734 ENGLISH PROSE AND POETRY (11. 23-36) shows observation and simplicity worthy almost of Wordsworth himself. ROBERT BLAIR Pp. 294 f. Blair's one poem gave rise to a series of mortuary poems, and is important because it appealed to the same taste that took delight in Young's Night Thoughts, and so belongs to the same phase of the romantic movement. JAMES THOMSON Pp. 296 ff. Thomson is one of the earliest romantic poets to make the different aspects of Nature his main theme. The extracts from his Seasons show that he had really observed what he described, although he is not free from such indirectness of phrasing for mere effect as the bleating kind sheep, soft fearful people sheep, plumy people birds, watery gear fishing tackle, in which the classical school of poets delighted. He was preeminently the poet of the English middle classes until the nineteenth century, when Scott and then Tennyson took his place. Pp. 298 ff. His Castle of Indolence, like Shenstone's Schoolmistress (pp. 312 f.) and other eighteenth century imitations of Spenser's Faerie Queene, was intended to be at least mildly humorous. Thomson uses comparatively few archaic words or constructions - just enough, perhaps, to secure the effect of quaintness and remoteness at which he aimed. It is hardly necessary to add that neither he nor any other eighteenth century writer was always accurate in his use of such words and constructions. JOHN DYER Pp. 300 f. Dyer wrote little but he had the eye of a careful observer and lover of Nature. For this he was perhaps indebted to his having been born and brought up in Wales among the mountains and dales of which he sings. It is just possible that the word "van" rather curiously used in l. 3 may have been suggested by the name of a mountain familiar to him the Carmarthen Van, the second highest peak in southwest Wales. DAVID MALLET Pp. 301 f. David Mallet - his name was originally Malloch lives in literary history by virtue of three rather curious circumstances: the title of one of his poems (The Excursion) had the honor of being used later by Wordsworth; the famous song, Rule Britannia! (p. 300), was first sung in a musical comedy called Alfred, a Masque, composed by him and James Thomson; and he was the reputed author of William and Margaret (p. 301), the most important ballad in the history of the Romantic Movement. Fate favored him in Wordsworth's choice of a title for his poem. She favored him in the second instance by letting the poet James Thomson die before Alfred was printed and before any public claim had been made to the great song which all scholars now ascribe to Thomson. She favored him the third time by allowing him to retain for over one hundred and fifty years credit in literary circles for the authorship of William and Margaret, a ballad which we now know to have been printed in slightly different form and soid about the streets of London while he was still a child. The importance of the ballad for the history of Romanticism lies partly in its real beauty, partly in the early date at which it attracted public attention and interest, and partly in the large amount of discussion to which it gave rise. SAMUEL JOHNSON Pp. 302 ff. Boswell's incomparable account of the life and conversation of Dr. Samuel Johnson not only proves that his personal supremacy in the literary society of his day was deserved, but also exhibits in almost bewildering detail the independence of character, the courage, the strong and clear common sense, the freedom from cant, the wit, and the personal vigor, by virtue of which he dominated all with whom he came in contact. All these qualities are exhibited also in Johnson's writings, though his wit is sometimes made clumsy by an affected ponderosity of diction, and his common sense sometimes sounds to our modern ears like oracular emptiness in the elaborate artificiality of his balanced clauses and phrases. CONGREVE In his Lives of the English Poets, which were written when he was nearly seventy years old, Johnson's style is seen at its best. His diction has become more simple and natural and the structure of his sentences more varied and flexible. These essays are still valuable. Since they were written, research has cleared up many points which were then doubtful and has supplied much information which was then inaccessible; but in his judgments of men and affairs and his criticisms of the purely intellectual qualities of the writings he discussed Johnson has rarely been equalled. He was, however, not endowed with poetic imagination, and he had little sensitiveness to some of the finer aspects of beauty. Consequently, while he is nearly always right and convincing in his attacks on poor verse, his judgment as to what is best is not trustworthy. The passage in The Mourning Bride which he declares the most poetical paragraph in the whole mass of English poetry has impressed most good judges as mere rhetorical declamation and not of the highest order at that. - P. 307 b. our Pindaric madness. Cowley was blamed by his successors for introducing into English a Pindaric ode that did not conform to the plan of Pindar, but in metre and rhythm was governed only by the writer's caprice. For the structural scheme of the classical Pindaric ode, cf. note on Gray's Progress of Poesy, pp. 736 f. THE RAMBLER Pp. 308 f. The Rambler was a periodical modeled on the Tatler, the Spectator, and their like. Johnson was unable to give his essays the grace, ease, playfulness, and infinite variety of tone and manner which made the success of Steele and Addison. His diction is here at its worst and his sentences, though clear and strong, rumble and creak; but even here the fine qualities of his mind are displayed. The subject and the ideas of the essay we have chosen as representative are from time to time re-discovered by social philosophers and exploited as a new contribution to human knowledge. LONDON Pp. 309 f. This is an imitation of the third satire of Juvenal. It was published in 1738 and in its bitterness bears evidence of the poverty, struggles, and lack of success which marked Johnson's life at that time. Satires were then much in vogue. An ambitious young author of that period wrote a satire as naturally and inevitably as he now writes a short story. This one is notable only for the author's sympathy with the poor and his expression of personal feeling in l. 173, which he caused to be printed in capital letters. In style, it shows many of the qualities and tricks which especially characterize his work, though they are not so fully developed as in the Rambler and The Vanity of Human Wishes. 11. 158 f. Even the sedate tradesman, at the sight of a tattered cloak, wakes from his dream of wealth and labors to make its wearer the object of a scornful jest. ll. 162-165. The thought was suggested by Juvenal. P. 310. 1. 169. Spain, under authority of a papal grant of the sixteenth century, claimed all lands more than 470 leagues west of the Azores. THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES This is an imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal. It was published in 1749 and shows in style the further development of the qualities of sonorous diction and balanced sentence structure exhibited in London. The first couplet is often quoted as an example of tautology disguised by verbosity. The general theme of the satire is stated in the title. The method is to present successively examples of great ambitions unfulfilled or, when fulfilled, the source of disappointment. ll. 191 ff. The meteoric career of Charles XII of Sweden was fresh in mind when Johnson wrote, and had been brilliantly described by Voltaire. Charles invaded Denmark, defeated the Russians, the Poles, and the Saxons, and conceived the design of overthrowing the Russian Empire. When the Czar wished to negotiate peace, he declared, "I will treat with the Czar at Moscow." From this time his career was a succession of misfortunes and failures. His army, weakened by famine and cold (11. 207-208), was defeated and scattered at Pultowa, July 8, 1709, and he fled into Turkey, where he attempted by bribes and intrigues to enlist Turkey in his designs. But the Czar bribed and intrigued more effectively, and Charles was imprisoned. He escaped in disguise in 1714 and fled to Norway, where he was killed, at Frederickshall, Dec. 11, 1718, by some unknown person (1. 220). P. 311. ll. 313 f. Solon is said to have told Croesus to count no man happy till his death. 11. 317-318. The duke of Marlborough, the greatest general of his time, was paralyzed in 1716, six years before his death, and spent his last days playing with his grandchildren, being quite out of public affairs. He was talked about for his petty economies; it was said that, old and infirm as he was, he would walk to save the expense of sixpence for a sedan chair. Swift's mind began to fail in 1738, and he subsequently had paralysis and aphasia; in 1741 he was insane beyond hope and so continued till his death in 1745, four years before Johnson wrote these lines. WILLIAM SHENSTONE WRITTEN IN AN INN AT HENLEY P. 311. These lines in praise of the comfort and freedom from care to be found in an old English inn have been much praised and the last stanza often quoted. Dr. Johnson was especially fond of them. THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS Pp. 312 f. Thomson's imitation of Spenser, in his Castle of Indolence, has, as he intended, the effect of remoteness and dreaminess. Shenstone mixes realism and pseudo-archaisms to secure a playful picturesqueness which perhaps justifies his method, though his ignorance of archaic English may cause distress to the student of language. Shenstone had seen such a school-mistress and such a school as he describes. He spent his life in the country and is mainly notable for his romantic taste in gardening and his sacrifice of his fortune to his hobby. 11. 136-139. The Coronation Chair of Great Britain, which contains the ancient "stone of destiny" brought from Scone, in Scotland, where it formed part of the seat in which the kings of Scotland were crowned. P. 313. ll. 156-158. A hornbook was a card on which were printed the letters of the alphabet, a few simple syllables and words, the nine digits, and the Lord's prayer; this was covered with a thin transparent sheet of horn and set in a frame with a handle. Later the term was used loosely for a primer of any sort. Il. 165-167. In his Faerie Queene Spenser often expresses his sorrow and pity for the characters of his poem when they are in distress or danger; cf. I, iii, 1-18 (p. 114). THOMAS GRAY Pp. 313 ff. Gray is the best type of the eighteenth century scholar-poet, important for his influence in the Romantic Movement, though in his own poetry less interesting than some poets of less authority. His work is always artistic, often artificial, never spontaneous, and it abounds in abstractions and personifications of abstractions (cf. 11. 61-70 in the Ode on . . . Eton College, p. 314). It shows, however, a wide range of interests, of subjects, and of metres; and he was a He was one of the first pioneer in many fields. poets in his time to write sympathetically of the life of the poor villager; he experimented in the classical form of the ode, with the regular strophe, antistrophe, and epode; he translated from the Norse at a time when Norse literature was unknown in England; he enjoyed romantic scenery at a time when it was unfashionable to do so; he was interested to write of the misfortunes of the Welsh nation in The Bard and he gave practical aid to the Welsh poet, Llewellyn Jones. ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COL LEGE As a child Gray was sent to school at Eton College, and he seems always to have retained his interest in that place and the beautiful country about it. This poem, written when he was twentysix, reviews the sports and probable future destinies of the boys who play there as he played when a child. In the churchyard at Stoke Pogis, only a few miles from Eton, is shown an ancient yewtree beneath which tradition says he wrote his famous Elegy, and his own grave there bears the epitaph with which the Elegy closes. The Ode shows the fondness for personified abstractions, for apostrophes to inanimate objects, for "elegance" of diction, and for moralization, characteristic of the so-called Age of Classicism. The Elegy still retains the fondness for abstractions, but shows in other respects distinct tendencies toward saner ideals of style. Both poems exhibit that taste for melancholy which was a marked feature of the early productions of Romanticism. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH YARD Pp. 314 ff. This poem has always been popular because of the combination of universality and democracy in its theme; but because by the neatness of its form it has lent itself to over-quotation, None the it has lost much of its freshness for us. less, it is sincere and touched with real feeling. P. 315. 1. 57. Some village-Hampden. Some one who will stand up for the rights of his neighbors against the injustice of a local landowner, as John Hampden stood up for the rights of his countrymen against the unjust taxation of King Charles I. THE PROGRESS OF POETRY A Pindaric Ode Pp. 316 ff. Cf. note, p. 735 above, on Cowley's treatment of the Pindaric Ode. Gray had too exacting a sense of scholarship not to adopt the genuine classical form. The present poem consists of three strophes and antistrophes, each containing twelve lines, and of three epodes, each containing seventeen lines. The parts are balanced in rhythm and in the various rhyme schemes. I. Strophe: invocation to music. a Antistrophe: the power of music (the lyre, which was invented by stretching strings across tortoise shell) to soothe all cares and passions, and to subdue the god of war, and even the eagle of Jove, the ruler of storms. P. 317. Epode: the voice and the dance are obedient to music, together with all the Loves and Graces who dance before Venus to its strains. II. Strophe: the ills to which mankind is subject and the question whether music can lessen them. Antistrophe: the power of music from the Pole (the Eskimos) to the Equator (Chili). Epode: the passing of music from Greece to Rome and from Rome to England. III. Strophe: Shakespeare as the poet of Nature who can play upon the human heart. P. 318. Antistrophe: Milton as the poet of the supernatural, and Dryden as a lesser poet but still great in the management of the heroic couplet (ll. 103-106). Epode: Dryden as a lyric poet (ll. 107-111); Gray's own ambitions. Though he cannot equal Pindar, he has cultivated verse since childhood, and he will mount higher than the Great" (who are not poets), simply because of his calling as poet. THE FATAL SISTERS Pp. 318 f. In his simplicity and directness Gray has caught something of the Norse spirit; and the form he has chosen, with its short lines broken up by alternating rhyme, bears out the general effect. The chief importance of this poem and of several of Gray's later compositions is that in them were introduced to English readers new and fruitful sources of poetic themes. The Descent of Odin, The Triumphs of Owen, and The Bard all testify to the range of Gray's studies and the catholicity and unconventionality of his taste. This poem is supposed to be addressed to her sisters by one of the Valkyries or Battle Maidens of Norse mythology. They are, as their name indicates, "choosers of the slain" (see ll. 33-34) and they hasten with joy to the battle. The battle was fought in the eleventh century between Sigurd, earl of the Orkneys, and Brian, King of Dublin. WILLIAM COLLINS Pp. 319 ff. Collins wrote little, but his verse is simple, natural, and of exquisite poetic quality. His work is in general free from the affectations and conventionalities of his time. His Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands especially shows his ability to break away from the conventional in the choice of poetical material. ODE WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746 The occasion was the loss of a large number of English soldiers in the autumn of 1745 and January 1746, in the War of the Austrian Succession, ODE TO EVENING This is a notable example of an unrhymed stanzaic poem. The influence of Milton's minor poems is apparent in such lines as 11, 12 and 31, yet the picture itself is freshly imagined and original. THE PASSIONS Pp. 320 f. Like Dryden's Alexander's Feast (pp. 224 ff.), this is an ambitious attempt to suit the verse and style to the sentiments, varying them according to each passion described. It concludes with a tribute to the power of music in inspiring emotions. The poem is not entirely free from the conventional diction and rhetorical figures of the time. THOMAS WARTON P. 322. Thomas Warton owes his position in the history of English poetry, not to the fact that he was poet laureate, but to his having contributed, both by his own verse and by his History of English Poetry, to the triumph of Romanticism. His History of English Poetry, which is still a standard treatise, brought to the attention of the reading public the rich but forgotten fields of English poetry from the twelfth to the close of the sixteenth century, the influence of which became dominant in the Romantic revival. His best poetry also expresses two of the principal characteristics of Romanticism - love of antiquity and love of nature. He is further notable as having helped to revive the sonnet as a form of English verse. SONNET IV In Salisbury Plain stand many gigantic stones set in two concentric circles surrounding two 738 ENGLISH PROSE AND POETRY as ellipses and a central altar, which have aroused 1. 5. Hengist and his brother Horsa were the 1. 11. Brutus was, in the legendary history of Britain, a descendant of Eneas and the colonizer of the island Britain, which took its name from him. OLIVER GOLDSMITH Pp. 322 ff. Whatever may be the truth about Goldsmith's character, and he seems to have been misrepresented by Boswell and misunderstood by most of his biographers, his writings are usually full of sensible and independent thought as well as of grace and charm. His kindliness and his humor are all-pervasive, and the quality of his work, considering the amount he wrote and the conditions under which he worked, is amazing. LETTERS FROM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD In 1721, Montesquieu made a sensation and started a literary fashion with his Persian Letters (Lettres Persanes), in which he criticised French society with much wit and effectiveness. Goldsmith in 1760 contributed to the Public Ledger, a daily paper, a series of letters purporting to be written by a Chinese to inform his friends of the manners and customs of the English. Two years later they were gathered into a book and published under the title given above. This device for criticism has been revived with success more than once in our own time. THE DESERTED VILLAGE Pp. 324 ff. Although Goldsmith was theoretically attached to the views held by the classicists, and although his first poem, The Traveller, is of the same general type as the philosophical disquisitions which so many of his predecessors published in verse, when he came to write about his own recollections and sensations his work is so simple and unaffected and his emotion so genuine that he achieves a permanent interest. The Deserted Village is of course a highly ideal ized picture, based probably upon memories of his childhood in Ireland and of the village Lissoy, where his brother lived; but it has a convincing naturalness, unforced humor and pathos, and it is as successful in the sketches of character as in the pictures of idyllic village scenes. Here and there we see the influence of his romantic contemporaries (cf. especially ll. 344 and 418), and here and there we have traces of traditional conventionality (cf. swain, l. 2, unwieldy wealth, 1. 66, mantling bliss, 1. 248, shouting Folly, 1. 270, fair tribes, 1. 338, and especially ll. 97–112). 11. 137-192. Cf. Chaucer's sketch of the faithful parson, Prologue, ll. 477-528 (pp. 64-65). 11. 275-280. Cf. Thomson's Autumn, II. 350-359 (p. 298). RETALIATION Pp. 329 ff. In February, 1774, two months before Goldsmith's death, he and some of his circle - Dr. Barnard, dean of Derry (1. 23), Edmund Burke (1. 29), Townshend, later Lord Sydney (1. 34), Cumberland, a dramatist (1. 61), Garrick, the great actor-manager (1. 93), Sir Joshua Reynolds (1. 137), and others - were having dinner at the St. James Coffee-house when some one proposed that they write mock epitaphs for one another. Although the accounts differ in detail, it appears that several members of the company continued the contest after the evening was over, and Goldsmith finally provided the epitaphs he had written with a humorous introduction. His poem was passed about in manuscript but was not published until after his death. It was the last thing he wrote. P. 331. 1. 137. Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds was greatly beloved by the Johnson group, to which Goldsmith belonged. His pictures are gentle rather than "striking," persuasive rather than "resistless," and noble rather than "grand" (1. 139). He is not to be compared with Raphael or Correggio. But Goldsmith was no critic of art. 1. 146. trumpet. Reynolds was deaf. |