its part in perpetuating the stock diction, the epithets
+of which were often technically just what was required to give the
+decasyllabic verse the desired “correctness” and “smoothness.” But it is
+unjust to saddle him with the responsibility for the lack of originality
+evident in many of his successors and imitators.
+
+The fact that this stock language is not confined to the neo-classical
+poets proper, but is found to a large extent persisting to the very end
+of the eighteenth century, and even invading the early work of the writer
+who led the revolt against it, is indicative of another general cause of
+its widespread prevalence. Briefly, it may be said that not only did the
+conventional poetic diction reflect in the main the average neo-classical
+outlook on external nature; it reflected also the average eighteenth
+century view as to the nature of poetical language, which regarded its
+words and phrases as satisfying the artistic canon, not in virtue of the
+degree in which they reflected the individual thought or emotion of the
+poet, but according as they conformed to a standard of language based on
+accepted models.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LATINISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+There is now to be noticed another type of eighteenth century poetic
+diction which was in its way as prevalent, and, it may be added, as
+vicious, as the stock diction which has been discussed in the previous
+chapter. This was the use of a latinized vocabulary, from the early years
+of the century down to the days when the work of Goldsmith, Cowper, and
+Crabbe seemed to indicate a sort of interregnum between the old order and
+the new.
+
+This fashion, or craze, for “latinity” was not of course a sudden and
+special development which came in with the eighteenth century: it was
+rather the culmination of a tendency which was not altogether unconnected
+with the historic development of the language itself. As a factor in
+literary composition, it had first begun to be discussed when the
+Elizabethan critics and men of letters were busying themselves with the
+special problem of diction. Latinism was one of the excesses to which
+poets and critics alike directed their attention, and their strictures
+and warnings were such as were inevitable and salutary in the then
+transitional confusion of the language.[90] In the early years of the
+seventeenth century this device for strengthening and ornamenting the
+language was adopted more or less deliberately by such poets as Phineas
+and Giles Fletcher, especially the latter, who makes free use of such
+coinages as _elamping_, _appetence_, _elonging_, etc.[91]
+
+The example of the Fletchers in thus adding to their means of literary
+expression was soon to be followed by a greater poet. When Milton came to
+write his epics, it is evident, as has been said, that he felt the need
+for a diction in keeping with the exalted theme he had chosen, and his
+own taste and temperament, as well as the general tendencies of his age,
+naturally led him to make use of numerous words of direct or indirect
+“classical” origin. But his direct coinages from Latin and Greek are much
+less than has often been supposed.[92] What he seems to have done in many
+cases was to take words the majority of which had been recently formed,
+usually for scientific or philosophic purposes, and incorporate them
+in his poetical vocabulary. Thus _Atheous_, _attrite_, _conflagrant_,
+_jaculation_, _myrrhine_, _paranymph_, _plenipotent_, etc., are instances
+of classical formations which in most cases seem, according to “The New
+English Dictionary,” to have made their first literary appearance shortly
+before the Restoration. In other instances Milton’s latinisms are much
+older.[93] What is important is the fact that Milton was able to infuse
+these and many similar words with a real poetic power, and we may be sure
+that the use of such words as _ethereal_, _adamantine_, _refulgent_,
+_regal_, whose very essence, as has been remarked, is suggestiveness,
+rather than close definition, was altogether deliberate.[94] In addition
+to this use of a latinized vocabulary, there is a continuous latinism
+of construction, which is to be found in the early poems, but which,
+as might be expected, is most prominent in the great epics, where
+idioms like _after his charge received_ (P.L., V 248), _since first her
+salutation heard_ (P.R., II, 107) are frequent.[95]
+
+Milton, we may say, of purpose prepense made or culled for himself a
+special poetical vocabulary which was bound to suffer severely at the
+hands of incompetent and uninspired imitators. But though the widespread
+use of latinized diction is no doubt largely to be traced to the
+influence of Milton at a time when “English verse went Milton mad,” it
+may perhaps also be regarded as a practice that reflected to a certain
+extent the general literary tendencies of the Augustan age.
+
+When Milton was writing his great epics Dryden was just beginning his
+literary career, but though there are numerous examples of latinisms
+in the works of the latter, they are not such as would suggest that he
+had been influenced to any extent by the Miltonic manner of creating a
+poetical vocabulary. There is little or no coinage of the “magnificent”
+words which Milton used so freely, though latinized forms like
+_geniture_, _irremeable_, _praescious_, _tralineate_, are frequent.
+Dryden, however, as might be expected, often uses words in their original
+etymological sense. Thus besides the common use of _prevent_, _secure_,
+etc., we find in the translation of the “Metamorphoses”:
+
+    He had either _led_
+    Thy mother then,
+
+where _led_ is used in the sense of Latin _ducere_ (marry) and “_refers_
+the limbs,” where “refers” means “restores.”[96] Examples are few in
+Dryden’s original works, but “Annus Mirabilis” furnishes instances like
+the _ponderous ball expires_, where “expires” means “is blown forth,”
+and “each wonted room _require_” (“seek again”), whilst there is an
+occasional reminiscence of such Latin phrases as “manifest of crimes” for
+_manifestus sceleris_ (“Ab. and Achit.”).
+
+What has been said of the latinisms of Dryden applies also to those of
+Pope. Words like _prevent_, _erring_, _succeed_, _devious_, _horrid_,
+_missive_, _vagrant_, are used with their original signification, and
+there are passages like
+
+    For this he bids the _nervous_ artists vie.
+
+Imitations of Latin constructions are occasionally found:
+
+    Some god has told them, or themselves survey
+        _The bark escaped_.
+
+Phrases like “_fulgid_ weapons,” “roseate _unguents_,” “_circumfusile_
+gold,” “_frustrate_ triumphs,” etc., are probably coinages imposed by
+the necessities of translation. Other similar phrases, such as (tears)
+“_conglobing_ on the dust,” “with _unctuous_ fir _foment_ the flame,”
+seem to anticipate something of the absurdity into which this kind of
+diction was later to fall.[97]
+
+On the whole, the latinisms found in the works of Dryden and Pope are not
+usually deliberate creations for the purpose of poetic ornament. They
+are such as would probably seem perfectly natural in the seventeenth
+and early eighteenth century, when the traditions of classical study
+still persisted strongly, and when the language of prose itself was still
+receiving additions from that source. Moreover, the large amount of
+translation done by both poets from the classics was bound to result in
+the use of numerous classical terms and constructions.
+
+In 1705 there appeared the “Splendid Shilling” of John Philips, followed
+by his “Cyder” and other poems a year later. These poems are among the
+first of the Miltonic parodies or imitations, and, being written in
+blank verse, they may be regarded as heralding the struggle against the
+tyranny of the heroic couplet. Indeed, blank verse came to be distinctly
+associated with the Romantic movement, probably because it was considered
+that its structure was more encouraging to the unfettered imagination
+than the closed couplets of the classicists. It is thus interesting
+to note that the reaction in form, which marks one distinct aspect of
+Romanticism, was really responsible for some of the excesses against
+which the manifestoes afterwards protested; for it is in these blank
+verse poems especially that there was developed a latinism both of
+diction and construction that frequently borders on the ludicrous, even
+when the poet’s object was not deliberately humorous.
+
+In “Blenheim” terms and phrases such as _globous iron_, _by chains
+connexed_, etc., are frequent, and the attempts at Miltonic effects is
+seen in numerous passages like
+
+              Upborne
+    By frothy billows thousands float the stream
+    In cumbrous mail, with love of farther shore;
+    Confiding in their hands, that sed’lous strive
+    To cut th’ outrageous fluent.
+
+In “Cyder” latinisms are still more abundant: _the nocent brood_ (of
+snails), _treacle’s viscuous juice_, _with grain incentive stored_, _the
+defecated liquour_, _irriguous sleep_, as well as passages like
+
+    Nor from the sable ground expect success
+      Nor from cretacious, stubborn or jejune,
+
+or
+
+    Bards with volant touch
+    Traverse loquacious strings.
+
+This kind of thing became extremely common and persisted throughout the
+eighteenth century.
+
+Incidentally, it may here be remarked that the publication of Philips’s
+poems probably gave to Lady Winchilsea a hint for her poem “Fanscombe
+Barn.”[98] Philips, as has been noted, was one of the very first to
+attempt to use Milton’s lofty diction, and his latinized sentence
+structure for commonplace and even trivial themes, and no doubt his
+experiment, having attracted Lady Winchilsea’s attention, inspired her
+own efforts at Miltonic parody, though it is probably “Cyder” and “The
+Splendid Shilling,” rather then “Paradise Lost,” that she takes as her
+model. Thus the carousings of the tramps forgathered in Fanscombe Barn
+are described:
+
+          the swarthy bowl appears,
+    Replete with liquor, globulous to fight,
+    And threat’ning inundation o’er the brim;
+
+and the whole poem shows traces of its second-hand inspiration.
+
+Even those who are now remembered chiefly as Spenserian imitators indulge
+freely in a latinized style when they take to blank verse. Thus William
+Thompson, who in his poem “Sickness” has many phrases like “the arm
+_ignipotent_,” “_inundant_ blaze” (Bk. I), “terrestrial stores medicinal”
+(Bk. III), with numerous passages, of which the following is typical:
+
+                              the poet’s mind
+    (Effluence essential of heat and light)
+    Now mounts a loftier wing when Fancy leads
+    The glittering track, and points him to the sky
+    Excursive.
+
+                                                                 (Bk. IV)
+
+William Shenstone, the author of one of the most successful of the
+Spenserian imitations, is more sparing in this respect, but even in his
+case passages such as
+
+              Of words indeed profuse,
+    Of gold tenacious, their torpescent soul
+    Clenches their coin, and what electric fire
+    Shall solve the frosty grip, and bid it flow?
+
+                                                      (“Economy,” Part I)
+
+are not infrequent.
+
+But it is not only the mere versifiers who have succumbed to this
+temptation. By far the most important of the early blank verse poems
+was Thomson’s “Seasons,” which, first appearing from 1726-1730, was
+subsequently greatly revised and altered up to the edition of 1746,
+the last to be issued in the author’s lifetime.[99] The importance and
+success of “The Seasons” as one of the earliest indications of the
+“Return to Nature” has received adequate recognition, but Thomson was
+an innovator in the style, as well as in the matter, of his poem. As
+Dr. Johnson remarked, he saw things always with the eyes of a poet,
+and the quickened and revived interest in external nature which he
+reflects inevitably impelled him to search for a new diction to give it
+expression. We can see him, as it were, at work trying to replace the
+current coinage with a new mintage of his own, or rather with a mixed
+currency, derived partly from Milton, and partly from his own resources.
+His diction is thus in some degrees as artificial as the stock diction
+of his period, especially when his attempts to emulate or imitate the
+magnificence of Milton betray him into pomposity or even absurdity; but
+his poetical language as a whole is leavened with so much that is new and
+his very own as to make it clear that the Romantic revival in the style,
+as well as in the contents, of poetry has really begun. The resulting
+peculiarities of style did not escape notice in his own time. He was
+recognized as the creator of a new poetical language, and was severely
+criticized even by some of his friends. Thus Somerville urged with
+unusual frankness a close revision of the style of “The Seasons”:
+
+    Read Philips much, consider Milton more
+    But from their dross extract the purer ore:
+    To coin new words or to restore the old
+    In southern lands is dangerous and bold;
+    But rarely, very rarely, will succeed
+    When minted on the other side of Tweed.[100]
+
+Thomson’s comment on this criticism was emphatic: “Should I alter my
+ways I should write poorly. I must choose what appears to be the most
+significant epithet or I cannot proceed.”[101] Hence, though lines and
+whole passages of “The Seasons” were revised, and large additions made,
+the characteristics of the style were on the whole preserved. And one
+of the chief characteristics, due partly to the influence of Milton,
+and partly to the obvious fact that for Thomson with new thoughts and
+impressions to convey to his readers, the current and conventional
+vocabulary of poetry needed reinforcement, is an excessive use of
+latinisms.[102]
+
+Thus in “Spring” we find, e.g., “_prelusive_ drops,” “the _amusive_ arch”
+(the rainbow), “the torpid sap _detruded_ to the root,” etc., as well as
+numerous passages such as
+
+              Joined to these
+    Innumerous songsters in the freshening shade
+    Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix
+    Mellifluous.
+
+                                                    (“Spring,” 607 foll.)
+
+In “Summer” the epithet _gelid_ appears with almost wearisome iteration,
+with other examples like _flexile_ wave, _the fond sequacious bird_,
+etc., while the cloud that presages a storm is called “the small
+prognostic” and trees are “the noble sons of potent heat and floods.”
+Continuous passages betray similar characteristics:
+
+    From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes
+    Its hue cerulean and of evening tinct.
+
+                                                    (“Summer,” 149 foll.)
+
+_Autumn_ furnishes even more surprising instances: the stag “_adhesive_
+to the track,” the sands “strowed _bibulous_ above,” “forests huge
+_incult_,” etc., as well as numerous passages of sustained latinism.[103]
+
+In “Winter,” which grew from an original 405 lines in 1726 to 1,069 lines
+in 1746, latinism of vocabulary is not prominent to the same extent as in
+the three previous books, but the following is a typical sample:
+
+    Meantime in sable cincture shadows vast
+    Deep-tinged, and damp and congregated clouds
+    And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven
+    Involves the face of things.
+
+                                                      (ll. 54 foll.)[104]
+
+The revisions after 1730 do not show any great pruning, or less
+indulgence in these characteristics; rather the contrary, for many of
+them are additions which did not appear until 1744. Now and then Thomson
+has changed his terms and epithets. Thus in the lines
+
+                the potent sun
+    _Melts into_ limpid air the high-raised clouds
+
+                                                          (“Summer,” 199)
+
+the expression “melts into” has replaced the earlier “attenuates
+to.”[105] One of the best of the emendations, at least as regards the
+disappearance of a latinism, is seen in “Summer” (48-9), where the second
+verse of the couplet,
+
+    The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,
+    At first _faint-gleaming_ in the dappled east
+
+has replaced the
+
+    _Mildly elucent_ in the streaky east
+
+of the earlier version. Often Thomson’s latinisms produce no other effect
+on the reader than that of mere pedantry. Thus in passages such as
+
+    See, where the winding vale its lavish stores
+    _Irriguous_ spreads. See, how the lily drinks
+    The _latent_ rill.
+
+                                                          (“Spring,” 494)
+
+or
+
+                    the canvas smooth
+    With glowing life _protuberant_.
+
+                                                          (“Autumn,” 136)
+
+or
+
+    The fallow ground laid open to the sun
+    _Concoctive_.
+
+                                                           (_Ibid._, 407)
+
+or the description of the tempest
+
+    Struggling through the _dissipated_ grove
+
+                                                     (“Winter,” 185)[106]
+
+(where there is Latin _order_ as well as diction), it is certain that
+the terms in question have little or no poetic value, and that simpler
+words in nearly every case would have produced greater effects. Now and
+then, as later in the case of Cowper, the pedantry is, we may suppose,
+deliberately playful, as when he speaks of the cattle that
+
+    ruminate in the contiguous shade
+
+                                                           (“Winter,” 86)
+
+or indicates a partial thaw by the statement
+
+          Perhaps the vale
+    relents awhile to the reflected ray.
+
+                                                           (_Ibid._, 784)
+
+The words illustrated above are rarely, of course, Thomson’s own coinage.
+Many of them (e.g. _detruded_, _hyperborean_, _luculent_, _relucent_,
+_turgent_) date from the sixteenth century or earlier, though from the
+earliest references to them given in the “New English Dictionary” it
+may be assumed that Thomson was not always acquainted with the sources
+where they are first found, and that to him their “poetic” use is first
+due. In some cases Milton was doubtless the immediate source from which
+Thomson took such words, to use them with a characteristic looseness of
+meaning.[107]
+
+It would be too much to say that Thomson’s use of such terms arises
+merely out of a desire to emulate the “grand style”; it reflects rather
+his general predilection for florid and luxurious diction. Moreover, it
+has been noted that an analysis of his latinisms seems to point to a
+definite scheme of formation. Thus there is a distinct preference for
+certain groups of formations, such as adjectives in “-ive” (_affective_,
+_amusive_, _excursive_, etc.), or in “-ous” (_irriguous_, _sequacious_),
+or Latin participle forms, such as _clamant_, _turgent_, _incult_, etc.
+In additions Latin words are frequently used in their original sense,
+common instances being _sordid_, _generous_, _error_, _secure_, _horrid_,
+_dome_, while his blank verse line was also characterized by the free use
+of latinized constructions.[108] Thomson’s frequent use of the sandwiched
+noun, “flowing rapture bright” (“Spring,” 1088), “gelid caverns
+woodbine-wrought,” (“Summer,” 461), “joyless rains obscure” (“Winter,”
+712), often with the second adjective used predicatively or adverbially,
+
+    High seen the Seasons lead, _in sprightly dance_
+      _Harmonious knit_, the rosy-fingered hours
+
+                                                         (“Summer,” 1212)
+
+is also worthy of note.
+
+Yet it can hardly be denied that the language of “The Seasons” is in
+many respects highly artificial, and that Thomson was to all intents
+and purposes the creator of a special poetic diction, perhaps even more
+so than Gray, who had to bear the brunt of Wordsworth’s fulminations.
+But on the whole his balance is on the right side; at a time when the
+majority of his contemporaries were either content to draw drafts on
+the conventional and consecrated words, phrases, and similes, or were
+sedulously striving to ape the polished plainness of Pope, he was able to
+show that new powers of expression could well be won from the language.
+His nature vocabulary alone is sufficient proof of the value of his
+contributions to the poetic wealth of the language, not a few of his
+new-formed compounds especially being expressive and beautiful.[109] His
+latinisms are less successful because they can hardly be said to belong
+to any diction, and for the most part they must be classed among the
+“false ornaments” derided by Wordsworth;[110] not only do they possess
+none of that mysterious power of suggestion which comes to words in
+virtue of their employment through generations of prose and song, but
+also not infrequently their meaning is far from clear. They are never the
+spontaneous reflection of the poet’s thought, but, on the contrary, they
+appear only too often to have been dragged in merely for effect.
+
+This last remark applies still more forcibly to Somerville’s “Chase,”
+which appeared in 1735. Its author was evidently following in the wake of
+Thomson’s blank verse, and with this aim freely allows himself the use of
+an artificial and inflated diction, as in many passages like
+
+    Cull each salubrious plant, with bitter juice
+    Concoctive stored, and potent to allay
+    Each vicious ferment.
+
+About the same time Edward Young was probably writing his “Night
+Thoughts,” though the poem was not published until 1742. Here again
+the influence of Thomson is to be seen in the diction, though no
+doubt in this case there is also not a little that derives direct
+from Milton. Young has Latin formations like _terraqueous_, _to
+defecate_, _feculence_, _manumit_, as well as terms such as _avocation_,
+_eliminate_, and _unparadize_, used in their original sense. In the
+second instalment of the “Night Thoughts” there is a striking increase in
+the number of Latin terms, either borrowed directly, or at least formed
+on classical roots, some of which must have been unintelligible to many
+readers. Thus _indagators_ for “seekers,” _fucus_ for “false brilliance,”
+_concertion_ for “intimate agreement,” and _cutaneous_ for “external,”
+“skin deep”:
+
+    All the distinctions of this little life
+    Are quite cutaneous.[111]
+
+It is difficult to understand the use of such terms when simple native
+words were ready at hand, and the explanation must be that they were
+thought to add to the dignity of the poem, and to give it a flavour of
+scholarship; for the same blemishes appear in most of the works published
+at this time. Thus in Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (1744)
+there is a similar use of latinized terms: _pensile planets_, _passion’s
+fierce illapse_, _magnific praise_, though the tendency is best
+illustrated in such passages as
+
+                    that trickling shower
+    Piercing through every crystalline convex
+    Of clustering dewdrops to their flight opposed,
+    Recoil at length where, concave all behind
+    The internal surface of each glassy orb
+    Repels their forward passage into air.
+
+In “The Poet” there is a striking example of what can only be the
+pedantic, even if playful, use of a cumbrous epithet:
+
+    On shelves _pulverulent_, majestic stands
+    His library.
+
+Similar examples are to be found in “The Art of Preserving Health” by
+John Armstrong, published in the same year as Akenside’s “Pleasures.”
+The unpoetical nature of this subject may perhaps be Armstrong’s excuse
+for such passages as
+
+    Mournful eclipse or planets ill-combined
+    Portend disastrous to the vital world;
+
+but this latinizing tendency was perhaps never responsible for a more
+absurd periphrasis than one to be found in the second part of the poem,
+which treats of “Diet”:
+
+    Nor does his gorge the luscious bacon rue,
+    Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste
+    Of solid milk.[112]
+
+The high Miltonic manner was likewise attempted by John Dyer in “The
+Fleece,” which appeared in 1757, and by James Grainger in “The Sugar
+Cane” (1764), to mention only the most important. Dyer, deservedly
+praised for his new and fresh descriptive diction, has not escaped this
+contagion of latinism: _the globe terraqueous_, _the cerule stream_,
+_rich sapinaceous loam_, _detersive bay salt_, etc., while elsewhere
+there are obvious efforts to recapture the Miltonic cadence. In “The
+Sugar Cane” the tendency is increased by the necessity thrust upon the
+poet to introduce numerous technical terms. Thus
+
+                though all thy mills
+    Crackling, o’erflow with a redundant juice
+    Poor tastes the liquor; coction long demands
+    And highest temper, ere it saccharize.
+
+Meanwhile Joseph Warton had written his one blank verse poem “The
+Enthusiast” (1740), when he was only eighteen years old. But though both
+he and his brother Thomas are among the most important of the poets
+who show the influence of Milton most clearly, that influence reveals
+itself rather in the matter of thought than of form, and there is in
+“The Enthusiast” little of the diction that marred so many of the blank
+verse poems. Only here and there may traces be seen, as in the following
+passage:
+
+                  fairer she
+    In innocence and homespun vestments dress’d
+    Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears
+    Shone pendent.
+
+There is still less in the poems of Thomas Warton, who was even a more
+direct follower of Milton than his elder brother. There is scarcely one
+example of a Latinism in “The Pleasures of Melancholy,” which is really
+a companion piece to “The Enthusiast.” The truth is that it was Milton’s
+early work—and especially “Il Penseroso”—that affected most deeply these
+early Romanticists, and even their blank verse is charged with the
+sentiments and phrases of Milton’s octosyllabics. Thus the two poets, who
+were among the first to catch something of the true spirit of Milton,
+have little or nothing of the cumbersome and pedantic diction found so
+frequently in the so-called “Miltonics” of the eighteenth century, and
+this in itself is one indication of their importance in the earlier
+stages of the Romantic revival.
+
+This is also true in the case of Collins and Gray, who are the real
+eighteenth century disciples of Milton. Collins’s fondness for
+personified abstractions may perhaps be attributed to Milton’s influence,
+but there are few, if any, traces of latinism in his pure and simple
+diction. Gray was probably influenced more than he himself thought by
+Milton, and like Milton he made for himself a special poetical language,
+which owes not a little to the works of his great exemplar. But Gray’s
+keen sense of the poetical value of words, and his laborious precision
+and exactness in their use, kept him from any indulgence in coinages.
+Only one or two latinisms are to be found in the whole of his work, and
+when these do occur they are such as would come naturally to a scholar,
+or as were still current in the language of his time. Thus in “The
+Progress of Poesy” he has
+
+    this _pencil_ take,
+
+where “pencil” stands for “brush” (Latin, _pensillum_); whilst in a
+translation from Statius he gives to _prevent_ its latinized meaning
+
+    the champions, trembling at the sight
+    _Prevent_ disgrace.
+
+There is also a solitary example in the “Elegy” in the line
+
+    Can Honour’s voice _provoke_ the silent dust.
+
+The contemporary fondness for blank verse had called forth the strictures
+of Goldsmith in his “Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning,”
+and his own smooth and flowing couplets have certainly none of the
+pompous epithets which he there condemns. His diction, if we except an
+occasional use of the stock descriptive epithets, is admirable alike in
+its simplicity and directness, and the two following lines from “The
+Traveller” are, with one exception,[113] the only examples of latinisms
+to be found in his poems:
+
+    While sea-born gales their _gelid_ wings expand,
+
+and
+
+    Fall blunted from each _indurated_ heart.
+
+Dr. Johnson, who represented the extreme classicist position with regard
+to blank verse and other tendencies of the Romantic reaction, had a
+good deal to say in the aggregate about the poetical language of his
+predecessors and contemporaries. But the latinism of the time, which
+was widespread enough to have attracted his attention, does not seem to
+have provoked from him any critical comment. His own poetical works,
+even when we remember the “Vanity of Human Wishes,” where plenty of
+instances of Latin idiom are to be found, are practically free from this
+kind of diction, though this does not warrant the inference that he
+disapproved of it. We know that his prose was latinized to a remarkable
+extent, so that his “sesquipedalian terminology” has been regarded as
+the fountain-head of that variety of English which delights in “big,”
+high-sounding words. But his ideal, we may assume, was the polished and
+elegant diction of Pope, and his own verse is as free from pedantic
+formations as is “The Lives of the Poets,” which perhaps represents his
+best prose.
+
+It is in the works of a poet who, though he continues certain aspects of
+neo-classicism, yet announces unmistakably the coming of the new age,
+that we find a marked use of a deliberately latinized diction. Cowper has
+always received just praise for the purity of his language; he is, on the
+whole, singularly free from the artificialities and inversions which had
+marked the accepted poetic diction, but, on the other hand, his language
+is latinized to an extent that has perhaps not always been fully realized.
+
+This is, however, confined to “The Task” and to the translation of
+the “Iliad.” In the former case there is first a use of words freely
+formed on Latin roots, for most of which Cowper had no doubt abundant
+precedents,[114] but which, in some cases, must have been coined by
+him, perhaps playfully in some instances; _twisted form vermicular_,
+_the agglomerated pile_, _the voluble and restless earth_, etc. Other
+characteristics of this latinized style are perhaps best seen in
+continuous passages such as
+
+                  he spares me yet
+    These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines;
+    And, though himself so polished, still reprieves
+    The obsolete prolixity of shade
+
+                                                   (Bk. I, ll. 262 foll.)
+
+or in such a mock-heroic fling as
+
+    The stable yields a stercoraceous heap
+    Impregnated with quick fermenting salts
+    And potent to resist the freezing blast.
+
+                                                      (Bk. III, 463)[115]
+
+On these and many similar occasions Cowper has turned his predilection to
+playful account, as also when he diagnoses the symptoms of gout as
+
+    pangs arthritic that infest the toe
+    Of libertine excess,
+
+or speaks of monarchs and Kings as
+
+    The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp.
+
+There is still freer use of latinisms in the “Homer”:[116] _her eyes
+caerulean_, _the point innocuous_, _piercing accents stridulous_, _the
+triturated barley_, _candent lightnings_, _the inherent barb_, _his
+stream vortiginous_, besides such passages as
+
+    nor did the Muses spare to add
+    Responsive melody of vocal sweets.
+
+The instances given above fully illustrate on the whole the use of
+a latinized diction in eighteenth century poetry.[117] It must not,
+however, be supposed that the fashion was altogether confined to the
+blank verse poems. Thus Matthew Prior in “Alma,” or “The Progress of the
+Mind,” has passages like
+
+            the word obscene
+    Or harsh which once elanced must ever fly
+    Irrevocable,
+
+whilst Richard Savage in his “Wanderer” indulges in such flights as
+
+                            his breath
+    A nitrous damp that strikes petrific death.
+
+One short stanza by William Shenstone, from his poem “Written in Spring,
+1743,” contains an obvious example in three out of its four lines:
+
+        Again the labouring hind inverts the soil,
+    Again the merchant ploughs the tumid wave,
+    Another spring renews the soldier’s toil,
+    And finds me vacant in the rural cave.
+
+But it is in the blank verse poems that the fashion is most prevalent,
+and it is there that it only too often becomes ludicrous. The blind
+Milton, dying, lonely and neglected, a stranger in a strange land, is
+hardly likely to have looked upon himself as the founder of a “school,”
+or to have suspected to what base uses his lofty diction and style were
+to be put, within a few decades of his death, by a swarm of poetasters
+who fondly regarded themselves as his disciples.[118] The early writers
+of blank verse, such as John Philips, frankly avowed themselves imitators
+of Milton, and there can be little doubt that in their efforts to
+catch something of the dignity and majesty of their model the crowd of
+versifiers who then appeared on the scene had recourse to high-sounding
+words and phrases, as well as to latinized constructions by which they
+hoped to elevate their style. The grand style of “Paradise Lost” was
+bound to suffer severely at the hands of imitators, and there can be
+little doubt but that much of the preposterous latinizing of the time
+is to be traced to this cause. At the same time the influence of the
+general literary tendencies of the Augustan ages is not to be ignored in
+this connexion. When a diction freely sprinkled with latinized terms is
+found used by writers like Thomson in the first quarter, and Cowper at
+the end of the century, it may perhaps also be regarded as a mannerism
+of style due in some degree to influences which were still powerful
+enough to affect literary workmanship. For it must be remembered that in
+the eighteenth century the traditional supremacy of Latin had not yet
+altogether died out: pulpit and forensic eloquence, as well as the great
+prose works of the period, still bore abundant traces of the persistency
+of this influence.[119] Hence it need not be at all surprising to find
+that it has invaded poetry. The use of latinized words and phrases gave,
+or was supposed to give, an air of culture to verse, and contemporary
+readers did not always, we may suppose, regard such language as a mere
+display of pedantry.
+
+In this, as in other respects of the poetic output of the period, we may
+see a further reflex of the general literary atmosphere of the first half
+or so of the eighteenth century. There was no poetry of the highest
+rank, and not a great deal of _poetical_ poetry; the bulk of the output
+is “poetry without an atmosphere.” The very qualities most admired in
+prose—lucidity, correctness, absence of “enthusiasm”—were such as were
+approved for poetry; even the Romantic forerunners, with perhaps the
+single exception of Blake, felt the pressure of the prosaic atmosphere of
+their times. No doubt had a poet of the highest order appeared he would
+have swept away much of the accumulated rubbish and fashioned for himself
+a new poetic language, as Thomson tried, and Wordsworth later thought to
+do. But he did not appear, and the vast majority of the practitioners
+were content to ring the changes on the material they found at hand, and
+were not likely to dream of anything different.
+
+It is thus not sufficient to say that the “rapid and almost simultaneous
+diffusion of this purely cutaneous eruption,” to borrow an appropriate
+description from Lowell, was due solely to the potent influence of
+Milton. It reflects also the average conception of poetry held throughout
+a good part of the eighteenth century, a conception which led writers
+to seek in mere words qualities which are to be found in them only when
+they are the reflex of profound thought or powerful emotion. In short,
+latinism in eighteenth century poetry may be regarded as a literary
+fashion, akin in nature to the stock epithets and phrases of the
+“descriptive” poetry, which were later to be unsparingly condemned as the
+typical eighteenth century poetical diction.
+
+Of the poetic value of these latinized words little need be said. Whether
+or no they reflect a conscious effort to extend, enrich, or renew the
+vocabulary of English poetry, they cannot be said to have added much
+to the expressive resources of the language. This is not, of course,
+merely because they are of direct Latin origin. We know that around
+the central Teutonic core of English there have slowly been built up
+two mighty strata of Latin and Romance formations, which, in virtue of
+their long employment by writers in prose and verse, as well as on the
+lips of the people, have slowly acquired that force and picturesqueness
+which the poet needs for his purpose. But the latinized words of the
+eighteenth century are on a different footing. To us, nowadays, there
+is something pretentious and pedantic about them: they are artificial
+formations or adoptions, and not living words. English poets from time
+to time have been able to give a poetical colouring to such words,[120]
+and the eighteenth century is not without happy instances of this power.
+James Thomson here and there wins real poetic effects from his latinized
+vocabulary, as in such a passage as
+
+    Here lofty trees to ancient song unknown
+    The noble sons of potent heat and floods
+    Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven
+    Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw
+    Meridian gloom.
+
+                                               (“Summer,” 653 foll.)[121]
+
+The “return to Nature,” of which Thomson was perhaps the most noteworthy
+pioneer, brought back all the sights and sounds of outdoor life as
+subjects fit and meet for the poet’s song, and it is therefore of some
+interest, in the present connexion, to note that Wordsworth himself, who
+also knew how to make excellent use of high-sounding Latin formations,
+has perhaps nowhere illustrated this faculty better than in the famous
+passage on the Yew Trees of Borrowdale:
+
+    Those fraternal Four of Borrowdale
+    Joined in one solemn and capacious grove:
+    Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
+    Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
+    Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved;
+    Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
+    That threaten the profane.
+
+But the bulk of eighteenth century latinisms fall within a different
+category; rarely do they convey, either in themselves or in virtue
+of their context, any of that mysterious power of association which
+constitutes the poetic value of words and enables the writer, whether in
+prose or verse, to convey to his reader delicate shades of meaning and
+suggestion which are immediately recognized and appreciated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ARCHAISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+One of the earliest and most significant of those literary manifestations
+which were to culminate in the triumph of Romanticism was a new enkindled
+interest in the older English writers. The attitude of the great body
+of the so-called “Classicists” towards the earlier English poetry was
+not altogether one of absolute contempt: it was rather marked by that
+indifference which is the outcome of ignorance. Readers and authors, with
+certain illustrious exceptions, were totally unacquainted with Chaucer,
+and though Spenser fared better, even those who did know him did not at
+first consider him worthy of serious study.[122] Yet the Romantic rebels,
+by their attempts to imitate Spenser, and to reveal his poetic genius to
+a generation of unbelievers, did work of immediate and lasting value.
+
+It is perhaps too much to claim that some dim perception of the poetic
+value of old words contributed in any marked degree to this Spenserian
+revival in the eighteenth century. Yet it can hardly be doubted that
+Spenser’s language, imperfectly understood and at first considered
+“barbarous,” or “Gothic,” or at best merely “quaint,” came ultimately to
+be regarded as supplying something of that atmosphere of “old romance”
+which was beginning to captivate the hearts and minds of men. This
+is not to say that there was any conscious or deliberate intention of
+freshening or revivifying poetic language by an infusion of old or
+“revived” words. But the Spenserian and similar imitations naturally
+involved the use of such words, and they thus made an important
+contribution to the Romantic movement on its purely formal side; they
+played their part in destroying the pseudo-classical heresy that the
+best, indeed the only, medium for poetic expression was the polished
+idiom of Pope and his school.
+
+The poets and critics of Western Europe, who, as we have seen, in the
+sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries had busied themselves with the
+question of refining and embellishing their mother tongue, had advocated
+among other means the revival of archaic and obsolete words. Spenser
+himself, we know, had definitely adopted this means in the “Shepherds
+Kalendar,” though the method of increasing his poetical vocabulary
+had not been approved by all of his contemporaries and successors.
+Milton, when forming the special poetical language he needed for his
+immense task, confined himself largely to “classical” coinages, and
+his archaisms, such as _swinkt_, _rathe_, _nathless_, _frore_, are
+comparatively few in number.[123]
+
+Dryden’s attitude towards old words was stated with his customary
+good sense, and though his modernization of Chaucer gave him endless
+opportunities of experimenting with them, he never abused the advantage,
+and indeed in all his work there is but little trace of the deliberate
+revival of obsolete or archaic words. In the “Fables” may be found a few
+words such as _sounded_[124] (swounded) which had been used by Malory
+and Spenser, _laund_ for (lawn), _rushed_ (cut-off), etc., and he has
+also Milton’s _rathe_. Dryden, however, is found using a large number of
+terms which were evidently obsolete in the literary language, but which,
+it may be supposed, still lingered in the spoken language, and especially
+in the provincial dialects. He is fond of the word _ken_ (to know), and
+amongst other examples are _stead_ (place), _to lease_ (glean), _shent_
+(rebuked), _hattered_ (worn out), _dorp_ (a village), _buries_ (burrows),
+etc. Dryden is also apparently responsible for the poetic use of the term
+“_doddered_,” a word of somewhat uncertain meaning, which, after his time
+and following his practice, came into common use as an epithet for old
+oaks, and, rarely, for other trees.[125]
+
+As might be expected, there are few traces of the use of obsolete or
+archaic words in the works of Pope. The “correct” style did not favour
+innovations in language, whether they consisted in the formation of
+new words or in the revival of old forms. Pope stated in a letter to
+Hughes, who edited Spenser’s works (1715), that “Spenser has been ever a
+favourite poet to me,”[126] but among the imitations “done by the Author
+in his Youth,” there is “The Alley,” a very coarse parody of Spenser,
+which does not point to any real appreciation or understanding on the
+part of Pope. In the first book of the “Dunciad” as we have seen, he
+indulged in a fling at the antiquaries, especially Hearne and those who
+took pleasure in our older literature, by means of a satiric stanza
+written in a pseudo-archaic language.[127] But his language is much
+freer than that of Dryden from archaisms or provincialisms. He has forms
+like _gotten_, _whelm_ (overwhelm), _rampires_ (ramparts), _swarths_,
+_catched_ (caught), _thrice-ear’d_ (ploughed), etc. Neither Dryden nor
+Pope, it may be said, would ever have dreamed of reviving an archaic
+word simply because it was an old word, and therefore to be regarded as
+“poetical.” To imagine this is to attribute to the seventeenth and early
+eighteenth centuries a state of feeling which is essentially modern,
+and which lends a glamour to old and almost forgotten words. Dryden
+would accept any word which he considered suitable for his purpose, but
+he always insisted that old words had to prove their utility, and that
+they had otherwise no claim to admission to the current vocabulary.
+Pope, however, we may suspect, would not admit any words not immediately
+intelligible to his readers, or requiring a footnote to explain them.
+
+Meanwhile, in the year 1715, there had appeared the first attempt to
+give a critical text of Spenser, when John Hughes published his edition
+of the poet’s works in six volumes, together with a biography, a
+glossary, and some critical remarks.[128] The obsolete terms which Hughes
+felt himself obliged to explain[129] include many, such as _aghast_,
+_baleful_, _behest_, _bootless_, _carol_, _craven_, _dreary_, _forlorn_,
+_foray_, _guerdon_, _plight_, _welkin_, _yore_, which are now for the
+most part familiar words, though forty years later Thomas Warton in his
+“Observations on The Faerie Queene” (1754) is found annotating many
+similar terms. The well-known “Muses’ Library,” published thirteen years
+previously, had described itself as “A General Collection of almost all
+the old and valuable poetry extant, now so industriously inquir’d after”;
+it begins with Langland and reflects the renewed interest that was
+arising in the older poets. But there is as yet little evidence of any
+general and genuine appreciation of either the spirit or the form of the
+best of the earlier English poetry. The Spenserian imitators undoubtedly
+felt that their diction must look so obsolete and archaic as to call for
+a glossary of explanation, and these glossaries were often more than
+necessary, not only to explain the genuine old words, but also because
+of the fact that in many cases the supposedly “Spenserian” terms were
+spurious coinages devoid of any real meaning at all.
+
+Before considering these Spenserian imitations it must not be forgotten
+that there were, prior to these attempts and alongside of them, kindred
+efforts to catch the manner and style of Chaucer. This practice received
+its first great impulse from Dryden’s famous essay in praise of Chaucer,
+and the various periodicals and miscellanies of the first half of the
+eighteenth century bear witness to the fact that many eminent poets, not
+to mention a crowd of poetasters, thought it their duty to publish a
+poetical tribute couched in the supposed language and manner of Chaucer.
+
+These attempts were nearly all avowedly humorous,[130] and seemed based
+on a belief that the very language of Chaucer was in some respects
+suitable comic material for a would-be humorous writer. Such an attitude
+was obviously the outcome of a not unnatural ignorance of the historical
+development of the language. Chaucer’s language had long been regarded
+as almost a dead language, and this attitude had persisted even to
+the eighteenth century, so that it was felt that a mastery of the
+language of the “Canterbury Tales” required prolonged study. Even Thomas
+Warton, speaking of Chaucer, was of the opinion that “his uncouth and
+unfamiliar language disgusts and deters many readers.”[131] Hence it
+is not surprising that there was a complete failure to catch, not only
+anything of the real spirit of Chaucer, but also anything that could
+be described as even a distant approach to his language. The imitators
+seemed to think that fourteenth century English could be imitated by the
+use of common words written in an uncommon way, or of strange terms with
+equally strange meanings. The result was an artificial language that
+could never have been spoken by anybody, often including words to which
+it is impossible to give any definite sense. It would seem that only two
+genuine Chaucerian terms had really been properly grasped, and this pair,
+ne and eke, is in consequence worked to death. Ignorance of the earlier
+language naturally led to spurious grammatical forms, of which the most
+favoured was a singular verb form ending in -_en_. Gay, for instance,
+has, in a poem of seventeen lines, such phrases as “It maken doleful
+song,” “There _spreaden_ a rumour,”[132] whilst Fenton writes,
+
+    If in mine quest thou _falsen_ me.[133]
+
+The general style and manner of these imitations, with their “humorous”
+tinge, their halting verse, bad grammar, and impossible inflections
+are well illustrated in William Thompson’s “Garden Inscription—Written
+in Chaucer’s Bowre,” though more serious efforts were not any more
+successful.
+
+The death of Pope, strangely enough, called forth more than one attempt,
+among them being Thomas Warton’s imitation of the characterization of the
+birds from the “Parliament of Fowles.”[134] Better known at the time
+was the monody “Musæus,” written by William Mason, “To the memory of Mr.
+Pope.” Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton are represented as coming to mourn
+the inevitable loss of him who was about to die, and Mason endeavoured to
+reproduce their respective styles, “Tityrus” (Chaucer) holding forth in
+this strain:
+
+    Mickle of wele betide thy houres last
+    For mich gode wirke to me don and past.
+    For syn the days whereas my lyre ben strongen,
+    And deftly many a mery laie I songen,
+    Old Time which alle things don maliciously,
+    Gnawen with rusty tooth continually,
+    Grattrid my lines, that they all cancrid ben
+    Till at the last thou smoothen hem hast again.
+
+It is astonishing to think that this mechanical imitation, with its
+harsh and forced rhythm, and its almost doggerel language, was regarded
+at the time as a successful reproduction of Chaucer’s manner and style.
+But probably before 1775, when Tyrwhitt announced his rediscovery of the
+secret of Chaucer’s rhythm, few eighteenth century readers suspected its
+presence at all.
+
+But the Chaucerian imitations were merely a literary fashion predoomed
+to failure. It was not in any way the result of a genuine influence
+of the early English poetry on contemporary taste, and thus it was
+not even vitalized, as was the Spenserian revival, by a certain vague
+and undefined desire to catch something at least of the spirit of the
+“Faerie Queene.” The Spenserian imitations had a firmer foundation, and
+because the best of them did not confine their ambition altogether to
+the mechanical imitation of Spenser’s style in the narrower sense they
+achieved a greater measure of success.
+
+It is significant to note that among the first attempts at a Spenserian
+imitation was that made by one of the foremost of the Augustans. This
+was Matthew Prior, who in 1706 published his “Ode, Humbly Inscribed to
+the Queen on the Glorious success of Her Majesty’s Arms, Written in
+Imitation of Spenser’s Style.”[135] We are surprised, however, to find
+when we have read his Preface, that Prior’s aim was in reality to write
+a poem on the model of Horace and of Spenser. The attitude in which he
+approached Spenser’s language is made quite clear by his explanation.
+He has “avoided such of his words as I found too obsolete. I have
+however retained some few of them to make the colouring look more like
+Spenser’s.” Follows then a list of such words, including “_behest_,
+command; _band_, army; _prowess_, strength; _I weet_, I know; _I ween_, I
+think; _whilom_, heretofore; and two or three more of that kind.” Though
+later in his Preface Prior speaks of the _curiosa felicitas_ of Spenser’s
+diction, it is evident that there is little or no real understanding or
+appreciation.
+
+Now began a continuous series of Spenserian imitations,[136] of which,
+with a few exceptions, the only distinguishing characteristic was a small
+vocabulary of obsolete words, upon which the poetasters could draw for
+the “local colour” considered necessary. In the majority of cases the
+result was a purely artificial language, probably picked haphazard from
+the “Faerie Queene,” and often used without any definite idea of its
+meaning or appropriateness.[137] Fortunately, one or two real poets were
+attracted by the idea, and in due course produced their “imitations.”
+
+William Shenstone (1714-1763) is perhaps worthy of being ranked amongst
+these, in virtue at least of “The Schoolmistress,” which appeared in its
+final shape in 1742. Shenstone himself confesses that the poem was not
+at first intended to be a serious imitation, but his study of Spenser
+led him gradually to something like a real appreciation of the earlier
+poet.[138]
+
+“The Schoolmistress” draws upon the usual common stock of old words:
+_whilom_, _mickle_, _perdie_, _eke_, _thik_, etc., but often, as in the
+case of Spenser himself, the obsolete terms have a playful and humorous
+effect:
+
+    For they in gaping wonderment abound
+    And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground.
+
+Nor is there lacking a quaint, wistful tenderness, as in the description
+of the refractory schoolboy, who, after being flogged,
+
+    Behind some door, in melancholy thought,
+    Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff, pines,
+    Ne for his fellows joyaunce careth aught,
+    But to the wind all merriment resigns.
+
+Hence “The Schoolmistress” is no mere parody or imitation: there is
+a real and tender humanity in the description of the village school
+(adumbrating, it would seem, Goldsmith’s efforts with a similar theme),
+whilst the judicious use of Spenser’s stanza and the sprinkling of his
+old words help to invest the whole poem with an atmosphere of genuine and
+unaffected humour.
+
+The next Spenserian whose work merits attention is William Thompson, who,
+it would seem, had delved not a little into the Earlier English poetry,
+and who was one of the first to capture something of the real atmosphere
+of the “Faerie Queene.” His “Epithalamium”[139] and “The Nativity,”[140]
+which appeared in 1736, are certainly among the best of the imitations.
+It is important to note that, while there is a free use of supposedly
+archaic words, with the usual list of _certes_, _perdie_, _sikerly_,
+_hight_, as well as others less common, such as _belgards_ (“beautiful
+looks”), _bonnibel_ (“beautiful virgin”), there is no abuse of the
+practice. Not a little of the genuine spirit of Spenser’s poetry, with
+its love of nature and outdoor life, has been caught and rendered without
+any lavish recourse to an artificial and mechanical diction, as a stanza
+from “The Nativity,” despite its false rhymes, will perhaps show:
+
+    Eftsoons he spied a grove, the Season’s pride,
+    All in the centre of a pleasant glade,
+    Where Nature flourished like a virgin bride,
+        Mantled with green, with hyacinths inlaid,
+    And crystal-rills o’er beds of lilies stray’d:
+    The blue-ey’d violet and King-cup gay,
+    And new blown roses, smiling sweetly red,
+    Out-glow’d the blushing infancy of Day
+    While amorous west-winds kist their fragrant souls away.
+
+This cannot altogether be said of the “Hymn to May” published over twenty
+years later,[141] despite the fact that Thompson himself draws attention
+to the fact that he does not consider that a genuine Spenserian imitation
+may be produced by scattering a certain number of obsolete words through
+the poem. Nevertheless, we find that he has sprinkled his “Hymn”
+plentifully with “obsolete” terms, though they include a few, such as
+_purfled_, _dispredden_, _goodlihead_, that were not the common property
+of the poetasters. His explanations of the words so used show that not a
+few of them were used with little knowledge of their original meaning, as
+when he defines _glen_[142] as “a country hamlet,” or explains _perdie_
+as “an old word for saying anything.” It is obvious also that many
+obsolete terms are often simply stuck in the lines when their more modern
+equivalents would have served equally well, as for instance,
+
+    Full suddenly the seeds of joy _recure_ (“recover”),
+
+or
+
+    Myrtles to Venus _algates_ sacred been.
+
+With these reservations the diction of Thompson’s poems is pure and
+unaffected, and the occasional happy use of archaism is well illustrated
+in more than one stanza of “The Nativity.”
+
+It is generally agreed that the best of all the Spenserian imitations
+is “The Castle of Indolence,” which James Thomson published two months
+before his death in 1748.[143] Yet even in this case there is evident a
+sort of quiet condescension, as if it were in Thompson’s mind that he
+was about to draw the attention of his eighteenth century audience to
+something quaint and old-fashioned, but which had yet a charm of its
+own. “The obsolete words,” he writes in his “advertisement” to the poem,
+“and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines, which borders on the
+ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect.” Hence
+he makes use of a number of words intended to give an archaic air to
+his poem, including the usual _certes_, _withouten_, _sheen_, _perdie,_
+_weet_, _pleasaunce_, _ycleped_, etc. To the first edition was appended
+a page of explanation of these and other “obsolete words used in this
+poem”: altogether between seventy and eighty such words are thus glossed,
+the large majority of which are familiar enough nowadays, either as part
+of the ordinary vocabulary, or as belonging especially to the diction of
+poetry.
+
+Though the archaisms are sometimes scattered in a haphazard manner, they
+are not used with such mechanical monotony as is obvious in the bulk
+of the Spenserian imitations. In both cantos there are long stretches
+without a single real or pseudo-archaism, and indeed, when Thomson is
+indulging in one of the moral or the didactic surveys characteristic
+of his age, as, for instance, when the bard, invoked by Sir Industry,
+breaks into a long tirade on the Supreme Perfection (Canto II, 47-61)
+his diction is the plain and unadorned idiom perfected by Pope.[144] Yet
+Thompson occasionally yields to the fascination of the spurious form in
+_-en_,[145] as
+
+    But these I _passen_ by with nameless numbers moe
+
+                                                           (Canto I., 56)
+
+or
+
+    And taunts he _casten_ forth most bitterly.
+
+                                                           (Canto II, 78)
+
+Sometimes it would seem that his archaisms owe their appearance to the
+necessities of rhyme, as in
+
+    So worked the wizard wintry storms to swell
+    As heaven and earth they would together _mell_
+
+                                                            (Canto I, 43)
+
+and
+
+    Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem:
+    The same to him glad summer, or the winter _breme_.
+
+                                                            (Canto II, 7)
+
+There are lines too where we feel that the archaisms have been dragged
+in; for example,
+
+    As _soot_ this man could sing as morning lark
+
+                                                            (Canto I, 57)
+
+(though there is here perhaps the added charm of a Chaucerian
+reminiscence); or
+
+                        _replevy_ cannot be
+    From the strong, iron grasp of vengeful destiny.
+
+                                                           (Canto II, 32)
+
+But, on the whole, he has been successful in his efforts, half-hearted
+as they sometimes seem, to give an old-world atmosphere to his poem by
+a sprinkling of archaisms, and it is then that we feel in _The Castle
+of Indolence_ something at least of the beauty and charm of “the poet’s
+poet,” as in the well-known stanza describing the valley of Idlesse with
+its
+
+                                      waters sheen
+    That, as they bickered[146] through the sunny glade,
+    Though restless still, themselves a lulling murmur made.
+
+                                                             (Canto I, 3)
+
+Though the Spenserian imitations continued beyond the year which saw
+the birth of Wordsworth,[147] it is not necessary to mention further
+examples, except perhaps that of William Mickle, who, in 1767, published
+“The Concubine,” a Spenserian imitation of two cantos, which afterwards
+appeared in a later edition (1777) under the title “Sir Martyn.” Like
+his predecessors, Mickle made free use of obsolete spellings and words,
+while he added the usual glossary, which is significant as showing at
+the end of the eighteenth century, about the time when Tyrwhitt was
+completing his edition of Chaucer, not only the artificial character of
+this “Spenserian diction,” but also the small acquaintance of the average
+man of letters with our earlier language.[148]
+
+It must not be assumed, of course, that all the “obsolete” words used by
+the imitators were taken directly from Spenser. Words like _nathless_,
+_rathe_, _hight_, _sicker_, _areeds_, _cleeped_, _hardiment_, _felly_,
+etc., had continued in fairly common use until the seventeenth century,
+though actually some of them were regarded even then as archaisms.
+Thus _cleoped_, though never really obsolete, is marked by Blount in
+1656 as “Saxon”; _sicker_, extensively employed in Middle English, is
+rarely found used after 1500 except by Scotch writers, though it still
+remains current in northern dialects. On the other hand, not a few words
+were undoubtedly brought directly back into literature from the pages
+of Spenser, among them being _meed_, _sheen_ (boasting an illustrious
+descent from _Beowulf_ through Chaucer), _erst_, _elfin_, _paramour_.
+Others, like _scrannel_, and apparently also _ledded_, were made familiar
+by Milton’s use the former either being the poet’s own coinage or his
+borrowing from some dialect or other. On the other hand, very many of the
+“revived” words failed to take root at all, such as _faitours_, which
+Spenser himself had apparently revived, and also his coinage _singult_,
+though Scott is found using the latter form.
+
+As has been said, the crowd of poetasters who attempted to reproduce
+Spenser’s spirit and style thought to do so by merely mechanical
+imitation of what they regarded as his “quaint” or “ludicrous” diction.
+Between them and any possibility of grasping the perennial beauty
+and charm of the “poet’s poet” there was a great gulf fixed, whilst,
+altogether apart from this fatal limitation, then parodies were little
+likely to have even ephemeral success, for parody presupposes in its
+readers at least a little knowledge and appreciation of the thing
+parodied. But there were amongst the imitators one or two at least who,
+we may imagine, were able to find in the melody and romance of “The
+Faerie Queene” an avenue of escape from the prosaic pressure of their
+times. In the case of William Thompson, Shenstone, and the author of
+the “Castle of Indolence,” the influence of Spenser revealed itself as
+in integral and vital part of the Romantic reaction, for these, being
+real poets, had been able to recapture something at least of the colour,
+music, and fragrance of their original. And not only did these, helped
+by others whose names have all but been forgotten restore a noble stanza
+form to English verse. Even their mechanical imitation of Spenser’s
+language was not without its influence, for it cannot be doubted that
+these attempts to write in an archaic or pseudo-archaic style did not a
+little to free poetry from the shackles of a conventional language.
+
+This process was greatly helped by that other aspect of the eighteenth
+century revival of the past which was exemplified in the publication of
+numerous collections of old ballads and songs.[149] There is, of course,
+as Macaulay long ago noted, a series of conventional epithets that is
+one mark of the genuine ballad manner, but the true ballad language
+was not a lifeless stereotyped diction. It consisted of “plain English
+without any trimmings.” The ballads had certain popular mannerisms
+(_the good greenwood_, _the wan water_, etc.), but they were free from
+the conventional figures of speech, or such rhetorical artifices as
+personification and periphrasis.
+
+Hence it is not surprising that at first their fresh and spontaneous
+language was regarded, when contrasted with the artificial and refined
+diction of the time, as “barbarous” or “rude.” Thus Prior thought it
+necessary to paraphrase the old ballad of the “Nut Brown Maid” into his
+insipid “Henry and Emma” (1718), but a comparison of only a few lines of
+the original with the banality of the modernized version is sufficient
+testimony to the refreshing and vivifying influence of such collections
+as the “Reliques.”
+
+The tendency to present the old ballads in an eighteenth century dress
+had soon revealed itself; at least, the editors of the early collections
+often felt themselves obliged to apologize for the obsolete style of
+their material.[150] But in 1760 the first attempt at a critical text
+appeared when Edward Capell, the famous Shakespearian editor, published
+his “Prolusions”; or “Select Pieces of Antient Poetry—compil’d with
+great Care from their several Originals, and offer’d to the Publick as
+specimens of the Integrity that should be found in the Editions of worthy
+Authors.” Capell’s care was almost entirely directed to ensuring textual
+accuracy, but the “Nut-Browne Maid,” the only ballad included, receives
+sympathetic mention in his brief _Preface_.[151]
+
+Five years later, the most famous of all the ballad collections appeared,
+Thomas Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” (1765). The nucleus
+of Percy’s collection was a certain manuscript in a handwriting of
+Charles I’s time, containing 191 songs and ballads, but he had also had
+access to various other manuscript collections, whilst he was quite ready
+to acknowledge that he had filled gaps in his originals with stanzas and,
+in some cases, with nearly entire poems of his own composition. Much
+censure has been heaped upon Percy for his apparent lax ideas on the
+functions of an editor, but in decking out his “parcel of old ballads”
+in the false and affected style of his age, he was only doing his best
+to meet the taste of his readers. He himself passes judgment on his own
+labours, when, alongside of the genuine old ballads, with their freshness
+and simplicity of diction, he places his own “pruned” or “refined”
+versions, or additions, garbed in a sham and sickly idiom.
+
+It was not until over a century later, when Percy’s folio manuscript was
+copied and printed,[152] that the extent of his additions, alterations,
+and omissions were fully realized, though at the same time it was
+admitted that the pruning and refining was not unskilfully done.
+
+Nevertheless the influence of the “Reliques,” as a vital part of the
+Romantic revival, was considerable:[153] it was as if a breath of “the
+wind on the heath” had swept across literature and its writers, bringing
+with it an invigorating fragrance and freshness, whilst, on the purely
+formal side, the genuine old ballads, which Percy had culled and printed
+untouched, no doubt played their part in directing the attention of
+Wordsworth to the whole question of the language of poetry. And when the
+great Romantic manifestoes on the subject of “the language of metrical
+composition” were at length launched, their author was not slow to bear
+witness to the revivifying influence of the old ballads on poetic form.
+“Our poetry,” he wrote, “has been absolutely redeemed by it. I do not
+think that there is an able writer in verse of the present day who would
+not be proud to acknowledge his obligations to the “Reliques.”[154]
+
+The year before the appearance of the “Reliques,” Thomas Chatterton had
+published his “Rowley Poems,” and this attempt of a poet of genius to
+pass off his poems as the work of a mediaeval English writer is another
+striking indication of the new Romantic spirit then asserting itself. As
+for the pseudo-archaic language in which Chatterton with great labour
+clothed his “revivals,” there is no need to say much. It was a thoroughly
+artificial language, compiled, as Skeat has shown, from various sources,
+such as John Kersey’s “Dictionarium Anglo-Brittanicum,” three editions
+of which had appeared before 1721. In this work there are included a
+considerable number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and his
+contemporaries, marked “O,” and in some cases erroneously explained. This
+dictionary was the chief source of Chatterton’s vocabulary, many words of
+which the young poet took apparently without any definite idea of their
+meaning.[155]
+
+Yet in the Rowley poems there are passages where the pseudo-archaic
+language is quite in keeping with the poet’s theme and treatment, whilst
+here and there we come across epithets and lines which, even in their
+strange dress, are of a wild and artless sweetness, such as
+
+    Where thou mayst here the sweete night-lark chant,
+      Or with some mocking brooklet sweetly glide,
+
+or the whole of the first stanza of the famous “An Excelente Balade
+of Charitie,” where the old words help to transport us at once into
+the fictitious world which Chatterton had made for himself. Perhaps,
+as has been suggested, the “Rowley dialect” was not, as we nowadays,
+with Skeat’s analysis in our minds, are a little too apt to believe, a
+deliberate attempt to deceive, but rather reflected an attempt to escape
+from the dead abstract diction of the period.[156]
+
+Apart from this special aspect of the Romantic revival marked by a
+tendency to look back lovingly to the earlier English poetry, there are
+few traces of the use of archaic and obsolete words, at least of such
+words used consciously, in eighteenth century poetry. The great poets of
+the century make little or no use of them. Collins has no examples, but
+Gray, who began by advocating the poet’s right to use obsolete words,
+and later seemed to recant, now and then uses an old term, as when in his
+translation from Dante he writes:
+
+    The anguish that unuttered _nathless_ wrings
+    My inmost heart.
+
+Blake, however, it is interesting to note, often used archaic forms, or
+at least archaic spellings,[157] as _Tyger_, _antient_ (“To the Muses”),
+“the _desart_ wild” (“The Little Girl Lost”), as well as such lines as
+
+    In lucent words my darkling verses dight
+
+                                                 (“Imitation of Spenser”)
+
+or
+
+    So I piped with merry _chear_.
+
+                                   (Introduction to “Songs of Innocence”)
+
+Perhaps by these means the poet wished to give a quaint or old-fashioned
+look to his verses, though it is to be remembered that most of them occur
+in the “Poetical Sketches,” which are avowedly Elizabethan.
+
+The use of archaic and obsolete words in the eighteenth century was
+then chiefly an outcome of that revival of the past which was one of
+the characteristics of the new Romantic movement, and which was later
+to find its culmination in the works of Scott. The old words used by
+the eighteenth century imitators of Spenser were not often used, we may
+imagine, because poets saw in them poetical beauty and value; most often
+they were the result of a desire to catch, as it were, something of the
+“local colour” of the “Faerie Queene,” just as modern writers nowadays,
+poets and novelists alike, often draw upon local dialects for new means
+of expression. The Spenserian imitations recovered not a few words,
+such as _meed_, _sheen_, _dight_, _glen_,[158] which have since been
+regarded as belonging especially to the diction of poetry, and when the
+Romantic revival had burst into life the impulse, which had thus been
+unconsciously given, was continued by some of its great leaders. Scott,
+as is well known, was an enthusiastic lover of our older literature,
+especially the ballads, from which he gleaned many words full of a beauty
+and charm which won for them immediate admission into the language of
+poetry; at the same time he was able to find many similar words in the
+local dialects of the lowlands and the border. Perhaps in this work he
+had been inspired by his famous countryman, Robert Burns, who by his
+genius had raised his native language, with its stores of old and vivid
+words and expressions, to classical rank.[159]
+
+Nevertheless it is undoubted that the main factor in the new Romantic
+attitude towards old words had been the eighteenth century imitations
+and collections of our older English literature. Coleridge, it is to
+be remembered, made free use of archaisms; in the “Ancient Mariner,”
+there are many obsolete forms: _loon_, _eftsoons_, _uprist_, _gramercy_,
+_gossameres_, _corse_, etc., besides those which appeared in the first
+edition, and were altered or omitted when the poem reappeared in
+1800. Wordsworth, it is true, made no use of archaic diction, whether
+in the form of deliberate revivals, or by drafts on the dialects,
+which, following the great example of Burns, and in virtue of his
+own “theories,” he might have been expected to explore. Nevertheless
+the “theories” concerning poetical language which he propounded and
+maintained are not without their bearing on the present question.
+Reduced to their simplest terms, the manifestoes, while passing judgment
+on the conventional poetical diction, conceded to the poet the right of
+a style in keeping with his subject and inspiration, and Wordsworth’s
+successors for the most part, so far as style in the narrower sense of
+_vocabulary_ is concerned, did not fail to reap the benefits of the
+emancipation won for them. And among the varied sources upon which they
+began to draw for fresh reserves of diction were the abundant stores of
+old words, full of colour and energy, to be gleaned from the pages of
+their great predecessors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPOUND EPITHETS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+It is proposed in this chapter to examine in some detail the use of
+compound epithets in the poetry of the eighteenth century. For this
+purpose the following grammatical scheme of classification has been
+adopted from various sources:[160] _First Type_, noun _plus_ noun;
+_Second Type_, noun _plus_ adjective; _Third Type_, noun _plus_ present
+participle; _Fourth Type_, noun _plus_ past participle; _Fifth Type_,
+adjective, or adjective used adverbially, _plus_ another part of speech,
+usually a participle; _Sixth Type_, true adverb _plus_ a participle;
+_Seventh Type_, adjective _plus_ noun plus -_ed_. Of these types it
+will be evident in many cases that the first (noun _plus_ noun) and the
+sixth (true adverb _plus_ participle) are not compounds at all, for the
+hyphen could often be removed without any change or loss of meaning.
+Occasionally the compounds will be regarded from the point of view of the
+logical relation between the two elements, when a formal classification
+may usually be made as follows: (_a_) _Attributive_, as in “anger-glow”;
+(_b_) _Objective_, as in “anger-kindling”; (_c_) _Instrumental_, as in
+“anger-boiling.” This scheme of classification permits of an examination
+of the compounds from the formal point of view, whilst at the same time
+it does not preclude an estimate of the æsthetic value of the new words
+thus added to the language of poetry.[161]
+
+It may be said, to begin with, that the formation and use of compound
+epithets has always been one of the distinguishing marks of the special
+language of poetry in English, as distinct from that of prose. The very
+ease with which they can be formed out of the almost inexhaustible
+resources of the English vocabulary has been a constant source of
+temptation to poets with new things to say, or new impressions to
+describe. Moreover, the partial disappearance of inflections in modern
+English has permitted of a vagueness in the formation of compound words,
+which in itself is of value to the word-maker. Though, of course, it is
+possible in most cases accurately to analyse the logical relation between
+the elements of a compound, yet it sometimes happens, especially with the
+compound epithets of poetry, that this cannot be done with certainty,
+because the new formation may have been the result of a hasty but happy
+inspiration, with no regard to the regular rules of composition.[162]
+Hence, from one point of view, the free formation of compounds is
+a legitimate device allowed to the poets, of which the more severe
+atmosphere of prose is expected to take less advantage; from another
+point of view, the greater prevalence of the compound in poetry may not
+be unconnected with the rhythm of verse. Viewed in this light, the use
+of compound epithets in our poetry at any period may well have been
+conditioned, in part at least, by the metrical form in which that poetry
+received expression; and thus in the poetry of the eighteenth century it
+connects itself in some degree—first, with the supremacy of the heroic
+couplet, and later with the blank verse that proved to be the chief rival
+of the decasyllabic.
+
+The freedom of construction which facilitates the formation of compounds
+had already in the earliest English period contributed to that special
+poetic diction which is a distinguishing mark of Anglo-Saxon verse, as
+indeed of all the old Germanic poetry; of the large number of words not
+used in Anglo-Saxon prose, very many are synonymous compounds meaning
+the same thing.[163] During the Middle English period, and especially
+before the triumph of the East Midland dialect definitely prepared
+the way for Modern English, it would seem that the language lost much
+of its old power of forming compounds, one explanation being that the
+large number of French words, which then came into the language, drove
+out many of the Old English compounds, whilst at the same time these
+in-comers, so easily acquired, tended to discourage the formation of new
+compounds.[164] It was not until the great outburst of literary activity
+in the second half of the sixteenth century that a fresh impetus was
+given to the formation of compound nouns and epithets. The large number
+of classical translations especially exercised an important influence in
+this respect: each new translation had its quota of fresh compounds, but
+Chapman’s “Homer” may be mentioned as especially noteworthy.[165] At
+the same time the plastic state of Elizabethan English led to the making
+of expressive new compounds of native growth, and from this period date
+some of the happiest compound epithets to be found in the language.[166]
+From the Elizabethans this gift of forming imaginative compounds was
+inherited, with even greater felicity by Milton, many of whose epithets,
+especially those of Type VII such as “_grey-hooded even_,” “_coral-paven
+floor_,” “_flowery-kirtled_ Naiades” reveal him as a consummate master of
+word-craft.
+
+With Dryden begins the period with which we are especially concerned,
+for it is generally agreed that from nearly every point of view the
+advent of what is called eighteenth century literature dates from the
+Restoration. During the forty years dominated by Dryden in practically
+every department of literature, the changes in the language, both of
+prose and poetry, which had been slowly evolving themselves, became
+apparent, and, as the sequel will show, this new ideal of style, with its
+passion for “correctness,” and its impatience of innovation, was not one
+likely to encourage or inspire the formation of expressive compounds; the
+happy audacities of the Elizabethans, of whose tribe it is customary to
+seal Milton, are no longer possible.
+
+The compounds in the poems of Dryden show this; of his examples of Type
+I—the substantive compounds—the majority are merely the juxtaposition of
+two appositional nouns, as _brother-angels_ (“Killigrew,” 4); or, more
+rarely, where the first element has a descriptive or adjectival force,
+as _traitor-friend_ (“Palamon,” II, 568). Not much more imaginative
+power is reflected in Dryden’s compound epithets; his instances of Types
+III and IV include “_cloud-dispelling_ winds” (“Ovid,” Met. I, 356),
+“_sun-begotten_ tribe” (_ibid._, III, 462), with more original examples
+like “_sleep-procuring_ wand.” Next comes a large number of instances
+of Types V and VI: “_thick-spread_ forest” (“Palamon,” II, 123),
+“_hoarse-resounding_ shore” (“Iliad” I, 54), as well as many compounded
+with _long_-, _well_-, _high_-, etc. Most of these examples of Types V
+and VI are scarcely compounds at all, for after such elements as “long,”
+“well,” “much,” the hyphen could in most cases be omitted without any
+loss of power. Of Dryden’s compound epithets it may be said in general
+that they reflect admirably his poetic theory and practice; they are
+never the product of a “fine frenzy.” At the same time not a few of them
+seem to have something of that genius for satirical expression with which
+he was amply endowed. Compounds like _court-informer_ (“Absalom,” 719),
+“the rebels’ _pension-purse_” (_ibid._, Pt. II, 321),
+
+    Og, from a _treason-tavern_ rolling home
+
+                                                           (_Ibid._, 480)
+
+play their part in the delivery of those “smacks in the face” of which
+Professor Saintsbury speaks in his discussion of Dryden’s satiric
+manipulation of the heroic couplet.[167]
+
+In the verse of Pope, compound formations are to be found in large
+numbers. This may partly be attributed, no doubt, to the amount of
+translation included in it, but even in his original poetry there
+are many more instances than in the work of his great predecessor.
+When engaged on his translation of Homer the prevalence of compounds
+naturally attracted his attention, and he refers to the matter more
+than once in his Preface.[168] As might be expected from the apostle
+of “correctness,” he lays down cautious and conservative “rules” of
+procedure. Such should be retained “as slide easily of themselves into an
+English compound, without violence to the ear, or to the received rules
+of composition, as well as those which have received the sanction from
+the authority of our best poets, and are become familiar through their
+use of them.”[169]
+
+An examination of Pope’s compounds in the light of “the received rules of
+composition,” shows his examples to be of the usual types. Of noun _plus_
+noun combinations he has such forms as “_monarch-savage_,” (“Odyss.”
+IV), whilst he is credited with the first use of “the _fury-passions_”
+(Epistle III). More originality and imagination is reflected in his
+compound epithets; of those formed from a noun and a present participle,
+with the first element usually in an objective relation to the second,
+his instances include “_love-darting_-eyes” (“Unfortunate Lady”), as well
+as others found before his time, like the Elizabethan “_heart-piercing_
+anguish” (_ibid._, XII) and “_laughter-loving_ dame” (_ibid._, III).
+He has large numbers of compounded nouns and past-participles, many of
+which—“_moss-grown_ domes” (“Eloisa”), “_cloud-topped_ hills” (“Essay
+on Man,” I, 100), “_Sea-girt_ isles” (“Iliad,” III)—were common in
+the seventeenth century, as well as “borrowed” examples, such as
+“_home-felt_ joys” (Epistle II) or “_air-bred_ people” (“Odyss.,” LX,
+330), presumably from Milton and Drayton respectively. But he has a few
+original formations of this type, such as “_heaven-directed_ spire”
+(Epistle III), “_osier-fringed_ bank,” (“Odyss.,” XIII), the latter
+perhaps a reminiscence of Sabrina’s song in “Comus,” as well as happier
+combinations, of which the best examples are “_love-born_ confidence”
+(“Odyss.,” X) and “_love-dittied_ airs” (“Odyss.,” II).
+
+Pope, however, makes his largest use of that type of compound which
+can be formed with the greatest freedom—an adjective, or an adjective
+used adverbially, joined to a present or past participle. He has
+dozens of examples with the adverbial _long_, _wide_, _far_, _loud_,
+_deep_, _high_, etc., as the first element, most of the examples
+occurring in the Homer translations, and being attempts to reproduce
+the Greek compounds.[170] Other instances have a higher æsthetic
+value: “_fresh-blooming_ hope” (“Eloisa”), “_silver-quivering_ rills”
+(Epistle IV), “_soft-trickling_ waters” “Iliad,” IX), “sweet airs
+_soft-circling_” (_ibid._, XVII), etc. Of the formations beginning with
+a true adverb, the most numerous are the quasi-compounds beginning
+with “_ever_”—“_ever-during_ nights,” “_ever-fragrant_ bowers”
+(“Odyss.,” XII), etc.; or “_well_”—“_well-sung_ woes” (“Eloisa”) or
+“_yet_”—“_yet-untasted_ food” (“Iliad,” XV), etc. These instances do
+not reveal any great originality, for the very ease with which they can
+be formed naturally discounts largely their poetic value. Occasionally,
+however, Pope has been more successful; perhaps his best examples of
+this type are “_inly-pining_ hate” (“Odyss.,” VI—where the condensation
+involved in the epithet does at least convey some impression of power—and
+“the _softly-stealing_ space of time,” (“Odyss.,” XV), where the compound
+almost produces a happy effect of personification.
+
+Of the irregular type of compound, already mentioned in connexion with
+Dryden, Pope has a few instances—“_white-robed_ innocence” (“Eloisa”),
+etc. But perhaps Pope’s happiest effort in this respect is to be seen in
+that quatrain from the fourth book of the “Dunciad,” containing three
+instances of compound epithets, which help to remind us that at times he
+had at his command a diction of higher suggestive and evocative power
+than the plain idiom of his satiric and didactic verse:
+
+    To isles of fragrance, _lily-silver’d_ vales
+    Diffusing languor in the panting gales;
+    To lands of singing or of dancing slaves
+    _Love-whisp’ring_ woods and _lute-resounding_ waves.
+
+Of the poets contemporary with Pope only brief mention need be made from
+our present point of view. The poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea
+contain few instances and those of the ordinary type, a remark which is
+equally applicable to the poems of Parnell and John Phillips. John Gay
+(1685-1732), however, though he has many formations found in previous
+writers, has also some apparently original compound epithets which have
+a certain charm: “_health-breathing_ breezes” (“A Devonshire Hill,” 10),
+“_dew-besprinkled_ lawn” (“Fables,” 50), and “the lark _high-poised_ in
+the air” (“Sweet William’s Farewell,” 13). More noteworthy is John Dyer;
+“Grongar Hill” has no very striking examples, but his blank verse poems
+have one or two not devoid of imaginative value: “_soft-whispering_
+waters” (“Ruins of Rome”) and “_plaintive-echoing_ ruins” (_ibid._); he
+has been able to dispense with the “classical” descriptive terms for
+hills and mountains (“shaggy,” “horrid,” “terrible,” etc.), and his new
+epithets reflect something at least of that changing attitude towards
+natural scenery, of which he was a foremost pioneer: “_slow-climbing_
+wilds” (“Fleece,” I), “_cloud-dividing_ hill” (_ibid._), and his
+irregular “_snow-nodding_ crags” (_ibid._, IV).
+
+Neglecting for the moment the more famous of the blank verse poems,
+we may notice Robert Blair’s “Grave” (published 1743), with a few
+examples, which mainly allow him to indulge in “classical” periphrases,
+such as the “_sight-invigorating_ tube” for “a telescope.” David
+Mallet, who imitated his greater countryman James Thomson, has one
+or two noteworthy instances: “pines _high-plumed_” (“Amyntor,” II),
+“_sweetly-pensive_ silence” (“Fragment”), “spring’s _flower-embroidered_
+mantle” (“Excursion,” I)—suggested, no doubt, by Milton’s
+“violet-embroidered”—“the morn _sun-tinctured_” (_ibid._), compound
+epithets which betray the influence of the “Seasons.” Of the other minor
+blank verse poems their only aspect noteworthy from our present point of
+view is their comparative freedom from compounds of any description. John
+Armstrong’s “Art of Preserving Health” (1744) has only a few commonplace
+examples, and the same may be said of the earlier “The Chase” (1735)
+by William Somerville, though he finds a new epithet in his expression
+“the strand _sea-lav’d_” (Bk. III, 431). James Grainger’s “The Sugar
+Cane” (1764) shows a similar poverty, but the “_green-stol’d_ Naiad,
+of the tinkling rill” (Canto I), “_soft-stealing_ dews” (Canto III),
+“_wild-careering_ clouds” (Canto II), and “_cane-crowned_ vale” (Canto
+IV) are not without merit. These blank verse poems, avowedly modelled
+on Milton, might have been expected to attempt the “grandeur” of their
+original by high-sounding compounds; but it was rather by means of
+latinized words and constructions that the Miltonic imitators sought to
+emulate the grand style; and moreover, as Coleridge pointed out, Milton’s
+great epics are almost free from compound epithets, it being in the
+early poems that “a superfluity” is to be found.[171]
+
+Before turning to the more famous blank verse poems of the first half
+of the eighteenth century it will be convenient at this point to notice
+one or two poets whose work represents, on its formal side at least, a
+continuation or development of the school of Pope. The first of these
+is Richard Savage, whose only poem of any real merit, “The Wanderer”
+(apart perhaps from “The Bastard”), appeared in 1729. He has only one
+or two new compounds of noun and part-participle, such as “the robe
+_snow-wrought_” (“The Wanderer,” I, 55), his favourite combination being
+that of an adjective or adverb with a participle, where, amidst numerous
+examples of obvious formations, he occasionally strikes out something
+new: “eyes _dim-gleaming_” (Canto I), “_soft-creeping_ murmurs” (Canto
+V), etc. Of his other types the only other noteworthy compound is the
+“past-participle” epithet in his phrase “the _amber-hued_ cascade” (Canto
+III), though a refreshing simplicity of expression is found in such lines
+as
+
+    The bull-finch whistles soft his _flute-like_ note.
+
+The poetical work of Dr. Johnson contains scarcely any instances of
+compounds, and none either newly invented or applied. “London” and “The
+Vanity of Human Wishes” have each not more than two or three instances,
+and even the four poems, in which he successively treats of the seasons,
+are almost destitute of compound epithets, “_snow-topped_ cot” (“Winter”)
+being almost the only example.
+
+There are many more instances of compound formations in the works of
+Oliver Goldsmith, most of which, like “_nut-brown_ draughts” (“Deserted
+Village,” II), “_sea-borne_ gales” (“Traveller,” 121), “_grass-grown_
+footway” (“Deserted Village,” 127), had either been long in the language,
+or had been used by earlier eighteenth century poets. There are,
+however, instances which testify to a desire to add to the descriptive
+power of the vocabulary; in “The Traveller” we find mention of “the
+_hollow-sounding_ bittern” (l. 44), “the _rocky-crested_ summits” (l.
+85), “the _yellow-blossomed_ vale” (l. 293), and the “_willow-tufted_
+bank” (l. 294). For the rest, Goldsmith’s original compounds are,
+like so many of this type, mere efforts at verbal condensation, as
+“_shelter-seeking_ peasant” (“Traveller,” 162), “_joy-pronouncing_ eye”
+(_ibid._, 10), etc.
+
+Of the more famous blank verse poems of the eighteenth century the first
+and most important was “The Seasons” of James Thomson, which appeared in
+their original form between 1726 and 1730. The originality of style, for
+which Johnson praised him,[172] is perhaps to be seen especially in his
+use of compound formations; probably no other poet has ever used them so
+freely.
+
+As a general rule, Thomson’s compounds fall into the well-defined groups
+already mentioned. He has a number of noun _plus_ noun formations (Type
+I), where the first element has usually a purely adjectival value;
+“_patriot-council_” (“Autumn,” 98), “_harvest-treasures_” (_ibid._,
+1217), as well as a few which allow him to indulge in grandiose
+periphrasis, as in the “_monarch-swain_” (“Summer,” 495) for a shepherd
+with his “_sceptre-crook_” (_ibid._, 497). These are all commonplace
+formations, but much more originality is found in his compound epithets.
+He frequently uses the noun _plus_ present participle combinations
+(Type III), “_secret-winding_, _flower-enwoven_ bowers” (“Spring,”
+1058) or “_forest-rustling_ mountains” (“Winter,” 151), etc. Moreover,
+the majority of his compounds are original, though now and then he
+has taken a “classical” compound and given it a somewhat curious
+application, as in “_cloud-compelling_ cliffs” (“Autumn,” 801). A few of
+this class are difficult to justify logically, striking examples being
+“_world-rejoicing_ state” (“Summer,” 116) for “the state of one in whom
+the world rejoices,” and “_life-sufficing_ trees” (_ibid._, 836) for
+“trees that give sustenance.”
+
+Thomson has also numerous instances of the juxtaposition of nouns
+and past-participles (Type IV): “_love-enlivened_ cheeks” (“Spring,”
+1080), “_leaf-strewn_ walks” (“Autumn,” 955), “_frost-concocted_ glebe”
+(“Winter,” 706); others of this type are somewhat obscure in meaning,
+as “_mind-illumined_ face” (“Spring,” 1042), and especially “_art
+imagination-flushed_” (“Autumn,” 140), where economy of expression is
+perhaps carried to its very limit.
+
+Thomson’s favourite method of forming compounds however is that of
+Type V, each book of “The Seasons” containing large numbers, the first
+element (_full_, _prone_, _quick_, etc.) often repeated with a variant
+second element. Sometimes constant repetition in this way produces
+the impression of a tiresome mannerism. Thus “many” joined to present
+and past-participles is used irregularly with quasi-adverbial force,
+apparently meaning “in many ways,” “many times,” or even “much,” as
+“_many-twinkling_ leaves” (“Spring,” 158), “_many-bleating_ flock”
+(_ibid._, 835), etc. In the same way the word “mazy” seems to have had
+a fascination for Thomson. Thus he has “the _mazy-running_ soul of
+melody” (“Spring,” 577), “the _mazy-running_ brook” (“Summer,” 373),
+“and _mazy-running_ clefts” (“Autumn,” 816), etc. Not all of this
+type, however, are mere mechanical formations; some have real poetic
+value and bear witness to Thomson’s undoubted gift for achieving happy
+expressive effects. Thus the “_close-embowering_ wood” (“Autumn,” 208),
+“the lonesome muse _low-whispering_” (_ibid._, 955), “the _deep-tangled_
+copse” (“Spring,” 594), “the _hollow-whispering_ breeze” (_ibid._,
+919), “the _grey-grown_ oaks” (“Summer,” 225), “_flowery-tempting_
+paths” (“Spring,” 1109), “the morn _faint-gleaming_” (“Summer,” 48),
+“_dark-embowered_ firs” (“Winter,” 813), “the winds _hollow-blustering_”
+(_ibid._, 988), “the _mossy-tinctured_ streams” (“Spring,” 380), as well
+as such passages as
+
+          the long-forgotten strain
+    At first _faint-warbled_
+
+                                                          (“Spring,” 585)
+
+and
+
+    Ships _dim-discovered_ dropping from the clouds.
+
+                                                          (“Summer,” 946)
+
+Thomson’s compound epithets with a true adverb as the first element
+(Sixth Type), such as “_north-inflated_ tempest” (“Autumn,” 892), are not
+particularly striking, and some of them are awkward and result in giving
+a harsh effect to the verse, as
+
+            goodness and wit
+    In _seldom-meeting_ harmony combined.
+
+                                                         (“Summer,” 25-6)
+
+Finally, in “The Seasons” there are to be found many examples of the
+type of compound epithet, already referred to, modelled on the form
+of a past-participle; here Thomson has achieved some of his happiest
+expressions, charged with real suggestive power.[173] Among his instances
+are such little “word-pictures” as “_rocky-channelled_ maze” (“Spring,”
+401), “the _light-footed_ dews” (“Summer,” 123); “the _keen-aired_
+mountain” (“Autumn,” 434) “the _dusky-mantled_ lawn” (_ibid._, 1088),
+“the _dewy-skirted_ clouds” (_ibid._, 961) Even when he borrows a
+felicitous epithet he is able to apply it without loss of power, as when
+he gives a new setting to Milton’s “meek-eyed” applied to “Peace” as
+an epithet for the quiet in-coming of the dawn; the “_meek-eyed_ Morn”
+(“Summer,” 47).
+
+Thomson makes good and abundant use of compound epithets, and in this
+respect, as in others he was undoubtedly a bold pioneer. His language
+itself, from our present point of view, apart from the thought and
+outlook on external nature it reflects, entitles him to that honourable
+position as a forerunner in the Romantic reaction with which he is
+usually credited. He was not content to accept the stereotyped diction
+of his day, and asserted the right of the poet to make a vocabulary for
+himself. There is thus justice in the plea that it is Thomson, rather
+than Gray, whom Wordsworth should have marked down for widening the
+breach between the language of poetry and that of prose.
+
+No doubt the prevalence of the compound epithets in “The Seasons” is
+due, to some extent at least, to the requirement of his blank verse
+line; they helped him, so to speak, to secure the maximum of effect with
+the minimum of word-power; and at times we can almost see him trying
+to give to his unrhymed decasyllabics something of the conciseness and
+polish to which Pope’s couplet had accustomed his generation. But they
+owe their appearance, of course, to other causes than the mere mechanism
+of verse. Thompson’s fondness for “swelling sound and phrase” has often
+been touched upon, and this predilection finds full scope in the compound
+epithets; they play their part in giving colour and atmosphere to “The
+Seasons,” and they announce unmistakably that the old dead, descriptive
+diction is doomed.
+
+Of the blank verse poems of the period only “The Seasons” has any real
+claim to be regarded as announcing the Romantic revolt that was soon to
+declare itself unmistakably. But three years after the appearance of
+Thomson’s final revision of his poem the first odes of William Collins
+were published, at the same time as those of Joseph Warton, whilst the
+work of Thomas Gray had already begun.
+
+There are some two score of compound formations in the poems of
+Collins, but many of these—as “_love-darting_” (“Poetic Character,” 8),
+“_soul-subduing_” (“Liberty,” 92)—date from the seventeenth century. One
+felicitous compound Collins has borrowed from James Thomson, but in doing
+so he has invested it with a new and beautiful suggestiveness. Thomson
+had written of
+
+    Ships _dim-discovered_ dropping from the clouds.
+
+                                                          (“Summer,” 946)
+
+The compound is taken by Collins and given a new beauty in his
+description of the landscape as the evening shadows gently settle upon it:
+
+    Hamlets brown and _dim-discovered_ spires
+
+                                                          (“Evening,” 37)
+
+where the poetic and pictorial force of the epithet is perhaps at its
+maximum.[174]
+
+Collins, however, has not contented himself with compounds already in the
+language; he has formed himself, apparently, almost half of the examples
+to be found in his poems. His instances of Types I, as of Types V and
+VI, are commonplace, and he has but few examples of Type II, the most
+noteworthy being “_scene-full_ world” (“Manners,” 78), where the epithet,
+irregularly formed, seems to have the meaning of “abounding in scenery.”
+Most of his instances of Type III are either to be found in previous
+writers, or are obvious formations like “_war-denouncing_ trumpets”
+(“Passions,” 43).
+
+Much more originality is evident in his examples of Type IV, which
+is apparently a favourite method with him. He has “_moss-crowned_
+fountain” (“Oriental Ecl.,” II, 24), “_sky-worn_ robes” (“Pity,”
+II), “_sedge-crowned_ sisters” (“Ode on Thomson,” 30), “_elf-shot_
+arrows” (“Popular Superstitions,” 27), etc. Some instances here are,
+strictly speaking, irregular formations, for the participles, as in
+“_sphere-descended_,” are from intransitive verbs; in other instances the
+logical relation must be expressed by a preposition such, as “_with_”
+in “_moss-crowned_,” “_sedge-crowned_”; or “_by_” in “_fancy-blest_,”
+“_elf-shot_”; or “_in_” in “_sphere-found_,” “_sky-worn_.” He has some
+half-dozen examples of Type VII, three at least of which—“_gay-motleyed_
+pinks” (“Oriental Eclogues,” III, 17), “_chaste-eyed_ Queen” (“Passions,”
+75), and “_fiery-tressed_ Dane” (“Liberty,” 97)—are apparently his own
+coinage, whilst others, such as “_rosy-lipp’d_ health” (“Evening,” 50)
+and “_young-eyed_ wit,” have been happily used in the service of the
+personifications that play so great a part in his Odes.
+
+There is some evidence that the use of compounds by certain writers
+was already being noticed in the eighteenth century as something of an
+innovation in poetical language. Thus Goldsmith, it would seem, was
+under the impression that their increasing employment, even by Gray,
+was connected in some way with the revived study of the older poets,
+especially Spenser.[175] This supposition is unfounded. Gray, it is
+true, uses a large number of compounds, found in previous writers, but
+it is chiefly from Milton—e.g. “_solemn-breathing_ airs” (“Progress
+of Poesy,” 14; cp. “Comus,” 555), “rosy-bosomed hours” (“Spring,” I),
+or from Pope—e.g. “_cloud-topped_ head” (“Bard,” 34) that he borrows.
+Moreover, he has many compounds which presumably he made for himself.
+Of Type I he has such instances as “the _seraph-wings_ of Ecstasy”
+(“Progress,” 96), “the _sapphire-blaze_” (_ibid._, 99), etc.; he has one
+original example of Type II in his “_silver-bright_ Cynthia” (“Music,”
+32), and two of Type III, when he speaks of the valley of Thames as a
+“_silver-winding_ way” (“Eton Ode,” 10), and he finds a new epithet
+for the dawn in his beautiful phrase “the _incense-breathing_ Morn”
+(Elegy XVII). Of Type IV, he has some half-dozen examples, only two of
+which, however, owe their first appearance to him—the irregularly formed
+“_feather-cinctured_ chiefs” (“Progress,” 62) and “the _dew-bespangled_
+wing” (“Vicissitude,” 2). The largest number of Gray’s compound
+epithets belong to Type V, where an adjective is used adverbially with
+a participle: “_rosy-crowned_ loves” (“Progress,” 28) and “_deep-toned_
+shell” (“Music,” 23). One of Gray’s examples of this class of compound,
+evidently formed on a model furnished by Thomson, came in for a good
+deal of censure. He speaks of “_many-twinkling_ feet” (“Progress,” 35),
+and the compound, which indeed is somewhat difficult to defend, aroused
+disapproval in certain quarters. Lyttleton was one of the first to object
+to its use, and he communicated his disapproval to Walpole, who, however,
+at once took sides for the defence. “In answer to your objection,” he
+wrote,[176] “I will quote authority to which you will yield. As Greek as
+the expression is, it struck Mrs. Garrick; and she says that Mr. Gray
+is the only poet who ever understood dancing.” Later, the objection was
+revived in a general form by Dr. Johnson. “Gray,” he says,[177] “is too
+fond of words arbitrarily compounded. ‘Many-twinkling’ was formerly
+censured as not analogical: we may say ‘_many-spotted_’ but scarcely
+‘_many_-spotting.’” The incident is not without its significance;
+from the strictly grammatical point of view the epithet is altogether
+irregular, unless the first element is admitted to be an adverb meaning
+“very much” or “many times.” But Gray’s fastidiousness of expression is
+a commonplace of criticism, and we may be sure that even when he uses
+compounds of this kind he has not forgotten his own clearly expressed
+views on the language fit and proper for poetry.
+
+Johnson also objected to another device by which Gray had sought
+to enrich the vocabulary of poetry, as reflected in his use of the
+“participal” epithet in -_ed_.[178] If this device for forming new
+epithets cannot be grammatically justified, the practice of the best
+English poets at least has always been against Johnson’s dictum, and,
+as we have seen, it has been a prolific source of original and valuable
+compound epithets. Of this type Gray has some six or seven examples, the
+majority of which, however, had long been in the language, though in the
+new epithet of “the _ivy-mantled_ tower” (Elegy IX) we may perhaps see
+an indication of the increasing Romantic sensibility towards old ruins.
+
+Though not admitted to the same high rank of poets as Collins and Gray,
+two of their contemporaries, the brothers Warton, are at least of as
+great importance in the history of the Romantic revival.[179] From our
+present point of view it is not too fanciful to see a reflection of
+this fact in the compound epithets freely used by both of the Wartons.
+Thomas Warton is especially noteworthy; probably no other eighteenth
+century poet, with the exception of James Thomson, has so many instances
+of new compound formations, and these are all the more striking in that
+few of them are of the mechanical type, readily formed by means of a
+commonplace adjective or adverb. Instances of compound substantives
+(Type I) are almost entirely lacking, and the same may be said of the
+noun _plus_ adjective epithets (Type II). There are, however, a few
+examples of Type III (noun _plus_ present participle), some of which, as
+“_beauty-blooming_ isle” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “_twilight-loving_
+bat” (_ibid._), and “the woodbines _elm-encircling_ spray” (“On a New
+Plantation”), no doubt owe something to the influence of Thomson.
+Instances of Type IV are plentiful, and here again there is a welcome
+freshness in Warton’s epithets: “Fancy’s _fairy-circled_ shrine” (“Monody
+Written near Stratford-on-Avon”), “morning’s _twilight-tinctured_
+beam” (“The Hamlet”), “_daisy-dappled_ dale” (“Sonnet on Bathing”).
+One instance of this class of compound epithet, “the _furze-clad_
+dale,” is certainly significant as indicative of the changes that were
+going on from the “classical” to the Romantic outlook towards natural
+scenery.[180]
+
+Of the other class of compound epithets, Warton has only a few instances,
+but his odes gave plenty of scope for the use of the “participial
+epithet” (Type VII), and he has formed them freely: “Pale Cynthia’s
+_silver-axled_ car” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “the _coral-cinctured_
+stole” (“Complaint of Cherwell”), “Sport, the _yellow-tressed_ boy”
+(_ibid._). No doubt many of Thomas Warton’s compound formations were the
+result of a conscious effort to find “high-sounding” terms, and they
+have sometimes an air of being merely rhetorical, as in such instances
+as “_beauty-blooming_,” “_gladsome-glistering_ green,” “_azure-arched_,”
+“_twilight-tinctured_,” “_coral-cinctured_,” “_cliff-encircled_,”
+“_daisy-dappled_,” where alliterative effects have obviously been sought.
+Yet he deserves great credit for his attempts to find new words at a time
+when the stock epithets and phrases were still the common treasury of the
+majority of his contemporaries.
+
+His brother, Joseph Warton, is less of a pioneer, but there is evident
+in his work also an effort to search out new epithets. His compounds
+include (Type II) “_marble-mimic_ gods” (“The Enthusiast”); (Type III)
+“_courage-breathing_ songs” (“Verses, 1750”), with many instances of Type
+IV, some commonplace, as “_merchant-crowded_ towns” (“Ode to Health”),
+others more original, as “mirth and youth nodding _lily-crowned_ heads”
+(“Ode to Fancy”), joy, “the _rose-crowned, ever-smiling_ boy” (“Ode
+Against Despair”), “the _beech-embowered_ cottage” (“On The Spring”).
+Moreover, there are a number in “The Enthusiast,” which reflect a genuine
+love of Nature (“_thousand-coloured_ tulips,” “_pine-topp’d_ precipice”)
+and a keen observation of its sights and sounds.
+
+It is not forcing the evidence of language too much to say that a similar
+increasing interest in external nature finds expression in some of the
+compound epithets to be found in much of the minor poetry of the period.
+Thus Moses Mendez (_d._ 1758)[181] has in his poem on the various seasons
+(1751) such conventional epithets as
+
+    On every hill the _purple-blushing_ vine,
+
+but others testify to first hand observation as
+
+    The _pool-sprung_ gnat on sounding wings doth pass.
+
+Richard Jago (1715-1781)[182], in his “Edgehill” (1767), has such
+instances as “the _woodland-shade_,” “the _wave-worn_ face,” and “the
+tillag’d plain _wide-waving_.” The Rev. R. Potter,[183] who imitated
+Spenser in his “Farewell Hymn to the Country” (1749), has happy examples
+like “_mavis-haunted_ grove” and “this _flowre-perfumed_ aire.” In
+William Whitehead’s poems[184] there are numerous formations like
+“_cloud-enveloped_ towers” (“A Hymn”) and “_rock-invested_ shades”
+(“Elegy,” IV). A few new descriptive terms appear in the work of John
+Langhorne (1735-1779),[185] “_flower-feeding_ rills” (“Visions of
+Fancy,” I), “_long-winding_ vales” (“Genius and Valour”), etc. Michael
+Bruce (1746-1767) in his “Lochleven”[186] has, e.g., “_cowslip-covered_
+banks,” and fresh observation of bird life is seen in such phrases
+as “_wild-shrieking_ gull” and “_slow-wing’d_ crane.” James Graeme
+(1749-1772)[187] has at least one new and happy compound in his line
+
+    The _blue-gray_ mist that hovers o’er the hill.
+
+                                              (“Elegy written in Spring”)
+
+John Scott (1730-1783)[188] makes more use of compound formations than
+most of his minor contemporaries. He has many instances of Type IV (noun
+_plus_ participle), including “_rivulet-water’d_ glade” (Eclogue I),
+“_corn-clad_ plain,” “_elder-shaded_ cot” (“Amwell”). His few instances
+of Type VI (e.g. “_wildly-warbled_ strain,” (“Ode” IV)), and of Type VII
+(e.g. “_trefoil-purpled_ field” (“Elegy,” III)); “_may-flower’d_ hedges”
+(“Elegy,” IV); and “_golden-clouded_ sky,” (“Ode,” II), are also worthy of
+notice.
+
+Meanwhile another aspect of the rising Romantic movement was revealing
+itself in the work of Chatterton. With the “antiquarianism” of the
+Rowley poems we are not here concerned, but the language of both the
+“original” work and of the “discovered” poems contains plenty of material
+relevant to our special topic. Chatterton, indeed, seems to have had a
+predilection for compound formations, though he has but few instances of
+compound substantives (e.g. “_coppice-valley_” (“Elegy”), and instances
+of Type II (noun _plus_ adjective) are also rare. The other types of
+epithets are, however, well represented: “_echo-giving_ bells” (“To Miss
+Hoyland”), “_rapture-speaking_ lyre” (“Song”), etc. (Type III), though it
+is perhaps in Type IV that Chatterton’s word-forming power is best shown:
+“_flower-bespangled_ hills” (“Complaint”), “_rose-hedged_ vale” (“Elegy
+at Stanton-Drew”), etc., where the first compound epithet is a new and
+suggestive descriptive term. His examples of Type V are also worth
+noting: “_verdant-vested_ trees” (“Elegy,” V), “_red-blushing_ blossom”
+“Song”), whilst one of the best of them is to be found in those lines,
+amongst the most beautiful written by Chatterton, which reflect something
+of the new charm that men were beginning to find in old historic churches
+and buildings:
+
+    To view the cross-aisles and the arches fair
+    Through the half-hidden _silver-twinkling_ glare
+    Of yon bright moon in foggy mantle dress’d.
+
+                                     (“Parliament of Sprites,” Canto XXI)
+
+The remaining examples of Chatterton’s compound formations do not
+call for much attention, though “_gently-plaintive_ rill” (“Elegy on
+Phillips”) and “_loudly-dinning_ stream” (“Ælla,” 84) are new and fresh.
+Chatterton has much of the conventional poetical language and devices of
+his time throughout his work, and his compound epithets do not in the
+mass vary much from contemporary usage in this respect. But some of them
+at least are significant of the position which he occupies in the history
+of the Romantic revival.
+
+The greatest figure in this revival, as it appears to us now, was William
+Blake, but from our present point of view he is almost negligible. It
+may safely be said that few poets of such high rank have made less
+use of compound formations: in his entire poetical work scarcely half
+a dozen instances are to be found. Yet the majority of these, such
+as “_angel-guarded bed_” (“A Dream,” 2), “_mind-forg’d_ manacles”
+(“London,” 8), “Winter’s _deep-founded_ habitation” (“Winter,” 3),
+“_softly-breathing_ song” (“Song,” 2: “Poetical Sketches”) are a
+sufficiently striking tribute to his ability to form expressive compounds
+had he felt the need. But in the beautiful purity and simplicity of his
+diction, for which he has in our own time at least received adequate
+praise, there was no place for long compound formations, which, moreover,
+are more valuable and more appropriate for descriptive poetry, and likely
+to mar the pure singing note of the lyric.
+
+It is curious to find a similar paucity of compound formations in the
+poems of George Crabbe, the whole number being well represented by
+such examples as “_dew-press’d_ vale” (“Epistle to a Friend,” 48),
+“_violet-wing’d_ Zephyrs” (“The Candidate,” 268), and “_wind-perfuming_
+flowers” (“The Choice”). No doubt the narrative character of much of
+Crabbe’s verse is the explanation of this comparative lack of compounds,
+but the descriptions of wild nature that form the background for many of
+“The Tales” might have been expected to result in new descriptive terms.
+
+Two lesser poets of the time are more noteworthy as regards our especial
+topic. William Mickle (1735-1788), in his “Almada Hill” (1781) and
+his “May Day,” as well as in his shorter poems, has new epithets for
+hills and heights, as in such phrases as “_thyme-clad_ mountains” and
+“_fir-crown’d_ hill” (“Sorcerers,” 4). His Spenserian imitation “Syr
+Martyn,” contains a few happy epithets:
+
+    How bright emerging o’er yon _broom-clad_ height
+    The silver empress of the night appears
+
+                                                           (Canto II, 31)
+
+and “_daisie-whitened_ plain,” “_crystal-streamed_ Esk” are among his new
+formations in “Eskdale Braes.”
+
+James Beattie has a large number of compounds in his poems, and though
+many of these are mechanical formations, he has a few new “nature”
+epithets which are real additions to the vocabulary of poetical
+description, as “_sky-mixed_ mountain” (“Ode to Peace,” 38), the lake
+“_dim-gleaming_” (“Minstrel,” 176), “the _wide-weltering_ waves”
+(_ibid._, 481), the wave “_loose-glimmering_” (“Judgment of Paris,” 458).
+He has also a few instances of Type VII chiefly utilized, as often with
+compounds of this type, as personifying epithets: “the frolic moments
+_purple_-pinioned” (“Judgment of Paris,” 465) and “_loose-robed_ Quiet”
+(“Triumph of Melancholy,” 64).
+
+The “Pleasures of Memory” (1792) by Samuel Rogers has one or two
+compound formations: “_moonlight-chequered_ shade” (Part II). Hope’s
+“_summer-visions_” (_ibid._) and “the _fairy-haunts_ of long-lost hours”
+(_ibid.)_, have a trace at least of that suggestive power with which
+Keats and Shelley were soon to endow their epithets. Brief reference only
+need be made to the works of Erasmus Darwin, which have already been
+mentioned as the great example of eighteenth century stock diction used
+to the utmost possible extent. He has plenty of instances of compound
+epithets of every type, but his favourite formation appears to be that
+of a noun _plus_ part-participle, as “_sun-illumined_ fane” (“Botanic
+Garden,” I, 157), “_wave-worn_ channels” (_ibid._, I, 362), and as seen
+in such lines as
+
+    Her _shell-wrack_ gardens and her _sea-fan_ bowers.
+
+                                        (“Economy of Vegetation,” VI, 82)
+
+Many of Darwin’s compounds have a certain charm of their own; in the mass
+they contribute towards that dazzling splendour with which eighteenth
+century diction here blazed out before it finally disappeared.
+
+Cowper, like Blake and Crabbe, is not especially distinguished for his
+compound epithets. Though he has a large number of such formations, very
+few of them are either new or striking, a remark which applies equally to
+his original work and his translations. Many instances of all the types
+are to be found in the “Homer,” but scarcely one that calls for special
+mention, though here and there we come across good epithets well applied:
+“accents _ardour-winged_” (IV, 239) or “_silver-eddied_ Peneus” (II, 294).
+
+Before attempting to sum up the use of compound epithets in eighteenth
+century poetry, brief reference may be made to their use in the early
+work of the two poets who announced the definite advent of the new age.
+Wordsworth in his early poems has many instance of compound words,
+most of which are either his own formations, or are rare before his
+time. The original and final drafts both of the “Evening Walk” and the
+“Descriptive Sketches” show some divergence in this respect, compounds
+found in the 1793 version being omitted later, whilst on the other new
+formations appear in the revised poems. Besides imitative instances
+such as “_cloud-piercing_ pine trees” (D.S., 63), there are more
+original and beautiful compounds, such as the “_Lip-dewing_ song and the
+_ringlet-tossing_ dance” (_ibid._, 132), which does not appear until the
+final draft.
+
+Examples of Type IV are “_holly-sprinkled_ steeps” (E.W., 10), “The
+sylvan cabin’s _lute-enlivened_ gloom” (D.S., 134, final); and of Types
+V and VI, “_green-tinged_ margin” (D.S., 122), “_clear-blue_ sky” (D.S.,
+113), “_dim-lit_ Alps” (D.S., 1793 only, 217), and “the _low-warbled_
+breath of twilight lute” (D.S., 1793, 749). Wordsworth’s early poems,
+it has been noted, are almost an epitome of the various eighteenth
+century devices for producing what was thought to be a distinctively
+poetical style,[189] but he soon shakes off this bondage, and “Guilt and
+Sorrow,” perhaps the first poem in which his simplicity and directness
+of expression are fully revealed, is practically without instances of
+compound epithets.
+
+The critics, it would appear, had already marked down as a fault a
+“profusion of new coined double epithets”[190] in a “small volume of
+juvenile poems” published by Coleridge in 1794. In replying to, or rather
+commenting on, the charge, Coleridge makes an interesting digression on
+the use of such formations, defending them on “the authority of Milton
+and Shakespeare,” and suggesting that compound epithets should only be
+admitted if they are already “denizens” of the language, or if the new
+formation is a genuine compound, and not merely two words made one by
+virtue of the hyphen. “A Language,” he adds, “which like the English
+is almost without cases, is indeed in its very genius unfitted for
+compounds. If a writer, every time a compounded word suggests itself
+to him, would seek for some other mode of expressing the same sense,
+the chances are always greatly in favour of his finding a better word.”
+Though there is a good deal of sound sense in these remarks, we have only
+to recall the wealth of beautiful compound epithets with which Keats, to
+take only one example, was soon to enrich the language, to realize that
+English poetry would be very much the poorer if the rule Coleridge lays
+down had been strictly observed. It would perhaps be truer to say that
+the imaginative quality of the compound epithets coined by a poet is a
+good test of his advance in power of expression.[191]
+
+As regards his own practice, Coleridge goes on to say[192] that
+he “pruned the double epithets with no sparing hand”; but the
+pruning was not very severe, judging from a comparison of the two
+volumes. Yet these early poems are not without examples of good
+compound epithets: “_zephyr-haunted_ brink,” (“Lines to a Beautiful
+Spring”), “_distant-tinkling_ stream” (“Song of the Pixies,” 16),
+“_sunny-tinctured_ hue” (_ibid._, 43), “_passion-warbled_ strain,” (“To
+the Rev. W. J. H.”), etc.
+
+When we review the use of compound epithets in the poetry of the
+eighteenth century we are bound to admit that in this, as in other
+aspects of the “purely poetical,” the eighteenth century stands apart
+from other periods in our literary history. Most readers could probably
+at will call to their mind half a dozen compound epithets of Shakespeare
+and the Elizabethan period, of Milton, or of more modern writers, such as
+Keats, that are, as it were, little poems in themselves, Shakespeare’s
+“_young-eyed cherubim_,” or Milton’s “_grey-hooded even_,” or Keats’s
+“_soft-conched shell_.” It is safe to say that few eighteenth century
+words or phrases of this nature have captured the imagination to a
+similar degree; Collins’s “_dim-discovered spires_” is perhaps the only
+instance that comes readily to the mind.
+
+There are, of course, as our study has shown, plenty of instances of
+good compound epithets, but in the typical eighteenth century poetry
+these are rarely the product of a genuine creative force that endows the
+phrase with imaginative life. Even the great forerunners of the Romantic
+revolt are not especially remarkable in this respect; one of the greatest
+of them, William Blake, gave scarcely a single new compound epithet to
+the language, and whilst this fact, of course, cannot be brought as a
+reproach against him, yet it is, in some respects at least, significant
+of the poetical atmosphere into which he was born. It has often been
+remarked that when Latin influence was in the ascendant the formation of
+new and striking compound epithets has been very rare in English poetry,
+whilst it has been always stimulated, as we know from the concrete
+examples of Chapman and Keats, by the influence of a revived Hellenism.
+
+Another fact is worthy of attention. Many of the most beautiful compound
+epithets in the English language are nature phrases descriptive of
+outdoor sights and sounds. The arrested development, or the atrophy of
+the sense of the beauty of the external world, which is a characteristic
+of the neo-classical school, was an unconscious but effective bar to
+the formation of new words and phrases descriptive of outdoor life. The
+neo-classical poet, with his eye fixed on the town and on life as lived
+there, felt no necessity for adding to the descriptive resources of his
+vocabulary, especially when there was to his hand a whole _gradus_ of
+accepted and consecrated words and phrases. It is in the apostles of “the
+return to Nature” that we find, however inadequately, to begin with, a
+new diction that came into being because these poets had recovered the
+use of their eyes and could sense the beauty of the world around them.
+
+And this fact leads to a further consideration of the use of compound
+epithets from the formal viewpoint of their technical value. It has
+already been suggested that their use may not be unconnected with the
+mechanism of verse, and the æsthetic poverty of eighteenth century poetry
+in this respect may therefore be not unjustly regarded as an outcome of
+the two great prevailing vehicles of expression. In the first place,
+there was the heroic couplet as brought to perfection by Pope. “The
+uniformity and maximum swiftness that marked his manipulation of the
+stopped couplet was achieved,” says Saintsbury, “not only by means of
+a large proportion of monosyllabic final words, but also by an evident
+avoidance of long and heavy vocables in the interior of the lines
+themselves.”[193] Moreover, perhaps the commonest device to secure the
+uniform smoothness of the line was that use of the “_gradus_ epithet”
+which has earlier been treated; these epithets were for the most part
+stock descriptive adjectives—_verdant_, _purling_, _fleecy_, _painted_,
+and the like—which were generally regarded by the versifiers as the only
+attendant diction of the couplet. If we compare a typical Pope verse such
+as
+
+    Let _vernal_ airs through trembling osiers play
+
+with the line already quoted,
+
+    Love-whisp’ring woods and lute-resounding waves
+
+we may perhaps see that the free use of compound epithets was not
+compatible with the mechanism of the couplet as illustrated in the
+greater part of Pope’s practice; they would tend to weaken the balanced
+antithesis, and thus spoil the swing of the line.
+
+The most formidable rival of the heroic couplet in the eighteenth
+century was blank verse, the advent of which marked the beginning of the
+Romantic reaction in form. Here Thomson may be regarded as the chief
+representative, and it is significant that the large number of compound
+epithets in his work are terms of natural description, which, in addition
+to their being a reflex of the revived attitude to natural scenery, were
+probably more or less consciously used to compensate readers for the
+absence of “the rhyme-stroke and flash” they were accustomed to look
+for in the contemporary couplet. “He utilizes periodically,” to quote
+Saintsbury again,[194] “the exacter nature-painting, which in general
+poetic history is his glory, by putting the distinctive words for colour
+and shape in notable places of the verse, so as to give it character
+and quality.” These “distinctive words for colour and shape” were, with
+Thomson, for the most part, compound epithets; almost by the time of
+“Yardley Oak,” and certainly by the time of “Tintern Abbey,” blank verse
+had been fully restored to its kingdom, and no longer needed such aid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+In the Preface of 1798, when Wordsworth formulated his theories with
+regard to poetical language, the first “mechanical device of style”
+against which he directed his preliminary attack was the use of
+“personifications of abstract ideas.”[195] Such personifications, he
+urged, do not make any natural or regular part of “the very language
+of men,” and as he wished “to keep the reader in the company of flesh
+and blood,” he had endeavoured “utterly to reject them.” He was ready
+to admit that they were occasionally “prompted by passion,” but his
+predecessors had come to regard them as a sort of family language, upon
+which they had every right to draw. In short, in Wordsworth’s opinion,
+abstractions and personifications had become a conventional method of
+ornamenting verse, akin to the “vicious diction,” from the tyranny of
+which he wished to emancipate poetry. The specific point on which he thus
+challenged the practice of his predecessors could hardly be gainsaid, for
+he had indicted a literary device, or artifice, which was not only worked
+to death by the mere poetasters of the period, but which disfigures not a
+little the work of even the great poets of the century.
+
+The literary use of abstraction and personification was not, it is
+needless to say, the invention of the eighteenth century. It is as old
+as literature itself, which has always reflected a tendency to interpret
+or explain natural phenomena or man’s relations with the invisible
+powers that direct or influence human conduct, by means of allegory,
+English poetry in the Middle Ages, especially that of Chaucer, Langland,
+and their immediate successors, fitly illustrates the great world
+of abstraction which had slowly come into being, a world peopled by
+personified states or qualities—the Seven Deadly Sins, the Virtues, Love,
+etc.—typifying or symbolizing the forces which help man, or beset and
+ensnare him as he makes his pilgrim’s progress through this world.
+
+Already the original motive power of allegory was considerably
+diminished, even if it had not altogether disappeared, and, by the time
+of the “Faerie Queene,” the literary form which it had moulded for itself
+had become merely imitative and conventional, so that even the music
+and melody of Spenser’s verse could not altogether vitalize the shadowy
+abstractions of his didactic allegory. With “Paradise Lost” we come to
+the last great work in which personified abstractions reflect to any real
+extent the original allegorical motive in which they had their origin.
+Milton achieves his supreme effects in personification in that his
+figures are merely suggestive, strongly imagined impressions rather than
+clean-cut figures. For nothing can be more dangerous, from the poetic
+point of view, than the precise figures which attempt to depict every
+possible point of similarity between the abstract notion and the material
+representation imagined.[196]
+
+It is sometimes considered that the mania for abstraction was due
+largely to the influence of the two poets who are claimed, or regarded,
+as the founders or leaders of the new classical school—Dryden and Pope.
+As a matter of fact, neither makes any great use of personification.
+Dryden has a few abstractions in his original works, such as,
+
+    Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife and Pride
+    And Envy did but look on
+
+                                                        (“First Epistle”)
+
+but his examples are mainly to be found in his modernizations or
+translations, where of necessity he takes them from his originals.[197]
+
+Pope makes a greater use of the figure, but even here there is no excess.
+There is not a single personification in the four pastorals of “The
+Seasons,” a subject peculiarly adapted to such treatment. In “Eloisa to
+Abelard” there are two instances where some attempt at characterization
+is made.[198] More instances, though none very striking, are to be found
+in “Windsor Forest,” but the poem ends with a massed group, forming a
+veritable catalogue of the personified vices which had done so much
+service in poetry since the days of the Seven Deadly Sins.
+
+In other poems Pope uses the device for humorous or satiric effect, as in
+the “Pain,” “Megrim,” and “Ill nature like an ancient maid” (l. 24) of
+“The Rape of the Lock;” or the “Science,” “Will,” “Logic,” etc., of “The
+Dunciad,” where all are invested with capital letters, but with little
+attempt to work up a definite picture, except, as was perhaps to be
+expected, in the case of “Dullness,” which is provided with a bodyguard
+(Bk. I, 45-52).
+
+Though, as we have already said, there is no great use of such figures in
+the works of Pope, they are present in such numbers in his satiric and
+didactic works as to indicate one great reason for their prevalence in
+his contemporaries and successors. After the Restoration, when English
+literature entered on a new era, the changed and changing conditions
+of English life and thought soon impressed themselves on poetry. The
+keynote to the understanding of much that is characteristic of this new
+“classical” literature has been well summed up in the formula that “the
+saving process of human thought was forced for generations to beggar the
+sense of beauty.”[199] The result was an invasion of poetry by ideas,
+arguments, and abstractions which were regarded both as expressing
+admirably the new spirit of rationalism, as well as constituting in
+themselves dignified subjects and ornaments of poetry.
+
+This is well illustrated in the case of several of Pope’s contemporaries.
+In the works of Thomas Parnell (1679-1718) abstractions of the
+conventional type are plentiful, usually accompanied by a qualifying
+epithet: “Fortune fair-array’d” (“An Imitation”), “Impetuous Discord,”
+“Blind Mischief,” (“On Queen Anne’s Peace”), “the soft Pathetic” (“On
+the Different Styles of Poetry”). These are only a few of the examples
+of the types favoured by Parnell, where only here and there are human
+traits added by means of qualifying epithets or phrases. In one or two
+instances, however, there are more detailed personifications. Thus,
+in the “Epistle to Dr. Swift,” which abounds in shadowy abstractions,
+Eloquence is fully described for us:
+
+    Upon her cheek sits Beauty ever young
+    The soul of music warbles on her tongue.
+
+Moreover, already in Parnell it is evident that the influence of Milton
+is responsible for some of his personifications. In the same poem we get
+the invocation:
+
+    Come! country Goddess come, nor thou suffice
+    But bring thy mountain-sister Exercise,
+
+figures which derive obviously from “L’Allegro.”
+
+In the case of Richard Savage (1696-1743) there is still greater freedom
+in the use of personified abstractions, which, as here the creative
+instinct is everywhere subjected to the didactic purpose, become very
+wearisome. The “Wanderer” contains long catalogues of them, in some
+instances pursued for over fifty lines.[200]
+
+The device continued to be very popular throughout the eighteenth
+century, especially by those who continue or represent the “Ethical”
+school of Pope. First amongst these may be mentioned Edward Young
+(1681-1765), whose “Night Thoughts” was first published between
+1742-1744. Young, like his contemporaries, has recourse to
+personifications, both for didactic purposes and apparently to add
+dignity to his style. It is probable, too, that in this respect he owes
+something to “Paradise Lost”; from Milton no doubt he borrowed his
+figure of Death, which, though poetically not very impressive, seems to
+have captured the imagination of Blake and other artists who have tried
+to depict it. The figure is at first only casually referred to in the
+Fourth Book (l. 96), where there is a brief and commonplace reference to
+“Death, that mighty hunter”; but it is not until the fifth book that the
+figure is developed. Yet, though the characterization is carried to great
+length, there is no very striking personification: we are given, instead,
+a long-drawn-out series of abstractions, with an attempt now and then to
+portray a definite human figure. Thus
+
+    Like princes unconfessed in foreign courts
+    Who travel under cover, Death assumes
+    The name and look of life, and dwells among us.
+
+And then the poet describes Death as being present always and everywhere,
+and especially
+
+        Gaily carousing, to his gay compeers
+    Inly he laughs to see them laugh at him
+    As absent far.
+
+But Young has not, like Milton, been able to conjure up a definite and
+convincing vision, and thus he never achieves anything approaching the
+overwhelming effect produced by the phantom of Death in “Paradise Lost,”
+called before us in a single verse:
+
+    So spake the grisly Terror.
+
+                                                          (P.L., II. 704)
+
+For the rest, Young’s personifications, considering the nature of his
+subject, are fewer than might be expected. Where they occur they often
+seem to owe their presence to a desire to vary the monotony of his moral
+reflections; as a result we get a number of abstractions, which may be
+called personifications only because they are sometimes accompanied by
+human attributes.
+
+Young has also certain other evocations which can scarcely be called
+abstractions, but which are really indistinct, shadowy beings, like the
+figures of a dream, as when he describes the phantom of the past:
+
+    The spirit walks of every day deceased
+    And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns
+
+                                                            (ll. 180-181)
+
+or the grief of the poet as he ever meets the shades of joys gone for
+ever:
+
+                      The ghosts
+    Of my departed joys: a numerous train.
+
+Here the poet has come near to achieving that effect which in the hands
+of the greatest poets justifies the use of personification as a poetic
+figure. The more delicate process just illustrated is distinct both from
+the lifeless abstraction and the detailed personification, for in these
+cases there is a tinge of personal emotion which invests these shadowy
+figures with something of a true lyrical effect.
+
+The tendency, illustrated in the “Night Thoughts,” to make a purely
+didactic use of personification and abstraction is found to a much
+greater extent in Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination,” first
+published in 1744, to be considerably enlarged in 1767. The nature of
+Akenside’s subject freely admitted of the use of these devices, and he
+has not been slow to avail himself of them.
+
+Large portions of the “Pleasures of the Imagination” resolve themselves
+into one long procession of abstract figures. Very often Akenside
+contents himself with the usual type of abstraction, accompanied by a
+conventional epithet: “Wisdom’s form celestial” (I, 69), “sullen Pomp”
+(III, 216), etc., though sometimes by means of human attributes or
+characteristics we are given partial personifications such as:
+
+    Power’s purple robes nor Pleasure’s flowery lap.
+
+                                                                 (l. 216)
+
+And occasionally there are traces of a little more imagination:
+
+            thy lonely whispering voice
+    O faithful Nature![201]
+
+But on the whole it is clear that with Akenside abstraction and
+personification are used simply and solely for moral and didactic
+purposes, and not because of any perception of their potential artistic
+value. Incidentally, an interesting side-light on this point is revealed
+by one of the changes introduced by the poet into his revision of his
+chief work. In the original edition of 1740 there is an invocation to
+Harmony (Bk. I, ll. 20 foll.), with her companion,
+
+    Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come
+    Her sister Liberty will not be far.
+
+Before the publication of the revised edition, Akenside, who at one time
+had espoused the cause of liberty with such ardour as to lead to his
+being suspected of republicanism, received a Court appointment. In the
+revised edition the concluding lines of the invocation became
+
+                    for with thee comes
+    The guide, the guardian of their majestic rites
+    Wise Order and where Order deigns to come
+    Her sister Liberty will not be far.
+
+                                                              (138 foll.)
+
+The same lavish use of abstractions is seen, not only in the philosophic
+poetry proper, but also in other works, which might perhaps have been
+expected to escape the contagion. Charles Churchill (1731-1764), if we
+set aside Johnson and Canning, may be regarded as representing eighteenth
+century satire in its decline, after the great figures of Pope and Swift
+have disappeared from the scene, and among the causes which prevent his
+verse from having but little of the fiery force and sting of the great
+masters of satire is that, instead of the strongly depicted, individual
+types of Pope, for example, we are given a heterogeneous collection
+of human virtues, vices, and characteristics, most often in the form
+of mere abstractions, sometimes personified into stiff, mechanical
+figures.[202] Only once has Churchill attempted anything novel in the
+way of personification, and this in humorous vein, when he describes the
+social virtues:
+
+    With belly round and full fat face,
+    Which on the house reflected grace,
+    Full of good fare and honest glee,
+    The steward Hospitality.
+
+Churchill had no doubt a genuine passion for poetry and independence,
+but the _saeva indignatio_ of the professed censor of public morals and
+manners cannot be conveyed to the reader through the medium of mechanical
+abstractions which, compared with the flesh-and-blood creations of Dryden
+and Pope, show clearly that for the time being the great line of English
+satire has all but come to an end.
+
+Eighteenth century ethical poetry was represented at this stage by
+Johnson and Goldsmith, at whose work it will now be convenient to
+glance. The universal truths which Johnson as a stern, unbending
+moralist wished to illustrate in “London” (1738) and “The Vanity of
+Human Wishes” (1749), might easily have resulted in a swarm of the
+abstractions and personifications fashionable at the time.[203] From this
+danger Johnson was saved by the depth of feeling with which he unfolds
+the individual examples chosen to enforce his moral lessons. Not that
+he escapes entirely; “London” has a few faint abstractions (“Malice,”
+“Rapine,” “Oppression”); but though occasionally they are accompanied
+by epithets suggesting human attributes (“surly Virtue,” “persecuting
+Fate,” etc.), as a rule there is no attempt at definite personification,
+a remark which also applies to the “Vanity of Human Wishes.” In his
+odes to the different seasons he has not given, however, any elaborate
+personifications, but has contented himself with slight human touches,
+such as
+
+    Now Autumn bends a cloudy brow.
+
+Of Johnson’s poetical style, regarded from our present point of view, it
+may be said to be well represented in the famous line from “London”:
+
+    Slow rises Worth by Poverty depressed,
+
+where there is probably no intention or desire to personify at all, but
+which is a result of that tendency towards Latin condensation which the
+great Doctor and his contemporaries had introduced into English prose.
+
+Goldsmith’s poetry has much in common with that of Johnson, in that both
+deal to some extent with what would now be called social problems. But it
+is significant of Goldsmith’s historical position in eighteenth century
+poetry as representing a sort of “half-way attitude,” in the matter of
+poetical style, between the classical conventional language and the
+free and unfettered diction advocated by Wordsworth, that there are few
+examples of personified abstractions in his works, and these confined
+mainly to one passage in “The Traveller”:
+
+    Hence Ostentation here with tawdry Art
+    Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart, etc.
+
+At this point it is necessary to hark back for the purpose of considering
+other works which had been appearing alongside of the works just
+discussed. It has already been remarked that in this matter of the use of
+abstraction and personification the influence of Milton early asserted
+itself, and there can be no doubt that a good deal of it may be traced
+to the influence more especially of the early poems. Indeed, the blank
+verse poems, which attempted to imitate or parody the “grand style” of
+the great epics, furnish few examples of the personified abstraction.
+The first of these, the “Splendid Shilling” and “Cyder” of John Philips
+(1705-1706) contains but few instances. In Somerville’s “Chase” there is
+occasionally a commonplace example, such as “brazen-fisted Time,” though
+in his ode “To Marlborough” he falls into the conventional style quickly
+enough. In the rest of the blank verse poems Mallet’s “Excursion” (1738),
+and his “Amyntor and Theodora” (1744), comparatively little use is made
+of the device, a remark also applicable to Dyer’s “Ruins of Rome” (1740),
+and to Grainger’s “Sugar Cane” (1764).
+
+The fashion for all these blank verse poems had been started largely by
+the success of “The Seasons,” which appeared in its original form from
+1726 to 1730, to undergo more than one revision and augmentation until
+the final edition of 1744. Though Thomson’s work shows very many traces
+of the influence of Milton, there is no direct external evidence that
+his adoption of blank verse was a result of that influence. Perhaps, as
+has been suggested,[204] he was weary of the monotony of the couplet,
+or at least considered its correct and polished form incapable of any
+further development. At the same time it is clear that having adopted
+“rhyme-unfettered verse,” he chose to regard Milton as a model of
+diction and style, though he was by no means a slavish imitator.
+
+With regard to the special problems with which we are here concerned,
+it must be noted that when Thomson was first writing “The Seasons,” the
+device of personified abstraction had not become quite so conventional
+and forced in its use as at a later date. Nevertheless examples of the
+typical abstraction are not infrequent; thus, in an enumeration of the
+passions which, since the end of the “first fresh dawn,” have invaded
+the hearts and minds of men, we are given “Base Envy,” withering at
+another’s joy; “Convulsive Anger,” storming at large; and “Desponding
+Fear,” full of feeble fancies, etc. (“Spring,” 280-306). Other examples
+are somewhat redeemed by the use of a felicitous compound epithet, “Art
+imagination-flushed” (“Autumn,” 140), “the lonesome Muse, low-whispering”
+(_ibid._, 955), etc. In “Summer” (ll. 1605 foll.) the poet presents one
+of the usual lists of abstract qualities (“White Peace, Social Love,”
+etc.), but there are imaginative touches present that help to vitalize
+some at least of the company into living beings:
+
+    The tender-looking Charity intent
+    On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles—
+
+and the passage is thus a curious mixture of mechanical abstractions with
+more vivid and inspired conceptions.
+
+Occasionally Thomson employs the figure with ironical or humorous
+intention, and sometimes not ineffectively, as in the couplet,
+
+    Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst
+    Produce the mighty bowl.
+
+                                                          (“Autumn,” 512)
+
+He is also fond of the apostrophic personification, often feebly, as
+when, acting upon a suggestion from Mallet,[205] he writes:
+
+    Comes, Inspiration, from thy hermit seat,
+    By mortal seldom found, etc.
+
+                                                        (“Summer,” l. 15)
+
+As for the seasons themselves, we do not find any very successful
+attempts at personification. Thomson gives descriptive impressions rather
+than abstractions: “gentle Spring, ethereal mildness” (“Spring,” 1),
+“various-blossomed Spring” (“Autumn,” 5); or borrowing, as often, an
+epithet from Milton, “refulgent Summer” (“Summer,” 2); or “surly Winter”
+(“Spring,” 11).
+
+But in these, and similar passages, the seasons can hardly be said
+to be distinctly pictured or personified. In “Winter,” however,
+there is perhaps a more successful attempt at vague but suggestive
+personification:[206]
+
+    See Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
+    Sullen and sad, with all his rising train
+    Vapours, and clouds and storms.
+
+But on the whole Thomson’s personifications of the seasons are not,
+poetically, very impressive. There is little or no approach to the
+triumphant evocation with which Keats conjures up Autumn for us, with
+all its varied sights and sounds, and its human activities vividly
+personified in the gleaner and the winnower
+
+        sitting careless on a granary floor
+    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,
+
+or the couplet in which Coleridge brings before us a subtle suggestion
+of the spring beauty, to which the storms and snows are but a prelude:
+
+    And winter, slumbering in the open air
+    Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring.
+
+                                                    (“Work without Hope”)
+
+Yet Thomson, as might be expected in a forerunner of the Romantic school,
+is not altogether without a gift for these embryonic personifications,
+as they have been called, when by means of a felicitous term or epithet
+the whole conception which the poet has in mind is suddenly galvanized
+into life and endowed with human feelings and emotions. Such evocations
+are of the very stuff of which poetry is made, and at their highest
+they possess the supreme power of stirring or awakening in the mind of
+the reader other pictures or visions than those suggested by the mere
+personification.[207]
+
+Though some of Thomson’s instances are conventional or commonplace, as in
+the description of
+
+                the grey grown oaks
+    That the calm village in their verdant arms
+    Sheltering, embrace,
+
+                                                      (“Summer,” 225-227)
+
+and others merely imitative, as,
+
+                  the rosy-footed May
+    Steals blushing on,
+
+                                                      (“Spring,” 489-490)
+
+yet there are many which call up by a single word a vivid and picturesque
+expression, such as the “hollow-whispering breeze” (“Summer,” 919) or the
+poet’s description of the dismal solitude of a winter landscape
+
+                  It freezes on
+    Till Morn, late rising o’er the drooping world
+    Lifts her pale eyes unjoyous
+
+                                                          (“Winter,” 744)
+
+or the beautiful description of a spring dawn:
+
+    The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews
+    At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.
+
+                                                        (“Summer,” 48-49)
+
+Adverting to the question of Milton’s influence on the prevalent mania
+for personification, it is undoubted that the early poems may be held
+largely responsible. Their influence first began noticeably to make
+itself felt in the fifth decade of the century, when their inspiration
+is to be traced in a great deal of the poetic output of the period,
+including that of Joseph and Thomas Warton, as well as of Collins and
+Gray. Neglecting for the moment the greater poets who drew inspiration
+from this source, it will be as well briefly to consider first the
+influence of Milton’s minor poems on the obscure versifiers, for it
+is very often the case that the minor poetry of an age reflects most
+distinctly the peculiarities of a passing literary fashion. As early as
+1739 William Hamilton of Bangour[208] imitated Milton in his octosyllabic
+poem “Contemplation,” and by his predilection for abstraction
+foreshadowed one of the main characteristics of the Miltonic revival
+among the lesser lights. A single passage shows this clearly enough:
+
+    Anger with wild disordered pace
+    And malice pale of famish’d face:
+    Loud-tongued Clamour get thee far
+    Hence, to wrangle at the bar:
+
+and so on.
+
+Five or six years later Mason’s Miltonic imitations appeared—“Il
+Bellicoso” and “Il Pacifico”—which follow even more slavishly the style
+of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” so that there is no need for Mason’s
+footnote to “Il Bellicoso” describing the poem with its companion piece
+as this “very, very juvenile imitation.”[209] “Il Bellicoso” begins with
+the usual dismissal:
+
+    Hence, dull lethargic Peace
+    Born in some hoary beadsman’s cell obscure,
+
+and subsequently we are introduced to Pleasure, Courage, Victory, Fancy,
+etc. There is a similar exorcism in “Il Pacifico,” followed by a faint
+personification of the subject of the ode, attended by a “social smiling
+train” of lifeless abstractions.
+
+The pages of Dodsley[210] furnish abundant testimony to the prevalence
+of this kind of thing. Thus “Penshurst”[211] by F. Coventry is
+another close imitation of Milton’s companion poems, with the usual
+crowd of abstractions. The same thing is met with in the anonymous
+“Vacation,”[212] and in the “Valetudinarian,” said to be written by Dr.
+Marriott.[213]
+
+It is unnecessary to illustrate further the Milton vogue, which thus
+produced so large a crop of imitations,[214] except to say that there is
+significant testimony to the widespread prevalence of the fashion in the
+fact that a parody written “in the Allegoric, Descriptive, Alliterative,
+Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and Diabolical Style of our
+modern Ode writers and monody-mongers”[215] soon appeared. This was
+the anonymous “Ode to Horror,” a humorous burlesque, especially of the
+“Pleasures of Melancholy.” The Wartons stand high above the versifiers at
+whose productions we have just looked, but nevertheless there was some
+justification for the good-humoured parody called forth by their works.
+
+In 1746 there appeared a small volume entitled “Odes on Various
+Subjects,” a collection of fourteen odes by Joseph Warton.[216] The
+influence of Milton is especially seen in the odes “To Fancy,” “To
+Health,” and to “The Nightingale,” but all betray definitely the source
+of their inspiration. Thus in the first named:
+
+    Me, Goddess, by the right hand lead
+    Sometimes thro’ the yellow mead
+    Where Joy and White-robed Peace resort
+    And Venus keeps her festive court.
+
+All the odes of Warton betray an abundant use of abstractions, in the
+midst of which he rarely displays anything suggestive of spontaneous
+inspiration. His few personifications of natural powers are clearly
+imitative. “Evening” is “the meek-eyed Maiden clad in sober gray” and
+Spring comes
+
+    array’d in primrose colour’d robe.
+
+We feel all the time that the poet drags in his stock of personified
+abstractions only because he is writing odes, and considers that such
+devices add dignity to his subject.
+
+At the same time it is worth noting that almost the same lavish use of
+these lay figures occurs in his blank verse poem, “The Enthusiast,” or
+“The Lover of Nature” (1740), likewise written in imitation of Milton,
+and yet in its prophetic insight so important a poem in the history of
+the Romantic revival.[217] Lines such as
+
+            Famine, Want and Pain
+    Sunk to their graves their fainting limbs
+
+are frequent, while there is a regular procession of qualities, more
+or less sharply defined, but not poetically suggestive enough to be
+effective.
+
+The younger of the two brothers, Thomas Warton, who by his critical
+appreciation of Spenser did much in that manner to help forward the
+Romantic movement, was perhaps still more influenced by Milton. His ode
+on “The Approach of Summer” shows to what extent he had taken possession
+of the verse, language, and imagery of Milton:
+
+        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.
+
+But nearly all his poems provide numerous instances of personified
+abstraction, especially the lines “Written at Vale Abbey,” which seems
+to exhaust, and present as thin abstractions, the whole gamut of human
+virtues and vices, emotions and desires.[218]
+
+There is a certain irony in the fact that the two men who, crudely,
+perhaps, but nevertheless unmistakably, adumbrated the Romantic doctrine,
+should have been among the foremost to indulge in an excess against
+which later the avowed champion of Romanticism was to inveigh with all
+his power. This defect was perhaps the inevitable result of the fact
+that the Wartons had apparently been content in this respect to follow
+a contemporary fashion as revealed in the swarm of merely mechanical
+imitations of Milton’s early poems. But their subjects were on the whole
+distinctly romantic, and this fact, added to their critical utterances,
+gives them real historical importance. Above all, it is to be remembered
+that they have for contemporaries the two great poets in whom the
+Romantic movement was for the first time adequately exemplified—William
+Collins and Thomas Gray.
+
+The first published collection of Collins’s work, “Odes on Several
+Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects” (1746), was, as we have seen, if
+not neglected or ignored by the public, at least received with marked
+indifference, owing largely no doubt to the abstract nature of his
+subjects, and the chiselled severity of his treatment.[219] In other
+words, Collins was pure classical and not neo-classical; he had gone
+direct back to the “gods of Hellas” for his inspiration, and his verse
+had a Hellenic austerity and beauty which could make little or no appeal
+to his own age. At the same time it was permeated through and through
+with new and striking qualities of feeling and emotion that at once
+aroused the suspicions of the neo-classicists, with Johnson as their
+mentor and spokesman. The “Odes” were then, we may say, classical in form
+and romantic in essence, and it is scarcely a matter for surprise that a
+lukewarm reception should have been their lot.[220]
+
+Collins has received merited praise for the charm and precision of his
+diction generally, and the fondness for inverting the common order of
+his words—Johnson’s chief criticism of his poetical style[221]—is to
+the modern mind a venial offence compared with his use of personified
+abstractions. On this point Johnson has nothing to say, an omission which
+may be regarded as significant of the extent to which personification had
+invaded poetry, for the critic, if we may judge from his silence, seems
+to have considered it natural and legitimate for Collins also to have
+made abundant use of this stock and conventional device.
+
+It is probable, however, that the extensive use which Collins makes of
+the figure is the result in a large measure of his predilection for the
+ode—a form of verse very fashionable towards the middle of the century.
+As has already been noted, odes were being turned out in large numbers
+by the poetasters of the time, in which virtues and vices, emotions and
+passions were invoked, apostrophized, and dismissed with appropriate
+gestures, and it is probable that the majority of these turgid and
+ineffective compositions owed their appearance to the prevalent mania for
+personification. Young remarked with truth[222] that an ode is, or ought
+to be, “more spontaneous and more remote from prose” than any other kind
+of poetry; and doubtless it was some vague recognition of this fact, and
+in the hope of “elevating” their style, that led the mere versifiers to
+adopt the trick. But as they worked the mechanical personification to
+death, they quickly robbed it of any impressiveness it may ever have had.
+
+This might quite fairly be described as the state of affairs with regard
+to the use of personified abstraction when Collins was writing his
+“odes,” but while it is true that he indulges freely in personification,
+it is scarcely necessary to add that he does so with a difference; his
+Hellenic training and temperament naturally saved him from the inanities
+and otiosities of so much contemporary verse. To begin with, there are
+but few examples of the lifeless abstraction, and even in such cases
+there is usually present a happy epithet, or brief description that sets
+them on a higher level than those that swarm even in the odes of the
+Wartons. Thus in the “Ode on the Poetical Character,” “the shadowy tribes
+of mind,” which had been sadly overworked by Collins’s predecessors and
+contemporaries, are brought before us with a new and fresh beauty that
+wins instant acceptance for them:
+
+    But near it sat ecstatic Wonder
+    Listening the deep applauding thunder
+    And truth in sunny vest arrayed
+    By whom the tassel’s eyes were made
+    All the shadowy tribes of mind
+    In braided dance their murmurs joined.
+
+Instances of the mechanical type so much in favour are, however, not
+lacking, as in this stanza from the “Verses” written about bride-cake:
+
+    Ambiguous looks that scorn and yet relent,
+    Denial mild and firm unaltered truth,
+    Reluctant pride and amorous faint consent
+    And melting ardours and exulting youth.[223]
+
+The majority of Collins’s personified abstractions are, however, vague
+in outline, that is to say, they suggest, but do not define, and are
+therefore the more effective in that the resulting images are almost
+evanescent in their delicacy. Thus in the “Ode to Pity” the subject is
+presented to us in magic words:
+
+    Long pity, let the nations view
+    Thy sky-worn robes of tender blue
+        And eyes of dewy light,
+
+whilst still another imaginative conception is that of “Mercy”:
+
+        who sitt’st a smiling bride
+    By Valour’s armed and awful side
+    Gentlest of sky-born forms and best adorned.
+
+The “Ode to the Passions” is in itself almost an epitome of the various
+ways in which Collins makes use of personification. It is first to be
+noted that he rarely attempts to clothe his personifications in long and
+elaborate descriptions; most often they are given life and reality by
+being depicted, so to speak, moving and acting:
+
+    Revenge impatient rose,
+    He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,
+    And with a withering look
+    The war-denouncing trumpet took;
+    Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien
+    Whilst his strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.
+
+Even the figures, seen as it were but for a moment, are flashed before us
+in this manner:
+
+        With woful measures wan Despair
+    Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled
+
+and
+
+    Dejected Pity at his side
+    Her soul-subduing voice applied
+
+and the vision of hope with “eyes so fair” who
+
+    smiled and waved her golden hair.
+
+In this ode Collins gives us also imaginative cameos, we might call them,
+vividly delineated and presented like the figures on the Grecian urn that
+inspired Keats. Thus:
+
+    While as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
+    Love framed with mirth a gay fantastic round.
+
+and, with its tinge of probably unconscious humour—
+
+        Brown exercise rejoiced to hear,
+    And Sport leapt up and seized his beechen spear.
+
+From these and similar instances, we receive a definite impression of
+that motion, which is at the same time repose, so characteristic of
+classical sculptuary.
+
+Most of the odes considered above are addressed to abstractions. In the
+few instances where Collins invokes the orders or powers of nature even
+greater felicity is shown in the art with which he calls up and clothes
+in perfect expression his abstract images. The first of the seasons is
+vaguely but subtly suggested to us in the beautiful ode beginning “How
+sleep the brave”:
+
+          When Spring with dewy fingers cold
+    Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
+        She there shall dress a sweeter sod
+    Than fancy’s feet have ever trod.
+
+This is rather a simile than a personification, but yet there is conveyed
+to us a definite impression of a shadowy figure that comes to deck the
+earth with beauty, like a young girl scattering flowers as she walks
+along.
+
+But the workmanship of Collins in this respect is seen in its perfection
+in the “Ode to Evening.” There is no attempt to draw a portrait or chisel
+a statue; the calm, restful influence of evening, its sights and sounds
+that radiate peace and contentment, even the very soul of the landscape
+as the shades of night gather around, are suggested by master touches,
+whilst the slow infiltration of the twilight is beautifully suggested:
+
+    Thy dewy fingers draw
+    The gradual dusky veil.
+
+The central figure is still the same evanescent being, the vision of a
+maiden, endowed with all the grace of beauty and dignity, into whose lap
+“sallow Autumn” is pouring his falling leaves, or who now goes her way
+slowly through the tempest, while
+
+    Winter, yelling through the troublous air
+    Affrights thy shrinking train,
+    And rudely rends thy robe.
+
+If we had no other evidence before us, Collins’s use of personified
+abstraction would be sufficient in itself to announce that the new poetry
+had begun. He makes use of the device as freely, and even now and then
+as mechanically, as the inferior versifiers of his period, but instead
+of the bloodless abstractions, his genius enabled him to present human
+qualities and states in almost ethereal form. Into them he has breathed
+such poetic life and inspiration that in their suggestive beauty and
+felicity of expression they stand as supreme examples of personification
+used as a legitimate poetical device, as distinct from a mere rhetorical
+figure or embellishment.
+
+This cannot be said of Gray, in whose verse mechanical personifications
+crowd so thickly that, as Coleridge observed in his remarks on the lines
+from “The Bard,”
+
+    In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes
+    Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm
+
+it depends “wholly on the compositors putting or not putting a small
+Capital, both in this and in many other passages of the same poet,
+whether the words should be personifications or mere abstractions.”[224]
+
+It is difficult to account for this devotion of Gray to the “new
+Olympus,” thickly crowded with “moral deities” that his age had brought
+into being, except on the assumption that contemporary usage in this
+respect was too strong for him to resist. For it cannot be denied that
+very many of the beings that swarm in his odes do not differ in their
+essential character from the mechanical figures worked to death by the
+ode-makers of his days; even his genius was not able to clothe them
+all in flesh and blood. In the “Eton College” ode there is a whole
+stanza given over to a conventional catalogue of the “fury passions,”
+the “vultures of the mind”; and similar thin abstractions people all
+the other odes. Nothing is visualized: we see no real image before
+us.[225] Even the famous “Elegy” is not without its examples of stiff
+personification, though they are not present in anything like the excess
+found elsewhere. The best that can be said for abstractions of this kind
+is that in their condensation they represent an economy of expression
+that is not without dignity and effectiveness, and they thus sometimes
+give an added emphasis to the sentiment, as in the oft-quoted
+
+        Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
+    Their homely joys and destiny secure,
+        Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
+    The short and simple annals of the poor.
+
+Gray rarely attempts to characterize his figures other than by the
+occasional use of a conventional epithet, and only here and there has the
+personification been to any extent filled in so as to form at least an
+outline picture. In the “Hymn to Adversity,” Wisdom is depicted
+
+          in sable garb arrayed
+    Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
+
+whilst other slight human touches are to be found here and there: as
+in “Moody Madness, laughing wild” (“Ode on a Distant Prospect”). His
+personifications, however, have seldom the clear-cut outlines we find
+in Collins, nor do they possess more than a tinge of the vividness and
+vitality the latter could breathe into his abstractions. Yet now and then
+we come across instances of the friezes in which Collins excels, moving
+figures depicted as in Greek plastic art
+
+          Antic sports and blue-eyed Pleasures,
+    Frisking light in frolic measures
+
+                                                    (“Progress of Poesy”)
+
+or the beautiful vision in the “Bard,”
+
+        Bright Rapture calls and soaring as she sings,
+    Waves in the eyes of heaven her many-coloured wings.
+
+And in the “Ode on Vicissitude” Gray has one supreme example of the
+embryonic personification, when the powers or orders of nature are
+invested with human attributes, and thus brought before us as living
+beings, in the form of vague but suggestive impressions that leave to the
+imagination the task of filling in the details:
+
+        Now the golden Morn aloft
+    Waves her dew-bespangled wing
+    With vernal cheek and whisper soft
+        She woos the tardy spring.
+
+But in the main, and much more than the poet with whom his name is
+generally coupled, it is perhaps not too much to say that Gray was
+content to handle the device in the same manner as the uninspired
+imitators of the “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.” Not that he was
+unaware of the danger of such a tendency in himself and others. “I
+had rather,” he wrote to Mason[226] when criticizing the latter’s
+“Caractacus,” “some of the personages—‘Resignation,’ ‘Peace,’ ‘Revenge,’
+‘Slaughter,’ ‘Ambition’—were stripped of their allegorical garb. A
+little simplicity here and there in the expression would better prepare
+the high and fantastic harpings that follow.” In the light of this most
+salutary remark, Gray’s own procedure is only the more astonishing. His
+innumerable personifications may not have been regarded by Johnson as
+contributory to “the kind of cumbrous splendour” he wished away from the
+odes, but the fact that they are scarce in the “Elegy” is not without
+significance. The romantic feeling which asserts itself clearly in the
+odes, the new imaginative conceptions which these stock figures were
+called upon to convey, the perfection of the workmanship—these qualities
+were more than sufficient to counterweigh Gray’s licence of indulgence in
+a mere rhetorical device. Yet Coleridge was right in calling attention
+to this defect of Gray’s style, especially as his censure is no mere
+diatribe against the use of personified abstraction: it is firmly and
+justly based on the undeniable fact that Gray’s personifications are for
+the most part cold and lifeless, that they are mere verbal abstractions,
+utterly devoid of the redeeming vitality, which Collins gives to his
+figures.[227] It is for this reason perhaps that his poetry in the
+mass has never been really popular, and that the average reader, with
+his impatience of abstractions, has been content, with Dr. Johnson, to
+pronounce boldly for “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”
+
+Before proceeding to examine the works of the other great poets who
+announce or exemplify the Romantic revival, it will be convenient at
+this point to look at some of the Spenserian imitations, which helped to
+inspire and vitalize the revival.
+
+Spenser was the poet of mediaeval allegory. In the “Faerie Queene,”
+for the first time a real poet, endowed with the highest powers of
+imagination and expression, was able to present the old traditional
+abstractions wonderfully decked up in a new and captivating guise. The
+personages that move like dream figures through the cantos of the poem
+are thus no mere personified abstractions: they are rather pictorial
+emblems, many of which are limned for us with such grandeur of conception
+and beauty of execution as to secure for the allegorical picture a
+“willing suspension of disbelief,” whilst the essentially romantic
+atmosphere more than atones for the cumbrous and obsolete machinery
+adopted by Spenser to inculcate the lessons of “virtuous and gentle
+discipline.”
+
+Though the eighteenth century Spenserians make a plentiful use of
+personified abstraction, on the whole their employment of this device
+differs widely from its mechanical use by most of their contemporaries:
+in the best of the imitations there are few examples of the lifeless
+abstraction. Faint traces at least of the music and melody of the “Faerie
+Queene” have been caught and utilized to give a poetic charm even to
+the personified virtues and vices that naturally appear in the work of
+Spenser’s imitators. Thus in William Thompson’s “Epithalamium” (1736),
+while many of the old figures appear before us, they have something of
+the new charm with which Collins was soon to invest them. Thus,
+
+    Liberty, the fairest nymph on ground
+      The flowing plenty of her growing hair
+    Diffusing lavishly ambrosia round
+    Earth smil’d, and Gladness danc’d along the sky.
+
+The epithets which accompany the abstractions are no longer conventional
+(“Chastity meek-ey’d,” “Modesty sweet-blushing”) and help to give touches
+of animation to otherwise inanimate figures. In the “Nativity” (1757)
+there is a freer use of the mere abstraction that calls up no distinct
+picture, but even here there are happy touches that give relief:
+
+      Faith led the van, her mantle dipt in blue,
+    Steady her ken, and gaining on the skies.
+
+In the “Hymn to May” (1787) Thompson personified the month whose charms
+he is singing, the result being a radiant figure, having much in common
+with the classical personifications of the orders or powers of nature:
+
+    A silken camus, em’rald green
+    Gracefully loose, adown her shoulder flow.
+
+In Shenstone’s “Schoolmistress” (1737-1742) instances of personification
+are rare, and, where they do occur, are merely faint abstractions like
+“Learning near her little dome.” It is noteworthy that one of the most
+successful of the Spenserian imitations should have dispensed with the
+cumbrous machinery of abstract beings that, on the model of the “Faerie
+Queene,” might naturally have been drawn upon. The homely atmosphere of
+the “Schoolmistress,” with its idyllic pictures and its gentle pathos,
+would, indeed, have been fatally marred by their introduction.
+
+The same sparing use of personification is evident in the greatest of
+the imitations, James Thomson’s “Castle of Indolence” (1748). A theme
+of this nature afforded plenty of opportunity to indulge in the device,
+and Thomson, judging from its use of the figure in some of his blank
+verse poems, might have been expected to take full advantage. But there
+are less than a score of examples in the whole of the poem. Only vague
+references are made to the eponymous hero: he is simply “Indolence” or
+“tender Indolence” or “the demon Indolence.” For the rest Thomson’s few
+abstractions are of the stock type, though occasionally more realistic
+touches result, we may suppose, from the poet’s sense of humour as
+
+    The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cock.
+
+Only here and there has Thomson attempted full-length portraits in the
+Spenserian manner, as when Lethargy, Hydropsy, and Hypochondria are
+described with drastic realism.[228]
+
+The works of the minor Spenserians show a greater use of personified
+abstraction, but even with them there is no great excess. Moreover,
+where instances do occur, they show imaginative touches foreign to the
+prevalent types. Thus in the “Vision of Patience” by Samuel Boyce (d.
+1778),
+
+    Silence sits on her untroubled throne
+    As if she left the world to live and reign alone,
+
+while Patience stands
+
+    In robes of morning grey.
+
+Occasionally the personified abstractions, though occurring in
+avowedly Spenserian imitations, obviously owe more to the influence of
+“L’Allegro”; as in William Whitehead’s “Vision of Solomon” (1730), where
+the embroidered personifications are much more frequent than the detailed
+images given by Spenser.[229]
+
+The work of Chatterton represents another aspect of this revival of the
+past, but it is curious to find that, in his acknowledged “original”
+verse there are not many instances of the personified abstraction,
+whilst they are freely used in the Rowley poems. Where they do occur
+in his avowedly original work they are of the usual type, though more
+imaginative power is revealed in his personification of Winter:
+
+    Pale rugged Winter bending o’er his tread,
+    His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew:
+    His eyes a dusky light congealed and dead,
+    His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.
+
+From our special point of view the “antiquarianism” of the Rowley
+poems might almost be disproved by the prevalence of abstractions and
+personifications, which in most instances are either unmistakably of
+the eighteenth century or which testify to the new Romantic atmosphere
+now manifesting itself. The stock types of frigid abstraction are all
+brought on the stage in the manner of the old Moralities, and each is
+given an ample speaking part in order to describe his own characteristics.
+
+But in addition to these lifeless abstractions, there are to be
+found in the Rowley poems a large number of detailed and elaborate
+personifications. Some of these are full length portraits in the
+Spenserian manner, and now and then the resulting personification is
+striking and beautiful, as when, in “Ælla” (59), Celmond apostrophizes
+Hope, or the evocation of Truth in “The Storie of William Canynge.”
+
+Chatterton has also in these poems a few personifications of natural
+powers, but these are mainly imitative as in the lines (“Ælla,” 94)
+reminiscent of Milton and Pope[230]:
+
+    Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight
+    From the red east he flitted with his train,
+    The hours drew away the robe of night,
+    Her subtle tapestry was rent in twain.
+
+But the evocation of the seasons themselves, as in “Ælla” (32),
+
+    When Autumn sere and sunburnt doth appear
+      With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf
+    Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year
+      Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf,
+
+conveys a fresh and distinct picture that belongs to the new poetry, and
+has in it a faint forecast of Keats.
+
+It remains to look at the work of the later eighteenth century poets,
+who announce that if the Romantic outburst is not yet, it is close at
+hand. The first and greatest of these is William Blake. His use of
+personification in the narrower sense which is our topic, is, of course,
+formally connected with the large and vital question of his symbolism, to
+treat of which here in any detail is not part of our scheme.
+
+In its widest sense, however, Blake’s mysticism may be connected with
+the great mediaeval world of allegory: it is “an eddy of that flood-tide
+of symbolism which attained its tide-mark in the magic of the Middle
+Ages.”[231] But the poet himself unconsciously indicates the vital
+distinction between the new symbolism, which he inaugurates, and the
+old, of which the personified abstractions of his eighteenth century
+predecessors may be regarded as faint and faded relics. “Allegory
+addressed to the intellectual powers,” he wrote to Thomas Butts,[232]
+“while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal understanding, is my
+definition of the most surprising poetry.”
+
+On its formal side, and reduced to its simplest expression, we may narrow
+down for our present purpose the whole system to the further distinction
+drawn by Blake between Allegory and Vision. Allegory is “formed by the
+daughters of Memory” or the deliberate reason; Vision “is surrounded by
+the daughters of Inspiration.” Here we have a key to the classification
+of personified abstractions in the eighteenth century, and, for that
+matter, at any and every period. Abstractions formed by the deliberate
+reason are usually more or less rhetorical embellishments of poetry, and
+to this category belong the great majority of the personifications of
+eighteenth century verse. They are “things that relate to moral virtues”
+or vices, but they cannot truly be called allegorical, for allegory is a
+living thing only so long as the ideas it embodies are real forces that
+control our conduct. The inspired personification, which embodies or
+brings with it a real vision, is the truly poetical figure.
+
+In Blake’s own practice we find only a few instances of the typical
+eighteenth century abstraction. In the early “Imitation of Spenser” there
+are one or two examples:
+
+      Such is sweet Eloquence that does dispel
+    Envy and Hate that thirst for human gore,
+
+whilst others are clearly Elizabethan reminiscences, like
+
+    Mournful lean Despair
+    Brings me yew to deck my grave,
+
+or
+
+    Memory, hither come
+    And tune your merry notes.
+
+“The Island in the Moon” furnishes grotesque instances, such as that
+of old Corruption dressed in yellow vest. In “The Divine Image,” from
+the “Songs of Innocence,” while commonplace virtues are personified,
+the simple direct manner of the process distinguishes them from their
+prototypes in the earlier moral and didactic poetry of the century:
+
+    For Mercy has a human heart
+    Pity a human face
+    And Love, the human form divine
+    And Peace the human dress.[233]
+
+An instance of personification raised to a higher power is found in
+Blake’s letter to Butts[234] beginning
+
+    With Happiness stretch’d across the hills,
+    In a cloud that dewy sweetness distils,
+
+whilst elsewhere personified abstractions appear with new epithets, the
+most striking example being in “Earth’s Answer,” from the “Songs of
+Experience”:
+
+    Prison’d on watry shore
+    _Starry_ Jealousy does keep my den.
+
+Moreover, Blake’s figures are often presented in an imaginative guise
+that helps to emphasize the gulf fixed between him and the majority of
+his contemporaries and predecessors. Thus “Joy” is twice depicted as a
+bird:
+
+    Joys upon our branches sit
+    Chirping loud and singing sweet
+
+                                             (“Song”—“Poetical Sketches”)
+
+and
+
+    Welcome, stranger, to this place
+    Where Joy doth sit on every bough.
+
+                                                   (“Song by a Shepherd”)
+
+In Blake’s youthful work the personifications of natural powers, though
+in most cases clearly imitative are yet striking in their beauty and
+power of suggestion. The influence of “Ossian” is seen in such “prose”
+personifications as “The Veiled Evening walked solitary down the Western
+hills and Silence reposed in the valley” (“The Couch of Death”), and
+“Who is this that with unerring step dares to tempt the wild where only
+Nature’s foot has trod, ’Tis Contemplation, daughter of the Grey Morning”
+(“Contemplation”). Here also are evocations of the seasons which,
+whatever they may owe to Thomson or Collins, are new in that we actually
+get a picture of Spring with “dewy locks” as she looks down
+
+    Thro’ the clear windows of the morning
+
+of summer with
+
+    ruddy limbs and flourishing hair,
+
+of the “jolly autumn,”
+
+      laden with fruits and stained
+    With the blood of the grape;
+
+and of winter,
+
+      a dreadful monster whose skin clings
+    To her strong bones.
+
+Thomson, we have seen, had not been altogether successful in his
+personification of the seasons: here they are brought vividly and
+fittingly before us. When we think of the hosts of puppets that in the
+guise of personified abstractions move mechanically through so much of
+eighteenth century verse, and compare them with the beautiful visions
+evoked by Blake, we know from this evidence alone that the reign of
+one of the chief excesses of the poetical language of the time is near
+its end. It is not that Blake’s conceptions are all flesh and blood
+creations: often they are rather ethereal beings, having something in
+common with the evanescent images of Collins. But the rich and lofty
+imagination that has given them birth is more than sufficient to secure
+their acceptance as realities capable of living and moving before us; the
+classical abstraction, cold and lifeless, has now become the Romantic
+personification clothed in beauty and animated with life and inner
+meaning.
+
+In the year of the “Poetical Sketches” (1783) George Crabbe published
+“The Village,” his first work to meet with any success. But whilst Blake
+gloriously announces the emancipation of English poetry, Crabbe for the
+most part is still writing on in the old dead style. The heroic couplets
+of his earliest works have all the rhetorical devices of his predecessors
+in that measure, and amongst these the prevalence of personified
+abstractions is not the least noteworthy. The subject of his first poem
+of any length, “Inebriety” (1775), afforded him plenty of scope in this
+direction, and he availed himself fully of the opportunity.[235] The
+absence of capital letters from some of the instances in this poem may
+perhaps be taken to reflect a confusion in the poet’s mind as to whether
+he was indulging in personification or in mere abstraction, to adopt
+Coleridge’s remark anent Gray’s use of this figure.[236]
+
+In “The Village,” Crabbe’s first poem of any real merit, there is a
+more sparing use, yet instances are even here plentiful, whilst his
+employment of the device had not died out when in the early years of the
+nineteenth century he resumed his literary activities. Among the poems
+published in the 1807 volume there is a stiff and cumbrous allegory
+entitled “The Birth of Flattery,” which, introduced by three Spenserian
+stanzas, depicts Flattery as the child of Poverty and Cunning, attended
+by guardian satellites, “Care,” “Torture,” “Misery,” _et hoc omne genus_.
+They linger on to the time of the “Posthumous Tales,” where there is a
+sad, slow procession of them, almost, we might imagine, as if they were
+conscious of the doom pronounced years before, and of the fact that they
+were strangers in a strange land:
+
+    Yet Resignation in the house is seen
+    Subdued Affliction, Piety serene,
+    And Hope, for ever striving to instil
+    The balm for grief, “It is the heavenly will.”
+
+                                                       (XVIII, 299 foll.)
+
+It is not perhaps too fanciful to see in this lament a palinode of the
+personifications themselves, sadly resigning themselves to an inevitable
+fate.
+
+Towards the ultimate triumph of the new poetry the work of William Cowper
+represents perhaps the most important contribution, judging at least from
+the viewpoint both of its significance as indicating new tendencies in
+literature, and of its immediate influence on readers and writers. In
+the narrow sense of style the “simplicity” which was Cowper’s ideal was
+only occasionally marred by the conventional phraseology and bombastic
+diction which he himself laid to the charge of the “classical” school,
+and his gradual emancipation from the tenets and practices of that school
+is reflected in his steady advance towards the purity of expression for
+which he craved. And in this advance it is to be noted that the gradual
+disappearance of personified abstractions is one of the minor landmarks.
+
+The earlier work furnishes instances of the common type of mere
+abstraction where there is no attempt to give any real personification.
+Even in the “Olney Hymns” (1779) such verses as
+
+    But unbelief, self-will
+      Self-righteousness and pride,
+    How often do they steal
+      My weapon from my side
+
+only seem to present the old mechanical figures in a new setting.[237]
+The long series of satiric poems that followed draw freely upon the same
+“mythology,” and indeed the satires that appear in this 1782 volume
+recall to some extent the style of Churchill.[238] There is a somewhat
+similar, though more restricted, use of personified abstraction, and, as
+in Churchill’s satires, virtues and vices are invested with slight human
+qualities and utilized to enforce moral and didactic truths. Thus,
+
+      Peace follows Virtue as its sure reward
+    And Pleasure brings as surely in her train
+    Remorse and Sorrow and Vindictive Pain.
+
+                                                    (“Progress of Error”)
+
+Among the short pieces in this volume are the famous lines put into
+the mouth of Alexander Selkirk, which contain a fine example of the
+apostrophic personification, the oft-quoted
+
+    O Solitude! where are thy charms
+    That sages have seen in thy face,
+
+where the passion and sincerity of the appeal give dignity and animation
+to an otherwise lifeless abstraction, and, despite the absence of detail,
+really call up a definite picture.
+
+From the blank verse of his most famous work nearly every trace of the
+mechanical abstraction has disappeared—a great advance when we remember
+that “The Task” is in the direct line of the moral and didactic verse
+that had occupied so many of Cowper’s predecessors.
+
+The first Books (“The Sofa”) contain but one instance and that in a
+playful manner:
+
+    Ingenious Fancy, never better pleased
+    Than when employed to accommodate the fair.
+
+                                                           (ll. 72 foll.)
+
+The Fourth Book (“The Winter Evening”) is entirely free from instances of
+the mechanical abstraction, but the vision of Oriental Empire, and the
+fascination of the East, is effectively evoked in the personification of
+the land of the Moguls:
+
+    Is India free? and does she wear her plumed
+      And jewelled turban with a smile of peace.
+
+                                                               (ll. 28-9)
+
+“The Task,” however, has two examples of the detailed personification.
+The first is an attempt, in the manner of Spenser, to give a full length
+portrait of “a sage called Discipline”:
+
+    His eye was meek and gentle and a smile
+    Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard
+    Paternal sweetness
+
+                                                   (Bk. II, l. 702 foll.)
+
+where there is a depth of feeling, as well as a gentle satiric touch in
+the delineation, that animate it into something more than a mere stock
+image; it embodies perhaps a reminiscence of one who at some time or
+other had guided the destinies of the youthful Cowper.
+
+The second instance is of a more imaginative kind. It is the
+presentation, in the Fourth Book, of Winter, with
+
+          forehead wrapt in cloud
+    A leafless branch thy sceptre,
+
+almost the only occasion on which Cowper, despite the nature of his
+subject, has personified the powers and orders of nature.[239] Cowper
+has also invested the Evening with human attributes, and despite the
+imitative ring of the lines,[240] and the “quaintness” of the images
+employed, there is a new beauty in the evocation:
+
+    Come, Evening, once again, season of peace;
+    Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!
+    Methinks I see thee in the streaky west
+    With matron step slow-moving, while the night
+    Treads on thy sweeping train.
+
+The darkness soon to fall over the landscape is suggested in the added
+appeal to Evening to come
+
+      Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid
+    Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems,
+
+where the compound epithet emphasizes the contrast between the quiet
+beauty of the twilight skyscape and the star-sprinkled gloom of the night.
+
+Finally, one of the last instances of the personified abstraction to be
+found in the work of Cowper may perhaps be taken to reflect something of
+the changes that have been silently working underneath. This is in the
+lines that suddenly bring “Yardley Oak” to an end:
+
+          History not wanted yet
+    Leaned on her elbow watching Time whose course
+    Eventful should supply her with a theme.
+
+At first glance we seem to have here but the old conventional figures,
+but there is an imaginative touch that helps to suggest a new world of
+romance. “History leaning on her elbow” has something at least of that
+mysterious power of suggestion that Wordsworth himself was to convey by
+means of the romantic personification, such as those shadowy figures—Fear
+and Trembling Hope, and Death the Skeleton, and Time the Shadow—which
+gathered round and hallowed the shade of the yew trees in Borrowdale.
+
+But even while the old poetry was in its death agony a champion was at
+hand, daring to maintain a lost cause both by precept and example. This
+was Erasmus Darwin, whose once-famous work “The Botanic Garden,” with
+its two parts, “The Loves of the Plants” (1789), and “The Economy of
+Vegetation” (1791), has earlier been mentioned.
+
+It met with immediate success. Darwin seems to have fascinated his
+contemporaries, so that even Coleridge was constrained in 1802 to call
+him “the first literary character in Europe.”[241] He had, however,
+little real admiration for “The Botanic Garden,” and later expressed
+his opinion unmistakably.[242] “The Botanic Garden” soon died a natural
+death, hastened no doubt by the ridicule it excited, but inevitably
+because of the fact that the poem is an unconscious _reductio ad
+absurdum_ of a style already doomed.[243] The special matter with which
+we are concerned in this chapter had for Darwin a marked significance,
+since it fitted in admirably with his general doctrine or dogma that
+nothing is strictly poetic except what is presented in visual image. His
+“theory” was that, just as the old mythologies had created a whole world
+of personified abstractions to explain or interpret natural phenomena
+of every description, exactly by the same method the scientific thought
+and developments of his own age could be poetically expounded so as
+to captivate both the hearts and minds of his readers. It was his
+ambition, he said, “to enlist imagination under the banner of science.”
+This “theory” is expounded in one of the interludes placed between the
+different cantos. “The poet writes principally to the eye,” and allegory
+and personifications are to be commended because they give visible
+form to abstract conceptions.[244] Putting his theory into practice,
+Darwin then proceeds with great zeal to personify the varied and various
+scientific facts or hypotheses of physics, botany, etc., metamorphosing
+the forces of the air and other elements into sylphs and gnomes and so
+on. Thus,
+
+    Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered
+            Steam afar
+    Drag the slow barge or drive the
+            Rapid car.
+
+                                                (E.V., Canto I, 289, 290)
+
+In the same way all the plants, as classified by Linnæus, are personified
+as “swains” or “belles” who “love” and quarrel, and finally make it up
+just as ordinary mortals do:
+
+    All wan and shivering in the leafless glade
+    The sad Anemone reclin’d her head
+
+                                                   (L.P., Canto I, 315-6)
+
+or
+
+    Retiring Lichen climbs the topmost stone
+    And drinks the aerial solitude alone.
+
+                                                         (_Ibid._, 347-8)
+
+The whole poem is thus one long series of mechanical personifications
+which baffle and bewilder and finally wear out the reader. It is strange
+now to think that “The Botanic Garden” was at the height of its vogue
+when the “Lyrical Ballads” were being planned and written, but the
+easy-flowing couplets of Darwin, and the “tinsel and glitter” of his
+diction, together with most of the “science” he was at such pains to
+expound (though he was a shrewd and even prophetic inquirer in certain
+branches, such as medicine and biology), have now little more than a
+faint historical interest. Yet his theory and practice of poetry—the
+“painted mists that occasionally rise from the marshes at the foot of
+Parnassus,” Coleridge called them—so dominated the literature of the last
+decade of the eighteenth century as to be capable of captivating the mind
+of the poet who was about to sound their death-knell.
+
+While Wordsworth inveighed against “personification” in the great
+manifesto, his earliest poetry shows clearly, as has been noted, that in
+this as in other respects he had fallen under the spell and influence of
+“The Botanic Garden.” The “Evening Walk” and the “Descriptive Sketches”
+swarm with instances of personifications of the type that had flourished
+apace for a hundred years, “Impatience,” “Pain,” “Independence,” “Hope,”
+“Oppression,” and dozens similar.[245] There is thus a certain comic
+irony in the fact that the poet, who was the first to sound the revolt
+against “personifications” and similar “heightenings” of style, should
+have embarked on his literary career with the theft of a good deal of
+the thunder of the enemy. Later, when Wordsworth’s true ideal of style
+had evolved itself, this feature of the two poems was in great measure
+discarded. The first (1793) draft of the “Descriptive Sketches” contains
+over seventy examples of more or less frigid abstractions; in the final
+draft of the poem these have dwindled down to about a score.[246]
+
+In our detailed examination of personification in eighteenth century
+poetry we have seen that in general it includes three main types. There
+is first the mere abstraction, whose distinctive sign is the presence
+of a capital letter; it may be, and often is, qualified by epithets
+suggestive of human attributes, but there is little or no attempt to give
+a definite picture or evoke a distinctive image. This is the prevalent
+type, and it is against these invertebrates that the criticism of
+Wordsworth and Coleridge was really directed.
+
+Their widespread use in the eighteenth century is due to various causes.
+In the first place they represent a survival, however artificial and
+lifeless, of the great mediaeval world of allegory, with its symbolic
+representation derived from the pagan and classical mythologies, of
+the attributes of the divine nature, and of the qualities of the human
+mind, as living entities. But by now the life had departed from them;
+they were hopelessly effete and had become consciously conventional and
+fictitious.[247]
+
+They also owed their appearance, as indicated above, to more definite
+literary causes and “fashions”; they swarm especially, for instance, in
+the odes of the mid-century, the appearance of which was mainly due to
+the influence of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.” The virtues and vices,
+the “shadowy tribes of the mind,” which are there unceasingly invoked
+and dismissed are mechanical imitations of the figures that the genius
+of Milton had been able to inspire with real poetic value and life. They
+play their part similarly and just as mechanically in the didactic and
+satirical verse characteristic of the period.
+
+But whether regarded as a sort of literary flotsam and jetsam, or as one
+of the symptoms of “Milton-mad” verse, these personifications are nearly
+all enfeebled by weaknesses inherent in their very genesis. Only a deep
+and intense conception of a mental abstraction can justify any attempt
+to personify it poetically; otherwise the inevitable result is a mere
+rhetorical ornament, which fails because it conveys neither the “vast
+vagueness” of the abstract, nor any clear-cut pictorial conception of the
+person. Even with Gray, as with the mere poetasters who used this figure
+to excess, it has the effect of a dull and wearisome mannerism; only
+here and there, as in the sonorous lines in which Johnson personified
+Worth held down by Poverty, does the display of personal emotion give any
+dignity and depth to the image.
+
+Again, the very freedom with which the conventional abstractions are
+employed, allowing them to be introduced on every possible occasion,
+tends to render the device absurd, if not ludicrous. For the versifiers
+seemed to have at their beck and call a whole phantom army upon which
+they could draw whenever they chose; for them they are veritable gods
+from the machines. But so mechanical are their entrances and exits
+that the reader rarely suspects them to be intended for “flesh and
+blood creations,” though, it may be added, the poetaster himself
+would be slow to make any such claim. To him they are merely part of
+his stock-in-trade, like the old extravagances, the “conceits,” and
+far-fetched similes of the Metaphysical school.
+
+The second type of personification found in eighteenth century verse
+needs but brief mention here. It is the detailed personification where
+a full-length portrait is attempted. Like the mere abstraction it, too,
+is a survival of mediaeval allegory, and it is also most often a merely
+mechanical literary process, reflecting no real image in the poet’s mind.
+It is not found to any large extent, and in a certain measure owes its
+presence to the renewed interest in Spenser. The Spenserian imitations
+themselves are comparatively free from this type, a sort of negative
+indication of the part played by the revival in the new Romantic movement.
+
+The third type is perhaps best described as the embryonic
+personification. It consists in the attributing of an individual and
+living existence to the visible forms and invisible powers of nature, a
+disposition, deeply implanted in the human mind from the very dawn of
+existence, which has left in the mythologies and creeds of the world a
+permanent impress of its power. In eighteenth century literature this
+type received its first true expression in the work of Thompson and
+Collins, whilst its progress, until it becomes merged and fused in the
+pantheism of Wordsworth and Shelley, may be taken as a measure of the
+advance of the Romantic movement in one of its most vital aspects.
+
+Regarded on its purely formal side, that is, as part and parcel of the
+_language_ of poetry, the use of personification may then be naturally
+linked up with the generally literary development of the period. In the
+“classical” verse proper the figure employed is, as it were, a mere word
+and no more; it is the reflex of precisely as much individual imagination
+as the stock phrases of descriptive verse, _the flowery meads_, _painted
+birds_, and so on. There was no writing with the inner eye on the
+object, and the abstraction as a result was a mere rhetorical label,
+corresponding to no real vision of things.
+
+The broad line of advance in this, as in other aspects of eighteenth
+century literature, passes through the work of those who are now looked
+upon as the forerunners of the Romantic revolt. The frigid abstraction,
+a mere word distinguished by a capital letter, is to be found in “The
+Seasons,” but alongside there is also an approach to definite pictorial
+representation of the object personified. In the odes of Collins the
+advent of the pictorial image is definitely and triumphantly announced,
+and though the mechanical abstractions linger on even until the new
+poetry has well established itself, they are only to be found in the
+work of those who either, like Johnson and Crabbe, belong definitely as
+regards style to the old order, or like Goldsmith and, to a less extent,
+Cowper, reflect as it were sort of half-way attitude towards the old and
+the new.
+
+With Blake the supremacy of the artistic personification is assured. His
+mystical philosophy in its widest aspect leads him to an identification
+of the divine nature with the human, but sometimes this signification
+is to be seen merging into a more conscious symbolism, or even sinking
+into that “totally distinct and inferior kind of poetry” known as
+allegory. Yet with Blake the poet, as well as Blake the artist, the
+use of personified abstraction is an integral part of the symbolism he
+desired to perpetuate. His imagination ran strongly in that direction,
+and it has been aptly pointed out that his most intense mental and
+emotional experiences became for him spiritual persons. But even where
+the presence of a capital letter is still the only distinguishing mark
+of the personification, he is able, either by the mere context or by
+the addition of a suggestive epithet, to transform and transfigure the
+abstraction into a poetical emblem of the doctrine whose apostle he
+believed himself to be.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say that the use of personification and
+abstraction, even in their narrower applications as rhetorical ornaments
+or artifices of verse, were not banished from English poetry as a result
+of Wordsworth’s criticism. Ruskin has drawn a penetrating distinction
+between personification and symbolism,[248] and it was in this direction
+perhaps that Wordsworth’s protest may be said to have been of the
+highest value. His successors, for the most part, distrustful of mere
+abstractions, and impatient of allegory, with its attendant dangers of
+lifeless and mechanical personification, were not slow to recognize
+the inherent possibilities of symbolism as an artistic medium for the
+expression of individual moods and emotions, and it is not too much to
+say that in its successful employment English poetry has since won some
+of its greatest triumphs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DICTION OF POETRY
+
+
+After years of comparative neglect, and, it must be admitted, a good
+deal of uncritical disparagement, the “age of prose and reason” would
+seem at last to have come into its own. Or at any rate during recent
+years there has become evident a disposition to look more kindly on a
+period which has but seldom had justice done to it. The label which
+Matthew Arnold’s dictum attached to a good portion, if not the whole,
+of the eighteenth century seems to imply a period of arid and prosaic
+rationalism in which “the shaping spirit of imagination” had no abiding
+place, and this has no doubt been partly responsible for the persistency
+of an unjust conception. But it is now more generally recognized that,
+in prose and even in poetry, the seventy or eighty years, which begin
+when Dryden died, and end when William Blake was probably writing down
+the first drafts of his “Poetical Sketches,” had some definite and far
+from despicable legacies to pass on to its successors, to the writers in
+whom the Romantic revival was soon to be triumphantly manifested. The
+standards in all branches of literature were to be different, but between
+“classical” and “romantic” there was not to be, and indeed could not be,
+any great gulf fixed. There was continuity and much was handed on. What
+had to be transformed (and of course the process is to be seen at work in
+the very height of the Augustan supremacy) were the aims and methods of
+literature, both its matter in large measure, and its style.[249]
+
+It is the poetry of the period with which we are specially concerned,
+and it is in poetry that the distinction between the old order and the
+new was to be sharpest; for the leaders of the revolt had been gradually
+winning new fields, or re-discovering old ones, for poetry, and thus in
+more than one sense the way had been prepared for both the theory and
+practice of Wordsworth. Then came the great manifestoes, beginning with
+the Preface of 1798, followed by an expansion in 1800 and again in 1802;
+fifteen years later, Coleridge, with his penetrating analysis of the
+theories advanced by his friend and fellow-worker, began a controversy,
+which still to-day forms a fruitful theme of discussion.
+
+Wordsworth, in launching his famous declaration of principle on the
+language fit and proper for metrical composition, had no doubt especially
+in mind the practice of his eighteenth century predecessors. But it has
+to be remembered that the _Prefaces_ deal in reality with the whole
+genesis of “what is usually called poetic diction,” and that the avowed
+aim and object was to sweep away “a large portion of phrases and figures
+of speech, which from father to son have long been regarded as the common
+inheritance of poets.” The circumstances of the time, and perhaps the
+examples chosen by Wordsworth to illustrate his thesis, have too often
+led to his attack being considered as concerned almost entirely with the
+poetical language of the eighteenth century. Hence, whenever the phrase
+“poetic diction” is mentioned as a term of English literary history,
+more often than not it is to the eighteenth century that the attention
+is directed, and the phrase itself has taken on a derogatory tinge,
+expressive of a stereotyped language, imitative, mechanical, lifeless.
+For in the reaction against eighteenth century styles, and especially
+against the polished heroic couplet, there arose a tendency to make the
+diction of the period an object of undistinguishing depreciation, to
+class it all in one category, as a collection of conventional words and
+phrases of which all poets and versifiers felt themselves at liberty to
+make use.
+
+An actual analysis of eighteenth century poetry shows us that this
+criticism is both deficient and misleading; it is misleading because it
+neglects to take any account of that eighteenth century poetical language
+which Pope, inheriting it from Dryden, brought to perfection, and which
+was so admirable a vehicle for the satiric or didactic thought it had to
+convey; it is deficient in that it concentrates attention mainly on one
+type or variety of the language, used both by poets and poetasters, and
+persists in labelling this type either as the “eighteenth century style
+proper,” or, as if the phrases were synonymous, “the Pope style.”
+
+One formula could no more suffice in itself for the poetic styles of the
+eighteenth century than for those of the nineteenth century; we may say,
+rather, that there are then to be distinguished at least four distinct
+varieties or elements of poetical diction, in the narrow sense of the
+term, though of course it is scarcely necessary to add that none of them
+is found in complete isolation from the others. There is first the stock
+descriptive language, the usual vehicle of expression for that large
+amount of eighteenth century verse where, in the words of Taine, we can
+usually find “the same diction, the same apostrophes, the same manner of
+placing the epithet and rounding the period,” and “regarding which we
+know beforehand with what poetic ornaments it will be adorned.”[250] In
+reading this verse, with its lifeless, abstract diction, we seldom or
+never feel that we have been brought into contact with the real thoughts
+or feelings of living men. Its epithets are artificial, imitative,
+conventional; though their glare and glitter may occasionally give
+us a certain pleasure, they rarely or never make any appeal to our
+sensibility. As someone has said, it is like wandering about in a land of
+empty phrases. Only here and there, as, for instance, in Dyer’s “Grongar
+Hill,” have the _gradus_ epithets taken on a real charm and beauty in
+virtue of the spontaneity and sincerity with which the poet has been
+inspired.
+
+The received doctrine that it was due in the main to Pope’s “Homer”
+is unjust; many of the characteristics of this conventional poetical
+language were established long before Pope produced his translation.
+They are found to an equal, if not greater, extent in Dryden, and if
+it is necessary to establish a fountain-head, “Paradise Lost” will be
+found to contain most of the words and phrases which the eighteenth
+century versifiers worked to death. If Pope is guilty in any degree it
+is only because in his work the heroic couplet was brought to a high
+pitch of perfection; no doubt too the immense popularity of the “Homer”
+translation led to servile imitation of many of its words, phrases, and
+similes. Yet it is unjust to saddle Pope with the lack of original genius
+of so many of his successors and imitators.
+
+But the underlying cause of this conventional language must be sought
+elsewhere than in the mere imitation of any poet or poets. A passage
+from the “Prelude” supplies perhaps a clue to one of the fundamental
+conditions that had enslaved poetry in the shackles of a stereotyped
+language. It takes the form of a sort of literary confession by
+Wordsworth as to the method of composing his first poems, which, we have
+seen, are almost an epitome of the poetical vices against which his
+manifestoes rebelled. He speaks of
+
+                        the trade in classic niceties
+    The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase
+    From languages that want the living voice
+    To carry meaning to the natural heart.
+
+                                         (“Prelude,” Bk. VI, ll. 109-112)
+
+In these lines we have summed up one of the main Romantic indictments
+against the practice of the “classical” poets, who were too wont to
+regard the language of poetry as a mere collection or accepted aggregate
+of words, phrases, and similes, empty of all personal feeling and
+emotion.[251]
+
+Wordsworth, too, in this passage not unfairly describes the sort of
+atmosphere in which diction of the stock eighteenth century type
+flourished. The neo-classical interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine
+of poetry as an imitation had by the time of Pope and his school resulted
+in a real critical confusion, which saw the essence of poetry in a
+slavish adherence to accepted models, and regarded its ideal language as
+choice flowers and figures of speech consecrated to poetry by traditional
+use, and used by the poet very much as the painter uses his colours, that
+is, as pigments laid on from the outside. That this doctrine of imitation
+and parallelism directly encourages the growth of a set poetic diction
+is obvious; the poet’s language need not be the reflection of a genuine
+emotion felt in the mind: he could always find his words, phrases, and
+figures of speech in accepted and consecrated models.
+
+The reaction against this artificial diction is fundamental in the
+Romantic revolt from another cause than that of poetic form. The stock
+poetic language, we have seen, occurs mainly in what may be called the
+“nature” poetry of the period, and its set words and phrases are for
+the most part descriptive terms of outdoor sights and sounds. Among the
+many descriptions or explanations of the Romantic movement is that it
+was in its essence a “return to Nature,” which is sometimes taken to
+imply that “Nature,” as we in the twentieth century think of it, was a
+sudden new vision, of which glimpses were first caught by James Thomson,
+and which finally culminated in Wordsworth’s “confession of faith.” Yet
+there was, of course, plenty of “nature poetry” in the neo-classical
+period; but it was for the most part nature from the point of view of the
+Town, or as seen from the study window with a poetical “Thesaurus” at
+the writer’s side, or stored in his memory as a result of his reading.
+It was not written with “the eye on the object.” More fatal still, if
+the neo-classical poets did look, they could see little beauty in the
+external world; they “had lost the best of the senses; they had ceased to
+perceive with joy and interpret with insight the colour and outline of
+things, the cadence of sound and motion, the life of creatures.”[252]
+
+This sterility or atrophy of the senses had thus a real connexion with
+the question of a conventional poetical language, for the descriptive
+diction with its stock words for the sea, the rivers, the mountains, the
+sky, the stars, the birds of the air and their music, for all the varied
+sights and sounds of outdoor life—all this is simply a reflex of the lack
+of genuine feeling towards external nature. Keats, with his ecstatic
+delight in Nature, quickly and aptly pilloried this fatal weakness in
+the eighteenth century versifiers:
+
+    The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d
+    Its gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blue
+    Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew
+    Of summer nights collected still to make
+    The morning precious: beauty was awake!
+    Why were ye not awake! But ye were dead
+    To things ye knew not of—were closely wed
+    To musty laws lined out with wretched rule
+    And compass vile: so that ye taught a school
+    Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip and fit
+    Till, like the certain wands of Jacob’s wit,
+    Their verses tallied; Easy was the task
+    A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask
+    Of Poesy.[253]
+
+It is obvious that two great changes or advances were necessary, if
+poetry was to be freed from the bondage of this conventional diction. In
+the first place, the poet must reject root and branch the traditional
+stock of words and phrases that may once have been inspiring, but had
+become lifeless and mechanical long before they fell into disuse; he
+must write with his eye on the object, and translate his impressions
+into fresh terms endowed with real, imaginative power. And this first
+condition would naturally lead to a second, requiring every word and
+phrase to be a spontaneous reflection of genuine feeling felt in the
+presence of Nature and her vast powers.
+
+The neo-classical poetry proper was not without verse which partly
+satisfied these conditions; direct contact with nature was never entirely
+lost. Wordsworth, as we know, gave honourable mention[254] to “The
+Nocturnal Reverie” of Anne, Countess Winchilsea, written at the very
+height of the neo-classical supremacy, in which external nature is
+described with simplicity and fidelity, though there is little trace
+of any emotion roused in the writer’s mind by the sights and sounds
+of outdoor life. And every now and then, amid the arid and monotonous
+stretches of so much eighteenth century verse, we are startled into
+lively interest by stumbling across, often in the most obscure and
+unexpected corners, a phrase or a verse to remind us that Nature, and
+all that the term implies, was still making its powerful appeal to the
+hearts and minds of men, that its beauty and mystery was still being
+expressed in simple and heartfelt language. Thomas Dyer’s “Grongar Hill”
+has already been mentioned; it was written in 1726, the year of the
+publication of Thompson’s “Winter.” Dyer, for all we know, may have the
+priority, but in any case we see him here leading back poetry to the
+sights and sounds and scents of external nature, which he describes, not
+merely as a painter with a good eye for landscape, but as a lover who
+feels the thrill and call of the countryside, and can give exquisite
+expression to his thoughts and emotions. We have only to recall such
+passages as
+
+    Who, the purple evening lie,
+    On the mountain’s lonely van;
+
+or even his tree catalogue,
+
+    The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
+    The yellow beech, the sable yew,
+    The slender fir, that taper grows,
+    The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;
+
+or
+
+    How close and small the hedges lie;
+    What streaks of meadow cross the eye!
+
+or
+
+    A little rule, a little sway,
+    A sun-beam on a winter’s day,
+    Is all the proud and mighty have
+    Between the cradle and the grave—
+
+to recognize that already the supremacy of Pope and his school of town
+poets is seriously threatened.
+
+Here too is a short passage which might not unfairly be assigned to
+Wordsworth himself.
+
+    Would I again were with you, O ye dales
+    Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands, where,
+    Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides
+    And his banks open, and his lawns extend,
+    Stops short the pleased traveller to view,
+    Presiding o’er the scene, some rustic tower
+    Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands:
+    O ye Northumbrian shades, which overlook
+    The rocky pavement and the mossy falls
+    Of solitary Wensbeck’s limpid stream,
+    How gladly I recall your well-known seats
+    Beloved of old, and that delightful time
+    When all alone, for many a summer’s day,
+    I wandered through your calm recesses, led
+    In silence by some powerful hand unseen.
+
+It is from Mark Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (Bk IV, ll. 31
+foll.). And so, too, is this:
+
+            the meadow’s fragrant hedge,
+    In spring time when the woodlands first are green
+
+                                                         (Book II, 175-6)
+
+which takes us far away from the formal conventional landscapes of the
+Augustans.
+
+These two are among the more famous of their time, but a close search
+amongst the minor poetry of the mid-eighteenth century will bring to
+light many a surprising instance of poetry written with an eye on the
+object, as in John Cunningham’s (1729-1773) “Day,”[255] where the sights
+and sounds of the countryside are simply and freshly brought before us:
+
+    Swiftly from the mountain’s brow,
+        Shadows, nurs’d by night, retire:
+    And the peeping sun-beam, now,
+        Paints with gold the village spire.
+
+    Philomel forsakes the thorn,
+        Plaintive where she prates at night;
+    And the Lark, to meet the morn,
+        Soars beyond the shepherd’s sight.
+
+    From the low-roof’d cottage ridge,
+        See the chatt’ring Swallow spring;
+    Darting through the one-arch’d bridge,
+        Quick she dips her dappled wing.
+
+But the great bulk of neo-classical verse is unaffected by the regained
+and quickened outlook on the external world. It is in the forerunners of
+the Romantic revolt that this latter development is to be most plainly
+noted: when, as the result of many and varied causes English poets
+were inspired to use their eyes again, they were able, slowly and in a
+somewhat shallow manner at first, afterwards quickly and profoundly,
+to “sense” the beauty of the external world, its mysterious emanations
+of power and beauty. This quickening and final triumph of the artistic
+sense naturally revealed itself in expression; the conventional words
+and epithets were really doomed from the time of “Grongar Hill” and
+“The Seasons,” and a new language was gradually forged to express the
+fresh, vivid perceptions peculiar to each poet, according as his senses
+interpreted for him the face of the world.
+
+A second variety of eighteenth century diction, or, more strictly
+speaking, another conventional embellishment of the poetry of the period,
+is found in that widespread use of personified abstraction which is
+undoubtedly one of the greatest, perhaps _the_ greatest, of its faults.
+Not only the mere versifiers, but also many of its greatest poets, make
+abundant use of cut and dried personifications, whose sole claim to
+vitality rests most often on the presence of a capital letter. It is a
+favourite indulgence of the writers, not only of the old order, but
+also of those who, like Collins and Gray, announce the advent of the
+new, and not even the presence of genius could prevent its becoming a
+poetical abuse of the worst kind. Whether it be regarded as a survival
+of a symbolic system from which the life had long since departed, or
+as a conventional device arising from the theory of poetical ornament
+handed down by the neo-classicists, its main effect was to turn a large
+proportion of eighteenth century poetry into mere rhetorical verse. It is
+this variety of poetical language that might with justice be labelled as
+the eighteenth century style in the derogatory sense of the term. In its
+cumulative effect on the poetry of the period it is perhaps more vicious
+than the stock diction which is the usual target of criticism.
+
+Two other varieties of eighteenth century diction represent an endeavour
+to replace, or rather reinforce the stereotyped words, phrases, and
+similes by new forms. The first of these is the widespread use of
+latinized words and constructions, chiefly in the blank verse poems
+written in imitation of Milton, but not only there. The second is the use
+of archaic and pseudo-archaic words by the writers whose ambition it was
+to catch something of the music and melody of the Spenserian stanza. Both
+these movements thus reflected the desire for a change, and though the
+tendencies, which they reflect, are in a certain sense conventional and
+imitative in that they simply seek to replace the accepted diction by new
+forms derived respectively from Milton and Spenser, one of them at least
+had in the sequel a real and revivifying influence on the language of
+poetry.
+
+The pedantic and cumbrous terms, which swarm in the majority of the
+Miltonic imitations, were artificial creations, rarely imbued with any
+trace of poetic power. Where they do not actually arise from deliberate
+attempts to imitate the high Miltonic manner, they probably owe their
+appearance to more or less conscious efforts to make the new blank verse
+as attractive as possible to a generation of readers accustomed to the
+polished smoothness of the couplet. Though such terms linger on until
+the time of Cowper, and even invade the works of Wordsworth himself,
+romanticism utterly rejected them, not only because of a prejudice in
+favour of “Saxon simplicity,” but also because such artificial formations
+lacked almost completely that mysterious power of suggestion and
+association in which lies the poetical appeal of words. Wordsworth, it is
+true, could win from them real poetic effects, and so occasionally could
+Thomson, but in the main they are even more dead and dreary than the old
+abstract diction of the neo-classicals.
+
+The tendency towards archaism was much more successful in this respect,
+because it was based on a firmer foundation. In harking back to “the
+poet’s poet,” the eighteenth century versifiers were at least on a right
+track, and though it was hardly possible, even with the best of them,
+that more than a faint simulacrum of the music and melody of the “Faerie
+Queene” could be captured merely by drawing drafts on Spenser’s diction,
+yet they at least helped to blaze a way for the great men who were to
+come later. The old unknown writers of the ballads and Spenser and the
+Elizabethans generally were to be looked upon as treasure trove to which
+Keats and Scott and Beddoes and many another were constantly to turn in
+their efforts to revivify the language of poetry, to restore to it what
+it had lost of freshness and vigour and colour.
+
+The varieties or embellishments of poetical diction, which have just
+been characterized, represent the special language of eighteenth
+century poetry, as distinct from that large portion of language which
+is common alike to prose and poetry. For it is scarcely necessary
+to remind ourselves that by far the largest portion of the poetry of
+the eighteenth century (as indeed of any century) is written in the
+latter sort of language, which depends for its effects mainly upon the
+arrangement of the words, rather than for any unique power in the words
+themselves. In this kind of poetical diction, it is not too much to say
+that the eighteenth century is pre-eminent, though the effect of the
+Wordsworthian criticism has led to a certain failure or indisposition to
+recognize the fact. Just as Johnson and his contemporaries do not give
+direct expression to any approval of the admirable language, of which
+Pope and some of his predecessors had such perfect command, so modern
+criticism has not always been willing to grant it even bare justice,
+though Coleridge’s penetrating insight had enabled him, as we have seen,
+to pay his tribute to “the almost faultless position and choice of words,
+in Mr. Pope’s _original_ compositions, particularly in his Satires and
+Moral Essays.” It was, we may imagine, the ordinary everyday language,
+heightened by brilliance and point, in which Pope and his coterie carried
+on their dallyings and bickerings at Twickenham and elsewhere, and it was
+an ideal vehicle, lucid and precise for the argument and declamation it
+had to sustain. But it was more than that, as will be readily recognized
+if we care to recall some of the oft-quoted lines which amply prove
+with what consummate skill Pope, despite the economy and condensation
+imposed by the requirements of the closed couplet, could evoke from this
+plain and unadorned diction effects of imagination and sometimes even of
+passion. Such lines as
+
+    He stooped to Truth and moralised his song,
+
+or
+
+    In lazy apathy let stoics boast
+    Their virtue fixed: ’tis fixed as in a frost,
+
+or
+
+    In Folly’s cup still laughs the bubble joy,
+
+and dozens similar, show the lucidity, energy, and imaginative
+picturesqueness with which Pope could endow his diction when the occasion
+required it.[256] Such language is the “real language of men”; nearly
+every word would satisfy the Wordsworthian canon.
+
+And the same thing is true to a large extent of the poets, who are
+usually considered as having taken Pope for their model. Whenever there
+is a real concentration of interest, whenever they are dealing with the
+didactic and moral questions characteristic of the “age of prose and
+reason,” whenever they are writing of man and of his doings, his thoughts
+and moods as a social member of civilized society, their language is,
+as a rule, adequate, vivid, fresh, because the aim then is to present a
+general thought in the language best adapted to bring it forcibly before
+the mind of the reader. Here, as has been justly said,[257] rhetoric
+has passed under the influence and received the transforming force of
+poetry. “The best rhetorical poetry of the eighteenth century is not the
+best poetry, but it is poetry in its own way, exhibiting the glow, the
+rush, the passion which strict prose cannot, and which poetry can, give.”
+Judged on the basis of this kind of poetical diction, the distinctions
+usually drawn between the neo-classical “kind” of language in the
+eighteenth century and the romantic “kind” all tend to disappear; at the
+head (though perhaps we should go back to the Dryden of the “Religio
+Laici” and “The Hind and the Panther”) is the “Essay on Criticism”;
+in the direct line of descent are Akenside’s “Epistle to Curio,” large
+portions of “The Seasons,” “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”
+“The Vanity of Human Wishes,” the “Deserted Village,” and at the end of
+the century, the “Village” of Crabbe. And in another _genre_, but just
+as good in its own way, is that light verse, as it may perhaps best be
+called, successfully ushered in, at the very beginning of the century, by
+John Pomfret’s “The Choice,” and brought to perfection by Matthew Prior
+in his lines “To a Child of Quality,” and many another piece.
+
+Nor must it be forgotten that there is a large amount of eighteenth
+century minor poetry which, whilst reflecting in the main the literary
+tendency of the age in its fondness for didactic verse, presented in
+the guise of interminably long and dull epics and epistles, yet reveals
+to us, if we care to make the pilgrimage through the arid stretches of
+Anderson’s “British Poets,” or Dodsley’s “Collection of Poets by Several
+Hands,” or Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry,” or similar collections, the simple,
+unambitious works of poets more or less unknown when they wrote and
+now for the most part forgotten, who, unconscious or ignorant of the
+accepted rules and regulations of their time, wrote because they felt
+they must, and thus had no care to fetter themselves with the bondage of
+the “classical” diction.[258] Their range was limited, but they were able
+to express their thoughts and fancies, their little idylls and landscapes
+in plain English without any trimmings, akin in its unaffected diction
+and simplicity of syntax to the language of the genuine old ballads,
+which were so largely and, for the most part, ineffectively, if not
+ludicrously, imitated throughout the eighteenth century.
+
+The Augustan age, then, was not without honour, even in poetry, where,
+looking back after Romanticism had won and consolidated its greatest
+triumphs, it would seem everything had gone wrong, there was not a little
+from which the rebels themselves might well have profited. Nowadays we
+are accustomed, perhaps too often, to think of the Romantic forerunners,
+the poet of “The Seasons,” and Gray, and Collins, and Goldsmith, and the
+rest, as lonely isolated outposts in hostile territory. So they were to
+a large extent, but they could not, of course, altogether escape the
+form and pressure of their age; and what we now admire in them, and
+for which we salute them as the heralds of the Romantic dawn, is that
+which shows them struggling to set themselves free from the “classical”
+toils, and striving to give expression to the new ideas and ideals that
+were ultimately to surge and sing themselves to victory. It is scarcely
+necessary to recall many a well-known passage, in which, within a decade
+of the death of Pope, or even before the mid-century, these new ideas
+and ideals had found expression in language which really sounded the
+death-knell of the old diction. Fine sounds, Keats within a few decades
+was to proclaim exultantly, were then to be heard “floating wild about
+the earth,” but already as early as Collins and Gray, and even now and
+then in “The Seasons,” words of infinite appeal and suggestiveness were
+stealing back into English poetry.
+
+And this leads us to a consideration of the poetic diction of the
+eighteenth century from a more general standpoint. For no discussion of
+poetical language can be complete unless an attempt is made to consider
+the question in its entirety with a view to the question of what really
+constitutes poetic diction, what it is that gives to words and phrases,
+used by certain poets in certain contexts, a magic force and meaning. The
+history of poetic diction from the very beginning of English literature
+down to present times has yet to be written, and it would be a formidable
+task. Perhaps a syndicate of acknowledged poets would be the only fit
+tribunal to pass judgment on so vital an aspect of the craft, but even
+then we suspect there would be a good deal of dissension, and probably
+more than one minority report. But the general aspects of the question
+have formed a fruitful field of discussion since Wordsworth launched his
+theories[259] and thus began a controversy as to the exact nature of
+poetic language, the echoes of which, it would seem, have not yet died
+away. For the Prefaces were, it may be truly said, the first great and
+definite declaration of principle concerning a question which has been
+well described as “the central one in the philosophy of literature, What
+is, or rather what is not, poetic diction?”[260]
+
+Judged from this wider standpoint, the diction of the “classical” poetry
+of the eighteenth century, and even of a large portion of the verse
+that announces the ultimate Romantic triumph, seems to have marked
+limitations. The widespread poverty and sterility of this diction was
+not, of course, merely the result of an inability to draw inspiration
+from Nature, or of a failure to realize the imaginative possibilities of
+words and phrases: it was, it would almost seem, the inevitable outcome
+and reflex of an age that, despite great and varied achievements, now
+appears to us narrow and restricted in many vital aspects. If poetry
+is a criticism of life, in the sense in which Matthew Arnold doubtless
+meant his dictum to be taken, the age of Pope and his successors is not
+“poetic”; in many respects it is a petty and tawdry age—the age of the
+coffee-house and the new press, of the club and the coterie. There are
+great thinkers like Hume, great historians like Gibbon, great teachers
+and reformers like John Wesley; but these names and a few others seem
+only to throw into stronger light the fact that it was on its average
+level an age of talk rather than of thought, of “fickle fancy” rather
+than of imaginative flights, of society as a unit highly organized for
+the pursuit of its own pastimes, pleasures, and preoccupations, in which
+poetry, and literature generally, played a social part. Poetry seems to
+skim gracefully over the surface of life, lightly touching many things
+in its flight, but never soaring; philosophy and science and satire all
+come within its purview, but when the eternally recurring themes of
+poetry[261]—love and nature and the like—are handled, there is rarely or
+never poignancy or depth.
+
+The great elemental facts and thoughts and feelings of life seldom
+confront us in the literature of the century as we make our way down the
+decades; even in the forerunners of the Romantic revolt we are never
+really stirred. “The Seasons,” and “The Elegy Written in a Country
+Churchyard,” touch responsive chords, but are far from moving us to
+thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls. Not until Blake and Burns is
+the veneer of convention and artificiality, in both matter and manner,
+definitely cast aside, and there is to be caught in English verse again,
+not only the authentic singing note, but, what is more, the recognition
+and exemplification of the great truth that the finest poetry most often
+has its “roots deep in the common stuff,” and it is not to be looked for
+in an age and environment when, with rationality apparently triumphant,
+men seemed careless of the eternal verities, of the thoughts and feelings
+that lie too deep for tears, or sadly recognized their impotence, or
+their frustrated desires, to image them forth in poetry.
+
+“What is it,” asks Gilbert Murray,[262] “that gives words their character
+and makes a style high or low? Obviously, their associations: the
+company they habitually keep in the minds of those who use them. A word
+which belongs to the language of bars and billiard-saloons will become
+permeated by the normal standard of mind prevalent in such places; a
+word which suggests Milton or Carlyle will have the flavour of those
+men’s minds about it. I therefore cannot resist the conclusion that if
+the language of Greek poetry has, to those who know it intimately, this
+special quality of keen austere beauty, it is because the minds of the
+poets who used that language were habitually toned to a higher level both
+of intensity and of nobility than ours. It is a finer language because
+it expresses the mind of finer men. By ‘finer men’ I do not necessarily
+mean men who behaved better, either by our standards or by their own:
+I mean the men to whom the fine things of the world, sunrise and sea
+and stars, and the love of man for man, and strife and the facing of
+evil for the sake of good, and even common things like meat and drink,
+and evil things like hate and terror had, as it were, a keener edge
+than they have for us, and roused a swifter and nobler reaction.” This
+passage has been quoted in full because it may be said to have a direct
+and definite bearing on the question of the average level of poetic
+language during the greater part of the eighteenth century: there were
+few or no _trouvailles_, no great discoveries, no sudden releasings of
+the magic power often lurking unsuspectedly in the most ordinary words,
+because the poets and versifiers for the most part had all gone wrong
+in their conception of the medium they essayed to mould. “The substance
+of poetry,” writes Professor Lowes,[263] “is also the very stuff of
+words. And in its larger sense as well the language of poetry is made up
+inevitably of symbols—of symbols for things in terms of other things,
+for things in terms of feelings, for feelings in terms of things. It is
+the language not of objects, but of the complex relations of objects.
+And the agency that moulds it is the ceaselessly active power that is
+special to poetry only in degree—_imagination_—that fuses the familiar
+and the strange, the thing I feel and the thing I see, the world within
+and the world without, into a _tertium quid_, that interprets both.” The
+eighteenth century was not perhaps so emphatically and entirely the “age
+of prose and reason” as is sometimes thought, but it could scarcely be
+called the “age of imagination,” and poetry, in its highest sense (“high
+poetry,” as Maeterlinck would call it), being of imagination all compact,
+found no abiding place there.
+
+Most words, we may say, potentially possess at least two or more
+significations, their connotative scope varying according to the
+knowledge or culture of the speaker or reader. First of all, there is
+the logical, their plain workaday use, we might call it; and next, and
+above and beyond all this, they have, so to speak, an exciting force,
+a power of stimulating and reviving in the mind and memory all the
+associations that cluster around them. Nearly all words carry with them,
+in vastly varying degrees, of course, this power of evocation, so that
+even commonplace terms, words, and phrases hackneyed and worn thin by
+unceasing usage, may suddenly be invested with a strange and beautiful
+suggestiveness when they are pressed into the service of the highest
+poetic imagination. And in the same way the æsthetic appeal of words of
+great potential value is reinforced and strengthened, when in virtue of
+their context, or even merely of the word or words to which they are
+attached, they are afforded a unique opportunity of flashing forth and
+bringing into play all the mysterious powers and associations gathered to
+themselves during a long employment in prose and verse, or on the lips of
+the people:
+
+    All the charm of all the muses
+        often flowering in a lonely word.
+
+Poetry of the highest value and appeal may be, and often is, as we know
+from concrete examples that flash into the mind, written in commonplace,
+everyday terms, and we ask ourselves how it is done.[264] There are the
+mysterious words of the dying Hamlet:
+
+    The rest is silence,
+
+or the line quoted by Matthew Arnold[265] as an instance when
+Wordsworth’s practice is to be found illustrating his theories:
+
+    And never lifted up a single stone,
+
+or the wonderful lines which seem to bring with them a waking vision of
+the beauty of the English countryside, radiant with the promise of Spring:
+
+                          daffodils,
+    That come before the swallow dares, and take
+    The winds of March with beauty.
+
+In these and many similar passages, which the reader will recall for
+himself, it would seem that the mere juxtaposition of more or less plain
+and ordinary words has led to such action and reaction between them as
+to charge each with vastly increased powers of evocation and suggestion,
+to which the mind of the reader, roused and stimulated, instinctively
+responds.
+
+Similarly, the satisfaction thus afforded to our æsthetic sense, or
+our emotional appreciation, is often evoked by a happy conjunction of
+epithet and noun placed together in a new relation, instantly recognized
+as adding an unsuspected beauty to an otherwise colourless word. The
+poets and versifiers of the eighteenth century were not particularly
+noteworthy for their skill or inspiration in the matter of the choice of
+epithet, but the genius of Blake, in this as in other respects of poetic
+achievement, raised him “above the age” and led him to such felicities of
+expression as in the last stanza of “The Piper”:
+
+    And I made a _rural pen_
+    And I stained the water clear,
+
+where, as has been aptly remarked,[266] a commonplace epithet is
+strangely and, apparently discordantly, joined to an equally commonplace
+noun, and yet the discord, in virtue of the fact that it sets the mind
+and memory working to recover or recall the faint ultimate associations
+of the two terms, endows the phrase with infinite suggestiveness. In the
+same way a subtle and magic effect is often produced by inversion of
+epithet, when the adjective is placed after instead of before the noun,
+and this again is a practice or device little favoured in the eighteenth
+century; the supremacy of the stopped couplet and its mechanical
+requirements were all against it.
+
+But the eighteenth century had little of this magic power of evocation;
+the secret had departed with the blind Milton, and it was not till the
+Romantic ascendancy had firmly established itself, not until Keats and
+Shelley and their great successors, that English poetry was once more
+able so to handle and fashion and rearrange words as to win from them
+their total and most intense associations. Yet contemporary criticism,
+especially in France, had not failed altogether to appreciate this
+potential magic of words. Diderot, for instance, speaks of the magic
+power that Homer and other great poets have given to many of their
+words; such words are, in his phrase, “hieroglyphic paintings,” that is,
+paintings not to the eye, but to the imagination.[267] What we feel about
+all the so-called classical verse of the eighteenth century, as well as
+of a good deal of the earlier Romantic poetry, is that writers have not
+been able to devise these subtle hieroglyphics; lack of real poetical
+inspiration, or the pressure of the prosaic and unimaginative atmosphere
+of their times, has led to a general poverty in the words or phrases that
+evoke some object before the inner eye, or charm the ear by an unheard
+melody, terms that, like the magic words of Keats, or the evanescent
+imagery of Shelley, stir us both emotionally and æsthetically. The
+verse of Pope and his followers is not without something of this power,
+but here the effect is achieved by the skill and polish with which the
+words are selected and grouped within the limits of the heroic couplet.
+Crabbe had marked down, accurately enough, this lack of word-power in his
+description of Dryden’s verse as “poetry in which the force of expression
+and accuracy of description have neither needed nor obtained assistance
+from the fancy of the writer,” and again, more briefly, as “poetry
+without an atmosphere.”[268] One negative indication of this “nudity”
+is the comparative poverty of eighteenth century poetry in new compound
+epithets, those felicitous terms which have added to the language some of
+its most poetical and pictorial phrases.
+
+The Prefaces of Wordsworth and the kindred comments and remarks of
+Coleridge were not, it is hardly necessary to say, in themselves powerful
+enough to effect an instant and complete revolution in poetical theory
+and practice. But it was all to the good that inspired craftsmen were at
+last beginning to worry themselves about the nature and quality of the
+material which they had to mould and fashion and combine into poetry;
+still more important was it that they were soon to have the powerful aid
+of fellow-workers like Shelley and Keats, whose practice was to reveal
+the magic lurking in words and phrases, so arranged and combined as to
+set them reverberating in the depths of our sensibility. And, on the
+side of form at least, this is the distinctively Romantic achievement;
+the æsthetic possibilities and potentialities of the whole of our
+language, past and present, were entrancingly revealed and magnificently
+exemplified; new and inexhaustible mines of poetical word-power were thus
+opened up, and the narrow and conventional limits of the diction within
+which the majority of the eighteenth century poets had “tallied” their
+verses were transcended and swept away.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] A brief summary, which is here utilized, is given by Spingarn,
+“Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century,” I, Intro. xxxvi, foll.
+(Oxford, 1908).
+
+[2] _Vide_ Spingarn, _op. cit._, _Intro._ XXXVI-XLVIII; and also
+Robertson, “Studies in the Genesis of Romantic Theory in the XVIIIth
+Century” (Cambridge, 1924), an attempt “to show that the Movement which
+led to the dethronement of Reason, in favour of the Imagination, chief
+arbiter in poetic creation, and which culminated with Goethe and Schiller
+in Germany and the Romantic Revival in England, is to be put to the
+credit not of ourselves, but of Italy, who thus played again that pioneer
+rôle which she had already played in the sixteenth century.”
+
+[3] Spingarn, _op. cit._, II, p. 118.
+
+[4] _Ibid._, II, p. 310.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, II, p. 273.
+
+[6] “Apology for Heroic Poetry”: “Essays of John Dryden,” ed. W. P. Ker
+(1909), Vol. I, p. 190.
+
+[7] “There appears in every part of his [Horace’s] diction, or (to
+speak English) in all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold
+purity.”—_Ibid._, p. 266.
+
+[8] “Lives”: Dryden, ed. G. B. Hill (1905), Vol. I, p. 420; and cp.
+Goldsmith, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous
+Works), 1821, Vol. IV, p. 381 foll.
+
+[9] “Letters” (To R. West), 1742, ed. Tovey (1900); Vol. II, pp. 97-8.
+
+[10] Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. I, pp. 17-8.
+
+[11] _Ibid._, pp. 188 foll.
+
+[12] Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 234.
+
+[13] Edward Young, the author of “Night Thoughts,” was later to express
+this tersely enough: “Words tarnished, by passing through the mouths of
+the vulgar, are laid aside as inelegant and obsolete”—”Conjectures on
+Original Composition,” 1759 (“English Critical Essays,” Oxford, 1922, p.
+320).
+
+[14] Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin: “Life,” Vol. V, p. 69.
+
+[15] That is to say, as Mr. John Drinkwater has recently put it, it
+was “the common language, but raised above the common pitch, of the
+coffee-houses and boudoirs.”—“Victorian Poetry,” 1923, pp. 30-32.
+
+[16] _Vide_ Elton, “The Augustan Ages,” 1889, pp. 419 foll.
+
+[17] Cp. “Essay on Criticism,” I, ll. 130-140.
+
+[18] John Dennis, of course, at the beginning of the century, is to
+be found pleading that “passion is the chief thing in poetry,” (“The
+Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry,” 1701); but it is to be
+feared that he is only, so to speak, ringing the changes on the Rules.
+
+[19] “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” ed. Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II,
+p. 147.
+
+[20] “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” Ker, _op cit._, Vol. II, p.
+148. “_Operum Colores_ is the very word which Horace uses to signify
+words and elegant expressions.” etc.
+
+[21] Lessing’s “Laokoon,” which appeared in 1766, may in this, as in
+other connexions, be regarded as the first great Romantic manifesto.
+The limitations of poetry and the plastic arts were analysed, and the
+fundamental conditions to which each art must adhere, if it is to
+accomplish its utmost, were definitely and clearly laid down.
+
+[22] “Polymetis” (1747), p. 311.
+
+[23] “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. XXII.
+
+[24] _Ibid._, Chap. IV.
+
+[25] _Vide_ especially Babbitt, “The New Laocoon, An Essay on the
+Confusion of the Arts” (1910), to which these paragraphs are indebted;
+and for a valuable survey of the relations of English poetry with
+painting and with music, see “English Poetry in Its Relation to Painting
+and the other Arts,” by Laurence Binyon (London, 1919), especially pp.
+15-19.
+
+[26] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Gregory Smith, Vol. I,
+Intro. (Oxford, 1904).
+
+[27] _Vide_, e.g., Addison, “Spectator” papers on “Paradise Lost” (No.
+285, January 26, 1712).
+
+[28] Essay, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous
+Works, 1820, Vol. IV, pp. 408-14).
+
+[29] _Ibid._, p. 22.
+
+[30] “Lives,” Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 420.
+
+[31] “Lives”: Cowley; cp. “The Rambler,” No. 158.
+
+[32] Cp. Boswell’s “Life” (1851 edition), Vol. I, p. 277: “He enlarged
+very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in
+English poetry”; also _ibid._, Vol. II, p. 84.
+
+[33] “Lives,” ed. Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, pp. 416 foll.
+
+[34] _Ibid._, p. 341.
+
+[35] This is of course exemplified in his own poetic practice, and it
+has been held sufficient to explain the oft-debated scantiness of his
+literary production. But for remarkable examples of his minuteness and
+scrupulosity in the matter of poetic diction see the letter to West
+referred to above; to Mason, January 13, 1758 (Tovey, _op. cit._, II, p.
+12), and to Beattie, March 8, 1771 (_ibid._, II, p. 305).
+
+[36] Cp. Courthope, “History of English Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 218 foll.
+
+[37] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” _op. cit._, Intro., pp. LV-LX.
+
+[38] Preface to the “Fables,” Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 266-67.
+
+[39] _Vide_ Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, Vol. II.
+
+[40] _Vide_ “Translation of Homer,” ed. Buckley, Intro., p. 47; and cp.
+“The Guardian,” No. 78, “A Receipt to make an Epic Poem.”
+
+[41] Tovey, _op. cit._, March 8, 1771 (Vol. II, pp. 305 foll.); Beattie’s
+comments are given by Tovey, _ibid._, footnotes.
+
+[42] “Rambler,” No. 121, May 14, 1751.
+
+[43] “Lines written in Imitation of Certain Poems Published in 1777”;
+and cp. William Whitehead’s “Charge to the Poets” (1762), which may be
+taken to reflect the various attitudes of the reading public towards the
+“revivals.”—(“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. XI, pp. 935-7.)
+
+[44] Works (1820), _op. cit._, Vol. IV, p. 124.
+
+[45] September 27, 1788 (“Letters,” 4 vols, 1806, Vol. II, p. 106).
+
+[46] Letter to Lady Hesketh, March 22, 1790 (“Correspondence of
+William Cowper—Arranged in Chronological Order by T. Wright,” 4 vols.,
+1904).—Vol. III, pp. 446, foll.
+
+[47] 1807 ed., Vol. I, pp. 21 and 24; cp. also Campbell, “The Philosophy
+of Rhetoric” (London, 1776), Vol. I, pp. 410-411.
+
+[48] “Spectator,” 285, January 26, 1712.
+
+[49] “Homer”; ed. Buckley, Intro., 49.
+
+[50] Spingarn, _op. cit._, II, pp. 1-51; for Hobbes “Answer,” and
+Cowley’s “Preface to Poems,” see _ibid._, pp. 54-90.
+
+[51] “Dedication of the Æneis,” Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 154, foll.;
+cp. Addison, “Spectator,” 297, January 9, 1712.
+
+[52] _Vide_, e.g., E. Barat, “Le Style poétique et la Révolution
+Romantique” (Paris, 1904), pp. 5-35.
+
+[53] “Lives of the Poets. Pope,” ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 251.
+
+[54] _Ibid._, p. 244.
+
+[55] January 17, 1782 (Wright, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 429-30).
+
+[56] Prose Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. II, pp. 101 foll.
+
+[57] “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross (1907), p. 26, Note; cp. also
+Southey, “Works of Cowper” (1884 edition), Vol. I, p. 313.
+
+[58] “The Progress of Taste,” III, ll. 7-10.
+
+[59] Wordsworth himself of course stigmatized the “hubbub of words”
+which was often the only result of these eighteenth century attempts to
+paraphrase passages from the Old and the New Testament “as they exist in
+our common translation.”—_Vide_ Prefaces, etc., “Poetical Works,” ed.
+Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916). p. 943.
+
+[60] For a detailed description of the stock diction of English
+“Classical” poetry, see especially Myra Reynolds, “Nature in English
+Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1912), to which the foregoing
+remarks are indebted.
+
+[61] “Essay on Criticism,” I, l. 350 foll.
+
+[62] “Essay on Men and Manners” (Works, 1764), Vol. II.
+
+[63] “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.
+
+[64] Bysshe, “Art of Poetry,” Third Edition (1708), Chap. I, par. 1
+(quoted by Saintsbury, “Loci Critici,” 1903, p. 174).
+
+[65] To the Rev. John Newton, December 10, 1785 (Wright, _op. cit._, Vol.
+II, pp. 404-406).
+
+[66] _Vide_ Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin (1889), Vol. V., p. 166.
+
+[67] Philips has large supplies of the poetical stock-in-trade. He speaks
+of “honeysuckles of a _purple_ dye,” and anticipates Gray in his couplet,
+
+    Like woodland Flowers which paint the desert glades
+    And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades.
+
+                                                   (“The Fable of Thule”)
+
+(_Vide_ “Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. IX, 384-407.)
+
+[68] But, as de Selincourt points out in “Poems of John Keats” (1905,
+Appendix C, p. 580), it is only the excessive and unnatural use of these
+adjectives that calls for censure.
+
+[69] Especially in the case of compound epithets. Cf. Earle, “Philology
+of the English Tongue,” p. 601, for examples from the works of the poets
+from Shakespeare to Tennyson. For Shakespeare’s use of this form, see
+Schmidt, “Shakespeare Lexicon,” Vol. II, pp. 147 foll. (2nd Ed., London
+and Berlin, 1886).
+
+[70] But compare “Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (p. 249), where it is justly
+pointed out that not a few of these circuitous phrases are justified by
+“considerations of dramatic propriety.”
+
+[71] Cf. Raleigh, “Milton,” _op. cit._, pp. 252-3.
+
+[72] “Spring,” ll. 478 foll.
+
+[73] In “Summer,” Thomson had first used _feathery race_ which was later
+amended into _tuneful race_—apparently the best improvement he could
+think of!
+
+[74] For a detailed study of Thomson’s diction, see especially Leon
+Morel, “James Thomson. Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres” (Paris, 1895), Chap. IV, pp.
+412 foll.
+
+[75] To Mason, January 13, 1758 (“Letters of Gray,” ed. Tovey, Vol. II,
+pp. 13-14).
+
+[76] _Vide_ “The Poems of Chatterton, with an Essay on the Rowley Poems,”
+by W. W. Skeat (1871).
+
+[77] Canto III, 652 foll.
+
+[78] “A Paladin of Philanthropy” (1899), p. 59 (quoted by Courthope,
+“History English Poetry,” V, 216).
+
+[79] But cf. Courthope, “History English Poetry” (1910), Vol. V, p. 218.
+
+[80] Arthur Symons, “William Blake” (1907), p. 39.
+
+[81] To Mrs. Butts: “Poetical Works,” ed. Sampson (Oxford, 1914), p. 187.
+
+[82] “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, p. 16. (Oxford, 1907.)
+
+[83] Cf. “Letters,” to Samuel Rose, December 13, 1787: “Correspondence”
+arranged by W. Wright (1904), Vol. III, p. 190. To C. Rowley, February
+21, 1788, _ibid._, pp. 231 foll.
+
+[84] E.g. Charles Wesley’s “Wrestling Jacob,” or Watts’s “When I Survey
+the Wondrous Cross.”
+
+[85] _Vide_ Courthope, _op. cit._, Book V, Ch. XI; and cp. the confident
+and just claims put forward by John Wesley himself on behalf of the
+language of the hymns, in his “Preface to the Collection of Hymns for the
+Use of the People called Methodists,” 1780.
+
+[86] Cf. Coleridge “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, _op. cit._, p.
+11.
+
+[87] _Vide_ especially the dialogue with a Bookseller on the language of
+poetry.
+
+[88] In both the first and the final forms “Poetical Works,” ed.
+Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916) Appendix, pp. 592 foll.
+
+[89] For a detailed account see E. Legouis, “La Jeunesse de Wordsworth”
+(English translation, 1897; Revised edition, 1921).
+
+[90] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, Intro., pp.
+lv foll.
+
+[91] Both the Fletchers also used many other latinized forms found before
+their time, and which in some cases they probably took direct from
+Spenser.
+
+[92] E.g. by Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. III, p.
+339, where a list is given (“only a few of the examples”) of Milton’s
+“coinages” and “creations.” Of this list only some half dozen (according
+to the N.E.D.) owe their first literary appearance to Milton.
+
+[93] E.g. _debel_, _disglorified_, _conglobe_, _illaudable_, etc., date
+from the sixteenth century; _Battailous_ goes back to Wycliff (N.E.D.).
+
+[94] Cf.“Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (1915), pp. 247 foll.
+
+[95] _Vide_ Masson, “Milton’s Poetical Works,” Vol. III, pp. 77-78
+(1890-).
+
+[96] Similarly the “Virgil” translation has, e.g., _in a round error_ for
+“wandering round and round,” etc.
+
+[97] That it could easily become absurd was not unperceived in the
+eighteenth century. Vide Leonard Welsted: “Epistle to Mr. Pope,” May,
+1730 (“Works in Verse and Prose,” London, 1787, p. 141).
+
+[98] _Vide_ “Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,” ed. Myra Reynolds,
+pp. 210-213 (Chicago, 1903).
+
+[99] _Vide_ “Complete Poetical Works,” edited J. L. Robertson (Oxford,
+1908), which includes a variorum edition of “The Seasons.”
+
+[100] “Poetical Epistle to Mr. Thomson on the First Edition of his
+‘Seasons’” (P.G.B., Vol. VIII, p. 504).
+
+[101] “Letter to Mallett,” August 11, 1726.
+
+[102] Cp. Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 419-424.
+
+[103] E.g. ll. 766 foll., 828 foll., 881 foll.
+
+[104] Cp. also ll. 126 foll.; 711 foll.
+
+[105] Cp. also the respective versions of “Autumn,” ll. 748 and 962.
+
+[106] Cp. also “Summer,” ll. 353, 376, 648; “Autumn,” ll. 349, 894-895.
+
+[107] Cp. “Milton,” Raleigh, _op. cit._, pp. 252-3.
+
+[108] One of the most noteworthy is the constant employment of adjectives
+as adverbs in opposition (e.g., “the grand etherial bow, Shoots up
+_immense_”) a device used both by Milton and Pope, but by neither with
+anything like the freedom seen in “The Seasons.”
+
+[109] Cf. Chapter VI, _infra._
+
+[110] In the “Essay Supplementary to the Preface,” Hutchinson, _op.
+cit._, p. 949.
+
+[111] That Young’s readers and even his editors were occasionally puzzled
+is seen by the history of the term “concertion.” This was the spelling
+of the first and most of the subsequent editions, including that of
+1787, where the Glossary explains it as meaning “contrivance.” But some
+editions (e.g. 1751) have “consertion,” and some, according to Richardson
+(“New Dictionary,” 1836), have “conception.”
+
+[112] Armstrong’s “gelid cistern” for “cold bath” has perhaps gained the
+honour of an unidentified quotation.
+
+[113] _Vacant_ in the oft-quoted line from “The Deserted Village” (“The
+loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind”), where the word is used in its
+Latin sense of “free from care.”
+
+[114] As in the case of Milton, Cowper’s latinized words appear to have
+been floating about for a considerable period, though in most cases their
+first poetic use is apparently due to him.
+
+[115] Cp. also III, 229, 414; IV, 494.
+
+[116] Apparently after he had done some pruning amongst them (_vide_
+“Letter” to Joseph Hill, March 29, 1793, Wright, _op. cit._, Vol. IV,
+p. 390), and compare his footnote to the “Iliad,” VII, 359, where he
+apologizes for his coinage _purpureal_.
+
+[117] For an account of the parallelism between certain of the eighteenth
+century stock epithets and various words and phrases from the Latin
+poets, especially Virgil (e.g. “hollow” and “_cavus_”: “liquid fountain”
+and _liquidi fontes_), see Myra Reynolds, “Nature in English Poetry from
+Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1909), pp. 46-49.
+
+[118] Cf. Some apt remarks by Raleigh, “Milton,” _op. cit._, pp. 247 and
+255.
+
+[119] Cp. Saintsbury, “History of Literary Criticism” (1900-1904), Vol.
+II, p. 479, note 1.
+
+[120] Cp. Elton, “Survey of English Literature,” 1830-1880 (1920), Vol.
+II, p. 17, remarks on Rossetti’s diction.
+
+[121] Cp. also Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 423-424.
+
+[122] _Vide_ Lounsbury, “Studies in Chaucer” (1892), Vol. III.
+
+[123] “Scrannel” is either Milton’s coinage or a borrowing from some
+dialect (N.E.D.).
+
+[124] This of course is used by many later writers, and was perhaps not
+regarded in Dryden’s time as an archaism.
+
+[125] “New English Dictionary.”
+
+[126] “Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. X, p. 120.
+
+[127] The prevailing ignorance of earlier English is illustrated in that
+stanza by Pope’s explanation of the expression “mister wight,” which he
+had taken from Spenser, as “uncouth mortal.”
+
+[128] “The Works of Mr. Edmund Spenser, in 6 Vols. with a glossary
+explaining the old and obscure words. Published by Mr. Hughes, London.”
+
+[129] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 115-140.
+
+[130] As in Prior’s “Susanna and the Two Elders” and “Erle Robert’s Mice”
+(1712).
+
+[131] “Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser,” 1754.
+
+[132] “An Answer to the Sompner’s Prologue in Chaucer,” printed anon, in
+“Lintott’s Miscellany,” entitled “Poems on Several Occasions” (1717), p.
+147.
+
+[133] “A Tale Devised in the Plesaunt manere of Gentil Maister Jeoffrey
+Chaucer” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. VII, p. 674).
+
+[134] “Poems on Several Occasions,” by the Rev. Thomas Warton, 1748, p.
+30.
+
+[135] “Poems on Several Occasions,” London, 1711, pp. 203-223.
+
+[136] _Vide_ List given by Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English
+Romantic Movement” (1899), Appendix I, p. 175; and cf. an exhaustive
+list, including complete glossaries, given in “Das Altertümliche im
+Wortschatz der Spenser-Nachahmungen des 18 Jahrhunderts,” by Karl Reining
+(Strassburg, 1912).
+
+[137] E.g. Robert Lloyd, 1733-1764, in his “Progress of Envy” (Anderson,
+Vol. V), defines _wimpled_ as “hung down”; “The Squire of Dames,” by
+Moses Mendez (1700-1738) has many old words (“benty,” etc.), which are
+often open to the suspicion of being manufactured archaisms.
+
+[138] _Vide_ his letter to Graves, June, 1742.—“Works,” Vol. III, p. 63
+(1769).
+
+[139] “Poems on Several Occasions,” by William Thompson, M.A., etc.,
+Oxford, 1757, pp. 1-13.
+
+[140] _Ibid._, pp. 58-68.
+
+[141] “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper,” by Dr.
+Samuel Johnson, 21 Vols. (London, 1810), Vol. XV, p. 32.
+
+[142] Thompson has taken this wrong meaning direct with the word itself
+from Spenser, “Shepherds Kalendar,” April, l. 26, where _glen_ is glossed
+by E.K. as “a country hamlet or borough.”
+
+[143] Cp. Joseph Warton’s “Essay on Pope,” Vol. I, p. 366 (4th edition,
+1782). Wordsworth, too, as we know, called it a “fine poem” and praised
+it for its harmonious verse and pure diction, but we may imagine that
+he was praising it for its own sake without regard to its merits as a
+Spenserian imitation (_vide_ Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 949).
+
+[144] There are at least forty stanzas in the First Canto, without a
+single archaic form, and an equal proportion in Canto Two: Cf. Morel,
+_op. cit._, pp. 629-630.
+
+[145] “The letter _y_,” he naïvely says in his “Glossary,” “is frequently
+placed at the beginning of a word by Spenser, to lengthen it a syllable,
+and _en_ at the end of a word, for the same reason.”
+
+[146] Thompson seems to have been the first to use the word _bicker_ as
+applied to running water, an application which was later to receive the
+sanction of Scott and Tennyson (N.E.D.).
+
+[147] Among the last examples was Beattie’s “Minstrel” (1771-74), which
+occasioned some of Gray’s dicta on the use of archaic and obsolete words.
+
+[148] Spenserian “forgeries” had also made their appearance as early as
+in 1713, when Samuel Croxall had attempted to pass off two Cantos as the
+original work of “England’s Arch-Poet, Spenser” (2nd edition, London,
+1714). In 1747, John Upton made a similar attempt, though probably in
+neither case were the discoveries intended to be taken seriously.
+
+[149] See Phelps, _op. cit._, Chap. VIII, and Grace R. Trenery, “Ballad
+Collections of the Eighteenth Century,” “Modern Language Review,” July,
+1915, pp. 283 foll.
+
+[150] _Vide_ “Preface to A Collection of Old Ballads,” 3 vols. (1723-52),
+and cf. Benjamin Wakefield’s “Warbling Muses” (1749), Preface.
+
+[151] Yet thirty years later the collections of Joseph Ritson, the last
+and best of the eighteenth century editors, failed to win acceptance.
+His strictly accurate versions of the old songs and ballads were
+contemptuously dismissed by the “Gentleman’s Magazine” (August, 1790) as
+“the compilation of a peevish antiquary.”
+
+[152] “Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript,” edited Furnivall and Hales, 4
+vols. (1867-68).
+
+[153] _Vide_ Henry A. Beers, “A History of English Romanticism in the
+Eighteenth Century,” 1899, Chap. VIII, pp. 298-302.
+
+[154] Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 950.
+
+[155] “Chatterton—Poetical Works,” with an Essay on the Rowley Poems,
+by W. W. Skeat, and a memoir by Bell (2 vols., 1871-1875); and _vide_
+Tyrwhitt, “Poems supposed to have been written at Bristol by Thomas
+Rowley and others in the fifteenth century” (London, 1777).
+
+[156] _Vide_ Oswald Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason” (1922),
+p. 251.
+
+[157] _Vide_ John Sampson, “The Poetical Works of William Blake” (Oxford,
+1905), Preface, viii.
+
+[158] Until the middle of the eighteenth century the form _glen_ occurs
+in English writers only as an echo of Spenser (N.E.D.).
+
+[159] _Vide_ “The Dialect of Robert Burns,” by Sir James Wilson
+(Oxford Press, 1923), and for happy instances of beautiful words still
+lingering on in the Scots dialects, _vide_ especially “The Roxburghshire
+Word-Book,” by George Watson (Cambridge, 1923).
+
+[160] Sweet, “New English Grammar” (1892), Part II, pp. 208-212, and
+Skeat, “Principles of English Etymology” (1887), Part I, pp. 418-420.
+
+[161] The first literary appearance of each compound has been checked
+as far as possible by reference to the “New English Dictionary.” It is
+hardly necessary to say that the fact of a compound being assigned, as
+regards its first appearance, to any individual writer, is not in itself
+evidence that he himself invented the new formation, or even introduced
+it into literature. But in many cases, either from the nature of the
+compound itself, or from some other internal or external evidence, the
+assumption may be made.
+
+[162] Cp. Sweet, _op. cit._, p. 449.
+
+[163] In the “Beowulf” there are twenty-three compounds meaning “Ocean,”
+twelve meaning “Ship,” and eighteen meaning “Sword” (_vide_ Emerson,
+“Outline History of the English Language,” 1906, p. 121).
+
+[164] Cp. Champney’s “History of English” (1893), p. 192 and Note; and
+Lounsbury, “History of the English Language” (1909), p. 109.
+
+[165] Cp. Sidney’s remarks in the “Defence of Poesie—Elizabethan Critical
+Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, p. 204.
+
+[166] E.g. Spenser’s “_sea-shouldering_ whales” (an epithet that
+especially pleased Keats), Nashe’s “_sky-bred_ chirpers,” Marlowe’s
+“_gold-fingered_ Ind,” Shakespeare’s “_fancy-free_,” “_forest-born_,”
+“_cloud-capt_,” etc.
+
+[167] Dryden, “English Men of Letters” (1906), p. 76.
+
+[168] Pope’s “Homer,” ed. Buckley, Preface, p. xli.
+
+[169] _Ibid._, p. 47; and cp. Coleridge, “Biographia Literaria,” ed.
+Shawcross (Oxford, 1907), Vol. I, p. 2, Footnote.
+
+[170] Here it may be noted that many of Pope’s compounds in his “Homer”
+have no warrant in the original; they are in most cases supplied by Pope
+himself, to “pad out” his verses, or, more rarely, as paraphrases of
+Greek words or phrases.
+
+[171] Shawcross, _op. cit._, p. 2, Footnote.
+
+[172] “Lives” ed. Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, p. 298.
+
+[173] _Vide_ Leon Morel, _op. cit._, Ch. IV, pp. 412 foll., for a
+detailed examination of Thomson’s compound formations.
+
+[174] It would appear that this epithet had particularly caught the
+fancy of Collins. He uses it also in the “Ode on the Manners,” this time
+figuratively, when he writes of “_dim-discovered_ tracts of mind.”
+
+[175] “Works,” _op. cit._, Vol. IV, p. 203. In point of fact, there is
+little or no evidence in favour of it. Even the Spenserian imitations
+that flourished exceedingly at this time have little interest in this
+respect. Shenstone has very few instances of compounds, but the poems
+of William Thompson furnish a few examples: “_honey-trickling_ streams”
+(“Sickness,” Bk. I), “_Lily-mantled_ meads” (_ibid._), etc. Gilbert
+West’s Spenserian poems have no instances of any special merit; but
+a verse of his Pindar shows that he was not without a gift for happy
+composition: “The _billow-beaten_ side of the _foam-besilvered_ main.”
+
+[176] “Letters,” Vol. III, p. 97.
+
+[177] Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, p. 437.
+
+[178] _Ibid._, p. 434.
+
+[179] _Vide_ Edmund Gosse, “Two Pioneers of Romanticism” (Warton
+Lecture), 1915.
+
+[180] It is a coincidence to find that the N.E.D. assigns the first use
+of the compound _furze-clad_ to Wordsworth.
+
+[181] Bell’s “Fugitive Poets” (London, 1789), Vol. VI.
+
+[182] Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. XI.
+
+[183] Bell, _op. cit._
+
+[184] Anderson, _op. cit._
+
+[185] “British Poets,” Vol. X.
+
+[186] _Ibid._, Vol. XI, Pt. I.
+
+[187] _Ibid._, Pt. II.
+
+[188] “British Poets,” Vol. XI, Pt. II.
+
+[189] _Vide_ Legouis, _op. cit._ (English translation, 1897), pp. 133
+foll.
+
+[190] Shawcross, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 2, Note.
+
+[191] See, e.g., de Selincourt’s remarks on Keats’ compound epithets;
+“Poems” (1904), Appendix C, p. 581.
+
+[192] “Biog. Lit.,” _op. cit._, and cp. “Poetical Works,” ed. Dykes
+Campbell, Appendix K, p. 540.
+
+[193] “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.
+
+[194] “History of English Prosody,” _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 480; and cp.
+_ibid._, p. 496.
+
+[195] Prefaces, “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916), p. 936.
+
+[196] _Vide_ Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. I, Chap.
+IX, for an account of mediaeval allegory and personification.
+
+[197] E.g. “Palamon,” II, 480, 564, 565; Æneas XII, 505-506.
+
+[198] “Black Melancholy” (ll. 163-168) and “Hope” (l. 278), the former of
+which especially pleased Joseph Warton (“Essay on Pope”: Works, Vol. I,
+p. 314).
+
+[199] Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 209.
+
+[200] Cf. “Suicide” (Canto II, 194-250).
+
+[201] Cf. also Bk. I, ll. 10, 11; 548, etc.
+
+[202] Especially in Book III of “The Duellist,” where the reader is
+baffled and wearied by the unending array of bloodless abstractions.
+
+[203] It may be noted incidentally that, according to the “New English
+Dictionary,” the term _personification_ owes its first literary
+appearance to the famous “Dictionary” of 1755, where it is thus defined,
+and (appropriately enough) illustrated: “_Prosopopeia_, the change of
+things to persons, as ‘Confusion heard his voice.’”
+
+[204] Phelps, _op. cit._, pp. 37-38.
+
+[205] “Letter” to Mallet, August 11, 1726: “I thank you heartily for your
+hint about personizing of Inspiration: it strikes me.”
+
+[206] Cf. also “Winter,” 794 and “Autumn,” 143.
+
+[207] For some happy instances of its use in English poetry, as well
+as for a detailed account of Thomson’s use of personification, see
+especially Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 444-455.
+
+[208] Poets of Great Britain (1793), Vol. IX, p. 414.
+
+[209] “British Poets,” Vol. XXII (1822), p. 117.
+
+[210] “A Collection of Poems by several hands,” 3 vols., 1748; 2nd
+edition, with Vol. IV, 1749; Vol. V and VI, 1758; Pearch’s continuations,
+Vol. VII and VIII, 1768, and Vol. IX and X, 1770.
+
+[211] “Dodsley” (1770 ed.), Vol. IV, p. 50.
+
+[212] _Ibid._, VI, 148.
+
+[213] “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 5.
+
+[214] _Vide_ also Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry” (1791). Vol. XI, where there
+is a section devoted to “Poems in the manner of Milton.”
+
+[215] “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 269.
+
+[216] At the same time there appeared a similar volume of the Odes of
+William Collins, “Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric Subjects,”
+the original intention having been to publish in one volume. Collins’s
+collection had a lukewarm reception, so that the author soon burned the
+unsold copies. But see Articles in “The Times Literary Supplement,”
+January 5th (p. 5) and January 12, 1922 (p. 28), by Mr. H. O. White,
+on “William Collins and his Contemporary Critics,” from which it would
+appear that the Odes were not received with such indifference as is
+commonly believed.
+
+[217] Cf. “Pope’s Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V, p. 365.
+
+[218] _Vide_ also “The Triumph of Isis” (1749), and “The Monody written
+near Stratford-on-Avon.” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. XI, pp.
+1061-4.)
+
+[219] Cf. Gosse, “A History of Eighteenth Century Literature” (1889), p.
+233.
+
+[220] Cf. Courthope, “Hist. Engl. Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 397-8.
+
+[221] “Lives,” ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 341.
+
+[222] “On Lyric Poetry—Poetical Works,” ed. Mitford (Aldine, ed. 1896),
+Vol. II, p. 147.
+
+[223] In the Aldine edition, ed. Thomas (1901) these personified
+abstractions are not invested with a capital letter.
+
+[224] “Biographia Literaria” (ed. Shawcross, 1907), p. 12; cf. also
+“Table Talk” (October 23, 1833), ed. H. N. Coleridge (1858), p. 340.
+“Gray’s personifications,” he said, “were mere printer’s devil’s
+personifications,” etc.
+
+[225] Two of Gray’s mechanical figures were marked down for special
+censure by Dr. Johnson (“Lives,” Gray, ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p.
+440), whose criticism was endorsed by Walpole (“Letters,” Vol. III, p.
+98), who likened “Fell Thirst and Famine” to the devils in “The Tempest”
+who whisk away the banquets from the shipwrecked Dukes.
+
+[226] “Letters” (December 19, 1786), Tovey, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 322.
+
+[227] In this connexion mention may be made of “William Blake’s Designs
+for Gray’s Poems,” recently published for the first time with a valuable
+introduction by H. J. C. Grierson (Oxford, 1922). “Blake’s imagination,”
+says Professor Grierson, “communicates an intenser life to Gray’s
+half-conventional personifications” (Intro., p. 17).
+
+[228] Canto I: LXXIV-LXXV.
+
+[229] Cp. also the detailed personification of “Thrift,” given by Mickle
+in his “Syr Martyn” (1787).—“Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. XI, p.
+645.
+
+[230] Cf. “Paradise Lost,” VI, 3; and Pope’s “Iliad,” V, 297.
+
+[231] “Works” ed. Ellis and Yeats, Vol. I, Pref., x.
+
+[232] July 6, 1803, “Letters,” ed. A. G. B. Russell (1906), p. 121.
+
+[233] In the parallel verses of “The Songs of Experience” the human
+attributes are attributed respectively to _Cruelty_, _Jealousy_,
+_Terror_, and _Secrecy_.
+
+[234] “Poetical Works,” ed. John Sampson (Oxford), 1914, p. 187.
+
+[235] _Vide_, e.g., ll. 18-26.
+
+[236] See also, e.g., “Midnight,” l. 272 foll, and l. 410 foll.
+
+[237] A similar type of abstraction is found here and there in the
+stanzas of the “Song to David” (1763), e.g.:
+
+    ’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned
+    And heavenly melancholy tuned
+        To bless and bear the rest.
+
+But on the whole Smart’s famous poem is singularly free from the bane,
+though the “Hymn to the Supreme Being” (_vide_ “A Song to David,” edited
+Tutin (1904), Appendix, p. 32), has not escaped the contagion. But better
+instances are to be found in the Odes (“Works,” 1761-1762), e.g., “Strong
+Labour ... with his pipe in his mouth,” “Health from his Cottage of
+thatch,” etc. _Vide_ also article on “Christopher Smart,” “Times Literary
+Supplement,” April 6, 1922, p. 224.
+
+[238] Cf. “Poems of William Cowper,” ed. J. C. Bailey (1905), Intro., p.
+xl.
+
+[239] There are faint personifications of the other seasons in Book
+III, ll. 427 foll., but none perhaps as effective as William Mickle had
+already given in his ode, “Vicissitude,” where he depicts Winter staying:
+
+          his creeping steps to pause
+    And wishful turns his icy eyes
+    On April meads.
+
+[240] _Streaky_, for instance, is due to Thomson who, in the first draft
+of “Summer” (ll. 47-48) had written:
+
+    Mildly elucent in the streaky east,
+
+later changed to
+
+    At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.
+
+[241] “Letters,” edited E. Coleridge, 1895, p. 215.
+
+[242] “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. I.
+
+[243] The ridicule was crystallized in Canning’s famous parody, “The
+Loves of the Triangles,” which appeared in “The Anti-Jacobin,” Nos. 23,
+24 and 26, April to May, 1798. (_Vide_ “The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin,”
+edited C. Edmonds, 1854, 3rd edition, 1890.)
+
+[244] “The Botanic Garden” (4th edition, 1799), Interlude I, Vol. II, p.
+64. Cp. also _ibid._, Interlude III, p. 182 foll.
+
+[245] For details see Legouis, _op. cit._
+
+[246] Both the original and the final versions of the “Evening Walk” and
+the “Descriptive Sketches” are given by Hutchinson, _op. cit._, Appendix,
+pp. 592, 601.
+
+[247] But the artistic possibilities of Personification were not
+unrecognized by writers and critics in the eighteenth century. _Vide_
+Blair’s lecture on “Personification” (“Lectures on Rhetoric”) 9th
+edition, 1803; Lec. XVI, p. 375.
+
+[248] “The Stones of Venice” (1851), Vol. II, Chap. VIII, pp. 312
+foll.—The Ducal Palace, “Personification is, in some sort, the reverse
+of symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of
+a great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign ... and it is almost
+always employed by men in their most serious moods of faith, rarely in
+recreation.... But Personification is the bestowing of a human or living
+form upon an abstract idea; it is in most cases, a mere recreation of
+the fancy, and is apt to disturb the belief in the reality of the thing
+personified.”
+
+[249] For an illuminating analysis, see Elton, “A Survey of English
+Literature,” 1780-1830 (1912), pp. 1-29.
+
+[250] “Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise,” Vol. IV, pp. 175-178.
+
+[251] Cf. Coleridge’s remarks in “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross,
+Chap. I (Oxford, 1907).
+
+[252] Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 211.
+
+[253] “Sleep and Poetry,” ll. 188-201.
+
+[254] Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 948.
+
+[255] “Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. X, p. 709.
+
+[256] Cf. “Works” (1889), ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V., p. 360-364.
+
+[257] George Saintsbury, “Eighteenth Century Poetry” (“The London
+Mercury,” December, 1919, pp. 155-163); an article in which a great
+authority once again tilts an effective lance on behalf of the despised
+Augustans.
+
+[258] The best of them have been garnered by Mr. Iola A. Williams into
+a little volume, “By-ways Round Helicon” (London, 1922), where the
+interested reader may browse with much pleasure and profit, and where he
+will no doubt find not a little to surprise and delight him. For a still
+more complete anthology, _vide_ “The Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth
+Century” (1923) by the same editor. But for the devil’s advocacy see
+Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason” (London, 1922)
+
+[259] The fountain head of all such studies is, of course, the
+“Biographia Literaria,” for which see especially Shawcross’s edition,
+1907, Vol. II, pp. 287-297. Of recent general treatises, Lascelles
+Abercrombie, “Poetry and Contemporary Speech” (1914); Vernon Lee,
+“The Handling of Words” (1923); Ogden and Richards, “The Meaning of
+Meaning”(1923), may be mentioned.
+
+[260] Elton, “Survey of English Literature” (1780-1830), Vol. II, pp. 88
+foll.
+
+[261] Cf. Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1899), p. 209.
+
+[262] “The Legacy of Greece” (Oxford, 1921), p. 11.
+
+[263] “Convention and Revolt in Poetry” (London, 1921), p. 13.
+
+[264] Just as this book was about to go to press, there appeared “The
+Theory of Poetry,” by Professor Lascelles Abercrombie, in which a poet
+and critic of great distinction has embodied his thoughts on his own art.
+Chaps. III and IV especially should be consulted for a most valuable
+account and analysis of how the poetical “magic” of words is achieved.
+
+[265] “Essays in Criticism,” Second Series (1888): “Wordsworth” (1913
+ed.), p. 157.
+
+[266] O. Barfield, “Form in Poetry” (“New Statesman” August 7, 1920, pp.
+501-2).
+
+[267] “Œuvres” (ed. Assézat), I, p. 377 (quoted by Babbitt), _op. cit._,
+p. 121.
+
+[268] Preface to “The Tales” (Poems), ed. A. W. Ward, (Cambridge, 1906),
+Vol. II, p. 10.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abercrombie, Lascelles, 197 n., 201 n.
+
+  Addison, Joseph, 21
+
+  “Ælla” (T. Chatterton’s), 163
+
+  Akenside, Mark, 16, 27, 69-70, 138-9, 189, 195
+    Dr. Johnson’s criticism, 16
+    “Epistle to Curio,” 195
+    Latinism, 69-70
+    Personification, 138-9
+    “Pleasures of the Imagination,” 69
+
+  “Alma” (M. Prior’s), 75
+
+  “Amyntor and Theodora,” 142
+
+  “Anti-Jacobin, The,” 173 n.
+
+  “Approach of Summer, The,” 179
+
+  “Archaism,” 17-21, 80-101
+
+  Aristotle, 10-12, 185
+
+  Armstrong, John, 69-70, 110
+
+  Arnold, Matthew, 2, 41, 181, 198, 201
+
+  “Art of Preserving Health,” 69, 110
+
+
+  Babbitt, I., 13 n., 203 n.
+
+  Bailey, J. C., 169 n.
+
+  Ballads, 95-7, 196
+
+  Barfield, Owen, 202 n.
+
+  “Bastard, The,” 111
+
+  Beattie, James, 19, 93 n., 125
+
+  Beers, H. A., 97 n.
+
+  “Beowulf, The,” 104 n.
+
+  Binyon, Laurence, 13 n.
+
+  “Biographia Literaria,” 13 n., 24 n., 48 n., 51 n., 127 n., 156 n.,
+        173 n., 185 n.
+
+  “Birth of Flattery, The” (G. Crabbe’s), 168
+
+  Blair, Robert, 110, 176 n.
+
+  Blake, William, 28, 46-7, 77, 99, 124, 129, 136-59, 163-7, 179-80,
+        181, 187 n., 198, 202
+    Allegory and Vision, remarks on, 165
+    Artist, as, 136, 159 n.
+    Compounds, 124, 129
+    Felicity of diction, 46-7, 202
+    “Imitation of Spenser,” 47, 165
+    “Letters,” 47 n., 164 n., 187 n.
+    “Muses, To the,” 47
+    Mysticism, 164
+    Personifications, 163-7, 179-80
+    “Piper, The,” 202
+    “Songs of Experience,” 46, 165 n., 166
+    “Songs of Innocence,” 46, 165
+    Stock diction, 46-7
+
+  Blount, T., 93
+
+  Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” 16 n.
+
+  “Botanic Garden” (E. Darwin’s), 12, 51-2, 126, 173-5
+
+  Bowles, William Lisle, 48
+
+  Boyce, S., 162
+
+  Bruce, Michael, 122
+
+  Burns, Robert, 28, 100, 198
+
+  Bysshe, Edward, 30
+
+  “By-ways Round Helicon”, 195 n.
+
+
+  Campbell, Dykes, 128 n.
+
+  Canning, George, 139, 173 n.
+
+  Capell, Edward, 95-6
+
+  “Castaway, The,” 49, 170
+
+  “Castle of Indolence,” 90-2, 161
+
+  Chapman, George, 105
+
+  “Charge to the Poets” (W. Whitehead’s), 20 n.
+
+  “Chase, The” (W. Somerville’s), 68, 110, 142
+
+  Chatterton, Thomas, 19, 42-3, 97-8, 123-4, 162-3
+    Compounds, 123-4
+    Personifications, 162-3
+    “Rowley Poems,” 97-8
+    Stock diction, 42-3
+
+  Chaucer, Geoffrey, 26, 84-6, 133
+
+  Chaucerian imitations, 84-6
+
+  Chesterfield, Lord, 20
+
+  “Child of Quality, Lines to” (M. Prior’s), 195
+
+  “Choice, The” (J. Pomfret’s), 195
+
+  Churchill, John, 139-40, 169-70
+
+  Classical literature (connexion with romantic), 181-2
+
+  Coleridge, H. N., 156 n.
+
+  Coleridge, S. T., 1, 13, 24, 31, 32, 51, 100, 127-8, 156, 173, 182,
+        193, 204
+    Archaisms, 100
+    Compounds, 127-8
+    Darwin, E., remarks, on, 13, 173
+    Gray’s personifications, on, 156
+    Imagination, on, 13
+    “Letters,” 173 n.
+    Pope’s style, on, 24, 32, 193
+
+  Collins, William, 16, 40-1, 71, 98, 116-7, 129, 149, 150-5, 166, 167,
+        191, 196
+    Archaisms, 98
+    Compounds, 116-7, 129
+    Dr. Johnson’s criticisms of, 16, 40, 151
+    “Odes,” 149 n., 150-5
+    Personifications, 150-5, 166, 167, 178, 179, 191
+    Romantic forerunner, a, 196
+    Stock diction, 40-1
+
+  Compound epithets, 4, 102-31, 204
+
+  “Convention and Revolt in Poetry,” 200 n.
+
+  Courthope, W. J., 9 n., 17 n., 45 n., 50 n., 57 n., 133 n., 149 n.,
+        194 n.
+
+  Coventry, F., 147
+
+  Cowper, William, 20, 24, 31, 48-50, 73-4, 76, 126, 168-73
+    Archaism, on, 20
+    Compounds, 126
+    Familiar style, on the, 24
+    “Homer” translation, 48, 74, 126
+    Latinism, 73-5
+    “Letters,” 20 n., 48 n., 74 n.
+    “Olney Hymns,” 49, 169
+    Personifications, 169-73, 179
+    Stock diction, 48-9
+    “Table Talk,” 49
+    “Task, The,” 49, 73-4, 170-1
+
+  Crabbe, George, 50-1, 124-5, 167-8, 179, 195, 204
+    Compounds, 124-5
+    Dryden’s style, on, 204
+    Personifications, 167-8, 179
+    Stock diction, 50-1
+
+  Croxall, Samuel, 93 n.
+
+  Cunningham, John, 27, 189
+
+
+  Darwin, Erasmus, 12, 37, 51-2, 53, 120, 173-5
+
+  Davenant, Sir William, 21
+
+  Denham, Sir John, 15
+
+  Dennis, John, 11 n.
+
+  De Quincey, Thomas, 52
+
+  “Descriptive Sketches,” 52, 175, 176 n.
+
+  “Deserted Village, The,” 45-6, 111-2, 195
+
+  Diderot, Denis, 203
+
+  Dodsley, Robert, 147, 195
+
+  Doughty, Oswald, 98 n., 195 n.
+
+  Drayton, Michael, 107
+
+  Drinkwater, John, 9 n.
+
+  Dryden, John, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 26-7, 28, 30, 31,
+        32, 33, 36, 58-9, 81-2, 83, 105-6, 109, 134, 181, 194, 204
+    “Annus Mirabilis,” 8
+    Archaisms, 18, 81-2
+    Chaucer “translations,” 26-7
+    Compounds, 105-6
+    “Essays” and “Prefaces,” 7-11
+    “Hind and Panther,” 195
+    Language of poetry, on, 8-9
+    Latinism, 58-9
+    Periphrasis, use of, 28, 33
+    Personifications, 134
+    “Religio Laici,” 194
+    Royal Society, 7
+    Satire, 106, 140
+    Technical terms, on, 21
+
+  “Duellist, The” (Charles Churchill’s), 140 n.
+
+  Dyer, John, 39, 70, 109, 142, 188-9
+
+
+  Earle, J., 35 n.
+
+  “Economy of Vegetation,” 12, 126, 173-4
+
+  Edmonds, C., 173 n.
+
+  “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” 42, 72, 157, 159, 195, 198
+
+  “Eloisa to Abelard,” 134
+
+  Elton, Oliver, 10 n., 135 n., 182 n., 186 n., 197 n.
+
+  Emerson, O., 104 n.
+
+  “English Lyric in the Age of Reason,” 195
+
+  “Enthusiast, The,” 71, 121, 149
+
+  “Epistle to Curio” (M. Akenside’s), 195 n.
+
+  Epithalamium (W. Thompson’s), 160
+
+  “Essay on Criticism,” 9-10, 29 n., 195
+
+  “Eton College, Ode on a Distant View of,” 156
+
+  Evelyn, John, 7
+
+  “Evening, Ode to,” 41, 116, 155
+
+  “Evening Walk, The,” 52, 127, 175-6
+
+  “Excursion, The” (David Mallet’s), 142
+
+
+  “Faerie Queene,” 87, 94, 99, 133, 159-60, 192
+
+  Falconer, William, 22, 43-4
+
+  “Fleece, The,” (J. Dyer’s), 39, 70
+
+  Fletcher, Giles, 57
+
+  Fletcher, Phineas, 57
+
+  “Fugitive Poets” (Bell’s), 122, 147 n., 195
+
+  Furetière, Antoine, 5
+
+
+  Gay, John, 33, 109
+
+  Gibbon, Edward, 198
+
+  Glanvill, Joseph, 7
+
+  Goldsmith, Oliver, 14-15, 20, 44-6, 72, 111-2, 140-1, 195
+    Archaism, on, 20
+    Compounds, in, 117-8
+    Diction of poetry, on, 15
+    Latinism, 72-3
+    Personifications, 141-2, 179
+    Stock diction, 44-6
+
+  Graeme, James, 122
+
+  Grainger, James, 70, 110, 142
+
+  “Grave,” the (Robert Blair’s), 110
+
+  Gray, Thomas, 8, 16-17, 18-19, 21-2, 31, 41-2, 67, 71-2, 93 n., 98-9,
+        117-20, 146, 155-9, 177, 196
+    Archaisms, on, 18-19, 98-9
+    Coinages, on, 21
+    Compounds, 117-20
+    Diction of poetry, on, 8, 16-17
+    “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” 42, 72, 157, 159, 195, 198
+    Latinism, 71-2
+    Letters, 8 n., 16 n.
+    Personifications, 155-9, 177, 191
+    Plain colloquial style, 17, 195
+    Romantic forerunner, A, 150, 196
+    Stock diction, 41-2
+    Technical terms, on, 22
+
+  Grierson, H. J. C., 159 n.
+
+  “Grongar Hill,” 39, 109, 184, 188, 190
+
+
+  Hamilton, William (of Bangor), 146
+
+  Hill, G. B., 8 n., 15 n., 16 n., 23 n., 112 n., 151 n.
+
+  “Hind and Panther, The,” 195
+
+  “Horror, Ode to,” 148
+
+  Hughes, John, 83
+
+  Hume, David, 198
+
+  Hutchinson, T., 52 n., 68 n., 97 n., 132 n., 176 n.
+
+  “Hymn to May” (W. Thompson’s), 160
+
+
+  “Il Bellicoso,” 147
+
+  “Il Pacifico,” 147
+
+  “Il Penseroso,” 71, 176
+
+  “Inebriety,” 167
+
+
+  Jago, R., 122
+
+  Johnson, Dr., 15-16, 17, 19-20, 23, 31, 40-2, 44, 72-3, 111, 119,
+        140-1, 151, 159, 177, 179
+    Archaism, 19-20
+    Collins, on, 150, 151
+    Compounds, 111, 119-20
+    Diction, on, 15-16
+    “Dictionary,” 140 n.
+    Dryden, on, 8
+    Gray’s personifications, on, 156 n.
+    Latinism, 73
+    Personifications, 140-1, 177, 179
+    Pope’s style, on, 23, 31, 193
+    Satire, 139
+    Stock diction, 45
+
+  Jonson, Ben, 17-18
+
+
+  Keats, John, 126, 128, 129, 144, 187, 188, 192, 196, 203, 204
+
+  Ker, W. P., 7 n., 8 n., 9 n., 11 n., 18 n., 21 n.
+
+  Kersey, John, 97
+
+
+  “L’Allegro,” 162, 176
+
+  Langhorne, J., 122
+
+  Langland, William, 133
+
+  Latinism, 56-79, 191-2
+
+  Lee, Vernon, 197 n.
+
+  “Legacy of Greece, The,” 199
+
+  Legouis, E., 53 n., 127 n., 175 n.
+
+  Lessing’s “Laokoon,” 12 n.
+
+  Lloyd, Robert, 88 n.
+
+  “London” (Dr. Johnson’s), 111, 140-1
+
+  “Loves of the Plants” (E. Darwin’s), 12, 173
+
+  “Loves of the Triangles” (G. Canning’s), 173 n.
+
+  Lowes, Professor J. L., 200
+
+  “Lyrical Ballads,” 1, 2, 175
+
+  Lyttleton, G., 119
+
+
+  Maeterlinck, M., 200
+
+  Mallet, D., 110, 144 n., 142
+
+  Marlowe, Christopher, 105 n.
+
+  Marriott, Dr., 147
+
+  Mason, William, 86, 146-7
+
+  Masson, David, 58 n.
+
+  Mendez, Moses, 88, 122
+
+  Mickle, William, 93, 125, 162 n., 171 n.
+
+  Milton, John, 8, 33-6, 41, 57-8, 60, 61, 62, 66, 70, 71, 72, 76, 77,
+        81, 94, 107, 133, 136, 142, 146-7, 148, 149, 150, 176-7, 191-2
+    Archaism, 81, 94
+    Compound epithets, 105
+    Diction, 34-6, 57-8
+    Imitated in eighteenth century, 60-70, 76-7, 146-50, 191-2
+    Latinism, 57-8, 177
+    Personification, 133, 137, 142, 146-7, 176-7
+
+  “Monody written near Stratford-on-Avon,” 149 n.
+
+  Morel, Leon, 39 n., 63 n., 78 n., 91 n., 114 n., 145 n.
+
+  Murray, Gilbert, 199
+
+
+  Nashe, Thomas, 105 n.
+
+  Neo-classicism, 9-13, 53-4
+
+  “Night Thoughts” (E. Young’s), 28, 68-9, 136-8
+
+  “Nocturnal Reverie” (Countess of Winchilsea’s), 187
+
+
+  Old English Compounds, 104
+
+  “Ossian” poems, 19, 166
+
+
+  “Paradise Lost,” 34-6, 57-8, 76, 133, 136, 184
+
+  Parnell, Thomas, 135-6
+
+  “Passions, Ode to the,” 153
+
+  “Penshurst” (F. Coventry’s), 147
+
+  Percy, Bishop, 96-7
+
+  Personification and abstraction, 133-80, 190-1
+
+  Phelps, W. L., 142 n.
+
+  Philips, John, 37, 60-1, 86, 109, 142
+
+  “Pity, Ode to” (W. Collins’), 153
+
+  “Pleasures of the Imagination” (M. Akenside’s), 69, 138-9, 189
+
+  “Pleasures of Melancholy, The” (T. Warton’s), 71, 121
+
+  “Poetical Character, Ode on the” (W. Collins’s), 152
+
+  “Poetical Sketches” (W. Blake’s), 99, 167, 181
+
+  Pomfret, John, 195
+
+  Pope, Alexander, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21-2, 23-4,
+        25, 29, 31-4, 36-7, 40, 42, 45, 46, 48, 50, 54, 59-60, 67, 73,
+        81, 82-3, 85, 106-9, 111, 115, 130, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140,
+        183, 184, 185, 189, 193-4, 204
+    Archaism, 18, 82-3
+    Compounds, 21, 106-9
+    Diction, 33, 36-7
+    “Dunciad,” 18, 134
+    “Essay on Criticism,” 14, 29 n., 195
+    Heroic couplet, 29-30, 31-2
+    “Homer,” 2, 14, 17, 31-2, 40, 48, 184
+    Language of poetry, 9-10
+    Latinism, 59-60
+    Personifications, 134
+    Satire, 139, 140
+
+  Potter, R., 122
+
+  Prior, Matthew, 75, 87, 95, 195
+
+  “Progress of Error” (W. Cowper’s), 170
+
+  “Progress of Poetry” (Thomas Gray’s), 72
+
+  “Prolusions” (E. Capell’s), 95-6
+
+
+  Raleigh, Sir Walter, 35 n., 58 n., 66 n.
+
+  “Rape of the Lock,” 134
+
+  “Religio Laici,” 194
+
+  “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” 19, 96-7
+
+  Reynolds, Myra, 28 n., 61 n., 75 n.
+
+  Ritson, Joseph, 96 n.
+
+  Robertson, J. L., 6 n., 62
+
+  Rogers, Samuel, 125-6
+
+  Romanticism, connexion with classicism, 181-2
+
+  Rowley poems, 42-4, 97-8, 162-3
+
+  “Ruins of Rome” (J. Dyer’s), 109, 142
+
+  Ruskin, John, 180
+
+  Russell, A. J. B., 164 n.
+
+
+  Saintsbury, George, 29-30, 76 n., 106, 130, 131, 194 n.
+
+  Sampson, John, 47 n., 99 n., 165 n.
+
+  Savage, Richard, 75, 111, 136
+
+  Schmidt’s “Shakespeare Lexicon,” 35
+
+  “Schoolmistress, The,” 88-9, 161
+
+  Scott, John, 123
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter, 100, 192
+
+  “Seasons, The” (J. Thomson’s), 37-9, 62-8, 112-6, 142-6, 190, 196, 198
+
+  Selincourt, B. de, 35 n., 128 n.
+
+  Shakespeare, William, 35, 105 n., 129
+
+  Shawcross, T. (_see_ “Biographia Literaria”).
+
+  Shelley, P. B., 126, 178, 203, 204
+
+  Shenstone, W., 26, 29, 75, 88-9, 118 n., 161
+
+  “Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century,” 195 n.
+
+  Sidney, Sir Philip, 105 n.
+
+  Skeat, W. W., 43 n., 97, 98 n., 102 n.
+
+  Smart, Christopher, 169 n.
+
+  Smith, Gregory, 14 n., 18 n., 56 n.
+
+  Somerville, William, 110, 142
+
+  “Song to David,” 169 n.
+
+  Spence, Joseph, 12
+
+  Spenser, Edmund, 80-1, 105 n., 133, 159-60, 191, 192
+
+  Spenserian imitations, 18, 84, 86-94, 160-2, 178, 191, 192
+
+  Spingarn, J. E., 5 n., 6 n., 7 n.
+
+  Sprat, Thomas, 6, 7
+
+  Stock diction, The, 25-55, 183-7
+
+  “Stones of Venice, The” (J. Ruskin’s), 180 n.
+
+  “Storie of William Canynge,” 163
+
+  “Sugar Cane, The,” 70, 110, 142
+
+  Sweet, Henry, 102 n., 103 n.
+
+  Swift, Jonathan, 139
+
+  Symbolism, 13, 164, 179, 180
+
+  Symons, Arthur, 47 n.
+
+  “Syr Martin,” 93, 125, 162 n.
+
+
+  “Table Talk” (S. T. Coleridge’s), 156 n.
+
+  “Table Talk” (W. Cowper’s), 49, 170
+
+  Taine, H., 183
+
+  “Task, The” (W. Cowper’s), 49, 73-4, 170-1
+
+  Theory of diction, 5-24
+
+  Thomson, James, 37-9, 62-8, 76, 77, 78, 90-2, 94, 112-6, 131, 142-6,
+        161, 167, 179, 186, 188
+    “Castle of Indolence,” 90-2, 161
+    Compounds, 112-6, 131
+    Diction generally, 37, 67
+    Latinism, 62-8, 78, 192
+    Miltonic borrowings, 37, 66
+    Nature poet, a, 37, 78, 186
+    Personifications, 142-6, 161, 166, 178-9
+    Romantic forerunner, a, 196
+    “Seasons, The,” 37-9, 62-8, 112-6, 142-6, 190, 195, 196, 198
+    Stock diction, 37-8
+
+  Thompson, W., 61-2, 85, 89-90, 118 n.
+
+  “Tintern Abbey, Lines written above,” 131
+
+  “Traveller, The” (O. Goldsmith’s), 45, 72, 112, 141
+
+  Trenery, Grace R., 95 n.
+
+  “Triumph of Isis,” 149 n.
+
+  Tyrwhitt, Thomas, 86, 98 n.
+
+
+  Upton, John, 93 n.
+
+
+  “Vacation, The,” 147
+
+  “Vale Abbey, Lines written at” (T. Warton’s), 149
+
+  “Valetudinarian, The,” 147
+
+  “Vanity of Human Wishes,” 73, 111, 140-1, 195
+
+  “Village, The” (G. Crabbe’s), 167, 168, 195
+
+  “Vision of Patience” (S. Boyce’s), 162
+
+  “Vision of Solomon” (W. Whitehead’s), 162
+
+
+  Wakefield, Benjamin, 95 n.
+
+  Waller, Edmund, 15
+
+  Walpole, Horace, 119, 156 n.
+
+  “Wanderer, The” (R. Savage’s), 111, 136
+
+  Ward, A. W., 204 n.
+
+  Warton, Joseph, 21, 70-1, 121, 134, 148-9
+
+  Warton, Thomas, 71, 83, 84, 85, 86, 120-1, 149
+
+  Watson, George, 100 n.
+
+  Watts, Isaac, 49
+
+  Welsted, Leonard, 59 n.
+
+  Wesley, John, 49, 50, 198
+
+  Wesley, Charles, 49
+
+  West, Gilbert, 118 n.
+
+  White, Gilbert (of Selborne), 28
+
+  White, H. O., 148 n.
+
+  Whitehead, W., 20 n., 122, 162
+
+  Williams, I. O., 195 n.
+
+  Wilson, Sir James, 100 n.
+
+  Winchilsea, Anne, Countess of, 61, 109, 187-8
+
+  “Windsor Forest,” 134
+
+  Wordsworth, William, 1, 3, 13, 15, 24, 25, 27 n., 28, 31, 32, 33, 35,
+        36, 48, 51-3, 67, 68, 77, 79, 97, 115, 132, 175, 182, 185, 187,
+        189, 192, 193, 197, 201, 204
+    Archaism, 100
+    Compounds, 127
+    Darwin’s (Erasmus) influence, 52-4, 175
+    Latinism, 79, 192
+    Percy’s “Reliques,” on, 97
+    Personifications, 133, 175-6, 178, 180
+    Pope’s style, on, 24
+    “Prefaces,” 1, 53, 132, 182, 197, 204
+    “Prelude, The,” 184-5
+
+  Wyche, Sir Peter, 7
+
+
+  “Yardley Oak” (W. Cowper’s), 131, 172
+
+  Yeats, W. B., 164 n.
+
+  Young, Edward, 9 n., 28, 68-9, 136-8, 151
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68420 ***
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poetic diction, by Thomas Quayle</p>

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-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Poetic diction</p>

-<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>A study of eighteenth century verse</p>

-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Quayle</p>

-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 28, 2022 [eBook #68420]</p>

-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>

-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p>

-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETIC DICTION ***</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a>[i]</span></p>

-

-<p class="center larger">POETIC DICTION</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a>[ii]</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p>

-

-<p class="titlepage larger">POETIC DICTION</p>

-

-<p class="center">A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VERSE</p>

-

-<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br />

-THOMAS QUAYLE</p>

-

-<p class="titlepage">METHUEN &amp; CO. LTD.<br />

-36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br />

-LONDON</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv"></a>[iv]</span></p>

-

-<p class="titlepage smaller"><i>First Published in 1924</i></p>

-

-<p class="titlepage smaller">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<table>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr smaller">CHAPTER</td>

-    <td></td>

-    <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr">I.</td>

-    <td>THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON</td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr">II.</td>

-    <td>THE THEORY OF DICTION</td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">5</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr">III.</td>

-    <td>THE “STOCK” DICTION</td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">25</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>

-    <td>LATINISM</td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">56</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr">V.</td>

-    <td>ARCHAISM</td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">80</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr">VI.</td>

-    <td>COMPOUND EPITHETS</td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">102</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr">VII.</td>

-    <td>PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION</td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">132</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>

-    <td>THE DICTION OF POETRY</td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">181</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class="tdr"></td>

-    <td><span class="smcap">Index</span></td>

-    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INDEX">207</a></td>

-  </tr>

-</table>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak">PREFACE</h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>The studies on which this book is based were

-begun during my tenure of the “William

-Noble” Fellowship in English Literature at the

-University of Liverpool, and I wish to thank the

-members of the Fellowship Committee, and especially

-Professor Elton, under whom I had for two years the

-great privilege of working, for much valuable advice

-and criticism. I must also express my sincere obligation

-to the University for a generous grant towards

-the cost of publication.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>

-

-<h1>POETIC DICTION</h1>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br />

-<span class="smaller">THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON</span></h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>From the time of the publication of the first

-Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads” (1798) the

-poetical language of the eighteenth century, or

-rather of the so-called “classical” writers of the

-period, has been more or less under a cloud of suspicion.

-The condemnation which Wordsworth then

-passed upon it, and even the more rational and

-penetrating criticism which Coleridge later brought to

-his own analysis of the whole question of the language

-fit and proper for poetry, undoubtedly led in the

-course of the nineteenth century to a definite but

-uncritical tendency to disparage and underrate the

-entire poetic output of the period, not only of the

-Popian supremacy, but even of the interregnum,

-when the old order was slowly making way for the

-new. The Romantic rebels of course have nearly

-always received their meed of praise, but even in

-their case there is not seldom a suspicion of critical

-reservation, a sort of implied reproach that they

-ought to have done better than they did, and that

-they could and might have done so if they had reacted

-more violently against the poetic atmosphere of

-their age. In brief, what with the Preface to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span>

-“Lyrical Ballads” and its successive expansions at

-the beginning of the century, and what, some eighty

-years later, with Matthew Arnold’s calm description

-of the eighteenth century as an “age of prose and

-reason,” the poetry of that period, and not only the

-neo-classical portion of it, fared somewhat badly.

-There could be no better illustration of the influence

-and danger of labels and tags; “poetic diction,” and

-“age of prose and reason” tended to become a sort

-of critical legend or tradition, by means of which

-eighteenth century verse, alike at its highest and its

-lowest levels, could be safely and adequately understood

-and explained.</p>

-

-<p>Nowadays we are little likely to fall into the error

-of assuming that any one cut and dried formula,

-however pregnant and apt, could adequately sum up

-the literary aspects and characteristics of an entire

-age; the contributory and essential factors are too

-many, and often too elusive, for the tabloid method.

-And now that the poetry of the first half or so of the

-eighteenth century is in process of rehabilitation, and

-more than a few of its practitioners have even been

-allowed access to the slopes, at least, of Parnassus, it

-may perhaps be useful to examine, a little more

-closely than has hitherto been customary, one of the

-critical labels which, it would almost seem, has sometimes

-been taken as a sort of generic description of

-eighteenth century verse, as if “poetic diction” was

-something which suddenly sprang into being when

-Pope translated Homer, and had never been heard of

-before or since.</p>

-

-<p>This, of course, is to overstate the case, the more so

-as it can hardly be denied that there is much to be

-said for the other side. It may perhaps be put this

-way, by saying, at the risk of a laborious assertion of

-the obvious, that if poetry is to be written there must

-be a diction in which to write it—a diction which,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span>

-whatever its relation to the language of contemporary

-speech or prose may be, is yet in many essential

-respects distinct and different from it, in that, even

-when it does not draw upon a special and peculiar

-word-power of its own, yet so uses or combines common

-speech as to heighten and intensify its possibilities

-of suggestion and evocation. If, therefore,

-we speak of the “poetic diction” of the eighteenth

-century, or of any portion of it, the reference ought to

-be, of course, to the whole body of language in which

-the poetry of that period is written, viewed as a

-medium, good, bad, or indifferent, for poetical expression.

-But this has rarely or never been the case; it

-is not too much to say that, thanks to Wordsworth’s

-attack and its subsequent reverberations, “poetic

-diction,” so far as the eighteenth century is concerned,

-has too often been taken to mean, “bad poetic diction,”

-and it has been in this sense indiscriminately applied

-to the whole poetic output of Pope and his school.</p>

-

-<p>In the present study it is hoped, by a careful

-examination of the poetry of the eighteenth century,

-by an analysis of the conditions and species of its

-diction, to arrive at some estimate of its value, of what

-was good and what was bad in it, of how far it was the

-outcome of the age which produced it, and how far a

-continuation of inherited tradition in poetic language,

-to what extent writers went back to their great predecessors

-in their search for a fresh vocabulary, and

-finally, to what extent the poets of the triumphant

-Romantic reaction, who had to fashion for themselves

-a new vehicle of expression, were indebted to their

-forerunners in the revolt, to those who had helped to

-prepare the way.</p>

-

-<p>It is proposed to make the study both a literary and

-a linguistic one. In the first place, the aim will be

-to show how the poetic language, which is usually

-labelled “the eighteenth century style,” was, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>

-certain of its most pronounced aspects, a reflex of the

-literary conditions of its period; in the second place,

-the study will be a linguistic one, in that it will deal

-also with the words themselves. Here the attention

-will be directed to certain features characteristic of,

-though not peculiar to, the diction of the eighteenth

-century poetry—the use of Latinisms, of archaic and

-obsolete words, and of those compound words by

-means of which English poets from the time of the

-Elizabethans have added some of the happiest and

-most expressive epithets to the language; finally, the

-employment of abstractions and personifications will

-be discussed.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br />

-<span class="smaller">THE THEORY OF POETICAL DICTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</span></h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>About the time when Dryden was beginning

-his literary career the preoccupation of men of

-letters with the language as a literary instrument

-was obvious enough. There was a decided

-movement toward simplicity in both prose and poetry,

-and, so far as the latter was concerned, it was in large

-measure an expression of the critical reaction against

-the “metaphysical” verse commonly associated with

-the names of Donne and his disciples. Furetière in

-his “Nouvelle Allegorique ou Histoire des dernier

-troubles arrivez au Royaume d’Eloquence,” published

-at Paris in 1658,<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> expresses the parallel struggle which

-had been raging amongst French poets and critics, and

-the allegory he presents may be taken to symbolize

-the general critical attitude in both countries.</p>

-

-<p>Rhetoric, Queen of the Realm of Eloquence, and

-her Prime Minister, Good Sense, are represented as

-threatened by innumerable foes. The troops of the

-Queen, marshalled in defence of the Academy, her

-citadel, are the accepted literary forms, Histories,

-Epics, Lyrics, Dramas, Romances, Letters, Sermons,

-Philosophical Treatises, Translations, Orations, and

-the like. Her enemies are the rhetorical figures and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span>

-the perversions of style, Metaphors, Hyperboles,

-Similes, Descriptions, Comparisons, Allegories, Pedantries,

-Antitheses, Puns, Exaggerations, and a host of

-others. Ultimately the latter are defeated, and are

-in some cases banished, or else agree to serve as

-dependents in the realm of Eloquence.</p>

-

-<p>We may interpret the struggle thus allegorically

-expressed by saying that a new age, increasingly

-scientific and rational in its outlook, felt it was high

-time to analyze critically and accurately the traditional

-canons and ideals of form and matter that classical

-learning, since the Renaissance, had been able to

-impose upon literature. This is not to say that

-seventeenth century writers and critics suddenly

-decided that all the accepted standards were radically

-wrong, and should be thrown overboard; but some of

-them at least showed and expressed themselves dissatisfied,

-and, alongside of the unconscious and, as it

-were, instinctive changes that reflected the spirit of

-the age, there were deliberate efforts to re-fashion both

-the matter and the manner of literary expression, to

-give creative literature new laws and new ideals.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>

-

-<p>The movement towards purity and simplicity of

-expression received its first definite statement in

-Thomas Sprat’s “History of the Royal Society, 1667.”

-One section of the History contains an account of the

-French Academy, and Sprat’s efforts were directed

-towards the formation of a similar body in England

-as an arbiter in matters of language and style. The

-ideal was to be the expression of “so many <i>things</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>

-almost in an equal number of <i>words</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> A Committee

-of the Royal Society, which included Dryden, Evelyn,

-and Sprat amongst its members, had already met in

-1664, to discuss ways and means of “improving the

-English tongue,” and it was the discussions of this

-committee which had doubtless led up to Evelyn’s

-letter to Sir Peter Wyche, its chairman, in June 1665.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>

-Evelyn there gives in detail his ideas of what an

-English academy, acting as arbiter in matters of

-vocabulary and style, might do towards purifying the

-language. Twenty-three years later Joseph Glanvill

-defined the new ideal briefly in a passage of his “Essay

-Concerning Preaching”: “Plainness is a character of

-great latitude and stands in opposition, First to <i>hard

-words</i>: Secondly, to <i>deep and mysterious notions</i>:

-Thirdly, to <i>affected Rhetorications</i>: and Fourthly, to

-<i>Phantastical Phrases</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> In short, the ideal to be

-aimed at was the precise and definite language of

-experimental science, but the trend of the times

-tended to make it more and more that ideal of poetry

-also which was later to be summed up in Dryden’s

-definition of “wit” as a “propriety of thoughts and

-words.”<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>

-

-<p>It is of some little interest perhaps to note that it is

-not until the end of the seventeenth century that the

-word <i>diction</i> definitely takes on the sense which it now

-usually bears as a term of literary criticism. In the

-preface to “Sylvae, or The Second Part of Poetical

-Miscellanies” (1685), Dryden even seems to regard the

-term as not completely naturalized.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Moreover, the

-critics and poets of the eighteenth century were for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>

-the most part quite convinced that the special language

-of poetry had begun with Dryden. Johnson asserted

-this in his usual dogmatic fashion, and thus emphasized

-the doctrine, afterwards vigorously opposed by Wordsworth,

-that between the language of prose, and that

-proper to poetry, there is a sharp distinction. “There

-was therefore before the time of Dryden no poetical

-diction.... Those happy combinations of words

-which distinguished poetry from prose had been rarely

-attempted; we had few elegancies or flowers of

-speech.”<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Gray moreover, while agreeing that English

-poetry had now a language of its own, declared in a

-letter to West that this special language was the

-creation of a long succession of English writers themselves,

-and especially of Shakespeare and Milton, to

-whom (he asserts) Pope and Dryden were greatly

-indebted.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>

-

-<p>It is not very difficult to understand Dryden’s own

-attitude, as laid down in the various Prefaces. He is

-quite ready to subscribe to the accepted neo-classical

-views on the language of poetry, but characteristically

-reserves for himself the right to reject them, or to take

-up a new line, if he thinks his own work, or that of his

-contemporaries, is likely to benefit thereby. Thus in

-the preface to “Annus Mirabilis” (1666) he boldly

-claims the liberty to coin words on Latin models, and

-to make use of technical details.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> In his apology for

-“Heroic Poetry and Poetic License” (1677) prefixed

-to “The State of Innocence and Fall of Man,” his

-operatic “tagging” of “Paradise Lost,” he seems to

-lay down distinctly the principle that poetry demands

-a medium of its own, distinct from that of prose,<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>

-whilst towards the end of his literary career he reiterates

-his readiness to enrich his poetic language from

-any and every source, for “poetry requires ornament,”

-and he is therefore willing to “trade both with the

-living and the dead for the enrichment of our native

-language.”<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> But it is significant that at the same

-time he rejects the technical terms he had formerly

-advocated, apparently on the grounds that such terms

-would be unfamiliar to “men and ladies of the first

-quality.” Dryden has thus become more “classical,”

-in the sense that he has gone over or reverted to the

-school of “general” terms, which appeared to base

-its ideal of expression on the accepted language of

-cultured speakers and writers.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>

-

-<p>Toward the establishment of this principle of the

-pseudo-classical creed the theory and practice of Pope

-naturally contributed; indeed, it has been claimed

-that it was in large measure the result of the profound

-effect of the “Essay on Criticism,” or at least of the

-current of thought which it represents, on the taste of

-the age.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> In the Essay, Pope, after duly enumerating

-the various “idols” of taste in poetical thought and

-diction, clearly states his own doctrine; as the poets’

-aim was the teaching of “True Wit” or “Nature,”

-the language used must be universal and general, and

-neologisms must be regarded as heresies. For Pope,

-as for Dryden, universal and general language meant

-such as would appeal to the cultured society for whom

-he wrote,<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and in his practice he thus reflected the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>

-traditional attitude towards the question of language

-as a vehicle of literary expression. A common

-“poetics” drawn and formulated by the classical

-scholars mainly (and often incorrectly) from Aristotle

-had established itself throughout Western Europe, and

-it professed to prescribe the true relation which should

-exist between form and matter, between the creative

-mind and the work of art.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>

-

-<p>The critical reaction against these traditional canons

-had, as we have noted, already begun, but Pope and

-his contemporaries are in the main supporters of the

-established order, in full agreement with its guiding

-principle that the imitation of “Nature” should be

-the chief aim and end of art. It is scarcely necessary

-to add that it was not “Nature” in the Wordsworthian

-sense that was thus to be “imitated”; sometimes,

-indeed, it is difficult to discover what was meant by

-the term. But for Pope and his followers we usually

-find it to mean man as he lives his life in this world,

-and the phrase to “imitate Nature” might thus have

-an ethical purpose, signifying the moral “improvement”

-of man.</p>

-

-<p>But to appreciate the full significance of this

-“doctrine,” and its eighteenth century interpretation,

-it is necessary to glance at the Aristotelian canon in

-which it had its origin. For Aristotle poetry was an

-objective “imitation” with a definite plan or purpose,

-of human actions, not as they are, but as they ought

-to be. The ultimate aim, then, according to the

-<i>Poetics</i>, is ideal truth, stripped of the local and the

-accidental; Nature is to be improved upon with means

-drawn from Nature herself. This theory, as extracted

-and interpreted by the Italian and French critics of

-the Renaissance, was early twisted into a notion of

-poetry as an agreeable falsity, and by the end of the

-seventeenth century it had come to mean, especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span>

-with the French, the imitation of a selected and

-embellished Nature, not directly, but rather through

-the medium of those great writers of antiquity, such

-as Homer and Virgil, whose works provided the

-received and recognized models of idealized nature.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>

-

-<p>As a corollary to this interpretation of the Aristotelian

-doctrine of ideal imitation, there appeared a

-tendency to ignore more and more the element of

-personal feeling in poetry,<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and to concentrate attention

-on the formal elements of the art. This tendency,

-reinforced by the authority of the Horatian tag, <i>ut

-pictura poesis</i> (“as is painting, so is poetry”), led

-naturally, and in an ever-increasing degree, to the

-formal identification of poetry with painting. Critics

-became accustomed to discussing the elements in the

-art of writing that correspond to the other elements in

-pictorial art, such as light, colour, expression, etc.

-And as the poet was to be an imitator of accepted

-models, so also he was to be imitative and traditional

-in using poetical colouring, in which phrase were

-included, as Dryden wrote, “the words, the expressions,

-the tropes and figures, the versification, and all

-the other elegancies of sound.”<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> That this parallelism

-directly encourages the growth of a set “poetic

-diction” is obvious; the poet’s language was not to

-be a reflection of a genuine emotion felt in the mind

-for his words, phrases, and figures of speech, his

-<i>operum colores</i>,<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> he must not look to Nature but to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span>

-models. In brief, a poetical <i>gradus</i>, compiled from

-accepted models, was to be the ideal source on which

-the poet was to draw for his medium of expression.</p>

-

-<p>It is not necessary to dwell long on this pseudo-classical

-confusion of the two arts, as revealed in the

-critical writings of Western Europe down to the very

-outbreak of the Romantic revolt.<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> In English

-criticism, Dryden’s “Parallel” was only one of many.

-Of the eighteenth century English critics who developed

-a detailed parallelism between pictorial and plastic art

-on the one hand and poetry on the other, maintaining

-that their standards were interchangeable, the most

-important perhaps is Spence, whose “Polymetis”

-appeared in 1747, and who sums the general position

-of his fellow-critics on this point in the remark, “Scarce

-anything can be good in a poetical description which

-would appear absurd if represented in a statue or

-picture.”<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The ultimate outcome of this confusion of

-poetry and painting found its expression in the last

-decade of the eighteenth century in the theory and

-practice of Erasmus Darwin, whose work, “The

-Botanic Garden,” consisted of a “second part,” “The

-Loves of the Plants,” published in 1789, two years

-before its inclusion with the “first part” the

-“Economy of Vegetation,” in one volume. Darwin’s

-theory of poetry is contained in the “Interludes”

-between the cantos of his poems, which take the form

-of dialogues between the “Poet” and a “Bookseller.”

-In the Interlude to Canto 1 of Part II (“The Loves of

-the Plants”) he maintains the thesis that poetry is a

-process of painting to the eye, and in the cantos themselves

-he proceeds with great zeal to show in practice<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>

-how words and images should be laid on like pigments

-from the outside. The young Wordsworth himself, as

-his early poems show, was influenced by the theory

-and practice of Darwin, but Coleridge was not slow to

-detect the danger of the elaborate word-painting that

-might arise from the confusion of the two arts. “The

-poet,” he wrote,<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> “should paint to the Imagination

-and not to the Fancy.” For Coleridge Fancy was the

-“Drapery” of poetic genius, Imagination was its

-“Soul” or its “synthetic and magical power,”<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> and

-he thus emphasized what may be regarded as one of

-the chief distinctions between the pseudo-classical, and

-the romantic, interpretations of the language of poetry.

-In its groping after the “grand style,” as reflected in

-a deliberate avoidance of accidental and superficial

-“particularities,” and in its insistence on generalized

-or abstract forms, eighteenth century poetry, or at

-least the “neo-classical” portion of it, reflected its

-inability to achieve that intensity of imaginative conception

-which is the supreme need of all art.</p>

-

-<p>The confusion between the two arts of poetry and

-painting which Coleridge thus condemned did not, it

-is needless to say, disappear with the eighteenth

-century. The Romanticists themselves finally

-borrowed that much-abused phrase “local colour”

-from the technical vocabulary of the painter, and in

-other respects the whole question became merged in

-the symbolism of the nineteenth century where

-literature is to be seen attempting to do the work of

-both music and painting.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>

-

-<p>As regards the language of poetry then—its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span>

-vocabulary, the actual <i>words</i> in which it was to be

-given expression—the early eighteenth century had

-first this pseudo-classical doctrine of a treasury of

-select words, phrases, and other “ornaments,” a

-doctrine which was to receive splendid emphasis and

-exemplification in Pope’s translation of Homer. But

-alongside of this ideal of style there was another ideal

-which Pope again, as we have seen, had insisted upon

-in his “Essay on Criticism,” and which demanded

-that the language of poetry should in general conform

-to that of cultivated conversation and prose. These

-two ideals of poetical language can be seen persisting

-throughout the eighteenth century, though later

-criticism, in its haste to condemn the <i>gradus</i> ideal,

-has not often found time to do justice to the

-other.</p>

-

-<p>But, apart from these general considerations, the

-question of poetic diction is rarely treated as a thing

-<i>per se</i> by the writers who, after Dryden or Pope, or

-alongside of them, took up the question. There are

-no attempts, in the manner of the Elizabethans,<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> to

-conduct a critical inquiry into the actual present

-resources of the vernacular, and its possibilities as a

-vehicle of expression. Though the attention is more

-than once directed to certain special problems, on the

-whole the discussions are of a general nature, and

-centre round such points as the language suitable for

-an Heroic Poem, or for the “imitation” of aspects

-of nature, or for Descriptive Poetry, questions which

-had been discussed from the sixteenth century onwards,

-and were not exhausted by the time of Dr.

-Johnson.<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>

-

-<p>Goldsmith’s remarks, reflecting as they do a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span>

-half-way attitude between the old order and the new,

-are interesting. Poetry has a language of its own;

-it is a species of painting with words, and hence he

-will not condemn Pope for “deviating in some

-instances from the simplicity of Homer,” whilst such

-phrases as <i>the sighing reed</i>, <i>the warbling rivulet</i>, <i>the

-gushing spring</i>, <i>the whispering breeze</i> are approvingly

-quoted.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It is thus somewhat surprising to find that

-in his “Life of Parnell” he had pilloried certain

-“misguided innovators” to whose efforts he attributed

-the gradual debasing of poetical language since

-the happy days when Dryden, Addison, and Pope

-had brought it to its highest pitch of refinement.<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>

-These writers had forgotten that poetry is “the

-language of life” and that the simplest expression

-was the best: brief statements which, if we knew

-what Goldsmith meant by “life,” would seem to

-adumbrate the theories which Wordsworth was to

-expound as the Romantic doctrine.</p>

-

-<p>Dr. Johnson has many things to say on the subject

-of poetic language, including general remarks and

-particular judgments on special points, or on the work

-of the poets of whom he treated in his “Lives.” As

-might be expected, he clings tenaciously to the accepted

-standards of neo-classicism, and repeats the old

-commonplaces which had done duty for so long, pays

-the usual tribute to Waller and Denham, but ascribes

-the actual birth of poetical diction to the practice of

-Dryden. What Johnson meant by “poetical diction”

-is clearly indicated; it was a “system of words at

-once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and

-free from the harshness of terms appropriated to

-different arts,”<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> that is, the language of poetry must<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>

-shun popular and technical words, since language

-is “the dress of thought” and “splendid ideas

-lose their magnificence if they are conveyed by low

-and vulgar words.”<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> From this standpoint, and

-reinforced by his classical preference for regular

-rhymes,<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> all his particular judgments of his predecessors

-and contemporaries were made; and when

-this is remembered it is easier to understand, for

-instance, his praise of Akenside<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> and his criticism of

-Collins.<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>

-

-<p>Gray, however, perhaps the most scrupulous and

-precise of all our poets with regard to the use of words

-in poetry,<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> has some pertinent things to say on the

-matter. There is his important letter to West, already

-referred to, with its dogmatic assertion that “the

-language of the age is never the language of poetry,”

-and that “our poetry has a language to itself,” an

-assertion which, with other remarks of Gray, helps

-to emphasize the distinction to be made between the

-two ideals of poetical diction to be seen persisting

-through the eighteenth century. It was generally

-agreed that there must be a special language for

-poetry, with all its artificial “heightening,” “licenses,”

-and variations from the language of prose, to serve

-the purpose of the traditional “Kinds,” especially

-the Epic and the Lyric. This is the view taken by

-Gray, but with a difference. He does not accept the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>

-conventional diction which Pope’s “Homer” had

-done so much to perpetuate, and hence he creates a

-poetic language of his own, a glittering array of words

-and phrases, blending material from varied sources,

-and including echoes and reminiscences of Milton and

-Dryden.</p>

-

-<p>The second ideal of style was that of which, as we

-have seen, the canons had been definitely stated by

-Pope, and which had been splendidly exemplified in

-the satires, essays, and epistles. The aim was to

-reproduce “the colloquial idiom of living society,”<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>

-and the result was a plain, unaffected style, devoid

-of the ornaments of the poetic language proper, and,

-in its simplicity and directness, equally suitable for

-either poetry or prose. Gray could make use of

-this vehicle of expression, whenever, as in “The

-Long Story,” or the fragmentary “Alliance of

-Education and Government,” it was suitable and

-adequate for his purpose; but in the main his

-own practice stood distinct from both the eighteenth

-century ideals of poetical language. Hence, as it

-conformed to neither of the accepted standards,

-Goldsmith and Johnson agreed in condemning his

-diction, which was perhaps in itself sufficient proof

-that Gray had struck out a new language for

-himself.</p>

-

-<p>Among the special problems connected with the

-diction of poetry to which the eighteenth century

-critics directed their attention, that of the use of

-archaic and obsolete words was prominent. It had

-been one of the methods by which the Elizabethans

-had hoped to enrich their language, but contemporary

-critics had expressed their disapproval, and it

-was left to Jonson, in this as in other similar matters,

-to express the reasonable view that “the eldest of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>

-the present and the newest of the past language is

-best.”<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Dryden, when about to turn the “Canterbury

-Tales” “into our language as it is now refined,”<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> was

-to express a similar common-sense view. “When

-an ancient word,” he said, with his Horace no doubt

-in his mind, “for its sound and significancy deserves

-to be revived, I have that reasonable veneration for

-antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is superstition.”</p>

-

-<p>A few years later the long series of Spenserian

-imitations had begun, so that the question of the poetic

-use of archaic and obsolete words naturally came into

-prominence. Pope, as might be expected, is to be

-found among the opposition, and in the “Dunciad”

-he takes the opportunity of showing his contempt for

-this kind of writing by a satiric gird, couched in

-supposedly archaic language:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">But who is he in closet close y-pent</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of sober face with learned dust besprent?</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">On parchment scraps y-fed and Wormius hight—</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Bk. III, ll. 185-8)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">an attack which is augmented by the ironic comment

-passed by “Scriblerus” in a footnote.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> Nevertheless,

-when engaged on his translation of Homer he had an

-inclination, like Cowper, towards a certain amount of

-archaism, though it is evident that he is not altogether

-satisfied on the point.<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p>

-

-<p>In Gray’s well-known letter to West, mentioned

-above, there is given a selection of epithets from

-Dryden, which he notes as instances of archaic words<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>

-preserved in poetry. Gray, as we know, had a keen

-sense of the value of words, and his list is therefore of

-special importance, for it appears to show that words

-like <i>mood</i>, <i>smouldering</i>, <i>beverage</i>, <i>array</i>, <i>wayward</i>,

-<i>boon</i>, <i>foiled</i>, etc., seemed to readers of 1742 much more

-old-fashioned than they do to us. Thirty years or

-so later he practically retracts the views expressed

-in this earlier letter, in which he had admirably

-defended the use in poetry of words obsolete in the

-current language of the day. “I think,” he wrote

-to James Beattie, criticizing “The Minstrel,”<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> “that

-we should wholly adopt the language of Spenser or

-wholly renounce it.” And he goes on to object to

-such words as <i>fared</i>, <i>meed</i>, <i>sheen</i>, etc., objections

-which were answered by Beattie, who showed that

-all the words had the sanction of such illustrious

-predecessors as Milton and Pope, and who added that

-“the poetical style in every nation abounds in old

-words”—exactly what Gray had written in his letter

-of 1742.</p>

-

-<p>Johnson, it need hardly be said, was of Pope’s

-opinion on this matter, and the emphatic protest

-which he, alarmed by such tendencies in the direction

-of Romanticism, apparent not only in the Spenserian

-imitations, but still more in such signs of the times as

-were to culminate in Percy’s “Reliques,” the Ossianic

-“simplicities” of Macpherson, and the Rowley

-“forgeries,” is evidence of the strength which the

-Spenserian revival had by then gained. “To imitate

-Spenser’s fiction and sentiments can incur no reproach,”

-he wrote: “but I am very far from extending the same

-respect to his diction and his stanza.”<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> To the end

-he continued to express his disapproval of those who

-favoured the “obsolete style,” and, like Pope, he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>

-finally indulges in a metrical fling at the innovators:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Phrase that time has flung away</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Uncouth words in disarray;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ode and Elegy and Sonnet.<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Goldsmith too had his misgivings. “I dislike the

-imitations of our old English poets in general,” he wrote

-with reference to “The Schoolmistress,” “yet, on

-this minute subject, the antiquity of the style produces

-a very ludicrous solemnity.”<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p>

-

-<p>On this matter of poetic archaism, the point of view

-of the average cultured reader, as distinct from the

-writer, is probably accurately represented in one of

-Chesterfield’s letters. Writing to his son,<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> he was

-particularly urgent that those words only should be

-employed which were found in the writers of the

-Augustan age, or of the age immediately preceding.

-To enforce his point he carefully explained to the

-boy the distinction between the pedant and the

-gentleman who is at the same time a scholar; the

-former affected rare words found only in the pages

-of obscure or antiquated authors rather than those

-used by the great classical writers.</p>

-

-<p>This was the attitude adopted in the main by William

-Cowper, who, after an early enthusiasm for the

-“quaintness” of old words, when first engaged on

-his translation of Homer, later repented and congratulated

-himself on having, in his last revisal, pruned

-away every “single expression of the obsolete kind.”<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>

-But against these opinions we have to set the frankly

-romantic attitude of Thomas Warton, who, in his

-“Observations on the Faerie Queen” (1754), boldly

-asserts that “if the critic is not satisfied, yet the

-reader is transported,” whilst he is quite confident

-that Spenser’s language is not so difficult and obsolete

-as it is generally supposed to be.<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>

-

-<p>Here and there we also come across references to

-other devices by which the poet is entitled to add to

-his word-power. Thus Addison grants the right of

-indulging in coinages, since this is a practice sanctioned

-by example, especially by that of Homer and Milton.<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>

-Pope considered that only such of Homer’s compound

-epithets as could be “done literally into English

-without destroying the purity of our language” or

-those with good literary sanctions should be adopted.<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>

-Gray, however, enters a caveat against coinages; in

-the letter to Beattie, already quoted, he objects to the

-word “infuriated,” and adds a warning not to “make

-new words without great necessity; it is very hazardous

-at best.”</p>

-

-<p>Finally, as a legacy or survival of that veneration

-for the “heroic poem,” which had found its latest

-expression in Davenant’s “Preface to Gondibert”<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a>

-(1650), the question of technical words is occasionally

-touched upon. Dryden, who had begun by asserting

-that general terms were often a mere excuse for ignorance,

-could later give sufficient reasons for the avoidance

-of technical terms,<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and it is not surprising to

-find that Gray was of a similar opinion. In his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span>

-criticism of Beattie’s “Minstrel” he objects to the

-terms <i>medium</i> and <i>incongruous</i> as being words of

-art, which savour too much of prose. Gray, we may

-presume, did not object to such words because they

-were not “elegant,” or even mainly because they were

-“technical” expressions. He would reject them

-because, for him, with his keen sense of the value of

-words, they were too little endowed with poetic colour

-and imagination. When these protests are remembered,

-the great and lasting popularity of “The Shipwreck”

-(1762) of William Falconer, with its free

-employment of nautical words and phrases, may be

-considered to possess a certain significance in the

-history of the Romantic reaction. The daring use of

-technical terms in the poem must have given pleasure

-to a generation of readers accustomed mainly to the

-conventional words and phrases of the accepted

-diction.</p>

-

-<p>When we review the “theory” of poetical language

-in the eighteenth century, as revealed in the sayings,

-direct and indirect, of poets and critics, we feel that

-there is little freshness or originality in the views

-expressed, very little to suggest the changes that were

-going on underneath, and which were soon to find

-their first great and reasoned expression. Nominally,

-it would seem that the views of the eighteenth century

-“classicists” were adequately represented and summed

-up in those of Johnson, for whom the ideal of poetical

-language was that which Dryden had “invented,” and

-of which Pope had made such splendid use in his

-translation of Homer. In reality, the practice of the

-“neo-classical” poets was largely influenced by the

-critical tenets of the school to which they belonged,

-especially by that pseudo-Aristotelian doctrine according

-to which poetry was to be an “imitation” of the

-best models, whilst its words, phrases, and similes

-were to be such as were generally accepted and consecrated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span>

-by poetic use. It was this conventionalism,

-reinforced by, as well as reflecting, the neo-classical

-outlook on external nature, that resulted in the

-“poetic diction” which Wordsworth attacked, and it

-is important to note that a similar stereotyped

-language is to be found in most of the contemporary

-poetry of Western Europe, and especially in that of

-France.<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p>

-

-<p>We need not be surprised, therefore, to find that

-neither Johnson, nor any of his “classical” contemporaries,

-appears to attach any importance to the

-fact that Pope in his essays and epistles had set up a

-standard of diction, of which it is not too much to

-say that it was an ideal vehicle of expression for the

-thoughts and feelings it had to convey. So enamoured

-were they of the pomp and glitter of the “Homer”

-that they apparently failed to see in this real “Pope

-style” an admirable model for all writers aiming at

-lucidity, simplicity, and directness of thought. We

-may see this clearly by means of an instructive comparison

-of Johnson’s judgments on the two “Pope

-styles.” “It is remarked by Watts,” he writes, “that

-there is scarcely a happy combination of words or a

-phrase poetically elegant in the English language

-which Pope has not inserted into his version of

-Homer.”<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> On the other hand, he is perhaps more

-than unjust to Pope’s plain didactic style when he

-speaks of the “harshness of diction,” the “levity

-without elegance” of the “Essay on Man.”<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>

-

-<p>It was not until the neo-classical poetry was in its

-death-agony that we meet with adequate appreciation

-of the admirable language which Pope brought to

-perfection and bequeathed to his successors. “The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span>

-familiar style,” wrote Cowper to Unwin,<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> “is of all

-the styles the most difficult to succeed in. To make

-verse speak the language of prose without being

-prosaic—to marshal the words of it in such an order

-as they might naturally take in falling from the lips

-of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness,

-harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming to displace

-a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the

-most arduous tasks a poet can undertake.” The

-“familiar style,” which Cowper here definitely characterizes,

-was in its own special province as good a model

-as was the beautiful simplicity of Blake when “poetical

-poetry” had once more come into its own; and it is

-important to remember that this fact received due

-recognition from both Wordsworth and Coleridge.

-“The mischief,” wrote the former,<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> “was effected not

-by Pope’s satirical and moral pieces, for these entitle

-him to the highest place among the poets of his class;

-it was by his ‘Homer.’... No other work in the

-language so greatly vitiated the diction of English

-poetry.” And Coleridge, too, called attention to the

-“almost faultless position and choice of words” in

-Pope’s original compositions, in comparison with the

-absurd “pseudo-poetic diction” of his translations of

-Homer.<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The “Pope style” failed to produce real

-poetry—poetry of infinite and universal appeal,

-animated with personal feeling and emotion not

-merely because of its preference for the generic rather

-than the typical, but because its practitioners for the

-most part lacked those qualities of intense imagination

-in which alone the highest art can have its birth.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br />

-<span class="smaller">THE “STOCK” DICTION OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>Since the time when Wordsworth launched his

-manifestoes on the language fit and proper for

-poetry, it may almost be said that whenever the

-term “poetic diction” is found used as a more or less

-generic term of critical disparagement, it has been

-with reference, implied or explicit, to the so-called

-classical poetry of the Augustan ages. But the condemnation

-has perhaps been given too wide an application,

-and hence there has arisen a tendency to place

-in this category all the language of all the poets who

-were supposed to have taken Pope as their model, so

-that “the Pope style” and “eighteenth century

-diction” have almost become synonymous terms, as

-labels for a lifeless, imitative language in which poets

-felt themselves constrained to express all their thoughts

-and feelings. This criticism is both unjust and misleading.

-For when this “false and gaudy splendour”

-is unsparingly condemned, it is not always recognized

-or remembered that it is mainly to be found in the

-descriptive poetry of the period.</p>

-

-<p>It is sufficient to glance at the descriptive verse of

-practically all the typical “classical” poets to discover

-how generally true this statement is. We cannot say,

-of course, that the varied sights and sounds of outdoor

-life made no appeal at all to them; but what we do

-feel is that whenever they were constrained to indulge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>

-in descriptive verse they either could not, or would

-not, try to convey their impressions in language of

-their very own, but were content in large measure to

-draw upon a common stock of dead and colourless

-epithets. Local colour, in the sense of accurate and

-particular observation of natural facts, is almost

-entirely lacking; there is no writing with the eye on

-the object, and it has been well remarked that their

-highly generalized descriptions could be transferred

-from poet to poet or from scene to scene, without any

-injustice. Thus Shenstone<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> describes his birthplace:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Romantic scenes of pendent hills</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And verdant vales, and falling rills,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And mossy banks, the fields adorn</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Where Damon, simple swain, was born—</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">a quatrain which, with little or no change of epithet,

-was the common property of the versifiers, and may

-be met with almost everywhere in early eighteenth

-century poetry. Every type of English scenery and

-every phase of outdoor life finds its description in

-lines of this sort, where the reader instinctively feels

-that the poet has not been careful to record his individual

-impressions or emotions, but has contented

-himself with accepting epithets and phrases consecrated

-to the use of natural description. A similar

-inability or indifference is seen even in the attempts

-to re-fashion Chaucer, or the Bible, or other old

-material, where the vigour and freshness and colour of

-the originals might have been expected to exercise a

-salutary influence. But to no purpose: all must be

-cast in the one mould, and clothed in the elegant diction

-of the time. Thus in Dryden’s modernization of the

-“Canterbury Tales” the beautiful simplicity of

-Chaucer’s descriptions of the sights and sounds of

-nature vanishes when garbed in the rapid and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>

-conventional phrases and locutions of the classicists.

-Chaucer’s “briddes” becomes “the painted birds,”

-a “goldfinch” is amplified into a “goldfinch with

-gaudy pride of painted plumes,” whilst a plain and

-simple mention of sunrise, “at the sun upriste,” has

-to be paraphrased into</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Aurora had but newly chased the night</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The old ballads and the Psalms suffered severely in the

-same way.<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p>

-

-<p>The fact that the words most frequently used in this

-stock poetic diction have usually some sort of connexion

-with dress or ornament has not escaped notice,

-and it has its own significance. It is, as it were, a

-reflex of the fact that the nature poetry of the period

-is in large measure the work of writers to whom social

-life is the central fact of existence, for whom meadow,

-and woodland, and running water, mountain and sea,

-the silent hills, and the starry sky brought no inspiration,

-or at least no inspiration powerful enough to lead

-them to break through the shackles of conventionality

-imposed upon them by the taste of their age. Words

-like “paint” and “painted,” “gaudy,” “adorn,”

-“deck,” “gilds” and “gilded,” “damasked,”

-“enamelled,” “embroidered,” and dozens similar

-form the stock vocabulary of natural description;

-apart from the best of Akenside, and the works of one

-or two writers such as John Cunningham, it can safely

-be said that but few new descriptive terms were added

-to the “nature vocabulary” of English poetry during

-this period. How far English poetry is yet distant

-from a recognition of the sea as a source of poetic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>

-inspiration may be perhaps seen from the fact that its

-most frequent epithet is the feeble term “watery,”

-whilst the magic of the sky by night or day evokes no

-image other than one that can be expressed by changes

-rung on such words as “azure,” “concave,” “serene,”

-“ætherial.” Even in “Night Thoughts,” where the

-subject might have led to something new and fresh in

-the way of a “star-vocabulary,” the best that Young

-can do is to take refuge in such periphrases as “tuneful

-spheres,” “nocturnal sparks,” “lucid orbs,” “ethereal

-armies,” “mathematic glories,” “radiant choirs,”

-“midnight counsellors,” etc.</p>

-

-<p>And the same lack of direct observation and individual

-expression is obvious whenever the classicists

-have to mention birds or animals. Wild life had to

-wait for White of Selborne, and for Blake and Burns

-and Cowper and Wordsworth, to be observed with

-accuracy and treated with sympathy; and it has been

-well remarked that if we are to judge from their verse,

-most of the poets of the first quarter of the eighteenth

-century knew no bird except the goldfinch or nightingale,

-and even these probably only by hearsay. For

-the same generalized diction is usually called upon, and

-birds are merely a “feathered,” “tuneful,” “plumy”

-or “warbling” choir, whilst a periphrasis, allowing of

-numerous and varied labels for the same animal, is

-felt to be the correct thing. In Dryden sheep are

-“the woolly breed” or “the woolly race”; bees are

-the “industrious kind” or “the frugal kind”; pigs

-are “the bristly care” or “the tusky kind”; frogs

-are “the loquacious race”; crows, “the craven kind,”

-and so on: “the guiding principle seems to be that

-nothing must be mentioned by its own name.”<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p>

-

-<p>Many of these stock epithets owed their appearance

-of course to the requirements imposed upon poets by

-their adherence to the heroic couplet. Pope himself

-calls attention to the fact that the necessities of rhyme

-led to the unceasing repetition of stereotyped phrases

-and locutions:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Where’er you find the “cooling western breeze.”</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In the next line it “whispers through the trees”;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">If crystal streams “with pleasing murmur creep”</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The reader’s threaten’d, not in vain, with “sleep”—</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">adducing, with unconscious irony, the very rhymes prevalent

-in much of his own practice.<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>

-

-<p>It was also recognized by the versifiers that the

-indispensable polish and “correctness” of the decasyllabic

-line could only be secured by a mechanical use

-of epithets in certain positions. “There is a vast

-beauty [to me],” wrote Shenstone, “in using a word of

-a particular nature in the 8th and 9th syllable of an

-English verse. I mean what is virtually a dactyl.

-For instance,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">And pykes, the tyrants of the wat’ry plains.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Let any person of any ear substitute <i>liquid</i> for <i>wat’ry</i>

-and he will find the disadvantage.”<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Saintsbury has

-pointed out<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> that the “drastic but dangerous device

-of securing the undulating penetration of the line by

-the use of the <i>gradus</i> epithet was one of the chief

-causes of the intensely artificial character of the

-versification and its attendant diction.... There

-are passages in the ‘Dispensary’ and ‘The Rape of

-the Lock,’ where you can convert the decasyllable

-into the octosyllable for several lines together without<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>

-detriment to sense or poetry by simply taking out these

-specious superfluities.”</p>

-

-<p>In the year of Dryden’s death (or perhaps in the

-following year) there had appeared the “Art of

-Poetry” by Edward Bysshe, whose metrical laws

-were generally accepted, as authoritative, during the

-eighteenth century. During the forty years of Dryden’s

-literary career the supremacy of the stopped

-regular decasyllabic couplet had gradually established

-itself as the perfect form of verse. But Bysshe was

-the first prosodist to formulate the “rules” of the

-couplet, and in doing so he succeeded, probably

-because his views reflected the general prosodic

-tendencies of the time, in “codifying and mummifying”

-a system which soon became erected into a creed.

-“The foregoing rules (<i>of accent on the even places and

-pause mainly at the 4th, 5th, or 6th syllable</i>) ought

-indispensably to be followed in all our verses of 10

-syllables: and the observation of them will produce

-Harmony, the neglect of them harshness and discord.”<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>

-Into this rigid mechanical mould contemporary

-and succeeding versifiers felt themselves constrained

-to place their couplets. But to pad out their

-lines they were nearly always beset with a temptation

-to use the trochaic epithets, of which numerous

-examples have been given above. As a natural result

-such epithets soon became part and parcel of the

-poetic stock of language, and hence most of them were

-freely used by poets, not because of any intrinsic

-poetic value, but because they were necessary to

-comply with the absurd mechanics of their vehicle of

-expression.</p>

-

-<p>Since the “Lives of the Poets” it has been customary

-to regard this “poetic diction” as the peculiar invention

-of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>

-century, and especially of Dryden and Pope, a belief

-largely due to Johnson’s eulogies of these poets. As

-an ardent admirer of the school of Dryden and Pope,

-it was only natural that Johnson should express an

-exalted opinion of their influence on the poetic practice

-of his contemporaries. But others—Gray amongst

-them—did not view their innovations with much complacency,

-and towards the end of the century Cowper

-was already foreshadowing the attack to be made by

-Wordsworth and Coleridge in the next generation.

-To Pope’s influence, he says in effect, after paying his

-predecessor a more or less formal compliment, was due

-the stereotyped form both of the couplet and of much

-of the language in which it was clothed. Pope had

-made</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">poetry a mere mechanic art</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And every warbler had his tune by heart;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and in one of his letters he stigmatizes and pillories the

-inflated and stilted phraseology of Pope, and especially

-his translation of Homer.<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Finally, Wordsworth and

-Coleridge agreed in ascribing the “poetical diction,”

-against which their manifestoes were directed, to that

-source.</p>

-

-<p>It is to be admitted that Pope’s translation is to

-some extent open to the charge brought against it of

-corrupting the language with a meretricious standard

-of poetic diction. In his Preface he expresses his misgivings

-as to the language fit and proper for an English

-rendering of Homer, and indeed it is usually recognized

-that his diction was, to a certain extent, imposed upon

-him both by the nature of his original, as well as by

-the lack of elasticity in his closed couplet. To the

-latter cause was doubtless due, not only the use of

-stock epithets to fill out the line, but also the inevitable<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>

-repetition of certain words, due to the requirements of

-rhyme, even at the expense of straining or distorting

-their ordinary meaning. Thus <i>train</i>, for instance, on

-account of its convenience as a rhyming word, is often

-used to signify “a host,” or “body,” and similarly

-<i>plain</i>, <i>main</i>, for the ocean. In this connexion it has

-also been aptly pointed out that some of the defects

-resulted from the fact that Pope had founded his own

-epic style on that of the Latin poets, whose manner is

-most opposed to Homer’s. Thus he often sought to

-deck out or expand simple thoughts or commonplace

-situations by using what he no doubt considered really

-“poetical language,” and thus, for instance, where

-Homer simply says, “And the people perished,” Pope

-has to say, “And heaped the camp with mountains of

-the dead.” The repeated use of periphrases: <i>feathered

-fates</i>, for “arrows”; <i>fleecy breed</i> for “sheep”; <i>the

-wandering nation of a summer’s day</i> for “insects”; <i>the

-beauteous kind</i> for “women”; <i>the shining mischief</i> for

-“a fascinating woman”; <i>rural care</i> for “the occupations

-of the shepherd”; <i>the social shades</i> for “the

-ghosts of two brothers,” may be traced to the same

-influence.<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p>

-

-<p>But apart from these defects the criticisms of

-Coleridge and Wordsworth, and their ascribing of the

-“poetical diction,” which they wished to abolish, to

-the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” are to a large extent

-unjust. Many of the characteristics of this “spurious

-poetic language” were well established long before

-Pope produced his translation. It is probable that

-they are present to a much larger extent, for instance,

-in Dryden; <i>painted</i>, <i>rural</i>, <i>finny</i>, <i>briny</i>, <i>shady</i>, <i>vocal</i>,

-<i>mossy</i>, <i>fleecy</i>, come everywhere in his translations, and

-not only there. Some of his adjectives in y are

-more audacious than those of Pope: <i>spongy clouds</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span>

-<i>chinky hives</i>, <i>snary webs</i>, <i>roomy sea</i>, etc. Most of the

-periphrases used by Pope and many more are already

-to be found in Dryden: “summer” is <i>the sylvan

-reign</i>; “bees,” <i>the frugal</i> or <i>industrious kind</i>;

-“arrows,” <i>the feathered wood</i> or <i>feathered fates</i>;

-“sheep,” <i>the woolly breed</i>; “frogs,” <i>the loquacious

-race</i>! From all Pope’s immediate predecessors and

-contemporaries similar examples may be quoted,

-like Gay’s</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Rural Sports”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or Ambrose Philips:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Hark: how they warble in the brambly bush</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The gaudy goldfinch or the speckly thrush</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Fourth Pastoral”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and that “Epistle to a Friend,” in which he ridicules

-the very jargon so much used in his own Pastorals.<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>

-

-<p>Pope then may justly be judged “not guilty,” at

-least “in the first degree,” of having originated the

-poetic diction which Johnson praised and Wordsworth

-condemned; in using it, he was simply using the

-stock language for descriptive poetry, whether original

-or in translations, which had slowly come into being

-during the last decade of the seventeenth century.

-If it be traced to its origins, it will be found that most

-of it originated with that poet who may fairly be

-called the founder of the English “classical” school<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span>

-of poetry—to Milton, to whom in large measure is due,

-not merely the invention, but also, by the very potency

-of the influence exercised by his great works, its vogue

-in the eighteenth century.</p>

-

-<p>Before the time of Milton, it is not too much to say,

-even when we remember the practice of Spenser and

-Donne and their followers, that there was no special

-language for poetry, little or nothing of the diction

-consecrated solely to the purposes of poets. The

-poets of the Elizabethan age and their immediate

-successors had access to all diction, upon which they

-freely drew. But it seems natural, indeed inevitable,

-that for Milton, resolved to sing of things “unattempted

-yet in prose or rhyme,” the ordinary language

-of contemporary prose or poetry should be found

-lacking. He was thus impelled, we may say, consciously

-and deliberately to form for himself a special

-poetical vocabulary, which, in his case, was abundantly

-justified, because it was so essentially fitted to his

-purpose, and bore the stamp of his lofty poetic genius.</p>

-

-<p>This poetical vocabulary was made up of diverse

-elements. Besides the numerous “classical” words,

-which brought with them all the added charm of

-literary reminiscence, there were archaisms, and words

-of Latin origin, as well as words deliberately coined

-on Latin and Greek roots. But it included also most

-of the epithets of which the eighteenth century versifiers

-were so fond. Examples may be taken

-from any of the descriptive portions of the “Paradise

-Lost”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(IV, 334)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">About me round I saw</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(VIII, 260-263)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span></p>

-

-<p>Other phrases, like “vernal bloom,” “lucid stream,”

-“starry sphere,” “flowery vale,” “umbrageous

-grots,” were to become the worn-out penny-pieces

-of the eighteenth century poetical mint. Milton

-indeed seems to have been one of the great inventors

-of adjectives ending in y, though in this respect

-he had been anticipated by Browne and others, and

-especially by Chapman, who has large numbers of

-them, and whose predilection for this method of

-making adjectives out of nouns amounts almost to

-an obsession.<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p>

-

-<p>Milton was also perhaps the great innovator with

-another kind of epithet, which called forth the censure

-of Johnson, who described it as “the practice of giving

-to adjectives derived from substantives the terminations

-of participles,” though the great dictator is here

-attacking a perfectly legitimate device freely used by

-the Jacobeans and by most of the poets since their

-time.<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Nor are there wanting in Milton’s epic instances

-of the idle periphrases banned by Wordsworth: <i>straw-built

-citadel</i> for “bee-hive,” <i>vernal bloom</i> for “spring

-flowers,” <i>smutty grain</i> for “gunpowder,” <i>humid train</i>

-for the flowery waters of a river, etc.<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p>

-

-<p>With Milton, then, may be said to have originated

-the “poetic diction,” which drew forth Wordsworth’s

-strictures, and which in the sequel proved a dangerous

-model for the swarm of versifiers who essayed to

-borrow or imitate it for the purpose of their dull and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>

-commonplace themes. How much the Miltonic language,

-as aped and imitated by the “landscape

-gardeners and travelling pedlars” of the eighteenth

-century, lost in originality and freshness, may be felt,

-rather than described, if we compare so well-known a

-passage as the following with any of the quotations

-given earlier:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent14">Yet not the more</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Clear Spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(P.L. III, 26-30)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>But the minor poets of the eighteenth century, who,

-by their mechanical imitations, succeeded in reducing

-Milton’s diction to the level of an almost meaningless

-jargon, had had every encouragement from their

-greater predecessors and contemporaries. The process

-of depreciation may be seen already in Dryden, and it

-is probably by way of Pope that much of the Miltonic

-language became part of the eighteenth century poetic

-stock-in-trade. Pope was a frequent borrower from

-Milton, and, in his “Homer” especially, very many

-reminiscences are to be found, often used in an artificial,

-and sometimes in an absurd, manner.<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Moreover,

-Pope’s free and cheapened use of many of Milton’s

-descriptive epithets did much to reduce them to the

-rank of merely conventional terms, and in this respect

-the attack of Wordsworth and Coleridge was not

-without justice. But on the whole the proper conclusion

-would seem to be that what is usually labelled

-as “the <i>Pope</i> style” could with more justice and

-aptness be described as “the pseudo-Miltonic style.”

-It is true that the versifiers freely pilfered the “Homer,”

-and the vogue of much of the stock diction is thus<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span>

-due to that source, but so far as Pope himself is concerned

-there is justice in his plea that he left this

-style behind him when he emerged from “Fancy’s

-maze” and “moralized his song.”</p>

-

-<p>To what extent this catalogue of lifeless words and

-phrases had established itself as the poetical thesaurus

-is to be seen in the persistency with which it maintained

-its position until the very end of the century,

-when Erasmus Darwin with a fatal certainty evolved

-from it all its worst features, and thus did much

-unconsciously to crush it out of existence. James

-Thomson is rightly regarded as one of the most

-important figures in the early history of the Romantic

-Revolt, and he has had merited praise for his attempts

-to provide himself with a new language of his own.

-In this respect, however, he had been anticipated by

-John Philips, whose “Splendid Shilling” appeared in

-1705, followed by “Cyder” a year later. Philips,

-though not the first Miltonic imitator, was practically

-the first to introduce the Miltonic diction and phrases,

-whilst at the same time he acquired the knack of adding

-phrases of his own to the common stock. He was

-thus an innovator from whom Thomson himself

-learned not a little.</p>

-

-<p>But though the “Seasons” is ample testimony to

-a new and growing alertness to natural scenery,

-Thomson found it hard to escape from the fetters of

-the current poetic language. We feel that he is at

-least trying to write with his eye steadily fixed upon

-the object, but he could perhaps hardly be expected to

-get things right from the very beginning. Thus a

-stanza from his “Pastoral Entertainment” is purely

-conventional:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The place appointed was a spacious vale</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Fanned always by a cooling western gale</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Which in soft breezes through the meadow stray</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And steal the ripened fragrances away—</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">while he paraphrases a portion of the sixth chapter of

-St. Matthew into:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Observe the rising lily’s snowy grace,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Observe the various vegetable race,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where the stock terms scarcely harmonize with the

-simple Biblical diction. He was well aware of the

-attendant dangers and difficulties, and in the first book

-of “The Seasons” he gives expression to the need he

-feels of a language fit to render adequately all that he

-sees in Nature.<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> But though there is much that is

-fresh and vivid in his descriptive diction, and much

-that reveals him as a bold pioneer in poetic outlook

-and treatment, the tastes and tendencies of his age

-were too strong entirely to be escaped. Birds are the

-<i>plumy</i>, or <i>feathered people</i>, or <i>the glossy kind</i>,<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> and a

-flight of swallows is <i>a feathered eddy</i>; sheep are <i>the

-bleating kind</i>, etc. In one passage (“Spring,” ll. 114-135)

-he deals at length with the insects that attack the

-crops without once mentioning them by name: they

-are <i>the feeble race</i>, <i>the frosty tribe</i>, <i>the latent foe</i>, and

-even <i>the sacred sons of vengeance</i>. He has in general

-the traditional phraseology for the mountains and the

-sea, though a few of his epithets for the mountains, as

-<i>keen-air’d</i> and <i>forest-rustling</i>, are new. He speaks of

-the Alps as <i>dreadful</i>, <i>horrid</i>, <i>vast</i>, <i>sublime</i>. <i>Shaggy</i> and

-<i>nodding</i> are also applied to mountains as well as to

-rocks and forests; winter is usually described in the

-usual classical manner as <i>deformed</i> and <i>inverted</i>.

-Leaves are the <i>honours</i> of trees, paths are <i>erroneous</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>

-caverns <i>sweat</i>, etc., and he also makes large use of

-Latinisms.<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p>

-

-<p>John Dyer (1700-1758), though now and then conventional

-in his diction, has a good deal to his credit,

-and is a worthy contemporary of the author of “The

-Seasons.” Thus in the “Country Walk” it is the old

-stock diction he gives us:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Look upon that <i>flowery plain</i></div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">How the sheep surround their <i>swain</i>;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">And there behold a <i>bloomy mead</i>,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">A silver stream, a willow shade;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and much the same thing is to be found in “The

-Fleece,” published in 1757:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The crystal dews, impearl’d upon the grass,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Are touched by Phœbus’ beams and mount aloft,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">With various clouds to paint the azure sky;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst he has almost as many adjectives in y as Ambrose

-Philips. But these are more than redeemed by the

-new descriptive touches which appear, sometimes

-curiously combined with the stereotyped phrases, as

-in “The Fleece” (Bk. III):</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The scatter’d mists reveal the dusky hills;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Grey dawn appears; the golden morn ascends,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And paints the glittering rocks and purple woods.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Nor must we forget “Grongar Hill,” which has justly

-received high praise for its beauties and felicities of

-description.</p>

-

-<p>It is scarcely necessary to illustrate further the vogue

-of this sort of diction in the first half of the eighteenth

-century; it is to be found everywhere in the poetry of

-the period, and the conventional epithets and phrases<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>

-quoted from Dyer and Thomson may be taken as

-typical of the majority of their contemporaries. But

-this lifeless, stereotyped language has also invaded the

-work of some of the best poets of the century, including

-not only the later classicists, but also those who have

-been “born free,” and are foremost among the

-Romantic rebels. The poetic language of William

-Collins shows a strange mixture of the old style and

-the new. That it was new and individual is well seen

-from Johnson’s condemnation, for Johnson recognized

-very clearly that the language of the “Ode on

-the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands” did not

-conform to what was probably his own view that the

-only language fit and proper for poetry was such as

-might bear comparison with the polish and elegance

-of Pope’s “Homer.” It is not difficult to make due

-allowance for Johnson when he speaks of Collins’s

-diction as “harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudicially

-selected”; we deplore the classical bias, and are

-content enough to recognize and enjoy for ourselves

-the matchless beauty and charm of Collins’s diction

-at its best. Yet much of the language of his earlier

-work betrays him as more or less a poetaster of the

-eighteenth century. The early “Oriental Eclogues”

-abound in the usual descriptive details, just as if the

-poet had picked out his words and phrases from the

-approved lists. Thus,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Yet midst the blaze of courts she fixed her love</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">On the cool fountain or the shady grove</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Still, with the shepherd’s innocence her mind</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">To the sweet vale and flowery mead inclined;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and even in the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions”

-there were expressions like <i>watery surge</i>, <i>sheeny gold</i>,

-though now and then the “new” diction is strikingly

-exemplified in a magnificent phrase such as <i>gleamy

-pageant</i>.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span></p>

-

-<p>When Collins has nothing new to say his poetic

-language is that of his time, but when his inspiration

-is at its loftiest his diction is always equal to the task,

-and it is then that he gives us the unrivalled felicities

-of “The Ode to Evening.”</p>

-

-<p>Amongst all the English poets there has probably

-never been one, even when we think of Tennyson,

-more careful and meticulous (or “curiously elaborate,”

-as Wordsworth styled it) about the diction of his

-verses, the very words themselves, than Gray. This

-fact, and not Matthew Arnold’s opinion that it was

-because Gray had fallen on an “age of prose,” may

-perhaps be regarded as sufficient to explain the comparative

-scantiness of his literary production. He

-himself, in a famous letter, has clearly stated his ideal

-of literary expression: “Extreme conciseness of

-expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one

-of the grand beauties of lyrical poetry.”<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Hence all

-his verses bear evidence of the most painstaking labour

-and rigorous self-criticism, almost as if every word

-had been weighed and assessed before being allowed

-to appear. His correspondence with Mason and

-Beattie, referred to in the previous chapter, shows the

-same fastidiousness with regard to the work of others.

-Gray indeed, drawing freely upon Milton and Dryden,

-created for himself a special poetic language which

-in its way can become almost as much an abuse as

-the otiosities of many of his predecessors and contemporaries—the

-“cumbrous splendour” of which

-Johnson complained. Yet he is never entirely free

-from the influence of the “classical” diction which,

-for Johnson, represented the ideal. His earliest work

-is almost entirely conventional in its descriptions, the

-prevailing tone being exemplified in such phrases as

-<i>the purple year</i>, <i>the Attic Warbler pours her throat</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span>

-(Ode on “The Spring”), whilst in the “Progress of

-Poesy,” lines like</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Through verdant vales and Ceres’ golden reign</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">are not uncommon, though of course the possibility

-of the direct influence of the classics, bringing with it

-the added flavour of reminiscence, is not to be ignored

-in this sort of diction. Moreover, a couplet from the

-fragmentary “Alliance of Education and Government”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Scent the new fragrance of <i>the breathing rose</i></div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And quaff <i>the pendent vintage</i> as it grows—</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">is almost typical, apart from the freshness of the

-epithet <i>breathing</i>, of what Wordsworth wished to

-abolish. Even the “Elegy” has not escaped

-the contagion: <i>storied urn</i> or <i>animated bust</i> is

-perilously akin to the pedantic periphrases of the

-Augustans.</p>

-

-<p>Before passing to a consideration of the work

-of Johnson and Goldsmith, who best represent

-the later eighteenth century development of the

-“classical” school of Pope, reference may be made

-to two other writers. The first of these is Thomas

-Chatterton. In that phase of the early Romantic

-Movement which took the form of attempts to revive

-the past, Chatterton of course played an important

-part, and the pseudo-archaic language which he

-fabricated for the purpose of his “Rowley” poems

-is interesting, not only as an indication of the trend

-of the times towards the poetic use of old and obsolete

-words, but also as reflecting, it would seem, a genuine

-endeavour to escape from the fetters of the conventional

-and stereotyped diction of his day. On the

-other hand, in his avowedly original work, Chatterton’s

-diction is almost entirely imitative. He has scarcely<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>

-a single fresh image or description; his series of

-“Elegies” and “Epistles” are clothed in the current

-poetic language. He uses the stock expressions,

-<i>purling streams</i>, <i>watery bed</i>, <i>verdant vesture of the

-smiling fields</i>, along with the usual periphrases,

-such as <i>the muddy nation</i> or <i>the speckled folk</i>

-for “frogs.” One verse of an “Elegy” written

-in 1768 contains in itself nearly all the conventional

-images:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ye variegated children of the Spring,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ye blossoms blushing with the pearly dew;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ye birds that sweetly in the hawthorn sing;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ye flowery meads, lawns of verdant hue.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">It can be judged from these examples how a stereotyped

-mode of expression may depreciate to a large

-extent the value of much of the work of a poet of real

-genius. Chatterton is content in most of his avowedly

-“original” work to turn his poetic thoughts into the

-accepted moulds, which is all the more surprising

-when we remember his laborious methods of

-manufacturing an archaic diction for his mediaeval

-“discoveries,”<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> even if we may assume that

-it reflected a strong desire for something fresh and

-new.</p>

-

-<p>A poet of much less genius, but one who enjoyed

-great contemporary fame, was William Falconer,

-whose “Shipwreck,” published in 1762, was the most

-popular sea-poem of the eighteenth century. The

-most striking characteristic of the descriptive parts

-of the poem is the daring and novel use of technical

-sea-terms, but apart from this the language is purely

-conventional. The sea is still the same <i>desert-waste</i>,

-<i>faithless deep</i>, <i>watery way</i>, <i>world</i>, <i>plain</i>, <i>path</i>, or <i>the

-fluid plain</i>, <i>the glassy plain</i>, whilst the landscape<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>

-catalogue is as lifeless as any of the descriptive passages

-of the early eighteenth century:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent18">on every spray</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The warbling birds exalt their evening lay,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Blithe skipping o’er yon hill the fleecy train</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">When he leaves this second-hand description, and

-describes scenes actually experienced and strongly

-felt, Falconer’s language is correspondingly fresh and

-vivid, the catastrophe of the shipwreck itself, for

-example, being painted with extraordinary power.<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>

-

-<p>When we come to Johnson and Goldsmith, here

-again a distinction must be made between the didactic

-or satiric portion of their work and that which is

-descriptive. Johnson’s didactic verse, marked as it is

-by a free use of inversion and ellipsis, rarely attains

-the clearness and simplicity of Goldsmith’s, whilst he has

-also much more of the stock descriptive terms and

-phrases. His “Odes” are almost entirely cast in this

-style. Thus in “Spring”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Now o’er the rural Kingdom roves</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">Soft Pleasure with her laughing train,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Love warbles in the vocal groves</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">And vegetation plants the plains,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst exactly the same stuff is turned out for a love

-poem, “To Stella”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Not the soft sighs of vernal gales</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The fragrance of the flowery vales</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The murmurs of the crystal rill</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The vocal grove, the verdant hill.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Though there is not so much of this kind of otiose<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span>

-description in the poems of Goldsmith, yet Mr. Dobson’s

-estimate of his language may be accepted as a

-just one: “In spite of their beauty and humanity,”

-he says, “the lasting quality of ‘The Traveller’ and

-‘The Deserted Village’ is seriously prejudiced by his

-half-way attitude between the poetry of convention

-and the poetry of nature—between the <i>gradus</i> epithet

-of Pope and the direct vocabulary of Wordsworth.”<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>

-Thus when we read such lines as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Traveller,” ll. 293-4)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">we feel that Goldsmith too has been writing with his

-eye on the object, and even in such a line as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The breezy covert of the warbling grove</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 360)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">there is a freshness of description that compensates

-for the use of the hackneyed <i>warbling grove</i>. On the

-other hand, there are in both pieces passages which it

-is difficult not to regard as purely conventional in

-their language. Thus in “The Traveller,” the diction,

-if not entirely of the stock type, is not far from it:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and so on for another dozen lines.<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p>

-

-<p>Only the slightest traces, however, of this mechanical

-word-painting appear in “The Deserted Village,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>

-almost the only example of the stereotyped phrase

-being in the line</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">These simple blessings of <i>the lowly train</i></div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(l. 252).</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Thus whilst Goldsmith in much of his work continues

-the classical school of Pope, alike in his predilection

-for didactic verse and his practice of the heroic couplet,

-in his poetic language he is essentially individual. In

-his descriptive passages he rarely uses the conventional

-jargon, and the greater part of the didactic and moral

-observations of his two most famous poems is written

-in simple and unadorned language that would satisfy

-the requirements of the Wordsworthian canon.</p>

-

-<p>That pure and unaffected diction could be employed

-with supreme effect in other than moral and didactic

-verse was soon to be shown in the lyric poetry of

-William Blake, who, about thirty years before Wordsworth

-launched his manifestoes, evolved for himself a

-poetic language, wonderful alike in its beauty and

-simplicity. In those of the “Songs of Innocence” and

-“The Songs of Experience,” which are concerned with

-natural description, the epithets and expressions that

-had long been consecrated to this purpose find little

-or no place. Here and there we seem to catch echoes

-of the stock diction, as in the lines,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">the starry floor</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">the watery shore</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">of the Introduction to the “Songs of Experience,”

-or the</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">happy, silent, <i>moony</i> beams</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">of “The Cradle Song”; but in each case the expressions

-are redeemed and revitalized by the pure and

-joyous singing note of the lyrics of which they form

-part. Only once is Blake to be found using the conventional<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>

-epithet, when in his “Laughing Song” he

-writes</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">the <i>painted</i> birds laugh in the shade,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst with his usual unerring instinct he marks down

-the monotonous smoothness of so much contemporary

-verse in that stanza of his ode “To the Muses” in

-which, as has been well said, the eighteenth century

-dies to music:<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">How have you left the ancient love</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">That bards of old enjoyed in you!</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The languid strings do scarcely move,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The sound is forced, the notes are few.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Not that he altogether escaped the blighting influence

-of his time. In the early “Imitation of Spenser,” we

-get such a couplet as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">To sit in council with his modern peers</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And judge of tinkling rhimes and elegances terse,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst the “vicious diction” Wordsworth was to condemn

-is also to be seen in this line from one of the early

-“Songs”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">and Phœbus fir’d my vocal rage.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Even as late as 1800 Blake was capable of writing</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Receive this tribute from a harp sincere.<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">But these slight blemishes only seem to show up in

-stronger light the essential beauty and nobility of his

-poetical style.</p>

-

-<p>But the significance of Blake’s work in the purging

-and purifying of poetic diction was not, as might

-perhaps be expected, recognized by his contemporaries<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>

-and immediate successors. For Coleridge, writing

-some thirty years later, it was Cowper, and his less

-famous contemporary Bowles, who were the pioneers

-in the rejecting of the old and faded style and the

-beginning of the new, the first to combine “natural

-thoughts with natural diction.”<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> Coleridge’s opinion

-seems to us now to be an over-statement, but we

-rather suspect that Cowper was not unwilling to

-regard himself as an innovator in poetic language. In

-his correspondence he reveals himself constantly pre-occupied

-with the question of poetic expression, and

-especially with the language fit and proper for his

-translation of Homer. His opinion of Pope’s attempt

-has already been referred to, but he himself was well

-aware of the inherent difficulties.<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> He had, it would

-seem, definite and decided opinions on the subject of

-poetic language; he recognized the lifelessness of the

-accepted diction, which, rightly or wrongly, he attributed

-especially to the influence of Pope’s “Homer,”

-and tried to escape from its bondage. His oft-quoted

-thesis that in the hands of the eighteenth century poets

-poetry had become a “mere mechanic art,” he

-developed at length in his ode “Secundum Artem,”

-which comprises almost a complete catalogue of the

-ornaments which enabled the warblers to have their

-tune by heart. What Cowper in that ode pillories—“the

-trim epithets,” the “sweet alternate rhyme,”

-the “flowers of light description”—were in the main

-what were to be held up to ridicule in the <i>Lyrical

-Ballads</i> prefaces; Wordsworth’s attack is here anticipated

-by twenty years.</p>

-

-<p>But, as later in the case of Wordsworth, Cowper in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span>

-his early work has not a little of the language which he

-is at such pains to condemn. Thus Horace again

-appears in the old familiar guise,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Now o’er the spangled hemisphere,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Diffused the starry train appear</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Fifth Satire”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst even in “Table Talk” we find occasional conventional

-descriptions such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Nature...</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Spreads the fresh verdure of the fields and leads</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>But there is little of this kind of description in “The

-Task.” Now and then we meet with examples of the

-old periphrases, such as the <i>pert voracious kind</i> for

-“sparrows,” or the description of kings as the <i>arbiters

-of this terraqueous swamp</i>, though many of these

-pseudo-Miltonic expressions are no doubt used for

-playful effect. In those parts of the poem which deal

-with the sights and sounds of outdoor life the images

-are new and fresh, whilst in the moral and didactic

-portions the language is, as a rule, uniformly simple

-and direct. But for the classical purity of poetical

-expression in which the poet is at times pre-eminent,

-it is perhaps best to turn to his shorter poems, such

-as “To Mary,” or to the last two stanzas of “The

-Castaway,” and especially to some of the “Olney

-Hymns,” of the language of which it may be said that

-every word is rightly chosen and not one is superfluous.

-Indeed, it may well be that these hymns,

-together with those of Watts and Wesley,<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> which by

-their very purpose demanded a mode of expression

-severe in its simplicity, but upon which were stamped

-the refinement and correct taste of the scholars and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>

-gentlemen who wrote them—it may well be that the

-more natural mode of poetic diction which thus arose

-gave to Wordsworth a starting point when he began

-to expound and develop his theories concerning the

-language of poetry.<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p>

-

-<p>Whilst Cowper was thus at once heralding, and to a

-not inconsiderable extent exemplifying, the Romantic

-reaction in form, another poet, George Crabbe, had by

-his realism given, even before Cowper, an important

-indication of one characteristic aspect of the new

-poetry.</p>

-

-<p>But though the force and fidelity of his descriptions

-of the scenery of his native place, and the depth and

-sincerity of his pathos, give him a leading place

-among those who anticipated Wordsworth, other

-characteristics stamp him as belonging to the old

-order and not to the new. His language is still largely

-that perfected by Dryden and Pope, and worked to

-death by their degenerate followers. The recognized

-“elegancies” and “flowers of speech” still linger on.

-A peasant is still a <i>swain</i>, poets are <i>sons of verse</i>, fishes

-<i>the finny tribe</i>, country folk <i>the rural tribe</i>. The word

-<i>nymph</i> appears with a frequency that irritates the

-reader, and how ludicrous an effect it could produce

-by its sudden appearance in tales of the realistic type

-that Crabbe loved may be judged from such examples

-as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">It soon appeared that while this nymph divine</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Moved on, there met her rude uncivil kine.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Whilst he succeeds in depicting the life of the rustic

-poor, not as it appears in the rosy tints of Goldsmith’s

-pictures, but in all its reality—sordid, gloomy and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>

-stern, as it for the most part is—the old stereotyped

-descriptions are to be found scattered throughout

-his grimly realistic pictures of the countryside. Thus

-when Crabbe writes of</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent16">tepid meads</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And lawns irriguous and the blooming field</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Midnight”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The lark on quavering pinion woo’d the day</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Less towering linnets fill’d the vocal spray</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“The Candidate”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">we feel that he has not had before his eyes the real

-scenes of his Suffolk home, but that he has been content

-to recall and imitate the descriptive stock-in-trade

-that had passed current for so many years;

-even the later “Tales,” published up to the years

-when Shelley and Keats were beginning their activities,

-are not free from this defect.</p>

-

-<p>About ten years before Wordsworth launched his

-manifestoes, there were published the two works of

-Erasmus Darwin, to which reference has already been

-made, and in which this stock language was unconsciously

-reduced to absurdity, not only because of the

-themes on which it was employed, but also because

-of the fatal ease and facility with which it was used.

-It is strange to think that but a few years before the

-famous sojourn of Coleridge and Wordsworth on the

-Quantocks, “The Loves of the Plants,” and its fellow,

-should have won instant and lasting popularity.<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p>

-

-<p>That Darwin took himself very seriously is to be

-seen from “The Interludes,” in which he airs his

-views,<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> whilst in his two poems he gave full play to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>

-his “fancy” (“‘theory’ we cannot call it,” comments

-De Quincey) that nothing was strictly poetic

-except what is presented in visual image. This in

-itself was not bad doctrine, as it at least implied that

-poetry should be concrete, and thus reflected a desire

-to escape from the abstract and highly generalized

-diction of his day. But Darwin so works his dogma

-to death that the reader is at first dazzled, and finally

-bewildered by the multitude of images presented, in

-couplets of monotonous smoothness, in innumerable

-passages, such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">On twinkling fins my pearly nations play</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Or wind with sinuous train their trackless way:</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Botanic Garden,” I)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Still there is something to be said for the readers who

-enjoyed having the facts and theories of contemporary

-science presented to them in so coloured and fantastic

-a garb.</p>

-

-<p>Nor must it be forgotten that the youthful Wordsworth

-was much influenced by these poems of Darwin,

-so that his early work shows many traces of the very

-pseudo-poetic language which he was soon to condemn.

-Thus in “An Evening Walk”<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> there are such stock

-phrases as “emerald meads,” “watery plains,” the

-“forest train.”</p>

-

-<p>In “Descriptive Sketches” examples are still more

-numerous. Thus:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And amorous music on the water dies,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">which might have come direct from Pope, or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Here all the seasons revel hand-in-hand</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">’Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span></p>

-

-<p>The old epithet <i>purple</i> is frequently found (<i>purple</i>

-lights and vernal plains, the <i>purple</i> morning, the

-fragrant mountain’s <i>purple</i> side), and there are a few

-awkward adjectives in y (“the <i>piny</i> waste”), whilst

-a gun is described as the <i>thundering tube</i>.</p>

-

-<p>Few poems indeed are to be found in the eighteenth

-century with so many fantastic conceits as these

-1793 poems of Wordsworth. Probably, as has been

-suggested, the poet was influenced to an extent

-greater than he himself imagined by “The Botanic

-Garden,” so that the poetical devices freely employed

-in his early work may be the result of a determination

-to conform to the “theory” of poetry which Darwin

-in his precept and practice had exemplified. Later,

-the devices which had satisfied him in his first youthful

-productions must have appeared to him as more or

-less vicious, and altogether undesirable, and in disgust

-he resolved to exclude at one stroke all that he was

-pleased to call “poetic diction.” But, little given

-to self-criticism, when he penned his memorable

-Prefaces, he fixed the responsibility for “the extravagant

-and absurd diction” upon the whole body of

-his predecessors, unable or unwilling to recognize

-that he himself had begun his poetic career with a free

-use of many of its worst faults.<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p>

-

-<p>Of the stock diction of eighteenth century poetry

-we may say, then, that in the first place it is in large

-measure a reflection of the normal characteristic

-attitude of the poets of the “neo-classical” period

-towards Nature and all that the term implies. The

-“neo-classical” poets were but little interested in

-Nature; the countryside made no great appeal to

-them, and it was the Town and its teeming life that

-focused their interest and attention. Man, and his

-life as a social being, was their “proper study”;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>

-and this concentration of interest finds its reflection

-in the new and vivid language of the “essays,” satires,

-and epistles, whilst in the “nature poetry” the

-absence of genuine feeling is only too often betrayed

-by the dead epithets of the stock diction each poet

-felt himself at liberty to draw upon according to his

-needs. It is scarcely necessary to remind ourselves

-that it is in Pope’s “Pastorals” and the “Homer,”

-not in the “Dunciad” or “The Essay on Man,”

-that the stock words, phrases, and similes are to be

-found, and the remark is equally true of most of the

-poets of his period. But Pope has been unjustly

-pilloried, for the stock diction did not originate with

-him. It is true that the most masterly and finished

-examples of what is usually styled “the eighteenth

-century poetic diction” are to be found in his work

-generally, and no doubt the splendour of his translation

-of Homer did much to establish a vogue for many

-of the set words and phrases. At the same time

-the supremacy of the heroic couplet which he did so

-much to establish played its part in perpetuating the

-stock diction, the epithets of which were often technically

-just what was required to give the decasyllabic

-verse the desired “correctness” and “smoothness.”

-But it is unjust to saddle him with the responsibility

-for the lack of originality evident in many of

-his successors and imitators.</p>

-

-<p>The fact that this stock language is not confined

-to the neo-classical poets proper, but is found to a

-large extent persisting to the very end of the eighteenth

-century, and even invading the early work of the

-writer who led the revolt against it, is indicative of

-another general cause of its widespread prevalence.

-Briefly, it may be said that not only did the conventional

-poetic diction reflect in the main the average

-neo-classical outlook on external nature; it reflected

-also the average eighteenth century view as to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span>

-nature of poetical language, which regarded its words

-and phrases as satisfying the artistic canon, not in

-virtue of the degree in which they reflected the individual

-thought or emotion of the poet, but according

-as they conformed to a standard of language based on

-accepted models.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br />

-<span class="smaller">LATINISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>There is now to be noticed another type of

-eighteenth century poetic diction which was

-in its way as prevalent, and, it may be added,

-as vicious, as the stock diction which has been discussed

-in the previous chapter. This was the use of

-a latinized vocabulary, from the early years of the

-century down to the days when the work of Goldsmith,

-Cowper, and Crabbe seemed to indicate a sort of

-interregnum between the old order and the new.</p>

-

-<p>This fashion, or craze, for “latinity” was not of

-course a sudden and special development which came

-in with the eighteenth century: it was rather the

-culmination of a tendency which was not altogether

-unconnected with the historic development of the

-language itself. As a factor in literary composition,

-it had first begun to be discussed when the Elizabethan

-critics and men of letters were busying themselves

-with the special problem of diction. Latinism was

-one of the excesses to which poets and critics alike

-directed their attention, and their strictures and

-warnings were such as were inevitable and salutary

-in the then transitional confusion of the language.<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a>

-In the early years of the seventeenth century this

-device for strengthening and ornamenting the language

-was adopted more or less deliberately by such poets<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>

-as Phineas and Giles Fletcher, especially the latter,

-who makes free use of such coinages as <i>elamping</i>,

-<i>appetence</i>, <i>elonging</i>, etc.<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p>

-

-<p>The example of the Fletchers in thus adding to their

-means of literary expression was soon to be followed

-by a greater poet. When Milton came to write his

-epics, it is evident, as has been said, that he felt the

-need for a diction in keeping with the exalted theme

-he had chosen, and his own taste and temperament,

-as well as the general tendencies of his age, naturally

-led him to make use of numerous words of direct

-or indirect “classical” origin. But his direct coinages

-from Latin and Greek are much less than has often

-been supposed.<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> What he seems to have done in many

-cases was to take words the majority of which had

-been recently formed, usually for scientific or philosophic

-purposes, and incorporate them in his poetical

-vocabulary. Thus <i>Atheous</i>, <i>attrite</i>, <i>conflagrant</i>, <i>jaculation</i>,

-<i>myrrhine</i>, <i>paranymph</i>, <i>plenipotent</i>, etc., are

-instances of classical formations which in most cases

-seem, according to “The New English Dictionary,”

-to have made their first literary appearance shortly

-before the Restoration. In other instances Milton’s

-latinisms are much older.<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> What is important is the

-fact that Milton was able to infuse these and many

-similar words with a real poetic power, and we may be

-sure that the use of such words as <i>ethereal</i>, <i>adamantine</i>,

-<i>refulgent</i>, <i>regal</i>, whose very essence, as has been

-remarked, is suggestiveness, rather than close definition,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>

-was altogether deliberate.<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> In addition to this

-use of a latinized vocabulary, there is a continuous

-latinism of construction, which is to be found in the

-early poems, but which, as might be expected, is

-most prominent in the great epics, where idioms like

-<i>after his charge received</i> (P.L., V 248), <i>since first her

-salutation heard</i> (P.R., II, 107) are frequent.<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p>

-

-<p>Milton, we may say, of purpose prepense made or

-culled for himself a special poetical vocabulary which

-was bound to suffer severely at the hands of incompetent

-and uninspired imitators. But though the

-widespread use of latinized diction is no doubt largely

-to be traced to the influence of Milton at a time when

-“English verse went Milton mad,” it may perhaps

-also be regarded as a practice that reflected to a certain

-extent the general literary tendencies of the Augustan

-age.</p>

-

-<p>When Milton was writing his great epics Dryden

-was just beginning his literary career, but though

-there are numerous examples of latinisms in the works

-of the latter, they are not such as would suggest that

-he had been influenced to any extent by the Miltonic

-manner of creating a poetical vocabulary. There is

-little or no coinage of the “magnificent” words which

-Milton used so freely, though latinized forms like

-<i>geniture</i>, <i>irremeable</i>, <i>praescious</i>, <i>tralineate</i>, are frequent.

-Dryden, however, as might be expected, often uses

-words in their original etymological sense. Thus

-besides the common use of <i>prevent</i>, <i>secure</i>, etc., we find

-in the translation of the “Metamorphoses”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">He had either <i>led</i></div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Thy mother then,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where <i>led</i> is used in the sense of Latin <i>ducere</i> (marry)<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>

-and “<i>refers</i> the limbs,” where “refers” means

-“restores.”<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Examples are few in Dryden’s original

-works, but “Annus Mirabilis” furnishes instances

-like the <i>ponderous ball expires</i>, where “expires” means

-“is blown forth,” and “each wonted room <i>require</i>”

-(“seek again”), whilst there is an occasional reminiscence

-of such Latin phrases as “manifest of crimes”

-for <i>manifestus sceleris</i> (“Ab. and Achit.”).</p>

-

-<p>What has been said of the latinisms of Dryden

-applies also to those of Pope. Words like <i>prevent</i>,

-<i>erring</i>, <i>succeed</i>, <i>devious</i>, <i>horrid</i>, <i>missive</i>, <i>vagrant</i>, are

-used with their original signification, and there are

-passages like</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">For this he bids the <i>nervous</i> artists vie.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Imitations of Latin constructions are occasionally

-found:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Some god has told them, or themselves survey</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4"><i>The bark escaped</i>.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Phrases like “<i>fulgid</i> weapons,” “roseate <i>unguents</i>,”

-“<i>circumfusile</i> gold,” “<i>frustrate</i> triumphs,” etc., are

-probably coinages imposed by the necessities of

-translation. Other similar phrases, such as (tears)

-“<i>conglobing</i> on the dust,” “with <i>unctuous</i> fir <i>foment</i> the

-flame,” seem to anticipate something of the absurdity

-into which this kind of diction was later to fall.<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p>

-

-<p>On the whole, the latinisms found in the works

-of Dryden and Pope are not usually deliberate creations

-for the purpose of poetic ornament. They are such

-as would probably seem perfectly natural in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>

-seventeenth and early eighteenth century, when the

-traditions of classical study still persisted strongly,

-and when the language of prose itself was still receiving

-additions from that source. Moreover, the large

-amount of translation done by both poets from the

-classics was bound to result in the use of numerous

-classical terms and constructions.</p>

-

-<p>In 1705 there appeared the “Splendid Shilling” of

-John Philips, followed by his “Cyder” and other poems

-a year later. These poems are among the first of the

-Miltonic parodies or imitations, and, being written in

-blank verse, they may be regarded as heralding the

-struggle against the tyranny of the heroic couplet.

-Indeed, blank verse came to be distinctly associated

-with the Romantic movement, probably because it

-was considered that its structure was more encouraging

-to the unfettered imagination than the closed couplets

-of the classicists. It is thus interesting to note that

-the reaction in form, which marks one distinct aspect

-of Romanticism, was really responsible for some of the

-excesses against which the manifestoes afterwards

-protested; for it is in these blank verse poems

-especially that there was developed a latinism both of

-diction and construction that frequently borders on

-the ludicrous, even when the poet’s object was not

-deliberately humorous.</p>

-

-<p>In “Blenheim” terms and phrases such as <i>globous

-iron</i>, <i>by chains connexed</i>, etc., are frequent, and the

-attempts at Miltonic effects is seen in numerous

-passages like</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent10">Upborne</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">By frothy billows thousands float the stream</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In cumbrous mail, with love of farther shore;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Confiding in their hands, that sed’lous strive</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">To cut th’ outrageous fluent.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">In “Cyder” latinisms are still more abundant: <i>the

-nocent brood</i> (of snails), <i>treacle’s viscuous juice</i>, <i>with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>

-grain incentive stored</i>, <i>the defecated liquour</i>, <i>irriguous

-sleep</i>, as well as passages like</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Nor from the sable ground expect success</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">Nor from cretacious, stubborn or jejune,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Bards with volant touch</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Traverse loquacious strings.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">This kind of thing became extremely common and

-persisted throughout the eighteenth century.</p>

-

-<p>Incidentally, it may here be remarked that the

-publication of Philips’s poems probably gave to Lady

-Winchilsea a hint for her poem “Fanscombe Barn.”<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a>

-Philips, as has been noted, was one of the very first

-to attempt to use Milton’s lofty diction, and his

-latinized sentence structure for commonplace and

-even trivial themes, and no doubt his experiment,

-having attracted Lady Winchilsea’s attention,

-inspired her own efforts at Miltonic parody, though

-it is probably “Cyder” and “The Splendid Shilling,”

-rather then “Paradise Lost,” that she takes as her

-model. Thus the carousings of the tramps forgathered

-in Fanscombe Barn are described:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">the swarthy bowl appears,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Replete with liquor, globulous to fight,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And threat’ning inundation o’er the brim;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and the whole poem shows traces of its second-hand

-inspiration.</p>

-

-<p>Even those who are now remembered chiefly as

-Spenserian imitators indulge freely in a latinized

-style when they take to blank verse. Thus William

-Thompson, who in his poem “Sickness” has many

-phrases like “the arm <i>ignipotent</i>,” “<i>inundant</i> blaze”

-(Bk. I), “terrestrial stores medicinal” (Bk. III),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>

-with numerous passages, of which the following is

-typical:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent26">the poet’s mind</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">(Effluence essential of heat and light)</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Now mounts a loftier wing when Fancy leads</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The glittering track, and points him to the sky</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Excursive.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Bk. IV)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">William Shenstone, the author of one of the most

-successful of the Spenserian imitations, is more

-sparing in this respect, but even in his case passages

-such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent10">Of words indeed profuse,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of gold tenacious, their torpescent soul</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Clenches their coin, and what electric fire</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Shall solve the frosty grip, and bid it flow?</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Economy,” Part I)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">are not infrequent.</p>

-

-<p>But it is not only the mere versifiers who have

-succumbed to this temptation. By far the most

-important of the early blank verse poems was

-Thomson’s “Seasons,” which, first appearing from

-1726-1730, was subsequently greatly revised and

-altered up to the edition of 1746, the last to be issued

-in the author’s lifetime.<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> The importance and success

-of “The Seasons” as one of the earliest indications of

-the “Return to Nature” has received adequate

-recognition, but Thomson was an innovator in the

-style, as well as in the matter, of his poem. As Dr.

-Johnson remarked, he saw things always with the

-eyes of a poet, and the quickened and revived interest

-in external nature which he reflects inevitably impelled

-him to search for a new diction to give it expression.

-We can see him, as it were, at work trying to replace

-the current coinage with a new mintage of his own,

-or rather with a mixed currency, derived partly from

-Milton, and partly from his own resources. His<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span>

-diction is thus in some degrees as artificial as the

-stock diction of his period, especially when his attempts

-to emulate or imitate the magnificence of Milton

-betray him into pomposity or even absurdity; but

-his poetical language as a whole is leavened with so

-much that is new and his very own as to make it clear

-that the Romantic revival in the style, as well as in

-the contents, of poetry has really begun. The resulting

-peculiarities of style did not escape notice in his

-own time. He was recognized as the creator of a new

-poetical language, and was severely criticized even

-by some of his friends. Thus Somerville urged with

-unusual frankness a close revision of the style of “The

-Seasons”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Read Philips much, consider Milton more</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">But from their dross extract the purer ore:</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">To coin new words or to restore the old</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In southern lands is dangerous and bold;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">But rarely, very rarely, will succeed</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">When minted on the other side of Tweed.<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Thomson’s comment on this criticism was emphatic:

-“Should I alter my ways I should write poorly. I

-must choose what appears to be the most significant

-epithet or I cannot proceed.”<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> Hence, though lines

-and whole passages of “The Seasons” were revised,

-and large additions made, the characteristics of the

-style were on the whole preserved. And one of the

-chief characteristics, due partly to the influence of

-Milton, and partly to the obvious fact that for Thomson

-with new thoughts and impressions to convey to his

-readers, the current and conventional vocabulary

-of poetry needed reinforcement, is an excessive use

-of latinisms.<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span></p>

-

-<p>Thus in “Spring” we find, e.g., “<i>prelusive</i> drops,”

-“the <i>amusive</i> arch” (the rainbow), “the torpid sap

-<i>detruded</i> to the root,” etc., as well as numerous passages

-such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent10">Joined to these</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Innumerous songsters in the freshening shade</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Mellifluous.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 607 foll.)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">In “Summer” the epithet <i>gelid</i> appears with almost

-wearisome iteration, with other examples like <i>flexile</i>

-wave, <i>the fond sequacious bird</i>, etc., while the cloud

-that presages a storm is called “the small prognostic”

-and trees are “the noble sons of potent heat

-and floods.” Continuous passages betray similar

-characteristics:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Its hue cerulean and of evening tinct.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 149 foll.)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent"><i>Autumn</i> furnishes even more surprising instances:

-the stag “<i>adhesive</i> to the track,” the sands “strowed

-<i>bibulous</i> above,” “forests huge <i>incult</i>,” etc., as well as

-numerous passages of sustained latinism.<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p>

-

-<p>In “Winter,” which grew from an original 405 lines

-in 1726 to 1,069 lines in 1746, latinism of vocabulary

-is not prominent to the same extent as in the three

-previous books, but the following is a typical sample:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Meantime in sable cincture shadows vast</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Deep-tinged, and damp and congregated clouds</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Involves the face of things.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(ll. 54 foll.)<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>The revisions after 1730 do not show any great

-pruning, or less indulgence in these characteristics;

-rather the contrary, for many of them are additions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>

-which did not appear until 1744. Now and then

-Thomson has changed his terms and epithets. Thus

-in the lines</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent12">the potent sun</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Melts into</i> limpid air the high-raised clouds</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 199)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">the expression “melts into” has replaced the earlier

-“attenuates to.”<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> One of the best of the emendations,

-at least as regards the disappearance of a

-latinism, is seen in “Summer” (48-9), where the

-second verse of the couplet,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">At first <i>faint-gleaming</i> in the dappled east</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">has replaced the</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mildly elucent</i> in the streaky east</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">of the earlier version. Often Thomson’s latinisms

-produce no other effect on the reader than that of mere

-pedantry. Thus in passages such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">See, where the winding vale its lavish stores</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Irriguous</i> spreads. See, how the lily drinks</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>latent</i> rill.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 494)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent16">the canvas smooth</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">With glowing life <i>protuberant</i>.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Autumn,” 136)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The fallow ground laid open to the sun</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Concoctive</i>.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 407)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or the description of the tempest</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Struggling through the <i>dissipated</i> grove</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 185)<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">(where there is Latin <i>order</i> as well as diction), it is

-certain that the terms in question have little or no

-poetic value, and that simpler words in nearly every

-case would have produced greater effects. Now and

-then, as later in the case of Cowper, the pedantry is,

-we may suppose, deliberately playful, as when he

-speaks of the cattle that</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">ruminate in the contiguous shade</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 86)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or indicates a partial thaw by the statement</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">Perhaps the vale</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">relents awhile to the reflected ray.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 784)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>The words illustrated above are rarely, of course,

-Thomson’s own coinage. Many of them (e.g. <i>detruded</i>,

-<i>hyperborean</i>, <i>luculent</i>, <i>relucent</i>, <i>turgent</i>) date from the

-sixteenth century or earlier, though from the earliest

-references to them given in the “New English Dictionary”

-it may be assumed that Thomson was not

-always acquainted with the sources where they are

-first found, and that to him their “poetic” use is

-first due. In some cases Milton was doubtless the

-immediate source from which Thomson took such

-words, to use them with a characteristic looseness of

-meaning.<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p>

-

-<p>It would be too much to say that Thomson’s use of

-such terms arises merely out of a desire to emulate

-the “grand style”; it reflects rather his general

-predilection for florid and luxurious diction. Moreover,

-it has been noted that an analysis of his latinisms

-seems to point to a definite scheme of formation.

-Thus there is a distinct preference for certain groups of

-formations, such as adjectives in “-ive” (<i>affective</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>

-<i>amusive</i>, <i>excursive</i>, etc.), or in “-ous” (<i>irriguous</i>,

-<i>sequacious</i>), or Latin participle forms, such as <i>clamant</i>,

-<i>turgent</i>, <i>incult</i>, etc. In additions Latin words are

-frequently used in their original sense, common

-instances being <i>sordid</i>, <i>generous</i>, <i>error</i>, <i>secure</i>, <i>horrid</i>,

-<i>dome</i>, while his blank verse line was also characterized

-by the free use of latinized constructions.<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a>

-Thomson’s frequent use of the sandwiched noun,

-“flowing rapture bright” (“Spring,” 1088), “gelid

-caverns woodbine-wrought,” (“Summer,” 461), “joyless

-rains obscure” (“Winter,” 712), often with the

-second adjective used predicatively or adverbially,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">High seen the Seasons lead, <i>in sprightly dance</i></div>

-    <div class="verse indent2"><i>Harmonious knit</i>, the rosy-fingered hours</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 1212)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">is also worthy of note.</p>

-

-<p>Yet it can hardly be denied that the language of

-“The Seasons” is in many respects highly artificial,

-and that Thomson was to all intents and purposes

-the creator of a special poetic diction, perhaps even

-more so than Gray, who had to bear the brunt of

-Wordsworth’s fulminations. But on the whole his

-balance is on the right side; at a time when the

-majority of his contemporaries were either content

-to draw drafts on the conventional and consecrated

-words, phrases, and similes, or were sedulously

-striving to ape the polished plainness of Pope, he

-was able to show that new powers of expression

-could well be won from the language. His nature

-vocabulary alone is sufficient proof of the value of

-his contributions to the poetic wealth of the language,

-not a few of his new-formed compounds especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>

-being expressive and beautiful.<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> His latinisms are

-less successful because they can hardly be said to belong

-to any diction, and for the most part they must be

-classed among the “false ornaments” derided by

-Wordsworth;<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> not only do they possess none of that

-mysterious power of suggestion which comes to words

-in virtue of their employment through generations of

-prose and song, but also not infrequently their meaning

-is far from clear. They are never the spontaneous

-reflection of the poet’s thought, but, on the contrary,

-they appear only too often to have been dragged in

-merely for effect.</p>

-

-<p>This last remark applies still more forcibly to

-Somerville’s “Chase,” which appeared in 1735. Its

-author was evidently following in the wake of

-Thomson’s blank verse, and with this aim freely

-allows himself the use of an artificial and inflated

-diction, as in many passages like</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Cull each salubrious plant, with bitter juice</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Concoctive stored, and potent to allay</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Each vicious ferment.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>About the same time Edward Young was probably

-writing his “Night Thoughts,” though the poem was

-not published until 1742. Here again the influence

-of Thomson is to be seen in the diction, though no

-doubt in this case there is also not a little that derives

-direct from Milton. Young has Latin formations like

-<i>terraqueous</i>, <i>to defecate</i>, <i>feculence</i>, <i>manumit</i>, as well

-as terms such as <i>avocation</i>, <i>eliminate</i>, and <i>unparadize</i>,

-used in their original sense. In the second instalment

-of the “Night Thoughts” there is a striking increase

-in the number of Latin terms, either borrowed directly,

-or at least formed on classical roots, some of which must<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>

-have been unintelligible to many readers. Thus

-<i>indagators</i> for “seekers,” <i>fucus</i> for “false brilliance,”

-<i>concertion</i> for “intimate agreement,” and <i>cutaneous</i> for

-“external,” “skin deep”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">All the distinctions of this little life</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Are quite cutaneous.<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">It is difficult to understand the use of such terms when

-simple native words were ready at hand, and the

-explanation must be that they were thought to add

-to the dignity of the poem, and to give it a

-flavour of scholarship; for the same blemishes appear

-in most of the works published at this time. Thus in

-Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (1744)

-there is a similar use of latinized terms: <i>pensile

-planets</i>, <i>passion’s fierce illapse</i>, <i>magnific praise</i>, though

-the tendency is best illustrated in such passages as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent16">that trickling shower</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Piercing through every crystalline convex</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of clustering dewdrops to their flight opposed,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Recoil at length where, concave all behind</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The internal surface of each glassy orb</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Repels their forward passage into air.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>In “The Poet” there is a striking example of

-what can only be the pedantic, even if playful,

-use of a cumbrous epithet:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">On shelves <i>pulverulent</i>, majestic stands</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">His library.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Similar examples are to be found in “The Art of

-Preserving Health” by John Armstrong, published<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>

-in the same year as Akenside’s “Pleasures.” The

-unpoetical nature of this subject may perhaps be

-Armstrong’s excuse for such passages as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Mournful eclipse or planets ill-combined</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Portend disastrous to the vital world;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">but this latinizing tendency was perhaps never responsible

-for a more absurd periphrasis than one to be

-found in the second part of the poem, which treats of

-“Diet”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Nor does his gorge the luscious bacon rue,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of solid milk.<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The high Miltonic manner was likewise attempted by

-John Dyer in “The Fleece,” which appeared in 1757,

-and by James Grainger in “The Sugar Cane” (1764),

-to mention only the most important. Dyer, deservedly

-praised for his new and fresh descriptive diction, has

-not escaped this contagion of latinism: <i>the globe

-terraqueous</i>, <i>the cerule stream</i>, <i>rich sapinaceous loam</i>,

-<i>detersive bay salt</i>, etc., while elsewhere there are obvious

-efforts to recapture the Miltonic cadence. In “The

-Sugar Cane” the tendency is increased by the necessity

-thrust upon the poet to introduce numerous

-technical terms. Thus</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent12">though all thy mills</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Crackling, o’erflow with a redundant juice</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Poor tastes the liquor; coction long demands</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And highest temper, ere it saccharize.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Meanwhile Joseph Warton had written his one

-blank verse poem “The Enthusiast” (1740), when

-he was only eighteen years old. But though both he

-and his brother Thomas are among the most important

-of the poets who show the influence of Milton most

-clearly, that influence reveals itself rather in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>

-matter of thought than of form, and there is in “The

-Enthusiast” little of the diction that marred so many

-of the blank verse poems. Only here and there may

-traces be seen, as in the following passage:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent14">fairer she</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In innocence and homespun vestments dress’d</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Shone pendent.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">There is still less in the poems of Thomas Warton, who

-was even a more direct follower of Milton than his

-elder brother. There is scarcely one example of a

-Latinism in “The Pleasures of Melancholy,” which

-is really a companion piece to “The Enthusiast.”

-The truth is that it was Milton’s early work—and

-especially “Il Penseroso”—that affected most deeply

-these early Romanticists, and even their blank verse

-is charged with the sentiments and phrases of Milton’s

-octosyllabics. Thus the two poets, who were among

-the first to catch something of the true spirit of Milton,

-have little or nothing of the cumbersome and pedantic

-diction found so frequently in the so-called “Miltonics”

-of the eighteenth century, and this in itself is one

-indication of their importance in the earlier stages of

-the Romantic revival.</p>

-

-<p>This is also true in the case of Collins and Gray, who

-are the real eighteenth century disciples of Milton.

-Collins’s fondness for personified abstractions may

-perhaps be attributed to Milton’s influence, but there

-are few, if any, traces of latinism in his pure and simple

-diction. Gray was probably influenced more than he

-himself thought by Milton, and like Milton he made

-for himself a special poetical language, which owes not

-a little to the works of his great exemplar. But

-Gray’s keen sense of the poetical value of words, and

-his laborious precision and exactness in their use,

-kept him from any indulgence in coinages. Only one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>

-or two latinisms are to be found in the whole of his

-work, and when these do occur they are such as would

-come naturally to a scholar, or as were still current in

-the language of his time. Thus in “The Progress of

-Poesy” he has</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">this <i>pencil</i> take,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where “pencil” stands for “brush” (Latin, <i>pensillum</i>);

-whilst in a translation from Statius he gives

-to <i>prevent</i> its latinized meaning</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">the champions, trembling at the sight</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prevent</i> disgrace.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">There is also a solitary example in the “Elegy” in

-the line</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Can Honour’s voice <i>provoke</i> the silent dust.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>The contemporary fondness for blank verse had

-called forth the strictures of Goldsmith in his “Inquiry

-into the Present State of Polite Learning,” and his

-own smooth and flowing couplets have certainly none

-of the pompous epithets which he there condemns.

-His diction, if we except an occasional use of the stock

-descriptive epithets, is admirable alike in its simplicity

-and directness, and the two following lines from “The

-Traveller” are, with one exception,<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> the only examples

-of latinisms to be found in his poems:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">While sea-born gales their <i>gelid</i> wings expand,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Fall blunted from each <i>indurated</i> heart.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Dr. Johnson, who represented the extreme classicist

-position with regard to blank verse and other tendencies<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>

-of the Romantic reaction, had a good deal to say in

-the aggregate about the poetical language of his

-predecessors and contemporaries. But the latinism

-of the time, which was widespread enough to have

-attracted his attention, does not seem to have provoked

-from him any critical comment. His own

-poetical works, even when we remember the “Vanity

-of Human Wishes,” where plenty of instances of

-Latin idiom are to be found, are practically free from

-this kind of diction, though this does not warrant the

-inference that he disapproved of it. We know that

-his prose was latinized to a remarkable extent, so that

-his “sesquipedalian terminology” has been regarded

-as the fountain-head of that variety of English which

-delights in “big,” high-sounding words. But his

-ideal, we may assume, was the polished and elegant

-diction of Pope, and his own verse is as free from

-pedantic formations as is “The Lives of the Poets,”

-which perhaps represents his best prose.</p>

-

-<p>It is in the works of a poet who, though he continues

-certain aspects of neo-classicism, yet announces

-unmistakably the coming of the new age, that we find

-a marked use of a deliberately latinized diction.

-Cowper has always received just praise for the purity

-of his language; he is, on the whole, singularly free

-from the artificialities and inversions which had

-marked the accepted poetic diction, but, on the other

-hand, his language is latinized to an extent that has

-perhaps not always been fully realized.</p>

-

-<p>This is, however, confined to “The Task” and to

-the translation of the “Iliad.” In the former case

-there is first a use of words freely formed on Latin

-roots, for most of which Cowper had no doubt abundant

-precedents,<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> but which, in some cases, must have been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>

-coined by him, perhaps playfully in some instances;

-<i>twisted form vermicular</i>, <i>the agglomerated pile</i>, <i>the

-voluble and restless earth</i>, etc. Other characteristics

-of this latinized style are perhaps best seen in continuous

-passages such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent14">he spares me yet</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And, though himself so polished, still reprieves</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The obsolete prolixity of shade</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Bk. I, ll. 262 foll.)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or in such a mock-heroic fling as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The stable yields a stercoraceous heap</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Impregnated with quick fermenting salts</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And potent to resist the freezing blast.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Bk. III, 463)<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">On these and many similar occasions Cowper has

-turned his predilection to playful account, as also

-when he diagnoses the symptoms of gout as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">pangs arthritic that infest the toe</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of libertine excess,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or speaks of monarchs and Kings as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">There is still freer use of latinisms in the “Homer”:<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a>

-<i>her eyes caerulean</i>, <i>the point innocuous</i>, <i>piercing accents

-stridulous</i>, <i>the triturated barley</i>, <i>candent lightnings</i>,

-<i>the inherent barb</i>, <i>his stream vortiginous</i>, besides such

-passages as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">nor did the Muses spare to add</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Responsive melody of vocal sweets.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span></p>

-

-<p>The instances given above fully illustrate on the

-whole the use of a latinized diction in eighteenth

-century poetry.<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> It must not, however, be supposed

-that the fashion was altogether confined to the blank

-verse poems. Thus Matthew Prior in “Alma,” or

-“The Progress of the Mind,” has passages like</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent8">the word obscene</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Or harsh which once elanced must ever fly</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Irrevocable,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst Richard Savage in his “Wanderer” indulges

-in such flights as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent24">his breath</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">A nitrous damp that strikes petrific death.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">One short stanza by William Shenstone, from his

-poem “Written in Spring, 1743,” contains an obvious

-example in three out of its four lines:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">Again the labouring hind inverts the soil,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Again the merchant ploughs the tumid wave,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Another spring renews the soldier’s toil,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And finds me vacant in the rural cave.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>But it is in the blank verse poems that the fashion

-is most prevalent, and it is there that it only too often

-becomes ludicrous. The blind Milton, dying, lonely

-and neglected, a stranger in a strange land, is hardly

-likely to have looked upon himself as the founder of

-a “school,” or to have suspected to what base uses his

-lofty diction and style were to be put, within a few

-decades of his death, by a swarm of poetasters who

-fondly regarded themselves as his disciples.<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span>

-early writers of blank verse, such as John Philips,

-frankly avowed themselves imitators of Milton, and

-there can be little doubt that in their efforts to catch

-something of the dignity and majesty of their model

-the crowd of versifiers who then appeared on the

-scene had recourse to high-sounding words and phrases,

-as well as to latinized constructions by which they

-hoped to elevate their style. The grand style of

-“Paradise Lost” was bound to suffer severely at the

-hands of imitators, and there can be little doubt but

-that much of the preposterous latinizing of the time

-is to be traced to this cause. At the same time the

-influence of the general literary tendencies of the

-Augustan ages is not to be ignored in this connexion.

-When a diction freely sprinkled with latinized terms

-is found used by writers like Thomson in the first

-quarter, and Cowper at the end of the century, it may

-perhaps also be regarded as a mannerism of style due

-in some degree to influences which were still powerful

-enough to affect literary workmanship. For it must

-be remembered that in the eighteenth century the

-traditional supremacy of Latin had not yet altogether

-died out: pulpit and forensic eloquence, as well as

-the great prose works of the period, still bore abundant

-traces of the persistency of this influence.<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Hence

-it need not be at all surprising to find that it has

-invaded poetry. The use of latinized words and

-phrases gave, or was supposed to give, an air of culture

-to verse, and contemporary readers did not always,

-we may suppose, regard such language as a mere

-display of pedantry.</p>

-

-<p>In this, as in other respects of the poetic output of

-the period, we may see a further reflex of the general

-literary atmosphere of the first half or so of the

-eighteenth century. There was no poetry of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>

-highest rank, and not a great deal of <i>poetical</i> poetry;

-the bulk of the output is “poetry without an atmosphere.”

-The very qualities most admired in prose—lucidity,

-correctness, absence of “enthusiasm”—were

-such as were approved for poetry; even the

-Romantic forerunners, with perhaps the single exception

-of Blake, felt the pressure of the prosaic atmosphere

-of their times. No doubt had a poet of the

-highest order appeared he would have swept away

-much of the accumulated rubbish and fashioned for

-himself a new poetic language, as Thomson tried, and

-Wordsworth later thought to do. But he did not

-appear, and the vast majority of the practitioners

-were content to ring the changes on the material they

-found at hand, and were not likely to dream of anything

-different.</p>

-

-<p>It is thus not sufficient to say that the “rapid and

-almost simultaneous diffusion of this purely cutaneous

-eruption,” to borrow an appropriate description from

-Lowell, was due solely to the potent influence of

-Milton. It reflects also the average conception of

-poetry held throughout a good part of the eighteenth

-century, a conception which led writers to seek in

-mere words qualities which are to be found in them

-only when they are the reflex of profound thought or

-powerful emotion. In short, latinism in eighteenth

-century poetry may be regarded as a literary fashion,

-akin in nature to the stock epithets and phrases of the

-“descriptive” poetry, which were later to be unsparingly

-condemned as the typical eighteenth century

-poetical diction.</p>

-

-<p>Of the poetic value of these latinized words little

-need be said. Whether or no they reflect a conscious

-effort to extend, enrich, or renew the vocabulary of

-English poetry, they cannot be said to have added

-much to the expressive resources of the language.

-This is not, of course, merely because they are of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>

-direct Latin origin. We know that around the central

-Teutonic core of English there have slowly been built

-up two mighty strata of Latin and Romance formations,

-which, in virtue of their long employment by

-writers in prose and verse, as well as on the lips of the

-people, have slowly acquired that force and picturesqueness

-which the poet needs for his purpose.

-But the latinized words of the eighteenth century are

-on a different footing. To us, nowadays, there is

-something pretentious and pedantic about them:

-they are artificial formations or adoptions, and not

-living words. English poets from time to time have

-been able to give a poetical colouring to such words,<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a>

-and the eighteenth century is not without happy

-instances of this power. James Thomson here and

-there wins real poetic effects from his latinized vocabulary,

-as in such a passage as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Here lofty trees to ancient song unknown</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The noble sons of potent heat and floods</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Meridian gloom.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 653 foll.)<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The “return to Nature,” of which Thomson was

-perhaps the most noteworthy pioneer, brought back

-all the sights and sounds of outdoor life as subjects

-fit and meet for the poet’s song, and it is therefore of

-some interest, in the present connexion, to note that

-Wordsworth himself, who also knew how to make

-excellent use of high-sounding Latin formations,

-has perhaps nowhere illustrated this faculty better

-than in the famous passage on the Yew Trees of

-Borrowdale:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Those fraternal Four of Borrowdale</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Joined in one solemn and capacious grove:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of intertwisted fibres serpentine</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">That threaten the profane.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">But the bulk of eighteenth century latinisms fall

-within a different category; rarely do they convey,

-either in themselves or in virtue of their context, any

-of that mysterious power of association which constitutes

-the poetic value of words and enables the

-writer, whether in prose or verse, to convey to his

-reader delicate shades of meaning and suggestion

-which are immediately recognized and appreciated.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br />

-<span class="smaller">ARCHAISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>One of the earliest and most significant of those

-literary manifestations which were to culminate

-in the triumph of Romanticism was a new

-enkindled interest in the older English writers. The

-attitude of the great body of the so-called “Classicists”

-towards the earlier English poetry was not

-altogether one of absolute contempt: it was rather

-marked by that indifference which is the outcome

-of ignorance. Readers and authors, with certain

-illustrious exceptions, were totally unacquainted with

-Chaucer, and though Spenser fared better, even those

-who did know him did not at first consider him worthy

-of serious study.<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> Yet the Romantic rebels, by their

-attempts to imitate Spenser, and to reveal his poetic

-genius to a generation of unbelievers, did work of

-immediate and lasting value.</p>

-

-<p>It is perhaps too much to claim that some dim

-perception of the poetic value of old words contributed

-in any marked degree to this Spenserian revival

-in the eighteenth century. Yet it can hardly be

-doubted that Spenser’s language, imperfectly understood

-and at first considered “barbarous,” or

-“Gothic,” or at best merely “quaint,” came ultimately

-to be regarded as supplying something of that

-atmosphere of “old romance” which was beginning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span>

-to captivate the hearts and minds of men. This is

-not to say that there was any conscious or deliberate

-intention of freshening or revivifying poetic language

-by an infusion of old or “revived” words. But the

-Spenserian and similar imitations naturally involved

-the use of such words, and they thus made an important

-contribution to the Romantic movement on its

-purely formal side; they played their part in destroying

-the pseudo-classical heresy that the best, indeed

-the only, medium for poetic expression was the

-polished idiom of Pope and his school.</p>

-

-<p>The poets and critics of Western Europe, who, as

-we have seen, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth

-centuries had busied themselves with the question

-of refining and embellishing their mother tongue,

-had advocated among other means the revival of

-archaic and obsolete words. Spenser himself, we

-know, had definitely adopted this means in the

-“Shepherds Kalendar,” though the method of increasing

-his poetical vocabulary had not been approved

-by all of his contemporaries and successors. Milton,

-when forming the special poetical language he needed

-for his immense task, confined himself largely to

-“classical” coinages, and his archaisms, such as <i>swinkt</i>,

-<i>rathe</i>, <i>nathless</i>, <i>frore</i>, are comparatively few in number.<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p>

-

-<p>Dryden’s attitude towards old words was stated

-with his customary good sense, and though his

-modernization of Chaucer gave him endless opportunities

-of experimenting with them, he never abused

-the advantage, and indeed in all his work there is but

-little trace of the deliberate revival of obsolete or

-archaic words. In the “Fables” may be found a few

-words such as <i>sounded</i><a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> (swounded) which had been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>

-used by Malory and Spenser, <i>laund</i> for (lawn), <i>rushed</i>

-(cut-off), etc., and he has also Milton’s <i>rathe</i>. Dryden,

-however, is found using a large number of terms

-which were evidently obsolete in the literary language,

-but which, it may be supposed, still lingered in the

-spoken language, and especially in the provincial

-dialects. He is fond of the word <i>ken</i> (to know), and

-amongst other examples are <i>stead</i> (place), <i>to lease</i>

-(glean), <i>shent</i> (rebuked), <i>hattered</i> (worn out), <i>dorp</i> (a

-village), <i>buries</i> (burrows), etc. Dryden is also

-apparently responsible for the poetic use of the term

-“<i>doddered</i>,” a word of somewhat uncertain meaning,

-which, after his time and following his practice, came

-into common use as an epithet for old oaks, and,

-rarely, for other trees.<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p>

-

-<p>As might be expected, there are few traces of the

-use of obsolete or archaic words in the works of Pope.

-The “correct” style did not favour innovations in

-language, whether they consisted in the formation of

-new words or in the revival of old forms. Pope

-stated in a letter to Hughes, who edited Spenser’s

-works (1715), that “Spenser has been ever a favourite

-poet to me,”<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> but among the imitations “done by

-the Author in his Youth,” there is “The Alley,” a

-very coarse parody of Spenser, which does not point

-to any real appreciation or understanding on the part

-of Pope. In the first book of the “Dunciad” as we

-have seen, he indulged in a fling at the antiquaries,

-especially Hearne and those who took pleasure in our

-older literature, by means of a satiric stanza written

-in a pseudo-archaic language.<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> But his language

-is much freer than that of Dryden from archaisms or

-provincialisms. He has forms like <i>gotten</i>, <i>whelm</i> (overwhelm),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>

-<i>rampires</i> (ramparts), <i>swarths</i>, <i>catched</i> (caught),

-<i>thrice-ear’d</i> (ploughed), etc. Neither Dryden nor

-Pope, it may be said, would ever have dreamed of

-reviving an archaic word simply because it was an

-old word, and therefore to be regarded as “poetical.”

-To imagine this is to attribute to the seventeenth

-and early eighteenth centuries a state of feeling which

-is essentially modern, and which lends a glamour to

-old and almost forgotten words. Dryden would accept

-any word which he considered suitable for his purpose,

-but he always insisted that old words had to prove

-their utility, and that they had otherwise no claim

-to admission to the current vocabulary. Pope, however,

-we may suspect, would not admit any words

-not immediately intelligible to his readers, or requiring

-a footnote to explain them.</p>

-

-<p>Meanwhile, in the year 1715, there had appeared the

-first attempt to give a critical text of Spenser, when

-John Hughes published his edition of the poet’s works

-in six volumes, together with a biography, a glossary,

-and some critical remarks.<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> The obsolete terms which

-Hughes felt himself obliged to explain<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> include many,

-such as <i>aghast</i>, <i>baleful</i>, <i>behest</i>, <i>bootless</i>, <i>carol</i>, <i>craven</i>,

-<i>dreary</i>, <i>forlorn</i>, <i>foray</i>, <i>guerdon</i>, <i>plight</i>, <i>welkin</i>, <i>yore</i>,

-which are now for the most part familiar words,

-though forty years later Thomas Warton in his

-“Observations on The Faerie Queene” (1754) is found

-annotating many similar terms. The well-known

-“Muses’ Library,” published thirteen years previously,

-had described itself as “A General Collection

-of almost all the old and valuable poetry extant, now

-so industriously inquir’d after”; it begins with

-Langland and reflects the renewed interest that was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>

-arising in the older poets. But there is as yet little

-evidence of any general and genuine appreciation of

-either the spirit or the form of the best of the

-earlier English poetry. The Spenserian imitators

-undoubtedly felt that their diction must look so obsolete

-and archaic as to call for a glossary of explanation,

-and these glossaries were often more than necessary,

-not only to explain the genuine old words, but also

-because of the fact that in many cases the supposedly

-“Spenserian” terms were spurious coinages devoid

-of any real meaning at all.</p>

-

-<p>Before considering these Spenserian imitations it

-must not be forgotten that there were, prior to these

-attempts and alongside of them, kindred efforts to

-catch the manner and style of Chaucer. This practice

-received its first great impulse from Dryden’s famous

-essay in praise of Chaucer, and the various periodicals

-and miscellanies of the first half of the eighteenth

-century bear witness to the fact that many eminent

-poets, not to mention a crowd of poetasters, thought

-it their duty to publish a poetical tribute couched in

-the supposed language and manner of Chaucer.</p>

-

-<p>These attempts were nearly all avowedly humorous,<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a>

-and seemed based on a belief that the very language

-of Chaucer was in some respects suitable comic material

-for a would-be humorous writer. Such an attitude

-was obviously the outcome of a not unnatural ignorance

-of the historical development of the language.

-Chaucer’s language had long been regarded as almost

-a dead language, and this attitude had persisted even

-to the eighteenth century, so that it was felt that a

-mastery of the language of the “Canterbury Tales”

-required prolonged study. Even Thomas Warton,

-speaking of Chaucer, was of the opinion that “his

-uncouth and unfamiliar language disgusts and deters<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>

-many readers.”<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> Hence it is not surprising that there

-was a complete failure to catch, not only anything of

-the real spirit of Chaucer, but also anything that

-could be described as even a distant approach to his

-language. The imitators seemed to think that fourteenth

-century English could be imitated by the use

-of common words written in an uncommon way, or

-of strange terms with equally strange meanings. The

-result was an artificial language that could never have

-been spoken by anybody, often including words to

-which it is impossible to give any definite sense. It

-would seem that only two genuine Chaucerian terms

-had really been properly grasped, and this pair, ne

-and eke, is in consequence worked to death. Ignorance

-of the earlier language naturally led to spurious grammatical

-forms, of which the most favoured was a

-singular verb form ending in -<i>en</i>. Gay, for instance,

-has, in a poem of seventeen lines, such phrases as “It

-maken doleful song,” “There <i>spreaden</i> a rumour,”<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a>

-whilst Fenton writes,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">If in mine quest thou <i>falsen</i> me.<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The general style and manner of these imitations, with

-their “humorous” tinge, their halting verse, bad

-grammar, and impossible inflections are well illustrated

-in William Thompson’s “Garden Inscription—Written

-in Chaucer’s Bowre,” though more serious efforts were

-not any more successful.</p>

-

-<p>The death of Pope, strangely enough, called forth

-more than one attempt, among them being Thomas

-Warton’s imitation of the characterization of the birds<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>

-from the “Parliament of Fowles.”<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> Better known at

-the time was the monody “Musæus,” written by

-William Mason, “To the memory of Mr. Pope.”

-Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton are represented as

-coming to mourn the inevitable loss of him who was

-about to die, and Mason endeavoured to reproduce

-their respective styles, “Tityrus” (Chaucer) holding

-forth in this strain:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Mickle of wele betide thy houres last</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">For mich gode wirke to me don and past.</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">For syn the days whereas my lyre ben strongen,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And deftly many a mery laie I songen,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Old Time which alle things don maliciously,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Gnawen with rusty tooth continually,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Grattrid my lines, that they all cancrid ben</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Till at the last thou smoothen hem hast again.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">It is astonishing to think that this mechanical imitation,

-with its harsh and forced rhythm, and its almost

-doggerel language, was regarded at the time as a

-successful reproduction of Chaucer’s manner and

-style. But probably before 1775, when Tyrwhitt

-announced his rediscovery of the secret of Chaucer’s

-rhythm, few eighteenth century readers suspected its

-presence at all.</p>

-

-<p>But the Chaucerian imitations were merely a literary

-fashion predoomed to failure. It was not in any way

-the result of a genuine influence of the early English

-poetry on contemporary taste, and thus it was not

-even vitalized, as was the Spenserian revival, by a

-certain vague and undefined desire to catch something

-at least of the spirit of the “Faerie Queene.”

-The Spenserian imitations had a firmer foundation,

-and because the best of them did not confine their

-ambition altogether to the mechanical imitation of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>

-Spenser’s style in the narrower sense they achieved

-a greater measure of success.</p>

-

-<p>It is significant to note that among the first attempts

-at a Spenserian imitation was that made by one of the

-foremost of the Augustans. This was Matthew Prior,

-who in 1706 published his “Ode, Humbly Inscribed

-to the Queen on the Glorious success of Her Majesty’s

-Arms, Written in Imitation of Spenser’s Style.”<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a>

-We are surprised, however, to find when we have read

-his Preface, that Prior’s aim was in reality to write a

-poem on the model of Horace and of Spenser. The

-attitude in which he approached Spenser’s language is

-made quite clear by his explanation. He has “avoided

-such of his words as I found too obsolete. I have

-however retained some few of them to make the

-colouring look more like Spenser’s.” Follows then a

-list of such words, including “<i>behest</i>, command; <i>band</i>,

-army; <i>prowess</i>, strength; <i>I weet</i>, I know; <i>I ween</i>,

-I think; <i>whilom</i>, heretofore; and two or three more

-of that kind.” Though later in his Preface Prior

-speaks of the <i>curiosa felicitas</i> of Spenser’s diction, it

-is evident that there is little or no real understanding

-or appreciation.</p>

-

-<p>Now began a continuous series of Spenserian imitations,<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a>

-of which, with a few exceptions, the only

-distinguishing characteristic was a small vocabulary

-of obsolete words, upon which the poetasters could

-draw for the “local colour” considered necessary.

-In the majority of cases the result was a purely artificial

-language, probably picked haphazard from the

-“Faerie Queene,” and often used without any definite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span>

-idea of its meaning or appropriateness.<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> Fortunately,

-one or two real poets were attracted by the idea, and

-in due course produced their “imitations.”</p>

-

-<p>William Shenstone (1714-1763) is perhaps worthy

-of being ranked amongst these, in virtue at least of

-“The Schoolmistress,” which appeared in its final

-shape in 1742. Shenstone himself confesses that the

-poem was not at first intended to be a serious imitation,

-but his study of Spenser led him gradually to something

-like a real appreciation of the earlier poet.<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p>

-

-<p>“The Schoolmistress” draws upon the usual

-common stock of old words: <i>whilom</i>, <i>mickle</i>, <i>perdie</i>,

-<i>eke</i>, <i>thik</i>, etc., but often, as in the case of Spenser

-himself, the obsolete terms have a playful and

-humorous effect:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">For they in gaping wonderment abound</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Nor is there lacking a quaint, wistful tenderness, as

-in the description of the refractory schoolboy, who,

-after being flogged,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Behind some door, in melancholy thought,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff, pines,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ne for his fellows joyaunce careth aught,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">But to the wind all merriment resigns.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Hence “The Schoolmistress” is no mere parody or

-imitation: there is a real and tender humanity in the

-description of the village school (adumbrating, it

-would seem, Goldsmith’s efforts with a similar theme),

-whilst the judicious use of Spenser’s stanza and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span>

-sprinkling of his old words help to invest the whole

-poem with an atmosphere of genuine and unaffected

-humour.</p>

-

-<p>The next Spenserian whose work merits attention

-is William Thompson, who, it would seem, had delved

-not a little into the Earlier English poetry, and who was

-one of the first to capture something of the real atmosphere

-of the “Faerie Queene.” His “Epithalamium”<a id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>

-and “The Nativity,”<a id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> which appeared in 1736, are

-certainly among the best of the imitations. It is

-important to note that, while there is a free use of

-supposedly archaic words, with the usual list of <i>certes</i>,

-<i>perdie</i>, <i>sikerly</i>, <i>hight</i>, as well as others less common,

-such as <i>belgards</i> (“beautiful looks”), <i>bonnibel</i> (“beautiful

-virgin”), there is no abuse of the practice. Not a

-little of the genuine spirit of Spenser’s poetry, with its

-love of nature and outdoor life, has been caught and

-rendered without any lavish recourse to an artificial

-and mechanical diction, as a stanza from “The

-Nativity,” despite its false rhymes, will perhaps show:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Eftsoons he spied a grove, the Season’s pride,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">All in the centre of a pleasant glade,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Where Nature flourished like a virgin bride,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">Mantled with green, with hyacinths inlaid,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And crystal-rills o’er beds of lilies stray’d:</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The blue-ey’d violet and King-cup gay,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And new blown roses, smiling sweetly red,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Out-glow’d the blushing infancy of Day</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">While amorous west-winds kist their fragrant souls away.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>This cannot altogether be said of the “Hymn to

-May” published over twenty years later,<a id="FNanchor_141" href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> despite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>

-the fact that Thompson himself draws attention to

-the fact that he does not consider that a genuine

-Spenserian imitation may be produced by scattering

-a certain number of obsolete words through the poem.

-Nevertheless, we find that he has sprinkled his

-“Hymn” plentifully with “obsolete” terms, though

-they include a few, such as <i>purfled</i>, <i>dispredden</i>, <i>goodlihead</i>,

-that were not the common property of the

-poetasters. His explanations of the words so used

-show that not a few of them were used with little

-knowledge of their original meaning, as when he

-defines <i>glen</i><a id="FNanchor_142" href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> as “a country hamlet,” or explains

-<i>perdie</i> as “an old word for saying anything.” It is

-obvious also that many obsolete terms are often simply

-stuck in the lines when their more modern equivalents

-would have served equally well, as for instance,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Full suddenly the seeds of joy <i>recure</i> (“recover”),</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Myrtles to Venus <i>algates</i> sacred been.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">With these reservations the diction of Thompson’s

-poems is pure and unaffected, and the occasional

-happy use of archaism is well illustrated in more than

-one stanza of “The Nativity.”</p>

-

-<p>It is generally agreed that the best of all the

-Spenserian imitations is “The Castle of Indolence,”

-which James Thomson published two months before

-his death in 1748.<a id="FNanchor_143" href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> Yet even in this case there is

-evident a sort of quiet condescension, as if it were in

-Thompson’s mind that he was about to draw the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>

-attention of his eighteenth century audience to something

-quaint and old-fashioned, but which had yet

-a charm of its own. “The obsolete words,” he writes

-in his “advertisement” to the poem, “and a simplicity

-of diction in some of the lines, which borders

-on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation

-more perfect.” Hence he makes use of a number of

-words intended to give an archaic air to his poem,

-including the usual <i>certes</i>, <i>withouten</i>, <i>sheen</i>, <i>perdie,</i>

-<i>weet</i>, <i>pleasaunce</i>, <i>ycleped</i>, etc. To the first edition

-was appended a page of explanation of these and

-other “obsolete words used in this poem”: altogether

-between seventy and eighty such words are thus

-glossed, the large majority of which are familiar

-enough nowadays, either as part of the ordinary

-vocabulary, or as belonging especially to the diction

-of poetry.</p>

-

-<p>Though the archaisms are sometimes scattered in a

-haphazard manner, they are not used with such

-mechanical monotony as is obvious in the bulk of the

-Spenserian imitations. In both cantos there are

-long stretches without a single real or pseudo-archaism,

-and indeed, when Thomson is indulging in one of the

-moral or the didactic surveys characteristic of his

-age, as, for instance, when the bard, invoked by

-Sir Industry, breaks into a long tirade on the Supreme

-Perfection (Canto II, 47-61) his diction is the plain

-and unadorned idiom perfected by Pope.<a id="FNanchor_144" href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Yet

-Thompson occasionally yields to the fascination of

-the spurious form in <i>-en</i>,<a id="FNanchor_145" href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">But these I <i>passen</i> by with nameless numbers moe</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Canto I., 56)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">And taunts he <i>casten</i> forth most bitterly.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 78)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Sometimes it would seem that his archaisms owe their

-appearance to the necessities of rhyme, as in</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">So worked the wizard wintry storms to swell</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">As heaven and earth they would together <i>mell</i></div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 43)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem:</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The same to him glad summer, or the winter <i>breme</i>.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 7)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">There are lines too where we feel that the archaisms

-have been dragged in; for example,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">As <i>soot</i> this man could sing as morning lark</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 57)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">(though there is here perhaps the added charm of a

-Chaucerian reminiscence); or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent20"><i>replevy</i> cannot be</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">From the strong, iron grasp of vengeful destiny.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 32)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">But, on the whole, he has been successful in his efforts,

-half-hearted as they sometimes seem, to give an old-world

-atmosphere to his poem by a sprinkling of

-archaisms, and it is then that we feel in <i>The Castle of

-Indolence</i> something at least of the beauty and charm

-of “the poet’s poet,” as in the well-known stanza

-describing the valley of Idlesse with its</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent34">waters sheen</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">That, as they bickered<a id="FNanchor_146" href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> through the sunny glade,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Though restless still, themselves a lulling murmur made.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 3)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span></p>

-

-<p>Though the Spenserian imitations continued beyond

-the year which saw the birth of Wordsworth,<a id="FNanchor_147" href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> it is

-not necessary to mention further examples, except

-perhaps that of William Mickle, who, in 1767, published

-“The Concubine,” a Spenserian imitation of two

-cantos, which afterwards appeared in a later edition

-(1777) under the title “Sir Martyn.” Like his predecessors,

-Mickle made free use of obsolete spellings

-and words, while he added the usual glossary, which

-is significant as showing at the end of the eighteenth

-century, about the time when Tyrwhitt was completing

-his edition of Chaucer, not only the artificial

-character of this “Spenserian diction,” but also the

-small acquaintance of the average man of letters with

-our earlier language.<a id="FNanchor_148" href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p>

-

-<p>It must not be assumed, of course, that all the

-“obsolete” words used by the imitators were taken

-directly from Spenser. Words like <i>nathless</i>, <i>rathe</i>,

-<i>hight</i>, <i>sicker</i>, <i>areeds</i>, <i>cleeped</i>, <i>hardiment</i>, <i>felly</i>, etc., had

-continued in fairly common use until the seventeenth

-century, though actually some of them were regarded

-even then as archaisms. Thus <i>cleoped</i>, though never

-really obsolete, is marked by Blount in 1656 as

-“Saxon”; <i>sicker</i>, extensively employed in Middle

-English, is rarely found used after 1500 except by

-Scotch writers, though it still remains current in

-northern dialects. On the other hand, not a few words

-were undoubtedly brought directly back into literature

-from the pages of Spenser, among them being <i>meed</i>,

-<i>sheen</i> (boasting an illustrious descent from <i>Beowulf</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>

-through Chaucer), <i>erst</i>, <i>elfin</i>, <i>paramour</i>. Others, like

-<i>scrannel</i>, and apparently also <i>ledded</i>, were made

-familiar by Milton’s use the former either being the

-poet’s own coinage or his borrowing from some dialect

-or other. On the other hand, very many of the

-“revived” words failed to take root at all, such as

-<i>faitours</i>, which Spenser himself had apparently revived,

-and also his coinage <i>singult</i>, though Scott is found

-using the latter form.</p>

-

-<p>As has been said, the crowd of poetasters who

-attempted to reproduce Spenser’s spirit and style

-thought to do so by merely mechanical imitation of

-what they regarded as his “quaint” or “ludicrous”

-diction. Between them and any possibility of grasping

-the perennial beauty and charm of the “poet’s poet”

-there was a great gulf fixed, whilst, altogether apart

-from this fatal limitation, then parodies were little

-likely to have even ephemeral success, for parody

-presupposes in its readers at least a little knowledge

-and appreciation of the thing parodied. But there

-were amongst the imitators one or two at least who,

-we may imagine, were able to find in the melody and

-romance of “The Faerie Queene” an avenue of

-escape from the prosaic pressure of their times. In

-the case of William Thompson, Shenstone, and the

-author of the “Castle of Indolence,” the influence of

-Spenser revealed itself as in integral and vital part of

-the Romantic reaction, for these, being real poets,

-had been able to recapture something at least of the

-colour, music, and fragrance of their original. And

-not only did these, helped by others whose names have

-all but been forgotten restore a noble stanza form to

-English verse. Even their mechanical imitation of

-Spenser’s language was not without its influence, for

-it cannot be doubted that these attempts to write in

-an archaic or pseudo-archaic style did not a little to free

-poetry from the shackles of a conventional language.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span></p>

-

-<p>This process was greatly helped by that other

-aspect of the eighteenth century revival of the past

-which was exemplified in the publication of numerous

-collections of old ballads and songs.<a id="FNanchor_149" href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> There is, of

-course, as Macaulay long ago noted, a series of conventional

-epithets that is one mark of the genuine

-ballad manner, but the true ballad language was not

-a lifeless stereotyped diction. It consisted of “plain

-English without any trimmings.” The ballads had

-certain popular mannerisms (<i>the good greenwood</i>, <i>the

-wan water</i>, etc.), but they were free from the conventional

-figures of speech, or such rhetorical artifices

-as personification and periphrasis.</p>

-

-<p>Hence it is not surprising that at first their fresh

-and spontaneous language was regarded, when contrasted

-with the artificial and refined diction of the

-time, as “barbarous” or “rude.” Thus Prior

-thought it necessary to paraphrase the old ballad of

-the “Nut Brown Maid” into his insipid “Henry and

-Emma” (1718), but a comparison of only a few lines

-of the original with the banality of the modernized

-version is sufficient testimony to the refreshing

-and vivifying influence of such collections as the

-“Reliques.”</p>

-

-<p>The tendency to present the old ballads in an

-eighteenth century dress had soon revealed itself;

-at least, the editors of the early collections often felt

-themselves obliged to apologize for the obsolete style

-of their material.<a id="FNanchor_150" href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> But in 1760 the first attempt

-at a critical text appeared when Edward Capell,

-the famous Shakespearian editor, published his

-“Prolusions”; or “Select Pieces of Antient Poetry—compil’d<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>

-with great Care from their several Originals,

-and offer’d to the Publick as specimens of the Integrity

-that should be found in the Editions of worthy

-Authors.” Capell’s care was almost entirely directed

-to ensuring textual accuracy, but the “Nut-Browne

-Maid,” the only ballad included, receives sympathetic

-mention in his brief <i>Preface</i>.<a id="FNanchor_151" href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p>

-

-<p>Five years later, the most famous of all the ballad

-collections appeared, Thomas Percy’s “Reliques of

-Ancient English Poetry” (1765). The nucleus of

-Percy’s collection was a certain manuscript in a

-handwriting of Charles I’s time, containing 191 songs

-and ballads, but he had also had access to various

-other manuscript collections, whilst he was quite

-ready to acknowledge that he had filled gaps in his

-originals with stanzas and, in some cases, with nearly

-entire poems of his own composition. Much censure

-has been heaped upon Percy for his apparent lax

-ideas on the functions of an editor, but in decking out

-his “parcel of old ballads” in the false and affected

-style of his age, he was only doing his best to meet

-the taste of his readers. He himself passes judgment

-on his own labours, when, alongside of the genuine

-old ballads, with their freshness and simplicity of

-diction, he places his own “pruned” or “refined”

-versions, or additions, garbed in a sham and sickly

-idiom.</p>

-

-<p>It was not until over a century later, when Percy’s

-folio manuscript was copied and printed,<a id="FNanchor_152" href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> that the

-extent of his additions, alterations, and omissions

-were fully realized, though at the same time it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span>

-admitted that the pruning and refining was not

-unskilfully done.</p>

-

-<p>Nevertheless the influence of the “Reliques,” as

-a vital part of the Romantic revival, was considerable:<a id="FNanchor_153" href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a>

-it was as if a breath of “the wind on the heath” had

-swept across literature and its writers, bringing with

-it an invigorating fragrance and freshness, whilst, on

-the purely formal side, the genuine old ballads, which

-Percy had culled and printed untouched, no doubt

-played their part in directing the attention of Wordsworth

-to the whole question of the language of poetry.

-And when the great Romantic manifestoes on the

-subject of “the language of metrical composition”

-were at length launched, their author was not slow to

-bear witness to the revivifying influence of the old

-ballads on poetic form. “Our poetry,” he wrote,

-“has been absolutely redeemed by it. I do not

-think that there is an able writer in verse of the

-present day who would not be proud to acknowledge

-his obligations to the “Reliques.”<a id="FNanchor_154" href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p>

-

-<p>The year before the appearance of the “Reliques,”

-Thomas Chatterton had published his “Rowley

-Poems,” and this attempt of a poet of genius to pass

-off his poems as the work of a mediaeval English

-writer is another striking indication of the new

-Romantic spirit then asserting itself. As for the

-pseudo-archaic language in which Chatterton with

-great labour clothed his “revivals,” there is no need

-to say much. It was a thoroughly artificial language,

-compiled, as Skeat has shown, from various sources,

-such as John Kersey’s “Dictionarium Anglo-Brittanicum,”

-three editions of which had appeared before

-1721. In this work there are included a considerable

-number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>

-his contemporaries, marked “O,” and in some cases

-erroneously explained. This dictionary was the chief

-source of Chatterton’s vocabulary, many words of

-which the young poet took apparently without any

-definite idea of their meaning.<a id="FNanchor_155" href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></p>

-

-<p>Yet in the Rowley poems there are passages where

-the pseudo-archaic language is quite in keeping with

-the poet’s theme and treatment, whilst here and there

-we come across epithets and lines which, even in their

-strange dress, are of a wild and artless sweetness,

-such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Where thou mayst here the sweete night-lark chant,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">Or with some mocking brooklet sweetly glide,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or the whole of the first stanza of the famous “An

-Excelente Balade of Charitie,” where the old words

-help to transport us at once into the fictitious world

-which Chatterton had made for himself. Perhaps,

-as has been suggested, the “Rowley dialect” was not,

-as we nowadays, with Skeat’s analysis in our minds,

-are a little too apt to believe, a deliberate attempt to

-deceive, but rather reflected an attempt to escape

-from the dead abstract diction of the period.<a id="FNanchor_156" href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p>

-

-<p>Apart from this special aspect of the Romantic

-revival marked by a tendency to look back lovingly

-to the earlier English poetry, there are few traces of

-the use of archaic and obsolete words, at least of such

-words used consciously, in eighteenth century poetry.

-The great poets of the century make little or no use

-of them. Collins has no examples, but Gray, who

-began by advocating the poet’s right to use obsolete<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>

-words, and later seemed to recant, now and then uses

-an old term, as when in his translation from Dante

-he writes:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The anguish that unuttered <i>nathless</i> wrings</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">My inmost heart.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Blake, however, it is interesting to note, often used

-archaic forms, or at least archaic spellings,<a id="FNanchor_157" href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> as <i>Tyger</i>,

-<i>antient</i> (“To the Muses”), “the <i>desart</i> wild” (“The

-Little Girl Lost”), as well as such lines as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">In lucent words my darkling verses dight</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Imitation of Spenser”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">So I piped with merry <i>chear</i>.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Introduction to “Songs of Innocence”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Perhaps by these means the poet wished to give a

-quaint or old-fashioned look to his verses, though it

-is to be remembered that most of them occur in the

-“Poetical Sketches,” which are avowedly Elizabethan.</p>

-

-<p>The use of archaic and obsolete words in the

-eighteenth century was then chiefly an outcome of

-that revival of the past which was one of the characteristics

-of the new Romantic movement, and which

-was later to find its culmination in the works of Scott.

-The old words used by the eighteenth century

-imitators of Spenser were not often used, we may

-imagine, because poets saw in them poetical beauty

-and value; most often they were the result of a desire

-to catch, as it were, something of the “local colour”

-of the “Faerie Queene,” just as modern writers nowadays,

-poets and novelists alike, often draw upon local

-dialects for new means of expression. The Spenserian

-imitations recovered not a few words, such as <i>meed</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span>

-<i>sheen</i>, <i>dight</i>, <i>glen</i>,<a id="FNanchor_158" href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> which have since been regarded as

-belonging especially to the diction of poetry, and

-when the Romantic revival had burst into life the

-impulse, which had thus been unconsciously given,

-was continued by some of its great leaders. Scott, as

-is well known, was an enthusiastic lover of our older

-literature, especially the ballads, from which he

-gleaned many words full of a beauty and charm

-which won for them immediate admission into the

-language of poetry; at the same time he was able to

-find many similar words in the local dialects of the

-lowlands and the border. Perhaps in this work he

-had been inspired by his famous countryman, Robert

-Burns, who by his genius had raised his native language,

-with its stores of old and vivid words and expressions,

-to classical rank.<a id="FNanchor_159" href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p>

-

-<p>Nevertheless it is undoubted that the main factor

-in the new Romantic attitude towards old words had

-been the eighteenth century imitations and collections

-of our older English literature. Coleridge, it is to be

-remembered, made free use of archaisms; in the

-“Ancient Mariner,” there are many obsolete forms:

-<i>loon</i>, <i>eftsoons</i>, <i>uprist</i>, <i>gramercy</i>, <i>gossameres</i>, <i>corse</i>, etc.,

-besides those which appeared in the first edition, and

-were altered or omitted when the poem reappeared in

-1800. Wordsworth, it is true, made no use of archaic

-diction, whether in the form of deliberate revivals, or

-by drafts on the dialects, which, following the great

-example of Burns, and in virtue of his own “theories,”

-he might have been expected to explore. Nevertheless

-the “theories” concerning poetical language

-which he propounded and maintained are not without<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span>

-their bearing on the present question. Reduced to

-their simplest terms, the manifestoes, while passing

-judgment on the conventional poetical diction, conceded

-to the poet the right of a style in keeping with his

-subject and inspiration, and Wordsworth’s successors

-for the most part, so far as style in the narrower sense

-of <i>vocabulary</i> is concerned, did not fail to reap the

-benefits of the emancipation won for them. And

-among the varied sources upon which they began to

-draw for fresh reserves of diction were the abundant

-stores of old words, full of colour and energy, to be

-gleaned from the pages of their great predecessors.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br />

-<span class="smaller">COMPOUND EPITHETS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>It is proposed in this chapter to examine in some

-detail the use of compound epithets in the poetry

-of the eighteenth century. For this purpose the

-following grammatical scheme of classification has

-been adopted from various sources:<a id="FNanchor_160" href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> <i>First Type</i>,

-noun <i>plus</i> noun; <i>Second Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> adjective;

-<i>Third Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> present participle; <i>Fourth

-Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> past participle; <i>Fifth Type</i>, adjective,

-or adjective used adverbially, <i>plus</i> another part of

-speech, usually a participle; <i>Sixth Type</i>, true adverb

-<i>plus</i> a participle; <i>Seventh Type</i>, adjective <i>plus</i> noun

-plus -<i>ed</i>. Of these types it will be evident in many

-cases that the first (noun <i>plus</i> noun) and the sixth

-(true adverb <i>plus</i> participle) are not compounds at all,

-for the hyphen could often be removed without any

-change or loss of meaning. Occasionally the compounds

-will be regarded from the point of view of the

-logical relation between the two elements, when a

-formal classification may usually be made as follows:

-(<i>a</i>) <i>Attributive</i>, as in “anger-glow”; (<i>b</i>) <i>Objective</i>, as

-in “anger-kindling”; (<i>c</i>) <i>Instrumental</i>, as in “anger-boiling.”

-This scheme of classification permits of an

-examination of the compounds from the formal point<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span>

-of view, whilst at the same time it does not preclude

-an estimate of the æsthetic value of the new words

-thus added to the language of poetry.<a id="FNanchor_161" href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p>

-

-<p>It may be said, to begin with, that the formation

-and use of compound epithets has always been one

-of the distinguishing marks of the special language

-of poetry in English, as distinct from that of prose.

-The very ease with which they can be formed out of

-the almost inexhaustible resources of the English

-vocabulary has been a constant source of temptation

-to poets with new things to say, or new impressions

-to describe. Moreover, the partial disappearance of

-inflections in modern English has permitted of a

-vagueness in the formation of compound words,

-which in itself is of value to the word-maker. Though,

-of course, it is possible in most cases accurately to

-analyse the logical relation between the elements of a

-compound, yet it sometimes happens, especially with

-the compound epithets of poetry, that this cannot

-be done with certainty, because the new formation

-may have been the result of a hasty but happy inspiration,

-with no regard to the regular rules of composition.<a id="FNanchor_162" href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a>

-Hence, from one point of view, the free formation of

-compounds is a legitimate device allowed to the

-poets, of which the more severe atmosphere of prose is

-expected to take less advantage; from another point

-of view, the greater prevalence of the compound in

-poetry may not be unconnected with the rhythm of

-verse. Viewed in this light, the use of compound<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span>

-epithets in our poetry at any period may well have

-been conditioned, in part at least, by the metrical

-form in which that poetry received expression; and

-thus in the poetry of the eighteenth century it connects

-itself in some degree—first, with the supremacy of

-the heroic couplet, and later with the blank

-verse that proved to be the chief rival of the

-decasyllabic.</p>

-

-<p>The freedom of construction which facilitates the

-formation of compounds had already in the earliest

-English period contributed to that special poetic

-diction which is a distinguishing mark of Anglo-Saxon

-verse, as indeed of all the old Germanic poetry;

-of the large number of words not used in Anglo-Saxon

-prose, very many are synonymous compounds

-meaning the same thing.<a id="FNanchor_163" href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> During the Middle English

-period, and especially before the triumph of the East

-Midland dialect definitely prepared the way for

-Modern English, it would seem that the language lost

-much of its old power of forming compounds, one

-explanation being that the large number of French

-words, which then came into the language, drove out

-many of the Old English compounds, whilst at the

-same time these in-comers, so easily acquired, tended

-to discourage the formation of new compounds.<a id="FNanchor_164" href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a>

-It was not until the great outburst of literary activity

-in the second half of the sixteenth century that a

-fresh impetus was given to the formation of compound

-nouns and epithets. The large number of classical

-translations especially exercised an important influence

-in this respect: each new translation had its quota

-of fresh compounds, but Chapman’s “Homer” may<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span>

-be mentioned as especially noteworthy.<a id="FNanchor_165" href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> At the same

-time the plastic state of Elizabethan English led to

-the making of expressive new compounds of native

-growth, and from this period date some of the happiest

-compound epithets to be found in the language.<a id="FNanchor_166" href="#Footnote_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a>

-From the Elizabethans this gift of forming imaginative

-compounds was inherited, with even greater felicity

-by Milton, many of whose epithets, especially those

-of Type VII such as “<i>grey-hooded even</i>,” “<i>coral-paven

-floor</i>,” “<i>flowery-kirtled</i> Naiades” reveal him

-as a consummate master of word-craft.</p>

-

-<p>With Dryden begins the period with which we are

-especially concerned, for it is generally agreed that

-from nearly every point of view the advent of what is

-called eighteenth century literature dates from the

-Restoration. During the forty years dominated by

-Dryden in practically every department of literature,

-the changes in the language, both of prose and poetry,

-which had been slowly evolving themselves, became

-apparent, and, as the sequel will show, this new ideal

-of style, with its passion for “correctness,” and its

-impatience of innovation, was not one likely to

-encourage or inspire the formation of expressive

-compounds; the happy audacities of the Elizabethans,

-of whose tribe it is customary to seal Milton, are no

-longer possible.</p>

-

-<p>The compounds in the poems of Dryden show this;

-of his examples of Type I—the substantive compounds—the

-majority are merely the juxtaposition

-of two appositional nouns, as <i>brother-angels</i> (“Killigrew,”

-4); or, more rarely, where the first element

-has a descriptive or adjectival force, as <i>traitor-friend</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span>

-(“Palamon,” II, 568). Not much more imaginative

-power is reflected in Dryden’s compound epithets;

-his instances of Types III and IV include “<i>cloud-dispelling</i>

-winds” (“Ovid,” Met. I, 356), “<i>sun-begotten</i>

-tribe” (<i>ibid.</i>, III, 462), with more original

-examples like “<i>sleep-procuring</i> wand.” Next comes

-a large number of instances of Types V and VI:

-“<i>thick-spread</i> forest” (“Palamon,” II, 123), “<i>hoarse-resounding</i>

-shore” (“Iliad” I, 54), as well as many

-compounded with <i>long</i>-, <i>well</i>-, <i>high</i>-, etc. Most of

-these examples of Types V and VI are scarcely compounds

-at all, for after such elements as “long,”

-“well,” “much,” the hyphen could in most cases

-be omitted without any loss of power. Of Dryden’s

-compound epithets it may be said in general that they

-reflect admirably his poetic theory and practice;

-they are never the product of a “fine frenzy.” At the

-same time not a few of them seem to have something

-of that genius for satirical expression with which he

-was amply endowed. Compounds like <i>court-informer</i>

-(“Absalom,” 719), “the rebels’ <i>pension-purse</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>,

-Pt. II, 321),</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Og, from a <i>treason-tavern</i> rolling home</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 480)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">play their part in the delivery of those “smacks in

-the face” of which Professor Saintsbury speaks

-in his discussion of Dryden’s satiric manipulation of

-the heroic couplet.<a id="FNanchor_167" href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p>

-

-<p>In the verse of Pope, compound formations are to be

-found in large numbers. This may partly be attributed,

-no doubt, to the amount of translation included

-in it, but even in his original poetry there are many

-more instances than in the work of his great predecessor.

-When engaged on his translation of Homer<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>

-the prevalence of compounds naturally attracted his

-attention, and he refers to the matter more than once

-in his Preface.<a id="FNanchor_168" href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> As might be expected from the

-apostle of “correctness,” he lays down cautious and

-conservative “rules” of procedure. Such should be

-retained “as slide easily of themselves into an English

-compound, without violence to the ear, or to the

-received rules of composition, as well as those which

-have received the sanction from the authority of our

-best poets, and are become familiar through their

-use of them.”<a id="FNanchor_169" href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p>

-

-<p>An examination of Pope’s compounds in the light

-of “the received rules of composition,” shows his

-examples to be of the usual types. Of noun <i>plus</i>

-noun combinations he has such forms as “<i>monarch-savage</i>,”

-(“Odyss.” IV), whilst he is credited with

-the first use of “the <i>fury-passions</i>” (Epistle III).

-More originality and imagination is reflected in his

-compound epithets; of those formed from a noun

-and a present participle, with the first element usually

-in an objective relation to the second, his instances

-include “<i>love-darting</i>-eyes” (“Unfortunate Lady”),

-as well as others found before his time, like the

-Elizabethan “<i>heart-piercing</i> anguish” (<i>ibid.</i>, XII)

-and “<i>laughter-loving</i> dame” (<i>ibid.</i>, III). He has

-large numbers of compounded nouns and past-participles,

-many of which—“<i>moss-grown</i> domes”

-(“Eloisa”), “<i>cloud-topped</i> hills” (“Essay on Man,”

-I, 100), “<i>Sea-girt</i> isles” (“Iliad,” III)—were common

-in the seventeenth century, as well as “borrowed”

-examples, such as “<i>home-felt</i> joys” (Epistle II) or

-“<i>air-bred</i> people” (“Odyss.,” LX, 330), presumably

-from Milton and Drayton respectively. But he has

-a few original formations of this type, such as “<i>heaven-directed</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>

-spire” (Epistle III), “<i>osier-fringed</i> bank,”

-(“Odyss.,” XIII), the latter perhaps a reminiscence of

-Sabrina’s song in “Comus,” as well as happier combinations,

-of which the best examples are “<i>love-born</i>

-confidence” (“Odyss.,” X) and “<i>love-dittied</i> airs”

-(“Odyss.,” II).</p>

-

-<p>Pope, however, makes his largest use of that type

-of compound which can be formed with the greatest

-freedom—an adjective, or an adjective used adverbially,

-joined to a present or past participle. He

-has dozens of examples with the adverbial <i>long</i>,

-<i>wide</i>, <i>far</i>, <i>loud</i>, <i>deep</i>, <i>high</i>, etc., as the first element,

-most of the examples occurring in the Homer translations,

-and being attempts to reproduce the Greek

-compounds.<a id="FNanchor_170" href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> Other instances have a higher æsthetic

-value: “<i>fresh-blooming</i> hope” (“Eloisa”), “<i>silver-quivering</i>

-rills” (Epistle IV), “<i>soft-trickling</i> waters”

-“Iliad,” IX), “sweet airs <i>soft-circling</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>, XVII),

-etc. Of the formations beginning with a true adverb,

-the most numerous are the quasi-compounds beginning

-with “<i>ever</i>”—“<i>ever-during</i> nights,” “<i>ever-fragrant</i>

-bowers” (“Odyss.,” XII), etc.; or “<i>well</i>”—“<i>well-sung</i>

-woes” (“Eloisa”) or “<i>yet</i>”—“<i>yet-untasted</i>

-food” (“Iliad,” XV), etc. These instances do not

-reveal any great originality, for the very ease with

-which they can be formed naturally discounts largely

-their poetic value. Occasionally, however, Pope has

-been more successful; perhaps his best examples

-of this type are “<i>inly-pining</i> hate” (“Odyss.,” VI—where

-the condensation involved in the epithet does

-at least convey some impression of power—and “the

-<i>softly-stealing</i> space of time,” (“Odyss.,” XV), where

-the compound almost produces a happy effect of

-personification.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span></p>

-

-<p>Of the irregular type of compound, already mentioned

-in connexion with Dryden, Pope has a few

-instances—“<i>white-robed</i> innocence” (“Eloisa”), etc.

-But perhaps Pope’s happiest effort in this respect is

-to be seen in that quatrain from the fourth book of

-the “Dunciad,” containing three instances of compound

-epithets, which help to remind us that at times

-he had at his command a diction of higher suggestive

-and evocative power than the plain idiom of his

-satiric and didactic verse:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">To isles of fragrance, <i>lily-silver’d</i> vales</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Diffusing languor in the panting gales;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">To lands of singing or of dancing slaves</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Love-whisp’ring</i> woods and <i>lute-resounding</i> waves.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Of the poets contemporary with Pope only brief

-mention need be made from our present point of view.

-The poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea contain

-few instances and those of the ordinary type, a remark

-which is equally applicable to the poems of Parnell

-and John Phillips. John Gay (1685-1732), however,

-though he has many formations found in previous

-writers, has also some apparently original compound

-epithets which have a certain charm: “<i>health-breathing</i>

-breezes” (“A Devonshire Hill,” 10), “<i>dew-besprinkled</i>

-lawn” (“Fables,” 50), and “the lark

-<i>high-poised</i> in the air” (“Sweet William’s Farewell,”

-13). More noteworthy is John Dyer; “Grongar

-Hill” has no very striking examples, but his blank

-verse poems have one or two not devoid of imaginative

-value: “<i>soft-whispering</i> waters” (“Ruins of Rome”)

-and “<i>plaintive-echoing</i> ruins” (<i>ibid.</i>); he has been

-able to dispense with the “classical” descriptive

-terms for hills and mountains (“shaggy,” “horrid,”

-“terrible,” etc.), and his new epithets reflect something

-at least of that changing attitude towards

-natural scenery, of which he was a foremost pioneer:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span>

-“<i>slow-climbing</i> wilds” (“Fleece,” I), “<i>cloud-dividing</i>

-hill” (<i>ibid.</i>), and his irregular “<i>snow-nodding</i> crags”

-(<i>ibid.</i>, IV).</p>

-

-<p>Neglecting for the moment the more famous of the

-blank verse poems, we may notice Robert Blair’s

-“Grave” (published 1743), with a few examples,

-which mainly allow him to indulge in “classical”

-periphrases, such as the “<i>sight-invigorating</i> tube” for

-“a telescope.” David Mallet, who imitated his

-greater countryman James Thomson, has one or

-two noteworthy instances: “pines <i>high-plumed</i>”

-(“Amyntor,” II), “<i>sweetly-pensive</i> silence” (“Fragment”),

-“spring’s <i>flower-embroidered</i> mantle” (“Excursion,”

-I)—suggested, no doubt, by Milton’s “violet-embroidered”—“the

-morn <i>sun-tinctured</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>),

-compound epithets which betray the influence of the

-“Seasons.” Of the other minor blank verse poems

-their only aspect noteworthy from our present point

-of view is their comparative freedom from compounds

-of any description. John Armstrong’s “Art of

-Preserving Health” (1744) has only a few commonplace

-examples, and the same may be said of the

-earlier “The Chase” (1735) by William Somerville,

-though he finds a new epithet in his expression “the

-strand <i>sea-lav’d</i>” (Bk. III, 431). James Grainger’s

-“The Sugar Cane” (1764) shows a similar poverty,

-but the “<i>green-stol’d</i> Naiad, of the tinkling rill”

-(Canto I), “<i>soft-stealing</i> dews” (Canto III), “<i>wild-careering</i>

-clouds” (Canto II), and “<i>cane-crowned</i>

-vale” (Canto IV) are not without merit. These

-blank verse poems, avowedly modelled on Milton,

-might have been expected to attempt the “grandeur”

-of their original by high-sounding compounds; but

-it was rather by means of latinized words and constructions

-that the Miltonic imitators sought to

-emulate the grand style; and moreover, as Coleridge

-pointed out, Milton’s great epics are almost free from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>

-compound epithets, it being in the early poems that

-“a superfluity” is to be found.<a id="FNanchor_171" href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p>

-

-<p>Before turning to the more famous blank verse

-poems of the first half of the eighteenth century it

-will be convenient at this point to notice one or two

-poets whose work represents, on its formal side at

-least, a continuation or development of the school

-of Pope. The first of these is Richard Savage, whose

-only poem of any real merit, “The Wanderer” (apart

-perhaps from “The Bastard”), appeared in 1729.

-He has only one or two new compounds of noun and

-part-participle, such as “the robe <i>snow-wrought</i>”

-(“The Wanderer,” I, 55), his favourite combination

-being that of an adjective or adverb with a participle,

-where, amidst numerous examples of obvious formations,

-he occasionally strikes out something new:

-“eyes <i>dim-gleaming</i>” (Canto I), “<i>soft-creeping</i>

-murmurs” (Canto V), etc. Of his other types the

-only other noteworthy compound is the “past-participle”

-epithet in his phrase “the <i>amber-hued</i>

-cascade” (Canto III), though a refreshing simplicity

-of expression is found in such lines as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The bull-finch whistles soft his <i>flute-like</i> note.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The poetical work of Dr. Johnson contains scarcely

-any instances of compounds, and none either newly

-invented or applied. “London” and “The Vanity

-of Human Wishes” have each not more than two or

-three instances, and even the four poems, in which he

-successively treats of the seasons, are almost destitute

-of compound epithets, “<i>snow-topped</i> cot” (“Winter”)

-being almost the only example.</p>

-

-<p>There are many more instances of compound formations

-in the works of Oliver Goldsmith, most of which,

-like “<i>nut-brown</i> draughts” (“Deserted Village,” II),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span>

-“<i>sea-borne</i> gales” (“Traveller,” 121), “<i>grass-grown</i>

-footway” (“Deserted Village,” 127), had either been

-long in the language, or had been used by earlier

-eighteenth century poets. There are, however, instances

-which testify to a desire to add to the descriptive

-power of the vocabulary; in “The Traveller”

-we find mention of “the <i>hollow-sounding</i> bittern”

-(l. 44), “the <i>rocky-crested</i> summits” (l. 85), “the

-<i>yellow-blossomed</i> vale” (l. 293), and the “<i>willow-tufted</i>

-bank” (l. 294). For the rest, Goldsmith’s

-original compounds are, like so many of this type,

-mere efforts at verbal condensation, as “<i>shelter-seeking</i>

-peasant” (“Traveller,” 162), “<i>joy-pronouncing</i> eye”

-(<i>ibid.</i>, 10), etc.</p>

-

-<p>Of the more famous blank verse poems of the

-eighteenth century the first and most important was

-“The Seasons” of James Thomson, which appeared

-in their original form between 1726 and 1730. The

-originality of style, for which Johnson praised him,<a id="FNanchor_172" href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a>

-is perhaps to be seen especially in his use of compound

-formations; probably no other poet has ever used

-them so freely.</p>

-

-<p>As a general rule, Thomson’s compounds fall into

-the well-defined groups already mentioned. He has

-a number of noun <i>plus</i> noun formations (Type I),

-where the first element has usually a purely adjectival

-value; “<i>patriot-council</i>” (“Autumn,” 98), “<i>harvest-treasures</i>”

-(<i>ibid.</i>, 1217), as well as a few which allow

-him to indulge in grandiose periphrasis, as in the

-“<i>monarch-swain</i>” (“Summer,” 495) for a shepherd

-with his “<i>sceptre-crook</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>, 497). These are all

-commonplace formations, but much more originality

-is found in his compound epithets. He frequently

-uses the noun <i>plus</i> present participle combinations

-(Type III), “<i>secret-winding</i>, <i>flower-enwoven</i> bowers”

-(“Spring,” 1058) or “<i>forest-rustling</i> mountains”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>

-(“Winter,” 151), etc. Moreover, the majority of

-his compounds are original, though now and then he

-has taken a “classical” compound and given it a

-somewhat curious application, as in “<i>cloud-compelling</i>

-cliffs” (“Autumn,” 801). A few of this class are

-difficult to justify logically, striking examples being

-“<i>world-rejoicing</i> state” (“Summer,” 116) for “the

-state of one in whom the world rejoices,” and “<i>life-sufficing</i>

-trees” (<i>ibid.</i>, 836) for “trees that give sustenance.”</p>

-

-<p>Thomson has also numerous instances of the juxtaposition

-of nouns and past-participles (Type IV):

-“<i>love-enlivened</i> cheeks” (“Spring,” 1080), “<i>leaf-strewn</i>

-walks” (“Autumn,” 955), “<i>frost-concocted</i>

-glebe” (“Winter,” 706); others of this type

-are somewhat obscure in meaning, as “<i>mind-illumined</i>

-face” (“Spring,” 1042), and especially

-“<i>art imagination-flushed</i>” (“Autumn,” 140), where

-economy of expression is perhaps carried to its very

-limit.</p>

-

-<p>Thomson’s favourite method of forming compounds

-however is that of Type V, each book of “The Seasons”

-containing large numbers, the first element (<i>full</i>,

-<i>prone</i>, <i>quick</i>, etc.) often repeated with a variant second

-element. Sometimes constant repetition in this way

-produces the impression of a tiresome mannerism.

-Thus “many” joined to present and past-participles

-is used irregularly with quasi-adverbial force,

-apparently meaning “in many ways,” “many times,”

-or even “much,” as “<i>many-twinkling</i> leaves”

-(“Spring,” 158), “<i>many-bleating</i> flock” (<i>ibid.</i>, 835),

-etc. In the same way the word “mazy” seems to

-have had a fascination for Thomson. Thus he has

-“the <i>mazy-running</i> soul of melody” (“Spring,” 577),

-“the <i>mazy-running</i> brook” (“Summer,” 373), “and

-<i>mazy-running</i> clefts” (“Autumn,” 816), etc. Not

-all of this type, however, are mere mechanical formations;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>

-some have real poetic value and bear witness

-to Thomson’s undoubted gift for achieving happy

-expressive effects. Thus the “<i>close-embowering</i> wood”

-(“Autumn,” 208), “the lonesome muse <i>low-whispering</i>”

-(<i>ibid.</i>, 955), “the <i>deep-tangled</i> copse” (“Spring,”

-594), “the <i>hollow-whispering</i> breeze” (<i>ibid.</i>, 919),

-“the <i>grey-grown</i> oaks” (“Summer,” 225), “<i>flowery-tempting</i>

-paths” (“Spring,” 1109), “the morn <i>faint-gleaming</i>”

-(“Summer,” 48), “<i>dark-embowered</i> firs”

-(“Winter,” 813), “the winds <i>hollow-blustering</i>”

-(<i>ibid.</i>, 988), “the <i>mossy-tinctured</i> streams” (“Spring,”

-380), as well as such passages as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">the long-forgotten strain</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">At first <i>faint-warbled</i></div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 585)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ships <i>dim-discovered</i> dropping from the clouds.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 946)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Thomson’s compound epithets with a true adverb

-as the first element (Sixth Type), such as “<i>north-inflated</i>

-tempest” (“Autumn,” 892), are not particularly

-striking, and some of them are awkward and result

-in giving a harsh effect to the verse, as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent8">goodness and wit</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In <i>seldom-meeting</i> harmony combined.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 25-6)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Finally, in “The Seasons” there are to be found

-many examples of the type of compound epithet,

-already referred to, modelled on the form of a past-participle;

-here Thomson has achieved some of his

-happiest expressions, charged with real suggestive

-power.<a id="FNanchor_173" href="#Footnote_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> Among his instances are such little “word-pictures”

-as “<i>rocky-channelled</i> maze” (“Spring,”

-401), “the <i>light-footed</i> dews” (“Summer,” 123);<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>

-“the <i>keen-aired</i> mountain” (“Autumn,” 434) “the

-<i>dusky-mantled</i> lawn” (<i>ibid.</i>, 1088), “the <i>dewy-skirted</i>

-clouds” (<i>ibid.</i>, 961) Even when he borrows a

-felicitous epithet he is able to apply it without loss of

-power, as when he gives a new setting to Milton’s

-“meek-eyed” applied to “Peace” as an epithet for the

-quiet in-coming of the dawn; the “<i>meek-eyed</i> Morn”

-(“Summer,” 47).</p>

-

-<p>Thomson makes good and abundant use of compound

-epithets, and in this respect, as in others he was

-undoubtedly a bold pioneer. His language itself,

-from our present point of view, apart from the thought

-and outlook on external nature it reflects, entitles

-him to that honourable position as a forerunner in

-the Romantic reaction with which he is usually

-credited. He was not content to accept the stereotyped

-diction of his day, and asserted the right of the

-poet to make a vocabulary for himself. There is thus

-justice in the plea that it is Thomson, rather than

-Gray, whom Wordsworth should have marked down

-for widening the breach between the language of

-poetry and that of prose.</p>

-

-<p>No doubt the prevalence of the compound epithets

-in “The Seasons” is due, to some extent at least,

-to the requirement of his blank verse line; they helped

-him, so to speak, to secure the maximum of effect with

-the minimum of word-power; and at times we can

-almost see him trying to give to his unrhymed decasyllabics

-something of the conciseness and polish to

-which Pope’s couplet had accustomed his generation.

-But they owe their appearance, of course, to other

-causes than the mere mechanism of verse. Thompson’s

-fondness for “swelling sound and phrase” has

-often been touched upon, and this predilection

-finds full scope in the compound epithets; they

-play their part in giving colour and atmosphere

-to “The Seasons,” and they announce unmistakably<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>

-that the old dead, descriptive diction is

-doomed.</p>

-

-<p>Of the blank verse poems of the period only “The

-Seasons” has any real claim to be regarded as announcing

-the Romantic revolt that was soon to declare

-itself unmistakably. But three years after the

-appearance of Thomson’s final revision of his poem

-the first odes of William Collins were published, at

-the same time as those of Joseph Warton, whilst the

-work of Thomas Gray had already begun.</p>

-

-<p>There are some two score of compound formations

-in the poems of Collins, but many of these—as “<i>love-darting</i>”

-(“Poetic Character,” 8), “<i>soul-subduing</i>”

-(“Liberty,” 92)—date from the seventeenth century.

-One felicitous compound Collins has borrowed from

-James Thomson, but in doing so he has invested it

-with a new and beautiful suggestiveness. Thomson

-had written of</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ships <i>dim-discovered</i> dropping from the clouds.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 946)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The compound is taken by Collins and given a new

-beauty in his description of the landscape as the

-evening shadows gently settle upon it:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Hamlets brown and <i>dim-discovered</i> spires</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Evening,” 37)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where the poetic and pictorial force of the epithet is

-perhaps at its maximum.<a id="FNanchor_174" href="#Footnote_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p>

-

-<p>Collins, however, has not contented himself with

-compounds already in the language; he has formed

-himself, apparently, almost half of the examples to

-be found in his poems. His instances of Types I,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span>

-as of Types V and VI, are commonplace, and he

-has but few examples of Type II, the most noteworthy

-being “<i>scene-full</i> world” (“Manners,” 78), where the

-epithet, irregularly formed, seems to have the meaning

-of “abounding in scenery.” Most of his instances of

-Type III are either to be found in previous writers,

-or are obvious formations like “<i>war-denouncing</i>

-trumpets” (“Passions,” 43).</p>

-

-<p>Much more originality is evident in his examples

-of Type IV, which is apparently a favourite method

-with him. He has “<i>moss-crowned</i> fountain”

-(“Oriental Ecl.,” II, 24), “<i>sky-worn</i> robes” (“Pity,”

-II), “<i>sedge-crowned</i> sisters” (“Ode on Thomson,”

-30), “<i>elf-shot</i> arrows” (“Popular Superstitions,”

-27), etc. Some instances here are, strictly speaking,

-irregular formations, for the participles, as in “<i>sphere-descended</i>,”

-are from intransitive verbs; in other

-instances the logical relation must be expressed by a

-preposition such, as “<i>with</i>” in “<i>moss-crowned</i>,”

-“<i>sedge-crowned</i>”; or “<i>by</i>” in “<i>fancy-blest</i>,” “<i>elf-shot</i>”;

-or “<i>in</i>” in “<i>sphere-found</i>,” “<i>sky-worn</i>.”

-He has some half-dozen examples of Type VII, three

-at least of which—“<i>gay-motleyed</i> pinks” (“Oriental

-Eclogues,” III, 17), “<i>chaste-eyed</i> Queen” (“Passions,”

-75), and “<i>fiery-tressed</i> Dane” (“Liberty,” 97)—are

-apparently his own coinage, whilst others, such as

-“<i>rosy-lipp’d</i> health” (“Evening,” 50) and “<i>young-eyed</i>

-wit,” have been happily used in the service of

-the personifications that play so great a part in his

-Odes.</p>

-

-<p>There is some evidence that the use of compounds

-by certain writers was already being noticed in the

-eighteenth century as something of an innovation

-in poetical language. Thus Goldsmith, it would seem,

-was under the impression that their increasing employment,

-even by Gray, was connected in some way

-with the revived study of the older poets, especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span>

-Spenser.<a id="FNanchor_175" href="#Footnote_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> This supposition is unfounded. Gray, it is

-true, uses a large number of compounds, found in

-previous writers, but it is chiefly from Milton—e.g.

-“<i>solemn-breathing</i> airs” (“Progress of Poesy,” 14;

-cp. “Comus,” 555), “rosy-bosomed hours” (“Spring,”

-I), or from Pope—e.g. “<i>cloud-topped</i> head” (“Bard,”

-34) that he borrows. Moreover, he has many compounds

-which presumably he made for himself. Of

-Type I he has such instances as “the <i>seraph-wings</i>

-of Ecstasy” (“Progress,” 96), “the <i>sapphire-blaze</i>”

-(<i>ibid.</i>, 99), etc.; he has one original example of

-Type II in his “<i>silver-bright</i> Cynthia” (“Music,” 32),

-and two of Type III, when he speaks of the valley of

-Thames as a “<i>silver-winding</i> way” (“Eton Ode,”

-10), and he finds a new epithet for the dawn in his

-beautiful phrase “the <i>incense-breathing</i> Morn” (Elegy

-XVII). Of Type IV, he has some half-dozen examples,

-only two of which, however, owe their first appearance

-to him—the irregularly formed “<i>feather-cinctured</i>

-chiefs” (“Progress,” 62) and “the <i>dew-bespangled</i>

-wing” (“Vicissitude,” 2). The largest number of

-Gray’s compound epithets belong to Type V, where

-an adjective is used adverbially with a participle:

-“<i>rosy-crowned</i> loves” (“Progress,” 28) and “<i>deep-toned</i>

-shell” (“Music,” 23). One of Gray’s examples

-of this class of compound, evidently formed on a

-model furnished by Thomson, came in for a good deal

-of censure. He speaks of “<i>many-twinkling</i> feet”

-(“Progress,” 35), and the compound, which indeed is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>

-somewhat difficult to defend, aroused disapproval in

-certain quarters. Lyttleton was one of the first to

-object to its use, and he communicated his disapproval

-to Walpole, who, however, at once took sides

-for the defence. “In answer to your objection,” he

-wrote,<a id="FNanchor_176" href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> “I will quote authority to which you will

-yield. As Greek as the expression is, it struck Mrs.

-Garrick; and she says that Mr. Gray is the only poet

-who ever understood dancing.” Later, the objection

-was revived in a general form by Dr. Johnson. “Gray,”

-he says,<a id="FNanchor_177" href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> “is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded.

-‘Many-twinkling’ was formerly censured as not

-analogical: we may say ‘<i>many-spotted</i>’ but scarcely

-‘<i>many</i>-spotting.’” The incident is not without its

-significance; from the strictly grammatical point of

-view the epithet is altogether irregular, unless the first

-element is admitted to be an adverb meaning “very

-much” or “many times.” But Gray’s fastidiousness

-of expression is a commonplace of criticism, and

-we may be sure that even when he uses compounds of

-this kind he has not forgotten his own clearly expressed

-views on the language fit and proper for poetry.</p>

-

-<p>Johnson also objected to another device by which

-Gray had sought to enrich the vocabulary of poetry,

-as reflected in his use of the “participal” epithet in

--<i>ed</i>.<a id="FNanchor_178" href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> If this device for forming new epithets cannot

-be grammatically justified, the practice of the best

-English poets at least has always been against

-Johnson’s dictum, and, as we have seen, it has been

-a prolific source of original and valuable compound

-epithets. Of this type Gray has some six or seven

-examples, the majority of which, however, had long

-been in the language, though in the new epithet of

-“the <i>ivy-mantled</i> tower” (Elegy IX) we may perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span>

-see an indication of the increasing Romantic sensibility

-towards old ruins.</p>

-

-<p>Though not admitted to the same high rank of

-poets as Collins and Gray, two of their contemporaries,

-the brothers Warton, are at least of as great importance

-in the history of the Romantic revival.<a id="FNanchor_179" href="#Footnote_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> From our

-present point of view it is not too fanciful to see a

-reflection of this fact in the compound epithets freely

-used by both of the Wartons. Thomas Warton is

-especially noteworthy; probably no other eighteenth

-century poet, with the exception of James Thomson,

-has so many instances of new compound formations,

-and these are all the more striking in that few of

-them are of the mechanical type, readily formed by

-means of a commonplace adjective or adverb.

-Instances of compound substantives (Type I) are

-almost entirely lacking, and the same may be said of

-the noun <i>plus</i> adjective epithets (Type II). There

-are, however, a few examples of Type III (noun

-<i>plus</i> present participle), some of which, as “<i>beauty-blooming</i>

-isle” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “<i>twilight-loving</i>

-bat” (<i>ibid.</i>), and “the woodbines <i>elm-encircling</i>

-spray” (“On a New Plantation”), no

-doubt owe something to the influence of Thomson.

-Instances of Type IV are plentiful, and here again

-there is a welcome freshness in Warton’s epithets:

-“Fancy’s <i>fairy-circled</i> shrine” (“Monody Written

-near Stratford-on-Avon”), “morning’s <i>twilight-tinctured</i>

-beam” (“The Hamlet”), “<i>daisy-dappled</i> dale”

-(“Sonnet on Bathing”). One instance of this class

-of compound epithet, “the <i>furze-clad</i> dale,” is certainly

-significant as indicative of the changes that were going

-on from the “classical” to the Romantic outlook

-towards natural scenery.<a id="FNanchor_180" href="#Footnote_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span></p>

-

-<p>Of the other class of compound epithets, Warton

-has only a few instances, but his odes gave plenty of

-scope for the use of the “participial epithet” (Type

-VII), and he has formed them freely: “Pale

-Cynthia’s <i>silver-axled</i> car” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”),

-“the <i>coral-cinctured</i> stole” (“Complaint of

-Cherwell”), “Sport, the <i>yellow-tressed</i> boy” (<i>ibid.</i>).

-No doubt many of Thomas Warton’s compound

-formations were the result of a conscious effort to find

-“high-sounding” terms, and they have sometimes

-an air of being merely rhetorical, as in such instances

-as “<i>beauty-blooming</i>,” “<i>gladsome-glistering</i> green,”

-“<i>azure-arched</i>,” “<i>twilight-tinctured</i>,” “<i>coral-cinctured</i>,”

-“<i>cliff-encircled</i>,” “<i>daisy-dappled</i>,” where alliterative

-effects have obviously been sought. Yet he deserves

-great credit for his attempts to find new words at a

-time when the stock epithets and phrases were still

-the common treasury of the majority of his contemporaries.</p>

-

-<p>His brother, Joseph Warton, is less of a pioneer,

-but there is evident in his work also an effort to

-search out new epithets. His compounds include

-(Type II) “<i>marble-mimic</i> gods” (“The Enthusiast”);

-(Type III) “<i>courage-breathing</i> songs” (“Verses,

-1750”), with many instances of Type IV, some

-commonplace, as “<i>merchant-crowded</i> towns” (“Ode

-to Health”), others more original, as “mirth and

-youth nodding <i>lily-crowned</i> heads” (“Ode to Fancy”),

-joy, “the <i>rose-crowned, ever-smiling</i> boy” (“Ode

-Against Despair”), “the <i>beech-embowered</i> cottage”

-(“On The Spring”). Moreover, there are a number in

-“The Enthusiast,” which reflect a genuine love of

-Nature (“<i>thousand-coloured</i> tulips,” “<i>pine-topp’d</i>

-precipice”) and a keen observation of its sights and

-sounds.</p>

-

-<p>It is not forcing the evidence of language too much

-to say that a similar increasing interest in external<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span>

-nature finds expression in some of the compound

-epithets to be found in much of the minor poetry of

-the period. Thus Moses Mendez (<i>d.</i> 1758)<a id="FNanchor_181" href="#Footnote_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> has in

-his poem on the various seasons (1751) such conventional

-epithets as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">On every hill the <i>purple-blushing</i> vine,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">but others testify to first hand observation as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>pool-sprung</i> gnat on sounding wings doth pass.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Richard Jago (1715-1781)<a id="FNanchor_182" href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a>, in his “Edgehill” (1767),

-has such instances as “the <i>woodland-shade</i>,” “the

-<i>wave-worn</i> face,” and “the tillag’d plain <i>wide-waving</i>.”

-The Rev. R. Potter,<a id="FNanchor_183" href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> who imitated Spenser in his

-“Farewell Hymn to the Country” (1749), has happy

-examples like “<i>mavis-haunted</i> grove” and “this

-<i>flowre-perfumed</i> aire.” In William Whitehead’s

-poems<a id="FNanchor_184" href="#Footnote_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> there are numerous formations like “<i>cloud-enveloped</i>

-towers” (“A Hymn”) and “<i>rock-invested</i>

-shades” (“Elegy,” IV). A few new descriptive terms

-appear in the work of John Langhorne (1735-1779),<a id="FNanchor_185" href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a>

-“<i>flower-feeding</i> rills” (“Visions of Fancy,” I), “<i>long-winding</i>

-vales” (“Genius and Valour”), etc. Michael

-Bruce (1746-1767) in his “Lochleven”<a id="FNanchor_186" href="#Footnote_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> has, e.g.,

-“<i>cowslip-covered</i> banks,” and fresh observation of

-bird life is seen in such phrases as “<i>wild-shrieking</i>

-gull” and “<i>slow-wing’d</i> crane.” James Graeme

-(1749-1772)<a id="FNanchor_187" href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> has at least one new and happy compound

-in his line</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>blue-gray</i> mist that hovers o’er the hill.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Elegy written in Spring”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">John Scott (1730-1783)<a id="FNanchor_188" href="#Footnote_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> makes more use of compound

-formations than most of his minor contemporaries.

-He has many instances of Type IV (noun <i>plus</i> participle),

-including “<i>rivulet-water’d</i> glade” (Eclogue I),

-“<i>corn-clad</i> plain,” “<i>elder-shaded</i> cot” (“Amwell”).

-His few instances of Type VI (e.g. “<i>wildly-warbled</i>

-strain,” (“Ode” IV)), and of Type VII (e.g. “<i>trefoil-purpled</i>

-field” (“Elegy,” III)); “<i>may-flower’d</i>

-hedges” (“Elegy,” IV); and “<i>golden-clouded</i> sky,”

-(“Ode,” II), are also worthy of notice.</p>

-

-<p>Meanwhile another aspect of the rising Romantic

-movement was revealing itself in the work of Chatterton.

-With the “antiquarianism” of the Rowley poems

-we are not here concerned, but the language of both

-the “original” work and of the “discovered” poems

-contains plenty of material relevant to our special

-topic. Chatterton, indeed, seems to have had a

-predilection for compound formations, though he has

-but few instances of compound substantives (e.g.

-“<i>coppice-valley</i>” (“Elegy”), and instances of Type II

-(noun <i>plus</i> adjective) are also rare. The other types

-of epithets are, however, well represented: “<i>echo-giving</i>

-bells” (“To Miss Hoyland”), “<i>rapture-speaking</i>

-lyre” (“Song”), etc. (Type III), though

-it is perhaps in Type IV that Chatterton’s word-forming

-power is best shown: “<i>flower-bespangled</i>

-hills” (“Complaint”), “<i>rose-hedged</i> vale” (“Elegy

-at Stanton-Drew”), etc., where the first compound

-epithet is a new and suggestive descriptive term. His

-examples of Type V are also worth noting: “<i>verdant-vested</i>

-trees” (“Elegy,” V), “<i>red-blushing</i> blossom”

-“Song”), whilst one of the best of them is to be found

-in those lines, amongst the most beautiful written by

-Chatterton, which reflect something of the new charm

-that men were beginning to find in old historic churches

-and buildings:</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span></p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">To view the cross-aisles and the arches fair</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Through the half-hidden <i>silver-twinkling</i> glare</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of yon bright moon in foggy mantle dress’d.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Parliament of Sprites,” Canto XXI)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The remaining examples of Chatterton’s compound

-formations do not call for much attention, though

-“<i>gently-plaintive</i> rill” (“Elegy on Phillips”) and

-“<i>loudly-dinning</i> stream” (“Ælla,” 84) are new and

-fresh. Chatterton has much of the conventional

-poetical language and devices of his time throughout

-his work, and his compound epithets do not in the mass

-vary much from contemporary usage in this respect.

-But some of them at least are significant of the position

-which he occupies in the history of the Romantic

-revival.</p>

-

-<p>The greatest figure in this revival, as it appears to

-us now, was William Blake, but from our present

-point of view he is almost negligible. It may safely

-be said that few poets of such high rank have made

-less use of compound formations: in his entire

-poetical work scarcely half a dozen instances are to

-be found. Yet the majority of these, such as “<i>angel-guarded

-bed</i>” (“A Dream,” 2), “<i>mind-forg’d</i>

-manacles” (“London,” 8), “Winter’s <i>deep-founded</i>

-habitation” (“Winter,” 3), “<i>softly-breathing</i> song”

-(“Song,” 2: “Poetical Sketches”) are a sufficiently

-striking tribute to his ability to form expressive

-compounds had he felt the need. But in the beautiful

-purity and simplicity of his diction, for which he has

-in our own time at least received adequate praise,

-there was no place for long compound formations,

-which, moreover, are more valuable and more appropriate

-for descriptive poetry, and likely to mar the

-pure singing note of the lyric.</p>

-

-<p>It is curious to find a similar paucity of compound

-formations in the poems of George Crabbe, the whole

-number being well represented by such examples as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>

-“<i>dew-press’d</i> vale” (“Epistle to a Friend,” 48),

-“<i>violet-wing’d</i> Zephyrs” (“The Candidate,” 268),

-and “<i>wind-perfuming</i> flowers” (“The Choice”).

-No doubt the narrative character of much of Crabbe’s

-verse is the explanation of this comparative lack of

-compounds, but the descriptions of wild nature that

-form the background for many of “The Tales” might

-have been expected to result in new descriptive terms.</p>

-

-<p>Two lesser poets of the time are more noteworthy

-as regards our especial topic. William Mickle (1735-1788),

-in his “Almada Hill” (1781) and his “May

-Day,” as well as in his shorter poems, has new epithets

-for hills and heights, as in such phrases as “<i>thyme-clad</i>

-mountains” and “<i>fir-crown’d</i> hill” (“Sorcerers,”

-4). His Spenserian imitation “Syr Martyn,” contains

-a few happy epithets:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">How bright emerging o’er yon <i>broom-clad</i> height</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The silver empress of the night appears</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 31)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and “<i>daisie-whitened</i> plain,” “<i>crystal-streamed</i> Esk”

-are among his new formations in “Eskdale Braes.”</p>

-

-<p>James Beattie has a large number of compounds

-in his poems, and though many of these are mechanical

-formations, he has a few new “nature” epithets

-which are real additions to the vocabulary of poetical

-description, as “<i>sky-mixed</i> mountain” (“Ode to

-Peace,” 38), the lake “<i>dim-gleaming</i>” (“Minstrel,”

-176), “the <i>wide-weltering</i> waves” (<i>ibid.</i>, 481), the

-wave “<i>loose-glimmering</i>” (“Judgment of Paris,”

-458). He has also a few instances of Type VII

-chiefly utilized, as often with compounds of this type,

-as personifying epithets: “the frolic moments <i>purple</i>-pinioned”

-(“Judgment of Paris,” 465) and “<i>loose-robed</i>

-Quiet” (“Triumph of Melancholy,” 64).</p>

-

-<p>The “Pleasures of Memory” (1792) by Samuel<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>

-Rogers has one or two compound formations: “<i>moonlight-chequered</i>

-shade” (Part II). Hope’s “<i>summer-visions</i>”

-(<i>ibid.</i>) and “the <i>fairy-haunts</i> of long-lost

-hours” (<i>ibid.)</i>, have a trace at least of that suggestive

-power with which Keats and Shelley were soon to

-endow their epithets. Brief reference only need be

-made to the works of Erasmus Darwin, which have

-already been mentioned as the great example of

-eighteenth century stock diction used to the utmost

-possible extent. He has plenty of instances of compound

-epithets of every type, but his favourite formation

-appears to be that of a noun <i>plus</i> part-participle,

-as “<i>sun-illumined</i> fane” (“Botanic Garden,” I, 157),

-“<i>wave-worn</i> channels” (<i>ibid.</i>, I, 362), and as seen in

-such lines as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Her <i>shell-wrack</i> gardens and her <i>sea-fan</i> bowers.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Economy of Vegetation,” VI, 82)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Many of Darwin’s compounds have a certain charm

-of their own; in the mass they contribute towards

-that dazzling splendour with which eighteenth century

-diction here blazed out before it finally disappeared.</p>

-

-<p>Cowper, like Blake and Crabbe, is not especially

-distinguished for his compound epithets. Though

-he has a large number of such formations, very few

-of them are either new or striking, a remark which

-applies equally to his original work and his translations.

-Many instances of all the types are to be found in the

-“Homer,” but scarcely one that calls for special

-mention, though here and there we come across good

-epithets well applied: “accents <i>ardour-winged</i>” (IV,

-239) or “<i>silver-eddied</i> Peneus” (II, 294).</p>

-

-<p>Before attempting to sum up the use of compound

-epithets in eighteenth century poetry, brief reference

-may be made to their use in the early work of the two

-poets who announced the definite advent of the new

-age. Wordsworth in his early poems has many<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>

-instance of compound words, most of which are either

-his own formations, or are rare before his time. The

-original and final drafts both of the “Evening Walk”

-and the “Descriptive Sketches” show some divergence

-in this respect, compounds found in the 1793

-version being omitted later, whilst on the other new

-formations appear in the revised poems. Besides

-imitative instances such as “<i>cloud-piercing</i> pine trees”

-(D.S., 63), there are more original and beautiful

-compounds, such as the “<i>Lip-dewing</i> song and the

-<i>ringlet-tossing</i> dance” (<i>ibid.</i>, 132), which does not

-appear until the final draft.</p>

-

-<p>Examples of Type IV are “<i>holly-sprinkled</i> steeps”

-(E.W., 10), “The sylvan cabin’s <i>lute-enlivened</i> gloom”

-(D.S., 134, final); and of Types V and VI, “<i>green-tinged</i>

-margin” (D.S., 122), “<i>clear-blue</i> sky” (D.S.,

-113), “<i>dim-lit</i> Alps” (D.S., 1793 only, 217), and

-“the <i>low-warbled</i> breath of twilight lute” (D.S., 1793,

-749). Wordsworth’s early poems, it has been noted,

-are almost an epitome of the various eighteenth century

-devices for producing what was thought to be a distinctively

-poetical style,<a id="FNanchor_189" href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> but he soon shakes off this

-bondage, and “Guilt and Sorrow,” perhaps the first

-poem in which his simplicity and directness of expression

-are fully revealed, is practically without instances

-of compound epithets.</p>

-

-<p>The critics, it would appear, had already marked

-down as a fault a “profusion of new coined double

-epithets”<a id="FNanchor_190" href="#Footnote_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> in a “small volume of juvenile poems”

-published by Coleridge in 1794. In replying to, or rather

-commenting on, the charge, Coleridge makes an

-interesting digression on the use of such formations,

-defending them on “the authority of Milton and

-Shakespeare,” and suggesting that compound epithets

-should only be admitted if they are already “denizens”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span>

-of the language, or if the new formation is a genuine

-compound, and not merely two words made one by

-virtue of the hyphen. “A Language,” he adds, “which

-like the English is almost without cases, is indeed in

-its very genius unfitted for compounds. If a writer,

-every time a compounded word suggests itself to him,

-would seek for some other mode of expressing the

-same sense, the chances are always greatly in favour

-of his finding a better word.” Though there is a

-good deal of sound sense in these remarks, we have

-only to recall the wealth of beautiful compound

-epithets with which Keats, to take only one example,

-was soon to enrich the language, to realize that

-English poetry would be very much the poorer if the

-rule Coleridge lays down had been strictly observed.

-It would perhaps be truer to say that the imaginative

-quality of the compound epithets coined by a poet

-is a good test of his advance in power of expression.<a id="FNanchor_191" href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p>

-

-<p>As regards his own practice, Coleridge goes on to

-say<a id="FNanchor_192" href="#Footnote_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> that he “pruned the double epithets with no

-sparing hand”; but the pruning was not very severe,

-judging from a comparison of the two volumes. Yet

-these early poems are not without examples of good

-compound epithets: “<i>zephyr-haunted</i> brink,” (“Lines

-to a Beautiful Spring”), “<i>distant-tinkling</i> stream”

-(“Song of the Pixies,” 16), “<i>sunny-tinctured</i> hue”

-(<i>ibid.</i>, 43), “<i>passion-warbled</i> strain,” (“To the Rev.

-W. J. H.”), etc.</p>

-

-<p>When we review the use of compound epithets in

-the poetry of the eighteenth century we are bound to

-admit that in this, as in other aspects of the “purely

-poetical,” the eighteenth century stands apart from

-other periods in our literary history. Most readers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span>

-could probably at will call to their mind half a dozen

-compound epithets of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan

-period, of Milton, or of more modern writers, such

-as Keats, that are, as it were, little poems in themselves,

-Shakespeare’s “<i>young-eyed cherubim</i>,” or

-Milton’s “<i>grey-hooded even</i>,” or Keats’s “<i>soft-conched

-shell</i>.” It is safe to say that few eighteenth century

-words or phrases of this nature have captured the

-imagination to a similar degree; Collins’s “<i>dim-discovered

-spires</i>” is perhaps the only instance that

-comes readily to the mind.</p>

-

-<p>There are, of course, as our study has shown, plenty

-of instances of good compound epithets, but in the

-typical eighteenth century poetry these are rarely

-the product of a genuine creative force that endows

-the phrase with imaginative life. Even the great

-forerunners of the Romantic revolt are not especially

-remarkable in this respect; one of the greatest of

-them, William Blake, gave scarcely a single new

-compound epithet to the language, and whilst this

-fact, of course, cannot be brought as a reproach

-against him, yet it is, in some respects at least, significant

-of the poetical atmosphere into which he was

-born. It has often been remarked that when Latin

-influence was in the ascendant the formation of new

-and striking compound epithets has been very rare in

-English poetry, whilst it has been always stimulated,

-as we know from the concrete examples of Chapman

-and Keats, by the influence of a revived

-Hellenism.</p>

-

-<p>Another fact is worthy of attention. Many of the

-most beautiful compound epithets in the English

-language are nature phrases descriptive of outdoor

-sights and sounds. The arrested development, or

-the atrophy of the sense of the beauty of the external

-world, which is a characteristic of the neo-classical

-school, was an unconscious but effective bar to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span>

-formation of new words and phrases descriptive of

-outdoor life. The neo-classical poet, with his eye fixed

-on the town and on life as lived there, felt no necessity

-for adding to the descriptive resources of his vocabulary,

-especially when there was to his hand a whole <i>gradus</i>

-of accepted and consecrated words and phrases. It

-is in the apostles of “the return to Nature” that we

-find, however inadequately, to begin with, a new

-diction that came into being because these poets had

-recovered the use of their eyes and could sense the

-beauty of the world around them.</p>

-

-<p>And this fact leads to a further consideration of

-the use of compound epithets from the formal viewpoint

-of their technical value. It has already been

-suggested that their use may not be unconnected with

-the mechanism of verse, and the æsthetic poverty of

-eighteenth century poetry in this respect may therefore

-be not unjustly regarded as an outcome of the two

-great prevailing vehicles of expression. In the first

-place, there was the heroic couplet as brought to

-perfection by Pope. “The uniformity and maximum

-swiftness that marked his manipulation of the stopped

-couplet was achieved,” says Saintsbury, “not only

-by means of a large proportion of monosyllabic final

-words, but also by an evident avoidance of long and

-heavy vocables in the interior of the lines themselves.”<a id="FNanchor_193" href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a>

-Moreover, perhaps the commonest device to secure

-the uniform smoothness of the line was that use of

-the “<i>gradus</i> epithet” which has earlier been treated;

-these epithets were for the most part stock descriptive

-adjectives—<i>verdant</i>, <i>purling</i>, <i>fleecy</i>, <i>painted</i>, and the

-like—which were generally regarded by the versifiers

-as the only attendant diction of the couplet. If we

-compare a typical Pope verse such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Let <i>vernal</i> airs through trembling osiers play</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">with the line already quoted,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Love-whisp’ring woods and lute-resounding waves</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">we may perhaps see that the free use of compound

-epithets was not compatible with the mechanism of

-the couplet as illustrated in the greater part of Pope’s

-practice; they would tend to weaken the balanced

-antithesis, and thus spoil the swing of the line.</p>

-

-<p>The most formidable rival of the heroic couplet

-in the eighteenth century was blank verse, the

-advent of which marked the beginning of the Romantic

-reaction in form. Here Thomson may be regarded

-as the chief representative, and it is significant that

-the large number of compound epithets in his work

-are terms of natural description, which, in addition

-to their being a reflex of the revived attitude to

-natural scenery, were probably more or less consciously

-used to compensate readers for the absence of “the

-rhyme-stroke and flash” they were accustomed to

-look for in the contemporary couplet. “He utilizes

-periodically,” to quote Saintsbury again,<a id="FNanchor_194" href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> “the

-exacter nature-painting, which in general poetic

-history is his glory, by putting the distinctive words

-for colour and shape in notable places of the verse,

-so as to give it character and quality.” These “distinctive

-words for colour and shape” were, with

-Thomson, for the most part, compound epithets;

-almost by the time of “Yardley Oak,” and certainly

-by the time of “Tintern Abbey,” blank verse had

-been fully restored to its kingdom, and no longer

-needed such aid.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br />

-<span class="smaller">PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>In the Preface of 1798, when Wordsworth formulated

-his theories with regard to poetical language,

-the first “mechanical device of style” against

-which he directed his preliminary attack was the use

-of “personifications of abstract ideas.”<a id="FNanchor_195" href="#Footnote_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> Such personifications,

-he urged, do not make any natural or

-regular part of “the very language of men,” and as

-he wished “to keep the reader in the company of

-flesh and blood,” he had endeavoured “utterly to

-reject them.” He was ready to admit that they were

-occasionally “prompted by passion,” but his predecessors

-had come to regard them as a sort of family

-language, upon which they had every right to draw.

-In short, in Wordsworth’s opinion, abstractions and

-personifications had become a conventional method

-of ornamenting verse, akin to the “vicious diction,”

-from the tyranny of which he wished to emancipate

-poetry. The specific point on which he thus challenged

-the practice of his predecessors could hardly

-be gainsaid, for he had indicted a literary device, or

-artifice, which was not only worked to death by the

-mere poetasters of the period, but which disfigures

-not a little the work of even the great poets of the

-century.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span></p>

-

-<p>The literary use of abstraction and personification

-was not, it is needless to say, the invention of the

-eighteenth century. It is as old as literature itself,

-which has always reflected a tendency to interpret or

-explain natural phenomena or man’s relations with

-the invisible powers that direct or influence human

-conduct, by means of allegory, English poetry in the

-Middle Ages, especially that of Chaucer, Langland, and

-their immediate successors, fitly illustrates the great

-world of abstraction which had slowly come into being,

-a world peopled by personified states or qualities—the

-Seven Deadly Sins, the Virtues, Love, etc.—typifying

-or symbolizing the forces which help man, or

-beset and ensnare him as he makes his pilgrim’s

-progress through this world.</p>

-

-<p>Already the original motive power of allegory was

-considerably diminished, even if it had not altogether

-disappeared, and, by the time of the “Faerie Queene,”

-the literary form which it had moulded for itself had

-become merely imitative and conventional, so that

-even the music and melody of Spenser’s verse could

-not altogether vitalize the shadowy abstractions of his

-didactic allegory. With “Paradise Lost” we come to

-the last great work in which personified abstractions

-reflect to any real extent the original allegorical

-motive in which they had their origin. Milton

-achieves his supreme effects in personification in that

-his figures are merely suggestive, strongly imagined

-impressions rather than clean-cut figures. For nothing

-can be more dangerous, from the poetic point of

-view, than the precise figures which attempt to

-depict every possible point of similarity between

-the abstract notion and the material representation

-imagined.<a id="FNanchor_196" href="#Footnote_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p>

-

-<p>It is sometimes considered that the mania for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span>

-abstraction was due largely to the influence of the two

-poets who are claimed, or regarded, as the founders or

-leaders of the new classical school—Dryden and Pope.

-As a matter of fact, neither makes any great use of

-personification. Dryden has a few abstractions in

-his original works, such as,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife and Pride</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And Envy did but look on</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“First Epistle”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">but his examples are mainly to be found in his

-modernizations or translations, where of necessity

-he takes them from his originals.<a id="FNanchor_197" href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p>

-

-<p>Pope makes a greater use of the figure, but even

-here there is no excess. There is not a single personification

-in the four pastorals of “The Seasons,” a

-subject peculiarly adapted to such treatment. In

-“Eloisa to Abelard” there are two instances where

-some attempt at characterization is made.<a id="FNanchor_198" href="#Footnote_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> More

-instances, though none very striking, are to be found

-in “Windsor Forest,” but the poem ends with a massed

-group, forming a veritable catalogue of the personified

-vices which had done so much service in poetry since

-the days of the Seven Deadly Sins.</p>

-

-<p>In other poems Pope uses the device for humorous

-or satiric effect, as in the “Pain,” “Megrim,” and

-“Ill nature like an ancient maid” (l. 24) of “The Rape

-of the Lock;” or the “Science,” “Will,” “Logic,”

-etc., of “The Dunciad,” where all are invested with

-capital letters, but with little attempt to work up a

-definite picture, except, as was perhaps to be expected,

-in the case of “Dullness,” which is provided with a

-bodyguard (Bk. I, 45-52).</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span></p>

-

-<p>Though, as we have already said, there is no great

-use of such figures in the works of Pope, they are

-present in such numbers in his satiric and didactic

-works as to indicate one great reason for their prevalence

-in his contemporaries and successors. After

-the Restoration, when English literature entered on a

-new era, the changed and changing conditions of

-English life and thought soon impressed themselves

-on poetry. The keynote to the understanding of

-much that is characteristic of this new “classical”

-literature has been well summed up in the formula

-that “the saving process of human thought was

-forced for generations to beggar the sense of beauty.”<a id="FNanchor_199" href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a>

-The result was an invasion of poetry by ideas, arguments,

-and abstractions which were regarded both as

-expressing admirably the new spirit of rationalism, as

-well as constituting in themselves dignified subjects

-and ornaments of poetry.</p>

-

-<p>This is well illustrated in the case of several of

-Pope’s contemporaries. In the works of Thomas

-Parnell (1679-1718) abstractions of the conventional

-type are plentiful, usually accompanied by a qualifying

-epithet: “Fortune fair-array’d” (“An Imitation”),

-“Impetuous Discord,” “Blind Mischief,” (“On Queen

-Anne’s Peace”), “the soft Pathetic” (“On the

-Different Styles of Poetry”). These are only a few

-of the examples of the types favoured by Parnell,

-where only here and there are human traits added by

-means of qualifying epithets or phrases. In one or

-two instances, however, there are more detailed

-personifications. Thus, in the “Epistle to Dr. Swift,”

-which abounds in shadowy abstractions, Eloquence is

-fully described for us:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Upon her cheek sits Beauty ever young</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The soul of music warbles on her tongue.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span></p>

-

-<p>Moreover, already in Parnell it is evident that

-the influence of Milton is responsible for some of

-his personifications. In the same poem we get the

-invocation:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Come! country Goddess come, nor thou suffice</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">But bring thy mountain-sister Exercise,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">figures which derive obviously from “L’Allegro.”</p>

-

-<p>In the case of Richard Savage (1696-1743) there is

-still greater freedom in the use of personified abstractions,

-which, as here the creative instinct is everywhere

-subjected to the didactic purpose, become very

-wearisome. The “Wanderer” contains long catalogues

-of them, in some instances pursued for over

-fifty lines.<a id="FNanchor_200" href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p>

-

-<p>The device continued to be very popular throughout

-the eighteenth century, especially by those who

-continue or represent the “Ethical” school of Pope.

-First amongst these may be mentioned Edward Young

-(1681-1765), whose “Night Thoughts” was first

-published between 1742-1744. Young, like his contemporaries,

-has recourse to personifications, both for

-didactic purposes and apparently to add dignity to

-his style. It is probable, too, that in this respect he

-owes something to “Paradise Lost”; from Milton no

-doubt he borrowed his figure of Death, which, though

-poetically not very impressive, seems to have captured

-the imagination of Blake and other artists who

-have tried to depict it. The figure is at first only

-casually referred to in the Fourth Book (l. 96), where

-there is a brief and commonplace reference to “Death,

-that mighty hunter”; but it is not until the fifth book

-that the figure is developed. Yet, though the characterization

-is carried to great length, there is no very

-striking personification: we are given, instead, a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span>

-long-drawn-out series of abstractions, with an attempt

-now and then to portray a definite human figure.

-Thus</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Like princes unconfessed in foreign courts</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Who travel under cover, Death assumes</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The name and look of life, and dwells among us.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">And then the poet describes Death as being present

-always and everywhere, and especially</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">Gaily carousing, to his gay compeers</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Inly he laughs to see them laugh at him</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">As absent far.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>But Young has not, like Milton, been able to conjure

-up a definite and convincing vision, and thus he never

-achieves anything approaching the overwhelming

-effect produced by the phantom of Death in “Paradise

-Lost,” called before us in a single verse:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">So spake the grisly Terror.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(P.L., II. 704)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>For the rest, Young’s personifications, considering

-the nature of his subject, are fewer than might be

-expected. Where they occur they often seem to owe

-their presence to a desire to vary the monotony of his

-moral reflections; as a result we get a number of

-abstractions, which may be called personifications

-only because they are sometimes accompanied by

-human attributes.</p>

-

-<p>Young has also certain other evocations which can

-scarcely be called abstractions, but which are really

-indistinct, shadowy beings, like the figures of a dream,

-as when he describes the phantom of the past:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The spirit walks of every day deceased</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(ll. 180-181)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">or the grief of the poet as he ever meets the shades of

-joys gone for ever:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent18">The ghosts</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of my departed joys: a numerous train.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Here the poet has come near to achieving that effect

-which in the hands of the greatest poets justifies the

-use of personification as a poetic figure. The more

-delicate process just illustrated is distinct both from

-the lifeless abstraction and the detailed personification,

-for in these cases there is a tinge of personal emotion

-which invests these shadowy figures with something

-of a true lyrical effect.</p>

-

-<p>The tendency, illustrated in the “Night Thoughts,”

-to make a purely didactic use of personification and

-abstraction is found to a much greater extent in

-Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination,” first

-published in 1744, to be considerably enlarged in 1767.

-The nature of Akenside’s subject freely admitted of

-the use of these devices, and he has not been slow to

-avail himself of them.</p>

-

-<p>Large portions of the “Pleasures of the Imagination”

-resolve themselves into one long procession of abstract

-figures. Very often Akenside contents himself with

-the usual type of abstraction, accompanied by a conventional

-epithet: “Wisdom’s form celestial” (I, 69),

-“sullen Pomp” (III, 216), etc., though sometimes by

-means of human attributes or characteristics we are

-given partial personifications such as:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Power’s purple robes nor Pleasure’s flowery lap.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(l. 216)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">And occasionally there are traces of a little more

-imagination:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent8">thy lonely whispering voice</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">O faithful Nature!<a id="FNanchor_201" href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span></p>

-

-<p>But on the whole it is clear that with Akenside

-abstraction and personification are used simply and

-solely for moral and didactic purposes, and not because

-of any perception of their potential artistic value.

-Incidentally, an interesting side-light on this point is

-revealed by one of the changes introduced by the poet

-into his revision of his chief work. In the original

-edition of 1740 there is an invocation to Harmony

-(Bk. I, ll. 20 foll.), with her companion,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Her sister Liberty will not be far.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Before the publication of the revised edition, Akenside,

-who at one time had espoused the cause of liberty with

-such ardour as to lead to his being suspected of republicanism,

-received a Court appointment. In the

-revised edition the concluding lines of the invocation

-became</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent16">for with thee comes</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The guide, the guardian of their majestic rites</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Wise Order and where Order deigns to come</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Her sister Liberty will not be far.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(138 foll.)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>The same lavish use of abstractions is seen, not

-only in the philosophic poetry proper, but also in

-other works, which might perhaps have been expected

-to escape the contagion. Charles Churchill (1731-1764),

-if we set aside Johnson and Canning, may be

-regarded as representing eighteenth century satire in

-its decline, after the great figures of Pope and Swift

-have disappeared from the scene, and among the

-causes which prevent his verse from having but little

-of the fiery force and sting of the great masters of

-satire is that, instead of the strongly depicted, individual

-types of Pope, for example, we are given a heterogeneous

-collection of human virtues, vices, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>

-characteristics, most often in the form of mere abstractions,

-sometimes personified into stiff, mechanical

-figures.<a id="FNanchor_202" href="#Footnote_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> Only once has Churchill attempted anything

-novel in the way of personification, and this in

-humorous vein, when he describes the social virtues:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">With belly round and full fat face,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Which on the house reflected grace,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Full of good fare and honest glee,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The steward Hospitality.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Churchill had no doubt a genuine passion for poetry

-and independence, but the <i>saeva indignatio</i> of the

-professed censor of public morals and manners cannot

-be conveyed to the reader through the medium of

-mechanical abstractions which, compared with the

-flesh-and-blood creations of Dryden and Pope, show

-clearly that for the time being the great line of English

-satire has all but come to an end.</p>

-

-<p>Eighteenth century ethical poetry was represented

-at this stage by Johnson and Goldsmith, at whose

-work it will now be convenient to glance. The

-universal truths which Johnson as a stern, unbending

-moralist wished to illustrate in “London” (1738)

-and “The Vanity of Human Wishes” (1749), might

-easily have resulted in a swarm of the abstractions

-and personifications fashionable at the time.<a id="FNanchor_203" href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> From

-this danger Johnson was saved by the depth of feeling

-with which he unfolds the individual examples chosen

-to enforce his moral lessons. Not that he escapes

-entirely; “London” has a few faint abstractions

-(“Malice,” “Rapine,” “Oppression”); but though<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span>

-occasionally they are accompanied by epithets suggesting

-human attributes (“surly Virtue,” “persecuting

-Fate,” etc.), as a rule there is no attempt at definite

-personification, a remark which also applies to the

-“Vanity of Human Wishes.” In his odes to the

-different seasons he has not given, however, any

-elaborate personifications, but has contented himself

-with slight human touches, such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Now Autumn bends a cloudy brow.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Of Johnson’s poetical style, regarded from our

-present point of view, it may be said to be well

-represented in the famous line from “London”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Slow rises Worth by Poverty depressed,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where there is probably no intention or desire to

-personify at all, but which is a result of that tendency

-towards Latin condensation which the great Doctor

-and his contemporaries had introduced into English

-prose.</p>

-

-<p>Goldsmith’s poetry has much in common with that

-of Johnson, in that both deal to some extent with

-what would now be called social problems. But

-it is significant of Goldsmith’s historical position

-in eighteenth century poetry as representing a sort

-of “half-way attitude,” in the matter of poetical

-style, between the classical conventional language and

-the free and unfettered diction advocated by Wordsworth,

-that there are few examples of personified

-abstractions in his works, and these confined mainly

-to one passage in “The Traveller”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Hence Ostentation here with tawdry Art</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart, etc.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span></p>

-

-<p>At this point it is necessary to hark back for the

-purpose of considering other works which had been

-appearing alongside of the works just discussed. It

-has already been remarked that in this matter of the

-use of abstraction and personification the influence

-of Milton early asserted itself, and there can be no

-doubt that a good deal of it may be traced to the

-influence more especially of the early poems. Indeed,

-the blank verse poems, which attempted to imitate or

-parody the “grand style” of the great epics, furnish

-few examples of the personified abstraction. The

-first of these, the “Splendid Shilling” and “Cyder”

-of John Philips (1705-1706) contains but few instances.

-In Somerville’s “Chase” there is occasionally a

-commonplace example, such as “brazen-fisted Time,”

-though in his ode “To Marlborough” he falls into

-the conventional style quickly enough. In the

-rest of the blank verse poems Mallet’s “Excursion”

-(1738), and his “Amyntor and Theodora” (1744),

-comparatively little use is made of the device,

-a remark also applicable to Dyer’s “Ruins of

-Rome” (1740), and to Grainger’s “Sugar Cane”

-(1764).</p>

-

-<p>The fashion for all these blank verse poems had

-been started largely by the success of “The Seasons,”

-which appeared in its original form from 1726 to 1730,

-to undergo more than one revision and augmentation

-until the final edition of 1744. Though Thomson’s

-work shows very many traces of the influence of

-Milton, there is no direct external evidence that his

-adoption of blank verse was a result of that influence.

-Perhaps, as has been suggested,<a id="FNanchor_204" href="#Footnote_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> he was weary of

-the monotony of the couplet, or at least considered its

-correct and polished form incapable of any further

-development. At the same time it is clear that having

-adopted “rhyme-unfettered verse,” he chose to regard<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span>

-Milton as a model of diction and style, though he was

-by no means a slavish imitator.</p>

-

-<p>With regard to the special problems with which we

-are here concerned, it must be noted that when

-Thomson was first writing “The Seasons,” the device

-of personified abstraction had not become quite so

-conventional and forced in its use as at a later date.

-Nevertheless examples of the typical abstraction are

-not infrequent; thus, in an enumeration of the

-passions which, since the end of the “first fresh dawn,”

-have invaded the hearts and minds of men, we are

-given “Base Envy,” withering at another’s joy;

-“Convulsive Anger,” storming at large; and “Desponding

-Fear,” full of feeble fancies, etc. (“Spring,”

-280-306). Other examples are somewhat redeemed

-by the use of a felicitous compound epithet, “Art

-imagination-flushed” (“Autumn,” 140), “the lonesome

-Muse, low-whispering” (<i>ibid.</i>, 955), etc. In

-“Summer” (ll. 1605 foll.) the poet presents one of the

-usual lists of abstract qualities (“White Peace,

-Social Love,” etc.), but there are imaginative touches

-present that help to vitalize some at least of the

-company into living beings:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The tender-looking Charity intent</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles—</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and the passage is thus a curious mixture of mechanical

-abstractions with more vivid and inspired conceptions.</p>

-

-<p>Occasionally Thomson employs the figure with

-ironical or humorous intention, and sometimes not

-ineffectively, as in the couplet,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Produce the mighty bowl.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Autumn,” 512)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">He is also fond of the apostrophic personification,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span>

-often feebly, as when, acting upon a suggestion from

-Mallet,<a id="FNanchor_205" href="#Footnote_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> he writes:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Comes, Inspiration, from thy hermit seat,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">By mortal seldom found, etc.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” l. 15)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>As for the seasons themselves, we do not find any

-very successful attempts at personification. Thomson

-gives descriptive impressions rather than abstractions:

-“gentle Spring, ethereal mildness” (“Spring,” 1),

-“various-blossomed Spring” (“Autumn,” 5); or

-borrowing, as often, an epithet from Milton, “refulgent

-Summer” (“Summer,” 2); or “surly Winter”

-(“Spring,” 11).</p>

-

-<p>But in these, and similar passages, the seasons can

-hardly be said to be distinctly pictured or personified.

-In “Winter,” however, there is perhaps a more

-successful attempt at vague but suggestive personification:<a id="FNanchor_206" href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">See Winter comes, to rule the varied year,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Sullen and sad, with all his rising train</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Vapours, and clouds and storms.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">But on the whole Thomson’s personifications of the

-seasons are not, poetically, very impressive. There

-is little or no approach to the triumphant evocation

-with which Keats conjures up Autumn for us, with all

-its varied sights and sounds, and its human activities

-vividly personified in the gleaner and the winnower</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">sitting careless on a granary floor</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or the couplet in which Coleridge brings before us a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>

-subtle suggestion of the spring beauty, to which the

-storms and snows are but a prelude:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">And winter, slumbering in the open air</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Work without Hope”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Yet Thomson, as might be expected in a forerunner of

-the Romantic school, is not altogether without a gift

-for these embryonic personifications, as they have

-been called, when by means of a felicitous term or

-epithet the whole conception which the poet has in

-mind is suddenly galvanized into life and endowed

-with human feelings and emotions. Such evocations

-are of the very stuff of which poetry is made, and at

-their highest they possess the supreme power of

-stirring or awakening in the mind of the reader other

-pictures or visions than those suggested by the mere

-personification.<a id="FNanchor_207" href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p>

-

-<p>Though some of Thomson’s instances are conventional

-or commonplace, as in the description of</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent12">the grey grown oaks</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">That the calm village in their verdant arms</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Sheltering, embrace,</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 225-227)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and others merely imitative, as,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent14">the rosy-footed May</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Steals blushing on,</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 489-490)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">yet there are many which call up by a single word a

-vivid and picturesque expression, such as the “hollow-whispering

-breeze” (“Summer,” 919) or the poet’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>

-description of the dismal solitude of a winter landscape</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent14">It freezes on</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Till Morn, late rising o’er the drooping world</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Lifts her pale eyes unjoyous</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 744)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or the beautiful description of a spring dawn:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 48-49)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Adverting to the question of Milton’s influence

-on the prevalent mania for personification, it is undoubted

-that the early poems may be held largely

-responsible. Their influence first began noticeably

-to make itself felt in the fifth decade of the century,

-when their inspiration is to be traced in a great

-deal of the poetic output of the period, including

-that of Joseph and Thomas Warton, as well as

-of Collins and Gray. Neglecting for the moment

-the greater poets who drew inspiration from this

-source, it will be as well briefly to consider first

-the influence of Milton’s minor poems on the obscure

-versifiers, for it is very often the case that the minor

-poetry of an age reflects most distinctly the peculiarities

-of a passing literary fashion. As early as 1739

-William Hamilton of Bangour<a id="FNanchor_208" href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> imitated Milton in his

-octosyllabic poem “Contemplation,” and by his

-predilection for abstraction foreshadowed one of the

-main characteristics of the Miltonic revival among

-the lesser lights. A single passage shows this clearly

-enough:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Anger with wild disordered pace</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And malice pale of famish’d face:</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Loud-tongued Clamour get thee far</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Hence, to wrangle at the bar:</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and so on.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span></p>

-

-<p>Five or six years later Mason’s Miltonic imitations

-appeared—“Il Bellicoso” and “Il Pacifico”—which

-follow even more slavishly the style of “L’Allegro”

-and “Il Penseroso,” so that there is no need for

-Mason’s footnote to “Il Bellicoso” describing the

-poem with its companion piece as this “very, very

-juvenile imitation.”<a id="FNanchor_209" href="#Footnote_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> “Il Bellicoso” begins with the

-usual dismissal:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Hence, dull lethargic Peace</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Born in some hoary beadsman’s cell obscure,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and subsequently we are introduced to Pleasure,

-Courage, Victory, Fancy, etc. There is a similar

-exorcism in “Il Pacifico,” followed by a faint personification

-of the subject of the ode, attended by a

-“social smiling train” of lifeless abstractions.</p>

-

-<p>The pages of Dodsley<a id="FNanchor_210" href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> furnish abundant testimony

-to the prevalence of this kind of thing. Thus “Penshurst”<a id="FNanchor_211" href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a>

-by F. Coventry is another close imitation of

-Milton’s companion poems, with the usual crowd of

-abstractions. The same thing is met with in the

-anonymous “Vacation,”<a id="FNanchor_212" href="#Footnote_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> and in the “Valetudinarian,”

-said to be written by Dr. Marriott.<a id="FNanchor_213" href="#Footnote_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p>

-

-<p>It is unnecessary to illustrate further the Milton

-vogue, which thus produced so large a crop of imitations,<a id="FNanchor_214" href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a>

-except to say that there is significant testimony

-to the widespread prevalence of the fashion in the fact

-that a parody written “in the Allegoric, Descriptive,

-Alliterative, Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span>

-Diabolical Style of our modern Ode writers and

-monody-mongers”<a id="FNanchor_215" href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> soon appeared. This was the

-anonymous “Ode to Horror,” a humorous burlesque,

-especially of the “Pleasures of Melancholy.” The

-Wartons stand high above the versifiers at whose

-productions we have just looked, but nevertheless

-there was some justification for the good-humoured

-parody called forth by their works.</p>

-

-<p>In 1746 there appeared a small volume entitled

-“Odes on Various Subjects,” a collection of fourteen

-odes by Joseph Warton.<a id="FNanchor_216" href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> The influence of Milton is

-especially seen in the odes “To Fancy,” “To Health,”

-and to “The Nightingale,” but all betray definitely

-the source of their inspiration. Thus in the first

-named:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Me, Goddess, by the right hand lead</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes thro’ the yellow mead</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Where Joy and White-robed Peace resort</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And Venus keeps her festive court.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">All the odes of Warton betray an abundant use of

-abstractions, in the midst of which he rarely displays

-anything suggestive of spontaneous inspiration. His

-few personifications of natural powers are clearly

-imitative. “Evening” is “the meek-eyed Maiden

-clad in sober gray” and Spring comes</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">array’d in primrose colour’d robe.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">We feel all the time that the poet drags in his stock<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>

-of personified abstractions only because he is writing

-odes, and considers that such devices add dignity to

-his subject.</p>

-

-<p>At the same time it is worth noting that almost

-the same lavish use of these lay figures occurs in his

-blank verse poem, “The Enthusiast,” or “The Lover

-of Nature” (1740), likewise written in imitation of

-Milton, and yet in its prophetic insight so important

-a poem in the history of the Romantic revival.<a id="FNanchor_217" href="#Footnote_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a>

-Lines such as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent8">Famine, Want and Pain</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Sunk to their graves their fainting limbs</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">are frequent, while there is a regular procession of

-qualities, more or less sharply defined, but not

-poetically suggestive enough to be effective.</p>

-

-<p>The younger of the two brothers, Thomas Warton,

-who by his critical appreciation of Spenser did much

-in that manner to help forward the Romantic movement,

-was perhaps still more influenced by Milton.

-His ode on “The Approach of Summer” shows to

-what extent he had taken possession of the verse,

-language, and imagery of Milton:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">Haste thee, nymph, and hand in hand</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">With thee lead a buxom band</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Bring fantastic-footed Joy</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">With Sport, that yellow-tressed boy;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Leisure, that through the balmy sky,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Chases a crimson butterfly.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">But nearly all his poems provide numerous instances

-of personified abstraction, especially the lines “Written

-at Vale Abbey,” which seems to exhaust, and present

-as thin abstractions, the whole gamut of human

-virtues and vices, emotions and desires.<a id="FNanchor_218" href="#Footnote_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span></p>

-

-<p>There is a certain irony in the fact that the two men

-who, crudely, perhaps, but nevertheless unmistakably,

-adumbrated the Romantic doctrine, should have been

-among the foremost to indulge in an excess against

-which later the avowed champion of Romanticism

-was to inveigh with all his power. This defect was

-perhaps the inevitable result of the fact that the

-Wartons had apparently been content in this respect

-to follow a contemporary fashion as revealed in

-the swarm of merely mechanical imitations of

-Milton’s early poems. But their subjects were on

-the whole distinctly romantic, and this fact, added

-to their critical utterances, gives them real historical

-importance. Above all, it is to be remembered that

-they have for contemporaries the two great poets

-in whom the Romantic movement was for the first

-time adequately exemplified—William Collins and

-Thomas Gray.</p>

-

-<p>The first published collection of Collins’s work,

-“Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects”

-(1746), was, as we have seen, if not neglected or

-ignored by the public, at least received with marked

-indifference, owing largely no doubt to the abstract

-nature of his subjects, and the chiselled severity of his

-treatment.<a id="FNanchor_219" href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> In other words, Collins was pure classical

-and not neo-classical; he had gone direct back to the

-“gods of Hellas” for his inspiration, and his verse

-had a Hellenic austerity and beauty which could make

-little or no appeal to his own age. At the same time

-it was permeated through and through with new and

-striking qualities of feeling and emotion that at once

-aroused the suspicions of the neo-classicists, with

-Johnson as their mentor and spokesman. The “Odes”

-were then, we may say, classical in form and romantic

-in essence, and it is scarcely a matter for surprise<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>

-that a lukewarm reception should have been their

-lot.<a id="FNanchor_220" href="#Footnote_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p>

-

-<p>Collins has received merited praise for the charm

-and precision of his diction generally, and the fondness

-for inverting the common order of his words—Johnson’s

-chief criticism of his poetical style<a id="FNanchor_221" href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a>—is to the modern

-mind a venial offence compared with his use of personified

-abstractions. On this point Johnson has

-nothing to say, an omission which may be regarded

-as significant of the extent to which personification

-had invaded poetry, for the critic, if we may

-judge from his silence, seems to have considered

-it natural and legitimate for Collins also to have

-made abundant use of this stock and conventional

-device.</p>

-

-<p>It is probable, however, that the extensive use

-which Collins makes of the figure is the result in a

-large measure of his predilection for the ode—a form

-of verse very fashionable towards the middle of the

-century. As has already been noted, odes were being

-turned out in large numbers by the poetasters of the

-time, in which virtues and vices, emotions and passions

-were invoked, apostrophized, and dismissed with

-appropriate gestures, and it is probable that the

-majority of these turgid and ineffective compositions

-owed their appearance to the prevalent mania for

-personification. Young remarked with truth<a id="FNanchor_222" href="#Footnote_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> that

-an ode is, or ought to be, “more spontaneous and more

-remote from prose” than any other kind of poetry;

-and doubtless it was some vague recognition of this

-fact, and in the hope of “elevating” their style, that

-led the mere versifiers to adopt the trick. But as they

-worked the mechanical personification to death, they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span>

-quickly robbed it of any impressiveness it may ever

-have had.</p>

-

-<p>This might quite fairly be described as the state of

-affairs with regard to the use of personified abstraction

-when Collins was writing his “odes,” but while it is

-true that he indulges freely in personification, it is

-scarcely necessary to add that he does so with a

-difference; his Hellenic training and temperament

-naturally saved him from the inanities and otiosities

-of so much contemporary verse. To begin with,

-there are but few examples of the lifeless abstraction,

-and even in such cases there is usually present a happy

-epithet, or brief description that sets them on a higher

-level than those that swarm even in the odes of the

-Wartons. Thus in the “Ode on the Poetical

-Character,” “the shadowy tribes of mind,” which

-had been sadly overworked by Collins’s predecessors

-and contemporaries, are brought before us with a new

-and fresh beauty that wins instant acceptance for

-them:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">But near it sat ecstatic Wonder</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Listening the deep applauding thunder</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And truth in sunny vest arrayed</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">By whom the tassel’s eyes were made</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">All the shadowy tribes of mind</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In braided dance their murmurs joined.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Instances of the mechanical type so much in favour

-are, however, not lacking, as in this stanza from the

-“Verses” written about bride-cake:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ambiguous looks that scorn and yet relent,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Denial mild and firm unaltered truth,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Reluctant pride and amorous faint consent</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And melting ardours and exulting youth.<a id="FNanchor_223" href="#Footnote_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>The majority of Collins’s personified abstractions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>

-are, however, vague in outline, that is to say, they

-suggest, but do not define, and are therefore the more

-effective in that the resulting images are almost

-evanescent in their delicacy. Thus in the “Ode to

-Pity” the subject is presented to us in magic words:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Long pity, let the nations view</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Thy sky-worn robes of tender blue</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">And eyes of dewy light,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst still another imaginative conception is that of

-“Mercy”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">who sitt’st a smiling bride</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">By Valour’s armed and awful side</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Gentlest of sky-born forms and best adorned.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The “Ode to the Passions” is in itself almost an

-epitome of the various ways in which Collins makes

-use of personification. It is first to be noted that he

-rarely attempts to clothe his personifications in long

-and elaborate descriptions; most often they are given

-life and reality by being depicted, so to speak, moving

-and acting:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Revenge impatient rose,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And with a withering look</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The war-denouncing trumpet took;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Whilst his strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Even the figures, seen as it were but for a moment,

-are flashed before us in this manner:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">With woful measures wan Despair</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Dejected Pity at his side</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Her soul-subduing voice applied</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">and the vision of hope with “eyes so fair” who</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">smiled and waved her golden hair.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">In this ode Collins gives us also imaginative cameos,

-we might call them, vividly delineated and presented

-like the figures on the Grecian urn that inspired

-Keats. Thus:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">While as his flying fingers kissed the strings,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Love framed with mirth a gay fantastic round.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and, with its tinge of probably unconscious humour—</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">Brown exercise rejoiced to hear,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And Sport leapt up and seized his beechen spear.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>From these and similar instances, we receive a

-definite impression of that motion, which is at the

-same time repose, so characteristic of classical

-sculptuary.</p>

-

-<p>Most of the odes considered above are addressed to

-abstractions. In the few instances where Collins

-invokes the orders or powers of nature even greater

-felicity is shown in the art with which he calls up and

-clothes in perfect expression his abstract images. The

-first of the seasons is vaguely but subtly suggested to

-us in the beautiful ode beginning “How sleep the

-brave”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">When Spring with dewy fingers cold</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Returns to deck their hallowed mould,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">She there shall dress a sweeter sod</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Than fancy’s feet have ever trod.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">This is rather a simile than a personification, but yet

-there is conveyed to us a definite impression of a

-shadowy figure that comes to deck the earth with

-beauty, like a young girl scattering flowers as she walks

-along.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span></p>

-

-<p>But the workmanship of Collins in this respect is

-seen in its perfection in the “Ode to Evening.” There

-is no attempt to draw a portrait or chisel a statue; the

-calm, restful influence of evening, its sights and sounds

-that radiate peace and contentment, even the very

-soul of the landscape as the shades of night gather

-around, are suggested by master touches, whilst the

-slow infiltration of the twilight is beautifully suggested:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Thy dewy fingers draw</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The gradual dusky veil.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The central figure is still the same evanescent being,

-the vision of a maiden, endowed with all the grace of

-beauty and dignity, into whose lap “sallow Autumn”

-is pouring his falling leaves, or who now goes her way

-slowly through the tempest, while</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Winter, yelling through the troublous air</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Affrights thy shrinking train,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And rudely rends thy robe.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>If we had no other evidence before us, Collins’s use

-of personified abstraction would be sufficient in itself

-to announce that the new poetry had begun. He

-makes use of the device as freely, and even now and

-then as mechanically, as the inferior versifiers of his

-period, but instead of the bloodless abstractions,

-his genius enabled him to present human qualities

-and states in almost ethereal form. Into them he has

-breathed such poetic life and inspiration that in their

-suggestive beauty and felicity of expression they stand

-as supreme examples of personification used as a

-legitimate poetical device, as distinct from a mere

-rhetorical figure or embellishment.</p>

-

-<p>This cannot be said of Gray, in whose verse mechanical

-personifications crowd so thickly that, as Coleridge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span>

-observed in his remarks on the lines from “The

-Bard,”</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">it depends “wholly on the compositors putting or not

-putting a small Capital, both in this and in many

-other passages of the same poet, whether the words

-should be personifications or mere abstractions.”<a id="FNanchor_224" href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a></p>

-

-<p>It is difficult to account for this devotion of Gray to

-the “new Olympus,” thickly crowded with “moral

-deities” that his age had brought into being, except

-on the assumption that contemporary usage in this

-respect was too strong for him to resist. For it cannot

-be denied that very many of the beings that swarm in

-his odes do not differ in their essential character from

-the mechanical figures worked to death by the ode-makers

-of his days; even his genius was not able to

-clothe them all in flesh and blood. In the “Eton

-College” ode there is a whole stanza given over to a

-conventional catalogue of the “fury passions,” the

-“vultures of the mind”; and similar thin abstractions

-people all the other odes. Nothing is visualized: we

-see no real image before us.<a id="FNanchor_225" href="#Footnote_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> Even the famous

-“Elegy” is not without its examples of stiff personification,

-though they are not present in anything

-like the excess found elsewhere. The best that can

-be said for abstractions of this kind is that in their

-condensation they represent an economy of expression<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>

-that is not without dignity and effectiveness, and

-they thus sometimes give an added emphasis to the

-sentiment, as in the oft-quoted</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Their homely joys and destiny secure,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The short and simple annals of the poor.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Gray rarely attempts to characterize his figures

-other than by the occasional use of a conventional

-epithet, and only here and there has the personification

-been to any extent filled in so as to form at least

-an outline picture. In the “Hymn to Adversity,”

-Wisdom is depicted</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">in sable garb arrayed</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Immersed in rapturous thought profound,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst other slight human touches are to be found here

-and there: as in “Moody Madness, laughing wild”

-(“Ode on a Distant Prospect”). His personifications,

-however, have seldom the clear-cut outlines we find

-in Collins, nor do they possess more than a tinge of the

-vividness and vitality the latter could breathe into

-his abstractions. Yet now and then we come across

-instances of the friezes in which Collins excels, moving

-figures depicted as in Greek plastic art</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">Antic sports and blue-eyed Pleasures,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Frisking light in frolic measures</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Progress of Poesy”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or the beautiful vision in the “Bard,”</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">Bright Rapture calls and soaring as she sings,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Waves in the eyes of heaven her many-coloured wings.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">And in the “Ode on Vicissitude” Gray has one

-supreme example of the embryonic personification,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span>

-when the powers or orders of nature are invested with

-human attributes, and thus brought before us as living

-beings, in the form of vague but suggestive impressions

-that leave to the imagination the task of filling in the

-details:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent4">Now the golden Morn aloft</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Waves her dew-bespangled wing</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">With vernal cheek and whisper soft</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">She woos the tardy spring.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>But in the main, and much more than the poet

-with whom his name is generally coupled, it is perhaps

-not too much to say that Gray was content to handle

-the device in the same manner as the uninspired

-imitators of the “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.”

-Not that he was unaware of the danger of such a tendency

-in himself and others. “I had rather,” he

-wrote to Mason<a id="FNanchor_226" href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> when criticizing the latter’s “Caractacus,”

-“some of the personages—‘Resignation,’

-‘Peace,’ ‘Revenge,’ ‘Slaughter,’ ‘Ambition’—were

-stripped of their allegorical garb. A little simplicity

-here and there in the expression would better

-prepare the high and fantastic harpings that follow.”

-In the light of this most salutary remark, Gray’s own

-procedure is only the more astonishing. His innumerable

-personifications may not have been regarded by

-Johnson as contributory to “the kind of cumbrous

-splendour” he wished away from the odes, but the

-fact that they are scarce in the “Elegy” is not without

-significance. The romantic feeling which asserts

-itself clearly in the odes, the new imaginative conceptions

-which these stock figures were called upon to

-convey, the perfection of the workmanship—these

-qualities were more than sufficient to counterweigh

-Gray’s licence of indulgence in a mere rhetorical

-device. Yet Coleridge was right in calling attention<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span>

-to this defect of Gray’s style, especially as his censure

-is no mere diatribe against the use of personified

-abstraction: it is firmly and justly based on the

-undeniable fact that Gray’s personifications are for

-the most part cold and lifeless, that they are mere

-verbal abstractions, utterly devoid of the redeeming

-vitality, which Collins gives to his figures.<a id="FNanchor_227" href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> It is for

-this reason perhaps that his poetry in the mass has

-never been really popular, and that the average

-reader, with his impatience of abstractions, has

-been content, with Dr. Johnson, to pronounce boldly

-for “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”</p>

-

-<p>Before proceeding to examine the works of the

-other great poets who announce or exemplify the

-Romantic revival, it will be convenient at this point

-to look at some of the Spenserian imitations, which

-helped to inspire and vitalize the revival.</p>

-

-<p>Spenser was the poet of mediaeval allegory. In

-the “Faerie Queene,” for the first time a real poet,

-endowed with the highest powers of imagination and

-expression, was able to present the old traditional

-abstractions wonderfully decked up in a new and

-captivating guise. The personages that move like

-dream figures through the cantos of the poem are

-thus no mere personified abstractions: they are

-rather pictorial emblems, many of which are limned

-for us with such grandeur of conception and beauty

-of execution as to secure for the allegorical picture a

-“willing suspension of disbelief,” whilst the essentially

-romantic atmosphere more than atones for the

-cumbrous and obsolete machinery adopted by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>

-Spenser to inculcate the lessons of “virtuous and

-gentle discipline.”</p>

-

-<p>Though the eighteenth century Spenserians make a

-plentiful use of personified abstraction, on the whole

-their employment of this device differs widely from its

-mechanical use by most of their contemporaries: in

-the best of the imitations there are few examples of

-the lifeless abstraction. Faint traces at least of the

-music and melody of the “Faerie Queene” have been

-caught and utilized to give a poetic charm even to

-the personified virtues and vices that naturally appear

-in the work of Spenser’s imitators. Thus in William

-Thompson’s “Epithalamium” (1736), while many

-of the old figures appear before us, they have something

-of the new charm with which Collins was soon to

-invest them. Thus,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Liberty, the fairest nymph on ground</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">The flowing plenty of her growing hair</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Diffusing lavishly ambrosia round</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Earth smil’d, and Gladness danc’d along the sky.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The epithets which accompany the abstractions are

-no longer conventional (“Chastity meek-ey’d,”

-“Modesty sweet-blushing”) and help to give touches

-of animation to otherwise inanimate figures. In the

-“Nativity” (1757) there is a freer use of the mere

-abstraction that calls up no distinct picture, but even

-here there are happy touches that give relief:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent2">Faith led the van, her mantle dipt in blue,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Steady her ken, and gaining on the skies.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">In the “Hymn to May” (1787) Thompson personified

-the month whose charms he is singing, the result being

-a radiant figure, having much in common with the

-classical personifications of the orders or powers of

-nature:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">A silken camus, em’rald green</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Gracefully loose, adown her shoulder flow.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span></p>

-

-<p>In Shenstone’s “Schoolmistress” (1737-1742)

-instances of personification are rare, and, where they

-do occur, are merely faint abstractions like “Learning

-near her little dome.” It is noteworthy that one of

-the most successful of the Spenserian imitations should

-have dispensed with the cumbrous machinery of

-abstract beings that, on the model of the “Faerie

-Queene,” might naturally have been drawn upon.

-The homely atmosphere of the “Schoolmistress,”

-with its idyllic pictures and its gentle pathos, would,

-indeed, have been fatally marred by their introduction.</p>

-

-<p>The same sparing use of personification is evident

-in the greatest of the imitations, James Thomson’s

-“Castle of Indolence” (1748). A theme of this

-nature afforded plenty of opportunity to indulge in

-the device, and Thomson, judging from its use of the

-figure in some of his blank verse poems, might have

-been expected to take full advantage. But there are

-less than a score of examples in the whole of the poem.

-Only vague references are made to the eponymous

-hero: he is simply “Indolence” or “tender

-Indolence” or “the demon Indolence.” For the

-rest Thomson’s few abstractions are of the stock

-type, though occasionally more realistic touches

-result, we may suppose, from the poet’s sense of

-humour as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cock.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Only here and there has Thomson attempted full-length

-portraits in the Spenserian manner, as when

-Lethargy, Hydropsy, and Hypochondria are described

-with drastic realism.<a id="FNanchor_228" href="#Footnote_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a></p>

-

-<p>The works of the minor Spenserians show a greater

-use of personified abstraction, but even with them there

-is no great excess. Moreover, where instances do<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span>

-occur, they show imaginative touches foreign to the

-prevalent types. Thus in the “Vision of Patience”

-by Samuel Boyce (d. 1778),</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Silence sits on her untroubled throne</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">As if she left the world to live and reign alone,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">while Patience stands</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">In robes of morning grey.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Occasionally the personified abstractions, though

-occurring in avowedly Spenserian imitations, obviously

-owe more to the influence of “L’Allegro”; as in

-William Whitehead’s “Vision of Solomon” (1730),

-where the embroidered personifications are much

-more frequent than the detailed images given by

-Spenser.<a id="FNanchor_229" href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a></p>

-

-<p>The work of Chatterton represents another aspect

-of this revival of the past, but it is curious to find

-that, in his acknowledged “original” verse there are

-not many instances of the personified abstraction,

-whilst they are freely used in the Rowley poems.

-Where they do occur in his avowedly original work

-they are of the usual type, though more imaginative

-power is revealed in his personification of Winter:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Pale rugged Winter bending o’er his tread,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew:</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">His eyes a dusky light congealed and dead,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>From our special point of view the “antiquarianism”

-of the Rowley poems might almost be disproved by

-the prevalence of abstractions and personifications,

-which in most instances are either unmistakably

-of the eighteenth century or which testify to the new

-Romantic atmosphere now manifesting itself. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>

-stock types of frigid abstraction are all brought on

-the stage in the manner of the old Moralities, and each

-is given an ample speaking part in order to describe

-his own characteristics.</p>

-

-<p>But in addition to these lifeless abstractions, there

-are to be found in the Rowley poems a large number

-of detailed and elaborate personifications. Some of

-these are full length portraits in the Spenserian

-manner, and now and then the resulting personification

-is striking and beautiful, as when, in “Ælla”

-(59), Celmond apostrophizes Hope, or the evocation

-of Truth in “The Storie of William Canynge.”</p>

-

-<p>Chatterton has also in these poems a few personifications

-of natural powers, but these are mainly

-imitative as in the lines (“Ælla,” 94) reminiscent of

-Milton and Pope<a id="FNanchor_230" href="#Footnote_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a>:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">From the red east he flitted with his train,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The hours drew away the robe of night,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Her subtle tapestry was rent in twain.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">But the evocation of the seasons themselves, as in

-“Ælla” (32),</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">When Autumn sere and sunburnt doth appear</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">conveys a fresh and distinct picture that belongs to

-the new poetry, and has in it a faint forecast of Keats.</p>

-

-<p>It remains to look at the work of the later eighteenth

-century poets, who announce that if the Romantic

-outburst is not yet, it is close at hand. The first and

-greatest of these is William Blake. His use of personification

-in the narrower sense which is our topic, is,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span>

-of course, formally connected with the large and

-vital question of his symbolism, to treat of which here

-in any detail is not part of our scheme.</p>

-

-<p>In its widest sense, however, Blake’s mysticism

-may be connected with the great mediaeval world of

-allegory: it is “an eddy of that flood-tide of symbolism

-which attained its tide-mark in the magic of the

-Middle Ages.”<a id="FNanchor_231" href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> But the poet himself unconsciously

-indicates the vital distinction between the new

-symbolism, which he inaugurates, and the old, of

-which the personified abstractions of his eighteenth

-century predecessors may be regarded as faint and

-faded relics. “Allegory addressed to the intellectual

-powers,” he wrote to Thomas Butts,<a id="FNanchor_232" href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> “while it is

-altogether hidden from the corporeal understanding,

-is my definition of the most surprising poetry.”</p>

-

-<p>On its formal side, and reduced to its simplest

-expression, we may narrow down for our present

-purpose the whole system to the further distinction

-drawn by Blake between Allegory and Vision.

-Allegory is “formed by the daughters of Memory”

-or the deliberate reason; Vision “is surrounded by

-the daughters of Inspiration.” Here we have a key

-to the classification of personified abstractions in the

-eighteenth century, and, for that matter, at any and

-every period. Abstractions formed by the deliberate

-reason are usually more or less rhetorical embellishments

-of poetry, and to this category belong the great

-majority of the personifications of eighteenth century

-verse. They are “things that relate to moral virtues”

-or vices, but they cannot truly be called allegorical,

-for allegory is a living thing only so long as the ideas

-it embodies are real forces that control our conduct.

-The inspired personification, which embodies or brings

-with it a real vision, is the truly poetical figure.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span></p>

-

-<p>In Blake’s own practice we find only a few instances

-of the typical eighteenth century abstraction. In the

-early “Imitation of Spenser” there are one or two

-examples:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent2">Such is sweet Eloquence that does dispel</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Envy and Hate that thirst for human gore,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst others are clearly Elizabethan reminiscences,

-like</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Mournful lean Despair</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Brings me yew to deck my grave,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Memory, hither come</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And tune your merry notes.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">“The Island in the Moon” furnishes grotesque

-instances, such as that of old Corruption dressed in

-yellow vest. In “The Divine Image,” from the

-“Songs of Innocence,” while commonplace virtues

-are personified, the simple direct manner of the

-process distinguishes them from their prototypes

-in the earlier moral and didactic poetry of the century:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">For Mercy has a human heart</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Pity a human face</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And Love, the human form divine</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And Peace the human dress.<a id="FNanchor_233" href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">An instance of personification raised to a higher power

-is found in Blake’s letter to Butts<a id="FNanchor_234" href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> beginning</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">With Happiness stretch’d across the hills,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In a cloud that dewy sweetness distils,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">whilst elsewhere personified abstractions appear with

-new epithets, the most striking example being in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span>

-“Earth’s Answer,” from the “Songs of Experience”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Prison’d on watry shore</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Starry</i> Jealousy does keep my den.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Moreover, Blake’s figures are often presented in an

-imaginative guise that helps to emphasize the gulf

-fixed between him and the majority of his contemporaries

-and predecessors. Thus “Joy” is twice

-depicted as a bird:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Joys upon our branches sit</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Chirping loud and singing sweet</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Song”—“Poetical Sketches”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Welcome, stranger, to this place</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Where Joy doth sit on every bough.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Song by a Shepherd”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>In Blake’s youthful work the personifications of

-natural powers, though in most cases clearly imitative

-are yet striking in their beauty and power of suggestion.

-The influence of “Ossian” is seen in such “prose”

-personifications as “The Veiled Evening walked

-solitary down the Western hills and Silence reposed

-in the valley” (“The Couch of Death”), and “Who

-is this that with unerring step dares to tempt the wild

-where only Nature’s foot has trod, ’Tis Contemplation,

-daughter of the Grey Morning” (“Contemplation”).

-Here also are evocations of the seasons which, whatever

-they may owe to Thomson or Collins, are new in that

-we actually get a picture of Spring with “dewy locks”

-as she looks down</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Thro’ the clear windows of the morning</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">of summer with</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">ruddy limbs and flourishing hair,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">of the “jolly autumn,”</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent2">laden with fruits and stained</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">With the blood of the grape;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">and of winter,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent2">a dreadful monster whose skin clings</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">To her strong bones.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">Thomson, we have seen, had not been altogether

-successful in his personification of the seasons: here

-they are brought vividly and fittingly before us.

-When we think of the hosts of puppets that in the

-guise of personified abstractions move mechanically

-through so much of eighteenth century verse, and

-compare them with the beautiful visions evoked by

-Blake, we know from this evidence alone that the

-reign of one of the chief excesses of the poetical

-language of the time is near its end. It is not that

-Blake’s conceptions are all flesh and blood creations:

-often they are rather ethereal beings, having something

-in common with the evanescent images of

-Collins. But the rich and lofty imagination that has

-given them birth is more than sufficient to secure their

-acceptance as realities capable of living and moving

-before us; the classical abstraction, cold and lifeless,

-has now become the Romantic personification clothed

-in beauty and animated with life and inner meaning.</p>

-

-<p>In the year of the “Poetical Sketches” (1783)

-George Crabbe published “The Village,” his first

-work to meet with any success. But whilst Blake

-gloriously announces the emancipation of English

-poetry, Crabbe for the most part is still writing on in

-the old dead style. The heroic couplets of his earliest

-works have all the rhetorical devices of his predecessors

-in that measure, and amongst these the prevalence of

-personified abstractions is not the least noteworthy.

-The subject of his first poem of any length, “Inebriety”

-(1775), afforded him plenty of scope in this direction,

-and he availed himself fully of the opportunity.<a id="FNanchor_235" href="#Footnote_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span>

-The absence of capital letters from some of the instances

-in this poem may perhaps be taken to reflect a confusion

-in the poet’s mind as to whether he was indulging in

-personification or in mere abstraction, to adopt

-Coleridge’s remark anent Gray’s use of this figure.<a id="FNanchor_236" href="#Footnote_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a></p>

-

-<p>In “The Village,” Crabbe’s first poem of any real

-merit, there is a more sparing use, yet instances are

-even here plentiful, whilst his employment of the

-device had not died out when in the early years of the

-nineteenth century he resumed his literary activities.

-Among the poems published in the 1807 volume there

-is a stiff and cumbrous allegory entitled “The Birth

-of Flattery,” which, introduced by three Spenserian

-stanzas, depicts Flattery as the child of Poverty and

-Cunning, attended by guardian satellites, “Care,”

-“Torture,” “Misery,” <i>et hoc omne genus</i>. They

-linger on to the time of the “Posthumous Tales,”

-where there is a sad, slow procession of them, almost,

-we might imagine, as if they were conscious of the

-doom pronounced years before, and of the fact that

-they were strangers in a strange land:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Yet Resignation in the house is seen</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Subdued Affliction, Piety serene,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And Hope, for ever striving to instil</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The balm for grief, “It is the heavenly will.”</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(XVIII, 299 foll.)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">It is not perhaps too fanciful to see in this lament a

-palinode of the personifications themselves, sadly

-resigning themselves to an inevitable fate.</p>

-

-<p>Towards the ultimate triumph of the new poetry

-the work of William Cowper represents perhaps the

-most important contribution, judging at least from

-the viewpoint both of its significance as indicating new

-tendencies in literature, and of its immediate influence

-on readers and writers. In the narrow sense of style<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>

-the “simplicity” which was Cowper’s ideal was only

-occasionally marred by the conventional phraseology

-and bombastic diction which he himself laid to the

-charge of the “classical” school, and his gradual

-emancipation from the tenets and practices of that

-school is reflected in his steady advance towards the

-purity of expression for which he craved. And in

-this advance it is to be noted that the gradual disappearance

-of personified abstractions is one of the

-minor landmarks.</p>

-

-<p>The earlier work furnishes instances of the common

-type of mere abstraction where there is no attempt

-to give any real personification. Even in the “Olney

-Hymns” (1779) such verses as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">But unbelief, self-will</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">Self-righteousness and pride,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">How often do they steal</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">My weapon from my side</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">only seem to present the old mechanical figures in a

-new setting.<a id="FNanchor_237" href="#Footnote_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> The long series of satiric poems that

-followed draw freely upon the same “mythology,” and

-indeed the satires that appear in this 1782 volume

-recall to some extent the style of Churchill.<a id="FNanchor_238" href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> There<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>

-is a somewhat similar, though more restricted, use of

-personified abstraction, and, as in Churchill’s satires,

-virtues and vices are invested with slight human

-qualities and utilized to enforce moral and didactic

-truths. Thus,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent2">Peace follows Virtue as its sure reward</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And Pleasure brings as surely in her train</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Remorse and Sorrow and Vindictive Pain.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Progress of Error”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Among the short pieces in this volume are the

-famous lines put into the mouth of Alexander Selkirk,

-which contain a fine example of the apostrophic

-personification, the oft-quoted</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">O Solitude! where are thy charms</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">That sages have seen in thy face,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where the passion and sincerity of the appeal give

-dignity and animation to an otherwise lifeless abstraction,

-and, despite the absence of detail, really call up

-a definite picture.</p>

-

-<p>From the blank verse of his most famous work

-nearly every trace of the mechanical abstraction has

-disappeared—a great advance when we remember

-that “The Task” is in the direct line of the moral

-and didactic verse that had occupied so many of

-Cowper’s predecessors.</p>

-

-<p>The first Books (“The Sofa”) contain but one

-instance and that in a playful manner:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Ingenious Fancy, never better pleased</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Than when employed to accommodate the fair.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(ll. 72 foll.)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>The Fourth Book (“The Winter Evening”) is

-entirely free from instances of the mechanical abstraction,

-but the vision of Oriental Empire, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>

-fascination of the East, is effectively evoked in the

-personification of the land of the Moguls:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Is India free? and does she wear her plumed</div>

-    <div class="verse indent2">And jewelled turban with a smile of peace.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(ll. 28-9)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>“The Task,” however, has two examples of the

-detailed personification. The first is an attempt, in

-the manner of Spenser, to give a full length portrait

-of “a sage called Discipline”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">His eye was meek and gentle and a smile</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Paternal sweetness</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Bk. II, l. 702 foll.)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where there is a depth of feeling, as well as a gentle

-satiric touch in the delineation, that animate it into

-something more than a mere stock image; it embodies

-perhaps a reminiscence of one who at some time or

-other had guided the destinies of the youthful Cowper.</p>

-

-<p>The second instance is of a more imaginative kind.

-It is the presentation, in the Fourth Book, of Winter,

-with</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">forehead wrapt in cloud</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">A leafless branch thy sceptre,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">almost the only occasion on which Cowper, despite

-the nature of his subject, has personified the powers

-and orders of nature.<a id="FNanchor_239" href="#Footnote_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> Cowper has also invested the

-Evening with human attributes, and despite the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span>

-imitative ring of the lines,<a id="FNanchor_240" href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> and the “quaintness” of

-the images employed, there is a new beauty in the

-evocation:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Come, Evening, once again, season of peace;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Methinks I see thee in the streaky west</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">With matron step slow-moving, while the night</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Treads on thy sweeping train.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">The darkness soon to fall over the landscape is suggested

-in the added appeal to Evening to come</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent2">Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where the compound epithet emphasizes the contrast

-between the quiet beauty of the twilight skyscape

-and the star-sprinkled gloom of the night.</p>

-

-<p>Finally, one of the last instances of the personified

-abstraction to be found in the work of Cowper may

-perhaps be taken to reflect something of the changes

-that have been silently working underneath. This

-is in the lines that suddenly bring “Yardley Oak”

-to an end:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">History not wanted yet</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Leaned on her elbow watching Time whose course</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Eventful should supply her with a theme.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>At first glance we seem to have here but the old

-conventional figures, but there is an imaginative

-touch that helps to suggest a new world of romance.

-“History leaning on her elbow” has something at

-least of that mysterious power of suggestion that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>

-Wordsworth himself was to convey by means of the

-romantic personification, such as those shadowy

-figures—Fear and Trembling Hope, and Death the

-Skeleton, and Time the Shadow—which gathered round

-and hallowed the shade of the yew trees in Borrowdale.</p>

-

-<p>But even while the old poetry was in its death

-agony a champion was at hand, daring to maintain a

-lost cause both by precept and example. This was

-Erasmus Darwin, whose once-famous work “The

-Botanic Garden,” with its two parts, “The Loves of

-the Plants” (1789), and “The Economy of Vegetation”

-(1791), has earlier been mentioned.</p>

-

-<p>It met with immediate success. Darwin seems to

-have fascinated his contemporaries, so that even

-Coleridge was constrained in 1802 to call him “the

-first literary character in Europe.”<a id="FNanchor_241" href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> He had, however,

-little real admiration for “The Botanic Garden,”

-and later expressed his opinion unmistakably.<a id="FNanchor_242" href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> “The

-Botanic Garden” soon died a natural death, hastened

-no doubt by the ridicule it excited, but inevitably

-because of the fact that the poem is an unconscious

-<i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of a style already doomed.<a id="FNanchor_243" href="#Footnote_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a>

-The special matter with which we are concerned in

-this chapter had for Darwin a marked significance,

-since it fitted in admirably with his general doctrine or

-dogma that nothing is strictly poetic except what is

-presented in visual image. His “theory” was that,

-just as the old mythologies had created a whole world

-of personified abstractions to explain or interpret

-natural phenomena of every description, exactly by

-the same method the scientific thought and developments<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span>

-of his own age could be poetically expounded so

-as to captivate both the hearts and minds of his

-readers. It was his ambition, he said, “to enlist

-imagination under the banner of science.” This

-“theory” is expounded in one of the interludes placed

-between the different cantos. “The poet writes

-principally to the eye,” and allegory and personifications

-are to be commended because they give visible

-form to abstract conceptions.<a id="FNanchor_244" href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> Putting his theory

-into practice, Darwin then proceeds with great zeal

-to personify the varied and various scientific facts

-or hypotheses of physics, botany, etc., metamorphosing

-the forces of the air and other elements into sylphs

-and gnomes and so on. Thus,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered</div>

-    <div class="verse indent8">Steam afar</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Drag the slow barge or drive the</div>

-    <div class="verse indent8">Rapid car.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(E.V., Canto I, 289, 290)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>In the same way all the plants, as classified by

-Linnæus, are personified as “swains” or “belles”

-who “love” and quarrel, and finally make it up

-just as ordinary mortals do:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">All wan and shivering in the leafless glade</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The sad Anemone reclin’d her head</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(L.P., Canto I, 315-6)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Retiring Lichen climbs the topmost stone</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And drinks the aerial solitude alone.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 347-8)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>The whole poem is thus one long series of mechanical

-personifications which baffle and bewilder and finally<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span>

-wear out the reader. It is strange now to think that

-“The Botanic Garden” was at the height of its vogue

-when the “Lyrical Ballads” were being planned and

-written, but the easy-flowing couplets of Darwin,

-and the “tinsel and glitter” of his diction, together

-with most of the “science” he was at such pains to

-expound (though he was a shrewd and even prophetic

-inquirer in certain branches, such as medicine and

-biology), have now little more than a faint historical

-interest. Yet his theory and practice of poetry—the

-“painted mists that occasionally rise from the

-marshes at the foot of Parnassus,” Coleridge called

-them—so dominated the literature of the last decade

-of the eighteenth century as to be capable of captivating

-the mind of the poet who was about to sound

-their death-knell.</p>

-

-<p>While Wordsworth inveighed against “personification”

-in the great manifesto, his earliest poetry

-shows clearly, as has been noted, that in this as in

-other respects he had fallen under the spell and

-influence of “The Botanic Garden.” The “Evening

-Walk” and the “Descriptive Sketches” swarm with

-instances of personifications of the type that had

-flourished apace for a hundred years, “Impatience,”

-“Pain,” “Independence,” “Hope,” “Oppression,”

-and dozens similar.<a id="FNanchor_245" href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> There is thus a certain comic

-irony in the fact that the poet, who was the first to

-sound the revolt against “personifications” and

-similar “heightenings” of style, should have embarked

-on his literary career with the theft of a good deal of the

-thunder of the enemy. Later, when Wordsworth’s

-true ideal of style had evolved itself, this feature of

-the two poems was in great measure discarded. The

-first (1793) draft of the “Descriptive Sketches” contains

-over seventy examples of more or less frigid<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span>

-abstractions; in the final draft of the poem these

-have dwindled down to about a score.<a id="FNanchor_246" href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p>

-

-<p>In our detailed examination of personification in

-eighteenth century poetry we have seen that in

-general it includes three main types. There is first

-the mere abstraction, whose distinctive sign is the

-presence of a capital letter; it may be, and often is,

-qualified by epithets suggestive of human attributes,

-but there is little or no attempt to give a definite

-picture or evoke a distinctive image. This is the

-prevalent type, and it is against these invertebrates

-that the criticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge was

-really directed.</p>

-

-<p>Their widespread use in the eighteenth century is

-due to various causes. In the first place they represent

-a survival, however artificial and lifeless, of the great

-mediaeval world of allegory, with its symbolic representation

-derived from the pagan and classical

-mythologies, of the attributes of the divine nature,

-and of the qualities of the human mind, as living

-entities. But by now the life had departed from

-them; they were hopelessly effete and had become

-consciously conventional and fictitious.<a id="FNanchor_247" href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a></p>

-

-<p>They also owed their appearance, as indicated

-above, to more definite literary causes and “fashions”;

-they swarm especially, for instance, in the odes of

-the mid-century, the appearance of which was mainly

-due to the influence of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.”

-The virtues and vices, the “shadowy tribes

-of the mind,” which are there unceasingly invoked

-and dismissed are mechanical imitations of the figures<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span>

-that the genius of Milton had been able to inspire

-with real poetic value and life. They play

-their part similarly and just as mechanically in

-the didactic and satirical verse characteristic of the

-period.</p>

-

-<p>But whether regarded as a sort of literary flotsam

-and jetsam, or as one of the symptoms of “Milton-mad”

-verse, these personifications are nearly all

-enfeebled by weaknesses inherent in their very genesis.

-Only a deep and intense conception of a mental

-abstraction can justify any attempt to personify

-it poetically; otherwise the inevitable result is a

-mere rhetorical ornament, which fails because it

-conveys neither the “vast vagueness” of the abstract,

-nor any clear-cut pictorial conception of the person.

-Even with Gray, as with the mere poetasters who

-used this figure to excess, it has the effect of a dull

-and wearisome mannerism; only here and there, as

-in the sonorous lines in which Johnson personified

-Worth held down by Poverty, does the display of

-personal emotion give any dignity and depth to the

-image.</p>

-

-<p>Again, the very freedom with which the conventional

-abstractions are employed, allowing them to be

-introduced on every possible occasion, tends to render

-the device absurd, if not ludicrous. For the versifiers

-seemed to have at their beck and call a whole phantom

-army upon which they could draw whenever they

-chose; for them they are veritable gods from the

-machines. But so mechanical are their entrances and

-exits that the reader rarely suspects them to be

-intended for “flesh and blood creations,” though, it

-may be added, the poetaster himself would be slow

-to make any such claim. To him they are merely

-part of his stock-in-trade, like the old extravagances,

-the “conceits,” and far-fetched similes of the Metaphysical

-school.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span></p>

-

-<p>The second type of personification found in

-eighteenth century verse needs but brief mention

-here. It is the detailed personification where a full-length

-portrait is attempted. Like the mere abstraction

-it, too, is a survival of mediaeval allegory, and it

-is also most often a merely mechanical literary process,

-reflecting no real image in the poet’s mind. It is not

-found to any large extent, and in a certain measure

-owes its presence to the renewed interest in Spenser.

-The Spenserian imitations themselves are comparatively

-free from this type, a sort of negative

-indication of the part played by the revival in the new

-Romantic movement.</p>

-

-<p>The third type is perhaps best described as the

-embryonic personification. It consists in the attributing

-of an individual and living existence to the

-visible forms and invisible powers of nature, a disposition,

-deeply implanted in the human mind from

-the very dawn of existence, which has left in the

-mythologies and creeds of the world a permanent

-impress of its power. In eighteenth century literature

-this type received its first true expression in the work

-of Thompson and Collins, whilst its progress, until it

-becomes merged and fused in the pantheism of Wordsworth

-and Shelley, may be taken as a measure of

-the advance of the Romantic movement in one of its

-most vital aspects.</p>

-

-<p>Regarded on its purely formal side, that is, as part

-and parcel of the <i>language</i> of poetry, the use of personification

-may then be naturally linked up with the

-generally literary development of the period. In

-the “classical” verse proper the figure employed is,

-as it were, a mere word and no more; it is the reflex

-of precisely as much individual imagination as the

-stock phrases of descriptive verse, <i>the flowery meads</i>,

-<i>painted birds</i>, and so on. There was no writing with

-the inner eye on the object, and the abstraction as a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span>

-result was a mere rhetorical label, corresponding to

-no real vision of things.</p>

-

-<p>The broad line of advance in this, as in other aspects

-of eighteenth century literature, passes through the

-work of those who are now looked upon as the forerunners

-of the Romantic revolt. The frigid abstraction,

-a mere word distinguished by a capital letter,

-is to be found in “The Seasons,” but alongside there

-is also an approach to definite pictorial representation

-of the object personified. In the odes of Collins the

-advent of the pictorial image is definitely and triumphantly

-announced, and though the mechanical

-abstractions linger on even until the new poetry has

-well established itself, they are only to be found in

-the work of those who either, like Johnson and Crabbe,

-belong definitely as regards style to the old order, or

-like Goldsmith and, to a less extent, Cowper, reflect

-as it were sort of half-way attitude towards the old

-and the new.</p>

-

-<p>With Blake the supremacy of the artistic personification

-is assured. His mystical philosophy in its

-widest aspect leads him to an identification of the

-divine nature with the human, but sometimes this

-signification is to be seen merging into a more conscious

-symbolism, or even sinking into that “totally

-distinct and inferior kind of poetry” known as

-allegory. Yet with Blake the poet, as well as Blake

-the artist, the use of personified abstraction is an

-integral part of the symbolism he desired to perpetuate.

-His imagination ran strongly in that

-direction, and it has been aptly pointed out that his

-most intense mental and emotional experiences

-became for him spiritual persons. But even where

-the presence of a capital letter is still the only distinguishing

-mark of the personification, he is

-able, either by the mere context or by the addition

-of a suggestive epithet, to transform and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>

-transfigure the abstraction into a poetical emblem

-of the doctrine whose apostle he believed himself

-to be.</p>

-

-<p>It is hardly necessary to say that the use of personification

-and abstraction, even in their narrower

-applications as rhetorical ornaments or artifices of

-verse, were not banished from English poetry as a

-result of Wordsworth’s criticism. Ruskin has drawn

-a penetrating distinction between personification and

-symbolism,<a id="FNanchor_248" href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> and it was in this direction perhaps that

-Wordsworth’s protest may be said to have been of the

-highest value. His successors, for the most part,

-distrustful of mere abstractions, and impatient of

-allegory, with its attendant dangers of lifeless and

-mechanical personification, were not slow to recognize

-the inherent possibilities of symbolism as an artistic

-medium for the expression of individual moods and

-emotions, and it is not too much to say that in its

-successful employment English poetry has since won

-some of its greatest triumphs.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br />

-<span class="smaller">THE DICTION OF POETRY</span></h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<p>After years of comparative neglect, and, it

-must be admitted, a good deal of uncritical

-disparagement, the “age of prose and reason”

-would seem at last to have come into its own. Or at

-any rate during recent years there has become evident

-a disposition to look more kindly on a period which

-has but seldom had justice done to it. The label

-which Matthew Arnold’s dictum attached to a good

-portion, if not the whole, of the eighteenth century

-seems to imply a period of arid and prosaic rationalism

-in which “the shaping spirit of imagination” had no

-abiding place, and this has no doubt been partly

-responsible for the persistency of an unjust conception.

-But it is now more generally recognized that,

-in prose and even in poetry, the seventy or eighty

-years, which begin when Dryden died, and end when

-William Blake was probably writing down the first

-drafts of his “Poetical Sketches,” had some definite

-and far from despicable legacies to pass on to its

-successors, to the writers in whom the Romantic

-revival was soon to be triumphantly manifested.

-The standards in all branches of literature were to be

-different, but between “classical” and “romantic”

-there was not to be, and indeed could not be, any great

-gulf fixed. There was continuity and much was

-handed on. What had to be transformed (and of

-course the process is to be seen at work in the very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span>

-height of the Augustan supremacy) were the aims and

-methods of literature, both its matter in large measure,

-and its style.<a id="FNanchor_249" href="#Footnote_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p>

-

-<p>It is the poetry of the period with which we are

-specially concerned, and it is in poetry that the

-distinction between the old order and the new was

-to be sharpest; for the leaders of the revolt had been

-gradually winning new fields, or re-discovering old

-ones, for poetry, and thus in more than one sense the

-way had been prepared for both the theory and

-practice of Wordsworth. Then came the great

-manifestoes, beginning with the Preface of 1798, followed

-by an expansion in 1800 and again in 1802;

-fifteen years later, Coleridge, with his penetrating

-analysis of the theories advanced by his friend and

-fellow-worker, began a controversy, which still to-day

-forms a fruitful theme of discussion.</p>

-

-<p>Wordsworth, in launching his famous declaration

-of principle on the language fit and proper for metrical

-composition, had no doubt especially in mind the

-practice of his eighteenth century predecessors. But

-it has to be remembered that the <i>Prefaces</i> deal in

-reality with the whole genesis of “what is usually

-called poetic diction,” and that the avowed aim and

-object was to sweep away “a large portion of phrases

-and figures of speech, which from father to son have

-long been regarded as the common inheritance of

-poets.” The circumstances of the time, and perhaps

-the examples chosen by Wordsworth to illustrate

-his thesis, have too often led to his attack being

-considered as concerned almost entirely with the

-poetical language of the eighteenth century. Hence,

-whenever the phrase “poetic diction” is mentioned

-as a term of English literary history, more often than

-not it is to the eighteenth century that the attention<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>

-is directed, and the phrase itself has taken on a

-derogatory tinge, expressive of a stereotyped language,

-imitative, mechanical, lifeless. For in the reaction

-against eighteenth century styles, and especially

-against the polished heroic couplet, there arose a

-tendency to make the diction of the period an object

-of undistinguishing depreciation, to class it all in one

-category, as a collection of conventional words and

-phrases of which all poets and versifiers felt themselves

-at liberty to make use.</p>

-

-<p>An actual analysis of eighteenth century poetry

-shows us that this criticism is both deficient and misleading;

-it is misleading because it neglects to take

-any account of that eighteenth century poetical

-language which Pope, inheriting it from Dryden,

-brought to perfection, and which was so admirable

-a vehicle for the satiric or didactic thought it had to

-convey; it is deficient in that it concentrates attention

-mainly on one type or variety of the language,

-used both by poets and poetasters, and persists in

-labelling this type either as the “eighteenth century

-style proper,” or, as if the phrases were synonymous,

-“the Pope style.”</p>

-

-<p>One formula could no more suffice in itself for the

-poetic styles of the eighteenth century than for those

-of the nineteenth century; we may say, rather, that

-there are then to be distinguished at least four distinct

-varieties or elements of poetical diction, in the narrow

-sense of the term, though of course it is scarcely

-necessary to add that none of them is found in complete

-isolation from the others. There is first the

-stock descriptive language, the usual vehicle of expression

-for that large amount of eighteenth century

-verse where, in the words of Taine, we can usually

-find “the same diction, the same apostrophes, the

-same manner of placing the epithet and rounding the

-period,” and “regarding which we know beforehand<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>

-with what poetic ornaments it will be adorned.”<a id="FNanchor_250" href="#Footnote_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> In

-reading this verse, with its lifeless, abstract diction,

-we seldom or never feel that we have been brought

-into contact with the real thoughts or feelings of

-living men. Its epithets are artificial, imitative,

-conventional; though their glare and glitter may

-occasionally give us a certain pleasure, they rarely

-or never make any appeal to our sensibility. As

-someone has said, it is like wandering about in a land

-of empty phrases. Only here and there, as, for

-instance, in Dyer’s “Grongar Hill,” have the <i>gradus</i>

-epithets taken on a real charm and beauty in virtue

-of the spontaneity and sincerity with which the poet

-has been inspired.</p>

-

-<p>The received doctrine that it was due in the main

-to Pope’s “Homer” is unjust; many of the characteristics

-of this conventional poetical language were

-established long before Pope produced his translation.

-They are found to an equal, if not greater, extent in

-Dryden, and if it is necessary to establish a fountain-head,

-“Paradise Lost” will be found to contain most

-of the words and phrases which the eighteenth century

-versifiers worked to death. If Pope is guilty in any

-degree it is only because in his work the heroic couplet

-was brought to a high pitch of perfection; no doubt

-too the immense popularity of the “Homer” translation

-led to servile imitation of many of its words,

-phrases, and similes. Yet it is unjust to saddle Pope

-with the lack of original genius of so many of his

-successors and imitators.</p>

-

-<p>But the underlying cause of this conventional

-language must be sought elsewhere than in the mere

-imitation of any poet or poets. A passage from the

-“Prelude” supplies perhaps a clue to one of the

-fundamental conditions that had enslaved poetry in

-the shackles of a stereotyped language. It takes the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span>

-form of a sort of literary confession by Wordsworth

-as to the method of composing his first poems, which,

-we have seen, are almost an epitome of the poetical

-vices against which his manifestoes rebelled. He

-speaks of</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent20">the trade in classic niceties</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">From languages that want the living voice</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">To carry meaning to the natural heart.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“Prelude,” Bk. VI, ll. 109-112)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">In these lines we have summed up one of the main

-Romantic indictments against the practice of the

-“classical” poets, who were too wont to regard the

-language of poetry as a mere collection or accepted

-aggregate of words, phrases, and similes, empty of all

-personal feeling and emotion.<a id="FNanchor_251" href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a></p>

-

-<p>Wordsworth, too, in this passage not unfairly describes

-the sort of atmosphere in which diction of the stock

-eighteenth century type flourished. The neo-classical

-interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of poetry

-as an imitation had by the time of Pope and his school

-resulted in a real critical confusion, which saw the

-essence of poetry in a slavish adherence to accepted

-models, and regarded its ideal language as choice

-flowers and figures of speech consecrated to poetry

-by traditional use, and used by the poet very much

-as the painter uses his colours, that is, as pigments

-laid on from the outside. That this doctrine of

-imitation and parallelism directly encourages the

-growth of a set poetic diction is obvious; the poet’s

-language need not be the reflection of a genuine

-emotion felt in the mind: he could always find his

-words, phrases, and figures of speech in accepted and

-consecrated models.</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span></p>

-

-<p>The reaction against this artificial diction is fundamental

-in the Romantic revolt from another cause

-than that of poetic form. The stock poetic language,

-we have seen, occurs mainly in what may be called

-the “nature” poetry of the period, and its set words

-and phrases are for the most part descriptive terms of

-outdoor sights and sounds. Among the many descriptions

-or explanations of the Romantic movement is

-that it was in its essence a “return to Nature,” which

-is sometimes taken to imply that “Nature,” as we in

-the twentieth century think of it, was a sudden new

-vision, of which glimpses were first caught by James

-Thomson, and which finally culminated in Wordsworth’s

-“confession of faith.” Yet there was, of

-course, plenty of “nature poetry” in the neo-classical

-period; but it was for the most part nature from the

-point of view of the Town, or as seen from the study

-window with a poetical “Thesaurus” at the writer’s

-side, or stored in his memory as a result of his reading.

-It was not written with “the eye on the object.”

-More fatal still, if the neo-classical poets did look,

-they could see little beauty in the external world;

-they “had lost the best of the senses; they had

-ceased to perceive with joy and interpret with insight

-the colour and outline of things, the cadence of sound

-and motion, the life of creatures.”<a id="FNanchor_252" href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a></p>

-

-<p>This sterility or atrophy of the senses had thus a

-real connexion with the question of a conventional

-poetical language, for the descriptive diction with its

-stock words for the sea, the rivers, the mountains, the

-sky, the stars, the birds of the air and their music,

-for all the varied sights and sounds of outdoor

-life—all this is simply a reflex of the lack of

-genuine feeling towards external nature. Keats, with

-his ecstatic delight in Nature, quickly and aptly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span>

-pilloried this fatal weakness in the eighteenth century

-versifiers:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Its gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blue</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of summer nights collected still to make</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The morning precious: beauty was awake!</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Why were ye not awake! But ye were dead</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">To things ye knew not of—were closely wed</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">To musty laws lined out with wretched rule</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And compass vile: so that ye taught a school</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip and fit</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Till, like the certain wands of Jacob’s wit,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Their verses tallied; Easy was the task</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of Poesy.<a id="FNanchor_253" href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>It is obvious that two great changes or advances

-were necessary, if poetry was to be freed from the

-bondage of this conventional diction. In the first

-place, the poet must reject root and branch the traditional

-stock of words and phrases that may once have

-been inspiring, but had become lifeless and mechanical

-long before they fell into disuse; he must write with

-his eye on the object, and translate his impressions

-into fresh terms endowed with real, imaginative power.

-And this first condition would naturally lead to a

-second, requiring every word and phrase to be a

-spontaneous reflection of genuine feeling felt in the

-presence of Nature and her vast powers.</p>

-

-<p>The neo-classical poetry proper was not without

-verse which partly satisfied these conditions; direct

-contact with nature was never entirely lost. Wordsworth,

-as we know, gave honourable mention<a id="FNanchor_254" href="#Footnote_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> to

-“The Nocturnal Reverie” of Anne, Countess

-Winchilsea, written at the very height of the neo-classical

-supremacy, in which external nature is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span>

-described with simplicity and fidelity, though there

-is little trace of any emotion roused in the writer’s

-mind by the sights and sounds of outdoor life. And

-every now and then, amid the arid and monotonous

-stretches of so much eighteenth century verse, we are

-startled into lively interest by stumbling across, often

-in the most obscure and unexpected corners, a phrase

-or a verse to remind us that Nature, and all that the

-term implies, was still making its powerful appeal

-to the hearts and minds of men, that its beauty and

-mystery was still being expressed in simple and heartfelt

-language. Thomas Dyer’s “Grongar Hill” has

-already been mentioned; it was written in 1726,

-the year of the publication of Thompson’s “Winter.”

-Dyer, for all we know, may have the priority, but in

-any case we see him here leading back poetry to the

-sights and sounds and scents of external nature, which

-he describes, not merely as a painter with a good eye

-for landscape, but as a lover who feels the thrill and

-call of the countryside, and can give exquisite expression

-to his thoughts and emotions. We have only

-to recall such passages as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Who, the purple evening lie,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">On the mountain’s lonely van;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or even his tree catalogue,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The yellow beech, the sable yew,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The slender fir, that taper grows,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">How close and small the hedges lie;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">What streaks of meadow cross the eye!</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">A little rule, a little sway,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">A sun-beam on a winter’s day,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Is all the proud and mighty have</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Between the cradle and the grave—</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span></p>

-

-<p class="noindent">to recognize that already the supremacy of Pope and

-his school of town poets is seriously threatened.</p>

-

-<p>Here too is a short passage which might not unfairly

-be assigned to Wordsworth himself.</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Would I again were with you, O ye dales</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands, where,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And his banks open, and his lawns extend,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Stops short the pleased traveller to view,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Presiding o’er the scene, some rustic tower</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands:</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">O ye Northumbrian shades, which overlook</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The rocky pavement and the mossy falls</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Of solitary Wensbeck’s limpid stream,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">How gladly I recall your well-known seats</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Beloved of old, and that delightful time</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">When all alone, for many a summer’s day,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">I wandered through your calm recesses, led</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In silence by some powerful hand unseen.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">It is from Mark Akenside’s “Pleasures of the

-Imagination” (Bk IV, ll. 31 foll.). And so, too, is this:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent8">the meadow’s fragrant hedge,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">In spring time when the woodlands first are green</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(Book II, 175-6)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">which takes us far away from the formal conventional

-landscapes of the Augustans.</p>

-

-<p>These two are among the more famous of their time,

-but a close search amongst the minor poetry of the

-mid-eighteenth century will bring to light many a

-surprising instance of poetry written with an eye on

-the object, as in John Cunningham’s (1729-1773)

-“Day,”<a id="FNanchor_255" href="#Footnote_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> where the sights and sounds of the countryside

-are simply and freshly brought before us:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Swiftly from the mountain’s brow,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">Shadows, nurs’d by night, retire:</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And the peeping sun-beam, now,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">Paints with gold the village spire.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Philomel forsakes the thorn,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">Plaintive where she prates at night;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And the Lark, to meet the morn,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">Soars beyond the shepherd’s sight.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">From the low-roof’d cottage ridge,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">See the chatt’ring Swallow spring;</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Darting through the one-arch’d bridge,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">Quick she dips her dappled wing.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">But the great bulk of neo-classical verse is unaffected

-by the regained and quickened outlook on the external

-world. It is in the forerunners of the Romantic

-revolt that this latter development is to be most

-plainly noted: when, as the result of many and varied

-causes English poets were inspired to use their eyes

-again, they were able, slowly and in a somewhat

-shallow manner at first, afterwards quickly and

-profoundly, to “sense” the beauty of the external

-world, its mysterious emanations of power and beauty.

-This quickening and final triumph of the artistic

-sense naturally revealed itself in expression; the

-conventional words and epithets were really doomed

-from the time of “Grongar Hill” and “The Seasons,”

-and a new language was gradually forged to express

-the fresh, vivid perceptions peculiar to each poet,

-according as his senses interpreted for him the face of

-the world.</p>

-

-<p>A second variety of eighteenth century diction, or,

-more strictly speaking, another conventional embellishment

-of the poetry of the period, is found in that

-widespread use of personified abstraction which is

-undoubtedly one of the greatest, perhaps <i>the</i> greatest,

-of its faults. Not only the mere versifiers, but also

-many of its greatest poets, make abundant use of

-cut and dried personifications, whose sole claim to

-vitality rests most often on the presence of a capital

-letter. It is a favourite indulgence of the writers,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>

-not only of the old order, but also of those who, like

-Collins and Gray, announce the advent of the new, and

-not even the presence of genius could prevent its

-becoming a poetical abuse of the worst kind. Whether

-it be regarded as a survival of a symbolic system from

-which the life had long since departed, or as a conventional

-device arising from the theory of poetical

-ornament handed down by the neo-classicists, its

-main effect was to turn a large proportion of eighteenth

-century poetry into mere rhetorical verse. It is this

-variety of poetical language that might with justice

-be labelled as the eighteenth century style in the

-derogatory sense of the term. In its cumulative

-effect on the poetry of the period it is perhaps more

-vicious than the stock diction which is the usual target

-of criticism.</p>

-

-<p>Two other varieties of eighteenth century diction

-represent an endeavour to replace, or rather reinforce

-the stereotyped words, phrases, and similes by new

-forms. The first of these is the widespread use of

-latinized words and constructions, chiefly in the

-blank verse poems written in imitation of Milton, but

-not only there. The second is the use of archaic and

-pseudo-archaic words by the writers whose ambition

-it was to catch something of the music and melody of

-the Spenserian stanza. Both these movements thus

-reflected the desire for a change, and though the

-tendencies, which they reflect, are in a certain sense

-conventional and imitative in that they simply seek

-to replace the accepted diction by new forms derived

-respectively from Milton and Spenser, one of them at

-least had in the sequel a real and revivifying influence

-on the language of poetry.</p>

-

-<p>The pedantic and cumbrous terms, which swarm

-in the majority of the Miltonic imitations, were

-artificial creations, rarely imbued with any trace of

-poetic power. Where they do not actually arise from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span>

-deliberate attempts to imitate the high Miltonic manner,

-they probably owe their appearance to more or less

-conscious efforts to make the new blank verse as

-attractive as possible to a generation of readers

-accustomed to the polished smoothness of the couplet.

-Though such terms linger on until the time of Cowper,

-and even invade the works of Wordsworth himself,

-romanticism utterly rejected them, not only because

-of a prejudice in favour of “Saxon simplicity,” but

-also because such artificial formations lacked almost

-completely that mysterious power of suggestion and

-association in which lies the poetical appeal of words.

-Wordsworth, it is true, could win from them real

-poetic effects, and so occasionally could Thomson,

-but in the main they are even more dead and dreary

-than the old abstract diction of the neo-classicals.</p>

-

-<p>The tendency towards archaism was much more

-successful in this respect, because it was based on a

-firmer foundation. In harking back to “the poet’s

-poet,” the eighteenth century versifiers were at least

-on a right track, and though it was hardly possible,

-even with the best of them, that more than a faint

-simulacrum of the music and melody of the “Faerie

-Queene” could be captured merely by drawing drafts

-on Spenser’s diction, yet they at least helped to blaze

-a way for the great men who were to come later.

-The old unknown writers of the ballads and Spenser

-and the Elizabethans generally were to be looked

-upon as treasure trove to which Keats and Scott and

-Beddoes and many another were constantly to turn

-in their efforts to revivify the language of poetry, to

-restore to it what it had lost of freshness and vigour

-and colour.</p>

-

-<p>The varieties or embellishments of poetical diction,

-which have just been characterized, represent the

-special language of eighteenth century poetry, as

-distinct from that large portion of language which is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>

-common alike to prose and poetry. For it is scarcely

-necessary to remind ourselves that by far the largest

-portion of the poetry of the eighteenth century (as

-indeed of any century) is written in the latter sort of

-language, which depends for its effects mainly upon the

-arrangement of the words, rather than for any unique

-power in the words themselves. In this kind of

-poetical diction, it is not too much to say that the

-eighteenth century is pre-eminent, though the effect

-of the Wordsworthian criticism has led to a certain

-failure or indisposition to recognize the fact. Just as

-Johnson and his contemporaries do not give direct

-expression to any approval of the admirable language,

-of which Pope and some of his predecessors had such

-perfect command, so modern criticism has not always

-been willing to grant it even bare justice, though

-Coleridge’s penetrating insight had enabled him, as

-we have seen, to pay his tribute to “the almost faultless

-position and choice of words, in Mr. Pope’s <i>original</i>

-compositions, particularly in his Satires and Moral

-Essays.” It was, we may imagine, the ordinary

-everyday language, heightened by brilliance and

-point, in which Pope and his coterie carried on their

-dallyings and bickerings at Twickenham and elsewhere,

-and it was an ideal vehicle, lucid and precise

-for the argument and declamation it had to sustain.

-But it was more than that, as will be readily recognized

-if we care to recall some of the oft-quoted lines

-which amply prove with what consummate skill Pope,

-despite the economy and condensation imposed by

-the requirements of the closed couplet, could evoke

-from this plain and unadorned diction effects of

-imagination and sometimes even of passion. Such

-lines as</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">He stooped to Truth and moralised his song,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span></p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">In lazy apathy let stoics boast</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">Their virtue fixed: ’tis fixed as in a frost,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">In Folly’s cup still laughs the bubble joy,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">and dozens similar, show the lucidity, energy, and

-imaginative picturesqueness with which Pope could

-endow his diction when the occasion required it.<a id="FNanchor_256" href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a>

-Such language is the “real language of men”; nearly

-every word would satisfy the Wordsworthian canon.</p>

-

-<p>And the same thing is true to a large extent of the

-poets, who are usually considered as having taken

-Pope for their model. Whenever there is a real

-concentration of interest, whenever they are dealing

-with the didactic and moral questions characteristic

-of the “age of prose and reason,” whenever they are

-writing of man and of his doings, his thoughts and

-moods as a social member of civilized society, their

-language is, as a rule, adequate, vivid, fresh, because

-the aim then is to present a general thought in the

-language best adapted to bring it forcibly before the

-mind of the reader. Here, as has been justly said,<a id="FNanchor_257" href="#Footnote_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a>

-rhetoric has passed under the influence and received

-the transforming force of poetry. “The best rhetorical

-poetry of the eighteenth century is not the best poetry,

-but it is poetry in its own way, exhibiting the glow,

-the rush, the passion which strict prose cannot, and

-which poetry can, give.” Judged on the basis of this

-kind of poetical diction, the distinctions usually drawn

-between the neo-classical “kind” of language in the

-eighteenth century and the romantic “kind” all tend

-to disappear; at the head (though perhaps we should

-go back to the Dryden of the “Religio Laici” and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>

-“The Hind and the Panther”) is the “Essay on

-Criticism”; in the direct line of descent are Akenside’s

-“Epistle to Curio,” large portions of “The Seasons,”

-“The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”

-“The Vanity of Human Wishes,” the “Deserted

-Village,” and at the end of the century, the “Village”

-of Crabbe. And in another <i>genre</i>, but just as good in

-its own way, is that light verse, as it may perhaps best

-be called, successfully ushered in, at the very beginning

-of the century, by John Pomfret’s “The Choice,”

-and brought to perfection by Matthew Prior in his

-lines “To a Child of Quality,” and many another

-piece.</p>

-

-<p>Nor must it be forgotten that there is a large amount

-of eighteenth century minor poetry which, whilst

-reflecting in the main the literary tendency of the age

-in its fondness for didactic verse, presented in the guise

-of interminably long and dull epics and epistles, yet

-reveals to us, if we care to make the pilgrimage through

-the arid stretches of Anderson’s “British Poets,” or

-Dodsley’s “Collection of Poets by Several Hands,”

-or Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry,” or similar collections,

-the simple, unambitious works of poets more or less

-unknown when they wrote and now for the most part

-forgotten, who, unconscious or ignorant of the accepted

-rules and regulations of their time, wrote because

-they felt they must, and thus had no care to fetter

-themselves with the bondage of the “classical”

-diction.<a id="FNanchor_258" href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> Their range was limited, but they were

-able to express their thoughts and fancies, their little

-idylls and landscapes in plain English without any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span>

-trimmings, akin in its unaffected diction and simplicity

-of syntax to the language of the genuine old ballads,

-which were so largely and, for the most part, ineffectively,

-if not ludicrously, imitated throughout the

-eighteenth century.</p>

-

-<p>The Augustan age, then, was not without honour,

-even in poetry, where, looking back after Romanticism

-had won and consolidated its greatest triumphs, it

-would seem everything had gone wrong, there was not

-a little from which the rebels themselves might well

-have profited. Nowadays we are accustomed, perhaps

-too often, to think of the Romantic forerunners, the

-poet of “The Seasons,” and Gray, and Collins, and

-Goldsmith, and the rest, as lonely isolated outposts

-in hostile territory. So they were to a large extent,

-but they could not, of course, altogether escape the

-form and pressure of their age; and what we now

-admire in them, and for which we salute them as the

-heralds of the Romantic dawn, is that which shows

-them struggling to set themselves free from the

-“classical” toils, and striving to give expression to

-the new ideas and ideals that were ultimately to surge

-and sing themselves to victory. It is scarcely necessary

-to recall many a well-known passage, in which,

-within a decade of the death of Pope, or even before

-the mid-century, these new ideas and ideals had found

-expression in language which really sounded the death-knell

-of the old diction. Fine sounds, Keats within

-a few decades was to proclaim exultantly, were then

-to be heard “floating wild about the earth,” but

-already as early as Collins and Gray, and even now

-and then in “The Seasons,” words of infinite appeal

-and suggestiveness were stealing back into English

-poetry.</p>

-

-<p>And this leads us to a consideration of the poetic

-diction of the eighteenth century from a more general

-standpoint. For no discussion of poetical language<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span>

-can be complete unless an attempt is made to consider

-the question in its entirety with a view to the question

-of what really constitutes poetic diction, what it is

-that gives to words and phrases, used by certain poets

-in certain contexts, a magic force and meaning. The

-history of poetic diction from the very beginning of

-English literature down to present times has yet to be

-written, and it would be a formidable task. Perhaps

-a syndicate of acknowledged poets would be the only

-fit tribunal to pass judgment on so vital an aspect of

-the craft, but even then we suspect there would be a

-good deal of dissension, and probably more than one

-minority report. But the general aspects of the

-question have formed a fruitful field of discussion since

-Wordsworth launched his theories<a id="FNanchor_259" href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> and thus began

-a controversy as to the exact nature of poetic language,

-the echoes of which, it would seem, have not yet died

-away. For the Prefaces were, it may be truly said,

-the first great and definite declaration of principle concerning

-a question which has been well described as

-“the central one in the philosophy of literature, What

-is, or rather what is not, poetic diction?”<a id="FNanchor_260" href="#Footnote_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p>

-

-<p>Judged from this wider standpoint, the diction of

-the “classical” poetry of the eighteenth century,

-and even of a large portion of the verse that announces

-the ultimate Romantic triumph, seems to have marked

-limitations. The widespread poverty and sterility

-of this diction was not, of course, merely the result of

-an inability to draw inspiration from Nature, or of a

-failure to realize the imaginative possibilities of words<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span>

-and phrases: it was, it would almost seem, the

-inevitable outcome and reflex of an age that, despite

-great and varied achievements, now appears to us

-narrow and restricted in many vital aspects. If

-poetry is a criticism of life, in the sense in which

-Matthew Arnold doubtless meant his dictum to be

-taken, the age of Pope and his successors is not

-“poetic”; in many respects it is a petty and tawdry

-age—the age of the coffee-house and the new press, of

-the club and the coterie. There are great thinkers like

-Hume, great historians like Gibbon, great teachers

-and reformers like John Wesley; but these names and

-a few others seem only to throw into stronger light the

-fact that it was on its average level an age of talk

-rather than of thought, of “fickle fancy” rather than

-of imaginative flights, of society as a unit highly

-organized for the pursuit of its own pastimes, pleasures,

-and preoccupations, in which poetry, and literature

-generally, played a social part. Poetry seems to skim

-gracefully over the surface of life, lightly touching

-many things in its flight, but never soaring; philosophy

-and science and satire all come within its

-purview, but when the eternally recurring themes of

-poetry<a id="FNanchor_261" href="#Footnote_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a>—love and nature and the like—are handled,

-there is rarely or never poignancy or depth.</p>

-

-<p>The great elemental facts and thoughts and feelings

-of life seldom confront us in the literature of the

-century as we make our way down the decades; even

-in the forerunners of the Romantic revolt we are never

-really stirred. “The Seasons,” and “The Elegy

-Written in a Country Churchyard,” touch responsive

-chords, but are far from moving us to thoughts beyond

-the reaches of our souls. Not until Blake and Burns

-is the veneer of convention and artificiality, in both

-matter and manner, definitely cast aside, and there is

-to be caught in English verse again, not only the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span>

-authentic singing note, but, what is more, the recognition

-and exemplification of the great truth that the

-finest poetry most often has its “roots deep in the

-common stuff,” and it is not to be looked for in an age

-and environment when, with rationality apparently

-triumphant, men seemed careless of the eternal

-verities, of the thoughts and feelings that lie too deep

-for tears, or sadly recognized their impotence, or

-their frustrated desires, to image them forth in

-poetry.</p>

-

-<p>“What is it,” asks Gilbert Murray,<a id="FNanchor_262" href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> “that gives

-words their character and makes a style high or low?

-Obviously, their associations: the company they

-habitually keep in the minds of those who use them.

-A word which belongs to the language of bars and

-billiard-saloons will become permeated by the normal

-standard of mind prevalent in such places; a word

-which suggests Milton or Carlyle will have the flavour

-of those men’s minds about it. I therefore cannot

-resist the conclusion that if the language of Greek

-poetry has, to those who know it intimately, this

-special quality of keen austere beauty, it is because

-the minds of the poets who used that language were

-habitually toned to a higher level both of intensity

-and of nobility than ours. It is a finer language

-because it expresses the mind of finer men. By

-‘finer men’ I do not necessarily mean men who

-behaved better, either by our standards or by their

-own: I mean the men to whom the fine things of the

-world, sunrise and sea and stars, and the love of man

-for man, and strife and the facing of evil for the sake

-of good, and even common things like meat and drink,

-and evil things like hate and terror had, as it were, a

-keener edge than they have for us, and roused a

-swifter and nobler reaction.” This passage has been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span>

-quoted in full because it may be said to have a direct

-and definite bearing on the question of the average

-level of poetic language during the greater part of the

-eighteenth century: there were few or no <i>trouvailles</i>,

-no great discoveries, no sudden releasings of the

-magic power often lurking unsuspectedly in the most

-ordinary words, because the poets and versifiers for

-the most part had all gone wrong in their conception

-of the medium they essayed to mould. “The substance

-of poetry,” writes Professor Lowes,<a id="FNanchor_263" href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> “is also

-the very stuff of words. And in its larger sense as

-well the language of poetry is made up inevitably of

-symbols—of symbols for things in terms of other

-things, for things in terms of feelings, for feelings in

-terms of things. It is the language not of objects, but

-of the complex relations of objects. And the agency

-that moulds it is the ceaselessly active power that is

-special to poetry only in degree—<i>imagination</i>—that

-fuses the familiar and the strange, the thing I feel and

-the thing I see, the world within and the world without,

-into a <i>tertium quid</i>, that interprets both.” The

-eighteenth century was not perhaps so emphatically

-and entirely the “age of prose and reason” as is sometimes

-thought, but it could scarcely be called the “age

-of imagination,” and poetry, in its highest sense

-(“high poetry,” as Maeterlinck would call it), being

-of imagination all compact, found no abiding place

-there.</p>

-

-<p>Most words, we may say, potentially possess at least

-two or more significations, their connotative scope

-varying according to the knowledge or culture of the

-speaker or reader. First of all, there is the logical,

-their plain workaday use, we might call it; and next,

-and above and beyond all this, they have, so to speak,

-an exciting force, a power of stimulating and reviving

-in the mind and memory all the associations that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span>

-cluster around them. Nearly all words carry with

-them, in vastly varying degrees, of course, this power

-of evocation, so that even commonplace terms, words,

-and phrases hackneyed and worn thin by unceasing

-usage, may suddenly be invested with a strange and

-beautiful suggestiveness when they are pressed into

-the service of the highest poetic imagination.

-And in the same way the æsthetic appeal of words of

-great potential value is reinforced and strengthened,

-when in virtue of their context, or even merely of the

-word or words to which they are attached, they are

-afforded a unique opportunity of flashing forth and

-bringing into play all the mysterious powers and

-associations gathered to themselves during a long

-employment in prose and verse, or on the lips of the

-people:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">All the charm of all the muses</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">often flowering in a lonely word.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>Poetry of the highest value and appeal may be,

-and often is, as we know from concrete examples that

-flash into the mind, written in commonplace, everyday

-terms, and we ask ourselves how it is done.<a id="FNanchor_264" href="#Footnote_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a>

-There are the mysterious words of the dying Hamlet:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">The rest is silence,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or the line quoted by Matthew Arnold<a id="FNanchor_265" href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> as an instance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span>

-when Wordsworth’s practice is to be found illustrating

-his theories:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">And never lifted up a single stone,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">or the wonderful lines which seem to bring with them

-a waking vision of the beauty of the English countryside,

-radiant with the promise of Spring:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent22">daffodils,</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">That come before the swallow dares, and take</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">The winds of March with beauty.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">In these and many similar passages, which the reader

-will recall for himself, it would seem that the mere

-juxtaposition of more or less plain and ordinary words

-has led to such action and reaction between them as

-to charge each with vastly increased powers of evocation

-and suggestion, to which the mind of the reader,

-roused and stimulated, instinctively responds.</p>

-

-<p>Similarly, the satisfaction thus afforded to our

-æsthetic sense, or our emotional appreciation, is often

-evoked by a happy conjunction of epithet and noun

-placed together in a new relation, instantly recognized

-as adding an unsuspected beauty to an otherwise colourless

-word. The poets and versifiers of the eighteenth

-century were not particularly noteworthy for their

-skill or inspiration in the matter of the choice of

-epithet, but the genius of Blake, in this as in other

-respects of poetic achievement, raised him “above the

-age” and led him to such felicities of expression as in

-the last stanza of “The Piper”:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">And I made a <i>rural pen</i></div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And I stained the water clear,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">where, as has been aptly remarked,<a id="FNanchor_266" href="#Footnote_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> a commonplace<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span>

-epithet is strangely and, apparently discordantly,

-joined to an equally commonplace noun, and

-yet the discord, in virtue of the fact that it sets

-the mind and memory working to recover or recall

-the faint ultimate associations of the two terms,

-endows the phrase with infinite suggestiveness. In

-the same way a subtle and magic effect is often

-produced by inversion of epithet, when the adjective

-is placed after instead of before the noun, and this

-again is a practice or device little favoured in the

-eighteenth century; the supremacy of the stopped

-couplet and its mechanical requirements were all

-against it.</p>

-

-<p>But the eighteenth century had little of this magic

-power of evocation; the secret had departed with the

-blind Milton, and it was not till the Romantic ascendancy

-had firmly established itself, not until Keats

-and Shelley and their great successors, that English

-poetry was once more able so to handle and fashion

-and rearrange words as to win from them their total

-and most intense associations. Yet contemporary

-criticism, especially in France, had not failed

-altogether to appreciate this potential magic of

-words. Diderot, for instance, speaks of the magic

-power that Homer and other great poets have

-given to many of their words; such words are, in his

-phrase, “hieroglyphic paintings,” that is, paintings

-not to the eye, but to the imagination.<a id="FNanchor_267" href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> What we

-feel about all the so-called classical verse of the

-eighteenth century, as well as of a good deal of the

-earlier Romantic poetry, is that writers have not been

-able to devise these subtle hieroglyphics; lack of real

-poetical inspiration, or the pressure of the prosaic and

-unimaginative atmosphere of their times, has led to a

-general poverty in the words or phrases that evoke<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span>

-some object before the inner eye, or charm the ear by

-an unheard melody, terms that, like the magic words

-of Keats, or the evanescent imagery of Shelley, stir

-us both emotionally and æsthetically. The verse of

-Pope and his followers is not without something of

-this power, but here the effect is achieved by the skill

-and polish with which the words are selected and

-grouped within the limits of the heroic couplet. Crabbe

-had marked down, accurately enough, this lack of

-word-power in his description of Dryden’s verse as

-“poetry in which the force of expression and accuracy

-of description have neither needed nor obtained

-assistance from the fancy of the writer,” and again,

-more briefly, as “poetry without an atmosphere.”<a id="FNanchor_268" href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a>

-One negative indication of this “nudity” is the comparative

-poverty of eighteenth century poetry in new

-compound epithets, those felicitous terms which have

-added to the language some of its most poetical and

-pictorial phrases.</p>

-

-<p>The Prefaces of Wordsworth and the kindred comments

-and remarks of Coleridge were not, it is hardly

-necessary to say, in themselves powerful enough to

-effect an instant and complete revolution in poetical

-theory and practice. But it was all to the good that

-inspired craftsmen were at last beginning to worry

-themselves about the nature and quality of the

-material which they had to mould and fashion and

-combine into poetry; still more important was it that

-they were soon to have the powerful aid of fellow-workers

-like Shelley and Keats, whose practice was

-to reveal the magic lurking in words and phrases, so

-arranged and combined as to set them reverberating

-in the depths of our sensibility. And, on the side of

-form at least, this is the distinctively Romantic

-achievement; the æsthetic possibilities and potentialities<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span>

-of the whole of our language, past and present,

-were entrancingly revealed and magnificently exemplified;

-new and inexhaustible mines of poetical word-power

-were thus opened up, and the narrow and

-conventional limits of the diction within which the

-majority of the eighteenth century poets had “tallied”

-their verses were transcended and swept away.</p>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="footnotes">

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> A brief summary, which is here utilized, is given by Spingarn,

-“Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century,” I, Intro. xxxvi,

-foll. (Oxford, 1908).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> <i>Vide</i> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, <i>Intro.</i> XXXVI-XLVIII; and also

-Robertson, “Studies in the Genesis of Romantic Theory in the

-XVIIIth Century” (Cambridge, 1924), an attempt “to show that

-the Movement which led to the dethronement of Reason, in favour

-of the Imagination, chief arbiter in poetic creation, and which

-culminated with Goethe and Schiller in Germany and the Romantic

-Revival in England, is to be put to the credit not of ourselves, but

-of Italy, who thus played again that pioneer rôle which she had

-already played in the sixteenth century.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, II, p. 118.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, II, p. 310.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, II, p. 273.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> “Apology for Heroic Poetry”: “Essays of John Dryden,”

-ed. W. P. Ker (1909), Vol. I, p. 190.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> “There appears in every part of his [Horace’s] diction, or (to

-speak English) in all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold

-purity.”—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 266.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> “Lives”: Dryden, ed. G. B. Hill (1905), Vol. I, p. 420; and

-cp. Goldsmith, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous

-Works), 1821, Vol. IV, p. 381 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> “Letters” (To R. West), 1742, ed. Tovey (1900); Vol. II,

-pp. 97-8.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, pp. 17-8.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 188 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, p. 234.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Edward Young, the author of “Night Thoughts,” was later to

-express this tersely enough: “Words tarnished, by passing through

-the mouths of the vulgar, are laid aside as inelegant and obsolete”—”Conjectures

-on Original Composition,” 1759 (“English Critical

-Essays,” Oxford, 1922, p. 320).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin: “Life,” Vol. V, p. 69.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> That is to say, as Mr. John Drinkwater has recently put it, it was

-“the common language, but raised above the common pitch, of the

-coffee-houses and boudoirs.”—“Victorian Poetry,” 1923, pp. 30-32.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> <i>Vide</i> Elton, “The Augustan Ages,” 1889, pp. 419 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Cp. “Essay on Criticism,” I, ll. 130-140.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> John Dennis, of course, at the beginning of the century, is to

-be found pleading that “passion is the chief thing in poetry,”

-(“The Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry,” 1701);

-but it is to be feared that he is only, so to speak, ringing the changes

-on the Rules.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” ed. Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II,

-p. 147.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” Ker, <i>op cit.</i>, Vol. II,

-p. 148. “<i>Operum Colores</i> is the very word which Horace uses to

-signify words and elegant expressions.” etc.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Lessing’s “Laokoon,” which appeared in 1766, may in this, as

-in other connexions, be regarded as the first great Romantic

-manifesto. The limitations of poetry and the plastic arts were

-analysed, and the fundamental conditions to which each art must

-adhere, if it is to accomplish its utmost, were definitely and clearly

-laid down.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> “Polymetis” (1747), p. 311.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. XXII.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Chap. IV.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> <i>Vide</i> especially Babbitt, “The New Laocoon, An Essay on

-the Confusion of the Arts” (1910), to which these paragraphs are

-indebted; and for a valuable survey of the relations of

-English poetry with painting and with music, see “English

-Poetry in Its Relation to Painting and the other Arts,” by

-Laurence Binyon (London, 1919), especially pp. 15-19.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Gregory Smith, Vol. I,

-Intro. (Oxford, 1904).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., Addison, “Spectator” papers on “Paradise Lost”

-(No. 285, January 26, 1712).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Essay, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous

-Works, 1820, Vol. IV, pp. 408-14).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 22.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> “Lives,” Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 420.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> “Lives”: Cowley; cp. “The Rambler,” No. 158.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> Cp. Boswell’s “Life” (1851 edition), Vol. I, p. 277: “He

-enlarged very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over

-blank verse in English poetry”; also <i>ibid.</i>, Vol. II, p. 84.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> “Lives,” ed. Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, pp. 416 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 341.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> This is of course exemplified in his own poetic practice, and it

-has been held sufficient to explain the oft-debated scantiness of his

-literary production. But for remarkable examples of his minuteness

-and scrupulosity in the matter of poetic diction see the letter

-to West referred to above; to Mason, January 13, 1758 (Tovey,

-<i>op. cit.</i>, II, p. 12), and to Beattie, March 8, 1771 (<i>ibid.</i>, II, p. 305).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> Cp. Courthope, “History of English Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 218

-foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Intro., pp. LV-LX.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> Preface to the “Fables,” Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 266-67.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> <i>Vide</i> Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, Vol. II.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Translation of Homer,” ed. Buckley, Intro., p. 47;

-and cp. “The Guardian,” No. 78, “A Receipt to make an Epic

-Poem.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> Tovey, <i>op. cit.</i>, March 8, 1771 (Vol. II, pp. 305 foll.); Beattie’s

-comments are given by Tovey, <i>ibid.</i>, footnotes.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> “Rambler,” No. 121, May 14, 1751.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> “Lines written in Imitation of Certain Poems Published in

-1777”; and cp. William Whitehead’s “Charge to the Poets”

-(1762), which may be taken to reflect the various attitudes of the

-reading public towards the “revivals.”—(“Poets of Great Britain,”

-1794, Vol. XI, pp. 935-7.)</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> Works (1820), <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. IV, p. 124.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> September 27, 1788 (“Letters,” 4 vols, 1806, Vol. II, p. 106).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> Letter to Lady Hesketh, March 22, 1790 (“Correspondence of

-William Cowper—Arranged in Chronological Order by T. Wright,”

-4 vols., 1904).—Vol. III, pp. 446, foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> 1807 ed., Vol. I, pp. 21 and 24; cp. also Campbell, “The Philosophy

-of Rhetoric” (London, 1776), Vol. I, pp. 410-411.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> “Spectator,” 285, January 26, 1712.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> “Homer”; ed. Buckley, Intro., 49.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, II, pp. 1-51; for Hobbes “Answer,” and

-Cowley’s “Preface to Poems,” see <i>ibid.</i>, pp. 54-90.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> “Dedication of the Æneis,” Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 154,

-foll.; cp. Addison, “Spectator,” 297, January 9, 1712.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., E. Barat, “Le Style poétique et la Révolution

-Romantique” (Paris, 1904), pp. 5-35.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> “Lives of the Poets. Pope,” ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 251.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 244.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> January 17, 1782 (Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 429-30).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Prose Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. II, pp. 101 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross (1907), p. 26, Note;

-cp. also Southey, “Works of Cowper” (1884 edition), Vol. I, p. 313.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> “The Progress of Taste,” III, ll. 7-10.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> Wordsworth himself of course stigmatized the “hubbub of

-words” which was often the only result of these eighteenth century

-attempts to paraphrase passages from the Old and the New Testament

-“as they exist in our common translation.”—<i>Vide</i> Prefaces,

-etc., “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916). p. 943.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> For a detailed description of the stock diction of English

-“Classical” poetry, see especially Myra Reynolds, “Nature in

-English Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1912), to

-which the foregoing remarks are indebted.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> “Essay on Criticism,” I, l. 350 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> “Essay on Men and Manners” (Works, 1764), Vol. II.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> Bysshe, “Art of Poetry,” Third Edition (1708), Chap. I, par. 1

-(quoted by Saintsbury, “Loci Critici,” 1903, p. 174).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> To the Rev. John Newton, December 10, 1785 (Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>,

-Vol. II, pp. 404-406).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> <i>Vide</i> Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin (1889), Vol. V.,

-p. 166.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> Philips has large supplies of the poetical stock-in-trade. He

-speaks of “honeysuckles of a <i>purple</i> dye,” and anticipates Gray in

-his couplet,</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Like woodland Flowers which paint the desert glades</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades.</div>

-  </div>

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse right">(“The Fable of Thule”)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p>(<i>Vide</i> “Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. IX, 384-407.)</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> But, as de Selincourt points out in “Poems of John Keats”

-(1905, Appendix C, p. 580), it is only the excessive and unnatural

-use of these adjectives that calls for censure.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> Especially in the case of compound epithets. Cf. Earle,

-“Philology of the English Tongue,” p. 601, for examples from the

-works of the poets from Shakespeare to Tennyson. For Shakespeare’s

-use of this form, see Schmidt, “Shakespeare Lexicon,”

-Vol. II, pp. 147 foll. (2nd Ed., London and Berlin, 1886).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> But compare “Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (p. 249), where it is

-justly pointed out that not a few of these circuitous phrases are

-justified by “considerations of dramatic propriety.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> Cf. Raleigh, “Milton,” <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 252-3.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> “Spring,” ll. 478 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> In “Summer,” Thomson had first used <i>feathery race</i> which was

-later amended into <i>tuneful race</i>—apparently the best improvement

-he could think of!</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> For a detailed study of Thomson’s diction, see especially Leon

-Morel, “James Thomson. Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres” (Paris, 1895),

-Chap. IV, pp. 412 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> To Mason, January 13, 1758 (“Letters of Gray,” ed. Tovey,

-Vol. II, pp. 13-14).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> <i>Vide</i> “The Poems of Chatterton, with an Essay on the Rowley

-Poems,” by W. W. Skeat (1871).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> Canto III, 652 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> “A Paladin of Philanthropy” (1899), p. 59 (quoted by Courthope,

-“History English Poetry,” V, 216).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> But cf. Courthope, “History English Poetry” (1910), Vol. V,

-p. 218.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> Arthur Symons, “William Blake” (1907), p. 39.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> To Mrs. Butts: “Poetical Works,” ed. Sampson (Oxford,

-1914), p. 187.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, p. 16. (Oxford,

-1907.)</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> Cf. “Letters,” to Samuel Rose, December 13, 1787: “Correspondence”

-arranged by W. Wright (1904), Vol. III, p. 190.

-To C. Rowley, February 21, 1788, <i>ibid.</i>, pp. 231 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> E.g. Charles Wesley’s “Wrestling Jacob,” or Watts’s “When

-I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> <i>Vide</i> Courthope, <i>op. cit.</i>, Book V, Ch. XI; and cp. the confident

-and just claims put forward by John Wesley himself on

-behalf of the language of the hymns, in his “Preface to the Collection

-of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists,”

-1780.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> Cf. Coleridge “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>,

-p. 11.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> <i>Vide</i> especially the dialogue with a Bookseller on the language

-of poetry.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> In both the first and the final forms “Poetical Works,”

-ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916) Appendix, pp. 592 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> For a detailed account see E. Legouis, “La Jeunesse de Wordsworth”

-(English translation, 1897; Revised edition, 1921).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, Intro.,

-pp. lv foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> Both the Fletchers also used many other latinized forms

-found before their time, and which in some cases they probably

-took direct from Spenser.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> E.g. by Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. III,

-p. 339, where a list is given (“only a few of the examples”) of

-Milton’s “coinages” and “creations.” Of this list only some

-half dozen (according to the N.E.D.) owe their first literary appearance

-to Milton.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> E.g. <i>debel</i>, <i>disglorified</i>, <i>conglobe</i>, <i>illaudable</i>, etc., date from the

-sixteenth century; <i>Battailous</i> goes back to Wycliff (N.E.D.).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> Cf.“Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (1915), pp. 247 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> <i>Vide</i> Masson, “Milton’s Poetical Works,” Vol. III, pp. 77-78

-(1890-).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> Similarly the “Virgil” translation has, e.g., <i>in a round error</i> for

-“wandering round and round,” etc.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> That it could easily become absurd was not unperceived in

-the eighteenth century. Vide Leonard Welsted: “Epistle to

-Mr. Pope,” May, 1730 (“Works in Verse and Prose,” London,

-1787, p. 141).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,” ed. Myra

-Reynolds, pp. 210-213 (Chicago, 1903).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Complete Poetical Works,” edited J. L. Robertson

-(Oxford, 1908), which includes a variorum edition of “The Seasons.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> “Poetical Epistle to Mr. Thomson on the First Edition of his

-‘Seasons’” (P.G.B., Vol. VIII, p. 504).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> “Letter to Mallett,” August 11, 1726.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> Cp. Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 419-424.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> E.g. ll. 766 foll., 828 foll., 881 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> Cp. also ll. 126 foll.; 711 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> Cp. also the respective versions of “Autumn,” ll. 748 and 962.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> Cp. also “Summer,” ll. 353, 376, 648; “Autumn,” ll. 349,

-894-895.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> Cp. “Milton,” Raleigh, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 252-3.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> One of the most noteworthy is the constant employment of

-adjectives as adverbs in opposition (e.g., “the grand etherial bow,

-Shoots up <i>immense</i>”) a device used both by Milton and Pope,

-but by neither with anything like the freedom seen in “The

-Seasons.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> Cf. <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Chapter VI, <i>infra.</i></a></p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> In the “Essay Supplementary to the Preface,” Hutchinson,

-<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 949.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> That Young’s readers and even his editors were occasionally

-puzzled is seen by the history of the term “concertion.” This was

-the spelling of the first and most of the subsequent editions, including

-that of 1787, where the Glossary explains it as meaning

-“contrivance.” But some editions (e.g. 1751) have “consertion,”

-and some, according to Richardson (“New Dictionary,” 1836),

-have “conception.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> Armstrong’s “gelid cistern” for “cold bath” has perhaps

-gained the honour of an unidentified quotation.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">[113]</a> <i>Vacant</i> in the oft-quoted line from “The Deserted Village”

-(“The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind”), where the word is

-used in its Latin sense of “free from care.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">[114]</a> As in the case of Milton, Cowper’s latinized words appear to

-have been floating about for a considerable period, though in most

-cases their first poetic use is apparently due to him.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">[115]</a> Cp. also III, 229, 414; IV, 494.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">[116]</a> Apparently after he had done some pruning amongst them

-(<i>vide</i> “Letter” to Joseph Hill, March 29, 1793, Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>,

-Vol. IV, p. 390), and compare his footnote to the “Iliad,” VII,

-359, where he apologizes for his coinage <i>purpureal</i>.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">[117]</a> For an account of the parallelism between certain of the

-eighteenth century stock epithets and various words and phrases

-from the Latin poets, especially Virgil (e.g. “hollow” and “<i>cavus</i>”:

-“liquid fountain” and <i>liquidi fontes</i>), see Myra Reynolds, “Nature

-in English Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1909),

-pp. 46-49.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">[118]</a> Cf. Some apt remarks by Raleigh, “Milton,” <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 247

-and 255.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">[119]</a> Cp. Saintsbury, “History of Literary Criticism” (1900-1904),

-Vol. II, p. 479, note 1.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">[120]</a> Cp. Elton, “Survey of English Literature,” 1830-1880 (1920),

-Vol. II, p. 17, remarks on Rossetti’s diction.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">[121]</a> Cp. also Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 423-424.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">[122]</a> <i>Vide</i> Lounsbury, “Studies in Chaucer” (1892), Vol. III.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">[123]</a> “Scrannel” is either Milton’s coinage or a borrowing from some

-dialect (N.E.D.).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">[124]</a> This of course is used by many later writers, and was perhaps

-not regarded in Dryden’s time as an archaism.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">[125]</a> “New English Dictionary.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">[126]</a> “Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. X, p. 120.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">[127]</a> The prevailing ignorance of earlier English is illustrated in

-that stanza by Pope’s explanation of the expression “mister

-wight,” which he had taken from Spenser, as “uncouth mortal.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">[128]</a> “The Works of Mr. Edmund Spenser, in 6 Vols. with a glossary

-explaining the old and obscure words. Published by Mr. Hughes,

-London.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">[129]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Vol. I, pp. 115-140.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">[130]</a> As in Prior’s “Susanna and the Two Elders” and “Erle

-Robert’s Mice” (1712).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">[131]</a> “Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser,” 1754.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">[132]</a> “An Answer to the Sompner’s Prologue in Chaucer,” printed

-anon, in “Lintott’s Miscellany,” entitled “Poems on Several

-Occasions” (1717), p. 147.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="label">[133]</a> “A Tale Devised in the Plesaunt manere of Gentil Maister

-Jeoffrey Chaucer” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. VII, p. 674).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="label">[134]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” by the Rev. Thomas Warton,

-1748, p. 30.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="label">[135]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” London, 1711, pp. 203-223.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="label">[136]</a> <i>Vide</i> List given by Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English

-Romantic Movement” (1899), Appendix I, p. 175; and cf. an exhaustive

-list, including complete glossaries, given in “Das

-Altertümliche im Wortschatz der Spenser-Nachahmungen des 18

-Jahrhunderts,” by Karl Reining (Strassburg, 1912).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="label">[137]</a> E.g. Robert Lloyd, 1733-1764, in his “Progress of Envy”

-(Anderson, Vol. V), defines <i>wimpled</i> as “hung down”; “The

-Squire of Dames,” by Moses Mendez (1700-1738) has many old

-words (“benty,” etc.), which are often open to the suspicion of

-being manufactured archaisms.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_138" href="#FNanchor_138" class="label">[138]</a> <i>Vide</i> his letter to Graves, June, 1742.—“Works,” Vol. III,

-p. 63 (1769).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_139" href="#FNanchor_139" class="label">[139]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” by William Thompson, M.A.,

-etc., Oxford, 1757, pp. 1-13.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_140" href="#FNanchor_140" class="label">[140]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 58-68.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_141" href="#FNanchor_141" class="label">[141]</a> “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper,”

-by Dr. Samuel Johnson, 21 Vols. (London, 1810), Vol. XV, p. 32.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_142" href="#FNanchor_142" class="label">[142]</a> Thompson has taken this wrong meaning direct with the word

-itself from Spenser, “Shepherds Kalendar,” April, l. 26, where

-<i>glen</i> is glossed by E.K. as “a country hamlet or borough.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_143" href="#FNanchor_143" class="label">[143]</a> Cp. Joseph Warton’s “Essay on Pope,” Vol. I, p. 366 (4th

-edition, 1782). Wordsworth, too, as we know, called it a “fine

-poem” and praised it for its harmonious verse and pure diction,

-but we may imagine that he was praising it for its own sake without

-regard to its merits as a Spenserian imitation (<i>vide</i> Hutchinson,

-<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 949).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_144" href="#FNanchor_144" class="label">[144]</a> There are at least forty stanzas in the First Canto, without a

-single archaic form, and an equal proportion in Canto Two: Cf.

-Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 629-630.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_145" href="#FNanchor_145" class="label">[145]</a> “The letter <i>y</i>,” he naïvely says in his “Glossary,” “is frequently

-placed at the beginning of a word by Spenser, to lengthen it a

-syllable, and <i>en</i> at the end of a word, for the same reason.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_146" href="#FNanchor_146" class="label">[146]</a> Thompson seems to have been the first to use the word <i>bicker</i>

-as applied to running water, an application which was later to

-receive the sanction of Scott and Tennyson (N.E.D.).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_147" href="#FNanchor_147" class="label">[147]</a> Among the last examples was Beattie’s “Minstrel” (1771-74),

-which occasioned some of Gray’s dicta on the use of archaic and

-obsolete words.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_148" href="#FNanchor_148" class="label">[148]</a> Spenserian “forgeries” had also made their appearance as

-early as in 1713, when Samuel Croxall had attempted to pass off

-two Cantos as the original work of “England’s Arch-Poet, Spenser”

-(2nd edition, London, 1714). In 1747, John Upton made a similar

-attempt, though probably in neither case were the discoveries

-intended to be taken seriously.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_149" href="#FNanchor_149" class="label">[149]</a> See Phelps, <i>op. cit.</i>, Chap. VIII, and Grace R. Trenery,

-“Ballad Collections of the Eighteenth Century,” “Modern

-Language Review,” July, 1915, pp. 283 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_150" href="#FNanchor_150" class="label">[150]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Preface to A Collection of Old Ballads,” 3 vols. (1723-52),

-and cf. Benjamin Wakefield’s “Warbling Muses” (1749),

-Preface.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_151" href="#FNanchor_151" class="label">[151]</a> Yet thirty years later the collections of Joseph Ritson, the last

-and best of the eighteenth century editors, failed to win acceptance.

-His strictly accurate versions of the old songs and ballads were

-contemptuously dismissed by the “Gentleman’s Magazine”

-(August, 1790) as “the compilation of a peevish antiquary.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_152" href="#FNanchor_152" class="label">[152]</a> “Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript,” edited Furnivall and Hales,

-4 vols. (1867-68).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_153" href="#FNanchor_153" class="label">[153]</a> <i>Vide</i> Henry A. Beers, “A History of English Romanticism in

-the Eighteenth Century,” 1899, Chap. VIII, pp. 298-302.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_154" href="#FNanchor_154" class="label">[154]</a> Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 950.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_155" href="#FNanchor_155" class="label">[155]</a> “Chatterton—Poetical Works,” with an Essay on the Rowley

-Poems, by W. W. Skeat, and a memoir by Bell (2 vols., 1871-1875);

-and <i>vide</i> Tyrwhitt, “Poems supposed to have been written at

-Bristol by Thomas Rowley and others in the fifteenth century”

-(London, 1777).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_156" href="#FNanchor_156" class="label">[156]</a> <i>Vide</i> Oswald Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason”

-(1922), p. 251.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_157" href="#FNanchor_157" class="label">[157]</a> <i>Vide</i> John Sampson, “The Poetical Works of William Blake”

-(Oxford, 1905), Preface, viii.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_158" href="#FNanchor_158" class="label">[158]</a> Until the middle of the eighteenth century the form <i>glen</i> occurs

-in English writers only as an echo of Spenser (N.E.D.).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_159" href="#FNanchor_159" class="label">[159]</a> <i>Vide</i> “The Dialect of Robert Burns,” by Sir James Wilson

-(Oxford Press, 1923), and for happy instances of beautiful words

-still lingering on in the Scots dialects, <i>vide</i> especially “The Roxburghshire

-Word-Book,” by George Watson (Cambridge, 1923).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_160" href="#FNanchor_160" class="label">[160]</a> Sweet, “New English Grammar” (1892), Part II, pp. 208-212,

-and Skeat, “Principles of English Etymology” (1887), Part I,

-pp. 418-420.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_161" href="#FNanchor_161" class="label">[161]</a> The first literary appearance of each compound has been

-checked as far as possible by reference to the “New English

-Dictionary.” It is hardly necessary to say that the fact of a compound

-being assigned, as regards its first appearance, to any

-individual writer, is not in itself evidence that he himself invented

-the new formation, or even introduced it into literature. But in

-many cases, either from the nature of the compound itself, or from

-some other internal or external evidence, the assumption may be

-made.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_162" href="#FNanchor_162" class="label">[162]</a> Cp. Sweet, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 449.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_163" href="#FNanchor_163" class="label">[163]</a> In the “Beowulf” there are twenty-three compounds meaning

-“Ocean,” twelve meaning “Ship,” and eighteen meaning “Sword”

-(<i>vide</i> Emerson, “Outline History of the English Language,” 1906,

-p. 121).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_164" href="#FNanchor_164" class="label">[164]</a> Cp. Champney’s “History of English” (1893), p. 192 and Note;

-and Lounsbury, “History of the English Language” (1909), p. 109.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_165" href="#FNanchor_165" class="label">[165]</a> Cp. Sidney’s remarks in the “Defence of Poesie—Elizabethan

-Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, p. 204.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_166" href="#FNanchor_166" class="label">[166]</a> E.g. Spenser’s “<i>sea-shouldering</i> whales” (an epithet that

-especially pleased Keats), Nashe’s “<i>sky-bred</i> chirpers,” Marlowe’s

-“<i>gold-fingered</i> Ind,” Shakespeare’s “<i>fancy-free</i>,” “<i>forest-born</i>,”

-“<i>cloud-capt</i>,” etc.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_167" href="#FNanchor_167" class="label">[167]</a> Dryden, “English Men of Letters” (1906), p. 76.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_168" href="#FNanchor_168" class="label">[168]</a> Pope’s “Homer,” ed. Buckley, Preface, p. xli.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_169" href="#FNanchor_169" class="label">[169]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 47; and cp. Coleridge, “Biographia Literaria,” ed.

-Shawcross (Oxford, 1907), Vol. I, p. 2, Footnote.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_170" href="#FNanchor_170" class="label">[170]</a> Here it may be noted that many of Pope’s compounds in his

-“Homer” have no warrant in the original; they are in most cases

-supplied by Pope himself, to “pad out” his verses, or, more

-rarely, as paraphrases of Greek words or phrases.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_171" href="#FNanchor_171" class="label">[171]</a> Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 2, Footnote.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_172" href="#FNanchor_172" class="label">[172]</a> “Lives” ed. Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, p. 298.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_173" href="#FNanchor_173" class="label">[173]</a> <i>Vide</i> Leon Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, Ch. IV, pp. 412 foll., for a detailed

-examination of Thomson’s compound formations.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_174" href="#FNanchor_174" class="label">[174]</a> It would appear that this epithet had particularly caught the

-fancy of Collins. He uses it also in the “Ode on the Manners,”

-this time figuratively, when he writes of “<i>dim-discovered</i> tracts of

-mind.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_175" href="#FNanchor_175" class="label">[175]</a> “Works,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. IV, p. 203. In point of fact, there is

-little or no evidence in favour of it. Even the Spenserian imitations

-that flourished exceedingly at this time have little interest in this

-respect. Shenstone has very few instances of compounds, but the

-poems of William Thompson furnish a few examples: “<i>honey-trickling</i>

-streams” (“Sickness,” Bk. I), “<i>Lily-mantled</i> meads”

-(<i>ibid.</i>), etc. Gilbert West’s Spenserian poems have no instances

-of any special merit; but a verse of his Pindar shows that he was

-not without a gift for happy composition: “The <i>billow-beaten</i> side

-of the <i>foam-besilvered</i> main.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_176" href="#FNanchor_176" class="label">[176]</a> “Letters,” Vol. III, p. 97.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_177" href="#FNanchor_177" class="label">[177]</a> Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, p. 437.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_178" href="#FNanchor_178" class="label">[178]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 434.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_179" href="#FNanchor_179" class="label">[179]</a> <i>Vide</i> Edmund Gosse, “Two Pioneers of Romanticism” (Warton

-Lecture), 1915.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_180" href="#FNanchor_180" class="label">[180]</a> It is a coincidence to find that the N.E.D. assigns the first use

-of the compound <i>furze-clad</i> to Wordsworth.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_181" href="#FNanchor_181" class="label">[181]</a> Bell’s “Fugitive Poets” (London, 1789), Vol. VI.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_182" href="#FNanchor_182" class="label">[182]</a> Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. XI.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_183" href="#FNanchor_183" class="label">[183]</a> Bell, <i>op. cit.</i></p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_184" href="#FNanchor_184" class="label">[184]</a> Anderson, <i>op. cit.</i></p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_185" href="#FNanchor_185" class="label">[185]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. X.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_186" href="#FNanchor_186" class="label">[186]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Vol. XI, Pt. I.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_187" href="#FNanchor_187" class="label">[187]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Pt. II.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_188" href="#FNanchor_188" class="label">[188]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. XI, Pt. II.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_189" href="#FNanchor_189" class="label">[189]</a> <i>Vide</i> Legouis, <i>op. cit.</i> (English translation, 1897), pp. 133 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_190" href="#FNanchor_190" class="label">[190]</a> Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 2, Note.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_191" href="#FNanchor_191" class="label">[191]</a> See, e.g., de Selincourt’s remarks on Keats’ compound epithets;

-“Poems” (1904), Appendix C, p. 581.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_192" href="#FNanchor_192" class="label">[192]</a> “Biog. Lit.,” <i>op. cit.</i>, and cp. “Poetical Works,” ed. Dykes

-Campbell, Appendix K, p. 540.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_193" href="#FNanchor_193" class="label">[193]</a> “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_194" href="#FNanchor_194" class="label">[194]</a> “History of English Prosody,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, p. 480; and cp.

-<i>ibid.</i>, p. 496.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_195" href="#FNanchor_195" class="label">[195]</a> Prefaces, “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916),

-p. 936.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_196" href="#FNanchor_196" class="label">[196]</a> <i>Vide</i> Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. I,

-Chap. IX, for an account of mediaeval allegory and personification.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_197" href="#FNanchor_197" class="label">[197]</a> E.g. “Palamon,” II, 480, 564, 565; Æneas XII, 505-506.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_198" href="#FNanchor_198" class="label">[198]</a> “Black Melancholy” (ll. 163-168) and “Hope” (l. 278), the

-former of which especially pleased Joseph Warton (“Essay on

-Pope”: Works, Vol. I, p. 314).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_199" href="#FNanchor_199" class="label">[199]</a> Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 209.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_200" href="#FNanchor_200" class="label">[200]</a> Cf. “Suicide” (Canto II, 194-250).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_201" href="#FNanchor_201" class="label">[201]</a> Cf. also Bk. I, ll. 10, 11; 548, etc.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_202" href="#FNanchor_202" class="label">[202]</a> Especially in Book III of “The Duellist,” where the reader is

-baffled and wearied by the unending array of bloodless abstractions.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_203" href="#FNanchor_203" class="label">[203]</a> It may be noted incidentally that, according to the “New

-English Dictionary,” the term <i>personification</i> owes its first literary

-appearance to the famous “Dictionary” of 1755, where it is thus

-defined, and (appropriately enough) illustrated: “<i>Prosopopeia</i>,

-the change of things to persons, as ‘Confusion heard his voice.’”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_204" href="#FNanchor_204" class="label">[204]</a> Phelps, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 37-38.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_205" href="#FNanchor_205" class="label">[205]</a> “Letter” to Mallet, August 11, 1726: “I thank you heartily

-for your hint about personizing of Inspiration: it strikes me.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_206" href="#FNanchor_206" class="label">[206]</a> Cf. also “Winter,” 794 and “Autumn,” 143.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_207" href="#FNanchor_207" class="label">[207]</a> For some happy instances of its use in English poetry, as well

-as for a detailed account of Thomson’s use of personification, see

-especially Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 444-455.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_208" href="#FNanchor_208" class="label">[208]</a> Poets of Great Britain (1793), Vol. IX, p. 414.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_209" href="#FNanchor_209" class="label">[209]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. XXII (1822), p. 117.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_210" href="#FNanchor_210" class="label">[210]</a> “A Collection of Poems by several hands,” 3 vols., 1748;

-2nd edition, with Vol. IV, 1749; Vol. V and VI, 1758; Pearch’s

-continuations, Vol. VII and VIII, 1768, and Vol. IX and X, 1770.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_211" href="#FNanchor_211" class="label">[211]</a> “Dodsley” (1770 ed.), Vol. IV, p. 50.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_212" href="#FNanchor_212" class="label">[212]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 148.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_213" href="#FNanchor_213" class="label">[213]</a> “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 5.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_214" href="#FNanchor_214" class="label">[214]</a> <i>Vide</i> also Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry” (1791). Vol. XI, where

-there is a section devoted to “Poems in the manner of Milton.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_215" href="#FNanchor_215" class="label">[215]</a> “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 269.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_216" href="#FNanchor_216" class="label">[216]</a> At the same time there appeared a similar volume of the Odes

-of William Collins, “Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric

-Subjects,” the original intention having been to publish in one

-volume. Collins’s collection had a lukewarm reception, so that the

-author soon burned the unsold copies. But see Articles in “The

-Times Literary Supplement,” January 5th (p. 5) and January 12,

-1922 (p. 28), by Mr. H. O. White, on “William Collins and his

-Contemporary Critics,” from which it would appear that the Odes

-were not received with such indifference as is commonly believed.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_217" href="#FNanchor_217" class="label">[217]</a> Cf. “Pope’s Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V, p. 365.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_218" href="#FNanchor_218" class="label">[218]</a> <i>Vide</i> also “The Triumph of Isis” (1749), and “The Monody

-written near Stratford-on-Avon.” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794,

-Vol. XI, pp. 1061-4.)</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_219" href="#FNanchor_219" class="label">[219]</a> Cf. Gosse, “A History of Eighteenth Century Literature”

-(1889), p. 233.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_220" href="#FNanchor_220" class="label">[220]</a> Cf. Courthope, “Hist. Engl. Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 397-8.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_221" href="#FNanchor_221" class="label">[221]</a> “Lives,” ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 341.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_222" href="#FNanchor_222" class="label">[222]</a> “On Lyric Poetry—Poetical Works,” ed. Mitford (Aldine,

-ed. 1896), Vol. II, p. 147.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_223" href="#FNanchor_223" class="label">[223]</a> In the Aldine edition, ed. Thomas (1901) these personified

-abstractions are not invested with a capital letter.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_224" href="#FNanchor_224" class="label">[224]</a> “Biographia Literaria” (ed. Shawcross, 1907), p. 12; cf. also

-“Table Talk” (October 23, 1833), ed. H. N. Coleridge (1858),

-p. 340. “Gray’s personifications,” he said, “were mere printer’s

-devil’s personifications,” etc.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_225" href="#FNanchor_225" class="label">[225]</a> Two of Gray’s mechanical figures were marked down for special

-censure by Dr. Johnson (“Lives,” Gray, ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III,

-p. 440), whose criticism was endorsed by Walpole (“Letters,”

-Vol. III, p. 98), who likened “Fell Thirst and Famine” to the

-devils in “The Tempest” who whisk away the banquets from the

-shipwrecked Dukes.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_226" href="#FNanchor_226" class="label">[226]</a> “Letters” (December 19, 1786), Tovey, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 322.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_227" href="#FNanchor_227" class="label">[227]</a> In this connexion mention may be made of “William Blake’s

-Designs for Gray’s Poems,” recently published for the first time with

-a valuable introduction by H. J. C. Grierson (Oxford, 1922).

-“Blake’s imagination,” says Professor Grierson, “communicates

-an intenser life to Gray’s half-conventional personifications”

-(Intro., p. 17).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_228" href="#FNanchor_228" class="label">[228]</a> Canto I: LXXIV-LXXV.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_229" href="#FNanchor_229" class="label">[229]</a> Cp. also the detailed personification of “Thrift,” given by

-Mickle in his “Syr Martyn” (1787).—“Poets of Great Britain” (1794),

-Vol. XI, p. 645.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_230" href="#FNanchor_230" class="label">[230]</a> Cf. “Paradise Lost,” VI, 3; and Pope’s “Iliad,” V, 297.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_231" href="#FNanchor_231" class="label">[231]</a> “Works” ed. Ellis and Yeats, Vol. I, Pref., x.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_232" href="#FNanchor_232" class="label">[232]</a> July 6, 1803, “Letters,” ed. A. G. B. Russell (1906), p. 121.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_233" href="#FNanchor_233" class="label">[233]</a> In the parallel verses of “The Songs of Experience” the human

-attributes are attributed respectively to <i>Cruelty</i>, <i>Jealousy</i>, <i>Terror</i>,

-and <i>Secrecy</i>.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_234" href="#FNanchor_234" class="label">[234]</a> “Poetical Works,” ed. John Sampson (Oxford), 1914, p. 187.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_235" href="#FNanchor_235" class="label">[235]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., ll. 18-26.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_236" href="#FNanchor_236" class="label">[236]</a> See also, e.g., “Midnight,” l. 272 foll, and l. 410 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_237" href="#FNanchor_237" class="label">[237]</a> A similar type of abstraction is found here and there in the

-stanzas of the “Song to David” (1763), e.g.:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And heavenly melancholy tuned</div>

-    <div class="verse indent4">To bless and bear the rest.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">But on the whole Smart’s famous poem is singularly free from the

-bane, though the “Hymn to the Supreme Being” (<i>vide</i> “A Song

-to David,” edited Tutin (1904), Appendix, p. 32), has not escaped

-the contagion. But better instances are to be found in the Odes

-(“Works,” 1761-1762), e.g., “Strong Labour ... with his pipe

-in his mouth,” “Health from his Cottage of thatch,” etc. <i>Vide</i>

-also article on “Christopher Smart,” “Times Literary Supplement,”

-April 6, 1922, p. 224.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_238" href="#FNanchor_238" class="label">[238]</a> Cf. “Poems of William Cowper,” ed. J. C. Bailey (1905),

-Intro., p. xl.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_239" href="#FNanchor_239" class="label">[239]</a> There are faint personifications of the other seasons in Book III,

-ll. 427 foll., but none perhaps as effective as William Mickle had

-already given in his ode, “Vicissitude,” where he depicts Winter

-staying:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent6">his creeping steps to pause</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">And wishful turns his icy eyes</div>

-    <div class="verse indent0">On April meads.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_240" href="#FNanchor_240" class="label">[240]</a> <i>Streaky</i>, for instance, is due to Thomson who, in the first draft

-of “Summer” (ll. 47-48) had written:</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">Mildly elucent in the streaky east,</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="noindent">later changed to</p>

-

-<div class="poetry-container">

-<div class="poetry">

-  <div class="stanza">

-    <div class="verse indent0">At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_241" href="#FNanchor_241" class="label">[241]</a> “Letters,” edited E. Coleridge, 1895, p. 215.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_242" href="#FNanchor_242" class="label">[242]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. I.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_243" href="#FNanchor_243" class="label">[243]</a> The ridicule was crystallized in Canning’s famous parody,

-“The Loves of the Triangles,” which appeared in “The Anti-Jacobin,”

-Nos. 23, 24 and 26, April to May, 1798. (<i>Vide</i> “The

-Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin,” edited C. Edmonds, 1854, 3rd edition,

-1890.)</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_244" href="#FNanchor_244" class="label">[244]</a> “The Botanic Garden” (4th edition, 1799), Interlude I, Vol. II,

-p. 64. Cp. also <i>ibid.</i>, Interlude III, p. 182 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_245" href="#FNanchor_245" class="label">[245]</a> For details see Legouis, <i>op. cit.</i></p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_246" href="#FNanchor_246" class="label">[246]</a> Both the original and the final versions of the “Evening Walk”

-and the “Descriptive Sketches” are given by Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>,

-Appendix, pp. 592, 601.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_247" href="#FNanchor_247" class="label">[247]</a> But the artistic possibilities of Personification were not unrecognized

-by writers and critics in the eighteenth century. <i>Vide</i>

-Blair’s lecture on “Personification” (“Lectures on Rhetoric”) 9th

-edition, 1803; Lec. XVI, p. 375.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_248" href="#FNanchor_248" class="label">[248]</a> “The Stones of Venice” (1851), Vol. II, Chap. VIII, pp. 312 foll.—The

-Ducal Palace, “Personification is, in some sort, the reverse of

-symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of

-a great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign ... and it is

-almost always employed by men in their most serious moods

-of faith, rarely in recreation.... But Personification is the

-bestowing of a human or living form upon an abstract idea; it is

-in most cases, a mere recreation of the fancy, and is apt to disturb

-the belief in the reality of the thing personified.”</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_249" href="#FNanchor_249" class="label">[249]</a> For an illuminating analysis, see Elton, “A Survey of English

-Literature,” 1780-1830 (1912), pp. 1-29.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_250" href="#FNanchor_250" class="label">[250]</a> “Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise,” Vol. IV, pp. 175-178.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_251" href="#FNanchor_251" class="label">[251]</a> Cf. Coleridge’s remarks in “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross,

-Chap. I (Oxford, 1907).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_252" href="#FNanchor_252" class="label">[252]</a> Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 211.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_253" href="#FNanchor_253" class="label">[253]</a> “Sleep and Poetry,” ll. 188-201.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_254" href="#FNanchor_254" class="label">[254]</a> Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 948.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_255" href="#FNanchor_255" class="label">[255]</a> “Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. X, p. 709.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_256" href="#FNanchor_256" class="label">[256]</a> Cf. “Works” (1889), ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V., p. 360-364.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_257" href="#FNanchor_257" class="label">[257]</a> George Saintsbury, “Eighteenth Century Poetry” (“The

-London Mercury,” December, 1919, pp. 155-163); an article in

-which a great authority once again tilts an effective lance on

-behalf of the despised Augustans.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_258" href="#FNanchor_258" class="label">[258]</a> The best of them have been garnered by Mr. Iola A. Williams

-into a little volume, “By-ways Round Helicon” (London, 1922),

-where the interested reader may browse with much pleasure and

-profit, and where he will no doubt find not a little to surprise and

-delight him. For a still more complete anthology, <i>vide</i> “The

-Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century” (1923) by the same

-editor. But for the devil’s advocacy see Doughty, “English Lyric

-in the Age of Reason” (London, 1922)</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_259" href="#FNanchor_259" class="label">[259]</a> The fountain head of all such studies is, of course, the “Biographia

-Literaria,” for which see especially Shawcross’s edition,

-1907, Vol. II, pp. 287-297. Of recent general treatises, Lascelles

-Abercrombie, “Poetry and Contemporary Speech” (1914);

-Vernon Lee, “The Handling of Words” (1923); Ogden and

-Richards, “The Meaning of Meaning”(1923), may be mentioned.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_260" href="#FNanchor_260" class="label">[260]</a> Elton, “Survey of English Literature” (1780-1830), Vol. II,

-pp. 88 foll.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_261" href="#FNanchor_261" class="label">[261]</a> Cf. Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1899), p. 209.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_262" href="#FNanchor_262" class="label">[262]</a> “The Legacy of Greece” (Oxford, 1921), p. 11.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_263" href="#FNanchor_263" class="label">[263]</a> “Convention and Revolt in Poetry” (London, 1921), p. 13.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_264" href="#FNanchor_264" class="label">[264]</a> Just as this book was about to go to press, there appeared “The

-Theory of Poetry,” by Professor Lascelles Abercrombie, in which

-a poet and critic of great distinction has embodied his thoughts

-on his own art. Chaps. III and IV especially should be consulted

-for a most valuable account and analysis of how the poetical

-“magic” of words is achieved.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_265" href="#FNanchor_265" class="label">[265]</a> “Essays in Criticism,” Second Series (1888): “Wordsworth”

-(1913 ed.), p. 157.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_266" href="#FNanchor_266" class="label">[266]</a> O. Barfield, “Form in Poetry” (“New Statesman” August 7,

-1920, pp. 501-2).</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_267" href="#FNanchor_267" class="label">[267]</a> “Œuvres” (ed. Assézat), I, p. 377 (quoted by Babbitt), <i>op. cit.</i>,

-p. 121.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_268" href="#FNanchor_268" class="label">[268]</a> Preface to “The Tales” (Poems), ed. A. W. Ward, (Cambridge,

-1906), Vol. II, p. 10.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-</div>

-

-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />

-

-<div class="chapter">

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span></p>

-

-<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2>

-

-</div>

-

-<ul>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Abercrombie, Lascelles, <a href="#Footnote_259">197 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_264">201 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Addison, Joseph, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Ælla” (T. Chatterton’s), <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Akenside, Mark, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Dr. Johnson’s criticism, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Epistle to Curio,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personification, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Pleasures of the Imagination,” <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Alma” (M. Prior’s), <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Amyntor and Theodora,” <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Anti-Jacobin, The,” <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Approach of Summer, The,” <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Archaism,” <a href="#Page_17">17-21</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80-101</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Aristotle, <a href="#Page_10">10-12</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Armstrong, John, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Art of Preserving Health,” <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Babbitt, I., <a href="#Footnote_25">13 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_267">203 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Bailey, J. C., <a href="#Footnote_238">169 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Ballads, <a href="#Page_95">95-7</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Barfield, Owen, <a href="#Footnote_266">202 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Bastard, The,” <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Beattie, James, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147">93 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Beers, H. A., <a href="#Footnote_153">97 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Beowulf, The,” <a href="#Footnote_163">104 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Binyon, Laurence, <a href="#Footnote_25">13 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx" id="Biographia">“Biographia Literaria,” <a href="#Footnote_23">13 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_57">24 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_82">48 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_86">51 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_190">127 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_242">173 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_251">185 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Birth of Flattery, The” (G. Crabbe’s), <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Blair, Robert, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Footnote_247">176 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Blake, William, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-59</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163-7</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179-80</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Footnote_254">187 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Allegory and Vision, remarks on, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Artist, as, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Footnote_227">159 n.</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Felicity of diction, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Imitation of Spenser,” <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_80">47 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_232">164 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_254">187 n.</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Muses, To the,” <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Mysticism, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_163">163-7</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179-80</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Piper, The,” <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Songs of Experience,” <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Footnote_233">165 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Songs of Innocence,” <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Blount, T., <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” <a href="#Footnote_32">16 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Botanic Garden” (E. Darwin’s), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-5</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Bowles, William Lisle, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Boyce, S., <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Bruce, Michael, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Burns, Robert, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Bysshe, Edward, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“By-ways Round Helicon”, <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Campbell, Dykes, <a href="#Footnote_192">128 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Canning, George, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Capell, Edward, <a href="#Page_95">95-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Castaway, The,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Castle of Indolence,” <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Chapman, George, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span>“Charge to the Poets” (W. Whitehead’s), <a href="#Footnote_43">20 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Chase, The” (W. Somerville’s), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Chatterton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42-3</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123-4</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_123">123-4</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Rowley Poems,” <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_42">42-3</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Chaucer, Geoffrey, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84-6</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Chaucerian imitations, <a href="#Page_84">84-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Chesterfield, Lord, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Child of Quality, Lines to” (M. Prior’s), <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Choice, The” (J. Pomfret’s), <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Churchill, John, <a href="#Page_139">139-40</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169-70</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Classical literature (connexion with romantic), <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Coleridge, H. N., <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Coleridge, S. T., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127-8</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_127">127-8</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Darwin, E., remarks, on, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Gray’s personifications, on, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Imagination, on, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_241">173 n.</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Collins, William, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116-7</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_116">116-7</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Dr. Johnson’s criticisms of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Odes,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, a, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Compound epithets, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102-31</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Convention and Revolt in Poetry,” <a href="#Footnote_263">200 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Courthope, W. J., <a href="#Footnote_14">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_36">17 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_78">45 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_85">50 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_92">57 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_196">133 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_217">149 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_256">194 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Coventry, F., <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Cowper, William, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48-50</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168-73</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaism, on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Familiar style, on the, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Homer” translation, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_73">73-5</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_46">20 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_83">48 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_116">74 n.</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Olney Hymns,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_169">169-73</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_48">48-9</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Table Talk,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Task, The,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Crabbe, George, <a href="#Page_50">50-1</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124-5</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_124">124-5</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Dryden’s style, on, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_50">50-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Croxall, Samuel, <a href="#Footnote_148">93 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Cunningham, John, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Darwin, Erasmus, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-5</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Davenant, Sir William, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Denham, Sir John, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dennis, John, <a href="#Footnote_18">11 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">De Quincey, Thomas, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Descriptive Sketches,” <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Footnote_246">176 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Deserted Village, The,” <a href="#Page_45">45-6</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-2</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Diderot, Denis, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dodsley, Robert, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Doughty, Oswald, <a href="#Footnote_156">98 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Drayton, Michael, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Drinkwater, John, <a href="#Footnote_15">9 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dryden, John, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26-7</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58-9</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81-2</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105-6</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Annus Mirabilis,” <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81-2</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Chaucer “translations,” <a href="#Page_26">26-7</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_105">105-6</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Essays” and “Prefaces,” <a href="#Page_7">7-11</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Hind and Panther,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>Language of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_8">8-9</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_58">58-9</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Periphrasis, use of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Religio Laici,” <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Royal Society, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Technical terms, on, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Duellist, The” (Charles Churchill’s), <a href="#Footnote_202">140 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dyer, John, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Earle, J., <a href="#Footnote_69">35 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Economy of Vegetation,” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Edmonds, C., <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Eloisa to Abelard,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Elton, Oliver, <a href="#Footnote_16">10 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_199">135 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_249">182 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_252">186 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_260">197 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Emerson, O., <a href="#Footnote_163">104 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“English Lyric in the Age of Reason,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Enthusiast, The,” <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Epistle to Curio” (M. Akenside’s), <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Epithalamium (W. Thompson’s), <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Essay on Criticism,” <a href="#Page_9">9-10</a>, <a href="#Footnote_61">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Eton College, Ode on a Distant View of,” <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Evelyn, John, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Evening, Ode to,” <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Evening Walk, The,” <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Excursion, The” (David Mallet’s), <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">“Faerie Queene,” <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-60</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Falconer, William, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Fleece, The,” (J. Dyer’s), <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Fletcher, Giles, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Fletcher, Phineas, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Fugitive Poets” (Bell’s), <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Footnote_214">147 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Furetière, Antoine, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Gay, John, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Gibbon, Edward, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Glanvill, Joseph, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Goldsmith, Oliver, <a href="#Page_14">14-15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44-6</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-2</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaism, on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, in, <a href="#Page_117">117-8</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Diction of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_141">141-2</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_44">44-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Graeme, James, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Grainger, James, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Grave,” the (Robert Blair’s), <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Gray, Thomas, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16-17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21-2</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71-2</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147">93 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98-9</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117-20</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155-9</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaisms, on, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98-9</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Coinages, on, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_117">117-20</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Diction of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16-17</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_71">71-2</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Letters, <a href="#Footnote_9">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_35">16 n.</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_155">155-9</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Plain colloquial style, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, A, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Technical terms, on, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Grierson, H. J. C., <a href="#Footnote_227">159 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Grongar Hill,” <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Hamilton, William (of Bangor), <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hill, G. B., <a href="#Footnote_8">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_30">15 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_33">16 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_53">23 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_172">112 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_221">151 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Hind and Panther, The,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Horror, Ode to,” <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hughes, John, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hume, David, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hutchinson, T., <a href="#Footnote_88">52 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_110">68 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_154">97 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_195">132 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_246">176 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span>“Hymn to May” (W. Thompson’s), <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">“Il Bellicoso,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Il Pacifico,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Il Penseroso,” <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Inebriety,” <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Jago, R., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Johnson, Dr., <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40-2</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Collins, on, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119-20</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Diction, on, <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Dictionary,” <a href="#Footnote_203">140 n.</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Dryden, on, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Gray’s personifications, on, <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Jonson, Ben, <a href="#Page_17">17-18</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Keats, John, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Ker, W. P., <a href="#Footnote_6">7 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_10">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_12">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_19">11 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_38">18 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_51">21 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Kersey, John, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">“L’Allegro,” <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Langhorne, J., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Langland, William, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Latinism, <a href="#Page_56">56-79</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Lee, Vernon, <a href="#Footnote_259">197 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Legacy of Greece, The,” <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Legouis, E., <a href="#Footnote_89">53 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_189">127 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_245">175 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Lessing’s “Laokoon,” <a href="#Footnote_21">12 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Lloyd, Robert, <a href="#Footnote_137">88 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“London” (Dr. Johnson’s), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Loves of the Plants” (E. Darwin’s), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Loves of the Triangles” (G. Canning’s), <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Lowes, Professor J. L., <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Lyrical Ballads,” <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Lyttleton, G., <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Maeterlinck, M., <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mallet, D., <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Footnote_205">144 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Marlowe, Christopher, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Marriott, Dr., <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mason, William, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Masson, David, <a href="#Footnote_95">58 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mendez, Moses, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mickle, William, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229">162 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_239">171 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Milton, John, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33-6</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176-7</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compound epithets, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Diction, <a href="#Page_34">34-6</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Imitated in eighteenth century, <a href="#Page_60">60-70</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76-7</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-50</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personification, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Monody written near Stratford-on-Avon,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Morel, Leon, <a href="#Footnote_74">39 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_102">63 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_121">78 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_144">91 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_173">114 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_207">145 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Murray, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Nashe, Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Neo-classicism, <a href="#Page_9">9-13</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Night Thoughts” (E. Young’s), <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68-9</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-8</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Nocturnal Reverie” (Countess of Winchilsea’s), <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Old English Compounds, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Ossian” poems, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">“Paradise Lost,” <a href="#Page_34">34-6</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Parnell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_135">135-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Passions, Ode to the,” <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Penshurst” (F. Coventry’s), <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Percy, Bishop, <a href="#Page_96">96-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Personification and abstraction, <a href="#Page_133">133-80</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Phelps, W. L., <a href="#Footnote_204">142 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Philips, John, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60-1</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span>“Pity, Ode to” (W. Collins’), <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Pleasures of the Imagination” (M. Akenside’s), <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Pleasures of Melancholy, The” (T. Warton’s), <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Poetical Character, Ode on the” (W. Collins’s), <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Poetical Sketches” (W. Blake’s), <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Pomfret, John, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Pope, Alexander, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21-2</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-4</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-4</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36-7</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59-60</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82-3</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106-9</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193-4</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82-3</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106-9</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Diction, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36-7</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Dunciad,” <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Essay on Criticism,” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Footnote_61">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Heroic couplet, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Homer,” <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Language of poetry, <a href="#Page_9">9-10</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_59">59-60</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Potter, R., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Prior, Matthew, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Progress of Error” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Progress of Poetry” (Thomas Gray’s), <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Prolusions” (E. Capell’s), <a href="#Page_95">95-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Raleigh, Sir Walter, <a href="#Footnote_70">35 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_94">58 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_107">66 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Rape of the Lock,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Religio Laici,” <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Reynolds, Myra, <a href="#Footnote_60">28 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_98">61 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_117">75 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Ritson, Joseph, <a href="#Footnote_151">96 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Robertson, J. L., <a href="#Footnote_2">6 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Rogers, Samuel, <a href="#Page_125">125-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Romanticism, connexion with classicism, <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Rowley poems, <a href="#Page_42">42-4</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Ruins of Rome” (J. Dyer’s), <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Ruskin, John, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Russell, A. J. B., <a href="#Footnote_232">164 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Saintsbury, George, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>, <a href="#Footnote_119">76 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Footnote_257">194 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Sampson, John, <a href="#Footnote_81">47 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_157">99 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_234">165 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Savage, Richard, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Schmidt’s “Shakespeare Lexicon,” <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Schoolmistress, The,” <a href="#Page_88">88-9</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Scott, John, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Seasons, The” (J. Thomson’s), <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Selincourt, B. de, <a href="#Footnote_68">35 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_191">128 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Shakespeare, William, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Shawcross, T. (<i>see</i> “<a href="#Biographia">Biographia Literaria</a>”).</li>

-

-<li class="indx">Shelley, P. B., <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Shenstone, W., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88-9</a>, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century,” <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Sidney, Sir Philip, <a href="#Footnote_165">105 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Skeat, W. W., <a href="#Footnote_76">43 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Footnote_155">98 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_160">102 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Smart, Christopher, <a href="#Footnote_237">169 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Smith, Gregory, <a href="#Footnote_26">14 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_37">18 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_90">56 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Somerville, William, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Song to David,” <a href="#Footnote_237">169 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Spence, Joseph, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Spenser, Edmund, <a href="#Page_80">80-1</a>, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-60</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Spenserian imitations, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86-94</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160-2</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Spingarn, J. E., <a href="#Footnote_1">5 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_2">6 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_3">7 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Sprat, Thomas, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Stock diction, The, <a href="#Page_25">25-55</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Stones of Venice, The” (J. Ruskin’s), <a href="#Footnote_248">180 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Storie of William Canynge,” <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Sugar Cane, The,” <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Sweet, Henry, <a href="#Footnote_160">102 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_162">103 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Swift, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span>Symbolism, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Symons, Arthur, <a href="#Footnote_80">47 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Syr Martin,” <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229">162 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">“Table Talk” (S. T. Coleridge’s), <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Table Talk” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Taine, H., <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Task, The” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Theory of diction, <a href="#Page_5">5-24</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Thomson, James, <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Castle of Indolence,” <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Diction generally, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Miltonic borrowings, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Nature poet, a, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178-9</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, a, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Seasons, The,” <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_37">37-8</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Thompson, W., <a href="#Page_61">61-2</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89-90</a>, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Tintern Abbey, Lines written above,” <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Traveller, The” (O. Goldsmith’s), <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Trenery, Grace R., <a href="#Footnote_149">95 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Triumph of Isis,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Tyrwhitt, Thomas, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Footnote_155">98 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Upton, John, <a href="#Footnote_148">93 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">“Vacation, The,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Vale Abbey, Lines written at” (T. Warton’s), <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Valetudinarian, The,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Vanity of Human Wishes,” <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Village, The” (G. Crabbe’s), <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Vision of Patience” (S. Boyce’s), <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Vision of Solomon” (W. Whitehead’s), <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Wakefield, Benjamin, <a href="#Footnote_150">95 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Waller, Edmund, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Walpole, Horace, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Footnote_225">156 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Wanderer, The” (R. Savage’s), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Ward, A. W., <a href="#Footnote_268">204 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Warton, Joseph, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70-1</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Warton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120-1</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Watson, George, <a href="#Footnote_159">100 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Watts, Isaac, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Welsted, Leonard, <a href="#Footnote_97">59 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wesley, John, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wesley, Charles, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">West, Gilbert, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">White, Gilbert (of Selborne), <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">White, H. O., <a href="#Footnote_216">148 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Whitehead, W., <a href="#Footnote_43">20 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Williams, I. O., <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wilson, Sir James, <a href="#Footnote_159">100 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Winchilsea, Anne, Countess of, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187-8</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">“Windsor Forest,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wordsworth, William, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Footnote_59">27 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-3</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Darwin’s (Erasmus) influence, <a href="#Page_52">52-4</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Percy’s “Reliques,” on, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175-6</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Prefaces,” <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>

-<li class="isub1">“Prelude, The,” <a href="#Page_184">184-5</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wyche, Sir Peter, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">“Yardley Oak” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Yeats, W. B., <a href="#Footnote_231">164 n.</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Young, Edward, <a href="#Footnote_13">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68-9</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-8</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>

-

-</ul>

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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poetic diction, by Thomas Quayle.
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+    display: block;
+    margin-left: 1.5em;
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+    /* ]]> */ </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68420 ***</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a>[i]</span></p>
+
+<p class="center larger">POETIC DICTION</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a>[ii]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger">POETIC DICTION</p>
+
+<p class="center">A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VERSE</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br />
+THOMAS QUAYLE</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">METHUEN &amp; CO. LTD.<br />
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br />
+LONDON</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv"></a>[iv]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller"><i>First Published in 1924</i></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr smaller">CHAPTER</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+    <td>THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+    <td>THE THEORY OF DICTION</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">5</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+    <td>THE “STOCK” DICTION</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">25</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+    <td>LATINISM</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">56</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+    <td>ARCHAISM</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">80</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+    <td>COMPOUND EPITHETS</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">102</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+    <td>PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">132</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+    <td>THE DICTION OF POETRY</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">181</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Index</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INDEX">207</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">PREFACE</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>The studies on which this book is based were
+begun during my tenure of the “William
+Noble” Fellowship in English Literature at the
+University of Liverpool, and I wish to thank the
+members of the Fellowship Committee, and especially
+Professor Elton, under whom I had for two years the
+great privilege of working, for much valuable advice
+and criticism. I must also express my sincere obligation
+to the University for a generous grant towards
+the cost of publication.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
+
+<h1>POETIC DICTION</h1>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br />
+<span class="smaller">THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>From the time of the publication of the first
+Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads” (1798) the
+poetical language of the eighteenth century, or
+rather of the so-called “classical” writers of the
+period, has been more or less under a cloud of suspicion.
+The condemnation which Wordsworth then
+passed upon it, and even the more rational and
+penetrating criticism which Coleridge later brought to
+his own analysis of the whole question of the language
+fit and proper for poetry, undoubtedly led in the
+course of the nineteenth century to a definite but
+uncritical tendency to disparage and underrate the
+entire poetic output of the period, not only of the
+Popian supremacy, but even of the interregnum,
+when the old order was slowly making way for the
+new. The Romantic rebels of course have nearly
+always received their meed of praise, but even in
+their case there is not seldom a suspicion of critical
+reservation, a sort of implied reproach that they
+ought to have done better than they did, and that
+they could and might have done so if they had reacted
+more violently against the poetic atmosphere of
+their age. In brief, what with the Preface to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span>
+“Lyrical Ballads” and its successive expansions at
+the beginning of the century, and what, some eighty
+years later, with Matthew Arnold’s calm description
+of the eighteenth century as an “age of prose and
+reason,” the poetry of that period, and not only the
+neo-classical portion of it, fared somewhat badly.
+There could be no better illustration of the influence
+and danger of labels and tags; “poetic diction,” and
+“age of prose and reason” tended to become a sort
+of critical legend or tradition, by means of which
+eighteenth century verse, alike at its highest and its
+lowest levels, could be safely and adequately understood
+and explained.</p>
+
+<p>Nowadays we are little likely to fall into the error
+of assuming that any one cut and dried formula,
+however pregnant and apt, could adequately sum up
+the literary aspects and characteristics of an entire
+age; the contributory and essential factors are too
+many, and often too elusive, for the tabloid method.
+And now that the poetry of the first half or so of the
+eighteenth century is in process of rehabilitation, and
+more than a few of its practitioners have even been
+allowed access to the slopes, at least, of Parnassus, it
+may perhaps be useful to examine, a little more
+closely than has hitherto been customary, one of the
+critical labels which, it would almost seem, has sometimes
+been taken as a sort of generic description of
+eighteenth century verse, as if “poetic diction” was
+something which suddenly sprang into being when
+Pope translated Homer, and had never been heard of
+before or since.</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, is to overstate the case, the more so
+as it can hardly be denied that there is much to be
+said for the other side. It may perhaps be put this
+way, by saying, at the risk of a laborious assertion of
+the obvious, that if poetry is to be written there must
+be a diction in which to write it—a diction which,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span>
+whatever its relation to the language of contemporary
+speech or prose may be, is yet in many essential
+respects distinct and different from it, in that, even
+when it does not draw upon a special and peculiar
+word-power of its own, yet so uses or combines common
+speech as to heighten and intensify its possibilities
+of suggestion and evocation. If, therefore,
+we speak of the “poetic diction” of the eighteenth
+century, or of any portion of it, the reference ought to
+be, of course, to the whole body of language in which
+the poetry of that period is written, viewed as a
+medium, good, bad, or indifferent, for poetical expression.
+But this has rarely or never been the case; it
+is not too much to say that, thanks to Wordsworth’s
+attack and its subsequent reverberations, “poetic
+diction,” so far as the eighteenth century is concerned,
+has too often been taken to mean, “bad poetic diction,”
+and it has been in this sense indiscriminately applied
+to the whole poetic output of Pope and his school.</p>
+
+<p>In the present study it is hoped, by a careful
+examination of the poetry of the eighteenth century,
+by an analysis of the conditions and species of its
+diction, to arrive at some estimate of its value, of what
+was good and what was bad in it, of how far it was the
+outcome of the age which produced it, and how far a
+continuation of inherited tradition in poetic language,
+to what extent writers went back to their great predecessors
+in their search for a fresh vocabulary, and
+finally, to what extent the poets of the triumphant
+Romantic reaction, who had to fashion for themselves
+a new vehicle of expression, were indebted to their
+forerunners in the revolt, to those who had helped to
+prepare the way.</p>
+
+<p>It is proposed to make the study both a literary and
+a linguistic one. In the first place, the aim will be
+to show how the poetic language, which is usually
+labelled “the eighteenth century style,” was, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
+certain of its most pronounced aspects, a reflex of the
+literary conditions of its period; in the second place,
+the study will be a linguistic one, in that it will deal
+also with the words themselves. Here the attention
+will be directed to certain features characteristic of,
+though not peculiar to, the diction of the eighteenth
+century poetry—the use of Latinisms, of archaic and
+obsolete words, and of those compound words by
+means of which English poets from the time of the
+Elizabethans have added some of the happiest and
+most expressive epithets to the language; finally, the
+employment of abstractions and personifications will
+be discussed.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br />
+<span class="smaller">THE THEORY OF POETICAL DICTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>About the time when Dryden was beginning
+his literary career the preoccupation of men of
+letters with the language as a literary instrument
+was obvious enough. There was a decided
+movement toward simplicity in both prose and poetry,
+and, so far as the latter was concerned, it was in large
+measure an expression of the critical reaction against
+the “metaphysical” verse commonly associated with
+the names of Donne and his disciples. Furetière in
+his “Nouvelle Allegorique ou Histoire des dernier
+troubles arrivez au Royaume d’Eloquence,” published
+at Paris in 1658,<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> expresses the parallel struggle which
+had been raging amongst French poets and critics, and
+the allegory he presents may be taken to symbolize
+the general critical attitude in both countries.</p>
+
+<p>Rhetoric, Queen of the Realm of Eloquence, and
+her Prime Minister, Good Sense, are represented as
+threatened by innumerable foes. The troops of the
+Queen, marshalled in defence of the Academy, her
+citadel, are the accepted literary forms, Histories,
+Epics, Lyrics, Dramas, Romances, Letters, Sermons,
+Philosophical Treatises, Translations, Orations, and
+the like. Her enemies are the rhetorical figures and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span>
+the perversions of style, Metaphors, Hyperboles,
+Similes, Descriptions, Comparisons, Allegories, Pedantries,
+Antitheses, Puns, Exaggerations, and a host of
+others. Ultimately the latter are defeated, and are
+in some cases banished, or else agree to serve as
+dependents in the realm of Eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>We may interpret the struggle thus allegorically
+expressed by saying that a new age, increasingly
+scientific and rational in its outlook, felt it was high
+time to analyze critically and accurately the traditional
+canons and ideals of form and matter that classical
+learning, since the Renaissance, had been able to
+impose upon literature. This is not to say that
+seventeenth century writers and critics suddenly
+decided that all the accepted standards were radically
+wrong, and should be thrown overboard; but some of
+them at least showed and expressed themselves dissatisfied,
+and, alongside of the unconscious and, as it
+were, instinctive changes that reflected the spirit of
+the age, there were deliberate efforts to re-fashion both
+the matter and the manner of literary expression, to
+give creative literature new laws and new ideals.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>The movement towards purity and simplicity of
+expression received its first definite statement in
+Thomas Sprat’s “History of the Royal Society, 1667.”
+One section of the History contains an account of the
+French Academy, and Sprat’s efforts were directed
+towards the formation of a similar body in England
+as an arbiter in matters of language and style. The
+ideal was to be the expression of “so many <i>things</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>
+almost in an equal number of <i>words</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> A Committee
+of the Royal Society, which included Dryden, Evelyn,
+and Sprat amongst its members, had already met in
+1664, to discuss ways and means of “improving the
+English tongue,” and it was the discussions of this
+committee which had doubtless led up to Evelyn’s
+letter to Sir Peter Wyche, its chairman, in June 1665.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
+Evelyn there gives in detail his ideas of what an
+English academy, acting as arbiter in matters of
+vocabulary and style, might do towards purifying the
+language. Twenty-three years later Joseph Glanvill
+defined the new ideal briefly in a passage of his “Essay
+Concerning Preaching”: “Plainness is a character of
+great latitude and stands in opposition, First to <i>hard
+words</i>: Secondly, to <i>deep and mysterious notions</i>:
+Thirdly, to <i>affected Rhetorications</i>: and Fourthly, to
+<i>Phantastical Phrases</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> In short, the ideal to be
+aimed at was the precise and definite language of
+experimental science, but the trend of the times
+tended to make it more and more that ideal of poetry
+also which was later to be summed up in Dryden’s
+definition of “wit” as a “propriety of thoughts and
+words.”<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is of some little interest perhaps to note that it is
+not until the end of the seventeenth century that the
+word <i>diction</i> definitely takes on the sense which it now
+usually bears as a term of literary criticism. In the
+preface to “Sylvae, or The Second Part of Poetical
+Miscellanies” (1685), Dryden even seems to regard the
+term as not completely naturalized.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Moreover, the
+critics and poets of the eighteenth century were for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>
+the most part quite convinced that the special language
+of poetry had begun with Dryden. Johnson asserted
+this in his usual dogmatic fashion, and thus emphasized
+the doctrine, afterwards vigorously opposed by Wordsworth,
+that between the language of prose, and that
+proper to poetry, there is a sharp distinction. “There
+was therefore before the time of Dryden no poetical
+diction.... Those happy combinations of words
+which distinguished poetry from prose had been rarely
+attempted; we had few elegancies or flowers of
+speech.”<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Gray moreover, while agreeing that English
+poetry had now a language of its own, declared in a
+letter to West that this special language was the
+creation of a long succession of English writers themselves,
+and especially of Shakespeare and Milton, to
+whom (he asserts) Pope and Dryden were greatly
+indebted.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is not very difficult to understand Dryden’s own
+attitude, as laid down in the various Prefaces. He is
+quite ready to subscribe to the accepted neo-classical
+views on the language of poetry, but characteristically
+reserves for himself the right to reject them, or to take
+up a new line, if he thinks his own work, or that of his
+contemporaries, is likely to benefit thereby. Thus in
+the preface to “Annus Mirabilis” (1666) he boldly
+claims the liberty to coin words on Latin models, and
+to make use of technical details.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> In his apology for
+“Heroic Poetry and Poetic License” (1677) prefixed
+to “The State of Innocence and Fall of Man,” his
+operatic “tagging” of “Paradise Lost,” he seems to
+lay down distinctly the principle that poetry demands
+a medium of its own, distinct from that of prose,<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>
+whilst towards the end of his literary career he reiterates
+his readiness to enrich his poetic language from
+any and every source, for “poetry requires ornament,”
+and he is therefore willing to “trade both with the
+living and the dead for the enrichment of our native
+language.”<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> But it is significant that at the same
+time he rejects the technical terms he had formerly
+advocated, apparently on the grounds that such terms
+would be unfamiliar to “men and ladies of the first
+quality.” Dryden has thus become more “classical,”
+in the sense that he has gone over or reverted to the
+school of “general” terms, which appeared to base
+its ideal of expression on the accepted language of
+cultured speakers and writers.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>Toward the establishment of this principle of the
+pseudo-classical creed the theory and practice of Pope
+naturally contributed; indeed, it has been claimed
+that it was in large measure the result of the profound
+effect of the “Essay on Criticism,” or at least of the
+current of thought which it represents, on the taste of
+the age.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> In the Essay, Pope, after duly enumerating
+the various “idols” of taste in poetical thought and
+diction, clearly states his own doctrine; as the poets’
+aim was the teaching of “True Wit” or “Nature,”
+the language used must be universal and general, and
+neologisms must be regarded as heresies. For Pope,
+as for Dryden, universal and general language meant
+such as would appeal to the cultured society for whom
+he wrote,<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and in his practice he thus reflected the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>
+traditional attitude towards the question of language
+as a vehicle of literary expression. A common
+“poetics” drawn and formulated by the classical
+scholars mainly (and often incorrectly) from Aristotle
+had established itself throughout Western Europe, and
+it professed to prescribe the true relation which should
+exist between form and matter, between the creative
+mind and the work of art.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<p>The critical reaction against these traditional canons
+had, as we have noted, already begun, but Pope and
+his contemporaries are in the main supporters of the
+established order, in full agreement with its guiding
+principle that the imitation of “Nature” should be
+the chief aim and end of art. It is scarcely necessary
+to add that it was not “Nature” in the Wordsworthian
+sense that was thus to be “imitated”; sometimes,
+indeed, it is difficult to discover what was meant by
+the term. But for Pope and his followers we usually
+find it to mean man as he lives his life in this world,
+and the phrase to “imitate Nature” might thus have
+an ethical purpose, signifying the moral “improvement”
+of man.</p>
+
+<p>But to appreciate the full significance of this
+“doctrine,” and its eighteenth century interpretation,
+it is necessary to glance at the Aristotelian canon in
+which it had its origin. For Aristotle poetry was an
+objective “imitation” with a definite plan or purpose,
+of human actions, not as they are, but as they ought
+to be. The ultimate aim, then, according to the
+<i>Poetics</i>, is ideal truth, stripped of the local and the
+accidental; Nature is to be improved upon with means
+drawn from Nature herself. This theory, as extracted
+and interpreted by the Italian and French critics of
+the Renaissance, was early twisted into a notion of
+poetry as an agreeable falsity, and by the end of the
+seventeenth century it had come to mean, especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span>
+with the French, the imitation of a selected and
+embellished Nature, not directly, but rather through
+the medium of those great writers of antiquity, such
+as Homer and Virgil, whose works provided the
+received and recognized models of idealized nature.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>As a corollary to this interpretation of the Aristotelian
+doctrine of ideal imitation, there appeared a
+tendency to ignore more and more the element of
+personal feeling in poetry,<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and to concentrate attention
+on the formal elements of the art. This tendency,
+reinforced by the authority of the Horatian tag, <i>ut
+pictura poesis</i> (“as is painting, so is poetry”), led
+naturally, and in an ever-increasing degree, to the
+formal identification of poetry with painting. Critics
+became accustomed to discussing the elements in the
+art of writing that correspond to the other elements in
+pictorial art, such as light, colour, expression, etc.
+And as the poet was to be an imitator of accepted
+models, so also he was to be imitative and traditional
+in using poetical colouring, in which phrase were
+included, as Dryden wrote, “the words, the expressions,
+the tropes and figures, the versification, and all
+the other elegancies of sound.”<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> That this parallelism
+directly encourages the growth of a set “poetic
+diction” is obvious; the poet’s language was not to
+be a reflection of a genuine emotion felt in the mind
+for his words, phrases, and figures of speech, his
+<i>operum colores</i>,<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> he must not look to Nature but to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span>
+models. In brief, a poetical <i>gradus</i>, compiled from
+accepted models, was to be the ideal source on which
+the poet was to draw for his medium of expression.</p>
+
+<p>It is not necessary to dwell long on this pseudo-classical
+confusion of the two arts, as revealed in the
+critical writings of Western Europe down to the very
+outbreak of the Romantic revolt.<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> In English
+criticism, Dryden’s “Parallel” was only one of many.
+Of the eighteenth century English critics who developed
+a detailed parallelism between pictorial and plastic art
+on the one hand and poetry on the other, maintaining
+that their standards were interchangeable, the most
+important perhaps is Spence, whose “Polymetis”
+appeared in 1747, and who sums the general position
+of his fellow-critics on this point in the remark, “Scarce
+anything can be good in a poetical description which
+would appear absurd if represented in a statue or
+picture.”<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The ultimate outcome of this confusion of
+poetry and painting found its expression in the last
+decade of the eighteenth century in the theory and
+practice of Erasmus Darwin, whose work, “The
+Botanic Garden,” consisted of a “second part,” “The
+Loves of the Plants,” published in 1789, two years
+before its inclusion with the “first part” the
+“Economy of Vegetation,” in one volume. Darwin’s
+theory of poetry is contained in the “Interludes”
+between the cantos of his poems, which take the form
+of dialogues between the “Poet” and a “Bookseller.”
+In the Interlude to Canto 1 of Part II (“The Loves of
+the Plants”) he maintains the thesis that poetry is a
+process of painting to the eye, and in the cantos themselves
+he proceeds with great zeal to show in practice<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>
+how words and images should be laid on like pigments
+from the outside. The young Wordsworth himself, as
+his early poems show, was influenced by the theory
+and practice of Darwin, but Coleridge was not slow to
+detect the danger of the elaborate word-painting that
+might arise from the confusion of the two arts. “The
+poet,” he wrote,<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> “should paint to the Imagination
+and not to the Fancy.” For Coleridge Fancy was the
+“Drapery” of poetic genius, Imagination was its
+“Soul” or its “synthetic and magical power,”<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> and
+he thus emphasized what may be regarded as one of
+the chief distinctions between the pseudo-classical, and
+the romantic, interpretations of the language of poetry.
+In its groping after the “grand style,” as reflected in
+a deliberate avoidance of accidental and superficial
+“particularities,” and in its insistence on generalized
+or abstract forms, eighteenth century poetry, or at
+least the “neo-classical” portion of it, reflected its
+inability to achieve that intensity of imaginative conception
+which is the supreme need of all art.</p>
+
+<p>The confusion between the two arts of poetry and
+painting which Coleridge thus condemned did not, it
+is needless to say, disappear with the eighteenth
+century. The Romanticists themselves finally
+borrowed that much-abused phrase “local colour”
+from the technical vocabulary of the painter, and in
+other respects the whole question became merged in
+the symbolism of the nineteenth century where
+literature is to be seen attempting to do the work of
+both music and painting.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>As regards the language of poetry then—its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span>
+vocabulary, the actual <i>words</i> in which it was to be
+given expression—the early eighteenth century had
+first this pseudo-classical doctrine of a treasury of
+select words, phrases, and other “ornaments,” a
+doctrine which was to receive splendid emphasis and
+exemplification in Pope’s translation of Homer. But
+alongside of this ideal of style there was another ideal
+which Pope again, as we have seen, had insisted upon
+in his “Essay on Criticism,” and which demanded
+that the language of poetry should in general conform
+to that of cultivated conversation and prose. These
+two ideals of poetical language can be seen persisting
+throughout the eighteenth century, though later
+criticism, in its haste to condemn the <i>gradus</i> ideal,
+has not often found time to do justice to the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>But, apart from these general considerations, the
+question of poetic diction is rarely treated as a thing
+<i>per se</i> by the writers who, after Dryden or Pope, or
+alongside of them, took up the question. There are
+no attempts, in the manner of the Elizabethans,<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> to
+conduct a critical inquiry into the actual present
+resources of the vernacular, and its possibilities as a
+vehicle of expression. Though the attention is more
+than once directed to certain special problems, on the
+whole the discussions are of a general nature, and
+centre round such points as the language suitable for
+an Heroic Poem, or for the “imitation” of aspects
+of nature, or for Descriptive Poetry, questions which
+had been discussed from the sixteenth century onwards,
+and were not exhausted by the time of Dr.
+Johnson.<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith’s remarks, reflecting as they do a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span>
+half-way attitude between the old order and the new,
+are interesting. Poetry has a language of its own;
+it is a species of painting with words, and hence he
+will not condemn Pope for “deviating in some
+instances from the simplicity of Homer,” whilst such
+phrases as <i>the sighing reed</i>, <i>the warbling rivulet</i>, <i>the
+gushing spring</i>, <i>the whispering breeze</i> are approvingly
+quoted.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It is thus somewhat surprising to find that
+in his “Life of Parnell” he had pilloried certain
+“misguided innovators” to whose efforts he attributed
+the gradual debasing of poetical language since
+the happy days when Dryden, Addison, and Pope
+had brought it to its highest pitch of refinement.<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>
+These writers had forgotten that poetry is “the
+language of life” and that the simplest expression
+was the best: brief statements which, if we knew
+what Goldsmith meant by “life,” would seem to
+adumbrate the theories which Wordsworth was to
+expound as the Romantic doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Johnson has many things to say on the subject
+of poetic language, including general remarks and
+particular judgments on special points, or on the work
+of the poets of whom he treated in his “Lives.” As
+might be expected, he clings tenaciously to the accepted
+standards of neo-classicism, and repeats the old
+commonplaces which had done duty for so long, pays
+the usual tribute to Waller and Denham, but ascribes
+the actual birth of poetical diction to the practice of
+Dryden. What Johnson meant by “poetical diction”
+is clearly indicated; it was a “system of words at
+once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and
+free from the harshness of terms appropriated to
+different arts,”<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> that is, the language of poetry must<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>
+shun popular and technical words, since language
+is “the dress of thought” and “splendid ideas
+lose their magnificence if they are conveyed by low
+and vulgar words.”<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> From this standpoint, and
+reinforced by his classical preference for regular
+rhymes,<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> all his particular judgments of his predecessors
+and contemporaries were made; and when
+this is remembered it is easier to understand, for
+instance, his praise of Akenside<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> and his criticism of
+Collins.<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>Gray, however, perhaps the most scrupulous and
+precise of all our poets with regard to the use of words
+in poetry,<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> has some pertinent things to say on the
+matter. There is his important letter to West, already
+referred to, with its dogmatic assertion that “the
+language of the age is never the language of poetry,”
+and that “our poetry has a language to itself,” an
+assertion which, with other remarks of Gray, helps
+to emphasize the distinction to be made between the
+two ideals of poetical diction to be seen persisting
+through the eighteenth century. It was generally
+agreed that there must be a special language for
+poetry, with all its artificial “heightening,” “licenses,”
+and variations from the language of prose, to serve
+the purpose of the traditional “Kinds,” especially
+the Epic and the Lyric. This is the view taken by
+Gray, but with a difference. He does not accept the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>
+conventional diction which Pope’s “Homer” had
+done so much to perpetuate, and hence he creates a
+poetic language of his own, a glittering array of words
+and phrases, blending material from varied sources,
+and including echoes and reminiscences of Milton and
+Dryden.</p>
+
+<p>The second ideal of style was that of which, as we
+have seen, the canons had been definitely stated by
+Pope, and which had been splendidly exemplified in
+the satires, essays, and epistles. The aim was to
+reproduce “the colloquial idiom of living society,”<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>
+and the result was a plain, unaffected style, devoid
+of the ornaments of the poetic language proper, and,
+in its simplicity and directness, equally suitable for
+either poetry or prose. Gray could make use of
+this vehicle of expression, whenever, as in “The
+Long Story,” or the fragmentary “Alliance of
+Education and Government,” it was suitable and
+adequate for his purpose; but in the main his
+own practice stood distinct from both the eighteenth
+century ideals of poetical language. Hence, as it
+conformed to neither of the accepted standards,
+Goldsmith and Johnson agreed in condemning his
+diction, which was perhaps in itself sufficient proof
+that Gray had struck out a new language for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Among the special problems connected with the
+diction of poetry to which the eighteenth century
+critics directed their attention, that of the use of
+archaic and obsolete words was prominent. It had
+been one of the methods by which the Elizabethans
+had hoped to enrich their language, but contemporary
+critics had expressed their disapproval, and it
+was left to Jonson, in this as in other similar matters,
+to express the reasonable view that “the eldest of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>
+the present and the newest of the past language is
+best.”<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Dryden, when about to turn the “Canterbury
+Tales” “into our language as it is now refined,”<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> was
+to express a similar common-sense view. “When
+an ancient word,” he said, with his Horace no doubt
+in his mind, “for its sound and significancy deserves
+to be revived, I have that reasonable veneration for
+antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is superstition.”</p>
+
+<p>A few years later the long series of Spenserian
+imitations had begun, so that the question of the poetic
+use of archaic and obsolete words naturally came into
+prominence. Pope, as might be expected, is to be
+found among the opposition, and in the “Dunciad”
+he takes the opportunity of showing his contempt for
+this kind of writing by a satiric gird, couched in
+supposedly archaic language:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But who is he in closet close y-pent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of sober face with learned dust besprent?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On parchment scraps y-fed and Wormius hight—</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. III, ll. 185-8)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">an attack which is augmented by the ironic comment
+passed by “Scriblerus” in a footnote.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> Nevertheless,
+when engaged on his translation of Homer he had an
+inclination, like Cowper, towards a certain amount of
+archaism, though it is evident that he is not altogether
+satisfied on the point.<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p>
+
+<p>In Gray’s well-known letter to West, mentioned
+above, there is given a selection of epithets from
+Dryden, which he notes as instances of archaic words<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>
+preserved in poetry. Gray, as we know, had a keen
+sense of the value of words, and his list is therefore of
+special importance, for it appears to show that words
+like <i>mood</i>, <i>smouldering</i>, <i>beverage</i>, <i>array</i>, <i>wayward</i>,
+<i>boon</i>, <i>foiled</i>, etc., seemed to readers of 1742 much more
+old-fashioned than they do to us. Thirty years or
+so later he practically retracts the views expressed
+in this earlier letter, in which he had admirably
+defended the use in poetry of words obsolete in the
+current language of the day. “I think,” he wrote
+to James Beattie, criticizing “The Minstrel,”<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> “that
+we should wholly adopt the language of Spenser or
+wholly renounce it.” And he goes on to object to
+such words as <i>fared</i>, <i>meed</i>, <i>sheen</i>, etc., objections
+which were answered by Beattie, who showed that
+all the words had the sanction of such illustrious
+predecessors as Milton and Pope, and who added that
+“the poetical style in every nation abounds in old
+words”—exactly what Gray had written in his letter
+of 1742.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson, it need hardly be said, was of Pope’s
+opinion on this matter, and the emphatic protest
+which he, alarmed by such tendencies in the direction
+of Romanticism, apparent not only in the Spenserian
+imitations, but still more in such signs of the times as
+were to culminate in Percy’s “Reliques,” the Ossianic
+“simplicities” of Macpherson, and the Rowley
+“forgeries,” is evidence of the strength which the
+Spenserian revival had by then gained. “To imitate
+Spenser’s fiction and sentiments can incur no reproach,”
+he wrote: “but I am very far from extending the same
+respect to his diction and his stanza.”<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> To the end
+he continued to express his disapproval of those who
+favoured the “obsolete style,” and, like Pope, he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>
+finally indulges in a metrical fling at the innovators:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Phrase that time has flung away</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Uncouth words in disarray;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ode and Elegy and Sonnet.<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Goldsmith too had his misgivings. “I dislike the
+imitations of our old English poets in general,” he wrote
+with reference to “The Schoolmistress,” “yet, on
+this minute subject, the antiquity of the style produces
+a very ludicrous solemnity.”<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p>
+
+<p>On this matter of poetic archaism, the point of view
+of the average cultured reader, as distinct from the
+writer, is probably accurately represented in one of
+Chesterfield’s letters. Writing to his son,<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> he was
+particularly urgent that those words only should be
+employed which were found in the writers of the
+Augustan age, or of the age immediately preceding.
+To enforce his point he carefully explained to the
+boy the distinction between the pedant and the
+gentleman who is at the same time a scholar; the
+former affected rare words found only in the pages
+of obscure or antiquated authors rather than those
+used by the great classical writers.</p>
+
+<p>This was the attitude adopted in the main by William
+Cowper, who, after an early enthusiasm for the
+“quaintness” of old words, when first engaged on
+his translation of Homer, later repented and congratulated
+himself on having, in his last revisal, pruned
+away every “single expression of the obsolete kind.”<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>
+But against these opinions we have to set the frankly
+romantic attitude of Thomas Warton, who, in his
+“Observations on the Faerie Queen” (1754), boldly
+asserts that “if the critic is not satisfied, yet the
+reader is transported,” whilst he is quite confident
+that Spenser’s language is not so difficult and obsolete
+as it is generally supposed to be.<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>
+
+<p>Here and there we also come across references to
+other devices by which the poet is entitled to add to
+his word-power. Thus Addison grants the right of
+indulging in coinages, since this is a practice sanctioned
+by example, especially by that of Homer and Milton.<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>
+Pope considered that only such of Homer’s compound
+epithets as could be “done literally into English
+without destroying the purity of our language” or
+those with good literary sanctions should be adopted.<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>
+Gray, however, enters a caveat against coinages; in
+the letter to Beattie, already quoted, he objects to the
+word “infuriated,” and adds a warning not to “make
+new words without great necessity; it is very hazardous
+at best.”</p>
+
+<p>Finally, as a legacy or survival of that veneration
+for the “heroic poem,” which had found its latest
+expression in Davenant’s “Preface to Gondibert”<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a>
+(1650), the question of technical words is occasionally
+touched upon. Dryden, who had begun by asserting
+that general terms were often a mere excuse for ignorance,
+could later give sufficient reasons for the avoidance
+of technical terms,<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and it is not surprising to
+find that Gray was of a similar opinion. In his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span>
+criticism of Beattie’s “Minstrel” he objects to the
+terms <i>medium</i> and <i>incongruous</i> as being words of
+art, which savour too much of prose. Gray, we may
+presume, did not object to such words because they
+were not “elegant,” or even mainly because they were
+“technical” expressions. He would reject them
+because, for him, with his keen sense of the value of
+words, they were too little endowed with poetic colour
+and imagination. When these protests are remembered,
+the great and lasting popularity of “The Shipwreck”
+(1762) of William Falconer, with its free
+employment of nautical words and phrases, may be
+considered to possess a certain significance in the
+history of the Romantic reaction. The daring use of
+technical terms in the poem must have given pleasure
+to a generation of readers accustomed mainly to the
+conventional words and phrases of the accepted
+diction.</p>
+
+<p>When we review the “theory” of poetical language
+in the eighteenth century, as revealed in the sayings,
+direct and indirect, of poets and critics, we feel that
+there is little freshness or originality in the views
+expressed, very little to suggest the changes that were
+going on underneath, and which were soon to find
+their first great and reasoned expression. Nominally,
+it would seem that the views of the eighteenth century
+“classicists” were adequately represented and summed
+up in those of Johnson, for whom the ideal of poetical
+language was that which Dryden had “invented,” and
+of which Pope had made such splendid use in his
+translation of Homer. In reality, the practice of the
+“neo-classical” poets was largely influenced by the
+critical tenets of the school to which they belonged,
+especially by that pseudo-Aristotelian doctrine according
+to which poetry was to be an “imitation” of the
+best models, whilst its words, phrases, and similes
+were to be such as were generally accepted and consecrated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span>
+by poetic use. It was this conventionalism,
+reinforced by, as well as reflecting, the neo-classical
+outlook on external nature, that resulted in the
+“poetic diction” which Wordsworth attacked, and it
+is important to note that a similar stereotyped
+language is to be found in most of the contemporary
+poetry of Western Europe, and especially in that of
+France.<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p>
+
+<p>We need not be surprised, therefore, to find that
+neither Johnson, nor any of his “classical” contemporaries,
+appears to attach any importance to the
+fact that Pope in his essays and epistles had set up a
+standard of diction, of which it is not too much to
+say that it was an ideal vehicle of expression for the
+thoughts and feelings it had to convey. So enamoured
+were they of the pomp and glitter of the “Homer”
+that they apparently failed to see in this real “Pope
+style” an admirable model for all writers aiming at
+lucidity, simplicity, and directness of thought. We
+may see this clearly by means of an instructive comparison
+of Johnson’s judgments on the two “Pope
+styles.” “It is remarked by Watts,” he writes, “that
+there is scarcely a happy combination of words or a
+phrase poetically elegant in the English language
+which Pope has not inserted into his version of
+Homer.”<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> On the other hand, he is perhaps more
+than unjust to Pope’s plain didactic style when he
+speaks of the “harshness of diction,” the “levity
+without elegance” of the “Essay on Man.”<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was not until the neo-classical poetry was in its
+death-agony that we meet with adequate appreciation
+of the admirable language which Pope brought to
+perfection and bequeathed to his successors. “The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span>
+familiar style,” wrote Cowper to Unwin,<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> “is of all
+the styles the most difficult to succeed in. To make
+verse speak the language of prose without being
+prosaic—to marshal the words of it in such an order
+as they might naturally take in falling from the lips
+of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness,
+harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming to displace
+a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the
+most arduous tasks a poet can undertake.” The
+“familiar style,” which Cowper here definitely characterizes,
+was in its own special province as good a model
+as was the beautiful simplicity of Blake when “poetical
+poetry” had once more come into its own; and it is
+important to remember that this fact received due
+recognition from both Wordsworth and Coleridge.
+“The mischief,” wrote the former,<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> “was effected not
+by Pope’s satirical and moral pieces, for these entitle
+him to the highest place among the poets of his class;
+it was by his ‘Homer.’... No other work in the
+language so greatly vitiated the diction of English
+poetry.” And Coleridge, too, called attention to the
+“almost faultless position and choice of words” in
+Pope’s original compositions, in comparison with the
+absurd “pseudo-poetic diction” of his translations of
+Homer.<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The “Pope style” failed to produce real
+poetry—poetry of infinite and universal appeal,
+animated with personal feeling and emotion not
+merely because of its preference for the generic rather
+than the typical, but because its practitioners for the
+most part lacked those qualities of intense imagination
+in which alone the highest art can have its birth.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br />
+<span class="smaller">THE “STOCK” DICTION OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Since the time when Wordsworth launched his
+manifestoes on the language fit and proper for
+poetry, it may almost be said that whenever the
+term “poetic diction” is found used as a more or less
+generic term of critical disparagement, it has been
+with reference, implied or explicit, to the so-called
+classical poetry of the Augustan ages. But the condemnation
+has perhaps been given too wide an application,
+and hence there has arisen a tendency to place
+in this category all the language of all the poets who
+were supposed to have taken Pope as their model, so
+that “the Pope style” and “eighteenth century
+diction” have almost become synonymous terms, as
+labels for a lifeless, imitative language in which poets
+felt themselves constrained to express all their thoughts
+and feelings. This criticism is both unjust and misleading.
+For when this “false and gaudy splendour”
+is unsparingly condemned, it is not always recognized
+or remembered that it is mainly to be found in the
+descriptive poetry of the period.</p>
+
+<p>It is sufficient to glance at the descriptive verse of
+practically all the typical “classical” poets to discover
+how generally true this statement is. We cannot say,
+of course, that the varied sights and sounds of outdoor
+life made no appeal at all to them; but what we do
+feel is that whenever they were constrained to indulge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>
+in descriptive verse they either could not, or would
+not, try to convey their impressions in language of
+their very own, but were content in large measure to
+draw upon a common stock of dead and colourless
+epithets. Local colour, in the sense of accurate and
+particular observation of natural facts, is almost
+entirely lacking; there is no writing with the eye on
+the object, and it has been well remarked that their
+highly generalized descriptions could be transferred
+from poet to poet or from scene to scene, without any
+injustice. Thus Shenstone<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> describes his birthplace:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Romantic scenes of pendent hills</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And verdant vales, and falling rills,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And mossy banks, the fields adorn</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where Damon, simple swain, was born—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">a quatrain which, with little or no change of epithet,
+was the common property of the versifiers, and may
+be met with almost everywhere in early eighteenth
+century poetry. Every type of English scenery and
+every phase of outdoor life finds its description in
+lines of this sort, where the reader instinctively feels
+that the poet has not been careful to record his individual
+impressions or emotions, but has contented
+himself with accepting epithets and phrases consecrated
+to the use of natural description. A similar
+inability or indifference is seen even in the attempts
+to re-fashion Chaucer, or the Bible, or other old
+material, where the vigour and freshness and colour of
+the originals might have been expected to exercise a
+salutary influence. But to no purpose: all must be
+cast in the one mould, and clothed in the elegant diction
+of the time. Thus in Dryden’s modernization of the
+“Canterbury Tales” the beautiful simplicity of
+Chaucer’s descriptions of the sights and sounds of
+nature vanishes when garbed in the rapid and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>
+conventional phrases and locutions of the classicists.
+Chaucer’s “briddes” becomes “the painted birds,”
+a “goldfinch” is amplified into a “goldfinch with
+gaudy pride of painted plumes,” whilst a plain and
+simple mention of sunrise, “at the sun upriste,” has
+to be paraphrased into</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Aurora had but newly chased the night</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The old ballads and the Psalms suffered severely in the
+same way.<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p>
+
+<p>The fact that the words most frequently used in this
+stock poetic diction have usually some sort of connexion
+with dress or ornament has not escaped notice,
+and it has its own significance. It is, as it were, a
+reflex of the fact that the nature poetry of the period
+is in large measure the work of writers to whom social
+life is the central fact of existence, for whom meadow,
+and woodland, and running water, mountain and sea,
+the silent hills, and the starry sky brought no inspiration,
+or at least no inspiration powerful enough to lead
+them to break through the shackles of conventionality
+imposed upon them by the taste of their age. Words
+like “paint” and “painted,” “gaudy,” “adorn,”
+“deck,” “gilds” and “gilded,” “damasked,”
+“enamelled,” “embroidered,” and dozens similar
+form the stock vocabulary of natural description;
+apart from the best of Akenside, and the works of one
+or two writers such as John Cunningham, it can safely
+be said that but few new descriptive terms were added
+to the “nature vocabulary” of English poetry during
+this period. How far English poetry is yet distant
+from a recognition of the sea as a source of poetic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>
+inspiration may be perhaps seen from the fact that its
+most frequent epithet is the feeble term “watery,”
+whilst the magic of the sky by night or day evokes no
+image other than one that can be expressed by changes
+rung on such words as “azure,” “concave,” “serene,”
+“ætherial.” Even in “Night Thoughts,” where the
+subject might have led to something new and fresh in
+the way of a “star-vocabulary,” the best that Young
+can do is to take refuge in such periphrases as “tuneful
+spheres,” “nocturnal sparks,” “lucid orbs,” “ethereal
+armies,” “mathematic glories,” “radiant choirs,”
+“midnight counsellors,” etc.</p>
+
+<p>And the same lack of direct observation and individual
+expression is obvious whenever the classicists
+have to mention birds or animals. Wild life had to
+wait for White of Selborne, and for Blake and Burns
+and Cowper and Wordsworth, to be observed with
+accuracy and treated with sympathy; and it has been
+well remarked that if we are to judge from their verse,
+most of the poets of the first quarter of the eighteenth
+century knew no bird except the goldfinch or nightingale,
+and even these probably only by hearsay. For
+the same generalized diction is usually called upon, and
+birds are merely a “feathered,” “tuneful,” “plumy”
+or “warbling” choir, whilst a periphrasis, allowing of
+numerous and varied labels for the same animal, is
+felt to be the correct thing. In Dryden sheep are
+“the woolly breed” or “the woolly race”; bees are
+the “industrious kind” or “the frugal kind”; pigs
+are “the bristly care” or “the tusky kind”; frogs
+are “the loquacious race”; crows, “the craven kind,”
+and so on: “the guiding principle seems to be that
+nothing must be mentioned by its own name.”<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p>
+
+<p>Many of these stock epithets owed their appearance
+of course to the requirements imposed upon poets by
+their adherence to the heroic couplet. Pope himself
+calls attention to the fact that the necessities of rhyme
+led to the unceasing repetition of stereotyped phrases
+and locutions:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where’er you find the “cooling western breeze.”</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the next line it “whispers through the trees”;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">If crystal streams “with pleasing murmur creep”</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The reader’s threaten’d, not in vain, with “sleep”—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">adducing, with unconscious irony, the very rhymes prevalent
+in much of his own practice.<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was also recognized by the versifiers that the
+indispensable polish and “correctness” of the decasyllabic
+line could only be secured by a mechanical use
+of epithets in certain positions. “There is a vast
+beauty [to me],” wrote Shenstone, “in using a word of
+a particular nature in the 8th and 9th syllable of an
+English verse. I mean what is virtually a dactyl.
+For instance,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And pykes, the tyrants of the wat’ry plains.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Let any person of any ear substitute <i>liquid</i> for <i>wat’ry</i>
+and he will find the disadvantage.”<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Saintsbury has
+pointed out<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> that the “drastic but dangerous device
+of securing the undulating penetration of the line by
+the use of the <i>gradus</i> epithet was one of the chief
+causes of the intensely artificial character of the
+versification and its attendant diction.... There
+are passages in the ‘Dispensary’ and ‘The Rape of
+the Lock,’ where you can convert the decasyllable
+into the octosyllable for several lines together without<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>
+detriment to sense or poetry by simply taking out these
+specious superfluities.”</p>
+
+<p>In the year of Dryden’s death (or perhaps in the
+following year) there had appeared the “Art of
+Poetry” by Edward Bysshe, whose metrical laws
+were generally accepted, as authoritative, during the
+eighteenth century. During the forty years of Dryden’s
+literary career the supremacy of the stopped
+regular decasyllabic couplet had gradually established
+itself as the perfect form of verse. But Bysshe was
+the first prosodist to formulate the “rules” of the
+couplet, and in doing so he succeeded, probably
+because his views reflected the general prosodic
+tendencies of the time, in “codifying and mummifying”
+a system which soon became erected into a creed.
+“The foregoing rules (<i>of accent on the even places and
+pause mainly at the 4th, 5th, or 6th syllable</i>) ought
+indispensably to be followed in all our verses of 10
+syllables: and the observation of them will produce
+Harmony, the neglect of them harshness and discord.”<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>
+Into this rigid mechanical mould contemporary
+and succeeding versifiers felt themselves constrained
+to place their couplets. But to pad out their
+lines they were nearly always beset with a temptation
+to use the trochaic epithets, of which numerous
+examples have been given above. As a natural result
+such epithets soon became part and parcel of the
+poetic stock of language, and hence most of them were
+freely used by poets, not because of any intrinsic
+poetic value, but because they were necessary to
+comply with the absurd mechanics of their vehicle of
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>Since the “Lives of the Poets” it has been customary
+to regard this “poetic diction” as the peculiar invention
+of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>
+century, and especially of Dryden and Pope, a belief
+largely due to Johnson’s eulogies of these poets. As
+an ardent admirer of the school of Dryden and Pope,
+it was only natural that Johnson should express an
+exalted opinion of their influence on the poetic practice
+of his contemporaries. But others—Gray amongst
+them—did not view their innovations with much complacency,
+and towards the end of the century Cowper
+was already foreshadowing the attack to be made by
+Wordsworth and Coleridge in the next generation.
+To Pope’s influence, he says in effect, after paying his
+predecessor a more or less formal compliment, was due
+the stereotyped form both of the couplet and of much
+of the language in which it was clothed. Pope had
+made</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">poetry a mere mechanic art</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And every warbler had his tune by heart;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and in one of his letters he stigmatizes and pillories the
+inflated and stilted phraseology of Pope, and especially
+his translation of Homer.<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Finally, Wordsworth and
+Coleridge agreed in ascribing the “poetical diction,”
+against which their manifestoes were directed, to that
+source.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be admitted that Pope’s translation is to
+some extent open to the charge brought against it of
+corrupting the language with a meretricious standard
+of poetic diction. In his Preface he expresses his misgivings
+as to the language fit and proper for an English
+rendering of Homer, and indeed it is usually recognized
+that his diction was, to a certain extent, imposed upon
+him both by the nature of his original, as well as by
+the lack of elasticity in his closed couplet. To the
+latter cause was doubtless due, not only the use of
+stock epithets to fill out the line, but also the inevitable<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>
+repetition of certain words, due to the requirements of
+rhyme, even at the expense of straining or distorting
+their ordinary meaning. Thus <i>train</i>, for instance, on
+account of its convenience as a rhyming word, is often
+used to signify “a host,” or “body,” and similarly
+<i>plain</i>, <i>main</i>, for the ocean. In this connexion it has
+also been aptly pointed out that some of the defects
+resulted from the fact that Pope had founded his own
+epic style on that of the Latin poets, whose manner is
+most opposed to Homer’s. Thus he often sought to
+deck out or expand simple thoughts or commonplace
+situations by using what he no doubt considered really
+“poetical language,” and thus, for instance, where
+Homer simply says, “And the people perished,” Pope
+has to say, “And heaped the camp with mountains of
+the dead.” The repeated use of periphrases: <i>feathered
+fates</i>, for “arrows”; <i>fleecy breed</i> for “sheep”; <i>the
+wandering nation of a summer’s day</i> for “insects”; <i>the
+beauteous kind</i> for “women”; <i>the shining mischief</i> for
+“a fascinating woman”; <i>rural care</i> for “the occupations
+of the shepherd”; <i>the social shades</i> for “the
+ghosts of two brothers,” may be traced to the same
+influence.<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p>
+
+<p>But apart from these defects the criticisms of
+Coleridge and Wordsworth, and their ascribing of the
+“poetical diction,” which they wished to abolish, to
+the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” are to a large extent
+unjust. Many of the characteristics of this “spurious
+poetic language” were well established long before
+Pope produced his translation. It is probable that
+they are present to a much larger extent, for instance,
+in Dryden; <i>painted</i>, <i>rural</i>, <i>finny</i>, <i>briny</i>, <i>shady</i>, <i>vocal</i>,
+<i>mossy</i>, <i>fleecy</i>, come everywhere in his translations, and
+not only there. Some of his adjectives in y are
+more audacious than those of Pope: <i>spongy clouds</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span>
+<i>chinky hives</i>, <i>snary webs</i>, <i>roomy sea</i>, etc. Most of the
+periphrases used by Pope and many more are already
+to be found in Dryden: “summer” is <i>the sylvan
+reign</i>; “bees,” <i>the frugal</i> or <i>industrious kind</i>;
+“arrows,” <i>the feathered wood</i> or <i>feathered fates</i>;
+“sheep,” <i>the woolly breed</i>; “frogs,” <i>the loquacious
+race</i>! From all Pope’s immediate predecessors and
+contemporaries similar examples may be quoted,
+like Gay’s</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Rural Sports”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or Ambrose Philips:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hark: how they warble in the brambly bush</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The gaudy goldfinch or the speckly thrush</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Fourth Pastoral”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and that “Epistle to a Friend,” in which he ridicules
+the very jargon so much used in his own Pastorals.<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p>Pope then may justly be judged “not guilty,” at
+least “in the first degree,” of having originated the
+poetic diction which Johnson praised and Wordsworth
+condemned; in using it, he was simply using the
+stock language for descriptive poetry, whether original
+or in translations, which had slowly come into being
+during the last decade of the seventeenth century.
+If it be traced to its origins, it will be found that most
+of it originated with that poet who may fairly be
+called the founder of the English “classical” school<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span>
+of poetry—to Milton, to whom in large measure is due,
+not merely the invention, but also, by the very potency
+of the influence exercised by his great works, its vogue
+in the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Before the time of Milton, it is not too much to say,
+even when we remember the practice of Spenser and
+Donne and their followers, that there was no special
+language for poetry, little or nothing of the diction
+consecrated solely to the purposes of poets. The
+poets of the Elizabethan age and their immediate
+successors had access to all diction, upon which they
+freely drew. But it seems natural, indeed inevitable,
+that for Milton, resolved to sing of things “unattempted
+yet in prose or rhyme,” the ordinary language
+of contemporary prose or poetry should be found
+lacking. He was thus impelled, we may say, consciously
+and deliberately to form for himself a special
+poetical vocabulary, which, in his case, was abundantly
+justified, because it was so essentially fitted to his
+purpose, and bore the stamp of his lofty poetic genius.</p>
+
+<p>This poetical vocabulary was made up of diverse
+elements. Besides the numerous “classical” words,
+which brought with them all the added charm of
+literary reminiscence, there were archaisms, and words
+of Latin origin, as well as words deliberately coined
+on Latin and Greek roots. But it included also most
+of the epithets of which the eighteenth century versifiers
+were so fond. Examples may be taken
+from any of the descriptive portions of the “Paradise
+Lost”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(IV, 334)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">About me round I saw</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(VIII, 260-263)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span></p>
+
+<p>Other phrases, like “vernal bloom,” “lucid stream,”
+“starry sphere,” “flowery vale,” “umbrageous
+grots,” were to become the worn-out penny-pieces
+of the eighteenth century poetical mint. Milton
+indeed seems to have been one of the great inventors
+of adjectives ending in y, though in this respect
+he had been anticipated by Browne and others, and
+especially by Chapman, who has large numbers of
+them, and whose predilection for this method of
+making adjectives out of nouns amounts almost to
+an obsession.<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p>
+
+<p>Milton was also perhaps the great innovator with
+another kind of epithet, which called forth the censure
+of Johnson, who described it as “the practice of giving
+to adjectives derived from substantives the terminations
+of participles,” though the great dictator is here
+attacking a perfectly legitimate device freely used by
+the Jacobeans and by most of the poets since their
+time.<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Nor are there wanting in Milton’s epic instances
+of the idle periphrases banned by Wordsworth: <i>straw-built
+citadel</i> for “bee-hive,” <i>vernal bloom</i> for “spring
+flowers,” <i>smutty grain</i> for “gunpowder,” <i>humid train</i>
+for the flowery waters of a river, etc.<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p>
+
+<p>With Milton, then, may be said to have originated
+the “poetic diction,” which drew forth Wordsworth’s
+strictures, and which in the sequel proved a dangerous
+model for the swarm of versifiers who essayed to
+borrow or imitate it for the purpose of their dull and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>
+commonplace themes. How much the Miltonic language,
+as aped and imitated by the “landscape
+gardeners and travelling pedlars” of the eighteenth
+century, lost in originality and freshness, may be felt,
+rather than described, if we compare so well-known a
+passage as the following with any of the quotations
+given earlier:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">Yet not the more</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Clear Spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(P.L. III, 26-30)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the minor poets of the eighteenth century, who,
+by their mechanical imitations, succeeded in reducing
+Milton’s diction to the level of an almost meaningless
+jargon, had had every encouragement from their
+greater predecessors and contemporaries. The process
+of depreciation may be seen already in Dryden, and it
+is probably by way of Pope that much of the Miltonic
+language became part of the eighteenth century poetic
+stock-in-trade. Pope was a frequent borrower from
+Milton, and, in his “Homer” especially, very many
+reminiscences are to be found, often used in an artificial,
+and sometimes in an absurd, manner.<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Moreover,
+Pope’s free and cheapened use of many of Milton’s
+descriptive epithets did much to reduce them to the
+rank of merely conventional terms, and in this respect
+the attack of Wordsworth and Coleridge was not
+without justice. But on the whole the proper conclusion
+would seem to be that what is usually labelled
+as “the <i>Pope</i> style” could with more justice and
+aptness be described as “the pseudo-Miltonic style.”
+It is true that the versifiers freely pilfered the “Homer,”
+and the vogue of much of the stock diction is thus<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span>
+due to that source, but so far as Pope himself is concerned
+there is justice in his plea that he left this
+style behind him when he emerged from “Fancy’s
+maze” and “moralized his song.”</p>
+
+<p>To what extent this catalogue of lifeless words and
+phrases had established itself as the poetical thesaurus
+is to be seen in the persistency with which it maintained
+its position until the very end of the century,
+when Erasmus Darwin with a fatal certainty evolved
+from it all its worst features, and thus did much
+unconsciously to crush it out of existence. James
+Thomson is rightly regarded as one of the most
+important figures in the early history of the Romantic
+Revolt, and he has had merited praise for his attempts
+to provide himself with a new language of his own.
+In this respect, however, he had been anticipated by
+John Philips, whose “Splendid Shilling” appeared in
+1705, followed by “Cyder” a year later. Philips,
+though not the first Miltonic imitator, was practically
+the first to introduce the Miltonic diction and phrases,
+whilst at the same time he acquired the knack of adding
+phrases of his own to the common stock. He was
+thus an innovator from whom Thomson himself
+learned not a little.</p>
+
+<p>But though the “Seasons” is ample testimony to
+a new and growing alertness to natural scenery,
+Thomson found it hard to escape from the fetters of
+the current poetic language. We feel that he is at
+least trying to write with his eye steadily fixed upon
+the object, but he could perhaps hardly be expected to
+get things right from the very beginning. Thus a
+stanza from his “Pastoral Entertainment” is purely
+conventional:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The place appointed was a spacious vale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Fanned always by a cooling western gale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Which in soft breezes through the meadow stray</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And steal the ripened fragrances away—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">while he paraphrases a portion of the sixth chapter of
+St. Matthew into:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Observe the rising lily’s snowy grace,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Observe the various vegetable race,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where the stock terms scarcely harmonize with the
+simple Biblical diction. He was well aware of the
+attendant dangers and difficulties, and in the first book
+of “The Seasons” he gives expression to the need he
+feels of a language fit to render adequately all that he
+sees in Nature.<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> But though there is much that is
+fresh and vivid in his descriptive diction, and much
+that reveals him as a bold pioneer in poetic outlook
+and treatment, the tastes and tendencies of his age
+were too strong entirely to be escaped. Birds are the
+<i>plumy</i>, or <i>feathered people</i>, or <i>the glossy kind</i>,<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> and a
+flight of swallows is <i>a feathered eddy</i>; sheep are <i>the
+bleating kind</i>, etc. In one passage (“Spring,” ll. 114-135)
+he deals at length with the insects that attack the
+crops without once mentioning them by name: they
+are <i>the feeble race</i>, <i>the frosty tribe</i>, <i>the latent foe</i>, and
+even <i>the sacred sons of vengeance</i>. He has in general
+the traditional phraseology for the mountains and the
+sea, though a few of his epithets for the mountains, as
+<i>keen-air’d</i> and <i>forest-rustling</i>, are new. He speaks of
+the Alps as <i>dreadful</i>, <i>horrid</i>, <i>vast</i>, <i>sublime</i>. <i>Shaggy</i> and
+<i>nodding</i> are also applied to mountains as well as to
+rocks and forests; winter is usually described in the
+usual classical manner as <i>deformed</i> and <i>inverted</i>.
+Leaves are the <i>honours</i> of trees, paths are <i>erroneous</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>
+caverns <i>sweat</i>, etc., and he also makes large use of
+Latinisms.<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p>
+
+<p>John Dyer (1700-1758), though now and then conventional
+in his diction, has a good deal to his credit,
+and is a worthy contemporary of the author of “The
+Seasons.” Thus in the “Country Walk” it is the old
+stock diction he gives us:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Look upon that <i>flowery plain</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">How the sheep surround their <i>swain</i>;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And there behold a <i>bloomy mead</i>,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">A silver stream, a willow shade;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and much the same thing is to be found in “The
+Fleece,” published in 1757:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The crystal dews, impearl’d upon the grass,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Are touched by Phœbus’ beams and mount aloft,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With various clouds to paint the azure sky;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst he has almost as many adjectives in y as Ambrose
+Philips. But these are more than redeemed by the
+new descriptive touches which appear, sometimes
+curiously combined with the stereotyped phrases, as
+in “The Fleece” (Bk. III):</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The scatter’d mists reveal the dusky hills;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Grey dawn appears; the golden morn ascends,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And paints the glittering rocks and purple woods.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Nor must we forget “Grongar Hill,” which has justly
+received high praise for its beauties and felicities of
+description.</p>
+
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to illustrate further the vogue
+of this sort of diction in the first half of the eighteenth
+century; it is to be found everywhere in the poetry of
+the period, and the conventional epithets and phrases<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>
+quoted from Dyer and Thomson may be taken as
+typical of the majority of their contemporaries. But
+this lifeless, stereotyped language has also invaded the
+work of some of the best poets of the century, including
+not only the later classicists, but also those who have
+been “born free,” and are foremost among the
+Romantic rebels. The poetic language of William
+Collins shows a strange mixture of the old style and
+the new. That it was new and individual is well seen
+from Johnson’s condemnation, for Johnson recognized
+very clearly that the language of the “Ode on
+the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands” did not
+conform to what was probably his own view that the
+only language fit and proper for poetry was such as
+might bear comparison with the polish and elegance
+of Pope’s “Homer.” It is not difficult to make due
+allowance for Johnson when he speaks of Collins’s
+diction as “harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudicially
+selected”; we deplore the classical bias, and are
+content enough to recognize and enjoy for ourselves
+the matchless beauty and charm of Collins’s diction
+at its best. Yet much of the language of his earlier
+work betrays him as more or less a poetaster of the
+eighteenth century. The early “Oriental Eclogues”
+abound in the usual descriptive details, just as if the
+poet had picked out his words and phrases from the
+approved lists. Thus,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet midst the blaze of courts she fixed her love</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On the cool fountain or the shady grove</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Still, with the shepherd’s innocence her mind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To the sweet vale and flowery mead inclined;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and even in the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions”
+there were expressions like <i>watery surge</i>, <i>sheeny gold</i>,
+though now and then the “new” diction is strikingly
+exemplified in a magnificent phrase such as <i>gleamy
+pageant</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span></p>
+
+<p>When Collins has nothing new to say his poetic
+language is that of his time, but when his inspiration
+is at its loftiest his diction is always equal to the task,
+and it is then that he gives us the unrivalled felicities
+of “The Ode to Evening.”</p>
+
+<p>Amongst all the English poets there has probably
+never been one, even when we think of Tennyson,
+more careful and meticulous (or “curiously elaborate,”
+as Wordsworth styled it) about the diction of his
+verses, the very words themselves, than Gray. This
+fact, and not Matthew Arnold’s opinion that it was
+because Gray had fallen on an “age of prose,” may
+perhaps be regarded as sufficient to explain the comparative
+scantiness of his literary production. He
+himself, in a famous letter, has clearly stated his ideal
+of literary expression: “Extreme conciseness of
+expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one
+of the grand beauties of lyrical poetry.”<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Hence all
+his verses bear evidence of the most painstaking labour
+and rigorous self-criticism, almost as if every word
+had been weighed and assessed before being allowed
+to appear. His correspondence with Mason and
+Beattie, referred to in the previous chapter, shows the
+same fastidiousness with regard to the work of others.
+Gray indeed, drawing freely upon Milton and Dryden,
+created for himself a special poetic language which
+in its way can become almost as much an abuse as
+the otiosities of many of his predecessors and contemporaries—the
+“cumbrous splendour” of which
+Johnson complained. Yet he is never entirely free
+from the influence of the “classical” diction which,
+for Johnson, represented the ideal. His earliest work
+is almost entirely conventional in its descriptions, the
+prevailing tone being exemplified in such phrases as
+<i>the purple year</i>, <i>the Attic Warbler pours her throat</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span>
+(Ode on “The Spring”), whilst in the “Progress of
+Poesy,” lines like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Through verdant vales and Ceres’ golden reign</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">are not uncommon, though of course the possibility
+of the direct influence of the classics, bringing with it
+the added flavour of reminiscence, is not to be ignored
+in this sort of diction. Moreover, a couplet from the
+fragmentary “Alliance of Education and Government”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Scent the new fragrance of <i>the breathing rose</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And quaff <i>the pendent vintage</i> as it grows—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">is almost typical, apart from the freshness of the
+epithet <i>breathing</i>, of what Wordsworth wished to
+abolish. Even the “Elegy” has not escaped
+the contagion: <i>storied urn</i> or <i>animated bust</i> is
+perilously akin to the pedantic periphrases of the
+Augustans.</p>
+
+<p>Before passing to a consideration of the work
+of Johnson and Goldsmith, who best represent
+the later eighteenth century development of the
+“classical” school of Pope, reference may be made
+to two other writers. The first of these is Thomas
+Chatterton. In that phase of the early Romantic
+Movement which took the form of attempts to revive
+the past, Chatterton of course played an important
+part, and the pseudo-archaic language which he
+fabricated for the purpose of his “Rowley” poems
+is interesting, not only as an indication of the trend
+of the times towards the poetic use of old and obsolete
+words, but also as reflecting, it would seem, a genuine
+endeavour to escape from the fetters of the conventional
+and stereotyped diction of his day. On the
+other hand, in his avowedly original work, Chatterton’s
+diction is almost entirely imitative. He has scarcely<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>
+a single fresh image or description; his series of
+“Elegies” and “Epistles” are clothed in the current
+poetic language. He uses the stock expressions,
+<i>purling streams</i>, <i>watery bed</i>, <i>verdant vesture of the
+smiling fields</i>, along with the usual periphrases,
+such as <i>the muddy nation</i> or <i>the speckled folk</i>
+for “frogs.” One verse of an “Elegy” written
+in 1768 contains in itself nearly all the conventional
+images:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye variegated children of the Spring,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye blossoms blushing with the pearly dew;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye birds that sweetly in the hawthorn sing;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye flowery meads, lawns of verdant hue.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It can be judged from these examples how a stereotyped
+mode of expression may depreciate to a large
+extent the value of much of the work of a poet of real
+genius. Chatterton is content in most of his avowedly
+“original” work to turn his poetic thoughts into the
+accepted moulds, which is all the more surprising
+when we remember his laborious methods of
+manufacturing an archaic diction for his mediaeval
+“discoveries,”<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> even if we may assume that
+it reflected a strong desire for something fresh and
+new.</p>
+
+<p>A poet of much less genius, but one who enjoyed
+great contemporary fame, was William Falconer,
+whose “Shipwreck,” published in 1762, was the most
+popular sea-poem of the eighteenth century. The
+most striking characteristic of the descriptive parts
+of the poem is the daring and novel use of technical
+sea-terms, but apart from this the language is purely
+conventional. The sea is still the same <i>desert-waste</i>,
+<i>faithless deep</i>, <i>watery way</i>, <i>world</i>, <i>plain</i>, <i>path</i>, or <i>the
+fluid plain</i>, <i>the glassy plain</i>, whilst the landscape<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>
+catalogue is as lifeless as any of the descriptive passages
+of the early eighteenth century:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent18">on every spray</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The warbling birds exalt their evening lay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Blithe skipping o’er yon hill the fleecy train</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">When he leaves this second-hand description, and
+describes scenes actually experienced and strongly
+felt, Falconer’s language is correspondingly fresh and
+vivid, the catastrophe of the shipwreck itself, for
+example, being painted with extraordinary power.<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>
+
+<p>When we come to Johnson and Goldsmith, here
+again a distinction must be made between the didactic
+or satiric portion of their work and that which is
+descriptive. Johnson’s didactic verse, marked as it is
+by a free use of inversion and ellipsis, rarely attains
+the clearness and simplicity of Goldsmith’s, whilst he has
+also much more of the stock descriptive terms and
+phrases. His “Odes” are almost entirely cast in this
+style. Thus in “Spring”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now o’er the rural Kingdom roves</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Soft Pleasure with her laughing train,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love warbles in the vocal groves</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And vegetation plants the plains,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst exactly the same stuff is turned out for a love
+poem, “To Stella”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Not the soft sighs of vernal gales</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The fragrance of the flowery vales</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The murmurs of the crystal rill</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The vocal grove, the verdant hill.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Though there is not so much of this kind of otiose<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span>
+description in the poems of Goldsmith, yet Mr. Dobson’s
+estimate of his language may be accepted as a
+just one: “In spite of their beauty and humanity,”
+he says, “the lasting quality of ‘The Traveller’ and
+‘The Deserted Village’ is seriously prejudiced by his
+half-way attitude between the poetry of convention
+and the poetry of nature—between the <i>gradus</i> epithet
+of Pope and the direct vocabulary of Wordsworth.”<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>
+Thus when we read such lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Traveller,” ll. 293-4)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">we feel that Goldsmith too has been writing with his
+eye on the object, and even in such a line as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The breezy covert of the warbling grove</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 360)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">there is a freshness of description that compensates
+for the use of the hackneyed <i>warbling grove</i>. On the
+other hand, there are in both pieces passages which it
+is difficult not to regard as purely conventional in
+their language. Thus in “The Traveller,” the diction,
+if not entirely of the stock type, is not far from it:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and so on for another dozen lines.<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p>
+
+<p>Only the slightest traces, however, of this mechanical
+word-painting appear in “The Deserted Village,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>
+almost the only example of the stereotyped phrase
+being in the line</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">These simple blessings of <i>the lowly train</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(l. 252).</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thus whilst Goldsmith in much of his work continues
+the classical school of Pope, alike in his predilection
+for didactic verse and his practice of the heroic couplet,
+in his poetic language he is essentially individual. In
+his descriptive passages he rarely uses the conventional
+jargon, and the greater part of the didactic and moral
+observations of his two most famous poems is written
+in simple and unadorned language that would satisfy
+the requirements of the Wordsworthian canon.</p>
+
+<p>That pure and unaffected diction could be employed
+with supreme effect in other than moral and didactic
+verse was soon to be shown in the lyric poetry of
+William Blake, who, about thirty years before Wordsworth
+launched his manifestoes, evolved for himself a
+poetic language, wonderful alike in its beauty and
+simplicity. In those of the “Songs of Innocence” and
+“The Songs of Experience,” which are concerned with
+natural description, the epithets and expressions that
+had long been consecrated to this purpose find little
+or no place. Here and there we seem to catch echoes
+of the stock diction, as in the lines,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">the starry floor</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">the watery shore</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of the Introduction to the “Songs of Experience,”
+or the</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">happy, silent, <i>moony</i> beams</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of “The Cradle Song”; but in each case the expressions
+are redeemed and revitalized by the pure and
+joyous singing note of the lyrics of which they form
+part. Only once is Blake to be found using the conventional<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>
+epithet, when in his “Laughing Song” he
+writes</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">the <i>painted</i> birds laugh in the shade,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst with his usual unerring instinct he marks down
+the monotonous smoothness of so much contemporary
+verse in that stanza of his ode “To the Muses” in
+which, as has been well said, the eighteenth century
+dies to music:<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">How have you left the ancient love</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That bards of old enjoyed in you!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The languid strings do scarcely move,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sound is forced, the notes are few.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not that he altogether escaped the blighting influence
+of his time. In the early “Imitation of Spenser,” we
+get such a couplet as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">To sit in council with his modern peers</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And judge of tinkling rhimes and elegances terse,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst the “vicious diction” Wordsworth was to condemn
+is also to be seen in this line from one of the early
+“Songs”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">and Phœbus fir’d my vocal rage.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Even as late as 1800 Blake was capable of writing</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Receive this tribute from a harp sincere.<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But these slight blemishes only seem to show up in
+stronger light the essential beauty and nobility of his
+poetical style.</p>
+
+<p>But the significance of Blake’s work in the purging
+and purifying of poetic diction was not, as might
+perhaps be expected, recognized by his contemporaries<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>
+and immediate successors. For Coleridge, writing
+some thirty years later, it was Cowper, and his less
+famous contemporary Bowles, who were the pioneers
+in the rejecting of the old and faded style and the
+beginning of the new, the first to combine “natural
+thoughts with natural diction.”<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> Coleridge’s opinion
+seems to us now to be an over-statement, but we
+rather suspect that Cowper was not unwilling to
+regard himself as an innovator in poetic language. In
+his correspondence he reveals himself constantly pre-occupied
+with the question of poetic expression, and
+especially with the language fit and proper for his
+translation of Homer. His opinion of Pope’s attempt
+has already been referred to, but he himself was well
+aware of the inherent difficulties.<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> He had, it would
+seem, definite and decided opinions on the subject of
+poetic language; he recognized the lifelessness of the
+accepted diction, which, rightly or wrongly, he attributed
+especially to the influence of Pope’s “Homer,”
+and tried to escape from its bondage. His oft-quoted
+thesis that in the hands of the eighteenth century poets
+poetry had become a “mere mechanic art,” he
+developed at length in his ode “Secundum Artem,”
+which comprises almost a complete catalogue of the
+ornaments which enabled the warblers to have their
+tune by heart. What Cowper in that ode pillories—“the
+trim epithets,” the “sweet alternate rhyme,”
+the “flowers of light description”—were in the main
+what were to be held up to ridicule in the <i>Lyrical
+Ballads</i> prefaces; Wordsworth’s attack is here anticipated
+by twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>But, as later in the case of Wordsworth, Cowper in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span>
+his early work has not a little of the language which he
+is at such pains to condemn. Thus Horace again
+appears in the old familiar guise,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now o’er the spangled hemisphere,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Diffused the starry train appear</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Fifth Satire”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst even in “Table Talk” we find occasional conventional
+descriptions such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nature...</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Spreads the fresh verdure of the fields and leads</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But there is little of this kind of description in “The
+Task.” Now and then we meet with examples of the
+old periphrases, such as the <i>pert voracious kind</i> for
+“sparrows,” or the description of kings as the <i>arbiters
+of this terraqueous swamp</i>, though many of these
+pseudo-Miltonic expressions are no doubt used for
+playful effect. In those parts of the poem which deal
+with the sights and sounds of outdoor life the images
+are new and fresh, whilst in the moral and didactic
+portions the language is, as a rule, uniformly simple
+and direct. But for the classical purity of poetical
+expression in which the poet is at times pre-eminent,
+it is perhaps best to turn to his shorter poems, such
+as “To Mary,” or to the last two stanzas of “The
+Castaway,” and especially to some of the “Olney
+Hymns,” of the language of which it may be said that
+every word is rightly chosen and not one is superfluous.
+Indeed, it may well be that these hymns,
+together with those of Watts and Wesley,<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> which by
+their very purpose demanded a mode of expression
+severe in its simplicity, but upon which were stamped
+the refinement and correct taste of the scholars and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>
+gentlemen who wrote them—it may well be that the
+more natural mode of poetic diction which thus arose
+gave to Wordsworth a starting point when he began
+to expound and develop his theories concerning the
+language of poetry.<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p>
+
+<p>Whilst Cowper was thus at once heralding, and to a
+not inconsiderable extent exemplifying, the Romantic
+reaction in form, another poet, George Crabbe, had by
+his realism given, even before Cowper, an important
+indication of one characteristic aspect of the new
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>But though the force and fidelity of his descriptions
+of the scenery of his native place, and the depth and
+sincerity of his pathos, give him a leading place
+among those who anticipated Wordsworth, other
+characteristics stamp him as belonging to the old
+order and not to the new. His language is still largely
+that perfected by Dryden and Pope, and worked to
+death by their degenerate followers. The recognized
+“elegancies” and “flowers of speech” still linger on.
+A peasant is still a <i>swain</i>, poets are <i>sons of verse</i>, fishes
+<i>the finny tribe</i>, country folk <i>the rural tribe</i>. The word
+<i>nymph</i> appears with a frequency that irritates the
+reader, and how ludicrous an effect it could produce
+by its sudden appearance in tales of the realistic type
+that Crabbe loved may be judged from such examples
+as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">It soon appeared that while this nymph divine</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Moved on, there met her rude uncivil kine.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Whilst he succeeds in depicting the life of the rustic
+poor, not as it appears in the rosy tints of Goldsmith’s
+pictures, but in all its reality—sordid, gloomy and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>
+stern, as it for the most part is—the old stereotyped
+descriptions are to be found scattered throughout
+his grimly realistic pictures of the countryside. Thus
+when Crabbe writes of</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent16">tepid meads</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And lawns irriguous and the blooming field</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Midnight”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The lark on quavering pinion woo’d the day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Less towering linnets fill’d the vocal spray</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“The Candidate”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">we feel that he has not had before his eyes the real
+scenes of his Suffolk home, but that he has been content
+to recall and imitate the descriptive stock-in-trade
+that had passed current for so many years;
+even the later “Tales,” published up to the years
+when Shelley and Keats were beginning their activities,
+are not free from this defect.</p>
+
+<p>About ten years before Wordsworth launched his
+manifestoes, there were published the two works of
+Erasmus Darwin, to which reference has already been
+made, and in which this stock language was unconsciously
+reduced to absurdity, not only because of the
+themes on which it was employed, but also because
+of the fatal ease and facility with which it was used.
+It is strange to think that but a few years before the
+famous sojourn of Coleridge and Wordsworth on the
+Quantocks, “The Loves of the Plants,” and its fellow,
+should have won instant and lasting popularity.<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p>
+
+<p>That Darwin took himself very seriously is to be
+seen from “The Interludes,” in which he airs his
+views,<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> whilst in his two poems he gave full play to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>
+his “fancy” (“‘theory’ we cannot call it,” comments
+De Quincey) that nothing was strictly poetic
+except what is presented in visual image. This in
+itself was not bad doctrine, as it at least implied that
+poetry should be concrete, and thus reflected a desire
+to escape from the abstract and highly generalized
+diction of his day. But Darwin so works his dogma
+to death that the reader is at first dazzled, and finally
+bewildered by the multitude of images presented, in
+couplets of monotonous smoothness, in innumerable
+passages, such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">On twinkling fins my pearly nations play</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or wind with sinuous train their trackless way:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Botanic Garden,” I)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Still there is something to be said for the readers who
+enjoyed having the facts and theories of contemporary
+science presented to them in so coloured and fantastic
+a garb.</p>
+
+<p>Nor must it be forgotten that the youthful Wordsworth
+was much influenced by these poems of Darwin,
+so that his early work shows many traces of the very
+pseudo-poetic language which he was soon to condemn.
+Thus in “An Evening Walk”<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> there are such stock
+phrases as “emerald meads,” “watery plains,” the
+“forest train.”</p>
+
+<p>In “Descriptive Sketches” examples are still more
+numerous. Thus:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And amorous music on the water dies,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">which might have come direct from Pope, or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Here all the seasons revel hand-in-hand</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span></p>
+
+<p>The old epithet <i>purple</i> is frequently found (<i>purple</i>
+lights and vernal plains, the <i>purple</i> morning, the
+fragrant mountain’s <i>purple</i> side), and there are a few
+awkward adjectives in y (“the <i>piny</i> waste”), whilst
+a gun is described as the <i>thundering tube</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Few poems indeed are to be found in the eighteenth
+century with so many fantastic conceits as these
+1793 poems of Wordsworth. Probably, as has been
+suggested, the poet was influenced to an extent
+greater than he himself imagined by “The Botanic
+Garden,” so that the poetical devices freely employed
+in his early work may be the result of a determination
+to conform to the “theory” of poetry which Darwin
+in his precept and practice had exemplified. Later,
+the devices which had satisfied him in his first youthful
+productions must have appeared to him as more or
+less vicious, and altogether undesirable, and in disgust
+he resolved to exclude at one stroke all that he was
+pleased to call “poetic diction.” But, little given
+to self-criticism, when he penned his memorable
+Prefaces, he fixed the responsibility for “the extravagant
+and absurd diction” upon the whole body of
+his predecessors, unable or unwilling to recognize
+that he himself had begun his poetic career with a free
+use of many of its worst faults.<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of the stock diction of eighteenth century poetry
+we may say, then, that in the first place it is in large
+measure a reflection of the normal characteristic
+attitude of the poets of the “neo-classical” period
+towards Nature and all that the term implies. The
+“neo-classical” poets were but little interested in
+Nature; the countryside made no great appeal to
+them, and it was the Town and its teeming life that
+focused their interest and attention. Man, and his
+life as a social being, was their “proper study”;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>
+and this concentration of interest finds its reflection
+in the new and vivid language of the “essays,” satires,
+and epistles, whilst in the “nature poetry” the
+absence of genuine feeling is only too often betrayed
+by the dead epithets of the stock diction each poet
+felt himself at liberty to draw upon according to his
+needs. It is scarcely necessary to remind ourselves
+that it is in Pope’s “Pastorals” and the “Homer,”
+not in the “Dunciad” or “The Essay on Man,”
+that the stock words, phrases, and similes are to be
+found, and the remark is equally true of most of the
+poets of his period. But Pope has been unjustly
+pilloried, for the stock diction did not originate with
+him. It is true that the most masterly and finished
+examples of what is usually styled “the eighteenth
+century poetic diction” are to be found in his work
+generally, and no doubt the splendour of his translation
+of Homer did much to establish a vogue for many
+of the set words and phrases. At the same time
+the supremacy of the heroic couplet which he did so
+much to establish played its part in perpetuating the
+stock diction, the epithets of which were often technically
+just what was required to give the decasyllabic
+verse the desired “correctness” and “smoothness.”
+But it is unjust to saddle him with the responsibility
+for the lack of originality evident in many of
+his successors and imitators.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that this stock language is not confined
+to the neo-classical poets proper, but is found to a
+large extent persisting to the very end of the eighteenth
+century, and even invading the early work of the
+writer who led the revolt against it, is indicative of
+another general cause of its widespread prevalence.
+Briefly, it may be said that not only did the conventional
+poetic diction reflect in the main the average
+neo-classical outlook on external nature; it reflected
+also the average eighteenth century view as to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span>
+nature of poetical language, which regarded its words
+and phrases as satisfying the artistic canon, not in
+virtue of the degree in which they reflected the individual
+thought or emotion of the poet, but according
+as they conformed to a standard of language based on
+accepted models.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br />
+<span class="smaller">LATINISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>There is now to be noticed another type of
+eighteenth century poetic diction which was
+in its way as prevalent, and, it may be added,
+as vicious, as the stock diction which has been discussed
+in the previous chapter. This was the use of
+a latinized vocabulary, from the early years of the
+century down to the days when the work of Goldsmith,
+Cowper, and Crabbe seemed to indicate a sort of
+interregnum between the old order and the new.</p>
+
+<p>This fashion, or craze, for “latinity” was not of
+course a sudden and special development which came
+in with the eighteenth century: it was rather the
+culmination of a tendency which was not altogether
+unconnected with the historic development of the
+language itself. As a factor in literary composition,
+it had first begun to be discussed when the Elizabethan
+critics and men of letters were busying themselves
+with the special problem of diction. Latinism was
+one of the excesses to which poets and critics alike
+directed their attention, and their strictures and
+warnings were such as were inevitable and salutary
+in the then transitional confusion of the language.<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a>
+In the early years of the seventeenth century this
+device for strengthening and ornamenting the language
+was adopted more or less deliberately by such poets<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>
+as Phineas and Giles Fletcher, especially the latter,
+who makes free use of such coinages as <i>elamping</i>,
+<i>appetence</i>, <i>elonging</i>, etc.<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p>
+
+<p>The example of the Fletchers in thus adding to their
+means of literary expression was soon to be followed
+by a greater poet. When Milton came to write his
+epics, it is evident, as has been said, that he felt the
+need for a diction in keeping with the exalted theme
+he had chosen, and his own taste and temperament,
+as well as the general tendencies of his age, naturally
+led him to make use of numerous words of direct
+or indirect “classical” origin. But his direct coinages
+from Latin and Greek are much less than has often
+been supposed.<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> What he seems to have done in many
+cases was to take words the majority of which had
+been recently formed, usually for scientific or philosophic
+purposes, and incorporate them in his poetical
+vocabulary. Thus <i>Atheous</i>, <i>attrite</i>, <i>conflagrant</i>, <i>jaculation</i>,
+<i>myrrhine</i>, <i>paranymph</i>, <i>plenipotent</i>, etc., are
+instances of classical formations which in most cases
+seem, according to “The New English Dictionary,”
+to have made their first literary appearance shortly
+before the Restoration. In other instances Milton’s
+latinisms are much older.<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> What is important is the
+fact that Milton was able to infuse these and many
+similar words with a real poetic power, and we may be
+sure that the use of such words as <i>ethereal</i>, <i>adamantine</i>,
+<i>refulgent</i>, <i>regal</i>, whose very essence, as has been
+remarked, is suggestiveness, rather than close definition,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>
+was altogether deliberate.<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> In addition to this
+use of a latinized vocabulary, there is a continuous
+latinism of construction, which is to be found in the
+early poems, but which, as might be expected, is
+most prominent in the great epics, where idioms like
+<i>after his charge received</i> (P.L., V 248), <i>since first her
+salutation heard</i> (P.R., II, 107) are frequent.<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p>
+
+<p>Milton, we may say, of purpose prepense made or
+culled for himself a special poetical vocabulary which
+was bound to suffer severely at the hands of incompetent
+and uninspired imitators. But though the
+widespread use of latinized diction is no doubt largely
+to be traced to the influence of Milton at a time when
+“English verse went Milton mad,” it may perhaps
+also be regarded as a practice that reflected to a certain
+extent the general literary tendencies of the Augustan
+age.</p>
+
+<p>When Milton was writing his great epics Dryden
+was just beginning his literary career, but though
+there are numerous examples of latinisms in the works
+of the latter, they are not such as would suggest that
+he had been influenced to any extent by the Miltonic
+manner of creating a poetical vocabulary. There is
+little or no coinage of the “magnificent” words which
+Milton used so freely, though latinized forms like
+<i>geniture</i>, <i>irremeable</i>, <i>praescious</i>, <i>tralineate</i>, are frequent.
+Dryden, however, as might be expected, often uses
+words in their original etymological sense. Thus
+besides the common use of <i>prevent</i>, <i>secure</i>, etc., we find
+in the translation of the “Metamorphoses”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">He had either <i>led</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy mother then,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where <i>led</i> is used in the sense of Latin <i>ducere</i> (marry)<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>
+and “<i>refers</i> the limbs,” where “refers” means
+“restores.”<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Examples are few in Dryden’s original
+works, but “Annus Mirabilis” furnishes instances
+like the <i>ponderous ball expires</i>, where “expires” means
+“is blown forth,” and “each wonted room <i>require</i>”
+(“seek again”), whilst there is an occasional reminiscence
+of such Latin phrases as “manifest of crimes”
+for <i>manifestus sceleris</i> (“Ab. and Achit.”).</p>
+
+<p>What has been said of the latinisms of Dryden
+applies also to those of Pope. Words like <i>prevent</i>,
+<i>erring</i>, <i>succeed</i>, <i>devious</i>, <i>horrid</i>, <i>missive</i>, <i>vagrant</i>, are
+used with their original signification, and there are
+passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">For this he bids the <i>nervous</i> artists vie.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Imitations of Latin constructions are occasionally
+found:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Some god has told them, or themselves survey</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4"><i>The bark escaped</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Phrases like “<i>fulgid</i> weapons,” “roseate <i>unguents</i>,”
+“<i>circumfusile</i> gold,” “<i>frustrate</i> triumphs,” etc., are
+probably coinages imposed by the necessities of
+translation. Other similar phrases, such as (tears)
+“<i>conglobing</i> on the dust,” “with <i>unctuous</i> fir <i>foment</i> the
+flame,” seem to anticipate something of the absurdity
+into which this kind of diction was later to fall.<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p>
+
+<p>On the whole, the latinisms found in the works
+of Dryden and Pope are not usually deliberate creations
+for the purpose of poetic ornament. They are such
+as would probably seem perfectly natural in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>
+seventeenth and early eighteenth century, when the
+traditions of classical study still persisted strongly,
+and when the language of prose itself was still receiving
+additions from that source. Moreover, the large
+amount of translation done by both poets from the
+classics was bound to result in the use of numerous
+classical terms and constructions.</p>
+
+<p>In 1705 there appeared the “Splendid Shilling” of
+John Philips, followed by his “Cyder” and other poems
+a year later. These poems are among the first of the
+Miltonic parodies or imitations, and, being written in
+blank verse, they may be regarded as heralding the
+struggle against the tyranny of the heroic couplet.
+Indeed, blank verse came to be distinctly associated
+with the Romantic movement, probably because it
+was considered that its structure was more encouraging
+to the unfettered imagination than the closed couplets
+of the classicists. It is thus interesting to note that
+the reaction in form, which marks one distinct aspect
+of Romanticism, was really responsible for some of the
+excesses against which the manifestoes afterwards
+protested; for it is in these blank verse poems
+especially that there was developed a latinism both of
+diction and construction that frequently borders on
+the ludicrous, even when the poet’s object was not
+deliberately humorous.</p>
+
+<p>In “Blenheim” terms and phrases such as <i>globous
+iron</i>, <i>by chains connexed</i>, etc., are frequent, and the
+attempts at Miltonic effects is seen in numerous
+passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent10">Upborne</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By frothy billows thousands float the stream</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In cumbrous mail, with love of farther shore;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Confiding in their hands, that sed’lous strive</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To cut th’ outrageous fluent.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In “Cyder” latinisms are still more abundant: <i>the
+nocent brood</i> (of snails), <i>treacle’s viscuous juice</i>, <i>with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>
+grain incentive stored</i>, <i>the defecated liquour</i>, <i>irriguous
+sleep</i>, as well as passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor from the sable ground expect success</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Nor from cretacious, stubborn or jejune,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bards with volant touch</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Traverse loquacious strings.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">This kind of thing became extremely common and
+persisted throughout the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Incidentally, it may here be remarked that the
+publication of Philips’s poems probably gave to Lady
+Winchilsea a hint for her poem “Fanscombe Barn.”<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a>
+Philips, as has been noted, was one of the very first
+to attempt to use Milton’s lofty diction, and his
+latinized sentence structure for commonplace and
+even trivial themes, and no doubt his experiment,
+having attracted Lady Winchilsea’s attention,
+inspired her own efforts at Miltonic parody, though
+it is probably “Cyder” and “The Splendid Shilling,”
+rather then “Paradise Lost,” that she takes as her
+model. Thus the carousings of the tramps forgathered
+in Fanscombe Barn are described:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">the swarthy bowl appears,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Replete with liquor, globulous to fight,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And threat’ning inundation o’er the brim;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and the whole poem shows traces of its second-hand
+inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>Even those who are now remembered chiefly as
+Spenserian imitators indulge freely in a latinized
+style when they take to blank verse. Thus William
+Thompson, who in his poem “Sickness” has many
+phrases like “the arm <i>ignipotent</i>,” “<i>inundant</i> blaze”
+(Bk. I), “terrestrial stores medicinal” (Bk. III),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>
+with numerous passages, of which the following is
+typical:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent26">the poet’s mind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">(Effluence essential of heat and light)</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now mounts a loftier wing when Fancy leads</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The glittering track, and points him to the sky</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Excursive.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. IV)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">William Shenstone, the author of one of the most
+successful of the Spenserian imitations, is more
+sparing in this respect, but even in his case passages
+such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent10">Of words indeed profuse,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of gold tenacious, their torpescent soul</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Clenches their coin, and what electric fire</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Shall solve the frosty grip, and bid it flow?</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Economy,” Part I)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">are not infrequent.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not only the mere versifiers who have
+succumbed to this temptation. By far the most
+important of the early blank verse poems was
+Thomson’s “Seasons,” which, first appearing from
+1726-1730, was subsequently greatly revised and
+altered up to the edition of 1746, the last to be issued
+in the author’s lifetime.<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> The importance and success
+of “The Seasons” as one of the earliest indications of
+the “Return to Nature” has received adequate
+recognition, but Thomson was an innovator in the
+style, as well as in the matter, of his poem. As Dr.
+Johnson remarked, he saw things always with the
+eyes of a poet, and the quickened and revived interest
+in external nature which he reflects inevitably impelled
+him to search for a new diction to give it expression.
+We can see him, as it were, at work trying to replace
+the current coinage with a new mintage of his own,
+or rather with a mixed currency, derived partly from
+Milton, and partly from his own resources. His<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span>
+diction is thus in some degrees as artificial as the
+stock diction of his period, especially when his attempts
+to emulate or imitate the magnificence of Milton
+betray him into pomposity or even absurdity; but
+his poetical language as a whole is leavened with so
+much that is new and his very own as to make it clear
+that the Romantic revival in the style, as well as in
+the contents, of poetry has really begun. The resulting
+peculiarities of style did not escape notice in his
+own time. He was recognized as the creator of a new
+poetical language, and was severely criticized even
+by some of his friends. Thus Somerville urged with
+unusual frankness a close revision of the style of “The
+Seasons”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Read Philips much, consider Milton more</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But from their dross extract the purer ore:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To coin new words or to restore the old</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In southern lands is dangerous and bold;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But rarely, very rarely, will succeed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">When minted on the other side of Tweed.<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thomson’s comment on this criticism was emphatic:
+“Should I alter my ways I should write poorly. I
+must choose what appears to be the most significant
+epithet or I cannot proceed.”<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> Hence, though lines
+and whole passages of “The Seasons” were revised,
+and large additions made, the characteristics of the
+style were on the whole preserved. And one of the
+chief characteristics, due partly to the influence of
+Milton, and partly to the obvious fact that for Thomson
+with new thoughts and impressions to convey to his
+readers, the current and conventional vocabulary
+of poetry needed reinforcement, is an excessive use
+of latinisms.<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span></p>
+
+<p>Thus in “Spring” we find, e.g., “<i>prelusive</i> drops,”
+“the <i>amusive</i> arch” (the rainbow), “the torpid sap
+<i>detruded</i> to the root,” etc., as well as numerous passages
+such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent10">Joined to these</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Innumerous songsters in the freshening shade</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mellifluous.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 607 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In “Summer” the epithet <i>gelid</i> appears with almost
+wearisome iteration, with other examples like <i>flexile</i>
+wave, <i>the fond sequacious bird</i>, etc., while the cloud
+that presages a storm is called “the small prognostic”
+and trees are “the noble sons of potent heat
+and floods.” Continuous passages betray similar
+characteristics:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Its hue cerulean and of evening tinct.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 149 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Autumn</i> furnishes even more surprising instances:
+the stag “<i>adhesive</i> to the track,” the sands “strowed
+<i>bibulous</i> above,” “forests huge <i>incult</i>,” etc., as well as
+numerous passages of sustained latinism.<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p>
+
+<p>In “Winter,” which grew from an original 405 lines
+in 1726 to 1,069 lines in 1746, latinism of vocabulary
+is not prominent to the same extent as in the three
+previous books, but the following is a typical sample:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Meantime in sable cincture shadows vast</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Deep-tinged, and damp and congregated clouds</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Involves the face of things.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(ll. 54 foll.)<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The revisions after 1730 do not show any great
+pruning, or less indulgence in these characteristics;
+rather the contrary, for many of them are additions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>
+which did not appear until 1744. Now and then
+Thomson has changed his terms and epithets. Thus
+in the lines</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent12">the potent sun</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Melts into</i> limpid air the high-raised clouds</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 199)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">the expression “melts into” has replaced the earlier
+“attenuates to.”<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> One of the best of the emendations,
+at least as regards the disappearance of a
+latinism, is seen in “Summer” (48-9), where the
+second verse of the couplet,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">At first <i>faint-gleaming</i> in the dappled east</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">has replaced the</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mildly elucent</i> in the streaky east</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of the earlier version. Often Thomson’s latinisms
+produce no other effect on the reader than that of mere
+pedantry. Thus in passages such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">See, where the winding vale its lavish stores</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Irriguous</i> spreads. See, how the lily drinks</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>latent</i> rill.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 494)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent16">the canvas smooth</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With glowing life <i>protuberant</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Autumn,” 136)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The fallow ground laid open to the sun</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Concoctive</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 407)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the description of the tempest</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Struggling through the <i>dissipated</i> grove</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 185)<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">(where there is Latin <i>order</i> as well as diction), it is
+certain that the terms in question have little or no
+poetic value, and that simpler words in nearly every
+case would have produced greater effects. Now and
+then, as later in the case of Cowper, the pedantry is,
+we may suppose, deliberately playful, as when he
+speaks of the cattle that</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">ruminate in the contiguous shade</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 86)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or indicates a partial thaw by the statement</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">Perhaps the vale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">relents awhile to the reflected ray.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 784)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The words illustrated above are rarely, of course,
+Thomson’s own coinage. Many of them (e.g. <i>detruded</i>,
+<i>hyperborean</i>, <i>luculent</i>, <i>relucent</i>, <i>turgent</i>) date from the
+sixteenth century or earlier, though from the earliest
+references to them given in the “New English Dictionary”
+it may be assumed that Thomson was not
+always acquainted with the sources where they are
+first found, and that to him their “poetic” use is
+first due. In some cases Milton was doubtless the
+immediate source from which Thomson took such
+words, to use them with a characteristic looseness of
+meaning.<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p>
+
+<p>It would be too much to say that Thomson’s use of
+such terms arises merely out of a desire to emulate
+the “grand style”; it reflects rather his general
+predilection for florid and luxurious diction. Moreover,
+it has been noted that an analysis of his latinisms
+seems to point to a definite scheme of formation.
+Thus there is a distinct preference for certain groups of
+formations, such as adjectives in “-ive” (<i>affective</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>
+<i>amusive</i>, <i>excursive</i>, etc.), or in “-ous” (<i>irriguous</i>,
+<i>sequacious</i>), or Latin participle forms, such as <i>clamant</i>,
+<i>turgent</i>, <i>incult</i>, etc. In additions Latin words are
+frequently used in their original sense, common
+instances being <i>sordid</i>, <i>generous</i>, <i>error</i>, <i>secure</i>, <i>horrid</i>,
+<i>dome</i>, while his blank verse line was also characterized
+by the free use of latinized constructions.<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a>
+Thomson’s frequent use of the sandwiched noun,
+“flowing rapture bright” (“Spring,” 1088), “gelid
+caverns woodbine-wrought,” (“Summer,” 461), “joyless
+rains obscure” (“Winter,” 712), often with the
+second adjective used predicatively or adverbially,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">High seen the Seasons lead, <i>in sprightly dance</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent2"><i>Harmonious knit</i>, the rosy-fingered hours</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 1212)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">is also worthy of note.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it can hardly be denied that the language of
+“The Seasons” is in many respects highly artificial,
+and that Thomson was to all intents and purposes
+the creator of a special poetic diction, perhaps even
+more so than Gray, who had to bear the brunt of
+Wordsworth’s fulminations. But on the whole his
+balance is on the right side; at a time when the
+majority of his contemporaries were either content
+to draw drafts on the conventional and consecrated
+words, phrases, and similes, or were sedulously
+striving to ape the polished plainness of Pope, he
+was able to show that new powers of expression
+could well be won from the language. His nature
+vocabulary alone is sufficient proof of the value of
+his contributions to the poetic wealth of the language,
+not a few of his new-formed compounds especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>
+being expressive and beautiful.<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> His latinisms are
+less successful because they can hardly be said to belong
+to any diction, and for the most part they must be
+classed among the “false ornaments” derided by
+Wordsworth;<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> not only do they possess none of that
+mysterious power of suggestion which comes to words
+in virtue of their employment through generations of
+prose and song, but also not infrequently their meaning
+is far from clear. They are never the spontaneous
+reflection of the poet’s thought, but, on the contrary,
+they appear only too often to have been dragged in
+merely for effect.</p>
+
+<p>This last remark applies still more forcibly to
+Somerville’s “Chase,” which appeared in 1735. Its
+author was evidently following in the wake of
+Thomson’s blank verse, and with this aim freely
+allows himself the use of an artificial and inflated
+diction, as in many passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Cull each salubrious plant, with bitter juice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Concoctive stored, and potent to allay</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Each vicious ferment.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>About the same time Edward Young was probably
+writing his “Night Thoughts,” though the poem was
+not published until 1742. Here again the influence
+of Thomson is to be seen in the diction, though no
+doubt in this case there is also not a little that derives
+direct from Milton. Young has Latin formations like
+<i>terraqueous</i>, <i>to defecate</i>, <i>feculence</i>, <i>manumit</i>, as well
+as terms such as <i>avocation</i>, <i>eliminate</i>, and <i>unparadize</i>,
+used in their original sense. In the second instalment
+of the “Night Thoughts” there is a striking increase
+in the number of Latin terms, either borrowed directly,
+or at least formed on classical roots, some of which must<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>
+have been unintelligible to many readers. Thus
+<i>indagators</i> for “seekers,” <i>fucus</i> for “false brilliance,”
+<i>concertion</i> for “intimate agreement,” and <i>cutaneous</i> for
+“external,” “skin deep”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">All the distinctions of this little life</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Are quite cutaneous.<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It is difficult to understand the use of such terms when
+simple native words were ready at hand, and the
+explanation must be that they were thought to add
+to the dignity of the poem, and to give it a
+flavour of scholarship; for the same blemishes appear
+in most of the works published at this time. Thus in
+Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (1744)
+there is a similar use of latinized terms: <i>pensile
+planets</i>, <i>passion’s fierce illapse</i>, <i>magnific praise</i>, though
+the tendency is best illustrated in such passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent16">that trickling shower</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Piercing through every crystalline convex</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of clustering dewdrops to their flight opposed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Recoil at length where, concave all behind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The internal surface of each glassy orb</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Repels their forward passage into air.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In “The Poet” there is a striking example of
+what can only be the pedantic, even if playful,
+use of a cumbrous epithet:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">On shelves <i>pulverulent</i>, majestic stands</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His library.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Similar examples are to be found in “The Art of
+Preserving Health” by John Armstrong, published<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>
+in the same year as Akenside’s “Pleasures.” The
+unpoetical nature of this subject may perhaps be
+Armstrong’s excuse for such passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mournful eclipse or planets ill-combined</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Portend disastrous to the vital world;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">but this latinizing tendency was perhaps never responsible
+for a more absurd periphrasis than one to be
+found in the second part of the poem, which treats of
+“Diet”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor does his gorge the luscious bacon rue,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of solid milk.<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The high Miltonic manner was likewise attempted by
+John Dyer in “The Fleece,” which appeared in 1757,
+and by James Grainger in “The Sugar Cane” (1764),
+to mention only the most important. Dyer, deservedly
+praised for his new and fresh descriptive diction, has
+not escaped this contagion of latinism: <i>the globe
+terraqueous</i>, <i>the cerule stream</i>, <i>rich sapinaceous loam</i>,
+<i>detersive bay salt</i>, etc., while elsewhere there are obvious
+efforts to recapture the Miltonic cadence. In “The
+Sugar Cane” the tendency is increased by the necessity
+thrust upon the poet to introduce numerous
+technical terms. Thus</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent12">though all thy mills</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Crackling, o’erflow with a redundant juice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Poor tastes the liquor; coction long demands</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And highest temper, ere it saccharize.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Joseph Warton had written his one
+blank verse poem “The Enthusiast” (1740), when
+he was only eighteen years old. But though both he
+and his brother Thomas are among the most important
+of the poets who show the influence of Milton most
+clearly, that influence reveals itself rather in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>
+matter of thought than of form, and there is in “The
+Enthusiast” little of the diction that marred so many
+of the blank verse poems. Only here and there may
+traces be seen, as in the following passage:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">fairer she</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In innocence and homespun vestments dress’d</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Shone pendent.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There is still less in the poems of Thomas Warton, who
+was even a more direct follower of Milton than his
+elder brother. There is scarcely one example of a
+Latinism in “The Pleasures of Melancholy,” which
+is really a companion piece to “The Enthusiast.”
+The truth is that it was Milton’s early work—and
+especially “Il Penseroso”—that affected most deeply
+these early Romanticists, and even their blank verse
+is charged with the sentiments and phrases of Milton’s
+octosyllabics. Thus the two poets, who were among
+the first to catch something of the true spirit of Milton,
+have little or nothing of the cumbersome and pedantic
+diction found so frequently in the so-called “Miltonics”
+of the eighteenth century, and this in itself is one
+indication of their importance in the earlier stages of
+the Romantic revival.</p>
+
+<p>This is also true in the case of Collins and Gray, who
+are the real eighteenth century disciples of Milton.
+Collins’s fondness for personified abstractions may
+perhaps be attributed to Milton’s influence, but there
+are few, if any, traces of latinism in his pure and simple
+diction. Gray was probably influenced more than he
+himself thought by Milton, and like Milton he made
+for himself a special poetical language, which owes not
+a little to the works of his great exemplar. But
+Gray’s keen sense of the poetical value of words, and
+his laborious precision and exactness in their use,
+kept him from any indulgence in coinages. Only one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>
+or two latinisms are to be found in the whole of his
+work, and when these do occur they are such as would
+come naturally to a scholar, or as were still current in
+the language of his time. Thus in “The Progress of
+Poesy” he has</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">this <i>pencil</i> take,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where “pencil” stands for “brush” (Latin, <i>pensillum</i>);
+whilst in a translation from Statius he gives
+to <i>prevent</i> its latinized meaning</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">the champions, trembling at the sight</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prevent</i> disgrace.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There is also a solitary example in the “Elegy” in
+the line</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Can Honour’s voice <i>provoke</i> the silent dust.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The contemporary fondness for blank verse had
+called forth the strictures of Goldsmith in his “Inquiry
+into the Present State of Polite Learning,” and his
+own smooth and flowing couplets have certainly none
+of the pompous epithets which he there condemns.
+His diction, if we except an occasional use of the stock
+descriptive epithets, is admirable alike in its simplicity
+and directness, and the two following lines from “The
+Traveller” are, with one exception,<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> the only examples
+of latinisms to be found in his poems:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">While sea-born gales their <i>gelid</i> wings expand,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Fall blunted from each <i>indurated</i> heart.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dr. Johnson, who represented the extreme classicist
+position with regard to blank verse and other tendencies<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>
+of the Romantic reaction, had a good deal to say in
+the aggregate about the poetical language of his
+predecessors and contemporaries. But the latinism
+of the time, which was widespread enough to have
+attracted his attention, does not seem to have provoked
+from him any critical comment. His own
+poetical works, even when we remember the “Vanity
+of Human Wishes,” where plenty of instances of
+Latin idiom are to be found, are practically free from
+this kind of diction, though this does not warrant the
+inference that he disapproved of it. We know that
+his prose was latinized to a remarkable extent, so that
+his “sesquipedalian terminology” has been regarded
+as the fountain-head of that variety of English which
+delights in “big,” high-sounding words. But his
+ideal, we may assume, was the polished and elegant
+diction of Pope, and his own verse is as free from
+pedantic formations as is “The Lives of the Poets,”
+which perhaps represents his best prose.</p>
+
+<p>It is in the works of a poet who, though he continues
+certain aspects of neo-classicism, yet announces
+unmistakably the coming of the new age, that we find
+a marked use of a deliberately latinized diction.
+Cowper has always received just praise for the purity
+of his language; he is, on the whole, singularly free
+from the artificialities and inversions which had
+marked the accepted poetic diction, but, on the other
+hand, his language is latinized to an extent that has
+perhaps not always been fully realized.</p>
+
+<p>This is, however, confined to “The Task” and to
+the translation of the “Iliad.” In the former case
+there is first a use of words freely formed on Latin
+roots, for most of which Cowper had no doubt abundant
+precedents,<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> but which, in some cases, must have been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>
+coined by him, perhaps playfully in some instances;
+<i>twisted form vermicular</i>, <i>the agglomerated pile</i>, <i>the
+voluble and restless earth</i>, etc. Other characteristics
+of this latinized style are perhaps best seen in continuous
+passages such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">he spares me yet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And, though himself so polished, still reprieves</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The obsolete prolixity of shade</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. I, ll. 262 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or in such a mock-heroic fling as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The stable yields a stercoraceous heap</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Impregnated with quick fermenting salts</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And potent to resist the freezing blast.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. III, 463)<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">On these and many similar occasions Cowper has
+turned his predilection to playful account, as also
+when he diagnoses the symptoms of gout as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">pangs arthritic that infest the toe</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of libertine excess,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or speaks of monarchs and Kings as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There is still freer use of latinisms in the “Homer”:<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a>
+<i>her eyes caerulean</i>, <i>the point innocuous</i>, <i>piercing accents
+stridulous</i>, <i>the triturated barley</i>, <i>candent lightnings</i>,
+<i>the inherent barb</i>, <i>his stream vortiginous</i>, besides such
+passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">nor did the Muses spare to add</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Responsive melody of vocal sweets.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span></p>
+
+<p>The instances given above fully illustrate on the
+whole the use of a latinized diction in eighteenth
+century poetry.<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> It must not, however, be supposed
+that the fashion was altogether confined to the blank
+verse poems. Thus Matthew Prior in “Alma,” or
+“The Progress of the Mind,” has passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">the word obscene</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or harsh which once elanced must ever fly</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Irrevocable,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst Richard Savage in his “Wanderer” indulges
+in such flights as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent24">his breath</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A nitrous damp that strikes petrific death.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">One short stanza by William Shenstone, from his
+poem “Written in Spring, 1743,” contains an obvious
+example in three out of its four lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Again the labouring hind inverts the soil,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Again the merchant ploughs the tumid wave,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Another spring renews the soldier’s toil,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And finds me vacant in the rural cave.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But it is in the blank verse poems that the fashion
+is most prevalent, and it is there that it only too often
+becomes ludicrous. The blind Milton, dying, lonely
+and neglected, a stranger in a strange land, is hardly
+likely to have looked upon himself as the founder of
+a “school,” or to have suspected to what base uses his
+lofty diction and style were to be put, within a few
+decades of his death, by a swarm of poetasters who
+fondly regarded themselves as his disciples.<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span>
+early writers of blank verse, such as John Philips,
+frankly avowed themselves imitators of Milton, and
+there can be little doubt that in their efforts to catch
+something of the dignity and majesty of their model
+the crowd of versifiers who then appeared on the
+scene had recourse to high-sounding words and phrases,
+as well as to latinized constructions by which they
+hoped to elevate their style. The grand style of
+“Paradise Lost” was bound to suffer severely at the
+hands of imitators, and there can be little doubt but
+that much of the preposterous latinizing of the time
+is to be traced to this cause. At the same time the
+influence of the general literary tendencies of the
+Augustan ages is not to be ignored in this connexion.
+When a diction freely sprinkled with latinized terms
+is found used by writers like Thomson in the first
+quarter, and Cowper at the end of the century, it may
+perhaps also be regarded as a mannerism of style due
+in some degree to influences which were still powerful
+enough to affect literary workmanship. For it must
+be remembered that in the eighteenth century the
+traditional supremacy of Latin had not yet altogether
+died out: pulpit and forensic eloquence, as well as
+the great prose works of the period, still bore abundant
+traces of the persistency of this influence.<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Hence
+it need not be at all surprising to find that it has
+invaded poetry. The use of latinized words and
+phrases gave, or was supposed to give, an air of culture
+to verse, and contemporary readers did not always,
+we may suppose, regard such language as a mere
+display of pedantry.</p>
+
+<p>In this, as in other respects of the poetic output of
+the period, we may see a further reflex of the general
+literary atmosphere of the first half or so of the
+eighteenth century. There was no poetry of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>
+highest rank, and not a great deal of <i>poetical</i> poetry;
+the bulk of the output is “poetry without an atmosphere.”
+The very qualities most admired in prose—lucidity,
+correctness, absence of “enthusiasm”—were
+such as were approved for poetry; even the
+Romantic forerunners, with perhaps the single exception
+of Blake, felt the pressure of the prosaic atmosphere
+of their times. No doubt had a poet of the
+highest order appeared he would have swept away
+much of the accumulated rubbish and fashioned for
+himself a new poetic language, as Thomson tried, and
+Wordsworth later thought to do. But he did not
+appear, and the vast majority of the practitioners
+were content to ring the changes on the material they
+found at hand, and were not likely to dream of anything
+different.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus not sufficient to say that the “rapid and
+almost simultaneous diffusion of this purely cutaneous
+eruption,” to borrow an appropriate description from
+Lowell, was due solely to the potent influence of
+Milton. It reflects also the average conception of
+poetry held throughout a good part of the eighteenth
+century, a conception which led writers to seek in
+mere words qualities which are to be found in them
+only when they are the reflex of profound thought or
+powerful emotion. In short, latinism in eighteenth
+century poetry may be regarded as a literary fashion,
+akin in nature to the stock epithets and phrases of the
+“descriptive” poetry, which were later to be unsparingly
+condemned as the typical eighteenth century
+poetical diction.</p>
+
+<p>Of the poetic value of these latinized words little
+need be said. Whether or no they reflect a conscious
+effort to extend, enrich, or renew the vocabulary of
+English poetry, they cannot be said to have added
+much to the expressive resources of the language.
+This is not, of course, merely because they are of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>
+direct Latin origin. We know that around the central
+Teutonic core of English there have slowly been built
+up two mighty strata of Latin and Romance formations,
+which, in virtue of their long employment by
+writers in prose and verse, as well as on the lips of the
+people, have slowly acquired that force and picturesqueness
+which the poet needs for his purpose.
+But the latinized words of the eighteenth century are
+on a different footing. To us, nowadays, there is
+something pretentious and pedantic about them:
+they are artificial formations or adoptions, and not
+living words. English poets from time to time have
+been able to give a poetical colouring to such words,<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a>
+and the eighteenth century is not without happy
+instances of this power. James Thomson here and
+there wins real poetic effects from his latinized vocabulary,
+as in such a passage as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Here lofty trees to ancient song unknown</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The noble sons of potent heat and floods</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Meridian gloom.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 653 foll.)<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The “return to Nature,” of which Thomson was
+perhaps the most noteworthy pioneer, brought back
+all the sights and sounds of outdoor life as subjects
+fit and meet for the poet’s song, and it is therefore of
+some interest, in the present connexion, to note that
+Wordsworth himself, who also knew how to make
+excellent use of high-sounding Latin formations,
+has perhaps nowhere illustrated this faculty better
+than in the famous passage on the Yew Trees of
+Borrowdale:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Those fraternal Four of Borrowdale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Joined in one solemn and capacious grove:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of intertwisted fibres serpentine</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That threaten the profane.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But the bulk of eighteenth century latinisms fall
+within a different category; rarely do they convey,
+either in themselves or in virtue of their context, any
+of that mysterious power of association which constitutes
+the poetic value of words and enables the
+writer, whether in prose or verse, to convey to his
+reader delicate shades of meaning and suggestion
+which are immediately recognized and appreciated.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br />
+<span class="smaller">ARCHAISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>One of the earliest and most significant of those
+literary manifestations which were to culminate
+in the triumph of Romanticism was a new
+enkindled interest in the older English writers. The
+attitude of the great body of the so-called “Classicists”
+towards the earlier English poetry was not
+altogether one of absolute contempt: it was rather
+marked by that indifference which is the outcome
+of ignorance. Readers and authors, with certain
+illustrious exceptions, were totally unacquainted with
+Chaucer, and though Spenser fared better, even those
+who did know him did not at first consider him worthy
+of serious study.<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> Yet the Romantic rebels, by their
+attempts to imitate Spenser, and to reveal his poetic
+genius to a generation of unbelievers, did work of
+immediate and lasting value.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps too much to claim that some dim
+perception of the poetic value of old words contributed
+in any marked degree to this Spenserian revival
+in the eighteenth century. Yet it can hardly be
+doubted that Spenser’s language, imperfectly understood
+and at first considered “barbarous,” or
+“Gothic,” or at best merely “quaint,” came ultimately
+to be regarded as supplying something of that
+atmosphere of “old romance” which was beginning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span>
+to captivate the hearts and minds of men. This is
+not to say that there was any conscious or deliberate
+intention of freshening or revivifying poetic language
+by an infusion of old or “revived” words. But the
+Spenserian and similar imitations naturally involved
+the use of such words, and they thus made an important
+contribution to the Romantic movement on its
+purely formal side; they played their part in destroying
+the pseudo-classical heresy that the best, indeed
+the only, medium for poetic expression was the
+polished idiom of Pope and his school.</p>
+
+<p>The poets and critics of Western Europe, who, as
+we have seen, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth
+centuries had busied themselves with the question
+of refining and embellishing their mother tongue,
+had advocated among other means the revival of
+archaic and obsolete words. Spenser himself, we
+know, had definitely adopted this means in the
+“Shepherds Kalendar,” though the method of increasing
+his poetical vocabulary had not been approved
+by all of his contemporaries and successors. Milton,
+when forming the special poetical language he needed
+for his immense task, confined himself largely to
+“classical” coinages, and his archaisms, such as <i>swinkt</i>,
+<i>rathe</i>, <i>nathless</i>, <i>frore</i>, are comparatively few in number.<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p>
+
+<p>Dryden’s attitude towards old words was stated
+with his customary good sense, and though his
+modernization of Chaucer gave him endless opportunities
+of experimenting with them, he never abused
+the advantage, and indeed in all his work there is but
+little trace of the deliberate revival of obsolete or
+archaic words. In the “Fables” may be found a few
+words such as <i>sounded</i><a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> (swounded) which had been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>
+used by Malory and Spenser, <i>laund</i> for (lawn), <i>rushed</i>
+(cut-off), etc., and he has also Milton’s <i>rathe</i>. Dryden,
+however, is found using a large number of terms
+which were evidently obsolete in the literary language,
+but which, it may be supposed, still lingered in the
+spoken language, and especially in the provincial
+dialects. He is fond of the word <i>ken</i> (to know), and
+amongst other examples are <i>stead</i> (place), <i>to lease</i>
+(glean), <i>shent</i> (rebuked), <i>hattered</i> (worn out), <i>dorp</i> (a
+village), <i>buries</i> (burrows), etc. Dryden is also
+apparently responsible for the poetic use of the term
+“<i>doddered</i>,” a word of somewhat uncertain meaning,
+which, after his time and following his practice, came
+into common use as an epithet for old oaks, and,
+rarely, for other trees.<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p>
+
+<p>As might be expected, there are few traces of the
+use of obsolete or archaic words in the works of Pope.
+The “correct” style did not favour innovations in
+language, whether they consisted in the formation of
+new words or in the revival of old forms. Pope
+stated in a letter to Hughes, who edited Spenser’s
+works (1715), that “Spenser has been ever a favourite
+poet to me,”<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> but among the imitations “done by
+the Author in his Youth,” there is “The Alley,” a
+very coarse parody of Spenser, which does not point
+to any real appreciation or understanding on the part
+of Pope. In the first book of the “Dunciad” as we
+have seen, he indulged in a fling at the antiquaries,
+especially Hearne and those who took pleasure in our
+older literature, by means of a satiric stanza written
+in a pseudo-archaic language.<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> But his language
+is much freer than that of Dryden from archaisms or
+provincialisms. He has forms like <i>gotten</i>, <i>whelm</i> (overwhelm),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>
+<i>rampires</i> (ramparts), <i>swarths</i>, <i>catched</i> (caught),
+<i>thrice-ear’d</i> (ploughed), etc. Neither Dryden nor
+Pope, it may be said, would ever have dreamed of
+reviving an archaic word simply because it was an
+old word, and therefore to be regarded as “poetical.”
+To imagine this is to attribute to the seventeenth
+and early eighteenth centuries a state of feeling which
+is essentially modern, and which lends a glamour to
+old and almost forgotten words. Dryden would accept
+any word which he considered suitable for his purpose,
+but he always insisted that old words had to prove
+their utility, and that they had otherwise no claim
+to admission to the current vocabulary. Pope, however,
+we may suspect, would not admit any words
+not immediately intelligible to his readers, or requiring
+a footnote to explain them.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in the year 1715, there had appeared the
+first attempt to give a critical text of Spenser, when
+John Hughes published his edition of the poet’s works
+in six volumes, together with a biography, a glossary,
+and some critical remarks.<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> The obsolete terms which
+Hughes felt himself obliged to explain<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> include many,
+such as <i>aghast</i>, <i>baleful</i>, <i>behest</i>, <i>bootless</i>, <i>carol</i>, <i>craven</i>,
+<i>dreary</i>, <i>forlorn</i>, <i>foray</i>, <i>guerdon</i>, <i>plight</i>, <i>welkin</i>, <i>yore</i>,
+which are now for the most part familiar words,
+though forty years later Thomas Warton in his
+“Observations on The Faerie Queene” (1754) is found
+annotating many similar terms. The well-known
+“Muses’ Library,” published thirteen years previously,
+had described itself as “A General Collection
+of almost all the old and valuable poetry extant, now
+so industriously inquir’d after”; it begins with
+Langland and reflects the renewed interest that was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>
+arising in the older poets. But there is as yet little
+evidence of any general and genuine appreciation of
+either the spirit or the form of the best of the
+earlier English poetry. The Spenserian imitators
+undoubtedly felt that their diction must look so obsolete
+and archaic as to call for a glossary of explanation,
+and these glossaries were often more than necessary,
+not only to explain the genuine old words, but also
+because of the fact that in many cases the supposedly
+“Spenserian” terms were spurious coinages devoid
+of any real meaning at all.</p>
+
+<p>Before considering these Spenserian imitations it
+must not be forgotten that there were, prior to these
+attempts and alongside of them, kindred efforts to
+catch the manner and style of Chaucer. This practice
+received its first great impulse from Dryden’s famous
+essay in praise of Chaucer, and the various periodicals
+and miscellanies of the first half of the eighteenth
+century bear witness to the fact that many eminent
+poets, not to mention a crowd of poetasters, thought
+it their duty to publish a poetical tribute couched in
+the supposed language and manner of Chaucer.</p>
+
+<p>These attempts were nearly all avowedly humorous,<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a>
+and seemed based on a belief that the very language
+of Chaucer was in some respects suitable comic material
+for a would-be humorous writer. Such an attitude
+was obviously the outcome of a not unnatural ignorance
+of the historical development of the language.
+Chaucer’s language had long been regarded as almost
+a dead language, and this attitude had persisted even
+to the eighteenth century, so that it was felt that a
+mastery of the language of the “Canterbury Tales”
+required prolonged study. Even Thomas Warton,
+speaking of Chaucer, was of the opinion that “his
+uncouth and unfamiliar language disgusts and deters<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>
+many readers.”<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> Hence it is not surprising that there
+was a complete failure to catch, not only anything of
+the real spirit of Chaucer, but also anything that
+could be described as even a distant approach to his
+language. The imitators seemed to think that fourteenth
+century English could be imitated by the use
+of common words written in an uncommon way, or
+of strange terms with equally strange meanings. The
+result was an artificial language that could never have
+been spoken by anybody, often including words to
+which it is impossible to give any definite sense. It
+would seem that only two genuine Chaucerian terms
+had really been properly grasped, and this pair, ne
+and eke, is in consequence worked to death. Ignorance
+of the earlier language naturally led to spurious grammatical
+forms, of which the most favoured was a
+singular verb form ending in -<i>en</i>. Gay, for instance,
+has, in a poem of seventeen lines, such phrases as “It
+maken doleful song,” “There <i>spreaden</i> a rumour,”<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a>
+whilst Fenton writes,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">If in mine quest thou <i>falsen</i> me.<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The general style and manner of these imitations, with
+their “humorous” tinge, their halting verse, bad
+grammar, and impossible inflections are well illustrated
+in William Thompson’s “Garden Inscription—Written
+in Chaucer’s Bowre,” though more serious efforts were
+not any more successful.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Pope, strangely enough, called forth
+more than one attempt, among them being Thomas
+Warton’s imitation of the characterization of the birds<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
+from the “Parliament of Fowles.”<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> Better known at
+the time was the monody “Musæus,” written by
+William Mason, “To the memory of Mr. Pope.”
+Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton are represented as
+coming to mourn the inevitable loss of him who was
+about to die, and Mason endeavoured to reproduce
+their respective styles, “Tityrus” (Chaucer) holding
+forth in this strain:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mickle of wele betide thy houres last</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For mich gode wirke to me don and past.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For syn the days whereas my lyre ben strongen,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And deftly many a mery laie I songen,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Old Time which alle things don maliciously,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Gnawen with rusty tooth continually,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Grattrid my lines, that they all cancrid ben</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Till at the last thou smoothen hem hast again.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It is astonishing to think that this mechanical imitation,
+with its harsh and forced rhythm, and its almost
+doggerel language, was regarded at the time as a
+successful reproduction of Chaucer’s manner and
+style. But probably before 1775, when Tyrwhitt
+announced his rediscovery of the secret of Chaucer’s
+rhythm, few eighteenth century readers suspected its
+presence at all.</p>
+
+<p>But the Chaucerian imitations were merely a literary
+fashion predoomed to failure. It was not in any way
+the result of a genuine influence of the early English
+poetry on contemporary taste, and thus it was not
+even vitalized, as was the Spenserian revival, by a
+certain vague and undefined desire to catch something
+at least of the spirit of the “Faerie Queene.”
+The Spenserian imitations had a firmer foundation,
+and because the best of them did not confine their
+ambition altogether to the mechanical imitation of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>
+Spenser’s style in the narrower sense they achieved
+a greater measure of success.</p>
+
+<p>It is significant to note that among the first attempts
+at a Spenserian imitation was that made by one of the
+foremost of the Augustans. This was Matthew Prior,
+who in 1706 published his “Ode, Humbly Inscribed
+to the Queen on the Glorious success of Her Majesty’s
+Arms, Written in Imitation of Spenser’s Style.”<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a>
+We are surprised, however, to find when we have read
+his Preface, that Prior’s aim was in reality to write a
+poem on the model of Horace and of Spenser. The
+attitude in which he approached Spenser’s language is
+made quite clear by his explanation. He has “avoided
+such of his words as I found too obsolete. I have
+however retained some few of them to make the
+colouring look more like Spenser’s.” Follows then a
+list of such words, including “<i>behest</i>, command; <i>band</i>,
+army; <i>prowess</i>, strength; <i>I weet</i>, I know; <i>I ween</i>,
+I think; <i>whilom</i>, heretofore; and two or three more
+of that kind.” Though later in his Preface Prior
+speaks of the <i>curiosa felicitas</i> of Spenser’s diction, it
+is evident that there is little or no real understanding
+or appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>Now began a continuous series of Spenserian imitations,<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a>
+of which, with a few exceptions, the only
+distinguishing characteristic was a small vocabulary
+of obsolete words, upon which the poetasters could
+draw for the “local colour” considered necessary.
+In the majority of cases the result was a purely artificial
+language, probably picked haphazard from the
+“Faerie Queene,” and often used without any definite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span>
+idea of its meaning or appropriateness.<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> Fortunately,
+one or two real poets were attracted by the idea, and
+in due course produced their “imitations.”</p>
+
+<p>William Shenstone (1714-1763) is perhaps worthy
+of being ranked amongst these, in virtue at least of
+“The Schoolmistress,” which appeared in its final
+shape in 1742. Shenstone himself confesses that the
+poem was not at first intended to be a serious imitation,
+but his study of Spenser led him gradually to something
+like a real appreciation of the earlier poet.<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p>
+
+<p>“The Schoolmistress” draws upon the usual
+common stock of old words: <i>whilom</i>, <i>mickle</i>, <i>perdie</i>,
+<i>eke</i>, <i>thik</i>, etc., but often, as in the case of Spenser
+himself, the obsolete terms have a playful and
+humorous effect:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">For they in gaping wonderment abound</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Nor is there lacking a quaint, wistful tenderness, as
+in the description of the refractory schoolboy, who,
+after being flogged,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Behind some door, in melancholy thought,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff, pines,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ne for his fellows joyaunce careth aught,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But to the wind all merriment resigns.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Hence “The Schoolmistress” is no mere parody or
+imitation: there is a real and tender humanity in the
+description of the village school (adumbrating, it
+would seem, Goldsmith’s efforts with a similar theme),
+whilst the judicious use of Spenser’s stanza and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span>
+sprinkling of his old words help to invest the whole
+poem with an atmosphere of genuine and unaffected
+humour.</p>
+
+<p>The next Spenserian whose work merits attention
+is William Thompson, who, it would seem, had delved
+not a little into the Earlier English poetry, and who was
+one of the first to capture something of the real atmosphere
+of the “Faerie Queene.” His “Epithalamium”<a id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>
+and “The Nativity,”<a id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> which appeared in 1736, are
+certainly among the best of the imitations. It is
+important to note that, while there is a free use of
+supposedly archaic words, with the usual list of <i>certes</i>,
+<i>perdie</i>, <i>sikerly</i>, <i>hight</i>, as well as others less common,
+such as <i>belgards</i> (“beautiful looks”), <i>bonnibel</i> (“beautiful
+virgin”), there is no abuse of the practice. Not a
+little of the genuine spirit of Spenser’s poetry, with its
+love of nature and outdoor life, has been caught and
+rendered without any lavish recourse to an artificial
+and mechanical diction, as a stanza from “The
+Nativity,” despite its false rhymes, will perhaps show:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Eftsoons he spied a grove, the Season’s pride,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">All in the centre of a pleasant glade,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where Nature flourished like a virgin bride,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Mantled with green, with hyacinths inlaid,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And crystal-rills o’er beds of lilies stray’d:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The blue-ey’d violet and King-cup gay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And new blown roses, smiling sweetly red,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Out-glow’d the blushing infancy of Day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">While amorous west-winds kist their fragrant souls away.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>This cannot altogether be said of the “Hymn to
+May” published over twenty years later,<a id="FNanchor_141" href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> despite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>
+the fact that Thompson himself draws attention to
+the fact that he does not consider that a genuine
+Spenserian imitation may be produced by scattering
+a certain number of obsolete words through the poem.
+Nevertheless, we find that he has sprinkled his
+“Hymn” plentifully with “obsolete” terms, though
+they include a few, such as <i>purfled</i>, <i>dispredden</i>, <i>goodlihead</i>,
+that were not the common property of the
+poetasters. His explanations of the words so used
+show that not a few of them were used with little
+knowledge of their original meaning, as when he
+defines <i>glen</i><a id="FNanchor_142" href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> as “a country hamlet,” or explains
+<i>perdie</i> as “an old word for saying anything.” It is
+obvious also that many obsolete terms are often simply
+stuck in the lines when their more modern equivalents
+would have served equally well, as for instance,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Full suddenly the seeds of joy <i>recure</i> (“recover”),</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Myrtles to Venus <i>algates</i> sacred been.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">With these reservations the diction of Thompson’s
+poems is pure and unaffected, and the occasional
+happy use of archaism is well illustrated in more than
+one stanza of “The Nativity.”</p>
+
+<p>It is generally agreed that the best of all the
+Spenserian imitations is “The Castle of Indolence,”
+which James Thomson published two months before
+his death in 1748.<a id="FNanchor_143" href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> Yet even in this case there is
+evident a sort of quiet condescension, as if it were in
+Thompson’s mind that he was about to draw the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>
+attention of his eighteenth century audience to something
+quaint and old-fashioned, but which had yet
+a charm of its own. “The obsolete words,” he writes
+in his “advertisement” to the poem, “and a simplicity
+of diction in some of the lines, which borders
+on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation
+more perfect.” Hence he makes use of a number of
+words intended to give an archaic air to his poem,
+including the usual <i>certes</i>, <i>withouten</i>, <i>sheen</i>, <i>perdie,</i>
+<i>weet</i>, <i>pleasaunce</i>, <i>ycleped</i>, etc. To the first edition
+was appended a page of explanation of these and
+other “obsolete words used in this poem”: altogether
+between seventy and eighty such words are thus
+glossed, the large majority of which are familiar
+enough nowadays, either as part of the ordinary
+vocabulary, or as belonging especially to the diction
+of poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Though the archaisms are sometimes scattered in a
+haphazard manner, they are not used with such
+mechanical monotony as is obvious in the bulk of the
+Spenserian imitations. In both cantos there are
+long stretches without a single real or pseudo-archaism,
+and indeed, when Thomson is indulging in one of the
+moral or the didactic surveys characteristic of his
+age, as, for instance, when the bard, invoked by
+Sir Industry, breaks into a long tirade on the Supreme
+Perfection (Canto II, 47-61) his diction is the plain
+and unadorned idiom perfected by Pope.<a id="FNanchor_144" href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Yet
+Thompson occasionally yields to the fascination of
+the spurious form in <i>-en</i>,<a id="FNanchor_145" href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But these I <i>passen</i> by with nameless numbers moe</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto I., 56)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And taunts he <i>casten</i> forth most bitterly.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 78)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Sometimes it would seem that his archaisms owe their
+appearance to the necessities of rhyme, as in</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">So worked the wizard wintry storms to swell</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As heaven and earth they would together <i>mell</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 43)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The same to him glad summer, or the winter <i>breme</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 7)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There are lines too where we feel that the archaisms
+have been dragged in; for example,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">As <i>soot</i> this man could sing as morning lark</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 57)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">(though there is here perhaps the added charm of a
+Chaucerian reminiscence); or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent20"><i>replevy</i> cannot be</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From the strong, iron grasp of vengeful destiny.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 32)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But, on the whole, he has been successful in his efforts,
+half-hearted as they sometimes seem, to give an old-world
+atmosphere to his poem by a sprinkling of
+archaisms, and it is then that we feel in <i>The Castle of
+Indolence</i> something at least of the beauty and charm
+of “the poet’s poet,” as in the well-known stanza
+describing the valley of Idlesse with its</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent34">waters sheen</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That, as they bickered<a id="FNanchor_146" href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> through the sunny glade,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Though restless still, themselves a lulling murmur made.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 3)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span></p>
+
+<p>Though the Spenserian imitations continued beyond
+the year which saw the birth of Wordsworth,<a id="FNanchor_147" href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> it is
+not necessary to mention further examples, except
+perhaps that of William Mickle, who, in 1767, published
+“The Concubine,” a Spenserian imitation of two
+cantos, which afterwards appeared in a later edition
+(1777) under the title “Sir Martyn.” Like his predecessors,
+Mickle made free use of obsolete spellings
+and words, while he added the usual glossary, which
+is significant as showing at the end of the eighteenth
+century, about the time when Tyrwhitt was completing
+his edition of Chaucer, not only the artificial
+character of this “Spenserian diction,” but also the
+small acquaintance of the average man of letters with
+our earlier language.<a id="FNanchor_148" href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p>
+
+<p>It must not be assumed, of course, that all the
+“obsolete” words used by the imitators were taken
+directly from Spenser. Words like <i>nathless</i>, <i>rathe</i>,
+<i>hight</i>, <i>sicker</i>, <i>areeds</i>, <i>cleeped</i>, <i>hardiment</i>, <i>felly</i>, etc., had
+continued in fairly common use until the seventeenth
+century, though actually some of them were regarded
+even then as archaisms. Thus <i>cleoped</i>, though never
+really obsolete, is marked by Blount in 1656 as
+“Saxon”; <i>sicker</i>, extensively employed in Middle
+English, is rarely found used after 1500 except by
+Scotch writers, though it still remains current in
+northern dialects. On the other hand, not a few words
+were undoubtedly brought directly back into literature
+from the pages of Spenser, among them being <i>meed</i>,
+<i>sheen</i> (boasting an illustrious descent from <i>Beowulf</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>
+through Chaucer), <i>erst</i>, <i>elfin</i>, <i>paramour</i>. Others, like
+<i>scrannel</i>, and apparently also <i>ledded</i>, were made
+familiar by Milton’s use the former either being the
+poet’s own coinage or his borrowing from some dialect
+or other. On the other hand, very many of the
+“revived” words failed to take root at all, such as
+<i>faitours</i>, which Spenser himself had apparently revived,
+and also his coinage <i>singult</i>, though Scott is found
+using the latter form.</p>
+
+<p>As has been said, the crowd of poetasters who
+attempted to reproduce Spenser’s spirit and style
+thought to do so by merely mechanical imitation of
+what they regarded as his “quaint” or “ludicrous”
+diction. Between them and any possibility of grasping
+the perennial beauty and charm of the “poet’s poet”
+there was a great gulf fixed, whilst, altogether apart
+from this fatal limitation, then parodies were little
+likely to have even ephemeral success, for parody
+presupposes in its readers at least a little knowledge
+and appreciation of the thing parodied. But there
+were amongst the imitators one or two at least who,
+we may imagine, were able to find in the melody and
+romance of “The Faerie Queene” an avenue of
+escape from the prosaic pressure of their times. In
+the case of William Thompson, Shenstone, and the
+author of the “Castle of Indolence,” the influence of
+Spenser revealed itself as in integral and vital part of
+the Romantic reaction, for these, being real poets,
+had been able to recapture something at least of the
+colour, music, and fragrance of their original. And
+not only did these, helped by others whose names have
+all but been forgotten restore a noble stanza form to
+English verse. Even their mechanical imitation of
+Spenser’s language was not without its influence, for
+it cannot be doubted that these attempts to write in
+an archaic or pseudo-archaic style did not a little to free
+poetry from the shackles of a conventional language.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span></p>
+
+<p>This process was greatly helped by that other
+aspect of the eighteenth century revival of the past
+which was exemplified in the publication of numerous
+collections of old ballads and songs.<a id="FNanchor_149" href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> There is, of
+course, as Macaulay long ago noted, a series of conventional
+epithets that is one mark of the genuine
+ballad manner, but the true ballad language was not
+a lifeless stereotyped diction. It consisted of “plain
+English without any trimmings.” The ballads had
+certain popular mannerisms (<i>the good greenwood</i>, <i>the
+wan water</i>, etc.), but they were free from the conventional
+figures of speech, or such rhetorical artifices
+as personification and periphrasis.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it is not surprising that at first their fresh
+and spontaneous language was regarded, when contrasted
+with the artificial and refined diction of the
+time, as “barbarous” or “rude.” Thus Prior
+thought it necessary to paraphrase the old ballad of
+the “Nut Brown Maid” into his insipid “Henry and
+Emma” (1718), but a comparison of only a few lines
+of the original with the banality of the modernized
+version is sufficient testimony to the refreshing
+and vivifying influence of such collections as the
+“Reliques.”</p>
+
+<p>The tendency to present the old ballads in an
+eighteenth century dress had soon revealed itself;
+at least, the editors of the early collections often felt
+themselves obliged to apologize for the obsolete style
+of their material.<a id="FNanchor_150" href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> But in 1760 the first attempt
+at a critical text appeared when Edward Capell,
+the famous Shakespearian editor, published his
+“Prolusions”; or “Select Pieces of Antient Poetry—compil’d<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>
+with great Care from their several Originals,
+and offer’d to the Publick as specimens of the Integrity
+that should be found in the Editions of worthy
+Authors.” Capell’s care was almost entirely directed
+to ensuring textual accuracy, but the “Nut-Browne
+Maid,” the only ballad included, receives sympathetic
+mention in his brief <i>Preface</i>.<a id="FNanchor_151" href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p>
+
+<p>Five years later, the most famous of all the ballad
+collections appeared, Thomas Percy’s “Reliques of
+Ancient English Poetry” (1765). The nucleus of
+Percy’s collection was a certain manuscript in a
+handwriting of Charles I’s time, containing 191 songs
+and ballads, but he had also had access to various
+other manuscript collections, whilst he was quite
+ready to acknowledge that he had filled gaps in his
+originals with stanzas and, in some cases, with nearly
+entire poems of his own composition. Much censure
+has been heaped upon Percy for his apparent lax
+ideas on the functions of an editor, but in decking out
+his “parcel of old ballads” in the false and affected
+style of his age, he was only doing his best to meet
+the taste of his readers. He himself passes judgment
+on his own labours, when, alongside of the genuine
+old ballads, with their freshness and simplicity of
+diction, he places his own “pruned” or “refined”
+versions, or additions, garbed in a sham and sickly
+idiom.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until over a century later, when Percy’s
+folio manuscript was copied and printed,<a id="FNanchor_152" href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> that the
+extent of his additions, alterations, and omissions
+were fully realized, though at the same time it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span>
+admitted that the pruning and refining was not
+unskilfully done.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the influence of the “Reliques,” as
+a vital part of the Romantic revival, was considerable:<a id="FNanchor_153" href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a>
+it was as if a breath of “the wind on the heath” had
+swept across literature and its writers, bringing with
+it an invigorating fragrance and freshness, whilst, on
+the purely formal side, the genuine old ballads, which
+Percy had culled and printed untouched, no doubt
+played their part in directing the attention of Wordsworth
+to the whole question of the language of poetry.
+And when the great Romantic manifestoes on the
+subject of “the language of metrical composition”
+were at length launched, their author was not slow to
+bear witness to the revivifying influence of the old
+ballads on poetic form. “Our poetry,” he wrote,
+“has been absolutely redeemed by it. I do not
+think that there is an able writer in verse of the
+present day who would not be proud to acknowledge
+his obligations to the “Reliques.”<a id="FNanchor_154" href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p>
+
+<p>The year before the appearance of the “Reliques,”
+Thomas Chatterton had published his “Rowley
+Poems,” and this attempt of a poet of genius to pass
+off his poems as the work of a mediaeval English
+writer is another striking indication of the new
+Romantic spirit then asserting itself. As for the
+pseudo-archaic language in which Chatterton with
+great labour clothed his “revivals,” there is no need
+to say much. It was a thoroughly artificial language,
+compiled, as Skeat has shown, from various sources,
+such as John Kersey’s “Dictionarium Anglo-Brittanicum,”
+three editions of which had appeared before
+1721. In this work there are included a considerable
+number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>
+his contemporaries, marked “O,” and in some cases
+erroneously explained. This dictionary was the chief
+source of Chatterton’s vocabulary, many words of
+which the young poet took apparently without any
+definite idea of their meaning.<a id="FNanchor_155" href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></p>
+
+<p>Yet in the Rowley poems there are passages where
+the pseudo-archaic language is quite in keeping with
+the poet’s theme and treatment, whilst here and there
+we come across epithets and lines which, even in their
+strange dress, are of a wild and artless sweetness,
+such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where thou mayst here the sweete night-lark chant,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Or with some mocking brooklet sweetly glide,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the whole of the first stanza of the famous “An
+Excelente Balade of Charitie,” where the old words
+help to transport us at once into the fictitious world
+which Chatterton had made for himself. Perhaps,
+as has been suggested, the “Rowley dialect” was not,
+as we nowadays, with Skeat’s analysis in our minds,
+are a little too apt to believe, a deliberate attempt to
+deceive, but rather reflected an attempt to escape
+from the dead abstract diction of the period.<a id="FNanchor_156" href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p>
+
+<p>Apart from this special aspect of the Romantic
+revival marked by a tendency to look back lovingly
+to the earlier English poetry, there are few traces of
+the use of archaic and obsolete words, at least of such
+words used consciously, in eighteenth century poetry.
+The great poets of the century make little or no use
+of them. Collins has no examples, but Gray, who
+began by advocating the poet’s right to use obsolete<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>
+words, and later seemed to recant, now and then uses
+an old term, as when in his translation from Dante
+he writes:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The anguish that unuttered <i>nathless</i> wrings</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">My inmost heart.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Blake, however, it is interesting to note, often used
+archaic forms, or at least archaic spellings,<a id="FNanchor_157" href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> as <i>Tyger</i>,
+<i>antient</i> (“To the Muses”), “the <i>desart</i> wild” (“The
+Little Girl Lost”), as well as such lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In lucent words my darkling verses dight</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Imitation of Spenser”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">So I piped with merry <i>chear</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Introduction to “Songs of Innocence”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Perhaps by these means the poet wished to give a
+quaint or old-fashioned look to his verses, though it
+is to be remembered that most of them occur in the
+“Poetical Sketches,” which are avowedly Elizabethan.</p>
+
+<p>The use of archaic and obsolete words in the
+eighteenth century was then chiefly an outcome of
+that revival of the past which was one of the characteristics
+of the new Romantic movement, and which
+was later to find its culmination in the works of Scott.
+The old words used by the eighteenth century
+imitators of Spenser were not often used, we may
+imagine, because poets saw in them poetical beauty
+and value; most often they were the result of a desire
+to catch, as it were, something of the “local colour”
+of the “Faerie Queene,” just as modern writers nowadays,
+poets and novelists alike, often draw upon local
+dialects for new means of expression. The Spenserian
+imitations recovered not a few words, such as <i>meed</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span>
+<i>sheen</i>, <i>dight</i>, <i>glen</i>,<a id="FNanchor_158" href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> which have since been regarded as
+belonging especially to the diction of poetry, and
+when the Romantic revival had burst into life the
+impulse, which had thus been unconsciously given,
+was continued by some of its great leaders. Scott, as
+is well known, was an enthusiastic lover of our older
+literature, especially the ballads, from which he
+gleaned many words full of a beauty and charm
+which won for them immediate admission into the
+language of poetry; at the same time he was able to
+find many similar words in the local dialects of the
+lowlands and the border. Perhaps in this work he
+had been inspired by his famous countryman, Robert
+Burns, who by his genius had raised his native language,
+with its stores of old and vivid words and expressions,
+to classical rank.<a id="FNanchor_159" href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless it is undoubted that the main factor
+in the new Romantic attitude towards old words had
+been the eighteenth century imitations and collections
+of our older English literature. Coleridge, it is to be
+remembered, made free use of archaisms; in the
+“Ancient Mariner,” there are many obsolete forms:
+<i>loon</i>, <i>eftsoons</i>, <i>uprist</i>, <i>gramercy</i>, <i>gossameres</i>, <i>corse</i>, etc.,
+besides those which appeared in the first edition, and
+were altered or omitted when the poem reappeared in
+1800. Wordsworth, it is true, made no use of archaic
+diction, whether in the form of deliberate revivals, or
+by drafts on the dialects, which, following the great
+example of Burns, and in virtue of his own “theories,”
+he might have been expected to explore. Nevertheless
+the “theories” concerning poetical language
+which he propounded and maintained are not without<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span>
+their bearing on the present question. Reduced to
+their simplest terms, the manifestoes, while passing
+judgment on the conventional poetical diction, conceded
+to the poet the right of a style in keeping with his
+subject and inspiration, and Wordsworth’s successors
+for the most part, so far as style in the narrower sense
+of <i>vocabulary</i> is concerned, did not fail to reap the
+benefits of the emancipation won for them. And
+among the varied sources upon which they began to
+draw for fresh reserves of diction were the abundant
+stores of old words, full of colour and energy, to be
+gleaned from the pages of their great predecessors.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br />
+<span class="smaller">COMPOUND EPITHETS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>It is proposed in this chapter to examine in some
+detail the use of compound epithets in the poetry
+of the eighteenth century. For this purpose the
+following grammatical scheme of classification has
+been adopted from various sources:<a id="FNanchor_160" href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> <i>First Type</i>,
+noun <i>plus</i> noun; <i>Second Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> adjective;
+<i>Third Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> present participle; <i>Fourth
+Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> past participle; <i>Fifth Type</i>, adjective,
+or adjective used adverbially, <i>plus</i> another part of
+speech, usually a participle; <i>Sixth Type</i>, true adverb
+<i>plus</i> a participle; <i>Seventh Type</i>, adjective <i>plus</i> noun
+plus -<i>ed</i>. Of these types it will be evident in many
+cases that the first (noun <i>plus</i> noun) and the sixth
+(true adverb <i>plus</i> participle) are not compounds at all,
+for the hyphen could often be removed without any
+change or loss of meaning. Occasionally the compounds
+will be regarded from the point of view of the
+logical relation between the two elements, when a
+formal classification may usually be made as follows:
+(<i>a</i>) <i>Attributive</i>, as in “anger-glow”; (<i>b</i>) <i>Objective</i>, as
+in “anger-kindling”; (<i>c</i>) <i>Instrumental</i>, as in “anger-boiling.”
+This scheme of classification permits of an
+examination of the compounds from the formal point<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span>
+of view, whilst at the same time it does not preclude
+an estimate of the æsthetic value of the new words
+thus added to the language of poetry.<a id="FNanchor_161" href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p>
+
+<p>It may be said, to begin with, that the formation
+and use of compound epithets has always been one
+of the distinguishing marks of the special language
+of poetry in English, as distinct from that of prose.
+The very ease with which they can be formed out of
+the almost inexhaustible resources of the English
+vocabulary has been a constant source of temptation
+to poets with new things to say, or new impressions
+to describe. Moreover, the partial disappearance of
+inflections in modern English has permitted of a
+vagueness in the formation of compound words,
+which in itself is of value to the word-maker. Though,
+of course, it is possible in most cases accurately to
+analyse the logical relation between the elements of a
+compound, yet it sometimes happens, especially with
+the compound epithets of poetry, that this cannot
+be done with certainty, because the new formation
+may have been the result of a hasty but happy inspiration,
+with no regard to the regular rules of composition.<a id="FNanchor_162" href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a>
+Hence, from one point of view, the free formation of
+compounds is a legitimate device allowed to the
+poets, of which the more severe atmosphere of prose is
+expected to take less advantage; from another point
+of view, the greater prevalence of the compound in
+poetry may not be unconnected with the rhythm of
+verse. Viewed in this light, the use of compound<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span>
+epithets in our poetry at any period may well have
+been conditioned, in part at least, by the metrical
+form in which that poetry received expression; and
+thus in the poetry of the eighteenth century it connects
+itself in some degree—first, with the supremacy of
+the heroic couplet, and later with the blank
+verse that proved to be the chief rival of the
+decasyllabic.</p>
+
+<p>The freedom of construction which facilitates the
+formation of compounds had already in the earliest
+English period contributed to that special poetic
+diction which is a distinguishing mark of Anglo-Saxon
+verse, as indeed of all the old Germanic poetry;
+of the large number of words not used in Anglo-Saxon
+prose, very many are synonymous compounds
+meaning the same thing.<a id="FNanchor_163" href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> During the Middle English
+period, and especially before the triumph of the East
+Midland dialect definitely prepared the way for
+Modern English, it would seem that the language lost
+much of its old power of forming compounds, one
+explanation being that the large number of French
+words, which then came into the language, drove out
+many of the Old English compounds, whilst at the
+same time these in-comers, so easily acquired, tended
+to discourage the formation of new compounds.<a id="FNanchor_164" href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a>
+It was not until the great outburst of literary activity
+in the second half of the sixteenth century that a
+fresh impetus was given to the formation of compound
+nouns and epithets. The large number of classical
+translations especially exercised an important influence
+in this respect: each new translation had its quota
+of fresh compounds, but Chapman’s “Homer” may<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span>
+be mentioned as especially noteworthy.<a id="FNanchor_165" href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> At the same
+time the plastic state of Elizabethan English led to
+the making of expressive new compounds of native
+growth, and from this period date some of the happiest
+compound epithets to be found in the language.<a id="FNanchor_166" href="#Footnote_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a>
+From the Elizabethans this gift of forming imaginative
+compounds was inherited, with even greater felicity
+by Milton, many of whose epithets, especially those
+of Type VII such as “<i>grey-hooded even</i>,” “<i>coral-paven
+floor</i>,” “<i>flowery-kirtled</i> Naiades” reveal him
+as a consummate master of word-craft.</p>
+
+<p>With Dryden begins the period with which we are
+especially concerned, for it is generally agreed that
+from nearly every point of view the advent of what is
+called eighteenth century literature dates from the
+Restoration. During the forty years dominated by
+Dryden in practically every department of literature,
+the changes in the language, both of prose and poetry,
+which had been slowly evolving themselves, became
+apparent, and, as the sequel will show, this new ideal
+of style, with its passion for “correctness,” and its
+impatience of innovation, was not one likely to
+encourage or inspire the formation of expressive
+compounds; the happy audacities of the Elizabethans,
+of whose tribe it is customary to seal Milton, are no
+longer possible.</p>
+
+<p>The compounds in the poems of Dryden show this;
+of his examples of Type I—the substantive compounds—the
+majority are merely the juxtaposition
+of two appositional nouns, as <i>brother-angels</i> (“Killigrew,”
+4); or, more rarely, where the first element
+has a descriptive or adjectival force, as <i>traitor-friend</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span>
+(“Palamon,” II, 568). Not much more imaginative
+power is reflected in Dryden’s compound epithets;
+his instances of Types III and IV include “<i>cloud-dispelling</i>
+winds” (“Ovid,” Met. I, 356), “<i>sun-begotten</i>
+tribe” (<i>ibid.</i>, III, 462), with more original
+examples like “<i>sleep-procuring</i> wand.” Next comes
+a large number of instances of Types V and VI:
+“<i>thick-spread</i> forest” (“Palamon,” II, 123), “<i>hoarse-resounding</i>
+shore” (“Iliad” I, 54), as well as many
+compounded with <i>long</i>-, <i>well</i>-, <i>high</i>-, etc. Most of
+these examples of Types V and VI are scarcely compounds
+at all, for after such elements as “long,”
+“well,” “much,” the hyphen could in most cases
+be omitted without any loss of power. Of Dryden’s
+compound epithets it may be said in general that they
+reflect admirably his poetic theory and practice;
+they are never the product of a “fine frenzy.” At the
+same time not a few of them seem to have something
+of that genius for satirical expression with which he
+was amply endowed. Compounds like <i>court-informer</i>
+(“Absalom,” 719), “the rebels’ <i>pension-purse</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>,
+Pt. II, 321),</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Og, from a <i>treason-tavern</i> rolling home</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 480)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">play their part in the delivery of those “smacks in
+the face” of which Professor Saintsbury speaks
+in his discussion of Dryden’s satiric manipulation of
+the heroic couplet.<a id="FNanchor_167" href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the verse of Pope, compound formations are to be
+found in large numbers. This may partly be attributed,
+no doubt, to the amount of translation included
+in it, but even in his original poetry there are many
+more instances than in the work of his great predecessor.
+When engaged on his translation of Homer<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>
+the prevalence of compounds naturally attracted his
+attention, and he refers to the matter more than once
+in his Preface.<a id="FNanchor_168" href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> As might be expected from the
+apostle of “correctness,” he lays down cautious and
+conservative “rules” of procedure. Such should be
+retained “as slide easily of themselves into an English
+compound, without violence to the ear, or to the
+received rules of composition, as well as those which
+have received the sanction from the authority of our
+best poets, and are become familiar through their
+use of them.”<a id="FNanchor_169" href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p>
+
+<p>An examination of Pope’s compounds in the light
+of “the received rules of composition,” shows his
+examples to be of the usual types. Of noun <i>plus</i>
+noun combinations he has such forms as “<i>monarch-savage</i>,”
+(“Odyss.” IV), whilst he is credited with
+the first use of “the <i>fury-passions</i>” (Epistle III).
+More originality and imagination is reflected in his
+compound epithets; of those formed from a noun
+and a present participle, with the first element usually
+in an objective relation to the second, his instances
+include “<i>love-darting</i>-eyes” (“Unfortunate Lady”),
+as well as others found before his time, like the
+Elizabethan “<i>heart-piercing</i> anguish” (<i>ibid.</i>, XII)
+and “<i>laughter-loving</i> dame” (<i>ibid.</i>, III). He has
+large numbers of compounded nouns and past-participles,
+many of which—“<i>moss-grown</i> domes”
+(“Eloisa”), “<i>cloud-topped</i> hills” (“Essay on Man,”
+I, 100), “<i>Sea-girt</i> isles” (“Iliad,” III)—were common
+in the seventeenth century, as well as “borrowed”
+examples, such as “<i>home-felt</i> joys” (Epistle II) or
+“<i>air-bred</i> people” (“Odyss.,” LX, 330), presumably
+from Milton and Drayton respectively. But he has
+a few original formations of this type, such as “<i>heaven-directed</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>
+spire” (Epistle III), “<i>osier-fringed</i> bank,”
+(“Odyss.,” XIII), the latter perhaps a reminiscence of
+Sabrina’s song in “Comus,” as well as happier combinations,
+of which the best examples are “<i>love-born</i>
+confidence” (“Odyss.,” X) and “<i>love-dittied</i> airs”
+(“Odyss.,” II).</p>
+
+<p>Pope, however, makes his largest use of that type
+of compound which can be formed with the greatest
+freedom—an adjective, or an adjective used adverbially,
+joined to a present or past participle. He
+has dozens of examples with the adverbial <i>long</i>,
+<i>wide</i>, <i>far</i>, <i>loud</i>, <i>deep</i>, <i>high</i>, etc., as the first element,
+most of the examples occurring in the Homer translations,
+and being attempts to reproduce the Greek
+compounds.<a id="FNanchor_170" href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> Other instances have a higher æsthetic
+value: “<i>fresh-blooming</i> hope” (“Eloisa”), “<i>silver-quivering</i>
+rills” (Epistle IV), “<i>soft-trickling</i> waters”
+“Iliad,” IX), “sweet airs <i>soft-circling</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>, XVII),
+etc. Of the formations beginning with a true adverb,
+the most numerous are the quasi-compounds beginning
+with “<i>ever</i>”—“<i>ever-during</i> nights,” “<i>ever-fragrant</i>
+bowers” (“Odyss.,” XII), etc.; or “<i>well</i>”—“<i>well-sung</i>
+woes” (“Eloisa”) or “<i>yet</i>”—“<i>yet-untasted</i>
+food” (“Iliad,” XV), etc. These instances do not
+reveal any great originality, for the very ease with
+which they can be formed naturally discounts largely
+their poetic value. Occasionally, however, Pope has
+been more successful; perhaps his best examples
+of this type are “<i>inly-pining</i> hate” (“Odyss.,” VI—where
+the condensation involved in the epithet does
+at least convey some impression of power—and “the
+<i>softly-stealing</i> space of time,” (“Odyss.,” XV), where
+the compound almost produces a happy effect of
+personification.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span></p>
+
+<p>Of the irregular type of compound, already mentioned
+in connexion with Dryden, Pope has a few
+instances—“<i>white-robed</i> innocence” (“Eloisa”), etc.
+But perhaps Pope’s happiest effort in this respect is
+to be seen in that quatrain from the fourth book of
+the “Dunciad,” containing three instances of compound
+epithets, which help to remind us that at times
+he had at his command a diction of higher suggestive
+and evocative power than the plain idiom of his
+satiric and didactic verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">To isles of fragrance, <i>lily-silver’d</i> vales</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Diffusing languor in the panting gales;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To lands of singing or of dancing slaves</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Love-whisp’ring</i> woods and <i>lute-resounding</i> waves.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of the poets contemporary with Pope only brief
+mention need be made from our present point of view.
+The poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea contain
+few instances and those of the ordinary type, a remark
+which is equally applicable to the poems of Parnell
+and John Phillips. John Gay (1685-1732), however,
+though he has many formations found in previous
+writers, has also some apparently original compound
+epithets which have a certain charm: “<i>health-breathing</i>
+breezes” (“A Devonshire Hill,” 10), “<i>dew-besprinkled</i>
+lawn” (“Fables,” 50), and “the lark
+<i>high-poised</i> in the air” (“Sweet William’s Farewell,”
+13). More noteworthy is John Dyer; “Grongar
+Hill” has no very striking examples, but his blank
+verse poems have one or two not devoid of imaginative
+value: “<i>soft-whispering</i> waters” (“Ruins of Rome”)
+and “<i>plaintive-echoing</i> ruins” (<i>ibid.</i>); he has been
+able to dispense with the “classical” descriptive
+terms for hills and mountains (“shaggy,” “horrid,”
+“terrible,” etc.), and his new epithets reflect something
+at least of that changing attitude towards
+natural scenery, of which he was a foremost pioneer:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span>
+“<i>slow-climbing</i> wilds” (“Fleece,” I), “<i>cloud-dividing</i>
+hill” (<i>ibid.</i>), and his irregular “<i>snow-nodding</i> crags”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, IV).</p>
+
+<p>Neglecting for the moment the more famous of the
+blank verse poems, we may notice Robert Blair’s
+“Grave” (published 1743), with a few examples,
+which mainly allow him to indulge in “classical”
+periphrases, such as the “<i>sight-invigorating</i> tube” for
+“a telescope.” David Mallet, who imitated his
+greater countryman James Thomson, has one or
+two noteworthy instances: “pines <i>high-plumed</i>”
+(“Amyntor,” II), “<i>sweetly-pensive</i> silence” (“Fragment”),
+“spring’s <i>flower-embroidered</i> mantle” (“Excursion,”
+I)—suggested, no doubt, by Milton’s “violet-embroidered”—“the
+morn <i>sun-tinctured</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>),
+compound epithets which betray the influence of the
+“Seasons.” Of the other minor blank verse poems
+their only aspect noteworthy from our present point
+of view is their comparative freedom from compounds
+of any description. John Armstrong’s “Art of
+Preserving Health” (1744) has only a few commonplace
+examples, and the same may be said of the
+earlier “The Chase” (1735) by William Somerville,
+though he finds a new epithet in his expression “the
+strand <i>sea-lav’d</i>” (Bk. III, 431). James Grainger’s
+“The Sugar Cane” (1764) shows a similar poverty,
+but the “<i>green-stol’d</i> Naiad, of the tinkling rill”
+(Canto I), “<i>soft-stealing</i> dews” (Canto III), “<i>wild-careering</i>
+clouds” (Canto II), and “<i>cane-crowned</i>
+vale” (Canto IV) are not without merit. These
+blank verse poems, avowedly modelled on Milton,
+might have been expected to attempt the “grandeur”
+of their original by high-sounding compounds; but
+it was rather by means of latinized words and constructions
+that the Miltonic imitators sought to
+emulate the grand style; and moreover, as Coleridge
+pointed out, Milton’s great epics are almost free from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>
+compound epithets, it being in the early poems that
+“a superfluity” is to be found.<a id="FNanchor_171" href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p>
+
+<p>Before turning to the more famous blank verse
+poems of the first half of the eighteenth century it
+will be convenient at this point to notice one or two
+poets whose work represents, on its formal side at
+least, a continuation or development of the school
+of Pope. The first of these is Richard Savage, whose
+only poem of any real merit, “The Wanderer” (apart
+perhaps from “The Bastard”), appeared in 1729.
+He has only one or two new compounds of noun and
+part-participle, such as “the robe <i>snow-wrought</i>”
+(“The Wanderer,” I, 55), his favourite combination
+being that of an adjective or adverb with a participle,
+where, amidst numerous examples of obvious formations,
+he occasionally strikes out something new:
+“eyes <i>dim-gleaming</i>” (Canto I), “<i>soft-creeping</i>
+murmurs” (Canto V), etc. Of his other types the
+only other noteworthy compound is the “past-participle”
+epithet in his phrase “the <i>amber-hued</i>
+cascade” (Canto III), though a refreshing simplicity
+of expression is found in such lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The bull-finch whistles soft his <i>flute-like</i> note.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The poetical work of Dr. Johnson contains scarcely
+any instances of compounds, and none either newly
+invented or applied. “London” and “The Vanity
+of Human Wishes” have each not more than two or
+three instances, and even the four poems, in which he
+successively treats of the seasons, are almost destitute
+of compound epithets, “<i>snow-topped</i> cot” (“Winter”)
+being almost the only example.</p>
+
+<p>There are many more instances of compound formations
+in the works of Oliver Goldsmith, most of which,
+like “<i>nut-brown</i> draughts” (“Deserted Village,” II),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span>
+“<i>sea-borne</i> gales” (“Traveller,” 121), “<i>grass-grown</i>
+footway” (“Deserted Village,” 127), had either been
+long in the language, or had been used by earlier
+eighteenth century poets. There are, however, instances
+which testify to a desire to add to the descriptive
+power of the vocabulary; in “The Traveller”
+we find mention of “the <i>hollow-sounding</i> bittern”
+(l. 44), “the <i>rocky-crested</i> summits” (l. 85), “the
+<i>yellow-blossomed</i> vale” (l. 293), and the “<i>willow-tufted</i>
+bank” (l. 294). For the rest, Goldsmith’s
+original compounds are, like so many of this type,
+mere efforts at verbal condensation, as “<i>shelter-seeking</i>
+peasant” (“Traveller,” 162), “<i>joy-pronouncing</i> eye”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 10), etc.</p>
+
+<p>Of the more famous blank verse poems of the
+eighteenth century the first and most important was
+“The Seasons” of James Thomson, which appeared
+in their original form between 1726 and 1730. The
+originality of style, for which Johnson praised him,<a id="FNanchor_172" href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a>
+is perhaps to be seen especially in his use of compound
+formations; probably no other poet has ever used
+them so freely.</p>
+
+<p>As a general rule, Thomson’s compounds fall into
+the well-defined groups already mentioned. He has
+a number of noun <i>plus</i> noun formations (Type I),
+where the first element has usually a purely adjectival
+value; “<i>patriot-council</i>” (“Autumn,” 98), “<i>harvest-treasures</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 1217), as well as a few which allow
+him to indulge in grandiose periphrasis, as in the
+“<i>monarch-swain</i>” (“Summer,” 495) for a shepherd
+with his “<i>sceptre-crook</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>, 497). These are all
+commonplace formations, but much more originality
+is found in his compound epithets. He frequently
+uses the noun <i>plus</i> present participle combinations
+(Type III), “<i>secret-winding</i>, <i>flower-enwoven</i> bowers”
+(“Spring,” 1058) or “<i>forest-rustling</i> mountains”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>
+(“Winter,” 151), etc. Moreover, the majority of
+his compounds are original, though now and then he
+has taken a “classical” compound and given it a
+somewhat curious application, as in “<i>cloud-compelling</i>
+cliffs” (“Autumn,” 801). A few of this class are
+difficult to justify logically, striking examples being
+“<i>world-rejoicing</i> state” (“Summer,” 116) for “the
+state of one in whom the world rejoices,” and “<i>life-sufficing</i>
+trees” (<i>ibid.</i>, 836) for “trees that give sustenance.”</p>
+
+<p>Thomson has also numerous instances of the juxtaposition
+of nouns and past-participles (Type IV):
+“<i>love-enlivened</i> cheeks” (“Spring,” 1080), “<i>leaf-strewn</i>
+walks” (“Autumn,” 955), “<i>frost-concocted</i>
+glebe” (“Winter,” 706); others of this type
+are somewhat obscure in meaning, as “<i>mind-illumined</i>
+face” (“Spring,” 1042), and especially
+“<i>art imagination-flushed</i>” (“Autumn,” 140), where
+economy of expression is perhaps carried to its very
+limit.</p>
+
+<p>Thomson’s favourite method of forming compounds
+however is that of Type V, each book of “The Seasons”
+containing large numbers, the first element (<i>full</i>,
+<i>prone</i>, <i>quick</i>, etc.) often repeated with a variant second
+element. Sometimes constant repetition in this way
+produces the impression of a tiresome mannerism.
+Thus “many” joined to present and past-participles
+is used irregularly with quasi-adverbial force,
+apparently meaning “in many ways,” “many times,”
+or even “much,” as “<i>many-twinkling</i> leaves”
+(“Spring,” 158), “<i>many-bleating</i> flock” (<i>ibid.</i>, 835),
+etc. In the same way the word “mazy” seems to
+have had a fascination for Thomson. Thus he has
+“the <i>mazy-running</i> soul of melody” (“Spring,” 577),
+“the <i>mazy-running</i> brook” (“Summer,” 373), “and
+<i>mazy-running</i> clefts” (“Autumn,” 816), etc. Not
+all of this type, however, are mere mechanical formations;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>
+some have real poetic value and bear witness
+to Thomson’s undoubted gift for achieving happy
+expressive effects. Thus the “<i>close-embowering</i> wood”
+(“Autumn,” 208), “the lonesome muse <i>low-whispering</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 955), “the <i>deep-tangled</i> copse” (“Spring,”
+594), “the <i>hollow-whispering</i> breeze” (<i>ibid.</i>, 919),
+“the <i>grey-grown</i> oaks” (“Summer,” 225), “<i>flowery-tempting</i>
+paths” (“Spring,” 1109), “the morn <i>faint-gleaming</i>”
+(“Summer,” 48), “<i>dark-embowered</i> firs”
+(“Winter,” 813), “the winds <i>hollow-blustering</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 988), “the <i>mossy-tinctured</i> streams” (“Spring,”
+380), as well as such passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">the long-forgotten strain</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">At first <i>faint-warbled</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 585)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ships <i>dim-discovered</i> dropping from the clouds.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 946)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Thomson’s compound epithets with a true adverb
+as the first element (Sixth Type), such as “<i>north-inflated</i>
+tempest” (“Autumn,” 892), are not particularly
+striking, and some of them are awkward and result
+in giving a harsh effect to the verse, as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">goodness and wit</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In <i>seldom-meeting</i> harmony combined.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 25-6)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Finally, in “The Seasons” there are to be found
+many examples of the type of compound epithet,
+already referred to, modelled on the form of a past-participle;
+here Thomson has achieved some of his
+happiest expressions, charged with real suggestive
+power.<a id="FNanchor_173" href="#Footnote_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> Among his instances are such little “word-pictures”
+as “<i>rocky-channelled</i> maze” (“Spring,”
+401), “the <i>light-footed</i> dews” (“Summer,” 123);<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>
+“the <i>keen-aired</i> mountain” (“Autumn,” 434) “the
+<i>dusky-mantled</i> lawn” (<i>ibid.</i>, 1088), “the <i>dewy-skirted</i>
+clouds” (<i>ibid.</i>, 961) Even when he borrows a
+felicitous epithet he is able to apply it without loss of
+power, as when he gives a new setting to Milton’s
+“meek-eyed” applied to “Peace” as an epithet for the
+quiet in-coming of the dawn; the “<i>meek-eyed</i> Morn”
+(“Summer,” 47).</p>
+
+<p>Thomson makes good and abundant use of compound
+epithets, and in this respect, as in others he was
+undoubtedly a bold pioneer. His language itself,
+from our present point of view, apart from the thought
+and outlook on external nature it reflects, entitles
+him to that honourable position as a forerunner in
+the Romantic reaction with which he is usually
+credited. He was not content to accept the stereotyped
+diction of his day, and asserted the right of the
+poet to make a vocabulary for himself. There is thus
+justice in the plea that it is Thomson, rather than
+Gray, whom Wordsworth should have marked down
+for widening the breach between the language of
+poetry and that of prose.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the prevalence of the compound epithets
+in “The Seasons” is due, to some extent at least,
+to the requirement of his blank verse line; they helped
+him, so to speak, to secure the maximum of effect with
+the minimum of word-power; and at times we can
+almost see him trying to give to his unrhymed decasyllabics
+something of the conciseness and polish to
+which Pope’s couplet had accustomed his generation.
+But they owe their appearance, of course, to other
+causes than the mere mechanism of verse. Thompson’s
+fondness for “swelling sound and phrase” has
+often been touched upon, and this predilection
+finds full scope in the compound epithets; they
+play their part in giving colour and atmosphere
+to “The Seasons,” and they announce unmistakably<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>
+that the old dead, descriptive diction is
+doomed.</p>
+
+<p>Of the blank verse poems of the period only “The
+Seasons” has any real claim to be regarded as announcing
+the Romantic revolt that was soon to declare
+itself unmistakably. But three years after the
+appearance of Thomson’s final revision of his poem
+the first odes of William Collins were published, at
+the same time as those of Joseph Warton, whilst the
+work of Thomas Gray had already begun.</p>
+
+<p>There are some two score of compound formations
+in the poems of Collins, but many of these—as “<i>love-darting</i>”
+(“Poetic Character,” 8), “<i>soul-subduing</i>”
+(“Liberty,” 92)—date from the seventeenth century.
+One felicitous compound Collins has borrowed from
+James Thomson, but in doing so he has invested it
+with a new and beautiful suggestiveness. Thomson
+had written of</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ships <i>dim-discovered</i> dropping from the clouds.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 946)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The compound is taken by Collins and given a new
+beauty in his description of the landscape as the
+evening shadows gently settle upon it:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hamlets brown and <i>dim-discovered</i> spires</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Evening,” 37)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where the poetic and pictorial force of the epithet is
+perhaps at its maximum.<a id="FNanchor_174" href="#Footnote_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p>
+
+<p>Collins, however, has not contented himself with
+compounds already in the language; he has formed
+himself, apparently, almost half of the examples to
+be found in his poems. His instances of Types I,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span>
+as of Types V and VI, are commonplace, and he
+has but few examples of Type II, the most noteworthy
+being “<i>scene-full</i> world” (“Manners,” 78), where the
+epithet, irregularly formed, seems to have the meaning
+of “abounding in scenery.” Most of his instances of
+Type III are either to be found in previous writers,
+or are obvious formations like “<i>war-denouncing</i>
+trumpets” (“Passions,” 43).</p>
+
+<p>Much more originality is evident in his examples
+of Type IV, which is apparently a favourite method
+with him. He has “<i>moss-crowned</i> fountain”
+(“Oriental Ecl.,” II, 24), “<i>sky-worn</i> robes” (“Pity,”
+II), “<i>sedge-crowned</i> sisters” (“Ode on Thomson,”
+30), “<i>elf-shot</i> arrows” (“Popular Superstitions,”
+27), etc. Some instances here are, strictly speaking,
+irregular formations, for the participles, as in “<i>sphere-descended</i>,”
+are from intransitive verbs; in other
+instances the logical relation must be expressed by a
+preposition such, as “<i>with</i>” in “<i>moss-crowned</i>,”
+“<i>sedge-crowned</i>”; or “<i>by</i>” in “<i>fancy-blest</i>,” “<i>elf-shot</i>”;
+or “<i>in</i>” in “<i>sphere-found</i>,” “<i>sky-worn</i>.”
+He has some half-dozen examples of Type VII, three
+at least of which—“<i>gay-motleyed</i> pinks” (“Oriental
+Eclogues,” III, 17), “<i>chaste-eyed</i> Queen” (“Passions,”
+75), and “<i>fiery-tressed</i> Dane” (“Liberty,” 97)—are
+apparently his own coinage, whilst others, such as
+“<i>rosy-lipp’d</i> health” (“Evening,” 50) and “<i>young-eyed</i>
+wit,” have been happily used in the service of
+the personifications that play so great a part in his
+Odes.</p>
+
+<p>There is some evidence that the use of compounds
+by certain writers was already being noticed in the
+eighteenth century as something of an innovation
+in poetical language. Thus Goldsmith, it would seem,
+was under the impression that their increasing employment,
+even by Gray, was connected in some way
+with the revived study of the older poets, especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span>
+Spenser.<a id="FNanchor_175" href="#Footnote_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> This supposition is unfounded. Gray, it is
+true, uses a large number of compounds, found in
+previous writers, but it is chiefly from Milton—e.g.
+“<i>solemn-breathing</i> airs” (“Progress of Poesy,” 14;
+cp. “Comus,” 555), “rosy-bosomed hours” (“Spring,”
+I), or from Pope—e.g. “<i>cloud-topped</i> head” (“Bard,”
+34) that he borrows. Moreover, he has many compounds
+which presumably he made for himself. Of
+Type I he has such instances as “the <i>seraph-wings</i>
+of Ecstasy” (“Progress,” 96), “the <i>sapphire-blaze</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 99), etc.; he has one original example of
+Type II in his “<i>silver-bright</i> Cynthia” (“Music,” 32),
+and two of Type III, when he speaks of the valley of
+Thames as a “<i>silver-winding</i> way” (“Eton Ode,”
+10), and he finds a new epithet for the dawn in his
+beautiful phrase “the <i>incense-breathing</i> Morn” (Elegy
+XVII). Of Type IV, he has some half-dozen examples,
+only two of which, however, owe their first appearance
+to him—the irregularly formed “<i>feather-cinctured</i>
+chiefs” (“Progress,” 62) and “the <i>dew-bespangled</i>
+wing” (“Vicissitude,” 2). The largest number of
+Gray’s compound epithets belong to Type V, where
+an adjective is used adverbially with a participle:
+“<i>rosy-crowned</i> loves” (“Progress,” 28) and “<i>deep-toned</i>
+shell” (“Music,” 23). One of Gray’s examples
+of this class of compound, evidently formed on a
+model furnished by Thomson, came in for a good deal
+of censure. He speaks of “<i>many-twinkling</i> feet”
+(“Progress,” 35), and the compound, which indeed is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>
+somewhat difficult to defend, aroused disapproval in
+certain quarters. Lyttleton was one of the first to
+object to its use, and he communicated his disapproval
+to Walpole, who, however, at once took sides
+for the defence. “In answer to your objection,” he
+wrote,<a id="FNanchor_176" href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> “I will quote authority to which you will
+yield. As Greek as the expression is, it struck Mrs.
+Garrick; and she says that Mr. Gray is the only poet
+who ever understood dancing.” Later, the objection
+was revived in a general form by Dr. Johnson. “Gray,”
+he says,<a id="FNanchor_177" href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> “is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded.
+‘Many-twinkling’ was formerly censured as not
+analogical: we may say ‘<i>many-spotted</i>’ but scarcely
+‘<i>many</i>-spotting.’” The incident is not without its
+significance; from the strictly grammatical point of
+view the epithet is altogether irregular, unless the first
+element is admitted to be an adverb meaning “very
+much” or “many times.” But Gray’s fastidiousness
+of expression is a commonplace of criticism, and
+we may be sure that even when he uses compounds of
+this kind he has not forgotten his own clearly expressed
+views on the language fit and proper for poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson also objected to another device by which
+Gray had sought to enrich the vocabulary of poetry,
+as reflected in his use of the “participal” epithet in
+-<i>ed</i>.<a id="FNanchor_178" href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> If this device for forming new epithets cannot
+be grammatically justified, the practice of the best
+English poets at least has always been against
+Johnson’s dictum, and, as we have seen, it has been
+a prolific source of original and valuable compound
+epithets. Of this type Gray has some six or seven
+examples, the majority of which, however, had long
+been in the language, though in the new epithet of
+“the <i>ivy-mantled</i> tower” (Elegy IX) we may perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span>
+see an indication of the increasing Romantic sensibility
+towards old ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Though not admitted to the same high rank of
+poets as Collins and Gray, two of their contemporaries,
+the brothers Warton, are at least of as great importance
+in the history of the Romantic revival.<a id="FNanchor_179" href="#Footnote_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> From our
+present point of view it is not too fanciful to see a
+reflection of this fact in the compound epithets freely
+used by both of the Wartons. Thomas Warton is
+especially noteworthy; probably no other eighteenth
+century poet, with the exception of James Thomson,
+has so many instances of new compound formations,
+and these are all the more striking in that few of
+them are of the mechanical type, readily formed by
+means of a commonplace adjective or adverb.
+Instances of compound substantives (Type I) are
+almost entirely lacking, and the same may be said of
+the noun <i>plus</i> adjective epithets (Type II). There
+are, however, a few examples of Type III (noun
+<i>plus</i> present participle), some of which, as “<i>beauty-blooming</i>
+isle” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “<i>twilight-loving</i>
+bat” (<i>ibid.</i>), and “the woodbines <i>elm-encircling</i>
+spray” (“On a New Plantation”), no
+doubt owe something to the influence of Thomson.
+Instances of Type IV are plentiful, and here again
+there is a welcome freshness in Warton’s epithets:
+“Fancy’s <i>fairy-circled</i> shrine” (“Monody Written
+near Stratford-on-Avon”), “morning’s <i>twilight-tinctured</i>
+beam” (“The Hamlet”), “<i>daisy-dappled</i> dale”
+(“Sonnet on Bathing”). One instance of this class
+of compound epithet, “the <i>furze-clad</i> dale,” is certainly
+significant as indicative of the changes that were going
+on from the “classical” to the Romantic outlook
+towards natural scenery.<a id="FNanchor_180" href="#Footnote_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span></p>
+
+<p>Of the other class of compound epithets, Warton
+has only a few instances, but his odes gave plenty of
+scope for the use of the “participial epithet” (Type
+VII), and he has formed them freely: “Pale
+Cynthia’s <i>silver-axled</i> car” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”),
+“the <i>coral-cinctured</i> stole” (“Complaint of
+Cherwell”), “Sport, the <i>yellow-tressed</i> boy” (<i>ibid.</i>).
+No doubt many of Thomas Warton’s compound
+formations were the result of a conscious effort to find
+“high-sounding” terms, and they have sometimes
+an air of being merely rhetorical, as in such instances
+as “<i>beauty-blooming</i>,” “<i>gladsome-glistering</i> green,”
+“<i>azure-arched</i>,” “<i>twilight-tinctured</i>,” “<i>coral-cinctured</i>,”
+“<i>cliff-encircled</i>,” “<i>daisy-dappled</i>,” where alliterative
+effects have obviously been sought. Yet he deserves
+great credit for his attempts to find new words at a
+time when the stock epithets and phrases were still
+the common treasury of the majority of his contemporaries.</p>
+
+<p>His brother, Joseph Warton, is less of a pioneer,
+but there is evident in his work also an effort to
+search out new epithets. His compounds include
+(Type II) “<i>marble-mimic</i> gods” (“The Enthusiast”);
+(Type III) “<i>courage-breathing</i> songs” (“Verses,
+1750”), with many instances of Type IV, some
+commonplace, as “<i>merchant-crowded</i> towns” (“Ode
+to Health”), others more original, as “mirth and
+youth nodding <i>lily-crowned</i> heads” (“Ode to Fancy”),
+joy, “the <i>rose-crowned, ever-smiling</i> boy” (“Ode
+Against Despair”), “the <i>beech-embowered</i> cottage”
+(“On The Spring”). Moreover, there are a number in
+“The Enthusiast,” which reflect a genuine love of
+Nature (“<i>thousand-coloured</i> tulips,” “<i>pine-topp’d</i>
+precipice”) and a keen observation of its sights and
+sounds.</p>
+
+<p>It is not forcing the evidence of language too much
+to say that a similar increasing interest in external<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span>
+nature finds expression in some of the compound
+epithets to be found in much of the minor poetry of
+the period. Thus Moses Mendez (<i>d.</i> 1758)<a id="FNanchor_181" href="#Footnote_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> has in
+his poem on the various seasons (1751) such conventional
+epithets as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">On every hill the <i>purple-blushing</i> vine,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">but others testify to first hand observation as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>pool-sprung</i> gnat on sounding wings doth pass.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Richard Jago (1715-1781)<a id="FNanchor_182" href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a>, in his “Edgehill” (1767),
+has such instances as “the <i>woodland-shade</i>,” “the
+<i>wave-worn</i> face,” and “the tillag’d plain <i>wide-waving</i>.”
+The Rev. R. Potter,<a id="FNanchor_183" href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> who imitated Spenser in his
+“Farewell Hymn to the Country” (1749), has happy
+examples like “<i>mavis-haunted</i> grove” and “this
+<i>flowre-perfumed</i> aire.” In William Whitehead’s
+poems<a id="FNanchor_184" href="#Footnote_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> there are numerous formations like “<i>cloud-enveloped</i>
+towers” (“A Hymn”) and “<i>rock-invested</i>
+shades” (“Elegy,” IV). A few new descriptive terms
+appear in the work of John Langhorne (1735-1779),<a id="FNanchor_185" href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a>
+“<i>flower-feeding</i> rills” (“Visions of Fancy,” I), “<i>long-winding</i>
+vales” (“Genius and Valour”), etc. Michael
+Bruce (1746-1767) in his “Lochleven”<a id="FNanchor_186" href="#Footnote_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> has, e.g.,
+“<i>cowslip-covered</i> banks,” and fresh observation of
+bird life is seen in such phrases as “<i>wild-shrieking</i>
+gull” and “<i>slow-wing’d</i> crane.” James Graeme
+(1749-1772)<a id="FNanchor_187" href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> has at least one new and happy compound
+in his line</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>blue-gray</i> mist that hovers o’er the hill.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Elegy written in Spring”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">John Scott (1730-1783)<a id="FNanchor_188" href="#Footnote_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> makes more use of compound
+formations than most of his minor contemporaries.
+He has many instances of Type IV (noun <i>plus</i> participle),
+including “<i>rivulet-water’d</i> glade” (Eclogue I),
+“<i>corn-clad</i> plain,” “<i>elder-shaded</i> cot” (“Amwell”).
+His few instances of Type VI (e.g. “<i>wildly-warbled</i>
+strain,” (“Ode” IV)), and of Type VII (e.g. “<i>trefoil-purpled</i>
+field” (“Elegy,” III)); “<i>may-flower’d</i>
+hedges” (“Elegy,” IV); and “<i>golden-clouded</i> sky,”
+(“Ode,” II), are also worthy of notice.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile another aspect of the rising Romantic
+movement was revealing itself in the work of Chatterton.
+With the “antiquarianism” of the Rowley poems
+we are not here concerned, but the language of both
+the “original” work and of the “discovered” poems
+contains plenty of material relevant to our special
+topic. Chatterton, indeed, seems to have had a
+predilection for compound formations, though he has
+but few instances of compound substantives (e.g.
+“<i>coppice-valley</i>” (“Elegy”), and instances of Type II
+(noun <i>plus</i> adjective) are also rare. The other types
+of epithets are, however, well represented: “<i>echo-giving</i>
+bells” (“To Miss Hoyland”), “<i>rapture-speaking</i>
+lyre” (“Song”), etc. (Type III), though
+it is perhaps in Type IV that Chatterton’s word-forming
+power is best shown: “<i>flower-bespangled</i>
+hills” (“Complaint”), “<i>rose-hedged</i> vale” (“Elegy
+at Stanton-Drew”), etc., where the first compound
+epithet is a new and suggestive descriptive term. His
+examples of Type V are also worth noting: “<i>verdant-vested</i>
+trees” (“Elegy,” V), “<i>red-blushing</i> blossom”
+“Song”), whilst one of the best of them is to be found
+in those lines, amongst the most beautiful written by
+Chatterton, which reflect something of the new charm
+that men were beginning to find in old historic churches
+and buildings:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">To view the cross-aisles and the arches fair</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Through the half-hidden <i>silver-twinkling</i> glare</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of yon bright moon in foggy mantle dress’d.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Parliament of Sprites,” Canto XXI)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The remaining examples of Chatterton’s compound
+formations do not call for much attention, though
+“<i>gently-plaintive</i> rill” (“Elegy on Phillips”) and
+“<i>loudly-dinning</i> stream” (“Ælla,” 84) are new and
+fresh. Chatterton has much of the conventional
+poetical language and devices of his time throughout
+his work, and his compound epithets do not in the mass
+vary much from contemporary usage in this respect.
+But some of them at least are significant of the position
+which he occupies in the history of the Romantic
+revival.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest figure in this revival, as it appears to
+us now, was William Blake, but from our present
+point of view he is almost negligible. It may safely
+be said that few poets of such high rank have made
+less use of compound formations: in his entire
+poetical work scarcely half a dozen instances are to
+be found. Yet the majority of these, such as “<i>angel-guarded
+bed</i>” (“A Dream,” 2), “<i>mind-forg’d</i>
+manacles” (“London,” 8), “Winter’s <i>deep-founded</i>
+habitation” (“Winter,” 3), “<i>softly-breathing</i> song”
+(“Song,” 2: “Poetical Sketches”) are a sufficiently
+striking tribute to his ability to form expressive
+compounds had he felt the need. But in the beautiful
+purity and simplicity of his diction, for which he has
+in our own time at least received adequate praise,
+there was no place for long compound formations,
+which, moreover, are more valuable and more appropriate
+for descriptive poetry, and likely to mar the
+pure singing note of the lyric.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to find a similar paucity of compound
+formations in the poems of George Crabbe, the whole
+number being well represented by such examples as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>
+“<i>dew-press’d</i> vale” (“Epistle to a Friend,” 48),
+“<i>violet-wing’d</i> Zephyrs” (“The Candidate,” 268),
+and “<i>wind-perfuming</i> flowers” (“The Choice”).
+No doubt the narrative character of much of Crabbe’s
+verse is the explanation of this comparative lack of
+compounds, but the descriptions of wild nature that
+form the background for many of “The Tales” might
+have been expected to result in new descriptive terms.</p>
+
+<p>Two lesser poets of the time are more noteworthy
+as regards our especial topic. William Mickle (1735-1788),
+in his “Almada Hill” (1781) and his “May
+Day,” as well as in his shorter poems, has new epithets
+for hills and heights, as in such phrases as “<i>thyme-clad</i>
+mountains” and “<i>fir-crown’d</i> hill” (“Sorcerers,”
+4). His Spenserian imitation “Syr Martyn,” contains
+a few happy epithets:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">How bright emerging o’er yon <i>broom-clad</i> height</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The silver empress of the night appears</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 31)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and “<i>daisie-whitened</i> plain,” “<i>crystal-streamed</i> Esk”
+are among his new formations in “Eskdale Braes.”</p>
+
+<p>James Beattie has a large number of compounds
+in his poems, and though many of these are mechanical
+formations, he has a few new “nature” epithets
+which are real additions to the vocabulary of poetical
+description, as “<i>sky-mixed</i> mountain” (“Ode to
+Peace,” 38), the lake “<i>dim-gleaming</i>” (“Minstrel,”
+176), “the <i>wide-weltering</i> waves” (<i>ibid.</i>, 481), the
+wave “<i>loose-glimmering</i>” (“Judgment of Paris,”
+458). He has also a few instances of Type VII
+chiefly utilized, as often with compounds of this type,
+as personifying epithets: “the frolic moments <i>purple</i>-pinioned”
+(“Judgment of Paris,” 465) and “<i>loose-robed</i>
+Quiet” (“Triumph of Melancholy,” 64).</p>
+
+<p>The “Pleasures of Memory” (1792) by Samuel<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>
+Rogers has one or two compound formations: “<i>moonlight-chequered</i>
+shade” (Part II). Hope’s “<i>summer-visions</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>) and “the <i>fairy-haunts</i> of long-lost
+hours” (<i>ibid.)</i>, have a trace at least of that suggestive
+power with which Keats and Shelley were soon to
+endow their epithets. Brief reference only need be
+made to the works of Erasmus Darwin, which have
+already been mentioned as the great example of
+eighteenth century stock diction used to the utmost
+possible extent. He has plenty of instances of compound
+epithets of every type, but his favourite formation
+appears to be that of a noun <i>plus</i> part-participle,
+as “<i>sun-illumined</i> fane” (“Botanic Garden,” I, 157),
+“<i>wave-worn</i> channels” (<i>ibid.</i>, I, 362), and as seen in
+such lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her <i>shell-wrack</i> gardens and her <i>sea-fan</i> bowers.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Economy of Vegetation,” VI, 82)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Many of Darwin’s compounds have a certain charm
+of their own; in the mass they contribute towards
+that dazzling splendour with which eighteenth century
+diction here blazed out before it finally disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Cowper, like Blake and Crabbe, is not especially
+distinguished for his compound epithets. Though
+he has a large number of such formations, very few
+of them are either new or striking, a remark which
+applies equally to his original work and his translations.
+Many instances of all the types are to be found in the
+“Homer,” but scarcely one that calls for special
+mention, though here and there we come across good
+epithets well applied: “accents <i>ardour-winged</i>” (IV,
+239) or “<i>silver-eddied</i> Peneus” (II, 294).</p>
+
+<p>Before attempting to sum up the use of compound
+epithets in eighteenth century poetry, brief reference
+may be made to their use in the early work of the two
+poets who announced the definite advent of the new
+age. Wordsworth in his early poems has many<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>
+instance of compound words, most of which are either
+his own formations, or are rare before his time. The
+original and final drafts both of the “Evening Walk”
+and the “Descriptive Sketches” show some divergence
+in this respect, compounds found in the 1793
+version being omitted later, whilst on the other new
+formations appear in the revised poems. Besides
+imitative instances such as “<i>cloud-piercing</i> pine trees”
+(D.S., 63), there are more original and beautiful
+compounds, such as the “<i>Lip-dewing</i> song and the
+<i>ringlet-tossing</i> dance” (<i>ibid.</i>, 132), which does not
+appear until the final draft.</p>
+
+<p>Examples of Type IV are “<i>holly-sprinkled</i> steeps”
+(E.W., 10), “The sylvan cabin’s <i>lute-enlivened</i> gloom”
+(D.S., 134, final); and of Types V and VI, “<i>green-tinged</i>
+margin” (D.S., 122), “<i>clear-blue</i> sky” (D.S.,
+113), “<i>dim-lit</i> Alps” (D.S., 1793 only, 217), and
+“the <i>low-warbled</i> breath of twilight lute” (D.S., 1793,
+749). Wordsworth’s early poems, it has been noted,
+are almost an epitome of the various eighteenth century
+devices for producing what was thought to be a distinctively
+poetical style,<a id="FNanchor_189" href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> but he soon shakes off this
+bondage, and “Guilt and Sorrow,” perhaps the first
+poem in which his simplicity and directness of expression
+are fully revealed, is practically without instances
+of compound epithets.</p>
+
+<p>The critics, it would appear, had already marked
+down as a fault a “profusion of new coined double
+epithets”<a id="FNanchor_190" href="#Footnote_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> in a “small volume of juvenile poems”
+published by Coleridge in 1794. In replying to, or rather
+commenting on, the charge, Coleridge makes an
+interesting digression on the use of such formations,
+defending them on “the authority of Milton and
+Shakespeare,” and suggesting that compound epithets
+should only be admitted if they are already “denizens”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span>
+of the language, or if the new formation is a genuine
+compound, and not merely two words made one by
+virtue of the hyphen. “A Language,” he adds, “which
+like the English is almost without cases, is indeed in
+its very genius unfitted for compounds. If a writer,
+every time a compounded word suggests itself to him,
+would seek for some other mode of expressing the
+same sense, the chances are always greatly in favour
+of his finding a better word.” Though there is a
+good deal of sound sense in these remarks, we have
+only to recall the wealth of beautiful compound
+epithets with which Keats, to take only one example,
+was soon to enrich the language, to realize that
+English poetry would be very much the poorer if the
+rule Coleridge lays down had been strictly observed.
+It would perhaps be truer to say that the imaginative
+quality of the compound epithets coined by a poet
+is a good test of his advance in power of expression.<a id="FNanchor_191" href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p>
+
+<p>As regards his own practice, Coleridge goes on to
+say<a id="FNanchor_192" href="#Footnote_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> that he “pruned the double epithets with no
+sparing hand”; but the pruning was not very severe,
+judging from a comparison of the two volumes. Yet
+these early poems are not without examples of good
+compound epithets: “<i>zephyr-haunted</i> brink,” (“Lines
+to a Beautiful Spring”), “<i>distant-tinkling</i> stream”
+(“Song of the Pixies,” 16), “<i>sunny-tinctured</i> hue”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 43), “<i>passion-warbled</i> strain,” (“To the Rev.
+W. J. H.”), etc.</p>
+
+<p>When we review the use of compound epithets in
+the poetry of the eighteenth century we are bound to
+admit that in this, as in other aspects of the “purely
+poetical,” the eighteenth century stands apart from
+other periods in our literary history. Most readers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span>
+could probably at will call to their mind half a dozen
+compound epithets of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan
+period, of Milton, or of more modern writers, such
+as Keats, that are, as it were, little poems in themselves,
+Shakespeare’s “<i>young-eyed cherubim</i>,” or
+Milton’s “<i>grey-hooded even</i>,” or Keats’s “<i>soft-conched
+shell</i>.” It is safe to say that few eighteenth century
+words or phrases of this nature have captured the
+imagination to a similar degree; Collins’s “<i>dim-discovered
+spires</i>” is perhaps the only instance that
+comes readily to the mind.</p>
+
+<p>There are, of course, as our study has shown, plenty
+of instances of good compound epithets, but in the
+typical eighteenth century poetry these are rarely
+the product of a genuine creative force that endows
+the phrase with imaginative life. Even the great
+forerunners of the Romantic revolt are not especially
+remarkable in this respect; one of the greatest of
+them, William Blake, gave scarcely a single new
+compound epithet to the language, and whilst this
+fact, of course, cannot be brought as a reproach
+against him, yet it is, in some respects at least, significant
+of the poetical atmosphere into which he was
+born. It has often been remarked that when Latin
+influence was in the ascendant the formation of new
+and striking compound epithets has been very rare in
+English poetry, whilst it has been always stimulated,
+as we know from the concrete examples of Chapman
+and Keats, by the influence of a revived
+Hellenism.</p>
+
+<p>Another fact is worthy of attention. Many of the
+most beautiful compound epithets in the English
+language are nature phrases descriptive of outdoor
+sights and sounds. The arrested development, or
+the atrophy of the sense of the beauty of the external
+world, which is a characteristic of the neo-classical
+school, was an unconscious but effective bar to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span>
+formation of new words and phrases descriptive of
+outdoor life. The neo-classical poet, with his eye fixed
+on the town and on life as lived there, felt no necessity
+for adding to the descriptive resources of his vocabulary,
+especially when there was to his hand a whole <i>gradus</i>
+of accepted and consecrated words and phrases. It
+is in the apostles of “the return to Nature” that we
+find, however inadequately, to begin with, a new
+diction that came into being because these poets had
+recovered the use of their eyes and could sense the
+beauty of the world around them.</p>
+
+<p>And this fact leads to a further consideration of
+the use of compound epithets from the formal viewpoint
+of their technical value. It has already been
+suggested that their use may not be unconnected with
+the mechanism of verse, and the æsthetic poverty of
+eighteenth century poetry in this respect may therefore
+be not unjustly regarded as an outcome of the two
+great prevailing vehicles of expression. In the first
+place, there was the heroic couplet as brought to
+perfection by Pope. “The uniformity and maximum
+swiftness that marked his manipulation of the stopped
+couplet was achieved,” says Saintsbury, “not only
+by means of a large proportion of monosyllabic final
+words, but also by an evident avoidance of long and
+heavy vocables in the interior of the lines themselves.”<a id="FNanchor_193" href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a>
+Moreover, perhaps the commonest device to secure
+the uniform smoothness of the line was that use of
+the “<i>gradus</i> epithet” which has earlier been treated;
+these epithets were for the most part stock descriptive
+adjectives—<i>verdant</i>, <i>purling</i>, <i>fleecy</i>, <i>painted</i>, and the
+like—which were generally regarded by the versifiers
+as the only attendant diction of the couplet. If we
+compare a typical Pope verse such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Let <i>vernal</i> airs through trembling osiers play</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">with the line already quoted,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love-whisp’ring woods and lute-resounding waves</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">we may perhaps see that the free use of compound
+epithets was not compatible with the mechanism of
+the couplet as illustrated in the greater part of Pope’s
+practice; they would tend to weaken the balanced
+antithesis, and thus spoil the swing of the line.</p>
+
+<p>The most formidable rival of the heroic couplet
+in the eighteenth century was blank verse, the
+advent of which marked the beginning of the Romantic
+reaction in form. Here Thomson may be regarded
+as the chief representative, and it is significant that
+the large number of compound epithets in his work
+are terms of natural description, which, in addition
+to their being a reflex of the revived attitude to
+natural scenery, were probably more or less consciously
+used to compensate readers for the absence of “the
+rhyme-stroke and flash” they were accustomed to
+look for in the contemporary couplet. “He utilizes
+periodically,” to quote Saintsbury again,<a id="FNanchor_194" href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> “the
+exacter nature-painting, which in general poetic
+history is his glory, by putting the distinctive words
+for colour and shape in notable places of the verse,
+so as to give it character and quality.” These “distinctive
+words for colour and shape” were, with
+Thomson, for the most part, compound epithets;
+almost by the time of “Yardley Oak,” and certainly
+by the time of “Tintern Abbey,” blank verse had
+been fully restored to its kingdom, and no longer
+needed such aid.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br />
+<span class="smaller">PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Preface of 1798, when Wordsworth formulated
+his theories with regard to poetical language,
+the first “mechanical device of style” against
+which he directed his preliminary attack was the use
+of “personifications of abstract ideas.”<a id="FNanchor_195" href="#Footnote_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> Such personifications,
+he urged, do not make any natural or
+regular part of “the very language of men,” and as
+he wished “to keep the reader in the company of
+flesh and blood,” he had endeavoured “utterly to
+reject them.” He was ready to admit that they were
+occasionally “prompted by passion,” but his predecessors
+had come to regard them as a sort of family
+language, upon which they had every right to draw.
+In short, in Wordsworth’s opinion, abstractions and
+personifications had become a conventional method
+of ornamenting verse, akin to the “vicious diction,”
+from the tyranny of which he wished to emancipate
+poetry. The specific point on which he thus challenged
+the practice of his predecessors could hardly
+be gainsaid, for he had indicted a literary device, or
+artifice, which was not only worked to death by the
+mere poetasters of the period, but which disfigures
+not a little the work of even the great poets of the
+century.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span></p>
+
+<p>The literary use of abstraction and personification
+was not, it is needless to say, the invention of the
+eighteenth century. It is as old as literature itself,
+which has always reflected a tendency to interpret or
+explain natural phenomena or man’s relations with
+the invisible powers that direct or influence human
+conduct, by means of allegory, English poetry in the
+Middle Ages, especially that of Chaucer, Langland, and
+their immediate successors, fitly illustrates the great
+world of abstraction which had slowly come into being,
+a world peopled by personified states or qualities—the
+Seven Deadly Sins, the Virtues, Love, etc.—typifying
+or symbolizing the forces which help man, or
+beset and ensnare him as he makes his pilgrim’s
+progress through this world.</p>
+
+<p>Already the original motive power of allegory was
+considerably diminished, even if it had not altogether
+disappeared, and, by the time of the “Faerie Queene,”
+the literary form which it had moulded for itself had
+become merely imitative and conventional, so that
+even the music and melody of Spenser’s verse could
+not altogether vitalize the shadowy abstractions of his
+didactic allegory. With “Paradise Lost” we come to
+the last great work in which personified abstractions
+reflect to any real extent the original allegorical
+motive in which they had their origin. Milton
+achieves his supreme effects in personification in that
+his figures are merely suggestive, strongly imagined
+impressions rather than clean-cut figures. For nothing
+can be more dangerous, from the poetic point of
+view, than the precise figures which attempt to
+depict every possible point of similarity between
+the abstract notion and the material representation
+imagined.<a id="FNanchor_196" href="#Footnote_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes considered that the mania for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span>
+abstraction was due largely to the influence of the two
+poets who are claimed, or regarded, as the founders or
+leaders of the new classical school—Dryden and Pope.
+As a matter of fact, neither makes any great use of
+personification. Dryden has a few abstractions in
+his original works, such as,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife and Pride</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Envy did but look on</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“First Epistle”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">but his examples are mainly to be found in his
+modernizations or translations, where of necessity
+he takes them from his originals.<a id="FNanchor_197" href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p>
+
+<p>Pope makes a greater use of the figure, but even
+here there is no excess. There is not a single personification
+in the four pastorals of “The Seasons,” a
+subject peculiarly adapted to such treatment. In
+“Eloisa to Abelard” there are two instances where
+some attempt at characterization is made.<a id="FNanchor_198" href="#Footnote_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> More
+instances, though none very striking, are to be found
+in “Windsor Forest,” but the poem ends with a massed
+group, forming a veritable catalogue of the personified
+vices which had done so much service in poetry since
+the days of the Seven Deadly Sins.</p>
+
+<p>In other poems Pope uses the device for humorous
+or satiric effect, as in the “Pain,” “Megrim,” and
+“Ill nature like an ancient maid” (l. 24) of “The Rape
+of the Lock;” or the “Science,” “Will,” “Logic,”
+etc., of “The Dunciad,” where all are invested with
+capital letters, but with little attempt to work up a
+definite picture, except, as was perhaps to be expected,
+in the case of “Dullness,” which is provided with a
+bodyguard (Bk. I, 45-52).</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span></p>
+
+<p>Though, as we have already said, there is no great
+use of such figures in the works of Pope, they are
+present in such numbers in his satiric and didactic
+works as to indicate one great reason for their prevalence
+in his contemporaries and successors. After
+the Restoration, when English literature entered on a
+new era, the changed and changing conditions of
+English life and thought soon impressed themselves
+on poetry. The keynote to the understanding of
+much that is characteristic of this new “classical”
+literature has been well summed up in the formula
+that “the saving process of human thought was
+forced for generations to beggar the sense of beauty.”<a id="FNanchor_199" href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a>
+The result was an invasion of poetry by ideas, arguments,
+and abstractions which were regarded both as
+expressing admirably the new spirit of rationalism, as
+well as constituting in themselves dignified subjects
+and ornaments of poetry.</p>
+
+<p>This is well illustrated in the case of several of
+Pope’s contemporaries. In the works of Thomas
+Parnell (1679-1718) abstractions of the conventional
+type are plentiful, usually accompanied by a qualifying
+epithet: “Fortune fair-array’d” (“An Imitation”),
+“Impetuous Discord,” “Blind Mischief,” (“On Queen
+Anne’s Peace”), “the soft Pathetic” (“On the
+Different Styles of Poetry”). These are only a few
+of the examples of the types favoured by Parnell,
+where only here and there are human traits added by
+means of qualifying epithets or phrases. In one or
+two instances, however, there are more detailed
+personifications. Thus, in the “Epistle to Dr. Swift,”
+which abounds in shadowy abstractions, Eloquence is
+fully described for us:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Upon her cheek sits Beauty ever young</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The soul of music warbles on her tongue.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span></p>
+
+<p>Moreover, already in Parnell it is evident that
+the influence of Milton is responsible for some of
+his personifications. In the same poem we get the
+invocation:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come! country Goddess come, nor thou suffice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But bring thy mountain-sister Exercise,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">figures which derive obviously from “L’Allegro.”</p>
+
+<p>In the case of Richard Savage (1696-1743) there is
+still greater freedom in the use of personified abstractions,
+which, as here the creative instinct is everywhere
+subjected to the didactic purpose, become very
+wearisome. The “Wanderer” contains long catalogues
+of them, in some instances pursued for over
+fifty lines.<a id="FNanchor_200" href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p>
+
+<p>The device continued to be very popular throughout
+the eighteenth century, especially by those who
+continue or represent the “Ethical” school of Pope.
+First amongst these may be mentioned Edward Young
+(1681-1765), whose “Night Thoughts” was first
+published between 1742-1744. Young, like his contemporaries,
+has recourse to personifications, both for
+didactic purposes and apparently to add dignity to
+his style. It is probable, too, that in this respect he
+owes something to “Paradise Lost”; from Milton no
+doubt he borrowed his figure of Death, which, though
+poetically not very impressive, seems to have captured
+the imagination of Blake and other artists who
+have tried to depict it. The figure is at first only
+casually referred to in the Fourth Book (l. 96), where
+there is a brief and commonplace reference to “Death,
+that mighty hunter”; but it is not until the fifth book
+that the figure is developed. Yet, though the characterization
+is carried to great length, there is no very
+striking personification: we are given, instead, a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span>
+long-drawn-out series of abstractions, with an attempt
+now and then to portray a definite human figure.
+Thus</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Like princes unconfessed in foreign courts</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who travel under cover, Death assumes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The name and look of life, and dwells among us.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">And then the poet describes Death as being present
+always and everywhere, and especially</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Gaily carousing, to his gay compeers</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Inly he laughs to see them laugh at him</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As absent far.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But Young has not, like Milton, been able to conjure
+up a definite and convincing vision, and thus he never
+achieves anything approaching the overwhelming
+effect produced by the phantom of Death in “Paradise
+Lost,” called before us in a single verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">So spake the grisly Terror.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(P.L., II. 704)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>For the rest, Young’s personifications, considering
+the nature of his subject, are fewer than might be
+expected. Where they occur they often seem to owe
+their presence to a desire to vary the monotony of his
+moral reflections; as a result we get a number of
+abstractions, which may be called personifications
+only because they are sometimes accompanied by
+human attributes.</p>
+
+<p>Young has also certain other evocations which can
+scarcely be called abstractions, but which are really
+indistinct, shadowy beings, like the figures of a dream,
+as when he describes the phantom of the past:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The spirit walks of every day deceased</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(ll. 180-181)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the grief of the poet as he ever meets the shades of
+joys gone for ever:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent18">The ghosts</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of my departed joys: a numerous train.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Here the poet has come near to achieving that effect
+which in the hands of the greatest poets justifies the
+use of personification as a poetic figure. The more
+delicate process just illustrated is distinct both from
+the lifeless abstraction and the detailed personification,
+for in these cases there is a tinge of personal emotion
+which invests these shadowy figures with something
+of a true lyrical effect.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency, illustrated in the “Night Thoughts,”
+to make a purely didactic use of personification and
+abstraction is found to a much greater extent in
+Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination,” first
+published in 1744, to be considerably enlarged in 1767.
+The nature of Akenside’s subject freely admitted of
+the use of these devices, and he has not been slow to
+avail himself of them.</p>
+
+<p>Large portions of the “Pleasures of the Imagination”
+resolve themselves into one long procession of abstract
+figures. Very often Akenside contents himself with
+the usual type of abstraction, accompanied by a conventional
+epithet: “Wisdom’s form celestial” (I, 69),
+“sullen Pomp” (III, 216), etc., though sometimes by
+means of human attributes or characteristics we are
+given partial personifications such as:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Power’s purple robes nor Pleasure’s flowery lap.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(l. 216)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">And occasionally there are traces of a little more
+imagination:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">thy lonely whispering voice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O faithful Nature!<a id="FNanchor_201" href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span></p>
+
+<p>But on the whole it is clear that with Akenside
+abstraction and personification are used simply and
+solely for moral and didactic purposes, and not because
+of any perception of their potential artistic value.
+Incidentally, an interesting side-light on this point is
+revealed by one of the changes introduced by the poet
+into his revision of his chief work. In the original
+edition of 1740 there is an invocation to Harmony
+(Bk. I, ll. 20 foll.), with her companion,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her sister Liberty will not be far.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Before the publication of the revised edition, Akenside,
+who at one time had espoused the cause of liberty with
+such ardour as to lead to his being suspected of republicanism,
+received a Court appointment. In the
+revised edition the concluding lines of the invocation
+became</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent16">for with thee comes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The guide, the guardian of their majestic rites</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Wise Order and where Order deigns to come</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her sister Liberty will not be far.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(138 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The same lavish use of abstractions is seen, not
+only in the philosophic poetry proper, but also in
+other works, which might perhaps have been expected
+to escape the contagion. Charles Churchill (1731-1764),
+if we set aside Johnson and Canning, may be
+regarded as representing eighteenth century satire in
+its decline, after the great figures of Pope and Swift
+have disappeared from the scene, and among the
+causes which prevent his verse from having but little
+of the fiery force and sting of the great masters of
+satire is that, instead of the strongly depicted, individual
+types of Pope, for example, we are given a heterogeneous
+collection of human virtues, vices, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>
+characteristics, most often in the form of mere abstractions,
+sometimes personified into stiff, mechanical
+figures.<a id="FNanchor_202" href="#Footnote_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> Only once has Churchill attempted anything
+novel in the way of personification, and this in
+humorous vein, when he describes the social virtues:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">With belly round and full fat face,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Which on the house reflected grace,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Full of good fare and honest glee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The steward Hospitality.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Churchill had no doubt a genuine passion for poetry
+and independence, but the <i>saeva indignatio</i> of the
+professed censor of public morals and manners cannot
+be conveyed to the reader through the medium of
+mechanical abstractions which, compared with the
+flesh-and-blood creations of Dryden and Pope, show
+clearly that for the time being the great line of English
+satire has all but come to an end.</p>
+
+<p>Eighteenth century ethical poetry was represented
+at this stage by Johnson and Goldsmith, at whose
+work it will now be convenient to glance. The
+universal truths which Johnson as a stern, unbending
+moralist wished to illustrate in “London” (1738)
+and “The Vanity of Human Wishes” (1749), might
+easily have resulted in a swarm of the abstractions
+and personifications fashionable at the time.<a id="FNanchor_203" href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> From
+this danger Johnson was saved by the depth of feeling
+with which he unfolds the individual examples chosen
+to enforce his moral lessons. Not that he escapes
+entirely; “London” has a few faint abstractions
+(“Malice,” “Rapine,” “Oppression”); but though<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span>
+occasionally they are accompanied by epithets suggesting
+human attributes (“surly Virtue,” “persecuting
+Fate,” etc.), as a rule there is no attempt at definite
+personification, a remark which also applies to the
+“Vanity of Human Wishes.” In his odes to the
+different seasons he has not given, however, any
+elaborate personifications, but has contented himself
+with slight human touches, such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now Autumn bends a cloudy brow.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of Johnson’s poetical style, regarded from our
+present point of view, it may be said to be well
+represented in the famous line from “London”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Slow rises Worth by Poverty depressed,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where there is probably no intention or desire to
+personify at all, but which is a result of that tendency
+towards Latin condensation which the great Doctor
+and his contemporaries had introduced into English
+prose.</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith’s poetry has much in common with that
+of Johnson, in that both deal to some extent with
+what would now be called social problems. But
+it is significant of Goldsmith’s historical position
+in eighteenth century poetry as representing a sort
+of “half-way attitude,” in the matter of poetical
+style, between the classical conventional language and
+the free and unfettered diction advocated by Wordsworth,
+that there are few examples of personified
+abstractions in his works, and these confined mainly
+to one passage in “The Traveller”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hence Ostentation here with tawdry Art</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart, etc.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span></p>
+
+<p>At this point it is necessary to hark back for the
+purpose of considering other works which had been
+appearing alongside of the works just discussed. It
+has already been remarked that in this matter of the
+use of abstraction and personification the influence
+of Milton early asserted itself, and there can be no
+doubt that a good deal of it may be traced to the
+influence more especially of the early poems. Indeed,
+the blank verse poems, which attempted to imitate or
+parody the “grand style” of the great epics, furnish
+few examples of the personified abstraction. The
+first of these, the “Splendid Shilling” and “Cyder”
+of John Philips (1705-1706) contains but few instances.
+In Somerville’s “Chase” there is occasionally a
+commonplace example, such as “brazen-fisted Time,”
+though in his ode “To Marlborough” he falls into
+the conventional style quickly enough. In the
+rest of the blank verse poems Mallet’s “Excursion”
+(1738), and his “Amyntor and Theodora” (1744),
+comparatively little use is made of the device,
+a remark also applicable to Dyer’s “Ruins of
+Rome” (1740), and to Grainger’s “Sugar Cane”
+(1764).</p>
+
+<p>The fashion for all these blank verse poems had
+been started largely by the success of “The Seasons,”
+which appeared in its original form from 1726 to 1730,
+to undergo more than one revision and augmentation
+until the final edition of 1744. Though Thomson’s
+work shows very many traces of the influence of
+Milton, there is no direct external evidence that his
+adoption of blank verse was a result of that influence.
+Perhaps, as has been suggested,<a id="FNanchor_204" href="#Footnote_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> he was weary of
+the monotony of the couplet, or at least considered its
+correct and polished form incapable of any further
+development. At the same time it is clear that having
+adopted “rhyme-unfettered verse,” he chose to regard<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span>
+Milton as a model of diction and style, though he was
+by no means a slavish imitator.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the special problems with which we
+are here concerned, it must be noted that when
+Thomson was first writing “The Seasons,” the device
+of personified abstraction had not become quite so
+conventional and forced in its use as at a later date.
+Nevertheless examples of the typical abstraction are
+not infrequent; thus, in an enumeration of the
+passions which, since the end of the “first fresh dawn,”
+have invaded the hearts and minds of men, we are
+given “Base Envy,” withering at another’s joy;
+“Convulsive Anger,” storming at large; and “Desponding
+Fear,” full of feeble fancies, etc. (“Spring,”
+280-306). Other examples are somewhat redeemed
+by the use of a felicitous compound epithet, “Art
+imagination-flushed” (“Autumn,” 140), “the lonesome
+Muse, low-whispering” (<i>ibid.</i>, 955), etc. In
+“Summer” (ll. 1605 foll.) the poet presents one of the
+usual lists of abstract qualities (“White Peace,
+Social Love,” etc.), but there are imaginative touches
+present that help to vitalize some at least of the
+company into living beings:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The tender-looking Charity intent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and the passage is thus a curious mixture of mechanical
+abstractions with more vivid and inspired conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally Thomson employs the figure with
+ironical or humorous intention, and sometimes not
+ineffectively, as in the couplet,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Produce the mighty bowl.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Autumn,” 512)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">He is also fond of the apostrophic personification,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span>
+often feebly, as when, acting upon a suggestion from
+Mallet,<a id="FNanchor_205" href="#Footnote_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> he writes:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Comes, Inspiration, from thy hermit seat,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By mortal seldom found, etc.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” l. 15)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As for the seasons themselves, we do not find any
+very successful attempts at personification. Thomson
+gives descriptive impressions rather than abstractions:
+“gentle Spring, ethereal mildness” (“Spring,” 1),
+“various-blossomed Spring” (“Autumn,” 5); or
+borrowing, as often, an epithet from Milton, “refulgent
+Summer” (“Summer,” 2); or “surly Winter”
+(“Spring,” 11).</p>
+
+<p>But in these, and similar passages, the seasons can
+hardly be said to be distinctly pictured or personified.
+In “Winter,” however, there is perhaps a more
+successful attempt at vague but suggestive personification:<a id="FNanchor_206" href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">See Winter comes, to rule the varied year,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sullen and sad, with all his rising train</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Vapours, and clouds and storms.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But on the whole Thomson’s personifications of the
+seasons are not, poetically, very impressive. There
+is little or no approach to the triumphant evocation
+with which Keats conjures up Autumn for us, with all
+its varied sights and sounds, and its human activities
+vividly personified in the gleaner and the winnower</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">sitting careless on a granary floor</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the couplet in which Coleridge brings before us a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>
+subtle suggestion of the spring beauty, to which the
+storms and snows are but a prelude:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And winter, slumbering in the open air</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Work without Hope”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Yet Thomson, as might be expected in a forerunner of
+the Romantic school, is not altogether without a gift
+for these embryonic personifications, as they have
+been called, when by means of a felicitous term or
+epithet the whole conception which the poet has in
+mind is suddenly galvanized into life and endowed
+with human feelings and emotions. Such evocations
+are of the very stuff of which poetry is made, and at
+their highest they possess the supreme power of
+stirring or awakening in the mind of the reader other
+pictures or visions than those suggested by the mere
+personification.<a id="FNanchor_207" href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p>
+
+<p>Though some of Thomson’s instances are conventional
+or commonplace, as in the description of</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent12">the grey grown oaks</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That the calm village in their verdant arms</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sheltering, embrace,</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 225-227)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and others merely imitative, as,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">the rosy-footed May</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Steals blushing on,</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 489-490)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">yet there are many which call up by a single word a
+vivid and picturesque expression, such as the “hollow-whispering
+breeze” (“Summer,” 919) or the poet’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>
+description of the dismal solitude of a winter landscape</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">It freezes on</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Till Morn, late rising o’er the drooping world</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Lifts her pale eyes unjoyous</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 744)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the beautiful description of a spring dawn:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 48-49)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Adverting to the question of Milton’s influence
+on the prevalent mania for personification, it is undoubted
+that the early poems may be held largely
+responsible. Their influence first began noticeably
+to make itself felt in the fifth decade of the century,
+when their inspiration is to be traced in a great
+deal of the poetic output of the period, including
+that of Joseph and Thomas Warton, as well as
+of Collins and Gray. Neglecting for the moment
+the greater poets who drew inspiration from this
+source, it will be as well briefly to consider first
+the influence of Milton’s minor poems on the obscure
+versifiers, for it is very often the case that the minor
+poetry of an age reflects most distinctly the peculiarities
+of a passing literary fashion. As early as 1739
+William Hamilton of Bangour<a id="FNanchor_208" href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> imitated Milton in his
+octosyllabic poem “Contemplation,” and by his
+predilection for abstraction foreshadowed one of the
+main characteristics of the Miltonic revival among
+the lesser lights. A single passage shows this clearly
+enough:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Anger with wild disordered pace</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And malice pale of famish’d face:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Loud-tongued Clamour get thee far</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hence, to wrangle at the bar:</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and so on.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span></p>
+
+<p>Five or six years later Mason’s Miltonic imitations
+appeared—“Il Bellicoso” and “Il Pacifico”—which
+follow even more slavishly the style of “L’Allegro”
+and “Il Penseroso,” so that there is no need for
+Mason’s footnote to “Il Bellicoso” describing the
+poem with its companion piece as this “very, very
+juvenile imitation.”<a id="FNanchor_209" href="#Footnote_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> “Il Bellicoso” begins with the
+usual dismissal:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hence, dull lethargic Peace</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Born in some hoary beadsman’s cell obscure,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and subsequently we are introduced to Pleasure,
+Courage, Victory, Fancy, etc. There is a similar
+exorcism in “Il Pacifico,” followed by a faint personification
+of the subject of the ode, attended by a
+“social smiling train” of lifeless abstractions.</p>
+
+<p>The pages of Dodsley<a id="FNanchor_210" href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> furnish abundant testimony
+to the prevalence of this kind of thing. Thus “Penshurst”<a id="FNanchor_211" href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a>
+by F. Coventry is another close imitation of
+Milton’s companion poems, with the usual crowd of
+abstractions. The same thing is met with in the
+anonymous “Vacation,”<a id="FNanchor_212" href="#Footnote_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> and in the “Valetudinarian,”
+said to be written by Dr. Marriott.<a id="FNanchor_213" href="#Footnote_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to illustrate further the Milton
+vogue, which thus produced so large a crop of imitations,<a id="FNanchor_214" href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a>
+except to say that there is significant testimony
+to the widespread prevalence of the fashion in the fact
+that a parody written “in the Allegoric, Descriptive,
+Alliterative, Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span>
+Diabolical Style of our modern Ode writers and
+monody-mongers”<a id="FNanchor_215" href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> soon appeared. This was the
+anonymous “Ode to Horror,” a humorous burlesque,
+especially of the “Pleasures of Melancholy.” The
+Wartons stand high above the versifiers at whose
+productions we have just looked, but nevertheless
+there was some justification for the good-humoured
+parody called forth by their works.</p>
+
+<p>In 1746 there appeared a small volume entitled
+“Odes on Various Subjects,” a collection of fourteen
+odes by Joseph Warton.<a id="FNanchor_216" href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> The influence of Milton is
+especially seen in the odes “To Fancy,” “To Health,”
+and to “The Nightingale,” but all betray definitely
+the source of their inspiration. Thus in the first
+named:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Me, Goddess, by the right hand lead</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes thro’ the yellow mead</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where Joy and White-robed Peace resort</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Venus keeps her festive court.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">All the odes of Warton betray an abundant use of
+abstractions, in the midst of which he rarely displays
+anything suggestive of spontaneous inspiration. His
+few personifications of natural powers are clearly
+imitative. “Evening” is “the meek-eyed Maiden
+clad in sober gray” and Spring comes</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">array’d in primrose colour’d robe.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">We feel all the time that the poet drags in his stock<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>
+of personified abstractions only because he is writing
+odes, and considers that such devices add dignity to
+his subject.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time it is worth noting that almost
+the same lavish use of these lay figures occurs in his
+blank verse poem, “The Enthusiast,” or “The Lover
+of Nature” (1740), likewise written in imitation of
+Milton, and yet in its prophetic insight so important
+a poem in the history of the Romantic revival.<a id="FNanchor_217" href="#Footnote_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a>
+Lines such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Famine, Want and Pain</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sunk to their graves their fainting limbs</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">are frequent, while there is a regular procession of
+qualities, more or less sharply defined, but not
+poetically suggestive enough to be effective.</p>
+
+<p>The younger of the two brothers, Thomas Warton,
+who by his critical appreciation of Spenser did much
+in that manner to help forward the Romantic movement,
+was perhaps still more influenced by Milton.
+His ode on “The Approach of Summer” shows to
+what extent he had taken possession of the verse,
+language, and imagery of Milton:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Haste thee, nymph, and hand in hand</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With thee lead a buxom band</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bring fantastic-footed Joy</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With Sport, that yellow-tressed boy;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Leisure, that through the balmy sky,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Chases a crimson butterfly.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But nearly all his poems provide numerous instances
+of personified abstraction, especially the lines “Written
+at Vale Abbey,” which seems to exhaust, and present
+as thin abstractions, the whole gamut of human
+virtues and vices, emotions and desires.<a id="FNanchor_218" href="#Footnote_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span></p>
+
+<p>There is a certain irony in the fact that the two men
+who, crudely, perhaps, but nevertheless unmistakably,
+adumbrated the Romantic doctrine, should have been
+among the foremost to indulge in an excess against
+which later the avowed champion of Romanticism
+was to inveigh with all his power. This defect was
+perhaps the inevitable result of the fact that the
+Wartons had apparently been content in this respect
+to follow a contemporary fashion as revealed in
+the swarm of merely mechanical imitations of
+Milton’s early poems. But their subjects were on
+the whole distinctly romantic, and this fact, added
+to their critical utterances, gives them real historical
+importance. Above all, it is to be remembered that
+they have for contemporaries the two great poets
+in whom the Romantic movement was for the first
+time adequately exemplified—William Collins and
+Thomas Gray.</p>
+
+<p>The first published collection of Collins’s work,
+“Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects”
+(1746), was, as we have seen, if not neglected or
+ignored by the public, at least received with marked
+indifference, owing largely no doubt to the abstract
+nature of his subjects, and the chiselled severity of his
+treatment.<a id="FNanchor_219" href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> In other words, Collins was pure classical
+and not neo-classical; he had gone direct back to the
+“gods of Hellas” for his inspiration, and his verse
+had a Hellenic austerity and beauty which could make
+little or no appeal to his own age. At the same time
+it was permeated through and through with new and
+striking qualities of feeling and emotion that at once
+aroused the suspicions of the neo-classicists, with
+Johnson as their mentor and spokesman. The “Odes”
+were then, we may say, classical in form and romantic
+in essence, and it is scarcely a matter for surprise<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>
+that a lukewarm reception should have been their
+lot.<a id="FNanchor_220" href="#Footnote_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p>
+
+<p>Collins has received merited praise for the charm
+and precision of his diction generally, and the fondness
+for inverting the common order of his words—Johnson’s
+chief criticism of his poetical style<a id="FNanchor_221" href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a>—is to the modern
+mind a venial offence compared with his use of personified
+abstractions. On this point Johnson has
+nothing to say, an omission which may be regarded
+as significant of the extent to which personification
+had invaded poetry, for the critic, if we may
+judge from his silence, seems to have considered
+it natural and legitimate for Collins also to have
+made abundant use of this stock and conventional
+device.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable, however, that the extensive use
+which Collins makes of the figure is the result in a
+large measure of his predilection for the ode—a form
+of verse very fashionable towards the middle of the
+century. As has already been noted, odes were being
+turned out in large numbers by the poetasters of the
+time, in which virtues and vices, emotions and passions
+were invoked, apostrophized, and dismissed with
+appropriate gestures, and it is probable that the
+majority of these turgid and ineffective compositions
+owed their appearance to the prevalent mania for
+personification. Young remarked with truth<a id="FNanchor_222" href="#Footnote_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> that
+an ode is, or ought to be, “more spontaneous and more
+remote from prose” than any other kind of poetry;
+and doubtless it was some vague recognition of this
+fact, and in the hope of “elevating” their style, that
+led the mere versifiers to adopt the trick. But as they
+worked the mechanical personification to death, they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span>
+quickly robbed it of any impressiveness it may ever
+have had.</p>
+
+<p>This might quite fairly be described as the state of
+affairs with regard to the use of personified abstraction
+when Collins was writing his “odes,” but while it is
+true that he indulges freely in personification, it is
+scarcely necessary to add that he does so with a
+difference; his Hellenic training and temperament
+naturally saved him from the inanities and otiosities
+of so much contemporary verse. To begin with,
+there are but few examples of the lifeless abstraction,
+and even in such cases there is usually present a happy
+epithet, or brief description that sets them on a higher
+level than those that swarm even in the odes of the
+Wartons. Thus in the “Ode on the Poetical
+Character,” “the shadowy tribes of mind,” which
+had been sadly overworked by Collins’s predecessors
+and contemporaries, are brought before us with a new
+and fresh beauty that wins instant acceptance for
+them:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But near it sat ecstatic Wonder</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Listening the deep applauding thunder</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And truth in sunny vest arrayed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By whom the tassel’s eyes were made</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">All the shadowy tribes of mind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In braided dance their murmurs joined.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Instances of the mechanical type so much in favour
+are, however, not lacking, as in this stanza from the
+“Verses” written about bride-cake:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ambiguous looks that scorn and yet relent,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Denial mild and firm unaltered truth,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Reluctant pride and amorous faint consent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And melting ardours and exulting youth.<a id="FNanchor_223" href="#Footnote_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The majority of Collins’s personified abstractions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>
+are, however, vague in outline, that is to say, they
+suggest, but do not define, and are therefore the more
+effective in that the resulting images are almost
+evanescent in their delicacy. Thus in the “Ode to
+Pity” the subject is presented to us in magic words:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Long pity, let the nations view</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy sky-worn robes of tender blue</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And eyes of dewy light,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst still another imaginative conception is that of
+“Mercy”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">who sitt’st a smiling bride</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By Valour’s armed and awful side</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Gentlest of sky-born forms and best adorned.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The “Ode to the Passions” is in itself almost an
+epitome of the various ways in which Collins makes
+use of personification. It is first to be noted that he
+rarely attempts to clothe his personifications in long
+and elaborate descriptions; most often they are given
+life and reality by being depicted, so to speak, moving
+and acting:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Revenge impatient rose,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And with a withering look</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The war-denouncing trumpet took;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Whilst his strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Even the figures, seen as it were but for a moment,
+are flashed before us in this manner:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">With woful measures wan Despair</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Dejected Pity at his side</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her soul-subduing voice applied</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">and the vision of hope with “eyes so fair” who</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">smiled and waved her golden hair.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In this ode Collins gives us also imaginative cameos,
+we might call them, vividly delineated and presented
+like the figures on the Grecian urn that inspired
+Keats. Thus:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">While as his flying fingers kissed the strings,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love framed with mirth a gay fantastic round.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and, with its tinge of probably unconscious humour—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Brown exercise rejoiced to hear,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Sport leapt up and seized his beechen spear.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>From these and similar instances, we receive a
+definite impression of that motion, which is at the
+same time repose, so characteristic of classical
+sculptuary.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the odes considered above are addressed to
+abstractions. In the few instances where Collins
+invokes the orders or powers of nature even greater
+felicity is shown in the art with which he calls up and
+clothes in perfect expression his abstract images. The
+first of the seasons is vaguely but subtly suggested to
+us in the beautiful ode beginning “How sleep the
+brave”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">When Spring with dewy fingers cold</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Returns to deck their hallowed mould,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">She there shall dress a sweeter sod</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Than fancy’s feet have ever trod.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">This is rather a simile than a personification, but yet
+there is conveyed to us a definite impression of a
+shadowy figure that comes to deck the earth with
+beauty, like a young girl scattering flowers as she walks
+along.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span></p>
+
+<p>But the workmanship of Collins in this respect is
+seen in its perfection in the “Ode to Evening.” There
+is no attempt to draw a portrait or chisel a statue; the
+calm, restful influence of evening, its sights and sounds
+that radiate peace and contentment, even the very
+soul of the landscape as the shades of night gather
+around, are suggested by master touches, whilst the
+slow infiltration of the twilight is beautifully suggested:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy dewy fingers draw</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The gradual dusky veil.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The central figure is still the same evanescent being,
+the vision of a maiden, endowed with all the grace of
+beauty and dignity, into whose lap “sallow Autumn”
+is pouring his falling leaves, or who now goes her way
+slowly through the tempest, while</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Winter, yelling through the troublous air</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Affrights thy shrinking train,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And rudely rends thy robe.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>If we had no other evidence before us, Collins’s use
+of personified abstraction would be sufficient in itself
+to announce that the new poetry had begun. He
+makes use of the device as freely, and even now and
+then as mechanically, as the inferior versifiers of his
+period, but instead of the bloodless abstractions,
+his genius enabled him to present human qualities
+and states in almost ethereal form. Into them he has
+breathed such poetic life and inspiration that in their
+suggestive beauty and felicity of expression they stand
+as supreme examples of personification used as a
+legitimate poetical device, as distinct from a mere
+rhetorical figure or embellishment.</p>
+
+<p>This cannot be said of Gray, in whose verse mechanical
+personifications crowd so thickly that, as Coleridge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span>
+observed in his remarks on the lines from “The
+Bard,”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">it depends “wholly on the compositors putting or not
+putting a small Capital, both in this and in many
+other passages of the same poet, whether the words
+should be personifications or mere abstractions.”<a id="FNanchor_224" href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to account for this devotion of Gray to
+the “new Olympus,” thickly crowded with “moral
+deities” that his age had brought into being, except
+on the assumption that contemporary usage in this
+respect was too strong for him to resist. For it cannot
+be denied that very many of the beings that swarm in
+his odes do not differ in their essential character from
+the mechanical figures worked to death by the ode-makers
+of his days; even his genius was not able to
+clothe them all in flesh and blood. In the “Eton
+College” ode there is a whole stanza given over to a
+conventional catalogue of the “fury passions,” the
+“vultures of the mind”; and similar thin abstractions
+people all the other odes. Nothing is visualized: we
+see no real image before us.<a id="FNanchor_225" href="#Footnote_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> Even the famous
+“Elegy” is not without its examples of stiff personification,
+though they are not present in anything
+like the excess found elsewhere. The best that can
+be said for abstractions of this kind is that in their
+condensation they represent an economy of expression<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>
+that is not without dignity and effectiveness, and
+they thus sometimes give an added emphasis to the
+sentiment, as in the oft-quoted</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their homely joys and destiny secure,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The short and simple annals of the poor.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Gray rarely attempts to characterize his figures
+other than by the occasional use of a conventional
+epithet, and only here and there has the personification
+been to any extent filled in so as to form at least
+an outline picture. In the “Hymn to Adversity,”
+Wisdom is depicted</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">in sable garb arrayed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Immersed in rapturous thought profound,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst other slight human touches are to be found here
+and there: as in “Moody Madness, laughing wild”
+(“Ode on a Distant Prospect”). His personifications,
+however, have seldom the clear-cut outlines we find
+in Collins, nor do they possess more than a tinge of the
+vividness and vitality the latter could breathe into
+his abstractions. Yet now and then we come across
+instances of the friezes in which Collins excels, moving
+figures depicted as in Greek plastic art</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">Antic sports and blue-eyed Pleasures,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Frisking light in frolic measures</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Progress of Poesy”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the beautiful vision in the “Bard,”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Bright Rapture calls and soaring as she sings,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Waves in the eyes of heaven her many-coloured wings.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">And in the “Ode on Vicissitude” Gray has one
+supreme example of the embryonic personification,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span>
+when the powers or orders of nature are invested with
+human attributes, and thus brought before us as living
+beings, in the form of vague but suggestive impressions
+that leave to the imagination the task of filling in the
+details:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Now the golden Morn aloft</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Waves her dew-bespangled wing</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With vernal cheek and whisper soft</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">She woos the tardy spring.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But in the main, and much more than the poet
+with whom his name is generally coupled, it is perhaps
+not too much to say that Gray was content to handle
+the device in the same manner as the uninspired
+imitators of the “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.”
+Not that he was unaware of the danger of such a tendency
+in himself and others. “I had rather,” he
+wrote to Mason<a id="FNanchor_226" href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> when criticizing the latter’s “Caractacus,”
+“some of the personages—‘Resignation,’
+‘Peace,’ ‘Revenge,’ ‘Slaughter,’ ‘Ambition’—were
+stripped of their allegorical garb. A little simplicity
+here and there in the expression would better
+prepare the high and fantastic harpings that follow.”
+In the light of this most salutary remark, Gray’s own
+procedure is only the more astonishing. His innumerable
+personifications may not have been regarded by
+Johnson as contributory to “the kind of cumbrous
+splendour” he wished away from the odes, but the
+fact that they are scarce in the “Elegy” is not without
+significance. The romantic feeling which asserts
+itself clearly in the odes, the new imaginative conceptions
+which these stock figures were called upon to
+convey, the perfection of the workmanship—these
+qualities were more than sufficient to counterweigh
+Gray’s licence of indulgence in a mere rhetorical
+device. Yet Coleridge was right in calling attention<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span>
+to this defect of Gray’s style, especially as his censure
+is no mere diatribe against the use of personified
+abstraction: it is firmly and justly based on the
+undeniable fact that Gray’s personifications are for
+the most part cold and lifeless, that they are mere
+verbal abstractions, utterly devoid of the redeeming
+vitality, which Collins gives to his figures.<a id="FNanchor_227" href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> It is for
+this reason perhaps that his poetry in the mass has
+never been really popular, and that the average
+reader, with his impatience of abstractions, has
+been content, with Dr. Johnson, to pronounce boldly
+for “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”</p>
+
+<p>Before proceeding to examine the works of the
+other great poets who announce or exemplify the
+Romantic revival, it will be convenient at this point
+to look at some of the Spenserian imitations, which
+helped to inspire and vitalize the revival.</p>
+
+<p>Spenser was the poet of mediaeval allegory. In
+the “Faerie Queene,” for the first time a real poet,
+endowed with the highest powers of imagination and
+expression, was able to present the old traditional
+abstractions wonderfully decked up in a new and
+captivating guise. The personages that move like
+dream figures through the cantos of the poem are
+thus no mere personified abstractions: they are
+rather pictorial emblems, many of which are limned
+for us with such grandeur of conception and beauty
+of execution as to secure for the allegorical picture a
+“willing suspension of disbelief,” whilst the essentially
+romantic atmosphere more than atones for the
+cumbrous and obsolete machinery adopted by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>
+Spenser to inculcate the lessons of “virtuous and
+gentle discipline.”</p>
+
+<p>Though the eighteenth century Spenserians make a
+plentiful use of personified abstraction, on the whole
+their employment of this device differs widely from its
+mechanical use by most of their contemporaries: in
+the best of the imitations there are few examples of
+the lifeless abstraction. Faint traces at least of the
+music and melody of the “Faerie Queene” have been
+caught and utilized to give a poetic charm even to
+the personified virtues and vices that naturally appear
+in the work of Spenser’s imitators. Thus in William
+Thompson’s “Epithalamium” (1736), while many
+of the old figures appear before us, they have something
+of the new charm with which Collins was soon to
+invest them. Thus,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Liberty, the fairest nymph on ground</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">The flowing plenty of her growing hair</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Diffusing lavishly ambrosia round</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Earth smil’d, and Gladness danc’d along the sky.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The epithets which accompany the abstractions are
+no longer conventional (“Chastity meek-ey’d,”
+“Modesty sweet-blushing”) and help to give touches
+of animation to otherwise inanimate figures. In the
+“Nativity” (1757) there is a freer use of the mere
+abstraction that calls up no distinct picture, but even
+here there are happy touches that give relief:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">Faith led the van, her mantle dipt in blue,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Steady her ken, and gaining on the skies.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In the “Hymn to May” (1787) Thompson personified
+the month whose charms he is singing, the result being
+a radiant figure, having much in common with the
+classical personifications of the orders or powers of
+nature:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">A silken camus, em’rald green</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Gracefully loose, adown her shoulder flow.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span></p>
+
+<p>In Shenstone’s “Schoolmistress” (1737-1742)
+instances of personification are rare, and, where they
+do occur, are merely faint abstractions like “Learning
+near her little dome.” It is noteworthy that one of
+the most successful of the Spenserian imitations should
+have dispensed with the cumbrous machinery of
+abstract beings that, on the model of the “Faerie
+Queene,” might naturally have been drawn upon.
+The homely atmosphere of the “Schoolmistress,”
+with its idyllic pictures and its gentle pathos, would,
+indeed, have been fatally marred by their introduction.</p>
+
+<p>The same sparing use of personification is evident
+in the greatest of the imitations, James Thomson’s
+“Castle of Indolence” (1748). A theme of this
+nature afforded plenty of opportunity to indulge in
+the device, and Thomson, judging from its use of the
+figure in some of his blank verse poems, might have
+been expected to take full advantage. But there are
+less than a score of examples in the whole of the poem.
+Only vague references are made to the eponymous
+hero: he is simply “Indolence” or “tender
+Indolence” or “the demon Indolence.” For the
+rest Thomson’s few abstractions are of the stock
+type, though occasionally more realistic touches
+result, we may suppose, from the poet’s sense of
+humour as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cock.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Only here and there has Thomson attempted full-length
+portraits in the Spenserian manner, as when
+Lethargy, Hydropsy, and Hypochondria are described
+with drastic realism.<a id="FNanchor_228" href="#Footnote_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a></p>
+
+<p>The works of the minor Spenserians show a greater
+use of personified abstraction, but even with them there
+is no great excess. Moreover, where instances do<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span>
+occur, they show imaginative touches foreign to the
+prevalent types. Thus in the “Vision of Patience”
+by Samuel Boyce (d. 1778),</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Silence sits on her untroubled throne</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As if she left the world to live and reign alone,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">while Patience stands</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In robes of morning grey.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Occasionally the personified abstractions, though
+occurring in avowedly Spenserian imitations, obviously
+owe more to the influence of “L’Allegro”; as in
+William Whitehead’s “Vision of Solomon” (1730),
+where the embroidered personifications are much
+more frequent than the detailed images given by
+Spenser.<a id="FNanchor_229" href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a></p>
+
+<p>The work of Chatterton represents another aspect
+of this revival of the past, but it is curious to find
+that, in his acknowledged “original” verse there are
+not many instances of the personified abstraction,
+whilst they are freely used in the Rowley poems.
+Where they do occur in his avowedly original work
+they are of the usual type, though more imaginative
+power is revealed in his personification of Winter:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Pale rugged Winter bending o’er his tread,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His eyes a dusky light congealed and dead,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>From our special point of view the “antiquarianism”
+of the Rowley poems might almost be disproved by
+the prevalence of abstractions and personifications,
+which in most instances are either unmistakably
+of the eighteenth century or which testify to the new
+Romantic atmosphere now manifesting itself. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>
+stock types of frigid abstraction are all brought on
+the stage in the manner of the old Moralities, and each
+is given an ample speaking part in order to describe
+his own characteristics.</p>
+
+<p>But in addition to these lifeless abstractions, there
+are to be found in the Rowley poems a large number
+of detailed and elaborate personifications. Some of
+these are full length portraits in the Spenserian
+manner, and now and then the resulting personification
+is striking and beautiful, as when, in “Ælla”
+(59), Celmond apostrophizes Hope, or the evocation
+of Truth in “The Storie of William Canynge.”</p>
+
+<p>Chatterton has also in these poems a few personifications
+of natural powers, but these are mainly
+imitative as in the lines (“Ælla,” 94) reminiscent of
+Milton and Pope<a id="FNanchor_230" href="#Footnote_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a>:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From the red east he flitted with his train,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The hours drew away the robe of night,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her subtle tapestry was rent in twain.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But the evocation of the seasons themselves, as in
+“Ælla” (32),</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">When Autumn sere and sunburnt doth appear</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">conveys a fresh and distinct picture that belongs to
+the new poetry, and has in it a faint forecast of Keats.</p>
+
+<p>It remains to look at the work of the later eighteenth
+century poets, who announce that if the Romantic
+outburst is not yet, it is close at hand. The first and
+greatest of these is William Blake. His use of personification
+in the narrower sense which is our topic, is,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span>
+of course, formally connected with the large and
+vital question of his symbolism, to treat of which here
+in any detail is not part of our scheme.</p>
+
+<p>In its widest sense, however, Blake’s mysticism
+may be connected with the great mediaeval world of
+allegory: it is “an eddy of that flood-tide of symbolism
+which attained its tide-mark in the magic of the
+Middle Ages.”<a id="FNanchor_231" href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> But the poet himself unconsciously
+indicates the vital distinction between the new
+symbolism, which he inaugurates, and the old, of
+which the personified abstractions of his eighteenth
+century predecessors may be regarded as faint and
+faded relics. “Allegory addressed to the intellectual
+powers,” he wrote to Thomas Butts,<a id="FNanchor_232" href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> “while it is
+altogether hidden from the corporeal understanding,
+is my definition of the most surprising poetry.”</p>
+
+<p>On its formal side, and reduced to its simplest
+expression, we may narrow down for our present
+purpose the whole system to the further distinction
+drawn by Blake between Allegory and Vision.
+Allegory is “formed by the daughters of Memory”
+or the deliberate reason; Vision “is surrounded by
+the daughters of Inspiration.” Here we have a key
+to the classification of personified abstractions in the
+eighteenth century, and, for that matter, at any and
+every period. Abstractions formed by the deliberate
+reason are usually more or less rhetorical embellishments
+of poetry, and to this category belong the great
+majority of the personifications of eighteenth century
+verse. They are “things that relate to moral virtues”
+or vices, but they cannot truly be called allegorical,
+for allegory is a living thing only so long as the ideas
+it embodies are real forces that control our conduct.
+The inspired personification, which embodies or brings
+with it a real vision, is the truly poetical figure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span></p>
+
+<p>In Blake’s own practice we find only a few instances
+of the typical eighteenth century abstraction. In the
+early “Imitation of Spenser” there are one or two
+examples:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">Such is sweet Eloquence that does dispel</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Envy and Hate that thirst for human gore,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst others are clearly Elizabethan reminiscences,
+like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mournful lean Despair</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Brings me yew to deck my grave,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Memory, hither come</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And tune your merry notes.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">“The Island in the Moon” furnishes grotesque
+instances, such as that of old Corruption dressed in
+yellow vest. In “The Divine Image,” from the
+“Songs of Innocence,” while commonplace virtues
+are personified, the simple direct manner of the
+process distinguishes them from their prototypes
+in the earlier moral and didactic poetry of the century:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">For Mercy has a human heart</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Pity a human face</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Love, the human form divine</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Peace the human dress.<a id="FNanchor_233" href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">An instance of personification raised to a higher power
+is found in Blake’s letter to Butts<a id="FNanchor_234" href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> beginning</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">With Happiness stretch’d across the hills,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In a cloud that dewy sweetness distils,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst elsewhere personified abstractions appear with
+new epithets, the most striking example being in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span>
+“Earth’s Answer,” from the “Songs of Experience”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Prison’d on watry shore</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Starry</i> Jealousy does keep my den.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Moreover, Blake’s figures are often presented in an
+imaginative guise that helps to emphasize the gulf
+fixed between him and the majority of his contemporaries
+and predecessors. Thus “Joy” is twice
+depicted as a bird:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Joys upon our branches sit</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Chirping loud and singing sweet</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Song”—“Poetical Sketches”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Welcome, stranger, to this place</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where Joy doth sit on every bough.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Song by a Shepherd”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In Blake’s youthful work the personifications of
+natural powers, though in most cases clearly imitative
+are yet striking in their beauty and power of suggestion.
+The influence of “Ossian” is seen in such “prose”
+personifications as “The Veiled Evening walked
+solitary down the Western hills and Silence reposed
+in the valley” (“The Couch of Death”), and “Who
+is this that with unerring step dares to tempt the wild
+where only Nature’s foot has trod, ’Tis Contemplation,
+daughter of the Grey Morning” (“Contemplation”).
+Here also are evocations of the seasons which, whatever
+they may owe to Thomson or Collins, are new in that
+we actually get a picture of Spring with “dewy locks”
+as she looks down</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thro’ the clear windows of the morning</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of summer with</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">ruddy limbs and flourishing hair,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of the “jolly autumn,”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">laden with fruits and stained</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With the blood of the grape;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">and of winter,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">a dreadful monster whose skin clings</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To her strong bones.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thomson, we have seen, had not been altogether
+successful in his personification of the seasons: here
+they are brought vividly and fittingly before us.
+When we think of the hosts of puppets that in the
+guise of personified abstractions move mechanically
+through so much of eighteenth century verse, and
+compare them with the beautiful visions evoked by
+Blake, we know from this evidence alone that the
+reign of one of the chief excesses of the poetical
+language of the time is near its end. It is not that
+Blake’s conceptions are all flesh and blood creations:
+often they are rather ethereal beings, having something
+in common with the evanescent images of
+Collins. But the rich and lofty imagination that has
+given them birth is more than sufficient to secure their
+acceptance as realities capable of living and moving
+before us; the classical abstraction, cold and lifeless,
+has now become the Romantic personification clothed
+in beauty and animated with life and inner meaning.</p>
+
+<p>In the year of the “Poetical Sketches” (1783)
+George Crabbe published “The Village,” his first
+work to meet with any success. But whilst Blake
+gloriously announces the emancipation of English
+poetry, Crabbe for the most part is still writing on in
+the old dead style. The heroic couplets of his earliest
+works have all the rhetorical devices of his predecessors
+in that measure, and amongst these the prevalence of
+personified abstractions is not the least noteworthy.
+The subject of his first poem of any length, “Inebriety”
+(1775), afforded him plenty of scope in this direction,
+and he availed himself fully of the opportunity.<a id="FNanchor_235" href="#Footnote_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span>
+The absence of capital letters from some of the instances
+in this poem may perhaps be taken to reflect a confusion
+in the poet’s mind as to whether he was indulging in
+personification or in mere abstraction, to adopt
+Coleridge’s remark anent Gray’s use of this figure.<a id="FNanchor_236" href="#Footnote_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a></p>
+
+<p>In “The Village,” Crabbe’s first poem of any real
+merit, there is a more sparing use, yet instances are
+even here plentiful, whilst his employment of the
+device had not died out when in the early years of the
+nineteenth century he resumed his literary activities.
+Among the poems published in the 1807 volume there
+is a stiff and cumbrous allegory entitled “The Birth
+of Flattery,” which, introduced by three Spenserian
+stanzas, depicts Flattery as the child of Poverty and
+Cunning, attended by guardian satellites, “Care,”
+“Torture,” “Misery,” <i>et hoc omne genus</i>. They
+linger on to the time of the “Posthumous Tales,”
+where there is a sad, slow procession of them, almost,
+we might imagine, as if they were conscious of the
+doom pronounced years before, and of the fact that
+they were strangers in a strange land:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet Resignation in the house is seen</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Subdued Affliction, Piety serene,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Hope, for ever striving to instil</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The balm for grief, “It is the heavenly will.”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(XVIII, 299 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It is not perhaps too fanciful to see in this lament a
+palinode of the personifications themselves, sadly
+resigning themselves to an inevitable fate.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the ultimate triumph of the new poetry
+the work of William Cowper represents perhaps the
+most important contribution, judging at least from
+the viewpoint both of its significance as indicating new
+tendencies in literature, and of its immediate influence
+on readers and writers. In the narrow sense of style<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>
+the “simplicity” which was Cowper’s ideal was only
+occasionally marred by the conventional phraseology
+and bombastic diction which he himself laid to the
+charge of the “classical” school, and his gradual
+emancipation from the tenets and practices of that
+school is reflected in his steady advance towards the
+purity of expression for which he craved. And in
+this advance it is to be noted that the gradual disappearance
+of personified abstractions is one of the
+minor landmarks.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier work furnishes instances of the common
+type of mere abstraction where there is no attempt
+to give any real personification. Even in the “Olney
+Hymns” (1779) such verses as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But unbelief, self-will</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Self-righteousness and pride,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">How often do they steal</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">My weapon from my side</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">only seem to present the old mechanical figures in a
+new setting.<a id="FNanchor_237" href="#Footnote_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> The long series of satiric poems that
+followed draw freely upon the same “mythology,” and
+indeed the satires that appear in this 1782 volume
+recall to some extent the style of Churchill.<a id="FNanchor_238" href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> There<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>
+is a somewhat similar, though more restricted, use of
+personified abstraction, and, as in Churchill’s satires,
+virtues and vices are invested with slight human
+qualities and utilized to enforce moral and didactic
+truths. Thus,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">Peace follows Virtue as its sure reward</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Pleasure brings as surely in her train</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Remorse and Sorrow and Vindictive Pain.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Progress of Error”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the short pieces in this volume are the
+famous lines put into the mouth of Alexander Selkirk,
+which contain a fine example of the apostrophic
+personification, the oft-quoted</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">O Solitude! where are thy charms</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That sages have seen in thy face,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where the passion and sincerity of the appeal give
+dignity and animation to an otherwise lifeless abstraction,
+and, despite the absence of detail, really call up
+a definite picture.</p>
+
+<p>From the blank verse of his most famous work
+nearly every trace of the mechanical abstraction has
+disappeared—a great advance when we remember
+that “The Task” is in the direct line of the moral
+and didactic verse that had occupied so many of
+Cowper’s predecessors.</p>
+
+<p>The first Books (“The Sofa”) contain but one
+instance and that in a playful manner:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ingenious Fancy, never better pleased</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Than when employed to accommodate the fair.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(ll. 72 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Fourth Book (“The Winter Evening”) is
+entirely free from instances of the mechanical abstraction,
+but the vision of Oriental Empire, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>
+fascination of the East, is effectively evoked in the
+personification of the land of the Moguls:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is India free? and does she wear her plumed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And jewelled turban with a smile of peace.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(ll. 28-9)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“The Task,” however, has two examples of the
+detailed personification. The first is an attempt, in
+the manner of Spenser, to give a full length portrait
+of “a sage called Discipline”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">His eye was meek and gentle and a smile</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Paternal sweetness</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. II, l. 702 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where there is a depth of feeling, as well as a gentle
+satiric touch in the delineation, that animate it into
+something more than a mere stock image; it embodies
+perhaps a reminiscence of one who at some time or
+other had guided the destinies of the youthful Cowper.</p>
+
+<p>The second instance is of a more imaginative kind.
+It is the presentation, in the Fourth Book, of Winter,
+with</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">forehead wrapt in cloud</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A leafless branch thy sceptre,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">almost the only occasion on which Cowper, despite
+the nature of his subject, has personified the powers
+and orders of nature.<a id="FNanchor_239" href="#Footnote_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> Cowper has also invested the
+Evening with human attributes, and despite the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span>
+imitative ring of the lines,<a id="FNanchor_240" href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> and the “quaintness” of
+the images employed, there is a new beauty in the
+evocation:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come, Evening, once again, season of peace;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Methinks I see thee in the streaky west</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With matron step slow-moving, while the night</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Treads on thy sweeping train.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The darkness soon to fall over the landscape is suggested
+in the added appeal to Evening to come</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where the compound epithet emphasizes the contrast
+between the quiet beauty of the twilight skyscape
+and the star-sprinkled gloom of the night.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, one of the last instances of the personified
+abstraction to be found in the work of Cowper may
+perhaps be taken to reflect something of the changes
+that have been silently working underneath. This
+is in the lines that suddenly bring “Yardley Oak”
+to an end:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">History not wanted yet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Leaned on her elbow watching Time whose course</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Eventful should supply her with a theme.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>At first glance we seem to have here but the old
+conventional figures, but there is an imaginative
+touch that helps to suggest a new world of romance.
+“History leaning on her elbow” has something at
+least of that mysterious power of suggestion that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>
+Wordsworth himself was to convey by means of the
+romantic personification, such as those shadowy
+figures—Fear and Trembling Hope, and Death the
+Skeleton, and Time the Shadow—which gathered round
+and hallowed the shade of the yew trees in Borrowdale.</p>
+
+<p>But even while the old poetry was in its death
+agony a champion was at hand, daring to maintain a
+lost cause both by precept and example. This was
+Erasmus Darwin, whose once-famous work “The
+Botanic Garden,” with its two parts, “The Loves of
+the Plants” (1789), and “The Economy of Vegetation”
+(1791), has earlier been mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>It met with immediate success. Darwin seems to
+have fascinated his contemporaries, so that even
+Coleridge was constrained in 1802 to call him “the
+first literary character in Europe.”<a id="FNanchor_241" href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> He had, however,
+little real admiration for “The Botanic Garden,”
+and later expressed his opinion unmistakably.<a id="FNanchor_242" href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> “The
+Botanic Garden” soon died a natural death, hastened
+no doubt by the ridicule it excited, but inevitably
+because of the fact that the poem is an unconscious
+<i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of a style already doomed.<a id="FNanchor_243" href="#Footnote_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a>
+The special matter with which we are concerned in
+this chapter had for Darwin a marked significance,
+since it fitted in admirably with his general doctrine or
+dogma that nothing is strictly poetic except what is
+presented in visual image. His “theory” was that,
+just as the old mythologies had created a whole world
+of personified abstractions to explain or interpret
+natural phenomena of every description, exactly by
+the same method the scientific thought and developments<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span>
+of his own age could be poetically expounded so
+as to captivate both the hearts and minds of his
+readers. It was his ambition, he said, “to enlist
+imagination under the banner of science.” This
+“theory” is expounded in one of the interludes placed
+between the different cantos. “The poet writes
+principally to the eye,” and allegory and personifications
+are to be commended because they give visible
+form to abstract conceptions.<a id="FNanchor_244" href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> Putting his theory
+into practice, Darwin then proceeds with great zeal
+to personify the varied and various scientific facts
+or hypotheses of physics, botany, etc., metamorphosing
+the forces of the air and other elements into sylphs
+and gnomes and so on. Thus,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Steam afar</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Drag the slow barge or drive the</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Rapid car.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(E.V., Canto I, 289, 290)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the same way all the plants, as classified by
+Linnæus, are personified as “swains” or “belles”
+who “love” and quarrel, and finally make it up
+just as ordinary mortals do:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">All wan and shivering in the leafless glade</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sad Anemone reclin’d her head</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(L.P., Canto I, 315-6)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Retiring Lichen climbs the topmost stone</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And drinks the aerial solitude alone.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 347-8)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The whole poem is thus one long series of mechanical
+personifications which baffle and bewilder and finally<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span>
+wear out the reader. It is strange now to think that
+“The Botanic Garden” was at the height of its vogue
+when the “Lyrical Ballads” were being planned and
+written, but the easy-flowing couplets of Darwin,
+and the “tinsel and glitter” of his diction, together
+with most of the “science” he was at such pains to
+expound (though he was a shrewd and even prophetic
+inquirer in certain branches, such as medicine and
+biology), have now little more than a faint historical
+interest. Yet his theory and practice of poetry—the
+“painted mists that occasionally rise from the
+marshes at the foot of Parnassus,” Coleridge called
+them—so dominated the literature of the last decade
+of the eighteenth century as to be capable of captivating
+the mind of the poet who was about to sound
+their death-knell.</p>
+
+<p>While Wordsworth inveighed against “personification”
+in the great manifesto, his earliest poetry
+shows clearly, as has been noted, that in this as in
+other respects he had fallen under the spell and
+influence of “The Botanic Garden.” The “Evening
+Walk” and the “Descriptive Sketches” swarm with
+instances of personifications of the type that had
+flourished apace for a hundred years, “Impatience,”
+“Pain,” “Independence,” “Hope,” “Oppression,”
+and dozens similar.<a id="FNanchor_245" href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> There is thus a certain comic
+irony in the fact that the poet, who was the first to
+sound the revolt against “personifications” and
+similar “heightenings” of style, should have embarked
+on his literary career with the theft of a good deal of the
+thunder of the enemy. Later, when Wordsworth’s
+true ideal of style had evolved itself, this feature of
+the two poems was in great measure discarded. The
+first (1793) draft of the “Descriptive Sketches” contains
+over seventy examples of more or less frigid<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span>
+abstractions; in the final draft of the poem these
+have dwindled down to about a score.<a id="FNanchor_246" href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p>
+
+<p>In our detailed examination of personification in
+eighteenth century poetry we have seen that in
+general it includes three main types. There is first
+the mere abstraction, whose distinctive sign is the
+presence of a capital letter; it may be, and often is,
+qualified by epithets suggestive of human attributes,
+but there is little or no attempt to give a definite
+picture or evoke a distinctive image. This is the
+prevalent type, and it is against these invertebrates
+that the criticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge was
+really directed.</p>
+
+<p>Their widespread use in the eighteenth century is
+due to various causes. In the first place they represent
+a survival, however artificial and lifeless, of the great
+mediaeval world of allegory, with its symbolic representation
+derived from the pagan and classical
+mythologies, of the attributes of the divine nature,
+and of the qualities of the human mind, as living
+entities. But by now the life had departed from
+them; they were hopelessly effete and had become
+consciously conventional and fictitious.<a id="FNanchor_247" href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a></p>
+
+<p>They also owed their appearance, as indicated
+above, to more definite literary causes and “fashions”;
+they swarm especially, for instance, in the odes of
+the mid-century, the appearance of which was mainly
+due to the influence of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.”
+The virtues and vices, the “shadowy tribes
+of the mind,” which are there unceasingly invoked
+and dismissed are mechanical imitations of the figures<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span>
+that the genius of Milton had been able to inspire
+with real poetic value and life. They play
+their part similarly and just as mechanically in
+the didactic and satirical verse characteristic of the
+period.</p>
+
+<p>But whether regarded as a sort of literary flotsam
+and jetsam, or as one of the symptoms of “Milton-mad”
+verse, these personifications are nearly all
+enfeebled by weaknesses inherent in their very genesis.
+Only a deep and intense conception of a mental
+abstraction can justify any attempt to personify
+it poetically; otherwise the inevitable result is a
+mere rhetorical ornament, which fails because it
+conveys neither the “vast vagueness” of the abstract,
+nor any clear-cut pictorial conception of the person.
+Even with Gray, as with the mere poetasters who
+used this figure to excess, it has the effect of a dull
+and wearisome mannerism; only here and there, as
+in the sonorous lines in which Johnson personified
+Worth held down by Poverty, does the display of
+personal emotion give any dignity and depth to the
+image.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the very freedom with which the conventional
+abstractions are employed, allowing them to be
+introduced on every possible occasion, tends to render
+the device absurd, if not ludicrous. For the versifiers
+seemed to have at their beck and call a whole phantom
+army upon which they could draw whenever they
+chose; for them they are veritable gods from the
+machines. But so mechanical are their entrances and
+exits that the reader rarely suspects them to be
+intended for “flesh and blood creations,” though, it
+may be added, the poetaster himself would be slow
+to make any such claim. To him they are merely
+part of his stock-in-trade, like the old extravagances,
+the “conceits,” and far-fetched similes of the Metaphysical
+school.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span></p>
+
+<p>The second type of personification found in
+eighteenth century verse needs but brief mention
+here. It is the detailed personification where a full-length
+portrait is attempted. Like the mere abstraction
+it, too, is a survival of mediaeval allegory, and it
+is also most often a merely mechanical literary process,
+reflecting no real image in the poet’s mind. It is not
+found to any large extent, and in a certain measure
+owes its presence to the renewed interest in Spenser.
+The Spenserian imitations themselves are comparatively
+free from this type, a sort of negative
+indication of the part played by the revival in the new
+Romantic movement.</p>
+
+<p>The third type is perhaps best described as the
+embryonic personification. It consists in the attributing
+of an individual and living existence to the
+visible forms and invisible powers of nature, a disposition,
+deeply implanted in the human mind from
+the very dawn of existence, which has left in the
+mythologies and creeds of the world a permanent
+impress of its power. In eighteenth century literature
+this type received its first true expression in the work
+of Thompson and Collins, whilst its progress, until it
+becomes merged and fused in the pantheism of Wordsworth
+and Shelley, may be taken as a measure of
+the advance of the Romantic movement in one of its
+most vital aspects.</p>
+
+<p>Regarded on its purely formal side, that is, as part
+and parcel of the <i>language</i> of poetry, the use of personification
+may then be naturally linked up with the
+generally literary development of the period. In
+the “classical” verse proper the figure employed is,
+as it were, a mere word and no more; it is the reflex
+of precisely as much individual imagination as the
+stock phrases of descriptive verse, <i>the flowery meads</i>,
+<i>painted birds</i>, and so on. There was no writing with
+the inner eye on the object, and the abstraction as a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span>
+result was a mere rhetorical label, corresponding to
+no real vision of things.</p>
+
+<p>The broad line of advance in this, as in other aspects
+of eighteenth century literature, passes through the
+work of those who are now looked upon as the forerunners
+of the Romantic revolt. The frigid abstraction,
+a mere word distinguished by a capital letter,
+is to be found in “The Seasons,” but alongside there
+is also an approach to definite pictorial representation
+of the object personified. In the odes of Collins the
+advent of the pictorial image is definitely and triumphantly
+announced, and though the mechanical
+abstractions linger on even until the new poetry has
+well established itself, they are only to be found in
+the work of those who either, like Johnson and Crabbe,
+belong definitely as regards style to the old order, or
+like Goldsmith and, to a less extent, Cowper, reflect
+as it were sort of half-way attitude towards the old
+and the new.</p>
+
+<p>With Blake the supremacy of the artistic personification
+is assured. His mystical philosophy in its
+widest aspect leads him to an identification of the
+divine nature with the human, but sometimes this
+signification is to be seen merging into a more conscious
+symbolism, or even sinking into that “totally
+distinct and inferior kind of poetry” known as
+allegory. Yet with Blake the poet, as well as Blake
+the artist, the use of personified abstraction is an
+integral part of the symbolism he desired to perpetuate.
+His imagination ran strongly in that
+direction, and it has been aptly pointed out that his
+most intense mental and emotional experiences
+became for him spiritual persons. But even where
+the presence of a capital letter is still the only distinguishing
+mark of the personification, he is
+able, either by the mere context or by the addition
+of a suggestive epithet, to transform and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>
+transfigure the abstraction into a poetical emblem
+of the doctrine whose apostle he believed himself
+to be.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to say that the use of personification
+and abstraction, even in their narrower
+applications as rhetorical ornaments or artifices of
+verse, were not banished from English poetry as a
+result of Wordsworth’s criticism. Ruskin has drawn
+a penetrating distinction between personification and
+symbolism,<a id="FNanchor_248" href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> and it was in this direction perhaps that
+Wordsworth’s protest may be said to have been of the
+highest value. His successors, for the most part,
+distrustful of mere abstractions, and impatient of
+allegory, with its attendant dangers of lifeless and
+mechanical personification, were not slow to recognize
+the inherent possibilities of symbolism as an artistic
+medium for the expression of individual moods and
+emotions, and it is not too much to say that in its
+successful employment English poetry has since won
+some of its greatest triumphs.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br />
+<span class="smaller">THE DICTION OF POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>After years of comparative neglect, and, it
+must be admitted, a good deal of uncritical
+disparagement, the “age of prose and reason”
+would seem at last to have come into its own. Or at
+any rate during recent years there has become evident
+a disposition to look more kindly on a period which
+has but seldom had justice done to it. The label
+which Matthew Arnold’s dictum attached to a good
+portion, if not the whole, of the eighteenth century
+seems to imply a period of arid and prosaic rationalism
+in which “the shaping spirit of imagination” had no
+abiding place, and this has no doubt been partly
+responsible for the persistency of an unjust conception.
+But it is now more generally recognized that,
+in prose and even in poetry, the seventy or eighty
+years, which begin when Dryden died, and end when
+William Blake was probably writing down the first
+drafts of his “Poetical Sketches,” had some definite
+and far from despicable legacies to pass on to its
+successors, to the writers in whom the Romantic
+revival was soon to be triumphantly manifested.
+The standards in all branches of literature were to be
+different, but between “classical” and “romantic”
+there was not to be, and indeed could not be, any great
+gulf fixed. There was continuity and much was
+handed on. What had to be transformed (and of
+course the process is to be seen at work in the very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span>
+height of the Augustan supremacy) were the aims and
+methods of literature, both its matter in large measure,
+and its style.<a id="FNanchor_249" href="#Footnote_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is the poetry of the period with which we are
+specially concerned, and it is in poetry that the
+distinction between the old order and the new was
+to be sharpest; for the leaders of the revolt had been
+gradually winning new fields, or re-discovering old
+ones, for poetry, and thus in more than one sense the
+way had been prepared for both the theory and
+practice of Wordsworth. Then came the great
+manifestoes, beginning with the Preface of 1798, followed
+by an expansion in 1800 and again in 1802;
+fifteen years later, Coleridge, with his penetrating
+analysis of the theories advanced by his friend and
+fellow-worker, began a controversy, which still to-day
+forms a fruitful theme of discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth, in launching his famous declaration
+of principle on the language fit and proper for metrical
+composition, had no doubt especially in mind the
+practice of his eighteenth century predecessors. But
+it has to be remembered that the <i>Prefaces</i> deal in
+reality with the whole genesis of “what is usually
+called poetic diction,” and that the avowed aim and
+object was to sweep away “a large portion of phrases
+and figures of speech, which from father to son have
+long been regarded as the common inheritance of
+poets.” The circumstances of the time, and perhaps
+the examples chosen by Wordsworth to illustrate
+his thesis, have too often led to his attack being
+considered as concerned almost entirely with the
+poetical language of the eighteenth century. Hence,
+whenever the phrase “poetic diction” is mentioned
+as a term of English literary history, more often than
+not it is to the eighteenth century that the attention<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>
+is directed, and the phrase itself has taken on a
+derogatory tinge, expressive of a stereotyped language,
+imitative, mechanical, lifeless. For in the reaction
+against eighteenth century styles, and especially
+against the polished heroic couplet, there arose a
+tendency to make the diction of the period an object
+of undistinguishing depreciation, to class it all in one
+category, as a collection of conventional words and
+phrases of which all poets and versifiers felt themselves
+at liberty to make use.</p>
+
+<p>An actual analysis of eighteenth century poetry
+shows us that this criticism is both deficient and misleading;
+it is misleading because it neglects to take
+any account of that eighteenth century poetical
+language which Pope, inheriting it from Dryden,
+brought to perfection, and which was so admirable
+a vehicle for the satiric or didactic thought it had to
+convey; it is deficient in that it concentrates attention
+mainly on one type or variety of the language,
+used both by poets and poetasters, and persists in
+labelling this type either as the “eighteenth century
+style proper,” or, as if the phrases were synonymous,
+“the Pope style.”</p>
+
+<p>One formula could no more suffice in itself for the
+poetic styles of the eighteenth century than for those
+of the nineteenth century; we may say, rather, that
+there are then to be distinguished at least four distinct
+varieties or elements of poetical diction, in the narrow
+sense of the term, though of course it is scarcely
+necessary to add that none of them is found in complete
+isolation from the others. There is first the
+stock descriptive language, the usual vehicle of expression
+for that large amount of eighteenth century
+verse where, in the words of Taine, we can usually
+find “the same diction, the same apostrophes, the
+same manner of placing the epithet and rounding the
+period,” and “regarding which we know beforehand<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>
+with what poetic ornaments it will be adorned.”<a id="FNanchor_250" href="#Footnote_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> In
+reading this verse, with its lifeless, abstract diction,
+we seldom or never feel that we have been brought
+into contact with the real thoughts or feelings of
+living men. Its epithets are artificial, imitative,
+conventional; though their glare and glitter may
+occasionally give us a certain pleasure, they rarely
+or never make any appeal to our sensibility. As
+someone has said, it is like wandering about in a land
+of empty phrases. Only here and there, as, for
+instance, in Dyer’s “Grongar Hill,” have the <i>gradus</i>
+epithets taken on a real charm and beauty in virtue
+of the spontaneity and sincerity with which the poet
+has been inspired.</p>
+
+<p>The received doctrine that it was due in the main
+to Pope’s “Homer” is unjust; many of the characteristics
+of this conventional poetical language were
+established long before Pope produced his translation.
+They are found to an equal, if not greater, extent in
+Dryden, and if it is necessary to establish a fountain-head,
+“Paradise Lost” will be found to contain most
+of the words and phrases which the eighteenth century
+versifiers worked to death. If Pope is guilty in any
+degree it is only because in his work the heroic couplet
+was brought to a high pitch of perfection; no doubt
+too the immense popularity of the “Homer” translation
+led to servile imitation of many of its words,
+phrases, and similes. Yet it is unjust to saddle Pope
+with the lack of original genius of so many of his
+successors and imitators.</p>
+
+<p>But the underlying cause of this conventional
+language must be sought elsewhere than in the mere
+imitation of any poet or poets. A passage from the
+“Prelude” supplies perhaps a clue to one of the
+fundamental conditions that had enslaved poetry in
+the shackles of a stereotyped language. It takes the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span>
+form of a sort of literary confession by Wordsworth
+as to the method of composing his first poems, which,
+we have seen, are almost an epitome of the poetical
+vices against which his manifestoes rebelled. He
+speaks of</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent20">the trade in classic niceties</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From languages that want the living voice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To carry meaning to the natural heart.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Prelude,” Bk. VI, ll. 109-112)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In these lines we have summed up one of the main
+Romantic indictments against the practice of the
+“classical” poets, who were too wont to regard the
+language of poetry as a mere collection or accepted
+aggregate of words, phrases, and similes, empty of all
+personal feeling and emotion.<a id="FNanchor_251" href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a></p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth, too, in this passage not unfairly describes
+the sort of atmosphere in which diction of the stock
+eighteenth century type flourished. The neo-classical
+interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of poetry
+as an imitation had by the time of Pope and his school
+resulted in a real critical confusion, which saw the
+essence of poetry in a slavish adherence to accepted
+models, and regarded its ideal language as choice
+flowers and figures of speech consecrated to poetry
+by traditional use, and used by the poet very much
+as the painter uses his colours, that is, as pigments
+laid on from the outside. That this doctrine of
+imitation and parallelism directly encourages the
+growth of a set poetic diction is obvious; the poet’s
+language need not be the reflection of a genuine
+emotion felt in the mind: he could always find his
+words, phrases, and figures of speech in accepted and
+consecrated models.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span></p>
+
+<p>The reaction against this artificial diction is fundamental
+in the Romantic revolt from another cause
+than that of poetic form. The stock poetic language,
+we have seen, occurs mainly in what may be called
+the “nature” poetry of the period, and its set words
+and phrases are for the most part descriptive terms of
+outdoor sights and sounds. Among the many descriptions
+or explanations of the Romantic movement is
+that it was in its essence a “return to Nature,” which
+is sometimes taken to imply that “Nature,” as we in
+the twentieth century think of it, was a sudden new
+vision, of which glimpses were first caught by James
+Thomson, and which finally culminated in Wordsworth’s
+“confession of faith.” Yet there was, of
+course, plenty of “nature poetry” in the neo-classical
+period; but it was for the most part nature from the
+point of view of the Town, or as seen from the study
+window with a poetical “Thesaurus” at the writer’s
+side, or stored in his memory as a result of his reading.
+It was not written with “the eye on the object.”
+More fatal still, if the neo-classical poets did look,
+they could see little beauty in the external world;
+they “had lost the best of the senses; they had
+ceased to perceive with joy and interpret with insight
+the colour and outline of things, the cadence of sound
+and motion, the life of creatures.”<a id="FNanchor_252" href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a></p>
+
+<p>This sterility or atrophy of the senses had thus a
+real connexion with the question of a conventional
+poetical language, for the descriptive diction with its
+stock words for the sea, the rivers, the mountains, the
+sky, the stars, the birds of the air and their music,
+for all the varied sights and sounds of outdoor
+life—all this is simply a reflex of the lack of
+genuine feeling towards external nature. Keats, with
+his ecstatic delight in Nature, quickly and aptly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span>
+pilloried this fatal weakness in the eighteenth century
+versifiers:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Its gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blue</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of summer nights collected still to make</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The morning precious: beauty was awake!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Why were ye not awake! But ye were dead</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To things ye knew not of—were closely wed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To musty laws lined out with wretched rule</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And compass vile: so that ye taught a school</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip and fit</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Till, like the certain wands of Jacob’s wit,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their verses tallied; Easy was the task</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of Poesy.<a id="FNanchor_253" href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is obvious that two great changes or advances
+were necessary, if poetry was to be freed from the
+bondage of this conventional diction. In the first
+place, the poet must reject root and branch the traditional
+stock of words and phrases that may once have
+been inspiring, but had become lifeless and mechanical
+long before they fell into disuse; he must write with
+his eye on the object, and translate his impressions
+into fresh terms endowed with real, imaginative power.
+And this first condition would naturally lead to a
+second, requiring every word and phrase to be a
+spontaneous reflection of genuine feeling felt in the
+presence of Nature and her vast powers.</p>
+
+<p>The neo-classical poetry proper was not without
+verse which partly satisfied these conditions; direct
+contact with nature was never entirely lost. Wordsworth,
+as we know, gave honourable mention<a id="FNanchor_254" href="#Footnote_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> to
+“The Nocturnal Reverie” of Anne, Countess
+Winchilsea, written at the very height of the neo-classical
+supremacy, in which external nature is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span>
+described with simplicity and fidelity, though there
+is little trace of any emotion roused in the writer’s
+mind by the sights and sounds of outdoor life. And
+every now and then, amid the arid and monotonous
+stretches of so much eighteenth century verse, we are
+startled into lively interest by stumbling across, often
+in the most obscure and unexpected corners, a phrase
+or a verse to remind us that Nature, and all that the
+term implies, was still making its powerful appeal
+to the hearts and minds of men, that its beauty and
+mystery was still being expressed in simple and heartfelt
+language. Thomas Dyer’s “Grongar Hill” has
+already been mentioned; it was written in 1726,
+the year of the publication of Thompson’s “Winter.”
+Dyer, for all we know, may have the priority, but in
+any case we see him here leading back poetry to the
+sights and sounds and scents of external nature, which
+he describes, not merely as a painter with a good eye
+for landscape, but as a lover who feels the thrill and
+call of the countryside, and can give exquisite expression
+to his thoughts and emotions. We have only
+to recall such passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who, the purple evening lie,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On the mountain’s lonely van;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or even his tree catalogue,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The yellow beech, the sable yew,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The slender fir, that taper grows,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">How close and small the hedges lie;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">What streaks of meadow cross the eye!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">A little rule, a little sway,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A sun-beam on a winter’s day,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is all the proud and mighty have</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Between the cradle and the grave—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">to recognize that already the supremacy of Pope and
+his school of town poets is seriously threatened.</p>
+
+<p>Here too is a short passage which might not unfairly
+be assigned to Wordsworth himself.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Would I again were with you, O ye dales</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands, where,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And his banks open, and his lawns extend,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Stops short the pleased traveller to view,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Presiding o’er the scene, some rustic tower</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O ye Northumbrian shades, which overlook</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The rocky pavement and the mossy falls</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of solitary Wensbeck’s limpid stream,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">How gladly I recall your well-known seats</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Beloved of old, and that delightful time</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">When all alone, for many a summer’s day,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I wandered through your calm recesses, led</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In silence by some powerful hand unseen.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It is from Mark Akenside’s “Pleasures of the
+Imagination” (Bk IV, ll. 31 foll.). And so, too, is this:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">the meadow’s fragrant hedge,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In spring time when the woodlands first are green</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Book II, 175-6)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">which takes us far away from the formal conventional
+landscapes of the Augustans.</p>
+
+<p>These two are among the more famous of their time,
+but a close search amongst the minor poetry of the
+mid-eighteenth century will bring to light many a
+surprising instance of poetry written with an eye on
+the object, as in John Cunningham’s (1729-1773)
+“Day,”<a id="FNanchor_255" href="#Footnote_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> where the sights and sounds of the countryside
+are simply and freshly brought before us:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Swiftly from the mountain’s brow,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Shadows, nurs’d by night, retire:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And the peeping sun-beam, now,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Paints with gold the village spire.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Philomel forsakes the thorn,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Plaintive where she prates at night;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And the Lark, to meet the morn,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Soars beyond the shepherd’s sight.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">From the low-roof’d cottage ridge,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">See the chatt’ring Swallow spring;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Darting through the one-arch’d bridge,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Quick she dips her dappled wing.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But the great bulk of neo-classical verse is unaffected
+by the regained and quickened outlook on the external
+world. It is in the forerunners of the Romantic
+revolt that this latter development is to be most
+plainly noted: when, as the result of many and varied
+causes English poets were inspired to use their eyes
+again, they were able, slowly and in a somewhat
+shallow manner at first, afterwards quickly and
+profoundly, to “sense” the beauty of the external
+world, its mysterious emanations of power and beauty.
+This quickening and final triumph of the artistic
+sense naturally revealed itself in expression; the
+conventional words and epithets were really doomed
+from the time of “Grongar Hill” and “The Seasons,”
+and a new language was gradually forged to express
+the fresh, vivid perceptions peculiar to each poet,
+according as his senses interpreted for him the face of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>A second variety of eighteenth century diction, or,
+more strictly speaking, another conventional embellishment
+of the poetry of the period, is found in that
+widespread use of personified abstraction which is
+undoubtedly one of the greatest, perhaps <i>the</i> greatest,
+of its faults. Not only the mere versifiers, but also
+many of its greatest poets, make abundant use of
+cut and dried personifications, whose sole claim to
+vitality rests most often on the presence of a capital
+letter. It is a favourite indulgence of the writers,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>
+not only of the old order, but also of those who, like
+Collins and Gray, announce the advent of the new, and
+not even the presence of genius could prevent its
+becoming a poetical abuse of the worst kind. Whether
+it be regarded as a survival of a symbolic system from
+which the life had long since departed, or as a conventional
+device arising from the theory of poetical
+ornament handed down by the neo-classicists, its
+main effect was to turn a large proportion of eighteenth
+century poetry into mere rhetorical verse. It is this
+variety of poetical language that might with justice
+be labelled as the eighteenth century style in the
+derogatory sense of the term. In its cumulative
+effect on the poetry of the period it is perhaps more
+vicious than the stock diction which is the usual target
+of criticism.</p>
+
+<p>Two other varieties of eighteenth century diction
+represent an endeavour to replace, or rather reinforce
+the stereotyped words, phrases, and similes by new
+forms. The first of these is the widespread use of
+latinized words and constructions, chiefly in the
+blank verse poems written in imitation of Milton, but
+not only there. The second is the use of archaic and
+pseudo-archaic words by the writers whose ambition
+it was to catch something of the music and melody of
+the Spenserian stanza. Both these movements thus
+reflected the desire for a change, and though the
+tendencies, which they reflect, are in a certain sense
+conventional and imitative in that they simply seek
+to replace the accepted diction by new forms derived
+respectively from Milton and Spenser, one of them at
+least had in the sequel a real and revivifying influence
+on the language of poetry.</p>
+
+<p>The pedantic and cumbrous terms, which swarm
+in the majority of the Miltonic imitations, were
+artificial creations, rarely imbued with any trace of
+poetic power. Where they do not actually arise from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span>
+deliberate attempts to imitate the high Miltonic manner,
+they probably owe their appearance to more or less
+conscious efforts to make the new blank verse as
+attractive as possible to a generation of readers
+accustomed to the polished smoothness of the couplet.
+Though such terms linger on until the time of Cowper,
+and even invade the works of Wordsworth himself,
+romanticism utterly rejected them, not only because
+of a prejudice in favour of “Saxon simplicity,” but
+also because such artificial formations lacked almost
+completely that mysterious power of suggestion and
+association in which lies the poetical appeal of words.
+Wordsworth, it is true, could win from them real
+poetic effects, and so occasionally could Thomson,
+but in the main they are even more dead and dreary
+than the old abstract diction of the neo-classicals.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency towards archaism was much more
+successful in this respect, because it was based on a
+firmer foundation. In harking back to “the poet’s
+poet,” the eighteenth century versifiers were at least
+on a right track, and though it was hardly possible,
+even with the best of them, that more than a faint
+simulacrum of the music and melody of the “Faerie
+Queene” could be captured merely by drawing drafts
+on Spenser’s diction, yet they at least helped to blaze
+a way for the great men who were to come later.
+The old unknown writers of the ballads and Spenser
+and the Elizabethans generally were to be looked
+upon as treasure trove to which Keats and Scott and
+Beddoes and many another were constantly to turn
+in their efforts to revivify the language of poetry, to
+restore to it what it had lost of freshness and vigour
+and colour.</p>
+
+<p>The varieties or embellishments of poetical diction,
+which have just been characterized, represent the
+special language of eighteenth century poetry, as
+distinct from that large portion of language which is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>
+common alike to prose and poetry. For it is scarcely
+necessary to remind ourselves that by far the largest
+portion of the poetry of the eighteenth century (as
+indeed of any century) is written in the latter sort of
+language, which depends for its effects mainly upon the
+arrangement of the words, rather than for any unique
+power in the words themselves. In this kind of
+poetical diction, it is not too much to say that the
+eighteenth century is pre-eminent, though the effect
+of the Wordsworthian criticism has led to a certain
+failure or indisposition to recognize the fact. Just as
+Johnson and his contemporaries do not give direct
+expression to any approval of the admirable language,
+of which Pope and some of his predecessors had such
+perfect command, so modern criticism has not always
+been willing to grant it even bare justice, though
+Coleridge’s penetrating insight had enabled him, as
+we have seen, to pay his tribute to “the almost faultless
+position and choice of words, in Mr. Pope’s <i>original</i>
+compositions, particularly in his Satires and Moral
+Essays.” It was, we may imagine, the ordinary
+everyday language, heightened by brilliance and
+point, in which Pope and his coterie carried on their
+dallyings and bickerings at Twickenham and elsewhere,
+and it was an ideal vehicle, lucid and precise
+for the argument and declamation it had to sustain.
+But it was more than that, as will be readily recognized
+if we care to recall some of the oft-quoted lines
+which amply prove with what consummate skill Pope,
+despite the economy and condensation imposed by
+the requirements of the closed couplet, could evoke
+from this plain and unadorned diction effects of
+imagination and sometimes even of passion. Such
+lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">He stooped to Truth and moralised his song,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In lazy apathy let stoics boast</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their virtue fixed: ’tis fixed as in a frost,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In Folly’s cup still laughs the bubble joy,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and dozens similar, show the lucidity, energy, and
+imaginative picturesqueness with which Pope could
+endow his diction when the occasion required it.<a id="FNanchor_256" href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a>
+Such language is the “real language of men”; nearly
+every word would satisfy the Wordsworthian canon.</p>
+
+<p>And the same thing is true to a large extent of the
+poets, who are usually considered as having taken
+Pope for their model. Whenever there is a real
+concentration of interest, whenever they are dealing
+with the didactic and moral questions characteristic
+of the “age of prose and reason,” whenever they are
+writing of man and of his doings, his thoughts and
+moods as a social member of civilized society, their
+language is, as a rule, adequate, vivid, fresh, because
+the aim then is to present a general thought in the
+language best adapted to bring it forcibly before the
+mind of the reader. Here, as has been justly said,<a id="FNanchor_257" href="#Footnote_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a>
+rhetoric has passed under the influence and received
+the transforming force of poetry. “The best rhetorical
+poetry of the eighteenth century is not the best poetry,
+but it is poetry in its own way, exhibiting the glow,
+the rush, the passion which strict prose cannot, and
+which poetry can, give.” Judged on the basis of this
+kind of poetical diction, the distinctions usually drawn
+between the neo-classical “kind” of language in the
+eighteenth century and the romantic “kind” all tend
+to disappear; at the head (though perhaps we should
+go back to the Dryden of the “Religio Laici” and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>
+“The Hind and the Panther”) is the “Essay on
+Criticism”; in the direct line of descent are Akenside’s
+“Epistle to Curio,” large portions of “The Seasons,”
+“The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”
+“The Vanity of Human Wishes,” the “Deserted
+Village,” and at the end of the century, the “Village”
+of Crabbe. And in another <i>genre</i>, but just as good in
+its own way, is that light verse, as it may perhaps best
+be called, successfully ushered in, at the very beginning
+of the century, by John Pomfret’s “The Choice,”
+and brought to perfection by Matthew Prior in his
+lines “To a Child of Quality,” and many another
+piece.</p>
+
+<p>Nor must it be forgotten that there is a large amount
+of eighteenth century minor poetry which, whilst
+reflecting in the main the literary tendency of the age
+in its fondness for didactic verse, presented in the guise
+of interminably long and dull epics and epistles, yet
+reveals to us, if we care to make the pilgrimage through
+the arid stretches of Anderson’s “British Poets,” or
+Dodsley’s “Collection of Poets by Several Hands,”
+or Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry,” or similar collections,
+the simple, unambitious works of poets more or less
+unknown when they wrote and now for the most part
+forgotten, who, unconscious or ignorant of the accepted
+rules and regulations of their time, wrote because
+they felt they must, and thus had no care to fetter
+themselves with the bondage of the “classical”
+diction.<a id="FNanchor_258" href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> Their range was limited, but they were
+able to express their thoughts and fancies, their little
+idylls and landscapes in plain English without any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span>
+trimmings, akin in its unaffected diction and simplicity
+of syntax to the language of the genuine old ballads,
+which were so largely and, for the most part, ineffectively,
+if not ludicrously, imitated throughout the
+eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>The Augustan age, then, was not without honour,
+even in poetry, where, looking back after Romanticism
+had won and consolidated its greatest triumphs, it
+would seem everything had gone wrong, there was not
+a little from which the rebels themselves might well
+have profited. Nowadays we are accustomed, perhaps
+too often, to think of the Romantic forerunners, the
+poet of “The Seasons,” and Gray, and Collins, and
+Goldsmith, and the rest, as lonely isolated outposts
+in hostile territory. So they were to a large extent,
+but they could not, of course, altogether escape the
+form and pressure of their age; and what we now
+admire in them, and for which we salute them as the
+heralds of the Romantic dawn, is that which shows
+them struggling to set themselves free from the
+“classical” toils, and striving to give expression to
+the new ideas and ideals that were ultimately to surge
+and sing themselves to victory. It is scarcely necessary
+to recall many a well-known passage, in which,
+within a decade of the death of Pope, or even before
+the mid-century, these new ideas and ideals had found
+expression in language which really sounded the death-knell
+of the old diction. Fine sounds, Keats within
+a few decades was to proclaim exultantly, were then
+to be heard “floating wild about the earth,” but
+already as early as Collins and Gray, and even now
+and then in “The Seasons,” words of infinite appeal
+and suggestiveness were stealing back into English
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>And this leads us to a consideration of the poetic
+diction of the eighteenth century from a more general
+standpoint. For no discussion of poetical language<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span>
+can be complete unless an attempt is made to consider
+the question in its entirety with a view to the question
+of what really constitutes poetic diction, what it is
+that gives to words and phrases, used by certain poets
+in certain contexts, a magic force and meaning. The
+history of poetic diction from the very beginning of
+English literature down to present times has yet to be
+written, and it would be a formidable task. Perhaps
+a syndicate of acknowledged poets would be the only
+fit tribunal to pass judgment on so vital an aspect of
+the craft, but even then we suspect there would be a
+good deal of dissension, and probably more than one
+minority report. But the general aspects of the
+question have formed a fruitful field of discussion since
+Wordsworth launched his theories<a id="FNanchor_259" href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> and thus began
+a controversy as to the exact nature of poetic language,
+the echoes of which, it would seem, have not yet died
+away. For the Prefaces were, it may be truly said,
+the first great and definite declaration of principle concerning
+a question which has been well described as
+“the central one in the philosophy of literature, What
+is, or rather what is not, poetic diction?”<a id="FNanchor_260" href="#Footnote_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p>
+
+<p>Judged from this wider standpoint, the diction of
+the “classical” poetry of the eighteenth century,
+and even of a large portion of the verse that announces
+the ultimate Romantic triumph, seems to have marked
+limitations. The widespread poverty and sterility
+of this diction was not, of course, merely the result of
+an inability to draw inspiration from Nature, or of a
+failure to realize the imaginative possibilities of words<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span>
+and phrases: it was, it would almost seem, the
+inevitable outcome and reflex of an age that, despite
+great and varied achievements, now appears to us
+narrow and restricted in many vital aspects. If
+poetry is a criticism of life, in the sense in which
+Matthew Arnold doubtless meant his dictum to be
+taken, the age of Pope and his successors is not
+“poetic”; in many respects it is a petty and tawdry
+age—the age of the coffee-house and the new press, of
+the club and the coterie. There are great thinkers like
+Hume, great historians like Gibbon, great teachers
+and reformers like John Wesley; but these names and
+a few others seem only to throw into stronger light the
+fact that it was on its average level an age of talk
+rather than of thought, of “fickle fancy” rather than
+of imaginative flights, of society as a unit highly
+organized for the pursuit of its own pastimes, pleasures,
+and preoccupations, in which poetry, and literature
+generally, played a social part. Poetry seems to skim
+gracefully over the surface of life, lightly touching
+many things in its flight, but never soaring; philosophy
+and science and satire all come within its
+purview, but when the eternally recurring themes of
+poetry<a id="FNanchor_261" href="#Footnote_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a>—love and nature and the like—are handled,
+there is rarely or never poignancy or depth.</p>
+
+<p>The great elemental facts and thoughts and feelings
+of life seldom confront us in the literature of the
+century as we make our way down the decades; even
+in the forerunners of the Romantic revolt we are never
+really stirred. “The Seasons,” and “The Elegy
+Written in a Country Churchyard,” touch responsive
+chords, but are far from moving us to thoughts beyond
+the reaches of our souls. Not until Blake and Burns
+is the veneer of convention and artificiality, in both
+matter and manner, definitely cast aside, and there is
+to be caught in English verse again, not only the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span>
+authentic singing note, but, what is more, the recognition
+and exemplification of the great truth that the
+finest poetry most often has its “roots deep in the
+common stuff,” and it is not to be looked for in an age
+and environment when, with rationality apparently
+triumphant, men seemed careless of the eternal
+verities, of the thoughts and feelings that lie too deep
+for tears, or sadly recognized their impotence, or
+their frustrated desires, to image them forth in
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it,” asks Gilbert Murray,<a id="FNanchor_262" href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> “that gives
+words their character and makes a style high or low?
+Obviously, their associations: the company they
+habitually keep in the minds of those who use them.
+A word which belongs to the language of bars and
+billiard-saloons will become permeated by the normal
+standard of mind prevalent in such places; a word
+which suggests Milton or Carlyle will have the flavour
+of those men’s minds about it. I therefore cannot
+resist the conclusion that if the language of Greek
+poetry has, to those who know it intimately, this
+special quality of keen austere beauty, it is because
+the minds of the poets who used that language were
+habitually toned to a higher level both of intensity
+and of nobility than ours. It is a finer language
+because it expresses the mind of finer men. By
+‘finer men’ I do not necessarily mean men who
+behaved better, either by our standards or by their
+own: I mean the men to whom the fine things of the
+world, sunrise and sea and stars, and the love of man
+for man, and strife and the facing of evil for the sake
+of good, and even common things like meat and drink,
+and evil things like hate and terror had, as it were, a
+keener edge than they have for us, and roused a
+swifter and nobler reaction.” This passage has been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span>
+quoted in full because it may be said to have a direct
+and definite bearing on the question of the average
+level of poetic language during the greater part of the
+eighteenth century: there were few or no <i>trouvailles</i>,
+no great discoveries, no sudden releasings of the
+magic power often lurking unsuspectedly in the most
+ordinary words, because the poets and versifiers for
+the most part had all gone wrong in their conception
+of the medium they essayed to mould. “The substance
+of poetry,” writes Professor Lowes,<a id="FNanchor_263" href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> “is also
+the very stuff of words. And in its larger sense as
+well the language of poetry is made up inevitably of
+symbols—of symbols for things in terms of other
+things, for things in terms of feelings, for feelings in
+terms of things. It is the language not of objects, but
+of the complex relations of objects. And the agency
+that moulds it is the ceaselessly active power that is
+special to poetry only in degree—<i>imagination</i>—that
+fuses the familiar and the strange, the thing I feel and
+the thing I see, the world within and the world without,
+into a <i>tertium quid</i>, that interprets both.” The
+eighteenth century was not perhaps so emphatically
+and entirely the “age of prose and reason” as is sometimes
+thought, but it could scarcely be called the “age
+of imagination,” and poetry, in its highest sense
+(“high poetry,” as Maeterlinck would call it), being
+of imagination all compact, found no abiding place
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Most words, we may say, potentially possess at least
+two or more significations, their connotative scope
+varying according to the knowledge or culture of the
+speaker or reader. First of all, there is the logical,
+their plain workaday use, we might call it; and next,
+and above and beyond all this, they have, so to speak,
+an exciting force, a power of stimulating and reviving
+in the mind and memory all the associations that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span>
+cluster around them. Nearly all words carry with
+them, in vastly varying degrees, of course, this power
+of evocation, so that even commonplace terms, words,
+and phrases hackneyed and worn thin by unceasing
+usage, may suddenly be invested with a strange and
+beautiful suggestiveness when they are pressed into
+the service of the highest poetic imagination.
+And in the same way the æsthetic appeal of words of
+great potential value is reinforced and strengthened,
+when in virtue of their context, or even merely of the
+word or words to which they are attached, they are
+afforded a unique opportunity of flashing forth and
+bringing into play all the mysterious powers and
+associations gathered to themselves during a long
+employment in prose and verse, or on the lips of the
+people:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">All the charm of all the muses</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">often flowering in a lonely word.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Poetry of the highest value and appeal may be,
+and often is, as we know from concrete examples that
+flash into the mind, written in commonplace, everyday
+terms, and we ask ourselves how it is done.<a id="FNanchor_264" href="#Footnote_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a>
+There are the mysterious words of the dying Hamlet:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The rest is silence,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the line quoted by Matthew Arnold<a id="FNanchor_265" href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> as an instance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span>
+when Wordsworth’s practice is to be found illustrating
+his theories:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And never lifted up a single stone,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the wonderful lines which seem to bring with them
+a waking vision of the beauty of the English countryside,
+radiant with the promise of Spring:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent22">daffodils,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That come before the swallow dares, and take</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The winds of March with beauty.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In these and many similar passages, which the reader
+will recall for himself, it would seem that the mere
+juxtaposition of more or less plain and ordinary words
+has led to such action and reaction between them as
+to charge each with vastly increased powers of evocation
+and suggestion, to which the mind of the reader,
+roused and stimulated, instinctively responds.</p>
+
+<p>Similarly, the satisfaction thus afforded to our
+æsthetic sense, or our emotional appreciation, is often
+evoked by a happy conjunction of epithet and noun
+placed together in a new relation, instantly recognized
+as adding an unsuspected beauty to an otherwise colourless
+word. The poets and versifiers of the eighteenth
+century were not particularly noteworthy for their
+skill or inspiration in the matter of the choice of
+epithet, but the genius of Blake, in this as in other
+respects of poetic achievement, raised him “above the
+age” and led him to such felicities of expression as in
+the last stanza of “The Piper”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I made a <i>rural pen</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I stained the water clear,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where, as has been aptly remarked,<a id="FNanchor_266" href="#Footnote_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> a commonplace<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span>
+epithet is strangely and, apparently discordantly,
+joined to an equally commonplace noun, and
+yet the discord, in virtue of the fact that it sets
+the mind and memory working to recover or recall
+the faint ultimate associations of the two terms,
+endows the phrase with infinite suggestiveness. In
+the same way a subtle and magic effect is often
+produced by inversion of epithet, when the adjective
+is placed after instead of before the noun, and this
+again is a practice or device little favoured in the
+eighteenth century; the supremacy of the stopped
+couplet and its mechanical requirements were all
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>But the eighteenth century had little of this magic
+power of evocation; the secret had departed with the
+blind Milton, and it was not till the Romantic ascendancy
+had firmly established itself, not until Keats
+and Shelley and their great successors, that English
+poetry was once more able so to handle and fashion
+and rearrange words as to win from them their total
+and most intense associations. Yet contemporary
+criticism, especially in France, had not failed
+altogether to appreciate this potential magic of
+words. Diderot, for instance, speaks of the magic
+power that Homer and other great poets have
+given to many of their words; such words are, in his
+phrase, “hieroglyphic paintings,” that is, paintings
+not to the eye, but to the imagination.<a id="FNanchor_267" href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> What we
+feel about all the so-called classical verse of the
+eighteenth century, as well as of a good deal of the
+earlier Romantic poetry, is that writers have not been
+able to devise these subtle hieroglyphics; lack of real
+poetical inspiration, or the pressure of the prosaic and
+unimaginative atmosphere of their times, has led to a
+general poverty in the words or phrases that evoke<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span>
+some object before the inner eye, or charm the ear by
+an unheard melody, terms that, like the magic words
+of Keats, or the evanescent imagery of Shelley, stir
+us both emotionally and æsthetically. The verse of
+Pope and his followers is not without something of
+this power, but here the effect is achieved by the skill
+and polish with which the words are selected and
+grouped within the limits of the heroic couplet. Crabbe
+had marked down, accurately enough, this lack of
+word-power in his description of Dryden’s verse as
+“poetry in which the force of expression and accuracy
+of description have neither needed nor obtained
+assistance from the fancy of the writer,” and again,
+more briefly, as “poetry without an atmosphere.”<a id="FNanchor_268" href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a>
+One negative indication of this “nudity” is the comparative
+poverty of eighteenth century poetry in new
+compound epithets, those felicitous terms which have
+added to the language some of its most poetical and
+pictorial phrases.</p>
+
+<p>The Prefaces of Wordsworth and the kindred comments
+and remarks of Coleridge were not, it is hardly
+necessary to say, in themselves powerful enough to
+effect an instant and complete revolution in poetical
+theory and practice. But it was all to the good that
+inspired craftsmen were at last beginning to worry
+themselves about the nature and quality of the
+material which they had to mould and fashion and
+combine into poetry; still more important was it that
+they were soon to have the powerful aid of fellow-workers
+like Shelley and Keats, whose practice was
+to reveal the magic lurking in words and phrases, so
+arranged and combined as to set them reverberating
+in the depths of our sensibility. And, on the side of
+form at least, this is the distinctively Romantic
+achievement; the æsthetic possibilities and potentialities<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span>
+of the whole of our language, past and present,
+were entrancingly revealed and magnificently exemplified;
+new and inexhaustible mines of poetical word-power
+were thus opened up, and the narrow and
+conventional limits of the diction within which the
+majority of the eighteenth century poets had “tallied”
+their verses were transcended and swept away.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> A brief summary, which is here utilized, is given by Spingarn,
+“Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century,” I, Intro. xxxvi,
+foll. (Oxford, 1908).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> <i>Vide</i> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, <i>Intro.</i> XXXVI-XLVIII; and also
+Robertson, “Studies in the Genesis of Romantic Theory in the
+XVIIIth Century” (Cambridge, 1924), an attempt “to show that
+the Movement which led to the dethronement of Reason, in favour
+of the Imagination, chief arbiter in poetic creation, and which
+culminated with Goethe and Schiller in Germany and the Romantic
+Revival in England, is to be put to the credit not of ourselves, but
+of Italy, who thus played again that pioneer rôle which she had
+already played in the sixteenth century.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, II, p. 118.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, II, p. 310.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, II, p. 273.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> “Apology for Heroic Poetry”: “Essays of John Dryden,”
+ed. W. P. Ker (1909), Vol. I, p. 190.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> “There appears in every part of his [Horace’s] diction, or (to
+speak English) in all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold
+purity.”—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 266.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> “Lives”: Dryden, ed. G. B. Hill (1905), Vol. I, p. 420; and
+cp. Goldsmith, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous
+Works), 1821, Vol. IV, p. 381 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> “Letters” (To R. West), 1742, ed. Tovey (1900); Vol. II,
+pp. 97-8.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, pp. 17-8.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 188 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, p. 234.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Edward Young, the author of “Night Thoughts,” was later to
+express this tersely enough: “Words tarnished, by passing through
+the mouths of the vulgar, are laid aside as inelegant and obsolete”—”Conjectures
+on Original Composition,” 1759 (“English Critical
+Essays,” Oxford, 1922, p. 320).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin: “Life,” Vol. V, p. 69.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> That is to say, as Mr. John Drinkwater has recently put it, it was
+“the common language, but raised above the common pitch, of the
+coffee-houses and boudoirs.”—“Victorian Poetry,” 1923, pp. 30-32.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> <i>Vide</i> Elton, “The Augustan Ages,” 1889, pp. 419 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Cp. “Essay on Criticism,” I, ll. 130-140.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> John Dennis, of course, at the beginning of the century, is to
+be found pleading that “passion is the chief thing in poetry,”
+(“The Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry,” 1701);
+but it is to be feared that he is only, so to speak, ringing the changes
+on the Rules.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” ed. Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II,
+p. 147.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” Ker, <i>op cit.</i>, Vol. II,
+p. 148. “<i>Operum Colores</i> is the very word which Horace uses to
+signify words and elegant expressions.” etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Lessing’s “Laokoon,” which appeared in 1766, may in this, as
+in other connexions, be regarded as the first great Romantic
+manifesto. The limitations of poetry and the plastic arts were
+analysed, and the fundamental conditions to which each art must
+adhere, if it is to accomplish its utmost, were definitely and clearly
+laid down.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> “Polymetis” (1747), p. 311.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. XXII.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Chap. IV.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> <i>Vide</i> especially Babbitt, “The New Laocoon, An Essay on
+the Confusion of the Arts” (1910), to which these paragraphs are
+indebted; and for a valuable survey of the relations of
+English poetry with painting and with music, see “English
+Poetry in Its Relation to Painting and the other Arts,” by
+Laurence Binyon (London, 1919), especially pp. 15-19.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Gregory Smith, Vol. I,
+Intro. (Oxford, 1904).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., Addison, “Spectator” papers on “Paradise Lost”
+(No. 285, January 26, 1712).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Essay, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous
+Works, 1820, Vol. IV, pp. 408-14).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 22.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> “Lives,” Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 420.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> “Lives”: Cowley; cp. “The Rambler,” No. 158.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> Cp. Boswell’s “Life” (1851 edition), Vol. I, p. 277: “He
+enlarged very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over
+blank verse in English poetry”; also <i>ibid.</i>, Vol. II, p. 84.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> “Lives,” ed. Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, pp. 416 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 341.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> This is of course exemplified in his own poetic practice, and it
+has been held sufficient to explain the oft-debated scantiness of his
+literary production. But for remarkable examples of his minuteness
+and scrupulosity in the matter of poetic diction see the letter
+to West referred to above; to Mason, January 13, 1758 (Tovey,
+<i>op. cit.</i>, II, p. 12), and to Beattie, March 8, 1771 (<i>ibid.</i>, II, p. 305).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> Cp. Courthope, “History of English Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 218
+foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Intro., pp. LV-LX.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> Preface to the “Fables,” Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 266-67.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> <i>Vide</i> Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, Vol. II.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Translation of Homer,” ed. Buckley, Intro., p. 47;
+and cp. “The Guardian,” No. 78, “A Receipt to make an Epic
+Poem.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> Tovey, <i>op. cit.</i>, March 8, 1771 (Vol. II, pp. 305 foll.); Beattie’s
+comments are given by Tovey, <i>ibid.</i>, footnotes.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> “Rambler,” No. 121, May 14, 1751.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> “Lines written in Imitation of Certain Poems Published in
+1777”; and cp. William Whitehead’s “Charge to the Poets”
+(1762), which may be taken to reflect the various attitudes of the
+reading public towards the “revivals.”—(“Poets of Great Britain,”
+1794, Vol. XI, pp. 935-7.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> Works (1820), <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. IV, p. 124.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> September 27, 1788 (“Letters,” 4 vols, 1806, Vol. II, p. 106).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> Letter to Lady Hesketh, March 22, 1790 (“Correspondence of
+William Cowper—Arranged in Chronological Order by T. Wright,”
+4 vols., 1904).—Vol. III, pp. 446, foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> 1807 ed., Vol. I, pp. 21 and 24; cp. also Campbell, “The Philosophy
+of Rhetoric” (London, 1776), Vol. I, pp. 410-411.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> “Spectator,” 285, January 26, 1712.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> “Homer”; ed. Buckley, Intro., 49.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, II, pp. 1-51; for Hobbes “Answer,” and
+Cowley’s “Preface to Poems,” see <i>ibid.</i>, pp. 54-90.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> “Dedication of the Æneis,” Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 154,
+foll.; cp. Addison, “Spectator,” 297, January 9, 1712.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., E. Barat, “Le Style poétique et la Révolution
+Romantique” (Paris, 1904), pp. 5-35.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> “Lives of the Poets. Pope,” ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 251.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 244.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> January 17, 1782 (Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 429-30).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Prose Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. II, pp. 101 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross (1907), p. 26, Note;
+cp. also Southey, “Works of Cowper” (1884 edition), Vol. I, p. 313.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> “The Progress of Taste,” III, ll. 7-10.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> Wordsworth himself of course stigmatized the “hubbub of
+words” which was often the only result of these eighteenth century
+attempts to paraphrase passages from the Old and the New Testament
+“as they exist in our common translation.”—<i>Vide</i> Prefaces,
+etc., “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916). p. 943.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> For a detailed description of the stock diction of English
+“Classical” poetry, see especially Myra Reynolds, “Nature in
+English Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1912), to
+which the foregoing remarks are indebted.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> “Essay on Criticism,” I, l. 350 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> “Essay on Men and Manners” (Works, 1764), Vol. II.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> Bysshe, “Art of Poetry,” Third Edition (1708), Chap. I, par. 1
+(quoted by Saintsbury, “Loci Critici,” 1903, p. 174).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> To the Rev. John Newton, December 10, 1785 (Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+Vol. II, pp. 404-406).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> <i>Vide</i> Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin (1889), Vol. V.,
+p. 166.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> Philips has large supplies of the poetical stock-in-trade. He
+speaks of “honeysuckles of a <i>purple</i> dye,” and anticipates Gray in
+his couplet,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Like woodland Flowers which paint the desert glades</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“The Fable of Thule”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>(<i>Vide</i> “Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. IX, 384-407.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> But, as de Selincourt points out in “Poems of John Keats”
+(1905, Appendix C, p. 580), it is only the excessive and unnatural
+use of these adjectives that calls for censure.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> Especially in the case of compound epithets. Cf. Earle,
+“Philology of the English Tongue,” p. 601, for examples from the
+works of the poets from Shakespeare to Tennyson. For Shakespeare’s
+use of this form, see Schmidt, “Shakespeare Lexicon,”
+Vol. II, pp. 147 foll. (2nd Ed., London and Berlin, 1886).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> But compare “Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (p. 249), where it is
+justly pointed out that not a few of these circuitous phrases are
+justified by “considerations of dramatic propriety.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> Cf. Raleigh, “Milton,” <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 252-3.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> “Spring,” ll. 478 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> In “Summer,” Thomson had first used <i>feathery race</i> which was
+later amended into <i>tuneful race</i>—apparently the best improvement
+he could think of!</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> For a detailed study of Thomson’s diction, see especially Leon
+Morel, “James Thomson. Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres” (Paris, 1895),
+Chap. IV, pp. 412 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> To Mason, January 13, 1758 (“Letters of Gray,” ed. Tovey,
+Vol. II, pp. 13-14).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> <i>Vide</i> “The Poems of Chatterton, with an Essay on the Rowley
+Poems,” by W. W. Skeat (1871).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> Canto III, 652 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> “A Paladin of Philanthropy” (1899), p. 59 (quoted by Courthope,
+“History English Poetry,” V, 216).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> But cf. Courthope, “History English Poetry” (1910), Vol. V,
+p. 218.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> Arthur Symons, “William Blake” (1907), p. 39.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> To Mrs. Butts: “Poetical Works,” ed. Sampson (Oxford,
+1914), p. 187.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, p. 16. (Oxford,
+1907.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> Cf. “Letters,” to Samuel Rose, December 13, 1787: “Correspondence”
+arranged by W. Wright (1904), Vol. III, p. 190.
+To C. Rowley, February 21, 1788, <i>ibid.</i>, pp. 231 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> E.g. Charles Wesley’s “Wrestling Jacob,” or Watts’s “When
+I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> <i>Vide</i> Courthope, <i>op. cit.</i>, Book V, Ch. XI; and cp. the confident
+and just claims put forward by John Wesley himself on
+behalf of the language of the hymns, in his “Preface to the Collection
+of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists,”
+1780.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> Cf. Coleridge “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+p. 11.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> <i>Vide</i> especially the dialogue with a Bookseller on the language
+of poetry.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> In both the first and the final forms “Poetical Works,”
+ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916) Appendix, pp. 592 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> For a detailed account see E. Legouis, “La Jeunesse de Wordsworth”
+(English translation, 1897; Revised edition, 1921).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, Intro.,
+pp. lv foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> Both the Fletchers also used many other latinized forms
+found before their time, and which in some cases they probably
+took direct from Spenser.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> E.g. by Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. III,
+p. 339, where a list is given (“only a few of the examples”) of
+Milton’s “coinages” and “creations.” Of this list only some
+half dozen (according to the N.E.D.) owe their first literary appearance
+to Milton.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> E.g. <i>debel</i>, <i>disglorified</i>, <i>conglobe</i>, <i>illaudable</i>, etc., date from the
+sixteenth century; <i>Battailous</i> goes back to Wycliff (N.E.D.).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> Cf.“Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (1915), pp. 247 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> <i>Vide</i> Masson, “Milton’s Poetical Works,” Vol. III, pp. 77-78
+(1890-).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> Similarly the “Virgil” translation has, e.g., <i>in a round error</i> for
+“wandering round and round,” etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> That it could easily become absurd was not unperceived in
+the eighteenth century. Vide Leonard Welsted: “Epistle to
+Mr. Pope,” May, 1730 (“Works in Verse and Prose,” London,
+1787, p. 141).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,” ed. Myra
+Reynolds, pp. 210-213 (Chicago, 1903).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Complete Poetical Works,” edited J. L. Robertson
+(Oxford, 1908), which includes a variorum edition of “The Seasons.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> “Poetical Epistle to Mr. Thomson on the First Edition of his
+‘Seasons’” (P.G.B., Vol. VIII, p. 504).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> “Letter to Mallett,” August 11, 1726.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> Cp. Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 419-424.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> E.g. ll. 766 foll., 828 foll., 881 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> Cp. also ll. 126 foll.; 711 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> Cp. also the respective versions of “Autumn,” ll. 748 and 962.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> Cp. also “Summer,” ll. 353, 376, 648; “Autumn,” ll. 349,
+894-895.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> Cp. “Milton,” Raleigh, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 252-3.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> One of the most noteworthy is the constant employment of
+adjectives as adverbs in opposition (e.g., “the grand etherial bow,
+Shoots up <i>immense</i>”) a device used both by Milton and Pope,
+but by neither with anything like the freedom seen in “The
+Seasons.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> Cf. <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Chapter VI, <i>infra.</i></a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> In the “Essay Supplementary to the Preface,” Hutchinson,
+<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 949.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> That Young’s readers and even his editors were occasionally
+puzzled is seen by the history of the term “concertion.” This was
+the spelling of the first and most of the subsequent editions, including
+that of 1787, where the Glossary explains it as meaning
+“contrivance.” But some editions (e.g. 1751) have “consertion,”
+and some, according to Richardson (“New Dictionary,” 1836),
+have “conception.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> Armstrong’s “gelid cistern” for “cold bath” has perhaps
+gained the honour of an unidentified quotation.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">[113]</a> <i>Vacant</i> in the oft-quoted line from “The Deserted Village”
+(“The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind”), where the word is
+used in its Latin sense of “free from care.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">[114]</a> As in the case of Milton, Cowper’s latinized words appear to
+have been floating about for a considerable period, though in most
+cases their first poetic use is apparently due to him.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">[115]</a> Cp. also III, 229, 414; IV, 494.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">[116]</a> Apparently after he had done some pruning amongst them
+(<i>vide</i> “Letter” to Joseph Hill, March 29, 1793, Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+Vol. IV, p. 390), and compare his footnote to the “Iliad,” VII,
+359, where he apologizes for his coinage <i>purpureal</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">[117]</a> For an account of the parallelism between certain of the
+eighteenth century stock epithets and various words and phrases
+from the Latin poets, especially Virgil (e.g. “hollow” and “<i>cavus</i>”:
+“liquid fountain” and <i>liquidi fontes</i>), see Myra Reynolds, “Nature
+in English Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1909),
+pp. 46-49.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">[118]</a> Cf. Some apt remarks by Raleigh, “Milton,” <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 247
+and 255.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">[119]</a> Cp. Saintsbury, “History of Literary Criticism” (1900-1904),
+Vol. II, p. 479, note 1.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">[120]</a> Cp. Elton, “Survey of English Literature,” 1830-1880 (1920),
+Vol. II, p. 17, remarks on Rossetti’s diction.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">[121]</a> Cp. also Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 423-424.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">[122]</a> <i>Vide</i> Lounsbury, “Studies in Chaucer” (1892), Vol. III.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">[123]</a> “Scrannel” is either Milton’s coinage or a borrowing from some
+dialect (N.E.D.).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">[124]</a> This of course is used by many later writers, and was perhaps
+not regarded in Dryden’s time as an archaism.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">[125]</a> “New English Dictionary.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">[126]</a> “Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. X, p. 120.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">[127]</a> The prevailing ignorance of earlier English is illustrated in
+that stanza by Pope’s explanation of the expression “mister
+wight,” which he had taken from Spenser, as “uncouth mortal.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">[128]</a> “The Works of Mr. Edmund Spenser, in 6 Vols. with a glossary
+explaining the old and obscure words. Published by Mr. Hughes,
+London.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">[129]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Vol. I, pp. 115-140.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">[130]</a> As in Prior’s “Susanna and the Two Elders” and “Erle
+Robert’s Mice” (1712).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">[131]</a> “Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser,” 1754.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">[132]</a> “An Answer to the Sompner’s Prologue in Chaucer,” printed
+anon, in “Lintott’s Miscellany,” entitled “Poems on Several
+Occasions” (1717), p. 147.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="label">[133]</a> “A Tale Devised in the Plesaunt manere of Gentil Maister
+Jeoffrey Chaucer” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. VII, p. 674).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="label">[134]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” by the Rev. Thomas Warton,
+1748, p. 30.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="label">[135]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” London, 1711, pp. 203-223.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="label">[136]</a> <i>Vide</i> List given by Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English
+Romantic Movement” (1899), Appendix I, p. 175; and cf. an exhaustive
+list, including complete glossaries, given in “Das
+Altertümliche im Wortschatz der Spenser-Nachahmungen des 18
+Jahrhunderts,” by Karl Reining (Strassburg, 1912).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="label">[137]</a> E.g. Robert Lloyd, 1733-1764, in his “Progress of Envy”
+(Anderson, Vol. V), defines <i>wimpled</i> as “hung down”; “The
+Squire of Dames,” by Moses Mendez (1700-1738) has many old
+words (“benty,” etc.), which are often open to the suspicion of
+being manufactured archaisms.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_138" href="#FNanchor_138" class="label">[138]</a> <i>Vide</i> his letter to Graves, June, 1742.—“Works,” Vol. III,
+p. 63 (1769).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_139" href="#FNanchor_139" class="label">[139]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” by William Thompson, M.A.,
+etc., Oxford, 1757, pp. 1-13.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_140" href="#FNanchor_140" class="label">[140]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 58-68.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_141" href="#FNanchor_141" class="label">[141]</a> “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper,”
+by Dr. Samuel Johnson, 21 Vols. (London, 1810), Vol. XV, p. 32.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_142" href="#FNanchor_142" class="label">[142]</a> Thompson has taken this wrong meaning direct with the word
+itself from Spenser, “Shepherds Kalendar,” April, l. 26, where
+<i>glen</i> is glossed by E.K. as “a country hamlet or borough.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_143" href="#FNanchor_143" class="label">[143]</a> Cp. Joseph Warton’s “Essay on Pope,” Vol. I, p. 366 (4th
+edition, 1782). Wordsworth, too, as we know, called it a “fine
+poem” and praised it for its harmonious verse and pure diction,
+but we may imagine that he was praising it for its own sake without
+regard to its merits as a Spenserian imitation (<i>vide</i> Hutchinson,
+<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 949).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_144" href="#FNanchor_144" class="label">[144]</a> There are at least forty stanzas in the First Canto, without a
+single archaic form, and an equal proportion in Canto Two: Cf.
+Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 629-630.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_145" href="#FNanchor_145" class="label">[145]</a> “The letter <i>y</i>,” he naïvely says in his “Glossary,” “is frequently
+placed at the beginning of a word by Spenser, to lengthen it a
+syllable, and <i>en</i> at the end of a word, for the same reason.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_146" href="#FNanchor_146" class="label">[146]</a> Thompson seems to have been the first to use the word <i>bicker</i>
+as applied to running water, an application which was later to
+receive the sanction of Scott and Tennyson (N.E.D.).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_147" href="#FNanchor_147" class="label">[147]</a> Among the last examples was Beattie’s “Minstrel” (1771-74),
+which occasioned some of Gray’s dicta on the use of archaic and
+obsolete words.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_148" href="#FNanchor_148" class="label">[148]</a> Spenserian “forgeries” had also made their appearance as
+early as in 1713, when Samuel Croxall had attempted to pass off
+two Cantos as the original work of “England’s Arch-Poet, Spenser”
+(2nd edition, London, 1714). In 1747, John Upton made a similar
+attempt, though probably in neither case were the discoveries
+intended to be taken seriously.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_149" href="#FNanchor_149" class="label">[149]</a> See Phelps, <i>op. cit.</i>, Chap. VIII, and Grace R. Trenery,
+“Ballad Collections of the Eighteenth Century,” “Modern
+Language Review,” July, 1915, pp. 283 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_150" href="#FNanchor_150" class="label">[150]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Preface to A Collection of Old Ballads,” 3 vols. (1723-52),
+and cf. Benjamin Wakefield’s “Warbling Muses” (1749),
+Preface.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_151" href="#FNanchor_151" class="label">[151]</a> Yet thirty years later the collections of Joseph Ritson, the last
+and best of the eighteenth century editors, failed to win acceptance.
+His strictly accurate versions of the old songs and ballads were
+contemptuously dismissed by the “Gentleman’s Magazine”
+(August, 1790) as “the compilation of a peevish antiquary.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_152" href="#FNanchor_152" class="label">[152]</a> “Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript,” edited Furnivall and Hales,
+4 vols. (1867-68).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_153" href="#FNanchor_153" class="label">[153]</a> <i>Vide</i> Henry A. Beers, “A History of English Romanticism in
+the Eighteenth Century,” 1899, Chap. VIII, pp. 298-302.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_154" href="#FNanchor_154" class="label">[154]</a> Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 950.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_155" href="#FNanchor_155" class="label">[155]</a> “Chatterton—Poetical Works,” with an Essay on the Rowley
+Poems, by W. W. Skeat, and a memoir by Bell (2 vols., 1871-1875);
+and <i>vide</i> Tyrwhitt, “Poems supposed to have been written at
+Bristol by Thomas Rowley and others in the fifteenth century”
+(London, 1777).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_156" href="#FNanchor_156" class="label">[156]</a> <i>Vide</i> Oswald Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason”
+(1922), p. 251.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_157" href="#FNanchor_157" class="label">[157]</a> <i>Vide</i> John Sampson, “The Poetical Works of William Blake”
+(Oxford, 1905), Preface, viii.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_158" href="#FNanchor_158" class="label">[158]</a> Until the middle of the eighteenth century the form <i>glen</i> occurs
+in English writers only as an echo of Spenser (N.E.D.).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_159" href="#FNanchor_159" class="label">[159]</a> <i>Vide</i> “The Dialect of Robert Burns,” by Sir James Wilson
+(Oxford Press, 1923), and for happy instances of beautiful words
+still lingering on in the Scots dialects, <i>vide</i> especially “The Roxburghshire
+Word-Book,” by George Watson (Cambridge, 1923).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_160" href="#FNanchor_160" class="label">[160]</a> Sweet, “New English Grammar” (1892), Part II, pp. 208-212,
+and Skeat, “Principles of English Etymology” (1887), Part I,
+pp. 418-420.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_161" href="#FNanchor_161" class="label">[161]</a> The first literary appearance of each compound has been
+checked as far as possible by reference to the “New English
+Dictionary.” It is hardly necessary to say that the fact of a compound
+being assigned, as regards its first appearance, to any
+individual writer, is not in itself evidence that he himself invented
+the new formation, or even introduced it into literature. But in
+many cases, either from the nature of the compound itself, or from
+some other internal or external evidence, the assumption may be
+made.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_162" href="#FNanchor_162" class="label">[162]</a> Cp. Sweet, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 449.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_163" href="#FNanchor_163" class="label">[163]</a> In the “Beowulf” there are twenty-three compounds meaning
+“Ocean,” twelve meaning “Ship,” and eighteen meaning “Sword”
+(<i>vide</i> Emerson, “Outline History of the English Language,” 1906,
+p. 121).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_164" href="#FNanchor_164" class="label">[164]</a> Cp. Champney’s “History of English” (1893), p. 192 and Note;
+and Lounsbury, “History of the English Language” (1909), p. 109.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_165" href="#FNanchor_165" class="label">[165]</a> Cp. Sidney’s remarks in the “Defence of Poesie—Elizabethan
+Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, p. 204.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_166" href="#FNanchor_166" class="label">[166]</a> E.g. Spenser’s “<i>sea-shouldering</i> whales” (an epithet that
+especially pleased Keats), Nashe’s “<i>sky-bred</i> chirpers,” Marlowe’s
+“<i>gold-fingered</i> Ind,” Shakespeare’s “<i>fancy-free</i>,” “<i>forest-born</i>,”
+“<i>cloud-capt</i>,” etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_167" href="#FNanchor_167" class="label">[167]</a> Dryden, “English Men of Letters” (1906), p. 76.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_168" href="#FNanchor_168" class="label">[168]</a> Pope’s “Homer,” ed. Buckley, Preface, p. xli.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_169" href="#FNanchor_169" class="label">[169]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 47; and cp. Coleridge, “Biographia Literaria,” ed.
+Shawcross (Oxford, 1907), Vol. I, p. 2, Footnote.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_170" href="#FNanchor_170" class="label">[170]</a> Here it may be noted that many of Pope’s compounds in his
+“Homer” have no warrant in the original; they are in most cases
+supplied by Pope himself, to “pad out” his verses, or, more
+rarely, as paraphrases of Greek words or phrases.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_171" href="#FNanchor_171" class="label">[171]</a> Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 2, Footnote.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_172" href="#FNanchor_172" class="label">[172]</a> “Lives” ed. Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, p. 298.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_173" href="#FNanchor_173" class="label">[173]</a> <i>Vide</i> Leon Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, Ch. IV, pp. 412 foll., for a detailed
+examination of Thomson’s compound formations.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_174" href="#FNanchor_174" class="label">[174]</a> It would appear that this epithet had particularly caught the
+fancy of Collins. He uses it also in the “Ode on the Manners,”
+this time figuratively, when he writes of “<i>dim-discovered</i> tracts of
+mind.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_175" href="#FNanchor_175" class="label">[175]</a> “Works,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. IV, p. 203. In point of fact, there is
+little or no evidence in favour of it. Even the Spenserian imitations
+that flourished exceedingly at this time have little interest in this
+respect. Shenstone has very few instances of compounds, but the
+poems of William Thompson furnish a few examples: “<i>honey-trickling</i>
+streams” (“Sickness,” Bk. I), “<i>Lily-mantled</i> meads”
+(<i>ibid.</i>), etc. Gilbert West’s Spenserian poems have no instances
+of any special merit; but a verse of his Pindar shows that he was
+not without a gift for happy composition: “The <i>billow-beaten</i> side
+of the <i>foam-besilvered</i> main.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_176" href="#FNanchor_176" class="label">[176]</a> “Letters,” Vol. III, p. 97.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_177" href="#FNanchor_177" class="label">[177]</a> Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, p. 437.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_178" href="#FNanchor_178" class="label">[178]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 434.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_179" href="#FNanchor_179" class="label">[179]</a> <i>Vide</i> Edmund Gosse, “Two Pioneers of Romanticism” (Warton
+Lecture), 1915.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_180" href="#FNanchor_180" class="label">[180]</a> It is a coincidence to find that the N.E.D. assigns the first use
+of the compound <i>furze-clad</i> to Wordsworth.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_181" href="#FNanchor_181" class="label">[181]</a> Bell’s “Fugitive Poets” (London, 1789), Vol. VI.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_182" href="#FNanchor_182" class="label">[182]</a> Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. XI.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_183" href="#FNanchor_183" class="label">[183]</a> Bell, <i>op. cit.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_184" href="#FNanchor_184" class="label">[184]</a> Anderson, <i>op. cit.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_185" href="#FNanchor_185" class="label">[185]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. X.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_186" href="#FNanchor_186" class="label">[186]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Vol. XI, Pt. I.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_187" href="#FNanchor_187" class="label">[187]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Pt. II.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_188" href="#FNanchor_188" class="label">[188]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. XI, Pt. II.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_189" href="#FNanchor_189" class="label">[189]</a> <i>Vide</i> Legouis, <i>op. cit.</i> (English translation, 1897), pp. 133 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_190" href="#FNanchor_190" class="label">[190]</a> Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 2, Note.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_191" href="#FNanchor_191" class="label">[191]</a> See, e.g., de Selincourt’s remarks on Keats’ compound epithets;
+“Poems” (1904), Appendix C, p. 581.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_192" href="#FNanchor_192" class="label">[192]</a> “Biog. Lit.,” <i>op. cit.</i>, and cp. “Poetical Works,” ed. Dykes
+Campbell, Appendix K, p. 540.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_193" href="#FNanchor_193" class="label">[193]</a> “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_194" href="#FNanchor_194" class="label">[194]</a> “History of English Prosody,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, p. 480; and cp.
+<i>ibid.</i>, p. 496.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_195" href="#FNanchor_195" class="label">[195]</a> Prefaces, “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916),
+p. 936.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_196" href="#FNanchor_196" class="label">[196]</a> <i>Vide</i> Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. I,
+Chap. IX, for an account of mediaeval allegory and personification.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_197" href="#FNanchor_197" class="label">[197]</a> E.g. “Palamon,” II, 480, 564, 565; Æneas XII, 505-506.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_198" href="#FNanchor_198" class="label">[198]</a> “Black Melancholy” (ll. 163-168) and “Hope” (l. 278), the
+former of which especially pleased Joseph Warton (“Essay on
+Pope”: Works, Vol. I, p. 314).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_199" href="#FNanchor_199" class="label">[199]</a> Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 209.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_200" href="#FNanchor_200" class="label">[200]</a> Cf. “Suicide” (Canto II, 194-250).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_201" href="#FNanchor_201" class="label">[201]</a> Cf. also Bk. I, ll. 10, 11; 548, etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_202" href="#FNanchor_202" class="label">[202]</a> Especially in Book III of “The Duellist,” where the reader is
+baffled and wearied by the unending array of bloodless abstractions.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_203" href="#FNanchor_203" class="label">[203]</a> It may be noted incidentally that, according to the “New
+English Dictionary,” the term <i>personification</i> owes its first literary
+appearance to the famous “Dictionary” of 1755, where it is thus
+defined, and (appropriately enough) illustrated: “<i>Prosopopeia</i>,
+the change of things to persons, as ‘Confusion heard his voice.’”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_204" href="#FNanchor_204" class="label">[204]</a> Phelps, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 37-38.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_205" href="#FNanchor_205" class="label">[205]</a> “Letter” to Mallet, August 11, 1726: “I thank you heartily
+for your hint about personizing of Inspiration: it strikes me.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_206" href="#FNanchor_206" class="label">[206]</a> Cf. also “Winter,” 794 and “Autumn,” 143.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_207" href="#FNanchor_207" class="label">[207]</a> For some happy instances of its use in English poetry, as well
+as for a detailed account of Thomson’s use of personification, see
+especially Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 444-455.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_208" href="#FNanchor_208" class="label">[208]</a> Poets of Great Britain (1793), Vol. IX, p. 414.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_209" href="#FNanchor_209" class="label">[209]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. XXII (1822), p. 117.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_210" href="#FNanchor_210" class="label">[210]</a> “A Collection of Poems by several hands,” 3 vols., 1748;
+2nd edition, with Vol. IV, 1749; Vol. V and VI, 1758; Pearch’s
+continuations, Vol. VII and VIII, 1768, and Vol. IX and X, 1770.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_211" href="#FNanchor_211" class="label">[211]</a> “Dodsley” (1770 ed.), Vol. IV, p. 50.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_212" href="#FNanchor_212" class="label">[212]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 148.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_213" href="#FNanchor_213" class="label">[213]</a> “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 5.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_214" href="#FNanchor_214" class="label">[214]</a> <i>Vide</i> also Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry” (1791). Vol. XI, where
+there is a section devoted to “Poems in the manner of Milton.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_215" href="#FNanchor_215" class="label">[215]</a> “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 269.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_216" href="#FNanchor_216" class="label">[216]</a> At the same time there appeared a similar volume of the Odes
+of William Collins, “Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric
+Subjects,” the original intention having been to publish in one
+volume. Collins’s collection had a lukewarm reception, so that the
+author soon burned the unsold copies. But see Articles in “The
+Times Literary Supplement,” January 5th (p. 5) and January 12,
+1922 (p. 28), by Mr. H. O. White, on “William Collins and his
+Contemporary Critics,” from which it would appear that the Odes
+were not received with such indifference as is commonly believed.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_217" href="#FNanchor_217" class="label">[217]</a> Cf. “Pope’s Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V, p. 365.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_218" href="#FNanchor_218" class="label">[218]</a> <i>Vide</i> also “The Triumph of Isis” (1749), and “The Monody
+written near Stratford-on-Avon.” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794,
+Vol. XI, pp. 1061-4.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_219" href="#FNanchor_219" class="label">[219]</a> Cf. Gosse, “A History of Eighteenth Century Literature”
+(1889), p. 233.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_220" href="#FNanchor_220" class="label">[220]</a> Cf. Courthope, “Hist. Engl. Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 397-8.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_221" href="#FNanchor_221" class="label">[221]</a> “Lives,” ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 341.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_222" href="#FNanchor_222" class="label">[222]</a> “On Lyric Poetry—Poetical Works,” ed. Mitford (Aldine,
+ed. 1896), Vol. II, p. 147.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_223" href="#FNanchor_223" class="label">[223]</a> In the Aldine edition, ed. Thomas (1901) these personified
+abstractions are not invested with a capital letter.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_224" href="#FNanchor_224" class="label">[224]</a> “Biographia Literaria” (ed. Shawcross, 1907), p. 12; cf. also
+“Table Talk” (October 23, 1833), ed. H. N. Coleridge (1858),
+p. 340. “Gray’s personifications,” he said, “were mere printer’s
+devil’s personifications,” etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_225" href="#FNanchor_225" class="label">[225]</a> Two of Gray’s mechanical figures were marked down for special
+censure by Dr. Johnson (“Lives,” Gray, ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III,
+p. 440), whose criticism was endorsed by Walpole (“Letters,”
+Vol. III, p. 98), who likened “Fell Thirst and Famine” to the
+devils in “The Tempest” who whisk away the banquets from the
+shipwrecked Dukes.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_226" href="#FNanchor_226" class="label">[226]</a> “Letters” (December 19, 1786), Tovey, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 322.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_227" href="#FNanchor_227" class="label">[227]</a> In this connexion mention may be made of “William Blake’s
+Designs for Gray’s Poems,” recently published for the first time with
+a valuable introduction by H. J. C. Grierson (Oxford, 1922).
+“Blake’s imagination,” says Professor Grierson, “communicates
+an intenser life to Gray’s half-conventional personifications”
+(Intro., p. 17).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_228" href="#FNanchor_228" class="label">[228]</a> Canto I: LXXIV-LXXV.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_229" href="#FNanchor_229" class="label">[229]</a> Cp. also the detailed personification of “Thrift,” given by
+Mickle in his “Syr Martyn” (1787).—“Poets of Great Britain” (1794),
+Vol. XI, p. 645.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_230" href="#FNanchor_230" class="label">[230]</a> Cf. “Paradise Lost,” VI, 3; and Pope’s “Iliad,” V, 297.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_231" href="#FNanchor_231" class="label">[231]</a> “Works” ed. Ellis and Yeats, Vol. I, Pref., x.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_232" href="#FNanchor_232" class="label">[232]</a> July 6, 1803, “Letters,” ed. A. G. B. Russell (1906), p. 121.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_233" href="#FNanchor_233" class="label">[233]</a> In the parallel verses of “The Songs of Experience” the human
+attributes are attributed respectively to <i>Cruelty</i>, <i>Jealousy</i>, <i>Terror</i>,
+and <i>Secrecy</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_234" href="#FNanchor_234" class="label">[234]</a> “Poetical Works,” ed. John Sampson (Oxford), 1914, p. 187.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_235" href="#FNanchor_235" class="label">[235]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., ll. 18-26.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_236" href="#FNanchor_236" class="label">[236]</a> See also, e.g., “Midnight,” l. 272 foll, and l. 410 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_237" href="#FNanchor_237" class="label">[237]</a> A similar type of abstraction is found here and there in the
+stanzas of the “Song to David” (1763), e.g.:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And heavenly melancholy tuned</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">To bless and bear the rest.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But on the whole Smart’s famous poem is singularly free from the
+bane, though the “Hymn to the Supreme Being” (<i>vide</i> “A Song
+to David,” edited Tutin (1904), Appendix, p. 32), has not escaped
+the contagion. But better instances are to be found in the Odes
+(“Works,” 1761-1762), e.g., “Strong Labour ... with his pipe
+in his mouth,” “Health from his Cottage of thatch,” etc. <i>Vide</i>
+also article on “Christopher Smart,” “Times Literary Supplement,”
+April 6, 1922, p. 224.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_238" href="#FNanchor_238" class="label">[238]</a> Cf. “Poems of William Cowper,” ed. J. C. Bailey (1905),
+Intro., p. xl.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_239" href="#FNanchor_239" class="label">[239]</a> There are faint personifications of the other seasons in Book III,
+ll. 427 foll., but none perhaps as effective as William Mickle had
+already given in his ode, “Vicissitude,” where he depicts Winter
+staying:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">his creeping steps to pause</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And wishful turns his icy eyes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On April meads.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_240" href="#FNanchor_240" class="label">[240]</a> <i>Streaky</i>, for instance, is due to Thomson who, in the first draft
+of “Summer” (ll. 47-48) had written:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mildly elucent in the streaky east,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">later changed to</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_241" href="#FNanchor_241" class="label">[241]</a> “Letters,” edited E. Coleridge, 1895, p. 215.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_242" href="#FNanchor_242" class="label">[242]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. I.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_243" href="#FNanchor_243" class="label">[243]</a> The ridicule was crystallized in Canning’s famous parody,
+“The Loves of the Triangles,” which appeared in “The Anti-Jacobin,”
+Nos. 23, 24 and 26, April to May, 1798. (<i>Vide</i> “The
+Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin,” edited C. Edmonds, 1854, 3rd edition,
+1890.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_244" href="#FNanchor_244" class="label">[244]</a> “The Botanic Garden” (4th edition, 1799), Interlude I, Vol. II,
+p. 64. Cp. also <i>ibid.</i>, Interlude III, p. 182 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_245" href="#FNanchor_245" class="label">[245]</a> For details see Legouis, <i>op. cit.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_246" href="#FNanchor_246" class="label">[246]</a> Both the original and the final versions of the “Evening Walk”
+and the “Descriptive Sketches” are given by Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+Appendix, pp. 592, 601.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_247" href="#FNanchor_247" class="label">[247]</a> But the artistic possibilities of Personification were not unrecognized
+by writers and critics in the eighteenth century. <i>Vide</i>
+Blair’s lecture on “Personification” (“Lectures on Rhetoric”) 9th
+edition, 1803; Lec. XVI, p. 375.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_248" href="#FNanchor_248" class="label">[248]</a> “The Stones of Venice” (1851), Vol. II, Chap. VIII, pp. 312 foll.—The
+Ducal Palace, “Personification is, in some sort, the reverse of
+symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of
+a great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign ... and it is
+almost always employed by men in their most serious moods
+of faith, rarely in recreation.... But Personification is the
+bestowing of a human or living form upon an abstract idea; it is
+in most cases, a mere recreation of the fancy, and is apt to disturb
+the belief in the reality of the thing personified.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_249" href="#FNanchor_249" class="label">[249]</a> For an illuminating analysis, see Elton, “A Survey of English
+Literature,” 1780-1830 (1912), pp. 1-29.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_250" href="#FNanchor_250" class="label">[250]</a> “Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise,” Vol. IV, pp. 175-178.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_251" href="#FNanchor_251" class="label">[251]</a> Cf. Coleridge’s remarks in “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross,
+Chap. I (Oxford, 1907).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_252" href="#FNanchor_252" class="label">[252]</a> Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 211.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_253" href="#FNanchor_253" class="label">[253]</a> “Sleep and Poetry,” ll. 188-201.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_254" href="#FNanchor_254" class="label">[254]</a> Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 948.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_255" href="#FNanchor_255" class="label">[255]</a> “Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. X, p. 709.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_256" href="#FNanchor_256" class="label">[256]</a> Cf. “Works” (1889), ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V., p. 360-364.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_257" href="#FNanchor_257" class="label">[257]</a> George Saintsbury, “Eighteenth Century Poetry” (“The
+London Mercury,” December, 1919, pp. 155-163); an article in
+which a great authority once again tilts an effective lance on
+behalf of the despised Augustans.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_258" href="#FNanchor_258" class="label">[258]</a> The best of them have been garnered by Mr. Iola A. Williams
+into a little volume, “By-ways Round Helicon” (London, 1922),
+where the interested reader may browse with much pleasure and
+profit, and where he will no doubt find not a little to surprise and
+delight him. For a still more complete anthology, <i>vide</i> “The
+Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century” (1923) by the same
+editor. But for the devil’s advocacy see Doughty, “English Lyric
+in the Age of Reason” (London, 1922)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_259" href="#FNanchor_259" class="label">[259]</a> The fountain head of all such studies is, of course, the “Biographia
+Literaria,” for which see especially Shawcross’s edition,
+1907, Vol. II, pp. 287-297. Of recent general treatises, Lascelles
+Abercrombie, “Poetry and Contemporary Speech” (1914);
+Vernon Lee, “The Handling of Words” (1923); Ogden and
+Richards, “The Meaning of Meaning”(1923), may be mentioned.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_260" href="#FNanchor_260" class="label">[260]</a> Elton, “Survey of English Literature” (1780-1830), Vol. II,
+pp. 88 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_261" href="#FNanchor_261" class="label">[261]</a> Cf. Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1899), p. 209.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_262" href="#FNanchor_262" class="label">[262]</a> “The Legacy of Greece” (Oxford, 1921), p. 11.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_263" href="#FNanchor_263" class="label">[263]</a> “Convention and Revolt in Poetry” (London, 1921), p. 13.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_264" href="#FNanchor_264" class="label">[264]</a> Just as this book was about to go to press, there appeared “The
+Theory of Poetry,” by Professor Lascelles Abercrombie, in which
+a poet and critic of great distinction has embodied his thoughts
+on his own art. Chaps. III and IV especially should be consulted
+for a most valuable account and analysis of how the poetical
+“magic” of words is achieved.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_265" href="#FNanchor_265" class="label">[265]</a> “Essays in Criticism,” Second Series (1888): “Wordsworth”
+(1913 ed.), p. 157.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_266" href="#FNanchor_266" class="label">[266]</a> O. Barfield, “Form in Poetry” (“New Statesman” August 7,
+1920, pp. 501-2).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_267" href="#FNanchor_267" class="label">[267]</a> “Œuvres” (ed. Assézat), I, p. 377 (quoted by Babbitt), <i>op. cit.</i>,
+p. 121.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_268" href="#FNanchor_268" class="label">[268]</a> Preface to “The Tales” (Poems), ed. A. W. Ward, (Cambridge,
+1906), Vol. II, p. 10.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Abercrombie, Lascelles, <a href="#Footnote_259">197 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_264">201 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Addison, Joseph, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Ælla” (T. Chatterton’s), <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Akenside, Mark, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dr. Johnson’s criticism, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Epistle to Curio,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personification, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Pleasures of the Imagination,” <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Alma” (M. Prior’s), <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Amyntor and Theodora,” <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Anti-Jacobin, The,” <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Approach of Summer, The,” <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Archaism,” <a href="#Page_17">17-21</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80-101</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aristotle, <a href="#Page_10">10-12</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Armstrong, John, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Art of Preserving Health,” <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Babbitt, I., <a href="#Footnote_25">13 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_267">203 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bailey, J. C., <a href="#Footnote_238">169 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ballads, <a href="#Page_95">95-7</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Barfield, Owen, <a href="#Footnote_266">202 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Bastard, The,” <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Beattie, James, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147">93 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Beers, H. A., <a href="#Footnote_153">97 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Beowulf, The,” <a href="#Footnote_163">104 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Binyon, Laurence, <a href="#Footnote_25">13 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Biographia">“Biographia Literaria,” <a href="#Footnote_23">13 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_57">24 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_82">48 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_86">51 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_190">127 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_242">173 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_251">185 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Birth of Flattery, The” (G. Crabbe’s), <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blair, Robert, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Footnote_247">176 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blake, William, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-59</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163-7</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179-80</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Footnote_254">187 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Allegory and Vision, remarks on, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Artist, as, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Footnote_227">159 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Felicity of diction, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Imitation of Spenser,” <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_80">47 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_232">164 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_254">187 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Muses, To the,” <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Mysticism, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_163">163-7</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179-80</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Piper, The,” <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Songs of Experience,” <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Footnote_233">165 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Songs of Innocence,” <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blount, T., <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” <a href="#Footnote_32">16 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Botanic Garden” (E. Darwin’s), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bowles, William Lisle, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Boyce, S., <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bruce, Michael, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Burns, Robert, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bysshe, Edward, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“By-ways Round Helicon”, <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Campbell, Dykes, <a href="#Footnote_192">128 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Canning, George, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Capell, Edward, <a href="#Page_95">95-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Castaway, The,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Castle of Indolence,” <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chapman, George, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span>“Charge to the Poets” (W. Whitehead’s), <a href="#Footnote_43">20 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Chase, The” (W. Somerville’s), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chatterton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42-3</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123-4</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_123">123-4</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Rowley Poems,” <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_42">42-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chaucer, Geoffrey, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84-6</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chaucerian imitations, <a href="#Page_84">84-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chesterfield, Lord, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Child of Quality, Lines to” (M. Prior’s), <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Choice, The” (J. Pomfret’s), <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Churchill, John, <a href="#Page_139">139-40</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169-70</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Classical literature (connexion with romantic), <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coleridge, H. N., <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coleridge, S. T., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127-8</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_127">127-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Darwin, E., remarks, on, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Gray’s personifications, on, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Imagination, on, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_241">173 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Collins, William, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116-7</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_116">116-7</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dr. Johnson’s criticisms of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Odes,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, a, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Compound epithets, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102-31</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Convention and Revolt in Poetry,” <a href="#Footnote_263">200 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Courthope, W. J., <a href="#Footnote_14">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_36">17 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_78">45 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_85">50 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_92">57 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_196">133 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_217">149 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_256">194 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coventry, F., <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cowper, William, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48-50</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168-73</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Familiar style, on the, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Homer” translation, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_73">73-5</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_46">20 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_83">48 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_116">74 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Olney Hymns,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_169">169-73</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_48">48-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Table Talk,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Task, The,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Crabbe, George, <a href="#Page_50">50-1</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124-5</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_124">124-5</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dryden’s style, on, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_50">50-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Croxall, Samuel, <a href="#Footnote_148">93 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cunningham, John, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Darwin, Erasmus, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Davenant, Sir William, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Denham, Sir John, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dennis, John, <a href="#Footnote_18">11 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">De Quincey, Thomas, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Descriptive Sketches,” <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Footnote_246">176 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Deserted Village, The,” <a href="#Page_45">45-6</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-2</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Diderot, Denis, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dodsley, Robert, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Doughty, Oswald, <a href="#Footnote_156">98 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Drayton, Michael, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Drinkwater, John, <a href="#Footnote_15">9 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dryden, John, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26-7</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58-9</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81-2</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105-6</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Annus Mirabilis,” <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Chaucer “translations,” <a href="#Page_26">26-7</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_105">105-6</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Essays” and “Prefaces,” <a href="#Page_7">7-11</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Hind and Panther,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>Language of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_8">8-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_58">58-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Periphrasis, use of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Religio Laici,” <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Royal Society, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Technical terms, on, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Duellist, The” (Charles Churchill’s), <a href="#Footnote_202">140 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dyer, John, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Earle, J., <a href="#Footnote_69">35 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Economy of Vegetation,” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Edmonds, C., <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Eloisa to Abelard,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Elton, Oliver, <a href="#Footnote_16">10 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_199">135 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_249">182 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_252">186 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_260">197 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Emerson, O., <a href="#Footnote_163">104 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“English Lyric in the Age of Reason,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Enthusiast, The,” <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Epistle to Curio” (M. Akenside’s), <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Epithalamium (W. Thompson’s), <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Essay on Criticism,” <a href="#Page_9">9-10</a>, <a href="#Footnote_61">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Eton College, Ode on a Distant View of,” <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Evelyn, John, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Evening, Ode to,” <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Evening Walk, The,” <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Excursion, The” (David Mallet’s), <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Faerie Queene,” <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-60</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Falconer, William, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Fleece, The,” (J. Dyer’s), <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fletcher, Giles, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fletcher, Phineas, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Fugitive Poets” (Bell’s), <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Footnote_214">147 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Furetière, Antoine, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Gay, John, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gibbon, Edward, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Glanvill, Joseph, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Goldsmith, Oliver, <a href="#Page_14">14-15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44-6</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-2</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, in, <a href="#Page_117">117-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_141">141-2</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_44">44-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Graeme, James, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Grainger, James, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Grave,” the (Robert Blair’s), <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gray, Thomas, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16-17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21-2</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71-2</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147">93 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98-9</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117-20</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155-9</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaisms, on, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Coinages, on, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_117">117-20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16-17</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_71">71-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Letters, <a href="#Footnote_9">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_35">16 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_155">155-9</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Plain colloquial style, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, A, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Technical terms, on, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Grierson, H. J. C., <a href="#Footnote_227">159 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Grongar Hill,” <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Hamilton, William (of Bangor), <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hill, G. B., <a href="#Footnote_8">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_30">15 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_33">16 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_53">23 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_172">112 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_221">151 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Hind and Panther, The,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Horror, Ode to,” <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hughes, John, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hume, David, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hutchinson, T., <a href="#Footnote_88">52 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_110">68 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_154">97 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_195">132 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_246">176 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span>“Hymn to May” (W. Thompson’s), <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Il Bellicoso,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Il Pacifico,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Il Penseroso,” <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Inebriety,” <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Jago, R., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Johnson, Dr., <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40-2</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Collins, on, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119-20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction, on, <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Dictionary,” <a href="#Footnote_203">140 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dryden, on, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Gray’s personifications, on, <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jonson, Ben, <a href="#Page_17">17-18</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Keats, John, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ker, W. P., <a href="#Footnote_6">7 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_10">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_12">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_19">11 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_38">18 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_51">21 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Kersey, John, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“L’Allegro,” <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Langhorne, J., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Langland, William, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Latinism, <a href="#Page_56">56-79</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lee, Vernon, <a href="#Footnote_259">197 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Legacy of Greece, The,” <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Legouis, E., <a href="#Footnote_89">53 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_189">127 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_245">175 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lessing’s “Laokoon,” <a href="#Footnote_21">12 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lloyd, Robert, <a href="#Footnote_137">88 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“London” (Dr. Johnson’s), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Loves of the Plants” (E. Darwin’s), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Loves of the Triangles” (G. Canning’s), <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lowes, Professor J. L., <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Lyrical Ballads,” <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lyttleton, G., <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Maeterlinck, M., <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mallet, D., <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Footnote_205">144 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marlowe, Christopher, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marriott, Dr., <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mason, William, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Masson, David, <a href="#Footnote_95">58 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mendez, Moses, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mickle, William, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229">162 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_239">171 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Milton, John, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33-6</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176-7</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compound epithets, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction, <a href="#Page_34">34-6</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Imitated in eighteenth century, <a href="#Page_60">60-70</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76-7</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-50</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personification, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Monody written near Stratford-on-Avon,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Morel, Leon, <a href="#Footnote_74">39 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_102">63 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_121">78 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_144">91 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_173">114 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_207">145 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Murray, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Nashe, Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Neo-classicism, <a href="#Page_9">9-13</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Night Thoughts” (E. Young’s), <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68-9</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Nocturnal Reverie” (Countess of Winchilsea’s), <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Old English Compounds, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Ossian” poems, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Paradise Lost,” <a href="#Page_34">34-6</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Parnell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_135">135-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Passions, Ode to the,” <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Penshurst” (F. Coventry’s), <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Percy, Bishop, <a href="#Page_96">96-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Personification and abstraction, <a href="#Page_133">133-80</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Phelps, W. L., <a href="#Footnote_204">142 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Philips, John, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60-1</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span>“Pity, Ode to” (W. Collins’), <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Pleasures of the Imagination” (M. Akenside’s), <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Pleasures of Melancholy, The” (T. Warton’s), <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Poetical Character, Ode on the” (W. Collins’s), <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Poetical Sketches” (W. Blake’s), <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pomfret, John, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pope, Alexander, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21-2</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-4</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-4</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36-7</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59-60</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82-3</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106-9</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193-4</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82-3</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36-7</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Dunciad,” <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Essay on Criticism,” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Footnote_61">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Heroic couplet, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Homer,” <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Language of poetry, <a href="#Page_9">9-10</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_59">59-60</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Potter, R., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Prior, Matthew, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Progress of Error” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Progress of Poetry” (Thomas Gray’s), <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Prolusions” (E. Capell’s), <a href="#Page_95">95-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Raleigh, Sir Walter, <a href="#Footnote_70">35 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_94">58 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_107">66 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Rape of the Lock,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Religio Laici,” <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Reynolds, Myra, <a href="#Footnote_60">28 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_98">61 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_117">75 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ritson, Joseph, <a href="#Footnote_151">96 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Robertson, J. L., <a href="#Footnote_2">6 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rogers, Samuel, <a href="#Page_125">125-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Romanticism, connexion with classicism, <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rowley poems, <a href="#Page_42">42-4</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Ruins of Rome” (J. Dyer’s), <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ruskin, John, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Russell, A. J. B., <a href="#Footnote_232">164 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Saintsbury, George, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>, <a href="#Footnote_119">76 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Footnote_257">194 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sampson, John, <a href="#Footnote_81">47 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_157">99 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_234">165 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Savage, Richard, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Schmidt’s “Shakespeare Lexicon,” <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Schoolmistress, The,” <a href="#Page_88">88-9</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Scott, John, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Seasons, The” (J. Thomson’s), <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Selincourt, B. de, <a href="#Footnote_68">35 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_191">128 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shakespeare, William, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shawcross, T. (<i>see</i> “<a href="#Biographia">Biographia Literaria</a>”).</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shelley, P. B., <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shenstone, W., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88-9</a>, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century,” <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sidney, Sir Philip, <a href="#Footnote_165">105 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Skeat, W. W., <a href="#Footnote_76">43 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Footnote_155">98 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_160">102 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Smart, Christopher, <a href="#Footnote_237">169 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Smith, Gregory, <a href="#Footnote_26">14 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_37">18 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_90">56 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Somerville, William, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Song to David,” <a href="#Footnote_237">169 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spence, Joseph, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spenser, Edmund, <a href="#Page_80">80-1</a>, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-60</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spenserian imitations, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86-94</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160-2</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spingarn, J. E., <a href="#Footnote_1">5 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_2">6 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_3">7 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sprat, Thomas, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Stock diction, The, <a href="#Page_25">25-55</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Stones of Venice, The” (J. Ruskin’s), <a href="#Footnote_248">180 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Storie of William Canynge,” <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Sugar Cane, The,” <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sweet, Henry, <a href="#Footnote_160">102 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_162">103 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Swift, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span>Symbolism, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Symons, Arthur, <a href="#Footnote_80">47 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Syr Martin,” <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229">162 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Table Talk” (S. T. Coleridge’s), <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Table Talk” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Taine, H., <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Task, The” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Theory of diction, <a href="#Page_5">5-24</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thomson, James, <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Castle of Indolence,” <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction generally, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Miltonic borrowings, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Nature poet, a, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, a, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Seasons, The,” <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_37">37-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thompson, W., <a href="#Page_61">61-2</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89-90</a>, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Tintern Abbey, Lines written above,” <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Traveller, The” (O. Goldsmith’s), <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Trenery, Grace R., <a href="#Footnote_149">95 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Triumph of Isis,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tyrwhitt, Thomas, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Footnote_155">98 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Upton, John, <a href="#Footnote_148">93 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Vacation, The,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Vale Abbey, Lines written at” (T. Warton’s), <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Valetudinarian, The,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Vanity of Human Wishes,” <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Village, The” (G. Crabbe’s), <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Vision of Patience” (S. Boyce’s), <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Vision of Solomon” (W. Whitehead’s), <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Wakefield, Benjamin, <a href="#Footnote_150">95 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Waller, Edmund, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Walpole, Horace, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Footnote_225">156 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Wanderer, The” (R. Savage’s), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ward, A. W., <a href="#Footnote_268">204 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Warton, Joseph, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70-1</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Warton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120-1</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Watson, George, <a href="#Footnote_159">100 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Watts, Isaac, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Welsted, Leonard, <a href="#Footnote_97">59 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wesley, John, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wesley, Charles, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">West, Gilbert, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">White, Gilbert (of Selborne), <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">White, H. O., <a href="#Footnote_216">148 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Whitehead, W., <a href="#Footnote_43">20 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Williams, I. O., <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wilson, Sir James, <a href="#Footnote_159">100 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Winchilsea, Anne, Countess of, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Windsor Forest,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wordsworth, William, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Footnote_59">27 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-3</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Darwin’s (Erasmus) influence, <a href="#Page_52">52-4</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Percy’s “Reliques,” on, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175-6</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Prefaces,” <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Prelude, The,” <a href="#Page_184">184-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wyche, Sir Peter, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Yardley Oak” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Yeats, W. B., <a href="#Footnote_231">164 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Young, Edward, <a href="#Footnote_13">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68-9</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-8</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68420 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poetic diction, by Thomas Quayle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Poetic diction
+       A study of eighteenth century verse
+
+Author: Thomas Quayle
+
+Release Date: June 28, 2022 [eBook #68420]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+             https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+             generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETIC DICTION ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POETIC DICTION
+
+
+
+
+                              POETIC DICTION
+
+                   A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VERSE
+
+                                    BY
+                              THOMAS QUAYLE
+
+                            METHUEN & CO. LTD.
+                           36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
+                                 LONDON
+
+                        _First Published in 1924_
+
+                         PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+
+       I. THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON            1
+
+      II. THE THEORY OF DICTION                  5
+
+     III. THE “STOCK” DICTION                   25
+
+      IV. LATINISM                              56
+
+       V. ARCHAISM                              80
+
+      VI. COMPOUND EPITHETS                    102
+
+     VII. PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION      132
+
+    VIII. THE DICTION OF POETRY                181
+
+          INDEX                                207
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The studies on which this book is based were begun during my tenure of
+the “William Noble” Fellowship in English Literature at the University of
+Liverpool, and I wish to thank the members of the Fellowship Committee,
+and especially Professor Elton, under whom I had for two years the great
+privilege of working, for much valuable advice and criticism. I must also
+express my sincere obligation to the University for a generous grant
+towards the cost of publication.
+
+
+
+
+POETIC DICTION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON
+
+
+From the time of the publication of the first Preface to the “Lyrical
+Ballads” (1798) the poetical language of the eighteenth century, or
+rather of the so-called “classical” writers of the period, has been more
+or less under a cloud of suspicion. The condemnation which Wordsworth
+then passed upon it, and even the more rational and penetrating criticism
+which Coleridge later brought to his own analysis of the whole question
+of the language fit and proper for poetry, undoubtedly led in the
+course of the nineteenth century to a definite but uncritical tendency
+to disparage and underrate the entire poetic output of the period, not
+only of the Popian supremacy, but even of the interregnum, when the old
+order was slowly making way for the new. The Romantic rebels of course
+have nearly always received their meed of praise, but even in their
+case there is not seldom a suspicion of critical reservation, a sort
+of implied reproach that they ought to have done better than they did,
+and that they could and might have done so if they had reacted more
+violently against the poetic atmosphere of their age. In brief, what
+with the Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads” and its successive expansions
+at the beginning of the century, and what, some eighty years later,
+with Matthew Arnold’s calm description of the eighteenth century as
+an “age of prose and reason,” the poetry of that period, and not only
+the neo-classical portion of it, fared somewhat badly. There could be
+no better illustration of the influence and danger of labels and tags;
+“poetic diction,” and “age of prose and reason” tended to become a sort
+of critical legend or tradition, by means of which eighteenth century
+verse, alike at its highest and its lowest levels, could be safely and
+adequately understood and explained.
+
+Nowadays we are little likely to fall into the error of assuming that any
+one cut and dried formula, however pregnant and apt, could adequately
+sum up the literary aspects and characteristics of an entire age; the
+contributory and essential factors are too many, and often too elusive,
+for the tabloid method. And now that the poetry of the first half or
+so of the eighteenth century is in process of rehabilitation, and more
+than a few of its practitioners have even been allowed access to the
+slopes, at least, of Parnassus, it may perhaps be useful to examine, a
+little more closely than has hitherto been customary, one of the critical
+labels which, it would almost seem, has sometimes been taken as a sort of
+generic description of eighteenth century verse, as if “poetic diction”
+was something which suddenly sprang into being when Pope translated
+Homer, and had never been heard of before or since.
+
+This, of course, is to overstate the case, the more so as it can hardly
+be denied that there is much to be said for the other side. It may
+perhaps be put this way, by saying, at the risk of a laborious assertion
+of the obvious, that if poetry is to be written there must be a diction
+in which to write it—a diction which, whatever its relation to the
+language of contemporary speech or prose may be, is yet in many essential
+respects distinct and different from it, in that, even when it does not
+draw upon a special and peculiar word-power of its own, yet so uses or
+combines common speech as to heighten and intensify its possibilities of
+suggestion and evocation. If, therefore, we speak of the “poetic diction”
+of the eighteenth century, or of any portion of it, the reference ought
+to be, of course, to the whole body of language in which the poetry of
+that period is written, viewed as a medium, good, bad, or indifferent,
+for poetical expression. But this has rarely or never been the case;
+it is not too much to say that, thanks to Wordsworth’s attack and its
+subsequent reverberations, “poetic diction,” so far as the eighteenth
+century is concerned, has too often been taken to mean, “bad poetic
+diction,” and it has been in this sense indiscriminately applied to the
+whole poetic output of Pope and his school.
+
+In the present study it is hoped, by a careful examination of the poetry
+of the eighteenth century, by an analysis of the conditions and species
+of its diction, to arrive at some estimate of its value, of what was
+good and what was bad in it, of how far it was the outcome of the age
+which produced it, and how far a continuation of inherited tradition
+in poetic language, to what extent writers went back to their great
+predecessors in their search for a fresh vocabulary, and finally, to what
+extent the poets of the triumphant Romantic reaction, who had to fashion
+for themselves a new vehicle of expression, were indebted to their
+forerunners in the revolt, to those who had helped to prepare the way.
+
+It is proposed to make the study both a literary and a linguistic one. In
+the first place, the aim will be to show how the poetic language, which
+is usually labelled “the eighteenth century style,” was, in certain of
+its most pronounced aspects, a reflex of the literary conditions of its
+period; in the second place, the study will be a linguistic one, in that
+it will deal also with the words themselves. Here the attention will
+be directed to certain features characteristic of, though not peculiar
+to, the diction of the eighteenth century poetry—the use of Latinisms,
+of archaic and obsolete words, and of those compound words by means of
+which English poets from the time of the Elizabethans have added some of
+the happiest and most expressive epithets to the language; finally, the
+employment of abstractions and personifications will be discussed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE THEORY OF POETICAL DICTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+About the time when Dryden was beginning his literary career the
+preoccupation of men of letters with the language as a literary
+instrument was obvious enough. There was a decided movement toward
+simplicity in both prose and poetry, and, so far as the latter was
+concerned, it was in large measure an expression of the critical reaction
+against the “metaphysical” verse commonly associated with the names
+of Donne and his disciples. Furetière in his “Nouvelle Allegorique ou
+Histoire des dernier troubles arrivez au Royaume d’Eloquence,” published
+at Paris in 1658,[1] expresses the parallel struggle which had been
+raging amongst French poets and critics, and the allegory he presents may
+be taken to symbolize the general critical attitude in both countries.
+
+Rhetoric, Queen of the Realm of Eloquence, and her Prime Minister, Good
+Sense, are represented as threatened by innumerable foes. The troops of
+the Queen, marshalled in defence of the Academy, her citadel, are the
+accepted literary forms, Histories, Epics, Lyrics, Dramas, Romances,
+Letters, Sermons, Philosophical Treatises, Translations, Orations, and
+the like. Her enemies are the rhetorical figures and the perversions
+of style, Metaphors, Hyperboles, Similes, Descriptions, Comparisons,
+Allegories, Pedantries, Antitheses, Puns, Exaggerations, and a host
+of others. Ultimately the latter are defeated, and are in some cases
+banished, or else agree to serve as dependents in the realm of Eloquence.
+
+We may interpret the struggle thus allegorically expressed by saying that
+a new age, increasingly scientific and rational in its outlook, felt
+it was high time to analyze critically and accurately the traditional
+canons and ideals of form and matter that classical learning, since
+the Renaissance, had been able to impose upon literature. This is not
+to say that seventeenth century writers and critics suddenly decided
+that all the accepted standards were radically wrong, and should be
+thrown overboard; but some of them at least showed and expressed
+themselves dissatisfied, and, alongside of the unconscious and, as it
+were, instinctive changes that reflected the spirit of the age, there
+were deliberate efforts to re-fashion both the matter and the manner
+of literary expression, to give creative literature new laws and new
+ideals.[2]
+
+The movement towards purity and simplicity of expression received its
+first definite statement in Thomas Sprat’s “History of the Royal Society,
+1667.” One section of the History contains an account of the French
+Academy, and Sprat’s efforts were directed towards the formation of a
+similar body in England as an arbiter in matters of language and style.
+The ideal was to be the expression of “so many _things_ almost in an
+equal number of _words_.”[3] A Committee of the Royal Society, which
+included Dryden, Evelyn, and Sprat amongst its members, had already met
+in 1664, to discuss ways and means of “improving the English tongue,”
+and it was the discussions of this committee which had doubtless led up
+to Evelyn’s letter to Sir Peter Wyche, its chairman, in June 1665.[4]
+Evelyn there gives in detail his ideas of what an English academy,
+acting as arbiter in matters of vocabulary and style, might do towards
+purifying the language. Twenty-three years later Joseph Glanvill defined
+the new ideal briefly in a passage of his “Essay Concerning Preaching”:
+“Plainness is a character of great latitude and stands in opposition,
+First to _hard words_: Secondly, to _deep and mysterious notions_:
+Thirdly, to _affected Rhetorications_: and Fourthly, to _Phantastical
+Phrases_.”[5] In short, the ideal to be aimed at was the precise and
+definite language of experimental science, but the trend of the times
+tended to make it more and more that ideal of poetry also which was
+later to be summed up in Dryden’s definition of “wit” as a “propriety of
+thoughts and words.”[6]
+
+It is of some little interest perhaps to note that it is not until the
+end of the seventeenth century that the word _diction_ definitely takes
+on the sense which it now usually bears as a term of literary criticism.
+In the preface to “Sylvae, or The Second Part of Poetical Miscellanies”
+(1685), Dryden even seems to regard the term as not completely
+naturalized.[7] Moreover, the critics and poets of the eighteenth century
+were for the most part quite convinced that the special language of
+poetry had begun with Dryden. Johnson asserted this in his usual dogmatic
+fashion, and thus emphasized the doctrine, afterwards vigorously opposed
+by Wordsworth, that between the language of prose, and that proper to
+poetry, there is a sharp distinction. “There was therefore before the
+time of Dryden no poetical diction.... Those happy combinations of words
+which distinguished poetry from prose had been rarely attempted; we had
+few elegancies or flowers of speech.”[8] Gray moreover, while agreeing
+that English poetry had now a language of its own, declared in a letter
+to West that this special language was the creation of a long succession
+of English writers themselves, and especially of Shakespeare and Milton,
+to whom (he asserts) Pope and Dryden were greatly indebted.[9]
+
+It is not very difficult to understand Dryden’s own attitude, as
+laid down in the various Prefaces. He is quite ready to subscribe
+to the accepted neo-classical views on the language of poetry, but
+characteristically reserves for himself the right to reject them,
+or to take up a new line, if he thinks his own work, or that of his
+contemporaries, is likely to benefit thereby. Thus in the preface to
+“Annus Mirabilis” (1666) he boldly claims the liberty to coin words on
+Latin models, and to make use of technical details.[10] In his apology
+for “Heroic Poetry and Poetic License” (1677) prefixed to “The State of
+Innocence and Fall of Man,” his operatic “tagging” of “Paradise Lost,” he
+seems to lay down distinctly the principle that poetry demands a medium
+of its own, distinct from that of prose,[11] whilst towards the end of
+his literary career he reiterates his readiness to enrich his poetic
+language from any and every source, for “poetry requires ornament,” and
+he is therefore willing to “trade both with the living and the dead for
+the enrichment of our native language.”[12] But it is significant that at
+the same time he rejects the technical terms he had formerly advocated,
+apparently on the grounds that such terms would be unfamiliar to “men and
+ladies of the first quality.” Dryden has thus become more “classical,” in
+the sense that he has gone over or reverted to the school of “general”
+terms, which appeared to base its ideal of expression on the accepted
+language of cultured speakers and writers.[13]
+
+Toward the establishment of this principle of the pseudo-classical creed
+the theory and practice of Pope naturally contributed; indeed, it has
+been claimed that it was in large measure the result of the profound
+effect of the “Essay on Criticism,” or at least of the current of thought
+which it represents, on the taste of the age.[14] In the Essay, Pope,
+after duly enumerating the various “idols” of taste in poetical thought
+and diction, clearly states his own doctrine; as the poets’ aim was the
+teaching of “True Wit” or “Nature,” the language used must be universal
+and general, and neologisms must be regarded as heresies. For Pope, as
+for Dryden, universal and general language meant such as would appeal to
+the cultured society for whom he wrote,[15] and in his practice he thus
+reflected the traditional attitude towards the question of language as a
+vehicle of literary expression. A common “poetics” drawn and formulated
+by the classical scholars mainly (and often incorrectly) from Aristotle
+had established itself throughout Western Europe, and it professed to
+prescribe the true relation which should exist between form and matter,
+between the creative mind and the work of art.[16]
+
+The critical reaction against these traditional canons had, as we have
+noted, already begun, but Pope and his contemporaries are in the main
+supporters of the established order, in full agreement with its guiding
+principle that the imitation of “Nature” should be the chief aim and end
+of art. It is scarcely necessary to add that it was not “Nature” in the
+Wordsworthian sense that was thus to be “imitated”; sometimes, indeed,
+it is difficult to discover what was meant by the term. But for Pope and
+his followers we usually find it to mean man as he lives his life in this
+world, and the phrase to “imitate Nature” might thus have an ethical
+purpose, signifying the moral “improvement” of man.
+
+But to appreciate the full significance of this “doctrine,” and its
+eighteenth century interpretation, it is necessary to glance at the
+Aristotelian canon in which it had its origin. For Aristotle poetry
+was an objective “imitation” with a definite plan or purpose, of human
+actions, not as they are, but as they ought to be. The ultimate aim,
+then, according to the _Poetics_, is ideal truth, stripped of the local
+and the accidental; Nature is to be improved upon with means drawn from
+Nature herself. This theory, as extracted and interpreted by the Italian
+and French critics of the Renaissance, was early twisted into a notion
+of poetry as an agreeable falsity, and by the end of the seventeenth
+century it had come to mean, especially with the French, the imitation
+of a selected and embellished Nature, not directly, but rather through
+the medium of those great writers of antiquity, such as Homer and Virgil,
+whose works provided the received and recognized models of idealized
+nature.[17]
+
+As a corollary to this interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of
+ideal imitation, there appeared a tendency to ignore more and more the
+element of personal feeling in poetry,[18] and to concentrate attention
+on the formal elements of the art. This tendency, reinforced by the
+authority of the Horatian tag, _ut pictura poesis_ (“as is painting, so
+is poetry”), led naturally, and in an ever-increasing degree, to the
+formal identification of poetry with painting. Critics became accustomed
+to discussing the elements in the art of writing that correspond to the
+other elements in pictorial art, such as light, colour, expression, etc.
+And as the poet was to be an imitator of accepted models, so also he was
+to be imitative and traditional in using poetical colouring, in which
+phrase were included, as Dryden wrote, “the words, the expressions, the
+tropes and figures, the versification, and all the other elegancies of
+sound.”[19] That this parallelism directly encourages the growth of a
+set “poetic diction” is obvious; the poet’s language was not to be a
+reflection of a genuine emotion felt in the mind for his words, phrases,
+and figures of speech, his _operum colores_,[20] he must not look to
+Nature but to models. In brief, a poetical _gradus_, compiled from
+accepted models, was to be the ideal source on which the poet was to draw
+for his medium of expression.
+
+It is not necessary to dwell long on this pseudo-classical confusion of
+the two arts, as revealed in the critical writings of Western Europe down
+to the very outbreak of the Romantic revolt.[21] In English criticism,
+Dryden’s “Parallel” was only one of many. Of the eighteenth century
+English critics who developed a detailed parallelism between pictorial
+and plastic art on the one hand and poetry on the other, maintaining
+that their standards were interchangeable, the most important perhaps
+is Spence, whose “Polymetis” appeared in 1747, and who sums the general
+position of his fellow-critics on this point in the remark, “Scarce
+anything can be good in a poetical description which would appear absurd
+if represented in a statue or picture.”[22] The ultimate outcome of this
+confusion of poetry and painting found its expression in the last decade
+of the eighteenth century in the theory and practice of Erasmus Darwin,
+whose work, “The Botanic Garden,” consisted of a “second part,” “The
+Loves of the Plants,” published in 1789, two years before its inclusion
+with the “first part” the “Economy of Vegetation,” in one volume.
+Darwin’s theory of poetry is contained in the “Interludes” between the
+cantos of his poems, which take the form of dialogues between the “Poet”
+and a “Bookseller.” In the Interlude to Canto 1 of Part II (“The Loves of
+the Plants”) he maintains the thesis that poetry is a process of painting
+to the eye, and in the cantos themselves he proceeds with great zeal to
+show in practice how words and images should be laid on like pigments
+from the outside. The young Wordsworth himself, as his early poems show,
+was influenced by the theory and practice of Darwin, but Coleridge was
+not slow to detect the danger of the elaborate word-painting that might
+arise from the confusion of the two arts. “The poet,” he wrote,[23]
+“should paint to the Imagination and not to the Fancy.” For Coleridge
+Fancy was the “Drapery” of poetic genius, Imagination was its “Soul” or
+its “synthetic and magical power,”[24] and he thus emphasized what may be
+regarded as one of the chief distinctions between the pseudo-classical,
+and the romantic, interpretations of the language of poetry. In its
+groping after the “grand style,” as reflected in a deliberate avoidance
+of accidental and superficial “particularities,” and in its insistence on
+generalized or abstract forms, eighteenth century poetry, or at least the
+“neo-classical” portion of it, reflected its inability to achieve that
+intensity of imaginative conception which is the supreme need of all art.
+
+The confusion between the two arts of poetry and painting which Coleridge
+thus condemned did not, it is needless to say, disappear with the
+eighteenth century. The Romanticists themselves finally borrowed that
+much-abused phrase “local colour” from the technical vocabulary of the
+painter, and in other respects the whole question became merged in the
+symbolism of the nineteenth century where literature is to be seen
+attempting to do the work of both music and painting.[25]
+
+As regards the language of poetry then—its vocabulary, the actual
+_words_ in which it was to be given expression—the early eighteenth
+century had first this pseudo-classical doctrine of a treasury of select
+words, phrases, and other “ornaments,” a doctrine which was to receive
+splendid emphasis and exemplification in Pope’s translation of Homer.
+But alongside of this ideal of style there was another ideal which Pope
+again, as we have seen, had insisted upon in his “Essay on Criticism,”
+and which demanded that the language of poetry should in general
+conform to that of cultivated conversation and prose. These two ideals
+of poetical language can be seen persisting throughout the eighteenth
+century, though later criticism, in its haste to condemn the _gradus_
+ideal, has not often found time to do justice to the other.
+
+But, apart from these general considerations, the question of poetic
+diction is rarely treated as a thing _per se_ by the writers who, after
+Dryden or Pope, or alongside of them, took up the question. There are no
+attempts, in the manner of the Elizabethans,[26] to conduct a critical
+inquiry into the actual present resources of the vernacular, and its
+possibilities as a vehicle of expression. Though the attention is
+more than once directed to certain special problems, on the whole the
+discussions are of a general nature, and centre round such points as the
+language suitable for an Heroic Poem, or for the “imitation” of aspects
+of nature, or for Descriptive Poetry, questions which had been discussed
+from the sixteenth century onwards, and were not exhausted by the time of
+Dr. Johnson.[27]
+
+Goldsmith’s remarks, reflecting as they do a sort of half-way attitude
+between the old order and the new, are interesting. Poetry has a language
+of its own; it is a species of painting with words, and hence he will
+not condemn Pope for “deviating in some instances from the simplicity
+of Homer,” whilst such phrases as _the sighing reed_, _the warbling
+rivulet_, _the gushing spring_, _the whispering breeze_ are approvingly
+quoted.[28] It is thus somewhat surprising to find that in his “Life
+of Parnell” he had pilloried certain “misguided innovators” to whose
+efforts he attributed the gradual debasing of poetical language since the
+happy days when Dryden, Addison, and Pope had brought it to its highest
+pitch of refinement.[29] These writers had forgotten that poetry is “the
+language of life” and that the simplest expression was the best: brief
+statements which, if we knew what Goldsmith meant by “life,” would seem
+to adumbrate the theories which Wordsworth was to expound as the Romantic
+doctrine.
+
+Dr. Johnson has many things to say on the subject of poetic language,
+including general remarks and particular judgments on special points,
+or on the work of the poets of whom he treated in his “Lives.” As
+might be expected, he clings tenaciously to the accepted standards of
+neo-classicism, and repeats the old commonplaces which had done duty for
+so long, pays the usual tribute to Waller and Denham, but ascribes the
+actual birth of poetical diction to the practice of Dryden. What Johnson
+meant by “poetical diction” is clearly indicated; it was a “system of
+words at once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and free from
+the harshness of terms appropriated to different arts,”[30] that is, the
+language of poetry must shun popular and technical words, since language
+is “the dress of thought” and “splendid ideas lose their magnificence if
+they are conveyed by low and vulgar words.”[31] From this standpoint, and
+reinforced by his classical preference for regular rhymes,[32] all his
+particular judgments of his predecessors and contemporaries were made;
+and when this is remembered it is easier to understand, for instance, his
+praise of Akenside[33] and his criticism of Collins.[34]
+
+Gray, however, perhaps the most scrupulous and precise of all our poets
+with regard to the use of words in poetry,[35] has some pertinent things
+to say on the matter. There is his important letter to West, already
+referred to, with its dogmatic assertion that “the language of the age
+is never the language of poetry,” and that “our poetry has a language
+to itself,” an assertion which, with other remarks of Gray, helps to
+emphasize the distinction to be made between the two ideals of poetical
+diction to be seen persisting through the eighteenth century. It was
+generally agreed that there must be a special language for poetry, with
+all its artificial “heightening,” “licenses,” and variations from the
+language of prose, to serve the purpose of the traditional “Kinds,”
+especially the Epic and the Lyric. This is the view taken by Gray, but
+with a difference. He does not accept the conventional diction which
+Pope’s “Homer” had done so much to perpetuate, and hence he creates a
+poetic language of his own, a glittering array of words and phrases,
+blending material from varied sources, and including echoes and
+reminiscences of Milton and Dryden.
+
+The second ideal of style was that of which, as we have seen, the canons
+had been definitely stated by Pope, and which had been splendidly
+exemplified in the satires, essays, and epistles. The aim was to
+reproduce “the colloquial idiom of living society,”[36] and the result
+was a plain, unaffected style, devoid of the ornaments of the poetic
+language proper, and, in its simplicity and directness, equally suitable
+for either poetry or prose. Gray could make use of this vehicle of
+expression, whenever, as in “The Long Story,” or the fragmentary
+“Alliance of Education and Government,” it was suitable and adequate
+for his purpose; but in the main his own practice stood distinct from
+both the eighteenth century ideals of poetical language. Hence, as it
+conformed to neither of the accepted standards, Goldsmith and Johnson
+agreed in condemning his diction, which was perhaps in itself sufficient
+proof that Gray had struck out a new language for himself.
+
+Among the special problems connected with the diction of poetry to which
+the eighteenth century critics directed their attention, that of the
+use of archaic and obsolete words was prominent. It had been one of the
+methods by which the Elizabethans had hoped to enrich their language, but
+contemporary critics had expressed their disapproval, and it was left to
+Jonson, in this as in other similar matters, to express the reasonable
+view that “the eldest of the present and the newest of the past language
+is best.”[37] Dryden, when about to turn the “Canterbury Tales” “into our
+language as it is now refined,”[38] was to express a similar common-sense
+view. “When an ancient word,” he said, with his Horace no doubt in his
+mind, “for its sound and significancy deserves to be revived, I have that
+reasonable veneration for antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is
+superstition.”
+
+A few years later the long series of Spenserian imitations had begun,
+so that the question of the poetic use of archaic and obsolete words
+naturally came into prominence. Pope, as might be expected, is to be
+found among the opposition, and in the “Dunciad” he takes the opportunity
+of showing his contempt for this kind of writing by a satiric gird,
+couched in supposedly archaic language:
+
+    But who is he in closet close y-pent
+    Of sober face with learned dust besprent?
+    Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight
+    On parchment scraps y-fed and Wormius hight—
+
+                                                     (Bk. III, ll. 185-8)
+
+an attack which is augmented by the ironic comment passed by “Scriblerus”
+in a footnote.[39] Nevertheless, when engaged on his translation of Homer
+he had an inclination, like Cowper, towards a certain amount of archaism,
+though it is evident that he is not altogether satisfied on the point.[40]
+
+In Gray’s well-known letter to West, mentioned above, there is given a
+selection of epithets from Dryden, which he notes as instances of archaic
+words preserved in poetry. Gray, as we know, had a keen sense of the
+value of words, and his list is therefore of special importance, for
+it appears to show that words like _mood_, _smouldering_, _beverage_,
+_array_, _wayward_, _boon_, _foiled_, etc., seemed to readers of 1742
+much more old-fashioned than they do to us. Thirty years or so later
+he practically retracts the views expressed in this earlier letter, in
+which he had admirably defended the use in poetry of words obsolete in
+the current language of the day. “I think,” he wrote to James Beattie,
+criticizing “The Minstrel,”[41] “that we should wholly adopt the language
+of Spenser or wholly renounce it.” And he goes on to object to such
+words as _fared_, _meed_, _sheen_, etc., objections which were answered
+by Beattie, who showed that all the words had the sanction of such
+illustrious predecessors as Milton and Pope, and who added that “the
+poetical style in every nation abounds in old words”—exactly what Gray
+had written in his letter of 1742.
+
+Johnson, it need hardly be said, was of Pope’s opinion on this matter,
+and the emphatic protest which he, alarmed by such tendencies in the
+direction of Romanticism, apparent not only in the Spenserian imitations,
+but still more in such signs of the times as were to culminate in Percy’s
+“Reliques,” the Ossianic “simplicities” of Macpherson, and the Rowley
+“forgeries,” is evidence of the strength which the Spenserian revival had
+by then gained. “To imitate Spenser’s fiction and sentiments can incur no
+reproach,” he wrote: “but I am very far from extending the same respect
+to his diction and his stanza.”[42] To the end he continued to express
+his disapproval of those who favoured the “obsolete style,” and, like
+Pope, he finally indulges in a metrical fling at the innovators:
+
+    Phrase that time has flung away
+    Uncouth words in disarray;
+    Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet,
+    Ode and Elegy and Sonnet.[43]
+
+Goldsmith too had his misgivings. “I dislike the imitations of our
+old English poets in general,” he wrote with reference to “The
+Schoolmistress,” “yet, on this minute subject, the antiquity of the style
+produces a very ludicrous solemnity.”[44]
+
+On this matter of poetic archaism, the point of view of the average
+cultured reader, as distinct from the writer, is probably accurately
+represented in one of Chesterfield’s letters. Writing to his son,[45] he
+was particularly urgent that those words only should be employed which
+were found in the writers of the Augustan age, or of the age immediately
+preceding. To enforce his point he carefully explained to the boy the
+distinction between the pedant and the gentleman who is at the same
+time a scholar; the former affected rare words found only in the pages
+of obscure or antiquated authors rather than those used by the great
+classical writers.
+
+This was the attitude adopted in the main by William Cowper, who, after
+an early enthusiasm for the “quaintness” of old words, when first engaged
+on his translation of Homer, later repented and congratulated himself
+on having, in his last revisal, pruned away every “single expression of
+the obsolete kind.”[46] But against these opinions we have to set the
+frankly romantic attitude of Thomas Warton, who, in his “Observations
+on the Faerie Queen” (1754), boldly asserts that “if the critic is not
+satisfied, yet the reader is transported,” whilst he is quite confident
+that Spenser’s language is not so difficult and obsolete as it is
+generally supposed to be.[47]
+
+Here and there we also come across references to other devices by which
+the poet is entitled to add to his word-power. Thus Addison grants the
+right of indulging in coinages, since this is a practice sanctioned by
+example, especially by that of Homer and Milton.[48] Pope considered that
+only such of Homer’s compound epithets as could be “done literally into
+English without destroying the purity of our language” or those with good
+literary sanctions should be adopted.[49] Gray, however, enters a caveat
+against coinages; in the letter to Beattie, already quoted, he objects to
+the word “infuriated,” and adds a warning not to “make new words without
+great necessity; it is very hazardous at best.”
+
+Finally, as a legacy or survival of that veneration for the “heroic
+poem,” which had found its latest expression in Davenant’s “Preface to
+Gondibert”[50] (1650), the question of technical words is occasionally
+touched upon. Dryden, who had begun by asserting that general terms were
+often a mere excuse for ignorance, could later give sufficient reasons
+for the avoidance of technical terms,[51] and it is not surprising to
+find that Gray was of a similar opinion. In his criticism of Beattie’s
+“Minstrel” he objects to the terms _medium_ and _incongruous_ as being
+words of art, which savour too much of prose. Gray, we may presume, did
+not object to such words because they were not “elegant,” or even mainly
+because they were “technical” expressions. He would reject them because,
+for him, with his keen sense of the value of words, they were too little
+endowed with poetic colour and imagination. When these protests are
+remembered, the great and lasting popularity of “The Shipwreck” (1762) of
+William Falconer, with its free employment of nautical words and phrases,
+may be considered to possess a certain significance in the history of the
+Romantic reaction. The daring use of technical terms in the poem must
+have given pleasure to a generation of readers accustomed mainly to the
+conventional words and phrases of the accepted diction.
+
+When we review the “theory” of poetical language in the eighteenth
+century, as revealed in the sayings, direct and indirect, of poets and
+critics, we feel that there is little freshness or originality in the
+views expressed, very little to suggest the changes that were going on
+underneath, and which were soon to find their first great and reasoned
+expression. Nominally, it would seem that the views of the eighteenth
+century “classicists” were adequately represented and summed up in those
+of Johnson, for whom the ideal of poetical language was that which Dryden
+had “invented,” and of which Pope had made such splendid use in his
+translation of Homer. In reality, the practice of the “neo-classical”
+poets was largely influenced by the critical tenets of the school to
+which they belonged, especially by that pseudo-Aristotelian doctrine
+according to which poetry was to be an “imitation” of the best models,
+whilst its words, phrases, and similes were to be such as were generally
+accepted and consecrated by poetic use. It was this conventionalism,
+reinforced by, as well as reflecting, the neo-classical outlook on
+external nature, that resulted in the “poetic diction” which Wordsworth
+attacked, and it is important to note that a similar stereotyped language
+is to be found in most of the contemporary poetry of Western Europe, and
+especially in that of France.[52]
+
+We need not be surprised, therefore, to find that neither Johnson, nor
+any of his “classical” contemporaries, appears to attach any importance
+to the fact that Pope in his essays and epistles had set up a standard
+of diction, of which it is not too much to say that it was an ideal
+vehicle of expression for the thoughts and feelings it had to convey.
+So enamoured were they of the pomp and glitter of the “Homer” that
+they apparently failed to see in this real “Pope style” an admirable
+model for all writers aiming at lucidity, simplicity, and directness of
+thought. We may see this clearly by means of an instructive comparison
+of Johnson’s judgments on the two “Pope styles.” “It is remarked by
+Watts,” he writes, “that there is scarcely a happy combination of words
+or a phrase poetically elegant in the English language which Pope has not
+inserted into his version of Homer.”[53] On the other hand, he is perhaps
+more than unjust to Pope’s plain didactic style when he speaks of the
+“harshness of diction,” the “levity without elegance” of the “Essay on
+Man.”[54]
+
+It was not until the neo-classical poetry was in its death-agony that
+we meet with adequate appreciation of the admirable language which
+Pope brought to perfection and bequeathed to his successors. “The
+familiar style,” wrote Cowper to Unwin,[55] “is of all the styles the
+most difficult to succeed in. To make verse speak the language of prose
+without being prosaic—to marshal the words of it in such an order as they
+might naturally take in falling from the lips of an extemporary speaker,
+yet without meanness, harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming
+to displace a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the most
+arduous tasks a poet can undertake.” The “familiar style,” which Cowper
+here definitely characterizes, was in its own special province as good
+a model as was the beautiful simplicity of Blake when “poetical poetry”
+had once more come into its own; and it is important to remember that
+this fact received due recognition from both Wordsworth and Coleridge.
+“The mischief,” wrote the former,[56] “was effected not by Pope’s
+satirical and moral pieces, for these entitle him to the highest place
+among the poets of his class; it was by his ‘Homer.’... No other work
+in the language so greatly vitiated the diction of English poetry.” And
+Coleridge, too, called attention to the “almost faultless position and
+choice of words” in Pope’s original compositions, in comparison with
+the absurd “pseudo-poetic diction” of his translations of Homer.[57]
+The “Pope style” failed to produce real poetry—poetry of infinite and
+universal appeal, animated with personal feeling and emotion not merely
+because of its preference for the generic rather than the typical, but
+because its practitioners for the most part lacked those qualities of
+intense imagination in which alone the highest art can have its birth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE “STOCK” DICTION OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+Since the time when Wordsworth launched his manifestoes on the language
+fit and proper for poetry, it may almost be said that whenever the term
+“poetic diction” is found used as a more or less generic term of critical
+disparagement, it has been with reference, implied or explicit, to the
+so-called classical poetry of the Augustan ages. But the condemnation has
+perhaps been given too wide an application, and hence there has arisen a
+tendency to place in this category all the language of all the poets who
+were supposed to have taken Pope as their model, so that “the Pope style”
+and “eighteenth century diction” have almost become synonymous terms, as
+labels for a lifeless, imitative language in which poets felt themselves
+constrained to express all their thoughts and feelings. This criticism is
+both unjust and misleading. For when this “false and gaudy splendour” is
+unsparingly condemned, it is not always recognized or remembered that it
+is mainly to be found in the descriptive poetry of the period.
+
+It is sufficient to glance at the descriptive verse of practically
+all the typical “classical” poets to discover how generally true this
+statement is. We cannot say, of course, that the varied sights and sounds
+of outdoor life made no appeal at all to them; but what we do feel is
+that whenever they were constrained to indulge in descriptive verse
+they either could not, or would not, try to convey their impressions in
+language of their very own, but were content in large measure to draw
+upon a common stock of dead and colourless epithets. Local colour, in the
+sense of accurate and particular observation of natural facts, is almost
+entirely lacking; there is no writing with the eye on the object, and it
+has been well remarked that their highly generalized descriptions could
+be transferred from poet to poet or from scene to scene, without any
+injustice. Thus Shenstone[58] describes his birthplace:
+
+    Romantic scenes of pendent hills
+    And verdant vales, and falling rills,
+    And mossy banks, the fields adorn
+    Where Damon, simple swain, was born—
+
+a quatrain which, with little or no change of epithet, was the common
+property of the versifiers, and may be met with almost everywhere in
+early eighteenth century poetry. Every type of English scenery and every
+phase of outdoor life finds its description in lines of this sort, where
+the reader instinctively feels that the poet has not been careful to
+record his individual impressions or emotions, but has contented himself
+with accepting epithets and phrases consecrated to the use of natural
+description. A similar inability or indifference is seen even in the
+attempts to re-fashion Chaucer, or the Bible, or other old material,
+where the vigour and freshness and colour of the originals might have
+been expected to exercise a salutary influence. But to no purpose: all
+must be cast in the one mould, and clothed in the elegant diction of
+the time. Thus in Dryden’s modernization of the “Canterbury Tales” the
+beautiful simplicity of Chaucer’s descriptions of the sights and sounds
+of nature vanishes when garbed in the rapid and conventional phrases and
+locutions of the classicists. Chaucer’s “briddes” becomes “the painted
+birds,” a “goldfinch” is amplified into a “goldfinch with gaudy pride of
+painted plumes,” whilst a plain and simple mention of sunrise, “at the
+sun upriste,” has to be paraphrased into
+
+    Aurora had but newly chased the night
+    And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light.
+
+The old ballads and the Psalms suffered severely in the same way.[59]
+
+The fact that the words most frequently used in this stock poetic
+diction have usually some sort of connexion with dress or ornament has
+not escaped notice, and it has its own significance. It is, as it were,
+a reflex of the fact that the nature poetry of the period is in large
+measure the work of writers to whom social life is the central fact of
+existence, for whom meadow, and woodland, and running water, mountain
+and sea, the silent hills, and the starry sky brought no inspiration, or
+at least no inspiration powerful enough to lead them to break through
+the shackles of conventionality imposed upon them by the taste of their
+age. Words like “paint” and “painted,” “gaudy,” “adorn,” “deck,” “gilds”
+and “gilded,” “damasked,” “enamelled,” “embroidered,” and dozens similar
+form the stock vocabulary of natural description; apart from the best of
+Akenside, and the works of one or two writers such as John Cunningham,
+it can safely be said that but few new descriptive terms were added to
+the “nature vocabulary” of English poetry during this period. How far
+English poetry is yet distant from a recognition of the sea as a source
+of poetic inspiration may be perhaps seen from the fact that its most
+frequent epithet is the feeble term “watery,” whilst the magic of the sky
+by night or day evokes no image other than one that can be expressed by
+changes rung on such words as “azure,” “concave,” “serene,” “ætherial.”
+Even in “Night Thoughts,” where the subject might have led to something
+new and fresh in the way of a “star-vocabulary,” the best that Young can
+do is to take refuge in such periphrases as “tuneful spheres,” “nocturnal
+sparks,” “lucid orbs,” “ethereal armies,” “mathematic glories,” “radiant
+choirs,” “midnight counsellors,” etc.
+
+And the same lack of direct observation and individual expression is
+obvious whenever the classicists have to mention birds or animals. Wild
+life had to wait for White of Selborne, and for Blake and Burns and
+Cowper and Wordsworth, to be observed with accuracy and treated with
+sympathy; and it has been well remarked that if we are to judge from
+their verse, most of the poets of the first quarter of the eighteenth
+century knew no bird except the goldfinch or nightingale, and even these
+probably only by hearsay. For the same generalized diction is usually
+called upon, and birds are merely a “feathered,” “tuneful,” “plumy”
+or “warbling” choir, whilst a periphrasis, allowing of numerous and
+varied labels for the same animal, is felt to be the correct thing. In
+Dryden sheep are “the woolly breed” or “the woolly race”; bees are the
+“industrious kind” or “the frugal kind”; pigs are “the bristly care” or
+“the tusky kind”; frogs are “the loquacious race”; crows, “the craven
+kind,” and so on: “the guiding principle seems to be that nothing must be
+mentioned by its own name.”[60]
+
+Many of these stock epithets owed their appearance of course to the
+requirements imposed upon poets by their adherence to the heroic couplet.
+Pope himself calls attention to the fact that the necessities of rhyme
+led to the unceasing repetition of stereotyped phrases and locutions:
+
+    Where’er you find the “cooling western breeze.”
+    In the next line it “whispers through the trees”;
+    If crystal streams “with pleasing murmur creep”
+    The reader’s threaten’d, not in vain, with “sleep”—
+
+adducing, with unconscious irony, the very rhymes prevalent in much of
+his own practice.[61]
+
+It was also recognized by the versifiers that the indispensable polish
+and “correctness” of the decasyllabic line could only be secured by a
+mechanical use of epithets in certain positions. “There is a vast beauty
+[to me],” wrote Shenstone, “in using a word of a particular nature in
+the 8th and 9th syllable of an English verse. I mean what is virtually a
+dactyl. For instance,
+
+    And pykes, the tyrants of the wat’ry plains.
+
+Let any person of any ear substitute _liquid_ for _wat’ry_ and he will
+find the disadvantage.”[62] Saintsbury has pointed out[63] that the
+“drastic but dangerous device of securing the undulating penetration
+of the line by the use of the _gradus_ epithet was one of the chief
+causes of the intensely artificial character of the versification and
+its attendant diction.... There are passages in the ‘Dispensary’ and
+‘The Rape of the Lock,’ where you can convert the decasyllable into the
+octosyllable for several lines together without detriment to sense or
+poetry by simply taking out these specious superfluities.”
+
+In the year of Dryden’s death (or perhaps in the following year) there
+had appeared the “Art of Poetry” by Edward Bysshe, whose metrical
+laws were generally accepted, as authoritative, during the eighteenth
+century. During the forty years of Dryden’s literary career the
+supremacy of the stopped regular decasyllabic couplet had gradually
+established itself as the perfect form of verse. But Bysshe was the first
+prosodist to formulate the “rules” of the couplet, and in doing so he
+succeeded, probably because his views reflected the general prosodic
+tendencies of the time, in “codifying and mummifying” a system which
+soon became erected into a creed. “The foregoing rules (_of accent on
+the even places and pause mainly at the 4th, 5th, or 6th syllable_)
+ought indispensably to be followed in all our verses of 10 syllables:
+and the observation of them will produce Harmony, the neglect of them
+harshness and discord.”[64] Into this rigid mechanical mould contemporary
+and succeeding versifiers felt themselves constrained to place their
+couplets. But to pad out their lines they were nearly always beset with
+a temptation to use the trochaic epithets, of which numerous examples
+have been given above. As a natural result such epithets soon became part
+and parcel of the poetic stock of language, and hence most of them were
+freely used by poets, not because of any intrinsic poetic value, but
+because they were necessary to comply with the absurd mechanics of their
+vehicle of expression.
+
+Since the “Lives of the Poets” it has been customary to regard this
+“poetic diction” as the peculiar invention of the late seventeenth and
+early eighteenth century, and especially of Dryden and Pope, a belief
+largely due to Johnson’s eulogies of these poets. As an ardent admirer of
+the school of Dryden and Pope, it was only natural that Johnson should
+express an exalted opinion of their influence on the poetic practice
+of his contemporaries. But others—Gray amongst them—did not view their
+innovations with much complacency, and towards the end of the century
+Cowper was already foreshadowing the attack to be made by Wordsworth and
+Coleridge in the next generation. To Pope’s influence, he says in effect,
+after paying his predecessor a more or less formal compliment, was due
+the stereotyped form both of the couplet and of much of the language in
+which it was clothed. Pope had made
+
+        poetry a mere mechanic art
+    And every warbler had his tune by heart;
+
+and in one of his letters he stigmatizes and pillories the inflated and
+stilted phraseology of Pope, and especially his translation of Homer.[65]
+Finally, Wordsworth and Coleridge agreed in ascribing the “poetical
+diction,” against which their manifestoes were directed, to that source.
+
+It is to be admitted that Pope’s translation is to some extent open
+to the charge brought against it of corrupting the language with a
+meretricious standard of poetic diction. In his Preface he expresses his
+misgivings as to the language fit and proper for an English rendering of
+Homer, and indeed it is usually recognized that his diction was, to a
+certain extent, imposed upon him both by the nature of his original, as
+well as by the lack of elasticity in his closed couplet. To the latter
+cause was doubtless due, not only the use of stock epithets to fill out
+the line, but also the inevitable repetition of certain words, due to
+the requirements of rhyme, even at the expense of straining or distorting
+their ordinary meaning. Thus _train_, for instance, on account of its
+convenience as a rhyming word, is often used to signify “a host,” or
+“body,” and similarly _plain_, _main_, for the ocean. In this connexion
+it has also been aptly pointed out that some of the defects resulted from
+the fact that Pope had founded his own epic style on that of the Latin
+poets, whose manner is most opposed to Homer’s. Thus he often sought to
+deck out or expand simple thoughts or commonplace situations by using
+what he no doubt considered really “poetical language,” and thus, for
+instance, where Homer simply says, “And the people perished,” Pope has
+to say, “And heaped the camp with mountains of the dead.” The repeated
+use of periphrases: _feathered fates_, for “arrows”; _fleecy breed_ for
+“sheep”; _the wandering nation of a summer’s day_ for “insects”; _the
+beauteous kind_ for “women”; _the shining mischief_ for “a fascinating
+woman”; _rural care_ for “the occupations of the shepherd”; _the social
+shades_ for “the ghosts of two brothers,” may be traced to the same
+influence.[66]
+
+But apart from these defects the criticisms of Coleridge and Wordsworth,
+and their ascribing of the “poetical diction,” which they wished to
+abolish, to the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” are to a large extent
+unjust. Many of the characteristics of this “spurious poetic language”
+were well established long before Pope produced his translation. It is
+probable that they are present to a much larger extent, for instance, in
+Dryden; _painted_, _rural_, _finny_, _briny_, _shady_, _vocal_, _mossy_,
+_fleecy_, come everywhere in his translations, and not only there. Some
+of his adjectives in y are more audacious than those of Pope: _spongy
+clouds_, _chinky hives_, _snary webs_, _roomy sea_, etc. Most of the
+periphrases used by Pope and many more are already to be found in Dryden:
+“summer” is _the sylvan reign_; “bees,” _the frugal_ or _industrious
+kind_; “arrows,” _the feathered wood_ or _feathered fates_; “sheep,” _the
+woolly breed_; “frogs,” _the loquacious race_! From all Pope’s immediate
+predecessors and contemporaries similar examples may be quoted, like Gay’s
+
+    When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain
+
+                                                         (“Rural Sports”)
+
+or Ambrose Philips:
+
+    Hark: how they warble in the brambly bush
+    The gaudy goldfinch or the speckly thrush
+
+                                                      (“Fourth Pastoral”)
+
+and that “Epistle to a Friend,” in which he ridicules the very jargon so
+much used in his own Pastorals.[67]
+
+Pope then may justly be judged “not guilty,” at least “in the first
+degree,” of having originated the poetic diction which Johnson praised
+and Wordsworth condemned; in using it, he was simply using the stock
+language for descriptive poetry, whether original or in translations,
+which had slowly come into being during the last decade of the
+seventeenth century. If it be traced to its origins, it will be found
+that most of it originated with that poet who may fairly be called the
+founder of the English “classical” school of poetry—to Milton, to whom
+in large measure is due, not merely the invention, but also, by the very
+potency of the influence exercised by his great works, its vogue in the
+eighteenth century.
+
+Before the time of Milton, it is not too much to say, even when we
+remember the practice of Spenser and Donne and their followers, that
+there was no special language for poetry, little or nothing of the
+diction consecrated solely to the purposes of poets. The poets of the
+Elizabethan age and their immediate successors had access to all diction,
+upon which they freely drew. But it seems natural, indeed inevitable,
+that for Milton, resolved to sing of things “unattempted yet in prose
+or rhyme,” the ordinary language of contemporary prose or poetry should
+be found lacking. He was thus impelled, we may say, consciously and
+deliberately to form for himself a special poetical vocabulary, which, in
+his case, was abundantly justified, because it was so essentially fitted
+to his purpose, and bore the stamp of his lofty poetic genius.
+
+This poetical vocabulary was made up of diverse elements. Besides the
+numerous “classical” words, which brought with them all the added charm
+of literary reminiscence, there were archaisms, and words of Latin
+origin, as well as words deliberately coined on Latin and Greek roots.
+But it included also most of the epithets of which the eighteenth
+century versifiers were so fond. Examples may be taken from any of the
+descriptive portions of the “Paradise Lost”:
+
+    On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers
+
+                                                                (IV, 334)
+
+or
+
+        About me round I saw
+    Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,
+    And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.
+
+                                                          (VIII, 260-263)
+
+Other phrases, like “vernal bloom,” “lucid stream,” “starry sphere,”
+“flowery vale,” “umbrageous grots,” were to become the worn-out
+penny-pieces of the eighteenth century poetical mint. Milton indeed
+seems to have been one of the great inventors of adjectives ending in
+y, though in this respect he had been anticipated by Browne and others,
+and especially by Chapman, who has large numbers of them, and whose
+predilection for this method of making adjectives out of nouns amounts
+almost to an obsession.[68]
+
+Milton was also perhaps the great innovator with another kind of
+epithet, which called forth the censure of Johnson, who described it
+as “the practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the
+terminations of participles,” though the great dictator is here attacking
+a perfectly legitimate device freely used by the Jacobeans and by most of
+the poets since their time.[69] Nor are there wanting in Milton’s epic
+instances of the idle periphrases banned by Wordsworth: _straw-built
+citadel_ for “bee-hive,” _vernal bloom_ for “spring flowers,” _smutty
+grain_ for “gunpowder,” _humid train_ for the flowery waters of a river,
+etc.[70]
+
+With Milton, then, may be said to have originated the “poetic diction,”
+which drew forth Wordsworth’s strictures, and which in the sequel
+proved a dangerous model for the swarm of versifiers who essayed to
+borrow or imitate it for the purpose of their dull and commonplace
+themes. How much the Miltonic language, as aped and imitated by the
+“landscape gardeners and travelling pedlars” of the eighteenth century,
+lost in originality and freshness, may be felt, rather than described,
+if we compare so well-known a passage as the following with any of the
+quotations given earlier:
+
+                  Yet not the more
+    Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
+    Clear Spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
+    Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
+    Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
+    That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow.
+
+                                                        (P.L. III, 26-30)
+
+But the minor poets of the eighteenth century, who, by their mechanical
+imitations, succeeded in reducing Milton’s diction to the level of
+an almost meaningless jargon, had had every encouragement from their
+greater predecessors and contemporaries. The process of depreciation may
+be seen already in Dryden, and it is probably by way of Pope that much
+of the Miltonic language became part of the eighteenth century poetic
+stock-in-trade. Pope was a frequent borrower from Milton, and, in his
+“Homer” especially, very many reminiscences are to be found, often used
+in an artificial, and sometimes in an absurd, manner.[71] Moreover,
+Pope’s free and cheapened use of many of Milton’s descriptive epithets
+did much to reduce them to the rank of merely conventional terms, and
+in this respect the attack of Wordsworth and Coleridge was not without
+justice. But on the whole the proper conclusion would seem to be that
+what is usually labelled as “the _Pope_ style” could with more justice
+and aptness be described as “the pseudo-Miltonic style.” It is true that
+the versifiers freely pilfered the “Homer,” and the vogue of much of the
+stock diction is thus due to that source, but so far as Pope himself is
+concerned there is justice in his plea that he left this style behind him
+when he emerged from “Fancy’s maze” and “moralized his song.”
+
+To what extent this catalogue of lifeless words and phrases had
+established itself as the poetical thesaurus is to be seen in the
+persistency with which it maintained its position until the very end of
+the century, when Erasmus Darwin with a fatal certainty evolved from
+it all its worst features, and thus did much unconsciously to crush it
+out of existence. James Thomson is rightly regarded as one of the most
+important figures in the early history of the Romantic Revolt, and he
+has had merited praise for his attempts to provide himself with a new
+language of his own. In this respect, however, he had been anticipated
+by John Philips, whose “Splendid Shilling” appeared in 1705, followed by
+“Cyder” a year later. Philips, though not the first Miltonic imitator,
+was practically the first to introduce the Miltonic diction and phrases,
+whilst at the same time he acquired the knack of adding phrases of his
+own to the common stock. He was thus an innovator from whom Thomson
+himself learned not a little.
+
+But though the “Seasons” is ample testimony to a new and growing
+alertness to natural scenery, Thomson found it hard to escape from the
+fetters of the current poetic language. We feel that he is at least
+trying to write with his eye steadily fixed upon the object, but he could
+perhaps hardly be expected to get things right from the very beginning.
+Thus a stanza from his “Pastoral Entertainment” is purely conventional:
+
+    The place appointed was a spacious vale
+    Fanned always by a cooling western gale
+    Which in soft breezes through the meadow stray
+    And steal the ripened fragrances away—
+
+while he paraphrases a portion of the sixth chapter of St. Matthew into:
+
+    Observe the rising lily’s snowy grace,
+    Observe the various vegetable race,
+    They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow
+    Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow,
+
+where the stock terms scarcely harmonize with the simple Biblical
+diction. He was well aware of the attendant dangers and difficulties,
+and in the first book of “The Seasons” he gives expression to the need
+he feels of a language fit to render adequately all that he sees in
+Nature.[72] But though there is much that is fresh and vivid in his
+descriptive diction, and much that reveals him as a bold pioneer in
+poetic outlook and treatment, the tastes and tendencies of his age were
+too strong entirely to be escaped. Birds are the _plumy_, or _feathered
+people_, or _the glossy kind_,[73] and a flight of swallows is _a
+feathered eddy_; sheep are _the bleating kind_, etc. In one passage
+(“Spring,” ll. 114-135) he deals at length with the insects that attack
+the crops without once mentioning them by name: they are _the feeble
+race_, _the frosty tribe_, _the latent foe_, and even _the sacred sons
+of vengeance_. He has in general the traditional phraseology for the
+mountains and the sea, though a few of his epithets for the mountains,
+as _keen-air’d_ and _forest-rustling_, are new. He speaks of the Alps as
+_dreadful_, _horrid_, _vast_, _sublime_. _Shaggy_ and _nodding_ are also
+applied to mountains as well as to rocks and forests; winter is usually
+described in the usual classical manner as _deformed_ and _inverted_.
+Leaves are the _honours_ of trees, paths are _erroneous_, caverns
+_sweat_, etc., and he also makes large use of Latinisms.[74]
+
+John Dyer (1700-1758), though now and then conventional in his diction,
+has a good deal to his credit, and is a worthy contemporary of the author
+of “The Seasons.” Thus in the “Country Walk” it is the old stock diction
+he gives us:
+
+    Look upon that _flowery plain_
+    How the sheep surround their _swain_;
+      And there behold a _bloomy mead_,
+      A silver stream, a willow shade;
+
+and much the same thing is to be found in “The Fleece,” published in 1757:
+
+    The crystal dews, impearl’d upon the grass,
+    Are touched by Phœbus’ beams and mount aloft,
+    With various clouds to paint the azure sky;
+
+whilst he has almost as many adjectives in y as Ambrose Philips. But
+these are more than redeemed by the new descriptive touches which appear,
+sometimes curiously combined with the stereotyped phrases, as in “The
+Fleece” (Bk. III):
+
+    The scatter’d mists reveal the dusky hills;
+    Grey dawn appears; the golden morn ascends,
+    And paints the glittering rocks and purple woods.
+
+Nor must we forget “Grongar Hill,” which has justly received high praise
+for its beauties and felicities of description.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to illustrate further the vogue of this sort of
+diction in the first half of the eighteenth century; it is to be found
+everywhere in the poetry of the period, and the conventional epithets
+and phrases quoted from Dyer and Thomson may be taken as typical of the
+majority of their contemporaries. But this lifeless, stereotyped language
+has also invaded the work of some of the best poets of the century,
+including not only the later classicists, but also those who have been
+“born free,” and are foremost among the Romantic rebels. The poetic
+language of William Collins shows a strange mixture of the old style
+and the new. That it was new and individual is well seen from Johnson’s
+condemnation, for Johnson recognized very clearly that the language of
+the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands” did not conform
+to what was probably his own view that the only language fit and proper
+for poetry was such as might bear comparison with the polish and elegance
+of Pope’s “Homer.” It is not difficult to make due allowance for Johnson
+when he speaks of Collins’s diction as “harsh, unskilfully laboured, and
+injudicially selected”; we deplore the classical bias, and are content
+enough to recognize and enjoy for ourselves the matchless beauty and
+charm of Collins’s diction at its best. Yet much of the language of his
+earlier work betrays him as more or less a poetaster of the eighteenth
+century. The early “Oriental Eclogues” abound in the usual descriptive
+details, just as if the poet had picked out his words and phrases from
+the approved lists. Thus,
+
+    Yet midst the blaze of courts she fixed her love
+    On the cool fountain or the shady grove
+    Still, with the shepherd’s innocence her mind
+    To the sweet vale and flowery mead inclined;
+
+and even in the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions” there were expressions
+like _watery surge_, _sheeny gold_, though now and then the “new” diction
+is strikingly exemplified in a magnificent phrase such as _gleamy
+pageant_.
+
+When Collins has nothing new to say his poetic language is that of
+his time, but when his inspiration is at its loftiest his diction is
+always equal to the task, and it is then that he gives us the unrivalled
+felicities of “The Ode to Evening.”
+
+Amongst all the English poets there has probably never been one, even
+when we think of Tennyson, more careful and meticulous (or “curiously
+elaborate,” as Wordsworth styled it) about the diction of his verses, the
+very words themselves, than Gray. This fact, and not Matthew Arnold’s
+opinion that it was because Gray had fallen on an “age of prose,” may
+perhaps be regarded as sufficient to explain the comparative scantiness
+of his literary production. He himself, in a famous letter, has clearly
+stated his ideal of literary expression: “Extreme conciseness of
+expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one of the grand
+beauties of lyrical poetry.”[75] Hence all his verses bear evidence
+of the most painstaking labour and rigorous self-criticism, almost as
+if every word had been weighed and assessed before being allowed to
+appear. His correspondence with Mason and Beattie, referred to in the
+previous chapter, shows the same fastidiousness with regard to the work
+of others. Gray indeed, drawing freely upon Milton and Dryden, created
+for himself a special poetic language which in its way can become almost
+as much an abuse as the otiosities of many of his predecessors and
+contemporaries—the “cumbrous splendour” of which Johnson complained. Yet
+he is never entirely free from the influence of the “classical” diction
+which, for Johnson, represented the ideal. His earliest work is almost
+entirely conventional in its descriptions, the prevailing tone being
+exemplified in such phrases as _the purple year_, _the Attic Warbler
+pours her throat_ (Ode on “The Spring”), whilst in the “Progress of
+Poesy,” lines like
+
+    Through verdant vales and Ceres’ golden reign
+
+are not uncommon, though of course the possibility of the direct
+influence of the classics, bringing with it the added flavour of
+reminiscence, is not to be ignored in this sort of diction. Moreover, a
+couplet from the fragmentary “Alliance of Education and Government”:
+
+    Scent the new fragrance of _the breathing rose_
+    And quaff _the pendent vintage_ as it grows—
+
+is almost typical, apart from the freshness of the epithet _breathing_,
+of what Wordsworth wished to abolish. Even the “Elegy” has not escaped
+the contagion: _storied urn_ or _animated bust_ is perilously akin to the
+pedantic periphrases of the Augustans.
+
+Before passing to a consideration of the work of Johnson and Goldsmith,
+who best represent the later eighteenth century development of the
+“classical” school of Pope, reference may be made to two other writers.
+The first of these is Thomas Chatterton. In that phase of the early
+Romantic Movement which took the form of attempts to revive the past,
+Chatterton of course played an important part, and the pseudo-archaic
+language which he fabricated for the purpose of his “Rowley” poems is
+interesting, not only as an indication of the trend of the times towards
+the poetic use of old and obsolete words, but also as reflecting, it
+would seem, a genuine endeavour to escape from the fetters of the
+conventional and stereotyped diction of his day. On the other hand, in
+his avowedly original work, Chatterton’s diction is almost entirely
+imitative. He has scarcely a single fresh image or description; his
+series of “Elegies” and “Epistles” are clothed in the current poetic
+language. He uses the stock expressions, _purling streams_, _watery
+bed_, _verdant vesture of the smiling fields_, along with the usual
+periphrases, such as _the muddy nation_ or _the speckled folk_ for
+“frogs.” One verse of an “Elegy” written in 1768 contains in itself
+nearly all the conventional images:
+
+    Ye variegated children of the Spring,
+    Ye blossoms blushing with the pearly dew;
+    Ye birds that sweetly in the hawthorn sing;
+    Ye flowery meads, lawns of verdant hue.
+
+It can be judged from these examples how a stereotyped mode of expression
+may depreciate to a large extent the value of much of the work of a
+poet of real genius. Chatterton is content in most of his avowedly
+“original” work to turn his poetic thoughts into the accepted moulds,
+which is all the more surprising when we remember his laborious methods
+of manufacturing an archaic diction for his mediaeval “discoveries,”[76]
+even if we may assume that it reflected a strong desire for something
+fresh and new.
+
+A poet of much less genius, but one who enjoyed great contemporary
+fame, was William Falconer, whose “Shipwreck,” published in 1762, was
+the most popular sea-poem of the eighteenth century. The most striking
+characteristic of the descriptive parts of the poem is the daring and
+novel use of technical sea-terms, but apart from this the language is
+purely conventional. The sea is still the same _desert-waste_, _faithless
+deep_, _watery way_, _world_, _plain_, _path_, or _the fluid plain_, _the
+glassy plain_, whilst the landscape catalogue is as lifeless as any of
+the descriptive passages of the early eighteenth century:
+
+                      on every spray
+    The warbling birds exalt their evening lay,
+    Blithe skipping o’er yon hill the fleecy train
+    Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain.
+
+When he leaves this second-hand description, and describes scenes
+actually experienced and strongly felt, Falconer’s language is
+correspondingly fresh and vivid, the catastrophe of the shipwreck itself,
+for example, being painted with extraordinary power.[77]
+
+When we come to Johnson and Goldsmith, here again a distinction must be
+made between the didactic or satiric portion of their work and that which
+is descriptive. Johnson’s didactic verse, marked as it is by a free use
+of inversion and ellipsis, rarely attains the clearness and simplicity of
+Goldsmith’s, whilst he has also much more of the stock descriptive terms
+and phrases. His “Odes” are almost entirely cast in this style. Thus in
+“Spring”:
+
+    Now o’er the rural Kingdom roves
+        Soft Pleasure with her laughing train,
+    Love warbles in the vocal groves
+        And vegetation plants the plains,
+
+whilst exactly the same stuff is turned out for a love poem, “To Stella”:
+
+    Not the soft sighs of vernal gales
+    The fragrance of the flowery vales
+    The murmurs of the crystal rill
+    The vocal grove, the verdant hill.
+
+Though there is not so much of this kind of otiose description in the
+poems of Goldsmith, yet Mr. Dobson’s estimate of his language may be
+accepted as a just one: “In spite of their beauty and humanity,” he
+says, “the lasting quality of ‘The Traveller’ and ‘The Deserted Village’
+is seriously prejudiced by his half-way attitude between the poetry of
+convention and the poetry of nature—between the _gradus_ epithet of Pope
+and the direct vocabulary of Wordsworth.”[78] Thus when we read such
+lines as
+
+    The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
+    The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail
+
+                                                 (“Traveller,” ll. 293-4)
+
+we feel that Goldsmith too has been writing with his eye on the object,
+and even in such a line as
+
+    The breezy covert of the warbling grove
+
+                                                           (_Ibid._, 360)
+
+there is a freshness of description that compensates for the use of the
+hackneyed _warbling grove_. On the other hand, there are in both pieces
+passages which it is difficult not to regard as purely conventional in
+their language. Thus in “The Traveller,” the diction, if not entirely of
+the stock type, is not far from it:
+
+    Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned
+    Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round
+    Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale
+    Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale,
+
+and so on for another dozen lines.[79]
+
+Only the slightest traces, however, of this mechanical word-painting
+appear in “The Deserted Village,” almost the only example of the
+stereotyped phrase being in the line
+
+    These simple blessings of _the lowly train_
+
+                                                                (l. 252).
+
+Thus whilst Goldsmith in much of his work continues the classical school
+of Pope, alike in his predilection for didactic verse and his practice of
+the heroic couplet, in his poetic language he is essentially individual.
+In his descriptive passages he rarely uses the conventional jargon, and
+the greater part of the didactic and moral observations of his two most
+famous poems is written in simple and unadorned language that would
+satisfy the requirements of the Wordsworthian canon.
+
+That pure and unaffected diction could be employed with supreme effect
+in other than moral and didactic verse was soon to be shown in the lyric
+poetry of William Blake, who, about thirty years before Wordsworth
+launched his manifestoes, evolved for himself a poetic language,
+wonderful alike in its beauty and simplicity. In those of the “Songs
+of Innocence” and “The Songs of Experience,” which are concerned with
+natural description, the epithets and expressions that had long been
+consecrated to this purpose find little or no place. Here and there we
+seem to catch echoes of the stock diction, as in the lines,
+
+    the starry floor
+    the watery shore
+
+of the Introduction to the “Songs of Experience,” or the
+
+    happy, silent, _moony_ beams
+
+of “The Cradle Song”; but in each case the expressions are redeemed and
+revitalized by the pure and joyous singing note of the lyrics of which
+they form part. Only once is Blake to be found using the conventional
+epithet, when in his “Laughing Song” he writes
+
+    the _painted_ birds laugh in the shade,
+
+whilst with his usual unerring instinct he marks down the monotonous
+smoothness of so much contemporary verse in that stanza of his ode “To
+the Muses” in which, as has been well said, the eighteenth century dies
+to music:[80]
+
+    How have you left the ancient love
+    That bards of old enjoyed in you!
+    The languid strings do scarcely move,
+    The sound is forced, the notes are few.
+
+Not that he altogether escaped the blighting influence of his time. In
+the early “Imitation of Spenser,” we get such a couplet as
+
+    To sit in council with his modern peers
+    And judge of tinkling rhimes and elegances terse,
+
+whilst the “vicious diction” Wordsworth was to condemn is also to be seen
+in this line from one of the early “Songs”:
+
+    and Phœbus fir’d my vocal rage.
+
+Even as late as 1800 Blake was capable of writing
+
+    Receive this tribute from a harp sincere.[81]
+
+But these slight blemishes only seem to show up in stronger light the
+essential beauty and nobility of his poetical style.
+
+But the significance of Blake’s work in the purging and purifying of
+poetic diction was not, as might perhaps be expected, recognized by his
+contemporaries and immediate successors. For Coleridge, writing some
+thirty years later, it was Cowper, and his less famous contemporary
+Bowles, who were the pioneers in the rejecting of the old and faded
+style and the beginning of the new, the first to combine “natural
+thoughts with natural diction.”[82] Coleridge’s opinion seems to us
+now to be an over-statement, but we rather suspect that Cowper was not
+unwilling to regard himself as an innovator in poetic language. In his
+correspondence he reveals himself constantly pre-occupied with the
+question of poetic expression, and especially with the language fit and
+proper for his translation of Homer. His opinion of Pope’s attempt has
+already been referred to, but he himself was well aware of the inherent
+difficulties.[83] He had, it would seem, definite and decided opinions
+on the subject of poetic language; he recognized the lifelessness of the
+accepted diction, which, rightly or wrongly, he attributed especially to
+the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” and tried to escape from its bondage.
+His oft-quoted thesis that in the hands of the eighteenth century poets
+poetry had become a “mere mechanic art,” he developed at length in his
+ode “Secundum Artem,” which comprises almost a complete catalogue of the
+ornaments which enabled the warblers to have their tune by heart. What
+Cowper in that ode pillories—“the trim epithets,” the “sweet alternate
+rhyme,” the “flowers of light description”—were in the main what were to
+be held up to ridicule in the _Lyrical Ballads_ prefaces; Wordsworth’s
+attack is here anticipated by twenty years.
+
+But, as later in the case of Wordsworth, Cowper in his early work has
+not a little of the language which he is at such pains to condemn. Thus
+Horace again appears in the old familiar guise,
+
+    Now o’er the spangled hemisphere,
+    Diffused the starry train appear
+
+                                                         (“Fifth Satire”)
+
+whilst even in “Table Talk” we find occasional conventional descriptions
+such as
+
+    Nature...
+    Spreads the fresh verdure of the fields and leads
+    The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.
+
+But there is little of this kind of description in “The Task.” Now
+and then we meet with examples of the old periphrases, such as the
+_pert voracious kind_ for “sparrows,” or the description of kings
+as the _arbiters of this terraqueous swamp_, though many of these
+pseudo-Miltonic expressions are no doubt used for playful effect. In
+those parts of the poem which deal with the sights and sounds of outdoor
+life the images are new and fresh, whilst in the moral and didactic
+portions the language is, as a rule, uniformly simple and direct. But for
+the classical purity of poetical expression in which the poet is at times
+pre-eminent, it is perhaps best to turn to his shorter poems, such as “To
+Mary,” or to the last two stanzas of “The Castaway,” and especially to
+some of the “Olney Hymns,” of the language of which it may be said that
+every word is rightly chosen and not one is superfluous. Indeed, it may
+well be that these hymns, together with those of Watts and Wesley,[84]
+which by their very purpose demanded a mode of expression severe in its
+simplicity, but upon which were stamped the refinement and correct taste
+of the scholars and gentlemen who wrote them—it may well be that the
+more natural mode of poetic diction which thus arose gave to Wordsworth
+a starting point when he began to expound and develop his theories
+concerning the language of poetry.[85]
+
+Whilst Cowper was thus at once heralding, and to a not inconsiderable
+extent exemplifying, the Romantic reaction in form, another poet, George
+Crabbe, had by his realism given, even before Cowper, an important
+indication of one characteristic aspect of the new poetry.
+
+But though the force and fidelity of his descriptions of the scenery
+of his native place, and the depth and sincerity of his pathos, give
+him a leading place among those who anticipated Wordsworth, other
+characteristics stamp him as belonging to the old order and not to the
+new. His language is still largely that perfected by Dryden and Pope,
+and worked to death by their degenerate followers. The recognized
+“elegancies” and “flowers of speech” still linger on. A peasant is still
+a _swain_, poets are _sons of verse_, fishes _the finny tribe_, country
+folk _the rural tribe_. The word _nymph_ appears with a frequency that
+irritates the reader, and how ludicrous an effect it could produce by its
+sudden appearance in tales of the realistic type that Crabbe loved may be
+judged from such examples as
+
+    It soon appeared that while this nymph divine
+    Moved on, there met her rude uncivil kine.
+
+Whilst he succeeds in depicting the life of the rustic poor, not as
+it appears in the rosy tints of Goldsmith’s pictures, but in all its
+reality—sordid, gloomy and stern, as it for the most part is—the old
+stereotyped descriptions are to be found scattered throughout his grimly
+realistic pictures of the countryside. Thus when Crabbe writes of
+
+                    tepid meads
+    And lawns irriguous and the blooming field
+
+                                                             (“Midnight”)
+
+or
+
+    The lark on quavering pinion woo’d the day
+    Less towering linnets fill’d the vocal spray
+
+                                                        (“The Candidate”)
+
+we feel that he has not had before his eyes the real scenes of his
+Suffolk home, but that he has been content to recall and imitate the
+descriptive stock-in-trade that had passed current for so many years;
+even the later “Tales,” published up to the years when Shelley and Keats
+were beginning their activities, are not free from this defect.
+
+About ten years before Wordsworth launched his manifestoes, there were
+published the two works of Erasmus Darwin, to which reference has already
+been made, and in which this stock language was unconsciously reduced to
+absurdity, not only because of the themes on which it was employed, but
+also because of the fatal ease and facility with which it was used. It
+is strange to think that but a few years before the famous sojourn of
+Coleridge and Wordsworth on the Quantocks, “The Loves of the Plants,” and
+its fellow, should have won instant and lasting popularity.[86]
+
+That Darwin took himself very seriously is to be seen from “The
+Interludes,” in which he airs his views,[87] whilst in his two poems he
+gave full play to his “fancy” (“‘theory’ we cannot call it,” comments
+De Quincey) that nothing was strictly poetic except what is presented in
+visual image. This in itself was not bad doctrine, as it at least implied
+that poetry should be concrete, and thus reflected a desire to escape
+from the abstract and highly generalized diction of his day. But Darwin
+so works his dogma to death that the reader is at first dazzled, and
+finally bewildered by the multitude of images presented, in couplets of
+monotonous smoothness, in innumerable passages, such as
+
+    On twinkling fins my pearly nations play
+    Or wind with sinuous train their trackless way:
+    My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed
+    Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest.
+
+                                                    (“Botanic Garden,” I)
+
+Still there is something to be said for the readers who enjoyed having
+the facts and theories of contemporary science presented to them in so
+coloured and fantastic a garb.
+
+Nor must it be forgotten that the youthful Wordsworth was much influenced
+by these poems of Darwin, so that his early work shows many traces of
+the very pseudo-poetic language which he was soon to condemn. Thus in
+“An Evening Walk”[88] there are such stock phrases as “emerald meads,”
+“watery plains,” the “forest train.”
+
+In “Descriptive Sketches” examples are still more numerous. Thus:
+
+    Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs
+    And amorous music on the water dies,
+
+which might have come direct from Pope, or
+
+    Here all the seasons revel hand-in-hand
+    ’Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned.
+
+The old epithet _purple_ is frequently found (_purple_ lights and vernal
+plains, the _purple_ morning, the fragrant mountain’s _purple_ side), and
+there are a few awkward adjectives in y (“the _piny_ waste”), whilst a
+gun is described as the _thundering tube_.
+
+Few poems indeed are to be found in the eighteenth century with so many
+fantastic conceits as these 1793 poems of Wordsworth. Probably, as has
+been suggested, the poet was influenced to an extent greater than he
+himself imagined by “The Botanic Garden,” so that the poetical devices
+freely employed in his early work may be the result of a determination
+to conform to the “theory” of poetry which Darwin in his precept and
+practice had exemplified. Later, the devices which had satisfied him
+in his first youthful productions must have appeared to him as more or
+less vicious, and altogether undesirable, and in disgust he resolved to
+exclude at one stroke all that he was pleased to call “poetic diction.”
+But, little given to self-criticism, when he penned his memorable
+Prefaces, he fixed the responsibility for “the extravagant and absurd
+diction” upon the whole body of his predecessors, unable or unwilling to
+recognize that he himself had begun his poetic career with a free use of
+many of its worst faults.[89]
+
+Of the stock diction of eighteenth century poetry we may say, then, that
+in the first place it is in large measure a reflection of the normal
+characteristic attitude of the poets of the “neo-classical” period
+towards Nature and all that the term implies. The “neo-classical” poets
+were but little interested in Nature; the countryside made no great
+appeal to them, and it was the Town and its teeming life that focused
+their interest and attention. Man, and his life as a social being, was
+their “proper study”; and this concentration of interest finds its
+reflection in the new and vivid language of the “essays,” satires, and
+epistles, whilst in the “nature poetry” the absence of genuine feeling is
+only too often betrayed by the dead epithets of the stock diction each
+poet felt himself at liberty to draw upon according to his needs. It is
+scarcely necessary to remind ourselves that it is in Pope’s “Pastorals”
+and the “Homer,” not in the “Dunciad” or “The Essay on Man,” that the
+stock words, phrases, and similes are to be found, and the remark is
+equally true of most of the poets of his period. But Pope has been
+unjustly pilloried, for the stock diction did not originate with him. It
+is true that the most masterly and finished examples of what is usually
+styled “the eighteenth century poetic diction” are to be found in his
+work generally, and no doubt the splendour of his translation of Homer
+did much to establish a vogue for many of the set words and phrases. At
+the same time the supremacy of the heroic couplet which he did so much to
+establish played its part in perpetuating the stock diction, the epithets
+of which were often technically just what was required to give the
+decasyllabic verse the desired “correctness” and “smoothness.” But it is
+unjust to saddle him with the responsibility for the lack of originality
+evident in many of his successors and imitators.
+
+The fact that this stock language is not confined to the neo-classical
+poets proper, but is found to a large extent persisting to the very end
+of the eighteenth century, and even invading the early work of the writer
+who led the revolt against it, is indicative of another general cause of
+its widespread prevalence. Briefly, it may be said that not only did the
+conventional poetic diction reflect in the main the average neo-classical
+outlook on external nature; it reflected also the average eighteenth
+century view as to the nature of poetical language, which regarded its
+words and phrases as satisfying the artistic canon, not in virtue of the
+degree in which they reflected the individual thought or emotion of the
+poet, but according as they conformed to a standard of language based on
+accepted models.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LATINISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+There is now to be noticed another type of eighteenth century poetic
+diction which was in its way as prevalent, and, it may be added, as
+vicious, as the stock diction which has been discussed in the previous
+chapter. This was the use of a latinized vocabulary, from the early years
+of the century down to the days when the work of Goldsmith, Cowper, and
+Crabbe seemed to indicate a sort of interregnum between the old order and
+the new.
+
+This fashion, or craze, for “latinity” was not of course a sudden and
+special development which came in with the eighteenth century: it was
+rather the culmination of a tendency which was not altogether unconnected
+with the historic development of the language itself. As a factor in
+literary composition, it had first begun to be discussed when the
+Elizabethan critics and men of letters were busying themselves with the
+special problem of diction. Latinism was one of the excesses to which
+poets and critics alike directed their attention, and their strictures
+and warnings were such as were inevitable and salutary in the then
+transitional confusion of the language.[90] In the early years of the
+seventeenth century this device for strengthening and ornamenting the
+language was adopted more or less deliberately by such poets as Phineas
+and Giles Fletcher, especially the latter, who makes free use of such
+coinages as _elamping_, _appetence_, _elonging_, etc.[91]
+
+The example of the Fletchers in thus adding to their means of literary
+expression was soon to be followed by a greater poet. When Milton came to
+write his epics, it is evident, as has been said, that he felt the need
+for a diction in keeping with the exalted theme he had chosen, and his
+own taste and temperament, as well as the general tendencies of his age,
+naturally led him to make use of numerous words of direct or indirect
+“classical” origin. But his direct coinages from Latin and Greek are much
+less than has often been supposed.[92] What he seems to have done in many
+cases was to take words the majority of which had been recently formed,
+usually for scientific or philosophic purposes, and incorporate them
+in his poetical vocabulary. Thus _Atheous_, _attrite_, _conflagrant_,
+_jaculation_, _myrrhine_, _paranymph_, _plenipotent_, etc., are instances
+of classical formations which in most cases seem, according to “The New
+English Dictionary,” to have made their first literary appearance shortly
+before the Restoration. In other instances Milton’s latinisms are much
+older.[93] What is important is the fact that Milton was able to infuse
+these and many similar words with a real poetic power, and we may be sure
+that the use of such words as _ethereal_, _adamantine_, _refulgent_,
+_regal_, whose very essence, as has been remarked, is suggestiveness,
+rather than close definition, was altogether deliberate.[94] In addition
+to this use of a latinized vocabulary, there is a continuous latinism
+of construction, which is to be found in the early poems, but which,
+as might be expected, is most prominent in the great epics, where
+idioms like _after his charge received_ (P.L., V 248), _since first her
+salutation heard_ (P.R., II, 107) are frequent.[95]
+
+Milton, we may say, of purpose prepense made or culled for himself a
+special poetical vocabulary which was bound to suffer severely at the
+hands of incompetent and uninspired imitators. But though the widespread
+use of latinized diction is no doubt largely to be traced to the
+influence of Milton at a time when “English verse went Milton mad,” it
+may perhaps also be regarded as a practice that reflected to a certain
+extent the general literary tendencies of the Augustan age.
+
+When Milton was writing his great epics Dryden was just beginning his
+literary career, but though there are numerous examples of latinisms
+in the works of the latter, they are not such as would suggest that he
+had been influenced to any extent by the Miltonic manner of creating a
+poetical vocabulary. There is little or no coinage of the “magnificent”
+words which Milton used so freely, though latinized forms like
+_geniture_, _irremeable_, _praescious_, _tralineate_, are frequent.
+Dryden, however, as might be expected, often uses words in their original
+etymological sense. Thus besides the common use of _prevent_, _secure_,
+etc., we find in the translation of the “Metamorphoses”:
+
+    He had either _led_
+    Thy mother then,
+
+where _led_ is used in the sense of Latin _ducere_ (marry) and “_refers_
+the limbs,” where “refers” means “restores.”[96] Examples are few in
+Dryden’s original works, but “Annus Mirabilis” furnishes instances like
+the _ponderous ball expires_, where “expires” means “is blown forth,”
+and “each wonted room _require_” (“seek again”), whilst there is an
+occasional reminiscence of such Latin phrases as “manifest of crimes” for
+_manifestus sceleris_ (“Ab. and Achit.”).
+
+What has been said of the latinisms of Dryden applies also to those of
+Pope. Words like _prevent_, _erring_, _succeed_, _devious_, _horrid_,
+_missive_, _vagrant_, are used with their original signification, and
+there are passages like
+
+    For this he bids the _nervous_ artists vie.
+
+Imitations of Latin constructions are occasionally found:
+
+    Some god has told them, or themselves survey
+        _The bark escaped_.
+
+Phrases like “_fulgid_ weapons,” “roseate _unguents_,” “_circumfusile_
+gold,” “_frustrate_ triumphs,” etc., are probably coinages imposed by
+the necessities of translation. Other similar phrases, such as (tears)
+“_conglobing_ on the dust,” “with _unctuous_ fir _foment_ the flame,”
+seem to anticipate something of the absurdity into which this kind of
+diction was later to fall.[97]
+
+On the whole, the latinisms found in the works of Dryden and Pope are not
+usually deliberate creations for the purpose of poetic ornament. They
+are such as would probably seem perfectly natural in the seventeenth
+and early eighteenth century, when the traditions of classical study
+still persisted strongly, and when the language of prose itself was still
+receiving additions from that source. Moreover, the large amount of
+translation done by both poets from the classics was bound to result in
+the use of numerous classical terms and constructions.
+
+In 1705 there appeared the “Splendid Shilling” of John Philips, followed
+by his “Cyder” and other poems a year later. These poems are among the
+first of the Miltonic parodies or imitations, and, being written in
+blank verse, they may be regarded as heralding the struggle against the
+tyranny of the heroic couplet. Indeed, blank verse came to be distinctly
+associated with the Romantic movement, probably because it was considered
+that its structure was more encouraging to the unfettered imagination
+than the closed couplets of the classicists. It is thus interesting
+to note that the reaction in form, which marks one distinct aspect of
+Romanticism, was really responsible for some of the excesses against
+which the manifestoes afterwards protested; for it is in these blank
+verse poems especially that there was developed a latinism both of
+diction and construction that frequently borders on the ludicrous, even
+when the poet’s object was not deliberately humorous.
+
+In “Blenheim” terms and phrases such as _globous iron_, _by chains
+connexed_, etc., are frequent, and the attempts at Miltonic effects is
+seen in numerous passages like
+
+              Upborne
+    By frothy billows thousands float the stream
+    In cumbrous mail, with love of farther shore;
+    Confiding in their hands, that sed’lous strive
+    To cut th’ outrageous fluent.
+
+In “Cyder” latinisms are still more abundant: _the nocent brood_ (of
+snails), _treacle’s viscuous juice_, _with grain incentive stored_, _the
+defecated liquour_, _irriguous sleep_, as well as passages like
+
+    Nor from the sable ground expect success
+      Nor from cretacious, stubborn or jejune,
+
+or
+
+    Bards with volant touch
+    Traverse loquacious strings.
+
+This kind of thing became extremely common and persisted throughout the
+eighteenth century.
+
+Incidentally, it may here be remarked that the publication of Philips’s
+poems probably gave to Lady Winchilsea a hint for her poem “Fanscombe
+Barn.”[98] Philips, as has been noted, was one of the very first to
+attempt to use Milton’s lofty diction, and his latinized sentence
+structure for commonplace and even trivial themes, and no doubt his
+experiment, having attracted Lady Winchilsea’s attention, inspired her
+own efforts at Miltonic parody, though it is probably “Cyder” and “The
+Splendid Shilling,” rather then “Paradise Lost,” that she takes as her
+model. Thus the carousings of the tramps forgathered in Fanscombe Barn
+are described:
+
+          the swarthy bowl appears,
+    Replete with liquor, globulous to fight,
+    And threat’ning inundation o’er the brim;
+
+and the whole poem shows traces of its second-hand inspiration.
+
+Even those who are now remembered chiefly as Spenserian imitators indulge
+freely in a latinized style when they take to blank verse. Thus William
+Thompson, who in his poem “Sickness” has many phrases like “the arm
+_ignipotent_,” “_inundant_ blaze” (Bk. I), “terrestrial stores medicinal”
+(Bk. III), with numerous passages, of which the following is typical:
+
+                              the poet’s mind
+    (Effluence essential of heat and light)
+    Now mounts a loftier wing when Fancy leads
+    The glittering track, and points him to the sky
+    Excursive.
+
+                                                                 (Bk. IV)
+
+William Shenstone, the author of one of the most successful of the
+Spenserian imitations, is more sparing in this respect, but even in his
+case passages such as
+
+              Of words indeed profuse,
+    Of gold tenacious, their torpescent soul
+    Clenches their coin, and what electric fire
+    Shall solve the frosty grip, and bid it flow?
+
+                                                      (“Economy,” Part I)
+
+are not infrequent.
+
+But it is not only the mere versifiers who have succumbed to this
+temptation. By far the most important of the early blank verse poems
+was Thomson’s “Seasons,” which, first appearing from 1726-1730, was
+subsequently greatly revised and altered up to the edition of 1746,
+the last to be issued in the author’s lifetime.[99] The importance and
+success of “The Seasons” as one of the earliest indications of the
+“Return to Nature” has received adequate recognition, but Thomson was
+an innovator in the style, as well as in the matter, of his poem. As
+Dr. Johnson remarked, he saw things always with the eyes of a poet,
+and the quickened and revived interest in external nature which he
+reflects inevitably impelled him to search for a new diction to give it
+expression. We can see him, as it were, at work trying to replace the
+current coinage with a new mintage of his own, or rather with a mixed
+currency, derived partly from Milton, and partly from his own resources.
+His diction is thus in some degrees as artificial as the stock diction
+of his period, especially when his attempts to emulate or imitate the
+magnificence of Milton betray him into pomposity or even absurdity; but
+his poetical language as a whole is leavened with so much that is new and
+his very own as to make it clear that the Romantic revival in the style,
+as well as in the contents, of poetry has really begun. The resulting
+peculiarities of style did not escape notice in his own time. He was
+recognized as the creator of a new poetical language, and was severely
+criticized even by some of his friends. Thus Somerville urged with
+unusual frankness a close revision of the style of “The Seasons”:
+
+    Read Philips much, consider Milton more
+    But from their dross extract the purer ore:
+    To coin new words or to restore the old
+    In southern lands is dangerous and bold;
+    But rarely, very rarely, will succeed
+    When minted on the other side of Tweed.[100]
+
+Thomson’s comment on this criticism was emphatic: “Should I alter my
+ways I should write poorly. I must choose what appears to be the most
+significant epithet or I cannot proceed.”[101] Hence, though lines and
+whole passages of “The Seasons” were revised, and large additions made,
+the characteristics of the style were on the whole preserved. And one
+of the chief characteristics, due partly to the influence of Milton,
+and partly to the obvious fact that for Thomson with new thoughts and
+impressions to convey to his readers, the current and conventional
+vocabulary of poetry needed reinforcement, is an excessive use of
+latinisms.[102]
+
+Thus in “Spring” we find, e.g., “_prelusive_ drops,” “the _amusive_ arch”
+(the rainbow), “the torpid sap _detruded_ to the root,” etc., as well as
+numerous passages such as
+
+              Joined to these
+    Innumerous songsters in the freshening shade
+    Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix
+    Mellifluous.
+
+                                                    (“Spring,” 607 foll.)
+
+In “Summer” the epithet _gelid_ appears with almost wearisome iteration,
+with other examples like _flexile_ wave, _the fond sequacious bird_,
+etc., while the cloud that presages a storm is called “the small
+prognostic” and trees are “the noble sons of potent heat and floods.”
+Continuous passages betray similar characteristics:
+
+    From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes
+    Its hue cerulean and of evening tinct.
+
+                                                    (“Summer,” 149 foll.)
+
+_Autumn_ furnishes even more surprising instances: the stag “_adhesive_
+to the track,” the sands “strowed _bibulous_ above,” “forests huge
+_incult_,” etc., as well as numerous passages of sustained latinism.[103]
+
+In “Winter,” which grew from an original 405 lines in 1726 to 1,069 lines
+in 1746, latinism of vocabulary is not prominent to the same extent as in
+the three previous books, but the following is a typical sample:
+
+    Meantime in sable cincture shadows vast
+    Deep-tinged, and damp and congregated clouds
+    And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven
+    Involves the face of things.
+
+                                                      (ll. 54 foll.)[104]
+
+The revisions after 1730 do not show any great pruning, or less
+indulgence in these characteristics; rather the contrary, for many of
+them are additions which did not appear until 1744. Now and then Thomson
+has changed his terms and epithets. Thus in the lines
+
+                the potent sun
+    _Melts into_ limpid air the high-raised clouds
+
+                                                          (“Summer,” 199)
+
+the expression “melts into” has replaced the earlier “attenuates
+to.”[105] One of the best of the emendations, at least as regards the
+disappearance of a latinism, is seen in “Summer” (48-9), where the second
+verse of the couplet,
+
+    The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,
+    At first _faint-gleaming_ in the dappled east
+
+has replaced the
+
+    _Mildly elucent_ in the streaky east
+
+of the earlier version. Often Thomson’s latinisms produce no other effect
+on the reader than that of mere pedantry. Thus in passages such as
+
+    See, where the winding vale its lavish stores
+    _Irriguous_ spreads. See, how the lily drinks
+    The _latent_ rill.
+
+                                                          (“Spring,” 494)
+
+or
+
+                    the canvas smooth
+    With glowing life _protuberant_.
+
+                                                          (“Autumn,” 136)
+
+or
+
+    The fallow ground laid open to the sun
+    _Concoctive_.
+
+                                                           (_Ibid._, 407)
+
+or the description of the tempest
+
+    Struggling through the _dissipated_ grove
+
+                                                     (“Winter,” 185)[106]
+
+(where there is Latin _order_ as well as diction), it is certain that
+the terms in question have little or no poetic value, and that simpler
+words in nearly every case would have produced greater effects. Now and
+then, as later in the case of Cowper, the pedantry is, we may suppose,
+deliberately playful, as when he speaks of the cattle that
+
+    ruminate in the contiguous shade
+
+                                                           (“Winter,” 86)
+
+or indicates a partial thaw by the statement
+
+          Perhaps the vale
+    relents awhile to the reflected ray.
+
+                                                           (_Ibid._, 784)
+
+The words illustrated above are rarely, of course, Thomson’s own coinage.
+Many of them (e.g. _detruded_, _hyperborean_, _luculent_, _relucent_,
+_turgent_) date from the sixteenth century or earlier, though from the
+earliest references to them given in the “New English Dictionary” it
+may be assumed that Thomson was not always acquainted with the sources
+where they are first found, and that to him their “poetic” use is first
+due. In some cases Milton was doubtless the immediate source from which
+Thomson took such words, to use them with a characteristic looseness of
+meaning.[107]
+
+It would be too much to say that Thomson’s use of such terms arises
+merely out of a desire to emulate the “grand style”; it reflects rather
+his general predilection for florid and luxurious diction. Moreover, it
+has been noted that an analysis of his latinisms seems to point to a
+definite scheme of formation. Thus there is a distinct preference for
+certain groups of formations, such as adjectives in “-ive” (_affective_,
+_amusive_, _excursive_, etc.), or in “-ous” (_irriguous_, _sequacious_),
+or Latin participle forms, such as _clamant_, _turgent_, _incult_, etc.
+In additions Latin words are frequently used in their original sense,
+common instances being _sordid_, _generous_, _error_, _secure_, _horrid_,
+_dome_, while his blank verse line was also characterized by the free use
+of latinized constructions.[108] Thomson’s frequent use of the sandwiched
+noun, “flowing rapture bright” (“Spring,” 1088), “gelid caverns
+woodbine-wrought,” (“Summer,” 461), “joyless rains obscure” (“Winter,”
+712), often with the second adjective used predicatively or adverbially,
+
+    High seen the Seasons lead, _in sprightly dance_
+      _Harmonious knit_, the rosy-fingered hours
+
+                                                         (“Summer,” 1212)
+
+is also worthy of note.
+
+Yet it can hardly be denied that the language of “The Seasons” is in
+many respects highly artificial, and that Thomson was to all intents
+and purposes the creator of a special poetic diction, perhaps even more
+so than Gray, who had to bear the brunt of Wordsworth’s fulminations.
+But on the whole his balance is on the right side; at a time when the
+majority of his contemporaries were either content to draw drafts on
+the conventional and consecrated words, phrases, and similes, or were
+sedulously striving to ape the polished plainness of Pope, he was able to
+show that new powers of expression could well be won from the language.
+His nature vocabulary alone is sufficient proof of the value of his
+contributions to the poetic wealth of the language, not a few of his
+new-formed compounds especially being expressive and beautiful.[109] His
+latinisms are less successful because they can hardly be said to belong
+to any diction, and for the most part they must be classed among the
+“false ornaments” derided by Wordsworth;[110] not only do they possess
+none of that mysterious power of suggestion which comes to words in
+virtue of their employment through generations of prose and song, but
+also not infrequently their meaning is far from clear. They are never the
+spontaneous reflection of the poet’s thought, but, on the contrary, they
+appear only too often to have been dragged in merely for effect.
+
+This last remark applies still more forcibly to Somerville’s “Chase,”
+which appeared in 1735. Its author was evidently following in the wake of
+Thomson’s blank verse, and with this aim freely allows himself the use of
+an artificial and inflated diction, as in many passages like
+
+    Cull each salubrious plant, with bitter juice
+    Concoctive stored, and potent to allay
+    Each vicious ferment.
+
+About the same time Edward Young was probably writing his “Night
+Thoughts,” though the poem was not published until 1742. Here again
+the influence of Thomson is to be seen in the diction, though no
+doubt in this case there is also not a little that derives direct
+from Milton. Young has Latin formations like _terraqueous_, _to
+defecate_, _feculence_, _manumit_, as well as terms such as _avocation_,
+_eliminate_, and _unparadize_, used in their original sense. In the
+second instalment of the “Night Thoughts” there is a striking increase in
+the number of Latin terms, either borrowed directly, or at least formed
+on classical roots, some of which must have been unintelligible to many
+readers. Thus _indagators_ for “seekers,” _fucus_ for “false brilliance,”
+_concertion_ for “intimate agreement,” and _cutaneous_ for “external,”
+“skin deep”:
+
+    All the distinctions of this little life
+    Are quite cutaneous.[111]
+
+It is difficult to understand the use of such terms when simple native
+words were ready at hand, and the explanation must be that they were
+thought to add to the dignity of the poem, and to give it a flavour of
+scholarship; for the same blemishes appear in most of the works published
+at this time. Thus in Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (1744)
+there is a similar use of latinized terms: _pensile planets_, _passion’s
+fierce illapse_, _magnific praise_, though the tendency is best
+illustrated in such passages as
+
+                    that trickling shower
+    Piercing through every crystalline convex
+    Of clustering dewdrops to their flight opposed,
+    Recoil at length where, concave all behind
+    The internal surface of each glassy orb
+    Repels their forward passage into air.
+
+In “The Poet” there is a striking example of what can only be the
+pedantic, even if playful, use of a cumbrous epithet:
+
+    On shelves _pulverulent_, majestic stands
+    His library.
+
+Similar examples are to be found in “The Art of Preserving Health” by
+John Armstrong, published in the same year as Akenside’s “Pleasures.”
+The unpoetical nature of this subject may perhaps be Armstrong’s excuse
+for such passages as
+
+    Mournful eclipse or planets ill-combined
+    Portend disastrous to the vital world;
+
+but this latinizing tendency was perhaps never responsible for a more
+absurd periphrasis than one to be found in the second part of the poem,
+which treats of “Diet”:
+
+    Nor does his gorge the luscious bacon rue,
+    Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste
+    Of solid milk.[112]
+
+The high Miltonic manner was likewise attempted by John Dyer in “The
+Fleece,” which appeared in 1757, and by James Grainger in “The Sugar
+Cane” (1764), to mention only the most important. Dyer, deservedly
+praised for his new and fresh descriptive diction, has not escaped this
+contagion of latinism: _the globe terraqueous_, _the cerule stream_,
+_rich sapinaceous loam_, _detersive bay salt_, etc., while elsewhere
+there are obvious efforts to recapture the Miltonic cadence. In “The
+Sugar Cane” the tendency is increased by the necessity thrust upon the
+poet to introduce numerous technical terms. Thus
+
+                though all thy mills
+    Crackling, o’erflow with a redundant juice
+    Poor tastes the liquor; coction long demands
+    And highest temper, ere it saccharize.
+
+Meanwhile Joseph Warton had written his one blank verse poem “The
+Enthusiast” (1740), when he was only eighteen years old. But though both
+he and his brother Thomas are among the most important of the poets
+who show the influence of Milton most clearly, that influence reveals
+itself rather in the matter of thought than of form, and there is in
+“The Enthusiast” little of the diction that marred so many of the blank
+verse poems. Only here and there may traces be seen, as in the following
+passage:
+
+                  fairer she
+    In innocence and homespun vestments dress’d
+    Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears
+    Shone pendent.
+
+There is still less in the poems of Thomas Warton, who was even a more
+direct follower of Milton than his elder brother. There is scarcely one
+example of a Latinism in “The Pleasures of Melancholy,” which is really
+a companion piece to “The Enthusiast.” The truth is that it was Milton’s
+early work—and especially “Il Penseroso”—that affected most deeply these
+early Romanticists, and even their blank verse is charged with the
+sentiments and phrases of Milton’s octosyllabics. Thus the two poets, who
+were among the first to catch something of the true spirit of Milton,
+have little or nothing of the cumbersome and pedantic diction found so
+frequently in the so-called “Miltonics” of the eighteenth century, and
+this in itself is one indication of their importance in the earlier
+stages of the Romantic revival.
+
+This is also true in the case of Collins and Gray, who are the real
+eighteenth century disciples of Milton. Collins’s fondness for
+personified abstractions may perhaps be attributed to Milton’s influence,
+but there are few, if any, traces of latinism in his pure and simple
+diction. Gray was probably influenced more than he himself thought by
+Milton, and like Milton he made for himself a special poetical language,
+which owes not a little to the works of his great exemplar. But Gray’s
+keen sense of the poetical value of words, and his laborious precision
+and exactness in their use, kept him from any indulgence in coinages.
+Only one or two latinisms are to be found in the whole of his work, and
+when these do occur they are such as would come naturally to a scholar,
+or as were still current in the language of his time. Thus in “The
+Progress of Poesy” he has
+
+    this _pencil_ take,
+
+where “pencil” stands for “brush” (Latin, _pensillum_); whilst in a
+translation from Statius he gives to _prevent_ its latinized meaning
+
+    the champions, trembling at the sight
+    _Prevent_ disgrace.
+
+There is also a solitary example in the “Elegy” in the line
+
+    Can Honour’s voice _provoke_ the silent dust.
+
+The contemporary fondness for blank verse had called forth the strictures
+of Goldsmith in his “Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning,”
+and his own smooth and flowing couplets have certainly none of the
+pompous epithets which he there condemns. His diction, if we except an
+occasional use of the stock descriptive epithets, is admirable alike in
+its simplicity and directness, and the two following lines from “The
+Traveller” are, with one exception,[113] the only examples of latinisms
+to be found in his poems:
+
+    While sea-born gales their _gelid_ wings expand,
+
+and
+
+    Fall blunted from each _indurated_ heart.
+
+Dr. Johnson, who represented the extreme classicist position with regard
+to blank verse and other tendencies of the Romantic reaction, had a
+good deal to say in the aggregate about the poetical language of his
+predecessors and contemporaries. But the latinism of the time, which
+was widespread enough to have attracted his attention, does not seem to
+have provoked from him any critical comment. His own poetical works,
+even when we remember the “Vanity of Human Wishes,” where plenty of
+instances of Latin idiom are to be found, are practically free from this
+kind of diction, though this does not warrant the inference that he
+disapproved of it. We know that his prose was latinized to a remarkable
+extent, so that his “sesquipedalian terminology” has been regarded as
+the fountain-head of that variety of English which delights in “big,”
+high-sounding words. But his ideal, we may assume, was the polished and
+elegant diction of Pope, and his own verse is as free from pedantic
+formations as is “The Lives of the Poets,” which perhaps represents his
+best prose.
+
+It is in the works of a poet who, though he continues certain aspects of
+neo-classicism, yet announces unmistakably the coming of the new age,
+that we find a marked use of a deliberately latinized diction. Cowper has
+always received just praise for the purity of his language; he is, on the
+whole, singularly free from the artificialities and inversions which had
+marked the accepted poetic diction, but, on the other hand, his language
+is latinized to an extent that has perhaps not always been fully realized.
+
+This is, however, confined to “The Task” and to the translation of
+the “Iliad.” In the former case there is first a use of words freely
+formed on Latin roots, for most of which Cowper had no doubt abundant
+precedents,[114] but which, in some cases, must have been coined by
+him, perhaps playfully in some instances; _twisted form vermicular_,
+_the agglomerated pile_, _the voluble and restless earth_, etc. Other
+characteristics of this latinized style are perhaps best seen in
+continuous passages such as
+
+                  he spares me yet
+    These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines;
+    And, though himself so polished, still reprieves
+    The obsolete prolixity of shade
+
+                                                   (Bk. I, ll. 262 foll.)
+
+or in such a mock-heroic fling as
+
+    The stable yields a stercoraceous heap
+    Impregnated with quick fermenting salts
+    And potent to resist the freezing blast.
+
+                                                      (Bk. III, 463)[115]
+
+On these and many similar occasions Cowper has turned his predilection to
+playful account, as also when he diagnoses the symptoms of gout as
+
+    pangs arthritic that infest the toe
+    Of libertine excess,
+
+or speaks of monarchs and Kings as
+
+    The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp.
+
+There is still freer use of latinisms in the “Homer”:[116] _her eyes
+caerulean_, _the point innocuous_, _piercing accents stridulous_, _the
+triturated barley_, _candent lightnings_, _the inherent barb_, _his
+stream vortiginous_, besides such passages as
+
+    nor did the Muses spare to add
+    Responsive melody of vocal sweets.
+
+The instances given above fully illustrate on the whole the use of
+a latinized diction in eighteenth century poetry.[117] It must not,
+however, be supposed that the fashion was altogether confined to the
+blank verse poems. Thus Matthew Prior in “Alma,” or “The Progress of the
+Mind,” has passages like
+
+            the word obscene
+    Or harsh which once elanced must ever fly
+    Irrevocable,
+
+whilst Richard Savage in his “Wanderer” indulges in such flights as
+
+                            his breath
+    A nitrous damp that strikes petrific death.
+
+One short stanza by William Shenstone, from his poem “Written in Spring,
+1743,” contains an obvious example in three out of its four lines:
+
+        Again the labouring hind inverts the soil,
+    Again the merchant ploughs the tumid wave,
+    Another spring renews the soldier’s toil,
+    And finds me vacant in the rural cave.
+
+But it is in the blank verse poems that the fashion is most prevalent,
+and it is there that it only too often becomes ludicrous. The blind
+Milton, dying, lonely and neglected, a stranger in a strange land, is
+hardly likely to have looked upon himself as the founder of a “school,”
+or to have suspected to what base uses his lofty diction and style were
+to be put, within a few decades of his death, by a swarm of poetasters
+who fondly regarded themselves as his disciples.[118] The early writers
+of blank verse, such as John Philips, frankly avowed themselves imitators
+of Milton, and there can be little doubt that in their efforts to
+catch something of the dignity and majesty of their model the crowd of
+versifiers who then appeared on the scene had recourse to high-sounding
+words and phrases, as well as to latinized constructions by which they
+hoped to elevate their style. The grand style of “Paradise Lost” was
+bound to suffer severely at the hands of imitators, and there can be
+little doubt but that much of the preposterous latinizing of the time
+is to be traced to this cause. At the same time the influence of the
+general literary tendencies of the Augustan ages is not to be ignored in
+this connexion. When a diction freely sprinkled with latinized terms is
+found used by writers like Thomson in the first quarter, and Cowper at
+the end of the century, it may perhaps also be regarded as a mannerism
+of style due in some degree to influences which were still powerful
+enough to affect literary workmanship. For it must be remembered that in
+the eighteenth century the traditional supremacy of Latin had not yet
+altogether died out: pulpit and forensic eloquence, as well as the great
+prose works of the period, still bore abundant traces of the persistency
+of this influence.[119] Hence it need not be at all surprising to find
+that it has invaded poetry. The use of latinized words and phrases gave,
+or was supposed to give, an air of culture to verse, and contemporary
+readers did not always, we may suppose, regard such language as a mere
+display of pedantry.
+
+In this, as in other respects of the poetic output of the period, we may
+see a further reflex of the general literary atmosphere of the first half
+or so of the eighteenth century. There was no poetry of the highest
+rank, and not a great deal of _poetical_ poetry; the bulk of the output
+is “poetry without an atmosphere.” The very qualities most admired in
+prose—lucidity, correctness, absence of “enthusiasm”—were such as were
+approved for poetry; even the Romantic forerunners, with perhaps the
+single exception of Blake, felt the pressure of the prosaic atmosphere of
+their times. No doubt had a poet of the highest order appeared he would
+have swept away much of the accumulated rubbish and fashioned for himself
+a new poetic language, as Thomson tried, and Wordsworth later thought to
+do. But he did not appear, and the vast majority of the practitioners
+were content to ring the changes on the material they found at hand, and
+were not likely to dream of anything different.
+
+It is thus not sufficient to say that the “rapid and almost simultaneous
+diffusion of this purely cutaneous eruption,” to borrow an appropriate
+description from Lowell, was due solely to the potent influence of
+Milton. It reflects also the average conception of poetry held throughout
+a good part of the eighteenth century, a conception which led writers
+to seek in mere words qualities which are to be found in them only when
+they are the reflex of profound thought or powerful emotion. In short,
+latinism in eighteenth century poetry may be regarded as a literary
+fashion, akin in nature to the stock epithets and phrases of the
+“descriptive” poetry, which were later to be unsparingly condemned as the
+typical eighteenth century poetical diction.
+
+Of the poetic value of these latinized words little need be said. Whether
+or no they reflect a conscious effort to extend, enrich, or renew the
+vocabulary of English poetry, they cannot be said to have added much
+to the expressive resources of the language. This is not, of course,
+merely because they are of direct Latin origin. We know that around
+the central Teutonic core of English there have slowly been built up
+two mighty strata of Latin and Romance formations, which, in virtue of
+their long employment by writers in prose and verse, as well as on the
+lips of the people, have slowly acquired that force and picturesqueness
+which the poet needs for his purpose. But the latinized words of the
+eighteenth century are on a different footing. To us, nowadays, there
+is something pretentious and pedantic about them: they are artificial
+formations or adoptions, and not living words. English poets from time
+to time have been able to give a poetical colouring to such words,[120]
+and the eighteenth century is not without happy instances of this power.
+James Thomson here and there wins real poetic effects from his latinized
+vocabulary, as in such a passage as
+
+    Here lofty trees to ancient song unknown
+    The noble sons of potent heat and floods
+    Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven
+    Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw
+    Meridian gloom.
+
+                                               (“Summer,” 653 foll.)[121]
+
+The “return to Nature,” of which Thomson was perhaps the most noteworthy
+pioneer, brought back all the sights and sounds of outdoor life as
+subjects fit and meet for the poet’s song, and it is therefore of some
+interest, in the present connexion, to note that Wordsworth himself, who
+also knew how to make excellent use of high-sounding Latin formations,
+has perhaps nowhere illustrated this faculty better than in the famous
+passage on the Yew Trees of Borrowdale:
+
+    Those fraternal Four of Borrowdale
+    Joined in one solemn and capacious grove:
+    Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
+    Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
+    Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved;
+    Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks
+    That threaten the profane.
+
+But the bulk of eighteenth century latinisms fall within a different
+category; rarely do they convey, either in themselves or in virtue
+of their context, any of that mysterious power of association which
+constitutes the poetic value of words and enables the writer, whether in
+prose or verse, to convey to his reader delicate shades of meaning and
+suggestion which are immediately recognized and appreciated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ARCHAISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+One of the earliest and most significant of those literary manifestations
+which were to culminate in the triumph of Romanticism was a new enkindled
+interest in the older English writers. The attitude of the great body
+of the so-called “Classicists” towards the earlier English poetry was
+not altogether one of absolute contempt: it was rather marked by that
+indifference which is the outcome of ignorance. Readers and authors, with
+certain illustrious exceptions, were totally unacquainted with Chaucer,
+and though Spenser fared better, even those who did know him did not at
+first consider him worthy of serious study.[122] Yet the Romantic rebels,
+by their attempts to imitate Spenser, and to reveal his poetic genius to
+a generation of unbelievers, did work of immediate and lasting value.
+
+It is perhaps too much to claim that some dim perception of the poetic
+value of old words contributed in any marked degree to this Spenserian
+revival in the eighteenth century. Yet it can hardly be doubted that
+Spenser’s language, imperfectly understood and at first considered
+“barbarous,” or “Gothic,” or at best merely “quaint,” came ultimately to
+be regarded as supplying something of that atmosphere of “old romance”
+which was beginning to captivate the hearts and minds of men. This
+is not to say that there was any conscious or deliberate intention of
+freshening or revivifying poetic language by an infusion of old or
+“revived” words. But the Spenserian and similar imitations naturally
+involved the use of such words, and they thus made an important
+contribution to the Romantic movement on its purely formal side; they
+played their part in destroying the pseudo-classical heresy that the
+best, indeed the only, medium for poetic expression was the polished
+idiom of Pope and his school.
+
+The poets and critics of Western Europe, who, as we have seen, in the
+sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries had busied themselves with the
+question of refining and embellishing their mother tongue, had advocated
+among other means the revival of archaic and obsolete words. Spenser
+himself, we know, had definitely adopted this means in the “Shepherds
+Kalendar,” though the method of increasing his poetical vocabulary
+had not been approved by all of his contemporaries and successors.
+Milton, when forming the special poetical language he needed for his
+immense task, confined himself largely to “classical” coinages, and
+his archaisms, such as _swinkt_, _rathe_, _nathless_, _frore_, are
+comparatively few in number.[123]
+
+Dryden’s attitude towards old words was stated with his customary
+good sense, and though his modernization of Chaucer gave him endless
+opportunities of experimenting with them, he never abused the advantage,
+and indeed in all his work there is but little trace of the deliberate
+revival of obsolete or archaic words. In the “Fables” may be found a few
+words such as _sounded_[124] (swounded) which had been used by Malory
+and Spenser, _laund_ for (lawn), _rushed_ (cut-off), etc., and he has
+also Milton’s _rathe_. Dryden, however, is found using a large number of
+terms which were evidently obsolete in the literary language, but which,
+it may be supposed, still lingered in the spoken language, and especially
+in the provincial dialects. He is fond of the word _ken_ (to know), and
+amongst other examples are _stead_ (place), _to lease_ (glean), _shent_
+(rebuked), _hattered_ (worn out), _dorp_ (a village), _buries_ (burrows),
+etc. Dryden is also apparently responsible for the poetic use of the term
+“_doddered_,” a word of somewhat uncertain meaning, which, after his time
+and following his practice, came into common use as an epithet for old
+oaks, and, rarely, for other trees.[125]
+
+As might be expected, there are few traces of the use of obsolete or
+archaic words in the works of Pope. The “correct” style did not favour
+innovations in language, whether they consisted in the formation of
+new words or in the revival of old forms. Pope stated in a letter to
+Hughes, who edited Spenser’s works (1715), that “Spenser has been ever a
+favourite poet to me,”[126] but among the imitations “done by the Author
+in his Youth,” there is “The Alley,” a very coarse parody of Spenser,
+which does not point to any real appreciation or understanding on the
+part of Pope. In the first book of the “Dunciad” as we have seen, he
+indulged in a fling at the antiquaries, especially Hearne and those who
+took pleasure in our older literature, by means of a satiric stanza
+written in a pseudo-archaic language.[127] But his language is much
+freer than that of Dryden from archaisms or provincialisms. He has forms
+like _gotten_, _whelm_ (overwhelm), _rampires_ (ramparts), _swarths_,
+_catched_ (caught), _thrice-ear’d_ (ploughed), etc. Neither Dryden nor
+Pope, it may be said, would ever have dreamed of reviving an archaic
+word simply because it was an old word, and therefore to be regarded as
+“poetical.” To imagine this is to attribute to the seventeenth and early
+eighteenth centuries a state of feeling which is essentially modern,
+and which lends a glamour to old and almost forgotten words. Dryden
+would accept any word which he considered suitable for his purpose, but
+he always insisted that old words had to prove their utility, and that
+they had otherwise no claim to admission to the current vocabulary.
+Pope, however, we may suspect, would not admit any words not immediately
+intelligible to his readers, or requiring a footnote to explain them.
+
+Meanwhile, in the year 1715, there had appeared the first attempt to
+give a critical text of Spenser, when John Hughes published his edition
+of the poet’s works in six volumes, together with a biography, a
+glossary, and some critical remarks.[128] The obsolete terms which Hughes
+felt himself obliged to explain[129] include many, such as _aghast_,
+_baleful_, _behest_, _bootless_, _carol_, _craven_, _dreary_, _forlorn_,
+_foray_, _guerdon_, _plight_, _welkin_, _yore_, which are now for the
+most part familiar words, though forty years later Thomas Warton in his
+“Observations on The Faerie Queene” (1754) is found annotating many
+similar terms. The well-known “Muses’ Library,” published thirteen years
+previously, had described itself as “A General Collection of almost all
+the old and valuable poetry extant, now so industriously inquir’d after”;
+it begins with Langland and reflects the renewed interest that was
+arising in the older poets. But there is as yet little evidence of any
+general and genuine appreciation of either the spirit or the form of the
+best of the earlier English poetry. The Spenserian imitators undoubtedly
+felt that their diction must look so obsolete and archaic as to call for
+a glossary of explanation, and these glossaries were often more than
+necessary, not only to explain the genuine old words, but also because
+of the fact that in many cases the supposedly “Spenserian” terms were
+spurious coinages devoid of any real meaning at all.
+
+Before considering these Spenserian imitations it must not be forgotten
+that there were, prior to these attempts and alongside of them, kindred
+efforts to catch the manner and style of Chaucer. This practice received
+its first great impulse from Dryden’s famous essay in praise of Chaucer,
+and the various periodicals and miscellanies of the first half of the
+eighteenth century bear witness to the fact that many eminent poets, not
+to mention a crowd of poetasters, thought it their duty to publish a
+poetical tribute couched in the supposed language and manner of Chaucer.
+
+These attempts were nearly all avowedly humorous,[130] and seemed based
+on a belief that the very language of Chaucer was in some respects
+suitable comic material for a would-be humorous writer. Such an attitude
+was obviously the outcome of a not unnatural ignorance of the historical
+development of the language. Chaucer’s language had long been regarded
+as almost a dead language, and this attitude had persisted even to
+the eighteenth century, so that it was felt that a mastery of the
+language of the “Canterbury Tales” required prolonged study. Even Thomas
+Warton, speaking of Chaucer, was of the opinion that “his uncouth and
+unfamiliar language disgusts and deters many readers.”[131] Hence it
+is not surprising that there was a complete failure to catch, not only
+anything of the real spirit of Chaucer, but also anything that could
+be described as even a distant approach to his language. The imitators
+seemed to think that fourteenth century English could be imitated by the
+use of common words written in an uncommon way, or of strange terms with
+equally strange meanings. The result was an artificial language that
+could never have been spoken by anybody, often including words to which
+it is impossible to give any definite sense. It would seem that only two
+genuine Chaucerian terms had really been properly grasped, and this pair,
+ne and eke, is in consequence worked to death. Ignorance of the earlier
+language naturally led to spurious grammatical forms, of which the most
+favoured was a singular verb form ending in -_en_. Gay, for instance,
+has, in a poem of seventeen lines, such phrases as “It maken doleful
+song,” “There _spreaden_ a rumour,”[132] whilst Fenton writes,
+
+    If in mine quest thou _falsen_ me.[133]
+
+The general style and manner of these imitations, with their “humorous”
+tinge, their halting verse, bad grammar, and impossible inflections
+are well illustrated in William Thompson’s “Garden Inscription—Written
+in Chaucer’s Bowre,” though more serious efforts were not any more
+successful.
+
+The death of Pope, strangely enough, called forth more than one attempt,
+among them being Thomas Warton’s imitation of the characterization of the
+birds from the “Parliament of Fowles.”[134] Better known at the time
+was the monody “Musæus,” written by William Mason, “To the memory of Mr.
+Pope.” Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton are represented as coming to mourn
+the inevitable loss of him who was about to die, and Mason endeavoured to
+reproduce their respective styles, “Tityrus” (Chaucer) holding forth in
+this strain:
+
+    Mickle of wele betide thy houres last
+    For mich gode wirke to me don and past.
+    For syn the days whereas my lyre ben strongen,
+    And deftly many a mery laie I songen,
+    Old Time which alle things don maliciously,
+    Gnawen with rusty tooth continually,
+    Grattrid my lines, that they all cancrid ben
+    Till at the last thou smoothen hem hast again.
+
+It is astonishing to think that this mechanical imitation, with its
+harsh and forced rhythm, and its almost doggerel language, was regarded
+at the time as a successful reproduction of Chaucer’s manner and style.
+But probably before 1775, when Tyrwhitt announced his rediscovery of the
+secret of Chaucer’s rhythm, few eighteenth century readers suspected its
+presence at all.
+
+But the Chaucerian imitations were merely a literary fashion predoomed
+to failure. It was not in any way the result of a genuine influence
+of the early English poetry on contemporary taste, and thus it was
+not even vitalized, as was the Spenserian revival, by a certain vague
+and undefined desire to catch something at least of the spirit of the
+“Faerie Queene.” The Spenserian imitations had a firmer foundation, and
+because the best of them did not confine their ambition altogether to
+the mechanical imitation of Spenser’s style in the narrower sense they
+achieved a greater measure of success.
+
+It is significant to note that among the first attempts at a Spenserian
+imitation was that made by one of the foremost of the Augustans. This
+was Matthew Prior, who in 1706 published his “Ode, Humbly Inscribed to
+the Queen on the Glorious success of Her Majesty’s Arms, Written in
+Imitation of Spenser’s Style.”[135] We are surprised, however, to find
+when we have read his Preface, that Prior’s aim was in reality to write
+a poem on the model of Horace and of Spenser. The attitude in which he
+approached Spenser’s language is made quite clear by his explanation.
+He has “avoided such of his words as I found too obsolete. I have
+however retained some few of them to make the colouring look more like
+Spenser’s.” Follows then a list of such words, including “_behest_,
+command; _band_, army; _prowess_, strength; _I weet_, I know; _I ween_, I
+think; _whilom_, heretofore; and two or three more of that kind.” Though
+later in his Preface Prior speaks of the _curiosa felicitas_ of Spenser’s
+diction, it is evident that there is little or no real understanding or
+appreciation.
+
+Now began a continuous series of Spenserian imitations,[136] of which,
+with a few exceptions, the only distinguishing characteristic was a small
+vocabulary of obsolete words, upon which the poetasters could draw for
+the “local colour” considered necessary. In the majority of cases the
+result was a purely artificial language, probably picked haphazard from
+the “Faerie Queene,” and often used without any definite idea of its
+meaning or appropriateness.[137] Fortunately, one or two real poets were
+attracted by the idea, and in due course produced their “imitations.”
+
+William Shenstone (1714-1763) is perhaps worthy of being ranked amongst
+these, in virtue at least of “The Schoolmistress,” which appeared in its
+final shape in 1742. Shenstone himself confesses that the poem was not
+at first intended to be a serious imitation, but his study of Spenser
+led him gradually to something like a real appreciation of the earlier
+poet.[138]
+
+“The Schoolmistress” draws upon the usual common stock of old words:
+_whilom_, _mickle_, _perdie_, _eke_, _thik_, etc., but often, as in the
+case of Spenser himself, the obsolete terms have a playful and humorous
+effect:
+
+    For they in gaping wonderment abound
+    And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground.
+
+Nor is there lacking a quaint, wistful tenderness, as in the description
+of the refractory schoolboy, who, after being flogged,
+
+    Behind some door, in melancholy thought,
+    Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff, pines,
+    Ne for his fellows joyaunce careth aught,
+    But to the wind all merriment resigns.
+
+Hence “The Schoolmistress” is no mere parody or imitation: there is
+a real and tender humanity in the description of the village school
+(adumbrating, it would seem, Goldsmith’s efforts with a similar theme),
+whilst the judicious use of Spenser’s stanza and the sprinkling of his
+old words help to invest the whole poem with an atmosphere of genuine and
+unaffected humour.
+
+The next Spenserian whose work merits attention is William Thompson, who,
+it would seem, had delved not a little into the Earlier English poetry,
+and who was one of the first to capture something of the real atmosphere
+of the “Faerie Queene.” His “Epithalamium”[139] and “The Nativity,”[140]
+which appeared in 1736, are certainly among the best of the imitations.
+It is important to note that, while there is a free use of supposedly
+archaic words, with the usual list of _certes_, _perdie_, _sikerly_,
+_hight_, as well as others less common, such as _belgards_ (“beautiful
+looks”), _bonnibel_ (“beautiful virgin”), there is no abuse of the
+practice. Not a little of the genuine spirit of Spenser’s poetry, with
+its love of nature and outdoor life, has been caught and rendered without
+any lavish recourse to an artificial and mechanical diction, as a stanza
+from “The Nativity,” despite its false rhymes, will perhaps show:
+
+    Eftsoons he spied a grove, the Season’s pride,
+    All in the centre of a pleasant glade,
+    Where Nature flourished like a virgin bride,
+        Mantled with green, with hyacinths inlaid,
+    And crystal-rills o’er beds of lilies stray’d:
+    The blue-ey’d violet and King-cup gay,
+    And new blown roses, smiling sweetly red,
+    Out-glow’d the blushing infancy of Day
+    While amorous west-winds kist their fragrant souls away.
+
+This cannot altogether be said of the “Hymn to May” published over twenty
+years later,[141] despite the fact that Thompson himself draws attention
+to the fact that he does not consider that a genuine Spenserian imitation
+may be produced by scattering a certain number of obsolete words through
+the poem. Nevertheless, we find that he has sprinkled his “Hymn”
+plentifully with “obsolete” terms, though they include a few, such as
+_purfled_, _dispredden_, _goodlihead_, that were not the common property
+of the poetasters. His explanations of the words so used show that not a
+few of them were used with little knowledge of their original meaning, as
+when he defines _glen_[142] as “a country hamlet,” or explains _perdie_
+as “an old word for saying anything.” It is obvious also that many
+obsolete terms are often simply stuck in the lines when their more modern
+equivalents would have served equally well, as for instance,
+
+    Full suddenly the seeds of joy _recure_ (“recover”),
+
+or
+
+    Myrtles to Venus _algates_ sacred been.
+
+With these reservations the diction of Thompson’s poems is pure and
+unaffected, and the occasional happy use of archaism is well illustrated
+in more than one stanza of “The Nativity.”
+
+It is generally agreed that the best of all the Spenserian imitations
+is “The Castle of Indolence,” which James Thomson published two months
+before his death in 1748.[143] Yet even in this case there is evident a
+sort of quiet condescension, as if it were in Thompson’s mind that he
+was about to draw the attention of his eighteenth century audience to
+something quaint and old-fashioned, but which had yet a charm of its
+own. “The obsolete words,” he writes in his “advertisement” to the poem,
+“and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines, which borders on the
+ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect.” Hence
+he makes use of a number of words intended to give an archaic air to
+his poem, including the usual _certes_, _withouten_, _sheen_, _perdie,_
+_weet_, _pleasaunce_, _ycleped_, etc. To the first edition was appended
+a page of explanation of these and other “obsolete words used in this
+poem”: altogether between seventy and eighty such words are thus glossed,
+the large majority of which are familiar enough nowadays, either as part
+of the ordinary vocabulary, or as belonging especially to the diction of
+poetry.
+
+Though the archaisms are sometimes scattered in a haphazard manner, they
+are not used with such mechanical monotony as is obvious in the bulk
+of the Spenserian imitations. In both cantos there are long stretches
+without a single real or pseudo-archaism, and indeed, when Thomson is
+indulging in one of the moral or the didactic surveys characteristic
+of his age, as, for instance, when the bard, invoked by Sir Industry,
+breaks into a long tirade on the Supreme Perfection (Canto II, 47-61)
+his diction is the plain and unadorned idiom perfected by Pope.[144] Yet
+Thompson occasionally yields to the fascination of the spurious form in
+_-en_,[145] as
+
+    But these I _passen_ by with nameless numbers moe
+
+                                                           (Canto I., 56)
+
+or
+
+    And taunts he _casten_ forth most bitterly.
+
+                                                           (Canto II, 78)
+
+Sometimes it would seem that his archaisms owe their appearance to the
+necessities of rhyme, as in
+
+    So worked the wizard wintry storms to swell
+    As heaven and earth they would together _mell_
+
+                                                            (Canto I, 43)
+
+and
+
+    Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem:
+    The same to him glad summer, or the winter _breme_.
+
+                                                            (Canto II, 7)
+
+There are lines too where we feel that the archaisms have been dragged
+in; for example,
+
+    As _soot_ this man could sing as morning lark
+
+                                                            (Canto I, 57)
+
+(though there is here perhaps the added charm of a Chaucerian
+reminiscence); or
+
+                        _replevy_ cannot be
+    From the strong, iron grasp of vengeful destiny.
+
+                                                           (Canto II, 32)
+
+But, on the whole, he has been successful in his efforts, half-hearted
+as they sometimes seem, to give an old-world atmosphere to his poem by
+a sprinkling of archaisms, and it is then that we feel in _The Castle
+of Indolence_ something at least of the beauty and charm of “the poet’s
+poet,” as in the well-known stanza describing the valley of Idlesse with
+its
+
+                                      waters sheen
+    That, as they bickered[146] through the sunny glade,
+    Though restless still, themselves a lulling murmur made.
+
+                                                             (Canto I, 3)
+
+Though the Spenserian imitations continued beyond the year which saw
+the birth of Wordsworth,[147] it is not necessary to mention further
+examples, except perhaps that of William Mickle, who, in 1767, published
+“The Concubine,” a Spenserian imitation of two cantos, which afterwards
+appeared in a later edition (1777) under the title “Sir Martyn.” Like
+his predecessors, Mickle made free use of obsolete spellings and words,
+while he added the usual glossary, which is significant as showing at
+the end of the eighteenth century, about the time when Tyrwhitt was
+completing his edition of Chaucer, not only the artificial character of
+this “Spenserian diction,” but also the small acquaintance of the average
+man of letters with our earlier language.[148]
+
+It must not be assumed, of course, that all the “obsolete” words used by
+the imitators were taken directly from Spenser. Words like _nathless_,
+_rathe_, _hight_, _sicker_, _areeds_, _cleeped_, _hardiment_, _felly_,
+etc., had continued in fairly common use until the seventeenth century,
+though actually some of them were regarded even then as archaisms.
+Thus _cleoped_, though never really obsolete, is marked by Blount in
+1656 as “Saxon”; _sicker_, extensively employed in Middle English, is
+rarely found used after 1500 except by Scotch writers, though it still
+remains current in northern dialects. On the other hand, not a few words
+were undoubtedly brought directly back into literature from the pages
+of Spenser, among them being _meed_, _sheen_ (boasting an illustrious
+descent from _Beowulf_ through Chaucer), _erst_, _elfin_, _paramour_.
+Others, like _scrannel_, and apparently also _ledded_, were made familiar
+by Milton’s use the former either being the poet’s own coinage or his
+borrowing from some dialect or other. On the other hand, very many of the
+“revived” words failed to take root at all, such as _faitours_, which
+Spenser himself had apparently revived, and also his coinage _singult_,
+though Scott is found using the latter form.
+
+As has been said, the crowd of poetasters who attempted to reproduce
+Spenser’s spirit and style thought to do so by merely mechanical
+imitation of what they regarded as his “quaint” or “ludicrous” diction.
+Between them and any possibility of grasping the perennial beauty
+and charm of the “poet’s poet” there was a great gulf fixed, whilst,
+altogether apart from this fatal limitation, then parodies were little
+likely to have even ephemeral success, for parody presupposes in its
+readers at least a little knowledge and appreciation of the thing
+parodied. But there were amongst the imitators one or two at least who,
+we may imagine, were able to find in the melody and romance of “The
+Faerie Queene” an avenue of escape from the prosaic pressure of their
+times. In the case of William Thompson, Shenstone, and the author of
+the “Castle of Indolence,” the influence of Spenser revealed itself as
+in integral and vital part of the Romantic reaction, for these, being
+real poets, had been able to recapture something at least of the colour,
+music, and fragrance of their original. And not only did these, helped
+by others whose names have all but been forgotten restore a noble stanza
+form to English verse. Even their mechanical imitation of Spenser’s
+language was not without its influence, for it cannot be doubted that
+these attempts to write in an archaic or pseudo-archaic style did not a
+little to free poetry from the shackles of a conventional language.
+
+This process was greatly helped by that other aspect of the eighteenth
+century revival of the past which was exemplified in the publication of
+numerous collections of old ballads and songs.[149] There is, of course,
+as Macaulay long ago noted, a series of conventional epithets that is
+one mark of the genuine ballad manner, but the true ballad language
+was not a lifeless stereotyped diction. It consisted of “plain English
+without any trimmings.” The ballads had certain popular mannerisms
+(_the good greenwood_, _the wan water_, etc.), but they were free from
+the conventional figures of speech, or such rhetorical artifices as
+personification and periphrasis.
+
+Hence it is not surprising that at first their fresh and spontaneous
+language was regarded, when contrasted with the artificial and refined
+diction of the time, as “barbarous” or “rude.” Thus Prior thought it
+necessary to paraphrase the old ballad of the “Nut Brown Maid” into his
+insipid “Henry and Emma” (1718), but a comparison of only a few lines of
+the original with the banality of the modernized version is sufficient
+testimony to the refreshing and vivifying influence of such collections
+as the “Reliques.”
+
+The tendency to present the old ballads in an eighteenth century dress
+had soon revealed itself; at least, the editors of the early collections
+often felt themselves obliged to apologize for the obsolete style of
+their material.[150] But in 1760 the first attempt at a critical text
+appeared when Edward Capell, the famous Shakespearian editor, published
+his “Prolusions”; or “Select Pieces of Antient Poetry—compil’d with
+great Care from their several Originals, and offer’d to the Publick as
+specimens of the Integrity that should be found in the Editions of worthy
+Authors.” Capell’s care was almost entirely directed to ensuring textual
+accuracy, but the “Nut-Browne Maid,” the only ballad included, receives
+sympathetic mention in his brief _Preface_.[151]
+
+Five years later, the most famous of all the ballad collections appeared,
+Thomas Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” (1765). The nucleus
+of Percy’s collection was a certain manuscript in a handwriting of
+Charles I’s time, containing 191 songs and ballads, but he had also had
+access to various other manuscript collections, whilst he was quite ready
+to acknowledge that he had filled gaps in his originals with stanzas and,
+in some cases, with nearly entire poems of his own composition. Much
+censure has been heaped upon Percy for his apparent lax ideas on the
+functions of an editor, but in decking out his “parcel of old ballads”
+in the false and affected style of his age, he was only doing his best
+to meet the taste of his readers. He himself passes judgment on his own
+labours, when, alongside of the genuine old ballads, with their freshness
+and simplicity of diction, he places his own “pruned” or “refined”
+versions, or additions, garbed in a sham and sickly idiom.
+
+It was not until over a century later, when Percy’s folio manuscript was
+copied and printed,[152] that the extent of his additions, alterations,
+and omissions were fully realized, though at the same time it was
+admitted that the pruning and refining was not unskilfully done.
+
+Nevertheless the influence of the “Reliques,” as a vital part of the
+Romantic revival, was considerable:[153] it was as if a breath of “the
+wind on the heath” had swept across literature and its writers, bringing
+with it an invigorating fragrance and freshness, whilst, on the purely
+formal side, the genuine old ballads, which Percy had culled and printed
+untouched, no doubt played their part in directing the attention of
+Wordsworth to the whole question of the language of poetry. And when the
+great Romantic manifestoes on the subject of “the language of metrical
+composition” were at length launched, their author was not slow to bear
+witness to the revivifying influence of the old ballads on poetic form.
+“Our poetry,” he wrote, “has been absolutely redeemed by it. I do not
+think that there is an able writer in verse of the present day who would
+not be proud to acknowledge his obligations to the “Reliques.”[154]
+
+The year before the appearance of the “Reliques,” Thomas Chatterton had
+published his “Rowley Poems,” and this attempt of a poet of genius to
+pass off his poems as the work of a mediaeval English writer is another
+striking indication of the new Romantic spirit then asserting itself. As
+for the pseudo-archaic language in which Chatterton with great labour
+clothed his “revivals,” there is no need to say much. It was a thoroughly
+artificial language, compiled, as Skeat has shown, from various sources,
+such as John Kersey’s “Dictionarium Anglo-Brittanicum,” three editions
+of which had appeared before 1721. In this work there are included a
+considerable number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and his
+contemporaries, marked “O,” and in some cases erroneously explained. This
+dictionary was the chief source of Chatterton’s vocabulary, many words of
+which the young poet took apparently without any definite idea of their
+meaning.[155]
+
+Yet in the Rowley poems there are passages where the pseudo-archaic
+language is quite in keeping with the poet’s theme and treatment, whilst
+here and there we come across epithets and lines which, even in their
+strange dress, are of a wild and artless sweetness, such as
+
+    Where thou mayst here the sweete night-lark chant,
+      Or with some mocking brooklet sweetly glide,
+
+or the whole of the first stanza of the famous “An Excelente Balade
+of Charitie,” where the old words help to transport us at once into
+the fictitious world which Chatterton had made for himself. Perhaps,
+as has been suggested, the “Rowley dialect” was not, as we nowadays,
+with Skeat’s analysis in our minds, are a little too apt to believe, a
+deliberate attempt to deceive, but rather reflected an attempt to escape
+from the dead abstract diction of the period.[156]
+
+Apart from this special aspect of the Romantic revival marked by a
+tendency to look back lovingly to the earlier English poetry, there are
+few traces of the use of archaic and obsolete words, at least of such
+words used consciously, in eighteenth century poetry. The great poets of
+the century make little or no use of them. Collins has no examples, but
+Gray, who began by advocating the poet’s right to use obsolete words,
+and later seemed to recant, now and then uses an old term, as when in his
+translation from Dante he writes:
+
+    The anguish that unuttered _nathless_ wrings
+    My inmost heart.
+
+Blake, however, it is interesting to note, often used archaic forms, or
+at least archaic spellings,[157] as _Tyger_, _antient_ (“To the Muses”),
+“the _desart_ wild” (“The Little Girl Lost”), as well as such lines as
+
+    In lucent words my darkling verses dight
+
+                                                 (“Imitation of Spenser”)
+
+or
+
+    So I piped with merry _chear_.
+
+                                   (Introduction to “Songs of Innocence”)
+
+Perhaps by these means the poet wished to give a quaint or old-fashioned
+look to his verses, though it is to be remembered that most of them occur
+in the “Poetical Sketches,” which are avowedly Elizabethan.
+
+The use of archaic and obsolete words in the eighteenth century was
+then chiefly an outcome of that revival of the past which was one of
+the characteristics of the new Romantic movement, and which was later
+to find its culmination in the works of Scott. The old words used by
+the eighteenth century imitators of Spenser were not often used, we may
+imagine, because poets saw in them poetical beauty and value; most often
+they were the result of a desire to catch, as it were, something of the
+“local colour” of the “Faerie Queene,” just as modern writers nowadays,
+poets and novelists alike, often draw upon local dialects for new means
+of expression. The Spenserian imitations recovered not a few words,
+such as _meed_, _sheen_, _dight_, _glen_,[158] which have since been
+regarded as belonging especially to the diction of poetry, and when the
+Romantic revival had burst into life the impulse, which had thus been
+unconsciously given, was continued by some of its great leaders. Scott,
+as is well known, was an enthusiastic lover of our older literature,
+especially the ballads, from which he gleaned many words full of a beauty
+and charm which won for them immediate admission into the language of
+poetry; at the same time he was able to find many similar words in the
+local dialects of the lowlands and the border. Perhaps in this work he
+had been inspired by his famous countryman, Robert Burns, who by his
+genius had raised his native language, with its stores of old and vivid
+words and expressions, to classical rank.[159]
+
+Nevertheless it is undoubted that the main factor in the new Romantic
+attitude towards old words had been the eighteenth century imitations
+and collections of our older English literature. Coleridge, it is to
+be remembered, made free use of archaisms; in the “Ancient Mariner,”
+there are many obsolete forms: _loon_, _eftsoons_, _uprist_, _gramercy_,
+_gossameres_, _corse_, etc., besides those which appeared in the first
+edition, and were altered or omitted when the poem reappeared in
+1800. Wordsworth, it is true, made no use of archaic diction, whether
+in the form of deliberate revivals, or by drafts on the dialects,
+which, following the great example of Burns, and in virtue of his
+own “theories,” he might have been expected to explore. Nevertheless
+the “theories” concerning poetical language which he propounded and
+maintained are not without their bearing on the present question.
+Reduced to their simplest terms, the manifestoes, while passing judgment
+on the conventional poetical diction, conceded to the poet the right of
+a style in keeping with his subject and inspiration, and Wordsworth’s
+successors for the most part, so far as style in the narrower sense of
+_vocabulary_ is concerned, did not fail to reap the benefits of the
+emancipation won for them. And among the varied sources upon which they
+began to draw for fresh reserves of diction were the abundant stores of
+old words, full of colour and energy, to be gleaned from the pages of
+their great predecessors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPOUND EPITHETS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+It is proposed in this chapter to examine in some detail the use of
+compound epithets in the poetry of the eighteenth century. For this
+purpose the following grammatical scheme of classification has been
+adopted from various sources:[160] _First Type_, noun _plus_ noun;
+_Second Type_, noun _plus_ adjective; _Third Type_, noun _plus_ present
+participle; _Fourth Type_, noun _plus_ past participle; _Fifth Type_,
+adjective, or adjective used adverbially, _plus_ another part of speech,
+usually a participle; _Sixth Type_, true adverb _plus_ a participle;
+_Seventh Type_, adjective _plus_ noun plus -_ed_. Of these types it
+will be evident in many cases that the first (noun _plus_ noun) and the
+sixth (true adverb _plus_ participle) are not compounds at all, for the
+hyphen could often be removed without any change or loss of meaning.
+Occasionally the compounds will be regarded from the point of view of the
+logical relation between the two elements, when a formal classification
+may usually be made as follows: (_a_) _Attributive_, as in “anger-glow”;
+(_b_) _Objective_, as in “anger-kindling”; (_c_) _Instrumental_, as in
+“anger-boiling.” This scheme of classification permits of an examination
+of the compounds from the formal point of view, whilst at the same time
+it does not preclude an estimate of the æsthetic value of the new words
+thus added to the language of poetry.[161]
+
+It may be said, to begin with, that the formation and use of compound
+epithets has always been one of the distinguishing marks of the special
+language of poetry in English, as distinct from that of prose. The very
+ease with which they can be formed out of the almost inexhaustible
+resources of the English vocabulary has been a constant source of
+temptation to poets with new things to say, or new impressions to
+describe. Moreover, the partial disappearance of inflections in modern
+English has permitted of a vagueness in the formation of compound words,
+which in itself is of value to the word-maker. Though, of course, it is
+possible in most cases accurately to analyse the logical relation between
+the elements of a compound, yet it sometimes happens, especially with the
+compound epithets of poetry, that this cannot be done with certainty,
+because the new formation may have been the result of a hasty but happy
+inspiration, with no regard to the regular rules of composition.[162]
+Hence, from one point of view, the free formation of compounds is
+a legitimate device allowed to the poets, of which the more severe
+atmosphere of prose is expected to take less advantage; from another
+point of view, the greater prevalence of the compound in poetry may not
+be unconnected with the rhythm of verse. Viewed in this light, the use
+of compound epithets in our poetry at any period may well have been
+conditioned, in part at least, by the metrical form in which that poetry
+received expression; and thus in the poetry of the eighteenth century it
+connects itself in some degree—first, with the supremacy of the heroic
+couplet, and later with the blank verse that proved to be the chief rival
+of the decasyllabic.
+
+The freedom of construction which facilitates the formation of compounds
+had already in the earliest English period contributed to that special
+poetic diction which is a distinguishing mark of Anglo-Saxon verse, as
+indeed of all the old Germanic poetry; of the large number of words not
+used in Anglo-Saxon prose, very many are synonymous compounds meaning
+the same thing.[163] During the Middle English period, and especially
+before the triumph of the East Midland dialect definitely prepared
+the way for Modern English, it would seem that the language lost much
+of its old power of forming compounds, one explanation being that the
+large number of French words, which then came into the language, drove
+out many of the Old English compounds, whilst at the same time these
+in-comers, so easily acquired, tended to discourage the formation of new
+compounds.[164] It was not until the great outburst of literary activity
+in the second half of the sixteenth century that a fresh impetus was
+given to the formation of compound nouns and epithets. The large number
+of classical translations especially exercised an important influence in
+this respect: each new translation had its quota of fresh compounds, but
+Chapman’s “Homer” may be mentioned as especially noteworthy.[165] At
+the same time the plastic state of Elizabethan English led to the making
+of expressive new compounds of native growth, and from this period date
+some of the happiest compound epithets to be found in the language.[166]
+From the Elizabethans this gift of forming imaginative compounds was
+inherited, with even greater felicity by Milton, many of whose epithets,
+especially those of Type VII such as “_grey-hooded even_,” “_coral-paven
+floor_,” “_flowery-kirtled_ Naiades” reveal him as a consummate master of
+word-craft.
+
+With Dryden begins the period with which we are especially concerned,
+for it is generally agreed that from nearly every point of view the
+advent of what is called eighteenth century literature dates from the
+Restoration. During the forty years dominated by Dryden in practically
+every department of literature, the changes in the language, both of
+prose and poetry, which had been slowly evolving themselves, became
+apparent, and, as the sequel will show, this new ideal of style, with its
+passion for “correctness,” and its impatience of innovation, was not one
+likely to encourage or inspire the formation of expressive compounds; the
+happy audacities of the Elizabethans, of whose tribe it is customary to
+seal Milton, are no longer possible.
+
+The compounds in the poems of Dryden show this; of his examples of Type
+I—the substantive compounds—the majority are merely the juxtaposition of
+two appositional nouns, as _brother-angels_ (“Killigrew,” 4); or, more
+rarely, where the first element has a descriptive or adjectival force,
+as _traitor-friend_ (“Palamon,” II, 568). Not much more imaginative
+power is reflected in Dryden’s compound epithets; his instances of Types
+III and IV include “_cloud-dispelling_ winds” (“Ovid,” Met. I, 356),
+“_sun-begotten_ tribe” (_ibid._, III, 462), with more original examples
+like “_sleep-procuring_ wand.” Next comes a large number of instances
+of Types V and VI: “_thick-spread_ forest” (“Palamon,” II, 123),
+“_hoarse-resounding_ shore” (“Iliad” I, 54), as well as many compounded
+with _long_-, _well_-, _high_-, etc. Most of these examples of Types V
+and VI are scarcely compounds at all, for after such elements as “long,”
+“well,” “much,” the hyphen could in most cases be omitted without any
+loss of power. Of Dryden’s compound epithets it may be said in general
+that they reflect admirably his poetic theory and practice; they are
+never the product of a “fine frenzy.” At the same time not a few of them
+seem to have something of that genius for satirical expression with which
+he was amply endowed. Compounds like _court-informer_ (“Absalom,” 719),
+“the rebels’ _pension-purse_” (_ibid._, Pt. II, 321),
+
+    Og, from a _treason-tavern_ rolling home
+
+                                                           (_Ibid._, 480)
+
+play their part in the delivery of those “smacks in the face” of which
+Professor Saintsbury speaks in his discussion of Dryden’s satiric
+manipulation of the heroic couplet.[167]
+
+In the verse of Pope, compound formations are to be found in large
+numbers. This may partly be attributed, no doubt, to the amount of
+translation included in it, but even in his original poetry there
+are many more instances than in the work of his great predecessor.
+When engaged on his translation of Homer the prevalence of compounds
+naturally attracted his attention, and he refers to the matter more
+than once in his Preface.[168] As might be expected from the apostle
+of “correctness,” he lays down cautious and conservative “rules” of
+procedure. Such should be retained “as slide easily of themselves into an
+English compound, without violence to the ear, or to the received rules
+of composition, as well as those which have received the sanction from
+the authority of our best poets, and are become familiar through their
+use of them.”[169]
+
+An examination of Pope’s compounds in the light of “the received rules of
+composition,” shows his examples to be of the usual types. Of noun _plus_
+noun combinations he has such forms as “_monarch-savage_,” (“Odyss.”
+IV), whilst he is credited with the first use of “the _fury-passions_”
+(Epistle III). More originality and imagination is reflected in his
+compound epithets; of those formed from a noun and a present participle,
+with the first element usually in an objective relation to the second,
+his instances include “_love-darting_-eyes” (“Unfortunate Lady”), as well
+as others found before his time, like the Elizabethan “_heart-piercing_
+anguish” (_ibid._, XII) and “_laughter-loving_ dame” (_ibid._, III).
+He has large numbers of compounded nouns and past-participles, many of
+which—“_moss-grown_ domes” (“Eloisa”), “_cloud-topped_ hills” (“Essay
+on Man,” I, 100), “_Sea-girt_ isles” (“Iliad,” III)—were common in
+the seventeenth century, as well as “borrowed” examples, such as
+“_home-felt_ joys” (Epistle II) or “_air-bred_ people” (“Odyss.,” LX,
+330), presumably from Milton and Drayton respectively. But he has a few
+original formations of this type, such as “_heaven-directed_ spire”
+(Epistle III), “_osier-fringed_ bank,” (“Odyss.,” XIII), the latter
+perhaps a reminiscence of Sabrina’s song in “Comus,” as well as happier
+combinations, of which the best examples are “_love-born_ confidence”
+(“Odyss.,” X) and “_love-dittied_ airs” (“Odyss.,” II).
+
+Pope, however, makes his largest use of that type of compound which
+can be formed with the greatest freedom—an adjective, or an adjective
+used adverbially, joined to a present or past participle. He has
+dozens of examples with the adverbial _long_, _wide_, _far_, _loud_,
+_deep_, _high_, etc., as the first element, most of the examples
+occurring in the Homer translations, and being attempts to reproduce
+the Greek compounds.[170] Other instances have a higher æsthetic
+value: “_fresh-blooming_ hope” (“Eloisa”), “_silver-quivering_ rills”
+(Epistle IV), “_soft-trickling_ waters” “Iliad,” IX), “sweet airs
+_soft-circling_” (_ibid._, XVII), etc. Of the formations beginning with
+a true adverb, the most numerous are the quasi-compounds beginning
+with “_ever_”—“_ever-during_ nights,” “_ever-fragrant_ bowers”
+(“Odyss.,” XII), etc.; or “_well_”—“_well-sung_ woes” (“Eloisa”) or
+“_yet_”—“_yet-untasted_ food” (“Iliad,” XV), etc. These instances do
+not reveal any great originality, for the very ease with which they can
+be formed naturally discounts largely their poetic value. Occasionally,
+however, Pope has been more successful; perhaps his best examples of
+this type are “_inly-pining_ hate” (“Odyss.,” VI—where the condensation
+involved in the epithet does at least convey some impression of power—and
+“the _softly-stealing_ space of time,” (“Odyss.,” XV), where the compound
+almost produces a happy effect of personification.
+
+Of the irregular type of compound, already mentioned in connexion with
+Dryden, Pope has a few instances—“_white-robed_ innocence” (“Eloisa”),
+etc. But perhaps Pope’s happiest effort in this respect is to be seen in
+that quatrain from the fourth book of the “Dunciad,” containing three
+instances of compound epithets, which help to remind us that at times he
+had at his command a diction of higher suggestive and evocative power
+than the plain idiom of his satiric and didactic verse:
+
+    To isles of fragrance, _lily-silver’d_ vales
+    Diffusing languor in the panting gales;
+    To lands of singing or of dancing slaves
+    _Love-whisp’ring_ woods and _lute-resounding_ waves.
+
+Of the poets contemporary with Pope only brief mention need be made from
+our present point of view. The poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea
+contain few instances and those of the ordinary type, a remark which is
+equally applicable to the poems of Parnell and John Phillips. John Gay
+(1685-1732), however, though he has many formations found in previous
+writers, has also some apparently original compound epithets which have
+a certain charm: “_health-breathing_ breezes” (“A Devonshire Hill,” 10),
+“_dew-besprinkled_ lawn” (“Fables,” 50), and “the lark _high-poised_ in
+the air” (“Sweet William’s Farewell,” 13). More noteworthy is John Dyer;
+“Grongar Hill” has no very striking examples, but his blank verse poems
+have one or two not devoid of imaginative value: “_soft-whispering_
+waters” (“Ruins of Rome”) and “_plaintive-echoing_ ruins” (_ibid._); he
+has been able to dispense with the “classical” descriptive terms for
+hills and mountains (“shaggy,” “horrid,” “terrible,” etc.), and his new
+epithets reflect something at least of that changing attitude towards
+natural scenery, of which he was a foremost pioneer: “_slow-climbing_
+wilds” (“Fleece,” I), “_cloud-dividing_ hill” (_ibid._), and his
+irregular “_snow-nodding_ crags” (_ibid._, IV).
+
+Neglecting for the moment the more famous of the blank verse poems,
+we may notice Robert Blair’s “Grave” (published 1743), with a few
+examples, which mainly allow him to indulge in “classical” periphrases,
+such as the “_sight-invigorating_ tube” for “a telescope.” David
+Mallet, who imitated his greater countryman James Thomson, has one
+or two noteworthy instances: “pines _high-plumed_” (“Amyntor,” II),
+“_sweetly-pensive_ silence” (“Fragment”), “spring’s _flower-embroidered_
+mantle” (“Excursion,” I)—suggested, no doubt, by Milton’s
+“violet-embroidered”—“the morn _sun-tinctured_” (_ibid._), compound
+epithets which betray the influence of the “Seasons.” Of the other minor
+blank verse poems their only aspect noteworthy from our present point of
+view is their comparative freedom from compounds of any description. John
+Armstrong’s “Art of Preserving Health” (1744) has only a few commonplace
+examples, and the same may be said of the earlier “The Chase” (1735)
+by William Somerville, though he finds a new epithet in his expression
+“the strand _sea-lav’d_” (Bk. III, 431). James Grainger’s “The Sugar
+Cane” (1764) shows a similar poverty, but the “_green-stol’d_ Naiad,
+of the tinkling rill” (Canto I), “_soft-stealing_ dews” (Canto III),
+“_wild-careering_ clouds” (Canto II), and “_cane-crowned_ vale” (Canto
+IV) are not without merit. These blank verse poems, avowedly modelled
+on Milton, might have been expected to attempt the “grandeur” of their
+original by high-sounding compounds; but it was rather by means of
+latinized words and constructions that the Miltonic imitators sought to
+emulate the grand style; and moreover, as Coleridge pointed out, Milton’s
+great epics are almost free from compound epithets, it being in the
+early poems that “a superfluity” is to be found.[171]
+
+Before turning to the more famous blank verse poems of the first half
+of the eighteenth century it will be convenient at this point to notice
+one or two poets whose work represents, on its formal side at least, a
+continuation or development of the school of Pope. The first of these
+is Richard Savage, whose only poem of any real merit, “The Wanderer”
+(apart perhaps from “The Bastard”), appeared in 1729. He has only one
+or two new compounds of noun and part-participle, such as “the robe
+_snow-wrought_” (“The Wanderer,” I, 55), his favourite combination being
+that of an adjective or adverb with a participle, where, amidst numerous
+examples of obvious formations, he occasionally strikes out something
+new: “eyes _dim-gleaming_” (Canto I), “_soft-creeping_ murmurs” (Canto
+V), etc. Of his other types the only other noteworthy compound is the
+“past-participle” epithet in his phrase “the _amber-hued_ cascade” (Canto
+III), though a refreshing simplicity of expression is found in such lines
+as
+
+    The bull-finch whistles soft his _flute-like_ note.
+
+The poetical work of Dr. Johnson contains scarcely any instances of
+compounds, and none either newly invented or applied. “London” and “The
+Vanity of Human Wishes” have each not more than two or three instances,
+and even the four poems, in which he successively treats of the seasons,
+are almost destitute of compound epithets, “_snow-topped_ cot” (“Winter”)
+being almost the only example.
+
+There are many more instances of compound formations in the works of
+Oliver Goldsmith, most of which, like “_nut-brown_ draughts” (“Deserted
+Village,” II), “_sea-borne_ gales” (“Traveller,” 121), “_grass-grown_
+footway” (“Deserted Village,” 127), had either been long in the language,
+or had been used by earlier eighteenth century poets. There are,
+however, instances which testify to a desire to add to the descriptive
+power of the vocabulary; in “The Traveller” we find mention of “the
+_hollow-sounding_ bittern” (l. 44), “the _rocky-crested_ summits” (l.
+85), “the _yellow-blossomed_ vale” (l. 293), and the “_willow-tufted_
+bank” (l. 294). For the rest, Goldsmith’s original compounds are,
+like so many of this type, mere efforts at verbal condensation, as
+“_shelter-seeking_ peasant” (“Traveller,” 162), “_joy-pronouncing_ eye”
+(_ibid._, 10), etc.
+
+Of the more famous blank verse poems of the eighteenth century the first
+and most important was “The Seasons” of James Thomson, which appeared in
+their original form between 1726 and 1730. The originality of style, for
+which Johnson praised him,[172] is perhaps to be seen especially in his
+use of compound formations; probably no other poet has ever used them so
+freely.
+
+As a general rule, Thomson’s compounds fall into the well-defined groups
+already mentioned. He has a number of noun _plus_ noun formations (Type
+I), where the first element has usually a purely adjectival value;
+“_patriot-council_” (“Autumn,” 98), “_harvest-treasures_” (_ibid._,
+1217), as well as a few which allow him to indulge in grandiose
+periphrasis, as in the “_monarch-swain_” (“Summer,” 495) for a shepherd
+with his “_sceptre-crook_” (_ibid._, 497). These are all commonplace
+formations, but much more originality is found in his compound epithets.
+He frequently uses the noun _plus_ present participle combinations
+(Type III), “_secret-winding_, _flower-enwoven_ bowers” (“Spring,”
+1058) or “_forest-rustling_ mountains” (“Winter,” 151), etc. Moreover,
+the majority of his compounds are original, though now and then he
+has taken a “classical” compound and given it a somewhat curious
+application, as in “_cloud-compelling_ cliffs” (“Autumn,” 801). A few of
+this class are difficult to justify logically, striking examples being
+“_world-rejoicing_ state” (“Summer,” 116) for “the state of one in whom
+the world rejoices,” and “_life-sufficing_ trees” (_ibid._, 836) for
+“trees that give sustenance.”
+
+Thomson has also numerous instances of the juxtaposition of nouns
+and past-participles (Type IV): “_love-enlivened_ cheeks” (“Spring,”
+1080), “_leaf-strewn_ walks” (“Autumn,” 955), “_frost-concocted_ glebe”
+(“Winter,” 706); others of this type are somewhat obscure in meaning,
+as “_mind-illumined_ face” (“Spring,” 1042), and especially “_art
+imagination-flushed_” (“Autumn,” 140), where economy of expression is
+perhaps carried to its very limit.
+
+Thomson’s favourite method of forming compounds however is that of
+Type V, each book of “The Seasons” containing large numbers, the first
+element (_full_, _prone_, _quick_, etc.) often repeated with a variant
+second element. Sometimes constant repetition in this way produces
+the impression of a tiresome mannerism. Thus “many” joined to present
+and past-participles is used irregularly with quasi-adverbial force,
+apparently meaning “in many ways,” “many times,” or even “much,” as
+“_many-twinkling_ leaves” (“Spring,” 158), “_many-bleating_ flock”
+(_ibid._, 835), etc. In the same way the word “mazy” seems to have had
+a fascination for Thomson. Thus he has “the _mazy-running_ soul of
+melody” (“Spring,” 577), “the _mazy-running_ brook” (“Summer,” 373),
+“and _mazy-running_ clefts” (“Autumn,” 816), etc. Not all of this
+type, however, are mere mechanical formations; some have real poetic
+value and bear witness to Thomson’s undoubted gift for achieving happy
+expressive effects. Thus the “_close-embowering_ wood” (“Autumn,” 208),
+“the lonesome muse _low-whispering_” (_ibid._, 955), “the _deep-tangled_
+copse” (“Spring,” 594), “the _hollow-whispering_ breeze” (_ibid._,
+919), “the _grey-grown_ oaks” (“Summer,” 225), “_flowery-tempting_
+paths” (“Spring,” 1109), “the morn _faint-gleaming_” (“Summer,” 48),
+“_dark-embowered_ firs” (“Winter,” 813), “the winds _hollow-blustering_”
+(_ibid._, 988), “the _mossy-tinctured_ streams” (“Spring,” 380), as well
+as such passages as
+
+          the long-forgotten strain
+    At first _faint-warbled_
+
+                                                          (“Spring,” 585)
+
+and
+
+    Ships _dim-discovered_ dropping from the clouds.
+
+                                                          (“Summer,” 946)
+
+Thomson’s compound epithets with a true adverb as the first element
+(Sixth Type), such as “_north-inflated_ tempest” (“Autumn,” 892), are not
+particularly striking, and some of them are awkward and result in giving
+a harsh effect to the verse, as
+
+            goodness and wit
+    In _seldom-meeting_ harmony combined.
+
+                                                         (“Summer,” 25-6)
+
+Finally, in “The Seasons” there are to be found many examples of the
+type of compound epithet, already referred to, modelled on the form
+of a past-participle; here Thomson has achieved some of his happiest
+expressions, charged with real suggestive power.[173] Among his instances
+are such little “word-pictures” as “_rocky-channelled_ maze” (“Spring,”
+401), “the _light-footed_ dews” (“Summer,” 123); “the _keen-aired_
+mountain” (“Autumn,” 434) “the _dusky-mantled_ lawn” (_ibid._, 1088),
+“the _dewy-skirted_ clouds” (_ibid._, 961) Even when he borrows a
+felicitous epithet he is able to apply it without loss of power, as when
+he gives a new setting to Milton’s “meek-eyed” applied to “Peace” as
+an epithet for the quiet in-coming of the dawn; the “_meek-eyed_ Morn”
+(“Summer,” 47).
+
+Thomson makes good and abundant use of compound epithets, and in this
+respect, as in others he was undoubtedly a bold pioneer. His language
+itself, from our present point of view, apart from the thought and
+outlook on external nature it reflects, entitles him to that honourable
+position as a forerunner in the Romantic reaction with which he is
+usually credited. He was not content to accept the stereotyped diction
+of his day, and asserted the right of the poet to make a vocabulary for
+himself. There is thus justice in the plea that it is Thomson, rather
+than Gray, whom Wordsworth should have marked down for widening the
+breach between the language of poetry and that of prose.
+
+No doubt the prevalence of the compound epithets in “The Seasons” is
+due, to some extent at least, to the requirement of his blank verse
+line; they helped him, so to speak, to secure the maximum of effect with
+the minimum of word-power; and at times we can almost see him trying
+to give to his unrhymed decasyllabics something of the conciseness and
+polish to which Pope’s couplet had accustomed his generation. But they
+owe their appearance, of course, to other causes than the mere mechanism
+of verse. Thompson’s fondness for “swelling sound and phrase” has often
+been touched upon, and this predilection finds full scope in the compound
+epithets; they play their part in giving colour and atmosphere to “The
+Seasons,” and they announce unmistakably that the old dead, descriptive
+diction is doomed.
+
+Of the blank verse poems of the period only “The Seasons” has any real
+claim to be regarded as announcing the Romantic revolt that was soon to
+declare itself unmistakably. But three years after the appearance of
+Thomson’s final revision of his poem the first odes of William Collins
+were published, at the same time as those of Joseph Warton, whilst the
+work of Thomas Gray had already begun.
+
+There are some two score of compound formations in the poems of
+Collins, but many of these—as “_love-darting_” (“Poetic Character,” 8),
+“_soul-subduing_” (“Liberty,” 92)—date from the seventeenth century. One
+felicitous compound Collins has borrowed from James Thomson, but in doing
+so he has invested it with a new and beautiful suggestiveness. Thomson
+had written of
+
+    Ships _dim-discovered_ dropping from the clouds.
+
+                                                          (“Summer,” 946)
+
+The compound is taken by Collins and given a new beauty in his
+description of the landscape as the evening shadows gently settle upon it:
+
+    Hamlets brown and _dim-discovered_ spires
+
+                                                          (“Evening,” 37)
+
+where the poetic and pictorial force of the epithet is perhaps at its
+maximum.[174]
+
+Collins, however, has not contented himself with compounds already in the
+language; he has formed himself, apparently, almost half of the examples
+to be found in his poems. His instances of Types I, as of Types V and
+VI, are commonplace, and he has but few examples of Type II, the most
+noteworthy being “_scene-full_ world” (“Manners,” 78), where the epithet,
+irregularly formed, seems to have the meaning of “abounding in scenery.”
+Most of his instances of Type III are either to be found in previous
+writers, or are obvious formations like “_war-denouncing_ trumpets”
+(“Passions,” 43).
+
+Much more originality is evident in his examples of Type IV, which
+is apparently a favourite method with him. He has “_moss-crowned_
+fountain” (“Oriental Ecl.,” II, 24), “_sky-worn_ robes” (“Pity,”
+II), “_sedge-crowned_ sisters” (“Ode on Thomson,” 30), “_elf-shot_
+arrows” (“Popular Superstitions,” 27), etc. Some instances here are,
+strictly speaking, irregular formations, for the participles, as in
+“_sphere-descended_,” are from intransitive verbs; in other instances the
+logical relation must be expressed by a preposition such, as “_with_”
+in “_moss-crowned_,” “_sedge-crowned_”; or “_by_” in “_fancy-blest_,”
+“_elf-shot_”; or “_in_” in “_sphere-found_,” “_sky-worn_.” He has some
+half-dozen examples of Type VII, three at least of which—“_gay-motleyed_
+pinks” (“Oriental Eclogues,” III, 17), “_chaste-eyed_ Queen” (“Passions,”
+75), and “_fiery-tressed_ Dane” (“Liberty,” 97)—are apparently his own
+coinage, whilst others, such as “_rosy-lipp’d_ health” (“Evening,” 50)
+and “_young-eyed_ wit,” have been happily used in the service of the
+personifications that play so great a part in his Odes.
+
+There is some evidence that the use of compounds by certain writers
+was already being noticed in the eighteenth century as something of an
+innovation in poetical language. Thus Goldsmith, it would seem, was
+under the impression that their increasing employment, even by Gray,
+was connected in some way with the revived study of the older poets,
+especially Spenser.[175] This supposition is unfounded. Gray, it is
+true, uses a large number of compounds, found in previous writers, but
+it is chiefly from Milton—e.g. “_solemn-breathing_ airs” (“Progress
+of Poesy,” 14; cp. “Comus,” 555), “rosy-bosomed hours” (“Spring,” I),
+or from Pope—e.g. “_cloud-topped_ head” (“Bard,” 34) that he borrows.
+Moreover, he has many compounds which presumably he made for himself.
+Of Type I he has such instances as “the _seraph-wings_ of Ecstasy”
+(“Progress,” 96), “the _sapphire-blaze_” (_ibid._, 99), etc.; he has one
+original example of Type II in his “_silver-bright_ Cynthia” (“Music,”
+32), and two of Type III, when he speaks of the valley of Thames as a
+“_silver-winding_ way” (“Eton Ode,” 10), and he finds a new epithet
+for the dawn in his beautiful phrase “the _incense-breathing_ Morn”
+(Elegy XVII). Of Type IV, he has some half-dozen examples, only two of
+which, however, owe their first appearance to him—the irregularly formed
+“_feather-cinctured_ chiefs” (“Progress,” 62) and “the _dew-bespangled_
+wing” (“Vicissitude,” 2). The largest number of Gray’s compound
+epithets belong to Type V, where an adjective is used adverbially with
+a participle: “_rosy-crowned_ loves” (“Progress,” 28) and “_deep-toned_
+shell” (“Music,” 23). One of Gray’s examples of this class of compound,
+evidently formed on a model furnished by Thomson, came in for a good
+deal of censure. He speaks of “_many-twinkling_ feet” (“Progress,” 35),
+and the compound, which indeed is somewhat difficult to defend, aroused
+disapproval in certain quarters. Lyttleton was one of the first to object
+to its use, and he communicated his disapproval to Walpole, who, however,
+at once took sides for the defence. “In answer to your objection,” he
+wrote,[176] “I will quote authority to which you will yield. As Greek as
+the expression is, it struck Mrs. Garrick; and she says that Mr. Gray
+is the only poet who ever understood dancing.” Later, the objection was
+revived in a general form by Dr. Johnson. “Gray,” he says,[177] “is too
+fond of words arbitrarily compounded. ‘Many-twinkling’ was formerly
+censured as not analogical: we may say ‘_many-spotted_’ but scarcely
+‘_many_-spotting.’” The incident is not without its significance;
+from the strictly grammatical point of view the epithet is altogether
+irregular, unless the first element is admitted to be an adverb meaning
+“very much” or “many times.” But Gray’s fastidiousness of expression is
+a commonplace of criticism, and we may be sure that even when he uses
+compounds of this kind he has not forgotten his own clearly expressed
+views on the language fit and proper for poetry.
+
+Johnson also objected to another device by which Gray had sought
+to enrich the vocabulary of poetry, as reflected in his use of the
+“participal” epithet in -_ed_.[178] If this device for forming new
+epithets cannot be grammatically justified, the practice of the best
+English poets at least has always been against Johnson’s dictum, and,
+as we have seen, it has been a prolific source of original and valuable
+compound epithets. Of this type Gray has some six or seven examples, the
+majority of which, however, had long been in the language, though in the
+new epithet of “the _ivy-mantled_ tower” (Elegy IX) we may perhaps see
+an indication of the increasing Romantic sensibility towards old ruins.
+
+Though not admitted to the same high rank of poets as Collins and Gray,
+two of their contemporaries, the brothers Warton, are at least of as
+great importance in the history of the Romantic revival.[179] From our
+present point of view it is not too fanciful to see a reflection of
+this fact in the compound epithets freely used by both of the Wartons.
+Thomas Warton is especially noteworthy; probably no other eighteenth
+century poet, with the exception of James Thomson, has so many instances
+of new compound formations, and these are all the more striking in that
+few of them are of the mechanical type, readily formed by means of a
+commonplace adjective or adverb. Instances of compound substantives
+(Type I) are almost entirely lacking, and the same may be said of the
+noun _plus_ adjective epithets (Type II). There are, however, a few
+examples of Type III (noun _plus_ present participle), some of which, as
+“_beauty-blooming_ isle” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “_twilight-loving_
+bat” (_ibid._), and “the woodbines _elm-encircling_ spray” (“On a New
+Plantation”), no doubt owe something to the influence of Thomson.
+Instances of Type IV are plentiful, and here again there is a welcome
+freshness in Warton’s epithets: “Fancy’s _fairy-circled_ shrine” (“Monody
+Written near Stratford-on-Avon”), “morning’s _twilight-tinctured_
+beam” (“The Hamlet”), “_daisy-dappled_ dale” (“Sonnet on Bathing”).
+One instance of this class of compound epithet, “the _furze-clad_
+dale,” is certainly significant as indicative of the changes that were
+going on from the “classical” to the Romantic outlook towards natural
+scenery.[180]
+
+Of the other class of compound epithets, Warton has only a few instances,
+but his odes gave plenty of scope for the use of the “participial
+epithet” (Type VII), and he has formed them freely: “Pale Cynthia’s
+_silver-axled_ car” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “the _coral-cinctured_
+stole” (“Complaint of Cherwell”), “Sport, the _yellow-tressed_ boy”
+(_ibid._). No doubt many of Thomas Warton’s compound formations were the
+result of a conscious effort to find “high-sounding” terms, and they
+have sometimes an air of being merely rhetorical, as in such instances
+as “_beauty-blooming_,” “_gladsome-glistering_ green,” “_azure-arched_,”
+“_twilight-tinctured_,” “_coral-cinctured_,” “_cliff-encircled_,”
+“_daisy-dappled_,” where alliterative effects have obviously been sought.
+Yet he deserves great credit for his attempts to find new words at a time
+when the stock epithets and phrases were still the common treasury of the
+majority of his contemporaries.
+
+His brother, Joseph Warton, is less of a pioneer, but there is evident
+in his work also an effort to search out new epithets. His compounds
+include (Type II) “_marble-mimic_ gods” (“The Enthusiast”); (Type III)
+“_courage-breathing_ songs” (“Verses, 1750”), with many instances of Type
+IV, some commonplace, as “_merchant-crowded_ towns” (“Ode to Health”),
+others more original, as “mirth and youth nodding _lily-crowned_ heads”
+(“Ode to Fancy”), joy, “the _rose-crowned, ever-smiling_ boy” (“Ode
+Against Despair”), “the _beech-embowered_ cottage” (“On The Spring”).
+Moreover, there are a number in “The Enthusiast,” which reflect a genuine
+love of Nature (“_thousand-coloured_ tulips,” “_pine-topp’d_ precipice”)
+and a keen observation of its sights and sounds.
+
+It is not forcing the evidence of language too much to say that a similar
+increasing interest in external nature finds expression in some of the
+compound epithets to be found in much of the minor poetry of the period.
+Thus Moses Mendez (_d._ 1758)[181] has in his poem on the various seasons
+(1751) such conventional epithets as
+
+    On every hill the _purple-blushing_ vine,
+
+but others testify to first hand observation as
+
+    The _pool-sprung_ gnat on sounding wings doth pass.
+
+Richard Jago (1715-1781)[182], in his “Edgehill” (1767), has such
+instances as “the _woodland-shade_,” “the _wave-worn_ face,” and “the
+tillag’d plain _wide-waving_.” The Rev. R. Potter,[183] who imitated
+Spenser in his “Farewell Hymn to the Country” (1749), has happy examples
+like “_mavis-haunted_ grove” and “this _flowre-perfumed_ aire.” In
+William Whitehead’s poems[184] there are numerous formations like
+“_cloud-enveloped_ towers” (“A Hymn”) and “_rock-invested_ shades”
+(“Elegy,” IV). A few new descriptive terms appear in the work of John
+Langhorne (1735-1779),[185] “_flower-feeding_ rills” (“Visions of
+Fancy,” I), “_long-winding_ vales” (“Genius and Valour”), etc. Michael
+Bruce (1746-1767) in his “Lochleven”[186] has, e.g., “_cowslip-covered_
+banks,” and fresh observation of bird life is seen in such phrases
+as “_wild-shrieking_ gull” and “_slow-wing’d_ crane.” James Graeme
+(1749-1772)[187] has at least one new and happy compound in his line
+
+    The _blue-gray_ mist that hovers o’er the hill.
+
+                                              (“Elegy written in Spring”)
+
+John Scott (1730-1783)[188] makes more use of compound formations than
+most of his minor contemporaries. He has many instances of Type IV (noun
+_plus_ participle), including “_rivulet-water’d_ glade” (Eclogue I),
+“_corn-clad_ plain,” “_elder-shaded_ cot” (“Amwell”). His few instances
+of Type VI (e.g. “_wildly-warbled_ strain,” (“Ode” IV)), and of Type VII
+(e.g. “_trefoil-purpled_ field” (“Elegy,” III)); “_may-flower’d_ hedges”
+(“Elegy,” IV); and “_golden-clouded_ sky,” (“Ode,” II), are also worthy of
+notice.
+
+Meanwhile another aspect of the rising Romantic movement was revealing
+itself in the work of Chatterton. With the “antiquarianism” of the
+Rowley poems we are not here concerned, but the language of both the
+“original” work and of the “discovered” poems contains plenty of material
+relevant to our special topic. Chatterton, indeed, seems to have had a
+predilection for compound formations, though he has but few instances of
+compound substantives (e.g. “_coppice-valley_” (“Elegy”), and instances
+of Type II (noun _plus_ adjective) are also rare. The other types of
+epithets are, however, well represented: “_echo-giving_ bells” (“To Miss
+Hoyland”), “_rapture-speaking_ lyre” (“Song”), etc. (Type III), though it
+is perhaps in Type IV that Chatterton’s word-forming power is best shown:
+“_flower-bespangled_ hills” (“Complaint”), “_rose-hedged_ vale” (“Elegy
+at Stanton-Drew”), etc., where the first compound epithet is a new and
+suggestive descriptive term. His examples of Type V are also worth
+noting: “_verdant-vested_ trees” (“Elegy,” V), “_red-blushing_ blossom”
+“Song”), whilst one of the best of them is to be found in those lines,
+amongst the most beautiful written by Chatterton, which reflect something
+of the new charm that men were beginning to find in old historic churches
+and buildings:
+
+    To view the cross-aisles and the arches fair
+    Through the half-hidden _silver-twinkling_ glare
+    Of yon bright moon in foggy mantle dress’d.
+
+                                     (“Parliament of Sprites,” Canto XXI)
+
+The remaining examples of Chatterton’s compound formations do not
+call for much attention, though “_gently-plaintive_ rill” (“Elegy on
+Phillips”) and “_loudly-dinning_ stream” (“Ælla,” 84) are new and fresh.
+Chatterton has much of the conventional poetical language and devices of
+his time throughout his work, and his compound epithets do not in the
+mass vary much from contemporary usage in this respect. But some of them
+at least are significant of the position which he occupies in the history
+of the Romantic revival.
+
+The greatest figure in this revival, as it appears to us now, was William
+Blake, but from our present point of view he is almost negligible. It
+may safely be said that few poets of such high rank have made less
+use of compound formations: in his entire poetical work scarcely half
+a dozen instances are to be found. Yet the majority of these, such
+as “_angel-guarded bed_” (“A Dream,” 2), “_mind-forg’d_ manacles”
+(“London,” 8), “Winter’s _deep-founded_ habitation” (“Winter,” 3),
+“_softly-breathing_ song” (“Song,” 2: “Poetical Sketches”) are a
+sufficiently striking tribute to his ability to form expressive compounds
+had he felt the need. But in the beautiful purity and simplicity of his
+diction, for which he has in our own time at least received adequate
+praise, there was no place for long compound formations, which, moreover,
+are more valuable and more appropriate for descriptive poetry, and likely
+to mar the pure singing note of the lyric.
+
+It is curious to find a similar paucity of compound formations in the
+poems of George Crabbe, the whole number being well represented by
+such examples as “_dew-press’d_ vale” (“Epistle to a Friend,” 48),
+“_violet-wing’d_ Zephyrs” (“The Candidate,” 268), and “_wind-perfuming_
+flowers” (“The Choice”). No doubt the narrative character of much of
+Crabbe’s verse is the explanation of this comparative lack of compounds,
+but the descriptions of wild nature that form the background for many of
+“The Tales” might have been expected to result in new descriptive terms.
+
+Two lesser poets of the time are more noteworthy as regards our especial
+topic. William Mickle (1735-1788), in his “Almada Hill” (1781) and
+his “May Day,” as well as in his shorter poems, has new epithets for
+hills and heights, as in such phrases as “_thyme-clad_ mountains” and
+“_fir-crown’d_ hill” (“Sorcerers,” 4). His Spenserian imitation “Syr
+Martyn,” contains a few happy epithets:
+
+    How bright emerging o’er yon _broom-clad_ height
+    The silver empress of the night appears
+
+                                                           (Canto II, 31)
+
+and “_daisie-whitened_ plain,” “_crystal-streamed_ Esk” are among his new
+formations in “Eskdale Braes.”
+
+James Beattie has a large number of compounds in his poems, and though
+many of these are mechanical formations, he has a few new “nature”
+epithets which are real additions to the vocabulary of poetical
+description, as “_sky-mixed_ mountain” (“Ode to Peace,” 38), the lake
+“_dim-gleaming_” (“Minstrel,” 176), “the _wide-weltering_ waves”
+(_ibid._, 481), the wave “_loose-glimmering_” (“Judgment of Paris,” 458).
+He has also a few instances of Type VII chiefly utilized, as often with
+compounds of this type, as personifying epithets: “the frolic moments
+_purple_-pinioned” (“Judgment of Paris,” 465) and “_loose-robed_ Quiet”
+(“Triumph of Melancholy,” 64).
+
+The “Pleasures of Memory” (1792) by Samuel Rogers has one or two
+compound formations: “_moonlight-chequered_ shade” (Part II). Hope’s
+“_summer-visions_” (_ibid._) and “the _fairy-haunts_ of long-lost hours”
+(_ibid.)_, have a trace at least of that suggestive power with which
+Keats and Shelley were soon to endow their epithets. Brief reference only
+need be made to the works of Erasmus Darwin, which have already been
+mentioned as the great example of eighteenth century stock diction used
+to the utmost possible extent. He has plenty of instances of compound
+epithets of every type, but his favourite formation appears to be that
+of a noun _plus_ part-participle, as “_sun-illumined_ fane” (“Botanic
+Garden,” I, 157), “_wave-worn_ channels” (_ibid._, I, 362), and as seen
+in such lines as
+
+    Her _shell-wrack_ gardens and her _sea-fan_ bowers.
+
+                                        (“Economy of Vegetation,” VI, 82)
+
+Many of Darwin’s compounds have a certain charm of their own; in the mass
+they contribute towards that dazzling splendour with which eighteenth
+century diction here blazed out before it finally disappeared.
+
+Cowper, like Blake and Crabbe, is not especially distinguished for his
+compound epithets. Though he has a large number of such formations, very
+few of them are either new or striking, a remark which applies equally to
+his original work and his translations. Many instances of all the types
+are to be found in the “Homer,” but scarcely one that calls for special
+mention, though here and there we come across good epithets well applied:
+“accents _ardour-winged_” (IV, 239) or “_silver-eddied_ Peneus” (II, 294).
+
+Before attempting to sum up the use of compound epithets in eighteenth
+century poetry, brief reference may be made to their use in the early
+work of the two poets who announced the definite advent of the new age.
+Wordsworth in his early poems has many instance of compound words,
+most of which are either his own formations, or are rare before his
+time. The original and final drafts both of the “Evening Walk” and the
+“Descriptive Sketches” show some divergence in this respect, compounds
+found in the 1793 version being omitted later, whilst on the other new
+formations appear in the revised poems. Besides imitative instances
+such as “_cloud-piercing_ pine trees” (D.S., 63), there are more
+original and beautiful compounds, such as the “_Lip-dewing_ song and the
+_ringlet-tossing_ dance” (_ibid._, 132), which does not appear until the
+final draft.
+
+Examples of Type IV are “_holly-sprinkled_ steeps” (E.W., 10), “The
+sylvan cabin’s _lute-enlivened_ gloom” (D.S., 134, final); and of Types
+V and VI, “_green-tinged_ margin” (D.S., 122), “_clear-blue_ sky” (D.S.,
+113), “_dim-lit_ Alps” (D.S., 1793 only, 217), and “the _low-warbled_
+breath of twilight lute” (D.S., 1793, 749). Wordsworth’s early poems,
+it has been noted, are almost an epitome of the various eighteenth
+century devices for producing what was thought to be a distinctively
+poetical style,[189] but he soon shakes off this bondage, and “Guilt and
+Sorrow,” perhaps the first poem in which his simplicity and directness
+of expression are fully revealed, is practically without instances of
+compound epithets.
+
+The critics, it would appear, had already marked down as a fault a
+“profusion of new coined double epithets”[190] in a “small volume of
+juvenile poems” published by Coleridge in 1794. In replying to, or rather
+commenting on, the charge, Coleridge makes an interesting digression on
+the use of such formations, defending them on “the authority of Milton
+and Shakespeare,” and suggesting that compound epithets should only be
+admitted if they are already “denizens” of the language, or if the new
+formation is a genuine compound, and not merely two words made one by
+virtue of the hyphen. “A Language,” he adds, “which like the English
+is almost without cases, is indeed in its very genius unfitted for
+compounds. If a writer, every time a compounded word suggests itself
+to him, would seek for some other mode of expressing the same sense,
+the chances are always greatly in favour of his finding a better word.”
+Though there is a good deal of sound sense in these remarks, we have only
+to recall the wealth of beautiful compound epithets with which Keats, to
+take only one example, was soon to enrich the language, to realize that
+English poetry would be very much the poorer if the rule Coleridge lays
+down had been strictly observed. It would perhaps be truer to say that
+the imaginative quality of the compound epithets coined by a poet is a
+good test of his advance in power of expression.[191]
+
+As regards his own practice, Coleridge goes on to say[192] that
+he “pruned the double epithets with no sparing hand”; but the
+pruning was not very severe, judging from a comparison of the two
+volumes. Yet these early poems are not without examples of good
+compound epithets: “_zephyr-haunted_ brink,” (“Lines to a Beautiful
+Spring”), “_distant-tinkling_ stream” (“Song of the Pixies,” 16),
+“_sunny-tinctured_ hue” (_ibid._, 43), “_passion-warbled_ strain,” (“To
+the Rev. W. J. H.”), etc.
+
+When we review the use of compound epithets in the poetry of the
+eighteenth century we are bound to admit that in this, as in other
+aspects of the “purely poetical,” the eighteenth century stands apart
+from other periods in our literary history. Most readers could probably
+at will call to their mind half a dozen compound epithets of Shakespeare
+and the Elizabethan period, of Milton, or of more modern writers, such as
+Keats, that are, as it were, little poems in themselves, Shakespeare’s
+“_young-eyed cherubim_,” or Milton’s “_grey-hooded even_,” or Keats’s
+“_soft-conched shell_.” It is safe to say that few eighteenth century
+words or phrases of this nature have captured the imagination to a
+similar degree; Collins’s “_dim-discovered spires_” is perhaps the only
+instance that comes readily to the mind.
+
+There are, of course, as our study has shown, plenty of instances of
+good compound epithets, but in the typical eighteenth century poetry
+these are rarely the product of a genuine creative force that endows the
+phrase with imaginative life. Even the great forerunners of the Romantic
+revolt are not especially remarkable in this respect; one of the greatest
+of them, William Blake, gave scarcely a single new compound epithet to
+the language, and whilst this fact, of course, cannot be brought as a
+reproach against him, yet it is, in some respects at least, significant
+of the poetical atmosphere into which he was born. It has often been
+remarked that when Latin influence was in the ascendant the formation of
+new and striking compound epithets has been very rare in English poetry,
+whilst it has been always stimulated, as we know from the concrete
+examples of Chapman and Keats, by the influence of a revived Hellenism.
+
+Another fact is worthy of attention. Many of the most beautiful compound
+epithets in the English language are nature phrases descriptive of
+outdoor sights and sounds. The arrested development, or the atrophy of
+the sense of the beauty of the external world, which is a characteristic
+of the neo-classical school, was an unconscious but effective bar to
+the formation of new words and phrases descriptive of outdoor life. The
+neo-classical poet, with his eye fixed on the town and on life as lived
+there, felt no necessity for adding to the descriptive resources of his
+vocabulary, especially when there was to his hand a whole _gradus_ of
+accepted and consecrated words and phrases. It is in the apostles of “the
+return to Nature” that we find, however inadequately, to begin with, a
+new diction that came into being because these poets had recovered the
+use of their eyes and could sense the beauty of the world around them.
+
+And this fact leads to a further consideration of the use of compound
+epithets from the formal viewpoint of their technical value. It has
+already been suggested that their use may not be unconnected with the
+mechanism of verse, and the æsthetic poverty of eighteenth century poetry
+in this respect may therefore be not unjustly regarded as an outcome of
+the two great prevailing vehicles of expression. In the first place,
+there was the heroic couplet as brought to perfection by Pope. “The
+uniformity and maximum swiftness that marked his manipulation of the
+stopped couplet was achieved,” says Saintsbury, “not only by means of
+a large proportion of monosyllabic final words, but also by an evident
+avoidance of long and heavy vocables in the interior of the lines
+themselves.”[193] Moreover, perhaps the commonest device to secure the
+uniform smoothness of the line was that use of the “_gradus_ epithet”
+which has earlier been treated; these epithets were for the most part
+stock descriptive adjectives—_verdant_, _purling_, _fleecy_, _painted_,
+and the like—which were generally regarded by the versifiers as the only
+attendant diction of the couplet. If we compare a typical Pope verse such
+as
+
+    Let _vernal_ airs through trembling osiers play
+
+with the line already quoted,
+
+    Love-whisp’ring woods and lute-resounding waves
+
+we may perhaps see that the free use of compound epithets was not
+compatible with the mechanism of the couplet as illustrated in the
+greater part of Pope’s practice; they would tend to weaken the balanced
+antithesis, and thus spoil the swing of the line.
+
+The most formidable rival of the heroic couplet in the eighteenth
+century was blank verse, the advent of which marked the beginning of the
+Romantic reaction in form. Here Thomson may be regarded as the chief
+representative, and it is significant that the large number of compound
+epithets in his work are terms of natural description, which, in addition
+to their being a reflex of the revived attitude to natural scenery, were
+probably more or less consciously used to compensate readers for the
+absence of “the rhyme-stroke and flash” they were accustomed to look
+for in the contemporary couplet. “He utilizes periodically,” to quote
+Saintsbury again,[194] “the exacter nature-painting, which in general
+poetic history is his glory, by putting the distinctive words for colour
+and shape in notable places of the verse, so as to give it character
+and quality.” These “distinctive words for colour and shape” were, with
+Thomson, for the most part, compound epithets; almost by the time of
+“Yardley Oak,” and certainly by the time of “Tintern Abbey,” blank verse
+had been fully restored to its kingdom, and no longer needed such aid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY
+
+
+In the Preface of 1798, when Wordsworth formulated his theories with
+regard to poetical language, the first “mechanical device of style”
+against which he directed his preliminary attack was the use of
+“personifications of abstract ideas.”[195] Such personifications, he
+urged, do not make any natural or regular part of “the very language
+of men,” and as he wished “to keep the reader in the company of flesh
+and blood,” he had endeavoured “utterly to reject them.” He was ready
+to admit that they were occasionally “prompted by passion,” but his
+predecessors had come to regard them as a sort of family language, upon
+which they had every right to draw. In short, in Wordsworth’s opinion,
+abstractions and personifications had become a conventional method of
+ornamenting verse, akin to the “vicious diction,” from the tyranny of
+which he wished to emancipate poetry. The specific point on which he thus
+challenged the practice of his predecessors could hardly be gainsaid, for
+he had indicted a literary device, or artifice, which was not only worked
+to death by the mere poetasters of the period, but which disfigures not a
+little the work of even the great poets of the century.
+
+The literary use of abstraction and personification was not, it is
+needless to say, the invention of the eighteenth century. It is as old
+as literature itself, which has always reflected a tendency to interpret
+or explain natural phenomena or man’s relations with the invisible
+powers that direct or influence human conduct, by means of allegory,
+English poetry in the Middle Ages, especially that of Chaucer, Langland,
+and their immediate successors, fitly illustrates the great world
+of abstraction which had slowly come into being, a world peopled by
+personified states or qualities—the Seven Deadly Sins, the Virtues, Love,
+etc.—typifying or symbolizing the forces which help man, or beset and
+ensnare him as he makes his pilgrim’s progress through this world.
+
+Already the original motive power of allegory was considerably
+diminished, even if it had not altogether disappeared, and, by the time
+of the “Faerie Queene,” the literary form which it had moulded for itself
+had become merely imitative and conventional, so that even the music
+and melody of Spenser’s verse could not altogether vitalize the shadowy
+abstractions of his didactic allegory. With “Paradise Lost” we come to
+the last great work in which personified abstractions reflect to any real
+extent the original allegorical motive in which they had their origin.
+Milton achieves his supreme effects in personification in that his
+figures are merely suggestive, strongly imagined impressions rather than
+clean-cut figures. For nothing can be more dangerous, from the poetic
+point of view, than the precise figures which attempt to depict every
+possible point of similarity between the abstract notion and the material
+representation imagined.[196]
+
+It is sometimes considered that the mania for abstraction was due
+largely to the influence of the two poets who are claimed, or regarded,
+as the founders or leaders of the new classical school—Dryden and Pope.
+As a matter of fact, neither makes any great use of personification.
+Dryden has a few abstractions in his original works, such as,
+
+    Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife and Pride
+    And Envy did but look on
+
+                                                        (“First Epistle”)
+
+but his examples are mainly to be found in his modernizations or
+translations, where of necessity he takes them from his originals.[197]
+
+Pope makes a greater use of the figure, but even here there is no excess.
+There is not a single personification in the four pastorals of “The
+Seasons,” a subject peculiarly adapted to such treatment. In “Eloisa to
+Abelard” there are two instances where some attempt at characterization
+is made.[198] More instances, though none very striking, are to be found
+in “Windsor Forest,” but the poem ends with a massed group, forming a
+veritable catalogue of the personified vices which had done so much
+service in poetry since the days of the Seven Deadly Sins.
+
+In other poems Pope uses the device for humorous or satiric effect, as in
+the “Pain,” “Megrim,” and “Ill nature like an ancient maid” (l. 24) of
+“The Rape of the Lock;” or the “Science,” “Will,” “Logic,” etc., of “The
+Dunciad,” where all are invested with capital letters, but with little
+attempt to work up a definite picture, except, as was perhaps to be
+expected, in the case of “Dullness,” which is provided with a bodyguard
+(Bk. I, 45-52).
+
+Though, as we have already said, there is no great use of such figures in
+the works of Pope, they are present in such numbers in his satiric and
+didactic works as to indicate one great reason for their prevalence in
+his contemporaries and successors. After the Restoration, when English
+literature entered on a new era, the changed and changing conditions
+of English life and thought soon impressed themselves on poetry. The
+keynote to the understanding of much that is characteristic of this new
+“classical” literature has been well summed up in the formula that “the
+saving process of human thought was forced for generations to beggar the
+sense of beauty.”[199] The result was an invasion of poetry by ideas,
+arguments, and abstractions which were regarded both as expressing
+admirably the new spirit of rationalism, as well as constituting in
+themselves dignified subjects and ornaments of poetry.
+
+This is well illustrated in the case of several of Pope’s contemporaries.
+In the works of Thomas Parnell (1679-1718) abstractions of the
+conventional type are plentiful, usually accompanied by a qualifying
+epithet: “Fortune fair-array’d” (“An Imitation”), “Impetuous Discord,”
+“Blind Mischief,” (“On Queen Anne’s Peace”), “the soft Pathetic” (“On
+the Different Styles of Poetry”). These are only a few of the examples
+of the types favoured by Parnell, where only here and there are human
+traits added by means of qualifying epithets or phrases. In one or two
+instances, however, there are more detailed personifications. Thus,
+in the “Epistle to Dr. Swift,” which abounds in shadowy abstractions,
+Eloquence is fully described for us:
+
+    Upon her cheek sits Beauty ever young
+    The soul of music warbles on her tongue.
+
+Moreover, already in Parnell it is evident that the influence of Milton
+is responsible for some of his personifications. In the same poem we get
+the invocation:
+
+    Come! country Goddess come, nor thou suffice
+    But bring thy mountain-sister Exercise,
+
+figures which derive obviously from “L’Allegro.”
+
+In the case of Richard Savage (1696-1743) there is still greater freedom
+in the use of personified abstractions, which, as here the creative
+instinct is everywhere subjected to the didactic purpose, become very
+wearisome. The “Wanderer” contains long catalogues of them, in some
+instances pursued for over fifty lines.[200]
+
+The device continued to be very popular throughout the eighteenth
+century, especially by those who continue or represent the “Ethical”
+school of Pope. First amongst these may be mentioned Edward Young
+(1681-1765), whose “Night Thoughts” was first published between
+1742-1744. Young, like his contemporaries, has recourse to
+personifications, both for didactic purposes and apparently to add
+dignity to his style. It is probable, too, that in this respect he owes
+something to “Paradise Lost”; from Milton no doubt he borrowed his
+figure of Death, which, though poetically not very impressive, seems to
+have captured the imagination of Blake and other artists who have tried
+to depict it. The figure is at first only casually referred to in the
+Fourth Book (l. 96), where there is a brief and commonplace reference to
+“Death, that mighty hunter”; but it is not until the fifth book that the
+figure is developed. Yet, though the characterization is carried to great
+length, there is no very striking personification: we are given, instead,
+a long-drawn-out series of abstractions, with an attempt now and then to
+portray a definite human figure. Thus
+
+    Like princes unconfessed in foreign courts
+    Who travel under cover, Death assumes
+    The name and look of life, and dwells among us.
+
+And then the poet describes Death as being present always and everywhere,
+and especially
+
+        Gaily carousing, to his gay compeers
+    Inly he laughs to see them laugh at him
+    As absent far.
+
+But Young has not, like Milton, been able to conjure up a definite and
+convincing vision, and thus he never achieves anything approaching the
+overwhelming effect produced by the phantom of Death in “Paradise Lost,”
+called before us in a single verse:
+
+    So spake the grisly Terror.
+
+                                                          (P.L., II. 704)
+
+For the rest, Young’s personifications, considering the nature of his
+subject, are fewer than might be expected. Where they occur they often
+seem to owe their presence to a desire to vary the monotony of his moral
+reflections; as a result we get a number of abstractions, which may be
+called personifications only because they are sometimes accompanied by
+human attributes.
+
+Young has also certain other evocations which can scarcely be called
+abstractions, but which are really indistinct, shadowy beings, like the
+figures of a dream, as when he describes the phantom of the past:
+
+    The spirit walks of every day deceased
+    And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns
+
+                                                            (ll. 180-181)
+
+or the grief of the poet as he ever meets the shades of joys gone for
+ever:
+
+                      The ghosts
+    Of my departed joys: a numerous train.
+
+Here the poet has come near to achieving that effect which in the hands
+of the greatest poets justifies the use of personification as a poetic
+figure. The more delicate process just illustrated is distinct both from
+the lifeless abstraction and the detailed personification, for in these
+cases there is a tinge of personal emotion which invests these shadowy
+figures with something of a true lyrical effect.
+
+The tendency, illustrated in the “Night Thoughts,” to make a purely
+didactic use of personification and abstraction is found to a much
+greater extent in Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination,” first
+published in 1744, to be considerably enlarged in 1767. The nature of
+Akenside’s subject freely admitted of the use of these devices, and he
+has not been slow to avail himself of them.
+
+Large portions of the “Pleasures of the Imagination” resolve themselves
+into one long procession of abstract figures. Very often Akenside
+contents himself with the usual type of abstraction, accompanied by a
+conventional epithet: “Wisdom’s form celestial” (I, 69), “sullen Pomp”
+(III, 216), etc., though sometimes by means of human attributes or
+characteristics we are given partial personifications such as:
+
+    Power’s purple robes nor Pleasure’s flowery lap.
+
+                                                                 (l. 216)
+
+And occasionally there are traces of a little more imagination:
+
+            thy lonely whispering voice
+    O faithful Nature![201]
+
+But on the whole it is clear that with Akenside abstraction and
+personification are used simply and solely for moral and didactic
+purposes, and not because of any perception of their potential artistic
+value. Incidentally, an interesting side-light on this point is revealed
+by one of the changes introduced by the poet into his revision of his
+chief work. In the original edition of 1740 there is an invocation to
+Harmony (Bk. I, ll. 20 foll.), with her companion,
+
+    Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come
+    Her sister Liberty will not be far.
+
+Before the publication of the revised edition, Akenside, who at one time
+had espoused the cause of liberty with such ardour as to lead to his
+being suspected of republicanism, received a Court appointment. In the
+revised edition the concluding lines of the invocation became
+
+                    for with thee comes
+    The guide, the guardian of their majestic rites
+    Wise Order and where Order deigns to come
+    Her sister Liberty will not be far.
+
+                                                              (138 foll.)
+
+The same lavish use of abstractions is seen, not only in the philosophic
+poetry proper, but also in other works, which might perhaps have been
+expected to escape the contagion. Charles Churchill (1731-1764), if we
+set aside Johnson and Canning, may be regarded as representing eighteenth
+century satire in its decline, after the great figures of Pope and Swift
+have disappeared from the scene, and among the causes which prevent his
+verse from having but little of the fiery force and sting of the great
+masters of satire is that, instead of the strongly depicted, individual
+types of Pope, for example, we are given a heterogeneous collection
+of human virtues, vices, and characteristics, most often in the form
+of mere abstractions, sometimes personified into stiff, mechanical
+figures.[202] Only once has Churchill attempted anything novel in the
+way of personification, and this in humorous vein, when he describes the
+social virtues:
+
+    With belly round and full fat face,
+    Which on the house reflected grace,
+    Full of good fare and honest glee,
+    The steward Hospitality.
+
+Churchill had no doubt a genuine passion for poetry and independence,
+but the _saeva indignatio_ of the professed censor of public morals and
+manners cannot be conveyed to the reader through the medium of mechanical
+abstractions which, compared with the flesh-and-blood creations of Dryden
+and Pope, show clearly that for the time being the great line of English
+satire has all but come to an end.
+
+Eighteenth century ethical poetry was represented at this stage by
+Johnson and Goldsmith, at whose work it will now be convenient to
+glance. The universal truths which Johnson as a stern, unbending
+moralist wished to illustrate in “London” (1738) and “The Vanity of
+Human Wishes” (1749), might easily have resulted in a swarm of the
+abstractions and personifications fashionable at the time.[203] From this
+danger Johnson was saved by the depth of feeling with which he unfolds
+the individual examples chosen to enforce his moral lessons. Not that
+he escapes entirely; “London” has a few faint abstractions (“Malice,”
+“Rapine,” “Oppression”); but though occasionally they are accompanied
+by epithets suggesting human attributes (“surly Virtue,” “persecuting
+Fate,” etc.), as a rule there is no attempt at definite personification,
+a remark which also applies to the “Vanity of Human Wishes.” In his
+odes to the different seasons he has not given, however, any elaborate
+personifications, but has contented himself with slight human touches,
+such as
+
+    Now Autumn bends a cloudy brow.
+
+Of Johnson’s poetical style, regarded from our present point of view, it
+may be said to be well represented in the famous line from “London”:
+
+    Slow rises Worth by Poverty depressed,
+
+where there is probably no intention or desire to personify at all, but
+which is a result of that tendency towards Latin condensation which the
+great Doctor and his contemporaries had introduced into English prose.
+
+Goldsmith’s poetry has much in common with that of Johnson, in that both
+deal to some extent with what would now be called social problems. But it
+is significant of Goldsmith’s historical position in eighteenth century
+poetry as representing a sort of “half-way attitude,” in the matter of
+poetical style, between the classical conventional language and the
+free and unfettered diction advocated by Wordsworth, that there are few
+examples of personified abstractions in his works, and these confined
+mainly to one passage in “The Traveller”:
+
+    Hence Ostentation here with tawdry Art
+    Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart, etc.
+
+At this point it is necessary to hark back for the purpose of considering
+other works which had been appearing alongside of the works just
+discussed. It has already been remarked that in this matter of the use of
+abstraction and personification the influence of Milton early asserted
+itself, and there can be no doubt that a good deal of it may be traced
+to the influence more especially of the early poems. Indeed, the blank
+verse poems, which attempted to imitate or parody the “grand style” of
+the great epics, furnish few examples of the personified abstraction.
+The first of these, the “Splendid Shilling” and “Cyder” of John Philips
+(1705-1706) contains but few instances. In Somerville’s “Chase” there is
+occasionally a commonplace example, such as “brazen-fisted Time,” though
+in his ode “To Marlborough” he falls into the conventional style quickly
+enough. In the rest of the blank verse poems Mallet’s “Excursion” (1738),
+and his “Amyntor and Theodora” (1744), comparatively little use is made
+of the device, a remark also applicable to Dyer’s “Ruins of Rome” (1740),
+and to Grainger’s “Sugar Cane” (1764).
+
+The fashion for all these blank verse poems had been started largely by
+the success of “The Seasons,” which appeared in its original form from
+1726 to 1730, to undergo more than one revision and augmentation until
+the final edition of 1744. Though Thomson’s work shows very many traces
+of the influence of Milton, there is no direct external evidence that
+his adoption of blank verse was a result of that influence. Perhaps, as
+has been suggested,[204] he was weary of the monotony of the couplet,
+or at least considered its correct and polished form incapable of any
+further development. At the same time it is clear that having adopted
+“rhyme-unfettered verse,” he chose to regard Milton as a model of
+diction and style, though he was by no means a slavish imitator.
+
+With regard to the special problems with which we are here concerned,
+it must be noted that when Thomson was first writing “The Seasons,” the
+device of personified abstraction had not become quite so conventional
+and forced in its use as at a later date. Nevertheless examples of the
+typical abstraction are not infrequent; thus, in an enumeration of the
+passions which, since the end of the “first fresh dawn,” have invaded
+the hearts and minds of men, we are given “Base Envy,” withering at
+another’s joy; “Convulsive Anger,” storming at large; and “Desponding
+Fear,” full of feeble fancies, etc. (“Spring,” 280-306). Other examples
+are somewhat redeemed by the use of a felicitous compound epithet, “Art
+imagination-flushed” (“Autumn,” 140), “the lonesome Muse, low-whispering”
+(_ibid._, 955), etc. In “Summer” (ll. 1605 foll.) the poet presents one
+of the usual lists of abstract qualities (“White Peace, Social Love,”
+etc.), but there are imaginative touches present that help to vitalize
+some at least of the company into living beings:
+
+    The tender-looking Charity intent
+    On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles—
+
+and the passage is thus a curious mixture of mechanical abstractions with
+more vivid and inspired conceptions.
+
+Occasionally Thomson employs the figure with ironical or humorous
+intention, and sometimes not ineffectively, as in the couplet,
+
+    Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst
+    Produce the mighty bowl.
+
+                                                          (“Autumn,” 512)
+
+He is also fond of the apostrophic personification, often feebly, as
+when, acting upon a suggestion from Mallet,[205] he writes:
+
+    Comes, Inspiration, from thy hermit seat,
+    By mortal seldom found, etc.
+
+                                                        (“Summer,” l. 15)
+
+As for the seasons themselves, we do not find any very successful
+attempts at personification. Thomson gives descriptive impressions rather
+than abstractions: “gentle Spring, ethereal mildness” (“Spring,” 1),
+“various-blossomed Spring” (“Autumn,” 5); or borrowing, as often, an
+epithet from Milton, “refulgent Summer” (“Summer,” 2); or “surly Winter”
+(“Spring,” 11).
+
+But in these, and similar passages, the seasons can hardly be said
+to be distinctly pictured or personified. In “Winter,” however,
+there is perhaps a more successful attempt at vague but suggestive
+personification:[206]
+
+    See Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
+    Sullen and sad, with all his rising train
+    Vapours, and clouds and storms.
+
+But on the whole Thomson’s personifications of the seasons are not,
+poetically, very impressive. There is little or no approach to the
+triumphant evocation with which Keats conjures up Autumn for us, with
+all its varied sights and sounds, and its human activities vividly
+personified in the gleaner and the winnower
+
+        sitting careless on a granary floor
+    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,
+
+or the couplet in which Coleridge brings before us a subtle suggestion
+of the spring beauty, to which the storms and snows are but a prelude:
+
+    And winter, slumbering in the open air
+    Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring.
+
+                                                    (“Work without Hope”)
+
+Yet Thomson, as might be expected in a forerunner of the Romantic school,
+is not altogether without a gift for these embryonic personifications,
+as they have been called, when by means of a felicitous term or epithet
+the whole conception which the poet has in mind is suddenly galvanized
+into life and endowed with human feelings and emotions. Such evocations
+are of the very stuff of which poetry is made, and at their highest
+they possess the supreme power of stirring or awakening in the mind of
+the reader other pictures or visions than those suggested by the mere
+personification.[207]
+
+Though some of Thomson’s instances are conventional or commonplace, as in
+the description of
+
+                the grey grown oaks
+    That the calm village in their verdant arms
+    Sheltering, embrace,
+
+                                                      (“Summer,” 225-227)
+
+and others merely imitative, as,
+
+                  the rosy-footed May
+    Steals blushing on,
+
+                                                      (“Spring,” 489-490)
+
+yet there are many which call up by a single word a vivid and picturesque
+expression, such as the “hollow-whispering breeze” (“Summer,” 919) or the
+poet’s description of the dismal solitude of a winter landscape
+
+                  It freezes on
+    Till Morn, late rising o’er the drooping world
+    Lifts her pale eyes unjoyous
+
+                                                          (“Winter,” 744)
+
+or the beautiful description of a spring dawn:
+
+    The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews
+    At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.
+
+                                                        (“Summer,” 48-49)
+
+Adverting to the question of Milton’s influence on the prevalent mania
+for personification, it is undoubted that the early poems may be held
+largely responsible. Their influence first began noticeably to make
+itself felt in the fifth decade of the century, when their inspiration
+is to be traced in a great deal of the poetic output of the period,
+including that of Joseph and Thomas Warton, as well as of Collins and
+Gray. Neglecting for the moment the greater poets who drew inspiration
+from this source, it will be as well briefly to consider first the
+influence of Milton’s minor poems on the obscure versifiers, for it
+is very often the case that the minor poetry of an age reflects most
+distinctly the peculiarities of a passing literary fashion. As early as
+1739 William Hamilton of Bangour[208] imitated Milton in his octosyllabic
+poem “Contemplation,” and by his predilection for abstraction
+foreshadowed one of the main characteristics of the Miltonic revival
+among the lesser lights. A single passage shows this clearly enough:
+
+    Anger with wild disordered pace
+    And malice pale of famish’d face:
+    Loud-tongued Clamour get thee far
+    Hence, to wrangle at the bar:
+
+and so on.
+
+Five or six years later Mason’s Miltonic imitations appeared—“Il
+Bellicoso” and “Il Pacifico”—which follow even more slavishly the style
+of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” so that there is no need for Mason’s
+footnote to “Il Bellicoso” describing the poem with its companion piece
+as this “very, very juvenile imitation.”[209] “Il Bellicoso” begins with
+the usual dismissal:
+
+    Hence, dull lethargic Peace
+    Born in some hoary beadsman’s cell obscure,
+
+and subsequently we are introduced to Pleasure, Courage, Victory, Fancy,
+etc. There is a similar exorcism in “Il Pacifico,” followed by a faint
+personification of the subject of the ode, attended by a “social smiling
+train” of lifeless abstractions.
+
+The pages of Dodsley[210] furnish abundant testimony to the prevalence
+of this kind of thing. Thus “Penshurst”[211] by F. Coventry is
+another close imitation of Milton’s companion poems, with the usual
+crowd of abstractions. The same thing is met with in the anonymous
+“Vacation,”[212] and in the “Valetudinarian,” said to be written by Dr.
+Marriott.[213]
+
+It is unnecessary to illustrate further the Milton vogue, which thus
+produced so large a crop of imitations,[214] except to say that there is
+significant testimony to the widespread prevalence of the fashion in the
+fact that a parody written “in the Allegoric, Descriptive, Alliterative,
+Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and Diabolical Style of our
+modern Ode writers and monody-mongers”[215] soon appeared. This was
+the anonymous “Ode to Horror,” a humorous burlesque, especially of the
+“Pleasures of Melancholy.” The Wartons stand high above the versifiers at
+whose productions we have just looked, but nevertheless there was some
+justification for the good-humoured parody called forth by their works.
+
+In 1746 there appeared a small volume entitled “Odes on Various
+Subjects,” a collection of fourteen odes by Joseph Warton.[216] The
+influence of Milton is especially seen in the odes “To Fancy,” “To
+Health,” and to “The Nightingale,” but all betray definitely the source
+of their inspiration. Thus in the first named:
+
+    Me, Goddess, by the right hand lead
+    Sometimes thro’ the yellow mead
+    Where Joy and White-robed Peace resort
+    And Venus keeps her festive court.
+
+All the odes of Warton betray an abundant use of abstractions, in the
+midst of which he rarely displays anything suggestive of spontaneous
+inspiration. His few personifications of natural powers are clearly
+imitative. “Evening” is “the meek-eyed Maiden clad in sober gray” and
+Spring comes
+
+    array’d in primrose colour’d robe.
+
+We feel all the time that the poet drags in his stock of personified
+abstractions only because he is writing odes, and considers that such
+devices add dignity to his subject.
+
+At the same time it is worth noting that almost the same lavish use of
+these lay figures occurs in his blank verse poem, “The Enthusiast,” or
+“The Lover of Nature” (1740), likewise written in imitation of Milton,
+and yet in its prophetic insight so important a poem in the history of
+the Romantic revival.[217] Lines such as
+
+            Famine, Want and Pain
+    Sunk to their graves their fainting limbs
+
+are frequent, while there is a regular procession of qualities, more
+or less sharply defined, but not poetically suggestive enough to be
+effective.
+
+The younger of the two brothers, Thomas Warton, who by his critical
+appreciation of Spenser did much in that manner to help forward the
+Romantic movement, was perhaps still more influenced by Milton. His ode
+on “The Approach of Summer” shows to what extent he had taken possession
+of the verse, language, and imagery of Milton:
+
+        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.
+
+But nearly all his poems provide numerous instances of personified
+abstraction, especially the lines “Written at Vale Abbey,” which seems
+to exhaust, and present as thin abstractions, the whole gamut of human
+virtues and vices, emotions and desires.[218]
+
+There is a certain irony in the fact that the two men who, crudely,
+perhaps, but nevertheless unmistakably, adumbrated the Romantic doctrine,
+should have been among the foremost to indulge in an excess against
+which later the avowed champion of Romanticism was to inveigh with all
+his power. This defect was perhaps the inevitable result of the fact
+that the Wartons had apparently been content in this respect to follow
+a contemporary fashion as revealed in the swarm of merely mechanical
+imitations of Milton’s early poems. But their subjects were on the whole
+distinctly romantic, and this fact, added to their critical utterances,
+gives them real historical importance. Above all, it is to be remembered
+that they have for contemporaries the two great poets in whom the
+Romantic movement was for the first time adequately exemplified—William
+Collins and Thomas Gray.
+
+The first published collection of Collins’s work, “Odes on Several
+Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects” (1746), was, as we have seen, if
+not neglected or ignored by the public, at least received with marked
+indifference, owing largely no doubt to the abstract nature of his
+subjects, and the chiselled severity of his treatment.[219] In other
+words, Collins was pure classical and not neo-classical; he had gone
+direct back to the “gods of Hellas” for his inspiration, and his verse
+had a Hellenic austerity and beauty which could make little or no appeal
+to his own age. At the same time it was permeated through and through
+with new and striking qualities of feeling and emotion that at once
+aroused the suspicions of the neo-classicists, with Johnson as their
+mentor and spokesman. The “Odes” were then, we may say, classical in form
+and romantic in essence, and it is scarcely a matter for surprise that a
+lukewarm reception should have been their lot.[220]
+
+Collins has received merited praise for the charm and precision of his
+diction generally, and the fondness for inverting the common order of
+his words—Johnson’s chief criticism of his poetical style[221]—is to
+the modern mind a venial offence compared with his use of personified
+abstractions. On this point Johnson has nothing to say, an omission which
+may be regarded as significant of the extent to which personification had
+invaded poetry, for the critic, if we may judge from his silence, seems
+to have considered it natural and legitimate for Collins also to have
+made abundant use of this stock and conventional device.
+
+It is probable, however, that the extensive use which Collins makes of
+the figure is the result in a large measure of his predilection for the
+ode—a form of verse very fashionable towards the middle of the century.
+As has already been noted, odes were being turned out in large numbers
+by the poetasters of the time, in which virtues and vices, emotions and
+passions were invoked, apostrophized, and dismissed with appropriate
+gestures, and it is probable that the majority of these turgid and
+ineffective compositions owed their appearance to the prevalent mania for
+personification. Young remarked with truth[222] that an ode is, or ought
+to be, “more spontaneous and more remote from prose” than any other kind
+of poetry; and doubtless it was some vague recognition of this fact, and
+in the hope of “elevating” their style, that led the mere versifiers to
+adopt the trick. But as they worked the mechanical personification to
+death, they quickly robbed it of any impressiveness it may ever have had.
+
+This might quite fairly be described as the state of affairs with regard
+to the use of personified abstraction when Collins was writing his
+“odes,” but while it is true that he indulges freely in personification,
+it is scarcely necessary to add that he does so with a difference; his
+Hellenic training and temperament naturally saved him from the inanities
+and otiosities of so much contemporary verse. To begin with, there are
+but few examples of the lifeless abstraction, and even in such cases
+there is usually present a happy epithet, or brief description that sets
+them on a higher level than those that swarm even in the odes of the
+Wartons. Thus in the “Ode on the Poetical Character,” “the shadowy tribes
+of mind,” which had been sadly overworked by Collins’s predecessors and
+contemporaries, are brought before us with a new and fresh beauty that
+wins instant acceptance for them:
+
+    But near it sat ecstatic Wonder
+    Listening the deep applauding thunder
+    And truth in sunny vest arrayed
+    By whom the tassel’s eyes were made
+    All the shadowy tribes of mind
+    In braided dance their murmurs joined.
+
+Instances of the mechanical type so much in favour are, however, not
+lacking, as in this stanza from the “Verses” written about bride-cake:
+
+    Ambiguous looks that scorn and yet relent,
+    Denial mild and firm unaltered truth,
+    Reluctant pride and amorous faint consent
+    And melting ardours and exulting youth.[223]
+
+The majority of Collins’s personified abstractions are, however, vague
+in outline, that is to say, they suggest, but do not define, and are
+therefore the more effective in that the resulting images are almost
+evanescent in their delicacy. Thus in the “Ode to Pity” the subject is
+presented to us in magic words:
+
+    Long pity, let the nations view
+    Thy sky-worn robes of tender blue
+        And eyes of dewy light,
+
+whilst still another imaginative conception is that of “Mercy”:
+
+        who sitt’st a smiling bride
+    By Valour’s armed and awful side
+    Gentlest of sky-born forms and best adorned.
+
+The “Ode to the Passions” is in itself almost an epitome of the various
+ways in which Collins makes use of personification. It is first to be
+noted that he rarely attempts to clothe his personifications in long and
+elaborate descriptions; most often they are given life and reality by
+being depicted, so to speak, moving and acting:
+
+    Revenge impatient rose,
+    He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,
+    And with a withering look
+    The war-denouncing trumpet took;
+    Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien
+    Whilst his strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.
+
+Even the figures, seen as it were but for a moment, are flashed before us
+in this manner:
+
+        With woful measures wan Despair
+    Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled
+
+and
+
+    Dejected Pity at his side
+    Her soul-subduing voice applied
+
+and the vision of hope with “eyes so fair” who
+
+    smiled and waved her golden hair.
+
+In this ode Collins gives us also imaginative cameos, we might call them,
+vividly delineated and presented like the figures on the Grecian urn that
+inspired Keats. Thus:
+
+    While as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
+    Love framed with mirth a gay fantastic round.
+
+and, with its tinge of probably unconscious humour—
+
+        Brown exercise rejoiced to hear,
+    And Sport leapt up and seized his beechen spear.
+
+From these and similar instances, we receive a definite impression of
+that motion, which is at the same time repose, so characteristic of
+classical sculptuary.
+
+Most of the odes considered above are addressed to abstractions. In the
+few instances where Collins invokes the orders or powers of nature even
+greater felicity is shown in the art with which he calls up and clothes
+in perfect expression his abstract images. The first of the seasons is
+vaguely but subtly suggested to us in the beautiful ode beginning “How
+sleep the brave”:
+
+          When Spring with dewy fingers cold
+    Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
+        She there shall dress a sweeter sod
+    Than fancy’s feet have ever trod.
+
+This is rather a simile than a personification, but yet there is conveyed
+to us a definite impression of a shadowy figure that comes to deck the
+earth with beauty, like a young girl scattering flowers as she walks
+along.
+
+But the workmanship of Collins in this respect is seen in its perfection
+in the “Ode to Evening.” There is no attempt to draw a portrait or chisel
+a statue; the calm, restful influence of evening, its sights and sounds
+that radiate peace and contentment, even the very soul of the landscape
+as the shades of night gather around, are suggested by master touches,
+whilst the slow infiltration of the twilight is beautifully suggested:
+
+    Thy dewy fingers draw
+    The gradual dusky veil.
+
+The central figure is still the same evanescent being, the vision of a
+maiden, endowed with all the grace of beauty and dignity, into whose lap
+“sallow Autumn” is pouring his falling leaves, or who now goes her way
+slowly through the tempest, while
+
+    Winter, yelling through the troublous air
+    Affrights thy shrinking train,
+    And rudely rends thy robe.
+
+If we had no other evidence before us, Collins’s use of personified
+abstraction would be sufficient in itself to announce that the new poetry
+had begun. He makes use of the device as freely, and even now and then
+as mechanically, as the inferior versifiers of his period, but instead
+of the bloodless abstractions, his genius enabled him to present human
+qualities and states in almost ethereal form. Into them he has breathed
+such poetic life and inspiration that in their suggestive beauty and
+felicity of expression they stand as supreme examples of personification
+used as a legitimate poetical device, as distinct from a mere rhetorical
+figure or embellishment.
+
+This cannot be said of Gray, in whose verse mechanical personifications
+crowd so thickly that, as Coleridge observed in his remarks on the lines
+from “The Bard,”
+
+    In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes
+    Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm
+
+it depends “wholly on the compositors putting or not putting a small
+Capital, both in this and in many other passages of the same poet,
+whether the words should be personifications or mere abstractions.”[224]
+
+It is difficult to account for this devotion of Gray to the “new
+Olympus,” thickly crowded with “moral deities” that his age had brought
+into being, except on the assumption that contemporary usage in this
+respect was too strong for him to resist. For it cannot be denied that
+very many of the beings that swarm in his odes do not differ in their
+essential character from the mechanical figures worked to death by the
+ode-makers of his days; even his genius was not able to clothe them
+all in flesh and blood. In the “Eton College” ode there is a whole
+stanza given over to a conventional catalogue of the “fury passions,”
+the “vultures of the mind”; and similar thin abstractions people all
+the other odes. Nothing is visualized: we see no real image before
+us.[225] Even the famous “Elegy” is not without its examples of stiff
+personification, though they are not present in anything like the excess
+found elsewhere. The best that can be said for abstractions of this kind
+is that in their condensation they represent an economy of expression
+that is not without dignity and effectiveness, and they thus sometimes
+give an added emphasis to the sentiment, as in the oft-quoted
+
+        Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
+    Their homely joys and destiny secure,
+        Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
+    The short and simple annals of the poor.
+
+Gray rarely attempts to characterize his figures other than by the
+occasional use of a conventional epithet, and only here and there has the
+personification been to any extent filled in so as to form at least an
+outline picture. In the “Hymn to Adversity,” Wisdom is depicted
+
+          in sable garb arrayed
+    Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
+
+whilst other slight human touches are to be found here and there: as
+in “Moody Madness, laughing wild” (“Ode on a Distant Prospect”). His
+personifications, however, have seldom the clear-cut outlines we find
+in Collins, nor do they possess more than a tinge of the vividness and
+vitality the latter could breathe into his abstractions. Yet now and then
+we come across instances of the friezes in which Collins excels, moving
+figures depicted as in Greek plastic art
+
+          Antic sports and blue-eyed Pleasures,
+    Frisking light in frolic measures
+
+                                                    (“Progress of Poesy”)
+
+or the beautiful vision in the “Bard,”
+
+        Bright Rapture calls and soaring as she sings,
+    Waves in the eyes of heaven her many-coloured wings.
+
+And in the “Ode on Vicissitude” Gray has one supreme example of the
+embryonic personification, when the powers or orders of nature are
+invested with human attributes, and thus brought before us as living
+beings, in the form of vague but suggestive impressions that leave to the
+imagination the task of filling in the details:
+
+        Now the golden Morn aloft
+    Waves her dew-bespangled wing
+    With vernal cheek and whisper soft
+        She woos the tardy spring.
+
+But in the main, and much more than the poet with whom his name is
+generally coupled, it is perhaps not too much to say that Gray was
+content to handle the device in the same manner as the uninspired
+imitators of the “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.” Not that he was
+unaware of the danger of such a tendency in himself and others. “I
+had rather,” he wrote to Mason[226] when criticizing the latter’s
+“Caractacus,” “some of the personages—‘Resignation,’ ‘Peace,’ ‘Revenge,’
+‘Slaughter,’ ‘Ambition’—were stripped of their allegorical garb. A
+little simplicity here and there in the expression would better prepare
+the high and fantastic harpings that follow.” In the light of this most
+salutary remark, Gray’s own procedure is only the more astonishing. His
+innumerable personifications may not have been regarded by Johnson as
+contributory to “the kind of cumbrous splendour” he wished away from the
+odes, but the fact that they are scarce in the “Elegy” is not without
+significance. The romantic feeling which asserts itself clearly in the
+odes, the new imaginative conceptions which these stock figures were
+called upon to convey, the perfection of the workmanship—these qualities
+were more than sufficient to counterweigh Gray’s licence of indulgence in
+a mere rhetorical device. Yet Coleridge was right in calling attention
+to this defect of Gray’s style, especially as his censure is no mere
+diatribe against the use of personified abstraction: it is firmly and
+justly based on the undeniable fact that Gray’s personifications are for
+the most part cold and lifeless, that they are mere verbal abstractions,
+utterly devoid of the redeeming vitality, which Collins gives to his
+figures.[227] It is for this reason perhaps that his poetry in the
+mass has never been really popular, and that the average reader, with
+his impatience of abstractions, has been content, with Dr. Johnson, to
+pronounce boldly for “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”
+
+Before proceeding to examine the works of the other great poets who
+announce or exemplify the Romantic revival, it will be convenient at
+this point to look at some of the Spenserian imitations, which helped to
+inspire and vitalize the revival.
+
+Spenser was the poet of mediaeval allegory. In the “Faerie Queene,”
+for the first time a real poet, endowed with the highest powers of
+imagination and expression, was able to present the old traditional
+abstractions wonderfully decked up in a new and captivating guise. The
+personages that move like dream figures through the cantos of the poem
+are thus no mere personified abstractions: they are rather pictorial
+emblems, many of which are limned for us with such grandeur of conception
+and beauty of execution as to secure for the allegorical picture a
+“willing suspension of disbelief,” whilst the essentially romantic
+atmosphere more than atones for the cumbrous and obsolete machinery
+adopted by Spenser to inculcate the lessons of “virtuous and gentle
+discipline.”
+
+Though the eighteenth century Spenserians make a plentiful use of
+personified abstraction, on the whole their employment of this device
+differs widely from its mechanical use by most of their contemporaries:
+in the best of the imitations there are few examples of the lifeless
+abstraction. Faint traces at least of the music and melody of the “Faerie
+Queene” have been caught and utilized to give a poetic charm even to
+the personified virtues and vices that naturally appear in the work of
+Spenser’s imitators. Thus in William Thompson’s “Epithalamium” (1736),
+while many of the old figures appear before us, they have something of
+the new charm with which Collins was soon to invest them. Thus,
+
+    Liberty, the fairest nymph on ground
+      The flowing plenty of her growing hair
+    Diffusing lavishly ambrosia round
+    Earth smil’d, and Gladness danc’d along the sky.
+
+The epithets which accompany the abstractions are no longer conventional
+(“Chastity meek-ey’d,” “Modesty sweet-blushing”) and help to give touches
+of animation to otherwise inanimate figures. In the “Nativity” (1757)
+there is a freer use of the mere abstraction that calls up no distinct
+picture, but even here there are happy touches that give relief:
+
+      Faith led the van, her mantle dipt in blue,
+    Steady her ken, and gaining on the skies.
+
+In the “Hymn to May” (1787) Thompson personified the month whose charms
+he is singing, the result being a radiant figure, having much in common
+with the classical personifications of the orders or powers of nature:
+
+    A silken camus, em’rald green
+    Gracefully loose, adown her shoulder flow.
+
+In Shenstone’s “Schoolmistress” (1737-1742) instances of personification
+are rare, and, where they do occur, are merely faint abstractions like
+“Learning near her little dome.” It is noteworthy that one of the most
+successful of the Spenserian imitations should have dispensed with the
+cumbrous machinery of abstract beings that, on the model of the “Faerie
+Queene,” might naturally have been drawn upon. The homely atmosphere of
+the “Schoolmistress,” with its idyllic pictures and its gentle pathos,
+would, indeed, have been fatally marred by their introduction.
+
+The same sparing use of personification is evident in the greatest of
+the imitations, James Thomson’s “Castle of Indolence” (1748). A theme
+of this nature afforded plenty of opportunity to indulge in the device,
+and Thomson, judging from its use of the figure in some of his blank
+verse poems, might have been expected to take full advantage. But there
+are less than a score of examples in the whole of the poem. Only vague
+references are made to the eponymous hero: he is simply “Indolence” or
+“tender Indolence” or “the demon Indolence.” For the rest Thomson’s few
+abstractions are of the stock type, though occasionally more realistic
+touches result, we may suppose, from the poet’s sense of humour as
+
+    The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cock.
+
+Only here and there has Thomson attempted full-length portraits in the
+Spenserian manner, as when Lethargy, Hydropsy, and Hypochondria are
+described with drastic realism.[228]
+
+The works of the minor Spenserians show a greater use of personified
+abstraction, but even with them there is no great excess. Moreover,
+where instances do occur, they show imaginative touches foreign to the
+prevalent types. Thus in the “Vision of Patience” by Samuel Boyce (d.
+1778),
+
+    Silence sits on her untroubled throne
+    As if she left the world to live and reign alone,
+
+while Patience stands
+
+    In robes of morning grey.
+
+Occasionally the personified abstractions, though occurring in
+avowedly Spenserian imitations, obviously owe more to the influence of
+“L’Allegro”; as in William Whitehead’s “Vision of Solomon” (1730), where
+the embroidered personifications are much more frequent than the detailed
+images given by Spenser.[229]
+
+The work of Chatterton represents another aspect of this revival of the
+past, but it is curious to find that, in his acknowledged “original”
+verse there are not many instances of the personified abstraction,
+whilst they are freely used in the Rowley poems. Where they do occur
+in his avowedly original work they are of the usual type, though more
+imaginative power is revealed in his personification of Winter:
+
+    Pale rugged Winter bending o’er his tread,
+    His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew:
+    His eyes a dusky light congealed and dead,
+    His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.
+
+From our special point of view the “antiquarianism” of the Rowley
+poems might almost be disproved by the prevalence of abstractions and
+personifications, which in most instances are either unmistakably of
+the eighteenth century or which testify to the new Romantic atmosphere
+now manifesting itself. The stock types of frigid abstraction are all
+brought on the stage in the manner of the old Moralities, and each is
+given an ample speaking part in order to describe his own characteristics.
+
+But in addition to these lifeless abstractions, there are to be
+found in the Rowley poems a large number of detailed and elaborate
+personifications. Some of these are full length portraits in the
+Spenserian manner, and now and then the resulting personification is
+striking and beautiful, as when, in “Ælla” (59), Celmond apostrophizes
+Hope, or the evocation of Truth in “The Storie of William Canynge.”
+
+Chatterton has also in these poems a few personifications of natural
+powers, but these are mainly imitative as in the lines (“Ælla,” 94)
+reminiscent of Milton and Pope[230]:
+
+    Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight
+    From the red east he flitted with his train,
+    The hours drew away the robe of night,
+    Her subtle tapestry was rent in twain.
+
+But the evocation of the seasons themselves, as in “Ælla” (32),
+
+    When Autumn sere and sunburnt doth appear
+      With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf
+    Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year
+      Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf,
+
+conveys a fresh and distinct picture that belongs to the new poetry, and
+has in it a faint forecast of Keats.
+
+It remains to look at the work of the later eighteenth century poets,
+who announce that if the Romantic outburst is not yet, it is close at
+hand. The first and greatest of these is William Blake. His use of
+personification in the narrower sense which is our topic, is, of course,
+formally connected with the large and vital question of his symbolism, to
+treat of which here in any detail is not part of our scheme.
+
+In its widest sense, however, Blake’s mysticism may be connected with
+the great mediaeval world of allegory: it is “an eddy of that flood-tide
+of symbolism which attained its tide-mark in the magic of the Middle
+Ages.”[231] But the poet himself unconsciously indicates the vital
+distinction between the new symbolism, which he inaugurates, and the
+old, of which the personified abstractions of his eighteenth century
+predecessors may be regarded as faint and faded relics. “Allegory
+addressed to the intellectual powers,” he wrote to Thomas Butts,[232]
+“while it is altogether hidden from the corporeal understanding, is my
+definition of the most surprising poetry.”
+
+On its formal side, and reduced to its simplest expression, we may narrow
+down for our present purpose the whole system to the further distinction
+drawn by Blake between Allegory and Vision. Allegory is “formed by the
+daughters of Memory” or the deliberate reason; Vision “is surrounded by
+the daughters of Inspiration.” Here we have a key to the classification
+of personified abstractions in the eighteenth century, and, for that
+matter, at any and every period. Abstractions formed by the deliberate
+reason are usually more or less rhetorical embellishments of poetry, and
+to this category belong the great majority of the personifications of
+eighteenth century verse. They are “things that relate to moral virtues”
+or vices, but they cannot truly be called allegorical, for allegory is a
+living thing only so long as the ideas it embodies are real forces that
+control our conduct. The inspired personification, which embodies or
+brings with it a real vision, is the truly poetical figure.
+
+In Blake’s own practice we find only a few instances of the typical
+eighteenth century abstraction. In the early “Imitation of Spenser” there
+are one or two examples:
+
+      Such is sweet Eloquence that does dispel
+    Envy and Hate that thirst for human gore,
+
+whilst others are clearly Elizabethan reminiscences, like
+
+    Mournful lean Despair
+    Brings me yew to deck my grave,
+
+or
+
+    Memory, hither come
+    And tune your merry notes.
+
+“The Island in the Moon” furnishes grotesque instances, such as that
+of old Corruption dressed in yellow vest. In “The Divine Image,” from
+the “Songs of Innocence,” while commonplace virtues are personified,
+the simple direct manner of the process distinguishes them from their
+prototypes in the earlier moral and didactic poetry of the century:
+
+    For Mercy has a human heart
+    Pity a human face
+    And Love, the human form divine
+    And Peace the human dress.[233]
+
+An instance of personification raised to a higher power is found in
+Blake’s letter to Butts[234] beginning
+
+    With Happiness stretch’d across the hills,
+    In a cloud that dewy sweetness distils,
+
+whilst elsewhere personified abstractions appear with new epithets, the
+most striking example being in “Earth’s Answer,” from the “Songs of
+Experience”:
+
+    Prison’d on watry shore
+    _Starry_ Jealousy does keep my den.
+
+Moreover, Blake’s figures are often presented in an imaginative guise
+that helps to emphasize the gulf fixed between him and the majority of
+his contemporaries and predecessors. Thus “Joy” is twice depicted as a
+bird:
+
+    Joys upon our branches sit
+    Chirping loud and singing sweet
+
+                                             (“Song”—“Poetical Sketches”)
+
+and
+
+    Welcome, stranger, to this place
+    Where Joy doth sit on every bough.
+
+                                                   (“Song by a Shepherd”)
+
+In Blake’s youthful work the personifications of natural powers, though
+in most cases clearly imitative are yet striking in their beauty and
+power of suggestion. The influence of “Ossian” is seen in such “prose”
+personifications as “The Veiled Evening walked solitary down the Western
+hills and Silence reposed in the valley” (“The Couch of Death”), and
+“Who is this that with unerring step dares to tempt the wild where only
+Nature’s foot has trod, ’Tis Contemplation, daughter of the Grey Morning”
+(“Contemplation”). Here also are evocations of the seasons which,
+whatever they may owe to Thomson or Collins, are new in that we actually
+get a picture of Spring with “dewy locks” as she looks down
+
+    Thro’ the clear windows of the morning
+
+of summer with
+
+    ruddy limbs and flourishing hair,
+
+of the “jolly autumn,”
+
+      laden with fruits and stained
+    With the blood of the grape;
+
+and of winter,
+
+      a dreadful monster whose skin clings
+    To her strong bones.
+
+Thomson, we have seen, had not been altogether successful in his
+personification of the seasons: here they are brought vividly and
+fittingly before us. When we think of the hosts of puppets that in the
+guise of personified abstractions move mechanically through so much of
+eighteenth century verse, and compare them with the beautiful visions
+evoked by Blake, we know from this evidence alone that the reign of
+one of the chief excesses of the poetical language of the time is near
+its end. It is not that Blake’s conceptions are all flesh and blood
+creations: often they are rather ethereal beings, having something in
+common with the evanescent images of Collins. But the rich and lofty
+imagination that has given them birth is more than sufficient to secure
+their acceptance as realities capable of living and moving before us; the
+classical abstraction, cold and lifeless, has now become the Romantic
+personification clothed in beauty and animated with life and inner
+meaning.
+
+In the year of the “Poetical Sketches” (1783) George Crabbe published
+“The Village,” his first work to meet with any success. But whilst Blake
+gloriously announces the emancipation of English poetry, Crabbe for the
+most part is still writing on in the old dead style. The heroic couplets
+of his earliest works have all the rhetorical devices of his predecessors
+in that measure, and amongst these the prevalence of personified
+abstractions is not the least noteworthy. The subject of his first poem
+of any length, “Inebriety” (1775), afforded him plenty of scope in this
+direction, and he availed himself fully of the opportunity.[235] The
+absence of capital letters from some of the instances in this poem may
+perhaps be taken to reflect a confusion in the poet’s mind as to whether
+he was indulging in personification or in mere abstraction, to adopt
+Coleridge’s remark anent Gray’s use of this figure.[236]
+
+In “The Village,” Crabbe’s first poem of any real merit, there is a
+more sparing use, yet instances are even here plentiful, whilst his
+employment of the device had not died out when in the early years of the
+nineteenth century he resumed his literary activities. Among the poems
+published in the 1807 volume there is a stiff and cumbrous allegory
+entitled “The Birth of Flattery,” which, introduced by three Spenserian
+stanzas, depicts Flattery as the child of Poverty and Cunning, attended
+by guardian satellites, “Care,” “Torture,” “Misery,” _et hoc omne genus_.
+They linger on to the time of the “Posthumous Tales,” where there is a
+sad, slow procession of them, almost, we might imagine, as if they were
+conscious of the doom pronounced years before, and of the fact that they
+were strangers in a strange land:
+
+    Yet Resignation in the house is seen
+    Subdued Affliction, Piety serene,
+    And Hope, for ever striving to instil
+    The balm for grief, “It is the heavenly will.”
+
+                                                       (XVIII, 299 foll.)
+
+It is not perhaps too fanciful to see in this lament a palinode of the
+personifications themselves, sadly resigning themselves to an inevitable
+fate.
+
+Towards the ultimate triumph of the new poetry the work of William Cowper
+represents perhaps the most important contribution, judging at least from
+the viewpoint both of its significance as indicating new tendencies in
+literature, and of its immediate influence on readers and writers. In
+the narrow sense of style the “simplicity” which was Cowper’s ideal was
+only occasionally marred by the conventional phraseology and bombastic
+diction which he himself laid to the charge of the “classical” school,
+and his gradual emancipation from the tenets and practices of that school
+is reflected in his steady advance towards the purity of expression for
+which he craved. And in this advance it is to be noted that the gradual
+disappearance of personified abstractions is one of the minor landmarks.
+
+The earlier work furnishes instances of the common type of mere
+abstraction where there is no attempt to give any real personification.
+Even in the “Olney Hymns” (1779) such verses as
+
+    But unbelief, self-will
+      Self-righteousness and pride,
+    How often do they steal
+      My weapon from my side
+
+only seem to present the old mechanical figures in a new setting.[237]
+The long series of satiric poems that followed draw freely upon the same
+“mythology,” and indeed the satires that appear in this 1782 volume
+recall to some extent the style of Churchill.[238] There is a somewhat
+similar, though more restricted, use of personified abstraction, and, as
+in Churchill’s satires, virtues and vices are invested with slight human
+qualities and utilized to enforce moral and didactic truths. Thus,
+
+      Peace follows Virtue as its sure reward
+    And Pleasure brings as surely in her train
+    Remorse and Sorrow and Vindictive Pain.
+
+                                                    (“Progress of Error”)
+
+Among the short pieces in this volume are the famous lines put into
+the mouth of Alexander Selkirk, which contain a fine example of the
+apostrophic personification, the oft-quoted
+
+    O Solitude! where are thy charms
+    That sages have seen in thy face,
+
+where the passion and sincerity of the appeal give dignity and animation
+to an otherwise lifeless abstraction, and, despite the absence of detail,
+really call up a definite picture.
+
+From the blank verse of his most famous work nearly every trace of the
+mechanical abstraction has disappeared—a great advance when we remember
+that “The Task” is in the direct line of the moral and didactic verse
+that had occupied so many of Cowper’s predecessors.
+
+The first Books (“The Sofa”) contain but one instance and that in a
+playful manner:
+
+    Ingenious Fancy, never better pleased
+    Than when employed to accommodate the fair.
+
+                                                           (ll. 72 foll.)
+
+The Fourth Book (“The Winter Evening”) is entirely free from instances of
+the mechanical abstraction, but the vision of Oriental Empire, and the
+fascination of the East, is effectively evoked in the personification of
+the land of the Moguls:
+
+    Is India free? and does she wear her plumed
+      And jewelled turban with a smile of peace.
+
+                                                               (ll. 28-9)
+
+“The Task,” however, has two examples of the detailed personification.
+The first is an attempt, in the manner of Spenser, to give a full length
+portrait of “a sage called Discipline”:
+
+    His eye was meek and gentle and a smile
+    Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard
+    Paternal sweetness
+
+                                                   (Bk. II, l. 702 foll.)
+
+where there is a depth of feeling, as well as a gentle satiric touch in
+the delineation, that animate it into something more than a mere stock
+image; it embodies perhaps a reminiscence of one who at some time or
+other had guided the destinies of the youthful Cowper.
+
+The second instance is of a more imaginative kind. It is the
+presentation, in the Fourth Book, of Winter, with
+
+          forehead wrapt in cloud
+    A leafless branch thy sceptre,
+
+almost the only occasion on which Cowper, despite the nature of his
+subject, has personified the powers and orders of nature.[239] Cowper
+has also invested the Evening with human attributes, and despite the
+imitative ring of the lines,[240] and the “quaintness” of the images
+employed, there is a new beauty in the evocation:
+
+    Come, Evening, once again, season of peace;
+    Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!
+    Methinks I see thee in the streaky west
+    With matron step slow-moving, while the night
+    Treads on thy sweeping train.
+
+The darkness soon to fall over the landscape is suggested in the added
+appeal to Evening to come
+
+      Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid
+    Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems,
+
+where the compound epithet emphasizes the contrast between the quiet
+beauty of the twilight skyscape and the star-sprinkled gloom of the night.
+
+Finally, one of the last instances of the personified abstraction to be
+found in the work of Cowper may perhaps be taken to reflect something of
+the changes that have been silently working underneath. This is in the
+lines that suddenly bring “Yardley Oak” to an end:
+
+          History not wanted yet
+    Leaned on her elbow watching Time whose course
+    Eventful should supply her with a theme.
+
+At first glance we seem to have here but the old conventional figures,
+but there is an imaginative touch that helps to suggest a new world of
+romance. “History leaning on her elbow” has something at least of that
+mysterious power of suggestion that Wordsworth himself was to convey by
+means of the romantic personification, such as those shadowy figures—Fear
+and Trembling Hope, and Death the Skeleton, and Time the Shadow—which
+gathered round and hallowed the shade of the yew trees in Borrowdale.
+
+But even while the old poetry was in its death agony a champion was at
+hand, daring to maintain a lost cause both by precept and example. This
+was Erasmus Darwin, whose once-famous work “The Botanic Garden,” with
+its two parts, “The Loves of the Plants” (1789), and “The Economy of
+Vegetation” (1791), has earlier been mentioned.
+
+It met with immediate success. Darwin seems to have fascinated his
+contemporaries, so that even Coleridge was constrained in 1802 to call
+him “the first literary character in Europe.”[241] He had, however,
+little real admiration for “The Botanic Garden,” and later expressed
+his opinion unmistakably.[242] “The Botanic Garden” soon died a natural
+death, hastened no doubt by the ridicule it excited, but inevitably
+because of the fact that the poem is an unconscious _reductio ad
+absurdum_ of a style already doomed.[243] The special matter with which
+we are concerned in this chapter had for Darwin a marked significance,
+since it fitted in admirably with his general doctrine or dogma that
+nothing is strictly poetic except what is presented in visual image. His
+“theory” was that, just as the old mythologies had created a whole world
+of personified abstractions to explain or interpret natural phenomena
+of every description, exactly by the same method the scientific thought
+and developments of his own age could be poetically expounded so as
+to captivate both the hearts and minds of his readers. It was his
+ambition, he said, “to enlist imagination under the banner of science.”
+This “theory” is expounded in one of the interludes placed between the
+different cantos. “The poet writes principally to the eye,” and allegory
+and personifications are to be commended because they give visible
+form to abstract conceptions.[244] Putting his theory into practice,
+Darwin then proceeds with great zeal to personify the varied and various
+scientific facts or hypotheses of physics, botany, etc., metamorphosing
+the forces of the air and other elements into sylphs and gnomes and so
+on. Thus,
+
+    Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered
+            Steam afar
+    Drag the slow barge or drive the
+            Rapid car.
+
+                                                (E.V., Canto I, 289, 290)
+
+In the same way all the plants, as classified by Linnæus, are personified
+as “swains” or “belles” who “love” and quarrel, and finally make it up
+just as ordinary mortals do:
+
+    All wan and shivering in the leafless glade
+    The sad Anemone reclin’d her head
+
+                                                   (L.P., Canto I, 315-6)
+
+or
+
+    Retiring Lichen climbs the topmost stone
+    And drinks the aerial solitude alone.
+
+                                                         (_Ibid._, 347-8)
+
+The whole poem is thus one long series of mechanical personifications
+which baffle and bewilder and finally wear out the reader. It is strange
+now to think that “The Botanic Garden” was at the height of its vogue
+when the “Lyrical Ballads” were being planned and written, but the
+easy-flowing couplets of Darwin, and the “tinsel and glitter” of his
+diction, together with most of the “science” he was at such pains to
+expound (though he was a shrewd and even prophetic inquirer in certain
+branches, such as medicine and biology), have now little more than a
+faint historical interest. Yet his theory and practice of poetry—the
+“painted mists that occasionally rise from the marshes at the foot of
+Parnassus,” Coleridge called them—so dominated the literature of the last
+decade of the eighteenth century as to be capable of captivating the mind
+of the poet who was about to sound their death-knell.
+
+While Wordsworth inveighed against “personification” in the great
+manifesto, his earliest poetry shows clearly, as has been noted, that in
+this as in other respects he had fallen under the spell and influence of
+“The Botanic Garden.” The “Evening Walk” and the “Descriptive Sketches”
+swarm with instances of personifications of the type that had flourished
+apace for a hundred years, “Impatience,” “Pain,” “Independence,” “Hope,”
+“Oppression,” and dozens similar.[245] There is thus a certain comic
+irony in the fact that the poet, who was the first to sound the revolt
+against “personifications” and similar “heightenings” of style, should
+have embarked on his literary career with the theft of a good deal of
+the thunder of the enemy. Later, when Wordsworth’s true ideal of style
+had evolved itself, this feature of the two poems was in great measure
+discarded. The first (1793) draft of the “Descriptive Sketches” contains
+over seventy examples of more or less frigid abstractions; in the final
+draft of the poem these have dwindled down to about a score.[246]
+
+In our detailed examination of personification in eighteenth century
+poetry we have seen that in general it includes three main types. There
+is first the mere abstraction, whose distinctive sign is the presence
+of a capital letter; it may be, and often is, qualified by epithets
+suggestive of human attributes, but there is little or no attempt to give
+a definite picture or evoke a distinctive image. This is the prevalent
+type, and it is against these invertebrates that the criticism of
+Wordsworth and Coleridge was really directed.
+
+Their widespread use in the eighteenth century is due to various causes.
+In the first place they represent a survival, however artificial and
+lifeless, of the great mediaeval world of allegory, with its symbolic
+representation derived from the pagan and classical mythologies, of
+the attributes of the divine nature, and of the qualities of the human
+mind, as living entities. But by now the life had departed from them;
+they were hopelessly effete and had become consciously conventional and
+fictitious.[247]
+
+They also owed their appearance, as indicated above, to more definite
+literary causes and “fashions”; they swarm especially, for instance, in
+the odes of the mid-century, the appearance of which was mainly due to
+the influence of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.” The virtues and vices,
+the “shadowy tribes of the mind,” which are there unceasingly invoked
+and dismissed are mechanical imitations of the figures that the genius
+of Milton had been able to inspire with real poetic value and life. They
+play their part similarly and just as mechanically in the didactic and
+satirical verse characteristic of the period.
+
+But whether regarded as a sort of literary flotsam and jetsam, or as one
+of the symptoms of “Milton-mad” verse, these personifications are nearly
+all enfeebled by weaknesses inherent in their very genesis. Only a deep
+and intense conception of a mental abstraction can justify any attempt
+to personify it poetically; otherwise the inevitable result is a mere
+rhetorical ornament, which fails because it conveys neither the “vast
+vagueness” of the abstract, nor any clear-cut pictorial conception of the
+person. Even with Gray, as with the mere poetasters who used this figure
+to excess, it has the effect of a dull and wearisome mannerism; only
+here and there, as in the sonorous lines in which Johnson personified
+Worth held down by Poverty, does the display of personal emotion give any
+dignity and depth to the image.
+
+Again, the very freedom with which the conventional abstractions are
+employed, allowing them to be introduced on every possible occasion,
+tends to render the device absurd, if not ludicrous. For the versifiers
+seemed to have at their beck and call a whole phantom army upon which
+they could draw whenever they chose; for them they are veritable gods
+from the machines. But so mechanical are their entrances and exits
+that the reader rarely suspects them to be intended for “flesh and
+blood creations,” though, it may be added, the poetaster himself
+would be slow to make any such claim. To him they are merely part of
+his stock-in-trade, like the old extravagances, the “conceits,” and
+far-fetched similes of the Metaphysical school.
+
+The second type of personification found in eighteenth century verse
+needs but brief mention here. It is the detailed personification where
+a full-length portrait is attempted. Like the mere abstraction it, too,
+is a survival of mediaeval allegory, and it is also most often a merely
+mechanical literary process, reflecting no real image in the poet’s mind.
+It is not found to any large extent, and in a certain measure owes its
+presence to the renewed interest in Spenser. The Spenserian imitations
+themselves are comparatively free from this type, a sort of negative
+indication of the part played by the revival in the new Romantic movement.
+
+The third type is perhaps best described as the embryonic
+personification. It consists in the attributing of an individual and
+living existence to the visible forms and invisible powers of nature, a
+disposition, deeply implanted in the human mind from the very dawn of
+existence, which has left in the mythologies and creeds of the world a
+permanent impress of its power. In eighteenth century literature this
+type received its first true expression in the work of Thompson and
+Collins, whilst its progress, until it becomes merged and fused in the
+pantheism of Wordsworth and Shelley, may be taken as a measure of the
+advance of the Romantic movement in one of its most vital aspects.
+
+Regarded on its purely formal side, that is, as part and parcel of the
+_language_ of poetry, the use of personification may then be naturally
+linked up with the generally literary development of the period. In the
+“classical” verse proper the figure employed is, as it were, a mere word
+and no more; it is the reflex of precisely as much individual imagination
+as the stock phrases of descriptive verse, _the flowery meads_, _painted
+birds_, and so on. There was no writing with the inner eye on the
+object, and the abstraction as a result was a mere rhetorical label,
+corresponding to no real vision of things.
+
+The broad line of advance in this, as in other aspects of eighteenth
+century literature, passes through the work of those who are now looked
+upon as the forerunners of the Romantic revolt. The frigid abstraction,
+a mere word distinguished by a capital letter, is to be found in “The
+Seasons,” but alongside there is also an approach to definite pictorial
+representation of the object personified. In the odes of Collins the
+advent of the pictorial image is definitely and triumphantly announced,
+and though the mechanical abstractions linger on even until the new
+poetry has well established itself, they are only to be found in the
+work of those who either, like Johnson and Crabbe, belong definitely as
+regards style to the old order, or like Goldsmith and, to a less extent,
+Cowper, reflect as it were sort of half-way attitude towards the old and
+the new.
+
+With Blake the supremacy of the artistic personification is assured. His
+mystical philosophy in its widest aspect leads him to an identification
+of the divine nature with the human, but sometimes this signification
+is to be seen merging into a more conscious symbolism, or even sinking
+into that “totally distinct and inferior kind of poetry” known as
+allegory. Yet with Blake the poet, as well as Blake the artist, the
+use of personified abstraction is an integral part of the symbolism he
+desired to perpetuate. His imagination ran strongly in that direction,
+and it has been aptly pointed out that his most intense mental and
+emotional experiences became for him spiritual persons. But even where
+the presence of a capital letter is still the only distinguishing mark
+of the personification, he is able, either by the mere context or by
+the addition of a suggestive epithet, to transform and transfigure the
+abstraction into a poetical emblem of the doctrine whose apostle he
+believed himself to be.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say that the use of personification and
+abstraction, even in their narrower applications as rhetorical ornaments
+or artifices of verse, were not banished from English poetry as a result
+of Wordsworth’s criticism. Ruskin has drawn a penetrating distinction
+between personification and symbolism,[248] and it was in this direction
+perhaps that Wordsworth’s protest may be said to have been of the
+highest value. His successors, for the most part, distrustful of mere
+abstractions, and impatient of allegory, with its attendant dangers of
+lifeless and mechanical personification, were not slow to recognize
+the inherent possibilities of symbolism as an artistic medium for the
+expression of individual moods and emotions, and it is not too much to
+say that in its successful employment English poetry has since won some
+of its greatest triumphs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DICTION OF POETRY
+
+
+After years of comparative neglect, and, it must be admitted, a good
+deal of uncritical disparagement, the “age of prose and reason” would
+seem at last to have come into its own. Or at any rate during recent
+years there has become evident a disposition to look more kindly on a
+period which has but seldom had justice done to it. The label which
+Matthew Arnold’s dictum attached to a good portion, if not the whole,
+of the eighteenth century seems to imply a period of arid and prosaic
+rationalism in which “the shaping spirit of imagination” had no abiding
+place, and this has no doubt been partly responsible for the persistency
+of an unjust conception. But it is now more generally recognized that,
+in prose and even in poetry, the seventy or eighty years, which begin
+when Dryden died, and end when William Blake was probably writing down
+the first drafts of his “Poetical Sketches,” had some definite and far
+from despicable legacies to pass on to its successors, to the writers in
+whom the Romantic revival was soon to be triumphantly manifested. The
+standards in all branches of literature were to be different, but between
+“classical” and “romantic” there was not to be, and indeed could not be,
+any great gulf fixed. There was continuity and much was handed on. What
+had to be transformed (and of course the process is to be seen at work in
+the very height of the Augustan supremacy) were the aims and methods of
+literature, both its matter in large measure, and its style.[249]
+
+It is the poetry of the period with which we are specially concerned,
+and it is in poetry that the distinction between the old order and the
+new was to be sharpest; for the leaders of the revolt had been gradually
+winning new fields, or re-discovering old ones, for poetry, and thus in
+more than one sense the way had been prepared for both the theory and
+practice of Wordsworth. Then came the great manifestoes, beginning with
+the Preface of 1798, followed by an expansion in 1800 and again in 1802;
+fifteen years later, Coleridge, with his penetrating analysis of the
+theories advanced by his friend and fellow-worker, began a controversy,
+which still to-day forms a fruitful theme of discussion.
+
+Wordsworth, in launching his famous declaration of principle on the
+language fit and proper for metrical composition, had no doubt especially
+in mind the practice of his eighteenth century predecessors. But it has
+to be remembered that the _Prefaces_ deal in reality with the whole
+genesis of “what is usually called poetic diction,” and that the avowed
+aim and object was to sweep away “a large portion of phrases and figures
+of speech, which from father to son have long been regarded as the common
+inheritance of poets.” The circumstances of the time, and perhaps the
+examples chosen by Wordsworth to illustrate his thesis, have too often
+led to his attack being considered as concerned almost entirely with the
+poetical language of the eighteenth century. Hence, whenever the phrase
+“poetic diction” is mentioned as a term of English literary history,
+more often than not it is to the eighteenth century that the attention
+is directed, and the phrase itself has taken on a derogatory tinge,
+expressive of a stereotyped language, imitative, mechanical, lifeless.
+For in the reaction against eighteenth century styles, and especially
+against the polished heroic couplet, there arose a tendency to make the
+diction of the period an object of undistinguishing depreciation, to
+class it all in one category, as a collection of conventional words and
+phrases of which all poets and versifiers felt themselves at liberty to
+make use.
+
+An actual analysis of eighteenth century poetry shows us that this
+criticism is both deficient and misleading; it is misleading because it
+neglects to take any account of that eighteenth century poetical language
+which Pope, inheriting it from Dryden, brought to perfection, and which
+was so admirable a vehicle for the satiric or didactic thought it had to
+convey; it is deficient in that it concentrates attention mainly on one
+type or variety of the language, used both by poets and poetasters, and
+persists in labelling this type either as the “eighteenth century style
+proper,” or, as if the phrases were synonymous, “the Pope style.”
+
+One formula could no more suffice in itself for the poetic styles of the
+eighteenth century than for those of the nineteenth century; we may say,
+rather, that there are then to be distinguished at least four distinct
+varieties or elements of poetical diction, in the narrow sense of the
+term, though of course it is scarcely necessary to add that none of them
+is found in complete isolation from the others. There is first the stock
+descriptive language, the usual vehicle of expression for that large
+amount of eighteenth century verse where, in the words of Taine, we can
+usually find “the same diction, the same apostrophes, the same manner of
+placing the epithet and rounding the period,” and “regarding which we
+know beforehand with what poetic ornaments it will be adorned.”[250] In
+reading this verse, with its lifeless, abstract diction, we seldom or
+never feel that we have been brought into contact with the real thoughts
+or feelings of living men. Its epithets are artificial, imitative,
+conventional; though their glare and glitter may occasionally give
+us a certain pleasure, they rarely or never make any appeal to our
+sensibility. As someone has said, it is like wandering about in a land of
+empty phrases. Only here and there, as, for instance, in Dyer’s “Grongar
+Hill,” have the _gradus_ epithets taken on a real charm and beauty in
+virtue of the spontaneity and sincerity with which the poet has been
+inspired.
+
+The received doctrine that it was due in the main to Pope’s “Homer”
+is unjust; many of the characteristics of this conventional poetical
+language were established long before Pope produced his translation.
+They are found to an equal, if not greater, extent in Dryden, and if
+it is necessary to establish a fountain-head, “Paradise Lost” will be
+found to contain most of the words and phrases which the eighteenth
+century versifiers worked to death. If Pope is guilty in any degree it
+is only because in his work the heroic couplet was brought to a high
+pitch of perfection; no doubt too the immense popularity of the “Homer”
+translation led to servile imitation of many of its words, phrases, and
+similes. Yet it is unjust to saddle Pope with the lack of original genius
+of so many of his successors and imitators.
+
+But the underlying cause of this conventional language must be sought
+elsewhere than in the mere imitation of any poet or poets. A passage
+from the “Prelude” supplies perhaps a clue to one of the fundamental
+conditions that had enslaved poetry in the shackles of a stereotyped
+language. It takes the form of a sort of literary confession by
+Wordsworth as to the method of composing his first poems, which, we have
+seen, are almost an epitome of the poetical vices against which his
+manifestoes rebelled. He speaks of
+
+                        the trade in classic niceties
+    The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase
+    From languages that want the living voice
+    To carry meaning to the natural heart.
+
+                                         (“Prelude,” Bk. VI, ll. 109-112)
+
+In these lines we have summed up one of the main Romantic indictments
+against the practice of the “classical” poets, who were too wont to
+regard the language of poetry as a mere collection or accepted aggregate
+of words, phrases, and similes, empty of all personal feeling and
+emotion.[251]
+
+Wordsworth, too, in this passage not unfairly describes the sort of
+atmosphere in which diction of the stock eighteenth century type
+flourished. The neo-classical interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine
+of poetry as an imitation had by the time of Pope and his school resulted
+in a real critical confusion, which saw the essence of poetry in a
+slavish adherence to accepted models, and regarded its ideal language as
+choice flowers and figures of speech consecrated to poetry by traditional
+use, and used by the poet very much as the painter uses his colours, that
+is, as pigments laid on from the outside. That this doctrine of imitation
+and parallelism directly encourages the growth of a set poetic diction
+is obvious; the poet’s language need not be the reflection of a genuine
+emotion felt in the mind: he could always find his words, phrases, and
+figures of speech in accepted and consecrated models.
+
+The reaction against this artificial diction is fundamental in the
+Romantic revolt from another cause than that of poetic form. The stock
+poetic language, we have seen, occurs mainly in what may be called the
+“nature” poetry of the period, and its set words and phrases are for
+the most part descriptive terms of outdoor sights and sounds. Among the
+many descriptions or explanations of the Romantic movement is that it
+was in its essence a “return to Nature,” which is sometimes taken to
+imply that “Nature,” as we in the twentieth century think of it, was a
+sudden new vision, of which glimpses were first caught by James Thomson,
+and which finally culminated in Wordsworth’s “confession of faith.” Yet
+there was, of course, plenty of “nature poetry” in the neo-classical
+period; but it was for the most part nature from the point of view of the
+Town, or as seen from the study window with a poetical “Thesaurus” at
+the writer’s side, or stored in his memory as a result of his reading.
+It was not written with “the eye on the object.” More fatal still, if
+the neo-classical poets did look, they could see little beauty in the
+external world; they “had lost the best of the senses; they had ceased to
+perceive with joy and interpret with insight the colour and outline of
+things, the cadence of sound and motion, the life of creatures.”[252]
+
+This sterility or atrophy of the senses had thus a real connexion with
+the question of a conventional poetical language, for the descriptive
+diction with its stock words for the sea, the rivers, the mountains, the
+sky, the stars, the birds of the air and their music, for all the varied
+sights and sounds of outdoor life—all this is simply a reflex of the lack
+of genuine feeling towards external nature. Keats, with his ecstatic
+delight in Nature, quickly and aptly pilloried this fatal weakness in
+the eighteenth century versifiers:
+
+    The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d
+    Its gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blue
+    Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew
+    Of summer nights collected still to make
+    The morning precious: beauty was awake!
+    Why were ye not awake! But ye were dead
+    To things ye knew not of—were closely wed
+    To musty laws lined out with wretched rule
+    And compass vile: so that ye taught a school
+    Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip and fit
+    Till, like the certain wands of Jacob’s wit,
+    Their verses tallied; Easy was the task
+    A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask
+    Of Poesy.[253]
+
+It is obvious that two great changes or advances were necessary, if
+poetry was to be freed from the bondage of this conventional diction. In
+the first place, the poet must reject root and branch the traditional
+stock of words and phrases that may once have been inspiring, but had
+become lifeless and mechanical long before they fell into disuse; he
+must write with his eye on the object, and translate his impressions
+into fresh terms endowed with real, imaginative power. And this first
+condition would naturally lead to a second, requiring every word and
+phrase to be a spontaneous reflection of genuine feeling felt in the
+presence of Nature and her vast powers.
+
+The neo-classical poetry proper was not without verse which partly
+satisfied these conditions; direct contact with nature was never entirely
+lost. Wordsworth, as we know, gave honourable mention[254] to “The
+Nocturnal Reverie” of Anne, Countess Winchilsea, written at the very
+height of the neo-classical supremacy, in which external nature is
+described with simplicity and fidelity, though there is little trace
+of any emotion roused in the writer’s mind by the sights and sounds
+of outdoor life. And every now and then, amid the arid and monotonous
+stretches of so much eighteenth century verse, we are startled into
+lively interest by stumbling across, often in the most obscure and
+unexpected corners, a phrase or a verse to remind us that Nature, and
+all that the term implies, was still making its powerful appeal to the
+hearts and minds of men, that its beauty and mystery was still being
+expressed in simple and heartfelt language. Thomas Dyer’s “Grongar Hill”
+has already been mentioned; it was written in 1726, the year of the
+publication of Thompson’s “Winter.” Dyer, for all we know, may have the
+priority, but in any case we see him here leading back poetry to the
+sights and sounds and scents of external nature, which he describes, not
+merely as a painter with a good eye for landscape, but as a lover who
+feels the thrill and call of the countryside, and can give exquisite
+expression to his thoughts and emotions. We have only to recall such
+passages as
+
+    Who, the purple evening lie,
+    On the mountain’s lonely van;
+
+or even his tree catalogue,
+
+    The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
+    The yellow beech, the sable yew,
+    The slender fir, that taper grows,
+    The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;
+
+or
+
+    How close and small the hedges lie;
+    What streaks of meadow cross the eye!
+
+or
+
+    A little rule, a little sway,
+    A sun-beam on a winter’s day,
+    Is all the proud and mighty have
+    Between the cradle and the grave—
+
+to recognize that already the supremacy of Pope and his school of town
+poets is seriously threatened.
+
+Here too is a short passage which might not unfairly be assigned to
+Wordsworth himself.
+
+    Would I again were with you, O ye dales
+    Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands, where,
+    Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides
+    And his banks open, and his lawns extend,
+    Stops short the pleased traveller to view,
+    Presiding o’er the scene, some rustic tower
+    Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands:
+    O ye Northumbrian shades, which overlook
+    The rocky pavement and the mossy falls
+    Of solitary Wensbeck’s limpid stream,
+    How gladly I recall your well-known seats
+    Beloved of old, and that delightful time
+    When all alone, for many a summer’s day,
+    I wandered through your calm recesses, led
+    In silence by some powerful hand unseen.
+
+It is from Mark Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (Bk IV, ll. 31
+foll.). And so, too, is this:
+
+            the meadow’s fragrant hedge,
+    In spring time when the woodlands first are green
+
+                                                         (Book II, 175-6)
+
+which takes us far away from the formal conventional landscapes of the
+Augustans.
+
+These two are among the more famous of their time, but a close search
+amongst the minor poetry of the mid-eighteenth century will bring to
+light many a surprising instance of poetry written with an eye on the
+object, as in John Cunningham’s (1729-1773) “Day,”[255] where the sights
+and sounds of the countryside are simply and freshly brought before us:
+
+    Swiftly from the mountain’s brow,
+        Shadows, nurs’d by night, retire:
+    And the peeping sun-beam, now,
+        Paints with gold the village spire.
+
+    Philomel forsakes the thorn,
+        Plaintive where she prates at night;
+    And the Lark, to meet the morn,
+        Soars beyond the shepherd’s sight.
+
+    From the low-roof’d cottage ridge,
+        See the chatt’ring Swallow spring;
+    Darting through the one-arch’d bridge,
+        Quick she dips her dappled wing.
+
+But the great bulk of neo-classical verse is unaffected by the regained
+and quickened outlook on the external world. It is in the forerunners of
+the Romantic revolt that this latter development is to be most plainly
+noted: when, as the result of many and varied causes English poets
+were inspired to use their eyes again, they were able, slowly and in a
+somewhat shallow manner at first, afterwards quickly and profoundly,
+to “sense” the beauty of the external world, its mysterious emanations
+of power and beauty. This quickening and final triumph of the artistic
+sense naturally revealed itself in expression; the conventional words
+and epithets were really doomed from the time of “Grongar Hill” and
+“The Seasons,” and a new language was gradually forged to express the
+fresh, vivid perceptions peculiar to each poet, according as his senses
+interpreted for him the face of the world.
+
+A second variety of eighteenth century diction, or, more strictly
+speaking, another conventional embellishment of the poetry of the period,
+is found in that widespread use of personified abstraction which is
+undoubtedly one of the greatest, perhaps _the_ greatest, of its faults.
+Not only the mere versifiers, but also many of its greatest poets, make
+abundant use of cut and dried personifications, whose sole claim to
+vitality rests most often on the presence of a capital letter. It is a
+favourite indulgence of the writers, not only of the old order, but
+also of those who, like Collins and Gray, announce the advent of the
+new, and not even the presence of genius could prevent its becoming a
+poetical abuse of the worst kind. Whether it be regarded as a survival
+of a symbolic system from which the life had long since departed, or
+as a conventional device arising from the theory of poetical ornament
+handed down by the neo-classicists, its main effect was to turn a large
+proportion of eighteenth century poetry into mere rhetorical verse. It is
+this variety of poetical language that might with justice be labelled as
+the eighteenth century style in the derogatory sense of the term. In its
+cumulative effect on the poetry of the period it is perhaps more vicious
+than the stock diction which is the usual target of criticism.
+
+Two other varieties of eighteenth century diction represent an endeavour
+to replace, or rather reinforce the stereotyped words, phrases, and
+similes by new forms. The first of these is the widespread use of
+latinized words and constructions, chiefly in the blank verse poems
+written in imitation of Milton, but not only there. The second is the use
+of archaic and pseudo-archaic words by the writers whose ambition it was
+to catch something of the music and melody of the Spenserian stanza. Both
+these movements thus reflected the desire for a change, and though the
+tendencies, which they reflect, are in a certain sense conventional and
+imitative in that they simply seek to replace the accepted diction by new
+forms derived respectively from Milton and Spenser, one of them at least
+had in the sequel a real and revivifying influence on the language of
+poetry.
+
+The pedantic and cumbrous terms, which swarm in the majority of the
+Miltonic imitations, were artificial creations, rarely imbued with any
+trace of poetic power. Where they do not actually arise from deliberate
+attempts to imitate the high Miltonic manner, they probably owe their
+appearance to more or less conscious efforts to make the new blank verse
+as attractive as possible to a generation of readers accustomed to the
+polished smoothness of the couplet. Though such terms linger on until
+the time of Cowper, and even invade the works of Wordsworth himself,
+romanticism utterly rejected them, not only because of a prejudice in
+favour of “Saxon simplicity,” but also because such artificial formations
+lacked almost completely that mysterious power of suggestion and
+association in which lies the poetical appeal of words. Wordsworth, it is
+true, could win from them real poetic effects, and so occasionally could
+Thomson, but in the main they are even more dead and dreary than the old
+abstract diction of the neo-classicals.
+
+The tendency towards archaism was much more successful in this respect,
+because it was based on a firmer foundation. In harking back to “the
+poet’s poet,” the eighteenth century versifiers were at least on a right
+track, and though it was hardly possible, even with the best of them,
+that more than a faint simulacrum of the music and melody of the “Faerie
+Queene” could be captured merely by drawing drafts on Spenser’s diction,
+yet they at least helped to blaze a way for the great men who were to
+come later. The old unknown writers of the ballads and Spenser and the
+Elizabethans generally were to be looked upon as treasure trove to which
+Keats and Scott and Beddoes and many another were constantly to turn in
+their efforts to revivify the language of poetry, to restore to it what
+it had lost of freshness and vigour and colour.
+
+The varieties or embellishments of poetical diction, which have just
+been characterized, represent the special language of eighteenth
+century poetry, as distinct from that large portion of language which
+is common alike to prose and poetry. For it is scarcely necessary
+to remind ourselves that by far the largest portion of the poetry of
+the eighteenth century (as indeed of any century) is written in the
+latter sort of language, which depends for its effects mainly upon the
+arrangement of the words, rather than for any unique power in the words
+themselves. In this kind of poetical diction, it is not too much to say
+that the eighteenth century is pre-eminent, though the effect of the
+Wordsworthian criticism has led to a certain failure or indisposition to
+recognize the fact. Just as Johnson and his contemporaries do not give
+direct expression to any approval of the admirable language, of which
+Pope and some of his predecessors had such perfect command, so modern
+criticism has not always been willing to grant it even bare justice,
+though Coleridge’s penetrating insight had enabled him, as we have seen,
+to pay his tribute to “the almost faultless position and choice of words,
+in Mr. Pope’s _original_ compositions, particularly in his Satires and
+Moral Essays.” It was, we may imagine, the ordinary everyday language,
+heightened by brilliance and point, in which Pope and his coterie carried
+on their dallyings and bickerings at Twickenham and elsewhere, and it was
+an ideal vehicle, lucid and precise for the argument and declamation it
+had to sustain. But it was more than that, as will be readily recognized
+if we care to recall some of the oft-quoted lines which amply prove
+with what consummate skill Pope, despite the economy and condensation
+imposed by the requirements of the closed couplet, could evoke from this
+plain and unadorned diction effects of imagination and sometimes even of
+passion. Such lines as
+
+    He stooped to Truth and moralised his song,
+
+or
+
+    In lazy apathy let stoics boast
+    Their virtue fixed: ’tis fixed as in a frost,
+
+or
+
+    In Folly’s cup still laughs the bubble joy,
+
+and dozens similar, show the lucidity, energy, and imaginative
+picturesqueness with which Pope could endow his diction when the occasion
+required it.[256] Such language is the “real language of men”; nearly
+every word would satisfy the Wordsworthian canon.
+
+And the same thing is true to a large extent of the poets, who are
+usually considered as having taken Pope for their model. Whenever there
+is a real concentration of interest, whenever they are dealing with the
+didactic and moral questions characteristic of the “age of prose and
+reason,” whenever they are writing of man and of his doings, his thoughts
+and moods as a social member of civilized society, their language is,
+as a rule, adequate, vivid, fresh, because the aim then is to present a
+general thought in the language best adapted to bring it forcibly before
+the mind of the reader. Here, as has been justly said,[257] rhetoric
+has passed under the influence and received the transforming force of
+poetry. “The best rhetorical poetry of the eighteenth century is not the
+best poetry, but it is poetry in its own way, exhibiting the glow, the
+rush, the passion which strict prose cannot, and which poetry can, give.”
+Judged on the basis of this kind of poetical diction, the distinctions
+usually drawn between the neo-classical “kind” of language in the
+eighteenth century and the romantic “kind” all tend to disappear; at the
+head (though perhaps we should go back to the Dryden of the “Religio
+Laici” and “The Hind and the Panther”) is the “Essay on Criticism”;
+in the direct line of descent are Akenside’s “Epistle to Curio,” large
+portions of “The Seasons,” “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”
+“The Vanity of Human Wishes,” the “Deserted Village,” and at the end of
+the century, the “Village” of Crabbe. And in another _genre_, but just
+as good in its own way, is that light verse, as it may perhaps best be
+called, successfully ushered in, at the very beginning of the century, by
+John Pomfret’s “The Choice,” and brought to perfection by Matthew Prior
+in his lines “To a Child of Quality,” and many another piece.
+
+Nor must it be forgotten that there is a large amount of eighteenth
+century minor poetry which, whilst reflecting in the main the literary
+tendency of the age in its fondness for didactic verse, presented in
+the guise of interminably long and dull epics and epistles, yet reveals
+to us, if we care to make the pilgrimage through the arid stretches of
+Anderson’s “British Poets,” or Dodsley’s “Collection of Poets by Several
+Hands,” or Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry,” or similar collections, the simple,
+unambitious works of poets more or less unknown when they wrote and
+now for the most part forgotten, who, unconscious or ignorant of the
+accepted rules and regulations of their time, wrote because they felt
+they must, and thus had no care to fetter themselves with the bondage of
+the “classical” diction.[258] Their range was limited, but they were able
+to express their thoughts and fancies, their little idylls and landscapes
+in plain English without any trimmings, akin in its unaffected diction
+and simplicity of syntax to the language of the genuine old ballads,
+which were so largely and, for the most part, ineffectively, if not
+ludicrously, imitated throughout the eighteenth century.
+
+The Augustan age, then, was not without honour, even in poetry, where,
+looking back after Romanticism had won and consolidated its greatest
+triumphs, it would seem everything had gone wrong, there was not a little
+from which the rebels themselves might well have profited. Nowadays we
+are accustomed, perhaps too often, to think of the Romantic forerunners,
+the poet of “The Seasons,” and Gray, and Collins, and Goldsmith, and the
+rest, as lonely isolated outposts in hostile territory. So they were to
+a large extent, but they could not, of course, altogether escape the
+form and pressure of their age; and what we now admire in them, and
+for which we salute them as the heralds of the Romantic dawn, is that
+which shows them struggling to set themselves free from the “classical”
+toils, and striving to give expression to the new ideas and ideals that
+were ultimately to surge and sing themselves to victory. It is scarcely
+necessary to recall many a well-known passage, in which, within a decade
+of the death of Pope, or even before the mid-century, these new ideas
+and ideals had found expression in language which really sounded the
+death-knell of the old diction. Fine sounds, Keats within a few decades
+was to proclaim exultantly, were then to be heard “floating wild about
+the earth,” but already as early as Collins and Gray, and even now and
+then in “The Seasons,” words of infinite appeal and suggestiveness were
+stealing back into English poetry.
+
+And this leads us to a consideration of the poetic diction of the
+eighteenth century from a more general standpoint. For no discussion of
+poetical language can be complete unless an attempt is made to consider
+the question in its entirety with a view to the question of what really
+constitutes poetic diction, what it is that gives to words and phrases,
+used by certain poets in certain contexts, a magic force and meaning. The
+history of poetic diction from the very beginning of English literature
+down to present times has yet to be written, and it would be a formidable
+task. Perhaps a syndicate of acknowledged poets would be the only fit
+tribunal to pass judgment on so vital an aspect of the craft, but even
+then we suspect there would be a good deal of dissension, and probably
+more than one minority report. But the general aspects of the question
+have formed a fruitful field of discussion since Wordsworth launched his
+theories[259] and thus began a controversy as to the exact nature of
+poetic language, the echoes of which, it would seem, have not yet died
+away. For the Prefaces were, it may be truly said, the first great and
+definite declaration of principle concerning a question which has been
+well described as “the central one in the philosophy of literature, What
+is, or rather what is not, poetic diction?”[260]
+
+Judged from this wider standpoint, the diction of the “classical” poetry
+of the eighteenth century, and even of a large portion of the verse
+that announces the ultimate Romantic triumph, seems to have marked
+limitations. The widespread poverty and sterility of this diction was
+not, of course, merely the result of an inability to draw inspiration
+from Nature, or of a failure to realize the imaginative possibilities of
+words and phrases: it was, it would almost seem, the inevitable outcome
+and reflex of an age that, despite great and varied achievements, now
+appears to us narrow and restricted in many vital aspects. If poetry
+is a criticism of life, in the sense in which Matthew Arnold doubtless
+meant his dictum to be taken, the age of Pope and his successors is not
+“poetic”; in many respects it is a petty and tawdry age—the age of the
+coffee-house and the new press, of the club and the coterie. There are
+great thinkers like Hume, great historians like Gibbon, great teachers
+and reformers like John Wesley; but these names and a few others seem
+only to throw into stronger light the fact that it was on its average
+level an age of talk rather than of thought, of “fickle fancy” rather
+than of imaginative flights, of society as a unit highly organized for
+the pursuit of its own pastimes, pleasures, and preoccupations, in which
+poetry, and literature generally, played a social part. Poetry seems to
+skim gracefully over the surface of life, lightly touching many things
+in its flight, but never soaring; philosophy and science and satire all
+come within its purview, but when the eternally recurring themes of
+poetry[261]—love and nature and the like—are handled, there is rarely or
+never poignancy or depth.
+
+The great elemental facts and thoughts and feelings of life seldom
+confront us in the literature of the century as we make our way down the
+decades; even in the forerunners of the Romantic revolt we are never
+really stirred. “The Seasons,” and “The Elegy Written in a Country
+Churchyard,” touch responsive chords, but are far from moving us to
+thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls. Not until Blake and Burns is
+the veneer of convention and artificiality, in both matter and manner,
+definitely cast aside, and there is to be caught in English verse again,
+not only the authentic singing note, but, what is more, the recognition
+and exemplification of the great truth that the finest poetry most often
+has its “roots deep in the common stuff,” and it is not to be looked for
+in an age and environment when, with rationality apparently triumphant,
+men seemed careless of the eternal verities, of the thoughts and feelings
+that lie too deep for tears, or sadly recognized their impotence, or
+their frustrated desires, to image them forth in poetry.
+
+“What is it,” asks Gilbert Murray,[262] “that gives words their character
+and makes a style high or low? Obviously, their associations: the
+company they habitually keep in the minds of those who use them. A word
+which belongs to the language of bars and billiard-saloons will become
+permeated by the normal standard of mind prevalent in such places; a
+word which suggests Milton or Carlyle will have the flavour of those
+men’s minds about it. I therefore cannot resist the conclusion that if
+the language of Greek poetry has, to those who know it intimately, this
+special quality of keen austere beauty, it is because the minds of the
+poets who used that language were habitually toned to a higher level both
+of intensity and of nobility than ours. It is a finer language because
+it expresses the mind of finer men. By ‘finer men’ I do not necessarily
+mean men who behaved better, either by our standards or by their own:
+I mean the men to whom the fine things of the world, sunrise and sea
+and stars, and the love of man for man, and strife and the facing of
+evil for the sake of good, and even common things like meat and drink,
+and evil things like hate and terror had, as it were, a keener edge
+than they have for us, and roused a swifter and nobler reaction.” This
+passage has been quoted in full because it may be said to have a direct
+and definite bearing on the question of the average level of poetic
+language during the greater part of the eighteenth century: there were
+few or no _trouvailles_, no great discoveries, no sudden releasings of
+the magic power often lurking unsuspectedly in the most ordinary words,
+because the poets and versifiers for the most part had all gone wrong
+in their conception of the medium they essayed to mould. “The substance
+of poetry,” writes Professor Lowes,[263] “is also the very stuff of
+words. And in its larger sense as well the language of poetry is made up
+inevitably of symbols—of symbols for things in terms of other things,
+for things in terms of feelings, for feelings in terms of things. It is
+the language not of objects, but of the complex relations of objects.
+And the agency that moulds it is the ceaselessly active power that is
+special to poetry only in degree—_imagination_—that fuses the familiar
+and the strange, the thing I feel and the thing I see, the world within
+and the world without, into a _tertium quid_, that interprets both.” The
+eighteenth century was not perhaps so emphatically and entirely the “age
+of prose and reason” as is sometimes thought, but it could scarcely be
+called the “age of imagination,” and poetry, in its highest sense (“high
+poetry,” as Maeterlinck would call it), being of imagination all compact,
+found no abiding place there.
+
+Most words, we may say, potentially possess at least two or more
+significations, their connotative scope varying according to the
+knowledge or culture of the speaker or reader. First of all, there is
+the logical, their plain workaday use, we might call it; and next, and
+above and beyond all this, they have, so to speak, an exciting force,
+a power of stimulating and reviving in the mind and memory all the
+associations that cluster around them. Nearly all words carry with them,
+in vastly varying degrees, of course, this power of evocation, so that
+even commonplace terms, words, and phrases hackneyed and worn thin by
+unceasing usage, may suddenly be invested with a strange and beautiful
+suggestiveness when they are pressed into the service of the highest
+poetic imagination. And in the same way the æsthetic appeal of words of
+great potential value is reinforced and strengthened, when in virtue of
+their context, or even merely of the word or words to which they are
+attached, they are afforded a unique opportunity of flashing forth and
+bringing into play all the mysterious powers and associations gathered to
+themselves during a long employment in prose and verse, or on the lips of
+the people:
+
+    All the charm of all the muses
+        often flowering in a lonely word.
+
+Poetry of the highest value and appeal may be, and often is, as we know
+from concrete examples that flash into the mind, written in commonplace,
+everyday terms, and we ask ourselves how it is done.[264] There are the
+mysterious words of the dying Hamlet:
+
+    The rest is silence,
+
+or the line quoted by Matthew Arnold[265] as an instance when
+Wordsworth’s practice is to be found illustrating his theories:
+
+    And never lifted up a single stone,
+
+or the wonderful lines which seem to bring with them a waking vision of
+the beauty of the English countryside, radiant with the promise of Spring:
+
+                          daffodils,
+    That come before the swallow dares, and take
+    The winds of March with beauty.
+
+In these and many similar passages, which the reader will recall for
+himself, it would seem that the mere juxtaposition of more or less plain
+and ordinary words has led to such action and reaction between them as
+to charge each with vastly increased powers of evocation and suggestion,
+to which the mind of the reader, roused and stimulated, instinctively
+responds.
+
+Similarly, the satisfaction thus afforded to our æsthetic sense, or
+our emotional appreciation, is often evoked by a happy conjunction of
+epithet and noun placed together in a new relation, instantly recognized
+as adding an unsuspected beauty to an otherwise colourless word. The
+poets and versifiers of the eighteenth century were not particularly
+noteworthy for their skill or inspiration in the matter of the choice of
+epithet, but the genius of Blake, in this as in other respects of poetic
+achievement, raised him “above the age” and led him to such felicities of
+expression as in the last stanza of “The Piper”:
+
+    And I made a _rural pen_
+    And I stained the water clear,
+
+where, as has been aptly remarked,[266] a commonplace epithet is
+strangely and, apparently discordantly, joined to an equally commonplace
+noun, and yet the discord, in virtue of the fact that it sets the mind
+and memory working to recover or recall the faint ultimate associations
+of the two terms, endows the phrase with infinite suggestiveness. In the
+same way a subtle and magic effect is often produced by inversion of
+epithet, when the adjective is placed after instead of before the noun,
+and this again is a practice or device little favoured in the eighteenth
+century; the supremacy of the stopped couplet and its mechanical
+requirements were all against it.
+
+But the eighteenth century had little of this magic power of evocation;
+the secret had departed with the blind Milton, and it was not till the
+Romantic ascendancy had firmly established itself, not until Keats and
+Shelley and their great successors, that English poetry was once more
+able so to handle and fashion and rearrange words as to win from them
+their total and most intense associations. Yet contemporary criticism,
+especially in France, had not failed altogether to appreciate this
+potential magic of words. Diderot, for instance, speaks of the magic
+power that Homer and other great poets have given to many of their
+words; such words are, in his phrase, “hieroglyphic paintings,” that is,
+paintings not to the eye, but to the imagination.[267] What we feel about
+all the so-called classical verse of the eighteenth century, as well as
+of a good deal of the earlier Romantic poetry, is that writers have not
+been able to devise these subtle hieroglyphics; lack of real poetical
+inspiration, or the pressure of the prosaic and unimaginative atmosphere
+of their times, has led to a general poverty in the words or phrases that
+evoke some object before the inner eye, or charm the ear by an unheard
+melody, terms that, like the magic words of Keats, or the evanescent
+imagery of Shelley, stir us both emotionally and æsthetically. The
+verse of Pope and his followers is not without something of this power,
+but here the effect is achieved by the skill and polish with which the
+words are selected and grouped within the limits of the heroic couplet.
+Crabbe had marked down, accurately enough, this lack of word-power in his
+description of Dryden’s verse as “poetry in which the force of expression
+and accuracy of description have neither needed nor obtained assistance
+from the fancy of the writer,” and again, more briefly, as “poetry
+without an atmosphere.”[268] One negative indication of this “nudity”
+is the comparative poverty of eighteenth century poetry in new compound
+epithets, those felicitous terms which have added to the language some of
+its most poetical and pictorial phrases.
+
+The Prefaces of Wordsworth and the kindred comments and remarks of
+Coleridge were not, it is hardly necessary to say, in themselves powerful
+enough to effect an instant and complete revolution in poetical theory
+and practice. But it was all to the good that inspired craftsmen were at
+last beginning to worry themselves about the nature and quality of the
+material which they had to mould and fashion and combine into poetry;
+still more important was it that they were soon to have the powerful aid
+of fellow-workers like Shelley and Keats, whose practice was to reveal
+the magic lurking in words and phrases, so arranged and combined as to
+set them reverberating in the depths of our sensibility. And, on the
+side of form at least, this is the distinctively Romantic achievement;
+the æsthetic possibilities and potentialities of the whole of our
+language, past and present, were entrancingly revealed and magnificently
+exemplified; new and inexhaustible mines of poetical word-power were thus
+opened up, and the narrow and conventional limits of the diction within
+which the majority of the eighteenth century poets had “tallied” their
+verses were transcended and swept away.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] A brief summary, which is here utilized, is given by Spingarn,
+“Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century,” I, Intro. xxxvi, foll.
+(Oxford, 1908).
+
+[2] _Vide_ Spingarn, _op. cit._, _Intro._ XXXVI-XLVIII; and also
+Robertson, “Studies in the Genesis of Romantic Theory in the XVIIIth
+Century” (Cambridge, 1924), an attempt “to show that the Movement which
+led to the dethronement of Reason, in favour of the Imagination, chief
+arbiter in poetic creation, and which culminated with Goethe and Schiller
+in Germany and the Romantic Revival in England, is to be put to the
+credit not of ourselves, but of Italy, who thus played again that pioneer
+rôle which she had already played in the sixteenth century.”
+
+[3] Spingarn, _op. cit._, II, p. 118.
+
+[4] _Ibid._, II, p. 310.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, II, p. 273.
+
+[6] “Apology for Heroic Poetry”: “Essays of John Dryden,” ed. W. P. Ker
+(1909), Vol. I, p. 190.
+
+[7] “There appears in every part of his [Horace’s] diction, or (to
+speak English) in all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold
+purity.”—_Ibid._, p. 266.
+
+[8] “Lives”: Dryden, ed. G. B. Hill (1905), Vol. I, p. 420; and cp.
+Goldsmith, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous
+Works), 1821, Vol. IV, p. 381 foll.
+
+[9] “Letters” (To R. West), 1742, ed. Tovey (1900); Vol. II, pp. 97-8.
+
+[10] Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. I, pp. 17-8.
+
+[11] _Ibid._, pp. 188 foll.
+
+[12] Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 234.
+
+[13] Edward Young, the author of “Night Thoughts,” was later to express
+this tersely enough: “Words tarnished, by passing through the mouths of
+the vulgar, are laid aside as inelegant and obsolete”—”Conjectures on
+Original Composition,” 1759 (“English Critical Essays,” Oxford, 1922, p.
+320).
+
+[14] Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin: “Life,” Vol. V, p. 69.
+
+[15] That is to say, as Mr. John Drinkwater has recently put it, it
+was “the common language, but raised above the common pitch, of the
+coffee-houses and boudoirs.”—“Victorian Poetry,” 1923, pp. 30-32.
+
+[16] _Vide_ Elton, “The Augustan Ages,” 1889, pp. 419 foll.
+
+[17] Cp. “Essay on Criticism,” I, ll. 130-140.
+
+[18] John Dennis, of course, at the beginning of the century, is to
+be found pleading that “passion is the chief thing in poetry,” (“The
+Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry,” 1701); but it is to be
+feared that he is only, so to speak, ringing the changes on the Rules.
+
+[19] “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” ed. Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II,
+p. 147.
+
+[20] “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” Ker, _op cit._, Vol. II, p.
+148. “_Operum Colores_ is the very word which Horace uses to signify
+words and elegant expressions.” etc.
+
+[21] Lessing’s “Laokoon,” which appeared in 1766, may in this, as in
+other connexions, be regarded as the first great Romantic manifesto.
+The limitations of poetry and the plastic arts were analysed, and the
+fundamental conditions to which each art must adhere, if it is to
+accomplish its utmost, were definitely and clearly laid down.
+
+[22] “Polymetis” (1747), p. 311.
+
+[23] “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. XXII.
+
+[24] _Ibid._, Chap. IV.
+
+[25] _Vide_ especially Babbitt, “The New Laocoon, An Essay on the
+Confusion of the Arts” (1910), to which these paragraphs are indebted;
+and for a valuable survey of the relations of English poetry with
+painting and with music, see “English Poetry in Its Relation to Painting
+and the other Arts,” by Laurence Binyon (London, 1919), especially pp.
+15-19.
+
+[26] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Gregory Smith, Vol. I,
+Intro. (Oxford, 1904).
+
+[27] _Vide_, e.g., Addison, “Spectator” papers on “Paradise Lost” (No.
+285, January 26, 1712).
+
+[28] Essay, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous
+Works, 1820, Vol. IV, pp. 408-14).
+
+[29] _Ibid._, p. 22.
+
+[30] “Lives,” Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 420.
+
+[31] “Lives”: Cowley; cp. “The Rambler,” No. 158.
+
+[32] Cp. Boswell’s “Life” (1851 edition), Vol. I, p. 277: “He enlarged
+very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in
+English poetry”; also _ibid._, Vol. II, p. 84.
+
+[33] “Lives,” ed. Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, pp. 416 foll.
+
+[34] _Ibid._, p. 341.
+
+[35] This is of course exemplified in his own poetic practice, and it
+has been held sufficient to explain the oft-debated scantiness of his
+literary production. But for remarkable examples of his minuteness and
+scrupulosity in the matter of poetic diction see the letter to West
+referred to above; to Mason, January 13, 1758 (Tovey, _op. cit._, II, p.
+12), and to Beattie, March 8, 1771 (_ibid._, II, p. 305).
+
+[36] Cp. Courthope, “History of English Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 218 foll.
+
+[37] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” _op. cit._, Intro., pp. LV-LX.
+
+[38] Preface to the “Fables,” Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 266-67.
+
+[39] _Vide_ Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, Vol. II.
+
+[40] _Vide_ “Translation of Homer,” ed. Buckley, Intro., p. 47; and cp.
+“The Guardian,” No. 78, “A Receipt to make an Epic Poem.”
+
+[41] Tovey, _op. cit._, March 8, 1771 (Vol. II, pp. 305 foll.); Beattie’s
+comments are given by Tovey, _ibid._, footnotes.
+
+[42] “Rambler,” No. 121, May 14, 1751.
+
+[43] “Lines written in Imitation of Certain Poems Published in 1777”;
+and cp. William Whitehead’s “Charge to the Poets” (1762), which may be
+taken to reflect the various attitudes of the reading public towards the
+“revivals.”—(“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. XI, pp. 935-7.)
+
+[44] Works (1820), _op. cit._, Vol. IV, p. 124.
+
+[45] September 27, 1788 (“Letters,” 4 vols, 1806, Vol. II, p. 106).
+
+[46] Letter to Lady Hesketh, March 22, 1790 (“Correspondence of
+William Cowper—Arranged in Chronological Order by T. Wright,” 4 vols.,
+1904).—Vol. III, pp. 446, foll.
+
+[47] 1807 ed., Vol. I, pp. 21 and 24; cp. also Campbell, “The Philosophy
+of Rhetoric” (London, 1776), Vol. I, pp. 410-411.
+
+[48] “Spectator,” 285, January 26, 1712.
+
+[49] “Homer”; ed. Buckley, Intro., 49.
+
+[50] Spingarn, _op. cit._, II, pp. 1-51; for Hobbes “Answer,” and
+Cowley’s “Preface to Poems,” see _ibid._, pp. 54-90.
+
+[51] “Dedication of the Æneis,” Ker, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 154, foll.;
+cp. Addison, “Spectator,” 297, January 9, 1712.
+
+[52] _Vide_, e.g., E. Barat, “Le Style poétique et la Révolution
+Romantique” (Paris, 1904), pp. 5-35.
+
+[53] “Lives of the Poets. Pope,” ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 251.
+
+[54] _Ibid._, p. 244.
+
+[55] January 17, 1782 (Wright, _op. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 429-30).
+
+[56] Prose Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. II, pp. 101 foll.
+
+[57] “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross (1907), p. 26, Note; cp. also
+Southey, “Works of Cowper” (1884 edition), Vol. I, p. 313.
+
+[58] “The Progress of Taste,” III, ll. 7-10.
+
+[59] Wordsworth himself of course stigmatized the “hubbub of words”
+which was often the only result of these eighteenth century attempts to
+paraphrase passages from the Old and the New Testament “as they exist in
+our common translation.”—_Vide_ Prefaces, etc., “Poetical Works,” ed.
+Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916). p. 943.
+
+[60] For a detailed description of the stock diction of English
+“Classical” poetry, see especially Myra Reynolds, “Nature in English
+Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1912), to which the foregoing
+remarks are indebted.
+
+[61] “Essay on Criticism,” I, l. 350 foll.
+
+[62] “Essay on Men and Manners” (Works, 1764), Vol. II.
+
+[63] “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.
+
+[64] Bysshe, “Art of Poetry,” Third Edition (1708), Chap. I, par. 1
+(quoted by Saintsbury, “Loci Critici,” 1903, p. 174).
+
+[65] To the Rev. John Newton, December 10, 1785 (Wright, _op. cit._, Vol.
+II, pp. 404-406).
+
+[66] _Vide_ Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin (1889), Vol. V., p. 166.
+
+[67] Philips has large supplies of the poetical stock-in-trade. He speaks
+of “honeysuckles of a _purple_ dye,” and anticipates Gray in his couplet,
+
+    Like woodland Flowers which paint the desert glades
+    And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades.
+
+                                                   (“The Fable of Thule”)
+
+(_Vide_ “Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. IX, 384-407.)
+
+[68] But, as de Selincourt points out in “Poems of John Keats” (1905,
+Appendix C, p. 580), it is only the excessive and unnatural use of these
+adjectives that calls for censure.
+
+[69] Especially in the case of compound epithets. Cf. Earle, “Philology
+of the English Tongue,” p. 601, for examples from the works of the poets
+from Shakespeare to Tennyson. For Shakespeare’s use of this form, see
+Schmidt, “Shakespeare Lexicon,” Vol. II, pp. 147 foll. (2nd Ed., London
+and Berlin, 1886).
+
+[70] But compare “Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (p. 249), where it is justly
+pointed out that not a few of these circuitous phrases are justified by
+“considerations of dramatic propriety.”
+
+[71] Cf. Raleigh, “Milton,” _op. cit._, pp. 252-3.
+
+[72] “Spring,” ll. 478 foll.
+
+[73] In “Summer,” Thomson had first used _feathery race_ which was later
+amended into _tuneful race_—apparently the best improvement he could
+think of!
+
+[74] For a detailed study of Thomson’s diction, see especially Leon
+Morel, “James Thomson. Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres” (Paris, 1895), Chap. IV, pp.
+412 foll.
+
+[75] To Mason, January 13, 1758 (“Letters of Gray,” ed. Tovey, Vol. II,
+pp. 13-14).
+
+[76] _Vide_ “The Poems of Chatterton, with an Essay on the Rowley Poems,”
+by W. W. Skeat (1871).
+
+[77] Canto III, 652 foll.
+
+[78] “A Paladin of Philanthropy” (1899), p. 59 (quoted by Courthope,
+“History English Poetry,” V, 216).
+
+[79] But cf. Courthope, “History English Poetry” (1910), Vol. V, p. 218.
+
+[80] Arthur Symons, “William Blake” (1907), p. 39.
+
+[81] To Mrs. Butts: “Poetical Works,” ed. Sampson (Oxford, 1914), p. 187.
+
+[82] “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, p. 16. (Oxford, 1907.)
+
+[83] Cf. “Letters,” to Samuel Rose, December 13, 1787: “Correspondence”
+arranged by W. Wright (1904), Vol. III, p. 190. To C. Rowley, February
+21, 1788, _ibid._, pp. 231 foll.
+
+[84] E.g. Charles Wesley’s “Wrestling Jacob,” or Watts’s “When I Survey
+the Wondrous Cross.”
+
+[85] _Vide_ Courthope, _op. cit._, Book V, Ch. XI; and cp. the confident
+and just claims put forward by John Wesley himself on behalf of the
+language of the hymns, in his “Preface to the Collection of Hymns for the
+Use of the People called Methodists,” 1780.
+
+[86] Cf. Coleridge “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, _op. cit._, p.
+11.
+
+[87] _Vide_ especially the dialogue with a Bookseller on the language of
+poetry.
+
+[88] In both the first and the final forms “Poetical Works,” ed.
+Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916) Appendix, pp. 592 foll.
+
+[89] For a detailed account see E. Legouis, “La Jeunesse de Wordsworth”
+(English translation, 1897; Revised edition, 1921).
+
+[90] _Vide_ “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, Intro., pp.
+lv foll.
+
+[91] Both the Fletchers also used many other latinized forms found before
+their time, and which in some cases they probably took direct from
+Spenser.
+
+[92] E.g. by Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. III, p.
+339, where a list is given (“only a few of the examples”) of Milton’s
+“coinages” and “creations.” Of this list only some half dozen (according
+to the N.E.D.) owe their first literary appearance to Milton.
+
+[93] E.g. _debel_, _disglorified_, _conglobe_, _illaudable_, etc., date
+from the sixteenth century; _Battailous_ goes back to Wycliff (N.E.D.).
+
+[94] Cf.“Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (1915), pp. 247 foll.
+
+[95] _Vide_ Masson, “Milton’s Poetical Works,” Vol. III, pp. 77-78
+(1890-).
+
+[96] Similarly the “Virgil” translation has, e.g., _in a round error_ for
+“wandering round and round,” etc.
+
+[97] That it could easily become absurd was not unperceived in the
+eighteenth century. Vide Leonard Welsted: “Epistle to Mr. Pope,” May,
+1730 (“Works in Verse and Prose,” London, 1787, p. 141).
+
+[98] _Vide_ “Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,” ed. Myra Reynolds,
+pp. 210-213 (Chicago, 1903).
+
+[99] _Vide_ “Complete Poetical Works,” edited J. L. Robertson (Oxford,
+1908), which includes a variorum edition of “The Seasons.”
+
+[100] “Poetical Epistle to Mr. Thomson on the First Edition of his
+‘Seasons’” (P.G.B., Vol. VIII, p. 504).
+
+[101] “Letter to Mallett,” August 11, 1726.
+
+[102] Cp. Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 419-424.
+
+[103] E.g. ll. 766 foll., 828 foll., 881 foll.
+
+[104] Cp. also ll. 126 foll.; 711 foll.
+
+[105] Cp. also the respective versions of “Autumn,” ll. 748 and 962.
+
+[106] Cp. also “Summer,” ll. 353, 376, 648; “Autumn,” ll. 349, 894-895.
+
+[107] Cp. “Milton,” Raleigh, _op. cit._, pp. 252-3.
+
+[108] One of the most noteworthy is the constant employment of adjectives
+as adverbs in opposition (e.g., “the grand etherial bow, Shoots up
+_immense_”) a device used both by Milton and Pope, but by neither with
+anything like the freedom seen in “The Seasons.”
+
+[109] Cf. Chapter VI, _infra._
+
+[110] In the “Essay Supplementary to the Preface,” Hutchinson, _op.
+cit._, p. 949.
+
+[111] That Young’s readers and even his editors were occasionally puzzled
+is seen by the history of the term “concertion.” This was the spelling
+of the first and most of the subsequent editions, including that of
+1787, where the Glossary explains it as meaning “contrivance.” But some
+editions (e.g. 1751) have “consertion,” and some, according to Richardson
+(“New Dictionary,” 1836), have “conception.”
+
+[112] Armstrong’s “gelid cistern” for “cold bath” has perhaps gained the
+honour of an unidentified quotation.
+
+[113] _Vacant_ in the oft-quoted line from “The Deserted Village” (“The
+loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind”), where the word is used in its
+Latin sense of “free from care.”
+
+[114] As in the case of Milton, Cowper’s latinized words appear to have
+been floating about for a considerable period, though in most cases their
+first poetic use is apparently due to him.
+
+[115] Cp. also III, 229, 414; IV, 494.
+
+[116] Apparently after he had done some pruning amongst them (_vide_
+“Letter” to Joseph Hill, March 29, 1793, Wright, _op. cit._, Vol. IV,
+p. 390), and compare his footnote to the “Iliad,” VII, 359, where he
+apologizes for his coinage _purpureal_.
+
+[117] For an account of the parallelism between certain of the eighteenth
+century stock epithets and various words and phrases from the Latin
+poets, especially Virgil (e.g. “hollow” and “_cavus_”: “liquid fountain”
+and _liquidi fontes_), see Myra Reynolds, “Nature in English Poetry from
+Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1909), pp. 46-49.
+
+[118] Cf. Some apt remarks by Raleigh, “Milton,” _op. cit._, pp. 247 and
+255.
+
+[119] Cp. Saintsbury, “History of Literary Criticism” (1900-1904), Vol.
+II, p. 479, note 1.
+
+[120] Cp. Elton, “Survey of English Literature,” 1830-1880 (1920), Vol.
+II, p. 17, remarks on Rossetti’s diction.
+
+[121] Cp. also Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 423-424.
+
+[122] _Vide_ Lounsbury, “Studies in Chaucer” (1892), Vol. III.
+
+[123] “Scrannel” is either Milton’s coinage or a borrowing from some
+dialect (N.E.D.).
+
+[124] This of course is used by many later writers, and was perhaps not
+regarded in Dryden’s time as an archaism.
+
+[125] “New English Dictionary.”
+
+[126] “Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. X, p. 120.
+
+[127] The prevailing ignorance of earlier English is illustrated in that
+stanza by Pope’s explanation of the expression “mister wight,” which he
+had taken from Spenser, as “uncouth mortal.”
+
+[128] “The Works of Mr. Edmund Spenser, in 6 Vols. with a glossary
+explaining the old and obscure words. Published by Mr. Hughes, London.”
+
+[129] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 115-140.
+
+[130] As in Prior’s “Susanna and the Two Elders” and “Erle Robert’s Mice”
+(1712).
+
+[131] “Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser,” 1754.
+
+[132] “An Answer to the Sompner’s Prologue in Chaucer,” printed anon, in
+“Lintott’s Miscellany,” entitled “Poems on Several Occasions” (1717), p.
+147.
+
+[133] “A Tale Devised in the Plesaunt manere of Gentil Maister Jeoffrey
+Chaucer” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. VII, p. 674).
+
+[134] “Poems on Several Occasions,” by the Rev. Thomas Warton, 1748, p.
+30.
+
+[135] “Poems on Several Occasions,” London, 1711, pp. 203-223.
+
+[136] _Vide_ List given by Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English
+Romantic Movement” (1899), Appendix I, p. 175; and cf. an exhaustive
+list, including complete glossaries, given in “Das Altertümliche im
+Wortschatz der Spenser-Nachahmungen des 18 Jahrhunderts,” by Karl Reining
+(Strassburg, 1912).
+
+[137] E.g. Robert Lloyd, 1733-1764, in his “Progress of Envy” (Anderson,
+Vol. V), defines _wimpled_ as “hung down”; “The Squire of Dames,” by
+Moses Mendez (1700-1738) has many old words (“benty,” etc.), which are
+often open to the suspicion of being manufactured archaisms.
+
+[138] _Vide_ his letter to Graves, June, 1742.—“Works,” Vol. III, p. 63
+(1769).
+
+[139] “Poems on Several Occasions,” by William Thompson, M.A., etc.,
+Oxford, 1757, pp. 1-13.
+
+[140] _Ibid._, pp. 58-68.
+
+[141] “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper,” by Dr.
+Samuel Johnson, 21 Vols. (London, 1810), Vol. XV, p. 32.
+
+[142] Thompson has taken this wrong meaning direct with the word itself
+from Spenser, “Shepherds Kalendar,” April, l. 26, where _glen_ is glossed
+by E.K. as “a country hamlet or borough.”
+
+[143] Cp. Joseph Warton’s “Essay on Pope,” Vol. I, p. 366 (4th edition,
+1782). Wordsworth, too, as we know, called it a “fine poem” and praised
+it for its harmonious verse and pure diction, but we may imagine that
+he was praising it for its own sake without regard to its merits as a
+Spenserian imitation (_vide_ Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 949).
+
+[144] There are at least forty stanzas in the First Canto, without a
+single archaic form, and an equal proportion in Canto Two: Cf. Morel,
+_op. cit._, pp. 629-630.
+
+[145] “The letter _y_,” he naïvely says in his “Glossary,” “is frequently
+placed at the beginning of a word by Spenser, to lengthen it a syllable,
+and _en_ at the end of a word, for the same reason.”
+
+[146] Thompson seems to have been the first to use the word _bicker_ as
+applied to running water, an application which was later to receive the
+sanction of Scott and Tennyson (N.E.D.).
+
+[147] Among the last examples was Beattie’s “Minstrel” (1771-74), which
+occasioned some of Gray’s dicta on the use of archaic and obsolete words.
+
+[148] Spenserian “forgeries” had also made their appearance as early as
+in 1713, when Samuel Croxall had attempted to pass off two Cantos as the
+original work of “England’s Arch-Poet, Spenser” (2nd edition, London,
+1714). In 1747, John Upton made a similar attempt, though probably in
+neither case were the discoveries intended to be taken seriously.
+
+[149] See Phelps, _op. cit._, Chap. VIII, and Grace R. Trenery, “Ballad
+Collections of the Eighteenth Century,” “Modern Language Review,” July,
+1915, pp. 283 foll.
+
+[150] _Vide_ “Preface to A Collection of Old Ballads,” 3 vols. (1723-52),
+and cf. Benjamin Wakefield’s “Warbling Muses” (1749), Preface.
+
+[151] Yet thirty years later the collections of Joseph Ritson, the last
+and best of the eighteenth century editors, failed to win acceptance.
+His strictly accurate versions of the old songs and ballads were
+contemptuously dismissed by the “Gentleman’s Magazine” (August, 1790) as
+“the compilation of a peevish antiquary.”
+
+[152] “Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript,” edited Furnivall and Hales, 4
+vols. (1867-68).
+
+[153] _Vide_ Henry A. Beers, “A History of English Romanticism in the
+Eighteenth Century,” 1899, Chap. VIII, pp. 298-302.
+
+[154] Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 950.
+
+[155] “Chatterton—Poetical Works,” with an Essay on the Rowley Poems,
+by W. W. Skeat, and a memoir by Bell (2 vols., 1871-1875); and _vide_
+Tyrwhitt, “Poems supposed to have been written at Bristol by Thomas
+Rowley and others in the fifteenth century” (London, 1777).
+
+[156] _Vide_ Oswald Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason” (1922),
+p. 251.
+
+[157] _Vide_ John Sampson, “The Poetical Works of William Blake” (Oxford,
+1905), Preface, viii.
+
+[158] Until the middle of the eighteenth century the form _glen_ occurs
+in English writers only as an echo of Spenser (N.E.D.).
+
+[159] _Vide_ “The Dialect of Robert Burns,” by Sir James Wilson
+(Oxford Press, 1923), and for happy instances of beautiful words still
+lingering on in the Scots dialects, _vide_ especially “The Roxburghshire
+Word-Book,” by George Watson (Cambridge, 1923).
+
+[160] Sweet, “New English Grammar” (1892), Part II, pp. 208-212, and
+Skeat, “Principles of English Etymology” (1887), Part I, pp. 418-420.
+
+[161] The first literary appearance of each compound has been checked
+as far as possible by reference to the “New English Dictionary.” It is
+hardly necessary to say that the fact of a compound being assigned, as
+regards its first appearance, to any individual writer, is not in itself
+evidence that he himself invented the new formation, or even introduced
+it into literature. But in many cases, either from the nature of the
+compound itself, or from some other internal or external evidence, the
+assumption may be made.
+
+[162] Cp. Sweet, _op. cit._, p. 449.
+
+[163] In the “Beowulf” there are twenty-three compounds meaning “Ocean,”
+twelve meaning “Ship,” and eighteen meaning “Sword” (_vide_ Emerson,
+“Outline History of the English Language,” 1906, p. 121).
+
+[164] Cp. Champney’s “History of English” (1893), p. 192 and Note; and
+Lounsbury, “History of the English Language” (1909), p. 109.
+
+[165] Cp. Sidney’s remarks in the “Defence of Poesie—Elizabethan Critical
+Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, p. 204.
+
+[166] E.g. Spenser’s “_sea-shouldering_ whales” (an epithet that
+especially pleased Keats), Nashe’s “_sky-bred_ chirpers,” Marlowe’s
+“_gold-fingered_ Ind,” Shakespeare’s “_fancy-free_,” “_forest-born_,”
+“_cloud-capt_,” etc.
+
+[167] Dryden, “English Men of Letters” (1906), p. 76.
+
+[168] Pope’s “Homer,” ed. Buckley, Preface, p. xli.
+
+[169] _Ibid._, p. 47; and cp. Coleridge, “Biographia Literaria,” ed.
+Shawcross (Oxford, 1907), Vol. I, p. 2, Footnote.
+
+[170] Here it may be noted that many of Pope’s compounds in his “Homer”
+have no warrant in the original; they are in most cases supplied by Pope
+himself, to “pad out” his verses, or, more rarely, as paraphrases of
+Greek words or phrases.
+
+[171] Shawcross, _op. cit._, p. 2, Footnote.
+
+[172] “Lives” ed. Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, p. 298.
+
+[173] _Vide_ Leon Morel, _op. cit._, Ch. IV, pp. 412 foll., for a
+detailed examination of Thomson’s compound formations.
+
+[174] It would appear that this epithet had particularly caught the
+fancy of Collins. He uses it also in the “Ode on the Manners,” this time
+figuratively, when he writes of “_dim-discovered_ tracts of mind.”
+
+[175] “Works,” _op. cit._, Vol. IV, p. 203. In point of fact, there is
+little or no evidence in favour of it. Even the Spenserian imitations
+that flourished exceedingly at this time have little interest in this
+respect. Shenstone has very few instances of compounds, but the poems
+of William Thompson furnish a few examples: “_honey-trickling_ streams”
+(“Sickness,” Bk. I), “_Lily-mantled_ meads” (_ibid._), etc. Gilbert
+West’s Spenserian poems have no instances of any special merit; but
+a verse of his Pindar shows that he was not without a gift for happy
+composition: “The _billow-beaten_ side of the _foam-besilvered_ main.”
+
+[176] “Letters,” Vol. III, p. 97.
+
+[177] Hill, _op. cit._, Vol. III, p. 437.
+
+[178] _Ibid._, p. 434.
+
+[179] _Vide_ Edmund Gosse, “Two Pioneers of Romanticism” (Warton
+Lecture), 1915.
+
+[180] It is a coincidence to find that the N.E.D. assigns the first use
+of the compound _furze-clad_ to Wordsworth.
+
+[181] Bell’s “Fugitive Poets” (London, 1789), Vol. VI.
+
+[182] Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. XI.
+
+[183] Bell, _op. cit._
+
+[184] Anderson, _op. cit._
+
+[185] “British Poets,” Vol. X.
+
+[186] _Ibid._, Vol. XI, Pt. I.
+
+[187] _Ibid._, Pt. II.
+
+[188] “British Poets,” Vol. XI, Pt. II.
+
+[189] _Vide_ Legouis, _op. cit._ (English translation, 1897), pp. 133
+foll.
+
+[190] Shawcross, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 2, Note.
+
+[191] See, e.g., de Selincourt’s remarks on Keats’ compound epithets;
+“Poems” (1904), Appendix C, p. 581.
+
+[192] “Biog. Lit.,” _op. cit._, and cp. “Poetical Works,” ed. Dykes
+Campbell, Appendix K, p. 540.
+
+[193] “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.
+
+[194] “History of English Prosody,” _op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 480; and cp.
+_ibid._, p. 496.
+
+[195] Prefaces, “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916), p. 936.
+
+[196] _Vide_ Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. I, Chap.
+IX, for an account of mediaeval allegory and personification.
+
+[197] E.g. “Palamon,” II, 480, 564, 565; Æneas XII, 505-506.
+
+[198] “Black Melancholy” (ll. 163-168) and “Hope” (l. 278), the former of
+which especially pleased Joseph Warton (“Essay on Pope”: Works, Vol. I,
+p. 314).
+
+[199] Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 209.
+
+[200] Cf. “Suicide” (Canto II, 194-250).
+
+[201] Cf. also Bk. I, ll. 10, 11; 548, etc.
+
+[202] Especially in Book III of “The Duellist,” where the reader is
+baffled and wearied by the unending array of bloodless abstractions.
+
+[203] It may be noted incidentally that, according to the “New English
+Dictionary,” the term _personification_ owes its first literary
+appearance to the famous “Dictionary” of 1755, where it is thus defined,
+and (appropriately enough) illustrated: “_Prosopopeia_, the change of
+things to persons, as ‘Confusion heard his voice.’”
+
+[204] Phelps, _op. cit._, pp. 37-38.
+
+[205] “Letter” to Mallet, August 11, 1726: “I thank you heartily for your
+hint about personizing of Inspiration: it strikes me.”
+
+[206] Cf. also “Winter,” 794 and “Autumn,” 143.
+
+[207] For some happy instances of its use in English poetry, as well
+as for a detailed account of Thomson’s use of personification, see
+especially Morel, _op. cit._, pp. 444-455.
+
+[208] Poets of Great Britain (1793), Vol. IX, p. 414.
+
+[209] “British Poets,” Vol. XXII (1822), p. 117.
+
+[210] “A Collection of Poems by several hands,” 3 vols., 1748; 2nd
+edition, with Vol. IV, 1749; Vol. V and VI, 1758; Pearch’s continuations,
+Vol. VII and VIII, 1768, and Vol. IX and X, 1770.
+
+[211] “Dodsley” (1770 ed.), Vol. IV, p. 50.
+
+[212] _Ibid._, VI, 148.
+
+[213] “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 5.
+
+[214] _Vide_ also Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry” (1791). Vol. XI, where there
+is a section devoted to “Poems in the manner of Milton.”
+
+[215] “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 269.
+
+[216] At the same time there appeared a similar volume of the Odes of
+William Collins, “Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric Subjects,”
+the original intention having been to publish in one volume. Collins’s
+collection had a lukewarm reception, so that the author soon burned the
+unsold copies. But see Articles in “The Times Literary Supplement,”
+January 5th (p. 5) and January 12, 1922 (p. 28), by Mr. H. O. White,
+on “William Collins and his Contemporary Critics,” from which it would
+appear that the Odes were not received with such indifference as is
+commonly believed.
+
+[217] Cf. “Pope’s Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V, p. 365.
+
+[218] _Vide_ also “The Triumph of Isis” (1749), and “The Monody written
+near Stratford-on-Avon.” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. XI, pp.
+1061-4.)
+
+[219] Cf. Gosse, “A History of Eighteenth Century Literature” (1889), p.
+233.
+
+[220] Cf. Courthope, “Hist. Engl. Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 397-8.
+
+[221] “Lives,” ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 341.
+
+[222] “On Lyric Poetry—Poetical Works,” ed. Mitford (Aldine, ed. 1896),
+Vol. II, p. 147.
+
+[223] In the Aldine edition, ed. Thomas (1901) these personified
+abstractions are not invested with a capital letter.
+
+[224] “Biographia Literaria” (ed. Shawcross, 1907), p. 12; cf. also
+“Table Talk” (October 23, 1833), ed. H. N. Coleridge (1858), p. 340.
+“Gray’s personifications,” he said, “were mere printer’s devil’s
+personifications,” etc.
+
+[225] Two of Gray’s mechanical figures were marked down for special
+censure by Dr. Johnson (“Lives,” Gray, ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p.
+440), whose criticism was endorsed by Walpole (“Letters,” Vol. III, p.
+98), who likened “Fell Thirst and Famine” to the devils in “The Tempest”
+who whisk away the banquets from the shipwrecked Dukes.
+
+[226] “Letters” (December 19, 1786), Tovey, _op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 322.
+
+[227] In this connexion mention may be made of “William Blake’s Designs
+for Gray’s Poems,” recently published for the first time with a valuable
+introduction by H. J. C. Grierson (Oxford, 1922). “Blake’s imagination,”
+says Professor Grierson, “communicates an intenser life to Gray’s
+half-conventional personifications” (Intro., p. 17).
+
+[228] Canto I: LXXIV-LXXV.
+
+[229] Cp. also the detailed personification of “Thrift,” given by Mickle
+in his “Syr Martyn” (1787).—“Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. XI, p.
+645.
+
+[230] Cf. “Paradise Lost,” VI, 3; and Pope’s “Iliad,” V, 297.
+
+[231] “Works” ed. Ellis and Yeats, Vol. I, Pref., x.
+
+[232] July 6, 1803, “Letters,” ed. A. G. B. Russell (1906), p. 121.
+
+[233] In the parallel verses of “The Songs of Experience” the human
+attributes are attributed respectively to _Cruelty_, _Jealousy_,
+_Terror_, and _Secrecy_.
+
+[234] “Poetical Works,” ed. John Sampson (Oxford), 1914, p. 187.
+
+[235] _Vide_, e.g., ll. 18-26.
+
+[236] See also, e.g., “Midnight,” l. 272 foll, and l. 410 foll.
+
+[237] A similar type of abstraction is found here and there in the
+stanzas of the “Song to David” (1763), e.g.:
+
+    ’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned
+    And heavenly melancholy tuned
+        To bless and bear the rest.
+
+But on the whole Smart’s famous poem is singularly free from the bane,
+though the “Hymn to the Supreme Being” (_vide_ “A Song to David,” edited
+Tutin (1904), Appendix, p. 32), has not escaped the contagion. But better
+instances are to be found in the Odes (“Works,” 1761-1762), e.g., “Strong
+Labour ... with his pipe in his mouth,” “Health from his Cottage of
+thatch,” etc. _Vide_ also article on “Christopher Smart,” “Times Literary
+Supplement,” April 6, 1922, p. 224.
+
+[238] Cf. “Poems of William Cowper,” ed. J. C. Bailey (1905), Intro., p.
+xl.
+
+[239] There are faint personifications of the other seasons in Book
+III, ll. 427 foll., but none perhaps as effective as William Mickle had
+already given in his ode, “Vicissitude,” where he depicts Winter staying:
+
+          his creeping steps to pause
+    And wishful turns his icy eyes
+    On April meads.
+
+[240] _Streaky_, for instance, is due to Thomson who, in the first draft
+of “Summer” (ll. 47-48) had written:
+
+    Mildly elucent in the streaky east,
+
+later changed to
+
+    At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.
+
+[241] “Letters,” edited E. Coleridge, 1895, p. 215.
+
+[242] “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. I.
+
+[243] The ridicule was crystallized in Canning’s famous parody, “The
+Loves of the Triangles,” which appeared in “The Anti-Jacobin,” Nos. 23,
+24 and 26, April to May, 1798. (_Vide_ “The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin,”
+edited C. Edmonds, 1854, 3rd edition, 1890.)
+
+[244] “The Botanic Garden” (4th edition, 1799), Interlude I, Vol. II, p.
+64. Cp. also _ibid._, Interlude III, p. 182 foll.
+
+[245] For details see Legouis, _op. cit._
+
+[246] Both the original and the final versions of the “Evening Walk” and
+the “Descriptive Sketches” are given by Hutchinson, _op. cit._, Appendix,
+pp. 592, 601.
+
+[247] But the artistic possibilities of Personification were not
+unrecognized by writers and critics in the eighteenth century. _Vide_
+Blair’s lecture on “Personification” (“Lectures on Rhetoric”) 9th
+edition, 1803; Lec. XVI, p. 375.
+
+[248] “The Stones of Venice” (1851), Vol. II, Chap. VIII, pp. 312
+foll.—The Ducal Palace, “Personification is, in some sort, the reverse
+of symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of
+a great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign ... and it is almost
+always employed by men in their most serious moods of faith, rarely in
+recreation.... But Personification is the bestowing of a human or living
+form upon an abstract idea; it is in most cases, a mere recreation of
+the fancy, and is apt to disturb the belief in the reality of the thing
+personified.”
+
+[249] For an illuminating analysis, see Elton, “A Survey of English
+Literature,” 1780-1830 (1912), pp. 1-29.
+
+[250] “Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise,” Vol. IV, pp. 175-178.
+
+[251] Cf. Coleridge’s remarks in “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross,
+Chap. I (Oxford, 1907).
+
+[252] Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 211.
+
+[253] “Sleep and Poetry,” ll. 188-201.
+
+[254] Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 948.
+
+[255] “Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. X, p. 709.
+
+[256] Cf. “Works” (1889), ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V., p. 360-364.
+
+[257] George Saintsbury, “Eighteenth Century Poetry” (“The London
+Mercury,” December, 1919, pp. 155-163); an article in which a great
+authority once again tilts an effective lance on behalf of the despised
+Augustans.
+
+[258] The best of them have been garnered by Mr. Iola A. Williams into
+a little volume, “By-ways Round Helicon” (London, 1922), where the
+interested reader may browse with much pleasure and profit, and where he
+will no doubt find not a little to surprise and delight him. For a still
+more complete anthology, _vide_ “The Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth
+Century” (1923) by the same editor. But for the devil’s advocacy see
+Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason” (London, 1922)
+
+[259] The fountain head of all such studies is, of course, the
+“Biographia Literaria,” for which see especially Shawcross’s edition,
+1907, Vol. II, pp. 287-297. Of recent general treatises, Lascelles
+Abercrombie, “Poetry and Contemporary Speech” (1914); Vernon Lee,
+“The Handling of Words” (1923); Ogden and Richards, “The Meaning of
+Meaning”(1923), may be mentioned.
+
+[260] Elton, “Survey of English Literature” (1780-1830), Vol. II, pp. 88
+foll.
+
+[261] Cf. Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1899), p. 209.
+
+[262] “The Legacy of Greece” (Oxford, 1921), p. 11.
+
+[263] “Convention and Revolt in Poetry” (London, 1921), p. 13.
+
+[264] Just as this book was about to go to press, there appeared “The
+Theory of Poetry,” by Professor Lascelles Abercrombie, in which a poet
+and critic of great distinction has embodied his thoughts on his own art.
+Chaps. III and IV especially should be consulted for a most valuable
+account and analysis of how the poetical “magic” of words is achieved.
+
+[265] “Essays in Criticism,” Second Series (1888): “Wordsworth” (1913
+ed.), p. 157.
+
+[266] O. Barfield, “Form in Poetry” (“New Statesman” August 7, 1920, pp.
+501-2).
+
+[267] “Œuvres” (ed. Assézat), I, p. 377 (quoted by Babbitt), _op. cit._,
+p. 121.
+
+[268] Preface to “The Tales” (Poems), ed. A. W. Ward, (Cambridge, 1906),
+Vol. II, p. 10.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abercrombie, Lascelles, 197 n., 201 n.
+
+  Addison, Joseph, 21
+
+  “Ælla” (T. Chatterton’s), 163
+
+  Akenside, Mark, 16, 27, 69-70, 138-9, 189, 195
+    Dr. Johnson’s criticism, 16
+    “Epistle to Curio,” 195
+    Latinism, 69-70
+    Personification, 138-9
+    “Pleasures of the Imagination,” 69
+
+  “Alma” (M. Prior’s), 75
+
+  “Amyntor and Theodora,” 142
+
+  “Anti-Jacobin, The,” 173 n.
+
+  “Approach of Summer, The,” 179
+
+  “Archaism,” 17-21, 80-101
+
+  Aristotle, 10-12, 185
+
+  Armstrong, John, 69-70, 110
+
+  Arnold, Matthew, 2, 41, 181, 198, 201
+
+  “Art of Preserving Health,” 69, 110
+
+
+  Babbitt, I., 13 n., 203 n.
+
+  Bailey, J. C., 169 n.
+
+  Ballads, 95-7, 196
+
+  Barfield, Owen, 202 n.
+
+  “Bastard, The,” 111
+
+  Beattie, James, 19, 93 n., 125
+
+  Beers, H. A., 97 n.
+
+  “Beowulf, The,” 104 n.
+
+  Binyon, Laurence, 13 n.
+
+  “Biographia Literaria,” 13 n., 24 n., 48 n., 51 n., 127 n., 156 n.,
+        173 n., 185 n.
+
+  “Birth of Flattery, The” (G. Crabbe’s), 168
+
+  Blair, Robert, 110, 176 n.
+
+  Blake, William, 28, 46-7, 77, 99, 124, 129, 136-59, 163-7, 179-80,
+        181, 187 n., 198, 202
+    Allegory and Vision, remarks on, 165
+    Artist, as, 136, 159 n.
+    Compounds, 124, 129
+    Felicity of diction, 46-7, 202
+    “Imitation of Spenser,” 47, 165
+    “Letters,” 47 n., 164 n., 187 n.
+    “Muses, To the,” 47
+    Mysticism, 164
+    Personifications, 163-7, 179-80
+    “Piper, The,” 202
+    “Songs of Experience,” 46, 165 n., 166
+    “Songs of Innocence,” 46, 165
+    Stock diction, 46-7
+
+  Blount, T., 93
+
+  Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” 16 n.
+
+  “Botanic Garden” (E. Darwin’s), 12, 51-2, 126, 173-5
+
+  Bowles, William Lisle, 48
+
+  Boyce, S., 162
+
+  Bruce, Michael, 122
+
+  Burns, Robert, 28, 100, 198
+
+  Bysshe, Edward, 30
+
+  “By-ways Round Helicon”, 195 n.
+
+
+  Campbell, Dykes, 128 n.
+
+  Canning, George, 139, 173 n.
+
+  Capell, Edward, 95-6
+
+  “Castaway, The,” 49, 170
+
+  “Castle of Indolence,” 90-2, 161
+
+  Chapman, George, 105
+
+  “Charge to the Poets” (W. Whitehead’s), 20 n.
+
+  “Chase, The” (W. Somerville’s), 68, 110, 142
+
+  Chatterton, Thomas, 19, 42-3, 97-8, 123-4, 162-3
+    Compounds, 123-4
+    Personifications, 162-3
+    “Rowley Poems,” 97-8
+    Stock diction, 42-3
+
+  Chaucer, Geoffrey, 26, 84-6, 133
+
+  Chaucerian imitations, 84-6
+
+  Chesterfield, Lord, 20
+
+  “Child of Quality, Lines to” (M. Prior’s), 195
+
+  “Choice, The” (J. Pomfret’s), 195
+
+  Churchill, John, 139-40, 169-70
+
+  Classical literature (connexion with romantic), 181-2
+
+  Coleridge, H. N., 156 n.
+
+  Coleridge, S. T., 1, 13, 24, 31, 32, 51, 100, 127-8, 156, 173, 182,
+        193, 204
+    Archaisms, 100
+    Compounds, 127-8
+    Darwin, E., remarks, on, 13, 173
+    Gray’s personifications, on, 156
+    Imagination, on, 13
+    “Letters,” 173 n.
+    Pope’s style, on, 24, 32, 193
+
+  Collins, William, 16, 40-1, 71, 98, 116-7, 129, 149, 150-5, 166, 167,
+        191, 196
+    Archaisms, 98
+    Compounds, 116-7, 129
+    Dr. Johnson’s criticisms of, 16, 40, 151
+    “Odes,” 149 n., 150-5
+    Personifications, 150-5, 166, 167, 178, 179, 191
+    Romantic forerunner, a, 196
+    Stock diction, 40-1
+
+  Compound epithets, 4, 102-31, 204
+
+  “Convention and Revolt in Poetry,” 200 n.
+
+  Courthope, W. J., 9 n., 17 n., 45 n., 50 n., 57 n., 133 n., 149 n.,
+        194 n.
+
+  Coventry, F., 147
+
+  Cowper, William, 20, 24, 31, 48-50, 73-4, 76, 126, 168-73
+    Archaism, on, 20
+    Compounds, 126
+    Familiar style, on the, 24
+    “Homer” translation, 48, 74, 126
+    Latinism, 73-5
+    “Letters,” 20 n., 48 n., 74 n.
+    “Olney Hymns,” 49, 169
+    Personifications, 169-73, 179
+    Stock diction, 48-9
+    “Table Talk,” 49
+    “Task, The,” 49, 73-4, 170-1
+
+  Crabbe, George, 50-1, 124-5, 167-8, 179, 195, 204
+    Compounds, 124-5
+    Dryden’s style, on, 204
+    Personifications, 167-8, 179
+    Stock diction, 50-1
+
+  Croxall, Samuel, 93 n.
+
+  Cunningham, John, 27, 189
+
+
+  Darwin, Erasmus, 12, 37, 51-2, 53, 120, 173-5
+
+  Davenant, Sir William, 21
+
+  Denham, Sir John, 15
+
+  Dennis, John, 11 n.
+
+  De Quincey, Thomas, 52
+
+  “Descriptive Sketches,” 52, 175, 176 n.
+
+  “Deserted Village, The,” 45-6, 111-2, 195
+
+  Diderot, Denis, 203
+
+  Dodsley, Robert, 147, 195
+
+  Doughty, Oswald, 98 n., 195 n.
+
+  Drayton, Michael, 107
+
+  Drinkwater, John, 9 n.
+
+  Dryden, John, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 26-7, 28, 30, 31,
+        32, 33, 36, 58-9, 81-2, 83, 105-6, 109, 134, 181, 194, 204
+    “Annus Mirabilis,” 8
+    Archaisms, 18, 81-2
+    Chaucer “translations,” 26-7
+    Compounds, 105-6
+    “Essays” and “Prefaces,” 7-11
+    “Hind and Panther,” 195
+    Language of poetry, on, 8-9
+    Latinism, 58-9
+    Periphrasis, use of, 28, 33
+    Personifications, 134
+    “Religio Laici,” 194
+    Royal Society, 7
+    Satire, 106, 140
+    Technical terms, on, 21
+
+  “Duellist, The” (Charles Churchill’s), 140 n.
+
+  Dyer, John, 39, 70, 109, 142, 188-9
+
+
+  Earle, J., 35 n.
+
+  “Economy of Vegetation,” 12, 126, 173-4
+
+  Edmonds, C., 173 n.
+
+  “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” 42, 72, 157, 159, 195, 198
+
+  “Eloisa to Abelard,” 134
+
+  Elton, Oliver, 10 n., 135 n., 182 n., 186 n., 197 n.
+
+  Emerson, O., 104 n.
+
+  “English Lyric in the Age of Reason,” 195
+
+  “Enthusiast, The,” 71, 121, 149
+
+  “Epistle to Curio” (M. Akenside’s), 195 n.
+
+  Epithalamium (W. Thompson’s), 160
+
+  “Essay on Criticism,” 9-10, 29 n., 195
+
+  “Eton College, Ode on a Distant View of,” 156
+
+  Evelyn, John, 7
+
+  “Evening, Ode to,” 41, 116, 155
+
+  “Evening Walk, The,” 52, 127, 175-6
+
+  “Excursion, The” (David Mallet’s), 142
+
+
+  “Faerie Queene,” 87, 94, 99, 133, 159-60, 192
+
+  Falconer, William, 22, 43-4
+
+  “Fleece, The,” (J. Dyer’s), 39, 70
+
+  Fletcher, Giles, 57
+
+  Fletcher, Phineas, 57
+
+  “Fugitive Poets” (Bell’s), 122, 147 n., 195
+
+  Furetière, Antoine, 5
+
+
+  Gay, John, 33, 109
+
+  Gibbon, Edward, 198
+
+  Glanvill, Joseph, 7
+
+  Goldsmith, Oliver, 14-15, 20, 44-6, 72, 111-2, 140-1, 195
+    Archaism, on, 20
+    Compounds, in, 117-8
+    Diction of poetry, on, 15
+    Latinism, 72-3
+    Personifications, 141-2, 179
+    Stock diction, 44-6
+
+  Graeme, James, 122
+
+  Grainger, James, 70, 110, 142
+
+  “Grave,” the (Robert Blair’s), 110
+
+  Gray, Thomas, 8, 16-17, 18-19, 21-2, 31, 41-2, 67, 71-2, 93 n., 98-9,
+        117-20, 146, 155-9, 177, 196
+    Archaisms, on, 18-19, 98-9
+    Coinages, on, 21
+    Compounds, 117-20
+    Diction of poetry, on, 8, 16-17
+    “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” 42, 72, 157, 159, 195, 198
+    Latinism, 71-2
+    Letters, 8 n., 16 n.
+    Personifications, 155-9, 177, 191
+    Plain colloquial style, 17, 195
+    Romantic forerunner, A, 150, 196
+    Stock diction, 41-2
+    Technical terms, on, 22
+
+  Grierson, H. J. C., 159 n.
+
+  “Grongar Hill,” 39, 109, 184, 188, 190
+
+
+  Hamilton, William (of Bangor), 146
+
+  Hill, G. B., 8 n., 15 n., 16 n., 23 n., 112 n., 151 n.
+
+  “Hind and Panther, The,” 195
+
+  “Horror, Ode to,” 148
+
+  Hughes, John, 83
+
+  Hume, David, 198
+
+  Hutchinson, T., 52 n., 68 n., 97 n., 132 n., 176 n.
+
+  “Hymn to May” (W. Thompson’s), 160
+
+
+  “Il Bellicoso,” 147
+
+  “Il Pacifico,” 147
+
+  “Il Penseroso,” 71, 176
+
+  “Inebriety,” 167
+
+
+  Jago, R., 122
+
+  Johnson, Dr., 15-16, 17, 19-20, 23, 31, 40-2, 44, 72-3, 111, 119,
+        140-1, 151, 159, 177, 179
+    Archaism, 19-20
+    Collins, on, 150, 151
+    Compounds, 111, 119-20
+    Diction, on, 15-16
+    “Dictionary,” 140 n.
+    Dryden, on, 8
+    Gray’s personifications, on, 156 n.
+    Latinism, 73
+    Personifications, 140-1, 177, 179
+    Pope’s style, on, 23, 31, 193
+    Satire, 139
+    Stock diction, 45
+
+  Jonson, Ben, 17-18
+
+
+  Keats, John, 126, 128, 129, 144, 187, 188, 192, 196, 203, 204
+
+  Ker, W. P., 7 n., 8 n., 9 n., 11 n., 18 n., 21 n.
+
+  Kersey, John, 97
+
+
+  “L’Allegro,” 162, 176
+
+  Langhorne, J., 122
+
+  Langland, William, 133
+
+  Latinism, 56-79, 191-2
+
+  Lee, Vernon, 197 n.
+
+  “Legacy of Greece, The,” 199
+
+  Legouis, E., 53 n., 127 n., 175 n.
+
+  Lessing’s “Laokoon,” 12 n.
+
+  Lloyd, Robert, 88 n.
+
+  “London” (Dr. Johnson’s), 111, 140-1
+
+  “Loves of the Plants” (E. Darwin’s), 12, 173
+
+  “Loves of the Triangles” (G. Canning’s), 173 n.
+
+  Lowes, Professor J. L., 200
+
+  “Lyrical Ballads,” 1, 2, 175
+
+  Lyttleton, G., 119
+
+
+  Maeterlinck, M., 200
+
+  Mallet, D., 110, 144 n., 142
+
+  Marlowe, Christopher, 105 n.
+
+  Marriott, Dr., 147
+
+  Mason, William, 86, 146-7
+
+  Masson, David, 58 n.
+
+  Mendez, Moses, 88, 122
+
+  Mickle, William, 93, 125, 162 n., 171 n.
+
+  Milton, John, 8, 33-6, 41, 57-8, 60, 61, 62, 66, 70, 71, 72, 76, 77,
+        81, 94, 107, 133, 136, 142, 146-7, 148, 149, 150, 176-7, 191-2
+    Archaism, 81, 94
+    Compound epithets, 105
+    Diction, 34-6, 57-8
+    Imitated in eighteenth century, 60-70, 76-7, 146-50, 191-2
+    Latinism, 57-8, 177
+    Personification, 133, 137, 142, 146-7, 176-7
+
+  “Monody written near Stratford-on-Avon,” 149 n.
+
+  Morel, Leon, 39 n., 63 n., 78 n., 91 n., 114 n., 145 n.
+
+  Murray, Gilbert, 199
+
+
+  Nashe, Thomas, 105 n.
+
+  Neo-classicism, 9-13, 53-4
+
+  “Night Thoughts” (E. Young’s), 28, 68-9, 136-8
+
+  “Nocturnal Reverie” (Countess of Winchilsea’s), 187
+
+
+  Old English Compounds, 104
+
+  “Ossian” poems, 19, 166
+
+
+  “Paradise Lost,” 34-6, 57-8, 76, 133, 136, 184
+
+  Parnell, Thomas, 135-6
+
+  “Passions, Ode to the,” 153
+
+  “Penshurst” (F. Coventry’s), 147
+
+  Percy, Bishop, 96-7
+
+  Personification and abstraction, 133-80, 190-1
+
+  Phelps, W. L., 142 n.
+
+  Philips, John, 37, 60-1, 86, 109, 142
+
+  “Pity, Ode to” (W. Collins’), 153
+
+  “Pleasures of the Imagination” (M. Akenside’s), 69, 138-9, 189
+
+  “Pleasures of Melancholy, The” (T. Warton’s), 71, 121
+
+  “Poetical Character, Ode on the” (W. Collins’s), 152
+
+  “Poetical Sketches” (W. Blake’s), 99, 167, 181
+
+  Pomfret, John, 195
+
+  Pope, Alexander, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21-2, 23-4,
+        25, 29, 31-4, 36-7, 40, 42, 45, 46, 48, 50, 54, 59-60, 67, 73,
+        81, 82-3, 85, 106-9, 111, 115, 130, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140,
+        183, 184, 185, 189, 193-4, 204
+    Archaism, 18, 82-3
+    Compounds, 21, 106-9
+    Diction, 33, 36-7
+    “Dunciad,” 18, 134
+    “Essay on Criticism,” 14, 29 n., 195
+    Heroic couplet, 29-30, 31-2
+    “Homer,” 2, 14, 17, 31-2, 40, 48, 184
+    Language of poetry, 9-10
+    Latinism, 59-60
+    Personifications, 134
+    Satire, 139, 140
+
+  Potter, R., 122
+
+  Prior, Matthew, 75, 87, 95, 195
+
+  “Progress of Error” (W. Cowper’s), 170
+
+  “Progress of Poetry” (Thomas Gray’s), 72
+
+  “Prolusions” (E. Capell’s), 95-6
+
+
+  Raleigh, Sir Walter, 35 n., 58 n., 66 n.
+
+  “Rape of the Lock,” 134
+
+  “Religio Laici,” 194
+
+  “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” 19, 96-7
+
+  Reynolds, Myra, 28 n., 61 n., 75 n.
+
+  Ritson, Joseph, 96 n.
+
+  Robertson, J. L., 6 n., 62
+
+  Rogers, Samuel, 125-6
+
+  Romanticism, connexion with classicism, 181-2
+
+  Rowley poems, 42-4, 97-8, 162-3
+
+  “Ruins of Rome” (J. Dyer’s), 109, 142
+
+  Ruskin, John, 180
+
+  Russell, A. J. B., 164 n.
+
+
+  Saintsbury, George, 29-30, 76 n., 106, 130, 131, 194 n.
+
+  Sampson, John, 47 n., 99 n., 165 n.
+
+  Savage, Richard, 75, 111, 136
+
+  Schmidt’s “Shakespeare Lexicon,” 35
+
+  “Schoolmistress, The,” 88-9, 161
+
+  Scott, John, 123
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter, 100, 192
+
+  “Seasons, The” (J. Thomson’s), 37-9, 62-8, 112-6, 142-6, 190, 196, 198
+
+  Selincourt, B. de, 35 n., 128 n.
+
+  Shakespeare, William, 35, 105 n., 129
+
+  Shawcross, T. (_see_ “Biographia Literaria”).
+
+  Shelley, P. B., 126, 178, 203, 204
+
+  Shenstone, W., 26, 29, 75, 88-9, 118 n., 161
+
+  “Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century,” 195 n.
+
+  Sidney, Sir Philip, 105 n.
+
+  Skeat, W. W., 43 n., 97, 98 n., 102 n.
+
+  Smart, Christopher, 169 n.
+
+  Smith, Gregory, 14 n., 18 n., 56 n.
+
+  Somerville, William, 110, 142
+
+  “Song to David,” 169 n.
+
+  Spence, Joseph, 12
+
+  Spenser, Edmund, 80-1, 105 n., 133, 159-60, 191, 192
+
+  Spenserian imitations, 18, 84, 86-94, 160-2, 178, 191, 192
+
+  Spingarn, J. E., 5 n., 6 n., 7 n.
+
+  Sprat, Thomas, 6, 7
+
+  Stock diction, The, 25-55, 183-7
+
+  “Stones of Venice, The” (J. Ruskin’s), 180 n.
+
+  “Storie of William Canynge,” 163
+
+  “Sugar Cane, The,” 70, 110, 142
+
+  Sweet, Henry, 102 n., 103 n.
+
+  Swift, Jonathan, 139
+
+  Symbolism, 13, 164, 179, 180
+
+  Symons, Arthur, 47 n.
+
+  “Syr Martin,” 93, 125, 162 n.
+
+
+  “Table Talk” (S. T. Coleridge’s), 156 n.
+
+  “Table Talk” (W. Cowper’s), 49, 170
+
+  Taine, H., 183
+
+  “Task, The” (W. Cowper’s), 49, 73-4, 170-1
+
+  Theory of diction, 5-24
+
+  Thomson, James, 37-9, 62-8, 76, 77, 78, 90-2, 94, 112-6, 131, 142-6,
+        161, 167, 179, 186, 188
+    “Castle of Indolence,” 90-2, 161
+    Compounds, 112-6, 131
+    Diction generally, 37, 67
+    Latinism, 62-8, 78, 192
+    Miltonic borrowings, 37, 66
+    Nature poet, a, 37, 78, 186
+    Personifications, 142-6, 161, 166, 178-9
+    Romantic forerunner, a, 196
+    “Seasons, The,” 37-9, 62-8, 112-6, 142-6, 190, 195, 196, 198
+    Stock diction, 37-8
+
+  Thompson, W., 61-2, 85, 89-90, 118 n.
+
+  “Tintern Abbey, Lines written above,” 131
+
+  “Traveller, The” (O. Goldsmith’s), 45, 72, 112, 141
+
+  Trenery, Grace R., 95 n.
+
+  “Triumph of Isis,” 149 n.
+
+  Tyrwhitt, Thomas, 86, 98 n.
+
+
+  Upton, John, 93 n.
+
+
+  “Vacation, The,” 147
+
+  “Vale Abbey, Lines written at” (T. Warton’s), 149
+
+  “Valetudinarian, The,” 147
+
+  “Vanity of Human Wishes,” 73, 111, 140-1, 195
+
+  “Village, The” (G. Crabbe’s), 167, 168, 195
+
+  “Vision of Patience” (S. Boyce’s), 162
+
+  “Vision of Solomon” (W. Whitehead’s), 162
+
+
+  Wakefield, Benjamin, 95 n.
+
+  Waller, Edmund, 15
+
+  Walpole, Horace, 119, 156 n.
+
+  “Wanderer, The” (R. Savage’s), 111, 136
+
+  Ward, A. W., 204 n.
+
+  Warton, Joseph, 21, 70-1, 121, 134, 148-9
+
+  Warton, Thomas, 71, 83, 84, 85, 86, 120-1, 149
+
+  Watson, George, 100 n.
+
+  Watts, Isaac, 49
+
+  Welsted, Leonard, 59 n.
+
+  Wesley, John, 49, 50, 198
+
+  Wesley, Charles, 49
+
+  West, Gilbert, 118 n.
+
+  White, Gilbert (of Selborne), 28
+
+  White, H. O., 148 n.
+
+  Whitehead, W., 20 n., 122, 162
+
+  Williams, I. O., 195 n.
+
+  Wilson, Sir James, 100 n.
+
+  Winchilsea, Anne, Countess of, 61, 109, 187-8
+
+  “Windsor Forest,” 134
+
+  Wordsworth, William, 1, 3, 13, 15, 24, 25, 27 n., 28, 31, 32, 33, 35,
+        36, 48, 51-3, 67, 68, 77, 79, 97, 115, 132, 175, 182, 185, 187,
+        189, 192, 193, 197, 201, 204
+    Archaism, 100
+    Compounds, 127
+    Darwin’s (Erasmus) influence, 52-4, 175
+    Latinism, 79, 192
+    Percy’s “Reliques,” on, 97
+    Personifications, 133, 175-6, 178, 180
+    Pope’s style, on, 24
+    “Prefaces,” 1, 53, 132, 182, 197, 204
+    “Prelude, The,” 184-5
+
+  Wyche, Sir Peter, 7
+
+
+  “Yardley Oak” (W. Cowper’s), 131, 172
+
+  Yeats, W. B., 164 n.
+
+  Young, Edward, 9 n., 28, 68-9, 136-8, 151
+
+
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+<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poetic diction, by Thomas Quayle</p>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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+</div>
+
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Poetic diction</p>
+<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>A study of eighteenth century verse</p>
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Quayle</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 28, 2022 [eBook #68420]</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
+  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETIC DICTION ***</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a>[i]</span></p>
+
+<p class="center larger">POETIC DICTION</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a>[ii]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger">POETIC DICTION</p>
+
+<p class="center">A STUDY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VERSE</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br />
+THOMAS QUAYLE</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">METHUEN &amp; CO. LTD.<br />
+36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br />
+LONDON</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv"></a>[iv]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller"><i>First Published in 1924</i></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr smaller">CHAPTER</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I.</td>
+    <td>THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II.</td>
+    <td>THE THEORY OF DICTION</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">5</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III.</td>
+    <td>THE “STOCK” DICTION</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">25</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+    <td>LATINISM</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">56</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">V.</td>
+    <td>ARCHAISM</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">80</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+    <td>COMPOUND EPITHETS</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">102</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+    <td>PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">132</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+    <td>THE DICTION OF POETRY</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">181</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Index</span></td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INDEX">207</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak">PREFACE</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>The studies on which this book is based were
+begun during my tenure of the “William
+Noble” Fellowship in English Literature at the
+University of Liverpool, and I wish to thank the
+members of the Fellowship Committee, and especially
+Professor Elton, under whom I had for two years the
+great privilege of working, for much valuable advice
+and criticism. I must also express my sincere obligation
+to the University for a generous grant towards
+the cost of publication.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
+
+<h1>POETIC DICTION</h1>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br />
+<span class="smaller">THE AGE OF PROSE AND REASON</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>From the time of the publication of the first
+Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads” (1798) the
+poetical language of the eighteenth century, or
+rather of the so-called “classical” writers of the
+period, has been more or less under a cloud of suspicion.
+The condemnation which Wordsworth then
+passed upon it, and even the more rational and
+penetrating criticism which Coleridge later brought to
+his own analysis of the whole question of the language
+fit and proper for poetry, undoubtedly led in the
+course of the nineteenth century to a definite but
+uncritical tendency to disparage and underrate the
+entire poetic output of the period, not only of the
+Popian supremacy, but even of the interregnum,
+when the old order was slowly making way for the
+new. The Romantic rebels of course have nearly
+always received their meed of praise, but even in
+their case there is not seldom a suspicion of critical
+reservation, a sort of implied reproach that they
+ought to have done better than they did, and that
+they could and might have done so if they had reacted
+more violently against the poetic atmosphere of
+their age. In brief, what with the Preface to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span>
+“Lyrical Ballads” and its successive expansions at
+the beginning of the century, and what, some eighty
+years later, with Matthew Arnold’s calm description
+of the eighteenth century as an “age of prose and
+reason,” the poetry of that period, and not only the
+neo-classical portion of it, fared somewhat badly.
+There could be no better illustration of the influence
+and danger of labels and tags; “poetic diction,” and
+“age of prose and reason” tended to become a sort
+of critical legend or tradition, by means of which
+eighteenth century verse, alike at its highest and its
+lowest levels, could be safely and adequately understood
+and explained.</p>
+
+<p>Nowadays we are little likely to fall into the error
+of assuming that any one cut and dried formula,
+however pregnant and apt, could adequately sum up
+the literary aspects and characteristics of an entire
+age; the contributory and essential factors are too
+many, and often too elusive, for the tabloid method.
+And now that the poetry of the first half or so of the
+eighteenth century is in process of rehabilitation, and
+more than a few of its practitioners have even been
+allowed access to the slopes, at least, of Parnassus, it
+may perhaps be useful to examine, a little more
+closely than has hitherto been customary, one of the
+critical labels which, it would almost seem, has sometimes
+been taken as a sort of generic description of
+eighteenth century verse, as if “poetic diction” was
+something which suddenly sprang into being when
+Pope translated Homer, and had never been heard of
+before or since.</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, is to overstate the case, the more so
+as it can hardly be denied that there is much to be
+said for the other side. It may perhaps be put this
+way, by saying, at the risk of a laborious assertion of
+the obvious, that if poetry is to be written there must
+be a diction in which to write it—a diction which,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span>
+whatever its relation to the language of contemporary
+speech or prose may be, is yet in many essential
+respects distinct and different from it, in that, even
+when it does not draw upon a special and peculiar
+word-power of its own, yet so uses or combines common
+speech as to heighten and intensify its possibilities
+of suggestion and evocation. If, therefore,
+we speak of the “poetic diction” of the eighteenth
+century, or of any portion of it, the reference ought to
+be, of course, to the whole body of language in which
+the poetry of that period is written, viewed as a
+medium, good, bad, or indifferent, for poetical expression.
+But this has rarely or never been the case; it
+is not too much to say that, thanks to Wordsworth’s
+attack and its subsequent reverberations, “poetic
+diction,” so far as the eighteenth century is concerned,
+has too often been taken to mean, “bad poetic diction,”
+and it has been in this sense indiscriminately applied
+to the whole poetic output of Pope and his school.</p>
+
+<p>In the present study it is hoped, by a careful
+examination of the poetry of the eighteenth century,
+by an analysis of the conditions and species of its
+diction, to arrive at some estimate of its value, of what
+was good and what was bad in it, of how far it was the
+outcome of the age which produced it, and how far a
+continuation of inherited tradition in poetic language,
+to what extent writers went back to their great predecessors
+in their search for a fresh vocabulary, and
+finally, to what extent the poets of the triumphant
+Romantic reaction, who had to fashion for themselves
+a new vehicle of expression, were indebted to their
+forerunners in the revolt, to those who had helped to
+prepare the way.</p>
+
+<p>It is proposed to make the study both a literary and
+a linguistic one. In the first place, the aim will be
+to show how the poetic language, which is usually
+labelled “the eighteenth century style,” was, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
+certain of its most pronounced aspects, a reflex of the
+literary conditions of its period; in the second place,
+the study will be a linguistic one, in that it will deal
+also with the words themselves. Here the attention
+will be directed to certain features characteristic of,
+though not peculiar to, the diction of the eighteenth
+century poetry—the use of Latinisms, of archaic and
+obsolete words, and of those compound words by
+means of which English poets from the time of the
+Elizabethans have added some of the happiest and
+most expressive epithets to the language; finally, the
+employment of abstractions and personifications will
+be discussed.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br />
+<span class="smaller">THE THEORY OF POETICAL DICTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>About the time when Dryden was beginning
+his literary career the preoccupation of men of
+letters with the language as a literary instrument
+was obvious enough. There was a decided
+movement toward simplicity in both prose and poetry,
+and, so far as the latter was concerned, it was in large
+measure an expression of the critical reaction against
+the “metaphysical” verse commonly associated with
+the names of Donne and his disciples. Furetière in
+his “Nouvelle Allegorique ou Histoire des dernier
+troubles arrivez au Royaume d’Eloquence,” published
+at Paris in 1658,<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> expresses the parallel struggle which
+had been raging amongst French poets and critics, and
+the allegory he presents may be taken to symbolize
+the general critical attitude in both countries.</p>
+
+<p>Rhetoric, Queen of the Realm of Eloquence, and
+her Prime Minister, Good Sense, are represented as
+threatened by innumerable foes. The troops of the
+Queen, marshalled in defence of the Academy, her
+citadel, are the accepted literary forms, Histories,
+Epics, Lyrics, Dramas, Romances, Letters, Sermons,
+Philosophical Treatises, Translations, Orations, and
+the like. Her enemies are the rhetorical figures and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span>
+the perversions of style, Metaphors, Hyperboles,
+Similes, Descriptions, Comparisons, Allegories, Pedantries,
+Antitheses, Puns, Exaggerations, and a host of
+others. Ultimately the latter are defeated, and are
+in some cases banished, or else agree to serve as
+dependents in the realm of Eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>We may interpret the struggle thus allegorically
+expressed by saying that a new age, increasingly
+scientific and rational in its outlook, felt it was high
+time to analyze critically and accurately the traditional
+canons and ideals of form and matter that classical
+learning, since the Renaissance, had been able to
+impose upon literature. This is not to say that
+seventeenth century writers and critics suddenly
+decided that all the accepted standards were radically
+wrong, and should be thrown overboard; but some of
+them at least showed and expressed themselves dissatisfied,
+and, alongside of the unconscious and, as it
+were, instinctive changes that reflected the spirit of
+the age, there were deliberate efforts to re-fashion both
+the matter and the manner of literary expression, to
+give creative literature new laws and new ideals.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>The movement towards purity and simplicity of
+expression received its first definite statement in
+Thomas Sprat’s “History of the Royal Society, 1667.”
+One section of the History contains an account of the
+French Academy, and Sprat’s efforts were directed
+towards the formation of a similar body in England
+as an arbiter in matters of language and style. The
+ideal was to be the expression of “so many <i>things</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>
+almost in an equal number of <i>words</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> A Committee
+of the Royal Society, which included Dryden, Evelyn,
+and Sprat amongst its members, had already met in
+1664, to discuss ways and means of “improving the
+English tongue,” and it was the discussions of this
+committee which had doubtless led up to Evelyn’s
+letter to Sir Peter Wyche, its chairman, in June 1665.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
+Evelyn there gives in detail his ideas of what an
+English academy, acting as arbiter in matters of
+vocabulary and style, might do towards purifying the
+language. Twenty-three years later Joseph Glanvill
+defined the new ideal briefly in a passage of his “Essay
+Concerning Preaching”: “Plainness is a character of
+great latitude and stands in opposition, First to <i>hard
+words</i>: Secondly, to <i>deep and mysterious notions</i>:
+Thirdly, to <i>affected Rhetorications</i>: and Fourthly, to
+<i>Phantastical Phrases</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> In short, the ideal to be
+aimed at was the precise and definite language of
+experimental science, but the trend of the times
+tended to make it more and more that ideal of poetry
+also which was later to be summed up in Dryden’s
+definition of “wit” as a “propriety of thoughts and
+words.”<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is of some little interest perhaps to note that it is
+not until the end of the seventeenth century that the
+word <i>diction</i> definitely takes on the sense which it now
+usually bears as a term of literary criticism. In the
+preface to “Sylvae, or The Second Part of Poetical
+Miscellanies” (1685), Dryden even seems to regard the
+term as not completely naturalized.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Moreover, the
+critics and poets of the eighteenth century were for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>
+the most part quite convinced that the special language
+of poetry had begun with Dryden. Johnson asserted
+this in his usual dogmatic fashion, and thus emphasized
+the doctrine, afterwards vigorously opposed by Wordsworth,
+that between the language of prose, and that
+proper to poetry, there is a sharp distinction. “There
+was therefore before the time of Dryden no poetical
+diction.... Those happy combinations of words
+which distinguished poetry from prose had been rarely
+attempted; we had few elegancies or flowers of
+speech.”<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Gray moreover, while agreeing that English
+poetry had now a language of its own, declared in a
+letter to West that this special language was the
+creation of a long succession of English writers themselves,
+and especially of Shakespeare and Milton, to
+whom (he asserts) Pope and Dryden were greatly
+indebted.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is not very difficult to understand Dryden’s own
+attitude, as laid down in the various Prefaces. He is
+quite ready to subscribe to the accepted neo-classical
+views on the language of poetry, but characteristically
+reserves for himself the right to reject them, or to take
+up a new line, if he thinks his own work, or that of his
+contemporaries, is likely to benefit thereby. Thus in
+the preface to “Annus Mirabilis” (1666) he boldly
+claims the liberty to coin words on Latin models, and
+to make use of technical details.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> In his apology for
+“Heroic Poetry and Poetic License” (1677) prefixed
+to “The State of Innocence and Fall of Man,” his
+operatic “tagging” of “Paradise Lost,” he seems to
+lay down distinctly the principle that poetry demands
+a medium of its own, distinct from that of prose,<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>
+whilst towards the end of his literary career he reiterates
+his readiness to enrich his poetic language from
+any and every source, for “poetry requires ornament,”
+and he is therefore willing to “trade both with the
+living and the dead for the enrichment of our native
+language.”<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> But it is significant that at the same
+time he rejects the technical terms he had formerly
+advocated, apparently on the grounds that such terms
+would be unfamiliar to “men and ladies of the first
+quality.” Dryden has thus become more “classical,”
+in the sense that he has gone over or reverted to the
+school of “general” terms, which appeared to base
+its ideal of expression on the accepted language of
+cultured speakers and writers.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>Toward the establishment of this principle of the
+pseudo-classical creed the theory and practice of Pope
+naturally contributed; indeed, it has been claimed
+that it was in large measure the result of the profound
+effect of the “Essay on Criticism,” or at least of the
+current of thought which it represents, on the taste of
+the age.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> In the Essay, Pope, after duly enumerating
+the various “idols” of taste in poetical thought and
+diction, clearly states his own doctrine; as the poets’
+aim was the teaching of “True Wit” or “Nature,”
+the language used must be universal and general, and
+neologisms must be regarded as heresies. For Pope,
+as for Dryden, universal and general language meant
+such as would appeal to the cultured society for whom
+he wrote,<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> and in his practice he thus reflected the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span>
+traditional attitude towards the question of language
+as a vehicle of literary expression. A common
+“poetics” drawn and formulated by the classical
+scholars mainly (and often incorrectly) from Aristotle
+had established itself throughout Western Europe, and
+it professed to prescribe the true relation which should
+exist between form and matter, between the creative
+mind and the work of art.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<p>The critical reaction against these traditional canons
+had, as we have noted, already begun, but Pope and
+his contemporaries are in the main supporters of the
+established order, in full agreement with its guiding
+principle that the imitation of “Nature” should be
+the chief aim and end of art. It is scarcely necessary
+to add that it was not “Nature” in the Wordsworthian
+sense that was thus to be “imitated”; sometimes,
+indeed, it is difficult to discover what was meant by
+the term. But for Pope and his followers we usually
+find it to mean man as he lives his life in this world,
+and the phrase to “imitate Nature” might thus have
+an ethical purpose, signifying the moral “improvement”
+of man.</p>
+
+<p>But to appreciate the full significance of this
+“doctrine,” and its eighteenth century interpretation,
+it is necessary to glance at the Aristotelian canon in
+which it had its origin. For Aristotle poetry was an
+objective “imitation” with a definite plan or purpose,
+of human actions, not as they are, but as they ought
+to be. The ultimate aim, then, according to the
+<i>Poetics</i>, is ideal truth, stripped of the local and the
+accidental; Nature is to be improved upon with means
+drawn from Nature herself. This theory, as extracted
+and interpreted by the Italian and French critics of
+the Renaissance, was early twisted into a notion of
+poetry as an agreeable falsity, and by the end of the
+seventeenth century it had come to mean, especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span>
+with the French, the imitation of a selected and
+embellished Nature, not directly, but rather through
+the medium of those great writers of antiquity, such
+as Homer and Virgil, whose works provided the
+received and recognized models of idealized nature.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>As a corollary to this interpretation of the Aristotelian
+doctrine of ideal imitation, there appeared a
+tendency to ignore more and more the element of
+personal feeling in poetry,<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and to concentrate attention
+on the formal elements of the art. This tendency,
+reinforced by the authority of the Horatian tag, <i>ut
+pictura poesis</i> (“as is painting, so is poetry”), led
+naturally, and in an ever-increasing degree, to the
+formal identification of poetry with painting. Critics
+became accustomed to discussing the elements in the
+art of writing that correspond to the other elements in
+pictorial art, such as light, colour, expression, etc.
+And as the poet was to be an imitator of accepted
+models, so also he was to be imitative and traditional
+in using poetical colouring, in which phrase were
+included, as Dryden wrote, “the words, the expressions,
+the tropes and figures, the versification, and all
+the other elegancies of sound.”<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> That this parallelism
+directly encourages the growth of a set “poetic
+diction” is obvious; the poet’s language was not to
+be a reflection of a genuine emotion felt in the mind
+for his words, phrases, and figures of speech, his
+<i>operum colores</i>,<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> he must not look to Nature but to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span>
+models. In brief, a poetical <i>gradus</i>, compiled from
+accepted models, was to be the ideal source on which
+the poet was to draw for his medium of expression.</p>
+
+<p>It is not necessary to dwell long on this pseudo-classical
+confusion of the two arts, as revealed in the
+critical writings of Western Europe down to the very
+outbreak of the Romantic revolt.<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> In English
+criticism, Dryden’s “Parallel” was only one of many.
+Of the eighteenth century English critics who developed
+a detailed parallelism between pictorial and plastic art
+on the one hand and poetry on the other, maintaining
+that their standards were interchangeable, the most
+important perhaps is Spence, whose “Polymetis”
+appeared in 1747, and who sums the general position
+of his fellow-critics on this point in the remark, “Scarce
+anything can be good in a poetical description which
+would appear absurd if represented in a statue or
+picture.”<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The ultimate outcome of this confusion of
+poetry and painting found its expression in the last
+decade of the eighteenth century in the theory and
+practice of Erasmus Darwin, whose work, “The
+Botanic Garden,” consisted of a “second part,” “The
+Loves of the Plants,” published in 1789, two years
+before its inclusion with the “first part” the
+“Economy of Vegetation,” in one volume. Darwin’s
+theory of poetry is contained in the “Interludes”
+between the cantos of his poems, which take the form
+of dialogues between the “Poet” and a “Bookseller.”
+In the Interlude to Canto 1 of Part II (“The Loves of
+the Plants”) he maintains the thesis that poetry is a
+process of painting to the eye, and in the cantos themselves
+he proceeds with great zeal to show in practice<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>
+how words and images should be laid on like pigments
+from the outside. The young Wordsworth himself, as
+his early poems show, was influenced by the theory
+and practice of Darwin, but Coleridge was not slow to
+detect the danger of the elaborate word-painting that
+might arise from the confusion of the two arts. “The
+poet,” he wrote,<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> “should paint to the Imagination
+and not to the Fancy.” For Coleridge Fancy was the
+“Drapery” of poetic genius, Imagination was its
+“Soul” or its “synthetic and magical power,”<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> and
+he thus emphasized what may be regarded as one of
+the chief distinctions between the pseudo-classical, and
+the romantic, interpretations of the language of poetry.
+In its groping after the “grand style,” as reflected in
+a deliberate avoidance of accidental and superficial
+“particularities,” and in its insistence on generalized
+or abstract forms, eighteenth century poetry, or at
+least the “neo-classical” portion of it, reflected its
+inability to achieve that intensity of imaginative conception
+which is the supreme need of all art.</p>
+
+<p>The confusion between the two arts of poetry and
+painting which Coleridge thus condemned did not, it
+is needless to say, disappear with the eighteenth
+century. The Romanticists themselves finally
+borrowed that much-abused phrase “local colour”
+from the technical vocabulary of the painter, and in
+other respects the whole question became merged in
+the symbolism of the nineteenth century where
+literature is to be seen attempting to do the work of
+both music and painting.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>
+
+<p>As regards the language of poetry then—its<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span>
+vocabulary, the actual <i>words</i> in which it was to be
+given expression—the early eighteenth century had
+first this pseudo-classical doctrine of a treasury of
+select words, phrases, and other “ornaments,” a
+doctrine which was to receive splendid emphasis and
+exemplification in Pope’s translation of Homer. But
+alongside of this ideal of style there was another ideal
+which Pope again, as we have seen, had insisted upon
+in his “Essay on Criticism,” and which demanded
+that the language of poetry should in general conform
+to that of cultivated conversation and prose. These
+two ideals of poetical language can be seen persisting
+throughout the eighteenth century, though later
+criticism, in its haste to condemn the <i>gradus</i> ideal,
+has not often found time to do justice to the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>But, apart from these general considerations, the
+question of poetic diction is rarely treated as a thing
+<i>per se</i> by the writers who, after Dryden or Pope, or
+alongside of them, took up the question. There are
+no attempts, in the manner of the Elizabethans,<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> to
+conduct a critical inquiry into the actual present
+resources of the vernacular, and its possibilities as a
+vehicle of expression. Though the attention is more
+than once directed to certain special problems, on the
+whole the discussions are of a general nature, and
+centre round such points as the language suitable for
+an Heroic Poem, or for the “imitation” of aspects
+of nature, or for Descriptive Poetry, questions which
+had been discussed from the sixteenth century onwards,
+and were not exhausted by the time of Dr.
+Johnson.<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith’s remarks, reflecting as they do a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span>
+half-way attitude between the old order and the new,
+are interesting. Poetry has a language of its own;
+it is a species of painting with words, and hence he
+will not condemn Pope for “deviating in some
+instances from the simplicity of Homer,” whilst such
+phrases as <i>the sighing reed</i>, <i>the warbling rivulet</i>, <i>the
+gushing spring</i>, <i>the whispering breeze</i> are approvingly
+quoted.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It is thus somewhat surprising to find that
+in his “Life of Parnell” he had pilloried certain
+“misguided innovators” to whose efforts he attributed
+the gradual debasing of poetical language since
+the happy days when Dryden, Addison, and Pope
+had brought it to its highest pitch of refinement.<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>
+These writers had forgotten that poetry is “the
+language of life” and that the simplest expression
+was the best: brief statements which, if we knew
+what Goldsmith meant by “life,” would seem to
+adumbrate the theories which Wordsworth was to
+expound as the Romantic doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Johnson has many things to say on the subject
+of poetic language, including general remarks and
+particular judgments on special points, or on the work
+of the poets of whom he treated in his “Lives.” As
+might be expected, he clings tenaciously to the accepted
+standards of neo-classicism, and repeats the old
+commonplaces which had done duty for so long, pays
+the usual tribute to Waller and Denham, but ascribes
+the actual birth of poetical diction to the practice of
+Dryden. What Johnson meant by “poetical diction”
+is clearly indicated; it was a “system of words at
+once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and
+free from the harshness of terms appropriated to
+different arts,”<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> that is, the language of poetry must<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>
+shun popular and technical words, since language
+is “the dress of thought” and “splendid ideas
+lose their magnificence if they are conveyed by low
+and vulgar words.”<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> From this standpoint, and
+reinforced by his classical preference for regular
+rhymes,<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> all his particular judgments of his predecessors
+and contemporaries were made; and when
+this is remembered it is easier to understand, for
+instance, his praise of Akenside<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> and his criticism of
+Collins.<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>Gray, however, perhaps the most scrupulous and
+precise of all our poets with regard to the use of words
+in poetry,<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> has some pertinent things to say on the
+matter. There is his important letter to West, already
+referred to, with its dogmatic assertion that “the
+language of the age is never the language of poetry,”
+and that “our poetry has a language to itself,” an
+assertion which, with other remarks of Gray, helps
+to emphasize the distinction to be made between the
+two ideals of poetical diction to be seen persisting
+through the eighteenth century. It was generally
+agreed that there must be a special language for
+poetry, with all its artificial “heightening,” “licenses,”
+and variations from the language of prose, to serve
+the purpose of the traditional “Kinds,” especially
+the Epic and the Lyric. This is the view taken by
+Gray, but with a difference. He does not accept the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>
+conventional diction which Pope’s “Homer” had
+done so much to perpetuate, and hence he creates a
+poetic language of his own, a glittering array of words
+and phrases, blending material from varied sources,
+and including echoes and reminiscences of Milton and
+Dryden.</p>
+
+<p>The second ideal of style was that of which, as we
+have seen, the canons had been definitely stated by
+Pope, and which had been splendidly exemplified in
+the satires, essays, and epistles. The aim was to
+reproduce “the colloquial idiom of living society,”<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>
+and the result was a plain, unaffected style, devoid
+of the ornaments of the poetic language proper, and,
+in its simplicity and directness, equally suitable for
+either poetry or prose. Gray could make use of
+this vehicle of expression, whenever, as in “The
+Long Story,” or the fragmentary “Alliance of
+Education and Government,” it was suitable and
+adequate for his purpose; but in the main his
+own practice stood distinct from both the eighteenth
+century ideals of poetical language. Hence, as it
+conformed to neither of the accepted standards,
+Goldsmith and Johnson agreed in condemning his
+diction, which was perhaps in itself sufficient proof
+that Gray had struck out a new language for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Among the special problems connected with the
+diction of poetry to which the eighteenth century
+critics directed their attention, that of the use of
+archaic and obsolete words was prominent. It had
+been one of the methods by which the Elizabethans
+had hoped to enrich their language, but contemporary
+critics had expressed their disapproval, and it
+was left to Jonson, in this as in other similar matters,
+to express the reasonable view that “the eldest of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>
+the present and the newest of the past language is
+best.”<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Dryden, when about to turn the “Canterbury
+Tales” “into our language as it is now refined,”<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> was
+to express a similar common-sense view. “When
+an ancient word,” he said, with his Horace no doubt
+in his mind, “for its sound and significancy deserves
+to be revived, I have that reasonable veneration for
+antiquity to restore it. All beyond this is superstition.”</p>
+
+<p>A few years later the long series of Spenserian
+imitations had begun, so that the question of the poetic
+use of archaic and obsolete words naturally came into
+prominence. Pope, as might be expected, is to be
+found among the opposition, and in the “Dunciad”
+he takes the opportunity of showing his contempt for
+this kind of writing by a satiric gird, couched in
+supposedly archaic language:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But who is he in closet close y-pent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of sober face with learned dust besprent?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On parchment scraps y-fed and Wormius hight—</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. III, ll. 185-8)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">an attack which is augmented by the ironic comment
+passed by “Scriblerus” in a footnote.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> Nevertheless,
+when engaged on his translation of Homer he had an
+inclination, like Cowper, towards a certain amount of
+archaism, though it is evident that he is not altogether
+satisfied on the point.<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p>
+
+<p>In Gray’s well-known letter to West, mentioned
+above, there is given a selection of epithets from
+Dryden, which he notes as instances of archaic words<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span>
+preserved in poetry. Gray, as we know, had a keen
+sense of the value of words, and his list is therefore of
+special importance, for it appears to show that words
+like <i>mood</i>, <i>smouldering</i>, <i>beverage</i>, <i>array</i>, <i>wayward</i>,
+<i>boon</i>, <i>foiled</i>, etc., seemed to readers of 1742 much more
+old-fashioned than they do to us. Thirty years or
+so later he practically retracts the views expressed
+in this earlier letter, in which he had admirably
+defended the use in poetry of words obsolete in the
+current language of the day. “I think,” he wrote
+to James Beattie, criticizing “The Minstrel,”<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> “that
+we should wholly adopt the language of Spenser or
+wholly renounce it.” And he goes on to object to
+such words as <i>fared</i>, <i>meed</i>, <i>sheen</i>, etc., objections
+which were answered by Beattie, who showed that
+all the words had the sanction of such illustrious
+predecessors as Milton and Pope, and who added that
+“the poetical style in every nation abounds in old
+words”—exactly what Gray had written in his letter
+of 1742.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson, it need hardly be said, was of Pope’s
+opinion on this matter, and the emphatic protest
+which he, alarmed by such tendencies in the direction
+of Romanticism, apparent not only in the Spenserian
+imitations, but still more in such signs of the times as
+were to culminate in Percy’s “Reliques,” the Ossianic
+“simplicities” of Macpherson, and the Rowley
+“forgeries,” is evidence of the strength which the
+Spenserian revival had by then gained. “To imitate
+Spenser’s fiction and sentiments can incur no reproach,”
+he wrote: “but I am very far from extending the same
+respect to his diction and his stanza.”<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> To the end
+he continued to express his disapproval of those who
+favoured the “obsolete style,” and, like Pope, he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>
+finally indulges in a metrical fling at the innovators:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Phrase that time has flung away</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Uncouth words in disarray;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ode and Elegy and Sonnet.<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Goldsmith too had his misgivings. “I dislike the
+imitations of our old English poets in general,” he wrote
+with reference to “The Schoolmistress,” “yet, on
+this minute subject, the antiquity of the style produces
+a very ludicrous solemnity.”<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p>
+
+<p>On this matter of poetic archaism, the point of view
+of the average cultured reader, as distinct from the
+writer, is probably accurately represented in one of
+Chesterfield’s letters. Writing to his son,<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> he was
+particularly urgent that those words only should be
+employed which were found in the writers of the
+Augustan age, or of the age immediately preceding.
+To enforce his point he carefully explained to the
+boy the distinction between the pedant and the
+gentleman who is at the same time a scholar; the
+former affected rare words found only in the pages
+of obscure or antiquated authors rather than those
+used by the great classical writers.</p>
+
+<p>This was the attitude adopted in the main by William
+Cowper, who, after an early enthusiasm for the
+“quaintness” of old words, when first engaged on
+his translation of Homer, later repented and congratulated
+himself on having, in his last revisal, pruned
+away every “single expression of the obsolete kind.”<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>
+But against these opinions we have to set the frankly
+romantic attitude of Thomas Warton, who, in his
+“Observations on the Faerie Queen” (1754), boldly
+asserts that “if the critic is not satisfied, yet the
+reader is transported,” whilst he is quite confident
+that Spenser’s language is not so difficult and obsolete
+as it is generally supposed to be.<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>
+
+<p>Here and there we also come across references to
+other devices by which the poet is entitled to add to
+his word-power. Thus Addison grants the right of
+indulging in coinages, since this is a practice sanctioned
+by example, especially by that of Homer and Milton.<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>
+Pope considered that only such of Homer’s compound
+epithets as could be “done literally into English
+without destroying the purity of our language” or
+those with good literary sanctions should be adopted.<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>
+Gray, however, enters a caveat against coinages; in
+the letter to Beattie, already quoted, he objects to the
+word “infuriated,” and adds a warning not to “make
+new words without great necessity; it is very hazardous
+at best.”</p>
+
+<p>Finally, as a legacy or survival of that veneration
+for the “heroic poem,” which had found its latest
+expression in Davenant’s “Preface to Gondibert”<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a>
+(1650), the question of technical words is occasionally
+touched upon. Dryden, who had begun by asserting
+that general terms were often a mere excuse for ignorance,
+could later give sufficient reasons for the avoidance
+of technical terms,<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and it is not surprising to
+find that Gray was of a similar opinion. In his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span>
+criticism of Beattie’s “Minstrel” he objects to the
+terms <i>medium</i> and <i>incongruous</i> as being words of
+art, which savour too much of prose. Gray, we may
+presume, did not object to such words because they
+were not “elegant,” or even mainly because they were
+“technical” expressions. He would reject them
+because, for him, with his keen sense of the value of
+words, they were too little endowed with poetic colour
+and imagination. When these protests are remembered,
+the great and lasting popularity of “The Shipwreck”
+(1762) of William Falconer, with its free
+employment of nautical words and phrases, may be
+considered to possess a certain significance in the
+history of the Romantic reaction. The daring use of
+technical terms in the poem must have given pleasure
+to a generation of readers accustomed mainly to the
+conventional words and phrases of the accepted
+diction.</p>
+
+<p>When we review the “theory” of poetical language
+in the eighteenth century, as revealed in the sayings,
+direct and indirect, of poets and critics, we feel that
+there is little freshness or originality in the views
+expressed, very little to suggest the changes that were
+going on underneath, and which were soon to find
+their first great and reasoned expression. Nominally,
+it would seem that the views of the eighteenth century
+“classicists” were adequately represented and summed
+up in those of Johnson, for whom the ideal of poetical
+language was that which Dryden had “invented,” and
+of which Pope had made such splendid use in his
+translation of Homer. In reality, the practice of the
+“neo-classical” poets was largely influenced by the
+critical tenets of the school to which they belonged,
+especially by that pseudo-Aristotelian doctrine according
+to which poetry was to be an “imitation” of the
+best models, whilst its words, phrases, and similes
+were to be such as were generally accepted and consecrated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span>
+by poetic use. It was this conventionalism,
+reinforced by, as well as reflecting, the neo-classical
+outlook on external nature, that resulted in the
+“poetic diction” which Wordsworth attacked, and it
+is important to note that a similar stereotyped
+language is to be found in most of the contemporary
+poetry of Western Europe, and especially in that of
+France.<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p>
+
+<p>We need not be surprised, therefore, to find that
+neither Johnson, nor any of his “classical” contemporaries,
+appears to attach any importance to the
+fact that Pope in his essays and epistles had set up a
+standard of diction, of which it is not too much to
+say that it was an ideal vehicle of expression for the
+thoughts and feelings it had to convey. So enamoured
+were they of the pomp and glitter of the “Homer”
+that they apparently failed to see in this real “Pope
+style” an admirable model for all writers aiming at
+lucidity, simplicity, and directness of thought. We
+may see this clearly by means of an instructive comparison
+of Johnson’s judgments on the two “Pope
+styles.” “It is remarked by Watts,” he writes, “that
+there is scarcely a happy combination of words or a
+phrase poetically elegant in the English language
+which Pope has not inserted into his version of
+Homer.”<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> On the other hand, he is perhaps more
+than unjust to Pope’s plain didactic style when he
+speaks of the “harshness of diction,” the “levity
+without elegance” of the “Essay on Man.”<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was not until the neo-classical poetry was in its
+death-agony that we meet with adequate appreciation
+of the admirable language which Pope brought to
+perfection and bequeathed to his successors. “The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span>
+familiar style,” wrote Cowper to Unwin,<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> “is of all
+the styles the most difficult to succeed in. To make
+verse speak the language of prose without being
+prosaic—to marshal the words of it in such an order
+as they might naturally take in falling from the lips
+of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness,
+harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming to displace
+a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the
+most arduous tasks a poet can undertake.” The
+“familiar style,” which Cowper here definitely characterizes,
+was in its own special province as good a model
+as was the beautiful simplicity of Blake when “poetical
+poetry” had once more come into its own; and it is
+important to remember that this fact received due
+recognition from both Wordsworth and Coleridge.
+“The mischief,” wrote the former,<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> “was effected not
+by Pope’s satirical and moral pieces, for these entitle
+him to the highest place among the poets of his class;
+it was by his ‘Homer.’... No other work in the
+language so greatly vitiated the diction of English
+poetry.” And Coleridge, too, called attention to the
+“almost faultless position and choice of words” in
+Pope’s original compositions, in comparison with the
+absurd “pseudo-poetic diction” of his translations of
+Homer.<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> The “Pope style” failed to produce real
+poetry—poetry of infinite and universal appeal,
+animated with personal feeling and emotion not
+merely because of its preference for the generic rather
+than the typical, but because its practitioners for the
+most part lacked those qualities of intense imagination
+in which alone the highest art can have its birth.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br />
+<span class="smaller">THE “STOCK” DICTION OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Since the time when Wordsworth launched his
+manifestoes on the language fit and proper for
+poetry, it may almost be said that whenever the
+term “poetic diction” is found used as a more or less
+generic term of critical disparagement, it has been
+with reference, implied or explicit, to the so-called
+classical poetry of the Augustan ages. But the condemnation
+has perhaps been given too wide an application,
+and hence there has arisen a tendency to place
+in this category all the language of all the poets who
+were supposed to have taken Pope as their model, so
+that “the Pope style” and “eighteenth century
+diction” have almost become synonymous terms, as
+labels for a lifeless, imitative language in which poets
+felt themselves constrained to express all their thoughts
+and feelings. This criticism is both unjust and misleading.
+For when this “false and gaudy splendour”
+is unsparingly condemned, it is not always recognized
+or remembered that it is mainly to be found in the
+descriptive poetry of the period.</p>
+
+<p>It is sufficient to glance at the descriptive verse of
+practically all the typical “classical” poets to discover
+how generally true this statement is. We cannot say,
+of course, that the varied sights and sounds of outdoor
+life made no appeal at all to them; but what we do
+feel is that whenever they were constrained to indulge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>
+in descriptive verse they either could not, or would
+not, try to convey their impressions in language of
+their very own, but were content in large measure to
+draw upon a common stock of dead and colourless
+epithets. Local colour, in the sense of accurate and
+particular observation of natural facts, is almost
+entirely lacking; there is no writing with the eye on
+the object, and it has been well remarked that their
+highly generalized descriptions could be transferred
+from poet to poet or from scene to scene, without any
+injustice. Thus Shenstone<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> describes his birthplace:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Romantic scenes of pendent hills</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And verdant vales, and falling rills,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And mossy banks, the fields adorn</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where Damon, simple swain, was born—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">a quatrain which, with little or no change of epithet,
+was the common property of the versifiers, and may
+be met with almost everywhere in early eighteenth
+century poetry. Every type of English scenery and
+every phase of outdoor life finds its description in
+lines of this sort, where the reader instinctively feels
+that the poet has not been careful to record his individual
+impressions or emotions, but has contented
+himself with accepting epithets and phrases consecrated
+to the use of natural description. A similar
+inability or indifference is seen even in the attempts
+to re-fashion Chaucer, or the Bible, or other old
+material, where the vigour and freshness and colour of
+the originals might have been expected to exercise a
+salutary influence. But to no purpose: all must be
+cast in the one mould, and clothed in the elegant diction
+of the time. Thus in Dryden’s modernization of the
+“Canterbury Tales” the beautiful simplicity of
+Chaucer’s descriptions of the sights and sounds of
+nature vanishes when garbed in the rapid and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>
+conventional phrases and locutions of the classicists.
+Chaucer’s “briddes” becomes “the painted birds,”
+a “goldfinch” is amplified into a “goldfinch with
+gaudy pride of painted plumes,” whilst a plain and
+simple mention of sunrise, “at the sun upriste,” has
+to be paraphrased into</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Aurora had but newly chased the night</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The old ballads and the Psalms suffered severely in the
+same way.<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p>
+
+<p>The fact that the words most frequently used in this
+stock poetic diction have usually some sort of connexion
+with dress or ornament has not escaped notice,
+and it has its own significance. It is, as it were, a
+reflex of the fact that the nature poetry of the period
+is in large measure the work of writers to whom social
+life is the central fact of existence, for whom meadow,
+and woodland, and running water, mountain and sea,
+the silent hills, and the starry sky brought no inspiration,
+or at least no inspiration powerful enough to lead
+them to break through the shackles of conventionality
+imposed upon them by the taste of their age. Words
+like “paint” and “painted,” “gaudy,” “adorn,”
+“deck,” “gilds” and “gilded,” “damasked,”
+“enamelled,” “embroidered,” and dozens similar
+form the stock vocabulary of natural description;
+apart from the best of Akenside, and the works of one
+or two writers such as John Cunningham, it can safely
+be said that but few new descriptive terms were added
+to the “nature vocabulary” of English poetry during
+this period. How far English poetry is yet distant
+from a recognition of the sea as a source of poetic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>
+inspiration may be perhaps seen from the fact that its
+most frequent epithet is the feeble term “watery,”
+whilst the magic of the sky by night or day evokes no
+image other than one that can be expressed by changes
+rung on such words as “azure,” “concave,” “serene,”
+“ætherial.” Even in “Night Thoughts,” where the
+subject might have led to something new and fresh in
+the way of a “star-vocabulary,” the best that Young
+can do is to take refuge in such periphrases as “tuneful
+spheres,” “nocturnal sparks,” “lucid orbs,” “ethereal
+armies,” “mathematic glories,” “radiant choirs,”
+“midnight counsellors,” etc.</p>
+
+<p>And the same lack of direct observation and individual
+expression is obvious whenever the classicists
+have to mention birds or animals. Wild life had to
+wait for White of Selborne, and for Blake and Burns
+and Cowper and Wordsworth, to be observed with
+accuracy and treated with sympathy; and it has been
+well remarked that if we are to judge from their verse,
+most of the poets of the first quarter of the eighteenth
+century knew no bird except the goldfinch or nightingale,
+and even these probably only by hearsay. For
+the same generalized diction is usually called upon, and
+birds are merely a “feathered,” “tuneful,” “plumy”
+or “warbling” choir, whilst a periphrasis, allowing of
+numerous and varied labels for the same animal, is
+felt to be the correct thing. In Dryden sheep are
+“the woolly breed” or “the woolly race”; bees are
+the “industrious kind” or “the frugal kind”; pigs
+are “the bristly care” or “the tusky kind”; frogs
+are “the loquacious race”; crows, “the craven kind,”
+and so on: “the guiding principle seems to be that
+nothing must be mentioned by its own name.”<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p>
+
+<p>Many of these stock epithets owed their appearance
+of course to the requirements imposed upon poets by
+their adherence to the heroic couplet. Pope himself
+calls attention to the fact that the necessities of rhyme
+led to the unceasing repetition of stereotyped phrases
+and locutions:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where’er you find the “cooling western breeze.”</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the next line it “whispers through the trees”;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">If crystal streams “with pleasing murmur creep”</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The reader’s threaten’d, not in vain, with “sleep”—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">adducing, with unconscious irony, the very rhymes prevalent
+in much of his own practice.<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was also recognized by the versifiers that the
+indispensable polish and “correctness” of the decasyllabic
+line could only be secured by a mechanical use
+of epithets in certain positions. “There is a vast
+beauty [to me],” wrote Shenstone, “in using a word of
+a particular nature in the 8th and 9th syllable of an
+English verse. I mean what is virtually a dactyl.
+For instance,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And pykes, the tyrants of the wat’ry plains.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Let any person of any ear substitute <i>liquid</i> for <i>wat’ry</i>
+and he will find the disadvantage.”<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> Saintsbury has
+pointed out<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> that the “drastic but dangerous device
+of securing the undulating penetration of the line by
+the use of the <i>gradus</i> epithet was one of the chief
+causes of the intensely artificial character of the
+versification and its attendant diction.... There
+are passages in the ‘Dispensary’ and ‘The Rape of
+the Lock,’ where you can convert the decasyllable
+into the octosyllable for several lines together without<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>
+detriment to sense or poetry by simply taking out these
+specious superfluities.”</p>
+
+<p>In the year of Dryden’s death (or perhaps in the
+following year) there had appeared the “Art of
+Poetry” by Edward Bysshe, whose metrical laws
+were generally accepted, as authoritative, during the
+eighteenth century. During the forty years of Dryden’s
+literary career the supremacy of the stopped
+regular decasyllabic couplet had gradually established
+itself as the perfect form of verse. But Bysshe was
+the first prosodist to formulate the “rules” of the
+couplet, and in doing so he succeeded, probably
+because his views reflected the general prosodic
+tendencies of the time, in “codifying and mummifying”
+a system which soon became erected into a creed.
+“The foregoing rules (<i>of accent on the even places and
+pause mainly at the 4th, 5th, or 6th syllable</i>) ought
+indispensably to be followed in all our verses of 10
+syllables: and the observation of them will produce
+Harmony, the neglect of them harshness and discord.”<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>
+Into this rigid mechanical mould contemporary
+and succeeding versifiers felt themselves constrained
+to place their couplets. But to pad out their
+lines they were nearly always beset with a temptation
+to use the trochaic epithets, of which numerous
+examples have been given above. As a natural result
+such epithets soon became part and parcel of the
+poetic stock of language, and hence most of them were
+freely used by poets, not because of any intrinsic
+poetic value, but because they were necessary to
+comply with the absurd mechanics of their vehicle of
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>Since the “Lives of the Poets” it has been customary
+to regard this “poetic diction” as the peculiar invention
+of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>
+century, and especially of Dryden and Pope, a belief
+largely due to Johnson’s eulogies of these poets. As
+an ardent admirer of the school of Dryden and Pope,
+it was only natural that Johnson should express an
+exalted opinion of their influence on the poetic practice
+of his contemporaries. But others—Gray amongst
+them—did not view their innovations with much complacency,
+and towards the end of the century Cowper
+was already foreshadowing the attack to be made by
+Wordsworth and Coleridge in the next generation.
+To Pope’s influence, he says in effect, after paying his
+predecessor a more or less formal compliment, was due
+the stereotyped form both of the couplet and of much
+of the language in which it was clothed. Pope had
+made</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">poetry a mere mechanic art</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And every warbler had his tune by heart;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and in one of his letters he stigmatizes and pillories the
+inflated and stilted phraseology of Pope, and especially
+his translation of Homer.<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Finally, Wordsworth and
+Coleridge agreed in ascribing the “poetical diction,”
+against which their manifestoes were directed, to that
+source.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be admitted that Pope’s translation is to
+some extent open to the charge brought against it of
+corrupting the language with a meretricious standard
+of poetic diction. In his Preface he expresses his misgivings
+as to the language fit and proper for an English
+rendering of Homer, and indeed it is usually recognized
+that his diction was, to a certain extent, imposed upon
+him both by the nature of his original, as well as by
+the lack of elasticity in his closed couplet. To the
+latter cause was doubtless due, not only the use of
+stock epithets to fill out the line, but also the inevitable<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>
+repetition of certain words, due to the requirements of
+rhyme, even at the expense of straining or distorting
+their ordinary meaning. Thus <i>train</i>, for instance, on
+account of its convenience as a rhyming word, is often
+used to signify “a host,” or “body,” and similarly
+<i>plain</i>, <i>main</i>, for the ocean. In this connexion it has
+also been aptly pointed out that some of the defects
+resulted from the fact that Pope had founded his own
+epic style on that of the Latin poets, whose manner is
+most opposed to Homer’s. Thus he often sought to
+deck out or expand simple thoughts or commonplace
+situations by using what he no doubt considered really
+“poetical language,” and thus, for instance, where
+Homer simply says, “And the people perished,” Pope
+has to say, “And heaped the camp with mountains of
+the dead.” The repeated use of periphrases: <i>feathered
+fates</i>, for “arrows”; <i>fleecy breed</i> for “sheep”; <i>the
+wandering nation of a summer’s day</i> for “insects”; <i>the
+beauteous kind</i> for “women”; <i>the shining mischief</i> for
+“a fascinating woman”; <i>rural care</i> for “the occupations
+of the shepherd”; <i>the social shades</i> for “the
+ghosts of two brothers,” may be traced to the same
+influence.<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p>
+
+<p>But apart from these defects the criticisms of
+Coleridge and Wordsworth, and their ascribing of the
+“poetical diction,” which they wished to abolish, to
+the influence of Pope’s “Homer,” are to a large extent
+unjust. Many of the characteristics of this “spurious
+poetic language” were well established long before
+Pope produced his translation. It is probable that
+they are present to a much larger extent, for instance,
+in Dryden; <i>painted</i>, <i>rural</i>, <i>finny</i>, <i>briny</i>, <i>shady</i>, <i>vocal</i>,
+<i>mossy</i>, <i>fleecy</i>, come everywhere in his translations, and
+not only there. Some of his adjectives in y are
+more audacious than those of Pope: <i>spongy clouds</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span>
+<i>chinky hives</i>, <i>snary webs</i>, <i>roomy sea</i>, etc. Most of the
+periphrases used by Pope and many more are already
+to be found in Dryden: “summer” is <i>the sylvan
+reign</i>; “bees,” <i>the frugal</i> or <i>industrious kind</i>;
+“arrows,” <i>the feathered wood</i> or <i>feathered fates</i>;
+“sheep,” <i>the woolly breed</i>; “frogs,” <i>the loquacious
+race</i>! From all Pope’s immediate predecessors and
+contemporaries similar examples may be quoted,
+like Gay’s</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Rural Sports”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or Ambrose Philips:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hark: how they warble in the brambly bush</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The gaudy goldfinch or the speckly thrush</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Fourth Pastoral”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and that “Epistle to a Friend,” in which he ridicules
+the very jargon so much used in his own Pastorals.<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p>Pope then may justly be judged “not guilty,” at
+least “in the first degree,” of having originated the
+poetic diction which Johnson praised and Wordsworth
+condemned; in using it, he was simply using the
+stock language for descriptive poetry, whether original
+or in translations, which had slowly come into being
+during the last decade of the seventeenth century.
+If it be traced to its origins, it will be found that most
+of it originated with that poet who may fairly be
+called the founder of the English “classical” school<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span>
+of poetry—to Milton, to whom in large measure is due,
+not merely the invention, but also, by the very potency
+of the influence exercised by his great works, its vogue
+in the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Before the time of Milton, it is not too much to say,
+even when we remember the practice of Spenser and
+Donne and their followers, that there was no special
+language for poetry, little or nothing of the diction
+consecrated solely to the purposes of poets. The
+poets of the Elizabethan age and their immediate
+successors had access to all diction, upon which they
+freely drew. But it seems natural, indeed inevitable,
+that for Milton, resolved to sing of things “unattempted
+yet in prose or rhyme,” the ordinary language
+of contemporary prose or poetry should be found
+lacking. He was thus impelled, we may say, consciously
+and deliberately to form for himself a special
+poetical vocabulary, which, in his case, was abundantly
+justified, because it was so essentially fitted to his
+purpose, and bore the stamp of his lofty poetic genius.</p>
+
+<p>This poetical vocabulary was made up of diverse
+elements. Besides the numerous “classical” words,
+which brought with them all the added charm of
+literary reminiscence, there were archaisms, and words
+of Latin origin, as well as words deliberately coined
+on Latin and Greek roots. But it included also most
+of the epithets of which the eighteenth century versifiers
+were so fond. Examples may be taken
+from any of the descriptive portions of the “Paradise
+Lost”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(IV, 334)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">About me round I saw</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And liquid lapse of murmuring streams.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(VIII, 260-263)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span></p>
+
+<p>Other phrases, like “vernal bloom,” “lucid stream,”
+“starry sphere,” “flowery vale,” “umbrageous
+grots,” were to become the worn-out penny-pieces
+of the eighteenth century poetical mint. Milton
+indeed seems to have been one of the great inventors
+of adjectives ending in y, though in this respect
+he had been anticipated by Browne and others, and
+especially by Chapman, who has large numbers of
+them, and whose predilection for this method of
+making adjectives out of nouns amounts almost to
+an obsession.<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p>
+
+<p>Milton was also perhaps the great innovator with
+another kind of epithet, which called forth the censure
+of Johnson, who described it as “the practice of giving
+to adjectives derived from substantives the terminations
+of participles,” though the great dictator is here
+attacking a perfectly legitimate device freely used by
+the Jacobeans and by most of the poets since their
+time.<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Nor are there wanting in Milton’s epic instances
+of the idle periphrases banned by Wordsworth: <i>straw-built
+citadel</i> for “bee-hive,” <i>vernal bloom</i> for “spring
+flowers,” <i>smutty grain</i> for “gunpowder,” <i>humid train</i>
+for the flowery waters of a river, etc.<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p>
+
+<p>With Milton, then, may be said to have originated
+the “poetic diction,” which drew forth Wordsworth’s
+strictures, and which in the sequel proved a dangerous
+model for the swarm of versifiers who essayed to
+borrow or imitate it for the purpose of their dull and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>
+commonplace themes. How much the Miltonic language,
+as aped and imitated by the “landscape
+gardeners and travelling pedlars” of the eighteenth
+century, lost in originality and freshness, may be felt,
+rather than described, if we compare so well-known a
+passage as the following with any of the quotations
+given earlier:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">Yet not the more</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Clear Spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That wash thy hallowed feet and warbling flow.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(P.L. III, 26-30)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the minor poets of the eighteenth century, who,
+by their mechanical imitations, succeeded in reducing
+Milton’s diction to the level of an almost meaningless
+jargon, had had every encouragement from their
+greater predecessors and contemporaries. The process
+of depreciation may be seen already in Dryden, and it
+is probably by way of Pope that much of the Miltonic
+language became part of the eighteenth century poetic
+stock-in-trade. Pope was a frequent borrower from
+Milton, and, in his “Homer” especially, very many
+reminiscences are to be found, often used in an artificial,
+and sometimes in an absurd, manner.<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Moreover,
+Pope’s free and cheapened use of many of Milton’s
+descriptive epithets did much to reduce them to the
+rank of merely conventional terms, and in this respect
+the attack of Wordsworth and Coleridge was not
+without justice. But on the whole the proper conclusion
+would seem to be that what is usually labelled
+as “the <i>Pope</i> style” could with more justice and
+aptness be described as “the pseudo-Miltonic style.”
+It is true that the versifiers freely pilfered the “Homer,”
+and the vogue of much of the stock diction is thus<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span>
+due to that source, but so far as Pope himself is concerned
+there is justice in his plea that he left this
+style behind him when he emerged from “Fancy’s
+maze” and “moralized his song.”</p>
+
+<p>To what extent this catalogue of lifeless words and
+phrases had established itself as the poetical thesaurus
+is to be seen in the persistency with which it maintained
+its position until the very end of the century,
+when Erasmus Darwin with a fatal certainty evolved
+from it all its worst features, and thus did much
+unconsciously to crush it out of existence. James
+Thomson is rightly regarded as one of the most
+important figures in the early history of the Romantic
+Revolt, and he has had merited praise for his attempts
+to provide himself with a new language of his own.
+In this respect, however, he had been anticipated by
+John Philips, whose “Splendid Shilling” appeared in
+1705, followed by “Cyder” a year later. Philips,
+though not the first Miltonic imitator, was practically
+the first to introduce the Miltonic diction and phrases,
+whilst at the same time he acquired the knack of adding
+phrases of his own to the common stock. He was
+thus an innovator from whom Thomson himself
+learned not a little.</p>
+
+<p>But though the “Seasons” is ample testimony to
+a new and growing alertness to natural scenery,
+Thomson found it hard to escape from the fetters of
+the current poetic language. We feel that he is at
+least trying to write with his eye steadily fixed upon
+the object, but he could perhaps hardly be expected to
+get things right from the very beginning. Thus a
+stanza from his “Pastoral Entertainment” is purely
+conventional:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The place appointed was a spacious vale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Fanned always by a cooling western gale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Which in soft breezes through the meadow stray</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And steal the ripened fragrances away—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">while he paraphrases a portion of the sixth chapter of
+St. Matthew into:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Observe the rising lily’s snowy grace,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Observe the various vegetable race,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet see how warm they blush, how bright they glow,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where the stock terms scarcely harmonize with the
+simple Biblical diction. He was well aware of the
+attendant dangers and difficulties, and in the first book
+of “The Seasons” he gives expression to the need he
+feels of a language fit to render adequately all that he
+sees in Nature.<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> But though there is much that is
+fresh and vivid in his descriptive diction, and much
+that reveals him as a bold pioneer in poetic outlook
+and treatment, the tastes and tendencies of his age
+were too strong entirely to be escaped. Birds are the
+<i>plumy</i>, or <i>feathered people</i>, or <i>the glossy kind</i>,<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> and a
+flight of swallows is <i>a feathered eddy</i>; sheep are <i>the
+bleating kind</i>, etc. In one passage (“Spring,” ll. 114-135)
+he deals at length with the insects that attack the
+crops without once mentioning them by name: they
+are <i>the feeble race</i>, <i>the frosty tribe</i>, <i>the latent foe</i>, and
+even <i>the sacred sons of vengeance</i>. He has in general
+the traditional phraseology for the mountains and the
+sea, though a few of his epithets for the mountains, as
+<i>keen-air’d</i> and <i>forest-rustling</i>, are new. He speaks of
+the Alps as <i>dreadful</i>, <i>horrid</i>, <i>vast</i>, <i>sublime</i>. <i>Shaggy</i> and
+<i>nodding</i> are also applied to mountains as well as to
+rocks and forests; winter is usually described in the
+usual classical manner as <i>deformed</i> and <i>inverted</i>.
+Leaves are the <i>honours</i> of trees, paths are <i>erroneous</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>
+caverns <i>sweat</i>, etc., and he also makes large use of
+Latinisms.<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p>
+
+<p>John Dyer (1700-1758), though now and then conventional
+in his diction, has a good deal to his credit,
+and is a worthy contemporary of the author of “The
+Seasons.” Thus in the “Country Walk” it is the old
+stock diction he gives us:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Look upon that <i>flowery plain</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">How the sheep surround their <i>swain</i>;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And there behold a <i>bloomy mead</i>,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">A silver stream, a willow shade;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and much the same thing is to be found in “The
+Fleece,” published in 1757:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The crystal dews, impearl’d upon the grass,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Are touched by Phœbus’ beams and mount aloft,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With various clouds to paint the azure sky;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst he has almost as many adjectives in y as Ambrose
+Philips. But these are more than redeemed by the
+new descriptive touches which appear, sometimes
+curiously combined with the stereotyped phrases, as
+in “The Fleece” (Bk. III):</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The scatter’d mists reveal the dusky hills;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Grey dawn appears; the golden morn ascends,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And paints the glittering rocks and purple woods.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Nor must we forget “Grongar Hill,” which has justly
+received high praise for its beauties and felicities of
+description.</p>
+
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to illustrate further the vogue
+of this sort of diction in the first half of the eighteenth
+century; it is to be found everywhere in the poetry of
+the period, and the conventional epithets and phrases<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>
+quoted from Dyer and Thomson may be taken as
+typical of the majority of their contemporaries. But
+this lifeless, stereotyped language has also invaded the
+work of some of the best poets of the century, including
+not only the later classicists, but also those who have
+been “born free,” and are foremost among the
+Romantic rebels. The poetic language of William
+Collins shows a strange mixture of the old style and
+the new. That it was new and individual is well seen
+from Johnson’s condemnation, for Johnson recognized
+very clearly that the language of the “Ode on
+the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands” did not
+conform to what was probably his own view that the
+only language fit and proper for poetry was such as
+might bear comparison with the polish and elegance
+of Pope’s “Homer.” It is not difficult to make due
+allowance for Johnson when he speaks of Collins’s
+diction as “harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudicially
+selected”; we deplore the classical bias, and are
+content enough to recognize and enjoy for ourselves
+the matchless beauty and charm of Collins’s diction
+at its best. Yet much of the language of his earlier
+work betrays him as more or less a poetaster of the
+eighteenth century. The early “Oriental Eclogues”
+abound in the usual descriptive details, just as if the
+poet had picked out his words and phrases from the
+approved lists. Thus,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet midst the blaze of courts she fixed her love</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On the cool fountain or the shady grove</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Still, with the shepherd’s innocence her mind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To the sweet vale and flowery mead inclined;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and even in the “Ode on the Popular Superstitions”
+there were expressions like <i>watery surge</i>, <i>sheeny gold</i>,
+though now and then the “new” diction is strikingly
+exemplified in a magnificent phrase such as <i>gleamy
+pageant</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span></p>
+
+<p>When Collins has nothing new to say his poetic
+language is that of his time, but when his inspiration
+is at its loftiest his diction is always equal to the task,
+and it is then that he gives us the unrivalled felicities
+of “The Ode to Evening.”</p>
+
+<p>Amongst all the English poets there has probably
+never been one, even when we think of Tennyson,
+more careful and meticulous (or “curiously elaborate,”
+as Wordsworth styled it) about the diction of his
+verses, the very words themselves, than Gray. This
+fact, and not Matthew Arnold’s opinion that it was
+because Gray had fallen on an “age of prose,” may
+perhaps be regarded as sufficient to explain the comparative
+scantiness of his literary production. He
+himself, in a famous letter, has clearly stated his ideal
+of literary expression: “Extreme conciseness of
+expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one
+of the grand beauties of lyrical poetry.”<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Hence all
+his verses bear evidence of the most painstaking labour
+and rigorous self-criticism, almost as if every word
+had been weighed and assessed before being allowed
+to appear. His correspondence with Mason and
+Beattie, referred to in the previous chapter, shows the
+same fastidiousness with regard to the work of others.
+Gray indeed, drawing freely upon Milton and Dryden,
+created for himself a special poetic language which
+in its way can become almost as much an abuse as
+the otiosities of many of his predecessors and contemporaries—the
+“cumbrous splendour” of which
+Johnson complained. Yet he is never entirely free
+from the influence of the “classical” diction which,
+for Johnson, represented the ideal. His earliest work
+is almost entirely conventional in its descriptions, the
+prevailing tone being exemplified in such phrases as
+<i>the purple year</i>, <i>the Attic Warbler pours her throat</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span>
+(Ode on “The Spring”), whilst in the “Progress of
+Poesy,” lines like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Through verdant vales and Ceres’ golden reign</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">are not uncommon, though of course the possibility
+of the direct influence of the classics, bringing with it
+the added flavour of reminiscence, is not to be ignored
+in this sort of diction. Moreover, a couplet from the
+fragmentary “Alliance of Education and Government”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Scent the new fragrance of <i>the breathing rose</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And quaff <i>the pendent vintage</i> as it grows—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">is almost typical, apart from the freshness of the
+epithet <i>breathing</i>, of what Wordsworth wished to
+abolish. Even the “Elegy” has not escaped
+the contagion: <i>storied urn</i> or <i>animated bust</i> is
+perilously akin to the pedantic periphrases of the
+Augustans.</p>
+
+<p>Before passing to a consideration of the work
+of Johnson and Goldsmith, who best represent
+the later eighteenth century development of the
+“classical” school of Pope, reference may be made
+to two other writers. The first of these is Thomas
+Chatterton. In that phase of the early Romantic
+Movement which took the form of attempts to revive
+the past, Chatterton of course played an important
+part, and the pseudo-archaic language which he
+fabricated for the purpose of his “Rowley” poems
+is interesting, not only as an indication of the trend
+of the times towards the poetic use of old and obsolete
+words, but also as reflecting, it would seem, a genuine
+endeavour to escape from the fetters of the conventional
+and stereotyped diction of his day. On the
+other hand, in his avowedly original work, Chatterton’s
+diction is almost entirely imitative. He has scarcely<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>
+a single fresh image or description; his series of
+“Elegies” and “Epistles” are clothed in the current
+poetic language. He uses the stock expressions,
+<i>purling streams</i>, <i>watery bed</i>, <i>verdant vesture of the
+smiling fields</i>, along with the usual periphrases,
+such as <i>the muddy nation</i> or <i>the speckled folk</i>
+for “frogs.” One verse of an “Elegy” written
+in 1768 contains in itself nearly all the conventional
+images:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye variegated children of the Spring,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye blossoms blushing with the pearly dew;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye birds that sweetly in the hawthorn sing;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye flowery meads, lawns of verdant hue.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It can be judged from these examples how a stereotyped
+mode of expression may depreciate to a large
+extent the value of much of the work of a poet of real
+genius. Chatterton is content in most of his avowedly
+“original” work to turn his poetic thoughts into the
+accepted moulds, which is all the more surprising
+when we remember his laborious methods of
+manufacturing an archaic diction for his mediaeval
+“discoveries,”<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> even if we may assume that
+it reflected a strong desire for something fresh and
+new.</p>
+
+<p>A poet of much less genius, but one who enjoyed
+great contemporary fame, was William Falconer,
+whose “Shipwreck,” published in 1762, was the most
+popular sea-poem of the eighteenth century. The
+most striking characteristic of the descriptive parts
+of the poem is the daring and novel use of technical
+sea-terms, but apart from this the language is purely
+conventional. The sea is still the same <i>desert-waste</i>,
+<i>faithless deep</i>, <i>watery way</i>, <i>world</i>, <i>plain</i>, <i>path</i>, or <i>the
+fluid plain</i>, <i>the glassy plain</i>, whilst the landscape<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>
+catalogue is as lifeless as any of the descriptive passages
+of the early eighteenth century:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent18">on every spray</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The warbling birds exalt their evening lay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Blithe skipping o’er yon hill the fleecy train</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">When he leaves this second-hand description, and
+describes scenes actually experienced and strongly
+felt, Falconer’s language is correspondingly fresh and
+vivid, the catastrophe of the shipwreck itself, for
+example, being painted with extraordinary power.<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p>
+
+<p>When we come to Johnson and Goldsmith, here
+again a distinction must be made between the didactic
+or satiric portion of their work and that which is
+descriptive. Johnson’s didactic verse, marked as it is
+by a free use of inversion and ellipsis, rarely attains
+the clearness and simplicity of Goldsmith’s, whilst he has
+also much more of the stock descriptive terms and
+phrases. His “Odes” are almost entirely cast in this
+style. Thus in “Spring”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now o’er the rural Kingdom roves</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Soft Pleasure with her laughing train,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love warbles in the vocal groves</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And vegetation plants the plains,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst exactly the same stuff is turned out for a love
+poem, “To Stella”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Not the soft sighs of vernal gales</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The fragrance of the flowery vales</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The murmurs of the crystal rill</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The vocal grove, the verdant hill.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Though there is not so much of this kind of otiose<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span>
+description in the poems of Goldsmith, yet Mr. Dobson’s
+estimate of his language may be accepted as a
+just one: “In spite of their beauty and humanity,”
+he says, “the lasting quality of ‘The Traveller’ and
+‘The Deserted Village’ is seriously prejudiced by his
+half-way attitude between the poetry of convention
+and the poetry of nature—between the <i>gradus</i> epithet
+of Pope and the direct vocabulary of Wordsworth.”<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>
+Thus when we read such lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Traveller,” ll. 293-4)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">we feel that Goldsmith too has been writing with his
+eye on the object, and even in such a line as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The breezy covert of the warbling grove</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 360)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">there is a freshness of description that compensates
+for the use of the hackneyed <i>warbling grove</i>. On the
+other hand, there are in both pieces passages which it
+is difficult not to regard as purely conventional in
+their language. Thus in “The Traveller,” the diction,
+if not entirely of the stock type, is not far from it:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and so on for another dozen lines.<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p>
+
+<p>Only the slightest traces, however, of this mechanical
+word-painting appear in “The Deserted Village,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>
+almost the only example of the stereotyped phrase
+being in the line</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">These simple blessings of <i>the lowly train</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(l. 252).</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thus whilst Goldsmith in much of his work continues
+the classical school of Pope, alike in his predilection
+for didactic verse and his practice of the heroic couplet,
+in his poetic language he is essentially individual. In
+his descriptive passages he rarely uses the conventional
+jargon, and the greater part of the didactic and moral
+observations of his two most famous poems is written
+in simple and unadorned language that would satisfy
+the requirements of the Wordsworthian canon.</p>
+
+<p>That pure and unaffected diction could be employed
+with supreme effect in other than moral and didactic
+verse was soon to be shown in the lyric poetry of
+William Blake, who, about thirty years before Wordsworth
+launched his manifestoes, evolved for himself a
+poetic language, wonderful alike in its beauty and
+simplicity. In those of the “Songs of Innocence” and
+“The Songs of Experience,” which are concerned with
+natural description, the epithets and expressions that
+had long been consecrated to this purpose find little
+or no place. Here and there we seem to catch echoes
+of the stock diction, as in the lines,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">the starry floor</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">the watery shore</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of the Introduction to the “Songs of Experience,”
+or the</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">happy, silent, <i>moony</i> beams</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of “The Cradle Song”; but in each case the expressions
+are redeemed and revitalized by the pure and
+joyous singing note of the lyrics of which they form
+part. Only once is Blake to be found using the conventional<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>
+epithet, when in his “Laughing Song” he
+writes</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">the <i>painted</i> birds laugh in the shade,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst with his usual unerring instinct he marks down
+the monotonous smoothness of so much contemporary
+verse in that stanza of his ode “To the Muses” in
+which, as has been well said, the eighteenth century
+dies to music:<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">How have you left the ancient love</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That bards of old enjoyed in you!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The languid strings do scarcely move,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sound is forced, the notes are few.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not that he altogether escaped the blighting influence
+of his time. In the early “Imitation of Spenser,” we
+get such a couplet as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">To sit in council with his modern peers</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And judge of tinkling rhimes and elegances terse,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst the “vicious diction” Wordsworth was to condemn
+is also to be seen in this line from one of the early
+“Songs”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">and Phœbus fir’d my vocal rage.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Even as late as 1800 Blake was capable of writing</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Receive this tribute from a harp sincere.<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But these slight blemishes only seem to show up in
+stronger light the essential beauty and nobility of his
+poetical style.</p>
+
+<p>But the significance of Blake’s work in the purging
+and purifying of poetic diction was not, as might
+perhaps be expected, recognized by his contemporaries<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>
+and immediate successors. For Coleridge, writing
+some thirty years later, it was Cowper, and his less
+famous contemporary Bowles, who were the pioneers
+in the rejecting of the old and faded style and the
+beginning of the new, the first to combine “natural
+thoughts with natural diction.”<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> Coleridge’s opinion
+seems to us now to be an over-statement, but we
+rather suspect that Cowper was not unwilling to
+regard himself as an innovator in poetic language. In
+his correspondence he reveals himself constantly pre-occupied
+with the question of poetic expression, and
+especially with the language fit and proper for his
+translation of Homer. His opinion of Pope’s attempt
+has already been referred to, but he himself was well
+aware of the inherent difficulties.<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> He had, it would
+seem, definite and decided opinions on the subject of
+poetic language; he recognized the lifelessness of the
+accepted diction, which, rightly or wrongly, he attributed
+especially to the influence of Pope’s “Homer,”
+and tried to escape from its bondage. His oft-quoted
+thesis that in the hands of the eighteenth century poets
+poetry had become a “mere mechanic art,” he
+developed at length in his ode “Secundum Artem,”
+which comprises almost a complete catalogue of the
+ornaments which enabled the warblers to have their
+tune by heart. What Cowper in that ode pillories—“the
+trim epithets,” the “sweet alternate rhyme,”
+the “flowers of light description”—were in the main
+what were to be held up to ridicule in the <i>Lyrical
+Ballads</i> prefaces; Wordsworth’s attack is here anticipated
+by twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>But, as later in the case of Wordsworth, Cowper in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span>
+his early work has not a little of the language which he
+is at such pains to condemn. Thus Horace again
+appears in the old familiar guise,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now o’er the spangled hemisphere,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Diffused the starry train appear</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Fifth Satire”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst even in “Table Talk” we find occasional conventional
+descriptions such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nature...</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Spreads the fresh verdure of the fields and leads</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But there is little of this kind of description in “The
+Task.” Now and then we meet with examples of the
+old periphrases, such as the <i>pert voracious kind</i> for
+“sparrows,” or the description of kings as the <i>arbiters
+of this terraqueous swamp</i>, though many of these
+pseudo-Miltonic expressions are no doubt used for
+playful effect. In those parts of the poem which deal
+with the sights and sounds of outdoor life the images
+are new and fresh, whilst in the moral and didactic
+portions the language is, as a rule, uniformly simple
+and direct. But for the classical purity of poetical
+expression in which the poet is at times pre-eminent,
+it is perhaps best to turn to his shorter poems, such
+as “To Mary,” or to the last two stanzas of “The
+Castaway,” and especially to some of the “Olney
+Hymns,” of the language of which it may be said that
+every word is rightly chosen and not one is superfluous.
+Indeed, it may well be that these hymns,
+together with those of Watts and Wesley,<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> which by
+their very purpose demanded a mode of expression
+severe in its simplicity, but upon which were stamped
+the refinement and correct taste of the scholars and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>
+gentlemen who wrote them—it may well be that the
+more natural mode of poetic diction which thus arose
+gave to Wordsworth a starting point when he began
+to expound and develop his theories concerning the
+language of poetry.<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p>
+
+<p>Whilst Cowper was thus at once heralding, and to a
+not inconsiderable extent exemplifying, the Romantic
+reaction in form, another poet, George Crabbe, had by
+his realism given, even before Cowper, an important
+indication of one characteristic aspect of the new
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>But though the force and fidelity of his descriptions
+of the scenery of his native place, and the depth and
+sincerity of his pathos, give him a leading place
+among those who anticipated Wordsworth, other
+characteristics stamp him as belonging to the old
+order and not to the new. His language is still largely
+that perfected by Dryden and Pope, and worked to
+death by their degenerate followers. The recognized
+“elegancies” and “flowers of speech” still linger on.
+A peasant is still a <i>swain</i>, poets are <i>sons of verse</i>, fishes
+<i>the finny tribe</i>, country folk <i>the rural tribe</i>. The word
+<i>nymph</i> appears with a frequency that irritates the
+reader, and how ludicrous an effect it could produce
+by its sudden appearance in tales of the realistic type
+that Crabbe loved may be judged from such examples
+as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">It soon appeared that while this nymph divine</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Moved on, there met her rude uncivil kine.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Whilst he succeeds in depicting the life of the rustic
+poor, not as it appears in the rosy tints of Goldsmith’s
+pictures, but in all its reality—sordid, gloomy and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>
+stern, as it for the most part is—the old stereotyped
+descriptions are to be found scattered throughout
+his grimly realistic pictures of the countryside. Thus
+when Crabbe writes of</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent16">tepid meads</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And lawns irriguous and the blooming field</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Midnight”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The lark on quavering pinion woo’d the day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Less towering linnets fill’d the vocal spray</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“The Candidate”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">we feel that he has not had before his eyes the real
+scenes of his Suffolk home, but that he has been content
+to recall and imitate the descriptive stock-in-trade
+that had passed current for so many years;
+even the later “Tales,” published up to the years
+when Shelley and Keats were beginning their activities,
+are not free from this defect.</p>
+
+<p>About ten years before Wordsworth launched his
+manifestoes, there were published the two works of
+Erasmus Darwin, to which reference has already been
+made, and in which this stock language was unconsciously
+reduced to absurdity, not only because of the
+themes on which it was employed, but also because
+of the fatal ease and facility with which it was used.
+It is strange to think that but a few years before the
+famous sojourn of Coleridge and Wordsworth on the
+Quantocks, “The Loves of the Plants,” and its fellow,
+should have won instant and lasting popularity.<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p>
+
+<p>That Darwin took himself very seriously is to be
+seen from “The Interludes,” in which he airs his
+views,<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> whilst in his two poems he gave full play to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>
+his “fancy” (“‘theory’ we cannot call it,” comments
+De Quincey) that nothing was strictly poetic
+except what is presented in visual image. This in
+itself was not bad doctrine, as it at least implied that
+poetry should be concrete, and thus reflected a desire
+to escape from the abstract and highly generalized
+diction of his day. But Darwin so works his dogma
+to death that the reader is at first dazzled, and finally
+bewildered by the multitude of images presented, in
+couplets of monotonous smoothness, in innumerable
+passages, such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">On twinkling fins my pearly nations play</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or wind with sinuous train their trackless way:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dressed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Botanic Garden,” I)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Still there is something to be said for the readers who
+enjoyed having the facts and theories of contemporary
+science presented to them in so coloured and fantastic
+a garb.</p>
+
+<p>Nor must it be forgotten that the youthful Wordsworth
+was much influenced by these poems of Darwin,
+so that his early work shows many traces of the very
+pseudo-poetic language which he was soon to condemn.
+Thus in “An Evening Walk”<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> there are such stock
+phrases as “emerald meads,” “watery plains,” the
+“forest train.”</p>
+
+<p>In “Descriptive Sketches” examples are still more
+numerous. Thus:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And amorous music on the water dies,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">which might have come direct from Pope, or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Here all the seasons revel hand-in-hand</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span></p>
+
+<p>The old epithet <i>purple</i> is frequently found (<i>purple</i>
+lights and vernal plains, the <i>purple</i> morning, the
+fragrant mountain’s <i>purple</i> side), and there are a few
+awkward adjectives in y (“the <i>piny</i> waste”), whilst
+a gun is described as the <i>thundering tube</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Few poems indeed are to be found in the eighteenth
+century with so many fantastic conceits as these
+1793 poems of Wordsworth. Probably, as has been
+suggested, the poet was influenced to an extent
+greater than he himself imagined by “The Botanic
+Garden,” so that the poetical devices freely employed
+in his early work may be the result of a determination
+to conform to the “theory” of poetry which Darwin
+in his precept and practice had exemplified. Later,
+the devices which had satisfied him in his first youthful
+productions must have appeared to him as more or
+less vicious, and altogether undesirable, and in disgust
+he resolved to exclude at one stroke all that he was
+pleased to call “poetic diction.” But, little given
+to self-criticism, when he penned his memorable
+Prefaces, he fixed the responsibility for “the extravagant
+and absurd diction” upon the whole body of
+his predecessors, unable or unwilling to recognize
+that he himself had begun his poetic career with a free
+use of many of its worst faults.<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of the stock diction of eighteenth century poetry
+we may say, then, that in the first place it is in large
+measure a reflection of the normal characteristic
+attitude of the poets of the “neo-classical” period
+towards Nature and all that the term implies. The
+“neo-classical” poets were but little interested in
+Nature; the countryside made no great appeal to
+them, and it was the Town and its teeming life that
+focused their interest and attention. Man, and his
+life as a social being, was their “proper study”;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>
+and this concentration of interest finds its reflection
+in the new and vivid language of the “essays,” satires,
+and epistles, whilst in the “nature poetry” the
+absence of genuine feeling is only too often betrayed
+by the dead epithets of the stock diction each poet
+felt himself at liberty to draw upon according to his
+needs. It is scarcely necessary to remind ourselves
+that it is in Pope’s “Pastorals” and the “Homer,”
+not in the “Dunciad” or “The Essay on Man,”
+that the stock words, phrases, and similes are to be
+found, and the remark is equally true of most of the
+poets of his period. But Pope has been unjustly
+pilloried, for the stock diction did not originate with
+him. It is true that the most masterly and finished
+examples of what is usually styled “the eighteenth
+century poetic diction” are to be found in his work
+generally, and no doubt the splendour of his translation
+of Homer did much to establish a vogue for many
+of the set words and phrases. At the same time
+the supremacy of the heroic couplet which he did so
+much to establish played its part in perpetuating the
+stock diction, the epithets of which were often technically
+just what was required to give the decasyllabic
+verse the desired “correctness” and “smoothness.”
+But it is unjust to saddle him with the responsibility
+for the lack of originality evident in many of
+his successors and imitators.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that this stock language is not confined
+to the neo-classical poets proper, but is found to a
+large extent persisting to the very end of the eighteenth
+century, and even invading the early work of the
+writer who led the revolt against it, is indicative of
+another general cause of its widespread prevalence.
+Briefly, it may be said that not only did the conventional
+poetic diction reflect in the main the average
+neo-classical outlook on external nature; it reflected
+also the average eighteenth century view as to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span>
+nature of poetical language, which regarded its words
+and phrases as satisfying the artistic canon, not in
+virtue of the degree in which they reflected the individual
+thought or emotion of the poet, but according
+as they conformed to a standard of language based on
+accepted models.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br />
+<span class="smaller">LATINISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>There is now to be noticed another type of
+eighteenth century poetic diction which was
+in its way as prevalent, and, it may be added,
+as vicious, as the stock diction which has been discussed
+in the previous chapter. This was the use of
+a latinized vocabulary, from the early years of the
+century down to the days when the work of Goldsmith,
+Cowper, and Crabbe seemed to indicate a sort of
+interregnum between the old order and the new.</p>
+
+<p>This fashion, or craze, for “latinity” was not of
+course a sudden and special development which came
+in with the eighteenth century: it was rather the
+culmination of a tendency which was not altogether
+unconnected with the historic development of the
+language itself. As a factor in literary composition,
+it had first begun to be discussed when the Elizabethan
+critics and men of letters were busying themselves
+with the special problem of diction. Latinism was
+one of the excesses to which poets and critics alike
+directed their attention, and their strictures and
+warnings were such as were inevitable and salutary
+in the then transitional confusion of the language.<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a>
+In the early years of the seventeenth century this
+device for strengthening and ornamenting the language
+was adopted more or less deliberately by such poets<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span>
+as Phineas and Giles Fletcher, especially the latter,
+who makes free use of such coinages as <i>elamping</i>,
+<i>appetence</i>, <i>elonging</i>, etc.<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p>
+
+<p>The example of the Fletchers in thus adding to their
+means of literary expression was soon to be followed
+by a greater poet. When Milton came to write his
+epics, it is evident, as has been said, that he felt the
+need for a diction in keeping with the exalted theme
+he had chosen, and his own taste and temperament,
+as well as the general tendencies of his age, naturally
+led him to make use of numerous words of direct
+or indirect “classical” origin. But his direct coinages
+from Latin and Greek are much less than has often
+been supposed.<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> What he seems to have done in many
+cases was to take words the majority of which had
+been recently formed, usually for scientific or philosophic
+purposes, and incorporate them in his poetical
+vocabulary. Thus <i>Atheous</i>, <i>attrite</i>, <i>conflagrant</i>, <i>jaculation</i>,
+<i>myrrhine</i>, <i>paranymph</i>, <i>plenipotent</i>, etc., are
+instances of classical formations which in most cases
+seem, according to “The New English Dictionary,”
+to have made their first literary appearance shortly
+before the Restoration. In other instances Milton’s
+latinisms are much older.<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> What is important is the
+fact that Milton was able to infuse these and many
+similar words with a real poetic power, and we may be
+sure that the use of such words as <i>ethereal</i>, <i>adamantine</i>,
+<i>refulgent</i>, <i>regal</i>, whose very essence, as has been
+remarked, is suggestiveness, rather than close definition,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>
+was altogether deliberate.<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> In addition to this
+use of a latinized vocabulary, there is a continuous
+latinism of construction, which is to be found in the
+early poems, but which, as might be expected, is
+most prominent in the great epics, where idioms like
+<i>after his charge received</i> (P.L., V 248), <i>since first her
+salutation heard</i> (P.R., II, 107) are frequent.<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p>
+
+<p>Milton, we may say, of purpose prepense made or
+culled for himself a special poetical vocabulary which
+was bound to suffer severely at the hands of incompetent
+and uninspired imitators. But though the
+widespread use of latinized diction is no doubt largely
+to be traced to the influence of Milton at a time when
+“English verse went Milton mad,” it may perhaps
+also be regarded as a practice that reflected to a certain
+extent the general literary tendencies of the Augustan
+age.</p>
+
+<p>When Milton was writing his great epics Dryden
+was just beginning his literary career, but though
+there are numerous examples of latinisms in the works
+of the latter, they are not such as would suggest that
+he had been influenced to any extent by the Miltonic
+manner of creating a poetical vocabulary. There is
+little or no coinage of the “magnificent” words which
+Milton used so freely, though latinized forms like
+<i>geniture</i>, <i>irremeable</i>, <i>praescious</i>, <i>tralineate</i>, are frequent.
+Dryden, however, as might be expected, often uses
+words in their original etymological sense. Thus
+besides the common use of <i>prevent</i>, <i>secure</i>, etc., we find
+in the translation of the “Metamorphoses”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">He had either <i>led</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy mother then,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where <i>led</i> is used in the sense of Latin <i>ducere</i> (marry)<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>
+and “<i>refers</i> the limbs,” where “refers” means
+“restores.”<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Examples are few in Dryden’s original
+works, but “Annus Mirabilis” furnishes instances
+like the <i>ponderous ball expires</i>, where “expires” means
+“is blown forth,” and “each wonted room <i>require</i>”
+(“seek again”), whilst there is an occasional reminiscence
+of such Latin phrases as “manifest of crimes”
+for <i>manifestus sceleris</i> (“Ab. and Achit.”).</p>
+
+<p>What has been said of the latinisms of Dryden
+applies also to those of Pope. Words like <i>prevent</i>,
+<i>erring</i>, <i>succeed</i>, <i>devious</i>, <i>horrid</i>, <i>missive</i>, <i>vagrant</i>, are
+used with their original signification, and there are
+passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">For this he bids the <i>nervous</i> artists vie.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Imitations of Latin constructions are occasionally
+found:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Some god has told them, or themselves survey</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4"><i>The bark escaped</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Phrases like “<i>fulgid</i> weapons,” “roseate <i>unguents</i>,”
+“<i>circumfusile</i> gold,” “<i>frustrate</i> triumphs,” etc., are
+probably coinages imposed by the necessities of
+translation. Other similar phrases, such as (tears)
+“<i>conglobing</i> on the dust,” “with <i>unctuous</i> fir <i>foment</i> the
+flame,” seem to anticipate something of the absurdity
+into which this kind of diction was later to fall.<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p>
+
+<p>On the whole, the latinisms found in the works
+of Dryden and Pope are not usually deliberate creations
+for the purpose of poetic ornament. They are such
+as would probably seem perfectly natural in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>
+seventeenth and early eighteenth century, when the
+traditions of classical study still persisted strongly,
+and when the language of prose itself was still receiving
+additions from that source. Moreover, the large
+amount of translation done by both poets from the
+classics was bound to result in the use of numerous
+classical terms and constructions.</p>
+
+<p>In 1705 there appeared the “Splendid Shilling” of
+John Philips, followed by his “Cyder” and other poems
+a year later. These poems are among the first of the
+Miltonic parodies or imitations, and, being written in
+blank verse, they may be regarded as heralding the
+struggle against the tyranny of the heroic couplet.
+Indeed, blank verse came to be distinctly associated
+with the Romantic movement, probably because it
+was considered that its structure was more encouraging
+to the unfettered imagination than the closed couplets
+of the classicists. It is thus interesting to note that
+the reaction in form, which marks one distinct aspect
+of Romanticism, was really responsible for some of the
+excesses against which the manifestoes afterwards
+protested; for it is in these blank verse poems
+especially that there was developed a latinism both of
+diction and construction that frequently borders on
+the ludicrous, even when the poet’s object was not
+deliberately humorous.</p>
+
+<p>In “Blenheim” terms and phrases such as <i>globous
+iron</i>, <i>by chains connexed</i>, etc., are frequent, and the
+attempts at Miltonic effects is seen in numerous
+passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent10">Upborne</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By frothy billows thousands float the stream</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In cumbrous mail, with love of farther shore;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Confiding in their hands, that sed’lous strive</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To cut th’ outrageous fluent.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In “Cyder” latinisms are still more abundant: <i>the
+nocent brood</i> (of snails), <i>treacle’s viscuous juice</i>, <i>with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span>
+grain incentive stored</i>, <i>the defecated liquour</i>, <i>irriguous
+sleep</i>, as well as passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor from the sable ground expect success</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Nor from cretacious, stubborn or jejune,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bards with volant touch</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Traverse loquacious strings.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">This kind of thing became extremely common and
+persisted throughout the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Incidentally, it may here be remarked that the
+publication of Philips’s poems probably gave to Lady
+Winchilsea a hint for her poem “Fanscombe Barn.”<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a>
+Philips, as has been noted, was one of the very first
+to attempt to use Milton’s lofty diction, and his
+latinized sentence structure for commonplace and
+even trivial themes, and no doubt his experiment,
+having attracted Lady Winchilsea’s attention,
+inspired her own efforts at Miltonic parody, though
+it is probably “Cyder” and “The Splendid Shilling,”
+rather then “Paradise Lost,” that she takes as her
+model. Thus the carousings of the tramps forgathered
+in Fanscombe Barn are described:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">the swarthy bowl appears,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Replete with liquor, globulous to fight,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And threat’ning inundation o’er the brim;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and the whole poem shows traces of its second-hand
+inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>Even those who are now remembered chiefly as
+Spenserian imitators indulge freely in a latinized
+style when they take to blank verse. Thus William
+Thompson, who in his poem “Sickness” has many
+phrases like “the arm <i>ignipotent</i>,” “<i>inundant</i> blaze”
+(Bk. I), “terrestrial stores medicinal” (Bk. III),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>
+with numerous passages, of which the following is
+typical:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent26">the poet’s mind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">(Effluence essential of heat and light)</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now mounts a loftier wing when Fancy leads</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The glittering track, and points him to the sky</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Excursive.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. IV)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">William Shenstone, the author of one of the most
+successful of the Spenserian imitations, is more
+sparing in this respect, but even in his case passages
+such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent10">Of words indeed profuse,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of gold tenacious, their torpescent soul</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Clenches their coin, and what electric fire</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Shall solve the frosty grip, and bid it flow?</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Economy,” Part I)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">are not infrequent.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not only the mere versifiers who have
+succumbed to this temptation. By far the most
+important of the early blank verse poems was
+Thomson’s “Seasons,” which, first appearing from
+1726-1730, was subsequently greatly revised and
+altered up to the edition of 1746, the last to be issued
+in the author’s lifetime.<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> The importance and success
+of “The Seasons” as one of the earliest indications of
+the “Return to Nature” has received adequate
+recognition, but Thomson was an innovator in the
+style, as well as in the matter, of his poem. As Dr.
+Johnson remarked, he saw things always with the
+eyes of a poet, and the quickened and revived interest
+in external nature which he reflects inevitably impelled
+him to search for a new diction to give it expression.
+We can see him, as it were, at work trying to replace
+the current coinage with a new mintage of his own,
+or rather with a mixed currency, derived partly from
+Milton, and partly from his own resources. His<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span>
+diction is thus in some degrees as artificial as the
+stock diction of his period, especially when his attempts
+to emulate or imitate the magnificence of Milton
+betray him into pomposity or even absurdity; but
+his poetical language as a whole is leavened with so
+much that is new and his very own as to make it clear
+that the Romantic revival in the style, as well as in
+the contents, of poetry has really begun. The resulting
+peculiarities of style did not escape notice in his
+own time. He was recognized as the creator of a new
+poetical language, and was severely criticized even
+by some of his friends. Thus Somerville urged with
+unusual frankness a close revision of the style of “The
+Seasons”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Read Philips much, consider Milton more</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But from their dross extract the purer ore:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To coin new words or to restore the old</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In southern lands is dangerous and bold;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But rarely, very rarely, will succeed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">When minted on the other side of Tweed.<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thomson’s comment on this criticism was emphatic:
+“Should I alter my ways I should write poorly. I
+must choose what appears to be the most significant
+epithet or I cannot proceed.”<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> Hence, though lines
+and whole passages of “The Seasons” were revised,
+and large additions made, the characteristics of the
+style were on the whole preserved. And one of the
+chief characteristics, due partly to the influence of
+Milton, and partly to the obvious fact that for Thomson
+with new thoughts and impressions to convey to his
+readers, the current and conventional vocabulary
+of poetry needed reinforcement, is an excessive use
+of latinisms.<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span></p>
+
+<p>Thus in “Spring” we find, e.g., “<i>prelusive</i> drops,”
+“the <i>amusive</i> arch” (the rainbow), “the torpid sap
+<i>detruded</i> to the root,” etc., as well as numerous passages
+such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent10">Joined to these</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Innumerous songsters in the freshening shade</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mellifluous.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 607 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In “Summer” the epithet <i>gelid</i> appears with almost
+wearisome iteration, with other examples like <i>flexile</i>
+wave, <i>the fond sequacious bird</i>, etc., while the cloud
+that presages a storm is called “the small prognostic”
+and trees are “the noble sons of potent heat
+and floods.” Continuous passages betray similar
+characteristics:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Its hue cerulean and of evening tinct.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 149 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent"><i>Autumn</i> furnishes even more surprising instances:
+the stag “<i>adhesive</i> to the track,” the sands “strowed
+<i>bibulous</i> above,” “forests huge <i>incult</i>,” etc., as well as
+numerous passages of sustained latinism.<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p>
+
+<p>In “Winter,” which grew from an original 405 lines
+in 1726 to 1,069 lines in 1746, latinism of vocabulary
+is not prominent to the same extent as in the three
+previous books, but the following is a typical sample:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Meantime in sable cincture shadows vast</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Deep-tinged, and damp and congregated clouds</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Involves the face of things.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(ll. 54 foll.)<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The revisions after 1730 do not show any great
+pruning, or less indulgence in these characteristics;
+rather the contrary, for many of them are additions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span>
+which did not appear until 1744. Now and then
+Thomson has changed his terms and epithets. Thus
+in the lines</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent12">the potent sun</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Melts into</i> limpid air the high-raised clouds</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 199)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">the expression “melts into” has replaced the earlier
+“attenuates to.”<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> One of the best of the emendations,
+at least as regards the disappearance of a
+latinism, is seen in “Summer” (48-9), where the
+second verse of the couplet,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">At first <i>faint-gleaming</i> in the dappled east</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">has replaced the</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Mildly elucent</i> in the streaky east</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of the earlier version. Often Thomson’s latinisms
+produce no other effect on the reader than that of mere
+pedantry. Thus in passages such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">See, where the winding vale its lavish stores</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Irriguous</i> spreads. See, how the lily drinks</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>latent</i> rill.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 494)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent16">the canvas smooth</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With glowing life <i>protuberant</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Autumn,” 136)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The fallow ground laid open to the sun</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Concoctive</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 407)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the description of the tempest</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Struggling through the <i>dissipated</i> grove</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 185)<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">(where there is Latin <i>order</i> as well as diction), it is
+certain that the terms in question have little or no
+poetic value, and that simpler words in nearly every
+case would have produced greater effects. Now and
+then, as later in the case of Cowper, the pedantry is,
+we may suppose, deliberately playful, as when he
+speaks of the cattle that</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">ruminate in the contiguous shade</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 86)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or indicates a partial thaw by the statement</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">Perhaps the vale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">relents awhile to the reflected ray.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 784)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The words illustrated above are rarely, of course,
+Thomson’s own coinage. Many of them (e.g. <i>detruded</i>,
+<i>hyperborean</i>, <i>luculent</i>, <i>relucent</i>, <i>turgent</i>) date from the
+sixteenth century or earlier, though from the earliest
+references to them given in the “New English Dictionary”
+it may be assumed that Thomson was not
+always acquainted with the sources where they are
+first found, and that to him their “poetic” use is
+first due. In some cases Milton was doubtless the
+immediate source from which Thomson took such
+words, to use them with a characteristic looseness of
+meaning.<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p>
+
+<p>It would be too much to say that Thomson’s use of
+such terms arises merely out of a desire to emulate
+the “grand style”; it reflects rather his general
+predilection for florid and luxurious diction. Moreover,
+it has been noted that an analysis of his latinisms
+seems to point to a definite scheme of formation.
+Thus there is a distinct preference for certain groups of
+formations, such as adjectives in “-ive” (<i>affective</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>
+<i>amusive</i>, <i>excursive</i>, etc.), or in “-ous” (<i>irriguous</i>,
+<i>sequacious</i>), or Latin participle forms, such as <i>clamant</i>,
+<i>turgent</i>, <i>incult</i>, etc. In additions Latin words are
+frequently used in their original sense, common
+instances being <i>sordid</i>, <i>generous</i>, <i>error</i>, <i>secure</i>, <i>horrid</i>,
+<i>dome</i>, while his blank verse line was also characterized
+by the free use of latinized constructions.<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a>
+Thomson’s frequent use of the sandwiched noun,
+“flowing rapture bright” (“Spring,” 1088), “gelid
+caverns woodbine-wrought,” (“Summer,” 461), “joyless
+rains obscure” (“Winter,” 712), often with the
+second adjective used predicatively or adverbially,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">High seen the Seasons lead, <i>in sprightly dance</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent2"><i>Harmonious knit</i>, the rosy-fingered hours</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 1212)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">is also worthy of note.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it can hardly be denied that the language of
+“The Seasons” is in many respects highly artificial,
+and that Thomson was to all intents and purposes
+the creator of a special poetic diction, perhaps even
+more so than Gray, who had to bear the brunt of
+Wordsworth’s fulminations. But on the whole his
+balance is on the right side; at a time when the
+majority of his contemporaries were either content
+to draw drafts on the conventional and consecrated
+words, phrases, and similes, or were sedulously
+striving to ape the polished plainness of Pope, he
+was able to show that new powers of expression
+could well be won from the language. His nature
+vocabulary alone is sufficient proof of the value of
+his contributions to the poetic wealth of the language,
+not a few of his new-formed compounds especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>
+being expressive and beautiful.<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> His latinisms are
+less successful because they can hardly be said to belong
+to any diction, and for the most part they must be
+classed among the “false ornaments” derided by
+Wordsworth;<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> not only do they possess none of that
+mysterious power of suggestion which comes to words
+in virtue of their employment through generations of
+prose and song, but also not infrequently their meaning
+is far from clear. They are never the spontaneous
+reflection of the poet’s thought, but, on the contrary,
+they appear only too often to have been dragged in
+merely for effect.</p>
+
+<p>This last remark applies still more forcibly to
+Somerville’s “Chase,” which appeared in 1735. Its
+author was evidently following in the wake of
+Thomson’s blank verse, and with this aim freely
+allows himself the use of an artificial and inflated
+diction, as in many passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Cull each salubrious plant, with bitter juice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Concoctive stored, and potent to allay</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Each vicious ferment.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>About the same time Edward Young was probably
+writing his “Night Thoughts,” though the poem was
+not published until 1742. Here again the influence
+of Thomson is to be seen in the diction, though no
+doubt in this case there is also not a little that derives
+direct from Milton. Young has Latin formations like
+<i>terraqueous</i>, <i>to defecate</i>, <i>feculence</i>, <i>manumit</i>, as well
+as terms such as <i>avocation</i>, <i>eliminate</i>, and <i>unparadize</i>,
+used in their original sense. In the second instalment
+of the “Night Thoughts” there is a striking increase
+in the number of Latin terms, either borrowed directly,
+or at least formed on classical roots, some of which must<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>
+have been unintelligible to many readers. Thus
+<i>indagators</i> for “seekers,” <i>fucus</i> for “false brilliance,”
+<i>concertion</i> for “intimate agreement,” and <i>cutaneous</i> for
+“external,” “skin deep”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">All the distinctions of this little life</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Are quite cutaneous.<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It is difficult to understand the use of such terms when
+simple native words were ready at hand, and the
+explanation must be that they were thought to add
+to the dignity of the poem, and to give it a
+flavour of scholarship; for the same blemishes appear
+in most of the works published at this time. Thus in
+Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination” (1744)
+there is a similar use of latinized terms: <i>pensile
+planets</i>, <i>passion’s fierce illapse</i>, <i>magnific praise</i>, though
+the tendency is best illustrated in such passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent16">that trickling shower</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Piercing through every crystalline convex</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of clustering dewdrops to their flight opposed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Recoil at length where, concave all behind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The internal surface of each glassy orb</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Repels their forward passage into air.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In “The Poet” there is a striking example of
+what can only be the pedantic, even if playful,
+use of a cumbrous epithet:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">On shelves <i>pulverulent</i>, majestic stands</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His library.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Similar examples are to be found in “The Art of
+Preserving Health” by John Armstrong, published<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span>
+in the same year as Akenside’s “Pleasures.” The
+unpoetical nature of this subject may perhaps be
+Armstrong’s excuse for such passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mournful eclipse or planets ill-combined</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Portend disastrous to the vital world;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">but this latinizing tendency was perhaps never responsible
+for a more absurd periphrasis than one to be
+found in the second part of the poem, which treats of
+“Diet”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor does his gorge the luscious bacon rue,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of solid milk.<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The high Miltonic manner was likewise attempted by
+John Dyer in “The Fleece,” which appeared in 1757,
+and by James Grainger in “The Sugar Cane” (1764),
+to mention only the most important. Dyer, deservedly
+praised for his new and fresh descriptive diction, has
+not escaped this contagion of latinism: <i>the globe
+terraqueous</i>, <i>the cerule stream</i>, <i>rich sapinaceous loam</i>,
+<i>detersive bay salt</i>, etc., while elsewhere there are obvious
+efforts to recapture the Miltonic cadence. In “The
+Sugar Cane” the tendency is increased by the necessity
+thrust upon the poet to introduce numerous
+technical terms. Thus</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent12">though all thy mills</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Crackling, o’erflow with a redundant juice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Poor tastes the liquor; coction long demands</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And highest temper, ere it saccharize.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Joseph Warton had written his one
+blank verse poem “The Enthusiast” (1740), when
+he was only eighteen years old. But though both he
+and his brother Thomas are among the most important
+of the poets who show the influence of Milton most
+clearly, that influence reveals itself rather in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>
+matter of thought than of form, and there is in “The
+Enthusiast” little of the diction that marred so many
+of the blank verse poems. Only here and there may
+traces be seen, as in the following passage:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">fairer she</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In innocence and homespun vestments dress’d</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Than if cerulean sapphires at her ears</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Shone pendent.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There is still less in the poems of Thomas Warton, who
+was even a more direct follower of Milton than his
+elder brother. There is scarcely one example of a
+Latinism in “The Pleasures of Melancholy,” which
+is really a companion piece to “The Enthusiast.”
+The truth is that it was Milton’s early work—and
+especially “Il Penseroso”—that affected most deeply
+these early Romanticists, and even their blank verse
+is charged with the sentiments and phrases of Milton’s
+octosyllabics. Thus the two poets, who were among
+the first to catch something of the true spirit of Milton,
+have little or nothing of the cumbersome and pedantic
+diction found so frequently in the so-called “Miltonics”
+of the eighteenth century, and this in itself is one
+indication of their importance in the earlier stages of
+the Romantic revival.</p>
+
+<p>This is also true in the case of Collins and Gray, who
+are the real eighteenth century disciples of Milton.
+Collins’s fondness for personified abstractions may
+perhaps be attributed to Milton’s influence, but there
+are few, if any, traces of latinism in his pure and simple
+diction. Gray was probably influenced more than he
+himself thought by Milton, and like Milton he made
+for himself a special poetical language, which owes not
+a little to the works of his great exemplar. But
+Gray’s keen sense of the poetical value of words, and
+his laborious precision and exactness in their use,
+kept him from any indulgence in coinages. Only one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span>
+or two latinisms are to be found in the whole of his
+work, and when these do occur they are such as would
+come naturally to a scholar, or as were still current in
+the language of his time. Thus in “The Progress of
+Poesy” he has</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">this <i>pencil</i> take,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where “pencil” stands for “brush” (Latin, <i>pensillum</i>);
+whilst in a translation from Statius he gives
+to <i>prevent</i> its latinized meaning</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">the champions, trembling at the sight</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Prevent</i> disgrace.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There is also a solitary example in the “Elegy” in
+the line</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Can Honour’s voice <i>provoke</i> the silent dust.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The contemporary fondness for blank verse had
+called forth the strictures of Goldsmith in his “Inquiry
+into the Present State of Polite Learning,” and his
+own smooth and flowing couplets have certainly none
+of the pompous epithets which he there condemns.
+His diction, if we except an occasional use of the stock
+descriptive epithets, is admirable alike in its simplicity
+and directness, and the two following lines from “The
+Traveller” are, with one exception,<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> the only examples
+of latinisms to be found in his poems:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">While sea-born gales their <i>gelid</i> wings expand,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Fall blunted from each <i>indurated</i> heart.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dr. Johnson, who represented the extreme classicist
+position with regard to blank verse and other tendencies<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>
+of the Romantic reaction, had a good deal to say in
+the aggregate about the poetical language of his
+predecessors and contemporaries. But the latinism
+of the time, which was widespread enough to have
+attracted his attention, does not seem to have provoked
+from him any critical comment. His own
+poetical works, even when we remember the “Vanity
+of Human Wishes,” where plenty of instances of
+Latin idiom are to be found, are practically free from
+this kind of diction, though this does not warrant the
+inference that he disapproved of it. We know that
+his prose was latinized to a remarkable extent, so that
+his “sesquipedalian terminology” has been regarded
+as the fountain-head of that variety of English which
+delights in “big,” high-sounding words. But his
+ideal, we may assume, was the polished and elegant
+diction of Pope, and his own verse is as free from
+pedantic formations as is “The Lives of the Poets,”
+which perhaps represents his best prose.</p>
+
+<p>It is in the works of a poet who, though he continues
+certain aspects of neo-classicism, yet announces
+unmistakably the coming of the new age, that we find
+a marked use of a deliberately latinized diction.
+Cowper has always received just praise for the purity
+of his language; he is, on the whole, singularly free
+from the artificialities and inversions which had
+marked the accepted poetic diction, but, on the other
+hand, his language is latinized to an extent that has
+perhaps not always been fully realized.</p>
+
+<p>This is, however, confined to “The Task” and to
+the translation of the “Iliad.” In the former case
+there is first a use of words freely formed on Latin
+roots, for most of which Cowper had no doubt abundant
+precedents,<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> but which, in some cases, must have been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>
+coined by him, perhaps playfully in some instances;
+<i>twisted form vermicular</i>, <i>the agglomerated pile</i>, <i>the
+voluble and restless earth</i>, etc. Other characteristics
+of this latinized style are perhaps best seen in continuous
+passages such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">he spares me yet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And, though himself so polished, still reprieves</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The obsolete prolixity of shade</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. I, ll. 262 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or in such a mock-heroic fling as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The stable yields a stercoraceous heap</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Impregnated with quick fermenting salts</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And potent to resist the freezing blast.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. III, 463)<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">On these and many similar occasions Cowper has
+turned his predilection to playful account, as also
+when he diagnoses the symptoms of gout as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">pangs arthritic that infest the toe</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of libertine excess,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or speaks of monarchs and Kings as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There is still freer use of latinisms in the “Homer”:<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a>
+<i>her eyes caerulean</i>, <i>the point innocuous</i>, <i>piercing accents
+stridulous</i>, <i>the triturated barley</i>, <i>candent lightnings</i>,
+<i>the inherent barb</i>, <i>his stream vortiginous</i>, besides such
+passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">nor did the Muses spare to add</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Responsive melody of vocal sweets.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span></p>
+
+<p>The instances given above fully illustrate on the
+whole the use of a latinized diction in eighteenth
+century poetry.<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> It must not, however, be supposed
+that the fashion was altogether confined to the blank
+verse poems. Thus Matthew Prior in “Alma,” or
+“The Progress of the Mind,” has passages like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">the word obscene</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or harsh which once elanced must ever fly</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Irrevocable,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst Richard Savage in his “Wanderer” indulges
+in such flights as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent24">his breath</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A nitrous damp that strikes petrific death.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">One short stanza by William Shenstone, from his
+poem “Written in Spring, 1743,” contains an obvious
+example in three out of its four lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Again the labouring hind inverts the soil,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Again the merchant ploughs the tumid wave,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Another spring renews the soldier’s toil,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And finds me vacant in the rural cave.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But it is in the blank verse poems that the fashion
+is most prevalent, and it is there that it only too often
+becomes ludicrous. The blind Milton, dying, lonely
+and neglected, a stranger in a strange land, is hardly
+likely to have looked upon himself as the founder of
+a “school,” or to have suspected to what base uses his
+lofty diction and style were to be put, within a few
+decades of his death, by a swarm of poetasters who
+fondly regarded themselves as his disciples.<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span>
+early writers of blank verse, such as John Philips,
+frankly avowed themselves imitators of Milton, and
+there can be little doubt that in their efforts to catch
+something of the dignity and majesty of their model
+the crowd of versifiers who then appeared on the
+scene had recourse to high-sounding words and phrases,
+as well as to latinized constructions by which they
+hoped to elevate their style. The grand style of
+“Paradise Lost” was bound to suffer severely at the
+hands of imitators, and there can be little doubt but
+that much of the preposterous latinizing of the time
+is to be traced to this cause. At the same time the
+influence of the general literary tendencies of the
+Augustan ages is not to be ignored in this connexion.
+When a diction freely sprinkled with latinized terms
+is found used by writers like Thomson in the first
+quarter, and Cowper at the end of the century, it may
+perhaps also be regarded as a mannerism of style due
+in some degree to influences which were still powerful
+enough to affect literary workmanship. For it must
+be remembered that in the eighteenth century the
+traditional supremacy of Latin had not yet altogether
+died out: pulpit and forensic eloquence, as well as
+the great prose works of the period, still bore abundant
+traces of the persistency of this influence.<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Hence
+it need not be at all surprising to find that it has
+invaded poetry. The use of latinized words and
+phrases gave, or was supposed to give, an air of culture
+to verse, and contemporary readers did not always,
+we may suppose, regard such language as a mere
+display of pedantry.</p>
+
+<p>In this, as in other respects of the poetic output of
+the period, we may see a further reflex of the general
+literary atmosphere of the first half or so of the
+eighteenth century. There was no poetry of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>
+highest rank, and not a great deal of <i>poetical</i> poetry;
+the bulk of the output is “poetry without an atmosphere.”
+The very qualities most admired in prose—lucidity,
+correctness, absence of “enthusiasm”—were
+such as were approved for poetry; even the
+Romantic forerunners, with perhaps the single exception
+of Blake, felt the pressure of the prosaic atmosphere
+of their times. No doubt had a poet of the
+highest order appeared he would have swept away
+much of the accumulated rubbish and fashioned for
+himself a new poetic language, as Thomson tried, and
+Wordsworth later thought to do. But he did not
+appear, and the vast majority of the practitioners
+were content to ring the changes on the material they
+found at hand, and were not likely to dream of anything
+different.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus not sufficient to say that the “rapid and
+almost simultaneous diffusion of this purely cutaneous
+eruption,” to borrow an appropriate description from
+Lowell, was due solely to the potent influence of
+Milton. It reflects also the average conception of
+poetry held throughout a good part of the eighteenth
+century, a conception which led writers to seek in
+mere words qualities which are to be found in them
+only when they are the reflex of profound thought or
+powerful emotion. In short, latinism in eighteenth
+century poetry may be regarded as a literary fashion,
+akin in nature to the stock epithets and phrases of the
+“descriptive” poetry, which were later to be unsparingly
+condemned as the typical eighteenth century
+poetical diction.</p>
+
+<p>Of the poetic value of these latinized words little
+need be said. Whether or no they reflect a conscious
+effort to extend, enrich, or renew the vocabulary of
+English poetry, they cannot be said to have added
+much to the expressive resources of the language.
+This is not, of course, merely because they are of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>
+direct Latin origin. We know that around the central
+Teutonic core of English there have slowly been built
+up two mighty strata of Latin and Romance formations,
+which, in virtue of their long employment by
+writers in prose and verse, as well as on the lips of the
+people, have slowly acquired that force and picturesqueness
+which the poet needs for his purpose.
+But the latinized words of the eighteenth century are
+on a different footing. To us, nowadays, there is
+something pretentious and pedantic about them:
+they are artificial formations or adoptions, and not
+living words. English poets from time to time have
+been able to give a poetical colouring to such words,<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a>
+and the eighteenth century is not without happy
+instances of this power. James Thomson here and
+there wins real poetic effects from his latinized vocabulary,
+as in such a passage as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Here lofty trees to ancient song unknown</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The noble sons of potent heat and floods</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Meridian gloom.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 653 foll.)<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The “return to Nature,” of which Thomson was
+perhaps the most noteworthy pioneer, brought back
+all the sights and sounds of outdoor life as subjects
+fit and meet for the poet’s song, and it is therefore of
+some interest, in the present connexion, to note that
+Wordsworth himself, who also knew how to make
+excellent use of high-sounding Latin formations,
+has perhaps nowhere illustrated this faculty better
+than in the famous passage on the Yew Trees of
+Borrowdale:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Those fraternal Four of Borrowdale</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Joined in one solemn and capacious grove:</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of intertwisted fibres serpentine</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That threaten the profane.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But the bulk of eighteenth century latinisms fall
+within a different category; rarely do they convey,
+either in themselves or in virtue of their context, any
+of that mysterious power of association which constitutes
+the poetic value of words and enables the
+writer, whether in prose or verse, to convey to his
+reader delicate shades of meaning and suggestion
+which are immediately recognized and appreciated.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br />
+<span class="smaller">ARCHAISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>One of the earliest and most significant of those
+literary manifestations which were to culminate
+in the triumph of Romanticism was a new
+enkindled interest in the older English writers. The
+attitude of the great body of the so-called “Classicists”
+towards the earlier English poetry was not
+altogether one of absolute contempt: it was rather
+marked by that indifference which is the outcome
+of ignorance. Readers and authors, with certain
+illustrious exceptions, were totally unacquainted with
+Chaucer, and though Spenser fared better, even those
+who did know him did not at first consider him worthy
+of serious study.<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> Yet the Romantic rebels, by their
+attempts to imitate Spenser, and to reveal his poetic
+genius to a generation of unbelievers, did work of
+immediate and lasting value.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps too much to claim that some dim
+perception of the poetic value of old words contributed
+in any marked degree to this Spenserian revival
+in the eighteenth century. Yet it can hardly be
+doubted that Spenser’s language, imperfectly understood
+and at first considered “barbarous,” or
+“Gothic,” or at best merely “quaint,” came ultimately
+to be regarded as supplying something of that
+atmosphere of “old romance” which was beginning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span>
+to captivate the hearts and minds of men. This is
+not to say that there was any conscious or deliberate
+intention of freshening or revivifying poetic language
+by an infusion of old or “revived” words. But the
+Spenserian and similar imitations naturally involved
+the use of such words, and they thus made an important
+contribution to the Romantic movement on its
+purely formal side; they played their part in destroying
+the pseudo-classical heresy that the best, indeed
+the only, medium for poetic expression was the
+polished idiom of Pope and his school.</p>
+
+<p>The poets and critics of Western Europe, who, as
+we have seen, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth
+centuries had busied themselves with the question
+of refining and embellishing their mother tongue,
+had advocated among other means the revival of
+archaic and obsolete words. Spenser himself, we
+know, had definitely adopted this means in the
+“Shepherds Kalendar,” though the method of increasing
+his poetical vocabulary had not been approved
+by all of his contemporaries and successors. Milton,
+when forming the special poetical language he needed
+for his immense task, confined himself largely to
+“classical” coinages, and his archaisms, such as <i>swinkt</i>,
+<i>rathe</i>, <i>nathless</i>, <i>frore</i>, are comparatively few in number.<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p>
+
+<p>Dryden’s attitude towards old words was stated
+with his customary good sense, and though his
+modernization of Chaucer gave him endless opportunities
+of experimenting with them, he never abused
+the advantage, and indeed in all his work there is but
+little trace of the deliberate revival of obsolete or
+archaic words. In the “Fables” may be found a few
+words such as <i>sounded</i><a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> (swounded) which had been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>
+used by Malory and Spenser, <i>laund</i> for (lawn), <i>rushed</i>
+(cut-off), etc., and he has also Milton’s <i>rathe</i>. Dryden,
+however, is found using a large number of terms
+which were evidently obsolete in the literary language,
+but which, it may be supposed, still lingered in the
+spoken language, and especially in the provincial
+dialects. He is fond of the word <i>ken</i> (to know), and
+amongst other examples are <i>stead</i> (place), <i>to lease</i>
+(glean), <i>shent</i> (rebuked), <i>hattered</i> (worn out), <i>dorp</i> (a
+village), <i>buries</i> (burrows), etc. Dryden is also
+apparently responsible for the poetic use of the term
+“<i>doddered</i>,” a word of somewhat uncertain meaning,
+which, after his time and following his practice, came
+into common use as an epithet for old oaks, and,
+rarely, for other trees.<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p>
+
+<p>As might be expected, there are few traces of the
+use of obsolete or archaic words in the works of Pope.
+The “correct” style did not favour innovations in
+language, whether they consisted in the formation of
+new words or in the revival of old forms. Pope
+stated in a letter to Hughes, who edited Spenser’s
+works (1715), that “Spenser has been ever a favourite
+poet to me,”<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> but among the imitations “done by
+the Author in his Youth,” there is “The Alley,” a
+very coarse parody of Spenser, which does not point
+to any real appreciation or understanding on the part
+of Pope. In the first book of the “Dunciad” as we
+have seen, he indulged in a fling at the antiquaries,
+especially Hearne and those who took pleasure in our
+older literature, by means of a satiric stanza written
+in a pseudo-archaic language.<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> But his language
+is much freer than that of Dryden from archaisms or
+provincialisms. He has forms like <i>gotten</i>, <i>whelm</i> (overwhelm),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>
+<i>rampires</i> (ramparts), <i>swarths</i>, <i>catched</i> (caught),
+<i>thrice-ear’d</i> (ploughed), etc. Neither Dryden nor
+Pope, it may be said, would ever have dreamed of
+reviving an archaic word simply because it was an
+old word, and therefore to be regarded as “poetical.”
+To imagine this is to attribute to the seventeenth
+and early eighteenth centuries a state of feeling which
+is essentially modern, and which lends a glamour to
+old and almost forgotten words. Dryden would accept
+any word which he considered suitable for his purpose,
+but he always insisted that old words had to prove
+their utility, and that they had otherwise no claim
+to admission to the current vocabulary. Pope, however,
+we may suspect, would not admit any words
+not immediately intelligible to his readers, or requiring
+a footnote to explain them.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in the year 1715, there had appeared the
+first attempt to give a critical text of Spenser, when
+John Hughes published his edition of the poet’s works
+in six volumes, together with a biography, a glossary,
+and some critical remarks.<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> The obsolete terms which
+Hughes felt himself obliged to explain<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> include many,
+such as <i>aghast</i>, <i>baleful</i>, <i>behest</i>, <i>bootless</i>, <i>carol</i>, <i>craven</i>,
+<i>dreary</i>, <i>forlorn</i>, <i>foray</i>, <i>guerdon</i>, <i>plight</i>, <i>welkin</i>, <i>yore</i>,
+which are now for the most part familiar words,
+though forty years later Thomas Warton in his
+“Observations on The Faerie Queene” (1754) is found
+annotating many similar terms. The well-known
+“Muses’ Library,” published thirteen years previously,
+had described itself as “A General Collection
+of almost all the old and valuable poetry extant, now
+so industriously inquir’d after”; it begins with
+Langland and reflects the renewed interest that was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>
+arising in the older poets. But there is as yet little
+evidence of any general and genuine appreciation of
+either the spirit or the form of the best of the
+earlier English poetry. The Spenserian imitators
+undoubtedly felt that their diction must look so obsolete
+and archaic as to call for a glossary of explanation,
+and these glossaries were often more than necessary,
+not only to explain the genuine old words, but also
+because of the fact that in many cases the supposedly
+“Spenserian” terms were spurious coinages devoid
+of any real meaning at all.</p>
+
+<p>Before considering these Spenserian imitations it
+must not be forgotten that there were, prior to these
+attempts and alongside of them, kindred efforts to
+catch the manner and style of Chaucer. This practice
+received its first great impulse from Dryden’s famous
+essay in praise of Chaucer, and the various periodicals
+and miscellanies of the first half of the eighteenth
+century bear witness to the fact that many eminent
+poets, not to mention a crowd of poetasters, thought
+it their duty to publish a poetical tribute couched in
+the supposed language and manner of Chaucer.</p>
+
+<p>These attempts were nearly all avowedly humorous,<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a>
+and seemed based on a belief that the very language
+of Chaucer was in some respects suitable comic material
+for a would-be humorous writer. Such an attitude
+was obviously the outcome of a not unnatural ignorance
+of the historical development of the language.
+Chaucer’s language had long been regarded as almost
+a dead language, and this attitude had persisted even
+to the eighteenth century, so that it was felt that a
+mastery of the language of the “Canterbury Tales”
+required prolonged study. Even Thomas Warton,
+speaking of Chaucer, was of the opinion that “his
+uncouth and unfamiliar language disgusts and deters<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>
+many readers.”<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> Hence it is not surprising that there
+was a complete failure to catch, not only anything of
+the real spirit of Chaucer, but also anything that
+could be described as even a distant approach to his
+language. The imitators seemed to think that fourteenth
+century English could be imitated by the use
+of common words written in an uncommon way, or
+of strange terms with equally strange meanings. The
+result was an artificial language that could never have
+been spoken by anybody, often including words to
+which it is impossible to give any definite sense. It
+would seem that only two genuine Chaucerian terms
+had really been properly grasped, and this pair, ne
+and eke, is in consequence worked to death. Ignorance
+of the earlier language naturally led to spurious grammatical
+forms, of which the most favoured was a
+singular verb form ending in -<i>en</i>. Gay, for instance,
+has, in a poem of seventeen lines, such phrases as “It
+maken doleful song,” “There <i>spreaden</i> a rumour,”<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a>
+whilst Fenton writes,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">If in mine quest thou <i>falsen</i> me.<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The general style and manner of these imitations, with
+their “humorous” tinge, their halting verse, bad
+grammar, and impossible inflections are well illustrated
+in William Thompson’s “Garden Inscription—Written
+in Chaucer’s Bowre,” though more serious efforts were
+not any more successful.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Pope, strangely enough, called forth
+more than one attempt, among them being Thomas
+Warton’s imitation of the characterization of the birds<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
+from the “Parliament of Fowles.”<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> Better known at
+the time was the monody “Musæus,” written by
+William Mason, “To the memory of Mr. Pope.”
+Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton are represented as
+coming to mourn the inevitable loss of him who was
+about to die, and Mason endeavoured to reproduce
+their respective styles, “Tityrus” (Chaucer) holding
+forth in this strain:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mickle of wele betide thy houres last</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For mich gode wirke to me don and past.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For syn the days whereas my lyre ben strongen,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And deftly many a mery laie I songen,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Old Time which alle things don maliciously,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Gnawen with rusty tooth continually,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Grattrid my lines, that they all cancrid ben</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Till at the last thou smoothen hem hast again.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It is astonishing to think that this mechanical imitation,
+with its harsh and forced rhythm, and its almost
+doggerel language, was regarded at the time as a
+successful reproduction of Chaucer’s manner and
+style. But probably before 1775, when Tyrwhitt
+announced his rediscovery of the secret of Chaucer’s
+rhythm, few eighteenth century readers suspected its
+presence at all.</p>
+
+<p>But the Chaucerian imitations were merely a literary
+fashion predoomed to failure. It was not in any way
+the result of a genuine influence of the early English
+poetry on contemporary taste, and thus it was not
+even vitalized, as was the Spenserian revival, by a
+certain vague and undefined desire to catch something
+at least of the spirit of the “Faerie Queene.”
+The Spenserian imitations had a firmer foundation,
+and because the best of them did not confine their
+ambition altogether to the mechanical imitation of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>
+Spenser’s style in the narrower sense they achieved
+a greater measure of success.</p>
+
+<p>It is significant to note that among the first attempts
+at a Spenserian imitation was that made by one of the
+foremost of the Augustans. This was Matthew Prior,
+who in 1706 published his “Ode, Humbly Inscribed
+to the Queen on the Glorious success of Her Majesty’s
+Arms, Written in Imitation of Spenser’s Style.”<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a>
+We are surprised, however, to find when we have read
+his Preface, that Prior’s aim was in reality to write a
+poem on the model of Horace and of Spenser. The
+attitude in which he approached Spenser’s language is
+made quite clear by his explanation. He has “avoided
+such of his words as I found too obsolete. I have
+however retained some few of them to make the
+colouring look more like Spenser’s.” Follows then a
+list of such words, including “<i>behest</i>, command; <i>band</i>,
+army; <i>prowess</i>, strength; <i>I weet</i>, I know; <i>I ween</i>,
+I think; <i>whilom</i>, heretofore; and two or three more
+of that kind.” Though later in his Preface Prior
+speaks of the <i>curiosa felicitas</i> of Spenser’s diction, it
+is evident that there is little or no real understanding
+or appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>Now began a continuous series of Spenserian imitations,<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a>
+of which, with a few exceptions, the only
+distinguishing characteristic was a small vocabulary
+of obsolete words, upon which the poetasters could
+draw for the “local colour” considered necessary.
+In the majority of cases the result was a purely artificial
+language, probably picked haphazard from the
+“Faerie Queene,” and often used without any definite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span>
+idea of its meaning or appropriateness.<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> Fortunately,
+one or two real poets were attracted by the idea, and
+in due course produced their “imitations.”</p>
+
+<p>William Shenstone (1714-1763) is perhaps worthy
+of being ranked amongst these, in virtue at least of
+“The Schoolmistress,” which appeared in its final
+shape in 1742. Shenstone himself confesses that the
+poem was not at first intended to be a serious imitation,
+but his study of Spenser led him gradually to something
+like a real appreciation of the earlier poet.<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p>
+
+<p>“The Schoolmistress” draws upon the usual
+common stock of old words: <i>whilom</i>, <i>mickle</i>, <i>perdie</i>,
+<i>eke</i>, <i>thik</i>, etc., but often, as in the case of Spenser
+himself, the obsolete terms have a playful and
+humorous effect:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">For they in gaping wonderment abound</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Nor is there lacking a quaint, wistful tenderness, as
+in the description of the refractory schoolboy, who,
+after being flogged,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Behind some door, in melancholy thought,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff, pines,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ne for his fellows joyaunce careth aught,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But to the wind all merriment resigns.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Hence “The Schoolmistress” is no mere parody or
+imitation: there is a real and tender humanity in the
+description of the village school (adumbrating, it
+would seem, Goldsmith’s efforts with a similar theme),
+whilst the judicious use of Spenser’s stanza and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span>
+sprinkling of his old words help to invest the whole
+poem with an atmosphere of genuine and unaffected
+humour.</p>
+
+<p>The next Spenserian whose work merits attention
+is William Thompson, who, it would seem, had delved
+not a little into the Earlier English poetry, and who was
+one of the first to capture something of the real atmosphere
+of the “Faerie Queene.” His “Epithalamium”<a id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>
+and “The Nativity,”<a id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> which appeared in 1736, are
+certainly among the best of the imitations. It is
+important to note that, while there is a free use of
+supposedly archaic words, with the usual list of <i>certes</i>,
+<i>perdie</i>, <i>sikerly</i>, <i>hight</i>, as well as others less common,
+such as <i>belgards</i> (“beautiful looks”), <i>bonnibel</i> (“beautiful
+virgin”), there is no abuse of the practice. Not a
+little of the genuine spirit of Spenser’s poetry, with its
+love of nature and outdoor life, has been caught and
+rendered without any lavish recourse to an artificial
+and mechanical diction, as a stanza from “The
+Nativity,” despite its false rhymes, will perhaps show:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Eftsoons he spied a grove, the Season’s pride,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">All in the centre of a pleasant glade,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where Nature flourished like a virgin bride,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Mantled with green, with hyacinths inlaid,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And crystal-rills o’er beds of lilies stray’d:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The blue-ey’d violet and King-cup gay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And new blown roses, smiling sweetly red,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Out-glow’d the blushing infancy of Day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">While amorous west-winds kist their fragrant souls away.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>This cannot altogether be said of the “Hymn to
+May” published over twenty years later,<a id="FNanchor_141" href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> despite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>
+the fact that Thompson himself draws attention to
+the fact that he does not consider that a genuine
+Spenserian imitation may be produced by scattering
+a certain number of obsolete words through the poem.
+Nevertheless, we find that he has sprinkled his
+“Hymn” plentifully with “obsolete” terms, though
+they include a few, such as <i>purfled</i>, <i>dispredden</i>, <i>goodlihead</i>,
+that were not the common property of the
+poetasters. His explanations of the words so used
+show that not a few of them were used with little
+knowledge of their original meaning, as when he
+defines <i>glen</i><a id="FNanchor_142" href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> as “a country hamlet,” or explains
+<i>perdie</i> as “an old word for saying anything.” It is
+obvious also that many obsolete terms are often simply
+stuck in the lines when their more modern equivalents
+would have served equally well, as for instance,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Full suddenly the seeds of joy <i>recure</i> (“recover”),</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Myrtles to Venus <i>algates</i> sacred been.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">With these reservations the diction of Thompson’s
+poems is pure and unaffected, and the occasional
+happy use of archaism is well illustrated in more than
+one stanza of “The Nativity.”</p>
+
+<p>It is generally agreed that the best of all the
+Spenserian imitations is “The Castle of Indolence,”
+which James Thomson published two months before
+his death in 1748.<a id="FNanchor_143" href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> Yet even in this case there is
+evident a sort of quiet condescension, as if it were in
+Thompson’s mind that he was about to draw the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>
+attention of his eighteenth century audience to something
+quaint and old-fashioned, but which had yet
+a charm of its own. “The obsolete words,” he writes
+in his “advertisement” to the poem, “and a simplicity
+of diction in some of the lines, which borders
+on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation
+more perfect.” Hence he makes use of a number of
+words intended to give an archaic air to his poem,
+including the usual <i>certes</i>, <i>withouten</i>, <i>sheen</i>, <i>perdie,</i>
+<i>weet</i>, <i>pleasaunce</i>, <i>ycleped</i>, etc. To the first edition
+was appended a page of explanation of these and
+other “obsolete words used in this poem”: altogether
+between seventy and eighty such words are thus
+glossed, the large majority of which are familiar
+enough nowadays, either as part of the ordinary
+vocabulary, or as belonging especially to the diction
+of poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Though the archaisms are sometimes scattered in a
+haphazard manner, they are not used with such
+mechanical monotony as is obvious in the bulk of the
+Spenserian imitations. In both cantos there are
+long stretches without a single real or pseudo-archaism,
+and indeed, when Thomson is indulging in one of the
+moral or the didactic surveys characteristic of his
+age, as, for instance, when the bard, invoked by
+Sir Industry, breaks into a long tirade on the Supreme
+Perfection (Canto II, 47-61) his diction is the plain
+and unadorned idiom perfected by Pope.<a id="FNanchor_144" href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Yet
+Thompson occasionally yields to the fascination of
+the spurious form in <i>-en</i>,<a id="FNanchor_145" href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But these I <i>passen</i> by with nameless numbers moe</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto I., 56)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And taunts he <i>casten</i> forth most bitterly.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 78)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Sometimes it would seem that his archaisms owe their
+appearance to the necessities of rhyme, as in</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">So worked the wizard wintry storms to swell</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As heaven and earth they would together <i>mell</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 43)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or the brown fruit with which the woodlands teem:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The same to him glad summer, or the winter <i>breme</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 7)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">There are lines too where we feel that the archaisms
+have been dragged in; for example,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">As <i>soot</i> this man could sing as morning lark</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 57)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">(though there is here perhaps the added charm of a
+Chaucerian reminiscence); or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent20"><i>replevy</i> cannot be</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From the strong, iron grasp of vengeful destiny.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 32)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But, on the whole, he has been successful in his efforts,
+half-hearted as they sometimes seem, to give an old-world
+atmosphere to his poem by a sprinkling of
+archaisms, and it is then that we feel in <i>The Castle of
+Indolence</i> something at least of the beauty and charm
+of “the poet’s poet,” as in the well-known stanza
+describing the valley of Idlesse with its</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent34">waters sheen</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That, as they bickered<a id="FNanchor_146" href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> through the sunny glade,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Though restless still, themselves a lulling murmur made.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto I, 3)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span></p>
+
+<p>Though the Spenserian imitations continued beyond
+the year which saw the birth of Wordsworth,<a id="FNanchor_147" href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> it is
+not necessary to mention further examples, except
+perhaps that of William Mickle, who, in 1767, published
+“The Concubine,” a Spenserian imitation of two
+cantos, which afterwards appeared in a later edition
+(1777) under the title “Sir Martyn.” Like his predecessors,
+Mickle made free use of obsolete spellings
+and words, while he added the usual glossary, which
+is significant as showing at the end of the eighteenth
+century, about the time when Tyrwhitt was completing
+his edition of Chaucer, not only the artificial
+character of this “Spenserian diction,” but also the
+small acquaintance of the average man of letters with
+our earlier language.<a id="FNanchor_148" href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p>
+
+<p>It must not be assumed, of course, that all the
+“obsolete” words used by the imitators were taken
+directly from Spenser. Words like <i>nathless</i>, <i>rathe</i>,
+<i>hight</i>, <i>sicker</i>, <i>areeds</i>, <i>cleeped</i>, <i>hardiment</i>, <i>felly</i>, etc., had
+continued in fairly common use until the seventeenth
+century, though actually some of them were regarded
+even then as archaisms. Thus <i>cleoped</i>, though never
+really obsolete, is marked by Blount in 1656 as
+“Saxon”; <i>sicker</i>, extensively employed in Middle
+English, is rarely found used after 1500 except by
+Scotch writers, though it still remains current in
+northern dialects. On the other hand, not a few words
+were undoubtedly brought directly back into literature
+from the pages of Spenser, among them being <i>meed</i>,
+<i>sheen</i> (boasting an illustrious descent from <i>Beowulf</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>
+through Chaucer), <i>erst</i>, <i>elfin</i>, <i>paramour</i>. Others, like
+<i>scrannel</i>, and apparently also <i>ledded</i>, were made
+familiar by Milton’s use the former either being the
+poet’s own coinage or his borrowing from some dialect
+or other. On the other hand, very many of the
+“revived” words failed to take root at all, such as
+<i>faitours</i>, which Spenser himself had apparently revived,
+and also his coinage <i>singult</i>, though Scott is found
+using the latter form.</p>
+
+<p>As has been said, the crowd of poetasters who
+attempted to reproduce Spenser’s spirit and style
+thought to do so by merely mechanical imitation of
+what they regarded as his “quaint” or “ludicrous”
+diction. Between them and any possibility of grasping
+the perennial beauty and charm of the “poet’s poet”
+there was a great gulf fixed, whilst, altogether apart
+from this fatal limitation, then parodies were little
+likely to have even ephemeral success, for parody
+presupposes in its readers at least a little knowledge
+and appreciation of the thing parodied. But there
+were amongst the imitators one or two at least who,
+we may imagine, were able to find in the melody and
+romance of “The Faerie Queene” an avenue of
+escape from the prosaic pressure of their times. In
+the case of William Thompson, Shenstone, and the
+author of the “Castle of Indolence,” the influence of
+Spenser revealed itself as in integral and vital part of
+the Romantic reaction, for these, being real poets,
+had been able to recapture something at least of the
+colour, music, and fragrance of their original. And
+not only did these, helped by others whose names have
+all but been forgotten restore a noble stanza form to
+English verse. Even their mechanical imitation of
+Spenser’s language was not without its influence, for
+it cannot be doubted that these attempts to write in
+an archaic or pseudo-archaic style did not a little to free
+poetry from the shackles of a conventional language.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span></p>
+
+<p>This process was greatly helped by that other
+aspect of the eighteenth century revival of the past
+which was exemplified in the publication of numerous
+collections of old ballads and songs.<a id="FNanchor_149" href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> There is, of
+course, as Macaulay long ago noted, a series of conventional
+epithets that is one mark of the genuine
+ballad manner, but the true ballad language was not
+a lifeless stereotyped diction. It consisted of “plain
+English without any trimmings.” The ballads had
+certain popular mannerisms (<i>the good greenwood</i>, <i>the
+wan water</i>, etc.), but they were free from the conventional
+figures of speech, or such rhetorical artifices
+as personification and periphrasis.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it is not surprising that at first their fresh
+and spontaneous language was regarded, when contrasted
+with the artificial and refined diction of the
+time, as “barbarous” or “rude.” Thus Prior
+thought it necessary to paraphrase the old ballad of
+the “Nut Brown Maid” into his insipid “Henry and
+Emma” (1718), but a comparison of only a few lines
+of the original with the banality of the modernized
+version is sufficient testimony to the refreshing
+and vivifying influence of such collections as the
+“Reliques.”</p>
+
+<p>The tendency to present the old ballads in an
+eighteenth century dress had soon revealed itself;
+at least, the editors of the early collections often felt
+themselves obliged to apologize for the obsolete style
+of their material.<a id="FNanchor_150" href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> But in 1760 the first attempt
+at a critical text appeared when Edward Capell,
+the famous Shakespearian editor, published his
+“Prolusions”; or “Select Pieces of Antient Poetry—compil’d<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>
+with great Care from their several Originals,
+and offer’d to the Publick as specimens of the Integrity
+that should be found in the Editions of worthy
+Authors.” Capell’s care was almost entirely directed
+to ensuring textual accuracy, but the “Nut-Browne
+Maid,” the only ballad included, receives sympathetic
+mention in his brief <i>Preface</i>.<a id="FNanchor_151" href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a></p>
+
+<p>Five years later, the most famous of all the ballad
+collections appeared, Thomas Percy’s “Reliques of
+Ancient English Poetry” (1765). The nucleus of
+Percy’s collection was a certain manuscript in a
+handwriting of Charles I’s time, containing 191 songs
+and ballads, but he had also had access to various
+other manuscript collections, whilst he was quite
+ready to acknowledge that he had filled gaps in his
+originals with stanzas and, in some cases, with nearly
+entire poems of his own composition. Much censure
+has been heaped upon Percy for his apparent lax
+ideas on the functions of an editor, but in decking out
+his “parcel of old ballads” in the false and affected
+style of his age, he was only doing his best to meet
+the taste of his readers. He himself passes judgment
+on his own labours, when, alongside of the genuine
+old ballads, with their freshness and simplicity of
+diction, he places his own “pruned” or “refined”
+versions, or additions, garbed in a sham and sickly
+idiom.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until over a century later, when Percy’s
+folio manuscript was copied and printed,<a id="FNanchor_152" href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> that the
+extent of his additions, alterations, and omissions
+were fully realized, though at the same time it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span>
+admitted that the pruning and refining was not
+unskilfully done.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the influence of the “Reliques,” as
+a vital part of the Romantic revival, was considerable:<a id="FNanchor_153" href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a>
+it was as if a breath of “the wind on the heath” had
+swept across literature and its writers, bringing with
+it an invigorating fragrance and freshness, whilst, on
+the purely formal side, the genuine old ballads, which
+Percy had culled and printed untouched, no doubt
+played their part in directing the attention of Wordsworth
+to the whole question of the language of poetry.
+And when the great Romantic manifestoes on the
+subject of “the language of metrical composition”
+were at length launched, their author was not slow to
+bear witness to the revivifying influence of the old
+ballads on poetic form. “Our poetry,” he wrote,
+“has been absolutely redeemed by it. I do not
+think that there is an able writer in verse of the
+present day who would not be proud to acknowledge
+his obligations to the “Reliques.”<a id="FNanchor_154" href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p>
+
+<p>The year before the appearance of the “Reliques,”
+Thomas Chatterton had published his “Rowley
+Poems,” and this attempt of a poet of genius to pass
+off his poems as the work of a mediaeval English
+writer is another striking indication of the new
+Romantic spirit then asserting itself. As for the
+pseudo-archaic language in which Chatterton with
+great labour clothed his “revivals,” there is no need
+to say much. It was a thoroughly artificial language,
+compiled, as Skeat has shown, from various sources,
+such as John Kersey’s “Dictionarium Anglo-Brittanicum,”
+three editions of which had appeared before
+1721. In this work there are included a considerable
+number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>
+his contemporaries, marked “O,” and in some cases
+erroneously explained. This dictionary was the chief
+source of Chatterton’s vocabulary, many words of
+which the young poet took apparently without any
+definite idea of their meaning.<a id="FNanchor_155" href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></p>
+
+<p>Yet in the Rowley poems there are passages where
+the pseudo-archaic language is quite in keeping with
+the poet’s theme and treatment, whilst here and there
+we come across epithets and lines which, even in their
+strange dress, are of a wild and artless sweetness,
+such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where thou mayst here the sweete night-lark chant,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Or with some mocking brooklet sweetly glide,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the whole of the first stanza of the famous “An
+Excelente Balade of Charitie,” where the old words
+help to transport us at once into the fictitious world
+which Chatterton had made for himself. Perhaps,
+as has been suggested, the “Rowley dialect” was not,
+as we nowadays, with Skeat’s analysis in our minds,
+are a little too apt to believe, a deliberate attempt to
+deceive, but rather reflected an attempt to escape
+from the dead abstract diction of the period.<a id="FNanchor_156" href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p>
+
+<p>Apart from this special aspect of the Romantic
+revival marked by a tendency to look back lovingly
+to the earlier English poetry, there are few traces of
+the use of archaic and obsolete words, at least of such
+words used consciously, in eighteenth century poetry.
+The great poets of the century make little or no use
+of them. Collins has no examples, but Gray, who
+began by advocating the poet’s right to use obsolete<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>
+words, and later seemed to recant, now and then uses
+an old term, as when in his translation from Dante
+he writes:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The anguish that unuttered <i>nathless</i> wrings</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">My inmost heart.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Blake, however, it is interesting to note, often used
+archaic forms, or at least archaic spellings,<a id="FNanchor_157" href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> as <i>Tyger</i>,
+<i>antient</i> (“To the Muses”), “the <i>desart</i> wild” (“The
+Little Girl Lost”), as well as such lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In lucent words my darkling verses dight</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Imitation of Spenser”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">So I piped with merry <i>chear</i>.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Introduction to “Songs of Innocence”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Perhaps by these means the poet wished to give a
+quaint or old-fashioned look to his verses, though it
+is to be remembered that most of them occur in the
+“Poetical Sketches,” which are avowedly Elizabethan.</p>
+
+<p>The use of archaic and obsolete words in the
+eighteenth century was then chiefly an outcome of
+that revival of the past which was one of the characteristics
+of the new Romantic movement, and which
+was later to find its culmination in the works of Scott.
+The old words used by the eighteenth century
+imitators of Spenser were not often used, we may
+imagine, because poets saw in them poetical beauty
+and value; most often they were the result of a desire
+to catch, as it were, something of the “local colour”
+of the “Faerie Queene,” just as modern writers nowadays,
+poets and novelists alike, often draw upon local
+dialects for new means of expression. The Spenserian
+imitations recovered not a few words, such as <i>meed</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span>
+<i>sheen</i>, <i>dight</i>, <i>glen</i>,<a id="FNanchor_158" href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> which have since been regarded as
+belonging especially to the diction of poetry, and
+when the Romantic revival had burst into life the
+impulse, which had thus been unconsciously given,
+was continued by some of its great leaders. Scott, as
+is well known, was an enthusiastic lover of our older
+literature, especially the ballads, from which he
+gleaned many words full of a beauty and charm
+which won for them immediate admission into the
+language of poetry; at the same time he was able to
+find many similar words in the local dialects of the
+lowlands and the border. Perhaps in this work he
+had been inspired by his famous countryman, Robert
+Burns, who by his genius had raised his native language,
+with its stores of old and vivid words and expressions,
+to classical rank.<a id="FNanchor_159" href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless it is undoubted that the main factor
+in the new Romantic attitude towards old words had
+been the eighteenth century imitations and collections
+of our older English literature. Coleridge, it is to be
+remembered, made free use of archaisms; in the
+“Ancient Mariner,” there are many obsolete forms:
+<i>loon</i>, <i>eftsoons</i>, <i>uprist</i>, <i>gramercy</i>, <i>gossameres</i>, <i>corse</i>, etc.,
+besides those which appeared in the first edition, and
+were altered or omitted when the poem reappeared in
+1800. Wordsworth, it is true, made no use of archaic
+diction, whether in the form of deliberate revivals, or
+by drafts on the dialects, which, following the great
+example of Burns, and in virtue of his own “theories,”
+he might have been expected to explore. Nevertheless
+the “theories” concerning poetical language
+which he propounded and maintained are not without<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span>
+their bearing on the present question. Reduced to
+their simplest terms, the manifestoes, while passing
+judgment on the conventional poetical diction, conceded
+to the poet the right of a style in keeping with his
+subject and inspiration, and Wordsworth’s successors
+for the most part, so far as style in the narrower sense
+of <i>vocabulary</i> is concerned, did not fail to reap the
+benefits of the emancipation won for them. And
+among the varied sources upon which they began to
+draw for fresh reserves of diction were the abundant
+stores of old words, full of colour and energy, to be
+gleaned from the pages of their great predecessors.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br />
+<span class="smaller">COMPOUND EPITHETS IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>It is proposed in this chapter to examine in some
+detail the use of compound epithets in the poetry
+of the eighteenth century. For this purpose the
+following grammatical scheme of classification has
+been adopted from various sources:<a id="FNanchor_160" href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> <i>First Type</i>,
+noun <i>plus</i> noun; <i>Second Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> adjective;
+<i>Third Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> present participle; <i>Fourth
+Type</i>, noun <i>plus</i> past participle; <i>Fifth Type</i>, adjective,
+or adjective used adverbially, <i>plus</i> another part of
+speech, usually a participle; <i>Sixth Type</i>, true adverb
+<i>plus</i> a participle; <i>Seventh Type</i>, adjective <i>plus</i> noun
+plus -<i>ed</i>. Of these types it will be evident in many
+cases that the first (noun <i>plus</i> noun) and the sixth
+(true adverb <i>plus</i> participle) are not compounds at all,
+for the hyphen could often be removed without any
+change or loss of meaning. Occasionally the compounds
+will be regarded from the point of view of the
+logical relation between the two elements, when a
+formal classification may usually be made as follows:
+(<i>a</i>) <i>Attributive</i>, as in “anger-glow”; (<i>b</i>) <i>Objective</i>, as
+in “anger-kindling”; (<i>c</i>) <i>Instrumental</i>, as in “anger-boiling.”
+This scheme of classification permits of an
+examination of the compounds from the formal point<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span>
+of view, whilst at the same time it does not preclude
+an estimate of the æsthetic value of the new words
+thus added to the language of poetry.<a id="FNanchor_161" href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p>
+
+<p>It may be said, to begin with, that the formation
+and use of compound epithets has always been one
+of the distinguishing marks of the special language
+of poetry in English, as distinct from that of prose.
+The very ease with which they can be formed out of
+the almost inexhaustible resources of the English
+vocabulary has been a constant source of temptation
+to poets with new things to say, or new impressions
+to describe. Moreover, the partial disappearance of
+inflections in modern English has permitted of a
+vagueness in the formation of compound words,
+which in itself is of value to the word-maker. Though,
+of course, it is possible in most cases accurately to
+analyse the logical relation between the elements of a
+compound, yet it sometimes happens, especially with
+the compound epithets of poetry, that this cannot
+be done with certainty, because the new formation
+may have been the result of a hasty but happy inspiration,
+with no regard to the regular rules of composition.<a id="FNanchor_162" href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a>
+Hence, from one point of view, the free formation of
+compounds is a legitimate device allowed to the
+poets, of which the more severe atmosphere of prose is
+expected to take less advantage; from another point
+of view, the greater prevalence of the compound in
+poetry may not be unconnected with the rhythm of
+verse. Viewed in this light, the use of compound<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span>
+epithets in our poetry at any period may well have
+been conditioned, in part at least, by the metrical
+form in which that poetry received expression; and
+thus in the poetry of the eighteenth century it connects
+itself in some degree—first, with the supremacy of
+the heroic couplet, and later with the blank
+verse that proved to be the chief rival of the
+decasyllabic.</p>
+
+<p>The freedom of construction which facilitates the
+formation of compounds had already in the earliest
+English period contributed to that special poetic
+diction which is a distinguishing mark of Anglo-Saxon
+verse, as indeed of all the old Germanic poetry;
+of the large number of words not used in Anglo-Saxon
+prose, very many are synonymous compounds
+meaning the same thing.<a id="FNanchor_163" href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> During the Middle English
+period, and especially before the triumph of the East
+Midland dialect definitely prepared the way for
+Modern English, it would seem that the language lost
+much of its old power of forming compounds, one
+explanation being that the large number of French
+words, which then came into the language, drove out
+many of the Old English compounds, whilst at the
+same time these in-comers, so easily acquired, tended
+to discourage the formation of new compounds.<a id="FNanchor_164" href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a>
+It was not until the great outburst of literary activity
+in the second half of the sixteenth century that a
+fresh impetus was given to the formation of compound
+nouns and epithets. The large number of classical
+translations especially exercised an important influence
+in this respect: each new translation had its quota
+of fresh compounds, but Chapman’s “Homer” may<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span>
+be mentioned as especially noteworthy.<a id="FNanchor_165" href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> At the same
+time the plastic state of Elizabethan English led to
+the making of expressive new compounds of native
+growth, and from this period date some of the happiest
+compound epithets to be found in the language.<a id="FNanchor_166" href="#Footnote_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a>
+From the Elizabethans this gift of forming imaginative
+compounds was inherited, with even greater felicity
+by Milton, many of whose epithets, especially those
+of Type VII such as “<i>grey-hooded even</i>,” “<i>coral-paven
+floor</i>,” “<i>flowery-kirtled</i> Naiades” reveal him
+as a consummate master of word-craft.</p>
+
+<p>With Dryden begins the period with which we are
+especially concerned, for it is generally agreed that
+from nearly every point of view the advent of what is
+called eighteenth century literature dates from the
+Restoration. During the forty years dominated by
+Dryden in practically every department of literature,
+the changes in the language, both of prose and poetry,
+which had been slowly evolving themselves, became
+apparent, and, as the sequel will show, this new ideal
+of style, with its passion for “correctness,” and its
+impatience of innovation, was not one likely to
+encourage or inspire the formation of expressive
+compounds; the happy audacities of the Elizabethans,
+of whose tribe it is customary to seal Milton, are no
+longer possible.</p>
+
+<p>The compounds in the poems of Dryden show this;
+of his examples of Type I—the substantive compounds—the
+majority are merely the juxtaposition
+of two appositional nouns, as <i>brother-angels</i> (“Killigrew,”
+4); or, more rarely, where the first element
+has a descriptive or adjectival force, as <i>traitor-friend</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span>
+(“Palamon,” II, 568). Not much more imaginative
+power is reflected in Dryden’s compound epithets;
+his instances of Types III and IV include “<i>cloud-dispelling</i>
+winds” (“Ovid,” Met. I, 356), “<i>sun-begotten</i>
+tribe” (<i>ibid.</i>, III, 462), with more original
+examples like “<i>sleep-procuring</i> wand.” Next comes
+a large number of instances of Types V and VI:
+“<i>thick-spread</i> forest” (“Palamon,” II, 123), “<i>hoarse-resounding</i>
+shore” (“Iliad” I, 54), as well as many
+compounded with <i>long</i>-, <i>well</i>-, <i>high</i>-, etc. Most of
+these examples of Types V and VI are scarcely compounds
+at all, for after such elements as “long,”
+“well,” “much,” the hyphen could in most cases
+be omitted without any loss of power. Of Dryden’s
+compound epithets it may be said in general that they
+reflect admirably his poetic theory and practice;
+they are never the product of a “fine frenzy.” At the
+same time not a few of them seem to have something
+of that genius for satirical expression with which he
+was amply endowed. Compounds like <i>court-informer</i>
+(“Absalom,” 719), “the rebels’ <i>pension-purse</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>,
+Pt. II, 321),</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Og, from a <i>treason-tavern</i> rolling home</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 480)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">play their part in the delivery of those “smacks in
+the face” of which Professor Saintsbury speaks
+in his discussion of Dryden’s satiric manipulation of
+the heroic couplet.<a id="FNanchor_167" href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the verse of Pope, compound formations are to be
+found in large numbers. This may partly be attributed,
+no doubt, to the amount of translation included
+in it, but even in his original poetry there are many
+more instances than in the work of his great predecessor.
+When engaged on his translation of Homer<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>
+the prevalence of compounds naturally attracted his
+attention, and he refers to the matter more than once
+in his Preface.<a id="FNanchor_168" href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> As might be expected from the
+apostle of “correctness,” he lays down cautious and
+conservative “rules” of procedure. Such should be
+retained “as slide easily of themselves into an English
+compound, without violence to the ear, or to the
+received rules of composition, as well as those which
+have received the sanction from the authority of our
+best poets, and are become familiar through their
+use of them.”<a id="FNanchor_169" href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p>
+
+<p>An examination of Pope’s compounds in the light
+of “the received rules of composition,” shows his
+examples to be of the usual types. Of noun <i>plus</i>
+noun combinations he has such forms as “<i>monarch-savage</i>,”
+(“Odyss.” IV), whilst he is credited with
+the first use of “the <i>fury-passions</i>” (Epistle III).
+More originality and imagination is reflected in his
+compound epithets; of those formed from a noun
+and a present participle, with the first element usually
+in an objective relation to the second, his instances
+include “<i>love-darting</i>-eyes” (“Unfortunate Lady”),
+as well as others found before his time, like the
+Elizabethan “<i>heart-piercing</i> anguish” (<i>ibid.</i>, XII)
+and “<i>laughter-loving</i> dame” (<i>ibid.</i>, III). He has
+large numbers of compounded nouns and past-participles,
+many of which—“<i>moss-grown</i> domes”
+(“Eloisa”), “<i>cloud-topped</i> hills” (“Essay on Man,”
+I, 100), “<i>Sea-girt</i> isles” (“Iliad,” III)—were common
+in the seventeenth century, as well as “borrowed”
+examples, such as “<i>home-felt</i> joys” (Epistle II) or
+“<i>air-bred</i> people” (“Odyss.,” LX, 330), presumably
+from Milton and Drayton respectively. But he has
+a few original formations of this type, such as “<i>heaven-directed</i><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>
+spire” (Epistle III), “<i>osier-fringed</i> bank,”
+(“Odyss.,” XIII), the latter perhaps a reminiscence of
+Sabrina’s song in “Comus,” as well as happier combinations,
+of which the best examples are “<i>love-born</i>
+confidence” (“Odyss.,” X) and “<i>love-dittied</i> airs”
+(“Odyss.,” II).</p>
+
+<p>Pope, however, makes his largest use of that type
+of compound which can be formed with the greatest
+freedom—an adjective, or an adjective used adverbially,
+joined to a present or past participle. He
+has dozens of examples with the adverbial <i>long</i>,
+<i>wide</i>, <i>far</i>, <i>loud</i>, <i>deep</i>, <i>high</i>, etc., as the first element,
+most of the examples occurring in the Homer translations,
+and being attempts to reproduce the Greek
+compounds.<a id="FNanchor_170" href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> Other instances have a higher æsthetic
+value: “<i>fresh-blooming</i> hope” (“Eloisa”), “<i>silver-quivering</i>
+rills” (Epistle IV), “<i>soft-trickling</i> waters”
+“Iliad,” IX), “sweet airs <i>soft-circling</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>, XVII),
+etc. Of the formations beginning with a true adverb,
+the most numerous are the quasi-compounds beginning
+with “<i>ever</i>”—“<i>ever-during</i> nights,” “<i>ever-fragrant</i>
+bowers” (“Odyss.,” XII), etc.; or “<i>well</i>”—“<i>well-sung</i>
+woes” (“Eloisa”) or “<i>yet</i>”—“<i>yet-untasted</i>
+food” (“Iliad,” XV), etc. These instances do not
+reveal any great originality, for the very ease with
+which they can be formed naturally discounts largely
+their poetic value. Occasionally, however, Pope has
+been more successful; perhaps his best examples
+of this type are “<i>inly-pining</i> hate” (“Odyss.,” VI—where
+the condensation involved in the epithet does
+at least convey some impression of power—and “the
+<i>softly-stealing</i> space of time,” (“Odyss.,” XV), where
+the compound almost produces a happy effect of
+personification.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span></p>
+
+<p>Of the irregular type of compound, already mentioned
+in connexion with Dryden, Pope has a few
+instances—“<i>white-robed</i> innocence” (“Eloisa”), etc.
+But perhaps Pope’s happiest effort in this respect is
+to be seen in that quatrain from the fourth book of
+the “Dunciad,” containing three instances of compound
+epithets, which help to remind us that at times
+he had at his command a diction of higher suggestive
+and evocative power than the plain idiom of his
+satiric and didactic verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">To isles of fragrance, <i>lily-silver’d</i> vales</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Diffusing languor in the panting gales;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To lands of singing or of dancing slaves</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Love-whisp’ring</i> woods and <i>lute-resounding</i> waves.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of the poets contemporary with Pope only brief
+mention need be made from our present point of view.
+The poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea contain
+few instances and those of the ordinary type, a remark
+which is equally applicable to the poems of Parnell
+and John Phillips. John Gay (1685-1732), however,
+though he has many formations found in previous
+writers, has also some apparently original compound
+epithets which have a certain charm: “<i>health-breathing</i>
+breezes” (“A Devonshire Hill,” 10), “<i>dew-besprinkled</i>
+lawn” (“Fables,” 50), and “the lark
+<i>high-poised</i> in the air” (“Sweet William’s Farewell,”
+13). More noteworthy is John Dyer; “Grongar
+Hill” has no very striking examples, but his blank
+verse poems have one or two not devoid of imaginative
+value: “<i>soft-whispering</i> waters” (“Ruins of Rome”)
+and “<i>plaintive-echoing</i> ruins” (<i>ibid.</i>); he has been
+able to dispense with the “classical” descriptive
+terms for hills and mountains (“shaggy,” “horrid,”
+“terrible,” etc.), and his new epithets reflect something
+at least of that changing attitude towards
+natural scenery, of which he was a foremost pioneer:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span>
+“<i>slow-climbing</i> wilds” (“Fleece,” I), “<i>cloud-dividing</i>
+hill” (<i>ibid.</i>), and his irregular “<i>snow-nodding</i> crags”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, IV).</p>
+
+<p>Neglecting for the moment the more famous of the
+blank verse poems, we may notice Robert Blair’s
+“Grave” (published 1743), with a few examples,
+which mainly allow him to indulge in “classical”
+periphrases, such as the “<i>sight-invigorating</i> tube” for
+“a telescope.” David Mallet, who imitated his
+greater countryman James Thomson, has one or
+two noteworthy instances: “pines <i>high-plumed</i>”
+(“Amyntor,” II), “<i>sweetly-pensive</i> silence” (“Fragment”),
+“spring’s <i>flower-embroidered</i> mantle” (“Excursion,”
+I)—suggested, no doubt, by Milton’s “violet-embroidered”—“the
+morn <i>sun-tinctured</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>),
+compound epithets which betray the influence of the
+“Seasons.” Of the other minor blank verse poems
+their only aspect noteworthy from our present point
+of view is their comparative freedom from compounds
+of any description. John Armstrong’s “Art of
+Preserving Health” (1744) has only a few commonplace
+examples, and the same may be said of the
+earlier “The Chase” (1735) by William Somerville,
+though he finds a new epithet in his expression “the
+strand <i>sea-lav’d</i>” (Bk. III, 431). James Grainger’s
+“The Sugar Cane” (1764) shows a similar poverty,
+but the “<i>green-stol’d</i> Naiad, of the tinkling rill”
+(Canto I), “<i>soft-stealing</i> dews” (Canto III), “<i>wild-careering</i>
+clouds” (Canto II), and “<i>cane-crowned</i>
+vale” (Canto IV) are not without merit. These
+blank verse poems, avowedly modelled on Milton,
+might have been expected to attempt the “grandeur”
+of their original by high-sounding compounds; but
+it was rather by means of latinized words and constructions
+that the Miltonic imitators sought to
+emulate the grand style; and moreover, as Coleridge
+pointed out, Milton’s great epics are almost free from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span>
+compound epithets, it being in the early poems that
+“a superfluity” is to be found.<a id="FNanchor_171" href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></p>
+
+<p>Before turning to the more famous blank verse
+poems of the first half of the eighteenth century it
+will be convenient at this point to notice one or two
+poets whose work represents, on its formal side at
+least, a continuation or development of the school
+of Pope. The first of these is Richard Savage, whose
+only poem of any real merit, “The Wanderer” (apart
+perhaps from “The Bastard”), appeared in 1729.
+He has only one or two new compounds of noun and
+part-participle, such as “the robe <i>snow-wrought</i>”
+(“The Wanderer,” I, 55), his favourite combination
+being that of an adjective or adverb with a participle,
+where, amidst numerous examples of obvious formations,
+he occasionally strikes out something new:
+“eyes <i>dim-gleaming</i>” (Canto I), “<i>soft-creeping</i>
+murmurs” (Canto V), etc. Of his other types the
+only other noteworthy compound is the “past-participle”
+epithet in his phrase “the <i>amber-hued</i>
+cascade” (Canto III), though a refreshing simplicity
+of expression is found in such lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The bull-finch whistles soft his <i>flute-like</i> note.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The poetical work of Dr. Johnson contains scarcely
+any instances of compounds, and none either newly
+invented or applied. “London” and “The Vanity
+of Human Wishes” have each not more than two or
+three instances, and even the four poems, in which he
+successively treats of the seasons, are almost destitute
+of compound epithets, “<i>snow-topped</i> cot” (“Winter”)
+being almost the only example.</p>
+
+<p>There are many more instances of compound formations
+in the works of Oliver Goldsmith, most of which,
+like “<i>nut-brown</i> draughts” (“Deserted Village,” II),<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span>
+“<i>sea-borne</i> gales” (“Traveller,” 121), “<i>grass-grown</i>
+footway” (“Deserted Village,” 127), had either been
+long in the language, or had been used by earlier
+eighteenth century poets. There are, however, instances
+which testify to a desire to add to the descriptive
+power of the vocabulary; in “The Traveller”
+we find mention of “the <i>hollow-sounding</i> bittern”
+(l. 44), “the <i>rocky-crested</i> summits” (l. 85), “the
+<i>yellow-blossomed</i> vale” (l. 293), and the “<i>willow-tufted</i>
+bank” (l. 294). For the rest, Goldsmith’s
+original compounds are, like so many of this type,
+mere efforts at verbal condensation, as “<i>shelter-seeking</i>
+peasant” (“Traveller,” 162), “<i>joy-pronouncing</i> eye”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 10), etc.</p>
+
+<p>Of the more famous blank verse poems of the
+eighteenth century the first and most important was
+“The Seasons” of James Thomson, which appeared
+in their original form between 1726 and 1730. The
+originality of style, for which Johnson praised him,<a id="FNanchor_172" href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a>
+is perhaps to be seen especially in his use of compound
+formations; probably no other poet has ever used
+them so freely.</p>
+
+<p>As a general rule, Thomson’s compounds fall into
+the well-defined groups already mentioned. He has
+a number of noun <i>plus</i> noun formations (Type I),
+where the first element has usually a purely adjectival
+value; “<i>patriot-council</i>” (“Autumn,” 98), “<i>harvest-treasures</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 1217), as well as a few which allow
+him to indulge in grandiose periphrasis, as in the
+“<i>monarch-swain</i>” (“Summer,” 495) for a shepherd
+with his “<i>sceptre-crook</i>” (<i>ibid.</i>, 497). These are all
+commonplace formations, but much more originality
+is found in his compound epithets. He frequently
+uses the noun <i>plus</i> present participle combinations
+(Type III), “<i>secret-winding</i>, <i>flower-enwoven</i> bowers”
+(“Spring,” 1058) or “<i>forest-rustling</i> mountains”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>
+(“Winter,” 151), etc. Moreover, the majority of
+his compounds are original, though now and then he
+has taken a “classical” compound and given it a
+somewhat curious application, as in “<i>cloud-compelling</i>
+cliffs” (“Autumn,” 801). A few of this class are
+difficult to justify logically, striking examples being
+“<i>world-rejoicing</i> state” (“Summer,” 116) for “the
+state of one in whom the world rejoices,” and “<i>life-sufficing</i>
+trees” (<i>ibid.</i>, 836) for “trees that give sustenance.”</p>
+
+<p>Thomson has also numerous instances of the juxtaposition
+of nouns and past-participles (Type IV):
+“<i>love-enlivened</i> cheeks” (“Spring,” 1080), “<i>leaf-strewn</i>
+walks” (“Autumn,” 955), “<i>frost-concocted</i>
+glebe” (“Winter,” 706); others of this type
+are somewhat obscure in meaning, as “<i>mind-illumined</i>
+face” (“Spring,” 1042), and especially
+“<i>art imagination-flushed</i>” (“Autumn,” 140), where
+economy of expression is perhaps carried to its very
+limit.</p>
+
+<p>Thomson’s favourite method of forming compounds
+however is that of Type V, each book of “The Seasons”
+containing large numbers, the first element (<i>full</i>,
+<i>prone</i>, <i>quick</i>, etc.) often repeated with a variant second
+element. Sometimes constant repetition in this way
+produces the impression of a tiresome mannerism.
+Thus “many” joined to present and past-participles
+is used irregularly with quasi-adverbial force,
+apparently meaning “in many ways,” “many times,”
+or even “much,” as “<i>many-twinkling</i> leaves”
+(“Spring,” 158), “<i>many-bleating</i> flock” (<i>ibid.</i>, 835),
+etc. In the same way the word “mazy” seems to
+have had a fascination for Thomson. Thus he has
+“the <i>mazy-running</i> soul of melody” (“Spring,” 577),
+“the <i>mazy-running</i> brook” (“Summer,” 373), “and
+<i>mazy-running</i> clefts” (“Autumn,” 816), etc. Not
+all of this type, however, are mere mechanical formations;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>
+some have real poetic value and bear witness
+to Thomson’s undoubted gift for achieving happy
+expressive effects. Thus the “<i>close-embowering</i> wood”
+(“Autumn,” 208), “the lonesome muse <i>low-whispering</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 955), “the <i>deep-tangled</i> copse” (“Spring,”
+594), “the <i>hollow-whispering</i> breeze” (<i>ibid.</i>, 919),
+“the <i>grey-grown</i> oaks” (“Summer,” 225), “<i>flowery-tempting</i>
+paths” (“Spring,” 1109), “the morn <i>faint-gleaming</i>”
+(“Summer,” 48), “<i>dark-embowered</i> firs”
+(“Winter,” 813), “the winds <i>hollow-blustering</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 988), “the <i>mossy-tinctured</i> streams” (“Spring,”
+380), as well as such passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">the long-forgotten strain</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">At first <i>faint-warbled</i></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 585)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ships <i>dim-discovered</i> dropping from the clouds.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 946)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Thomson’s compound epithets with a true adverb
+as the first element (Sixth Type), such as “<i>north-inflated</i>
+tempest” (“Autumn,” 892), are not particularly
+striking, and some of them are awkward and result
+in giving a harsh effect to the verse, as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">goodness and wit</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In <i>seldom-meeting</i> harmony combined.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 25-6)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Finally, in “The Seasons” there are to be found
+many examples of the type of compound epithet,
+already referred to, modelled on the form of a past-participle;
+here Thomson has achieved some of his
+happiest expressions, charged with real suggestive
+power.<a id="FNanchor_173" href="#Footnote_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> Among his instances are such little “word-pictures”
+as “<i>rocky-channelled</i> maze” (“Spring,”
+401), “the <i>light-footed</i> dews” (“Summer,” 123);<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>
+“the <i>keen-aired</i> mountain” (“Autumn,” 434) “the
+<i>dusky-mantled</i> lawn” (<i>ibid.</i>, 1088), “the <i>dewy-skirted</i>
+clouds” (<i>ibid.</i>, 961) Even when he borrows a
+felicitous epithet he is able to apply it without loss of
+power, as when he gives a new setting to Milton’s
+“meek-eyed” applied to “Peace” as an epithet for the
+quiet in-coming of the dawn; the “<i>meek-eyed</i> Morn”
+(“Summer,” 47).</p>
+
+<p>Thomson makes good and abundant use of compound
+epithets, and in this respect, as in others he was
+undoubtedly a bold pioneer. His language itself,
+from our present point of view, apart from the thought
+and outlook on external nature it reflects, entitles
+him to that honourable position as a forerunner in
+the Romantic reaction with which he is usually
+credited. He was not content to accept the stereotyped
+diction of his day, and asserted the right of the
+poet to make a vocabulary for himself. There is thus
+justice in the plea that it is Thomson, rather than
+Gray, whom Wordsworth should have marked down
+for widening the breach between the language of
+poetry and that of prose.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the prevalence of the compound epithets
+in “The Seasons” is due, to some extent at least,
+to the requirement of his blank verse line; they helped
+him, so to speak, to secure the maximum of effect with
+the minimum of word-power; and at times we can
+almost see him trying to give to his unrhymed decasyllabics
+something of the conciseness and polish to
+which Pope’s couplet had accustomed his generation.
+But they owe their appearance, of course, to other
+causes than the mere mechanism of verse. Thompson’s
+fondness for “swelling sound and phrase” has
+often been touched upon, and this predilection
+finds full scope in the compound epithets; they
+play their part in giving colour and atmosphere
+to “The Seasons,” and they announce unmistakably<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>
+that the old dead, descriptive diction is
+doomed.</p>
+
+<p>Of the blank verse poems of the period only “The
+Seasons” has any real claim to be regarded as announcing
+the Romantic revolt that was soon to declare
+itself unmistakably. But three years after the
+appearance of Thomson’s final revision of his poem
+the first odes of William Collins were published, at
+the same time as those of Joseph Warton, whilst the
+work of Thomas Gray had already begun.</p>
+
+<p>There are some two score of compound formations
+in the poems of Collins, but many of these—as “<i>love-darting</i>”
+(“Poetic Character,” 8), “<i>soul-subduing</i>”
+(“Liberty,” 92)—date from the seventeenth century.
+One felicitous compound Collins has borrowed from
+James Thomson, but in doing so he has invested it
+with a new and beautiful suggestiveness. Thomson
+had written of</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ships <i>dim-discovered</i> dropping from the clouds.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 946)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The compound is taken by Collins and given a new
+beauty in his description of the landscape as the
+evening shadows gently settle upon it:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hamlets brown and <i>dim-discovered</i> spires</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Evening,” 37)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where the poetic and pictorial force of the epithet is
+perhaps at its maximum.<a id="FNanchor_174" href="#Footnote_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p>
+
+<p>Collins, however, has not contented himself with
+compounds already in the language; he has formed
+himself, apparently, almost half of the examples to
+be found in his poems. His instances of Types I,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span>
+as of Types V and VI, are commonplace, and he
+has but few examples of Type II, the most noteworthy
+being “<i>scene-full</i> world” (“Manners,” 78), where the
+epithet, irregularly formed, seems to have the meaning
+of “abounding in scenery.” Most of his instances of
+Type III are either to be found in previous writers,
+or are obvious formations like “<i>war-denouncing</i>
+trumpets” (“Passions,” 43).</p>
+
+<p>Much more originality is evident in his examples
+of Type IV, which is apparently a favourite method
+with him. He has “<i>moss-crowned</i> fountain”
+(“Oriental Ecl.,” II, 24), “<i>sky-worn</i> robes” (“Pity,”
+II), “<i>sedge-crowned</i> sisters” (“Ode on Thomson,”
+30), “<i>elf-shot</i> arrows” (“Popular Superstitions,”
+27), etc. Some instances here are, strictly speaking,
+irregular formations, for the participles, as in “<i>sphere-descended</i>,”
+are from intransitive verbs; in other
+instances the logical relation must be expressed by a
+preposition such, as “<i>with</i>” in “<i>moss-crowned</i>,”
+“<i>sedge-crowned</i>”; or “<i>by</i>” in “<i>fancy-blest</i>,” “<i>elf-shot</i>”;
+or “<i>in</i>” in “<i>sphere-found</i>,” “<i>sky-worn</i>.”
+He has some half-dozen examples of Type VII, three
+at least of which—“<i>gay-motleyed</i> pinks” (“Oriental
+Eclogues,” III, 17), “<i>chaste-eyed</i> Queen” (“Passions,”
+75), and “<i>fiery-tressed</i> Dane” (“Liberty,” 97)—are
+apparently his own coinage, whilst others, such as
+“<i>rosy-lipp’d</i> health” (“Evening,” 50) and “<i>young-eyed</i>
+wit,” have been happily used in the service of
+the personifications that play so great a part in his
+Odes.</p>
+
+<p>There is some evidence that the use of compounds
+by certain writers was already being noticed in the
+eighteenth century as something of an innovation
+in poetical language. Thus Goldsmith, it would seem,
+was under the impression that their increasing employment,
+even by Gray, was connected in some way
+with the revived study of the older poets, especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span>
+Spenser.<a id="FNanchor_175" href="#Footnote_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> This supposition is unfounded. Gray, it is
+true, uses a large number of compounds, found in
+previous writers, but it is chiefly from Milton—e.g.
+“<i>solemn-breathing</i> airs” (“Progress of Poesy,” 14;
+cp. “Comus,” 555), “rosy-bosomed hours” (“Spring,”
+I), or from Pope—e.g. “<i>cloud-topped</i> head” (“Bard,”
+34) that he borrows. Moreover, he has many compounds
+which presumably he made for himself. Of
+Type I he has such instances as “the <i>seraph-wings</i>
+of Ecstasy” (“Progress,” 96), “the <i>sapphire-blaze</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 99), etc.; he has one original example of
+Type II in his “<i>silver-bright</i> Cynthia” (“Music,” 32),
+and two of Type III, when he speaks of the valley of
+Thames as a “<i>silver-winding</i> way” (“Eton Ode,”
+10), and he finds a new epithet for the dawn in his
+beautiful phrase “the <i>incense-breathing</i> Morn” (Elegy
+XVII). Of Type IV, he has some half-dozen examples,
+only two of which, however, owe their first appearance
+to him—the irregularly formed “<i>feather-cinctured</i>
+chiefs” (“Progress,” 62) and “the <i>dew-bespangled</i>
+wing” (“Vicissitude,” 2). The largest number of
+Gray’s compound epithets belong to Type V, where
+an adjective is used adverbially with a participle:
+“<i>rosy-crowned</i> loves” (“Progress,” 28) and “<i>deep-toned</i>
+shell” (“Music,” 23). One of Gray’s examples
+of this class of compound, evidently formed on a
+model furnished by Thomson, came in for a good deal
+of censure. He speaks of “<i>many-twinkling</i> feet”
+(“Progress,” 35), and the compound, which indeed is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>
+somewhat difficult to defend, aroused disapproval in
+certain quarters. Lyttleton was one of the first to
+object to its use, and he communicated his disapproval
+to Walpole, who, however, at once took sides
+for the defence. “In answer to your objection,” he
+wrote,<a id="FNanchor_176" href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> “I will quote authority to which you will
+yield. As Greek as the expression is, it struck Mrs.
+Garrick; and she says that Mr. Gray is the only poet
+who ever understood dancing.” Later, the objection
+was revived in a general form by Dr. Johnson. “Gray,”
+he says,<a id="FNanchor_177" href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> “is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded.
+‘Many-twinkling’ was formerly censured as not
+analogical: we may say ‘<i>many-spotted</i>’ but scarcely
+‘<i>many</i>-spotting.’” The incident is not without its
+significance; from the strictly grammatical point of
+view the epithet is altogether irregular, unless the first
+element is admitted to be an adverb meaning “very
+much” or “many times.” But Gray’s fastidiousness
+of expression is a commonplace of criticism, and
+we may be sure that even when he uses compounds of
+this kind he has not forgotten his own clearly expressed
+views on the language fit and proper for poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson also objected to another device by which
+Gray had sought to enrich the vocabulary of poetry,
+as reflected in his use of the “participal” epithet in
+-<i>ed</i>.<a id="FNanchor_178" href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> If this device for forming new epithets cannot
+be grammatically justified, the practice of the best
+English poets at least has always been against
+Johnson’s dictum, and, as we have seen, it has been
+a prolific source of original and valuable compound
+epithets. Of this type Gray has some six or seven
+examples, the majority of which, however, had long
+been in the language, though in the new epithet of
+“the <i>ivy-mantled</i> tower” (Elegy IX) we may perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span>
+see an indication of the increasing Romantic sensibility
+towards old ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Though not admitted to the same high rank of
+poets as Collins and Gray, two of their contemporaries,
+the brothers Warton, are at least of as great importance
+in the history of the Romantic revival.<a id="FNanchor_179" href="#Footnote_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> From our
+present point of view it is not too fanciful to see a
+reflection of this fact in the compound epithets freely
+used by both of the Wartons. Thomas Warton is
+especially noteworthy; probably no other eighteenth
+century poet, with the exception of James Thomson,
+has so many instances of new compound formations,
+and these are all the more striking in that few of
+them are of the mechanical type, readily formed by
+means of a commonplace adjective or adverb.
+Instances of compound substantives (Type I) are
+almost entirely lacking, and the same may be said of
+the noun <i>plus</i> adjective epithets (Type II). There
+are, however, a few examples of Type III (noun
+<i>plus</i> present participle), some of which, as “<i>beauty-blooming</i>
+isle” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”), “<i>twilight-loving</i>
+bat” (<i>ibid.</i>), and “the woodbines <i>elm-encircling</i>
+spray” (“On a New Plantation”), no
+doubt owe something to the influence of Thomson.
+Instances of Type IV are plentiful, and here again
+there is a welcome freshness in Warton’s epithets:
+“Fancy’s <i>fairy-circled</i> shrine” (“Monody Written
+near Stratford-on-Avon”), “morning’s <i>twilight-tinctured</i>
+beam” (“The Hamlet”), “<i>daisy-dappled</i> dale”
+(“Sonnet on Bathing”). One instance of this class
+of compound epithet, “the <i>furze-clad</i> dale,” is certainly
+significant as indicative of the changes that were going
+on from the “classical” to the Romantic outlook
+towards natural scenery.<a id="FNanchor_180" href="#Footnote_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span></p>
+
+<p>Of the other class of compound epithets, Warton
+has only a few instances, but his odes gave plenty of
+scope for the use of the “participial epithet” (Type
+VII), and he has formed them freely: “Pale
+Cynthia’s <i>silver-axled</i> car” (“Pleasures of Melancholy”),
+“the <i>coral-cinctured</i> stole” (“Complaint of
+Cherwell”), “Sport, the <i>yellow-tressed</i> boy” (<i>ibid.</i>).
+No doubt many of Thomas Warton’s compound
+formations were the result of a conscious effort to find
+“high-sounding” terms, and they have sometimes
+an air of being merely rhetorical, as in such instances
+as “<i>beauty-blooming</i>,” “<i>gladsome-glistering</i> green,”
+“<i>azure-arched</i>,” “<i>twilight-tinctured</i>,” “<i>coral-cinctured</i>,”
+“<i>cliff-encircled</i>,” “<i>daisy-dappled</i>,” where alliterative
+effects have obviously been sought. Yet he deserves
+great credit for his attempts to find new words at a
+time when the stock epithets and phrases were still
+the common treasury of the majority of his contemporaries.</p>
+
+<p>His brother, Joseph Warton, is less of a pioneer,
+but there is evident in his work also an effort to
+search out new epithets. His compounds include
+(Type II) “<i>marble-mimic</i> gods” (“The Enthusiast”);
+(Type III) “<i>courage-breathing</i> songs” (“Verses,
+1750”), with many instances of Type IV, some
+commonplace, as “<i>merchant-crowded</i> towns” (“Ode
+to Health”), others more original, as “mirth and
+youth nodding <i>lily-crowned</i> heads” (“Ode to Fancy”),
+joy, “the <i>rose-crowned, ever-smiling</i> boy” (“Ode
+Against Despair”), “the <i>beech-embowered</i> cottage”
+(“On The Spring”). Moreover, there are a number in
+“The Enthusiast,” which reflect a genuine love of
+Nature (“<i>thousand-coloured</i> tulips,” “<i>pine-topp’d</i>
+precipice”) and a keen observation of its sights and
+sounds.</p>
+
+<p>It is not forcing the evidence of language too much
+to say that a similar increasing interest in external<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span>
+nature finds expression in some of the compound
+epithets to be found in much of the minor poetry of
+the period. Thus Moses Mendez (<i>d.</i> 1758)<a id="FNanchor_181" href="#Footnote_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> has in
+his poem on the various seasons (1751) such conventional
+epithets as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">On every hill the <i>purple-blushing</i> vine,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">but others testify to first hand observation as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>pool-sprung</i> gnat on sounding wings doth pass.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Richard Jago (1715-1781)<a id="FNanchor_182" href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a>, in his “Edgehill” (1767),
+has such instances as “the <i>woodland-shade</i>,” “the
+<i>wave-worn</i> face,” and “the tillag’d plain <i>wide-waving</i>.”
+The Rev. R. Potter,<a id="FNanchor_183" href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> who imitated Spenser in his
+“Farewell Hymn to the Country” (1749), has happy
+examples like “<i>mavis-haunted</i> grove” and “this
+<i>flowre-perfumed</i> aire.” In William Whitehead’s
+poems<a id="FNanchor_184" href="#Footnote_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> there are numerous formations like “<i>cloud-enveloped</i>
+towers” (“A Hymn”) and “<i>rock-invested</i>
+shades” (“Elegy,” IV). A few new descriptive terms
+appear in the work of John Langhorne (1735-1779),<a id="FNanchor_185" href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a>
+“<i>flower-feeding</i> rills” (“Visions of Fancy,” I), “<i>long-winding</i>
+vales” (“Genius and Valour”), etc. Michael
+Bruce (1746-1767) in his “Lochleven”<a id="FNanchor_186" href="#Footnote_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> has, e.g.,
+“<i>cowslip-covered</i> banks,” and fresh observation of
+bird life is seen in such phrases as “<i>wild-shrieking</i>
+gull” and “<i>slow-wing’d</i> crane.” James Graeme
+(1749-1772)<a id="FNanchor_187" href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> has at least one new and happy compound
+in his line</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The <i>blue-gray</i> mist that hovers o’er the hill.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Elegy written in Spring”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">John Scott (1730-1783)<a id="FNanchor_188" href="#Footnote_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> makes more use of compound
+formations than most of his minor contemporaries.
+He has many instances of Type IV (noun <i>plus</i> participle),
+including “<i>rivulet-water’d</i> glade” (Eclogue I),
+“<i>corn-clad</i> plain,” “<i>elder-shaded</i> cot” (“Amwell”).
+His few instances of Type VI (e.g. “<i>wildly-warbled</i>
+strain,” (“Ode” IV)), and of Type VII (e.g. “<i>trefoil-purpled</i>
+field” (“Elegy,” III)); “<i>may-flower’d</i>
+hedges” (“Elegy,” IV); and “<i>golden-clouded</i> sky,”
+(“Ode,” II), are also worthy of notice.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile another aspect of the rising Romantic
+movement was revealing itself in the work of Chatterton.
+With the “antiquarianism” of the Rowley poems
+we are not here concerned, but the language of both
+the “original” work and of the “discovered” poems
+contains plenty of material relevant to our special
+topic. Chatterton, indeed, seems to have had a
+predilection for compound formations, though he has
+but few instances of compound substantives (e.g.
+“<i>coppice-valley</i>” (“Elegy”), and instances of Type II
+(noun <i>plus</i> adjective) are also rare. The other types
+of epithets are, however, well represented: “<i>echo-giving</i>
+bells” (“To Miss Hoyland”), “<i>rapture-speaking</i>
+lyre” (“Song”), etc. (Type III), though
+it is perhaps in Type IV that Chatterton’s word-forming
+power is best shown: “<i>flower-bespangled</i>
+hills” (“Complaint”), “<i>rose-hedged</i> vale” (“Elegy
+at Stanton-Drew”), etc., where the first compound
+epithet is a new and suggestive descriptive term. His
+examples of Type V are also worth noting: “<i>verdant-vested</i>
+trees” (“Elegy,” V), “<i>red-blushing</i> blossom”
+“Song”), whilst one of the best of them is to be found
+in those lines, amongst the most beautiful written by
+Chatterton, which reflect something of the new charm
+that men were beginning to find in old historic churches
+and buildings:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">To view the cross-aisles and the arches fair</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Through the half-hidden <i>silver-twinkling</i> glare</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of yon bright moon in foggy mantle dress’d.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Parliament of Sprites,” Canto XXI)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The remaining examples of Chatterton’s compound
+formations do not call for much attention, though
+“<i>gently-plaintive</i> rill” (“Elegy on Phillips”) and
+“<i>loudly-dinning</i> stream” (“Ælla,” 84) are new and
+fresh. Chatterton has much of the conventional
+poetical language and devices of his time throughout
+his work, and his compound epithets do not in the mass
+vary much from contemporary usage in this respect.
+But some of them at least are significant of the position
+which he occupies in the history of the Romantic
+revival.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest figure in this revival, as it appears to
+us now, was William Blake, but from our present
+point of view he is almost negligible. It may safely
+be said that few poets of such high rank have made
+less use of compound formations: in his entire
+poetical work scarcely half a dozen instances are to
+be found. Yet the majority of these, such as “<i>angel-guarded
+bed</i>” (“A Dream,” 2), “<i>mind-forg’d</i>
+manacles” (“London,” 8), “Winter’s <i>deep-founded</i>
+habitation” (“Winter,” 3), “<i>softly-breathing</i> song”
+(“Song,” 2: “Poetical Sketches”) are a sufficiently
+striking tribute to his ability to form expressive
+compounds had he felt the need. But in the beautiful
+purity and simplicity of his diction, for which he has
+in our own time at least received adequate praise,
+there was no place for long compound formations,
+which, moreover, are more valuable and more appropriate
+for descriptive poetry, and likely to mar the
+pure singing note of the lyric.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to find a similar paucity of compound
+formations in the poems of George Crabbe, the whole
+number being well represented by such examples as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>
+“<i>dew-press’d</i> vale” (“Epistle to a Friend,” 48),
+“<i>violet-wing’d</i> Zephyrs” (“The Candidate,” 268),
+and “<i>wind-perfuming</i> flowers” (“The Choice”).
+No doubt the narrative character of much of Crabbe’s
+verse is the explanation of this comparative lack of
+compounds, but the descriptions of wild nature that
+form the background for many of “The Tales” might
+have been expected to result in new descriptive terms.</p>
+
+<p>Two lesser poets of the time are more noteworthy
+as regards our especial topic. William Mickle (1735-1788),
+in his “Almada Hill” (1781) and his “May
+Day,” as well as in his shorter poems, has new epithets
+for hills and heights, as in such phrases as “<i>thyme-clad</i>
+mountains” and “<i>fir-crown’d</i> hill” (“Sorcerers,”
+4). His Spenserian imitation “Syr Martyn,” contains
+a few happy epithets:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">How bright emerging o’er yon <i>broom-clad</i> height</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The silver empress of the night appears</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Canto II, 31)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and “<i>daisie-whitened</i> plain,” “<i>crystal-streamed</i> Esk”
+are among his new formations in “Eskdale Braes.”</p>
+
+<p>James Beattie has a large number of compounds
+in his poems, and though many of these are mechanical
+formations, he has a few new “nature” epithets
+which are real additions to the vocabulary of poetical
+description, as “<i>sky-mixed</i> mountain” (“Ode to
+Peace,” 38), the lake “<i>dim-gleaming</i>” (“Minstrel,”
+176), “the <i>wide-weltering</i> waves” (<i>ibid.</i>, 481), the
+wave “<i>loose-glimmering</i>” (“Judgment of Paris,”
+458). He has also a few instances of Type VII
+chiefly utilized, as often with compounds of this type,
+as personifying epithets: “the frolic moments <i>purple</i>-pinioned”
+(“Judgment of Paris,” 465) and “<i>loose-robed</i>
+Quiet” (“Triumph of Melancholy,” 64).</p>
+
+<p>The “Pleasures of Memory” (1792) by Samuel<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>
+Rogers has one or two compound formations: “<i>moonlight-chequered</i>
+shade” (Part II). Hope’s “<i>summer-visions</i>”
+(<i>ibid.</i>) and “the <i>fairy-haunts</i> of long-lost
+hours” (<i>ibid.)</i>, have a trace at least of that suggestive
+power with which Keats and Shelley were soon to
+endow their epithets. Brief reference only need be
+made to the works of Erasmus Darwin, which have
+already been mentioned as the great example of
+eighteenth century stock diction used to the utmost
+possible extent. He has plenty of instances of compound
+epithets of every type, but his favourite formation
+appears to be that of a noun <i>plus</i> part-participle,
+as “<i>sun-illumined</i> fane” (“Botanic Garden,” I, 157),
+“<i>wave-worn</i> channels” (<i>ibid.</i>, I, 362), and as seen in
+such lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her <i>shell-wrack</i> gardens and her <i>sea-fan</i> bowers.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Economy of Vegetation,” VI, 82)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Many of Darwin’s compounds have a certain charm
+of their own; in the mass they contribute towards
+that dazzling splendour with which eighteenth century
+diction here blazed out before it finally disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Cowper, like Blake and Crabbe, is not especially
+distinguished for his compound epithets. Though
+he has a large number of such formations, very few
+of them are either new or striking, a remark which
+applies equally to his original work and his translations.
+Many instances of all the types are to be found in the
+“Homer,” but scarcely one that calls for special
+mention, though here and there we come across good
+epithets well applied: “accents <i>ardour-winged</i>” (IV,
+239) or “<i>silver-eddied</i> Peneus” (II, 294).</p>
+
+<p>Before attempting to sum up the use of compound
+epithets in eighteenth century poetry, brief reference
+may be made to their use in the early work of the two
+poets who announced the definite advent of the new
+age. Wordsworth in his early poems has many<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span>
+instance of compound words, most of which are either
+his own formations, or are rare before his time. The
+original and final drafts both of the “Evening Walk”
+and the “Descriptive Sketches” show some divergence
+in this respect, compounds found in the 1793
+version being omitted later, whilst on the other new
+formations appear in the revised poems. Besides
+imitative instances such as “<i>cloud-piercing</i> pine trees”
+(D.S., 63), there are more original and beautiful
+compounds, such as the “<i>Lip-dewing</i> song and the
+<i>ringlet-tossing</i> dance” (<i>ibid.</i>, 132), which does not
+appear until the final draft.</p>
+
+<p>Examples of Type IV are “<i>holly-sprinkled</i> steeps”
+(E.W., 10), “The sylvan cabin’s <i>lute-enlivened</i> gloom”
+(D.S., 134, final); and of Types V and VI, “<i>green-tinged</i>
+margin” (D.S., 122), “<i>clear-blue</i> sky” (D.S.,
+113), “<i>dim-lit</i> Alps” (D.S., 1793 only, 217), and
+“the <i>low-warbled</i> breath of twilight lute” (D.S., 1793,
+749). Wordsworth’s early poems, it has been noted,
+are almost an epitome of the various eighteenth century
+devices for producing what was thought to be a distinctively
+poetical style,<a id="FNanchor_189" href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> but he soon shakes off this
+bondage, and “Guilt and Sorrow,” perhaps the first
+poem in which his simplicity and directness of expression
+are fully revealed, is practically without instances
+of compound epithets.</p>
+
+<p>The critics, it would appear, had already marked
+down as a fault a “profusion of new coined double
+epithets”<a id="FNanchor_190" href="#Footnote_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> in a “small volume of juvenile poems”
+published by Coleridge in 1794. In replying to, or rather
+commenting on, the charge, Coleridge makes an
+interesting digression on the use of such formations,
+defending them on “the authority of Milton and
+Shakespeare,” and suggesting that compound epithets
+should only be admitted if they are already “denizens”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span>
+of the language, or if the new formation is a genuine
+compound, and not merely two words made one by
+virtue of the hyphen. “A Language,” he adds, “which
+like the English is almost without cases, is indeed in
+its very genius unfitted for compounds. If a writer,
+every time a compounded word suggests itself to him,
+would seek for some other mode of expressing the
+same sense, the chances are always greatly in favour
+of his finding a better word.” Though there is a
+good deal of sound sense in these remarks, we have
+only to recall the wealth of beautiful compound
+epithets with which Keats, to take only one example,
+was soon to enrich the language, to realize that
+English poetry would be very much the poorer if the
+rule Coleridge lays down had been strictly observed.
+It would perhaps be truer to say that the imaginative
+quality of the compound epithets coined by a poet
+is a good test of his advance in power of expression.<a id="FNanchor_191" href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></p>
+
+<p>As regards his own practice, Coleridge goes on to
+say<a id="FNanchor_192" href="#Footnote_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> that he “pruned the double epithets with no
+sparing hand”; but the pruning was not very severe,
+judging from a comparison of the two volumes. Yet
+these early poems are not without examples of good
+compound epithets: “<i>zephyr-haunted</i> brink,” (“Lines
+to a Beautiful Spring”), “<i>distant-tinkling</i> stream”
+(“Song of the Pixies,” 16), “<i>sunny-tinctured</i> hue”
+(<i>ibid.</i>, 43), “<i>passion-warbled</i> strain,” (“To the Rev.
+W. J. H.”), etc.</p>
+
+<p>When we review the use of compound epithets in
+the poetry of the eighteenth century we are bound to
+admit that in this, as in other aspects of the “purely
+poetical,” the eighteenth century stands apart from
+other periods in our literary history. Most readers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span>
+could probably at will call to their mind half a dozen
+compound epithets of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan
+period, of Milton, or of more modern writers, such
+as Keats, that are, as it were, little poems in themselves,
+Shakespeare’s “<i>young-eyed cherubim</i>,” or
+Milton’s “<i>grey-hooded even</i>,” or Keats’s “<i>soft-conched
+shell</i>.” It is safe to say that few eighteenth century
+words or phrases of this nature have captured the
+imagination to a similar degree; Collins’s “<i>dim-discovered
+spires</i>” is perhaps the only instance that
+comes readily to the mind.</p>
+
+<p>There are, of course, as our study has shown, plenty
+of instances of good compound epithets, but in the
+typical eighteenth century poetry these are rarely
+the product of a genuine creative force that endows
+the phrase with imaginative life. Even the great
+forerunners of the Romantic revolt are not especially
+remarkable in this respect; one of the greatest of
+them, William Blake, gave scarcely a single new
+compound epithet to the language, and whilst this
+fact, of course, cannot be brought as a reproach
+against him, yet it is, in some respects at least, significant
+of the poetical atmosphere into which he was
+born. It has often been remarked that when Latin
+influence was in the ascendant the formation of new
+and striking compound epithets has been very rare in
+English poetry, whilst it has been always stimulated,
+as we know from the concrete examples of Chapman
+and Keats, by the influence of a revived
+Hellenism.</p>
+
+<p>Another fact is worthy of attention. Many of the
+most beautiful compound epithets in the English
+language are nature phrases descriptive of outdoor
+sights and sounds. The arrested development, or
+the atrophy of the sense of the beauty of the external
+world, which is a characteristic of the neo-classical
+school, was an unconscious but effective bar to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span>
+formation of new words and phrases descriptive of
+outdoor life. The neo-classical poet, with his eye fixed
+on the town and on life as lived there, felt no necessity
+for adding to the descriptive resources of his vocabulary,
+especially when there was to his hand a whole <i>gradus</i>
+of accepted and consecrated words and phrases. It
+is in the apostles of “the return to Nature” that we
+find, however inadequately, to begin with, a new
+diction that came into being because these poets had
+recovered the use of their eyes and could sense the
+beauty of the world around them.</p>
+
+<p>And this fact leads to a further consideration of
+the use of compound epithets from the formal viewpoint
+of their technical value. It has already been
+suggested that their use may not be unconnected with
+the mechanism of verse, and the æsthetic poverty of
+eighteenth century poetry in this respect may therefore
+be not unjustly regarded as an outcome of the two
+great prevailing vehicles of expression. In the first
+place, there was the heroic couplet as brought to
+perfection by Pope. “The uniformity and maximum
+swiftness that marked his manipulation of the stopped
+couplet was achieved,” says Saintsbury, “not only
+by means of a large proportion of monosyllabic final
+words, but also by an evident avoidance of long and
+heavy vocables in the interior of the lines themselves.”<a id="FNanchor_193" href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a>
+Moreover, perhaps the commonest device to secure
+the uniform smoothness of the line was that use of
+the “<i>gradus</i> epithet” which has earlier been treated;
+these epithets were for the most part stock descriptive
+adjectives—<i>verdant</i>, <i>purling</i>, <i>fleecy</i>, <i>painted</i>, and the
+like—which were generally regarded by the versifiers
+as the only attendant diction of the couplet. If we
+compare a typical Pope verse such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Let <i>vernal</i> airs through trembling osiers play</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">with the line already quoted,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love-whisp’ring woods and lute-resounding waves</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">we may perhaps see that the free use of compound
+epithets was not compatible with the mechanism of
+the couplet as illustrated in the greater part of Pope’s
+practice; they would tend to weaken the balanced
+antithesis, and thus spoil the swing of the line.</p>
+
+<p>The most formidable rival of the heroic couplet
+in the eighteenth century was blank verse, the
+advent of which marked the beginning of the Romantic
+reaction in form. Here Thomson may be regarded
+as the chief representative, and it is significant that
+the large number of compound epithets in his work
+are terms of natural description, which, in addition
+to their being a reflex of the revived attitude to
+natural scenery, were probably more or less consciously
+used to compensate readers for the absence of “the
+rhyme-stroke and flash” they were accustomed to
+look for in the contemporary couplet. “He utilizes
+periodically,” to quote Saintsbury again,<a id="FNanchor_194" href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> “the
+exacter nature-painting, which in general poetic
+history is his glory, by putting the distinctive words
+for colour and shape in notable places of the verse,
+so as to give it character and quality.” These “distinctive
+words for colour and shape” were, with
+Thomson, for the most part, compound epithets;
+almost by the time of “Yardley Oak,” and certainly
+by the time of “Tintern Abbey,” blank verse had
+been fully restored to its kingdom, and no longer
+needed such aid.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br />
+<span class="smaller">PERSONIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>In the Preface of 1798, when Wordsworth formulated
+his theories with regard to poetical language,
+the first “mechanical device of style” against
+which he directed his preliminary attack was the use
+of “personifications of abstract ideas.”<a id="FNanchor_195" href="#Footnote_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> Such personifications,
+he urged, do not make any natural or
+regular part of “the very language of men,” and as
+he wished “to keep the reader in the company of
+flesh and blood,” he had endeavoured “utterly to
+reject them.” He was ready to admit that they were
+occasionally “prompted by passion,” but his predecessors
+had come to regard them as a sort of family
+language, upon which they had every right to draw.
+In short, in Wordsworth’s opinion, abstractions and
+personifications had become a conventional method
+of ornamenting verse, akin to the “vicious diction,”
+from the tyranny of which he wished to emancipate
+poetry. The specific point on which he thus challenged
+the practice of his predecessors could hardly
+be gainsaid, for he had indicted a literary device, or
+artifice, which was not only worked to death by the
+mere poetasters of the period, but which disfigures
+not a little the work of even the great poets of the
+century.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span></p>
+
+<p>The literary use of abstraction and personification
+was not, it is needless to say, the invention of the
+eighteenth century. It is as old as literature itself,
+which has always reflected a tendency to interpret or
+explain natural phenomena or man’s relations with
+the invisible powers that direct or influence human
+conduct, by means of allegory, English poetry in the
+Middle Ages, especially that of Chaucer, Langland, and
+their immediate successors, fitly illustrates the great
+world of abstraction which had slowly come into being,
+a world peopled by personified states or qualities—the
+Seven Deadly Sins, the Virtues, Love, etc.—typifying
+or symbolizing the forces which help man, or
+beset and ensnare him as he makes his pilgrim’s
+progress through this world.</p>
+
+<p>Already the original motive power of allegory was
+considerably diminished, even if it had not altogether
+disappeared, and, by the time of the “Faerie Queene,”
+the literary form which it had moulded for itself had
+become merely imitative and conventional, so that
+even the music and melody of Spenser’s verse could
+not altogether vitalize the shadowy abstractions of his
+didactic allegory. With “Paradise Lost” we come to
+the last great work in which personified abstractions
+reflect to any real extent the original allegorical
+motive in which they had their origin. Milton
+achieves his supreme effects in personification in that
+his figures are merely suggestive, strongly imagined
+impressions rather than clean-cut figures. For nothing
+can be more dangerous, from the poetic point of
+view, than the precise figures which attempt to
+depict every possible point of similarity between
+the abstract notion and the material representation
+imagined.<a id="FNanchor_196" href="#Footnote_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes considered that the mania for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span>
+abstraction was due largely to the influence of the two
+poets who are claimed, or regarded, as the founders or
+leaders of the new classical school—Dryden and Pope.
+As a matter of fact, neither makes any great use of
+personification. Dryden has a few abstractions in
+his original works, such as,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Far from her sight flew Faction, Strife and Pride</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Envy did but look on</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“First Epistle”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">but his examples are mainly to be found in his
+modernizations or translations, where of necessity
+he takes them from his originals.<a id="FNanchor_197" href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p>
+
+<p>Pope makes a greater use of the figure, but even
+here there is no excess. There is not a single personification
+in the four pastorals of “The Seasons,” a
+subject peculiarly adapted to such treatment. In
+“Eloisa to Abelard” there are two instances where
+some attempt at characterization is made.<a id="FNanchor_198" href="#Footnote_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> More
+instances, though none very striking, are to be found
+in “Windsor Forest,” but the poem ends with a massed
+group, forming a veritable catalogue of the personified
+vices which had done so much service in poetry since
+the days of the Seven Deadly Sins.</p>
+
+<p>In other poems Pope uses the device for humorous
+or satiric effect, as in the “Pain,” “Megrim,” and
+“Ill nature like an ancient maid” (l. 24) of “The Rape
+of the Lock;” or the “Science,” “Will,” “Logic,”
+etc., of “The Dunciad,” where all are invested with
+capital letters, but with little attempt to work up a
+definite picture, except, as was perhaps to be expected,
+in the case of “Dullness,” which is provided with a
+bodyguard (Bk. I, 45-52).</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span></p>
+
+<p>Though, as we have already said, there is no great
+use of such figures in the works of Pope, they are
+present in such numbers in his satiric and didactic
+works as to indicate one great reason for their prevalence
+in his contemporaries and successors. After
+the Restoration, when English literature entered on a
+new era, the changed and changing conditions of
+English life and thought soon impressed themselves
+on poetry. The keynote to the understanding of
+much that is characteristic of this new “classical”
+literature has been well summed up in the formula
+that “the saving process of human thought was
+forced for generations to beggar the sense of beauty.”<a id="FNanchor_199" href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a>
+The result was an invasion of poetry by ideas, arguments,
+and abstractions which were regarded both as
+expressing admirably the new spirit of rationalism, as
+well as constituting in themselves dignified subjects
+and ornaments of poetry.</p>
+
+<p>This is well illustrated in the case of several of
+Pope’s contemporaries. In the works of Thomas
+Parnell (1679-1718) abstractions of the conventional
+type are plentiful, usually accompanied by a qualifying
+epithet: “Fortune fair-array’d” (“An Imitation”),
+“Impetuous Discord,” “Blind Mischief,” (“On Queen
+Anne’s Peace”), “the soft Pathetic” (“On the
+Different Styles of Poetry”). These are only a few
+of the examples of the types favoured by Parnell,
+where only here and there are human traits added by
+means of qualifying epithets or phrases. In one or
+two instances, however, there are more detailed
+personifications. Thus, in the “Epistle to Dr. Swift,”
+which abounds in shadowy abstractions, Eloquence is
+fully described for us:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Upon her cheek sits Beauty ever young</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The soul of music warbles on her tongue.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span></p>
+
+<p>Moreover, already in Parnell it is evident that
+the influence of Milton is responsible for some of
+his personifications. In the same poem we get the
+invocation:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come! country Goddess come, nor thou suffice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But bring thy mountain-sister Exercise,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">figures which derive obviously from “L’Allegro.”</p>
+
+<p>In the case of Richard Savage (1696-1743) there is
+still greater freedom in the use of personified abstractions,
+which, as here the creative instinct is everywhere
+subjected to the didactic purpose, become very
+wearisome. The “Wanderer” contains long catalogues
+of them, in some instances pursued for over
+fifty lines.<a id="FNanchor_200" href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p>
+
+<p>The device continued to be very popular throughout
+the eighteenth century, especially by those who
+continue or represent the “Ethical” school of Pope.
+First amongst these may be mentioned Edward Young
+(1681-1765), whose “Night Thoughts” was first
+published between 1742-1744. Young, like his contemporaries,
+has recourse to personifications, both for
+didactic purposes and apparently to add dignity to
+his style. It is probable, too, that in this respect he
+owes something to “Paradise Lost”; from Milton no
+doubt he borrowed his figure of Death, which, though
+poetically not very impressive, seems to have captured
+the imagination of Blake and other artists who
+have tried to depict it. The figure is at first only
+casually referred to in the Fourth Book (l. 96), where
+there is a brief and commonplace reference to “Death,
+that mighty hunter”; but it is not until the fifth book
+that the figure is developed. Yet, though the characterization
+is carried to great length, there is no very
+striking personification: we are given, instead, a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span>
+long-drawn-out series of abstractions, with an attempt
+now and then to portray a definite human figure.
+Thus</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Like princes unconfessed in foreign courts</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who travel under cover, Death assumes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The name and look of life, and dwells among us.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">And then the poet describes Death as being present
+always and everywhere, and especially</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Gaily carousing, to his gay compeers</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Inly he laughs to see them laugh at him</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As absent far.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But Young has not, like Milton, been able to conjure
+up a definite and convincing vision, and thus he never
+achieves anything approaching the overwhelming
+effect produced by the phantom of Death in “Paradise
+Lost,” called before us in a single verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">So spake the grisly Terror.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(P.L., II. 704)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>For the rest, Young’s personifications, considering
+the nature of his subject, are fewer than might be
+expected. Where they occur they often seem to owe
+their presence to a desire to vary the monotony of his
+moral reflections; as a result we get a number of
+abstractions, which may be called personifications
+only because they are sometimes accompanied by
+human attributes.</p>
+
+<p>Young has also certain other evocations which can
+scarcely be called abstractions, but which are really
+indistinct, shadowy beings, like the figures of a dream,
+as when he describes the phantom of the past:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The spirit walks of every day deceased</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(ll. 180-181)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the grief of the poet as he ever meets the shades of
+joys gone for ever:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent18">The ghosts</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of my departed joys: a numerous train.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Here the poet has come near to achieving that effect
+which in the hands of the greatest poets justifies the
+use of personification as a poetic figure. The more
+delicate process just illustrated is distinct both from
+the lifeless abstraction and the detailed personification,
+for in these cases there is a tinge of personal emotion
+which invests these shadowy figures with something
+of a true lyrical effect.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency, illustrated in the “Night Thoughts,”
+to make a purely didactic use of personification and
+abstraction is found to a much greater extent in
+Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination,” first
+published in 1744, to be considerably enlarged in 1767.
+The nature of Akenside’s subject freely admitted of
+the use of these devices, and he has not been slow to
+avail himself of them.</p>
+
+<p>Large portions of the “Pleasures of the Imagination”
+resolve themselves into one long procession of abstract
+figures. Very often Akenside contents himself with
+the usual type of abstraction, accompanied by a conventional
+epithet: “Wisdom’s form celestial” (I, 69),
+“sullen Pomp” (III, 216), etc., though sometimes by
+means of human attributes or characteristics we are
+given partial personifications such as:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Power’s purple robes nor Pleasure’s flowery lap.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(l. 216)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">And occasionally there are traces of a little more
+imagination:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">thy lonely whispering voice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O faithful Nature!<a id="FNanchor_201" href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span></p>
+
+<p>But on the whole it is clear that with Akenside
+abstraction and personification are used simply and
+solely for moral and didactic purposes, and not because
+of any perception of their potential artistic value.
+Incidentally, an interesting side-light on this point is
+revealed by one of the changes introduced by the poet
+into his revision of his chief work. In the original
+edition of 1740 there is an invocation to Harmony
+(Bk. I, ll. 20 foll.), with her companion,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her sister Liberty will not be far.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Before the publication of the revised edition, Akenside,
+who at one time had espoused the cause of liberty with
+such ardour as to lead to his being suspected of republicanism,
+received a Court appointment. In the
+revised edition the concluding lines of the invocation
+became</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent16">for with thee comes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The guide, the guardian of their majestic rites</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Wise Order and where Order deigns to come</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her sister Liberty will not be far.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(138 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The same lavish use of abstractions is seen, not
+only in the philosophic poetry proper, but also in
+other works, which might perhaps have been expected
+to escape the contagion. Charles Churchill (1731-1764),
+if we set aside Johnson and Canning, may be
+regarded as representing eighteenth century satire in
+its decline, after the great figures of Pope and Swift
+have disappeared from the scene, and among the
+causes which prevent his verse from having but little
+of the fiery force and sting of the great masters of
+satire is that, instead of the strongly depicted, individual
+types of Pope, for example, we are given a heterogeneous
+collection of human virtues, vices, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span>
+characteristics, most often in the form of mere abstractions,
+sometimes personified into stiff, mechanical
+figures.<a id="FNanchor_202" href="#Footnote_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> Only once has Churchill attempted anything
+novel in the way of personification, and this in
+humorous vein, when he describes the social virtues:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">With belly round and full fat face,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Which on the house reflected grace,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Full of good fare and honest glee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The steward Hospitality.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Churchill had no doubt a genuine passion for poetry
+and independence, but the <i>saeva indignatio</i> of the
+professed censor of public morals and manners cannot
+be conveyed to the reader through the medium of
+mechanical abstractions which, compared with the
+flesh-and-blood creations of Dryden and Pope, show
+clearly that for the time being the great line of English
+satire has all but come to an end.</p>
+
+<p>Eighteenth century ethical poetry was represented
+at this stage by Johnson and Goldsmith, at whose
+work it will now be convenient to glance. The
+universal truths which Johnson as a stern, unbending
+moralist wished to illustrate in “London” (1738)
+and “The Vanity of Human Wishes” (1749), might
+easily have resulted in a swarm of the abstractions
+and personifications fashionable at the time.<a id="FNanchor_203" href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> From
+this danger Johnson was saved by the depth of feeling
+with which he unfolds the individual examples chosen
+to enforce his moral lessons. Not that he escapes
+entirely; “London” has a few faint abstractions
+(“Malice,” “Rapine,” “Oppression”); but though<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span>
+occasionally they are accompanied by epithets suggesting
+human attributes (“surly Virtue,” “persecuting
+Fate,” etc.), as a rule there is no attempt at definite
+personification, a remark which also applies to the
+“Vanity of Human Wishes.” In his odes to the
+different seasons he has not given, however, any
+elaborate personifications, but has contented himself
+with slight human touches, such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Now Autumn bends a cloudy brow.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of Johnson’s poetical style, regarded from our
+present point of view, it may be said to be well
+represented in the famous line from “London”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Slow rises Worth by Poverty depressed,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where there is probably no intention or desire to
+personify at all, but which is a result of that tendency
+towards Latin condensation which the great Doctor
+and his contemporaries had introduced into English
+prose.</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith’s poetry has much in common with that
+of Johnson, in that both deal to some extent with
+what would now be called social problems. But
+it is significant of Goldsmith’s historical position
+in eighteenth century poetry as representing a sort
+of “half-way attitude,” in the matter of poetical
+style, between the classical conventional language and
+the free and unfettered diction advocated by Wordsworth,
+that there are few examples of personified
+abstractions in his works, and these confined mainly
+to one passage in “The Traveller”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hence Ostentation here with tawdry Art</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart, etc.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span></p>
+
+<p>At this point it is necessary to hark back for the
+purpose of considering other works which had been
+appearing alongside of the works just discussed. It
+has already been remarked that in this matter of the
+use of abstraction and personification the influence
+of Milton early asserted itself, and there can be no
+doubt that a good deal of it may be traced to the
+influence more especially of the early poems. Indeed,
+the blank verse poems, which attempted to imitate or
+parody the “grand style” of the great epics, furnish
+few examples of the personified abstraction. The
+first of these, the “Splendid Shilling” and “Cyder”
+of John Philips (1705-1706) contains but few instances.
+In Somerville’s “Chase” there is occasionally a
+commonplace example, such as “brazen-fisted Time,”
+though in his ode “To Marlborough” he falls into
+the conventional style quickly enough. In the
+rest of the blank verse poems Mallet’s “Excursion”
+(1738), and his “Amyntor and Theodora” (1744),
+comparatively little use is made of the device,
+a remark also applicable to Dyer’s “Ruins of
+Rome” (1740), and to Grainger’s “Sugar Cane”
+(1764).</p>
+
+<p>The fashion for all these blank verse poems had
+been started largely by the success of “The Seasons,”
+which appeared in its original form from 1726 to 1730,
+to undergo more than one revision and augmentation
+until the final edition of 1744. Though Thomson’s
+work shows very many traces of the influence of
+Milton, there is no direct external evidence that his
+adoption of blank verse was a result of that influence.
+Perhaps, as has been suggested,<a id="FNanchor_204" href="#Footnote_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> he was weary of
+the monotony of the couplet, or at least considered its
+correct and polished form incapable of any further
+development. At the same time it is clear that having
+adopted “rhyme-unfettered verse,” he chose to regard<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span>
+Milton as a model of diction and style, though he was
+by no means a slavish imitator.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the special problems with which we
+are here concerned, it must be noted that when
+Thomson was first writing “The Seasons,” the device
+of personified abstraction had not become quite so
+conventional and forced in its use as at a later date.
+Nevertheless examples of the typical abstraction are
+not infrequent; thus, in an enumeration of the
+passions which, since the end of the “first fresh dawn,”
+have invaded the hearts and minds of men, we are
+given “Base Envy,” withering at another’s joy;
+“Convulsive Anger,” storming at large; and “Desponding
+Fear,” full of feeble fancies, etc. (“Spring,”
+280-306). Other examples are somewhat redeemed
+by the use of a felicitous compound epithet, “Art
+imagination-flushed” (“Autumn,” 140), “the lonesome
+Muse, low-whispering” (<i>ibid.</i>, 955), etc. In
+“Summer” (ll. 1605 foll.) the poet presents one of the
+usual lists of abstract qualities (“White Peace,
+Social Love,” etc.), but there are imaginative touches
+present that help to vitalize some at least of the
+company into living beings:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The tender-looking Charity intent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and the passage is thus a curious mixture of mechanical
+abstractions with more vivid and inspired conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally Thomson employs the figure with
+ironical or humorous intention, and sometimes not
+ineffectively, as in the couplet,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Produce the mighty bowl.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Autumn,” 512)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">He is also fond of the apostrophic personification,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span>
+often feebly, as when, acting upon a suggestion from
+Mallet,<a id="FNanchor_205" href="#Footnote_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> he writes:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Comes, Inspiration, from thy hermit seat,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By mortal seldom found, etc.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” l. 15)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As for the seasons themselves, we do not find any
+very successful attempts at personification. Thomson
+gives descriptive impressions rather than abstractions:
+“gentle Spring, ethereal mildness” (“Spring,” 1),
+“various-blossomed Spring” (“Autumn,” 5); or
+borrowing, as often, an epithet from Milton, “refulgent
+Summer” (“Summer,” 2); or “surly Winter”
+(“Spring,” 11).</p>
+
+<p>But in these, and similar passages, the seasons can
+hardly be said to be distinctly pictured or personified.
+In “Winter,” however, there is perhaps a more
+successful attempt at vague but suggestive personification:<a id="FNanchor_206" href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">See Winter comes, to rule the varied year,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sullen and sad, with all his rising train</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Vapours, and clouds and storms.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But on the whole Thomson’s personifications of the
+seasons are not, poetically, very impressive. There
+is little or no approach to the triumphant evocation
+with which Keats conjures up Autumn for us, with all
+its varied sights and sounds, and its human activities
+vividly personified in the gleaner and the winnower</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">sitting careless on a granary floor</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the couplet in which Coleridge brings before us a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>
+subtle suggestion of the spring beauty, to which the
+storms and snows are but a prelude:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And winter, slumbering in the open air</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Work without Hope”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Yet Thomson, as might be expected in a forerunner of
+the Romantic school, is not altogether without a gift
+for these embryonic personifications, as they have
+been called, when by means of a felicitous term or
+epithet the whole conception which the poet has in
+mind is suddenly galvanized into life and endowed
+with human feelings and emotions. Such evocations
+are of the very stuff of which poetry is made, and at
+their highest they possess the supreme power of
+stirring or awakening in the mind of the reader other
+pictures or visions than those suggested by the mere
+personification.<a id="FNanchor_207" href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p>
+
+<p>Though some of Thomson’s instances are conventional
+or commonplace, as in the description of</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent12">the grey grown oaks</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That the calm village in their verdant arms</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sheltering, embrace,</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 225-227)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and others merely imitative, as,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">the rosy-footed May</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Steals blushing on,</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Spring,” 489-490)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">yet there are many which call up by a single word a
+vivid and picturesque expression, such as the “hollow-whispering
+breeze” (“Summer,” 919) or the poet’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>
+description of the dismal solitude of a winter landscape</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent14">It freezes on</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Till Morn, late rising o’er the drooping world</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Lifts her pale eyes unjoyous</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Winter,” 744)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the beautiful description of a spring dawn:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Summer,” 48-49)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Adverting to the question of Milton’s influence
+on the prevalent mania for personification, it is undoubted
+that the early poems may be held largely
+responsible. Their influence first began noticeably
+to make itself felt in the fifth decade of the century,
+when their inspiration is to be traced in a great
+deal of the poetic output of the period, including
+that of Joseph and Thomas Warton, as well as
+of Collins and Gray. Neglecting for the moment
+the greater poets who drew inspiration from this
+source, it will be as well briefly to consider first
+the influence of Milton’s minor poems on the obscure
+versifiers, for it is very often the case that the minor
+poetry of an age reflects most distinctly the peculiarities
+of a passing literary fashion. As early as 1739
+William Hamilton of Bangour<a id="FNanchor_208" href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> imitated Milton in his
+octosyllabic poem “Contemplation,” and by his
+predilection for abstraction foreshadowed one of the
+main characteristics of the Miltonic revival among
+the lesser lights. A single passage shows this clearly
+enough:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Anger with wild disordered pace</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And malice pale of famish’d face:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Loud-tongued Clamour get thee far</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hence, to wrangle at the bar:</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and so on.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span></p>
+
+<p>Five or six years later Mason’s Miltonic imitations
+appeared—“Il Bellicoso” and “Il Pacifico”—which
+follow even more slavishly the style of “L’Allegro”
+and “Il Penseroso,” so that there is no need for
+Mason’s footnote to “Il Bellicoso” describing the
+poem with its companion piece as this “very, very
+juvenile imitation.”<a id="FNanchor_209" href="#Footnote_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> “Il Bellicoso” begins with the
+usual dismissal:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hence, dull lethargic Peace</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Born in some hoary beadsman’s cell obscure,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and subsequently we are introduced to Pleasure,
+Courage, Victory, Fancy, etc. There is a similar
+exorcism in “Il Pacifico,” followed by a faint personification
+of the subject of the ode, attended by a
+“social smiling train” of lifeless abstractions.</p>
+
+<p>The pages of Dodsley<a id="FNanchor_210" href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> furnish abundant testimony
+to the prevalence of this kind of thing. Thus “Penshurst”<a id="FNanchor_211" href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a>
+by F. Coventry is another close imitation of
+Milton’s companion poems, with the usual crowd of
+abstractions. The same thing is met with in the
+anonymous “Vacation,”<a id="FNanchor_212" href="#Footnote_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> and in the “Valetudinarian,”
+said to be written by Dr. Marriott.<a id="FNanchor_213" href="#Footnote_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to illustrate further the Milton
+vogue, which thus produced so large a crop of imitations,<a id="FNanchor_214" href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a>
+except to say that there is significant testimony
+to the widespread prevalence of the fashion in the fact
+that a parody written “in the Allegoric, Descriptive,
+Alliterative, Epithetical, Fantastic, Hyperbolical, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span>
+Diabolical Style of our modern Ode writers and
+monody-mongers”<a id="FNanchor_215" href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> soon appeared. This was the
+anonymous “Ode to Horror,” a humorous burlesque,
+especially of the “Pleasures of Melancholy.” The
+Wartons stand high above the versifiers at whose
+productions we have just looked, but nevertheless
+there was some justification for the good-humoured
+parody called forth by their works.</p>
+
+<p>In 1746 there appeared a small volume entitled
+“Odes on Various Subjects,” a collection of fourteen
+odes by Joseph Warton.<a id="FNanchor_216" href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> The influence of Milton is
+especially seen in the odes “To Fancy,” “To Health,”
+and to “The Nightingale,” but all betray definitely
+the source of their inspiration. Thus in the first
+named:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Me, Goddess, by the right hand lead</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes thro’ the yellow mead</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where Joy and White-robed Peace resort</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Venus keeps her festive court.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">All the odes of Warton betray an abundant use of
+abstractions, in the midst of which he rarely displays
+anything suggestive of spontaneous inspiration. His
+few personifications of natural powers are clearly
+imitative. “Evening” is “the meek-eyed Maiden
+clad in sober gray” and Spring comes</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">array’d in primrose colour’d robe.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">We feel all the time that the poet drags in his stock<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>
+of personified abstractions only because he is writing
+odes, and considers that such devices add dignity to
+his subject.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time it is worth noting that almost
+the same lavish use of these lay figures occurs in his
+blank verse poem, “The Enthusiast,” or “The Lover
+of Nature” (1740), likewise written in imitation of
+Milton, and yet in its prophetic insight so important
+a poem in the history of the Romantic revival.<a id="FNanchor_217" href="#Footnote_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a>
+Lines such as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Famine, Want and Pain</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sunk to their graves their fainting limbs</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">are frequent, while there is a regular procession of
+qualities, more or less sharply defined, but not
+poetically suggestive enough to be effective.</p>
+
+<p>The younger of the two brothers, Thomas Warton,
+who by his critical appreciation of Spenser did much
+in that manner to help forward the Romantic movement,
+was perhaps still more influenced by Milton.
+His ode on “The Approach of Summer” shows to
+what extent he had taken possession of the verse,
+language, and imagery of Milton:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Haste thee, nymph, and hand in hand</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With thee lead a buxom band</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bring fantastic-footed Joy</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With Sport, that yellow-tressed boy;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Leisure, that through the balmy sky,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Chases a crimson butterfly.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But nearly all his poems provide numerous instances
+of personified abstraction, especially the lines “Written
+at Vale Abbey,” which seems to exhaust, and present
+as thin abstractions, the whole gamut of human
+virtues and vices, emotions and desires.<a id="FNanchor_218" href="#Footnote_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span></p>
+
+<p>There is a certain irony in the fact that the two men
+who, crudely, perhaps, but nevertheless unmistakably,
+adumbrated the Romantic doctrine, should have been
+among the foremost to indulge in an excess against
+which later the avowed champion of Romanticism
+was to inveigh with all his power. This defect was
+perhaps the inevitable result of the fact that the
+Wartons had apparently been content in this respect
+to follow a contemporary fashion as revealed in
+the swarm of merely mechanical imitations of
+Milton’s early poems. But their subjects were on
+the whole distinctly romantic, and this fact, added
+to their critical utterances, gives them real historical
+importance. Above all, it is to be remembered that
+they have for contemporaries the two great poets
+in whom the Romantic movement was for the first
+time adequately exemplified—William Collins and
+Thomas Gray.</p>
+
+<p>The first published collection of Collins’s work,
+“Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects”
+(1746), was, as we have seen, if not neglected or
+ignored by the public, at least received with marked
+indifference, owing largely no doubt to the abstract
+nature of his subjects, and the chiselled severity of his
+treatment.<a id="FNanchor_219" href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> In other words, Collins was pure classical
+and not neo-classical; he had gone direct back to the
+“gods of Hellas” for his inspiration, and his verse
+had a Hellenic austerity and beauty which could make
+little or no appeal to his own age. At the same time
+it was permeated through and through with new and
+striking qualities of feeling and emotion that at once
+aroused the suspicions of the neo-classicists, with
+Johnson as their mentor and spokesman. The “Odes”
+were then, we may say, classical in form and romantic
+in essence, and it is scarcely a matter for surprise<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span>
+that a lukewarm reception should have been their
+lot.<a id="FNanchor_220" href="#Footnote_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a></p>
+
+<p>Collins has received merited praise for the charm
+and precision of his diction generally, and the fondness
+for inverting the common order of his words—Johnson’s
+chief criticism of his poetical style<a id="FNanchor_221" href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a>—is to the modern
+mind a venial offence compared with his use of personified
+abstractions. On this point Johnson has
+nothing to say, an omission which may be regarded
+as significant of the extent to which personification
+had invaded poetry, for the critic, if we may
+judge from his silence, seems to have considered
+it natural and legitimate for Collins also to have
+made abundant use of this stock and conventional
+device.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable, however, that the extensive use
+which Collins makes of the figure is the result in a
+large measure of his predilection for the ode—a form
+of verse very fashionable towards the middle of the
+century. As has already been noted, odes were being
+turned out in large numbers by the poetasters of the
+time, in which virtues and vices, emotions and passions
+were invoked, apostrophized, and dismissed with
+appropriate gestures, and it is probable that the
+majority of these turgid and ineffective compositions
+owed their appearance to the prevalent mania for
+personification. Young remarked with truth<a id="FNanchor_222" href="#Footnote_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> that
+an ode is, or ought to be, “more spontaneous and more
+remote from prose” than any other kind of poetry;
+and doubtless it was some vague recognition of this
+fact, and in the hope of “elevating” their style, that
+led the mere versifiers to adopt the trick. But as they
+worked the mechanical personification to death, they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span>
+quickly robbed it of any impressiveness it may ever
+have had.</p>
+
+<p>This might quite fairly be described as the state of
+affairs with regard to the use of personified abstraction
+when Collins was writing his “odes,” but while it is
+true that he indulges freely in personification, it is
+scarcely necessary to add that he does so with a
+difference; his Hellenic training and temperament
+naturally saved him from the inanities and otiosities
+of so much contemporary verse. To begin with,
+there are but few examples of the lifeless abstraction,
+and even in such cases there is usually present a happy
+epithet, or brief description that sets them on a higher
+level than those that swarm even in the odes of the
+Wartons. Thus in the “Ode on the Poetical
+Character,” “the shadowy tribes of mind,” which
+had been sadly overworked by Collins’s predecessors
+and contemporaries, are brought before us with a new
+and fresh beauty that wins instant acceptance for
+them:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But near it sat ecstatic Wonder</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Listening the deep applauding thunder</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And truth in sunny vest arrayed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By whom the tassel’s eyes were made</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">All the shadowy tribes of mind</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In braided dance their murmurs joined.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Instances of the mechanical type so much in favour
+are, however, not lacking, as in this stanza from the
+“Verses” written about bride-cake:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ambiguous looks that scorn and yet relent,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Denial mild and firm unaltered truth,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Reluctant pride and amorous faint consent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And melting ardours and exulting youth.<a id="FNanchor_223" href="#Footnote_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The majority of Collins’s personified abstractions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>
+are, however, vague in outline, that is to say, they
+suggest, but do not define, and are therefore the more
+effective in that the resulting images are almost
+evanescent in their delicacy. Thus in the “Ode to
+Pity” the subject is presented to us in magic words:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Long pity, let the nations view</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy sky-worn robes of tender blue</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And eyes of dewy light,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst still another imaginative conception is that of
+“Mercy”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">who sitt’st a smiling bride</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By Valour’s armed and awful side</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Gentlest of sky-born forms and best adorned.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The “Ode to the Passions” is in itself almost an
+epitome of the various ways in which Collins makes
+use of personification. It is first to be noted that he
+rarely attempts to clothe his personifications in long
+and elaborate descriptions; most often they are given
+life and reality by being depicted, so to speak, moving
+and acting:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Revenge impatient rose,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And with a withering look</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The war-denouncing trumpet took;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Whilst his strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Even the figures, seen as it were but for a moment,
+are flashed before us in this manner:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">With woful measures wan Despair</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Dejected Pity at his side</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her soul-subduing voice applied</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">and the vision of hope with “eyes so fair” who</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">smiled and waved her golden hair.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In this ode Collins gives us also imaginative cameos,
+we might call them, vividly delineated and presented
+like the figures on the Grecian urn that inspired
+Keats. Thus:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">While as his flying fingers kissed the strings,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love framed with mirth a gay fantastic round.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and, with its tinge of probably unconscious humour—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Brown exercise rejoiced to hear,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Sport leapt up and seized his beechen spear.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>From these and similar instances, we receive a
+definite impression of that motion, which is at the
+same time repose, so characteristic of classical
+sculptuary.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the odes considered above are addressed to
+abstractions. In the few instances where Collins
+invokes the orders or powers of nature even greater
+felicity is shown in the art with which he calls up and
+clothes in perfect expression his abstract images. The
+first of the seasons is vaguely but subtly suggested to
+us in the beautiful ode beginning “How sleep the
+brave”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">When Spring with dewy fingers cold</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Returns to deck their hallowed mould,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">She there shall dress a sweeter sod</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Than fancy’s feet have ever trod.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">This is rather a simile than a personification, but yet
+there is conveyed to us a definite impression of a
+shadowy figure that comes to deck the earth with
+beauty, like a young girl scattering flowers as she walks
+along.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span></p>
+
+<p>But the workmanship of Collins in this respect is
+seen in its perfection in the “Ode to Evening.” There
+is no attempt to draw a portrait or chisel a statue; the
+calm, restful influence of evening, its sights and sounds
+that radiate peace and contentment, even the very
+soul of the landscape as the shades of night gather
+around, are suggested by master touches, whilst the
+slow infiltration of the twilight is beautifully suggested:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy dewy fingers draw</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The gradual dusky veil.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The central figure is still the same evanescent being,
+the vision of a maiden, endowed with all the grace of
+beauty and dignity, into whose lap “sallow Autumn”
+is pouring his falling leaves, or who now goes her way
+slowly through the tempest, while</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Winter, yelling through the troublous air</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Affrights thy shrinking train,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And rudely rends thy robe.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>If we had no other evidence before us, Collins’s use
+of personified abstraction would be sufficient in itself
+to announce that the new poetry had begun. He
+makes use of the device as freely, and even now and
+then as mechanically, as the inferior versifiers of his
+period, but instead of the bloodless abstractions,
+his genius enabled him to present human qualities
+and states in almost ethereal form. Into them he has
+breathed such poetic life and inspiration that in their
+suggestive beauty and felicity of expression they stand
+as supreme examples of personification used as a
+legitimate poetical device, as distinct from a mere
+rhetorical figure or embellishment.</p>
+
+<p>This cannot be said of Gray, in whose verse mechanical
+personifications crowd so thickly that, as Coleridge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span>
+observed in his remarks on the lines from “The
+Bard,”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">it depends “wholly on the compositors putting or not
+putting a small Capital, both in this and in many
+other passages of the same poet, whether the words
+should be personifications or mere abstractions.”<a id="FNanchor_224" href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to account for this devotion of Gray to
+the “new Olympus,” thickly crowded with “moral
+deities” that his age had brought into being, except
+on the assumption that contemporary usage in this
+respect was too strong for him to resist. For it cannot
+be denied that very many of the beings that swarm in
+his odes do not differ in their essential character from
+the mechanical figures worked to death by the ode-makers
+of his days; even his genius was not able to
+clothe them all in flesh and blood. In the “Eton
+College” ode there is a whole stanza given over to a
+conventional catalogue of the “fury passions,” the
+“vultures of the mind”; and similar thin abstractions
+people all the other odes. Nothing is visualized: we
+see no real image before us.<a id="FNanchor_225" href="#Footnote_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> Even the famous
+“Elegy” is not without its examples of stiff personification,
+though they are not present in anything
+like the excess found elsewhere. The best that can
+be said for abstractions of this kind is that in their
+condensation they represent an economy of expression<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>
+that is not without dignity and effectiveness, and
+they thus sometimes give an added emphasis to the
+sentiment, as in the oft-quoted</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their homely joys and destiny secure,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The short and simple annals of the poor.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Gray rarely attempts to characterize his figures
+other than by the occasional use of a conventional
+epithet, and only here and there has the personification
+been to any extent filled in so as to form at least
+an outline picture. In the “Hymn to Adversity,”
+Wisdom is depicted</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">in sable garb arrayed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Immersed in rapturous thought profound,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst other slight human touches are to be found here
+and there: as in “Moody Madness, laughing wild”
+(“Ode on a Distant Prospect”). His personifications,
+however, have seldom the clear-cut outlines we find
+in Collins, nor do they possess more than a tinge of the
+vividness and vitality the latter could breathe into
+his abstractions. Yet now and then we come across
+instances of the friezes in which Collins excels, moving
+figures depicted as in Greek plastic art</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">Antic sports and blue-eyed Pleasures,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Frisking light in frolic measures</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Progress of Poesy”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the beautiful vision in the “Bard,”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Bright Rapture calls and soaring as she sings,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Waves in the eyes of heaven her many-coloured wings.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">And in the “Ode on Vicissitude” Gray has one
+supreme example of the embryonic personification,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span>
+when the powers or orders of nature are invested with
+human attributes, and thus brought before us as living
+beings, in the form of vague but suggestive impressions
+that leave to the imagination the task of filling in the
+details:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Now the golden Morn aloft</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Waves her dew-bespangled wing</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With vernal cheek and whisper soft</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">She woos the tardy spring.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But in the main, and much more than the poet
+with whom his name is generally coupled, it is perhaps
+not too much to say that Gray was content to handle
+the device in the same manner as the uninspired
+imitators of the “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.”
+Not that he was unaware of the danger of such a tendency
+in himself and others. “I had rather,” he
+wrote to Mason<a id="FNanchor_226" href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> when criticizing the latter’s “Caractacus,”
+“some of the personages—‘Resignation,’
+‘Peace,’ ‘Revenge,’ ‘Slaughter,’ ‘Ambition’—were
+stripped of their allegorical garb. A little simplicity
+here and there in the expression would better
+prepare the high and fantastic harpings that follow.”
+In the light of this most salutary remark, Gray’s own
+procedure is only the more astonishing. His innumerable
+personifications may not have been regarded by
+Johnson as contributory to “the kind of cumbrous
+splendour” he wished away from the odes, but the
+fact that they are scarce in the “Elegy” is not without
+significance. The romantic feeling which asserts
+itself clearly in the odes, the new imaginative conceptions
+which these stock figures were called upon to
+convey, the perfection of the workmanship—these
+qualities were more than sufficient to counterweigh
+Gray’s licence of indulgence in a mere rhetorical
+device. Yet Coleridge was right in calling attention<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span>
+to this defect of Gray’s style, especially as his censure
+is no mere diatribe against the use of personified
+abstraction: it is firmly and justly based on the
+undeniable fact that Gray’s personifications are for
+the most part cold and lifeless, that they are mere
+verbal abstractions, utterly devoid of the redeeming
+vitality, which Collins gives to his figures.<a id="FNanchor_227" href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> It is for
+this reason perhaps that his poetry in the mass has
+never been really popular, and that the average
+reader, with his impatience of abstractions, has
+been content, with Dr. Johnson, to pronounce boldly
+for “The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”</p>
+
+<p>Before proceeding to examine the works of the
+other great poets who announce or exemplify the
+Romantic revival, it will be convenient at this point
+to look at some of the Spenserian imitations, which
+helped to inspire and vitalize the revival.</p>
+
+<p>Spenser was the poet of mediaeval allegory. In
+the “Faerie Queene,” for the first time a real poet,
+endowed with the highest powers of imagination and
+expression, was able to present the old traditional
+abstractions wonderfully decked up in a new and
+captivating guise. The personages that move like
+dream figures through the cantos of the poem are
+thus no mere personified abstractions: they are
+rather pictorial emblems, many of which are limned
+for us with such grandeur of conception and beauty
+of execution as to secure for the allegorical picture a
+“willing suspension of disbelief,” whilst the essentially
+romantic atmosphere more than atones for the
+cumbrous and obsolete machinery adopted by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>
+Spenser to inculcate the lessons of “virtuous and
+gentle discipline.”</p>
+
+<p>Though the eighteenth century Spenserians make a
+plentiful use of personified abstraction, on the whole
+their employment of this device differs widely from its
+mechanical use by most of their contemporaries: in
+the best of the imitations there are few examples of
+the lifeless abstraction. Faint traces at least of the
+music and melody of the “Faerie Queene” have been
+caught and utilized to give a poetic charm even to
+the personified virtues and vices that naturally appear
+in the work of Spenser’s imitators. Thus in William
+Thompson’s “Epithalamium” (1736), while many
+of the old figures appear before us, they have something
+of the new charm with which Collins was soon to
+invest them. Thus,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Liberty, the fairest nymph on ground</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">The flowing plenty of her growing hair</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Diffusing lavishly ambrosia round</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Earth smil’d, and Gladness danc’d along the sky.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The epithets which accompany the abstractions are
+no longer conventional (“Chastity meek-ey’d,”
+“Modesty sweet-blushing”) and help to give touches
+of animation to otherwise inanimate figures. In the
+“Nativity” (1757) there is a freer use of the mere
+abstraction that calls up no distinct picture, but even
+here there are happy touches that give relief:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">Faith led the van, her mantle dipt in blue,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Steady her ken, and gaining on the skies.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In the “Hymn to May” (1787) Thompson personified
+the month whose charms he is singing, the result being
+a radiant figure, having much in common with the
+classical personifications of the orders or powers of
+nature:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">A silken camus, em’rald green</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Gracefully loose, adown her shoulder flow.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span></p>
+
+<p>In Shenstone’s “Schoolmistress” (1737-1742)
+instances of personification are rare, and, where they
+do occur, are merely faint abstractions like “Learning
+near her little dome.” It is noteworthy that one of
+the most successful of the Spenserian imitations should
+have dispensed with the cumbrous machinery of
+abstract beings that, on the model of the “Faerie
+Queene,” might naturally have been drawn upon.
+The homely atmosphere of the “Schoolmistress,”
+with its idyllic pictures and its gentle pathos, would,
+indeed, have been fatally marred by their introduction.</p>
+
+<p>The same sparing use of personification is evident
+in the greatest of the imitations, James Thomson’s
+“Castle of Indolence” (1748). A theme of this
+nature afforded plenty of opportunity to indulge in
+the device, and Thomson, judging from its use of the
+figure in some of his blank verse poems, might have
+been expected to take full advantage. But there are
+less than a score of examples in the whole of the poem.
+Only vague references are made to the eponymous
+hero: he is simply “Indolence” or “tender
+Indolence” or “the demon Indolence.” For the
+rest Thomson’s few abstractions are of the stock
+type, though occasionally more realistic touches
+result, we may suppose, from the poet’s sense of
+humour as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sleepless Gout here counts the crowing cock.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Only here and there has Thomson attempted full-length
+portraits in the Spenserian manner, as when
+Lethargy, Hydropsy, and Hypochondria are described
+with drastic realism.<a id="FNanchor_228" href="#Footnote_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a></p>
+
+<p>The works of the minor Spenserians show a greater
+use of personified abstraction, but even with them there
+is no great excess. Moreover, where instances do<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span>
+occur, they show imaginative touches foreign to the
+prevalent types. Thus in the “Vision of Patience”
+by Samuel Boyce (d. 1778),</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Silence sits on her untroubled throne</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As if she left the world to live and reign alone,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">while Patience stands</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In robes of morning grey.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Occasionally the personified abstractions, though
+occurring in avowedly Spenserian imitations, obviously
+owe more to the influence of “L’Allegro”; as in
+William Whitehead’s “Vision of Solomon” (1730),
+where the embroidered personifications are much
+more frequent than the detailed images given by
+Spenser.<a id="FNanchor_229" href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a></p>
+
+<p>The work of Chatterton represents another aspect
+of this revival of the past, but it is curious to find
+that, in his acknowledged “original” verse there are
+not many instances of the personified abstraction,
+whilst they are freely used in the Rowley poems.
+Where they do occur in his avowedly original work
+they are of the usual type, though more imaginative
+power is revealed in his personification of Winter:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Pale rugged Winter bending o’er his tread,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His eyes a dusky light congealed and dead,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">His robe a tinge of bright ethereal blue.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>From our special point of view the “antiquarianism”
+of the Rowley poems might almost be disproved by
+the prevalence of abstractions and personifications,
+which in most instances are either unmistakably
+of the eighteenth century or which testify to the new
+Romantic atmosphere now manifesting itself. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>
+stock types of frigid abstraction are all brought on
+the stage in the manner of the old Moralities, and each
+is given an ample speaking part in order to describe
+his own characteristics.</p>
+
+<p>But in addition to these lifeless abstractions, there
+are to be found in the Rowley poems a large number
+of detailed and elaborate personifications. Some of
+these are full length portraits in the Spenserian
+manner, and now and then the resulting personification
+is striking and beautiful, as when, in “Ælla”
+(59), Celmond apostrophizes Hope, or the evocation
+of Truth in “The Storie of William Canynge.”</p>
+
+<p>Chatterton has also in these poems a few personifications
+of natural powers, but these are mainly
+imitative as in the lines (“Ælla,” 94) reminiscent of
+Milton and Pope<a id="FNanchor_230" href="#Footnote_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a>:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From the red east he flitted with his train,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The hours drew away the robe of night,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Her subtle tapestry was rent in twain.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But the evocation of the seasons themselves, as in
+“Ælla” (32),</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">When Autumn sere and sunburnt doth appear</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">conveys a fresh and distinct picture that belongs to
+the new poetry, and has in it a faint forecast of Keats.</p>
+
+<p>It remains to look at the work of the later eighteenth
+century poets, who announce that if the Romantic
+outburst is not yet, it is close at hand. The first and
+greatest of these is William Blake. His use of personification
+in the narrower sense which is our topic, is,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span>
+of course, formally connected with the large and
+vital question of his symbolism, to treat of which here
+in any detail is not part of our scheme.</p>
+
+<p>In its widest sense, however, Blake’s mysticism
+may be connected with the great mediaeval world of
+allegory: it is “an eddy of that flood-tide of symbolism
+which attained its tide-mark in the magic of the
+Middle Ages.”<a id="FNanchor_231" href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> But the poet himself unconsciously
+indicates the vital distinction between the new
+symbolism, which he inaugurates, and the old, of
+which the personified abstractions of his eighteenth
+century predecessors may be regarded as faint and
+faded relics. “Allegory addressed to the intellectual
+powers,” he wrote to Thomas Butts,<a id="FNanchor_232" href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> “while it is
+altogether hidden from the corporeal understanding,
+is my definition of the most surprising poetry.”</p>
+
+<p>On its formal side, and reduced to its simplest
+expression, we may narrow down for our present
+purpose the whole system to the further distinction
+drawn by Blake between Allegory and Vision.
+Allegory is “formed by the daughters of Memory”
+or the deliberate reason; Vision “is surrounded by
+the daughters of Inspiration.” Here we have a key
+to the classification of personified abstractions in the
+eighteenth century, and, for that matter, at any and
+every period. Abstractions formed by the deliberate
+reason are usually more or less rhetorical embellishments
+of poetry, and to this category belong the great
+majority of the personifications of eighteenth century
+verse. They are “things that relate to moral virtues”
+or vices, but they cannot truly be called allegorical,
+for allegory is a living thing only so long as the ideas
+it embodies are real forces that control our conduct.
+The inspired personification, which embodies or brings
+with it a real vision, is the truly poetical figure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span></p>
+
+<p>In Blake’s own practice we find only a few instances
+of the typical eighteenth century abstraction. In the
+early “Imitation of Spenser” there are one or two
+examples:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">Such is sweet Eloquence that does dispel</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Envy and Hate that thirst for human gore,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst others are clearly Elizabethan reminiscences,
+like</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mournful lean Despair</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Brings me yew to deck my grave,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Memory, hither come</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And tune your merry notes.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">“The Island in the Moon” furnishes grotesque
+instances, such as that of old Corruption dressed in
+yellow vest. In “The Divine Image,” from the
+“Songs of Innocence,” while commonplace virtues
+are personified, the simple direct manner of the
+process distinguishes them from their prototypes
+in the earlier moral and didactic poetry of the century:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">For Mercy has a human heart</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Pity a human face</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Love, the human form divine</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Peace the human dress.<a id="FNanchor_233" href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">An instance of personification raised to a higher power
+is found in Blake’s letter to Butts<a id="FNanchor_234" href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> beginning</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">With Happiness stretch’d across the hills,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In a cloud that dewy sweetness distils,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">whilst elsewhere personified abstractions appear with
+new epithets, the most striking example being in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span>
+“Earth’s Answer,” from the “Songs of Experience”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Prison’d on watry shore</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Starry</i> Jealousy does keep my den.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Moreover, Blake’s figures are often presented in an
+imaginative guise that helps to emphasize the gulf
+fixed between him and the majority of his contemporaries
+and predecessors. Thus “Joy” is twice
+depicted as a bird:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Joys upon our branches sit</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Chirping loud and singing sweet</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Song”—“Poetical Sketches”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Welcome, stranger, to this place</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Where Joy doth sit on every bough.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Song by a Shepherd”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In Blake’s youthful work the personifications of
+natural powers, though in most cases clearly imitative
+are yet striking in their beauty and power of suggestion.
+The influence of “Ossian” is seen in such “prose”
+personifications as “The Veiled Evening walked
+solitary down the Western hills and Silence reposed
+in the valley” (“The Couch of Death”), and “Who
+is this that with unerring step dares to tempt the wild
+where only Nature’s foot has trod, ’Tis Contemplation,
+daughter of the Grey Morning” (“Contemplation”).
+Here also are evocations of the seasons which, whatever
+they may owe to Thomson or Collins, are new in that
+we actually get a picture of Spring with “dewy locks”
+as she looks down</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thro’ the clear windows of the morning</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of summer with</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">ruddy limbs and flourishing hair,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">of the “jolly autumn,”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">laden with fruits and stained</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With the blood of the grape;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">and of winter,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">a dreadful monster whose skin clings</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To her strong bones.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thomson, we have seen, had not been altogether
+successful in his personification of the seasons: here
+they are brought vividly and fittingly before us.
+When we think of the hosts of puppets that in the
+guise of personified abstractions move mechanically
+through so much of eighteenth century verse, and
+compare them with the beautiful visions evoked by
+Blake, we know from this evidence alone that the
+reign of one of the chief excesses of the poetical
+language of the time is near its end. It is not that
+Blake’s conceptions are all flesh and blood creations:
+often they are rather ethereal beings, having something
+in common with the evanescent images of
+Collins. But the rich and lofty imagination that has
+given them birth is more than sufficient to secure their
+acceptance as realities capable of living and moving
+before us; the classical abstraction, cold and lifeless,
+has now become the Romantic personification clothed
+in beauty and animated with life and inner meaning.</p>
+
+<p>In the year of the “Poetical Sketches” (1783)
+George Crabbe published “The Village,” his first
+work to meet with any success. But whilst Blake
+gloriously announces the emancipation of English
+poetry, Crabbe for the most part is still writing on in
+the old dead style. The heroic couplets of his earliest
+works have all the rhetorical devices of his predecessors
+in that measure, and amongst these the prevalence of
+personified abstractions is not the least noteworthy.
+The subject of his first poem of any length, “Inebriety”
+(1775), afforded him plenty of scope in this direction,
+and he availed himself fully of the opportunity.<a id="FNanchor_235" href="#Footnote_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span>
+The absence of capital letters from some of the instances
+in this poem may perhaps be taken to reflect a confusion
+in the poet’s mind as to whether he was indulging in
+personification or in mere abstraction, to adopt
+Coleridge’s remark anent Gray’s use of this figure.<a id="FNanchor_236" href="#Footnote_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a></p>
+
+<p>In “The Village,” Crabbe’s first poem of any real
+merit, there is a more sparing use, yet instances are
+even here plentiful, whilst his employment of the
+device had not died out when in the early years of the
+nineteenth century he resumed his literary activities.
+Among the poems published in the 1807 volume there
+is a stiff and cumbrous allegory entitled “The Birth
+of Flattery,” which, introduced by three Spenserian
+stanzas, depicts Flattery as the child of Poverty and
+Cunning, attended by guardian satellites, “Care,”
+“Torture,” “Misery,” <i>et hoc omne genus</i>. They
+linger on to the time of the “Posthumous Tales,”
+where there is a sad, slow procession of them, almost,
+we might imagine, as if they were conscious of the
+doom pronounced years before, and of the fact that
+they were strangers in a strange land:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Yet Resignation in the house is seen</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Subdued Affliction, Piety serene,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Hope, for ever striving to instil</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The balm for grief, “It is the heavenly will.”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(XVIII, 299 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It is not perhaps too fanciful to see in this lament a
+palinode of the personifications themselves, sadly
+resigning themselves to an inevitable fate.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the ultimate triumph of the new poetry
+the work of William Cowper represents perhaps the
+most important contribution, judging at least from
+the viewpoint both of its significance as indicating new
+tendencies in literature, and of its immediate influence
+on readers and writers. In the narrow sense of style<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>
+the “simplicity” which was Cowper’s ideal was only
+occasionally marred by the conventional phraseology
+and bombastic diction which he himself laid to the
+charge of the “classical” school, and his gradual
+emancipation from the tenets and practices of that
+school is reflected in his steady advance towards the
+purity of expression for which he craved. And in
+this advance it is to be noted that the gradual disappearance
+of personified abstractions is one of the
+minor landmarks.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier work furnishes instances of the common
+type of mere abstraction where there is no attempt
+to give any real personification. Even in the “Olney
+Hymns” (1779) such verses as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But unbelief, self-will</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Self-righteousness and pride,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">How often do they steal</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">My weapon from my side</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">only seem to present the old mechanical figures in a
+new setting.<a id="FNanchor_237" href="#Footnote_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> The long series of satiric poems that
+followed draw freely upon the same “mythology,” and
+indeed the satires that appear in this 1782 volume
+recall to some extent the style of Churchill.<a id="FNanchor_238" href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> There<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>
+is a somewhat similar, though more restricted, use of
+personified abstraction, and, as in Churchill’s satires,
+virtues and vices are invested with slight human
+qualities and utilized to enforce moral and didactic
+truths. Thus,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">Peace follows Virtue as its sure reward</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Pleasure brings as surely in her train</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Remorse and Sorrow and Vindictive Pain.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Progress of Error”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the short pieces in this volume are the
+famous lines put into the mouth of Alexander Selkirk,
+which contain a fine example of the apostrophic
+personification, the oft-quoted</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">O Solitude! where are thy charms</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That sages have seen in thy face,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where the passion and sincerity of the appeal give
+dignity and animation to an otherwise lifeless abstraction,
+and, despite the absence of detail, really call up
+a definite picture.</p>
+
+<p>From the blank verse of his most famous work
+nearly every trace of the mechanical abstraction has
+disappeared—a great advance when we remember
+that “The Task” is in the direct line of the moral
+and didactic verse that had occupied so many of
+Cowper’s predecessors.</p>
+
+<p>The first Books (“The Sofa”) contain but one
+instance and that in a playful manner:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ingenious Fancy, never better pleased</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Than when employed to accommodate the fair.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(ll. 72 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Fourth Book (“The Winter Evening”) is
+entirely free from instances of the mechanical abstraction,
+but the vision of Oriental Empire, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>
+fascination of the East, is effectively evoked in the
+personification of the land of the Moguls:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is India free? and does she wear her plumed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And jewelled turban with a smile of peace.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(ll. 28-9)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“The Task,” however, has two examples of the
+detailed personification. The first is an attempt, in
+the manner of Spenser, to give a full length portrait
+of “a sage called Discipline”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">His eye was meek and gentle and a smile</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Paternal sweetness</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Bk. II, l. 702 foll.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where there is a depth of feeling, as well as a gentle
+satiric touch in the delineation, that animate it into
+something more than a mere stock image; it embodies
+perhaps a reminiscence of one who at some time or
+other had guided the destinies of the youthful Cowper.</p>
+
+<p>The second instance is of a more imaginative kind.
+It is the presentation, in the Fourth Book, of Winter,
+with</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">forehead wrapt in cloud</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A leafless branch thy sceptre,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">almost the only occasion on which Cowper, despite
+the nature of his subject, has personified the powers
+and orders of nature.<a id="FNanchor_239" href="#Footnote_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> Cowper has also invested the
+Evening with human attributes, and despite the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span>
+imitative ring of the lines,<a id="FNanchor_240" href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> and the “quaintness” of
+the images employed, there is a new beauty in the
+evocation:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come, Evening, once again, season of peace;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Methinks I see thee in the streaky west</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With matron step slow-moving, while the night</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Treads on thy sweeping train.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">The darkness soon to fall over the landscape is suggested
+in the added appeal to Evening to come</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where the compound epithet emphasizes the contrast
+between the quiet beauty of the twilight skyscape
+and the star-sprinkled gloom of the night.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, one of the last instances of the personified
+abstraction to be found in the work of Cowper may
+perhaps be taken to reflect something of the changes
+that have been silently working underneath. This
+is in the lines that suddenly bring “Yardley Oak”
+to an end:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">History not wanted yet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Leaned on her elbow watching Time whose course</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Eventful should supply her with a theme.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>At first glance we seem to have here but the old
+conventional figures, but there is an imaginative
+touch that helps to suggest a new world of romance.
+“History leaning on her elbow” has something at
+least of that mysterious power of suggestion that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span>
+Wordsworth himself was to convey by means of the
+romantic personification, such as those shadowy
+figures—Fear and Trembling Hope, and Death the
+Skeleton, and Time the Shadow—which gathered round
+and hallowed the shade of the yew trees in Borrowdale.</p>
+
+<p>But even while the old poetry was in its death
+agony a champion was at hand, daring to maintain a
+lost cause both by precept and example. This was
+Erasmus Darwin, whose once-famous work “The
+Botanic Garden,” with its two parts, “The Loves of
+the Plants” (1789), and “The Economy of Vegetation”
+(1791), has earlier been mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>It met with immediate success. Darwin seems to
+have fascinated his contemporaries, so that even
+Coleridge was constrained in 1802 to call him “the
+first literary character in Europe.”<a id="FNanchor_241" href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> He had, however,
+little real admiration for “The Botanic Garden,”
+and later expressed his opinion unmistakably.<a id="FNanchor_242" href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> “The
+Botanic Garden” soon died a natural death, hastened
+no doubt by the ridicule it excited, but inevitably
+because of the fact that the poem is an unconscious
+<i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of a style already doomed.<a id="FNanchor_243" href="#Footnote_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a>
+The special matter with which we are concerned in
+this chapter had for Darwin a marked significance,
+since it fitted in admirably with his general doctrine or
+dogma that nothing is strictly poetic except what is
+presented in visual image. His “theory” was that,
+just as the old mythologies had created a whole world
+of personified abstractions to explain or interpret
+natural phenomena of every description, exactly by
+the same method the scientific thought and developments<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span>
+of his own age could be poetically expounded so
+as to captivate both the hearts and minds of his
+readers. It was his ambition, he said, “to enlist
+imagination under the banner of science.” This
+“theory” is expounded in one of the interludes placed
+between the different cantos. “The poet writes
+principally to the eye,” and allegory and personifications
+are to be commended because they give visible
+form to abstract conceptions.<a id="FNanchor_244" href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> Putting his theory
+into practice, Darwin then proceeds with great zeal
+to personify the varied and various scientific facts
+or hypotheses of physics, botany, etc., metamorphosing
+the forces of the air and other elements into sylphs
+and gnomes and so on. Thus,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Soon shall thy arm, Unconquered</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Steam afar</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Drag the slow barge or drive the</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Rapid car.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(E.V., Canto I, 289, 290)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the same way all the plants, as classified by
+Linnæus, are personified as “swains” or “belles”
+who “love” and quarrel, and finally make it up
+just as ordinary mortals do:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">All wan and shivering in the leafless glade</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sad Anemone reclin’d her head</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(L.P., Canto I, 315-6)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Retiring Lichen climbs the topmost stone</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And drinks the aerial solitude alone.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(<i>Ibid.</i>, 347-8)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The whole poem is thus one long series of mechanical
+personifications which baffle and bewilder and finally<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span>
+wear out the reader. It is strange now to think that
+“The Botanic Garden” was at the height of its vogue
+when the “Lyrical Ballads” were being planned and
+written, but the easy-flowing couplets of Darwin,
+and the “tinsel and glitter” of his diction, together
+with most of the “science” he was at such pains to
+expound (though he was a shrewd and even prophetic
+inquirer in certain branches, such as medicine and
+biology), have now little more than a faint historical
+interest. Yet his theory and practice of poetry—the
+“painted mists that occasionally rise from the
+marshes at the foot of Parnassus,” Coleridge called
+them—so dominated the literature of the last decade
+of the eighteenth century as to be capable of captivating
+the mind of the poet who was about to sound
+their death-knell.</p>
+
+<p>While Wordsworth inveighed against “personification”
+in the great manifesto, his earliest poetry
+shows clearly, as has been noted, that in this as in
+other respects he had fallen under the spell and
+influence of “The Botanic Garden.” The “Evening
+Walk” and the “Descriptive Sketches” swarm with
+instances of personifications of the type that had
+flourished apace for a hundred years, “Impatience,”
+“Pain,” “Independence,” “Hope,” “Oppression,”
+and dozens similar.<a id="FNanchor_245" href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> There is thus a certain comic
+irony in the fact that the poet, who was the first to
+sound the revolt against “personifications” and
+similar “heightenings” of style, should have embarked
+on his literary career with the theft of a good deal of the
+thunder of the enemy. Later, when Wordsworth’s
+true ideal of style had evolved itself, this feature of
+the two poems was in great measure discarded. The
+first (1793) draft of the “Descriptive Sketches” contains
+over seventy examples of more or less frigid<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span>
+abstractions; in the final draft of the poem these
+have dwindled down to about a score.<a id="FNanchor_246" href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p>
+
+<p>In our detailed examination of personification in
+eighteenth century poetry we have seen that in
+general it includes three main types. There is first
+the mere abstraction, whose distinctive sign is the
+presence of a capital letter; it may be, and often is,
+qualified by epithets suggestive of human attributes,
+but there is little or no attempt to give a definite
+picture or evoke a distinctive image. This is the
+prevalent type, and it is against these invertebrates
+that the criticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge was
+really directed.</p>
+
+<p>Their widespread use in the eighteenth century is
+due to various causes. In the first place they represent
+a survival, however artificial and lifeless, of the great
+mediaeval world of allegory, with its symbolic representation
+derived from the pagan and classical
+mythologies, of the attributes of the divine nature,
+and of the qualities of the human mind, as living
+entities. But by now the life had departed from
+them; they were hopelessly effete and had become
+consciously conventional and fictitious.<a id="FNanchor_247" href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a></p>
+
+<p>They also owed their appearance, as indicated
+above, to more definite literary causes and “fashions”;
+they swarm especially, for instance, in the odes of
+the mid-century, the appearance of which was mainly
+due to the influence of “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso.”
+The virtues and vices, the “shadowy tribes
+of the mind,” which are there unceasingly invoked
+and dismissed are mechanical imitations of the figures<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span>
+that the genius of Milton had been able to inspire
+with real poetic value and life. They play
+their part similarly and just as mechanically in
+the didactic and satirical verse characteristic of the
+period.</p>
+
+<p>But whether regarded as a sort of literary flotsam
+and jetsam, or as one of the symptoms of “Milton-mad”
+verse, these personifications are nearly all
+enfeebled by weaknesses inherent in their very genesis.
+Only a deep and intense conception of a mental
+abstraction can justify any attempt to personify
+it poetically; otherwise the inevitable result is a
+mere rhetorical ornament, which fails because it
+conveys neither the “vast vagueness” of the abstract,
+nor any clear-cut pictorial conception of the person.
+Even with Gray, as with the mere poetasters who
+used this figure to excess, it has the effect of a dull
+and wearisome mannerism; only here and there, as
+in the sonorous lines in which Johnson personified
+Worth held down by Poverty, does the display of
+personal emotion give any dignity and depth to the
+image.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the very freedom with which the conventional
+abstractions are employed, allowing them to be
+introduced on every possible occasion, tends to render
+the device absurd, if not ludicrous. For the versifiers
+seemed to have at their beck and call a whole phantom
+army upon which they could draw whenever they
+chose; for them they are veritable gods from the
+machines. But so mechanical are their entrances and
+exits that the reader rarely suspects them to be
+intended for “flesh and blood creations,” though, it
+may be added, the poetaster himself would be slow
+to make any such claim. To him they are merely
+part of his stock-in-trade, like the old extravagances,
+the “conceits,” and far-fetched similes of the Metaphysical
+school.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span></p>
+
+<p>The second type of personification found in
+eighteenth century verse needs but brief mention
+here. It is the detailed personification where a full-length
+portrait is attempted. Like the mere abstraction
+it, too, is a survival of mediaeval allegory, and it
+is also most often a merely mechanical literary process,
+reflecting no real image in the poet’s mind. It is not
+found to any large extent, and in a certain measure
+owes its presence to the renewed interest in Spenser.
+The Spenserian imitations themselves are comparatively
+free from this type, a sort of negative
+indication of the part played by the revival in the new
+Romantic movement.</p>
+
+<p>The third type is perhaps best described as the
+embryonic personification. It consists in the attributing
+of an individual and living existence to the
+visible forms and invisible powers of nature, a disposition,
+deeply implanted in the human mind from
+the very dawn of existence, which has left in the
+mythologies and creeds of the world a permanent
+impress of its power. In eighteenth century literature
+this type received its first true expression in the work
+of Thompson and Collins, whilst its progress, until it
+becomes merged and fused in the pantheism of Wordsworth
+and Shelley, may be taken as a measure of
+the advance of the Romantic movement in one of its
+most vital aspects.</p>
+
+<p>Regarded on its purely formal side, that is, as part
+and parcel of the <i>language</i> of poetry, the use of personification
+may then be naturally linked up with the
+generally literary development of the period. In
+the “classical” verse proper the figure employed is,
+as it were, a mere word and no more; it is the reflex
+of precisely as much individual imagination as the
+stock phrases of descriptive verse, <i>the flowery meads</i>,
+<i>painted birds</i>, and so on. There was no writing with
+the inner eye on the object, and the abstraction as a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span>
+result was a mere rhetorical label, corresponding to
+no real vision of things.</p>
+
+<p>The broad line of advance in this, as in other aspects
+of eighteenth century literature, passes through the
+work of those who are now looked upon as the forerunners
+of the Romantic revolt. The frigid abstraction,
+a mere word distinguished by a capital letter,
+is to be found in “The Seasons,” but alongside there
+is also an approach to definite pictorial representation
+of the object personified. In the odes of Collins the
+advent of the pictorial image is definitely and triumphantly
+announced, and though the mechanical
+abstractions linger on even until the new poetry has
+well established itself, they are only to be found in
+the work of those who either, like Johnson and Crabbe,
+belong definitely as regards style to the old order, or
+like Goldsmith and, to a less extent, Cowper, reflect
+as it were sort of half-way attitude towards the old
+and the new.</p>
+
+<p>With Blake the supremacy of the artistic personification
+is assured. His mystical philosophy in its
+widest aspect leads him to an identification of the
+divine nature with the human, but sometimes this
+signification is to be seen merging into a more conscious
+symbolism, or even sinking into that “totally
+distinct and inferior kind of poetry” known as
+allegory. Yet with Blake the poet, as well as Blake
+the artist, the use of personified abstraction is an
+integral part of the symbolism he desired to perpetuate.
+His imagination ran strongly in that
+direction, and it has been aptly pointed out that his
+most intense mental and emotional experiences
+became for him spiritual persons. But even where
+the presence of a capital letter is still the only distinguishing
+mark of the personification, he is
+able, either by the mere context or by the addition
+of a suggestive epithet, to transform and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span>
+transfigure the abstraction into a poetical emblem
+of the doctrine whose apostle he believed himself
+to be.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to say that the use of personification
+and abstraction, even in their narrower
+applications as rhetorical ornaments or artifices of
+verse, were not banished from English poetry as a
+result of Wordsworth’s criticism. Ruskin has drawn
+a penetrating distinction between personification and
+symbolism,<a id="FNanchor_248" href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> and it was in this direction perhaps that
+Wordsworth’s protest may be said to have been of the
+highest value. His successors, for the most part,
+distrustful of mere abstractions, and impatient of
+allegory, with its attendant dangers of lifeless and
+mechanical personification, were not slow to recognize
+the inherent possibilities of symbolism as an artistic
+medium for the expression of individual moods and
+emotions, and it is not too much to say that in its
+successful employment English poetry has since won
+some of its greatest triumphs.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br />
+<span class="smaller">THE DICTION OF POETRY</span></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>After years of comparative neglect, and, it
+must be admitted, a good deal of uncritical
+disparagement, the “age of prose and reason”
+would seem at last to have come into its own. Or at
+any rate during recent years there has become evident
+a disposition to look more kindly on a period which
+has but seldom had justice done to it. The label
+which Matthew Arnold’s dictum attached to a good
+portion, if not the whole, of the eighteenth century
+seems to imply a period of arid and prosaic rationalism
+in which “the shaping spirit of imagination” had no
+abiding place, and this has no doubt been partly
+responsible for the persistency of an unjust conception.
+But it is now more generally recognized that,
+in prose and even in poetry, the seventy or eighty
+years, which begin when Dryden died, and end when
+William Blake was probably writing down the first
+drafts of his “Poetical Sketches,” had some definite
+and far from despicable legacies to pass on to its
+successors, to the writers in whom the Romantic
+revival was soon to be triumphantly manifested.
+The standards in all branches of literature were to be
+different, but between “classical” and “romantic”
+there was not to be, and indeed could not be, any great
+gulf fixed. There was continuity and much was
+handed on. What had to be transformed (and of
+course the process is to be seen at work in the very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span>
+height of the Augustan supremacy) were the aims and
+methods of literature, both its matter in large measure,
+and its style.<a id="FNanchor_249" href="#Footnote_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is the poetry of the period with which we are
+specially concerned, and it is in poetry that the
+distinction between the old order and the new was
+to be sharpest; for the leaders of the revolt had been
+gradually winning new fields, or re-discovering old
+ones, for poetry, and thus in more than one sense the
+way had been prepared for both the theory and
+practice of Wordsworth. Then came the great
+manifestoes, beginning with the Preface of 1798, followed
+by an expansion in 1800 and again in 1802;
+fifteen years later, Coleridge, with his penetrating
+analysis of the theories advanced by his friend and
+fellow-worker, began a controversy, which still to-day
+forms a fruitful theme of discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth, in launching his famous declaration
+of principle on the language fit and proper for metrical
+composition, had no doubt especially in mind the
+practice of his eighteenth century predecessors. But
+it has to be remembered that the <i>Prefaces</i> deal in
+reality with the whole genesis of “what is usually
+called poetic diction,” and that the avowed aim and
+object was to sweep away “a large portion of phrases
+and figures of speech, which from father to son have
+long been regarded as the common inheritance of
+poets.” The circumstances of the time, and perhaps
+the examples chosen by Wordsworth to illustrate
+his thesis, have too often led to his attack being
+considered as concerned almost entirely with the
+poetical language of the eighteenth century. Hence,
+whenever the phrase “poetic diction” is mentioned
+as a term of English literary history, more often than
+not it is to the eighteenth century that the attention<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>
+is directed, and the phrase itself has taken on a
+derogatory tinge, expressive of a stereotyped language,
+imitative, mechanical, lifeless. For in the reaction
+against eighteenth century styles, and especially
+against the polished heroic couplet, there arose a
+tendency to make the diction of the period an object
+of undistinguishing depreciation, to class it all in one
+category, as a collection of conventional words and
+phrases of which all poets and versifiers felt themselves
+at liberty to make use.</p>
+
+<p>An actual analysis of eighteenth century poetry
+shows us that this criticism is both deficient and misleading;
+it is misleading because it neglects to take
+any account of that eighteenth century poetical
+language which Pope, inheriting it from Dryden,
+brought to perfection, and which was so admirable
+a vehicle for the satiric or didactic thought it had to
+convey; it is deficient in that it concentrates attention
+mainly on one type or variety of the language,
+used both by poets and poetasters, and persists in
+labelling this type either as the “eighteenth century
+style proper,” or, as if the phrases were synonymous,
+“the Pope style.”</p>
+
+<p>One formula could no more suffice in itself for the
+poetic styles of the eighteenth century than for those
+of the nineteenth century; we may say, rather, that
+there are then to be distinguished at least four distinct
+varieties or elements of poetical diction, in the narrow
+sense of the term, though of course it is scarcely
+necessary to add that none of them is found in complete
+isolation from the others. There is first the
+stock descriptive language, the usual vehicle of expression
+for that large amount of eighteenth century
+verse where, in the words of Taine, we can usually
+find “the same diction, the same apostrophes, the
+same manner of placing the epithet and rounding the
+period,” and “regarding which we know beforehand<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>
+with what poetic ornaments it will be adorned.”<a id="FNanchor_250" href="#Footnote_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> In
+reading this verse, with its lifeless, abstract diction,
+we seldom or never feel that we have been brought
+into contact with the real thoughts or feelings of
+living men. Its epithets are artificial, imitative,
+conventional; though their glare and glitter may
+occasionally give us a certain pleasure, they rarely
+or never make any appeal to our sensibility. As
+someone has said, it is like wandering about in a land
+of empty phrases. Only here and there, as, for
+instance, in Dyer’s “Grongar Hill,” have the <i>gradus</i>
+epithets taken on a real charm and beauty in virtue
+of the spontaneity and sincerity with which the poet
+has been inspired.</p>
+
+<p>The received doctrine that it was due in the main
+to Pope’s “Homer” is unjust; many of the characteristics
+of this conventional poetical language were
+established long before Pope produced his translation.
+They are found to an equal, if not greater, extent in
+Dryden, and if it is necessary to establish a fountain-head,
+“Paradise Lost” will be found to contain most
+of the words and phrases which the eighteenth century
+versifiers worked to death. If Pope is guilty in any
+degree it is only because in his work the heroic couplet
+was brought to a high pitch of perfection; no doubt
+too the immense popularity of the “Homer” translation
+led to servile imitation of many of its words,
+phrases, and similes. Yet it is unjust to saddle Pope
+with the lack of original genius of so many of his
+successors and imitators.</p>
+
+<p>But the underlying cause of this conventional
+language must be sought elsewhere than in the mere
+imitation of any poet or poets. A passage from the
+“Prelude” supplies perhaps a clue to one of the
+fundamental conditions that had enslaved poetry in
+the shackles of a stereotyped language. It takes the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span>
+form of a sort of literary confession by Wordsworth
+as to the method of composing his first poems, which,
+we have seen, are almost an epitome of the poetical
+vices against which his manifestoes rebelled. He
+speaks of</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent20">the trade in classic niceties</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From languages that want the living voice</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To carry meaning to the natural heart.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“Prelude,” Bk. VI, ll. 109-112)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In these lines we have summed up one of the main
+Romantic indictments against the practice of the
+“classical” poets, who were too wont to regard the
+language of poetry as a mere collection or accepted
+aggregate of words, phrases, and similes, empty of all
+personal feeling and emotion.<a id="FNanchor_251" href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a></p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth, too, in this passage not unfairly describes
+the sort of atmosphere in which diction of the stock
+eighteenth century type flourished. The neo-classical
+interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of poetry
+as an imitation had by the time of Pope and his school
+resulted in a real critical confusion, which saw the
+essence of poetry in a slavish adherence to accepted
+models, and regarded its ideal language as choice
+flowers and figures of speech consecrated to poetry
+by traditional use, and used by the poet very much
+as the painter uses his colours, that is, as pigments
+laid on from the outside. That this doctrine of
+imitation and parallelism directly encourages the
+growth of a set poetic diction is obvious; the poet’s
+language need not be the reflection of a genuine
+emotion felt in the mind: he could always find his
+words, phrases, and figures of speech in accepted and
+consecrated models.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span></p>
+
+<p>The reaction against this artificial diction is fundamental
+in the Romantic revolt from another cause
+than that of poetic form. The stock poetic language,
+we have seen, occurs mainly in what may be called
+the “nature” poetry of the period, and its set words
+and phrases are for the most part descriptive terms of
+outdoor sights and sounds. Among the many descriptions
+or explanations of the Romantic movement is
+that it was in its essence a “return to Nature,” which
+is sometimes taken to imply that “Nature,” as we in
+the twentieth century think of it, was a sudden new
+vision, of which glimpses were first caught by James
+Thomson, and which finally culminated in Wordsworth’s
+“confession of faith.” Yet there was, of
+course, plenty of “nature poetry” in the neo-classical
+period; but it was for the most part nature from the
+point of view of the Town, or as seen from the study
+window with a poetical “Thesaurus” at the writer’s
+side, or stored in his memory as a result of his reading.
+It was not written with “the eye on the object.”
+More fatal still, if the neo-classical poets did look,
+they could see little beauty in the external world;
+they “had lost the best of the senses; they had
+ceased to perceive with joy and interpret with insight
+the colour and outline of things, the cadence of sound
+and motion, the life of creatures.”<a id="FNanchor_252" href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a></p>
+
+<p>This sterility or atrophy of the senses had thus a
+real connexion with the question of a conventional
+poetical language, for the descriptive diction with its
+stock words for the sea, the rivers, the mountains, the
+sky, the stars, the birds of the air and their music,
+for all the varied sights and sounds of outdoor
+life—all this is simply a reflex of the lack of
+genuine feeling towards external nature. Keats, with
+his ecstatic delight in Nature, quickly and aptly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span>
+pilloried this fatal weakness in the eighteenth century
+versifiers:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll’d</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Its gathering waves—ye felt it not. The blue</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of summer nights collected still to make</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The morning precious: beauty was awake!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Why were ye not awake! But ye were dead</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To things ye knew not of—were closely wed</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To musty laws lined out with wretched rule</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And compass vile: so that ye taught a school</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip and fit</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Till, like the certain wands of Jacob’s wit,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their verses tallied; Easy was the task</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of Poesy.<a id="FNanchor_253" href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is obvious that two great changes or advances
+were necessary, if poetry was to be freed from the
+bondage of this conventional diction. In the first
+place, the poet must reject root and branch the traditional
+stock of words and phrases that may once have
+been inspiring, but had become lifeless and mechanical
+long before they fell into disuse; he must write with
+his eye on the object, and translate his impressions
+into fresh terms endowed with real, imaginative power.
+And this first condition would naturally lead to a
+second, requiring every word and phrase to be a
+spontaneous reflection of genuine feeling felt in the
+presence of Nature and her vast powers.</p>
+
+<p>The neo-classical poetry proper was not without
+verse which partly satisfied these conditions; direct
+contact with nature was never entirely lost. Wordsworth,
+as we know, gave honourable mention<a id="FNanchor_254" href="#Footnote_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> to
+“The Nocturnal Reverie” of Anne, Countess
+Winchilsea, written at the very height of the neo-classical
+supremacy, in which external nature is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span>
+described with simplicity and fidelity, though there
+is little trace of any emotion roused in the writer’s
+mind by the sights and sounds of outdoor life. And
+every now and then, amid the arid and monotonous
+stretches of so much eighteenth century verse, we are
+startled into lively interest by stumbling across, often
+in the most obscure and unexpected corners, a phrase
+or a verse to remind us that Nature, and all that the
+term implies, was still making its powerful appeal
+to the hearts and minds of men, that its beauty and
+mystery was still being expressed in simple and heartfelt
+language. Thomas Dyer’s “Grongar Hill” has
+already been mentioned; it was written in 1726,
+the year of the publication of Thompson’s “Winter.”
+Dyer, for all we know, may have the priority, but in
+any case we see him here leading back poetry to the
+sights and sounds and scents of external nature, which
+he describes, not merely as a painter with a good eye
+for landscape, but as a lover who feels the thrill and
+call of the countryside, and can give exquisite expression
+to his thoughts and emotions. We have only
+to recall such passages as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who, the purple evening lie,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On the mountain’s lonely van;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or even his tree catalogue,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The yellow beech, the sable yew,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The slender fir, that taper grows,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs;</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">How close and small the hedges lie;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">What streaks of meadow cross the eye!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">A little rule, a little sway,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A sun-beam on a winter’s day,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is all the proud and mighty have</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Between the cradle and the grave—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">to recognize that already the supremacy of Pope and
+his school of town poets is seriously threatened.</p>
+
+<p>Here too is a short passage which might not unfairly
+be assigned to Wordsworth himself.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Would I again were with you, O ye dales</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of Tyne, and ye most ancient woodlands, where,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Oft as the giant flood obliquely strides</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And his banks open, and his lawns extend,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Stops short the pleased traveller to view,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Presiding o’er the scene, some rustic tower</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Founded by Norman or by Saxon hands:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O ye Northumbrian shades, which overlook</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The rocky pavement and the mossy falls</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of solitary Wensbeck’s limpid stream,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">How gladly I recall your well-known seats</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Beloved of old, and that delightful time</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">When all alone, for many a summer’s day,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I wandered through your calm recesses, led</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In silence by some powerful hand unseen.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">It is from Mark Akenside’s “Pleasures of the
+Imagination” (Bk IV, ll. 31 foll.). And so, too, is this:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">the meadow’s fragrant hedge,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In spring time when the woodlands first are green</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(Book II, 175-6)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">which takes us far away from the formal conventional
+landscapes of the Augustans.</p>
+
+<p>These two are among the more famous of their time,
+but a close search amongst the minor poetry of the
+mid-eighteenth century will bring to light many a
+surprising instance of poetry written with an eye on
+the object, as in John Cunningham’s (1729-1773)
+“Day,”<a id="FNanchor_255" href="#Footnote_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> where the sights and sounds of the countryside
+are simply and freshly brought before us:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Swiftly from the mountain’s brow,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Shadows, nurs’d by night, retire:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And the peeping sun-beam, now,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Paints with gold the village spire.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Philomel forsakes the thorn,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Plaintive where she prates at night;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And the Lark, to meet the morn,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Soars beyond the shepherd’s sight.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">From the low-roof’d cottage ridge,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">See the chatt’ring Swallow spring;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Darting through the one-arch’d bridge,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Quick she dips her dappled wing.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But the great bulk of neo-classical verse is unaffected
+by the regained and quickened outlook on the external
+world. It is in the forerunners of the Romantic
+revolt that this latter development is to be most
+plainly noted: when, as the result of many and varied
+causes English poets were inspired to use their eyes
+again, they were able, slowly and in a somewhat
+shallow manner at first, afterwards quickly and
+profoundly, to “sense” the beauty of the external
+world, its mysterious emanations of power and beauty.
+This quickening and final triumph of the artistic
+sense naturally revealed itself in expression; the
+conventional words and epithets were really doomed
+from the time of “Grongar Hill” and “The Seasons,”
+and a new language was gradually forged to express
+the fresh, vivid perceptions peculiar to each poet,
+according as his senses interpreted for him the face of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>A second variety of eighteenth century diction, or,
+more strictly speaking, another conventional embellishment
+of the poetry of the period, is found in that
+widespread use of personified abstraction which is
+undoubtedly one of the greatest, perhaps <i>the</i> greatest,
+of its faults. Not only the mere versifiers, but also
+many of its greatest poets, make abundant use of
+cut and dried personifications, whose sole claim to
+vitality rests most often on the presence of a capital
+letter. It is a favourite indulgence of the writers,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>
+not only of the old order, but also of those who, like
+Collins and Gray, announce the advent of the new, and
+not even the presence of genius could prevent its
+becoming a poetical abuse of the worst kind. Whether
+it be regarded as a survival of a symbolic system from
+which the life had long since departed, or as a conventional
+device arising from the theory of poetical
+ornament handed down by the neo-classicists, its
+main effect was to turn a large proportion of eighteenth
+century poetry into mere rhetorical verse. It is this
+variety of poetical language that might with justice
+be labelled as the eighteenth century style in the
+derogatory sense of the term. In its cumulative
+effect on the poetry of the period it is perhaps more
+vicious than the stock diction which is the usual target
+of criticism.</p>
+
+<p>Two other varieties of eighteenth century diction
+represent an endeavour to replace, or rather reinforce
+the stereotyped words, phrases, and similes by new
+forms. The first of these is the widespread use of
+latinized words and constructions, chiefly in the
+blank verse poems written in imitation of Milton, but
+not only there. The second is the use of archaic and
+pseudo-archaic words by the writers whose ambition
+it was to catch something of the music and melody of
+the Spenserian stanza. Both these movements thus
+reflected the desire for a change, and though the
+tendencies, which they reflect, are in a certain sense
+conventional and imitative in that they simply seek
+to replace the accepted diction by new forms derived
+respectively from Milton and Spenser, one of them at
+least had in the sequel a real and revivifying influence
+on the language of poetry.</p>
+
+<p>The pedantic and cumbrous terms, which swarm
+in the majority of the Miltonic imitations, were
+artificial creations, rarely imbued with any trace of
+poetic power. Where they do not actually arise from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span>
+deliberate attempts to imitate the high Miltonic manner,
+they probably owe their appearance to more or less
+conscious efforts to make the new blank verse as
+attractive as possible to a generation of readers
+accustomed to the polished smoothness of the couplet.
+Though such terms linger on until the time of Cowper,
+and even invade the works of Wordsworth himself,
+romanticism utterly rejected them, not only because
+of a prejudice in favour of “Saxon simplicity,” but
+also because such artificial formations lacked almost
+completely that mysterious power of suggestion and
+association in which lies the poetical appeal of words.
+Wordsworth, it is true, could win from them real
+poetic effects, and so occasionally could Thomson,
+but in the main they are even more dead and dreary
+than the old abstract diction of the neo-classicals.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency towards archaism was much more
+successful in this respect, because it was based on a
+firmer foundation. In harking back to “the poet’s
+poet,” the eighteenth century versifiers were at least
+on a right track, and though it was hardly possible,
+even with the best of them, that more than a faint
+simulacrum of the music and melody of the “Faerie
+Queene” could be captured merely by drawing drafts
+on Spenser’s diction, yet they at least helped to blaze
+a way for the great men who were to come later.
+The old unknown writers of the ballads and Spenser
+and the Elizabethans generally were to be looked
+upon as treasure trove to which Keats and Scott and
+Beddoes and many another were constantly to turn
+in their efforts to revivify the language of poetry, to
+restore to it what it had lost of freshness and vigour
+and colour.</p>
+
+<p>The varieties or embellishments of poetical diction,
+which have just been characterized, represent the
+special language of eighteenth century poetry, as
+distinct from that large portion of language which is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>
+common alike to prose and poetry. For it is scarcely
+necessary to remind ourselves that by far the largest
+portion of the poetry of the eighteenth century (as
+indeed of any century) is written in the latter sort of
+language, which depends for its effects mainly upon the
+arrangement of the words, rather than for any unique
+power in the words themselves. In this kind of
+poetical diction, it is not too much to say that the
+eighteenth century is pre-eminent, though the effect
+of the Wordsworthian criticism has led to a certain
+failure or indisposition to recognize the fact. Just as
+Johnson and his contemporaries do not give direct
+expression to any approval of the admirable language,
+of which Pope and some of his predecessors had such
+perfect command, so modern criticism has not always
+been willing to grant it even bare justice, though
+Coleridge’s penetrating insight had enabled him, as
+we have seen, to pay his tribute to “the almost faultless
+position and choice of words, in Mr. Pope’s <i>original</i>
+compositions, particularly in his Satires and Moral
+Essays.” It was, we may imagine, the ordinary
+everyday language, heightened by brilliance and
+point, in which Pope and his coterie carried on their
+dallyings and bickerings at Twickenham and elsewhere,
+and it was an ideal vehicle, lucid and precise
+for the argument and declamation it had to sustain.
+But it was more than that, as will be readily recognized
+if we care to recall some of the oft-quoted lines
+which amply prove with what consummate skill Pope,
+despite the economy and condensation imposed by
+the requirements of the closed couplet, could evoke
+from this plain and unadorned diction effects of
+imagination and sometimes even of passion. Such
+lines as</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">He stooped to Truth and moralised his song,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In lazy apathy let stoics boast</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Their virtue fixed: ’tis fixed as in a frost,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In Folly’s cup still laughs the bubble joy,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and dozens similar, show the lucidity, energy, and
+imaginative picturesqueness with which Pope could
+endow his diction when the occasion required it.<a id="FNanchor_256" href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a>
+Such language is the “real language of men”; nearly
+every word would satisfy the Wordsworthian canon.</p>
+
+<p>And the same thing is true to a large extent of the
+poets, who are usually considered as having taken
+Pope for their model. Whenever there is a real
+concentration of interest, whenever they are dealing
+with the didactic and moral questions characteristic
+of the “age of prose and reason,” whenever they are
+writing of man and of his doings, his thoughts and
+moods as a social member of civilized society, their
+language is, as a rule, adequate, vivid, fresh, because
+the aim then is to present a general thought in the
+language best adapted to bring it forcibly before the
+mind of the reader. Here, as has been justly said,<a id="FNanchor_257" href="#Footnote_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a>
+rhetoric has passed under the influence and received
+the transforming force of poetry. “The best rhetorical
+poetry of the eighteenth century is not the best poetry,
+but it is poetry in its own way, exhibiting the glow,
+the rush, the passion which strict prose cannot, and
+which poetry can, give.” Judged on the basis of this
+kind of poetical diction, the distinctions usually drawn
+between the neo-classical “kind” of language in the
+eighteenth century and the romantic “kind” all tend
+to disappear; at the head (though perhaps we should
+go back to the Dryden of the “Religio Laici” and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>
+“The Hind and the Panther”) is the “Essay on
+Criticism”; in the direct line of descent are Akenside’s
+“Epistle to Curio,” large portions of “The Seasons,”
+“The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,”
+“The Vanity of Human Wishes,” the “Deserted
+Village,” and at the end of the century, the “Village”
+of Crabbe. And in another <i>genre</i>, but just as good in
+its own way, is that light verse, as it may perhaps best
+be called, successfully ushered in, at the very beginning
+of the century, by John Pomfret’s “The Choice,”
+and brought to perfection by Matthew Prior in his
+lines “To a Child of Quality,” and many another
+piece.</p>
+
+<p>Nor must it be forgotten that there is a large amount
+of eighteenth century minor poetry which, whilst
+reflecting in the main the literary tendency of the age
+in its fondness for didactic verse, presented in the guise
+of interminably long and dull epics and epistles, yet
+reveals to us, if we care to make the pilgrimage through
+the arid stretches of Anderson’s “British Poets,” or
+Dodsley’s “Collection of Poets by Several Hands,”
+or Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry,” or similar collections,
+the simple, unambitious works of poets more or less
+unknown when they wrote and now for the most part
+forgotten, who, unconscious or ignorant of the accepted
+rules and regulations of their time, wrote because
+they felt they must, and thus had no care to fetter
+themselves with the bondage of the “classical”
+diction.<a id="FNanchor_258" href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> Their range was limited, but they were
+able to express their thoughts and fancies, their little
+idylls and landscapes in plain English without any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span>
+trimmings, akin in its unaffected diction and simplicity
+of syntax to the language of the genuine old ballads,
+which were so largely and, for the most part, ineffectively,
+if not ludicrously, imitated throughout the
+eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>The Augustan age, then, was not without honour,
+even in poetry, where, looking back after Romanticism
+had won and consolidated its greatest triumphs, it
+would seem everything had gone wrong, there was not
+a little from which the rebels themselves might well
+have profited. Nowadays we are accustomed, perhaps
+too often, to think of the Romantic forerunners, the
+poet of “The Seasons,” and Gray, and Collins, and
+Goldsmith, and the rest, as lonely isolated outposts
+in hostile territory. So they were to a large extent,
+but they could not, of course, altogether escape the
+form and pressure of their age; and what we now
+admire in them, and for which we salute them as the
+heralds of the Romantic dawn, is that which shows
+them struggling to set themselves free from the
+“classical” toils, and striving to give expression to
+the new ideas and ideals that were ultimately to surge
+and sing themselves to victory. It is scarcely necessary
+to recall many a well-known passage, in which,
+within a decade of the death of Pope, or even before
+the mid-century, these new ideas and ideals had found
+expression in language which really sounded the death-knell
+of the old diction. Fine sounds, Keats within
+a few decades was to proclaim exultantly, were then
+to be heard “floating wild about the earth,” but
+already as early as Collins and Gray, and even now
+and then in “The Seasons,” words of infinite appeal
+and suggestiveness were stealing back into English
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>And this leads us to a consideration of the poetic
+diction of the eighteenth century from a more general
+standpoint. For no discussion of poetical language<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span>
+can be complete unless an attempt is made to consider
+the question in its entirety with a view to the question
+of what really constitutes poetic diction, what it is
+that gives to words and phrases, used by certain poets
+in certain contexts, a magic force and meaning. The
+history of poetic diction from the very beginning of
+English literature down to present times has yet to be
+written, and it would be a formidable task. Perhaps
+a syndicate of acknowledged poets would be the only
+fit tribunal to pass judgment on so vital an aspect of
+the craft, but even then we suspect there would be a
+good deal of dissension, and probably more than one
+minority report. But the general aspects of the
+question have formed a fruitful field of discussion since
+Wordsworth launched his theories<a id="FNanchor_259" href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> and thus began
+a controversy as to the exact nature of poetic language,
+the echoes of which, it would seem, have not yet died
+away. For the Prefaces were, it may be truly said,
+the first great and definite declaration of principle concerning
+a question which has been well described as
+“the central one in the philosophy of literature, What
+is, or rather what is not, poetic diction?”<a id="FNanchor_260" href="#Footnote_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a></p>
+
+<p>Judged from this wider standpoint, the diction of
+the “classical” poetry of the eighteenth century,
+and even of a large portion of the verse that announces
+the ultimate Romantic triumph, seems to have marked
+limitations. The widespread poverty and sterility
+of this diction was not, of course, merely the result of
+an inability to draw inspiration from Nature, or of a
+failure to realize the imaginative possibilities of words<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span>
+and phrases: it was, it would almost seem, the
+inevitable outcome and reflex of an age that, despite
+great and varied achievements, now appears to us
+narrow and restricted in many vital aspects. If
+poetry is a criticism of life, in the sense in which
+Matthew Arnold doubtless meant his dictum to be
+taken, the age of Pope and his successors is not
+“poetic”; in many respects it is a petty and tawdry
+age—the age of the coffee-house and the new press, of
+the club and the coterie. There are great thinkers like
+Hume, great historians like Gibbon, great teachers
+and reformers like John Wesley; but these names and
+a few others seem only to throw into stronger light the
+fact that it was on its average level an age of talk
+rather than of thought, of “fickle fancy” rather than
+of imaginative flights, of society as a unit highly
+organized for the pursuit of its own pastimes, pleasures,
+and preoccupations, in which poetry, and literature
+generally, played a social part. Poetry seems to skim
+gracefully over the surface of life, lightly touching
+many things in its flight, but never soaring; philosophy
+and science and satire all come within its
+purview, but when the eternally recurring themes of
+poetry<a id="FNanchor_261" href="#Footnote_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a>—love and nature and the like—are handled,
+there is rarely or never poignancy or depth.</p>
+
+<p>The great elemental facts and thoughts and feelings
+of life seldom confront us in the literature of the
+century as we make our way down the decades; even
+in the forerunners of the Romantic revolt we are never
+really stirred. “The Seasons,” and “The Elegy
+Written in a Country Churchyard,” touch responsive
+chords, but are far from moving us to thoughts beyond
+the reaches of our souls. Not until Blake and Burns
+is the veneer of convention and artificiality, in both
+matter and manner, definitely cast aside, and there is
+to be caught in English verse again, not only the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span>
+authentic singing note, but, what is more, the recognition
+and exemplification of the great truth that the
+finest poetry most often has its “roots deep in the
+common stuff,” and it is not to be looked for in an age
+and environment when, with rationality apparently
+triumphant, men seemed careless of the eternal
+verities, of the thoughts and feelings that lie too deep
+for tears, or sadly recognized their impotence, or
+their frustrated desires, to image them forth in
+poetry.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it,” asks Gilbert Murray,<a id="FNanchor_262" href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> “that gives
+words their character and makes a style high or low?
+Obviously, their associations: the company they
+habitually keep in the minds of those who use them.
+A word which belongs to the language of bars and
+billiard-saloons will become permeated by the normal
+standard of mind prevalent in such places; a word
+which suggests Milton or Carlyle will have the flavour
+of those men’s minds about it. I therefore cannot
+resist the conclusion that if the language of Greek
+poetry has, to those who know it intimately, this
+special quality of keen austere beauty, it is because
+the minds of the poets who used that language were
+habitually toned to a higher level both of intensity
+and of nobility than ours. It is a finer language
+because it expresses the mind of finer men. By
+‘finer men’ I do not necessarily mean men who
+behaved better, either by our standards or by their
+own: I mean the men to whom the fine things of the
+world, sunrise and sea and stars, and the love of man
+for man, and strife and the facing of evil for the sake
+of good, and even common things like meat and drink,
+and evil things like hate and terror had, as it were, a
+keener edge than they have for us, and roused a
+swifter and nobler reaction.” This passage has been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span>
+quoted in full because it may be said to have a direct
+and definite bearing on the question of the average
+level of poetic language during the greater part of the
+eighteenth century: there were few or no <i>trouvailles</i>,
+no great discoveries, no sudden releasings of the
+magic power often lurking unsuspectedly in the most
+ordinary words, because the poets and versifiers for
+the most part had all gone wrong in their conception
+of the medium they essayed to mould. “The substance
+of poetry,” writes Professor Lowes,<a id="FNanchor_263" href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> “is also
+the very stuff of words. And in its larger sense as
+well the language of poetry is made up inevitably of
+symbols—of symbols for things in terms of other
+things, for things in terms of feelings, for feelings in
+terms of things. It is the language not of objects, but
+of the complex relations of objects. And the agency
+that moulds it is the ceaselessly active power that is
+special to poetry only in degree—<i>imagination</i>—that
+fuses the familiar and the strange, the thing I feel and
+the thing I see, the world within and the world without,
+into a <i>tertium quid</i>, that interprets both.” The
+eighteenth century was not perhaps so emphatically
+and entirely the “age of prose and reason” as is sometimes
+thought, but it could scarcely be called the “age
+of imagination,” and poetry, in its highest sense
+(“high poetry,” as Maeterlinck would call it), being
+of imagination all compact, found no abiding place
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Most words, we may say, potentially possess at least
+two or more significations, their connotative scope
+varying according to the knowledge or culture of the
+speaker or reader. First of all, there is the logical,
+their plain workaday use, we might call it; and next,
+and above and beyond all this, they have, so to speak,
+an exciting force, a power of stimulating and reviving
+in the mind and memory all the associations that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span>
+cluster around them. Nearly all words carry with
+them, in vastly varying degrees, of course, this power
+of evocation, so that even commonplace terms, words,
+and phrases hackneyed and worn thin by unceasing
+usage, may suddenly be invested with a strange and
+beautiful suggestiveness when they are pressed into
+the service of the highest poetic imagination.
+And in the same way the æsthetic appeal of words of
+great potential value is reinforced and strengthened,
+when in virtue of their context, or even merely of the
+word or words to which they are attached, they are
+afforded a unique opportunity of flashing forth and
+bringing into play all the mysterious powers and
+associations gathered to themselves during a long
+employment in prose and verse, or on the lips of the
+people:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">All the charm of all the muses</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">often flowering in a lonely word.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Poetry of the highest value and appeal may be,
+and often is, as we know from concrete examples that
+flash into the mind, written in commonplace, everyday
+terms, and we ask ourselves how it is done.<a id="FNanchor_264" href="#Footnote_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a>
+There are the mysterious words of the dying Hamlet:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The rest is silence,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the line quoted by Matthew Arnold<a id="FNanchor_265" href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> as an instance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span>
+when Wordsworth’s practice is to be found illustrating
+his theories:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And never lifted up a single stone,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">or the wonderful lines which seem to bring with them
+a waking vision of the beauty of the English countryside,
+radiant with the promise of Spring:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent22">daffodils,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That come before the swallow dares, and take</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The winds of March with beauty.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">In these and many similar passages, which the reader
+will recall for himself, it would seem that the mere
+juxtaposition of more or less plain and ordinary words
+has led to such action and reaction between them as
+to charge each with vastly increased powers of evocation
+and suggestion, to which the mind of the reader,
+roused and stimulated, instinctively responds.</p>
+
+<p>Similarly, the satisfaction thus afforded to our
+æsthetic sense, or our emotional appreciation, is often
+evoked by a happy conjunction of epithet and noun
+placed together in a new relation, instantly recognized
+as adding an unsuspected beauty to an otherwise colourless
+word. The poets and versifiers of the eighteenth
+century were not particularly noteworthy for their
+skill or inspiration in the matter of the choice of
+epithet, but the genius of Blake, in this as in other
+respects of poetic achievement, raised him “above the
+age” and led him to such felicities of expression as in
+the last stanza of “The Piper”:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I made a <i>rural pen</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I stained the water clear,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">where, as has been aptly remarked,<a id="FNanchor_266" href="#Footnote_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> a commonplace<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span>
+epithet is strangely and, apparently discordantly,
+joined to an equally commonplace noun, and
+yet the discord, in virtue of the fact that it sets
+the mind and memory working to recover or recall
+the faint ultimate associations of the two terms,
+endows the phrase with infinite suggestiveness. In
+the same way a subtle and magic effect is often
+produced by inversion of epithet, when the adjective
+is placed after instead of before the noun, and this
+again is a practice or device little favoured in the
+eighteenth century; the supremacy of the stopped
+couplet and its mechanical requirements were all
+against it.</p>
+
+<p>But the eighteenth century had little of this magic
+power of evocation; the secret had departed with the
+blind Milton, and it was not till the Romantic ascendancy
+had firmly established itself, not until Keats
+and Shelley and their great successors, that English
+poetry was once more able so to handle and fashion
+and rearrange words as to win from them their total
+and most intense associations. Yet contemporary
+criticism, especially in France, had not failed
+altogether to appreciate this potential magic of
+words. Diderot, for instance, speaks of the magic
+power that Homer and other great poets have
+given to many of their words; such words are, in his
+phrase, “hieroglyphic paintings,” that is, paintings
+not to the eye, but to the imagination.<a id="FNanchor_267" href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> What we
+feel about all the so-called classical verse of the
+eighteenth century, as well as of a good deal of the
+earlier Romantic poetry, is that writers have not been
+able to devise these subtle hieroglyphics; lack of real
+poetical inspiration, or the pressure of the prosaic and
+unimaginative atmosphere of their times, has led to a
+general poverty in the words or phrases that evoke<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span>
+some object before the inner eye, or charm the ear by
+an unheard melody, terms that, like the magic words
+of Keats, or the evanescent imagery of Shelley, stir
+us both emotionally and æsthetically. The verse of
+Pope and his followers is not without something of
+this power, but here the effect is achieved by the skill
+and polish with which the words are selected and
+grouped within the limits of the heroic couplet. Crabbe
+had marked down, accurately enough, this lack of
+word-power in his description of Dryden’s verse as
+“poetry in which the force of expression and accuracy
+of description have neither needed nor obtained
+assistance from the fancy of the writer,” and again,
+more briefly, as “poetry without an atmosphere.”<a id="FNanchor_268" href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a>
+One negative indication of this “nudity” is the comparative
+poverty of eighteenth century poetry in new
+compound epithets, those felicitous terms which have
+added to the language some of its most poetical and
+pictorial phrases.</p>
+
+<p>The Prefaces of Wordsworth and the kindred comments
+and remarks of Coleridge were not, it is hardly
+necessary to say, in themselves powerful enough to
+effect an instant and complete revolution in poetical
+theory and practice. But it was all to the good that
+inspired craftsmen were at last beginning to worry
+themselves about the nature and quality of the
+material which they had to mould and fashion and
+combine into poetry; still more important was it that
+they were soon to have the powerful aid of fellow-workers
+like Shelley and Keats, whose practice was
+to reveal the magic lurking in words and phrases, so
+arranged and combined as to set them reverberating
+in the depths of our sensibility. And, on the side of
+form at least, this is the distinctively Romantic
+achievement; the æsthetic possibilities and potentialities<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span>
+of the whole of our language, past and present,
+were entrancingly revealed and magnificently exemplified;
+new and inexhaustible mines of poetical word-power
+were thus opened up, and the narrow and
+conventional limits of the diction within which the
+majority of the eighteenth century poets had “tallied”
+their verses were transcended and swept away.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> A brief summary, which is here utilized, is given by Spingarn,
+“Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century,” I, Intro. xxxvi,
+foll. (Oxford, 1908).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> <i>Vide</i> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, <i>Intro.</i> XXXVI-XLVIII; and also
+Robertson, “Studies in the Genesis of Romantic Theory in the
+XVIIIth Century” (Cambridge, 1924), an attempt “to show that
+the Movement which led to the dethronement of Reason, in favour
+of the Imagination, chief arbiter in poetic creation, and which
+culminated with Goethe and Schiller in Germany and the Romantic
+Revival in England, is to be put to the credit not of ourselves, but
+of Italy, who thus played again that pioneer rôle which she had
+already played in the sixteenth century.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, II, p. 118.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, II, p. 310.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, II, p. 273.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> “Apology for Heroic Poetry”: “Essays of John Dryden,”
+ed. W. P. Ker (1909), Vol. I, p. 190.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> “There appears in every part of his [Horace’s] diction, or (to
+speak English) in all his expressions, a kind of noble and bold
+purity.”—<i>Ibid.</i>, p. 266.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> “Lives”: Dryden, ed. G. B. Hill (1905), Vol. I, p. 420; and
+cp. Goldsmith, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous
+Works), 1821, Vol. IV, p. 381 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> “Letters” (To R. West), 1742, ed. Tovey (1900); Vol. II,
+pp. 97-8.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, pp. 17-8.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 188 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, p. 234.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Edward Young, the author of “Night Thoughts,” was later to
+express this tersely enough: “Words tarnished, by passing through
+the mouths of the vulgar, are laid aside as inelegant and obsolete”—”Conjectures
+on Original Composition,” 1759 (“English Critical
+Essays,” Oxford, 1922, p. 320).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin: “Life,” Vol. V, p. 69.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> That is to say, as Mr. John Drinkwater has recently put it, it was
+“the common language, but raised above the common pitch, of the
+coffee-houses and boudoirs.”—“Victorian Poetry,” 1923, pp. 30-32.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> <i>Vide</i> Elton, “The Augustan Ages,” 1889, pp. 419 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Cp. “Essay on Criticism,” I, ll. 130-140.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> John Dennis, of course, at the beginning of the century, is to
+be found pleading that “passion is the chief thing in poetry,”
+(“The Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry,” 1701);
+but it is to be feared that he is only, so to speak, ringing the changes
+on the Rules.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” ed. Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II,
+p. 147.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” Ker, <i>op cit.</i>, Vol. II,
+p. 148. “<i>Operum Colores</i> is the very word which Horace uses to
+signify words and elegant expressions.” etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Lessing’s “Laokoon,” which appeared in 1766, may in this, as
+in other connexions, be regarded as the first great Romantic
+manifesto. The limitations of poetry and the plastic arts were
+analysed, and the fundamental conditions to which each art must
+adhere, if it is to accomplish its utmost, were definitely and clearly
+laid down.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> “Polymetis” (1747), p. 311.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. XXII.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Chap. IV.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> <i>Vide</i> especially Babbitt, “The New Laocoon, An Essay on
+the Confusion of the Arts” (1910), to which these paragraphs are
+indebted; and for a valuable survey of the relations of
+English poetry with painting and with music, see “English
+Poetry in Its Relation to Painting and the other Arts,” by
+Laurence Binyon (London, 1919), especially pp. 15-19.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Gregory Smith, Vol. I,
+Intro. (Oxford, 1904).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., Addison, “Spectator” papers on “Paradise Lost”
+(No. 285, January 26, 1712).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Essay, “Poetry Distinguished from other Writing” (Miscellaneous
+Works, 1820, Vol. IV, pp. 408-14).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 22.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> “Lives,” Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 420.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> “Lives”: Cowley; cp. “The Rambler,” No. 158.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> Cp. Boswell’s “Life” (1851 edition), Vol. I, p. 277: “He
+enlarged very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over
+blank verse in English poetry”; also <i>ibid.</i>, Vol. II, p. 84.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> “Lives,” ed. Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, pp. 416 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 341.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> This is of course exemplified in his own poetic practice, and it
+has been held sufficient to explain the oft-debated scantiness of his
+literary production. But for remarkable examples of his minuteness
+and scrupulosity in the matter of poetic diction see the letter
+to West referred to above; to Mason, January 13, 1758 (Tovey,
+<i>op. cit.</i>, II, p. 12), and to Beattie, March 8, 1771 (<i>ibid.</i>, II, p. 305).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> Cp. Courthope, “History of English Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 218
+foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Intro., pp. LV-LX.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> Preface to the “Fables,” Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 266-67.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> <i>Vide</i> Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, Vol. II.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Translation of Homer,” ed. Buckley, Intro., p. 47;
+and cp. “The Guardian,” No. 78, “A Receipt to make an Epic
+Poem.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> Tovey, <i>op. cit.</i>, March 8, 1771 (Vol. II, pp. 305 foll.); Beattie’s
+comments are given by Tovey, <i>ibid.</i>, footnotes.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> “Rambler,” No. 121, May 14, 1751.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> “Lines written in Imitation of Certain Poems Published in
+1777”; and cp. William Whitehead’s “Charge to the Poets”
+(1762), which may be taken to reflect the various attitudes of the
+reading public towards the “revivals.”—(“Poets of Great Britain,”
+1794, Vol. XI, pp. 935-7.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> Works (1820), <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. IV, p. 124.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> September 27, 1788 (“Letters,” 4 vols, 1806, Vol. II, p. 106).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> Letter to Lady Hesketh, March 22, 1790 (“Correspondence of
+William Cowper—Arranged in Chronological Order by T. Wright,”
+4 vols., 1904).—Vol. III, pp. 446, foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> 1807 ed., Vol. I, pp. 21 and 24; cp. also Campbell, “The Philosophy
+of Rhetoric” (London, 1776), Vol. I, pp. 410-411.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> “Spectator,” 285, January 26, 1712.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> “Homer”; ed. Buckley, Intro., 49.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Spingarn, <i>op. cit.</i>, II, pp. 1-51; for Hobbes “Answer,” and
+Cowley’s “Preface to Poems,” see <i>ibid.</i>, pp. 54-90.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> “Dedication of the Æneis,” Ker, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 154,
+foll.; cp. Addison, “Spectator,” 297, January 9, 1712.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., E. Barat, “Le Style poétique et la Révolution
+Romantique” (Paris, 1904), pp. 5-35.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> “Lives of the Poets. Pope,” ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 251.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 244.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> January 17, 1782 (Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, pp. 429-30).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Prose Works, ed. Grosart, Vol. II, pp. 101 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross (1907), p. 26, Note;
+cp. also Southey, “Works of Cowper” (1884 edition), Vol. I, p. 313.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> “The Progress of Taste,” III, ll. 7-10.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> Wordsworth himself of course stigmatized the “hubbub of
+words” which was often the only result of these eighteenth century
+attempts to paraphrase passages from the Old and the New Testament
+“as they exist in our common translation.”—<i>Vide</i> Prefaces,
+etc., “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916). p. 943.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> For a detailed description of the stock diction of English
+“Classical” poetry, see especially Myra Reynolds, “Nature in
+English Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1912), to
+which the foregoing remarks are indebted.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> “Essay on Criticism,” I, l. 350 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> “Essay on Men and Manners” (Works, 1764), Vol. II.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> Bysshe, “Art of Poetry,” Third Edition (1708), Chap. I, par. 1
+(quoted by Saintsbury, “Loci Critici,” 1903, p. 174).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> To the Rev. John Newton, December 10, 1785 (Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+Vol. II, pp. 404-406).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> <i>Vide</i> Pope’s Works, ed. Courthope and Elwin (1889), Vol. V.,
+p. 166.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> Philips has large supplies of the poetical stock-in-trade. He
+speaks of “honeysuckles of a <i>purple</i> dye,” and anticipates Gray in
+his couplet,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Like woodland Flowers which paint the desert glades</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And waste their sweets in unfrequented shades.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse right">(“The Fable of Thule”)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>(<i>Vide</i> “Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. IX, 384-407.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> But, as de Selincourt points out in “Poems of John Keats”
+(1905, Appendix C, p. 580), it is only the excessive and unnatural
+use of these adjectives that calls for censure.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> Especially in the case of compound epithets. Cf. Earle,
+“Philology of the English Tongue,” p. 601, for examples from the
+works of the poets from Shakespeare to Tennyson. For Shakespeare’s
+use of this form, see Schmidt, “Shakespeare Lexicon,”
+Vol. II, pp. 147 foll. (2nd Ed., London and Berlin, 1886).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> But compare “Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (p. 249), where it is
+justly pointed out that not a few of these circuitous phrases are
+justified by “considerations of dramatic propriety.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> Cf. Raleigh, “Milton,” <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 252-3.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> “Spring,” ll. 478 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> In “Summer,” Thomson had first used <i>feathery race</i> which was
+later amended into <i>tuneful race</i>—apparently the best improvement
+he could think of!</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> For a detailed study of Thomson’s diction, see especially Leon
+Morel, “James Thomson. Sa Vie et Ses Œuvres” (Paris, 1895),
+Chap. IV, pp. 412 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> To Mason, January 13, 1758 (“Letters of Gray,” ed. Tovey,
+Vol. II, pp. 13-14).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> <i>Vide</i> “The Poems of Chatterton, with an Essay on the Rowley
+Poems,” by W. W. Skeat (1871).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> Canto III, 652 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> “A Paladin of Philanthropy” (1899), p. 59 (quoted by Courthope,
+“History English Poetry,” V, 216).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> But cf. Courthope, “History English Poetry” (1910), Vol. V,
+p. 218.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> Arthur Symons, “William Blake” (1907), p. 39.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> To Mrs. Butts: “Poetical Works,” ed. Sampson (Oxford,
+1914), p. 187.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, p. 16. (Oxford,
+1907.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> Cf. “Letters,” to Samuel Rose, December 13, 1787: “Correspondence”
+arranged by W. Wright (1904), Vol. III, p. 190.
+To C. Rowley, February 21, 1788, <i>ibid.</i>, pp. 231 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> E.g. Charles Wesley’s “Wrestling Jacob,” or Watts’s “When
+I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> <i>Vide</i> Courthope, <i>op. cit.</i>, Book V, Ch. XI; and cp. the confident
+and just claims put forward by John Wesley himself on
+behalf of the language of the hymns, in his “Preface to the Collection
+of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists,”
+1780.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> Cf. Coleridge “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+p. 11.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> <i>Vide</i> especially the dialogue with a Bookseller on the language
+of poetry.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> In both the first and the final forms “Poetical Works,”
+ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916) Appendix, pp. 592 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> For a detailed account see E. Legouis, “La Jeunesse de Wordsworth”
+(English translation, 1897; Revised edition, 1921).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Elizabethan Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, Intro.,
+pp. lv foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> Both the Fletchers also used many other latinized forms
+found before their time, and which in some cases they probably
+took direct from Spenser.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> E.g. by Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. III,
+p. 339, where a list is given (“only a few of the examples”) of
+Milton’s “coinages” and “creations.” Of this list only some
+half dozen (according to the N.E.D.) owe their first literary appearance
+to Milton.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> E.g. <i>debel</i>, <i>disglorified</i>, <i>conglobe</i>, <i>illaudable</i>, etc., date from the
+sixteenth century; <i>Battailous</i> goes back to Wycliff (N.E.D.).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> Cf.“Milton,” by Walter Raleigh (1915), pp. 247 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> <i>Vide</i> Masson, “Milton’s Poetical Works,” Vol. III, pp. 77-78
+(1890-).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> Similarly the “Virgil” translation has, e.g., <i>in a round error</i> for
+“wandering round and round,” etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> That it could easily become absurd was not unperceived in
+the eighteenth century. Vide Leonard Welsted: “Epistle to
+Mr. Pope,” May, 1730 (“Works in Verse and Prose,” London,
+1787, p. 141).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,” ed. Myra
+Reynolds, pp. 210-213 (Chicago, 1903).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Complete Poetical Works,” edited J. L. Robertson
+(Oxford, 1908), which includes a variorum edition of “The Seasons.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> “Poetical Epistle to Mr. Thomson on the First Edition of his
+‘Seasons’” (P.G.B., Vol. VIII, p. 504).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> “Letter to Mallett,” August 11, 1726.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> Cp. Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 419-424.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> E.g. ll. 766 foll., 828 foll., 881 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> Cp. also ll. 126 foll.; 711 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> Cp. also the respective versions of “Autumn,” ll. 748 and 962.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> Cp. also “Summer,” ll. 353, 376, 648; “Autumn,” ll. 349,
+894-895.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> Cp. “Milton,” Raleigh, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 252-3.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> One of the most noteworthy is the constant employment of
+adjectives as adverbs in opposition (e.g., “the grand etherial bow,
+Shoots up <i>immense</i>”) a device used both by Milton and Pope,
+but by neither with anything like the freedom seen in “The
+Seasons.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> Cf. <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Chapter VI, <i>infra.</i></a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> In the “Essay Supplementary to the Preface,” Hutchinson,
+<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 949.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> That Young’s readers and even his editors were occasionally
+puzzled is seen by the history of the term “concertion.” This was
+the spelling of the first and most of the subsequent editions, including
+that of 1787, where the Glossary explains it as meaning
+“contrivance.” But some editions (e.g. 1751) have “consertion,”
+and some, according to Richardson (“New Dictionary,” 1836),
+have “conception.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> Armstrong’s “gelid cistern” for “cold bath” has perhaps
+gained the honour of an unidentified quotation.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">[113]</a> <i>Vacant</i> in the oft-quoted line from “The Deserted Village”
+(“The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind”), where the word is
+used in its Latin sense of “free from care.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">[114]</a> As in the case of Milton, Cowper’s latinized words appear to
+have been floating about for a considerable period, though in most
+cases their first poetic use is apparently due to him.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">[115]</a> Cp. also III, 229, 414; IV, 494.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">[116]</a> Apparently after he had done some pruning amongst them
+(<i>vide</i> “Letter” to Joseph Hill, March 29, 1793, Wright, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+Vol. IV, p. 390), and compare his footnote to the “Iliad,” VII,
+359, where he apologizes for his coinage <i>purpureal</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">[117]</a> For an account of the parallelism between certain of the
+eighteenth century stock epithets and various words and phrases
+from the Latin poets, especially Virgil (e.g. “hollow” and “<i>cavus</i>”:
+“liquid fountain” and <i>liquidi fontes</i>), see Myra Reynolds, “Nature
+in English Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth” (Chicago, 1909),
+pp. 46-49.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">[118]</a> Cf. Some apt remarks by Raleigh, “Milton,” <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 247
+and 255.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">[119]</a> Cp. Saintsbury, “History of Literary Criticism” (1900-1904),
+Vol. II, p. 479, note 1.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">[120]</a> Cp. Elton, “Survey of English Literature,” 1830-1880 (1920),
+Vol. II, p. 17, remarks on Rossetti’s diction.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">[121]</a> Cp. also Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 423-424.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">[122]</a> <i>Vide</i> Lounsbury, “Studies in Chaucer” (1892), Vol. III.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">[123]</a> “Scrannel” is either Milton’s coinage or a borrowing from some
+dialect (N.E.D.).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">[124]</a> This of course is used by many later writers, and was perhaps
+not regarded in Dryden’s time as an archaism.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">[125]</a> “New English Dictionary.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">[126]</a> “Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. X, p. 120.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">[127]</a> The prevailing ignorance of earlier English is illustrated in
+that stanza by Pope’s explanation of the expression “mister
+wight,” which he had taken from Spenser, as “uncouth mortal.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">[128]</a> “The Works of Mr. Edmund Spenser, in 6 Vols. with a glossary
+explaining the old and obscure words. Published by Mr. Hughes,
+London.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">[129]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Vol. I, pp. 115-140.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">[130]</a> As in Prior’s “Susanna and the Two Elders” and “Erle
+Robert’s Mice” (1712).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">[131]</a> “Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser,” 1754.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">[132]</a> “An Answer to the Sompner’s Prologue in Chaucer,” printed
+anon, in “Lintott’s Miscellany,” entitled “Poems on Several
+Occasions” (1717), p. 147.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="label">[133]</a> “A Tale Devised in the Plesaunt manere of Gentil Maister
+Jeoffrey Chaucer” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794, Vol. VII, p. 674).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="label">[134]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” by the Rev. Thomas Warton,
+1748, p. 30.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="label">[135]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” London, 1711, pp. 203-223.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="label">[136]</a> <i>Vide</i> List given by Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English
+Romantic Movement” (1899), Appendix I, p. 175; and cf. an exhaustive
+list, including complete glossaries, given in “Das
+Altertümliche im Wortschatz der Spenser-Nachahmungen des 18
+Jahrhunderts,” by Karl Reining (Strassburg, 1912).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="label">[137]</a> E.g. Robert Lloyd, 1733-1764, in his “Progress of Envy”
+(Anderson, Vol. V), defines <i>wimpled</i> as “hung down”; “The
+Squire of Dames,” by Moses Mendez (1700-1738) has many old
+words (“benty,” etc.), which are often open to the suspicion of
+being manufactured archaisms.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_138" href="#FNanchor_138" class="label">[138]</a> <i>Vide</i> his letter to Graves, June, 1742.—“Works,” Vol. III,
+p. 63 (1769).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_139" href="#FNanchor_139" class="label">[139]</a> “Poems on Several Occasions,” by William Thompson, M.A.,
+etc., Oxford, 1757, pp. 1-13.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_140" href="#FNanchor_140" class="label">[140]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 58-68.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_141" href="#FNanchor_141" class="label">[141]</a> “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper,”
+by Dr. Samuel Johnson, 21 Vols. (London, 1810), Vol. XV, p. 32.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_142" href="#FNanchor_142" class="label">[142]</a> Thompson has taken this wrong meaning direct with the word
+itself from Spenser, “Shepherds Kalendar,” April, l. 26, where
+<i>glen</i> is glossed by E.K. as “a country hamlet or borough.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_143" href="#FNanchor_143" class="label">[143]</a> Cp. Joseph Warton’s “Essay on Pope,” Vol. I, p. 366 (4th
+edition, 1782). Wordsworth, too, as we know, called it a “fine
+poem” and praised it for its harmonious verse and pure diction,
+but we may imagine that he was praising it for its own sake without
+regard to its merits as a Spenserian imitation (<i>vide</i> Hutchinson,
+<i>op. cit.</i>, p. 949).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_144" href="#FNanchor_144" class="label">[144]</a> There are at least forty stanzas in the First Canto, without a
+single archaic form, and an equal proportion in Canto Two: Cf.
+Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 629-630.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_145" href="#FNanchor_145" class="label">[145]</a> “The letter <i>y</i>,” he naïvely says in his “Glossary,” “is frequently
+placed at the beginning of a word by Spenser, to lengthen it a
+syllable, and <i>en</i> at the end of a word, for the same reason.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_146" href="#FNanchor_146" class="label">[146]</a> Thompson seems to have been the first to use the word <i>bicker</i>
+as applied to running water, an application which was later to
+receive the sanction of Scott and Tennyson (N.E.D.).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_147" href="#FNanchor_147" class="label">[147]</a> Among the last examples was Beattie’s “Minstrel” (1771-74),
+which occasioned some of Gray’s dicta on the use of archaic and
+obsolete words.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_148" href="#FNanchor_148" class="label">[148]</a> Spenserian “forgeries” had also made their appearance as
+early as in 1713, when Samuel Croxall had attempted to pass off
+two Cantos as the original work of “England’s Arch-Poet, Spenser”
+(2nd edition, London, 1714). In 1747, John Upton made a similar
+attempt, though probably in neither case were the discoveries
+intended to be taken seriously.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_149" href="#FNanchor_149" class="label">[149]</a> See Phelps, <i>op. cit.</i>, Chap. VIII, and Grace R. Trenery,
+“Ballad Collections of the Eighteenth Century,” “Modern
+Language Review,” July, 1915, pp. 283 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_150" href="#FNanchor_150" class="label">[150]</a> <i>Vide</i> “Preface to A Collection of Old Ballads,” 3 vols. (1723-52),
+and cf. Benjamin Wakefield’s “Warbling Muses” (1749),
+Preface.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_151" href="#FNanchor_151" class="label">[151]</a> Yet thirty years later the collections of Joseph Ritson, the last
+and best of the eighteenth century editors, failed to win acceptance.
+His strictly accurate versions of the old songs and ballads were
+contemptuously dismissed by the “Gentleman’s Magazine”
+(August, 1790) as “the compilation of a peevish antiquary.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_152" href="#FNanchor_152" class="label">[152]</a> “Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript,” edited Furnivall and Hales,
+4 vols. (1867-68).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_153" href="#FNanchor_153" class="label">[153]</a> <i>Vide</i> Henry A. Beers, “A History of English Romanticism in
+the Eighteenth Century,” 1899, Chap. VIII, pp. 298-302.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_154" href="#FNanchor_154" class="label">[154]</a> Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 950.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_155" href="#FNanchor_155" class="label">[155]</a> “Chatterton—Poetical Works,” with an Essay on the Rowley
+Poems, by W. W. Skeat, and a memoir by Bell (2 vols., 1871-1875);
+and <i>vide</i> Tyrwhitt, “Poems supposed to have been written at
+Bristol by Thomas Rowley and others in the fifteenth century”
+(London, 1777).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_156" href="#FNanchor_156" class="label">[156]</a> <i>Vide</i> Oswald Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason”
+(1922), p. 251.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_157" href="#FNanchor_157" class="label">[157]</a> <i>Vide</i> John Sampson, “The Poetical Works of William Blake”
+(Oxford, 1905), Preface, viii.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_158" href="#FNanchor_158" class="label">[158]</a> Until the middle of the eighteenth century the form <i>glen</i> occurs
+in English writers only as an echo of Spenser (N.E.D.).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_159" href="#FNanchor_159" class="label">[159]</a> <i>Vide</i> “The Dialect of Robert Burns,” by Sir James Wilson
+(Oxford Press, 1923), and for happy instances of beautiful words
+still lingering on in the Scots dialects, <i>vide</i> especially “The Roxburghshire
+Word-Book,” by George Watson (Cambridge, 1923).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_160" href="#FNanchor_160" class="label">[160]</a> Sweet, “New English Grammar” (1892), Part II, pp. 208-212,
+and Skeat, “Principles of English Etymology” (1887), Part I,
+pp. 418-420.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_161" href="#FNanchor_161" class="label">[161]</a> The first literary appearance of each compound has been
+checked as far as possible by reference to the “New English
+Dictionary.” It is hardly necessary to say that the fact of a compound
+being assigned, as regards its first appearance, to any
+individual writer, is not in itself evidence that he himself invented
+the new formation, or even introduced it into literature. But in
+many cases, either from the nature of the compound itself, or from
+some other internal or external evidence, the assumption may be
+made.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_162" href="#FNanchor_162" class="label">[162]</a> Cp. Sweet, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 449.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_163" href="#FNanchor_163" class="label">[163]</a> In the “Beowulf” there are twenty-three compounds meaning
+“Ocean,” twelve meaning “Ship,” and eighteen meaning “Sword”
+(<i>vide</i> Emerson, “Outline History of the English Language,” 1906,
+p. 121).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_164" href="#FNanchor_164" class="label">[164]</a> Cp. Champney’s “History of English” (1893), p. 192 and Note;
+and Lounsbury, “History of the English Language” (1909), p. 109.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_165" href="#FNanchor_165" class="label">[165]</a> Cp. Sidney’s remarks in the “Defence of Poesie—Elizabethan
+Critical Essays,” ed. Smith, Vol. I, p. 204.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_166" href="#FNanchor_166" class="label">[166]</a> E.g. Spenser’s “<i>sea-shouldering</i> whales” (an epithet that
+especially pleased Keats), Nashe’s “<i>sky-bred</i> chirpers,” Marlowe’s
+“<i>gold-fingered</i> Ind,” Shakespeare’s “<i>fancy-free</i>,” “<i>forest-born</i>,”
+“<i>cloud-capt</i>,” etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_167" href="#FNanchor_167" class="label">[167]</a> Dryden, “English Men of Letters” (1906), p. 76.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_168" href="#FNanchor_168" class="label">[168]</a> Pope’s “Homer,” ed. Buckley, Preface, p. xli.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_169" href="#FNanchor_169" class="label">[169]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 47; and cp. Coleridge, “Biographia Literaria,” ed.
+Shawcross (Oxford, 1907), Vol. I, p. 2, Footnote.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_170" href="#FNanchor_170" class="label">[170]</a> Here it may be noted that many of Pope’s compounds in his
+“Homer” have no warrant in the original; they are in most cases
+supplied by Pope himself, to “pad out” his verses, or, more
+rarely, as paraphrases of Greek words or phrases.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_171" href="#FNanchor_171" class="label">[171]</a> Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 2, Footnote.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_172" href="#FNanchor_172" class="label">[172]</a> “Lives” ed. Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, p. 298.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_173" href="#FNanchor_173" class="label">[173]</a> <i>Vide</i> Leon Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, Ch. IV, pp. 412 foll., for a detailed
+examination of Thomson’s compound formations.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_174" href="#FNanchor_174" class="label">[174]</a> It would appear that this epithet had particularly caught the
+fancy of Collins. He uses it also in the “Ode on the Manners,”
+this time figuratively, when he writes of “<i>dim-discovered</i> tracts of
+mind.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_175" href="#FNanchor_175" class="label">[175]</a> “Works,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. IV, p. 203. In point of fact, there is
+little or no evidence in favour of it. Even the Spenserian imitations
+that flourished exceedingly at this time have little interest in this
+respect. Shenstone has very few instances of compounds, but the
+poems of William Thompson furnish a few examples: “<i>honey-trickling</i>
+streams” (“Sickness,” Bk. I), “<i>Lily-mantled</i> meads”
+(<i>ibid.</i>), etc. Gilbert West’s Spenserian poems have no instances
+of any special merit; but a verse of his Pindar shows that he was
+not without a gift for happy composition: “The <i>billow-beaten</i> side
+of the <i>foam-besilvered</i> main.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_176" href="#FNanchor_176" class="label">[176]</a> “Letters,” Vol. III, p. 97.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_177" href="#FNanchor_177" class="label">[177]</a> Hill, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. III, p. 437.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_178" href="#FNanchor_178" class="label">[178]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 434.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_179" href="#FNanchor_179" class="label">[179]</a> <i>Vide</i> Edmund Gosse, “Two Pioneers of Romanticism” (Warton
+Lecture), 1915.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_180" href="#FNanchor_180" class="label">[180]</a> It is a coincidence to find that the N.E.D. assigns the first use
+of the compound <i>furze-clad</i> to Wordsworth.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_181" href="#FNanchor_181" class="label">[181]</a> Bell’s “Fugitive Poets” (London, 1789), Vol. VI.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_182" href="#FNanchor_182" class="label">[182]</a> Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. XI.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_183" href="#FNanchor_183" class="label">[183]</a> Bell, <i>op. cit.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_184" href="#FNanchor_184" class="label">[184]</a> Anderson, <i>op. cit.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_185" href="#FNanchor_185" class="label">[185]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. X.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_186" href="#FNanchor_186" class="label">[186]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Vol. XI, Pt. I.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_187" href="#FNanchor_187" class="label">[187]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Pt. II.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_188" href="#FNanchor_188" class="label">[188]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. XI, Pt. II.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_189" href="#FNanchor_189" class="label">[189]</a> <i>Vide</i> Legouis, <i>op. cit.</i> (English translation, 1897), pp. 133 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_190" href="#FNanchor_190" class="label">[190]</a> Shawcross, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 2, Note.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_191" href="#FNanchor_191" class="label">[191]</a> See, e.g., de Selincourt’s remarks on Keats’ compound epithets;
+“Poems” (1904), Appendix C, p. 581.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_192" href="#FNanchor_192" class="label">[192]</a> “Biog. Lit.,” <i>op. cit.</i>, and cp. “Poetical Works,” ed. Dykes
+Campbell, Appendix K, p. 540.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_193" href="#FNanchor_193" class="label">[193]</a> “History of English Prosody” (1908), Vol. II, p. 449.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_194" href="#FNanchor_194" class="label">[194]</a> “History of English Prosody,” <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. II, p. 480; and cp.
+<i>ibid.</i>, p. 496.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_195" href="#FNanchor_195" class="label">[195]</a> Prefaces, “Poetical Works,” ed. Hutchinson (Oxford, 1916),
+p. 936.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_196" href="#FNanchor_196" class="label">[196]</a> <i>Vide</i> Courthope, “History of English Poetry” (1910), Vol. I,
+Chap. IX, for an account of mediaeval allegory and personification.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_197" href="#FNanchor_197" class="label">[197]</a> E.g. “Palamon,” II, 480, 564, 565; Æneas XII, 505-506.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_198" href="#FNanchor_198" class="label">[198]</a> “Black Melancholy” (ll. 163-168) and “Hope” (l. 278), the
+former of which especially pleased Joseph Warton (“Essay on
+Pope”: Works, Vol. I, p. 314).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_199" href="#FNanchor_199" class="label">[199]</a> Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 209.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_200" href="#FNanchor_200" class="label">[200]</a> Cf. “Suicide” (Canto II, 194-250).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_201" href="#FNanchor_201" class="label">[201]</a> Cf. also Bk. I, ll. 10, 11; 548, etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_202" href="#FNanchor_202" class="label">[202]</a> Especially in Book III of “The Duellist,” where the reader is
+baffled and wearied by the unending array of bloodless abstractions.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_203" href="#FNanchor_203" class="label">[203]</a> It may be noted incidentally that, according to the “New
+English Dictionary,” the term <i>personification</i> owes its first literary
+appearance to the famous “Dictionary” of 1755, where it is thus
+defined, and (appropriately enough) illustrated: “<i>Prosopopeia</i>,
+the change of things to persons, as ‘Confusion heard his voice.’”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_204" href="#FNanchor_204" class="label">[204]</a> Phelps, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 37-38.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_205" href="#FNanchor_205" class="label">[205]</a> “Letter” to Mallet, August 11, 1726: “I thank you heartily
+for your hint about personizing of Inspiration: it strikes me.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_206" href="#FNanchor_206" class="label">[206]</a> Cf. also “Winter,” 794 and “Autumn,” 143.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_207" href="#FNanchor_207" class="label">[207]</a> For some happy instances of its use in English poetry, as well
+as for a detailed account of Thomson’s use of personification, see
+especially Morel, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 444-455.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_208" href="#FNanchor_208" class="label">[208]</a> Poets of Great Britain (1793), Vol. IX, p. 414.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_209" href="#FNanchor_209" class="label">[209]</a> “British Poets,” Vol. XXII (1822), p. 117.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_210" href="#FNanchor_210" class="label">[210]</a> “A Collection of Poems by several hands,” 3 vols., 1748;
+2nd edition, with Vol. IV, 1749; Vol. V and VI, 1758; Pearch’s
+continuations, Vol. VII and VIII, 1768, and Vol. IX and X, 1770.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_211" href="#FNanchor_211" class="label">[211]</a> “Dodsley” (1770 ed.), Vol. IV, p. 50.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_212" href="#FNanchor_212" class="label">[212]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 148.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_213" href="#FNanchor_213" class="label">[213]</a> “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 5.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_214" href="#FNanchor_214" class="label">[214]</a> <i>Vide</i> also Bell’s “Fugitive Poetry” (1791). Vol. XI, where
+there is a section devoted to “Poems in the manner of Milton.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_215" href="#FNanchor_215" class="label">[215]</a> “Dodsley-Pearch,” X, p. 269.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_216" href="#FNanchor_216" class="label">[216]</a> At the same time there appeared a similar volume of the Odes
+of William Collins, “Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric
+Subjects,” the original intention having been to publish in one
+volume. Collins’s collection had a lukewarm reception, so that the
+author soon burned the unsold copies. But see Articles in “The
+Times Literary Supplement,” January 5th (p. 5) and January 12,
+1922 (p. 28), by Mr. H. O. White, on “William Collins and his
+Contemporary Critics,” from which it would appear that the Odes
+were not received with such indifference as is commonly believed.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_217" href="#FNanchor_217" class="label">[217]</a> Cf. “Pope’s Works,” ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V, p. 365.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_218" href="#FNanchor_218" class="label">[218]</a> <i>Vide</i> also “The Triumph of Isis” (1749), and “The Monody
+written near Stratford-on-Avon.” (“Poets of Great Britain,” 1794,
+Vol. XI, pp. 1061-4.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_219" href="#FNanchor_219" class="label">[219]</a> Cf. Gosse, “A History of Eighteenth Century Literature”
+(1889), p. 233.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_220" href="#FNanchor_220" class="label">[220]</a> Cf. Courthope, “Hist. Engl. Poetry,” Vol. V, pp. 397-8.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_221" href="#FNanchor_221" class="label">[221]</a> “Lives,” ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Vol. III, p. 341.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_222" href="#FNanchor_222" class="label">[222]</a> “On Lyric Poetry—Poetical Works,” ed. Mitford (Aldine,
+ed. 1896), Vol. II, p. 147.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_223" href="#FNanchor_223" class="label">[223]</a> In the Aldine edition, ed. Thomas (1901) these personified
+abstractions are not invested with a capital letter.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_224" href="#FNanchor_224" class="label">[224]</a> “Biographia Literaria” (ed. Shawcross, 1907), p. 12; cf. also
+“Table Talk” (October 23, 1833), ed. H. N. Coleridge (1858),
+p. 340. “Gray’s personifications,” he said, “were mere printer’s
+devil’s personifications,” etc.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_225" href="#FNanchor_225" class="label">[225]</a> Two of Gray’s mechanical figures were marked down for special
+censure by Dr. Johnson (“Lives,” Gray, ed. Birbeck Hill, Vol. III,
+p. 440), whose criticism was endorsed by Walpole (“Letters,”
+Vol. III, p. 98), who likened “Fell Thirst and Famine” to the
+devils in “The Tempest” who whisk away the banquets from the
+shipwrecked Dukes.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_226" href="#FNanchor_226" class="label">[226]</a> “Letters” (December 19, 1786), Tovey, <i>op. cit.</i>, Vol. I, p. 322.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_227" href="#FNanchor_227" class="label">[227]</a> In this connexion mention may be made of “William Blake’s
+Designs for Gray’s Poems,” recently published for the first time with
+a valuable introduction by H. J. C. Grierson (Oxford, 1922).
+“Blake’s imagination,” says Professor Grierson, “communicates
+an intenser life to Gray’s half-conventional personifications”
+(Intro., p. 17).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_228" href="#FNanchor_228" class="label">[228]</a> Canto I: LXXIV-LXXV.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_229" href="#FNanchor_229" class="label">[229]</a> Cp. also the detailed personification of “Thrift,” given by
+Mickle in his “Syr Martyn” (1787).—“Poets of Great Britain” (1794),
+Vol. XI, p. 645.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_230" href="#FNanchor_230" class="label">[230]</a> Cf. “Paradise Lost,” VI, 3; and Pope’s “Iliad,” V, 297.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_231" href="#FNanchor_231" class="label">[231]</a> “Works” ed. Ellis and Yeats, Vol. I, Pref., x.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_232" href="#FNanchor_232" class="label">[232]</a> July 6, 1803, “Letters,” ed. A. G. B. Russell (1906), p. 121.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_233" href="#FNanchor_233" class="label">[233]</a> In the parallel verses of “The Songs of Experience” the human
+attributes are attributed respectively to <i>Cruelty</i>, <i>Jealousy</i>, <i>Terror</i>,
+and <i>Secrecy</i>.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_234" href="#FNanchor_234" class="label">[234]</a> “Poetical Works,” ed. John Sampson (Oxford), 1914, p. 187.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_235" href="#FNanchor_235" class="label">[235]</a> <i>Vide</i>, e.g., ll. 18-26.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_236" href="#FNanchor_236" class="label">[236]</a> See also, e.g., “Midnight,” l. 272 foll, and l. 410 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_237" href="#FNanchor_237" class="label">[237]</a> A similar type of abstraction is found here and there in the
+stanzas of the “Song to David” (1763), e.g.:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And heavenly melancholy tuned</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">To bless and bear the rest.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">But on the whole Smart’s famous poem is singularly free from the
+bane, though the “Hymn to the Supreme Being” (<i>vide</i> “A Song
+to David,” edited Tutin (1904), Appendix, p. 32), has not escaped
+the contagion. But better instances are to be found in the Odes
+(“Works,” 1761-1762), e.g., “Strong Labour ... with his pipe
+in his mouth,” “Health from his Cottage of thatch,” etc. <i>Vide</i>
+also article on “Christopher Smart,” “Times Literary Supplement,”
+April 6, 1922, p. 224.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_238" href="#FNanchor_238" class="label">[238]</a> Cf. “Poems of William Cowper,” ed. J. C. Bailey (1905),
+Intro., p. xl.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_239" href="#FNanchor_239" class="label">[239]</a> There are faint personifications of the other seasons in Book III,
+ll. 427 foll., but none perhaps as effective as William Mickle had
+already given in his ode, “Vicissitude,” where he depicts Winter
+staying:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">his creeping steps to pause</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And wishful turns his icy eyes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">On April meads.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_240" href="#FNanchor_240" class="label">[240]</a> <i>Streaky</i>, for instance, is due to Thomson who, in the first draft
+of “Summer” (ll. 47-48) had written:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Mildly elucent in the streaky east,</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">later changed to</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_241" href="#FNanchor_241" class="label">[241]</a> “Letters,” edited E. Coleridge, 1895, p. 215.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_242" href="#FNanchor_242" class="label">[242]</a> “Biographia Literaria,” Chap. I.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_243" href="#FNanchor_243" class="label">[243]</a> The ridicule was crystallized in Canning’s famous parody,
+“The Loves of the Triangles,” which appeared in “The Anti-Jacobin,”
+Nos. 23, 24 and 26, April to May, 1798. (<i>Vide</i> “The
+Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin,” edited C. Edmonds, 1854, 3rd edition,
+1890.)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_244" href="#FNanchor_244" class="label">[244]</a> “The Botanic Garden” (4th edition, 1799), Interlude I, Vol. II,
+p. 64. Cp. also <i>ibid.</i>, Interlude III, p. 182 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_245" href="#FNanchor_245" class="label">[245]</a> For details see Legouis, <i>op. cit.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_246" href="#FNanchor_246" class="label">[246]</a> Both the original and the final versions of the “Evening Walk”
+and the “Descriptive Sketches” are given by Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>,
+Appendix, pp. 592, 601.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_247" href="#FNanchor_247" class="label">[247]</a> But the artistic possibilities of Personification were not unrecognized
+by writers and critics in the eighteenth century. <i>Vide</i>
+Blair’s lecture on “Personification” (“Lectures on Rhetoric”) 9th
+edition, 1803; Lec. XVI, p. 375.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_248" href="#FNanchor_248" class="label">[248]</a> “The Stones of Venice” (1851), Vol. II, Chap. VIII, pp. 312 foll.—The
+Ducal Palace, “Personification is, in some sort, the reverse of
+symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of
+a great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign ... and it is
+almost always employed by men in their most serious moods
+of faith, rarely in recreation.... But Personification is the
+bestowing of a human or living form upon an abstract idea; it is
+in most cases, a mere recreation of the fancy, and is apt to disturb
+the belief in the reality of the thing personified.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_249" href="#FNanchor_249" class="label">[249]</a> For an illuminating analysis, see Elton, “A Survey of English
+Literature,” 1780-1830 (1912), pp. 1-29.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_250" href="#FNanchor_250" class="label">[250]</a> “Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise,” Vol. IV, pp. 175-178.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_251" href="#FNanchor_251" class="label">[251]</a> Cf. Coleridge’s remarks in “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross,
+Chap. I (Oxford, 1907).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_252" href="#FNanchor_252" class="label">[252]</a> Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 211.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_253" href="#FNanchor_253" class="label">[253]</a> “Sleep and Poetry,” ll. 188-201.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_254" href="#FNanchor_254" class="label">[254]</a> Hutchinson, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 948.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_255" href="#FNanchor_255" class="label">[255]</a> “Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. X, p. 709.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_256" href="#FNanchor_256" class="label">[256]</a> Cf. “Works” (1889), ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V., p. 360-364.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_257" href="#FNanchor_257" class="label">[257]</a> George Saintsbury, “Eighteenth Century Poetry” (“The
+London Mercury,” December, 1919, pp. 155-163); an article in
+which a great authority once again tilts an effective lance on
+behalf of the despised Augustans.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_258" href="#FNanchor_258" class="label">[258]</a> The best of them have been garnered by Mr. Iola A. Williams
+into a little volume, “By-ways Round Helicon” (London, 1922),
+where the interested reader may browse with much pleasure and
+profit, and where he will no doubt find not a little to surprise and
+delight him. For a still more complete anthology, <i>vide</i> “The
+Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century” (1923) by the same
+editor. But for the devil’s advocacy see Doughty, “English Lyric
+in the Age of Reason” (London, 1922)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_259" href="#FNanchor_259" class="label">[259]</a> The fountain head of all such studies is, of course, the “Biographia
+Literaria,” for which see especially Shawcross’s edition,
+1907, Vol. II, pp. 287-297. Of recent general treatises, Lascelles
+Abercrombie, “Poetry and Contemporary Speech” (1914);
+Vernon Lee, “The Handling of Words” (1923); Ogden and
+Richards, “The Meaning of Meaning”(1923), may be mentioned.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_260" href="#FNanchor_260" class="label">[260]</a> Elton, “Survey of English Literature” (1780-1830), Vol. II,
+pp. 88 foll.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_261" href="#FNanchor_261" class="label">[261]</a> Cf. Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1899), p. 209.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_262" href="#FNanchor_262" class="label">[262]</a> “The Legacy of Greece” (Oxford, 1921), p. 11.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_263" href="#FNanchor_263" class="label">[263]</a> “Convention and Revolt in Poetry” (London, 1921), p. 13.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_264" href="#FNanchor_264" class="label">[264]</a> Just as this book was about to go to press, there appeared “The
+Theory of Poetry,” by Professor Lascelles Abercrombie, in which
+a poet and critic of great distinction has embodied his thoughts
+on his own art. Chaps. III and IV especially should be consulted
+for a most valuable account and analysis of how the poetical
+“magic” of words is achieved.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_265" href="#FNanchor_265" class="label">[265]</a> “Essays in Criticism,” Second Series (1888): “Wordsworth”
+(1913 ed.), p. 157.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_266" href="#FNanchor_266" class="label">[266]</a> O. Barfield, “Form in Poetry” (“New Statesman” August 7,
+1920, pp. 501-2).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_267" href="#FNanchor_267" class="label">[267]</a> “Œuvres” (ed. Assézat), I, p. 377 (quoted by Babbitt), <i>op. cit.</i>,
+p. 121.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_268" href="#FNanchor_268" class="label">[268]</a> Preface to “The Tales” (Poems), ed. A. W. Ward, (Cambridge,
+1906), Vol. II, p. 10.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Abercrombie, Lascelles, <a href="#Footnote_259">197 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_264">201 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Addison, Joseph, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Ælla” (T. Chatterton’s), <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Akenside, Mark, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dr. Johnson’s criticism, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Epistle to Curio,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personification, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Pleasures of the Imagination,” <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Alma” (M. Prior’s), <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Amyntor and Theodora,” <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Anti-Jacobin, The,” <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Approach of Summer, The,” <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Archaism,” <a href="#Page_17">17-21</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80-101</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aristotle, <a href="#Page_10">10-12</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Armstrong, John, <a href="#Page_69">69-70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Art of Preserving Health,” <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Babbitt, I., <a href="#Footnote_25">13 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_267">203 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bailey, J. C., <a href="#Footnote_238">169 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ballads, <a href="#Page_95">95-7</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Barfield, Owen, <a href="#Footnote_266">202 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Bastard, The,” <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Beattie, James, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147">93 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Beers, H. A., <a href="#Footnote_153">97 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Beowulf, The,” <a href="#Footnote_163">104 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Binyon, Laurence, <a href="#Footnote_25">13 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx" id="Biographia">“Biographia Literaria,” <a href="#Footnote_23">13 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_57">24 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_82">48 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_86">51 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_190">127 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_242">173 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_251">185 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Birth of Flattery, The” (G. Crabbe’s), <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blair, Robert, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Footnote_247">176 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blake, William, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-59</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163-7</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179-80</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Footnote_254">187 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Allegory and Vision, remarks on, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Artist, as, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Footnote_227">159 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Felicity of diction, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Imitation of Spenser,” <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_80">47 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_232">164 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_254">187 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Muses, To the,” <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Mysticism, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_163">163-7</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179-80</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Piper, The,” <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Songs of Experience,” <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Footnote_233">165 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Songs of Innocence,” <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_46">46-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blount, T., <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” <a href="#Footnote_32">16 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Botanic Garden” (E. Darwin’s), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bowles, William Lisle, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Boyce, S., <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bruce, Michael, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Burns, Robert, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bysshe, Edward, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“By-ways Round Helicon”, <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Campbell, Dykes, <a href="#Footnote_192">128 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Canning, George, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Capell, Edward, <a href="#Page_95">95-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Castaway, The,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Castle of Indolence,” <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chapman, George, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span>“Charge to the Poets” (W. Whitehead’s), <a href="#Footnote_43">20 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Chase, The” (W. Somerville’s), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chatterton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42-3</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123-4</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_123">123-4</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Rowley Poems,” <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_42">42-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chaucer, Geoffrey, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84-6</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chaucerian imitations, <a href="#Page_84">84-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Chesterfield, Lord, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Child of Quality, Lines to” (M. Prior’s), <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Choice, The” (J. Pomfret’s), <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Churchill, John, <a href="#Page_139">139-40</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169-70</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Classical literature (connexion with romantic), <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coleridge, H. N., <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coleridge, S. T., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127-8</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_127">127-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Darwin, E., remarks, on, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Gray’s personifications, on, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Imagination, on, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_241">173 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Collins, William, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116-7</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_116">116-7</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dr. Johnson’s criticisms of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Odes,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_150">150-5</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, a, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_40">40-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Compound epithets, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102-31</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Convention and Revolt in Poetry,” <a href="#Footnote_263">200 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Courthope, W. J., <a href="#Footnote_14">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_36">17 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_78">45 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_85">50 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_92">57 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_196">133 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_217">149 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_256">194 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coventry, F., <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cowper, William, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48-50</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168-73</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Familiar style, on the, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Homer” translation, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_73">73-5</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Letters,” <a href="#Footnote_46">20 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_83">48 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_116">74 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Olney Hymns,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_169">169-73</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_48">48-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Table Talk,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Task, The,” <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Crabbe, George, <a href="#Page_50">50-1</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124-5</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_124">124-5</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dryden’s style, on, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_167">167-8</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_50">50-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Croxall, Samuel, <a href="#Footnote_148">93 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cunningham, John, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Darwin, Erasmus, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-2</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Davenant, Sir William, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Denham, Sir John, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dennis, John, <a href="#Footnote_18">11 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">De Quincey, Thomas, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Descriptive Sketches,” <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Footnote_246">176 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Deserted Village, The,” <a href="#Page_45">45-6</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-2</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Diderot, Denis, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dodsley, Robert, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Doughty, Oswald, <a href="#Footnote_156">98 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Drayton, Michael, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Drinkwater, John, <a href="#Footnote_15">9 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dryden, John, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26-7</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58-9</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81-2</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105-6</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Annus Mirabilis,” <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaisms, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Chaucer “translations,” <a href="#Page_26">26-7</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_105">105-6</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Essays” and “Prefaces,” <a href="#Page_7">7-11</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Hind and Panther,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>Language of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_8">8-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_58">58-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Periphrasis, use of, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Religio Laici,” <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Royal Society, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Technical terms, on, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Duellist, The” (Charles Churchill’s), <a href="#Footnote_202">140 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dyer, John, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Earle, J., <a href="#Footnote_69">35 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Economy of Vegetation,” <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Edmonds, C., <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Eloisa to Abelard,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Elton, Oliver, <a href="#Footnote_16">10 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_199">135 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_249">182 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_252">186 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_260">197 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Emerson, O., <a href="#Footnote_163">104 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“English Lyric in the Age of Reason,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Enthusiast, The,” <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Epistle to Curio” (M. Akenside’s), <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Epithalamium (W. Thompson’s), <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Essay on Criticism,” <a href="#Page_9">9-10</a>, <a href="#Footnote_61">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Eton College, Ode on a Distant View of,” <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Evelyn, John, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Evening, Ode to,” <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Evening Walk, The,” <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Excursion, The” (David Mallet’s), <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Faerie Queene,” <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-60</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Falconer, William, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Fleece, The,” (J. Dyer’s), <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fletcher, Giles, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Fletcher, Phineas, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Fugitive Poets” (Bell’s), <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Footnote_214">147 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Furetière, Antoine, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Gay, John, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gibbon, Edward, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Glanvill, Joseph, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Goldsmith, Oliver, <a href="#Page_14">14-15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44-6</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-2</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, in, <a href="#Page_117">117-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_141">141-2</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_44">44-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Graeme, James, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Grainger, James, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Grave,” the (Robert Blair’s), <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gray, Thomas, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16-17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21-2</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71-2</a>, <a href="#Footnote_147">93 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98-9</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117-20</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155-9</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaisms, on, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Coinages, on, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_117">117-20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction of poetry, on, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16-17</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_71">71-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Letters, <a href="#Footnote_9">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_35">16 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_155">155-9</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Plain colloquial style, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, A, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_41">41-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Technical terms, on, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Grierson, H. J. C., <a href="#Footnote_227">159 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Grongar Hill,” <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Hamilton, William (of Bangor), <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hill, G. B., <a href="#Footnote_8">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_30">15 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_33">16 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_53">23 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_172">112 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_221">151 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Hind and Panther, The,” <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Horror, Ode to,” <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hughes, John, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hume, David, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hutchinson, T., <a href="#Footnote_88">52 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_110">68 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_154">97 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_195">132 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_246">176 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span>“Hymn to May” (W. Thompson’s), <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Il Bellicoso,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Il Pacifico,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Il Penseroso,” <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Inebriety,” <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Jago, R., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Johnson, Dr., <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40-2</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Collins, on, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119-20</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction, on, <a href="#Page_15">15-16</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Dictionary,” <a href="#Footnote_203">140 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Dryden, on, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Gray’s personifications, on, <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jonson, Ben, <a href="#Page_17">17-18</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Keats, John, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ker, W. P., <a href="#Footnote_6">7 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_10">8 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_12">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_19">11 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_38">18 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_51">21 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Kersey, John, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“L’Allegro,” <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Langhorne, J., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Langland, William, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Latinism, <a href="#Page_56">56-79</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lee, Vernon, <a href="#Footnote_259">197 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Legacy of Greece, The,” <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Legouis, E., <a href="#Footnote_89">53 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_189">127 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_245">175 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lessing’s “Laokoon,” <a href="#Footnote_21">12 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lloyd, Robert, <a href="#Footnote_137">88 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“London” (Dr. Johnson’s), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Loves of the Plants” (E. Darwin’s), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Loves of the Triangles” (G. Canning’s), <a href="#Footnote_243">173 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lowes, Professor J. L., <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Lyrical Ballads,” <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lyttleton, G., <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Maeterlinck, M., <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mallet, D., <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Footnote_205">144 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marlowe, Christopher, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marriott, Dr., <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mason, William, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Masson, David, <a href="#Footnote_95">58 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mendez, Moses, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mickle, William, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229">162 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_239">171 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Milton, John, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33-6</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176-7</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compound epithets, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction, <a href="#Page_34">34-6</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Imitated in eighteenth century, <a href="#Page_60">60-70</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76-7</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-50</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personification, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146-7</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Monody written near Stratford-on-Avon,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Morel, Leon, <a href="#Footnote_74">39 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_102">63 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_121">78 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_144">91 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_173">114 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_207">145 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Murray, Gilbert, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Nashe, Thomas, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Neo-classicism, <a href="#Page_9">9-13</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Night Thoughts” (E. Young’s), <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68-9</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Nocturnal Reverie” (Countess of Winchilsea’s), <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Old English Compounds, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Ossian” poems, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Paradise Lost,” <a href="#Page_34">34-6</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Parnell, Thomas, <a href="#Page_135">135-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Passions, Ode to the,” <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Penshurst” (F. Coventry’s), <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Percy, Bishop, <a href="#Page_96">96-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Personification and abstraction, <a href="#Page_133">133-80</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Phelps, W. L., <a href="#Footnote_204">142 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Philips, John, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60-1</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span>“Pity, Ode to” (W. Collins’), <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Pleasures of the Imagination” (M. Akenside’s), <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138-9</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Pleasures of Melancholy, The” (T. Warton’s), <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Poetical Character, Ode on the” (W. Collins’s), <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Poetical Sketches” (W. Blake’s), <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pomfret, John, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pope, Alexander, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21-2</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-4</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-4</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36-7</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59-60</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82-3</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106-9</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193-4</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82-3</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36-7</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Dunciad,” <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Essay on Criticism,” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Footnote_61">29 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Heroic couplet, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Homer,” <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Language of poetry, <a href="#Page_9">9-10</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_59">59-60</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Satire, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Potter, R., <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Prior, Matthew, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Progress of Error” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Progress of Poetry” (Thomas Gray’s), <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Prolusions” (E. Capell’s), <a href="#Page_95">95-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Raleigh, Sir Walter, <a href="#Footnote_70">35 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_94">58 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_107">66 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Rape of the Lock,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Religio Laici,” <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Reynolds, Myra, <a href="#Footnote_60">28 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_98">61 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_117">75 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ritson, Joseph, <a href="#Footnote_151">96 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Robertson, J. L., <a href="#Footnote_2">6 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rogers, Samuel, <a href="#Page_125">125-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Romanticism, connexion with classicism, <a href="#Page_181">181-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rowley poems, <a href="#Page_42">42-4</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97-8</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Ruins of Rome” (J. Dyer’s), <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ruskin, John, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Russell, A. J. B., <a href="#Footnote_232">164 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Saintsbury, George, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a>, <a href="#Footnote_119">76 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Footnote_257">194 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sampson, John, <a href="#Footnote_81">47 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_157">99 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_234">165 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Savage, Richard, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Schmidt’s “Shakespeare Lexicon,” <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Schoolmistress, The,” <a href="#Page_88">88-9</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Scott, John, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Seasons, The” (J. Thomson’s), <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Selincourt, B. de, <a href="#Footnote_68">35 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_191">128 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shakespeare, William, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shawcross, T. (<i>see</i> “<a href="#Biographia">Biographia Literaria</a>”).</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shelley, P. B., <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shenstone, W., <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88-9</a>, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century,” <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sidney, Sir Philip, <a href="#Footnote_165">105 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Skeat, W. W., <a href="#Footnote_76">43 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Footnote_155">98 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_160">102 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Smart, Christopher, <a href="#Footnote_237">169 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Smith, Gregory, <a href="#Footnote_26">14 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_37">18 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_90">56 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Somerville, William, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Song to David,” <a href="#Footnote_237">169 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spence, Joseph, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spenser, Edmund, <a href="#Page_80">80-1</a>, <a href="#Footnote_166">105 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159-60</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spenserian imitations, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86-94</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160-2</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Spingarn, J. E., <a href="#Footnote_1">5 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_2">6 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_3">7 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sprat, Thomas, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Stock diction, The, <a href="#Page_25">25-55</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Stones of Venice, The” (J. Ruskin’s), <a href="#Footnote_248">180 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Storie of William Canynge,” <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Sugar Cane, The,” <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sweet, Henry, <a href="#Footnote_160">102 n.</a>, <a href="#Footnote_162">103 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Swift, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span>Symbolism, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Symons, Arthur, <a href="#Footnote_80">47 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Syr Martin,” <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Footnote_229">162 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Table Talk” (S. T. Coleridge’s), <a href="#Footnote_224">156 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Table Talk” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Taine, H., <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Task, The” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-4</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Theory of diction, <a href="#Page_5">5-24</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thomson, James, <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Castle of Indolence,” <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Diction generally, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Miltonic borrowings, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Nature poet, a, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178-9</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Romantic forerunner, a, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Seasons, The,” <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62-8</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112-6</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142-6</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Stock diction, <a href="#Page_37">37-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Thompson, W., <a href="#Page_61">61-2</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89-90</a>, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Tintern Abbey, Lines written above,” <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Traveller, The” (O. Goldsmith’s), <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Trenery, Grace R., <a href="#Footnote_149">95 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Triumph of Isis,” <a href="#Footnote_218">149 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tyrwhitt, Thomas, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Footnote_155">98 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Upton, John, <a href="#Footnote_148">93 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Vacation, The,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Vale Abbey, Lines written at” (T. Warton’s), <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Valetudinarian, The,” <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Vanity of Human Wishes,” <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Village, The” (G. Crabbe’s), <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Vision of Patience” (S. Boyce’s), <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Vision of Solomon” (W. Whitehead’s), <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Wakefield, Benjamin, <a href="#Footnote_150">95 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Waller, Edmund, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Walpole, Horace, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Footnote_225">156 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Wanderer, The” (R. Savage’s), <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ward, A. W., <a href="#Footnote_268">204 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Warton, Joseph, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70-1</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Warton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120-1</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Watson, George, <a href="#Footnote_159">100 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Watts, Isaac, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Welsted, Leonard, <a href="#Footnote_97">59 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wesley, John, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wesley, Charles, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">West, Gilbert, <a href="#Footnote_175">118 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">White, Gilbert (of Selborne), <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">White, H. O., <a href="#Footnote_216">148 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Whitehead, W., <a href="#Footnote_43">20 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Williams, I. O., <a href="#Footnote_258">195 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wilson, Sir James, <a href="#Footnote_159">100 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Winchilsea, Anne, Countess of, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">“Windsor Forest,” <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wordsworth, William, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Footnote_59">27 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51-3</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Archaism, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Compounds, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Darwin’s (Erasmus) influence, <a href="#Page_52">52-4</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Latinism, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Percy’s “Reliques,” on, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Personifications, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175-6</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">Pope’s style, on, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Prefaces,” <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+<li class="isub1">“Prelude, The,” <a href="#Page_184">184-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wyche, Sir Peter, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">“Yardley Oak” (W. Cowper’s), <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Yeats, W. B., <a href="#Footnote_231">164 n.</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Young, Edward, <a href="#Footnote_13">9 n.</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68-9</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-8</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+</ul>
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