Cfass_K^L. L 
 Book_iJl 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
THE LITERATURE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE GEORGIAN ERA 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 WILLIAM MINTO 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND LOGIC IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN 
 
 EDITED 
 WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL.D. 
 
 FROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OK ST. ANDREWS 
 
 0£W/« 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1 895 
 
 K. 
 

 Copyright, 1894, by Harper & Brothers. 
 All righta reserved. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The following lectures by Professor Minto on 
 " The Literature of the Georgian Era " were origi- 
 nally delivered, not to the Arts students whom 
 he addressed in the University class-room, but 
 to a special audience brought together in the 
 Music Hall of Aberdeen, under the auspices of 
 the Local Examination Committee of the Senatus 
 Academicus. This will explain why some points 
 are treated in greater detail than would have 
 been necessary in addressing advanced students. 
 As explained in the Introduction, to Mr. John 
 H. Lobban belongs the credit — as he had all the 
 labor — of looking up and copying out the illus- 
 trative extracts from the authors referred to or 
 criticized by his master. 
 
 In addition to these Lectures, and us a cognate 
 Supplement, it has been thought expedient to 
 publish three essays by Professor Minto, which 
 were ready for press before his death, and were 
 meant by him to be included in a work to be en- 
 titled "Reconsiderations of some Current Concep- 
 tions about Eminent Poets." Two of them are 
 devoted to Pope, the former being a criticism of 
 Mr. Courthope's Biography, and the latter a 
 noteworthy discussion on "The Supposed Tyr- 
 anny of Pope." These were contributed to Mac- 
 millarts Magazine in January, 1890, and Sep- 
 
IV PREFACE 
 
 tember, 1888, and the right of reproducing them 
 has been generously conceded by the owners of 
 the copyright. The other, on Burns, has not 
 been previously published. It was delivered as 
 a lecture before the Edinburgh Philosophical In- 
 stitution. In reference to it, as Mr. Lobban tells 
 us, Professor Minto said that it was "most dis- 
 tinctly the best thing " that he had ever written. 
 The projected "Reconsiderations" would have 
 included, among others, an essay on John Donne, 
 two papers on Wordsworth, — originally contrib- 
 uted to the Nineteenth Century, — and another on 
 " Matthew Arnold's Meliorism." As the last of 
 these does not fall within the literature of the 
 era included in the lectures which follow, and 
 the first belongs to a previous period, while 
 Wordsworth has been discussed in the course of 
 this volume, these papers are not included in 
 the Supplement. 
 
 W. K. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRDOUCTION IX 
 
 LECTURES 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE POSITION OF MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Decline of royal patronage — Why is the Georgian Era a distinct 
 literary period? — Condition of poetry during the century, and 
 views of its critics as to the meaning of nature 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 POPE 
 
 Brief literary biography — His poems fall into three periods — 
 Eclogues, and the discussion as to the merits of pastoral 
 poetry — Walsh — Connection between English pastorals and 
 Allan Ramsay and Burns— Pope and Philips 21 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 pope— continued 
 
 "Essay on Criticism" — Supposed tyranny of Pope — Attitude of 
 Pope, Gray, etc., toward classical tradition — Review of theories 
 accounting for the poetic sterility of the eighteenth century . 35 
 
 CHAPTER TV 
 
 pope — continued 
 
 Influence of ideas on poetry — Spirit of the age — Influence of 
 
 society on Pope — Gay's ballads 47 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A GROUP OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 
 
 Thomson — Early life — Descriptive poetry generally — "Winter" — 
 
 Thomson's position in poetry — Dyer and Somerville .... 58 
 
VI CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 pope— continued 
 
 PAGE 
 
 As a satirist and moralist — Failure in epic poetry — " The Dun- 
 
 ciad" — " Essay on Man" 72 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 POETRY BETWEEN POPE AND COWPER 
 
 Glover— Johnson — Collins — The poet and the orator — Gray . . 80 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DECLINE OF POETRY — THE NOVEL 
 
 Walpole's criticism — Why the want of poetry was not felt — Diary 
 of a lady of quality — Rise of the novel — " Pamela " — Connec- 
 tion with magazine literature — Fielding — historical novels— 
 " The Castle of Otranto " 99 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 the novel — continued 
 
 Influence of Percy's " Reliques " and Ossian— Miss Burney and the 
 
 lady novelists 114 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 Cowper — His alleged revolution of poetry 129 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SCOTTISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 The elevation of a dialect into a literary language — Influence of 
 old ballads — Watson's " Collection" — Allan Ramsay — The Easy 
 Club — "The Gentle Shepherd" — Song-writers— Skinner, 
 etc. — Fergusson — Burns 146 
 
 CHAPTER Xn 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
 Connection with previous poetry— Sketch of life— " Lyrical 
 
 Ballads" 164 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Wordsworth — continued 
 " The Idiot Boy "—Prose v. Poetry— Coleridge on Wordsworth . 182 
 
CONTENTS Vii 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Wordsworth (continued)— Coleridge— southey 199 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 CAMPBELL — MOOBE 
 
 Campbell — "Pleasures of Hope " — Thomas Moore — The last of the 
 •Joculators — Moore's social environment — His jocose and 
 maudlin veins 217 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SCOTT 
 
 Influence of old ballads— Summary of life — Poems 235 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BYRON 
 
 Summary of life— Popular identification of the poet with his crea- 
 tions — " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers " 253 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 NOVELISTS FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BULWER LYTTON 
 
 Sterne — Miss Edgeworth— Hannah More — Jane Austen— "Waver- 
 ley"— Miss Mitford— Mrs. Shelley— " Vivian Grey"— "Pel- 
 ham" 275 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 Shelley — Various conceptions of the poet — Character — Keats — The 
 reviewers — Characteristics of his poetry — "Endymion" and 
 "Hyperion" 292 
 
 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 I. MR. COURTHOPE's BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 307 
 
 II. THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 326 
 
 III. THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 343 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the year 1890 I asked Professor Minto to 
 contribute a volume on "Logic, Inductive and 
 Deductive," to the series of " University Man- 
 uals ' ' which I had organized some time previously, 
 and was then editing. It was not completed till 
 shortly before his death, but the proof had been 
 revised by himself in all its details; and it 
 seemed only loyal to his memory to send it to the 
 press in the exact form in which he left it. 
 
 It has now fallen to me to edit a volume of 
 Jus Lectures on the Literature of the Georgian 
 Period ; and, although they would have been 
 greatly altered and recast had he lived to see 
 them through the press, it is now inexpedient to 
 do more than correct clerical errors in transcrip- 
 tion. Mr. Lobban, — who acted as Professor Min- 
 to' s assistant for some time, and whose estimate 
 of his master will be found in a later page, — has 
 been good enough to go over these Lectures with 
 the same end in view. 
 
 At the request of Mrs. Minto I agreed to edit 
 this book, and to write a brief introductory 
 sketch of my late friend. We differed on many 
 points, — philosophical, literary, political, artistic, 
 and social, — but I never knew any man with 
 whom recognized differences counted for less, so 
 far as personal esteem was concerned. Indeed, 
 
X BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 our differences enhanced my regard for him 
 every time we met. 
 
 He was not only the most chivalrous of intel- 
 lectual opponents, but the most appreciative ; 
 and he had the rare gift of presenting to those 
 who differed from him the very doctrine from 
 which they dissented, and the kernel of the posi- 
 tion from which they stood aloof, in a non-con- 
 troversial and attractive manner. 
 
 I have never known a more genial, generous, or 
 upright man than Professor Minto. He never 
 alluded to the points on which men differed from 
 him in reference to ultimata, as expressed in 
 their published writings ; and, so far as friendly 
 intercourse was concerned, these differences were 
 as though they were not. He instinctively met 
 every one on his own level, sympathetically ap- 
 preciating truth and excellence wherever he 
 found them. This characteristic came out most 
 notably in his comments on those who had mis- 
 construed, and even opposed, him. I never heard 
 him say an unkind word of any opponent. 
 
 The first occasion on which we met was at a 
 University Extension Conference which was 
 being held in Glasgow, and to which those repre- 
 sentatives of the four Scottish Universities who 
 had interested themselves in the work as organ- 
 izers or secretaries, etc., were invited. There 
 was one person in the room whom I did not know ; 
 and he seemed to know no one present from 
 Edinburgh, Glasgow, or St. Andrews. But, ob- 
 serving this silent man with a noticeable coun- 
 tenance sitting in the background and in a corner 
 of the room, I went up to him and asked him 
 what University he represented. As soon as he 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 had introduced himself he was asked to help in 
 the organization of a comprehensive plan of 
 University Extension for Scotland at large. Ab- 
 erdeen had, up to that time, taken no active part 
 in the movement ; and Professor Minto was the 
 first to interest himself in it, which he did with 
 much ardor, offering many important sugges- 
 tions. He came to St. Andrews to discuss that 
 and other things with me, and soon became an 
 intimate friend. 
 
 I can never forget the days he spent at Edge- 
 cliffe and my repeated visits to him afterward 
 at Aberdeen, our talks on Philosophy and Liter- 
 ature — far beyond the summer night and into 
 early morning — in his house at Westfield Terrace, 
 our golf matches on the Links, and social inter- 
 course with friends at the Club or in his most 
 genial home. 
 
 As I was a friend of his later years it seemed 
 appropriate to follow the plan which I pursued 
 in the case of the late Principal Shairp of St. 
 Andrews, and to place together a series of pho- 
 tographic sketches — taken from opposite points 
 of view — of the character, genius, and career of a 
 remarkable man, by his earlier friends and more 
 intimate pupils. These tributes have been ren- 
 dered spontaneously, and given very cordially. 
 
 I do not feel it incumbent on me to characterize 
 his work in Philosophy, or his contributions to 
 Literature, in detail. It will suffice to record one 
 or two things which were written before these 
 admirable character-sketches by others reached 
 me. 
 
 I consider it not the least merit in Professor 
 Minto' s career that, while a man of letters par 
 
xii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 excellence, — and for many years diverted from 
 Philosophy to Literature by his work as a Jour- 
 nalist, and a critic of men and public measures, — 
 he succeeded, during his tenure of it, in making 
 the Aberdeen Chair, with its dual claims, quite 
 as distinguished in the department of Philosophy 
 as in that of Literature. All students bear wit- 
 ness to this. His book on " Logic, Inductive and 
 Deductive," is as original and bright as that of 
 any writer on the subject in Great Britain during 
 the last quarter of a century. In all probability 
 his previous life as a journalist not only con- 
 firmed that rare capacity for work which dis- 
 tinguished him as an undergraduate, but fitted 
 him for popularizing an abstruse subject, and 
 keeping his exposition of it free from the techni- 
 calities which have so often disfigured the treat- 
 ment of Logic. The fact that he had been no 
 mean power in the literary circles of the south 
 gave a special weight to what he said from his 
 academic chair ; and while the bejants of the 
 north found that they had before them, in the 
 English Literature class, a Teacher of whose 
 achievements among his contemporaries it 
 might be truly said, — although he would never 
 have said it, nor thought it,— pars magna fui, 
 the students of Philosophy found that they were 
 being taught by an original mind, and not by a 
 mere expositor of school Logic. 
 
 A wonderful critic of his "Logic" has com- 
 plained of its "laxity of reference to Greek writers 
 and to modern," and has added that the editor 
 should have supplied a bibliography, and index, 
 and notes, and references, etc. He has even 
 doubted whether it should ever have had a place in 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION Xlll 
 
 such a Series ! But the ways of reviewers are 
 inscrutable. To none of the authors whom I asked 
 to co-operate in this series of Manuals was it a 
 greater satisfaction to me to delegate work than to 
 hand over this volume to Professor Minto ; and 
 its success, both in this country and in America, 
 has been marked. It has a value of its own 
 which has already made it useful in University 
 and College class-rooms, being one of the freshest 
 and most stimulating books which our British 
 philosophical literature has received for many 
 years. 
 
 As a contribution to logical science, its Intro- 
 duction will probably be welcomed generations 
 hence by students of the subject when dry-as- 
 dust logicians are forgotten. To be taught how 
 to escape from illusion and fallacy of every kind, 
 so as to get into the light of reality, is no small 
 gain to the student of evidence ; and there can be 
 little doubt that Professor Minto' s book— while 
 a reflection of the work done by him in the Logic 
 class-room of Aberdeen for thirteen years — will 
 be found one of the best handbooks introductory 
 to the study of Philosophy for those who cannot 
 resort to a University, and for whose assistance 
 these Manuals were originally designed. 
 
 In Philosophy Minto was singularly open to 
 light from every quarter. I often told him that 
 he was more eclectic than I was. When discuss- 
 ing the ideal and the real in Philosophy or in 
 Art, he always proved himself one of the most 
 fair-minded of men, a reconciler of differences, 
 and as ready to recognize merit from the most 
 opposite quarters as any disciple of the school 
 of a 'priori thought. 
 
XIV BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 The range of his knowledge and culture was 
 almost encyclopaedic, as was that of his friend 
 and rival Robertson Smith ; so that, like the late 
 Professor Trail of Edinburgh — editor of the sev- 
 enth edition of the" Encyclopaedia Britannica" — 
 he was probably the only man in the University 
 who could have been trusted on an emergency to 
 conduct the class of any one of his colleagues if 
 he were accidentally laid aside from duty. 
 
 It is a noteworthy circumstance that, when it 
 was finally determined to separate the subjects of 
 Logic and Literature in the University of Aber- 
 deen, a memorial was addressed to Professor 
 Minto, signed by 350 of his former pupils, asking 
 him to accept the Chalmers Chair of English 
 Literature. 
 
 The lectures published in this volume, which 
 have been printed from Professor Minto' s own 
 MSS., are a very inadequate index of the extent 
 of his knowledge, or his critical insight into the 
 more delicate problems which arise in the study 
 of English Literature ; but, as he meant to recast 
 them with a view to publication, they are sent 
 forth in the belief that they contain literary 
 judgments which he would himself have ratified 
 in any subsequent work. At the same time, I 
 believe that there are articles of William Minto' s, 
 I should not say buried, but — for the mass of 
 readers — lost, in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 
 The Nineteenth Century, and other magazines, 
 which, in their critical vision, their wise insight, 
 and felicitous appraisal of authors little known 
 (or at least little read), are greatly superior to 
 those put together in this volume for the first 
 time. There are papers on Wordsworth, and 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 other magnates in our great English hierarchy, 
 which will be found as valuable to posterity as 
 the critical notices of any of our modern re- 
 viewers. In addition there are numerous Intro- 
 ductory Lectures delivered to his class, — such as 
 those on "The English Language," on "The 
 Usefulness of Plodding," on "Industry," and 
 others delivered to literary societies in the north ; 
 that on "K., B., and Q.," or three new novel- 
 ists (they were Kipling, Barrie, and Quiller- 
 Couch), — which would adorn another volume of 
 his, remains. 
 
 As Minto's knowledge was not derived from 
 secondary sources, his criticism was invariably 
 at first hand. I was often struck with his 
 knowledge of out-of-the-way authors. He could 
 quote "The Day's Estival " as readily as he 
 showed his knowledge of the writings of Thomas, 
 ex Albiis. These delightful days at Aberdeen, 
 when — after a round of the Links — we used to 
 watch the fleet of boats going out from the har- 
 bor to the herring fishing, and talk of Meta- 
 physics or of Literature, vividly recall to me 
 how glad Minto was to be ultimately relieved 
 from what became — to a temperament like his — 
 the drudgery of editorship. I nevertheless be- 
 lieve that his training in the editorial chair, 
 and his varied literary work in London, devel- 
 oped his unique fitness for the work he did at 
 the University. It prevented him from ever 
 being pedantic. It gave simplicity, piquancy, 
 and diversity to his style ; and to it is greatly 
 owing the fact that, in all his subsequent exposi- 
 tions of the abstruser matters of Philosophy, he 
 was untechnical, and even vernacular. 
 
XVI BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the following brief sketch of his life I avail 
 myself of notes derived from several quarters. 
 
 William Minto was born at Nether Auchin- 
 toul, Alford, on the 10th of October, 1845, the 
 farm then occupied by his father. He was sent 
 to Gallowhill school, near Alford, which he left 
 in May, 1854, going for six months to the parish 
 school of Tough. In November, 1854, his father 
 entered upon the tenancy of the farm of Little- 
 mill, Auchterless, and the son was sent to a 
 private school at Bruckhills in the neighborhood. 
 Here he remained for two years, after which he 
 went for a year to the Episcopal school at Fisher- 
 ford, Culsalmond. In 1857 his parents removed 
 to Huntly, where William was taught in the 
 Gordon Schools under a very able master, the 
 Rev. John Macdonald, who gave him a thorough 
 training in classics as a preparation for the bur- 
 sary competition at the University of Aberdeen. 
 He cherished the memory of this teacher to the 
 last, entertaining for him the greatest admiration 
 and regard. 
 
 Before giving an outline of his College career 
 an explanation of the constant race between him 
 and the late Robertson Smith, the distinguished 
 Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, is desirable. 
 He went to College in the winter of 1861-62, at 
 the age of sixteen, his means of preparation 
 being such as already indicated. Robertson 
 Smith was two years his senior ; and, by his 
 father's arrangement as a matter of policy, was 
 kept at home studying to the very utmost under 
 himself, he being one of the best teachers of the 
 day, accomplished both in mathematics and clas- 
 sics. The consequence was that Smith carried 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XV11 
 
 off the first bursary with comparative ease, his 
 Latin version being perfect, sine errore, in every 
 respect — probably as good a version as the clas- 
 sical master could have produced. Minto, with 
 his inferior advantages, was able to carry off the 
 Moir bursary of fifteen pounds. The disparity in 
 years and means of training made the start of the 
 two competitors necessarily unequal ; and it was 
 by an extraordinary strain of application that 
 Minto was able, in a very short time, to equal, and 
 even to surpass, Robertson Smith in some of the 
 subjects. At the end of the first year his work 
 had been such that he took the eighth prize in 
 Latin, and the second in Greek. In English he 
 only attained a third place in the order of merit. 
 Professor Bain writes : "In the English class 
 one incident occurred which constituted the first 
 occasion of my taking notice of his personality. 
 I began in that year the system of setting in 
 writing two essays a week, and engaged an as- 
 sistant to read them. The only person that I 
 could find as an assistant to begin with, before I 
 got advanced pupils of my own, was an assistant 
 librarian in the College. The out-of-door essays 
 I made him examine and value, and also indicate 
 errors, so that they might be returned. After 
 giving them back one day Minto came up to 
 me at the end of the hour, and showed me his 
 paper with some red ink marks under portions 
 of it, which was the mode of indicating some 
 error or want of correctness. He asked me to 
 tell him what that meant. I looked at it, and I 
 found that there was really nothing to correct in 
 the matter at all ; and the incident showed me 
 that the assistant was not to be trusted with the 
 
XV1U BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 function of indicating errors, so as to enable me 
 to return the essays ; and from that time forward 
 I ceased the practice." 
 
 In the Honors examinations Minto had a first 
 in Classics, a second in Mental Philosophy, and 
 a second in Mathematical Science — a triple 
 honor, never before or since accomplished. As 
 prizes he carried off the Simpson in Greek and 
 the Boxhill in Mathematics ; he also obtained 
 the Hutton prize (which was awarded for dis- 
 tinction both in Classics and in Philosophy) — 
 the total money value of the prizes being £110. 
 
 He graduated as Master of Arts in 1865, and 
 afterward obtained the Ferguson scholarship in 
 Classics, open to graduates of all the Scottish 
 Universities. 
 
 In the session of 1865-66 he attended the Di- 
 vinity Hall, and in the summer of 1866 went to 
 Merton College, Oxford, where he obtained an 
 exhibition of eighty pounds. 
 
 His experience at Oxford seemed to impress 
 him with the inexpediency of pursuing his 
 studies there, and he resolved to leave it at the 
 end of the year, which he did, without taking 
 the Oxford degree. He seemed to think that to 
 wait for a Fellowship at Merton would not be so 
 advantageous to him as to go south to the me- 
 tropolis, or to return to Scotland. 
 
 In the autumn of 1867 he was undecided as to 
 his future ; but, owing to his distinction in 
 Science, as well as in Classics and Philosophy, an 
 offer was made to him by Mr. David Thomson, the 
 Professor of Natural Philosophy in Aberdeen, to 
 become his endowed assistant — an office to which 
 a salary of one hundred pounds a year was at- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 tached. The engagement seemed to give satisfac- 
 tion to both parties, and he entered upon his duties 
 in the following November. The only thing doubt- 
 ful was whether he had that sort of handicraft 
 skill required in an assistant who had to take 
 part in experimental work, and that, of course, 
 remained to be tested. The engagement, how- 
 ever, came to an abrupt termination in December, 
 the occasion being Minto's refusal to take part 
 in the experiment of subjecting himself to an 
 electric shock, so as to excite the laughter of the 
 students, which he considered derogatory to his 
 position as an assistant. It is unnecessary to 
 discuss the details of this unfortunate affair 
 further than to say that he objected, and rightly, 
 "to be made part and parcel of the class appa- 
 ratus." When released from this post he was 
 appointed temporarily by Professor Bain as his 
 English class assistant, and to give various aid in 
 connection with certain books which he then had 
 in hand. With this occupation Minto began his 
 volume on " English Prose Composition," which 
 he wrote exclusively in Aberdeen during the 
 course of the next three years, having the re- 
 sources of the University library at his command 
 for the purpose. The work appeared in 1872. 
 
 During the four years which he now spent at 
 Aberdeen Minto was active in a variety of ways 
 in connection with the University, although not 
 one of its recognized officials. He took a note- 
 worthy part in the work of the University Liter- 
 ary Society, which was founded in 1871, and of 
 which he was elected president in 1872. He was 
 also an active organizer in rectorial contests, al- 
 though he had not himself a vote. The election 
 
XX BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 which occurred during his stay in Aberdeen re- 
 sulted in the return of Mountstuart Grant Duff 
 for the second time in 1869. There was a close 
 contest. The majority was a very narrow one, — 
 only twelve, — indeed, it was found that there was 
 a tie of Nations, and the Duke of Richmond and 
 Gordon gave the casting vote in favor of Sir 
 William Maxwell, who, seeing there was dissatis- 
 faction with the mode in which the election had 
 been made, magnanimously declined to accept 
 office, and allowed Mr. Grant Duff to be elected. 
 Minto's influence was very marked and power- 
 ful, so much so that but for him Mr. Grant Duff 
 would have failed. 
 
 In 1872 there was a vacancy in the representa- 
 tion of the University Council in the Court, and 
 it was again due to his untiring energy that the 
 Rev. John Christie, minister of Kildrummy, was 
 elected. 
 
 In 1872 the examinership in Mental Philosophy 
 at Aberdeen became vacant, and Minto became a 
 candidate. His friends in the Court were the 
 Rector, the Rector's Assessor, and the Assessor 
 to the General Council, all of whom may be said 
 to have owed their standing to his exertions in 
 their behalf at the different elections. His secur- 
 ing the appointment as Examiner was an impor- 
 tant step in his future career, being the beginning 
 of his systematic studies in Philosophy, while his 
 other work was more exclusively in connection 
 with English Literature. 
 
 In the following year (1873) he left Aberdeen, 
 and went up to London to engage in literary 
 work. He obtained a post on The Examiner 
 newspaper, and in its columns he wrote, with 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXI 
 
 special force and clearness, on John Stuart Mill, 
 on the occasion of his death in May, 1873. His 
 article was one of a series of character-sketches 
 on Mill, to which Herbert Spencer, Mr. Frederick 
 Harrison, Professors Henry Fawcett and Cairns 
 also contributed. Later in that year The Ex- 
 aminer was purchased by Mr. Peter Taylor, the 
 Radical Member of Parliament for Leicester. Mr. 
 Minto was selected as literary editor, and in 1874 as 
 editor-in-chief. The Examiner had been started 
 by Leigh Hunt in the earlier years of the present 
 century. To it Charles Lamb, Shelley, Hazlitt, 
 Haydon, and John Forster had contributed. It 
 was edited for some time by M. Albany Fon- 
 blanque ; but it had almost failed about the year 
 1870, when it was revived as the organ of philo- 
 sophical Radicalism. It was, however, a literary 
 as well as a political journal ; and Mr. Minto 
 had very able coadjutors in both departments, 
 such men as Mr. John MacDonnell and Mr. 
 William A. Hunter being among them. With 
 all its ability, however, The Examiner did not 
 succeed. It had a very formidable rival in the 
 ablest of all the weekly papers of Great Britain — 
 The Spectator. Mr. Taylor sold the property to 
 Lord Rosebery, Mr. Minto remaining co-editor 
 along with Mr. Robert Williams until 1878. When 
 the paper was finally discontinued in 1880, Minto 
 turned to purely political writing in The Daily 
 News. He afterward wrote in The Pall Mall 
 Gazette (under the editorship of Mr. John Mor- 
 ley), to which newspaper he was a regular con- 
 tributor until he left London. While living as a 
 journalist in London Minto took a prominent 
 part in political controversy, especially in con- 
 
XX11 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 nection with England's relations to the East, and 
 the war in Afghanistan. He was the first to use 
 a term which soon became a current coin in 
 political writing — the term "jingo." As he 
 once told his students : " I am under the impres- 
 sion that I was the first to give the currency of 
 respectable print to the chorus of the song, ' We 
 don't want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do,' and 
 so forth," which was first made use of in an edi- 
 torial article in The Daily JYews. 
 
 During his seven years in the metropolis his 
 literary, other than newspaper, work resulted in 
 the publication of "Characteristics of English 
 Poets" in 1874, and "Defoe," in the English 
 Men of Letters Series, in 1879, besides miscella- 
 neous contributions to various periodicals, such as 
 The Nineteenth Century, The Fortnightly Re- 
 view, Macmillan, Blackwood, and The English 
 Illustrated Magazine. It may be noted that 
 Mr. Edmund Gosse was, for a time, the sub- 
 editor of The Examiner, and that Minto was the 
 first to persuade Mr. Theodore Watts to devote 
 himself to literature. 
 
 He was early engaged by Professor Thomas 
 Spenser Baynes, the late editor of the " Encyclo- 
 pedia Britannica," to contribute to its pages, and 
 his contributions are to be found in most of the 
 volumes of that Encyclopaedia. In alphabetical 
 order they were as follows : Byron, Chaucer, 
 Dickens, Dryden, Fielding, Lytton, Mandeville, 
 J. S. Mill, Minstrel, Moore, Poe, Pope, Reade, 
 Scott, Sheridan, Sydney Smith, Smollett, Spen- 
 ser, Steele, Sterne, James Thomson, Waller, 
 Izaak Walton, Warton, and Wordsworth. 
 
 In 1880 Professor Bain retired from the Chair 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XX111 
 
 of Logic and English Literature in the University 
 of Aberdeen, and Minto became Ms successor. 
 In that year he married Miss Cornelia Griffiths, 
 daughter of the Rector of Swindon, in Glouces- 
 tershire. When called to Aberdeen he devoted 
 himself with rare assiduity to both branches of 
 his Chair, although it was evident that the 
 English section was what he liked best, and what 
 he most excelled in. During the thirteen years 
 that he held office in the University his literary 
 activity was great. He published three romances : 
 "The Crack of Doom," which appeared first in 
 Blackwood 's Magazine in 1886, and was repub- 
 lished in three volumes in 1886 ; "The Mediation 
 of Ralph Hardelot," contributed to The English 
 Illustrated Magazine, and published in book 
 form in 1888 ; and " Was She Good or Bad ? " in 
 1889. In 1886 he brought out an admirable edi- 
 tion of Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel" for 
 the Clarendon Press, with notes, and in 1891 an 
 edition of " The Lady of the Lake." In 1887 he 
 edited a complete edition of Sir Walter's Poems 
 for Messrs. A. & C. Black. During his later years 
 in Aberdeen he was also a frequent contributor 
 to several of the London literary weeklies, not- 
 ably to The Bookman. The posthumous volume 
 on " Logic," already referred to, contains the best 
 part of his teaching in the Philosophical class- 
 room of the University of Aberdeen. 
 In the Preface to that work he wrote : 
 
 In this little treatise two things are attempted that 
 at first might appear incompatible. One of them is to 
 put the study of logical formulas on a historical basis. 
 Strangely enough, the scientific evolution of logical 
 
XXIV BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 forms is a bit of history that still awaits the zeal and 
 genius of some great scholar. I have neither ambition 
 nor qualification for such a magnum o]ncs, and my life 
 is already more than half spent ; but the gap in evo- 
 lutionary research is so obvious that doubtless some 
 younger man is now at work in the field unknown to me. 
 All that I can hope to do is to act as a humble pioneer 
 according to my imperfect lights. Even the little I 
 have done represents work begun more than twenty 
 years ago, and continuously pursued for the last twelve 
 years during a considerable portion of my time. 
 
 The other aim, which might at first appear inconsist- 
 ent with this, is to increase the power of Logic as a 
 practical discipline. The main purpose of this practical 
 science, or scientific art, is conceived to be the organi- 
 zation of reason against error, and error in its various 
 kinds is made the basis of the division of the subject. 
 To carry out this practical aim along with the historical 
 one is not hopeless, because throughout its long history 
 Logic has been a practical science ; and, as I have tried 
 to show at some length in introductory chapters, has 
 concerned itself at different periods with the risks of 
 error peculiar to each. 
 
 An earlier work, issued the year before he died, 
 the "Autobiographical Notes of the Life of 
 William Bell Scott," is a book of great value, as 
 bearing on a wide circle of writers in Literature 
 and Art. The varied information there contained 
 as to such men as David Scott, Dante Rossetti, 
 Samuel Brown, Holman Hunt, Thomas Woolner, 
 Carlyle, and others, is of the highest literary 
 importance. 
 
 Minto's health was weakened before 1890. He 
 often suffered from asthma, and in 1891 he was 
 induced to try the effect of a sea voyage in the 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXV 
 
 Mediterranean, which refreshed him for a time. 
 His academic and literary activity knew no 
 intermission till he finally succumbed to a com- 
 plication of ailments on the 1st of March, 1893. 
 Had he survived to see, and to profit by, the 
 changes introduced by the University Commis- 
 sion into the curriculum of study at Aberdeen, 
 he would have found in the new Chair of English 
 a field for his energies, in which he would have 
 probably enriched the literature of his country 
 in many ways. With a wide knowledge of 
 philosophy, and a thoroughgoing philosophic 
 discipline behind, he might have been expected 
 to do as much as any of his contemporaries to 
 advance the study of English in the land of his 
 birth, and in his own alma mater, while the 
 northern University would have felt his power 
 in the consideration of all matters of academic 
 policy. 
 
 Minto's death, although not altogether unex- 
 pected, was a shock, not only to the city of 
 Aberdeen, but to the country at large. Every 
 Professor in the University on hearing of it 
 made a sympathetic allusion to their common 
 loss, and dismissed his class for the day. I ex- 
 tract the following account of his funeral from a 
 local journal : 
 
 A more inspiring ceremonial, and one that brought 
 from their homes a more than usually large gathering 
 of the public, of all ranks, has not been witnessed in 
 Aberdeen than that which attended the funeral of Pro- 
 fessor Minto yesterday. The obsequies were of a pub- 
 lic character, and among the varied representatives that 
 followed the mournful procession from Marischal College 
 
XXVI BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 to Allanvale Cemetery there was a very large number 
 of the deceased Professor's academical and other 
 friends. The plate bore the inscription, " William 
 Minto, born Oct. 10th, 1845, died March 1st, 1893." The 
 coffin was carried to the grave on the shoulders of four 
 shore porters. Long before the procession started from 
 Marischal College both sides of Union Street were 
 densely lined with the populace, who waited patiently 
 for nearly an hour to catch a last glimpse of the remains 
 being carried to the grave. Funeral service was con- 
 ducted in the Upper and Lower Halls, the professors, 
 students, and varied University bodies assembling. The 
 shop and dwelling-house window-blinds along the 
 streets through which the procession passed were drawn 
 down, and as the coffin passed the hats of spectators 
 were respectfully raised all along the route. The 
 weather was warm, — very un-March-like, — and at in- 
 tervals a bright sun shone, revealing the early breath 
 of spring. As the cortdge moved through the streets 
 the deep and solemn note of Victoria pealed at regular 
 intervals from the tower of St. Nicholas' steeple. 
 
 Mr. W. Kobertson Nicoll, the editor of The 
 Bookman and other papers, sends me the follow- 
 ing most appreciative paper : 
 
 Minto was one of the most brilliant and industrious 
 students Aberdeen University has ever known. He 
 was one of three concerning whom a Professor said 
 that none of them would ever see fifty. Their consti- 
 tutions were not robust, and they were of eager, un- 
 resting temperament. 
 
 The natural thing for Minto would have been to 
 enter at an English University, and he made the attempt. 
 But it did not suit him, and after a short trial he also 
 gave up Divinity. It was a bold step in these days to 
 take up literature as a profession, but, having made up 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXV11 
 
 his mind, he prepared himself with business-like thor- 
 oughness. He wrote articles and reviews in one of the 
 Aberdeen newspapers {The Herald). Here, perhaps 
 for the only time in his life, he occasionally gave rein 
 to his great powers of sarcasm ; but, for the most part, 
 his criticisms were genial. He set himself to write 
 books on literary history. In these he made the simple 
 but unusual preparation of reading the authors he was 
 to deal with. The result is that his " Manual " and his 
 " Characteristics " are perhaps the most thoroughly origi- 
 nal works of their kind. Minto did not, in the first in- 
 stance, read criticisms of authors ; he went to the 
 fountainhead. In the case of some authors, — notably 
 De Quincey, — his research was of the most elaborate 
 kind. At the time when his volume was published 
 Minto probably knew more of De Quincey's work than 
 any other critic. Another study he took pleasure in 
 was that of Sir Roger de Coverley. He contended and 
 proved that all that is amiable in the character belongs 
 to Steele. 
 
 While diligently occupied at this work, Minto found 
 time to be president of the University Literary Society 
 — a body composed of graduates and other members of 
 the University. As Vice-President I had many oppor- 
 tunities of meeting him, and the association ripened 
 into intimacy. Like all who really knew Minto, I soon 
 came to estimate his character even above his abili- 
 ties. I have never known so equitable a mind. Though 
 a man of strong convictions and warm feelings, he was 
 pre-eminently just, patient, and generous. He could 
 make allowance for his bitterest opponents ; and was 
 quick to recognize the merits of those farthest from him 
 in opinion. Even if he depreciated any man, he soon 
 began to recall redeeming traits. This equitableness of 
 temper is what rises up and remains to me at every 
 remembrance of Minto. He had also much bonhotnie, 
 and was singularly courteous to every one. In these 
 
XXV111 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 gatherings of students he was seen at his best, and it 
 was his special delight to encourage and befriend be- 
 ginners. 
 
 When he went to edit Tlie Examiner his old friends 
 in Aberdeen followed his work with warm interest. I 
 am sure he has never had justice done to his editorial 
 ability. The Examiner was in low water, and in these 
 days new ideas in journalism were not favored. Possibly 
 its politics were too advanced for readers of the class 
 it appealed to. But Minto was in his way a great 
 editor. He introduced the features which mark the 
 new sixpenny reviews — signed articles, stories, sketches, 
 and miscellaneous paragraphs. For new writers he was 
 always on the outlook, and Mr. Theodore Watts and 
 Mr. Edmund Gosse were among the young critics he 
 brought forward. Dr. Garnett's exquisite criticism 
 was often to be recognized. For the work of woman 
 he had a warm welcome ; Mrs. Augusta Webster was 
 one of many lady contributors. But the comparative 
 failure of the paper from a commercial standpoint dis- 
 couraged him. He had great pleasure in thinking of 
 his literary associations and friendships ; but the work 
 of editing was to him a "disagreeable business," and he 
 scarcely understood how any one could like it. 
 
 Of his career as a Professor others will speak. I 
 believe he bridged the gulf which for long stretched so 
 wide between Aberdeen students and their teachers. It 
 was easy to see that his heart was in his work and with 
 his pupils. 
 
 In later years I saw him frequently. Even when in 
 delicate health, and worried by controversies not of his 
 seeking, he was what I had always known him — un- 
 alterably true to his convictions, generous in his judg- 
 ment of opponents, unwearied in labor, and eagerly 
 interested in literature — old and new. At our last 
 meeting he talked of the writers who had influenced 
 Dickens. I happened to say that John Poole, author of 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXIX 
 
 "Little Pedlington," was the only novelist to whom, so 
 far as I could see, Dickens owed any thing. Minto re- 
 plied that he believed he could trace marks of Theodore 
 Hook in Dickens. He spoke of the lines : 
 
 " In Vienna's fatal walls 
 God's finger touched him and he slept," 
 
 in connection with the remark that the word " fatal " is 
 incongruous with the sentiment that follows. He turned 
 to his favorite theme, the young writers of the day. 
 Most of them he met on his visits to London, and 
 cheered them with his cordial praise. For Mr. Barrie, 
 whom he first met under my roof, he had a warm 
 admiration, but I think he expected most from Mr. 
 Quiller-Couch. I sent him Mr. Couch's poems for 
 review in The Bookman, and it was, I believe, the last 
 book read to him. 
 
 Minto's best work was done perhaps in literary history 
 and criticism, and had he lived he would have given us 
 a monumental book in this department. Nothing, how- 
 ever, could have increased the estimate of his character 
 formed by all who knew him. The man himself was 
 greater than any book he could have written. 
 
 Mr. P. W. Clayden, the editor of The Daily 
 News, sends the following note of Minto's con- 
 nection with that newspaper : 
 
 I am a little surprised to find how short his connec- 
 tion with us was. His first article appeared on the 14th 
 of August, 1878. It was on Indian Finance. Here is 
 the list of subjects on which he wrote in the first 
 fortnight : 
 
 August 14. Indian Finance. 
 
 August 15. Cyprus. 
 
 August 16. The Eastern Question. 
 
 August 1*7. India. 
 
XXX BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 August 20. The Eastern Question. 
 August 21. The Eastern Question. 
 August 22. Batoura. 
 August 23. The Eastern Question. 
 August 24. The Government. 
 August 24. Election News. 
 
 He continued to write, chiefly on these subjects, till 
 1880, and his last article in Tlie Daily News was on the 
 20th of May, 1880. He also wrote some reviews, and 
 occasional articles on literary subjects, as well as articles 
 on the smaller topics which arise in the regular course 
 of newspaper work. He acted during nearly the whole 
 of this year and nine months as an assistant editor, 
 attending at night twice a week on evenings on which 
 I was absent, and being with me when I took the 
 editorship in Mr. Hill's absence. My impression is that 
 he never took quite kindly to the night-work. He was 
 not a rapid writer, but his articles were distinguished 
 for the fulness and accuracy of the knowledge they 
 exhibited, and their forcible and clear argument. I 
 always found him a most pleasant and trustworthy 
 colleague. One result of that connection remains. We 
 were wanting some one to write leaders on legal sub- 
 jects, and Minto brought with him one day Mr. Herbert 
 Paul, now M. P. for South Edinburgh. Mr. Paul 
 showed great aptitude and capacity for the work, and 
 has been more and more intimately associated with us 
 ever since. During the time of Minto's connection with 
 the paper I was busy at home in writing " England 
 under Lord Beaconsfield," the notice of which in Tlie 
 Daily Nevis was written by Minto. I find that my 
 regular attendance at the office at night was then three 
 times a week, Minto being there on the other three 
 nights. On any pressure arising I went on extra nights, 
 and it was only on such nights and at times when I was 
 editing that I was at the office at night with him. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXXI 
 
 After he suddenly left in May, 1880, we expected that he 
 would come back again, as he had done on a previous 
 occasion, but he did not. His leaving was entirely his 
 own doing, and we all much regretted it. He was living 
 then very near to me, and the break at the office made 
 no break in our friendship. He was at once engaged on 
 Tlie Pall Mall Gazette, and I saw none the less of him. 
 When he was sent to Aberdeen I greatly regretted his 
 removal for my own sake, but rejoiced in it for him. 
 He always came to see us down to the time of his last 
 visit to London, and I always felt, to the end, that 
 warm friendship for him which I had formed during the 
 time we worked together at The Daily News. I do not 
 think he was in his proper element in newspaper work. 
 He was too fastidious as to style and treatment, — using 
 the word fastidious in its best sense, — and was not 
 entirely comfortable in the sort of rapid work which is 
 required. His writing was perhaps a little too reflective 
 for a daily paper — I mean that it necessarily took rather 
 more time to produce than the more oratorical and dash- 
 ing style of newspaper writing. It was the literary 
 man, the scholar, the thinker, who was writing, rather 
 than the busy politician. This literary character of his 
 style was much valued. It is part of the tradition of 
 The Daily Neios to cultivate that style. In his political 
 views he was in hearty sympathy with the paper, though 
 he always insisted on dealing with any topic on which 
 he wrote in his own way, very often an original way. 
 
 The Rev. William L. Davidson of Bourtie, whose 
 acquaintance I had the pleasure of making at 
 Minto's house, and whose contributions to philos- 
 ophy and literature are well known, writes thus : 
 
 It is not easy to convey a correct impression of Pro- 
 fessor Minto to those who were not personally acquainted 
 with him ; and those who were fortunate enough to 
 
XXX11 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 enjoy personal intercourse with him need no picture of 
 mine. To me Minto was a very choice friend. Our mu- 
 tual acquaintance dates from the time that I was assist- 
 ant to Professor Bain in the English and Logic classes at 
 the University of Aberdeen, and Minto was associated 
 with Professor Bain also in various literary productions. 
 Minto's first work — that on the English Prose Writers — 
 was then in course of formation ; and I quite well 
 remember the care and energy that he expended on that 
 book, and his intense desire to render it worthy of the 
 subject, and of the distinguished master under whose 
 inspiration he wrote it. Meanwhile, although literature 
 claimed his chief attention, politics had already begun 
 to assert its hold over him. Even then he was pro- 
 nounced in his opinions, — often dogmatic in asserting 
 them in the presence of formidable opposition, — and fast 
 acquiring a firm grasp of those principles that he was, 
 by and by, to apply with vigor as editor of The Exami- 
 ner. In University matters he took a keen interest ; 
 and, though himself a graduate, was a moving spirit in 
 the rectorial elections of those days. Socially, Minto 
 was, at the date of which I speak, one of the most genial 
 and pleasant of companions. He had then, and retained 
 to the very close of his days, a bonhomie that was 
 remarkable ; and his intense enjoyment of the society 
 of kindred souls, together with his abundant wit and 
 humor, made him a universal favorite. I could record 
 scenes and incidents that took place in Aberdeen, either 
 in his own lodgings or in mine, in which he was a con- 
 spicuous figure, and which foreshadowed in no unam- 
 biguous way the man as he was soon to become. In 
 particular, I recollect a striking reading and analysis of 
 part of one of Massinger's plays, in his own room, which 
 clearly disclosed the able and sympathetic critic that 
 his work on the English Poets, later on, proved him to 
 be. But these are sweet memories of the past, which 
 are best kept to one's self. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXXU1 
 
 For a number of years — indeed, during his whole stay- 
 in London, while he was attached to literature and 
 journalism there — Minto's path and mine lay apart. 
 Intercourse, however, was heartily resumed when he 
 returned to Aberdeen in 1880, as Professor of Logic and 
 English, in succession to Dr. Bain, and continued to the 
 end of his life. 
 
 I can now speak of him from that date mainly in his 
 professional and allied capacities. 
 
 The first thing that struck one in Minto, in his capacity 
 of professor, was his deep interest in his students. His 
 first concern was that, both in the English and in the 
 Logic class, each man should derive from the prelec- 
 tions the highest possible benefit that he was capable of 
 receiving. As a consequence he spared himself no 
 pains in the preparation of his class lectures. Again 
 and again have I found Minto, in his own house, busy 
 over to-morrow's lecture — trying how best he could 
 express, in vigorous phrase and with the apt illustra- 
 tion that was always at his command, the point that 
 was to him perfectly clear, but which, he suspected, 
 might present difficulty to the student. Lucidity was, 
 in his eyes, the supreme virtue. In this way he was 
 ever ready to discuss with you obscure points in phi- 
 losophy or in rhetoric, and to adopt whatever fresh light 
 you might be able to throw upon the situation. He was 
 particularly pleased if he could either find or have sug- 
 gested to him some fresh historical aspect of the well- 
 worn academic themes. Every year that passed found 
 him deeper in his conviction of the power of the his- 
 torical method in elucidating truth, and in bringing 
 home its meaning to the learner. And this applied to 
 his teaching of English as much as to his teaching of 
 Psychology and Logic. I remember one day finding 
 him in high spirits over the discovery he had just made 
 that the best way to make plain to his class the mean- 
 ing of humor was by inweaving the history of the 
 
XXxiv BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 word into his technical analysis, and accompanying with 
 copious examples from literature. " Every man in his 
 humor, you know," cried Minto, jubilant ; " it was his 
 humor to wear a coat with lappets," and so on. Allied 
 to this was his keen appreciation of luminous definitions 
 of or subtle distinctions between synonymous terms. I 
 cannot forget the pleasure with which he received a 
 little bit of phrasing of my own which struck him as 
 felicitous. I bad gone to Aberdeen to address the youth 
 of the city on Dr. Murray's " New English Dictionary," 
 and, while there, was Minto's guest. "What's your 
 subject?" he asked on my arrival. I told him it was 
 Dr. Murray's Dictionary, and that I had entitled the 
 lecture " Romance in Words." " ' Romance in Words ' ! " 
 he exclaimed, with a bright gleam of the eye, which 
 never failed when his intellectual interest was awakened; 
 " capital ! that is the only proper definition of a dic- 
 tionary." The same appreciation of word-distinctions 
 marked his writings, and is one of the elements that 
 makes his style so admirable. 
 
 A chief ground of Minto's great success as a teacher, 
 and of his exceptional popularity with the students, lay 
 in his juvenility of spirit and his boundless sympathy 
 with youth. He was supremely fortunate in being able 
 to put himself into the exact position of his audience, 
 and thereby to carry them along with him. It is only 
 another way of putting the same thing to say that, in 
 teaching, he never forgot his own difficulties in student 
 days in grappling with the subjects on hand ; and in 
 setting himself with all his might to remove these he 
 was adopting the best plan of removing the difficulties 
 of his hearers also. 
 
 Minto himself as a student, in his professorial days, is 
 a theme that might well be elaborated. Vividly the 
 picture rises of the Professor seated in his study, eagerly 
 poring over some volume, or busily penning some dis- 
 quisition, in full enjoyment of his pipe (for the harder he 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXXV 
 
 worked the harder he smoked) ; and then the pause, 
 the sparkle in the eye, and forthwith some subtile criti- 
 cism, or some apt Chaucerian quotation, or some comic 
 remark, as the case might be ; after that relevant talk 
 or discussion ; and then resumption of the task. But 
 Minto wrought too hard. Regardless of health, he sat, 
 when not on college duty, almost day and night at his 
 desk (for he burned the midnight oil far too profusely) for 
 a number of years, with the briefest of holidays — elabo- 
 rating theories, producing brilliant literary essays, dash- 
 ing off critical reviews, writing novels, and shaping 
 political speeches. Not even the strongest physical con- 
 stitution could have stood it. But he laughed your 
 warnings and advice to scorn, and waved you off with 
 such a comic gesture that you almost forgave him, 
 though you quite well saw that he was putting his 
 resources to far too great a strain. 
 
 As an examiner Minto was the embodiment of fair- 
 ness. Scrupulous to a degree and painstaking, he never 
 would allow partialities or personal predilections to 
 weigh with him. This I can unreservedly testify, from 
 ni}' long association with him as examiner in Philosophy 
 and English. While wishful to act impartially, he was 
 also desirous that the examinee himself should feel that 
 strict justice was being done to him. Hence his uni- 
 form readiness to go over their papers with students 
 who had the misfortune to " go down " at an examina- 
 tion, and to show them frankly where and why they 
 had failed, and how they might make up in the future. 
 Many an unfortunate had reason to thank him for this 
 kindly office. 
 
 As a host Minto excelled. To see him at his best 
 you had to live with him under his own roof. Not only 
 was his hospitality abundant, but his welcome was ever 
 hearty and sincere. The stimulus, too, that you 
 derived from discussion with him, and the enjoyment 
 produced by his racy stories, his pleasantries and rep- 
 
XXXVI BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 artee, his sallies of genuine wit, were experiences never 
 to be forgotten. Whether at the breakfast-table or at 
 dinner, alike in the daytime and at the late hours of 
 night, in his study, enveloped in a cloud of tobacco- 
 smoke, Minto was always the same kind, bright, genial 
 entertainer, rejoicing in you, and making you rejoice in 
 him. 
 
 The last time I saw Minto was in my own house. He 
 came to jDay me a visit, of a few days' duration, in the 
 middle of September, 1892. As there were two other 
 distinguished thinkers living with me at the same time, 
 congenial spirits, he was in his best form intellectually, 
 and in the height of enjoyment, though, obviously, in 
 very indifferent health. His enfeebled condition was to 
 us a source of considerable anxiety ; but he himself 
 made light of it — for he was always heroic. Into the 
 amusements, as well as into the discussions, that went on 
 he entered heartily, and with no lack of his wonted 
 vivacity ; and it is a great satisfaction to me to know 
 that he pronounced his last visit here to be one of the 
 happiest moments of his life. Four months more and 
 he was gone. The news of his death brought to friends 
 everywhere the sense of an irreparable loss ; and learn- 
 ing mourned the departure of one who had done noble 
 service for letters, and would have done even greater 
 things had longer life been given him. 
 
 The following notes are from Mr. P. Chalmers 
 Mitchell, a student of Professor Minto' s, and 
 afterward his friend : 
 
 In the year that Professor Minto received his appoint- 
 ments as Professor I joined the University of Aberdeen 
 as a first year's student. I saw him for the first time at 
 his inaugural lecture in the English class, which was 
 then held later in the day than the other classes attended 
 by students of the first year. It is no disrespect to the 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXXV11 
 
 memory of the occupant of the Latin chair, — the late 
 Professor Black, — or to the present distinguished Princi- 
 pal, who was then Professor of Greek, to say that I had 
 left both their classes, unpersuaded, either by the bluff 
 bonhomie of the one or by the urbane dignity of the 
 other, into regarding Latin and Greek as any thing but 
 routine tasks. I entered the English class singularly 
 untouched by the glamour of learning, although in the 
 pleasant consciousness that a university was vastly 
 better than school, because its day was several hours 
 shorter ; but in that English class-room I found a singu- 
 larly pleasant man, not lecturing to a class, but sometimes 
 sitting back in his chair, sometimes leaning over his desk, 
 and talking to a student, perched as I was in a distant and 
 disaffected back row, about things that were interesting. 
 Beforehand I should have laughed at the suggestion 
 that his subject-matter could be made interesting. He 
 was talking about parsing, and analysis, and the deriva- 
 tions of words. In the matter of parsing it was obvious 
 that any fool could do it ; derivations of words one had 
 hitherto got up from lists before prize examinations ; 
 and in analysis a succession of masters had each had 
 a separate whim in nomenclature. But in Professor 
 Minto's hands the derivation of words was so treated 
 that a Dictionary became a pageant of History, showing 
 here the Crusaders dusty from the Holy Land, bringing 
 with them some new idea, some strange animal or plant ; 
 or there the prancing Normans introducing the graces 
 of chivalry or the subtleties of law. The parsing of 
 words was a tradition from the grammatical complexity 
 of more primitive conditions of the language. The 
 terminology of analysis was as you pleased ; the analysis 
 itself was an anatomical display of the vital organs, by 
 which a sentence should convey its meaning. I can see 
 now that in this first lecture Professor Minto showed 
 the leading feature of his teaching. The information 
 he gave he did not offer for the direct acquisition of his 
 
XXXV1U BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION" 
 
 pupils, as of intrinsic value. What was given was put 
 before us as an illustration of the vast interest of the 
 field of knowledge, waiting for any of us who cared to 
 enter it. Incidentally we learned much, but chiefly we 
 learned how and why we were, for ourselves, to learn 
 more. In knowledge generally there were two special 
 interests : the picturesque and human interest of how our 
 language, and our Logic, came to be as they are ; and 
 the practical interest — clearly separate from the other — 
 of how best to use our language, or our reasoning, for 
 the purposes of to-day. 
 
 The bent of Professor Minto's teaching was specially 
 marked in his lectures upon Logic. I do not think that 
 the technical subtleties of Formal Logic had much 
 attraction for him. Certainly he did not seek to stamp 
 on the minds of his class the fantastic ingenuities of 
 ancient and modern school-men. His lectures upon 
 Formal Logic were lectures upon its evolution, and he 
 sought to show us how each stage in the development 
 of Deductive Logic was the abstract expression of an 
 actual advance in man's power of reasoning ; and so we 
 were spared the paradox which presents itself to the 
 modern beginner in Deductive Logic. Although many 
 processes of the " science of thought " seem but cum- 
 brous methods of expressing the obvious, each method 
 as unfolded by him had its explanation in the forgotten 
 past. On the other hand, it was the practical use of 
 Inductive Logic that Professor Minto chiefly insisted 
 upon. In his exposition of this he followed with rare 
 appreciative sympathy, considering the varied interests 
 of his life, the progress of the natural and physical 
 sciences. As these notes must, from their brevity, be 
 discursive, let me say that afterward, when I knew him 
 better, I was struck with his continued interest in sub- 
 jects so remote from his own work as advances in Com- 
 parative Anatomy and Embryology. While on a visit 
 to me at Oxford, in the summer before he died, two of 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION XXXIX 
 
 the things that interested him most were some new 
 preparations of fossil skulls in the University Museum, 
 and a technical discussion on Weismann's views on 
 heredity. 
 
 English Literature had so small a place in the cur- 
 riculum for the degree of M. A. that Professor Minto 
 could only give us twenty-five lectures on it. But in 
 that brief space he so introduced us to the writers of 
 our own tongue that their books became friends to us 
 for life. In my own case, and in that of many others, 
 I know that the most permanent impression we got at 
 the University of Aberdeen was the love of English 
 books, not for purjioses of future analytic study, but 
 simply as our friends throughout life. Recently, when 
 we were talking about the proposed institution of a final 
 honors school of English Literature at Oxford, I told 
 him of what I had got from his own short course in 
 Aberdeen. He said in reply — what is specially worth 
 remembering, now that so many schools of English 
 Literature are practically accomplished facts : " I agree 
 with those who think that English Literature might be 
 made quite as severe an intellectual discipline as Greek 
 or as Russian ; but the point most easily lost sight of, 
 when it is turned into a discipline, is that it is the readiest 
 friend and the greatest comfort to the many who get 
 their discipline in other subjects. You can get intellec- 
 tual discipline from any thing, but most people don't get 
 much pleasure out of the things that were used to train 
 their minds." 
 
 Not only was Professor Minto constantly accessible, 
 and most ready to help and advise his students in every 
 way, but he kept up friendly relations with many of 
 them, and he was interested in them all, in their subse- 
 quent careers. The warm admiration I had for him 
 while I was a student continued after I left the Uni- 
 versity ; and I had the great good fortune to see him 
 subsequently, on terms more intimate than are possible 
 
xl BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 between teacher and pupil. It is perhaps only given to 
 poets adequately to memorialize their dead friends. 
 Nature makes other mortals more reticent, though reti- 
 cence may be selfish ; but I wish to say two things about 
 Professor Minto. I wish to record the intense friendli- 
 ness of his character. I do not only mean that he was 
 the readiest of men to do good turns to others. All 
 who knew him know that. But he had the rare virtue 
 of seeing and believing only the best of other people. 
 " What continually impresses me," he would say, " are 
 what good fellows people are ! " I have known no 
 instance like him of the " charity that thinketh no evil." 
 It was really difficult for him to believe that any of his 
 acquaintances would do a mean thing, or an ill-natured 
 thing, purposely. Of one or two people who had 
 obviously done him an ill turn I have heard him say : 
 " Yes, I suppose he doesn't like me, but, you know, he is 
 really a good fellow at heart ; " and then he would give 
 some practical instance of conduct to his credit. 
 
 The last thing I wish to set down is this : In no case, 
 while I was a student, did I ever hear Professor Minto, 
 in class or in private, touch upon any theological topic. 
 Afterward, even in intimate talk, he rarely spoke of 
 ultimate questions of metaphysic or belief. He had not 
 the Scottish habit of strengthening his convictions by 
 measuring them against those of others. But in my 
 rooms at Oxford, the last evening he was with me, and 
 the last time I saw him, he took a book from my shelves 
 and said: "One person I have to make good — viz., my- 
 self ; but my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly 
 expressed by saying that I have to make him happy, if 
 I may." 
 
 Mr. John H. Lobban, who acted as Professor 
 Minto' s assistant in his latest years at the Univer- 
 sity, has sent me an appreciative estimate, which 
 many Aberdeen students will be glad to read : 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 In Mill's rectorial address to the students of St. 
 Andrews there is a passage which might, with great fit- 
 ness, be applied to Professor Minto's work at the Uni- 
 versity of Aberdeen. " There is nothing," said Mill, 
 " which spreads more contagiously from teacher to pupil 
 than elevation of sentiment : often and often have 
 students caught from the influence of a professor a con- 
 tempt for mean and selfish objects, and a noble ambition 
 to leave the world better than they found it, which they 
 have carried with them throughout life." The tributes 
 already paid by students are abundant evidence that 
 Professor Minto exercised such an influence ; but few 
 students could have been fully aware of the thorough- 
 ness and scrupulous fairness with which he performed 
 his duties as professor and examiner. 
 
 These qualities his assistants had necessarily excellent 
 opportunities of observing, and I recollect how forcibly I 
 was impressed by them when I had first to examine 
 university papers under his supervision. In the case of 
 one examination, where the time for correction was so 
 limited that he divided the papers with me, Professor 
 Minto had arranged a scheme of marking with such 
 precision that, after doing a number of papers together, 
 the possibility of a discrepancy between our respective 
 estimates was reduced to a minimum. It was only after 
 having tested some of my results that he felt justified, 
 in fairness to the students, in leaving a number of papers 
 entirely in my hands. One other instance of the same 
 desire for scrupulous fairness I may record. One of a 
 number of essays that I had to value was so atrociously 
 written and marred by emendations that, actuated, no 
 doubt, by a not unnatural impatience, I had marked it 
 rather hardly. Although one of more than a hundred 
 essays, it did not pass the professor's eye ; for when 
 soon after I went to discuss them with him, he asked 
 me with characteristic humor and courtesy if I would 
 allow him to read an essay to me. As read by him it 
 
xlii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 certainly was more than an average production, and as 
 I saw the lesson he meant so courteously to convey, I 
 owned my error and suggested a higher value, which 
 he agreed to. He then laughingly told me that he had 
 generally to impress his assistants with the moral that 
 the matter of a student's paper should not be taxed for 
 any blemish in its outward form. 
 
 As a lecturer Professor Minto had a horror of " talk- 
 ing at large." When using his lecture notes, I was 
 struck with the endless ei-asures and corrections in the 
 manuscript. This was due to his passionate desire for 
 clear thinking and clear expression. He once told me 
 that, whenever he noticed any general inability on the 
 part of his class to follow him, he at once reconsidered 
 the passage, and strove with all his powers of language 
 to put it in a way that would admit of no dispute. 
 This was the explanation of the countless erasures, the 
 explanation, too, I imagine, of the unique way in which 
 he could compel the unbroken interest of his students, 
 no matter what the subject on hand. He desired, he 
 told me, that his students should always get hold of 
 something definite in every lecture, but few who reaped 
 the advantage of that simplicity and clearness had any 
 idea of the infinite pains and literary skill that produced 
 them. 
 
 Of the thoroughness that permeated all his work I 
 may adduce one example that fell under my notice. 
 About a month before the Christmas vacation he had 
 to deliver a historical lecture to a country audience. 
 As he was loaded with other work, and even at that 
 time far from strong, I suggested that he might save 
 himself so much research by using some of his plentiful 
 old material, which, I argued, would have been quite as 
 acceptable to his audience. He humorously rebuked me 
 for my base advice, saying that he had "still some 
 regard for his literary conscience," and that he had 
 become so interested in his subject that he had ceased 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 to view it as a task. This I found to be no idle 
 assertion, for in a conversation some days later, when 
 talking over the subject of his lecture, he cited 
 dates and quoted extensive passages from history 
 with such absolute ease that I am convinced that, 
 though as yet he had not put a word' on paper, I 
 got the bulk of the lecture, delivered with as much 
 accuracy and grace of expression as did the audience 
 that heard it read. 
 
 It is, however, of the period of his last illness that I 
 can hope to add any thing of interest to what has been 
 already said by others. It seemed to me characteristic 
 of Professor Minto that, when he was suddenly prostrated 
 and unable to conduct his two classes, he did not bid me, 
 or even ask me, to fill the breach. When summoned by 
 him to consider what was to be done in the emergency, 
 he suggested his proposal with the utmost delicacy ; 
 and it was only after I had expressed my willingness to 
 try the work that he accepted as a favor what he would 
 obviously have been justified in regarding as a privilege 
 conferred. During the whole of his illness it is no 
 hyperbole to say that he exhibited an extraordinary 
 triumph of will. It was his express wish that he should 
 know exactly what I lectured on from day to day, and, 
 though racked with pain, he discussed the work of both 
 classes with all his usual ardor. It was sometimes hard 
 for me to realize the extent of his illness while he im- 
 pressed upon me the important points of some devel- 
 opment in literature which he desired me to emphasize. 
 His rare powers of memory never failed him, and I 
 recollect how, while propped up in bed, he would quote 
 illustrations for the English lectures from Chaucer or 
 Pope, unravel one of Marlowe's or Shakespeare's plots, 
 or explain some far-fetched conceit in Donne. It seemed 
 to me infinitely pathetic to hear him in broken words, 
 but feigning something of that joyous ring of voice 
 with which his students will always associate their 
 
xllV BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 memories of Chaucer, assuring me that John Donne 
 deserved the epitaph : 
 
 " Here lies a king that ruled, as he thought fit, 
 The universal monarchy of wit." 
 
 It was, however, on the occasion of his attempt to 
 resume work for the second time that his mental hero- 
 ism was most apparent. He told me repeatedly that 
 he felt it to be his only chance of recovery, and that 
 if he could not lecture he might surrender all hope. 
 Doubtless this feeling was genuine, but I saw that he 
 was prompted also by the desire to relieve myself of at 
 least half the work. I was present in his anteroom 
 when he literally staggered into the class-room to 
 deliver his last lecture ; and I can conceive no greater 
 effort of will than that which enabled him to triumph 
 over his pain, and to deliver a brilliant lecture on the 
 decline of the Elizabethan drama. 
 
 Of the value of his own literary work he was ever 
 dubious. On more than one occasion during his illness 
 he spoke hesitatingly of what he had written as not 
 "half good enough for publication," and the only time 
 I remember him speaking with confidence of his unpub- 
 lished work was, curiously enough, the last occasion on 
 which he spoke to me of literary matters. Asking me 
 whether I saw my way clear to the end of the session, he 
 begged me to do all the justice I could to the lecture on 
 Burns, repeating, with unusual emphasis, that his lecture 
 on Burns, formerly delivered at Edinburgh, was "most 
 distinctly the best thing " that he had ever written. 
 
 It would be an injustice to Professor Minto's memory, 
 and one specially unpardonable for me to commit, were 
 I not to record the appreciation he had of the sympathy 
 extended him by the students. It will always be a 
 pleasure for the English and Logic students of 1892-93 
 to know that Professor Minto repeatedly said that 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xlv 
 
 nothing had ever touched him more deeply than the 
 way in which the students had reciprocated the feelings 
 he had always entertained for them. 
 
 During the past eighteen years it has fallen to 
 my lot to suggest many distinguished men for 
 the St. Andrews honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws ; but there is no one whom I ever proposed 
 with greater satisfaction than Professor Minto. 
 
 The spontaneous tributes borne to him after 
 his death in the Aberdeen University Magazine, 
 — Alma Mater, — alike by students and professors, 
 were more significant of the work he did, and of 
 the esteem in which he was held, than the 
 tributes recorded of any other Scottish teacher 
 at the close of this century. From Alma Mater 
 of March 1, 1893, the following extracts may be 
 made : 
 
 The first notice in "In Memoriam " is entitled 
 " Vale ! " In it the following occurs : 
 
 The highest tribute we can pay to Professor Minto's 
 memory is to say that he was the students' friend. 
 With that disinterestedness and that perseverance 
 which we must ever identify with his life, he has often 
 pleaded our cause when we least knew it, and in his 
 contact with the members of his own classes his genial 
 manner, his winning expression of face, and above all 
 his kindly word, stand out even more strongly than his 
 more immediate teaching. If there was ever a man 
 who touched the heart of studentdom, that man was 
 William Minto. His life was a living emblem of the 
 power of sympathy. He felt for us and with us, and, 
 naturally enough, we came first to respect and then to 
 love him. In the words of Alfred Tennyson, he was 
 
Xlvi BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 "most a man," and, while we reverenced his intellect 
 and gloried in his fame, it was for his manliness, his 
 human nature, that we loved him. " His students 
 almost adored him," said a press writer, in commenting 
 on his death, and there is no exaggeration in the state- 
 ment. To the outside world he was known for the fame 
 of his mental powers, to us rather for his unfailing 
 courtesy of manner, his rare loveliness of spirit. It was 
 no mere precept that he gave when he told us to do 
 our best to leave one small corner of earth the better 
 for our being in it, for was not this his own constant 
 endeavor? Of his devotion to duty one can scarcely 
 speak, for had it been less, we cannot but feel that he 
 might have been with us to-day. When public spirit, 
 kindliness of disposition, and intellectual force unite to 
 make a man and a teacher who is brought into contact 
 with those whose characters have in great measure to 
 be formed, need we wonder that his removal should 
 leave a gap which it seems well-nigh impossible to fill, 
 and make the unspoken thought of every student in 
 Aberdeen University to-day: "Without you, William 
 Minto, our world seems lonesome " ? 
 
 Mr. H. J. C. Grierson, Professor Minto' s suc- 
 cessor in the Chair of English Literature, wrote : 
 
 " Parmenides, my Master Parmenides ! " 
 
 Professor Minto has passed away, and with him a 
 gifted and inspiring teacher. Some who have spoken 
 of him have done so from the position of those who 
 knew his great predecessor, and could compare the two. 
 We knew only the one, and found in him the one true 
 teacher of our experience. 
 
 Perhaps it is for this reason that we cannot draw the 
 usual distinction between his teaching of literature and 
 of philosophy. It may be that in the former he had 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xlvii 
 
 done more original and valuable work, but it was in bis 
 Logic class that, for my own part, I first felt bis full 
 power as an instructor, and caugbt tbe spirit of bis 
 metbod. Dr. W. L. Mackenzie bas said justly that that 
 metbod was historic, but it was also dialectic in the 
 Socratic sense of the word. He realized to no small 
 extent that the truest function of the teacher was not 
 to fill tbe mind with information from without, but to 
 elicit its own latent thoughts and faculties and inter- 
 ests. I have had occasion to compare bis method with 
 that of other lecturers in Logic, and it has deepened my 
 sense of its value. He began with no abstract defini- 
 tions, and he uttered no dogmatic statements, but he 
 led us easily, and acquiescing with him at each step, 
 from the simplest facts of our every-day consciousness to 
 a realization of the great problems of truth and reality. 
 
 In fact, the spirit of Professor Minto's philosophic 
 teaching and literary criticism recalls the spirit of the 
 greatest of teachers and critics, the Socrates that we 
 know in Plato. It pursued tbe same enquiring metbod, 
 it subjected to the same searching criticism all tradi- 
 tional dogmas, it glowed with the same enthusiasm for 
 truth, and the best expression of truth. 
 
 Nor in other respects was be unlike that great teacher. 
 Like him he loved young men, and met them with 
 openness and freedom from all assertions of superiority. 
 When but Bajans we were " gentlemen " to him, with 
 opinions of our own, and minds to be appealed to ; and 
 when we came to know him personally, we found the 
 same openness, and a close personal interest in our lives 
 and futures. He discussed with us ; he planned with 
 us ; he laughed with us — and we loved him ; but now, 
 like Socrates, he is taken from us when our esteem and 
 affection wei*e still growing, and we know not when 
 we shall behold him again. " The hour of departure is 
 come : we go our ways — I to die, you to live ; but 
 whose lot is happier is hidden from all save God." 
 
xlviii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 The following recollections are by his colleague 
 Professor W. M. Ramsay : 
 
 It is not an easy task that the editors of Alma Mater 
 have proposed to me ; but I will try, at their request, 
 to perform it, however inadequately and imperfectly. 
 To describe on the moment a character so marked, so 
 powerful, so self-contained and complete, so indepen- 
 dent and individual, so true to his friends, so difficult for 
 his enemies, is beyond my poor powers. I can only try 
 to relate what I actually saw of William Minto, and the 
 impression he made on me in old times, and this may 
 perhaps help to give some shadow of his personality. At 
 this moment I should like, as far as possible, to avoid 
 any thing that should rouse any feeling except sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 When I entered College, Minto was Assistant Professor 
 of Natural Philosophy, and it is a curious proof of the 
 ignorance of University business and University life that 
 used to characterize some Bajans that I never, during 
 that winter, heard a word about the great controversy 
 in which he was involved. It was not till years had 
 passed that I came to know what had occurred. After 
 more than twenty years had passed I found out the 
 facts by consulting the files of the Aberdeen papers ; 
 and then I learned for the first time how splendidly the 
 late Principal Pirie had advocated his cause in the Court. 
 My ignorance at the time will therefore serve as an 
 excuse for passing over the subject ; but no one could 
 refrain from alluding to the moral triumph which he 
 gained in the long-run over those who had defeated 
 him — so far as worldly appearance went — at the time. 
 Few men in my time have had such a hard trial as he 
 had when, at the conclusion of a most brilliant Univer- 
 sity career, crowned with a Ferguson Scholarship, his 
 alma mater closed her gates against him for an action 
 which at the present time would be applauded and 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION xlix 
 
 approved by all. We should now look on it as a proof 
 of innate delicacy and gentlemanly spirit, if there could 
 possibly arise an occasion to provoke it — which, with 
 the tone that now rules in university life, is, I believe, 
 impossible. In truth, there has been a great improve- 
 ment in the standard of public feeling within the last 
 twenty -five years, and I hope we should now make better 
 use of his genius than of old. 
 
 It was not till the end of my fourth year at College 
 that I first knew Minto, and our acquaintance began in 
 connection with the recently founded Literary Society, to 
 which, after a time, I had the honor of proposing that 
 he should be admitted as an honorary member. His 
 name was already familiar to me, for in the course of 
 my third year he had matriculated as a student, and had 
 taken an active part in the re-election of Sir M. E. Grant 
 Duff as Lord Rector. I was sometimes quoted as a sad 
 example of the students whom he had perverted to vote 
 against the cause of Classics ; but, in reality, I never to 
 my knowledge saw him during that year, much less 
 listened to his alluring speeches in public or in private. 
 " Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear " impelled me 
 even then, when I had only vague blind yearnings after 
 ancient literature, to vote as I have always done against 
 the misdirection of classical studies, debasing them to 
 be fetters, instead of wings, for the free modern spirit. 
 It was our common study of modern literature that first 
 brought us together as lovers of the "romantic " side in 
 that literature, as believers that the aim and crown of 
 all literary education is to understand and appreciate the 
 spirit of our own age. We approached literature from 
 quite opposite sides, and we differed widely on many 
 points of thought and life, — not points of mere detail, 
 but ideas which we believed with our whole heart to be 
 of infinite importance, and on behalf of which he at 
 least was ready to die, — yet our differences of view never 
 interfered with our friendship ; and when we met, after 
 
1 BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 years of separation, the old feelings remained as strong 
 as ever. 
 
 Very soon after he joined the Literary Society, we 
 elected him to the office of President, which fell vacant 
 opportunely ; and there can be no doubt that the success 
 of the young society was greatly due to the skill and 
 knowledge which he brought to our aid. 
 
 After seeing a great deal of him in 1871 I lost sight 
 of him for years, till we met accidentally on a London 
 steam-boat pier in 1879 ; and we continued to meet dur- 
 ing my occasional visits to London, until I disappeared 
 into the wilds of Asiatic Turkey in the spring of 1880. 
 Before I went out he offered to do his best to procure 
 the acceptance of letters from Turkey by the great 
 London morning paper with which he was at the time 
 connected. I fully intended to avail myself of his 
 advocacy, but time was too short and life too busy for 
 letter-writing, and only one or two brief notes passed 
 between us, until the spring of 1886, when I received a 
 letter from him telling that the Humanity Chair here 
 would shortly be vacant, and advising me to be a candi- 
 date. I am glad now to say publicty, as I have often 
 said to him, that I owe my appointment to this letter, 
 and to the timely information which it gave me. But 
 for his letter I should have been ignorant, till it was too 
 late, about the impending vacancy, and about various 
 other facts which it was essential to know. 
 
 In the abundant opportunities I have since then had 
 of observing Minto the quality that most struck me was 
 his thoroughness. Every thing I have ever seen him do 
 was done with the same devotion : he brought his whole 
 powers of mind, and often (as I saw with alarm) his 
 whole powers of body, to the work. The minute esti- 
 mate of the capacities and faults of all his students which 
 I have seen noted down in his books — apparently as a 
 regular practice — astonished me ; they resembled the 
 sketches which professional readers of character are 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION H 
 
 ready to supply to customers. He did not merely esti- 
 mate numerically the value of each examination paper, 
 he also estimated it qualitatively as an index of the 
 candidate's moral and intellectual character. 
 
 That he persistently overworked himself I often 
 observed, and often remonstrated with him about it — 
 always to be met with the laughing reply that I was 
 myself a worse instance of the fault. The chill which 
 brought on the last illness was, I think, attributed by 
 him to a game at curling during the Christmas vaca- 
 tion ; but it seemed to me that quite as great mischief 
 was done in December at a meeting of Faculty in the 
 icy Senatus-room, where he sat for more than two hours 
 at the head of the table, till he was obviously chilled to 
 the marrow. When the meeting was over, he came to 
 the fire, saying : " I might as well go to nry grave as 
 do this sort of thing again." I have often pitied the 
 wretched candidates for Honors and Scholarships, who 
 are compelled to shiver for three hours at a time in that 
 room, which is generally as cold as a Roman Church on 
 the Aventine in winter. By the time a few more have 
 suffered from it a new Senatus-room may be ready in 
 Marischal College. 
 
 There is one quality which beyond all others rouses 
 my admiration, and that quality Minto had in a remark- 
 able degree — I mean courage. I can worship even mere 
 physical courage, which it is nowadays the fashion to 
 despise (especially among those who have never needed 
 or seen or felt it) ; but the splendid moral courage which 
 he showed seems to me almost the greatest quality in 
 human nature. He never flinched a hair's-breadth from 
 the opinion he believed in, however unpopular, or even 
 dangerous, it might be : he always supported a friend if 
 the world was against him. 
 
 As a critic and scholar he was only coming to full 
 consciousness of his powers and freedom in using them ; 
 and there is good reason to think that the future work 
 
lii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 which (had fate been kinder to us) he would have done 
 as the first Professor of English in this University 
 would have been his best work, and, I think, would have 
 taken permanent rank among the finest in its kind. His 
 genius matured slowly, partly from its natural character, 
 partly from the distractions and variations of occupa- 
 tion in which his life had been spent. Truly, I think 
 the University might have gained by wise treatment 
 much more from him than it did. 
 
 The Faculty of Arts has lost him who was not merely 
 the titular head, but also by a combination of fine quali- 
 ties the mainstay of its reputation, both in Aberdeen 
 and before the world. The University has lost its 
 clearest headed and ablest administrator : in every ques- 
 tion that emerged he recognized at a glance what was 
 the solution, and urged it with unhesitating energy. 
 His quick insight was due to the fact that he never was 
 governed by a calculation of selfish or narrow advan- 
 tages : in every case he judged upon the same general 
 principles. He lived and fought for an ideal of freedom 
 and honesty, in the ultimate triumph of which he had 
 the most unfaltering confidence. In this lay his strength, 
 and the secret of his perfect frankness and freedom 
 from affectation. He worked, not for himself, not even 
 for his family, but for his cause. He had nothing to 
 conceal, but rather gloried in openly stating his real 
 aims ; and many believe, as I do, that, had not his 
 policy been so often thwarted, our University would 
 be to-day far stronger than it is. 
 
 In The Bookman of April, 1893, Mr. A. T. 
 Quiller-Couch wrote : 
 
 Were I to confess how seldom we met and how slight 
 was our correspondence, your readers would think it 
 highly presumptuous of me to write about Professor 
 Minto, and that to call him a friend was almost inde- 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION liii 
 
 cent. Yet on one point, at any rate, they would be 
 wrong. It is a fact that we never wrote a line to each 
 other ; yet from time to time, and by every common 
 friend, he sent messages that were valuable beyond tell- 
 ing to a young man just beginning to write. But 
 Minto's sympathies were always with the young ; and, 
 indeed, on the first occasion that we met this was rather 
 trying. In my father's house the talk might run on 
 statesmen, divines, or men of science ; but men of let- 
 ters were the great men. Other callings were well 
 enough, but writers were a class apart, and to belong to 
 it was the choicest of ambitions. I had grown up in 
 this habit of mind, and have not yet entirely outgrown 
 it ; so that the prospect of seeing Minto and listening 
 to him fluttered me, as no doubt it flutters a young 
 curate to dine with his bishop. He would not let me 
 worship, however ; would not even let me listen ; but 
 seemed only anxious to hear about my own endeavors 
 and prospects. I think this forgetfulness of self was 
 native in him and incurable. Certainly, though I 
 admired him as much as ever, he had won a very much 
 warmer feeling in the inside of half an hour ; and from 
 that time was constantly adding to the load of kindness 
 which now can only be repaid by mourning his loss, and 
 remembering his wise counsel and encouragement. No 
 other critic has given me the tithe of that counsel or a 
 hundredth part of that encouragement. And when I 
 say that all this was bestowed at every opportunity 
 from the date of our first and only intimate conversa- 
 tion to the time of his death, that even on his death- 
 bed he tried to do me a last service in the old fashion, 
 it will be allowed that my burden of obligation is heavy 
 indeed. 
 
 I cannot believe that the newspapers and reviews 
 have done justice to his memory. They praise him as a 
 good man and a sincere lover of letters ; but the quality 
 of his work, and especially of his critical work, has 
 
liv BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 received too little attention. For it was of the rarest. 
 Whatever his subject, Minto seemed to approach it 
 with a mind absolutely clear of prejudice ; to take it 
 up with the single desire of exploring it in his reader's 
 company, and to handle it with a modest self-effacement 
 that may explain the slightly neglectful attitude of a 
 generation eager to be obtruded on by " striking per- 
 sonalities." In the same way, though he was one of 
 the few men left who could construct a long English 
 sentence, and fit it with well-proportioned members, 
 and make it walk upon legs, his style was so temperate 
 and business-like, so admirable as a means to an end, 
 and so naked of ornamentation, that it too often passed 
 unnoticed. We must be " striking " in these times, or 
 we are naught ; but this writer learned to use his theme 
 as a stalking-horse for his own wit. He had an insatiable 
 interest in literature ; but this interest was scientific as 
 well as sympathetic ; and he handled criticism scientifi- 
 cally. On the whole, his method was that of Sainte- 
 Beuve, and, though there are many more showy, a better 
 has yet to be invented. The others may please for a 
 while ; but in the end we shall sigh for temperance, 
 modesty, restraint, the virtues that are above fashion, 
 and never, never tire ; and where temperance, modesty, 
 and restraint are valued, we may be confident that Minto 
 will not be forgotten. In a series to which all the best 
 critics of his generation contributed, his monograph on 
 Defoe stands out as a bright example of the way in 
 which criticism should be written ; and its excellence 
 in comparison with the majority grows clearer as time 
 goes on — a sure test. But whether in his writings or 
 his life, Minto was a man in whose company it was 
 good to be, and to remain. 
 
 The following appeared in The Westminster 
 Gazette of March 2 : 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION lv 
 
 QUHAT SAY THEY ? 
 
 IN MEMORIAM WILLIAM MINTO. OBIIT MARCH I. 
 
 It was his constant care to make his subject, whether literature 
 or the high and dry sands of metaphysics, as far as possible, 
 a mirror of the life we live. 
 
 The hand that led our pilgrim bands 
 
 These by-gone years 
 To England's wondrous lettered lands, 
 
 Its kings and seers, 
 No more shall smooth the rugged way — 
 'Tis cold this day. 
 
 In misty metaphysic maze 
 
 He shed a light, 
 That cleared away the hanging haze 
 
 And darkening night. 
 But ne'er again shall he we weep 
 Our footsteps keep. 
 
 Was it with Chaucer's dukes and dames, 
 
 Or saintly Bede ? 
 Was it with Hamiltonian aims, 
 
 Or rigid Reid ? 
 The by-gone age was lit with life, 
 Its flux and strife. 
 
 And still, he brought our restless times 
 
 Within his ken — 
 A Barrie or a Kipling's rhymes 
 
 Would charm his pen. 
 The dainty genius of a " Q" 
 Was brought to view. 
 
 Then oft indeed a budding bard, 
 
 As yet unknown, 
 Who found the way to glory hard, 
 
 He'd gladly own ; 
 The future way to fame was cleared, 
 The tyro cheered. 
 
lvi BIOGEAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 The ravelled skein of logic-lore 
 
 We saw unwound. 
 The trials of the path no more 
 
 The journey bound. 
 Ah, who again shall lift the thorn 
 As him we mourn ! 
 
 Can we, to-day immersed in gloom, 
 
 This guide forget, 
 Although by very Crack of Doom 
 
 We seem beset — 
 A halting tribute this, that sings 
 Our king at King's. 
 
 In the same paper, The Westminster Gazette, 
 of March 11, Minto's friend, Mr. Kichard Le 
 Gallienne, writes as follows : 
 
 PROFESSOR MINTO. 
 
 Nature, that makes Professors all day long, 
 And, filling idle souls with idle song, 
 Turns out small Poets every other minute, 
 Made earth for men, but seldom puts men in it. 
 
 Ah ! Minto, thou of that minority 
 Wert man of men, we had deep need of thee ! 
 Had Heaven a deeper ? Did the heavenly Chair 
 Of earthly Love wait empty for thee there ? 
 
 I may perhaps be allowed to repeat, at the 
 close of this introductory and biographic sketch, 
 that there is ample and most valuable material 
 for a sequel volume of Minto's work, including 
 his numerous " Encyclopaedia Britannica" arti- 
 cles, his papers on John Donne, Wordsworth, 
 and Matthew Arnold, as well as those delight- 
 ful lectures which he gave to literary and other 
 
 Societies in Scotland. 
 
 William Knight. 
 
 St. Andrews, June, 1894. 
 
THE LITERATURE 
 
 OP 
 
 THE GEORGIAN ERA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE POSITION OF MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
 DECLINE OF ROYAL PATRONAGE — WHY IS THE GEORGIAN ERA 
 A DISTINCT LITERARY PERIOD ? — CONDITION OF POETRY DUR- 
 ING THE CENTURY, AND VIEWS OF ITS CRITICS AS TO THE 
 MEANING OF NATURE 
 
 The combined reigns of the four Georges may pos- 
 sibly he thought an arbitrary and artificial section of 
 literary history to choose as a subject for a course of 
 lectures. What had the four Georges to do with 
 literature ? is a question that naturally occurs when 
 they are proposed as the figure-heads of a literary 
 period ; and the answer must be that they had little 
 or nothing to do with literature beyond occasionally 
 furnishing in their illustrious persons fairly good 
 themes for the humorist and the satirist. If you read 
 Thackeray on the four Georges, you will see that these 
 reigns supplied ample materials both for the laughing 
 philosopher and the weeping philosopher. But neither 
 of the first two Georges cared for literature, or did any 
 thing directly to encourage literature, and it was per- 
 haps as well that they let it alone. Matters mended 
 a little under the second two. George IV. had an 
 interview with Dr. Johnson, the record of which is one 
 
2 MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 of the best known passages in Boswell's " Life." But 
 this was after Dr. Johnson's fame was fully established. 
 The most conspicuous instance of royal patronage of 
 literature in these reigns — patronage that really helped 
 a rising man — occurred in the first year of this century, 
 when the Prince who afterward became George IV. 
 put down his name among the subscribers to Thomas 
 Moore's translation of Anacreon, and admitted the 
 youthful poet to the honor of personal acquaintance. 
 Moore was overjoyed at this piece of good fortune ; 
 and well he might be, for it greatly helped him in his 
 career of fashionable popularity. In a sense it may be 
 said that literature owes the anacreontic lays of Tom 
 Little to royal favor ; and this is its only obligation to 
 the favor of the four Georges — an obligation that can- 
 not be thought of with altogether unmingled gratitude. 
 The Georges did little or nothing for literature. But, 
 though it looks like a paradox, this fact, so far from 
 being a reason against choosing their reigns as a liter- 
 ary period, is one of the reasons why the accession of 
 the dynasty constitutes a material point of departure 
 for a historical survey. There is a certain interest in 
 seeing how literature prospered when it was no longer 
 sunned by the royal countenance, and what new 
 influences came in to compensate the loss. Up to the 
 time of the first George every eminent man of letters had 
 received direct encouragement from the Court. In the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries literature was almost 
 entirely dependent on royal favor, and there was 
 always some member of the royal family who took a 
 warm interest in letters. In the time of Edward III. 
 Chaucer was patronized by John of Gaunt, taken into 
 the royal household, and rewarded with lucrative public 
 appointments. Gower undertook his most celebrated 
 poem at the personal request of Richard II. One of 
 the first cares of Henry IV. when lie usurped the 
 Crown was to remember and provide for the wants of 
 
COURT INFLUENCE UPON LITERATURE 3 
 
 his father's old favorite, the poet of the "Canterbury 
 Tales." The ladies of this royal house connected their 
 memories with all that was best in the literature of the 
 time. Lady Jane Beaufort, granddaughter of John of 
 Gaunt, inspired the author of the "King's Quhair." 
 Her niece, the Countess of Pembroke, mother of 
 Henry VII., was the principal promoter of learning 
 in her generation. Margaret, the sister of Edwai'd IV., 
 who married the Duke of Burgundy, encouraged Cax- 
 ton in the literary enterprise which led to the intro- 
 duction of printing into England. Another Margaret, 
 daughter of Henry VII., by her marriage with James 
 IV. of Scotland gave a new tone to the poetry of the 
 Scottish Court. I need not give examples of the 
 influence of the Court in literature during the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries. The circle of education 
 began to widen very rapidly after the introduction of 
 the printing-press, and the creative faculty was brought 
 within the reach of many and diverse incitements to 
 produce ; capitalists pressed forward eager to divine 
 and satisfy the new demands ; but among the diverse 
 influences on literary production one was always con- 
 spicuous, the influence of the Court. Even when, as in 
 the case of the great Shakespearian dramatic literature, 
 writers did not receive their first impulse from the Court, 
 the Court hastened to put the seal of its approbation 
 on the new product. It was an entirely novel and 
 unprecedented situation when the throne was filled by 
 a king who could hardly speak a word of English, and 
 who was entirely destitute of interest in English or any 
 other literature ; and it cannot but be interesting to 
 examine what effect, if any, this circumstance had on 
 literary production. At an earlier stage of literary 
 history, in an earlier state of civilization, the with- 
 drawal of royal patronage would have been like 
 the withdrawal of the sun from the solar system. Did 
 it produce any perceptible effect on the literature of 
 
4 MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 the eighteenth century? It did not ; the centre of 
 literary life and heat had shifted ; where, then, are we 
 to look for this centre ? 
 
 The mere fact that the personal tastes of the king and 
 his intimate circle ceased to have any directing influ- 
 ence on literature would alone make the Hanoverian 
 accession a notable literary epoch. But this event 
 affected literature much more profoundly in another 
 way — namely, by putting an end to a long period of 
 political uncertainty. The settlement of the long-vexed 
 question of the succession to the Crown made a change 
 in the position of the man of letters that can only 
 be described as a revolution. A long explanation is 
 required to enable you to understand the full signifi- 
 cance of this change, unless you happen to be versed 
 in the history of the period. First, you must take 
 notice of the means by which public opinion in those 
 days was appealed to. There was no reporting of 
 political speeches ; there were no daily newspapers with 
 leading articles ; every thing was done by means of 
 occasional pamphlets in prose or verse. Nowadays, if 
 you wish to know the minds of the leaders of opinion 
 you read the magazines and the leading articles in the 
 newspapers. But in the time of Queen Anne, and for 
 half a century before, the work of expressing and en- 
 lightening opinion was carried on by means of pamph- 
 lets. Whenever the public mind was excited on any 
 question, — a war, or a parliamentary election, or a great 
 commercial enterprise, or a disastrous calamity, — swarms 
 of such pamphlets poured from the press ; and if the 
 public excitement ran high and the pamphlet was 
 effectively written, it was sold in the shops and hawked 
 about the streets in thousands. Next, you must take 
 notice of the character of the great political question 
 of the time — the succession to the kingdom. From 
 the Revolution of 1688 to the accession of George I. 
 the succession was uncertain. The nation was divided 
 
COURT INFLUENCE UPON LITERATURE 5 
 
 into two great parties of Whig and Tory, the one eager 
 to keep out, the other to bring back, the exiled family 
 of Stewarts. Cart-loads of pamphlets were written 
 to work on the public mind for the one purpose or the 
 other. It is difficult for us in these days to understand 
 the intense, absorbing, passionate character of the 
 political struggles that went on while the succession 
 lay in dispute and uncertainty. A few years ago there 
 was not a little excitement in this country over the 
 Eastern Question. There were public meetings and 
 speeches and articles without end ; sides were taken 
 with considerable earnestness and warmth. But the 
 heat of a struggle is always in proportion to the impor- 
 tance for the combatants of the issue at stake ; and no 
 issue raised then could come home to the electors with 
 one-tenth of the force of the momentous question, who 
 should be the king of the country. The power of the 
 Crown was great in those days ; and the leaders in the 
 dispute about the succession fought with the fierce 
 earnestness of men whose whole fortunes are bound 
 up with the issue. Their properties, and even their 
 lives, were at stake as well as their political power. If 
 they took an active part on one side or the other, 
 degradation, impoverishment, exile, even death, might 
 follow upon failure. Triumph meant honors, wealth, 
 and power ; defeat might mean forfeiture of their 
 estates and banishment. Such were the high stakes for 
 which the leaders were playing ; and for the common 
 people also the political struggle was intensely exciting. 
 It was in great part a religious question with them; 
 encouragement, toleration, persecution, awaited their 
 doctrines and forms of worship according as a Protes- 
 tant or a Papist filled the throne ; and their feelings 
 were thus profoundly interested. No such issues hang 
 upon political struggles now, and the passion of the con- 
 flict, however earnest and determined, can never reach 
 the same pitch of absorbing intensity. 
 
6 MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Tins, then, being the state of things, the leading com- 
 batants deeply in earnest, the public mind quick and 
 susceptible, every incident closely watched and sharply 
 taken advantage of, and pamphlets the recognized means 
 of working on public opinion, what was the effect on 
 literature ? The political situation had a direct and 
 immediate effect on the position of men of letters. The 
 man who could write pamphlets, whether in prose or in 
 verse, at once became a person of importance. Men of 
 letters were sought after, caressed, rewarded, — we must 
 not say bribed, — as they had never been before by am- 
 bitious politicians and grasping Ministers. Versifiers 
 were in especial demand, and, of course, the patrons 
 were met half-way. Young gentlemen at the Universi- 
 ties, with an elegant knack of versification, celebrated 
 birthdays and battles, and even party triumphs in Parlia- 
 ment, and sent their effusions to the powerful, in the 
 hope of being rewarded by solid appointments in the 
 public service, of course irrespective of special fitness. 
 The splendid successes of a few helped to crowd this 
 avenue to fame and fortune. You all know the story 
 of Addison and his poem on the battle of Blenheim ; 
 how the Lord Treasurer Godolphin complained to Lord 
 Halifax of the poor quality of the poems generally 
 written on such occasions, how Halifax said that he 
 knew of a young poet who could do better, how a noble- 
 man was sent to Addison's garret in the Haymarket to 
 solicit his services, and how munificently the poet was 
 recompensed with public appointments. This story is 
 familiar, but it is only the most striking one of scores 
 of a similar kind in Johnson's Lives of the Poets of that 
 time. Addison himself, earlier in his career, when he was 
 fresh from the University, was rewarded with a pension 
 of three hundred pounds for a poem on the Peace of Rys- 
 wick. Lord Halifax, the patron who helped him to the 
 favor of the Crown, himself owed his first advancement 
 to literature. When plain Charles Montagu, he had co- 
 
LITERATURE LIBERALLY REWARDED V 
 
 operated with Prior in writing the political satire of 
 "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse." He was 
 afterward introduced to King William with the words : 
 " Sir, I have brought a mouse to wait on your Majesty." 
 " You do well to put me in the way of making a man 
 of him," the king is said to have replied, and forthwith 
 ordered him a pension of five hundred pounds. Montagu's 
 collaborator, Prior, was made secretary to an embass}* - . 
 The political hits in his tragedy of " Tamerlane " obtained 
 for Rowe an under-secretaryship in the Treasury ; Hughes 
 obtained a place in the office of Ordnance for an ode on 
 the Peace of Ryswick ; Dr. Blackmore's indirect compli- 
 ments to the king in his " Prince Arthur " procured 
 him a knighthood and the post of royal physician. 
 And so on and so on throughout the reigns of William 
 and Anne. Places of all kinds in the gift of the 
 Ministers of the Crown were freely distributed among 
 men of letters, without the slightest regard to any 
 qualification except their power of making men and 
 measures popular by direct and indirect panegyric. 
 
 The effect of this extensive patronage on the character 
 of Queen Anne poetry, on the poetry as poetry, we shall 
 try to trace afterward ; meantime, I wish to make clear 
 the position of men of letters before the accession of 
 George I., and how completely this position was changed 
 by the settlement of the disputed succession. Observe 
 that the patronage of literature was not disinterested. 
 The great office of the best literature is to elevate, 
 strengthen, gladden, and purify human life, to expand 
 the soul, to quicken the fancy, to enlarge the under- 
 standing, to lift the mind out of the narrow round of 
 personal concerns and enable it to command a wider 
 horizon. It was not to enable men of letters to fulfil 
 this mission that the Ministers of King William and of 
 Queen Anne lavished places and pensions on them. It 
 was purely as party writers that they were patronized, 
 as brilliant political pamphleteers, useful rhetorical 
 
8 MEN OP LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 panegyrists and biting satirists ; and when the need for 
 their services passed away, the fountains of patronage 
 were dried up. Very soon after George's accession it 
 was apparent that the golden age was at an end. The 
 batch of Whig poets who had remained faithful during 
 the Tory Ministry of Queen Anne's last four years, — 
 Addison, Steele, Rowe, Tate, Tickell, and other minor 
 celebrities, — were munificently provided for in the first 
 blush of the Whig triumph, but this was practically the 
 last of the system. When Sir Robert Walpole got the 
 reins of power firmly in his hands, and settled down 
 into his policy of establishing the dynasty by peaceful 
 measures, he saw that the poets, powerful enough agents 
 in a time of warlike excitement, could be of little service 
 to him, and he turned the golden stream from the Royal 
 Treasury in another direction. Another circumstance 
 helped to destroy the influence of the brilliant occasional 
 writer, the rapid development of the periodical press, of 
 newspapers and political journals. This was almost 
 coincident with the accession of George I. There had 
 been newspapers in the land from the time of the great 
 Civil War, and regular political periodicals were estab- 
 lished in the reign of Queen Anne, the first being 
 Defoe's celebrated Review; but the chronicling of 
 news and the expression of opinion were distinct func- 
 tions, left to different organs. Such sheets as the 
 Flying Post and the Mercury gave nothing but news ; 
 the Tatler and the Spectator were confined to social 
 essays ; the Examiner and the Whig Examiner, Mer- 
 cator and the British Merchant, were purely political 
 journals. The newspapers strictly so-called were not 
 impartial ; they were in the pay of different parties, 
 and their intelligence was garbled in different interests ; 
 but they expressed no opinions, and it was only by the 
 manipulation of news that they sought to influence the 
 opinions of their readers. The " leading article," or 
 " letter introductory," as it was at first called, — a pref- 
 
VENALITY OF NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALISTS 9 
 
 atory dissertation intended to lead the readers to cer- 
 tain conclusions, — was the invention of the acute genius 
 of Defoe early in the reign of George I. From that 
 time various news-journals began to retain a letter-writer, 
 as the writer of leading articles was then called, and 
 journalism became a distinct occupation. Much of the 
 public money that had gone in the reign of Queen 
 Anne to the occasional pamphleteer now found its way 
 to the pockets of the professional journalist. It was a 
 corrupt time, measured by our modern ideas of literary 
 independence. Walpole, a hard, unsentimental man of 
 business, who believed in paying for services directly in 
 solid cash, is said to have paid £50,000 in ten years to 
 the literary supporters of his administration ; and one 
 of them, Arnall, a journalist whose name you will find in 
 no history of literature, boasted that he had received in 
 three years no less a sum than £10,997, 6s. 8d. When 
 we compare Walpole's system of securing literary sup- 
 port for his measures with that prevalent in the time 
 of Queen Anne, we are compelled to admit that the 
 great political patrons of the earlier period, Somers and 
 Halifax, and Oxford and Bolingbi'oke, did have some 
 respect for literature as literature, and took a certain 
 pride in playing the role of Maecenas, altogether apart 
 from their sense of the political advantages of having 
 men of letters on their side. 
 
 The great change effected in the position of men of 
 letters at the accession of George I. is, then, a solid 
 reason for beginning a literary survey from that date. 
 But the reign of the four Georges really owes its com- 
 pleteness as a literary period to an accident. It so hap- 
 pened that Pope's masterpiece, the " Rape of the Lock," 
 was published in its complete form in the first year of 
 the first George ; while the last year of the last George 
 witnessed the publication of his first volume of poems 
 by our late Poet-Laureate, Lord Tennyson. We thus 
 find at the beginning of our period the leader of one 
 
10 MEN OP LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 great school of poetry in the full blaze of his reputation ; 
 and at the end the dawn of another great luminary and 
 the foundation of a new school. What had poetry 
 gained in the interval — an interval containing' the 
 splendid poetic achievements of the first quarter of the 
 nineteenth century, with the great names of Words- 
 worth and Coleridge, and Scott and Byron, and Keats 
 and Shelley ? At first sight it might seem as if there 
 had been only a full circle revolution of a fixed wheel, 
 an oscillation of a pendulum to and fro — as if poetry had 
 only moved from the elaborate artistic care of Pope to 
 the freedom and spontaneity of Wordsworth and Byron, 
 and back to the elaborate art of Tennyson. But there 
 was a real progression. Tennyson embodies new poetic 
 ideals in his art, and these ideals were conceived and 
 shaped in the interval between him and Pope. The age 
 of Wordsworth and Byron was not only a season of 
 great creative energy, but also a season of vivid and 
 searching criticism. Not only were new masterpieces 
 produced, but new life was given to the discussion of 
 the first principles of the art of Poetry. And not only 
 were the technicalities of poetry discussed — publicly 
 discussed — by some of the leading masters in the art, 
 the principles of diction, metre, imagery, and general 
 construction, as had been done by hundreds of writers 
 on the art of Poetry from Aristotle and Horace down 
 to the Duke of Buckingham and Mr. Hayley, but new 
 topics were introduced, and chief among them the nature 
 of the poetic faculty, and the principles on which rank 
 should be assigned to poets in their various degrees as 
 spiritual benefactors of mankind. Wordsworth led the 
 way both in creation and in criticism. Wordsworth was 
 by no means the most popular poet in his generation, 
 he had by no means the most powerful influence on the 
 public, but he had unquestionably of all men in his 
 generation the greatest influence on men of letters, on 
 the producers of poetiy. It is, to use the language of 
 
macaulay's criticism of pope 11 
 
 political economy, among the manufacturers and not 
 the consumers of poetry that his influence is to be traced, 
 and upon them it was enormous. For us, as students 
 of poetry, the most significant and instructive fact in 
 the reign of the four Georges is the gradual rise of the 
 reputation of Wordsworth, and the gradual fall of the 
 reputation of Pope. About the close of the reign of 
 George IV. the reputation of Wordsworth had reached 
 its zenith ; the reputation of Pope, supreme and 
 unchallenged throughout the eighteenth century, had 
 fallen to its nadir. We may fairly take Macaulay's 
 essay on Byron, published in 1831, as marking the tri- 
 umph of the Wordsworthian school. This essay, written 
 with all the energy of Macaulay's brilliant rhetoric, laid 
 hold of what had before been little more than an esoteric 
 doctrine, and spread it far and wide over the public mind. 
 Macaulay danced a sort of breakdown over the prostrate 
 body of the great poet of the eighteenth century. He 
 concentrated and emphasized all that had been said in 
 disparagement of Pope. Pope had no imagination in 
 the highest sense ; he had no correctness in the highest 
 sense ; he was a painstaking slave to artificial rules ; his 
 poetry was like a trimly kept garden, with smooth- 
 shaven grass, flower-beds in geometrical figures, sym- 
 metrical walks and terraces, and pillars and urns and 
 statues, and trees and hedges clipped into unnatural 
 shapes. Hundreds of writers since Macaulay have re- 
 peated his comparison of Pope's poetry to a trim gar- 
 den, and have said after him that such poetry could be 
 enjoyed only in an age of hoops and periwigs. For the 
 last fifty years Macaulay's vigorous caricature has domi- 
 nated the public opinion about Pope. Pope's faults have 
 been put in the foreground ; his merits have been 
 admitted grudgingly ; his admirers have been obliged 
 to adopt an apologetic tone. 
 
 Pope, then, was the hero of the first part of our period, 
 and the dethroned idol of its closing years, knocked 
 
12 MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 from his pedestal and rolled in the dust. Ought he to 
 be set up again ? Not all the king's horses, nor all the 
 king's men, could restore him to the place that he once 
 occupied in public estimation, side by side with the 
 greatest men in literature. But, on the other hand, 
 there can be no doubt that the reaction against him in 
 public estimation was carried much too far. His rank 
 in public estimation — I wish to lay emphasis on that 
 expression ; for, paradoxical as it may seem, I believe 
 that among the few who make poetry a serious study — 
 and there were such men in the eighteenth century as 
 well as in the nineteenth (Macaulay cannot be included 
 in the number) — there has been no substantial oscil- 
 lation of opinion about the merits of Pope. They have 
 felt that his range of subjects was limited, and that his 
 power of expression was not of the very highest, but 
 that within his limits and the measure of his power his 
 execution was of unrivalled brilliancy. Wordsworth 
 and Coleridge felt and acknowledged this, if not as 
 heartily, at least as explicitly, as Byron and Campbell. 
 It is true that Wordsworth and Coleridge and other 
 disciples had not the same full sympathy with Pope's 
 subject-matter, and consequently were less hearty in 
 their acknowledgment of his excellences, and more dis- 
 posed to dwell upon his defects. Byron, who had tried 
 his hand at satire, was more forward to acknowledge 
 the brilliant point and masterly condensation of Pope's 
 work. But they were in substantial agreement in- 
 tellectually. They knew equally well where Pope's 
 strength lay, and where his weakness lay. They knew 
 the master's hand, and they drew the line at its limita- 
 tions. There was no such nice discrimination, however, 
 in the public estimation of the poet, based upon the 
 treatment of him by poetical and critical authorities. 
 The general easy-going reader who does not, in Words- 
 worth's language, make poetry a study, knows no 
 middle station between good and bad, between admi- 
 
CRITICISM OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 13 
 
 rable and the reverse. He either admires heartily or he 
 is wholly uninterested and contemptuous. And in so 
 far as he is influenced by authority, he is apt to be 
 wholly led away by Avhat is put in the foreground, to 
 look at this only, and neglect the qualifications ranged 
 .in the middle distance and the background. Thus it 
 happened that when Wordsworth's school, who put 
 Pope's defects and limitations in the foreground, became 
 the leaders of critical opinion, the hero of the eigh- 
 teenth century was thrown from his pedestal in public 
 estimation. It is a most difficult thing to gauge public 
 opinion ; but a very fair test of it, as regards either 
 men or measures, is to be found in the attitude of 
 moderate advocates. If moderate advocates are apolo- 
 getic and conciliatory, the man or the measure, we may 
 be sure, does not stand high in the estimation of the 
 public addressed. Now, applying this principle in the 
 case of Pope, we find that in the eighteenth century, 
 before his poetry had passed through the crucible of the 
 Wordsworthian school, such a moderate critic as Joseph 
 Warton had to be cautious in hinting at defects ; 
 whereas in recent years such temperate admirers as Mr. 
 Carruthers or Mr. Mark Pattison have to guard them- 
 selves carefully against the charge of putting Pope's 
 merits too high. Such incidents as these are significant 
 of Pope's changed position between the accession of the 
 first George and the demise of the last. He had fallen 
 immeasurably in public estimation, and he was rated 
 much below his deserts. 
 
 Now, although it is impossible ever to restore Pope 
 to the position he once occupied, it is our business here 
 to try to obtain just ideas about poets, and to sweep 
 away from our minds all artificial impediments to the 
 enjoyment of various kinds and degrees of excellence in 
 poetry — to clear our minds of prejudice and look at 
 poets fairly for ourselves. The disciples of Wordsworth 
 and Coleridge, in their wholesale condemnation of the 
 
14 MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 poetry of the eighteenth century, have fixed in the 
 public mind a great many erroneous conceptions. We 
 shall endeavor to see for ourselves, taking them one by 
 one, what manner of men the eighteenth-century poets 
 were, what aspirations they had in their art, and how 
 their aspirations were limited by their personal character 
 and circumstances, and by the circumstances of their 
 times, especially by the ruling traditions of poetry in 
 their respective generations. 
 
 A very common impression about the poets of the 
 eighteenth century is that they lived in slavish subjec- 
 tion to a set of narrow and exclusive rules of criticism ; 
 that they had no love for nature, either in scenery or in 
 human affections or passions — a finicking race of artists, 
 conventional and artificial, shuddering at Shakespeare as 
 a wild and irregular genius, or, as Voltaire called him, 
 an untutored savage. Now, if, with these prepossessions 
 in your minds, you take up any eighteenth-century poet 
 of rank, from Pope down to Hayley, one of George 
 III.'s laureates, who represents the low-water mark of 
 eighteenth-century poetry, and if you read the language 
 in which they speak of nature and of Shakespeare, you 
 will open your eyes in astonishment. Take, for example, 
 the following passage : 
 
 "A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation robes. 
 Education leads us from the admiration of beauty in natural 
 objects to the admiration of artificial or customary excellence. I 
 do not doubt but that a thoroughbred lady might admire the 
 stars because they twinkle like so many candles on a birthnight." 
 
 This is an extract not from Wordsworth, but from 
 Spence's record of the conversation of Pope, of the poet 
 whose poetry is compared to an artificial garden, and 
 whose narrow and exclusive authority stifled the imagi- 
 nation of the eighteenth century. The irony of Ma- 
 caulay's comparison of Pope's poetry to an artificial 
 garden lies in the fact that Pope had more to do than 
 
pope's criticism of shakespeaee's style 15 
 
 any one else in destroying the fashion of artificial garden- 
 ing in England, not merely by his ridicule of it, but by 
 leading the new fashion of landscape gardening, in 
 which a closer attempt is made to reproduce natural 
 beauties. But, at least, it will be said, Pope spoke dis- 
 paragingly of Shakespeare. Read the preface to his edi- 
 tion of Shakespeare, for he took some trouble in editing 
 Shakespeare, and you will see. It is true he once 
 remarked to Spence that " it was mighty simple in Rowe 
 to write a play professedly in Shakespeare's style — that 
 is, professedly in the style of a bad age." But we must 
 remember what it was in the style of Shakespeare's age 
 that he considered bad. The particulars that he speci- 
 fied as faults were such as have universally been con- 
 sidered faults of style, and such as no writer has ever 
 tried to imitate without making himself ridiculous. 
 For example, Pope said that "Shakespeare generally 
 used to stiffen his style with high words and metaphors 
 for the speeches of kings and great men : he mistook it 
 for a sign of greatness. This is strongest in his early 
 plays ; but in his very last, his ' Othello,' what a forced 
 language has he put into the mouth of his Duke of 
 Venice." Now, it was probably not from mistaking it 
 for a mark of greatness that Shakespeare stiffened his 
 words in the speeches of great men, but because his 
 audience expected it, because the stage demanded it ; 
 still, whatever the reason, take any great man's speech 
 in Shakespeare where the situation is not filled with pas- 
 sion, and I think you will agree with the eighteenth- 
 century critic that no style could be more intolerably 
 bad. Do you ever at the theatre now listen to such 
 speeches as those of the Duke of Venice, and what 
 impression do they make upon you ? 
 
 No : though Pope often heard his own age described 
 as the Augustan age of English poetry, in which the art 
 had been carried to a perfection unattained before, he 
 was by no means insensible to the greatness of his 
 
16 MEN OF LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 great predecessors, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and 
 Milton. His conversations with Spence * afford abun- 
 dant evidence of his catholicity as well as of his delicacy 
 of judgment ; and if we pass from Pope to his successoi's 
 in the eighteenth century, we find that we cannot num- 
 ber disi'espect for Shakespeare among the causes of 
 their poetic degeneracy, and that Nature was often in 
 their mouths, if not in their hearts, as the great original 
 from which the poet ought to draw. Their adoration 
 of Shakespeare is not exceeded by the most reverential 
 and least critical member of the New Shakespeare 
 Society. Take Akenside, for example. When in 1749 
 a French company played by subscription at Drury 
 Lane, Akenside penned a most spirited remonstrance, 
 which he put in the mouth of Shakespeare. He 
 imagined our great poet insulted by this invasion of his 
 domain. 
 
 " "What though the footsteps of my devious Muse 
 The measured walks of Grecian art refuse, 
 Or though the frankness of my hardy style 
 Mock the nice touches of the critic's file : 
 Yet what my age and climate held to view 
 Impartial I surveyed, and fearless drew. 
 And say, ye skilful in the human heart, 
 Who know to prize a poet's nohlest part, 
 What age, what clime, could e'er an ampler field, 
 For lofty thought, for daring fancy, yield ? 
 
 " I saw this England break the shameful bands 
 Forged for the souls of men by sacred hands ; 
 I saw each groaning realm her aid implore ; 
 Her sons the heroes of each warlike shore : 
 Her naval standard (the dire Spaniard's bane) 
 Obey'd through all the circuit of the main. 
 Then too great Commerce, for a late found world, 
 Around your coast her eager sails unfurled ? 
 
 * " Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men," 
 by the Rev. Joseph Spence. 
 
A PIONEER OF THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT 17 
 
 New hopes, new passions, thence the bosom fires, 
 New plans, new arts, the genius thence inspires ; 
 Thence every scene which private Fortune knows 
 In stronger life with bolder spirit, rose." 
 
 Take next Gray, who is sometimes spoken of as the 
 crowning instance of the artificial poetry of the eigh- 
 teenth century. How far he was from being a victim of 
 a narrow and exclusive taste in literature we shall see 
 afterward. He was one of the pioneers of the romantic 
 movement ; he was a minute observer and an enthusias- 
 tic worshipper of nature ; and he carried his admiration 
 of artless poetry so far as to find beauties even in 
 Lydgate, whom few of the admirers of early English 
 poetry have even the patience to read. For Shakes- 
 peare his enthusiasm was unbounded ; the poetry of his 
 own age seemed poor and starved in comparison. 
 " But," he says, in a metrical letter to his illustrator 
 Bentley, in which he sighs for the artist's grace, and 
 strength, and quick creation: 
 
 " But not to one in this benighted age 
 Is that diviner inspiration given 
 That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page, 
 The pomp and prodigality of heaven." 
 
 Gray visited Switzerland and Scotland and the Lake 
 District ; and wrote enthusiastic descriptions of the 
 scenery in letters to his friends. He vied with Words- 
 worth in the sincerity of his passion for the Cumberland 
 Lakes ; with Scott in his love for the Scottish High- 
 lands. "I am," he wrote, "charmed with my expe- 
 dition; it is of the Highlands I speak; the Lowlands 
 are worth seeing once, but the mountains are ecstatic, 
 and ought to be visited in pilgrimage once a year. 
 None but these monstrous children of God know how to 
 join so much beauty with so much horror. A fig for 
 your poets, painters, gardeners, and clergymen that 
 have not been among them; their imagination can be 
 3 
 
18 MEN OP LETTERS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 made up of nothing but bowling-greens, flowering 
 shrubs, horse-ponds, Fleet ditches, shell-grottoes, and 
 Chinese rails." 
 
 I might multiply quotations to show that neither 
 Shakespeare nor Nature was undervalued by the poets 
 of the generation after Pope's. If their poetry was 
 limited in amount and narrow in quality, it was not for 
 want of a taste for better things. Criticism, in short, was 
 busy preparing the way for the reception of a new race 
 of poets by augmenting dissatisfaction with the poetry 
 of the time, and creating a taste for something different. 
 We see this spirit two generations after Pope, even in 
 the works of the weak and amiable Hayley. Hayley 
 was not a self-satisfied driveller; he was painfully con- 
 scious of his own weakness, feeling, as he said himself : 
 
 " Whene'er I touch the lyre 
 My talents sink below my proud desire." 
 
 We must not look upon him as a failure owing to the 
 benumbing influence of narrow criticism. He repudi- 
 ated critical authority in most valiant words. He 
 denounced the "Classic Bigot" and " System's Haughty 
 Son " as earnestly as the blindest disciple of the Lakers : 
 
 " Thou wilt not hold me arrogant or vain, 
 If I advise the young poetic train 
 To deem infallible no Critic's word ; 
 Not even the dictates of thy Attic Hurd : 
 No ! not the Stagyrite's unquestioned page, 
 The Sire of critics, sanctified by age ! 
 
 How oft, my Romney, have I known thy vein 
 Swell with indignant heat and gen'rous pain, 
 To hear, in terms both arrogant and tame, 
 . Some reas'ning Pedant on thy Art declaim ; 
 Its laws and limits when his sov'reign taste 
 With firm precision has minutely traced, 
 And in the close of a decisive speech 
 Pronounc'd some point beyond the Pencil's reach, 
 How has thy Genius, by one rapid stroke, 
 Refuted all the sapient things he spoke ! 
 
hayley's denunciation of the critics 19 
 
 Thy Canvas placing, in the clearest light, 
 
 His own Impossible before his sight ! 
 
 O might the Bard who loves thy mental fire, 
 
 Who to thy fame attun'd his early lyre, 
 
 Learn from thy Genius, when dull Fops decide, 
 
 So to refute their systematic pride ! 
 
 Let him, at least, succeeding Poets warn 
 
 To view the Pedant's lore with doubt or scorn, 
 
 And e'en to question, with a spirit free, 
 
 Establish'd Critics of the first degree ! " 
 
 It was in the revival of the grand Epic that Hayley 
 saw a possible future for Poetry, and Mason seemed to 
 him the destined hero of this regeneration. 
 
 " Ill-fated Poesy ! as human worth, 
 Prais'd, yet unaided, often sinks to earth ; 
 So sink thy powers ; not doom'd alone to know 
 Scorn, or neglect, from an unfeeling Foe, 
 But destin'd more oppressive wrong to feel 
 From the misguided Friend's perplexing zeal. 
 
 What ! is the Epic Muse, that lofty Fair, 
 Who makes the discipline of Earth her care ! 
 That mighty Minister, whom Virtue leads 
 To train the noblest minds to noblest deeds ! 
 Is she, in office great, in glory rich, 
 Degraded to a poor, pretended Witch, 
 Who rais'd her spells, and all her magic power, 
 But on the folly of the favouring hour ? 
 Whose dark, despised illusions melt away 
 At the clear dawn of Philosophic day ? " 
 
 He examines the received opinion that supernatural 
 agency is necessary to the Epic, and denounces and 
 derides all systematic rules. A great Epic might be 
 achieved if the subject were taken from British history. 
 
 " By some strange fate, which rul'd each Poet's tongue, 
 Her dearest Worthies yet remain unsung. 
 Critics there are, who, with a scornful smile, 
 Reject the annals of our martial Isle, 
 
20 MEN OF LETTEES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 And, dead to patriot Passion, coldly deem 
 They yield for lofty Song no touching theme. 
 "What ! can the British heart, humanely brave, 
 Feel for the Greek who lost his female slave ? 
 And shall it not with keener zeal embrace 
 Their brighter cause, who, born of British race, 
 With the strong cement of the blood they spilt, 
 The splendid fane of British Freedom built? " 
 
 Liberty, brooding over tbis neglect, invites Mason to 
 undertake the task. 
 
 " Justly on thee th' inspiring Goddess calls ; 
 Her mighty task each weaker Bard appalls ; 
 'Tis thine, O Mason ! with unbaffled skill, 
 Each harder duty of our Art to fill ; 
 'Tis thine in robes of beauty to array, 
 And in bright Order's lucid blaze display, 
 The forms that Fancy, to thy wishes kind, 
 Stamps on the tablet of thy clearer mind. 
 How softly sweet thy notes of pathos swell, 
 The tender accents of Elfrida tell ; 
 Caractacus proclaims, with Freedom's fire, 
 How rich the tone of thy sublimer Lyre ; 
 E'en in this hour, propitious to thy fame, 
 The rural Deities repeat thy name ; 
 With festive joy I hear the sylvan throng 
 Hail the completion of their favourite Song." 
 
 I tbink I have quoted enougb to sbow you that the 
 eighteenth-century poets were not, on principle at least, 
 enamoured of trimness and primness in art, or insensi- 
 ble to the wild irregular strength and beauty of nature. 
 They did not of set choice and with deliberate acquies- 
 cence confine themselves to a low range of imagination, 
 looking up from their comfortable artifical gardens with 
 supercilious or cynical contempt on the loftier flights of 
 poetry. If the age was comparatively barren of the 
 higher poetry, the explanation is not to be found in the 
 predominance of narrow and exclusive critical theories. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 POPE 
 
 BRIEF LITERARY BIOGRAPHY — HIS POEMS FALL INTO THREE 
 PERIODS — ECLOGUES AND THE DISCUSSION AS TO THE MERITS 
 OF PASTORAL POETRY — WALSH— CONNECTION BETWEEN ENG- 
 LISH PASTORALS AND ALLAN RAMSAY AND BURNS— POPE AND 
 PHILIPS 
 
 If you take a cursory glance at the list of Pope's 
 works and their subjects, you will see that they fall 
 naturally into three divisions or periods : (1) The 
 poems by which he acquired liis reputation, his "Pas- 
 torals," his " Windsor Forest," his " Essay on Criti- 
 cism," his "Rape of the Lock " — all written during the 
 reign of Queen Anne ; (2) his translations of Homer, 
 by which he enlarged his reputation and his fortune, 
 his principal occupation during the reign of George I.; 
 (3) the satirical and moral poems, with which he crowned 
 his reputation, and seriously compromised his character. 
 This is an obvious division, apparent on the surface ; 
 and if you look deeper, you will find that there is more 
 justification for it than there generally is. There is 
 often a disadvantage in dividing the works of an artist 
 into periods ; it is often misleading. You are apt to 
 imagine that at each period a complete transformation 
 has passed over the style or the spirit of the man's 
 work ; that he has become a new creation, working 
 with entirely different aims and powers ; and that the 
 work of each period is sharply marked off from that of 
 every other. There is a tendency in this way to break 
 up and disperse the individuality of the man, to confuse 
 his identity. Now, the artist is himself in all periods ; 
 
 31 
 
22 pope 
 
 in any period he is more like himself than like any body 
 else ; any two periods of his work have more in com- 
 mon with each other than they have with any period 
 of another man's work, supposing him to be a great 
 artist, an artist of marked and masterful individuality. 
 It only happens that some men at certain stages come 
 under new influences from without, or new impulses 
 from within, the effect of which is distinctly traceable 
 in their work, though not to the extent of blurring 
 their individuality. This happens more or less to all 
 men, but it is only when the new influence becomes for 
 the time paramount that there is any advantage in 
 separating the whole productions of a man's lifetime 
 into periods. When the development has been slow 
 and equable, as in the case of Chaucer, or Shakespeare, 
 or Gray, or Wordsworth, or Tennyson, when the 
 course of the poet's activity has received no violent and 
 sudden bent from new circumstances or new impulses, 
 there is no advantage in dividing his work into periods. 
 
 In the case of Pope circumstances did interfere 
 materially with the direction of his poetic labors, and 
 two important epochs or turning-points can be distinctly 
 specified. The first was when his early successes trans- 
 ferred him from the influences of his father's family and 
 his home circle of acquaintances to the very different 
 world of London society, when boyish ambitions and 
 enthusiasms underwent a transformation. If these 
 ambitions had been allowed free play, he would not 
 have translated Homer. This was a money-making 
 enterprise, instigated by the worldly spirit that then 
 passed into him from new and fashionable acquaintances. 
 The second epoch was when his independence had been 
 secured by the success of his translations, and he was 
 free to follow the guidance and stimulation of his friends 
 Arbuthnot, Swift, and Bolingbroke, and abandoned his 
 powers to the service of personal and party strife 
 
 Pope was born in the year of the Revolution, 1688. 
 
 .. 
 
HIS DESULTORY EDUCATION" 23 
 
 His father, who was a London merchant, retired from 
 business in that year, and went to live at Binfield in 
 Windsor Forest. The most influential fact in Pope's 
 family circumstances was the religion of his father, who 
 was a Roman Catholic. This probably influenced the 
 father in retiring from business when the Catholic James 
 II. was driven from the throne and the Protestant 
 William took his place. Farther, it influenced the 
 education of Pope in two ways. The public schools 
 were closed to him, and he received very little regular 
 education. He was taught to read by an aunt, the 
 widow of the portrait-painter Cooper, who left him at 
 her death, when he was five years old, all her " bookes, 
 pictures, and medalls sett in gold or otherwise." At the 
 age of eight he was taught the rudiments of Latin and 
 Greek by the family priest ; then he was sent for a time 
 to a little school at Twyf ord, near Winchester, in Hamp- 
 shire, then for a time to another in Marylebone, then to 
 a third at Hyde Park Corner in London ; then he read 
 for a time under the care of another priest ; but at the 
 age of twelve he was left entirely to his own resources. 
 This desultory education, leaving him to read at will, 
 was probably an advantage for a studious boy, who 
 could not remember when he began to make verses of 
 his own invention, who compiled a play for his school- 
 fellows before he was twelve, and had such a veneration 
 for poets and poetry that as a small school-boy he 
 ventured into Will's Coffee-house that he might have 
 the pleasure of seeing and hearing Dryden, the greatest 
 English poet then living. These little facts show how 
 precocious Pope was both in poetic sensibility and in 
 ambition. When his father, who was probably anxious 
 for his health, took him from school in London to live 
 at home in the Forest, he plunged with delight into a 
 miscellaneous course of reading in poetry, and he not 
 only read, but imitated. His school education had been 
 too scrappy to make him expert in construing foreign 
 
24 pope 
 
 languages ; he could barely construe Tully's Offices, he 
 says, when he left school; but in the course of the pre- 
 vious century all poets of note, — Greek, Latin, Italian, 
 and French, — had been translated into English verse, 
 and with the help of these translations the ardent student 
 had no difficulty in mastering the sense. " Mr. Pope," 
 Spence says, " thought himself the better in some 
 respects for not having had a regular education. He 
 (as he observed in particular) read originally for the 
 sense, whereas we are taught for so many years to read 
 only for words." Nor, although the boy was left 
 entirely free to read what he pleased, was he left alto- 
 gether without friendly guidance. Here, again, the 
 family Catholicism was serviceable to him ; it was an 
 advantage to belong to a proscribed sect. The members 
 of such a sect always hold much more closely together 
 without distinctions of rank ; distinctions of rank and 
 station are levelled by their common political disabili- 
 ties. Hence it happened that Catholic families in the 
 neighborhood, of good position and literary culture, 
 who would probably not have visited the retired linen- 
 draper if he had belonged to the established religion, 
 made the acquaintance of him and of his precocious son, 
 and helped the latter with encouragement and advice in 
 his reading and in the first flights of his genius. In 
 particular, Sir W. Trumbull, a retired diplomatist, living 
 at Easthampstead, within a few miles of Binfield, made 
 a companion of the boy, and directed him to the study 
 of the French critics. Through another Catholic 
 family, the Blounts of Mapledurham, one of whom, Mrs. 
 Martha Blount, was his attached friend in his last years, 
 Pope made the acquaintance of Wycherley and Henry 
 Cromwell, and through them of Walsh and Granville, 
 all poets and keen critics of literature. 
 
 Thus, while Pope's sensibilities were still fresh, and his 
 whole nature docile and pliable, he was guided into the 
 very middle of the literary current of his time, and left 
 
EARLY EFFORTS 25 
 
 to paddle at his own sweet will in backwaters and eddies. 
 The eager and ambitious boy was, in fact, stimulated to 
 the very utmost of his powers, and directed to strive 
 with all his energies after what was then considered 
 literary excellence by the highest authorities. We can 
 see in his early efforts traces of a clear-sighted purpose, 
 while trying to do what was then certain of winning 
 applause, to choose subjects that had not been already 
 appropriated by great poets, and in which success was 
 still open to all comers. It was then a critical maxim 
 that the highest work of which the human mind was 
 capable was a great epic, and many treatises had been 
 written in French and in English, in prose and in verse, 
 on the principles of epic poetry. Sir Richard Black- 
 more, Avhile Pope was at school, had attempted an epic 
 on the subject of Arthur. It was a ponderous failure. 
 Pope began an epic about the age of twelve. The sub- 
 ject was mythological, the hero being Alcander, a prince 
 of Rhodes. It was, he told Spence, " about two years in 
 hand." In later life he considered that it was better 
 planned than Blackmore's, though equally slavish an 
 imitation of the ancients ; but he never published it, and 
 it was finally burned by the advice of Atterbury. Even 
 in his boyhood Pope had judgment enough to understand 
 that his powers were not yet sufficiently mature for 
 original composition, and he resolved to perfect them in 
 the first place by imitations of his predecessors. Walsh 
 advised him that there was one praise yet open to English 
 poets, the praise of correctness. In Pope's boyhood 
 the most successful poetical publication had been Dry- 
 den's translation of Virgil. What Dryden had trans- 
 lated, Pope did not presume to meddle with. Dryden 
 was his hero, his model, his great exemplar. But he 
 proceeded to take translations of classics by less eminent 
 poets, and try to improve upon them. With this ambi- 
 tion he translated the first book of the " Thebaid " of 
 Statius, whom he considered the most eminent Latin epic 
 
26 pope 
 
 poet next to Virgil, several of Ovid's " Heroic Epistles," 
 and a considerable part of the " Metamorphoses," besides 
 passages from Homer. It was one of Pope's vanities to 
 try to give the impression that his metrical skill was 
 even more precocious than it was ; and we cannot accept 
 his published versions of Statius and Ovid as evidence of 
 his proficiency at the age of fifteen or sixteen, the date, 
 according to his own assertion, of their composition, 
 though they were not published for several years after- 
 ward. But it is ascertained matter of fact that, by the 
 time he was sixteen, his skill in verse was such as to 
 astonish veteran critics like Wycherley and Walsh, and 
 that his verses were handed about in manuscript, and 
 admired by men who were then in the foremost walks 
 of letters. 
 
 Pope spent eight or nine years in this arduous and 
 enthusiastic discipline, reading, studying, experimenting, 
 poetry his only business and idleness his only pleasure, 
 before any thing of his appeared in print. In these pre- 
 liminary studies he seems to have guided himself by the 
 maxim, formulated in a letter to Walsh, July 2, 1706, 
 that "it seems not so much the perfection of sense to 
 say things that have never been said before, as to express 
 those best that have been said oftenest." * His first pub- 
 lication was his " Pastorals." Jacob Tonson, the book- 
 seller, had heard these pastorals highly spoken of, and 
 he sent a polite note to Pope asking that he might have 
 them for one of his miscellanies. They appeared ac- 
 cordingly in May, 1709, at the end of a volume con- 
 taining contributions from Philips, Sheffield, Garth, 
 and Rowe. We can see how Pope was induced to make 
 his first essay in pastorals. Dryden's translation of 
 Virgil's " Eclogues " had drawn attention to this species 
 of composition. Walsh had written a critical preface to 
 
 * " True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, 
 
 "What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." 
 
THE AIMS OF THE PASTORAL POET 27 
 
 Dryden's translation, in which he laid down the rules 
 of pastoral poetry, and severely trounced M. Fontenelle, 
 a fashionable French writer of pastorals, for his viola- 
 tion of the rules. 
 
 This artificial species of poetry has been almost uni- 
 versally ridiculed as tedious and insipid from the time 
 of Pope to the present day. It is not worth while to 
 waste much time over it ; but as it is often condemned 
 hastily, and in ignorance of what it proposed to attempt, 
 it is only justice to Pope, and it may be of some inter- 
 est, to consider what were the aims of the pastoral poet 
 as conceived by Pope and Walsh. They did not pre- 
 tend to imitate any incidents in the lives of actual 
 shepherds. Theocritus did this, and Allan Ramsay. 
 But the shepherds of Pope and Walsh were avowedly 
 the shepherds of the golden age, when the best of men 
 were employed in shepherding — men, as Walsh says, 
 " of learning and good breeding." These shepherds 
 were assumed to be men of the most delicate and gentle 
 feelings, living a life of simplicity and calm tranquillity, 
 never agitated by harsh and violent passions. Any 
 tender feeling that ruffled their lives was softened and 
 subdued by the steady repose and quiet, placid beauty 
 of their surroundings, and the mute sympathy of nature 
 with their woes. Realize the still and tranquil beauty 
 of this ancient pastoral world, and you will admit that it 
 was a fine conception. The poets of this world did not 
 trouble themselves to argue that such a world ever 
 really existed ; they admitted that it never existed ex- 
 cept as a beautiful fiction. Such was the conception of 
 this species of poetry held by a school of critics among 
 whom Pope had personal friends. You will find it 
 set forth at length in Walsh's preface to Dryden's 
 translation of Virgil, in which minute rules are deduced 
 for bringing details into harmony with this general 
 design. Now, this being the aim of the ideal pastoral, 
 to give lyric expression to the joys and the sorrows, the 
 
28 pope 
 
 loves and the griefs, of imaginary beings in imaginary 
 circumstances, I think you will see that many of the 
 criticisms passed on Pope's " Pastorals " are beside the 
 mark. He has been censured for not doing what he 
 could not have done without being inconsistent with 
 his original design. Mr. Elwin, for example, Pope's 
 truculent editor, who has examined every line in Pope 
 with inveterate hostility, but apparently never lifted his 
 eyes from details to consider Pope's work as a whole, 
 says : " Originality was impossible when Pope's only 
 notion of legitimate pastoral was a slavish mimicry of 
 classical remains. Had he drawn his materials from 
 the English landscape before his eyes, from the English 
 characters about his doors, and from the English usages 
 and moods of thought in his own day, he would have 
 discovered a thousand particulars in which he had not 
 been anticipated by Greeks and Romans. He neg- 
 lected this inexhaustible territory, and bestowed so 
 little attention upon the realities around him that, 
 though his descriptions are confined to the barest 
 generalities, they are not unfrequently false." 
 
 If Pope had acted on this advice, no doubt he might 
 have written a much more generally interesting poem, 
 with more of flesh and blood and passion in it, but it 
 would not have been the kind of poem that he intended 
 to write. Johnson's criticism is more to the point when 
 he says that the pastoral form of poetry is "easy, 
 vulgar, and therefore disgusting ; whatever images it 
 can supply are long ago exhausted ; and its inherent 
 improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the 
 mind." This is strong criticism, but perfectly fail*. 
 Johnson was thinking more particularly of elegiac 
 pastoral poetry — poems in which poets lamented the 
 death of friends under the fiction that they were 
 shepherds ; and he condemned this kind of poetry as a 
 whole, partly because it gave an air of affectation to 
 the poet's grief, and partly because there was nothing 
 
Steele's criticism op pastoral elegies 29 
 
 new to be said. He fully recognized what the poet 
 intended to do, but held that it was not worth doing. 
 The same criticism had been passed on occasional pas- 
 toral elegies by Steele in the thirtieth number of the 
 Guardian (April 15, 1713). Steele complained that 
 they were too much on one plan : 
 
 " I must, in the first place, observe that our country- 
 men have so good an opinion of the ancients, and think 
 so modestly of themselves, that the generality of pas- 
 toral writers have either stolen all from the Greeks and 
 Romans, or so servilely imitated their manners and 
 customs as makes them very ridiculous. In looking 
 over some English pastorals a few days ago I perused 
 at least fifty lean flocks, and reckoned up an hundred 
 left-handed ravens, besides blasted oaks, withering 
 meadows, and weeping deities. Indeed, most of the 
 occasional pastorals we have are built upon one and the 
 same plan. A shepherd asks his fellow, ' Why he is so 
 pale ? If his favorite sheep hath straj^ed ? If his pipe 
 be broken ? Or Phyllis unkind?' He answers, ' None 
 of these misfortunes have befallen him, but one much 
 greater, for Damon (or sometimes the god Pan) is dead.' 
 This immediately causes the other to make complaints, 
 and call upon the lofty pines and silver streams to join 
 in the lamentation. While he goes on, his friend inter- 
 rupts him, and tells him that Damon lives, and shows 
 him a track of light in the skies to confirm it, then 
 invites him to chestnuts and cheese. Upon this scheme 
 most of the noble families in Great Britain have been 
 comforted ; nor can I meet with any right honorable 
 shepherd that doth not die and live again, after the 
 manner of the aforesaid Damon." 
 
 There is not room for much variety in such poetry, 
 the personages of which are simple people with few 
 interests and few cares. Undoubtedly Milton's 
 "Lycidas," apropos of which Johnson made his sweep- 
 ing condemnation, is an exception to the general lame- 
 
30 pope 
 
 ness of these pastoral elegies. The exquisitely sweet 
 and rich music of his verse would have redeemed the 
 most trite and easy of conceptions. But the pastoral 
 elegy was so common in the years between Milton and 
 Johnson that the critic might have been pardoned a 
 strong expression of his weariness of the poem, though 
 this criticism of Milton is one of the aberrations of his 
 generally sound judgment of poetry and generally true 
 feeling for poetic excellence. At least he must be 
 allowed to have confined his criticism to the kind of 
 poetry which the author intended to produce. He did 
 not censure him because he had not done what he could 
 not have done without deviating into another kind of 
 poetry. To have put into the golden age the manners 
 of country folk as they were to be seen near his own 
 doors would not have been an excellence. That the 
 imaginary manners of a fanciful golden age can never 
 possess deep human interest is of course true enough, 
 and Pope's " Pastorals " cannot claim a high rank as 
 poetry. Johnson's criticism of them shows his usual 
 good-sense and sanity. "To charge these pastorals," 
 he says, " with want of invention is to require what was 
 never intended. The imitations are so ambitiously fre- 
 quent that the writer evidently means rather to show 
 his literature than his wit. It is surely sufficient for an 
 author of sixteen not only to be able to copy the poems 
 of antiquity with judicious selection, but to have ob- 
 tained sufficient power of language and skill in metre 
 to exhibit a series of versification which had in English 
 poetry no precedent, nor has since had an imitation." 
 
 Johnson remarks upon " the close thought " shown in 
 the composition of the " Pastorals " : " Pope's ' Pas- 
 torals ' are not, however, composed but with close 
 thought ; they have reference to the times of the day, 
 the seasons of the year, and the periods of human life." 
 "Windsor Forest" is more open than the "Four Pas- 
 torals " to the charge of incongruously and incorrectly 
 
GREAT RESULT OF THE CRAZE FOR PASTORALS 31 
 
 mixing up heathen deities with modern circumstances, 
 archaic conventional fancies with modern realities. 
 There is a cold artificiality about such lines as these : 
 
 " See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crown'd ; 
 Here blushing Flora paints th' enamel'd ground ; 
 Here Ceres' gifts in waving prospect stand, 
 And nodding tempt the joyful reaper's hand." 
 
 Pan and Pomona, and Flora and Ceres, have little life for 
 their few English readers. Still, after discounting such 
 lines, and the extravagant praise of Granville, and the 
 ludicrous comparison of Queen Anne to Diana, there 
 are many beautiful passages. Pope's observation of 
 nature was admitted by Wordsworth, and his micro- 
 scopic fidelity is remarked on by M. Taine. "Every 
 aspect of nature," says Taine, " was observed ; a sun- 
 rise, a landscape reflected in the water, a breeze amid 
 the foliage, and so forth. Ask Pope to paint in verse 
 an eel, a perch, or a trout ; he has the exact phrase 
 ready ; we might glean from him the contents of a 
 Gradus." 
 
 We may remark, as illustrating the close connection 
 of one literary event with another, and the way in which 
 literary influences are handed down, that the same craze 
 for Pastorals which produced Pope's juvenile exercises, 
 by one impulse after another, sending out waves in all 
 directions as from a centre of disturbance in a pool, gave 
 us the poetry of Burns. Kindled by the theories and 
 the practice of the English wits and poets, Allan Ramsay 
 wrote real pastoral poetry, exhibiting the customs, the 
 dress, the games, the domestic sorrows, the loves, 
 and the lives of real shepherds. And the " Gentle 
 Shepherd" awoke the genius of Burns. This great 
 result may excuse us for dwelling so long on Pastoral 
 poetry in the reign of Queen Anne. 
 
 Pope professed to have written both his " Pastorals " 
 and "Windsor Forest" in 1704 or 1705, at the age of 
 
32 pope 
 
 sixteen, only adding to the latter the passage about the 
 Peace. Probably he had retouched them, as they lay by 
 him. It was part of his vanity to pretend to have been 
 even more precocious than he was, a foible that has been 
 severely commented on. 
 
 These " Pastorals " led to one of the first of Pope's 
 celebrated literary quarrels, which is often referred to 
 as an example of his irritable jealousy and subtle under- 
 hand proceedings. This has been discussed at great 
 length and in a spirit of bitter hostility to Pope by Mr. 
 El win — at great length, and yet with the omission of 
 important circumstances, if his object was to prove that 
 Pope was the aggressor. 
 
 In the volume of Tonson's Miscellanies in 1709 in 
 which Pope's " Pastorals " appeared, the first place was 
 occupied by a set of Pastorals by Ambrose Philips, — 
 " Namby Pamby," — in every way inferior to Pope's. 
 Four years afterward, on April 6, IV 13, appeared in the 
 Guardian, edited by Steele, the first of a series of 
 papers on Pastoral Poetry — discussing pastoral poets 
 from Theocritus downward, and stating the principles 
 of the art. Really these papers were a covert puff of 
 Philips. Modern pastoral poets were ridiculed for in- 
 troducing Greek rural deities, Greek flowers and fruits 
 (hyacinths and Prestan roses), Greek names of shepherds 
 (Damon and Thyrsis, and so forth), Greek sports and 
 customs and religious rites. They ought to make use 
 of English rural mythology, hob-thrushes, fairies, gob- 
 lins, and witches ; they should give English names to 
 their shepherds ; they should mention flowers indige- 
 nous to English climate and soil ; and they should intro- 
 duce English proverbial sayings, dress, and customs. 
 All excellent principles, afterward followed by Allan 
 Ramsay. But the Guardian proceeded to cite Philips 
 as an English poet who had fulfilled these conditions, 
 and consequently established for himself a place side by 
 side with Theocritus, and Virgil, and Spenser. Philips 
 
POPE RETALIATES ON STEELE 33 
 
 was the eldest born of Spenser. Pope was never men- 
 tioned as a pastoral poet, though a few lines were quoted 
 from one of his imitations of Chaucer. 
 
 Now, Pope was bitterly angry at this, and he took 
 what Mr. Elwin considers a mean revenge. He sent to 
 Steele a paper professing to be a continuation of the 
 papers on Pastoral Poetry, reviewing the poems of Mr. 
 Pope by the light of these principles. Ostensibly Pope 
 was censured for breaking these rules, and Philips was 
 praised for observing them. It was a most cutting piece 
 of irony, passages being cited from Philips where he 
 had complied with all the precepts of the Guardian, and 
 yet had written the most insipid commonplace. Pope 
 himself, though ostensibly condemned, was really exalted, 
 being described in one place as having " deviated into 
 downright poetry." 
 
 When the paper was sent to him, Steele, misled by 
 the opening sentences, was at first unwilling to publish 
 a direct attack on Pope, and asked Pope's leave to print 
 it, which was graciously granted. 
 
 Elwin severely condemns this as a mean, spiteful, 
 underhand trick, and declares that Pope's vanity made 
 him the aggressor. I own to having some sympathy 
 with the fun of the thing ; but, apart from that, I don't 
 think that Mr. Elwin has made out that Pope was the 
 aggressor. In spite of his labored argument, he has 
 omitted several cardinal circumstances, allowing, as is 
 his custom, a few points to carry him away, while he 
 does not look at the whole. 
 
 The papers in the Guardian were really a covert 
 attack on Pope. What were the circumstances ? Pope's 
 " Windsor Forest," a pastoral, appeared in the beginning 
 of March. It contained a eulogy of the Peace of Utrecht, 
 the great achievement of the Tory Ministry, to which 
 Steele and Addison and the Whig coterie were far from 
 friendly. A few weeks afterward appeared a series of 
 papers on Pastoral Poetry, in which Pope was studiously 
 3 
 
34 pope 
 
 ignored, and a feeble poetaster, his rival in that kind o( 
 poetry, extravagantly lauded. I should call that mean 
 and underhand, and Pope's method of retaliation strikes 
 me as simply highly ingenious and amusing, and not 
 unfair. A magnanimous man would have passed by the 
 slight without notice ; but if a man did condescend to 
 notice it, as Pope did, his crime was not of a very black 
 dye. He only hoisted the enemy with their own petard. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 pope — continued 
 
 " ESSAY ON CRITICISM " — SUPPOSED TYRANNY OP POPE — ATTI- 
 TUDE OF POPE, GRAY, ETC., TOWARD CLASSICAL TRADITION — 
 REVIEW OF THEORIES ACCOUNTING FOR THE POETIC STERILITY 
 OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Our starting-point to-day, the " Essay on Criticism," 
 was published in 1711, midway between the "Pastorals" 
 and " Windsor Forest." 
 
 An excellent rule occurs at 1. 253 : 
 
 " Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, 
 Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. 
 In ev'ry work regard the writer's end, 
 Since none can compass more than they intend." 
 
 What was Pope's end? He wrote the "Essay on 
 Criticism " for the entertainment of the cultivated 
 people, men and women of wit and learning in his time, 
 who were greatly interested in the art of poetry. It 
 belongs to the class of poems called Didactic, but the 
 object of such poems is not instruction, even when they 
 state and illustrate rules of conduct. The object of 
 poetry is to give immediate pleasure. When Virgil 
 wrote his " Georgics," his object was not to lay down 
 practical rules for the husbandman, but to present a 
 beautiful picture of country life. Darwin's " Botanic 
 Garden " was meant, not to serve the same purpose as 
 lectures on botany, but to give pretty pictures of plants 
 and their habits. So in Pope's "Essay on Man " his 
 object is not to write an ethical or theological treatise, 
 but to give pointed and brilliant expression to certain 
 
 35 
 

 36 POPE 
 
 views of man's character, of his position in the universe, 
 and of his destiny. This might be indirectly instructive, 
 by furnishing people with striking and easily remem- 
 bered reflections as maxims of conduct, but the poet's 
 primary purpose was to charm and delight by the novelty 
 of his expression. 
 
 In the " Essay on Criticism " his purpose is less 
 lofty — he did not strive to lead his readers into the same 
 lofty region of delightful emotion. His purpose was 
 simply to condense, methodize, and give as perfect and 
 novel expression as he could to floating opinions about 
 the poet's aims and methods, and the critic's duties to 
 
 " What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." 
 
 He was keenly interested in the subject himself, as day 
 by day he read and meditated on the subject in his 
 quiet home at Binfield ; and so were his acquaintances. 
 He took for granted that the town, the coffee-houses, 
 and the drawing-rooms would also be interested ; and he 
 was not disappointed. The work excellently served its 
 primary purpose of giving pleasure to the town. 
 
 He expounded many commonplaces so admirably, so 
 perfectly, so happily, that ever since they have been 
 quoted in the form he gave them, e. g.: 
 
 "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." — 1. 625. 
 
 " The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, 
 With loads of learned lumber in his head." — 1. 612. 
 
 " Good-nature and good-sense must ever join ; 
 To err is human ; to forgive, divine." — 1. 525. 
 
 " True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, 
 As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance." — 1. 362. 
 
 " Expression is the dress of thought." — 1. 318. 
 
 " 'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, 
 But the joint force and full result of all." — 1. 245. 
 
"essay on criticism" 37 
 
 " A little learning is a dang'rous thing." — 1. 215. 
 
 " From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, 
 And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." — 1. 152. 
 
 Now, a writer who makes expressions by means of smart 
 epigram, startling instances, and brilliant illustration his 
 chief aims, and chooses topics of knowledge and opinion 
 rather than feeling, is not, strictly speaking, a poet, even 
 if he writes in verse. We do not call him a poet, but 
 a rhetorician. We call a man a poet who touches our 
 feelings by means of words, as a painter or a sculptor 
 does by painted canvas or chiselled stone. But rhetori- 
 cians in verse are capable of giving us much delight by 
 presenting our beliefs in new and unexpected lights, and 
 this was what Pope did in his " Essay on Criticism." We 
 do not always find ourselves in agreement with the 
 opinions expressed, but the expression is always vivid, 
 and often most felicitous. 
 
 Johnson criticises Pope's precept regarding the use of 
 " representative metre," as stated in the lines : 
 
 " 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, 
 The sound should seem an echo to the sense." 
 
 "This notion," says Johnson, "has produced, in my 
 opinion, many wild conceits and imaginary beauties. 
 All that can furnish this representation are the sounds 
 of the words considered singly, and the time in which 
 they are pronounced." 
 
 Here he makes the mistake of assuming that the 
 rhythm is determined solely by the number of accented 
 and unaccented syllables — by the pauses and the 
 syllables in and out of accent. He quotes a passage in 
 which the numbers are the same as in Pope's translation 
 of Homer's description of Sisyphus rolling the stone up 
 the hill. In the description of Sisyphus the sound seems 
 adapted to the sense, and yet here is another set of 
 verses in the same number which do not convey the 
 
38 pope 
 
 same feeling of effort. Johnson argues that the reason 
 must be simply that the subject is different ; the num- 
 bers are the same, but the meaning being different, we 
 estimate the sound by the meaning. "The mind often 
 governs the ear, and the sounds are estimated by their 
 meaning." Johnson forgets that the quantity of the 
 vowels and the difficulty of the consonants affect the 
 rhythm. 
 
 If I am to spend so much time over Pope's early 
 poems, how am I to cover in twenty lectures the poetry 
 of the four Georges ? I can, of course, in such a short 
 course, attempt only to give you some idea of the lead- 
 ing artistic aims of poetry in that period, the poetic 
 ideals, what the poets tried to do, what we are to look 
 for in their poetry, and how they came to have these 
 aims. And upon these enquiries we get much light from 
 these early poems of Pope, because they were written 
 under the direct influence of the arbiters of good taste 
 in writing in his time. In the " Essay on Criticism " he 
 puts these standards of good taste into brilliant words, 
 and so helped to perpetuate their influence. But their 
 influence was exerted in many forms that could not be 
 put into words, because the men of the time were not 
 conscious of them. 
 
 One of the favorite ways of accounting for the bar- 
 renness of the eighteenth century is to say that the 
 poets, influenced by Pope, were subject to narrow and 
 exclusive rules of criticism, that they were slavishly 
 subservient to the ancients, writing only according to 
 these precedents, and that, consequently, their poetry 
 was dull and artificial and wanting in nature. I believe 
 this to be a shallow theory, held in entire ignorance of 
 the great forces that control and shape the poetry of 
 living generations of men. Reverence for the ancients, 
 more particularly for the Roman ancients Virgil and 
 Horace, was undoubtedly an influence in the time of 
 Pope ; but it was only a slight influence then, and in 
 
INFLUENCE OP THE ANCIENT POETS 39 
 
 the subsequent generations of the century it was not an 
 influence at all. 
 
 Let us see what exactly was meant by this subservience 
 to the ancients. At first sight it would look as if Pope 
 had no reverence for the ancients, but proposed to him- 
 self quite an independent standard — namely, Nature : 
 
 " First follow Nature, and your judgment frame 
 By her just standard, which is still the same : 
 Unerring Nature still divinely bright, 
 One clear, unchang'd, and universal light, 
 Life, force, and beauty must to all impart 
 At once the source, and end, and test of Art. 
 Art from that fund each just supply provides ; 
 Works without show, and without pomp presides." 
 
 But, if we read on, we come upon several passages 
 that seem to betray a slavish admiration for the 
 ancients : 
 
 " You then whose judgment the right course would steer, 
 Know well each Ancient's proper character ; 
 His fable, subject, scope in ev'ry page ; 
 Religion, country, genius of his age ; 
 Without all these at once before your eyes, 
 Cavil you may, but never criticise. 
 Be Homer's works your study and delight, 
 Read them by day, and meditate by night ; 
 Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, 
 And trace the muses upward to their spring. 
 Still with itself compar'd, his text peruse, 
 And let your comment be the Mantuan muse. 
 When first young Maro in his boundless mind 
 A work t'outlast immortal Rome designed, 
 
 Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. 
 Convinced, amaz'd, he checks the bold design ; 
 And rules as strict his labour'd work confine, 
 As if the Stagyrite o'erlook'd each line. 
 Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem ; 
 To copy Nature is to copy them." 
 
40 pope 
 
 Again, in speaking of the breach of these rules, he 
 declares : 
 
 " But though the ancients thus their rules invade 
 (As kings dispense with laws themselves have made), 
 Moderns, beware ! or if you must offend 
 Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end ; 
 Let it be seldom, and compell'd by need ; 
 And have, at least, their precedent to plead. 
 The critic else proceeds without remorse, 
 Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force." 
 
 The case now seems very strong for Pope's subservience 
 to the ancients. This is strengthened by looking at 
 the general scope of his works. He spent ten years in 
 translating Homer ; ten more in professedly imitating 
 Horace. 
 
 But look a little deeper, and you will see that Pope 
 craftily qualifies his subservience to the ancients. Their 
 rules must be observed, but then their rules are very 
 vague and general; there is much in the poet's art 
 that they cannot teach ; and even if they are broken, 
 success justifies the transgressor : 
 
 " Some beauties yet no precepts can declare, 
 For there's a happiness as well as care. 
 Music resembles poetry, in each ~\ 
 
 Are nameless graces which no methods teach, > 
 And which a master-hand alone can reach. ) 
 If where the rules not far enough extend 
 (Since rules were made but to promote their end), 
 Some lucky license answer to the full 
 Th' intent propos'd, that license is a rule. 
 Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, 
 May boldly deviate from the common track ; 
 From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, 
 And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." 
 
 This is surely a sufficient declaration of independence. 
 'Obey their rules when it suits you. 
 
 But then Pope goes on to allow this license only to 
 
A HIT AT MECHANICAL CRITICS 41 
 
 the ancients. " Moderns, beware," he says, and for this 
 interdict on the moderns he is severely censured by Mr. 
 Elwin. If Mr. Elwin had had a little more nimbleness 
 of spirit, and consequently been able to understand the 
 quick and subtle wit and sly humor of Pope, he might 
 have seen that Pope was here laughing in his sleeve at 
 mechanical critics : 
 
 " I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts 
 Those freer beauties, ev'n in them, seem faults, 
 
 Most critics, fond of some subservient art, 
 Still make the whole depend upon a part : 
 They talk of principles, but notions prize, 
 And all to one lov'd folly sacrifice. 
 
 Thus critics of less judgment than caprice, 
 Curious not knowing, not exact but nice, 
 Form short ideas ; and offend in arts 
 (As most in manners) by a love to parts." 
 
 Pope, then, left himself full liberty to depart from 
 the ancients when he chose — and he took it. Even his 
 translation of Homer was a very free translation. "A 
 very fine poem, Mr. Pope, but it is not Homer," was 
 Bentley's remark. His imitations of Horace are among 
 his most original poems, according to Pattison ; and 
 every-body will agree that they are most original. 
 
 Pope's submission to the ancient masters was not 
 slavish or subservient. He studied them as great mas- 
 ters ought to be studied when they are not read simply 
 for enjoyment. He studied them with a mind open to 
 receive impulse and suggestion from their example. 
 
 Were Pope's eighteenth-century successors slavishly 
 submissive to the ancients? Pope died in 1744, when 
 there was more than half of the century to run. I will 
 not weary you with quotations, but I could quote many 
 passages from Akenside, Gray, Churchill, to show that 
 
42 pope 
 
 Pope's successors exalted Shakespeare, who broke many 
 of Aristotle's rules, 
 
 " Above all Greek, above all Roman fame." 
 
 I have quoted already one passage from Hayley, late in 
 the century, feeblest of poets, to show how little they 
 were repressed by the rules of the ancients. Valiant 
 protestation of contempt for rules is not always a sign 
 of strength, but I don't think it was the rules of the 
 ancients that kept down eighteenth-century poetry. A 
 mechanical-minded ecclesiastical place-hunter — Mason 
 — tried to write tragedies on the Greek model and failed. 
 Was it wit? An outrageous admiration for brilliant 
 expression, for highly polished epigram ? Well, even 
 Pope did not consider that wit was every thing : 
 
 " Some to conceit alone their taste confine, 
 And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line ; 
 Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit ; 
 One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. 
 Poets, like painters, thus unskill'd to trace 
 The naked nature and the living grace, 
 With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, 
 And hide with ornaments their want of art. 
 
 Others for language all their care express 
 
 And value books, as women men, for dress : 
 
 Their praise is still, — the style is excellent ; 
 
 The sense they humbly take upon content. 
 
 Words are like leaves ; and where they most abound, 
 
 Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found." 
 
 And after Pope we do not have much wit. There is 
 nothing better than the coarse vigor of Churchill and 
 the ribald buffoonery of Wolcot (Peter Pindar). 
 
 I don't think we can say that the eighteenth century 
 failed in poetry because the energies of its verse-makers 
 were directed to rhetorical brilliancy. Hayley and 
 Mason and Darwin, the leading poets in the boyhood of 
 
ALLEGED MONOTONY OP HEROIC COUPLETS 43 
 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge and Scott, were not rhetori- 
 cally brilliant ; their rhetoric was ineffective ; they 
 were simply dull ; and we can hardly say that they 
 failed as poets because they tried to be rhetoricians. 
 They would probably have been dull in any case. 
 
 Another way of accounting for the eighteenth-cen- 
 tury barrenness is to ascribe it to the monotony of the 
 versification. Macaulay speaks as if every aspiring 
 poet thought couplets the only permissible form. Pope 
 used onty the couplet, and, it is often said, brought it 
 to such mechanical perfection that any versifier after 
 him could turn out smooth, and finished, and melodious 
 couplets with as much ease as a machine cuts wood 
 into blocks of a given size. Pope imposed restrictions 
 upon himself ; such as that each couplet must end with 
 a break in the sense, that an extra syllable must be 
 admitted only in one place, and that the metrical pauses 
 must fall only in certain places. The eighteenth-cen- 
 tury poets followed him till the world became weary 
 of heroic couplets. 
 
 This theory also will not bear examination. Couplets 
 are not necessarily monotonous ; witness Chaucer's 
 "Knight's Tale," Marlowe's "Hero and Leander," 
 Keats's "Endymion," Swinburne's "Tristram and 
 Iseult." Monotony in the case of the couplet does not 
 arise from the poet putting himself under strict con- 
 ditions. We do not find Pope's couplets monotonous, 
 if we are interested in the subject. He leaves himself 
 room enough for variety within his limits. 
 
 The poems of Hoole, and Hayley, and Mickle, and 
 Mason, and Darwin are monotonous in rhythm, not 
 because they wrote couplets, but because they wrote 
 bad couplets, and would have been equally monotonous 
 if they had written in any other stanza. No doubt 
 writing in a strictly fettered rhythm imposes a greater 
 strain upon the poet ; but if he has power to stir our 
 feelings profoundly, the regularity of the rhythm, keep- 
 
44 pope 
 
 ing the passion of his theme within hounds, gives him 
 a stronger hold upon lis. If there is no intense life in 
 what he has to say to us, there is of course nothing to 
 moderate ; and he will not interest us any the more 
 whatever gymnastic feats he performs in the way of 
 rhythm, any more than a musician can hold us spell- 
 hound by flourishes from top to bottom of the scale. 
 
 Besides, the eighteenth century poets did not, as a 
 matter of fact, enslave themselves to the couplet as the 
 only permissible form. 
 
 It was not slavish submission to the ancients, nor to 
 the heroic couplet, nor to the demand for rhetorical 
 brilliancy, that kept so much of the poetry at a low 
 level. We are only scratching on the surface of an 
 explanation when we adopt any such theory. Nor will 
 it do to say that the eighteenth-century was an age of 
 prose ; that its mission was to form the prose style of 
 English literature. We wish to know why it was an 
 age of prose — why it adopted this mission. Nor will it 
 do to say that it held a false theory of poetic diction. 
 We wish to get at the feeling that made them satisfied 
 with their conventional diction as the light thing. 
 
 We must look away from such details if we are to 
 understand the eighteenth century, and look at poetic 
 productions as wholes. Take the works of the leaders 
 of the great poetic revival of this century — Words- 
 worth, Scott, Byron. In what broad respects do they 
 differ from all the works of the eighteenth century? 
 The form of their poems, in a large sense of the word, 
 is new, and their vein of feeling is new. They treat 
 new themes in a new way, and with a new spirit. 
 Above all, they give serious expression to their own 
 personal emotions. Consider the new form of the "Lay 
 of the Last Minstrel," the first genuinely popular poem, 
 interesting to all classes, between the time of Queen 
 Anne and the nineteenth century — a metrical romance 
 regularly constructed, with perfect unity of action, 
 
DEFECTS OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY 45 
 
 incidents all helping forward the progress of the story 
 through various complications to a denouement. No 
 such poem had ever been written before ; it was a new 
 form in poetry — classical regularity of form, combined 
 with romantic freedom of incident. Then the spirit of 
 the poem — the serious epic treatment of the necromanc- 
 ing lady of Branksome Hall, the Goblin page, the 
 wizard, and the bold moss-trooper. We have nothing 
 like this in the eighteenth century. In Pope's time such 
 personages would either have been burlesqued or treated 
 with affected respect, such as a grown-up person would 
 use toward fairies and hobgoblins in telling stories 
 about them to a child. Taken as a whole, in form and 
 spirit, the " Lay " was a new thing in literature. The 
 same may be said of " Childe Harold." Here also we 
 find a new kind of epic, such as the general writers on 
 epic poetry had never contemplated, the hero of which 
 is not a mythical king like Prince Arthur, or a per- 
 sonified virtue moving in Faeiyland like Spenser's Red 
 Cross Knight, or Guyon, or Britomart, but a modern 
 man moving in modern scenes. Wordsworth also is 
 new in form as well as in spirit. No poet before him 
 had dared to shut himself up in the country and choose, 
 as the subject of his verse, his own personal emotions and 
 reflections as aroused by the moving spectacle of sky 
 and mountain and glen, and the homely life of ordinary 
 rustics. He wrote a kind of pastoral poetry that had 
 not been legislated for by the technical lawgivers of 
 the art. 
 
 The serious expression in new forms of intense and 
 generous personal emotion is a broad characteristic of 
 the nineteenth-century revival. Now we can under- 
 stand why the poets of the eighteenth century failed in 
 the artistic expression of serious and generous feeling. 
 The main defects of their poetry can be traced to one 
 source — the character of the audience for whose judg- 
 ment they had respect, by whose ideals they were con- 
 
46 pope 
 
 trolled, who were to them the arbiters of taste. The 
 standard of taste in the time of Queen Anne, and till 
 near the end of the century, was a self-consciously aris- 
 tocratic and refined society, self-conscious of their 
 superior manners and superior culture, and disposed to 
 treat the ways of the vulgar with amused contempt. 
 This, I think, can be shown to be at the root of the striv- 
 ing after wit and the respect for established models, 
 and the false theory of poetic diction in serious poetry. 
 Fear of being vulgar, fear of being singular — these 
 were the real nightmares that sat upon eighteenth- 
 century poetry. 
 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 pope — continued 
 
 INFLUENCE OF IDEAS ON POETRY — SPIRIT OF THE AGE — INFLU- 
 ENCE OF SOCIETY ON POPE — GAY'S BALLADS 
 
 I am not sure that you all followed what I said in my 
 last lecture about the influences that formed the poetic 
 ideals of the eighteenth century. By the poetic ideals 
 of a generation I mean the ideas prevalent among those 
 interested in poetry as to what poetry should be — the 
 sentiments that they wish to find in poetry, the intel- 
 lectual, or moral, or emotional cravings for which they 
 seek satisfaction in poetry. But, you may ask, How 
 can tli is be said to make poetry ? Is it not the poet who 
 makes the poetry ? Yes ; but he makes it in harmony 
 with — or, if he is a defiant man, in antagonism to — the 
 poetic ideals of the men with whom he mixes and for 
 whom he writes. You have heard of the spirit of the 
 age — an intangible something that sets its mark upon 
 all the works of a generation of men : their books, their 
 architecture, their dress, their commercial enterprises, 
 their institutions. What I mean by the poetic ideal is 
 the working of this spirit upon poetry. I am inclined 
 to think myself that people sometimes speak of this 
 spirit of the age in too unqualified terms, as if every 
 thing came under its influence. Now, many things 
 escape its influence, as you recognize when you speak 
 of things or persons being behind the age ; it is only 
 the most distinctive products of the age that feel its 
 shaping, its generative force. And besides, there may 
 be more than one spirit in a generation, each with its 
 own range of influence, handed down, it may be, from 
 
 47 
 
48 pope 
 
 past times, and kept alive by sympathy with them, or 
 engendered by the peculiar circumstances of the circle 
 of people whom it pervades. Go into churches of 
 widely different sects, for example, and you seem to 
 breathe different atmospheres — a different spirit per- 
 vades them ; the " full force and joint result " of orna- 
 ment and ritual and sermon is somehow different. You 
 might find it hard, if you fixed on details, to say where 
 the difference lies ; the same sermon that is preached in 
 one might have been preached in the other ; the same 
 hymns might have been sung ; yet we feel under the 
 influence of a different spirit. And further, these various 
 churches have probably less in common with each other, 
 though they mix in the same age, than they have with 
 the churches of past ages, each of them perpetuating a 
 traditional spirit of its own, and perhaps making it a 
 point of honor to keep that unchanged. 
 
 The same holds in poetiy. A poet writes under the 
 influence of a- certain spirit, a certain social medium, 
 which shapes and colors what he writes. To discover 
 this we must look not only at the general character 
 of his age, but also at the character of his immediate 
 audience, of the circle in which he moves. We must 
 study lus relations with them, whether they are rela- 
 tions of harmony, as in the case of Pope, or relations of 
 antagonism, as in the case of Byron. And we can't 
 expect to get at this subtle spirit by studying isolated 
 details, and arguing about them. My object in last 
 lecture was to impress this fact upon you in the case of 
 eighteenth-century poetry. There is a something in the 
 spirit of eighteenth-century poetry which the critics of 
 this century, broadly speaking, do not like. They com- 
 plain that the eighteenth century is barren of true 
 poetry. And they often set to work to account for 
 this by fastening on details of form, and diction, and 
 imagery, and metre. Some say the barrenness is due to 
 subservience to ancient rules, others to an exclusive am- 
 
INFLUENCE OF SOCIETY ON POETRY 49 
 
 bition after witty expression, others to a slavish, attach- 
 ment to one kind of metre. 
 
 Now, in the first place, I think they exaggerate the 
 barrenness of the century. It is often spoken of as if 
 there were no good poetry then, whereas it was only com- 
 paratively deficient in certain kinds. And, in the second 
 place, we do not satisfactorily account for the deficiency 
 in certain kinds if we look at details by themselves. We 
 must look at them in connection with the spirit of the 
 society for which Pope wrote. The spirit of this society 
 accounts not only for much that was in Pope's poetry, 
 but also for much that was in the two following genera- 
 tions, because the traditions of this society were main- 
 tained after Pope's time, its spirit was transmitted as 
 the dominant spirit in literature till the end of the cen- 
 tury. There were revolts against it in the poetry of 
 Thomson and Dyer, and Gray and Collins, and Burns 
 and Cowper, but, on the whole, it maintained its hold. 
 Its supremacy was not, indeed, shaken till Wordsworth 
 and Byron raised the standard of rebellion, and the 
 majority at once in fact, and gradually in open avowal, 
 went over to them. 
 
 The society that imposed the laws of taste in poetry 
 in Pope's time was, as I said, an aristocratic society, 
 self-consciously so, as it could hardly fail to be when 
 high and low, rich and poor, were marked off from each 
 other by such conspicuous differences of dress and 
 manners as they moved about in their daily life. It 
 was not only self-consciously but superciliously aristo- 
 cratic. Sympathy with the simple feelings of unfashion- 
 able folk was rare in those days. Now, in such a society 
 one ruling motive — except, of course, among persons of 
 natural hardihood or assured position in it — is fear of 
 vulgarity, resulting in a disposition to treat as vulgar 
 whatever is done by people outside the pale of fashion. 
 Many details might be urged against this view, but I think 
 it must be allowed that this is a very prevalent motive. 
 4 
 
50 pope 
 
 Let us see, then, how this prevalent motive would 
 operate on poetry, supposing the poet to be under its 
 influence. It would affect both his choice of subjects 
 and his manner of treating them. Nature, Pope said, 
 is " at once the source and test of art." But Nature is 
 a vague terra, which each person interprets as meaning 
 his own nature, and that must always be interpenetrated 
 by the spirit of a man's social surroundings, the spirit 
 prevalent among his companions. The Nature from 
 which Pope chose his themes was either human nature 
 as he saw it in fashionable society, or human nature so 
 treated as not to offend their susceptibilities. Pope's 
 conception of Nature did not lead him to go, like 
 Wordsworth, to simple country-people for his subjects, 
 and for his diction to "the natural language of man 
 in a state of intense emotion." " True wit," he said, — 
 by wit meaning poetic expression, — is "Nature to 
 advantage dressed." This casual metaphor in the 
 " Essay on Criticism " takes us nearer to the centre 
 of Pope's ideal of poetic expression, which was also 
 the ideal of his age, than any other single passage in 
 his writings. 
 
 Let us take an example of what a refined contemporary 
 of his, writing in the Guardian about Philips's 
 "Pastorals," considered the dressing of Nature to 
 advantage: 
 
 " I will yet add another mark, which may be observed 
 very often in the above-named poets, which is agreeable 
 to the character of shepherds, and nearly allied to super- 
 stition: I mean the use of proverbial sayings. I take 
 the common similitudes in pastoral to be of the pro- 
 verbial order, which are so frequent that it is needless 
 and would be tiresome to quote them. I shall only 
 take notice upon this head, that it is a nice piece of art 
 to raise a proverb above the vulgar style, and still keep 
 it easy and unaffected. Thus the old wish, ' God rest 
 his soul,' is finely turned : 
 
POETICAL BATHOS 51 
 
 " 'Then gentle Sidney liv'd, the shepherd's friend, 
 Eternal blessings on his shade attend.' " 
 
 So easy a metamorphosis as this Pope would have 
 despised, for the poetic dress of nature is esteemed 
 according to the poet's originality and ingenuity in con- 
 structing it. Pope, on the contrary, would have required 
 such an expression as only a man of genius could devise 
 after much toil. In a " Treatise on the Art of Sinking 
 in Poetry," — one of the miscellanies published conjointly 
 by Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, — you will find that Pope 
 ridicules simple expressions and the raising of language 
 above the vulgar style, enforcing his opinion by speci- 
 mens of bathos culled from the poets of the time ; e.g. : 
 " Who knocks at the door ? " becomes when raised 
 above the vulgar: 
 
 " For whom thus rudely pleads my loud-tongued gate, 
 That he may enter ? " 
 
 or Theobald's elevation of " Open the letter " into the 
 sounding line, " Wax ! render up thy trust." 
 
 If you look at Pope's poetry closely, j t ou find that 
 though lie avoided easy elevations he did think it neces- 
 sary to use language which now seems affected and 
 insincere. In this } r ou see him influenced by the spirit 
 of his age. In his " Messiah," published in the Spec- 
 tator (May 14, 1712), and considered by critics of the 
 time to be a very fine poem and an improvement on 
 Isaiah, whose prophecy we think grand in its simplicity, 
 Ave clearly see this influence at work. For example, in 
 Isaiah (xli. 19) we have : " I will set in the desert the fir- 
 tree, and the pine, and the box-tree together," while 
 Pope describes the change as follows : 
 
 " Waste, sandy valleys, once perplex'd with thorn, 
 The spicy fir and shapely box adorn." 
 
 For Isaiah's phrase " the suckling child " Pope has got 
 " the smiling infant," and the whole poem is full of 
 
52 POPE 
 
 similar examples. So, too, we find many examples of 
 bad taste in his translation of Homer, for Pope con- 
 sidered it necessaiy through the whole of that work to 
 dress Homer to advantage for the fashionable society of 
 Queen Anne's time. 
 
 That society would have ridiculed Achilles weeping 
 by the side of Thetis, and accordingly Pope " elevates " 
 the passage thus : 
 
 " Far in the deep recesses of the main, 
 Where aged Ocean holds his watery reign, 
 The goddess-mother heard. The waves divide ; 
 And, like a mist, she rose ahove the tide : 
 Beheld him mourning on the naked shores ; 
 And thus the sorrows of his soul explores." 
 
 Pope has not rendered the touching simplicity which 
 Homer achieves without infringing, to our modern 
 ideas, on the dignity of his heroic characters. In the 
 case of minor poets of the time this elevation of diction 
 is not always achieved with the same taste that Pope — 
 master of language — showed. In the translation of the 
 "Odyssey," in which Pope was assisted by two coadju- 
 tors, the magnifying of the incidents is less skilfully 
 managed and the affectation becomes more apparent. 
 We may cite for this purpose that passage in the sixth 
 book of the " Odyssey " where Odysseus discovers 
 Nausicaa and her maidens at the stream. The affec- 
 tation in the poetical translation is apparent when we 
 compare it with the prose version by Butcher and Lang : 
 " Then they took the garments from the wain in their 
 hands, and bore them to the black water, and briskly 
 trod them down in the trenches, in busy rival ly. Now 
 when they had washed and cleansed all the stains, they 
 spread all out in order along the shore of the deep, even 
 where the sea, in beating on the coast, washed the 
 pebbles clean. Then, having bathed, and anointed them 
 well with olive oil, they took their mid-day meal on the 
 
PROSE AND POETICAL TRANSLATIONS COMPARED 53 
 
 river's banks, waiting till the clothes should dry in the 
 brightness of the sun. Anon, when they were satisfied 
 with food, the maidens and the princess, they fell to 
 playing at ball, casting away their tires, and anion «• 
 them Nausicaa of the white arms began the song." 
 Very different this from the grandiloquent version by 
 Brome, which Pope approved by using it as his own : 
 
 " Then emulous, the royal robes they lave, 
 And plunge the vestures in the cleansing wave 
 (The vestures cleans'd, o'erspread the shelly sand. 
 Their snowy lustre whitens all the strand !) 
 Then with a short repast relieve their toil, 
 And o'er their limbs diffuse ambrosial oil ; 
 And while the robes imbibe the solar ray, 
 O'er the green mead the sporting virgins play 
 (Their shining veils unbound). Along the skies, 
 Toss'd, and retoss'd, the ball incessant flies, 
 They sport, they feast ; Nausicaa lifts her voice, 
 And, warbling sweet, makes earth and heaven rejoice." 
 
 With the primitive enjo3 r ment described by Homer 
 the poet did not evidently sympathize. The character 
 either of the poet or of his audience was at fault : 
 either the poet was insensible to the charms of such 
 passages, or his audience would have considered them 
 coarse. When the Queen Anne poets wrote for the 
 stage, — which must appeal to the sympathies of a wide 
 circle, — and not for fashionable society, you find that 
 the art of simple writing was not lost. Half consciously 
 the poets wrote differently for different audiences. 
 True, Addison's " Cato " is a splendid example of the 
 stilted style of the period, but there are here and there 
 decided exceptions. 
 
 Gay's songs, in plays addressed, as plays must be to 
 succeed, to a wider circle than the fashionable society 
 of the time, show that the art of simple writing was not 
 lost. In " 'Twas when the seas were roaring " (from 
 
54 POPE 
 
 "What d'ye Call It," 1715), and in "Black-eyed 
 Susan," occur such lines as these : 
 
 " Cease, cease, thou cruel ocean, 
 And let my lover rest. 
 Ah, what's thy troubled motion, 
 To that within my breast ? " 
 
 " So the sweet lark, high poised in air, 
 Shuts close his pinions to his breast 
 (If chance his mate's shrill cry he hear), 
 And drops at once into her nest." 
 
 Gay had more of a gift for simple, fluent, easy, melo- 
 dious song than any of his contemporaries. Yet, even 
 in these, there is a touch of burlesque, an accent of 
 insincerity, in the poet's assumed sympathy with the 
 simple feelings of simple folk. In his " Pastorals " 
 Gay made broad fun out of the superstitious igno- 
 rance and coarse sentiments of rustics : he had no 
 eye, as Wordsworth had, for the higher modes of feel- 
 ing ; he saw only the rude defects incident to the hard- 
 ness and narrowness of their lives, and these amused 
 him. They amused fashionable people, and Gaj^, a fat, 
 good-natured, simple-hearted man, petted and caressed 
 and pensioned by great people all through his literary 
 life, quite fell in with their humor. 
 
 There is one kind of poetry, mock-heroic or heroic- 
 comical, for which the elevated Queen Anne style is 
 peculiarly suited — in which its affectation and insin- 
 cerity are not felt as faults, because affectation and 
 insincerity are part of the humor in which the poet 
 writes. Pope's poetic diction is seen in one of its 
 happiest applications in the "Rape of the Lock," where 
 trivial incidents, and little anxieties and interests, and 
 pretty frivolities are purposely treated as matters of 
 vast moment. Here, also, he found a theme well within 
 the interests of his audience. I presume that you have 
 
m. taine's criticism of pope 55 
 
 all read this charming poem, and have learned from 
 your edition of it how it originated in a young lord's 
 cutting off a lock of a lady's hair ; how this led to a 
 coolness between the two families ; how Pope was 
 asked -to write a poem on the subject to smooth over 
 the quarrel ; how the poem appeared in 1712, and was 
 expanded before 1714 to the form in which we have it. 
 It is a different sort of theme from the technical essays, 
 and the translations and imitations of Virgil and Ovid 
 and Chaucer, in which Pope had hitherto exerted him- 
 self — a theme directly suggested by the fashionable life 
 of the time, by human nature as it lived and moved in 
 the society of Queen Anne's days. Pope had a model 
 in Boileau's " Lutrin," a model as regarded the form, 
 but the subject was fresh and new ; it came to him from 
 breathing life, and was not laboriously sought. 
 
 Pope has been charged with gross impoliteness in 
 writing such a poem ; indeed, M. Taine found in it a 
 coarseness akin to Swift's. "Pope," wrote M. Taine, 
 " dedicates his poem to Mrs. Arabella Fermor with 
 every kind of compliment. The truth is he is not 
 polite ; a Frenchwoman would have sent him back his 
 book, and advised him to learn manners ; for one com- 
 mendation of her beauty she would find ten sarcasms 
 upon her frivolity. . . In England it was not found 
 too rude. Mrs. Arabella Fermor was so pleased with 
 the poem that she gave away copies of it. . . But 
 the strangest thing is that this trifling is, for Frenchmen 
 at least, no badinage at all. It is not at all like light- 
 ness or gayety. Dorat, Gresset, would have been stupe- 
 fied and shocked by it. We remain cold under its most 
 brilliant hits. Now and then at most a crack of the 
 whip arouses us, but not to laughter. These caricatures 
 seem strange to us, but do not amuse. The wit is no 
 wit : all is calculated, combined, artificially prepared ; 
 we expect flashes of lightning, but at the last moment 
 they do not descend. . . We say to ourselves now 
 
56 pope 
 
 that we are in China : that so far from Paris and Vol- 
 taire we must be surprised at nothing ; that these folks 
 have ears different from ours ; and that a Pekin manda- 
 rin vastly relishes kettle-music. Finall} r , we compre- 
 hend that, even in this correct age and this artificial 
 poetry, the old style of imagination exists ; that it is 
 nourished, as before, by oddities and contrasts ; and 
 that taste, in spite of all culture, will never become 
 acclimatized ; that incongruities, far from shocking, 
 delight it ; that it is insensible to French sweetness and 
 refinements ; that it needs a succession of expressive 
 figures, unexpected and grinning, to pass before it ; that 
 it prefers this coarse carnival to delicate insinuations ; 
 that Pope belongs to his country, in spite of his classical 
 polish and his studied elegancies ; and that his unpleas- 
 ant and vigorous fancy is akin to that of Swift." 
 
 This poem, which English critics of all schools agree 
 in praising as a masterpiece of light, airy, gay extrava- 
 gance, — marum sal, as Addison called it, — strikes M. 
 Taine as a piece of harsh, scornful, indelicate buffoonery. 
 For him it is a mere succession of oddities and contrasts, 
 of expressive figures, unexpected and grinning — an 
 example of English insensibility to French sweetness 
 and refinement. What especially offends his delicate 
 sense is the bearishness of Pope's laughter at an elegant 
 and beautiful woman of fashion. Pope describes with 
 a grin on his face all the particulars of the elaborate 
 toilet with which Belinda prepared her beauty for con- 
 quest, and all the artificial airs and graces with which 
 she sought to bewitch the heart of susceptible man. 
 The Frenchman listens without sympathy, without ap- 
 preciation, with the contemptuous wonder of a well- 
 bred man at clownish buffoonery. He sees nothing to 
 laugh at in a woman spending three hours over her 
 toilet. Is she not preparing a beautiful picture for him ? 
 She cannot do this without powders and washes and 
 paint-pots. What is there to laugh at in this ? It is a 
 
m. taine's criticism of pope 57 
 
 mere matter of fact. The entire surrender of the female 
 heart to little artifices for little ends does not strike him 
 as ludicrous. His delight in the finished picture, the 
 elegant, graceful, captivating woman, hallows every 
 ingredient used in the making of it. It is not polite to 
 laugfh at a woman. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A GROUP OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 
 
 THOMSON — EARLY LIFE — DESCRIPTIVE POETRY GENERALLY— 
 ' WINTER" — THOMSON'S POSITION IN POETRY — DYER AND 
 SOMERVILLE 
 
 Between the end of Pope's second period and the 
 beginning of his third a new poet appeared, of a very- 
 different vein. 
 
 It was in the last year of the reign of George I. that 
 this fresh and powerful voice made itself heard in 
 literature. A respectable clergyman of literary tastes, 
 Mr. Whatley, chanced to take up a volume of poems 
 lying on the counter of Millan the publisher. The 
 poems had been published for some weeks, but had 
 attracted no attention. As he turned over the leaves 
 Mr. Whatley's attention was roused ; before he laid the 
 book down attention had developed into enthusiasm, and 
 he rushed off to the coffee-houses to proclaim the dis- 
 covery of a new poet. 
 
 The new poet was James Thomson, a young man of 
 twenty-six, just as old as the century, who had been 
 born and bred in very different circumstances from 
 Pope, and whose poetry consequently derived its tone 
 from very different influences. Consider the life of 
 Thomson up to the time when " Winter," the first of his 
 poems on the " Seasons," was published in 1726, and you 
 will see that a very different strain was to be expected 
 from him. His father was a minister in the Scotch Low- 
 lands — minister of the parish of Southdean in Rox- 
 burghshire. The extraordinary death of this gentleman, 
 when his son was in his eighteenth year, is significant 
 
 58 
 
Thomson's early years 59 
 
 both of the superstitious atmosphere in which the poet 
 was educated, and of the sensitiveness of the organiza- 
 tion that he inherited. There was a ghost in the parish 
 of Southdean, and the minister was sent for to lay it ; 
 but no sooner had he begun his exorcism than it seemed 
 to him that he Avas struck on the head witli a ball of fire, 
 and he never recovered from the shock. A man of such 
 susceptibility and overpowering vividness of imagination 
 was fitting father to a poet. He had literary neighbors 
 also, like Pope's father, who encouraged his boy in verse- 
 making. There was Mr. Riccarton, minister of the 
 neighboring parish of Ilobkirk, who wrote a poem on 
 Winter, and is shown by that fact to have been likely to 
 give the author of the " Seasons " an early bias toward 
 the vein of sentiment and reflection that afterward took 
 possession of him. A neighboring laird, Sir TV. Bennet 
 of Chesters, also took notice of the school-boy, invited 
 him to spend his summer holidays at his house, and, being 
 himself an amateur of poetry, encouraged him to com- 
 pose verses. Thomson's juvenile verses must have been 
 very clumsy compared with Pope's. We have a speci- 
 men of them, published in the Edinburgh Miscellany in 
 his twentieth year, when he had completed his course of 
 studies in Arts in the University of Edinburgh, in which, 
 while the language is rough, there is a certain force and 
 freshness of vision, an air of sincere delight in country 
 scenes, evidences of unaffected, loving observations of 
 country sports. There is a story told of Thomson's 
 unwillingness to leave Tweedside for the University. 
 He was sent to Edinburgh on horseback with a servant, 
 but was back before the servant, saying he could study 
 as well on the braes of Sou'dean as in Edinburgh. 
 
 To Edinburgh, however, Thomson had to go, and the 
 whole family removed there on the father's sudden 
 death. He was a student in Divinity till 1724, and in 
 October of that year was severely reproved by the Pro- 
 fessor for the exuberance of his imagination in an 
 
60 A GEO UP OP EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 
 
 exercise lecture on the 119tli Psalm. In March, 1725, 
 armed with introductions from an aristocratic friend of 
 his mother's, the Lady Grizel Baillie, he went in quest of 
 Fortune to London, where a college friend of his, David 
 Mallet, was already settled as tutor in the family of the 
 Duke of Montrose. Thomson also obtained a tutor- 
 ship, — in the family of Lord Binning, son-in-law of his 
 Edinburgh patroness, — but held it only for a few months. 
 It seems to have been in the neighborhood of Lord 
 Binning's house at Barnet that the idea of writing a 
 poem on Winter first took shape in Thomson's mind. 
 The approach of winter in 1725 found him in circum- 
 stances in which he needed all the consolations of a 
 warm imagination. His mother had died a few weeks 
 after he parted from her at Leith, and he was himself 
 in pecuniary straits, with but little prospect of realizing 
 the hopes with which he had come to the capital. Read 
 the opening lines of "Winter" with this knowledge of 
 the poet's circumstances, and you will see how natural 
 it was that such thoughts should come into his mind as 
 he walked to and from his country lodging, with eyes 
 that had long been accustomed to watch changes in the 
 sky and on the face of the earth — turning to them now 
 for relief from his own cheerless looking future. Very 
 different this from the situation of the artist Pope, for 
 whom poetry was not a consolation for desperate cir- 
 cumstances, but a business pursued with ease and de- 
 liberation. 
 
 " See, Winter comes, to rule the varied year, 
 Sullen and sad, with all his rising train ; 
 Vapors, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme. 
 These ! that exalt the soul to solemn thought 
 And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms, 
 Congenial horrors, hail ! with frequent foot, 
 Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life, 
 When nursed by careless Solitude I lived 
 And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, 
 Pleased have I wander'd through your rough domain ; 
 
Thomson's motive in writing " winter " 61 
 
 Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure ; 
 Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst ; 
 Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew'd 
 In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time 
 Till through the lucid chambers of the south 
 Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out and smiled." 
 
 Descriptive poetry, it seems to me, — i, e., poetry- 
 descriptive of inanimate nature, — must always be more 
 or less dull unless we have some clue to the mood of the 
 poet. The description then lives for us as an expres- 
 sion of the writer's ruling emotion ; it acquires human 
 interest. Of course the human interest of Thomson's 
 descriptions is not always due to the colors thrown 
 upon them by his own hopes and fears for himself ; it is 
 only passages here and there that have a direct bio- 
 graphical interest. The gloomy notes of the opening 
 of his poem on Winter are only significant of the mood 
 in which he began the poem ; once fairly absorbed in 
 his subject, he seems, as it were, to have been carried on 
 the wings of imagination far above and away from 
 the anxieties of his own life, up into sublime contem- 
 plation of the great forces of Nature, and into warm 
 sympathy with the human hardships and enjoyments, 
 horrors and amusements, peculiar to the season. When 
 Thomson is called a descriptive poet, it must be remem- 
 bered that he not merely describes Nature with the 
 minute fidelity of a landscape painter ; it is alwa} r s 
 Nature in its relation to man ; the ways and the feelings 
 of man have even greater interest for him than the 
 changing appearances of sky and earth and sea. The 
 secret of his extraordinary popularity is that he 
 describes in sonorous and dignified verse not only what 
 all men must see as long as the seasons endure, but also 
 what all men must feel as long as they are affected by 
 the changes of the seasons, and have hearts to feel for 
 one another's joys and pains. 
 
 The poem of " Winter," published in the spring of 
 
62 A GROUP OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 
 
 1726, leaped at once into popularity. Two editions were 
 exhausted in a few months. The freshness of the poem 
 must have helped it greatly with the fastidious coffee- 
 house critics of the time. Nobody since Milton had 
 handled blank verse with such power. The subject 
 also was fresh ; no poet since Milton had lighted on 
 such a theme for sublimity of imagination and breadth 
 of human interest. It came to Thomson quite spon- 
 taneously ; from his own hardships to the general hard- 
 ships of all living things in winter, and the efforts of 
 man to make the most of the gloomy season, was a 
 natural transition ; and, coming to him as a happy 
 thought, the subject was treated with genuine enthu- 
 siasm. And if we look at the general structure of 
 the poem, we see another thing that must have struck 
 the critics of the time as a novelty. It was an innova- 
 tion upon the classical structure. It does not follow 
 any predetermined scheme or plan, beyond beginning 
 with the storms of early winter, and ending with the 
 thaw that heralds the approach of spring. The poet 
 leaves himself free to digress wherever casual associa- 
 tions may lead him. 
 
 The best way of giving an idea of Thomson's method 
 and style will be to follow the course of this his first, 
 freshest, and most powerful poem. He begins, as I have 
 said, after a short introduction, with a description of the 
 black skies, heavy rains, and floods of early winter : 
 
 " Then comes the father of the tempest forth, 
 Wrapt in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure 
 Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul ; 
 Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods, 
 That grumbling wave below. The unsightly plain 
 Lies a brown deluge ; as the low-bent clouds 
 Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still 
 Combine, and deepening into night, shut up 
 The day's fair face. . . 
 
 Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swelled, 
 And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'erspread, 
 
THOMSON S METHOD AND STYLE 63 
 
 At last the roused-up river pours along : 
 
 Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes 
 
 From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild, 
 
 Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far ; 
 
 Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads, 
 
 Calm, sluggish, silent ; till again, constrained 
 
 Between two meeting hills, it bursts away, 
 
 When rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream ; 
 
 There gathering triple force, rapid and deep, 
 
 It boils, and wheels, and foams, aud thunders through." 
 
 Then follows the description of a storm, preceded by 
 an invocation to the winds, in the style of personification 
 now obsolete. It is obsolete ; not so the description of 
 the storm itself. There is a real picture before his 
 mind's eye as he describes ; and he is intent above every 
 thing in bodying forth this picture to his reader. 
 Heightening the effect at the end by the addition of 
 superstitious horrors may be said to be conventional : 
 
 " Ye too, ye winds ! that now begin to blow 
 With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you. 
 Where are your stores, ye powerful beings ! say, 
 Where your aerial magazines reserved, 
 To swell the brooding terrors of the storm ? 
 In what far distant region of the sky, 
 Hush'd in deep silence, sleep you when 'tis calm ? 
 
 . . . Red fiery streaks 
 Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds 
 Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet 
 Which master to obey ; while rising slow. 
 Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the moon 
 Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. 
 
 . . . The cormorant on high 
 Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land. 
 Loud shrieks the soaring hern ; and with wild wing 
 The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds. 
 
 Meanwhile, the mountain billows, to the clouds 
 In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge 
 Burst into chaos with tremendous roar, 
 And anchored navies from their station drive, 
 
64 A GROUP OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 
 
 Wild as the winds across the howling waste 
 
 Of mighty waters. . . 
 
 The whirling tempest raves along the plain ; 
 
 And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof, 
 
 Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base. 
 
 Sleep frighted flies ; and round the rocking dome, 
 
 For entrance eager, howls the savage blast. 
 
 Then too, they say, through all the burdened air, 
 
 Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant sighs 
 
 That utter'd by the demon of the night, 
 
 Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death." 
 
 Then lie imagines the storm to subside at midnight, 
 and gives his midnight reflections : 
 
 " Nature's king, who oft 
 Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone, 
 And on the wings of the careering wind 
 Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm ; 
 Then straight, air, sea, and earth, are hush'd at once. 
 
 Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep, 
 Let me associate with the serious Night, 
 And Contemplation, her sedate compeer ; 
 Let me shake off the intrusive cares of day, 
 And lay the meddling senses all aside." 
 
 Next comes his famous description of a snow-storm, 
 followed by his touching narrative of the shepherd lost 
 in the snow : 
 
 " As thus the snows arise ; and foul, and fierce, 
 All Winter drives along the darken'd air ; 
 In his own loose-revolving fields the swain 
 Disaster'd stands ; sees other hills ascend, 
 Of unknown, joyless brow ; and other scenes 
 Of horrid prospect shag the trackless plain. 
 Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid 
 Beneath the formless wild ; but wanders on 
 From hill to dale, still more and more astray ; 
 Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, 
 Stung with the thoughts of home ; the thoughts of home 
 Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth 
 In many a vain attempt. 
 
DESCRIPTION OF A SNOW-STORM 65 
 
 . . . Down he sinks 
 Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, 
 Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, 
 Mixed with the tender anguish Nature shoots 
 Through the wrung bosom of the dying man ; 
 His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. 
 In vain for him the officious wife prepares 
 The fire fair blazing and the vestment warm ; 
 In vain his little children, peeping out 
 Into the mingling storm, demand their sire 
 With tears of artless innocence. Alas ! 
 Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold, 
 Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve 
 The deadly Winter seizes ; shuts up sense ; 
 And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, 
 Lays him along the snows, a stiffened corse, 
 Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast. 
 
 And here can I forget the generous band, 
 
 Who, touched with human woe, redressive searched 
 
 Into the horrors of the gloomy jail ? 
 
 Ye sons of Mercy ! yet resume the search ; 
 Drag forth the legal monsters into light, 
 Wrench from their hands Oppression's iron rod, 
 And bid the cruel feel the pains they give." 
 
 The thought of this pathetic incident leads him to 
 reflect on the broad contrast between rich and poor ; 
 and there next appears in his poem the first notable 
 reference in our literature to the great humanitarian 
 movement for reforming the horrors of prison life, with 
 which the name of Howard is associated. Winter 
 scenes at home lead to winter scenes on the Alps, on the 
 Pyrenees and the Apennines, and he draws a thrill- 
 ing picture of the bands of wolves that prowl over 
 the snowy wastes. Then he passes to his own ideal 
 of enjoyment in winter, in a retreat 
 
 "Between the groaning forest and the shore," 
 
 with chosen books and chosen friends. Next he takes 
 
 up winter enjoyments in the village and in the city, 
 
 5 . 
 
66 A GKOUP OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 
 
 pausing by the way to denounce gaming, and eulogize 
 Lord Chesterfield. From this he returns to a descrip- 
 tion of Nature under frost, and games on the ice ; this 
 leads him to winter in the Arctic regions, the life of the 
 Laplanders, the fate of Sir Hugh Willoughby the Arctic 
 explorer, and the romantic career of Peter the Great. 
 Then follows the thaw, and the concluding reflections 
 on human destiny. 
 
 The best of Thomson's "Seasons" is undoubtedly 
 " Winter," though " Autumn " probably surpasses it in 
 technical skill. He wrote more slowly and laboriously 
 after his first success ; and there are more frequent 
 traces in his other seasons of deliberate imitation of 
 Virgil's " Georgics," and deliberate search for good 
 descriptive topics. " Summer," the longest, appeared 
 in 1727 ; " Spring " in 1728 ; and " Autumn " in 1730. 
 The " Seasons," as now printed, contain many later 
 revisions and additions, in some of which he had the 
 assistance of Pope. 
 
 The best way to read these poems is not to read them 
 through ; but to take the argument and pick out anj^ 
 theme that strikes you as interesting. You will thus 
 best appreciate the " bold description and the manly 
 thought " to which the poet laid claim. Avoid 
 " Spring," and his tedious description of the golden age, 
 and the influence of the season on birds and beasts, and 
 fishes and men. 
 
 Between 1730 and 1748 Thomson produced little 
 worthy of remembrance. His song " Rule Britannia" 
 appeared in 1740, in a mask of "Alfred," written by 
 him in conjunction with David Mallet. The " Castle 
 of Indolence " was published in the last year of his 
 life. 
 
 The " Seasons " remained Thomson's great achieve- 
 ment. It was a striking but not inexplicable fact that 
 contact with London literary society, to which he was 
 at once admitted on the success of " Winter," paralyzed 
 
INFLUENCE OF LONDON LITERARY SOCIETY 67 
 
 his poetic faculty, or at best robbed it of half its strength. 
 He had written with comparatively unconscious freedom 
 before, with the victorious joy of reaching and even sur- 
 passing his brightest ideals of poetic achievement ; con- 
 tact with a more critical societ}', and more exacting 
 standards of literary finish, seems to have bred self-dis- 
 trust. In compliance with the taste of his new com- 
 panions, he became more ambitious of displaying his 
 learning, and chose topics in which it was easier than 
 in the description of the " Seasons " to show an acquaint- 
 ance with history and political philosophy. He used his 
 metrical power also in the service of politics. His first 
 political venture, "Britannia," published in 1729, when 
 the nation was intensely excited over attempts by Spain 
 to challenge our then newly won dominion of the seas, 
 was immensely popular. But it owed its success to its 
 opportuneness, rather than to its power, though its 
 strains Avere ardent and vigorous enough. We are apt, 
 perhaps, to underrate the force of Thomson's patriotic 
 verses, from forgetting that he did much to foster the 
 national sentiment, and was the original author of many 
 expressions that have since become the commonplace 
 expressions of that sentiment. Some lines sound like 
 very hackneyed stump declamation, but they had more 
 heart and meaning in the mouth of the poet of the first 
 generation of British ascendancy, when Britain, consoli- 
 dated by the union of the Kingdoms, and by the Treaty 
 of Utrecht, acknowledged victor in the protracted 
 struggle for the empire of the seas and of the new 
 worlds, was glowing with the intoxication of newly 
 acquired power. But Thomson's next and much longer 
 political poem, " Liberty " (1734), in which he narrated 
 the career of this goddess, and described the glories that 
 she created in Greece and Rome, before fixing her home 
 in Britain, fell flat, though the composition of it was his 
 chief labor for three years. This was the poem which 
 Johnson owns he could not finish : and about which a 
 
68 A GROUP OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 
 
 contemporary wit remarked that the poet "had taken a 
 liberty which was not agreeable to Britannia in any 
 season.'''' Thomson also wrote for the stage, but without 
 success, his one memorable triumph being the song of 
 " Rule Britannia." Although Thomson published some- 
 times by subscription, he made but a poor income out 
 of his poetry, and he was unfortunate in his sinecures. 
 Lord Chancellor Talbot, whose son he had accompanied 
 as tutor to Italy, made him Secretary of Briefs in the 
 Court of Chancery, and he held this office for rather more 
 than three years (December, 1733, to February, 1737), 
 losing it on the death of his patron. The Prince of 
 Wales gave him for some years a pension of one hun- 
 dred pounds, but withdrew it in a pet. From 1744 till 
 his death he held the sinecure office of one of the Com- 
 missioners for the Leeward Islands. 
 
 Thomson must be acknowledged to be one of the 
 greatest of our minor poets — i. e., of those that are 
 ranked next to the great names of Chaucer, Spenser, 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Byron. He 
 holds this place in virtue of his vigor of imagination, 
 his broad manly sentiment, the individuality of his 
 verse, and the distinction of his subject. These have 
 given him a remarkable and enduring popularity. And 
 measured by his influence on succeeding literature, his 
 is by far the greatest figure among minor poets. Both 
 in his use of blank verse, and in the easy discursive 
 general structure of his poems on the Seasons, he had 
 many imitators, the most eminent of whom was the 
 poet Cowper. And his influence reached into our own 
 century. It was most marked on Wordsworth ; and 
 the fact, just put on record by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie 
 (Miss Thackeray), that Thomson's "Seasons" was the 
 first poetry known to Tennyson in his boyhood enables 
 us to understand whence our Laureate received the 
 impulse to his minute observation of Nature and country 
 life. 
 
DYERS "GRONGAR HILL 69 
 
 A word or two on another poet, also nourished by 
 influences outside Pope's circle, but, unlike Thomson, 
 never brought within that circle, John Dyer. He was 
 the son of a Welsh solicitor, but abandoned the law 
 himself for painting and poetry, and in his early man- 
 hood apparently wandered about South Wales as an 
 itinerant painter, rhyming as he went. He was born 
 in the same year with Thomson, and his first and best 
 poem, "Grongar Hill," appeared in Lewis's Miscellany 
 in 1726, in the same year with Thomson's "Winter." 
 It is a sweet little descriptive poem, in the four-ac- 
 cent measure of Milton's " L' Allegro," as pure and 
 fresh and clear in its vision of natural objects as any 
 thing written by any of the Lakers, and exquisitely 
 musical in its numbers. It is Wordsworthian also in 
 its moralizing : 
 
 " And see the rivers how they run 
 Through woods and meads, in shade and sun ! 
 Sometimes swift, sometimes slow, 
 Wave succeeding wave, they go 
 A various journey to the deep, 
 Like human life, to endless sleep ! 
 Thus is Nature's vesture wrought 
 To instruct our wandering thought ; 
 Thus she dresses green and gay, 
 To disperse our cares away. 
 Ever charming, ever new, 
 When will the landscape tire the view ! 
 The fountain's fall, the river's flow, 
 The woody valleys, warm and low ; 
 The windy summit, wild and high, 
 Roughly rushing on the sky ! 
 The pleasant seat, the ruin'd tower, 
 The naked rock, the shady bower ; 
 The town and village, dome and farm, 
 Each give each a double charm, 
 As pearls upon an iEthiop's arm. 
 
 See on the mountain's southern side, 
 Where the prospect opens wide, 
 Where the evening gilds the tide, 
 
10 A GROUP OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS 
 
 How close and small the hedges lie ! 
 What streaks of meadows cross the eye ! 
 A step, methinks, may pass the stream — 
 So little distant dangers seem ; 
 So we mistake the picture's face, 
 Eyed through Hope's deluding glass ; 
 As yon summits soft and fair, 
 Clad in colours of the air, 
 Which to those who journey near, 
 Barren, brown, and rough appear ; 
 Still we tread the same coarse way ; 
 The present's still a cloudy day." 
 
 In the course of his wanderings as a painter Dyer 
 went to Rome, and on his return in 1740 published a 
 poem called " The Ruins of Rome." It is in blank 
 verse, most musical in its rhythm, and exquisitely deli- 
 cate and precise in phrase and epithet ; but its declama- 
 tory apostrophes and exclamations strike us now as 
 somewhat antiquated ; and its moralizing vein of melan- 
 choly sentiment may be said to have been superseded 
 for this century by Byron's stanzas in " Childe Harold " 
 on the ruins of Athens. 
 
 The following lines on Modern Rome will sufficiently 
 illustrate his treatment of blank verse : 
 
 " Behold by Tiber's flood, where modern Rome 
 Couches beneath the ruins : there of old 
 With arms and trophies gleamed the field of Mars : 
 There to their daily sports the noble youth 
 Rush'd emulous ; to fling the pointed lance ; 
 To vault the steed ; or with the kindling wheel 
 In dusty whirlwinds sweep the trembling goal ; 
 Or wrestling, cope with adverse swelling breasts, 
 Strong grappling arms, close heads, and distant feet ; 
 Or clash the lifted gauntlets ; there they formed 
 Their ardent virtues ; in the bossy piles, 
 The proud triumphal arches ; all their wars, 
 Their conquests, honours, in the sculptures live. 
 And see from every gate those ancient roads, 
 With tombs high verg'd, the solemn paths of Fame ! 
 Deserve they not regard ? " 
 
somerville's "chase" 71 
 
 On bis return to England Dyer entered the Church, and 
 reappeared seventeen years later with another poem, 
 also in blank verse, " The Fleece." The first lines will 
 give you an idea of the subject : 
 
 " The care of sheep, the labours of the loom, 
 And arts of trade, I sing." 
 
 This poem, and Somerville's " Chase," a didactic poem 
 on hunting (1735), may be numbered among the dis- 
 cursive didactic poems called into being by the success 
 of Thomson's " Seasons." Where Dyer treats of soils, 
 and pastures, and breeds of sheep, and prohibitive legis- 
 lation against the export of wool, and fulling, and weav- 
 ing, and dyeing, and the foreign trade in wool, he becomes 
 more technical than most readers of poetry are prepared 
 for ; but intermixed with these technicalities are some 
 of the most exquisite passages of description in the 
 language. You can easily get at them by means of the 
 argument. If all the four books had been like these, we 
 could understand Akenside's saying " that he would 
 regulate his opinion of the reigning taste by Dyer's 
 'Fleece'; for if that were ill received, he should not 
 think it any longer reasonable to expect fame from 
 excellence." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 pope — con tinned 
 
 AS A SATIRIST AND MORALIST — FAILURE IN EPIC POETRY — " THE 
 DUNCIAD " — "ESSAY ON MAN" 
 
 We have to deal to-day with Pope as a satirist and a 
 moralist. His " Dunciad " (1728), his " Essay on- Man " 
 (1732-34), " Moral Essays " (1735), and his " imitations 
 of Horace" (1733-37) were the great literary events 
 of the fifteen years after the publication of Thomson's 
 " Seasons," and showed the author in a new vein. They 
 were a series of surprises as far as Pope was concerned, 
 works that his previous performances had not prepared 
 the public to expect. 
 
 Pope's translation of Homer and his editions of 
 Shakespeare occupied him till 1725, when he had 
 readied the age of thirty-seven, and was in the maturity 
 of his powers, with an independence secured by the 
 enormous profits of his Homer. Then began the 
 third period of his literary career. The works that he 
 then produced, and which I have already enumerated, 
 are his greatest works in point of literary power. But 
 why did he not then produce works of more permanent 
 and universal interest ? Why did he not then return 
 to his youthful scheme of writing a great epic ? The 
 critics of this century have refused Pope a place by the 
 side of Milton, because his subjects were of inferior 
 quality, appealing to a lower range of human emotion, 
 and incapable from their very nature, however excel- 
 lent the treatment of them, of being made the subjects 
 of equally great poetic achievements. Now, Pope, as 
 we have seen, was fully possessed of the idea that a 
 
A PROJECTED EPIC 73 
 
 great epic was the greatest work that a poet could ac- 
 complish ; why, then, when he was free to choose, did 
 he not undertake such a work ? 
 
 To answer this we have to look both to Pope's 
 character and to his circumstances. He toyed with the 
 idea of writing a great epic. He told Spence that he 
 had it all in his head, and gave him a vague sketch of 
 the subject and plan of it, but he never put any of it 
 on paper. This indecision was partly due to his char- 
 acter and partly to his circumstances. Partly he shrank 
 from the labor, and partly he was turned aside by cir- 
 cumstances to other labors which fully occupied his 
 energies. One reason why great epics are rare is that 
 the composition of them, in addition to imaginative 
 genius and genius for rhythmical expression, demands 
 an intellectual staying power and energy of will such 
 as are rarely found in human beings with or without 
 the poet's special gifts. Reflect for a moment on the 
 intellectual force that a poet must exert in writing a 
 tragedy. To give moving expression to a single tragic 
 situation, to imagine and body forth in language that 
 all men feel to be true to nature the changes of passion 
 in the heart of one character in one of the scenes in 
 "Macbeth," or "Hamlet," or " Othello," so that not a 
 line shall ring false, requires no ordinary intellectual 
 concentration ; but to exhibit in a succession of scenes, 
 each profoundly wrought out, a progression of events 
 toward a tragic catastrophe, bringing many agencies to 
 bear, and assigning to each its right influence, giving 
 voice to many and various passionate emotions, sustain- 
 ing at every moment and gradually deepening the 
 interest of the hearer, observing the hundred conditions 
 of tragic effect — this puts an immensely greater strain on 
 the strength of intellect and will. Unless the poet goes 
 right by a sort of instinct, borne along in a rapturous de- 
 light with each triumphant step, he must collapse ; but 
 instinct in this case is only another name for intellect, 
 
74 pope 
 
 one, however, that can hold in its grasp at once and sat- 
 isfy at once the conflicting claims of a multitude of condi- 
 tions which a weaker intellect can grasp only one by one, 
 and can never fully reconcile, because it can never bring 
 them all together. It may be doubted whether the 
 strain is equally great in epic, because the difficulties do 
 not occur with the same cumulative importunity; they 
 admit of being vanquished, if not singly, at least in 
 smaller detachments. Still, even in epic, the strain is 
 such as few men in the history of literature have proved 
 equal to, though multitudes have tried. Now, Pope, as 
 you know, was not constitutionally a strong man. I 
 am not here speaking of muscular strength, but of 
 constitutional strength. His life, as he said in the 
 prologue to his " Satires," was one long disease. It has 
 always been a matter of wonder that, to use Mr. Leslie 
 Stephen's phrase, he got as much work out of his frail 
 body as he did. One of the secrets of his endurance 
 was that he worked in comparative tranquillity. He 
 avoided the stress and strain of complicated designs, 
 and applied himself to designs that could be accom- 
 plished in detail — works of which the parts could be 
 separately labored and put together with patient care, 
 into which happy thoughts could be fitted, struck out at 
 odd moments, and in ordinary levels of feeling. Even 
 the work of translating the " Iliad," a very different 
 work from creating an epic, weighed very heavily on 
 his spirits. After he was fairly committed to it he 
 told Spence he was often under great pain and appre- 
 hension. " I dreamed often," he said, " of being engaged 
 in a long journey, and that I should never get to the 
 end of it." 
 
 This shrinking from sustained intellectual strain, to be 
 prolonged day after day for weeks or months or years, — 
 for a great epic cannot be written in a day, — was prob- 
 ably one of the reasons why Pope did not attempt an 
 epic, though he liked to think over subjects. The hero 
 
MOTIVES FOR AVEITING THE " DUNCIAD " 75 
 
 of the one that he had planned was the legendary 
 Brutus, the Trojan colonizer and name-father of Britain, 
 the invention of the fertile romancers of the twelfth cen- 
 tury. Pope proposed to describe how he established 
 civil and ecclesiastical order in England — a theme, you 
 will observe, that could have been treated in cold blood. 
 We have probably not lost much from his never having 
 carried out this design. It may be doubted whether he 
 had the intellectual strength for a great epic, though in 
 the"Eloisa and Abelard " he showed himself capable of 
 dealing powerfully with a single tragical situation. 
 
 But now to consider the circumstances that diverted 
 him from attempting such an epic as he was capable of, 
 and led him into the walks of satire, in which for keen- 
 ness and brilliancy of point he has never been surpassed. 
 Imitating the epic style, we must ask our Muse of 
 Literary History : " Tell me, O Muse, what dire offence 
 moved the great Pope to make war upon the little 
 dunces. Who were the dunces, and what had they done 
 to provoke his ire, so that he spent some years in com- 
 posing an elaborate poem designed to subject them to 
 everlasting ridicule ? " 
 
 " The history of the ' Dunciad,' " Johnson says in his 
 " Life of Pope," " is minutely related by Pope himself, 
 in a dedication which he wrote to Lord Middlesex in the 
 name of Savage." According to this account, the origin 
 of the poem was very simple. Pope and one or two of 
 his intimate friends, notably Swift and Arbuthnot, were 
 great connoisseurs of good poetry, and one of their 
 favorite amusements, — they had formed a little club for 
 the purpose in the reign of Anne, fifteen years before 
 the publication of the " Dunciad," — was to make fun of 
 bad poetry. With this view the intimates had together 
 composed a " Treatise on Bathos, or the Art of Sinking," 
 in which they collected and invented superlative speci- 
 mens of mixed metaphors, preposterous similes, and 
 generally of the bombast and extravagance and inanity 
 
76 pope 
 
 of bad poetry, and classified bad poets according to 
 their eminence in the various arts of debasing instead of 
 elevating their subjects. These specimens of the bad 
 they ascribed to various letters of the alphabet, most of 
 them taken at random. Well, no sooner was the treatise 
 published than the infatuated scribblers proceeded to 
 take the letters to themselves, and in revenge to fill the 
 newspapers with the most abusive falsehoods and scur- 
 rilities they could possibly devise. " This gave Mr. 
 Pope the thought that he had now some opportunity of 
 doing good by detecting and dragging into light these 
 common enemies of mankind," who for years had been 
 anonymously aspersing almost all the great characters 
 of the age. Their persistent attacks upon himself had 
 given him a peculiar right to their names — and so he 
 wrote the " Dunciad." 
 
 In might seem, then, that the Muse of History had 
 nothing to tell, but she is an inquisitive Muse, and she 
 has not remained satisfied with Mr. Pope's account. If 
 the letters of the alphabet were distributed at random 
 among imaginary bad poets, it is the most singular 
 chance on record that they happened so often to corre- 
 spond with the initials of poets and poetasters of the 
 time. The gods of the literary Olympus, playing at the 
 Art of Sinking, were not quite so innocent in their 
 amusements as Pope pretended ; they were rather like 
 the little boys in the fable throwing stones at the frogs, 
 and they had no right to assume virtuous airs when the 
 frogs protested and retaliated. It is, besides, fatal to 
 the strict accuracy of Pope's account that the book of 
 " Miscellanies " containing the treatise on the Bathos 
 was published in 1727, while Pope, from his letters to 
 Swift, is known to have been engaged on the " Dun- 
 ciad "in 1726, and from internal evidence is conjectured 
 to have begun it several years earlier. In extreme 
 opposition to Pope's account is another histoiy of the 
 affair, adopted by those who take the worst view of his 
 
MOTIVES FOR WRITING THE " DUNCIAD " 77 
 
 character, and will have it that he was essentially vin- 
 dictive and malignant. This view is that Pope's 
 motives for writing the " Dunciad " were purely spiteful 
 and personal ; that as soon as his hands were free from 
 his translation of Homer, and his independence secured 
 by the profits of that work, he proceeded to settle old 
 scores with those who had not spoken as favorably as he 
 liked about his poetry. There is strong justification for 
 this view in the fact that the most prominent persons 
 ridiculed in the "Dunciad" can be shown to have given 
 him offence. Theobald or Tibbald, the original hero of 
 the poem, had criticised his edition of Shakespeare, as 
 he thought, insolently. Cibber, in whose favor Tibbald 
 was subsequently deposed, — the " Dunciad " received 
 many alterations and additions after its first issue, — had 
 ridiculed a play in which Pope in his earlier days had 
 some share, and had retaliated on the first mention of 
 his name in the " Dunciad." Dennis was an old enemy. 
 Lintot, the publisher, had accused him of unfair prac- 
 tices in the division of the profits of the " Odyssey," 
 which proved less successful than the " Iliad." And so 
 on. You will find the details in any edition of the 
 " Dunciad," most fully in the recent edition by Mr. 
 Courthope, who has succeeded Mr. Elwin in the task 
 begun by Croker. Indeed, it was not denied by Pope 
 that the men satirized had previously attacked him ; it 
 was openly avowed, and specimens of their attacks were 
 prefixed to his own complete edition ; it was these 
 attacks, he said, that had given him a right to make use 
 of the names of his assailants. 
 
 Was it, then, personal spite, the vindictiveness of 
 wounded vanity, as some critics think, or was it, as he 
 1 professed himself, " the thought that he had now some 
 1 opportunity of doing good," that moved Pope to write 
 ! the " Dunciad " ? The truth probably lies between the 
 two views. Both motives may have operated, as well as 
 1 a third not so obvious — an unscrupulous love of fun, and 
 
78 . pope 
 
 delight in the creations of a humorous imagination. 
 Certainly, to represent the " Dunciad " as the outcome 
 of mere personal spite is to give an exaggerated idea of 
 the malignity of Pope's disposition, and a wrong im- 
 pression of his character. He was not a morose, savage, 
 indignant satirist, but airy and graceful in his malice, 
 writing more in fun than in anger, revengeful, perhaps, 
 and excessively sensitive, but restored to good-humor as 
 he thought over his wrongs by the ludicrous conceptions 
 with which he invested his adversaries. We do not feel 
 the bitterness of wounded pride in his writings, but the 
 laughter with which that pride was consoled. He loved 
 his own comic fancies more than he hated his enemies. 
 His fun at the expense of his victims was so far cruel 
 that he was quite regardless of their sufferings, probably 
 enjoyed them ; but it was an impish and sprite-like 
 cruelty, against which we cannot feel any real indigna- 
 tion, because it is substantially harmless, while its in- 
 genious antics never fail to amuse. And, in extenuation 
 of the cruelty, I see no reason to reject Pope's own plea 
 that he never took the aggressive, although Mr. Elwin 
 has attempted at great length to show that this could 
 not be maintained. In the " Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," 
 which is Pope's most elaborate defence of himself as a 
 satirist, he pretends to greater magnanimity and lofty 
 tranquillity of mind than any merely human being can 
 possess, and which he himself was undoubtedly far 
 from possessing, being really extravagantly sensitive to 
 criticism. Still, undue weight may be given to stories 
 illustrating how keenly Pope felt criticisms when first 
 they were communicated to him, and how long after an 
 offence had been committed he seized an opportunity 
 of repaying it. Granting the truth of these stories, 
 I should still contend that Pope soon recovered his 
 equanimity after the first quick anger was past, and 
 that there was little or no bitterness in his heart when 
 he took his revenge, and that he reconciled this revenge 
 
INCEPTION OF THE " DUNCIAD " 79 
 
 witb a moral purpose — the chastisement of men worthy 
 of chastisement. The " Epistle to Arbuthnot," I believe, 
 really represents his permanent attitude of mind, the 
 stable condition in which his mind rested when it had 
 recovered from any passing derangement of its equilib- 
 rium. 
 
 It has been said that to thoroughly enjoy the "Dun- 
 ciad " one would have to give as much time to the study 
 of it as the author gave to its composition. That, of 
 course, is an exaggeration ; still, to appreciate the full 
 force of every hard hit and sly pinch, even with the help 
 of Mr. Courthope's ample commentary, would doubtless 
 require long and laborious study. If you have leisure 
 for it, it might be worth while, because in the process 
 you would get an intimate knowledge of political and 
 literary life in Loudon in Pope's time, and it is always 
 interesting to know how people lived in circumstances 
 different from our own. This is one of the most harm- 
 less ways of indulging that love of gossip which is 
 deeply rooted in most human beings. 
 
 But without mastering all the details we may enjoy 
 the "Dunciad" simply as a work of humorous imagina- 
 tion, the only drawback being the tendency of the 
 author's imagination to carry him into physically dis- 
 gusting incidents. Pope's original design seems to have 
 been to describe the progress of Dulness from ancient 
 times to his own generation, ascribing all the disasters 
 that happened to learning, such as the burning of the 
 Library of Alexandria and the irruption of the Goths 
 into the Roman empire, as due to the settled and 
 resolute hostility of this goddess, bent upon restoring 
 the dominion that she held while the intellectual world 
 was still in chaos. In this history he could find oppor- 
 tunities for ridiculing the so-called dunces of his own 
 time by describing them and their works as instruments 
 in the hands of the goddess Dulness for accomplishing 
 her purpose. This was probably the germ, the first 
 
80 pope 
 
 thought, of the poem ; so that the third book, from 
 1. 70 onward, was probably the first part thought of, 
 if not actually the first composed. But the germ grew 
 in Pope's mind ; and now this history of the reign of 
 Dulness upon earth appears only as a prophecy made 
 to the hero of the poem. Book I. describes the abode 
 and the surroundings of Dulness in mock-heroic style, 
 but with real splendor of imagination ; the goddess 
 sits wreathed in clouds in a certain part of the city of 
 London, with her Prime Ministers and all the products 
 of her leaden inspiration round her. Then the hero, 
 Colley Cibber, is described offering prayers and sacrifices 
 to the goddess. She hears him and carries him off to 
 her sacred dome, and anoints and proclaims him King 
 of the Dunces. Book II. describes the games held in 
 honor of his coronation, a burlesque of the heroic cus- 
 tom. Much of this you had better skip ; but toward 
 the end there is an account of a reading match among 
 critics that is very amusing. Book III. is chiefly occu- 
 pied with a vision of the progress of Dulness. After 
 the games the king falls asleep in the lap of the goddess, 
 and visits in his dreams — after the manner of Ulysses 
 in the " Odyssey " and iEneas in the " ^Eneid " — the 
 nether regions, where he meets Settle, a dull poet of 
 the previous generation. Settle talks to him, and takes 
 him to the top of a mountain, whence he shows him 
 the past triumphs of the empire of Dulness, then the 
 present, and lastly the future. Book IV. was added by 
 Pope many years afterward (in 1742), and professes 
 to be the completion of the prophecies in Book III. 
 The goddess sits in state, surrounded by her flatterers 
 and parasites ; various public bodies appear by dep- 
 utation before her and report progress. The con- 
 clusion is intensely comical ; in the middle of a 
 gracious speech from the throne her Majesty yawns, 
 and the whole world follows suit and sinks into 
 slumber : 
 
pope's notion of the dull 81 
 
 " More she had spoke, but yawn'd. All nature nods : 
 What mortal can resist the yawn of gods ? 
 Churches and chapels instantly it reached ; 
 
 (St. James's first, for leaden G preached) ; 
 
 Then catch'd the schools ; the hall scarce kept awake ; 
 
 The convocation gap'd, but could not speak : 
 
 Lost was the nation's sense, nor could be found, 
 
 While the long solemn unison went round ; 
 
 Wide, and more wide, it spread o'er all the realm ; 
 
 Ev'n Palinurus nodded at the helm ; 
 
 The vapour mild o'er each committee crept ; 
 
 Unfinished treaties in each office slept ; 
 
 And chiefless armies dozed out the campaign ; 
 
 And navies yawned for orders on the main." 
 
 Apart from the mere personalities of the poem, most 
 of the Dunces satirized are types that reappear in every 
 age. On this ground some critics claim for the poem 
 a universal utility, and praise Pope for having rendered 
 permanent service in the warfare of true literature 
 against counterfeit. This fantastic Pope showed him- 
 self perfectly sensible that, in so far as concerned the 
 annihilation of Dunces, his work had been written in 
 vain. Even of the men ridiculed by name, Pope says : 
 
 " You think this cruel ? take it for a rule 
 No creature smarts so little as a fool. 
 Who shames a scribbler ? breaks one cobweb thro' 
 He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew : 
 
 Throned in the centre of his thin designs, 
 Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines, 
 Whom have I hurt ? has Poet yet or Peer, 
 Lost the arch'd eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer ? " 
 
 And if this was true of the Dunces expressly ridiculed, 
 who is likely in after generations to take their characters 
 to himself ? Mr. Courthope specifies three classes of 
 Dunces in the poem : the authors of personal scurrilities 
 in the journals of the day, who took great liberties with 
 eminent names, in the same coarse vein in which Pope 
 6 
 
82 pope 
 
 replied to them ; the party journalists, whom Pope, 
 as a member of the Opposition, considered to be in 
 ministerial pay ; and pedantic scholars, antiquaries, and 
 naturalists. In the pursuit of ridicule Pope was not 
 particular about truth to nature, and there are two men 
 in particular whose place in the " Dunciad " lias generally 
 been considered absurd, Cibber and Bentley, the great 
 classical scholar. Cibber was a popular actor, and he 
 protested that his greatest enemy could not call him 
 dull ; he was nothing if not lively. But Pope did not 
 mean by dull the opposite of lively. Dulness, he says 
 in his lines about Cibber : 
 
 " Dulness with transport eyed the lively dunce, 
 Remembering she herself was pertness once." 
 
 It is not, indeed, easy to say what he did mean by dull, 
 except uninteresting to himself. The stoiy is told of 
 him that he once fell asleep at his own dinner-table 
 when the Prince of Wales was talking to him about 
 poetry. With such a man the Dull must have been a 
 very wide category. I am afraid he would have con- 
 sidered the critical study of the "Dunciad " insufferably 
 dull if it had been written by any body but himself. It 
 would seem, indeed, as if in the end he had come to 
 much the same conclusion as Thackeray in his "Book of 
 Snobs." When Thackeray had carefully studied all the 
 varieties of snob, he could not resist the humorous con- 
 clusion that he might after all be a snob himself. And 
 something of the same humor seems to me to have 
 crossed Pope's mind before he had completed his 
 " Dunciad." It is a dull world, and we are all dunces 
 more or less. 
 
 We have left little time for Pope's remaining works — 
 the "Essay on Man," the "Moral Essays," and the 
 " Satires " and " Epistles." As regards the origin or 
 suggestion of them, they are as much due to the influ- 
 ence of Bolingbroke as the " Dunciad " was to Swift 
 
THEORY OF A RULING PASSION 83 
 
 and Arbuthnot. Then there are the theological and 
 moral controversies. One little circumstance that has 
 not been remarked probably contributed to set Pope at 
 work in this new direction. In the year in which he 
 finished his " Odyssey" Young, afterward the author 
 of " Night Thoughts," published a satire called " The 
 Universal Passion, or The Love of Fame." It is a very 
 unequal production, but it was immensely popular for a 
 time. This may have excited Pope's emulation, more 
 particularly seeing that the satirist — Pope having then 
 been engaged for ten years on Homer — asked, Why 
 slumbers Pope ? 
 
 As regards the substance. If you wish to make a 
 study of the " Essay on Man," which professes to fur- 
 nish in verse a system of natural theologj^, I would 
 recommend you to Mark Pattison's edition. Moral 
 maxims tend to become antiquated. Pope's are old 
 enough to be commonplace, but not old enough to be 
 quaint. In the " Moral Essays " the one you may per- 
 haps find the most interesting is that on " The Char- 
 acters of Women." His standpoint is stated with per- 
 fect candor in the opening lines : 
 
 " Nothing so true as what you once let fall, 
 ' Most women have no characters at all,' 
 Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear, 
 And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair." 
 
 And again in the lines : 
 
 " In men, we various ruling passions find ; 
 In women, two almost divide the kind ; 
 Those, only fix'd, they first or last obey, 
 The love of pleasure, and the love of sway." 
 
 In these statements Pope repeats a commonplace of 
 his day, and if objection be taken to them, we must bear 
 in mind that we are not to look in satire for sober, strict 
 
84 POPE 
 
 truth, but rather for brilliant paradoxes. The theory of 
 a Ruling Passion is probably a correct one, and it has 
 been misunderstood by adverse critics. Macaulay, in 
 his essay on Mine. D'Arblay, calls it a silly notion, his 
 own theory being that each man is a compound of 
 desires often at war with one another, one having the 
 ascendancy sometimes, and sometimes another, each 
 uppermost by turns like the spokes of a running wheel, 
 or the sails of a windmill, or balls playing in a fountain. 
 Where is Shylock's ruling passion? he asks. Or 
 Othello's? or Henry V.'s? 
 
 The theory is declared to be at variance with the 
 diversity of nature. Rightly understood, it was not so. 
 Its advocates only contended tliat, however various 
 might be the passions of mankind, however often they 
 might come in conflict, still there was one before which, 
 when it came to a fight, every other yielded. Under- 
 standing the theory in this way, we should have no 
 hesitation in saying that Shylock had a ruling passion — 
 the hatred of a persecuted race for its persecutors. 
 Even his love of money gives way before this, as his 
 affection for his daughter gives way before his love of 
 money. The strength of his ruling passion is indeed 
 indicated by its triumph over the passion next to the 
 throne when the two come in conflict. He has few 
 opportunities, only one indeed in the course of the play, 
 of obtaining substantial gratification for it ; that one 
 he eagerly and fiercely seizes on. 
 
 It cannot, of course, be said that such a passion is the 
 key to all the mysteries of a man's nature ; that is, of 
 course, a rhetorical expression. But a knowledge of it 
 may be a clue to the secret of a man's deviations from 
 the rules of ordinary prudence or ordinary good feeling. 
 It is seldom that one overgrown propensity swallows up 
 all the rest. True ; but unless this is the case the char- 
 acter attracts no interest, because it possesses no singu- 
 larity, nothing to distinguish it from the mass of man- 
 
THEORY OF A RULING PASSION 85 
 
 kind, whose ruling passion is selfishness tempered by 
 sympathetic impulse, and fear of what people will say 
 and do. That this is the right interpretation of the 
 theory } r ou can prove by taking Pope's examples. It 
 explains a man's singularities ; gives unity to his pecul- 
 iarities as distinguished from others. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 POETRY BETWEEN POPE AND COWPER 
 
 GLOVER— JOHNSON— COLLINS — THE POET AND THE ORATOR- 
 GRAY 
 
 I propose to-day to run rapidly over the poetry of 
 the forty years, roughly speaking, between Pope and 
 Cowper, Crabbe and Burns, dwelling more particularly 
 on the poetry of Gray and Collins. This period is 
 generally and justly regarded as one of the most barren 
 in our literature. The poems that have any interest, 
 except for the antiquary, are few and far between. 
 Collins and Gray wrote very little, very much less than 
 any poets of equal rank in literature ; the one dying 
 young, and the other composing at rare intervals. 
 Small as their poetry is in amount, it stands out above 
 the level of the time, owing to its originality and indi- 
 viduality ; all the others may be roughly classed as 
 imitators either of Pope or of Thomson, or of both. 
 
 If we look at the works of the young poets who 
 ventured to publish during the last years of Pope's life, 
 what principally strikes us is that, with the exception of 
 Gray and Collins, the ablest of them were guided in 
 their aims by the poetical ambitions of Queen Anne 
 society. One youth, a London merchant, Richard 
 Glover, was bold enough to attempt what Pope shrank 
 from, the composition of a great epic. The subject was 
 taken from Greek history, but the poet throughout had 
 an allusive eye to contemporary politics. This reference 
 to practical affairs was thoroughly in the Queen Anne 
 spirit, when the poets, as I explained to you, being 
 
GLOVER'S " LEONIDAS " 87 
 
 intimate companions of public men, took sides in party 
 conflicts, and kept in view the assistance of their friends 
 at least as much as the satisfaction of the poetical aspira- 
 tions of their readers. Glover's hero was Leonidas, the 
 Spartan king who sacrificed himself at Thermopylae to 
 hold in check the Persian invaders of Greece ; and the 
 grasping tyrant Xerxes was the great enemy against 
 whom the hero had to contend. But Glover the poet 
 was an ally of the politicians opposed to Sir Robert 
 Walpole, and one of the accusations against this Minister, 
 urged most persistently by the Opposition to drive him 
 from power, was that he truckled to the power of Spain, 
 meekly negotiating and compromising British interests 
 when a true patriot would have had recourse to war. 
 Hence when Glover wrote in denunciation of the power 
 of Persia, it was the power of Spain that he had in his 
 mind's eye ; and when he eloquently expounded through 
 Spartan senators the true duty of a patriot, the readers 
 were expected to apply this as an argument against Sir 
 Robert Walpole. "The plan and purpose of 'Leoni- 
 das,' " it was said, " is to show the superiority of freedom 
 over slavery, and how much virtue, public spirit, and 
 liberty are preferable both in their nature and effects to 
 riches, luxury, and the insolence of power." Incidentally 
 the poet found opportunity to discuss many of the burn- 
 ing questions — treatment of the non-combatants in war, 
 superiority of a citizen army over mercenaries. " Leoni- 
 das " had thus great temporary popularity. Viewed 
 simply as an artistic production, its great novelty was 
 that, although professing to be a great epic, it had no 
 supernatural machinery. " Never was an epic poem," 
 Lord Lyttelton wrote, " which had so near a relation to 
 common-sense. He has neither fighting gods nor scold- 
 ing goddesses ; neither miracles nor enchantments ; 
 neither monsters nor giants in his work ; but whatever 
 human nature can afford that is most astonishing, mar- 
 vellous, and sublime." The metre of the poem was 
 
88 POETRY BETWEEN POPE AND COWPER 
 
 blank verse, modelled on Thomson's. But in the labored 
 descriptions of scenery be is much less definite in his 
 pictures than Thomson ; in fact, Glover's descriptions 
 show all the faults of the conventional style : 
 
 " The plain beyond Thermopylae is girt 
 Half round by mountains, half by Neptune laved. 
 The arduous ridge is broken deep in clefts 
 Which open channels to pellucid streams 
 In rapid flow sonorous. Chief in fame, 
 Spercheos, boasting once his poplars tall, 
 Foams down a stony bed. Throughout the face 
 Of this broad champaign, numberless are pitched 
 Barbarian tents. Along the winding flood 
 To rich Thessalia's confines they extend. 
 They fill the vallies, late profusely blest 
 In Nature's vary'd beauties." 
 
 Then after enumerating the shrubs, flowerets, ivy, lawn, 
 poplar groves torn up, cut down, trampled by the bar- 
 barian invaders, he goes on : 
 
 " Yet unpolluted, is a part reserved 
 In this deep vale, a patrimonial spot 
 Of Aleuadian princes, who, allies 
 To Xerxes, reign'd in Thessaly. There glow 
 Inviolate the shrubs. There branch the trees, 
 Sons of the forest. Over downy moss, 
 Smooth walks and fragrant, lucid here and broad, 
 There clos'd in myrtle under woodbine roofs, 
 Wind to retreats delectable, to grots, 
 To silvan structures, bow'rs, and cooling dells 
 Enliven'd all and musical, with birds 
 Of vocal sweetness, in relucent plumes 
 Innumerably various. Lulling falls 
 Of liquid crystal, from perennial founts 
 Attune their pebbled channels." 
 
 However long you study this description, you will not 
 be able to realize any landscape that was definitely 
 before the poet's vision when he wrote ; there is a cer- 
 
"LONDON, OR THE PROGRESS OF COMMERCE" 89 
 
 tain vague framework of scenery, but when the poet 
 comes to details, he puts us off with conventional oft- 
 repeated phrases for natural grandeurs and beauties — 
 the laving Neptune, arduous ridges, pellucid and 
 sonorous streams,, winding floods, Nature's varied 
 beauties, downy moss, retreats delectable, grots, sylvan 
 structure, bowers, and cooling dells. The poet, in 
 short, only gives us musical phrases for what the senses 
 find in nature, thus dressing these charms to advan- 
 tage ; there is nothing in his landscapes of the life that 
 the human imagination in moments of excitement is 
 apt to ascribe to the face of Nature. Read the Prologue 
 to act iv. of " Henry V." and you will understand the 
 difference. 
 
 There is one poem of Glover's, — " London, or the 
 Progress of Commerce," — that illustrates the fashion- 
 able poetical style of the Queen Anne time — the prev- 
 alent idea as to how Nature was to be dressed to 
 advantage. As a London merchant, Glover no doubt 
 felt his heart swell within him as he looked at the 
 bustle of many nations on the London wharves, and saw 
 ships from many distant regions crowding up the 
 Thames. How did he give expression to this exaltation 
 of mind ? He could not present the coarse and vulgar 
 details of trade to a fine Queen Anne gentleman ; lie 
 asks his reader to look at them through a fine allegorical 
 veil, transports us to the regions of mythology, and 
 gives a long narrative of a love affair between the sea- 
 god Neptune and the nymph named Phoenice, the 
 guardian spirit of the Phoenicians. The beautiful 
 nymph Commerce was the offspring of this Union. 
 This is the poet's way of relating the prosaic fact that 
 the Phoenicians were the first great traders by sea ; and 
 the events in the subsequent history of Commerce are 
 given as incidents in the life of the nymph Commerce, 
 from her cradle and nursery till the time when she fixed 
 her abode in Great Britain. 
 
90 POETRY BETWEEN POPE AND COWPER 
 
 Among the followers of Pope in Satire there is only 
 one name of distinction, Samuel Johnson, afterward 
 the great prose moralist, critic, and lexicographer. The 
 critic made his mark in literature by a poem ; but he is 
 one of the exceptions to the saying that the critics are 
 the men who have failed in literature, for his imitation 
 of Juvenal was a success. It was natural that Johnson 
 should choose Juvenal as his model while Pope adopted 
 the style of Horace. Horace was the gay, light-hearted 
 satirist of the foibles of the literary and fashionable 
 society of Rome ; whereas Juvenal took a more stern 
 and gloomy view of life, lashed the vices of his age in 
 a spirit of moral indignation, contrasted the miseries of 
 the poor with the ostentatious splendor of the rich in 
 Roman society, and denounced heartlessness, dishonesty, 
 sycophancy, — all the vices of a wealthy and showy 
 civilization, — with bitter and unsparing scorn. There 
 was nearly as much difference between them as between 
 Tom Moore and Cartyle. Pope, himself in easy circum- 
 stances, and the friend of noblemen and statesmen, 
 naturally had most sympathy with Horace's view of 
 life ; while Johnson, then living in London, as Carlyle 
 describes him, on fourpence halfpenny a day, and earn- 
 ing a precarious livelihood as a bookseller's drudge, as 
 naturally thought of Juvenal as a model, and resolved 
 to apply to modern circumstances the sarcasms of this 
 satirist on the Roman metropolis. 
 
 " Slow rises worth by poverty depressed," 
 
 is one of the lines in Johnson's "London." He had 
 fitter experience of the fact in the insolence and in- 
 difference of busy employers, too closely occupied with 
 other affairs to have time, if they had had the insight, 
 to detect his great talent. As far as versification goes, 
 Johnson proved himself an apt pupil of Pope ; nobody 
 since has equalled him in combining Pope's terseness 
 with Pope's smoothness. And in one respect Johnson 
 
GRAY AND COLLINS 91 
 
 even might be said to have surpassed Pope, if Pope's 
 object had been merely to imitate the ancient Roman. 
 Johnson is at more pains to find exact modern parallels 
 to the ancient situations, and is always felicitous in the 
 turn he gives to Juvenal's phrases. But the truth is 
 that he went to work rather as a scholar than as a 
 satirist. Indignation at the vices satirized was much 
 less a motive with him than the scholar's ambition to 
 make a clever adaptation of the original. Hence, 
 although his "London" attracted some attention, and 
 Pope, always generous as well as right in his judg- 
 ments of genuine literary merit, prophesied that the 
 author would not long remain unknown, there was little 
 real vitality in the poem. It was really an imitation, 
 owing much of its interest to the original, and often 
 appearing destitute of motive when not read in con- 
 nection with the original. Pope's so-called imitations, 
 on the other hand, are equally interesting to the reader 
 whether or not he is acquainted with Horace ; the 
 reader perhaps may get additional pleasure from observ- 
 ing the cleverness of the parallel, but the satire has 
 independent point and relish. There is more of John- 
 son's genuine sentiment in the "Vanity of Human 
 Wishes," another imitation of Juvenal, published ten 
 years later. 
 
 For eminence in poetiy, novelty and distinction are 
 first requisites ; and during Pope's closing years the 
 only poets that began to show capability of poetic work 
 that should be at once distinctive in power or spirit and 
 high in quality were Gray and Collins. The great 
 novelty of their work as compared with Pope's was that 
 it was lyrical ; they wrote mostly in that form of 
 poetry which is called the Ode. 
 
 You are doubtless familiar with some, at least, of 
 Gray's poems. Yon all know the " Elegy." But the 
 " Elegy " was not the work on which he most prided 
 
92 POETRY BETWEEN POPE AND COWPER 
 
 himself, or upon which he would have desired his rank 
 as a poet to be adjudicated. It was instantaneously, 
 and has always since been, popular, but he considered 
 that the popularity was due to the subject as much as 
 to the art of the poet. The " Ode on the Distant 
 Prospect of Eton College," the "Hymn on Adversity," 
 the "Progress of Poesy," and "The Bard," were his 
 masterpieces in point of artistic construction. It may 
 increase your interest in them if I point out a few 
 respects in which these lyrics differ from other tyric 
 poetry in our language — i. e., poetry in which the poet 
 gives expression directty to emotion, instead of describ- 
 ing outward nature, or narrating events, or putting 
 words into the mouths of characters whose actions are 
 represented on the stage. 
 
 But, perhaps, I had better speak of Collins first, as he 
 is less known, and there is one poem of his which I can 
 confidently recommend to you as certain to yield you 
 the highest delight, if you take the trouble to master its 
 intricate harmonies. Of his life there is little to be told, 
 and that little is painful. Born in 1721, and educated 
 at Oxford, he went to London in 1744, the year of Pope's 
 death, as a literary adventurer, at a time when only one 
 man, and that Pope, had succeeded in making literature 
 a profitable profession. He had not Johnson's endur- 
 ance, or his practical talents ; a youth — strange phe- 
 nomenon for those who take the conventional view of the 
 eighteenth century — of fantastic imagination, with not 
 a little of the temperament of Shelley, delighting, as 
 Johnson puts it, " to rove through the meanders of 
 enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden 
 palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of El} T sian gardens." 
 Two years before he went up to London he had pub- 
 lished a volume of poems, " Persian Eclogues," Persian 
 Pastorals, reconciling, as you will observe, the taste of 
 the time for pastorals with the inclination of his own 
 fancy toward the gorgeous East. For such a man the 
 
COLLINs's " ODE TO EVENING " 93 
 
 booksellers had little employment ; and as he had but 
 scanty means of subsistence except by his pen, he gave 
 way in the struggle for existence ; he bore up for a 
 little against clouds that he felt to be gathering on his 
 reason, was confined for some time in a madhouse, and 
 died, at the age of thirty-nine, in the year of Burns's 
 birth, 1759. 
 
 Collins is best known by his Ode on " The Passions," 
 but incomparably his finest and most distinctive work is 
 the " Ode to Evening." The superior popularity of 
 " The Passions " is easily explained. It might be recited 
 at a penny reading, and every line of its strenuous 
 rhetoric would tell ; every touch would be at once 
 appreciated. But the beauties of the " Ode to Evening " 
 are of a much stronger kind, and the structure of it is 
 infinitely more complicated : 
 
 " If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, 
 May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, 
 Like thy own solemn springs, 
 Thy springs, and dying gales ; 
 
 " Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat, 
 With short, shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, 
 Or when the beetle winds 
 His small but sullen horn, 
 
 " As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, 
 Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum : 
 Now teach me, maid compos'd, 
 To breathe some softened strain, 
 
 " Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale, 
 May not unseemly with its stillness suit, 
 As musing slow, I hail 
 Thy genial lov'd return ! 
 
 " While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, 
 And bathe by breathing tresses, meekest Eve ! 
 While Summer loves to sport 
 Beneath thy lingering light : 
 
94 POETRY BETWEEN POPE AND COWPER 
 
 " While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, 
 Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, 
 Affrights thy shrinking train, 
 And rudely rends thy robes : 
 
 " So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, 
 Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, 
 Thy gentlest influence own, 
 And love thy favourite name ! " 
 
 It gains nothing from being read aloud. It is a poem to 
 be taken into the mind slowly ; you cannot take posses- 
 sion of it without effort. Give a quiet evening to it ; 
 return to it again and again ; master the meaning of it 
 deliberately part by part, and let the whole sink into 
 your mind softly and gradually, and you will not regret 
 the labor. You will find yourselves in possession of a 
 perpetual delight, of a music that will make the fall 
 of evening forever charming to you. Difficulty is not 
 necessarily a virtue in a poem, but neither is it neces- 
 sarily a defect. The poet who fixes a rare and evan- 
 escent mood in harmonious rhythm and imagery, thus 
 making it a permanent possibility for the human race, 
 cannot always build his new and delightful home for 
 the imagination out of common materials, and the work- 
 manship with which he adorns it may be curious and 
 intricate. Such a pleasure-house is often built up by 
 abstruse workings of the imagination, in regions far 
 above the prosaic level, and the spirit must shake off its 
 natural sloth fulness before it can rise with the poet and 
 enter into and take possession of the home that he has 
 made for it. 
 
 A distinction has been drawn between the poet and 
 the orator. The poet, it has been said, is essentially an 
 egotist, expressing what he feels without caring how it 
 may affect others ; whereas the orator is essentially a 
 sympathetic man, always considering the effect of his 
 expression upon others ; striving to look at what he says 
 
COLLINS AND GEAY COMPARED 95 
 
 from their point of view, or, as Mr. Gladstone once put 
 it, receiving from bis audience in a vapor what lie gives 
 back to theni in a flood. I confess that I don't attach 
 much value to such distinctions. They are always half 
 truths. Nearly every thing that has been said by poets 
 in the way of general truth about poetry is not even 
 quarter truth, because each puts his own practice as if 
 it were a universal rule. All poets express their own 
 emotions, more or less, and all poets are more or less 
 influenced by their audience. Still the degree in which 
 they are self-centred, or liable to be disturbed by out- 
 side influence, constitutes a marked difference in 
 character, and, properly qualified, this distinction be- 
 tween the poet and the orator serves to illustrate the 
 difference between Collins and Gray. It is this differ- 
 ence that Mr. Swinburne has in his mind when he says 
 that, " as a lyric poet, Gray is unworthy to sit at the 
 feet of Collins," and that " there was but one man in 
 the time of Collins who had in him a note of pure lyric 
 song, a pulse of inborn music irresistible and indubita- 
 ble " — namely, Collins himself. Comparatively speak- 
 ing, Collins sang to gratify his own feelings, beginning 
 when the impulse was on him, and leaving off when he 
 was satisfied ; Gray considered in what mood his song 
 would find his audience, how he could seize their atten- 
 tion, how sustain and increase it, and how leave them 
 deeply impressed at the end. Gray, in short, wrote 
 with a deliberate eye to the effect to be produced on his 
 reader. 
 
 Even in the "Elegy," which reads like a spontaneous 
 outburst of feeling, this is apparent if you look at the 
 construction of it. You will find a regular symmetrical 
 division in it, an arrangement of facts such that the 
 reader, though he passes from one train of thought to 
 another, is not kept too long in one mood, not wearied 
 by reflections in the same vein. The variety is studied 
 and carefully proportioned. Gray deliberately sup- 
 
96 POETRY BETWEEN POPE AND COWPER 
 
 pressed one stanza, because to have put it in would have 
 made too long a parenthesis : 
 
 " There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
 By hands unseen are show'rs of violets found ; 
 The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
 And little footsteps lightly print the ground." 
 
 The stanza is beautiful in itself ; some have gone so far 
 as to say that it contains purer poetry than any of the 
 stanzas that were retained ; but Gray decided that it 
 would be out of proportion, and sacrificed it. 
 
 In the " Eton College," again, the change from 
 emotion to emotion, the balance of the parts, the 
 pathetic humor of the conclusion, which recalls and binds 
 together and suffuses the whole, must strike every-body 
 who reflects for a moment on the construction of the 
 poem. The effect of the whole, and of each part as 
 contributing to the whole, has been elaborately calcu- 
 lated, elaborately, and yet with such vividness of emo- 
 tional insight that there is no trace of labor. Stanza 
 follows stanza as if by spontaneous growth, and the con- 
 cluding reflection arises as if by irresistible suggestion. 
 
 It has been made a point of distinction between Gray 
 and the lyric poets of this century, Wordsworth and 
 Byron more particularly, that in their lyrics they 
 express purely personal emotion, feelings peculiar to 
 themselves. They take us into confidence, as it were, 
 about their own concerns, and invite our sympathy, 
 which we cannot give unless we sympathize with their 
 characters. Gray, on the other hand, suppresses himself, 
 and strives to interpret emotions that all men must feel 
 in presence of the subject of his verse. This is certainly 
 true of the " Elegy " and the " Ode on Eton College." 
 These are not expressions of individual feeling, like 
 Byron's " Farew r ell to England," or some of Words- 
 worth's "Solitary Reaper"; they express melancholy 
 and humorous reflections common to all mankind, as 
 
JOHNSON CONTRASTED WITH GRAY 97 
 
 common as the fact of death and the heedless enjoyment 
 of the present by the young. 
 
 But it is dangerous to generalize about poets. The 
 emotions to which lyrical expression is given in the 
 " Progress of Poesy " and the " Bard " are as purely 
 individual as the most singular of Wordsworth's medi- 
 tations on rustic life. Johnson's criticisms of these 
 wonderful wonders of wonders, as he called them, are 
 savage and unsparing. Sometimes this is attributed to 
 personal jealousy. It is a superficial view, and unjust to 
 the great critic. It is true that Johnson manifests a 
 good-humored contempt for Gray's character. We can 
 easity understand this when we consider the circum- 
 stances of the two men. Gray was a Fellow of a College 
 in Cambridge, precise, finicking, and reserved in manner. 
 The dignified little man had few intimates ; he was 
 a great reader, a scholar of marvellously wide range, 
 reputed the most learned man in Europe. But, as 
 Johnson saw and said, he did very little with his learn- 
 ing. Five or six poems was not a great result of so 
 much reading. We can easily understand that the 
 indefatigable producer under difficulties, the sturd} 7 , 
 strenuous, companionable giant of Bolt Court, Fleet 
 Street, — a very different locality from Peterhouse, Cam- 
 bridge, — would have little sympathy with such a man. 
 Beneath Gray's reserved exterior there was great depth 
 of feeling ; and with all his minute scholarship he was 
 a man of large and comprehensive views. Constitutional 
 melancholy and self-distrust seem to have been the 
 secrets of his small amount of production. But this 
 was not known fully to the world till after his death. 
 He never spoke out during his life. Any apparent 
 injustice done him by Johnson was due to a want of 
 knowledge that was not possible to Johnson when he 
 wrote. And as regards the Odes, we can understand 
 Johnson's want of sympathy without ascribing any part 
 of it to personal jealousy. They appeal really to scholars 
 7 
 
98 POETRY BETWEEN POPE AND COWPEE 
 
 and historians. The Greek motto fixed to the " Progress 
 of Poesy " signifies that they are vocal only to the 
 initiated. There is not a line that is not charged with 
 a historical allusion. So marvellous is the rhythm that 
 single stanzas may be read with delight ; but the signifi- 
 cance of the whole demands study. The substance of 
 them is a series of ecstatic visions of historical events ; 
 of the personal emotions felt by a historian who was 
 also a man of feeling and imagination. The "Bard" is 
 full of alliteration and personification, and exemplifies 
 the rhetoric of Gray. There is a quick transition when 
 the Bard foretells the accession of the House of Tudor 
 and the glory of Elizabeth : 
 
 " ' But oh ! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height 
 Descending slow their glitt'ring skirts unroll ? 
 Visions of glory, spare ray aching sight, 
 Ye unborn Ages, crowd not on my soul ! 
 No more our long lost Arthur we bewail. 
 All hail, ye genuine Kings, Britannia's Issue, hail ! ' 
 ' In the midst a Form divine ; 
 Her lyon-port, her awe-commanding face, 
 Attempered sweet to virgin-grace. 
 What strings symphonious tremble in the air, 
 What strains of vocal transport round her play ! 
 Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear ; 
 They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. 
 Bright Rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings, 
 Waves in the eye of Heav'n her many-colour'd wings."' 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DECLINE OF POETKY — THE NOVEL 
 
 WALPOLE'S CRITICISM — WHY THE WANT OF POETRY WAS NOT 
 FELT — DIARY OF A LADY OF QUALITY — RISE OF THE NOVEL — 
 " PAMELA " — CONNECTION WITH MAGAZINE LITERATURE — 
 FIELDING — HISTORICAL NOVELS — " THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO " 
 
 I gave some account in my last lecture of the great 
 poets of the middle part of the eighteenth century. 
 Why there was such a scarcity of good poetry during 
 that period is a question that admits of great diversity 
 of opinion ; that there was a scarcity of it is a matter 
 of fact, and it was felt at the time. In this, as in most 
 other social facts, there were probably several causes at 
 work. One of these causes is very plainly hinted at 
 in a contemporary letter by a very shrewd observer, 
 Horace Walpole, second son of the great Prime Min- 
 ister. Writing to his friend Sir Horace Mann in 1742, 
 he said : " If you did amuse yourself with writing 
 any thing in poetry, you know how pleased I should be 
 to see it, but for encouraging you to it, d'ye see, 'tis an 
 age most unpoetical ! 'Tis even a test of wit to dislike 
 poetry ; and though Pope has half a dozen old friends 
 that he has preserved from the taste of last centmy, yet 
 I assure you the generality of readers are more diverted 
 with any paltry prose answer to old Marlborough's 
 secret history of Queen Mary's robes. I do not think 
 an author would be universally commended for any 
 production in verse, unless it were an ode to the Secret 
 Committee, with rhymes of liberty and property, nation 
 and administration." 
 
 This is in effect to say that, in the opinion of Horace 
 
 99 
 
100 DECLINE OF POETEY 
 
 Walpole, fashionable society was too much occupied 
 with politics to have any interest to spare for poetry. 
 To understand how this was possible we must remember 
 that political power was then confined to a very narrow 
 circle. It was not, as you are aware, till nearly a cen- 
 tury afterward that the middle classes, the commercial 
 classes, obtained a share of political influence. The 
 men who had any chance of a voice in the management 
 of the affairs of the nation were the men whose wives 
 and daughters constituted polite society in the metrop- 
 olis — " the town," as they called themselves. And 
 intrigues were incessantly going on to keep Ministers 
 on or put Ministers out, in all of which the wives and 
 daughters took a keen interest. The affairs of the 
 State were the affairs of the town, and had an exclusive 
 absorbing and personal interest that they no longer 
 possess for any single section of the commuity now. 
 Hence the literature that had most direct interest for 
 the town was political, and a damaging attack on a 
 Minister, a piece of scandal or argument, whether in 
 prose or in verse, was apt to eclipse an} r production that 
 depended for its effect on the interest peculiar to poetry. 
 
 The absorbing interest in politics among those who 
 were at the time the chief patrons, promoters, and con- 
 sumers of literature was probably one of the causes of 
 the poetic barrenness of the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. This political interest was fed and nourished 
 by the press with a regular supply, weekly, bi-weekly, 
 and daity. 
 
 Among the other things that may be mentioned as 
 taking the place of poetry among the enjoyments of a 
 life of leisure at this time is the stage. Queen Anne 
 and her Ministers exerted themselves to purify and 
 reform the stage. Under Charles II. ladies went to the 
 theatre masked, and things were spoken that were not 
 very fit for them to hear. Queen Anne prohibited the 
 wearing of masks, and instituted a moral censorship of 
 
DIARY OF A LADY OF QUALITY 101 
 
 plays, insisting that every tiling intended for public per- 
 formance should first be submitted to the Lord Chamber- 
 lain. That official was not so particular as he is now, but 
 there was a marked improvement in the morality of plays. 
 The theatre took a more important place among fashion- 
 able amusements. It has not, I think, been remarked 
 that the dreariest period in the poetic annals of the 
 eighteenth century is almost exactly coincident with the 
 career of David Garriek. You will see how a powerful 
 counter-attraction at the theatre, such as would occupy 
 the serious attention of intellectually disposed people, 
 would diminish the demand for poetry, and rob the poet 
 of that devoted sympathy in the absence of which he 
 cannot work with full power, if you consider for a little 
 how people of leisure at that time distributed their day. 
 There is an amusing paper in the Spectator, No. 323, 
 which professes to give the diary of a lady of quality. 
 It is, of course, a caricature, but it gives us an idea of the 
 arrangement of a fashionable day, of the hours that were 
 kept by fashionable people : 
 
 " From three to four. — Dined. Mrs. Kitty called upon me to go 
 to the Opera before I was risen from table. 
 
 " From dinner to six. — Drank tea. Turned off a footman for 
 being rude to Veny. 
 
 " Six o'clock. — Went to the Opera. I did not see Mr. Froth till 
 the beginning of the second act. Mr. Froth talked to a gentle- 
 man in a black wig. Bowed to a lady in the front box. Mr. 
 Froth and his friend clapped Nicolini in the third act. Mr. 
 Froth cried out Ancora. Mr. Froth led me to my chair. I think 
 he squeezed my hand. 
 
 "Eleven at night. — Went to bed. Melancholy dreams. Me- 
 thought Nicolini said he was Mr. Froth." 
 
 The morning was spent in reading, if there was any 
 thing to read, playing with pets, seeing to the dress- 
 maker, shopping, going to church, the mid-day service at 
 St. Paul's, where the music was good, being especially 
 fashionable. Half-past two or three was the dinner- 
 
102 THE NOVEL 
 
 hour. After dinner was the time for making calls or 
 walking in the Mall; and in the evening there were 
 public entertainments and private assemblies. There 
 was probably then a greater separation than exists now 
 in the social amusements of men and women ; after 
 dinner the men went to the coffee-houses if they did not 
 go to the play, and the women went to tea-parties, where 
 throughout the greater part of the century card-playing 
 was the chief alternative to scandal and other small talk. 
 The theatres opened at five o'clock, and the entertain- 
 ment lasted till nine. You will thus see that the theatre 
 filled an important gap in the day ; and that, when it 
 was the rage, it was likely to absorb not a little of 
 fashionable interest. Under Garrick revivals of Shakes- 
 pearian plays were the great theatrical events ; earlier 
 in the century, revivals of Dryden. The morning was 
 the chief time for reading. Addison's lady of quality 
 on two of her mornings read Dryden's " Aurengzebe, or 
 the Indian Emperor " ; if she had lived thirty years 
 later, she would probably have spent the same time over 
 Shakespeare. Can you wonder that such solemn pon- 
 derosities as Johnson's " London " or "Vanity of Human 
 Wishes," or such intricate harmonies and sublimities as 
 Collins's "Ode to Evening" or Gray's "Progress of 
 Poesy," failed to arrest general attention when the 
 vacant hours of the morning could be spent in reading 
 the thrilling scenes of " Richard III." or " Othello," and 
 the evening in seeing Shakespeare's heroes imperson- 
 ated by the most original modern actors? The town 
 naturally yielded to the greatest attraction, and there 
 was no body of readers outside this fashionable society 
 in whose sympathy the poet might find nourishment. 
 
 Two kinds of literature, then, imperatively claimed a 
 portion of the hours available for reading in the reigns 
 of the first Georges — political journals and plays. 
 People in society were bound to read these, because they 
 were talked about ; and not to know them or appear to 
 
Richardson's " Pamela" 103 
 
 know them was to have nothing to say, or no grace in 
 listening. And there was a third kind which became 
 prominent in the second ten years of George II.'s reign, 
 about the time when Pope published the last of his 
 Satires. This was the novel. New forms of literature, 
 as I have before said, always have the advantage in 
 freshness and force of interest over old forms. The 
 novel appeared in a new form with Richardson's 
 " Pamela" in 1740. About the time when Horace Wal- 
 pole wrote the letter from which I quoted at the begin- 
 ning of the lecture, ladies at Ranelagh Gardens, then 
 one of the fashionable resorts, were holding up to each 
 other their copies of " Pamela," to show that they had 
 in their possession the most popular book of the day. 
 The industrious antiquarian has cast doubt upon the 
 literal truth of this story, pointing out that Ranelagh 
 Gardens were not opened to the public till eighteen 
 months after "Pamela " had begun to run through many 
 editions. Vauxhall, however, was open, if Ranelagh 
 was not, and the incident may have been observed there. 
 At any rate, the fact expressed by the story is true 
 enough, that " Pamela " was at once and universally 
 popular. In January, 1741, the editor of the Gentle- 
 mail's Magazine wrote as follows : " Several en- 
 comiums on a series of Familiar Letters, published but 
 last month, entitled ' Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded,' 
 came too late for this Magazine, and we believe there 
 will be little occasion for inserting them in our next ; 
 because a Second Edition will then come out to supply 
 the Demands of the Country, it being judged in town as 
 great a sign of want of curiosity not to have read 
 1 Pamela ' as not to have seen the French and Italian 
 dancers." This testimony is almost as quaint and 
 significant as the story about Ranelagh Gardens. Books 
 must be new in form as well as in substance before they 
 create such a furore as that indicates. There has been 
 nothing like it in my time. The nearest approach 
 
104 THE NOVEL 
 
 I recollect is J. R. Green's "Short English History." 
 Fashionable ladies carried it about with them on their 
 visits to country-houses. 
 
 Richardson has long received the honor of being re- 
 garded as the founder of the English Novel, but of late it 
 has been customary to go a little farther back, and trace 
 the beginnings of the novel in the papers by Addison and 
 Steele in the Tatler and the /Spectator. The novel, it is 
 said, was developed, not created, by Richardson. Now, 
 this is hardly fair to the ingenious printer, if it is meant 
 to deny him the credit of having invented or stumbled 
 upon a new species of composition — the novel of 
 manners, stories in which the characters are drawn from 
 ordinary domestic life, and of which the interest lies in 
 picturing how they affect one another and how they are 
 affected by circumstances. It is true that the novel was 
 developed, and not created ; but it is not more true of 
 Richardson's novel than of any other new species of 
 composition, such as Marlowe's tragedy, or Scott's 
 romantic tale, or Byron's personal epic. All alike are 
 developed, not created, in the sense of having many 
 affinities with the kind of literature immediately anterior 
 to them. Thus in the novel of manners there are two 
 elements — there is a description of ordinary character, 
 and there is plot-interest — i. e., there is a story. Both 
 of these elements are found in the generation before 
 Richardson, but not in combination. It was he that 
 combined them in his novel of manners, and therefore 
 is he entitled to the praise of having invented a new 
 species of composition. 
 
 You will find abundant descriptions of manners in 
 the Spectator, and many delicate studies of character. 
 Whoever wishes to get a living knowledge of the Queen 
 Anne time must give evenings to the Spectator, and 
 observe the incidents that are pictured as occurring in 
 the shops and the streets and the places of amusement, 
 at balls and tea-tables and dinner-tables, and the private 
 
THE " SPECTATOR'S " CORRESPONDENTS 105 
 
 sanctuaries where fine ladies issue adorned for conquest. 
 The quiet Spectator penetrated everywhere. Especially 
 in the letters from fictitious correspondents, — from 
 Jenny Simper, Aurelia Careless, Betty Cross-stitch, 
 Constantine Comb-brush, Florinda, Corinna Jeraminta, 
 Jack Courtty, Toby Rentfree, Will Cymon, Dick Love- 
 sick, and so forth, — you will find many happy studies of 
 manner and character, many of the touches of nature 
 that make all the world kin. But there is no story to 
 weave the detached studies together. We learn how 
 Jenny Simper — being, as she described herself, a young 
 woman with her fortune to make — went to church, and 
 was much aggrieved because the clerk of the parish, an 
 ex-gardener, w T reathed the pews so thickly with ever- 
 greens that she could not make eyes at the desirable 
 baronet during the service ; but it had not occurred to 
 any body to make a heroine out of Jenny Simper, or a 
 hero out of the baronet, or a story out of incidents 
 within the probabilities of ordinary life. There were 
 stories to read in the days of Queen Anne ; there have 
 been stories from the very beginning of literature ; but 
 they were of a different kind from the stories told in 
 novels of manners. There were, in the first place, the 
 
 i great long-winded romances, full of amazing adventures, 
 
 I; heroes of superhuman strength and courage and gener- 
 osity, and heroines of surpassing beauty and constancy. 
 The sceptical spirit had banished them from polite 
 
 -! society in town, but they still lingered in the country 
 
 / and in the less enlightened strata of middle-class life, 
 and, on the whole, perhaps did good with all their 
 
 | unreality, through their high standard of ideal conduct. 
 There were stories of another kind, stories of fashionable 
 
 i intrigue, to which the name of novel was sometimes 
 given — stories that served no good purpose. Finally, — 
 
 ' though this was not in the reign of Queen Anne, but in 
 the reign of her successor, George I., — there came the 
 
 U novels of adventure and crime — the invention of Defoe. 
 
106 THE NOVEL 
 
 Richardson did not invent stories any more than he 
 invented the description of manners, but that does not 
 in the least detract from the originality of his invention 
 of the domestic novel — a story of incidents all within 
 the area of possible occurrences in every-day life. The 
 idea of writing such a story came to him by accident. 
 He was an industrious and prosperous printer — a stout, 
 rosy, vain, prosy little man, not at all the sort of man 
 that might be expected to be a fashionable novelist. 
 Of poor parentage, he had been apprenticed to a London 
 printer ; had spent some years as a press-reader or proof- 
 corrector — not a bad position for acquiring a knowledge 
 of literature ; had married his master's daughter, and 
 acquired an extensive business. When he was near the 
 age of fifty, some bookseller friends of his, struck, per- 
 haps, by his excellence as a letter-writer, had suggested 
 to him that he should compose a " familiar letter- 
 writer " — " a little volume of letters in a common style, 
 on such subjects as might be of use to those country 
 readers who were unable to indite for themselves." In 
 his youth, as it happened, Richardson had had a singular 
 experience in the way of writing letters for others. 
 Three young women who could not write had employed 
 him, when he was a boy of thirteen, to conduct their 
 correspondence with their sweethearts, which he did, 
 he tells us, much to the satisfaction of his employers, and 
 without betraying their confidence. This may have 
 been known to the booksellers who suggested his writ- 
 ing a volume of model correspondence. At any rate, he 
 undertook the task. But, having a genius for story-tell- 
 ing, it occurred to him, as he turned the project over in 
 his mind, that he might tell a story in a series of letters, 
 which would serve equally well as models for letter- 
 writing, and at the same time cultivate the principles of 
 virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both 
 sexes. Accordingly, he chose a country girl, Pamela, in 
 the service of a young squire, Mr. B., and made her 
 
THE ORIGIN OF " PAMELA " 107 
 
 relate in letters to her friends her experiences from day 
 
 to day and week to week in very trying circumstances. 
 
 Friends write to advise Pamela in her difficulties, and 
 
 so the story is carried on with most circumstantial 
 
 minuteness, Pamela describing with the most careful 
 
 exactness every particular of what happens to her, and 
 
 adding her own reflections, surmises, and appeals for 
 
 approbation and advice. The effect of this method is 
 
 that, if you have any sympathy with the heroine, you 
 
 get intensely interested in her perplexities ; the very 
 
 fulness of the details, and the close truth to nature with 
 
 which the novelist follows every turn in the girl's 
 
 i thoughts, compel you to read on. No one can read over 
 
 a few scenes from Richardson without feeling that he is 
 
 , a master of his art ; but few people now, I imagine, read 
 
 ^ any of his novels through. It was otherwise in his own 
 
 generation, when readers had more in common with the 
 
 , thoughts and sentiments of his voluminous descriptive 
 
 i letter-writers. The fame of " Pamela " made Richard- 
 
 1 son a great personal favorite, especially with ladies. 
 
 ; Several ladies of quality made a pet of him, deluged him 
 
 i with confidences, and urged him to write more; and 
 
 junder their nattering encouragement he produced 
 
 "Clarissa Harlowe," a model of every virtue in higher 
 
 life, and " Sir Charles Grandison," his ideal of a perfect 
 
 i gentleman. " Clarissa" is universally acknowledged to 
 
 he his masterpiece. An anecdote was given b} r Macaulay 
 
 iwhich shows how entrancing the story may become to 
 
 readers once fairly caught by the current of it. He 
 
 -took the whole eight volumes with him when he was in 
 
 India to a hill-station during the hot season, and lent 
 
 the first volume to the Governor's wife. She read it 
 
 «;and lent it to the Governor's secretary, and went to 
 
 Macaulay for the second. Thus the whole eight volumes 
 
 i passed from hand to hand, and for a week or more the 
 
 .whole station was in a ferment over the fortunes of 
 
 wlarissa, the readers anxiously waiting their turn for the 
 
108 THE NOVEL 
 
 successive volumes. Richardson is long-winded and 
 prolix to a degree, but tbat, in spite of all bis faults of 
 style, he had the art of interesting his own generation 
 was abundantly proved, and apparently his greatest 
 novel is still capable in favorable circumstances of exert- 
 ing its spell. 
 
 A much more brilliant writer, though a less minute 
 anatomist of ebbs and flows and cross-currents of feel- 
 ing, was Richardson's great successor and caricaturist, 
 Henry Fielding. Two men more unlike than these two 
 pioneers of the modern novel could not be conceived. 
 Richardson's experiences were all of business life and 
 quiet domestic life. In his voluminous correspondence 
 with lady friends after his sudden leap into fame, which 
 seems not to have disturbed in the least the even tenor 
 of his habits, we have minute pictures of the circum- 
 stances in which he wrote his books — sometimes in his 
 back shop in Fleet Street, sometimes in an arbor in his 
 garden at Hammersmith, reading what he had written 
 to the young ladies of his family, talking with them 
 over his characters, judging from their criticisms as the 
 story went on whether he had produced the effects 
 intended. Fielding was a much less domesticated 
 character — a high-spirited, mirth-loving roisterer, the 
 son of a younger son of a noble family, who, when his 
 scanty allowance ran short, or was not paid at all, tried 
 to subsist by writing for the stage and the journals,! 
 organized a company of his own, started more than one 
 journal of his own, mai'ried a wife and spent her small i 
 fortune in a year or two, read for the bar, and obtained 
 an appointment as a police-magistrate, never contriving 
 to make both ends meet, yet never losing his cheerfulness 
 or his generous temper. With all his wit and keem 
 powers of observation Fielding was probably too much 
 hurried and pressed with the cares and enjoyments of 
 his happy-go-lucky life from day to day to be capable 
 
RICHARDSON AND FIELDING CONTRASTED 109 
 
 of striking out a new path in literature ; and it was by 
 an accident that lie fell into the track of the humble 
 tradesman-like printer, and then discovered a rich field 
 > for his genius. When " Pamela " became the rage, there 
 was much in the sentiment of it that appealed to Field- 
 ing's sense of the ludicrous, and he resolved to write a 
 parody. Beginning in this spirit, he wrote a few 
 r chapters, more eminent for wit than for delicacy, and 
 I then practically abandoned the design of burlesquing 
 i Richardson, and went on to describe life as he had seen 
 it in the course of his varied experience, and characters 
 j as they presented themselves to his own mind and heart. 
 The life that he described was not always the highest in 
 point of morality, and his characters were not always 
 , spotless ; but there is this to be said for him as a 
 \\ moralist, that he threw no sentimental halo over vice, 
 . that he honored true worth in manhood and in woman- 
 ii hood, that his Parson Adams, his Squire Allworthy, and 
 his Amelia are among the most lovable characters in 
 fiction, and that no satirist ever exposed meanness, 
 i hypocrisy, and kindred vices with healthier scorn and 
 ridicule. Apart from the substance of his work, his 
 method was very different from Richardson's. He 
 .discarded the epistolary way of telling his story. The 
 comic epic was his model. Hence Byron called him the 
 i "prose Homer of human nature." And he does not 
 .leave his characters to reveal themselves, as the so-called 
 1 dramatic novelist does, — as Dickens does, for example, — 
 i in what they do and say. He makes a running commen- 
 tary on their conduct as he goes along ; button-holing 
 you, as Thackeray puts it, while he conducts you through 
 rhis picture-gallery, and discoursing familiarly about the 
 creatures of his imagination. 
 
 ii I cannot here enter upon an elaborate criticism of 
 
 i Richardson and Fielding. I wish only to show you their 
 
 places in literature as the originators of a new species 
 
 of composition, which, while it was fresh and new, and 
 
110 THE NOVEL 
 
 practised by masters of tlieir art, helped to push poetry 
 out of a foremost place in the minds of the reading 
 public. I would recommend you to read what is said 
 about Fielding by Thackeray in his "Lectures on the 
 Humorists," and by Mrs. Oliphant on Richardson. I 
 will not dwell upon the immediate successors of these 
 pioneers, Smollett, Sterne, ami Goldsmith, but pass on 
 to a novel of a new kind, produced twenty-five years 
 after Richardson's "Pamela," Horace Walpole's " Castle 
 of Otranto." 
 
 It would almost seem as if, after twenty years of the 
 new kind of fiction inaugurated by Richardson, includ- 
 ing the masterpieces of Fielding and Smollett and 
 Sterne, the literary appetite began to pine for something 
 new, and to hark back to the old fare of supernatural I 
 romance. You must not suppose that the old-fashioned 
 stories were at once extinguished by the new style ; they 
 were only pushed into the background, relegated, per- I 
 haps, to a less fastidious class of readers. If you look at 
 the lists of published books in old numbers of the 
 Gentlemanus Magazine, you will see that publishers 
 still found readers for scandalous stories, for romances | 
 such as the " Adventures of Telemachus," and for more 1 
 or less fictitious biographies of eminent criminals. But 
 it was only novels of the new kind that made a con- 
 spicuous mark among readers in the height of literary 
 fashion — till the " Castle of Otranto" appeared, which | 
 was professedly an attempt to combine the supernatural:! 
 incidents of the old romance with the truth to nature in 
 dialogue and character introduced by the new novel. 
 
 It was Horace Walpole's opinion that in the novels ' 
 of every-day life Nature had cramped Imagination.! 
 There had been plenty of invention, but it was inven-jl 
 tion of scenes such as might occur in common life ; the i \ 
 novelists had excluded themselves from the great{| 
 resources of fancy. He thought that, for the sake of 
 greater variety, the fancy should be left free to " roam 
 
THE "CASTLE OF OTKANTO " 111 
 
 through the boundless realms of invention," and thus 
 have an opportunity of creating more interesting situa- 
 tions. But he freely admitted that it would never do 
 to go back to the condition of the old romances, in 
 which every thing was unnatural, in which not only the 
 incidents were improbable, but the conduct of the per- 
 sonages in the face of those incidents fantastic, their 
 language absurdly inflated, their sentiments preposter- 
 ous. He proposed, therefore, a compromise between 
 the two. He was to have liberty to defy the rules of 
 probability in the incidents, but he was to bind himself 
 to adhere to probability in what he made his characters 
 feel and say and do in the improbable emergencies. 
 Their lot was to be cast in a land of wonders, of strange 
 apparitions, and miraculous occurrences, but they were 
 to comport themselves as human beings might be ex- 
 pected to do in the circumstances. 
 
 Constructed deliberately on this plan, the " Castle of 
 Otranto " founded a new school of fiction. It is called 
 a Gothic Romance, and the scene is laid in a Gothic 
 castle, with a labyrinth of vaulted passages beneath it, 
 one of which, by a trap-door, communicates with a 
 church in the neighborhood. Manfred, the Prince of 
 Otranto, is the central figure in the story, a bold and 
 unscrupulous man, though not without redeeming 
 traits in his character. The title to the principality has 
 been in his family for only two generations before him, 
 and the title of his grandfather was more than doubtful. 
 The last prince of the rightful line was Alfonso the 
 Good, who died in the Holy Land ; the Marquis of 
 Vicenza was the nearest heir, but Manfred's grand- 
 father had forestalled him, and was powerful enough 
 to keep him out of his own. There was a mysterious 
 prophecy that Manfred's line would keep possession 
 till the house had become too small for its rightful 
 owner. Now, naturally there was one point about 
 which Manfred had a morbid anxiety — the perserva- 
 
112 THE NOVEL 
 
 tion of his line. His wife Hippolyte had borne him 
 but two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was a 
 puny, sickly child, but Manfred determined to marry 
 him to the only daughter of the rival claimant, the 
 Marquis of Vicenza. He obtained this Lady Isabella 
 from her guardians during her father's absence in the 
 Holy Land, and the supernatural part of the story 
 begins with the preparations for the wedding. The 
 wedding party is assembled in the chapel of the castle, 
 when, to Manfred's intense impatience, it is discovered 
 that the boy-bridegroom, — he was only fifteen, — is miss- 
 ing. A servant is sent in haste to his apartments on 
 the other side of the court. The servant returns star- 
 ing, speechless, and foaming at the mouth. Manfred 
 and his retainers rush into the court, and find the poor 
 boy mangled and bleeding, crushed to death by a 
 gigantic helmet of black steel with huge black plumes. 
 The helmet is a hundred times as big as any ever made 
 for mortal man, and the plumes are in proportion, and 
 seemed to filled the court-yard as with a black forest. 
 Manfred is astounded, but in the depth of his grief and 
 wonder he has presence of mind enough to say : "Take 
 care of the Lady Isabella" — for a purpose which 
 appears presently. Nobody can tell where the helmet 
 has come from, but in the midst of their conjectures 
 a young peasant remarks that it is exactly like in every 
 respect but size to the helmet on the head of the black 
 marble statue of Alfonso the Good in the church. 
 Manfred flies into a passion. Some of the servants 
 rush to the church, and find that the helmet from 
 Alfonso's statue is gone. The cry is raised that the 
 young peasant, who is a stranger in the place, is a 
 necromancer, and that it is he who, by his black art, 
 has compassed the death of the young prince. Manfred 
 orders him to be confined in the helmet, to starve to 
 death unless his familiars supply him with food. Then 
 Manfred proceeds to carry out a suddenly formed 
 
THE iC CASTLE OF OTRANTO " 113 
 
 resolution. The supernatural thwarting of his purpose 
 has maddened him. He will divorce his wife and 
 marry Isabella himself. He sends for Isabella and 
 broaches his design to her. She is horrified. He lays 
 hands on her. Then the plumes on the helmet outside 
 in the court-yard are violently agitated, and rustle 
 against the window, accompanied by a low, hollow 
 sound. "See," Isabella cries, "Heaven itself declares 
 against your wicked purpose ! " " Heaven nor Hell 
 shall prevent me ! " he says. At this instant one of the 
 pictures on the wall, the portrait of his grandfather, 
 heaves a deep sigh, and presently walks out of its frame 
 on to the floor. 
 
 These examples will give you some idea of how Wal- 
 pole effected his proposed reconciliation of reality and 
 romance. The only real importance of his work is that 
 it marks a new point of departure from the novel as 
 conceived by Richardson and Fielding. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 the novel — continued 
 
 INFLUENCE OF PEKCY's "RELIQUES" AND OSSIAN — MISS BUBNEY 
 AND THE LADY NOVELISTS 
 
 ! 
 At the close of last lecture I mentioned that Wal- 1 
 
 pole's " Castle of Otranto " founded a new school of 
 novels, the novels of supernatural incident. It was also 
 the first to direct the attention of novelists to the great 
 wealth of materials for their craft that might be found j 
 in feudal times, lawless, turbulent characters, unbridled 
 passions, and picturesque costume and architecture. 
 The very year after the " Castle of Otranto " was 
 published there appeared what I take to be our first 
 Historical Romance, " Longsword, Earl of Salisbury." 
 I only know the work from the description of it in the 
 Monthly Review of the time, — I have never been able to 
 get sight of the book itself. It is never mentioned in 
 our literary histories, as far as I know. According to 
 the Monthly Review, it made an attempt to follow 
 historical truth ; " the truth of history was artfully 
 interwoven with entertaining fictions and interesting 
 episodes." This could not be said of the " Castle of 
 Otranto," which, although the scene was laid in feudal j 
 times, had no basis in actual historical fact. "Long- 
 sword," then, seems to have been the first anticipa- 
 tion in species, if not in quality, of Scott's historical 
 romances. 
 
 But, indeed, it would give a wrong impression of the 
 way in which the public mind is gradually prepared for 
 the reception of a writer of genius, and the atmosphere 
 created in which he finds vital sustenance, to ascribe the 
 
 114 
 
INFLU 
 
 initiative in an^ 
 man or one work 
 injustice of denyi 
 ing the modern 1 
 out at the same ti 
 essential feature of 
 possible that, owing 
 lay on his originality, a. 
 standing out more prominent 
 predecessors, more sharply mi. 
 than he really was. The individua. 
 bat he does not create out of nothin 
 pared for him, and the materials graduu 
 which he seizes upon and turns to new & 
 vidualstake new departures, take the lead in n^ 
 tions into the untried and unexplored ; but the 
 and means for the expeditions are first accumulated . 
 the co-operation of many. Thus the " Castle of Otranto " 
 and " Longsword " were new departures ; but about the 
 time when they were made there was a general harking 
 back to the customs and the literature of the Middle 
 Ages. A } r ear after the publication of Walpole's romance, 
 1765, Bishop Perc} r published his famous " Reliques of 
 Ancient English Poetry " ; and, a few years before, 
 Macpherson had produced first his "Fragments" of 
 ancient Gaelic poetry, and then his pretended translation 
 of the Ossianic epics, " Fingal " and " Temora." The 
 study of mediaeval antiquity was in fact becoming a very 
 general pursuit among the learned when Walpole took 
 the lead in introducing the sentiment of it into prose 
 fiction. 
 
 It was some years before Walpole had an eminent 
 ; successor in his own peculiar walk of romance, flavored 
 i with supernatural or quasi-supernatural incident. The 
 next conspicuous romance of this species was Mrs. 
 I Radcliffe's " Mysteries of TJdolpho," published nearly 
 . thirty years later. Meantime, in 1778, a conspicuous 
 
■ dson school of 
 d and sustained 
 world amidst the 
 1 the press. This 
 a was the first of a 
 jex in this branch of 
 irs between Sterne's 
 j" Waverley " the chief 
 , ere carried off by women — 
 ,iiffe, Miss Edgewortb, and Miss 
 that became classic during this 
 imes of women, 
 /as the first woman to achieve first-rate 
 . the modern novel, thirty-eight years after 
 iii had led the way into the new form. But 
 -O not to suppose that during that long period 
 men had abstained from trying a kind of writing for 
 which women have such special qualifications in their 
 keen eye for manners, their quick sense of the ridiculous, 
 and sharp insight into character. Very soon after the 
 invention of the novel circulating libraries were also 
 invented ; novel-reading became a passion, and novel- 
 writing one of the few money-making branches of lit- 
 erature. As early as 1752 the Monthly Review, a 
 monthly organ of literary criticism started in 1748, 
 complained of the labor of reading the multitude of 
 novels submitted to its judgment. They spring up like 
 mushrooms every year, every work of merit producing 
 a swarm of imitators. In 1755 a witty writer in the 
 Connoisseur proposed to establish a literary factory, 
 and, of course, the manufacture of novels was to be a 
 prominent part of the business, an eminent cutter-out 
 being retained for the plot and leading adventures, witli 
 numerous assistants competent to fill in details. To 
 supply the eager needs of the circulating library many 
 translations were also made from the French, the novels 
 of Marivaux and Mme. Riccoboni being special favor- 
 
mrs lennox's "female quixote " 117 
 
 ites. Such being the demand for novels, as soon as 
 this delightful form of literature was invented, women 
 were well to the front both as translators and as origi- 
 nal authors. There was Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, for 
 example, a lady with a literary career of nearly half 
 a century, which began very prosperously but ended 
 rather unhappily, the old lady, who for so long had, 
 supported herself by miscellaneous work with her pen, 
 being under the necessity of writing after her powers 
 had fallen off. She was one of the great Johnson's 
 favorites, and the success of her first novel, " Harriet 
 Stuart," in 1751, was celebrated by a supper at the Devil 
 Tavern, where the mighty "Rambler" crowned her with 
 laurel. Her next work, the " Female Quixote," in 1752, 
 was a still greater success. It certainly is a very amusing 
 book. It describes the adventures of a beautiful young 
 lady whose father, a powerful Minister, having retired 
 from the world in disgust at his fall from office, kept her 
 in complete seclusion in the country. Here the young 
 lady, finding a complete collection of the fantastic 
 romances to which I have referred as being fashionable 
 in Queen Anne's time, accepts in all seriousness their 
 ideals of heroism and love and the proper behavior of 
 lovers, models her lonely life with her maids after the 
 fashion of the romantic heroines, and keejos her mind 
 constantly occupied with expectations of romantic ad- 
 ventures. Encountering a stranger in one of her rides, 
 she takes him for a desperate lover come to carry her 
 off by force, and behaves as romantic princesses do in 
 such circumstances, orders her servants to secure and 
 disarm the unfortunate man, and treats his protests as 
 signs of villanous duplicity. She takes one of her 
 father's gardeners for a prince in disguise, and is hardly 
 disabused of her fancy when the young man is cudgelled 
 by the head gardener and dismissed, being caught in 
 the act of stealing carp from a fish-pond. Her father 
 wishes to marry her to a cousin, whom he invites to his 
 
118 THE NOVEL 
 
 castle to make her acquaintance with this object ; but 
 she is deeply offended with the young man because he 
 does not make love in the high-flown manner of ro- 
 mantic chivalry, and, instead of serving her faithfully 
 and humbly for several years before with faltering 
 voice and devout reverence he begs the unutterable 
 favor of kissing her hand, blurts out a declaration 
 of love after a few weeks' acquaintance. As you may 
 suppose, man}' capital situations occur before Arabella 
 is enlightened as to the difference between the ways of 
 real life and the ways of seventeenth-century romance. 
 The story is rather wire-drawn, but full of humor. 
 Johnson continued a friend to the authoress to the last, 
 and wrote proposals for printing a quarto edition of her 
 works in 1775 ; and it would seem that, with all her 
 various literary industry, Mrs. Lennox needed such ser- 
 vices as old age came upon her. She would seem to 
 have been not particularly amiable in private life, if 
 we are to believe Mrs. Thrale's judgment (recorded in 
 Mme. D'Arblay's " Diary "), that every-body admired 
 Mrs. Lennox, but nobody liked her. Miss Fielding, the 
 sister of the novelist, also wrote several novels, and in 
 the opinion of Richardson, who was not a little jealous 
 and spiteful toward his rival and caricaturist, showed a 
 more intimate knowledge of the human heart than her 
 (gifted) brother. This was not the general opinion, 
 though an admirer wrote of her that " Miss Fielding 
 was one of those truly estimable writers whose fame 
 smells sweet, and will do so to late posterity, one who 
 never wrote 
 
 ' One line which dying she would wish to blot,' " 
 
 a compliment that could hardly be paid to Henry 
 Fielding. 
 
 Another female novel-writer, whose fame has been 
 kept green by the fame of her children and her great- 
 grandchildren, was Mrs. Frances Sheridan, the authoress 
 
MRS. FRANCES SHERIDAN 119 
 
 of "Sydney Biddulph" and " Nourjaliad," and the 
 mother of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In the opinion 
 of Charles James Fox, "Sydney Biddulph " was the 
 best of modern novels, and Johnson wept over it, and 
 complimented the authoress by telling her that he 
 doubted whether " on moral principles she had a right 
 to make her readers suffer so much." It is a curious 
 circumstance that precisel} 7 the same complaint of carry- 
 ing the sufferings of a heroine to an intensely painful 
 pitch, harrowing the reader with continuous and unre- 
 lieved and undeserved distresses, might be brought 
 against more than one of the powerful novels of her 
 great-granddaughter, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, especially 
 against " Stuart of Dunleath." The " Memoirs of 
 Sydney Biddulph " appeared in 1761, and Mrs. Sheri- 
 dan was undoubtedly the most eminent female novelist 
 before Miss Burney ; although, according to Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld, Mrs. Brooke, another indefatigable novelist and 
 translator, whose " Lady Julia Mandeville " was repub- 
 lished in Mrs. Barbauld's collection, was the " first 
 female novel-writer who attained a perfect purity and 
 polish of style." 
 
 You will see, then, that women had not been idle in 
 
 the new field of literature before Miss Burney produced 
 
 her " Evelina," though this lady was the first to take 
 
 rank with the masters of the art. " She," says Macaulay, 
 
 "first showed that a tale might be written in which 
 
 both the fashionable and vulgar life of London might 
 
 be exhibited with great force and with broad comic 
 
 humor, and which yet should not contain a single line 
 
 i inconsistent with rigid morality, or even with virgin 
 
 I delicacy. She took away the reproach which lay on a 
 
 i most useful and delightful species of composition. She 
 
 vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a 
 
 fair and noble province of letters." This is true in the 
 
 main, as is generally the case with Macaulaj^'s broad 
 
 and vigorous rhetoric, only it is a trifle exaggerated. 
 
120 THE NOVEL 
 
 All the female novelists that I have mentioned were 
 unexceptionable in point of morality, as much so as 
 Miss Burney. Macaulay was probably thinking of the 
 female novelists of a much earlier period when he praised 
 Miss Burney for her delicacy — of Mrs. Behn and Mrs. 
 Manley and Mrs. Haywood. There is no lack of purity 
 in the "Female Quixote," and "Sydney Biddulph " 
 would compare favorably in this respect with Victorian 
 novelists. And for more than thirty years before the 
 appearance of "Evelina" her sex had taken an equal 
 share with men in novel-writing, at least in point of 
 quantity. It was the masterly natural freshness of the 
 character-drawing, the clear, unencumbered vivacity of 
 the incidents, the frankness of the humor, — in a word, 
 the originality, the absence of literary artificiality, — 
 that signalized " Evelina " as a work of genius, and 
 set every-body talking about the new writer. Miss 
 Burney was not the first woman novelist, but she was 
 the first with a distinct vein of her own who wrote 
 with her eyes on the subject, and not on any estab- 
 lished model of approved style. Macaulay is more 
 exact when he speaks of the great force and broad 
 comic humor with which Miss Burney depicted vulgar 
 as well as fashionable life. It was the picture of vulgar 
 life, — life in a would-be fashionable tradesman's family, 
 — that specially attracted notice in an age when the 
 fashionable world had been described to death in hun- 
 dreds of periodical essays and novels. We happen to 
 have preserved for us a good deal of the talk that went 
 on about "Evelina" in the first months after its appear- 
 ance when it was all the rage. Miss Burney published 
 it anonymously, not even her own father knowing who 
 was the author ; and she recorded in her diary, which 
 is almost as delightful as her novels, what she heard 
 people saying about the book and its characters. It 
 was the vulgar characters that were particularly com- 
 mented on and admired. The position of the heroine 
 
CHARACTER-DRAWING IN " EVELINA " 121 
 
 Evelina was such as to bring her in contact with various 
 classes. Her origin was mysterious, but she had been 
 brought up by a clergyman in the countiy, and when 
 she was seventeen, she was brought out in London 
 society by a lady who knew her mother's history. 
 Thus in the first part of the story we have descrip- 
 tions of the rustic beauty's experiences at a ball, an 
 opera, a ridotto, a visit to the Ranelagh Gardens, 
 a visit to the Pantheon. The girl's timidity, the 
 I scrapes she falls into in consequence, and her encoun- 
 : ters with an empty fop, an enamoured but unscrupulous 
 baronet, and an accomplished, noble-minded, high-bred 
 lord, who, of course, eventually marries the heroine, 
 are described in a vein of the most exquisite comedy. 
 In Lord Orville Miss Burney succeeded in drawing 
 what Richardson attempted in Sir Charles Grandison 
 
 ■ — a perfect gentleman, who is at the same time not the 
 least of a prig. Evelina's ignorance and timidity get 
 her into scrapes, but these are nothing to the troubles 
 
 ■ caused by a terrible relation on the mother's side, a 
 vulgar Frenchwoman, her grandmother, Mine. Duval, 
 
 I who very soon turns up. The scenes between this most 
 amusing harridan and her friend's husband, Captain 
 Mirvan, a salt of the oldest school, are boisterously 
 farcical. The old tar hates the French, and, conceiving 
 a violent animosity against Mine. Duval, makes it his 
 chief amusement to draw the old hag, as he puts it, 
 putting her into violent passions, insulting her in every 
 
 : way imaginable, devising practical jokes at her expense. 
 One of these, in which he and the baronet, who for 
 
 . interested reasons is his ally, disguise themselves as 
 
 < highwaymen, drag her roughly from her carriage, and 
 leave her with her legs tied in a ditch, first tearing 
 
 ! off her false hair, has uncomfortable consequences for 
 
 . Evelina, for her grandmother insists upon taking pos- 
 session of her, and carries her off to the society of cer- 
 
 , ; tain poor relations in the city. The Braughton family 
 
122 THE NOVEL 
 
 and their lodger, Mr. Smith, were the great hit of the 
 book. Mr. Braughton, the father, was a silversmith in 
 Snowhill, a close-fisted, money-making tradesman, but 
 his girls were quite fine ladies, and their radiant vul- 
 garities, their squabbles with their rude brother Tom, 
 their contempt for their country cousin Evelina, their 
 respect for the great Mr. Smith, made excellent sport 
 for the fashionable readers of Miss Burne} T 's novel. It 
 amused them vastly to see all the foibles and artificial 
 distinctions of polite society travestied by these lower 
 animals. There is Mr. Smith, in particular, the first- 
 floor lodger, a city clerk with an immense conceit of 
 superiority to the vulgar herd round him, a sort of 
 pinchbeck master, who patronized Evelina and intro- 
 duced her to all the glories of a Hampstead ball, where 
 Mine. Duval, the French grandmother, danced a minuet, 
 to the grinning admiration of all beholders. Mr. Smith, 
 in the fine tambour waistcoat of which he was so self- 
 conscious, was the delight of Miss Burney's readers. 
 " The Holborn beau for my money," laughed Dr. John- 
 son to Miss Burney ; "O you sly rogue, you character- 
 monger." The adventures of Evelina with the Bra ugh - 
 tons are conceived in the spirit of the liveliest farcical 
 invention. When Miss Burney comes to her third 
 volume and the unravelling of her plot, which contains 
 not a few ingenious surprises, she becomes more con- 
 ventional and sentimental, but nothing could be better 
 than the freshness of incident and humorous character- 
 drawing of the first two volumes. It says something 
 for the humanity of the time that Captain Mirvan was 
 generally considered to have gone too far in his baiting 
 of the old Frenchwoman Mme. Duval and the silly fop 
 Mr. Lovel. This should be remembered when a certain 
 episode in the third volume is quoted as an example of 
 the brutality of manners among the upper classes. Two 
 young men of the period staying at a fashiopable country- 
 house, in their passion for betting, get up a race of a 
 
miss burney's early associations 123 
 
 hundred yards between two poor old women who can 
 hardly walk, and when one of the hobbling old things 
 falls and hurts herself so badly that she can do no more, 
 her backer swears at her and urges her on with unfeeling 
 cruelty, the whole company standing by to enjoy the 
 fun. We should bear in mind that such conduct was 
 as abhorrent to the general sentiment of Miss Burney's 
 time as it is to the general sentiment of our own time. 
 It was not upon such incidents that the popularity of 
 Miss Burney's "Evelina" was founded. 
 
 It was a matter of wonder to Miss Burney's contempo- 
 raries how a writer who showed such an intimate knowl- 
 edge of high life could at the same time have acquired 
 the knowledge of vulgar middle-class life shown in her 
 portraits of the Braughton family. The explanation 
 lay in the peculiar position of the authoress's father. 
 She was the daughter of Dr. Burney, a man of consider- 
 able celebrity in his time, an intimate of the Johnson 
 and Reynolds circle, author of a " History of Music," 
 and the most fashionable music-master of his genera- 
 tion. His high place in his profession made him a man 
 of note in Continental schools of music, and foreign 
 singers coming to England made a point of coming with 
 an introduction to Dr. Burney. And while they were 
 ! negotiating an enslavement in London, the strangers fre- 
 quently gave a taste of their quality in Dr. Burney's 
 i drawing-room. There is, besides, a sort of freemasonry 
 .among artists, which makes them willing to render 
 ■• any little service they can to the good-natured and 
 i popular in the brotherhood. Hence all the world was 
 <n eager to come to Dr. Burney's musical parties, where 
 dithey could always hear the newest and most dis- 
 tinguished things in music ; and on the evenings when 
 5 Mrs. Burney received, the music-master's humble house 
 '". in St. Martin's Street was beset with fashionable car- 
 L riages. The quiet demure little daughter, who sat shy 
 'uand silent in company while her brain was teeming with 
 
124 THE NOVEL 
 
 comic fancies, and, as is often the way with shy, demure 
 people, boiled over with comic reminiscences to her 
 sisters when the visitors were gone, had thus excellent 
 opportunities of stuctying the ways of the fashionable 
 world. But Dr. Burney was not a proud man. He 
 allowed his children to play with the children of a wig- 
 maker in the adjoining houses. And among these 
 humbler acquaintances Miss Burney picked up that 
 acquaintance with life in a different plane of society 
 which made the fortune of her first novel. 
 
 Sometimes it is said now that "Evelina "was over- 
 rated in its day. It is impossible not to acknowledge 
 that she painted manners and habits with sprightliness 
 and fidelity, but it is said that "when she rises from 
 manners and habits to paint feelings, we see little but 
 indecision on the one hand or exaggeration on the 
 other." This is all very true, and yet Miss Burney was 
 undoubtedly a novelist of the first rank. Undoubtedly 
 she would be overrated if she were put on a level with 
 Richardson as an analyst of feeling, or Fielding as a 
 humorist, or George Eliot as a scientific investigator of 
 cause and effect in emotional changes, or any other 
 novelist in the walk in which his special strength lies. 
 But there are varities of excellence, all equally admirable 
 of their kind, and Miss Burney was pre-eminent in her 
 special kind, because she attempted only what she was 
 qualified to perform. In her first two novels, "Evelina" 
 and " Cecilia," there was nothing written against the 
 grain simply because it was supposed to be the right 
 thing for a novel ; she did not follow the fashion of her 
 time in long-winded sentimental reflections or fine-spun 
 analysis of feeling. The truth is that her writing, after 
 her first four years of authorship, was a failure, because 
 in " Evelina " and "Cecilia" she had exhausted all that 
 was fresh in her observation of manners, and assumed 
 thereafter a point of view that was not natural to her. 
 
 The next pre-eminent work of fiction after Miss 
 
THE "MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO " 125 
 
 Barney's novels was the " Mysteries of Udolplio," pub- 
 lished in 1794, and also written by a woman. It was 
 not a novel — a story of real life and character — but a 
 romance. In the preface in which Horace Walpole had 
 acknowledged the authorship of the "Castle of Otranto," 
 while claiming the credit of having invented a new 
 species of romance, he modestly admitted that he was 
 sensible of his own inability to give full effect to his 
 conception, and expressed a hope that he had paved the 
 way for " men of brighter talents," superior to himself 
 in the imagination and the exhibition of the passions. 
 This good wish was not fulfilled for nearly thirty years, 
 and was then fulfilled by a woman of brighter talents, 
 Mrs. Radcliffe. She adopted Walpole's idea of giving 
 the imagination freer play in the invention of incidents 
 than the novelist could do if he kept to the manners of 
 modern life. But she adopted his idea with an important 
 difference as regarded the license of improbability that 
 he allowed himself. It is curious to note how the license 
 that Walpole sought for the imagination was gradually 
 abridged by those who caught up his idea and followed 
 in his track. The most successful of his imitators 
 before Mrs. Radcliffe was another woman, Clara Reeve, 
 a very industrious authoress, who produced what she 
 called, after Walpole, a Gothic Romance, the "Old 
 English Baron," in 1777. But Mrs. Reeve, though she 
 owned him as a master, declined to be led by him in one 
 particular ; she thought that he went too far with his 
 supernatural improbabilities. Statues that drop blood, 
 swords that take a hundred men to lift, pictures that 
 t: groan and walk out of their frames, struck her as need- 
 j . lessly wild inventions, calculated to shake the reader's 
 11 faith in the story and give it a grotesque and ridiculous 
 i air, such as a nursery tale has for a grown man. Accord- 
 1 ingly Mrs. Reeve drew the line at ghosts. There is a 
 haunted wing in the castle of the old English baron, and 
 there is an heir wrongfully kept from his inheritance, 
 
126 THE NOVEL 
 
 and brought up as a peasant's son ; but for the punish- 
 ment of the wrong-doer, and tlie restoration of the 
 defrauded youth to his own, the only supernatural 
 machinery employed is the ghost of a murdered man. 
 Thus far Mrs. Reeve abridged the license for the super- 
 natural allowed by the authority of Walpole, and Mrs. 
 Radcliffe imposed on herself a still stricter self-denying 
 ordinance. She abjured the supernatural altogether, 
 and yet contrived to keep her readers from first to hist 
 in an atmosphere of mysterious excitement and super- 
 stitious dread. There are no supernatural agents in her 
 tales — neither wizard nor spectre ; every thing that 
 happens is carefully explained as being due to natural 
 causes ; yet we are kept in a nutter and fever of excite- 
 ment as much as if evil spirits and good spirits were con- 
 stantly at work around us. The situations are eerie ; she 
 puts us in scenes where we are liable to the invasion of 
 superstitious panic, in dark forests and lonety castles, with 
 long echoing corridors and secret passages and rooms 
 shut up because they are believed to be haunted ; she sur- 
 rounds us with turbulent, desperate, unscrupulous char- 
 acters. Unaccountable sounds are heard when our feel- 
 ings are deeply interested in the fate of hero or heroine, 
 voices where no speaker is visible, strains of music in 
 lonely places where it seems all but impossible that any 
 musician should be; there are unaccountable apparitions 
 and marvellous disappearances. There is generally some 
 mystery afloat ; when one has been cleared up, we are 
 not suffered long to breathe freeh r before we are caught 
 in the toils of another. Yet all the time only human 
 agents are at work ; there is nothing improbable except 
 the extraordinary combination of circumstances, nothing 
 supernatural except in the superstitious imaginings of the 
 personages of the story. Every thing that seemed as if 
 it must be the work of spirits is careful ly and fully ex- 
 plained as the story goes on. Mrs. Radcliffe has been 
 censured for these explanations, as if they were a mis- 
 
MRS. EADCLIFFE DISCARDS THE SUPERNATURAL 127 
 
 take in point of art, destroying the illusion and making 
 us ashamed of ourselves for having been imposed upon. 
 This censure I can regard only as an affectation, unless 
 when it comes from a convinced believer in ghosts. 
 Such persons might resent the explanation as casting 
 doubts upon their cherished belief. But for other peo- 
 ple I can see nothing that could be gained by leaving 
 the mysterious incidents unexplained, except by the 
 authoress, who would undoubtedly have saved herself 
 an immense deal of trouble if she had made free use of 
 ghosts and other supernatural properties, whenever she 
 required them, without taking any pains to explain how 
 the facts occurred. I read the story myself with a 
 double interest ; I enjoy the excitement of superstitious 
 wonder and awe while the illusion lasts, and when the 
 mystery is cleared up, and the excitement is gently sub- 
 siding, I am in a mood to get additional enjojmient from 
 reflecting on the ingenuity of the complication that 
 gave to the illusion for the moment the force of truth. 
 Yet it was no less a person than Sir Walter Scott 
 that set the fashion of objecting to Mrs. Radcliffe's 
 explanations. If we were to enquire curiously into the 
 objection, we should probably find that the enquiry led 
 us into one of the differences between classical art and 
 romantic art. Mrs. Radcliffe, although in the main a 
 disciple in the school of romantic art, yet paid homage 
 to classical art in her efforts to explain the strangest 
 occurrences by accidents within the limits of human 
 possibility ; and a thoroughgoing romanticist like Sir 
 Walter Scott might be inclined to reprobate this con- 
 cession. Yet one great leader of romantic art in France, 
 George Sand, followed Mrs. Radcliffe's example, and in 
 her " Consuelo " and " Comtesse de Rudolstadt" ac- 
 counted for many strange and apparently supernatural 
 occurrences by human agency. 
 
 It was justly remarked by Mr. George Moir, in his 
 treatise on Romance, that Mrs. Radcliffe has in later 
 
128 THE NOVEL 
 
 times been most unjustly made to bear the sins of her 
 imitators. "The truth is," he says, " that the sarcasms 
 which have been directed against the puerile horrors 
 of Mrs. Radcliffe ought justly to have been confined to 
 the extravagances of her successors, who imitated her 
 manner without either her imagination or her judgment, 
 and conceived that the surest means of producing effect 
 consisted in pressing the springs of the terrible as far as 
 they would go. In the hands of these imitated imita- 
 tors the castles became twice as large and ten times as 
 perplexing in their architecture ; the heroine could not 
 open an empty drawer without stumbling on a mys- 
 terious manuscript written by her father or her mother ; 
 nor leave her room to take a twilight walk, of which hero- 
 ines are always strangely fond, without stumbling on 
 a nest of banditti ; the gleam of daggers grew more 
 incessant ; the faces of the monks longer and more 
 cadaverous, and the visits of ghosts so commonplace 
 that they came at last to be viewed with the same indif- 
 ference by the reader as they were of old by honest 
 Aubrey or less honest Dr. Dee." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE NEW POETRY 
 COWPER— HIS ALLEGED REVOLUTION OP POETRY 
 
 In my last two lectures on the novels of the eigh- 
 teenth century I tried to show you how much the 
 public mind was occupied with this new kind of litera- 
 ture. Poetry was for the time pushed aside. You will 
 now, I trust, understand that it is a very inadequate 
 explanation of the small amount of poetry that was 
 written between Pope and Wordsworth, and of the 
 poorness in quality of much of that small amount, to say 
 that the poets of the period were hampered by a slavish 
 subservience to classical models. There is abundance 
 of evidence that would-be poets, on the contrary, 
 strained after originality. Even before Pope died, 
 Matthew Green, a poet of whimsical and dainty vein, 
 who wrote with great sprightliness of humor and light- 
 ness of touch, made it his boast that he was no imi- 
 tator : 
 
 " Nothing is stolen : my Muse though mean, 
 Draws from the spring she finds within ; 
 Nor vainly buys what Gildon sells, 
 Poetic buckets for dry wells." 
 
 The truth is that Pope's perfect success was not 
 encouraging to imitators ; there was no chance of fame 
 except in a different kind, and the mood of readers, 
 delighted and fully occupied with prose fiction, was 
 such as to chill poetic genius by the most blighting of 
 all influences, indifference. The public was dancing to 
 a different tune, and the poet sat silent with a feeling 
 
 9 129 
 
130 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 that he must pipe in vain. Now and again Poetry- 
 made a violent struggle to get a hearing and a follow- 
 ing, as when Churchill, the satirist, in the sixties of the 
 century, throwing all the refinements of Queen Anne 
 satire to the winds, laid about him with rude, furious, 
 distempered force. He made a noise in his time, but 
 when interest in the ephemeral subjects of his boisterous 
 abuse and fierce invective had passed away, his verse 
 had not sufficient intrinsic merit to command readers. 
 Churchill certainly was no bigot to classical rules, no 
 victim to smooth and easy couplets. The next poet to 
 make a popular and enduring mark gained his readers 
 by accommodating his verse to an easy, familiar, dis- 
 cursive prose style, with which the great body of readers 
 were for the time enchanted. 
 
 It is usual to speak of Cowper as a " reformer of 
 poetry, who called it back from conventionality to 
 nature," and as the herald of Wordsworth and Byron. 
 Universally this new movement is spoken of as a revolt 
 against the authority of Pope ; and as it took place 
 simultaneously with the French Revolution, or nearly 
 so, this revolt is regarded as one of the signs of the 
 revolutionary temper of the time. Now, there can be 
 little doubt that the intense excitement and ferment 
 produced by the French Revolution and the career of 
 Napoleon affected the poetry of the time. But it gives 
 an essentially wrong impression to speak as if the 
 struggle of the French people with a corrupt aristocracy 
 and royalty stimulated the poets of England to take up 
 arms against their poetic tyrant, and depose him with 
 anger and contumely. We can hardly speak of depos- 
 ing a tyrant when there is no tyrant to depose. And 
 it is the merest fiction, the most unsubstantial shadow 
 of a metaphor, to describe Pope as tyrannizing over 
 English poetry at the close of the eighteenth century. 
 A poet can tyrannize only as the temporary viceregent 
 of the poetic spirit, and the poetic spirit itself had no 
 
cowper's alleged reform of poetry 131 
 
 dominion over the affections of the English people at 
 this time. Pope's deposition had, in fact, been accom- 
 plished by the coming to power of prose fiction. There 
 had been a period of anarchy in poetiy; every poet had 
 been doing that which was right in his own eyes, strug- 
 gling desperately after something new, catching at 
 straws like a drowning man, and there had been no poet 
 of sufficient eminence to establish a general empire. 
 There was nobody to revolt against when Wordsworth 
 appeared ; the throne was vacant, open to any comer 
 powerful enough to establish his right by poetic might. 
 But Cowper, it is said, called poetry back from con- 
 ventionality to nature. He pioneered Wordsworth in 
 discarding the poetic diction sanctioned by the Queen 
 Anne critics, their " heightened" expression, their vain 
 endeavors to dress nature to advantage. That is to say, 
 Cowper's diction is more like the language of prose. 
 But was this a revolt against the tyranny of Pope ? It 
 seems to me more accurate to describe it as a submission 
 to the tyranny of the novel-writers and pleasant, dis- 
 cursive prose-essayists. Cowper himself began his liter- 
 ary cai-eer as an essayist and writer of light, trifling 
 verses in the style of Prior and Green ; and it was by 
 applying this same style to more serious subjects that 
 he made a beginning in the so-called revolution. The 
 worst of the revolution explanation of the great move- 
 ment that Cowper is said to have heralded, an explana- 
 tion so easy and simple and thought-saving, is that it 
 ! radically misrepresents the sources of the revolution, 
 'and puts out of sight the real continuity of the literary 
 i history of the eighteenth century. It would lead us to 
 suppose that the simpler diction, the discursive method, 
 'the prevalence of narrative b} r which the new poetry 
 was characterized, were adopted out of antagonism to 
 Pope ; whereas really the new poetry w r as enriched by 
 the prose-essayists and novelists, as these had themselves 
 'received benefits from the Queen Anne poets. There 
 
132 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 had thus been a substantial gain in literature from 
 generation to generation, and real progress, real develop- 
 ment. It was not, as the revolution explanation would 
 import, that the Queen Anne style had been discarded 
 in the third or fourth generation as an entirely false 
 ideal, as a wasteful venture in a wrong direction, an , 
 unprofitable divergence from the true paths of imagina- 
 tive literature. The prosemen of the middle forty ■ 
 years of the century were helped by the brilliant epi- 
 grammatic poets of the Queen Anne time; and the 
 poets of the following generation received light and 
 leading in their turn from the prosemen of the genera- 
 tion before them. Cowper, the herald of Wordsworth, 
 may perhaps be described as a reformer of poetry, but; 
 it is more significant of his historical position to describe 
 him as an essayist in verse. 
 
 In the numerous biographical and critical sketches of 
 Cowper, among which the latest, Mr. Goldwin Smith's: 
 and Mrs. Oliphant's, may be mentioned as perhaps the! 
 best, sufficient attention has not been paid to Cowper'si 
 literary work in his early manhood, before his first mad- 
 ness and his conversion to Evangelical Christianity, the 
 events winch are rightly regarded as the mainsprings of 
 the poetry now associated with his name, " Table Talk,", 
 i" The Task," and the " Occasional Poems." The work 
 of his early manhood, while he was still a buckish and 
 briefless barrister, is generally mentioned ; but it isjj 
 slurred over as if it were of no consequence in his his-' 
 tory, as if it were a thing that had nothing in common 
 with the productions of his regenerate days. It can he 
 shown, I think, that, in so far as merely poetic qualities 
 are concerned, this early work was quite as revolutionary 
 or unrevolutionary as the poems of his pious old age. 
 
 With the main outlines of Cowper's life you are, I 
 dare say, familiar. He was the son of a country clergy- 
 man, the grandson of a Justice of the Common Pleas, 
 the grand-nephew of a Lord Chancellor. After passing 
 
COWPER CALLED TO THE BAR 133 
 
 through Westminster School he was apprenticed to an 
 attorney, and had as his fellow-apprentice the famous 
 lawyer who afterward became Lord Thurlow. The 
 youths spent their time, he tells us, "in giggling and 
 making giggle," both in the attorney's office and in the 
 house of Cowper's uncle, where dwelt a cousin with 
 whom he was in love. Emancipated from the attorney's 
 office, and called to the bar, Cowper took chambers in 
 the Temple, and lived a gay and idle life, trusting to 
 family influence for a sinecure, and doing no sort of 
 work in his profession. It was during this period that 
 he wrote the poetry and prose which has, I think, been 
 unduly neglected in dissertations on his career. He be- 
 longed to a literary set. Two of his Westminster school- 
 fellows, Bonnel Thornton and Colman the dramatist, 
 conducted for two years (from January, 1*754, to Septem- 
 ber, 1756) a very popular periodical in the style of the 
 Spectator, the Connoisseur. Cowper was an occasional 
 contributor. The gayety of these young Templars may 
 be judged from the fact that seven of the old West- 
 minster boys formed a coterie, to which they gave the 
 name of the Nonsense Club, in which the fun of giggling 
 and making giggle was continued. There Cowper lived 
 till he reached the age of thirty-two, when a long- 
 expected sinecure, in the gift of his kinsman Major 
 Cowper, was ready for his occupancy. This was the 
 clerkship of the Journals of the House of Lords. 
 There wei'e two sinecures in Major Cowper's gift, and 
 it would seem that, through some indecision or change 
 of purpose on the poet's part, suspicion was aroused 
 about the nominee, and it was resolved that he should 
 be examined as to his competency before the bar of the 
 House of Lords. Cowper was horror-struck at the 
 prospect ; fiddled excitedly for some months with 
 preparations for the ordeal ; then on the day before 
 'attempted to commit suicide, and was found to be out 
 of his mind. It is idle to speculate upon the causes of 
 
134 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 this catastrophe. Madness is often puzzling to the most 
 skilful doctors, making enquiry at the time and in full 
 possession of minute circumstances that we desire in 
 vain to know in a historical case. Mere fright at a pub- 
 lic examination would not have driven Cowper mad if 
 he had had no predisposition to madness. But a small 
 circumstance may suffice to upset a man of nervous, sus- 
 ceptible, irresolute temperament, when his natural feeble- 
 ness of will has been increased by want of occupation,! 
 and his health deranged by want of exercise. The only j 
 premonitory symptoms of Cowper's madness is found in j 
 a poem, written nine years before the catastrophe (in 
 1754), in which he speaks of being driven to poetry 
 
 "to divert a fierce banditti 
 (Sworn foes to everything that's witty) 
 That with a black infernal train, 
 Make cruel inroads in my brain, 
 And daily threaten to drive thence 
 My little garrison of sense." 
 
 " The fierce banditti which I mean," he adds, " are 
 gloomy thoughts led on by spleen." The spleen in 
 those days was the supposed physical source of hj'po-j 
 chondria ; a melancholy and despondent person was said 
 to be suffering from the spleen. Matthew Green wrote 
 a poem on the spleen, and the banishment of its depress- 
 ing influence by wholesome laughter : 
 
 " To cure the mind's wrong bias, Spleen, 
 Some recommend the bowling-green ; 
 Some hilly walks ; all exercise ; 
 Fling but a stone, the giant dies. 
 
 " Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been 
 Extreme good doctors for the Spleen ; 
 And kitten, if the humour hit, 
 Has harlequiu'd away the fit. " 
 
 Unfortunately Cowper was too much frightened at the 
 prospect of appearing before the Lords to take the excel-! 
 
cowper's madness and recovery 135 
 
 lent advice of his favorite poet. lie was confined for 
 eighteen months in a lunatic asylum, where his reason 
 was restored, it would seem, by such a judicious regimen 
 as might have averted the malady if it had been employed 
 in time. 
 
 Cowper returned to sanity, strange to say, in a blaze 
 of religious rapture. His physician, Dr. Cotton, was a 
 pious man, a writer of hymns, and used to hold religious 
 conversations with his patients — an ill-advised thing, as 
 Mr. Gold win Smith remarks, if Cowper's madness had 
 been religious mania. In the poet's case religion was 
 not the malady, but an element in the cure. One morn- 
 ing in the summer of 1765, after a visit from his brother, 
 he rose with a new sense of health ; at breakfast on the 
 bright summer morning felt still better ; on a sudden 
 impulse took up the Bible, from which he had shrunk 
 in dull despair during his illness, and all in a moment 
 was filled with an ecstatic conviction that he had made 
 his peace with God and was again in his right mind. 
 In Cowper's tender, sensitive, dependent spirit, with an 
 imagination ever running swiftly toward intolerable 
 horrors, and a will much too feeble of its own strength 
 to arrest this tendency, the doctrines of Evangelical 
 Christianity found a congenial subject. It was one of 
 those instantaneous conversions which Wesley and his 
 disciples believed to be a moment in the history of every 
 true believer. The doctor was at first suspicious of this 
 sudden change in his patient, but his doubts were soon 
 removed. Cowper had really recovered, and found in 
 his ecstatic faith the stay and support that his depen- 
 dent spirit required. 
 
 It is doubtful whether the recovery would have been 
 permanent, — it was never permanent in the sense of being 
 securely fixed against accident, but it is doubtful whether 
 it would have been as permanent as it was, — had not a 
 ifortunate chance thrown him in the way of the Unwin 
 family when he was discharged from the asylum. Mrs. 
 
136 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 Unwin was a woman born to be the support of such a 
 man : gentle in her way, so as never to wound his 
 tenderly fastidious taste ; unaffectedly pious, so as to 
 comfort him in his doubts and fears, and confirm his 
 ecstasies with the sweetness of her sympathy ; yet with 
 all this of a cheerful temper, and always ready to laugh 
 with a hearty genuine ring at the sallies of his exuberant 
 humor. There never was a more perfect compatibility 
 of temper. Mr. Unwin was alive when they first met, 
 and the poet was admitted as a lodger into their par- 
 sonage ; but they continued to live together at Olney 
 after his death, Mrs. Unwin tending him and humoring 
 him with unfailing gentleness and self-sacrifice. There 
 was no thought of marriage between them ; their love 
 was not the love of lovers. Much has been written, and 
 not a little insinuated, about the relationship between 
 Cowper and Mrs. Unwin ; but I think Mrs. Oliphant is 
 right in her interpretation of the poet's character, that 
 he belonged to a class of men celibate by nature, born 
 to be dependent on the tender ministrations and affec- 
 tionate companionship of women, yet as near as may be 
 devoid of passion. Mrs. Unwin was seven years older 
 than the poet, and neither her son, with whom he cor- 
 responded, nor his relatives, who were greatly pleased 
 with the happiness he had found, seem ever to have 
 dreamed of regarding the gentle rescued lunatic as a 
 dangerous lover. 
 
 Much less fortunate for Cowper was his relationship! 
 with an overwhelming Evangelical enthusiast, Mr. New- 
 ton, the vicar of Olney, the converted captain of a 
 slaver. It was at his instance that Mrs. Unwin and the 
 poet settled at Olney, to be near him. He took posses- 
 sion of them after Mr. Unwin's death, and no priest ever 
 exercised authority with more arbitrary confidence. 
 Occupation was what Cowper wanted, and Mr. Newton 
 found him occupation in regular spiritual exercises, in 
 visiting the sick in body and in mind, and in writing: 
 
INFLUENCE OF MRS. UNWIN 137 
 
 hymns. For some time Cowper was happy in the voca- 
 tion thus found for him, but the strain was too much ; his 
 mind again gave way, and for five years he remained 
 moody, dejected, and full of capricious insane fancies. 
 Gentle Mrs. Unwin found for him during this period an 
 occupation in which he took a childish delight, making 
 chairs and tables for her, and cages, baskets, and hutches 
 for his pets, of whom he collected a great number about 
 him, having at one time "five rabbits, three hares, two 
 guinea-pigs, a magpie, a jay, and a starling ; besides 
 two goldfinches, two canary birds, and two dogs." 
 When the long fit passed off, Mr. Newton again set him 
 to work upon l^'inns, and the " Olney Hymns " were 
 published in 1779, fourteen years after the poet's first 
 recovery. 
 
 I mention this period to show you how long the poet 
 was in finding his true vocation — the employment in 
 which he enjoyed a full measure of happiness. " I never 
 received a little pleasure in my life," he once said ; " if 
 I am delighted, it is always in the extreme." His letters 
 show that under Newton's dictatorship he was often 
 happy, but it was by fits and starts. It was a fortunate 
 thing for him when this strenuous spiritual director left 
 Olney, and could overawe him only by letter. Not long 
 after his departure Mrs. Unwin, with her quiet pene- 
 trating insight, devised an employment for him in which 
 he found four years of unclouded happiness. She had 
 observed that he was never so completely drawn away 
 from himself as when he was writing, and in the 
 November of 1780 she suggested to him that he should 
 attempt a poem of some length, and gave him as a sub- 
 ject the " Progress of Error." The poet "was now in 
 his native element, not perfectly suited with a subject, 
 but still more at libert}^ to indulge his quick imagina- 
 tion than he could have been in the composition of 
 hymns. He set to his new employment with delight, 
 and produced in quick succession the " Progress of 
 
138 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 Error," "Table Talk," "Truth," "Expostulation," 
 " Hope," " Charity," " Conversation," and " Retirement." 
 Mr. Newton from a distance expressed doubts about the 
 new departure, but the poet pacified him with the idea 
 that his verses might be the means of attracting to the 
 true faith some whom the truth in its naked severity 
 was apt to repel. Wesley chose lively popular airs for 
 his hymns, on the principle that it was not well that the 
 devil should have all the best tunes ; and Newton 
 apparently tolerated Cowper's moral satires, as he called 
 them, from a similar motive. 
 
 The "Moral Satires" were published in 1782, and 
 were rather coldly received by the critics. It was 
 otherwise with his next publication, a work begun under 
 a different influence, an influence that was like a renew- 
 ing of the poet's youth. The casual reader who has 
 heard in a vague way of Cowper's relations with devoted 
 women generally coi^les Mrs. Unwin and Lady Austen 
 together as two pious Methodist ladies who sacrificed 
 themselves to cheer the gentle poet's melanchoh^. But 
 the two women were very different in character, and 
 the poet's acquaintance with the one had a very different 
 course from his acquaintance with the other. The one 
 by her patient, forbearing, sympathetic companionship 
 did most for his happiness ; the other in a brief angel's 
 visit did most for his reputation. Mrs. Unwin was his 
 household friend and slave for more than thirty years ; 
 Lady Austen was his gay and sparkling playfellow for 
 less than three. Lady Austen's settlement in Olney 
 was a bright interval in Cowper's long residence there, 
 which, with all his fitful Evangelical enthusiasm, he 
 could not help feeling to be a monotonous imprisonment 
 when he remembered the bustling variety of his ten 
 years' life in the Temple. He spoke of Olney after she 
 left, and after she awakened his memories of other days, 
 as a " moral Bastille." She was a woman of the world, 
 very different from the quiet Puritanic country clergy-! 
 
LADY AUSTEN'S INFLUENCE OTST COWPEE 139 
 
 man's wife ; the widow of a baronet, who had lived 
 much in Paris, handsome, vivacious, full of talk and 
 high spirits. "She is a lively, agreeable woman," Cow- 
 per wrote to Newton immediately after his first inter- 
 view with her — lie had chanced to see her shopping in 
 Olney with her sister, one of Mrs. Unwin's few intimates 
 in the place, and had requested Mrs. Unwin to ask her 
 to tea. " She has seen much of the world, and accounts 
 it a great simpleton, as it is. She laughs and makes 
 laugh, and keeps up a conversation without seeming to 
 labor at it." Lady Austen was charmed with the poet, 
 and the poet was charmed with Lady Austen. She 
 brought back to him breezy sketches of the world from 
 which he had so long been secluded. She romped with 
 the playful old boy of fifty, playing battledore and 
 shuttlecock with him, while Mrs. Unwin played on the 
 harpsichord. She told him diverting stories, among 
 others the adventure of John Gilpin, which kept him 
 awake with laughter for a whole night, and for which he 
 rewarded her by turning it into verse. But above all,, 
 his " Moral Satires " being now completed and published, 
 she suggested to him that he should write a poem in 
 blank verse, and when he asked her for a subject, 
 laughingly named the sofa on which she sat. This was 
 the origin of the series of poems called the "Task," 
 composed in a much gayer and more discursive mood 
 than the " Moral Satires." 
 
 -I It was the " Task " that made Cowper's reputation, 
 *and it was inspired by a revival, under Lady Austen's 
 companionship, of that more mundane spirit to which 
 ihe had long been a stranger. This alone would make it 
 worth while to look back and see what his writing was 
 like while he was still a young " buck," as the phrase 
 then went, living in chambers in the Temple, and gig- 
 gling and making giggle at his uncle's house in South- 
 ampton Row. We have seen what the Methodist spirit 
 ilid for him. It inspired the " Olney Hymns" and the 
 
140 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 " Moral Satires," and neither of these performances 
 made the great world outside the Evangelical circle feel 
 that a new poet had arisen in England. This achieve- 
 ment was reserved for the " Task," written during the 
 temporary resuscitation of a half -disused way of look- 
 ing at the world, written in a gayer mood, and therefore 
 it is of interest to look at the tone and style of Cowper's 
 first writing, before he came under Methodist influence. 
 Cowper contributed three papers to the Connois- 
 seitr, in March, April, and May, 1756, Nos. Ill, 115, 119. 
 If we did not know that they were Cowper's, they 
 would strike us as extremely clever and idiomaticalty 
 written imitations of Addison, the great exemplar of 
 periodical essayists at the time. Knowing that they are 
 Cowper's, and induced thereby to scrutinize them more 
 closely, we have no difficulty in detecting the peculiar 
 note of playfully extravagant humor with which we are 
 familiar in the " Task." The first of the papers is an 
 absurd description of "the delicate Billy Suckling, the 
 contempt of the men, the jest of the women, and the 
 darling of his mamma " — a picture of an impossible 
 young milksop who fancies himself a buck. Neither 
 then nor afterward was Cowper capable of drawing 
 human character from life ; his uncontrollable sense of 
 fun pushed him into comic exaggerations that seem 
 rather silly to people less easily tickled. The fun of the 
 second paper, a letter from an old bachelor, Christopher 
 Ironside, describing his persecution by young ladies, is 
 equally extreme, but not so obvious ; and may, perhaps, 
 be taken as throwing some light on the kind of romp- 
 ing that went on between Cowper and his cousins in 
 Southampton Row : 
 
 "The female part of my acquaintance entertain an odd opinion 
 that a Bachelor is not in fact a rational creature ; at least, that lie 
 has not the sense of feelin»' in common with the rest of mankind ; 
 that a Bachelor may be beaten like a stockfish ; that you may 
 thrust pins into his legs, and wring him by the nose ; in short, I 
 
LETTER PROM AN OLD BACHELOR 141 
 
 that you cannot take too many liberties with a Bachelor. I am 
 at a loss to conceive on what foundation these romping philoso- 
 phers have grounded their hypothesis, though at the same time 
 I am a melancholy proof of its existence, as well as of its ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 " A friend of mine, whom I frequently visit, has a wife and 
 three daughters, the youngest of which has persecuted me these 
 ten years. These ingenious young ladies have not only found out 
 the sole end and purpose of my being themselves, but have 
 likewise communicated their discovery to all the girls in the 
 iteighbourhood ; so that if they happen at any time to be apprised 
 of my coming (which I take all possible care to prevent) they 
 immediately despatch half a dozen cards to their faithful allies, 
 to beg the favour of their company to drink coffee and help tease 
 Mr. Ironside. Upon these occasions my entry into the room is 
 sometimes obstructed by a cord, fastened across the bottom of the 
 door-case ; which, as I am a little near-sighted, I seldom discover 
 till it has brought me on my knees before them. While I am 
 employed in brushing the dust from my black rollers, or chafing 
 my broken shins, my wig is suddenly conveyed away." 
 
 In the last of these papers there are comic descriptions 
 of the behavior of various characters when in possession 
 of a secret — all in the same strain of simple, childlike 
 exaggeration. At this period Cowper scribbled a great 
 deal more than he printed. These three papers in the 
 Connoisseur are specimens of the early practice by 
 which he acquired the mastery of comic description 
 that appears occasionally in the " Task " — the abundance 
 of detail, and the felicity of phrase. It was in writing 
 prose essays and prose letters that Cowper acquired 
 the copious, easy, familiar diction that entitles him to 
 rank with poetic reformers. Cowper is often referred 
 to as an example of a man whose fancy and imagination 
 blossomed late in life, because he was fifty before he 
 acquired reputation as a poet. That a man much tried 
 by physical suffering should, in the evening of his days, 
 take up his pen and write poetry with a serious purpose, 
 trying thereby to catch trifles which could not be 
 caught in any other way, has a look as of inspiration. 
 
142 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 This, no doubt, has contributed to perpetuate the delu- 
 sion. But it will not bear examination. Cowper not 
 only wrote prose with exquisite grace and skill in his 
 youth, but his manner as a verse-writer was also fully 
 formed before he was thirty. At the age of seventeen 
 he wrote some work, — heroic blank verse in imitation of 
 Philips's " Splendid Shilling," — that shows, even in the 
 opinion of Southey, the same character as the blank 
 verse of the "Task," written when he was more than 
 fifty. That he read little poetiy, in fact, confined his 
 reading to Milton after his first attack of madness, is 
 unduly insisted on, if the meaning is to prove that his 
 poetry came fresh out of a mind unacquainted with 
 what had been done before, and consequently having 
 no relation with preceding literature. It must be re- 
 membered that Cowper was thirty-two before madness 
 first overtook him, and that all through his early 
 manhood he led a life of perfect leisure, his only 
 employment being to read and write for his own 
 amusement. 
 
 Very soon after the " Task " was completed Cowper 
 lost the pleasant company of the "fair" who had 
 " commanded " it. A certain mystery hangs over the 
 cause of Lady Austen's sudden departure from Olney. 
 There was obviously some disturbance in the harmony 
 of the happy family, and there has been much specula- 
 tion as to the cause. " What else was to be expected ? " 
 many people ask. Mrs. Unwin naturally became jealous 
 of Cowper's attentions to her gay and fashionable rival, 
 and he, having to choose between them, was bound in 
 honor to stand by his lifelong companion and nurse. 
 No other result was to be expected when two women 
 were attached to one man. This is the easiest explana- 
 tion, but it has the defect of not suiting what we know 
 of the characters of the three persons concerned. 
 Strange to say, or rather it would be strange to say if 
 we were not aware of the extent to which men of repu- 
 
LADY AUSTEN LEAVES OLXEY 143 
 
 tation are idolized, nobody has thought of putting any 
 of the blame on the poet, if blame there was in the mat- 
 ter. The rupture must have been brought about either 
 by Lady Austen's grasping eagerness to have more 
 than her fair share of the poet's attentions, or by Mrs. 
 Unwin's unreasonable jealousy. It seems to me much 
 more likely that the coolness which led to Lady Austen's 
 departure arose between Cowper and herself, and that 
 the long-suffering, patient Mrs. Unwin had nothing to 
 do with it ; that it was not strained relations between 
 the two ladies, but strained relations between one of 
 them and the poet, that broke up the alliance. Whether 
 Lady Austen was in love with Cowper or not is a ques- 
 tion we have no means of deciding. It is not unlikely. 
 Men incapable of feeling passion themselves may not be 
 incapable of inspiring passion in others. Lad}^ Austen 
 afterward married a Frenchman of letters, M. de Tardiff, 
 and Cowper, though much older than her, being fifty 
 when she made his acquaintance, besides being a poet, 
 had a boyish playfulness of temper and a quickness of 
 wit not without their charm. Whether in love with him 
 or not, Lady Austen certainly sought his society, though 
 a great liking for the ministrations of Mr. Scott, the 
 curate, was her ostensible reason for taking a house in 
 Olney. Now, Cowper, though gentle, affectionate, and 
 playful, would seem to have had his full share of the 
 invalid's fretful, exacting, and capricious selfishness, 
 and it is quite conceivable that Lady Austen, by no 
 means so patient and self-denying a woman as Mrs. 
 Unwin, may simply have tired of his exactions and 
 caprices. If we read between the lines of one of his 
 letters to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, this explanation is 
 almost forced upon us. " On her first settlement in our 
 neighborhood," Cowper writes, " I made it my own 
 particular business (for at that time I was not employed 
 in writing, having published my first volume and not 
 begun my second) to pay my devoirs to her ladyship 
 
144 THE NEW POETRY 
 
 every morning at eleven. Customs very soon become 
 laws. I began the ' Task,' for she was the lady who 
 gave me the Sofa for a subject. Being once engaged 
 in the work, I began to feel the inconvenience of my 
 morning attendance. We had seldom breakfasted our- 
 selves till ten ; and the intervening hour was all the 
 time I could find in the whole day for writing, and oc- 
 casionally it would happen that the half of that hour was 
 all that I could secure for the purpose. But there was 
 no remedy. Long usage had made that which was at first 
 optional a point of good-manners, and consequently of 
 necessity, and I was forced to neglect the ' Task ' to at- 
 tend upon the Muse who had inspired the subject. But 
 she had ill health, and before I had quite finished the 
 work was obliged to repair to Bristol." The sprightly 
 Muse, with all her stability of temper, sense of religion, 
 and seriousness of mind, must soon have become disa- 
 greeably conscious of the difference between the forced 
 attendance of a wayward and irritable invalid with his 
 thoughts elsewhere, and the effusive camaraderie with 
 which he sought her company in the bright days of 
 their first companionship. 
 
 " O Love ! it is a pleasant thing 
 A little time, while it is new." 
 
 Mrs. Unwin might not have resented the change, but 
 Lady Austen was not Mrs. Unwin, and she " repaired 
 to Bristol." We might have understood the cause of 
 the separation better if the lady had kept Cowper's 
 letter of farewell, but she was so dissatisfied with it 
 that she threw it in the fire — tempted, perhaps, for once 
 in her life, to believe that Methodism was cant. Lady 
 Austen was too exacting, or Cowper was too exacting ; 
 anyhow, they could not get on together — any explana- 
 tion you please except that Mrs. Unwin was jealous. 
 To entertain this explanation for a moment is to commit 
 
LADY AUSTEN LEAVES OLNEY 145 
 
 the most senseless outrage on the memory of a gentle, 
 gelf-denying woman who bore with all the crazy poet's 
 selfish whims and caprices, and watched over him with 
 more than a mother's love till her own mind gave way 
 under the strain. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SCOTTISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 THE ELEVATION OF A DIALECT INTO A LITERARY LANGUAGE- 
 INFLUENCE OF OLD BALLADS — WATSON'S "COLLECTION " — ALLAN 
 RAMSAY — THE EASY CLUB — "THE GENTLE SHEPHERD" — 
 SONG- WRITERS — SKINNER, ETC. — FERGUSSON — BURNS 
 
 If the eighteenth century was a comparatively barren 
 period in English poetry, it was otherwise in Scotch 
 poetry. It Avitnessed in Scotland an extraordinary 
 phenomenon, the elevation of a dialect by the genius of 
 one man to a place among literary languages. 
 
 People have almost ceased wondering that a ploughman 
 should have proved himself capable of great work in 
 literature, but it is still customary to speak of Burns as 
 an uneducated man. Now, we may lay it down as an 
 axiom that, whenever a man does great work of any 
 kind, he has been specially educated for it, if not by the 
 deliberate care of parents or his own deliberate choice, 
 by a still greater school-master, Accident. When we 
 find any apparent exception to this rule, we may be sure 
 that there is something wrong with our conception of 
 education. Burns is an apparent exception only when 
 we take education to mean instruction in school and 
 college. But this course of instruction has never yet 
 been in our country a literary education, an education 
 for the man of letters. It has been at best but an 
 education for certain professions and for a scholarly 
 career. Neither school nor college, as they were in the 
 days of Burns, could have contributed one iota to his 
 efficiency as a poet. For his work as a poet he had 
 received from early youth the best possible education. 
 
 146 
 
SCOTTISH POETRY BEFORE BURNS 147 
 
 I mean as regards the purely technical or literary quali- 
 ties of his verse. As regards the feelings that he 
 expressed, the character that is reflected in his poetry, 
 though the feelings are in the main healthy and the 
 character in the main noble, we may think that circum- 
 stances might have been a more perfect school-master. 
 But his literary education was as perfect as could be 
 desired. What a poet above all needs is an easy com- 
 mand of the language in which he writes, and the early 
 training of Burns was excellently fitted to give him 
 this. 
 
 For two generations before Burns wrote there had 
 been throughout Scotland an unbounded enthusiasm for 
 song-writing in the native dialect. The movement 
 began early in the century among a knot of idle lairds, 
 younger sons, and Writers to the Signet in Edinburgh ; 
 but in the course of a very short time it became universal 
 throughout the country. Men and women of all ranks 
 took part in it, from the bold, black-eyed, lucky Isabel 
 Pagan, who kept an alehouse in Ayrshire, to the accom- 
 plished Lady Anne Lindsay, daughter of the Earl of 
 Balcarres. Judges of the Court of Session, scions of 
 noble houses, ministers, farmers, gardeners, shepherds — 
 no one thought himself too high to condescend or too 
 humble to aspire. All were ambitious of trying their 
 hand at a rhyme in the vernacular. There is no example 
 in history of a literary movement so widely diffused, 
 perhaps because up to that time there had been no 
 example of a whole people through all its ranks educated 
 to read and write. Miscellany after miscellany poured 
 from the press collecting the effusions of the wonderfully 
 miscellaneous herd of writers ; and these collections 
 were conned in moorland bothies and kitchen firesides 
 as ardently as in libraries and drawing-rooms. It was 
 in this school that Burns received the literary education 
 that fitted him for his work in life. He was nourished 
 on two generations of poetry ; taught by its mistakes, 
 
148 SCOTTISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 warned by its affectations, inspired by its enthusiasms, 
 stimulated by its successes. He had a large body of 
 literature before him in the same kind that he attempted ; 
 in this he was steeped to the lips. But how was the 
 unlettered ploughman to distinguish between good and 
 bad ? In this his own strong sense, clearness of insight, 
 and warm passionate nature kept him right. He applied 
 with merciless, unfaltering severity one touchstone, — 
 commonplace enough, in words at least, to the critics of 
 the time, — truth to nature. Pope's praise of Nature : 
 
 "Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, 
 One clear, unchanged, and universal light, 
 Life, force, and beauty must to all impart 
 At once the source and end and test of Art " — 
 
 a eulogy that Burns had by heart — was accepted and 
 applied by him to the letter. And in applying this test 
 of truth to Nature to enable him to distinguish between 
 good and bad, genuine and affected, in the work of his 
 predecessors, and to guide him in the execution of his 
 own, the peasant had a decided advantage over men of 
 higher social rank, because the nature that the Scotch 
 poets of the eighteenth century sought to interpret was 
 rustic nature. It was no wonder that a ploughman 
 bore off the laurel crown from all competitors in this 
 keen race for poetic fame. Who but a real country 
 swain was to be expected to be supreme in pastoral 
 lyrics? The songs of Burns would have been much 
 more miraculous if he had been any thing but a plough- 
 man. 
 
 Akin to the vulgar error of wondering at Burns as 
 an uneducated poet is the error of regarding Scotch 
 vernacular poetry as purely indigenous, a growth out of 
 the hearts of the people, gradually perfecting itself and 
 taking shape unaffected by any influence from without. 
 Between the reigns of James VI. and Queen Anne there 
 was no poetry of note written in Lowland Scotch. It 
 
REVIVAL OF SCOTTISH POETRY 149 
 
 had its roll of distinguished names while the Jameses 
 reigned in Scotland — the first James himself, Henryson, 
 Dunbar, Lindsay, Montgomery ; but it ceased to be a 
 literary language when the Court was removed from 
 Holyrood. The poets went with the Court ; the sing- 
 ing birds with the hands that caressed and fed them, 
 the hearts that were cheered and the fancies that were 
 humored with their songs. For a hundred years the 
 Muse of Scotland was mute. Immediately after the 
 union of the kingdoms there was a revival of poetry in 
 the Lowland Scotch. That this revival was fostered 
 by the growing prosperity of the country, and the rise 
 of a new class of wealthy patrons, is highly probable ; 
 but it is a very common opinion that the new growth 
 of fancy and imagination which these men encouraged 
 was entirely spontaneous, uninfluenced either by the 
 earlier Scotch poetry or by the poetry of the southern 
 centre of civilization ; that it was the offspring of the 
 teeming fancies of unsophisticated men, innocent of 
 any literature but the Bible and the Shorter Catechism. 
 The error is natural enough, if we think of the 
 Scotch poetry of the eighteenth century as peasant 
 poetry, written by peasants for peasants, artless jets of 
 song, most of them rude, imperfect, disfigured by make- 
 weight epithets and make-shift rhymes, an irregular and 
 uneven stretch of poetry, redeemed from ephemeral 
 insignificance only by the semi-miraculous genius of 
 one of the peasant poets. None the less is it an error 
 to regard this poetry as of entirely spontaneous genera- 
 tion. If it is worth writing about, it is worth enquiring 
 into ; and when we enquire closely into its beginning, 
 we see that, like all the literary growths, it had its seed- 
 time as well as its harvest. The seeds of the new poetic 
 vegetation which so rapidly overspread the country 
 came from the old Scotch poetry of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, and as it grew slips were grafted on it from plants 
 that were flourishing at the time in the poetic gardens 
 
150 SCOTTISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 of England. In plain language, poetry was revived in 
 Scotland by reprints of the old Scotch poetry, and the 
 new Scotch poets studied the English poets and critics. 
 and in the first instance at least translated into theii 
 vernacular and applied to their own circumstances the 
 ideas that they found in their approved masters. The 
 truth is that the peasant poetry of Scotland, so far 
 from being spontaneous in the sense of being uncon- 
 ditioned by previous literature, is one of the few- 
 unambiguous and decided examples of the influence of 
 critical ideas on creative literature. 
 
 The leader of the poetic revival in Scotland was Allan 
 Ramsay, but the work that marks the beginning of 
 better da} r s was Watson's " Collection of Choice Scots 
 Songs, Ancient and Modern," published in 1706, when 
 Ramsay was a young man of twenty. He had been 
 bred in the country, or near Hopetoun Mines in Lanark- 
 shire, of which his father was manager ; but his father 
 dying when he was a child, and his mother marrying 
 again, he had been sent to Edinburgh at the age of 
 fifteen, and apprenticed to a wigmaker. Watson's 
 " Collection " was the first poetry lie read. He was 
 charmed with it ; took to repeating snatches of it ; and 
 from humming it over began to feel an impulse to 
 make verses himself. It Mas- thus that the ingenious 
 wigmaker received his first impetus : 
 
 " Then emulation did me pierce, 
 Whilk ne'er since ceased." 
 
 Soon after chance threw him in the way of more i 
 learned amateurs, and brought him into the full stream 
 of Queen Anne literary influences. There were modern 
 as well as ancient poems in Watson's "Collection." 
 Among the ancient pieces were Dunbar's " Thistle and 
 Rose," and the humorous poem of which the author- 
 ship is disputed between James I. and James V., 
 f * Christ's Kirk on the Green." Among the modern 
 
RAMSAY AND THE EASY CLUB 151 
 
 contributors was William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, the 
 "Willie " who, according to the song, was a " wanton 
 wag," a roistering young Jacobite lieutenant, who 
 formed himself apparently on the poetic ideal of the 
 Restoration — a Scotch Etherege or Rochester. The 
 young wigmaker made his acquaintance, probably in 
 the way of business ; but on the basis of their common 
 interest in poetry the acquaintance became more inti- 
 mate, and Ramsay was admitted a member of a club to 
 which Hamilton belonged along with other choice spirits 
 of literary leanings and Jacobite political faith. The 
 fact that Ramsay, though his family had come down in 
 the world, could ti'ace his descent from a younger son 
 of an Earl of Dalhousie probably helped, along with his 
 social and poetic gifts, to secure him admission to this 
 Easy Club, as it was called. That the Easy Club, which 
 was broken up by the Rebellion of 1715, had a literary 
 as well as a political basis is shown by the circumstance 
 that the members of it assumed fancy literary names ; 
 and the bent of Ramsay's literary homage at the time is 
 indicated by his choice for himself of the name of Isaac 
 Bickerstaff, then famous as Steele's pseudonym in the 
 Taller. Ramsay made himself so popular in the Easy 
 Club that he was appointed its Poet-Laureate, and by a 
 formal minute adjudged "a gentleman." 
 
 Through these Jacobite gentlemen, Ramsay's friends 
 and patrons of the Easy Club, with leanings to the good 
 old times of the Stuarts, and a disposition to scoff at 
 Puritans as their natural and hereditary enemies, the 
 spirit of the Restoration passed into the peasant poetry of 
 Scotland to do battle with the austere spirit of the Kirk. 
 It is a striking illustration of the vitality of ideas and 
 their directive power over conduct that the Cavalier 
 ideal, transmitted through Ramsay, took possession of 
 the warm temperament of Burns, and worked out in 
 him the incontinent irregularities that made shipwreck 
 of his life. Ramsay himself was too cool of temper to 
 
152 SCOTTISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 be made a victim in like manner ; convivial, quick- 
 witted, libertine enough in theory, a welcome guest at 
 the drinking-bouts then fashionable, ever ready to help 
 in driving dull care away with a jest or a song, he was 
 yet sufficiently master of himself to combine poetry 
 with an eye to business. He prospered as a wigmaker ; 
 he set up as a bookseller ; he published two poetical 
 miscellanies by which he made some money. He had 
 none of Burns's overscrupulous and fantastic objection 
 to taking pa}'ment for his songs ; he published them in 
 broad sheets as he wrote them ; and it is said to have 
 been a custom with the good wives of Edinburgh to 
 send one of their children with a penny for Allan 
 Ramsay's latest. " Renowned Allan, canty callan," was 
 described by a sour critic as a "convivial buffoon"; 
 but, though he ruined himself late in life by building a 
 theatre which the magistrates would not allow him to 
 open, he was, like his contemporary Pope, a good man 
 of business. Ramsay's own conduct was not mastered 
 by the ideal of reckless generosity and self-indulgence 
 to which he gave expression in his poems ; but none the 
 less he had great influence in connecting poetry with 
 ostentatious and swaggering profligacy in the minds of 
 the peasant poets of Scotland. 
 
 The pleasure loving side of Ramsa3 r 's temperament 
 was encouraged and expanded by his connection with 
 the Eas}' Club ; and it was in this connection also that 
 in all probability he received the suggestion of the work 
 that is his only enduring title to fame — " The Gentle 
 Shepherd." We have no positive evidence that he con- 
 ceived fully the idea of writing such a work at this 
 time — the memoirs of his life are exceedingly scanty ; 
 but it is all but certain that he was at this time put on 
 the road that led him to this pastoral poem — the first 
 genuine pastoral poem that had appeared in European 
 literature between the time of Theocritus, in the third 
 century b. c, to the eighteenth century. This conclu- 
 
ARTICLES IN THE " GUARDIAN " 153 
 
 sion is irresistible when we look at the chief events in 
 English literature during the three years of Ramsa} r 's 
 membership of the Easy Club. He was a member of 
 the Club from 1712 to 1715. The kind of poetry that 
 was most in vogue at the time was pastoral poetry. 
 We have already seen how general had been the discus- 
 sion of this kind of poetry for some years. During the 
 existence of the Easy Club interest in the topic had 
 received a fresh stimulus from the publication of Pope's 
 " Windsor Forest," and Ambrose Pliilips's " Pastorals." 
 For the purpose of puffing Philips and depreciating 
 Pope there was a series of articles on Pastoral Poetry 
 in the Guardian which doubtless were read by Isaac 
 Bickerstaff's double in the Easy Club. Every-body 
 who had any pretension to literary fashion read Steele 
 and Addison's periodicals, and the members of the Easy 
 Club were keen and ardent amateurs of poetry, not a 
 little self-conscious of poetic ambition. To puff Philips 
 and depreciate Pope was the prime purpose of these 
 articles in the Guardian, and this purpose was cleverly 
 defeated by the stratagem of the poet whose reputation 
 was in danger ; but unintentionally and by the way the 
 articles served a more important purpose — namely, 
 guiding Allan Ramsay into a kind of poetry exactly 
 suited to his talents. One of the papers in the Guardian 
 reads now like a recipe for Allan Ramsay's great pas- 
 toral ; " The Gentle Shepherd " might be said to have 
 been made from it as from a prescription, so exactly 
 in the scheme and accessories does the poet follow the 
 advice of the critic. " Paint the manners of natural 
 rustic life," said the critic to the poet, " not the man- 
 ners of artificial shepherds and shepherdesses in a ficti- 
 tious golden age ; use actual rustic dialect ; instead of 
 satyrs and fauns and nymphs, introduce the supernatural 
 creatures of modern superstition." This is what the 
 essayist in the Guardian advised, and what Ramsay 
 with happily appropriate genius did. I know no other 
 
154 SCOTTISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 instance in literature where a poet has carried out the 
 ideas of a critic so perfectly. Ramsay pottered for a 
 little with pastoral dialogues of the old artificial school, 
 in which he made Steele and Pope discourse in the 
 character of shepherds about the deaths of Addison and 
 Prior — a fancy rendered all the more absurd by his mak- 
 ing these two shepherds discourse in the Scotch dialect. 
 But he soon abandoned these affectations, and produced 
 his drama of real rustic life in 1*725. Its repute was 
 instantaneous and widespread. Edition after edition 
 was produced; it was said that " The Gentle Shepherd " 
 was almost as common a book in the houses of the 
 Scotch peasantry as the Bible. Amateur companies 
 were organized in country parishes to act it. Even to 
 this day, it is said, such companies exist and perform 
 occasionally in the south of Scotland. The fame of 
 " The Gentle Shepherd " spread beyond Scotland ; it 
 probably furnished the hint of "The Beggar's Opera " to 
 Gay ; so that if Ramsay owed something to the critical 
 ideas of his English contemporaries, he may be said to 
 have repaid the debt. 
 
 The songs interspersed through " The Gentle Shep- 
 herd," which is rather an operetta than a drama, are 
 not the best part of it. I cannot say that I think 
 highly of Ramsay's gifts as a song-writer. His 
 genius was not lyrical. His songs, even the best 
 'of them, strike me as smirking and affected, entirely 
 destitute of genuine l} r ric rapture. We have only to 
 place his " Auld Lang Syne," or his " Nanny O," by 
 the side of Burns's words to the same airs to feel 
 how empty they are of lyric sincerity and force, how 
 artificially, mechanically, and laboriously they have 
 been put together. 
 
 " How joyfully my spirits rise, 
 When dancing she moves finely — ; 
 I guess what heaven is by her eyes, 
 Which sparkle so divinely — O. 
 
ramsay's lack of the lyric art 155 
 
 Attend my vow, ye gods, while I 
 Breathe in the bless'd Britannia, 
 None's happiness I shall envy, 
 As long's ye grant me Nanny — O." 
 
 — Ramsay. 
 
 "Her face is fair, her heart is true, 
 As spotless as she's bonny — O; 
 The opening gowan, wat wi' dew, 
 Nae fairer is than Nanny — O. 
 Come weel, come woe, I care na by, 
 I'll tak' wliat Heaven will sen' me, O; 
 Nae ither care in life have I 
 But live and love my Nanny — O ! " 
 
 — Burns. 
 
 The inferiority of Ramsay is still more manifest 
 when we look at his " Auld Lang S} 7 ne." The opening 
 lines have a ring of insincerity that pervades the whole 
 song : 
 
 " Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 Tho' they return with scars ? 
 These are the noble hero's lot, 
 
 Obtained in glorious wars. 
 Welcome, my Varo, to my breast, 
 
 Thy arms about me twine, 
 And make me once again as blest 
 
 As I was lang syne." 
 
 There are two lines in Ramsay's " Farewell to Lochaber " 
 that seem to be conclusive against his claim to a respect- 
 able place among song-writers. A soldier bidding fare- 
 well to his sweetheart is a well-chosen lyrical theme ; 
 Ramsay had abundance of poetical intelligence, and is 
 often liappy in his choice of themes. And the opening 
 lines, when sung to the beautiful air, are undeniably 
 simple and touching : 
 
 "Fareweel to Lochaber, fareweel to my Jean, 
 Where heartsome wi' thee I hae mony days been." 
 
156 SCOTTISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 But presently come the two lines which strike an ab- 
 surdly false note, and turn the plaintive soldier into a 
 burlesque impostor : 
 
 ' ' These tears that I shed they are a' for my dear, 
 And no for the dangers attending on weir." 
 
 Fancy a departing soldier explaining that he weeps not 
 because he is afraid of the enemy, but because he is 
 sorry to leave his sweetheart ! Qui s'excuse, s'accuse. 
 The girl, if she had a particle of spirit, would have 
 laughed, and set him down at once as a transparent 
 humbug. No man capable of writing a good song with 
 any deep sentiment or passion in it could have passed 
 such a preposterous insincerity as that. No; " renowned 
 Allan, canty callan," had not the lyric gift. His strength 
 lay in humorous description and portraiture ; in arch, 
 sly, " pawky" fun. The portrait of him by his son is a 
 speaking likeness of the poet as we know him through 
 his works ; it is a keen, slyly humorous face, the face of 
 a man with a quick sense of the ridiculous, and a firm 
 touch in the exhibition of what amuses him, but it is 
 not the face of a lyric poet. 
 
 If we except the songs, which, as I have said, are of 
 rather unequal merit, we cannot but admire the manner 
 in which Ramsay embodied the idea so casually sug- 
 gested by the English critic. As is usually the case in 
 such matters, several places are claimants for the honor 
 of being the scene of the poem, but probably Newhall 
 in Peeblesshire conforms most to the poetic descriptions. 
 The plot is slender, but not more so than we should 
 expect in such an operetta, and the scenes are connected 
 with no little dramatic skill. The bulk of the story nar- 
 rates the pastoral loves of Roger and Jenn}', and of 
 Patie, the Gentle Shepherd, and Peggy, a shepherd's 
 niece. Sir William Worthy, a somewhat priggish but 
 not unamiable knight, is the presiding genius ; in Patie 
 he recognizes his son, and in Peggy his niece, and the 
 
"the gentle shepherd" 157 
 
 faithful lovers receive his blessing. Bauldy, Madge, 
 and Mause supply what comic element there is, but the 
 humor is of a quiet, subdued order, never approaching 
 the rollicking fun of Burns. The light, bantering con- 
 versation between Peggy and Jenny is admirably done, 
 and the spirited eulogy of Patie by his sweetheart is a 
 good example of the style of language that Ramsay con- 
 sidered most suited to a Scottish pastoral : 
 
 " Sic coarse-spun thoughts as thae want pith to move 
 My settled mind, I'm o'er far gane in love. 
 Patie to me is dearer than my breath ; 
 But want of him I dread nae other skaith. 
 There's nane of a' the herds that tread the green 
 Has sic a smile, or sic twa glancing een. 
 And then he speaks with sic a taking art. 
 His words they thirle like musick thro' my heart. 
 How blythly can he sport, and gently rave, 
 And jest at feckless fears that fright the lave! 
 Ilk day that he's alane upon the hill, 
 He reads fell books that teach him meikle skill. 
 He is — but what need I say that or this ? 
 I'd spend a mouth to tell you what he is ! 
 In a' he says or does there's sic a gait, 
 The rest seem coofs compar'd to my dear Pate. 
 His better sense will lang his love secure ! 
 Ill nature hefts in sauls that's weak and poor." 
 
 In a prologue for " The Gentle Shepherd " on the occa- 
 sion of one of its presentations on the stage the poet 
 declared : 
 
 " Tho' they're but Shepherds that we're now to act 
 Yet, gentle audience, we'd not ha' ye mistake 
 And think your entertainment will be rude. 
 Most men and all the ladys think it good ; 
 Our Pastoral Author thinks so too, but fears 
 The diction may offend some nicer ears. 
 This we regard not, therefore will proceed 
 To act the blithsome life that shepherds lead." 
 
 Now, it is just this fact, that Allan Ramsay did not 
 "regard" those "nicer ears," that constitutes his main 
 
158 SCOTTISH POETRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 literary importance. He is worthy to be called the 
 pioneer of Burns, because he had the sense and ability 
 to combat victoriously the theory of men like Beattie, 
 who held that the Scottish language was incapable of 
 being made the vehicle of literary expression. 
 
 Half a century elapsed between the publication of 
 "The Gentle Shepherd "and the boyhood of Burns, and 
 meantime the impulse given by Ramsay and the inge- 
 nious gentlemen and ladies who co-operated with him in 
 his publications had diffused itself all over the country. 
 We had our group of singers here in the North : George 
 Halket, the author of "Logie o' Buchan"; Alexander 
 Ross, the author of the "Fortunate Shepherdess"; 
 Priest Gedcles, author of " Lewie Gordon " and the 
 "Wee Wifiekie"; and greatest of them all, indeed, one 
 of the greatest of Scotch song-writers, John Skinner, 
 the author of "Tullochgorum," and the "Ewie wi' the 
 Crookit Horn." In " Tullochgorum," especially, there 
 is a wonderful rapidity and spirit in its music — an 
 indefinable something that manifestly proclaims Skinner 
 to be the fellow-countryman of William Dunbar and 
 Burns : 
 
 " What needs there be sae great a f raise 
 Wi' dringing dull Italian lays ? 
 I wadna gie our ain Strathspeys 
 
 For half a hunder score o' 'em. 
 They're dowf and dowie at the best ; 
 
 Dowf and dowie, dowf and dowie, 
 
 Dowf and dowie at the best, 
 Wi' a' their variorum ; 
 They're dowf and dowie at the best, 
 Their allegros and a' the rest ; 
 They canna please a Scottish taste, 
 
 Compar'd wi' Tullochgorum." 
 
 These are lines that, both for their music and their sen- 
 timent, were likely to appeal to Burns, and it is no sur- 
 prise, therefore, to find Burns writing words so laudatory 
 
POETICAL ASPIRATIONS OF BURNS 159 
 
 as these : " I regret, and while I live I shall regret, that, 
 when I was in the North, I had not the pleasure of 
 paying a younger brother's dutiful respect to the author 
 of the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw — ' Tulloch- 
 gorura's my delight.' There is a certain something in 
 the old Scotch songs, a wild happiness of thought and 
 expression, which peculiarly marks them, not only from 
 English songs, but also from the modern efforts of song- 
 wrights in our native manner and language. The only 
 remains of this enchantment, these spells of the imagina- 
 tion, rest with you." 
 
 It is remarkable that the Northern song-writers were 
 all educated men, — in the popular sense of the word 
 educated, — school-masters and clergymen. In the south 
 of Scotland poetic ambition was more universal. Then 
 the middle years of the eighteenth witnessed something 
 like the palmy days of the Troubadours of Provence in 
 the thirteenth century, when every hamlet had its 
 laureate. We cannot wonder that the genius of Burns 
 should have been excited by such surroundings, and 
 that very early in life falling in love, and knowing of 
 neighboring bards who addressed verses to the objects 
 of their affections, he was moved by an ambition to 
 show that he also was a song-writer. Thousands of 
 little bards at that time limited their aspirations to fame 
 within the parishes in which they were born. That the 
 ambition of Burns took a wider range was due partly to 
 the masterful strength of his nature — that, of course, is 
 an indispensable condition of wide-reaching ambition ; 
 but partly also to peculiar circumstances in his life that 
 fostered his ambition and kept it from being quenched 
 in his hard struggle for bare existence as the son of a poor 
 farmer. Where other young men in his rank of life, like 
 young men with a turn for versification in higher ranks 
 of life, were eager only to gain the admiration of the 
 women, and establish a reputation for cleverness with 
 the men among whom they were born, Burns from a 
 
1G0 SCOTTISH POETEY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 very early period aspired to make the streams of his 
 native country as famous as the classic Ilissus and the 
 silver-winding Thames : 
 
 "E'en then a wish, I mind its power, 
 A wish that to its latest hour 
 
 Shall strongly heave my breast ; 
 That I for poor auld Scotland's sake, 
 Some useful plan or book could make, 
 
 Or sing a sang at least ;" 
 
 and again in a poem showing more definitely the latitude 
 of his ambition : 
 
 " Ramsay and famous Fergusson 
 Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon ; 
 Yarrow and Tweed, to monie a tune, 
 
 Owre Scotland rings ; 
 While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon, 
 
 Naebody sings. 
 
 " Th' Ilissus, Tiber, Thames, and Seine, 
 Glide sweet in monie a tunef u' line ; 
 But, Willie, set your fit to mine, 
 
 And cock your crest, 
 We'll gar our streams and burnies shine 
 
 Up wi' the best ! " 
 
 And the natural greatness of mind that prompted this 
 ambition was not without special influences to keep the 
 flame alive. Had Burns been educated as other local 
 rhymers were, he might have remained, like them, con- 
 tent with local fame, ignorant of the great world out- 
 side, hungering for no applause beyond his own small 
 circle, because he was unaware of any thing more to be 
 desired. But the education of Burns was different from 
 that of other local rhymers, and had carried him to 
 spiritual altitudes, the views from which were bounded 
 by a much wider horizon. 
 
 In common with all the other young men of the time, 
 rich and poor, Burns had the advantage for a poet of 
 
HOW BURNS PRODUCED HIS SONGS 161 
 
 living in a poetical atmosphere ; but he had the further 
 special advantage of coming under personal influences 
 that helped powerfully to give his work the quality of 
 greatness. His want of school and college instruction 
 was fully compensated by the exceptional tastes, abilities, 
 and literary interests of his father and his school-master. 
 We may truly say, I think, that for his special training 
 as a poet, for the literary part of it, that is to say, the 
 happiest accident of his life was his contact with Mr. 
 Murdoch, who, when a youth of eighteen, was employed 
 by William Burness, and one or two of his neighbors, 
 to teach their children. That this young school-master 
 was a man of no ordinary vigor, flexibility, and breadth 
 of interest was shown by his subsequent career. He 
 went to London, and made a living as a teacher of 
 French, an extraordinary feat for a young country 
 Scotchman ; and gained such repute as a teacher, 
 though he ultimately ruined his prospects by intemper- 
 ate habits, that at one time he had as a pupil in English 
 no less a person than M. Talleyrand. We can hardly 
 overestimate the lift above provincial commonplace that 
 was given to the future poet by his contact with a man 
 of such activity and range of mind. Mr. Murdoch was 
 greatly attracted by the character of William Burness, — 
 for so the father spelled his name, — and, attracted also by 
 the character and abilities of the boys, he took a warm 
 interest in them, and gave an unusual turn to the read- 
 ing of the family, introducing them to authors not ordi- 
 narily within the knowledge of a peasant's household. 
 Robert Burns was but a small boy when Murdoch was 
 enaraffed as a teacher to the combined families ; but 
 when he was a youth of fifteen or sixteen, the young 
 man chanced to be appointed English teacher in the Ayr 
 Academy, and the elder Burness, always eager to get 
 education for his sons, sent Robert for a short time to 
 board with him. Charmed with the aptness of his pupil, 
 with his manly character, his enthusiasm for knowledge, 
 11 
 
162 SCOTTISH POETBY IN THE EIGHTEEETH CENTURY 
 
 and his powerful grasp of intellect, Murdoch did his 
 utmost to give a bent to his studies. It was only for a 
 short three weeks that Burns could be spared from the 
 work of the farm, where he was already doing the 
 work of a man ; but during that time, so eager was the 
 pupil to learn, and so willing was the master to com- 
 municate, that, as Murdoch afterward stated, he and 
 his boarder were hardly a moment silent — the one enquir- 
 ing, the other answering and expounding. Among other 
 things Murdoch gave him a start in learning French to 
 such effect that Burns afterward by himself acquired 
 such a knowledge of the language that he was able to 
 read it with ease. He was rather proud, in fact, of the 
 accomplishment, and fond of airing scraps of French in 
 his correspondence. But this knowledge of French was 
 the least of the benefits Burns derived from this inspir- 
 ing and stimulating teacher. 
 
 Looking at his life till he was twenty-two or twenty- 
 three, we find from a memorandum-book which he kept 
 the extent of his reading, and we may safely say that 
 there were very few young men at that time in any 
 rank whose acquaintance with the poets of the previous 
 century was so great. He had read most of the English 
 poets, including Shakespeare, Pope, Shenstone, Allan 
 Ramsay, and collections of Scotch songs ; and he not 
 only read them, but pondered over them. His habit 
 was always to carry a book in his pocket, in which way 
 he is said to have worn out two copies of Mackenzie's 
 "Man of Feeling." This gives us a clue to his mode of 
 mental application. He took a rigorously critical atti- 
 tude. We can imagine him reading over his songs, then 
 turning the work over in his mind and judging with his 
 perfect taste whether it was true to nature. Burns was 
 wont to take his own songs to pieces ; word by word, 
 line by line, stanza by stanza, all passed under review, 
 and wei - e critically pronounced on by their author. 
 Thene could be no greater misconception than to regard 
 
HOW BURNS PRODUCED HIS SONGS 163 
 
 Burns as an uneducated poet. This idea has made ship- 
 wreck of many a promising poet, or at least of many a 
 youth capable of becoming a pleasing versifier, for they 
 get the idea that it is derogatory to poetic genius to 
 take intellectual labor over their verses. They are under 
 the idea that Burns produced songs without considering 
 whether they were good or bad. We ma}' be sure that 
 no amount of genius will produce perfect art, unless the 
 man of genius will bestow intellectual labor on it. A 
 perfect poem, such as many of Burns's lyric gems are, 
 can no more be written without labor than can a statue 
 be carved out of stone. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
 CONNECTION WITH PREVIOUS POETRY — SKETCH OF LIFE — LYRICAL 
 BALLADS 
 
 From the phrases that are generally used about nine- 
 teenth-century poetry, one would expect to be conscious 
 of a great and sudden change in passing into it out of 
 the poetry of the eighteenth century. Were the new 
 poets not inspired with the spirit of the French Revo- 
 lution ? Did they not rise in their might, glowing with 
 a noble spirit of independence, and fling the poetic 
 traditions of their fathers to the winds ? Pope with 
 his mechanical couplets, his passion for epigrammatic 
 condensation, his fear of going beyond classical example, 
 was sitting on poetry like a nightmare when the French 
 Revolution broke out ; and the English Muse, fired by 
 this great modern example of insubordination, would 
 bear him no longer, cast off her old Man of the Moun- 
 tain, and roamed greatly, daring wherever Fancy or 
 Imagination tempted, with all the fearless ardor of new- 
 found liberty. Such is the language in which the new I 
 movement is often spoken of, and if we accept it liter- ! 
 ally, we should expect to find somewhere between the 
 old poetry and the new a sudden discontinuous break ; 
 we should expect, as we followed the history of our 
 literature, to encounter all of a sudden the signs of a : 
 great and complete transformation such as might be 
 made on the face of nature by an earthquake or a 
 deluge. But no such catastrophic spectacle is pre- 
 sented to the historic eye. A great change took place, 
 but it was an easy, gradual transition, a quiet evolution 
 
 164 
 
GRADUAL REVOLUTION IN TASTE FOR POETRY 165 
 
 of new tilings, not a fierce upheaval and sweeping away 
 of old things as worthless rubbish, and a triumphant 
 reconstruction upon entirely new lines. We must not 
 ignore the fact that there was a change because we can- 
 not put our finger upon the exact moment when the 
 change occurred ; but it is equally unhistoric to be mis- 
 led by the character of the tremendous political event 
 of the time into ascribing a similar character to the 
 grand new season of poetry that opened with the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 The hold of the Queen Anne style on literature, as 
 we have seen, relaxed gradually; the sentiments that 
 it embodied gradually palled from custom on the class 
 for whom Pope wrote ; longings for new excitements 
 gradually made themselves felt ; and gradually also the 
 class whose taste had dominated Queen Anne literature 
 lost their supremacy in the world of art. The prosemen 
 of the last sixty years of the century were, as I have 
 already indicated, the chief literary agents of the trans- 
 formation that gradually evolved itself, year by year, 
 ten years by ten years, now moving quickly, now moving 
 slowly. The novelists and the romancers educated the 
 taste of the public for new subjects and for a new style ; 
 for subjects of more various human interest, and a style 
 less condensed and elaborate, more free and discursive. 
 Pope's readers had little taste for romantic marvels or 
 for domestic pathos ; the romancers and the novelists 
 accustomed the public to such imaginative food, and so 
 prepared the way for Scott and Wordsworth. Even the 
 Byron ic spirit had its prototype in prose. 
 
 Wordsworth's preface to his "Lyrical Ballads" in 
 1798 is a great landmark in the history of poetry, because 
 it woke people up to a consciousness of the change that 
 had taken place, and compelled critics to define their posi- 
 tion in the face of that change. This preface, and the 
 volume with which it is connected, we must consider at 
 length ; but in the first place let us look at Wordsworth's 
 
166 WORDSWORTH 
 
 early life, and at the poems written by him before the 
 " Lyrical Ballads." In these early poems we shall see 
 how gradual was his transition from the poetic style of 
 his predecessors, notwithstanding the revolutionary note 
 of his famous preface. 
 
 To some of Wordsworth's admirers it might appear a 
 sort of sacrilege to try and trace the growth of his poetic 
 style, because he has himself in the " Prelude" written 
 his poetic autobiography. "The Growth of a Poet's 
 Mind " is the sub-title of this wonderful poem, in winch 
 flashes of poetic rapture are so strangety mixed with 
 prosy moralizings and pragmatic dogmas about education. 
 Seeing that the poet has given the history of his own 
 mind, it is to his worshippers as final as the Koran to a 
 good Mohammedan ; and any presumptuous attempt to 
 add to it might be treated by them as the books in the 
 Alexandria Library were treated by the Caliph Omar. 
 They might say: If your essay contains any thing not 
 to be found in the " Prelude," it is wrong ; if it con- 
 tains what is already to be found there, it is superfluous. 
 But it is possible to go beyond the revelation of the 
 " Prelude " without contradicting it or merely bringing 
 to light what is useless and superfluous. It is the growth 
 of his mind, of his feelings, of his impassioned love for 
 Nature, that is there recorded ; not the growth of his 
 poetic art, of his aims and methods as an artist, and 
 these are interesting to us if we wish to see him in his I 
 right relations with his predecessors. His early poems 
 furnish more valuable clues for this enquiry than the 
 " Prelude," which is rather an imaginative interpreta- ' 
 tion of his youth than a literal record. And we have 
 other clues besides in his singularly matter-of-fact prose 
 notes on the circumstances in which he composed his 
 early poems. 
 
 The chief incidents in Wordsworth's early life were 
 taken down from his own dictation. He was the son of j 
 one of Sir James Lowther's land-agents, whose head- ' 
 
Wordsworth's early life 167 
 
 quarters were at Cockermoutli, and of the daughter of 
 a mercer in Penrith. His early boyhood till the age of 
 nine was spent partly at Cockermoutli and partly at 
 Penrith, both beautifully situated little towns in Cum- 
 berland. From nine to seventeen he was at a boarding- 
 school in Hawkshead, another romantically situated 
 little town in the north of Lancashire. His mother died 
 when he was seven years old, and his father when he 
 was thirteen ; but his uncle, in whose guardianship he 
 was left, although Lord Lonsdale had borrowed all his 
 father's money and refused to pay it back, — the repay- 
 ment not being made till the old lord's death many 
 years afterward, — his uncle kept both him and his brother 
 at school, and sent them both to Cambridge, the poet 
 entering in 1787, his seventeenth year. Wordsworth 
 took his degree in 1791, travelled for some time in 
 France and Italy, lived for a few years in London, 
 thought of the Church as a profession, thought of 
 journalism as a profession, but finally decided to retire 
 to his native valleys and live on his small inheritance, 
 devoting his days to "plain living and high thinking." 
 He was nearly thirty when he took this determination, 
 and he persevered in it to the end of his days in 1850, 
 with the addition to his means of plain living of a Com- 
 missionership of Stamps in 1813, and a pension of three 
 hundred pounds in 1842. 
 
 Such is the bare outline of Wordsworth's life. What 
 were the ruling circumstances that co-operated with in- 
 born genius to make him the poet that he was ? Read 
 the "Prelude " and you will find that his own answer is 
 simply Nature — the mountains and the mists, and the 
 leaping sounding cataracts of the valleys where he lived 
 in youth. This is how he describes his feelings in his 
 school-days at Hawkshead : 
 
 " I would walk alone 
 Under the quiet stars, and at that time 
 Have felt whate'er there is of power in sound 
 
168 WORDSWORTH 
 
 To breathe an elevated mood, by form 
 Or image unprofaned ; and I would stand, 
 If the night blackened with a coming storm, 
 Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are 
 The ghostly language of the ancient earth, 
 Or make their dim abode in distant winds. 
 Thence did I drink the visionary power ; 
 And deem not profitless those fleeting moods 
 Of shadowy exultation ; not for this, 
 That they are kindred to our purer mind 
 And intellectual life ; but that the soul, 
 Remembering not, retains an obscure sense 
 Of possible sublimity, whereto 
 With growing faculties she doth aspire, 
 With faculties still growing, feeling still 
 That whatsoever point they gain, they yet 
 Have something to pursue." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " 'Twere long to tell 
 What spring and autumn, what the winter snows, 
 And what the summer shade, what day and night, 
 Evening and morning, sleep and waking, thought 
 From sources inexhaustible, poured forth 
 To feed the spirit of religious love 
 In which I walked with Nature. But let this 
 Be not forgetten, that I still retained 
 My first creative sensibility ; 
 That by the regular action of the world 
 My soul was unsubdued. A plastic power 
 Abode with me ; a forming hand, at times 
 Rebellious, acting in a devious mood ; 
 A local spirit of his own, at war 
 With general tendency, but, for the most, 
 Subservient strictly to external things 
 With which it communed. An auxiliar light 
 Came from my mind, which on the setting sun 
 Bestowed new splendour ; the melodious birds, 
 The fluttering breezes, fountains that run on, 
 Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed 
 A like dominion, and the midnight storm 
 Grew darker in the presence of my eye : 
 Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence, 
 And hence my transport. 
 
NATURE'S INFLUENCE ON WORDSWORTH 169 
 
 Nor should this, perchance, 
 Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved 
 The exercise and produce of a toil, 
 Than analytic industry to me 
 More pleasing, and whose character I deem 
 Is more poetic as resembling more 
 Creative agency. The song would speak 
 Of that interminable building reared 
 By observation of affinities 
 In objects where no brotherhood exists 
 To passive minds. My seventeenth year was come ! 
 And, whether from this habit rooted now 
 So deeply in my mind, or from excess 
 In the great social principle of life 
 Coercing all things into sympathy, 
 To inorganic natures were transferred 
 My own enjoyments ; or the power of truth 
 Coming in revelation did converse 
 With things that really are, I, at this time, 
 Saw blessings spread around me like a sea. 
 Thus while the days flew by, and years passed on, 
 From Nature and her overflowing soul, 
 I had received so much that all my thoughts 
 Were steeped in feeling : I was only then 
 Contented, when with bliss ineffable 
 I felt the sentiment of Being spread 
 O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still ; 
 O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought 
 And human knowledge, to the human eye 
 Invisible, yet liveth to the heart ; 
 O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings, 
 Or beats the gladsome air ; o'er all that glides 
 Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself, 
 And mighty depth of waters." 
 
 At Cambridge he attended little to the studies of the 
 place. " He began residence at seventeen," says Mr. 
 Myers, " and his northern nature was late to flower. 
 There seems, in fact, to have been even less of visible 
 promise about him than we should have expected ; but 
 rather something untamed and insubordinate, some- 
 thing heady and self-confident ; an independence that 
 
170 WORDSWORTH 
 
 seemed only rusticity, and an indolent ignorance which 
 assumed too readily the tones of scorn." But his mind 
 was not idle : 
 
 " Oft when the dazzling show no longer new 
 Had ceased to dazzle, ofttimes did I quit 
 My comrades, leave the crowd, buildings and groves, 
 And as I paced alone the level fields 
 Far from those lovely sights and sounds sublime 
 With which I had been conversant, the mind 
 Drooped not ; but there into herself returning, 
 With prompt rebound seemed fresh as heretofore. 
 At least I more distinctly recognised 
 Her native instincts : let me dare to speak 
 A higher language, say that now I felt 
 What independent solaces were mine, 
 To mitigate the injurious sway of place 
 Or circumstance, how far soever changed 
 In youth, or to be changed in after years. 
 As if awakened, summoned, roused, constrained, 
 I looked for universal things ; perused 
 The common countenance of earth and sky : 
 Earth, nowhere nnembellished by some trace 
 Of that first Paradise whence man was driven ; 
 And sky, whose beauty and bounty are expressed 
 By the proud name she bears — the name of Heaven. 
 I called on both to teach me what they might ; 
 Or, turning the mind in upon herself, 
 Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts 
 And spread them with a wider creeping ; felt 
 Incumbencies more awful, visitings 
 Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul, 
 That tolerates the indignities of Time, 
 And, from the centre of Eternity 
 All finite motions overruling, lives 
 In glory immutable. But peace ! enough 
 Here to record that I was mounting now 
 To such community with highest truth — 
 A track pursuing, not untrod before, 
 From strict analogies by thought supplied, 
 Or consciousnesses not to be subdued. 
 To every natural form, rock, fruit, or flower, 
 Even the loose stones that cover the highway, 
 
HIS ABSORPTION IN NATURE 171 
 
 I gave a moral life : I saw them feel, 
 
 Or linked them to some feeling : the great mass 
 
 Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all 
 
 That I beheld respired with inward meaning. 
 
 Add that whate'er of Terror or of Love 
 
 Or Beauty, Nature's daily face put on 
 
 From transitory passion, unto this 
 
 I was as sensitive as waters are 
 
 To the sky's influence in a kindred mood 
 
 Of passion ; was obedient as a lute 
 
 That waits upon the touches of the wind. 
 
 Unknown, unthought of, yet was I most rich — 
 
 I had a world about me — 'tw T as my own ; 
 
 I made it, for it only lived to me, 
 
 And to the God who sees into the heart." 
 
 Now, how were the poet's sensibilities thus keenly 
 awakened to the glories and the beauties of Nature ? 
 What first made him alive to the joy of poring over 
 every shade of color, every minute variation of form in 
 natural tilings, and seeking in them, with never-ending 
 satisfaction, images of human life in its manifold rela- 
 tions ? And what influences governed his expression of 
 what he saw and felt? The "Prelude "is silent on 
 these points. It merely chronicles the phases of his 
 delight in looking and imagining. There was in "Words- 
 worth to the last not a little of that untamed rustic 
 egotism which Shakespeare caricatured in Holofernes 
 and Sir Andrew Aguecheek ; the egotism which, owing 
 to slight contact with other human beings, is never tired 
 of contemplating the strangeness of its own moods. 
 " I am a fellow of the strangest mind in the world," 
 said Sir Andrew, and in these words expressed an 
 undying characteristic of the isolated man who seldom 
 makes comparison of his own mind with the minds of 
 his fellow-creatures. Wordsworth's distinction lay not 
 in what he felt, but in the play of his imagination on 
 what he felt. He magnifies the strangeness of his 
 absorption in Nature by representing it as a mysterious, 
 inexplicable feat, originating he knew not how, but 
 
172 WORDSWORTH 
 
 present with him from his earliest years, and gaining no 
 strength but from its own impetus. " The ' Prelude ' 
 is a work of good angary for human nature," Mr. Myers 
 says, in commenting on the poem. " We felt in reading 
 it as if the stock of mankind were sound. The soul 
 seems going on from strength to strength by the mere 
 development of her inborn power." The "Prelude" is 
 a noble poem, but this particular feature of it I should 
 consider a weakness, and not a strength. No man can 
 stand alone ; the aspiration to do so is as inhuman as 
 the achievement is impossible. The soul that seeks to 
 isolate itself from its fellows must infallibly harden 
 and wither. 
 
 When, however, we turn to his early poems, and to 
 his prosaic notes and illustrations of them, we can see 
 clearly enough the continuity of his descent from the 
 great poets who had written before him. 
 
 The "Evening Walk "and the "Descriptive Sketches" 
 were published in 1793. Commenting many years after- 
 ward on the couplet : 
 
 "And fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines 
 Its darkening boughs and leaves in stronger lines," 
 
 he says : " This is feebly and imperfectly expressed ; 
 but I recollect distinctly the veiy spot Avhere this first 
 struck me. It was on the way between Hawkshead and 
 Ambleside, and gave me extreme pleasure. The moment 
 was important in my poetical history ; for I date from 
 it my consciousness of the infinite variety of natural 
 appearances which had been unnoticed by the poets of 
 any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with 
 them; and I made a resolution to supply in some degree 
 the deficiency. I could not at that time have been above 
 fourteen years of age." There was more, then, than 
 mere disinterested delight in the poet's contemplation 
 of Nature ; mingled with that delight was a poet's 
 ambition, and the joy of having found an untrodden 
 
HIS POETICAL MASTERS 173 
 
 track. And lie did not qualify himself for this self- 
 imposed mission by mere indolent gazing and dreamy 
 pursuit of the thick-coming fancies that crowded his 
 mind, while his eye drank in what Nature presented to 
 him. If the " Prelude" had been intended as a plain 
 historical narrative of the growth of a poet's mind, it 
 would have been strange that he does not mention in 
 the description of his Cambridge life an incident that 
 connects him with the poet Gray. He studied Italian 
 then, and his teacher was Gray's friend. It was not, 
 however, from the Italian poets that he caught the 
 rhythm of his early style. You will have no difficulty 
 in detecting his poetical masters if I read you a passage 
 or two from the " Evening Walk " and the " Descriptive 
 Sketches " : 
 
 " Sweet are the sounds that mingle from afar, 
 Heard by calm lakes, as peeps the folding star, 
 When the duck dabbles 'mid the rustling sedge, 
 And feeding pike starts from the water's edge, 
 Or the swan stirs the reeds, bis neck and bill 
 Wetting, that drip upon the water still ; 
 And heron, as resounds the trodden shore, 
 Shoots upward, darting his long neck before. 
 Now, with religious awe, the farewell light 
 Blends with the solemn colouring of night ; 
 'Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow, 
 And round the west's proud lodge their shadows throw, 
 Like Una shining on her gloomy way, 
 The half-seen form of Twilight roams astray ; 
 Shedding, through paly loopholes mild and small, 
 Gleams that upon the lake's still bosom fall ; 
 Soft o'er the surface creep those lustres pale, 
 Tracking the motions of the fitful gale. 
 With restless interchange at once the bright 
 Wins on the shade, the shade upon the light. 
 No favoured eye was e'er allowed to gaze 
 On lovelier spectacle in faery days." 
 
 Or again : 
 
 " Once, Man entirely free, alone and wild, 
 Was blest as free — for he was Nature's child. 
 
174 WORDSWORTH 
 
 He, all superior but his God disdained, 
 Walked none restraining, and by none restrained, 
 Confessed no law but what his reason taught, 
 Did all he wished, and wished but what he ought. 
 As man in his primeval dower arrayed 
 The image of his glorious Sire displayed, 
 Even so, by faithful Nature guarded, here 
 The traces of primeval Man appear ; ,, 
 The simple dignity no forms debase ; 
 The eye sublime, and surly lion-grace : 
 The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord, 
 His book he prizes, nor neglects his sword ; 
 Well taught by that to feel his rights, prepared 
 With this ' the blessings he enjoys to guard.'" 
 
 The former of these passages reminds one of Gold- 
 smith as forcibly as of Pope, but in the latter Pope 
 alone is clearly the model. There is an evident effort 
 after balance and condensed expression, but it is not 
 executed with nearly the perfection and terseness of the 
 Popian couplet. The imitation is, however, sufficiently 
 apparent to be well worth noting as an interesting link 
 between the two poets. 
 
 Wordsworth's next publication was the " Lyrical 
 Ballads," in 1798. The volume was published in con- 
 junction with Coleridge. Coleridge visited Words- 
 worth in the summer of 1797, when he bad resided with 
 his sister at Racedown in Dorsetshire. By this time 
 Wordsworth had written his poem " Guilt and Sorrow" 
 in the Spenserian stanza ; his tragedy of " The Bor- 
 derers"; and the description of the "Ruined Cottage." 
 I mention these poems because it is a significant fact 
 that every poem written by Wordsworth up to the time 
 of Coleridge's visit, while the} r show considerable poetic 
 power, gave little indication of distinctive individual 
 genius. This visit seems to have had a wonderfully 
 quickening and awakening effect on Wordsworth's 
 nature. The two young men were charmed with one 
 another, and Wordsworth removed to Alfoxden in 
 
THE "lyrical ballads" 175 
 
 Somersetshire to enjoy his friend's companionship. 
 During the year that followed he produced much, and 
 what he produced bore a distinctive mark, as if the 
 radiant, restless vitality of the more variously gifted 
 man had stirred his more sluggish northern nature to it,s 
 depths, stimulated him to put forth his full powers, and 
 made him feel in the exercise of them a confident sense 
 of mastery. It may truly be said that Wordsworth 
 hardly knew what was in him till the companionship of 
 Coleridge widened the horizon of his aims. 
 
 The volume published at Bristol in 1798 contained 
 Coleridge's " Ancient Mariner"; the rest of the volume 
 was by Wordsworth. In the authorized edition of his 
 works no chronological order is followed ; they are 
 classified according to subjects ; and it is important, if we 
 would understand the controversy that has been raised 
 round Wordsworth's name, that we should pick out and 
 read together the poems that were published together in 
 1798. "We are Seven" is now included among the 
 "Poems referring to the period of Childhood " (No. x) * 
 "The Complaint"" (21), "The Last of the Flock" (22), 
 "The Idiot Boy" (31), and " Her Eyes are Wild " (37), 
 among the " Poems Founded on the Affections "; "The 
 Reverie of Poor Susan" (13), "The Thorn" (23), 
 " Lines above Tintern Abbey " (26), among " Poems of 
 the Imagination"; "Expostulation and Reply" (1), 
 " The Tables Turned " (2), " To my Sister " (5), and 
 "Simon Lee" (6), among "Poems of Sentiment and 
 Reflection "; " Goody Blake and Harry Gill," among 
 " Miscellaneous Poems." 
 
 When these poems are read together, we begin to 
 understand why such a shout of derision was raised by 
 the critics against the " L3 T rical Ballads," and why they 
 impressed so deeply those who were not repelled by 
 their strangeness. The poet's personality was power- 
 fully expressed in them, and he was a markedly differ- 
 ent kind of person from any that had before presented 
 
176 WORDSWORTH 
 
 himself as a poet. His humor was a strange kind of 
 humor, and his seriousness ran in an unusual vein, and 
 humor and seriousness were strangely intermixed. The 
 public found subjects that they were accustomed to con- 
 sider too vulgar and common for poetry treated appar- 
 ently with pathetic intention, but in so grotesque a way 
 as only to make them laugh at the attempt on their 
 tender feelings. There was, indeed, one poem in the 
 volume, the "Lines written above Tintern Abbey," in 
 which a fresh theme was handled with a power that 
 nobody could be insensible to. If all had been like 
 this, the acknowledgment of Wordsworth's greatness 
 would not have been checked and held back by astonish- 
 ment at the grotesque strangeness of the lyrical ballads, 
 to which the title of the volume challenged special 
 attention. This was the poem in which he first gave 
 expression to his impassioned worship of Nature : 
 
 " Five years have past ; five summers, with the length 
 Of five long winters ! and again I hear 
 These waters, rolling from their mountain springs 
 With a soft inland murmur. — Once again 
 Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 
 That on a wild secluded scene impress 
 Thoughts of more deep seclusion ; and connect 
 The landscape with the quiet of the sky. 
 The day has come when I again repose 
 Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 
 These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, 
 Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, 
 Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 
 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see 
 These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 
 Of sportive wood run wild ; these pastoral farms, 
 Green to the very door ; and wreaths of smoke 
 Sent up, in silence, from among the trees ! 
 With some uncertain notice, as might seem 
 Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 
 Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire 
 The Hermit sits alone. 
 
"lines written above tintern abbey" 177 
 
 These beauteous forms, 
 Through a long absence, have not been to me 
 As is a landscape to a blind man's eye : 
 But oft in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 
 Of towns and cities, I have owed to them 
 In hours of weariness sensations sweet, 
 Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart ; 
 And passing even into my purer mind, 
 With tranquil restoration : — feelings too 
 Of unremembered pleasure : such, perhaps, 
 As have no slight or trivial influence 
 On that best portion of a good man's life, 
 His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
 Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, 
 To them I may have owed another gift, 
 Of aspect more sublime ; that blessed mood, 
 In which the burthen of the mystery, 
 In which the heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world, 
 Is lightened :— that serene and blessed mood, 
 In which the affections gently lead us on, — 
 Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 
 And even the motion of our human blood 
 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 
 In body, and become a living soul : 
 While with an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
 We see into the life of things. If this 
 Be but a vain belief, yet, oh ! how oft — 
 In darkness and amid the many shapes 
 Of joyless daylight ; when the fretful stir 
 Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 
 Have hung upon the beatings of my heart — 
 How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 
 O sylvan Wye ! thou wanderer thro' the woods, 
 How often has my spirit turned to thee ! 
 
 And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thoughts, 
 With mauy recognitions dim and faint, 
 And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 
 The picture of the mind revives again : 
 While here I stand, not only with the sense 
 Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 
 That in this moment there is life and food 
 For future years. And so I dare to hope, 
 
 12 
 
178 WORDSWORTH 
 
 Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first 
 
 I came among these hills ; when like a roe 
 
 I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides 
 
 Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, 
 
 Wherever nature led : more like a man 
 
 Flying from something that he dreads, than one 
 
 Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then 
 
 (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, 
 
 And their glad animal movements all gone by) 
 
 To me was all in all ; — I cannot paint 
 
 What then I was. The sounding cataract 
 
 Haunted me like a passion ; the tall rock, 
 
 The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 
 
 Their colours and their forms, were then to me 
 
 An appetite ; a feeling and a love, 
 
 That had no need of a remoter charm, 
 
 By thought supplied, nor any interest 
 
 Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past, 
 
 And all its aching joys are now no more, 
 
 And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 
 
 Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur ; other gifts 
 
 Have followed ; for such loss, I would believe, 
 
 Abundant recompence. For I have learned 
 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 
 Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
 
 The still, sad music of humanity, 
 
 Not harsh, nor grating, though of ample power 
 
 To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 
 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 
 And mountains ; and of all that we behold 
 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
 
 Of eye, and ear, — both what they half create, 
 
 And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise 
 
 In nature and the language of the sense, 
 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
 
"lines written above tintern abbey" 179 
 
 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
 Of all my moral being. 
 
 Nor perchance, 
 If I were not thus taught, should I the more 
 Suffer my genial spirits to decay : 
 For thou art with me here upon the banks 
 Of this fair river ; thou my dearest friend, 
 My dear, dear friend ; and in thy voice I catch 
 The language of my former heart, and read 
 My former pleasures in the shooting lights 
 Of thy wild eyes. Oh ! yet a little while 
 May I behold in thee what I was once, 
 My dear, dear Sister ! and this pi'ayer I make, 
 Knowing that Nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her : 'tis her privilege 
 Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
 From joy to joy ; for she can so inform 
 The mind that is within us, so impress 
 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
 Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
 The dreary intercourse of daily life, 
 Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
 Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
 Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 
 Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; 
 And let the misty mountain winds be free 
 To blow against thee : and, in after years, 
 When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 
 Into a sober pleasure ; when thy mind 
 Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 
 Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 
 For all sweet sounds and harmonies ; oh ! then, 
 If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, 
 Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 
 Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 
 And these my exhortations ! Nor, perchance, 
 If I should be where I no more can hear 
 Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams 
 Of past existence — wilt thou then forget 
 That on the banks of this delightful stream 
 We stood together ; and that I, so long 
 A worshipper of nature, hither came 
 
180 WORDSWORTH 
 
 Unwearied in that service : rather say 
 
 With warmer love — oh ! with far deeper zeal 
 
 Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, 
 
 That after many wanderings, many years 
 
 Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 
 
 And this green pastoral landscape, were to me 
 
 More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake ! " 
 
 This poem is characteristic of the loftiest side of 
 
 Wordsworth's genius. In it he struck for the first time 
 
 the sublime note that has drawn men after him as the 
 
 prophet of a new delight, a full-voiced speaker of 
 
 things that all feel dimly and vaguely, but which no 
 
 poet before him had expressed with such force. But 
 
 mark, as confirming what I have said about the gradual 
 
 character of transitions in poetry, that both the rhythm 
 
 of Wordsworth's lines and the feeling expressed are 
 
 developments from Cowper. The level Ouse flowed 
 
 through a flatter landscape than the Derwent, and there 
 
 was a fire and majesty in Wordsworth's stronger spirit 
 
 that we look for in vain in the gentle Cowper. But the 
 
 direction of their feelings was the same ; the rhythm 
 
 of their verse had much in common ; Wordsworth's 
 
 torch was kindled at Cowper's. " A great poet creates 
 
 the taste b}^ which he is enjoyed," Wordsworth said, 
 
 and the sa} T ing is often repeated. But it is isolating 
 
 him too much to sav that he created the taste that en- 
 i *• 
 
 joyed his Nature poetry. We can believe this only 
 when we ignore all that happened in the half century 
 between Pope's death and the appearance of the " Lyri- 
 cal Ballads." 
 
 No : the current formula that Wordsworth created 
 the taste by which he is enjo} 7 ed is only a half or a 
 quarter truth. The currency that the saying has 
 obtained is due chiefly to a vague impression, such as 
 often arises when the facts of history are mingled 
 together and fancifully rearranged in the popular 
 memory — a vague impression that all Wordsworth's 
 
HOSTILE RECEPTION OF " LYBICAL BALLADS " 181 
 
 poetry was received with a howl of derision and ridi- 
 cule when first submitted to the public. There were 
 three veins in one volume — "Tintern Abbey Lines," 
 "Guilt and Sorrow," and the " Lyrical Ballads." Now, 
 it was not against what is commonly understood by his 
 Nature poetry, — such poetry as I have quoted, — that the 
 storm was directed, but against some of his lyrical 
 ballads, strictly so called : " The Idiot Boy," " Goody 
 Blake," and " The Thorn." And the storm did not 
 become loud and long till Wordsworth not only 
 defended these poems in his famous Preface, but with 
 aggressive obstinacy maintained that all true poetry 
 must be composed on the same principles. Further, 
 though the storm against these poems has long since 
 subsided into a calm, the taste for them has not yet 
 been created. Even Mr. Myers admits that "The 
 Thorn," "The Idiot Boy," and "Goody Blake and 
 Harry Gill" have been "justly blamed for triviality." 
 As I am one of the few who do not agree with this ver- 
 dict, having a natural taste for such grotesque mix- 
 tures of pathos and rough humor, — a taste not created 
 by Wordsworth, but more probably by a bucolic up- 
 bringing, — I am all the less likely to be biassed in the 
 admission that the taste is not general. 
 
 These lyrical ballads, which owed their origin to an 
 accident, are certainly strange and original, fully 
 colored by the poet's individuality. The idea of writ- 
 ing them probably occurred to Wordsworth when he 
 was conversing with Coleridge over the German imita- 
 tions of Percy's old English ballads. The idea of 
 writing the " Ancient Mariner " occurred in the course 
 of the same companionship, and the difference between 
 them and the " Mariner " represents the difference in 
 individual character between Wordsworth and Cole- 
 ridge. The two friends began writing the "Mariner" 
 together, but their conceptions were so different that 
 Wordsworth left Coleridge to finish it. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 wordsworth — continued 
 
 "THE IDIOT BOY" — PROSE V. POETRY — COLERIDGE ON WORDS- 
 WORTH 
 
 If you have read some of the lyrical ballads to which 
 I directed you, you will not, I think, be surprised that 
 they appeared trivial, absurd, and even repulsive to the 
 generality of readers of poetry when first they made 
 their appearance. The wonder, rather, is that they 
 found as many readers as they did, for though many 
 mocked, a considerable number read them, as appears 
 from the fact that a second edition was called for in 
 1800. This could hardly have been the case if the vein 
 of sentiment had been altogether new in literature. 
 Sensibility to the joys and sorrows of humble folk, a 
 disposition never entirely absent from civilized com- 
 munities, we may well believe, had been deliberately 
 cultivated during the latter part of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury as an artistic motive. A whole school of prose 
 fiction ministered to this sentiment, the most prominent 
 examples of which are Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" and 
 "Sentimental Journey," where the sentiment appears 
 casualty, and Mackenzie's " Man of Feeling," where it 
 is the dominant feeling. Universal sympathy, tender 
 interest in every-thing that lives and moves, was the 
 note of this school. Burns wore out two copies of the 
 " Man of Feeling" carrying it about in his pocket ; and 
 it doubtless helped to awaken and foster in him the 
 tenderness of heart that inspired his " Address to the 
 Mouse." Sensibility, in fact, pervaded literature dur- 
 ing the last forty years of the century, and the tender 
 
 182 
 
HOW WORDSWORTH CAME TO WRITE BALLADS 183 
 
 experiences of Betty F03', the mother of the Idiot Boy, 
 would have commended themselves from the mere force 
 of literary custom to thousands of readers, if dressed to 
 advantage in the familiar sentimental prose style. And, 
 although Wordsworth's style was not the familiar style, 
 the taste for the kind of subject at least had been culti- 
 vated before his day. 
 
 The stoiy of the accident that led Wordsworth to 
 write ballads on subjects taken from common life is 
 well known, and was put on record by himself in a note 
 to the " Idiot Boy." In the spring of 1798, when he 
 and Coleridge were near neighbors and close friends, 
 they proposed making a walking tour together, and 
 to meet the expense it occurred to them to write 
 together a ballad by the way and send it to the New 
 Monthly Magazine. The poem of the " Ancient 
 Mariner" was the result. Wordsworth made a few 
 suggestions and contributed a few lines, but, as he says, 
 "as we endeavored to proceed conjointly (I speak of the 
 same evening) our respective manners proved so different' 
 that it would have been quite presumptuous in me to 
 do any thing but separate from an undertaking upon 
 which I could have been only a clog." He proceeded 
 instead to write independently lyrical ballads "on 
 natural subjects, taken from common life, but looked at, 
 as far as might be, through an imaginative medium." 
 The difference between the "Lyrical Ballads" and the 
 "Ancient Mariner " represents the difference in indi- 
 vidual character and history between Coleridge and 
 Wordsworth. Ideas work themselves out differently 
 according to the minds in which they take root. 
 
 Wordsworth was country-bred, familiar only with the 
 simple folk of the Northern dales till he was seventeen; 
 and his experience of towns and townspeople did not 
 evoke new sympathies to supplant the old. It was not 
 merely the face of inanimate nature that had charms for 
 him. He had the keenest sympathy with his humble 
 
184 WORDSWORTH 
 
 country neighbors. The simple incidents of their lives 
 interested him as much as they interested the humblest 
 gossip in the hamlet or in the hill-side cottage, though 
 in a different way. His imagination fastened on these 
 incidents, and transfigured them. Consider, for example, 
 the incidents of the "The Idiot Boy" as they would 
 present themselves to an ordinary village gossip, and 
 you will understand Wordsworth's theory about the 
 creative function of the poet : 
 
 " Imagination needs must stir, 
 Dear maid, this truth believe, 
 Minds that have little to confer 
 Find little to perceive." 
 
 Old Betty Foy, who lives in the same house with Susan 
 Gale, has an only child, Johnny, an idiot, whom she 
 loves with all her heart. Susan falls ill, and Betty 
 mounts her poor boy on a pony and sends him for the 
 doctor. The boy does not return. Betty is alarmed 
 and goes in search of him ; finds him after a long search 
 in a vale staring at the stars and listening to the hoot- 
 ing of the owls, perfectly delighted with them and him- 
 self. Susan meantime, left alone, gets anxious in her 
 turn, ceases to feel her ailments, gets up and hobbles 
 after, and the two old women, delighted with the 
 recovery of Johnny, forget all about the illness, and 
 bring him home in merry triumph. That is all the 
 story of the Idiot Boy. To most people it must always 
 appear trivial, yet when Wordsworth heard of the inci- 
 dent it haunted his imagination. He pictured to himself 
 the Idiot Boy's delight when he was put on horseback, 
 the mother's pride that he could be of some use, the 
 fears that came over her as hour after hour passed and 
 neither he nor the doctor came, her growing impatience, 
 her wild agitated search in the moonlight, and her over- 
 flowing joy when at last she found the truant. Every 
 stanza in the poem is a vivid picture of simple human 
 
MRS. OLIPHANT'S CRITICISMS 185 
 
 feeling, delightful if you have any interest in the 
 motherly feelings of such a poor old woman as Betty 
 Foy. But we cannot be surprised that so few entered 
 into the spirit of Wordsworth's imagination. Even 
 now, when his fame is established, and it is customary 
 to denounce the purblind critics who ridiculed his first 
 publication, we find " The Idiot Boy " generally given 
 up as a mistaken experiment. Wordsworth uninten- 
 tionally took a sweeping revenge on those early critics 
 when he rearranged his poems so that their chronological 
 order cannot be followed without some trouble ; for 
 many people now loathe and detest and reprobate their 
 memory who entirely agree with them. Mrs. 01 i- 
 phant, — who, although she uses the now orthodox 
 language against the worthless critics who sneered 
 at the "Lyrical Ballads" — the literary gladiators 
 who fleshed their swords upon Wordsworth's first 
 efforts, — condemns without knowing it the very poems 
 that they condemned, and, in language equally strong, 
 makes a comparison between "The Idiot Boy" and 
 "John Gilpin," very much to the disadvantage of the 
 former. " The choice of such colloquial familiarity of 
 treatment," she says, "as suggests a jocular rather than 
 a serious meaning, the absolute insignificance of the 
 incident, and the absence of any attempt to give grace 
 and dignity to the story, balked its effect completely as 
 an exposition of nature, while the humor in it was too 
 feeble, too diffuse, to give it a lively comic interest. 
 Cowper had ventured to be quite as colloquial and 
 realistic in ' John Gilpin,' with electrical effect." The 
 comparison between "The Idiot Boy" and "John 
 Gilpin " is not a happy one, for the two poems are in 
 veiy different keys of humor : we are expected by the 
 poet in the one case to smile with moist eyes and heart 
 profoundly touched, and in the other to laugh heartily. 
 Mrs. Oliphant complains of " the absolute insignifi- 
 cance of the incident," and "the absence of any attempt 
 
186 WORDSWORTH 
 
 to give grace and dignity to the story." While such 
 complaints are made by professed admirers of Words- 
 worth, who find no words too hard for the injustice 
 done him by the contemporary critics of the " Lyrical 
 Ballads," how can Wordsworth be said to have created 
 the taste by which he is enjoyed ? His admirers now 
 repeat the same criticisms of the same works. It was in 
 defence of himself against such complaints as are made 
 by Mrs. Oliphant and Mr. Myers that Wordsworth wrote 
 his celebrated Preface. There are two passages from 
 this Preface that are very often repeated : one that the 
 language used in poetry should be the language really 
 used by men, and the other that poetry is the sponta- 
 neous overflow of powerful feeling — that it takes its 
 origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. These 
 two dicta have passed into literature as the quintessence 
 of Wordsworth's poetical theory, and they fit in with 
 the current conception of Wordsworth as the leader of 
 the revolution against the poetical theories of the eigh- 
 teenth century. But the Preface, as you will see if you 
 read the whole of it, was much more limited in its pur- 
 pose ; it was apologetic, and not constructive ; it was 
 really an elaborate justification of his own practice in 
 the case of the lyrical ballads, not the enunciation of a 
 universally binding poetic creed, although Wordsworth, 
 not the meekest of men, was inclined to take the aggres- 
 sive against what his critics considered good poetry. 
 We must read the Preface along with "The Idiot Boy," 
 " The Thorn," " Goody Blake," " Peter Bell," and other 
 ballads of the same class, if we would understand its 
 purport. As the meaning of the theory that the lan- 
 guage of poetry should be the language really used by 
 men — a theory that every-body has heard of that has 
 ever heard of the name of Wordsw T orth, as the meaning 
 of this theory is not very generally understood — it may 
 be worth while to recall what Wordsworth actually 
 did say. 
 
RUSTIC LANGUAGE IN POETRY 187 
 
 "The principal object proposed in these poems [the "Lyrical 
 Ballads"] was to choose incidents and situations from common 
 life, and to relate and describe them, throughout, as far as was possi- 
 ble, in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same 
 time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, 
 whir by ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an un- 
 usiud aspect ; and further, and above all, to make these incidents 
 and associations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not 
 ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature, chiefly as far as 
 regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of ex- 
 citement." 
 
 It is commonly supposed that by the language really 
 used by men Wordsworth meant colloquial language, 
 above all, for poetic purposes, the language of rustics ; 
 and, seeing that the vocabulary of an ordinary peasant 
 is extremely limited, the theory has been laughed at as 
 a preposterous limitation of poetry. But Wordsworth 
 did not really propose any thing so absurd as this. He 
 did, indeed, defend the choice for poetry of themes 
 from rustic life and language from rustic life, because 
 "the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in 
 which they can attain their maturity, are less under 
 restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic lan- 
 guage"; and because peasants "hourly communicate with 
 the best objects from which the best part of language is 
 originally derived," and " from their rank in life, and 
 the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being 
 less under the influence of social vanitj'', they convey 
 their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated 
 expressions." In this overstrained argument in his own 
 defence Wordsworth undoubtedly went too far, and ex- 
 posed himself to very obvious and easy ridicule. But 
 even in this passage he did not commit himself to the 
 theory that all poetry should be composed of such homely 
 materials ; he w r as only in a spirit of defiant paradox 
 playing for a little with the idea that if a poet dealt 
 only with the feelings of peasants, and used only words 
 known to them, his poetry was likely to be more perma- 
 
1 S8 WORDSWORTH 
 
 nently intelligible and interesting. The paradox is 
 arguable, but against it must be set the fact that the 
 words of rustic dialects, though very persistent, do be- 
 come obsolete and acquire new shades of meaning as 
 much as the words of literature and cultivated speech ; 
 and the further fact that, as civilization advances, the 
 relations among individuals and the feelings thence 
 arising become too complicated to be typified by the 
 incidents of life in a country parish. This part of 
 Wordsworth's theory may be dismissed as overstrained 
 and fantastic. Only it must be remembered, to do him 
 justice, that he did not propose to use bare incidents 
 without a coloring of imagination, and that the poet's 
 words were to be a selection and a metrical arrangement, 
 the selection dictated by the feeling to be expressed, 
 and the feeling by the poet's sensibility. 
 
 The opinion in favor of rustic language was, however, 
 but a part of Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction, a 
 casual and detachable incident. The main thesis of his 
 preface, of his apology for his own poetry, was that 
 poetry has no special language distinct from that of 
 ordinary life or of prose ; that the language of passion, 
 of powerful feeling, is the same whether in metre or 
 not ; that it is possible to write poetiy without using 
 any other words than such as are to be found in prose 
 writing. 
 
 " If in a poem there should be found a series of lines, or even a 
 single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged, 
 and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that 
 of prose, there is a numerous class of critics who, when they 
 stumble upon these prosaisms, as they call them, imagine that they 
 have made a notable discovery, and exult over the poet as over a 
 man ignorant of his own profession. Now, these men would 
 establish a canon of criticism which the reader will conclude he 
 must utterly reject, if he wishes to be pleased with these volumes. 
 And it would be a most easy task to prove to him that not only 
 the language of a large portion of every good poem, even of the 
 most elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference 
 
COLERIDGE ON WORDSWORTH 189 
 
 to the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but like- 
 wise thut some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will 
 be found to be strictly the language of prose, when prose is well 
 written." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " It may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any 
 essential difference between the language of prose and metrical 
 composition." 
 
 This was the gist of Wordsworth's theory of poetic 
 diction, tliat in the best parts of the best poems no words 
 are used that are special and peculiar to poetry, that 
 would not be found in well-written prose. I might 
 claim it, I think, as confirming the view I have expressed 
 to you as to the influence of the prose literature of the 
 eighteenth century in effecting the change that took 
 place in poetry soon after the French Revolution. But, 
 you may ask, was Wordsworth's theory correct ? Surely, 
 you will say, the order of the words, the construction of 
 the sentences, is different in poetry ? And the selection 
 of the words is different ? Coleridge, in his criticism of 
 Wordsworth's theory in the " Biographia Literaria," 
 perhaps the most suggestive and eloquent piece of 
 critical writing in our language, urges both of these 
 considerations as if Wordsworth had denied them. He 
 will not believe that Wordsworth could have meant only 
 that the words used in the best poetry must be such 
 words as would excite no surprise if they appeared in 
 good prose, because, he says, nobody who had enjoyed 
 the slightest opportunity of understanding Words- 
 worth's mind and character would suspect him of pro- 
 claiming a truism. Therefore it must have been Words- 
 worth's intention to claim for the best poetry the same 
 style as prose in the ordinary sense of the word style, 
 having reference to the composition, the arrangement, 
 ior, as Coleridge says, the ordonnance of the words, and 
 1 not the mere word'-' themselves. And, interpreting 
 
190 WORDSWORTH 
 
 Wordsworth in this way, his friendly critic has no diffi- 
 culty in showing that neither in his own poetry nor in 
 any other poetry is the style identical with that of prose. 
 " The true question must be, whether there are not modes 
 of expression, a construction, and an order of sentences, 
 which are in their fit and natural place in a serious prose 
 composition, but would be disproportionate and hetero- 
 geneous in metrical poetry ; and, vice versa, whether in 
 the language of a serious poem there may not be an 
 arrangement both of words and of sentences, and a use 
 and a selection of (what are called) figures of speech, 
 both as to their kind, their frequency, and their occa- 
 sions, which on a subject of equal weight would be 
 vicious and alien in correct and manly prose. I contend 
 that in both cases the unfitness of each for the place of 
 the other frequently will and ought to exist." 
 
 Coleridge's interpretation of Wordsworth and his 
 reply upon this interpretation have both been universally 
 accepted since the " Biographia Literaria " was published, 
 Coleridge's early intimacy with Wordsworth lending 
 authorit}' to his interpretation, and common-sense lend- 
 ing sanction to his reply to the theory as interpreted. ; 
 And yet it is impossible to read Wordsworth's Preface 
 through with care enough to group and put together 
 his detached statements, concentration of dry thought 
 not being one of his virtues as a writer, without feeling 
 that he never meant to deny what Coleridge affirmed \ 
 against him ; that he abstained from insisting upon this ! 
 difference between poetry and prose in point of arrange- 
 ment only because he regarded it as a truism ; and that 
 when he spoke of there being no essential difference 
 between the language of prose and metrical composition, 
 he was thinking of the mere words, if \>y words we un- 
 derstand figurative words as well as plain literal words. 
 His language again and again implies that the dis- 
 tinction between poetry and prose emphasized by Cole- 
 ridge was present to his mind. He discusses at length 
 
 
the poet's theory and his practice 191 
 
 and with great analytic skill how and why it is that 
 metre adds to the reader's pleasure, speaking of the 
 "continual and regular impulses of pleasurable surprise 
 from the metrical arrangement." He indicates, in fact, 
 the very theory of the origin and effect of metre that 
 Coleridge develops more fully and presents as a qualifica- 
 tion of Wordsworth's doctrine. It was no part of that 
 doctrine that the poetic order of words must necessarily 
 be the prose order, though he contended, in vindication of 
 his own pi-actice in the metrical ballads, that it might be 
 the prose order, without losing any of the power peculiar 
 to poetry. The point that Coleridge labored most against 
 Wordsworth and established most brilliantly was that 
 there are figures of speech which, as regard kind, and 
 number, and occasion, would be in place in poetry and out 
 of place in correct and manly prose. But I don't think 
 that Wordsworth had overlooked even this, though he 
 did not guard himself with sufficient care against being 
 supposed to have overlooked it ; for he says that " if. 
 the poet's subject be judiciously chosen, it will naturally, 
 and upon fit occasion, lead him to passions the language 
 1 of which, if selected truly and judiciously, must neces- 
 sarily be dignified and variegated, and alive with 
 < metaphors and figures." What he objected to was the 
 I. " poet's intervening any foreign splendor of his own 
 ] with that which the passion naturally suggests." 
 
 That it was the words and the words only that Words- 
 worth had in his mind when he maintained that the 
 ! language of poetry did not differ essentially from the 
 language of prose is further shown by the example he 
 quotes from Gray : 
 
 "In vain to me the smiling mornings shine 
 And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden tire : 
 The birds in vain their amorous descant join, 
 Or cheerful fields resume their green attire. 
 These ears, alas ! for other notes repine ; 
 A different object do these eyes require ; 
 
192 WORDSWORTH 
 
 My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; 
 And in my breast the imperfect joys expire : 
 Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, 
 And new-born pleasure brings to happier men ; 
 The fields to all their wonted tribute bear ; 
 To warm their little loves the birds complain. 
 I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, 
 And weep the more because I weep in vain." 
 
 " It will easily be perceived," he goes on to say, " that 
 the only part of this sonnet which is of any value is the 
 lines printed in italics ; it is equally obvious that, except 
 in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word 'fruit- 
 less' for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the lan- 
 guage of these lines does in no respect differ from that 
 of prose." 
 
 If Wordsworth's plain statements had not been suf- 
 ficiently explicit, his comments on this passage would 
 have been sufficient to show that what he really objected 
 to was the habitual employment b} r poets of certain 
 conventional figures of speech that had dropped out of 
 the prose style, and had come to be regarded as the ex- 
 clusive colors of poetic diction. The expulsion of these 
 conventionalities was all the revolution that he pro- 
 posed in poetic style. The truth is that in the heat of 
 the moment, with all the arrogance and obstinacy of his 
 nature, roused by the ridicule poured on his ballads, he 
 exaggerated the difference between his own poetry and 
 that of his pi-edecessors. He told the public with lofty 
 anger that the public taste was corrupt, and that if they 
 wished to enjoy his poems, which were deliberately 
 adapted to interest mankind permanently, they must 
 give up much of what was ordinarily enjoyed. All 
 this was provoked by the open contempt for his pro- 
 saisms. He carried the war into the enemy's country 
 with the angry retort: "Cleanse yourselves of your 
 gaudy, glossy, meaningless, conventional poeticisms, ami 
 then you will be able to enjoy my prosaisms" His 
 
THE POET'S THEORY AND HIS PRACTICE 193 
 
 special plea for the colloquial language of rustics was 
 but a side issue in his general poetic theory, intended 
 only for the special defence of a few passages in the 
 "Lyrical Ballads" — in " The Thorn," for example, and 
 in " The Idiot Boy." A not uncommon impression is 
 that Wordsworth advocated this as the only fitting 
 language for poetry, and, upon this misunderstanding, 
 readers naturally charge the poet with gross inconsist- 
 ency between his theory and his practice ; for if you 
 open a volume of Wordsworth's poems anywhere, you 
 will find abundance of words that are never to be heard 
 in the mouth of an ordinary rustic. But } 7 ou will not, I 
 think, find many words that would be considered inad- 
 missible in prose style, supposing always, what was 
 part of his theory, that the prose writer was in the same 
 
 I exalted key of feeling with the poet. You may say, as 
 
 1 Coleridge said, that this is in fact an unreal and artificial 
 supposition ; that when feelings reach a certain pitch of 
 
 i intensity, they cannot as a matter of fact be expressed 
 in prose so as to command the sympathy of the reader ; 
 
 : that metrical language is the customary vehicle of 
 
 : intense feeling ; that we expect to find a less impas- 
 sioned strain in prose, and are consequently disposed to 
 
 i ridicule, as out of place, figures of speech in harmony 
 with the strain, which from habit and association we 
 regard as appropriate in poetry. That Wordsworth 
 
 '< would have admitted this, if it had been put to him, we 
 
 1 have every reason to believe from what he actually says, 
 but when he wrote the Preface, he was in too aggressive 
 a mood to be particular about stating his doctrine with 
 all the explicit qualifications needful to meet obvious 
 
 ' objections. He did not care to present it in such a way 
 as to win instant acceptance from common-sense. He 
 
 ' was for the moment wilfully, not to say arrogantly, 
 paradoxical ; and while we recognize that he was mis- 
 understood, we must admit that he had himself to 
 blame. 
 13 
 
194 WORDS WORTH 
 
 Another part of the poetic theory set forth in the 
 Preface has received much less attention than his theoiy 
 of j;>oetic diction, although it deserves more as a clue 
 to Wordsworth's main point of distinction from other 
 poets. It concerns his choice of subjects and his mode 
 of constructing his poems. Perhaps evolving or devel- 
 oping is a better word to use than constructing, because 
 on principle the poet left his imagination more free 
 than the artist generally does to follow the impulses of 
 the feelings aroused by his subject. Wordsworth's 
 theory was put forward primarily to defend himself 
 against the charge of triviality and insignificance in his 
 choice of subjects and incidents, the charge that Mrs. 
 Oliphant repeats. But it has a much wider bearing, and 
 it is worth taking some pains to understand his meaning 
 for two reasons : In the first place, such poetry as 
 Wordsworth's, as he himself pointed out, cannot be 
 thoroughly enjoyed unless you follow the course of his 
 imagination in composing it. Mere passive reading 
 will not do; the reader's imagination must exert itself 
 to accompany the poet's. And in the second place, 
 though this is an inferior motive, there are several cant 
 terms in contemporary criticism that have grown out 
 of Wordsworth's doctrine, and are often used — some- 
 times intelligently and sometimes not, but, in one way 
 or the other, often. The fashionable word evolution, 
 when rightly employed in poetic criticism, is employed 
 in a sense defined by Wordsworth's theory as to how a 
 poet should proceed. 
 
 Accused of choosing trivial incidents in his lyrical 
 ballads, Wordsworth's reply was that " the feeling 
 therein developed gives importance to the action and 
 situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling." 
 " Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feel- 
 ing." The poet's business is to study " the manner in 
 which we associate ideas in a state of excitement," and 
 in proportion as the succession of ideas in his poetry 
 
THE POET'S DEFENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE 195 
 
 obeys these natural laws of association, follows this 
 course of evolution, his poetry is real poetry, and not a 
 rhetorical imitation. Closely intervoven with this doc- 
 trine in Wordsworth's statement of it was another not 
 strictly relevant, that people are too much accustomed 
 to the use of gross and violent stimulants in poetry ; 
 that they thirst for startling incidents, strange situa- 
 tions, violent passions, the favorite objects of sensational 
 and romantic fiction. This charge against the public 
 taste was part of Wordsworth's indignant and defiant 
 retort upon his critics, and not, as I have said, strictly 
 relevant to his theory as to the right mode of poetic 
 evolution out of powerful feeling. Strictly speaking, 
 of course, the mode of evolution is independent of the 
 origin of the intense feeling that sets the imagination to 
 work ; we can only say that the feeling must be there, 
 no matter what the nature of the stimulant that has 
 given occasion to it. Still, this complaint about " the 
 degrading thirst for outrageous stimulation," as he calls 
 it, has a certain connection with Wordsworth's doctrine 
 about the poet's main business. For, the poet being 
 bound to study "the manner in which we associate ideas 
 in a state of excitement," he can do this only in his 
 own mind ; he must study how his imagination is 
 affected by events within his own experience. Hence, 
 while other poets, as he pictured them, were ransacking 
 history for good poetical subjects, such as were in their 
 own nature extraordinary, and might be tricked out by 
 the fancy in such a way as to impress all readers, he 
 chose his subjects from incidents in familiar life that 
 had strongly impressed him and put his imagination in 
 motion. But there was another condition of good 
 poetry. Not every image that the excited mind con- 
 jures up is necessarily poetical. The poet must select 
 and modify for a particular purpose, that of giving 
 immediate pleasure. " Nor let this necessity of pro- 
 ducing immediate pleasure," he cries, "be cxmsidered as 
 
196 WORDSWORTH 
 
 a degradation of the poet's art. It is far otherwise. It 
 is an acknowledgment of the beauty of the universe — 
 an acknowledgment the more sincere because not 
 formal, but indirect; it is a task light and easy to 
 him who looks at the world in the spirit of love; 
 further, it is a homage paid to the native and naked 
 dignity of man, to the grand elementary principle 
 of pleasure, by which he knows and feels and lives 
 and moves." 
 
 The poet's choice of what his imagination evolves 
 being thus restricted, how should lie proceed in choos- 
 ing his subjects? When any incident excites him to 
 intense feeling, he should study how his imagination 
 works in raising that feeling to a higher pitch if it is 
 pleasurable; or if it is painful, throwing a veil over it 
 or changing the light that falls upon it till it can be 
 looked at with pathetic resignation. In every person 
 the imagination is more or less active in this work of 
 increase and consolation; conjuring only images that 
 reconcile us to sorrow and give a lovelier complexion to 
 joy. The poet, with his keener sensibilities and more 
 active imagination, does this more than other men. 
 Wordsworth tried deliberate^ to be true to nature as a 
 poet by putting into metrical language only the imagery 
 that grew up in his mind under the impulse of intense 
 feeling. If you read " The Thorn," you can trace how 
 the imaginative structure was gradually reared that had 
 its origin in a feeling of keen pity for the poor, outcast, 
 suspected lunatic Martha Ray. The thought of this 
 outcast, when he heard her story or saw her sitting 
 by her thorn, haunted him. The poem really repre- 
 sents the fancies with which he soothed the disquiet 
 of his own spirit at the existence of such miseries 
 in the world, just as the poem of " The Idiot Boy " 
 is composed of the fancies with which he heightened 
 his enjoyment of the touching incident that was its 
 foundation in fact. 
 
DANGER OF TAKING ADVICE OF CRITICS 197 
 
 It must be further added, and the fact explains the 
 strength as well as the imperfections of Wordsworth's 
 poetry, that, writing on these principles, he wrote chiefly 
 to please himself, " with his eye on the object," as he 
 said, and without much regard to the effect to be pro- 
 duced upon the reader. When the feelings stirred in 
 him by what he saw, or heard, or read were satisfied 
 hy the work of his imagination, he had little solicitude 
 about the best means of communicating the same satis- 
 faction to his reader. The best means were the means 
 that gave satisfaction to himself. And as his own life 
 was peculiar, — the life of a solitary student, or of a 
 student moving within a narrow circle of interests, — it 
 was not to be expected that what interested him would 
 interest every-body. Of this he was aware, but it did 
 not influence his practice. 
 
 "lam sensible," he wrote, "that my associations must have 
 sometimes been particular instead of general, and that, conse- 
 quently, giving to things a false importance, I may sometimes 
 have written upon unworthy subjects ; but I am less apprehensive 
 on this account, than that my language may frequently have suf- 
 fered from those arbitrary connections of feelings and ideas with 
 particular words and phrases, from which no man can altogether 
 protect himself. Hence I have no doubt that, in some instances, 
 feelings, even of the ludicrous, may be given to my readers by 
 expressions which appeared to me tender and pathetic. Such 
 faulty expressions, were I convinced they were faulty at present, 
 and that they must necessarily continue to be so, I would will- 
 ingly take all reasonable pains to correct. But it is dangerous to 
 make these alterations on the simple authority of a few individ- 
 uals, or even of certain classes of men ; for where the under- 
 standing of an author is not convinced, or his feelings altered, 
 this cannot be done without great injury to himself : for his own 
 feelings are his stay and support, and if he set them aside in one 
 instance, he may be induced to repeat this act till his mind shall 
 lose all confidence in itself, and become utterly debilitated." 
 
 We need go no further to understand the antagonism 
 that Wordsworth provoked. It was no personal malig- 
 
198 WORDSWORTH 
 
 nity. Controversy took a personal turn because he chal- 
 lenged comparison between his own feelings and those 
 of others. It is the merit of such poetry that it is the 
 expression of genuine feeling actually felt, and not of 
 what the poet supposed that the world in general would 
 feel in presence of certain objects. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 Wordsworth (continued) — coleridge — southey 
 
 You will be pleased to hear, I think, that I have 
 abandoned the idea of trying to lecture you into an ad- 
 miration of Wordsworth. I had intended to occupy 
 this lecture with going over some of Wordsworth's 
 poems, and pointing out their distinctive charms ; but 
 on mature consideration I have come to the conclusion 
 that I should only be wasting your time, because those 
 of you who are fitted by temperament to enjoy his 
 poems will do so without any prompting, and those of 
 you who are not would probably remain deaf to any 
 rhetoric of mine in their favor. No poet is more un- 
 equal than Wordsworth, and I cannot forget the fact 
 that when I was young myself I had too intolerant an 
 aversion to his prosy sermonizing to have patience 
 enough to approach in a sympathetic spirit what I now 
 read with delight. It was this, indeed, that at first 
 tempted me to think of picking out a few poems that 
 might serve as an introduction to a sympathetic under- 
 standing of the man, but, on the whole, I think I had 
 better leave that to the influence of time. It is charac- 
 teristic of Wordsworth that his imagination was always 
 set in motion by personal feelings ; and unless you sym- 
 pathize with the initiatory feeling, which you are not 
 likely to do if } r ou have not passed through something 
 of the same experience, you cannot be expected to fol- 
 low his imagination in its flight without an effort that 
 is fatal to any real enjoyment of poetry. You can al- 
 ways be sure of finding in Wordsworth a genuine feel- 
 ing of some kind, and if you have any delight in exter- 
 nal nature, you will find that he awakens you, as no 
 
 199 
 
200 WORDSWORTH 
 
 other poet can, to unsuspected aspects of familiar things, 
 not merely fixing the eye on striking features that had 
 escaped your observation, but inspiring them with new 
 suggestions. But preliminary sympathy with the poet's 
 attitude is indispensable, and something more than a 
 casual lecture is needed to give you that. 
 
 I shall content myself, therefore, in continuation and 
 conclusion of what I said the other day, with referring 
 to a few poems that may illustrate the relation between 
 the imaginative structure and the emotional motive in 
 his poetry. You remember my quoting his saying that 
 true poetry has its origin in emotion ; it is emotion that 
 sets the imagination, the creative constructive faculty, 
 at work ; the imagination exerts itself to multiply and 
 modify this initial feeling. You may call this, then, 
 the emotional motive, while the fabric reared at the 
 bidding of this motive, and conditioned through all its 
 parts by the nature of this motive, may be called the 
 imaginative structure, the temple reared as a fitting 
 habitation for the feeling that commanded the poet's 
 creative faculty to build a home for it. Now, Words- 
 worth, as you will remember, held that poets generally 
 worked under the influence of too outrageous emotional 
 stimulants ; their imaginations were not quick enough, 
 not spontaneous enough, not sufficiently delighted with 
 their own exercise, to be put in motion by slight and 
 ordinary impulses; they remained still, dull, inert, except 
 when visited by strong, violent, extraordinary excite- 
 ments. His imagination was more excitable, more ready 
 to stir ; and besides, on moral grounds, he deliberately 
 trained it to respond to slight impulses, and find its 
 delight in its own exercise. 
 
 Hence arises what at first sight seems an anomaly in 
 Wordsworth's poetry, as well as an apparent contradic- 
 tion between his practice and some parts of his theory. 
 Search his poems through, and you will find some that 
 start from humbler, slighter themes than those of any 
 
THE EMOTIONAL MOTIVE IN POETRY 201 
 
 other poet of high rank. But his poetry is not on that 
 account simple. On the contrary, search his poems 
 through, and you will find some, such as the famous 
 odes to "Duty" and on the "Intimations of Immor- 
 tality," that are as intricate, elaborate, and abstruse, as 
 remote from the ordinary paths of thought, as ever 
 poet's imagination created. The emotional motive is 
 simple, the passion has almost always a simple origin, 
 and often is of no great intensity; but the imaginative 
 structure is generally elaborate, and, when the poet is at 
 his best, supremely splendid and gorgeous. No poet 
 has built such magnificent palaces of rare material for 
 the ordinary every-day homely human affections. And 
 it is because he has invested our every-day principles of 
 conduct, which are so apt to become threadbare, with 
 such imperishable robes of finest texture and richest 
 design that Wordsworth holds so high a place among 
 the great moralists of his race. 
 
 Take the greatest of his poems, the "Ode to Duty." 
 The emotional motive to this is nothing more extraor- 
 dinary than a quiet resolution, formed in no tempestuous 
 moment of repentance, but in a placid stretch of even 
 life, to make duty the rule of his conduct. But with 
 what a splendor his imagination invests this ! to what 
 heights of ecstasy does he lift this simple feeling ! — 
 
 " Through no disturbance of my soul, 
 Or strong compunction in me wrought, 
 I supplicate for thy control ; 
 But in the quietness of thought : 
 Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 
 I feel the weight of chance-desires ; 
 My hopes no more must change their name, 
 I long for a repose that ever is the same. 
 
 " Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
 The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
 Nor know we anything so fair 
 As is the smile upon thy face : 
 
202 WORDSWORTH 
 
 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds 
 And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
 Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 
 And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and 
 strong. 
 
 " To humbler functions, awful Power ! 
 I call thee : I myself commend 
 Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 
 Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 
 Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
 The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
 The confidence of reason give ; 
 And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live ! " 
 
 So simple is the motive often that unless the path 
 taken by the imagination is of itself delightful to you, 
 unless you are caught up Avith it and transported, you 
 are left at the end with a feeling as if there had been 
 much ado about nothing. In illustration of this I would 
 cite " The Solitary Reaper " : 
 
 " Behold her, single in the field, 
 Yon solitary Highland lass ! 
 Reaping and singing by herself ; 
 Stop here, or gently pass ! 
 Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 
 And sings a melancholy strain ; 
 O listen ! for the Vale profound 
 Is overflowing with the sound. 
 
 " No nightingale did ever chaunt 
 More welcome notes to weary bands 
 Of travellers in some shady haunt, 
 Among Arabian sands: 
 A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard 
 In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, 
 Breaking the silence of the seas 
 Among the farthest Hebrides. 
 
 " Will no one tell me what she sings ? 
 Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 
 For old, unhappy, far-off things, 
 And battles long ago : 
 
" THE SOLITARY REAPER " 203 
 
 Or is it some more humble lay, 
 Familiar matter of to-day ? 
 Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 
 That has been, and may be again ! 
 
 " What'er the theme, the Maiden sang 
 As if her song could have no ending ; 
 I saw her singing at her work, 
 And o'er the sickle bending ; — 
 I listened, motionless and still ; 
 And, as I mounted up the hill, 
 The music in my heart I bore, 
 Loner after it was heard no more." 
 
 Many of Wordsworth's imaginative flights, and these 
 the most prized by his admirers, take their start from 
 his delight in discovering some new aspect of Nature, 
 or in the sudden flash upon bis mind of some reflection 
 that had never before inspired a poet. Wordsworth is 
 sometimes called a nature-worshipper, but it would be 
 more correct to call him a worshipper of the novelties 
 of thought that occurred to him in the minute observa- 
 tion of nature. The mere delight of the eye, the glory 
 of vision, had great charms for him, but greater still 
 was the charm of the imaginative exercise to which new 
 revelations inspired him. You remember the passage 
 in which he describes what first moved him, as early as 
 in his fourteenth year, to resolve to be a poet, the sud- 
 den conviction flashing upon him that there were many 
 things in nature that poets had never observed ? From 
 that moment he kept in view, with the persistent obsti- 
 nacy of will that was so marked a feature in his charac- 
 ter, a definite purpose to supply the deficienc} 7 . And be 
 carried out the purpose not merely by what might be 
 irreverently called simile-hunting in nature, which many 
 of his admirers in prose and verse have done to death, 
 never allowing a leaf to cross their path, or a bird to 
 sing within their hearing, without putting it on the 
 
204 WORDSWORTH 
 
 rack to extract a moral from it, or treasuring it up in 
 their memories, to be dragged in as after-occasion might 
 offer as a rhetorical embellishment. Wordsworth did, 
 indeed, labor after new images from nature, and some- 
 times, though not often, used them as a rhetorician 
 rather than a poet — that is to say, to tickle the fancy 
 rather than touch the heart. But often when a new 
 aspect of nature touched him, he allowed his imagina- 
 tion to dwell upon it, and circle round it, and weave for 
 it a metrical body in which it might live among the 
 permanent companions of the human spirit. Once, for 
 example, as he stood in the twilight among his favorite 
 hills, when the gathering gloom had covered over all 
 traces of the handiwork of man, and even the transient 
 features of the vegetation were dim and indistinct, 
 nothing then being visible but the vague outlines of the 
 valley, the soft gleam of the lake, and the shadowy 
 masses of the mountains, the thought came to him that 
 this was the spectacle that had met the eyes of men in 
 all ages, had remained constant to human vision through 
 all the changes that had passed over the face of nature. 
 It was a solemn and affecting thought, and the poet's 
 imagination has provided for it a permanent dwelling- 
 place in his sonnet to Twilight : 
 
 " Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour ! 
 Not dull art thou as undiseerning Night ; 
 But studious only to remove from sight 
 Day's mutable distinctions. — Ancient Power ! 
 Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower, 
 To the rude Briton, when in wolf-skin vest 
 Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest 
 On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower 
 Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen 
 The self-same Vision which we now behold, 
 At thy meek bidding, Shadowy Power ! brought forth ; 
 These mighty barriers, and the gulf between ; 
 The flood, the stars, — a spectacle as old 
 As the beginning of the heavens and earth." 
 
SONNET ON STEAMBOATS 205 
 
 And it was not only in the solitude of hill and valley 
 that such thoughts came to him. One of the best 
 known of his sonnets is that composed on Westminster 
 Bridge. If Wordsworth was not the first poet to 
 attempt to express the fact that a more profound feeling 
 of stillness and calm is experienced in cities before the 
 rush and roar of the day has begun than in the loneliest 
 of mountain solitudes, he has given such perfect expres- 
 sion to the truth that he is entitled to all the honor of 
 the discovery. 
 
 It is a distinctive feature in Wordsworth's nature- 
 worship, one that marks him off from lovers of less 
 robust and healthy sentiment, that his conception of 
 nature Avas wide enough to include the works of man. 
 
 1 He held in theory that nothing was inharmonious in 
 
 1 nature when seen through the right imaginative 
 medium ; and though, when the railway threatened his 
 
 1 own Westmoreland retreats, he hurled metrical thunder- 
 bolts at the invader, this was in his later years, and 
 before that time his imagination had been able to 
 
 l! reconcile the eye to what men of more confined range 
 of mental vision can only regard as discordant and 
 
 : unsightly. When we read his sonnet on Steamboats, 
 Viaducts, and Railways, composed during the tour of 
 1833, we feel convinced that, if he had not been dis- 
 turbed from his natural balance by the projected 
 Kendal and Windermere Railway, he might have 
 found the right imaginative medium through which 
 to hear the whistle, and would not have called upon 
 the startled mountains, vales, and floods to share 
 with him the passion of a just disdain. As this 
 sonnet is not generally known, you will pardon me 
 for quoting it : 
 
 " Motions and Means, on land and sea at war 
 With old poetic feeling, not for this, 
 Shall ye by Poets even, be judged amiss ! 
 Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar 
 
206 WORDSWORTH 
 
 The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar 
 
 To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense 
 
 Of future change, that point of vision, whence 
 
 May be discovered what in soul ye are. 
 
 In spite of all that beauty may disown 
 
 In your harsh features, Nature doth embrace 
 
 Her lawful offspring in Man's art ; and Time, 
 
 Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space, 
 
 Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown 
 
 Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime." 
 
 Before passing from Wordsworth I would recom- 
 mend those who wish to give him a trial as a companion 
 not to attempt " The Prelude " or " The Excursion " at 
 first, but to search about among the shorter poems for 
 some congenial spot in which sympathy and admiration 
 may take root and develop into intimate enjoyment. 
 Matthew Arnold made a selection from the poems, and: 
 wrote a preface to them. He is the writer to put you 
 in sympathy with Wordsworth, if any human being can. 
 It is a fashion to deride the " This will never do," with 
 which Jeffrey opened his review of " The Excursion." 
 But has it ever done? I have never heard of or 
 seen any body prepared to say that "The Excursion" 
 can be read with unflagging delight. It contains many 
 splendid passages, but the bulk of it many of Words- 
 worth's most ardent admirers pass by with indifference,, 
 if not with actual repugnance. To take the case ofjj 
 Dean Church, for example: there is a manifest incon- 
 sistency between what he says of Jeffrey and his own 
 comments on " The Excursion." At one place he tells- 
 us that the sneers of the Edinburgh Review were in| 
 vain, and showed only that the poem was in advance of ! 
 the times ; while again, referring to the poem itself, lie 
 admits that, though many passages are majestic, we can- 
 not speak so highly of their contents, and that the poet 
 is at times both pompous and obscure. Jeffrey said 
 nothing stronger against "The Excursion" than this,; 
 
THE LAKE POETS 207 
 
 and the truth is that most of his criticism has been 
 amply confirmed and justified. 
 
 And now for a short introduction to Coleridge and a 
 shorter to Southey. It was owing to an extraneous 
 accident, and not on the ground of any resemblance in 
 their character or in their poetic principles, that they 
 were spoken of in their lifetime as forming a school 
 nicknamed the Lake Poets. Three men more dissimilar 
 could not have been found — Wordsworth, absorbed in a 
 : definitely conceived poetic mission, living solely for it, 
 day after day and year after year alternately opening 
 his mind with wise passiveness till an inspiration should 
 
 I seize it, and working with strenuous vigor when the 
 inspiration came ; Coleridge, dreamy, speculative, aim- 
 
 II less, rich in poetic and philosophic projects, but poor in 
 1 perseverance, an inspired creator of splendid fragments, 
 
 paving with good resolutions the way to slender achieve- 
 ment ; Southey, a man of immense intellectual energy 
 and copious literary faculty, but no distinctive genius, 
 a ready and indefatigable writer, full of ambition and 
 self-confidence, writing epics for fame, reviewing articles 
 : and books for a livelihood, a professional man of letters 
 1 who cheerfully resigned his youthful ambitions to fol- 
 low a life of regular methodical production of such 
 works as editors and booksellers would contract to 
 receive and pay for on delivery, putting fame on one 
 1 side except in so far as it was compatible with honest 
 labor for the support of his household. The lives of the 
 three ran in channels that diverged more and more as 
 the streams lengthened. They were too different in 
 character ever to have formed a school. Their poetic 
 ideals were different. We may doubt whether Southey 
 could have ever understood Wordsworth's conception of 
 poetry as the imaginative embodiment of personal emo- 
 tion ; at any rate, he went a very different way to work, 
 ranging through history for subjects likely in them- 
 
208 COLERIDGE 
 
 selves to impress Lis readers. It may have been that a6 
 a practical man, under the imperious necessity of pro- 
 ducing what would sell, he felt that he could not afford 
 to wait and watch for moments of inspiration, but 
 must go in search of subjects capable of impressive 
 treatment. This at least was what he did, and his 
 poetry has not one quality in common with Words- 
 worth's. Rebellion against the tyranny of the couplet, 
 it might be said, for Southey threw himself with pre- 
 sumptuous energy into metrical experiments, and his 
 epics abound in irregular freaks of rhythm. But such 
 vagaries were no part of Wordsworth's system, although 
 at the time there is no doubt that, forming as they did the 
 most superficially striking feature of Southey's " Thai- 
 aba," they confirmed the impression that he was leagued 
 with Wordsworth and Coleridge in a conspiracy to propa- 
 gate the heresies of the Preface to the " Lyrical Ballads." 
 It was, in fact, in a review of "Thalaba" in the first 
 number of the Edinburgh Review, in 1802, that the 
 existence of the Lake School was first proclaimed to the 
 world. The reviewer had probably heard that all three 
 poets were domiciled in the Lake Countiy, and, looking 
 to the obtrusive irregularities of " Thalaba " and the 
 startling paradoxes of Wordsworth's poetic gospel, it 
 was natural, perhaps, that he should jump to the con- 
 clusion that this band of brothers had retired from the 
 world to work out in secluded companionship the doc- 
 trines of the Preface. It was a circumstance in favor 
 of a conclusion recommended by its dramatic effective- 
 ness that, some j^ears before, Southey and Coleridge 
 had published a volume in conjunction, while Words- 
 worth and Coleridge were the joint authors of the 
 "Lyrical Ballads." The truth was that Southey was 
 not at the time a resident in the Lake Country, though 
 Coleridge was established there for the sake of Words- 
 worth's companionship, and Coleridge and Southey had 
 married sisters, and Mrs. Southey had spent some 
 
Coleridge's influence on wordsworth 209 
 
 i months with Mrs. Coleridge while Southey, not yet 
 settled down to his life-work as a man of letters, was 
 ) wandering about in vague prospect of diplomatic 
 i employment. It was not till 1803 that Southey finally 
 resolved to look to literature for a livelihood, and fixed 
 i his residence at Greta Hall near Keswick ; and it was 
 •i for domestic reasons rather than for the sake of Words- 
 )i worth's society that he chose this residence in the Lake 
 country — his acquaintance with Wordsworth being, in 
 fact, slight, and his sympathy with Wordsworth's 
 poetical theories far from intimate. The ordinary cares 
 of this world bad a paramount hold on Southey in those 
 years, and his foremost anxiety was to find the means 
 of reconciling them with his poetic ambition ; far from 
 his thoughts was any idea of sharing as a sworn con- 
 federate in another man's mission. It was chance, and 
 not community of aim or community of sentiment, that 
 brought the three poets together in their early man- 
 hood. There can be no confederacy without a leader, 
 and these three were too strong in their energies and 
 distinct in their individualities to submit one to 
 another's purposes in life. The links between them 
 . were slight and transient, and had all been accidentally 
 formed by Coleridge, the man of many projects and 
 quickly kindled generous sympathy with the works of 
 others, all the freer in its play that he had no very 
 definite work of his own. But the contemporary 
 "Edinburgh Reviewer" could not be aware of these 
 details which have been disclosed to posterity ; and 
 several superficial facts were in his favor when he coined 
 the nickname of the Lake School. 
 
 Of the three, Coleridge and Wordsworth, though as 
 different as possible in character, had most in common 
 in their views of poetry. The doctrines of the Preface 
 most probably took shape in Wordsworth's mind during 
 those long walks and talks with Coleridge in the summer 
 of 179V to which I have before alluded. There can be 
 14 
 
210 COLERIDGE 
 
 no doubt that his friendship with Coleridge in their 
 early manhood was a most important influence in the 
 development of Wordsworth's mental and poetic life. 
 There is a marked difference between what he wrote 
 before and after. I would even go so far, arguing from 
 the precision with which Wordsworth uses psychological 
 terms in the Preface, that not a little of his theory was 
 consciously or unconsciously derived from Coleridge. 
 And the basis of my argument would be this : Words- 
 worth was not a reader of philosophy, and he professed 
 to detest mental analysis ; yet the analysis of the crea- 
 tive faculty in the Preface is at once profound and clear. 
 Coleridge, on the other hand, had a passion for philos- 
 ophy ; his quick and subtle intellect revelled in its 
 intricacies ; it was his delight before poetry even when 
 he was a school-boy, and when he was an old man he 
 could hardly be brought to converse on any other sub- 
 ject. Only the year before lie sought the acquaintance 
 of Wordsworth, the first son born to him, the ill-starred 
 Hartley Coleridge, had been named after the English 
 philosopher whose technical language is used throughout 
 Wordsworth's Preface, not without the awkwardness 
 and crabbedness that comes from want of familiarity. 
 Coleridge was saturated with Hartley's psychology when 
 he and Wordsworth first met ; and when he was full of 
 a subject, his eloquence about it was unmatchedly rich 
 and full. A new Plato would find admirable subjects 
 for imaginary dialogues in these conversations between 
 Coleridge and Wordsworth when they met almost daily 
 for a whole year. Only Plato himself could hardly 
 have done justice to the abundance and eloquence, the 
 wide discursiveness, of Coleridge's talk. Carlyle saw 
 and heard him in his old age, and has left a description 
 that is often quoted : 
 
 " I have heard Coleridge talk with eager musical energy two 
 stricken hours, his face radiant and moist, and communicate 
 no meaning whatsoever to any individual of his hearers, certain 
 
HIS ELOQUENCE 211 
 
 of whom, I for one, still kept eagerly listening in hope ; the most 
 had long before given up and formed, if the room was large 
 enough, secondary humming groups of their own. . . You 
 swam and fluttered in the mistiest, wide, unintelligible deluge of 
 things, for most part in a rather profitless uncomfortable manner. 
 Glorious islets too I have seen rise out of the haze, but they were 
 few, and soon swallowed in the general element again. Balmy 
 sunny islets, islets of the blest, and the intelligible ; — on which 
 occasions those secondary humming groups would all cease hum- 
 ming and hang breathless upon the eloquent words, till once your 
 islet got wrapt in the mist again, and they would recommence 
 humming. Eloquent, artistically expansive words, you had 
 always ; piercing radiances of a most subtle insight came at 
 intervals." 
 
 Part of this unir.telligibility may have been due to 
 the listener, for Coleridge in his Highgate da}^s spoke 
 in what was to Carlyle an unknown tongue — the philo- 
 sophical dialect of modern Germany. Those who knew 
 him in his youth heard him converse on more intelligible 
 subjects, and speak of his eloquence as a marvel. And 
 that his eloquence quickened Wordsworth's whole poetic 
 nature, and set him thinking with new energy about 
 poetry, I have not the least doubt ; and I think it highly 
 probable that the doctrines of the Preface shaped them- 
 selves in his mind as he listened to Coleridge's ever- 
 flowing talk. In restating some of these doctrines in 
 the " Biographia Literaria," with such fulness of illus- 
 tration and such explanations and verbal corrections that 
 they have become part of the critical creed, Coleridge 
 was probably only reclaiming what had once been his 
 own. Why, then, you may ask, did he not say so? To 
 answer this question is to recall the character of the 
 man. Absorbed in a subject one day, and violently 
 pouring out his thick-coming thoughts about it, he 
 would have not the slightest remembrance of what he 
 had said a short time afterward, when another subject 
 had taken possession of him. A verbatim report of his 
 conversation one year might have been passed off on 
 
2 1 2 COLEBIDGE 
 
 him next year as the production of another mind. He 
 has been accused, and we must admit convicted, of 
 extensive plagiarisms both in his poetry and his philos- 
 ophy ; if any body had plagiarized from himself, he 
 would never have detected the fact. He never paused to 
 think what was his and what was not, but gave all his 
 powers of memory and imagination to whatever was 
 uppermost in his thoughts at the time. I do not say 
 that Wordsworth plagiarized from him, but it seems to 
 me impossible to overrate the quickening influence that 
 Wordsworth owed to his contact with this wonderful 
 enthusiast. 
 
 The debt was not all on one side. It was during the 
 memorable year of his companionship with Wordsworth 
 that Coleridge wrote nearly every thing that now remains 
 as a measure of his wonderful poetic gifts. " Tlie 
 Rime of the Ancient Mariner " and " Christabel " were 
 both written in that year, besides most of the short 
 poems that make up the small volume of his poetical 
 works. The presence by his side of the steady, resolute 
 will of the Westmoreland dalesman seems to have for 
 the time constrained his imagination from aimless 
 wandering ; and the lofty, unwavering self-confidence of 
 his friend inspired him with a similar energy. Away 
 from Wordsworth after that year he lost himself in 
 visions of work to be done that always remained to be 
 done. Coleridge had every poetic gift but one — the 
 will for sustained and concentrated effort. 
 
 One cannot help lamenting that the gift of resolute 
 will was wanting in Coleridge. And if we make the 
 lament for him, it is well founded, for all the second 
 half of his life was made unhappy by vainly renewed 
 repentances for wasted opportunities. There is not a 
 more pathetic poem in the language, to those who know 
 the two men, than the poem written by Coleridge when 
 his heart was full after hearing Wordsworth recite to 
 him " The Prelude " — on the growth of a poet's mind. 
 
THE CHARM OF COLERIDGE S POETRY 213 
 
 "All, as I listened with a heart forlorn 
 The pulses of my being beat anew ; 
 And even as life returns upon tbe drown'd 
 Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains — 
 Keen pangs of love, awakening as a babe 
 Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ; 
 And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope ; 
 And hope that scarce would know itself from fear ; 
 Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain ; 
 And genius given, aud kuowledge won in vain ; 
 And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild, 
 And all which patient toil had reared, and all, 
 Commune with thee had opened out — but flowers 
 Strewed on my corse and borne upon my bier 
 In the same coffin, for the self-same grave ! 
 That way no more ! and ill beseems it me, 
 Who came a welcomer in herald's guise, 
 Singing of glory and futurity, 
 To wander back on such unhealthful road, 
 Plucking the poisons of self-harm ! And ill 
 Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths 
 Strewed before thy advancing ! 
 
 And when — O Friend ! my comforter and guide ! 
 
 Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength, — 
 
 Thy long-sustained song finally closed, 
 
 And thy deep voice had ceased — yet thou thyself 
 
 Wert still before my eyes, and round us both 
 
 That happy vision of beloved faces — 
 
 Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close 
 
 I sate, my being blended in one thought 
 
 (Thought was it ? or aspiration ? or resolve ?) 
 
 Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound — 
 
 And when I rose, I found myself in prayer." 
 
 The charm of Coleridge's poetry is the special and 
 inalienable charm of the art, the delight of new and 
 melodious combinations. When the poetry is not 
 emanative, the movement of the thought is entirely 
 governed by feeling. " Christabel " is a fragment of 
 most wonderful quality, and exhibits another singular 
 feature of Coleridge's poetry — his marvellous power of 
 touching the sense of theisupernatural. 
 
214 SOUTHEY 
 
 It was through Coleridge that Wordsworth made the 
 acquaintance of Southey, a man who had very little 
 intellectual sympathy with either of the other two mem- 
 bers of the supposed Triad of Lake Poets. He was a 
 young man of twenty at Balliol College in Oxford when 
 Coleridge, always craving for the company of congenial 
 comrades, introduced himself. Coleridge, two years 
 older, had just broken off a second period of keeping 
 terms at Cambridge, and had already had several 
 characteristic adventures, the most notable of which 
 was the freak of enlisting as a dragoon. He had con- 
 tracted some debts at Cambridge, and this was his mode 
 of evading his responsibilities. He took the name of 
 Silas Thompson Comberbatcli, filling out his own initials 
 S. T. C, and, according to the most authentic form of 
 the story, was discovered to be something more than he 
 seemed by writing a Latin quotation on the wall of the 
 stable. When he was discovered, his friends were com- 
 municated with, and he obtained his discharge ; but he 
 did not take kindly to Cambridge afterward, and when 
 he called upon Southey, his head was full of a wild 
 scheme for establishing a small community under a new 
 form of government in some remote part of America. 
 Pantisocracy was to be the name given to this new 
 model of a happy state, and the essence of the plan was 
 that the members of the small community, having pur- 
 chased a tract of land, should raise with their own 
 hands the necessaries of life, while their wives — mar- 
 riage was indispensable for a Pantisocrat — should look 
 after the household and the children. All goods were 
 to be in common, and the plan differed from ordinary 
 communism only in this, that the men were all to de- 
 vote a large part of their time to the cultivation of liter- 
 ature. Half the daj^ Coleridge calculated, would suffice 
 for the provision of simple food and clothes ; the rest 
 was to be given to high thinking and poetry. Though 
 Coleridge afterward became the leading mind among 
 
PANTISOCEACT 215 
 
 the philosophical Tories, and Southey a bitter and 
 unscrupulous partisan on the same side, both were then 
 enthusiastically stirred by the French Revolution. 
 Such was the temper of the youth of the time, excited 
 to a degree that we can hardly understand now by this 
 startling event, that Coleridge and Southey together suc- 
 ceeded in beating up no less than five other recruits. 
 We can imagine how Coleridge luxuriated in picturing 
 all the advantages of this scheme, the heights to which 
 poetry could be carried by minds rendered healthy by 
 open-air exercise and freed from all cai'es by the sim- 
 plicity of their wants ; we can imagine how, priding 
 himself on being above all things a practical man, 
 he calculated in exact figures the yield of an aver- 
 age man's labor per hour, discussed the allowance to 
 be made for the fertility of the virgin soil, compared 
 the merits of different regions of the great conti- 
 nent, cited facts from the books of travellers, ap- 
 portioned the duties of the different members of the 
 community, and with eloquent ingenuity argued away 
 every difficulty that could be started. But there 
 was one difficulty that could not be argued away — 
 the want of money. All the recruits of Pantisocracy 
 were poor — in fact, absolutely impecunious. The en- 
 thusiasts, however, were fertile in resources for provid- 
 ing the necessary supply. They so impressed a Bristol 
 bookseller, Cottle, a good-hearted, generous man in spite 
 of his name, that he gave them money for their poems, 
 and promised more. They gave public lectures in 
 Bristol on literature, history, and politics, which drew 
 crowded audiences, it is said, till one evening Coleridge 
 failed to put in an appearance. But with all their 
 efforts, — and Coleridge's were probably greater in plan- 
 ning than in executing, for he had a rooted aversion to 
 regular labor, — with all their efforts, the Pantisocrats 
 never raised funds enough to give their system of 
 government a chance in practice. Three of them, in- 
 
216 SOUTHEY 
 
 deed, took one step toward realizing it, by providing 
 themselves with wives. There was a family of pretty 
 and amiable sisters in Bristol of the name of Flicker, 
 and Lovell, Southey, and Coleridge married one each. 
 Then an uncle of Southey's intervened, and carried him 
 off to Portugal for a time. There the history of Pan- 
 tisocracy ends. Southey returned from Portugal with 
 other aims, and Coleridge, though angry at first at his 
 desertion, soon drifted off contentedly into other engross- 
 ing occupations for his fertile imagination. His beset- 
 ting sin of irresolution never left him, with the result 
 that, on his death in 1834, he left behind him a great 
 reputation, but only fragments to support it — fragments, 
 however, which fully justified the admiration of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 CAMPBELL — MOORE 
 
 CAMPBELL — " PLEASURES OF HOPE " — THOMAS MOORE — THE LAST 
 OP THE JOCULATORS — MOORE'S SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT — HIS 
 JOCOSE AND MAUDLIN VEINS 
 
 The great poets who made the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century famous appeared above the horizon one 
 after another in quick succession. In the same year in 
 which the volume of "Lyrical Ballads" was issued by 
 a Bristol publisher, a poem was published in Edinburgh 
 and received throughout the country with much less 
 mixed approbation. This was the "Pleasures of 
 Hope," the work of a still younger man than either 
 Wordsworth or Coleridge, Thomas Campbell, a youth 
 of one-and-twenty, uncertain at the time as to his career, 
 and himself alternating so violently between despair 
 and hope when he thought of the future that his 
 friends were disposed at times to doubt his sanity. It is 
 significant that both these publications of the dawn of a 
 new period came from the provinces. In Campbell's 
 work, which is known to every school-boy and school-girl 
 in lines and extracts, but which nobody reads now as a 
 whole except under some other compulsion than the 
 fascination of the poetry, there were no signs of a dis- 
 position to break with the past either in form or in 
 choice of subject. Akenside, fifty years before, had 
 sung the " Pleasures of the Imagination," and Samuel 
 Rogers, following him, had in 1793 sung the "Pleasures 
 of Memory," and the happy thought occurred to young 
 Campbell, suggested apparently by a jocular passage in 
 a friend's letter, of continuing the series. Hope was in 
 
 217 
 
218 CAMPBELL 
 
 like manner personified, and apostrophized, and glori- 
 fied as a beneficent principle, with illustrations drawn 
 from savage life and from civilized life — from the 
 whole range of history and the whole circle of the arts 
 and the sciences. So far there was an intenser per- 
 sonal feeling at the beginning of Campbell's poem, 
 inasmuch as he had little pleasure in life except the 
 pleasure of hope when the subject occurred to him ; but 
 this feeling had but little shaping influence on the com- 
 position. The successive incidents in the poem do not 
 follow in any natural train of excited, impassioned 
 reflection ; they might have been treated separately and 
 fitted together by mechanical forces, the principle of 
 arrangement being the rhetorical principle of affording 
 variety to the reader. The versification and the diction 
 imitated the most approved models of the eighteenth 
 century ; there are passages that recall Goldsmith, and 
 passages that recall Pope. Darwin, the author of the 
 "Botanic Garden," is generally regarded as having 
 carried the style of Pope and Goldsmith to ridiculous 
 excess. There was sufficient freshness in Campbell's 
 work as a whole to save him from this reproach. The 
 whole work gives an impression of abundant intellectual 
 power and abundant poetic sensibility. Yet bits might 
 be taken from the "Botanic Garden" and bits from 
 the " Pleasures of Hope," and when they were put side 
 by side, a reader familiar with both writers would find 
 it difficult to decide which was Campbell's and which 
 was Darwin's. 
 
 Campbell afterward did much better work than the 
 "Pleasures of Hope"; and there is a story told of his 
 state of mind just before its publication that illustrates 
 better than volumes of commentary how this most 
 approved style in which he wrote was beginning to pall 
 even on those who could not see their way to a better. 
 While he was engaged in revising the proofs of it, he 
 one evening entered the rooms of a friend of his, who 
 
THE POET'S EXCITABLE TEMPERAMENT 219 
 
 has recorded the circumstance, sat down before the fire 
 with a face of angry discontent, and without speaking 
 a word took up the poker and began tracing figures in 
 the soot on the back of the chimney. Presently he 
 turned round and addressed his astonished friend in the 
 most insulting language. Not being answered accord- 
 ing to his foll} T , he turned after a time upon what 
 proved to be the source of his strange behavior, his own 
 poem. He had been reading the proofs of it all day, 
 mending and polishing the lines till all meaning seemed 
 to have gone out of them, and the whole composition 
 struck him as trash. "There are days," he went on, 
 " when I can't abide to walk in the sunshine, and when 
 I would almost rather be shot than come within the 
 sight of any man, to be spoken to by any mortal. This 
 has been one of those days. How heartily I wished for 
 night." He spent the evening with his friend, and 
 after some hours the fit of despondency was followed 
 by a fit of wild mirth, in which he proclaimed his 
 assurance that the poem would make him at once a 
 great man, and gravely decided how and where he 
 should live when this greatness was achieved. 
 
 It would be easy to make too much of such violent 
 fluctuations of mood in a sensitive youth, unstrung and 
 distempered by overwork as Campbell then was. But 
 we may well contrast this sensitive uncertainty and the 
 steady, assured confidence with which about the same 
 time Wordsworth and Coleridge were putting in execu- 
 tion their definitely conceived poetic ideals. One of 
 them at least, the one who did most solid work, had no 
 alternations between extravagant self-confidence and 
 extravagant despair. With all allowance for Campbell's 
 temperament and circumstances, I should be inclined to 
 attribute a large part of his faltering and misgiving and 
 impatience with his own work to his perceiving by fits 
 and starts that this elaborately contrived fabric of finely 
 ornamented shreds and patches embodied an artificial 
 
220 CAMPBELL 
 
 sentiment, and did not express feelings to which he 
 longed to give vent. He was a man of quick and strong 
 feelings, but in his expression of them he was hampered 
 by respect for the decayed gentility of literary tradition. 
 He was afraid to move freely in the dress of elevated 
 diction sanctioned by Pope's authority as de rigueur the 
 poet's raiment ; he was too self-conscious of it ; the 
 thought of how his feelings would look in it trammelled 
 their natural movements. 
 
 The truth is that beneath the smooth and glossy 
 artificial Popian crust of the " Pleasures of Hope " there 
 was more in it of the spirit of the French Revolution 
 than we find either in Wordsworth or in Coleridge, j 
 The literary revolution, of which they were recognized I 
 leaders, was a thing altogether apart from the political j 
 revolution, not in any direct way inspired by it — the j 
 result of a quite independent chain of causes ; in fact, j 
 as I have tried to show, not, strictly speaking, a revolu- 
 tion at all, but a natural literary development, the roots ] 
 of which lay chronologically behind the political revolu- 
 tion. But Campbell was directly influenced in the tone; 
 of the thoughts that he expressed in verse by the politi- i 
 cal circumstances of his time. His restless ambitious 
 spirit, by turns discontented and sanguine, and at all 
 times intense^ sympathetic, had more in common with, 
 the spirit then acting on public affairs than either thei 
 hard, self-contained Wordsworth or the dreamy and| 
 speculative Coleridge — of imagination and speculation 
 all compact, and comparatively indifferent to the 
 material on which his faculties worked. It is curious 
 to trace the operation of two antagonistic forces in: 
 Campbell's mind — the habit of elevated and elaborate 
 expression, formed at the Univershy, in accordance with 
 the literary tradition of Pope, and the tempestuous 
 energy of feeling fostered by the disturbed state of 
 public affairs. He was quite a model student in thej 
 University of Glasgow, standing high as a scholar in his; ; 
 
THE " PLEASURES OF HOPE " 221 
 
 classes, and winning prizes for English verse with poems 
 that were pronounced by the professors far superior to 
 any thing ever submitted in such competitions. He 
 wrote an " Essay on the Origin of Evil " in the style of 
 Pope's " Essay on Man " that was considered an incom- 
 parable imitation of the great original. But Campbell 
 was also a leader in debating societies outside the 
 regular University course ; and there, as was natural, 
 the principles of the political revolution found many 
 enthusiastic supporters. You know, I dare say, that in 
 the nineties of last century attempts to apply the 
 doctrines of liberty, equality, and fraternity were sup- 
 pressed in Scotland with extraordinary severity. Three 
 gentlemen, — Palmer, Gerald, and Muir, — in whose mem- 
 ory' a monument now stands in the Calton Burying- 
 ground, were transported to Botany Bay for an offence 
 in the way of agitation which, under the English law, 
 was punishable only with a short term of imprisonment. 
 Campbell, when a boy of sixteen, walked all the way 
 from Glasgow to hear one of these men, Gerald, a man 
 of remarkable eloquence, defend himself on his trial. 
 The speech and the subsequent conviction made a great 
 impression on the sensitive youth — so great an impres- 
 sion that his friends thought it had unsettled his reason, 
 such was the passion with which he spoke against modern 
 society and all its institutions. Now, underneath the 
 smooth couplets and the dignified diction and imagery 
 of the " Pleasures of Hope" it is not difficult to detect 
 traces of this deep-seated passion, when Ave know the 
 poet's early history, disguised though it is by the con- 
 ventional splendor of the expression. There is,_ for 
 example, the famous passage on the Russian subjugation 
 of Poland, and another, not so familiar, at the close of 
 Part I., where he denounces the plunder of. India, by 
 Warren Hastings : 
 
 " Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone, 
 And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own, 
 
222 CAMPBELL 
 
 Degenerate trade ! thy minions could despise 
 The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries ; 
 Could lock with impious hands their teeming store, 
 While famished nations died along the shore ; 
 Could mock the groans of fellow-men, and bear 
 The curse of kingdoms peopled with despair ; 
 Could stamp disgrace on man's polluted name, 
 And barter, with their gold, eternal shame ! " 
 
 Or, again, the following : 
 
 " Tyrants ! in vain ye trace the wizard ring ; 
 In vain ye limit mind's unwearied spring : 
 What ! can ye lull the winged winds asleep, 
 Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep ? 
 No ! — the wild wave contemns your sceptred hand ; 
 It rolled not back when Canute gave command." 
 
 The literary quality of such verses is not high; in aim- 
 ing at elevated diction the young poet approaches 
 perilously near to turgid bombast. Yet in these verses 
 the spirit of the French Revolution speaks more plainly 
 than in any of the productions of Wordsworth or Cole- 
 ridge. They were disenchanted, disillusionized, before 
 they wrote about the French Revolution. If we could l 
 recover any of Coleridge's lectures on Pantisocracy, we ; 
 might find something like the above. Campbell, we 
 must remember, was only twenty-one when he wrote the 
 "Pleasures of Hope"; and, though he pointed his moral 
 specially against Russian tyranny in Poland, there shines/ 
 through his verse unmistakable evidence of sympathy 
 with the motives and aspirations of revolutionists else- 
 where. The dress was the dress of Pope, but the voice i 
 was the voice of a later time. 
 
 To the force of the habit of expression in which he 
 had been educated I should also be disposed to attribute 
 Campbell's strange distrust of the poems that have been 
 universally recognized as his best and most enduring 
 work — "Ye Mariners of England," " Hohenlinden," 
 " The Soldier's Dream," the " Battle of the Baltic," and; 
 
Campbell's diffidence 223 
 
 a few others. He contributed these poems to the 
 Morning Chronicle after he had made a reputation 
 by the " Pleasures of Hope," and before he settled in 
 London to the more commonplace literary labor in 
 which he spent the rest of his life. So doubtful was 
 Campbell of the value of these lyrics that he would not 
 put bis name to them, for fear of compromising the 
 reputation of the author of the " Pleasures of Hope." 
 Now, I should say it was a result of the ideas of literary 
 dignity in which he had been brought up that Campbell 
 should have feared that "Hohenlinden " and "Ye Mar- 
 iners of England " would appear too trifling for a poet 
 of the rank that his first poem gave him. It was an ex- 
 ample of the force of the same restraint of habit that 
 kept Gray from " speaking out." Like Gray, Campbell 
 lacked the courage of his imagination. The incubus of 
 literary tradition lay heavy on him. He had a distrust- 
 ful critic within, the creation of scholastic training, 
 which clung to the skirts of his imagination and impeded 
 its freedom of movement whenever it tried to burst 
 away from the beaten track. His diffidence about 
 " Hohenlinden " is sometimes quoted as an example of 
 the saw that "genius is unconscious of its own excel- 
 lence." But against this must be set the fact that late 
 in life Campbell considered that "O'Connor's Child" 
 was his best poem, and that in this he has the support 
 of most people who are familiar with his poetry. It is 
 unlike his popular lyrics, in the fact that it takes more 
 than one reading to appreciate, but it is worth the trou- 
 ble of reading more than once. Some think that if 
 "Gertrude of Wyoming" had been published before the 
 " Pleasures of Hope " it might have ranked as his chief 
 work, but the subject is too remote to have achieved 
 any great amount of popularity. 
 
 The year after the publication of the " Pleasures of 
 Hope," another young poetic adventurer, an Irishman, 
 
224 MOORE 
 
 crossed St. George's Channel with his bundle of MSS. in 
 search of a publisher and subscribers in London. The 
 MSS. in his case were only metrical translations from a 
 Greek poet, Anacreon, artificial verses in praise of love 
 and wine. Yet in a few months this adventurer, though 
 he was only just out of his teens, and his father was 
 nothing more eminent than a humble Dublin grocer in 
 a small shop in a small street, became one of the lions 
 of London society, and numbered the Prince of Wales 
 among the subscribers to a sumptuous edition of his 
 translations. From that time forward he held a place 
 among the most popular poets of his generation. Pub- 
 lishers, whose business it is to gauge the public estima- 
 tion of writers, furnish a sure test of popularity at least, 
 however much that may be at variance with critical 
 verdict, in the prices that they are willing to pay for 
 poems. And even after Byron bad appeared in the field, 
 when Mr. Perry of the Morning Chronicle was negoti- 
 ating as a friend with the Longmans the sale of a work 
 by Thomas Moore, he was in a position to stipulate that 
 the price should be as high as had ever been paid for 
 a poem of the same length. The poem was not then 
 written or even planned : it was only understood that 
 the subject should be Oriental; and this was the rate of 
 remuneration for which Moore's friend bargained. For 
 so many lines, to be paid for on delivery, the poet was to 
 receive three thousand pounds. Scott was paid this sum 
 for " Rokeby," and Perry argued that Moore could not 
 take less. The publishers assented, thereby showing 
 that Moore at the time was, in their opinion, as popular 
 with the buyers of poetry as Scott. 
 
 If we were to look for the secret of Moore's popu- 
 larity in his poetry alone, we should be doing an injus- 
 tice both to him and to the taste of the generation with 
 whom he was such a favorite. He was personally 
 popular ; he impressed society otherwise than by his 
 poems ; these were but a part of his claims to admiring 
 
THE SECBET OF MOORE'S POPULARITY 225 
 
 recognition. If we open a collection of bis poems now, 
 and read his "Odes of Anaoreon," to which the Prince 
 of Wales and other notabilities of rank subscribed, we 
 desist after a time with something of the disgust we 
 should feel at a profuse display of pretty, sham jewelry. 
 The ample brimming bowls and goblets of wine, the 
 wreaths and garlands of roses, the rich perfumes, the 
 sparkling eyes, and the golden tresses, and the snowy 
 necks, are well enough in moderation, but some eighty 
 odes of such materials pall for lack of variety. Any 
 variety that there is lies within the narrowest limits : 
 now it is a bowl and now it is a goblet, now we drink and 
 now we quaff, now it is a bud and now it is a full-blown 
 rose, now a garland and now a cluster, now ringlets and 
 now tresses ; but it is always wine and flower, with 
 little variation of phrase. We are soon surfeited with 
 such sentiment, and disposed to laugh at its artificiality. 
 Moore's prettinesses, always expressed in soft and melo- 
 dious verse, were probably a pleasant surprise to a gen- 
 eration weary of didactic poems ; but if we have a 
 liking for such things now, we can find more genuine 
 articles of the same kind, compounded with much higher 
 art, in the poetry of the seventeenth century, the vol- 
 umes of Queen Henrietta's poets, Lovelace, and Carew, 
 and Suckling, and, above all, Herrick. 
 
 Nor were his original poems, published soon after 
 under the pseudonym of Tom Little, in the least of 
 higher quality. They were little poems, indeed, gener- 
 ally spun up to some glittering conceit, as commonplace 
 as it is glittering. No poet of the eighteenth century, 
 in the days when the great patrons of poetry were con- 
 noisseurs of the art, would have dared to submit effu- 
 sions so very poor in thought, and vulgar in sentiment. 
 There is a poem on Variety, for example. Variety is 
 the great charm of nature. 
 
 "Ask what prevailing, pleasing power, 
 Allures the sportive, wandering bee 
 
 15 
 
226 MOORE 
 
 To roam untired from flower to flower, 
 He'll tell you 'tis variety. 
 
 " Look Nature round, her features trace, 
 Her seasons, all her changes see ; 
 And own, upon Creation's face, 
 The greatest charm's variety." 
 
 Therefore, following nature's law, the poet will seek 
 variety. But no : there is " the nymph he loves," 
 this is " Patty " ; lie can never be false to her. 
 
 ' ' For me, ye gracious powers above ! 
 Still let me roam, unfixed and free ; 
 In all things — but the nymph I love, 
 I'll change and taste variety. 
 
 "But Patty, not a world of charms 
 
 Could e'er estrange my heart from thee ; 
 No, let me ever seek those arms : 
 There still I'll find variety." 
 
 What poor stuff is this compared with Lovelace's "Para- 
 dox," of which it is a Brummagem imitation : 
 
 " 'Tis true the beauteous star, 
 To which I first did bow, 
 Burnt quicker, brighter far 
 Than that which leads me now, 
 
 "Which shines with more delight, 
 For gazing on that light 
 So long, near lost my sight. 
 
 " Through foul, we follow fair. 
 For had the world one face, 
 And earth been bright as air, 
 We had known neither place. 
 Indians smell not their nest, 
 A Swiss or Finn tastes best 
 The spices of the East. 
 
 " So from the glorious sun, 
 
 Who to his bright hath got, 
 
IMITATION OF LOVELACE'S " PARADOX " 227 
 
 With what delight we run 
 To some black cave or grot. 
 And, heavenly Sidney, you 
 Twice read, had rather view 
 Some odd romance, so new. 
 
 " The god that constant keeps 
 Unto his deities, 
 Is poor in joys, and sleeps 
 Imprisoned in the skies. 
 
 This knew the wisest, who 
 From Juno stole below 
 To love a bear or cow." 
 
 We have seen Moore in his jocosely sentimental vein ; 
 see him next in his maudlin love-sickness. 
 
 " Have you not seen the timid tear 
 
 Steal trembling from mine eye ? 
 Have you not marked the flush of fear, 
 
 Or caught the murmured sigh ? 
 And can you think my love is chill, 
 
 Nor fixed on you alone ? 
 And can you rend by doubting still 
 
 A heart so much your own ? 
 
 " To you my soul's affections move 
 
 Devoutly, warmly true ; 
 My life has been a task of love, 
 
 One long, long thought of you. 
 If all your tender faith be o'er, 
 
 If still my truth you'll try ; 
 Alas ! I know but one proof more, 
 
 I'll bless your name and die." 
 
 Such are fair specimens of the poems of Tom Little, 
 so famous in their day, and if we take them as they read, 
 after making all allowance for the novelty of the strain 
 when they appeared, and for the very slight interest in 
 poetry and consequent want of discrimination in London 
 society at the time, we cannot but be astonished that the 
 author should have jumped at once into a foremost place, 
 even although Wordsworth and Coleridge had so much 
 
228 MOORE 
 
 against them as candidates for general favor, and Scott 
 and Byron had not yet appeared on the scene. But 
 the truth is that it was as a writer of songs to be sung, 
 and not of poems to be read, that Moore established his 
 hold on the public mind; and he was greatly helped by 
 his personal popularity in the circles where the fashion 
 was set even in poetry. Many in those days would buy 
 and admire even a volume of poetry when the name of 
 the Prince of Wales appeared at the head of the list 
 of subscribers. But how did Moore, who was not born 
 in a palace, but in a back street in Dublin, achieve such 
 fashionable popularity that he secured the Prince's 
 name for his literary venture ? It was chiefly his ex- 
 quisite singing of his own songs that made him the 
 rage. It is hardly an exaggeration to describe Moore 
 as the last of the Troubadours, or, to be more precise, 
 as the last of the Joglars, of the men to whom Bishop 
 Percy, by a slight historical error, gave the name of 
 Minstrels. These were, as I dare say you have heard, a 
 class of men in the Middle Ages who sometimes attached 
 themselves to a court, and sometimes wandered from 
 one feudal castle to another, welcome guests wherever 
 they went on account of their skill in making and re- 
 citing or singing poems, and other entertaining quali- 
 ties. When they were not gentlemen born, and rich 
 enough to amuse themselves as well as their hosts in 
 this way, they owed their livelihood to the bounty of 
 their patrons, often receiving valuable presents. They 
 were entitled to be called Troubadours or Inventors if 
 their own poetry was excellent ; and if they could only 
 render the poetiy of others, their professional name was 
 Joglar or Joculator. The joglar added other entertain- 
 ing resources to that of reciting poetry; he carried 
 gossip from castle to castle, and sometimes was capable 
 of amusing his audience with sleight of hand tricks. 
 Of course the joglar might also be a troubadour. As 
 civilization developed and society became more complex, 
 
THE LAST OF THE JOCULATORS 229 
 
 there was a natural division of labor ; the poet was 
 differentiated as such, and often received his reward 
 and his means of livelihood in pensions from the public 
 exchequer and sinecure posts in the public service. We 
 see this differentiation in full force in the time of 
 Chaucer. Now, Moore might be called the last of the 
 troubadours or the joglars in our country, partly because 
 he made a poetic reputation b} r singing his own songs in 
 fashionable drawing-rooms, and partly because he was 
 the last eminent English poet who looked to his poetry 
 as an indirect means of obtaining a provision for life 
 through the public patronage of influential friends. In 
 later life, when he wrote a fragment of autobiographj', 
 he speaks of his pen as having been bis sole means of 
 support throughout his life. It was his means of sup- 
 port from necessity, and not from choice ; it was so 
 only after he had been disappointed in his expectations 
 from another source ; and even then it was so only par- 
 tially. For the first twelve years of his London life 
 Moore made comparatively little by his pen ; indeed, 
 he wrote very little, only two small volumes of elegant 
 and sparkling trifles. His chief steady source of income 
 was an annuity of five hundred pounds, paid him by 
 the publisher Power for supplying words to Irish and 
 other national melodies. Moore used to sing them in 
 the drawing-rooms of his fashionable friends to give 
 them a start. We must, of course, call the composition 
 of these literary work, although many of them seem 
 poor enough if they are read, and not sung. Anyhow, 
 they were handsomely paid for, the poet receiving his 
 annuity for them for twenty-seven years — pleasant 
 contrast to the melancholy case of Burns, who refused 
 to take any thing for a similar seiwice to a Scotch pub- 
 lisher, the service, of course, not being really worth so 
 much, seeing that Burns's songs were not fashionable 
 songs, expensively published. But Moore had another 
 source of income, in no way connected with his pen — a 
 
230 MOORE 
 
 sinecure office in the Bermudas which, after the first 
 year, he was able to discharge hj a deputy. He received 
 this appointment in 1803, and, though it afterward proved 
 a source of embarrassment to him, owing to the rascality 
 of a deputy for whose embezzlements he was held re- 
 sponsible, it brought him four hundred pounds a year for 
 eighteen years. For twelve years Moore, upon these re- 
 sources, lived in London the life of a diner-out in the 
 greatest request, in expectation of some appointment 
 more lucrative than his West India registrarship. These 
 expectations, and his chagrin at their repeated postpone- 
 ment and ultimate ruin in 1812, are very frankly confessed 
 in his Diary. Swift's saying that great men never re- 
 ward in a more substantial way those whom they make 
 the companions of their pleasures was verified in the 
 case of Moore. One of his earliest patrons, on whom he 
 all along built his best hopes, was Lord Moira, a schol- 
 arly peer, of generous but hesitating and irresolute 
 temper, munificent almost to the point of ostentation, 
 and specially willing to befriend men of genius and 
 learning. He was in power in the Granville Administra- 
 tion of 1806, and again in the Liverpool Administration 
 of 1812, under which he went out as Governor-General 
 to India ; but on neither occasion was he able to do 
 any thing for the poet. It is somewhat comical now to 
 read Moore's complaints of his hard lines in not being 
 promoted to some lucrative post, without the slightest 
 qualification for filling it. He evidently regarded him- 
 self as having been very badly used by his aristocratic 
 friends, and especially by Lord Moira, from whom he 
 had expected better things. He repeats bitterly Lord 
 Moira's constant assurance when he gave any hint of 
 impatience : " I am not oblivious of you. Depend upon 
 it, I am not oblivious of you." The fact seems to have 
 been that Moira hesitated between posts that he consid- 
 ered not good enough to offer to Moore, and posts for 
 which, though they were good enough, he was obviously 
 
HIS INTRODUCTION TO LONDON SOCIETY 231 
 
 unfitted ; and tlms Moore in the end got the allowance of 
 poor Mother Hubbard's dog — nothing, and was obliged 
 to fall back on literature for a livelihood. 
 
 "How it was," Mrs. Oliphant says, "that the little 
 Irishman from Dublin, who came across the Channel 
 with a few introductions and some translations from 
 Anacreon in his pocket, scrambled into good society, it 
 is somewhat difficult to make out." It is difficult indeed, 
 if we think only of the social interval between his 
 father's little shop in Dublin, which the poet euphemisti- 
 cally calls a wine-store, and the fashionable drawing- 
 rooms in which he so quickly became a favorite. But 
 his fragment of autobiograph} 7 , which ends with his 
 introduction to London society, and looks as if it had 
 been written to explain the paradox, shows him to us in 
 intermediate stages, through which the transition was 
 as easy and natural as any other process of evolution. 
 Young Moore and his songs were the rage in the best 
 society of Dublin before they were the rage in the best 
 society in London, and there were links between the 
 two along which the modern troubadour slid in the 
 easiest manner possible, making good his footing in the 
 new fields of social conquest by the same agreeable, 
 entertaining qualities that had served him in the city 
 of his birth. " In anecdote, small-talk, and especially 
 in singing, he was supreme — for many years he had 
 been the most brilliant man in his company," says Henry 
 Crabb Robinson of him in his famous London days. 
 He had shown the same supremacy, and asserted it with 
 the same good-sense, modesty, and quiet dignity, before 
 he left Dublin. But how did he acquire the tone of 
 polite metropolitan society in anecdote, small-talk, and 
 singing? Irishmen, from their geniality, frankness, 
 love of fun, and general willingness to please and be 
 pleased, are naturally agreeable companions : but what 
 amuses in the back-parlor of a Dublin wine-store could 
 not reasonably be expected to amuse a more fastidious 
 
232 MOORE 
 
 audience with different interests and different ways of 
 life. The autobiography, however, explains this puzzle 
 also. Moore's mother was his presiding good genius, 
 and it is one of the finest traits in a character that has 
 many lovable features that to the last he retained his 
 affection for her, and among all his fine friends never 
 lost an opportunity of making her life pleasant. " It 
 was from the first," he says, " my poor mother's ambi- 
 tion, though with no undue aspirings for herself, to 
 secure for her children an early footing in the better 
 walks of society ; and to her constant attention to this- 
 object I owe both my taste for good company and the 
 facility I afterward found in adapting myself to that 
 sphere." She was helped in this purpose by the religion 
 of the family. They were Roman Catholics, and, as 
 always happens with a proscribed sect, there was a close 
 union between their various ranks. We have seen how 
 the same circumstance operated in the life of Pope. It 
 was easier for Mrs. Moore to get her children into the 
 better walks of society than if she had been a Protestant. 
 The future poet was a lively and precocious child, and 
 social superiors began to covet his company at a very 
 early age. Decayed gentlewomen, punctiliously correct 
 in manners, yet gay and sprightly in conversation, as 
 only Irish maiden ladies can be, made much of him as 
 an engaging prodigy, and invited him to their tea-parties. 
 He was sent to the best school in Dublin ; and school- 
 fellows, whose fathers were richer than his own, invited 
 him to spend the vacations at their homes. Although 
 the conspiracy of the United Irishmen was being formed 
 at the time in the Irish capital, there was no outward 
 sign of discontent; life went merrily with singing- 
 parties, dancing-parties, and supper-parties. There 
 "was a rage, too, at the time for private theatricals ; and 
 Moore's school-master, as it happened, was a leader in 
 such entertainments, managing the stage, writing pro- 
 logues and epilogues, and giving lessons in elocution. 
 
" LAI.LA ROOK II " 233 
 
 In the art of recitation Moore was Lis show-boy, and 
 when he was eleven years old, was selected to speak 
 the epilogue in a performance of " Jane Shore " at the 
 private theatre of a Lady Borrowes — the first of the 
 many women of title who figure in the story of the 
 poet's life. Then, fortunately for him, just as he was 
 fourteen and ready for the University, the prohibition 
 against Catholics was removed, and he was admitted 
 to Trinity College. There he distinguished himself by 
 his facility in writing English verse, and made more 
 acquaintances in "the better walks of society." By this 
 time, too, he had begun to write songs as well as to sing 
 them ; and as he always sang to his own accompaniment 
 on the piano, and came, as he says, to be dependent on 
 it, he was saved thereby from the solicitations of jolly 
 good fellows to join companies where there was no such 
 instrument, while he was all the greater an acquisition 
 in the "better walks." He had also the run of a large 
 library, where he acquired a great store of miscellaneous 
 scholarship which secured him the attention of the Prov- 
 ost of the College. " The Provost's house," he says, 
 "was the resort of the best society in Dublin, and his 
 wife and daughters were lovely, literary, and fond of 
 music." Thus it happened that before he left Dublin, 
 at the age of nineteen, to enter at the Middle Temple in 
 London and get his Anacreon published, Moore, though 
 only the son of the keeper of a wine-store, had been 
 expressly invited to dinner to meet no less a person than 
 Lord Clare, the Chancellor of the University. He was 
 coveted by the best society then, as afterward, for his 
 own qualities as an agreeable, well-bred companion. 
 
 Of all his writings it is still to the songs that we must 
 go to know him at his best. The Oriental charms of 
 " Lalla Rookh " become tiresome as Ave get older, and 
 as we begin to look critically at the art of the com- 
 position. The poem was not composed in a poetic 
 spirit, and there is very little poetry in it. It is rather 
 
234 MOORE 
 
 an artificial putting together of words and imagery 
 than real poetry, and it was felt as such by his contem- 
 poraries. They enlarged on the wonderful fidelity of 
 his pictures to life, and, like Sir John Malcolm, could 
 hardly believe that the poet had not been in the East. 
 This is not, however, a strictly poetical quality. Moore 
 deliberately set himself to read up his subject, and in 
 the poem he used imagery only that would be intel- 
 ligible to an Oriental. Had he been writing poetry for 
 Orientals, this would have been all right, but it is all 
 wrong for us, and Moore had to burden his poem with 
 explanatory notes. 
 
 The last years of his life were spent in writing a 
 History of Ireland, now quite unknown. He persisted 
 in this work, and this gives us a higher idea of his 
 character. With all his apparent affectation he was a 
 genuine patriot, an industrious worker, and a most ex- 
 emplary son and husband, and there is no doubt that it 
 was these qualities that helped to make him the darling 
 of the London drawing-rooms. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SCOTT 
 INFLUENCE OP OLD BALLADS— SUMMARY OP LIFE — POEMS 
 
 Although the French Revolution, in my opinion, had 
 no influence on our poets, beyond, perhaps, making them 
 feel a certain exaltation of energy as belonging to a 
 time of great events, — an impulse that would carry no- 
 body far except along a road on which he was prepared 
 otherwise to travel,— it is worth noticing that all the 
 eminent poets of the time had personal experience, 
 more or less accidental, of the consequences of the 
 Revolution. The consequences, in fact, were so wide- 
 spread throughout the length and breadth of the coun- 
 try that it was difficult for any body to avoid encoun- 
 tering them at one turn or another. The adventure of 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge was the most curious ; but 
 all were characteristic of the time of suspicion, espion- 
 age, conspiracy, prosecution, and preparation in self- 
 defence brought upon this country by fears of a similar 
 domestic revolution, and of invasion from our aggres- 
 sive revolutionized neighbor. Coleridge had rendered 
 himself a suspicious character by his Pantisocracy and 
 his "Watchman"; and when he and Wordsworth were 
 living near each other in Somersetshire in 1797, with- 
 out any ostensible occupation or means of livelihood, a 
 spy was sent to watch their movements, and dog them 
 in their walks on the Quantock Hills. This worthy, as 
 might have been expected, could make little of any 
 conversation in which the metaphysical Coleridge had 
 the lead ; but one day, as the story goes, they were 
 talking of Spinoza, and as the spy happened to have a 
 
 235 
 
236 scott 
 
 very red nose, and laughter sometimes accompanied the 
 mention of Spinoza's name, he thought they were 
 poking fun at him, and reported accordingly. Camp- 
 bell, we have seen, came across the consequences of the 
 French Revolution in the trial of Gerald for trying to 
 spread revolutionary principles in Scotland. Moore had 
 personal experience of other consequences, more than 
 one of his college friends in Dublin being concerned in 
 the conspiracy of the United Irishmen, a direct result 
 of the establishment of the Republic in France. And 
 Scott also felt the whiff and wind of the world-shaking 
 event, though in a different way. In the 3'ear in which 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge were holding their memora- 
 ble conversations on the Quantock Hills (in 1*797), 
 Scott, a young Edinburgh lawyer, was enrolled as 
 quartermaster of the Ro}<al Mid-Lothian Regiment of 
 Cavalry, a body of volunteers raised to defend the 
 country when the new Republic began to give evidence 
 of an aggressive disposition. At the very time when 
 the two Lake poets were discussing the principles of 
 ballad composition, and carrying them out each in his 
 own way, Scott was galloping on the sands at Mussel- 
 burgh, also intent on ballads, chanting fragments of old 
 ballads to the rhythm of his horse's motion, and making 
 new ballads as he plunged through the fresh sea air, 
 and re-enacting in imagination the feats of ancient 
 chivalry. 
 
 There is much martial spirit in Scott's poetry, and it 
 is likely, as he himself believed, that his battle-scenes 
 owe something of their freshness and force to his ex- 
 perience in the saddle of the Mid-Lothian Yeomanry. 
 When a glass of water is on the point of freezing, a 
 touch with a wire will transform it, as if by magic, into 
 a bundle of icy crystals ; and it is possible that Scott 
 was shaken into poetry by the warlike excitement of 
 galloping about directing the manoeuvres of his volun- 
 teers. But just as the crystallization of the freezing 
 
SOURCE OF MARTIAL SPIRIT IN SCOTT's POEMS 237 
 
 water is determined by its previous condition, so was 
 the direction of Scott's poetry determined before he had 
 his interest in chivalry quickened by taking part in 
 military manoeuvres. It was this previous poetic educa- 
 tion, in fact, that made him take such a keen delight in 
 the mimicry of war, and amidst the bustle and galloping 
 to and fro realize how the ancient knight felt when 
 pricking on the plain in search of adventures, or spur- 
 ring his horse into the thick of a battle. 
 
 When we find men so very different in character 
 and circumstances as Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and 
 Scott, men reared in London, in Westmoreland, in Edin- 
 burgh, all simultaneously interested in one kind of com- 
 position, we may be sure that it is somehow in the 
 air. The interest in ballad literature in England was 
 first made acute by the publication of Bishop Percy's 
 " Reliques." I have already mentioned the date of this 
 publication, 1765. Such things are the great events of 
 literary history ; they are to it what treaties and laws 
 are to political history ; and their dates must be remem- 
 bered if we are to understand those great movements of 
 which they mark the beginnings. Scott first got hold 
 of this collection of ballads when he was a boy of 
 thirteen, and he has described the effect produced upon 
 him. "The summer day," he says, "sped onward so 
 fast that, nothwithstanding the sharp appetite of thir- 
 teen, I forgot the hour of dinner, was sought for with 
 anxiety, and was still found entranced in my intellectual 
 banquet." How was the mental soil prepared for this 
 enthusiastic reception ? It is not every boy of thirteen 
 that can become so absorbed in a book as to forget his 
 dinner. Scott, it is needless to say, was not an ordinary 
 boy. As a school-boy he was not brilliant in the regular 
 task-work. He seems to have obstinately refused to 
 learn Greek, and, it is said, was nicknamed by an 
 irritable master the Greek dunce ; and his position in 
 the Latin class is described by himself as having been 
 
238 SCOTT 
 
 meteoric, varying rapidly between top and bottom. It 
 was not, indeed, till lie reached the higher classes, 
 where the master, Dr. Adams, the author of the well- 
 known book on Roman antiquities, taught something 
 more than the mere syntax of the language, that Scott 
 ever moved far from the less honorable position. He 
 rose when questions were asked outside the' prescribed 
 lessons, and fell slowly and surely when the course of 
 questioning returned to the grammar. The secret 
 seems to have been that, owing to bad health, he had 
 been rather irregularly educated, and at a very early 
 age had formed habits of reading ornnivorously for him- 
 self, and was too much absorbed in his own reading to 
 have much interest or much memory to spare for the 
 niceties of Latin construction. About the time when 
 Perc} T 's ballads fell in his way, he was confined to bed 
 for several weeks by a serious illness, and one of the 
 doctor's prescriptions for him was that he should be 
 allowed to read as much as he liked, the consequence 
 being that he read through the greater part of a cir- 
 culating library in the neighborhood — novels, romances, 
 books of travel, histories. The out-of-the-wajr knowl- 
 edge got in this manner, and retained in a memory that 
 was always singularly powerful, enabled him to occa- 
 sionally delight the antiquarian rector of the High 
 School, and redeem the disgrace incurred by the inex- 
 actness of his knowledge of the classical languages. 
 The future novelist was, in fact, educating himself, 
 unconsciously, but not the less assiduously and effec- 
 tively, for his work in life. His appetite for ballads 
 had been specially whetted before he fell to at Percy's 
 " Reliques" with such eagerness. His ancestors came 
 from the great ballad country, the Borders ; and some 
 of them had furnished themes for the ballad-singer. 
 His father was a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, 
 and his mother the daughter of a Professor ; but he 
 was the lineal descendant of a Border chief, " "Wat or 
 
THE CLAN SCOTT 239 
 
 Walter Scott of Harden, whose wife was celebrated in 
 song as the Flower of Yarrow. She was the lady who, 
 according to tradition, was in the habit of serving up 
 at table, when provisions ran short, a dish of spurs — a 
 signal that he must take horse and borrow a few cattle 
 and other eatables from English neighbors on the 
 other side of the Border. The clan Scott occupied 
 a prominent place in Border history, and numbered in 
 its various ranks not a few heroes of the persuasion and 
 calling of Robin Hood and Little John." One of 
 Scott's earliest and favorite books was a history of this 
 ''right honourable clan," "gathered out of ancient 
 chronicles, histories, and traditions of our fathers," 
 by another Walter Scott, Scott of Satchel], "an old 
 souldier,"as he described himself, " and no scholler, and 
 one that can write names, but just the letters of his 
 name." The delicate boy's imagination had been fed 
 on Border traditions, and one of the first-fruits of his 
 delight with Percy was a resolution to collect such 
 ballads as were to be found in circulation among the 
 peasantry of his own country. How far the Latin dunce 
 was from being a dunce at work within the range of his 
 own interests may be judged from the fact that at the 
 age of fifteen he wrote a poem, which he modestly com- 
 mitted to the flames, on the Conquest of Granada. 
 
 After leaving the High School Scott attended some 
 classes at the University, but what they were is of no 
 consequence. He went on educating himself widely 
 and energetically in his own way and on his own lines, 
 without any conscious purpose. In 1786, when he was 
 fifteen years old, — he was just one year younger than 
 Wordsworth, — he abandoned a fancy for the military 
 profession, and was entered as an apprentice in his 
 father's office. This circumstance was important in his 
 education for two reasons. It trained him to business 
 habits, for which he was remarkable throughout the 
 whole of his busy life. He never neglected his own 
 
240 SCOTT 
 
 profession, though an early appointment to moderately 
 lucrative posts withdrew him from practice at the bar ; 
 and he carried habits of regularity, method, and punctu- 
 ality into his literary work. His immense power of 
 memory, which enabled him to perform such wonders of 
 rapid production in middle age, was greatly helped by 
 systematic ways of storing his promiscuous^ acquired 
 antiquarian and historical lore — his arrangement of 
 books, note-books, and references being always a model 
 of precision. His employment in his father's office was 
 of important service to him in another way. The col- 
 lection of rents and other legal business took him into 
 various parts of the country, and gave him opportunities 
 not only of collecting ballads, which he did deliberately 
 and of set purpose, but of observing and studying, which 
 he did unconsciously, the oddities, humors, and serious 
 sentiments of that society of which, in his novels, he 
 afterward drew so broad and truthful a picture. 
 
 Another cardinal circumstance in his education 
 requires to be mentioned. It was a small circumstance 
 in itself, but it had considerable consequences. A lect- 
 ure on German Literature, delivered to the Edinburgh 
 Philosophical Society by Henry Mackenzie, the " Man 
 of Feeling," in 1788, seems to have roused a great enthu- 
 siasm for the study of German among the young men of 
 Edinburgh. Scott, then a youth of seventeen, joined 
 with some others in forming a class. According to his 
 own account, he was told by their teacher that he would 
 never learn the language, because he Avould not take 
 pains to lay a stable foundation by means of grammati- 
 cal exercises ; but he learned enough to be able to get 
 at the meaning, and his first publications were transla- 
 tions from Burger and Goethe in 1796 and 1799, a few 
 romantic ballads, and a chivalry play. " How far," 
 Cartyle says, " ' Goetz von Bei lichingen ' actually affected 
 Scott's literary destination, and whether without it the 
 rhymed romances, and then the prose romances of the 
 
INFLUENCE OF GERMAN LITERATURE 241 
 
 Author of ' Waverley,' would not have followed as they 
 did, must remain a very obscure question — obscure and 
 not important." Carlyle probably rather suggests the 
 German influence on Scott when he speaks of Goetz as 
 the parent of an innumerable progeny of " chivalry 
 plays, feudal delineations, and poetico-antiquarian per- 
 formances." What it probably did for him was to 
 encourage him to persevere in the road along which he 
 was already travelling. Before coming in contact with 
 the modern ballads and feudal tales of Germany he had 
 exhausted every thing of the kind to be found in our 
 own literature, and had even mastered old French and 
 Italian for the same purpose, reading through various 
 collections of mediaeval romances, besides Dante, Boiando, 
 and Pulci, and " fastening like a tiger upon every collec- 
 tion of old songs which chance threw in his way." Ger- 
 man literature attracted him as the first attempt in 
 modern Europe to found a new literature on the old — 
 a literature inspired b}' - an antiquarian spirit, a loving 
 regard for old times, and antagonistic both in its mysti- 
 cal longings and in its literary forms to the clear, precise 
 vision and careful, elaborate style of the school of Racine 
 and Pope. Scott himself is reported to have said of 
 Taylor's translation of " Leonore " : " This was what 
 made me a poet." He had heard Dugald Stewart recite 
 the lines : 
 
 " Tramp, tramp, across the land we go ; 
 Splash, splash ! across the sea." 
 
 "I had several times," he said, "attempted the more 
 regular kind of poetry without success ; but here was 
 something that I thought I could do." This was when 
 he was a boy, and as soon as he knew German one of 
 his first tasks was a translation of this ballad under the 
 title of " William and Helen." Now, although Scott 
 made the remark about the influence of Taylor's trans- 
 lation to a friend of Taylor's, — and he was a man who 
 16 
 
242 SCOTT 
 
 liked to say complimentary things at bis own expense, — 
 it is possible that the fresh German literature gave him 
 the first revelation of the natural bent of his powers. 
 But the impulse he received from German literature 
 would probably have died out if it had not been re-en- 
 forced from other quarters. As Carlyle says, a question 
 of the kind is necessarily obscure, and not important; 
 only Scott's contact with German literature deserves to 
 be mentioned as an incident in the story of his literary 
 development. 
 
 At the time when he published his translations from 
 the German, although he had reached his twenty-eighth 
 year, nobody seems to have had a suspicion of the genius 
 that was latent in him, or of the direction that it would 
 take. To the outside world he appeared simply as a 
 young lawyer likely to prosper in his profession, univer- 
 sally popular as a humorous boon companion, always in 
 high spirits, rather affecting idleness, yet never behind- 
 hand with his work, with a certain reputation as a man 
 of wide reading, taking an interest in literature and 
 antiquities, but not suspected of any serious literary 
 ambition. A casual stranger meeting Scott at this time, 
 and hearing of him from his companions, would never 
 have dreamed of regarding him as likely to become a 
 more popular poet than Wordsworth, or Coleridge, or 
 Campbell, or Moore. None of these } r oung men thought 
 of disguising their literary aspirations ; they stood from 
 the first in all men's eyes upon their character as poets. 
 Yet somehow, with all his real or assumed indifference, 
 Scott even then seems to have received rather more 
 .than the respect paid to the mere dilettante. When 
 Campbell was negotiating the publication of his "Pleas- 
 ures of Hope," he was somehow attracted to Scott, and 
 in a letter that has been preserved showed himself 
 eminently pleased with the attention that Scott paid to 
 him. It is the custom to speak of Scott as having 
 stumbled, by accident, as it were, into literary fame ; 
 
scott's great industry 243 
 
 but there are not wanting evidences that, although he 
 did not allow literary ambition to absorb his energies, 
 and kept this, like all other aspirations, under the con- 
 trol of a healthy practical will, he was not quite so indif- 
 ferent as he appeared. He was not a man who wore his 
 heart upon his sleeve, and he liked to turn aside jestingly 
 any inquisition into his own serious feelings. In his 
 farewell to the Harp of the North these lines occur : 
 
 " Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way, 
 Through secret woes the world has never known, 
 When on the weary night dawned wearier day, 
 And bitterer was the grief devour'd alone. 
 
 That I o'erlived such woes, Enchantress ! is thine own." 
 
 After they were published, when the conversation be- 
 tween him and a friend turned upon them, he dis- 
 missed the subject with a comical look and smile, 
 remarking : " Yes, as Master Stephen says, they are very 
 melancholy and gentlemanlike." In like manner, he 
 made light of his literary studies, and affected the air 
 of a trifling outsider, while in his large and genial 
 being he found room for an amount of literary labor, 
 and steady preparation for labor, as great as was prac- 
 tised by any professional man of letters in his time. 
 " Every step that I have gained in the world," he once 
 said, " has been hard won "; and it is a mistake to look 
 upon Scott as a careless, good-humored genius, who 
 stepped into the lists and carried off the prize for which 
 so many other men had been laboriously contending. 
 
 From a very early age the ambition to " found a 
 poetical character," as he himself expressed it, had been 
 a powerful motive in his life, though not overpowering 
 and all-absorbing ; and he had been steadily accumulat- 
 ing the materials of which he made such rapid use when, 
 at last, the accident he had been waiting for pointed 
 a finger in the right direction. He possessed his soul in 
 patience, and, without hasting or resting, with tranquil 
 
244 SCOTT 
 
 industry accumulated till the opportunity declared itself. 
 Even when he was in the thick of his novel-writing, and 
 producing more work than any other man of letters in 
 his time, — two or three novels a year, — he was apparently 
 so much occupied with professional, and social, and 
 other literary engagements that James Ballantj'ne, who 
 was in the secret, could afford to treat as absurd the 
 idea that he could be the mysterious author of the 
 Waverley novels. How could a man who had to be in 
 his place every day during business hours as Clerk to the 
 Court of Session, who was to be met at parties in the 
 evening when he lived in town, who had his house full 
 of visitors when he lived in the country, who did so 
 much miscellaneous literary work in his own name — how 
 could such a man possibly find time to write novels that 
 were one of the wonders of the world. The reserve that 
 he maintained about his novels with such plausibility, 
 he maintained equally well in his earlier da}'s when he 
 was gathering the materials that he afterward wove 
 into shape. " Waverley," the first of the long series of 
 his novels, was not published till 1814, but he did not 
 then for the first time conceive the idea of realizing the 
 daily life of people in the old times. A dozen years 
 before that some remarks that he made in a talk with 
 Mr. Gillies, whose " Recollections of Sir Walter Scott " 
 is one of the most instructive books that have been 
 written about the great man, show that his imagination 
 was then busy picturing the details of ancient life. 
 They were looking at the ruins of Roslin Castle, and 
 speaking of the traditions of the place, when Scott said : 
 " I wish we knew more than we are ever likely to do of 
 the powerful family that once owned this castle and 
 chapel. Doubtless there were beautiful damsels as well 
 as belted knights that now 7 ' sleep the sleep that knows 
 no waking' under these cold stones. Anxious, of course, 
 were the days and hours which they spent within their 
 castle walls : intricate and hazardous the adventures in 
 
CARLYLE ON RAPID WRITING 245 
 
 which they were engaged. A chronicle of Roslin or of 
 any other old castle of consideration, — that is to say, a 
 minute record of the lives of its various inhabitants, how 
 they fought and caroused, loved and hated, worked and 
 played, — would be worth more than all the mere 
 romances that ever were penned, as a fund of amusement 
 and instruction. But we have only vague outlines ; im- 
 agination must do the rest." And he went on to say : 
 " On the whole, how little more do we learn from history 
 than that Sir William lived and ruled at one time, and 
 Sir John at another, while of the fair dames little oi\ 
 nothing is said ! We find their names in long lists, it 
 is true, and as having assisted in certain public occasions 
 of war or pageantry. But the poet must either discover 
 or invent more than this. He requires to know their 
 individual habits of life, their wants, wishes, and springs 
 of action. In truth, we know far more about Major 
 Weir and his enchanted staff than about any of the 
 Roslin barons and baronesses ; and if I were ever to 
 become a writer of prose romances, I think I would 
 choose him, if not for my hero, at least for an agent and 
 leading one in my production." 
 
 Carlyle overlooked such evidences of the zeal with 
 which Scott in his younger days kept his imagination 
 busy in reconstructing past life, and the thoroughness 
 with which he ransacked history for facts to guide his 
 imagination, when he sneered in his own contemptuous 
 way at Scott's power of extempore writing, of produc- 
 ing " impromptu novels to buy farms with." " A word 
 here," Carlyle says, " as to the extempore style of writing, 
 which is getting much celebrated in these days. Scott 
 seems to have been a high proficient in it. His rapidity 
 was extreme ; and the matter produced was excellent, 
 considering that : the circumstances under which some 
 of his novels, when he could not himself write, were 
 dictated, are justly considered wonderful." But he 
 goes on to say, " in the way of writing, no great thing 
 
246 SCOTT 
 
 was ever, or will ever be done with ease, but with diffi- 
 culty. Let ready writers with any faculty in them lay 
 this to heart. Is it with ease, or not with ease, that a 
 man shall do his best, in any shape ; above all, in this 
 shape justly named of ' soul's travail,' working in the 
 deep places of thought, embodying the True out of the 
 Obscure and Possible, environed on all sides with the 
 uncreated False? Not so, now or at any time. The 
 experience of all men belies it; the nature of things 
 contradicts it. Virgil and Tacitus, were they ready 
 writers? The whole Prophecies of Isaiah are not 
 equal in extent to 'this cobweb of a Jlevieio article. 
 Shakespeare, we may fancy, wrote with rapidit} r , but not 
 till he had thought with intensity; long and sore had 
 this man thought, as the seeing eye may discern well, 
 and had dwelt and wrestled amid dark pains and 
 throes — though his great soul is silent about all that. 
 It was for him to write rapidly at fit intervals, being 
 ready to do it. And herein truly lies the secret of the 
 matter : such surprises of mere writing, after due energy 
 of preparation, is doubtless the right method ; the hot 
 furnace having long worked and simmered, let the pure 
 gold flow out at one gush. It was Shakespeare's plan ; 
 no easy writer he, or he had never been a Shakespeare. 
 Neither was Milton one of the mob of gentlemen that 
 write Math ease." 
 
 Sound doctrine this, no doubt, and particularly 
 worthy to be kept in remembrance by an audience like 
 this, who will exercise a paramount daily and hourly 
 influence on a new generation, and who ma} r be tempted 
 to encourage boys and young men in the silly conceit 
 that they can do great things without labor and by 
 sheer force of innate capacity. But sound as Carlyle 
 is about the necessity of work, he is most unjust in his 
 application of the doctrine to the case of Scott, llis 
 savage attack on Scott's impromptu manner of writing 
 is an example of his strange inability, with all his pierc- 
 
carlyle's essay ON SCOTT 247 
 
 ing insight, to look fairly at the character of successful 
 contemporaries. Carlyle's admirers are wont now to 
 pass over all criticisms of his weak points with the 
 remark that it is the fashion now to run him down, but 
 as I published twelve years ago the same opinion of 
 him that I hold still, I may claim to speak without 
 prejudice from recent revelations. His essay on Scott, 
 though like all his other writings the work of a man of 
 great critical genius, is throughout, whenever he refers 
 to the main subject of it, prejudiced and unfair. Scott's 
 novels were not impromptu, though written with unpar- 
 alleled rapidity ; in his case there had been great, 
 furious energy of preparation, though he was as studi- 
 ously secretive about the preparation as he was about 
 the execution. He wrote rapidly because he wrote out 
 of a fully stored mind. To read Carlyle's essay one 
 would suppose that Scott turned to prose romance with 
 careless facility when he found that his metrical 
 romances no longer sold, no longer commanded the ear 
 of the public, Byron having supplanted him in popular 
 favor. This, indeed, is a very common impression, 
 encouraged by a sort of vulgar wonder at Scott's ver- 
 satility, that he easily turned his energies to prose when 
 he found that verse would no longer pay. But, to use 
 Carlyle's phrase, " the seeing eye may discern well," if 
 the seeing eye takes the facts of Scott's earlier life 
 within the range of its vision ; that, though he did not 
 begin to write romances in prose till he was past forty, 
 a large part of his previous life, so wide-ranging in its 
 energies, had been a most studious and even systematic 
 preparation. The conversation which I have quoted to 
 you, showing a bent toward prose romance as an outlet 
 for the creations of his imagination, took place some 
 years before he had written any of his metrical romances, 
 and while he was still only known among his personal 
 acquaintances as a moderately prosperous lawyer and 
 extremely pleasant companion. In fact, viewing his 
 
248 SCOTT 
 
 life as a whole, we should say that his metrical romances 
 were hut a passing diversion from the main direction of 
 his imaginative energies. And now to explain briefly 
 how these metrical romances came to be written. 
 
 The " Lay of the Last Minstrel " was the first of 
 them. He was engaged in preparing for the press Ins 
 collection of Border Minstrelsy, the fruits of his search 
 for Border ballads, when the subject and the form 
 occurred to him. He was possessed at the time, as he 
 tells us, with the ambition of "founding a poetical 
 character," but both subject and form were suggested 
 by accident. The subject grew in a remote way out of 
 his soldiering. As Quartermaster of the Mid-Lothian 
 Yeomanry, Scott made the acquaintance of the Duke of 
 Buccleuch, the great head of the clan Scott. Feudal 
 loyalty, such as a vassal was expected in mediaeval times 
 to feel for his lord, was a real sentiment with the poet 
 from his boyhood, and he would have considered it a 
 duty to look upon the Duke as his feudal superior with 
 respect and reverence. The duty was rendered a pleas- 
 ure by the character of the man, whicli was frank, 
 hearty, and generous. Something as near an intimacy 
 as possible in the circumstances sprang up between the 
 poet and the Buccleuch family.. The young Countess 
 of Dalkeith, in particular, interested herself in his 
 amusement and business of ballad-collecting, and in a 
 few original ballads which he had composed himself for 
 his forthcoming volume and for other collections. One 
 day this lady suggested to Scott what she considered 
 an excellent subject for a ballad. It was a legend which 
 she had heard of as being current among the Border 
 peasantry concerning, one Gilpin Horner — a strange, 
 tricksy hobgoblin, which used to turn up unexpectedly 
 in the haunts of men in the shape of an ugly little 
 dwarf, and when excited was in the habit of muttering : 
 "Tint! Tint! Tint." One sometimes hears the ques- 
 tion asked why the goblin page in the " Lay of the Last 
 
ORIGIN OF THE " LAY OP THE LAST MINSTREL " 249 
 
 Minstrel " cries : " Lost ! Lost ! Lost ! " What or who 
 was lost ? The goblin himself it is that is lost, having 
 strayed, as it were, from his supernatural master into 
 human society ; wandering off in a truant, frolicsome 
 mood, and being unable to find his way back. It is a 
 prett} r fancy, and Scott was delighted with it as a sub- 
 ject, as well as with the compliment of a suggestion 
 from such a quarter. This was exactly what it ought 
 to be, so like the good old times, when the gratified 
 bard received a theme from his feudal lady. He bowed 
 at once to the high command, and set to work to com- 
 pose a ballad which might find a place in his jjroposed 
 Border Minstrelsy. It was natural that he should think 
 of connecting the goblin somehow with the house of 
 Scott, considering who had given him the subject ; and 
 it was natural also that, thinking of this noble house in 
 connection with such a subject, his thoughts should turn 
 to a renowned lady of Buccleuch in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury — Dame Janet Bethune, a woman of a learned 
 family, with a reputation for her knowledge of magic, 
 as well as for the vigor with which she had managed 
 the affairs of her house during a long widowhood. 
 In Scott's active imagination the subject quickly 
 took such dimensions that he began to feel that 
 here at last he had lighted on a theme for a work of 
 greater pretensions than a ballad — a theme out of 
 which migiit be developed a picture of Border manners 
 such as he had long been ambitious of executing. His 
 ambition for some time had soared higher than the bal- 
 lad ; he had become convinced that a poetical character, 
 such as he wished to establish, could not be founded on 
 so narrow a basis. Once inspired with the thought that 
 his opportunit}' had come at last, he quickly elaborated a 
 simple plot on which to weave his picture of life on the 
 Borders in the sixteenth century, of alert strongholds, 
 fighting clans, gallant chieftains, sturdy and fearless 
 retainers — elevating it into the regions of romance with 
 
250 SCOTT 
 
 a deal of love and superstition. It is difficult for us to 
 realize what an influence Scott had in changing the cur- 
 rent conception of the Borderers. They had long been 
 looked upon as simply cattle-stealers, and yet Scott, by 
 the force of his genius, convinced people that his way 
 of looking on them was the right way. 
 
 From the time of Jeffrey till the "Life of Scott" in 
 the English Men of Letters Series it has been the 
 custom to say that the plot machinery in the " Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel " is defective, and that the goblin is a 
 mere excrescence. It is argued that Scott failed to con- 
 nect the superstitious machinery with the general course 
 of the story, and that every thing done by the goblin's 
 action might have been accomplished by natural means. 
 Tli at was the common criticism in Scott's time, and 
 when it was mentioned to him, he characteristically made 
 a jest of it. lie said he had meant him for a great per- 
 sonage, but he had slunk down to the kitchen. This 
 criticism was made under the false idea that Scott com- 
 posed carelessly and in haste. The truth is that the 
 goblin at every turn of the story has an influence on the 
 action. Of course it is true enough that different means 
 might have been adopted, but then the effect would 
 have been different. 
 
 Jeffrey said that the young laird might have wan- 
 dered into the wood by himself, but the effect produced 
 on us by the goblin enticing him out in a wicked frolic 
 and eluding the sentinels by an assumed disguise is very 
 different. The plot is more complex than this, and, 
 indeed, is more compactly framed than is generally 
 stated in formal criticisms of the work. The story 
 opens with a feast in Branksome Hall, where the knights 
 are in readiness to depart. While they are making 
 merry, the Lady retires to her bower, and overhears the 
 spirits of the mountain and of the flood conversing 
 about her daughter's fate. She hears them say that 
 Branksome will never prosper till the Lady's pride be 
 
THE GOBLIN'S PART IN THE PLOT 251 
 
 quelled and her daughter allowed to marry Lord Cran- 
 stoun, with whose family they are at feud. The Lady 
 determines to defy fate, and sends William of Deloraine 
 to Melrose Abbey for a mystical book that has long 
 been buried in the tomb of " the wondrous Michael 
 Scott." On returning with his treasure William is 
 attacked and wounded by Cranstoun and left to the care 
 of the Earl's goblin page. The goblin sees the mystic 
 book and sits down to unclasp it, but has scarcely done 
 so when thunder is heard and a flash of lightning comes 
 between him and the book — not, however, till the sprite 
 has mastered certain magic spells. 
 
 By means of his newly acquired knowledge the 
 goblin conveys Deloraine into the castle and decoys the 
 young heir into the woods, where the boy is caught by 
 the English. Deloraine had committed some outrage 
 on the. English Border, and Percy had entered Scotland 
 to demand his surrender. The Lady will not give him 
 up, but says that he will appear himself to fight the 
 man who has brought the charge against him. But how- 
 can William do this, since he is seriously wounded ? 
 Here comes the important action of the goblin. He 
 uses the spell to bring Cranstoun into Branksome, and 
 Cranstoun, dressed in Deloraine's armor, proves victori- 
 ous. The Lady then admits that fate is too strong for 
 her, and allows him to marry her daughter. Thus the 
 action of the goblin page is a very essential one, and 
 Scott had a deeper meaning in the story than appears 
 on the surface. He further imitated mediaeval stories 
 in making the " Lay " a sort of allegory, in which the 
 struggle ^between supernatural and human powers por- 
 trays the struggle between human will and fate. The 
 means that the Lady takes to prevent what is destined 
 from coming to pass become in the end the very means 
 by which it happens. 
 
 As to the metre of the story, it is interesting to know 
 that Scott received an important hint from Coleridge's 
 
252 SCOTT 
 
 " Christabel." We find the influence of Coleridge 
 appearing everywhere in the early part of the nine- 
 teenth century, despite the fact that be wrote so little. 
 "Christabel" was composed in 1797, although it was 
 not published till 1816, and it so happened that a friend 
 at Malta to whom he recited the poem had such a 
 remarkable memory that he was able afterward to recite 
 it in turn to Scott. It was thus that Scott got the hint 
 of a peculiar variety of the metre he used. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BYRON 
 
 SUMMARY OF LIFE — POPULAR IDENTIFICATION OF THE POET WITH 
 HIS CREATIONS — " ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 
 
 The year of the publication of " Childe Harold," — the 
 work that brought Byron's extraordinary personality 
 before the world, — was 1812. The day even is worth 
 remembering, because it had probably been chosen 
 with a superstitious preference and a fancy for singu- 
 larity in the smallest things characteristic of the man. 
 It was the 29th of February, a date in the calendar that 
 comes only once in four years. 
 
 Like Scott, Byron leaped at once into fame. While 
 Wordsworth and Coleridge and Southey and Campbell 
 and Moore were known only to small circles and isolated 
 admirers, the fame of Scott and Byron was European. 
 " The Lay of the Last Minstrel " was sold and read 
 more widely than any poem ever had been before. It 
 was followed by " Marmion " and "The Lady of the 
 Lake," and the applause grew louder and more general 
 with each publication. " The Vision of Don Roderick," 
 a slighter poem and in a different stanza, was received 
 somewhat more coldty; but when " Childe Harold" was 
 published, Scott was engaged on another metrical 
 romance, " Rokeb^-," for which he received a larger 
 price than had ever before been paid for a poem — a 
 sign that, in the opinion of publishers at least, his popu- 
 larity was still on the increase. Then Byron's turn 
 came. "Childe Harold" was received with an intense 
 excitement beside which the rage for Scott's poetry 
 appeared insignificant. Scott to this extent had pre- 
 pared the way for Byron, that he had given an interest 
 
 253 
 
254 BYRON 
 
 in poetry to thousands of readers to whom verse in any 
 shape had been a tiling to be avoided as dull and unin- 
 telligible. But no poet before Byron had commanded 
 so wide an audience; the world had never seen so 
 general a curiosity about a poet's next work. 
 
 Writers about Byron, from Moore to Mrs. Oliphant, 
 have puzzled themselves to account for the instantane- 
 ousness with which "Childe Harold" took hold of the 
 public mind, and have generally found the solution in 
 the fascinating strangeness and romantic interest of the 
 writer's character. This was part of the secret, no 
 doubt a large part ; but it was not all. If each gener- 
 ation were not so busy with the moods of the moment as 
 to be incapable without an effort of realizing how people 
 felt in the peculiar situations of past history, the fit- 
 ness of Byron's first great work to the time in which it 
 was produced could hardly have escaped observation. 
 When we turn to " Childe Harold " now, our interest is 
 all in the poet, and we skip with comparative indiffer- 
 ence the stanza after stanza of description and reflection 
 to fasten on the autobiographical portions. But in the 
 stanzas that we now skip the readers of the writer of 
 1812 found powerful expression given to thoughts that 
 were agitating their own minds, concerning scenes and 
 events that had for them an intensity of interest such 
 as men rarely feel except about their own personal con- 
 cerns. Bear in mind the position of England and the 
 state of Europe at the time, read the first two cantos of 
 " Childe Harold " in that connection, and you will find in 
 stanza after stanza abundant evidence of one cause for 
 the excitement with which the poem was received. 
 Napoleon was then at the zenith of his career, master of 
 Germany and Austria and Italy, and half master of 
 Spain. It seemed as if he was on the point of achieving 
 his ambition of making the conquest of Europe. He 
 was engaged in preparing for that huge expedition into 
 Russia which proved his ruin, but there was no symptom 
 
EXCITEMENT THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY 255 
 
 of ruin then. His arms had hardly received a check, 
 except from English troops in the Peninsula. Great 
 Britain seemed the only power capable of checking his 
 course, and there was an intensity of excitement 
 throughout our country such as had never been experi- 
 enced before and has never been since. We were fight- 
 ing for our national existence, fighting as the champions 
 and leaders of all the kingdoms of Christendom, pour- 
 ing subsidies into the hands of our Continental allies, 
 raising armies by conscription. All eyes were turned 
 at the moment upon Spain, where our troops under 
 Wellington, after some doubtful victories, stood at bay 
 within the lines of Torres Vedras, facing four French 
 armies that were quartered in the Peninsula. 
 
 In the midst of this excitement what were our poets 
 doing to put themselves in sympathy with the national 
 mood ? Every one of them was quietly pursuing his 
 own predetermined line of literary activity, inspired by 
 no message to the troubled spirit of the age of force 
 and distinction enough to command attention. Words- 
 worth had, indeed, issued from his Westmoreland retreat 
 a commonplace prose tract on the Convention of Cintra, 
 and some noble sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Inde- 
 pendence. Some of these sonnets are among his master- 
 pieces in point of literary form and loftiness of senti- 
 ment ; but they have not the fire and directness of 
 popular verse. Coleridge, his brief fit of poetic activity 
 over, was lecturing on Shakespeare, and expounding 
 political philosophy in a periodical called the Friend. 
 Southey was writing review articles for the Quarterly, 
 and meditating a poem on the last of the Goths, in 
 execution of his scheme of poems based on national 
 mythologies. Moore was busy with a new number of 
 his Irish Melodies, and speculating on the chances of a 
 change of Government. Campbell, who had electrified 
 the country twelve years earlier with his national songs, 
 had revived the Spenserian stanza in " Gertrude of 
 
256 BYKON 
 
 Wyoming," and was working bard at task-work for 
 the publishers. Scott had shown more inclination 
 to follow the direction of popular interest. ■ He had 
 appealed to the spirits of the Mountains and the Tor- 
 rents, who had inspired his minstrelsy before, to vouch- 
 safe him -inspiration for a loftier theme, the liberation 
 of the Spaniards by Wellington ; and in "The Vision 
 of Don Roderick " had celebrated the triumphs of our 
 soldiers in the Peninsula with stirring martial ardor. 
 There was much spirit in the strain, and three of the 
 stanzas describing the soldiers of England, Scotland, 
 and Ireland have become classical, and are still dear to 
 every school-boy. As a prophet of the warlike spirit of 
 the time Scott was unmatched and unmatchable, but he 
 harped only on one string, and high and stubborn as 
 was the resolution of the country at the moment, fixed 
 as it was in its determination to fight, the national mind 
 was crossed by other moods in the pauses of the con- 
 flict, moods to which the equally tempered Scott was 
 incapable of giving expression. And these moods, nat- 
 ural in a time of great excitement and sustained sus- 
 pense, found an exponent of titanic force in the young 
 poet who made his voice heard in the pilgrimage of 
 " Childe Harold." Can it be matter for astonishment 
 that all ears were inclined to hear ? 
 
 The strain in which the new poet addressed the public 
 was not the most obviously opportune one of drum and 
 trumpet exhortation. It was full of irregular, almost 
 capricious changes, varying through many moods, from 
 tierce delight in battle and fiery enthusiam for freedom 
 to cynical mockery of ambition and despondent medita- 
 tion on the fleeting character of human happiness and 
 national greatness. It was the work of a distempered 
 mind, and it spoke out with passionate sincerity what 
 was in that mind ; and so doing, as the age itself was 
 moody and distempered with prolonged and feverish 
 excitement, it was a revelation to thousands of readers 
 
" CHILDE HAROLD " 257 
 
 of their own inmost thoughts. Macaulay in a well-known 
 passage describes Byron as having interpreted Words- 
 worth to the multitude. Looking at this — his first pro- 
 duction — purely from the literary point of view, there 
 is much truth in this, for the pilgrimage of "Childe 
 Harold " was undoubtedly the spontaneous overflow of 
 powerful feeling ; the poem was evolved by the poet's 
 imagination out of genuine personal emotion ; the satis- 
 faction of this emotion was the motive that set the 
 imagination at work. Byron's poetry came from the 
 heart. In this respect, and also in the matter of poetic 
 diction, he may truly be said to have interpreted Words- 
 worth's theories to the multitude. But he did more 
 than this : he interpreted the multitude to themselves ; 
 he showed them as in a glass what they had been on 
 the point of thinking. 
 
 The first stage of Childe Harold's pilgrimage la} r 
 through Spain, on which at that moment the trembling- 
 hopes of Europe were fixed as the theatre where 
 Napoleon's fate was to be determined — where the last 
 stake was being played for or against him. The poet 
 described the scenery where this thrilling drama was 
 in progress, and commented on the actors and the 
 incidents. We must remember this to understand the 
 full force for his contemporaries of such lines as : 
 
 " By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see 
 (For one who hath no friend, no brother there) 
 Their rival scarfs of niix'd embroidery, 
 Their various arms that glitter in the air." 
 
 Or : 
 
 " And must they fall — the young, the proud, the brave — 
 To swell one bloated chief's unwholesome reign ? 
 No step between submission and a grave? 
 The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain ? " 
 
 Or: 
 
 " No more beneath soft Eve's consenting star 
 Fandango twirls his jocund castanet : 
 
 17 
 
Ah monarchs ! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, 
 Not in the toils of glory would ye fret ; 
 The hoarse dull drum would sleep, arid man be happy yet! " 
 
 Or the stanza with which he takes farewell of Spain : 
 
 " Nor .yet, alas ! the dreadful work is done ; 
 Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees : 
 It deepens still, the work is scarce begun, 
 Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. 
 Fall'n nations gaze on Spain : if freed, she frees 
 More thai: lier fell Pizarros once enchained." 
 
 In the second canto Byron conducted his pilgrim to 
 Greece, to scenes of departed greatness, and his medi- 
 tations there also struck a sympathetic chord in the 
 hearts of a people who saw historic grandeurs trembling 
 all round them, and knew not when the turn of their 
 own empire would come. The half-hearted mirth with 
 which the pilgrim, with his assumption of joyless C} r ni- 
 cism and discontent produced by satiety, relieved the 
 monotony of his gloomy meditations, his sudden changes 
 of mood from ardent aspiration to bitter mockery, from 
 impassioned delight in nature's beauties to scorn of 
 men's deformities, were all in unison with the hj'sterical, 
 distracted state of the public temper. We must live 
 over again the anxieties of those troubled 3 r ears when 
 the strain of resistance to Napoleon's ambition, sustained 
 year after year, Avas becoming intolerable, and the 
 sternest resolution was dashed at times by fears that the 
 dreams of the man of destiny would be fulfilled — we 
 must do this to understand the instantaneous effect of 
 " Childe Harold." The poet spoke the words that were 
 on every-body's lips, spoke them with all the fire and 
 intensity of genius. Intense susceptibility to the impres- 
 sions of the moment was always a striking feature of 
 Byron's character, and he " drew from his audience in a 
 vapor," to use once more Mr. Gladstone's famous simile, 
 '• what lie gave back to them in a flood." He profes^-ed 
 
PUBLIC INTERPRETATION OF THE POEM 259 
 
 indifference in the opening of bis poem ; spoke with a 
 languid air of his reluctance to awake the weary Nine 
 for so lowly a lay as his ; but the fire of most of the 
 subsequent stanzas gave the lie to this affectation. 
 
 This close harmony with the moods of the time is 
 greatly left out of sight in attempts to explain the 
 rapidit3 r with which Byron gained the ear of his audi- 
 ence. Too much stress is laid in these explanations on 
 the romantic character of the hero, driven into his 
 pilgrimage by a strange unrest, satiated with pleasure, 
 rendered joyless by the excess of it, prematurely pene- 
 trated by the conviction that all is vanity ; a wanderer, 
 not because he hopes for relief from change, but because 
 change is an imperative necessity to him. It was not 
 the character of " Childe Harold " that first drew atten- 
 tion to the poem ; it was the interest in the poem that 
 drew attention to the character of the poet, with whom 
 the public, in spite of his protests, persisted in identify- 
 ing him. We must not credit the readers of the first 
 two cantos of "Childe Harold " with knowing all that 
 we can now learn about Byron, from works of which 
 this first effort, with all its revelation of power, was 
 comparatively but a feeble and one-sided instalment. 
 Their interest was principally in the poem itself, which 
 enthralled them before they knew much or any thing 
 about the author ; and if we try to look at it with their 
 eyes, following its movement with the interest they 
 naturally had in its incidents, we find abundant reason 
 for their admiration in the impetuous vehemence with 
 which the poet hurries from theme to theme, fixing one 
 impression after another with a few powerful strokes, 
 moving with the ease of a giant in the fetters of a diffi- 
 cult stanza, controlling the rhymes with a master's 
 hand into the service of his fervent feeling, instead of 
 allowing them to direct and check and hamper its flow 
 as is the way with rhymesters of less resource. The 
 interest of the public once kindled in the poem, turned 
 
260 BYRON 
 
 naturally to the poet, and they would have it that in his 
 strange hero, a new character in poetry, he had drawn 
 the picture of himself. Every striking publication sets 
 the public speculating about the author, and there were 
 several superficial circumstances that favored this belief. 
 Byron had himself passed through the scenes through 
 which he conducted his pilgrim. True, he said in the 
 preface that the pilgrim was only " a fictitious character 
 introduced for the sake of giving some connection to 
 the piece" ; but the very disclaimer encouraged the 
 public in the popular conviction. When they began 
 enquiring about the author, they found that he was a 
 young lord in his twenty-fifth year, who had for some 
 time been his own master, and had led rather a dissolute 
 life ; why, if he did not mean to picture himself, should 
 he choose so discreditable a fictitious character as a 
 prematurely jaded voluptuary, stalking in joyless revery 
 through scenes in which all Europe at the time felt a 
 living interest ? 
 
 The mistake was natural, perhaps, and yet none the 
 less it was a mistake. Childe Harold's moods were 
 only the darker moods of an intemperately sensitive 
 and variable spirit, in which heights of joyous mirth 
 were quite as frequent as depths of sombre melanchoijr. 
 When Byron began the poem, his intention was, as he 
 says in his preface, following the words of Dr. Beattie, 
 " to give full scope to his inclination, and be either 
 droll or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, tender or 
 satirical, as the humor struck him." He had intended, 
 in fact, what he afterward accomplished in "Don Juan." 
 And in his first draughts of the poems he had called the 
 hero Childe Burun, the ancient name of his famity. 
 But as he went on and thought of making his pilgrim 
 a fictitious character of certain stamp, a character, as he 
 tells us, modelled on Dr. Moore's "Zeluco," he altered 
 the cast of the poem to correspond, and replaced more 
 than one mirthful passage by others of a melancholy 
 
THE POET'S UPBRINGING 261 
 
 description. Thus only one side of his own character 
 was represented in the poem, and the shades even of 
 that were very much deepened. 
 
 To make this clear let us run rapidly over his life be- 
 fore the publication of " Childe Harold." We shall see 
 that he had other reasons for despondency and discon- 
 tent than the fulness of satiety. His life had been very 
 different from that of most young members of the peer- 
 age. He had succeeded to the title of Lord Byron at 
 the age of ten by the death of an eccentric and violent 
 grand-uncle, who had never recognized his existence or 
 done any thing to help his mother in giving him an edu- 
 cation suitable to his future rank. The Byrons were 
 one of the oldest families in England, but for several 
 generations before the birth of the poet the family 
 estates had been reduced and the family name disgraced 
 by turbulent, extravagant, and scandalous conduct. 
 There were honorable traditions in the family, but they 
 belonged to a date before its elevation to the peerage. 
 Captain Byron, the poet's father, was a profligate 
 younger son, who added gaming to his other vices. 
 His first wife was the divorced wife of a peer, with 
 whom he had eloped, and who died soon after their 
 marriage. The Hon. Mrs. Leigh, Byron's half-sister, 
 was the only offspring of this union. His second wife 
 was Catherine Gordon, the heiress of Gight. He mar- 
 ried her for her money, and in less than two years 
 (1786-88) it was swallowed up in the pajmient of his 
 debts. Gight was sold, and she was left with only 
 enough to yield her the small pittance on which she 
 educated her son. This son, the poet, was born in Lon- 
 don on January 22, 1788. Mrs. Byron, though passion- 
 ately attached to her spendthrift husband, was a woman 
 of extremely violent temper ; and life with her hus- 
 band proving impossible, she withdrew with her young 
 son to Aberdeen in 1790, two years after his birth. 
 The father contrived to extort from her narrow means 
 
262 BYRON 
 
 a sum sufficient to take him to France, and died there in 
 the following year. Mrs. Byron remained in Aberdeen, 
 domiciled in one flat after another in Queen Street, Vir- 
 ginia Street, and Broad Street, till the death of the 
 fourth Lord Byron in 1798, in the poet's eleventh year, 
 opened the way to his succession, and the family re- 
 moved South. With such a mother, a woman of natu- 
 rally ungovernable temper, exasperated by her being 
 dragged down from affluence to poverty, sometimes 
 fondling her child with extravagant affection, some- 
 times storming at him as "a lame brat," and hurling 
 things at him, — the fire-irons are said to have been her 
 favorite weapons, — a proud, sensitive, passionate child 
 was not likely to learn self-control. Among other 
 things, she probably exaggerated that sensitiveness 
 about his lameness to which biographers and critics at- 
 tach so much importance. He seems to have had one 
 or both feet clubbed, and one of the first uses that his 
 mother made of her larger command of moiie}^ when 
 he became Lord Byron, was to consult physicians and 
 quacks about the cure of this defect, and on their ad- 
 vice to apply painful remedies in vain. Her violent 
 temper and capricious affection harmed him quite as 
 much after his accession as before, for she kept inces- 
 santly interfering with himself and his teachers, and 
 quarrelled so outrageously with his guardian, Lord Car- 
 lisle, and with every-body who came near her, that she 
 was practically excluded from the society of people of 
 her own rank. Thus it happened that when Byron 
 came of age he had no friends except such as he had 
 made for himself at Harrow and Cambridge. Brought 
 up with very exalted ideas of his own rank, all the 
 more vivid that he had not been born in it, he had no 
 knowledge of the domestic life of families in that 
 rank; he had no social acquaintance with them, and 
 when he was of age to take his seat in the House of 
 Lords, there was not a single member of that House 
 
HIS VARIABLE TEMPER 263 
 
 whom he could ask as a personal friend to introduce 
 him. There was some technical difficulty also about 
 his taking his seat. At the last moment an impediment 
 was discovered, which could not be removed till a docu- 
 ment had been hunted up somewhere in Cornwall. When 
 Bj-ron set out in 1809 on the travels which he has im- 
 mortalized in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," he had no 
 pleasant home to take leave of, no pleasant relations to 
 break off with the class to which he belonged. He had 
 bitter memories where other men have sweet and sad ; 
 and in his despondent moods it required no strong effort 
 of imagination to picture himself as a joyless outcast, 
 a scornful hater of his kind. Perhaps one reason for 
 the readiness with which the public identified him with 
 his gloomy hero was that they could not understand 
 how a young lord could be unhappy from any other 
 cause but a surfeit of the pleasures of life ; they did 
 not know at what a distance from the lap of luxury the 
 titled author had spent his early years; otherwise the 
 evidences of unhappiness and distemper of mind in his 
 poetry might have been more intelligible to them. 
 
 The real Byron at this period, however, though he 
 had his moods of passionate melancholy, was far from 
 being habitually joyless and misanthropic, consumed by 
 a mj^sterious sadness. He was prone to extremes, as 
 might have been expected from the descendant of such 
 ancestry. He came of turbulent kin on both sides. He 
 was tempestuous in all his feelings, extreme in anger 
 and extreme in affection, in melancholy and in mirth, but 
 the pendulum swung as often to the one side as to the 
 other. For every height there is a hollow. We hear 
 of his fits of ungovernable temper in his childhood, of 
 his silent, sullen rages, of his falling in love at the age 
 of eight with such precocious intensity that years after- 
 ward the mention of the marriage of the girl nearly 
 choked him with jealous fury. But there is a brighter 
 side to the picture, though that is not so often dwelt 
 
264 BYRON 
 
 upon. Those who were set in authority over him, from 
 his nurse, Mary Gray, to his tutor at Harrow, found him 
 extremely sweet-tempered and affectionate when they 
 treated him with kindness. He was by no means unruly 
 when he was not crossed and thwarted and misunder- 
 stood in his phrvful advances, though he was then 
 resentful enough. Like all people of extravagant sensi- 
 bilities, he was exacting in his claims for a return of 
 affection, and quick to take offence when the response 
 was not as ardent as he thought he had a right to 
 expect from the warmth of his overtures. It is not a 
 good constitution of mind for happiness in this world, 
 where individuals are not always ready to reciprocate ; 
 but it is as far removed as possible from the hard, sullen, 
 misanthropic temperament that remains sealed up in its 
 own moroseness, impervious to any touch of kindness. 
 Byron is often described as a morbid egotist ; but his 
 egotism, if such it is to be called, took the form of an 
 intense longing for sympathy ; it was not, at least, a cold, 
 self-contained egotism, or an egotism that demands more 
 than it is willing to give, but an intemperate craving for 
 an interchange of kindly offices, apt, only as such feel- 
 ings are, to be chilled and embittered when it meets 
 with an irresponsive or hostile object. When Ave read 
 the record of his school and college friendships, of 
 which there are numerous and eloquent memorials in his 
 first published poems, and compare this with the moods 
 of Childe Harold, who described his friends as : 
 
 " The flatterers of the festal hour, 
 The heartless parasites of present cheer," 
 
 we can understand Byron's saying that he would not 
 for all the world that his character were like his hero's. 
 Some of his critics endeavor to give an unfavorable 
 color even to his friendships, by representing that he 
 chose his friends from a rank beneath his own — boys 
 and youths who might flatter his vanity by their grati- 
 
" HOURS OF IDLENESS " 265 
 
 tiule for his patronage. But all his school and college 
 friends were not beneath him in rank. The critics for- 
 get this, and forget also that, owing to Byron's early 
 training, lie was likely to feel most at home with his 
 poorer school-fellows, and that from the same cause he 
 was more likely to feel sympathy with poverty and be 
 disposed to relieve it. 
 
 It was a necessary incident of Byron's high spirit and 
 craving for love and friendship and admiration that he 
 should be inordinately ambitious. If he had not been 
 lame, he might, with his taste for an active life and the 
 traditions of his family before him, have realized his 
 boyish dream of raising and commanding a regiment. 
 Failing this, his ambition seems at first to have been 
 toward the distinction of an orator, and he was noted at 
 school for his declamatory powers. He did not, in fact, 
 abandon this ambition till " he awoke one morning and 
 found himself famous" as a poet. Only two days 
 before he had made his first speech in the House of 
 Lords, and had achieved a decided success in that fas- 
 tidious assemblage. But his school-days fell in the time 
 when one great poet after another was rising into fame, 
 and, always sensitive to the influence of circumstances, 
 he began to try his hand at verses. The applause of 
 friends induced him to appeal to a wider audience, and 
 in his nineteenth year he issued with memorable results 
 a small volume entitled " Hours of Idleness." The pref- 
 ace to this is very characteristic. We can trace all 
 through a curious struggle between modesty and pride, 
 a disposition to be conciliatory and estimate his efforts 
 modestly, crossed every now and then by a haughty 
 consciousness of real power. There are several expres- 
 sions peculiarly interesting in the light of his subsequent 
 career. " I have hazarded my reputation and feelings 
 in publishing this volume," he said. "I have passed 
 the Rubicon, and must stand or fall by the cast of the 
 die." This serious language, appropriate to an enter- 
 
266 BYRON 
 
 prise in the issue of which the writer was deeply inter- 
 ested, is hardly in keeping with his protestations further 
 on of indifference, with his offer to submit without a 
 murmur to the verdict of the critics, or with the state- 
 ments that poetry is not his primary vocation, that he 
 will be content with whatever credit he may get from 
 this volume, and that "it is highly improbable, from his 
 situation and pursuits hereafter, that he should obtrude 
 himself a second time upon the public." Upon one 
 point he was very explicit — that he wished no consider- 
 ation at the hands of critics on the ground of his rank : 
 he " would rather incur the bitterest censure of anony- 
 mous criticism than triumph in honors granted merely 
 to a title." There was, however, a somewhat ungener- 
 ous comparison suggested between himself and bards 
 who lived in elevated residences in the close air of towns, 
 and made money by their writings ; and this, combined 
 with many references to his rank and his youth and the 
 seats of his ancestors in the poems themselves, was 
 seized upon by the Edinburgh lievieio and made the theme 
 of a very cutting article. " Whatever judgment," said 
 the reviewer, who is generally supposed to have been 
 Lord Brougham, " may be passed on the poems of this 
 noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, 
 and be content; for they are the last we shall ever 
 have from him. He is at best, he says, but an intruder 
 into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, 
 like thoroughbred poets ; and ' though he once roved a 
 careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland,' he 
 has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he 
 expects no profit from his publication; and whether it 
 succeeds or not ' it is highly improbable, from his situa- 
 tion and pursuits hereafter,' that he should again conde- 
 scend to become an author. Therefore, let us take what 
 we get, and be thankful. What right have we poor 
 devils to be nice ? We are well off to have got so 
 much from a man of this lord's station ; who does not 
 
" ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS " 267 
 
 live in a garret, but has the sway of Newstead Abbey. 
 Again, we say, let us be thankful, and, with honest 
 Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift-horse 
 in the mouth." 
 
 Byron writhed under this ridicule, all the more gall- 
 ing that it was accompanied by a contemptuous judg- 
 ment that his poetry belonged to the class which neither 
 gods nor men are said to approve, and that his effusions 
 were spread over a dead flat, and could no more get 
 above or below that level than if they were so much 
 stagnant water. We need not pause to cons/der whether 
 the criticism was just or unjust ; the poems are of 
 interest now only as throwing light on his character ; 
 and if they were mediocre, and neither particularly 
 good nor particularly bad, the same fault could not be 
 alleged against the productions to which this criticism 
 led. The poet greatly misjudged himself when he 
 promised submission without a murmur. He resolved 
 instantly upon revenge. The common story ran that 
 immediately on reading the review he drank two bottles 
 of claret, conceived the plan of a bitter satire on " Eng- 
 lish Bards and Scotch Reviewers," and sat down and 
 wrote a hundred lines of it at a single sitting. It is pos- 
 sible that he did this ; but it would seem from a passage 
 in Moore's Life that long before the appearance of the 
 article he had a satire of the kind tying by him, and that 
 the attack only gave him a motive for remodelling and 
 publishing it, and inspired some of the more bitter pas- 
 sages. It was fourteen months after the article that 
 the satii'e in reply made its appearance, and it created a 
 great sensation — as well by its trenchant force as by 
 the boldness and gallantry of the youth in tackling the 
 Edinburgh Reviexo, then in the height of its formidable 
 critical supremacy. It is possible that during the year 
 and more that elapsed Byron's wrath might have 
 evaporated, and that he might have come to the con- 
 clusion, which he afterward expressed, that it was "a 
 
268 byro:^ 
 
 miserable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate 
 acrimony," if the severity of the Edinburgh Review 
 had been counterbalanced by any warmth of recognition 
 and appreciation from other quarters. If any of the 
 poets of the time had protested against the injustice of 
 the review, if his volume had opened the doors of 
 society to him as " Childe Harold" afterward did, if 
 his relative and guardian, Lord Carlisle, had given any 
 recognition of his ability or shown any sympathy with 
 his aspirations, Byron, always prompt to respond to 
 kindness and affection, would certainly not have retali- 
 ated with indiscriminate acrimony, bringing within the 
 sweep of his anger not merely the Scotch reviewers who 
 had attacked him, but the English bards who had 
 received his adventure with silent indifference. He 
 would not have had the same motive for making them 
 disagreeably aware of his existence and of his power. 
 But as it was, no recognition came to counteract the 
 effect of the hostile criticism, and he came to the reso- 
 lution to pay off his score against the whole world of 
 literature, and go abroad. The friendlessness of his 
 position was, as I have said, brought still more painfully 
 home to him by the circumstances attending his coming 
 of age and his introduction to the House of Lords. 
 
 The study of Byron's life before he began the pil- 
 grimage of Childe Harold thus shows us that he was a 
 very different man from the pilgrim, who is represented 
 as a youth who had been rendered misanthropic and 
 scornfully indifferent to every thing that poor human 
 life could yield by an unbroken course of sycophantic 
 flattery and unbridled self-indulgence. Though Byron 
 took the incidents of the travels from his own experience 
 and put his own reflections into the mouth of the pil- 
 grim, he undoubtedly, as he himself said, took the con- 
 ception of the character from Dr. John Moore's " Zeluco." 
 All the same, the identification of the poet with his own 
 creation laid firm hold of the public mind, and helped 
 
THE POET'S UNCONQUERABLE SHYNESS 269 
 
 to strengthen the impression produced by the poem. 
 The real Lord Byron, as we know him in Moore's Life, 
 would have been a much less romantic and interesting 
 character to tbe generality of readers. 
 
 From the winter of 1812 till his death in the spring 
 of 1824 Byron kept his position as the foremost poet, 
 the greatest literary force, of his generation, every year 
 bringing some new revelation of his amazing power and 
 fertility. At first the poet's popularity threatened to 
 be fatal to the development of his genius. Societ} 7 , 
 which had received the productions of his nonage with 
 indifference, and had applauded the spirit of his vindic- 
 tive satire without exhibiting much curiosity about the 
 author, opened its arms immediately to the powerful 
 assault of the pilgrim. Congratulations and invitations 
 were showered upon him from a fashionable world 
 which had hitherto ignored the existence of the impover- 
 ished lord of Newstead Abbey, too proud and shy to 
 push any claim to their acquaintance. He went every- 
 where as a lion, as the most interesting lion that had 
 been on exhibition for many years, and he accepted this 
 change in his circumstances with all the impressionable 
 facility of his character. A certain contempt may have 
 mingled with his pleasure in the sweet taste of social 
 homage, a certain bitterness when he thought how he 
 had been neglected before ; but he had too much of the 
 milk of human kindness in him not to be delighted with 
 his popularity. There was only one drawback to his 
 pleasure, an unconquerable shyness. He was not at 
 his ease in mixed society. He had never in his life been 
 accustomed to it, and his sudden introduction as an 
 object of universal attention was not calculated to put 
 him at his ease. But this constraint and embarrassment, 
 which would probably have worn off in time, did not 
 prevent him from deriving much enjoyment from his 
 new position, and in the company of his familiars he 
 threw off his reserve and Grave free rein to his high 
 
270 BYEON 
 
 spirits, while the public, deceived by an attitude due 
 more to shyness than to pride, gave him credit for all the 
 inward gloom and meditative jovlessness of the hero of 
 the pilgrimage. The idolizing of Byron lasted for four 
 years, and if it had lasted longer, his genius would prob- 
 ably have been stifled before it readied its maturity. He 
 produced his least important work in those four years, 
 as a result of accommodating himself to the spirit of the 
 society which lavished flattery and admiration on him. 
 He belonged to the not uncommon class of men who 
 cannot exert their full powers without the stimulus of 
 adversity and opposition. There was a rage at the 
 time for Oriental tales. It was in the year of Byron's 
 entrance into fame and societ3^, as you may remember,. 
 that Moore made his contract with the Longmans for a 
 poem on an Oriental subject. Byron had been in the 
 East, and had been besides an omnivorous reader of 
 Eastern history, and he set himself to supply the same 
 fashionable demand, producing in marvellously quick 
 succession " The Giaour," " The Bride of Abydos," 
 "The Corsair," " Lara," and "The Siege of Corinth." 
 The tales were full of life and color, and their melo- 
 dramatic heroes and incidents fairly eclipsed in popular 
 favor Scott's mediaeval barons and nuns, Highland 
 bandits and Lowland moss-troopers. But they belong 
 to a much lower range of artistic creation than Byron's 
 later work. Again the world paid him the equivocal 
 compliment of identifying him with his gloomy, self- 
 contained, man-defying heroes, even circulating the 
 myth that he had himself been a remorseless pirate dur- 
 ing his wanderings in the East ; and he was vain 
 enough, mainly, I believe, to cover with romantic mystery 
 a reserved manner really due to shyness, to encourage 
 rather than discourage the belief. The Nemesis for this 
 masquerading soon overtook him, but we cannot regret 
 it much, seeing that if he had continued an admired 
 member of fashionable society his work as a poet would 
 
LADY BYRON LEAVES THE POET 271 
 
 never have reached the same depth and grandeur. 
 " Society," as he afterward felt and said, " is fatal to all 
 great original undertakings;" it is certainly fatal to 
 undertakings in the spirit of Byron's subsequent works. 
 We have a raeasiu-e of what satisfied the society of the 
 Prince Regent's Court in Moore's " Lalla Rookh," and 
 Byron's own metrical tales. 
 
 It was in the consequences of an unfortunate marriage 
 that Byron paid the penalty for the public conception 
 of him as a monstrous Cliilde Harold or a Lara. I need 
 not dwell upon the incidents of that brief union. He 
 was married to Miss Milbanke on the 2d of January, 
 1815. A daughter was born on the 10th of December. 
 On the 13th of January next Lady Byron left home on 
 a visit to her parents, and on the way wrote an affec- 
 tionate letter to her husband, beginning "Dear Duck," 
 and ending "Your Pippin." A few days after her 
 father wrote to say that she could not return to him, 
 and proceedings were at once commenced for a judicial 
 separation. The reasons for this strange rupture must 
 always remain a mj'Stery and a subject for dispute. 
 " The causes," Byron once said, " were too simple easily 
 to be found out." There certainly is not the slightest 
 foundation for the abominable calumny published some 
 eighteen years ago by Mrs. Beecher Stowe on Lady 
 Byron's authority. As soon as that charge was made 
 public indisputable proofs were forthcoming, in the shape 
 of affectionate letters, that Lady Byron remained on 
 intimate terms with Mrs. Leigh, and if she then enter- 
 tained the suspicion which she afterward communicated 
 ,-to Mrs. Stowe, she deserves to go down to posterity as 
 one of the worst specimens of her sex. At the time, 
 with admirable self-control, she maintained impenetra- 
 ble silence as to her reasons for deserting her husband, 
 with the result that the British public, regarding Lord 
 Byron as a Childe Harold or a Lara, imagined that the 
 reasons must be too dreadful for publication, and made 
 
272 BYRON 
 
 up for the lack of facts by the wildest creations of fancy. 
 If the case is looked at calmly, a simple explanation is not 
 difficult to find. A woman who could ask such a hus- 
 band in a Voice of provoking sweetness " when he meant 
 to give up his bad habit of making verses," a woman 
 who never lost her temper, never gave up her point, and 
 inflicted the most malignant stabs in the tenderest places 
 with angelic coolness, possessed the power of goading a 
 sensitive, impetuous man to frenzy. She had a maid, 
 for example, to whom Byron entertained a violent aver- 
 sion, because he suspected her of poisoning his wife's 
 mind against him. Lady Byron listened to all his 
 furious tirades with unruffled meekness, but never con- 
 sented to send the woman away. She was quite as jeal- 
 ous of her dignity, quite as resentful of slights, real or 
 supposed, as himself ; and in their differences of opinion 
 she had the inestimable advantage of a temper perfectly 
 under control, and a command of all the sweet resigna- 
 tion of a martyr, combined with the most skilful inge- 
 nuity of provoking retort. Byron, with his liability to 
 fits of uncontrollable passion, could never have been an 
 easy man to live with ; but if his wife had been a loving, 
 warm-hearted woman, with the unconscious tact that 
 such women have, the result would probably have been 
 very different. 
 
 For a few weeks after Lady Byron left her husband 
 society was content with house-to-house rumor and com- 
 ment ; but presently the indiscretion of one of the poet's 
 friends gave an opportunity for public remarks on the 
 case, and Byron's character being prejudiced by the 
 identification with the worst heroes of his poetiy, that 
 howl of indignation was set up which is so graphically 
 described by Macaulay. Byron, in a tender and remorse- 
 ful fit, had written a farewell to his wife. There was 
 no reason to doubt the sincerity of his feelings ; as we 
 now know, the tears fell from his eyes on the paper as 
 he wrote the lines. A friend to whom he showed this 
 
byron's farewell to his wife 273 
 
 farewell, thinking that it might counteract the rumors 
 that were in circulation against him, sent it to a news- 
 paper. But the public regarded it as an attempt to 
 prejudice them against the wife by representing her as 
 harsh and unforgiving, while he on his side was willing 
 to be reconciled; and when it was followed soon after 
 by the scathing sketch of Mrs. Clermont, the maid whom 
 he suspected of poisoning Lady Byron's mind against 
 him, the outcry became loud and indignant, and the 
 poet, burning under a sense of injustice, but roused at 
 last to return scorn for scorn, went off once more on a 
 pilgrimage from England, vowing never to return. 
 
 Once more, after his four years of sunshine, in revolt 
 against society, distempered, 
 
 "Like sweet bells jangled, harsh and out of tune," 
 
 Byron became the exponent of the restlessness, the dis- 
 content, the passionate longings of a time that was, like 
 himself, "out of joint." And the greatest of his works 
 were written during the remaining eight years of his 
 life, before he perished in the Greek war of independence, 
 and the extent of these, quite apart from their quality, 
 is a standing sufficient answer to the exaggerated re- 
 ports that were circulated about him in the country 
 from which he had withdrawn. I am glad to see that 
 Mrs. Oliphant, in her recent work on the " English Lit- 
 erature from 1790 to 1825," written with most admira- 
 ble judgment, breadth of s} r mpathy, and easy mastery 
 of her materials, does not incline to a very prevalent 
 impression that Byron's reputation is on the wane. In 
 purely literary circles no doubt it has been for a genera- 
 tion or more, because it is the tendency now to judge 
 poets mainly by their technical qualities, and it is not 
 in minute finish or exactly interpretative felicity that 
 Byron's strength lies. His feeling was too deep, his 
 thought too impetuous, to admit of his being a great 
 18 
 
274 BYRON 
 
 verbal artist, like Tennyson or like Carlyle. We must 
 take his achievement as a whole, if we wish to give him 
 his due rank in literature. His singular sensitiveness to 
 the impressions of his own immediate surroundings is 
 against the permanence of his fame, because living as he 
 did in a time of unrest and conflict, and reflecting these 
 characters in his poetry, he is apt to appear hysterical, 
 affected, and unreal to people who look at him out of a 
 calmer atmosphere. On the other hand, the superficial 
 inconsistencies of his character must always tempt 
 critics who have a liking for difficult problems. He is 
 like Hamlet in this respect, as I have elsewhere said be- 
 fore. In the desolation of his youth, in his moodiness, 
 in his distempered variation between the extremes of 
 laughter and tears, in his yearning for sympathy, his 
 intensity of friendship, his fits of misanthropy, his 
 habit of brooding over the mj^steries of life, Byron un- 
 consciously played the part of Hamlet with the world 
 for his stage, and left a kindred problem for the wonder 
 of mankind and the puzzled speculation of the curious 
 in such matters. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 NOVELISTS FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BULWER LTTTON 
 
 STERNE — MISS EDGEWORTH— HANNAH MORE — JANE AUSTEN — 
 ' ' WAVERLEY " — MISS MITFORD — MRS. SHELLEY — ' ' VIVIAN 
 GREY " — " PELHAM " 
 
 I mentioned in a previous lecture on novelists that 
 in the half century or more between Sterne — the last of 
 the great group of novelists in the middle of the eigh- 
 teenth century — and Scott, between "Tristram Shandy" 
 and " Waverley," the chief honors of novel-writing were 
 carried off by women — Miss Burney, Mrs. Radcliffe, 
 Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Austen. These four names 
 stand out above the crowd as being not imitators, but 
 writers of sufficient original genius and sufficiently for- 
 tunate in the novelty of their subjects to be ranked as 
 leaders, as founders of schools or epochs in a small way. 
 I have already spoken of the first two, whose triumphs 
 lay within the eighteenth century ; I will now say a 
 few words to indicate the historical position of Miss 
 Edgeworth and Miss Austen. 
 
 Miss Edgeworth was about four years older than 
 Scott, being born in 1767, but she had fourteen years 
 the start of him in reputation as a novelist. Her first 
 notable production was " Castle Rackrent," in the first 
 year of the century, 1800, fourteen years before "Wa- 
 verley." It broke ground in a new field, afterward 
 worked to excess by craftsmen and craftswomen of all 
 degrees of merit ; it was a story of Irish life, a revela- 
 tion to the English novel-readers of a new condition of 
 society, a new range of character and emotion. Scott 
 afterward said of Miss Edgeworth 's Irish tales that they 
 
276 FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BULWER LYTTON 
 
 had done more to bind Irishmen and Englishmen to- 
 gether than the Union. She certainly elevated the 
 character of the Irish peasantry in the interest of the 
 world, showing the good and amiable qualities that 
 underlay the too obvious indolence and thriftlessness 
 and squalor — the gayety of heart, the readiness of wit, 
 the tenacious steadfastness of attachment, the helpful 
 generosity in distress. Miss Edgeworth was a realist, 
 and she did not fail to put the unfavorable traits into 
 her picture ; but she treated the failings of the Irish 
 tenderly, as if she loved them on the whole. The Paddy 
 of fiction and the stage is really her creation ; she is 
 the author of his existence in literature, of the sly, 
 ready-witted, fluent, faithful, and generous Paddy. 
 Herself the daughter of an Irish landowner, Edgeworth 
 of Edgeworthstown, she had not seen Ireland till she 
 was sixteen, and was thus all the better fitted to be im- 
 pressed with the peculiarities that might have escaped 
 her notice if she had lived among them from infancy. 
 She was brought very closely in contact with the poor 
 people of Ireland as well as with the landed families of 
 various ranks, for her father, an enthusiastic man of 
 progress, full of eighteenth-century philanthropic and 
 educational theories, and ever ready to make ingenious 
 experiments of his own, having resolved to reside on his 
 Irish estates, resolved also to get rid of middlemen as 
 the curse of the land system, and employed his daughter 
 practically as his steward and factor. For years of her 
 life she had every day to grant interviews to her father's 
 tenants, hear excuses and grievances, settle disputes, 
 answer petitions; and on rent days more particularly 
 her hands were full. Miss Edgeworth's knowledge of 
 Irish life was thus most intimate, and she had a keen 
 eye for the humorous side of it, while her observations 
 were not permitted to degenerate into aimless caricature 
 or disguised satire by good-sense and real sympathy 
 with the people. " Castle Rackrent " is the story of 
 
MISS EDGE WORTH'S " CASTLE RACKRENT " 277 
 
 an Irish landed family, put into the mouth of an old 
 steward who in his time had served several landlords of 
 the stock in succession — Sir Patrick, Sir Murtagh, Sir 
 Kit, and Sir Condey, men of different character, but all 
 agreeing in doing their best, whether by lavish ex- 
 penditure, gambling, or avaricious litigation, to help on 
 the ruin consummated by the last of the series. The 
 faithful old retainer admires them all with all their faults, 
 and seen through his indulgent eyes their crimes and 
 their follies, their freaks of wild expenditure, and their 
 matter-of-course extortions from their tenantry, their 
 love-making, their hospitality, their family quarrels, 
 and the dealings all the time of the too faithful steward 
 with the artful tenants, excite in the reader an extraor- 
 dinary mixture of laughter and pity. 
 
 Miss Edgeworth never surpassed this her first work 
 of note, and in some respects did not again come up to 
 it. She had been engaged before with her father in 
 writing stories for children, stories with a moral and 
 educational purpose. It was the age when Hannah 
 More's tales, intended to counteract the influence of the 
 French Revolution and teach the common people to 
 rely upon the virtues of content, sobriety, humility, 
 industry, reverence for the British Constitution, trust 
 in God, and in the kindness of the gentry, were circu- 
 lating in thousands and hundreds of thousands. It was 
 natural that moralists, in a generation distinguished for 
 its philanthropic endeavor, all the more conspicuous 
 that philanthropy was a new passion among the upper 
 classes — it was natural that in a generation which pro- 
 duced Wilberforce and Clarkson, the agitation for the 
 abolition of the slave-trade, and the impeachment of 
 Warren Hastings for the oppression of the Hindus, 
 moralists should try to press into their service the 
 revived art of story-telling, for the productions of which 
 the reading public were so clamorous. Miss Edgeworth 
 is sometimes called the inventor of the novel with a 
 
278 FROM MBS. BADCLIFFE TO BULAVEE LVTTON 
 
 purpose ; but it was really the invention of the age, and 
 I don't think she can claim the merit of being the first 
 in the field. She was, pei'haps, the first novelist with a 
 purpose entitled to high rank on purely artistic grounds. 
 It was her father apparently, between whom and herself 
 there was the closest confidence, and who was from first 
 to last her literary director, dictator, and censor, — not 
 wholby, it is supposed, to the advantage of her art, — who 
 insisted upon her devoting her talents to the purpose of 
 moral education. The fact certainly is in support of 
 this prevalent belief, that " Castle Rackrent " was the 
 only novel written by her without his superintendence. 
 She eluded her director in this, and wrote it as a little 
 surprise for him. And it is the only one of her novels 
 that has no obvious and obtruded lesson. There is no 
 harm, even from the artistic point of view, in writing 
 novels with a moral purpose. Novelists, whether they 
 intend it or not, by the very fact that they represent 
 human beings in action, and so furnish examples that 
 readers, consciously or unconsciously, imitate, just as 
 they imitate their own companions in real life, must influ- 
 ence conduct ; from the very nature of their art they can- 
 not avoid influencing conduct ; and it is desirable that 
 they should endeavor to influence conduct for the better, 
 and not for the worse. But they are apt to miss their aim 
 as well as injure their story by making the behavior of 
 their characters unnatural, and the incidents that befall 
 them impossible, if they allow the deliberate enforce- 
 ment of a moral to influence the probable evolution of a 
 story out of given characters and given circumstances. 
 Miss Edgeworth fell into this error in several of her 
 stories with a purpose. In "Belinda," for example, one 
 of her tales of fashionable life, one of the most brill- 
 iantly drawn characters in fiction, Lady Delacour, is 
 converted by the force of circumstances from a gay, 
 heartless, daringly cynical leader of fashion into a model 
 wife, and that, too, after years of outrageous frivolity. 
 
NOVELS WRITTEN" WITH A MORAL PURPOSE 279 
 
 In another story, " Ennui," Lord Glenthorne, a young 
 nobleman so rich that he has no interest in any thing, 
 and spends his time till he reaches middle life in torpid 
 vacuity and listless search for amusement, is suddenly 
 changed by the loss of his fortune into a model of 
 industry, applying himself with indefatigable persever- 
 ance to the most repulsive studies, and distancing every 
 competitor in fields to which they have given the appli- 
 cation of all their lives and all their abilities. Such 
 sudden revolutions of habits in middle life are not true 
 to nature ; long-confirmed habits are not thrown off by 
 real human beings with such ease. The novelist repre- 
 sents them as taking place, not in her function of a painter 
 of manners, but in pursuance of a moral purpose. Lady 
 Delacour's conversion is intended as an encouragement 
 to ladies of fashion to abandon heartless flirtation and 
 vain display ; they are supposed to be struck with the 
 greater happiness of the lad} 7 in her regenerate condi- 
 tion. And Lord Glenthorne's conversion is intended as 
 an incentive to noble lords to discard unworthy amuse- 
 ment, and experience the greater happiness of energies 
 devoted to nobler pursuits. Such is the novelist's ob- 
 vious intention ; but whether such pictures are likely 
 to do more harm than good is not so clear, for the ease 
 with which these interesting reprobates shake off their 
 long-indulged habits is apt to encourage would-be imi- 
 tators of their ultimate good conduct to defer the period 
 of amendment till it is too late. I admit, however, that 
 from the moralist's point of view, quite apart from 
 strict adherence to human probabilities, there is some- 
 thing to be said on the other side, and that the delight 
 taken by the converts in their altered course of conduct 
 may be rendered more potent as an example by the fact 
 that they are represented as deriving no real pleasure 
 from the pleasure-seeking of their un regenerate days. 
 It would, however, give an entirely wrong idea of Miss 
 Edgeworth's novels to lay much stress on their moral 
 
280 FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BITLWER LYTTON 
 
 purpose. Apart from their purpose, tliey are most brill- 
 iant pictures of life. The moral is not constantly 
 obtruded, as in Hannah More's celebrated " Coelebs in 
 Search of a Wife," published while Miss Edgeworth was 
 in the height of her popularity. The reader, especially 
 the young lady reader, is preached at from beginning 
 to end of that excellent work ; the only incidents in 
 Mr. Coelebs's career are his visits to various families in 
 the course of his deliberate search, the only surprises 
 consist in the discovery of weak points in superficially 
 pleasing young ladies, and sterling qualities in the super- 
 ficially unattractive. We are not led to feel the slightest 
 interest in the issue of Mr. Coelebs's great enterprise; 
 there is nothing shown in him to make us care whether 
 he finds a woman worthy of his fastidious choice or not. 
 Yet Hannah More was far from being a dull writer, and 
 in the exposure of affectation and pretence and shallow- 
 ness she showed a very fine sense of humor. Only, her 
 book is not a story, but a string of journalistic social 
 articles on the minor and the higher morals. Now, 
 Miss Edgeworth is not so avowedly and obtrusively 
 didactic as this. She is seldom so clear and decided 
 in her purpose as, for example, Mr. Wilkie Collins in 
 "Heart and Science," or Mr. Besant in "All Sorts and 
 Conditions of Men." She took an interest, either for 
 herself or at her father's instigation, in various social 
 reforms, and did her best to advance them incidentally, 
 as Dickens did in "Nicholas Nickleby " or "Dombey 
 and Son." The proportion of direct didactic in her 
 writings is really comparatively small, while her pictures 
 of life, as it was to be seen in fashionable society and 
 on Irish estates, were as faithful and complete as they 
 were animated, sensible, and humorous. Miss Edge- 
 worth must certainly be pronounced to have gone out of 
 fashion, seeing that Miss Broughton ran a tale through 
 one of the magazines with the title of "Belinda," with- 
 out any body remarking, in print, at least, that this was 
 
miss austen's "pride and prejudice" 281 
 
 the title of one of Miss Edgeworth's most famous 
 novels. Whether Miss Zimmern's pleasantly written 
 biography in the Eminent Women of Letters 
 Series will do any thing to restore her faded popu- 
 larity is doubtful ; and yet novel-readers who have 
 exhausted the novels of their own generation might 
 do worse than give "Belinda" or "Castle Rack- 
 rent " a trial. 
 
 If I were to judge from my own experience, I should 
 not recommend Miss Austen's " Pride and Prejudice" 
 or " Sense and Sensibility," still less " Mansfield Park" 
 or " Emma," with the same confidence to confirmed 
 novel-readers of the present day. Nobody can read 
 any of Miss Austen's works without admiring her 
 wonderful closeness and keenness of humorous observa- 
 tion, the skill with which she displays every turn in the 
 motives of commonplace character, and the exquisite 
 quality of the ridicule with which her fancy dances 
 round and round them as she holds them up to our 
 inspection. If you once make the acquaintance of the 
 Ben net family in " Pride and Prejudice," you can never 
 forget them, so distinctly is each individual marked, 
 and so keen and exquisite is the revelation of their 
 foibles. In mere art of humorous portraiture, in a 
 quieter and less farcical style than Miss Burney's, Miss 
 Austen is an expert of classical finish. But somehow, 
 speaking for myself, I must confess to a certain want 
 of interest in the characters themselves. Unless one is 
 really interested in the subjects of such an elaborate art 
 of portraiture, the gradual revelation of them, touch 
 after touch, is apt to become tedious, however much 
 one may enjoy for a time the quick and delicate play 
 of the writer's gently malicious humor. But this want 
 of interest in the characters of English middle-class 
 provincial life is of course a personal defect. You will 
 find that Mrs. Oliphant writes with rapture about her 
 great predecessor in fiction, and I dare say you have 
 
282 FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BULWER LYTTON 
 
 read somewhere Sir Walter Scott's often-quoted com- 
 pliment to her. " Read again, and for the third time 
 at least, Miss Austen's very finely written ' Pride and 
 Prejudice,'" he entered in his Diary. "That young 
 lady had a talent for describing the involvements and 
 feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me 
 the most wonderful I ever met with. The big Bow- 
 wow strain I can do myself, like any now going ; but 
 the exquisite touch which renders ordinary common- 
 place things and characters interesting from the truth 
 of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. 
 What a pity such a gifted creature died so early." Sir 
 Walter also reviewed her novels in the Quarterly, 
 and helped to bring them into notice. In one respect 
 she had a great and legitimate attraction for novel- 
 readers of her own time that she no longer possesses. 
 Her field of manners-painting was new ; nobody before 
 her had taken scenes and characters from the life of 
 the provinces, though Miss Burney had had hosts of 
 imitators in the description of fashionable life in the 
 metropolis. And she had another distinction also, not 
 so striking now, in the fact that when fiction was over- 
 run with romantic sentiment and improbable incident, 
 workers in the hackneyed paths having reached a despi- 
 cable level when her first novel made its appearance in 
 1811, she restricted herself to ordinary every-day char- 
 acter, and never went beyond probability either in con- 
 duct or in incident. Miss Austen was the daughter of 
 the rector of Steventon, a parish in Hampshire ; and 
 after her father's death, and before publishing her 
 novels, she lived for some years with her mother at 
 Southampton, and for some time at Bath. All the 
 material of her novels is such as might have come 
 within the range of her own limited personal experience, 
 and she treats her characters and comments on their 
 conduct very much as she and her family were in the 
 habit of looking at and criticising the life of their own 
 
LADY MORGAN AND HER AGE 283 
 
 neighborhood. Hence the vividness, the fresh air of 
 reality, that is one of the secrets of her power as a 
 novelist ; her figures are not lay-figures or creations of 
 vacuous fancy, but real men and women, represented 
 not in accordance with any merely conventional canons 
 of art, but as such characters presented themselves to 
 her in real life. 
 
 Another female novelist, who never took the classical 
 rank accorded to Miss Edgeworth and Miss Austen, but 
 who was a very conspicuous and much-discussed per- 
 sonage in her day, also achieved her first successes 
 before the publication of " Waverley." This was Miss 
 Sydney Owenson, afterward Lady Morgan. With the 
 usual longevity of women of letters, to which Miss 
 Austen was an exception, dying in 1817 at the com- 
 paratively early age of forty-two, Lady Morgan lived 
 and continued to write till 1859, although she was 
 an eminent author several years before Miss Austen 
 emerged from the obscurity of Hampshire. Where she 
 was born remained to the last a mysteiy, and her 
 biographer, Mr. Ilepworth Dixon, respected her wishes 
 on the point, and either did not attempt to discover or, 
 if he did discover anything, kept the secret. Tolerably 
 early in her career a great point was publicly made 
 against her by one of her critics, Mr. J. Wilson Croker, 
 because she pretended to be younger than she really 
 was, and this was probably the reason why she never 
 would tell, and was unwilling that the little fact should 
 be known after her death. Lad} T Morgan's age, brought 
 into prominence by the ungallant man of dates Croker, 
 who did not like her politics, — Croker was the original 
 of Rigby in Disraeli's " Coningsby," — was a disputed 
 point for nearly half a century. Writing to the 
 Athenwum in 1859 (January 22) apropos of some 
 allusion to her age, the lively old lady made the follow- 
 ing rhyme : 
 
284 FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BULWER LYTTON 
 
 " Then talk not to me of my age ; 
 
 I appeal from the phrase to the fact 
 That I'm told in your own brilliant page 
 I'm still young in fun, fancy, and tact." 
 
 She made her first appearance as a novelist in 1804 
 with " St. Clair," and followed this up with " The Novice 
 of St. Dominick" and " The Wild Irish Girl" in 1806. 
 According to her own account, she was still in her teens 
 •when she wrote " The Wild Irish Girl," which made her 
 reputation, but the statistical Croker maintained that 
 she was born in 1770. There is documentary evidence 
 that she was at a boarding-school in Dublin in 1794, 
 and at that time considered herself too old to sit on her 
 father's knee ; but certainly twenty-four would be a 
 mature age for a school-girl, so that Croker was for once 
 out in his dates, though he pretended to have consulted 
 a register. The lad} r , it is needless to say, paid the 
 critic out ; she made him sit for the portrait of one of 
 her most odious, sycophantic, unscrupulous political 
 adventurers, Con Crawley in " Florence MacCarthy." 
 Croker must have had a thick skin if he felt none of the 
 shafts that were levelled at him. Macaulay ridiculed 
 him heartily in his essay on Boswell's Johnson, and 
 Disraeli's Rigby is one of the most cutting of the satires 
 of that master of the art. The beginning of Croker's 
 dislike to Lady Morgan, whom he attacked with a viru- 
 lent personality not uncommon at the time, but long 
 since out of fashion, was her politics. She followed 
 Miss Edge worth in choosing her subjects from her native 
 country of Ireland ; but she was herself a different type 
 of Irishwoman from that cool, sensible, impartially 
 humorous lady — enthusiastic, romantic, inordinately 
 fond of excitement and social notoriety. She drew 
 her ideal of her own character in " The Wild Irish 
 Girl " Glorvina. Two of her Irish novels, — "Florence 
 MacCarthy" (1818) and "The O'Briens and the 
 O'Flahertys" (1827), — may still be read with interest. 
 
REV. CHARLES MATURIN 285 
 
 The character of Florence MacCarthy is charming ; 
 Phyllis French, in a recent novel by Frank Lee Bene- 
 dict, " The Price she Paid," is an evident copy of her. 
 Lady Morgan may have seen the original from which 
 she drew in the earlier part of her life, for she was the 
 daughter of an Irish actor, and had seen a good deal 
 of Bohemian life before she acquired distinction as an 
 authoress and was taken up by the Abercorn family, 
 and married almost by stratagem to the family physician, 
 Sir Charles Morgan. 
 
 Another Irish novelist deserves a word of mention, if 
 only for the singularity of his career, the Rev. Charles 
 Maturin, curate of St. Peter's in Dublin. Maturin had 
 the curious fortune to attract the attention of some of 
 the greatest magnates of literature in his time, who were 
 struck by the power of his writing and his conception of 
 situation and character, and believed one after another 
 that it was possible for him to cure himself of the wild 
 rhapsodical extravagance b} r which his productions were 
 disfigured. He followed up Lady Morgan's " Wild Irish 
 Girl " with a " Wild Irish Boy," and a romance of his, 
 "The Family of Montoria, or, The Fatal Revenge," fell 
 into Scott's hands in 1810, and was reviewed by him 
 in the Quarterly. Maturin professed himself entirely 
 convinced by the criticisms of his friends, acknowledged 
 that his previous works were failures, and undertook to 
 keep himself within the bounds of probability in the 
 novel of " Women, or, Pour et Contre." His heroine 
 Zaira was a great artist of unhappy domestic life, a study 
 of the same kind as Mme. de Stael's " Corinne " or 
 George Sand's " Consuelo." It is not an uncommon 
 type in recent fiction ; Miss Bertha Thomas's " Violin- 
 Player" is a recent example. Maturin had also a 
 tragedjr, "Bertram," produced at Drury Lane in 1818, 
 through the influence of Lord Byron, which had the 
 honor of being critically dissected by Coleridge. But 
 
286 FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BULWER LTTTON 
 
 he never overcame his tendency to absurd extravagance 
 of expression and wild improbability, though we can 
 understand wby it was tbat the great critics of the time 
 continued to hope that he would tone down. 
 
 Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, Miss Owenson, and 
 the wild Irish boy Maturin were in full swing when 
 " Waverley " appeared in 1814, and was followed at short 
 intervals by a series of novels received with an excite- 
 ment to which there is hardly a parallel in our litera- 
 ture — no parallel at all, if we except the novels of 
 Dickens. It would be absurd to attempt any criticism 
 on the Waverley Novels in a fragment of a lecture, and 
 the chief facts about the reception of them and the 
 life of the great novelist during their composition are 
 doubtless familiar to you all. I have already sketched 
 for you how he laid the foundation for his extraordinary 
 rapidity of production once he began to write novels. 
 It was not, strictly speaking, impromptu writing, as 
 Carlyle tauntingly described it ; not impromptu in the 
 sense of being writing without any previous prepara- 
 tion ; it was rapid in virtue of great previous enthu- 
 siasm and industry in the accumulation of materials. 
 He could not in so short a space of time have painted 
 the costumes and manners and characters of so many 
 different periods, from the eleventh century to the 
 eighteenth, in Scotland, in England, on the Continent, 
 if his mind had not been full of them before he began 
 to write, and that familiarity had been obtained by 
 years of labor in regions dry as dust to all but the 
 enthusiastic antiquary. Special students of the present 
 day can point to a good many errors of detail in Scott's 
 medisevalism, though chiefly on trifling points ; but we 
 must compare his romances with other so-called historical 
 romances before his time, if we are to do justice to the 
 extraordinary range of his historical knowledge, quite 
 apart from his genius in reviving the life of the past. 
 
APPEARANCE OF " AVAVERLEY " 28V 
 
 Miss Jane Porter's "Scottish Chiefs" was one of the 
 first historical novels produced in this century, and the 
 lady was always proud of having set the example to Scott ; 
 but there is very little i*eal local color in her account 
 of the adventures of Wallace and Bruce — there is hardly 
 an attempt made to keep to historical probability. You 
 will find in the introductions which he wrote for his 
 novels shortly before his death an account of the actual 
 incidents that suggested the various plots ; but he 
 would have had to go back over his life to his boyhood, 
 when he devoured every history he could lay his hands 
 on, in order to trace the origin of the resources that 
 enabled him to clothe with such richness of costume and 
 incident the bare skeleton of story that served him as 
 a starting-point. It would seem that it was almost an 
 accident that he did not begin writing prose romances 
 before his metrical tales, and he humorously observes 
 in the introduction to " Waverley " that if his readers 
 were inclined to complain of his fertility in novel-writ- 
 ing, they had reason to congratulate themselves that he 
 was comparatively advanced in life before he began. 
 He did make two beginnings, one in 1800 and another 
 in 1805, of which you will find an account in the intro- 
 duction to " Waverley"; but he threw them aside for 
 one reason or another. It was the success of Miss Edge- 
 worth's Irish tales, he tells us, that finally determined 
 him to try to do for the people and scenery of Scotland 
 what she had done for Ireland. 
 
 You all know the great calamity of Scott's life, the 
 heroic courage with which he faced it, and the amazing 
 power with which he labored cheerfully to retrieve his 
 misfortune. You know how he connected himself with 
 the printing and publishing business of the Ballantynes 
 and Constable ; how in 1826, after earning unexampled 
 sums b} r his novels, he found himself involved in liabili- 
 ties to the amount of £170,000 ; and how he set himself 
 to clear off this enormous load, toiling from morning 
 
288 FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BULWEK LYTTON 
 
 till night till paralysis came upon him, and he broke 
 down in the struggle, not, however, till he had accom- 
 plished the object of his honorable determination. His 
 ambition had been very different in his prosperous days, 
 to found another great territorial family of Scotts ; but 
 he labored for the five years that his powers lasted with 
 even greater energy to redeem his name from the 
 fancied disgrace of a debt that was not of his own con- 
 tracting. You know also that he did not avow the 
 authorship of the Waverley Novels till this misfortune 
 overtook him. 
 
 At first he was afraid of his reputation as a poet, and 
 afterward he kept up the disguise from no definite reason, 
 but simply because he liked it. He did not like to appear 
 in society as a literary lion, and he delighted in having 
 a secret all to himself, and in being the centre of a mys- 
 tery. Carlyle's fierce criticism of the novels was that 
 they were not profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for 
 edification, for building up or elevating in any shape. 
 Scott, as Carlyle said, certainly gave by his novels im- 
 mense pleasure to indolent and languid readers, but he 
 also brought all classes of readers together by his sympa- 
 thetic delineations of characters in humble life. No 
 novelist in any century has exercised a more health}' and 
 beneficial influence. 
 
 Professor Masson has collected some curious statistics 
 showing the enormous impulse given to novel-writing by 
 the success of the Waverley Novels. In 1820, when they 
 were at the height of their popularity, the number pub- 
 lished, or received at the British Museum, was 26, an 
 average of 1 every fortnight. Ten years later, when 
 the series was nearly finished, in 4830, the number 
 received was 101, nearly an average of 2 a week. 
 And it would appear from the British Museum Cata- 
 logue that the average has been pretty steadily main- 
 tained since. I doubt, however, whether the authorities 
 of the Museum have always been careful to avail them- 
 
CURIOUS STATISTICS ANENT NOVEL-WRITING 289 
 
 selves of their rights, for in several cases, having occa- 
 sion to see if possible the first editions of various novels, 
 I have found, rather to my surprise, that a novel is 
 represented there by an edition issued years after its 
 first appearance. 
 
 Among the host of novel-writers who made their first 
 appearance in the ten years after the date of " Waverley " 
 the three of most marked originality and distinction 
 were women — Miss Ferrier, Mrs. Shelley, and Miss Mit- 
 ford. Even after Scott, Miss Ferrier found something 
 fresh in the humorous observation of Scottish character. 
 We have seen how he compared his own bow-wow style 
 with the more realistic modern art of Miss Austen, and 
 envied her power of entering into the humor of ordi- 
 nary respectable characters. Miss Ferrier had the gift 
 which he lacked, and exercised it with great felicity in 
 her novels of " Marriage " and " The Inheritance." 
 
 Mrs. Shelley, the daughter of William Godwin, him- 
 self a novelist of considerable repute at the end of the 
 eighteenth century, wrote only one novel, but the con- 
 ception was so original and unique that it is not likely 
 to be soon forgotten. This was " Frankenstein." It 
 appeared in 1818, and had the honor of being reviewed 
 by Scott, who found time for all sorts of miscellaneous 
 literary work even when his greatest novels were on the 
 anvil. Mrs. Shelley boldly accepted Horace Walpole's 
 idea of taking the utmost license as regarded probability 
 of incident, concentrating her power upon imagining 
 how her hero felt and acted in his supernatural circum- 
 stances. The hero was a German student who had by 
 unwearied vigils discovered the secret of imparting life 
 to inanimate matter, and who constructed a gigantic 
 monster and was terribly persecuted by his own crea- 
 tion. 
 
 Very different in character was the work of Miss Mit- 
 ford, one of the most delightful and natural and ge- 
 nially humorous writers in the language. Her sketches 
 19 
 
290 FROM MRS. RADCLIFFE TO BULWEE LYTTON 
 
 of life in " Our Village," of the " Talking Lady," the 
 " Talking Gentlemen," of poachers, seamstresses, domes- 
 tic servants, young men and old men of local note, 
 remain, after half a century of imitations, as fresh as if 
 they had been written yesterday. No human being ever 
 had a cheerier or more sympathetic outlook on the 
 world. Her sympathies, with a certain waywardness, 
 turned rather toward characters that the respectable 
 world frowns upon, with lawless, good-hearted charac- 
 ters and coquettish beauties. She liked to show the 
 good side of such beings to the world. Like Miss 
 Edgeworth, she had a father, but a veiy different father 
 from the energetic, inventive, philanthropic, restless 
 squire of Edgeworthstown. Dr. Mitford was an " awful 
 dad," a scapegrace who spent his wife's fortune in a few 
 years, ran rapidly through a lottery prize which his little 
 girl had the good fortune to draw, and in his old age 
 subsisted on the small remnant of his fortune and the 
 proceeds of his daughter's literary industry. Yet his 
 daughter adored him, and took infinite delight in his 
 "friskings," as she called his little eccentricities, living 
 in a small house that was a lesson in condensation, 
 refusing all holiday invitations from her wealthy rela- 
 tions, never stopping in her literary work except to read 
 the sporting newspaper to the graceless companion who 
 called her his " mamma," and was the stay, support, and 
 admiration of all the loafers in the neighborhood. Miss 
 Mitford's early ambition was to be " the greatest Eng- 
 lish poetess," and when she was little more than twenty 
 her metrical tales were praised by Scott in the Quar- 
 terly, while some years later tragedies from her pen 
 were highly successful at Covent Garden. The short 
 tales and sketches collected under the title of " Our Vil- 
 lage " were written originally for a magazine, purely for 
 the supply of the household, and yet they brought her 
 more enduring fame than her poetry. They had an influ- 
 ence on the early manner of Dickens, and may almost 
 
RISE OF THE FASHIONABLE NOVEL 291 
 
 be said to Lave founded a school of periodical sketch- 
 writing. 
 
 The natural result of the interest created in author- 
 ship by Scott and Byron in fashionable society was the 
 rise of a school of fashionable novelists. This was the 
 chief literary phenomenon of the last five years of the 
 reign of George IV., the last five years of our period. 
 Of the fashionable novels then in fresh repute only two 
 arc now much remembered, Disraeli's " Vivian Grey " 
 and Bulwer Lytton's " Pelham." But there was a 
 large cluster of them, all with something of the same 
 character, and that something new. The authors were 
 men moving in the society which they attempted to 
 describe. Up to that time fashionable life had been 
 described by women ; now the young dandies, — sucking 
 diplomatists, politicians, and statesmen, — seized upon the 
 novel as a dramatic vehicle for conveying their views 
 on the manners of society and the affairs of the State. 
 It is an interesting thing for the historian to have 
 had the inner life of political society so copiously 
 described before the Reform Bill, which produced such 
 a change in the political power of the upper hundreds ; 
 we have vividly depicted in the pages of these novels 
 the old state of things, and we are brought into immedi- 
 ate contact with the ardent, fiery spirit of the young 
 ambitions that were awakened by the prospect of change. 
 " Vivian Grey " and " Pelham " have been kept alive by 
 the subsequent reputation of their authors ; but there 
 were three other authors who fairly shared with them 
 the applause of contemporaries. Mr. Plumer Ward's 
 " Tremaine, or, The Man of Refinement," was the first 
 of the series ; then followed Mr. Lister's " Granby "; 
 then side by side Disraeli and Bulwer and Lord 
 Normanby. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 SHELLEY — VARIOUS CONCEPTIONS OP THE POET — CHARACTER — 
 KEATS — THE REVIEWERS — CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS POETRY — 
 " ENDYMION " AND "HYPERION" 
 
 The common judgment of Shelley, at least as expressed 
 in literary organs, has undergone a complete revolution 
 since he was a living man. Nobody now would venture 
 to publish an article about Shelley without copious 
 protestations of admiration for the poet, whatever the 
 opinion might be expressed about his conduct as a man. 
 To acknowledge indifference to his poetry would be 
 to set one's self against an overwhelming weight of 
 authoritative opinion. To deny him equal rank with 
 any poet of his generation would be heresy. Enjoy- 
 ment of Shelley is often put forward as a test of poetic 
 sensibility; if Shelley does not delight } T ou, you are set 
 down as not being capable of knowing what poetry is. 
 He is now par excellence the poet's poet. 
 
 But it was otherwise when his poems first appeared. 
 He received hardly a word of cordial recognition from 
 any critical organ of authority, except from his friend 
 Leigh Hunt's journal, the Examiner. The potentates 
 and powers of criticism — the Quarterly, the Edinburgh 
 Review, Blackwood's, and Literary Gazette, — were 
 unanimous in derision and denunciation. That such 
 stuff as "Alastor" and "The Revolt of Islam " should 
 pretend to be poetry was hailed as one of the most 
 ludicrous pretensions in an age fertile in ludicrous 
 literary pretensions. It was a mere incoherent farce 
 of meaningless imagery, a collection of lines pretty 
 
 090 
 
VARIOUS CONCEPTIONS OF SHELLEY 293 
 
 enough in themselves, but the most hollow of empti- 
 nesses; mere sound and fury, signifying nothing. In so 
 far as any meaning was discernible through the iridescent 
 vapor of words, the critics did not like it. The poet's 
 designs, in so far as they could be made out, were im- 
 moral, anarchic, atheistic ; whenever he deviated into 
 intelligibility, it was to rave against all law and order, 
 human and divine, to rave with fierce, shrill, hysterical 
 vituperation against all that other men held sacred. 
 There were reports also, which the critics did not fail 
 to publicly notice, about his private conduct which 
 accounted for his mad rebellion against established 
 order. It was said that he was a young man who had 
 been expelled from Oxford for an atheistic publication ; 
 that he had married a school-girl and deserted her, with 
 the result that she committed suicide ; and that he had 
 persuaded another young girl of sixteen to run away 
 with him while his first wife was still alive. In short, 
 the poetry was effeminate, hysterical, and contemptible, 
 in so far as it was not dangerous and unsettling ; while 
 the poet himself was a disreputable profligate against 
 whom all respectable persons should set their faces. 
 
 Such was the conception of Shelley which all readers 
 of the leading organs of public opinion in his generation 
 were invited to entertain. As far as his poetry was 
 concerned, not a little of the animus against it was due 
 to its strangeness, its novelty, its unlikeness to any thing 
 that had been published before in verse. Even if the 
 circumstances had been favorable to its receiving a fair 
 judgment as poetry, we may .well doubt whether on its 
 first appearance the critics would not have treated it as 
 a flock of birds might treat a new-comer in gorgeous 
 but unfamiliar plumage. We must remember, also, that 
 Shelley's first noticeable works, " Alastor " and " The 
 Revolt of Islam," were deficient in many of the great 
 qualities of his later works, and were justly liable to the 
 reproach of incoherent copiousness and obscurity. But 
 
294 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 there were accidental circumstances calculated to 
 strengthen any prejudice that might be against Shelley's 
 poetry, based on its own intrinsic defects and difficulties. 
 The literary world was divided more sharply than at 
 any time before or since into hostile factions, and 
 provincial and political enmities were allowed to bias 
 literary judgments to a degree of flagrancy now almost 
 incredible. There was the Edinburgh Review clique 
 under the banner of Jeffre}", and the Blackwood clique 
 under the banner of Wilson, and the Quarterly clique 
 under the banner of Gifford, and the Examiner clique 
 under the banner of Leigh Hunt. Men like Scott and 
 Byron, with their bold, direct, intelligible address to 
 the great body of readers, swept past these guardians of 
 the gates of the Temple of Fame straight to their des- 
 tination. But if a poet was not easily understood by 
 the multitude, if he needed an interpreter or a sponsor, 
 or a kindly word of introduction, and had not friends 
 in more than one camp, praise from one quarter was 
 more than likely to awaken hostility in every other. 
 There was a jealousy between Edinburgh and London 
 of which any new aspirant might be made the victim. 
 Hard things were said in the London organs about the 
 Scottish critics, and the Scottish critics, proud of the 
 renown of Modern Athens, asserted themselves in violent 
 denunciation of every thing Cockney. No words were 
 too bitterly contemptuous for the Cockney school of 
 poetry ; they had an ideal Cockney in their minds, 
 compounded of vulgarity, bad taste, effusive sentimen- 
 tality, affected prettiness, and they poured the vials of 
 their scornful mockery upon every poem published in 
 London in which there was a suspicion of these qualities. 
 Then there was a political jealousy between Tory, Whig, 
 and Radical, in the interests of which a new poem was 
 sharply scrutinized and cordially welcomed or denounced 
 according to the creed of the reviewer. The Quarterly 
 and BlacJcivood , s, the champions of Toryism, and the 
 
THE VARIOUS CLIQUES OF CRITICS 295 
 
 Edinburgh, the champion of Whiggery, had an almost 
 equally keen scent for a revolutionary. Any discontent 
 with the established order of things, beyond such dis- 
 content as was recognized in the Whig programme, was 
 sure to draw down from the Quarterly and Blackwood' 's 
 a charge of Jacobinism, atheism, and infidelity, and to 
 insure that the .Edinburgh should either join in the cry 
 or pass over in silence the work in which the dangerous 
 doctrines appeared. The situation was still further 
 complicated by purely literary factions, factions based 
 on difference of literary creed. By 1818 the reverence 
 for the traditions of the eighteenth century had been 
 rudely shaken ; but there were still among the critics 
 a good many who shook their heads over modern innova- 
 tions and sighed for the good old style. The new 
 edition of Pope had given an occasion for comparing 
 the old with the new, and Gifford of the Quarterly was 
 a bigoted, hard, and vehement supporter of Pope, ever 
 ready to launch out with all his energy of invective 
 against unexpected novelties. Now, Shelley had the 
 misfortune to concentrate on his person the lightnings 
 of no less than three great factions. Before he pub- 
 lished " Alastor " he had connected himself publicly 
 with Leigh Hunt, the leader and founder of the so-called 
 Cockney school, so that Shelley, like Keats, who made 
 his first essay about the same time, was regarded as a 
 new development of Cockneyism. He spoke with daring 
 disrespect of venerable institutions, and so incurred the 
 wrath of all the literary organs of respectability. And 
 in his method he departed more widely than any previous 
 poet from the concise, epigrammatic, reasonable style of 
 Pope, so that all who had leanings in that direction were 
 doubly scandalized by his extravagances. 
 
 The fullest expression of Shelley's character is to be 
 found, of course, in his poetry ; but if that puzzles you, 
 there is much that may be cleared up by a reference to 
 his letters — e. g., a selection of them recently published 
 
296 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 by Garnett ; "Essays and Letters from Abroad," by 
 Mrs. Shelley ; " Memorials of Shelley," by Lady Shelley ; 
 " Records of Byron, Shelley, and his Contemporaries," 
 by Trelawny. The letters are masterpieces of expression, 
 frank, candid, really letters, and yet so perfect in style 
 that Mr. Matthew Arnold expects the reputation of 
 them to be even more enduring than his poetry. 
 
 The key-note of Shelley's character, his ruling motive, 
 was an excessively sensitive hatred of every thing in 
 the shape of harshness, tyranny, injustice, carried to 
 extremes that to an ordinary mind appear fantastic 
 and insane. Such sensitiveness is not rare among men 
 when their own interests are touched, but Shelley's 
 resentment took a much wider range than a morbid 
 instinct of self-defence. He could not bear the thought 
 of the existence of oppression anywhere under the sun ; 
 the thought of such a tiling maddened him, and kindled 
 his energies to be up and doing at once for its extinc- 
 tion. In his youthful vehemence he was a stranger to 
 wise patience and slow, deliberate calculation of ways 
 and means ; and his action, consequently, was not 
 always the best action for the end in view ; but such 
 was his motive — a violent, furious dislike to wrong- 
 doing. Himself one of the gentlest of creatures, pla} T - 
 ful, affectionate, beloved by all who knew him, he 
 was capable, under this intolerable spur, of behaving 
 with the fury of a demon. Nothing could be further 
 from. the truth than representing Shelley as inspired by 
 a blind hatred of all law and order, a violent assailant 
 of established institutions because they interfered with 
 the pleasure of following his own will, because they 
 interposed checks between him and the execution of 
 wayward, capricious, whimsical impulses. It was the 
 excesses committed in the name of law and order that 
 he could not endure ; the cruelties sanctioned by 
 established institutions that drove him into revolt 
 against them. Law and order and established institu- 
 
SENSITIVENESS OF SHELLEY 297 
 
 tions offended him, not by their spirit, but by the delin- 
 quencies and transgressions of their accredited ministers, 
 many of Avhom, in the history of the world, have 
 not merely fallen short of ideal righteousness, but, 
 under the protection of sacred names, have in small 
 tilings and in great committed shameful offences against 
 humanity. It was the defect of Shelley's temperament 
 that he was almost insanely sensitive to harshness and 
 cruelty of conduct, not with a shrinking sensitiveness, 
 but with the sensitiveness that flamed out in fiery 
 indignation, the sensitiveness of a man who came of 
 the high-spirited chivalrous race of the Sidneys. This 
 spirit was the ruling principle of his conduct in small 
 things as well as in great, and led him into some eccen- 
 tricities that appear merely ludicrous to the ordinary 
 mind, and into one eccentricity which, viewed in the 
 light of its tragic consequences, has the appearance of 
 a scandalous crime. For example, he would not drink 
 tea with sugar, because sugar was the produce of 
 slave-labor, and he ate nothing but vegetable food, 
 because he believed that man had no right to kill and eat 
 the lower animals. When he was a boy at Eton, he 
 rebelled against the system of fagging, which was much 
 abused by youthful bullies. To this he alludes in the 
 often-quoted stanzas in the dedication of his " Revolt of 
 Islam " : 
 
 " Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first 
 The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass. 
 I do remember well the hour which burst 
 My spirit's sleep : a fresh May-dawn it was, 
 When I walked forth upon the glittering grass, 
 And wept, I knew not why ; until there rose 
 From the near schoolroom, voices, that, alas ! 
 Were but an echo from the world of woes — 
 The hard and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 
 
 " And then I clasped my hands and looked around — 
 But none was near to mock my streaming eyes, 
 
298 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground — 
 So without shame I spake — ' I will be wise, 
 And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies 
 Such power, for I grow weary to behold 
 The selfish and the strong still tyrannise 
 Without reproach or check.' I then controlled 
 My tears ; my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold." 
 
 It is a common statement that Shelley was expelled 
 from Oxford — to which he was transferred from Eton at 
 the age of nineteen, in 1811 — for publishing a tract in 
 defence of Atheism. But this would appear to be not 
 strictly correct. What he did was to issue a tract con- 
 taining certain propositions maintained by Atheists, and 
 to invite the Heads of College in Oxford to answer 
 them, an invitation which they met, as De Quincey puts 
 it, by "inviting " the unpractical enthusiast to withdraw 
 from the University. Undoubtedly the great stain 
 upon Shelley's life is his treatment of his first wife, 
 Harriet Westbrook. There are papers in the hands of 
 the Shelley family that have not yet been published, but 
 which are said to reconcile his behavior with the high 
 and honorable spirit that he showed in all other circum- 
 stances. This much is already clear, that it was his 
 chivalrous generosity that first connected him with the 
 girl whose subsequent fate was so tragic. 
 
 Those who seek to defend Shelley's conduct to his 
 wife on the ground that he was an ethereal, impulsive 
 creature, a visionary child too much wrapped up in his 
 visions to be fit for ordinary human duties or to be 
 judged by any ordinary standard of right and wrong, a 
 being so good, so gentle, yet so fragile and so childishly 
 eccentric in his impulses, that the heart shrinks from 
 holding him responsible for the harmful consequences of 
 impulses so devoid of malicious intention, and judg- 
 ment is suspended in wondering pity — such defenders 
 do great injustice to the fundamental strength of the 
 poet's character, and interpose an obstacle to the under- 
 
shelley's view of life 299 
 
 standing of his greater poems. He was a visionary, 
 indeed, but not an aimless and drifting visionary ; the 
 dreamer's eyes were fixed steadily, constantl}' upon one 
 vision, the struggle between good and evil in the 
 world, the vicissitudes of this struggle, and the final 
 triumph of good. He read history ; he observed life ; 
 but wherever he turned his eyes, all the actions of man- 
 kind presented themselves as moves in the terrible 
 game between these opposing principles. The centre 
 of interest for him in the world-drama was the pro- 
 tracted duel between good and evil. This view of life 
 was natural in a generation perplexed and disturbed by 
 the staggering events of the French Revolution and the 
 world-wide ambition of Napoleon. The great problems 
 of human destiny were forced upon all the reflective 
 minds of the time, and ShelW's nature was not merely 
 profoundh* meditative, but deeply interested in the issue, 
 and passionately eager for a solution. A knowledge of 
 his character and of his view of life is indispensable to 
 the understanding of such poems as " Alastor," and 
 " The Revolt of Islam," and " Prometheus Unbound." 
 Without this simple key, they must always appear 
 meaningless rhapsodies, incoherent mazes of sweet 
 sound and beautiful imagery, without beginning, middle, 
 or end, capricious ethereal movements of fancy and 
 imagination leading nowhere. You cannot open their 
 pages anywhere without being enchanted with the 
 wonderful melody and affluence of imagery, of which 
 critics labor in vain to give any idea by piling up all 
 the epithets that belong to whatever is most charming 
 in poetic creation. But this wonderful procession of 
 forms to the music of most melodious verse is not so 
 aimless as it appears at first to the dazzled senses ; it 
 has a meaning and a direction even in its most seemingly 
 capricious movements. The poet does not address the 
 senses, but the understanding heart. Concerning "The 
 Revolt of Islam," Shelley himself said, in answer to a 
 
300 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 letter from his friend Godwin censuring its exuberance : 
 " Tbe poem was produced by a series of thoughts which 
 filled ray mind with unbounded and sustained enthu- 
 siasm. I felt the precariousness of my life, and I 
 resolved in this book to leave some records of myself. 
 Much of what the volume contains was written with the 
 same feeling, as real though not so prophetic, as the 
 communications of a dying man. . . I felt that it 
 was in many respects a genuine picture of my own 
 mind. I felt that the sentiments were true, not 
 assumed ; and in this I have long believed — that my 
 power consists in sympathy, and that part of imagina- 
 tion which relates to sentiment and contemplation." 
 
 The lofty strain in which " Alastor " opens gives us 
 an idea of the intense passion with which he composed 
 his poetry : 
 
 " Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood ! 
 If our great Mother has imbued my soul 
 With aught of natural piety to feel 
 Your love, and recompense the boon with mine ; 
 If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, 
 "With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, 
 And solemn midnight's tingling silentness ; 
 If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, 
 And winter robing with pure snow and crowns 
 Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs ; 
 If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes 
 Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me ; 
 If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast 
 I consciously have injured, but still loved 
 And cherished these my kindred ; — then forgive 
 This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw 
 No portion of your wonted favour now ! " 
 
 The poem, in short, is an allegory. Like all intricate 
 allegories, it is difficult to interpret, and the difficulty is 
 increased by the fact that the allegory is not, as in the 
 case of Spenser's " Faery Queen " or Tennyson's " Idylls " 
 a separate stream of story, complete and intelligible in 
 
"stanzas written in dejection" 301 
 
 itself, but a stream that is often interposed with the 
 realities that it is intended to represent. Its full inter- 
 pretation in every particular is perhaps impossible, 
 because the poet was intent only upon the expression of 
 his own thought and feeling, and to understand every 
 turn of this we should have to read the histories that he 
 read, see the sights that he saw, and track him through 
 his study of the speculations of his time ; but the general 
 drift of the allegory is obvious enough, if we only recog- 
 nize it as a vision of the vicissitudes of the struggle 
 between good and evil, in which sometimes the apparent 
 triumphs of good become the most terrible instruments 
 of evil, and sometimes the triumphs of evil become benefi- 
 cent instruments of good, while in the end the principle 
 of good is victorious. " Alastor," "The Revolt of 
 Islam," and " Prometheus " are all poetic embodiments 
 of the same view of the history of man and the same 
 ardent hopes for his future. I would remind you again 
 of the Wordsworthian theory of poetry as the spon- 
 taneous overflow of powerful feelings, and of what I 
 said as to the height and intricacy of the structure that 
 the imagination may raise at the original bidding of the 
 simplest of emotional motives. If Byron interpreted 
 Wordsworth to the multitude, Shelley may be said to 
 have interpreted him to those who make poetry a 
 study. 
 
 Among his shorter poems you will find some of the 
 most exquisite poetry in the language, the " Ode to the 
 West Wind," for example, being held by many to be 
 the finest English lyric. The " Stanzas written in 
 Dejection " might be cited as another example, the 
 concluding lines of which are exquisitely beautiful 
 and pathetic : 
 
 " Alas ! I have nor hope, nor health, 
 Nor peace within, nor calm around, 
 Nor that content, surpassing wealth, 
 The sage in meditation found, 
 
302 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 And walked with inward glory crowned — 
 Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 
 Others I see whom these surround — 
 Smiling they live and call life pleasure ; 
 To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 
 
 " Yet now despair itself is mild, 
 Even as the winds and waters are ; 
 I could lie down like a tired child, 
 And weep away the life of care 
 Which I have borne and yet must bear, 
 Till death like sleep might steal on me, 
 And I might feel in the warm air 
 My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 
 Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 
 
 " Some might lament that I were cold, 
 As I, when this sweet day is gone, 
 Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, 
 Insults with this untimely moan ; 
 They might lament — for I am one 
 Whom men love not — and jet regret, 
 Unlike this day, which, when the sun 
 Shall on its stainless glory set, 
 Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet." 
 
 You need not be frightened by occasional passages in 
 Shelle3 7 's poetry of denunciation of things you admire. 
 No true Christian need fear to read Shelley. He did 
 not denounce the spirit of Christianity, but excesses 
 committed in the course of the history of the Church 
 and its connection witli political creeds. 
 
 Shelley died young, before be bad completed his 
 thirtieth year ; but Keats, who was three years bis 
 junior, died before him. The belief fixed in the public 
 mind by Byron's line : 
 
 " John Keats, who was cut off by one critique" — 
 
 is only a half truth, if it is any portion of the truth at 
 all. The disease to which he succumbed, pulmonary 
 consumption, would probably have cut bim off at an 
 
CRITICISM OF KEATS 303 
 
 early age, whatever the reception of his poetry had 
 been. Unfriendly criticism at the utmost only hastened 
 his end. Certainly the criticism was very savage. 
 Keats suffered from the same accidents in the literary 
 situation as Shelley ; he was a friend of Hunt's, and a 
 Cockne}', and a rebel against the traditions of Pope, 
 and these facts intensified the bitterness of the Quar- 
 terly and Blackwood' 's. And his assailants had a taunt 
 to level at him such as they could not use against the 
 son of a baronet, connected by blood with some of the 
 oldest noble families in England ; "Johnny " Keats, as 
 J3lac/vivoocrs delighted to call him, had been a surgeon's 
 apprentice, and was the son- of a livery-stable keeper. 
 Keats had too much manliness in him to have been 
 much affected by the truculence of his critics if he had 
 been a self-satisfied poet. But the effect was aggra- 
 vated not only by ill health and pecuniary embarrass- 
 ments, but by his profound dissatisfaction with his own 
 work. He said himself, and with every appearance of 
 sincerity, that a sense of his shortcomings from the high 
 ideal that he had set to himself gave him " pain without 
 comparison beyond what Blackioood or the Quarterly 
 could possibly inflict." " I have no cause to complain," 
 he wrote. " I have no doubt that if I had written 
 'Othello 'I should have been cheered. I shall go on 
 with patience. . . I know nothing ; I have read 
 nothing ; and I mean to follow Solomon's directions, 
 'get learning, get understanding.' There is but one 
 way for me. The road lies through application, study, 
 and thought. I will pursue it." These were the words 
 of a young man of a very different fibre from the 
 affected, mawkish, puling sentimentalist pictured by 
 .the critics of the time as the author of "Endymion." 
 Keats had but a short lease of life before him when he 
 wrote thus, but to the last he pursued earnestly his 
 ideals of excellence, and the world has arrived at a 
 very different measure of the worth of his performance 
 
304 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 from that formed by himself on his death-bed, when he 
 told his friend Severn to put on his gravestone the 
 inscription : " Here lies one whose name was writ in 
 water." 
 
 Keats is often coupled with Shelley as if they were 
 poets of kindred genius. But the connection between 
 them was purely accidental ; beyond a certain profusion 
 and fluency and richness of imagery they had little in 
 common, as little as any two poets of the same genera- 
 tion. They both died young. They both died in Italy, 
 and their monuments stand in the same cemetery at 
 Rome. Both of them were cut off with much unful- 
 filled promise of great things. When Shelley's body 
 was recovered, a copy of Keats's "Endyniion" was 
 found in his pocket. One of Shelley's few popular 
 poems is the lament for Keats under the pastoral name 
 of Adonais. These facts have associated the two poets 
 in the general memory. But their aims in art were 
 widely different. Keats had none of Shelley's fiery 
 enthusiasm for humanity, and, although he had an ample 
 share of the poet's peculiar gift of making new combi- 
 nations, his combinations are more sensuous ; they have 
 not the subtle intellectual flavor of Shelley's. A poet 
 of high rank is always his own best critic, and just as 
 Shelley most truly characterized himself when he said 
 that " his power consisted in sympathy and that part 
 of imagination which relates to sentiment and con- 
 templation," so Keats most truly characterized himself 
 when he said that his ruling principle was " a yearning 
 passion for the beautiful." " I have loved the principle 
 of beauty in all things," he wrote in his last days. I 
 am inclined to think that Mr. Matthew Arnold, a critic 
 with whose judgments I rarely find myself in dissent, 
 makes a somewhat misleading remark when he insists 
 that Keats's master passion was not the passion of the 
 sensuous or sentimental poet, but was an intellectual or 
 spiritual passion. If the words sensuous and sentimental 
 
PECULIARITY OF KEATS S POETRY 305 
 
 were intended in an opprobrious sense, the remark 
 might be useful ; but if they are used in the literal 
 meaning, and then contrasted with intellectual and 
 spiritual, their tendency is to withdraw the reader of 
 Keats from the main characteristics of his poetry. The 
 beauty that Keats pursued, whether or not we call that 
 beauty " truth," was loveliness 
 
 " In shape and hue and colour and sweet sound," — 
 
 to use the words of Shelley in the " Adonais." I imagine 
 that Mr. Arnold's intention in drawing the distinction 
 that I have quoted was to lay stress on the fact that 
 the loveliness on which Keats's heart was set was not a 
 meretricious loveliness, but a loveliness that was great 
 and noble and pure. Still it was a sensuous loveliness 
 in this meaning, that more than any other poet he aimed 
 at and succeeded in depicting in words the beauty that 
 painters put on canvas and sculptors chisel in marble. 
 It is peculiarly easy to trace the main external influences 
 that moulded Keats's poetry, because all his work was 
 done in youth, when the enthusiastic admirations of the 
 artist are most marked in endeavors to emulate what 
 he admires. And it is a marked peculiarity of Keats's 
 poetry that its most vital moulding influences came not 
 from the work of previous poets, but from the sister 
 arts of painting and sculpture. Impassioned admiration 
 of Greek sculpture gave a more potent turn to Keats's 
 poetry than any other external influence. Byron recog- 
 nized this when he spoke of him as having 
 
 " without Greek 
 Contrived to talk about the gods of late 
 Much as they might have been supposed to speak." 
 
 We see this influence not merely in his famous " Ode 
 on a Grecian Urn," where he deliberately seeks to in- 
 terpret in words what the artist had sought to design 
 20 
 
306 SHELLEY AND KEATS 
 
 in visible lines, but all through his poems — in " Endy- 
 mion," in " Hyperion," in the " Eve of St. Agnes," in 
 "Lamia," in "Isabella." If we wonder what the sur- 
 geon's apprentice at Ealing could have known about 
 Greek sculpture and ceramic art, we must remember 
 that the Elgin Marbles were brought to this country 
 and deposited at the British Museum when he was a 
 boy. You know Byron's denunciation of the nobleman, 
 with heart cold as the crags that guard his native coast, 
 who had the shameless rapacity to plunder Athens of 
 these masterpieces ; but, looking impartially at the act 
 and its results, we recognize that they have had a much 
 more vital and suggestive influence on the mind of 
 Europe in London than they would liave had in Athens, 
 and they have given us much of what is most precious 
 in the poetry of Keats. One of Keats's friends was the 
 painter Haydon, who records in his autobiograph} 7 the 
 intoxicating effect produced on him by his first sight of 
 Greek sculpture. " Endymion " and " Hyperion " make 
 it certain that Keats shared his friend's enthusiasm. 
 Let the meaning sink into the mind, and you will see a 
 succession of pictures executed in the spirit of Greek 
 plastic art. In "Endymion" Keats seems always to 
 have had a succession of pictures and sculptures before 
 his mind's eye, and his poetry seems to be the interpre- 
 tation of the impression he receives. The opening of 
 " Hyperion," — and also some of his other poems, such 
 as the " Ode to the Nightingale " and " The Eve of 
 St. Agnes," — is like the description of a statue, with the 
 repose and stillness of Greek sculpture, which is not a 
 dead stillness, but motion instantaneously arrested. 
 
SUPPLEMENT 
 
 MR. COURTHOPE'S BIOGRAPHY OP POPE 
 
 It is thirty-five years, as every reviewer has remarked, 
 since the edition undertaken by John Wilson Croker 
 and now completed by Mr. Courthope was announced ; 
 but the real beginning of the work that Mr. Courthope 
 brings to a close may be said to date from the papers by 
 Mr. Dilke, of which that announcement was the text. 
 Mr. Dilke's discovery of the Caryll letters may be said 
 to have opened a new chapter in the history of Pope's 
 reputation. By this lucky find, followed up with amaz- 
 ing acuteness and patience, Mr. Dilke was able to clear 
 up several incidents which had baffled all previous 
 biographers ; and his success and the piquancy of his 
 discoveries gave an immense stimulus to research into 
 the obscure particulars of Pope's life and the obscure 
 allusions in his poetry. Pope's marvellous intellectual 
 activity and ingenuity, and his persistent habit of mysti- 
 fication in every thing relating to himself, made his life 
 and works the best possible field for the exercise of 
 detective skill. By all this the edition now completed 
 has profited. But for Mr. Dilke's researches, and the 
 impulse they gave to investigation, it could never have 
 been what it has become. Mr. El win, Mr. Courthope's 
 predecessor, made the most ample acknowledgment of 
 his debt to this enthusiastic volunteer from the outside ; 
 and now one of the main interests of the biograph} r 
 which it has fallen to Mr. Courthope to execute is to see 
 
 307 
 
308 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 how he views Pope's character under the fierce light that 
 has been thrown upon it. The new biographer is in the 
 position of a judge hearing an important case reopened 
 after the discovery and production of a vast and intri- 
 cate mass of fresh evidence. 
 
 The importance of Mr. Courthope's decision is con- 
 siderable. The completeness of the new edition must 
 make it the standard for a good while to come, and the 
 accompanying biography has thus a position of great 
 advantage for influencing the general judgment of 
 Pope's character. It is just as well that the biography 
 should have been delayed till the disturbing effects of 
 the new discoveries had passed away, and that the task 
 of judicially weighing and summing up should have 
 fallen to one whose judgment has not been biassed by 
 the first shock of damaging revelations, and whose 
 temper has not been exasperated by the worry of track- 
 ing the man of many mysteries through the perplexing 
 details of his subtle little plots and manoeuvres. It is 
 just as well that Mr. Elwin's place was taken by Mr. 
 Courthope before the stage of passing final judgment 
 was reached. Mr. Elwin had great merits as a critic ; 
 it would be most unjust not to acknowledge the excel- 
 lence of his editorial work. He spared no pains in 
 research ; he passed over no difficult}' ; and he took as 
 much trouble to make his statements clear and concise 
 as he did to make his information accurate. In his notes 
 and introductions he gave a very fair and full represen- 
 tation of the commentaries of previous authorities. His 
 own judgments on critical points were, perhaps, too 
 uniformly hostile and unsympathetic ; but they could 
 never be accused of haste, and they were always backed 
 by well-considered and clearly expressed reasons. Per- 
 haps an unfair impression of his want of sympathy was 
 given by his having to deal chiefly with Pope's earlier 
 and more imperfect work ; when he did admire, as in 
 the case of " The Rape of the Lock," he expressed his 
 
MR. COURTHOPE'S BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 309 
 
 admiration ungrudgingly. But in all that concerned the 
 moral character of his subject Mr. Ehvin wrote too much 
 as a righteously indignant avenger, as one who had been 
 disgusted by the discoveries of Pope's double-dealings, 
 and whose anger had been kept alive by having to track 
 his tortuous courses through so many perplexing circum- 
 stances. Pope had endeavored to pass off a sophisti- 
 cated correspondence as genuine, and the interests of 
 truth demanded that the deception should be exposed. 
 "I do not pretend to think," Mr. Ehvin said, "that 
 genius is an extenuation of rascality ; " and it was as a 
 rascal, a detected and discredited impostor, a gentleman 
 who had stooped to the arts of a professional forger and 
 swindler, that he pursued the poet through all his deal- 
 ings with friends and enemies, publications and pub- 
 lishers. Pope cannot protest his good-will to an ac- 
 quaintance in the exaggerated fashion of his time without 
 drawing down upon himself the comment : " At the age 
 of twenty, when frankness usually preponderates, Pope 
 already abounded in the ostentatious profession of senti- 
 ments he did not entertain." In the same letter Pope 
 professes indifference to fame— a not uncommon profes- 
 sion, and one not often taken too seriously by the dis- 
 cerning. " In spite of his boasted apathy," Mr. Ehvin 
 comments, " there cannot be found in the annals of the 
 irritable race a more anxious, jealous, intriguing candi- 
 date for fame." And so on. One tires of it after a time, 
 and begins to doubt whether it is generous, or even just, 
 or at all proportioned to the offence. 
 
 No doubt when an intriguer is found out, it is well 
 to make an example of him pour encourage?- les autres. 
 But Mr. Elwin carries it too far in the case of Pope. 
 He strikes a note of excess, and a misleading note, when 
 he speaks of Pope as " an intriguing candidate for 
 fame." The intrigues in which Pope has been detected 
 do not belong to the time when he can properly be said 
 to have been a candidate for fame ; they were engaged 
 
310 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 in long after his fame was established, partly to humili- 
 ate his enemies, and partly to gain credit for a universal 
 benevolence and lofty equanimity of soul which he did 
 not possess. He gained his fame originally by honest 
 means enough, purely on his merits, in spite of the 
 considerable disadvantages of obscure parentage and 
 unpopular religion. Rascality and swindling are not 
 excused by genius ; deception is deception, and perfidy 
 is perfidy. But what Mr. El win seemed to forget was 
 that there are degrees of moral turpitude. One may 
 hold this without incurring any suspicion of Jesuitical 
 ethics. Our righteous indignation does not rise to the 
 same height against all offences that may be put in the 
 same general category. Falsehood is falsehood, but 
 there are degrees. A man who tries to swindle the 
 world out of its good opinion, to make people believe 
 him full of " the unclouded effulgence of universal 
 benevolence and particular fondness," with no motive 
 but sheer vanity and inordinate love of applause, can- 
 not without violence to common-sense be put on the 
 same moral level with the professional forger. Nine 
 people out of ten who read the full narrative of Pope's 
 frauds are more disposed to laugh at the ingenuity and 
 fatuity of his tricks than to denounce them in angry 
 reprobation. They are inexcusable and disgraceful, but 
 taken in all their circumstances, as incidents in the life 
 of a man otherwise memorable, they are nearer pecca- 
 dilloes than crimes. A year or two ago, in writing a 
 short sketch of Pope's life for an encyclopaedia, I 
 hazarded the opinion that, when all the new revelations 
 of Pope's intriguing habits are fairly weighed, his 
 character remains where Johnson left it, neither better 
 nor worse. " In all this," Johnson remarks of one of 
 Pope's manoeuvres about " The Dunciad," " there was 
 petulance and malignity enough, but I cannot think it 
 very criminal." The remark might be extended to 
 most of the fresh instances of double-dealing. In judg- 
 
MR. COURTHOPe's BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 311 
 
 ing of tliein it is well to bear in mind the maxim which 
 the great moralist quoted as one "that cannot be 
 denied," that " moral obliquity is made more or less 
 excusable by the motives that produce it." It is satis- 
 factory to find that Mr. Courthope approaches Pope in 
 the spirit of Johnson rather than of Mr. Elwin. 
 
 Mr. Courthope does not try to extenuate or explain 
 away Pope's moral delinquencies, but to put them in 
 their proper place as parts of a very complex character. 
 The result is that he brings us back to a judgment of 
 Pope's moral character not substantially different from 
 Johnson's. The space occupied by Mr. Dilke and Mr. 
 Elwin in tracing with so much acumen the poet's 
 mysterious ways, and the startling character of their 
 revelations, have overloaded one side of the portrait, 
 and Mr. Courthope has been at pains to restore the right 
 proportion. His judicial deliverance will carry none the 
 less weight that all the time he is adducing extenuating 
 circumstances he protests that he has no intention of 
 excusing or extenuating Pope's misdoings, and that 
 " from the moralist's point of view the case must go 
 undefended." The apparent inconsistency is only 
 superficial ; it is merely a nice question of naming. 
 Mr. Courthope is quite right to say that he does not 
 excuse or extenuate or defend from a moral point of 
 view, if he thinks that the use of such expressions 
 would imply that we ought to approve in Pope's case of 
 conduct mean and contemptible in itself and unworthy 
 of his fame. We need not quarrel about words, if a 
 biographer observes just proportions in his general 
 estimate of the man's moral nature as a whole, and if 
 he allows due weight to considerations that prevent 
 us from classing Pope morally with "professional 
 swindlers" and "'dirty animals' like Joseph Surface." 
 This Mr. Courthope does with great ability and fair- 
 ness. Throughout the biography he gives prominence 
 to the ideal and magnanimous strain in Pope's character 
 
312 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 as shown both in his private life and in his writings. 
 Since the recent discoveries were made, Johnson has 
 often been laughed at for speaking of " the perpetual 
 and unclouded effulgence of universal benevolence and 
 particular fondness " that shines out in Pope's letters. 
 It has been assumed that all this was mere hypocrisy 
 and pretence, because some of it was put in when he 
 revised and redirected his correspondence, and that 
 there was no such element as benevolence in the malign 
 little poet's disposition. Mr. Courthope corrects this. 
 His narrative gives fair prominence to the instances of 
 kindly generosity to dependents and affectionate attach- 
 ment to friends with which Pope's life abounds. The 
 new letters in the correspondence, the letters that were 
 not prepared for the public eye, ai'e not all to Pope's 
 discredit. Though he did alienate Bolingbroke by an 
 inexplicable trick, — it was, after all, a little trick, — he 
 kept the love of most of his friends, and Arbuthnot, a 
 shrewd judge of men, credited him with "a noble dis- 
 dain and abhorrence of vice." And whatever casuistry 
 may be applied to the incidents of his life, it is not to 
 be denied that the moral standard of his Satires as a 
 whole is high. His praise of the Man of Ross, of 
 Bathurst, of Allen, and of Barnard the Quaker must 
 be set over against Sappho and Atossa, Sporus and 
 Atticus ; there is no good reason to sujapose that his 
 admiration of the one was less sincere than his hatred 
 of the other. Mr. Courthope seems to me to fairly 
 establish his contention that Pope was naturally of 
 an ardent, generous, and romantic temper, and that this 
 strain was never wholly lost amid the bitter quarrels 
 in which his later life was involved. 
 
 A generous warmth of temperament, craving for 
 affection as well as admiration, craving for both in- 
 tensely as necessities of a very fragile constitution, and 
 apt to intemperate vindictiveness when they were with- 
 held — this was the basis of Pope's nature. His moral 
 
MR. COURTHOPe's BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 313 
 
 delinquencies are not put in a fair light unless they are 
 viewed as the defects of such a temperament, launched 
 out of a quiet, secluded, bookish youth into a world of 
 roughly intriguing cliques and factions, "literature," as 
 Mr. Mark Pattison happily puts it, " a mere arena of 
 partisan warfare," and " the public barbarized by the 
 gladiatorial spectacle of politics." It was in this school 
 that Pope acquired his habit of plotting and double- 
 dealing. Mr. Courthope suggests that he may have 
 owed the habit to his Roman Catholic training. Equivo- 
 cation was regarded by them as an excusable weapon 
 against penal laws, and what is allowed in particular 
 cases may easily be extended till it becomes a general 
 rule of life. It may well be that Pope was helped by 
 the casuistry of his Church in justifying his crooked 
 ways to his own conscience. There is a trace of this 
 self-deception in the words of his letter to Martha 
 Blount : " I have not told a lie (which we both abom- 
 inate), but I think I have equivocated pretty genteelly." 
 But, in truth, Pope did not need to go to his persecuted 
 co-religionists for lessons in the art of genteel equivoca- 
 tion or hardier forms of duplicity. His political friends, 
 — and every man about town was then a politician, — 
 Jacobite and Hanoverian alike, were as accomplished in 
 the art and as unscrupulous in the practice of it as any 
 Roman Catholic priest. It was a fierce struggle for ex- 
 istence in the political world when the succession was 
 uncertain and the throne insecure, and straightforward 
 morality was not in fashion. Statesmen were fighting 
 with life and all that made it worth having in peril, and 
 were ready to use any means to win, whether of force or 
 fraud. It is really by their intellectual qualities, their 
 ingenuity, their far-reaching subtlety, their niceness of 
 calculation, that Pope's intrigues are distinguished — 
 their intellectual qualities and the pettiness of their 
 objects. We must regard them as an imitation in his 
 own private concerns of the games for larger stakes that 
 
314 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 were going on round him in the political field. There 
 can be no doubt that Pope had great natural gifts for 
 intrigue, and that he took to it with great relish. The 
 pleasure of the sport, the employment that it offered to 
 his restless ingenuity, blinded him to its immorality, and 
 the passion grew upon him till he could do nothing 
 directly, but " played the politician about cabbages and 
 turnips." The fact that a straight line is the shortest 
 distance between two points was with him a reason for 
 not taking it. It is impossible even now to follow him 
 through the steps of any of the intricate plots which 
 recent enquiry has unravelled with such patience without 
 some emotions of sympathy with the artist's delight in 
 his contrivances, so ingenious were they, and out of all 
 proportion to the advantage to be gained. Ingenuity, 
 of course, is no palliation of fraud ; but the amount of 
 our indignation cannot but be affected by the impostor's 
 motives, and the theoiy that finds in Pope's tortuous 
 conduct nothing but mean and cowardly hypocrisy is 
 simply imperfect analysis. This is just as indiscriminate 
 as it is to find the animating spirit of his Satires in arro- 
 gant malignity and cruelt}^. Mr. Courthope does good 
 service in his chapter on " The War With the Dunces " 
 in tracing the history of the quarrel, and showing that 
 the most shady transactions of Pope's later years were 
 really incidents in a protracted war in which he was not 
 the original aggressor. Not to have struck the first 
 blow in a quarrel which he conducted with so many dis- 
 creditable artifices and such relentless cruelty is not, 
 perhaps, much to boast of. But wanton malignity is 
 undoubtedly a less respectable motive than vindictive- 
 ness, if we are to admit degrees of wickedness and of 
 moral reprobation ; and it is something to have it estab- 
 lished by a careful judicial examination that Pope was 
 vindictive rather than malignant. 
 
 As a clear, well-arranged, and well-divided narrative 
 of Pope's life, pervaded by a moderate and judicial es- 
 
MR. COURTHOPE S BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 315 
 
 timate of liis character, Mr. Courtliope's biography is 
 admirable. But his large and massive method of han- 
 dling, which yields such excellent results in the con- 
 densed narrative of intricate events and the judicial 
 summing up of the complicated cases of conscience, is 
 seen to want flexibility and precision when applied to 
 such a many-sided question as Pope's place in litera- 
 ture. Perspicuity of manner is gained at the expense 
 of exactness of substance. Mr. Courthope, indeed, 
 places Pope, with every appearance of exactness, with 
 a bold geometrical simplicity, just at the point Avhere 
 lines representing Medievalism and the Classical Re- 
 vival intersect ; but he is not so successful in his at- 
 tempts to justify this simple diagram as corresponding 
 to historical facts. 
 
 The defects of the massive method of handling are 
 that it involves the omission of connecting links, and 
 the assumption of large and definite masses common to 
 the understanding of writer and reader. If the latter 
 condition does not exist, the writer is tempted to take it 
 for granted, and to refer to periods and tendencies on 
 the large scale as if their characters were matters of 
 clear and common knowledge, or at least established ac- 
 ceptation among critics. The result is that statements 
 severally distinct, confident, and sonorous give rise to a 
 good deal of trouble when we try to reduce them to 
 consistency for ourselves, or when the writer undertakes 
 the office for us, and attempts to supply the links of 
 connection. Thus Mr. Courthope opens his biography 
 by presenting the date of Pope's birth as a time of 
 unsettlement and confusion, distracted by "opposing 
 forces, Catholic and Protestant, Whig and Tory, Aris- 
 totelian and Baconian, Medievalist and' Classicist." 
 Having thus boldly described the situation, he passes 
 at once to his hero as " the poet who learned to har- 
 monize all those conflicting principles in a form of ver- 
 sification so clear and precise that for fully a hundred 
 
316 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 years after he began to write it was accepted as the 
 established standard of metrical music." It is a mas- 
 terful and imposing introduction, but when the dazzled 
 mind recovers, and asks in what sense Pope can be said 
 to have harmonized Catholicism and Protestantism, 
 Whiggism and Toryism, Aristotelianism and Baconi- 
 anism, Medievalism and Classicism, it is not so easy to 
 find a clear answer. It is right to say at once in fair- 
 ness to Mr. Courthope that this is on\y the opening 
 statement of his thesis, and that he does afterward at- 
 tempt, partly at least, to make it good, and enable us 
 to follow him intelligently in his bold transition from 
 the general character of the time to the personality of 
 Pope and the distinctive character of his work. But it 
 is right also to say — and it illustrates the defects of the 
 massive manner — that the reader would go very far 
 astray who should take in its most obvious and literal 
 sense Pope's harmonizing of these mighty opposites. 
 To see how Pope harmonized Catholicism and Protest 
 tantism one's first impulse would be to turn to the " Essay 
 on Man "; but it cannot be there that the harmonization 
 of which Mr. Courthope thinks is effected, for he calls 
 it — not altogether justly — " a farrago of fallacies." 
 So with Whiggism and Toryism. We recall the lines : 
 
 " For forms of government let fools contest, 
 Wliate'er is best administered is best." 
 
 This cannot be the reconciliation spoken of, calling both 
 parties equally fools. The truth, of course, is — if I 
 rightly understand Mr. Courthope — that he uses the 
 words Whiggism and Toryism, Protestantism and 
 Catholicism, etc., in a subtle sense to signify a certain 
 indefinite central idea or animating principle. The 
 reader who wishes to penetrate to his meaning must 
 tackle two very perplexing chapters, one on the " Essay 
 on Criticism," and a second on Pope's place in English 
 Literature, where the same topic is resumed. 
 
MR. COURTIIOPE S BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 31 V 
 
 These chapters are the least satisfactory part of the 
 book. Perhaps it is that Mr. Courthope has tried to 
 crowd too much into too little space. Seeing that he 
 attempts to formulate the leading changes in the princi- 
 ples of poetic creation from Aristotle to Wordsworth, 
 with the " Essay on Criticism " as a central and turn- 
 ing point, this is likely enough. Perhaps it is that his 
 ideas took shape as he wrote, and that while he con- 
 tinued to make large and definite statements, they were 
 not originally so cast as to show their coherency. At 
 any rate the result is perplexing enough. Mr. Court- 
 hope at the end of the last chapter formulates certain 
 conclusions about Pope's place in literature that one can 
 at least understand, however much one may differ from 
 some of them ; but the discussion through which he 
 reaches them is much less plain sailing, and it is not easy 
 to follow the connection between some of the theories 
 advanced in the course of it and the propositions to 
 which we are finally conducted. Further, though the 
 drift of the argument, so far as I can make it out, is 
 paradoxical, it proceeds often by statements which are 
 among the commonplaces of criticism, at least in words, 
 and give it an air of plausibility till we see that it com- 
 pels us, if we accept it as sound, to give them a special 
 interpretation. The discussion would have been less 
 intricate if Mr. Courthope had tried to establish Pope's 
 position inductively by an examination of his poetry and 
 a comparison of it witli what came before and after. It 
 is, however, by way of abstract discussion of his critical 
 principles as laid down in the Essay that he proceeds, 
 and thus we are involved in a bewildering series of defi- 
 nitions of what is meant by Nature, Wit, True Wit and 
 False Wit, Mediaeval Methods, and Classical Methods and 
 Modern Methods. Finally, although the gist of the 
 argument seems to be that the central artistic principle 
 of Pope and his school is the " direct imitation of 
 Nature," and that the Essay, in virtue of its distinct 
 
318 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 enunciation of this principle, occupies a more important 
 position in literature than is commonly assigned to it, I 
 have searched in vain for any attempt to define what 
 is meant by that very familiar but not very tangible 
 phrase " imitation of Nature." At least as much turns 
 upon the meaning of that as on the meaning of Nature, 
 and the conceptions of Nature prevalent at different 
 times. But I will try to disengage his main positions, 
 and examine what they seem to me to imply. 
 
 The starting-point of Mr. Courthope's dialectic, which 
 has no lack of freshness and vigor, if it is somewhat 
 intricate, is the " Essay on Criticism," the place to be 
 assigned to it in literature, and Mr. Leslie Stephen's dis- 
 paraging description of it as a " coining of aphorisms 
 out of commonplace." This Mr. Courthope challenges, 
 and maintains, in effect, that its critical principles were 
 not commonplace to Pope's own generation, but that, on 
 the contrary, when the Essay is taken in relation to the 
 course of literature from Aristotle down through the 
 Middle Ages to the time of Queen Anne, it is seen to 
 mark an epoch. And the main significance of this 
 epoch is, as I understand Mr. Courthope, the return after 
 a long interval to a conception of the relations between 
 Nature and Art identical with Aristotle's. According 
 to Aristotle, poetry is a "direct imitation of Nature" ; 
 and Pope brought Poetry back from Medievalism to 
 this conception when he counselled poets to 
 
 " First follow Nature, and your judgment frame 
 By her just standard, which is still the same." 
 
 Mr. Stephen saj^s that "Follow Nature" is a maxim 
 "common to all generations of critics." Against this 
 Mr. Courthope develops a theory of the essence of 
 Medievalism as consisting in the imposition of subjec- 
 tive and metapl^sical conceptions on Nature, and con- 
 tends that the significance of Pope's advice was the 
 clear and definite repudiation of this practice ; that 
 
MR. COURTIIOPE S BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 319 
 
 Pope in effect said : " Imitate Nature directly," and that 
 this is the distinctive feature in his critical principles. 
 He even seems to hold that it was in this that Pope's 
 much discussed " correctness " consisted, and not in 
 stricter attention to the rules of metre and grammar 
 and rhetoric. 
 
 All this is comparatively simple, whether or not we 
 agree with it. Perplexity ai'ises when we begin to ask 
 wherein Pope's adherence to the standard of Nature 
 distinguishes him from our great poets before him and 
 our great poets after him. We understand at once that 
 Mr. Courthope's doctrine is opposed to the common 
 habit in our century of speaking of Pope's poetry as 
 "artificial." So far I am, for one, in complete sympathy 
 with him. But does he mean that Pope was the first, 
 poet in our literature to set up the just standard of 
 Nature ? His exposition here and there would seem 
 to imply this, as well as the large importance that he 
 claims for the Essay ; but he expressly says that this is 
 not his meaning. He expressly mentions Chaucer and 
 Shakespeare among the poets who have imitated Nat- 
 ure directly. But if this direct imitation of Nature is 
 the distinctive feature of Pope's principles, and the 
 ground on which his school is called " classical," why 
 are not Chaucer and Shakespeare also called " classi- 
 cal"? When we ask this, we find ourselves not far 
 off from Mr. Stephen's position that the following of 
 Nature is a common maxim. Mr. Courthope's paradox 
 would seem, then, only to amount to saying that great 
 poets are all of one school. What, then, was distinctive 
 in Pope's following of Nature ? 
 
 Mr. Courthope would answer this, in effect, by sa} r ing 
 that in Pope's mind Nature was opposed to the " false 
 wit," the metaphors, conceits, fantastic allusions, and 
 mystic symbolism of what Johnson called the " Meta- 
 physical School" of the seventeenth century — Donne 
 and Cowley, and the earlier work of Dryden. If 
 
320 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 he had not gone beyond this, and his serviceable 
 illustration of the European prevalence of this false wit 
 for more than a century, every-body would have under- 
 stood him and agreed with him. It is tolerably obvious 
 that abstinence from false wit in this sense is one of the 
 items of Pope's correctness ; he expressly particularizes 
 it himself. Whether or not it is warrantable to describe 
 Pope's method generally as a reaction against this false 
 wit, as if it constituted the whole of his correctness, is 
 another question. But Mr. Courthope does not stop 
 here. He goes on to connect false wit with Medieval- 
 ism generally, the subtleties of Scholastic Philosophy, 
 Thomas Aquinas, the Provencal poets, Dante and 
 Petrarch, and the allegorical and symbolical presenta- 
 tion of Nature. Here again we admit the connection ; 
 any body would ; there is an obvious affinity between 
 the keen, far-reaching, beautifully ingenious analogies 
 of Donne and the analytic triumphs of the Schoolmen, 
 of whom, indeed, Donne was at one time a close student. 
 We admit the connection ; but we pause when we are 
 ashed to jump from this admission to the conclusion 
 that Pope's lines : 
 
 " True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, 
 What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed " — 
 
 were a formal renunciation not merely of the conceits 
 of the poetry of the seventeeth century, but of Medie- 
 valism generally, as false wit, and a return to Aristotle 
 and the standard of Nature. 
 
 It certainly is a most ingenious argument. If Mr. 
 Courthope may claim to rank with Johnson as a judge 
 of Pope's morality, he may equally claim to rank with 
 Warburton as an interpreter of Pope's meaning. His 
 interpretation of Pope's Classicism as opposed to Medie- 
 valism carries with it the relation of the Essay to 
 Whiggism and Toryism, Protestantism and Catholicism, 
 Baconianism and Aristotelianism. Up to the time of 
 
MR. CQURTHOPE's BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 321 
 
 the Revolution, which seated a Protestant on the throne, 
 the Court had a leaning to Catholicism, and thereby 
 encouraged Medievalism, and the Tories were the party 
 :>f the Court. Thus, although Pope himself was a 
 Catholic and a personal friend of the leading Tories, the 
 " Essay on Criticism," in virtue of its protest against 
 Medievalism in poetry, falls into line with the anti- 
 medieval spirit of Whiggism and Protestantism. By 
 Aristotelianism as opposed to Baconianism Mr. Court- 
 hope must mean the philosophy of Aristotle as devel- 
 oped by the Schoolmen, for it is part of his theory that 
 Pope used the word Nature in the same sense as Bacon, 
 and consequently in the same sense as Aristotle. One 
 is still left wondering what exactly he meant by saying 
 that Pope " harmonized " all those opposing forces, see- 
 ing that the Essay is held to have signalized the final 
 triumph of one class of them. But it is a most inge- 
 nious theory, certainly " witty " according to the defini- 
 tion of wit that Mr. Courthope quotes from Locke, 
 whether we are to reckon it as true wit or the opposite. 
 Mr. Courthope's theory about the place of Pope's 
 " Essay on Criticism " is so far sound that it maintains, 
 in a very abstract and metaphysical manner, the toler- 
 ably plain fact that the Essay was part of the general 
 and gradual emancipation of the English mind from 
 mediaeval habits of thought. Beyond this he does not 
 seem to me to establish his case. Pope got less than 
 his deserts from the critics of the last two generations : 
 the fashion of taste had gone against him ; but we 
 should go as far wrong in the opposite direction if we 
 argued that the advent of Pope in poetry was an event 
 comparable to the advent of Newton in physical science, 
 or to the advent of Locke in philosophy. Even if we 
 admit that "True wit is Nature to advantage dressed" 
 did mean in Pope's mind " True poetry is Nature 
 directly imitated," how can a method which Pope had 
 in common with Chaucer and Shakespeare, Ariosto and 
 21 
 
322 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 Cervantes, be said to be so distinctive of a school as to 
 warrant the title of " classical " ? Personally I do not 
 think that the differentia of the so-called "classical" 
 school is to be found in formal critical principles ; is 
 seems to me to lie rather, as I have indicated before in 
 this magazine, in unconscious habits of expression. It 
 has obtained the name " classical" on more superficial 
 grounds, namety, that translations of Latin and Greek 
 masterpieces and imitations of leading classical forms 
 were among its most conspicuous productions, and that 
 its critics, in the earlier period of the school, professed 
 great deference for the ancient authorities. Certainly 
 directness cannot be said to have been a prominent 
 feature of its imitations of Nature, if direct imitation is 
 the opposite of allusive, allegorical, and abstract presen- 
 tation. We may pass "The Rape of the Lock" as 
 direct, if we get a definition of Nature that includes 
 sylphs and gnomes ; but what shall we say of " The 
 Dunciad " ? And what shall we say of the countless 
 odes to and descriptions of personified Seasons, Passions, 
 Institutions, Conditions, Faculties, which held the field 
 till the last }^ears of the century? These were at least 
 as much indirect imitations as the " Roman de la Rose," 
 the great mediaeval example of allegory, and yet they 
 form the bulk of the work of the " classical " school. 
 
 Mr. Courthope has not proved his paradox about 
 Pope's relation to his predecessors, and he makes out a 
 still less plausible case for a still bolder paradox about 
 Pope's relation to Wordsworth. There is such a refresh- 
 ing novelty about a theory which upholds Pope as dis- 
 tinctively the poet of Nature, and Wordsworth ns a 
 reactionary ally of "false wit," that one could wish it 
 were not so manifestly strained and perverse. It is to 
 be regretted, too, for another reason, that just as there is 
 justice in Mr. Courthope's defence of Pope against the 
 charge of being peculiarly artificial, he does lay stress 
 upon a feature in Wordsworth's theory of poetry that 
 
MR. COURTHOPE'S BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 323 
 
 is very often overlooked. Wordsworth, though he is 
 commonly called the poet of Nature, claims supremacy 
 for the imagination in poetic work : 
 
 " Imagination needs must stir. . . 
 Minds that have nothing to confer 
 Find little to perceive." 
 
 Coleridge says the same thing in the familiar lines : 
 
 " Dear Lady, we receive but what we give, 
 And in our life alone does Nature live." 
 
 There is no antagonism between this and adherence 
 to the just standard of Nature, unless Nature is taken 
 in a very limited sense ; but it gives Mr. Courthope an 
 opening for connecting the modern poets with the false 
 wits whom Pope superseded, and developing and point- 
 ing against them a new interpretation of the line : 
 
 " What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." 
 
 "Pope, the antagonist of the metaphysical school, had taught 
 that the essence of poetry was the presentation in a perfect form, 
 of imaginative materials common to the poet and the reader : 
 
 ' "What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.' 
 
 Wordsworth maintained, on the contrary, that matter not in itself 
 stimulating to the general imagination might become a proper 
 subject for poetry if glorified by the imagination of the poet. 
 There is an obvious analogy between this method of composition 
 and the wit, or discordia concors, which was the aim of the seven- 
 teenth-century poet." 
 
 This would have been true enough if it had been part 
 of Wordsworth's theory that a poet's imagination may 
 give poetic value to any thing, — a broomstick, for in- 
 stance, — irrespective of the ordinary laws of feeling. It 
 is only by taking this as Wordsworth's meaning that 
 Mr. Courthope is able to give a semblance of plausibility 
 to his case, and, starting with a little misunderstanding, 
 
324 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 he goes on to enlarge this till we find him taking it as a 
 condition of poetic work on Wordsworth's theory that 
 the poet should "burn the bridge of connection between 
 himself and his readers"; that is, should consult only 
 his own feelings, and pay no regard to the manner in 
 which other men think and feel. In answer to this it is 
 sufficient to point out that the opposite of this is repeat- 
 edly asserted to be a poet's duty in the Preface to the 
 " Lyrical Ballads," a document to which Mr. Courthope 
 refers as an "animated rhetorical treatise," but which, 
 judging from his extraordinary perversions of its lead- 
 ing doctrines, he cannot have studied very attentively. 
 How can he reconcile the following extract from the 
 Preface with what he sa3 r s of Wordsworth's theory : 
 
 " The Poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by a greater 
 promptness to think and feel without immediate external excite- 
 ment, a greater power in expressing such thoughts and feelings as 
 are produced in him in that manner. But these passions and 
 thoughts and feelings are the general j>assions and thoughts and feel- 
 ings of men. " 
 
 The truth is that Wordsworth's quarrel with artificial 
 poetic diction was that it was not intelligible to men in 
 general as the appropriate expression of the feelings de- 
 scribed. "The poet thinks and feels," he said, "in the 
 spirit of human passions. How, then, can his language 
 differ from that of all other men who feel vividly and 
 see clearly ? " Wordsworth was very far indeed from 
 ignoring, even in theory, the need of "imaginative ma- 
 terials common to the poet and the reader," and he was 
 fully alive to the danger of yielding to what he called 
 " particular associations " as distinguished from such as 
 were general ; but, as he explains, he was obliged to 
 trust his own judgment as to what would be intelligible 
 to his readers. What other judgment than his own 
 would Mr. Courthope suggest for the poet's guidance? 
 How can the poet reach the common heart or the com- 
 
MR. COURTHOPE'S BIOGRAPHY OF POPE 325 
 
 mon mind except through his own heart and mind ? 
 "Where else can he find his imaginative materials? But 
 it is not easy to make out what function Mr. Courthope 
 assigns to the imagination in poetry. " In every great 
 epic or dramatic poem," he says, " the action or fable, in 
 every great lyric poem the passion, is not imagined and 
 discovered by the poet, but [what is the point of the 
 antithesis?] is shared by the poet with his audience ; 
 the element contributed by a poet singly is the concep- 
 tion and form of the poem." " The imaginative mate- 
 rials are common to the poet and the audience." Mr. 
 Courthope seems to mean that unless a poet chooses sub- 
 jects — fables, situations, characters, passions — that are 
 easily and widely intelligible, and intrinsically interest- 
 ing, he must be content with a limited audience. But 
 why should this be said in words which appear to deny 
 the creative character of the imagination, as if Shakes- 
 peare had not " imagined " the passion of Hamlet and 
 Othello, or Milton had not "imagined" the bearing, the 
 despair, and the defiant hatred of his rebel angels in the 
 fiery pit ? 
 
 On his title-page Mr. Courtney quotes the saying of 
 Horace: " Difficile est propria communia dicere." It is 
 difficult ; but one often feels in reading his critical chap- 
 ters that he has succeeded. One could wish that his 
 exposition of his paradoxes had been as successful as his 
 disguise of his endoxes, for it is a gallant and vigorous 
 attempt to give new life to an old controversy. 
 
II 
 
 THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 
 
 There is one notable change in Pope's position since 
 the last centenary of his birth. His manner is now old 
 enough to bear revival. A clever writer of epigram- 
 matic couplets, with something much less exquisite than 
 Pope's mastery of his favorite stave, and much less 
 strong and keen than his wit, — a passably clever imitator 
 in short, — would be certain now of a wide and cordial 
 welcome. Of course a certain discretion would have to 
 be shown in the line of imitation ; not all the master's 
 subjects would serve equally well for the modern dis- 
 ciple. We should probably find little to admire in a 
 new " Windsor Forest " ; even a new " Essay on Man," 
 with all our recent modern developments in philosophy 
 and religion thrown in, might not attract as wide a circle 
 of readers as " Robert Elsmere " ; but it may safely be 
 said tliat the time is ripe for new " Imitations of Horace " 
 if only the man were ready. As for a new " Dunciad," 
 that is a more delicate subject to hint at, as nobody 
 knows what might happen, and it would not be a com- 
 fortable experience to be hitched into the rhyme if the 
 new satirist had as sharp a tooth as his great original. 
 It is better to let sleeping cynics lie. But certainly it is 
 a wonder that in these days of " New " things, New 
 Lucians, New Republics, New Plutarchs, and so forth, 
 nobody should have essayed to give us a New Dunciad. 
 Is it that in this age of universal cleverness we have no 
 Dunces, or that Pope's form is not quite so easy to 
 imitate as it was the fashion fifty years ago to say ? Or 
 is it that we are all so very good-natured that the " airy 
 
 326 
 
THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 327 
 
 malevolence " of the great satirist would not be 
 tolerated ? 
 
 This much at least is certain, that if we had material, 
 and a satirist, and if our satirist were dexterous enough 
 to evade the law of libel, — another barrier to the imitator 
 of Pope, — the form of epigrammatic couplets would now 
 have all the charm of novelty, whereas a hundred years 
 ago the public ear was tired of them. From the first of 
 these propositions we imagine there will be no dissent ; 
 but as regards the second a very general impression to 
 the contrary prevails. In spite of the labors of such 
 accurate historians of literature as the late Mr. Mark 
 Pattison and Mr. Stopford Brooke, Pope's relations to 
 the poetry of the latter half of the eighteenth century 
 are still very generally misunderstood. If the average 
 educated man, with some knowledge of the broad out- 
 lines of literary history but no special interest in its 
 details, were asked, as a question pertinent to the recent 
 celebration, what would have been the probable recep- 
 tion of a poem in Pope's manner when last his centenary 
 came round, he would probably answer out of a vague 
 impression that in the year 1788 a poem in any other 
 manner would have been promptly extinguished by the 
 critics. The general notion is that the authority of 
 Pope was supreme throughout the eighteenth century, 
 and that it remained unshaken till the advent of the new 
 potentates, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, and Byron. 
 It is supposed that the public taste was so devoted to Pope 
 and what is called the " classical school" that no depart- 
 ure from its principles of composition would have been 
 received with patience ; that even Milton and the great 
 Elizabethans were decried and neglected ; and that long 
 and determined efforts were needed before the public 
 could be brought back to a higher standard of poetic 
 excellence. This, indeed, is commonly given as the ex- 
 planation of the utter decay of poetry in the eighteenth 
 century, that people lived in slavish subjection to narrow 
 
328 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 and exclusive rules of art ; that all who felt an impulse 
 to write in verse were intimidated into taking artificial 
 standards as their guide rather than Nature ; that genius 
 was stifled by timid and laborious endeavor after cor- 
 rectness. And Pope's name was the bugbear used to 
 frighten unruly genius into submission. 
 
 Such was the view of the poetry of the eighteenth 
 century proclaimed with authority some fifty years ago, 
 and still, after a good many years of sober contradiction, 
 very extensively held. An opinion backed by the con- 
 fident and brilliant rhetoric of Macaulay is not easily 
 dislodged. The reaction against the critical school 
 that set in with the great poetic expansion at the be- 
 ginning of this century was definitely established bj r 
 Macaulay's article on Moore's " Life of Byron " in the 
 Edinburgh Review. It gave articulate expression to 
 the effect produced on the public mind by the destruc- 
 tive criticism of which Wordsworth, Coleridge, and 
 Bowles were the leading exponents. Their tone, of 
 course, was much more judicial, but since they laid 
 stress on the defects of Pope, and the public had been 
 accustomed for two or three generations to hear chiefly 
 of his merits, the general impression produced was that 
 his poetry was essentially and radically vicious, that he 
 was, as it were, an impostor who had long deceived the 
 people, but had been detected and exposed at last. 
 This exaggerated condemnation was not the fault of 
 the new critics, but it was the natural result of their 
 saying what they said at the time when they said it. 
 That happened in Pope's case which happens in the 
 progress of all conceptions toward exact qualification. 
 Thinking on any subject is generally done by halves or 
 by bits, each of which as it comes into prominence fills 
 the area of the whole truth. As long as the public 
 mind was dazzled bj r certain splendid qualities in Pope's 
 verse, these qualities virtually represented the sum of 
 poetic excellence ; he was simply a poet ; there was no 
 
THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 329 
 
 question of defects or limitations. There came a time 
 when the defects were loudly insisted upon, and the public 
 mind was occupied in the same exclusive manner with 
 poetic excellence of a different type which had yet 
 to undergo its process of qualification. Pope was then 
 simply no poet ; he was the complete antithesis of 
 poetic excellence. Pope's reputation followed the 
 ordinary law in passing through those two violent 
 stages on its way toward a more fixed and definite 
 formation ; it may safely be said to have now reached 
 a further stage in which merits and defects are no 
 longer in mutually destructive antagonism, and Pope 
 is recognized as a great poet, to be admired, enjoyed, 
 and studied for what he was, without being despised 
 or neglected for what he was not. 
 
 We speak of the conception of Pope's poetry in that 
 vague but none the less real receptacle of ideas, the 
 general mind, to the fluctuations and advances of which 
 it is not easy to obtain a definite index. Perhaps one 
 of the most satisfactory gauges of public opinion, 
 whether of men or of measures, is to be found in the 
 attitude of moderate critics. If modern critics are apolo- 
 getic and conciliatory in hinting at blemishes, the man 
 or the measure, we may be sure, stands high in public 
 estimation. In the case of Pope we find that in the 
 eighteenth century, before his poetry had passed through 
 the crucible of the Wordsworthian school, such a 
 moderate critic as Joseph Warton had to be cautious in 
 pointing out Pope's limitations ; whereas thirty years 
 ago such a temperate admirer as Mr. Carruthers had to 
 guard himself carefully against the charge of putting 
 Pope's merits too high. More recently Mr. Elwin's 
 elaborate criticism of Pope has been received with 
 some impatience on account of its hostile and unsym- 
 pathetic tone ; and the remarks made about him within 
 the last two months have shown a disposition to make 
 amends for the violence of previous disparagement. 
 
330 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 While there has been this oscillation concerning 
 Pope's merits in the general mind, following in its own 
 way the movements of critical dialectic, there has been 
 comparatively little substantial difference of opinion 
 among the few who, in Wordsworth's language, make 
 "a serious study of poetry." Although critics of the 
 Wordsworth ian school discredited Pope so much that 
 it became among their more foolish adherents a mark 
 of corrupt taste to find a word to say in favor of any 
 thing written in the eighteenth century, the leaders 
 themselves, especially Coleridge and Bowles, were by 
 no means insensible to Pope's unrivalled brilliancy 
 within his own limits. On the other hand, it is a mis- 
 take to suppose that the critics of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, even in the generation immediately after Pope's 
 own, were unconscious of those limits, although they 
 had more complete sympathy with the poet's merits 
 and were more ungrudging in their praise. Too many 
 of us still see even the criticism of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury through the spectacles of reactionaries who were in 
 too violent a heat to see clearly. The admiration of Pope 
 was not an unqualified and unreasoning idolatry among 
 the critics of the eighteenth century. Even Bowles's 
 main contention, over which there was so much discus- 
 sion at the beginning of this century, that satiric and 
 ethic poetry are necessarily from their subject-matter 
 inferior species, and cannot entitle a poet to the first 
 rank however masterly in execution, was put forward 
 in substance by Joseph Warton as early as 1756. It 
 was put forward in substance, though with a slight 
 difference, Warton's exact position being that wit and 
 satire are transitory and perishable, while nature and 
 passion are eternal. And ten years earlier this same 
 ambitious youth, having just taken his degree at Oxford, 
 issued a volume of odes, in the preface to which he 
 expressed a modest hope that they " would be looked 
 upon as an attempt to bring poetry back into its right 
 
THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 331 
 
 channel,'' his opinion being that "invention and imagi- 
 nation are the chief faculties of a poet," and that " the 
 fashion of moralizing in verse had been carried too far." 
 This was in 1746, within three years of Pope's death, 
 and the bold venture was so far successful that a second 
 edition was at once called for. Tke Odes of Warton's 
 school-fellow and friend, Collins, who wrote in the 
 same independent spirit, but with infinitely greater 
 genius, were published at the same time ; they had, 
 indeed, intended at first to publish together. The 
 poetry of Collins was of a much less simple, common- 
 place, and popular cast, and his volume of Odes re- 
 mained unsold ; but it opened the door to an intimacy 
 with Thomson and Johnson, an evidence that such 
 critical authorities were far from being disposed to 
 stifle genius that did not accommodate itself to the 
 manner of Pope. But it may be said that Warton's 
 free criticism of Pope was only an impotent heresy, 
 an individual eccentricity serving only to make more 
 marked the general drift of opinion. Was it not the 
 case that he kept back the second part of his essay for 
 more than a quarter of a century and that Johnson 
 supposed the reason for this to be " disappointment at 
 not having been able to persuade the world to be of his 
 opinion as to Pope"? Yes: but the "opinion" to 
 which Johnson referred was the opinion that Pope's 
 reputation in the future would rest upon his " Windsor 
 Forest," his "Eloisa to Abelard," and his "Rape of the 
 Lock," rather than upon his moral and satirical poems. 
 Of Warton's essay itself — or rather of the first part, for 
 the second part was not published till a year or two 
 before his death — the great critic repeatedly wrote and 
 spoke in terms of the highest praise. It was this essay 
 that he described as " a book which teaches how the 
 brow of Criticism may be smoothed, and how she may 
 be enabled, with all her severity, to attract and delight." 
 No man was ever less disposed than Johnson to sup- 
 
332 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 press independent criticism, however paradoxical this 
 may seem to those who have been taught to regard him 
 as the inflexible administrator of narrow and arbitrary- 
 critical laws. He was punctiliously conscientious in 
 always giving a reason for his critical decisions. Lord 
 Mansfield's famous ^advice to the judge who knew no 
 law would have been abhorrent to one who prided him- 
 self on his knowledge of critical law, and who held that 
 all critical laws worthy of respect were founded in 
 reason. " Reason wants not Horace to support it," 
 was one of his characteristic maxims. That his reasons 
 were always valid would be too much to claim ; but 
 they were always, except when thrown off in the 
 caprice of conversation, the result of profound and 
 penetrating thought, and he would be a very presump- 
 tuous critic that should lightly set them aside. 
 
 " Temporary arrest of poetic expansion " would be a 
 fairer description of what took place in the eighteenth 
 century than " utter decay of poetry " ; and to assign as 
 the explanation of this arrest the overbearing force of 
 Pope's example, or the chilling influence of Johnson's 
 precepts, or slavish subservience to arbitrary rules is, to 
 put it soberly, not to give a sufficient explanation. It 
 is not quite fair to criticism to regard it as if its main 
 function were to direct and nourish the poetry of the 
 period, and to argue that it stands condemned as neces- 
 sarily unsound if the contemporary poetical crop is poor 
 and scanty. It has been too much the liabit of literary 
 historians to look upon the poverty of the poetry as the 
 main literary phenomenon of the eighteenth century. 
 If the idea had occurred — and it is at least worthy of 
 examination — that possibly the critical school of which 
 Johnson was the master helped to lay a foundation for 
 the splendid outburst of poetic production in a subse- 
 quent generation, the critical principles of the eigh- 
 teenth century would have had a fairer chance of being 
 judged upon their merits. Johnson was certainly no 
 
THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OP POPE 333 
 
 champion of narrow and exclusive tenets. There were 
 certain obvious and definite qualities in Pope — smooth, 
 melodious rhythm, clear sense, elegance or refinement 
 of phrase and idea — on which he frequently dwelt as 
 high poetic merits. " Here," he exclaimed of Pope's 
 " Eloisa," " is particularly observable the curiosa felici- 
 tas, a fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here is no 
 crudeness of sense, no asperity of language." But 
 highly as he admired such qualities, and although he 
 probably did not feel with sufficient force the danger of 
 buying them at too great a sacrifice, the absence of 
 them did not blind him to other merits. He appreciated 
 the power of Collins, though he did find fault with his 
 occasional obscurity and his "harsh clusters of conso- 
 nants." He found harshness and barbarity in the dic- 
 tion of Milton, but that did not prevent him from 
 speaking of Milton as "that poet whose works may 
 possibly be read when every other monument of British 
 greatness is obliterated," or from saying that " such is 
 the power of his poetry that his call is obe} r ed without 
 resistance, the reader feels himself in captivity to a 
 higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in ad- 
 miration." With all his love for Pope he found pas- 
 sages in Dryden " drawn from a profundity that Pope 
 could never reach." He criticised Shakespeare, as he 
 said, " without curious malignity or superstitious vener- 
 ation," but whoever thinks that he measured Shakes- 
 peare by cold and formal notions of correctness should 
 read his noble preface. " The work of a correct and 
 regular writer is a garden accurately formed and dili- 
 gently planted, varied with shades and scented with 
 flowers ; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in 
 which oaks extend their branches and pines tower in 
 the air, interspersed sometimes with Aveeds and bram- 
 bles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and roses ; 
 filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the 
 mind with endless diversity." This is not the language 
 
334 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 of a narrow and exclusive critic with a single eye to 
 correctness of an artificial kind. 
 
 The poetic barrenness certainly cannot be explained 
 by the predominance of narrow and exclusive critical 
 theories. Exclusive admiration of Pope and the classi- 
 cal school, contented acquiescence in its methods and 
 subjects as the perfection of art, inability to feel and 
 enjoy excellence of any other kind, cannot be charged 
 against the critics of the time. Pope himself was by 
 no means insensible to the greatness of his great pred- 
 ecessors, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. 
 His conversations with Spence afford abundant evi- 
 dence of his catholicity as well as his delicacy of judg- 
 ment. And if we pass from Pope to his successors in 
 the eighteenth century, we find that we cannot number 
 disrespect for Shakespeare among the causes of their 
 poetic incompetence, and that Nature was often in their 
 heads, if not in their hearts, as the great original from 
 which the poet ought to draw. The Winchester school- 
 boys, Warton and Collins, were, perhaps, singular in 
 their enthusiasm for Spenser. But the cult of Shakes- 
 peare was universal. Edition followed edition, and com- 
 mentary commentary, while Garrick in Shakespearian 
 parts was the delight of the town. When Akenside, in 
 the last year of Pope's life, extolled with much ap- 
 plause " The Pleasures of the Imagination," he began 
 by invoking the aid of " Fancy," as the Spirit of 
 Poetry : 
 
 " From the fruitful banks 
 Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull 
 Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf 
 Where Shakespeare lies." 
 
 A few years later, in 1749, when a company of French 
 players acted by subscription at the Theatre Royal, 
 Akenside's enthusiasm was such that he treated their 
 visit as an insult to Shakespeare, and put the following 
 
THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 335 
 
 "Remonstrance" into the mouth of the outraged 
 dramatist : 
 
 " What though the footsteps of my devious Muse 
 The measured walks of Grecian art refuse ? 
 Or though the frankness of my hardy style 
 Mock the nice touches of the critic's file ? 
 Yet what my age and climate held to view 
 Impartial I surveyed and fearless drew. 
 And say, ye skilful in the human heart, 
 Who know to prize a poet's noblest part, 
 What age, what clime, could e'er an ampler field, 
 For lofty thought, for daring fancy yield ? " 
 
 The same note was struck by Churchill in the first 
 year of the reign of George III. : 
 
 " May not some great extensive genius raise 
 The name of Britain 'bove Athenian praise ? . . . 
 There may — there hath — and Shakespeare's muse aspires 
 Beyond the reach of Greece : with native fires 
 Mounting aloft, he wings his daring flight, 
 Whilst Sophocles below stands trembling at his height. 
 Why should we then abroad for judges roam, 
 When abler judges we may find at home ? 
 Happy in tragic and in comic powers 
 Have we not Shakespeare ? is not Jonson ours ? " 
 
 We have quoted enough to show that the poets of the 
 eighteenth century, from beginning to end of what has 
 been called the darkest period of the century, were not, 
 in principle at least, enamoured of tameness and trimness 
 in art, and that they did not of set choice and with de- 
 liberate acquiescence confine themselves to a low range 
 of imaginative effort. Rather they seem to have been 
 striving and straining with turbulent ambition after 
 higher things — after things too high for their powers. 
 Gray, who had more right to speak than any of those 
 whom we have quoted, seems to have been conscious of 
 this impotence, this disproportion between desire and 
 achievement. 
 
336 surrLEMENT 
 
 " But not to one in this benighted age 
 Is that diviner inspiration given, 
 That burns in Shakespeare's and in Milton's page, 
 The pomp and prodigality of heaven." 
 
 The difficulty would be to find the critics whose 
 authority" the minor poets resented and considered, it 
 necessary to abjure. Rymer, who is sometimes referred 
 to as if he had been a representative critic of the period, 
 was at least as much laughed at in his own generation 
 as he has ever been since, and represented only a per- 
 verse and splenetic opposition to the general strain. 
 
 The inability of the period to fulfil its aspirations 
 after a larger and bolder style of poetry, with more of 
 life and passion in it, would be almost pathetic if it were 
 really required of every generation to be great in poetry, 
 and it were to be held dishonor to come short of great- 
 ness in the divine art. The tyrannical authority of a 
 critical school cannot be held responsible for this dis- 
 honor to the generation after Pope, if dishonor it be. 
 The only respect in which criticism may have had a dis- 
 couraging influence was this, that there was so much of 
 it. Under the lead of Johnson the great aim of criti- 
 cism was to discover how the heart was reached, to de- 
 tect by analysis of an impressive passage what helped 
 and what hindered the effect. "You must show how 
 terror is impressed on the human heart," he said, in 
 speaking with his friends of what a critic ought to do in 
 considering the use made of a ghost in a play : this was 
 the onty kind of criticism that he would call real criti- 
 cism, "showing the beauty of thought as formed on the 
 workings of the human heart." Now, when an artist 
 begins to consider too curiously how an effect is pro- 
 duced, he is apt to be hampered and, it may be, para- 
 lyzed if he has not energy enough to transcend the con- 
 sciously or painfully analytic stage, or to perform his 
 anatysis with such swiftness and sureness of perception 
 that he proceeds at once and as if by instinct to the 
 
THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 337 
 
 required combination. The amount of poetic produc- 
 tion in the generation after Pope may have been les- 
 sened by excess of the critical spirit and the multiplica- 
 tion of negative conditions, but this could have affected 
 only the minor poets or men of poetic talent, because the 
 man of poetic genius will not and need not consider his 
 ways and means too curiously. 
 
 How are we to account for the arrest of poetry in the 
 eighteenth century, if it was not due to the chilling 
 influence of critics imbued with artificial principles ? 
 Burke's aphorism that " the march of the human mind 
 is slow," is a part of the explanation that should not be 
 lost sight of in the search for minute causes. Leaps and 
 bounds of poetic expansion are not to be expected in 
 every generation. Slow progress is the normal law, and 
 we need not torture ourselves to discover reasons for a 
 particular case of slow progress, as if it were something 
 exceptional. After all, there was some progress even in 
 poetry itself, besides what may have been done in the 
 way of suggestion and collection of material for the 
 poetry of the future. Collins and Gray are great 
 names, though not of the first rank ; and even in the 
 darkest period such minor bards as the Wartons, Shen- 
 stone, and Beattie did not merely grind old tunes, but 
 sounded a distinctive note, however humble. Collins, 
 in especial, added an ever-living branch to the tree of 
 our literature : his Odes are not mere dry twigs on that 
 tree. Of the peculiar form in which he expressed the 
 rapture of learned meditation, gathering together the 
 most moving incidents of human experience under ab- 
 stractions conceived as living forces, Collins is the 
 one great master. He is essentially a scholarly or 
 academic poet, and could never be popular in the wide 
 sense, his subjects being historical and his mode of 
 expression such that he cannot be followed without 
 some intellectual effort ; but the effort is worth making, 
 because he had deep and genuine feeling to put into his 
 22 
 
338 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 verse, and the power to transmit that feeling, whole and 
 harmonious, to the reader. One of Wordsworth's cen- 
 tral qualities, his attitude toward Nature, is a natural 
 and easy transition from the spirit in which Collins con- 
 ceived the pageant of history. 
 
 Great bursts of poetic activity come but seldom. 
 They are exceptional facts ; and those anxious rerum 
 cognoscere causas should first endeavor to determine the 
 causes or leading conditions of those departures from 
 the normal law. It should be an easier task, and should 
 conduce to the understanding of the comparative inac- 
 tivity of other periods. If we take the works of the 
 leaders of the great poetic revival of this century, — 
 Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron, — we find that they differ 
 in certain broad respects from all the works of the 
 eighteenth century. We find something like the origi- 
 nation of new species or neAv varieties in poetry. The 
 form, in a large sense of the word, is new, and the vein 
 of feeling is new. New themes are treated in a new 
 way, and with a new spirit. Consider the mere form of 
 the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," the first genuinely 
 popular poem, interesting to all classes, of the new era — 
 a metrical romance regularly constructed, with perfect 
 unity of action, incidents all helping forward the prog- 
 ress of the story through various complications to 
 a catastrophe. No such poem had ever been written 
 before ; it was a new form in poetry — classical regu- 
 larity of form combined with romantic freedom of acci- 
 dent. The precepts of the classical school, reiterating 
 how an epic, the vain ambition of the poets of the 
 eighteenth century, ought to be constructed, were not 
 thrown away upon Scott, although he made a free use 
 of them. Then the spirit of the poem — the serious epic 
 treatment of the necromancing Ladye of Branksome 
 Hall, the Wizard, the Goblin Page, and the bold Moss- 
 trooper. We have nothing like this in the eighteenth 
 century. In Pope's time such personages would either 
 
THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 339 
 
 have been burlesqued or treated with affected respect, 
 such as a grown-up person would use toward fairies and 
 hobgoblins in telling stories about them to a child. 
 They might have figured in an Ode to Superstition, but 
 an artist would hardly have dared to narrate their 
 doings with the air of a serious believer, and without 
 taking the polite reader into his confidence. Taken 
 altogether, in form and spirit, the " Lay " was a new 
 thing in literature, a new species of poem. The same 
 may be said of " Childe Harold." Here also we find a 
 new species of epic, such as the formal writers of epic 
 poetry had never contemplated — the hero of which is 
 not a mythical king like Arthur, or a personified Virtue 
 moving in Faeryland like Spenser's Red Cross Knight, 
 or Guyon, or Britomart, but a modern man moving in 
 modern scenes. Wordsworth also is new in form as 
 well as in spirit. No poet before him had dared to shut 
 himself up in the country and choose as the subject of 
 his verse, without any reference to his fine friends in 
 town, his own personal feelings and reflections as 
 aroused by the moving spectacle of sky and hill and 
 glen, and the homely life of rustic neighbors. He 
 wrote a species of pastoral poetry that had not been 
 legislated for by the technical lawgivers of the art, 
 though the want of it had been vaguely felt b} r Walsh 
 when he wrote wistfully of a Golden Age in which "the 
 shepherds were men of learning and refinement." 
 
 Whether or not these are the main characters of the 
 new poetry, the vital principles underlying smaller dif- 
 ferences, it is in such large new features that we must 
 seek the secret of the great expansion rather than in 
 little changes of artistic aim or conscious repudiation 
 of definite critical theories. The fetters that had to 
 be broken were nothing so palpable as formal rules of 
 critical authority. They were bonds from which eman- 
 cipation is much less easy, the restraints of unformu- 
 lated, undogmatic, inarticulate custom. It was habits 
 
340 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 of feeling that had to be changed, not rules of art. And 
 the reason of the comparative poverty of the poetry of 
 the eighteenth century was that no poet was born or 
 bred with sufficient force of personality to effect this 
 change. Probably it could not have been effected with- 
 out the invention of forms of poetry that had the broad 
 characters of new species, so inveterately were the old 
 habits of feeling associated with the old forms, drama, 
 epic, descriptive poem, ode, elegy, and sonnet, each hav- 
 ing its established unwritten standard of poetic elegance 
 or refinement. It is only when some distinctively new 
 kind of thing is reached by happy inspiration that 
 creative energy is exalted to the pitch that results in a 
 great period of poetry. 
 
 The eighteenth century, possibly because the time 
 was not ripe, had not inventive energy enough in poetry 
 to strike out new lines, but it contributed in many wa} r s 
 to make expansion easier for those that came after. 
 Especially did the rich and varied development of prose 
 in essay and fiction prepare the way for the subsequent 
 emancipation. The influence of this prose as a solvent 
 of established poetic customs has not been sufficiently re- 
 marked. Fift}^ years ago the popular conception of this 
 revolution was that it was a literary echo of the French 
 Revolution ; that throughout the eighteenth century 
 poets had bent submissively under the yoke of Pope and 
 the classical school, but that, catching the heat of the 
 political ferment, they were emboldened to raise the 
 standard of rebellion and throw the rules of their tyrant to 
 the winds. But the example of freedom from traditional 
 standards of dignity set by prose works of imagination 
 and prose comments on life had much more to do with 
 the poetic revolution than the contemporary political 
 excitement, though this also may have been a factor in 
 the result. The serious Muse sat in stiff and starched 
 propriety while her nimbler sister revelled in the enjoy- 
 ment of freedom, but she tired at last of nursing her 
 
X 
 
 THE SUPPOSED TYRANNY OF POPE 341 
 
 dignity, and unbent. Prose writers had familiarized 
 the world with the subjects and sentiments of the new 
 poetry for a generation or two before they attained the 
 intensity that seeks expression in verse. The emanci- 
 pating influence of the prose literature becomes obvious 
 when, disregarding their individualities, we look at the 
 general strain of the pioneers and the leaders of the 
 poetic revolution. Cowper might be described with 
 general truth as an essayist in verse. Wordsworth 
 deliberately and articulately claimed liberty to use in 
 verse the same diction that might be used for the 
 expression of the same feelings in prose ; and incidents 
 such as he made the subject of his lyrical ballads had 
 for long been considered admissible material for the 
 novelist. Characters and incidents similar in kind to 
 those in Scott's metrical romances had made their 
 appearance before in prose romance. Byron's " Childe 
 Harold " was avowedly suggested b} r a character in 
 prose fiction ; he intended his hero, he said, to be a 
 kind of poetical Zeluco. Prose thus led the way to 
 greater freedom of subject and sentiment in poetry, and 
 matured the ideas to which poetry gave the higher 
 artistic expression. 
 
 It is of some importance that we should understand 
 the real nature of the last poetic revival, and see that 
 there was more in it than a revolt against established 
 poetic diction and artificial critical rules. This oppro- 
 brious word artificial has been allowed too long to cre- 
 ate a false prejudice against the poetry of the eigh- 
 teenth century. It may be doubted whether in any 
 important sense of the word the best poetry of the 
 eighteenth century was more artificial than the best 
 poetry of the nineteenth. The undiscriminating con- 
 tempt that at one time sought to justify itself by this 
 vague term of reproach, and that was natural enough in 
 the exultation of a new movement, has now all but 
 passed away, and has given place to a feeling that, after 
 
342 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 all, the poets of the eighteenth century may be worthy of 
 study by those ambitious of still further developments. 
 And who knows but that in this once despised period 
 inventive genius may yet find a hint and a starting-point 
 for fresh triumphs ? 
 
Ill 
 
 THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 
 
 The old conception of the Ayrshire ploughman-poet 
 undoubtedly was that his poetry had no historical con- 
 nection ; that it stands apart as a unique phenomenon, 
 entirely unconnected with the main stream of English 
 poetry ; that the peasant-poet owed every thing to 
 nature, and nothing to books ; that he was a high-priest 
 of poetry, without literary father or mother, raised up 
 by nature herself ab initio amidst the most disadvan- 
 tageous circumstances, as if to put to shame man's feeble 
 calculations of means to ends in literary culture. This 
 was the old conception, people finding it difficult to 
 understand how a ploughman could have trained him- 
 self to be a great poet. I do not know how far this 
 conception still prevails ; but as something very like it 
 is to be found in the famous essay on Burns by another 
 great Scotchman of genius, Thomas Carlyle, and as it 
 harmonizes with our natural desire to have an element 
 of the miraculous in our saints and heroes, it has prob- 
 ably survived all the plain facts set forth by the poet's 
 biographers. There is in the conception this much 
 obvious truth : that Burns owed little to school and 
 nothing to college ; but when it is said that nature, and 
 nature only, was his school-master (unless the w r ord is 
 used in a sense sufficiently wide to include the works of 
 man, and among them that work of man called litera- 
 ture), the theory does injustice to Burns as an artist, 
 and is at variance with the plain facts of his life. 
 
 Supreme excellence in poetry is never attained by a 
 sudden leap up from the level of common ideas and 
 
 343 
 
344 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 common speech, whether a man's every-day neighbors are 
 rustic, or men and women of art and fashion and cul- 
 ture. The world in which his imagination moves is 
 never entirely of his own creation. The great poet 
 must have had pioneers from whom he derived some of 
 the ideas and resources of his craft — enough, at least, to 
 feed and stimulate and direct his own inborn energy. 
 Burns, in truth, was a self-taught genius only in the 
 sense in which all great artists are so ; those who see in 
 the Ayrshire ploughman's mastery of the poetic art any 
 rarer miracle than this are those only who attach an 
 exaggerated importance to what schools and colleges can 
 do in furthering the highest efforts of human genius. 
 Beyond a certain point, as we all know, every man must 
 be his own school-master ; in this sense nature was the 
 school-master of Burns. But, all the same, his poetry is 
 not an isolated creation, entirely disconnected from the 
 main body of literature. It has its own individuality, 
 as the work of all great artists must have ; but it had a 
 literary origin, as much as the poetry of Chaucer or 
 Shakespeare, or even Pope. When nature has done her 
 work, and the unexpected has happened, it is generally 
 easy to find something very natural in the means she 
 has used to bring the unexpected to pass ; and the very 
 circumstances that seemed at first sight to be disadvan- 
 tageous to Burns are now seen to have favored him in 
 the fulfilment of his mission. 
 
 For a work of genius we require first of all a man of 
 genius ; but there are conditions that render the exer- 
 cise of his genius possible, and there are influences that 
 modify the character and the direction of his work. 
 And in the case of literary work these conditions and 
 influences are generally found in antecedent literature, 
 though not necessarily in the literature of the language 
 in which the artist works — literature having really an 
 international unity. The course of literature is mainly 
 self-contained ; and, in reading its history, the impulse 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 345 
 
 to great work in one generation may often be traced 
 back to dimly conceived aims and blind and imperfect 
 performances in a previous generation. Nature begins 
 her preparations for the advent of a great man long 
 before he makes his appearance. 
 
 It is interesting, and it strengthens our sense of the 
 unity of literature from generation to generation, to 
 trace back in this way the movement that culminated in 
 the poetry of Burns to a very humble episode in the 
 English poetry of Queen Anne's time — a passing fashion 
 for writing what is called pastoral poetry, and a quarrel 
 on the subject among the more celebrated wits of the 
 day. The fashion had prevailed for some time before in 
 France ; in England the starting-point was Dryden's 
 translation of Virgil's " Eclogues." To this translation 
 was prefixed an elegant discourse on pastoral poetry 
 in general by William Walsh, Esq., a gentleman of wit 
 and fashion, who wrote in a very neat and pointed style, 
 subjected the views of the Frenchman Fontenelle to 
 delicate and polite ridicule, and submitted to the public 
 with great spirit and elegance his own views of what 
 pastoral poetry ought to be. Mr. Walsh's ideal was of 
 the most artificial kind, his poetical shepherds being 
 men of a golden age, when grazing was the chief in- 
 dustry, and shepherds were, as he put it, men of learn- 
 ing and refinement, and his chief rules being that an 
 air of piety should pervade the pastoral poem, that the 
 characters should represent the ancient innocent and 
 unpractised plainness of the golden age, and that the 
 scenery should be truly pastoral — a beautiful landscape, 
 and shepherds, with their flocks round them, piping 
 under wide-spreading beech-trees. Pastoral poetry, as 
 conceived by Mr. Walsh, who spoke the taste of his age, 
 was a species of elegant trifling, something like the 
 recent fancy for old French forms of verse (ballades, 
 rondeaus, villanelles, and so forth), and nothing might 
 have come of it ; but it so happened that Mr. Walsh 
 
346 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 was the earliest literary friend and counsellor of young 
 Mr. Pope, who was persuaded to make his first essay as 
 a poet in pastorals, written in strict accordance with 
 Walsh's principles, and of that came important conse- 
 quences. Pope published in 1709, in a miscellany of 
 Dodsley's ; in the same volume appeared also pastorals 
 from the pen of Ambrose Philips. Philips, known as 
 Namby Pamby, belonged to the coterie of Addison and 
 Steele. Between that coterie and Pope arose jealousy 
 and strife ; hence when, four years later, Pope produced 
 his " Windsor Forest," there appeared in the Guar- 
 dian, the organ of the coterie (April, 1713, is the date), 
 a series of articles on pastoral poetry, in which Steele 
 incidentally gave a roll to the log of friend Namby 
 Pamby, who was named as the equal of Theocritus and ; 
 Virgil, and ridiculed, by implication, in a polite Queen 
 Anne manner, the pastoral poems of young Mr. Pope, 
 without mentioning his name. This at least was the 
 construction put upon the matter b}' Pope, who took a 
 clever and amusing revenge of a kind to cause a great 
 deal of talk about the Guardian articles. It was an 
 amusing literary quarrel ; but Steele's theory of pastoral 
 poetry, thus occasionally produced, had more fruitful 
 results. The numbers of the Guardian really set forth 
 for the first time a fresh theory for that kind of compo- 
 sition, to the effect that in English pastoral poetry the 
 characters should be not classical shepherds and shep- 
 herdesses, — Corydon and Phyllis, Tityrus and Amaryllis, 
 — but real English rustics ; that the scenery should be 
 real English scenery ; and that the manners and super- 
 stitions should be such as are to be found in English 
 rural life. 
 
 Nothing was done to realize this theory in England 
 till the time of Crabbe and Wordsworth (Gay merely 
 burlesqued it in his "Shepherd's Week"), but it so hap- 
 pened that it was taken seriously in Scotland. At the 
 time when the Guardian articles appeared there was 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 347 
 
 a social club in Edinburgh, named The Easy Club, 
 which followed the literary movements of London with 
 keen interest ; and of this club Allan Ramsay was poet- 
 laureate. Allan also wrote pastoral elegies d la mode, 
 neither better nor worse than the artificial stuff then in 
 fashion ; but in a happy hour he thought of trying his 
 hand at the real pastoral, as conceived by Steele, and 
 produced "The Gentle Shepherd." Thus, out of a 
 passing literary fashion and a literary quarrel came the 
 original impulse to the composition of a work that must 
 be numbered among the conditions that made the poetry 
 of Burns possible. For no less honor than this can be 
 claimed for Ramsay's pastoral comedy. Carlyle says 
 somewhere that a man of genius is always impossible 
 until he appears. This is quite true, out it is only a 
 half truth ; and the other half is that a man of genius 
 must always be possible before he appears. Favorable 
 conditions for the exercise of his genius will not produce 
 the man ; but if the favorable conditions are not there 
 when he appears, his genius will be stifled, and he will 
 remain mute and inglorious. 
 
 Ramsay's " Gentle Shepherd " became, in the genera- 
 tion before Burns, one of the most popular books among 
 the peasantry of Scotland, finding a place, it is said, 
 beside the Bible in every ploughman's cottage and shep- 
 herd's sheilling ; and it may be said to have created the 
 atmosphere in which the genius of Burns thrived and 
 grew to such proportions. It did this by idealizing rural 
 life in Scotland, by giving the ploughman a status in 
 the world of the imagination. It enabled him, as it 
 were, to hold his head higher among his fellow-creatures, 
 and opened his eyes to the elements of poetry in his 
 hard, earth-stained, and weather-beaten existence. " His 
 rustic friend," Carlyle says, in speaking of Burns and 
 the boundless love that was in him, " his nut-brown 
 maiden, are no longer mean and homely, but a hero and 
 a queen, to be ranked with the paragons of earth." 
 
348 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 But it was Ramsay who first threw the golden light of 
 poetry on the peasant lads and lasses of Scotland, and 
 made heroes and heroines of Patie and Roger and Jenny 
 and Peggy, and who thus created the atmosphere 
 through which Burns saw them. No more striking 
 proof of the power of literature to transform life can be 
 given than the fact that half a century before the advent 
 of Burns he was preceded by an ideal prototype in " The 
 Gentle Shepherd." Ramsay's description of his hero 
 might pass for a description of the real Burns, only that 
 nature asserted her supremacy by making the reality 
 more astonishing than any thing that the imagination of 
 Ramsay, governed as it was by the genteel spirit of the 
 time, had dared to put into verse. 
 
 Burns owed much to Allan Ramsay, and something 
 also to another Scottish poet, to whom he erected a 
 memorial stone in Canongate Churchyard, Edinburgh — 
 the ill-fated Fergusson ; but to say, with Carlyle, that 
 he had " for his onty standard of beauty the rhymes of 
 Ramsay and Fergusson " is to miss altogether his true 
 relation to the main body of English literature. His 
 only standard of beauty ! This is indeed to underrate 
 the extent of the ploughman's self-education. I need 
 hardly remind you of the studious habits of the Burns 
 family, upon which all his biographers dwell ; how their 
 severe rule of bodily labor was combined with a rule of 
 mental labor no less strictly and strenuously observed 
 because it was voluntary ; how they carried books in 
 their pockets to read whenever their hands were free 
 from farm-work ; how neighbors found them at their 
 meals with spoon in one hand and book in the other. 
 There is nothing, indeed, that impresses us more with a 
 sense of the gigantic force of the personality of Burns 
 and the breadth of his manhood than the thought that 
 with all the strength of his youthful passion for reading, 
 tending, as it did, to detach him from his unlettered 
 neighbors, it should not have converted him into a self- 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 349 
 
 opinionated prig or a snarling pedant. What saved 
 him from this fate was that he absorbed books, and was 
 not absorbed by them ; he was saved, probably, by that 
 craving for distinction of which he spoke more than 
 once as his ruling passion, that thirst for admiring sym- 
 pathy of living men and living women which made him 
 appropriate and turn to his own uses what he found in 
 books. That, probably, saved him from having loads 
 of learned lumber in his head. However this may be, 
 the actual result was that Burns in those early years of 
 intense and devouring study, ranging far beyond Ram- 
 say and Fergusson, trained himself to be a great artist by 
 mastering and rendering to harmonious practice the best 
 critical ideas of his century. 
 
 The secret of Burns's enduring and still growing 
 fame is that he was the greatest poetic artist of his 
 century ; and I would submit the proposition that he 
 was so, not because he stood outside the main current 
 of his century, and drew his inspiration solely from 
 nature, meaning by nature untutored impulse, but 
 because he took into his mind from books, and succeeded 
 by the force of his genius and the happ}* - accident of his 
 position in reconciling two elementary principles of 
 poetry that weaker intellects cannot keep from drifting 
 into antagonism and mutual injury. One of these prin- 
 ciples is that with which we are familiar in eighteenth- 
 century literature, under the name of "correctness," 
 which is only another name for perfection of expression, 
 in so far as that can be attained by laborious self- 
 criticism. When Pope began to write, he was advised 
 by his friend Walsh, to whom I have already referred, 
 to aim at correctness : the ancients had said every thing, 
 and there was nothing left for the modern poet but to 
 improve upon their manner of saying it. In his " Essay 
 on Criticism " Pope embodied this idea in a couplet : 
 
 " True wit is nature to advantage dressed, 
 What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." 
 
350 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 This is one principle ; the other is that art must follow 
 nature. It is a common opinion that the eighteenth-cen- 
 tury poets were alive only to the first of these principles. 
 But this will not bear examination ; the sovereignty 
 of nature was formally proclaimed by Pope, as well as 
 the artistic doctrine of dressing her to advantage : 
 
 " First follow nature, and your judgment frame 
 By her just standard, which is still the same : 
 Unerring nature, still divinely bright, 
 One clear, unchanged, and universal light, 
 Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart, 
 At once the source, and end, and test of art." 
 
 This was Pope's theory, and in the generation between 
 Pope and Burns the importance of following nature and 
 the vanity of artificial rules were insisted on with 
 untiring enthusiasm by poets and critics alike. But till 
 Burns arose no poetic aspirant was found, with the 
 doubtful exception of Collins, capable of reconciling 
 the conflicting claims of nature and art in practice. 
 Gray was stifled by too fastidious a desire for correct- 
 ness ; Thomson, Akenside, Shenstone, and the Wartons 
 had abundant enthusiasm for nature, but insufficient art. 
 It was not, indeed, their poetic principles that undid the 
 correct school ; it was rather the artificial taste, the fear 
 of vulgarity, the liking for something elevated above 
 the vulgar style, among the audience for which they 
 wrote ; and this led them into what was really a viola- 
 tion of Pope's principle of aiming at what oft was 
 thought, induced them to search for what seldom was 
 thought, and to avoid what was never expressed in 
 polite society. Burns was more fortunate in his audi- 
 ence, although he worked on the same principles, and 
 found both warrant and guidance in Pope's "Essay on 
 Criticism." 
 
 At first sight it might seem that Burns was all on the 
 side of the naturalists : 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 351 
 
 " Gie me ae touch o' nature's fire, 
 That's a' the learning I desire." 
 
 This aspiration is sometimes quoted as if it distinguished 
 Burns from his artificial eighteenth-century predecessors, 
 and as if it were the secret of his greatness ; but really 
 there is nothing singular in it : it might be paralleled 
 from every poet and poetaster between Pope and him- 
 self. We are all willing to throw upon nature the labor 
 that nature requires from us. It was not the touch of 
 nature's fire alone that made Burns the great artist he 
 was ; it was the happy combination of this with an 
 indomitable effort after perfection of expression. That 
 Burns had natural fire there is no question ; every-body 
 feels it in his poetry, and every-body allows that the 
 touch of nature's fire is indispensable. But Burns had 
 courage enough to recognize that the possession of 
 natural fire did not absolve him from the necessity of 
 resolute artistic discipline ; and his distinction lies in 
 this, that he had strength enough to undergo the dis- 
 cipline without losing his hold on nature. How many 
 of his songs fulfil in substance Pope's ideal — 
 
 " What oft was thought, hut ne'er so well expressed " — 
 
 "Auld Lang Syne," "Ye Banks and Braes," "Scots 
 wha hae," " John Anderson," " Tarn Glen," " Duncan 
 Gray." And if we either look at his poems in relation 
 to the works of his predecessors, or study his recorded 
 habits of composition, it is easy to see that it was not 
 by trusting to natural impulse alone that he attained 
 this perfection of expression. " It is an excellent 
 method in a poet," he says, in one of his letters, " and 
 what I believe every poet does, to place some favorite 
 classic author, in his walks of study and composition, 
 before him as a model." This was obviously his own 
 practice. For almost every one of his poems he had a 
 precedent in general form as well as in metre : for 
 "The Twa Dogs" and "Tarn o' Shanter," Allan 
 
352 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 Ramsay's fables, the "Twa Books" and "The Three 
 Bonnets " ; for " Hallowe'en," Fergusson's " Hallow 
 Fair" ; for "The Cottar's Saturday Night," Fergusson's 
 " Farmer's Ingle," and so on. Even for his interchange 
 of rhyming epistles with brother bards, which were 
 dashed, as he said, " clean aff loof," he had the prec- 
 edent of Fergusson's correspondence with J. S. It 
 would almost seem as if he never wrote except with 
 some precedent in his eye, therein approving himself the 
 genuine child of the critical principles and practice of 
 Pope. Not, be it remembered, that he kept his prec- 
 edent before him for servile imitation ; it was before 
 his mind rather as a stimulating rival, to be beaten on 
 its own ground by superior natural force, higher art, 
 or happier choice of theme. There is no better way of 
 reviving our sense of the force of Burns's genius, if it 
 should happen to get blunted by too prolonged famili- 
 arity, than putting his work alongside the precedent with 
 Avhich it competes. He did not waste his strength in 
 searching for new types or strange topics ; he tried to 
 improve upon the old. "I have no doubt," he wrote 
 to Dr. Moore (in 1789), "but the knack, the aptitude, 
 to learn the Muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by Him 
 ' who forms the secret bias of the soul ' ; but I as 
 firmty believe that excellence in the profession is the 
 fruit of industry, labor, attention, and pains." And a 
 description by himself of his habits at the age of sixteen 
 gives us some idea of the kind of pains that he took, 
 from a very early period, in his self-education to the 
 office of poet : "A collection of English songs was my 
 vacle mecum. I pored over them driving my cart, or 
 walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse ; care- 
 fully noting the true, tender, or sublime, from affecta- 
 tion or fustian." There we see the artist at work, 
 laboriously building up for himself a standard of per- 
 fection in expression, and boldly applying nature as the 
 test of art. 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 353 
 
 Ten years later, at the age of twenty-six, in the win- 
 ter of 1785, stimulated by the intention of "appearing 
 in the public character of an author," Burns poured 
 forth poem after poem with marvellous rapidity; and, 
 seeing that much of his best work was produced then, 
 his easy, impetuous speed has been contrasted with the 
 laborious care of his eighteenth-century predecessors, 
 and it has been supposed that this speed was the secret 
 of his success. But those who argue thus forget the 
 long previous years of discipline to which the poet, with 
 all his ardor of imagination, had bad the strength of 
 will to subject himself. In the same way we are apt to 
 marvel at the ease and certainty of touch of a rapid 
 painter, and forget the pains that it took him to acquire 
 such mastery. There are few remains of Burns's appren- 
 tice work, because most of it was done in his head as he 
 followed the plough or walked beside his cart, or strolled 
 or lay in his scanty leisure on banks and braes. 
 
 But it is possible sometimes to trace a succession of 
 tries with a favorite idea, till at last he found a perfectly 
 satisfactory setting for it. The line : 
 
 " But seas between us braid bae roared " — 
 
 is perfectly balanced in its place in " Auld Lang Sjme " 
 against the companion line : 
 
 " We twa bae paidl't in the burn." 
 
 But the ocean's roar had done duty in more than one of 
 his earlier and less perfect poems before it was happily 
 settled in its present connection. At that desperate 
 crisis in his life when he proposed to expatriate himself, 
 and took a passage to the West Indies, he addressed the 
 following lines to Jean Armour : 
 
 " Though mountains rise and deserts howl, 
 And oceans roar between, 
 Yet dearer than my deathless soul 
 Still will I love my Jean." 
 
 23 
 
354 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 We find the same idea in another poem of the same 
 date : 
 
 " Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
 And leave auld Scotia's shore ? 
 Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, 
 Across the Atlantic's roar ? " 
 
 The idea occurs in still another poem, also written about 
 the same time : 
 
 " From thee, Eliza, I must go, 
 And from my native shore ; 
 The cruel fates between us throw 
 A boundless ocean's roar ; 
 
 " But boundless oceans, roaring wide, 
 Between my love and me, 
 They never, never can divide 
 My heart and soul from thee." 
 
 I am afraid these quotations illustrate rather more than 
 the poet's artistic practice ; but they show at least that 
 he was very constant as an artist, if not as a man. 
 
 Burns not only studied his art in books, and measured 
 himself against established masters with resolute emula- 
 tion and, we may well believe, a glorious joy in his own 
 powers, but, living as he did in his youth from morning 
 till night, day after day, in a world of the imagination, 
 with books for his constant companions, he seems to 
 have been influenced by books as few men have been in 
 his whole attitude toward life and his leading poetic 
 themes. He carried into his daily intercourse with plain 
 country-folk, who were his neighbors under the real sky, 
 ideals derived from this artificial world ; from it he 
 drew his sustenance ; it was the source of the strength 
 that lay behind the outward man. Mr. Robert Louis 
 Stevenson, in one of his "Familiar Studies of Men and 
 Books," draws an artistically harmonious and carefully 
 finished picture of Burns as Rab the Ranter, imaging 
 him as a rustic Don Juan or an Ayrshire Theophile 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 355 
 
 Gautier. It is recorded that the farmer's son of Lochlea 
 had, when a youth of twenty-one, the only tied hair in 
 the parish of Tarbolton, and wore a plaid of a particular 
 color, arranged in a particular manner round his shoul- 
 ders. This little peculiarity Mr. Stevenson happily in- 
 terprets as a sign of the poet's kinship in temperament 
 with the self-reliant artist, Avho is not averse to public 
 attention, but rather wishes to force his personality on 
 the world. The comparison with Gautier is so far 
 happy and suggestive that it puts proper emphasis on 
 the artistic side of the poet's nature ; it keeps us from 
 forgetting that the Ayrshire ploughman was, above every 
 thing, an artist, and, by force of artistic temperament 
 and habit, not a little of a poser. Mr. Stevenson's 
 diagnosis of the tied hair and the particular plaid as 
 artistic symptoms is good, and one could wish, in his 
 review of Burns's love affairs and lovedetters, to have had 
 more of the same happy vein of interpretation — to have 
 had more of the artist brought into prominence, and less 
 of the professional Don Juan. But the truth is that 
 any comparison of Burns to Don Juan or the magnifi- 
 cent leaders of the romantic movement in France is ana- 
 chronistic, and, so far, misleading. Though these had 
 something in common with Burns, they were later devel- 
 opments, with marked modifications of race and circum- 
 stances ; and if we go farther back, we shall find not 
 merely parallels, but prototypes, that had a direct influ- 
 ence in making Burns what he was. Rab the Ranter, 
 the "rantin' rovih"' boy that was born of the poet's 
 imagination in Kyle, and was the " worser spirit" of his 
 conduct, was the lineal descendant of the roaring boys 
 of the Elizabethan time and the swaggering wits and 
 beaux of the days of King Charles II.; but his nearest 
 relations are to be found in the poetry and fiction that 
 held the literary field when Burns was young. Rab the 
 Ranter is first cousin to Tom Jones and Roderick Ran- 
 dom and Charles Surface, and was probably acquainted 
 
356 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 with his relations ; his own immediate parent was, as I 
 have already indicated, the hero of Allan Ramsay's pas- 
 toral comedy, " The Gentle Shepherd " Patie, a rat- 
 tleskull, 
 
 " A very deil that aye maun hae his •will," 
 
 a king among his fellows by virtue of a natural air of 
 superiority, a rhymer and a singer, bold of address, glib 
 of tongue, an adept in chaffing the lasses, irresistible in 
 his arts of courtship, but, with all this, a student, "read- 
 ing fell books that teach him meikle skill," familiar 
 with Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, with poems, histories, 
 and plays — " reading," as Ramsay says in his homely 
 phrase : 
 
 " Reading such books as raise a peasant's mind 
 Above a lord's that is not so inclined." 
 
 All the roaring boys of eighteenth-century poetry and 
 fiction are distinguished by a certain goodness of heart, 
 and an active scorn of meanness and hypocrisy ; they 
 have strong natural affections ; they are full of com- 
 punction for the victims of their warm-blooded reckless- 
 ness. In short, they are all believers in " Rab's " ethical 
 creed : 
 
 " The heart aye's the part aye 
 That keeps us richt or wrang." 
 
 In so far as the poet was a rantin' rovin' Robin, this 
 was his literary lineage and consanguinity. But the 
 real Burns had a strain in him that would not permit 
 him to be a light-hearted roaring boy. Rab the Ranter 
 represented only one of his moods — a mood indulged 
 rather in a spirit of defiance than with thorough enjoy- 
 ment, as in one to the manner born. Burns was the 
 son of the pious cottar whose Saturday night he cele- 
 brated, and he could not remain long at ease in the Zion 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 357 
 
 of the ranters, however heartily he let himself go, and 
 however splendid his powers of expression were when 
 he was in the vein. He was the author of the addresses 
 " To a Mouse " and " To a Mountain Daisy," as well as 
 of "Tain o'Shanter" and "The Jolly Beggars"; he 
 was the "Man of Feeling," as well as " Rab the Ranter." 
 One of his most marked qualities is that which Carlyle 
 expresses with such eloquence of admiration, his large- 
 hearted sensibility, his boundless love of mankind, his 
 warm and ready sympathy for poor outcast, defenceless 
 creatures exposed to misfortune's bitter blast, a sym- 
 pathy generous enough to embrace and make allowance 
 for even the enemies of the well-conducted animal 
 world — the prowling wolf and the devil himself. Herein, 
 also, Burns was not singular ; here, also, we find him the 
 poet of 
 
 " What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed " 
 
 in his time. When Burns wrote, sensibility or senti- 
 mentality — tenderness for the woes of the unfortunate, 
 especially for sufferings that could not be relieved, or 
 for which no relief was possible but a compassionate 
 tear — was, and had been for several years, a ruling 
 fashion in literature. Sensibility was a favorite virtue 
 in the heroines, and even in the heroes, of the romances 
 of the time. Sterne's " Sentimental Journey," and 
 Mackenzie's " Man of Feeling," still stand out among 
 the numerous contemporary writings in the same vein. 
 "Dear sensibility!" cries Sterne, "source inexhausted 
 of all that is precious in our joys or costly in our sor- 
 rows ! . . . Thou givest a portion of it sometimes to the 
 roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest mountains. 
 He finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock. This 
 moment I behold him, leaning with his head against his 
 crook, with piteous inclination, looking down upon it ! 
 1 Oh, had I come one moment sooner ! ' " Sterne and 
 Mackenzie were favorite authors with Burns ; he wore 
 
358 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 out two copies of " The Man of Feeling," canning 
 it about in his pocket to read at odd times. 
 
 But the reader may ask, Am I not reducing Burns, 
 the child of nature, the heaven-taught poet, to a mere 
 creature of books? Would the lad that was born in 
 Kyle not have been a " rantin' rovin'" boy all the same 
 if there had been no such character in literature to 
 catch his imagination and sway his conduct ? Would 
 he not have been a " man of feeling " if Sterne and 
 Mackenzie had never written a line ? Possibty ; all 
 that I suggest is that, apart from any question of what 
 might have been, books did, as a matter of fact, influ- 
 ence both his character and his choice of poetical themes. 
 The nature, of course, must have been there before he 
 could have been thus influenced, the natural affinity 
 with what he absorbed from books, the germ that the 
 " potency of life " in them, to use Milton's phrase, 
 quickened and expanded. That Burns would have felt 
 pity for the poor mouse whose dwelling had been 
 ruined by his fell ploughshare, even if he had been 
 absolutely illiterate, we can well believe ; but that he 
 would have written a poetic address to the mouse if he 
 had not been steeped in the literature of sensibility is 
 open to question. I merely afford an illustration of the 
 truth expressed in Fletcher of Saltoun's famous saying : 
 " Let me make the ballads of a nation, and I care not 
 who makes its laws." Only Fletcher spoke of popular 
 music-hall songs, and the remark admits of a much 
 wider application — an application as wide as Milton 
 gave it in his " Essay on the Liberty of Unlicensed 
 Printing": "For books are not absolutely dead things, 
 but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active 
 as that soule was whose progeny they are ; nay, they 
 do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extrac- 
 tion of that living intellect that bred them. . . As 
 good almost kill a man as kill a good book." 
 
 I do not mean that Burns owed every thing to books. 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 359 
 
 In virtue of his artistic temperament be was peculiarly 
 susceptible to influences of all kinds, to ideas current in 
 the minds of living men, as well as to ideas preserved 
 in boohs ; but books exercised a paramount influence 
 upon him, because as a poet or artist in words he, more 
 than the generality of men, lived and moved and had 
 his being in the atmosphere of books. We have his 
 own direct testimony to this, even if it was not to be 
 divined f rom his artistic temperament, and the study of 
 his works in relation to his contemporaries. 
 
 Take an example or two. We find him at a time 
 when things were not going well with him writing as 
 follows to his friend Robert Ainslie : 
 
 " Let me quote you my two favourite passages, which, though 1 
 have repeated them ten thousand times, still they rouse my manhood 
 and steel my resolution like inspiration : 
 
 " ' On Reason build resolve, 
 That column of true majesty in man.' 
 
 — YOUNG. 
 
 " 'Here, Alfred, hero of the State, 
 
 Thy genius heaven's high will declare : 
 The triumph of the truly great 
 Is never, never to despair ! 
 Is never to despair ! ' 
 
 —Thomson, ' Masque of Alfred.'" 
 
 For many men, most men, perhaps, such high-sounding 
 phrases are hollow and pointless, brass sounds and noth- 
 ing more ; for Burns they obviously had " a potency 
 of life." A letter to Murdoch earlier in his career is 
 still more significant of the support he received from 
 books, turning poetry to the use that the late Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold was never weary of recommending : 
 
 " My favourite authors are of the sentimental kind, such as 
 Shenstone, particularly his ' Elegies ' ; Thomson ; ' Man of 
 Feeling,' a book I prize next to the Bible ; ' Man of the World'; 
 Sterne, especially his 'Sentimental Journey'; Macpherson's 
 ' Ossian,' &c. These are the glorious models after whicli I 
 
360 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 endeavour to form my conduct ; and 'tis incongruous, 'tis absurd 
 to suppose that the man whose mind glows with sentiments 
 lighted up at their sacred flame — the man whose heart distends 
 with benevolence to all the human race, he 'who can soar above 
 this little scene of things ' — can he descend to mind the paltry 
 concerns about which the terrse-filial race fret and fume and vex 
 themselves ! O, how the glorious triumph swells my heart ! 
 I forget that I am a poor, insignificant devil, unnoticed and 
 unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, when I 
 happen to be in them, reading a page or two of mankind, and 
 ' catching the manners living as they rise,' whilst the men of 
 business jostle me on every side as an idle incumbrance in their 
 way." 
 
 Through that frank letter we can look as through an 
 open window into the heart of Burns as it was at the 
 age of twenty-four, and it helps us to understand why 
 he failed as a farmer and why he succeeded as a poet, 
 because it shows us how resolutely his heart was set on 
 one ambition, and how entirely his mind was occupied 
 with the world of the imagination. At that date the 
 ranter strain in Burns's character was but very partially 
 developed ; we can see that the " man of feeling " was 
 then uppermost ; and we can note, also, the working in 
 his mind of another favorite ideal of the time, — a favor- 
 ite ideal among artists at all times, — that of the specta- 
 tor, the observer, who comes down from his world of 
 dreams and meditations to read in the great book of 
 mankind. 
 
 Any thing that I have said would lead very far from 
 my meaning if it conveyed the impression that Burns 
 neglected to study either man or nature from the life. 
 My theory, if any thing so obvious can be dignified with 
 the name of theory, onty is that it was from literature 
 that his genius received the original impulse and bent 
 to that study by which literature was so much enriched. 
 His poetry is not a mere freak of nature, a thing sui 
 generis, but an organic part of the body of English 
 literature, with its attachments or points of connection 
 
THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS OF BURNS 361 
 
 only slightly disguised by difference of dialect. It drew 
 its inspiration from literature, and it became in its turn 
 a fruitful source of inspiration to two great poets of 
 the next generation, Wordsworth and Byron. One 
 main secret of Bryon's fascination was the frank 
 sincerity with which he laid bare his own personal 
 feelings to the world, abandoning the timid reserve, 
 the polite reticence about self, that had been the ruling 
 tradition of the eighteenth century ; and it may be 
 doubted whether, with all his impetuous strength and 
 defiant pride, Byron would have broken so completely 
 with this tradition if Burns had not led the way. It is 
 with the " nobly pensive" side of Burns, with Burns as 
 the "man of feeling," that Wordsworth connects him- 
 self ; and it may be doubted whether Wordsworth 
 would have reached the conviction which is the root 
 and source of so much of his best work, that : 
 
 " Nature for all conditions wants not power 
 To consecrate, if we have eyes to see 
 The outside of her creatures, and to breathe 
 Grandeur upon the very humblest face 
 Of human life" — 
 
 it may be doubted whether Wordsworth would have 
 reached this conviction as an inspiring principle of 
 fresh poetic work if Burns had not first taught him, to 
 use his own words in acknowledging the obligation : 
 
 " How verse may build a princely throne 
 On humble truth." 
 
 Carlyle, in his celebrated essay on Burns, in which, 
 with all its eloquence, he seems to me to speak far too 
 disparagingly of Burns's actual achievement as a poet, 
 regrets that his father's circumstances did not permit 
 him to reach the university, and conjectures that he 
 might then have " come forth not as a rustic wonder, 
 but as a regular well-trained intellectual workman, and 
 
362 SUPPLEMENT 
 
 changed the whole course of English literature." But, 
 after all, as it was, Burns did something like this. I do 
 not myself believe in the possibility of revolutionary 
 changes in literature ; the history of literature is the 
 history of a gradual development, advancing often, no 
 doubt, by leaps and bounds, but always by natural 
 transition from one stage to another. I doubt, there- 
 fore, whether Burns would have " changed the whole 
 course of English literature " if he had gone to a 
 university ; but, as it was, he exercised an important 
 influence on that literature, and it is at least probable 
 that he would have been hindered rather than helped in 
 that mission if his education had been different from 
 what it was. He might have been a happier man 
 otherwise, but it may be doubted whether he would 
 have been a greater poet. 
 
 / 
 
 
 THE END