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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 *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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