diff options
Diffstat (limited to '77487-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 77487-0.txt | 15398 |
1 files changed, 15398 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/77487-0.txt b/77487-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c88c7f --- /dev/null +++ b/77487-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15398 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77487 *** + + + + + THE TREATMENT + OF NATURE IN + ENGLISH POETRY + + BETWEEN POPE AND WORDSWORTH + + + _By_ + MYRA REYNOLDS + + + CHICAGO + THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS + 1909 + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1909 BY + THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO + + + Composed and Printed By + The University of Chicago Press + Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. + + + + + PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION + + +The eighteenth century is a period of transition and as such its +literature holds two elements, a vital impulse past its prime but still +dominant, and a new conception gradually emerging into dominance. It +is the interweaving of these elements, the slow fading of the old, the +slow gain of the new in fulness, definiteness, and ardor of statement, +that make this period peculiarly interesting for detailed study. The +interest persists even when the transition to be studied is limited to +so narrow a section of human experience as the attitude toward Nature. + +The investigation, the results of which are embodied in this book, was +primarily undertaken to determine the place of Nature in the poetry +before Wordsworth. Every genius is, to be sure, more or less of a +miracle, and certainly not to be accounted for by any conditions of +literary heredity or even environment. But he cannot, on the other +hand, be justly thought of as an isolated phenomenon. Though not the +direct heir of any particular predecessors, he is, nevertheless, in a +vital and inescapable way, the heir of the general tone and temper of +his own and preceding times. In that fact lies the justification of a +study along historical lines of any recognized tendency in thought. +The pleasure of the biologist in the lower forms of life is paralleled +by the delight of the student of literature in tracing out the first +vague, ineffective attempts to express ideas that are afterward +regnant. In the present study the final effect is one of surprise to +discover not only how early the new thought of Nature finds expression, +but how completely the ideas of the period of Wordsworth were +represented in the germ in the eighteenth century. The whole impression +is that before the work of such men as Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, +Shelley, Keats, and Byron, there was a great stir of getting ready. It +may fairly be said that before Wordsworth most of his characteristic +thoughts on Nature had received explicit statement. + +In the pursuance of this study it soon became apparent that to confine +it to poetry was to limit the investigation unwarrantably. The interest +of the work was many times increased, and the deductions were rendered +much more certain, when the same transitions, the same periods of +change, the same tastes, the same emotions, revealed themselves side by +side in poetry, painting, fiction, travels, and gardens. Furthermore, +the vitality of the new impulse toward Nature is shown by the number +of directions in which it insistently demanded expression. Almost +independently of each other the various arts seem to have been pushed +forward from within to some sort of recognition of the growing interest +in the external world. In each art there seemed to be an unconscious +preparation for the master that was to come. Notably does this appear +from the chapter on painting. Constable and Turner were foreshadowed +and prepared for as evidently as was Wordsworth. When at the end of +such a period of preparation the great poet or artist comes, he is +great by virtue of his power to penetrate beneath literary conventions +and to give final literary form to the half-articulate thoughts and +feelings out of which the thoughts and feelings of his own epoch grow. +He has his natural place in the development. The significance of his +work rests in the fact that while it directs the future it also sums up +the past. + +The first edition of this book has long been out of print. The natural +impulse, after an interval of ten years, is to subject a new edition +to a complete revision, with the rewriting of many portions. Revision +as drastic as might be desirable has not, however, proved practicable. +Various studies of special authors have been brought up to date in the +light of new material concerning them, as, notably, in the sketch of +Lady Winchilsea. Two chapters, the one on “Painting” and the one on +“Gardening,” are entirely new, and it has, fortunately, proved possible +to add a number of interesting illustrations of these chapters, mainly +from old prints. With these exceptions the book remains substantially +as it was ten years ago. In no case has further study made it +necessary to modify any of the general conclusions on the basis of the +earlier work. More intensive work in the different realms has happily +but reinforced these conclusions. + + MYRA REYNOLDS + + August, 1909 + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi + + INTRODUCTION xv + + CHAPTER + + I THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN ENGLISH CLASSICAL POETRY 1 + + II INDICATIONS OF A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE IN THE + POETRY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 58 + + III FICTION 203 + + IV TRAVELS 223 + + V GARDENING 246 + + VI LANDSCAPE PAINTING 273 + + VII GENERAL SUMMARY 327 + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 369 + + GENERAL INDEX 378 + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + FACING PAGE + + LONG LEATE 249 + + “The House and gardens of the Rt. Hon. Thomas Lord + Viscount Weymouth, Baron Warminster, L. Knyff, Del. I. + Kip, Sculp.” + + HAGLEY PARK 261 + + “A View in Hagley Park, belonging to Sir Thos. + Lyttleton Bart., to whom this Plate is inscrib’d by + his most obed’t. Serv’t. T. Smith. G. Vivares Sculp.” + Published Oct. 1749. + + JOHN MAITLAND, DUKE OF LAUDERDALE 275 + + “From the original of Sir Peter Lely in the Collection + of the Right Hon. the Earl of Lauderdale. Drawn by Wm. + Hilton, R.A. and Engraved with Permission by I. S. + Agar.” The print here reproduced was published March 1, + 1820. + + MRS. CARNAC 280 + + By Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the Wallace Collection, + London. From a photograph by the Muchmore Art Company, + London. + + SQUIRE HALLET AND HIS WIFE 283 + + By Thomas Gainsborough. Now in the possession of Lord + Rothschild. From a photograph by Braun, Clement & Cie. + + A CALM 286 + + By Willem van de Velde. In the Gallery at Dulwich, + London. “Drawn, engraved and published by R. Cockburn, + Dulwich, 1818.” + + DUNNINGTON CLIFF 288 + + “A View of Dunnington Cliff. On the River Trent (Five + Miles South East of Derby) belonging to the Right + Honourable the Earl of Huntington, to whom this Plate + is inscrib’d by his Lordships most Dutiful and most + humble Serv’t. T. Smith. G. Vivares Sculp. Act of + Parliam’t. Augt. 25, 1745.” + + DERWENTWATER 291 + + “A View of Derwent-Water, Towards Borrodale. A Lake + near Keswick in Cumberland. To Edward Stephenson Esq’r. + of Cumberland. This Plate is inscrib’d by his most + Obliged humble Servant Will’m. Bellers. Painted after + Nature by William Bellers. Engraved by Messrs. Chatelin + & Ravenet. Published according to Act of Parliament + October the 10th 1752.” + + MOUNT SNOWDON 293 + + “A View of Snowden, in the Vale of Llan Beriis, in + Caernarvon Shire. I. Boydell. Del. & Sculp. Published + according to Act of Parliament by J. Boydell at the + Globe near Durham Yard in the Strand 1750.” + + CADER-IDRIS 297 + + “The Summit of Cader-Idris Mountain in North Wales. + Richard Wilson pinx’t. E. & M. Rooker sculpser’t. + Published July 17, 1775 by John Boydell, Engraver in + Cheapside London.” + + KILGARREN CASTLE 300 + + “Kilgarren Castle in South Wales, Richard Wilson + pinx’t. Will’m. Elliott sculp’t. Published July 17th + 1775 by John Boydell Engraver in Cheapside London.” + + SNOWDON 304 + + By Richard Wilson. In the Manchester City Art Gallery. + From a photograph by Sherratt and Hughes, Manchester. + + THE MARKET CART 307 + + Painted by Thomas Gainsborough. In the National Gallery. + + PEMBROKE 311 + + “Engraved by I. Walker from an Original Picture by Paul + Sandby Esq. R. A. Published May 1st 1797.” + + LODORE WATERFALL 315 + + “Drawn by Jos’h. Farington. Engraved by W. Byrne and T. + Medland. London. Published as the Act directs, April, + 1785.” + + THE WOOD CUTTERS 318 + + Painted by G. Morland. Engraved by W. Ward. Published + by T. Simpson, St. Paul’s Church Yard, London, 1792. + + + + + + + +The general theme of the treatment of Nature in literature is not a +new one. Schiller’s essay entitled “Ueber die naive und sentimentale +Dichtung” (1794), was the first attempt to state and explain the +difference between the classical way of looking at Nature and the +modern way. The externality in the classical attitude toward Nature, +he attributed to the fact that the Greeks were in their thoughts and +habits of life so a part of Nature that they felt no impulse to seek +her with the passionate longing of the modern poet, whose ardent and +heartfelt love of Nature is but the result of a mode of thought and +life out of harmony with her. This essay, however inadequate as a +presentation of the Greek attitude toward Nature,[1] determined the +lines of much succeeding study. + +Alexander von Humboldt in his “Kosmos” (1845–58), in the midst of +his scientific generalization and his encyclopedic accumulation of +natural facts, takes occasion to discuss the treatment of Nature in +poetry and landscape painting. The chapter on landscape painting is +chiefly confined to such topographical, botanical, and other pictorial +representations as serve to add to our knowledge of distant lands. The +boundaries of the whole question are enlarged by a representation of +the profound feeling for Nature in Semitic and IndoEuropean races. +There is a brief study of the mediaeval feeling for Nature as it +appears in Dante, and finally of the treatment of Nature in some prose +writers of the eighteenth century. The only English poets mentioned +are Shakspere, Thomson, and Byron, the subject of English poetry being +disposed of in less than a page. + +In Ruskin’s “Modern Painters” (1843–60) are several most interesting +chapters on landscape in classical, mediaeval, and modern times. “Of +the Pathetic Fallacy” and “The Moral of Landscape” are also suggestive +though misleading studies. + +Victor de Laprade’s “La sentiment de la nature” (1866, 1868) contains +in full the theories already suggested in the preface to his “Les +symphones.” In the introductory chapters he outlines his conception +of the development of art. He regards architecture as essentially the +expression of man’s interest in religion; sculpture of his interest +in the demi-god or hero; painting of his interest in the complex and +varied life of man as man; while the characteristic art of the present +age is music with which the love of Nature is closely allied, since +both affect the mind indirectly through indeterminate and vaguely +suggestive harmonies, and both tend by their complexity and subtlety to +rouse sweet reveries, luxurious emotion, nameless longings, ineffectual +aspirations, but leave the conscience and the will untouched. No one +can read these critical studies by Laprade or his earlier poems without +feeling his enthusiastic joy in the presence of Nature. But he feared +this joy and counted it a part of the concupiscence of the flesh +except as it became an avenue to communion with the divine spirit. His +indictment against the passion for Nature in modern music, painting, +poetry, fiction, science is that the material is everywhere exalted at +the expense of the spiritual. To be of value the presentation of the +external world in whatever realm of art should subordinate its appeal +to the senses, and emphasize its appeal to man’s inner life. Laprade’s +work is a plea for idealism as against realism. In all his brilliant +presentation of the attitude toward external Nature of different races +in different epochs, this point of view must be taken into account. +In his rapid survey of English poetry the poets to receive closest +attention are Shakspere, Spenser, and Milton. In later times the most +significant of the poets who “gravitent autour de Lord Byron” are +Wordsworth and Shelley, who, in their attitude toward Nature, are +respectively moralist and metaphysician. Byron’s distinction is that +he alone found “le juste équilibre entre l’exubérance de la nature et +celle du pur esprit.” Thomson’s “Seasons” are of value because of good +_genre_ pictures and vivid descriptions of English sports, but the +initial force in the return to Nature is Burns. + +Unquestionably the most important of the books that treat of Nature +in the realm of art is Biese’s “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls im +Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit” (1888).[2] The book is written with +enthusiasm and is stimulating and suggestive. The subject-matter is +well in hand, and so thoroughly organized that the great movements in +the historical development of the love of Nature are easily grasped. +The plan is comprehensive, including not only poetry, but, in briefer +outline, landscape painting and gardening, and, incidentally, even +fiction and philosophy. The least satisfactory portion of the book is +the treatment of the love of Nature in English life and thought. There +is some stress on the development of the English garden, but English +landscape painting is not mentioned. In the casual mention of English +fiction the emphasis is on Defoe. In poetry two epochs are recognized, +that of Shakspere and that of Byron. The chapter on Shakspere is +a close and valuable study. The work of Byron is estimated with +justness and sympathy, as is also that of Shelley. But the study of +Wordsworth as a poet of Nature is singularly inadequate. His genius is +considered as essentially of the pastoral-idyllic order, with now and +then glimpses of an “echte Liebe für die Natur,” and an unmistakable +pantheism. He is chiefly important as having done for England what +Scott did for Scotland and Moore for Ireland, and as sounding certain +notes which rang again in Byron “in verstärkter Tonart.” Thomson is +the only eighteenth-century poet studied. Here again is a failure to +recognize the real importance of the poet’s work. Biese acknowledges +the truth of Thomson’s separate pictures of Nature, and his genuine +love of the country, but denies his importance as a “pathfinder,” +saying that he but followed where Pope’s “Pastorals” and “Windsor +Forest” had marked out the way. + +In 1887 appeared John Veitch’s “The Feeling for Nature in Scottish +Poetry.” The first volume begins with the early romances and national +epics, and takes up the chief poets down to James VI. The second +volume is devoted to the modern period from Ramsay to David Gray. Most +of the authors treated belong to the nineteenth century, but there +are admirable brief studies of Ramsay, Thomson, Hamilton of Bangour, +Bruce, Fergusson, and Burns. There is also a short but interesting +chapter on the rise of landscape painting, with especial attention to +its development in Scotland. Veitch’s book is written out of a full +knowledge and warm appreciation of Scottish poetry and of Scottish +Nature, and his critical dicta are usually trustworthy, though he +shows, perhaps, a tendency to overemphasize the influence of Scottish +poetry on the love of Nature in succeeding English poetry. + +In John Campbell Shairp’s “Poetic Interpretation of Nature” (1889) +are to be found studies of Homer, Lucretius, and Virgil; of Chaucer, +Shakspere, and Milton; and of Wordsworth. Two chapters are devoted to +the eighteenth century. Ramsay is the poet to whom the reappearance +of the feeling for natural beauty is traced. Thomson is praised for +his minute faithfulness in description, and his genuine love of the +country, but his tawdry diction and superficial conception of Nature +are heavy indictments against him. The chapter on Collins, Gray, +Goldsmith, Burns, Cowper, Ossian, and the Ballads is interesting, +but from its brevity is necessarily inadequate. The most suggestive +chapter in the book is the one in which there is a classification of +the ways in which poets deal with Nature.[3] The whole subject of the +treatment of Nature in poetry is an attractive one to Mr. Shairp, and +he frequently recurs to it in his “Studies in Poetry and Philosophy” +and “Aspects of Poetry.” + +In many books, also, not devoted exclusively to the treatment of Nature +in literature there are special studies and much running comment +of a valuable sort. This is true of almost all essays on the early +nineteenth-century poets, and especially so of the various essays +on Wordsworth. There is something to be found in manuals of English +literature, as in Gosse’s “Eighteenth Century” in the chapter, “The +Dawn of Naturalism,” in various notes in Perry’s “English Literature +of the Eighteenth Century,” Phelps’ “The English Romantic Movement,” +and others; also, in some histories, as in Lecky’s “History of England +in the Eighteenth Century;” in some philosophical studies, as in +Leslie Stephen’s “English Thought in the Eighteenth Century” (“The +Literary Reaction”), and in Stopford Brooke’s “Theology in the English +Poets” (_passim_); in various literary studies, as in McLaughlin’s +“Studies in Mediaeval Life and Literature” (“The Mediaeval Feeling for +Nature”), Vernon Lee’s “Euphorion” (“The Outdoor Poetry”), Symonds’ +“Essays Speculative and Suggestive” (“Landscape,” “Nature Myths and +Allegories”), Burroughs’ “Fresh Fields” (“Birds and Poets”), and +Fischer’s “Drei Studien zur Englischen Litteraturgeschichte” “Ueber den +Einfluss der See auf die Englische Litteratur”).[4] + +The books indicated show that there is much interest in the general +theme of Nature as an element of art. The literary periods that have +been most studied are, however, the Greek and Roman, the mediaeval, +and the modern. The treatment of Nature in so barren a time as the +eighteenth century in England has naturally received little close +attention. In my own work on this period I have endeavored to discover +what indications there are that the attitude toward Nature of the early +nineteenth century is but the legitimate outcome of influences actively +at work during the eighteenth century. This study is therefore one of +origins. + +I have divided my work into three parts. I have endeavored to give +first a general statement of the chief characteristics that marked the +treatment of Nature under the dominance of the English classical poets. +Then follows a detailed study of such eighteenth-century poets as show +some new conception of Nature. The third division is made up of briefer +studies of the fiction, the books of travel, the landscape gardening, +and the painting of the eighteenth century, the purpose being to +determine in how far the spirit found in the poetry reveals itself in +other realms in which the love of Nature might be expected to find +expression. + + + + + CHAPTER I + + THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN ENGLISH CLASSICAL POETRY + + +The poetry of the English classical period falls naturally into four +subdivisions: + +1. The period of inception may be reckoned as beginning with Waller’s +first couplets in 1621 and including the work of his followers, Denham, +Davenant, and Cowley.[5] + +2. The period of establishment includes the work between the +Restoration and about 1700. Dryden is the central figure. + +3. The period of culmination is a brief period covering less than the +first quarter of the eighteenth century. Pope is the central figure. + +4. The period of decadence extends from about 1725 to the end of the +century. + +Any generalizations concerning the attitude of this classical period +toward Nature must be based on a large number of specific instances, +but in collecting and using these specific instances certain cautions +must be observed. Chief among these is the necessity of keeping in +mind the point of view from which the study should be made. It is not +the purpose to discover all that has been said about Nature by the +classical poets between 1623 and 1798. It is the purpose, rather, to +eliminate exceptions, and to dwell on the general, obvious qualities, +the typical features, of the classical poet’s conception of Nature. +This principle determines the relative importance of the periods noted +above. Illustrations drawn from a large number of poems in the second +and third periods would serve as the basis for a general statement. +Illustrations from periods one and four would need to be scrutinized, +for they might be purely classical, or they might be survivals of the +Elizabethan romantic age or prophecies of the modern romantic age. +Cowley, for instance, belongs to the first classical period because he +wrote in couplets, but his diction, his conceits, and in some respects +his attitude toward Nature are post-Elizabethan rather than classical. +Illustrations from his poems are of value, therefore, for the present +purpose, only when they are in accord with the spirit afterward found +in the time of Dryden and Pope. So, too, Milton and Marvell, though +coming chronologically within the first and second periods, stand in +the main quite aloof from any tendencies that can be called classical, +and their poetry is referred to only when it seems to illustrate the +dominant classical conception. Abundant and valuable illustration of +the classical conception may be drawn from the fourth period because +tendencies are nowhere more clearly shown than in the inevitable +exaggerations of a time of decadence, but the legitimacy of any +illustration is determined by its likeness to the dominating traits of +the preceding periods. While this study is confined in the main to the +poets of the period, journals, letters, travels, essays, and plays have +been quoted where they serve as proof that the poetry represents the +spirit of the age in which it was written. + +Pope called Wycherley an “obstinate lover of the town,”[6] and the +phrase may well be taken to mark one characteristic of the orthodox +classicists. Poems, letters, journals, biographies, and essays bear +witness to the reluctance with which the men and women of this age bade +farewell to the “dear, damned, distracting town.”[7] Charles Lamb’s +lifelong devotion to Fleet Street and the Strand, and the sentiment of +the cockneys who, as Hazlitt said, preferred hanging in London to a +natural death out of it,[8] have their true prototypes in the classical +age. “When a man is tired of London he is tired of life,” is Dr. +Johnson’s dictum. Gibbon said that when he visited the country it was +to see his friends and not the trees. Boswell’s only justification of a +hastily expressed liking for the country was that he had “appropriated +the finest descriptions in the ancient Classicks to certain scenes +there.”[9] But not even the classics could reconcile most people to +a country life. It was dreary, monotonous, difficult. There was no +society, no news. The days went yawningly by with no vivid interests, +no stirring occurrences. “No person of sense,” exclaimed Mr. Mallet’s +sister, “would live six miles out of London.”[10] To live in the +country was to be buried. Lord Bathurst looked upon his sojourn in his +country home as a “sound nap”[11] preparatory to Parliament. “If you +wish to know how I live, or rather lose, a life in the country,” wrote +Pope, “Martial will inform you in one line: + + Prandeo, poto, cano, ludo, lego, caeno, quiesco.”[12] + +Pope found pure air and regular hours a physical necessity, but he +often rebelled at his banishment from town delights, as did his “fond +virgin” when compelled to seek wholesome country air. + + She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks, + Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks, + She went from Opera, Park, Assembly, Play, + To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day; + To part the time ’twixt reading and bohea, + To muse, and spill her solitary tea, + Or o’er cold coffee trifle with the spoon, + Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon.[13] + +Isabella in Dryden’s “The Wild Gallant” speaks the general sentiment: +“He I marry must promise me to live at London. I cannot abide to be +in the country, like a wild beast in the wilderness.”[14] So, too, +Harriet, in “The Man of Mode,” counted all beyond Hyde Park a desert, +and said that her love of the town was so intense as to make her hate +the country even in pictures and hangings.[15] In “Epsom Wells” the +apostle of “a pretty innocent country life” is the boor, Clodpate, but +Lucia assures him that people really live nowhere but in London, for +the “insipid dull being” of country folk cannot be called life.[16] It +was in much the same spirit that Lady Mary Pierrepont responded to Lord +Montagu’s proposition that they should live at Wharnecliffe. “Very few +people,” she said, “that have settled entirely in the country but have +grown at length weary of one another.”[17] Her preference for town life +recurs in her poem, “The Bride in the Country.” + + By the side of a half rotten wood + Melantha sat silently down, + Convinced that her scheme was not good, + And vexed to be absent from Town. + + How simple was I to believe + Delusive, poetical dreams! + Or the flattering landscapes they give + Of meadows and murmuring streams. + Bleak mountains, and cold starving rocks, + Are the wretched result of my pains; + The swains greater brutes than their flocks, + The nymphs as polite as the swains.[18] + +When Shenstone’s young squire went forth to London in search of a wife +the desired lady declared that she “could breathe nowhere else but in +town.”[19] Lyttleton’s fair maiden finds country life “supinely calm, +and dully innocent,” and affirms that + + The town, the Court, is Beauty’s proper sphere.[20] + +Young’s Fulvia had a similar passion for the town. + + Green fields, and shady groves, and crystal springs, + And larks, and nightingales, are odious things; + And smoke, and dust, and noise, and crowds, delight, + And to be pressed to death, transports her quite.[21] + +In Aaron Hill’s poems we find a characteristic contest over the +respective merits of city and country. Philemon exclaims, + + Let rustic sports engage the lab’ring hind, + And cultivated acres plough his mind; + Let him to unfrequented woods repair, + And snuff, unenvy’d, his lean mountain air. + +Damon endeavors to defend + + Th’ unglorious preference of a country life + +by calling in evidence Cowley’s retirement to the shades, but Philemon +triumphantly shows that Cowley’s dislike of the town was a clear case +of sour grapes. In the end Damon recognizes that it is weak and unmanly +to prefer the country.[22] Browne’s Celia explains to Chloe that +country life may become endurable if one does not give herself up to +“dull landscape,” but learns to think of the country as “the town in +miniature.”[23] + +Such expressions as these are typical. They indicate the general +dislike for any life away from the city. And even those who loved the +country, or thought they did, were far enough from caring for any but +the tamest of its possible delights. Pope’s list of country pleasures, +though half humorous, is nevertheless suggestive. In contrast to Mrs. +M.’s devotion to “play-houses, parks, assemblies, London,” he depicts +his own “rapture” in the presence of “gardens, rookeries, fishponds, +arbours.”[24] When Bolingbroke “retired from the Court and glory to +his country-seat and wife”[25] he bravely insisted that he liked the +change. “Here,” he wrote from Dawley, “I shoot strong and tenacious +roots. I have caught hold of the earth and neither my enemies nor my +friends will find it an easy matter to transplant me again.”[26] But we +must join Pope in the laugh against such a catching hold of the earth +when we learn that Bolingbroke paid £200 to have his country halls +painted with rakes, prongs, spades, and other insignia of husbandry +in order to make it perfectly evident that he really did live on +a farm.[27] The genuine lover of the country in the classical age +expended his enthusiasm on the mild and easy pleasures of a well-kept +country house easily accessible from the city. That a sane man could +choose to live as Wordsworth did in the Lake District would have passed +belief. In general, the country was thought of but as a good place to +recruit one’s jaded energies, or as a refuge where disappointments +might be hidden and disgrace forgotten. + +According to Gay, + + Whene’er a Courtier’s out of place, + The country shelters his disgrace,[28] + +and his deserted, lovelorn Araminta felt that only the melancholy +shades and croaking ravens of the country could suit her unhappy +fate.[29] Watts thought that none but “useless souls” should “to woods +retreat.”[30] On the whole, the words of the city mouse to his country +cousin expressed the prevailing sentiment: + + Let savage beasts lodge in a country den; + You should see towns, and manners know, and men.[31] + +The poet might sing the charms of the country if he chose, but he was, +after all, as Denham said of Virgil and Cowley, only “gilding dirt.” +[32] + +The attitude toward Nature in the literature of any age may be tested +in two ways: by what is said, and by what is left unsaid, and of these +the second is perhaps the more significant. Certainly in the poetry +of the classical period the persistent ignoring of the grand and +terrible in Nature comes home to the mind as a convincing proof of the +prevailing distaste for wild scenery. And when we apply the other test +and find that the conspiracy of silence is broken only by expressions +indicative of positive dislike of such scenes, the case becomes a +strong one. This point may be clearly illustrated by a somewhat +detailed study of the poetical treatment of the mountains and the sea. + +Rarely in the long period between Waller and Wordsworth do we find +any trace of the modern feeling toward mountains. If they are spoken +of at all it is to indicate the difficulty in surmounting them or to +express the general distaste for anything so savagely and untamably +wild. It is interesting to note that passages expressing the most +active dislike of mountains show really some close observation and a +good deal of picturesque energy of phrase. They were evidently the +outcome of a personal experience, the unpleasantness of which demanded +forcible epithets. They show that when men were compelled by the +exigencies of travel to go into a mountainous region there was not +wanting a perception of certain characteristic mountain qualities, but +that these qualities were only those exciting repulsion and terror. +In no case does a sense of the sublimity and beauty of mountains +find, or even apparently seek, expression. This is true in travels, +fiction, biography, and letters, as well as in poetry. A few typical +illustrations may be given. Howell, who went abroad twice before 1622, +strikes the keynote of the travelers who came later. He distinctly +objected to the “monstrous abruptness” of the “Pyereny Hills” and he +found the Alps even more “high and hideous.” He was obliged to admit +that the Welsh mountains were but mole-hills compared to the Alps, but +he thought the scale more than turned by the fact that those “huge, +monstrous excrescences of nature” were entirely useless, while “Eppint +and Penminmaur” at least furnished grass for the cattle.[33] John +Evelyn regarded the Alps chiefly as an unpleasant barrier between the +“sweete and delicious” gardens of France and the corresponding topiary +paradises of Italy, and his final conception of them is as the place +where Nature swept up the rubbish of the earth to clear the Plains +of Lombardy.[34] Addison was another of these early travelers, and +he, too, found the journey over the Alps most trying. The “irregular, +misshapen scenes” of a mountainous region gave him little pleasure.[35] +He preferred the safe monotony of plains. Both Evelyn and Addison +expended all the descriptive energy they had to spare for mountains +on Vesuvius, but it was, of course, its character as a striking and +curious natural phenomenon that attracted them.[36] Burnet of the +Charter House, the tutor of Lady Mary Pierrepont, in his “Theory of +the Earth” gives a theological reason for the existence of mountains. +He conceives the present world as a gigantic ruin, the result of +sin. Originally the earth was perfectly smooth. “It had the beauty +of youth and blooming nature, fresh and fruitful, and not a wrinkle, +scar, or fracture in all its body; no rocks nor mountains, no hollow +caves, nor gaping channels, but even and uniform all over. And the +smoothness of the earth made the face of the heavens so too; the air +was calm and serene; none of those tumultuary motions and conflicts +of vapours, which the winds cause in ours. ’Twas suited to a golden +age, and to the first innocency of nature.” But as a punishment for +sin the interior fluid of the earth was allowed to break through the +beautiful smooth crust, and in the ensuing chaos were piled up those +“wild, vast, and indigested heaps of stone and earth,” those “great +ruins” that we call mountains.[37] In 1715 Pennecuik said that the +swelling hills of Tweeddale were, for the most part, green, grassy, and +pleasant, but he objected to the bordering mountains as being “black, +craigie, and of a melancholy aspect, with deep and horrid precipices, +a wearisome and comfortless piece of way for travellers.”[38] In +1756 Thomas Amory commented on the “dreadful northern fells,” and +called Westmoreland a “frightful country,” and spoke of “the ranges +and groups of mountains horrible to behold.”[39] So late as 1773 +Dr. Johnson said of the Highlands of Scotland: “An eye accustomed to +flowery pastures and waving harvests is astonished and repelled by +this wide extent of hopeless sterility. The appearance is that of +matter incapable of form or usefulness, dismissed by Nature from her +care.”[40] In the same year Hutchinson deprecates the “dreary vicinage +of mountains and inclement skies” in the Lake District. He describes +Stainmore thus: “As we proceeded Spittle presented its solitary edifice +to view; behind which Stainmore arises, whose heights feel the fury +of both eastern and western storms; ... a dreary prospect extended +to the eye; the hills were clothed in heath, and all around a scene +of barrenness and deformity.... All was wilderness and horrid waste +over which the wearied eye travelled with anxiety.... The wearied mind +of the traveller endeavours to evade such objects, and please itself +with the fancied images of verdant plains, purling streams, and happy +groves.”[41] + +The attitude toward mountains in the passages already referred to +appears in the poetry of the period with the same general tone, though +with less insistence. Throughout Waller’s poetry the only epithets +applied to mountains are “savage”[42] and “craggy.”[43] Marvell, the +most genuine lover of Nature in this age, was yet of the age in his +feeling toward mountains, for he characterizes them as ill-designed +excrescences that deform the earth and frighten heaven, and he calls +upon them to learn beauty from the soft access and easy slopes of a +well-rounded hill.[44] The unpleasant phrase, “high, huge-bellied +mountains”[45] in one of Milton’s youthful poems is hardly atoned for +by the lines in “L’Allegro,” + + Mountains on whose barren breast + The labouring clouds do often rest,[46] + +and his poetry is, in general, marked by the absence of mountain +scenery. Dryden’s most famous mountains are “drowsy” and “seem to +nod.”[47] In Blackmore’s summary of the charges made by Lucretius +concerning the “unartful contrivance of the world,” mountains are +styled “the earth’s dishonor and encumbering load.” The only defense +made by the poet is that these incumbrances do nevertheless restrain +the tides, yield veins of ore, and bear forests of useful wood.[48] So +John Philips defends his comfortable hypothesis that nothing is made in +vain by the fact that even “that cloud-piercing hill Plinlimmon” is of +some value since it furnishes “shrubby browze” for the goats.[49] And +Yalden explains how erring Nature supplies her own defects by filling +with mines the “vast excrescences of hills” that distort the surface +of the earth.[50] Prior’s only mountain is Lebanon with “craggy +brow.”[51] Pope has some “bright mountains” that serve to prop the +incumbent sky,[52] and he occasionally mentions mountains with such +epithets as “hanging,”[53] “hollow,”[53] and “headlong.”[54] Tickell +showed his attitude toward mountains in his address to Lord Lonsdale +whom he proposed to visit at Lowther Castle near Penrith, declaring +that he did not dread the harsh climate and rude country, for the +Earl’s presence would be sufficient to “hush every wind and every +mountain smooth.”[55] Parnell instances in his catalogue of the horrors +of Ireland her hills that with naked heads meet the tempests.[56] Dr. +Akenside speaks of a “horrid pile of hills.”[57] Along with this frank +disapproval of mountains is a similar dislike for their concomitants +such as precipices, wildernesses, and even dense thickets.[58] + +One cause of this antipathetic attitude toward mountains and wild +scenery is, doubtless, as has been often suggested, the hardships and +perils of travel before good roads were built. Biese quotes several +eighteenth-century letters from German travelers to show how much “die +schlechten Strassen” had to do with the failure to appreciate the +romantic beauty of the Alps.[59] He finds another partial explanation +of the small interest in mountain travel in the fact that scientific +study of natural phenomena such as glaciers, geological formations, +mountain flora and fauna, was as yet in its infancy and that thus one +whole class of motives for enduring fatigue and braving difficulties +was wanting.[60] But these two reasons do not sufficiently account for +the lack of mountain fervor. It is not merely good roads and scientific +enthusiasm that bid men seek mountain solitudes today. Preoccupation +with terror and fatigue were not the only nor the chief reason for this +general dislike of wild scenery. The two charges even more persistently +and definitely brought against mountains are that they are useless, and +that they are a deformity on the surface of the earth. Now the first of +these is but another expression of the dominant utilitarian standards +of value, and the second is an outcome of the prevailing desire for +orderly and systematic arrangement. Pronounced irregularity of outline +was as irritating to the artistic consciousness as was exceptional +license in verse forms. Mountains entered an inevitable protest +against the spirit that found its highest pleasure in the symmetrical +complexities of a typical eighteenth-century garden. That this protest +was on a great scale with accompanying suggestions of mystery and of +a remote irresistible power, gives an added reason why the age turned +thus decisively from forms of nature to which a romantic age yields +fullest homage. Thus the attitude toward mountains finds its real +explanation not so much in external conditions as in the spirit of the +times. + +The place of the ocean in the classical poetry is likewise significant. +It awakened no sense of elation as in Byron, no sense of mysterious +kinship as in Shelley. It was simply a waste of waters, dangerous at +times, and always wearisome. Though more often mentioned than the +mountains, it received an even more narrow and conventional treatment. +Except in some elaborate similes there are few descriptions of more +than a line in length. We find merely casual mention by means of stock +epithets, or very short and unmeaning descriptive phrases. To Waller +the sea is “the world’s great waste,” “a watery field,” a “watery +wilderness,” or a “main,” liquid, or troubled, or angry, as the case +may be.[61] Dryden’s epithets are hardly more felicitous. He uses +“watery”[62] with an insistence that finally becomes ludicrous. He +has one or two little ocean pictures written apparently for their +own sake, but his best use of the ocean is in similitudes.[62] In +succeeding poets the treatment of the ocean is exceedingly commonplace +and unimaginative. Such small interest as the sea aroused was of a +prosaic, utilitarian sort. Young’s “Sea Pieces” and “Ocean” may serve +as examples, and they are little more than eulogies of England’s +commercial and naval prowess. It is for Britain that “the servant +Ocean” “both sinks and swells.” It is solely with reference to her +prosperity that soft Zephyr, keen Eurus, Notus, and rough Boreas ”urge +their toil.” + + The main! The main! + Is Britain’s reign; + + * * * * * + + The main! the main! + Be Britain’s strain,[63] + +is the unvaried theme. The few descriptive passages are of periods +when “storms deface the fluid glass,” and seem to have been composed +in accordance with Pope’s famous recipe for poetical tempests.[64] +The most popular sea poem of the eighteenth century was Falconer’s +“Shipwreck” written in 1762. It is a sufficiently remarkable production +when thought of as the work of a common sailor but it is difficult +for the modern reader to understand the extravagant praise bestowed +upon it in its own day.[65] Its tame and conventional love story, +its descriptions of the sylvan scenes where Palemon and Anna gave +pledges of undying affection, its moralizings on the beneficial effect +of poetry, the evils of war, the corrupting lust of gold, its long +digression on cities and heroes “renowned in antiquity,” its invocation +to the Muses, its mythology, its reverence for “sacred Maro’s art,” +are all of the commonplace, classical order. There is in the actual +shipwreck scene some vigorous writing, but it deals almost entirely +with the emotions of the sailors, and the management of the ship. It +would be difficult to find any really effective lines descriptive +of the storm itself. The following quotations may stand as fairly +representative of the best passages: + + It comes resistless, and with foaming sweep + Upturns the whitening surface of the deep. + + * * * * * + + But with redoubling force the tempests blow, + And watery hills in dread succession flow. + + * * * * * + + A sea, upsurging with stupendous roll.[66] + +One of the most striking characteristics of the descriptive parts of +the poem is the daring and novel use of technical sea terms. Such lines +as, + + Reef top-sails, reef! the master calls again. + The halyards and top-bow-lines soon are gone, + To clue-lines and reef-tackles next they run. + + * * * * * + + Deep on her side, the reeling vessel lies: + Brail up the mizzen quick! the master cries, + Man the clue-garnets! let the main-sheet fly,[67] + +are praised as minutely accurate but it certainly needs a specialist’s +training to understand them.[68] There is nothing new in Falconer’s +poem except his use of realism in describing the ship’s maneuvers. The +sea is, to be sure, more prominent than we have found it in preceding +poems, but it is the same “desert waste,” the same “faithless deep,” +the same “watery plain,” and is deformed by the typical classical +storm. Strange as it may seem, it is yet true that the poets of +sea-girt England were very slow in making the discovery of the +ocean.[69] The main points in the eighteenth-century conception of the +sea were its usefulness as a commercial highway and its destructive +power in storms. This impression of irresistible force is sometimes +vivid enough to result in strong phrasing, but the changing beauty, the +majesty, the mysterious suggestiveness of the sea found no expression +in English classical poetry. Even in the poems that mark the transition +spirit the adequate word for the sea is surprisingly slow to come. + +In connection with the failure to understand or love the mountains +or the sea we may note the avoidance of winter[70] or the conception +of it as the “deformed wrong side of the year.” Lyttleton thoroughly +disliked “gloomy winter’s unauspicious reign,”[71] and Pope said that +its bleak prospects set his very imagination a-shivering.[72] Lady +Montagu called the glistening snows a painful sight, and said that the +whole country was in winter “deform’d by rains and rough with blasting +winds.” The “icy, cold, depressing hand” of winter, brought in a season +of privations, discomfort, and dangers. Throughout the classical +period the typical phrases are “shuddering winter,” “winter’s dreary +gloom,” “the sad, inverted year.” Storm and blasts “deface the year.” +Hailstorms “deform the flowery spring.” Clouds “sadden the inverted +year.” Winter’s “joyless reign” is a season marked by “dusky horrors.” + + Fierce winter desolates the year, + Deserts of snow fatigue the eye, + Successive tempests bloat the sky + And gloomy damps oppress the soul, + +is a typical description.[73] Another indication of the dislike of this +season is found in a curious “Pastoral” by Washbourne in which hell is +represented as a place where it is “alwaies winter.”[74] It will be +observed later that a sense of joy in winter scenes is one of the very +early indications of a reviving interest in the out-door world. + +Correspondent with the dislike and neglect of the grand and the +terrible in Nature is a similar feeling toward such aspects of the +external world as especially suggest mystery, remoteness, unseen +forces. That this is true may be seen by a study of the sky phenomena +that appear, or fail to appear, in this classical poetry. The day-time +sky is but briefly and vaguely mentioned or it passes unobserved. +A phrase so imaginative as Blackmore’s “blue gulph of interposing +sky”[75] is rare. In general it is only the more striking aspects of +the sky that are noticed, such aspects as would catch the attention of +a child or of a mere casual observer. Fleeting, delicate effects are +unheeded. Clouds receive little attention except as they portend or +accompany a storm, and even then their chief use is in similitudes. +Apparently the best-known appearance of the day-time sky is the +rainbow. But though it is often mentioned there is singularly little +variety in the phrases used to describe it. A brief summary of those +phrases most frequently used is interesting: “Painted clouds;” “the +clouds’ gaudy bow;” “the gaudy heavenly bow;” “the watery bow;” “the +painted bow;” “painted tears;” “the gaudy drapery of heaven’s fair +bow;” “the showery arch;” the bow “painted by Iris;” the bow “deck’d +like a gaudy bride;” “the painted arch of summer skies,”[76] and so +on through a wearisome list of kaleidoscopic combinations of the same +words. The constant repetition of adjectives so unmeaning as “watery” +and “showery,” or so external and artificial as “gaudy” and “painted” +is as characteristic of the general attitude toward Nature as is the +fact that the attention of poets should have been concentrated on the +obvious beauties of the rainbow rather than on the finer, more subtle +charms of the sky. In the same way sunrise, and especially sunset, are +often mentioned and occasionally described. But there is practically +no discriminating and appreciative study of what was actually to be +seen in the heavens. It was more natural to sit at home and read the +classics, and then announce that the golden god of day “drives down +his flaming chariot to the sea.”[77] + +Twilight had, as might be expected, little charm or suggestiveness. +Moonlight also plays a most subordinate part in this poetry.[78] +We seldom find anything more direct or vivid than the time-honored +statement that “fair” or “pale” Cynthia “mounts the vaulted sky,” and +“adorns the night” with her silver beams.[79] + +The night sky was counted beautiful because of its stars. The recurrent +conception is that the azure heavens are adorned with these orbs of +gold. The favorite words are “spangled” and “gilded.”[80] In Young’s +“Night Thoughts” we might expect to find some faithful and sympathetic +study of the nocturnal heavens, but in the first eight books not +seventy-five lines refer even remotely to external Nature, and in the +ninth book the stress is laid on “the moral emanations of the skies.” +In his efforts to find a sufficiently varied star vocabulary, Young was +driven to the invention of some new phrases, but in no case do they +show imaginative power. They are perfunctory and stiff and indicate +that his mind was on the “system of divinity” he meant his stars to +teach rather than on the stars themselves.[81] In Burnet’s “Theory of +the Earth,” a work already quoted from, we find a striking, because an +exaggerated, example of the way an undue love of order could modify +one’s aesthetic perception. Burnet enjoyed the night sky but he felt +that the stars might have been more artistically arranged: + + They lie carelessly scattered as if they had been sown in + the heaven like seed, by handfuls, and not by a skilful hand + neither. What a beautiful hemisphere they would have made if + they had been placed in rank and order; if they had all been + disposed into regular figures, and the little ones set with + due regard to the greater, and then all finished and made up + into one fair piece or great composition according to the rules + of art and symmetry! What a surprising beauty this would have + been to the inhabitants of the earth! What a lovely roof to our + little world! This indeed might have given us some temptation + to have thought that they had been all made for us; but lest + any such vain imagination should now enter into our thoughts + Providence (besides more important reasons) seems on purpose + to have left them under the negligence or disorder which they + appear unto us.[82] + +The final impression from the study of these passages that refer to +stars or moonlight is that the poets of this period were not unlike +Peter Bell into whose heart “nature ne’er could find the way.” + + Nor for the moon cared he a tittle, + And for the stars he cared as little.[83] + +Night itself, aside from its starry glories, was thought of but to be +feared for its brown horrors and melancholy shades. The conception +of daylight as useful and safe was a part of classical good sense. +The earliest poem in which we find the beauty and something of the +spiritual power of night represented is by Lady Winchilsea. Later we +find the characteristic sentimental melancholy of the poets involved in +a tissue of moonlight and mystery, while the faint colors and pearly +dews of the dawn, and the gentle sadness of evening shades, or in +extreme cases, even midnight glooms, seem to be the only fit setting +for struggling emotions and vague aspirations. There are also, as we +shall see, throughout the romantic revival, not infrequent studies of +the sky, especially of sunrise and sunset, from what we may call the +artist’s point of view. But all this belongs to the new spirit and is +a very evident break from classical traditions. Poetry in which the +classical note is dominant shows the utmost coldness and barrenness in +all that has to do with the beauty and significance of the sky whether +by night or by day.[84] + +In contrast to the general turning away from the grand or the +mysterious in Nature we find a certain friendly feeling toward the +gentler forms of out-door life. Spring and summer, blue skies, gently +sloping hills, flowery valleys, cool springs, and shady groves appear +in the poetry with a frequency indicative of some real delight in +them.[85] But real affection for Nature even in her idyllic forms, +an affection the evident outgrowth of personal experience, is the +exception rather than the rule. When such regard for Nature is +apparent, however narrow in scope, it is rightly to be regarded as an +indication of a new feeling toward the external world, for in general +these so-called idyllic descriptions are to the last degree artificial +and unreal. They show that what the poet really enjoyed was not so +much Nature itself, as the creation of fanciful pictures of Nature, +the flowing combination of attractive details into such scenes as he +would like to find in the country in case he should go there. Garth’s +description of the Fortunate Islands is typical. There + + No blasts e’er discompose the peaceful sky, + The springs but murmur, and the winds but sigh. + The tuneful swans on gliding rivers float + And warbling dirges die on every note. + Where Flora treads, her Zephyr garlands flings, + And scatters odors from his purple wings; + Whilst birds from woodbine bowers and jasmine groves + Chant their glad nuptials and unenvy’d loves. + Mild seasons, rising hills, and silent dales, + Cool grottoes, silver brooks, and flowery vales, + Groves filled with palmy shrubs, in pomp appear, + And scent with gales of sweet the circling year.[86] + +The details of this listless, luxurious description are such as are +combined and recombined in many a picture of supposedly English +scenes. The poet found his pleasure in the vague, highly generalized +representation of such scenery as might exist in some imagined Elysium +or Garden of Eden. The final effect on the mind of the reader is never +one of reality. All is traditional and bookish. Perhaps there is no +more effective way of showing the general characteristics of these +poetical descriptions than by an accumulation of examples. Since +there is no danger of spoiling the poetry, it may be permissible for +purposes of emphasis, to print in italics such phrases as belong to the +common poetical stock. The first passage is Rosamond’s description of +Woodstock Park: + + _Flowery mountains, + Mossy fountains, + Shady woods, + Crystal floods._[87] + +Here the union of phrases, all conventional in their character, is +entirely fortuitous and undiscriminating. It is impossible not to feel +that Addison picked up his items at random, according to the scheme of +his verse. Take next this invocation by Broome: + + Hail ye soft seats! ye _limpid springs_ and _floods_! + Ye _flowery meads_, ye _vales_ and _woods_. + Ye _limpid floods_ that ever murmuring flow! + Ye _verdant meads_, where flowers eternal blow! + Ye _shady vales_, where _zephyrs_ ever play! + Ye woods where little _warblers_ tune their lay.[88] + +Or Shenstone’s description of the place of his birth: + + Romantic scenes of _pendent hills_ + And _verdant vales_, and _falling rills_ + And _mossy banks_, the fields _adorn_, + Where Damon, _simple swain_, was born.[89] + +Or Lyttleton’s lines: + + Here _limpid fountains_ roll through _flowery meads_, + Here _rising forests_ lift their _verdant heads_.[90] + +Or Congreve’s description of the scenery along the Thames: + + And soft and still the _silver surface glides_, + The _zephyrs fan the field_, the _whispering breeze_ + With fragrant _breath remurmurs through the trees_.[91] + +Or Parnell’s + + High sunny summits, _deeply shaded dales_, + Thick _mossy banks_, and _flowery winding vales_.[92] + +Or Prior’s + + The _verdant rising_ of the _flowery hill_, + The _vale enamelled_ and the _crystal rill_.[93] + +Or Pope’s + + Her fate is _whispered_ by the _gentle breeze_, + And told in _sighs_ to all the _trembling trees_; + The _trembling trees_ in every plain and wood, + Her fate _remurmur_ to the _silver flood_.[94] + +Or Marriott’s + + The mimic voice repeats the _gales_, + That _sigh along_ the _flowery vales_; + The _flowery vales_, the _falling floods_, + The _rising rocks_, and _waving woods_, + To the _sighing gales_ reply + Redoubling all the harmony.[95] + +Further quotation is useless. It is easy to see that these passages +have no individuality. They might be transposed from poet to poet +without injustice either to poem or poet. They are like ready-made +clothing, cut out by the quantity to fit the average figure, and never +having any niceness or perfection of fit for any individual form. They +are not specific. They have no local color. They are, furthermore, +absolutely superficial. There is no hint of anything deeper than the +conventional external details mentioned. + +Throughout the classical age the most genuine interest in Nature had +to do with parks and gardens. The formal garden, however, which held +its own in England till early in the eighteenth century, makes but a +small figure in the poetry of the period. Its affinities were rather +with prose. In later poetry we find many references to the classical +garden, but they are of the nature of a scornful retrospect, and they +belong to the new spirit. The subject of gardening will be presented in +a separate section. + +In the study of the evolution of the love of Nature from Waller to +Wordsworth we may perhaps mark out three stages in the attitude toward +the external world. The last of these stages is the one based on the +cosmic sense, or the recognition of the essential unity between man and +Nature. Of this Wordsworth stands as the first adequate representative. +The second stage is marked by the recognition of the world about us as +beautiful and worthy of close study, but this study is detailed and +external rather than penetrating and suggestive. Very much of the work +of the transition period is of this sort. In the first stage Nature is +counted of value chiefly as a storehouse of similitudes illustrative +of human actions and passions. This first stage represents the use of +Nature most characteristic of the classical poetry. + +A study of the abundant similitudes of this period indicates that they +were drawn from a very narrow range of natural facts. The lily, the +rose, the lark, the nightingale, the wren, bees, stars, drops of dew, +the sea in a storm, the oak and the ivy, leaves, the Milky Way--these +are the most important sources of similitudes. The poet chose his +similes from facts already canonized by long literary service, or +from the obvious facts of the park or the town garden. There is, +in the second place, little apparent effort to secure accuracy or +picturesque effect in the statement of the illustrative side of the +simile. The entire emphasis is on the human fact to be illustrated. +There is, therefore, in the third place, a failure to perceive subtle +or delicately true analogies. In most comparisons the likeness is +superficial or it is far fetched. The similes from Nature were not the +literary expression of inner congruities. They were consciously sought +for as a part of the necessary adornment of poetry. Sheridan says: + + I often try’d in vain to find, + A _simile_ for womankind, + A _simile_ I mean to fit ’em, + In every circumstance to hit ’em. + Through every beast and bird I went, + I ransack’d every element; + And after peeping through all nature, + To find so whimsical a creature, + A _cloud_ presented to my view, + And strait this parable I drew.[96] + +It is this elaborate desire for similitudes, together with the small +knowledge of nature that led not only to wearisome iteration of the +same similes but also to the still more wearisome iteration of the same +points of comparison. A rose, for instance, is a perennially beautiful +source of comparisons,[97] but in the eighteenth-century poetry it +is used almost exclusively either with the lily in matters of the +complexion, or by itself as representative of a young maiden. If she is +overtaken by misfortune the rose is easily blasted by northern winds. +If she is neglected the rose withers on its stalk. If she weeps the +rose bends its head surcharged with dew. If she dies young, the rosebud +is blasted before it is blown. The words of the “Angry Rose” to the +poet gently satirize this prevalence of rose similes. + + Of all mankind you should not flout us; + What can the Poet do without us? + In every love-song Roses bloom; + We lend you color and perfume.[98] + +The nightingale also has a conventional use. He generally represents +the poet and is either singing with a thorn against his breast, or +is engaged in a musical contest with other birds, in which contest +he quickly silences all competitors, or is himself driven away by +the clamorous noise of a crowd of common birds. The lark has his own +established set of applications. Dryden, Waller, and Savage represent +the poet as a lark singing when the sun shines, and Waller suits the +figure to the times by making the Queen the Sun.[99] Tickell called +himself an artless lark.[100] Cowley professed himself emulous of +the lark.[101] Somerville is a morning lark.[102] Wycherley compares +both Virgil and Pope to larks.[103] Any Fair One has a voice like a +lark, and to Dyer’s delighted ear the maidens who spun English yarn +sang like a whole choir of larks.[104] Not infrequently comparisons +are drawn from the old custom of daring larks by mirrors or objects +that would excite terror.[105] The wren carried aloft on the eagle’s +back serves a variety of poetical purposes, but is especially apt when +representing a needy poet and some powerful patron.[106] Bees are +by far the most prolific source of similitude. Their number, their +activity, their stings, their honey-making are all recognized means of +illustration.[107] + +To express great numbers the most useful similes are drawn from stars, +pearly drops of dew, and, most frequently, leaves in autumn.[108] An +exceedingly popular simile is that of the oak and ivy, or the elm +and the vine.[109] Its use is obvious. The rising and the setting sun +represent various forms of prosperity and adversity.[110] From Waller +on, the Milky Way typifies virtues so numerous that they shine in one +undistinguished blaze.[111] A large class of similitudes is drawn from +water in some form. In this respect Dryden is typical. It is surprising +to observe how many of his metaphors and similes are based on seas, +streams, and storms,[112] and his most excellent use of Nature is in +these similitudes, though after going over many of them one comes to +feel that they are all made upon much the same pattern. After Dryden +conventional comparisons based on floods and angry seas are frequent. + +The customary form of the river simile of this period is the comparison +of some man’s character, or actions, or literary style to some historic +rivers with marked features. Prior uses the rapid Volga to represent +the impetuous “young Muscovite,” while he compares his own king to +the gentle Thames;[113] and he compares the Romans to the Tyber.[114] +Pope scornfully likens Curll to the Uridanus.[115] Cowley compares +Jonathan to the fair Jordan.[116] Halifax compares the reign of Charles +II to the Thames.[117] Armstrong wishes his own style to combine the +qualities of the Tweed and the Severn.[118] Hughes likened his Muse +to the wanton Thames.[119] Roscommon thought a dull style was like +the passive Soane.[120] Somerville compared Allan Ramsay’s poetry to +Avona’s silver tide.[121] Thomson said that De La Cour’s numbers went +gliding along in “trickling cadence” and were like the flow of the +Euphrates.[122] Chief among similes of this sort is Denham’s well-known +apostrophe to the Thames.[123] There is also frequent use of rivers +in a more general way, as when Parnell compares the strains of the +Psalmist to a rolling river,[124] and Stanhope compares Pope’s style +to a gliding river,[125] and Addison compares Milton’s poems to a +clean current showing an odious bottom,[126] and Dryden compares Sir +Robert Howard’s style to a mighty river.[127] The use of a river as a +simile for life is not infrequent. For various purposes the Nile was +often used. Its annual overflow and its unknown fountain-head are the +chief characteristics drawn upon. The river similes seem as a whole to +be more effectively worked out and more gracefully managed than most +of the other similes of the period, although they have in no case the +beauty and profound symbolism characteristic of the river similes of +Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, and Lowell. + +Another common form of comparison is that in which the seasons or the +various aspects of the day are used to describe some person. One of the +happiest examples is from Marvell. + + She summ’d her life up ev’ry day, + Modest as morn, as midday bright, + Gentle as ev’ning, calm as night.[128] + +Later similes are less graceful, but they usually have the antithetical +form of expression.[129] + +Fairly numerous similes are drawn from trees. Dryden gives typical +examples, as, + + And lofty cedars as far upward shoot + As to the nether heavens they drive their root.[130] + +This equal spread of roots and branches, the heavy fall of a great +tree, and the superior height of some tall pine or cedar, are the chief +sources of similitudes. + +The abundant commonplaces, the fluent ineptitudes, of these +eighteenth-century similes did not escape satire in their own day. +Now and then a critic looked with scorn upon the ingenious and +exhausting attempts of the poet lovers to devise comparisons adequately +expressive of the beauty, the fascination, the cruelty, the coldness, +the inconstancy, of their Cynthias of the minute. Butler thus notes +the tendency of poor and unmeaning metaphors to advance in a mob when +female charms were to be depicted: + + In praising Chloris, moons, and stars, and skies, + Are quickly made to match her face and eyes-- + And gold and rubies, with as little care, + To fit the colour of her lips and hair; + And, mixing suns, and flowers, and pearl, and stones, + Make them serve all complexions at once.[131] + +This easy method of praising a mistress is also humorously described by +Ambrose Philips: + + To blooming Phyllis I a song compose, + And, for a rhyme, compare her to the Rose; + Then, while my Fancy works, I write down Morn, + To paint the blush that does her cheek adorn, + And, when the whiteness of her skin I show, + With extasy bethink myself of Snow. + Thus, without pains, I tinkle in the close, + And sweeten into Verse insipid Prose.[132] + +And Swift in his “Apollo’s Edict,” 1720, specifically prohibits the use +of some of the more wearisomely frequent similitudes. Some of the laws +he imposes on the poets of his realm are: + + No simile shall be begun + With _rising_ or with _setting_ sun, + + No son of mine shall e’er dare say, + _Aurora ushered-in the day_, + Or even name the _Milky-Way_. + + The bird of Jove shall toil no more + To teach that humble wren to soar. + + Nor let my votaries show their skill + By aping lines from Cooper’s Hill; + For know, I can not bear to hear + The mimicry of “deep, yet clear.” + +In general we may say of the similitudes of this period that in +no other literary form was Nature so widely used, and in no other +form with so little beauty and spirit; that they were based on an +insufficient and inexact knowledge of Nature; and that they were used +without any sympathetic sense of inner fitness. + +A further characteristic of the use of Nature in the classical period +is a personification of natural objects with the ulterior purpose +of making them conscious of the charms or emotions of some person. +When such personification arises out of an intimate identification +of man with Nature, a subjective recognition of the unity of all +existence, or when it is the outgrowth of a supreme passion compelling +the phenomena of Nature into apparent sympathy with its own joy or +grief, the expression is sure to bear the mark of inner conviction or +strong emotion. But when the personification is manifestly a laborious +artistic device, when it is based on neither belief nor passion, it +must be considered the mark of an age slightly touched by real feeling +for nature. And such, in general, were the personifications so freely +used in the English classical poetry. There is an artificiality, even +a grotesqueness, about some of them that forbids even temporary poetic +credence on the part of the reader. A good example is in Waller’s “At +Pens-hurst,” where the susceptible deer and beeches and clouds mourn +with Waller over the cruelty of his stony-hearted Sacharissa.[133] At +the death of any illustrious man or fair lady all Nature was convulsed +with grief. When Caelestia died the rivulets were flooded by the tears +of the water-gods, the brows of the hills were furrowed by new streams, +the heavens wept, sudden damps overspread the plains, the lily hung its +head, and birds drooped their wings. When Amaryllis had informed Nature +of the death of Amyntas all creation “began to roar and howl with +horrid yell.”[134] When Thomas Gunston died just before he had finished +his seat at Newington, Watts declared that the curling vines would in +grief untwine their amorous arms, the stately elms would drop leaves +for tears, and that even the unfinished gates and buildings would +weep.[135] In love poetry Nature is frequently represented as abashed +and discomfited before the superior charms of some fair nymph. Aurora +blushes when she sees cheeks more beauteous than her own. Lilies wax +pale with envy at a maiden’s fairness.[136] When bright Ophelia comes +lilies droop and roses die before their lofty rival.[137] So the sun, +when he sees the beautiful ladies in Hyde Park, + + Sets in blushes and conveys his fires + To distant lands.[138] + +And when that modest luminary is aware of the presence of the fair +Maria he + + Seems to descend with greater care; + And, lest she see him go to bed, + In blushing clouds conceales his head.[139] + +Nature is thus constantly compelled into admiring submission to some +Delia or Phyllis or Chloris. Even further than this do the poets go; +they make all the beauty of Nature a direct outcome of the lady’s +charms. In the gardens at Penshurst the peace and glory of the alleys +was given by Dorothea’s more than human grace.[140] No spot could +resist the civilizing effect of her beauty. The most charming example +of this sort of fanciful exaggeration is in Marvell’s verses on Maria +and the Nunappleton gardens. + + ’Tis she, that to these gardens gave + That wondrous beauty which they have; + She straightness on the woods bestows; + To her the meadow sweetness owes; + Nothing could make the river be + So crystal pure, but only she, + She yet more pure, and straight, and fair + Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers, are.[141] + +If later examples of the subordination of Nature to man were so +graceful and quaintly tender as this poem of Marvell’s we might simply +regard them as permissible instances of pathetic fallacy. But even +taken at its best we cannot fail to see that this conception of Nature +in its relation to man is quite unlike the dominant conception in the +romantic school. In the one case we have the subordination of Nature; +in the other the ministry of Nature. A significant comparison might +be made between Marvell’s Maria, and Wordsworth’s Lucy.[142] The one +is the typical fair maiden ruling over her flower world and inspiring +to beautiful life all the gentle Nature forms about her. The other is +“Nature’s lady.” Her whole being is molded by her susceptibility to +the deeper influences of Nature untouched by art. Maria gives to the +external world the charm that it has. Lucy is graced by the spirit +of nature with all lovely qualities. But Marvell’s poem is really no +fair criterion of the use of Nature in the classical love and elegiac +poetry, for in most of that poetry the emotion, the passion, that would +justify extravagant or even impossible conceptions is conspicuously +absent. The extravagance of speech stood as the sign of an intensity of +feeling that did not exist. The poet was not swept away by overwhelming +passion. He worked out his verses with conscious deliberation. A +lady-love was one of the necessary poetical stage properties, so the +poet cast about him for a Phyllis or an Amoret, and then cast about him +for something to say to her. Such lines as Waller’s on Dorothea, who is +so much admired by the plants that + + If she sit down, with tops all tow’rds her bow’d, + They round about her into arbours crowd: + Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand, + Like some well-marshal’d and obsequious band,[143] + +are at once felt to be merely cold, tasteless hyperbole. The lines +do not win a second’s suspension of disbelief. Modes of speech, a +conception of Nature, such that high-wrought emotion might justify it, +or that might be natural and inevitable when the poet’s thought was +ruled by a living mythology, became mere frigid conventionalities when +there was no passion, and when the spirits of stream and wood no longer +won even poetic faith. + +To speak of the poetic diction of the classical poetry has become +a commonplace of criticism. By universal consent certain words and +phrases seem to have been stamped as reputable, national, and present, +and to have formed the authorized storehouse of poetical supplies. If +one writer hit out a good word or phrase, it became common property +like air or sunshine, and other writers did not waste their time +beating the bush for a different form of words. Frequently words in +the accepted diction may be traced to some Latin author, but the +point to be noted here is that, whatever the origin of the word, +its use is incessant. The fatal grip with which certain words clung +to the poetical mind in the classical period receives interesting +exemplification from a comparison of Chapman’s and Pope’s translations +of Homer. It will be observed that in frequent passages Pope uses the +words “purple,” “deck,” “adorn,” and “paint,” chief words in the +classical poetic diction. But in the corresponding passages in Chapman +some other form of words is used. And in most cases Pope’s use of these +terms has no warrant in the original. Likewise, in Dryden’s translation +of Virgil the stock diction is used when there is no idea or picture +in the Latin to call for it and when the use of the stock phraseology +results in distinct loss of force or beauty. Compare, for instance, +Virgil’s vivid “flavescet” and Dryden’s tame “the fields adorned”[144] +used with reference to harvests of ripened grain. Or compare “novis +rubeant quam prata coloribus” and “painted meads;”[145] “noctem +ducentibus astris,” and “stars adorn the skies.”[146] We find the same +spirit illustrated in Dryden’s modernization of Chaucer. The fresh, +spontaneous simplicity of a poet like Chaucer serves exceptionally well +to show the comparatively insipid and feeble treatment of Nature on +the part of those poets who were content to take their expressions, as +well as their facts, at second hand. “The briddes” becomes “the painted +birds;” “a goldfinch” is amplified into a “goldfinch with gaudy pride +of painted plumes.” “At the sun upriste” becomes + + Aurora had but newly chased the night + And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light.[147] + +The same point is well exemplified in some of the changes made by Percy +in the Ballads. For instance, + + As itt befell in Midsummer time + When burds singe sweetlye on every tree + +was modernized to, + + When Flora with her fragrant flowers + Bedeckt the earth so trim and gaye, + And Neptune with his daintye showers + Came to present the monthe of Maye.[148] + +Full illustration would require much more space than is here at +command, but the point to be made is clear, namely, that even when the +poet had his natural facts furnished for him, he instinctively put them +into the molds of an accepted poetic diction. + +By all odds the most frequent and significant words in this stock +poetic diction, so far as it has to do with the presentation of nature, +are indicative of dress or adornment in some form. The word “paint” +is everywhere. Snakes and lizards and birds; morning and evening; +gardens, meadows, and fields; prospects, scenes, and landscapes; hills +and valleys; clouds and skies; sunbeams and rainbows; rivers and +waves; and flowers from tulips to white lilies--nothing escapes. It is +little wonder that Somerville called God “the Almighty Painter.”[149] +The word “paint” is really an Elizabethan survival, and as such came +into the possession of Cowley, whose use of it is absolutely vicious. +A rainbow is “painted tears.” The wings of birds are “painted oars.” +David after the fight with the giant is “painted gay with blood,” and +the blood of the Egyptians lost in the Red Sea “new paints the waters’ +name.”[150] “Gaudy” is another word of frequent occurrence. In general +the meaning was as now, “ostentatiously fine” as we see in Shakspere’s +phrase, “rich but not gaudy,” and in Dryden’s “gaudy pride of painted +plumes.” In that sense it was fitly applied to peacocks, and perhaps +even to rainbows, but such phrases as “a gaudy fly,”[151] the “gaudy +plumage”[152] of falcons; the “gaudy axles of the fixed stars,”[153] +the “gaudy month” of May,[154] the “gaudy opening dawn,”[155] the +“gaudy milky soil”[156] and the “gaudy Tagus”[157] seem to have no +exact meaning. “Bright” might often serve as a synonym, but not in +the application of the word to flies and falcons. The word “adorn” is +likewise eminently serviceable. Fruit adorns the trees, fleecy flocks +adorn the hills, flowers adorn the green, rainbows adorn clouds, blades +of grass adorn fields, vegetables adorn gardens, Phoebus adorns the +west and is himself adorned with all his light, and Emma’s eyes adorn +the fields she looks on. “Deck” is another favorite. Flora’s rich +gifts deck the field, herbs deck the spring, and corals deck the deep. +Vales, meadows, fields, mountains, rivers, shores, plains, paths, turf, +gardens--all are profusely “damasked” or “enamell’d” or “embroidered.” +The wings of butterflies and linnets are “gilded.” The rising sun +gilds the morn; the gaudy bow gilds the sky; gaudy light gilds the +heavens; lightning gilds the storm; meteors and stars gild the night; +and a duchess gilds the rural sphere when she condescends to visit the +country. + +These milliner-like words were not, however, the only ones that the +poet could claim as lawful heritage. He knew, for instance, that he +could always call honey “a dewy harvest,” or “balmy dew,” or “ambrosial +spoils,” and have his hearers know what he meant. His birds, though +almost necessarily a “choir,” could be “feathered” or “tuneful” or +“plumy” or “warbling” according to his taste. His fish were easily +labeled as “finny,” “scaly,” or “watery.” + +Breezes were “whispering,” “balmy,” “ambrosial;” zephyrs were “gentle,” +“soft,” and “bland;” gales were “odoriferous,” “wanton,” “Elysian;” +and no other kinds of winds blew except in storm similes. “Vernal” and +“verdant” come in at every turn. From Waller on, the epithet “watery” +seems eminently satisfactory to the poetic mind. Dryden may be taken +as illustrative. To him the ocean is a “watery desert,” a “watery +deep,” a “watery plain,” a “watery way,” a “watery reign.” The shore +is a “watery brink,” or a “watery strand.” Fish are a “watery line” or +a “watery race.” Sea-birds are “watery fowl.” The launching of ships +is a “watery war.” Streams are “watery floods.” Waves are “watery +ranks.”[158] The word occurs with wearisome iteration in succeeding +poets. It is applied not only to the sea but to rivers, clouds, and +rain, to glades, meads, and flowers, to landscapes, to mists, to the +sky, to the sun, and to the rainbow. The set phrases for the sky +are such as “azure sky,” “heaven’s azure,” “concave azure,” “azure +vault,” “azure waste,” “blue sky,” “blue arch,” “blue expanse,” “blue +vault,” “blue vacant,” “blue serene,” “aërial concave,” “aetherial +vault,” “aërial vault,” “vaulted sky,” “vaulted azure,” with such +other changes as may be rung on these words. The chief words applied +to stars, “spangle” and “twinkle,” have been already noted. The usual +adjectives for streams and brooks are pleasant, easy words like +“liquid,” “lucid,” “limpid,” “purling,” “murmuring,” and “bubbling.” +“Rural,” “rustic,” and “sylvan” are epithets applied to anything +belonging to the country, whether to the hours spent there, the songs +of the birds, or the charming country-maidens and their loves, their +bowers, their bliss, their toil. “Flowery” is so constantly used as +descriptive of brooks, borders, banks, vales, hills, paths, plains, +and meads, that it really has not much more meaning than the definite +article prefixed to a noun. “Vocal” is applied to vales, shades, hills, +shores, mountains, grots, and woodlands. “Pendent” and “hanging” belong +to cliffs, precipices, mountains, shades, and woods. “Headlong” and +“umbrageous” are favorite adjectives for groves or shades of any sort. +“Mossy” applies to grottos, fountains, streams, caves, turf, banks, and +so on. “Gray” is the usual descriptive word for twilight, and “brown” +for night. “Lawns” are usually “dewy.” + +Some words in this poetic diction are no longer much used. “Breathing,” +is an example. It usually referred to the air in gentle motion, as +“breathing gales,” but we also find “breathing earth,” referring to +mists, and “breathing sweets,” and “breathing flowers” or “breathing +roses,” where the reference is to perfume. “Maze” and “mazy” are also +much used. The Thames and other streams lead along “mazy trains.” The +track of the hare is an “airy maze.” Paths meet in narrow mazes and +stars unite in a mazy, complicated dance. Milton’s stream flows with +“mazy error.” This word “error” is frequently used in its exact derived +meaning. In another place Milton speaks of streams that wander with +“serpent error.”[159] Blair has a stream that slides along in “grateful +errors.”[160] In Falconer the light strays through the forest with +“gay romantic error.”[161] In Gay the fly floats about with “wanton +errors.”[162] Dyer winds along a mazy path with “error sweet.”[163] +Armstrong’s “error” leads him through endless labyrinths.[164] +Addison’s waves roll in “restless errors,”[165] and Thomson treads the +“maze of autumn with cheerful error.”[166] “Amusive” is a word applied +by Pitt to the ocean, and by Mallet to clouds; Shenstone says that +country joys “amuse securely.”[167] It seems to be half apologetic +in tone in some cases; in others it merely means pleasing. Thomson +used the word as verb or adjective several times.[168] We also find +it in Parnell.[169] “Lawn” is used in the sense of an open glade in +the woods. Even so late as Wordsworth this meaning persists.[170] One +unpleasant but not uncommon word is “sweat.” It may be a survival from +the metaphysical conceits, for we find in Dr. Donne a reference to the +“sweet sweat of roses,” and Cowley has flowery Hermon “sweat” beneath +the dews of night. Dryden has flowers sweat at night.[171] Fenton’s +flowers + + all pale and blighted lie, + And in cold sweats of sickly mildew die.[172] + +Even Gray talks about the “sickly dews”[173] of night, and Thomson has +caverns “sweat.”[174] Garth, as a physician, may possibly be excused +for having the “sickening flowers” drink up the silver dew, and the +grass tainted with “sickly sweats of dew,” but when he has the fair +oak adorned with “luscious sweats,”[175] he has gone into the realm of +aesthetics, and no excuse can prevail. + +The power of fashion in words in a conventional age is further shown +by the prevalence of adjectives ending in “y.” They are favorites with +Dryden, and hold their own steadily through the century that followed. +Beamy, bloomy, forky, branchy, flamy, purply, steepy, spumy, surgy, +foamy, blady, dampy, chinky, sweepy, sheltry, moony, paly, tusky, +heapy, miny, saggy, and many more, occur where at present there would +be no ending or the ending “-ing.” + +The stock poetic diction may serve also to illustrate the indebtedness +of the English classical poets to their Latin masters in the matter of +phraseology. Compare, for instance, the use of the word “cavus” in its +application to “montes,” “cavernae,” “trunci,” “saxa,” “umbra,” and +“flumina,” and the English word, “hollow,” as applied to caves, rocks, +mountains, shores, valleys, and even to the dark. Or compare the Latin +use of “horridus,” meaning rough, rugged, wild, with “horrid,” in its +application to mountains, rocks, and thickets. “Savage mountains” and +“shaggy mountains” sound like an echo from Virgil’s “montes feri” and +“intonsi montes.” The fundamental conception is certainly the same. +Milton’s “hairy thickets” and bushes with “frizzled hair” and Dryden’s +“hairy honours of the vine” are suggestive of the Latin use of “comae” +as a trope for foliage. The word “honours,” as applied to foliage +or fruits, is also of Latin origin. The “tristis” or “dura hiems” +of Virgil finds its echo in the general epithets applied to winter +in English poetry. “Deform’d” and “inverted” seem to be mere Latin +transcripts. Dryden was fond of the word “nodding.” He used it twice +in translations in places where some other word would more accurately +represent the original.[176] In its application to mountains the word +may, perhaps, be traced to Virgil’s “nutantem mundum.” Its further use +by Dryden, Pope, Akenside, Shenstone, and others, with reference to +forests, rocks, and precipices, is apparently a later outgrowth from +its application to mountains. “Sylvan Muse” and “silvestris musa;” +“flowery plains” and “florea rura;” “liquid fountains” and “liquidi +fontes;” “mossy springs” and “muscosi fontes,” are but a few of the +many exact parallels between the English and Latin phrases descriptive +of scenery. So, too, the superficial conception of the various +beauties of Nature as “adornments” of the earth finds its prototype +in such expressions as “lucidum caeli decus,” applied to the moon, or +“pulla ficus, ornat arborem,” or “vitis ut arboribus decori est, ut +vitibus uvae.” An instructive example of the way in which borrowed +epithets lose their significance and become merely conventional is +the word “painted” in its application to birds. In Virgil “pictaeque +volucrae”[177] meant birds of many colors, or of bright colors. Milton +uses the phrase “painted wings,”[178] referring apparently to brilliant +birds in the Garden of Eden. But by Pope’s time the word “painted” +had become a stock epithet with its connotation so vaguely widened +that it would be difficult to give its exact meaning. It was simply +indefinitely associated with birds, hence Pope applied it to the brown +wings of a pheasant.[179] Shenstone uses it of the wings of a fly,[180] +and Parnell applies it to the eye of a peacock,[181] and Waller to the +peacock’s nest.[182] In the same way “painted,” in its application +to flowers, might easily be a picturesque descriptive adjective for +bright blossoms of any sort, but being gradually more and more closely +associated with flowers, it would lose its first meaning and come to +be applied to white lilies as well as tulips. “Purple” is another +borrowed word. It brought with it its whole train of Latin meanings. In +ordinary English speech “purple” had a fairly definite reference to a +specific color composed of red and blue, but in the English classical +poetry it was used in exactly the Latin sense. The fundamental idea +of “purpureus” was color, but a secondary meaning was brightness; in +its twofold application it was a descriptive epithet applicable to +light,[183] to flowers in general, to roses, spring, or morning. The +English phrases, “morning’s purple wings,” “the purple day,” “the +purple east,” “the purpled air,” “ground empurpled with roses,” “the +purple spring,” “purple daffodils,” are such as would serve the purpose +of a modern impressionist painter, but in eighteenth-century poetry +they chiefly indicate a knowledge of the classics. They were clearly +imitative phrases. + +In individual cases the charge of imitation is a hazardous one to make +because so difficult to prove. However close the parallelism, it is +always possible to believe that two persons thought of the same thing +independently. Where a whole literary period is under consideration as +here, all that can be said is that the similarities between the English +and the Latin forms of expression are numerous and striking, that the +phrases are frequently such as would not naturally occur to an English +poet, that the English poets had little first-hand knowledge of Nature, +and that they knew their Virgil and Horace by heart. But after all, the +inner conviction of imitation with which one turns from a consecutive +reading of the two literatures is a more legitimate proof, perhaps, +than even a liberal assemblage of debatable specific cases. + +The imitation is not confined to diction. Many of the favorite similes, +especially those drawn from trees, bees, leaves in autumn, the oak +and vine, angry seas, and streams, have a Latin cast. They seem to +be worked out on Virgilian models, and it is impossible not to feel +that the English poet owed more to his classical library than to his +knowledge of Nature. One striking mark of imitation is the prevalence +of the artificial cumulative simile so common in Virgil. + +The details in the Latin pastoral poetry are also freely transferred +to descriptions of English scenes. The poet could not describe English +meadows without a desire to transplant therein some fairer blooms from +“the unenvious fields of Greece and Rome.” English rivers, skies, seas, +plains, hills, and valleys were presided over by classic deities. +Ceres, Pomona, and Bacchus, Dryads and Naiads, were as omnipotent +as if they were still believed in. The hardy English shepherd was +transformed into a languid swain eternally seeking mossy caves as a +refuge against burning heats. His chief occupation was to lie beside +some murmuring rill, or beneath some spreading beech, or under some +myrtle hedge, and charm the listening vale with love ditties played on +his pipe: or, for variety, to enter into some amoebean contest with +a neighboring swain concerning the rival beauty of their respective +nymphs. His chief troubles were the coyness, fickleness, and desertion +of this same much-praised Phyllis or Chloris,[184] and the occasional +incursion of nightly predatory wolves among his fleecy flocks. And +all this calmly in the face of the fact that there were no predatory +animals in English forests, that the chief enemies of the English +shepherd were cold and storm, and that he would be much more likely to +seek a sunny bank than a cooling grot. The classical English poets not +only knew nothing of the genuine English shepherd such as Wordsworth’s +Michael, but they did not wish to know of him. It was their ambition to +follow in the path marked out by the Mantuan swain. If they could write +so that every line would “confess Virgil”[185] they were satisfied. +Pope said that it was the poet’s office to represent shepherds not as +they are but as they may be conceived to have been in some past golden +age.[186] That golden age existed apparently in the Italy of Virgil and +the Greece of Theocritus. Dryden gave the acceptable advice, + + For guides take Virgil and read Theocrite. + By them alone you’ll easily comprehend + How poets, without shame, may condescend + To sing of gardens, fields, of flowers, and fruit, + To stir up shepherds, and to tune the flute.[187] + +Except in burlesque no poet of that day cared to change “Strephon and +Phyllis” into “Tom and Bess.” The great effort was to dignify humble +themes by constant reference to the great poems of the past. + +The general structure of many English poems was evidently conformed to +Latin models. A comparison of the “Pastorals” of Pope, Gay, and Ambrose +Philips with Virgil’s “Eclogues” would sufficiently establish this +point.[188] + +Throughout the classical poetry of Nature there is little reliance on +first-hand observation. There was safety and dignity in following Dick +Minim’s advice, “When you sit down to write think what your favorite +author would say under such and such circumstances,” and the favorite +authors were sure to be Virgil, and Horace, and Ovid. + +The imitations were not, however, exclusively from the Latin authors. +Often the Latin borrowings came at second hand from other English +poets, and English poets borrowed freely from each other. A single +instance may be cited to show how an insipid and almost unmeaning +collocation of words could hold its own and be re-echoed from poet to +poet. Addison’s couplet, + + My humble verse demands a softer theme, + A painted meadow, or a purling stream,[189] + +was imitated by Tickell in, + + By Nature fitted for an humble theme + A painted prospect, or a murmuring stream,[190] + +and twice by Pope in, + + Enough to shame the gentlest bard that sings + Of painted meadow and of purling springs,[191] + +and + + Like gentle Fanny’s was my flowery theme, + A painted mistress or a purling stream.[192] + +Compare also, + + Most of our poets choose their early theme + A flowery meadow or a purling stream.[193] + +But one other sort of imitation can be noticed here, and that is a +natural outcome from the use of the rhymed couplet. It is what Pope +calls “the sure return of still expected rhymes.” The common rhyme of +“stream” and “theme” has already been noted. Pope calls attention to +others: + + Whene’er you find the “cooling western breeze” + In the next line it “whispers through the trees.” + If crystal streams “with pleasing murmurs creep” + The reader’s threatened, not in vain, with “sleep.”[194] + +The last reference is an ungracious hit at one of Wycherley’s poems +recommendatory of Pope’s “Pastorals,” but the rhyme of “breeze” and +“trees” is certainly of a bewildering frequency. There is a stanza in +point in one of the doubtful poems attributed to Gray: + + First when Pastorals I read, + Purling streams and cooling breezes + I only wrote of; and my head + Rhimed on, reclined beneath the Tree-zes.[195] + +One cause of the artificial and forced effect of the classical poetry +of Nature is undoubtedly the sameness of impression produced by this +frequent recurrence of the same rhymes. + +In the foregoing study of the attitude of the classical poets toward +Nature certain dominant characteristics have been indicated, all of +them pointing to a lack of interest in Nature. The attention of the +age was concentrated elsewhere. Not Nature, but man was the supreme +interest. And the limitations must be drawn even more closely, for +the interest was not in man as man according to the democratic spirit +of the succeeding romantic age, nor in man as a creature of daring, +of wild passions, of lawless enthusiasms, of boundless energies, as +in the preceding Elizabethan age, but man as part of a well-organized +social system. Man in London was the central thought of the age. +This supremacy of the interest in man accounts for the acknowledged +preference for city life. In the country bad roads and poor conveyances +effectually separated men from each other. In the city the wits of +the coffee-house and the beaux and belles of the drawing-room were +able to gain the social converse and mutual admiration necessary to +their happiness. What they had to say to each other was incomparably +more interesting than any revelation from Nature’s solitary places. +Men feared and disliked mountains and the sea because these natural +features stood as obstacles to the easy pursuit of many pleasures, +and because in the presence of forces so vast and elemental men felt +themselves overawed and threatened. What they could not understand +and conquer was their foe. They turned uneasily from all forms of +Nature that suggest mysterious, unseen forces over which man has no +control. The limitless spaces of the sky, the “solemn midnight’s +tingling silentness,” the magical charm of moonlight, whatever is +infinite in its suggestiveness, drawing the spirit of man into the +vast, shadowy realms of the unknown, filled them with dismay. In +Nature as in everything else they instinctively confined themselves +to such portions of truth as they could clearly state and use. The +kind of Nature they loved was that in which man was easily supreme. +Their delight in cultivated rural England was largely based on its +power of ministering to man’s ease and physical well-being.[196] Their +delight in the formal garden grew out of their pleasure in seeing the +triumphal expenditure of human effort. There Nature was “rhymed and +twisted and harmonized” at pleasure. Man’s supremacy was nowhere else +more effectually acknowledged. Not art concealed but art manifest was +the ideal. Evelyn’s enjoyment of French and Italian gardens is almost +always based on his pleasure in some mechanical device whereby man had +conquered Nature.[197] What Cowley most enjoyed in the country was the +sense of his own skill and mastery. The “best natured” satisfaction +of all is, he says, the husbandman’s delight in “looking round about +him and seeing nothing but the effects and improvements of his own +art.”[198] The supremacy of the interest in man is further explanatory +of the facts already sufficiently commented upon that the most abundant +use of Nature was in similitudes for human qualities and passions, +that these similitudes were drawn from a surprisingly small number of +natural phenomena, and that the Nature side of the similitudes was +often carelessly and ignorantly handled. The dominance of man is also +back of the conception of Nature as stirred by man’s joys and woes, and +plunged into despair by his death. Nature is, at the utmost, but the +comparatively unimportant background against which man acts his part, +and there is seldom any effort to suit the background to the picture. +There is likewise significance in the twofold fact that in the set +poetic diction there are many words and phrases relating to Nature and +comparatively few relating to man. Where there was a concentration of +interest the vividness of the conception demanded new and original +forms of speech, while the stock diction, like cant in religious +expression, showed the absence of genuine feeling. It is in Pope’s +“Pastorals” not in “The Dunciad” that we find stock words, conventional +phrases, and hereditary similes. + +In summary we may note that the characteristic attitude toward Nature +in the classical period is marked by: + +_a_) Prevailing dislike or neglect of the grand or the terrible in +Nature as mountains, the ocean, storms, and winter. + +_b_) A similar dislike or neglect of the mysterious or the remote, +as the various phenomena of the sky. + +_c_) A certain apparent friendliness toward the gentle, pleasant, +serviceable forms of Nature as in rural cultivated England, in spring +and summer, in good weather, in various forms of horticulture. + +_d_) An especial pleasure in Nature ordered and made symmetrical +by art, as in formal gardens and parks. + +_e_) Descriptions of a highly generalized sort with almost no +touches of local color. + +_f_) Full but conventional and superficial use of Nature in +similitudes for human passions and actions. + +_g_) Narrow, uninterested, and hence frequently inaccurate +observation of natural facts. + +_h_) Cold and lifeless imitation of the forms and details without +the spirit of Latin models. + +_i_) A vocabulary restricted and imitative in character. + +_j_) An underlying conception of Nature as entirely apart from +man, and to be reckoned with merely as his servant or his foe. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + INDICATIONS OF A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE + IN THE POETRY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY + + +In this chapter the method of work is quite unlike that in the +preceding study. The typical and the dominant are not regarded. +Attention is rather converged upon the significant exception. We are +led into nooks and corners and byways. The most famous author is not +necessarily the one on whom emphasis is placed. In searching for +legitimate proof of a tendency we may safely turn to the work of men +of unoriginal genius and moderate power. A study of this sort would +certainly give a distorted view if it were for a moment thought to +represent the period as a whole. But if it is held in mind that the +attitude toward Nature was in general through the eighteenth century +marked by indifference and artificiality, we may throw as high lights +as we please on the exceptions. This study will serve its purpose if, +in its following-out of the complexities and inconsistencies that +make a transition period interesting, it shall succeed in showing +that, along with the classical feeling toward Nature, there was also +a real and vital love for the out-door world, and that this new +attitude toward Nature is marked by first-hand observation, by artistic +sensitiveness to beauty, by personal enthusiasm for Nature, by a +recognition of the effect of Nature on man, and, occasionally, by an +imaginative conception of Nature somewhat in the Wordsworthian sense. + +The new attitude toward Nature, of which Thomson is the first adequate +exponent, finds occasional and not ineffective expression during the +two decades before the publication of “Winter” in 1726. In the works of +John Philips (1676-1709), Ambrose Philips (1675–1749), Lady Winchilsea +(1661–1720), John Gay (1685–1732), Thomas Parnell (1679–1718), William +Pattison (1706–1727), Allan Ramsay (1686–1758), Robert Riccaltoun +(1691–1769), and Dr. Armstrong (1709–1779), we become more or less +definitely aware of a new outlook on the external world. + +Dr. Johnson praised John Philips’ poem “Cyder”[199] because it had +the “peculiar merit” of being “grounded in truth.” On the whole this +poem is of the didactic classical order, but here and there among the +minutely accurate horticultural precepts we come upon indications that +the poet was not insensible to the charms of Nature in other than its +utilitarian aspects. His delight in color may be seen from his specific +descriptions of apples. The pippin is “burnish’d o’er with gold;” +the red-streak “with gold irradiate and vermilion shines.” “Plumbs” +are “sky-dyed.” He notes the “Ore, Azure, Gules,” and the blending +of colors in the rainbow. He observes the contrast between fields +yellow with grain, and green pasture land. And he sees the colored +edges of clouds when the sun breaks through. There is also apparent a +sensitiveness to odors. He speaks of cowslip-posies “faintly sweet,” of +odorous herbs, of the fragrance of apples on a dewy autumn morning, and +of “the perfuming flowery bean.” Mr. Shairp credits Thomson with being +the first poet to mention the fragrance of the bean fields,[200] but +Philips is at least twenty years ahead of Thomson in noting this fact. + +We see further indication of Philips’ enjoyment of Nature in a few +lines, + + Nor are the hills unamiable, whose tops + To heaven aspire, affording prospect sweet + To human ken,[201] + +which were perhaps the earliest expression in the eighteenth century +of that pleasure in high hills and wide prospects that was so marked +a characteristic of later poetry. Philips’ explanation of the +satisfaction he found in an early morning walk, namely, that the +mind perplexed with irksome thought is calmed by the influence of +Nature,[202] seems like a prophecy of the thought afterward dominant +concerning man’s indebtedness to Nature. + +In Ambrose Philips’ “Pastorals” we find a mingling of first-hand +observation and classical imitation. His references to the ancients, +his amoebean contests, the supposed effect of the death of Albino +on the external world, the emphasis on dangers from heat and the +nightly wolf, the frequent use of cumulative comparisons,[203] and, +in general, the form of his “Pastorals,” show how closely he was +held by conventional ideas. Furthermore, his facile use of Nature +is always determined by his attitude toward some pastoral nymph or +swain. He rejoices to paint an idyllic background for some Rosalind. +He heaps up images from Nature to express the amorous praises of some +Colinet. He has no conception of a relation between man and Nature +more intimate than the highly artificial one of his “Pastorals.” +What is of importance in his poetry is the fact that in the midst +of his imitations and conventionalities are many true and charming +observations drawn entirely from English country life and not found in +earlier eighteenth-century poetry. His work is, to be sure, rendered +weak and childish by two unpleasant mannerisms in diction: his use of +adjectives ending in “y,” as “bloomy,” “dampy,” “bluey,” “steepy,” +“purply,” and so on, and his use of diminutives such as “kidlings,” +“lambkins,” “younglings,” “firstlings,” and “steerlings.” But on the +whole we find in his poems a more full and accurate knowledge of Nature +than is at all common in the poetry of the time. He notes the fleeting, +dusky shadows cast by moving clouds, the glossiness of plums, the blue +color of mists, the sweet odors of morning, the moaning of the night +wind in the grove, the sportive chase of swallows, the loud note of +the cuckoo, the speckled breast of the thrush, and the song of the +blackbird “fluting through his yellow bill.” He usually calls flowers, +trees, birds, and other animals by their specific names, and he seldom +extends his list beyond his own probable observation. That Philips had +a genuine love for Nature in her milder forms is further seen from the +preface to his “Pastorals.” “As in Painting,” he says, “so in Poetry, +the country affords not only the most delightful scenes and prospects, +but likewise the most pleasing images of life.” He loved the songs of +birds because the “sedate and quiet harmony” of their simple strains +gives “a sweet and gentle composure to the mind.” And he was conscious +of an “unspeakable sort of satisfaction” when he saw “a little +country-dwelling, advantageously situated amidst a beautiful variety of +hills, meadows, fields, woods and rivulets.” + +Lady Winchilsea is, in the study of the poetry of Nature, the most +significant of the minor poets before Thomson. She was a friend of Rowe +and Pope, and was honored by complimentary verses from them.[204] She +is known now chiefly because of Wordsworth’s reference to her,[205] +and through the poems published in Ward’s “English Poets.”[206] Three +of the poems there given, “The Nightingale,” “The Tree,” “A Nocturnal +Revery,” have to do with Nature. With these exceptions the eighty-one +poems in the collection of 1713[207] are thoroughly classical in their +form and spirit, though unmarked by any preponderance of artificial +fancies. But these three short poems are remarkable productions when +thought of in connection with their author’s poetical environment. They +are the earliest eighteenth-century poems in which Nature is frankly +chosen as the theme, and they show a personal knowledge that must have +been the accumulated result of many experiences. + +The observation in “The Nightingale” is especially truthful and +sympathetic. That there is no attempt to describe the bird is an +omission justified by the fact that the nightingale is seldom +seen.[208] The two characteristics noted in the bird’s song are its +exceeding sweetness and its sadness, or rather, its sense of pain.[209] +A comparison of the phrases in the note will show that Lady Winchilsea +listened with the hearing ear of a true poet. But we cannot fail to +notice as well that the song is not fully heard or reported. In the +other poets we find represented a richness, a fulness, an ecstasy, a +tumult, not even hinted at in Lady Winchilsea’s poem.[210] Nor does she +mention the passion most poets have heard in the song.[211] But however +incomplete the impression received may have been, the poetical record +of what was perceived is both truthful and vivid. She seems to write as +she listens and the reader follows the variations of the song through +their effect on her own mind. + +In the fifty-two lines of the poem on Night twenty-two natural facts +are recorded. Some of these would not escape the most careless, but +only close observation would discover such details as the sleepy +cowslip, the grass standing upright, the unusual strength of odors, the +clearer sound of falling waters, the horse’s audible cropping of the +grass, the waving moon seen in the stream, and the distant call of the +curlew. Lady Winchilsea’s love of Nature was of the most unambitious +sort. To have seen the stately tree, to have heard the nightingale, +to know all she did about night, would not have called her beyond +the gates of her own park. But her joy in Nature needed no strong or +novel stimulus. It is her distinction that she had fixed an “exquisite +regard” on the commonest facts of the external world, and that she +spoke quite clearly and simply from her own life. Hence her knowledge +had the new quality of being specific and local and accurately defined. + +Still more noteworthy is Lady Winchilsea’s spiritual sensitiveness +to Nature. Such a phrase as “the mysterious face of heaven” marks a +new conception of the sky. Night is no longer “the parent of fears” +but a time whose solemn quiet suggests a strange and subtle sense of +something too high for syllables to speak. Nature is to her no mere +background for human life. Man is influenced by Nature. His rage is +disarmed. His spirit is led to feel a sedate content. And sometimes in +moments of especial insight there is revealed to him in the inferior +world an existence “like his own.” Not often before Wordsworth is there +so distinct a prevision of his way of looking at Nature.[212] + +In the slow turning of English poetry from the artificial to the +natural John Gay was distinctly helpful, yet the reader of “Trivia,” +“The Fan,” “The Epistles,” the “Fables,” and even the “Eclogues” would +hardly suspect their author of knowing, in any close way, any life +outside the city. It is only in “Rural Sports,” written when he was +twenty-eight, and “The Shepherd’s Week,” when he was twenty-nine, +that we find any real study of Nature. In “Rural Sports” hunting and +especially fishing are described with the enthusiasm and technical +accuracy of an expert. There is no hint of the feeling toward animals +that made Thomson and Cowper abhor hunting. There is simply a +thoroughly sportsmanlike knowledge of details, a sense of pleasurable +excitement in the chase, and joy in victory. This delight in open-air +pursuits is often far enough removed from any real love of Nature, and +is here of much less significance than casual passages showing Gay’s +love of the world about him. He tells us that it was his habit to take +morning walks through the fields,[213] that at sunset he often strayed +out to the cliffs near Barnstaple, and lingered to watch the glowing +colors of the sunset, and the later beauty of an “unclouded sky” bright +with stars and a silver moon that marked a glittering path along the +sea.[214] Gay’s love of Nature was largely confined to the milder +aspects, but he seems not to have been entirely indifferent to hills. +In speaking of Cotton Hill in North Devonshire he said, + + When its summit I climb, I then seem to be + Just as if I approached nearer heaven! + When with spirits depress’d to this hill I repair, + My spirits then instantly rally; + It was near this bless’d spot, I first drew vital air, + So--a hill I prefer to a valley.[215] + +In six or seven unimportant passages Gay speaks of hills or mountains, +apparently using the words interchangeably, but not in a manner +indicating much knowledge of them. Yet such little pictures as that of +the dawn when the sun “strikes the distant eastern hills with light,” +or that of “the evening star shining above the western hill,” show +some recognition of hills as an attractive part of a landscape. Gay +knows flowers and birds and trees with some definiteness. He speaks of +many domestic animals. He notes colors and odors.[216] He observes the +lengthened shadows stretched across the meadows in the late afternoon, +the long flight of crows seeking the wood at sunset, the streams +“wrinkled”[217] by a fresh breeze, the yellow showers of leaves in +autumn. Abundant and varied as is this use of Nature, it is not marked +by especial delicacy of feeling or accuracy of observation. But for +all that “The Shepherd’s Week” is a notable piece of work, and it is +in these pastorals that we find Gay’s real service. Whether meant as +a friendly aid in Pope’s castigation of Ambrose Philips or not, these +poems were unquestionably meant as a good-humored satire on pastorals +that ventured to deal truthfully with English rustic life. The Latin +form was counted the ideal one for pastoral. To this form Gay held, +evidently with the conscious purpose of suggesting the Latin at every +turn. Then he filled in this mold with the homeliest, most realistic +details of English country life.[218] The plain, practical truth of +these details is simply amazing as will be seen from the passages +indicated in the note. See also the flowers brought in, the primrose, +kingcup, clover, daisie, gilliflower, mary-gold, butter-flowers, +cowslip, and others; and the animals, the witless lamb, frisking kid, +udder’d cow, clucking hen, waddling goose, squeaking pigs, worrying +cur, whining swine, paddling ducks, guzzling hogs, and others; and the +country sports, as romping in the fields, blindman’s buff, hot cockles, +swinging, and others.[219] In Pastoral IV is an assemblage of curious +country superstitions; in Pastoral I are given signs of rain; in +Pastoral V are funeral customs; and in Pastoral VI an account of the +favorite country songs. These poems are a veritable treasure-house for +the student of folklore. They might also serve as a diary of country +occupations. Take for example Bumkinet’s reminiscences of Blouzelinda’s +life in Pastoral V. In such a wood, he remembers, they gathered fagots. +There he drew down hazel boughs and stuffed her apron with brown nuts. +In another place he had helped her hunt for her strayed hogs, and as +they drove the untoward creatures to the sty had seized the opportunity +to tell his love. At the dairy he had often seen her making butter +pats, or feeding with floods of whey the hogs that crowded to the door. +In the barn as he plied the flail, he had watched her sift out food for +the hens. In the field she had ranged the sheaves as he pitched them on +the growing mow. The object of these pastorals was to show the absurd +incongruity between the Latin form with its suggestions of Arcadian +days, and the roughness of English country life. The result was +unexpected. Readers in general, indifferent to scholarly congruities, +were delighted with the novelty, the air of freshness and truth, in the +pictures scattered through the “Pastorals.” Poetry had suddenly and +without meaning to do it, gone from the city and the park to the very +plainest and most matter-of-fact sort of country people and country +occupations, and had somehow made them attractive. Blouzelinda and +Buxoma are not in the same order of beings as the traditional Phyllis +and Chloris, and they are equally far removed from the vulgar repulsive +country wenches in Swift’s coarse satires. They are real beings with a +charm of their own, and the love they inspire in Lobbin Clout and Cuddy +is an everyday, quite comprehensible affair. + +The dirge for Blouzelinda indicates well the covert laugh with which +Gay wrote these descriptions of country life. The clergyman said + + that Heaven would take her soul, no doubt, + And spoke the hour-glass in her praise--quite out. + +After the funeral the men trudged + + homeward to her mother’s farm, + To drink new cyder mull’d, with ginger warm, + For gaffer Tread-well told us, by the by, + “Excessive sorrow is exceeding dry.” + +This sense of fun is everywhere apparent, and shows how unwittingly +Gay broke a lance in a new cause. Yet some parts of his Preface are +startlingly modern in their plea for truth to Nature. Here is a passage +which, so far as its spirit is concerned, might have been said by +either Crabbe or Wordsworth. + + Thou wilt not find my shepherdesses idly piping on oaten reeds, + but milking the kine, tying up the sheaves, or, if the hogs are + astray, driving them to the styes. My shepherd gathereth none + other nosegays but what are the growth of our own fields; he + sleepeth not under myrtle shades, but under a hedge; nor doth he + vigilantly defend his flock from wolves for there are none. + +Whatever Gay meant to do, he really did accomplish what his Preface +states as his aim. He turned poetry away from the “insipid delicacy” +of the conventional pastoral, and truthfully represented the “plain +downright hearty cleanly folk” of rustic England. And external Nature, +though nowhere dwelt upon for its own sake, is everywhere present and +so vividly portrayed, that the reader had what was certainly a poetic +novelty at that day, “a lively landscape of his own country, just as he +might have seen it, if he had taken a walk in the fields at the proper +season.” + +The use of external Nature in Parnell’s poems has narrow limits. +There is no mention of winter, autumn, or summer. Mountains are +merely noted in passing as disagreeable features in the poet’s dreary +surroundings in Ireland. There is but one line about the sea. Wild +scenery of whatever sort is ignored. The only storm is described in +some conventional lines in “The Hermit.” There is almost no record +of specific knowledge of trees, or flowers, or birds. There are +few indications of openness to sensuous impressions from specific +forms, colors, odors, sounds. But in spite of these widely inclusive +negations, Parnell is of distinct importance as a poet of Nature. He +has, to begin with, some accurate first-hand observation. He speaks +once of the “differing green” of trees in spring. He describes a fern +with some minuteness. There are two charming descriptions of banks and +skies reflected in clear water.[220] Other fresh observations are, + + Now early shepherds o’er the meadow pass + And print long footsteps in the glittering grass.[221] + + When in the river cows for coolness stand + And sheep for breezes seek the lofty land;[222] + +or this of the close of a storm, + + But now the clouds in airy tumult fly; + The sun emerging opes an azure sky; + A fresher green the smelling leaves display, + And, glittering as they tremble, cheer the day.[223] + +Such lines are of value for they indicate, though they are few +in number, some power of direct vision and of restrained, simple +expression. + +Parnell’s distinctive excellence is, however, along different lines. +He records not facts but impressions. He is essentially a poet of the +spring; he felt intensely all the glad, abundant life of the early +year. But there is not a description of spring in his poems. He gives +instead curiously happy descriptive touches that suggest far more than +they say. + +Note such lines as, + + When spring came on with fresh delight,[224] + +or + + Green was her robe, and green her wreath, + Wher-e’er she trod ’twas green beneath,[225] + +or + + The planted lanes rejoice with dancing leaves.[226] + +There is a lilt in such lines, a joyousness, an off-hand certainty of +touch, not in keeping with the customary cold and labored descriptions +of spring. + +Of still greater significance is Parnell’s literary use of Nature. +In the “Night Piece” the external scene serves as an appropriate +background for the thought presented. The few natural facts are so +well chosen and so delicately touched that all the moral reflections +seem permeated with an appropriate out-of-doors atmosphere. The calm, +perfect beauty of the picture of night with its closing suggestions +of mystery and sadness, the fading of the pale moon, and the sounds +that come over the long lake, fit exactly the course of the poet’s +melancholy meditation and contribute to it. The gay, light pictures +in the “Hymn to Contentment” are equally well suited to the spirit of +joyous praise with which that poem concludes. + +Bishop Jebb has pointed out for the enjoyment of the “classical and +pious reader” the similarity between the moral reflections in this +poem and those in Cardinal Bona’s “Divina Psalmodia.”[227] Parnell’s +close adherence to the thought of the cardinal in the didactic part of +the poem, and the fact that the last forty-two lines, the ones that +deal with Nature, are entirely Parnell’s own, give striking proof of +the originality of his thought concerning the external world and its +power over the human heart. It is in these lines that we find his +most subtly suggestive conception of Nature. He represents himself as +sad at heart. He seeks contentment in earthly pomp, in the paths of +knowledge, in solitary search after diverting scenes in Nature, but +in vain. At last he goes to a wood, and as he yields himself to the +influence of the place becomes suddenly aware that in this quiet spot +the true spirit of contentment is speaking to him wise lessons of +self-control and communion with God. In gratitude for the joy that has +come to him through Nature he utters a song of praise to the “source +of all Nature,” but as he looks about him on the glad world, he feels +that his song is merely an expression in words of the great chorus of +thanksgiving going always silently up from sun and moon and stars, from +seas, woods, and streams. + +Such work as this is indeed remarkable before 1713; and for +spirituality and insight, for what has well been called “a sense of the +thing behind the thing,” it was many years before it was paralleled. + +“The Morning Contemplation” is the only one of Pattison’s poems that +has much to do with Nature. It was written, his friend tells us, on the +banks of a river where the young poet used to wander, endeavoring to +attune his verses to the smoothness and harmony of the stream. He was +especially sensitive to the “sadly pleasing melancholy” of moonlight +nights and solitary walks, and he was one of the first poets to express +a longing for solitude with Nature. Gilded rooms of state, the purple +slavery of towns, rob him of the bliss he finds in the living forest. +When alone in the spacious fields he thinks himself almost a god. Even +little scrubby thorns are to him more pleasing objects than courts can +show. Nature charms his senses and soothes his soul; she is his best +teacher, and he trusts her plain instructions. + + Tell me, all ye mighty wise, + Ye governors of colleges; + What deeper wisdom can you know + Than easy nature’s works here show, + +reads like a crude prevision of Wordsworth’s “The Tables Turned.” The +“excellent morality” of “The Morning Contemplation” is much in the vein +of Dyer’s “Grongar Hill.” Every fact in Nature arouses some thought or +some emotion. By contrast or analogy it suggests human life, as in the +lines, + + See this river as it goes, + With what eloquence it flows; + + * * * * * + + Believe me, life’s the very same, + The very image of this stream. + +Pattison’s poem is of real importance, because its early date[228] +ranks it as probably the first of the eighteenth-century poems that +treat of Nature in the romantic, sentimental, fervid fashion afterward +brought to its culmination by the Wartons. + +Allan Ramsay’s education was of the most limited sort, so that, in +early life at least, the development of his genius was unbiased by +a knowledge of Latin and Greek or even English models. After he was +fifteen he lived in Edinburgh and there began to be infected by the +pseudo-classicism of his day. The poems in which country scenes +and people were most fully represented were, however, pretty clear +and unadulterated records of his early experiences in the secluded +mountainous district of Lanarkshire where he was brought up. The best +poems of this sort are the pastoral dialogues, “Patie and Roger,” 1721, +and “Jenny and Meggy,” 1723, or rather, “The Gentle Shepherd,” 1725, +which is a combination of the two pastorals thrown into completer +dramatic form. A second edition of “The Gentle Shepherd” appeared in +the same year as Thomson’s “Winter.”[229] It is worthy of note that +the service rendered by Gay to English poetry is in many respects +paralleled by Allan Ramsay’s contributions to Scottish song. There are +in Ramsay’s pastorals similar closely studied scenes from peasant life, +wherein are minutely described the superstitions,[230] the household +customs,[231] the out-door occupations,[232] the trials,[233] and the +pleasures[234] of the homely folk among the hills of Scotland. But +there are important differences. What Gay did lightly and without +serious intent was with Ramsay a service of love. He was not laughing +in his sleeve at the very truth he so capitally portrayed. Throughout +his work there is, in general, an air of sincerity. It is as if Gay +wrote from the point of view of an outsider with an unfailingly keen +eye, and a quick sense of humor. But Ramsay wrote from a life that +he had known and loved, and that he thoroughly respected.[235] There +are occasional false notes in his pastorals. He gives his shepherds +flutes and reeds; his comparisons, especially his cumulative similes, +are conventional; he makes rather stiff use of personification; and +his desire to make his hero and heroine well born interferes with the +pastoral simplicity of the drama. But these are extraneous and hardly +affect the real texture of the work. + +We find in Ramsay’s poems occasional hints that his presentation of +homely Scottish scenes and people was not merely instinctive, but that +it was in some measure a deliberate choice. In “Tartana,” written in +1721, he said that his chosen muses were those that wandered through +the clover meadows and the groves along the smooth meandering Tweed +or by the gentle Tay, or where the haughty Clyde roared over lofty +cataracts. + + Phoebus, and his imaginary nine + With me have lost the title of divine; + To no such shadows will I homage pay, + These to my real muses shall give way. + +And again, protesting against the narrowness of poetic rules and +customs, he said, + + With more of Nature than of art + From stated rules I often start,-- + Rules never studied yet by me. + My muse is British, bold and free, + And loves at large to frisk and bound,[236] + +and he called a wide, wild garden where all sorts of plants grew in +wanton confusion, a paradise made by Nature herself. Even more emphatic +is his Preface to “The Evergreen” in 1724. In commendation of the poems +he had collected he said, + + The morning rises as she does in the _Scottish_ horizon. We + are not carried to _Greece_ or _Italy_ for a shade, a + Stream, or a Breeze.... I find not Fault with these Things, as + they are in _Greece_ or _Italy_: But with a Northern + Poet for fetching his Materials from these Places, in a Poem, of + which his own Country is the Scene; as our _Hymners_ to the + _Spring_ and _Makers of Pastorals_ frequently do. + +Ramsay’s use of external Nature is more charming than Gay’s. Scottish +poetry had never, in its attitude toward the out-door world, passed +through so barren and arid a period as that of the pseudo-classicism +in England, nor had the Scottish people ever lost their sense of the +beauty and especially of the mysterious power of glens and braes and +burns. So Ramsay’s love of Nature was not without a considerable +background in the way of national poetic spirit. He spoke out in fresh, +true words what everybody knew, and described scenes familiar to every +eye. There are, however, distinct limitations in Ramsay’s knowledge of +Nature and his power of sympathetic representation. His recognition +of colors is fresh and charming, but elementary, like that shown +in ballads. “Caledonian hills are green,” “beneath a green shade,” +“the simmer green,” “a green meadow,” “my native green plains,” are +characteristic phrases. + + When corn-riggs wav’d yellow, and blue heather bells,[237] + +and + + To pu’ the rashes green with roots sae white,[238] + +are almost the only instances of any other color than green. Such +phrases as “scented meadows,” “sweet scented rucks,” “new blown +scents,” “sweetest briar,” “blooming fragrance,” show the same simple, +undifferentiated recognition of odors. A few lines as, + + How fast the westlin winds sough through the reeds,[239] + +are more specific representations of sounds, but we do not often find +words so discriminating. His references to trees, flowers, and birds +are of the same general, limited sort. There are “bonny haughs” and +“bonny woods;” there are rising plants, primroses, daisies, and gowans; +there are “quiristers on high,” the merle, the mavis, and the lark. +But there is no subtle, detailed observation. It is the open, frank, +spontaneous joy of a child happy in the glad world about him. Ramsay’s +best lines are descriptive of shining days, clear heavens, dancing +streams. “The sun shines sweetly, a’ the lift looks blue,”[240] “ae +shining day,” “ae clear morn of May,” “the morning shines,” “the lift’s +unclouded blue,” “fair simmer mornings” indicate the general atmosphere +of the scenery introduced. Occasional closer touches are seen in such +lines as, + + I’ve seen with shining fair the morning rise, + And soon the fleecy clouds mirk a’ the skies,[241] + +and + + For yet the sun was wading thro’ the mist.[242] + +Best of all are the lines about streams; + + A trotting burnie wimpling through the ground + Its channel pebbles, shining, smooth and round,[243] + + A little fount + Where water poplin springs.[244] + + I’ve seen the silver spring a while rin clear + And soon the mossy puddles disappear,[245] + + Between twa birks out o’er a little lin + The water fa’s and makes a singan din, + A pool breast-deep, beneath, as clear as glass, + Kisses with easy whirles the bord’ring grass,[246] + +are descriptions almost perfect of their kind. In their beauty and +freshness they show that the eye was on the object. Mr. Shairp says of +Habbie’s How, “A pool in a burn among the Lowland Hills could hardly be +more naturally described,” and one need not be a Scotchman to feel sure +that the same is true of the minor descriptive touches. + +Though Ramsay was brought up in a rugged part of Scotland, he seems to +have had none of the modern feeling for mountains. But he speaks of +“black, heathery mountains,” of “northern mountains clad with snow,” +of “mountains clad with purple bloom,” and of hills that “smile with +purple heather.” Once he exclaims, + + Look up to Pentland’s tow’ring top. + Buried beneath great wreaths of snaw, + O’er ilka cleugh, ilk scar, and slap, + As high as any Roman wa,’[247] + +and he notes that + + Speats aft roar frae mountains heigh.[248] + +Such passages, though they show no love for the mountains, are yet +sufficiently picturesque and exact to save Ramsay from the imputation +of never having seen the wild country around him. To the ocean he gives +but a single line, + + Along wild shores, where tumbling billows break.[249] + +It is interesting to note that in Ramsay as in Gay, Nature is made +subordinate to man, in the sense that the pictures from Nature are +nowhere elaborated or dwelt upon ostensibly for their own sake. The +main interest is in the study of the characters. + +The chief contribution of Gay and Ramsay to the growing love of Nature +in poetry had to do with the natural man in natural scenes, rather than +with the natural scene itself. Gay’s service in the way of external +Nature was largely the outcome of his fidelity to the fact. Ramsay did +more. He not only gave separate pictures both beautiful and true, but +he somehow fused them with the human elements of his pastoral in such a +way that we cannot think of the racy love-scenes apart from their fresh +and lovely surroundings. + +In 1725, or shortly before, were written three poems on Winter.[250] +They are important as marking the first real turning from the softer +to the sterner aspects of Nature. Dr. Armstrong’s poem was inspired +by a winter spent among the wild romantic scenes about the River Esk. +His later poetry is not important so far as the use of Nature is +concerned. He became a great admirer of Thomson whose style he imitated +with some success, but he shows little of Thomson’s sensitiveness to +natural beauty. His point of view is that of the physician and his +hatred of the town is based on his objection to smoke and bad air,[251] +while his summons to the mountains rests on the value of exercise and +oxygen.[252] One of the most effective passages is his apostrophe to +the Liddal, that stream “unknown to song, where he played when life was +young.”[253] The only poem on which we need to dwell is the “Winter,” +which, though often unintelligible from its inflated and periphrastic +form of expression, has yet a rugged vigor and originality. It +shows occasionally a homely realism suggestive of Crabbe, as in the +description of the shivering clown. The observation is most of it +first-hand. The description of the birds that, when the storm comes on, + + With domestic tameness, hop and flutter + Within the roofs of persecuting man, + +suggest Thomson’s famous redbreast. Note also the truth of lines such +as these: + + when the murk clouds + Roll’d up in heavy wreaths, low-bellying, seem + To kiss the ground, and all the waste of snow + Looks blue beneath them; + +or these: + + huge sheets of loosen’d ice + Float on their bosoms to the deep, and jar + And clatter as they pass; + +or, to strike a lovelier note, this closing hint of the coming spring: + + Hark! how loud + The cuckoo wakes the solitary wood! + +The whole poem is characterized by a delight in the wildest phases of +winter weather and it shows an originality of conception, a fulness of +observation, and an occasional strength of expression remarkable in a +boy not yet sixteen. + +Riccaltoun’s “A Winter’s Day” is chiefly remarkable because its +author was a friend of Thomson in his boyhood and doubtless helped to +cultivate his taste for Nature; because it was this poem that suggested +Thomson’s descriptions of winter; and because winter was at that time +a new poetic theme. The “masterly touches” of which Thomson speaks +are hard to find unless he referred merely to the rough truth in the +catalogue-like summaries of natural facts. A discussion of Thomson’s +“Winter” will come more naturally in the next section. + +In this study of the period preceding Thomson we have still to notice +the indications that even Pope and Addison were not left untouched by +the new spirit. Such indications, however, show but faintly in their +poetry. Addison’s “Cursus Glacialis” (1699) was written in Latin, and +the few descriptive lines are purely conventional. It is simply an +attempt to show that the vigorous sports of winter + + “New brace the nerves, and active life supply.” + +Pope’s “Pastorals” appeared in Tonson’s “Miscellany” in 1709. They +were enthusiastically received, and apparently considered a charmingly +natural presentation of country life. Wycherley called Pope’s Muse +“a sprightly lass of the plains,” and said, that “in her modest and +natural dress she outshone all Apollo’s court ladies in their more +artful, laboured, and costly finery.”[254] But no assemblage of such +contemporary judgments could convince a modern reader that these poems +show any real traces of a conception of the outer world unlike that of +the classicists. “Windsor Forest” (1713) must be more carefully noted, +both because of Wordsworth’s implied commendation[255] in his reference +to the “passage or two” that contain new images of external Nature, +but chiefly because it is, as Courthope observes, the first “professed +composition on local scenery” since Denham, and Marvell.[256] The poem +was written at two different times. The first 290 lines have to do +with the country. They were written in 1704, at about the same time +as the “Pastorals.” Although this part of the poem purported to be +the outcome of daily rides in Windsor Forest, the descriptions are +so vague and general that most of them would fit any other spot as +well. The lines that show personal observation are certainly few. What +passages Wordsworth meant can only be surmised. He may have had in mind +the description of the pheasants. But more exact observation is shown +in the references to the doves flocking on the naked, frosty trees, +the flight of the clamorous lapwing, the trembling of trees reflected +in a stream, and the purple heather.[257] That Pope had some desire +to conform to the truth in representing English scenery is indicated +by his doubt as to the advisability of referring to the vintage in +describing an English autumn.[258] And when he revised his poems he +omitted “blushing,” as not being applicable to violets,[259] and +“wolves,” as not belonging to England.[260] Warton points out, also, +that in adapting a Latin description of the Eurotas to serve him in a +description of the Thames, he changed “laurels” to “willows”.[261] + +In spite of these indications of a desire to be true to Nature, it +is to Pope’s prose rather than his poetry that we must turn for any +real influence in favor of simplicity and truth in the presentation +of natural facts. Though in reading Pope’s letters every statement +is instinctively taken _cum grano salis_, because of his known +insincerity and striving after effect, we now and then strike passages +that have a genuine tone of pleasure in such mild forms of Nature as +his physical condition enabled him to know.[262] Addison’s “Essays” +also show real delight in the milder forms of the external world. +“A beautiful prospect,” he says, “delights the soul as much as a +demonstration.” “A man of polite imagination often feels a greater +satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows than another does in +the possession.”[263] We note, too, his pleasure in wide views,[264] in +sunset,[265] and in spring.[266] He also deprecated the use of pagan +mythology as meaningless in the poetry of a Christian nation,[267] +and he heartily praised Ambrose Philips’ attempts to confine English +pastorals to English scenes.[268] And finally, both Pope and Addison +were strong influences in bringing about the change from the formal to +the natural school of gardening.[269] + + + SUMMARY + +In a statement of the influences in this period that make for a new +spirit toward Nature we must not forget that it was in reality a +classical period, most of its tendencies and all of its best work +being classical. The indications of the new spirit are fugitive, +occasional, and usually unconscious. With this proviso, we may sum up +the new tendencies. The change from the formal to the natural school of +gardening was begun in this period, and owed much to Pope and Addison. +The artificial shepherds and shepherdesses of the conventional pastoral +were supplanted by real English and Scottish peasants, as in the work +of Ambrose Philips, Gay, and Ramsay. There was a growing sense of +the beauty and charm of the external world, as in Lady Winchilsea, +Parnell, and Ramsay. In most of the poets mentioned in this period +there was a new quickness and minuteness of observation leading to a +wider knowledge of natural facts. There was appreciative recognition +of new aspects of Nature, as night and winter. There was not lacking +a hint of the romantic note of melancholy which later became one +characteristic of the poetry of Nature. And there was recognition +of the spiritual potencies in the external world. There was also an +occasional self-conscious statement of new principles, as humorously in +Gay, seriously in Ramsay, and casually in Pope and Addison. + + + THE POETS BETWEEN 1726 AND 1730 + +James Thomson (1700–1748) is confessedly the most important figure +in the early history of Romanticism. He foreshadowed the new spirit +in various ways, as in his strong love of liberty, his constant +plea for the poor as against the rich, his preference for blank +verse, his imitation of older models, especially Spenser, and in his +tendency toward comprehensive schemes; but his chief importance is +in his attitude toward external Nature. If, however, we take into +consideration all his work, we shall find in more than three-fourths of +it the utmost apparent indifference to Nature. In the five tragedies +written between 1738 and 1748 there is no hint that their author knew +more of the world about him than the veriest classicist of them all. In +“Alfred” (1740), written by Thomson and Mallet, there are occasional +descriptive touches, but these are almost too slight to mention when +we think what effects might have been produced in a play the action +of which occurs on a beautiful wooded island inhabited only by a few +peasants. In the other tragedies Nature is drawn upon merely for +conventional similitudes, as in “Edward and Elenora” (1739), where +five of the eleven similitudes are the comparison of rage or fierce +passions to tempests; or in “Sophonisba,” an earlier play (1728), where +there is not a fresher or more forceful comparison than that of an +army to a torrent, passion to a whirlwind, the hero to a lion, and the +heroine to a blooming morn. In the 3,300 lines of the tedious poem, +“Liberty” (1734–36), not more than fifty refer to external Nature, and +of these the only passages that suggest, even remotely, the author of +“The Seasons” are the descriptions of the sullen land of Sarmatia[270] +and the shaggy mountain charms of the Swiss Alps.[271] “The Castle +of Indolence,” written in 1733, is the only one of the poems written +after 1730 that indicates any genuine love of Nature. The charm of this +poem for modern readers is perhaps largely due to its use of external +Nature, for, though there is little of the rich, elaborate description +characteristic of “The Seasons,” what there is, is so exquisitely +appropriate that all the listless, luxurious life of this land of soft +delights is seen through a romantic and picturesque setting of waving, +shadowy woods, sunny glades, and silver streams. Yet a closer study of +the descriptive stanzas shows little more than a musically felicitous +combination of the attributes conventionally recognized as belonging +to a pleasing landscape. The only lines really indicative of a love of +Nature such as the classicists had not known are the following from the +second canto: + + I care not, Fortune, what you me deny: + You can not rob me of free Nature’s grace; + You can not shut the windows of the sky, + Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; + You can not bar my constant feet to trace + The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve.[272] + +It is to “The Seasons” (1726–30) that we must go if we wish to +understand Thomson’s work as a poet of Nature. A brief analysis of the +study of external Nature in these poems will serve to show both in what +respects Thomson’s work was the outcome of a new spirit, and in what +respects its affiliations are with the old. + +An important part of Thomson’s poetical endowment was his quick +sensitiveness to the sights and sounds and odors of the world +about him. He looked on Nature with the eye of an artist, but not +of an artist in black and white. It was not form but color that +attracted him. There are occasional descriptions, as of the garden +in “Spring”[273] and of the precious stones in “Summer,”[274] where +the lines glow like a painter’s palette, and throughout “The Seasons” +there is a general impression of rich and varied coloring. That this +impression is stronger than a list of the color terms used would seem +to justify is due to two facts, both characteristic of Thomson’s work +in general. In the first place he did not care for nicely discriminated +shades or delicate tints. He loved broad masses of strong, clear +color. He dwells with ever new delight on blue as seen in the sky or +reflected in water, and on green, “smiling Nature’s universal robe.” +In the second place he is especially rich in such words as indicate +color in general without specification as to the kind. “The flushing +year,” “every-coloured glory,” “the boundless blush of spring,” “the +innumerous-coloured scene of things,” “unnumbered dyes,” “hues on +hues,” are typical phrases. Motion also caught his eye more quickly +than form. The dancing light and shade in a forest pathway, the waving +of branches, the flow of water, the rapid flight or slow march of +clouds, the golden, shadowy sweep of wind over ripened grain, count +for much in the pleasurable impression made upon his mind by different +scenes. + +It is evident that Thomson received more through his eye than through +his ear, but he was very far from being indifferent to the sounds of +Nature. The hum of bees, the low of cattle, the bleating of sheep are +frequently noted. The songs of birds, while often represented by some +general phase, as “the music of the woods,” or “woodland hymns,” are +now and then more minutely specified, as in the fine description of +the “symphony of spring.”[275] There is also effective representation +of the sounds heard in storms, as in the summer thunderstorm.[276] The +most frequent sounds are, as is inevitable in an English poet whose +facts come from actual observation, those made by water, as the plaint +of purling rills, the thunder of impetuous torrents, or the growling of +frost-imprisoned rivers. + +While Thomson was not the first poet to speak of the odor of the +bean-flower, his words show a keen appreciation of that perfume, and +certainly the “smell of dairy” was a country odor first poetically +noticed by him. His sensitiveness to odors is not especially marked, +yet it is safe to say that he was in this respect more observant than +his immediate predecessors or contemporaries. + +In reading the poetry of Nature after Dryden in historical sequence, +there is, in coming to “The Seasons,” a sudden sense of freedom and +elation, a sense of having at last come upon a poet who writes freely +and spontaneously from a large personal experience, whose facts press +in upon him even too abundantly. He knows many kinds of Nature and +under varying aspects. His garden picture, though somewhat too much +in the floral catalogue style, shows how well he knew the cultivated +flowers he described, and he speaks with no less loving minuteness +of furze, the thorny brake, the purple heather, dewy cowslips, white +hawthorn, and lilies of the vale. It is a pleasure to see how much he +knew about birds. He describes their habits with remarkable accuracy +and minuteness. He shows their tender arts in courtship,[277] their +skill in nest-building,[278] and the “pious frauds” whereby they lure +away the would-be trespasser.[279] In no poetry between Marvell and +Thomson do we find birds so fully described, and Marvell has nothing so +charming and sympathetic as Thomson’s winter redbreast.[280] Thomson’s +scope is also wider in that he knew the birds of the seashore[281] as +well as those of wood and meadow. Equally close attention is given to +the various domestic fowl. The peacock had flaunted his painted tail +through poetry for a hundred years, and is now for the first time +outranked as an object of interested observation by the hen, the duck, +and the turkey.[282] The frequent descriptions of domestic animals, +especially the sheep,[283] the horse,[284] and the ox,[285] also +show minute knowledge such as could not have been gained from books. +It is, moreover, a significant fact that through these numerous and +varied studies there runs a genuine love for animals. Thomson was, +at least in poetic theory, a vegetarian, and he vigorously denounced +the killing of animals for food as conduct worthy only of wild +beasts.[286] His poetical invectives against hunting are as vigorous +as Cowper’s.[287] He objects to caging birds,[288] and his indignation +waxes high over the bees “robb’d and murder’d” by man’s tyranny.[289] +The only unoffending animal that escapes Thomson’s wide sympathy is the +fish.[290] The skill with which the monarch of the brook is lured from +his dark haunt and at last “gaily” dragged to land is described with +a gusto in curious contrast to the pity lavished on the tortured worm +that may have served for bait.[291] + +As we have just seen, the animals that Thomson described were those +that any country lad might know rather than those that had been +canonically set apart for poetical service. The same independent +judgment is evident in his study of other neglected realms in the +world of Nature. He gloried in storms and winter. Though he now and +then falls into the conventional phraseology, and speaks of winter as +drear and awful, he yet in the same breath exclaims that he finds its +horrors congenial. The contrast of a first winter in London turns his +mind with full emphasis to the days of his youth when he wandered with +unceasing joy through virgin snows, and listened to the roar of the +winds and the bursting torrent, and watched the deep tempest brewing in +the grim sky. Such experiences he remembers with joy for they “exalt +the soul to solemn thought.”[292] Through all the descriptive portions +of the “Winter” there is a vigorous, manly enthusiasm as tonic and +bracing as the bright, frosty days themselves. Thomson’s pleasure in +the sterner phenomena of Nature is further shown by his evident delight +in tracing the progress of any storm, whether the thunder storm of +summer,[293] the devastating wind and rain of autumn,[294] or the black +gloom of a winter tempest.[295] These fierce tempests certainly are of +more comparative importance in “The Seasons” than they are in Nature. +Their frequent choice may be in part due to their dramatic qualities +of rapidity and force. The crashing and hurtling of the elements was a +subject not unsuited to Thomson’s splendid but ponderous and swelling +style. But in the main it is only fair to suppose that he wrote of +storms well because he had many times watched them with an interest +that had made him remember them. + +With many other aspects of Nature was Thomson familiar. He knew much +of the sky both by day and by night. His few short descriptions +of the starry heavens are worth more than all Young’s far-sought +epithets.[296] One phrase concerning the radiant orbs + + That more than deck, that animate the sky,[297] + +seems a conscious turning away from the old artificial conception. One +of the finest moonlight passages[298] is reminiscent of Milton in two +lines, + + Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop, + Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime, + +but the close, + + The whole air whitens with a boundless tide + Of silver radiance, trembling round the world, + +is Thomson’s own, and is a good example of the full sweet harmony that +marks his verse at its best. There are many passages and apparently +casual phrases indicative of the closeness with which he watched +clouds.[299] The doubling fogs that roll around the hills and wrap the +world in a “formless gray confusion” through which the shepherd stalks +gigantic is described with a Wordsworthian felicity and precision.[300] + +The descriptions referred to below of early morning,[301] of +sunset,[302] of evening,[303] and of night[304] may be perhaps taken +as among the best examples of their sort in “The Seasons.” As a whole +they show conclusively from what long intimacy with Nature Thomson +wrote. The very freshness of morning breathes from the sunrise picture +in “Summer” and the little picture in “Autumn” is more delicately +suggestive than many a more pretentious description of the dawning +day. The sunset after the rain in “Spring” is one of the best examples +of Thomson’s power to paint word pictures. It would be difficult for +any canvas to present a scene at once so mellow and radiant, and so +transfused with the joy of a renovated earth. As exquisite in their way +are the descriptions of the slow approach of “Sober Evening” with her +circling shadows and the softly swelling breeze that stirs the stream +and wood; and the later description of the strange uncertain mingling +of light and darkness in a summer night in England. These passages and +others that might be quoted show to what fine issues Thomson’s pen was +sometimes touched, but it cannot be denied that his really intimate +and exact knowledge of Nature and her ways could not hold all his +descriptions subject to the charm of simplicity and truth. + +As further illustrative of Thomson’s knowledge of all that pertained +to the country we have his admirably vivid and detailed accounts of +the homely labors of a farmer’s life, as plowing,[305] sowing,[306] +reaping,[307] hay making,[308] and sheep shearing.[309] Of these the +sheep shearing is the most simply charming and natural. It is also +the most noteworthy, because sheep and shepherds had long been the +very substance out of which pastorals were woven so that in such +descriptions the contrast between the new and the old way of looking +at country life is sharply defined. Thomson’s pastoral queen and +shepherd king are at the opposite pole from the sentimental, affected, +useless nymphs and swains who had before posed as the guardians of +English sheep. His shepherds are sturdy fellows, doing honest work +and plenty of it, and as such they had no predecessors in English +classical poetry. The sheep, too, are real animals. They have to be +watched with a vigilance of which no flower-crowned swain playing on +an oaten pipe would be capable. And they must be washed and sheared +and branded. In winter they must be housed and fed, no matter what the +dangers on the dark, stormy hills. It is this strong, refreshing air of +reality in Thomson’s poetry, and his unfeigned respect and admiration +for the actual country life in England that completed the work begun +by the ugly satire of Swift and the mock pastorals of Gay, and made +the old, conventional, pseudo-classic pastoral from that time on an +impossibility in English poetry. + +The phrase, “dislike of boundaries,” is perhaps not very apt, but +it may serve to describe what is certainly a pervasive quality of +Thomson’s work, and a significant quality, for if there was one +thing more pleasing than another to an orthodox classicist it was a +well-defined limit. Thomson preferred the blank verse to the couplet +because the unrhymed, flowing lines gave a certain freedom. There is an +air of abundance, of even undue exuberance about much of his work. Even +his diction presents this idea of lavishness. There is a surprisingly +large number of such words as “effulgent,” “refulgent,” “effusion,” +“diffusion,” “suffusion,” “profusion,” from the roots “fundo” and +“fulgeo” with their idea of a liberal pouring out. “Luxuriant,” +“ample,” “prodigal,” “boundless,” “unending,” “ceaseless,” “immense,” +“interminable,” “immeasurable,” “vast,” “infinite,” are typical words. + + Profusely poured around, + Materials infinite, + + Infinite splendor wide investing all, + + To the far horizon wide-diffused, + A boundless deep immensity of shade, + + Night, a shade immense, magnificent and vast, + +are typical phrases. In one short description the birds are +“innumerous;” they are “prodigal” of harmony; their joy overflows +in music “unconfined;” the song of the linnets is “poured out +profusely.”[310] In another short passage the stores of the vale are +“lavish,” the lily is “luxuriant” and grows in fair “profusion,” +the flowers are “unnumbered,” beauty is “unbounded,” and bees fly in +“swarming millions.”[311] When images come into his mind it is by the +ten thousand. In spring the country is “one boundless blush,” “far +diffused around.” He loves the “liberal air,” “lavish fragrance,” “full +luxuriance,” “extensive harvests,” “immeasurable,” or “exhaustless” +stores, “copious exhalations.” All is superlative, exaggerated, +scornful of limits. It was “the unbounded scheme of things” that most +appealed to him. + +The same point receives illustration in his sense for landscape. He +rejoiced in a wide view.[312] He loved to seek out some proud eminence +and there let his eye wander “far excursive,” and dwell on “boundless +prospects.” Such scenes not only gave him a chance for picturesque +enumerations without any especial demand for minute discrimination, but +they satisfied his preference for grand, general effects. + +Closely connected with the sense for landscape is the use of +geographical romance,[313] or the heightening of poetic effect by the +accumulation of sounding geographical names.[314] The finest example +of this device is in the lines descriptive of the thunder re-echoed +among the mountains.[315] In this passage the impression of sublimity +is due to the suggestions of mysterious elemental forces subtly +associated with such names as Carnarvon, Penmaenmawr, Snowdon, Thule, +and Cheviot.[316] This mental following of the thunder from peak to +distant peak, this endeavor to strengthen the impression by the use of +the remote and the unknown, show a mind set toward romantic rather than +classical ideals. + +A further indication of Thomson’s defiance of limits is his curiosity. +His mind goes back of the present fact and restlessly strives after +causes and origins.[317] In imagination he seeks to penetrate to the +vast eternal springs from which Nature refreshes the earth.[318] The +most poetic example of this questioning spirit is in his address to the +winds that blow with boisterous sweep to swell the terrors of the storm. + + In what far-distant region of the sky, + Hush’d in deep silence, sleep you when ’tis calm?[319] + +The classical spirit held itself to useful questions that could have +some rational answer. It is the romantic spirit that pushes its +inquiries into the realms of the unknowable. + +Throughout this study of Thomson’s work there has been an implicit +recognition of his strong love for Nature. This fact receives further +definite confirmation from his letters. It is interesting to note +that his early life was almost as fortunate in its environment as +Wordsworth’s. When he was a year old his father moved to Southdean, a +small hamlet near Jedborough. Here the lad remained till he entered +the university at Edinburgh at fifteen,[320] and here he apparently +passed most of his vacations till he went to London at twenty-five. +One of his especial friends was Dr. Cranston of Ancrum whose love of +Nature was equal to his own. Thomson’s letters to Dr. Cranston, though +somewhat stilted and high-flown, show clearly the eagerness with which +they had together explored the picturesque country along the Tiviot and +its tributary streams, the Ale and the Jed. In the first letter from +London, under the date April 3, 1725, was written, “I wish you joy of +the spring.” In September of the same year Thomson wrote from Barnet: + + Now I imagine you seized with a fine romantic kind of melancholy + on the fading of the year; now I figure you wandering, + philosophical and pensive, ’midst the brown, wither’d groves, + while the leaves rustle under your feet, the sun gives a + farewell parting gleam, and the birds + + Stir the faint note and but attempt to sing. + + Then again when the heavens wear a more gloomy aspect, the winds + whistle, and the waters spout, I see you in the well-known + clough, beneath the solemn arch of tall, thick embowering trees, + listening to the amusing lull of the many steep, moss-grown + cascades, while deep, divine contemplation, the genius of the + place, prompts each swelling awful thought. I am sure you would + not resign your place in that scene at any easy rate. None ever + enjoyed it to the height you do, and you are worthy of it. There + I walk in spirit and disport in its beloved gloom. This country + I am in is not very entertaining; no variety but that of woods, + and them we have in abundance; but where is the living stream? + the airy mountain? or the hanging rock? with twenty other things + that elegantly please the lover of nature. Nature delights me in + every form. + +Later in life Thomson was “more fat than bard beseems,” and +correspondingly indolent, and his biographers give the impression that +no beauty of the world about him could compete with the charms of an +easy chair. But his letters still bear witness to a love of Nature as +real if not as active as that of his youth. In July, 1743, he wrote to +Mr. Lyttleton promising to spend some weeks with him at Hagley: + + As this will fall in Autumn, I shall like it the better, for I + think that season of the year the most pleasing and the most + poetical. The spirits are not then dissipated with the gaiety + of spring, and the glaring light of summer, but composed into + a serious and tempered joy. The year is perfect.... The muses, + whom you obligingly say I shall bring with me, I shall find with + you--the muses of the great, simple country, not the little, + fine-lady muses of Richmond Hill. + +Again four or five years later, he wrote to Paterson, “Retirement and +nature are more and more my passion every day.”[321] + +This passion for Nature finds frequent expression in the poems, but +no citation of specific instances can be so convincing as the general +impression of unforced personal enthusiasm made upon the reader of “The +Seasons.” Moreover, Thomson’s conception of the effect of Nature on +man, the next topic, may be fairly counted as but a transcript from his +own experience, and therefore as further illustrative of his love for +Nature. + +In “The Seasons” as in preceding poetry both man and Nature have a +place, but there is a great transfer of emphasis. Nature had been +ignored or counted as the servant, the background, the accompaniment +of man. Now the human incidents are few and unimportant and are +used chiefly to lay additional stress by their tone on the spirit +characteristic of each season. Nature is loved and studied and +described purely for her own sake. There is very little use of natural +facts as similes for human qualities, and there is, practically, no use +of pathetic fallacy. The effect of Nature on the man sensitive to her +high ministration is represented as twofold. In the first place and +chiefly, she storms his senses with her ravishing delights. She gives +him pleasures of the most rich and varied sort. She enchants him with +color and harmony and perfume. These pleasures are, however, of the eye +and ear. They do not touch the deeper joys of the heart. Of the appeal +of Nature to the soul of man, in the true Wordsworthian sense, Thomson +knew little. Yet occasional passages indicate that he had received from +Nature gifts higher than that of mere external, sensuous enjoyment. He +attributes to Nature in at least a partially Wordsworthian sense, the +power of soothing, elevating, and instructing. He sings the “infusive +force” of spring on man, + + When heaven and earth as if contending vie + To raise his being, and serene his soul.[322] + +It is his delight to “meditate the book of Nature” for thence he hopes +to “learn the moral song.”[323] At the soft evening hour, he + + lonely loves + To seek the distant hills, and there converse + With nature, there to harmonize his heart.[324] + +Not only does he attend to Nature’s voice from month to month, and +watch with admiration her every shape, but he + + Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart.[325] + +While these and a few other similar passages would hardly be remarked +in the poetry of Nature after Wordsworth, they are of great historical +importance because they show the early beginning of that spirit which +received its final and perfect expression seventy years later in “The +Lyrical Ballads.” + +Thomson’s two dominant conceptions in his thought of God in Nature were +as the almighty Creator and the ever-active Ruler. The whole tenor +of his poems goes to show that he saw in Nature not God himself but +God’s hand. Even his invocations to Nature, animate and inanimate, to +praise God in one general song of adoration, are but highly emotional +and figurative statements of the conception that God is not all, but +Lord of all. Now and then, however, in the midst of the old ideas +there comes the breath of a new thought. In one line we find the cold, +conventional idea; in the next, an intimation of divine immanence. +God’s beauty walks forth in the spring. His spirit breathes in the +gales. The seasons “are but the varied God.” God is the Universal +Soul of Heaven and earth. He is the Essential Presence in all +Nature.[326] Such sentences as these, whether uttered consciously, or +half unconsciously under the influence of poetic excitement, clearly +prefigure the modern conception of the union and inter-penetration of +the physical and spiritual worlds. + +Of the two general points to be kept in view in the study of Thomson +as a poet of Nature the second was a consideration of his affiliations +with the classical spirit. It is surprising to observe in how few +respects such affiliations can be justly predicated. There are +occasional references to his Doric reed, and frequent invocations to +his muse. As preliminary justification of his choice of themes are +quotations from Virgil and Horace. The authority of the “Rural Maro” +and the example of Cincinnatus lend added dignity to the English plow. +Personifications of the conventional type often appear. There is one +purely didactic description of the cure for a pest of insects, and +another description of the method by which bees are robbed of their +honey, that are evidently framed on Latin models. Nor do we miss the +ever-recurring advice to read the page of the Mantuan swain beneath a +spreading tree on a warm noon. + +We also find that toward mountains and the sea Thomson held almost +the traditional attitude. His nearness to the coast and his knowledge +of shore birds show that he could not have been entirely ignorant of +the ocean, but it apparently made little impression on him, for he +seldom mentions it even casually, and but once with any emphasis. +It is then one of the elements of a wild, fierce storm that sweeps +the coast. A few of his epithets for mountains, as “keen-air’d” and +“forest-rustling,” are new though not especially felicitous, and he +often mentions mountains by name, or as bounding some distant prospect. +But in general his conception and his phraseology are those of his +contemporaries. He speaks of the Alps as “dreadful,” as “horrid, +vast, sublime,” and again as “horrid mountains.” There is nowhere any +evidence of the modern feeling toward mountains, though there are +frequent expressions of appreciative love for green hills. + +The point in which Thomson shows strongest traces of the old influence +is his diction. He often has the new thought before he has found the +appropriate dress for it. Birds are still the “plumy” or “feathery +people,” and fish are the “finny race.” “Shaggy” and “nodding” are used +of mountains and rocks and forests, and “deformed” and “inverted” of +winter, in true classical fashion. “Maze” is one of his most frequent +words. “Horrid” still holds a useful place. “Amusing” is five times +applied to the charms of some landscape. Leaves are the “honours” of +trees, paths are “erroneous,” caverns “sweat,” and all sorts of things +are “innumerous.” He also makes large use of Latinized words such as +“turgent,” “bibulous,” “relucent,” “luculent,” “irriguous,” “gelid,” +“ovarious,” “incult,” “concactive,” “hyperborean.” These words can +hardly be said to belong to any received poetic diction. They are +rather a mannerism of Thomson’s style, and an outgrowth of his delight +in swelling, sounding phrases. + +From this summary we at once perceive how few and comparatively +unimportant were the characteristics held in common by Thomson and the +classicists in their treatment of external Nature. + +This study of “The Seasons” shows that so far as intrinsic worth +is concerned the poems are marked by a strange mingling of merits +and defects, but that, considered in their historical place in the +development of the poetry of Nature, their importance and striking +originality can hardly be over-stated. Though Thomson talked the +language of his day, his thought was a new one. He taught clearly, +though without emphasis, the power of Nature to quiet the passions and +elevate the mind of man, and he intimated a deeper thought of divine +immanence in the phenomena of Nature. But his great service to the +men of his day was that he shut up their books, led them out of their +parks, and taught them to look on Nature with enthusiasm. This service +is of the greater historical value because it was so well adapted +to the times. To begin with, it was a necessary first step. People +cannot love what they do not know. Lead them to Nature, teach them to +observe with amazement and delight, and the other steps follow in due +course in accordance with the power of each soul to receive the deeper +influences of Nature. In the second place, men were just ready to take +this first decisive step away from the artificial to the natural. The +work of the poets who immediately preceded Thomson had been too slight +and fragmentary to count for much in the way of influence, yet they +were most clear indications of a tendency, a silent preparation of +the general poetic mind, for such work as Thomson’s. He was at once +and easily understood because, while his poems in their spontaneous +freshness and charm, their rich, easy fulness of description, their +minute observation, their sweep of view, their unforced enthusiasm, +must have come as a revelation, it was a revelation in no sense defiant +or iconoclastic. In the main it was a revelation of new delights, not +of disturbing theories, or vexing problems. A touch more of subtlety, +of vision, of mystery, of the faculty divine, and Thomson might have +waited for recognition as Wordsworth did.[327] + +John Dyer’s (1700–1758) more ambitious poems, “The Ruins of Rome” +(1740) and “The Fleece” (1757), belong to a much later period than the +present. Of these the first may be passed over as containing hardly +a touch of Nature. The second is a long didactic poem showing much +technical knowledge of sheep-raising, weaving, dyeing, and home and +foreign trade. It has frequent panegyrics of liberty and simplicity. +It abounds with geographical details, and is notable as having so many +full and often exact descriptive references to the rivers of Great +Britain. The Avon, the Severn, the Thames, the Towy, the Vaga, the +Ryddol, the Ystwith, the Clevedoc, the Lune, the Coker, the Ouze, and +the Usk are chief among these. He is apparently always conscious of the +rivers, rills, streams, or waterfalls in any landscape. But in general +the poem is conventional in diction,[328] in the choice of similitudes, +and in the occasional descriptions. Its use of geographical details, +though sometimes suggestive and stimulating, as in the lines, + + Tempestuous regions, Darwent’s naked peaks, + Snowden and blue Plynlymmon and the wide + Aërial sides of Cader-yddris huge,[329] + +is more often simply wearisome. It is true of Dyer, as it was of +Thomson, that his really excellent poetry of Nature was written when +he was fresh from long and familiar knowledge of Nature in her wilder +forms, and that travel and contact with men served to dull the power +of these early experiences. “Grongar Hill” and “The Country Walk” were +published the same year as Thomson’s “Summer,” and were doubtless +written the year before. They could hardly have been a result of the +impetus given by Thomson to the study of Nature. They are rather an +original and independent contribution toward the same end. They were +the expression of personal experience, and the direct outcome of +native taste and singularly fortunate environment. Dyer’s life before +his school days at Westminster was spent in the wild and romantic +country in Carmarthenshire, and during the years immediately preceding +the publication of these two poems he was wandering through other +parts of South Wales as an “itinerant painter.” His previous study +with Richardson had helped to develop that artistic sensitiveness +to external impressions so apparent in his early work. He notes the +colors and shapes of the trees grouped below him, the gloomy pine +and sable yew, the blue poplar, the yellow beech, the fir with its +slender, tapering trunk, the sturdy oak with its broad-spread boughs. +The changing horizon line as he climbs the hill, the long level lines +of the lawn, the various movements of rivers running swift or slow, +through sun and shade, the streaks of meadow, the close, small lines +of distant hedges, the curling spires of smoke, are observations that +show the trained eye.[330] His colors seem to be rather carefully +discriminated. Yellow receives unusual emphasis. The linnet’s yellow +plumage, the yellow foliage of the beech, the mountain-tops shining +yellow in the sun, and even the “yellow barn” catch his eye. This +preference for yellow characterizes his later work. He speaks of +“yellow corn,” “yellow tillages,” “yellowing plains,” and the “yellow +Tiber.” He also liked the words “golden” and “sunny.” Purple is applied +to evening and to the groves at evening, and seems to be used with some +real sense of the modern specific meaning of the word. In later work +the color purple became almost a stock epithet with him; + + Purple Eve + Stretches her shadows,[331] + + When many-colour’d Evening sinks behind + The purple woods and hills,[332] + + The purple skirts of flying day,[333] + + When evening mild + Purples the valleys,[334] + + Wide abroad + Expands the purple deep,[335] + +are typical phrases. He also notices the “thousand flaming flowers” +in the fields, the silver and gold of the morning clouds, the shining +of lakes, the evening colors reflected in slow streams, and the soft +fair hues of distant mountain summits. He delights in the sounds of +Nature, especially in the songs of birds. Not for many years after +Dyer is there so effective a bit of bird-song poetry as the closing +lines of “Grongar Hill.” Nor is he indifferent to odors, for he notes +the perfumed breeze from the valley, the fragrant brakes, and the +sweet-smelling honeysuckle. It is worthy of note that in these two +short poems nearly a hundred natural facts are mentioned. + +In this wide observation Dyer includes some features not hitherto +counted as parts of a poetic landscape. The “windy summit wild and +high,” naked rocks, and barren ground, are mingled with the softer +details, and + + Each gives each a double charm. + +He nowhere dwells upon mountains in his descriptions, but the slight +touches here and there and the general tone of the poems are sufficient +to show his great delight in mountain scenery. He represents himself as +climbing slowly and looking back often so as not to miss a single phase +of the view unfolding before him. Once on the top he gazes out over the +lovely prospect and exclaims, + + Now, even now, my joys run high + As on the mountain turf I lie. + +In “The Fleece” are further indications of this love of mountains and +wide views. The passage beginning + + Huge Breaden’s stony summit once I climbed[336] + +is typical. + + Those slow-climbing wilds, that lead the step + Insensibly to Dover’s windy cliff, + Tremendous height![337] + +and + + By the blue steeps of distant Malvern walled, + Solemnly vast.[338] + +have something of the modern touch. + +The prevailing interest in these poems is in Nature, but there are one +or two charming pictures of homely life. The old man’s hut and garden +on the edge of the wood, and the barnyard scene are as attractive as +they are realistic. And surely the tattered old man digging up cabbage +in the shade might have been expected to wait at least for Crabbe or +Wordsworth to introduce him into the select company of the Muses. The +same may be said of the tramp asleep by the roadside.[339] + +In any tabulation Dyer’s use of Nature would seem to be much more +abundant than it is for in “The Fleece” he of necessity used a large +number of geographical details merely to mark out localities and with +no more literary quality than there would be on a map. His chief use of +Nature is twofold, and is best seen in the short poems, “Grongar Hill” +and “The Country Walk.” He describes a landscape with loving minuteness +for its own sake, and he regards it as the occasion for a strain of +half-melancholy reflection on human life. This gentle, quaintly precise +moralizing is unlike the typical classical didacticism in that it seems +to spring inevitably from the effect of natural objects on the poet’s +mind, instead of being itself a main thing and laboriously illustrated +by such natural facts as came to hand. + +The entire impression made by the two poems is that they were written +by one who knew Nature better than books. The negative as well as +the positive qualities of the poem show this. There are almost no +conventional phrases.[340] Of the personified abstract qualities, two +at least, Pleasure and Quiet, are so imaginatively conceived as not +to belong to the category of cold classical personifications. The +only classical allusion is significant as being to the “fair Castalian +springs” “deserted now” by all but “slavish hinds.”[341] But the poems +show something more than first-hand as opposed to bookish knowledge +of Nature. Their author evidently loved to linger over the charms of +Nature in solitude, to let them sink into his mind and heart. There is +a power of quiet contemplation, of “wise passiveness,” such as Thomson +never knew. The closing lines of “Grongar Hill,” + + Be full, ye courts; be great who will; + Search for Peace with all your skill: + Open wide the lofty door, + Seek her on the marble floor, + In vain you search, she is not there; + In vain ye search the domes of care! + Grass and flowers Quiet treads, + On the meads, and mountain heads, + Along with Pleasure, close-ally’d, + Ever by each other’s side: + And often, by the murmuring rill, + Hears the thrush, while all is still, + Within the groves of Grongar Hill, + +show a wonderfully true and delicate apprehension of the spiritual +influences that speak through Nature’s forms. It is putting into +plainer words what was the underlying conception in Parnell’s “Hymn to +Contentment.” + +As has been observed, Dyer speedily left his first love and devoted +himself to laborious, didactic blank verse. We cannot find that his +two short poems attracted much attention at the time. Thomson’s glory +blazed forth so effulgently that lesser lights were but dimly seen. +Now, however, as we go from poet to poet of the period, we cannot fail +to be impressed by the unusual sincerity, simplicity, and truth with +which Dyer wrote of Nature. And we feel that while he lacked Thomson’s +power and fertility, he was nearly equal to him in originality, and +superior to him in delicacy. + +David Mallet’s (1705–65) chief poems in which there is use of external +Nature are “A Fragment,” “The Excursion,” and “Amyntor and Theodora.” +The undated “A Fragment” reads like a poetical exercise in the style +of Dyer’s “The Country Walk” and “Grongar Hill.” The octosyllabic +verse, the general plan of a walk at different times of day, the ascent +of a hill for the view, the pleasure in the solitude of Nature, the +moralizing invocations to Health and Freedom, are all suggestive of +Dyer. The description of the noontide woodland retreat, of the forest +sounds, and of the poet’s revery are like passages in “The Country +Walk,” while both the spirit and form of some passages in “Grongar +Hill” are paralleled by such lines as, + + On the brow of mountain high + In silence feasting ear and eye,[342] + +or, + + And then at utmost stretch of eye + A mountain fades into the sky; + While winding round, diffused and deep, + A river rolls with sounding sweep.[343] + +“The Excursion” and “Amyntor and Theodora” are interesting because +of their relation to the work of Thomson. Thomson and Mallet were +students together at Edinburgh, and there was evidently a close +literary comradeship between them, which lasted through the first +years of their London life. During the summer of 1726 they were both +engaged in literary work, the result of which was, on Thomson’s part, +“Summer,” and on Mallet’s, about 300 lines of the first canto of “The +Excursion.”[344] There was a vigorous interchange of letters concerning +the two poems, each author giving advice and criticism on the passages +sent him by the other.[345] A comparison of the poems shows numerous +resemblances. As an illustration we may take the sunrise with which +each poem opens. The order of occurrences is the same in each--night, +faint gleams in the east, breaking clouds, rising mists, retreat +of wild animals, song of birds, work of shepherds, full rising of +sun, praise to God, reflections on the inspiration to be gained from +Nature. There are also many curious verbal similarities. In Thomson +the meek-eyed _Morn_, mother of _dews_, comes _faint-gleaming_ in the +east to destroy night’s _doubtful_ empire, and before the _lustre_ +of her face the clouds break _white_ away. In Mallet sacred _Morn +pale-glimmering_ comes with _dewy_ radiance through the _doubtful_ +twilight and spreads a _whitening lustre_ over the sky. In Thomson the +powerful _King of Day looks_ in boundless majesty _abroad_. In Mallet +the _King of Glory looks abroad_ on Nature. These are but suggestions +of the many unmistakable but baffling and intricately interwoven +similarities in the two poems. If we had but these two poems it +would be, perhaps, impossible to say which poet exerted the stronger +influence. Thomson’s deference to Mallet’s judgment is evident. +“Winter” was submitted to him for correction,[346] and the splendid +passage on precious stones in “Summer” was an addition proposed by +him.[347] Thomson also greatly admired Mallet’s work.[348] Thomson’s +work, on the other hand, bears the impress of a genuine enthusiasm and +a manysided personal experience, while Mallet’s work reads like that +of a facile versifier speaking out of a meager experience and with a +forced enthusiasm. At any rate, when we come to “Amyntor and Theodora,” +published years after the full edition of “The Seasons,” Mallet is +clearly imitative in thought and phrase. The ocean, for instance, +is described as “through boundless space diffused, magnificently +dreadful.” Again it is “diffused immense,” and “magnificently various.” +In its depths “immeasurably sunk,” “ten thousand thousand tribes +endless range.” Its stormy waves are “mountains surging to the stars, +commotion infinite” and they break in “boundless undulation.” Storms +are presaged by “doubling clouds on clouds.” The earth glows with “the +boundless blush of spring.” At sunset the sea shines with “an unbounded +blush.” A comparison of these phrases with those quoted from Thomson +on p. 92, will serve to show in how exaggerated and inartistic a form +Thomson’s mannerisms reappeared in the later work of Mallet. Mallet’s +work, if it had been first in the field, would have marked a distinct +advance in the conception of Nature. As it is he is of real importance +as indicating the influence of Dyer, and especially of Thomson. + +“The Wanderer” by Richard Savage (1698–1743) appeared in 1729. Of +this poem Dr. Johnson says that it was “never denied to abound with +strong representations of nature,” but a study of the five long, +confused, formless cantos hardly confirms such an opinion. Most of +the descriptions, like those of Mallet’s “Excursion,” are of scenes +too remote for damaging comparisons with the reality, as of sunrise +at the north pole, or of wide prospects from unknown mounts. The +various details are brought together with little sense of unity. He +called the poem a vision, and he had perhaps a right to dreamlike +combinations of facts, but the result is not a contribution to the +study of external Nature. His diction is vague and inexpressive. There +is large use of stock poetic words, and there are many Thomsonian +echoes. Most of the descriptions are tame, classical imitations. +They show almost no first-hand knowledge of the country. There is, +however, one characteristic of his poetry that cannot fail to arrest +the attention, and that is his use of color. Not even Thomson is so +lavish with bright tints, and they are sometimes nicely discriminated. +Illustrative passages are referred to in the note.[349] He observes the +color of “crooked, sunny roads” that change “from brown, to sandy-red, +and chalky hues.” He perceives the “green grass yellowing into hay.” +His sunset sky has several colors that had not been noted in poetry. +Some of the clouds had “the unripen’d cherry’s die;” others were “mild +vermilion,” “streaked through white,” and there was in the sky a tinge +of “floating green,” the result of the “blue veil’d yellow” of certain +distant clouds. In a moonrise picture there are eight colors, besides +twelve words indicative of brightness, and that in a description of +thirteen lines. The best of these descriptions is that of the peas +and beans in blossom. References such as those to the peas that with +their “mixed flowers of red and azure” run in “colour’d lanes along +the furrows,” and to the beans that after a rain “fresh blossom in a +speckled flower” bear the mark of first-hand observation. The same may +be said of his brief touches descriptive of the roads and the fields +and the sunset sky already referred to. There is also fairly abundant +reference to birds, though but a single line, + + The bullfinch whistles soft his flute-like note, + +exhibits any special felicity in expression. On the whole, Savage +is important in the history of the poetry of Nature merely for his +detailed insistence on color. + +Among the minor poets of this period was Stephen Duck (1705–1756). +He spent most of his life on a farm where he early began to write +verses which attracted much local attention and finally gained for +their author substantial favor at Court. His “Thresher’s Labour” is +interesting simply because it is a realistic treatment of a homely +English theme.[350] Duck’s poems were popular in their own day, but his +treatment of Nature is commonplace. + +The poetry of these four years is interesting because it indicates how +early Thomson’s influence made itself felt, as in the work of Mallet +and Savage; and also because it shows a use of Nature quite unlike +Thomson’s and equally significant of coming tendencies, as in the work +of Dyer. + + + THE POETS BETWEEN 1730 AND 1756 + +The choice of 1756 as the date to mark the close of this period is +based on the appearance in that year of Joseph Warton’s “Essay on +Pope.” In the twenty-six years between Thomson’s “Seasons” and this +“Essay,” the most important literary works are in prose, as the novels +of Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, and the theological writings of +Butler, Hume, and Warburton. The period is marked by the establishment +of numerous periodicals, by the work of editors, and of compilers. The +most important poetry of the period was the “Essay on Man,” “Moral +Essays,” and “The Dunciad” by Pope. In writing of this sort there is, +of course, little use of external Nature. And it has already been +shown that the tragedies of Thomson and the later work of Armstrong, +Mallet, and Dyer which appeared during these years, either ignore +Nature or treat it in a stiff or simply imitative manner. But there +are in the twenty-six years poems that are not only in accord with +the changing attitude toward Nature, but that distinctly aid in the +evolution of the new conception. The chief names are William Somerville +(1675–1742), William Shenstone (1714–63), Matthew Greene, (1696–1737), +William Collins (1721–59), William Hamilton (1704–54), Edward Young +(1683–1765), Dr. Akenside (1721–70), Thomas Gray (1716–71), Joseph +Warton (1722–1800), and Thomas Warton (1728–90). There are other +authors whose works are not, as a whole, of importance in this study, +but who have written single poems of some significance. Some of these +minor poets are Samuel Boyse (1708–49), William Whitehead (1715–85), +Dr. John Dalton (1709–63), R. Potter (1721–1804), William Mason +(1724–97), Francis Coventry (d. 1759?), Richard Jago (1715–81), Moses +Mendes (d. 1758), William Thompson (1712?–66?), Joseph Relph (1712–43), +John Gilbert Cooper (1723–69), and Robert Blair (1699–1746). + +Somerville, “a country gentleman and a skillful and useful Justice +of the Peace,” was a mighty hunter in his day, and found, in leisure +hours, great pleasure in throwing into blank verse the accumulated +wisdom of years in the field. “The Chace” he calls his “bold, +instructive song,” and it so well carries out the second epithet as to +be of interest only to his “brethren of the couples” to whose kindness +he commends it. There is the most minute description of the kinds of +hounds, the breeding of dogs, the care of whelps, their habits, their +diseases and the best remedies, and the most desirable kennels. In +“Field Sports” we have almost as close a description of hawking. Both +poems are, however, destitute of any real love of Nature. The diction, +except for a free use of canine technicalities, is extremely limited +and commonplace; and we look in vain for the occasional happy touch, +the felicitous epithet or line, that would indicate any original or +appreciative knowledge of the external world. When this vigorous squire +went out to hunt he had eyes but for the dogs and the game. His few +descriptions are of the conventional type, as: + + Hail, gentle Dawn! mild, blushing goddess, hail! + Rejoic’d I see thy purple mantle spread + O’er half the skies, gems pave thy radiant way, + And orient pearls from every shrub depend.[351] + +They are weak imitations, lifeless and vague. “Hobbinol” is a +disagreeable poem. Its very ugly rural pictures might perhaps rank as +realistic studies of English country life, but so far as any country +atmosphere is concerned they are of no importance. The smock-race, the +wrestling match, the drunken affray, might as well have taken place in +any city slums. + +Somerville had a catholic taste in poetry. He greatly admired Homer, +Virgil, Pope, Allan Ramsay, and Thomson. The last poet he not only +admired, but imitated. The passage beginning, + + Justly supreme! let us thy power revere,[352] + +is a pretty clear echo from Thomson’s “Hymn,” and the closing +twenty-five lines of “The Chace” must have been studied from the +closing twenty-two lines of “Autumn.” Somerville is noteworthy in the +present study only because he wrote on country themes, and imitated +Thomson. + +Shenstone is a much more important figure in the history of the poetry +of Nature. His sensitiveness to the new spirit and his reverence +for the old form make him an interesting transitional influence. +His “Prefatory Essay on Elegy” shows this Janus attitude and, what +is more, his own consciousness of it. “If the author has hazarded +throughout the use of English or modern allusions, he hopes it will +not be imputed to an _entire_ ignorance, or to the _least_ disesteem, +of the ancient learning. He has kept the ancient plan and method in +his eye, though he builds his edifice with the materials of his own +nation. In other words, through a fondness for his native country he +has made use of the flowers it produced, though, in order to exhibit +them to the greater advantage, he has endeavored to weave his garland +by the best model he could find.”[353] This statement is interesting as +being directly opposed to the thought in Gay’s experiment. Both poets +mean to hold by the Latin form and use English materials, the one to +show that the two are incompatible, the other to show that they may be +united. Neither Gay nor Shenstone thought of discarding the Latin form. +In the same “Essay” he claims that in his use of Nature he has drawn +only on personal experience. “If he describes a rural landskip, or +unfolds the train of sentiments it inspired, he fairly drew his picture +from the spot; and felt very sensibly the affection he communicates. +If he speaks of his humble shed, his flocks and his fleeces, he does +not counterfeit the scene; who having (whether through choice or +necessity, is not material) retired betimes to country solitudes, and +sought his happiness in rural employments, has a right to consider +himself as a real shepherd. The flocks, the meadows and the grottoes +are _his own_, and the embellishment of his _farm_ his sole amusement. +As the sentiments, therefore, were inspired by Nature, and that in +the earlier part of his life, he hopes they will retain a natural +appearance.” This plea for first-hand observation is important because +it is the most direct of the early critical remarks on the poetical +treatment of Nature. + +Shenstone’s delight in Nature was evidently genuine. He grants that men +may be dazzled by the city; + + But soon the pageant fades away! + ’Tis nature only bears perpetual sway,[354] + +and they learn again + + the simple, the sincere delight-- + Th’ habitual scene of hill and dale, + The rural herds, the vernal gale, + The tangled vetch’s purple bloom, + The fragrance of the bean’s perfume.[355] + +He speaks with scorn of those “bounded souls” who enjoy in Nature only +the satisfaction of present needs, or the prospect of future gain, and +who cannot on “the mere landscape” feast their eyes, and apostrophizes +them thus: + + Athirst ye praise the limpid stream, ’tis true: + But though, the pebbled shores among, + It mimic no unpleasing song, + The limpid fountain murmurs not for you. + Unpleas’d ye see the thickets bloom, + Unpleas’d the spring her flowery robe resume; + Unmov’d the mountain’s airy pile, + The dappled mead without a smile. + +But to the true lover of Nature, + + Lo! not an hedge-row hawthorn blows, + Or humble harebell paints the plain, + Or valley winds, or fountain flows, + Or purple heath is ting’d in vain: + + For such the rivers dash the foaming tides, + The mountain swells, the dale subsides; + Ev’n thriftless furze detains their wandering sight, + And the rough, barren rock grows pregnant with delight.[356] + +Shenstone also defends the doctrine that beauty is its own excuse for +being. + + Let yon admir’d carnation own, + Not all was meant for raiment, or for food, + Not all for needful use alone.[357] + +Though Shenstone’s work is often undeniably tame and diffuse, and +though his interests were bounded by his farm, he is of significance +because of his thorough enjoyment of quiet country places, his +indignant rejection of the utilitarian view of Nature, and his +courageous plea for truth to English scenes. + +Greene’s chief poem, “The Spleen,” was published in 1737, after his +death. The subject is not one that would lead to much use of Nature, +but there is at least one picture that cannot be passed over.[358] +In his sketch of the ideal life he describes his ideal home. Its +surroundings are most charming and natural, and the whole scene, in +its unity and reality of effect, contrasts well with such fanciful +combinations as the garden in Tickell’s “To a Lady before Marriage.” +One line in this description, + + Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep,[359] + +is remarkable in that, in so few words, it not only presents a complete +picture, but also awakens the feeling that would be excited by the +scene itself. + +Hamilton’s chief use of Nature is in gentle little allegories of life. +“The Rhone and the Arar,” though a description of two rivers, is +obviously didactic in all its details. Spring, summer, and winter in +Ode III are but “moral shows,” spread out for man’s instruction. Though +Hamilton’s scenes are usually of the soft, delicious, vaguely pleasing +sort, and his diction largely classical, yet now and then in his rather +monotonous spring poetry we find a fresh line or phrase, as when he +comments on spring’s gift of beauty to “each nameless field.” He finds +joy in the prickly briar rose, the bright-colored weed, the lion’s +yellow tooth, in a thousand flowers never sowed by art.[360] He is +filled with gratitude as he looks upon the smiling face of Nature and +the radiant glories of the sky, or listens to the music of the opening +year.[361] In “Contemplation” he exclaims, + + Mark how Nature’s hand bestows + Abundant grace on all that grows, + Tinges, with pencil slow unseen, + The grass that clothes the valley green; + Or spreads the tulip’s parted streaks. + +More distinctive, however, than this love of the spring-time world, is +Hamilton’s sense of communion with Nature. The lines, + + As on this flowering turf I lie, + My soul conversing with the sky, + +and this address to the passions that tyrannize over him, + + This grove annihilates you all. + Oh power unseen, yet felt, appear! + Sure something more than nature’s here, + +are new evidences of the spirit that animated Lady Winchilsea, Dyer, +and Parnell. + +Hamilton’s most important poem is “The Braes of Yarrow.” In this ballad +there is a remarkable blending of external Nature with the tragedy +of love and death. The use of the phrase, “the Braes of Yarrow,” in +the refrain adds a curiously subtle touch to the pathos of the poem. +Tradition had so closely associated the sloping hills and the winding +stream of Yarrow with stories of unhappy love in far-off days that +the name was in itself enough to strike the keynote of pathos in +Hamilton’s ballad. The tone or color that human experience had once +given to the scenery was carried on by that scenery so that it became +the appropriate background for a new tale of grief. The one descriptive +stanza, + + Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the grass, + Yellow on Yarrow’s banks the gowan, + Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, + Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowan; + +and a single line in the maiden’s lament, + + I sang, my voice the woods returning, + +are an appropriate setting for the happy love of the bonny bride and +her comely swain. But Nature is also compelled, as it were, to share +in the grief, and is implicated in the crime. On Yarrow’s rueful flood +floats the body of the slain knight; her doleful hills echo the cries +of sorrow. And the desolate bride prays that rain and dew may forever +forsake the fields where her lover was so basely slain. The descriptive +element in Hamilton’s ballad is of further interest as having suggested +some of the details in Wordsworth’s “Yarrow Unvisited.” + +“The Deity,” a poem by Samuel Boyse, and much praised in its own +day,[362] is of importance here merely because of its Thomsonian +imitations, and because of its conception of God in Nature. This +conception is, in the main, the typical classical one, as in +“Omnipotence,” where the central idea is, + + What hand, Almighty Architect, but thine + Could give the model of this vast design? + +In “Providence,” however, the modified classical conception is +apparent, the ever-working power of God being dwelt upon. All Nature is +represented as being each moment derived from the Creator. + + The sun from thy superior radiance bright + Eternal sheds his delegated light; + Thou shedd’st the tepid morning’s balmy dews, + +are characteristic lines. + +That Boyse was an admirer of Thomson we know from the lines addressed +to him, + + When nature first inspired thy early strain + To paint the beauties of the flowery plain; + The charming page I read with soft delight, + And every lively landskip charmed my sight.[363] + +In reading Boyse it is difficult to point out exact echoes from +Thomson, but the impression remains that certain passages, especially +in “Glory,” are, in spite of their couplets, but weak paraphrases of +some portions of Thomson’s work, noticeably “The Hymn.” + +Young’s literary career lasted from 1713 to 1762. His “Ocean” and +“Sea Pieces” and the only book of the “Night Thoughts” (1742–45), in +which there is much use of external Nature, have already been briefly +characterized. They need little further discussion here. The preface +to “Ocean” is more worthy of note than the poem itself. In this +preface Young deprecates slavish following of the models of antiquity, +declaring that “originals only have true life.” Due deference to +the great standards of antiquity requires that “the motives and +fundamental method of their working” should be imitated rather than +the works themselves. He then defends his choice of the ocean as a +subject, saying that it is, like the subjects chosen by the ancients, +both national and great, and adds the significant phrase, “and (what +is strange) hitherto unsung.” “The crude ore of romanticism” which Mr. +Gosse finds in Young, has to do with his despairing attitude toward +life and death, not with his attitude toward external Nature. His love +of darkness, which seems at first thought akin to the sentimental +melancholy of the romantic poetry, is really an unemotional choice of a +fit background for his visions of gloom. His strongest lines on night +represent not its beauty, nor its melancholy, but its divinity, or, +rather, its theological import. The following are typical: + + Let Indians ... + ... the sun adore: + _Darkness_ has more divinity for me; + It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul + To settle on herself.[364] + + By night an atheist half-believes a God.[365] + +At night the sense of sacred quiet is “the felt presence of the +deity.”[366] In occasional passages Young has more or less definite +previsions of scattered ideas in later poetry,[367] but these are +incidental, and of merely curious interest. Taken in the bulk, his work +is so slightly and coldly concerned with the outer world as to offer no +real contribution to the new feeling for Nature. + +Collins possesses many of the qualities and the defects of the romantic +spirit. He made plans almost as comprehensive and visionary as those +of Coleridge. His indolence, his wavering, irresolute disposition, +his morbid sensitiveness, the intensity of his emotions, his love of +liberty, his passion for “high romance and Gothic diableries,” together +with his new sense of the mystery of Nature, set him quite apart from +the men who were his friends, from Dr. Johnson, Armstrong, Aaron +Hill, from Garrick, Quin, and Foote, even from Thomson. His interests +were not those of his day, for his admiration turned to Aeschylus, +Sophocles, and Euripides, rather than to Virgil and Horace.[368] +In English poetry he gave his allegiance to Spenser, Milton, and +Shakspere, rather than to Dryden and Pope.[369] He was devoted to +music. He was also deeply interested in the remote history of his own +country, and in the legendary lore and superstitions of any land. Dr. +Johnson says of him: “He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he +delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the +magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian +gardens.” + +Collins was a town-bred poet and could have known little of the country +at first hand. We might therefore expect all his imagery to be of the +conventional sort in the “Eclogues” written in his early school days. +But such is not the case. In the later poems the use of Nature, slight +as it is, is marked by unusual originality and imaginative power. There +is everywhere present a sense of delight in the wilder, freer, in the +more remote and mysterious, aspects of Nature. He makes Fear sit + + in some hollow’d seat + ’Gainst which the big waves beat, + +and listen to + + Drowning seamen’s cries in tempest brought. + +His gifted wizard seers + + view the lurid signs that cross the sky + Where in the west the brooding tempests lie, + And hear their first, faint, rustling pennons sweep. + +Note also the description of the “wide, wild storm,” in the “Ode to +Liberty,” and especially the skilful mingling of landscape details +and superstitious terrors in the “Ode on Popular Superstitions.” The +“bewitch’d, low, marshy, willow brake,” “the spot where hums the +sedgy reed,” the “dim hill that seems up-rising near,” “Uist’s dark +forest,” “the watery strath or quaggy moss,” “the damp, dark fen,” are +slight touches, but they serve perfectly to suggest the fit home of +the kelpie, the will-o’-the-wisp, the mischievous fairy folk, and the +phantom train of gliding ghosts. But Collins’ most appreciative use of +Nature is in the “Ode to Evening (1746).” That poem was doubtless the +result of personal experience, for it notes facts, such as the rising +of the beetle in the path at twilight, that were not yet stock poetical +property. The lines, + + Thy dewy fingers draw + The gradual dusky veil, + +could hardly have been written by one unfamiliar with the slow +disappearance of a landscape as night comes on. More remarkable are the +simplicity and directness of touch by which the few details are made to +stand for complete pictures. The cloudy sunset, the silence of evening, +the calm lake amid the upland fallows, the fading view, the windy day +in autumn, are all excellent examples of the stimulative as opposed to +the delineative description. But the final impression made on the mind +is powerful mainly because in some way that escapes analysis the very +mood and spirit of evening, its calm, its tender melancholy, breathe +through the unpretending lines. We seldom find in the eighteenth +century, personifications so high and spiritual, description so +essentially poetical, or workmanship so perfect in its simplicity. + +Dr. Akenside’s “The Pleasures of the Imagination,” though not published +till 1744, was begun in 1738 when the author was but seventeen, and +completed when he was twenty-one. In 1757 it was remodeled and many +additions were made. In its first form the poem was essentially a +product of the author’s precocious, brilliant youth. Yet it has +little of the fire and passion of youth. It is a smooth, correct, +rather frigid exposition of certain philosophical principles. The +whole poem seems like an illustration of Akenside’s belief that +poetry is true eloquence in meter.[370] It is not marked by any +especially rich or faithful portrayal of Nature, nor is there much +description. In point of fact, such descriptions as occur are often +marred by eighteenth-century periphrases such as calling honey +“ambrosial spoils;” the sun, “the radiant ruler of the year;” flowers, +“the purple honors of the spring;” water, “a delicious draught of +cool refreshment;” and frogs, “the grave, unwieldly inmates of the +neighboring pond.” There is also frequent use of stock words and of +worn-out similitudes. But in spite of its coldness, this poem is an +important contribution to the development of the poetry of Nature +because of its new conception of the relation between man and Nature. + +When the poet endeavors to explore the “secret paths of early genius,” +he imagines inspiration as coming to the lonely youth from some “wild +river’s brink at eve,” or from “solemn groves at noon,”[371] and there +is one passage that lays a Wordsworthian emphasis on the effect of +Nature on the soul of a child: + + 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. + Nor will I e’er forget you; nor shall e’er + The graver tasks of manhood, or the advice + Of vulgar wisdom, move me to disclaim + Those studies which possessed me in the dawn + Of life, and fix’d the color of my mind + For every future year.[372] + +But the great scene of Nature does not appear the same to all. It is +only to the finer spirits that the true meaning of the outer world is +revealed.[373] These nobler souls are all “naked and alive”[374] to +the influences of Nature to which they respond as Memnon’s image to +the touch of the morning.[375] Form, color, sound, motion, detain the +enlivened sense, and soon the soul perceives the deep concord between +these attributes of matter and the mind of man.[376] The passions are +lulled to a divine repose. The intellect itself suspends its graver +cares. Love and joy alone possess the soul + + Whom nature’s aspect, nature’s simple garb, + Can thus command.[377] + +For the happy man whom neither sordid wealth nor the gaudy spoils of +honor can seduce to leave the sweets of Nature, + + Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings: + And still new beauties meet his lonely walk, + And loves unfelt attract him.... + ... Nor thence partakes + Fresh pleasure only; for the attentive mind, + By this harmonious action on her powers, + Becomes herself harmonious; wont so oft + In outward things to meditate the charm + Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home + To find a kindred order, to exert + Within herself this elegance of love.[378] + +If men feel themselves cramped by custom, by sordid policies, let them +appeal + + to Nature, to the winds + And rolling waves, the sun’s unwearied course, + The elements and seasons. + +All these call us to beneficent activity. + + Thus the men + Whom Nature’s works can charm, with God himself + Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day, + With his conceptions, act upon his plan, + And form to his the relish of their souls.[379] + +But even the susceptible soul must come to Nature in an open, receptive +mood. The sacred rites of the Naiads are sought in vain by the “eyes +of care.” No vision is granted to the preoccupied guest.[380] There is +also an independent life in Nature, or at least a spirit that is no +reflection of man’s moods, but with qualities of its own whereby man is +influenced. + + Throned in the sun’s descending car, + What power unseen diffuseth far + This tenderness of mind? + What Genius smiles on yonder flood? + What God, in whispers from the wood, + Bids every thought be kind?[381] + + Who can tell, + Even on the surface of this rolling earth, + How many make abode? The fields, the groves, + The winding rivers and the azure main, + Are rendered solemn by their frequent feet, + Their rites sublime.[382] + +The power of Nature over man is constant and varied. She is endowed +with such enchantment, made up of forms so exquisitely fair, breathed +through with such ethereal sweetness, that she can at will “raise +or depress the impassioned soul.”[383] Her dark woods rouse him to +solemn awe. Her gay landscapes with blue skies and silver clouds give +an impression of winning mirth. There is in the rising sun something +kindred to man’s spirit. At evening the “breath divine of nameless +joy,” that steals through the heart, is but another message from the +spirit of love that rules the world. All the forms of the external +world are but visible expressions of such thoughts of God as the mind +of man is fitted to receive. The soundness of this interpretation of +Nature is not here in question. We are merely concerned with the fact +that in the middle of the century we find a statement of poetical +creed which, so far as the thought is concerned, might come from “The +Excursion” or “The Prelude.” Akenside is one of the first of the poets +of the age to insist on the beauty of all Nature,[384] and to show an +abiding sense of the spiritual elements that give significance to the +external forms of Nature. He was also the first one to emphasize the +platonic doctrine of the identity of truth and beauty, + + For Truth and Good are one; + And Beauty dwells in them, and they in her.[385] + +A minor poet, John Gilbert Cooper, must be mentioned because of one +poem, “The Power of Harmony” (1745). In execution it is heavy and +involved. It is a clumsy attempt to work out a theory of beauty. The +preface is more interesting than the poem. In this preface he says: +“It is the design of the poem to show that constant attention to what +is perfect and beautiful in Nature will, by degrees, harmonize the +soul to a responsive regularity and sympathetic order.” In the poem he +ascribes to “each natural scene a moral power,” and traces even the +song of birds and the frisking of cattle to the effect + + Of beauty beaming its benignant warmth + Through all the brute creation. + +He believes also that all parts of Nature are beautiful. Shagged rocks, +barren heaths, precipices, sable woods, headlong rivers, all are +examples of the principle of harmony and so of beauty. + +Somewhat earlier in the period is another minor poet who would be today +practically unknown had not Southey preserved his work. This is Joseph +Relph, the son of a Cumberland statesman. He was born in Shergham, +where he spent most of his unhappy life. His “Cumbrian Pastorals” were, +Southey says, transcripts from real life. They are among the very +earliest attempts to represent the Cumberland dialect, and they are a +close record of Cumberland superstitions and games and customs. The +poems show an original study of the scenery about Shergham, as in the +following lines: + + A finer hay-day was never seen, + The greenish sops already luik less green + + * * * * * + + And see how finely striped the fields appear, + Striped like the gown ’at I on Sundays wear. + White show the rye, the big of blaker hue; + The bluimen pezz greenment wi’ reed and blue. + +Blair’s one important poem is “The Grave” (1743). Its aim is a moral +one, and it makes but slight use of the outer world. There is, +however, one interesting realistic description of a row of ragged elms + + Long lash’d by the rude winds. Some rift half down + Their branchless trunks; others so thin atop, + That scarce two crows could lodge in the same tree. + +These elms, the cheerless unsocial yew, the wan moon, the howling +wind, the screech owl, the moss-grown stones skirted with nettles, +are descriptive details that serve very well to add the desired +“supernumerary horror” to the scene. “The Grave” is one of the earliest +poems to give to melancholy reflections on man’s mortality the Nature +setting that was later recognized as the conventionally appropriate one. + +William Thompson is best known by his “Epithalamium” (1736), “Sickness” +(1745) and especially his “Hymn to May,” written “not long after.” His +poems were published in a volume in 1757. His “Milkmaid” is a stilted, +artificial pastoral filled in with homely details. Colin begs politely +and on his knees that Lucy will smile upon him; + + So may thy cows forever crown + With floods of milk thy brimming pail; + So may thy cheeze all cheeze surpass, + So may thy butter never fail. + +Lucy, of course, sighed and blushed a sweet consent. This pastoral, +together with his admiration of Pope’s Alexis, who was so + + Gently rural! without coarseness plain; + How simple in his elegance of grief! + A shepherd but no clown, + +would hardly lead one to suspect much satisfactory study of Nature in +Thompson’s poetry. But there is apparent in the “Hymn” and even in +“Sickness,” through all the florid, exuberant diction and obscure forms +of expression, a genuine delight in the beauty and freshness of the +outer world. He was a great admirer of Thomson, who as + + Nature’s bard the seasons on his page + Stole from the year’s rich hand,[386] + +and his poems show Thomson’s influence in expression and general +conception. Such phrases as the “boundless majesty of day,” the “sun’s +refulgent throne,” the “vernant showery bow profusive,” clouds of +“ten thousand inconsistent shapes,” are suggestive. Here is a typical +Thomsonian passage: + + What boundless tides of splendor o’er the skies, + O’er flowing brightness! stream their golden rays! + Heaven’s azure kindles with the varying dyes.[387] + +Or take this one: + + And what a prospect round + Swells greenly grateful on the cherish’d eye; + A universal blush, a waste of sweets![388] + +There are many other suggestions of Thomson in these “tender and +florid” descriptions of “the beauties, the pleasures, and the loves” of +spring. William Thompson is of importance in this study merely because +he is one more poet who loved Nature, who wrote of her with enthusiasm, +and who imitated Thomson. His chief use of Nature is in similitudes and +in frequent enthusiastic summaries of the charms of Nature. + +Moses Mendes published in 1751 four poems named in imitation of +Thomson, “Spring,” “Summer,” “Autumn,” and “Winter.” There is some +first-hand observation in such lines as, + + The pool-sprung gnat on sounding wings doth pass + And on the ramping steed doth suck his fill, + +or, + + The patient cow doth, to eschew the heat, + Her body steep within the neighboring rill; + +but more often the observations are of the conventional imitative sort, +as in this couplet: + + On every hill the purple-blushing vine + Beneath her leaves her racy fruit doth hide, + +which is hardly true of an English scene. On the whole the passages in +which Mendes treats of Nature, while rather fanciful and decorative, +are not indicative of any real knowledge of Nature. + +Jago’s most important poems are “Edge Hill” (1767), “The Swallow” +(1748), “The Blackbirds” (1753), and “The Goldfinches.” The last two +are love stories of the birds named, each love story being disastrously +ended by the cruelty of man in taking innocent life. “The Swallow” is +an allegory of life and death. “Edge Hill” is notable for its pleasure +in wide views which are minutely traced, and, alas, made “generally +interesting by reflections, historical, philosophical, and moral.” +The new note is struck by the exceptional frequency and evident +appreciation with which the poet notes the mountains in the different +views. Of “Dafset’s ridgy mountain,” he says, + + Like the tempest-driven wave, + Irregularly great, his bare tops brave + The winds. + +To the west + + Braids lifts his scarry sides, + And Ilmington, and Campden’s hoary hills + Impress new grandeur on the spreading scene, + + * * * * * + + While distant, but distinct, his Alpine ridge + Malvern erects o’er Esham’s vale sublime. + +In 1750 appeared Francis Coventry’s “Pens-hurst,” a poem in rhymed +octosyllabics, notable chiefly for its many imitations of Milton. +Another poem written by Coventry to the Honorable Wilmot Vaughan +indicates that the two friends had found some pleasure in mountain +climbing: + + Dost thou explore Sabrina’s fountful source, + Where huge Plinlimmon’s hoary height ascends: + Then downwards mark her vagrant course + ’Till mixed with clouds the landscape ends? + Dost thou revere the hallowed soil + Where Druids old sepulchred lie? + Or up cold Snowden’s craggy summits toil + And muse on ancient savage liberty? + Ill suit such walks with bleak autumnal air. + +In the “World,” April 12, 1753, Coventry also had an article entitled +“Strictures on the absurd Novelties introduced in Gardening,” which was +a plea for simplicity and naturalness. + +William Mason, who is a poet known chiefly because he had insight +enough to appreciate Gray, may, in this study, be lightly passed over. +His dramas “Elfrida” (1752), and “Caractacus” (1759) were written on +the model of the ancient Greek tragedy. They have little to do with +external Nature, although in order to introduce “touches of pastoral +description” such as had especially delighted him in “Comus” and “As +You Like It” he had laid the scene of “Elfrida” in “an old romantic +forest.” “Caractacus” is a Druid play the action of which takes place +on or near “majestic Snowden,” but there is only a single passage in +which the wild scenery is made effective in the poem, and that is the +ode beginning, + + Mona on Snowden calls; + Hear, thou King of Mountains, hear. + +Later on the ode allies itself with romantic work by its use of +the supernatural but it makes slight use of Nature. Mason’s chief +significance in this study is in what he had to say about gardens. In +“To a Water Nymph” (1747), there is a protest against the elaborate +Gothic fountains then fashionable, and also against shell work and +mineral grottoes. His long work, “The English Garden,” will be spoken +of later. + +The greatest name in this period is that of Thomas Gray. His prose will +be taken up under “Travels.” His poetry falls into three periods.[389] +The first or classical period, in spite of an occasional good line, +such as + + The untaught harmony of Spring, + +is entirely conventional in its use of Nature, the prevailing tone +being exemplified in such phrases as “the attic warbler,” “the purple +year,” and “Venus’ train.” But in the two poems of 1742–50, we find +close and appreciative study of the country about Windsor and Stoke +Pogis. In the ode on “Eton College” the wistful pleasure with which the +poet recalls his childhood is intensified by his memory of the beloved +hills and fields, the silver-winding stream, and the pleasant paths +inseparably associated with the care-free days of his youth. In the +“Elegy” the use of Nature is highly artistic. The purpose of the poem +is a human one--the sympathetic representation of the honorable labor, +the innocent joys, the tender and wholesome affections of the poor, +the general tone being that of a pensive melancholy induced by the +thought of death. Nature is used in due subordination to the theme, and +with exquisite fitness. Every detail of the opening twilight picture +contributes its own touch to prepare the mind for the succeeding +reflections on death. The sounds, the tinkling of the distant folds, +the droning of the beetle, the complaining of the owl, are such as +emphasize silence, which is itself an accompaniment and an emblem of +death. The ivy-mantled tower, the rugged elms, the black yews, have +been immemorially associated with death. There is also a subtle analogy +in the withdrawal of light, the life of Nature. So, too, each detail +in the first picture of morning, has its human purpose. The stirring +sounds are interesting and of pathetic import because they once waked +an answering throb of life in the hearts of men who now hear them no +more. The enumeration of homely country tasks has its chief value +in the suggested delight of the workman in his occupation and the +resultant emphasis by contrast on the pathos of death. + +In the last six stanzas of the poem we find the true romantic +conception of the relation between man and Nature. The poet is +represented as a shy, solitary being in communion with Nature, and +drawing his inspiration from her. In the morning he hurries to some +hillside that he may watch the sunrise; at noon he stretches himself +at full length under some beech-tree by the side of a brook, and pores +over the waters as they babble by; or he wanders through the woods, +murmuring to himself his wayward fancies. This poet is certainly far +enough removed from the typical town-bred poet of the classical régime. +He is rather of the same race as Warton’s Enthusiast, and he at least +suggests Wordsworth’s Poet who murmurs by the running brooks a music +sweeter than their own.[390] In these stanzas Nature is not only the +appropriate dramatic background. It is taken up into the mental action +and becomes at least in part the occasion of the poet’s moods, and it +is entirely through the relation of the poet to Nature that these moods +are revealed to the reader. + +Nature is thus throughout the poem made strictly subservient to the +human theme, but the intrinsic beauty of the brief descriptions, quite +apart from the context, cannot pass unnoticed. Separate lines have the +power of suggesting whole pictures. For example in + + How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke, + +the ringing blow of the ax, the crash of the falling tree, smite upon +the ear. The stanza beginning + + Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield + +suggests several themes for the landscape artist. There is also a wide, +peaceful landscape effect in + + The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea. + +And the line + + The swallow twittering from its straw-built shed + +brings up all the details of a humble farmyard. These and other +descriptions in the “Elegy” are distinctively English in spirit and +detail. They are the result of first-hand knowledge, they are drawn +with a firm hand, and they are used with an instinctive recognition of +artistic fitness. + +A new range of sympathies, however, appears in the poems of Gray’s +third or purely romantic period. Here he writes of northern mythologies +and superstitions or gives transcripts of Norse tales, and the pictures +interwoven with the human elements are of a wild and savage character. +In “The Bard,” mountain, precipice, and torrent form a setting without +which the fiery denunciation of the poet would lose half its force. The +storm and the whirlwind sweep through these poems. Rough and frowning +steeps, foaming floods, warring winds, the heights of Snowdon and huge +Plinlimmon, darkness, cold, make up the terrible but dramatically +appropriate environment for the fierce, imprecatory elegy which the +bard utters over his lost companions, for the fatal and dreadful song +of the gigantic sisters weaving “the loom of Hell.” + +In one or two other poems there is effective use of Nature. The joy +of a convalescent able at last to go out of doors was not an uncommon +subject through this period, but there is no better expression of +it than in “A Fragment” by Gray. The feeling, and in passages, the +phraseology, are almost Wordsworthian. + + The meanest flowret of the vale, + The simplest note that swells the gale, + The common sun, the air, the skies, + To him are opening Paradise, + +is an illustrative stanza. There are also some exquisite lines on +birds, as, + + But chief, the Sky-lark warbles high + His trembling thrilling ecstacy; + And, lessening from the dazzled sight, + Melts into air and liquid light,[391] + +and, + + There pipes the wood-lark, and the song-thrush there + Scatters his loose notes in the waste of air.[392] + +Though undated these lines in their spirit and workmanship ally +themselves at once with the period of the “Elegy” rather than with the +later work. They also accurately represent Gray’s dominant attitude +toward Nature, his knowledge of sweet, homely things, and the delicate +perfection of his literary touch. + +The Rev. R. Potter’s chief poem is “A Farewell Hymn to the Country, +Attempted in the Manner of Spenser’s Epithalamion” (1749). The poem +shows much sympathetic knowledge of some parts of Nature, especially +of birds and trees. He speaks of the quail that “runnes piping o’er +the land,” of the “mavis-haunted grove,” and of the nightingale that +delights “the stillness of the night.” He declares that his entire +orchard, plums, pears, grapes, permains, and all, is at the service of +these, his “fellow-poets.” At evening + + The slumb’ring trees seem their tall tops to bow + Rocking the careless birds that on them nest + To gentle, gentle rest. + +He does not often refer to specific trees, but he gives little +suggestive pictures as of “the uncertain shaded grove,” or + + the doubtfull shade + By quivering branches made, + +or of delightful resting places roofed with “inwoven branches.” The +stream for which he cared most was “the gentle Tave” in Norfolk. He +mentions many flowers, but in no new or finely descriptive manner. His +sensitiveness to perfumes we may see in such lines as, + + Sweet is the breath of heaven with day-spring born, + + Where the fresh hay-cock breathes along the mead, + +or in such phrases as “this flowre-perfumed aire.” The poem is rich in +color, as in the descriptions of sunrise, and of various kinds of fruit. + +Though it would be difficult to quote specific lines to prove the +statement, it is nevertheless true that the whole poem conveys in a +quite unusual degree a sense of warm, abiding affection for the simple +scenes of the country. “Smit with the peaceful joys of lowly life,” he +gives thanks for “the unmoved quiet of his silver daies,” and thinks +with dread of “the cares and pains in mad cities.” His use of Nature is +almost entirely in a running assemblage of sweet sights and sounds to +justify his preference for country life. + +Another of the minor poets of this period is Dr. John Dalton. In 1755 +he wrote a “Descriptive Poem,” inscribed to “Two Ladies, the Daughters +of Lord Lonsdale.” It is long, rambling, tedious, but it is of +historical importance as being probably the first poetical tribute to +the beauty of Westmoreland and Cumberland. + + Then change the scene: to Nature’s pride, + Sweet Keswick’s vale, the Muse will guide. + The Muse, who trod th’ enchanted ground, + Who sail’d the wonderous lake around, + With you will haste once more to hail + The beauteous brook of Borrodale. + +He speaks of the streams that + + rejoice to roar + Down the rough rocks of dread Lodore, + +and says that + + Horrors like these at first alarm, + But soon with savage grandeur charm, + And raise to noblest thoughts your mind. + Thus by thy fall, Lodore, reclin’d, + The cragged cliff, inpendent wood, + Whose shadows mix o’er half the flood, + The gloomy clouds, which solemn sail, + Scarce lifted by the languid gale + O’er the cap’d hill and darken’d vale + + * * * * * + + I view with wonder and delight, + A pleasing tho’ an awful sight. + +Of Keswick and Skiddaw he writes, + + Thy roofs, O Keswick, brighter rise! + The lake and lofty hills between, + Where giant Skiddow shuts the scene. + + Supreme of mountains, Skiddow, hail! + To whom all Britain sinks a vale! + + Lo, his imperial brow, I see + From foul usurping vapors free! + ’Twere glorious now his side to climb, + Boldly to scale his top sublime. + +There are several passages in the poem indicative of Dr. Dalton’s +unusually close study of streams, especially those near Lowther Castle, +and in the picturesque valley of Borrowdale. With evident delight he +traces the stream from its mountain source, over tuneful falls, under +broad spreading boughs, along silent meadows, to the wide lake. There +is also a fine passage descriptive of a patriarchal oak near Lowther. +It is the first sustained description of a specific tree with anything +like the modern feeling. It is represented as standing in a “sunny +plain alone.” Its reverend age, its majesty, are especially dwelt +upon. The poem shows some excellent first-hand observation. Dr. Dalton +is ahead of Wordsworth in noticing the “azure roofs” of the lowly +cottages. And he should have the credit of discovering the beauty of +the vale of Derwentwater, and the majesty of giant Skiddaw, fourteen +years before Gray made his famous tour, and nearly half a century +before the Lake poets set up their monopoly. + +The most important work of this period was doubtless that of the Warton +brothers. Their father was also a poet, and he struck the romantic note +in his hatred of city life and his longing for solitude in the country. +Joseph Warton had a long literary career during which he edited books, +wrote poems, and contributed articles to periodicals. Those of his +poems that were of especial note in the history of Romanticism were +written early in life, between 1740 and 1753. “The Enthusiast” (1740), +“Odes on Various Subjects” (1746), and “Ode on Mr. West’s Translation +of Pindar” (1744) are the chief ones to be studied. In these poems +there are many summaries of such objects in Nature as give pleasure, +but there is little actual description. In details and phraseology +there are frequent echoes from Milton and Thomson.[393] + +In general, though unoriginal in expression, the poems are marked by an +unmistakably genuine love of Nature, and of Nature untouched by man. +The poet dislikes Versailles whose fountains cast + + The tortur’d waters to the distant heav’ns.[394] + +Even Kent-- + + Though he, by rules unfettered, boldly scorns + Formality and method, round and square + Disdaining, plans irregularly great,[395] + +cannot design like Nature. No gardens however artfully adorned can +charm like “unfrequented meads and pathless wilds.” The poet finds +peculiar pleasure in all the wild, solitary, mournful aspects of +Nature. He loves “hollow winds” and “ever-beating waves,” and hoary +mountains where + + Nature seems to sit alone.[396] + +He wishes for + + some pine-top’d precipice + Abrupt and shaggy, whence a foamy stream + Like Anio, tumbling, roars; or some black heath + Where straggling stands the mournful juniper, + Or yew-tree scath’d.[397] + +He escapes from the hated city’s “tradeful hum” and seeks for solitude +at “the deep dead of night” under the pale light of the moon. He is +alive to all the mysterious, romantic suggestions of Nature. He is +charmed by the little dancing fays that sip night-dews and “laugh and +love” in the dales. In storms he hears demons and goblins shrieking +through the dark air. He is also deeply conscious of the effect of +Nature on man. He finds himself even oppressed by the boundless charms +of “brooks, hill, meadow, dale,” and it is his belief that all Nature +conspires + + To raise, to soothe, to harmonize the mind. + +Nature can give happiness beyond that of luxury or gratified ambition. +These poems mark a new phase in the feeling toward Nature, because, +with little description, with no theory to propound, no moral to +teach, no human interest to exemplify, the poet with a rapt fervor and +intensity cries out for solitary communion with Nature as a necessity +of his own being. Warton is also, I think, the first of the romantic +poets to advocate a return to Nature in the sense in which Rousseau +used the phrase: + + Happy the first of men, ere yet confin’d + To smoaky cities; who in sheltering groves, + Warm caves, and deep-sunk vallies liv’d and lov’d. + Yet why should man mistaken deem it nobler + To dwell in palaces and high-roof’d halls, + Than in God’s forests, architect supreme![398] + +Joseph Warton’s exceptionally strong love of Nature is emphasized +by the testimony of Bowles who traces his own love of Nature to +companionship with Dr. Warton, and by the testimony of his brother +Thomas in a poem, “An Ode Sent to a Friend.” In this poem Thomas Warton +tells of his brother’s delight in walks at morning and evening through +unfrequented grassy lanes, or in the deep forest, or up steep hills “to +view the length of landscape ever new.” + +A part of the service which Warton rendered to the poetry of Nature +rests in the fact that he led the attention from Pope to poets who had +treated of Nature with imaginative power. He had only scorn for + + The fearful, frigid lays of cold and creeping Art, + +“the courtly silken lay,” “the polished lyrics,” of his own day. But +it is in his prose that we find the best evidence of his break with +the classicists. In the dedication prefixed to the “Essay on Pope” +(1756) he divided English poets into four classes, putting in the +first class only Spenser, Shakspere, and Milton. Of Pope he said, “I +revere the memory of Pope; I respect and honor his abilities, but I +do not think him at the head of his profession.” He then proceeded to +show the difference “betwixt a man of wit, a man of sense, and a true +poet.” In the first and second sections of the “Essay” he minutely +discusses Pope’s descriptive poetry showing that his idea of pastoral +poetry as representing some golden age was but “an empty notion,” and +commenting severely on his mixture of British and Grecian ideas. He +condemns “Windsor Forest” because its images are “equally applicable +to any place whatsoever.” In contrast with Pope he puts Thomson, of +whose “Seasons” he gives a most discriminating eulogy. It is too long +to quote entire, but a part of it must be given if only to show its +remarkably modern tone. + + Thomson was blessed with a strong and copious fancy; he hath + enriched poetry with a variety of new and original images, + which he painted from nature itself, and from his own actual + observations; his descriptions have, therefore, a distinctness + and truth, which are utterly wanting to those of poets who + have only copied from each other, and have never looked abroad + on the objects themselves. Thomson was accustomed to wander + away into the country for days, and for weeks, attentive to + “each rural sight, each rural sound,” while many a poet, who + has dwelt for years in the Strand, has attempted to describe + fields and rivers, and generally succeeded accordingly. Hence + that nauseous repetition of the same circumstances; hence that + disgusting impropriety of introducing what may be called a set + of hereditary images, without proper regard to the age, or + climate, or occasion in which they were formerly used.... And if + our poets would accustom themselves to contemplate fully every + object, before they attempted to describe it, they would not + fail of giving their readers more new and complete images than + they generally do.[399] + +Wordsworth himself was hardly more emphatic in his scorn of vague +descriptions and hereditary images, and in his plea for simple truth +to Nature. The passages already quoted are sufficient to show how +self-conscious and theoretical was Warton’s romanticism. He was not, +however, so far as the study of Nature alone is concerned, the first +self-conscious worker in the new field. Ramsay and Shenstone had +already, apologetically to be sure, but none the less distinctly, +entered their protest against the conventional imitations of their day. +But Warton uttered no apology. His theory was fully established in his +own mind. He came down on the classicists with hammer and tongs, and +enunciated in 1756 at least two of the cardinal doctrines of the poets +of Nature who wrote forty years later. + +Thomas Warton’s poems seem at first reading to be but a patchwork of +phrases from Milton.[400] “The Pleasures of Melancholy” (1745) was +written when he was but seventeen. The theme of this poem is a defense +of solitude against various social pleasures, and it has the customary +note of delight in darkness, tombs, pale shrines, “fav’rite midnight +haunts,” “pale December’s foggy glooms,” and “the pitying moon.” “The +First of April,” “Ode on the Approach of Summer,” and “Morning, an +Ode,” are of more importance so far as the love of Nature is concerned. +The lines on the opening spring show close observation. + + Reluctant comes the timid spring. + + Fringing the forest’s devious edge + Half rob’d appears the hawthorn hedge. + + Scant along the ridgy land + The beans their new-born ranks expand. + +The rooks swarm with clamorous call and + + Wreathe their capacious nests anew. + +The fisher “bursting through the crackling sedge” + + Startles from the bordering wood + The bashful wild-duck’s early brood. + + And so loud the blackbird sings + That far and near the valley rings. + +He notes also the kite that sails above the crowded roof of the +dove-cote, the plumy crest of thistles, the russet tints and gleams +of light in the tops of trees at sunset, the faint, varying shades of +green when the new foliage appears on the trees, and the blue tint of +the unchanging pine standing in their midst. Warton’s pleasure in wide +views is indicated in several passages where he speaks of climbing a +hill for the sake of the broad prospect of field and stream. He had +also an appreciation of wild Nature, as we see from the descriptions +in “The Grave of King Arthur.” Warton’s work is of interest because of +the many attractive details scattered through his poems, but there is +little unity of effect. The general impression is that he saw Nature +first through Milton’s eyes, and that when he afterward made many +charming discoveries for himself he tried to express them in the “Il +Penseroso” manner. + +His chief influence was through his “Observations on the Faerie Queen” +and in his “History of Poetry,” but except as attention was thus +directed to older writers, these works had no effect on the poetry of +Nature. + +In Joseph Warton’s “Enthusiast” (1740) the love of solitary communion +with Nature was supreme. About fourteen years later appeared William +Whitehead’s “Enthusiast,” which is of interest here because it shows +so well the typical eighteenth-century view in contrast to the pure +romanticism of Warton. In Whitehead’s “Enthusiast” the poet yields +instinctively to the new spirit, but is suddenly recalled to himself, +is rendered sane by the wise admonitions of Reason. It is a bright day +in May. The poet, entranced by the beauty about him, walks forth, + + With loit’ring steps regardless where, + So soft, so genial was the air, + So wond’rous bright the day. + + And now my eyes with transport rove + O’er all the blue expanse above, + Unbroken by a cloud! + And now beneath delighted pass, + Where, winding through the deep-green grass, + A full-brim’d river flow’d. + + These, these are joys alone, I cry; + ’Tis here, divine Philosophy, + Thou deign’st to fix thy throne! + Here Contemplation points the road + Through Nature’s charms to Nature’s God! + These, these are joys alone! + +Then Reason whispers “monitory strains,” and teaches the Enthusiast +that “light, and shade, and warmth, and air,” that the “philosophic +calmness,” the visionary sense of “universal love,” which come to man +from Nature, must sink into insignificance before the exalted joys of +Virtue, and reminds the poet that “man was made for man.” The intrinsic +value of this poem is slight, but it is noteworthy because we see the +two tendencies contending for mastery. Whitehead was no poet. He simply +reflected in a turbid fashion what more original men were saying. His +tolerably full statement of the romantic attitude toward Nature, with +his subsequent assertion of the triumphant good sense of classicism is, +therefore, valuable testimony to the twofold spirit of the age. + +In general we may say that we find during this period, rural didactic +poetry treating of English subjects in the manner of John Philips in +“Cyder,” as in Somerville and Smart. There is good local color in some +descriptive poems as in Shenstone, Gray, Dr. Dalton, and Relph. There +is throughout the period first-hand observation, but it is not so +abundant, nor is the openness of the poet’s mind to sensuous impression +so apparent as in some preceding work. There is, however, delicate and +poetic handling of material as in the poems of Gray and Collins and +Greene. There is a self-conscious endeavor to break away from ancient +models, as in Ramsay’s “Preface” and Shenstone’s “Preface,” and from +existing poetic domination as in Warton’s protest against Pope. +Truth to Nature, independence of observation, as necessary poetic +qualities, are for the first time openly and theoretically insisted on +in Warton’s “Essay.” There is scorn of the utilitarian view of Nature, +as in Shenstone. The debt of man to Nature is dwelt upon with new +emphasis by Young, Shenstone, and especially Akenside. The sense of +a divine spirit in Nature is clearly expressed by Akenside, and less +clearly by Young. The purely romantic love of Nature in connection with +sentimental melancholy is fully exemplified in Joseph Warton. There +is strong personal enthusiasm for Nature in Shenstone, Akenside, and +Joseph Warton. There is love of animals in Shenstone and Jago. There +is notable representation of country people in Relph and Gray and +Somerville. + + + THE PERIOD FROM 1756 TO 1798 + +From the “Essay on Pope” to the “Lyrical Ballads” is a long period but +any subdivision would be purely arbitrary. It is chiefly characterized +by the development and emphasis of influences already manifestly +operant. The most valuable work is that of James Macpherson (1736–96), +James Beattie (1735–1803), Robert Burns (1759–96), William Cowper +(1731–1800), William Blake (1757–1827), and George Crabbe (1754–1832). +Oliver Goldsmith (1728–74) is of less importance. John Brown (1715–66), +John Langhorne (1735–79), Christopher Smart (1722–71), John Logan +(1748–88), and William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850), though minor poets, +are significant in their poetry of Nature. Of less note are William +Julius Mickle (1735–88), James Grainger (1724–66), Michael Bruce +(1746–67), James Graeme (1749–72), John Scott (1730–83), and Richard +Cumberland (1732–1811). + +John Brown, otherwise unimportant, is interesting because of his +early appreciation of the scenery of the English lakes. He wrote a +description of Keswick[401] in a letter to Lyttleton, and his undated +“Fragment of a Rhapsody Written at the Lakes of Westmoreland” is +probably the outcome of the same visit. The “Fragment” is short and +may be quoted entire as well because of its beauty, as because of its +subject and early date: + + Now sunk the sun, now twilight sunk, and night + Rode in her zenith; nor a passing breeze + Sigh’d to the groves, which in the midnight air + Stood motionless; and in the peaceful floods + Inverted hung; for now the billow slept + Along the shore, nor heav’d the deep, but spread + A shining mirror to the moon’s pale orb, + Which, dim and waning, o’er the shadowy cliffs, + The solemn woods and spiry mountain tops + Her glimmering faintness threw. Now every eye + Oppress’d with toil, was drown’d in deep repose, + Save that the unseen shepherd in his watch, + Propt on his crook, stood listening by the fold, + And gaz’d the starry vault and pendant moon. + Nor voice nor sound broke on the deep serene + But the soft murmur of swift gushing rills, + Forth issuing from the mountain’s distant steep + (Unheard till now, and now scarce heard) proclaimed + All things at rest, and imag’d the still voice + Of quiet whispering to the ear of night. + +For a curious coincidence compare Wordsworth’s lines written thirty +years later: + + The song of mountain streams, unheard by day, + Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way. + +John Langhorne was born at Kirby-Stephen in Westmoreland. His best +poems were published in 1766, though his “Fables of Flora” did not +appear till 1771. Langhorne had an enthusiastic personal love for +Nature. He dwelt with rapture on stream and flower and field and +sky.[402] His wish was, + + Oh let me still with simple nature live, + My lowly field flowers on her altar lay; + Enjoy the blessings that she meant to give + And calmly waste my inoffensive day.[403] + +Or again, + + Slow let me climb the mountain’s airy brow; + The green height gained, in museful rapture lie, + Sleep to the murmur of the woods below + Or look to nature with a lover’s eye.[404] + +His preference for Nature untouched by art is seen in the charming +little “Fable”[405] showing the superiority of the wild rose to the +more splendid cultivated rose. And in another “Fable” he says, + + Come let us leave the painted plain, + This waste of flowers that palls the eye; + The walks of nature’s wilder reign + Shall please in plainer majesty.[406] + +That he had a tender feeling toward animals is shown by his poems on +birds and by his protest against the cruelty of confining birds in +cages. The most striking characteristic of Langhorne’s poems is his +direct expression of the excellence of the gift that Nature’s hand +bestows. A part of his excellent gift is the inspiration to poetry. The +young shepherd was inspired with “poetic charms” as he wandered through +the wild scenes + + By Yarrow’s banks or groves of Endermay. + +In his own experience + + The nameless charms of high poetic thought, + +were born of “spring’s green hours,” and the murmuring shore spoke to +him “divine words,”[407] while in earlier days “each lay that falter’d +from his tongue” had been “from Eden’s murmurs caught.”[408] In an +ode to the “Genius of Westmoreland,” he says that she kindled the +“sacred fire” in his heart, that she gave him “thoughts too high to be +exprest.” Again he speaks of an hour in his youth when + + The woodland genius came + And touched me with his holy flame.[409] + +Statements still more remarkable as foreshadowing later doctrines are +found in such lines as, + + Whatever charms the ear or eye, + All beauty and all harmony, + If sweet sensations they produce, + I know they have their moral use. + + I know that nature’s charms can move + The springs that strike to virtue’s love.[410] + +Or these lines, + + Has fair philosophy thy love? + Away! she lives in yonder grove. + If the sweet muse thy pleasure gives, + With her, in yonder grove, she lives. + And if religion claims thy care, + Religion fled from books is there. + For first from nature’s works we drew + Our knowledge and our virtue too.[411] + +Langhorne’s perception of the power of Nature over man, and his +passionate sense of personal indebtedness to Nature are the keynotes +of his work. In a narrow way and with feeble speech he shows a mental +and spiritual experience of the same type as that which Wordsworth +records of his own youth. His motive in writing, “an unaffected wish to +promote the love of Nature and the interests of humanity,” is likewise +Wordsworthian. + +In Christopher Smart’s one great poem, the “Song to David” (1763), +the use of Nature is of so strange a character that it refuses +classification under the customary categories. The chief thought of +the poem in the parts where Nature is used has to do with the creative +energy of God, the song of praise that is eternally his from all +existence, and the exceeding sweetness, strength, beauty, and glory of +the Spirit of God in man. These themes are not new with Smart in this +poem. In his prize poems ten years before he had taken the attributes +of God as his subject, and the general line of thought, and the method +of proof by the rapid accumulation of illustrative images drawn from +Nature are practically the same as in the “Song to David.” Here and +there are instances of the same noble conceptions and striking phrases, +as in this picture of a tree: + + The oak + His lordly head uprears, and branching arms + Extends--behold in regal solitude + And pastoral magnificence he stands + So simple! and so great! The underwood + Of meaner rank an awful distance keep.[412] + +Or this description of the Leviathan that, + + The terror and the glory of the main, + His pastime takes with transport proud to see, + The ocean’s vast dominions all his own.[413] + +It is, however, only in the “Song” that the early themes are treated +with sustained energy of thought and splendor of imagery. In this poem +each thought is abundantly illustrated from Nature. The details are +brought together from every clime and season. They are poured forth +with impetuous ardor. The excited imagination of the poet does not +hesitate and choose. The universe is laid under contribution. There is +a prodigal heaping-up of the treasures of Nature, an almost barbaric +splendor of images. Does the poet wish to say that all Nature praises +God? The earth passes before him as in a vision. The great song of +adoration swells upon his ear from every form of harmonious activity. +Seasons change, almonds glow, tendrils climb, fruit trees blossom, +birds build their nests, bell-flowers nod, the spotted ounce and her +cubs play, harvests ripen, wild carnations blow, the pheasant shows his +glossy neck, the squirrel hoards nuts, the map of Nature is crowded +with scenes of beauty, the crocus “burnishes alive” upon the snow-clad +earth, the bullfinch sings his flute note, the redbreast balances on +the hazel spray, silver fish glide through rivers, cataracts fall, +fruits are luscious, gums give out incense, all to “heap up the +measure, load the scales” with praise to the Lord who is great and +glad. In this rapid summary there is a pomp, an energy, an activity +that is indescribable. A later stanza on strength is almost terrifying +in its powerful imagery. + + Strong is the lion--like the coal + His eyeball--like a bastion’s mole + His chest against the foes: + Strong the gier-eagle on his sail, + Strong against tide the enormous whale + Emerges as he goes. + +Except Blake’s “Tiger” I recall no poem marked by the same tenseness +and abrupt energy. + +Many of the details in Smart’s poems were drawn from his reading, +especially from the Hebrew Scriptures. They could not have come from +observation for they have little to do with the “old, oft catalogued +repository of things in sky and wave and land.” The images are fresh, +original, daring. They startle the mind out of passivity. + +Another point to be noted is the peculiar combination of facts. Bears, +sleek tigers, ponies, and kids, are the beasts assembled to illustrate +God’s creative activity, and so in other combinations. Objects the +least likely to suggest each other are brought together. In the same +way facts from Nature and from human nature are strangely mingled. +Among beauteous things are reckoned a fleet before a gale, a host in +glittering armor, a wild garden, a moonlight night, and a virgin before +her spouse. + +Amidst the prettinesses, decencies, timidities, of the +eighteenth-century poetry of Nature, this poem by Smart sounds out like +a trumpet. The marshaled facts move forward like a cohort of soldiers +with a splendid tread that shakes the earth. The whole effect is +Hebraic, apocalyptic. + +Mickle’s chief poems are “Syr Martyn” (1767) “Pollio” (1762) and some +shorter pieces. In “Pollio” Mickle makes frequent references to his own +love of Nature. The country he knew best was that about Roslin Castle +where he was brought up, but he was not unfamiliar with other parts +of southeast Scotland as is shown by his references to the Forth, the +Annan, the Wauchope, the Ewes, to the dales of Tiviot, and to various +country seats. His interest in Nature was varied in character. In +“Almada Hill” (1781) and “May Day” there are frequent appreciative +lines on mountains, as: + + Where Snowden’s front ascends the skies, + + The tower-like summits of the mountain shore. + +There are briefer references in such phrases as, “the hills of +Cheviot,” “the thyme-clad mountain,” “the mountains gray,” “Old +Snowden,” “Snowden’s hoary side,” “the curving mountain’s craggy brow,” +which serve at least to show that Mickle was not unconscious of the +scenery about him. One or two lines indicate the effect of the sea on +his mind. As he stood on Almada Hill and looked out over old Ocean, + + By human eye untempted, unexplored, + An awful solitude, + +it was + + the last dim wave, in boundless space + Involved and lost[414] + +that held his impatient imagination. Even so brief a passage serves to +illustrate the awakened curiosity, the new sense of pleasure in the +infinite and the unknown, that characterized the romantic impulse. +Another modern note in Mickle is his interest in moonlight and stars. +There are several picturesque descriptive lines, as, + + When sudden, o’er the fir-crown’d hill + The full orb’d moon arose.[415] + + How bright, emerging o’er yon broom-clad height + The silver empress of the night appears.[416] + + While on the distant east + Led by her starre, the horned moone looks o’er + The bending forest, and with rays increast + Ascends.[417] + + The star of evening glimmers o’er the dale + And leads the silent host of heaven along.[418] + +In spite of the classical note in such a phrase as “silver empress” +these lines show not only genuine pleasure in the loveliness of +night, but also first-hand knowledge of its phenomena. Closeness of +observation is further indicated in the lines on birds, as in the +description of the “sootie black-bird,” that chants his shrill vespers +from the topmost spray of some tall tree, or of the eagle that sails +through the sky with “wide-spread wings unmov’d” till suddenly he +“sheer descends” on the brow of Snowdon. + +In his representation of flowers Mickle notes the “daisie-whitened +plain,” and “the white and yellow flowers that love the dank,” but he +was especially attracted by flowers growing among rocks or upon cliffs. +One close observation is of the twinkling lines of gossamer that on +summer mornings hang from spray to spray. + +Mickle’s poems show a genuine love of Nature. He abounds in +reminiscences of his happy youth + + By the banks of the crystal-streamed Esk, + Where the Wauchope her yellow wave joins.[419] + +His chief use of Nature is in the passages where he gives these early +associations, and in the many similitudes in his “Elegies.” He always +sees Nature in a pathetic or joyous union with past experiences in his +own life or in that of others. + +Grainger’s chief poem, “The Sugar Cane,” appeared in 1764. The theme +and outline are presented in the first four lines: + + What soil the cane affects; what care demands; + Beneath what signs to plant; what ills await; + How the hot nectar best to crystallize; + And Afric’s sable progeny to treat. + +Grainger recognizes as his poetical masters, Maro, the “pastoral Dyer” +(“The Fleece”), “Pomona’s bard” (“Cyder”), Smart (“The Hop Garden”), +and Somerville (“The Chace”). “The Sugar Cane” is a purely didactic +poem and is no real contribution to the new feeling toward Nature. The +first part of the “Ode to Solitude,” a long ode beginning, + + O Solitude, Romantic maid, + +is another example of the sentimental view of Nature, with frequent and +obvious imitations of Milton; but the last half of the poem declares +that only the old and feeble should seek the solitude of the country, +that shades are no medicine for a troubled mind, and, in general, that +the proper business of mankind is man. + +Chronologically Macpherson’s “Poems of Ossian” belong in the five +years before the publication of Percy’s “Reliques” (1765), and they +are a part of the same general stream of influence, the revival of +folklore. These poems are epic in character, their aim being the +celebration of the exploits of Celtic heroes. They are of importance +in this study because the adventures of Fingal, Ossian, Oscar, and +Gaul are throughout closely associated with natural scenery of a wild +and romantic sort.[420] Mist-covered mountains, storm-swept skies, +rough streams, desolate shores, dim moonlight nights, are the most +frequent scenic details, and they are so wrought into the story that +the human tragedy and the scene where it was enacted cannot be thought +of apart. The three ways in which Nature is used in these poems, as +dramatic background, in similitudes, and in apostrophes, will serve +to illustrate both the prominence given to Nature and the close union +between human emotions and the varying phenomena of the external world. +A fine example of a bright description to usher in a sudden contrasting +portent of disaster is in the opening lines of “Temora”: + + The blue waves of Erin roll in light. The mountains are covered + with day. Trees shake their dusky heads in the breeze. Gray + torrents pour their noisy streams. Two green hills, with aged + oaks, surround a narrow plain. The blue course of a stream is + there. + +The song that was “lovely, but sad, and left silence in Carric-Thura,” +has an autumn picture as its fit setting: + + Autumn is dark on the mountains; gray mist rests on the hills. + The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river + through the narrow plain. A tree stands alone on the hill and + marks the slumbering Connal. The leaves whirl round with the + wind and strew the graves of the dead.[421] + +The description of the desolation of Balclutha is the prelude to the +song of mourning for the unhappy Moina.[422] The use of Nature in +apostrophes is characteristic of the Ossian poems. Of these the most +famous is the address to the sun.[422] There are frequent apostrophes +to winds, streams, and tempests, to stars, and especially to the moon. +Two good examples are the poet’s address to the evening star in “The +Songs of Selma,” and to the moon in “Dar Thula.” Of these the second +may be quoted as fairly typical: + + Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is + pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy + blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O + Moon! they brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee + in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in + thy presence.... But thou thyself shalt fail one night, and + leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their + heads.... Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look from + thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, O wind! that the daughter + of night may look forth; that the shaggy mountains may brighten, + and the ocean roll its white waves in light. + +It will be observed that in almost every apostrophe there is beautiful +external description together with an underlying analogy to the thought +of the poem. In the passages quoted above, the triumphant brightness of +the moon in her blue path, and the suggestion of the coming night when +she shall fail in heaven, are but types of the beauty of Dar Thula and +of the day when, though the winds of spring shall be abroad, though the +flowers shall shake their heads on the green hills, and the woods shall +wave their growing leaves, the white-bosomed maiden shall not again +move in the steps of her loveliness. + +Dr. Blair in his full study of the similitudes of Ossian admits that +they are too “thick-sown,” and that they are drawn from a narrow range +of objects. But he claims, on the other hand, that the similes have +the exceptional vividness that comes from first-hand observation,[423] +and that they show an imaginative perception of subtle analogies.[424] +Dr. Blair’s recognition of beauty and congruity was so quickened by +his partisanship of Ossian that his conclusions usually need to be +scrutinized in the cold light of facts. The subtlety of the analogies +certainly often escapes the ordinary reader, but no one can fail to +observe the pathetic beauty of the little pictures into which the +similitudes are often elaborated. Music, for instance, is compared to +“the rising breeze, that whirls at first the thistle’s beard, then +flies dark-shadowy over the grass.” Again a song is “like the voice of +a summer breeze, when it lifts the head of flowers and curls the lakes +and streams.” The heroes contended “like gales of spring, as they fly +along the hill, and bend by turns the feebly-whistling grass.” The +warriors are “bright as the sunshine before a storm; when the west wind +collects the clouds, and Morven echoes over all her oaks.” In these +and many similar comparisons we see how the beauty of the suggested +natural picture led the poet into a use of details not necessary for +his illustrations. The importance of the poetry of Ossian in the +evolution of the poetry of Nature rests on its early date, its close +interweaving of human emotions and natural scenes, and its abundant and +appreciative use of wild, free Nature. + +Percy’s “Reliques” appeared in 1765. The publication of these ballads +was of great importance to the cause of the romantic revival in +general. The ballads were, however, of somewhat less significance in +their influence on the new feeling toward Nature. A ballad would never +interrupt the story for a description, and there would, of course, +never be any hint of a philosophy of Nature. But throughout the ballads +there are casual touches of description showing a genuine love for some +forms of Nature, especially the forest, green hills, and moors. “Upon +the wide moors,” “on moors so broad,” “over the fields so brown,” “over +the lea,” “over the downs,” are characteristic phrases. The castles are +usually on a hill and command a wide view.[425] The love of the hills +is indicated by such little pictures as + + Robin sat on a gude grene hill, + Keipand a flock of fie.[426] + +or, + + Lord Thomas and fair Annet + Sate a’ day on a hill, + When night was cum and sun was sett + They had not talkt their fill.[427] + +]But it is the forest that most often appears. + + Until they came to the merry green wood, + Where they had gladdest bee,[428] + +gives the fresh, open-air setting of most of these tales of love and +heroism; + + Mery it was in the grene forest + Amonge the leves grene;[429] + + All in the merrye month of May, + When greene buds they were swellin;[430] + + And wee’ll away to the greene forest;[431] + + Gil Morice sate in gude grene wode, + He whistled and he sang;[432] + + In summer time when leaves grow greene + And blossoms bedecke the tree;[433] + + To the greene forest so pleasant and faire;[434] + + He myght have dwelt in grene foreste, + Under the shadowes greene;[435] + + The woodweele sang, and wold not cease + Sitting upon the spraye, + Soe lowde, he wakened Robin Hood + In the greenwood where he lay;[436] + +are typical forest pictures.[437] But the gude green wood is not always +fresh and blooming, as we see from occasional lines such as + + Now loud and shrill blew the westlin’ wind, + Sair beat the heavy shower;[438] + + About Yule quhen the wind blew cule;[439] + + Oft have I ridden thro’ Stirling town + In the wind both and the weit;[440] + + No shimmering sun here ever shone; + No halesome breeze here ever blew;[441] + +Trees are not often mentioned individually except the oak and the +willow, the latter always representing sorrow. + +There is occasional use of Nature in simple comparisons, as, “White as +evir the snaw lay on the dike,” “drye as a clot of claye,” “light of +foot as stag that runs in forest wild,” his “een like gray gosehawk’s +stair’d wyld.” + +There are also some homely pictures of everyday country life, as in +“Take Thy Old Cloak about Thee,” “Plain Truth and Blind Ignorance” +(Somersetshire dialect), “The Ew-Bughts Marion,” and “The Auld Good +Man.” + +The use of Nature in the “Ballads,” slight and limited as it is, gives +an impression of vivid reality. It is what Schiller would call the +simple as opposed to the sentimental love of Nature, the first being +characteristic of early races who _are_ Nature, and the last +of the moderns who _seek_ Nature.[442] On eighteenth-century +readers who, as a class, knew little about the external world outside +their parks and gardens, the effect of the descriptive touches in the +“Ballads” would be to lead them into lovely regions where Nature was as +spontaneous and free as the knights and fair ladies themselves. + +Michael Bruce imitated Milton’s “Lycidas” in an elegy called “Daphnis” +and imitated Gray in some “Runic Odes,” which were lauded as “truly +Runic and truly Grayan.” In these poems the use of Nature is slight and +conventional. His “Lochleven” (1766) is more significant. In this poem +he celebrates + + The pastoral mountains, the poetic streams + +of his native land. He finds all Nature full of joy. + + The vales, the vocal hills, + The woods, the waters, and the heart of man + Send out a general song; ’tis beauty all + To poet’s eye and music to his ear. + +Clouds arrested in their swift course by lofty mountains, lakes that +hold a mirror to the sky, songsters twittering o’er their young, waters +glowing beneath western clouds, hoary-headed Grampius clad in snow, are +counted among his pleasures. He prefers life in the country, for there + + All in the sacred, sweet, sequestered vale + Of solitude, the secret primrose-path + Of rural life, he dwells. + +He loved especially the Gairney, a stream that flows into Loch Leven, +because, as a lad, he lay on its banks and composed poetry. He speaks +with evident knowledge of other streams, the gulfy Po, “slow and +silent among its waving reeds,” and the rapid Queech rushing impetuous +over broken steeps. It is natural that Bruce should know, as he did, +especially water birds. The “wild-shrieking gull,” “patient heron,” +“dull bittern,” the “clamorous mew,” and the “slow-wing’d crane” moving +heavily along the shore, were doubtless birds that he had often seen. +Bruce’s pleasure in wide views is shown by this poem, “Lochleven,” +for it is a description of the prospect spread out before him as he +stands on “Mount Lomond.” Bruce’s “Elegy” was written when he felt +himself dying of consumption. It represents his delight in all forms +of Nature’s life and his deep melancholy at bidding farewell to the +spring-time world. + +By a process of selection we find in Bruce’s poems his real love for +the outer world. This is not, however, the impression made by his poems +as a whole. His knowledge of Nature was limited, and his expression was +often rigid and formal. He died young, before he had really attained +the mastery of his own thought, and his importance lies not so much in +actual accomplishment as in scattered suggestions of his tendencies and +possibilities. + +Bruce’s most intimate friend was John Logan, who, in 1770, published an +edition of Bruce’s poems and included some “wrote by other authors.” +In 1781, when he published his own works, he laid claim to a number of +the poems that had appeared in the edition of Bruce’s poems in 1770. +Among these the most important was “The Cuckoo,”[443] a poem well worth +the sharp controversy waged over it by the respective friends of the +two authors. There is nothing else in this period that rings so fresh +and clear as this little ode. One stanza may be quoted to illustrate +its beauty, its simplicity, and naturalness. This stanza is also of +peculiar interest because it so definitely foreshadows Wordsworth’s “To +the Cuckoo.” + + The schoolboy, wandering through the wood, + To pull the primrose gay, + Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, + And imitates thy lay. + +Logan’s other poems, though he has nothing equal to the cuckoo song in +spontaneity and exquisite simplicity, are yet of real value. His “Braes +of Yarrow” is an effective presentation of the ancient, sorrow-laden +Yarrow _motif_. As is fitting in a ballad, the touches of +description are of the briefest sort, but the forest, the bonny braes, +and the sounding stream are felt through all the plaintive story. +“Ossian’s Hymn to the Sun” is a poetical paraphrase of the famous +apostrophe in “Balclutha.” It has some fine lines, but is inferior in +strength to the original. The “Ode Written in Spring” is a laudation of +a certain fair Maria in the true classical fashion, but the new note is +struck in the first five stanzas descriptive of spring. + + The loosen’d streamlet loves to stray + And echo down the dale, + + The hills uplift their summits green, + + The cuckoo in the wood unseen, + + At eve the primrose path along, + The milkmaid shortens with a song, + Her solitary way, + + The sudden fields put on the flowers, + +are lines showing fresh observation and easy, natural expression. +Another passage characterizes autumn as “the Sabbath of the year.” +Limited in compass as is Logan’s good work it is of value because +marked by exceptional purity and sweetness. + +Most of James Graeme’s poems were written before he was twenty. His +tastes are thus referred to by his friend, Dr. Robert Anderson: + + A passion for romantic fiction and fabulous history, appeared in + him very early in life.... Of the Gothic, Celtic and Oriental + mythology he was a warm admirer; and frequently attempted + imitations of the wild and flowery fictions of the northern and + eastern nations.... Like other votaries of the Muses, he was + passionately fond of rural scenery, and delighted in walking + alone in the fields. + +His chief poems of Nature are some descriptive elegies. Occasionally +there is a fairly good line, as + + The torrents, whiten’d with descending rain, + +or + + The blue-gray mist that hovers o’er the hill, + +showing at least a hint of first-hand observation. But on the whole +the poems are a composite of phrases belonging to the typical poetry +of sentimental melancholy. His characteristic attitude toward Nature +is shown by his constant preference for chilly midnight when howlets +scream and ravens croak, and when he, with pensive care, tunes the +voice of woe and sheds “teary torrents” over grass-green graves. One +poem, on “Curling,” is, however, quite different in tone, for it is +a crudely realistic and technical description of the game and the +peasants who engage in it. The tastes of Graeme and his attempts are of +more significance than his actual work, which is of little value. + +The bent of Goldsmith’s mind was toward the study of man in social +relations. His use of Nature is accessory and limited. In “The +Traveller” (1764) the real interest is in manners and customs.[444] +When the pilgrim is in the Alps with a wide prospect before him, it +is the thought of man’s grand heritage that impresses him. In the +account of Switzerland there is only a vague general description of the +country, but a full, sympathetic description of the peasant. So, too, +in Italy, France, Holland, and even in England. In the few descriptions +that do occur there are occasional lines indicative of first-hand +observation, as in this picturesque couplet on the scenery in Holland: + + The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale, + The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail. + +We also find effective combinations of geographical names that give a +certain charm of remoteness and melody; and there is a sense of space +and movement conveyed by the rapidly presented and wide landscapes. + +In “The Deserted Village” (1770) the central thought is still man, and +the purpose didactic, but there is effective though not abundant use of +Nature. Even here, however, it is only Nature inseparably associated +with man. Nine-tenths of the poem has to do directly with human nature. +The other tenth merely gives charming pictures of the country close +about a village. Scattered lines are of perfect workmanship, as that +one descriptive of the straggling fence, + + With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, + +and + + The breezy covert of the warbling grove. + +In the picture of desolation the details are selected with delicacy and +precision. Each touch helps the general impression. The value of such +work becomes more apparent when put into contrast with the description +of torrid climes. In Goldsmith and in Thomson what was seen at first +hand had the grace and power of truth, but scenes in remote lands, +known only through the distorting spectacles of books, were credited +with an odd mixture of incongruous details. Except for one use of +mountains in a simile there is no indication that Goldsmith knew any +but tame scenery. + +In general we may say that Goldsmith showed a direct, simple-hearted +pleasure in the open-air world, that he was a sympathetic observer +of the more obvious facts of Nature, and that he had a bright, easy +way of recording those facts. The simplicity of his work is combined +with a quick perception of artistic form. But he has hardly a touch of +what Matthew Arnold calls “natural magic,” and he is in no sense a +revealer. He was on the surface of things. Of the higher ministry of +Nature to man’s spiritual needs he knew nothing. + +In his prose works Goldsmith has several vigorous attacks on falseness +and affectation in poetry. In 1759 he characterized Italian poetry +at its lowest ebb, as “no longer an imitation of what we see, but of +what a visionary might wish. The zephyrs breathe a most exquisite +perfume; the trees wear eternal verdure; fauns, dryads, and hamadryads +stand ready to fan the sultry shepherdess ... who is so simple and +innocent as often to have no meaning.” This attack on the falseness +and affectation of Italian poetry might be quoted verbatim by a modern +critic of the popular eighteenth-century pastorals. Goldsmith also +praised Gay’s poems saying that “he has hit upon the true spirit of +pastoral poetry.” Goldsmith has other keen critical remarks that point +in the direction of the new spirit but they do not bear directly on the +study of Nature. He is important chiefly because of his interest in man +as man, his close and sympathetic delineation of the poor and ignorant. + +In 1766 James Beattie had written 150 lines of “The Minstrel.” The +poem was then laid aside for the “Essay on Truth” and not taken up +again till 1770. The first book was published anonymously in 1771. The +second book appeared with the author’s name in 1774. The poem consists +of 122 Spenserian stanzas. Its design is “to trace the progress of a +poetical genius ... till that period when he may be supposed capable of +appearing in the world as a minstrel,”[445] and its theme is really the +effect of mountain scenery on a poetically sensitive mind. The child, +Edwin, is brought up in a remote village among the Scotch hills, and +his genius is developed through the varied influence of wild natural +scenery until he becomes “itinerant poet and musician.” As a lad his +chief pleasure was to follow + + Where the maze of some bewilder’d stream + To deep untrodden groves his footsteps led. + +He loved to climb craggy cliffs + + When all in mist the world below was lost. + What dreadful pleasure! There to stand sublime + Like shipwreck’d mariner on desert coast + And view the enormous waste of vapour, toss’d + In billows, lengthening to the horizon round, + Now scoop’d in gulfs, with mountains now emboss’d. + + And oft he traced the uplands, to survey, + When o’er the sky advanced the kindling dawn, + The crimson cloud, blue main and mountain gray. + +He was + + Fond of each gentle, and each dreadful scene. + In darkness and in storm he found delight. + +He listened + + with pleasing dread, to the deep roar + Of the wide-weltering waves. + +When storms came up in black array + + He hastened from the haunt of man, + Along the trembling wilderness to stray. + +He visited haunted streams by moonlight and let his imagination dwell +on graves and ghosts. His soul was possessed by the “mystic transports” +born of “melancholy and solitude.” He scanned all Nature with a +“curious and romantic eye,” and his imagination was stirred by “old +heroic ditties,” by + + What’er of lore tradition could supply + From gothic tale, or song, or fable old. + +The second stage of Edwin’s education comes through his companionship +with a wise hermit, who, like Wordsworth’s Solitary, had “sought for +glory in the paths of guile,” but finally, dissatisfied with success +and stung with remorse, had hidden himself in a deep retired abode in +the mountains, there to commune with Nature. From a lofty eminence +Edwin chanced to look down one day upon this savage dell, shut in by +mountains and rocks piled on rocks, and he saw the “one cultivated +spot” with its garden of roses and herbs, and he heard the voice of +the hermit soliloquizing on the vanity of human life. In subsequent +interviews the hermit discoursed learnedly on history, art, and +sciences. + +The intrinsic value of this poem is not great. It is important because +of the conception which it embodies. Edwin finds in Nature adequate +instruction and inspiration; the hermit, adequate consolation. His +words are, + + Hail, awful scenes, that calm the troubled breast, + And woo the weary to profound repose! + Can passion’s wildest uproar lay to rest, + And whisper comfort to the man of woes? + +Now the power of wild scenery over the plastic mind is exactly +Wordsworth’s idea in his account of the Wanderer’s youth,[446] and the +power of Nature to minister to a mind diseased is one of the leading +thoughts in his account of the Solitary,[447] while the thought of +tracing a child’s experiences with Nature until under her tutelage +he becomes a poet is the fundamental idea of the “Prelude.”[448] It +is certainly of more than merely curious interest thus to find in +the rather vague, ineffective stanzas of the earlier poet general +conceptions which afterward appear as the ruling ideas of the poet +confessedly greatest in his treatment of Nature. + +The character of Edwin was autobiographic and shows Beattie’s personal +love of Nature. In a letter to the Dowager Lady Forbes, October, 1772, +he wrote: + + I find you are willing to suppose that, in Edwin, I have + given only a picture of myself as I was in my younger days. I + confess the supposition is not groundless. I have made him take + pleasure in the scenes in which I took pleasure, and entertain + sentiments similar to those of which, even in my early youth, I + had repeated experience. The scenery of a mountainous country, + the ocean, the sky, thoughtfulness and retirement, and sometimes + melancholy objects and ideas, had charms in my eyes, even when + I was a school boy; and at a time when I was so far from being + able to express, that I did not understand my own feelings, or + perceive the tendency of my own pursuits and amusements. + +Beattie never lost this keen delight in Nature. When he was +schoolmaster at Fordoun, at the foot of the Grampian Hills, his +greatest pleasure was found in the neighboring mountains and wooded +glens. His biographer also says that he would frequently “pass the +whole night among the fields, gazing on the sky, and observing the +various aspects it assumed till the return of day.” Beattie’s poems +bear conclusive evidence of his love of Nature in all her forms. +Mountains, and the sea, wild scenes of various sorts, storms, torrents, +night, clouds, the sky, streams, meadows, groves, summer and winter, +wide views, are regarded with genuine delight. But there are certain +curious limitations. There are almost no specific flowers, birds, or +trees mentioned in all this abundant study of the external world. This +use of the general instead of the specific is one element of an effect +too often perceived, an indefiniteness of outline, a vague blurring +of edges, the result of which is not mysterious suggestiveness but +simply dimness and confusion. There is also an unexpected feebleness +of vocabulary and lack of direct observation. The old word “murmur,” +for instance, is applied with wearisome insistence to springs, rills, +water, the ocean, pines, woods, groves, and gales. So the interest +in wild Nature, when analyzed, shows a rather monotonous and +undiscriminating succession of cliffs and precipices. But it would +be unfair to press these limitations too far. There are many true +observations happily presented, as in the following lines which are +selected as illustrative: + + While waters, woods, and winds in concert join. + + The wild brook babbling down the mountain side. + + Torrents + Heard from afar amid the lonely night. + + And now the storm of summer rain is over + And cool and fresh and fragrant is the sky. + + When by the winds of autumn driven + The scatter’d clouds fly ’cross the Heaven. + Oft have we from some mountain’s head + Beheld the alternate light and shade + Sweep along the vale. + + The scared owl on pinions gray + Breaks from the rustling boughs + And down the lone vale sails away + To more profound repose. + +He finds pleasure in old oak trees that + + from the stormy promontory tower + And toss their giant arms amid the skies. + +In winter he watches + + The cloud stupendous, from the Atlantic wave + High towering, sail along the horizon blue. + +Lines such as these show knowledge both fresh and close, and the +expression is marked by picturesque effectiveness. + +But Beattie’s real contribution to the study of Nature lies, as has +been indicated, in his own personal enthusiasm, and his steadfast +belief in the effect of Nature on man. In one stanza he even set forth +the doctrine, held to be sufficiently startling forty years later in +Wordsworth’s day, that country rustics from their familiarity with +Nature, gain a nicer sense of moral purity than is known among the poor +of a city.[449] Upon all men he urged the study of Nature as a moral +duty. + + These charms shall work thy soul’s eternal health, + And love, and gentleness, and joy impart.[450] + +The message of Nature is one not to be ignored. + + O how canst thou renounce the boundless store + Of charms which Nature to her votary yields! + The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, + The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields; + All that the genial ray of morning gilds, + And all that echoes to the song of even, + All that the mountain’s sheltering bosom shields, + And all the dread magnificence of Heaven, + O how canst thou renounce and hope to be forgiven![451] + +Though less popular than the “Essay on Truth,” Beattie’s “Minstrel” met +with almost immediate favor. Lyttleton said to Mrs. Montagu who sent +him the first book in 1771: + + I read your “Minstrel” last night, with as much rapture as + poetry, in her noblest, sweetest charms, ever raised in my soul. + It seemed to me that my once most beloved minstrel, Thomson, was + come down from heaven, refined by the converse of purer spirits + than those he lived with here, to let me hear him sing again the + beauties of virtue.[452] + +And Cowper wrote in 1784: “Though I cannot afford to deal largely in so +expensive a commodity as books, I must afford to purchase at least the +poetical works of Beattie.”[453] Mr. Dyce says that the success of “The +Minstrel” (Book First) “was complete. The voice of every critic was +loud in its praise; and before the second book appeared, four editions +of the first had been dispersed throughout the kingdom.”[454] + +“The Minstrel” is of importance in the historical development of the +poetry of Nature because of the ideas it emphasizes, and because its +immediate popularity is an indication of the change in taste since the +beginning of the century. + +Most of John Scott’s poems were on rural subjects,[455] and he is of +especial interest because of his abundant and close observation of +natural facts. Mr. Hoole says of him, “He was certainly no servile +copyist of the thoughts of others; for living in the country, and being +a close and accurate observer, he painted what he saw;” and again, +“He cultivated the knowledge of natural history and botany, which +enabled him to preserve the truth of Nature with many discriminating +touches, perhaps not excelled by any descriptive poet since the days +of Thomson.” It was Scott’s avowed purpose to enrich poetry by the +use of many natural facts not before observed. In the introduction to +the “Amoebaean Eclogues” he said, “Much of the rural imagery which +our country affords, has already been introduced in poetry, but many +obvious and pleasing appearances seem to have totally escaped notice. +To describe these is the business of the following Eclogues.” After +this explicit announcement, two gentle youths, in responsive verse, +call attention to over two hundred rapidly stated natural facts. A fact +to a line is about the average, as in these lines: + + These pollard oaks their tawny leaves retain, + These hardy hornbeams yet unstripped remain; + The wint’ry groves all else admit the view + Through naked stems of many a varied hue. + + Old oaken stubs tough saplings there adorn.[456] + + Straight shoots of ash with bark of glossy gray, + Red cornel twigs, and maple’s russet spray. + + There scabious blue, and purple knapweed rise, + And weld and yarrow show their various dyes. + + In shady lanes red foxglove bells appear + And golden spikes the downy mullens rear. + +The second of these “Eclogues” has to do with the care of farms and is +as minute as Cowper’s treatise on the cucumber. There is nowhere in +these poems any poetical fusion of facts. They read rather like the +notebooks of a professional observer. Yet it is certainly significant +to find at this date so persistent and systematic a search for natural +facts, and that not in the service of science but of poetry. In +“Amwell” Scott calls on the Muse of Thomson, Dyer, and Shenstone for +his inspiration. The poem is a description of the prospect from a +certain “airy height” near Amwell. A single illustration will show the +minute observation and catalogue style in this commemoration of “lonely +sylvan scenes.” + + How picturesque + The slender group of airy elm, the clump + Of pollard oak, or ash, with ivy brown + Entwin’d; the walnut’s gloomy breadth of boughs, + The orchard’s ancient fence of rugged pales, + The haystack’s dusty cone, the moss-grown shed, + The clay-built barn; the elder-shaded cot. + Whose whitewashed gable prominent through green + Of waving branches shows; ... + ... the wall with mantling vines + O’erspread, the porch with climbing woodbine wreath’d. + And under sheltering eaves the sunny bench + Where brown hives range, whose busy tenants fill + With drowsy hum the little garden gay, + Whence blooming beans, and spicy herbs, and flowers, + Exhale around a rich perfume! Here rests + The empty wain; there idle lies the plough. + +There is a pleasant homely grace in these lines about the cottage, +worth more than all the historical episodes “introduced to secure +interest.” In the “Elegies” and “Odes” there is no use of Nature +different from that observed in the other poems, unless, indeed, +mention should be made of Scott’s belief that Nature gives her fairest +smiles to those “who know a Saviour’s love.” One further characteristic +is to be found in a large number of the poems, and that is enjoyment +of a wide view. He describes views as seen from “Musla’s cornclad +heights,” from “Grove Hill,” the cliff at Bath, from “Chadwell’s +cliffs,” from “Widbury’s prospect-yielding hill,” from “Upton’s +elm-divided plains,” from “Clifton’s rock,” from Amwell, and other +spots. The poems read as if he had spent many days climbing hills and +prospecting for views. + +Richard Cumberland wrote in 1776 several “Odes,” something in the style +of Gray’s “Bard,” in honor of the artist Romney. In the “Dedication to +Romney” he spoke with enthusiasm of the Lake Region. + + In truth a more pleasing tour than these lakes hold out to men + of leisure and curiosity cannot be devised. We penetrate the + Glaziers, traverse the Rhone and the Rhine, whilst our domestic + lakes of Ulls-water, Keswick, and Windermere, exhibit scenes + in so sublime a stile, with such beautiful colourings of rock, + wood, and water, backed with so tremendous a disposition of + mountains, that if they do not fairly take the lead of all the + views of Europe, yet they are indisputably such as no English + traveller should leave behind him. + +One of the poems, the “Ode to the Sun,” has Helvellyn, Skiddaw, +the Derwent, Lodore, “Keswick’s sweet fantastic vale,” “stately +Windermere,” “Savage Wyburn,” and “delicious Grasmere’s calm retreat” +as its important scenic elements. He considers + + The prim canal, the level green, + The close-clipt hedge, that bounds the flourish’d scene + +as but “the spruce impertinence of art.” From them comes no rapture +such as that excited by the “gigantic shapes” of mountains. The Thames +is but a tame stream compared with “old majestic Derwent” forcing his +independent course. In contrast to the grandeur and splendor of Nature +man seems but “weak, contemptible, and vain, the tenant of a day.” +Imperial Ulls-water is not only declared to be superior in charm to +Loch Lomond or Killarney, but it can maintain its own even against +“ought that learned Poussin drew” or anything painted by “dashing +Rosa.” Eighteenth-century praise of scenery could go no farther. + +William Blake’s “Poetical Sketches,” published in 1783, were written +between 1769 and 1777.[457] The “Songs of Innocence” appeared in +1788–9; “Book of Thel,” 1789; “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” 1790; +and “Songs of Experience” in 1794. In the first volume Nature was the +leading subject; in the next human interests were in the ascendent, and +Nature was used only in fresh, ballad-like touches. In the later work +Nature is slightly used and for the most part in the form of mystical +symbolism. + +It was Blake’s theory that man is “imprisoned in his five senses,” and +he counted it his mission to reveal to closed eyes the spiritual as +the only real fact of existence. In his early work this theory, as yet +unexaggerated in application, led to a treatment of Nature, not untrue +to facts, but characterized especially by qualities of simplicity and +vision such as are not found again before Wordsworth. In these years of +his youth Blake was essentially the poet of childhood and spring in all +their sweet, potent, indefinable charm. + + And I made a rural pen, + And I stained the water clear + And I wrote my happy songs, + Every child may joy to hear,[458] + +gives the keynote to these songs of delight. The joy of Nature is +everywhere insisted on. The sun makes the sky happy; the vales rejoice; +spring cannot hide its joy when buds and blossoms come; the happy +blossoms look on merry birds; groves are happy and green woods rejoice; +dimpling streams, the air, green hills, meadows, and birds laugh with +delight. Here is one exquisite example: + + The moon like a flower + In heaven’s high bower, + With silent delight, + Sits and smiles on the night.[459] + +He contrasts the clamor and destruction of city streets with the true +joy in Nature. In the silent woods, delights blossom around, numberless +beauties blow. The green grass springs in joy, and the nimble air +kisses the leaves. The brook stretches its arms along the silent +meadow, its silver inhabitants sport and play. The youthful sun joys +like a hunter roused to the chase.[460] In “Fragments” and “Couplets,” +excerpts from his MS book, occurs this fine, though casual statement of +the opposition between town and country: + + Great things are done when men and mountains meet; + These are not done by jostling in the street. + +Blake cared much for sleep as the time when man was most free from +the tyranny of the senses. Many of his characters are represented as +asleep, and the conception is transferred to many lovely scenes in +Nature. He pictures summer as sleeping beneath oaks; flowers shut their +eyes in sleep; the west wind sleeps on the lake; and dawn sleeps in +heaven. With this is associated an evident pleasure in the silence of +Nature, apparently the pathetic complement of its joys. There is a +silent sleep over the deep of heaven; the evening star speaks silence +to the lake. At night the moon is silent, and the earth, and the sea. + +Occasional passages show the character of Blake’s own love of Nature, +as, + + I love to rise on a summer morn, + I love the laughing vale, + I love the echoing hill. + +His feeling toward flowers was as intimate, as tenderly protecting, as +was that of Burns toward small animals. Sun and stars, winds, clouds, +dew, and angels are represented as caring for the happy blossoms. + +All of Blake’s poetry of Nature is as freshly beautiful as the dewy +mornings, the spring-time green, the shining skies, as clear and +transparent as the limpid, dimpling streams he loved. There are also +frequent passages that besides their metrical flow and exquisite charm +of external suggestion seem to reveal the essential spirit of the +object described. One of the loveliest examples is the word of the Lily +of the Valley. + + I am a watry weed, + And I am very small and love to dwell in lowly vales: + So weak the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head. + Yet I am visited from heaven; and He that smiles on all + Walks in the valley, and each morn over me spreads his hand. + Saying, Rejoice, thou humble grass, thou new-born lilly flower, + Thou gentle maid of silent valleys and of modest brooks; + For thou shalt be clothed in light and fed with morning manna.[461] + +For fine contrasts, each poem perfect of its kind, see “The Lamb” +and “The Tiger.” The modest simplicity of the one is as adequately +portrayed as the dread magnificence of the other. There is no +description. There is interpretation of the most penetrating sort. + +He has also frequent similes worked out with picturesque detail, as in +this one from “The Couch of Death”: + + He was like a cloud tossed by the winds, till the sun shines, + and the drops of rain glisten, the yellow harvest breathes, + and the thankful eyes of villagers are turned up in smiles; + the traveller, that hath taken shelter under an oak, eyes the + distant country with joy. + +One secret of the effectiveness of Blake’s best work is his +recognition of the unity of all existence. The prefatory stanza to +“Auguries of Innocence,” + + To see a world in a grain of sand, + And a heaven in a wild flower; + Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, + And eternity in an hour, + +is a brief poetic statement of the creed afterward elaborated in +Wordsworth’s “Primrose on the Rock” and Tennyson’s “Flower in +the Crannied Wall.” The thought back of the lines is the one in +Wordsworth’s mind when he looked on “the meanest flower that blows.” +It is this underlying consciousness of essential spiritual unity in +all existence that gives to the work of both Blake and Wordsworth its +subtle power. + +There could hardly be two more dissimilar ways of approaching Nature +than those of John Scott and William Blake. They stand at opposite +poles, the one with no sense of unity, no power of poetic fusion or +interpretation, but with a wide, accurate, and often picturesque +assemblage of natural facts; the other with a prevailing tone of +unreality and mysticism, a fine scorn of the actual, but with a swift +recognition of the spirit of Nature, and an abiding sense of cosmic +unity. Yet each represents a characteristic phase of the new feeling +for Nature as seen in Wordsworth. On the one hand, the practiced eye +and the inevitable ear; on the other, the vision and the faculty divine. + +In its significance as a prophecy of Wordsworth and Shelley, the early +poetry of William Blake is of especial importance. + +Crabbe’s poetry falls into two periods, the first one closing with “The +Newspaper” in 1785, and the second beginning with “The Parish Register” +after an interval of twenty-two years. In the first of these periods we +find but slight use of external Nature. The occasional similitudes are +of a formal conventional type. The two longest descriptive passages are +of a dismal winter scene,[462] and of some sterile summer fields that +mock man’s need with profitless blooms.[463] There is no expression of +pleasure in Nature. It is her pitiless, anti-human aspects that Crabbe +sees. The charm of Nature independent of utility seems to have no +meaning for him. He consciously repudiates + + Clear skies, clear streams, soft banks, and sober bowers, + Deer, whimpering brooks, and wind-perfuming flowers, + +as unworthy poetic material.[464] Rough or barren Nature as the +background or occasion of man’s misery is the thought of these early +poems. + +Crabbe’s second period does not properly belong in a study of +development which has “The Lyrical Ballads” as its _terminus +ad quem_, but it may be briefly spoken of here because of the +interesting contrast it offers to the first period. A suggestive study +might be made of the descriptive element in “The Village” (1783) as +compared with that of “The Borough” (1810). The scene of each is a +seaside village on the Suffolk coast, but we note many changes in the +presentation. In the first place, in “The Borough” Nature plays a +much more important part than in “The Village.” There is a leisurely +elaborateness of description as if the poet enjoyed the work for its +own sake. There is, to be sure, insistence on the ugly realistic +details of the scenes about a country town, but there is in addition +a recognition that even along this rocky coast and in these barren +fields where Nature defies man’s industry there may be found her gift +of beauty. The “greedy ocean” of “The Village” is now “a glorious page +of nature’s book” on which the poorest may gaze with delight. The +firm, fair sands on quiet summer evenings, the lovely “limpid blue and +evanescent green” as shadows run over the waves on a fresh day, serene +winter-views where strange effects of fog add mystery to the scene, +the majesty of a storm at sea--all these are now reckoned a part of +the pleasures of the poor in a seaside village. The sterile fields, +too, have rare blossoms and curious grasses. There are pleasant walks +with every scene rich in beauty. The evening twilight is sweet with +jasmine odors.[465] “The Borough” is as realistic as “The Village,” +but it has a broader outlook and depicts the attractive as well as +the forbidding aspects of the Suffolk coast near Aldborough. In later +poems the scope becomes still wider. Besides the frequent strong and +truthful ocean pictures there are some beautiful descriptions of +autumn days, moonlight nights, and soft, rich inland scenes. It is +especially noteworthy that though there are seldom any gay or bright +aspects of Nature presented, yet Nature is no longer represented as a +force inimical to man. On the contrary, there is something in even her +most useless forms that gives to man a strangely profound pleasure. +The simple music of a cascade has in it a soothing power that words +will not express. In the clear, silent night there is a quiet joy +that lessens the sting of mortal pain. These positive expressions of +pleasure in Nature are not numerous, but they are important as marking +a distinct change of tone. They are the more significant because they +occur chiefly in the poems after 1819. + +Yet it must not pass unnoticed that what Crabbe wrote in these late +poems, he had perceived and felt in his youth. In his description of +Richard he gives an account of his own boyhood. Of the ocean he says, + + I loved to walk where none had walked before + About the rock that ran along the shore. + + * * * * * + + Here had I favorite stations, where I stood + And heard the murmurs of the ocean flood, + With not a sound beside, except when flew + Aloft the lapwing, or the gray curlew. + + * * * * * + + Pleasant it was to view the sea-gulls strive + Against the storm, or in the ocean dive + With eager scream, or when they dropping gave + Their closing wings to sail upon the wave. + + * * * * * + + Nor pleased it less around me to behold + Far up the beach the yesty sea-foam rolled; + Or from the shore upborne, to see on high + Its frothy flakes in wild confusion fly: + While the salt spray that clashing billows form + Gave to the taste a feeling of the storm.[466] + +He recalls how he explored every creek and bay, how he took long walks +over the hilly heath and mossy moors. Most of the scenery in “The +Borough” as well as that in “The Village” is a memory picture of the +country he knew so well in boyhood. It seems strange that this genuine +love and accurate knowledge of Nature should not have found fuller +expression in his early poetry. The explanation is perhaps twofold. His +interest was primarily in man. He said that the finest scenes in Nature +were less attractive to him than faces on a crowded street. He meant to +be the portrait painter of poor people as he had seen them in a seaside +village. His bitter pictures of country vice and ignorance and folly +had in them no touch of patronage or contempt. He simply gave a hard, +truthful representation of sordid life, and Nature had no meaning for +him except as it was brought into connection with that life. When in +after years his own lot was a happier one, and when a wider experience +had brought him into contact with thrifty country folk, the bitterness +of his early thought of man was greatly modified. With new views of +man came an openness of mind to the gentler aspects of Nature. The +real love of his boyhood, no longer crushed down by an over-mastering +sense of human misery, was allowed free play. Furthermore, his later +work was doubtless influenced by the new spirit of poetry about him. +His son says that while at first but a cool admirer of the Lake poets, +he came soon to love them and took no books oftener in his hands. All +of Crabbe’s work in which there is much use of Nature comes more than +ten years after the “Lyrical Ballads,” hence his growingly full use of +Nature might easily be due in part to the influence of the new school +of poetry. His free life, the different class of peasants he saw, the +new poetry he was reading, would all have their effect in turning his +attention to Nature. But the Nature he chose to write about was that +which he had known and loved as a boy. + +William Cowper as a poet of Nature, is marked first by the narrowness +of the limits within which he writes. Mountains[467] are merely +mentioned. Night is nowhere described. Moonlight plays no part in +his poetry.[468] The stars are occasionally spoken of, but only in a +conventional manner as “shining hosts,” “fair ministers of light,” or +“beamy fires.” Of wild scenery there is none. The nearest approach to +it is in two brief descriptions of rocky bluffs on the seashore.[469] +His references to the ocean are brief and not of much importance; nor +are there any storms except in a few lines about “a driving, dashing +rain” with thunder and lightning used as an “apt similitude.”[470] The +one winter storm is merely a gentle fall of snow that comes after the +evening curtains are tight drawn.[471] The similitudes, though often +carefully elaborated, show little if any new use of Nature, and they +are drawn from a small number of natural facts.[472] + +The explanation of this narrowness of limit is twofold. Cowper +described only what he had seen,[473] and he had seen no country but +his own, and only a very small and comparatively uninteresting portion +of that. The Downs about Bath, where he seems to have been for a short +time when he was about eighteen, was the nearest approach to wild +scenery that he had ever known. During the seventeen years before the +writing of “The Task” (1785) he had seldom left Olney, and never for +a fortnight together.[474] His knowledge was further limited by his +continued ill-health. He was ignorant of certain phases of the out-door +world simply because his physical infirmities kept him in the house. + +This explanation of the narrow range of the Nature in Cowper’s poetry +is not entirely satisfactory, for when we come to his letters we find +suggestions of a wider experience and sympathy than the poems would +indicate. In a letter to Joseph Hill he wrote: + + I was always an admirer of thunderstorms, even before I knew + whose voice I heard in them; but especially an admirer of + thunder rolling over the great waters. There is something + singularly majestic in the sound of it at sea, where the eye + and the ear have uninterrupted opportunity of observation, and + the concavity above, being made spacious, reflects it with more + advantage.... We have indeed been regaled with some of those + bursts of ethereal music.... But when the thunder preaches, an + horizon bounded by the ocean is the only sounding board. + +To the Rev. William Unwin, September 26, 1781, he wrote: + + I think, with you, that the most magnificent object under heaven + is the great deep; and can not but feel an unpolite species of + astonishment when I consider the multitudes that view it without + emotion, and even without reflection. In all its various forms + it is an object of all others the most suited to affect us with + lasting impressions of the awful power that created and controls + it. I am the less inclined to think this negligence excusable, + because, at a time of life when I gave as little attention to + religious subjects as any man, I yet remember that the waves + would preach to me, and that in the midst of dissipation I had + an ear to hear them. One of Shakespeare’s characters says, “I + am never merry when I hear sweet music.” The same effect that + harmony seems to have had upon him I have experienced from the + sight and sound of the ocean, which have often composed my + thoughts into a melancholy not unpleasing nor without its use. + +He had also, during these years at Olney, made many an imaginary +evening journey to remote lands by means of books of travel, of which +he was especially fond. But when he came to write poems, only what he +had known at first hand and with long familiarity occurred to him. +Experiences merely casual, or remote in time, and facts gained from +books slipped away. He remembered only what he habitually saw. The +scenes about Olney he knew, literally, by heart, and of these he wrote. + +A characteristic excellence of Cowper’s treatment of Nature is that, +within his narrow circuit, his knowledge is of unusual fulness and +accuracy. The charm of truthful description is everywhere apparent. +In pictures of homely country occupations, such as feeding the +hens,[475] foddering the cattle,[476] cutting wood,[477] plowing,[478] +threshing,[479] there are no false touches, no hasty work. All is +the result of first-hand, leisurely, sympathetic observation. His +description of the garden is from memory, but it almost seems as if he +were walking from flower to flower and taking notes, so minute is the +characterization, so exact each epithet in the representation of the +various colors, forms, odors, and ways of growth of the flowers in this +garden that the poet sees under the snows of winter.[480] + +The same love of precise detail is illustrated in his descriptions of +trees. In noting their color he does not, like Thomson, enjoy general, +broadly inclusive words, but he gives the exact shade and tells to +what tree it belongs. When he takes a walk he sees that the trunks of +the ash, the lime, and the beech shine distinctly under their shadowy +foliage. The willow is a “wannish gray.” The poplar is likewise gray, +but there is a touch of silver in the lining of the leaves. The elm is +deeper green than the ash, and the oak of a deeper green still. The +maple, the beech, and the lime have glossy leaves that shine in the +sun. The sycamore changes from green to tawny, and then to scarlet, +according to the season.[481] + +This highly differentiated knowledge is evident also in various +passages on the sounds of Nature. In a letter to Newton he wrote: “The +notes of all our birds and fowls please me, without one exception; ... +and as to insects ... in whatever key they sing, from the gnat’s fine +treble to the bass of the humble bee, I admire them all.” + +Equally specific is his record of the sounds from winds and waters, as +in these lines: + + Rills that slip + Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall + Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length + In matted grass that with a livelier green + Betrays the secret of their silent course.[482] + +Or these about forest sounds: + + Mighty winds + That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood + Of ancient growth, make music not unlike + The dash of ocean on his winding shore.[483] + +In wider descriptions, as of extended views, there is absolutely no +blurring of edges. The picture is as clear, distinct, and exact as a +photograph. There is no inartistic mixing of foreground and background. +A good example is the view described in the first book of “The +Task.”[484] The eye travels over the landscape with its river shining +like molten glass; on its banks droop the elms, on either side are +level plains sprinkled with cattle, beyond is the sloping land covered +with hedgerows, groves, heaths, with here and there a square tower or +tall spire, and in the distance smoking towns; and at last the scene is +lost in the clouds on the horizon. + +Many little pictures, complete in a few lines, serve even better to +illustrate the exquisite truth of Cowper’s work. Note this description +of the shifting lights in a forest pathway: + + While beneath + The chequered earth seems restless as a flood + Brushed by the wind. So sportive is the light + Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance, + Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick, + And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves + Play wanton, every moment, every spot.[485] + +Or this of the squirrel just come from winter quarters in +some lonely elm: + + Flippant, pert, and full of play: + He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird, + Ascends the neighboring beech; there whisks his brush, + And perks his ears, and stamps, and cries aloud, + With all the prettiness of feign’d alarm + And anger insignificantly fierce.[486] + +Equally felicitous are the descriptions of tall grass fledged with icy +feathers on a frosty morning,[487] or of the redbreast in a sheltered +woodland path in winter.[488] These pictures and other similar ones +immediately take a permanent place in one’s mental picture gallery. +It would be difficult indeed for a painting to make the light dance +as it does in that forest path. The squirrel absolutely tingles with +life. The right word comes easily and the lines show exquisite deftness +of literary touch. It is rare in any poetry to find more excellent +examples of pure description than these and other passages in “The +Task.” Cowper had the mind that watches and receives. He looked about +him and wrote down in simple, sincere words the loveliness he found. He +took notes, but they were of the right sort, mental and unconscious, +the inevitable imprint on a sensitive mind of scenes that had +ministered to his deepest need. + +The ministry of Nature to human needs is a cardinal principle in +Cowper’s poetry. Nor was this conception merely theoretic. It was +rather a transcript from his own experience. From childhood he had +loved Nature,[489] and poems about Nature,[490] and he had always +planned to live in the country.[491] After years of disappointment and +terrifying fears, comparative peace came to him amid quiet country +scenes. The instincts of his early days revived. Nature offered +him a paradise of rich delights. She enchanted him. She gave him +heart-consoling joys. She sweetened his bitter life, alluring him with +smiles from gloom to happiness. The glory of each new morning was a +lesson in hope. He found in Nature the nurse of wisdom, a power that +could compose his passions and exalt his mind. He felt that in the +country God spoke directly to his heart.[492] + +The obverse of this genuine love of the country is an equally genuine +detestation of the town and town standards. The crowds that swarm to +city streets are the subjects of repeated invectives, and there is even +more emphatic scorn of sham lovers of Nature, as cockneys in suburban +villas; girls who but for the show and dress-parade of the country +would hurry back to the city; men who love hunting and fishing, and +call it a love of Nature; sentimentalists, who exclaim over Thomson’s +poetry, but prefer to read it in the city.[493] His own relationship +with Nature was too intimate and too sacred to admit of indifference or +profanation on the part of others. + +Cowper’s literary use of Nature was largely determined by his purpose +in writing. His poetical thesis received its dogmatic summing-up in the +famous dictum, + + God made the country and man made the town,[494] + +and to the establishment of this thesis nearly all his use of Nature is +made more or less directly subservient. + +This is clearly seen in his use of summaries. He has a habit of +analyzing Nature into separate facts and then classifying these facts +under topics. For instance, to make a list of his sounds one hardly +needs to search through the poems. They will be found already grouped +together. So, too, the garden flowers, the greenhouse flowers, the +colors of trees, country occupations, and country pleasures, are +arranged under heads instead of being scattered through various +descriptions. Then there are many summaries of miscellaneous facts. +Now the literary purpose of nearly every assemblage of details is the +establishment or illustration of some point connected with the general +conception of the superior attractions of the country. The catalogues +of facts have a definite argumentative value, and the artistic +selection of these facts out of the mass known is determined by the +especial point under consideration. In “Retirement” there is a rapid +enumeration of many phases of Nature in various seasons, the purpose +being to show that all forms of Nature are pleasing to a poet’s mind. +The following passage is a good example of a summary the purpose of +which is to present a concrete, picturesque, amplified statement of the +creed that Nature gives a wisdom higher than can come from books: + + But trees, and rivulets, whose rapid course + Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, + And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, + And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time + Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root, + Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, + Not shy, as in the world, and to be won + By slow solicitation, seize at once + The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.[495] + +Frequent summaries are used to show that in the country God gives +especial revelations of his power. The long flower catalogue is to +show that the beauty of the flushing spring but speaks to man of the +in-dwelling of God.[496] The ceaseless activity of Nature is attested +by another summary.[497] Still further summaries illustrate the power +of Nature over the man wearied with cares of state.[498] The beautiful +summary of rural sounds is to show the exhilarating effect of Nature +on the languid mind and heart.[499] It is this underlying purpose that +gives unity to passages which would otherwise be hardly more than +catalogues. + +Another characteristic way in which Cowper presents Nature is in +descriptive passages used as a background for his own meditative +figure. The beautiful description of the sheltered path where he walked +in winter[500] would lose much of its meaning if we were not throughout +conscious of the poet’s presence and his delighted response to all the +influences about him. Nearly all the passages that might otherwise be +called pure description are given warmth and tone by the fact that we +go with the poet, and, as it were, hear him talk about the scene as one +he has long known and loved, until it takes an added interest from +his personality, or we seem to see him in semi-identification with the +scenes. It is the apparent equality, the comradeship, between the hare, +the squirrel, and the poet in the solitary winter retreat that adds to +the beauty of the spot the needed human touch. Nature is thus suffused +with human experience and takes on a new interest. But it usually +happens that these descriptions become, further, either the appropriate +setting for a certain train of reflections on the part of the poet, or +they directly suggest these suggestions. In the winter retreat just +spoken of the fearless, innocent animal life becomes the occasion of +a long disquisition on the lesson of benevolence taught by Nature to +man. In the sheltered walk the poet finds his mind soothed and prepared +for a Wordsworthian contemplation on Nature as the teacher of the +wise, so that ultimately many of Cowper’s descriptions, as well as his +summaries, become contributory to his main purpose. + +Cowper’s knowledge of natural facts was not more remarkable than +John Scott’s. His range was much narrower than Thomson’s. Other men +had loved Nature with passionate intensity. To other minds Nature +had suggested deep thoughts of God and man. Cowper came when many +elements of the new attitude toward Nature had been clearly voiced. +What marks him out as holding a unique position is not only that he +gave body and emphasis to the new thought, but especially that he +became its propagandist. He analyzed the effect of Nature on man, he +translated his personal experiences into a theory which he set himself +to interpret and promulgate. He wrote with the zeal of a convert. Joy +such as had come to him late in life was man’s natural heritage. Men +must be called back from the perverted and ruinous life of towns to +the simplicity of Nature. His theme is stated abstractly, repeated in +concrete form, illustrated and amplified with the patience and ardor +of absolute conviction. He was the preacher of the new religion of +Nature. + +Robert Burns was deeply sensitive to the charms of Nature. In a letter +to Mrs. Dunlop he said: + + I have some favorite flowers in Spring, among which are the + mountain-daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild brier-rose, + the budding birk and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang + over, with particular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary + whistle of the curlew in a Summer noon, or the wild mixing + cadence of a troop of grey-plover in an Autumnal morning, + without feeling an elevation of soul like the Enthusiasm of + Devotion or Poetry.[501] + +Again he says: + + I have various sources of pleasure which are in a manner + peculiar to myself.... Such is the peculiar pleasure I take + in the season of Winter more than in the rest of the year.... + There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more--I don’t know + if I should call it pleasure, but something which exalts me, + something which enraptures me--than to walk in the sheltered + side of a wood or high plantation in a cloudy winter day, and + hear a stormy wind howling among the trees and raving o’er the + plain. It is my best season for devotion; my mind is rapt up in + a kind of enthusiasm to _Him_ who ... walks on the wings of + the wind.[502] + +Note also what Mr. Walker, his companion on the border tour, says of +him: + + I had often, like others, experienced the pleasures which arise + from the sublime or elegant landscape, but I never saw those + feelings so intense as in Burns. When we reached a rustic hut + on the river Tilt, where it is overhung by a woody precipice, + from which there is a noble waterfall, he threw himself on + the heathy seat, and gave himself up to a tender, abstracted, + and voluptuous enthusiasm of imagination.... It was with much + difficulty that I prevailed upon him to leave the spot.[503] + +This susceptibility to Nature was one of the signs by which “Coila” +knew that Burns would be the poet of Scotland. He represents her as +saying to him: + + I saw thee seek the sounding shore, + Delighted with the dashing roar; + Or when the North his fleecy store + Drove thro’ the sky + I saw grim Nature’s visage hoar + Struck thy young eye. + + Or when the deep green-mantl’d earth + Warm cherish’d ev’ry flow’ret’s birth + And joy and music pouring forth + In ev’ry grove, + I saw thee eye the gen’ral mirth + With boundless love.[504] + +In his “Commonplace Book,” Burns records his eager desire to write +verse that shall make “the fertile banks of Irvine, the romantic +woodlands & sequestered scenes on Aire, and the healthy, mountainous +source, & winding sweep of Doon emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, Tweed, +&c.” And his love of Nature was limited in scope to just these scenes +of which he speaks. He had no interest in mountains or the sea. Mr. +Douglas calls attention to the fact that, “living in full face of +the Arran hills he never names them.”[505] He was as narrow in his +limits and as vividly local in the Nature he chose to represent as was +Cowper, but what he loved he loved with intensity. In the beautiful and +picturesque scenery about Ayr he found poetic inspiration. To William +Simson he said, + + The muse, nae poet ever fand her, + Till by himself he learn’d to wander, + Adown some trottin burn’s meander, + An’ no think lang; + +and in “The Brigs of Ayr” he says the simple bard may learn his tuneful +trade from every bough. + +Burns’ knowledge of the Nature about him was abundant and exact, and he +was keenly critical of any note of falsity in the poems of others. He +objected to the “Banks of the Dee” because of the line, + + And sweetly the _nightingale_ sang from the _tree_. + +“In the first place,” he said, “the nightingale sings in a low bush, +but never from a tree; and in the second place, there never was a +nightingale seen or heard on the banks of the Dee, nor the banks of any +other river in Scotland. Exotic, rural imagery is always comparatively +flat.”[506] + +Again he said of another song, “It is a fine song, but for +consistency’s sake, alter the name ‘Adonis.’ Was there ever such +banns published, as a purpose of marriage between _Adonis_ and +_Mary_? These Greek and Roman pastoral appellations have a flat, +insipid effect in a Scot song.”[507] He gives especial praise to +Rev. Dr. Cririe, because “like Thomson,” the poet had “looked into +Nature for himself,” and had nowhere been content with a “copied +description.”[508] + +When Burns wrote a descriptive poem of set purpose he was comparatively +commonplace and uninteresting as in “The Fall of Foyers” or “Admiring +Nature.” His best descriptions come in, by chance as it were, in the +midst of some vivid human interests. One of the most beautiful is a +stanza in “Halloween”: + + Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, + As thro’ the glen it wimpl’t; + Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays, + Whyles in a wiel it dimpl’t; + Whyles glitter’d ta the nightly rays, + Wi’ bickering, dancing dazzle; + Whyles cookit underneath the braes, + Below the spreading hazel, + Unseen that night. + +Work so perfect as this is rare in any age. The beauty of the poem is +simply the beauty of the stream itself. + +Burns’ chief use of Nature, however, is in connection with man. +External Nature is illustration, background, frame, for human emotions. +“The Lass of Cressnock Banks” was written at twenty-two and is the +first one of his poems in which there is any distinct use of Nature. +It is merely an assemblage of twelve formally drawn-out similes +to represent the beauty of the lassie. Some of these similes are +conventional and unmeaning, as when her hair is likened to curling +mist on a mountain side,[509] her forehead to a rainbow, her lips +to ripe cherries, and her teeth to a flock of sheep. In later poems +the similitudes are simpler and sweeter, but they are drawn from a +small number of facts and those of the more obvious sort, as the +“simmer morn,” “the flower in May,” “the opening rose.” A much more +effective use of Nature is as dramatic background either by congruity +or contrast. As fine examples of the use of Nature to give the keynote +of the human emotion it accompanies we have the opening lines of the +“Elegy,” “Farewell Song to the Banks of Ayr,” “Raving Winds around Her +Blowing,” and “Farewell to Ballochmyle.” The more usual form is to +represent a natural picture in contrast to the human emotion, as in +“The Chevalier’s Lament,” “The Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots,” or best +of all, “The Banks of Doon.” + + Ye banks and braes o’ bonny Doon, + How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? + How can ye chant ye little birds, + And I sae weary, fu’ of care! + +It is characteristic of Burns that his knowledge was wider and his +sympathy keener in the realm of animate than of inanimate Nature. He +apparently thought of animals almost as if they had been human. The +address to a mouse is as tenderly and genuinely sympathetic as if it +had been to a hurt child. On winter nights he listens to the wind and +cannot sleep for thinking of the “ourie cattle” and “silly sheep” and +helpless birds that “cow’r” with “chittering wing.”[510] He scorned +hunting and said there was no warm poetic heart that did not inly bleed +at man’s savage cruelty.[511] He found it impossible to reconcile +so-called “sport” with his ideas of virtue.[512] He knew animals, +especially birds, in an intimate, friendly fashion. In the description +of their manners and habits there is the most minute realism. The +following phrases are illustrative: “Ye grouse that crap the heather +bud;” “Ye curlews calling thro’ a clud;” “Ye whirring paitrick brood;” +“Ye fisher herons watching eels;” “sooty coots;” “speckled teals;” +“whistling plover;” + + Clam’ring craiks at close o’ day + ’Mang fields o’ flow’ring clover gay; + +and + + Ye duck and drake, wi’ airy wheels + Circling the lake.[513] + +In accurate first-hand observation, in abundant knowledge, in the use +of felicitous descriptive epithets, in great personal joy in Nature, in +delight in winter, in love for animals, and in a critical estimate of +the value of truthful portrayal, Burns represents the new spirit. + +William Lisle Bowles is another of the reputed “fathers” of modern +poetry. His slender title to the distinction thus conferred upon him by +Rev. George Gilfillan,[514] rests on the admiration of Coleridge,[515] +Southey,[516] and Lovel for his early poems.[517] From 1798 to the end +of his life Bowles wrote constantly, so the list of his works is a long +one; but in the present study we are concerned only with the poems +before 1798, the ones that stirred Coleridge to abandon metaphysics for +poetry. + +From fourteen to nineteen years of age Bowles was in Winchester School +under the tutelage of Dr. Joseph Warton, who won the boy’s confidence +and inspired him with his own tastes. In the “Monody on the Death of +Dr. Warton,” written eighteen years after these school days, Bowles +says of Warton, + + Thy cheering voice, + O Warton! bade my silent heart rejoice, + And wake to love of nature; every breeze + On Itchen’s brink was melody; the trees + Waved in fresh beauty; ... + ... And witness thou + Catherine, upon whose foss-encircled brow + We met the morning, how I loved to trace + The prospect spread around.... + So passed my days with new delight. + +Warton also taught him to love literature. He learned to read Greek +poets with “young-eyed sympathy,” and he went with “holier joy” to + + The lonely heights where Shakespeare sat sublime. + +Charmed, the lad bent his soul + + Great Milton’s solemn harmonies to hear. + +“Unheeded midnight hours” were beguiled by the wild song of Ossian, and +his fancy found a “magic spell” in the “Odes” of his master, Dr. Warton. + +The influences of these early school days had awakened Bowles to love +of Nature and of poetry, and when sorrow came it was to Nature and +to poetry that he turned for relief. His “Sonnets” are the direct +and genuine expression of a personal grief. They were composed, he +says, during a tour in which he “sought forgetfulness of the first +disappointment in early affections,”[518] and they are pervaded by a +melancholy unmistakably real. But along with this deep sadness is a +frequent recognition of the power of Nature to give at least temporary +respite from grief. Not only does she “steep each sense in still +delight,”[519] but she bestows “a soothing charm.”[520] The lovely +sights and sounds of morning + + Touch soft the wakeful nerve’s according string.[521] + +The river Itchen brings “solace to his heart.”[522] After visiting the +Cherwell he says: + + Whate’er betide, yet something have I won + Of solace, that may bear me on serene.[523] + +In the midst of sorrow he is + + Thankful that still the landscape beaming bright + Can wake the wonted sense of pure delight.[524] + +What Bowles saw in Nature was largely determined by his state of +mind. His own sadness led him to a quick perception of the pensive or +melancholy suggestions in any scene. He loved sequestered streams, +romantic vales, the hush of evening. The sounds he heard were soft +and plaintive. The river Wainsbeck makes “a plaintive song among its +“mossy-scattered rocks.”[525] He listens to the wind and seems to hear +a plaint of sorrow.[526] Sea sounds are + + Like melodies that mourn upon the lyre.[527] + + There is strange music in the stirring wind + When lowers the autumnal eve.[528] + +Of the bells at Ostend he says: + + And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall; + And now, along the white and level tide, + They fling their melancholy music wide; + Bidding me many a tender thought recall + Of summer days, and those delightful years + When from an ancient tower, in life’s fair prime, + The mournful magic of their mingling chime + First waked my wondering childhood into tears.[529] + +Again, his own striving after self-control leads him to look with +pleasure on such natural objects as have withstood the shock of +tempests. Rugged Malvern Hill, on which the “parting sun sits smiling,” +teaches him a lesson of victory over grief, and he exclaims, + + Ev’n as thou + Dost lift in the pale beam thy forehead high, + Proud mountain! whilst the scattered vapours fly + Unheeded round thy breast--so, with calm brow + The shades of sorrow I may meet, and wear + The smile unchanged of peace, though pressed by care![530] + +Some of the brief descriptions in these sonnets are not without a +certain beauty in themselves, as in this passage from “Dover Cliffs”: + + On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood + Uprear their shadowing heads, and at their feet + Hear not the surge that has for ages beat, + How many a lonely wanderer has stood! + And, whilst the lifted murmur met his ear, + And o’er the distant billows the still eve + Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave + Tomorrow. + +But here, as elsewhere in the poems, the chief thought is human grief; +and the most important characteristic of the poems, taken as a whole, +is the intimate union between the spirit of a man and the spirit of +Nature. It was always Bowles’ theory, says Clark,[531] that Nature is +the true subject of poetry; but he does not, in his later work, strike +so true and simple a note as in these early sonnets. + +Such general statements as are to be drawn from this study of specific +poets can be more advantageously made after the chapters on “Fiction,” +“Travels,” “Gardening,” and “Painting,” for these chapters offer facts +that modify or confirm the impressions gained from the poetry. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + FICTION + + +The great achievement of the eighteenth century was in the development +of fiction. The famous names here are, of course, Richardson, +Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. After them, and also to a less degree +contemporary with them, are many writers of fiction the quality of +whose work has consigned them to the list of “The Neglected, the +Disdained, the Forgotten,” and in most cases it would be a literary +misfortune if by any chance they should fall into the fourth class, +“The Resuscitated.” As literature they are almost unreadable. It +is only from the historical point of view that they can arouse any +real interest. For the present purpose I do not pretend to have read +all the works of fiction written in the eighteenth century. The +forty-three mentioned here were selected because by their dates they +represent the century as a whole, and because they represent also the +various kinds of fiction. I shall first speak of these briefly in +chronological order, and then indicate such general statements as may +seem the legitimate outcome of the facts presented. The one point to be +considered is the use made of external Nature in the novel or romance. + +The “Sir Roger de Coverley” papers (Addison and Steele, 1712) are +continuous narratives marked by some at least of the characteristics of +the coming English novel. Many of these papers purport to be written +from the country and Will Wimble complains that they “begin to smell +confoundedly of woods and meadows.” After a time the author finds +himself growing short of subjects in the country, and returns to +town as the true “field of game for sportsmen of his species.” Though +written from the country the papers have nothing about country scenes +except frequent phrases such as, “We then took a walk in the fields,” +and one brief description of “a solemn walk of elms,” unless, indeed, +we might add the pleasure the author took in his friend’s poultry yard. +The stress is all on country people. + +“Robinson Crusoe” (Defoe, 1719), the first great example of the +_voyage imaginaire_, necessarily regards Nature from the point +of view of immediate utility. The whole interest of the book rests on +the mechanical ingenuity whereby man subdues Nature. There are few if +any passages where Robinson Crusoe is represented as being in any way +sensitive to the beauty or charm of Nature. + +In “Pamela” (Richardson, 1740) there is much talk about the value of +travel in Great Britain and on the continent, but there is not a word +about the scenery of the places visited. Pamela sums up her impressions +of travel in England in one sentence. “These excursions have given me +infinite delight and pleasure, and enlarged my notions of the wealth +and power of the kingdom” (Vol. III, p. 304). When Lord B. and Pamela +are spending their honeymoon in their Kentish house they plan certain +improvements such as cutting a vista through the coppice; they train +the vines around the windows because they love the mingled odors of +woodbines and jessamines; and they listen for two hours at a stretch +to the “responsive songs of two warbling nightingales” (Vol. II, +p. 163). Earlier in their career, during a walk in the garden, the +fragrance from a bank of flowers inspires Lord B. to sing a typical +eighteenth-century song of which this is one stanza: + + The purple violet, damask rose, + Each, to delight your senses, blows. + The lilies ope as you appear; + And all the beauties of the year + Diffuse their odours at your feet, + Who give to ev’ry flower its sweet. + +There is not a hint in the book of any feeling toward Nature except +such as is characteristic of the pseudo-classical poetry. + +In “Joseph Andrews” (Fielding, 1742) there are four brief passages +in which Nature is touched upon. Two of these are evidently meant as +satires on the ordinary descriptions of sunrise. The first one is as +follows: + +“Aurora now began to show her blooming cheeks over the hills, whilst +ten millions of feathered songsters, in jocund chorus, repeated odes +a thousand times sweeter than those of our laureate” (p. 43; cf. p. +219). The longest description is of a vale with a winding rivulet, many +trees, and soil “spread with a verdure which no paint could imitate,” +the whole place being such as “might have raised romantic ideas in +older minds than those of Joseph and Fanny” (p. 226). + +In “Jonathan Wild” (Fielding, 1743) there are no references to the +world of Nature. + +In “David Simple” (Sarah Fielding, 1744) the search of the hero for a +true friend is so complicated and absorbing an occupation that there is +no room for observation of the external world. + +In “Clarissa Harlowe” (Richardson, 1748) there is one simile drawn from +Nature (Vol. II, p. 478), one mention of the “variegated prospects” +from Hampstead Heath (Vol. III, p. 198), and one reference to an +overgrown ivy so thick as to be a shelter from the rain (Vol. I, p. +394). + +In “Roderick Random” (Smollett, 1748) there are no references to Nature. + +Of the eight passages referring to Nature in “Tom Jones” (Fielding, +1749) two are satirical of the conventional descriptions and +similitudes of the day. + + Aurora now first opened her casement, _Anglicé_, the day + began to break (Vol. II, p. 9). + + As in the month of June, the damask rose, which chance hath + planted among the lilies, with their candid hues mixes his + vermilion; or, as some playful heifer in the pleasant month of + May diffuses her odoriferous breath over the flowery meadows; or + as, in the blooming month of April, the gentle, constant dove, + perched on some fair bough, sits meditating on her mate, so sits + Sophia, looking a hundred charms, and breathing as many sweets, + her thoughts being fixed on her Tommy (Vol. II, p. 61). + +A third passage, also satirical, is, “And now the moon began to put +forth her silver light, as the poets call it (though she looked at +that time more like a piece of copper)” (Vol. II, p. 172). There is +one appreciative reference to the attractive scenery of Devon and +Dorset. The description of Mr. Allworthy’s estate which owed “less to +art than to nature,” is modern in tone and marks the break already +made with the formal garden (Vol. I, p. 12). In another passage there +is an expression of pleasure in a wide prospect, seen by moonlight, +for “the solemn light which the moon casts on all objects is beyond +expression beautiful, especially to an imagination which is desirous of +cultivating melancholy ideas” (Vol. I, p. 422). The other passages are +of no significance. + +“Peter Wilkins” (Robert Paltock, 1751) is the first and most famous of +the successors of “Robinson Crusoe.” The scene of Peter’s trials and +successes is laid in Africa and the southern islands. There is but one +brief passage in which there is even the slightest indication that the +author thought of Nature from any but the utilitarian point of view. + +“Pompey the Little” (Coventry, 1751) is a romance ostensibly relating +with serio-comic minuteness the life and adventures of a lapdog much +in the manner of the _novele picaresco_ of Mendozo and Aleman, but +really dealing in thinly disguised social satire. It makes no use of +Nature, unless we may count poor Mr. Rhymer who looks at the moon and +quotes Milton to the extravagant amusement of a group of dandies who +observe him. + +In “Peregrine Pickle” (Smollett, 1751) Peregrine sings one of the +conventional songs to Emilia, beginning, + + Thy charms divinely bright appear + And add new splendor to the year. + +This is the only use of Nature in the book. The eighteen months of +travel in France and Holland do not suggest a single phrase about the +scenery of those countries. + +Mrs. Lennox’s “The Female Quixote” (1752) is a record of the absurd and +futile attempts of a beautiful maiden unfortunately brought up on “the +languishing love romances of the Calprenedos and the Scuderis” to make +over the practical world about her according to the laws of love and +chivalry. Almost all her adventures occur in the country, but there are +only two references to the out-door world. Of the estate of the marquis +it is said: “The most laborious endeavours of art had been expended to +make it appear like the beautiful product of wild uncultivated nature.” + +In another passage the heroine is said to lead her unhappy friend into +the garden, “supposing a person whose uneasiness proceeded from love +would be pleased with the sight of groves and streams.” + +In “Ferdinand Count Fathom” (Smollett, 1753) there is merely a +conventional description of a furious storm. + +In “Sir Charles Grandison” (Richardson, 1753) there are two interesting +passages concerning the estate of Sir Charles. It was his aim not +“to force and distort nature, but to help it as he finds it, without +letting art be seen in his works, where he can possibly avoid it” +(Vol. II, p. 276). A part of the estate was evidently laid out +according to the ideas of Kent and Brown, but the orchard “with its +regular semicircle rows of pears, apples, cherries, plums and apricots, +arranged according to the season of flowering,” belonged to the days of +Sir Thomas, when symmetry and regularity ruled (Vol. IV, p. 238). In +this novel also is Richardson’s frequently quoted description of Savoy, +“equally noted for its poverty and rocky mountains ... one of the worst +countries under heaven” (Vol. III, pp. 138–42). + +We have now passed the middle of the century and there has not been +in the works of fiction mentioned a single passage indicating any +close observation or love of Nature, and hardly a passage showing +any knowledge of Nature except as found in parks and gardens. But +in 1756–66 there appeared a fantastic novel by Thomas Amory called +“The Life of John Buncle,” which is notable in the present study +because nearly all the adventures whereby the hero gains and loses +his seven Socinian wives occur among the mountains of Westmoreland +and Cumberland. We have but to compare the book with Mrs. Ward’s +“Robert Elsmere” to see how extravagantly unreal are most of Amory’s +descriptions. They often contain marvels equal to those of “Vathek.” +The mountains are made as lofty and dangerous as the most inaccessible +Alps, and they are so heaped in together that progress from one +valley to another would be out of the question were it not for +convenient caves and natural tunnels by which the venturesome hero +makes his way from vale to vale. But in the midst of these absurdities +and impossibilities, there are occasional passages of effective +description, and of real appreciation of wild mountain scenery. It is +an entirely new note in fiction and it followed close upon the poem +by Dr. Dalton, which was probably the first poetical tribute to the +scenery of the Lakes. Mr. Amory aptly describes mountain tarns as +pools of “black, standing, unfathomable water” (Vol. I, p. 290). He +frequently gives enthusiastic descriptions of the views from mountain +tops. In one passage he says: “I climbed up to the top by a steep, +craggy way. This was very difficult and dangerous, but I had an +enchanting prospect when I gained the summit of the hill.... The vast +hills had a fine effect in the view” (Vol. II, p. 122; cf. Vol. I, p. +167). + +Of Westmoreland he says: + + The Vale of Keswick and Lake of Derwentwater, in Cumberland, + are thought by those who have been there to be the finest point + of view in England, and extremely beautiful they are, far more + so than Dr. Dalton has been able to make them appear in his + descriptive poem; or than the Doctor’s brother, Mr. Dalton, has + painted them in his fine drawings; and yet they are inferior + in charms to the vale, the lake, the brooks, the shaded sides + of the surrounding mountains, and the tuneful falls of water + to which we came in Westmoreland. In all the world, I believe, + there is not a more glorious scene to be seen in the fine time + of the year (Vol. III, p. 93). + +And, again, “Westmoreland is the most beautiful and romantic solitude +in the world” (Vol. III, p. 151). The first volume of Amory’s book +appeared in 1756. The other volumes, written at intervals thereafter, +were published in 1766. The best passages are in the third volume, but +at the latest they must have been written three years before Gray made +his tour to the lakes. It would be interesting to know whether Gray had +read “John Buncle,” as Amory had Dalton’s poem. At any rate Amory’s +novel shows how early the Lake District was visited by lovers of the +beautiful, for he not only describes it himself, but he speaks as if +there were already a good deal of discussion as to the rival charms of +Keswick and Westmoreland. + +In “Rasselas” (Dr. Johnson, 1759) the scenery of the Happy Valley is +briefly described. Since it was a spot where “all the diversities +of the world were brought together, the blessings of nature were +collected, and its evils were extracted and excluded,” it would be in +vain to look for first-hand description. We have merely an impossible +combination of millennial details. After leaving the Happy Valley Imlac +wanders through the world, but his only impression from Nature is a +feeling of repulsion at the “barren uniformity” of the ocean. When +he tried to be a poet he did, to be sure, turn to Nature. He “ranged +mountains and deserts for images and similitudes” in true classical +style. He studied trees and flowers, he wandered along rivulets, +and sometimes he watched the clouds, for “to a poet nothing can be +useless.” Dr. Johnson’s use of Nature in “Rasselas” is tasteless and +insipid. + +Sterne’s one allusion to Nature in “Tristram Shandy” (1759–67) is too +characteristic to be omitted. It occurs in the description of a journey. + + There is nothing more terrible to travel-writers than a large + rich plain, especially if it is without great rivers or bridges; + and presents nothing to the eye but one unvaried picture of + plenty; for after they have once told you that it is delicious + or delightful (as the case may happen); that the soil was + grateful and that nature pours out all her abundance, etc., they + have then a large plain upon their hands which they know not + what to do with and which is of little or no use to them but to + carry them to the next town. + +In “Almoran and Hamet” (Hawkesworth, 1761), an oriental tale, there is +no use of Nature except in a few far-fetched similes, and one or two +phrases about the lengthening evening shadows. + +In “Sir Launcelot Greaves” (Smollett, 1762) there is no reference to +Nature except in a sarcastic allusion to poets who cannot talk of a +beautiful girl without “blending the lily and the rose and bringing in +a parcel of similes of cowslips, carnations, pinks, and daisies.” + +Mrs. Brooke’s “The History of Lady Julia Mandeville” (1763) has a hero +and a heroine who rejoice in “a genuine taste for elegant nature,” and +their letters contain some descriptive passages evidently intended to +combine vividness and elegance. The gardens and parks behind the house +are “romantic beyond the wantonness of imagination,” and the whole +adjoining country has “every charm of lovely unadorned nature.” Beyond +the house there is “an avenue of the tallest trees which lets in the +prospect of a fruitful valley, bounded at a distance by a mountain, +down the sides of which rushes a foaming cascade, which spreads into +a thousand meandering streams in the vale below.” In the woods are +rustic temples “in the most elegant style of simplicity.” At the close +of a walk they come to a grotto “wildly lovely, its entrance almost +hidden by the vines that flaunt over its top,” and there they find +an opportune repast with servants in attendance. The motherly care +with which Mrs. Brooke preserves her delicately bred characters from +roughness or fatigue or hunger interferes somewhat with her attempts +to represent “simple, unadorned nature,” and in spite of her protests +against “the gloomy haunts of London” she never quite gets out into the +free country. Her raptures have a forced, made-up air. The exclamatory +ecstacy of such passages as the following is certainly open to +suspicion: + + “What a divine morning! how lovely is the face of nature! The + blue serene of Italy with the lovely verdure of England! But + behold a more charming object than nature herself! The sweet, + the young, the blooming Lady Julia!” + +There is a more genuine ring to Lady Wilmot’s protest, “The finest +landscape is a dreary wild without people.” + +Most of the action in Mrs. Brooke’s second novel, “Emily Montague,” +is laid in Canada, which country Mrs. Brooke had visited. The book +represents her enjoyment of the strange scenes about her. The beauty +of the river Montmorenci more than repays Miss Arabella Fermor for +the fatigues of a voyage across the Atlantic. The hero finds that the +streams and mountains of England seem petty when he is in the presence +of the majesty and sublimity of the western world. The descriptions are +perhaps over-elaborate, but they are not ineffective, and they show +much closer knowledge of natural phenomena and more real interest in +them, than do the tamer passages in the preceding novel. + +In the famous “Castle of Otranto” (Walpole, 1764) there is no use +whatever of Nature. + +In Brooke’s “Fool of Quality” (1766) the sky is fitly spoken of as “a +stupendous expanse sumptuously furnished with a profusion of planets.” +Certainly no other sort of sky would have presumed to bend down over +Mr. Brooke’s stupendous little prig of a hero. The chief use of Nature, +however, is in similes for Harry’s countenance which is “like sunshine +on a dark day,” or a “lake on a summer’s evening showing heaven in its +bosom,” or, if bathed in tears as it frequently was, “like the sun in a +shower.” + +The charm of “The Vicar of Wakefield” (Goldsmith, 1766) rests upon +its sweetness and purity, its quaint humor, and its quality of fresh, +open-air wholesomeness. Its use of Nature is of the most casual, +unemphasized sort. There are not in the whole work twenty-five lines +concerning the country scenes in which all the action takes place. And +yet these simple, direct phrases have a magical power of suggestion. +The seat under the hawthorn where the family drank their tea and +watched the sunset, the dinner in the hayfield, the brief description +of the little farm, have in them the power of reality and do more +to give a free, out-of-doors atmosphere to the story than all Mrs. +Brooke’s panegyrics. But here, as in Goldsmith’s other works, the +stress is on the characters, and the little, truthful pictures of +Nature seem almost accidental. + +In Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey” (1768) there is no use of external +Nature. + +Of Mackenzie’s “Man of Feeling” (1771) the same may be said unless, +indeed, we except one reference to a scene “not unlike Salvator’s +backgrounds.” + +Smollett’s “Humphrey Clinker” (1771) is the last of his novels and the +only one in which there is effective use of Nature. Smollett was born +and brought up in the valley of the Leven; and he spent some months +there before the final trip to Italy for his health. He was in Leghorn +about a year before he died, and during this year he wrote “Humphrey +Clinker.” It recounts the travels of Matthew Bramble in search of +health. The love of Nature comes out chiefly in the letters supposed to +be written from Scotland. He speaks with pleasure of the “huge dusky +mountains of the West Highlands, piled one over another,” and of Loch +Lomond, that “surprising body of pure, transparent water, unfathomably +deep in many places,” with its green, wooded islands. His delight in +the wild scenery of Scotland is thus expressed: + + I have seen the Lago di Gardi, Albano, De Vico, Bolsena, and + Geneva, and upon my honor, I prefer Loch Lomond to them all; a + preference which is certainly owing to the verdant islands that + seem to float upon its surface, affording the most enchanting + objects of repose to the excursive view. Nor are the banks + destitute of beauties, which even partake of the sublime. On + this side they display a sweet variety of woodland, cornfield, + and pasture, with several agreeable villas emerging as it were + out of the lake, till at some distance the prospect terminates + in huge mountains, covered with heath, which being in the bloom, + affords a very rich covering of purple. Everything here is + romantic beyond imagination.... Above the house is a romantic + glen or cleft of a mountain covered with hanging woods, having + at bottom a stream of fine water that forms a number of cascades + in its descent to form the Leven; so that the scene is quite + enchanting.... This country is amazingly wild, especially + towards the mountains, which are heaped upon the backs of one + another, making a most stupendous appearance of savage nature, + with hardly any signs of cultivation, or even of population. All + is sublimity, silence, and solitude (pp. 261–65). + +On the country of Ossian he says: + + These are the lonely hills of Morven, where Fingal and his + heroes enjoyed the same pastime. I feel an enthusiastic pleasure + when I survey the brown heath that Ossian was wont to tread; and + hear the wind whistle through the bending grass.... The poems of + Ossian are in every mouth. + +Smollett’s love for the Leven, that “charming stream ... transparent, +pastoral, delightful,” is further evidenced by this “Ode to the Leven,” +a single stanza of which may be quoted here: + + Pure stream in whose transparent wave + My youthful limbs I wont to lave; + No torrents stain thy limpid source, + No rocks impede thy dimpling course, + That sweetly warbles o’er its bed, + With white round polished pebbles spread (p. 262). + +Smollett has one character who labored under ἀγροφοβια, or _horror +of green fields_, but that was manifestly not his own case. Though +he completely ignored Nature in his other books, “Humphrey Clinker” is +ample proof of his sensitiveness to Nature and his descriptive power. +It needed a touch of homesickness and the vivifying force of early +associations to bring the feeling to the surface, but as soon as it +found expression there was revealed a closeness of observation and a +genuineness of affection for Nature in her milder forms not found in +any novel before “Humphrey Clinker.” The nearest approach to it is in +the fantastic work of Amory. + +In Clara Reeve’s “Old English Baron” (1777) there is one brief +conventional passage about the morning serenade of the birds and the +fragrance of the woodbine (p. 27). + +In “Julia de Roubigné” (1777) Mackenzie makes more use of Nature than +he had in “The Man of Feeling.” Julia and Savillon are both represented +as finding pleasure in the beautiful country around them. In one letter +Julia says: “Methinks I should hate to have been born in a town; +when I say my native brook, or my native hill, I talk of friends of +whom the remembrance warms my heart.” In the serenity of Nature she +finds calmness after spiritual tumult. Belville, the home of Julia, +is described as “a venerable pile, the remains of ancient Gothic +magnificence.” The most attractive part of the estate was “a wild and +rocky dell, where tasteless wealth had never warred on nature, nor even +elegance refined or embellished her beauties. The walks are only worn +by the tread of shepherds and the banks only smoothed by the feeding +of their flocks.” There is great regret expressed when the new owner +of Belville cuts down the trees, and puts in modern adornments “which +they call Chinese.” In this novel Mackenzie shows a real though narrow +appreciation of free, unsubdued Nature. + +In Fanny Burney’s “Evelina” (1778) the only touch of Nature is a +criticism of Vauxhall Gardens as being too formal and regular. In +“Cecilia” (1782) there is no use of Nature. + +William Beckford’s “Vathek” (1784) is an extravaganza where there is no +pretense of representing Nature as it is. A single quotation will give +the general tone. It is a description of a high mountain: + + Upon it grew a hundred thickets of eglantine and other fragrant + shrubs, a hundred arbours of roses, jessamines and honeysuckle, + as many clumps of orange trees, cedar, and citron whose branches + interwoven with the palm, the pomegranate, and the vine, + presented every luxury that could regale the eye or the taste. + The ground was strewed with violets, harebells, and pansies, in + the midst of which sprang forth tufts of jonquils, hyacinths, + and carnations, with every other perfume that impregnates the + air. + +In Dr. Moore’s “Zeluco” (1786) neither the hero himself, that “finished +model of depravity,” nor any of the characters associated with him, +show any knowledge of the existence of any world outside their own +intrigues and counter-intrigues. + +Mrs. Inchbald’s “A Simple Story” (1791) is a study of true and false +education. There is in it no word concerning Nature. The same may be +said of her “Nature and Art,” published in 1796. + +Godwin’s story, “Caleb Williams” (1794), has one brief, conventional +description of a sunrise. This ignoring of Nature seems the more +surprising in Godwin since his next novel, published ten years later, +“Fleetwood, or the New Man of Feeling,” is full of the wild scenery of +Wales and is really the study of a character made sensitive by early +and constant communion with Nature. But this novel would carry us into +the next century. + +Another novel of some repute toward the close of the century is Robert +Bage’s “Hermsprong, or Man as He Is Not” (1796). It was read chiefly +for its political bias toward the popular democratical doctrines. The +scene is laid chiefly in the country and there are occasional pleasant +bits of description. They are unimportant, but the book cannot be +dismissed without a reference to the hero who was compelled, by lack +of funds, to seek a country retreat, and who fortified his failing +resolution to leave the beloved city by quoting Thomson’s “Seasons.” + +The two authors who first made extensive use of Nature in fiction are +Mrs. Charlotte Smith and Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. + +Mrs. Smith shows in her novels and poems a really ardent enjoyment, +though seldom a close knowledge, of Nature. She indulges in long and +animated descriptions of places of which she has only vaguely heard and +the result is sometimes as amazing as the scenes in “Vathek.” In “The +Old Manor House” (1793), her best work, a part of the scene is laid in +the northern United States and Canada. Here is her idea of spring in +that region: + + The forest in only a few days after the severest weather, which + had buried the whole country in snow, burst into bloom, and + presented, beneath the tulip tree and the magnolia, a more + brilliant variety of flowers than art can collect in the most + cultivated European garden. + +The following is a description of Canada on the banks of the St. +Lawrence, “a very few days” after the severest winter weather: + + On the opposite side of the river lay an extensive savannah, + alive with cattle and coloured with such a variety of swamp + plants that their colour, even at that distance, detracted + something from the vivid green of the new-sprung grass.... The + acclivity on which the tents stood sinking very suddenly on the + left, there gave place to a cypress swamp ... while the rocks + rising suddenly and sharply were clothed with wood of various + species; the evergreen oak, the scarlet oak, the tulip tree + and magnolia, seemed bound together by festoons of flowers, + some resembling the convolvuluses of our garden, and others the + various sorts of clematis with vegenias and the Virginia creeper + ... beneath these fragrant wreaths that wound about the trees, + tufts of rhododendrons, and azalia, of andromedas and calmias, + grew in the luxuriant beauty; and strawberries already ripening, + or even ripe, peeped forth among the rich vegetation of grass + and flowers. + +Mrs. Smith’s imagination certainly had other laws than the dull ones +imposed by the facts of the case. She could hardly have mixed up zones +and seasons and flowers and fruits more successfully if she had tried. +But the notable point here is that there was in her mind an instinctive +and inevitable dwelling upon the scenery of the country through which +she led her hero. The English scenes are much better. The following +passage shows well her emotional openness to the influence of Nature. + + Just as he arrived at the water, from the deep gloom of the + tall firs through which he passed, the moon appeared behind the + opposite coppices, and threw her long line of trembling radiance + on the water. It was a cold but clear evening, and, though early + in November, the trees were not yet entirely stripped of their + discoloured leaves; a low wind sounded hollow through the firs + and stone pines over his head, and then faintly sighed among + the reeds that crowded into the water; no other sound was heard + but, at distant intervals, the cry of the wild fowl concealed + among them, or the dull murmur of the current, which was now + low. Orlando had hardly ever felt himself so impressed with + those feelings which inspire poetic effusions: Nature appeared + to pause and to ask the turbulent and troubled heart of man, + whether his silly pursuits were worth the toil he undertook for + them. Peace and tranquillity seemed here to have retired to a + transient abode; and Orlando, as slowly he traversed the narrow + path over ground made hollow by the roots of these old trees, + stepped as lightly as if he feared to disturb them. Insensibly + he began to compare this scene, the scene he every day saw of + rural beauty and rural content with those into which his destiny + was about to lead him. + +Mrs. Barbauld says that Mrs. Smith was one of the first to introduce +description of scenery into fiction. That she had predecessors we have +already seen, but it is true that she laid much more stress on Nature +than had any other novelist except Mrs. Radcliffe. Mrs. Smith has +frequent descriptions that are not needed for the progress of the plot +or the development of the characters, but are written purely for their +own sake. She also often uses Nature as dramatic background and she +represents her hero as deeply influenced by Nature. Mrs. Smith’s poems +further attest her love of Nature. In one poem she says, + + Farewell, Aruna! on whose varied shore + My early vows were paid to Nature’s shrine. + +In another she addresses the South Downs, + + Ah, hills beloved, where once a happy child, + Your beechen shades, your turfs, your flowers among, + I wove your bluebells into garlands wild. + +Mrs. Smith’s life was a most unhappy one, and she found her real +comfort in Nature. + +Mrs. Radcliffe’s “Romance of a Forest” (1791) appeared two years before +“The Old Manor House,” and “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1794) one +year after. In these novels by Mrs. Radcliffe the romantic landscape +was presented in its complete form. Except in the most rapid parts +of the story there is greater stress on the scenery than on the +characters. Emily, Adeline, and Clara seldom indulge in an emotion +without first describing the dell or glen or forest glade, to which +they have wandered. They are never too deeply agitated to observe the +glories of sunrise and sunset. A wide view can soothe any grief. This +susceptibility of the heroines to Nature is represented as one of their +greatest charms. Mrs. Radcliffe had never seen most of the scenes she +described. She had never been in France, Italy, or Switzerland. The +landscapes she gives us do not bear the stamp of reality. They are +ideal compositions but they are never merely an inventory nor are they +impossible combinations. Though not exactly true, they can be read +with pleasure because the details are blended into harmonious and +lovely pictures which seem to have caught the actual spirit of the +places described. She delighted in all kinds of Nature, peaceful or +wild, but her especial pleasure was in those phases of Nature ignored +by the classicists. Mountains, the ocean, the phenomena of the sky, +and deep forests, are chiefly dwelt upon in her descriptions. Her love +of the ocean is really a new element in the general attitude toward +Nature. Painting, poetry, and fiction had up to this time put little +stress on the ocean, but Mrs. Radcliffe in frequent passages shows +that her own feeling was that of Adeline, of whom she says, “Of all +the grand objects which nature had exhibited the ocean supplied her +with the most sublime admiration. She loved to wander alone by its +shore.” It is, however, in the representation of forest scenes that +Mrs. Radcliffe’s most effective work is done. The wild and terrifying +influence of the dark woods that cover the Apennines, all the dim +and shadowy loveliness, all the mystery and suggestiveness of the +romantic forest about the ruined abbey, reappear in her descriptions. +Her feeling toward mountains is one of almost extravagant delight in +their vastness, their wildness, their remoteness, and inaccessibility. +She is deeply sensitive to all the “goings on” in the sky. She catches +with accuracy the most ethereal, delicate, evanescent effects. It +is especially mystery and remoteness that she loves, hence night, +moonlight, and stars attract her. Closely connected with her pleasure +in the sky is her artistic openness to all aërial transformations. +In her wide views over land and sea, in vistas caught through forest +glades, in pictures of twilight or dawn, of sunrise or sunset, she +seldom fails to note the quick shiftings of color and form, the +interplay of light and shade, the dimness, the transparency, the +luminosity, resulting from atmospheric changes. + +She looked upon Nature not only, as she said of one of her own +characters, “with the eye of an artist, but with the raptures of a +poet.” The effect of Nature on man in soothing his grief, modifying +his passions, and elevating his character is everywhere insisted upon. +As Adeline’s eyes “wandered through the romantic glades that opened +into the forest her heart was gladdened.” Through the melancholy +boughs the evening twilight, which still colored the air, “diffused a +solemnity that vibrated in thrilling sensations upon the hearts of +the travellers.... The tranquillity of the scene, which autumn had +touched with her sweetest tints, softened her mind to a tender kind of +melancholy.” + +The Alps “filled her mind with sublime emotions.” The solitary grandeur +of these scenes both “assisted and soothed the melancholy of her +heart.” The stillness and total seclusion of the scene, the stupendous +mountains, the gloomy grandeur of the woods, “diffuse a sacred +enthusiasm over the mind and awaken sensations truly sublime.” Such a +scene “fills the soul with emotions of indescribable awe, and seems to +lift it to a nobler nature.” “It was in the tranquil observation of +beautiful nature” that Clara’s mind recovered its tone. The moonlight +on the sea seemed to “diffuse peace.” Twilight sometimes “inspires +the mind with pensive tenderness,” sometimes “exalts it to sublime +meditations.” The Alps inspire reflections that “soften and elevate +the heart and fill it with the certainty of a present God.” Such +expressions were repeated with an insistence that becomes monotonous. +There is, indeed, an element of sameness in all the descriptions, an +effect the more tiresome because they are so numerous. So large a +descriptive element would hardly be admitted in a novel today unless +justified by some remarkable power of word-painting. Mrs. Radcliffe’s +descriptions would doubtless invite the modern reader, at least after +a steady progress through four or five volumes, to do some judicious +skipping. But thought of as in her own day, Mrs. Radcliffe must always +rank as a discoverer, so new and fresh was this element she brought +into fiction. As is usual with discoverers she overworked her idea. She +was not a great genius. She was often weakly sentimental. But she had +a genuine and most ardent love of Nature, and, when at her best, had +exceptional descriptive power. Her fame and her influence on succeeding +literature rest on these characteristics. + +In “Fiction,” as in “Travels” and “Poetry,” there is the transfer of +interest from what man does or is, to the powers of untrammeled Nature. +The new spirit here, as in “Travels,” is late in finding adequate +expression. We can hardly put any real beginnings of it earlier than +“John Buncle” (1756–66). Even after that, development is spasmodic and +slow. In most of the novels and romances we find the romantic impulse +to see strange lands, but men and manners absorb the attention of the +travelers. Mrs. Radcliffe’s fugitives in “The Romance of the Forest,” +the travelers in “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” and Mrs. Brooke’s soldier +in “Emily Montague” are the first to make much of the scenery through +which they pass. + +In general we may say that novels had little to do with Nature, +and romances much. This may account for the lack of reality in +the descriptions. There is nothing in any work of fiction at all +correspondent to the temperate, truthful, clear-cut work of Cowper and +Burns. There is practically nothing of the bald realism of John Scott, +whose poetry was written rather in the scientific temper with which +most travels were undertaken. Nor, on the other hand, is there anything +of the visionary, mystical power of Blake. The best use of Nature in +fiction is more akin to the emotionalism of Beattie. Except for Mrs. +Radcliffe, and she came late in the century, fiction contributed less +to bring about the new attitude toward Nature than did any other form +of art expression. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + TRAVELS + + +It is impossible to do more here than merely to sketch the +possibilities in a “History of the Tour and the Guide Book,” because +the mass of material to be gone over is so great. Pinkerton’s +“Catalogue of Voyages and Travels,” published in 1814, gives over 4,500 +books. It is so elaborately tabulated that it is not easy to use, but +it is possible to cull from its voluminous pages a fairly compendious +list of such travels as were published in England in the eighteenth +century. In this list there are about 360 books. Of these 360 books +all but 84 are travels outside of Great Britain and Ireland. Their +distribution through the century indicates a steady growth of interest +in foreign lands, for nearly half of the English accounts of travels +in other countries belong in the last quarter of the century. But +these foreign tours, however interesting in themselves, are outside +the present field of inquiry. They were undertaken usually with some +definite purpose. Antiquities, curiosities, minerals; laws, manners, +customs; utilitarian possibilities--these were the leading subjects +of inquiry. In the titles such phrases as, “relating chiefly to the +history, antiquities, and geography;” “remarks on Characters and +Manners;” “chiefly relative to the knowledge of mankind, industry, +literature, and natural history;” “with an account of the most +memorable sieges;” “containing a great variety of geographical, +topographical and political observations;” “containing specially a +description of fortified towns;” “containing a Picture of the Country, +the Manners, and the Actual Government,” are of constant recurrence and +serve to mark out the general scope of these works. There are, to be +sure, in these books, many scattered descriptions of the natural scenes +visited. This is especially true of the “Travels” in the last quarter +of the century. But to study these descriptions, even superficially, +would be too wide a work for the present limits. Furthermore, the +accounts of the tours made in the United Kingdom will doubtless reveal +the characteristics of the observations made in foreign lands. + +One of the early books of English travel in the eighteenth century is +Mr. Martin’s “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland” (1703). +It is this book that stirred Dr. Johnson to make his visit to the +Hebrides, and it is from this that Mallet drew the details for his +“Amyntor and Theodora.” In the Preface Martin says: + + Perhaps it is peculiar to those isles, that they have never been + described till now by any man that was a native of the country, + or had traveled them.... Descriptions of countries, without + the natural histories of them, are now justly reckoned to be + defective. This I had a particular regard to in the following + descriptions, and have everywhere taken notice of the nature of + the climate and soil, and of the remarkable cures performed by + the natives merely by the use of simples. + +This preliminary promise of first-hand observation, especially so far +as Nature is concerned, is hardly carried out. The book is a credulous, +entertaining, unsifted narrative of whatever marvels came to his +ears. His interest rested chiefly on strange cures made by the use of +“simples.” The “Description” has the negative importance of entirely +ignoring Nature. In its 120 pages there is not a word or phrase in +recognition of the wild and beautiful scenery in these islands. + +The same distinction holds of Brand’s “Brief Description of Orkney, +Zetland, Pightland-Firth, and Caithness” (1701). Brand was one of a +commission sent by the General Assembly to inquire into religious +matters in the northern islands, so it is not strange that he +bestows much attention on heathenish and popish rites, charms, and +superstitions. He is also much interested in the prevailing diseases +and the means of cure employed by the natives, and he says much of +their customs, manners, and personal appearance. He describes the +crops, the climate, the favorite articles of food, but his eyes are +holden to the charms of scenery. + +In 1715 appeared Alexander Pennecuik’s “Description of Tweeddale.” He +was a physician and for thirty years his employment had obliged him to +know and observe every corner of Tweeddale. He found great pleasure in +“herbalizing shady groves and mountains,” and the chief value of his +work is accordingly in its numerous botanical observations. Not a stray +sentence indicates pleasure in the beauty of the Lowland mountains. + +Except for the work of Brand, Martin, and Pennecuik, the first half of +the century shows but a meager list of travels. Besides eight “Tours” +published anonymously, Pinkerton records only Gordon’s “Itinerarium +Septentrionale” (in Scotland and Northern England) in 1726, and Macky’s +“Journey through England” in 1732. In 1762 appeared Hamilton’s “Letters +from Antrim,” the chief subject of which was announced to be “the +Natural History of the Basaltes.” Mr. Hamilton spoke occasionally of +the beautiful and picturesque appearance of the Irish coast, but he +professed himself an advocate of Mr. Locke’s system of a dictionary +of pictures in preference to a dictionary of tedious descriptions. +From 1764 to 1769 Mr. Bushe added his contribution to Irish “Travels,” +the objects dwelt upon in his “Hibernia Curiosa” being “Manners, +observations on the state of Trade and Agriculture, and Natural +Curiosities.” + +Much of the work in “Travels” or “Tours” in the eighteenth century is +thrown into the form of familiar letters. By far the most important of +these tourists’ letters from the present point of view is Dr. Brown’s +description of Keswick in a letter to Lyttleton. This letter was +printed at Newcastle in 1767 but it was written at least a year earlier +for Dr. Brown died in 1766. Even this date puts it with “John Buncle” +and Dr. Dalton’s “Descriptive Poem” as being one of the three earliest +descriptions of the Lake Region.[532] Since it is so little known some +unusually long extracts from it may be of value: + + But at Keswick, you will on one side of the lake, see a rich + and beautiful landskip of cultivated fields.... On the opposite + shore you will find rocks and cliffs of stupendous height, + hanging broken over the lake in horrible grandeur, some of + them a thousand feet high; the woods climb up their steep and + shaggy sides, where mortal foot never yet approached: on these + dreadful heights the eagles build their nests; a variety of + waterfalls are seen pouring from their summits and tumbling + from rock to rock, in rude and terrible magnificence, while on + all sides of this immense amphitheatre the lofty mountains rise + around, piercing the clouds in shapes as spiry and fantastic + as the very rocks of Dovedale. To this I must add the frequent + and bold projection of the cliffs into the lake, forming noble + bays and promontories; in other parts they finely retire from + it and often open in abrupt chasms or clefts, through which at + hand you see rich and uncultivated vales, and, beyond these, at + various distance, mountain rising over mountain, among which, + new prospects present themselves in mist, till the eye is lost + in an agreeable perplexity, + + Where active fancy travels beyond sense + And pictures things unseen. + + Were I to analyze the two places in their + constituent principles, I should tell you that the full + perfection of Keswick consists of three circumstances, beauty, + horror, and immensity united.... + + So much for what I would call the permanent beauties of this + astonishing scene. Were I not afraid of being tiresome I could + now dwell as long on its varying or accidental beauties.... + Sometimes a serene air and clear sky disclose the tops of the + highest hills; at others, you see the clouds involving their + summits, resting on their sides or descending to their base, + and rolling among the valleys, as in a vast furnace; when the + winds are high, they roar among the cliffs and caverns like + peals of thunder; then too the clouds are seen in vast bodies + sweeping along the hills in gloomy greatness, while the lake + joins the tumult and tosses like a sea; but in calm weather the + whole scene becomes new; the lake is a perfect mirror and the + landscape in all its beauty, islands, fields, woods, rocks and + mountains, are seen inverted and floating on its surface. I will + now carry you to the top of a cliff, where, if you dare approach + the ridge, a new scene of astonishment presents itself; where + the valley, lake and islands are seen lying at your feet; where + this expanse of water appears diminished to a little pool amidst + the vast and immeasurable objects that surround it; for here + the summits of more distant hills appear beyond those you have + already seen; and rising behind each other in successive ranges + and azure groups of craggy and broken steeps, form an immense + and awful picture, which can only be expressed by the image of a + tempestuous sea of mountains. Let me now conduct you down again + to the valley and conclude with one circumstance more, which + is, that a walk by still moonlight (at which time the distant + waterfalls are heard in all their variety of sound) among these + enchanting dales, opens such scenes of delicate beauty, repose + and solemnity as exceed all description. + +Mr. Gilpin knew Dr. Brown’s “Letter,” for in his Cumberland “Tour” +(1772) he justified his own preference for Keswick by saying that this +region had also been singled out by Dr. Brown, “who was a man of taste +and had seen every part of this country.” Mr. Hutchinson quoted the +whole of the “Letter.” Mr. West went to Keswick with the “Letter” in +hand, trembling with eagerness to experience the joys it depicted. +Certainly this “Letter from Keswick” in the delight with which it +dwells on the wild and terrible elements of Nature, in its detailed +observation, in its artistic appreciation of the accidental effects +of atmospheric conditions, and in its sensitiveness to the spirit of +the place, comes very close to the modern enthusiasm for mountains. +The details are sometimes exaggerated and the author’s rapture may +seem over-stated, but the genuineness of his feeling, and the reality +of his knowledge of mountains and lake, must remain unquestioned. The +“Letter” is one of the first, and the most considerable of the early +contributions to the literature of the Lakes. + +The great period of English travels began in 1767 with Arthur Young’s +“Six Weeks’ Tour in the Southern Counties of England and Wales.” In +1768 (June to November) he wrote his “Six Months’ Tour in the North of +England.” His next important work, “A Farmer’s Tour through the East +of England,” was published in 1771. His “Tour in Ireland” appeared +in 1779. The professed design of these sketches was husbandry. +Agriculture, industry, population, farming experiments, prices, +laws--these were the topics on which he wished to inform himself +and others. He had apparently, in his original plan, no thought of +describing the country through which he passed. There is in this +respect a significant difference between the books of 1767–68 and +that of 1779. In the first two he kept the text rigorously free from +all weakening admixture of landscape, the enthusiastic descriptions +of scenery appearing as footnotes. In the last, the descriptions +are boldly incorporated into the text, and form, what is more, a +surprisingly large proportion of it. In 1767–68 he described such +places as he happened to pass near. In 1779 he followed up one +river and down another professedly in search of “wild and romantic +landscapes.” In general character, however, the descriptions do not +greatly vary in the three books. The most numerous descriptions are of +gentlemen’s estates, perhaps in courteous repayment of hospitalities +received. These accounts are always detailed and often tedious. Young +apparently went about with the polite owner, sat in his seats, looked +down his vistas, observed his temples, and took notes thereon. Our +chief interest in these passages is the testimony they bear to Young’s +own preference for estates where art had done the least and Nature +most. “The owner has had the good judgment merely to assist nature,” or +“merely to render natural beauties accessible” are characteristic words +of praise. The best descriptions are not, however, of estates, but of +grand natural scenes. It is views from Persfeld on the Why (Wye);[533] +the wild country along the Tees; the English Lakes; the waterfalls and +wild glens near Powerscourt; the mountains and lakes of Killarney, +that really stir him. Such spots he describes with an enthusiasm that +never flags. He is tediously minute. He cannot let a detail escape. +And through all there is an eager, overflowing delight, a rapturous +pleasure in wild scenery such as we find in no traveler before Young +except Brown. He broods over a fine landscape. He is unwilling to lose +one of its possible charms. At Derwentwater he rows all around the +lake, around each island, stops to hunt up unseen waterfalls, climbs +all crags that promise fine views. He is indefatigable. No peril +stops him. He wonders why the people of Keswick do not at once cut +paths to the fine views so that no one need miss them. As he climbs +Skiddaw he laughs with scorn as he mentally compares “the effects of +a Louis’ magnificence to the play of nature in the vale of Keswick.” +His exclamation, “How trifling the labors of art to the mere sport of +nature!” certainly marks a rebound from conventional standards. The +view of “Winandermere” from the heights on the eastern shore is, he +thinks, “the most superlative view that nature can exhibit” or, if not, +she is “more fertile in beauties” than his imagination can conceive. +“To ride the eighteen miles from Bernard Castle to the falls of the +Tees one could well afford,” he says, “a journey of a thousand miles.” +He rides out to Haws Water. He makes a close study of Hulls Water. The +whole region holds him with a fascination nowhere repeated till he +finds himself, ten years later, among similar wild scenes in Ireland. +Here, almost forgetting that he is a scientific farmer in search of +information, he wanders along the picturesque banks of the Liffey, the +Boyne, the Nore, the Boyle, visits Lake Ennel, Loch Earne, the lakes of +Killarney, and writes descriptions in the manner of the most voluminous +and ardent of modern sightseers. Young’s significance in this study +rests not so much on any artistic excellence of expression as on his +wide observation, his personal enthusiasm for Nature, and his early +date. + +The next traveler of importance was Thomas Gray. The openness of Gray’s +mind to pleasure from the external world is hardly at all indicated in +his poetry. In his prose we find it especially in the “Journal in the +Lakes” in 1769. Thirty years before this, his “Journal in France” had +given some hint of his taste for wild scenery, but at that time, though +he expressed great pleasure in the “magnificent rudeness” of the Alps, +he had not entirely broken away from the current conceptions and the +current phraseology, as is shown by the sentence: “You here meet with +all the beauties so savage and horrid a place can present you with.” + +Gray’s published letters extend from 1739 to 1770. Scattered through +these are occasional passages indicative of a genuine love of Nature. +In the midst of a humorous letter to Walpole (Sept. 1737) he speaks +of “venerable beeches ... always dreaming out their old stories to +the winds.” After he came back from Scotland, in 1765, he wrote to Mr. +Mason: + + I am returned from Scotland charmed with my expedition; it is + of the Highlands I speak; the Lowlands are worth seeing once, + but the mountains are ecstatic, and ought to be visited in + pilgrimage once a year. None but these monstrous creatures of + God know how to join so much beauty with so much horror. A fig + for your poets, painters, gardeners, and clergymen, that have + not been up among them; their imagination can be made up of + nothing but bowling-greens, flowering shrubs, horse-ponds, Fleet + ditches, shell-grottoes, and Chinese rails. + +So early as 1739 he expressed his dislike of formal gardens in his +sarcastic description of the grounds at Versailles. The same feeling +of irritation at the preponderance of art over Nature recurs in his +description of Warwick in 1754. That even the most natural garden did +not satisfy Gray as did wild Nature we see from Mason’s lines written +just after the death of Gray. He evidently had not approved of “The +Garden” as a subject for a poem and Mason represents him as saying: + + “Why waste thy numbers on a trivial art, + That ill can mimic e’en the humblest charms + Of all-majestic Nature?” At the words + His eye would glisten, and his accents glow + With all the poet’s frenzy. “Sovereign Queen! + Behold, and tremble, while thou view’st her state + Throned on the heights of Skiddaw; call thy art + To build her such a throne; that art will feel + How vain her best pretensions. Trace her march + Amid the purple crags of Borrowdale,” etc. + +In general, however, the testimony of the letters is to a scientific +rather than a poetic love of Nature. There are many exact records of +the weather, of the coming crops, of the blossoming of flowers. A +single example may serve as typical. It is a record of observations +made at Stoke Pogis in July, 1754. + + Barley was in ear on the first day; gray and white peas in + bloom. The bean flowers were going off. Duke-cherries in plenty + on the 5th; hearts were also ripe. Green melons on the 6th, but + watry and not sweet. Currants began to ripen on the 8th, and red + gooseberries had changed color. + +And so on with nearly a hundred more of the tabulated natural facts. + +Of Gray as a traveler Sir James Mackintosh is quoted by Mitford as +saying: “Gray was the _first_ discoverer of the natural beauties +in England, and has marked out the course of every picturesque journey +that can be made in it.” + +The dogmatic absoluteness of such a statement is its own ruin. We have +already seen that Gray had at least three predecessors, Dalton, Amory, +and Brown, in his recognition of the beauty of the Lake Region, and +many a new tour was sought out by later lovers of the picturesque. +But Gray’s “Journal in the Lakes,” though not first, is certainly +most important. Both in feeling and in spontaneity and adequacy of +expression it shows a marked advance on his preceding work, and as +literature it is distinctly in advance of what others had done. + +The whole of this famous tour occupied but three weeks, and the trip +in the Lakes but ten days. Gray was by no means so unwearied in +sight-seeing as Young. He was “not fond of dirt,” and he was fastidious +about roads and inns. He did not go on an eager search for views. He +did not climb Skiddaw, and he passed by Orrest-Head. He saw what he +could see comfortably. His descriptions are quiet and controlled. They +have none of the “dizzy raptures” of Brown and Young. There is no +straining after epithets, no struggle to find expression adequate to +the emotion. The following brief quotations may serve to indicate his +style: + + The shining purity of the lake, just ruffled by the breeze, + enough to show it is alive. + + The lake majestic in its calmness. + + Little shining torrents hurry down the rocks. + + The grass was covered with a hoar frost, which soon melted, and + exhaled in a thin blueish smoke. + + In the evening walked alone down to the lake after sunset and + saw the solemn colouring of night draw on, the last gleam of + sunshine fading away on the hill-tops, the deep serene of the + waters and the long shadows of the mountains thrown across them. + + At distance heard the murmur of many waterfalls not audible in + the day-time. Wished for the moon, but she was _dark to me and + silent, hid in her vacant interlunar cave_. + +The charm of Gray’s descriptions lies in a certain bare perfection of +phrase, in his direct, unadorned statement of beautiful facts. His +words have a vital, penetrating quality, while his sense of form, +his artistic reticence, keep his enthusiasm free from exclamatory +extravagances. + +Thomas Pennant’s first tour in Scotland was made in 1769. The notes +taken on this tour were put into shape and published in 1771. +Dissatisfied with the result, he went again in 1772, and his “Second +Tour in Scotland and the Hebrides” appeared in 1776. In the first +tour his professed object was the study of zoölogy. In the second he +was assisted by two friends, one trained in botany, and the other +well up in Scotch customs and legends. But Pennant’s interest was not +confined to zoölogy and botany, to manners and customs. His curiosity +was omnivorous and insatiable. Everything was fish that came to his +net, and his industry in note-taking was prodigious. The two journeys +occupied six months, and the record of what he saw and heard filled 570 +folio pages. + +In this mass of observations not more than ten pages, all told, +have anything to do with the scenery through which he passed. Such +descriptive passages as do occur are usually of torrents, rapid, rocky +rivers, or the shores of lakes. The best of these are of the banks +of the Nith, the falls of CoryLin in the Clyde, the Cascades at +Moness, which he calls “an epitome of everything that can be admired +in the curiosity of waterfalls,” the falls and streams near Loch +Maree, Aysgarth Force in the Ure, the little lake of Barrisdale on the +Inverness coast, Coniston, and Derwentwater. He prides himself on being +one of the first to describe Coniston. + + The scenery about this lake, which is scarcely mentioned, is + extremely noble. The east and west sides are bounded by high + hills often wooded; but in general composed of grey rock, and + coarse vegetation; much juniper creeps along the surface; + and some beautiful hollies are finely intermixed. At the + northwestern extremity the vast mountains called Coniston fells + form a magnificent mass. In the midst is a great bosom retiring + inward, which affords great quantities of fine slate. + +He very often notes wide views, and he has an unfailing interest of a +scientific, botanical sort in the forests through which they pass. + +He never, however, notes any but the permanent details of a scene. +There is not a hint that he saw the varying, evanescent, atmospheric +effects, so important an element in the beauty and sublimity of +mountain scenery. He does admit that the “Highlands like other +beauties, have their good and bad days,” but there is nothing in his +books to show that he knew them apart. + +On the whole he shows a preference for a region of smooth, rich, arable +land. On leaving the Highlands his comment is, + + The country continually improves; the mountains sink gradually + into small hills; the land is highly cultivated, well planted, + and well inhabited. I was struck with rapture at a sight so long + new to me. Nothing can equal the contrast between the black, + barren, dreary glens of the morning ride and the soft scenes of + the evening. + +He dislikes the Borrowdale end of Derwentwater where “all the possible +variety of Alpine scenery is exhibited, with all the horror of +precipice, broken crag, or overhanging rock, or insulated pyramidal +hills.” He prefers the outlook toward Skiddaw. + + But the opposite or northern view is in all respects a strong + and beautiful contrast; Skiddaw shows its vast base, and + bounding all that part of this vale, rises gently to a height + that sinks the neighboring hills; opens a pleasing front, smooth + and verdant, smiling over the country like a gentle, generous + lord, while the fells of Barrowdale frown upon it like a + hardened tyrant. Skiddaw is covered with grass to within half a + mile of the summit; after which it becomes stony. + +So far as Nature is concerned, the passages cited show Pennant at his +best. His descriptions are full, clear, painstaking, but unimaginative. +He is as impersonal and impartial, as conscientiously exact, in taking +notes on a landscape as in recording the annual haul of fish in +Scotch lakes. Beautiful scenes were to him an object of intellectual +curiosity. They made no artistic or emotional appeal. “The visions of +the hills and the souls of lonely places” were a strain upon him. He +was glad to come forth into fertile valleys and pleasant corn lands. + +All this is true, and Pennant shows much less of the new spirit than +Brown, Amory, Young, and Gray. But his work was done independently of +theirs, and in 1769. He must have been in the Lake District a month +before Gray, and he penetrated into much wilder regions of Scotland +than had before been described. That his instinctive shrinking from +wild scenes should have been so far overcome as it was, that he should +have been often forced into admiration, is of itself proof of the +strength of the new impulse. + +The Rev. William Gilpin made many tours and gave full accounts of them, +but the accounts were not published till years after the tours were +made. His chief travels in their order are: + +(1) Tour in Norfolk, Cambridge, Suffolk, and Essex (1769; account +published 1809); (2) tour along the river Wye (1770; published 1782); +(3) tour in Cumberland and Westmoreland (1772; published 1786); (4) +tour in North Wales (1773; published 1809); (5) tour in Hampshire, +Sussex, and Kent (1774; published 1804); (6) tour in the Highlands of +Scotland (1776; published 1789); (7) tour in Western England (before +1778; published 1798). + +Mr. Gilpin’s point of view is clearly stated in the Preface to the +first of these publications. “The following little work proposes a new +object of pursuit: that of examining the face of a country by the rules +of picturesque beauty.” He hopes that no one will consider his plan +unduly light and trivial for a clergyman. He is himself convinced that +to study the beauty of a country is as noble, in a way as useful, as to +study its agriculture. + +By picturesque beauty Gilpin always means beauty that can be put into +a picture. He draws pictures of mountains to show whether they have or +have not a good sky-line. Some are too regular, some are grotesque, +some look deformed. He seldom dwells long on wide views because they +are so difficult to make interesting in a picture. The grandeur of +Penmaenmawr and Snowdon hardly makes up to him for their lack of +picturesqueness. Penmaenmawr “has no variety of line, but is one heavy +lumpish form.” He starts up Snowdon, but finding that it is merely “a +collection of mountains formed on the old gigantic plan of heaping +mountain on mountain,” he does not go to the top, but contents himself +with quoting Pennant’s description of the view. + +Gilpin’s language is often borrowed from the art of painting. He calls +the steep banks of rivers “side screens;” the changing view before him +as he floats down the river is a “front screen.” He is always talking +about foregrounds and backgrounds and perspective and composition. He +says that Nature is great in design, an admirable colorist, and that +she harmonizes tints with infinite variety and beauty. But, he adds, + + she is seldom so correct in composition as to produce a + harmonious whole. Either the foreground or the background is + disproportioned, or some awkward line runs through the piece; or + a tree is ill placed, or a bank is formal; or something or other + is not as it should be. + +With his sense of form Gilpin has also an unusual sensitiveness to +color, and to varieties of light and shade. The following description +of a sunset is typical: + + The sun was now descending low, and cast the broad shades of + evening athwart the landscape, while his beams, gleaming with + yellow lustre through the valleys, spread over the inlightened + summits of the mountains a thousand lovely tints--in sober + harmony where some deep recess was faintly shadowed--in + splendid hue where jutting knolls or promontories received + fuller radiance of the diverging ray. The air was still. The + lake, one vast expanse of crystal mirror. The mountain shadows, + which sometimes give the water a deep, black hue (in many + circumstances extremely picturesque) were softened here into a + mild blue tint which swept over half the surface. The other half + received the fair impression of every radiant form that glowed + around. The inverted landscape was touched in fainter colours + than the real one. Yet it was more than _laid in_. It was + almost finished. What an admirable study for the pallet is such + a scene as this! + +“No one can paint a country properly,” he says, “unless he has seen +it in various lights.” The local variations caused by the weather, +the time of day, the time of year, “cannot be too much attended to by +all lovers of landscape.” “Every landscape is seen best under _some +peculiar_ illumination.” He has always the painter’s eye for fogs, +mist, haze, soft coloring, atmosphere. + +Gilpin studied Nature according to the rules of art, because, as he +said, these rules were drawn from Nature. No man resented more quickly +than he the transforming hand of man in natural scenes. If lands +must be turned to agricultural uses, if fields must be marked off, he +only wishes that it might be made as little apparent as possible. He +hates “a multiplicity of glaring temples” in a landscape. He thinks +most so-called adornments in private grounds are mere “expensive +deformity,” and he calls regular clipped hedges “objects of deformity.” +He apologizes for his severe strictures on several estates in the +Cumberland region by saying that the grand natural scenes so filled his +thought that he could not restrain his contempt for mere embellished, +artificial ones. Such passages are an emphatic indication of the +revolution in taste since the days of the formal garden. Here is a +characteristic sentence written as they leave the Lakes: “Here the +hills grow smooth and lumpish, and the country at every step loses some +of the wild strokes of Nature and degenerates, if I may so speak, into +cultivation.” + +Not infrequently Gilpin turns from the painter’s study of the scene, +and gives something of its poetical quality. In speaking of the appeal +made by the Lake Country to the imagination he says, “No tame country, +however beautiful, however adorned, can distend the mind like this +awful and majestic scenery.” Of “Ulzwater” on a perfectly serene day +he says, “So solemn and splendid a scene raises in the mind a sort of +enthusiastic calm which spreads a mild complacence over the breast, +a tranquil pause of mental operations which may be felt but not +described.” And again in his “Essay on Picturesque Travel,” + + We are most delighted when some grand scene, though perhaps of + incorrect composition, rising before the eyes, strikes us beyond + the power of thought--when the _vox faucibus haeret_ and + every mental operation is suspended. In this pause of intellect, + this _deliquum_ of the soul, an enthusiastic sensation of + pleasure overspreads it. We rather feel than survey the scene. + +These last passages inevitably recall Wordsworth’s analysis of his own +emotions before a beautiful view when + + Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired, + +or the better-known lines in “Tintern Abbey.” + +Gilpin, if we take the whole extent of his work, represents the new +spirit more fully than any of the other early travelers. He notes the +permanent and the evanescent. He observes color, form, and motion. The +technical quality of his descriptions does not seriously interfere with +the impression they give of pleasure in free, wild Nature, and he again +and again shows himself capable of an imaginative communion with Nature. + +In 1770 appeared “Letters from Snowdon” by Joseph Cradock. This book +is the first record I have found of travels in Wales for the special +purpose of enjoying the scenery. Mr. Cradock says that he had long +wished to visit “The Welsh Alps, the summit of Snowdon” and he seems to +find the reality even more attractive than his imagination had pictured +it. The beautiful little valleys “environed by mountains that scale the +heavens,” and “the infinitely extensive and variegated prospect” from +the top of Snowdon enchant him. The travelers are caught in tempestuous +weather but Mr. Cradock rejoices in the war of the elements and quotes +Thomson’s description of a thunderstorm in Carnarvon. He particularly +recommends the valley of the Dryryd to painters delighting in romantic +Nature because of its picturesque wooded hills, its naked mountains, +rocky rivers, foaming cataracts, transparent lakes, and ruined castles. +Gilpin’s journey up Snowdon was made in the same year but even his +account hardly shows the unforced, uncritical enthusiasm for wild +Nature evinced by Mr. Cradock. + +In 1773, Mr. Hutchinson and his brother, an accomplished draughtsman, +made a tour through the Lakes. In 1774, after the death of his brother, +Mr. Hutchinson went over the ground again in order to verify his +brother’s incomplete sketches. The observations made in these two +tours were published under the title “An Excursion to the Lakes in +Westmoreland and Cumberland.” Hutchinson’s dislike of the wild and +desolate region of Stainmore has already been cited, but that quotation +alone would give a most unfair impression of the book as a whole. His +pleasure in Nature is great. He cares especially for artistic effects +of light and shade, and he often spends pages on the changing beauty +of a landscape seen at sunset, or sunrise, or after a storm. A single +passage may stand as illustrative of many similar ones in the book. + + At the foot of this vast range of hills three smaller mounts, + of an exact conic form, running parallel, beautified the scene, + being covered with verdure to their crowns; the nearest, called + Dufton Pike, was shadowed by a passing cloud, save only the + summit of its cone, which was touched by a beam which painted + it with gold; the second pike was all enlightened and gave its + verdure to the prospect as if mantled with velvet; the third + stood shadowed, whilst all the range of hills behind were + struck with sunshine, showing their cliffs, caverns, and dells + in grotesque variety and giving the three pikes a picturesque + projection on the landscape. + +Mr. Hutchinson had evidently read many of the books treating especially +of the beauty of Nature. He quotes the whole of Dr. Brown’s “Letter” +and much of Mr. Dalton’s “Poem.” He also quotes freely from Thomson’s +“Seasons,” Mason’s “Garden,” and Pennant’s account of Derwentwater. +Some of his most effective descriptions are of the road from Keswick to +Ambleside, “the finest ride in the north of England;” of the cataract +near Ambleside, probably Stock Gill Force; of the ascent of Skiddaw and +of a thunderstorm seen from its summit; of Derwentwater from various +points of view, and of a moonlight row upon the lake. They are too +long to quote, but they all show faithful and minute observation, +artistic appreciation of beauties of form and color, and, occasionally, +a lively sense of the deeper significance of the places visited. + +Five or six years after Mr. Hutchinson’s “Tour” there appeared an +important “Guide to the Lakes,” by Mr. West. The second edition, +revised and annotated by Mr. Cockin came out in 1779, and the ninth +edition in 1807. A special feature of West’s “Guide” was its “Addenda” +under which heading he published all the best-known descriptions of the +Lakes. The chief of these were Dr. Brown’s “Letter,” portions of Dr. +Dalton’s “Poem,” the whole of Gray’s “Journal,” Mr. Cumberland’s “Ode +to the Sun,” selections from Relph’s “Cumberland Pastorals,” and two +descriptions of tours in search of noted caves. In 1807 were added Mrs. +Radcliffe’s “Ride over Skiddaw” (1794) and the Rev. James Plumptre’s +“Night Piece on the Banks of Windermere.” The “Guide” itself shows much +careful investigation, is written in a clear, intelligible fashion, and +betrays genuine and discriminating love of Nature. + +The most important English tours were made between 1768 and 1778. +Pennant, Gray, Young, Gilpin, and Hutchinson made during these ten +years sixteen rather extended journeys, of which they gave full +accounts. Besides these we have Dr. Johnson’s “A Journey to the +Hebrides” (1773; published 1775), Boswell’s “Journal of a Tour to the +Hebrides” (1773; published 1786), and Bray’s “Tour into Derbyshire” +(1777). In Boswell’s “Journey” there is not the slightest indication of +any interest in the scenery through which they passed, and the general +impression given by Boswell is that Johnson’s indifference was equal +to his own. For instance, Boswell wonders at the outset if a man who +has known “the felicity of London life” can fail to find any narrower +existence “insipid or irksome.” He quotes Dr. Johnson as saying at +Portree that he “longed to be again in civilized life.” He records +his famous sayings, “By seeing London I have seen as much of life as +the world can show,” and “Who _can_ like the Highlands?” This is +not quite fair to Johnson, because in his own account of the Scotch +tour and in his letters there are a few passages that indicate close +observation, and even enjoyment, of the wild scenes about him. The +finest passage is a description of a storm: + + The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to + go, though not so dark but that we could discern the cataracts + which poured down the hills on one side, and fell into one + general channel that ran with great violence on the other. The + wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the + blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and + the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough music + of Nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before. + +But Johnson’s attitude toward the external world was, on the whole, +the typical classical one, and is well illustrated by his reply to Mr. +Thrale’s attempt to win his admiration of a fine prospect. “Never heed +such nonsense; a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether +in one country or another. Let us, if we _do_ talk, talk about +something; men and women are my subjects of inquiry.” + +Mr. Bray’s “Tour” has a full map and is written somewhat in the +guide-book style. Industries, architecture, history, family chronicles, +anecdotes, inscriptions, fill up its 135 closely printed folio pages. +There is comparatively little about the scenes through which he +passed. In describing the various estates which he visited pages are +given to house-furnishings for a single paragraph on the grounds. But +these seldom go unnoticed. He dislikes the formal garden. He objects +to the regular cascades at Matlock. He thinks that the conceits in +the water-works at Chatsworth might have been deemed wonderful when +they were made, “but those who have contemplated the waterfalls which +nature exhibits in this country ... will receive little pleasure from +seeing a temporary stream falling down a flight of steps, spouted out +of the mouths of dolphins or dragons, or squirted from the leaves of +a copper tree.” The most extended description is of the gardens at +Stowe, which he praises because, though laid out in the formal style, +their regularity has been broken up and disguised. Mr. Bray also shows +a liking for wild and romantic scenery. He frequently mentions wide +views, and condemns Compton Wyngate because it has no prospect, of +which, he adds, “our ancestors appear to have scarce ever thought.” The +spots he enjoyed most are Matlock High Tor, and wild places on the Dove +and the Derwent, Aysgarth Force in the Ure, and rocky Gordale. He noted +especially waterfalls and rivers. Of the Derwent at Matlock he says: + + It is a most romantic and beautiful ride. The river is sometimes + hid behind trees, sometimes it glides smooth and calm, sometimes + a distant fall is heard; here it tumbles over a ledge of rocks + stretching quite across, there it rushes over rude fragments, + torn by storms from the impending masses. Each side, but + particularly the farther one, is bordered by lofty rocks, + generally clothed with wood, in the most picturesque manner. + +Passages such as this, though perhaps not very effective, show an +attention arrested by the beauties of Nature. There is a closeness of +detail indicating first-hand observation, and the prevailing tone shows +that Mr. Bray justly claims for himself “a taste for nature in her +genuine simplicity.” + +Of the “Travels” after 1778, numerous as they are, few need special +mention, because almost no really new elements appear in them. A few +new tours are sketched out, as to the Isle of Wight and the Isle of +Man. But in general the same old ground is gone over, the preference +still being accorded to Scotland, Wales, and the English Lakes. In +1796, but three years before Wordsworth went to Dove Cottage, there +appeared four new “Tours” to the Lakes by Rudworth, Walker, Houseman, +and Hutchinson. In 1794–95 there were five “Tours” in Wales. Of a few +of these “Tours” after 1778 perhaps some mention should be made. + +The Rev. Mr. Shaw’s “Tour” (1788) in the west of England is significant +for two reasons. It is one of the first books to make literary +associations prominent in the description. He says that Woodstock is +classic ground because Chaucer lived there; Horton is sacred because +of Milton; Beaconsfield, because of Waller; Windsor Forest, because of +Pope; and Stoke Pogis, because of “the sublime and the pathetic Gray.” +The second point of significance is Mr. Shaw’s evident irritation at +the apparently overweening attention to mountains. He says that if +people could forget Skiddaw and Ben Lomond for a little while they +might be able to see the rich beauty of the champaign country about +Malvern Hills. Mr. Shaw goes back to the “crowds and bustle” of London +with great regret because, he says, no matter what society you find +there, nothing can make up for the pensive enjoyments of a feeling mind +in a picturesque country. + +Hassel’s “Tour of the Isle of Wight” (1790) is in the style of Gilpin’s +work. The general knowledge of the Lake Country and the general +admiration of it is shown by his comparisons. A certain spot has “all +the appearance of a Westmoreland scene.” Certain noble hills “rise with +all the majesty of the Skiddaw mountains.” Hassel’s purpose is a search +for the picturesque. He especially notes rich effects of color, and the +varying lights of sunrise and sunset. He sees Nature in a succession of +pictures, but his language is free from the technicalities of Gilpin. + +Robertson’s “Tour in the Isle of Man” (1794) has little effective +description, but it is noteworthy as one of the first books of travel +to be infected by the sentimental melancholy of the romances. His +Manxmen “recline by some romantic stream” in the true pensive spirit. +He visits churchyards and solitary places. He pores over the mazy +stream, he watches the rooks, he listens to the sighing evening breeze, +very much like one of Mrs. Brooke’s lovelorn heroes. Occasionally he +has some expressions of deeper import, as when he says that Nature not +only charms the eye “but purifies and ennobles the soul.” “The mind +is filled with divine enthusiasm.” He is, however, perhaps adequately +characterized by the word “romantic,” which he uses until it becomes +almost unbearable. + +Of “Travels” in general we may say that the transfer of emphasis from +man to Nature is strongly marked. The love of Nature as shown in +“Travels” is later in development than it is in poetry, but when the +new feeling does find expression it sounds no uncertain note, and by +the end of the century has reached a statement as bold and unqualified +as that which is found in the poetry itself. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + GARDENING + + +When Charles II returned to England in 1660 he brought with him a +knowledge of the new style of gardening in France, and an ambition +to reform English taste according to French models. He committed the +care of the royal gardens of Whitehall, St. James, and Hampton Court +to French gardeners, and he spent money lavishly in various attempts +to naturalize French flowers, fruits, and vines in English soil. With +memories of the glories of Versailles he summoned Le Nôtre, the famous +designer of French palatial gardens, and Grillet, noted for his skill +in hydraulics, to plan the parks of St. James and Greenwich.[534] It is +not certain that Le Nôtre actually came to England, but the royal parks +and some great estates were laid out according to the dominant ideas +of the French designer if not under his direct supervision. The French +traditions thus established were carried on by John Rose who was sent +to study the gardens at Versailles and who was appointed royal gardener +in England. Rose’s pupil and successor, George London, in about 1690 +took Henry Wise as partner and the two were for nearly a quarter of +a century the recognized authorities on gardens in England. On the +accession of Queen Anne, Wise became royal gardener, and London then +confined himself to country work. He is said to have supervised most of +the notable English estates, riding sometimes fifty or sixty miles a +day in the course of his business. + +London and Wise not only designed and developed gardens but they +were influential writers on garden topics. Among their best works +were “The Compleat Gard’ner,” 1699, and “The Retir’d Gardener,” 1706. +These books, though they contained much new and original material, +were in the main translations from French authors and contributed +to the predominance of French influence. Evelyn’s writings also did +much to establish French canons of taste in England. He had seen and +greatly admired the work of Le Nôtre in the gardens of the Tuileries, +Fountainebleau, and St. Germain, and in his “Dairy” he recorded fully +the impression made upon him by the grandeur, beauty, and especially by +the artificial marvels of these parks. + +The French style was not, however, allowed all the honors. It met with +a powerful rival in the Dutch taste that came in with William and +Mary in 1688. This taste gradually prevailed over the French so that +even London and Wise were affected by the new ideas from Holland and +Flanders. Gardens laid out in the same decade were, the one French, the +other Dutch in tone, or French and Dutch characteristics were mingled +in the same garden. Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire, the gardens of which +were remodeled and enlarged by Henry Wise between 1704–11 is cited +by Blomfield and Thomas in “The Formal Garden in England” as “a very +valuable instance of a garden laid out when the French influence was +still dominant,” while the gardens at Levens in Westmoreland, laid +out soon after 1690, and remaining almost unaltered to the present +day, are referred to by Miss Amherst as “a most perfect example of +the Dutch type of garden of this period.”[535] But whether Dutch or +French in type, all the great gardens from 1660 to nearly the middle +of the eighteenth century come under the general designation of formal +gardens. + +The most striking features of the Dutch style were topiary work, potted +plants and shrubs, dwarf trees, and water-works of “quaint forms and +surprise arrangements.” The gardens of Le Nôtre were especially marked +by long, broad, straight avenues radiating from a goose-foot; much use +of architecture in the way of temples, long and massive flights of +steps, balustrades, columns, and urns; much statuary; fountains with +many high and complicated jets, with magnificent marble basins, and +with elaborate carving in representations of men and animals; many +hedges both high and low; long and broad terraces; and parterres laid +out in intricate plant embroidery.[536] + + [Illustration: LONG LEATE + + _By L. Knyff and J. Kip_] + +Our most accurate idea of the plans of these formal gardens comes from +such books as “Les dèlices de la Grande Bretagne et de l’Irlande,” +published in Leyden in 1707; “Britannia Illustrata” by Knyff and Kip, +1709; “Views of Kent” by Badeslade, 1722; and other early county +histories.[537] One of Kip’s plans of Longleat is here reproduced. +The grounds at Longleat were laid out between 1682 and 1690 under the +supervision of London.[538] Though of exceptional magnificence, their +characteristic features as shown in the plan are fairly typical of +other great gardens of the period. Bird’s-eye views such as Kip gives +are necessarily unfair representations since they crowd into startling +juxtaposition features that are in reality widely separated, and since +they do not even suggest charms of color, light and shade, fragrance, +movement, the change of the seasons. But such plans are, nevertheless, +of especial value in revealing the governing ideas of the garden +designers. + +One of these ideas is admirably brought out by Sir William Temple in +his essay, “On the Gardens of Epicurus: or of Gardening in the Year +1685,” the most important article on gardening published in England in +the seventeenth century. It is mostly given up to exposures, soils, +scions, grafts, seeds, and the like, but here and there are significant +statements of theory. “Among us,” he says, “the beauty of building +and planting is placed chiefly in certain proportions, symmetries, +and uniformities, our walks and our trees ranged so as to answer one +another and at exact distances.” This defense of order in beauty is +illustrated by his description of Moor Park, Hertfordshire, according +to his taste the sweetest garden ever known. It was divided into +quarters by gravel walks, and adorned with two fountains and eight +statues in each quarter. The straight terrace walk had a summer-house +at each end. On each side of the parterre was a cloister, over each +cloister an airy walk, at the end of each airy walk a summer-house, +and so on.[539] “Certain proportions, symmetries, and uniformities” is +a phrase characteristic of classicism in thought and literary style +as well as in gardens and it shows how completely the ideal garden +represented the dominant thought of the age. Equally characteristic +and interesting is Temple’s reason for approving of this style of +gardening. In exact figures, with regular and definite intervals, it +is, he says, “hard to make any great or remarkable faults.” In this +sentence there is surely a suggestion of one reason for the love +of order, of limits clearly set, that marked the classical spirit. +Symmetries and proportions and uniformities were a specific against +great and remarkable faults such as had resulted from the undue license +of a romantic age. The beaten path had legitimate attractions for an +age that had lost its way among the pleasures of the pathless woods. + +A second principle underlying the formal garden was the delight men +took in controlling Nature and in seeing evidences of such control. +Radiating straight avenues as against vagrant paths; water flowing +out of marble temples, down marble steps, and rising again in almost +unbelievable shapes, as against a natural winding stream; a tree cut +into difficult shapes as against a tree following the normal spread +of branch and leaf--all of these show an exceptional satisfaction in +the marks of human interference with Nature. Order in a garden, and +skilful management of Nature by art, are of course legitimate sources +of delight, but when these two principles are pushed to the exclusion +of other sources of delight, reaction becomes inevitable. + +Indications of revolt against the formal garden began early in the +eighteenth century. Even so early as 1703 in James’s translation of +Le Blond’s[540] treatise on the theory and practice of gardening +there was a plea for simplification in the architectural details of a +garden, accompanied by a protest against fantastic verdant sculpture. +Plain hedges cut square with a regular succession of balls on top, +and with niches sunk for statues or seats, was all the elaboration Le +Blond could sanction. No new principles were inculcated by Le Blond. +His defense of “a plain regularity” was really a protest against +the cluttered and confused effect of gardens of the Dutch type. His +dictum that “Art should give place to Nature, Art being used only to +set off the beauties of Nature” sounds more revolutionary than it was +apparently meant to be, for the gardens he describes are purely of the +formal type, but his work shows a recognition of some of the whimsical +extravagances in the formal gardens of his day, and an effort to apply +the recognized rules with good sense and a certain degree of restraint. + +The English essayists, notably Addison and Pope, were early exponents +of a freer style of gardening. In “The Tatler” (August 31, 1710) +Addison laughed the tulip mania out of court, and lightly set aside +“the best ordered parterres” as of less charm than “a spot of daisies +or banks of violets.” Slight as it is, this preference for the wild +flower over the garden rarity, for fields and hedgerows over the +choicest plant embroidery, strikes a new note in the garden literature +of the eighteenth century. Two years later, in “The Spectator” for +September 6, 1712, Addison gave an account of an imaginary garden +evidently made to his taste and far enough removed from the formal +garden. The irregularity and wildness of his flower-garden, the +wandering rill that runs “as it would do in an open Field,”[541] the +trees and shrubs growing freely, are what he prides himself upon. +The whole picture is a plea for the “beautiful Wildness of Nature” +as against “the nicer Elegancies of Art.” But Addison’s strongest +utterance, and the one in which the theoretical side is most fully +discussed is in “The Spectator” for June 25, 1712. In contrasting the +works of Nature and Art, Nature is throughout given the preference. + + There is something more bold and masterly in the rough careless + Strokes of Nature, than in the nice Touches and Embellishments + of Art. The Beauties of the most stately Garden or Palace lie + in a narrow Compass; the Imagination immediately runs them + over, and requires something else to gratify her, but in the + wide Fields of Nature the Sight wanders up and down without + Confinement, and is fed with an infinite variety of Images, + without any certain Stint or Number.... Our _British_ + Gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humouring Nature, love to + deviate from it as much as possible. Our Trees rise in Cones, + Globes, and Pyramids. We see the Marks of the Scissors upon + every Plant and Bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my + Opinion, but, for my own part, I would rather look upon a Tree, + in all its Luxuriancy and Diffusion of Boughs and Branches than + when it is thus cut and trimmed into a Mathematical Figure; and + cannot but fancy that an Orchard in Flower looks infinitely more + delightful than all the little Labyrinths of the most finished + Parterre. + +Pope followed up this attack in a wittier fashion in “The Guardian” +(September 29, 1713). He, too, prefers “the amiable simplicity of +unadorned nature” to “the nicer scenes of art.” Only people of the +common level of understanding are, he thinks, “principally delighted +with the little niceties and fantastical operations of art,” while +“persons of genius .... are always most fond of nature.” His chief +attack is on sculptured greens, and he gives a sarcastic account of +a town gardener who was so skilful that he could cut “family pieces +of men, women, or children,” and who had for sale the most elaborate +greens. His catalogue was as follows: + + Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the + tree of knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the serpent very + flourishing. The tower of Babel, not yet finished. St. George in + box; his arms scarce long enough, but will be in condition to + stick the dragon by next April. A green dragon of the same, with + a tail of ground-ivy for the present. N. B. These two not to be + sold separately.... An old maid of honour in wormwood.... Divers + eminent modern poets in bays somewhat blighted to be disposed + of, a pennyworth. A quickset hog, shot up into a porcupine by + its being forgot a week in rainy weather [and so on]. + +That the true principles of “gardening finely” were matters of common +discussion is indicated by a letter from Pope to Lord Bathurst, +September 23, 1719, on the subject of the gardens the prince of Wales +was about to construct at Richmond. One critic, said Pope, protested +against too much art for according to his notion gardening was little +more than “sweeping Nature.” + + There were some who could not bear evergreens, and called them + never-greens; some who were angry at them only when cut into + shapes, and gave the modern gardeners the name of evergreen + tailors; ... and some who were in a passion against anything + in shape, even against clipped hedges, which they called green + walls. + +In the midst of this literary discussion comes the work of another +practical gardener, Stephen Switzer, a pupil of London and Wise. His +“The Nobleman, Gentleman and Gardener’s Recreation” appeared in 1715 +and was published again with additions as “Ichnographia Rustica” +in 1718. Switzer’s work shows several indications of new ideals. +He is the first of the writers on gardens to hold up Milton’s[542] +description of a garden as a model to be followed. He also protested +against the cutting-down of fine old trees at the command of so-called +“Improvers of Estates.” He said he knew not “whether to think with Pity +or Disdain” of a property owner who could thus sanction the wanton +destruction of “noble Oaks and other umbrageous Trees.” He likewise +urged the abandonment of box-work and “such like trifling ornaments,” +and said that “the largest walk in the most magnificent garden one can +think of” was to his taste inferior to “a level easy walk of gravel or +sand shaded over with Trees and running thro’ a cornfield or Pasture +ground.” More revolutionary still was his advice to abolish walls +and to embellish the whole estate. London and Wise had insisted upon +the boundary wall as necessary to give dignity to the gardens and to +unite them architecturally with the house, but Switzer said he would +“throw the Garden open to all View, to the unbounded Felicities of +distant Prospect, and the expansive Volumes of Nature herself.” This +substitution of the sunk fence for the boundary walls is generally +counted as “the beginning of the end of Formal Gardening.” Horace +Walpole credits Bridgeman with having first suggested this innovation, +but the new scheme almost certainly originated with Switzer. + +In gardening theoretical exposition and discussion would, from the +nature of the case, antedate the actual construction of gardens +according to new principles. Pope was one of the first, if not the +first, to put the new ideas into practice. In 1718 he took a long lease +of a house and five acres of land at Twickenham, and he at once set +about the construction of a garden according to his own ideas. Said +Horace Walpole, “It was a little bit of ground of five acres, enclosed +with three lanes; and seeing nothing. Pope had twisted and twirled +and rhymed and harmonized this, till it appeared two or three sweet +little lawns opening and opening beyond one another, and the whole +surrounded by thick impenetrable woods.”[543] The plan of the garden +drawn by John Searle after Pope’s death shows that in the five acres +Pope had a shell temple, a large mount, two small mounts, a bowling +green, a vineyard, a quincunx, an obelisk in memory of his mother, +and hot-houses and gardeners’ sheds.[544] This garden could hardly be +called “natural” but it was an undoubted protest against the formal +school and was so regarded, and Pope was counted “the prophet of the +new school.” Blomfield and Thomas[545] in reviewing the decay of formal +gardening say, “It now became the fashion to rave about Nature, and +to condemn the straightforward work of the formal school as so much +brutal sacrilege. Pope and Addison led the way with about as much +love of Nature as the elegant Abbé Delille some three generations +later.” Mason calls Kent, the reputed father of landscape gardening, +“Pope’s bold associate.”[546] Walpole dwells on the assistance Kent +had from Pope and thinks that the ideas of some of Kent’s best works +were really borrowed from Pope’s garden at Twickenham.[547] Hazlitt +emphasizes the healthy and important influence in this direction +exercised by Pope.[548] In “The Quarterly” for 1816, in a review of +Humphrey Repton’s work, we find the influence of Pope commented on as +follows: “He so completely developed the principles of true gardening +that the theories of succeeding writers have been little more than +amplifications of his short general precepts.” + +Pope’s paper in “The Guardian” was in 1713, and his garden was +practically completed by 1718[549] but his most influential utterance +on the theory of gardening did not come till 1731, and before that +time other significant writings had appeared.[550] One of these was +“Huetiana,” a translation in 1722 of the work of Pierre Daniel Huet +(1630–1721), bishop of Avranches. In the chapter on “Natural Beauties +preferable to Artistic ones” he comments thus on the bad taste of his +age: + + Polite society ... requires palisades erected with the line and + at the point of the shears. The green shades of these tufted + birches and of those great oaks which were found at the birth + of time, are in bad taste and worthy of the grossness of our + fathers. Is not to think thus to prefer a painted face to the + natural colour of a beautiful countenance? But the depravity + of this judgment is discovered in our pictures and in our + tapestries. Paint on one side a fashionable garden, and on the + other one of those beautiful landscapes in which Nature spreads + her riches undisguised; one will present a very tedious object, + the other will charm you by its delight. You will be tired of + the one at the first glance. You will never weary of looking at + the other, such is the force of Nature to make itself beloved in + spite of the pilferings and deceits of art.[551] + +There were doubtless many other evidences of a changing taste, but +the book that most distinctly marks a new era is Batty Langley’s +“New Principles of Gardening” in 1728. In his Introduction is the +iconoclastic statement, “Nor is there any Thing more _shocking_ +than a _stiff, regular Garden_ where after we have seen one +quarter thereof, the very same is repeated in all the remaining Parts.” +His campaign against regularity is consistently carried out through +the book. He comments on some gardens that seem to him “forbidding” +because laid out with “that abominable Mathematical Regularity and +Stiffness, that nothing that’s bad could equal them.” And again, “Nor +is there any Thing more ridiculous ... than a Garden which is regular.” +Of straight walks and hedges he wrote, “To be condemned to pass along +the famous vista from Moscow to Petersburg, or that other from Agra to +Lahore in India, must be as disagreeable a sentence, as to be condemned +to labor at the gallies. I conceived some idea of the sensation ... +from walking but a few minutes, immured, betwixt Lord D----’s high +shorn yew hedges.” He regards cutting down fine old oaks in order to +make a regular garden as “a Crime of so high a Nature, as not to be +pardon’d.” In planning his grounds he allows “no three trees to range +together in a strait line.” He advises conducting the walks so that +they shall lead through “small Enclosures of Corn ... Hop-Gardens +... Melon-Grounds ... Paddocks of Deer, Sheep, Cows, ... with rural +Enrichments of Hay-Stacks, Wood-Piles, etc.” His final dictum is that +all gardens must be “grand, beautiful, and natural.” He is thoroughly +romantic in his idea of beauty, for not only is regularity debarred, +but “misshapen Rocks, strange precipices, Mountains, old Ruins,” are +counted as indispensable. If ruins cannot be actually found or built, +he would even have them “painted on Canvas.” Batty Langley’s book is of +especial importance since at so early a date it formulates many of the +principles on which the landscape gardeners worked. + +Pope’s “Fourth Epistle” in 1731 marks an epoch in English garden +literature, not because he says anything new but because of the great +weight of his name and because of the high literary quality of the +poem. Pope’s scornful picture of the formal garden sums up most of the +characteristics objected to by earlier writers: + + His gardens next your admiration call, + On every side you look, behold the wall! + No pleasing intricacies intervene, + No artful wildness to perplex the scene: + Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, + And half the platform just reflects the other. + The suffering eye inverted Nature sees, + Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees; + With here a fountain never to be played; + And there a summer-house, that knows no shade: + Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers; + There gladiators fight, or die, in flowers; + Unwatered see the drooping sea-horse mourn, + And swallows roost in Nilus’ dusty urn. + +Pope also gives explicit support to the theories of the landscape +gardeners. In the lines, + + He gains all points who pleasingly confounds, + Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds, + +are given, he said, in concise form the three heads to which all rules +of gardening are reducible, namely “the contrasts, the management of +surprises, and the concealment of bounds.” The fundamental distinction +between Pope’s conception of a garden and that of the formal school +rests in the fact that Pope would seek to conceal or obscure all +traces of man’s interference with Nature, while Nature’s ductility or +manageableness was frankly shown in the formal garden and constituted +one of its charms. Pope was also definitely in line with the landscape +gardeners in his belief that the garden should melt imperceptibly into +the surrounding park scenery. “Conceal art,” “destroy boundaries,” +“imitate Nature,” these were Pope’s maxims and they sum up the +doctrines of the new school. + +The three professional gardeners who established the landscape school +were Bridgeman, Kent, and Brown. To the first of these Horace Walpole +gives much credit. After commenting on the gardens of London and Wise +he says, + + Absurdity could go no further and the tide turned. Bridgeman, + the next fashionable designer of gardens, was far more chaste, + and whether from good sense, or that the nation had been struck + and reformed by the admirable paper in “The Guardian,” No. 173, + he banished verdant sculpture, and did not even revert to the + square precision of the foregoing age. He enlarged his plans, + disdained to make every division tally to its opposite; and, + though he still adhered much to straight walks with high clipped + hedges, they were only his great lines, the rest he diversified + by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak.... As his + reformation gained footing he ventured further, and in the royal + garden at Richmond dared to introduce cultivated fields, and + even morsels of a forest appearance.... But the capital stroke, + the leading step to all that has followed, was (I believe the + first thought was Bridgeman’s) the destruction of walls for + boundaries, and the invention of fossés--an attempt then deemed + so astonishing that the common people called them Ha! Ha’s! to + express their surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived check + to their walk. + +Though Switzer gave early expression to the ideas praised by Walpole, +Bridgeman was apparently the first to put these ideas into practice +in any notable way. His work at Stow was complete some years before +1724, for in that year Lord Percival wrote, “Bridgeman laid out the +ground and plan’d the whole, which can not fail of recommending him +to business. What adds to the bewty of this garden is, that it is +not bounded by walls, but by a Ha Ha, which leaves you the sight of +a bewtifull woody country, and makes you ignorant how far the high +planted walks extend.” + +William Kent (1685–1748) was Bridgeman’s successor at Stow, and here +and in other great gardens, he made bold experiments along the lines +rather timidly marked out by Bridgeman. Walpole says of Kent, “At that +moment appeared Kent, painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, +bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a +genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect +essays. He leaped the fence and saw that all Nature was a garden.” +Kent’s dominating principle, “Study Nature and follow her laws,” +marked the completeness of his break with the formal schools, and was +the basis of his best work, but it led also to absurdities. Since +Nature apparently abhors a straight line, all paths and avenues and +streams were sent serpentining around in the most tedious and unmeaning +fashion. Francis Coventry said that no follower of Kent would be +willing to go to heaven on a straight line. Kent even went so far, at +one time, in his desire to follow Nature, as to plant dead trees in +his parks. But, on the whole, his work was marked by a genuine love +of Nature, and he at least succeeded, as Walpole says, in “routing +_professed art_.”[552] + + [Illustration: HAGLEY PARK + + _By Thomas Smith_] + +Kent’s most important gardens come between 1730 and 1748. One of the +first of those incited by the beauty of his “Elysian scenes” to make +over their own domains was Lord Lyttleton. His estate, Hagley, was +a _ferme ornée_ much admired in its own day, and an excellent +illustration of the new style. The accompanying print shows that the +forest trees come close to the house and grow unfettered. There are +open glades ornamented by temples and seats, and enlivened by the +presence of animals, which, according to the new scheme of beauty, had +at last come into their own as ornamental elements of a landscape. +Philip Southcote’s “Wooburn Farm” is another early _ferme ornée_. +Charles Hamilton’s “Pain’s Hill,” in Surrey, shows a somewhat different +type, which Walpole calls “the forest or savage garden.” In this +garden, continues Walpole, “all is great and foreign and rude; the +walks seem not designed, but cut through the wood of pines; and the +style of the whole is so grand and conducted with so serious an air +of wild and uncultivated extent, that when you look down on this +seeming forest you are amazed to find it contain a very few acres.” The +approximate date of “Wooburn Farm” and “Pain’s Hill” is determined by +the fact that in 1761, in Dodsley’s “London and its Environs,” they are +spoken of as “but lately laid out,” and so not very much advanced in +growth, but yet “very beautiful and extremely well worth seeing.”[553] +The most famous eighteenth-century “ferme ornée” was Shenstone’s +estate, known as “Leasowes,” and this is also somewhat earlier in +date, for a poetical tribute dated 1754 calls it “that new-form’d +Arcadia.” Eight other poetical eulogies show the place of Leasowes in +popular esteem. Dodsley published a map of the place with thirty pages +of minute description of the arrangement of the grounds.[554] There +was a prescribed order in viewing the estate, the path leading from +surprise to surprise, a gay, lively scene being immediately succeeded +by one “cool, gloomy, solemn, and sequestered.” Various scenes were +sentimentally suited to particular persons, or to especial trains of +thought. One glade was devoted to lovers, another to fairies; one spot +was set apart for reflections on death, another for communion with the +spirit of Virgil. Each separate portion had its rocks, waters, trees, +and shrubs, arranged according to a ruling idea, the idea being brought +into prominence by a suggestive inscription, and further emphasized +by a seat so placed that from it the idea could present itself +with cumulative effect. Shenstone paid great attention to artistic +combinations. In his “Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening,”[555] 1764], +he said concerning the art of “distancing and approximating,” + + A straight-lined avenue that is widened in front, and planted + there with ewe trees, then firs, then with trees more and more + fady, till they end in the almond-willow, or silver osier, + will produce a very remarkable deception of the former kind; + which deception will be encreased, if the nearer dark trees are + proportionable and truly larger than those at the end of the + avenue that are more fady. + +Shenstone’s work was certainly based on the most elaborate art but +his whole purpose was so to use art as to conceal it. “Art,” he said, +“should never be allowed to set a foot in the province of nature, +otherwise than clandestinely and by night.” “Whatever thwarts nature +is treason.” Whenever art is allowed to appear, “night, gothicism, +confusion and absolute chaos are come again.” + +One of the earliest poetical champions of the picturesque development +of landscape gardening is William Mason, author of “The English +Garden,” a long didactic poem, begun in 1767 but not published till +1772, and then in an incomplete form. The purpose of the book is to +apply “the rules of imitative art to real nature.” Folly and Wealth +are called “the cruel pair” who, “borrowing aid from geometric skill,” +strive by line, plummet, and unfeeling shears, to deform the fair +surface of mother earth. Claude Lorraine, Salvator Rosa, Ruysdael, +are called upon as the true law-givers in gardening. Much credit for +the banishment of false taste is accorded to Addison and Pope. Of the +latter he says, + + With bolder rage + Pope next advances; his indignant arm + Waves the poetic brand o’er Timon’s shades, + And lights them to destruction; the fierce blaze + Sweeps thro’ each kindred vista; groves to groves + Nod their fraternal farewell and expire. + +Mason claims both Bacon and Milton as progenitors, the former “because +in developing the constituent properties of a princely garden, he +had largely expatiated upon the unadorned natural wildness which we +now deem the essence of the art;” the latter “because of his having +made this natural wildness the leading idea in his description of +Paradise.”[556] Another element of interest in Mason’s Preface is his +reason for writing his poem in blank verse. He confessed that the +didactic nature of the theme seemed to call for the heroic couplet, but +since every charm in gardens springs from variety, since the gardens +he praised represented Nature scorning control, he felt that he must +get a verse form as unfettered as Nature herself.[557] During the +slow publication of Mason’s “English Garden” there appeared in 1770 +Thomas Whateley’s “Observations on Modern Gardening,” which summed up +in admirable fashion the achievements of the landscape school. It is +of especial importance as being “the very first treatise professedly +on landscape art.”[558] Walpole’s “The History of the Modern Taste in +Gardening,” was written in 1770, but was not printed till 1785 when +it came from the Strawberry Hill press with a French translation on +the opposite pages by the Duc de Nivernois. The essays by Walpole and +Whateley cover about the same ground and advocate the principles of the +same school, but Walpole’s fame and his brilliant style have combined +to give his work pre-eminence, and his essay ranks in the garden +literature of the eighteenth century as Sir William Temple’s essay does +in the seventeenth century. + +William Kent’s successor in gardening was Lancelot Brown (1715–83) who +was kitchen-gardener at Stow when Kent was there as designer. Brown’s +original work does not begin till about the middle of the century when +he became royal gardener and was employed at Blenheim. After that he +was concerned in laying out or in altering “half the gardens in the +country.” In 1767 Viscount Irwin thus eulogized him: + + Born to grace Nature and her works complete + With all that’s beautiful, sublime and great, + For him each Muse enwreathes the laurel crown, + And consecrates to fame immortal Brown.[559] + +But immortal Brown, while enjoying to the full the favor of owners of +great estates, had sturdy and loud-spoken critics. The ruthlessness +with which he destroyed fine old grounds, and especially fine avenues +of great trees, the unhomelike effect of his stretches of bare, +undulating lawn, his serpentining walks and streams, aroused active +hostility. Cowper in “The Task,” 1785, said, + + Improvement, too, the idol of the age, + Is fed with many a victim. Lo, he comes! + The omnipotent magician, Brown appears! + Down falls the venerable pile, the abode + Of our forefathers. + + * * * * * + + He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn; + Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise: + And streams, as if created for his use, + Pursue the track of his directing wand, + Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow, + Now murmuring soft, now roaring in cascades-- + E’en as he bids.[560] + +Late in the century Richard Payne Knight was so extreme in his attack +on Brown’s unpicturesque smoothness and finish as to express a +preference even for the formality of the old school. He thus describes +the designers of the school of Brown: + + See yon fantastic band, + With charts, pedometers, and rules in hand, + Advance triumphant, and alike lay waste + The forms of nature and the works of taste! + T’ improve, adorn, and polish, they profess; + But shave the goddess whom they come to dress; + Level each broken bank and shaggy mound, + And fashion all to one unvaried round; + One even round, that ever gently flows, + Nor forms abrupt, nor broken colours knows; + But wrapt all o’er in everlasting green, + Makes one dull, vapid, smooth, and tranquil scene. + + * * * * * + + Hence, hence! thou haggard fiend, however call’d, + Thin, meagre genius of the bare and bald; + Thy spade and mattock here at length lay down, + And follow to the tomb thy fav’rite Brown; + Thy fav’rite Brown, whose innovating hand + First dealt thy curses o’er this fertile land; + First taught the walks in formal spires to move, + And from their haunts the secret Dryads drove: + With clumps bespotted o’er the mountain’s side, + And bade the stream ’twixt banks close shaven glide. + + * * * * * + + Oft when I’ve seen some lonely mansion stand + Fresh from th’ improver’s devastating hand, + ’Midst shaven lawns, that far around it creep + In one eternal undulating sweep; + + * * * * * + + Tir’d with th’ extensive scene so dull and bare, + To Heav’n devoutly I’ve addressed my pray’r,-- + Again the moss-grown terraces to raise, + And spread the labyrinth’s perplexing maze; + Replace in even lines the ductile yew, + And plant again the ancient avenue. + Some features, then, at least, we should obtain, + To mark this flat, insipid, waving plain.[561] + +To his mind statues, urns, terraces, mounds, parterres, topiary work, +though all “against Nature,” were preferable to a whole estate “shorn +and shaved” after the manner of Brown. Sir Uvedale Price (1747–1829) to +whom Knight dedicated his poem also opposed Brown, saying in prose with +almost equal heat what his friend had put into verse.[562] The points +made against the works of Brown, and likewise of his master, Kent, were +the tameness and monotony, the over-cultivated appearance, of their +grounds. The central thought of Knight and Price, as of Gilpin,[563] +their contemporary, and, earlier, of Mason in “The English Garden,” was +that a garden should be “picturesque,” that is, should be “composed” +as a picture is. Landscape painting secured its best effects from +rough, natural, varied scenes, hence gardens should, if possible, show +similar combinations. The essential difference between Brown and the +advocates of the picturesque is brought out by two plates published by +Knight. The first of these shows the truly picturesque. The elements +of the landscape are: a stream flowing at its own will between natural +and uneven banks; groups of spreading trees and shaggy shrubs in +natural union; fern-covered knolls; intricate thickets; mossy stones; +“cherished weeds;” a prostrate tree, rough and gnarled; “native stumps +and roots” overgrown with wild vines; and a rude bridge. The second +plate shows the same scene as “dressed by an improver,” evidently of +the Brown school. We now see the stream flowing between close-shaven +banks; over it a frail Chinese bridge; clumps of trees in the most +orderly and trim fashion; the grounds smoothed and cleaned like a +drawing-room; unmeaning curves in stream and walk; and a vast expanse +of lawn stretching in monotonous undulations to the bare-looking modern +house. + +The controversy was carried over from Brown to his disciple and +imitator, Sir Humphrey Repton (1752–1818). Repton in a courteous +“Letter to Uvedale Price,” 1794, and again in his “Sketches and Hints +on Landscape Gardening” (chap. vii and Appendix), 1795, defended +the principles of landscape gardening adopted by Kent and Brown and +followed in his own work. Price answered in “A Letter to Humphrey +Repton,” 1795. In opposition to the claims of the devotees of the +picturesque Repton put forward the beauty to be found “in the milder +scenes that have charms for common observers,” and he protested +against the rigid application of the laws governing landscape painting +to an art so different in its views and possibilities as gardening. +But Repton, though he had entered upon his work as the disciple and +imitator of Brown, gradually changed, discarding the formalities of +Brown and adopting a more varied and natural style of ornamentation. +He made use of some of the ideas of the “artistical” or picturesque +school, but so modified them according to the dictates of good sense +and good taste, as to establish the beautiful and natural parks and +gardens in which England led the world. + +The picturesque garden had two offshoots that cannot be passed over. +The idea of imitating a picture, when carried to an excess, led to +frantic effort to put cliffs, precipices, gnarled oaks, ruined, +moss-grown fortresses, ivy-hung abbeys, into every landscape. +Frequent sage advice is given as to the best ways to secure these +effects. Richard Jago, a friend of Shenstone, urges the importance of +appropriate sites--a cliff for a ruined castle, a well-water’d vale +for “the mouldering abbey’s fretted windows.”[564] In 1772 Gilpin +criticized Shuckburgh because the ruins were not “happily fabricated,” +but he adds in exculpation, “It is not every man, who can build a +house, that can execute a ruin.” There follows a long list of the +mechanical difficulties, with the following conclusion, “When it is +well done, we allow, that nothing can be more beautiful: but we see +everywhere so many absurd attempts of this kind, that when we walk +through a piece of improved ground, and hear of being carried next to +_see the ruins_, if the master of the scene be with us, we dread +the encounter.” In “The Spiritual Quixote,” 1773, is an amusing account +of a visit of Sir Geoffry Wildgoose to a noted estate. The ignorant +keeper in showing off various objects of interest calls attention to +the “_turpentine_ walks,” and then leads the way to the ruins +explaining that it was built “but a few years ago; and his Lordship +used to say, he could have _built_ it as _old_ again, if he +had had a mind.” An antiquary present exclaims, + + I don’t at all approve of these deceptions.... I don’t wonder + that any gentleman should wish to have his woods or gardens + adorned with these venerable Gothic structures; as they strike + the imagination with vast pleasure, both by the greatness of + the object, and also by giving us a melancholy idea of their + past grandeur and magnificence. But for a man to _build a + ruin_, or to erect a modern house in the style of our Gothic + ancestors--appears to me the same absurdity ... as that which + many people have of late run into, of having their pictures + drawn in the habits of Vandyke or Sir Peter Lely. + +Mr. Mason, in “The English Garden” deprecates building ruins, but +thinks a man to be congratulated if on his grounds + + one superior rock + Bear on its brow the shivered fragment huge + Of some old Norman fortress; happier far, + Oh, then most happy, if thy vale below + Wash, with the crystal coolness of its rills, + Some mouldering abbey’s ivy-vested wall. + +This search after ruins was a morbid and exaggerated development of the +new love of the old, the wild, the picturesque, just as the sentimental +melancholy in poetry was a morbid and exaggerated development of the +new poetic turning to emotional introspection, to solitude, to thoughts +of death and the grave. In the extreme form both phases were ephemeral, +and, it is interesting to note, were nearly contemporaneous. Batty +Langley was advocating “ruins” in gardens in 1728 but it is not till +after the middle of the century that they seem to have been accepted +as a necessary part of an estate, and this is just the period when the +spirit of sentimental melancholy in poetry, a spirit that had found +early expression in the night-piece of Parnell and Lady Winchilsea, +reached its culmination. + +The subject of oriental gardens was also much discussed in prose +and verse. In 1752 appeared “An Account of the Emperor of China’s +Gardens at Pekin” by Père Attiret, translated by Sir H. Beaumont +(i.e., Joseph Spence).[565] In 1760 came Goldsmith’s “Description +of a Chinese Garden.” Most influential of all was “A Dissertation +on Oriental Gardens” by Sir William Chambers in 1772. The practical +influence of the discussion of Chinese gardens went little beyond the +building of summer-houses and bridges in the Chinese style. But the +naturalistic school in England was strengthened by an appeal to the +Chinese method of copying Nature “in all her beautiful irregularities,” +while the sentimentality of gardens such as Leasowes seemed to receive +sanction from the efforts of Chinese gardeners to construct scenes +with the express purpose of arousing certain emotions. The “fancies +and surprises” of Chinese effects were pleasing to those who, as Sir +William Chambers, thought Kent’s English gardens “no better than so +many fields.” The popularity of writings on oriental gardening is +furthermore significant of the enlarged horizons, the prevailing +interest in the new and the remote, characteristic of one phase of +romanticism, and it is to be classed as a sign of the times along with +the interest in oriental eclogues in the realm of poetry. + +Incomplete and cursory as so short a study of so great a subject must +be, the facts here presented seem to warrant the following statements: + +The feeling toward Nature in the period studied shows in gardening the +same order of development, nearly the same dates, and the same phases +as in poetry. There was first in both a pleased recognition of the +supremacy of man, a rigid exclusiveness, a love of order, of symmetry, +and of definite limits. Then came, in the early eighteenth century, a +tentative turning from art to Nature; then an epoch-making statement in +each art, Thomson’s “Seasons” from 1726 to 1730, and Pope’s “Epistle” +in 1731. From this point on the development was in mass and variety +rather than in the enunciation of new principles. The growing love +for wild Nature in the poetry, and the passion for the picturesque in +gardening proceed side by side. At the end of the century all is ready +in both arts for the splendid work of the new era. Throughout the +century both have had curiously correspondent offshoots or temporary +fads--sentimental melancholy in poetry, and the ruins, artificial and +real, in gardening; foreign eclogues and studies of distant countries +in the one art, and Chinese gardens in the other. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + LANDSCAPE PAINTING + + +It is the purpose of this chapter to indicate how far and in what way +painting lent itself to the expression of that new love for Nature +which, as we have seen, gradually became dominant in the realm of +poetry, fiction, travels, and gardening. Such an inquiry is beset +with peculiar difficulties in the case of pictures because they are +seldom dated. At best we usually know only whether a picture is +early or late in the artist’s career. After the beginning of public +exhibitions with catalogues, which was not till 1760, something like +accuracy in dates becomes possible, but the information thus obtained +is not entirely reliable for the reason that pictures were not always +exhibited the year they were painted, and it is certainly inadequate +because so small a proportion of the pictures painted reached any +exhibition. Furthermore, the pictures most important in establishing +the early use of landscape would come before 1760. A second difficulty +arises from the inaccessibility of much of the material, especially +the important early material. Whatever was printed in a book had many +chances of survival. A single brief poem indicative of a new love of +Nature, even though a poem but lightly regarded by the author and his +contemporaries, would hold its small place in his works and share +in the reduplicated life of the tragedies, satires, and didactic +poems to which he intrusted his fame. But an equally slight picture, +though equally indicative of a new tendency, would have no such fate. +Unregarded, unpurchased, its ultimate destiny would be destruction, or, +possibly, burial in some attic. Even such of these pictures as still +hold their own in some collection are widely scattered and often in +private galleries not open to public inspection. + +This inaccessibility of much of the original material would be an +insuperable difficulty from the point of view of the student of +technique, but is less formidable in the present study which has to do +not with qualities that would give the picture high or low artistic +rank so much as with the thoughts the artist strove to express, his +tastes, his feelings, the conception of Nature that guided his work. +For this purpose we have as authentic material not only original +pictures whenever obtainable, but also reproductions of various sorts, +along with biographies, letters, and critical essays. From these +scattered sources it becomes possible to make a brief but not wholly +inadequate statement concerning the place of the external world in +English eighteenth-century art. + + + I. LANDSCAPE IN PORTRAITURE + +As a picturesque accessory in portraiture landscape received early +recognition in English art. Even the miniaturists found space for +landscape backgrounds,[566] and Vandyck, who was painting in England +from 1621 to 1641, established the use of landscape elements in large +portraits in oil. Sometimes, where the portrait is inevitably in the +open air, as in the equestrian portrait of Charles I in the National +Gallery, the landscape is worked out with much beauty of detail, but +as a rule Vandyck makes use of Nature as an accessory rather than as a +full background. Various devices, as an open window or door, a space +framed in by heavily draped curtains and massive pillars, or an outlook +over a balustrade, serve to enrich the picture by a glimpse of sky, a +bright horizon line, or a stretch of vaguely indicated country. He also +frequently uses a rock as the direct background, the rock revealing +itself as such only at the edge where tufts of foliage or a gnarled +tree branch out against the sky and an indeterminate landscape.[567] +In no case does Vandyck subordinate the portrait to the landscape, +nor does he combine the portrait and the landscape with the idea of +securing a general decorative effect. The landscape remains always +simply as background or as an enlivening detail. + + [Illustration: JOHN MAITLAND, DUKE OF LAUDERDALE + + _By Sir Peter Lely_] + +Vandyck’s most important successor, Sir Peter Lely, who was in England +from 1641 to 1680, but whose great vogue was after 1660, made frequent +use of open-air settings, especially in his portraits of women. The +“Windsor Beauties”[568] sufficiently attest his command of landscape +effects. Princess Mary as Diana, the duchess of Cleveland as Minerva, +the duchess of Richmond, the countess of Falmouth, Mrs. Middleton +as Pomona, Mrs. Stewart, are fair women whose picturesque beauty is +enhanced by the poetic and romantic landscapes against which they +stand. There is, to be sure, no attempt at verisimilitude. There is no +thought of a real landscape to which the person in the picture has some +natural relation. Walpole says in derogation of Lely that his nymphs +trail their embroideries and fringes through the thorns and briars of +pastoral landscapes, but the fact is that these Dianas and Minervas and +innocent shepherdesses of the Nell Gwynn variety are no more _in_ +these landscapes than they are actual goddesses or country maidens. The +landscape is but a sort of wall-painting or figured tapestry used as a +decorative background. These portraits are of importance in the present +study because they show that while Lely as portrait painter rightly +cared especially for the figure, he had yet an appreciation not common +in his time of the beauty of the world about him. + +It would seem as if the example of Vandyck and Lely and their great +fame would have established the use of landscape as a portrait +convention, and it is true that Lely’s pupils[569] made some attempts +in this direction, but under the leadership of Sir Godfrey Kneller +(1646–1723) the custom gradually fell into disuse. Kneller, practically +supreme in England during the half-century before his death, painted +the kings and queens and royal families of England, the beaux and the +belles, the statesmen and the wits, so that a gallery of his portraits +would afford a survey of the notable social and intellectual England of +his day. Commissions came in upon him too rapidly to allow much time +for carefully studied backgrounds. Sometimes he uses a rock background +in the manner of Vandyck, but even more conventionalized, as in his +“Madam Turner,”[570] and there is an occasional landscape in the manner +of Lely, as in the “Countess of Ranelagh.”[571] The “Hampton Court +Beauties,”[572] painted in emulation of the “Windsor Beauties,” are +the portraits in which we should expect the richest use of landscape, +and Kneller’s tall, elaborately gowned ladies, do stand in front of +gardens with pillars and balustrades, with hints here and there of a +red sunset, but not even the best of these backgrounds, that in the +portrait of Lady Middleton with lamb and crook, has Lely’s grace and +poetic suggestiveness. Now and then, when there is some reason to +emphasize the portrait as a picture, Kneller brings all his ingenuity +into play and crowds the canvas with decorative detail. The little duke +of Gloucester, for instance, is rendered almost pathetically childish +by his varied and elaborate surroundings,[573] but the combination +of draped curtains, marble steps, massive pillars, a huge sculptured +urn loaded with flowers, a balustraded terrace, and, beyond it, a +park landscape under a cloudy sky, gives an impression of confused +magnificence, with none of the artistic restraint of Vandyck, none of +the elusive, romantic charm of Lely. + +After Kneller, Jervas (1675–1739), Richardson (1665–1745), Hudson +(1701–79), and Highmore (1692–1780) were leaders in portrait +painting. Jervas has occasional effects reminiscent of Lely as in the +portraits of Dorothy Walpole and Mrs. Howard.[574] Hudson’s “Duchess +of Ancaster,”[575] clad in the richest brocade, roped with pearls, +stands stiffly erect in front of a rock that harks back to Vandyck. +These pictures and others of their class well illustrate the wooden +and unmeaning use of landscape characteristic of the mid-eighteenth +century. Certain conventions from the great days of a century earlier +still remained, but deprived of all charm or significance. With the +successors of Kneller portrait painting reached the lowest point of the +decline that had been steadily going on since Vandyck, or, at least, +since Lely. Walpole, who had a high opinion of Kneller, said of his +successors, + + They have either left us hideous and literal transcripts of + the awkward, tight-laced, behooped, and bewigged generation of + beaux and belles before them; or, quitting all probability, + or even possibility, have given us Arcadian shepherdesses, + and soi-disant Greeks and Romans, where wigs and flounces and + frippery mingle with crooks, sheep, thunderbolts, and Roman + draperies.[576] + +The darkness that seemed thus at the middle of the century to be +settling down around the art of portrait painting was, however, the +darkness that precedes the dawn, or, in this instance, the full day, +for with the first portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds after he returned +from Rome in 1752, and with the work of Thomas Gainsborough, his +immediate contemporary, we enter upon the supreme period of British +portraiture, a period in which there seemed suddenly to spring into +being all the grace and skill, all the sense of beauty and poetry, +all the power of imaginative interpretation, that had been waning in +English art annals since the days of Vandyck. And with this great +revival in the art there came a striking revival of interest in the use +of landscape in portraiture. + +Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) made use of landscape backgrounds in +portraits of various kinds. His full-length portrait of Keppel was +completed in 1753 and was the picture that established his fame. It is +thus described by Lord Gower: “The gallant young sailor is represented +as literally walking out of the canvas. His countenance is full of +animation, and as he seems to step briskly, bareheaded, across the +beach, his locks are blown backward from his forehead by the gale.... +In the background a wild sea breaks on the shore.” This portrait, says +Lord Gower, “made an epoch in that form of art.”[577] The epoch-making +characteristics of the picture were, in the first place, the striking +animation and naturalness of the figure as opposed to the monotony +and woodenness of pose adopted by artists such as Hudson, and, in the +second place, the genuine open-air effect of the whole picture, the +perfectly simple and natural union of the figure and the landscape. In +some other portraits of men Reynolds made use of landscape backgrounds, +as in the half-lengths of Admiral Keppel (1780) and that of Lord +Heathfield (1787) in which the figures stand forth boldly against a +stormy sky with a suggestion of an ocean view. Some landscapes show +reminiscences of Vandyck, as in the backgrounds of the equestrian +portraits of Captain Orme (exhibited 1761) and Lord Ligonier[578] +(about 1760), or in the conventionalized tree-trunks and distant view +in the half-length of the archbishop of Armagh.[579] It is, however, in +full-lengths of women and children, either singly or in groups, that +Sir Joshua makes freest use of landscape. The little Princess Sophia +Matilda of Gloucester, a chubby baby rolling on the grass with her +dog; Prince William of Gloucester in plum-colored cavalier costume +standing on a hill against the sky; the Lady Caroline Montague Scott, a +bright-eyed little maiden standing in a snowy landscape, her hands in +a big muff; little Miss Cholmondeley valiantly carrying her dog over +a brook; the four-year-old Viscount Althorp, a quaint little figure +outlined against lovely effects of sky and foliage, are but a few of +the children Reynolds has painted with admirable life and charm and +in the midst of natural out-door surroundings. Even more elaborate +attention is given to the landscape backgrounds in the full-lengths of +women. Such portraits as those of the Marchioness Camden, Mrs. Crewe +as St. Geneviève, the Viscountess Crosbie, Lady Betty Compton, the +Duchess of Devonshire, the countess of Salisbury, Miss Mary Moncton, +the Duchess of Rutland, Lady Bampfylde, Mrs. Bonfoy, or Mrs. Carnac, +show abundantly the skill with which Reynolds united figures, drapery, +and landscape so as to secure a harmonious and decorative general +effect.[580] It often happens, indeed, that the faces of these tall +aristocratic ladies are hardly remembered, so strongly is the attention +caught by the flow of line, the shimmer of fabrics, the abundance of +charming scenic detail. Mrs. Jameson says that Reynolds was the first +English artist to venture upon light and gay landscape backgrounds. In +his portraits of women we do not find the stormy skies, rude rocks, and +blustering weather against which Lely’s ladies posed. Reynolds delights +in typical English park scenery, with its variety of wood and water, +its soft, dim distances, its rich clumps of trees. He often uses, too, +the architectural elements appropriate to a park, but never in a hard +or obtrusive fashion. His steps and balustrades, his columns and urns, +gleam out from masses of foliage or are overhung with a wealth of vines +and flowers. The whole effect is rich and stately, suggestive of lovely +order and nurture, and is particularly well suited to the fashionable +dames who are thus enshrined. In general we may say that Sir Joshua’s +use of landscape in portraiture surpasses in amount that of any +preceding master, and that his scenic backgrounds are unrivaled in the +qualities of naturalness and charm, and in artistic suitability for the +personages portrayed.[581] + + [Illustration: MRS. CARNAC + + _By Sir Joshua Reynolds_] + +Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) uses landscape with as much insistence +as Reynolds, but not in the same manner. His backgrounds are not so +elaborately worked out, yet with all their slightness and sketchiness +they are more imaginatively suggestive. It is, indeed, astonishing to +perceive with how little reality of detail Gainsborough contrives to +call up a vital impression of Nature in her most enchanting aspects. +A still subtler source of charm rests in his power to fuse figures +and landscape into an effect of perfect unity. The “Musidora” in the +National Gallery is a picture before which, even in its present state, +one could linger long in absorbed contemplation, without once mentally +separating the figure and its surroundings. There is such a harmonious +blending of lovely lines, of soft, rich hues, that the whole picture +seems to have sprung from a single impulse. Sir Walter Armstrong says +that in general Gainsborough’s landscape backgrounds “are nothing +more than the extension over the unoccupied part of the canvas of +the sentiment governing the sitter.”[582] Mr. Van Dyke points out +the effect of the landscape in the famous portrait of “Mrs Graham,” +where “the castle wall, the deep glen at the left, the loneliness of +the background, add to the romance of her face.”[583] The portrait +of Mrs. Robinson as “Perdita”[584] or that of “Mrs. Sheridan”[585] +are even more convincing proofs of his ability to present a landscape +inexplicably akin to the personality of the sitter, a landscape that +in some indefinably but most real way interprets and emphasizes that +personality. It is in full-length portraits of women whose beauty +is enhanced by an air of pensive melancholy that this subtle use of +landscape is mainly found. But in group portraits such as that of “Mrs +Moody and her Children,” or, lovelier still, that of “Mrs. Sheridan +and Mrs. Tickell,”[586] are landscape backgrounds every line and color +of which serve to carry out and complete the grace and tenderness +characteristic of the figures. In the “Squire Hallet and his +Wife”[587] there is a harmony so penetrating that it haunts the mind +like music. In “The Mall”[588] where there is no individual portraiture +we seem at first to have but a Watteau-like effect of fashionably +attired dames in a setting of rich park scenery. But presently we +perceive that the whole picture conveys a sense of pathos. The ancient +trees stretching up against the soft sky in immemorial majesty and +beauty give to the onlooker a keen sense of the futile and evanescent +life fluttering away its brief hour under their solemn and mysterious +shadows.[589] + + [Illustration: SQUIRE HALLET AND HIS WIFE + + _By Thomas Gainsborough_] + +On the same wall in the Wallace collection hang Reynolds’ “Mrs. Carnac” +and Gainsborough’s “Perdita.” Both pictures exemplify the possible +heightened attractiveness of a portrait in which the artist has made +skilful use of a landscape background. They also serve to illustrate a +central point of unlikeness in the use of landscape by the two great +artists. In Reynolds’ picture the beautiful setting can be conceived of +as a landscape quite apart from the stately lady whose pose, figure, +and draperies it so advantageously sets off. There is artistic harmony +but there is no essential union. But Gainsborough’s background cannot +be thought of by itself. It merely makes us conscious that the fair +Perdita is out in the light and air, that behind her are real forest +depths, that the pensive, appealing charm of her face is enhanced by +the pathetic loveliness of Nature herself. With Gainsborough we have +reached the subtlest and most perfect use of Nature in portraiture, and +his supremacy is based on the fact that his landscapes serve the true +purpose of backgrounds. They never offer an individual beauty that +rivals or eclipses that of the person, but they contribute to build up +an impression the very heart of which is the characteristic effect made +by the sitter. + +After Gainsborough, from the studios of great artists such as Romney, +Raeburn, Opie, and Hoppner, Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir Thomas Beechey, +and many of lesser note, came many portraits with landscape work of +power and significance, but it is not, in pursuance of this topic, +necessary to take up their work in detail, for the reason that Reynolds +and Gainsborough led the way, and for the further reason that after +them there arose no new or superior way of using Nature in portraiture. + + + II. LANDSCAPE PAINTING + +English landscape painting from 1660 to 1800 falls naturally into +three periods. During the first of these which ends in 1707 with the +death of the younger Van de Velde, there was considerable landscape +work, but nearly all of it was by foreign artists.[590] We do, to +be sure, find early in the period an Englishman, Robert Streater +(1624–80), who, in addition to his fame as a painter of historical and +mythological subjects on walls and ceilings, was counted “incomparable” +in landscape. His contemporary popularity is attested by the fact that +in James II’s collection were five of his landscapes, but such examples +of his work as are accessible in public galleries hardly substantiate +his reputation. He founded his style, it is said, on “the late +Italians.”[591] At the end of the period is Francis Barlow (1626–1702) +who, anticipating the themes of George Morland, crowded his farmyard +scenes with fowls of many varieties, with pigs, sheep, horses, cows, +donkeys, and even deer. A tinted drawing by him in the South Kensington +Gallery illustrates his lively conceptions, and indicates his clever +use of landscape backgrounds. Working with Barlow as an engraver was +Francis Place[592] (1647–1728) whose best plates were of animals, but +who sometimes etched landscapes “for his own amusement.” A print of his +“View of Scarborough” in the Print Room of the British Museum shows, +in spite of the conventional wool-bag clouds, a notable attempt to +represent truly a bold and rugged cliff with a distant sea-view and +waves rolling gently in on a curving beach. But with these unimportant +exceptions the painters of landscape in England before 1707 were +foreigners. And of the foreign artists only the Van de Veldes, father +and son, achieved more than local and temporary fame. Willem Van de +Velde the Elder (1610–93) was already a famous painter of sea-pieces +when Charles II called him to England in 1675. At Hampton Court may +still be seen many of his huge canvases, chiefly important as pictorial +chronicles of English naval achievement, but showing also effective use +of sea and sky. The eighteenth-century estimate of Willem Van de Velde +the Younger (1633–1707) is expressed in Walpole’s dictum, “Pre-eminence +is no more to be contested with Raphael for history than with Van de +Velde for sea-pieces,” and he still ranks as one of the great marine +painters. English galleries, both public and private, are rich in +beautiful examples of his work.[593] No other name so illustrious +occurs in Walpole’s annals of this period. Of the other foreign +painters it is sufficient to say that they were men whose habits of +thought, whose tastes, as well as their technique, had been established +in Holland, Flanders, or Italy, and who did their mature work in +England because the desire of Charles II to revive the art activities +fostered by his father seemed to offer a good professional opening. +The fact that they painted in England had hardly more influence on the +course of English art than would have been exerted by the importation +of their pictures. They founded no schools, they excited little +emulation or even imitation. They were merely second- or third-rate +workmen who painted along in a manner studiously reminiscent of their +earlier masters. Such slight effect as their work had in developing +the love of Nature in England came from the fact that Englishmen +at last saw depicted some of the wild or romantic scenes of their +own country, scenes from Scotland and the Isle of Jersey, from the +neighborhood of Derbyshire Peak, from along the banks of the Thames. +But such slight influence as this attention to local scenery might +have had, was, it must be insisted, nearly neutralized by the fact +that these representations of English scenery were always so “touched +up” in the style of some Dutch or Italian master as to be practically +unrecognizable. Instead of observing Nature the artists “composed” +pictures, using elements conventionally accepted as picturesque. They +trained themselves to see England through the eyes of Salvator Rosa or +Ruysdael or Claude Lorraine or the Poussins. + + [Illustration: A CALM + + _By Willem van de Velde_] + +The second period of landscape art in England comprises the forty-eight +years between the death of the younger Van de Velde (1707) and the +return of Richard Wilson from Italy in 1755. In studying this period a +convenient point of departure is given by M. Rouquet’s “L’état des arts +en Angleterre,” published in 1755. His only reference to landscape art +is in the following interesting but rather vague paragraph: + + Rien n’est si riant que les campagnes de ce pays-là, plus d’un + Peintre y fait un usage heureux des aspects charmans qui s’y + présentent de toutes parts: les tableaux de paysage y sont + fort à la mode, ce genre y est cultivé avec autant de succes + qu’aucun autre. Il y a peu de maîtres dans ce talent qui ayent + été beaucoup supérieurs aux Peintres de paysage qui jouissent + aujourd’hui en Angleterre de la première réputation.[594] + +M. Rouquet’s words seem to imply a much larger amount of successful +and popular landscape work than extant pictures or the meager annals +of the time would indicate. Possibly in the landscapes that were +“fort à la mode” were included important Italian works, or the works +of foreigners painting in England. There must have been, also, more +landscape production than is in any way recorded, so that M. Rouquet +doubtless had knowledge of pictures now practically non-existent. And +even the following summary of such names and works as have survived a +century and a half will give his words a modified justification. + +Peter Monamy (1670–1749) was a marine painter of the school of the +younger Van de Velde. “The Old East India Wharf at London Bridge,” +a large and interesting canvas at the South Kensington Gallery, and +“The Calm,” a small but very attractive picture at Dulwich, go far +toward the maintenance of his great contemporary reputation. A second +marine painter of much promise was Charles Brooking (1723–59). Of the +few pictures by him in London galleries the most delightful is “The +Calm,” a picture recently added to the National Gallery. A series of +his naval reviews was reproduced by Boydell in 1753, and other works +were engraved by Canot and Ravenet. Samuel Scott (1710–72), after Van +de Velde the most important marine painter of the century, did some of +his fine views of the Thames and old London bridges as early as 1745. +Excellent examples of his work are in the National Gallery and at South +Kensington. + + [Illustration: DUNNINGTON CLIFF + + _By Thomas Smith_] + +There were also during this period several men whose chief pictures +were of animals, but with considerable incidental use of landscape. +James Seymour (1702–52), known as a portrait painter of fine horses, +also painted many hunting-scenes where horses and dogs are trooping at +full speed through broken country. Contemporary with Seymour was John +Wootton (d. 1765) the excellence of whose representations of animals +is well shown by his illustrations of Gay’s “Fables” in 1731. Wootton +was also painting landscapes in the Italian manner before 1751. George +Stubbs (1724–1806) began his work as an animal painter before +the middle of the century. In 1740 he broke away from conventions +by resolving never to copy any picture but “to look into Nature for +himself and consult and study her only.” This sturdy independence +ripened in 1754 into a determination to visit Italy in order to test +his opinion that “Nature is superior to all Art,” a dictum worthy of +note so early in the century. + +Landscape painting specifically so called begins with the topographical +draughtsmen of the early eighteenth century. If a draughtsman had any +susceptibility to the beauties of Nature his sketch almost insensibly +took on various adjuncts from the scenes about him till his work +gradually merged into landscape painting for its own sake. One of +the earliest topographers was Samuel Buck (1696–1779) who, with his +brother Nathanael, brought out over five hundred views between 1723 and +1753.[595] Their work, stiff and crude as it is, did not confine itself +to buildings or bird’s-eye views but shows some attempts at adornment +by the introduction of sky and foliage. William Taverner (1703–72), +another early topographer and landscape painter as well, is represented +in South Kensington by one sepia drawing of a path by a river, and by +a singularly attractive water-color landscape, a composition in the +Italian style. Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse refers also to a view of a sand-pit +at Woolwich, and to “an extensive and beautiful landscape” (now at +Whitworth Institute, Manchester) showing the view from Richmond Hill. +Taverner’s reputation was justly high in his own day. Smollett in +“Humphrey Clinker” makes Matthew Bramble say of Taverner in a letter to +Dr. Lewis (May 19), + + This young gentleman of Bath is the best landscape painter now + living: I was struck with his performances as I had never been + by painting before. His trees not only have a richness of + foliage, and warmth of colouring which delight the view; but + also a certain magnificence in the disposition and spirit in the + expression, which I cannot describe.... If there is any taste + for ingenuity left ... this artist, I apprehend, will make a + capital figure, as soon as his works are known.[596] + + [Illustration: DERWENTWATER + + _By William Bellers_] + +After Taverner’s death “The Gentleman’s Magazine” for 1772 reiterated +Smollett’s statement but in a stronger form calling Taverner “one of +the best landscape painters England ever produced.” Mr. Monkhouse +speaks of him as “the artist who could most justly challenge Paul +Sandby’s claim to the title of the father of the English school of +water-colours in the production of faithful landscape.”[597] About +contemporary with Taverner is George Lambert (1710–65), engravings +from whose landscapes were published in 1749. In the Print Room of the +British Museum his work is represented by six attractive engravings, +and there is a fresh, modern looking painting by him in the National +Gallery.[598] Lambert chose as themes mixed country of slow streams +or quiet lakes, with bushy shores; low, wooded hills; stretches of +arable land with thatched cottages under embowering trees. In most of +his pictures the rich, peaceful scene is enlivened by the presence +of domestic animals, cows standing lazily in pools, sheep huddling +along the road, horses coming heavily home from the day’s work. There +are also men, women, and children engaged in various country sports +or occupations. George Lambert is one of the first English artists +to attempt what may be called domestic landscape. Contemporary with +Lambert is Thomas Smith (d. 1767), known as “Smith of Derby” from +the town where he chiefly resided. His “Views of Chatsworth” are +dated 1744, and Vivares engraved some of his views of Derbyshire in +1745. A print from his “View of Dunnington Cliff,” dated 1745, shows +a river winding in tortuous fashion into the remote distance, with +wooded hills on one side, balanced on the other by meadows stretching +away to a low hill crowned with a little church. The foreground shows +scraggly trees, a waterfall, a lock, cattle grazing, and figures +variously occupied. The crowded canvas lacks unity of impression and +is thoroughly conventional in arrangement, but the details are English +and are painted with manifest appreciation and a very evident attempt +at fidelity. George Smith (1714–76), or “Smith of Chichester,” belongs +in time with Lambert and Thomas Smith. He and his brothers were the +first to establish a local school of landscape art. In 1760 he was +awarded a premium of fifty pounds for “A Landskip, half-length,” the +first premium given by the “Society of Arts” for landscape work, but +he had done considerable Claudesque painting before this time. In +spite of his imitative manner his themes are the lovely scenes about +Chichester, and he painted them with genuine affection. A pleasing +example of his Italian style is in the South Kensington Gallery. +A dark line of foreground with tufted brownish trees on each side +frames in a still lake; a fine effect of distance is given by misty +blue hills beyond the lake; and sunset effects--a tender blue sky +with grayish little clouds softly brightened by yellow light from the +diffused golden glow along the horizon--are delicately repeated in +the mirror-like water. Another early artist of whom little seems to +be known is William Bellers.[599] Numerous engravings by Mason from +landscapes “Painted after Nature by William Bellers” occur from 1752 +to 1759. He was a Cumberland man and nearly all of his pictures are +of scenes in that county and in Westmoreland. As art his work cannot +rank high, but not even his fluffy hills, tossed together without a +suggestion of rock foundation, nor his lack of aërial perspective, can +obscure the delight with which he painted the picturesque scenery of +his native regions. Bellers was apparently the first one of the long +line of Lake Country artists and his pictures antedate by some years +the known descriptions in poetry, travels, and fiction. Thomas Smith +also painted in Westmoreland and other northern counties but there +is no means of determining whether his pictures are earlier or later +than those of Bellers. Alexander Cozens (d. 1786), was sent to study +art in Italy. He returned to England in 1746 and exhibited from 1760 +to 1781. There are at South Kensington several examples of his work, +especially two interesting mountain landscapes. In the British Museum +are fifty-four drawings which belong to his Italian period. Some of +these are extensive views. Some of them show interesting experiments +such as the attempt to represent sunlight streaming through clouds. +“Altogether,” says Mr. Monkhouse, “these show that Cozens before his +arrival in England, was a well-trained artist who observed Nature for +himself, and was not without poetical skill” and Mr. Monkhouse finds in +the “imagination, ingenuity, and trained skill” of the father adequate +explanation of his son, John Robert Cozens, whose work will be noted in +the next section.[600] The work of Alexander Cozens was particularly +that of teaching art.[601] John Boydell (1719–1804), better known +as a publisher of prints than as an original artist, yet did some +interesting early work. In 1736 his interest in scenery was aroused by +“a book of well-executed landscape engravings.” In 1745 he brought out +a series of “landscapes for learners” the tremendous success of which +laid the foundation of his great fortune, and throughout his life his +activities as publisher were largely affected by his love of scenery. +He was the first artist to paint in Wales. A large print done by him +from one of his own pictures and bearing the date 1750 is an attempt to +represent Mount Snowdon. Paul Sandby (1725–1809) is of more importance +in the history of landscape art than any of the men already mentioned, +but most of his work belongs after 1755. His sketches in the Highlands, +whither he went as draughtsman on a road survey, were, however, made +during the years 1746–51[602] and his exquisite aquatint studies of the +country about Windsor belong about 1751–52 when he was with his brother +Thomas at the deputy ranger’s lodge at Windsor. + + [Illustration: MOUNT SNOWDON + + _By John Boydell_] + +That early landscape painting was not confined to England may be shown +by reference to some Scotch and Irish artists. Alexander Runciman +(1736–85) was born in Edinburgh. He began to paint landscapes before he +was twelve. “Furnished with pencils, and brushes, and colours, he took +to the fields; his first sketches were rocks, trees, and waterfalls.” +At fourteen he was placed in the studio of John and Robert Norris where +he showed himself “one of the wildest enthusiasts that ever devoted +themselves to the art.” “Other artists,” it was said, “talked meat +and drink, but Runciman talked landscape.” By 1755 Runciman set up as +landscape painter on his own account, but he speedily learned that +though landscape might bring applause it was not an art whereby even +a moderate livelihood could be obtained and by 1760 the young painter +had turned to other realms.[603] John Norris, of whom little is known +except that he was Runciman’s teacher, was nevertheless in his day +reckoned “a celebrated landscape painter.” Brydall says that he was +“probably the first to create, or at least to minister to the taste for +landscape in the Scottish metropolis.”[604] In Ireland was an obscure +artist named Rogers who has been called “the father of landscape art” +in that country. His pupil, Butts (d. 1764), painted early landscapes +said to be “impressive copies of the wild scenes which abound in the +county of Cork, and the romantic views that abound on the margin of +Black Water.” + +From this catalogue of names and dates several facts emerge. In the +first place, nearly all the landscape work mentioned belongs after +1740. From 1707 to about 1740 English landscape art can hardly be said +to exist at all. Even the foreign artists so much in evidence in the +preceding period are no longer to be found in England.[605] George II +frankly hated “boetry and bainting” and the reigns before him were +hardly more hospitably inclined to aesthetic claims outside the realms +of portraiture and history painting. This lack of royal patronage +would sufficiently account for the dearth of foreign painters, and +perhaps, also, for the lack of English landscape painters. All native +art-impulse would likewise feel the inevitably deadening effect of the +universal and rigid acceptance of foreign canons of art. But whatever +the cause, the fact remains that most of the English landscapes M. +Rouquet speaks so enthusiastically of in 1755 must have been painted in +the preceding fifteen years. + +In the second place, the landscape art, though technically not of +high rank, is yet, by its amount, the range of its themes, and its +suggestions of a new personal feeling toward the external world, an +important contribution to the growing love of Nature. The output of +the years 1740–55 is really surprisingly large and correspondingly +varied in theme. There are three artists who paint successful marines, +and three whose studies of animal life take good rank. In landscapes +we find much emphasis on the pastoral beauty of England, its hills, +streams, lakes, woods, meadows, and thatched cottages. Wilder scenery +is also portrayed, for by the middle of the century the Highlands of +Scotland, Derbyshire and Yorkshire, the Lake District, and Wales, have +all received recognition as true subjects for landscape art. And there +is, in the case of every artist, even of those who feel most strongly +the dominance of foreign masters, a very evident study of the details +of English landscapes and an eagerness to record in painting the charms +felt by the artist. It should also be noted that, though nearly all the +more important pictures were the work of English artists, yet native +artists began to paint scenery at about the same time in England, +Scotland, and Ireland. + +The period from 1755 to 1800 is throughout rich in landscape +production, but the thirty years between 1755 and 1785 is the most +significant portion of the period. These are the years during which +landscape art was established in England and during which it won the +greatest laurels it was to have before the great days of the early +nineteenth century. The two famous artists of this notable thirty years +were Wilson and Gainsborough and it will simplify the account if we +take up their work before that of their lesser contemporaries. + + [Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF CADER-IDRIS + + _By Richard Wilson_] + +Richard Wilson (1714–82) was born at Penegoes near Machynlleth, +Montgomeryshire, Wales, but while still a child, his father, the Rev. +John Wilson, went to live at Mold, Flintshire, and there the lad was +brought up. Talent of some sort as an artist he early evinced and at +fifteen he was sent to London to study portrait painting, a profession +at which he worked steadily for twenty-one years, and by which he +apparently made a fair income though his portraits never rose much +above mediocrity.[606] At thirty-six he went to Italy for further +study. During his six years there he devoted himself exclusively to +landscape. He remained in Venice a year; with William Lock he made +a slow tour from Venice to Rome; with Lord Dartmouth he went to +Naples; from Rome as his headquarters he made many excursions into +the surrounding regions; and throughout all these travels he was +tireless in the production of studies, sketches, pictures. Through the +generous praise of recognized authorities such as Zucarelli, Mengs, +and Vernet, a report of his surprising achievements reached England, +and when he returned to London in 1755 it was to find his reputation +practically established. His solemn style did not, however, at once +commend itself to the artists of his time. Wright says that his return +excited “some interest and much criticism in the coteries of art,” and +that certain artists “who then constituted themselves, what they called +_A Committee of Taste_, and led the understanding of the public +in art” sat in judgment on Wilson’s work and resolved “That the manner +of Mr. Wilson was not suited to the English, and that if he hoped for +patronage he must change it for the lighter style of Zucarelli.” When +this committee waited on Wilson it was met with cool contempt,[607] +and he painted on in his own fashion. But the committee’s estimate +of patronage was apparently correct, for during the lifetime of the +artist, in spite of the fact that during a period of twenty-five +years he assiduously painted landscapes, he did not achieve an even +moderately comfortable livelihood. His life was one of sordid financial +shifts and of growing bitterness of spirit, until, in 1780, through a +small inheritance, he was enabled to retire to a little patrimony in +Wales, where, broken and enfeebled, he spent the two years before his +death. + +Wilson’s work as a landscape painter began certainly as early as +1750 in Italy, and all probabilities are in favor of the supposition +that it began earlier in England. To be sure, no juvenile sketches, +no anecdotes of youthful tendencies, remain to substantiate this +conjecture. Even the “View of Dover,” the one landscape known to have +been painted before the Italian visit, is no longer in existence. +But the fact that this picture was at once engraved by J. S. +Miller would seem to indicate that it was counted a work of some +importance. Furthermore, when Wilson began his work in Italy there +was no apprentice period. Work done in the early years there shows a +management of landscape detail and composition quite equal to that +of his later work, and such as would not be prepared for by the most +zealous study in portraiture. It is, indeed, hardly believable that a +pronounced passion for landscape such as characterized Wilson should +never have tempted his brush till he was thirty-six, and should then, +at the chance words of a fellow-artist suddenly open out before him +as his life-work. Edwards Edwardes is responsible for the anecdote +that attributes Wilson’s change from portraiture to landscape to the +advice of Zucarelli. But we have, on the other hand, the more probable +account given by Mr. Hastings in a volume of etchings made by him from +the Ford collection of Wilson’s paintings. Mr. Hastings gives Mr. +R----s (probably Mr. Samuel Rogers, the author of “Italy” and an art +connoisseur) as authority for the statement that an influential patron +of the arts, Mr. William Lock of Norbury, perceived Wilson’s bent +toward landscape of the grand sort, and urged him to go to Italy as +the best place to perfect himself in that art. Mr. Beaumont Fletcher, +Wilson’s latest biographer, considers that the artist was fully +conscious of his powers as a landscape painter, and that his visit +to Rome was premeditated for the purpose of study in that particular +line.[608] Sir Walter Armstrong also maintains the probability, almost +certainty, of landscape work by Wilson prior to the Italian tour.[609] + +The landscapes painted by Wilson between 1755 and 1760, the date of +the first public exhibition of pictures[610] in England, cannot be +absolutely identified, but he was probably spending much of his time +in painting from the sketches made in Italy. In the exhibition of 1760 +was his “Niobe.” In the same year he painted an upright picture of +the Arno for the drawing-room mantel-piece of a patron in Platt Hall, +Manchester. In 1761 were exhibited “The Lake of Nemi” and other Italian +pictures. The “Phaeton” appeared in 1763, the “L’Anconetta” in 1764, +the “Villa Madama” in 1765, and many other Italian pictures in these +and successive years. By 1768 he had exhibited about thirty landscapes +nearly all of which were based on his Italian sketches, and it was his +custom through his life to paint pictures the chief elements of which +were the sunny skies and ruined temples of classic regions. + +A recognition of the great influence of Italy over Wilson’s mind and +art should not, however, be allowed to obscure the fact that he gave +equally sympathetic response to the scenes of his own land. When +Stothard was a student at the Royal Academy he asked Wilson to suggest +to him something to copy, and Wilson, who happened to be looking out +over the Thames, responded that there could not well be anything better +to copy than that. That he loved English scenery becomes apparent +when we study such pictures as the lovely “English Landscape”[611] +in the possession of the Rev. Stopford Brooke, the “River Scene with +Castle” in the South Kensington Gallery, the “View on the Wye”[611] +in the National Gallery, the “De Tabley House” in the possession of +A. T. Hollingsworth,[612] “Wilton in Wiltshire,”[613] “View in Kew +Gardens,”[614] “Sion House,” and “A View near Chester.” The dates of +these English pictures can seldom be determined, but it is evident that +he made occasional sketching tours, for the exhibitions record views in +Bedfordshire, Devonshire, and Cheshire, besides those of places in the +immediate neighborhood of London such as St. James’ Park, Windsor Great +Park, Kew Gardens, and Hounslow Heath. + +But none of these English pictures, and few even of his Italian ones, +can compare in dignity and beauty with his notable Welsh views. He +certainly visited Wales before 1766 for in that year he exhibited two +views from North Wales, “Carnarvon Castle” and “Northwest View of +Snowdon.” It seems very likely that when he was painting at Manchester +and Chester in 1760 he took the opportunity to visit his old home, +but there are no dated Welsh pictures before 1766. But even this date +gives him no predecessors among artists painting in Wales except men so +inferior as John Boydell and Anthony Devis. Other Welsh pictures were +exhibited by Wilson in 1771 and 1774. In 1775 Boydell published “Six +Views in Wales,” engravings by Byrne and Rooker from Wilson’s pictures. +Britton in his “Fine Arts in England” (1805) said that “Wilson’s ‘Six +Views’ were the most important topographical views ever published in +England.” But they only partially represent the great amount of work +done by Wilson on Welsh subjects. In the Print Room of the British +Museum are engravings from many other fine Welsh pictures such as “The +Great Bridge over the Taafe,” engraved by Canot, “Kilgarren Castle,” +engraved by Elliott, “Pembroke Castle” by Mason, “Carnarvon Castle” +by Byrne, “Snowdon Hill” by Woollett, “The Summit of Cader Idris” by +E. and M. Rooker. Even in the engravings these are pictures of very +great nobility and charm. One original “Snowdon” picture is in the +Manchester Art Gallery. It is called “A Welsh Valley with Snowdon Hill” +and is of the rarest beauty. The rough foreground slopes, the distant +mountain bathed in light and delicately outlined against the softest of +skies, the mists rising from the hidden valleys, are magically combined +into a picture adequate in its presentation of the facts of Nature, +and having, also, a strong poetic and imaginative appeal. A beautiful +print after Wilson in the British Museum is another, “Snowdon Hill,” +by Woollett. The loneliness, the serenity, the majesty, and the beauty +of mountain regions are portrayed by Wilson with an essentially modern +feeling. + + [Illustration: KILGARREN CASTLE + + _By Richard Wilson_] + +It was many years before any other artist so well illustrated Blake’s +phrase, “Great things are done when men and mountains meet,”[615] +as did Wilson. For fifteen impressionable years he had lived in +North Wales and his mind and heart had been insensibly affected by +the sublimity of mountain scenes. Wales had given as important and +effective tutelage to him as did the Lake District to the youthful +Wordsworth sixty years later. Wilson is reported to have said that +Wales “afforded every requisite for a landscape painter” but we need +no testimony beyond his pictures to show with what power these rugged +cliffs and deep ravines, these silent lakes and tarns, these tumultuous +streams and waterfalls, these lonely mountain masses towering into the +sky, spoke to him both as an artist and as a man when, in mature life +with mature power, he returned to the land of his birth. He painted +Welsh scenes with boldness and freedom, with grandeur, dignity, and +impressiveness, and with a power of divination that must put him high +in the ranks of painters of mountain scenery in any age.[616] + +In one characteristic Wilson’s Italian and Welsh pictures are alike. +He was temperamentally susceptible to the pathos of ruins. His Italian +pictures are steeped in a sense of inescapable sadness. Through the +loveliness of Nature runs the mournful memory of fallen grandeur, +of races who have lived and loved and are no more. But the ruined +strongholds and castles of his own land touched him even more deeply. +The bright stillness of Kilgarren Castle on its rocky cliff, mirrored +in the smooth surface of the river below, is more beautiful and more +subtly suggestive of “old, unhappy, far-off things” than are the +Italian pictures. + +Through all Wilson’s pictures we feel, furthermore, a quality of +genuineness in both observation and feeling. He studied the great +masters of landscape, but not as a copyist. He compared their work with +Nature which he studied for himself. Ruskin says of him, + + Here, at last, we feel, is an honest Englishman, who has got + away out of all the Camere, and the Loggie, and the Stanze, + and the schools, and the Disputas ... and has laid himself + down with His own poor eyes and heart, and the sun casting his + light between ruins--possessor, he, of so much of the evidently + blessed peace of things--he and the poor lizard in the cranny of + the stones beside him.[617] + +Mr. Beaumont Fletcher in developing this conception of Wilson as +one able to see with his own eyes, very justly points out that his +idealism, even in the Italian pictures, is based on a singularly close +representation of the facts of Nature. Even Sir Joshua Reynolds when +he objects to Wilson’s use of classical figures incidentally testifies +to the truth of his landscapes which are, says Sir Joshua, “too near +common nature to admit the supernatural.”[618] + +Wilson has been called “a painter’s painter,” and various testimonies +show how deeply impressed later distinguished artists were by his +work. Sir James D. Linton[619] points out that “Turner carried Wilson’s +methods so far in some of the works of his early middle period as +almost to amount to imitation,” and notes a picture by Turner of +“Kilgarrin Castle” “so like Wilson in manner, treatment, and colour +that it might fairly be called a ‘Wilson Turner.’” Constable, also, +though he did not choose the grand themes, and though he rejected the +classical mannerisms of Wilson, was yet one of his great admirers. +Of a visit to the gallery of Sir John Leicester in 1823 he wrote, “I +recollect nothing so much as a large, solemn, bright, warm, fresh +landscape by Wilson, which still swims in my brain like a delicious +dream. Poor Wilson! think of his fate, think of his magnificence.”[620] +Of Wilson’s place in the development of art Ruskin says, “I believe +that with the name of Richard Wilson the history of sincere landscape +art, founded on a meditative love of nature, begins with England.” + + [Illustration: A WELSH VALLEY WITH SNOWDON HILL + + _By Richard Wilson_] + +Thomas Gainsborough, though mainly known as a portrait painter, showed +an early and persistent bent toward landscape. Before he was twelve +it was his delight to spend his mornings in the woods near his home +at Sudbury in Suffolk, sketching from streams, trees, cattle, sheep, +and peasants. In 1741, at fourteen years of age, he went to London and +studied, first under Gravelot, then under Hayman, and finally set up +a studio of his own. His ostensible work was portraits for which he +charged from three to five guineas, but he likewise painted landscapes +for such prices as they would bring. From 1745 to 1759 he was again in +Suffolk, but this time at Ipswich, twenty-two miles east from his old +home at Sudbury, and in the region between the Orwell and the Stour, +the region afterward made famous by Constable. During the Ipswich +period he was slowly building up a reputation as a portrait painter; +but here, too, he made “Madam Nature, not man, his sole study.” He did +much sketching along the picturesque banks of the Orwell and in the +groves of oaks and elms in the neighborhood of Ipswich. That he painted +many landscapes while at Ipswich is indicated by the fact that Governor +Thicknesse called upon him in 1754,[621] and was much struck by the +great beauty of the small landscapes mingled with the rather stiff +portraits in the artist’s studio. None of these landscapes can now +be identified, but it was their excellence that gained from Governor +a commission to paint “Landguard Fort,” important as the earliest +known of Gainsborough’s landscapes, though, even in this case, the +original picture has perished and is known only through Thomas Major’s +engraving. To the latter part of the Ipswich period belong the “Cornard +Wood,” “View of Dedham” and two small uprights in the National Gallery, +besides seven or eight other canvases attributed to these years. The +landscapes of this period were strongly influenced by Dutch artists. +The most noteworthy picture of the Ipswich years, the “Cornard Wood,” +might almost, says Mr. Boulton, have been painted by Both or Berghem. +The Dutch fidelity to the details of the scene in this picture was +shown in two other probably contemporary landscapes of which Mr. +Fulcher wrote, “They were both drawn and coloured in the open air: +in one of them a young oak is painted leaf for leaf, while ferns and +grasses are portrayed with microscopic fidelity.”[622] Gainsborough’s +life at Bath (1760–74) was marked by almost exclusive attention to +portraiture, yet in the midst of his successes here he wrote, “I’m +sick of portraits and wish very much to take my viol-da-gam and walk +off to some sweet village where I can paint landskip and enjoy the +fag-end of life in quietness and ease.” Quin said at this time that +when a portrait was on the easel Gainsborough was disposed to growl +at all sublunary things, but if he was engaged on a landscape “he was +all gaiety, his imagination in the skies.” He employed the intervals +between sittings in studying the fine trees in his neighborhood. He +painted numerous landscapes and rural scenes during the Bath period, +the more celebrated ones, such as the “Market Cart” of the National +Gallery, the “Harvest Wagon,” and the “Cottage Door,” belonging to +the later years of that period. During Gainsborough’s last or London +period (1774–88) he still kept up his interest in Nature and took a +house on Kew Green that he might have a convenient center for sketching +tours along the banks of the Thames, and many landscapes were produced +during these years. Walpole says of one exhibited in 1777 that it was +“by far the finest landscape ever painted in England, and equal to the +great masters.” Another in 1779 Walpole called “most natural, bold, +and admirable.” Six landscapes in 1780 he characterized as “charming, +very spirited, as admirable as the great masters.”[623] Walpole’s +favorable opinion of Gainsborough was quite generally shared by artists +and critics, but even in his case there was but a small purchasing +public, so that when he died in 1788 his house was found to be filled +with unsold landscapes. This fact, and the large sums he could command +for portraits, make it all the more striking that out of a total +of eight hundred and eighty-seven pictures about a fifth should be +landscapes.[624] + + [Illustration: THE MARKET CART + + _By Thomas Gainsborough_] + +In the landscapes of the Bath and London periods the labored accuracy +of the early work gives place to the “landscape generalization” by +which Gainsborough’s mature paintings are characterized. In these +later landscapes, of which the great “Watering Place” in the National +Gallery may be taken as the supreme example, there is an apparent +ignoring of the separate facts of Nature. No oaks are painted leaf for +leaf. There is not even sufficient definiteness to make the kind of +tree unmistakable. Yet the effect of Nature is adequately rendered. +The mind is conducted into genuine woodland coolness and shade. As +we look we become gradually conscious of the mysterious charm of +Nature herself. These landscapes not only satisfy the eye by wonderful +harmonies of color and flowing line, but they speak appealingly to +the emotions. Constable says of them, “They are soothing, tender, and +affecting. The stillness of noon, the depths of twilight, and the dews +and pearls of morning are all to be found on the canvases of this most +benevolent and kind-hearted man. On looking at them we find tears in +our eyes and we know not what brings them.”[625] + +In theme Gainsborough is distinctively English, and even within this +limit his range is narrow. The grander elements in Nature did not +stir his imagination. Mountains, the ocean, storms, were, to be sure, +not entirely absent from his pictures. In 1781 he had apparently been +painting along the coast, for Walpole comments on two pictures “of +sea and land,” “so fine and natural that one stepped back for fear +of being splashed.” One of these was, Mr. Conway thinks, the Duke +of Westminster’s “Coast Scene,” “a sparkling picture, articulately +suggestive of a single delightful idea,” a windy day on an estuary. +In 1783 Gainsborough made a trip to Cumberland and Westmoreland, +gaily predicting that on his return he would show “your Grays and Dr. +Browns to be but tawdry fan-painters.”[626] Sir Walter Armstrong +reproduces a chalk drawing subsequent to this period in which “the +hills in the distance are thoroughly true in mass, perspective, +and aërial envelope;”[627] Mr. Fletcher is of the opinion that had +Gainsborough “lived a few years longer, he would undoubtedly have taken +a new departure in landscape art;”[628] and Mr. Boulton finds in the +pictures after 1783 a new tendency to deal with rocky foreground and +mountain scenery.[629] Yet a few successful coast scenes and a late and +certainly rather slight interest in mountain regions can hardly affect +the statement that Gainsborough was, on the whole, but little moved by +the grander aspects of Nature. He cared as little for the majestic, +the terrible, the awe-inspiring, as he did for the trim, the formal, +and the precise. What he loved to portray was the gently varied and +picturesque scenery of his own countryside. He sought out woodland +roads, lanes with steep grassy banks, trees heavy with foliage, tangled +copses, pools of still water, skies glowing with sunset hues, or +deepening into twilight, or with the blue showing through rifted storm +clouds. Cumberland and Westmoreland had for him no appeal comparable to +the remembered charm of Suffolk. + +Gainsborough’s pictures of rural life do not properly come under +the head of landscape painting, but the representation of country +activities, and pure landscapes run into each other by many gradations. +If we consider those pictures in which landscape elements distinctly +predominate we shall find that the figures of men and animals are +hardly more than animating or decorative details. One of the artist’s +rare theoretical statements was to the effect that a landscape should +admit only such figures as “create a little business for the eye to be +drawn from the trees in order to return to them with more glee.”[630] +Accordingly the figures whether of men or animals were painted because +they helped out the scheme of light, of color, of form in the picture +as a whole. But while this is true, it is likewise true that his rustic +groups, his shaggy horses, his cattle, and goats, and donkeys, and pigs +are something more than picturesque elements in the landscape. They +help to individualize and interpret it, and they give it a quaint, +homely charm. The grandeur of Wilson’s themes, the solemnity of his +tone, make the few small figures in his pictures seem strikingly +incongruous with the scene, but Gainsborough’s figures have an intimate +union with the landscape. + +However impossible it may be to determine who is the “father” of +English landscape art, there can be no question as to the value of +having at the formative period of that art two men so unlike in +education, temperament, and taste as Wilson and Gainsborough. One +brought in the Italian, the other the Dutch influence, yet each was +too strong an individuality to be a mere copyist. The one painted with +poetic comprehension and in a grand manner, not only the sunny skies, +clear air, bright lakes, and ruined temples of classic lands, but also, +and with equal power, scenes of dignity, grandeur, and pathos, in his +own land, while the other painted with genuine tenderness and affection +the lovely scenes of rural England. Both loved Nature passionately and +strove to express that love in their pictures. From the point of view +of a growing taste for the beauties of the out-door world, both artists +are of the greatest importance. The transfer of interest from man to +Nature is as marked in their pictures as in any other realm of thought +and emotion. + +Contemporary with Wilson and Gainsborough were many artists of lesser +note whose work is nevertheless important because of the cumulative +testimony it bears to the growing interest in Nature. The catalogues +of the Society of Artists (1761–91), of the Free Society (1761–83), +and of the Royal Society which began its exhibitions in 1769,[631] +supplemented by some other scattered sources of information, give an +idea of the scope and the themes of this work, though not many of the +original pictures are now accessible. + +We find, in the first place, that nearly all the artists who were +painting from Nature before 1755 continued their work for periods of +considerable length after that date. Boydell published forty plates +from the “Derbyshire Views” of Thomas Smith who continued to exhibit +till 1767.[632] Samuel Scott exhibited occasional sea and shore views +to 1771. Between 1761–74 George Smith of Chichester exhibited over a +hundred landscapes some of which show a reaching-out into new realms. +He has not only _genre_ pictures such as “A Country Family Picking +Their Own Hops” (1761)[633] and “Cottages in a Wood” (1773), but +experiments such as “Moonlight,” “Mist,” “Sunset,” and eighteen “Frost” +or “Snow” scenes. William Bellers is credited, between 1761–73, with +seventy-seven landscapes, twenty-eight of them being views in the Lake +District. Alexander Cozens lived till 1786 and exhibited many small +landscapes in which he paid especial attention to “chiaro-oscuro.” His +chief work, however, was as a teacher, and he published some books on +art, notable among them being “The Shape, Skeleton, and Foliage of +Thirty-Two Species of Trees” (1771, republished 1786). Taverner was +also working as late as 1772. George Stubbs was constantly represented +in exhibitions from 1761 to 1803. + + [Illustration: PEMBROKE CASTLE + + _By Paul Sandby_] + +Of far more importance than any of the artists mentioned in the +foregoing paragraph is Paul Sandby,[634] who, as has already been +indicated, was the first to make known to art the wild and beautiful +scenery of the Scotch Highlands. In 1773 he exhibited his first Welsh +picture, and after that he did much work in Wales. Though not the first +to paint in that region--for Boydell, Wilson, Farington, and Devis were +ahead of him--he yet did much to show its picturesque possibilities. +His important Welsh “aquatint views taken on the spot” appeared in +four sets of twelve plates each, beginning in 1775, the very year of +Boydell’s publication of Wilson’s “Six Views.” These mountain pictures, +especially those of the second series, justly rank as the most vital +landscape work contemporary with Wilson and Gainsborough. “Llangolin +in Denbigh,” “Conwyd Mill,” “Llanberis Lake and Great Mountain +Snowdon,” “Pont-y-Pair over the River Conway” are but a few of the many +pictures that show with what enthusiasm Sandby surrendered himself to +impressions from the grand scenery of Wales. The striking change from +early eighteenth-century topographical sketches where the building +was merely rendered slightly more attractive by washed-in skies and +greensward is evidenced by such pictures as Sandby’s “Wynnestay, +Seat of Sir Watkins William Wynne” which is a pure landscape with no +house visible. So, too, in “Chirk Castle” there is but the faintest +indication of the castle in the distance. Sandby’s original purpose may +have been topographical but the outcome was pure landscape of great +interest and significance. + +There are, in addition to these older men, several artists whose work +begins about 1760 or soon after. Anthony Devis exhibited in 1761–63 +eight pictures, chiefly “Views in Wales.” He would thus antedate all +painters of Welsh scenery except Boydell. In 1761–78 James Lambert +exhibited numerous landscapes including many with titles such as “A +Misty Morning with Ewes and Lambs,” “Landscape with Ewes and Lambs,” “A +Farm-yard with Cattle.” George Barret (1732–84) was an Irish painter +who had taken a premium for landscape from the Dublin Society before +he came to England in 1762. Of the fifty-five landscapes exhibited +by him in England during the years 1764–82 the earliest were of +Powerscourt Park in Ireland, but from 1769 to 1772 he shows Scotch +and Lake District views, and in 1776–77 three pictures of “Llanberis +Pool in the Mountains of Snowdon.” The list of his pictures shows some +interesting special studies as “A Moonlight, with the Effect of a Mist; +a Study from Nature” (1767); “A Group of Beech Trees” (1776); “A View +of Windermere Lake, in Westmoreland, the effect, the sun beginning +to appear in the morning, with the mists breaking and dispersing” +(1781). Barret was a very popular painter. Of his premium picture in +1764 Barry wrote, “My friend and countryman, Barret, does no small +honour to Landscape amongst us; I have seen nothing to match his last +year’s premium picture. It has discovered to me a very great want +in the aërial part of my favourite Claude’s performances.” Barret’s +work brought prices never before paid for landscapes, Lord Dalkeith +having given fifteen hundred pounds for three of them. The Rev. John +Lock commissioned him to paint the principal rooms of his house +from skirting to ceiling with landscape scenes.[635] Richard Wright +(1735–75) was a marine painter known sometimes as “Wright of the Isle +of Man.” In 1764 he took a premium of fifty guineas for a sea-piece +from which Woollett engraved “The Fishery.” Such themes as “A Ship in +a Squall,” “The Sun Dispersing a Fog,” “A Fresh Gale,” “A Moonlight,” +show attempts at the representation of other aspects of the sea than +merely as a background for England’s navy. Wright exhibited till 1773. +Another marine painter, John Cleveley, exhibited from 1764–86. Fleets, +royal yachts, ships of war, distinguished naval events, are his chief +themes. Dominic Serres (1722–93) exhibited after 1765. He, too, was +chiefly occupied with naval affairs, particularly so after 1780 when +he became marine painter to his majesty. The Rev. William Gilpin +(1723–1804) contributed to the interest in home scenery by numerous +sketches and, especially, by his book, “Forest Scenery” (1786). Far +more gifted was his younger brother, Sawrey Gilpin (1733–1807), who +excelled as an animal painter. His most abundant as well as his most +spirited and accurate work is in portraits of fine horses and dogs. +But he painted other animals also, birds, deer, foxes, tigers, and +even “American Bears” (1798). There is in the South Kensington Museum +a beautiful canvas by Gilpin called “Cows in a Landscape.” It has a +smooth, clear, decorative effect, the cows are broadly, simply, but +realistically painted, and the landscape gives in most suggestive +fashion the mists, the faintly illumined sky, the dewy feeling, of +early morning.[636] + + [Illustration: LODORE WATERFALL + + _By Joseph Farington_] + +The men enumerated in the preceding paragraph did all of their work, +or, in a few cases such as Paul Sandby and Sawrey Gilpin who painted +through the century, did much of their most characteristic work, before +1785. There is still another group of men who were born about the +middle of the century the bulk of whose work, or whose most significant +work, belongs before 1800. Of professional marine painters we have +Robert Cleveley who began to exhibit in 1780; the more celebrated +Nicholas Pocock (1741–1821); and John Thomas Serres (1759–1825), all +of whom carried on the traditional representation of noted ships, +harbors, and naval actions. David Allan’s (1744–96) best work is +his set of illustrations of “The Gentle Shepherd.” He went to the +Pentland Hills and studied both the places and the people he wished +to represent. “He visited,” says Cunningham, “every hill, dale, tree, +stream, and cottage, which could be admitted into the landscape of the +poet.... Glaid’s farm house, the Monk’s burn, the Linn, the Washing +Green, Habbie’s How, New Hall House, and that little breast-deep basin +in the burn, called Peggie’s pool, were all carefully drawn.” It was +Allan’s endeavor to do in painting what Ramsay had done half a century +before in poetry, and though his pictures are far from expressing the +brightness and beauty of the poem, they fairly take rank as important +attempts to represent native landscapes from careful, first-hand +observation. James de Loutherbourg (1740–1812) came to England about +1770, and was constantly represented in the exhibitions during the +rest of the century. His vigorous storms and sea-scapes were long +popular. The public taste that could laud De Loutherbourg’s pictures +and neglect Wilson’s was severely satirized by “Peter Pindar.”[637] +But De Loutherbourg has another claim to recognition in that he +was one of the staunchest defenders of the picturesque scenery of the +British Isles as against that of other lands. He maintained that no +English painter need go abroad for inspiration when he had access to +the Highlands of Scotland, the Lake District of Cumberland, and the +mountainous region of North Wales. It was to further this idea that +he opened his panorama of English scenery in 1782, a show by which +Gainsborough was fascinated, and which, apparently, prompted his visit +to the Lakes in 1783.[638] Thomas Hearne (1744–1817) is of importance +in the early history of water-color. In 1777 he began a series of tours +through Great Britain for the purpose of illustrating “The Antiquities +of Great Britain” for which he made fifty-two drawings. Mr. Cosmo +Monkhouse praises him for close and fresh observation of Nature, for +excellence in atmospheric perspective, for truth of sunlight, and +for beauty of trees and skies.[639] Though he lived well into the +nineteenth century, much of his most finished work belongs before +1800. Joseph Farington (1747–1821) was a pupil of Richard Wilson. He +exhibited almost yearly from 1765 to 1813. He may possibly have been +with Wilson in Wales before 1766. At any rate he exhibited in 1768 and +1770 views of Snowdon Hill and Penmaenmawr. Between 1778 and 1784 are +views of “Ambleside,” “Skiddaw and Derwentwater,” “Lodore,” “Rydal +Waterfall,” “Borrodale Grange,” “Winandermere from High-harig.” Mr. +Gilpin in his book on Cumberland (1786) says that descriptions are +useless since there are prints so accurate and beautiful as these of +Mr. Farington. Mr. Farington also has many views from Kent, Sussex, +Devonshire, Oxford, and Buckinghamshire. John Rathbone (1750–1807), +sometimes called “the Manchester Wilson,” began to exhibit in 1785. +Of his forty-eight recorded landscapes eleven represent Lake District +scenes, and most of the others are from similar scenery in Derbyshire, +Lancashire, on the Wye, or in Wales. Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1759–1817) +painted Welsh views after 1796 and Cumberland views after 1798. He is +best known, however, as a skilful painter of animals and of groups +of gay, rollicking rustic figures in an agreeable landscape setting. +Of the six pictures by him in the South Kensington Museum the one +called “Jack in his Glory” is most characteristic. The “Conway Castle, +North Wales” (1794) has the added interest of being a moonlight +scene. Abraham Pether (1756–1812) began to exhibit in 1777. From +1784 to 1800 at least a fifth of his exhibited pictures were simply +entitled “Moonlight.” He painted “a water-mill,” “an iron foundry,” “a +waterfall,” “a fire,” and “ruins” by moonlight. He also chose as themes +“Evening,” “Sunset,” “Morning just before Dawn,” “Evening and Rain,” +and other unusual and delicately discriminated natural phenomena. +Edward Dayes (1763–1804), the master of Girtin, made many studies in +the Lake District after 1790. The “Windermere” and “Keswick Lake” in +the gallery at South Kensington attest the truthfulness and charm of +his work. + +The most important landscape painters of the second half of the century +have yet to be mentioned, Morland, Girtin, and Cozens. John Robert +Cozens (1752–99) began to exhibit when only fifteen years of age. At +twenty-four he was taken by Mr. Robert Payne Knight to Switzerland +to make sketches of the scenery. Of the work done on this trip Mr. +Monkhouse says, + + These drawings of 1776 are remarkable in the history not only + of English water-colour painting and English art, but in the + history of landscape painting of all time. They are the first + successful[640] attempt to give a true impression of Alpine + scenery. From the first Cozens seems to have found his way to + render its character, to convey the grandeur of its snow-crowned + peaks, the depth of its valleys, the solitude of its lakes, the + appearance of its slopes, “fledged,” as Shelley sang, “with + pines,” the sun striking through the gorges on high-perched + cot, or village, the chill of the shaded hollows filled with + mist, the cloaks of cloud about the shoulders of the hills,--and + all this not in a pretty conventional or a grand conventional + manner, but with a style that was Nature’s own.... His mountains + look their height, and suggest their bulk and weight.[641] + +Cozens was in England again by 1779. A second visit to Italy with Mr. +Beckford ended in 1783 and resulted like the first tour in a large +number of water-color drawings. Mr. Thornbury comments on a view of +a glacier valley executed at this time as “worthy of all praise for +its multitudinousness, breadth, and grand, harmonious simplicity, as +well as for the dazzling purity of its colour.”[642] Constable said +of Cozens that he was “all poetry,” and that “he was the greatest +genius that ever touched landscape;” and Turner said that from Cozens’ +“Hannibal Crossing the Alps” (1776) he had learned more than from +anything he had before seen.[643] + +Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) had a short life but he came early to the +maturity of his genius. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1794 to +1801. In about 1796 he went to the north of England and to Scotland +with James Moore, and there “made many sketches of pure landscape, +recording the grand effects of light and shade upon the swelling moors +and rolling downs, with a breadth and simplicity and a large regard to +truth never equalled before.”[644] In the South Kensington Gallery are +many water-colors by Girtin that show his excellent drawing and his +skill in the use of color. Four Yorkshire views, a “Coast Scene,” and +three river scenes well illustrate the truth and vigor with which he +represented landscape. Mr. Ruskin said of Girtin’s work, “He is often +as impressive to me as Nature herself; nor do I doubt that Turner owed +more to his teaching and companionship than to his own genius in the +first years of his life.”[645] + + [Illustration: THE WOOD CUTTERS + + _By George Morland_] + +George Morland (1763–1804) exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age +of ten, and from that time on each year saw many pictures from his +brush. He seldom painted pure landscapes. But whatever his theme the +landscape setting is almost invariably worthy of particular attention. +In many notable pictures of gipsies or wood-cutters it is, in fact, +not the fat, invertebrate figures of men and women that hold the eye. +The imagination is captured instead by the bower of shade, by the +deep wild-wood of the background. So, too, in various coast scenes, +the chalk cliffs against which breakers dash in blinding spray, the +trees bending before the wind, the rifts of blue sky showing through +scattering storm clouds, the feeling of rain in the air, certainly +count for as much in the general impression as do the men tugging at +the rope or lading wagons with the spoils of the sea. Nearly all of +Morland’s domestic pictures have an exquisite framework of old oak +trees, climbing vines, and flowering shrubs. J. T. Smith[646] says that +Morland was “the first artist who gave the sturdy oak its peculiar +character in landscape painting.” + +As a painter of animals Morland excels. His horses are of especial +interest for he does not expend his art on portraits of noted racers +or thoroughbreds, but on work-horses, and preferably on such horses +at the moment of release from toil. “The Inside of a Stable” (1791) +in the National Gallery, and “Horses in a Stable” (1791) in the South +Kensington Gallery are two of his finest works; and they show not only +his power of painting dim old interiors in the softest blend of color, +but they show particularly the attentive sympathy with which he had +studied horses. Many similar pictures could be cited but chief among +them for pathetic understanding is “The Blind White Horse.” Pigs were +among Morland’s favorite subjects. So frequently did he introduce +them into his pictures that the title-page of a book of his sketches +portrayed him leaning over a fence and making a drawing of three fat +sows. The animals in his pictures were all studied from the life. The +white horse so often depicted by him was modeled from an old nag he +bought and kept for a fortnight in his painting room. He regularly kept +by him various sorts of animals for study, “dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, +fowls, ducks, pigeons, mice, and many other kinds of livestock,”[647] +and sooner or later these were sure to appear in his pictures with +convincing realism. + +Morland rather defiantly declared that “the barn, the cow-house and +the piggery” were his favorite themes, but he has another class of +subjects, his numerous pictures of children, in which the out-door +setting is of great charm. Reynolds had painted beautiful pictures of +high-born, well-dressed children; and Gainsborough had given lovely, +pathetic, somewhat idealized representations of cottage children; +but Morland takes us into the realm of childhood itself, and his +gay, romping lads and lasses swing on gates, play games, go nutting, +sail toy boats, in the midst of most delightfully real out-of-door +surroundings.[648] All that Morland does is simple, genuine, +spontaneous, and has a permanent appeal, and his landscape without +being especially beautiful or at all novel, has a sort of homely, +intimate, and obvious charm. + +A survey of the century shows that there has been from 1700 to +1800 a remarkable change in the attitude of painting toward the +external world. From a predominating interest in man as shown in +history-painting and portraiture, with, at the best, landscape as an +unimportant background or adornment, we come to a period when landscape +is not only a very important element in portraiture, but is counted +as so valuable in itself that figures take rank as hardly more than +insignificant landscape detail. The development of the love of Nature +is shown in painting in England somewhat later than in poetry: Thomson +antedates the early English landscape painters, and Wordsworth’s +characteristic poetry of Nature is somewhat earlier than the great +paintings of Turner and, Constable. But in abundance and variety of +theme the English landscape artists have, by the end of the century, +surpassed even the poetry of the period. Pastoral England receives +especially full recognition. The ocean is, however, comparatively +unimportant as a source of inspiration, even as we have seen it to be +in the poetry of the same years. Perhaps the most striking fact is the +remarkable influence of mountains in reawakening the love of Nature. +The most enthusiastic and original landscape work was based on the wild +scenery of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and the Lake District.[649] + +Two other facts that bear upon the period as a whole should, in +conclusion, be noted. The first of these is the stimulus given to the +interest in Nature in England by the sketches brought home by artists +who had been in foreign lands. Nearly every artist studied in Italy +so that separate mention of Italian scenes is not necessary. But some +artists went into newer fields. Charles Fox (1749–1809) is interesting +as being the first recorded artist to visit Norway, Sweden, and Russia +for the purpose of representing the wild scenery of those countries. +Draughtsmen accompanied almost every public or private expedition to +remote regions. William Pars went with Dr. Chandler to Greece, 1764–66, +and with Lord Palmerston to various parts of the continent in 1767. +Thomas Hearne was in the Leeward Islands with Sir Ralph Payne in +1771–75. John Cleveley went with Sir Joseph Banks to the Hebrides in +1772, and with Captain Phipps to the North Sea in 1774. John Webber +was with Captain Cook on his last voyage to the South Seas in 1776–80. +A. M. Devis was in the Orient for the East India Company in 1788. And +William Alexander went with Lord Macartney to China in 1792. These +men brought back hundreds of views, many of which were exhibited at +the Royal Academy and later appeared as illustrations in the books +describing the various tours. The interest aroused by these pictures +is an evidence of the new romantic delight in whatever is remote, +and especially in the landscape characteristic of distant lands. But +it must be noted that the importance of this work is lessened by the +two facts that most of it belongs late in the century, after English +landscape art was already fairly well established, and that, in the +second place, much of it is of merely curious interest and intended to +show the oddities in flora or fauna or in human life in the various +countries. + +The second point is the prolonged dominance of foreign models. Walpole +in his “Anecdotes of Painting” (1762–71) said quite justly that +English artists drew “rocks and precipices and castellated mountains” +not because they saw such objects in England but because “Salvator +wandered amongst Alps and Apennines.” But the artists were not alone in +preferring to look at Nature through Italian spectacles. Poets, too, +gave praise to the Poussins, Salvator Rosa, and Claude Lorrain. When +Thomson in “The Castle of Indolence” (1748) had the cool airy halls of +his palace decorated with landscapes he chose + + Whate’er Lorraine light-touch’d with softening hue + Or savage Rosa dash’d or learned Poussin drew. + +A quarter of a century later we find these artists in undiminished +authority, for Mason (“The English Garden,” 1772) declares that the +true law-givers in the realm of the picturesque are Claude, Salvator +Rosa, and Ruysdael. An interesting illustration of the general +acceptance of the Italian or Dutch masters comes in 1754 from the realm +of house decoration. In that year Mr. Jackson of Battersea published +“An Essay on the Invention of Engraving and Printing ... and the +Application of it to the Making of Paper Hangings” in which he advised, +in order to show “the Taste of the owner,” “the introduction into the +Pannels of the Paper” of prints taken from “the works of Salvator Rosa, +Claude Lorrain, Gasper Poussin, Berghem, or Wouverman or any other +great master” in landscape. But perhaps, after all, no class of writers +shows more clearly the tendency to regard English scenes from the point +of view of Italian landscape art than do the early travelers. Dr. Brown +in his famous “Letter from Keswick” says that to give a complete idea +of the beauty of that region would require the united powers of Claude, +Salvator, and Poussin. “The first should throw his delicate sunshine +over the cultivated vales, the scattered cots, the groves, the lake, +and wooded islands. The second should dash out the horror of the rugged +cliffs, the steeps, the hanging woods, and foaming waterfalls; while +the grand pencil of Poussin should crown the whole with the majesty of +impending mountains.” So, too, Mr. Cradock says his utmost of Snowdon +when he boldly declares that it is as rich a region to him as Tivoli +or Frascati, and that “the romantic imagination of Salvator Rosa was +never inspired with a more tremendous idea, nor his extravagant pencil +never produced a bolder precipice.” Mr. Hutchinson in praising Keswick +and Skiddaw says that “Claude in his happiest hour never struck out +a finer landscape.” In a summary of the glories of the Lake District +he says, “The painters [_sic_] of Poussin describe the nobleness +of Hulls-water; the works of Salvator Rosa express the romantic and +rocky scenes of Keswick; and the tender and elegant touches of Claude +Loraine, and Smith, pencil forth the rich variety of Windermere.” +West’s “Guide” is professedly written in the interests of landscape +painting, but not of English landscape art, though by 1778 there was +strong and abundant English work. In each scene West still finds +suggestions of Italian painters only. Throughout his tour he marked +many “Stations” from which the artist in search of material could +get hints for pictures. On Coniston Lake he would find verified “the +delicate touches of Claude,” on Windermere-water “the noble scenes of +Poussin,” on Derwentwater “the stupendous, romantic ideas of Salvator +Rosa.” A traveler across Lancaster Sands would see the mountain of +Ingleborough from “as happy a point of view as that selected by Claude +in his picture of Soracte on the Tyber.” The region of the Langdale +Pikes is “as grand an assemblage of mountains, dells, and chasms, as +ever the fancy of Poussin suggested, or the genius of Rosa invented.” + +Later in the century the scenic school of the Italians partially gave +way before the growing supremacy of the Dutch artists. In 1795 “Anthony +Pasquin” in a critical review of the pictures exhibited in that year +says, + + When many of our present race of landscape painters wish to make + a _study_, they do it by their firesides; they take an old + perished copy of Wynants, Ruysdael, or Hobbima, or a damaged + copy from some eminent artist, and _compose_ by stealing a + tree from one, a dock-leaf from another, and a waterfall from + a third. By this means we have Flemish landscapes peopled with + English figures, and the same unvaried scenes served up _ad + infinitum_. + +That the taste of the purchasing public remained, until late in the +century, steadily in favor of foreign work may be shown in various +ways. Hogarth’s satires on the rage for “Old Masters” and Foote’s +comedy “Taste” (1752) in which a picture is pronounced excellent +until discovered to be by “an Englishman _now living_” when it +is discarded as “not worth house-room,” are significant mid-century +attacks on the undiscriminating demand for continental pictures. +Records of sale by the celebrated auctioneer Longford illustrate the +same fact. In 1764 he sold a collection of two hundred and fifty +paintings belonging to Roger Hearne. About one third of these were +landscapes, but not a single English artist, unless Van de Velde should +be so counted, is represented in the list. In 1765 the pictures of +“Mr. Samuel Scott, Painter (who is retiring into the Country)” were +sold. Of these pictures thirty-three were his own landscapes. Of the +remaining ninety canvases nearly all were landscapes, but again with +no English names in the list except Lambert and Marlow. In 1768 Mr. +Thomas Payne’s collection, largely made up of landscapes, has one each +by Monamy, Swaine, Lambert, Scott, and three by Wootton. In 1769 the +pictures of Smith of Derby were sold. He had five by Brooking, but all +the rest were his own unsold canvases of Lake District, Derbyshire, +and Yorkshire views. George Barret’s sale in 1771 was an attempt to +dispose of sixty-seven of his own views in Wales, Ireland, and the Lake +District. He advertised “waterfalls, effects of morning, of evening, +of moonlight, a remarkable great tree, etc., etc.” It is not till +1790 that we come upon a distinctively English collection. In that +year “Mr. Serres, Jun., Marine Painter (Going to Italy)” offered for +sale five hundred and fifteen pictures nearly two hundred of which +were landscapes by English artists. Thirty-two artists were named in +the list. This slow development of English appreciation for English +landscape art makes all the more evident the vitality of the impulse +that led to productivity so ample and varied in that field. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + GENERAL SUMMARY + + +During the period from Waller to Pope the general feeling toward +Nature was one of indifference. The whole emphasis was on man in his +higher social relations, and only such parts of Nature as were easily +subordinated to man were looked upon with pleasure. The facts of +Nature were little known. They were stated in terms merely imitative +and conventional. The new feeling toward Nature, as exemplified in the +early nineteenth-century poets, especially Wordsworth, on the contrary, +is marked by full and first-hand observation, by a rich, sensuous +delight in form, color, sound, and motion; by a strong preference for +the wilder, freer forms of Nature’s life, by an enthusiasm for Nature +passionate in its intensity, by a recognition of the divine life in +Nature, and finally by a consciousness of the inter-penetration of +that life and the life of man. At the beginning of the eighteenth +century, in poetry, travels, fiction, painting, and gardens, it was +the classical feeling toward Nature that predominated. By the end of +the century the new feeling had found abundant, varied, and original +statement. The change is a great one. From Pope to Wordsworth, from +Le Nôtre to Repton, from Kneller to Turner, from Richardson to Mrs. +Radcliffe, from Brand to Gilpin, the pendulum swings. Whether men +painted pictures or made gardens, or went on journeys, or told tales of +love and adventure, or wrote poems, the new spirit was at work within +them, sending them forth into the world of Nature and bidding them bear +witness to her power and loveliness. + +Early manifestations of the new spirit did not, however, find exactly +contemporaneous expression in these various art-forms. Thomson’s +“Seasons” and Pope’s “Fourth Epistle” are in 1726–31. Gainsborough and +Wilson do not bring out their work until after 1755. Thomas Amory’s +“John Buncle” is in 1756–66, and Brown’s “Keswick Letter” comes within +the same period. Thus the decisive beginnings of the new spirit in +painting, fiction, and travels are about contemporary, but are thirty +years behind poetry and gardening. Furthermore, the time between the +decisive beginnings and the final full expression is greatly varied. +In poetry it is seventy-three years, in gardening about sixty-five, in +painting about fifty, in fiction not over twenty-five, and in travels +only about fifteen years. + +In spite of these variations in date there seems to be in each art +the same general order of development. First there is a dim period of +tentative, unconscious, or apologetic indications of a new spirit. Then +some original mind seizes upon the new idea and gives it consistency +and at least partially adequate expression. After this there follows +a period of less vigorous but widespread and varied efforts to find +a statement for some portions of the new thought. Then a master +mind seems to feel all these diffused, struggling, half-expressed +conceptions and sums them up in the final perfect form. In the +poetry of Nature these stages are clearly marked in the work before +Thomson, in Thomson, in the period from Thomson to Wordsworth, and in +Wordsworth. In painting are Wilson and Gainsborough on the one hand and +Turner on the other. In gardening, travels, and fiction we find the +periods marked respectively by Kent and Repton, Brown and Gilpin, Amory +and Mrs. Radcliffe. In these three art-forms, especially in the last +two, we do not find the period of development ending in the work of +consummate genius. We go rather from a meager statement to a statement +that is full, manysided, enthusiastic. The progress is in the love +of Nature rather than in the power of adequate, final expression. +The development in gardening is more in the nature of a series of +experiments open to wide discussion, and the final outcome takes the +form given it by the man whose study of past failures and successes +has led him to the surest comprehension of the artistic and mechanical +laws involved. A glance at the accompanying table will make the general +statement clear, the main point being that in at least five of the ways +in which men express their ideas it is possible to trace the growth of +a complete change of attitude toward Nature. The poets who helped to +bring about this change have already been studied in detail, but some +further general statements may not be out of place here. + + [Illustration] + +As a rule, such significant poetry of Nature as appeared during the +transition period was the work of men who had spent much of their +youth in the country or in country villages; it was practically their +earliest poetic venture, and usually the work of their youth; and, in +most cases where there was an extended literary career, the poetry of +Nature speedily gave way to work of a didactic or dramatic sort, in +which Nature played but a small part. To any such general statement +there would be of course important exceptions. Blake, for instance, +was a town-bred poet. So was Collins, and his “Ode to Evening” is not +his earliest work. Cowper was town-bred. He was old when he began to +write, and his poetry of Nature is his latest rather than his earliest +work. But, taken as a whole, the poetry of Nature during the eighteenth +century bears out the statement as made. It is well illustrated +by Armstrong, who was born and who apparently spent his youth in +Castleton, a little village in the wildest part of the mountainous +country around the Derbyshire peaks, wrote his “Winter” before he was +fifteen, went to Edinburgh and then to London to study, and wrote as +the work of his mature years a didactic poem on the “Art of Preserving +Health.” Or by Dyer, who was brought up in South Wales, wrote “Grongar +Hill” and “The Country Walk” at twenty-five, went up to London, and +wrote as his mature work “The Ruins of Rome” and “The Fleece.” Or by +Thomson, who lived until he was fifteen in Southdean, a little hamlet +at the foot of the Cheviot Hills, the last of whose “Seasons” appeared +when he was thirty and whose later work was a succession of dreary +tragedies. Or by Akenside, who, though brought up in Newcastle-on-Tyne, +made frequent visits to the country during his youth, wrote “The +Pleasures of the Imagination” at seventeen during one of these visits, +and in his after life wrote much prose and poetry in which there is +no hint of the early enthusiasm. Allan Ramsay lived in a secluded +spot among the Pentland Hills until he was fifteen, and his earliest +important poem, “The Gentle Shepherd,” is really a memory picture. +William Pattison spent his youth at Appleby, a village on the Eden, +in Westmoreland, where he wrote his earliest poems. Mickel spent his +youth at Langholme on the Esk, and his first important poem, “Pollio,” +written at eighteen, was in memory of his life there. Bruce was brought +up at Kinneswood, a village on Lochleven, and his early poetry had +much to do with the scenery about that place. Beattie spent his youth +at Lawrencekirk and Fordoun on the east coast of Scotland, and “The +Minstrel,” his first important poem, is a record of his early life. It +would certainly be a misreading of these facts to infer that to write +well of Nature the poet must have been brought up in the country. +Genius has the rare gift of seeing a very little and straightway +knowing a great deal. It would be equally wrong to infer that poets +write of Nature when they are young and give it up when they put away +childish things. The import of these facts in this period seems to be +merely that there was a genuine and widespread love of Nature on the +part of many isolated poets, who, by the circumstances of their lives, +knew Nature better than they did literature, but that this love was +not sufficiently robust in individual cases to withstand the cramping +influences of city life and literary coteries. The developing tradition +was carried on not so much by the persistent influence of a few as by +the constant springing up of the same spirit in many minds. + +In a transition period the predominant spirit is self-conscious, +authoritative, and full of maxims drawn from its own successes. The new +spirit comes in, as it were, by chance. It is but slightly theoretic, +following instinct rather than well-defined principles. In its first +stages it is apologetic rather than aggressive. These characteristics, +on the whole, mark the love of Nature in the early eighteenth-century +poetry. There are, however, occasional indications that some poets, +at least, not only wrote according to new canons of taste, but were +distinctly conscious of their revolt from the old. So early as 1709 +Ambrose Philips in the Preface to his “Pastorals” justified his choice +of country themes by pointing out the pleasing effect of natural +scenes on the mind. John Gay’s enunciation of a creed, though meant as +a satire, was so just a condemnation of existing poetic conventions, +and so apt a prophecy of one phase of the new spirit that it really +deserves to rank among revolutionary statements of theory. Allan +Ramsay’s Preface to “The Evergreens” is equally emphatic in its scorn +of classical limitations, and it was meant in downright earnest. The +thought of the Preface finds expression several times in his poems as +well. Dyer gives utterance to a similar scorn of Parnassus in “The +Country Walk.” Shenstone, in his “Prefatory Essay on Elegy,” shows a +timid but perfectly clear recognition of the fact that he is breaking +away from poetical canons. Mason in the Preface to “Elfrida” says that +he has introduced descriptions with a purpose of rendering the drama +more pleasing. Whitehead’s “Enthusiast” with its elaborate statement +of both sides of the case in man versus Nature is an important +indication of the clearness with which the points of the controversy +were at that time recognized. The strongest and most detailed statement +of a creed came about four years later in Joseph Warton’s “Essay on +Pope” (1756). Nothing else so clear, direct, and full appeared before +the Prefaces of Wordsworth. After Warton it is not so necessary to +indicate all self-conscious statements. It will suffice briefly to +indicate Langhorne’s statement of his purpose in writing, Goldsmith’s +vigorous attacks on falseness and affectation in poetry, Beattie’s +Wordsworthian Preface to “The Minstrel,” John Scott’s criticism on +existing poetry and his statement of his own aim in the Preface to +his “Amoebaean Eclogues,” Crabbe’s expressed determination to treat +of Nature as it really is, Cowper’s pleasure in the fact that his +knowledge and inspiration come straight from Nature and his persistent +reiteration of his belief in the superiority of the country over +the city, and finally Burns’ many critical remarks on the essential +qualities of descriptive poetry. + +The characteristics of the poetry of Nature that was growing up during +the eighteenth century have been already indicated in one way and +another, but it seems necessary here to gather them up into general +statements. The easiest and clearest way will be to make a somewhat +detailed summary of such traits of this poetry as seem to foreshadow +the later treatment of Nature, especially as exemplified in Wordsworth. +In the comparison I keep mainly to Wordsworth both for the sake of +simplicity, and because, though in romantic periods each poet works +out his own salvation along original and self-determined lines, yet +Wordsworth more nearly than any other poet expresses the variety and +complexity of interest in the new feeling toward Nature. + +Wordsworth said that a part of his endowment as a poet was a +peculiar openness to sense impressions, and that this endowment was +cultivated by his environment in youth until the real facts of Nature +were perceived by him with fulness and accuracy. In his wholesale +condemnation of the period between “Paradise Lost” and “The Seasons” +the chief count in the indictment is the absence of new images drawn +from Nature. Full, accurate, first-hand knowledge of Nature is then +with Wordsworth a _sine qua non_, a basis on which interpretation +must rest. During the eighteenth century no one man had Wordsworth’s +inevitable ear or practiced eye, but the whole impression made is that +men were at last out of doors, looking and listening for themselves. +Each man sees many facts not before noted, and collectively the poetry +of the period presents a great body of natural phenomena of all sorts. +Poets, artists, travelers, writers of fiction, unite to swell the stock +of facts about the external world. Dorothy Wordsworth’s “Journals” show +with what delight she and her brother dwelt upon the baldest statement +of the actual facts of Nature. Gray in his “Letters,” John Scott in his +“Eclogues,” show this same pleasure in simply cataloguing the lovely +facts of the out-door world. Lady Winchilsea, Gay, Thomson, Dyer, +Cowper, Burns, all the landscape painters from Wilson to Girtin, Mrs. +Smith and Mrs. Radcliffe, are but leaders of the many who were striving +to make report of what they found in waters and skies, in field, +mountain, and plain. The wide range of these facts is astonishing. The +knowledge of the poet is no longer confined to parks and gardens, to +the mild and lovely aspects of Nature. His aroused curiosity pushes +him out into new realms of inquiry. All kinds of Nature, animate and +inanimate, wild and tame, remote and close at hand, attract interested +attention. + +The mere mass and variety of this accumulated knowledge is +sufficiently significant in its bearing on the development of a new +taste for Nature, but a further general question arises as to the +accuracy and delicacy of the observation. There certainly was none of +the scientific spirit that would feel the charm of bare exactness, and +there was hardly any of Wordsworth’s feeling that to misrepresent a +fact of Nature would be sacrilege. Facts were, indeed, often noted in a +loose, careless way, as if of slight importance. But taken as a whole +the observation bears the mark of the eye on the object. From Lady +Winchilsea to Bowles every poet who has been esteemed noteworthy in +the study of Nature gives the impression that he speaks from personal +knowledge, and no poetry can make that impression unless it is in its +main lines true. Delicacy of observation is another matter. + +What the eighteenth-century poets did was to give truthful expression +to very many natural facts of a kind fairly obvious to an age well +versed in the lore of field and wood; but new to an age just emerged +from the gates of a park. It is observation of this abundant, truthful, +obvious sort that we find in Ambrose Philips, Gay, Ramsay, Shenstone, +John Scott, and largely this even in Thomson. The commonest facts of +Nature, the blue sky, wild flowers on a rocky ledge, rough little +streams, were a wonder and a delight. Discrimination comes after +general and obvious facts have been accepted and assimilated. It is +inevitable, even setting aside their different temperaments, that +Cowper should have more of it than Thomson. The strange thing is +that in the early stages of the poetry of Nature we should find any +observation so close and delicate as that in the study of night by Lady +Winchilsea, of burns and mountain pools by Allan Ramsay, of winter +skies and ice-burdened streams by Armstrong; or as that in Thomson’s +sunset after rain, Dyer’s wide views and homely bits of country life, +Collins’ evening, Gray’s skylark and song-thrush, Thomas Warton’s +opening spring, Logan’s cuckoo, and Scott’s trees. + +The fulness and accuracy of the eighteenth-century study of Nature +may be further seen by a brief analysis of the sense impressions most +frequently noted. + +Wordsworth is said to have been physically deficient in the sense +of smell, hence the noticeable absence of odors in his poems may be +accounted for. But it is doubtless true of all poetry that fragrances +are more scantily recorded than are other facts, and that there is +seldom any delicate discrimination between various sorts of sweet +odors. For this reason such slight study of odors as we find in the +transition poetry is the more to be dwelt upon. There are certainly not +infrequent observations showing close knowledge. J. Philips notes the +faint sweetness of cowslips; Relph speaks of the odor of the “fresh +prumrose on the furst of May;” Dyer and Shenstone of the fragrance of +brakes; Dyer of sweet-smelling honeysuckles; Shenstone, Thomas Warton, +and Cowper of the fragrant woodbine; J. Philips and Mickle of scented +orchards; Cowper calls attention to the odor of limes and the fresh +smell of turf; Lady Winchilsea speaks of the “aromatic pain” from +the odor of a jonquil, the “potent fragrance” of which is recognized +also by Thomson. Two odors frequently mentioned are of “the perfuming +flowery bean” celebrated first by John Philips, then by Gay, Thomson, +Savage, Shenstone, and Joseph Warton; and the fragrance of hay noted +by Thomson, Gay, Ramsay, Savage, Potter, Relph, Thomas Warton, and +Mickle. When homely, unusual odors, like that of the bean, are noticed +there is often exceptional vividness of statement. What took rank in +the poet’s mind as his own discovery brought out a natural freshness +of phrase. One other fact frequently noted is that odors are strongest +at morning or evening or after a rain. These specific references are +of real importance in showing new powers of perception, but it must be +admitted that in general the use of odors was of the conventional sort, +referring rather vaguely to sweet breezes blowing over flowery fields. + +The sensitiveness to sound so often remarked in Wordsworth’s poems is +a characteristic of the poetry of Nature throughout the century before +Wordsworth. The music of Nature was a source of widespread delight. +The “pleasant noise of waters,” for instance, receives some notice +from nearly every poet in the list, while in travels and fiction some +of the most effective passages are on the sounds of rapid streams +and waterfalls. In poetry the old words “warbling,” “tinkling,” and +“murmuring,” are still much used, but Ramsay’s rill that “makes a +singin din,” Thomson’s roused-up river that “thunders” through the +rocks, Mallet’s river with its “sounding sweep,” Collins’ “brawling +springs,” and Cowper’s “chiming rills” are a few of the phrases +that mark a more individual and personal way of listening. One of +Wordsworth’s often-quoted lines on sound has to do with the greater +distinctness of the song of mountain streams by night. Mr. Heard +gives this passage as an instance of Wordsworth’s peculiarly close +observation. But the clearness with which falling or running water is +heard at night had been noted at least six times in the literature +before Wordsworth. Lady Winchilsea mentioned it in her “Revery.” +Beattie speaks of waterfalls heard from afar amid the lonely night, and +again of the quiet evening when naught but the torrent is heard on the +hill. The lines in John Brown’s “Rhapsody” have already been quoted, as +also his “Letter” in which he notes the variety of sounds from distant +waterfalls as one of the attractions of a walk at night. And Gray also +speaks of the murmur of many waterfalls not audible in the day time. +Several other authors, as Dyer and Mallet, have practically the same +idea when they mention the unusual clearness of the sound of falling +water in a breathless noon, or in the depths of a silent forest. + +The sounds made by winds are also often and particularly noted. They +sigh through reeds, they make a remote and hollow noise in “wintery +pines,” they murmur through the poplars, they rustle lightly over “deep +embattled ears of corn,” they join in concert with woods and waters, or +they sweep in mighty harmonies through ancient forests. The whispering +breezes, and dying gales of the classical poetry do not often occur. +Brown in his “Letter” shows how deeply he was impressed by the roaring +of the winds through the mountains, and the one passage in which Dr. +Johnson showed any appreciation of wild Nature is a description of the +combined sounds of streams and wind on a stormy night in Scotland. +A characteristic passage is Thomson’s fine description of thunder +among the mountains. Wordsworth, from the peculiar delicacy of his +perceptions and perhaps from his contemplative Nature, was deeply +sensitive to the silences in the world about him. There is some though +but little indication of a similar pleasure in preceding poetry. One of +the best passages is Thomson’s description of the boding silence before +a storm. This has, however, much less of the real Wordsworthian spirit +than has Brown’s conception of the silence that spoke from the starry +vault, the shadowy cliffs, the motionless groves, and the faint mirror +of the placid lake. + +Of sounds from animate Nature the emphasis is of course on birds. But +the feathered choir of the classical period has been resolved into +distinct species, each with a voice of its own. The nightingale is +not supplanted but she is no longer a monopolist in the realms of +the muses. In this transition poetry the cuckoo takes an interesting +place. Wordsworth’s address to the bird as “the darling of the spring” +gives the association of ideas found in most of the early poems. +The cuckoo is the harbinger of spring. Armstrong and A. Philips have +the loud note of the cuckoo as one of the first hints of the opening +year, and Thomson’s symphony of spring is introduced by “the first +note the hollow cuckoo sings.” Mendes says it is “the cuckoo that +announceth spring,” and Gray speaks of the cuckoo’s note as part of +“the untaught harmony of spring.” The peculiarity of the cuckoo’s +note is also often mentioned. Other birds have many notes, says John +Cunningham, “the cuckoo has but two.” Logan, as Wordsworth after him, +records the fact that the bird is usually unseen, and both speak of +the schoolboy’s surprise as the strange cry falls on his ear. The +lark, the nightingale, and the linnet are frequently mentioned, but +usually in terms somewhat conventional. They had been in poetry so +long that a distinct effort would have been needed to think of them +under new phrases. To be released from the captivity of a stock +diction and conventional sentiment they waited for Shelley and Keats +and Wordsworth. It is in observations on birds not counted poetical +property that we find fresh and exact expression. A mark of the new +spirit is the pleasure in such sounds as the call of the curlew, the +boom of the bittern, the chattering of magpies, the caw of rooks, the +piping of quails, the scream of jays, the clang of seamews, the shrill +clamor of cranes, the shriek of the gull, the whistle of plovers, the +whir of the partridge. To hear such sounds the poet must wander over +moors, by sedgy lakes, along rough shores, far enough from trim parks. +To bring such sounds into poetry marked a great revolution in taste +from the days of the lorn nightingale and the plaintive turtle. As a +whole we may say that the treatment of sound in eighteenth-century +poetry is abundant, accurate, and often very effective. + +The process of passing from general to specific statements as a result +of increased knowledge shows itself again in the use of color. The +universal paint of the classical school has been resolved into some of +its constituent elements. These are not many, however, and there is not +much nice discrimination into shades and tints. The colors most often +observed are green, blue, yellow or gold, purple, red or crimson, and +brown, the order given being the order of their frequency. Purple is +used less frequently than in the classical poetry and usually has some +real artistic significance. Yellow, a comparatively new word, is used +often of harvests, of trees in autumn, of moonlight, and of various +sunlight effects. Dyer gave early prominence to the word as an epithet +applied to Nature. Brown is applied in somewhat the conventional manner +to streams and shadows. Thomson, Dyer, Savage, and Cowper made the +most effective use of color, and it is important to observe that their +advance consisted not so much in seeing many more colors than had +been seen before, as in discovering color in many more objects than +formerly. They did not merely see that “all above is blue and all below +is green.” They saw the blue heavens, but they saw, too, the blue of +“sky dyed plumbs,” of mists, of distant hills, of streams and bays, of +ice-films, of the halcyon’s wing, of curling smoke, of the lightning +flash. The endive, the lavender, the lilac, the violet, the harebell, +the heath-flower, are singled out as blue. And Dyer speaks of the blue +color of the poplars, and Dalton of blue slate roofs. Not merely the +general green of a summer landscape is commented upon, but there are +closer observations concerning the varying shades of green as the trees +are massed together. The russet tints brought out in green tree tops at +sunset, the funereal green of yews, the yellow-green in a sunset sky, +the yellow tinge in green grass almost ready for the scythe, the glossy +green of the holly, the deep green of box, the contrasting green of +elm, oak, and maple, are some typical observations. + +The use of color, however, seems, on the whole, in spite of its +abundance and picturesqueness, hardly so varied and individual as the +use of sound. + +A division into colors and sounds leaves many sorts of observation +unnoted, and frequently these are of great importance as indicating +close knowledge; but they have been so often commented upon in the +study from author to author that even a suggestive recapitulation +is hardly needed here. Enough has been called to mind to show that +there was much knowledge of the external world, and that much of this +knowledge was reported in words so direct and truthful that they must +have come from personal experience. + +In the classical period we have seen that only the milder forms of +Nature were cared for. Wordsworth was, on the other hand, essentially +the poet of mountains, lakes, and streams. It will be of interest to +note the attitude of the transition poetry toward the various kinds of +Nature. And first we may sum up the evidences of mountain enthusiasm. + +In the first fifty years of the century we have only the expressions of +pleasure in climbing mountains or hills by J. Philips, Gay, and Dyer; +the various descriptive references in Ramsay and in Mallet; Boydell’s +crude work in Wales, and Paul Sandby’s sketches in the Highlands. +Ramsay and Mallet show a consciousness of mountains, and evidently +regard them as noticeable and picturesque elements of a scene, and Dyer +is of distinct importance because of his lingering pleasure in the +beautiful views opening up before him as he climbs the mountain, and +especially because of his poetic comprehension of mountain solitudes. +But it is during the next thirty-five years (1750–85) that we find +the most adequate eighteenth-century treatment of mountains. During +this period Brown, Pennant, Young, Gray, and Gilpin visited Scotland, +Wales, and the English Lakes, and wrote of mountains with an enthusiasm +hardly equaled in the succeeding century. In fiction were Amory’s +eulogy of Westmoreland, and his exaggerated pictures of Cumberland, and +Smollett’s description of the country round Loch Leven. In painting, +Boydell, Devis, Sandby, Bellers, Wilson, Barret, Farington, and John +Cozens were studying mountain scenery in Scotland, in northern England, +in Wales, Ireland, and in the Alps. In poetry we have Coventry’s +address to Vaughan on mountain climbing; Dalton’s apostrophe to +Skiddaw; Brown’s rhapsody on the mountains and lakes of Westmoreland; +the mountain scenery in Gray’s “Bard” and the poems of “Ossian;” the +many descriptive references in Dyer’s “Fleece,” Jago’s “Edge Hill,” +Mickle’s “Almada Hill” and “May Day,” and Scott’s “Amwell;” and +Beattie’s study of the influence of mountains on a poetic mind. During +the last twenty-five years of the century there is, in poetry, a +curious apparent cessation of mountain interest. The most highly poetic +minds, Blake, Cowper, and Burns, have none of it. Crabbe does not touch +upon mountains. Lesser poets, except Bowles at the very end of the +century, are equally silent. This is not, however, true in other realms +of art. Mountain scenery is still, during these years, a large element +in romances, and in travels, and many artists are sketching in the +picturesque regions opened up to them by earlier students of mountain +landscapes. + +Many lovers of Nature and of poetry have commented with surprise on +the slow development of the poetic appreciation of mountains. It is, +perhaps, even more strange that English poetry should have been still +slower in its discovery of the ocean. It is as if English poets from +Dryden to Byron had all lived inland. Even in Wordsworth, in spite +of some wonderful lines, there is no treatment of the ocean at all +comparable to his study of mountains. In the classical age the ocean +was a dreary waste. In the transition poetry we do not find much more +knowledge or appreciation. The one quality of the ocean that receives +anything like adequate expression is its boundlessness. Characteristic +lines are by John G. Cooper. + + In unconfined perspective send thy gaze + Disdaining limit o’er the green expanse + Of ocean. + +Armstrong says that the “floating wilderness” + + Scorns our miles and calls Geography + A shallow prier. + +Mickle looks upon the awful solitude of ocean and his imagination is +stirred by + + the last dim wave in boundless space + Involved and lost. + +These are the best lines I have found. The chief expressions of +pleasure in the ocean are Gay’s mild delight in a sunset across the +sea, and subsequent moonlight effects, and Beattie’s pleasing dread +as he seeks the shore to listen to the wide-weltering waves. We find +in Cowper’s letters a more appreciative passage on the ocean than +occurs in any of the poetry. The most sincere ocean enthusiasm is in +Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances. Travelers, even those who went along the +coast of Wales and among the Scottish islands or to the Isle of Wight, +say little of the sea. The ocean was, in fact, much such a burden as +Sterne’s plain. When the poet had once said that it was big and awful +his stock of impressions was exhausted. In painting, the ocean was not +entirely ignored, but in this province, too, there was meagerness of +conception and expression. The ocean waited for Turner and Byron and +Shelley. + +One of the interesting characteristics of the love of Nature in +the eighteenth century is a delight in wide views. What had in the +classical period “tired the travelling eye,” with the dawning of the +new spirit gave satisfaction. It was in accord with the mental revolt +against close boundaries of any sort. From the day when John Philips +ventured to express some pleasure in the view from a hill, and Gay +climbed Cotton Hill to raise his mind nearer heaven, and Dyer spent +days in studying with an artist’s eye the colors and forms of the view +from Grongar Hill, to the time when Beattie eagerly climbed the rugged +steeps of Scottish mountains so that he might see the morning mists +rolling and tumbling over the rough hills beneath him, do we find this +pronounced delight in wide views. Even poets who show no great love for +mountains, as Thomson, Mallet, Collins, the Wartons, Langhorne, Mickle, +and John Scott, and even poets of confessedly tame scenery as Cowper, +love “green heights” and extended prospects. To the expression of +this feeling Amory and Mrs. Radcliffe, Brown, Young, and Pennant make +large contributions. This feeling shows itself also in gardening. The +cutting-down of tall hedges, the opening-up of vistas, were a result of +the change of taste and a contribution to it. + +We have seen that during the classical poetry the skies in favor were +cloudless and that of all sky phenomena the rainbow excited most +attention. In the transition poetry we find much of this love of fair +summer skies and expressed sometimes with a new freshness as when +Dyer wishes nothing above his head but “the roof on which the gods do +tread,” or when Ramsay looks with joy upon “the lift’s unclouded blue,” +or when the clear gladness of heaven shines down from the lovely skies +of Blake. But on the whole, references to the serene day-time sky are +conventional. It is another illustration of the fact that such aspects +of Nature as were already known and had come to be spoken of after a +set fashion were slow to be emancipated into a new phraseology. Better +work is done in describing what Coleridge calls the “goings-on” of the +sky. Thomson knew the sky in all its phases. Parnell describes well +the airy tumult of clouds after a storm. Mallet has one or two rather +effective studies of a stormy sky. One of Beattie’s best descriptions +is of a shifting cloudy sky on a windy autumn day, and he has other +effective cloud studies. But taken in the mass the material is scanty +and not of great value. It was Wordsworth and Shelley who first gave +adequate expression to the mysterious and varied charm of the day-time +sky. + +The love of the night sky and of night itself is first found in Lady +Winchilsea, and for close observation and delicate feeling there is +nothing better throughout the century. There is, however, much use of +night, moonlight, and stars in a new and appreciative fashion. In Gay’s +“Dione” there are several attractive little moonlight pictures. Parnell +was impressed by the depth, the serenity, and the silence of a starry +sky on a clear night. Coventry observes how fast the moon travels +through light clouds as if bent on a journey, while in clear weather +she sits steady empress of the skies. Joseph Warton notes the shining +of hills and streams under the light of a full moon. Mickle has some +beautiful lines on both moon and stars as they rise from behind certain +favorite hills. He walks much at night and loves to watch the trembling +line of light from the moon as it shines across the lake, or the soft +effect of the yellow moonlight sleeping on the hills. Beattie stays out +all night to watch the aspects of the sky till the dawn of day. Morning +and evening twilight are less often spoken of. There is certainly +nothing else in the century to compare with Collins’ “Evening.” Sunset +and sunrise are often described, but nowhere with more general +effectiveness than in Thomson, or with more minute color study than in +Savage. + +Closely connected with the knowledge of the sky is the new feeling +toward storms. In the classical poetry they had been ignored or used as +similes for disaster. But one of the first evidences of a new spirit +was in the appreciative description of winter storms, as in Riccaltoun, +Armstrong, and Thomson. The early descriptions and the multiplicity +of storms in Thomson and Mallet give at first the impression that +this element held a larger place in poetry than it really did. Ramsay +has some good lines on winter storms. There is an admirable stanza in +Collins’ “Ode to Liberty,” and another in Thomas Warton’s “Grave of +King Arthur.” In Beattie’s “Minstrel,” and in several of Burns’ poems +there are expressions of delight in the fierce play of the elements, +but that exhausts the list of notable passages. It is only in Beattie +that we find any of the modern sense of kinship between the tumult +of life and Nature’s fierce conflicts, and the imaginative force of +a passage like that in “The Excursion” where the Wanderer longs to +be a spirit and so mingle with primal energies in their mightiest +activities, or the lyric passion of a cry like that in Shelley’s +apostrophe to the West Wind, are not even hinted at. + +The most pronounced change came with reference to these grander, wilder +aspects of Nature. We have still to note the treatment of the gentle +pleasant things of Nature, as birds, flowers, trees. + +There was, through the classical period, abundant delight, in a +general way, in meadows bursting into bloom, and in bright blossoms +in the garden. The use of the words “flowery,” “adorned,” “decked,” +“enameled,” etc., usually had reference to fields of flowers thought +of in a vague, pleasant way. The changes that come during the +transition poetry are a resolving of the general into the specific, a +concentration of attention on English flowers, and a greatly increased +knowledge of individual flowers. The rose and the lily often give +place to homelier blooms as those of peas and beans, the bramble rose, +butter flowers, clover, heath-bells, crowfoot, the tangled vetch, the +mandrake, the thistle. The increased minuteness of observation shows +itself in such garden studies as we find in Thomson and Cowper. A +feeling of personal relationship toward flowers finds its highest and +sweetest expression in Burns’ “Daisy.” + +In the classical poetry trees in general are an important part of the +stock-in-trade. The new feeling shows itself in a growing tendency to +think of trees as individuals. In a landscape trees are mentioned by +name. The thin leav’d ash, whispering poplars, the glossy rind’d beech, +venerable oaks tossing giant arms, waving elms, quivering aspens, +murmuring pines, hoary willows, sycamores green, tawny, or scarlet, +according to the season, white-blossomed hawthorn, deep green hollies, +elders with silver blossoms, stand out from the mass and are known for +their own qualities. Minute observation is indicated by the descriptive +phrases used. The color of the trunk, the spread of the branches, the +changing hue of the leaves, the kind of blossoms, are severally noted. +Two special studies of trees are by Lady Winchilsea and Dr. Dalton, +and are of early date. Dyer and Cowper give the best studies of trees +seen in a mass, and yet individually noted. While there is not a touch +of the deep forest in this poetry, there are many lines describing +woodland effects. Thomson, Potter, and Cowper find especial pleasure +in the lovely interplay of light and shade in a pathway overhung by +woven branches. The brown shadows and the softened light in a deeply +wooded nook are observed. Gentle streams sing happily under a cooling +covert of green boughs. The quiet of the woods is broken only by the +plash of waters, the rustle of boughs, the whisper of leaves, the hum +of insects, the song of birds, sounds from distant flocks and herds, +or the stroke of the woodman’s axe. Trees also form an important part +of every general landscape. But no poet has given so much of the +real forest feeling as Mrs. Radcliffe. Of travelers Young has most +to say about trees but his observations are largely scientific and +utilitarian. On the whole we may say that trees are given abundant and +discriminating attention, but that this attention seldom penetrates +beyond external, artistic qualities. Personal friendship for trees such +as we find in Lowell, for instance, has hardly yet reached expression. + +Birds have already been discussed under sound, but it remains here to +state that the habits of birds, their manner of flight, their nests, +the trees they choose, their ways of protecting their young, were all +topics on which much was known. Of minor poets, those who knew birds +well, are Jago, Potter, and Bruce. Gray adds some perfect touches. Best +of all for accurate description and real understanding are Thomson, +Cowper, and Burns. The prominent place of the cuckoo has already been +spoken of. The redbreast and the thrush with “speckly breast” rank not +far behind in interest. The redbreast found early honor in Armstrong’s +“Winter,” and then in Thomson’s, and is one of the pleasing elements in +Cowper’s “Winter Walk.” On the whole, birds of the lakes and streams +seem to be better known than birds of the tree and copse. + +One phase of the literary treatment of birds is a recognition of their +rights as free, living beings. This feeling, not toward birds alone +but toward all animals, is one of the marks of the new spirit. There +is even in Lady Winchilsea’s “Revery” a slight hint of the conception +that animals would not suffer if man had not proved himself a tyrant, +and Gay carries out the same thought in one of his “Fables.” Thomson’s +protests against killing animals for food are the first strong +statements of the new feeling. Shenstone, in “Rural Elegance” and “The +Dying Kid,” shows some sympathetic regard for animals. Jago and Potter +and Langhorne protested vigorously against cruelty to birds. Beattie +had the strongest possible dislike toward so-called English sports. +The feeling of close fellowship and almost human love toward animals, +so marked in Wordsworth and Coleridge, did not find expression in the +transition poetry until Burns and Cowper gave it full statement. + +Throughout the poetry of the eighteenth century we have observed a +turning from the general to the specific. There is likewise a similar +tendency to localization. The classical poetry of Nature belonged to no +special spot, hardly to any special country. The poetry of Wordsworth +and of Walter Scott was, on the other hand, eminently local. They +celebrated the mountains and islands and streams of the region they +knew. Wordsworth complained that before his day no one had sung of +British mountains. It is interesting to note the growth of this passion +for certain spots definitely pointed out and named, certain natural +scenes known and loved as a person might be. A brief survey of the +mountains and streams thus celebrated in eighteenth-century poetry will +serve as illustrative. After Dyer’s “Grongar Hill” come other mountains +of Wales. The hoary heights of huge Plynlymmon; the wide, aërial side +of Cader-ydris; the craggy summits of cold Snowdon, king of mountains; +Clyder’s cloud-enveloped head; Caer-caraduc, and others are spoken of +with evident pleasure and not a little artistic perception. In Scotland +the hills of Cheviot, the Pentland Hills, the mountains in the Ossian +country, and those around Lochleven, are chief. In England we have the +scarry side of Braids, Dafset’s ridgy mountain, Edge-Hill, Almada +Hill, Derwent’s naked peaks, huge Breaden, blue-topp’d Wrekin, giant +Skiddaw, the solemn wall of Malvern, the Cambrian Hills, the hills of +Ilmington, and others. The spirit of localization in its application +to mountains does not often go beyond calling the mountain by its +own name, and using some phrase showing that this mountain is known +as separate from the general mass. In its application to streams the +feeling is more detailed in expression. Ramsay’s streams and pools are +closely localized. Dyer celebrates not only Towy’s flood, but the Vaga, +the Ryddal, the Ystwith, the Clevedoc, the Lune, and especially the +Usk. Dr. Dalton traces the course of the Borrowdale Beck from Lodore +Falls to the lake. Langhorne follows the track of the Bela through +solitary meads, and then through the rough realms of Stainmore. He also +celebrates his joy as a child in the river Eden. Smollett, on his sick +bed, writes an ode to Leven Water. Bruce sings of the Po, the Queech, +the Severn, and especially of his youthful delight in the Gairney. +Mickle writes of the Forth, the Annan, the Ewes, and the Wauchope, +but dwells with most zest on his early love of the Esk. Of peculiar +interest is Akenside’s apostrophe to the Wansbeck. Hamilton, Langhorne, +and Logan wrote of the Yarrow, Cowper of the Ouse, Burns of the Ayr, +the Doon, the Nith, the Afton, the Devon, and many another Scotch +stream, while Bowles wrote of the Itchin, the Tweed, the Cherwell, +and the Wansbeck. A map might be made on which should be represented +only the mountains and streams spoken of with some particularity, +with something more than a mere mention, in English poetry between +1650 and 1720, and a similar map of the period from 1720 to 1795. A +comparison of the two would be an interesting commentary on the growth +of knowledge and interest in British scenes. + +All that has been so far presented goes to show that in the antithesis +between town and country the balance of favor swung round during the +eighteenth century to the country. Usually the preference is implicit, +and is to be inferred from the change of theme, but occasionally the +antithesis is sharply stated, as, to take types, in Thomson, the +Wartons, and Cowper. It is Thomson who first gives adequate statement +of the transfer of sovereignty from the “fine lady muses of Richmond +Hill” to “the muses of the simple country.” It is his hatred of the +noisome town, his delight in fields and woods untouched by man, that +established the new canon of taste. In the Wartons, twenty years later, +the breach between the city and the country is almost an impassable +gulf. Combined with the love of Nature in her external forms there is +that spirit of romantic melancholy by virtue of which the poet regards +Nature as a refuge from the tormenting complexities that beset the life +of men in communities. There is usually a touch, sometimes more than +a touch, of morbidness in the passionate eagerness to escape not only +from the city into Nature, but from man and all traces of his dominion +into a solitude free from all human suggestiveness. Forty years after +the Wartons, Cowper’s famous epigram, “God made the country and man +made the town,” summed the matter up according to the new view. Cowper +is as emphatic in his preferences as his predecessors, and much more +detailed and minute in his expression. With him there is no vague +generalizing, no morbid or passionate over-statement. His love of +the country is a fundamental fact not only in his physical, but also +and even especially in his moral and spiritual, life. It is a fixed +principle, quiet, rational, inevitable. The anti-classical side of +the city and country antithesis receives in Cowper’s poetry its most +decisive and most reasonable eighteenth-century statement. We hardly +find anything so conclusive in fiction or in travels. There is an +occasional expression of regret at going back to towns after a trip +through the mountains and lakes, but as a rule the preference for the +country is left to be inferred from the general tenor of the traveler’s +writings. Mrs. Brooke protests much against London, and declares her +preference for Nature unadorned. Mackenzie’s Julia rejoices over +her country birth and education, and Mrs. Radcliffe reiterates the +desirability of living far from towns and as close as possible to the +influence of Nature. Cowper, however, remains as having given the +final, emphatic statement. + +Through all this detailed study and wide knowledge of Nature there runs +an undercurrent of personal enthusiasm which is quite a separate thing +from the knowledge of Nature, but which led to that knowledge and was +fed by it. Sometimes we are left to infer this enthusiasm from results, +but oftener it finds clear statement. There is frequent expression +of such “unspeakable joy” as Ambrose Philips felt when he gazed on a +little country home, or of Ramsay’s “heartsome joy” on a bright spring +morning + + to see the rising plants, + And hear the birds chirm o’er their pleasin’ rants, + +or of Hamilton’s rapturous joy as he lies on the flowering turf, his +soul “commercing with the sky.” In many passages Thomson expresses +his passionate delight in the music, the color, the fragrances of the +out-door world. Dyer’s joys run high as he lies on the mountain-turf. +Shenstone says that the beauties of Nature alone bear perpetual sway, +and he thinks with scorn of a soul so narrow that it cannot relish +Nature’s calm delights. Joseph Warton cannot find words to express the +ecstasy with which he looks on Nature. John Langhorne’s only wish is +that he may enjoy the blessings Nature gives to those who love her, +and says that her charm alone is unfading. Beattie says that the man +who goes to Nature has rapture ever new. Cowper thinks that any man +who turns away from Nature starves deservedly. Burns says that he +looked upon Nature with boundless joy. This feeling of exhilaration, of +rapturous delight, is pervasive. It is often inadequate, or vague, or +extravagant in statement, but the delight is unfeigned, the enthusiasm +real, and in poet after poet it demanded expression. That it seldom +found the perfect statement only means that art is long and that much +thinking and feeling in an age as in an individual must go before the +final art-form. + +Much of this delight in Nature is in kind though not in degree like +that which Wordsworth in “Tintern Abbey” calls his second period of +love for Nature, the time when the colors and forms of the external +world were a sufficiently engrossing pleasure, and he felt no need of +“a remoter charm by thought supplied.” But Wordsworth quickly passed +from this stage of pleasure to another. In his best descriptions, as +in “The Yew Trees,” he gives a few external details, and then at once +penetrates to the inner spirit of the scene. He is like a portrait +painter who represents the features with truth and simplicity but makes +the face live because he has divined the qualities of soul behind it. +Now whatever philosophical tenets Wordsworth held he certainly thought +of this soul of Nature, whether of Nature as a whole, or in special +parts, as in some way a manifestation of divinity. In other words he +saw God immanent in Nature. The classical conception also saw God in +Nature, but as the remote Architect, Artificer, Lawgiver. The universe +was dead, cold, inert matter. For the difficulty with which it was +made to serve men’s needs the defenders of Omnipotence felt apologetic +explanations necessary. We have seen that during the eighteenth century +there came a great and joyous awakening to the external charm of the +world. Are there also indications that the divine life in Nature was +felt? + +Throughout the eighteenth century the usual thought of God in relation +to Nature is the classical one. He is the author and controller of +the universe; but there are some poems or passages or separate lines +that seem to indicate a new conception. Lady Winchilsea recognizes +a curious correspondence between Nature and her own heart, and says +that in the quiet of a beautiful night she feels the presence of +something too high for syllables to speak. There is a similar feeling +in Hamilton’s description of a silent grove. In the “Nocturnal Revery” +and in “Contemplation” the idea of divinity is not explicitly stated, +but in Parnell’s “Hymn” the song of praise is professedly to the Source +of all Nature, because through Nature the divine spirit had spoken +peace to the poet’s troubled heart. The incessant and ever-present +creative activity of God is clearly set forth in Thomson’s “Hymn.” +Each ray of sunshine, every blossoming flower of spring, every leaping +stream, every rolling orb, performs its function as a direct expression +of divine energy. And some lines give a further suggestion of divine +immanence. The rolling year is full of God. The seasons are but the +varied God. The beauty of God walks forth in the flushing spring. Such +expressions as these mark a half-involuntary poetic seizing of the +new idea of Nature as the bodily presence of which God was the soul, +but they do not indicate Thomson’s leading ideas. Mallet, imitative +of Thomson in this as in other respects, usually speaks of God as the +Creator, but in one passage touches on the full stream of universal +Goodness that is ever-flowing through earth, air, and sea, and on the +ceaseless song of praise going up from the great community of Nature’s +sons. Boyse in his “Deity” thinks of God as an Almighty Architect, but +has a few lines in which he represents all Nature as being momently +derived from God. Young has a significant line when he says that night +is the “felt presence of the Deity.” The theme of Akenside’s poem is to +show the response which the imaginative mind finds in Nature, and this +response is, he says, the voice of the divine spirit. His conception is +usually, to be sure, that the divine spirit speaks through the forms +of Nature, rather than that the form and the spirit have an essential +union. Yet sometimes he speaks more clearly the new thought. He says +that the man who loves Nature holds daily converse with God himself; +the beauty of Nature flows directly from God; the order in Nature is +sacred; the influence whereby Nature soothes and cheers and elevates +man is really a divine influence. This is the fullest recognition of an +in-dwelling God until we reach Cowper. In his poetry we find a clear +statement of belief in the lines, + + There lives and works + A soul in all things, and that soul is God, + +but the point is not one on which he dwells. These passages certainly +foreshadow Wordsworth’s conception of God in Nature, but they are +comparatively feeble and unimaginative in expression. There is nothing +so Wordsworthian in Thomson’s sonorous lines or in Akenside’s ample +statement as there is the feeling that penetrates the brief words of +Lady Winchilsea and Parnell. Compared to these even Cowper seems cold +and intellectual. + +Wordsworth did not, however, lay special stress on his belief that the +spirit he felt in Nature was divine. He rather took that for granted, +or allowed it to be implied in the passionate fulness and intensity +of his expressions of gratitude to that spirit for gifts of mind and +heart. This sense of indebtedness to Nature found no place in the +classical poetry. But in the transition period it receives surprisingly +full and varied expression. Sometimes it takes the form of personal +gratitude for special gifts; sometimes it is a general statement +of what man owes to Nature. A brief review of the more significant +passages will serve to show the characteristics of this feeling toward +Nature. + +To begin with, Nature gives peace. This is the gift most often spoken +of. Even John Philips said that Nature calmed his mind. Ambrose Philips +liked the songs of birds because they brought him into a mood of “sweet +and gentle composure.” Lady Winchilsea enjoyed the night because its +influence disposed her heart to silent musings and made her conscious +of a “sedate content.” Parnell had long vainly sought contentment until +at last his heart received the message of peace through the voices of +Nature. Hamilton said that all the passions in the troubled breast of +man could be calmed by the quiet of a grove. Thomson finds in Nature +a power that can “serene his soul” and “harmonize his heart.” Dyer +finds peace and quiet in “the meads and mountain-heads.” Mallet follows +Thomson in thought and phrase when he represents that Nature has power +to “serene the soul.” Akenside says that the spirit of Nature lulls +man’s passions to a divine repose. Cooper says that a contemplation of +the order and regularity in Nature’s life will induce a like harmonious +action in the human heart, and that the fiercest passions of horror and +revenge can be soothed by Nature. Joseph Warton says that all Nature +conspires to soothe and harmonize the mind. William Whitehead speaks +of the “philosophic calmness” that comes to man from Nature. Beattie’s +hermit found in Nature a power that could subdue the wildest passions +and give “profound repose.” Bruce found in Nature “harmony of mind.” +Bowles felt a “soothing charm” that brought “solace to his heart” and +“bore him on serene.” So, too, was it with Cowper. Nature gave him +heart-consoling joys, and brought peace and quiet into his life. This +power of Nature to soothe the mind of man and to modify his passions +receives full expression also in Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances. + +Nature gives not only peace and rest to man; she gives him joy. The +sense of ecstasy and rapture in this joy has already been indicated in +the passages expressive of personal enthusiasm for Nature. Sometimes it +was a joy rising out of the delight of agreeable physical sensations, +as when Lady Winchilsea felt in the odor of the jonquil a pleasure so +keen that it was pain, or when Langhorne sank down oppressed by the +boundless charms of field and wood, or such joy as Gray’s convalescent +knew when he went out again into Nature. But here a more spiritual joy +is referred to. It is rather the disturbing joy of elevated thoughts +of which Wordsworth speaks. This uplift of soul in the presence of +Nature is felt by Parnell when he seeks to give expression to the great +chorus of thanksgiving to God from all existences. Lady Winchilsea and +John Langhorne felt it when Nature gave them “thoughts too high to be +express’t.” Akenside felt it, and in a truly Wordsworthian sense, when +he said that in the presence of Nature the intellect is charmed into +a suspension of its graver cares, while love and joy alone possess +the soul. Burns finds that Nature exalts, enraptures him, making him +conscious of an elevation of soul. And, finally, in Gilpin, we find, +though awkwardly expressed, an exact statement of the enthusiastic +calm, the visionary joy, with which Wordsworth looked on Nature. + +A third gift of Nature is poetical inspiration, and that, too, in the +sense in which Wordsworth believed that Nature set him apart for poetry +and assisted him in his development. Akenside’s apostrophe to the +Wansbeck along whose banks he wandered in childhood, “led in silence by +some powerful hand unseen,” his assertion that these influences fixed +the color of his life for every future year, his thought of Nature’s +“tender discipline” when skies and streams and groves conspire to guide +the predestined sons of Fancy, are strikingly Wordsworthian. Langhorne +says that in his lonely youth “the woodland genius” came and touched +him with the holy flame of poetry. To the “Genius of Westmoreland” +he ascribes the sacred fire within his breast. The whole theme of +Beattie’s “Minstrel” is, as has been pointed out, the effect of Nature +on a poetically sensitive mind. + +Nature also gives a wisdom such as books and schools cannot give. The +earliest expression of this thought is in Pattison’s comparison of +the deep wisdom drawn from Nature and the superficial knowledge of +the schools. Gay in the contest between the shepherd who knew Nature +and the philosopher who knew cities and books determined that Nature +without the schools can make men wise. Langhorne says that “fair +Philosophy,” like Poetry, must be sought for in Nature. There is, +however, no other eighteenth-century statement of this idea so complete +as Cowper’s eulogy of the wisdom of the heart that Nature gives. + +Nature is also considered as inspiring to morality and virtue. Gay, in +a fable already quoted from, says that Nature can make men “moral” and +“good,” if they will learn her lessons. Thomson meditates on Nature +because thence he hopes to learn lessons of morality. Mallet says that +Nature inspires the soul with “virtuous raptures” and prompts man to +forsake sin-born vanities and low pursuits. Akenside’s chief theme +is the power of Nature to lead men from petty interests and hurried, +sordid lives into a beneficent and ordered activity of the soul. Cooper +ascribes to “every natural scene a moral power.” John Langhorne says +that the sweet sensations of Nature move the “springs of virtue’s +love,” and have a “moral use,” and that religion, fled from books, +can be found in Nature whence we first drew both our knowledge and +our virtue. Beattie says that the charms of Nature work “the soul’s +eternal health.” They inspire love and gentleness. They incite to high +living, and the man who neglects them can hardly hope to be forgiven. +A pervading thought in Cowper’s poems is his moral and spiritual +indebtedness to Nature. + +Wordsworth not infrequently indicates his belief that the spirit of +Nature consciously blesses man. This idea is sometimes found in the +transition poetry, as in Hamilton’s “Contemplation,” and especially in +Akenside and Cowper who represent Nature as making the happiness of man +“her dear and only aim.” + +So far we have discussed the knowledge of Nature and the feeling +toward it rather than its use in literature. That this knowledge was +abundant and varied, that this feeling was enthusiastic and often +deeply reverential, may, perhaps, pass without further question. But +a different problem presents itself when we ask what literary use the +eighteenth-century poet made of Nature. It must be conceded at the +outset that many references to natural facts are not literary at all. +In Mallet’s “Excursion,” for instance, his journey through stellar +spaces renders frequent mention of the sky and stars inevitable, but +the references might as well be to macadamized roads. His purpose +is merely to get from one point of vantage to another. Such brief, +cold, unpicturesque use of details for purposes of transition are +really non-literary. In any tabular statement of an author’s work some +discount must be made to allow for this mechanical use of Nature, and +in certain authors, as notably Mallet and Young, the discount is large. +Another non-literary use of Nature is in the catalogue or summary. +John Scott gives the extreme example of this unorganized accumulation +of details. The instinct of the artist is wanting. The poet does not +even attempt to make Nature a part of a well-fused literary product. +He is encumbered by his material. He crowds his canvas. His full and +realistic presentation is without artistic reservations. His record is +prompted simply by interest in the separate facts. No literary purpose +determines his selection or rejection of detail. A recognized theme, +unity, proportion, are absent. Such summaries may be of the highest +importance as showing the abundance and exactness of the author’s +knowledge of Nature, and separate phrases may have real literary +quality, but the passage as a whole is no more literary than an +inventory. + +When, however, a purpose is apparent in the use of Nature, when there +is discrimination under the dominance of a central idea, then, however +crude and feeble the actual result, there is at least an attempt to use +Nature in a literary way. + +This dominating purpose may be merely description for its own sake, +an attempt to present aspects of Nature in successive, isolated, +artistically composed pictures, each complete in itself and having its +parts organically related. Such description is entirely objective. Its +aim is the reproduction of sights and sounds by which Nature under +given conditions appeals to the senses. When highly elaborated its +obvious danger is that there will be, in spite of the most artistic +management, a certain vagueness and heaviness of effect. There are, +nevertheless, very beautiful examples of pure detailed description +dissociated from any purpose except that of making a picture in words, +in both Thomson and Cowper, and here and there less successful examples +in other writers. + +A more subtle use of Nature is when the poet assembles his details +in order to reproduce not a scene or an aspect of Nature, but the +typical impression they have made on his mind. Lady Winchilsea tells +many facts about night, but her purpose is not the description of a +single night; it is the reproduction of the loving delight and tender +awe awakened in her own heart by many soft summer nights. The purpose +of Parnell’s descriptive details is the reproduction of the mood of +spiritual content induced by certain scenes. Passages such as these are +often more or less detailed summaries, but they have literary quality +because the motif produces unity of effect. + +Again, the facts and descriptions may be adduced in support of a +theory, as in Young’s “Night Thoughts,” Akenside’s “Pleasures of the +Imagination,” Shenstone’s “Progress of Taste,” Beattie’s “Minstrel,” +and Cowper’s “Task.” Here too, an organizing purpose is discernible, +though there is the greatest possible difference in the various ways of +using the material for the given purpose; Young’s facts, for instance, +being used in a cold, argumentative fashion, while Beattie’s and +Cowper’s are suffused with emotion. + +Another use of Nature is based on the poet’s perception of the +analogies between external Nature and human life or character. One +outcome of this sense for analogies is in abundant similitudes, a +literary use of Nature common in all languages, at all periods. In the +pseudo-classical poetry of England we have seen that the similitudes +were conventional and superficial. In a period of intimate knowledge +and love of the outer world there is stress on the truth and beauty of +the picture from Nature as well as on the human fact symbolized, and +the analogy is subtly and sympathetically conceived. Wordsworth’s + + A violet by a mossy stone + Half hidden from the eye + +is perfect in itself as a picture of Nature, and it is exquisitely apt +in describing Lucy. He discovered in Nature that which in its inner +significance was truly a counterpart of the human idea. With regard to +the similitudes of the transition poetry I have noted two interesting +facts. In the first place, in proportion to the whole use of Nature, +the use of Nature in similitudes is very much less in the transition +than in the classical poetry. In the second place, in no other way of +using Nature was the changed conception of the outer world so slow to +manifest itself. Stock similes persisted even in authors who, in other +respects, gave clear evidence of the new spirit. It was apparently +easier to be original and individual in a new realm, than to break away +from the established conventions of an accepted literary form. + +As another outcome of the recognized correspondence between Nature +and life the facts of Nature become, as it were, an allegory of +human experience. From Dyer on there is a strain of pensive, gently +didactic moralizing drawn from the poet’s observation of Nature. A +river, however beautiful in itself because of its ceaseless motion, +its shifting colors, its varied banks, its progress to the sea, is +transformed in the poet’s mind into a symbol of the vicissitudes and +the final goal of life. Of the more obvious analogies of this sort we +find many examples, but of the highly imaginative use of Nature whereby +the external fact, however truly and beautifully perceived, seems +hardly thought of except as a symbol of the hidden things of the spirit +and of the life to come, we find almost no examples outside of Blake. + +The use of Nature in connection with man’s joys or sorrows may be +lyrical or it may be dramatic in tone. Under the lyrical use of Nature +may be classed the numerous passages in which the poet dwells upon +his youth and the early joy he had in forest, stream, and field. The +homesick longing, the genuine human feeling, and the marks of local +fidelity to fact make this use of Nature usually excellent. It often +takes the form of an apostrophe to some specific river or grove or +hill. This autobiographic use of Nature is well exemplified in Thomson, +Akenside, Beattie, Langhorne, Mickle, Bruce, and Cowper. Again, the +poet recounts with lyrical fervor his debt to Nature. He gives thanks +for content, joy, peace, serenity, or he implores Nature to appease the +longings of his sick heart, to restore his soul to health. In either +case there is a mingling of human emotions and details from Nature. +Such passages may easily be feebly hysterical, but sometimes as in +Dyer, Beattie, Akenside, Langhorne, and Cowper, they are marked by +genuine beauty and pathos as well as by directness of vision. Perhaps +the best examples of scenes thus indissolubly connected with phases +of spiritual experience are Bowles’ sonnets, and unquestionably the +highest purely lyrical use of Nature is in Burns’ songs. + +Nature is used dramatically when it is made the appropriate background +or accompaniment of human life. This use of Nature may be merely to +intensify the reader’s impression by certain effects of harmony or +contrast. Night, for instance, is considered the appropriate setting +for reflections on man’s mortality, as in Young and Parnell. A certain +sort of scenery becomes the conventionally fit background for romantic +aspirations and dejections, as in all the sentimental melancholy +poets. But oftener Nature is not merely a background. It is mingled +with the thought and action. This is true of most of the reflective, +moralizing poetry, and is true in a more dramatic sense in such +pastorals as Ramsay’s and Gay’s where it is impossible to think of the +people and their doings apart from the Nature about them. A similar +dramatic use of Nature is to be seen in Gray, in Collins, in Ossian, +and, in a briefer form, in the Ballads. It is, however, in romantic +fiction that this use of Nature is most abundant during the eighteenth +century. As background, as accompaniment, and further, even as a force +contributing to the progress of the story by its determining influence +on mood and character, external Nature plays an important part. This +background, indeed, sometimes becomes unduly important, almost usurping +the place of the picture, as in Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances. + +Nature may, finally, be regarded not only as making a sensuous appeal +to man, or as entering in some way into relationship with him, but +as having an independent and separate existence. The poet who thus +conceives of Nature gives little detailed external description; nor +does he think of a scene in its human connotations, but he goes +through facts and perceives the spirit of the scene, the essential +qualities that make it what it is. Of such use of Nature we find few +eighteenth-century examples. It demands not only Wordsworth’s wise +passiveness of mood, and clarity of vision, and depth of feeling, but +likewise the power to speak the inevitable word. + +The detailed study of a barren field in its most barren aspect would be +inexcusably dull and dreary from any but the historical point of view. +The moment that point of view is adopted interest begins. The study +of literature as a growth, and evolution, gives a new significance to +periods of transition. The pleasure of the biologist in the lower forms +of life is paralleled by the delight of the student of literature in +tracing out the first vague, ineffective attempts to express ideas that +are afterward regnant. + +The final effect of the present study is one of surprise to find +how completely the ideas of the early nineteenth-century poetry of +Nature were represented in the germ in the eighteenth century. The +whole impression is that before the work of such men as Wordsworth, +Coleridge, and Scott there was a great stir of getting ready. The love +of Nature was awake in the hearts of men. Their eyes were open to her +beauty. Their ears drank in her harmonies. Their spirits were conscious +of her higher gifts. Before Wordsworth most of his characteristic +thoughts on Nature had received fairly explicit statement. + +We note also the vitality of the impulse toward Nature as indicated by +the many directions in which it pushed out and demanded expression. +With little self-conscious direction and independently of each other +apparently, the various arts were irresistibly impelled to some sort of +expression of the new interest in the external world. Nor can we ignore +the fact that behind all forms of art expression there must have been +the great impulsive force of a love of Nature active in the hearts of +the mute inglorious many. + +When at the end of such a period of preparation the great poet comes, +he is great by virtue of his power to penetrate beneath literary +conventions and to give free, vigorous, adequate expression to the +struggling, half-articulate thoughts and feelings of his own age. He is +not an inexplicable, isolated phenomenon. He has his natural place in +the development. The profound significance of the work that marks an +epoch in thought is that it not only directs the future, but it sums up +the past. + + + + + INDICES + + + + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX + + + COLLECTIONS + + “British Novelists, An Edition with Essays and Lives.” Ed. Anne + Letitia Barbauld. 50 vols. London, 1810. + + “British Poets, Less-Known.” Ed. C. C. Clarke. 3 vols. + Edinburgh, 1868. + + “British Poets, Works of the.” Ed. Thomas Park. 42 vols. + “Supplement.” 6 vols. London, 1805–1808. + + “British Poets.” Ed. Robert Anderson. 13 vols. Edinburgh, 1794. + + “Collection of Poems by Several Hands.” Ed. R. Dodsley. 6 vols. + London, 1755–1758. “Supplement,” Ed. Pearch. 4 vols. 1783. + + “Collection of Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World.” + Ed. John Pinkerton. 17 vols. London, 1809. + + “English Poets, Later.” Ed. Robert Southey. 3 vols. London, 1807. + + “English Poets, The Works of.” Ed. Dr. Samuel Johnson. 63 vols. + London, 1779–1781. + + “English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper.” Ed. Alexander Chalmers. + 21 vols. London, 1810. + + “Fugitive Poets, Classical Arrangement of.” Ed. John Bell. 8 + vols. London, 1789. + + + TEXTS AND BOOKS OF REFERENCE + + Addison, Joseph. “Works.” 6 vols. Bohn Ed., London, 1892. + + Akenside, Mark. “Poetical Works.” Ed. Dyce. London, 1885. + + Amory, Thomas. “Life of John Buncle.” 3 vols. London, 1825. + + Armstrong, John. “Poems.” Park’s “British Poets,” Vol. 34. + + Armstrong, Sir Walter. “Gainsborough and His Place in British + Art.” Scribners, 1898. + + Badeslade. “Views of Kent,” 1722. + + Bage, Robert. “Hermsprong.” Mrs. Barbauld’s “British Novelists.” + + Baily, J. T. Herbert. “George Morland” (“Connoisseur,” Extra + Number), 1906. + + Beattie, James. “Poetical Works.” Aldine Ed., London. + + Beckford, William. “Vathek.” + + Biese, Alfred. “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls im Mittelalter + und der Neuzeit.” Leipzig, 1892. + + Blackmore, Richard. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. + 23. + + Blair, Robert. “Poems.” Chalmers’ “English Poets,” Vol. 15. + + Blake, William. “Works.” Eds. Ellis and Yeats. 3 vols. London, + 1893. + + Blomfield, Reginald, and Thomas, Inigo. “The Formal Garden.” + London, 1892. + + Blümner, Hugo. “Die Farbenbezeichnungen bei den römischen + Dichtern.” Berlin, 1895. + + Boswell, James. “Life of Dr. Johnson.” Ed. Birkbeck Hill. 6 + vols. Oxford, 1887. + + Boulton, William B. “Thomas Gainsborough.” + + Bowles, William Lisle. “Poetical Works.” Ed. C. C. Clarke. + Edinburgh, 1868. + + Boyse, Samuel. “Poems.” Chalmers’ “English Poets,” Vol. 14. + + Brand, J. “Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland,” etc. + Pinkerton’s “Collection,” Vol. 3. + + “Britannia Illustrata.” Knyff and Kip. London, 1709. + + Britton, John. “Fine Arts in England,” 1805. + + Brooke, Henry. “The Fool of Quality.” 3 vols. New York, 1860. + + Brooke, Mrs. “History of Lady Julia Mandeville.” Mrs. Barbauld’s + “British Novelists.” “The History of Emily Montagu.” 4 vols. + London, 1769. + + Brooke, Stopford A. “Theology in the English Poets.” London, + 1891. + + Broome, William. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 43. + + Brown, Dr. John. “Poems.” Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. 10. + “Description of Keswick.” Bell’s “Fugitive Poets,” Vol. 2, Notes. + + Browne, Isaac Hawkins. Bell’s “Fugitive Poets.” + + Bruce, Michael. “Poems.” Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. 11, + Pt. 1. + + Bryan, Michael. “Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.” London, + 1884. + + Brydall, Robert. “Art in Scotland.” London, 1859. + + Buckingham, Duke of. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” + Vol. 25. + + Burnet, Thomas. “The Sacred Theory of the Earth.” 2 vols. + London, 1759. + + Burney, Fanny. “Evelina.” London, 1892. “Cecilia.” 2 vols. + London, 1890. + + Burns, Robert. “Works.” Ed. William Scott Douglas. London, 1891. + + Burroughs, John. “Fresh Fields.” Boston, 1885. + + Butler, Samuel. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vols. 6 + and 7. + + Chambers, Sir William. “Dissertation on Oriental Gardens.” + London, 1772. + + Chapman, George. “Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.” Ed. R. H. + Shepherd. London, 1885. + + Charlanne, Louis. “L’influence française en Angleterre au XVII^e + siècle.” Paris, 1906. + + Chaucer, Geoffrey. “Poetical Works.” 6 vols. Aldine Ed., London, + 1883. + + Collins, William. “Poetical Works.” Ed. M. M. Thomas. Aldine + Ed., London. + + Congreve, William. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. + 29. + + Conway, W. M. “The Artistic Development of Gainsborough and + Reynolds.” + + Cooper, J. G. “Poems.” Chalmers’ “English Poets,” Vol. 15. + + Coventry, Francis. “Poems.” Dodsley’s “Collection,” Vol. 4. + “Pompey the Little.” Mrs. Barbauld’s “British Novelists,” Vol. + 23. + + Cowley, Abraham. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vols, 1 + and 2. + + Cowper, William. “Poetical Works.” Ed. William Benham. New York, + 1889. + + Crabbe, George. “Poetical Works.” 8 vols. London, 1851. + + Cunningham, Allen. “British Painters.” London, 1879. + + Dalton, Dr. John. “Poems.” Bell’s “Fugitive Poets,” Vol. 2. + + Davenport, Cyril. “Mezzotints.” Methuen, 1904. + + Defoe, Daniel. “The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of + Robinson Crusoe.” Ed. G. A. Aitken. London, 1895. + + Denham, John. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 9. + + Downing, A. J. “Landscape Gardening and Rural Architecture.” New + York, 1860. + + Dryden, John. “Works.” 9 vols. Eds. Scott and Saintsbury. + Edinburgh, 1882. + + Duck, Stephen. “Poems.” Southey’s “Later English Poets,” Vol. 2. + + Dyer, John. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 53. + + Evelyn, John. “The Diary of John Evelyn from 1641 to 1705.” Ed. + William Bray. London, 1890. + + Falconer, William. “Poetical Works.” Aldine Ed., London, 1882. + “Famous Parks and Gardens of the World.” London, 1880. + + Fenton, Elijah. “Poems.” Chalmers’ “English Poets,” Vol. 10. + + Fielding, Henry. “Works.” 10 vols. Ed. Leslie Stephen. London, + 1882. + + Fielding, Sarah. “The Adventures of David Simple.” 2 vols. + London, 1741. + + Fischer, Ch. A. “Drei Studien zur englischen + Litteraturgeschichte.” Gotha, 1892. + + Fletcher, A. E. “Gainsborough.” Scribner’s Sons, 1904. + + Fletcher, Beaumont. “Richard Wilson.” Scribner’s Sons, 1908. + + Frankau, Julia. “Eighteenth-Century Colour-Prints,” 1900. + + Fulcher, Thomas. “Life of Gainsborough,” 1856. + + Garth, Sir Samuel. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. + 20. + + Gay, John. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vols. 41 and + 42. + + Gilpin, William. “Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque + Beauty.” 11 vols. 1783–1809. + + Goodwin, Gordon. “British Mezzotinters. James McArdell.” London, + Bullen, MCMIII. + + Gosse, Edmund. “Seventeenth Century Studies.” London, 1885. + “From Shakespeare to Pope.” New York, 1885. “A History of + Eighteenth Century Literature.” New York, 1891. + + Gower, F.S.A., Lord Ronald Sutherland. “Sir Joshua Reynolds, + F.R.A.” Bell & Sons, 1902. + + Grainger, James. “Poems.” Chalmers’ “English Poets,” Vol. 14. + + Graves, Richard. “The Spiritual Quixote.” 3 vols., 1773. + + Gray, Thomas. “Works.” Ed. Edmund Gosse. 4 vols. New York, 1890. + + Green, Matthew Paris. Chalmers’ “English Poets,” Vol. 15. + + Hamilton, Rev. Wm. “Letters from Antrim.” Pinkerton’s + “Collection,” Vol. 3. + + Hassel, J. “Tour to the Isle of Wight.” Pinkerton’s + “Collection,” Vol. 2. + + Hastings, Thomas. “Etchings from the Works of Wilson in the Ford + Collection,” 1825. + + Hawkesworth, John. “Almoran and Hamet.” Mrs. Barbauld’s “British + Novelists.” + + Hill, Aaron. “Poems.” Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. 8. + + Howe, Walter. Ed. of “The Gardener: As Considered in Literature + by Some Polite Writers.” G. P. Putnam’s Sons. + + Howell, James. “Epistolae Ho-Elianae.” London, 1737. + + Hughes, John. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 22. + + Humboldt, Alexander von. “Kosmos.” 4 vols. Stuttgart, 1890. + + Hutchinson, W. “An Excursion to the Lakes in Westmoreland and + Cumberland.” London, 1776. + + Inchbald, Mrs. “A Simple Story.” Mrs. Barbauld’s “British + Novelists.” + + Jago, Richard. “Poems.” Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. 11. + + Jenyns, Soame. “Poems.” Bell’s “Fugitive Poets,” Vol. 1. + + Johnson, Samuel. “Works.” 9 vols. Oxford English Classics, 1825. + + King, William. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 20. + + Knight, Richard Payne. “The Landscape, A Didactic Poem,” 1794. + + Langhorne, John. “Poems.” “British Poets,” Vol. 11. + + Langley, Batty. “New Principles of Gardening,” 1728. + + Laprade, Victor de. “La sentiment de la nature chez les + modernes.” Paris, 1870. + + Lecky, W. E. H. “History of England in the Eighteenth Century.” + 8 vols. New York, 1882. + + Lee, Vernon. “Euphorion.” Boston, 1885. + + Lennox, Mrs. “The Female Quixote.” Mrs. Barbauld’s “British + Novelists.” + + “Les délices de la Grande Bretagne et de l’Irlande.” Leyden, + 1707. + + Logan, John. “British Poets,” Vol. 11. + + London, J. C. “Encyclopaedia of Gardening.” London, 1871. + + Lyttleton, Lord. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 56. + + Mackenzie, Henry. “The Man of Feeling.” “Julia de Roubigné.” + Mrs. Barbauld’s “British Novelists.” + + Macpherson, James. “Poems of Ossian.” Ed. Dr. Blair. Tauchnitz + Ed. Leipzig, 1847. + + McLaughlin, Edward T. “Studies in Mediaeval Life and + Literature.” New York, 1894. + + Mallet, David. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 53. + + Manson, James A. “George Morland.” + + Marriott, Mr. “Poems.” Dodsley’s “Supplement,” Vol. 4. + + Martin, Mr. “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland.” + Pinkerton’s “Collection,” Vol. 3. + + Marvell, Andrew. “Works.” 4 vols. Ed. Grosart. Fuller Worthies’ + Library, 1875. + + Mason, William. “Poems.” London, 1764. “The English Garden.” + Jencks’s “Rural Poetry.” + + Mendes, Moses. “The Seasons.” Bell’s “Fugitive Poets,” Vol. 6. + + Mickle, Wm. J. “Poems.” Park’s “British Poets,” Vol. 34. + + Miller, Hugh. “Impressions of England and Its People.” London, + 1847. + + Milton, John. “Poetical Works.” 3 vols. Ed. Masson. New York, + 1894. + + Monkhouse, Cosmo. “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters.” + Suley & Co., 1897. + + Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley. “Letters and Works.” 2 vols. London, + 1887. + + Moore, Dr. “Zeluco.” Mrs. Barbauld’s “British Novelists.” + + Nettleship, J. T. “George Morland” (“Portfolio,” Dec. 1898). + + Nichols, Rose Standish. “English Pleasure Gardens.” + + Oliphant, Mrs. M. O. W. “The Reign of Queen Anne.” The Century + Co., 1894. + + Paltock, Robert. “The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins.” 2 + vols. London, 1884. + + Parnell, Thomas. “Poetical Works,” London, 1890. + + Pattison, William. “Poems.” Anderson’s “British Poets.” + + Pennant, Thomas. “Tours in Scotland.” Pinkerton’s “Collection,” + Vol. 3. + + Pennecuik, Alexander. “Works in Prose and Verse.” Leith, 1815. + + Percy, Bishop. “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.” 3 vols. Ed. + H. B. Wheatley. London, 1891. + + Perry, T. S. “English Literature in the Eighteenth Century.” New + York, 1883. + + Petrarca, Francesco. “Lettere Famigliari.” 5 vols. Florence, + 1863. + + Phelps, W. L. “The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement.” + Boston, 1893. + + Philips, Ambrose. Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 14. + + Philips, John. Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 21. + + Pitt, Christopher. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. + 43. + + Pope, Alexander. “Works.” 10 vols. Eds. Edwin and Courthope. + London, 1671. + + Potter, R. “Poems.” Bell’s “Fugitive Poets,” Vol. 6. + + Price, Sir Uvedale. “An Essay on the Picturesque.” London, 1794. + + Prior, Matthew. Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vols. 30, 31. + + Radcliffe, Mrs. “Romance of a Forest.” 3 vols. London, 1803. + “Mysteries of Udolpho.” 4 vols. London, 1803. + + Ramsay, Allan. “Poems.” 2 vols. Paisley, 1877. + + Redgrave, Gilbert. “Water-Color Painting in England.” New York, + 1892. + + Reeve, Cora. “Old English Baron.” Mrs. Barbauld’s “British + Novelists,” Vol. 21. + + Repton, Humphrey. “Landscape Gardening and Landscape + Architecture.” Ed. J. C. Loudon. London, 1840. + + Richardson, Samuel. “Works.” Ed. Leslie Stephen. 12 vols. + London, 1883. + + Robertson, David. “Tour through the Isle of Man.” Pinkerton’s + “Collection,” Vol. 2. + + Roscommon, Earl of. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. + 10. + + Rouquet. “L’etat des arts en Angleterre et L’Irlande.” + + Rowe, Nicholas. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 26. + + Ruskin, John. “Modern Painters,” 2 vols. Brantwood Ed. London, + 1891. + + Salaman, Malcolm C. “Old Engravers of England.” London, Cassell + & Co., 1907. + + Sandby, Thomas. “Thomas and Paul Sandby.” + + Savage, Richard. Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 45. + + Scott, John. “Poems.” Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. 11, Pt. 2. + + Shairp, J. C. “On the Poetic Interpretation of Nature.” Boston, + 1890. + + Shaw, Rev. Mr. “Tour to the West of England.” Pinkerton’s + “Collection,” Vol. 2. + + Shenstone, William. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. + 52. “Unconnected Thoughts on Landscape Gardening,” in “Works.” 3 + vols. London, 1764–1769. + + Sieveking, Albert. “Gardens Ancient and Modern,” 1899. + + Smart, Christopher. “Poems.” Chalmers’ “English Poets,” Vol. 16. + “Song to David.” Clarke’s “Less Known British Poets,” Vol. 3. + + Smith, Mrs. Charlotte. “The Old Manor House.” + + Smollett, Tobias. “Works.” 6 vols. London, 1890. + + Somerville, William. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” + Vol. 47. + + Spratt, Thomas. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 9. + + Stephen, Leslie. “English Thought in the Eighteenth Century.” 2 + vols. London, 1887. + + Stepney, George. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets.” + + Sterne, Laurence. “Works.” Ed. James P. Browne. 2 vols. London, + 1885. + + Swift, Jonathan. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vols. + 39 and 40. + + Switzer, Stephen. “The Nobleman, Gentleman, and Gardener’s + Recreation,” 1715 (as “Ichnographia Rustica” 1718). + + Symonds, J. A. “Essays Speculative and Suggestive.” London, 1893. + + Taine, H. A. “Voyage en Italie.” Paris, 1893. + + Temple, Sir William. “Works.” 2 vols. Ed. Jonathan Swift. + London, 1831. + + Thompson, William. “Poems.” Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. 10. + + Thomson, James. “Poetical Works.” 2 vols. Aldine Ed., London, + 1867. + + Tickell, Thomas. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 26. + + Veitch, John. “The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry.” 2 + vols. Edinburgh, 1887. + + Waller, Edmund. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 8. + + Walpole, Horace. “Works.” 5 vols. London, 1789. + + Warton, Joseph. “Poems.” Clarke’s “Less Known British Poets,” + Vol. 3. Dodsley’s “Collection,” Vol. 3. “An Essay on the Genius + and Writings of Pope.” 2 vols. London, 1806. + + Warton, Thomas. “Poems.” Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. II, + Pt. 2. + + Watts, Isaac. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 46. + + Whateley, Thomas. “Observations on Modern Gardening.” London, + 1798. + + Whitehead, William. Anderson’s “British Poets,” Vol. II, Pt. 2. + + Whitman, Alfred. “The Print Collector’s Handbook,” George Bell, + 1901. + + Winchilsea, Lady (Anne Finch). “Miscellany Poems on Several + Occasions. Written by a Lady,” 1713. “The Poems of Anne, + Countess of Winchilsea.” Ed. Myra Reynolds. The University of + Chicago Press, 1903. + + Wordsworth, William. “Poetical Works.” New York, 1889. + + Wright, Thomas, Esq. “The Life of Richard Wilson, Esq., R. A.” + London, 1824. + + Yalden, Thomas. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vol. 10. + + Young, Arthur. “Tour in Ireland.” Pinkerton’s “Collection,” + Vol. 3. “Tour through Southern Counties.” London, 1772. “Tour + in Ireland.” 2 vols. London, 1780. “A Farmer’s Tour.” 4 vols. + London, 1771. + + Young, Edward. “Poems.” Dr. Johnson’s “English Poets,” Vols. 50, + 51, 52. + + + + + GENERAL INDEX + + + Addison, Joseph, 8, 21, 25, 31, 33, 45, 52, 80, 82, 83, 203–4, 252, + 255, 264, 265. + + Akenside, Mark, 12, 19, 30, 47, 112, 123–27, 147, 331, 350, 355–63 + (_passim_). + + Alexander, William, 322. + + Allan, David, 314. + + Amherst, The Hon. Alicia, 247, 256. + + Amory, Thomas, 9, 208–9, 232, 235, 328, 342, 344. + + “Anecdotes of Painting” (Walpole), 262, 274, 278, 284, 310, 322. + + “Apollo’s Edict” (Swift), 35. + + “Appleton House, Upon” (Marvell), 37, 38, 80. + + Armstrong, John, 32, 45, 59, 78, 112, 121, 329, 339, 343, 346. + + Armstrong, Sir Walter, 282, 298, 306, 308. + + Arnold, Matthew, 62, 63. + + Attiret, Père, 271. + + + Bacon, Francis, 248, 256, 264, 265. + + Badeslade, Mr., 248. + + Bage, Robert, 216. + + Bailey, J. T. H., 320. + + “Ballads,” 40, 159–61, 363. + + “Bard, The” (Gray), 135, 342. + + Barlow, Francis, 285. + + Barret, George, 312, 313, 325, 342. + + Barrington, Mr., 252. + + Beattie, James, 147, 167–73, 222, 331, 333, 337, 342, 344, 345, + 346, 349, 353, 356, 358, 359, 361, 363. + + Becket, Isaac, 277. + + Beckford, William, 215, 317. + + Beechey, Sir Thomas, 284. + + Bellers, William, 291–92, 310, 342. + + Biese, Alfred, xv, xvii, 13, 14, 321. + + Birch, W., 300. + + Blackmore, Richard, 42. + + Blair, Robert, 30, 44, 112, 128–29, 158. + + Blake, William, 147, 152, 177–80, 222, 342, 344, 362. + + Blomfield and Thomas, 247, 255. + + Blümner, Hugo, 48. + + Bol, Cornélius, 284. + + Boswell, James, 241. + + Boul, Philip, 284. + + Boulton, William, 305, 306, 308. + + Bowles, W. L., 142, 147, 199–202, 335, 342, 350, 363. + + Boydell, John, 293, 300, 311, 312, 341, 342. + + Boyse, Samuel, 112, 118–19, 354. + + Brand, John, 224, 327. + + Bray, Mr., 241, 242–43. + + Bridgeman, Thomas, 259–60. + + “Brief Description of the Orkneys” (Brand), 224–25. + + “British Painters” (Cunningham), 294, 296. + + Brooke, Henry, 212. + + Brooke, Mrs., 211, 222, 352. + + Brooke, Stopford, xx. + + Brooking, Charles, 288. + + Broome, William, 19, 20, 21, 26. + + Brown, John, 147–48, 227, 232, 235, 240, 241, 323, 328, 337, 338, + 342, 344. + + Brown, Lancelot, 265–69. + + Browning, Mrs., 62, 63. + + Bruce, Michael, 147, 161–63, 331, 348, 350, 356. + + Brydall, Robert, 294. + + Buck, Samuel, 289. + + “Buncle, Life of John,” 9, 208–9, 222, 328. + + Burney, Fanny, 215. + + Burns, Robert, 147, 179, 194–95, 222, 333, 334, 342, 347, 348, 349, + 353, 357, 363. + + Burroughs, John, xx. + + Bushe, Mr., 225. + + Butler, Samuel, 34. + + Butts, John, 294. + + Byrne, William, 300, 301. + + + “Caleb Williams” (Godwin), 216. + + Canot, P. C., 288, 300. + + “Castle of Indolence” (Thomson), 85, 322. + + “Castle of Otranto” (Walpole), 212. + + “Chace, The” (Somerville), 112, 113, 155. + + Chambers, Sir William, 271–72. + + Charlanne, Louis, 246. + + Chaucer, Geoffrey, xix, 40, 62, 63. + + Chinese Influence, 268, 271–72. + + “Clarissa Harlowe,” 205. + + Classical Period, subdivisions, 1–2; + preference for city life, 2–7; + dislike of grand or terrible in Nature, 7; + mountains, 7–15; + ocean, 15–18; + winter, 18–19; + dislike of remote or mysterious, 19; + sky, 19–23; + pleasure in gentler forms, 24; + description traditional and bookish, 25–27; + similitudes, 27–35; + subordination of nature to man, 36–39; + poetic diction, 39–46; + imitative character of poetry, 46–53; + man the supreme interest, 53–57; + summary, 57. + + Cleveley, John, 313, 322. + + Cleveley, Robert, 314. + + Coleridge, S. T., v, 62, 63, 120, 121, 199, 345, 349, 364. + + Collins, William, xix, 112, 121–23, 146, 329, 335, 337, 344, 345, + 346, 363. + + Congreve, William, 19, 26, 30, 36. + + Constable, John, vi, 294, 304, 307, 317, 321. + + “Constable, Memoir of the Life of John” (C. R. Leslie), 304, 307. + + Cooper, J. G., 112, 127–28, 343, 356, 358. + + “Cooper’s Hill” (Denham), 32, 80. + + “Country Walk, The” (Dyer), 102, 106, 107, 330, 332. + + Coventry, Francis, 112, 132, 206, 261, 342, 345. + + Cowley, Abraham, 1, 2, 7, 20, 21, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 37, 41, 42, + 45, 55, 56. + + Cowper, William, xix, xx, 62, 64, 88, 147, 173, 184–94, 196, 222, + 266; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Cozens, Alexander, 292, 311. + + Cozens, John Robert, 292, 317–18, 342. + + Crabbe, George, 68, 79, 105, 147, 180–84, 333, 342. + + Cradock, Joseph, 239, 323. + + Cumberland, Richard, 147, 176–77, 241. + + Cunningham, Allan, 294, 296, 314. + + “Cyder” (J. Philips), 11, 20, 59, 60, 146, 155. + + + Dalton, Dr. John, 112, 138–39, 146, 226, 232, 240, 241, 340, 347, + 350. + + Danckerts, Hendrik, 284. + + Davenport, Cyril, 277, 280. + + “David Simple” (Sarah Fielding), 205. + + Dayes, Edward, 316. + + “Délices de la Grande Bretagne et de l’Irlande,” 248. + + Denham, John, 1, 7, 11, 32, 80. + + “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland” (Martin), 224. + + “Descriptive Poem, A” (Dalton), 138, 226, 241. + + “Deserted Village, The” (Goldsmith), 166. + + Devis, Anthony, 300, 311, 312, 322, 342. + + “Diary of John Evelyn,” 8, 9, 247. + + Diction, 20–24, 39–49, 60, 92–93, 99–100, 101, 105, 109, 124. + + Downing, A. J., 263. + + Dryden, John, 1, 2, 4, 15, 19, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 40, 41, 42, 43, + 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 121, 342. + + Duck, Stephen, 111. + + Dyer, John, 30, 31, 33, 42, 45, 72, 101–4, 109, 111, 112, 117, 175; + in General Summary _passim_. + + + “Eclogues” (Gay), 64, 66. + + “Eclogues” (Virgil), 51, 66. + + Edwardes, Edwards, 298. + + “Eighteenth Century Colour Prints” (Frankau), 280. + + “Eighteenth Century, English Literature of the” (Perry), xx, 12. + + “Eighteenth Century, English Thought in the” (Stephen), xx. + + “Eighteenth Century, History of England in the” (Lecky), xx, 14. + + “Eighteenth Century Literature, A History of” (Gosse), xx, 64, 163. + + “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” (Gray), 133–35. + + Elliott, Mr., 300. + + “Emily Montague” (Mrs. Brooke), 211–12, 222. + + “England and English People” (Miller), 262. + + “England, Fine Arts in” (Britton), 300. + + “England, The Art of” (Ruskin), 303. + + “Englischen Litteraturgeschichte, Drei Studien zur” (Fischer), xx. + + “English Literature, An Illustrated History of” + (Gosse and Garnett), 274. + + “English Masters, Old” (Van Dyke), 282. + + “English Poets” (Ward), 61. + + “English Romantic Movement, The” (Phelps), xx, 133. + + “English Water-Colour Painters, The Earlier” (Monkhouse), 290, 292, + 313, 315, 317, 318. + + “Engravers of England, Old” (Salaman), 28, 285. + + Engravers. _See_ under Becket, Byrne, Canot, Elliott, Green, + McArdell, Major, Mason, Ravenet, Reynolds, Rooker, Smith, + Vivares, Watson, Watts, Woollett. + + “Enthusiast, The” (Warton), 139, 140, 141, 145, 332. + + “Entwickelung des Naturgefühls, Die” (Biese), xvii, 13, 14, 18, 21, + 321. + + “Epistle, Fourth” (Pope), 258, 272, 328. + + “Essays Speculative and Suggestive” (Symonds), xx, 24. + + “Etat des arts en Angleterre” (Rouquet), 287. + + “Euphorion” (Lee), xx, 24, 160. + + “Evelina” (Burney), 215. + + Evelyn, John, 8, 55, 247, 265. + + “Evergreen, The,” 75, 332. + + + Falconer, Robert, 16–18, 21, 44. + + “Farbenzeichnungen bei den römischen Dichtern” (Blümner), 48. + + Farington, Joseph, 311, 315, 316, 342. + + “Ferdinand Count Fathom” (Smollett), 207. + + Fielding, Henry, 118, 205. + + Fielding, Sarah, 205. + + “Fleece, The” (Dyer), 30, 31, 101, 102, 103, 104, 155, 331, 342. + + Fletcher, A. E., 308. + + Fletcher, Beaumont, 296, 298, 303. + + “Fool of Quality” (Brooke), 212. + + Ford Collection of Wilson’s pictures, 302. + + “Forest Scenery” (Gilpin), 313. + + Fox, Charles, 321. + + Frankau, Julia, 280. + + “Fresh Fields” (Burroughs), xx. + + Fulcher, G. W., 305. + + + Gainsborough, Thomas, 278, 281–84, 304–9, 311, 315, 320, 328. + For books on, _see_ under Sir Walter Armstrong, Boulton, + Fulcher, Horne. + + Galleries, Art: + British Museum Print Room, 290, 292, 293, 300, 302, 311, 318; + Dulwich, 274, 279, 286, 302; + Glasgow, 302; + Hampton Court, 275, 277, 286; + Manchester, 302; + National, 274, 279, 286, 288, 290, 296, 304, 306, 319; + South Kensington, 281, 285, 288, 289, 291, 292, 302, 304, 313, + 316, 317, 318, 319; + Wallace, 282, 286; + Whitworth Institute (Manchester), 289; + Royal Academy, 296. + + “Garden, Kensington” (Tickell), 42. + + Gardening Exhibition, 249. + + Gardens, xviii, 132, 133, 208, 231, 238, 242–43, 261–72. + + Gardens, Books on. _See_ under Amherst, Attiret, Bacon, + Barrington, Blomfield and Thomas, Chambers, Coventry, Downing, + Evelyn, Goldsmith, Hazlitt, Howe, Langley, Lawson, London, + Mason, Nichols, Repton, Shenstone, Sieveking, Switzer, Temple, + Walpole, Whateley. + + Gardens, Oriental, 271–72. + + Gardens, Ruins in, 270–71. + + Garth, Dr. Samuel, 21, 24, 25, 46. + + Gay, John, 6, 20, 21, 29, 30, 45, 51, 59, 64–68, 73, 75, 77, 78, + 83, 92, 114, 121, 167, 288; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Geikie, Sir Archibald, xx. + + “Gentle Shepherd, The” (Ramsay), 73, 75, 76, 77, 314, 331. + + Gilpin, Sawrey, 313. + + Gilpin, William, 103, 227, 235–39, 241, 268, 269, 313, 316, 327, + 328, 343, 357. + + Girtin, Thomas, 318. + + Goldsmith, Oliver, xix, 147, 165–67, 212, 262, 265, 271, 333. + + Goodwin, Gordon, 280. + + Gosse, Edmund, xx, 1, 61, 64, 120, 127, 163, 274. + + Gower, Lord R. S., 279, 280, 281. + + Graeme, James, 147, 155–56. + + Graves, Algernon, 310. + + Gray, Thomas, xix, 46, 52, 112, 121, 132, 133–36, 146, 147, 172, + 176, 230–33, 235, 241, 310; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Green, Valentine, 280. + + Greene, Matthew, 112, 116, 146. + + Greenhill, John, 276. + + “Grongar Hill” (Dyer), 42, 72, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 349. + + “Guardian, The,” 82, 253, 256, 259, 349. + + + Hagley Park, 261, 262. + + Hamilton, Mr., 225, 262. + + Hamilton, William, xviii, 112, 117–18, 350, 352, 354, 356, 359. + + Hanscome, Elizabeth, xx. + + Hassel, Mr., 244. + + Hastings, Thomas, 298, 302. + + Hawkesworth, John, 210. + + Hazlitt, William, 2, 256. + + Hearne, Thomas, 315, 322, 325. + + “Hermsprong” (Bage), 216. + + Highmore, Joseph, 277. + + Hill, Aaron, 5, 121. + + Hill, Joseph, 185. + + “History of Lady Julia Mandeville” (Mrs. Brooke), 211. + + Homer, xix, 17, 39, 54. + + Hoppner, John, 284. + + Horace, 49, 51, 98, 113, 121. + + Horne, H. P., 283. + + Houseman, Mr., 244. + + Howe, Walter, 265. + + Howell, James, 8. + + Hudson, Thomas, 277. + + Huet, D. P., 256. + + Hughes, John, 19, 20, 21, 30, 32, 37. + + Humboldt, Alexander von, xv, 12, 54, 321. + + “Humphrey Clinker” (Smollett), 213–14, 289. + + Hutchinson, Mr., 10, 227, 240–41, 324. + + “Hymn” (Thomson), 113, 354. + + + Ibbetson, J. C., 316. + + Inchbald, Mrs., 216. + + “Influence française en Angleterre” (Charlanne), 246. + + Ireland, 225, 228, 230, 294, 295. + + Irwin, Viscount, 265. + + + Jago, Richard, 112, 131, 147, 269, 342, 348, 349. + + Jameson, Mrs., 281. + + Jervas, Charles, 277. + + Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 3, 10, 109, 121, 122, 209–10, 224, 241, 242, + 338. + + “Johnson, Life of Dr.,” 3, 10. + + “Jonathan Wild” (Fielding), 205. + + “Joseph Andrews” (Fielding), 205. + + “Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides” (Boswell), 241. + + “Journey through England” (Macky), 225. + + “Journey to the Hebrides” (Johnson), 241. + + “Julia de Roubigné” (Mackenzie), 215. + + + Keats, John, v, 62, 63, 127, 339. + + “Kent, Views of” (Badeslade), 248. + + Kent, William, 140, 255, 256, 259, 260, 261, 264, 268, 328. + + Kip and Knyff, 248, 249. + + Klenze, Camillo von, xx. + + Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 276–77, 278, 327. + + Knight, R. P., 266–68, 317. + + “Kosmos,” xv, 12, 55, 321. + + + Lake District, The English, 10, 14, 138–39, 148, 150, 176, 226–30, + 231, 232, 234–35, 238, 241–42, 243, 244, 292, 295, 307–8, 310, + 312, 315, 316, 321, 323, 324. + + “Lakes, An Excursion to the” (Hutchinson), 10, 240–41. + + “Lakes, A Guide to the” (West), 241. + + “Lakes, A Journal in the” (Gray), 232, 241, 310. + + Lambert, George, 290. + + Lambert, James, 312. + + Landscape Backgrounds. _See_ under artist’s names: Beechey, + Gainsborough, Highmore, Hoppner, Hudson, Jervas, Kneller, Lely, + Mytens, Oliver, Opie, Raeburn, Reynolds, Richardson, Romney, + Vandyck, Wissing. + + Landscape Painting from 1660 to 1800: period 1660–1707, 284–87; + period 1707–1755, 287–95; + period 1755–1800, 295–320; + artists in foreign lands, 321–22; + dominance of foreign models, 322–26. + _See also_ under names of artists; Alexander, Allan, Barlow, + Barret, Bellers, Bol, Boul, Boydell, Buck, Cleveley, + Constable, Cozens, Danckerts, Dayes, Devis, Farington, Fox, + Gainsborough, Gilpin, Girtin, Hearne, Ibbetson, Lambert, + Lankrink, Looten, Lorraine, Loutherbourg, Mengs, Monamy, + Morland, Norris, Pars, Pether, Place, Pocock, Poussin, + Rogers, Rosa, Runciman, Ruysdael, Sandby, Scott, Serres, + Smith, Streater, Sybrecht, Taverner, Turner, Van de Velde, + Vandiest, Van Wyck, Vernet, Verzagen, Webber, Wilson, + Wootten, Zucarelli. + + Landscape Painting, Books on. _See_ under following authors; + Armstrong (Sir Walter), Baily, Biese, Boulton, Brydall, + Cunningham, Davenport, Fletcher (A. E.), Fletcher (Beaumont), + Frankau, Fulcher, Goodwin, Gower, Graves, Hastings, Horne, + Leslie, Manson, Monkhouse, Nettleship, Peter Pindar, Reynolds, + Rouquet, Ruskin, Salaman, Sandby (William), Smith (J. T.), + Thornbury, Van Dyke, Walpole, Whitman, Wright. + + Langhorne, John, 147, 148–51, 344, 349, 350, 352, 357, 358, 363. + + Langley, Batty, 257–58, 271. + + Lankrink, Henry, 284. + + Latin, Imitation of, 46–51, 60, 98. + + Lawson, William, 248. + + Leasowes, 262–63. + + Lecky, W. E. H., xx, 14. + + Lee, Vernon, xx, 24. + + Lely, Sir Peter, 270, 275–76, 277, 281, 284, 285. + + Le Nôtre, 246, 247, 248, 327. + + Lennox, Mrs., 207. + + Leprade, Victor de, xvi. + + Leslie, C. R., 304, 307. + + “Letter from Keswick” (Brown), 14, 226–27, 241, 323, 328, 337, 338. + + “Letters from Antrim” (Hamilton), 225. + + Letters quoted: + Beattie, 170; + Bolingbroke, 6; + Brown, 14, 226; + Burns, 194; + Cowper, 173, 184, 185, 186; + Gainsborough, 305, 307, 309; + Goethe, 14; + Gray, 172, 231; + Howell, 8; + Lyttleton, 172; + Montagu, 4; + Petrarch, 12; + Pope, 2, 3, 6, 18, 19, 82, 256; + Thomson, 85, 95, 96, 108; + Walker, 195; + Walpole, 255. + + Linton, Sir James D., 304. + + Logan, John, 147, 163–64, 336, 339. + + London, George, 246, 247. + + Longford, Mr., 325. + + Lock, Rev. John, 313. + + Lock, William, 296, 298. + + Looten, John, 284. + + Lorraine, Claude, 264, 287, 291, 294, 312, 322, 323, 324. + + Loutherbourg, James de, 314, 315. + + Lowell, J. R., 33, 348. + + Lyttleton, Lord, 5, 7, 18, 26, 148, 172, 261. + + + McArdell, J., 277, 280. + + MacClintock, W. D., 93. + + Mackenzie, Henry, 213, 215, 352. + + McLaughlin, Edward T., xx, 13, 19, 23. + + Macky, Mr., 225. + + Macpherson, James, xx, 147, 156–59. + + Major, Thomas, 305. + + Mallet, David, 3, 33, 45, 84, 85, 107–9, 111, 112, 224; + in General Summary _passim_. + + “Man of Feeling, The” (Mackenzie), 213. + + Manson, James A., 320. + + Marriott, Mr., 27. + + Martin, Mr., 224. + + Marvell, Andrew, 2, 10, 34, 37, 38, 80, 87. + + Mason, I., 291, 300. + + Mason, William, 112, 132–33, 240, 250, 255, 256, 263–64, 270, 323, + 324. + + “Mediaeval Life and Literature” (McLaughlin), xx, 13, 19, 24. + + Mendes, Moses, 112, 130–31, 339. + + Mengs, Raphael, 284. + + Mickle, W. J., 147, 153–55; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Miller, Hugh, 262. + + Milton, John, xvii, xix, 2, 11, 30, 31, 33, 44, 47, 62, 63, 89, 93, + 121, 132, 140, 142, 144, 156, 162, 200, 254, 256, 264. + + “Minstrel, The,” 167, 172, 173, 331, 333, 346, 358, 361. + + “Modern Painters” (Ruskin), xvi, 23, 54. + + Monamy, Peter, 288, 325. + + Monkhouse, Cosmo, 289, 292, 313, 315, 317, 318. + + Montagu, Lady M. W., 18, 19, 265. + + Morland, George, 285, 318–20. + For books on, _see_ under authors: Bailey, Manson, + Nettleship. + + Moor Park, 250. + + Morel, Leon, 201. + + Mountains, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 59, 65, 68, 77, 99, 104, + 131, 132, 135, 138–39, 140, 153, 156, 162, 170, 176, 208–9, + 213–14, 220–21, 226–27, 231, 237, 238, 239, 240, 301, 307–8, + 311, 312, 315, 317–18, 321, 341–42, 349–50. + + “Mysteries of Udolpho” (Radcliffe), 219, 222. + + Mytens, Daniel, 275. + + + “Naive und sentimentalische Dichtung” (Schiller), xv. + + “Nature in German Literature, Treatment of” (Batt), xx. + + “Nature in Old English Poetry, Feeling for” (Hanscome), xx, 11. + + “Nature in Scottish Poetry, Feeling for” (Veitch), xviii, 18, 55, + 81. + + “Nature in Works of Nicholas Lenau, Treatment of” (Von Klenze), xx. + + Nettleship, J. T., 320. + + Nichols, Rose S., 248, 251. + + “Night Thoughts” (Young), 21, 30, 120, 361. + + “Nocturnal Revery” (Winchilsea), 62, 337, 348, 354. + + Norris, John, 293, 294. + + + “Observations on the Faerie Queen” (Warton), 145. + + “Observations on Picturesque Beauty” (Gilpin), 268. + + Ocean, 15–18, 69, 99, 119–20, 154. + + “Ode to Evening” (Collins), 329, 345. + + “Old English Baron, The” (Reeve), 214. + + “Old Manor House” (Mrs. Smith), 217–19. + + Oliphant, Mrs., 277. + + Oliver, Isaac, 274. + + Opie, John, 284. + + + Paltock, Robert, 206. + + “Pamela” (Richardson), 304–5. + + “Paradise Lost” (Milton), 30, 31, 44, 46, 254, 334. + + Parnell, Thomas, 12, 21, 26, 31, 33, 45, 48, 59, 68–71, 83, 106, + 117, 271; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Pars, William, 322. + + Pasquin, Anthony, 324. + + “Pastorals” (A. Philips), 51, 60, 61, 66, 67, 80, 332. + + “Pastorals” (Gay), 66–68. + + “Pastorals” (Pope), 51. + + Pattison, William, 59, 71–72, 331, 358. + + Pennant, Thomas, 233–35, 240, 241, 344. + + Pennecuik, Alexander, 9, 73, 225. + + Percy, Bishop, 40, 159–61. + + “Peregrine Pickle” (Smollett), 207. + + Perry, T. S., xx, 12. + + Peter Pindar. _See_ Wolcot. + + “Peter Wilkins” (Paltock), 206. + + Pether, Abraham, 316. + + Petrarch, 12. + + Phelps, W. L., xx, 133. + + Philips, Ambrose, 30, 35, 51, 59, 60–61, 66, 82, 83, 332, 335, 339, + 352, 356. + + Philips, John, 11, 20, 58, 59–60, 146, 336, 341, 344, 356. + + Pitt, Christopher, 19, 20, 21, 42, 45, 50. + + Place, Francis, 285. + + “Pleasures of the Imagination” (Akenside), 12, 123, 124, 125, 126, + 331, 361. + + Pocock, Nicholas, 314. + + “Poetic Interpretation of Nature” (Veitch), xix, 59, 93. + + “Pompey the Little” (Coventry), 206. + + Pope, Alexander, xviii, 2, 3, 5, 12, 16, 18, 26, 30, 32, 33, 39, + 40, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 57, 61, 66, 80, 81, 82, 83, 98, 111, + 113, 121, 142, 146, 253, 255, 256, 258, 259, 264, 265, 272, + 327. + + “Pope, Essay on” (Warton), 81, 142, 143, 147, 333. + + Portraiture, Landscape in. _See_ Landscape Backgrounds. + + Potter, Rev. R., 136–37, 336, 342, 348, 349. + + Poussin, Nicholas, 176, 262, 287, 322, 323, 324. + + Price, Sir Uvedale, 267–68. + + Prior, Matthew, 20, 21, 22, 26, 30, 32, 33. + + + “Quixote, The Spiritual” (Lennox), 267, 270. + + + Radcliffe, Mrs., 219–22, 241, 327, 328, 334, 343, 344, 348, 357. + + Raeburn, Sir Henry, 284. + + Ramsay, Allan, xviii, xix, 32, 59, 72–77, 83, 113, 143, 146; + in General Summary _passim_. + + “Rasselas” (Johnson), 209–11. + + Rathbone, John, 316. + + Ravenet, S. F., 288. + + Reeve, Clara, 209–11. + + “Reliques of Ancient Poetry” (Percy), 41, 159. + + Relph, Joseph, 112, 128–29, 146, 147, 241, 336. + + Repton, Humphrey, 256, 268–69, 327. + + Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 278, 279–81, 283, 303. + For books on, _see_ under authors: Davenport, Frankau, + Goodwin, Gower, Salaman, Whitman. + + Reynolds, S. W., 280. + + Riccaltoun, Robert, 59, 78, 79, 346. + + Richardson, Jonathan, 277. + + Richardson, Samuel, 102, 204, 205, 207, 327. + + “Ride over Skiddaw” (Radcliffe), 241. + + Robertson, Mr., 245. + + “Robinson Crusoe” (Defoe), 204. + + “Roderick Random” (Smollett), 205. + + Rogers, Mr., 294. + + “Romance of a Forest” (Radcliffe), 219, 222. + + Romney, George, 284. + + Rooker, E. and M., 300, 301. + + Rosa, Salvator, 177, 262, 264, 287, 322, 323, 324. + + Rouquet, M., 287, 288, 295. + + Rousseau, J. J., 14, 141. + + Rudworth, Mr., 244. + + Runciman, Alexander, 293. + + Ruskin, John, xvi, 23, 54, 303, 318. + + Ruysdael, Jacob I., 264, 285, 287, 323, 324. + + + Salaman, M. C., 280, 286. + + Sandby, Paul, 290, 293, 311–12, 313, 341, 342. + + “Sandby, Thomas and Paul” (Sandby), 311. + + Sandby, William, 311. + + Savage, Richard, 19, 29, 109–11, 336, 340, 346. + + Scotland, 224, 231, 233, 234, 241–42, 244, 285, 287, 293, 294, 295, + 312, 315, 318, 320, 338, 349. + + “Scotland, Second Tour in” (Pennant), 233. + + Scott, John, 19, 147, 173–76, 180, 193, 222, 310; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Scott, Samuel, 288, 310, 325. + + Scott, Sir Walter, v, xvii, xx, 262, 349, 364. + + “Seasons, The.” _See_ Thomson. + + “Sentiment de la nature, La” (Laprade), xvi. + + “Sentimental Journey, A” (Sterne), 213. + + Serres, Dominic, 313. + + Serres, J. T., 314, 325. + + Seymour, James, 288. + + Shairp, J. C., xix, 59, 77, 93. + + “Shakespeare to Pope, From” (Gosse), 1. + + Shakspere, William, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, 41, 121, 142, 200. + + Shaw, Rev. Mr., 244. + + Shelley, P. B., v, xvii, 15, 62, 63, 121, 180, 339, 345, 346. + + Shenstone, William, 5, 7, 19, 21, 26, 37, 45, 47, 48, 112, 113–16, + 143, 146, 147, 175, 262–63, 269; + in General Summary _passim_. + + “Shepherd’s Week, The” (Gay), 64, 66. + + “Shipwreck, The” (Falconer), 17, 21, 45. + + Sheridan, P. B., 28. + + Sieveking, A. F., 249, 257. + + “Simple Story, A” (Inchbald), 216. + + “Sir Charles Grandison” (Richardson), 207–8. + + “Sir Launcelot Greaves” (Smollett), 210. + + “Sir Roger de Coverley” (Addison), 203. + + Smart, Christopher, 146, 147, 151–53. + + Smith, Mrs. Charlotte, 216–19, 334. + + Smith, George (of Chichester), 291, 324. + + Smith, J. R., 277, 280. + + Smith, J. T., 319. + + Smith, Thomas (of Derby), 290, 292, 310, 325. + + Smollett, Tobias, 205, 207, 210, 213–14, 289, 342, 350. + + Somerville, William, 21, 30, 32, 41, 42, 112–13, 146, 147. + + “Song to David” (Smart), 151. + + Southcote, Philip, 261. + + Southey, Robert, 128, 199. + + “Spectator, The,” 82, 252. + + Spenser, Edmund, xvii, 83, 121, 136, 142, 264. + + Stephen, Leslie, xx. + + Sterne, Laurence, 210, 213, 343. + + Streater, Robert, 285. + + Stubbs, George, 288, 311. + + “Studies in Poetry and Philosophy” (Shairp), xx. + + Swaine, Francis, 325. + + Swift, Jonathan, 35, 92. + + Switzer, Stephen, 254, 260. + + Sybrecht, John, 284. + + Symonds, J. A., xx, 24, 29. + + “Symphones, Les” (Laprade), xxi. + + + Taine, H. A., 56. + + “Task, The” (Cowper), 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 266, + 361. + + “Tatler, The,” 251. + + Taverner, William, 289–90. + + Temple, Sir William, 249–50, 265. + + Tennyson, Alfred, 66, 180. + + Theocritus, 51, 55. + + “Theology in the English Poets” (Brooke), xx. + + “Theory of the Earth” (Burnet), 9, 22. + + Thompson, William, 112, 129–30. + + Thomson, James, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, 32, 45, 46, 58, 59, 61, + 64, 73, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83–101, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113, + 119, 121, 130, 140, 141, 142, 143, 167, 172, 174, 175, 190, + 193, 196, 210, 272, 320, 322; + in General Summary _passim_. + + “Thomson, James: La vie et ses œuvres” (Morel), 101. + + Thornbury, Walter, 315. + + Tickell, Thomas, 12, 21, 29, 42, 52, 116. + + “Tom Jones” (Fielding), 118, 205–6. + + Tours. _See_ under Boswell, Brand, Bray, Brown, Bushe, + Cradock, Gilpin, Gray, Hamilton, Hassell, Houseman, Hutchinson, + Johnson, Macky, Martin, Pennant, Pennecuik, Robertson, + Rudworth, Shaw, Walker, West, Young (Arthur). + + “Trees, Thirty-two Species of” (Alex. Cozens), 311. + + “Tristram Shandy” (Sterne), 210. + + Turner, J. M. W., vi, 304, 318, 320, 327, 328, 343. + + “Types of Scenery and Their Influence on Literature” (Geikie), xx. + + + Unwin, Rev. William, 185, 186. + + + Van de Velde, the Elder, 284, 286. + + Van de Velde, the Younger, 284, 286, 287, 288, 325. + + Vandiest, Adrien, 285. + + Vandyck, Sir Anthony, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279. + + Van Dyke, John, 282. + + Van Wyck, Jan, 285. + + “Vathek” (Beckford), 215. + + Veitch, John, xviii, 11, 18, 55, 81. + + Vernet, C. J., 284. + + Verzagen, Henry, 284. + + “Vicar of Wakefield” (Goldsmith), 212. + + “Village, The” (Crabbe), 181, 182. + + Virgil, 263. + + Vivares, François, 291, 310. + + “Voyage en Italie” (Taine), 56. + + + Wales, 236, 239, 244, 293, 295, 300, 301, 311, 312, 315, 316, 320, + 323, 349. + + Walker, Mr., 244. + + Waller, Edmund, 1, 7, 10, 15, 20, 21, 27, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37, 39, + 43, 48, 327. + + Walpole, Horace, 212, 250, 254, 255, 256, 259, 260, 262, 265, 274, + 275, 277, 278, 284, 306, 310, 322. + + Warton, Joseph, 81, 111, 112, 134, 139–43, 146, 147, 199, 200; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Warton, Thomas, 112, 143–45, 344, 346, 351. + + Watson, Caroline, 280. + + Watts, Isaac, 7, 20, 21, 30, 36, 50. + + Watts, W., 300. + + Webber, John, 322. + + West, Mr., 227, 241, 324. + + Whately, Thomas, 265. + + Whitehead, William, 112, 145–46, 332, 356. + + Whitman, Alfred, 280. + + “Wilson, Etchings after Richard” (Hastings), 302. + + Wilson, Richard, 287, 296–304, 309, 310, 311, 314, 315, 316, 328, + 342. + For books on Wilson _see_ under authors: Beaumont, Fletcher, + Ruskin, Wright. + + “Wilson, Studies and Designs by,” 302. + + “Wilson, Thirty-seven Sketches and Designs by,” 302. + + Winchilsea, Lady, vi, 23, 59, 61–64, 83, 117, 249, 271; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Wissing, William, 276. + + Wolcot, John, 314. + + Woollett, William, 301, 302. + + Wootten, John, 288, 325. + + Wordsworth, William, v, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, 6, 7, 19, 23, 27, 33, + 37, 38, 45, 50, 58, 61, 63, 64, 68, 72, 80, 81, 93, 97, 101, + 105, 118, 121, 124, 125, 126, 134, 136, 139, 143, 148, 151, + 165, 169, 172, 177, 180, 190, 191, 193, 239, 244, 301, 320; + in General Summary _passim_. + + Wright, Richard, 313. + + + Yalden, John, 11, 20, 31, 42. + + Young, Arthur, 228–30, 232, 241, 344, 348, 355. + + Young, Edward, 5, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 30, 31, 89, 112, 119–21, 147, + 359, 361, 363. + + + “Zeitschrift für Litteraturgeschichte,” xvii. + + “Zeluco” (Moore), 216. + + Zucarelli, A., 297. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Humboldt was the first to attack Schiller’s view. He said that +after a full reading of Greek and Roman authors he found himself +unable to accept Schiller’s statement without many reservations. Later +Biese spoke of Schiller’s essay as “jener bahnbrechende Aufsatz,” but +showed that the statement of the case was inadequate because it was +based on the poetry of a single period and thus failed to take account +of many phases of Nature presented in the poetry after the brief +“reflexionslose naive homerische Zeit.” + +[2] Biese has two earlier important books: “Die Entwickelung des +Naturgefühls bei den Griechen” (1882) and “Die Entwickelung des +Naturgefühls bei den Römern” (1884). In “Zeitschrift für vergleichende +Litteraturgeschichte,” Neue Folge, Siebenter Band (1894), p. 311, is +a valuable annotated summary of recent (since 1882) German studies on +“das antike und das deutsche Naturgefühl.” + +[3] (_a_) They express childlike delight in the open-air world. +(_b_) They use Nature as the background or setting for human +action or emotion. (_c_) They see Nature through historic +coloring. (_d_) They make Nature sympathize with their own +feelings. (_e_) They dwell upon the inhuman or infinite side of +Nature. (_f_) They give description for its own sake. (_g_) +They interpret Nature by imaginative sympathy. (_h_) They use +Nature as a symbol of spirit. + +[4] For additions to this bibliography see “The Journal of Germanic +Philology,” II, 239 (1898), in which is an article by Mr. Camillo von +Klenze giving a comprehensive résumé of books and articles dealing with +the Nature-sense. To these books should be added “Types of Scenery +and Their Influence on Literature,” the Romanes lecture at Oxford, +1898, by Sir Archibald Geikie, a delightful, sketchy study of Cowper, +Thomson, Burns, Macpherson, Scott, and Wordsworth in relation to +their environment; “The Treatment of Nature in the Works of Nicholas +Lenau” (The University of Chicago Press, 1902), by Mr. von Klenze, +an admirably full and discriminating study of the attitude toward +Nature as shown by one of the most important German contemporaries +of Tennyson and Browning; “The Treatment of Nature in German +Literature from Günther to the Appearance of Goethe’s ‘Werther,’” a +careful presentation of the development of the love of Nature in the +half-century before 1774 (Max Batt, The University of Chicago Press, +1902); “The Feeling for Nature in Old English Poetry,” by Elizabeth +Deering Hanscom (“Journal of English and Germanic Philology,” V, 439). + +[5] Gosse, “From Shakespeare to Pope.” + +[6] Pope, “Letters,” I, 73. + +[7] Pope, “A Farewell to London.” + +[8] Hazlitt, “On Londoners and Country People.” + +[9] Boswell, “Life of Dr. Johnson,” III, 178 and note. + +[10] Pope, “Letters,” IV, 449. + +[11] _Ibid._, III, 346. + +[12] _Ibid._, I, 67. + +[13] Pope, “Works,” III, 226. + +[14] Dryden, “Works,” II, 74. + +[15] Etherege, “The Man of Mode,” Act III, sc. 1; Act V, sc. 3. + +[16] Shadwell, “Epsom Wells,” Act II, sc. 1. + +[17] Montagu, “Letters and Works,” I, 72. + +[18] _Ibid._, II, 505. + +[19] Shenstone, “A Ballad.” + +[20] Lyttleton, “Soliloquy of a Beauty in the Country.” + +[21] Young, “On Women.” + +[22] Aaron Hill, “Dialogue between Damon and Philemon.” + +[23] Isaac Hawkins Browne, “From Celia to Chloe.” + +[24] Pope, “Letters,” IV, 476; cf. “From Soame Jenyns in the Country to +the Lord Lovelace in Town.” + +[25] _Ibid._, IV, 253. + +[26] _Ibid._, II, 113. + +[27] _Ibid._, II, 133. + +[28] Gay, “Fables,” First Series, No. 33. + +[29] Gay, “Araminta.” + +[30] Watts, “To David Polhill.” Cf. Shenstone, “The Progress of Taste,” +iv, 172; Lyttleton, “To Mr. Poyntz.” + +[31] Cowley, “The Country Mouse.” + +[32] Denham, “On Mr. Abraham Cowley’s Death,” l. 79. + +[33] James Howell, “Epistolae Ho Elianae,” Book I, sec. 1, Letters 23, +43. + +[34] John Evelyn, “Diary” (1641–1706), pp. 36, 185–89. + +[35] Addison, “Geneva and the Lake,” “Remarks on Italy.” + +[36] Evelyn, “Diary,” p. 126; Addison, “Remarks on Italy.” + +[37] Thomas Burnet, “Theory of the Earth,” chapter on “Mountains.” + +[38] Pennecuik, “Description of Tweeddale,” p. 45. + +[39] Thomas Amory, “Life of John Buncle,” I, 291; II, 97. + +[40] Dr. Johnson, “Works,” IX, 35. Cf. also Dr. Johnson’s remark +to Boswell, “He said, he would not wish not to be disgusted in the +Highlands; for that would be to lose the power of distinguishing, +and a man might then lie down in the middle of them. He wished only +to conceal his disgust.” See also his answer to the question, “How +do you like the Highlands?” “The question seemed to irritate him, +for he answered, ‘How, Sir, can you ask me what obliges me to speak +unfavorably of a country where I have been hospitably entertained? +Who _can_ like the Highlands? I like the inhabitants very +well.’”--Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” V, 317, 377. + +[41] Hutchinson, “Excursion to the Lakes,” pp. 11, 17. + +[42] Waller, “To My Lord Admiral.” + +[43] Waller, “Story of Phoebus and Daphne.” + +[44] Marvell, “Upon the Hill and Grove at Billbarrow.” + +[45] Milton, “A Paraphrase on Psalm CXIV.” + +[46] Veitch calls attention to the fact that Shakspere showed little +if any delight in mountains, and that Milton went over Switzerland +without bringing back an image of the Alps which he thought fit to +preserve.--“Nature in Scottish Poetry,” I, 107. + +[47] Dryden, “The Indian Emperor.” + +[48] Blackmore, “The Creation,” iii, 409. + +[49] John Philips, “Cyder,” i, 106. + +[50] Yalden, “To Sir Humphrey Mackworth.” + +[51] Prior, “Solomon,” i, 52. + +[52] Pope, “The Temple of Fame.” + +[53] Pope, “On St. Cecilia’s Day.” + +[54] Pope, “Windsor Forest,” l. 210. + +[55] Tickell, “Oxford,” l. 441. + +[56] Parnell, “To Mr. Pope,” l. 83. + +[57] Dr. Akenside, “Pleasures of the Imagination,” ii, 274 (first +version). + +[58] This indifference to mountains or dislike of them was not a new +thing. For further illustrations see Perry, “English Literature of the +Eighteenth Century,” pp. 144–48. Humboldt, “Kosmos,” Book II, p. 16, +says: “Von dem ewigen Schnee der Alpen, wenn sie sich am Abend oder am +frühen Morgen röthen, von der Schönheit des blauen Gletscher-Eises, +von der grossartigen Natur der schweizerischen Landschaft ist keine +Schilderung aus dem Alterthum auf uns gekommen: und doch gingen +ununterbrochen Staatsmänner, Heerführer, und in ihrem Gefolge +Litteraten durch Helvetien nach Gallien. Alle diese Reisenden wissen +nur über die unfahrbaren scheusslichen Wege zu klagen; das Romantische +der Naturscenen beschäftigte sie nie.... Silius Italicus ... beschreibt +die Alpengegend als eine schrecken-erregende vegetationslose Einöde, +während er mit Liebe alle Felsen-schluchten Italiens und die buschigen +Ufer des Liris (Garigliano) besingt.” + +An interesting early exception to this general statement is Petrarch’s +description of his ascent of Mt. Ventoux. In a letter dated April +26, 1335 (Petrarca, “Lettere Famigliari,” I, 481), he tells how this +mountain ever before his eyes, had been from childhood a temptation +to him, and how he was finally stimulated to make the ascent by an +account of the wide view gained by Philip of Macedon from one of the +highest mountains in Thessaly. The most significant passage in this +letter is that in which are strangely mingled Petrarch’s pleasure in +the magnificent prospect and his ascetic fear of a consequent undue +subordination of the soul of man. + +“At last I turned to the occasion of my expedition. The sinking sun +and lengthening shadows admonished me that the hour of departure was +at hand, and, as if started from sleep, I turned around and looked +to the west. The Pyrenees--the eye could not reach so far, but I saw +the mountains of Lyonnais distinctly, and the sea by Marseilles; the +Rhone, too, was there before me. Observing these closely, now thinking +on the things of earth, and again, as if I had done with the body, +lifting my mind on high, it occurred to me to take out the copy of St. +Augustine’s Confessions that I always kept with me; a little volume +but of unlimited value and charm. And I call God to witness that the +first words on which I cast mine eyes were these: ‘Men go to wonder +at the heights of mountains, the ocean floods, rivers’ long courses, +ocean’s immensity, the revolutions of the stars--and of themselves they +have no care!’ My brother asked me what was the matter. I bade him +not disturb me. I closed the book, angry with myself for not ceasing +to admire things of earth, instead of remembering that the human soul +is beyond comparison the subject for admiration. Once and again, as I +descended, I gazed back, and the lofty summit of the mountain seemed +to me scarcely a cubit high compared with the sublime dignity of man.” +Translated and commented on by McLaughlin, “The Mediaeval Feeling for +Nature.” See also Biese, “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls,” p. 151: +“Und somit eröffnet uns dieser Brief, mit seiner Mischung reinen, +modernen Naturgenusses und dogmatisch-asketischer Rückbesinnung, einen +Blick in ein zwie-spältiges Herz eines an der Wende zweier Zeiten +stehenden Menschen; es reagiert gleichsam der mittelalterliche Geist +wider die aufkeimende moderne Empfindung.” + +Another significant utterance comes in 1541 in a letter by Gessner +quoted by Biese, p. 328. It shows a recognition of the greatness and +majesty of the Alps, and has something of the modern feeling: “So lange +mir Gott Leben schenken wird, habe ich beschlossen, jährlich einige +Berge oder doch einen zu besteigen, teils um die Gebirgsflora kennen zu +lernen, teils um den Körper zu kräftigen und den Geist zu erfrischen. +Welchen Genuss gewährt es nicht die ungeheuren Bergmassen zu betrachten +und das Haupt in die Wolken zu erheben! Wie stimmt es zur Andacht, wenn +man umringt ist von den Schneedomen, die der grosse Weltbaumeister +an dem einen langen Schöpfungstage geschaffen hat! Wie leer is doch +das Leben, wie niedrig das Streben derer, die auf dem Erdboden umher +kriechen, nur um zu erwerben und spiessbürgerlich zu geniessen! +Ihnen bleibt das irdische Paradies verschlossen.“ Biese thinks that +Rousseau’s “Nouvelle Héloise” (1761) “die Augen über die Herrlichkeiten +der neuentdeckten Alpenwelt öffnete.” It is interesting to note in this +connection that the beginning of enthusiastic interest in the mountains +of the English Lake District found expression somewhat earlier in +Dalton’s poem (1755), Amory’s novel (1756), and Brown’s “Letter” and +“Rhapsody” (before 1766 and probably before 1760). The earliest of +the Ossian poems belong in 1760. Goethe’s “Briefe aus der Schweiz vom +Jahre 1779” are according to Biese the first full and enthusiastic +recognition by a German poet of the romantic charms of the Alps (“Die +Entwickelung,” etc., p. 393). + +[59] Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., pp. 353–55; Lecky, “History of +England,” VI, 180–83. + +[60] Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., pp. 324, 328. + +[61] Waller, “A Panegyric to My Lord Protector,” st. 11; “Instructions +to a Painter,” l. 228; “On the Danger His Majesty Escaped,” ll. 5, 63, +156. + +[62] Dryden under “Similitudes,” p. 31, and “Diction,” p. 43. + +[63] Young, “The Merchant,” strain 2, st. 15; strain 3, st. 9; strain +8, sts. 13–17. + +[64] For a Tempest take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster and Boreas and cast them +together in one verse; add to these rain and lightning, _quantum +sufficit_: mix your clouds and billows well together till they foam, +and thicken your description here and there with a quicksand. Brew your +tempest well in your head before you set it a blowing. “The Art of +Sinking in Poetry.” + +[65] See “Monthly Review,” XXVII, 197, where Falconer’s descriptions +are said to be equal to “anything in the _Aeneid_.” + +[66] Falconer, “The Shipwreck,” canto ii, ll. 157, 268, 346. + +[67] _Ibid._, ll. 148–66. + +[68] These descriptions rouse Dr. Clarke to a climax of admiration. +“Homer has been admired by some for reducing a catalogue of ships +into tolerably flowing verse; but who, except a poetical sailor, the +nursling of Apollo, educated by Neptune, would ever have thought of +versifying his own sea-language? What other poet would even have dreamt +of _reef-tackles_, _haliards_, _clue-garnets_, _buntlines_, _lashings_, +_laniards_, and fifty other terms equally obnoxious to the soft +sing-song of modern poetasters.”--“Monthly Review,” XXVII. + +[69] Biese notes the same fact with regard to German poetry (“Die +Entwickelung,” p. 320). + +[70] Cf. Veitch, “Feeling for Nature,” I, 117. + +[71] Lyttleton, “An Epistle to Mr. Pope.” + +[72] Pope, “Letters,” I, 178. + +[73] For illustrative passages, see Montagu, “Letters and Works,” +II, 464; Congreve, “Tears of Amaryllis,” l. 50; Broome, “Daphnis and +Lycidas,” l. 47; Shenstone, “Upon a Visit in Winter;” Pitt, “Hymn to +Apollo;” Hughes, “Myra;” Savage, “Wanderer,” i, 42, 52; John Scott, +“Elegy on Winter;” Akenside, “On the Winter Solstice.” + +[74] For a similar dislike of winter in mediaeval poetry see +McLaughlin, “Studies in Mediaeval Life and Literature,” p. 20. He +quotes as typical the following from a Latin student song: “The +cold icy harshness of winter, its fierceness, and dull, miserable +inactivity.” + +[75] Blackmore, “Creation,” ii, 393. Cf. Wordsworth’s + + The chasm of sky above my head + Is heaven’s profoundest azure ... an abyss + In which the everlasting stars abide.--“Excursion,” iii, 94–98. + +Cf. also Dryden’s “The abyss of heaven, the court of stars” (“Works,” +IV, 76). + +[76] For illustrative passages, see Waller, “Of the Lady;” Cowley, +“Davideis,” ii, 440; “Hymn to Light,” and “Shortness of Life,” st. 11; +Young, “Ocean,” st. 23; Broome, “Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes;” Yalden, +“Hymn to Morning;” John Philips, “Cyder,” ii, 293; Tickell, “Prospect +of Peace;” Gay, “The Espousal;” Rowe, “The Queen’s Success;” Watts, +“Disappointment;” Pitt, “Verses,” etc., etc. + +[77] For descriptions of this sort, see Hughes, “Court of Neptune;” +Prior, “Solomon,” iii, 557; Broome, “Poem on Death,” l. 151; Gay, +“Rural Sports,” ii, 323; Gay, “Wine,” l. 141; Beattie, “The Minstrel,” +i, 17; etc., etc. + +[78] Cf. Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., p. 307. + +[79] The following are illustrative phrases: “Silver Cynthia lights the +world,” Garth, “Claremont,” l. 284; “Pale Cynthia mounts the vaulted +sky,” Shenstone, “Elegy VI;” “Cynthia came, riding on her silver car,” +Beattie, “The Minstrel,” ii, 12; “Cynthia’s silver white,” Hughes, “The +Picture;” “Cynthia, fair regent of the night,” Gay, “Trivia,” iii, +3; “Cynthia’s silver ray,” Addison, “Imitation of Milton;” “Cynthia, +great Queen of Night,” Garth, “Dispensary,” v, 282; “Pale Cynthia’s +melancholy light,” Falconer, “Shipwreck,” i, 311. + +[80] The following are illustrative phrases: “Rich spangles,” Waller, +“Of the Queen;” “Spangled nights,” Cowley, “Davideis,” i, 94; “Spangled +sphere,” Cowley, “The Extasy;” “Burning spangles of sidereal gold,” +Broome, “Paraphrase of Eccl.;” “Freezing spangles,” Tickell, “On the +Prospect of Peace;” “The sky spangled with a thousand eyes,” Gay, +“Fables,” i, 11; “Spangled pole,” Pitt, “On the Death of Mr. Stanhope;” +“Heaven’s gilded troops,” Cowley, “Davideis,” i, 183; “Stars that gild +the gloomy night,” Parnell, “Hymn to Contentment;” “Twinkling stars who +gild the skies,” Watts, “Sun, Moon,” etc.; “Shooting star that gilds +the night,” Somerville, “Hobbinol,” iii, 261; “Stars that gild the +northern skies,” Pitt, “Congress of Cambray;” “Meteor that gilds the +night,” Somerville, “Field Sports,” i, 139; “Globes of light in fields +of azure shine,” Watts, “God’s Dominion;” “Orbs of gold in fields of +azure lie,” Parnell, “Queen Anne’s Peace,” l. 38; “Yon blue tract +enriched with orbs of light,” Parnell, “David,” l. 358. + +[81] Some of Young’s phrases are “rolling spheres,” “tuneful spheres,” +“revolving spheres,” “unnumbered lustres,” “sparks of night,” “lucid +orbs,” “radiant choir,” “etherial fires,” “mathematic glories,” “aerial +racers,” “midnight counselors,” “nocturnal suns,” “etherial armies,” +“radiant lamps,” “splendours,” “ambient orbs,” “nocturnal sparks,” +“night’s radiant scale,” etc. + +[82] Burnet, “Theory of the Earth,” chapter on “Stars.” Cf. Prior, +“Solomon,” i, 502–11. + +[83] Wordsworth, “Peter Bell.” + +[84] Ruskin (“Modern Painters,” III, 248) comments on Dante’s “intense +detestation of all mist, rack of cloud or dimness of rain.” McLaughlin +says of clouds, moonlight, etc.: “Let any reader of mediaeval poetry +recall how imperceptible a part they play in it, even as plain facts of +description. A line in one of the Latin songs expresses the feeling: +their thought of clouds is how delightful not to see them. Moonlight, +too, is seldom dwelt on as poetical; the most romantic touch that +comes to my mind with it, is in Chrestien de Troyes where it shines +over the reconciliation of estranged lovers. Just as we find little +notice of sunrise, sunset, clouds, and moon, we find little feeling +for the stars. They are mentioned occasionally in a facile way, though +scarcely ever with manifest sentiment.”--“Studies in Mediaeval Life and +Literature,” p. 21. Mr. Symonds says of the same period: “The earth +is felt chiefly through the delightfulness of healthy sensations. The +stars and clouds, and tempests of the heavens, the ever-recurring +miracle of sunrise, the solemn pageant of sunsetting are almost as +though they were not in this literature.”--J. A. Symonds, “Essays +Speculative and Suggestive,” p. 300. + +[85] In commenting on mediaeval out-door poetry Vernon Lee says +(“Euphorion,” p. 120): “Spring, spring, endless spring--for three long +centuries throughout the world a dreary green monotony of spring.... +Moreover this mediaeval spring is the spring neither of the shepherd, +nor of the farmer, nor of any man to whom spring brings work and +anxiety and hope of gain; it is a mere vague spring of gentlefolk, or +at all events of well-to-do burgesses, taking their pleasure on the +lawns of castle parts.” + +[86] Garth, “Dispensary,” iv, 309. + +[87] Addison, “Rosamond,” Act I, sc. 1. Cf. a longer description in the +same poem beginning, “O the soft, delicious view” (Act II, sc. 3). + +[88] Broome, “On the Seat of War in Flanders.” + +[89] Shenstone, “The Progress of Taste,” iii, 7. + +[90] Lyttleton, “Eclogue IV.” + +[91] Congreve, “The Birth of the Muse.” + +[92] Parnell, “Health: An Eclogue.” + +[93] Prior, “Solomon,” iii, 158. + +[94] Pope, “Winter.” + +[95] Marriott, “Rinaldo and Armida.” + +[96] Sheridan, “New Simile for the Ladies.” (Dr. Johnson, “Life of +Swift.”) + +[97] For an interesting study of the rose in literature from Ausonius +to Waller see Symonds, “Essays,” “The Pathos of the Rose in Poetry,” p. +368. + +[98] Gay, “Fables,” i, 45. + +[99] Dryden, “Works,” XI, 13; Waller, “To the Queen;” Savage, “To +Bessy.” + +[100] Tickell, “To Mr. Addison.” + +[101] Cowley, “The Shortness of Life.” + +[102] Somerville, “Field Sports.” + +[103] Wycherley, “To Mr. Pope.” + +[104] Dyer, “The Fleece.” + +[105] Dryden, “Works,” IV, 202; IX, 162. + +[106] _Ibid._, I, 214; V, 365; Congreve, “On His Taking of Namur;” +st. 2. + +[107] See as illustrative of the bee similitudes: Waller, “Battle of +the Summer Islands,” canto iii, l. 24; Cowley, “The Inconstant,” st. +6; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” i, 768; Dryden, “Works,” IX, 145, 172; +II, 463; Hughes, “The Triumph of Peace,” l. 118; Prior, “Alma,” iii, +171; Pope, “Dunciad,” iv, 79; Pope, “Temple of Fame;” Gay, “Trivia,” +ii, 555; Congreve, “Ovid’s Art of Love Imitated,” l. 200; A. Philips, +“To James Craggs,” l. 151; Stepney, “To the Earl of Carlisle,” l. 26; +Buckingham, “Essay on Poetry,” l. 255; Young, “Night Thoughts,” ii, +462; vi, 516; Akenside, “Odes,” i, I, st. 2; Dyer, “Fleece,” ii, 496; +iii, 413; iv, 317; Somerville, “To Allan Ramsay,” l. 24; Watts, “Divine +Songs,” xx, etc. + +[108] See as illustrative: Cowley, “Davideis,” iv, 728; “Isaiah, ch. +34,” st. 2; “Plagues of Egypt,” st. 9; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” i, 302; +Dryden, “Works,” III, 354, 422; Prior, “The Turtle and the Sparrow,” l. +206; King, “Art of Love,” l. 1700; Pope, “Essay on Criticism,” ii, 109; +“Temple of Fame,” l. 430; Young, “Night Thoughts,” v, 336; “The Last +Day,” ii, 183; Blair, “The Grave,” l. 469, etc. + +[109] See as illustrative: Waller, “On Repairing St. Paul’s,” l. 25; +Cowley, “Davideis,” ii, 58; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” v, 215; Yalden, +“To His Perjured Mistress,” l. 11; Parnell, “The Hermit,” l. 41; Young, +“Satire IV,” l. 1; Dyer, “The Fleece,” ii, 648; Halifax, “On the Death +of Charles II,” l. 77. + +[110] See as illustrative Dryden’s use of the sun in “Works,” IV, 276; +II, 148, 185, 215, 454, etc. + +[111] See as illustrative: Waller, “To Amoret;” Addison, “An Account +of the Greatest English Poets;” Spratt, “On the Death of the Lord +Protector;” Dryden, “Works,” XI, 132; Cowley, “Clad All in White.” + +[112] As illustrative of Dryden’s use of similitudes drawn from water +note the following: Revenge and rage are sudden floods; joys are +torrents that overflow all banks; contending passions are tides that +flow against currents; fame is a swelling current; anger is a dammed +up stream that gets new force by opposition; a ruined life, destroyed +fortunes, are shipwrecks; love is like springtides, full and high, or +like a flood that bursts through all dams, or like a stream that cannot +return to its fountain, or like tides that do turn; the disappointed +lover dies like an unfed stream; the mind of a capricious tyrant is +like a vast sea open to every wind that blows; the army of the enemy +comes like the wind broke loose upon the main; an obdurate foe is as +deaf to supplication as seas and wind to sinking mariners; an open mind +is a crystal brook; grief undermines the soul as banks are sapped away +by streams; the voice of a mob is like winds that roar in pursuit of +flying waves; unspeakable anger is like water choking up the narrow +vent of the vessel from which it is poured; and so on through a long +list. + +[113] Prior, “Carmen Seculare,” st. 22. + +[114] _Ibid._, st. 4. + +[115] Pope, “Dunciad,” ii, 182. + +[116] Cowley, “Davideis,” ii, 20. + +[117] Halifax, “On the Death of Charles II,” l. 125. + +[118] Armstrong, “Benevolence,” l. 152. + +[119] Hughes, “Greenwich Park.” + +[120] Roscommon, “Essay on Translated Verse,” l. 316. + +[121] Somerville, “An Epistle to Allan Ramsay,” l. 5. + +[122] Thomson. “To De La Cour.” + +[123] Denham, “Cooper’s Hill.” The lines are, + + O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream + My great example, as it is my theme! + Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull: + Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full! + +Pope’s lines (“Dunciad,” iii, 169), beginning, + + Flow, Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, Beer, + Tho’ stale, not ripe; tho’ thin, yet never clear, + + * * * * * + + Heady, not strong; o’erflowing, tho’ not full, + +are a parody rather than an imitation. The same cannot be said of the +line (“Temple of Fame,” l. 374), + + So soft, though high, so loud, and yet so clear. + +Prior has these lines (“Carmen Seculare,” st. 22), + + But her own king she likens to the Thames, + With gentle course devolving fruitful streams; + Serene yet strong, majestic yet sedate, + Swift without violence, without terror great. + +Fr. Knapp addresses the sea on the Irish coast in the following lines +(“To Mr. Pope”): + + Let me ne’er flow like thee! nor make thy stream + My sad example, or my wretched theme. + +Mallet has the lines (cf. “Verbal Criticism,” l. 228): + + Great without swelling, without meanness plain; + Serious, not silly; sportive, but not vain; + On trifles slight, on things of use profound, + In quoting sober, and in judging sound. + +In Dyer we have a fainter echo (“The Country Walk,” l. 69): + + Methinks her lays I hear, + So smooth! so sweet! so deep! so clear! + + +[124] Parnell, “David,” l. 49. + +[125] Stanhope, “Progress of Dullness.” + +[126] Addison, “An Account of the Greatest English Poets.” + +[127] Dryden, “Works,” XI, 7. + +[128] Marvell, “An Epitaph upon ----.” + +[129] Cf. Cowley, “Davideis,” iii, 553, and Pope, “Spring,” l. 81. + +[130] Dryden, “Works,” XI, 131; III, 390; II, 451. + +[131] Butler, “Satire to a Bad Poet.” + +[132] Ambrose Philips, “Epistle to a Friend.” + +[133] Congreve, “The Mourning Muse of Alexis,” l. 89; cf. also Fenton, +“Florelia.” + +[134] Congreve, “The Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas,” l. 143. + +[135] Watts, “A Funeral Poem on Thomas Gunston,” ll. 252, 308. Compare +the indifference of Nature to the death of Lucy whose body is + + Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course + With rocks, and stones and trees.--Wordsworth, “Lucy.” + + +[136] Cowley, “Constantia and Philetus,” sts. 5, 10. + +[137] Shenstone, “Roxana.” For an interesting variation of this theme +see Cowley, “The Spring.” + +[138] Hughes, “Cupid’s Review,” l. 17. + +[139] Marvell, “Upon Appleton House,” l. 661. + +[140] Waller, “At Penshurst.” + +[141] Marvell, “Upon Appleton House,” l. 689. + +[142] Wordsworth, “Lucy.” + +[143] Waller, “At Penshurst.” + +[144] Virgil, “Eclogues,” iv, 28; Dryden, “Pastoral,” iv, l. 33. + +[145] Virgil, “Georgics,” iv, 306; Dryden, “Georgics,” iv, 433. + +[146] Virgil, “Georgics,” iii, 156; Dryden, “Georgics,” iii, 250. + +[147] Dryden, “Works,” XII, 5; XI, 221. + +[148] Percy, “Reliques,” II, 190. + +[149] Somerville, “To Anne Coventry,” l. 25. + +[150] Cowley, “The Shortness of Life,” st. 11; “The Muse;” “Davideis,” +ii, 29; “The Plagues of Egypt,” st. 17. + +[151] Blackmore, “Creation,” vi, 170; v, 101; Yalden, “The Insect.” + +[152] Somerville, “Field Sports,” l. 161. + +[153] Pitt, “Earl Stanhope;” “Ps. 144.” + +[154] Tickell, “Kensington Garden;” Somerville, “Rural Games,” i, 94. + +[155] Dyer, “Grongar Hill,” l. 65. + +[156] Dryden, “Works,” VI, 228. + +[157] Cowley, “Ode 2.” + +[158] Many of these words occur in the translations by Dryden but +in none of the instances quoted is there any justification in the +Latin phrase for the adjective “watery.” For instance, “watery way” = +_spumantibus undis_; “watery reign” = _altum_; “watery deep” += _pelago_, and so on through the list. + +[159] Milton, “Paradise Lost,” iv, 239; vii, 302. + +[160] Blair, “The Grave.” + +[161] Falconer, “The Shipwreck,” i, 359. + +[162] Gay, “Rural Sports,” i, 226. + +[163] Dyer, “Ruins of Rome,” l. 86. + +[164] Armstrong, “Art of Preserving Health,” ii, 7. + +[165] Addison, “To the King,” l. 115. + +[166] Thomson, “Autumn,” l. 626; cf. also “Summer,” l. 1574; “Autumn,” +l. 628. + +[167] Pitt, “Ode to John Pitt,” st. 5; Mallet, “Amyntor and Theodora,” +i, 153; Shenstone, “To a Lady;” “Rural Elegance,” st. 17. + +[168] See Thomson, “Spring,” ll. 215, 767; “Summer,” l. 1547. + +[169] Parnell, “Hymn to Contentment.” + +[170] Wordsworth, “Three Years She Grew.” + +[171] Dryden, “Works,” II, 360; IX, 104. + +[172] Fenton, “Florelio,” l. 43. + +[173] Gray, “Progress of Poetry.” + +[174] Thomson, “Autumn,” l. 843. + +[175] Garth, “Dispensary,” ii, 3, 14; iv, 260. + +[176] Virgil, “Georgics,” i, 329, “quo maxuma motu Terra tremit;” +Dryden, “Georgics,” i, 430, “the mountains nod and earth’s entrails +tremble.” Virgil, “Eclogue 6,” “rigidas motare cacumina quercus;” +Dryden, “Pastoral 6,” “nodding forests to the numbers danced;” cf. +Pope, “Messiah,” “nodding forests on the mountain dance,” and Milton, +“Comus,” l. 38, “nodding horror of the wood.” + +[177] Virgil, “Georgics,” iii, 243; “Aeneid,” iv, 525. + +[178] Milton, “Paradise Lost,” vii, 434. + +[179] Pope, “Windsor Forest,” l. 118; cf. note in Courthope edition. + +[180] Shenstone, “Virtuoso.” + +[181] Parnell, “Anacreontic.” + +[182] Waller, “On a Brede of Divers Colors.” + +[183] Hugo Blümner, “Die Farbenbezeichnungen bei den römischen +Dichtern,” pp. 184–98. Blümner shows that πορφύρεος was used by the +Greeks with widely varying meanings, and adds, “Ganz ähnlich ist der +Gebrauch, den die römischen Dichter von _purpureus_ machen nur +zweilfellos in viel weniger ursprünglicher Weise.” He says further that +the Latin poetical use of “purpureus” did not follow the speech of +daily life. + +[184] This constant use of Latin and Greek names for English peasants +was frequently satirized. Dryden makes Limberham say to Brainsick, “But +why, of all names, would you choose a Phyllis? There have been so many +Phyllises in song I thought there was not another to be had for love or +money.”--“Works,” VI, 62. Cf. Watts, “Meditation in a Grove”: + + No Phyllis shall infect the air + With her unhallow’d name. + + +[185] Compare Ridley’s characteristic commendation of Christopher +Pitt’s poems, + + In every line, in every word you speak + I read the Roman and confess the Greek, + +and Pitt’s precept in Vida’s “Art of Poetry,” i, 102, + + Explore the ancients with a watchful eye, + Lay all their charms and elegancies by, + Then to their use the precious spoils apply. + + +[186] Pope, “Discourse on Pastoral Poetry.” + +[187] Dryden, “Works,” XV, 231. + +[188] Compare especially Gay’s “Monday,” Pope’s “Spring,” and Virgil’s +“Third Eclogue.” Also Gay’s “Thursday,” and Virgil’s “Eighth Eclogue.” + +[189] Addison, “Letter from Italy” (1701). + +[190] Tickell, “Oxford” (1707). + +[191] Pope, “January and May,” l. 454. + +[192] Pope, “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,” l. 149. + +[193] William Thomson, “To the Author of Leonidas.” + +[194] Pope, “Essay on Criticism,” i, 350. + +[195] Gray, “Ode.” + +[196] In this connection see the following passages from Ruskin, +Humboldt, and Veitch on Nature in the poetry of the ancients: + +“Thus, as far as I recollect, without a single exception, every Homeric +landscape, intended to be beautiful, is composed of a fountain, a +meadow, and a shady grove. This ideal is very interestingly marked, +as intended for a perfect one, in the fifth book of the Odyssey; when +Mercury himself stops for a moment, though on a message, to look on a +landscape ‘which even an immortal might be gladdened to behold.’... +Now the notable things in this description are, first, the evident +subservience of the whole landscape to human comfort, to the foot, the +taste, or the smell; and, secondly, that throughout the passage there +is not a single figurative word expressive of the things being in any +wise other than plain grass, fruit, or flower.... If we glance through +the references to pleasant landscape which occur in other parts of the +Odyssey, we shall always be struck by this quiet subjection of their +every feature to human service, and by the excessive similarity in the +scenes. Perhaps the spot intended, after this, to be most perfect, +may be the garden of Alcinous, where the principal ideas are, still +more definitely, order, symmetry, and fruitfulness.”--Ruskin, “Modern +Painters,” chapter on “Classical Landscape.” + +“Homer looks on nature as it affects man--its power of sustaining life, +its subserviency to our physical wants. Hence the side of nature which +is lovingly regarded by him is not mountain, or rock, or wild sea--all +fruitless and barren--but flat soft meadow-land, diversified, it may +be, with tree and fountain, filled with waving grass--good pasture-land +for nourishing the useful ox, or cow, or sheep.... In Theocritus ... we +do not go beyond the softer side ... the accessories of the shepherd’s +life faithfully noted.... The aspect of nature which Virgil loved was +the soft and pastoral side of Italian scenery. In so far as he has +depicted free nature, it is seen almost wholly from the human side, and +in its relation to man’s works, life and action.”--Veitch, “The Feeling +for Nature in Scottish Poetry,” I, 88–91. + +“Es is oftmals ausgesprochen worden, dass die Freude an der Natur, wenn +auch dem Alterthume nicht fremd, doch in ihm als Ausdruck des Gefühls +sparsamer und minder lebhaft gewesen sei denn in der neueren Zeit.... +In dem hellenischen Alterthum ... das eigentlich Naturbeschreibende +zeigt sich dann nur als ein Beiwerk, weil in der griechischen +Kunstbildung sich alles gleichsam im Kreise der Menschheit bewegt. + +“Beschreibung der Natur in ihrer gestaltenreichen Mannigfaltigkeit +Naturdichtung als ein abgesonderter Zweig der Litteratur, war den +Griechen völlig fremd. Auch die Landschaft erscheint bei ihnen nur +als Hintergrund eines Gemäldes, vor dem menschliche Gestalten sich +bewegen. Leidenschaften in Thaten ausbrechend fesselten fast allein +den Sinn. Ein bewegtes öffentliches Volksleben zog ab von der dumpfen, +schwärmerischen Versenkung in das stille Treiben der Natur; ja den +physischen Erscheinungen wurde immer eine Beziehung auf die Menschheit +beigelegt, sei es in den Verhältnissen der äusseren Gestaltung oder der +inneren anregenden Thatkraft. Fast nur solche Beziehungen machten die +Naturbetrachung würdig, unter der sinnigen Form des Gleichnisses, als +abgesonderte kleine Gemälde voll objectiver Lebendigkeit in das Gebiet +der Dichtung gezogen zu werden.”--“Kosmos,” II, 5, 6. + +[197] In this connection compare the following significant passage +from Taine: “Rien ne m’a plus intéressé dans les villas romaines +que leurs anciens maîtres. Les naturalistes le savent, on comprend +trés-bien l’animal d’aprés la coquille. L’endroit où j’ai commencé +à le comprendre est la villa Albani.... Cette villa est un débris, +comme le squellette fossile d’une vie qui a duré deux siècles, et dont +le principal plaisir consistait dans la conversation, dans la belle +représentation, dans les habitudes de salon, et d’antichambre. L’homme +ne s’intéressait pas aux objets inanimés, il ne leur reconnaissait pas +une âme et une beauté propre; ils ne servaient que de fond au tableau, +fond vague et d’importance moins qu’accessoire. Toute l’attention était +occupée par le tableau lui-meme, c’est-à-dire par l’intrigue et le +drame humain. Pour reporter quelque partie de cette attention sur les +arbres, les eaux, le paysage, il fallait les humaniser, leur ôter, leur +forme et leur disposition naturelle, leur air ‘sauvage,’ l’apparence du +désordre et du désert, leur donner autant que possible l’aspect d’un +salon, d’un galerie à colonnades, d’une grande cour de palais.”--Taine, +“Voyage en Italie,” I, 231, 232 (Paris, Librairie Hatchette et Cie, +1893). + +[198] Cowley, “Of Agriculture.” + +[199] “Cyder,” i, 248. + +[200] Shairp, “The Poetic Interpretation of Nature,” p. 199. + +[201] “Cyder,” i, 563. + +[202] “Cyder,” ii, 65. + +[203] “Pastorals,” i, 6; iii, 1, 6; iii, 41–44; iii, 69–74; i, 10; iv, +154; v, 8; i, 27; ii, 59; ii, 125–28; iii, 65–68; iv, 153–60. + +[204] Rowe, “An Epistle to Flavia;” Pope, “An Impromptu to Lady +Winchilsea.” + +[205] Wordsworth, “Essay, Supplementary to the Preface.” + +[206] The estimate of Lady Winchilsea here given was based on the 1713 +edition of her poems. In 1903, through the kindness of Mr. Edmund +Gosse and of the Earl of Winchilsea, I was enabled to bring out a +complete edition of her works. In the Introduction to those poems I +have endeavored to indicate Lady Winchilsea’s literary qualities and +affiliations, and to give some idea of her life and personality. So +far as her attitude toward Nature is concerned nothing is to be found +in the scope of her voluminous verse that is of higher significance +than the poems published by Ward. The new fact that does emerge from +a fuller knowledge of her writings is the very interesting relation +between her poetry of Nature and the events of her life. For an +analysis of this relation I must refer to pp. cxxxiii-cxxxiv of the +Introduction to my edition of her poems (“The Poems of Anne, Countess +of Winchilsea,” The University of Chicago Press, 1903). + +[207] “Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions,” Written by a Lady, 1713. + +[208] In the references to the nightingale by Chaucer, Milton, Cowper, +Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, and Mrs. Browning, the only +approaches to description of the appearance of the bird are Matthew +Arnold’s “tawny-throated,” Keats’ “full-throated,” and Coleridge’s +“bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full.” + +[209] Cf. Milton’s, “sweetest, saddest plight;” or “most musical, most +melancholy;” and Shelley’s, “melodious pain;” and Keats’ “plaintive +anthem;” and Matthew Arnold’s, “Wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, +old-world pain.” Coleridge speaks once of “pity-pleading strains,” but +in another poem contends for the “merry nightingale,” and refuses to +hear anything but “love and joyance” in the song. + +[210] Cf. Matthew Arnold’s + + “How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves;” + +and Chaucer’s “lusty nightingale” whose voice made a “loud rioting;” +and Shelley’s “storm of sound;” and Wordsworth’s “tumultuous harmony;” +and Keats’ “pouring forth thy soul abroad in such an ecstasy;” and +Coleridge’s + + The merry nightingale + That crowds and hurries and precipitates + With fast thick warble his delicious notes. + + +[211] Cf. Arnold’s “Eternal passion!” Milton’s “amorous power;” +Shelley’s “voluptuous nightingale;” Coleridge’s “wanton song;” and all +of Mrs. Browning’s “Bianca among the Nightingales.” + +[212] Cf. Gosse, “Gossip in a Library,” p. 123; “Eighteenth Century,” +p. 35. + +[213] Gay, “Rural Sports,” i, 35. + +[214] _Ibid._, i, 99. + +[215] Gay’s “Chair.” + +[216] See “Coquette Mother and Daughter” for a second reference to the +fragrant bean-flower before Thomson. + +[217] Compare Tennyson’s “wrinkled sea” in “The Eagle.” + +[218] As illustrative of this point compare, Virgil, Eclogue viii, 27, +28, and Gay, Pastoral III, 59–62; Virgil, Eclogue i, 59–63, and Gay, +Pastoral III, 67–72; Virgil, Eclogue v, 36–39, and Gay, Pastoral V, +83–87; Virgil, Eclogue v, 76–78, and Gay, Pastoral V, 153–58; Virgil, +Eclogue iv, 1–3, and Gay, Pastoral VI, 1–3; Virgil, Eclogue vi, and +Gay, Pastoral VI; Virgil, Eclogue viii, and Gay, Pastoral IV. + +[219] Pastoral I. + +[220] “Night Piece on Death;” “The Hermit.” + +[221] “Health.” + +[222] “The Flies.” + +[223] “The Hermit.” + +[224] “Anacreontic.” + +[225] “Anacreontic.” + +[226] “Health.” + +[227] Parnell, “Poetical Works,” p. 77. + +[228] Pattison died in 1727, and he was in college during the four +preceding years. The records of his life are scanty, but he probably +wrote this poem before 1723, when he left the region of his dear Ituna, +that being the stream on whose banks he was accustomed to murmur out +his verses. + +[229] See Ramsay, “Poems,” I, xxvii. + +[230] Cf. “Richy and Sandy,” l. 8; “Robert, Richy, and Sandy,” ll. +31–34; “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 1, 89; i, 1, 148; ii, 2, 17–40; ii, 3, +27–47; v, 1, 19–43. + +[231] Cf. “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 2, 190–93, 207; i, 2, 200–204; ii, 1, +76–86; ii, 2, Prologue; ii, 1, Prologue; iii, 3, 111–16; v, 2, Prologue. + +[232] Cf. “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 1, 205; i, 2, 1–4. + +[233] Cf. “Richy and Sandy,” ll. 49, 50; “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 1, 43, +44, 67–70, 156; i, 2, 131–37; song viii. + +[234] “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 2, 138–47; ii, 4, 43–66; iv, 2, 148–58. + +[235] In the copious notes to the 1815 edition of Pennecuik’s +“Tweeddale” is a full account of the country about New-Hall, +accompanied by quotations from Ramsay’s poem, to show the accuracy of +his descriptions. + +[236] “Answer to the Foregoing” (to Somerville). + +In the poems addressed to Allan Ramsay on the publication of his +works in 1721 we find significant critical approval based on Ramsay’s +avoidance of tame Nature, and his turning from the authority of the +schools. The simile of a garden recurs in a poem by “C. T.” He planted +trees in equal rows and arranged flowers in a parterre, but found his +labor in vain. The narrow scene became daily more distasteful to him, +and finally he went back to the fields where “Nature wantoned in her +prime.” Here he found space, variety, surprise, and was content. Ja. +Arbuckle praises Ramsay for roaming over hill and dale and leaving +“carpet-ground” to “tender-footed beasts,” and for choosing to subsist +on his native stock while other poets pilfered fame by picking the +locks of their predecessors.--“Poems of Allan Ramsay,” I, 4–7. + +[237] “The Gentle Shepherd,” ii, 4, 62. + +[238] _Ibid._, 50. + +[239] “The Gentle Shepherd,” ii, 4, 10. + +[240] “To Mr. William Starrat,” l. 46. + +[241] “The Gentle Shepherd,” iii, 3, 41. + +[242] _Ibid._, i, 1, 137. + +[243] _Ibid._, Prologue, i, 2. + +[244] _Ibid._, Prologue, ii, 3. + +[245] _Ibid._, iii, 3, 43. + +[246] “The Gentle Shepherd,” i, 2, 7. + +[247] “An Ode to the Ph--,” 1721, st. 1. + +[248] “Answer to the Foregoing.” + +[249] “Prospect of Plenty.” + +[250] (_a_) Dr. Armstrong’s “Winter” in “Imitations of Shakespeare,” +written in 1725, though not published till 1770. + +(_b_) Riccaltoun’s “A Winter’s Day,” written before 1725, +published in Savage’s “Miscellany” in 1726, and in “Gentleman’s +Magazine,” 1740. + +(_c_) Thomson’s “Winter,” written in fragments before 1725, but +fused into one poem at Mallet’s suggestion in 1726. + +[251] “The Art of Preserving Health,” i, 64–96. + +[252] _Ibid._, i, 97–102; iii, 39–52. + +[253] _Ibid._, iii, 71–96. + +[254] Pope, “Works,” VI, 36, 37. + +[255] Wordsworth, “Essay Supplementary to the Preface,” 1815. + +[256] Pope, “Works,” I, 322; Denham, “Cooper’s Hill;” Marvell, “Upon +the Hill and Grove at Billbarrow,” and “Upon Appleton House.” + +[257] Veitch in “Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry,” II, 52, +credits Thomson with being the first poet to mention purple heather, +but this mention by Pope is more than twenty years earlier. + +[258] Pope, “Works,” I, 346, n. 3; but compare “Autumn,” l. 74. + +[259] _Ibid._, I, 269, n. 1. + +[260] _Ibid._, I, 283, n. 3; 296, n. 9. + +[261] _Ibid._, I, 293; cf. Warton, “Essay on Pope,” I, 6. + +[262] (_a_) Description of moonshine walk. (This letter, perhaps +a sincere expression when first written (1713), was a favorite of +Pope’s. When he published his “Letters” he made an amusing blunder +by transferring this passage to a letter dated February 10, 1715, at +which time the park where he was supposed to have watched the moonshine +and reflected on mortality, was under water from the great flood of +February 9; see “Letters,” I, 367.) + +(_b_) “Pleasure in Birds,” etc., I, 338. + +(_c_) “Twickenham in Spring,” IV, 72, 74. + +(_d_) “Autumn,” IV, 89. + +[263] “Spectator,” June 21, 1712 (No. 411). + +[264] _Ibid._, June 23, 1712 (No. 412); June 25, 1712 (No. 414). + +[265] _Ibid._, June 23, 1712 (No. 412). + +[266] _Ibid._, May 31 (No. 393). + +[267] _Ibid._, October 30, 1712 (No. 523). + +[268] _Ibid._, October 30, 1712 (No. 523); cf. “Guardian,” Nos. +22, 23, 28, 30, 32, 40. + +[269] See further discussion under “Gardening.” + +[270] “Liberty,” Part 3, ll. 514–26. + +[271] _Ibid._, Part 4, ll. 348–62. + +[272] “The Castle of Indolence,” canto ii, st. 3. + +[273] “Spring,” ll. 529–55. + +[274] “Summer,” ll. 140–59. Suggested probably by Mallet. See Letter, +August 2, 1726: “Your hint of the sapphire, emerald, ruby, strikes my +imagination with a pleasing taste, and shall not be neglected.” + +[275] “Spring,” ll. 574–613. + +[276] “Summer,” ll. 1116–68. + +[277] “Spring,” ll. 614–30. + +[278] _Ibid._, ll. 636–60. + +[279] _Ibid._, ll. 690–701. + +[280] “Winter,” ll. 245–56. + +[281] “Spring,” ll. 21–25; “Winter,” ll. 144–47. + +[282] “Spring,” ll. 770–85. + +[283] “Summer,” ll. 371–422. + +[284] “Spring,” ll. 808–20; “Summer,” ll. 506–15. + +[285] “Spring,” ll. 362–71; “Summer,” ll. 489–93. + +[286] “Spring,” ll. 336–73. + +[287] “Autumn,” ll. 360–457; “Winter,” ll. 788–93. + +[288] “Spring,” ll. 702–28. + +[289] “Autumn,” ll. 1172–1207. + +[290] “Spring,” ll. 394–442. + +[291] _Ibid._, ll. 189, 388. + +[292] “Winter,” ll. 1–14. + +[293] “Summer,” ll. 1103–68. + +[294] “Autumn,” ll. 311–48. + +[295] “Winter,” ll. 72–201. + +[296] See as illustrative, “Winter,” ll. 127, 738–41. + +[297] “Summer,” l. 1704. + +[298] “Autumn,” ll. 1088–1102. + +[299] See as illustrative, “Spring,” ll. 30–31, 139–41, 145–51, +398–444; “Winter,” ll. 54–57, 77–80, 195–96, 202–3, etc. + +[300] “Autumn,” ll. 710–31; cf. Wordsworth, “Prelude,” viii, 265. + +[301] “Autumn,” ll. 151–52; “Summer,” ll. 47–66. + +[302] “Spring,” ll. 189–202. + +[303] “Summer,” ll. 1647–59. + +[304] _Ibid._, ll. 1682–98. + +[305] “Spring,” ll. 34–43. + +[306] _Ibid._, ll. 44–47. + +[307] “Autumn,” ll. 153–69. + +[308] “Summer,” ll. 352–70. + +[309] _Ibid._, ll. 371–442. + +[310] “Spring,” ll. 589–608. + +[311] “Spring,” ll. 494–509. + +[312] “Spring,” ll. 107–13, 950–62; “Summer,” ll. 1406–41. + +[313] W. D. McClintock, unpublished notes. + +[314] “Summer,” ll. 819–29; “Autumn,” ll. 781–804; cf. Shairp, “Poetic +Interpretation of Nature,” p. 191, for the geographical use of Nature +in Milton. + +[315] “Summer,” ll. 1161–68. + +[316] Cf. Wordsworth, “To Joanna,” ll. 54–65. + +[317] “Winter,” ll. 714–16; “Spring,” ll. 849–52. + +[318] “Autumn,” ll. 773–76. + +[319] “Winter,” ll. 116–17. + +[320] In 1720 there appeared in the “Edinburgh Miscellany,” a poem +entitled, “On a Country Life by a Student in the University.” The poem +is interesting as being Thomson’s first poetical treatment of the theme +which he was afterward to adopt. The verse is in somewhat stiff and +formal heroic couplets, and the poem is marked by classicisms. But +there are lines and phrases suggestive of Thomson’s later work and the +plan and general tone are, as Sir Harris Nicholas has pointed out, +strongly suggestive of “The Seasons.” The young poet’s love of country +life is quite clearly genuine. + +[321] Cf. also remarks in Preface to second, third, and fourth editions +of “Winter”: “I know no subject more elevating, more amusing; more +ready to awake the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, +and the moral sentiment, than the works of Nature. Where can we meet +with such variety, such beauty, such magnificence? All that enlarges +and transports the soul? What more inspiring than a calm, wide survey +of them?” + +[322] “Spring,” ll. 868–74. + +[323] “Autumn,” ll. 670–72. Cf. Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned,” st. 6. + +[324] “Summer,” ll. 1380–82. + +[325] “Autumn,” l. 1309. + +[326] Compare Pope’s rhetorical statement of the same speculative +conception. + +[327] Since the publication of this study of Thomson I have read with +much interest Leon Morel’s “James Thomson: Sa vie et ses œuvres,” 1895. +Chaps. iii and iv of Part II deal fully with Thomson’s attitude toward +external Nature and with his technical excellences as a descriptive +poet. + +[328] Dyer uses almost as many words ending in “y” as Ambrose Philips. +“Stenchy,” “towery,” “framy,” “sleeky,” “thready,” “cropsy,” “spiry,” +are illustrative. + +[329] “The Fleece,” i, 193. + +[330] In “Observations on the River Wye,” by William Gilpin, pp. 103–8, +Dyer’s “Grongar Hill” is, however, criticized for not accurately +representing distance. The grove must be distant if it can be +rightfully called purple, but the castle beyond it “is touched with all +the strength of a foreground; you see the very ivy creeping upon the +walls.” + +[331] “The Fleece,” i, 577. + +[332] _Ibid._, ii, 55. + +[333] _Ibid._, 310. + +[334] _Ibid._, 518. + +[335] _Ibid._, 241. + +[336] “The Fleece,” i, 555. + +[337] _Ibid._, 59. + +[338] _Ibid._, 41. + +[339] “The Country Walk,” ll. 86–99; 33–40. + +[340] He calls the sun “Phoebus” and “Apollo;” he occasionally uses +such words as “swain,” “bloomy,” “sylvan,” “verdant,” “flowery;” and he +speaks of “the wanton zephyr;” and he refers to a grove as the “haunt +of Phyllis.” + +[341] “The Country Walk,” ll. 58–63. + +[342] Cf. “Grongar Hill,” l. 137. + +[343] Cf. “The Country Walk,” l. 120. + +[344] Thomson to Mallet, September, 1726. + +[345] Thomson’s letters to Mallet in 1726. + +[346] Letter to Mallet, July 10, 1725. + +[347] _Ibid._, August 2, 1726. + +[348] Letters to Mallet, June 13 and July 10, 1726. + +[349] Cf. “The Wanderer,” v, 237, 238 (roads); v, 253–68 (fields +and bushes); v, 230–35 (sunset); v, 363–74 (the rainbow); iv, 59–63 +(morning); iii, 15–27 (moonrise); v, 8, 15–20 (foliage and flowers); v, +203–10 (bean fields); i, 195–98 (winter landscape); iv, 85–96 (sunrise). + +[350] In 1730 appeared a parody entitled “The Thresher’s Miscellany” by +“Arthur Duck.” + +[351] “The Chace,” ii, 79–82. + +[352] “To the Right Honorable Lady Anne Coventry.” + +[353] An excellent example is “Nancy of the Vale” which takes as its +model, + + Nerine Galatea! thymo mihi dulcior Hyblae! + Candidior cygnis! hedera formosior alba, + +but compares Nancy to the “wild-duck’s tender young,” to the water-lily +on Avon’s side, her eyes to the azure plume of the halcyon, etc. + +[354] “Rural Elegance,” st. 20. + +[355] _Ibid._, st. 19. + +[356] “Rural Elegance,” sts. 4, 5, 6, 8. + +[357] _Ibid._, st. 16. + +[358] “The Spleen,” ll. 646–87. + +[359] _Ibid._, l. 681. + +[360] “The Epistle of the Thistle.” + +[361] “Contemplation.” + +[362] See Hervey, “Meditations,” ii, 239; Fielding, “Tom Jones,” VII, +chap. i. + +[363] “To Thomson on Sophonisba.” + +[364] “Night Thoughts,” v, 126–30. + +[365] _Ibid._, 176. + +[366] _Ibid._, 171. + +[367] See “Night Thoughts,” vi, where there is an interesting statement +of the theory afterward expounded in Coleridge’s “Ode to Dejection.” +Compare Young’s, + + Objects are but th’ occasion; ours th’ exploit; + Ours is the cloth, the pencil, and the paint, + Which nature’s admirable picture draws (“Night,” vi, 431), + +with Coleridge’s, + + O Lady! we receive but what we give + And in our life alone does nature live; + Ours is her wedding garment; ours her shroud. + +In the same passage by Young is the line concerning the power of our +senses that + + Half create the wondrous world they see, + +from which Wordsworth took a line in “Tintern Abbey.” In Satire I, 249 +there are some lines that sound absurdly like certain stanzas in “Peter +Bell”: + + On every thorn delightful wisdom grows; + In every rill a sweet instruction flows. + But some, untaught, o’erhear the whispering rill, + In spite of sacred leisure, blockheads still. + +The lines + + In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen, + She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green; + Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace + And waste their music on the savage race (Satire V, 229), + +come between the similar passages by Gay and Gray. + +Cf. also the simile of the eagle and the serpent (“Vanquished Love,” +Book II, 226), with Shelley’s “Revolt of Islam,” i, sts. 8–10. + +[368] “Ode to Fear,” “Ode to Simplicity,” “An Epistle to Sir Thomas +Hanmer,” “Ode to Pity.” + +[369] “Ode to Fear,” “On the Poetical Character,” “Popular +Superstitions,” st. 11, “An Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer.” + +[370] Mason, “Memoirs of Gray,” p. 261. + +[371] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book IV, 26 (1770). + +[372] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book IV, 38–51 (1770); cf. “Hymn to +the Naiads,” ll. 243–49; cf. Wordsworth, “Prelude,” Book I, 402, and +many other passages concerning the silent power of Nature over him in +his youth. + +[373] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book I, 136–40 (1757). + +[374] _Ibid._, 120 (1744). + +[375] _Ibid._, 150 (1757). + +[376] _Ibid._, 153–60 (1757). + +[377] _Ibid._, 168–75 (1757); cf. Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey,” ll. +41–49. + +[378] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 591–6O5 (1744). This +“sacred order” of the universe is one of the points on which Wordsworth +dwells, and he refers frequently to the tranquilizing, steadying effect +which the contemplation of this order and harmony will have on the mind +of man. See “Excursion,” Book IV, 1198–1219, 1254–65. + +[379] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 615–33 (1744). + +[380] “Odes,” Book I, Ode 14, st. 4–6; cf. Wordsworth’s statement that +Nature reveals herself to the heart that “watches and receives.” + +[381] “Odes,” Book I, Ode 5, st. 8. + +[382] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book I, 670–75 (1757). + +[383] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 484 (1757). + +[384] _Ibid._, I, 576–89 (1757). + +[385] _Ibid._, 432–37 (1757). Akenside’s presentation of this +doctrine has led Gosse to call him a “sort of frozen Keats,” but +Akenside’s pleasure in Nature was philosophical rather than sensuous. +His scientific delight in the analyzed rainbow (“Pleasures of +Imagination,” Book II, 103–20 [1744]) would have filled Keats with +horror. + +[386] “Sickness,” v, 5. + +[387] “Hymn to May,” st. 20. + +[388] “Sickness,” v, 17. + +[389] Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement.” + +[390] Wordsworth, “A Poet’s Epitaph,” st. 10. + +[391] “On the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude.” + +[392] “Couplet about Birds.” + +[393] “All-beauteous Nature! by thy boundless charms,” “the vast, +various Landscape,” “sight-refreshing green,” “the thousand-colored +tulip,” are typical Thomsonian phrases. + + “Liquid lapse of murm’ring waters” + + --“Enthusiast,” l. 93, “Paradise Lost,” viii, 263; + + “Mountain shagg’d with horrid shapes” + + --“Enthusiast,” l. 75; “Comus,” l. 429; + + “When young-eyed spring profusely throws + From her green lap the pink and rose.” + + --“Ode to Fancy,” l. 106; “Song on May Morning;” + + “Then lay me by some haunted stream, + Rapt in some wild poetic dream.” + + --“Ode to Fancy,” l. 41; “L’Allegro,” l. 129; + +are some of the characteristic instances of the echoes from Milton. + +[394] “The Enthusiast.” + +[395] _Ibid._ + +[396] “Ode to Fancy.” + +[397] “The Enthusiast.” + +[398] “The Enthusiast.” Cf. Thomson, “Liberty,” ii, 1–26, for a similar +eulogy of a past golden age, but without Warton’s modern application. + +[399] “An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.” + +[400] Note such lines as + + Haste thee nymph, and hand in hand, + With thee lead a buxom band; + Bring fantastic-footed joy, etc., + + But ever against restless heat, etc., + + Let not my due feet fail to climb, etc.--“Approach of Summer.” + + +[401] See under “Travels.” + +[402] “Hope.” + +[403] “Vision of Fancy,” Elegy 3. + +[404] _Ibid._ + +[405] “Fable IV.” + +[406] “The Bee Flower.” + +[407] “To the Rev. Lamb.” + +[408] “Fable IV.” + +[409] “Autumnal Elegy.” + +[410] “Fable X.” + +[411] “Inscription on the Door of a Study.” + +[412] “The Immensity of the Supreme Being.” + +[413] _Ibid._, l. 56. Cf. also the similar lines in “Hymn to +the Supreme Being,” st. 16. It was apparently a favorite image. See +Browning’s reference to it in his poem on Smart. + +[414] “Almada Hill,” l. 330. + +[415] “The Sorceress,” st. 4. + +[416] “Elegy,” st. 4. + +[417] “Syr Martyn,” ii, 31. + +[418] “Pollio,” st. 3. + +[419] “Eskdale Braes,” st. 1. + +[420] See Bailey Saunders, “Life and Letters of James Macpherson,” p. +14. + +[421] “Carric-Thura.” + +[422] “Carthon.” + +[423] Dr. Blair has a significant comment on the truth in the poems +of Ossian. “The introduction of foreign images betrays a poet copying +not from nature, but from other writers. Hence so many lions and +tigers, and eagles and serpents which we meet with in the similes of +modern poets; as if these animals had acquired some right to a place +in poetical comparisons for ever, because employed by ancient authors. +They employed them with propriety, as objects generally known in their +country; but they are absurdly used for illustration by us, who know +them only at second-hand, or by description.” + +[424] Blair’s “Critical Dissertation,” in Tauchnitz ed. of the “Ossian +Poems.” + +[425] See “Child of Elle,” “Edom o’ Gordon,” “Hardyknute,” and others. + +[426] “Robin and Makyne.” + +[427] “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet.” + +[428] “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.” + +[429] “Adam Bell.” + +[430] “Barbara Allan’s Cruelty.” + +[431] “The Marriage of Sir Gawaine.” + +[432] “Gil Morice.” + +[433] “King Edward IV and Tanner of Tamworth.” + +[434] “The King and the Miller of Mansfield.” + +[435] “Adam Bell.” + +[436] “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.” + +[437] For the forest in mediaeval poetry see Vernon Lee, “Euphorion,” +p. 122. + +[438] “Hardyknute.” + +[439] “Young Waters.” + +[440] “Young Waters.” + +[441] “The Heir of Linne.” + +[442] Schiller, “Ueber die Naive und Sentimentale Dichtung.” + +[443] The poem is quoted entire by Gosse in his “Eighteenth Century +Literature.” + +[444] In this poem about 16 per cent. of the lines have something to do +with Nature. In Wordsworth’s “Descriptive Sketches” over 50 per cent. +of the lines treat of Nature. + +[445] “The Minstrel,” Preface. + +[446] Wordsworth, “The Excursion,” i, 108–300. + +[447] _Ibid._, iv, 466–600. + +[448] Wordsworth, “The Prelude,” “Advertisement.” + +[449] “The Minstrel,” i, 52. + +[450] _Ibid._, 10. + +[451] _Ibid._, 9. Of this stanza Gray said in a letter to Beattie, +March, 1771: “But this, of all others, is my favorite stanza. It is +true poetry; it is inspiration; only (to show it is mortal) there is +one blemish; the word garniture suggesting an idea of dress, and, what +is worse, of French dress.” Beattie said he had often wished “to alter +this same word, but had not been able to hit upon a better.”--Dyce, +“Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxvii. + +Gray’s praise of Beattie was faint compared to Beattie’s admiration of +Gray. In 1765 he declared that he had “long and passionately admired” +Gray’s writings. He thought Gray’s poems finer than those of his +contemporaries in any nation. He thought his taste most exact, his +judgment most sound, and his learning most extensive. See Dyce, “Memoir +of Beattie,” pp. xvi, xviii. + +[452] Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxvi. + +[453] Cowper, Letter to Rev. William Unwin, April, 1784. + +[454] Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxv. + +[455] His chief poems are, “Four Moral Eclogues” (1778); “Four Elegies” +(published 1760 but written earlier); “Amwell, A Descriptive Poem” +(published 1776 but written 1768); and “Odes and Amoebaean Eclogues” +(1782). His “Epistle on the Garden” and “Essay on Painting” will be +spoken of later. + +It is interesting to note the spirit of apology with which Scott’s +friends and admirers comment on his choice of subjects. In such poetry +there is little opportunity for genius, for, says Mr. Hoole, “A hill, a +vale, a forest, a rivulet, a cataract, can be described only by general +terms; the hill must swell, the vale sink, the rivulet murmur, and the +cataract foam.” Mr. Hoole recognizes the “slight estimation” in which +descriptive poetry is commonly held, but thinks there are devices to +render it attractive and calls attention to the skill with which Mr. +Scott has made his poems “interesting by the introduction of historical +incidents, apt illusions, and moral reflections.” + +[456] At this line Mr. Hoole’s admiration broke down. He could only +regret that Mr. Scott’s desire for novelty had led him to admit such +circumstances as no versification can make poetical. + +[457] See “Advertisement” to “Poetical Sketches.” + +[458] Introduction to “Songs of Innocence.” + +[459] “Night.” + +[460] “Contemplation.” + +[461] “Book of Thel.” + +[462] “Inebriety.” + +[463] “The Village.” + +[464] “The Choice.” + +[465] “The Borough” especially Letters I and IX. + +[466] “Tales of the Hall,” Book IV. + +[467] In a letter to Newton, November 16, 1791, he wrote: “I would +that I could see some of the mountains which you have seen; especially +because Dr. Johnson has pronounced that no man is qualified to be a +poet who has never seen a mountain. But mountains I shall never see, +unless, perhaps, in a dream, or unless there are such in heaven.” + +[468] See “Task,” i, 764; iv, 254–58. The best lines on the moon are in +“Task,” iv, 3, + + the wintry flood, in which the moon + Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright. + + +[469] “Task,” i, 520; vi, 495. + +[470] “Truth,” l. 238. + +[471] “Task,” iv, 322. + +[472] Illustrative similitudes are those drawn from the thunderstorm +“Truth,” l. 238), deer (“Task,” iii, 108), peacocks and pheasants +(“Truth,” l. 58), elm and vine (“Retirement,” l. 129), moles (“Task,” +i, 276), etc. + +[473] In a letter to Rev. William Unwin, October, 1784, Cowper wrote, +“My descriptions are all from nature; not one of them second-handed.” + +[474] Letter to Lady Herbert, October 12, 1785. + +[475] “Task,” v, 58. + +[476] _Ibid._, 27. + +[477] _Ibid._, 41. + +[478] _Ibid._, i, 161. + +[479] _Ibid._, 358. + +[480] _Ibid._, vi, 147. + +[481] _Ibid._, i, 304. + +[482] “Task,” i, 195. + +[483] _Ibid._, 185. + +[484] _Ibid._, 159. + +[485] _Ibid._, 346. + +[486] “Task,” vi, 310. + +[487] _Ibid._, v, 22. + +[488] _Ibid._, vi, 77. + +[489] _Ibid._, i, 109, 142. + +[490] _Ibid._, iv, 700. + +[491] _Ibid._, 695. + +[492] See “Hope,” ll. 39–60; “Task,” iii, 721; iv, 780; iii, 301; and +other passages. In the passage from “Hope” compare the line: + + She spreads the morning over Eastern hills, + +and Wordsworth’s + + A boy I loved the sun + ... for this cause that I had seen him lay + His beauty on the morning hills.--“Prelude,” ii, 183. + + +[493] See “Retirement,” ll. 481, 563; “Task,” iii, 314, 306. + +[494] “Task,” i, 749. + +[495] “Task,” vi, 109; cf. ll. 84–117 of Wordsworth’s “The Tables +Turned”: + + Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife, + + * * * * * + + Come forth into the light of things, + Let Nature be your teacher. + She has a world of ready wealth + Our minds and hearts to bless. + + * * * * * + + Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; + Our meddling intellect + Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things. + +See also, “To My Sister”: + + One moment now may give us more + Than years of toiling reason. + + +[496] “Task,” vi, 121–97. + +[497] _Ibid._, i, 369. + +[498] “Retirement,” l. 419. + +[499] “Task,” vi, 181. + +[500] _Ibid._, 59. + +[501] Burns, “Works,” V, 185. + +[502] _Ibid._, I, 28. Cf. lines in the “Epistle to William Simson”: + + Ev’n winter bleak has charms to me + When winds rave thro’ the naked tree; + Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree + Are hoary gray; + Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee + Dark’ning the day! + O Nature! a’ thy shews and forms + To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms, + Whether the summer kindly warms + Wi’ life an’ light; + Or winter howls, in gusty storms, + The lang, dark night. + + +[503] Burns, “Works,” IV, 272. + +[504] “The Vision,” sts. 36, 37. + +[505] Burns, “Works,” I, 18. In one poem Burns declares that he prefers +“wild mossy moors” to “Forth’s sunny shores,” but a characteristic +reason, + + For there by a lanely sequestered stream + Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream, + +forbids the use of the passage as a proof of real enjoyment of the wild +in Nature. + +[506] Burns, “Works,” VI, 242. + +[507] _Ibid._, p. 241. + +[508] _Ibid._, V, 165. + +[509] Burns warmly admired Ossian, and this phrase sounds like an echo +from one of the Ossian poems. + +[510] Burns, “A Winter Night.” + +[511] _Ibid._, “The Brigs of Ayr.” + +[512] _Ibid._, “Works,” V, 231. + +[513] Burns, “Elegy on Captain Henderson.” + +[514] Bowles, “Poetical Works,” II, XII (ed. 1855). + +[515] See sonnet by Coleridge. + +[516] “After this third edition came out, my friend Mr. Crutwell, the +printer, wrote a letter saying that two young gentlemen, strangers, one +a particularly handsome and pleasing youth, lately from Westminster +School, [Robert Southey] and both literary and intelligent, spoke in +high commendation of my volume.”--Bowles, “Poems” (Introduction to ed. +of 1837). + +[517] “Fourteen Sonnets,” 1789. The same with additions, 1790. The same +reproduced with illustrations, 1798. + +[518] Bowles, “Poems,” Introduction to edition of 1837. + +[519] “Hope.” + +[520] “The Tweed Visited.” + +[521] “Elegy Written at the Hotwells, Bristol.” + +[522] “To the River Itchen.” + +[523] “The River Cherwell.” + +[524] “Elegy Written at the Hotwells, Bristol.” + +[525] “The River Wainsbeck.” + +[526] _Ibid._ + +[527] “At Tynemouth Priory.” + +[528] “Absence.” + +[529] “The Bells, Ostend.” + +[530] “At Malvern.” + +[531] Bowles, “Memoir.” + +[532] I have been unable to find the exact date of this letter, but +in all probability it antedates “The Life of John Buncle” and the +“Descriptive Poem” by some years. It was probably before 1760, because +at that time occurred the quarrel between Lyttleton and Brown. It seems +also probable that it was before 1756, because at that time Dr. Brown +took the living at Great Horkesley, near Colchester. The most natural +period for the Letter is between 1748 and 1754, for at some time during +that period, and apparently during the early part of it, Dr. Brown +held the living of Morland, Westmoreland. (See “Brown,” “Osbaldiston,” +“Lyttleton” in “Nat. Dict. of Biog.” and memoir of Brown in “British +Poets.”) + +[533] Young explains that he cannot find anyone to spell the names for +him so he must spell them as they are pronounced. + +[534] Cf. L. Charlanne, “L’influence française en Angleterre au XVII^e +siècle,” p. 115. + +[535] Alicia Amherst, “A History of Gardening in England,” p. 206. + +[536] Few of these details, except the radiating avenues and the high +jets of water characteristic of Le Nôtre’s gardens, were absolutely +new after 1660. Topiary work was of Roman origin. “It is said to have +been invented by Matius, a friend of the emperor Augustus. The chief +gardener was known as the “topiarius” and it was his none too easy task +to see that the evergreens were artistically shorn” (Nichols, “English +Pleasure Gardens,” p. 39). The cutting of trees and shrubs into quaint +forms was introduced into England in the early Tudor period and became +very popular. The clipped garden at Heslington, near York, is said to +date from about 1560. In 1618 Lawson in his “A New Orchard and Garden” +wrote, “Your Gardiner can frame your lesser wood to the shape of men +armed in the field, ready to give battell; or swift-running Grey Hounds +to chase the Deere, or hunt the Hare.” There was also early protest +against such work. Bacon in his “Essay on Gardens” said, “I, for my +part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden stuff; they +be for children.” Of figured and colored knots Bacon said, “They be but +toys; you may see as good sights many times in tarts.” He also objected +to fantastic fountains where the water spouted forth in “feathers, +drinking glasses, canopies, and the like.” + +[537] In the Arts and Crafts Museum at Hamburg there is a fine and +perhaps unique historical collection of garden prints, a collection +made by Professor Brinckmann, director of the Museum, and shown at the +great Gardening Exhibition in Hamburg, 1897 (Albert Forbes Sieveking, +“Gardens Ancient and Modern,” 1897). + +[538] Sir John Thynne bought Longleat in 1541 and was occupied during +1567–79 in building the mansion. The baron Thynne who made the gardens +became viscount in 1682 and Kip’s plans date sometime after that year. +Lady Winchilsea, who visited often at Longleat, wrote, about 1690, a +poem to Lady Worsley, the only daughter of Viscount Weymouth, in which +she speaks of + + Longleate that justly has all praise engross’d, + The strangers wonder and our nations boast. + +She comments on the finish in details and on the splendid effect of the +whole. She describes labyrinths, flowery groves, smooth grass terraces, +but she devotes her most eager lines to the fountains. Words are +inadequate to + + Paint her Cascades that spread their sheets so wide + And emulate th’ Italian waters pride, + Her Fountains which so high their streames extend + Th’ amazed Clouds now feel the Rains ascend, + Whilst Phoebus as they tow’rds his Mantion flow + Graces th’ attempt and marks them with his Bow. + + +[539] Horace Walpole says of this description, “Any man might design +and _build_ as sweet a garden, who had been born in, and never +stirred out of Holburn.” In Mason’s “English Garden” is another +scornful description of Temple’s idea of a perfect garden. + +[540] This treatise is quoted almost entire in Nichols’ “English +Pleasure Gardens” in the chapter on “French Fashions.” + +[541] Mr. Barrington in “On the Progress of Gardening,” 1782 +(“Archaeologia,” Vol. V) says that Lord Bathurst, at Ryskins, near +Colebrook, was the first to make a winding stream through a garden. +“So unusual was the effect that his friend, Lord Stafford, could not +believe it had been done on purpose, and supposing it had been for +economy, asked him to own fairly how little more it would have cost to +have made the course of the brook in a straight direction.” + +[542] “Paradise Lost,” Book IV, 299. + +[543] Letter from Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, June 20, 1760. For +a description of Twickenham see “Famous Parks and Gardens” (Nelson and +Sons, London, 1880), p. 134. + +[544] Pope, “Works” (Elwin and Courthope), V, 182. + +[545] Blomfield and Thomas, “The Formal Garden in England,” p. 80. + +[546] William Mason, “The English Garden” (1772). In the edition +of 1738 Dr. Burgh in his notes calls Bacon the prophet, Milton the +herald, and Addison, Pope, and Kent the champions of the true taste in +gardening. + +[547] Horace Walpole, “Essay on Modern Gardening” (written in 1770, +printed in 1785). + +[548] William Hazlitt, “Gleanings in Old Garden Literature,” p. 66 (ed. +1882). + +[549] Letter to Jervas, December 12, 1718. Pope, “Works” (Elwin and +Courthope), IV, 494. + +[550] In the very full bibliography (covering the years 1516–1836) +given by Miss Amherst in “A History of Gardening in England” more +than sixty books or articles are listed between 1700 and 1725. Most +of these seem from the titles to be of purely horticultural interest +and have to do with the kitchen garden or the fruit garden rather than +with ornamental grounds. One popular sort of title in which the word +“Recreation” is the keynote would seem to indicate something more +than a collection of practical precepts, but on investigation “The +Ladies’ Recreation” (1707), “The Clergyman’s Recreation” (1714), “The +Gentleman’s Recreation” (1717), “The Lady’s Recreation” (1718), and the +rest, prove to be severely technical, treating only of the planting and +nurture of gardens. + +[551] Quoted by Sieveking in “Gardens Ancient and Modern,” p. 122. + +[552] There is a discriminating eulogy of Kent by Francis Coventry in +“The World,” April 12, 1753. But see also Coventry’s “Strictures on the +Absurd Novelties Introduced into Gardening, and a Humorous Description +of Squire Mushroom’s Villa,” “The World,” November 15, 1753. + +[553] In Mr. Dallaway’s “Supplementary Anecdotes” to Walpole’s “On +Modern Gardening” (In Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting,” III, 819,) is +the statement that Mr. Southcote at Wooburn Farm in Surrey, and the +Hon. C. Hamilton at Pain’s Hill, Surrey, undoubtedly preceded Shenstone +in priority of design. + +[554] Sir Walter Scott said of this sketch, “I can trace, even +to childhood, a pleasure derived from Dodsley’s description of +Shenstone’s Leasowes, and I envied the poet much more for the pleasure +of accomplishing the objects detailed in his friend’s sketch of his +grounds, than for the possession of pipe, crook, flock, and Phyllis +to boot.” For another full prose description of Leasowes and the +neighboring place, Hagley, see Hugh Miller’s “Impressions of England +and English People,” pp. 95–132, 147–69. See also “On the Tenants of +the Leasowes,” Essay XXI in “Essays” (1758–65) by Goldsmith, for a +description of Leasowes gone to decay. There is an interesting supposed +conversation between Shenstone and a utilitarian cockney visitor +in “Blackwood’s,” XIV, 262 (1823). Another early description is in +“Letters on the Beauties of Hagley, Envil, and the Leasowes,” by Joseph +Heeley, 1777. There are poetical descriptions in Woodhouse’s “Poems” +and in Giles’ “Miscellanies.” In Shenstone’s “Works,” published by +Dodsley in 1773 are collected nine poetical tributes to the place. +In “The Spiritual Quixote” (1773) one of the noted exploits of Mr. +Geoffry Wildgoose, the quixotic reformer, is an attempted defacement +of the gardens at Leasowes in order thereby to save the soul of his +friend Shenstone from being wedded to idols. The influence and fame of +this garden are indicated by the fact that the Marquis de Giradin at +Ermonville called his own place “The Leasowes of France.” Anderson, in +his Preface to Shenstone’s “Works” says that the planning of pleasure +grounds in the manner of Leasowes “seems to require as great powers of +mind as those which we admire in the descriptive poems of Thomson, or +in the noble landscapes of Salvator Rosa, or the Poussins.” For later +descriptions see “Shenstone and the Leasowes” in “Once a Week,” 1862, +by Edward Jesse. + +[555] Downing, in “Landscape Gardening,” p. 20, says that the term +“landscape gardening” was first used in this essay. The essay begins, +“Gardening may be divided into three species ... kitchen-gardening ... +parterre-gardening ... and landskip, or picturesque gardening.” + +[556] For a full statement of Mason’s views on this point see the notes +to the first book of “The English Garden.” Switzer had already made a +similar claim in regard to Milton. It is interesting to note in this +connection that Kent often referred his love of Nature in gardens to +his study of Spenser’s “Fairy Queen.” + +[557] Mason, “The English Garden,” “General Postscript.” + +[558] In “The Garden: As Considered in Literature by Some Polite +Persons,” edited by Walter Howe (“Knickerbocker Nuggets” series, G. +P. Putnam’s Sons), may be found essays by Pliny the Elder, Pliny the +Younger, Lord Bacon, Sir William Temple, Addison, Pope, Lady Mary +Wortley Montagu, Whateley, Goldsmith, Walpole, and Evelyn. A fine +edition of Sir William Temple’s essay, “On the Gardens of Epicurus,” +with illustrations, has been brought out by Chatto and Windus. + +[559] Viscount Irwin, “The Rise and Progress of the Present Taste in +Planting,” 1767. + +[560] Cowper, “The Task,” Book III, “The Gardens,” l. 764. + +[561] Richard Payne Knight, “The Landscape, A Didactic Poem,” 1794. + +[562] Uvedale Price, “An Essay on the Picturesque” (1794–98). + +[563] William Gilpin, “Observations ... Relative Chiefly to Picturesque +Beauty.” Eleven separate volumes, 1783–1809. + +[564] Richard Jago, “Edge Hill, or the Rural Prospect Delineated +and Moralized,” 1767. In this poem Jago describes the country seats +of fifty gentlemen. The most important are Farnborough, Packington, +Shuckburgh, and Leasowes. + +[565] There are many indications about the middle of the century of a +widespread interest in all that pertained to China. In about 1750 Mrs. +Montague remodeled her house in Hill Street and made a Chinese room of +which she wrote, “Sick of Grecian elegance and symmetry, or Gothick +grandeur and magnificence, we must all seek the barbarious goût of the +Chinese; and fat-headed pagods and shaking manderins bear the prizes +from the finest works of antiquity.... You will wonder I should condemn +the taste I have complied with but in trifles I shall always conform +to the fashion.” As early as 1750 appeared William Halfpenny’s “New +Designs for Chinese Temples ... Garden Seats,” etc. In 1753 in “The +World” for March, Coventry satirizes the rage for Chinese furniture. +In April there is a protest against the excessive use of Chinese +bridges and buildings in gardens. In February, 1754, and March, 1755, +are pleas for an “anti-Chinese society.” Chippendale’s “Gentleman and +Cabinet-Maker’s Directory” of 1753 and Sir William Chambers’ more +influential “Book on Chinese Buildings,” 1757, did much to establish +the taste for Chinese furnishings and for Chinese garden accessories, +and also to render that taste more correct. + +[566] As illustrative see Isaac Oliver’s (1566–1617) portrait of Sir +Philip Sidney who is represented as seated on a turf-covered rock, +leaning against a broad tree-trunk, while in the rear is a formal +arcaded garden with a distant row of trees sending up slender green +spires against a sunset sky. (Reproduced in Gosse and Garnett, “An +Illustrated History of English Literature.”) Compare also Oliver’s +portrait of himself where is seen through the open window a broad river +flowing at the base of castle-crowned crags. (Reproduced in Horace +Walpole, “Anecdotes of Painting,” III, 176.) + +[567] Among Vandyck’s contemporaries in England the one who made most +successful use of landscape was Mytens (in England after 1618), another +foreigner, to whom is attributed the interesting portrait of “Sir +Jeffrey Hudson, the Dwarf” at Hampton Court. The diminutive figure +is represented as standing in a full landscape in which there is an +admirable effect of distance and of clear, harmonious coloring. + +[568] Now in William III’s State Bedroom at Hampton Court but formerly +in the Queen’s Bedchamber at Windsor Castle. + +[569] The ablest of Lely’s pupils was John Greenhill (1649–76). One of +his portraits at the Dulwich Gallery is described by Mr. Cartwright +as “My first wife’s pictur, Like a sheppardess.” It shows a charming +lady in low satin bodice and pearls, her right hand resting on the +head of a sheep, while behind her is a landscape of brown trees and +rough tower-crowned hills under a gray and misty sky. William Wissing +(1656–87), another pupil of Lely, and a rival of Kneller in popular +favor, also made some attractive use of vaguely indicated stretches +of landscape, but usually his portrait accessories were pillars, +heavily draped curtains, stormy skies, with, as the loveliest point, a +flowering rose-bush, an elaborately painted thistle, a vase of flowers, +in the foreground. Two characteristic portraits are those of Mrs. Knott +and Mrs. Lawson at Hampton Court. + +[570] Reproduced from engraving by Isaac Becket in Cyril Davenport, +“Mezzotints,” p. 94. + +[571] Engraved by J. Smith. Reproduced in Davenport, “Mezzotints,” +p.100. + +[572] In William III’s Presence Chamber at Hampton Court. “Lady +Middleton” is No. 54. + +[573] Reproduced in Mrs. Oliphant’s “The Reign of Queen Anne.” + +[574] Reproduced in Walpole, “Letters,” IX, 484, and II, Frontispiece. + +[575] Engraved by J. McArdell, a famous example of his work. Reproduced +in Davenport, “Mezzotints.” + +[576] Horace Walpole, “Anecdotes of Painting,” II, 442. + +[577] Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower, F.S.A., “Sir Joshua Reynolds, +F.R.A.,” p. 23. + +[578] The last four portraits mentioned are in the National Gallery. + +[579] Reproduced in Lord Gower’s “Sir Joshua Reynolds.” + +[580] These pictures of women and children are for the most part in +private galleries. But no artist has been more fully and adequately +represented in engravings than Reynolds. In the Print Room of the +British Museum there are twelve large albums of prints after his +paintings. There are also numerous reproductions in books such as +Cyril Davenport’s “Mezzotints,” Lord Gower’s “Sir Joshua Reynolds,” +Alfred Whitman’s “The Print Collector’s Handbook,” Gordon Goodwin’s +“British Mezzotinters,” and Julia Frankau’s “Eighteenth-Century +Colour-Prints.” The most important of the engravers of Reynolds’ +pictures were James McArdell (1729–65), Valentine Green (1739–1813), +S. W. Reynolds (1773–1835), John Raphael Smith (1752–1812) and +Caroline Watson (1761?–1814). Valentine Green began in 1780 a series +of Reynolds’ “Beauties of the Present Age” on the plan of Lely’s and +Kneller’s “Beauties.” These engravings were originally issued at +fifteen shillings each, but they have increased enormously in value. At +a recent sale a proof of the “Duchess of Rutland” brought a thousand +pounds, nearly five times as much as Reynolds received for the original +picture (Salaman, “Old Engravers of England,” p. 138). + +[581] It seems strange that Reynolds did not do more in the way of +pure landscape. In the South Kensington gallery is a pleasing little +brown landscape, “The Entrance to Mrs. Thrale’s Park at Streatham.” +Lord Gower in “Sir Joshua Reynolds, R.A.” reproduces a landscape in the +possession of Lord Northcote and entitled “A Study from Sir Joshua’s +Villa at Richmond Hill.” We find mention, also, of other landscapes, +but they form no significant part of his work. + +[582] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in British +Art,” p. 171 + +[583] John C. Van Dyke, “Old English Masters,” p. 58. + +[584] In the Wallace Gallery, London. Reproduced in Sir Walter +Armstrong’s “Gainsborough,” p. 88. + +[585] Owned by the Lord Rothschild. Reproduced in Sir Walter +Armstrong’s “Gainsborough,” p. 124. + +[586] These two pictures are in the Dulwich Gallery, London. + +[587] Owned by the Lord Rothschild. Reproduced by Braun, Clement & Cie. + +[588] Owned by Sir Algernon Neeld. Reproduced in Sir Walter Armstrong’s +“Gainsborough,” p. 140. + +[589] For an account of the engravings from Gainsborough’s pictures see +H. P. Horne, “Engraved Works of Gainsborough and Romney,” 1891. + +[590] Aside from the works of the Van de Veldes English public +galleries have very few examples of landscape painting in England +during the years 1660–1707. From Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting” and +from standard dictionaries of art and biography a partial list of the +foreigners painting in England at this time may be compiled. Chief +among them were Hendrik Danckerts who, after painting landscapes in +Italy, came to England about 1667 and was engaged by Charles II to +paint views; Cornélius Bol who, during the same reign, was painting +views of the Thames; John Looten (d. 1680), whose chosen subjects +were “glades, dark oaken groves, land-storms, and waterfalls;” Henry +Lankrink (1628–92), a successful imitator of Salvator Rosa in the +depiction of rough country, was especially commended for “the beauty +and freedom” of his skies, and employed by Lely to paint some of his +backgrounds; John Sybrecht (1630–1703), a painter of pictures of the +Rhine, who was in England after 1680, and whose “Prospect of Longleat” +was one of the pictures at Newstead Abbey, Lord Byron’s home; Philip +Boul who left a pocketbook of sketches of Derbyshire and the Peak, +“worked out in the Salvator Rosa style;” Henry Verzagen who devoted +himself to “ruins and landscapes;” Adrien Vandiest (1655–1704), who +came to England in 1672 and seven of whose landscapes were in Sir +Peter Lely’s collection; Jan Van Wyck (d. 1702) who painted “excellent +landscapes” from scenes in Scotland and the isle of Jersey; and Jan +Griffier (1645–1718) who painted mixed scenes of river and rich country +in the manner of Ruysdael, and who was so much of an enthusiast that he +bought a yacht and, “embarking with his family and pencils passed his +whole time on the Thames.” + +[591] Streater’s “Boscobel House,” one of the pictures in James II’s +collection, is at Hampton Court. At Dulwich a picture described in +Cartwright’s catalogue as “A large Landschift done by Streeker” is now +ascribed to Streater. + +[592] Francis Place is noteworthy as one of the first Englishmen, if +not the very first, to practice the newly discovered art of mezzotint +engraving (M. C. Salamon, “The Old Engravers of England,” pp. 52, 66). + +[593] There are fourteen sea-pieces by him in the National Gallery; +eight in the Wallace collection at Hertford House; and several at +Hampton Court. At Dulwich are two pictures by him, “A Calm” and “A +Brisk Breeze” that are especially attractive examples of his style. + +[594] M. Rouquet was a French enamel painter who came to England in +1725. + +[595] Afterward brought together in Buck’s “Antiquities,” published in +1774. + +[596] “Humphrey Clinker” was published in 1771 and the supposed time +of Matthew Bramble’s visit to Bath is not much earlier. Taverner was +sixty-eight in 1771. + +[597] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters.” + +[598] Bequeathed by Miss Haines in 1898. + +[599] See Print Room, British Museum, for prints from his paintings. + +[600] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” pp. +35, 36. + +[601] Cozens had a curious way of getting hints for landscape +composition. He taught his pupils to splash paint on the bottoms of +earthenware plates and to stamp impressions therefrom on sheets of +damp paper. The accidental forms thus struck out were counted a help +to invention. The early exhibitions record many bizarre attempts at +landscapes such as “A landscape done in needlework and human hair” +(1772), “three drawings made upon a board with a hot iron“ (1777), +“flowers cut in cork,” “three small landscapes made in oil with Trees +and Shrubs in sea-weed” (1780). These were apparently exhibited in all +seriousness. In 1770 there was “A landscape in colored wax.” + +[602] In the Print Room of the British Museum are sixty-eight small +sketches made by Paul Sandby in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, but most +of these are of figures. + +[603] Allan Cunningham, “The Lives of the Most Eminent British +Painters” (1879), II, 210. + +[604] Brydall, “Art in Scotland.” + +[605] Zucarelli (1701–88) on a first visit to London painted some +landscapes but he was chiefly occupied as scene painter at the opera. +The great vogue of his pictures belongs in his second visit (1752–73). +Jan Griffier’s sons should perhaps be mentioned. Jan (d. 1750) was +especially noted as a copier of Claude’s pictures. Robert, who painted +in his father’s style, died in 1760. + +[606] There is in the National Portrait Gallery, one of the more +important of Wilson’s portraits before his Italian visit, entitled, +“The Two Princes and their Tutor,” a stiff, formal, but not +uninteresting picture. The most admirable portrait by Wilson, that of +the artist Mortimer, deserves the high praise it has won from competent +critics, and shows what Wilson could do with a congenial subject +and after the enfranchisement of his art by his work as a landscape +painter. Except for a portrait of himself this portrait of Mortimer is +the only one done by him after his return from Italy. It came into the +possession of Mr. John Britton who, in 1842, wrote a pamphlet about +it and the paintings and merits of Wilson in general (Cunningham’s +“British Painters,” I, 153). The portrait of Mortimer is now in the +Gibson Gallery of the Royal Academy, London. Reproduced in Beaumont +Fletcher’s “Richard Wilson.” + +[607] T. Wright, “The Life of Richard Wilson, R.A.,” p. 72. + +[608] Beaumont Fletcher, “Richard Wilson, R.A.,” p. 90. + +[609] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English +Art,” p. 63. + +[610] In 1755 there had been an exhibition started by Hogarth for +the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. It was the success of this +enterprise that led to the establishment of public exhibitions in 1760. + +[611] Reproduced in Beaumont Fletcher’s “Richard Wilson, R.A.” + +[612] Reproduced in “Magazine of Fine Arts,” November, 1805. + +[613] Engraved by W. Watts in 1786. Print Room of British Museum. + +[614] Engraved by W. Birch in 1779. Print Room of British Museum. + +[615] Quoted by Beaumont Fletcher in his “Life of Wilson,” p. 24. + +[616] There are several landscapes by Wilson in the public galleries +of London. Two large canvases in the National Gallery, “The Villa of +Maecenas” and “Niobe,” were painted for Sir George Beaumont and by him +presented to the nation in 1726. They are heavy and dark pictures and +do not so satisfactorily represent Wilson’s genius as do some of the +eight smaller landscapes in the same gallery, notably the charming +little picture “On the River Wye.” In the South Kensington Gallery +there are six landscapes by Wilson with several others “by or after” +him. The most effective of these is a “Landscape Composition” in the +Italian style. At Dulwich is a fine Italian picture, “The Cascatella +and Villa of Maecenas near Tivoli.” A more nearly adequate idea of +Wilson’s work may be found in the Manchester Art Gallery where, besides +a fine example of his Italian pictures, a large canvas entitled +“Cicero’s Villa,” are one of Wilson’s most triumphant Welsh pictures, +the “Welsh Valley with Snowdon Hill,” and a magnificent English scene, +a “Landscape with Ruins.” The Art Gallery at Glasgow has one of the +loveliest and most mysteriously suggestive of Wilson’s pictures, +called “The Convent Twilight;” and a delicate little Scotch landscape +(exhibited 1762) entitled “View of Holt Bridge on the River Dee.” It +is apparent that most of Wilson’s pictures are in private galleries. +In 1814 there was an exhibition of his works but they have not been +brought together in any great number since. Some of his sketches +had been published at Oxford in 1811 under the title “Studies and +Designs by Richard Wilson, done at Rome in the Year 1752.” In 1825 +appeared a book of forty etchings made by Mr. Thomas Hastings after +the pictures in the Ford collection, a notable collection that came +into the possession of Lady Ford through her brother and her husband +both of whom had been admirers of Wilson’s work. In 1863 there appeared +“Thirty-seven Sketches and Designs in Crayon” by Richard Wilson, R.A. +(London, William Tigg). Probably the best place to study Wilson’s +pictures as a whole is the Print Room of the British Museum where there +are forty-five engravings from his work, several of these engravings +being exceptionally fine reproductions. Wilson has been fortunate in +the fact that his landscapes have appealed to the best engravers and +etchers. Besides the “Six Views in Wales” already spoken of there were +“Twelve Original Views in Italy” published by Boydell in 1776, and +very many single pictures have been reproduced. The prices brought by +Wilson’s pictures have been in modern times fairly large. In 1875 his +“View on the Arno” brought 1,800 guineas. “An Evening Scene in Wales” +brought 380 guineas. Some of the engravings also bring high prices, +especially those of Woollett. + +[617] John Ruskin, “The Art of England,” Lecture VI, “George Robson and +Copley Fielding.” + +[618] Sir Joshua Reynolds, “The Fourteenth Discourse.” + +[619] In the “Magazine of Fine Arts,” November, 1805. + +[620] C. R. Leslie, R.A., “Memoirs of the Life of John Constable” (ed. +1845), p. 110. + +[621] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 47. + +[622] George William Fulcher, “The Life of Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 175. + +[623] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 249. + +[624] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English Art.” + +[625] C. R. Leslie, R.A., “Memoirs of John Constable” (ed. 1845), p. +354. + +[626] A letter to Pearce at Bath. William Boulton, “Thomas +Gainsborough,” p. 277. + +[627] Sir Walter Armstrong, “Gainsborough and His Place in English +Art,” p. 149. + +[628] A. E. Fletcher, “Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.,” p. 161. + +[629] William Boulton, “Thomas Gainsborough,” p. 278. + +[630] In a letter to William Jackson written about 1768. + +[631] Algernon Graves, F. S. A., “The Society of Artists and the Free +Society,” 1907; “The Royal Academy Exhibitors,” 1906. + +[632] Thomas Gray in his “Journal” for October 13, 1769, says, “At the +ale-house where I dined in Malham, Vivares, the landscape painter, had +lodged for a week or more; Smith and Bellers had also been there, and +two prints of Gordale have been engraved by them.” + +[633] Horace Walpole in “Anecdotes of Painting” (pub. 1762–71), II, +717 (ed. 1826), suggested hop-fields as new picturesque material for +artists. Scott in his “Essay on Painting” reiterated the idea, giving +Walpole credit as its originator. They apparently did not know George +Smith’s picture. + +[634] There is a fine collection of Sandby’s drawings in the Print Room +of the British Museum. For particulars of his life see William Sandby, +“Thomas and Paul Sandby: Their Lives and Works.” + +[635] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. +24. + +[636] It is said that Gilpin’s landscape backgrounds were frequently +put in by other men, notably by Barret. + +[637] Wolcot (“Peter Pindar”) in his verse comments on the exhibitions +of 1782, 1783, 1785, 1786, says in an apostrophe to De Loutherbourg: + + And Loutherbourg, when Heaven so wills + To make brass skies and golden hills, + With marble bullocks in glass pastures grazing, + Thy reputation too will rise + And people, gaping with surprise, + Cry “Master Loutherbourg is most amazing.” + + But thou must wait for that event; + Perhaps the change is never meant; + Till then with me thy pencil will not shine; + Till then old red-nosed Wilson’s art + Will hold its empire o’er my heart, + By Britain left in poverty to pine. + + But honest Wilson, never mind, + Immortal praises thou shalt find, + And for a dinner have no cause to fear. + Thou start’st at my prophetic rhymes; + Don’t be impatient for those times, + Wait till thou hast been dead a hundred year. + + +[638] Walter Thornbury, “The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A.,” pp. 113–15. + +[639] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. +62. + +[640] Edmund Garvey, an inferior painter, had exhibited “Three Views of +the Alps” in 1770, and an artist named Morris had in 1769 exhibited “A +Waterfall in the Alps.” + +[641] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. +38. + +[642] Walter Thornbury, “The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A.,” p. 50. + +[643] Of the twenty-seven pictures by Cozens in the South Kensington +Gallery all but one or two are Italian scenes. Even more interesting +for study is the fine collection of drawings by him in the Print Room +of the British Museum. + +[644] Cosmo Monkhouse, “The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters,” p. +86. + +[645] Many of Girtin’s drawings are in the British Museum. + +[646] J. T. Smith, “Nollekins and His Times,” II, 339 (London, 1828). + +[647] James A. Manson, “George Morland,” p. 80. + +[648] Many of Morland’s pictures have been engraved. There are +numerous reproductions in “George Morland” by J. T. Herbert Baily +(“Connoisseur,” Extra Number, 1906) and in “George Morland” by J. T. +Nettleship (“The Portfolio,” December, 1898). + +[649] Biese in “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls,” pp. 209–48, gives +a brief résumé of the development of landscape painting in Germany. +He calls Rubens and his school the first to make the painting of +Nature an independent branch of art, while Ruysdael (1681) is the one +in whom “die ganze Poesie der Natur” finds expression. His chapter +closes with these words: “Alle diese grossen Niederländer eilen weit +der Poesie ihrer Zeit voraus; Gebirge und Meer finden im Wort erst +100 Jahre später ihrer begeisterten Schilderer, und ein in sich +stimmungsvoll, abgeschlossenes, lyrisches Landschaftsbild wird erst am +Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts in der deutschen Dichtung geboren.” +In England, it will be observed, the love of Nature finds earlier and +more abundant expression in poetry than in painting, and its completest +expression in Wordsworth’s poetry precedes its complete expression in +the great English landscape painters of the early nineteenth century. +See also for brief résumé of “Landschaftsmalerei” as an indication +mainly of the increasing knowledge of distant lands, new forms of +vegetation, etc., Humboldt, “Kosmos,” II, 47–58. + + +Transcriber’s Notes: + +1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been +corrected silently. + +2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have +been retained as in the original. + +3. Italics are shown as _xxx_. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77487 *** |