The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement  

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The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement[1] is a book by William Lyon Phelps.

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THE BEGINNINGS

OF THE

English Romantic Movement

A STUDY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE

BY

WILLIAM LYON PHELPS

A.M. (harvard), rii.D. (vale)

LAMPSON PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT VALE COLLEGE

BOSTON, U.S.A. GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

1902

C0PVRIf;HT, 1893, Bv WILLIAM LYON PHELPS.

ALL RKIHTS KESKRVED.

PR

TO

PROFESSOR J. P. MAHAFFY

OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, IN REMEMBRANCE

OF A FEW DAYS IN A DULL VACATION

MADE BRIGHT BY HIS

KINDNESS

132G852

PREFACE.

' This little book gives the results of a search in English literature from 1700 to 1765, for the beginnings of the English Romantic movement. The minor poetry from 1725 to 1765, although desperately dull reading, has satisfactorily rewarded my search. I have reached no startling conclusions, but there is some matter in the book that may fairly be called new ; and a number of points suggested by previous study have been more fully developed. The Spenserian Revival is treated with some approach to thoroughness, and my list of imitations 1 believe to be much longer than any other ever printed. In the discussion of Ballad Literature and in the chapter on Gray I have also gone carefully into details.

So far as I am aware no book has ever been written on the history of English Romanticism, so that the matter given here is the result of first-hand study. Every statement of fact and every critical opinion, unless the contrary is distinctly stated, are based on references to the original sources, so far as these have been accessible. The prose and poetry of the period 1 have read very largely in first and early editions. An original edition with the author's first preface is often of the greatest value to the student of a literary development.

The utmost care has been taken to secure accuracy in dates. In this kind of work dates are exceedingly important, and different histories, encylopajdias and dictionaries vary so widely from each other, that accuracy is not always easy. Every doubtful date has here been followed up carefully, and the date finally given is based on the best evidences and authorities.

vi PREFA CE.

In this book I have tried to estabhsh two things. First, that the spirit of Romanticism has never been wholly extinct in English literature. Second, that between the years 1725 and 1765 the Romantic movement was a real, if quiet force, and that in these forty years maybe found the seeds which sprang to full maturity in Scott and Byron, and in all the subsequent Romantic literature of the nineteenth century.

My thanks are due to the officials of the Boston Public Library, and to the librarians of Harvard and Yale Universities, who have always shown me the utmost courtesy. I cannot sufficiently express my obligations to Professor H. A. Beers of Yale, and to Professor Barrett Wendell of Harvard. It was at the suggestion of the former that I first entered upon this line of study, and the generous loan of his own manuscript notes on the period has been an invaluable help. It was Professor Wendell who first suggested the idea of printing my results, a thought that had not previously occurred to me. He also read all of the first draft of my manuscript and made many useful suggestions. My thanks are due to Professor John M. Manly of Brown, who read and annotated my manuscript, and to Professor George Lyman Kittredge of Harvard, who assisted me materially in countless places with his wide learning and unfailing kindness. Mr. Thomas Sergeant Perry of Boston, and Professor T. R. Lounsbury, of Yale, also read extracts ~ and helped me by many fruitful hints, and by much friendly counsel ; and I should also like to express in common with so many other students my appreciation of the inspiration and general stimulus I have received from the kind words of Professor F. J. Child. No sincere student ever came into close contact with this Teacher without becoming both a better scholar and a better man.

Any corrections of errors, or suggestions, will be gratefully

received and promptly acknowledged.

W. L. P.

Yalk University, 10 March, 1893.

CONTENTS.

Page INTRODUCTION.

What is Romanticism? i

CHAPTER I. Principal Literary Charactkkistics of the Augustan Age . 7

CHAPTER II.

Reactionary Tendencies during the Augustan Ac^e ... 23

CHAPTER III. The Reaction in Form ■. 36

CHAPTER IV. The Spenserian Revival 47

CHAPTER V.

The Influence of Milion in the Romantic Movement —

The Literature of Melancholy 87

CHAPTER VI. Revival of the Past — Gothicism and Chivalry .... 102

CHAPTER VII. Revival of the Pa.st — Rallad Literature and Percy , . 116

CHAl^TER VIII. Revival of the Past — Northern Mythology, Welsh Poetry,

AND OssiAN 137

viii CONTENTS.

Page CHAPTER IX.

The Romantic Movement Exemplified in Gray 155

CHAPTER X. General Summary 171

APPENDICES 175

INDEX iZx

INTRODUCTION.

WHAT IS ROMANTICISM?

Any attempt to make a definition of Romanticism that will be at once specific and adequate is sure to result in failure. It is not simply that the word " Romantic " has both a popular and a critical sense, each of which differs widely from the other ; but that the word is used critically in very different ways. For example, we say that Scott's couplets are Classic, as distinguished from those of Keats, which are Romantic ; but, speaking critically, it will never do to say that Scott v/as a Classic poet, because he certainly stands as one of the most prominent figures in English Romanticism.

Again, we call Byron a Romantic poet, because his poetry expresses that sentimental melancholy and vague aspiration which characterize the Romantic mood ; but if we take Roman- ticism to be what Heine says it is — the revival of the life and thought of the Middle Ages — we certainly cannot class Byron as a Romantic poet.

The word Romanticism is also often applied not to subject, but to method. Any poet, like Victor Hugo for example, who rebels against and ignores the rules of the Classicists, is thereby a Romantic poet. In this sense Wordsworth might be, and in fact is, called a Romanticist, although he differs completely from Scott on the one hand, and from Byron on the other. When three poets so utterly unlike as Scott, Byron, and Words- worth are each and all ranked by various critics as belonging to the Romantic school of English literature, it is easy to see that the term must be used in widely different senses.

2 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

I have seen many people who thought they could define Romanticism off-hand ; but I have never seen one who could actually do it when brought to the test. It may be profitable to rehearse a few of the definitions given by critics and men of letters, in order to show the difficulty of getting at something that will satisfy everybody. Heine says, " Was war aber die romantische Schule in Deutschland? Sie war nichts anders als die Wiedererweckung der Poesie des Mittelalters, wie sie sich in dessen Liedern, Bild- und Bauwerken, in Kunst und Leben, manifestiert hatte. Die Poesie in alien diesen Gedichten des Mittelalters tragt einen bestimmten Charakter, wodurch sie sich von der Poesie der Griechen und Romer unterscheidet. In Betreff dieses Unterschieds nennen wir erstere die roman- tische und letztere die klassische Poesie." ^ Then Heine goes on to say that in ajitiqiie art the plastic figures are identical with the thing represented, with the idea which the artist seeks to embody and communicate, whereas in romantic art all descriptions, as, for example, the wanderings of a knight, have always an allegorical significance. Classic art portrays the finite. Romantic art the infinite.

Madame de Stael follows much the same idea. She says, " Le nom de romantique a ete introduit nouvellement en Alle- magne, pour designer la poesie . . . qui est nee de la chevalerie et du christianisme. . . . On prend'quelquefois le mot classique comme synonyme de perfection. Je m'en sers ici dans une autre acception, en conside'rant la poesie classique comme celle des anciens et la poesie romantique comme celle qui tient de quelque maniere aux traditions chevaleresques." She also remarks on " Timitation de I'une et I'inspiration de I'autre." ^

These two definitions evidently refer mainly to the subject- matter — the kind of topics handled by Romantic writers. Other definitions refer more to the subjective side — to the Romantic mood. Mr. Pater says, " The essential classical

1 Die Romantische Schule (Cotta edition), page 15S.

2 De I'Allemagne, Vol. I., Chap. XXX. (Stuttgart, 1S30).

INTRODUCTION. 3

element is that quality of order in beauty. ... It is the addition of strangeness to beauty that constitutes the Romantic char- acter in art. ... It is the addition of curiosity to the desire of beauty that constitutes the romantic temper. . . . The essential elements, then, of the Romantic spirit are curiosity and the love of beauty ; and it is as the accidental effects of these qualities only that it seeks the middle age." ^

Again, Dr. F. H. Hedge declares that the Romantic feeling has its origin in wonder and mystery. " It is the sense of something hidden, of imperfect revelation. . . . The peculiarity of the classic style is reserve, self-suppression of the writer. . . . The Romantic is self-reHecting. ... To the Greeks the world was a fact, to us it is a problem. . . . Byron is simply and wholly Romantic, with no tincture of classicism in his nature or works." " Dr. Hedge gave the essence of Romanticism as Aspiration. Prof. Boyesen writes, " Romanticism is really on one side retrogressive, as it seeks to bring back the past, and on the other hand, progressive, as it seeks to break up the traditional order of things. . . . The conventional machinery of Romantic fiction ; night, moonlight, dreams . . . Romantic poetry invariably deals with longing, . . . not a definite desire, but a dim, mysterious aspiration." ^

Now for some definitions referring neither to mood nor to subject matter, but to method. Mr. Saintsbury lays down this dictum. " The terms classic and romantic apply to treatment not to subject, and the difference is that the treatment is classic when the idea is represented as directly and with as exact an adaptation of form as possible, while it is romantic when the idea is left to the reader's faculty of divination assisted only by suggestion and symbol."^ Victor Hugo, in the preface to Hernani (1830) said, " Le Romantisrne, tant de fois mal de'fini, n'est . . . que le liberalisme en litterature." Toreinx, in his

1 MacmillajCs Maonzinc, Vol. XXXV.

2 Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I.VIl.

3 Novalis and the Blue Flower, Atlantic Monthly, Dec, 1.S75.

4 A Short History of French Literature, page 5S2.

4 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Histoire dii Romaiitisfue en France, says, " Les Romantiques sont ceux qui dans les arts veulent autre chose que ce qui est." M. Erunetiere, in an exceedingly interesting article called Chissiques et Romantiques,^ says, " Le romantisme n'est pas n'importe quelle re'volution, mais une revolution pour remettre en honneur tout ce que le classicisme avait, sinon dogmatique- ment condamne', du moins efifectivement rejete. ... lis sont precise'ment aux deux poles de I'histoire de notre litte'rature nationale." Classicism he calls "la regularite du bon sens — la perfection dans la mesure," and Romanticism " le de'sordre de I'imagination — la fougue dans I'incorrection."

No one ever showed better the hopelessness of finding a satisfactory definition of Romanticism than Alfred de Musset, in his brilliant Lett res de Diipiiis et Cotoiiet (1836). This cor- respondence is a charming burlesque. The two letter-writers try definition after definition, only to find that something ex- tremely important has been left out, or that the definition is self-contradictory, or that it is ridiculously meaningless. They finally conclude that Romanticism consists in employing an abundance of glovv'ing adjectives ; which, though meant to be laughable, is as helpful a definition as many that have been seriously urged. '^

But, though all the above definitions of Romanticism make a confusing variety of opinions, we cannot help seeing that there is something in them common to all. Romantic literature v/ill generally be found to show three qualities : Subjectivity, Love of the Picturesque, and a Reactionary Spirit. By the first quality I mean that the aspiration and vague longing of the writer will be manifest in his literary production ; by the second, that element of Strangeness added to beauty, which Mr. Pater declares is fundamental ; this may appear mildly, as where the writer is fond of ivy-mantled towers and moonlit

1 Revue des deux Mondcs, 15 Jan., 1S83.

2 Theophile Gautier's brilliant Histoire du Romantisme is full of interest ; and Mr. Courthope's last chapter in his Life of Pope has much that is pertinent and suggestive.

INTR on UC TION. 5

water, or may turn into a passion for tlie unnatural and the horrible, as in tales of ghosts and of deeds of blood. And by the third is meant that the Romantic movement in any country will always be reactionary to what has immediately preceded ; it may be gently and unconsciously reactionary, as in England, or proudly and fiercely rebellious, as in France.

Taking these three elements. Subjectivity, Picturesqueness, and Reaction, it is easy to see why the Romantic movement in England, in Germany, and in France, went for its inspiration back to the Middle Ages. Romanticism is certainly wider in connotation than Mediaevalism ; and in the discussion of Eng- lish Romanticism attempted in this book, the definitions of Heine and Madame de Stael would have to be supplemented and amplified to be adequate. Ikit in the Middle Age lay just the material for which the Romantic spirit yearned. Its religious, military and social life and all forms of mediaeval art can hardly be better characterized than by the word Pictiin'squc; and souls weary of form and finish, of " dead perfection," of " faultily faultless " monotony, naturally sought the opposite of all this in the literature and thought of the Middle Ages. And as the Classical Augustans had neglected this period above all others, and treated it with contempt, the Reactionists began with an attempt to revivify and brighten this forgotten Mediaeval life.

The most striking difference between the Romantic move- ment in France and in England is that in the former country the movement was conscious, while in the latter it was only instinctive. French Romanticism had a definite program, backed almost from the start by a brilliant critical school, headed by one supreme creative genius. English Romanticism was a totally different thing. Its beginnings are so faint and so far below the surface that many writers seem to believe that English Romanticism began with the nineteenth century, and that in the " age of prose and reason " there was no such thing as a Romantic movement at all. It is very true that the

6 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

general character of eighteenth century literature was formal, critical, and prosaic ; but it is also true that beneath this out- ward crust the fire of Romanticism was glowing. The volcanic eruption of genius which marked the first years of the present century can be explained only by the examination of previous conditions. These conditions I have endeavored to explain witli some fullness and clearness ; and the result ought to prove that the beginnings of the English Romantic movement should date back to the first quarter of the eighteenth century ; and that during the second quarter, and especially during the fifth decade, the strength of the movement was much greater than seems to have been commonly supposed.

CHAPTER I.

PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AUGUSTAN AGE.

The literary characteristics of the so-called Classical or Augustan age of English literature are so well known, that I shall here discuss them only in a cursory manner. In tracing the early growth of the Romantic reaction, it is necessary to begin with a review of the prominent qualities of the Classical period; this may best be done by enumerating certain strik- ing characteristics, and establishing these by examples taken directly from the literature of the time. We may proceed in the following order :

I. THE VIEW OF LIFE. — THE ATTITUDE TOWARD RE- LIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS.

As in every age, literature is simply the crystallization of tendencies of thought, so the Queen Anne school of English literature expressed the popular dominating ideas about the problems of life. Classicism was not merely a literary fashion, arbitrarily set by the leaders of taste; it had its roots deep inthe prevailing religious and philosophical thought. The Augustan view of life was almost wholly pIiciiotnciiaL A man like Addison carried his whiggism into everything. He reso- lutely closed his senses to feelings of Mystery and Awe; the idea of unseen and eternal realities, so constantly present to the Puritan mind, seems to have had no significance for men of his stamp. Respectability — decent Conformity^ — these were the watchwords of the Augustans. The view of life was equally unlike that f)f the Renaissance and of Puritanism.

8 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

In the former, boundless imagination, unspeakable aspiration, overflowing enthusiasm predominated; in the latter the vivid realization of the supersensual world, a religious creed full of the symbolism of Hebrew poetry, and a gloom that was as quickening to poetical and religious imagination as it was mortifying to earthly happiness. Now if there was anything the Augustans hated, it was Enthusiasm; they were simply bored by it, as the man of the world is bored by the naive raptures of the unsophisticated. Those who naturally lacked enthusiasm abhorred the feeling; those who had it, cautiously and deliber- ately checked its expression as something childish and plebeian. On the religious side of popular belief. Mystery was hated and Respectability exalted. This was owing partly to a reaction against Puritanism, and partly to a skeptical indifference generated by the constant sectarian controversies of the seven- teenth century. It was not simply fanaticism and intense religious zeal that were despised; the atheists, pronounced skeptics, and deists were hated with equal fervor, as men who were trying to unsettle and disturb the reign of respectable conformity. Mr. Ingersoll would have had no more influence over the typical Augustan than Mr. Moody. The fashion of conformity is curiously shown in the greatest man of the time. Swift. The Dean was as destitute of positive religious belief as can well be imagined; but the age forced him to masquerade as the most powerful champion of Christianity.

This view of life, with its absence of spontaneous enthusiasm and religious imagination, must never be forgotten in the study of the contemporary literature. I think that Pope, notwith- standing his manifest limitations, had more imagination and enthusiasm than he generally has credit for; but he was forced to bow to the public opinion which he himself had done so much to form. Mr. Leslie Stephen, in his admirable history of English thought, in comparing the relation between Milton, Spenser, and Pope, says that the first two could speak in a familiar symbolism; Pope had to take a creed of the time.

PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. 9

" But the thought had generated no concrete imagery. . . . We have . . . diagrams, instead of pictures; a system of axioms . . . instead of a rich mythology." ^

II. THE EXALTATION OF FORM OVER MATTER.

/ This was largely due to two causes: a reaction against the

" Metaphysical " school of poetry, and the following of French

models. The former has been well pointed out by Mr. Gosse

in his book From Shakespeare to Pope, although Mr. Gosse's

conclusions and assertions here as elsewhere must be taken

cu7n grano salis. By the beginning of the eighteenth century

the reaction against the school of Donne was complete. The

"surface" view of life disliked obscurity in literature as much

as mystery in religion. When Addison and his friends ridicule

"pointed antithesis," "forced wit," etc., they do not refer to

the pointed, antithetical style of Pope, but to the far-fetched

figures and subtile comparisons of Donne, Herbert, Crashaw,

and the rest. Pope's view of the Metaphysicals may be shown

most plainly by a letter to his friend Cromwell in 17 lo, on

the poet Crashaw. " All that regards design, form, fable, which

is the soul of poetry; all that concerns exactness, or consent

of parts, which is the body, will probably be wanting. Only

pretty conceptions, fine metaphors, glittering expressions, and

something of a neat cast of verse, which are properly the

dress, gems, or loose ornaments of poetry, may be found in

these verses. . . . No man can be a true poet, who writes

for diversion only. These authors should be considered as

versifiers and witty men, rather than as poets." ' This last

phrase affords a particularly good example of the irony of fate,

because much modern criticism would use Pope's very words

in reference to himself; considering him as a versifier and

witty man rather than a poet. Indeed, not a few students

1 History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. Yo\. II., page 351, ct se//. ■^ All my references to Po/c's Works are to the Ehvin-Coiirthope edition. The present quotation is in Vol. VI., page 116.

10 THE EXGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

of literature would call the author of T/ic^J^iamjng Heart a

truer poet than the author of the Essay on Man. (f^iAu-n ,

French influence had also much to do with the formation of literary taste in England. Within the last few years there has been a movement among some critics which is an attempt to depreciate the influence of France on English literature — not only of the Augustan period, but also in the case of the Comic Drama of the Restoration. It is perhaps true that in the past, Gallic influence has been greatly exaggerated; but it is an element that cannot be overlooked. The Romanticists would not have rebelled against Voltaire and his countrymen so strongly, had the French influence been small; and French pressure on England was of course wholly in the direction of clearne^^and restraint. It reinforced the reaction against the Metaphysicals. Clearness was exalted above force, raiment above body, brilliancy above depth. The reason why Augustan literature is so transparently clear is not wholly due to the accuracy and care of the authors; it is owing largely to the subject matter. Men avoided difficult themes. Whether Pope and his friends pleased the English heart or not, they certainly suited the French. Voltaire always looked on Queen Anne literature as the high-water mark of English achievement. In 1760 he wrote in English to a British friend: "Though I do not like the monstruous irregularities of Shakespear; though I admire but some lively and masterly strokes in his per- formances, yet I am confident nobody in the world looks with a greater veneration on your good philosophers. You are now at the pitch of glory in regard to public afl"airs. But I know not wether you have preserved the reputation your island enjoyed in point of literature when Addison, Congreve, Pope, Swift were alive." ^

1 I transcribed this from the autograph letter in the British Museum.

PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. 11

III. THE BELIEF THAT ALL TRUE LITERATURE CON- SISTS IN FOLLOWING NATURE.

Nature is here used, of course, in a different sense from that in which we use the word when we speak of Thomson or Wordsworth as a follower of Nature. The growth of nature- poetry was one of the strong tendencies in the Romantic movement, as will be pointed out later. But the cry " Follow Nature " was the shibboleth of the Classicists. What they meant was an exact reproduction of every-day life and manners, as opposed to anything wild or extravagant, or that existed only in the writer's imagination. Nature meant with them little more than their deity, Common-Sense. Pope's Essay on Criticism sets forth the doctrine, and as Mr. Courthope has given so admirable an analysis of the Essay, I will quote him directly. "Three main principles underlie Pope's reasoning :

1. That all sound judgment and true 'wit' is founded on the observation of Nature ;

2. That false 'wit' arises from a disregard of Nature and an excessive affection for the conceptions of the mind ;

3. That the true standard for determining what is 'natural' in poetry is to be found in the best works of the ancients." ^

This gives Augustan canons of criticism in a nutshell. The contemporary ideal of poetry appears again in a letter written by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Pope in 1717.^ Speaking of the Iliad, she says Pope has passed it through his poetical crucible without its losing "aught of its original beauty." She calls Achilles "extremely absurd," and says she likes IHysses, "who was an observer of men and manners" much better than "the hot-headed son of Peleus." This shows again what the Classicists meant by following Nature ; it was not to describe the flowers and the trees and the changes of the seasons, or to use the language of common life — it was to copy the men and

1 Pope's Works, V'ol. v., page 49. 2 7/)/,/.^ Vol. IX., page 3S6.

12 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

manners of polite society — above all things to exclude what was excessively emotional. Lady Mary's loioii Eclogues were good poetry, because they followed Nature ; Joseph Warton's Enthusiast did not follow Nature, being too subjective and passionate.

IV. CLASSICISM. IN WHAT SENSE WAS THE LITERATURE OF THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY CLASSICAL.?

Here again we have a word most difficult to define because it is used in so many different senses. At this point it is sufficient to repeat that the Augustan literature was not really Classic ; it was pseudo-classic. As has often been said, it was "more Latin than Greek, and more French than Latin." It lacked the element that gives to Greek literature its unpar- alleled glory and z\\-\x\\\^ Uudmsciousiicss. The literature of the school of Pope was painfully self-conscious ; and here we must remember that there is a great difference between subjectivity and self-consciousness. Romanticism is often subjective, full of the passion and aspiration of the individual composer ; pseudo-classicism is self-conscious, in that the author is constantly observing and laboriously polishing his own workmanship. He is like an opera singer ravished not by the beauty of the aria or the dramatic passion of the scene, but by the sound of her own voice. But although the Queen Anne literature lacked the Greek unconsciousness, it__was (^lassical in its clearness both of expression and of thpughtj"in, the jxTfcct adaptability of language to sensed it was Classical in its repression of emotion,' in its limited imagination ;^^lt. was Classical in its faithful obedience to critical rules^* ijQ.Jts suppression of individuality to the mandates of established law; "it was Classical in its intellectuality, and enthronement of Reason. As Professor Beers says,^ " Its sole Latin master

' In :ui unpublished lecture.

PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. 13

was Horace," and "not Horace in his odes, but in his Epistles and Satires, and even then Horace as seen through the spectacles of Boileau." The Augustans were conscious Classicists ; they thought it no shame to say they were imitators; their standard of excellence they clearly understood, and fidelity to the model was valued more than any spontaneity which diverged from it. We know how profoundly Pope was influenced by Walsh's words, written to him in 1706.^ "The best of the modern poets in all languages are those that have the nearest copied the ancients."

V. SUPREMACY OF TOWN OVER COUNTRY LIFE.

Dr. Johnson was simply carrying on Augustan ideas when he said that the best sight for a Scotchman's eyes vhis the road that led to London ; and in all his lo^^e for the city and failure to appreciate natural scenery he ^as entirely in accord with the preceding age. It is true that Pastoral poetry flourished like the green bay-tree ; but these compositions — with one exception to be noticed later — show even more clearly than the society satires, how utterly lacking the age was in ' appreciation of rural life. The Augustan Pastorals were artificial to the last degree, and form the best evidence that their authors had no first-hand knowledge of the scenes they attempted to portray. Their Pastorals were simply hollow imitations of classic models — Xheocritus and, Vergil, The literary monarchs had no genuine love for the country; the drawing-room, the theatre and the coffee-house absorbed all their attention. In their judgment, the country was no place for a healthy mind. It should be taken as medicine, not as diet. This view appears in a letter from Pope to Mrs. J. Cowper, written in 1722. "I . . . wish yoi> may love the town . . . these many years. It is time enough to like, or affect to like, the country, when one is out of love with all but one's self." '"

1 Pope's Works, Vol. VI., page 53. '■^ Ibid., Vol. IX., page 420.

14 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

, VL/THE FONDNESS FOR WIT, SATIRE AND TRAVESTY AS LITERARY SUBJECTS.

A large proportion of all the Queen Anne and early Georgian literature is composed of work wholly or in part satirical. This is seldom a sign of health, as it indicates that original compo- sition and spontaneousness of imagination have succumbed to the reign of the critics. The cold, hard worldliness of Augustan life found its natural expression in polished wit and satire ; and the sarcasm was not directed against Sin, but against Dullness and Unconventionality — another bad sign. Many people wrote satires because they couldn't write anything else, not because they wished to lash any particular vice. Even Young and some of the Romanticists followed the popular taste and composed satires. The people were so deficient in natural emotion and higher imagination that the best men felt forced to yield to the prevailing demand — for the law of supply and demand affects the market of literature in much the same way as it fixes the price of wheat. In those days people wrote satirical pamphlets for the same reason that people to-day write sonnets for magazines. Pope, writing to Walsh in 1706,^ said, "I have not attempted anything of a pastoral comedy, because I think the taste of our age will not relish a poem of that sort. People seek for what they call wit, on all subjects, and in all places ; not considering that nature loves truth so well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing. Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty." Matthew Arnold's remark that Gray would have been another man in a different age, would be much nearer the truth if spoken of Pope ; for the great wit and satirist did have occasional touches of emotion and imagination, which, in another age, he would have fostered rather than repressed. The brilliant and beauti- ful Lady Mary Wortley Montagu represents even better than

'^Pope's Works, \'iA. V'l., page 51. This was the letter that called out Walsh's famous advice.

PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. 15

Pope and Addison the limitations of the Augustan days. With all her intellectual power, she does not seem to have been guilty of a single touch of real feeling or lofty imagination. The spirit of the age spoke out in her when she answered Pope's letter containing his verses on the country lovers struck by lightning ; she replied by a coarse,' doggerel burlesque.^

VII. THE ATTITUDE TOWARD OLD ENGLISH WRITERS.

The rank and file of the Classicists regarded the old English writers not with absolute contempt, but with indifference. This indifference arose usually from ignorance. Shakspere was commonly regarded as the greatest English writer, although he was often handled in a way that would nowadays be thought sacrilegious ; and even though admired, he was not very widely read. and by no means always understood. Chaucer was not thought worthy of serious treatment, as is shown by Pope's disgusting Imitation. The people at large were grossly ignorant of him. Spenser fared not much better than Chaucer ; those who knew him did not generally regard him as worthy of serious study ; indeed it was by reviving Spenser that the Romanticists did some of their best work. Milton had been neglected, but only partially so ; and his day was rapidly coming ; he had, especially through his minor poems, a power- ful infiuence on the Romantic movement.

Outside of these four great names, old English writers were buried in the dust-heaps of the past. The splendor and ex- uberance of the Elizabethan drama had been forgotten in the attention paid to the insipid, moralizing Augustan stage ; the old dramatists were empty names. The old English style in poetry and romance was generally spoken of as " Gothic," a term of reproach, " synonymous with barbarous, lawless and tawdry." - Even Shakspere was half Gothic; if he was a great dramatist, he was no playwright ; and he was full of excres-

1 Pope's Works, Vol. IX., page 410. '- Prof. Beurs's Unpublished Lectures,

16 THE EXGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

cences. True English poetry began with Waller. To show how roughly Shakspere was handled, let us look at one of Dr. Atterbury's letters to Pope. Atterbury, like Lady Mary, was a genuine Augustan. He writes in 1721, "I have found time to read some parts of Shakespeare, which I was least acquainted with. I protest to you in a hundred places I cannot construe him. I do not understand him. The hardest part of Chaucer is more intelligible to me than some of those scenes, not merely through the faults of the edition, but the obscurity of the writer, for obscure he is, and a little (not a little) inclined now and then to bombast, whatever apology you may have contrived on that head for him. There are allusions in him to an hundred things, of which I know nothing and can guess nothing. ... I protest Aeschylus does not want a comment to me more than he does."^

Perhaps the extreme example of inability to appreciate Shakspere is afforded by William Hamilton of Bangour, (i 704-1 754), the author of the Braes d Yarnnv. Hamilton really liked Shakspere, but that did not prevent him from " versifying " him. He had the audacity to put Hamlet's soliloquy into the heroic couplet, and he meant it all seriously:

" My anxious soul is tore with doubtful strife, And hangs suspended betwixt death and life ; Life ! death ! dread objects of mankind's debate ! Whether superior to the shocks of fate. To bear its fiercest ills with steadfast mind, To Nature's order piously resign'd. Or, with magnanimous and brave disdain. Return her back th' injurious gift again." ^

He also put part of King Lear into the couplet, with equal success.^

1 Pope's Works, Vol. IX., page 26. This is the celebrated divine and Bishop of Rochester, Francis Atterbury (1662-1732). He was very intimate with Augustan men of letters, especially Pope and Swift.

2 Hamilton's Poems and Songs, page 65.

3 Ibid., page 1 72.

PRIXCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. 17

Another interesting bit of Augustan appreciation of Shak- spere is found in David Mallet's poem, Of Verbal Criticism. For an example of infelicitous discrimination, it is worth reading: —

" Great above rule and imitating none ; Rich without borrowing, nature was his own ; Yet is his sense debas'd by gross allay : As gold in mines lies mix'd with dirt and clay. Now, eagle-wing'd, his heavenward flight he takes ; The big stage thunders, and the soul awakes ; Now, low on eartli, a kindred reptile creeps ; Sad Hamlet quibbles, and the hearer sleeps."

Pope had to speak apologetically about Shakspere, as he did about other things that he admired, which were contrary to the public taste. His Preface to his edition of Shakspere goes just as far as he dared. ^

How Milton was regarded even by the elect may be seen by another letter from Atterbury. He writes to Pope in 1722, about Samson Ago/iistcs. This poem appealed to Atterbury not because it was Milton — rather in spite of that fact — but because it was Classical. He thinks that with Pope's improve- ments it will pass. " Some time or other, I wish you would review, and polish that piece. If upon a new perusal of it . . . you think as I do, that it is written in the very spirit of the ancients, it deserves your care, and is capable of being improved, with little trouble, into a perfect model and standard of tragic poetry."^ No wonder the Wartons took every opportunity to bring Milton into popular recognition.^

1 Pope's Works^ Vol. X., page 534.

2 Ibid., Vol. IX., page 49.

3 In the Preface to C. Gildon's Art of Poetry (i 718) there is a good word spoken for Shakspere and Spenser.

IS THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

VIII. ,TIIE ATTITUDE TOWARD ANYTHING SAVOURING j^"^ OF RCJMANTICLSM.

Romantic literature could hardly hope to find favor in an age whose standard was one of fidelity to every-day life and exact copying of Franco-Latin models. When the Augustans called a poem or story " romantic," they meant that it was either wildly improbable and extravagant or else over-senti- mental ; and in either case it deserved an unqualified con- demnation. Everything must conform to their own standard of criticism ; otherwise, it could not hope for the serious con- sideration of sane men and women ; and if there was anything on which the Augustans prided themselves, it was their perfect sanity — their immense superiority in reason and common-sense over their own ancestors and over the nations of the north and east. Pope chafed a little under this rigid exclusion of Romanticism, for in his sentimental correspondence with Lady Mary, he writes in 1716, "The more I examine my own mind, the more romantic ^ I find myself. . . . Let them say I am romantic ; so is every one said to be that either admires a fine thing or praises one ; it is no wonder such people are thought mad, for they are as much out of the way of common under- standing as if they were mad, because they are in the right." ^

Lady Mary hated Romanticism, but admired Theocritus ; she therefore cannot have him included among the Romanticists. She writes to Pope in 1717, "I no longer look upon Theocritus as a romantic writer ; he has only given a plain image of the way of life amongst the peasants of his country, ... I do not doubt, had he been born a Briton, but his IdyUiiinis had been filled with descriptions of threshing and churning." ^ Again, we have some more testimony against Ro.manticism from Dr. Atterbury. Pope sent him some Arabian Tales, half-recom- mending them himself, and asking for Atterbury's opinion.

1 Meaning sentimental. - Pope's Works, Vol. LX., page 360.

3 Ibid., VoL IX., page 374.

PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. 19

The latter replies : " And, now, Sir, for your Arabian Tales. . . . Indeed they do not please my taste ; they are writ with so romantic an air, and, allowing for the difference of eastern manners, are yet, upon any supposition that can be made, of so wild and absurd a contrivance (at least to my northern understanding), that 1 have not only no pleasure, but no patience, in perusing them. . . . They may furnish the mind with some new images, but 1 think the purchase is made at too great an expense." ^

This gives a very good idea of the Augustan attitude toward Romanticism ; but the best case I have succeeded in finding occurs in a letter of Lady Mary's to Pope — the same letter quoted above in which she speaks of Theocritus. Lady Mary writes from Adrianople — she has come upon some Turkish verses and she gives them first in their literal form, and then puts them " into the style of English poetry," with what success will presently appear. Speaking of the Turks, she says, " They have what they call the sul>n?ne, that is, a style proper for poetry, and which is the exact Scripture style. ... I have it in my power to satisfy your curiosity, by sending you a faithful copy of the verses that Ibrahim Pasha, the reigning favourite, has made for the young princess, his • contracted wife. . . . The verses may be looked upon as a sample of their finest poetry ": —

Stanza \.

1. " The nightingale now wanders in the vines ; Her passion is to seek roses.

2. I went down to admire the beauty of the vines ; The sweetness of your charms has ravish'd my soul.

3. Your eyes are black and lovely,

But wild and disdainful as those of a stag."

1 Papers IVo/Ics, Vol. IX., page 22. This letter \v;xs probably vvritten in 1720.

20 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

Stanza II.

1. "The wish'd possession is delay 'd from day to day ; The cruel Sultan Achmet will not permit me

To see those cheeks, more vermilion than roses.

2. I dare not snatch one of your kisses ;

The sweetness of your charms has ravish'd my soul.

3. Your eyes are black and lovely,

But wild and disdainful as those of a stag."

Stanza III.

1. "The wretched Ibrahim sighs in these verses; One dart from your eyes has pierc'd thro' my heart.

2. Ah ! when will the hour of possession arrive ? Must I yet wait a long time?

The sweetness of your charms has ravish'd my soul.

3. Ah ! Sultana ! stag-ey'd ! — an angel amongst angels ! I desire, — and my desire remains unsatisfied. — Can you take delight to prey upon my heart?"

Stanza IV.

1. " My cries pierce the heavens !

My eyes are without sleep ! Turn to me. Sultana — let me gaze on thy beauty.

2. Adieu — I go down to the grave.

If you call me — I return. My heart is hot as sulphur ; — sigh, and it will flame.

3. Crown of my life ! fair light of my eyes !

My Sultana ! my princess ! I rub my face against the earth ; —

I am drown'd in scalding tears — I rave ! Have you no compassion ? Will you not turn to look upon me? "

PRINCIPAL LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. 21

Lady Mary then gives a general criticism and finally says, "What if I turned the whole into the style of English poetry, to see how it would look ? "

She "versifies" it as follows : —

Stanza I.

" Now Philomel renews her tender strain. Indulging all the night her pleasing pain ;

I sought the groves to hear the wanton sing, There saw a face more beauteous than the spring.

Your large stag-eyes, where thousand glories play. As bright, as lively, but as wild as they."

Stanza II.

" In vain I'm promis'd such a heav'nly prize ; Ah ! cruel Sultan ! who delays't my joys !

While piercing dreams transiix my am'rous heart, I dare not snatch one kiss to ease the smart.

Those eyes ! like, etc."

Stanza III.

" Your wretched lover in these lines complains ; From those dear beauties rise his killing pains.

When will the hour of wish'd-for bliss arrive .-* Must I wait longer? — Can I wait and live?

Ah ! bright Sultana ! maid divinely fair ! Can you, unpitying, see the pains I bear ? "

Stanza IV.

" The heavens relenting, hear my piercing cries, I loatlie the light, and sleep forsakes my eyes ; Turn thee. Sultana, ere thy lover dies.

22 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Sinking to earth, I sigh the last adieu ; Call me, my goddess, and my life renew.

My queen ! my angel ! my fond heart's desire ! I rave — my bosom burns with lieav'niy (ire ! Pity that passion which thy charms inspire."

Lady Mary adds, "I cannot determine upon the whole how well I have succeeded in the translation, neither do I think our English proper to express such violence of passion, which is very seldom felt amongst us." This last clause is significant.

I have given this extract at length, because it shows so clearly the limitation of the Augustan mind. No reader of to-day would hesitate in answering the question as to which of these two versions was the more poetical. The fact that Lady Mary lays the blame of the short-comings of her translation on the English language, and not on her own uninspired couplets, is very suggestive. But she was not the only person who thought that the orthodox form of versification was necessary to poetry ; Hamilton's version of Hamlet's soliloquy is a case in point, and even in the latter half of the century, when the Romantic movement was a reality, Macpherson thought seriously of putting Ossian into the Heroic Couplet.

CHAPTER II.

REACTIONARY TENDENCIES DURING THE AUGUSTAN AGE.

In support of the proposition that the spirit of Romanticism has never been wholly extinct in English literature, it may be interesting to notice certain reactionary tendencies which were present even in the height of the classical period. Such writers as Samuel Croxall, Lady \^'inchelsea/ Thomas Parnell, Allan Ramsay, William Hamilton of Bangour, are not easy to classify ; they can hardly be said to belong to the new Romantic move- ment, nor do they preserve the seventeenth century traditions of Romanticism. It is perhaps better to consider them as currents flowing in a direction opposite to the general stream ; individualities who were really out of sympathy with the Augustans, but who were overpowered by the prevailing fashion — partly because the fashion was so strong, partly because no one of them had sufficient force publicly to throw off the shackles. ]kit, though their light was under a bushel, they have a genuine signilicance to the student of a literary movement. They show that the reign of Classicism was not complete. Attention has already been called to the fact that even the monarch himself was not wholly satisfied with his reign. Pope's lines in Thomson's Seastws have a peculiar ring, when we know their authorship." It is rather surprising that Pope should have assisted Thomson in any way, because the latter was one of the early and powerful forces in the Romantic

1 Also spelled Winchilsea.

2 The lines in Autumn, teginning

" Thoughtless of beauty, she was teauty's self." Mr. Perry has some interesting remarks on this ixissage: see his E)iglis>i Lilcra- tiirc in the Eighteenth Century, pages 3S6 and 387.

24 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

reaction, though certainly not always conscious of the fact. Ikit Pope himself did some work that in aim, at any rate, was not wholly Augustan. ]Vi)nhor Forest, in spite of Wordsworth's complimentary allusion,^ can hardly be said to be anything more than artificial ; in Eloisa and in the Unfortiuiate Lady, however, amid much coldness and artificiality, we have occa- sional touches of genuine passion and pathos, which suggest what Pope might have clone had he wholly freed himself from contemporary influences. A mystery surrounds the Elegy — we do not know the circumstances by which it was conceived ; but the warmth of Eloisa may be largely explained on purely personal grounds, which fact, of course, robs it of much of its significance as an index to Pope's general taste in poetry. No one who reads Pope's correspondence with Lady Mary can avoid the conclusion that the poet embodied in this Epistle much of his own sentimental longings ; for Pope's attitude toward the brilliant society woman was certainly more than that of conventional gallantry. He himself realized that Eloisa was different from the general nature of his literary production. Writing to Mrs. Martha Blount in 1716, he says, "The Epistle of Eloisa grows warm, and begins to have some breathings of the heart in it, which may make posterity think 1 was in love."^ And in sending the poem to Lady Mary in 17 17, he adds, " You will find one passage, that I cannot tell whether to wish you should understand, or not," ^ presumably referring to the closing lines,

" And sure if fate .some future hard sliall join" etc.

But though Pope's nature and passion poetry can hardly be said to show much distinct non-conformity with prevailing

1 Wordswortli's Pi-ose Worlcs, Vol. II., page iiS.

2 Pope's Worlcs, Vol. IX., page 264.

3 Ibid., Vol. IX., page 382.

4 The original editor of the edition of Pope does not agree with tliis view that Eloisa is largely the e.xpression of personal feeling. .See Note in Vol. I,\., page 264. Mr. Courthope, however, is in substantial agreement with the view e.xpressed in these pages. See Vol. \'., page 135.

REACTIONARY TENDENCIES. 25

ideas, a few passages in his private correspondence show glimpses of Romantic feeling. He writes to Mrs. J. Cowper in 1723, "I could wish you tried something in the descriptive way on any subject you please, mixed with vision and moral \ like pieces of the old Provencal poets, which abound with fancy, and are the most amusing scenes in nature. ... I have long had an inclination to tell a fairy tale, the more wild and exotic the better ; therefore a I'isioii, which is confined to no rules of probability, ^vill take in all the variety and luxuriancy of description you will ; provided there be an apparent moral to it. I think one or two of the Persian tales would have given one hints for such an invention." ^ This outbreak is very suggestive.

But although it is half paradoxical to speak of Romanticism in Pope, there was a quiet, retiring figure of the time whose poetry displays some tendencies wholly contrary to Augustan feeling. It is worth noticing that he was an intimate friend of Pope's, and that the latter first edited his works. I refer to Thomas Parnell (1679-17 17).- It is not true, as Mr. Gosse says, that he " published nothing." ^ T/ic Hermit was published in 17 10, and he printed in miscellanies a number of pieces which Pope collected and published in 1722. Still it was largely owing to the influence of Pope and Swift, that he was brought out of his Ulster obscurity, and induced to exercise his poetic gifts. His best known piece, The Hermit, and his Satires are in the Classic style ; but certain other of his writings have a real significance in the history of Romanticism. Mr. Gosse remarks with much truth, " there lay unvisited a romantic island

1 Works, Vol. IX., page 431.

■- Considerable difference of opinion seems to prevail as to the date of Parnell's death. Dr. Johnson says he died in July, 1717. Goldsmith, in his Life of Parnell, gives the same date, but later on in the very same account, says " he died in the year 1 7 18." Ryland's Chronological Outlines gives the date 171 7. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edition) says 171S. Mr. Gosse (in Ward's F.noHsli Poets, Vol. III., page 132) says Parnell "was buried at Chester on the iSth of October, 1 718."

3 Eighteenth Century Literature, page 137.

26 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

of poesy, which was his by birthright." ^ His Night-Piece 07i Death is very interesting as the fore-runner of the grave-yard literature of Young, Blair, and the rest, and especially as the prototype of Gray's Elegy. Compare these lines from the Night-Piece : —

" Those graves, with bending osier bound That nameless heave the crumbled ground," with the well-known stanza from Gray.

But besides Parnell's significance as the first of the church- yard poets, there is in his poetry a genuine feeling for Nature, which is very unlike the Augustan spirit, and which even suggests Wordsworth.^ It seems as if the latter might have named Parnell along with Lady Winchelsea in his famous utterance in 1815. These lines from the Night-Piece show real love of nature. The poet forsakes the books of the schoolmen for the wisdom of the sky and stars : —

" How deep yon azure dyes the sky !

Where orbs of gold unnumbered lie, While thro' their ranks in silver pride

The nether crescent seems to glide. Tlie .slumbering breeze forgets to breathe.

The lake is smooth and clear beneatli. Where once again tlie spangled show

Descends to meet our eyes below."

Goldsmith preferred the Night-Piece to Gray's Elegy ; but Dr. Johnson, although uniformly unjust to Gray, did not agree with his friend in this instance.

Parnell's Hymn to Contentment also shows true nature-feeling. The following passage seems especially to foreshadow Words- worth : —

" The sun that walks his airy way,

To light the world, and give tlie day;

The moon that shines with borrowed light;

The stars that gild the gloomy night;

1 Ward's /?;/;■ //,?// Poiis, \'()1. 111., page 133.

2 .See Mr. Gosse's P.ii^hfccutli Ccjitury TJtcratiirc, page 137.

REACTIONARY TENDENCIES. 27

The seas that roll unnumbered waves ;

The wood that spreads its shady leaves ; The field whose ears conceal the grain,

The yellow treasure of the plain : All of these and all I see,

Should be sung, and sung by me ; They speak their Maker as they can,

But want and ask the tongue of man." ^

It is worthy of note that both these poems of Parnell are in the octosyllabic couplet, a measure that he handled with singular grace and charm. This verse-form was one largely employed by the Romanticists.

Besides Parnell's nature poetry, and melancholy mood, he gives us a breath of real Romanticism in his Fairy Talc. It opens thus : —

"In Britain's isle, and Arthur's days, Wiien midnight fairies danced the maze,

Lived Edwin of the Green ; Edwin, I wis, a gentle youth. Endowed with courage, sense and truth. Though badly shaped he been."

This is one of the first faint echoes of Mediaevalism.

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea (died 1720), may also be considered among the reactionary tendencies of the age. She has attained some prominence in literar}' history, owing to Wordsworth's remark in 1S15, alluded to above; but her poetry has been very little read, and is not at all easy to find. She was a friend of Pope's, and exchanged poems with him on The Rape of the Lock. Her lines to him —

" Our admiration you command ?'or all that's gone before ; What next \vc look for at your hand Can only raise it more " - —

1 See also the quotation Mr. Gosse gives, F.i<^hlcciitli Century Literature, page 137. Mr. Gosse is wrong, however, in saj'ing, " 'I'he Hyiitii opens thus." He has taken a passage not from tlie beginning.

2 Poems by F.iiiiiieiit Ladies (1755), Vol. 11., page jr.4.

28 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

do not sound like the words of a rebel against the Augustan age ; and, indeed, she was not. Mr. Gosse says : " She was entirely out of sympathy with her age, and her talent was hampered and suppressed by her conditions. She was the solitary writer of actively-developed romantic tastes between Marvell and Gray, and she was not strong enough to create an atmosphere for herself within the vacuum in which she languished."' These are the words of a charmingly inaccurate writer, and have every symptom of the fatal " enthusiasm of discovery." Mr. Gosse also remarkso elsewhere : "It is impos- sible to say whether she was the last of the old, or the first of the new romantic school."- I should say she was neither, but in general feeling an Augustan, with an under-current of real love for nature. It is in her fondness for country life, her love of out-door beauty, and her accurate descriptions of nature, that she differs from her contemporaries. In these important points, she may certainly be classed as reactionary in tendency. Her octosyllabic ode. To t/u- A^/i^/iti/i^i:^aIc% has true lyric quality, and her short poems, 77/6- Tree and A Nocturnal Reverie, are notable expressions of nature-worship." The last named is in the heroic couplet.

An interesting figure of the time is Samuel Croxall (died 1752).'* He is remembered to-day chiefly as the translator of ^sop's Fables ; most of his original poetry has been for- gotten. With the exception of one poem, to be noticed later, his effusions found little favor among his contemporaries. Croxall was celebrated more for his preaching than for his poetry. He seems to have been wholly out of sympathy with the spirit of the age, even consciously and defiantly so. His poetical master was Spenser, for whom he had a fervent admiration in a time when Spenser was comparatively neg- lected. His important contributions to the Spenserian revival

1 Gossip ill a IJbrary, page 123.

2 Eightcetith Century Literature, page 35.

3 These three poems are in Ward's English Pods, Vol. III., pages 29-31. ^ Date of his birth unknown ; lie died at a venerable age.

REACTIONARY TENDENCIES. 29

will be discussed later ; but the iirst work of his that concerns our present purpose is The Vision, published in 17 15. This is in the heroic couplet, but the style of the poem is distinctly unorthodox. It describes a vision of the ancient kings and queens of England, and the opening pictures of the woods and iiowers and streams have a perceptible Romantic coloring. Besides the crowned heads, the poet has a vision of two English poets, not Cowley and Waller, but, strange to say, Chaucer and Spenser. He thus describes them: —

" Chaucer the Parent of Britannic Lays His Brow begirt with everlasting Bays, All in a Kirtle of green silk array'd With gleeful smile his merry Lesson play'd. His fellow Bard beside him Spenser sate And twitch'd the sounding Chords in solemn State: An Ivy Carland on his Temples boar With Sprigs of Laurel interwove he wore. Adown his Shoulders hung a Mantle blue Bedrop'd with Spangles of a Colden Hue ; Of Arms and Elfin Knights he mus'd his Song, And taught in Mystic Tales the list'ning Throng."

It is disappointing to find at the conclusion of this poem, that the work has a theological purpose — to attack Popery ; but even this unfortunate ending does not rob the poetry of its rich and warm color, lite Vision lay practically unknown till parts of it were republished by Southey. Since then it has lapsed into a still deeper obscurity.^

In 1720, Croxall published anonymously The Fair Circassian, a poetic paraphrase of Solomon's Song. The Preface was dated " Oxon. 25 March 1720," and was avowedly written by a tutor who said that the real author had lately died — a form of literary deception by no means uncommon in the

1 It is barely possible that Croxall took the bint for bis Vision from Kotert Greene's Vision — Grosarf s Edition of Crcoir, \'ol. XII. tireene sees Cbaucer and Gower.

30 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

eighteenth century. This poem was exceedingly popular. It went througii many editions, but it raised up a host of enemies for Croxall, on account of its voluptuousness. It is not the only one of Croxall's poems characterized by untheological carnality. It is written in the heroic couplet with a sprinkling of Alexandrines. In warmth of passion it is very unlike the stock phrases of contemporary poetry.

Some of the editions of The Fair Circassian had shorter poems appended. These are also in Croxall's glowing style. One of these — written in a Spenserian verse-form — has a not unpleasant musical flow. It is called Floriiida Seen While She Was Bathin}^} Two stanzas will suffice : —

" Florinda, with her sister nymphs, undrest,

Within the channel of the cooly tide. By bathing sought to soothe her virgin breast.

Nor could the night her dazzling beauties hide : Her features, glowing with eternal bloom. Darted, like Hesper, thro' the dusky gloom.

"Her hair bound backward in a spiral wreath Her upper beauties to my sight betray'd ; The happy stream concealing those beneath,

Around her waste with circling waters play'd ; Who, while the fair one on his bosom sported. Her dainty limbs witli liquid ki.sscs courted." ^

Mr. Gosse says that Croxall described his aim in poetry as being "to set ofif the dry and insipid stuff" of the age by publishing "a whole piece of rich glowing scarlet.'"^ This is interesting, as it shows that his dislike of Augustan poetry was conscious and pronounced. He was, however, not more than half emancipated ; with all his fire and passion, his work

1 There is nothing especially Romantic about tlie title — the Classicists were always seeing women bathing.

2 Gibber, Lives of the Poets, Vol. V., page 2S8.

3 Eighteenth Cejitiiry Literature, page 139. I do not know in what connection Croxall made this remark ; his writings are not easy to find.

REACl'IONAKY TENDENCIES. 31

has many conventionalities. He has more significance as a Spenserian.

We next come to the sturdy figure of Allan Ramsay (1686- 1758). Ramsay is perhaps best known as the editor of miscellanies ; but we are here concerned with his own poetic productions. These are in some cases characterized by a decided antipathy to the prevailing Classicism. He managed to put some real life into the most artificial of all compositions — the Pastoral. His Gentle Shepherd appeared in 1725. What Ramsay thought of the conventional Pastoral may be seen by the Preface to his miscellany, T/ie Evergreen, 1724. He said, in the old bards, " the morning rises as she does in the Seottish horizon. We are not carried to Greece or Italy for a Shade, a Stream or a Breeze. ... I find not Fault with those 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 Hy tuners to the Spring and Makers of Pastorals frequently do." There is a freshness and healthy natural life about the Gentle Shepherd, which made it seem almost startlingly new to the Augustans, accustomed as they were to the Theocritus-Vergil pattern. The songs Ramsay introduced were fresh and sweet; and many images taken directly from nature show where the author's real inspiration lay. But unfortunately Ramsay — in spite of his aggressive naturalness — was too much under the influence of Pope and the rest to leave his pastoral drama unblemished. He doubtless thought that in making the two shepherd lovers turn out to be of noble blood, he would please the public taste ; to a modern reader this denoument is a glaring fault. Again, after some most natural and beautiful touches, he introduces didactic observations in the regular Augustan manner. The freshness of this pastoral is thus mingled with artificiality, another illustration of the power of literary fashion even over those men who are most opposed to it.

32 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Ramsay had published a quarto of his poems in 1721, and in 1 73 1 appeared the first collected edition of his works. The Preface to this edition contains some matter not uninteresting. He says, " I shall never quarrel with any man whose temper is the reverse of mine, and enters not into the taste of the same pleasures. . . . Every man is born with a particular bent, which will discover itself in spite of all opposition. Mine is obvious, which since I knew, 1 never inclined to curb; but rather encouraged myself in the pursuit, though many difficulties lay in my way." He apologizes for his Scotch songs. "Such pedants as confine learning to the critical understanding of the dead languages, do not view me with a friendly eye. . . . That I have exprest my thought in my native dialect, was not only inclination, but the desire of my best and wisest friends; and most reasonable, since good imagery, just similes, and all manner of ingenious thoughts, in a well laid design, disposed into numbers, is poetry." This is an interesting definition.

Again he says, "Throughout the whole I have only copied from nature, and with all precaution have studied . . . not to repeat what has been already said by others." All this gives us evidence of Ramsay's originality, and defiant spirit; but his inability to free liimsclf entirely from contemporary thought is shown by the fact tliat along with his nature-poetry he published imitations of Horace, and in another part of the Preface, he says, " Anacreon, Horace and Waller were poets, and had souls warmed with true poetick flame." Such mention of Waller is damnatory evidence against any complete break with Classicism on Ramsay's part. Some of Ramsay's songs, however, as The Last Time T Came o'er the Moor, The Lass of Patie's Mill, Bessie Bell, and The Young L^ainl are significant as forerunners of the songs of l>urns, and we know that Burns had a high regard for Ramsay's work.^ Principal Shairp speaks highly of Ramsay's services to the poetry of nature;'-^ and

1 " Yes ! there is ane ! a .Scottisli callan —

There's ane ; come forrit, honest Allan ! "

2 Poetic Interpretation of Nature^ pages 194-196.

REACTIOiXAKY TENDENCIES. ZZ

Veitch says, "Allan Ramsay is by far the most interesting and influential literary personage in Scotland in the first half of the eighteenth century. . . . Ramsay had the courage, in a conventional time both in English and Scottish poetry, to recognize and be true to the manners, the simple every-day life, the rural character, and the scenery of his native land." ^ Had Ramsay never come into so close personal contact with the Augustans, he might have done much bolder and more original work than he did.'-

The last author we shall treat in the contemporary reaction is William Hamilton of Eangour ( i 704-1754). Hamilton was like Parnell in his quiet, retiring disposition. The first collection of his poems was iiot published till 1748, and then during the author's absence from the country. It was published anonymously, with a preface by Adam Smith, the economist. A reprint of this edition appeared in 1749. In 1758 a new edition was published bearing the author's name. In 1760 came the only edition marked by any accuracy or completeness; and his fame was immediately assailed by the Monthly Rcviciu (February, 1761), which sneered at his poetical ability. After that there was no new edition of, Hamilton — although he was reprinted once or twice — until 1850. Hamilton has thus never enjoyed a wide reputation; but during his life-time he was well known within a small circle, and regarded with high admiration. He was something of an aristocrat and in his temperament not unlike the poet Oray. He was a lonely scholar, fond of solitude and books, and disliked publicity as sincerely as his great contemporary. Among much incomparably wretched trash, he wrote some excellent pieces, and one thoroughly Romantic ballad, IVic Braes d' Yarrozo. Allan Ramsay, although barred from Hamilton's

1 The Feeling fo>- Nature m Scottish Poetry, Vol. II., page 24.

2 Ramsay was on intimate terms witli the great Classicists; the last poem in Vol. I. of the Tea-Table Miscellany (1724) is called The Quadruple Alliance, and he says:

"Swift, Sandy, Young and Gay, Are still my heart's delight."

34 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

circle by social inferiority, exerted a strong influence upon him; and his influence was all for good. It was Ramsay who first brought The Braes d Yarrozv into public attention, by publishing it in his Tea-Table Miscellany. This poem is not only lyrically melodious, but is full of the spirit and fire of the old ballads. It is by all odds the best thing Hamilton ever wrote, as well as the most Romantic in tone.

Like Parnell, Hamilton handled the octosyllabic couplet with great ease, and did some excellent work in this measure. Some of his nature-poetry will bear quoting. In his poem, C'wA7///'A^//Vw (probably written in 1739) he shows something of the Wordsworthian spirit : —

"Above, below, an(i all around. Now naught but awful quiet's found, The feeling air forgets to move. No zephyr stirs the leafy grove. The gentlest murmur of tlie rill Struck by the potent charm is still. Each passion in this troubled breast So toiling once lies husli'd to rest, Whate'er man's bustling race employs, His cares, his hopes, liis fears, his joys, Ambition, pleasure, interest, fame. Each nothing of important name. Ye tyrants of this restless ball. This grove annihilates you all.^ Oh power unseen, yet felt, appear ! Sure something more than nature's here. Now on the flow'ring turf I lie. My soul conversing with the sky."

After this singularly fine passage, which, in its day, was a real contribution to nature-poetry, he wanders off into dreamy moralizing, after the fashion of Pope.

1 Cf. Marvel], in The Garden:

" Aiiniliilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade."

REACriOXARY TENDENCIES. 35

Hamilton seems to have had a great deal of force and passion which he dehberately repressed — perhaps thinking the age would not stand it — perhaps himself ashamed of it. This fact is curiously well shown by the 1850 edition of his poems. -^ His ode to Fancy is there published, and along with it a MS. copy which the author had written, but for some reason had withheld from the public. The MS. copy differs considerably from the printed one, especially in its franker expression of passion. Here is a passage from the suppressed draft, which appeared in print entirely changed and subdued : —

" And now I gaze o'er all Iicr charms. Now sink transported in her arms ; Fierce to her lips my lips I join, Fierce in amorous folds we twine ; Fierce in rage of love compressed, Swells throbbing to the touch her breast. Thus rioting in bliss supreme, Might I enjoy the golden dream ! But ah ! the rapture will not stay, For see, she glides, she glides away ! "

Hamilton was an ardent admirer of Milton, and some of his verses will be considered again among the poets of the Miltonic group. He was a good ballad-maker, writing in a vein strikingly Romantic, he had genuine passionate force which he hardly dared to express, he "unlocked his heart " in his nature-poetry, and yet he wrote long stretches of perfectly smooth and perfectly flat heroic couplets.- With this poet, we close for the present the consideration of reactionary tendencies during the Augustan age. Gay might perhaps have been included, but in all probability whatever opposition he had to the Classicists was not at all serious.

1 I^age 55.

2 For example, he started a long poem in twelve books, called The Maid of Gallows/ticls. He never progressed further than into the second book. He wrote this in 1 726, when he was possibly re-acting from Ramsay's influence. The poem is inexpressibly tedious.

CHAPTER in.

THE REACTION IN FORM.

Romanticism may be considered in two distinct aspects — Subject-matter and Form. In the study of the EngHsh move- ment, the hrst is far more important ; but the latter cannot be overlooked. Since Romanticism, like almost all literary fashions, started as a reaction, the forms in which the new school clothed their productions naturally differed from that which had been most common ; and in this aspect especially the movement was wholly in the direction of freedom. Here we may agree with Victor Hugo, that Romanticism is nothing but liberalism in literature. The same spirit that in other times and places rebelled against the Unities in dramatic art, struggled successfully in England with the tyranny of the Heroic Couplet in poetry. T.y 1726 the sovereignty of the Couplet was doomed, though for the rest of the century it lived and spasmodically flourished. It did not seem to occur to the Romanticists to make their reforms within the limits of the Couplet ; that is, to return to the loose, overflowing couplets of the early seventeenth century. This would have brought the rebels even more squarely at issue with the reigning dynasty, and would have precipitated a conflict which the early reformers did not seek, and which they would have shrunk from entering upon. English poetry had to wait for Keats, to see the Heroic Couplet used in the field of Romanticism, and manipulated in direct defiance of the practice of Waller, Dryden and l^ope.

The early Romanticists do not seem to have shown much direct opposition to the Couplet — they were simply weary of its monotony, and instinctively turned to other and freer forms

THE REACTION EY EOT AT. 37

of versification. Blank Verse, Octosyllabics, and the Spenserian stanza were the principal vehicles of expression which the new school adopted. These were in a way also associated with the Subject-matter aspect of Romanticism, for the first two of these forms owed much of their popularity to the powerful influence of Milton, and the third to the growing study and appreciation of Spenser. Indeed, Blank Verse came to be distinctly asso- ciated with the Romantic movement — its freedom giving a wider scope to the imagination than the closed couplets of the Classicists. Dr. Johnson and his ally Goldsmith perceived this fact, and accordingly threw the whole weight of their influence against blank verse ; while the liberals defended it, notably the poet Young, who grew more intensely radical as he advanced in years.

John Philips's Civ/^v appeared in 1706; his Splendid Shilling in 1705 ; it had been surreptitiously printed even earlier. Philips, of course, had been influenced by Milton and wrote in a pseudo-Miltonic style. On the title-page of the Splendid Shilling were the words An Imitation of Milton, and Cyder begins : —

" Wliat soil the apple loves, what care is due

To orchats, timeliest when to press the fruits,

Thy gift, Pomona, in Miltonian verse

Adventurous I presume to sing."

Philips deserves mention here because he took to blank verse so early, and because twenty-five years later his example was much more influential than the intrinsic merit of his work justified. After Philips, the next important poem in blank verse was Thomson's If 'inter, which appeared in 1726, followed by Summer in 1727, and Spring in 1728. Autumn was first published with The Seasons in 1730. Thomson does not seem to have talked very much about his reasons for choosing blank verse ; he probably did not do so out of particular conscious hostility to the Couplet, though he was doubtless weary of its monotony. Possibly one of his reasons for forsaking the

38 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Couplet was the fact that Pope had brought it to its utmost refinement and polish, and that it was not capable of any further development. There is an interesting passage in Atitumfi which shows that Thomson had a distinct preference for blank verse, and also evidences the influence of Philips's example : —

" Philips, facetious bard, the second thou Wlio nobly durst, in rhyme-unfettered verse, With British freedom sing the Britisli song."

Although the influence of Philips was out of all proportion to his worth, his fame was not great enough to give sufticient prestige to the verse-form he adopted ; but when 'Phomson used it for T/ic Scastms, the case was different. Others felt free to follow in his wake. Somerville's Chase appeared in 1735, and Mr. Gosse says that "he delayed writing it so long that we find his old Addisonian style tempered by the new and freer manner of Thomson." ^

Dyer's Ruins of Rome appeared in 1740. Dyer thought the Ruins of Ro7ne bore about the same relation to Grongar Hill as Paradise Lost to L' Allegro. The poem begins : —

" Enough of Grongar and tlic shady dales Of winding Towy, Merlin's fabled haunt, I sung inglorious. Now the love of arts, And what in metal or in stone remains Of proud Antiquity," etc.

But posterity — so far as it has expressed any opinion — has preferred Grongar.

The first installment of Young's Alglit Thoughts was given to the world in 1742; by 1745 it was all published. Young was an older man than Thomson, but his chief poem came over a decade later than The Seasons. The style shows traces of both Milton and Thomson ; of the former in the swelling

1 EiqJifccntJi Century tJtcrafiirc, page 13S. Mr. Gosse gives the date of this poem as 1734.

THE REACTION IN FORM. 39

magnificence of some of the lines, and of the latter in its some- what even regularity. It should be said that both Thomson and Young show the influence of the Classic measure ; many of the lines are simply unrimed couplets. They could not completely shake off the shackles in their versification, any more than they could make a complete departure from Augustan thought.

In 1743 appeared Robert P^lair's Grave, a poem that he had begun to work upon a number of years before. It is an inter- esting fact that this talented author should have written only ^ one poem, and written that in blank verse ; still more interesting when we observe that his versification is not of the Miltonic- Thomson order, but points back to the P.lizabethan age.^ Blair's verse is very loose and free, and bears evidence on every page of the reading of old dramatists ; in the great number of feminine endings, I think I detect particularly the influence of Fletcher. The Grave wa.^ originally written before 1 731, and may have been begun independently of Thomson's example. If so, it is another instance of the symptoms of revolt. Blair was naturally more free from the reigning literary fashion for two reasons ; he was a Scotchman, and he was young. The young Scotchmen of those days were fond of reading in old English authors and in the open book of Nature — two sources of inspiration less familiar to their southern neighbors.

In 1744, Dr. Mark Akenside published his Pleasures of Jm- agination. This was a didactic poem in three books, which the author afterward laboriously rewrote without improving. The blank verse is both cold and heavy, though occasionally relieved by fine passages. The poem is really Romantic only in its title. One thing is noticeable about Akenside's poetry ; he was fond of experimenting in various forms of versification, but he never used the Heroic Couplet except once, and then in his Re- monstrance of Sliakespcarc (1749), which, being put in the shape of a theatre prologue, naturally took the couplet form.

1 With the exception of an unimportant elegy.

2 Mr. Saintsbury notices this in Ward's English Poets, Vol. III., page 217.

40 . THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

In the same year with the Pleasures of Imagination (1744), appeared The Art of Preserving Health, by John Armstrong (17 09-1 7 79). This is a blank-verse poem in four books. Armstrong is a direct imitator of Thomson, and like Akenside, was a physician. It should also be noted that he was a Scotchman, and showed his love for old English authors by some juvenile imitations of Shakspere. The longest of these, a poem on Winter, was written while the young man was passing the winter in a wild, solitary part of the country, and curiously enough, seems to have been finished just as Thom- son's poem on the same subject appeared. Whether either borrowed from the other or not is uncertain ; but when Thom- son by some means managed to read Armstrong's piece, he showed it. to David Mallet and others; Mallet immediately asked Armstrong's permission to print it ; the latter, not unwill- ingly, consented. Then Mallet calmly suppressed it and it was not published till 1770. The poem shows considerable promise.

Besides these imitations of Shakspere, Armstrong, as is well known, contributed a few Spenserian stanzas to The Castle of Jiulolenee.

In 1757 appeared The Three, by John Dyer (died 1758).' This is a blank-verse poem in four books. Dyer was a Welshman with a genuine love for natural scenery, which came out plainly in his early octosyllabics, Grongar Hill and Tiie Country Walk (1726). He did not handle blank verse with anything like the skill he showed in the shorter rimed measure ; perhaps this was partly owing to the unpoetical nature of the subjects he undertook.

A pronounced imitator of Thomson's blank verse was his friend and fellow-countryman David Mallet (1700-02 — 1765). He is chiefly famous for his connection with the ballad of

1 The year of Dyer's birth seems not to be known : Dr. Johnson says he was born in 1700. Dowden says 169S or 1699. Leslie Stephen says "1700 or a year or two previously." Kyland gives 1 700 with a question-mark.

THE REACTION IN EOKM. 41

William and Margaret, which he seems still to have the credit of writing, though it can be clearly shown that he stole it.^ Mallet published two lengthy poems in blank verse, The Excursion (1728) and Amy/itor and Theodora (1747). The Excursion particularly shows Thomson's influence ; its verse has many similarities to that of The Seasons, and it has much to say about nature, although its author is evidently insincere. The style is extremely "classic" in its cold, argumentative, viscous flow. IJoth poems are wofully tedious. Joseph Warton said of Amyntor and Theodora, " The nauseous affectation of expressing everything pompously and poetically, is nowhere more visible than in a poem lately published, entitled Afnynfor and Theodora. ~

The next blank-verse poem of considerable reputation that followed Dyer's Fh'ece, was The Sugar Cane( 1764), by Ur. James Grainger, (172 i (?)-i766). This was of course in the didactic style. Grainger was an intimate friend of Percy, and their correspondence on the Reliques and on Ossian is of much more value and importance for our purposes than (jrainger's blank verse.

The poems above mentioned are the chief essays in blank verse that appeared in England between 1700 and 1765. There were, of course, shorter poems of importance, such as Joseph Warton's Enthusiast, written in 1740. The Heroic Couplet was not abandoned during this period, but the more knowing ones let it alone, and many of the lesser lights took to blank verse because it was the fashion. Mr. Perry says, " Doubtless blank verse was a reaction against the couplet. It was the first sign of a protest against that rigid form, just as in Milton's hands it was the last measure in which a poet of heroic proportions spoke to the world. Yet the instrument he commanded the puny bardlings of the last century could not handle ; his dignity was mimicked by a feeble rumble. . . . Yet they felt the charm of his verse ; that was something, and

1 See .'\ppendix. - Essay on Pope, \'ol. 1., page 147.

42 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

they maintained their side with obstinacy in the face of violent opposition." '

The Octosyllabic Couplet had not been entirely neglected in the Augustan age, although, of course, it was nothing like so common as the prevailing decasyllabic measure. I have spoken of Parnell's skillful manipulation of it ; ^ Dyer used it gracefully and won a wide reputation, which he still holds among students. William Hamilton of Bangour did excellent work with the measure ; and the whole Miltonic school, their heads full of L' Allegro and // J\'>iscroso, scribbled octosyllabics all through the middle of tlie century.

We have seen that the reaction in form most naturally took the shape of blank verse for long poems ; so that the sympathizers with the Romantic movement, consciously or unconsciously, found themselves defending blank verse, while the Classicists attacked it vigorously. Dr. Johnson's opinions on the subject are well known ; it is, however, worth noticing here that in the year 1759 two of the most celebrated poets of the century came out positively on opposite sides — Goldsmith and Young. There was, so far as I know, no intentional opposition between them, but it is an interesting fact that opinions so exactly contrary should have appeared at the same time, and from the pens of so eminent men. Goldsmith's Inquiry into the Present State of J\iHte Learni)ig was published in April, 1759. In its pessimistic note, and contempt for the revival of old English authors, it is in even more striking contrast with Young's buoyant essay. Chapter XI. of Gold- smith's wail is particularly interesting — On the Marks of Literary Decay in France and England. The present state of literature with the fondness for blank verse, he emphatically condemns. " From this proceeds the affected security of our odes, the tuneless flow of our blank verse, the pompous epithet," etc.^

1 Eightcc7ith Cc7itnry Litrrntiirc, page 3S4.

2 See page 27.

3 Goldsmith was, of course, largely influenced by Dr. Johnson.

THE REACTION IN FORM. 43

Young's Conjectures on Original Composition took the form of an open letter to the "author of Sir Charles Grandison. Young was 77 years old when he wrote this essay, which makes all the more remarkable its breadth of thought and sprightliness of treatment.^ Young's main purpose in writing the essay was to stir up the age to original composition, and its buoyant optimism is in striking contrast to Goldsmith's dismal utterances ; but in the course of his remarks Young also took occasion to discuss the relative merits of bhink verse and rime. He pronounces his opinion in the most emphatic style. Speaking of Pope's translation of Homer, he says, " Had Milton never wrote, Pope would have been less to blame ; but when in Milton's genius, Homer, as it were, personally rose to forbid P>ritons doing him that ignoble wrong, it is less pardonable, by tliat effeminate decoration, to put Achilles in petticoats a second time. How much nobler had it been, if his numbers had rolled on in full flow, thro' the various modulations of masculine melod}^ into those grandeurs of solemn sound which are indispensably demanded by the native dignity of heroic song ! How much nobler if he had resisted the temptations of that Gothic demon ^ which modern poesy, tasting, became mortal ! . . . Harmony, as well as eloquence, is essential to poesy; atul a murder of his music is putting half Homer to death. 'Plank' is a term of dimi- nution ; what we mean by ' blank verse ' is verse, unfallen, uncursed ; verse reclaimed, re-inthroned in the true language of the gods ; who never thundered, nor suffered their Homer to thunder, in rhyme." ^ Again, speaking of Dryden, he says, "The strongest demonstration of his no-taste for the buskin are {sic) his tragedies fringed with rhyme ; which, in epic poetry is a sore disease, in the tragic absolute death. To

1 It is rather singular tliat tiiis significant piece of eigiitccntli century prose sluuild be at present so neglected. It is in Vol. II., of \'oung's Complete Works, London. 1S54. The page references that follow are to this edition.

- Rime.

•' Conjectures, page 565.

44 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Dryden's enormity, Pope's was a slight offence. ... ' Must rhyme,' then say you, ' be banished . ' I wish the nature of our language could bear its entire expulsion ; but our lesser poetry stands in need of a toleration for it ; it raises that, but sinks the great ; as spangles adorn children, but expose men." '

Young's preference for blank verse was certainly distinctly marked, and the essay is especially suggestive coming at this time, as it shows how the Romantic movement was having its effect on the poet's mind. He would not have written like that in the first quarter of the century, when he was polishing off couplets along with the Augustans.

No discussion of the Reaction in Form would be complete without noticing the disappearance of the Sonnet, and its subsequent revival. The sonnet is as naturally a form for Romantic poetry, as the couplet was for Classic. Imagine the Essay on Man put into a sonnet sequence, like Rossetti's House of Life! Whatever the sonnet may be best fitted for, it is certainly wholly unfit for wit, satire, and didactic verse. It is, therefore, not at all surprising that the sonnet should have been almost completely neglected by the Augustans. It is fair to say that it practically disappeared. The only sonnet written in English between the performances of Milton, and Gray's sporadic attempt in 1742, that has survived, is a sonnet on Death, written, curiously enough, by Pope's mentor, William Walsh. The form of this sonnet is extremely irregular ; - it has, however, some excellent lines, though the sentiment is Augustan. With the exception of this lonely sonnet, none of the Classicists, so far as we know, tried their hand at this form of verse. They would undoubtedly have ridiculed it. In 1742, Ciray wrote a fine sonnet on the death of his brilliant

1 Conjectures^ page 574.

2 The riming scheme is ab, al>, be, be, dil, ee, ce. This sonnet was written before 1708, for Walsh died in that year. Mr. Gosse erroneously says (Ward's English Poets, III., 7) that it is the only sonnet written in English between Milton's and Warton's!

THE REACTION I A' FORM. 45

friend, Richard West, but it was not pulDlished till after Gray's death. This is also irregular in forni,^ and has a few classi- cisms, which brought down a most unwarrantably sev'ere judgment from Wordsworth.

About the middle of the century the sonnet was revived by Thomas Edwards, Benjamin Stillingdeet, Thomas Warton, and William Mason. No one of these men can claim the sole credit of its revival ; - but Edwards deserves praise for his persistence in sonnet composition, and Warton by his greater inrtuence helped to make the sonnet fashionable.

The sonnets of Benjamin Stillingfleet (1702-177 1) were great neither in number nor in excellence, but some of them were certainly written before 1750, which gives their author a place among the pioneers. Mason said that he himself wrote a sonnet in 174S, and it is so dated in his works; but Mason was so loose in his statements that he cannot always be relied upon. However, he wrote a number of sonnets before 1750. Thomas Warton wrote nine sonnets, all on the Milton ic model. Some of these were written about the year 1750.

One of the most interesting, although almost entirely neglected men among the sonnet revivers, was Thomas Edwards (1699-1757). Edwards was famous in his own day for a bitter controversy with Warburton, over the latter's edition of Shakspere. In 1747, when that w^ork appeared, Edwards came out with a Supplement. It was a merciless exposure of Warburton's editorial methods. Many of the literary men of the day became interested in the fight ; Akenside warmly supported Edwards, and wrote a poem on

1 Rimes al>, al>, a/>, n/>, cd, cd, cd.

2 Mr. Ward says {fiiii^l'ish Poets, III., 3S3) that Warton revived tlie sonnet, but tliis statement taken by itself is not strictly true.

3 The influence of Milton was doubtless one of the chief causes of the sonnet revival. His minor poetry was extremely popular about 1750.

■* \ Supplement to Mr. Warburton's Edition of Shakespear. Being the Canons of Criticism, and Glossary. By another Gentleman of Lincoln's Inn. London, 1748. After the 3d edition, the book was called The Canons of Criticism.

46 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

the subject.' In the third edition of The Canons of Criticism (1750), Edwards printed two sonnets by himself. In the fifth edition (1753) five sonnets appeared; and along with the seventh edition (1765), besides the five sonnets previously mentioned, lidwards's editor published forty-five other sonnets, some of which Edwards had printed in Dodsley's Miscellanies. Edwards was thus the author of just fifty sonnets. These are chiefly addressed to his private friends, and are not par- ticularly remarkable for their literary merit. What is remark- able is the fact that Edwards persistently wrote in this form at a time when it was so unfashionable. Forty-six of these sonnets are on the Miltonic model, and the other four are after the Spenserian pattern — a curious fact, as the Spenserian sonnet has never been at all popular. Edwards's masters were Spenser and Milton ; in one of his sonnets he calls Spenser "the sweetest bard that ever sung"; and there are many complimentary allusions to Spenser, Shakspere, and Milton. All of Edwards's poetical works that I have been able to find, consist of these fifty sonnets, and one epistolary ode. The sonnet was evidently his favorite mode of expression, and the early date at which he wrote them ought to give him a much more prominent place among the sonnet revivers than he has thus far obtained.^

Not long after 1760, when Romanticism was a living force, the sonnet became exceedingly popular ; so that the century closed with the sonnet as exalted as it had been despised among the Augustans. The disappearance and revival of this verse- form were certainly outward indications of the reaction against the couplet, and the general growth of the Romantic movement.

I have in this chapter sketched in a necessarily cursory fashion, the Reaction in Form as expressed in blank verse, octosyllabics, and the sonnet ; the Spenserian revival is so important as to deserve a much more thorough treatment in a separate chapter.

1 Akenside's ft/t'j, Book II., Ode X. This poem appeared in 1751,011 Warburton's Edition of Pope.

2 I have since seen two sonnets of Edwards, one dated 1746, the other 1747.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL.

French Romanticism in its early stages was wonderfully fortunate in having the aid of an original genius — Victor Hugo. He had enough creative power in his own intellect and imagination to supply the Romantic movement with all the material it needed. But in the beginnings of English Roman- ticism there was no supreme, dominating figure. Instead of striking out into wholly new paths, the men who led the move- ment naturally looked back to the past to find the inspiration the lack of which was so plainly evident in the present. Among the old English poets, it was Spenser who supplied them with just what they sought. Spenser was the poet of Romanticism as Pope was of Classicism. They stand exactly in opposition ; the latter all intellect, didactic and satirical ; the poet of town life and of fashionable society ; the former all imagination and exaggeration ; the poet of dreamland, of woods and streams, of fairy and supernatural life. Along with the sharp contrast in substance, there is also the pro- nounced difference in style. Nothing could be more unlike the regular strokes of the couplet than the lazily fiowing melody of the Spenserian stanza.

Spenser thus played a most important part in the new movement — a part much greater than that of Shakspere and Milton — although both these poets were extreme favorites with the Romanticists. Spenser had not been wholly neglected in the Augustan age, as will presently be shown ; but he was known only to the scholars and anticiuarians, and not to the mass of literary men. As soon as he was really brought before the public, writers and readers turned to his pages

48 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

with avidity — eager for that sohice and refreshment which the dry bones of Classicism could no longer afford.

But there is one exceedingly important fact to notice in the multitude of Spenserian imitations — very few men took hhn seriously. They read him for amusement, and they practised his versification for amusement ; this fact explains why so many satires and so much half-comic poetry were written in the Spenserian form. The spirit of the Augustan age lingered long after the zenith of its glory had been passed and affected nearly if not quite all of the Spenser imitators. Thomson — whose Castle of Indolence was immeas- urably above all the other attempts in this stanza — thought it necessary to include plenty of mild satire in his poem ; and Shenstone, when he first wrote The Schoolmistress, never dreamed of taking Spenser seriously, and was especially anxious that the public should not take his jest for earnest. The bulk of the Spenserian imitations were used for satire, parodies and "occasional" poetry.

But though this fact should never be forgotten by the literary student, it should also be remembered that the real influence of Spenser during these years was strong and healthy. Many people read him and loved him, who did not dare to confess themselves before men ; and many who began by taking Spenser as a joke, were led to the serious study and appre- ciation of his poetry. To these he was the golden gate to the realms of romance ; the splendors of chivalry, the military glory of the days of "ladies dead and lovely knights" — all this was rescued from oblivious contempt and made once more real. Thus the influence of Spenser, which after inspiring Milton, had lain dormant through the Classical period, again asserted itself as a powerful quickening force. By the middle of the century, it was so much the fashion to write in the stanza and to use old English words, that many insignificant poetasters dipped into the Fairy Qieeen just deep enough to get the swing of the stanza and a small vocabulary of obsolete words.

THE SPENSER I AX REl'IVAL. 49

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, two famous literary men expressed their opinions of Spenser in an interest- ing manner. Sir William Temple, in his Essay Of J'oef/y, said, "Spencer endeavoured to make Instruction instead of Story, the Subject of an Epick Poem. His Execution was excellent, and his Flights of Fancy very noble and high, but his Design was poor, and his Moral lay so bare, that it lost the Effect ; 'tis true, the Pill was gilded, but so thin, that the Colour and the Taste were too easily discovered." ^

Addison seems to have had this passage of Temple's in mind, when he wrote his lines on Spenser, in the famous Account of the Greatest E/iglish l\>ets (1694): —

"Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetic rage, In ancient tales amus'd a barbarous age ; An age that yet uncultivate and rude, Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursued Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods, To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods. But now the mystic tale, that pleas'd of yore, Can charm an understanding age no more ; The long-spun allegories fulsome grow, While the dull moral lies too plain below."

Compare the last line cpioted with Temple's statement that Spenser's "moral lay so bare, that it lost the effect."

It is rather singular that the Spenserian imitations in the eighteenth century should have been started by an Augustan of the Augustans — the poet Matthew Prior (1664-172 i). In 1706 appeared his An Ode, Humbly Inscribed to the Queen, on the Glorious Success of Her Alajestf s Arfns. Written in Imita- tion of Spenser's Style. His imitation was by no means a perfect one ; it was in a ten-lined stanza, riming ab, ab, cd, cd, ee. It is, however, an extremely important poem, being the prototype of a great many of the Spenserian imitations that followed. Indeed, it is probable that some of the poetasters learned

1 Miscellanea, Part II., Of Poetry.

50 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

all their Spenser through Prior. He seems to have been the originator of this pseudo-Spenserian stanza.' Curiously enough, his two masters in this Ode were the extreme leaders and models of the Classic and Romantic schools — Horace and Spenser. It sounds paradoxical to say that a poem can be written after the model of Horace and Spenser, but that is just what Prior attempted to do. In his interesting preface, he says, " As to the style, the choice I made of following the ode in Latin, determined me in English to the stanza; and herein it was impossible not to have a mind to follow our great countryman Spenser ; which I have done (as well, at least, as I could) in the manner of my expression, and the turn of my number ; having only added one verse to his stanza, which I thought made the number more harmonious ; and avoided such of his words as I found too obsolete. I have, however, retained some few of them, to make the colouring look more like Spenser's." He then goes on to enumerate such words as "I weet," "I ween," etc. "My two great examples, Horace and Spenser, in many things resemble each other ; both have a height of imagination, and a majesty of expression in describ- ing the sublime ; and both know to temper those talents, and sweeten the description, so as to make it lovely as well as pompous ; both have equally that agreeable manner of mixing morality with their story, and that cnriosa fclicitas in the choice of their diction, which every writer aims at and so few have reached ; both are particularly fine in their images, and know- ing in their numbers."

I have quoted this preface somewhat at length, because it is so admirable an example of Queen Anne literary criticism ; and exhibits just that confusion of ideals so often shown by the Augustans. His comparison of Horace and Spenser was accepted in gravity and good faith. His saying that by adding

1 Donne and Phineas Fletcher h:id wriUen ten-lined stanzas, ending with an Alexandrine, but not with this riming scheme. See Schipper's Enghschc Mctrik, 111., page 775.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIl AL. 51

a verse to Spenser's stanza he had made " the number more harmonious," sounds to us, and must have seemed to the Wartons, like unspeakable audacity; but Prior did not think so, and he displeased contemporary critics no more in this than when he put a fine old English ballad into the Heroic Couplet.

It is hardly necessary to add that Prior's ode is utterly destitute of Spenser's spirit. It is simply the familiar couplet with the riming scheme changed, and is if anything still more monotonous. It shows what the Augustan ideal of "harmony" in versification was. One stanza will sufiice : —

"When bright Eliza rul'd Britannia's state. Widely distributing her high commands, And boldly wise, and fortunately great, Freed the glad nations from tyrannic bands ; An equal genius was in Spenser found ; To the high theme he match'd his noble lays ; He travell'd England o'er on fairy ground, In mystic notes to sing his monarch's praise ; Reciting wondrous truths in pleasing dreams. He deck'd Eliza's head with Gloriana's beams."

Dr. Johnson's remarks on this imitation are well worth quoting: "His poem is necessarily tedious by the form of the stanza ; an uniform mass of ten lines thirty-five times repeated, inconsequential and slightly connected, must weary both the ear and the understanding. His imitation of Spenser, which consists principally in I wccn and I wcet, without exclu- sion of later modes of speech, makes his poem neither ancient nor modern." Johnson compared a stanza of Spenser's with one of Prior's to show "with how little resemblance he has formed his new stanza to that of his master. ... By this new structure of his lines he has avoided difficulties; nor am I sure that he has lost any of the power of pleasing ; but he no longer imitates Spenser." '

1 Life of Prior.

52 yy/A KA'GLISJI JWJIAA'l'JC MOVEMENT.

Somewhere between 17 13 and 1721 another Spenserian imitation appeared, which I am ahnost certain was written by Prior. The poem was called Coliii s Mistakes. In Iniitation of Spenser s Style. It is in the ten-lined stanza, with the same riming scheme as Prior's Ode to the Queen in 1706. Colin sees a maiden, whom he first supposes to be Pallas, then Juno, then Venus, but Clio finally informs him that it is Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles-Harley. The thought is, of course, typically Augustan; but the allusions to Spenser are interesting. In the first stanza occur the words, —

"And much he lov'd and much by heart he said What Father Spenser sung in IJritish verse. Who reads that bard desires like him to write. Still fearful of success, still tempted with delight."

Other interesting references might be quoted. The exact date of this poem I have been unable to ascertain.'

Some interest in Spenser on the Pastoral side was aroused by Ambrose Philips (1671-1749), who was mainly inspired by Spenser in writing his Pastorals (1709). Dr. Johnson said in his Life of riiilips that while Pope took Vergil for his pattern. Philips took Spenser.

Pope was not altogether lacking in ap])reciation of Spenser. In 1 7 15 he wrote to Hughes, the editor of Spenser's works,

1 Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holies married Edward Harley, the son of the Earl of Oxford, October 31, 1713. The poem must, therefore, have been written after that event, and at some time previous to 1721, the year of Prior's death. The poem is printed in Nichols's Select Collection of Poems, Vol. 7. Nichols adds a note, in which he states his belief that the poem was written not by Prior, but by Samuel Croxall. But it is extremely unlikely that Croxall should have written verses in praise of the daughterin-law of the man whose administration he publicly satirized; and further- more there are several strong reasons for Prior's authorship. Prior was a great friend of Edward Harley, spent many days at his house, and died there in 1721 ; in 1719 Prior wrote some Verses addressed to Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles-Harley, the heroine of the poem here discussed ; and lastly, Coliii's MistaJies is in exactly the same measure as Prior's Ode in 1706, a measure which Croxall to my knowledge never handled. These reasons seem to me to be very strong evidence for Prior's authorship.

THE SPENSERIAX REVIVAL. 53

" Spenser has been ever a favorite poet to me ; he is like a mistress, whose faults we see, but love her with them all." ' ?kit his exceedingly coarse burlesque of the old poet shows that if his appreciation was sincere, he did not dare to avow it publicly. When The Alley was written seems difficult to ascertain. We know from Spence's Anecdotes that Gay had some slight share in its composition." The poem stands among Pope's imitations of Chaucer, Waller, Cowley, and others, and we are told that they were "done by the Author in his Youth." Joseph Warton said that some of these imitations were written at fourteen or fifteen years of age.'^ In composing llic Alley Pope was, of course, not prompted by his love for Spenser ; it was simply an exercise in versification. The piece contains six stanzas, and is written in the regular stanza of the Fairy Queen.

Public attention was called to Spenser by Steele, in the Spectator iox November 19, 1712.'* Steele begins by remarking on the recent Miltonic criticisms, and then adds: "It is an honourable and candid endeavour to set the works of our noble writers in the graceful light which they deserve. You will lose much of my kind inclination towards you if you do not attempt the encomium of Spenser also, or at least indulge my passion for that charming author so far as to print the loose hints I now give you on the subject." He proceeds then to describe the general plan of Spenser's poem, and says: "His style is very poetical; no puns, affectations of wit, forced antitheses, or any of that low tribe. ^ . . . His old words are all true English." He then quotes several stanzas. How far Steele was prompted to all this by real

1 Works, Vol. X., i^age 120.

- '"The Alley' in imitation of Spenser, was written by Mr. Pope, with a line or two of Mr. Gay's in it." — Anecdotes. Page 167 of Underhill's Selection.

3 Essay on Pope, \'ol. II., page 29. London, 17<S2. • 4 No. 5.)o.

5 This sounds like a hit at contemporary poetry; but of course he really means the " Metaphysicals" of the seventeenth century.

54 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

love of Spenser, or by the necessity of writing his sheet, is hard to say; his remarks at any rate do not seem to have caused much discussion.

In 1 7 13 appeared An Original Canto of Spencer, design d as part of his Fairy Queen, but never printed, now made publick by Nestor Ironside. This was written by Rev. Dr. Samuel Croxall, previously alluded to.' The Preface contains a fictitious account of the supposed unpublished piece of verse ; the poem is in truth a satire against the Earl of Oxford's (Harley's) administration. The next year (17 14) Croxall brought out Another Original Canto, under the same assumed name.^ Croxall afterwards acknowledged the authorship of these cantos, for his Vision (17 15) mentions them on the title-page. It is interesting to notice that he employed the Spenserian stanza for the purpose of political satire. In 17 14 Croxall also published an Ode to (ieorge I. on his arrival in England, "written in the stanza and measure of Spenser."

In 1715 appeared the first eighteenth century edition of Spenser's works, edited by John Hughes (1677-1720). He prefixed an essay on allegorical poetry and also some Remarks on the Faerie Queene.^ Hughes, of course, assumes the apolo- getic attitude. " That which seems the most liable to excep- tion in this work is the model of it, and the choice the author has made of so romantick a story. . . . The whole frame of it (The Fairy Queen) would appear monstrous, if it were to be examined by the rules of epick poetry, as they have been drawn from the practice of Homer and Virgil ; but as it is plain the Author never designed it by those rules, I think it ought rather to be considered as a poem of a particular kind, describing, in a series of allegorical adventures or episodes, the most noted virtues and vices. To compare it, therefore, with the models of antiquity, would be like drawing a parallel

1 See Chapter II.

2 Two copies of the 1713 Canto (2d and 3d ed.) are in the Yale Library. They are very rare.

8 My quotations from this are from the reprint in Todd's edition of Spenser.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 55

between the Roman and the Gothick architecture. ... It ought to be considered, too, at the time when our author wrote, the remains of the old Gothick chivalry were not quite abolished ; it was not many years before that the famous Earl of Surry, remarkable for his wit and poetry in the reign of King Henry VIII., took a romantick journey to Florence, the place of his mistress's birth, and published there a challenge against all nations in defence of her beauty." ^ All this apology for Spenser's Romanticism — and that is just what he calls it — is interesting and significant. Not less so are his remarks on Spenser's versification. "As to the stanza in which the Faerie Quccnc is written, though the author cannot be com- mended in the choice of it, yet it is much more harmonious in its kind than the heroick verse of that age. . . . The defect of it in long or narrative poems is apparent ; the same measure, closed always by a full stop, in the same place, by which every stanza is made as it were a distinct paragraph, grows tiresome by continual repetition, and frequently breaks the sense, when it ought to be carried on without interruption. With this exception the reader will, however, find it harmonious, full of well-sounding epithets, and of such elegant turns on the thought and words, that Dryden himself owned he learned these graces of verse chiefly from our author, and does not scruple to say, that 'in this particular, only Virgil surpassed him among the Romans, and only Mr. Waller among the English.' "'-^

In these remarks, Hughes impresses me as feeling a great deal more than he dared to express ; he understood the temper of the age, and knew what he was about when he used Dryden and Waller to advertise his poet. I'ut the fact that he approv- ingly quoted Dryden's utterance shows once more how strange was the Classicist's notion of harmony. The ears that never

1 Pages 20-23. Tliis expedition of Surrey's is now known to te mythical ; probably based on a novel by Nash, and given currency by one of Drayton's epistles. ■■2 Page 40.

56 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

grew weary of the eternal couplet, objected to the Spenserian stanza because it was monotonous ! It was many years before their notion lost its force. It took a whole century more to bring out Leigh Hunt's frank statement: "I do not hesitate to say that Pope and the French school of versification have known the least on the subject, of any poets perhaps that ever wrote. They have mistaken mere smoothness for harmony." '

Hughes's edition of Spenser did not accomplish much toward making the poet popular; it was 1750 — thirty-five years later — before an edition of Spenser again appeared in England."

The next Spenserian imitation to be considered was written by William Whitehead (17 15-1785), afterwards poet-laureate — one of the dullest of all the dull poets of the eighteenth century. He wrote the Visioji of Sohuno/i when at school, probably about the year 1730. It is a short poem, written in the ten-line stanza, on Prior's model. It is not at all remarkable for poetic merit. Whitehead also wrote two odes to his friend Charles Townsend, written in a six-lined stanza.^ These were probably done at a comparatively early age.

With the exception of Whitehead's little school exercise- — and the date of that is uncertain — I have not succeeded in finding any imitation of Spenser published between Croxall's performances in 17 14 and the marriage odes on Prince Fred- erick in 1736. The first attempts in Spenserianism do not seem, therefore, to have awakened much attention, or to have called out many imitators; after 1736, however, when the people were a little more inclined toward Romanticism, a flood of Spenserian imitations appeared.

1 Preface to the Slory of Rimini, page [3.

2 It may be worth mentioning in passing that in 1734 the learned Dr. Jortin published Remarks on Spensers Poems. They are of no special significance, and are devoid of interest from the literary point of view.

3 To the- Honourable Charles Townsend and To the Same — On the Death of a Relation. The riming scheme is ab, ab, cc, the last an Alexandrine This measure was sometimes used by the Spenserians.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 57

William Thompson is a poet almost completely forgotten to-day, but he was one of the best of the Spenserians. Little is known of his life ; the dates of his birth and death are uncertain ; but he was born in the early part of the century, and died before 1767. He was a careful and enthusiastic student of the old English poets. From early youth he admired Spenser and imitated him in three poems. Although Thompson was really filled with the Romantic spirit, it is worthy of note that he was also extravagantly fond of Pope — another instance of the unconsciousness of English Roman- ticism.

Besides Thompson's Spenserian imitations, he wrote a number of graceful songs, and his Ode Briivialis shows him to have been an intense lover of Shakspere. He might also have been classed among the blank-verse school, for he wrote a long poem in that measure, with the not particularly attractive title of Sickness.

In May, 1736, Thompson produced his Epithalamiiim on the Royal Niipiials. This is in the regular stanza of the Fairy Queen and has something of the master's spirit in its sweetness and melody. One stanza will suffice to show the nature of the poem : —

" Her Thaniis (on his golden urn he lean'd) Saluted with this hymeneal song, And hail'd her safe. Full silent was the wind, The river glided gently soft along, Ne whispered the breeze the leaves among, Ne love-learn'd Philomel out-trill'd her lay ; A stilness on the waves attentive hung, A brighter gladness blest the face of day, All nature 'gan to smile, her smiles diffus'd the May."

In the same year (1736) Thompson also wrote The Ahitivity, which he modestly called ./ Colh^e E.xe/rise. This is also in the regular Spenserian stanza, and has some beautiful passages. Two stanzas are worth quoting : —

58 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

" Eftsoons he spy'd a grove, the Season's pride, All in the centre of a pleasant glade, Where nature flourish'd like a virgin-bride ; Mantled with green, with hyacinths inlay'd. And crystal-rills o'er beds of lilies stray'd ; The blue-ey'd violet and king-cup gay, And new-blown roses, smiling sweetly red, Outglow'd the blushing infancy of Day, While amorous west-winds kist their fragrant souls away.

But hark, the jolly pipe, and rural lay ! And see, the shepherd, clad in mantle blue. And shepherdess in russet kirtle gay. Come dancing on the shepherd-lord to view. And pay, in decent-wise, obeysance due. Sweet-smelling flow'rs the gentle votaries bring. Primroses, violets, wet with morning-dew. The sweetest incense of the early spring ; A humble, yet, I weet, a grateful offering."

Such verses as these have evidently nothing in common with the Augustan spirit. They belong to Romanticism in substance as well as in form. They display not only a study of old English poetry, but a real, unaffected love of nature.

In 1757 Thompson published a volume of poems. It contained the two shorter pieces already discussed, and also his Hymfi to May. It is uncertain when this was written — probably after 1750. His Preface to this Hynui is suggestive. He says : "As Spenser is the most descriptive and florid of all our English writers, 1 attempted to imitate his manner in the following vernal poem. I have been very sparing of the antiquated words, which are too frequent in most of the imitations of this author ; however, I have introduced a few here and there, which are explained at the bottom of each

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 59

page where they occur.^ Shakespeare is the poet of Nature, in adapting the affections and passions to his characters ; and Spenser in describing her dehghtful scenes and rural beauties. His Hnes are most musically sweet ; and his descriptions most delicately abundant, even to a wantonness of painting; but still it is the music and painting of Nature. We find no ambitious ornaments, or epigrammatical turns, in his writings, but a beautiful simplicity ; which pleases far above the glitter of pointed wit. ... A modern writer, has, I know, objected against running the verse into alternate and stanza ; but Mr. Prior's authority is sufficient for me, who observes that it allows a greater variety, and still preserves the dignity of the verse. As I professed myself in this canto to take Spenser for my model, I chose the stanza ; which I think adds both a sweetness and solemnity at the same time to subjects of this rural and flowery nature. 'i'he most descriptive of our old poets have always used it. . . . I followed Fletcher's measure in his "Purple Island." . . . The Alexandrine line, I think, is peculiarly graceful at the end, and is an improve- ment on Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. ... I hope I have no apology to make for describing the beauties, the pleasures, and the loves of the season in too tender or too florid a manner. The nature of the subject required a luxuriousness of versifica- tion, and a softness of sentiment."

This extremely interesting preface has several points worth attention. It shows that Thompson was in spirit a thorough- going Romanticist, but that he was compelled to assume the defensive attitude, and even to fortify his position with the Classic name of Prior. He is evidently speaking to an audience whose good-will he has yet to win ; and the nature of his defense suggests that he had some particular critic in mind, especially as he once speaks of a "modern writer."

1 Some of the eighteenth century glossaries are significant as showing the general ignorance of old Knglisii; they often explained words that are to-day perfectly familiar.

60 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOl^EMENT

This modern writer I believe to be Dr. Johnson, who attacked Spenserianism in the Kamblo- in May, 1751.' Thompson comes out for Romanticism in three ways : (i) As a lover of old English poetry; (2) as a believer in " luxuriousness " of versification, which the couplet could not afford ; (3) as a sincere lover of nature. A quotation from the Hymn to May will show all this clearly enough : —

" Her hair (but rather threads of light it seems) With tlie gay lienors of the Spring entwin'd, Copious, unbound, in nectar'd ringlets streams. Floats glittering on the sun and scents the wind Lovesick with odors ! — now to order roll'd, It melts upon her bosom's dainty mold. Or, curling round her waist, disparts its wavy gold.

" Young circling roses, blushing, round them throw The sweet abundance of their purple rays, And lilies, dip'd in fragrance, freshly blow. With blended beauties, in her angel-face ; The humid radiance beaming from her eyes The air and seas illumes, the earth and skies. And open, when she smiles, the sweets of I^aradise."^

Another stanza is an apostrophe to beauty : —

"Where lives the man (if such a man there be) In idle wilderness or desert drear. To beauty's sacred power an enemy ? Let foul fiends harrow him ; I'll drop no tear. I deem that carl, by Beauty's power unmov'd. Hated of Heaven, of none but Hell approv'd ; O may he never love ! O never be belov'd !"^

There is an additional fact to be noted about Thompson's Spenserian imitations. He wrote in the stanza of the Fairy

1 No. 121. Tliis would place the date of Thompson's poem after 1751.

2 Stanzas X. and XI.

3 .Stanza LIV.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 61

Queen not for idle amusement, or to exercise his poetic ingenuity, but because his mind was richly stored with the treasures of old English poetry. He was one of the few ardent admirers of Spenser. He was so unlike the majority of his contempo- raries, that even Chalmers thinks it necessary to say that Thompson's style had unfortunately not been sufficiently "chastened into simplicity by the example and encourage- ment of the moderns."

In the year 1736 appeared another poem on the marriage of Prince Frederick ; this was also by a university man, Richard Owen Cambridge (17 17-1802). It was published among a number of Oxford congratulatory verses on the same subject, which calls our attention for a moment to the influences of the universities on the Spenserian movement. Many of the early imitations came from Cambridge and Oxford men, some of them hardly out of their teens, an evidence that the youngsters with literary ambitions were turning for inspiration to the wells of old English poetry. This little ode by Cambridge is in the ten-lined stanza ; although imitative of Spenser, it is not avowedly so. It contains nothing worthy of special remark; it is no better and no worse than average occasional poetry.

Some years later, however, Cambridge published a much closer imitation of the ancient poet. This is his Arehimagc (1742-1750).^ The title is, of course, borrowed from Spenser's famous magician. The poem is in the regular Spenserian stanza, and is mildly humorous and satirical ; it describes how the author (Archimage), with four of his boat's crew, took a lady for' a ride on the river. It is a rather pretty bit of trifling, and the allegory is well sustained ; the large number of obsolete words is noticeable. Cambridge lived in the country and cultivated his quiet tastes for letters and landscape gardening ; he had also a wide circle of literary friends. In 1751 he removed to Twickenham — and there issued his most pretentious effort in poetry, the Scriblcriad, a

1 I have not been able to discover precisely the year.

62 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

mock-heroic poem in six books, written in the couplet. It

received on its first appearance scarcely any recognition, and

has even less to-day. Although Cambridge lived after the

close of the century, he does not seem to have been especially

affected by the Romantic movement. In his Spenserian

imitations, he simply followed a literary fashion ; but it should

not be forgotten that the writings of more or less insignificant

authors show the course of a literary movement better than

the productions of great men. In the latter there is always

originality ; in the former we find copying of popular models.

This shows the necessity as well as the justification of raking

over so many of the dust-heaps of the past.

In the Gentleman s Magazine for April, 1737, appeared this

little note : —

Newcastlh:-upon-Tvne, April 23.

" I hope, Sir, you'll excuse the following poem (being the perform- ance of one in his sixteenth year) and insert it in your next magazine,

which will oblige ,. ^ ,

• \ ours, etc., , , ,,

Marcus.

Following the note was published the poem, called The Vir- tuoso ; in Imitation of Spencer's Style and Stanza. The author was a poet who soon afterward became famous, Mark Aken- side (i 721-1770). The Virtuoso is in the regular Spenserian stanza, and is full of attempts at old English. It is a mild satire, resembling Spenser only in form. It was Akenside's first and last essay in the regular stanza of the Fairy Queen; but he seemed in later years to admire Spenser, and wrote three odes in a ten-lined pseudo-Spenserian stanza.'

In 1739 appeared On the Abuse of Travelling ; A Canto, In Imitation of Spenser."^ This was by Gilbert West (1700-05 — 1756). Very little is known of West's life. He was a learned

1 Book I., Ode IX., To Curio, 1744. Rook II., Ode XIII., To the Author of Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, 1751. Book II., Ode XI., To the Country Gentlemen of England, 1758. All these have the rather curious riming scheme, ab, ab, cc, de, ed, the last being an Alexandrine.

2 This poem is in Dodsley's Collection (1765), Vol. II., page 98.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 63

man, and published a number of translations of Pindar's odes. The poem before us is a gentle satire on the effects of travel- ling abroad, and the temptations encountered. It is in the allegorical style. Archimago attempts to entice the Red Cross Knight from the love of fairy-land by showing him all manner of voluptuous temptations. The poem has more Romantic atmosphere than West's later work. One stanza will suffice to show its quality (XXII.) : —

" And now they do accord in wanton daunce To join their hands upon the flow'ry plain ; The whiles with amorous leer and eyes askaunce Each damsel fires with love her glowing swain ; 'Till all impatient of the tickling pain, In sudden laughter forth at once they break, And ending so their daunce, each tender twain To shady bow'rs forthwith themselves betake. Deep hid in myrtle groves, beside a silver lake."

The last stanza of the poem closes as follows : —

" So to his former wiles he turns him soon. As in another place hereafter shall be shown."

But West never fulfilled this promise.

The most interesting thing about this imitation is the glossary. He explains words that are to-day perfectly clear, thus showing the limitations of the vocabulary in his time. Such words as sooth, guise, hardiment. Elfin, prowess, wend, hight, dight, para- mours, behests, caitiffs, etc., West translates in footnotes. The prevailing ignorance of Spenser is also shown by his careful explanations of "Una" and " Paynim."

Gray was much pleased with this poem. He wrote from Florence to his friend, Richard West, July i6, 1740: "Mr. Walpole and I have frequently wondered you should never mention a certain imitation of Spenser, published last year by a namesake of yours, with which we are all enraptured and enmarvailed."

64 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

In I 75 I appeared Gilbert West's second imitation — Educa- tion. A Poem ; ill Two Cantos. Written in Imitation of the Style and Manner of Spenser s Fairy Queen. ^ lliis is much duller than the Abuse of Travelling. It narrates the struggles of the Knight with Custom and the final victory of the former. Its main interest lies in West's attack on the artificial method of gardening (Stanzas XVII.-XXIV.).

Dr. Johnson, in his Life of West, took occasion once more to attack the Spenserian school. He himself failed altogether to appreciate the movement, but some of his criticisms are perfectly sound, judged by the standard of the poetry which the Spenserians produced. Dr. Johnson saw in this style of poetry only the versifying of the curious ; he said the "effect was local and temporary"; they "presuppose an accidental or artificial state of mind"; they are "proofs of great industry, and great nicety of observation, but the highest praise, the praise of genius, they cannot claim." He also said they were "only pretty, the plaything of fashion, and the amusement of a day." Much of this is strictly true ; but in these playthings the Doctor failed to perceive any significance.

In 1739 also appeared A New Canto of Spenser's Fairy Queen, in folio. Perhaps this was inspired by Croxall's work in

1713-14-^

A curious and interesting figure in the group was Samuel Boyse (17 08-1 749). Boyse's life is far more interesting than his poetry. He was born in Dublin, and married at the age of twenty. In 1731 he published in Edinburgh Translations and Poems. He had many brilliant opportunities for advancement, all of which he wasted by almost inexplicable recklessness. Debts at length drove him from Edinburgh. He often had to beg for the smallest coins, and wrote verses in bed to obtain money for clothes and food. Although a dissolute vagabond, it is interesting to notice that he published in 1739 a long

1 Only one Canto was really published.

2 I liave not been able to find any copy of this Folio nor the name of its author.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 65

poem in the couplet called The DcHy. Here he was following in the wake of the Essay on Man. Moralizing, didactic poetry had then lost little of its strong hold on popular attention, and Boyse, as Mr. Perry says, wrote "with a keen eye on his market." Boyse also modernized some of Chaucer's tales. Although totally destitute of Spenser's spirit, he made imita- tions at various times. He paraphrased part of Psalm XLII, "In Imitation of the Style of Spenser." These verses sound more like the couplet than like the Fairy Queen, being in six- lined stanzas, riming ^j'/',.?/', rr. In 1736-7 he published llie Olive; an Heroic Ode. ... /// the Stanza of Spenser. I'his was an " occasional " poem, on the King's return to Great Britain. In the Preface, Boyse says he modeled his work on Prior's ode in 1706, affording still another instance of the long-continued influence of Prior's short poem. The Olive is far better than Prior's ode ; but it also illustrates the unsuitableness of this stanza for occasional poetry; and to show how much appreciation of Spenser Boyse had, it is only necessary to observe that he couples Spenser with " tuneful Waller," "deathless Addison," and Pope! He speaks of Prior in the highest terms, saying that he is "content to follow his steps at a distance." He also has one interesting passage, which shows some originality : " Satire is, I know, the prevailing taste of the age, and for that I am not ashamed to own I have neither genius nor disposition."

In 1740 he published an Ode Sacred to the Birth 0/ the Mar- quis of Tavistock. This is in the same ten-lined stanza. It is artificial and lifeless.

About the same year appeared another poem from liis pen, The Vision of Fatinice. This was "sacred to the memory of Mr. Alexander CAuiiing, a Young Gentleman unfortunately lost in the Northern Ocean on his return from China, 1740." This work has not much poetic merit, but is written in the allegorical style. The stanza describing the abode of the Goddess of Silence may be worth quoting : —

66 THE ENGLISH ROMAiXTIC MOVEMENT.

" Here no invading noise tlie Goddess finds, High as she sits o'er the surrounding deep ; But pleas'd she listens to the hollow winds, Or the shrill mew, that lulls her evening-sleep ; Deep in a cleft-worn rock we found her laid, Spangled the roof with many an artless gem ; Slowly she rose and met us in the shade, As half disturb'd that such intrusion came ; But at her sister's sight with look discreet, She better welcome gave, and pointed each a seat."

Although it is quite possible that Boyse had no first-hand knowledge of Spenser at all, that was not the case with his greater contemporary, William Shenstone (17 14-1763). The School-Mistress is one of the best of the Spenserian imitations, and is often ranked next to the Castle of Indolence, though it hardly deserves so high a place. Shenstone published a first incomplete form of this poem in 1737; it appeared in final shape in 1742. Fortunately, we are able to know exactly what attitude Shenstone held toward Spenser ; it throws con- siderable light on the whole school. A careful search of his correspondence reveals the fact that his imitation was not written in any serious spirit, and his earnest declaration that he was "only in fun," is exceedingly interesting. But the more he read Spenser the more he liked him ; and as people persisted in admiring The School-Mistress for its own sake, he finally consented to agree with them, and in later editions omitted the commentary explaining that the whole thing was done in jest. At first he speaks of his poem as a "burlesque" — a "ludicrous imitation." Writing to his friend Mr. Graves, January 19, 1742, he says: "The true burlesque of Spenser (whose characteristic is simplicity) seems to consist in a simple representation of such things as one laughs to see or to observe one's self, rather than in any monstrous contrast between the thought and words." ' Again, writing to the same man,

1 Works, Vol. III. (1769), page 61.

THE SPENSERIAN REVU'AL. 67

December 24, 1741, he says : "Some time ago I read Spenser's Fairy Queen ; and when I had finished, thought it a proper time to make some additions and corrections in my trifling imitation of him, The School-Mistress. — His subject is certainly bad, and his action inexpressibly confused ; but there are some particulars in him that charm one. Those which afford the greatest scope for a ludicrous imitation are, his simplicity and obsolete phrase ; and yet these are what give one a very singular pleasure in the perusal."^

We see by this that when The School-Mistress was first written, Shenstone knew nothing apparently of Spenser; and that when he did actually read him, he was charmed in spite of himself. As he did not dare to consider Spenser seriously, he tries to point out certain characteristics to explain the charm he felt in the Fairy Quern, without seeing that the real source of the fascination lay in the beauty of the poetry. In his early years Shenstone was very much of an Augustan. The age speaks through him again in a letter to Mr. Graves, June, 1742. "I am glad you are reading Spenser; though his plan is detestable and his iiive)ition less wonderful than most people imagine, who do not much consider the obviousness of allegory ; yet, I think, a person of your disposition must take great delight in his simplicity, his good-nature, etc. . . . When I bought him first, I read a page or two of the Fairy Queen, and cared not to proceed. After that. Pope's Alley made me consider him ludicrously; and in that light, I think, one may read him with pleasure. I am now . . . from trifling and laughing at him, really in love with him. I think even the metre pretty (though I shall never use it in earnest) ; and that the last Alexandrine has an extreme majesty.""

It is fortunate that we have a letter like this, so clearly exhibiting the attitude of one of the best-known men of his time toward one of the greatest names in English literature. The patronizing tone toward Spenser is extremely suggestive ;

1 Works, Vol. III., page 63. 2 ibid., Vol. III., page 66.

68 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

and the fact that Shenstone's gate to this Romantic field was the coarse burlesque of Pope, is certainly noteworthy. When Pope exercised his ingenuity in this style of versification, he little dreamed that he was opening a new world even to the men of his age. Shenstone's remark that he thought "even the metre pretty " needs no comment. His letter, in all its stupidity, betrays a much deeper appreciation of Spenser than the writer dared to show.

One more letter of Shenstone's must be quoted ; it shows his anxiety that the people should not mistake his burlesque for a thing done in earnest. The letter is written to Mr. Graves, but bears no date : ' "I have added a ludicrous index, purely to shew (fools) that I am in jest ; . . . • You cannot conceive how large the number is of those that mistake burlesque for the very foolishness it exposes (which observation T made once at the Rehearsal, at Tom Thumb, at Chrononhotonthologos ; all which are pieces of elegant humour). I have some mind to pursue this caution further ; and advertise it, ' The School- Mistress, &c.' A very childish performance everybody knows (novorum more). But if a person seriously calls this, or rather, burlesque, a childish or low species of poetry, he says wrong. For the most regular and formal poetry may be called trifling, folly, and weakness, in comparison of what is written with a more manly spirit in ridicule of it.""^

This letter affords proof positive of Shenstone's lack of seriousness in imitating Spenser. It is somewhat surprising, after approaching the old poet in this spirit, that Shenstone should have succeeded as well as he did. The School-Mistress will probably always be known as his best production, and we are not surprised to find Gray saying in 1751 or thereabouts : '"The School-Mistress' is excellent in its kind and masterly." ^

The book-seller, Robert Dodsley (i 703-1 764), published in 1742 an imitation of Spenser called J\u'n and Patience ; the

1 Probably written in 1742. 2 Works, Vol. III., page 69.

3 Gray's Works, ed. Gosse, Vol. II., page 219.

THE SPENSER I AiV REVIVAL. " 69

piece is metrically rough, has no merit of any kind, and bears no evidence of being consciously imitative. About 1744 he published six uninspired six-lined stanzas On the Death of Mr. Pope. All the stanzas end with the same Alexandrine, —

"With sounds to sootlie the ear, with sense to warm the heart,"

a sentiment unfortunately not descriptive of Dodsley's effort.

In July, 1743, appeared Albion's D-'iuniph ; An Ode on the Success of His Majesty's Arms. All I have been able to discover of this poem is an extract of five stanzas printed in the Gentleman s Alagazine, for July, 1743. The metre is fashioned after that of Prior — ten-lined stanzas, with Prior's riming scheme. The extract is guilty of no poetical beauty.

The poet William Mason (1725 1797), who had little origi- nality, but who imitated first Milton and then Gray in an almost servile fashion, does not belong to the regular Spenserian group, but in his Miisaeiis (written 1744, published 1747), he intro- duced a few stanzas in Spenser's style. Mi/saeus was a monody on the death of Pope, and written in imitation of Milton's Lycidas. Different poets in Musaeus bewail Pope's death ; Chaucer speaks in an imitation of old English, and Spenser speaks two stanzas after the metre of the Shepherd's Calendar and three stanzas in the style of the Fairy Queen. There is nothing remarkable about these imitations ; they simply give Mason a slight connection with the movement. He figures in another branch of Romanticism.

Thomas Placklock (1721-1791) was blind from early youth. While a young boy, his parents read the poets aloud to him, mainly Spenser, Milton, Prior, Addison, Pope, and Ramsay. He began to compose rimes at the age of twelve, and circulated his writings in manuscript. Blacklock simply followed contem- porary fashions in his compositions ; and he was born late enough to come partially under the influence of the new school. The philosopher Hume was greatly interested in this blind man, and in a letter written October 15, 1754, he says: "I have asked him whether he retained any idea of light or colors. He

70 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

assured me that there remained not the least trace of them. I found, however, that all the Poets, even the most descriptive ones, such as Milton and Thompson, were read by him with Pleasure. Thomson is one of his favorites."^

Blacklock wrote verses in many different kinds of metres, but the poem that chiefly concerns us here is his Hymn to Divine Love ; In Imitation of Spenser." This is a short pro- duction in seven-lined stanzas, riming ab, al>, />e, c; a rather unusual measure. The poem is absolutely common-place. In his verses called Philanthens.^ Blacklock also introduced the same stanzaic form. The only interesting thing about Black- lock's imitation of Spenser is the evidence which it gives of the strength of this literary fashion ; for Blacklock had no originality ; he simply followed popular forms.

Christopher Pitt (1699-1748) was chiefly celebrated in his day and generation for his translation of Vergil, which Joseph Warton in point of scholarship compared favorably with Dryden's. Pitt published a thin volume of Poems and Trafis- laiions in 1727; in one of these bits of verse he alludes to Spenser, but his Imitation was probably not written till a number of years later. This is in the vein of Pope's Altey, and may have been directly inspired by it. Its title is The Jordan, and the nature of its contents may be guessed by the opening line, —

" A well-known vase of sov'reign use I sing."

The poem is in the regular Spenserian form, and contains a number of obsolete words. In mechanism it is not unskilful, but in spirit is merely a coarse burlesque.

Gloucester Ridley (i 702-1 774) published in April, 1747, in Dodsley's Museum,^ a piece called Psyche; or the Great

1 Spence's Anecdotes, page 448.

2 Probably published in 1746.

3 An interesting account of Ridley appears in the Gcntlcmajis Magazine for 1774, page 505.

•• The Museum lasted from March 29, 1746, to September 12, 1747, and was issued fortnightly.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 71

Metamorphosis. A Poem., written in imitation of Spenser. The history of this poem is not uninteresting. " The origin of this is as follows : his friend, Mr. Spence, having lent him the works of Spencer, which he had never read, on returning them, our author sent Mr. Spence, as a fragment, the fifteen first stanzas of Psyche., without farther plan or design, as an exercise to imitate that writer. Mr. Spence pressed him to finish it ; he did so, and completed the canto. This was his excuse for adopting obsolete words." ^ Afterwards, Dodsley urged him to continue the Mctainorphosis ; Ridley rather shrank from this task, evidently finding composition in the Spenserian stanza desperately hard work. His plan for the whole poem is interesting, as showing how he tried to combine the moraliz- ing-didactic spirit of the age with the Romantic style of poetry. "As the first part of the ATctamorphosis in one canto, was a kind of Paradise Lost, this was to be a Paradise Regained. His plan (a very important one) was a view of the general notions of religion, with respect both to the credenda and agenda, which prevailed in the world, out of the Jewish church, before the incarnation, cast into four cantos, under the general title of Melampiis, or the Religious GroTcs. . . . The first canto is Fear, which is contrasted by Superstition ; the second Trust, which is opposed by Enthusiasm ; the third Love, with the origin of Idolatry ; the last Joy. In the first canto . . . Psyche was left changed into a caterpillar; in the next she is married to Elf, and her progeny are Elves and Fairies." Ridley made slow work with this titanic task, and the inspira- tion deserted him so often that he was more than once tempted to throw the whole thing aside. The complete poem Melampus did not appear until after his death. It was published in 1781.

It is interesting to notice what a jumble the whole plan was ; imitative of Spenser in its stanza and allegory, imitative of Milton in its general plan, and yet full of the didactic style

1 Gentleman' s Magazine, 1774, page 505.

72 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

of the Augustan age. The canto called Psyche, the only portion published in his life-time, has little poetic merit. It is imitative of Spenser only externally — in stanza and language. The account of Ridley's life in the Gentleman s Afagaziiie ends with a ludicrously ambiguous compliment : "He exchanged this life, for a better, in November 1774, aged 72, leaving a widow and some daughters. His works follow him.'

Bishop Robert Lowth (17 10-1787), the learned divine and famous lecturer on Hebrew poetry, made one slight attempt at Spenserian verse. His Choice of Hercules first appeared in Spence's huge tome Polymetis (1747), in the tenth dialogue. Hercules chooses between two female figures. Pleasure and Virtue, hesitating through several stanzas, but, of course, eventually taking Virtue. The allegorical scheme of the poem is interesting, but Lowth, although an excellent critic of poetry, had no creative gift. The versification of this piece is modeled after the Prior pseudo-Spenserian form.

In the same year (1747) appeared an anonymous quarto, A New Ca)ito of SpeJicers Fairy Queen. Now first published. This was by fohn Upton; the title, of course, was not really intended to deceive the public. The poem contains forty-two stanzas, ten-lined, after Prior's model. At the beginning is a short quotation in Spenser's style. Obsolete words abound, and allegorical abstractions are plentiful. Many phrases are taken almost bodily from Shakspere.' It may be worth while to quote one of Upton's stanzas, to show his style : —

" Tluis talking, on the Neighbour Beach they find

A Bark, all in her gaudy Trim displaid ; The silken Sails sung in the whistling Wind,

Courting tlie Knight on Board, who nought afraid Springs deftly on the Deck ; when Archimage

1 For example :

"And ever and anon the sheeted Dead Did squeak and gibber thro' the myrksome Air." — Stanza VII.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 73

A wondrous Pin takes in his cunning Hand, That mov'd, as if instinct with Spirit sage,

The bounding Bark, which made the adverse Land ; Where a bright bevy stood of Females fair.

All ready to receive them, blith and debonnair." i

In addition to Lowth's, Ridley's and Upton's imitations, the year 1747 saw still another from the pen of Robert Bedingfield (died 1768). It first appeared in Dodsley's Aliiscuni for May, 1747. T/ic Educafio/i of Ac/iilh's \s ^. -^oem of fourteen stanzas, in the regular Spenserian form. It has more poetic merit than the common run of contemporary imitations. The fondness for abstractions — so common at this time — is very notice- able. Modesty, Temperance, Fidelity, Benevolence, Exercise, Experience and Contemplation all take a hand in the " Educa- tion of Achilles."

In 1748 Joseph Warton published in a thin volume the poetical remains of his father, the Rev. Thomas Warton, who died in 1745. This volume contains among other pieces Philander, an Imitation of Spencer. It was occasioned by the death of Mr. William Levinz, November, 1706. At what date it was written I have been unable to ascertain; but it is interesting as showing how honestly the Warton brothers came by their fondness for Spenser. The poem is prefaced by a garbled quotation from the dedication to Spenser's Astrophel, as follows : —

"To You alone I sing this mournful Verse —

Made not to please the living, but the Dead —

To You, whose soft'n'd liearts it may empierse With Dolours — (if you covet It to read —

And if in You found pittie ever place.

May You be mov'd to pittie such a case."

Fhilaniler is a short poem, in six-lined stanzas, completely destitute of poetic merit. It is interesting simply as coming from the father of the Wartons, and because of its early date.

1 Of course a reminiscence of Milton's V Allegro.

74 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

In 1748 appeared by far the best poem of the whole Spen- serian school, The Castle of Indolence, by James Thomson, who died two months after its publication. This poem is not simply an external imitation of Spenser, as in the stanza, the obsolete words, and the allegorical form of the story; much of it is genuine poetry, and has something of the Romantic feeling and atmosphere of Spenser, as well as touches of his melodious music. Thomson had perhaps been partially inspired by Shenstone's School-mistress ; for the opening words of his Advertisement remind one of Shenstone's notions. He says, " This poem being written in the manner of Spenser, the obsolete words, and a simplicity of diction in some of the lines, which borders on the ludicrous, were necessary to make the imitation more perfect." We can only wish that Thomson had seen fit to give free expression to his love for Spenser, and omitted from his poem all the burlesque element. But the fact that Thomson thought ludicrous touches necessary is a fact too suggestive to be forgotten.

How early Thomson began to admire Spenser is hard to say. It is an interesting fact that the allusion to Spenser in The Seasons did not appear in the first edition (1730), but was inserted later. The allusion referred to is in Sitnwier and runs as follows : —

" The gentle Spenser, fancy's pleasing son, Who, like a copious river, poured his song O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground."

Perhaps this was inserted after Thomson had begun to have in mind The Castle of Indolence. \Wq know that he had this intention as early as 1733 or 1734, for he writes in 1748, "After fourteen or iifteen yea.rs, The Castle of I/idolence comts abroad in a fortnight."^ Whether he had it simply in mind during those years, or was actually composing it, is impossible to say.-

1 Letter to Paterson, Thomsoit's Works (1847), Vol. I., page ci.

2 On the evidence of the words of Thomson quoted above, Mr. Gosse makes the surprising statement {Eii^htcctUh Century Literature, page 225) that Thomson had

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 75

The first canto of The Castle of ludole/ice is much better than the second, and the opening stanzas of the first are perhaps the best part of the poem. There is some of the same atmosphere that appears in Tennyson's Loins-Eaters.

Stanza thirty has distinctly a Romantic tone : —

"As when a shepherd of the Hebrid-lsles,

Placed far amid the melancholy main, (Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles ;

Or that aerial beings sometimes deign To stand, embodied to our senses plain)

Sees on the naked hill, or valley low, The whilst in ocean Phoebus dips his wain,

A vast assembly moving to and fro ;

Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show."

It is noticeable that in one place I'homson speaks of "my master Spenser." ^

The delicate shading of humour gives a certain charm to the poem, and some passages have an interest other than poetical or Spenserian. But throughout the work one is conscious of an entirely difterent atmosphere from that in most of the other imitations; there are some genuine touches of Romanticism. Thomson has always had full credit — perhaps too much — for his aid to nature-poetry in the Seasons ; but his greater contribution to Romanticism does not seem to have attracted so much general attention. Joseph Warton immediately recognized the value of the poem. He said, " There are some who think it (poetry) has suffered by deserting these fields of fancy, and by totally laying aside the descriptions of magic and enchantment. What an exquisite picture has Thomson given us in his delightful Castle of Indo- lence." He then quotes the stanza beginning, "As when a shepherd of the Hebrid-lsles." " I cannot at present recollect

actually written TIic Castle of Indolence by 1733. Mr. Gosse's statement is a wholly unwarrantable inference. 1 Canto II., stanza 52.

76 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

any solitude so romantic, or peopled with beings so proper to the place and the spectator. The mind naturally loves to lose itself in one of these wildernesses, and to forget the hurry, the noise and splendor of more polished life."^ Warton also alluded to Thomson in the second volume of his Essay. He had been speaking of the fashion of imitating Spenser, and condemning the burlesque and comic style. ^ " To imitate Spenser on a subject that does not partake of the pathos, is not giving a true representation of him. ... It has been fashionable of late to imitate Spenser, but the likeness of most of the copies, hath consisted rather in using a few of his ancient expressions, than in catching his real manner." He then notes some exceptions, as The School-mistress^ the Education of Achilles, and says, " To these must be added that exquisite piece of wild and romantic imagery, Thomson's Castle of Indolence ; the first canto of which, in particular, is marvellously pleasing, and the stanzas have a greater flow and feeling than his blank verse." Shenstone wrote appreciatively of Thomson's poem shortly after it appeared ; ^ and his verses to William Lyttleton in 1748, on Thomson's death, speak of the "sweet descriptive bard " in high terms. The service rendered to the English Romantic movement by the Castle of /lu/ole/ice was exceedingly great; Thomson might have done still more work in the same field had his life not been so suddenly cut short.

In 1749 appenred^ EareweU Hymnc to the Country, Attempted in the Manner of Spenser' s Epithalamion. This was by the Rev. R. Potter, who was an enthusiastic lover of nature and a great admirer of old English poetry in general, and of Spenser in particular. The Hyvine was popular, and passed into a second edition the next year. It is not without poetic merit, and has a good musical flow. The stanza in which he alludes to his master may be worth quoting. He has spoken of three poets,

1 Essay on Pofc, Vol. I., pape 366 (4th ed., 17S2).

2 See Vol. II., page 31.

3 Letter to Mr. Jago, November 15, 174S.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 77

Milton, Chaucer, and " sweet Cowley," and then proceeds as follows : —

"And he, forih-beaming thro' the mystic Shade

In all the Might of Magic sweetly strong ; Who steep'd in Teares the pitious Lines he made,

The tendrest Bard that ere empassion'd Song ; Or when of Love's Delights he cast to play. Couth deftly dight the Lay ;

And with gay Girlonds goodly beautifide. Bound trew love-wise to grace his bridale Day,

With daintie Carrols hymn'd his happy Bride ; Lov'd Spenser, of trew Verse the Well-spring sweet ! The Footing of whose Feet

I, paineful Follower, assay to trace. Bring fayrest Floures, the purest Lillies bring, With all the purple Pride of all the Spring ; And make great Store of Poses trim, to grace The Prince of Poets' Race ; And Hymen, Hymen, lo Hymen sing ; The Hills, the Dales, the Woods, the Fountaines ring."

In 175 1 appeared llic Seasons, by Moses Mendez (died 1758). Mendez was a Jew, who dabbled in literature. He was famous chiefly for his great wealth, and forms in this respect a curious contrast to the literary beggars of the day. He was the richest poet of his time, leaving a fortune of

^ioo,ooo at his death. Mendez was an enthusiastic admirer

of Thomson's poetry, and in The Seasons he imitated him doubly, by writing on Nature and by adopting the Spenserian stanza. Mendez's poem is divided into four parts. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. He opened with some prefatory stanzas defying the critics, and then goes on as follows : —

" Ere yet I sing the round-revolving year,

And show the toils and pastime of tlie swain, At Alcon's grave I drop a pious tear ;

Right well he knew to raise liis learned strain. And, like his Milton, scorned tlie rliiming chain.

78 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Ah ! cruel fate, to tear him from our eyes ;

Receive this wreath, albe tlie tribute's vain, From the green sod may flowers immortal rise. To mark the sacred spot where the sweet poet lies."

This reference to Thomson is especially interesting on account of the allusion to blank verse.

Mendez's . Seasons contains the usual amount of obsolete words, but has in its swing and melody something of the real manner of the master. The fourth stanza in Spring shows Mendez at his best : —

"The balmy cowslip gilds the smiling plain. The virgin snow-drop boasts her silver hue, An hundred tints the gaudy daisy stain, And the meek violet, in amis blue. Creeps low to earth,- and hides from public view."

Some years later Mendez took the field again, with his Squire of Dames. He describes the search of the Squire of Dames for three hundred chaste women, and his ill success. Mendez meant the poem to be both an allegory and a satire. It is in two cantos in the regular Spenserian stanza, and shows how the Scjuire found every girl unfaithful. At last he goes to the castle of Merlin, and gazes in a magic mirror which will reveal anything asked for. He calls for his own chaste mistress, Columbel, and, to his horror, she and her paramour are represented in a situation which is anything but chaste. At this last straw he swoons and the poem closes.

The Squire of Dames shows careful reading of Spenser, and is far above the ordinary imitations. It exhibits great metrical skill ; and some passages are notably Romantic. The descrip- tion of Merlin's castle is perhaps the most Romantic part of the poem, and, as Mendez's poetry is so little known, I will quote this passage entire : — ■

THE SPENSERIAiY REVIVAL. ^ 79

" Together now they seek the hermitage

Deep in the covert of a dusky glade, Where in his dortour wons the hoary sage.

The moss-grown trees did form a gloomy shade,

Their rustling leaves a solemn music made, And fairies nightly tripped the aweful green,

And if the tongue of fame hath truth display 'd, Full many a spectre was at midnight seen, Torn from his earthly grave, a horrid sight ! I ween.

Ne rose ne vi'let, glads the cheerless bowV,

Ne fringed pink from earth's green bosom grew. But hemloc dire and every baleful flow'r

Might here be found, and knots of mystic rue.

Close to the cell sprong up an auncient yew. And store of imps were on its boughs ypight.

At his beliests they from its branches flew, And, in a thousand various forms bedight, Frisk'd to the moon's pale wain, and revell'd all the night.

Around the cave a clust'ring ivy spread

In wide embrace his over-twining arms. Within the walls with characters bespread

Ueclar'd the pow'rful force of magic charms,

Here drugs were plac'd destructive of all harms. And books that deep futurity could scan ;

Here stood a spell that of his rage disarms The mountain lyon till he yields to man ; With many secrets more which scarce repeat I can." ^

This is neither moralizing nor smutty ; being very different poetry from either Ridley's Psyche or ]^\\\!% Jordan. It counts for something in the history of Romanticism. Mendez illus- trates the two-fold nature of the movement, in his love of Nature, and love of the Past ; and his following Thomson in both subject and form is note-v^^orthy.

Boyse was not the only vagabond among the Spenserians ; another rascal was the poet Robert Lloyd (i 733-1 764). He

1 Canto II., Stanzas 31, 32, 33.

80 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

led a terribly dissipated life, was more often drunk than sober, and spent a large portion of the time in prison for debt. He was a professed imitator of Prior, and had a keen and penetrating wit, which he used unsparingly. In some directions his tastes seemed to favor the new school. He wrote an epistle to Garrick, in which he praised the English dramatists, and Shakspere's departure from Classic rules of art. He satirized the chorus of the Greek stage.

His remarks on the contemporary craze for imitations are not bad. He wrote them in 1755 to a friend who was about to pulilish a volume of miscellanies. Lloyd warns him against too much imitation : —

" Let not your verse, as verse now goes, Be a strange kind of measur'd prose ; Nor let your prose, which sure is worse. Want nought but measure to be verse. Write from your own imagination, Nor curb your Muse by imitation ; For copies show, howe'er exprest, A barren genius at the best. — But imitation's all the mode — ■ Yet where one hits, ten miss the road."

He then goes on to complain of the number of Miltonic imitations, and says : —

" 'Tis by those Milton's the model mostly chose Who can't write verse, and won't write prose."

His remarks on the Spenserian imitations are interesting: —

" Others, who aim at fancy, choose To woo the gentle Spenser's muse. The poet fixes for his theme An allegory, or a dream. Fiction and truth together joins Thro' a long waste of flimsy lines ;

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. SI

Fondly believes his fancy glows,

And image upon image grows ;

Thinlvs his strong Muse takes wondrous flights,

Whene'er she sings of peerless wights.

Of dens, of palfreys, spells and knights,

'Till allegory, Spenser's veil,

T' instruct and please in moral tale,

With him 's no veil the truth to shroud.

But one impenetrable cloud."

These octosyllabics are worth quoting, as they show the popularity that Spenserianism had gained. But although Lloyd thus satirized the imitators, he had already joined their ranks. In 1 75 I he published \\\-~, Progress of E wry. It is a defense of Milton. Lloyd attacks a disreputable Scotchman who had made an onslaught on the reputation of the Puritan poet. Besides the main object of the poem, it is also a panegyric on Spenser, and even Shakspere and Chaucer come in for praise. It is allegorical in form, with the customary number of personified abstractions. The stanza is Spenserian, with nine lines, but with a curious riming scheme.'

In 1691 Edmund Smith (166S-1710) made himself somewhat famous by a Latin ode on the death of Dr. Pococke ; in 1751 was published T/ialcs, a Spenserian imitation, and apparently a translation of Smith's Latin verses." Who wrote the English stanzas is difficult to ascertain. They are in eight-lines,^ still another variation on Spenser's original form.

By 175 1 Dr. Johnson thought it was about time to speak out. The Spenserians were having things altogether too much their own way, and he was alarmed at such tendencies in the direction of Romanticism. He relieved his mind in the Rambler, for May 14, 175 1. He says, "the imitation of Spenser ... by the influence of some men of learning and genius, seems likely to gain upon the age." To imitate Spenser's "fictions and sentiments can incur no reproach,

1 ab, ab, cd, cd, d. - The English poem is '\\\ IJell's Fus,itivc Pixtry.

•' Riming abab., b, c, c, c.

82 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

for allegory is perhaps one of the most pleasing vehicles of instruction." So far as Spenser encourages didactic poetry, the doctor naturally thinks he is all right. " But I am very far from extending the same respect to his diction or his stanza. His style was in his own time allowed to be vicious. . . . His stanza is at once difficult and unpleasing ; tiresome to the ear by its uniformity, and to the attention by its length." This is a strange criticism coming from an admirer of long poems in the heroic couplet. Johnson closes his paper with one parting shot. " The style of Spenser might by long labour be justly copied ; but life is surely given us for higher purposes than to gather what our ancestors have thrown away, and to learn what is of no value, but because it has been forgotten." Dr. Johnson's emphatic protest is the most conclusive evidence as to the strength which the movement had gained by the middle of the century.

In 1754 appeared a very important work — Thomas Warton's Observations on the Faery Queen. This had a strong influence in furthering the serious study and appreciation of Spenser. The book will be mentioned again in connection with the critical side of the Romantic movement. Warton made some imitations of his own. Indeed his poetry is wholly imitative, his chief model being Milton, whose ideas and language he borrowed with a free hand. His poems were not published collectively till 1777, but a number of them appeared at occasional intervals. His Spenserian imitations are Morning, written in 1745, published 1750, Elegy on t/ie Death of Frederie, Prince of IVaies (1751), A Pastoral in the Manner of Spenser (1753), though there is some doubt as to his authorship of this ; and the Omiplaint of Chertvetl, written 1761, published 1777. It is curious that with all his knowledge of Spenser, his imitations should not have followed the regular stanza of the Fairy Queen} But although he did not pay so close attention

1 The Elegy and Complaint are six-lined, ending with an Alexandrine, and riming ab, ab, c, c. The Pastoral is in the same form as tire SJiepherd' s Calendar for January and December.

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. S3

to the form, he was filled with the master's spirit ; allusions to the old poet constantly occur among his verses. In his poem, The ricasures of Alc/anc/ioly, written in his seventeenth year, he says : —

" Thro' Pope's soft song the' all the Graces breathe And happiest art adorn his Attic page ; Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow As at the root of mossy trunk reclin'd, In magic Spenser's wildly-warbled song I see deserted Una wander wide Thro' wasteful solitudes and lurid heaths."

Thomas Warton, like his brother, was a conscious Romanti- cist.-^

Thomas Denton (172 4- 1777), a minor poet, also belongs to the Spenserian school. He was an Oxford man, receiving his M.A. in 1752. He wrote two imitations of Spenser, Itnmortality (1754) and The House of Superstition (1762). Both of these are in ten-lined stanzas, and rime after Prior's model. Immor- tality is imitative of Spenser only in form. Its language is distinctively that of the eighteenth century. It exhibits the contemporary note of melancholy, and the fascination of grave-damp. There are, however, even in this piece some curiously Romantic touches, as in the eleventh stanza, beginning as it unfortunately does, with "Cynthia": — •

" Pale Cynthia mounted on her silver car

O'er heaven's blue concave drives her nightly round ; See a torn abbey, wrapt in gloom, appear Scatter'd in wild confusion o'er the ground.

1 Some of his general publications are as follows: —

1745. Five Pastoral Eclogues.

1 747. Pleasures of Melanclioly.

1749. Triumph of I sis.

1751. Newmarket.

1754. Observations, Gn\2.rg&A in 1762.

1774. First vol., History of E)igltsh Poetry, second vol., 177S, third vol., 17S1.

1785. Edition of 'Million's, Juvenile Poems.

1777. Collection of his own poems, second edition, 177S, third, 1779, fourth, 17S9.

84 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Here rav'nous Ruin lifts her wasteful hands

O'er briar-grown grots and bramble-shaded graves ;

Safe from her wrath one weeping marble stands, O'er which the mournful yew its umbrage waves:

Ope, ope thy pond'rous jaws, thou friendly tomb,

Close the sad deathful scene, and shroud me in thy womb."

In its general tone the poem, of course, belongs to the school of Blair, Young and Gray.

The House of Superstition is a poem in thirteen stanzas, and has a closer resemblance to Spenser than Denton's earlier work, being arranged in allegorical form. It describes the victory of the goddess Truth over the inmates of the castle of Superstition. The poem contains scarcely any obsolete words, and it seems doubtful whether Denton had any first-hand knowledge of Spenser at all. It is more likely that in writing in this form he was simply following the contemporary fashion.

One of these poets who is almost completely forgotten to-day, was Cornelius Arnold (171 1-1757 ?). Very little is known of his life. His Spenserian imitation. The Mirror, was published as a quarto in 1755, and later in his Poet/is {i'] c^'j). Arnold had evidently read Shenstone's School-mistress, as we learn from his Preface. "The Author begs leave to premise, that in this essay he has retained some few of the old words of Spenser, and adopted the simplicity of the diction in the ludi- crous cast, at the end of most of the stanzas, to give it some- what the exterior air of that great original, however far short he may have fell of the spirit." Arnold's poem contains forty- four regular Spenserian stanzas ; it is a satire on contemporary life and manners, and describes how Death seizes one personage after another, the lawyer, knight, actor, etc. The poetry has not much beauty, but exhibits some originality and considerable force.

In 1756 appeared a very dull poem by Christopher Smart (17 2 2-1 7 70). The Hymn to the Supreme Bci?ig on Recovery

THE SPENSERIAN REVIVAL. 85

fro7n a Dat2gcrous Fit of IHiicss, is in six-line stanzas/ and is poor stuff. Its form alone makes it necessary to mention it here.

William Wilkie (1721-1772) is connected with the Spenserian school by his poem, A Dream — /// the viafincr of Spoiser, which appeared in 1759. It was published along with the second edition of the Epigoniad, which work gave Wilkie the title of the "Scottish Homer." This was a long epic in nine books, written in the couplet. A Dream is a regular Spenserian imitation, containing eighteen stanzas. It is an attack on literary critics — a defense of nature against the canons of the artificial school of criticism. One stanza will suffice to show Wilkie's style: —

" Though Shakspeare, still disdaining narrow rules, His bosom fill'd with Nature's sacred fire. Broke all the cobweb limits fix'd by fools, And left the world to blame him and admire, Yet his reward few mortals would desire ; For, of his learned toil, the only meed — That ever I could find he did acquire. Is that our dull, degenerate, age of lead. Says that he wrote by chance, and that he scarce could read."

In 1767 William Junius Mickle (i 734-1 788) published The Conenlune, a Spenserian imitation in two cantos. In the second edition (1778) he changed the name, calling it Sir Martyn. Although this poem appeared after 1765, and thus strictly carries us beyond the limit of our present study, The Concubine deserves a moment's notice, as it had been growing in Mickle's mind for some years. In the Rev. John Sim's Life of Mickle, we are told that about his thirteenth year (1746) "Spenser's Faery Queene falling accidentally in his way, he was immediately struck with the picturesque descriptions of that much admired ancient bard, and powerfully incited to imitate his style and manner."^ In Mickle's preface to his poem — printed with

1 Kiniing ab, ab, cc. - Mickle's Poetical W'orks. London, 1806, page xi.

86 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

the second edition in 1778 — he said : " Some reasons, perhaps, may be expected for having adopted the manner of Spenser. To propose a general use of it were indeed highly absurd ; yet it may be presumed there are some subjects on which it may be used with advantage. Ikit not to enter upon any formal defence, the Author will only say, that the fulness and wantonness of description, the quaint simplicity, and above all, the ludicrous, of which the antique phraseology and manner of Spenser are so happily and peculiarly susceptible, inclined him to esteem it not solely as the best, but the only mode of composition adapted to his subject." Here again we have the familiar emphasis laid on the "simplicity," and especially the "ludicrous" element in Spenser.

Mickle's poem is in the regular stanza, and shows consider- able familiarity with Spenser ; he adopted both antiquated spelling, and obsolete words, the latter being explained in a Glossary which accompanied the poem.

With this poem we close our view of the Spenserian revival. Editions of Spenser did not keep pace with the growing number of imitations ; it was not until the middle of the century that the demand for Spenser himself became strong. Hughes's edition of 17 15 seemed to satisfy the public till 1750, when another edition took the field. This was followed by an edition of the Fairy Queen in 175 i, and in 1758 three separate editions of the same poem appeared. Another edition of Spenser's Works was published in 1778.

Little is needed by way of summary. The imitations began to be numerous after 1736, and the movement reached its climax about 1750. 'i'he unconsciousness of the movement is shown by the powerful influence exercised upon it by Pope and Prior. The significant fact that Spenser was by many apprehended only on the ludicrous side, was discussed at some length in the early part of this chapter.^

1 See Appendix for a list of Spenserian imitations.

CHAPTER V.

THE INFLUENCE OF MILTON IN THE ROMANTIC

MOVEMENT. — THE LITERATURE OF

MELANCHOLY.

We do not to-day think of Milton primarily as a Romantic poet ; his great epic would more naturally place him in the ranks of the Classicists ; and his remarkable devotion to the study of Greek and Latin authors, with the powerful influence they had upon him, would seem to separate him widely from Romanticism. To the men of the eighteenth century, however, his message was Romantic. He was shunned and practically neglected by the Augustans, whose Classicism was so thor- oughly Horatian ; and those who admired him did so more on account of the bulk of his epic and its theological theme, than from a genuine love and appreciation of his poetry. The young Romanticists claimed Milton for their own ; his name was a rallying cry ; and they followed him in thought, language, and versification. His influence cannot be traced out in detail so clearly as Spenser's ; but it was a quickening force, as any one who reads eighteenth century minor poetry may see for himself. I have already spoken of his influence on the Reaction in Form ; his blank verse was steadily imitated and did much toward dethroning the couplet ; his octosyllabics were still more effective, and his sonnets leavened English poetry after 1750. But it was not so much in J't>nn as in t/ioiii:;Iit that Milton affected the Romantic movement ; and although Para- dise Lost was always reverentially considered his greatest work, it was not at this time nearly so effective as his minor poetry; and in the latter it was // Pcnscroso — the love of meditative comfortable melancholy — that penetrated most deeply into the Romantic soul. Even such a poem as Dyer's Fleece, although in blank verse, is more reminiscent of the juvenile poems than

88 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

of the epics ; and the blank verse of the Warton brothers is charged with the sentiments and phrases of Milton's octosylla- bics. The influence of Milton cannot, accordingly, be seen in so distinct a literary fashion as the Spenserian fad ; it must be traced in a different way, and along more general lines.

It was in the Spectator for December 31, 171 1, that Addison announced his intention of writing a series of papers on Milton ; but important as Addison's work was, he was not the first man to bring Milton into public notice. Editions of Milton had been regularly supplying a quiet but steady demand.

The well-known men who show the influence of Milton most clearly are the Warton brothers, Collins, Mason, and Gray. But there were many lesser lights who give evidence of close study of the Puritan poet. For example, William Hamilton of Bangour imitated Milton in his octosyllabic poem Co/itemp/ation} He shows this perhaps most clearly in his fondness for Ab- stractions ; and indeed the subsequent fashion of personifying Abstractions — though dating back even much earlier than the Morality Plays — seems in the new Romantic movement to have flowed largely from Milton. Consider these lines from Hamilton's poem : —

" Anger, with wild disorder'd face ; And Malice pale of famish'd face ; Loud-tongued Clamour, get thee far Hence, to wrangle at the bar ; With opening mouths vain Rumour hung ; And falsehood with her serpent tongue ; Revenge, her blood-shot eyes on fire. And hissing Envy's snaky tire ; With Jealousy, tlie fiend most fell, Wlio bears about liis inmate liell, Now far apart with liaggard mien To lone Suspicion list'ning seen," etc.^

This kind of thing became extremely common.

1 Written in or Ijefore 1730-

- Observe the similarity of all this to Collins's Ode on the Passions.

THE INFLUENCE OF MILTON 89

Joseph Warton (i 722-1800) is one of the most important names in the history of EngUsh Romanticism.^

From the start his sympathy was wholly with the new move- ment. He sprang enthusiastically into the ranks, burning his bridges in the most reckless manner. In his prose writings he showed himself to be what few men were at that time — a Romanticist, not by accident, but with malice aforethought.

In this chapter, however, we are concerned not with his prose, but with his poetry, which sounded some of the earliest and most distinct Romantic tones. He was a follower of Milton, and his poetry is in the // Pciiscroso mood ; the fond- ness for solitude and twilight, for personal subjective communion with Nature — these common Romantic qualities are strikingly characteristic of Warton's poetry. From 1740 to 1760 English literature is full of the still music of sentimental melancholy, with a burden of Dead Marches. In 1740, when only eighteen, Joseph Warton wrote The Jliithitsiast : or the Lover of Ahjfiirc, a poem in blank verse. It is in the minor key, full of Romantic feeling, and vibrating with Miltonic echoes. The youth gave vent to his feelings as follows : —

" Rich in her weeping country's spoils, Versailles May boast a thousand fountains, that can cast The tortur'd waters to the distant Heavn's ; Yet let me clioose some pine-topt precipice Abrupt and shaggy, whence a foamy stream, Like Arno, tumbling roars ; or some black heath. Where straggling stands the mournful Juniper, Or yew-tree scath'd."

1 Dates of his chief publications:

1740. The E)itlntsiast (written ; I tliink not piililislied till 1744).

1 746. Odes.

1 749. Ode to Mr. West.

1749-53. Edition of Vergil.

1756. Essay on Pope — second volume in 1782.

1797. Edition of Pope.

1799. Edition of Dryden.

90 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Again we have touches akin to Rousseau's "back-to-nature" sentiment : —

" Happy the first of men, ere yet confin'd To smoky cities ; who in sheltering groves, Warm caves and deep-sunk valUes, hv'd and lov'd, By cares unwounded."

His comparison of Addison witli Sliakspere shows tlie defiant feeling of rebellion, which made the Wartons the true leaders of the Romantic reaction : —

"What are the lays of artful Addison, Coldly correct, to Shakespear's warblings wild? Whom on the winding Avon's willow'd banks Fair Fancy found, and bore the smiling babe To a close cavern." ^

The poem concludes with a passionate cry for solitude and wild nature. Milton and Thomson were Warton's masters in this poem ; it is a remarkable production for a youth of eighteen, not only in its intrinsic merit, but in its prophetic insight of what was coming. The Enthusiast is certainly one of the most important poems in the Romantic movement.

In December, 1746, Joseph Warton published a thin volume of Odes. His advertisement has some significant remarks. He says: "The Public has been so much accustomed of late to didactic poetry alone, and essays on moral subjects, that any work where the imagination is much indulged, will perhaps not be relished or regarded. The author therefore of these pieces is in some pain lest certain austere critics should think them too fanciful or descriptive. But as he is convinced that the fashion of moralizing in verse has been carried too far, and as he looks upon Invention and imagination to be the chief faculties of a poet, so he will be happy if the following Odes

1 Reminiscent, of course, of Milton's calling Sliakspere "Fancy's child," and " Warble his native wood-notes wild." Observe also the studied alliteration of this passage from Warton.

THE INFLUENCE OF MILTON. 91

may be looked upon as an attempt to bring back Poetry into its right channel."

This is a rap over the knuckles for Classicism ; in a crude and rough way Warton here articulated the Romantic doctrine. He had believed all this in 1740, and during his whole life he clung to these views with singular tenacity.

This small volume contained fourteen odes, in various metres. Some of the subjects will give an idea of the char- acter of the book — Fancy, Liberty, Health, Superstition, Evening, The Nightingale, Solitude, etc. The Ode to Fancy is full of echoes of Milton: —

" Haste f^ancy from the scenes of folly. To meet the matron Melancholy, Goddess of the tearful eye. That loves to fold her arms and sigh ; Let us with silent footsteps go To charnels and the house of woe, To Gothic churches, vaults and tombs Where each sad night some virgin comes, With throbbing breast, and faded cheek. Her promis'd bridegroom's urn to seek."

This is an excellent example of what is meant by the "literature of melancholy," and of course its original inspi- ration from // Fai serosa is indisputable. In the same ode appears an allusion to Shakspere, where Warton is again thinking of Milton's expression, "Fancy's child." ^ Milton's casual remark that Shakspere was the child of Fancy seemed to produce a profound impression on the Romanticists.

The Ode to Health, written on his recovery from the small- pox, is noteworthy for the opinion expressed of Milton in the last stanza : —

1 " hear our prayer, O hither come

From thy lamented -Shakespear's tomb, On which thou lov'st to sit at eve, Musing o'er thy darling's grave."

92 THE ENGL IS If ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

"Where Maro and Musaeus sit

Listening to Milton's loftier song, With sacred silent wonder smit,

While, monarch of the tuneful tlirong. Homer in rapture throws his trumpet down, And to the Briton gives his amyranthine crown."

Homer, and especially Vergil, doing homage to Milton would certainly have been a sacrilegious thought to Augustan minds. For Dryden's famous lines were considered simply as the hyperbole of complimentary verses.

The Ode to Evening has some passages which instantly suggest Gray's Elegy. For example : —

" Hail, meek-eyed maiden, clad in sober grey, Whose soft approach the weary woodman loves. As, homeward bent to kiss his prattling babes. He jocund whistles thro' the twilight groves."

And another stanza has the line : —

"And with hoarse hummings of unnumber'd flies."

The Ode to Solitude fitly closes this remarkable collection of poetry. This ode is strictly Romantic in tone, and with the other thirteen stands as one of the finger-posts of the whole Romantic movement.

Warton's Ode to West (1749), on the latter's translation of Pindar, gives, especially in the third stanza, his contemptuous opinion of Augustan verse.'

What Warton laid down as principles in his prose essays, he tried to exemplify in his verse. He turned directly away from Classicism, and drew his inspiration from fresh out-door nature and from meditative melancholy. l^erhaps he is the first eonsciously Romantic poet in the eighteenth century. Mr. Courthope says of Warton's Enthusiast : " It may certainly be regarded as the starting-point of the romantic revival, as it expresses all that love of solitude and that yearning for the

1 The stanza tegins:

" Away, enervate bards, away. Who spin the courtly, silken lay."

THE INFLUENCE OF MILTON: 93

spirit of a by-gone age, which are especially associated with the genius of the romantic school of poetry." ^ The poem can hardly be regarded as thj starting-point, as 1 have shown in these pages that the spirit of Romanticism had appeared in some strength earlier than 1740 ; but W'arton's peculiar distinction is that he was a Romanticist with a program.

Thomas Warton (i 738-1 790) was even a more direct follower of Milton than his older brother. The two men were from the start avowed Romanticists, both writing Romantic poetry, and Joseph helping the movement by destructive criti- cism of Pope, while Thomas assisted by favorable criticism of Spenser. T. W'arton's poems are so patched with Miltonic phrases, that when the quotations are removed scarcely anything remains. With his intense Romantic feeling it is singular that he should also have written one long imitation of Pope — the heavy satire Newmarket (1751). In 1745, while still a boy, he wrote and in 1747 published The Pleasures of Melaiieholy. The title was of course suggested by Akenside's Pleasures of Ii/iai^i/iatiance to Russia. With the exception of certain

1 These four lines in Nio^ht T/wngkts may have suggested to Goldsmith an idea for his famous passage in The Deserted Village: —

"As some tall tow'r, or lofty mountain's brow, Detains the sun, illustrious from its height ; While rising vapours and descending shades With damps, and darkness, drown the spacious vale."

2 Gray's Elegy was published February i6, 1751, and went through four editions in two months. Then came editions in rapid succession, eleven in all. It was once more printed in 1753, and in that form had a second edition. It also appeared in Dodsley's Miscellany, and was largely pirated.

THE INFLUENCE OF MILTON. 101

works of Byron and Shakespeare, no English poem has been so widely admired and imitated abroad." '

The church-yard school lasted for many years. The aspirants for prizes in the universities chose as subjects " Death," " The Grave," "Immortality," etc." Even as late as 1787, Mason wrote an elegy, /// a Church-yard i/i South IVa/cs.

The literature of melancholy must certainly be considered an important factor in the beginnings of Romanticism. In its subjective tone, in its vague aspiration, fondness for solitude and gloomy meditation, it was quite different from the tone of Augustan literature ; and its master was none other than Milton.

1 Life of Gray, page 97.

2 For example, Forteus's prize poem in i 759 : Death ; a Poetical Essay.

CHAPTER VI.

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. GOTHICISM AND CHIVALRY.

I shall give only the briefest notice of the revival of Gothic tastes and of the renewed interest in Chivalry. It is well known that in the course of the eighteenth century public taste in these matters suffered a complete revolution ; for in the last decade Gothicism and Chivalry were as popular as they had been unpopular during the reign of Pope. I propose in this chapter to point out the evidences of the transition — to trace the beginnings of the new fashion. It is to this part of the development of Romanticism that Walter Scott belongs, and of which he was perhaps the culmination. We may conveniently call this the ohjcctii'c side of the movement, as distinguished from the si/hjcrth'f, which advanced parallel with it. The former pertains to the subject-matter ; the latter to the mood of the author, as we say that Scott was Romantic because of his subjects and Byron because of his sentimental mood. Both aspects are equally important in English Roman- ticism, but the objective side reached its fullest development later. For the present we are thus concerned only with signs of the revival of interest in what was " Gothic " — as it affected architecture, literature, and the study of the military aspect of mediaeval life.

Everyone knows how low the word " Gothic " had sunk in the Augustan age. In the pages of Addison and Pope, the term "Gothic" was, of course, one of reproach and contempt, whether applied to architecture or to poetry. It was not until after 1750 that Gothicism showed any signs of coming again into favor. " If in the history of British art," says Eastlake,

REVWAL OF THE PAST. 103

" there is one period more distinguished than another for its neglect of Gothic, it was certainly the middle of the eighteenth century." But "an author . . . appeared to whose writings and to whose intiuence as an admirer of Gothic art we believe may be ascribed one of the chief causes which induced its present revival." Of course Eastlake refers to Horace W'al- pole (1717-1797). "It is impossible to peruse either the letters or the romances of this remarkable man without being struck by the unmistakable evidence which they contain of his Mediasv^al predilections. . . . The position which he occupies with regard to art resembles in many respects that in which he stands as a man of letters. His labours were not profound in either field. But their result was presented to the public in a form which gained him rapid popularity both as an author and a dilettante. As a collector of curiosities he was probably influenced more by a love of old world associations than by any sound appreciation of artistic design." ^

These words are a sufficiently accurate and concise descrip- tion of Walpole's influence on the Gothic revival. W'alpole was not a sincere and philosophical Romanticist, nor did he ever claim to be such. He was a gentleman who dabbled in art and literature and took up Gothicism as a new fad ; his Romanticism was largely due to the powerful influence of his friend Gray. But without any conscious attempt at revolu- tionary leadership, his influence on the Romantic movement was undoubtedly great. He made himself felt in two ways.

1. He made Gothicism fashionable by his home and collec- tions at Strawberry Hill.

2. His Castle of Otranto was the pioneer of a long succession of Gothic romances.

Walpole's taste for the picturesque appears as early as Gray's, though his appreciation was not so keen nor his emotion so deep. Walpole as well as Gray described the Grande Chartreuse excursion. " But the road, West, the road !

1 History of the Gothic Revival, page 42 ct seq.

104 THE E.VGL/S// ROMANTIC MOrEMEiVT.

winding round a prodigious mountain, and surrounded with others, all shagged with hanging woods, obscured with pines, or lost in clouds ! Below, a torrent breaking through cliffs, and tumbling through fragments of rocks ! Sheets of cascades forcing their silver speed down channelled precipices, and hasting into the roughened riv^er at the bottom ! Now and then an old foot-bridge, with a broken rail, a leaning cross, a cottage, or the ruin of an hermitage ! This sounds too bombast and too romantic to one that has not seen it, too cold for one that has." '

It was about 1750 that Walpole began to erect the building afterward so famous as Strawberry Hill. He wrote to Sir Horace Mann, January 10, 1750, " I am going to build a little gothic castle at Strawberry Hill." After this date his letters contain many references to the " castle " and to "gothic " things in general. In another letter to Mann, February 25, 1750, he explained and defended his tastes. " I shall speak much more gently to you, my dear child, though you don't like Gothic architecture. The Grecian is only proper for magnificent and public buildings. Columns and all their beautiful ornaments, look ridiculous when crowded into a closet or a cheese-cake house. The variety is little, and admits no charming irregu- larities. I am almost as fond of the Sharawaggi, or Chinese want of symmetry, in buildings, as in grounds or gardens. I am sure, whenever you come to England, you will be pleased with the liberty of taste into which we are struck, and of which you can have no idea ! " The public taste in buildings and in laying out grounds had indeed changed ; and the change was symptomatic of the whole Romantic movement. English gardens about this time were relieved of the artificial, regularly cut paths and hedges, and were made more and more to take on the appearance of wild nature.

If some middle-class wealthy Englishman had for his own amusement built such a Gothic castle as the one called

1 Letter to Richard West, September 30, 1 739.

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. 105

Strawberry Hill, he would probably have been greeted only with ridicule. But when Horace Walpole, the glass of fashion and the mould of form, drew attention to his new-fangled architecture, he carried London society with him. The fame of Strawberry Hill and its curiosities grew apace ; and though the real similarity of the building to Gothic architecture would to-day count for nothing, its effect in re-awakening the study and love of Gothicism counted for much in the middle of the eighteenth century. The impulse that Walpole gave to the Gothic revival on its architectural side was probably greater than that of any other man. Professor Beers remarks that media;val architecture had a decided advantage in England over other forms of medieval art ; for the latter were known only to a few scholars, whereas the architecture was known to all in such buildings as the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Lichfield and Salisbury Cathedrals, and other places. By calling public attention to media-val buildings that were in advanced stages of decay, Walpole preserved them from complete destruction. Before this time people had not thought them worthy of especial admiration. They were used for all sorts of ignominious purposes.

The craze for Gothic architecture that followed the " ginger- bread " castle at Strawberry Hill had a strong side-influence on the revival of the Romantic spirit in literature. Architecture and literature are intimately connected, there being something of the same difference between Greek and Gothic architecture that exists between Classic and Romantic poetry. In fact, it was Walpole's taste in architecture that led directly to his second great service to the Romantic movement, his Casfic of Otranto. His own literary taste was not Romantic, as will presently appear; the same whim that created Strawberry Hill gave birth to his Gothic romance.

Walpole had not the slightest idea of revolutionizing public literary taste by the Castle of Otranto. His well-known description of the origin of this book is given in two letters

106 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

to the Rev. W. Cole. Writing February 28, 1765, he says, " Though we love the same ages, you must excuse worldly me for preferring the romantic scenes of antiquity. If you will tell me how to send it, and are partial enough to me to read a profane work in the style of former centuries, I shall convey to you a little story-book, which I published some time ago, though not boldly with my own name ; but it has succeeded so well, that I do not any longer entirely keep the secret. Does the title, 'The Castle of Otranto,' tempt you.?" Again, writing March 9, 1765 : — "Your partiality to me and Strawberry have, I hope, inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story. . . . Shall I ever confess to you, what was the origin of this romance ? I waked one morning, in the beginning of last June, from a dream, of which all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head like mine filled with Gothic story) and that on the uppermost bannister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it. . . . In short, I was . . . engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months."

It was in June, 1764, that Walpole began his story, and he completed it August 6. It was published December 24 of the same year. In the preface he gave a fictitious account of the romance, saying that he had found the work in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the North of England. " It was printed at Naples, in the black letter, in the year 1529. . . . Some apology for it is necessary. Miracles, visions, necro- mancy, dreams, and other preternatural events, are exploded now, even from romances. That was not the case when our author wrote. . . . Belief in every kind of prodigy was . . . established in those dark ages."

In the preface to the second edition Walpole begged the public's pardon for pretending that the book was a translation.

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. 107

"It was an attempt," he said, "to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern. In the former, all was imagination and improbability ; in the latter, nature is always intended to be, and sometimes has been, copied with success. Invention has not been wanting; but the great resources of fancy have been dammed up, by a strict adherence to common life." The remainder of the preface is occupied with a defense of Shakspere, who had been attacked by Voltaire for mingling the comic with the tragic in his plays.

Walpole had misgivings about the " wildness " of the story, and rather expected an outburst of critical denunciation. Writing to M. Elie de Beaumont, March iS, 1765, he said, " How will you be surprised to find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures ! How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale ! But you must remem- ber, Sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable laws. All that Aristotle or his superior commentators, your authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity; we still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison and even to the sober and correct march of Pope." It must be remembered that in this passage Walpole is describing the taste of the English people rather than his own preferences ; and his remarks show that the new critical school in England, repre- sented by the Wartons, Young, and others, was making itself deeply felt.

Walpole was surprised at the success of the Castle of Otranto. The whole impression was sold in less than three months. Writing to the Earl of Hertford, March 26, 1765, he says, " The success . . . has, at last, brought me to own it, though the wildness of it made me terribly afraid ; but it was comfortable to have it please so much, before any mortal suspected the author ; indeed, it met with too much

lOS THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

honour far, for at first it was universally believed to be Mr, Gray's."

Mason had been completely duped by Walpole's first preface, and said that no man of the time had " imagination enough to invent such a story." Even Gray liked it, his Romanticism getting the better of his critical faculty. He wrote to Walpole, December 30, 1764, " It engages our attention here, makes some of us cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights." Walpole had shown his manuscript to Gray, and the latter had recommended publication.

To-day it is impossible for us to take the Castle of Ofra/ifo seriously; to us it is ridiculous and bathetic' But in 1764 it was a kind of revelation, and its immense popularity shows how hungrily the people devoured Romantic food. It was the pioneer of all the wild tales of blood and ghosts that followed its appearance, and thus, in some sense, it was an epoch- making book. Clara Reeve's Oltl English Baron professedly imitated in its general manner Walpole's story, and the works of Mrs. Radcliffe (i 764-1823) are in the direct line of succession.

The modern romances of chivalry, however, cannot be truthfully said to have originated with Walpole, although his book gave the movement its greatest impetus. In 1762 was published Longsword ; an Historical liomance. The title-page omits the writer's name, but the real author was the Rev. Thomas Leland, D.D. (i 722-1 785). He was a learned divine, born in Dublin, who afterwards achieved fame in the Ossianic controversy. Longsword, though never read nowadays, has

1 The scene from the story which is always selected for especial ridicule is where "three drops of blood fell from the nose of Alfonso's statue" (Chapter IV.). But this idea did not originate with Walpole; it seems to have been regarded as simply an evil omen, and did not appear tlicii in a ludicrous light. In Dryden's play Amhovna (167^), Act IV., Scene I., 1 ran across tlie following passage, and doubtless much earlier allusions can be found in ballads: —

" Something within me does forbode me ill ;

I stumbled when I enter'd first this Wood ;

My Nostrils bled three Drops; then stop'd the Blood,

And not one more wou'd follow."

KEl'/rAL O/ THE PAST. 109

deep significance, for it points directly to Scott. In the Advertisement tlie author said : "The outlines of the following story, and some of the incidents and more minute circum- stances, are to be found in the antient English historians." That is, Leland took his plot after the fashion of the Eliza- bethan playwrights. The brave youth and aggressively virtuous maiden figure conspicuously in this book, as they did in Walpole and in the later romances. One quotation will suiSce to show the style of Longsword : — "A youth who seemed just rising to manhood, of graceful form, tall of stature, and with limbs of perfect shape, lay sorely wounded upon the ground, languid, pale, and bloody. Over him hung one in the habit of a page, younger, and still more exquisitely beautiful, piercing the air with lamentations, and eagerly employed in binding up the wounds of the fallen youth, with locks of comely auburn, torn from a fair though dishevelled head." ^ No more of this, for Goddes dignite !

Lougsivord is tedious to read, but interesting on account of its early date — two years before the Castk of Oiranto. The two stories have some points of resemblance, although one is a historical and the other a (lothic romance. Eut Longsword is more of a forerunner of Scott than the other ; it is a romance of the days of Henry III. and is crammed full of the adventures of chivalry. It is also worth notice that the primary object of Longsword was not to instruct, but to amuse. ^ Clara Reeve (1738-1803), in her L'rogress of Romance (1785), has in one of the dialogues the following interesting reference to Longsword.^ Euphanasia mentions the name of the story, and Hortensius asks: "How is that, a Romance in the i8th century?" Euph. " \'es, a Romance in reality and not a Novel. — A story like those of the middle ages, composed of Chivalry, Love, and Religion." They then proceed to discuss the book, Euphanasia remarking: "This work is distinguished in my

1 Vol. 1., page 102. (First edition.) '- See the Advertisement.

3 Vol. II., page 31.

no THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

list, among Novels uncommon and Original." Sophronia erroneously gives Longsivord' s date of publication as 1766 instead of 1762.

Although Horace Walpole did so much for Romanticism, his own literary taste was not Romantic — in fact it was not good. His intense admiration for Gray's Odes may be largely accounted for by his personal attachment to their author, and by the fact that the Odes was the first publication from his own press at Strawberry Hill. Gray's later and more purely Romantic work was disliked and not appreciated by Walpole. In a letter to George Montagu, March 12, 1768, he said: " Gray has added to his poems three ancient odes from Norway and Wales. The subjects of the two first are grand and picturesque, and there is his genuine vein in them ; but they are not interesting, and do not, like his other poems, touch any passion. . . . \\'ho can care through what horrors a Runic savage arrived at all the joys and glories they {sic) could conceive, the supreme felicity of boozing ale out of the skull of an enemy in Odin's hall.'" Walpole also took little interest in Paul Henri Mallet's epoch-making Histoire dc Daimemai'ck. In a letter to Montagu, February 19, 1765, he said : " I cannot say he has the art of making a very tiresome subject agreeable. There are six volumes and I am stuck fast in the fourth." Nor was Walpole much impressed by Ossian. At first he seemed to think the poems genuine, but he very soon changed his mind, and had no language strong enough to express his contempt for Macpherson and his writings — the one subject on which Johnson and Walpole agreed. He said : " It tires me to death to read how many ways a warrior is like the moon, or the sun, or a rock, or a lion, or the ocean." Again, Walpole constantly made fun of T. Warton's History of EngHsh Poetry. Writing to Mason, March 9, 1781, he said: "Mr. Warton thinks Prior spoiled his original in his imitation of ' Henry and Emma.' Mercy on us ! what shall we come to in these halcyon days.-* "

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. Ill

Walpole was at heart very much of an Augustan ; his Romanticism was mainly a taste for novelties. To the last his favorite poet was apparently Pope. His letters contain many references to Thomson, of whom he spoke with the utmost contempt ; and the significance of Thomson's Spen- serian and nature poetry Walpole never seemed to feel. Of course, this contemptuous attitude was partly owing to the regular position which gentlemen took toward professional men of letters ; of most contemporary authors he spoke with ridicule and disgust, crying out in 1746, "Pope and poetry are dead ! " Nor did he spare Spenser and Shakspere. March 9, 1765, he wrote to Cole, "I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories, and drawling stanzas." He said of A Midsummer Nighf s Dreafji, that it was " forty times more nonsensical than the worst translation of any Italian opera-books."

All this, of course, furnishes still more evidence to one of the main propositions I have endeavored to establish — the unconsciousness of the English Romantic movement. Some of the men who did the most for Romanticism were really opposed to it in spirit.

Along with the revival of Gothicism in literature and art, came the revival of the love and study of Chivalry — indeed they were both parts of the same movement. Thomas Warton, in his Observations on the Faery Queen (1754), made a strong plea for the study of chivalry. He said that if the reader wished to understand Spenser, he must go back in imagination to the age in which Spenser lived. " For want of this caution, too many readers view the Knights and damsels, the tourna- ments and enchantments, of Spenser, with modern eyes ; never considering that the encounters of chivalry subsisted in our author's age ; that romances were then most eagerly read and studied ; and that consequently Spenser, from the fashion of the times, was induced to undertake a recital of chivalrous achievements, and to become, in short, a roniantie

112 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

poet." ^ He closed his Observations with a defense of chivalry and a plea for more study of mediaeval romances and mediaeval life.

In 1762 appeared a very important work, Letters on Chivalry and Romance, by Bishop Richard Hurd (1720-1S08). These letters were meant to be supplementary to III. and IV. of his Moral and Political Dialogues, published some years before. These two dialogues were headed On the Age of Queen Elizabeth, in which Mr. Digby, Dr. Arbuthnot and Addison were the speakers. Hurd took a bold position in the Dialogues, but he went still further in the Letters. He discussed the origin of chivalry, compared Heroic and Gothic manners, and declared the latter more poetical ; he showed their effect on Spenser and Milton, criticised the Fairy Queen and Tasso's epic, and finally traced the decline of Gothic poetry.

Hurd shows on every page the infiuence of the Warton brothers, but he took a much bolder and more confident position than either of them had dared to assume. Between 1756 and 1762 Romanticism had made rapid progress. Hurd's purpose was to vindicate Gothic manners and to show that they were superior to the Heroic as subjects for poetry. In his first L^etter he said, " May there not be something in the Gothic Romance peculiarly suited to the views of a genius, and to the ends of poetry.? And may not the philosophic moderns have gone too far in their perpetual ridicule and contempt of it? "

The word " Romantic " like the word " Gothic" was appreci- ating in value by being restored to something resembling its proper use. In Letter LLL. Hurd says, feudal service soon introduced what may be truly called romantic, the going in quest of adventures:' In Letter VL. Hurd spoke of Gothicism in a way that must have dumbfounded many of his contemporaries. He said, " So far as the heroic and Gothic manners are the same, the pictures of each, if well taken, must be equally

1 Vol. II., page 71 (1S07).

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. 113

entertaining. But I go further, and maintain that the circum- stances, in which they differ, are clearly to the advantage of the Gothic designers." He adds that if Homer had seen feudal manners, he would certainly have preferred them. " And the grounds of this preference would, I suppose, have been, the improved gallantry of the Gothic Knig/its; and the superior solemnity of their snperstitionsy ^

Not satisfied with this, Hurd proceeded to do something that to the Augustan would have seemed blasphemous; he called the Grecian manners barbarous, saying that Gothicism furnished the poet " with finer scenes and subjects . . . than the simple and uncontrolled barbarity of the Grecian. . . . For the more solemn fancies of witchcraft and incantation, the Gothic (popular tales) are above measure striking and terrible."

The conclusion of Letter I'l. is worth quoting. It shows how swiftly Romanticism was advancing. " We are upon en- chanted ground, my friend ; and you are to think yourself well used, that I detain you no longer in this fearful circle. The glympse, you have had of it, will help your imagination to con- ceive the rest. And without more words you will readily apprehend that the fancies of our modern bards are not only more gallant, but, on a change of the scene, more sublime, more terrible, more alarming, than those of the classic fables. In a word, you will find that the )>iaiiii,rs they paint, and the superstitions they adopt, are the more poetical for being Gothic."

Hurd claimed Spenser and Milton as witnesses on his side of the case of Gothicism Tcrsiis Classicism, saying that Milton took the Classic model instead of the Gothic only after " long hesitation ; his favorite subject was Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table." It is always an interesting occupation for the imagination to speculate on the style and character of the great Romantic poem which Milton had in mind, but which he finally abandoned. He might have created the greatest piece of Romantic literature in the English language.

1 Italics always his own.

114 THE ENGLISH RO.M ANTIC MOVEMENT

Kurd's discussion of the " P^oUow Nature " maxim, given in Letter X., is suggestive. " But the source of bad criticism, as universally of bad philosophy, is the abuse of terms. A poet, they say, must follow nati/re; and by nature we are to suppose can only be meant the known and experienced course of affairs in this world. Whereas the poet has a world of his own, where experience has less to do, than consistent imagination. He has, besides, a supernatural world to range in. He has Gods, and Fairies, and Witches, at his command. ... In the poet's world, all is marvellous and extraordinary; yet not iiiDialiiral in one sense, as it agrees to the conceptions that are readily entertained of these magical and wonder-working natures. This trite maxim of folhnviiig nature is further mis- taken, in applying it indiscriminately to all sorts of poetry." He then proceeds to compare the poetry of men and manners with the poetry that is "sublime and creative."

In this eminently sane discussion of two schools of poetry, Hard was following directly in the path marked out by Joseph Warton in his Essay on Fopc (1756). The peculiarly interesting thing about Kurd's tone is its contrast to the tone of criticism to-day. Kurd freely acknowledged the claim of the " follow nature " poetry ; he simply wished to get a hearing for imagi- native and Romantic poetry — in short, to persuade the public that such work might truthfully claim to be legitimate poetry. He succeeded so well that to-day the whole attitude of criticism is exactly reversed. Every one acknowledges imaginative and Romantic poetry, and stray critics like Mr. Courthope have to work harder than Kurd labored for his cause to persuade their generation that the poetry of men and manners is poetry at all.

Kurd was not particularly hopeful about the future of Ro- manticism. He had no conception of the far-reaching effect of his own work. His last Letter discussed the decline of Gothic poetry, and the revolution brought about during the Augustan age. He sadly remarked, " What we have gotten by this revolution, you will say, is a great deal of good sense.

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. 115

What we have lost, is a world of fine fabling." He did not perceive with what gigantic strides the counter-revolution was about to move.

We must regard Hurd as a strong influence, (i) He was a follower of the Warton school of criticism, and spoke much more boldly and decisively than Warton for Romantic tastes.

(2) Besides helping in the general movement, he joined the Wartons in dethroning Pope by exalting the imaginative poets.

(3) He came just at the time to accelerate the speed of the Romantic movement. Hurd's learning and authoritative posi- tion counted for much ; and the emphasis with which he spoke is remarkable, coming so early as 1762. The critical judg- ments on poetry made by Matthew Arnold are really a simple re-statement of what Joseph Warton and Hurd laid down a hundred years before.

From this time everything with a Gothic flavor rose rapidly in public esteem. The love of chivalry and the revival of Gothic architecture on the one hand, and the tremendous impetus which Percy gave to ballad literature on the other, formed two streams that flowed with increasing size and speed until they finally united in Walter Scott-

CHAPTER VII.

REVIVAL OF THE PAST — BALLAD LITERATURE AND PERCY.

It was natural enough that the old English ballads should not have been appreciated in the Augustan age. There can hardly be a greater contrast in style and sentiment than that between the freshness, spontaneity and wild music of the old songs of love and war, and the polished, artificial, monotonous strains of the Queen Anne didactic and satirical poetry. We shall find a few exceptions to the general taste ; but the common attitude toward ballads was one of contempt or idle curiosity. Self-satisfied Augustan eyes looked upon them as barbarous — good enough, indeed, for the childhood of English literature, but not worth the serious attention of men who had learned the true art of poetry from Waller. With the exception of Garlands, no real collection of ballads appeared in the century till the year 1723. Eor years ballads had been neglected and scattered about the country in loose sheets, many of them serving for mural decorations, or stopping holes to expel the winter's flaw. In the seventeenth century, antiquarian scholars like Selden and Pepys began to make collections of this fugitive literature, regarding them of course in the light of curiosities, rather than as having any intrinsic literary value.

Among the Augustans, in spite of the general feeling, there was an occasional good word spoken for the old English ballads. In two numbers of the Spectator, May 21 and May 25, 171 1, Addison wrote his critique of the ballad of Chcvy- Chasc} The tone of Addison's criticism is somewhat suggestive;

1 spectator, Nos. 70 and 74.

REl'/FAL OF THE PAST. 117

he evidently appreciated the ballad, and at the same time was timid in avowing his taste, for he constantly quoted Vergil. He said that travelling had stimulated him to ballad-collecting, and then in deference to the "greatest modern critics," who contended that " an heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality," he labored to prove that this requirement was satisfied in C/icTy-C/ursc.

Addison also thought it necessary to apologize for the simplicity of the ballad. " I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought." ' He also remarked, " I shall . . . show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets."- In conclusion, he spoke of the newness of the subject for his treatment and of the necessity for supporting his opinion by the authority of Vergil. " I shall only beg pardon for sucli a profusion of Latin quotations ; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil." ^ This comparison of C/icTV-C/iase with Vergil is akin to Prior's attempt to serve two masters — Horace and Spenser. We find a secret love of the old English poetry, but public opinion demanded that everything should be tried by Classic models.

In the Spectator for June 7, 17 1 !,■* Addison spoke appreci- atively of the ballad of 7wo Children in tJie Wood, saying it gave him "most exquisite pleasure." He also went a little further in the defense of ballads in general, saying that Lord Dorset and the poet Dryden had collections of ballads, and were fond of reading them, and that he knew that " several of the most refined writers of our present age" were "of the same humour."

1 No. 70. - No. 74. 3 No. 74. < No. 85.

118 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Addison's ballad reviews, of course, attracted some attention, and in a small way contributed to the ballad revival ; ^ but they produced no revolution in the public taste, nor did Addison ever intend that they should.^

Another Augustan writer did something for the ballad revival — Nicholas Rowe, the dramatist (1673-17 1 8). In 1 7 14 appeared The Tragedy of Jane Shore. Written in Imi- tation of Shakespear' s Style. It is the prologue that is especially significant. He came out rather boldly for old English : —

" Tonight, if you have brought your good old Taste, We'll treat you with a downright English feast. A Tale, which told long since in homely wise, Have never fail'd of melting gentle Eyes. Let no nice Sir despise our hapless Dame, Because recording ballads chaunt her name ; Those venerable ancient song-enditers Soar'd many a pitch above our modern writers ; They caterwaul'd in no romantick ditty, Sighing for Phillis's, or Chloe's pity."

This use of the word romantick is striking. The old ballads are just what we should call Romantic, but Rowe's use of the word shows how different and degraded a meaning it had among the Augustans. This Prologue must have required considerable courage on Rowe's part, as its tone was so exactly contrary to public taste.

As is well known, the poet Prior "versified" the ballad of the Not-Browne Mayde into the heroic couplet, under the title oi Henry and Emma (i']\^). Prior undoubtedly thought that he had transformed the old ballad into real poetry, and the age thought so too. Still, his poem called attention to this fine piece of old literature, and in that way perhaps rendered some

1 They certainly had some influence on the editor of the Collection of Old Ballads (1723).

2 Dr. Johnson ridiculed all these ballad-praises in the Hambler, No. 177.

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. 119

service to the movement. He published the ballad itself along with his own version.^

In a chronological list of the collections of ballads and songs published between 1700 and 1765, the first work to deserve notice would be A Clioisc CoUcctioti of CoJiiic ami Serious Scots Poe7ns, both Ancient and Modern. By Several Hands. Printed by James Watson. This was published at Edinburgh in three volumes, the first part appearing in 1706, the second in 1709, the third in 1 7 1 1 . The compiler of these songs is not known, but his name is generally supposed to have been John Spottis- wood. The Preface was written by the publisher. He called attention to the common fashion in other European countries of publishing miscellanies, and said he hoped this would justify his present enterprise. " 'Tis hoped, that this being the first of its nature which has been published in our own native Scots dialect, the candid reader may be the more easily induced, through the consideration thereof, to give some charitable grains of allowance, if the performance come not up to such a point of exactness as may please an over nice palate."

Watson's object was evidently not so much to revive old ballads as to make a song-miscellany. But his collection was the fore-runner of a large number that followed, and he is chiefly significant as the main inspiration of the important work of Allan Ramsay. Watson was a genuine pioneer, and for that reason holds a position ot considerable importance in this branch of the Romantic movement. Minto says that his book was the great seminal work of all the Scotch poetry of the century.^ His fresh, unaffected songs must have come like a cooling breeze over the arid wastes of contemporary verse.

In 17 19 Ramsay published a collection of Scots Songs. This is not of much importance, as it was so completely eclipsed

1 In this connection. ParnclVs Fairy Tale in the Ancient Englis/i Style, already spoken of in Cliapter II., may be evidenced as another stray piece of literature showing a fondness for old English.

2 Ward's English Poets, Vol. III., page 159.

120 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

by his later work. But it enjoyed some popularity, and ran through two editions.

\\\ 1719-20/ at London, Thomas D'Urfey edited in six volumes, Wit and Mi.rth ; or Fills to Purge Melancholy ; Being a Collection of the Best Merry Ballads and Songs Old and New. Fitted to all Humours, hai'ing each their proper Fune for either Voice, or Instrutnent ; Most of the Songs being netv Set. Many of these songs were accompanied by the musical score ; and the principal object of the collection was, of course, not to revive old English literature, but to make a popular singing- book. D'Urfey has, therefore, but little significance in the Romantic movement. His Dedication is curious enough to be worth quoting. " I have (with a great deal of trouble and pains) made some part of this collection, and render'd ye many of the old pieces which were thought well of in former days, . . . and I must presume to say, scarce any other man could have perform'd the like, my double genius for poetry and musick giving me still that ability which others perhaps might want." He then says he has performed his "own things" before King Charles II., King James, King William, Queen Mary, Queen Anne, and Prince George. D'Urfey's dedication is unmodest, and his songs are immodest. They are unspeakably loose and coarse, although intended for sing- ing by young men and maidens. It is not strange that Ramsay thought his own collections clean, when the public tolerated such abominable stuff as D'Urfey raked together.

We come now to something quite different — a publication that has an important place in the history of the ballad revival. This was an anonymous work in three volumes, the full title being as follows : A Collection (f Old Ballads, Corrected fro7n the best anil most ancient Copies Extant. With Introductions Historical, Critical or Humorous. Illustrated 7vith Copper Plates. These important volumes were published in London, the first and second in 1723, and the third in I'ji^} The

1 Other editions came out earlier.

2 The dates are very often given incorrectly. 1 took them directly from the title- pages of the original editions.

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. 121

name of the editor has never been positively known, but he is supposed to have been Ambrose Philips, who wrote the Spenserian pastorals. The Prefaces to these volumes are significant. Like Addison, the Editor felt forced to appeal to the authority of the classics. In the preface to the first volume he said, " As the greatest part of this book is not my own, and several things in it written ages ago, I may, I hope, without either vanity or offence enter upon the praises of Ballads, and shew their antiquity." He remarks that " old Homer . . . was nothing more than a blind Ballad- singer. Pindar, Anacreon, Horace, Cowley, Suckling are Ballad-makers."

The Editor increased the usefulness of his volume by prefix- ing to many of the ballads historical and critical introductions. This research work went a long way toward disseminating knowledge about old English literature ; and the strongest proof that this collection aroused general interest was its immediate and wide-spread popularity. Success encouraged the Editor to take a somewhat bolder tone. In the second edition of the first volume he said, '• The encouragement which my design has met, especially from people of the best taste, has induced me to make a Second Collection, in which are contained a considerable number of ]5allads more ancient and upon far older subjects than the generality of these ; and from the pains I have taken not only with the introduction, but also to recover the best and oldest copies extant, I dare promise myself they will prove a grateful entertainment to the curious reader."

Among the ballads in the first volume was C/icvy-C/iase, of which the Editor remarked, " I shall not here point out the particular beauties of this song, with which even ^ Mr. Addison was so charm'd, that in a very accurate criticism upon it . . . he proves, that every line is written with a true spirit of poetry." This shows that Addison's criticism had had some effect.

1 This "even" is suggestive.

122 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

In the preface to the second volume, published the same year (1723), the Editor congratulates himself on the popularity of his undertaking, saying " though we printed a large edition for such a trifle, and in less than two months time put it to the press again, yet could we not get our second edition out before it was really wanted."

It is interesting to observe that this Editor in 1723 thought it necessary to do just what Percy did in 1765 — he floated the old ballads by adding a number of modern popular songs. He also, again like Percy, adopted the apologetic tone. " There are many who perhaps will think it ridiculous enough to enter seriously into a dissertation upon ballads ; and there- fore I shall say as little as possibly I can." His defense was that although contemporary taste did condemn the ballads, they were not considered childish by the age in which they were written, but that their authors were able and prominent men. He concluded his preface by saying that he had material enough for another volume, but did not intend to let the world know whether or not he would publish it until the world had let him know whether or not they would encourage him. In two years (1725) he published the third volume, and said that it had been delayed by "divers accidents." In Vol. II. he had printed genuine old pieces like Lcir ami his Three Daughiers, King Artiinr, Robin Iliioii, and others ; but in the third volume he weakened. He gave as his reason for omitting many old ballads, that they were " written in so old or obsolete a stile that few or none of my readers wou'd have understood 'em." Possibly the world had not encouraged him so much as he hoped ; his tone is that of a man whose enthusiasm had been wet-blanketed by adverse criticism. Matters were different in 1765. The character and taste of the audience had changed.

Many fdthy and immoral songs appeared in this early ballad collection. The attitude toward old ballads, as toward Spenser, seems hardly to have been one of sincere admiration. In many minds old English ballads were necessarily associated wdth

REVIVAL OF THE PAST. 123

coarseness, and when imitations of them were written people thought an alloy of smut was necessary, just as was the case with the imitations of Spenser.

Notwithstanding these defects, this collection of 1723-25 has deep significance. Its purpose was totally different from that of the ordinary song-miscellanies ; it was an attempt at a genuine revival of old ballad literature, and points directly to Percy. Its great popularity is also note-worthy, even if it was a sudden blaze rather than a steady fire.

In 1724, Allan Ramsay (1686-1758) published two mis- cellanies of considerable importance, the Tca-Tabic MisccUcDiy and the Evc7-grccn. These works are usually classed together, as if they were entirely similar ; in reality there is between them an important difference, as will presently appear. Ramsay brought out his miscellanies apparently without any knowledge of the Collection of Old Ballads^ published the year before ; for he must have begun collecting materials some time before that work appeared. Ramsay's inspiration goes back to James Watson. The dedication of the first volume of the 7hi-Tablc is dated January i, 1724. When the second volume appeared is not certainly known. It is usually ascribed to the same year, 1724, but there is no real evidence to support this date, as no copy of the first edition of the second volume is known to be extant. It seems l^ctter to ascribe it to the year 1725 or

1726, for Ramsay was also busy in 1724 with the Ei'ergnxn, and good evidence for the later date is furnished by the ballad of Williajii and Marga/rf, a full discussion of which will be given later.^ The third volume of the Tca-Tablc appeared in

1727, and the fourth volume with the tenth edition of the whole work in 1740. 'I'he Tra-Tablc was not exactly an attempt to revive old ballads, although it was a strong infiuence in the movement; it was really a song collection. Ramsay's object in this work was to amuse rather than to instruct the age. He included a number of modern sf)ngs, like; ' '/icds lidirii the seas

' Sue iippciidix.

124 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

were roaring, and other pieces. The tone of his preface shows that he had nothing revolutionary in mind. But although Ramsay's chief object was amusement, he brought to public attention some remarkable ballads, of which two may be mentioned — Hamilton's B/ars o' Yarrotv and William and Alargaref, usually erroneously ascribed to David Mallet. The former was one of the most strictly Romantic productions of any author in the first half of the eighteenth century ; and the latter attracted wide-spread attention, not only on account of its merit, but because of Mallet's claim to its authorship. Ramsay included a number of his own pieces, his Farcwel to Lochabcr being one of the few serious songs he ever wrote, as well as one of the best. In the fourth volume appeared the old ballad of Sweet Williaiiis Ghost, and curiously enough, a coarse parody of Williani and Margaret, called Watty and Madge. The Tea-Talde was enormously popular, and ran through a great number of editions ; it was steadily published till 1765.

The Evergreen, which appeared in two volumes, the dedica- tion being dated October 15, 1724, is an altogether different work. The full title reads. The Evergreen. Eeing a Colleetion of Seats Poems, Wrote l>y the Ingenious before 1600. This was an attempt to awaken interest in old English poetry, and Ramsay's inspiration in this was not Watson, but the examples of the editors of Shakspere. The Dedication is written somewhat defiantly. " The Spirit of Freedom that shines throw both the serious and comick Performances of our old Poets, appears of a Piece with that Love of Liberty that our antient Heroes con- tended for." Li the Preface, he remarked, " I have observed that Readers of the best and most exquisite Discernment fre- quently complain of our modern Writings, as filled with affected Delicacies and studied Refinements, which they would gladly exchange for that natural Strength of Thought and Simplicity of Stile our Forefathers practised : To such, I hope the follow- ing Collection of Poems w\\\ not be displeasing." His patriotism

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and love of nature both appear in the following passage : " When these good old Bards wrote, we had not yet made Use of imported Trimmings upon our Cloaths, nor of foreign Em- broidery in our Writings. Their Poetry is the Product of their own Country, not pilfered and spoiled in the Transportation from abroad : Their Images are native, and their Laiidskips domestick ; copied from those Fields and Meadows we every day behold." All this, of course, is bold talk for 1724 ; Ram- say is evidently comparing the rude, natural strength of old English poetry with the insipid decorativeness of Augustan style. He also gets in a hit at the couplet. " Besides, the Nuvibers^ in which these Images are conveyed, as they are not now commonly practised, will appear new and amusing. The different Sta/iza and varied Cadenec will likewise much sooth and engage the Ear, which in Poetry especially must be always flattered."

Unfortunately the Evergreen was by no means such a success as the Tea-Talde JMiseellaiiy. A second edition did not appear till 1 76 1. Ramsay meant to issue a third and fourth volume, but desisted, probably owing to the lack of encouragement that the first two parts received.

Ramsay was not a scrupulous or conscientious editor. His title-page announcement that the songs were "wrote before 1600" is not strictly true. He palmed oif as old ballads a large number of new songs, and is thus, in a sense, the fore- runner of Chatterton as well as of Percy. His own poem in the Evergreen, called the /^7.w//, he printed as " compylit in Latin anno 1300" and translated in 1524. Then, the ballad Ilardyhiute was, of course, modern, though possibly Ramsay himself did not know it. This ballad was an ingenious imitation of the old English style, and deceived even so critical a scholar as Gray, who said that he did " not at all believe " the report that it was modern.' The poem was really written by Lady Wardlaw of Pitrcvie in Fife (1677-1 726-7).

1 Letter to W'alpole, Works (ed. Gosse), Vol. III., page 45.

126 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

Ramsay made his compilation from the Bannatyne MSS., but omitted and added stanzas, modernized the versification and varied the spellini;;. He described the sources of his work in a poem which he wrote with the idea of prefixing it to the Everg/rc/i, but perhaps his courage failed him, for the piece was not published till years afterwards. iVfter naming over a list of authors, he says : —

" Their Warkis I've publisht, neat, correct, and fair, Frae antique manuscriptis, witli utmost cair."

But this is exactly what he did not do. At that time the Bannatyne MSS. were in the hands of William Carmichael, brother of the Earl of Hyndford ; he lent them to Ramsay, who was neither sufficiently learned nor sufficiently scrupulous to edit them in any accurate or careful way. But it is not at all surprising that Ramsay's work was loose ; the surprising thing is that so early as 1724 such an attempt should have been made at all. The fact that one of Ramsay's miscellanies succeeded and the other failed seems to show that the age cared more for pretty songs than for any relics of antiquity. Due credit, however, should be given Ramsay for his own tastes. He is really one of the most remarkable figures in the early history of Romanticism. In both his creative and critical work, he threw his influence decidedly against the age. He brought before the public some thoroughly Romantic poetry, and stands as one of the pioneers among ballad collectors.

In 1724 appeared 77ic Hive. A CoUcciion of the Most Celebrated Sottgs. This was published anonymously, but was prefaced by A Criticism on Soiig-7uriti!ig. By Mr. Philips; in a letter to a lady. If Philips really edited the Collection of Old Ballads (1723) he wrote his prefaces in an entirely different style from the way he talked here. In the Hive he says the French are the best song-writers, and that we cannot too highly praise the merits of the poet Waller. The Hive was popular, as by 1732 it had passed into a fourth edition. It

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is, however, simply one of tiie numerous group of song- miscellanies.

In 1725 William Thomson edited a large folio, containing the words and music of twenty-fi\x' songs. The full title was Orpheus Calcilotiiiis^ or a Collection of the Best Scotch Songs set to Afiisick by W. ThoDisoii. This book contained (without any acknowledgment) a number of the songs and poems that had appeared in the Tea-Talkie, and in later editions of his work Ramsay accordingly castigated Thomson. Orpheus Caledo/iius was but a slight contribution to the array of ballad collections and song-books, and has little significance in the movement.

In 1749 appeared JVarhliug A/uses, a collection of lyrics edited by Benjamin Wakefield. On the title-page was printed the rather arrogant statement, *' IJeing the first attempt of this Kind." The preface is very interesting, as showing the editor's attitude toward ancient and modern English literature. He says, " I selected a Multitude of Pieces from our most cele- brated Poets, from Shakespear down to Tope. The Words of our famous modern Poets were sacred to me ; for which Reason I did not presume to alter a single Letter in them, except now and then a proper Name ; but I was far less scrupulous, with regard to the Compositions of such Poets of Eminence, part of whose Diction is grown obsolete ; I frequently modern- izing many of their Expressions and harmonizing their Verse." The last sentence is especially good ; we all know what was meant by the "harmonizing" process.

By the middle of the century the attempt to revive old ballad literature had all the appearance of being abortive. No steady public interest had been excited. But only ten years later we find signs of an interest in antiquity which very soon became a passion. In 1760 appeared one of the most scholarly bits of work that the whole century produced. This was a book by the afterwards famous Shaksperian editor, Edward Capell (1713-1781), called Trolusions ; or select Pieces of anticjit Poetry, — compiVd with great Care from their several Originals,

12S THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

and offered to the Piiblick as Specimens of the Integrity that should be found in the Editions of worthy Authors. Capell therefore had a new aim — Accuracy — a thing in his time ahnost unknown, and in which he had few immediate imitators. In the dedication he said that his "honest intention" was to set editors an example of care and fidehty. The book was divided into three parts, the first being The Notbroiune Alayde ; Master Sackvile's Induction ; and Overburf s Wife. The second, Edivard the third, a Flay thought to be 7orit by Shakespeare, and the third division contained " Those excellent didactic Poems, intitl'd — Nosce teipsu7n, wx\\X&x\ by Sir John Davis; with a Preface." Capell's preface to the Prolusions, dated July 20, 1759, explains the task of editing, and shows a respect for accuracy and fidelity that is almost modern ; he made some omissions and changes, but noted them all. He called his attempt in pub- lishing these old pieces a "novelty," which indeed it was. This work of Capell's gave to the public the fine ballad of the Notbrowne Mayde in its original, unmutilated and "unpolished" form. He simply ignored Prior's Henry and Eni?na, treating it with silent contempt. He gave the date of the ballad as early in the sixteenth century, saying that what " a poet of late days " (Prior.) had said as to its age could not be true. In the revival of old literature, the Prolusions represents a distinct advance on previous work ; the editor was thoroughly in earnest, and assumed toward the poetry he revived no patronizing or apologetic tone. Capell has therefore some real significance in the Romantic movement.

Another indication of the growth of interest in antiquities, and a first fruit of Capell's work, appeared in 1764. No name is on the title-page of this volume, but its editor was John Bowie (i 725-1 788). The full title reads, Miscellaiieous Pieces of Antient English Poesie. viz The Trotiblesome Raigne of King fohn. Written by Shakespeare, Extant in no Edition of his Writ- ings. The Metamorphosis of Pyg?nalion's Image, and certain Satyres. By fohn Marston. The Scourge of Villanie. By the

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same. All printed before the year 1600. This book, of course, does not strictly come under the head of ballad collections ; but it evidenced a growth of the same interest, and belongs more properly to this part of the general subject than to any other. Bowie was influenced by Capell, and his book was another example of accuracy in scholarship. The text seems to have been printed with great care, and the original title- pages are reproduced. It is one of the best specimens of reprints that eighteenth century eyes ever beheld. Bowie was a man of great learning, who devoted himself to researches in obscure and untrodden paths ; his specialty being Spanish literature.

We come now to the most famous ballad-book of the eighteenth century, Percy's Reliques. It was an epoch-making book, and is usually spoken of as one of the chief causes of the great re-awakening in English poetry. But the course of our studies in the ballad revival proves that Percy's book was fully as much a result as it was a cause of the Romantic movement. It is true that in the list of ballad collections that preceded Percy only two had much significance, the Old Ballads (1723-5) and Ramsay's Ei'ergreen (1724). But the influence of these two was strong, and after 1755 evidences of renewed interest in antiquities — in poetry, chivalry, mythology — were showing themselves on every side. Percy's book came just at the critical time when the Romantic movement was beginning to be conscious of its own strength.

Thomas Percy (1729-181 1) seems to have been interested in antiquarian researches from early youth. His tastes are shown by his publications. In 1761 he published A Chinese Novel — Hati Kiou Chooan, in four volumes, translated by him from the Portuguese. In 1762 appeared Miscellaneous Fieecs Relating to the Chinese, in two volumes. In 1763 he edited Surrey's poems, but with the exception of a few private copies, the whole impression was destroyed by fire. In 1763 appeared his Five Fieces of Runic Foetry. In 1764, A New Tra/islation

130 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

of the Soiii^ of Solomon. In 1765, the Rcliqncs. In 1770, his translation of F. H. Mallet's book, Northern Antiquities. In 177 1, his Hermit of Warkivorth. In 1793, his Essay ofi the Origin of the English Stage. In 17S2 he was made Bishop of Dromore in Ireland, and about 1S06 he became blind.

Percy's correspondence with his friend Dr. Grainger, author of Sugar-Cane, also shows his interest in antiquities.^ They discussed Macpherson's Ossian and similar subjects. Percy had evidently turned his inquisitive brain on Caribbean and American antiquities, for on July 25, 1762, Grainger writes: " I told you I could be of no service to you in promoting your intentional publications ; we have no old books of Knight- errantry in this island, and nobody can tell me anything of the Charibbean poetry ; indeed, from what I have seen of these savages, I have no curiosity to know ought of their compositions. I have, however, desired a nephew of mine . . . who goes to-morrow to North America ... to make all imaginable inquiry after the poetry of the North Americans. ... If he has any success, you may depend upon my transmitting the effects of it to you."'^ This merely as a sample of Percy's passion for antiquarian bits of knowledge. His appetite grew by what it fed on.

For a number of years previous to 1765, Percy had been collecting materials for the Keliques. He bored his friends and acquaintances, and turned his keen glance in every direction. In justice to Shenstone, it should never be forgotten that it was he who first proposed the publication, and that he was to have been joint-editor. March i, 1761, Shenstone wrote to his friend Graves, " You have perhaps heard me speak of Mr. Percy — he ivas in treaty with Mr. James Dodsley, for the publication of our best old ballads in three volumes. — He has a large folio MS. of ballads, which he shewed me,

1 These letters are printed in Vols. VII. and VIII. of Nichols's Literary I this- trations.

2 Nichols, Vol. VII., page 281.

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and which, with his own natural and acquired talents, would qualify him for the purpose, as well as any man in England. I proposed the scheme for him )iiysclj\ wishing to see an elegant edition and good collection of this kind, — I was also to have assisted him in selecting and rejecting ; and in fixing upon the best readings — But my illness broke off our corre- spondence, the beginning of winter — and I know not what he has done since." ^ Since 1742 Shenstone's taste had improved. His connection with Percy places him among the Romanticists.

The Rcliqucs appeared in three volumes in February, 1765. The full title reads, Rcliqiu's of A/nie/if E/ii^Iis/i Poetry ; Co/isisti/n' of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and other Pieces of our Earlier Poets, {chiefly of the Lyric Kind). Together with some few of later Date.

The chief sources of the Reliques were as follows :

1. The Folio MS.

2. Certain other MSS. collections.

3. Scotch ballads sent him by vSir David Dalrymple.

4. The ordinary printed broadsides.

5. Poems he extracted from the old printed collections.'^ The MS. was a "scrubby, shabby, paper" book. Percy

discovered it " lying dirty on the floor under a ]]ureau in ye Parlour" of Humphrey Pitt of Shiffnal. The servants had been accustomed to use it in kindling fires. Pitt gave it to Percy, who afterwards had it bound, a process in which the volume suffered considerably, often losing lines at the tops and bottoms of the pages. The date of the handwriting was prob- ably about 1650.

Percy treated his materials in a way which nowadays would be considered scandalous, but which was common enough a hundred years ago. The influence of Capell and I^owle had not been strong enough to elevate very much the ideal of accuracy. It is extremely suggestive, however, to observe Percy's polishing, because it shows his own subservience to

1 Shenstone's Works, Vol. III., page 363.

2 This table is taken from the 1S76 edition of the Relicpces, V'ohinie 1., page Ixxxi.

132 THE ENGLISH JiOMANT/C MOVEMENT.

the public opinion which his book did so much to destroy. " As to the text, he looked on it as a young woman from the country with unkempt locks, whom he had to fit for fashion- able society. . . . All fashionable requirements Percy sup- plied. He puffed out the 39 lines of the Child of EH to 300; he pomatumed the Heir of Lin till it shone again; he stuffed bits of wool into Sir Caroline, Sir Aldriugar; he powdered everything. The desired result was produced ; his young woman was accepted by polite society, taken to the bosom of a countess, and rewarded her chaperon with a mitre." ^

We observe, therefore, that in many respects Percy was not ahead of contemporary taste. This polishing and pruning process is proof sufhcient ; but the slight way in which he spoke of his book is also testimony to the point. Writing to Dr. Birch, February 2, 1765, he says, "I know not whether you will not be offended to find your name mentioned in the preface to such a strange collection of trash."- In later years, also, Percy looked on the ReEnjiies as a youthful performance of no particular consequence; the fourth edition (1794) was edited by Percy's nephew, who said that the " original Editor had no desire to revive it."

But what is especially interesting in this connection is to notice in the original preface Percy's apologetic tone. He was evidently very timid in this undertaking, and afraid of popular ridicule. He bolstered himself up with the names of Shen- stone and Dr. Johnson, the latter of whom he was very anxious to please. He said, " This manuscript was shown to several learned and ingenious friends, who thought the contents too curious to be consigned to oblivion, and importuned the possessor to select some of them, and give them to the press. As most of them are of great simplicity, and seem to have been merely written for the people, he was long in doubt whether, in the present state of improved literature, they could be

1 Bishop Percy's Folio MS., Vol. I., page xvi.

2 Nichols, Vol. VII., page 577.

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deemed worthy of the attention of the public. At length the importunity of his friends prevailed, and he could refuse nothing to such judges as the author of The Rambler and the late Mr. Shenstone." Again he says, " In a polished age like the present, I am sensible that many of these reliques of antiquity will require great allowances to be made for them."

Percy also thought it necessary to do just what Ramsay and the Editor of Old Ballads had done ; to float old ballads by adding modern lyrics. He says, " To atone for the rudeness of the more obsolete poems, each volume concludes with a few modern attempts in the same kind of writing ; and to take off from the tediousness of the longer narratives, they are every- where intermingled with little elegant pieces of the lyric kind."

Then, after naming a long list of eminent men to whose aid he was indebted, Percy added, '• The names of so many men of learning and character the Editor hopes will serve as an amulet, to guard him from every unfavourable censure for having bestowed any attention on a parcel of Old Ballads." He then goes on to say that his "little work" has simply been the fruit of occasional leisure hours. Percy was evidently trying to cast anchors to windward. In studying the Reliques, this apologetic manner of the Editor should never be forgotten, for it constitutes further evidence toward the unconsciousness of the Romantic movement. Percy had no idea he had published an epoch-maker. The first edition appeared, as has been said, in 1765 ; the second in 1767. In the advertisement the editor speaks of the favorable reception given to his book. The second edition was very much like the first, except that the order of the pieces was changed, and the introductory essays considerably enlarged and improved. This advertisement is dated 1766, showing that a second edition was found to be necessary within a year. The third edition appeared in 1775. Further corrections were made, and Tyrwhitt's Chaueer was praised. The fourth edition did not appear till 1794, and was edited by the lUshop's nephew, Thomas Percy. A number of

134 THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC MOVEMENT.

corrections and improvements were made, and the text was emended "by recurring to the old copies." The Editor took occasion to reply to those who had doubted the existence of any original MS., by giving a number of names as vouchers and by describing the MS. in detail. Jkit the folio was really not so important to the Rcliipics as was, and still is, commonly supposed. Percy said in his 1765 preface, that the "greater part " of his material was extracted from the MS., but this was not true; out of 176 pieces published in the R cliques., only 45 were taken from that source. Another example of eighteenth century literary honesty.

In spite of the pains Percy had taken to forestall the criticism of men like Johnson, he met with disappointment. Previously to the publication of the Kcliqucs^ Percy and Johnson had discussed the matter, and the Editor naturally thought that the Doctor was on his side. ]5ut he should have remembered the autocrat's fixed opinions on all literature of this stamp. In the Kamhlcr (No. 177) for November 26, 175 1, Johnson had ridiculed the taste for ballads and the black letter, and he was not the man to change his mind. Although Johnson's limits of appreciation were rather narrow, he had a sure nose for anything Romantic. He was extremely suspicious of new literary fashions. It was this instinct that led him to oppose the Spenserians, to fight blank verse, to disparage Gray, and to attack the taste for ballads ; it led him also to make his fierce onslaught on Macpherson. The Doctor gave the Rdiqiirs no encouragement at all ; and Warburton and even Hurd had also recorded themselves against this kind of literary work.

But if the critics looked askance at this new departure, the popular reception was cordial and friendly enough to make all amends. The Rcliqitcs reached the English heart, and stirred up memories and aspirations that were full of promise for the literature of the future. Dr. (Grainger's letters to Percy show the popularity of the work. In February, 1766, he wrote, "I

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sincerely congratulate you on the great success of your 'Ancient Poetry.' The book deserves all the applause which has been given it." ^ A few months later he wrote, " I congratulate you again on the success of your 'Ancient Ballads'; though great, it is not more than they deserve." -

Percy's book makes the year 1765 one of the most important dates in the history of English Romanticism. The Reliques came just at the right time. Its effect on literature, though not felt so immediately as Ossian's, was far more healthful and far more lasting. It influenced the younger generation of readers with a force hard to overestimate ; and men like Wordsworth and Scott always gladly acknowledged what they owed to it. Scott's eagerness in its perusal and its effect on his taste are well known ; and Wordsworth's testimony as to its effect on the language is worth rememliering.^

Besides the direct influence of the ballads, the prose matter Percy published with the Rclicptes had a wide influence. His Essay on the Aiuioit Aliustrcls inspired Beattie to write his Spenserian poem ; * and the other essays on antiquarian matters must have done much to stir up interest in the past.^

The best evidence as to the effect of Percy's book on English literature may be obtained by a glance at the ballad bibliography of the eighteenth century." Before Percy, only two important collections had appeared ; in the remaining years they came as thick as tale. Ritson was a bitter opponent of Percy, and took a fiendish delight in exhibiting to the public the Bishop's loose methods of editing ; he stoutly denied the existence of the MS., and was silenced only by ocular proof,

1 Nichols, Vol. VII., page 292.

- Ibid., page 29^.

3 In Poetry as a .Study (1S15).