"That made first to dystylle and rayne
The gold dewe dropys of speche and eloquence,
Into our tunge thrugh his excellence."[1]
has ever stood first among the writers who have drunk at "the well of
English undefiled."[2] He has been called the father of English verse,
and properly. He travelled several times into the countries of the
south, and, as great minds are seldom idle ones, we might infer,
without the proof which exists in so many shapes, that he became a
pupil to the Italian masters.
[Footnote 1: Lydgate.]
[Footnote 2: The term "well of English undefiled," was applied to
Chaucer by Spenser, because he arranged and settled the
language--stripping it of many barbarisms and foreign incumbrances. I
am aware that he introduced as many foreign words as he cast out; but
the rejected were corrupt fragments of the Norman French, which yet
(though soft compared with the Saxon,) bore in part a mark of its
parentage; and the selections made for the purpose of replacing them,
were from the _Langue D'Oc_--the most beautifully musical of all
tongues. He consequently did not _defile_ the English language.]
He was a student, and returned to England laden with the fruits of his
study. It was his fate to come between the scholars of that and
preceding ages, who worked their religious and scientific instructions
into _heavy_ Latin metre, and the court minions, who sang to their
mistresses and patrons in Norman French, and lay a solid foundation
out of the scattered fragments of real English poetry. With little
fancy, less imagination, and the little of the first clipped, by his
matter-of-fact employment as _wool inspector_, he has succeeded in
story-telling better than any of his successors. In a tale, the more
vivid the picture drawn, the more interesting the tale. To be minute
and particular in description, is to beget a vivid picture: and this
is the secret of Chaucer's popularity. He writes as if he were taking
an inventory of, rather than describing, things around him. Ages
after, when this same talent for descending skilfully into
particulars, was used in the description of natural scenery and of the
workings of the human breast, it gave Spenser's Pastorals, and the
tragedies of Shakspeare and poor Shelly, a beauty which in the first
two, men have long ago learned to appreciate, and which in the course
of time, will place the last on the seat to which he is entitled. The
whole secret of Chaucer's charm is, as I have said, particularity. If
he had used this talent in describing the many workings of the human
heart, he would probably have failed--for no man can describe that of
which he is ignorant.[3] If he had turned his attention to pastoral
poetry, he _might_ have succeeded; and indeed, in the descriptions of
nature scattered throughout his various poems, he has succeeded
admirably. But something more is wanting than this power of
description, in the song of a shepherd. From his wild and unrestrained
life among the hills of a legendary country--surrounded as he is, by
"kids and lambs, and blithe birds," we not only look for minuteness of
description, but affecting plaintiveness and imaginative imbodyings.
This last is one great aid to Spenser's pastoral poetry. But I am
anticipating my subject.
[Footnote 3: Chaucer has the reputation of being a great "painter of
characters;" but he excels in describing manner, bearing, dress,
&c.--not in picturing the workings of the "human heart."]
Chaucer was the founder of a style which after poets have often
attempted to imitate. Dryden and Pope have paraphrased his works; and
Keates tells us that he is too weak to do other than "stammer where
Dan Chaucer sung." The Canterbury tales were modelled after, and for
the most part copied from the Decameron of Boccacio. The prologue to
these is the most perfect thing of its kind extant. His satires are
strong, and chiefly aimed against the enemies of Wickliffe, and his
patron John of Lancaster. Chaucer was a philosopher too--a great one
for his age. His treatise on the Astrolabe, intended for the benefit
of his son, manifests more information than we would look for in the
reign of Edward III. His satires against the opponents of Wickliffe
are rather political than religious. In religious matters he seems to
have possessed a praiseworthy spirit of toleration--a quality unknown
for ages after to the "agents elect" of a peace-loving Christ.[4]
Altogether, Chaucer was a wonderful man, and certainly, for his time,
a poet as "parfite" and as "gentil" as his own knight.[5] His
Canterbury tales are his _great_ works: they gave a tone to English
poetry. In these days, when all literature has lost its freshness, it
would be a pleasant thing if we could
"Call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball and of Algarsife,
And who had Canacè to wife,
That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass
On which the Tartan king did ride."[6]
I should like to believe in the Pythagorean doctrine, if only for the
pleasant consciousness that old Geoffry Chaucer had left his spirit
behind him. He died on the 25th of October, (the same day of the same
month on which died King Alfred,) in the year 1400; and was buried in
Westminster Abbey, where for a long time these words were upon his
tomb:
"Galfridus Chaucer, vates et fama poesis
Maternæ hac sacra sum tumulatis humo."
[Footnote 4: It is in a letter to his son, where he is remarking upon
the merits of the different sects that we find this odd
similitude--"There are many roads leading to Rome." He was not narrow
brained enough to believe that there was but one.]
[Footnote 5: "He was a veray parfite gentil knight."--_Prol. Can.
Tales._]
[Footnote 6: Milton's Il Pensoroso, in allusion to the Squire's tale
in Chaucer.]
II. Before passing on to the celebrated poets of the time of Henry
VIII, I will make a few remarks upon the ancient ballad of "Chevy
Chase."
Little or nothing more than the name of the author of this fine old
heroic ballad, is at present known. Dr. Percy's conjecture with regard
to the date of its composition, may or may not be correct. But I will
assume it as an accurate one. The manuscript copy belonging to the
Harleian Library, has the name of Richard Sheale attached to it.
Sheale perhaps lived in the reign of Henry VI, and as probably was
from the north country. He may indeed have been a minstrel in the
Percy family; but this is mere conjecture. In reference to some of the
characteristics of this ballad, it strikes me that Sir Philip Sidney's
remark, in his "Apology for Poetry," is in very bad taste. After
regretting that so fine and stirring an old song should be "apparelled
in the dust and cobwebb of that uncivill age," he asks, "what would it
not work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" Dr. Percy
speaks of the song as one "recommended to the most refined, and
endeared to the most simple reader, by genuine strokes of nature and
artless passion." Are gorgeous eloquence and nature fit comates? Would
the natural and manly simplicity, for which the greatest works of man
are so renowned, be well exchanged for the diffuse and ornate style of
a Grecian lyric poet? I think not. As for this old ballad's roughness,
I think _that_ rather a merit. Bating some uncouthness, I think the
language really better, much better adapted to the subject than our
own more polished diction might be possibly. Dr. Johnson, in a paper
of the Rambler, treats of the adaptation of sound to meaning; and
quotes many examples illustrating his ground, from Greek, Latin and
English poetry. He certainly is correct to a certain extent, if not
wholly, and I will apply his rules to the present case.
"Through the hunt and battle, the author's style is fiery and severe,
with the exception of a stanza or more, in which Percy and Douglass
rest upon their swords, and after the manner of Homer's heroes,
applaud each the other's gallantry. The poet in this place, seems to
pause in the same graceful rest which he has given his heroes. But the
battle renews; and his metre _personates_ its stormy vigor. At last
the minstrel sinks from his high place into the hollows of grief; for
the 'weeping widows' are before us, with 'birch and hazel biers,'
carrying the dead men to their burial. And then with what skill does
he shake off individual tenderness, and proclaim the 'national
regret!'"
All in all--beauty on beauty-- Chevy Chase has never been matched, and
does much better "unapparelled in the gorgeous eloquence of a Pindar."
Truly, the obscure author of this one ballad stands alone--the father
of English heroic poetry.
"Res gestæ, regumque, ducumque, et tristia bella,
Quo scribi possent numero monstravit Homerus."
But he has attained excellence, without following the path which Homer
"has shown;" and without using Homer's "numbers," has sung a great
song.
III. Next on the list of those poets to whom the English language and
English literature are indebted, stand Wyatt and Surrey. With regard
to the first, I will hardly say more than that he was an Anacreon
compared with his contemporaries. Rather gentle in his genius, he
wrote love verses intuitively, and added in no slight degree to the
melody of the language.
But Surrey added more. His love for the fair haired Lady Geraldine
sent him "knight-erranting" among the romances and romantic grounds of
Italy; and he is said to have been so well acquainted with the Tuscan
tongue, and so well read in Italian authors, as to be a marvel, even
in the days when Venice was the Paris of young English noblemen, and
the Appenines their Switzerland. It may be as well to quote a few
lines from Surrey's poems, as he has the reputation of having
introduced much of the southern softness into English verse.
"_Lines writ by Henry Howard Lord Surrey--being a complaynt that hys
Ladie, after she knew of hys love, kept her face always hydden from
hym._
"I never sawe my ladie laye apart
Her cornet blacke, in colde, nor yet in heate,
Sith first she knew my griefe was growen so greate,
(Whyche other fansies dryveth from my harte,
That to myself, I do the thought reserve,--
The which, unwares, did wound my woful brest;)
But on her face, mine eies mote never rest:
Yet synce I knew I dyd her love and serve,
Her golden tresses--cladd allway with blacke,
Her smyling lookes, that had thus evermore,
And that restraynes which I desire so sore:
So doth this cornet governe me alacke!
In sommer sunne, in winter's breathe, a frost
Wherebye the lyghte of her fayre lookes I lost."
The reader will recognize this as a paraphrase, or indeed almost
literal version of one of Petrarch's _canzoni_. He may, if curious
enough, amuse himself by studying it with the original, not for the
purpose of detecting the very visible theft, but for comparing a
specimen of English verse, while not nearly escaped from its rudeness,
with the Tuscan of perhaps the most musical of all bards.
The sonnet, so frequently used by Surrey, and after him by Shakspeare
and nearly every other English poet, was (according to Sir W. Jones,)
introduced from Arabia into Italy: thence, with other stanzaic
structures into England by Chaucer, who in one of his visits to the
south, is reported to have met Petrarch and made his friendship, in
Genoa. Surrey was doubtless the most skilful sonnet-weaver of his day,
and though too fond of the inversion, for which Milton is so much
blamed, for the most part pleases both ear and understanding. His end
was an unfortunate one. Henry VIII added the poet lover to the list of
those whom tyranny brought to the scaffold. He was beheaded in the
year 1500.
IV. Sir Philip Sidney was famous throughout all Europe for his
intellectual and personal accomplishments. He was spoken of as a
candidate for the throne of Poland on the death of Sigismond Augustus,
but Elizabeth was unwilling to lose the "prime jewel of all England,"
and retained him at the English court. It is more than probable that
he would have been defeated; for the claim of a Duke of Anjou, pleaded
by so wily an advocate as Montluc, "the happy embassador," would have
been more than strong enough to vanquish that of an honest,
open-minded British gentleman.
The character of Sir Philip Sidney was without reproach. Not unlike
Lord Surrey in his renown, he was yet more a hero than his illustrious
precursor. Lord Surrey was an accomplished and illustrious patrician,
the first of his age; but Sidney was a refinement upon nobility. He
was like the abstract and essence of romantic fiction, having the
courage (but not the barbarity) of the _preux chevaliers_ of ancient
time--their unwearied patience--their tender and stainless attachment.
He was a hero of chivalry, without the grossness and frailty of the
flesh. He lived beloved and admired, and died universally and
deservedly lamented. He is the last of those who have passed into a
marvel; and he is now remembered almost as the ideal personification
of a true knight.
Sir Philip Sidney's poetry was not without the faults of his time. It
abounds with conceits and strained similes, and the versification is
occasionally cramped. Nevertheless, many of his sonnets contain
beautiful images and deep sentiment, (such as the 31, 82, 84, and
others,) though a little impoverished by this alloy. But Sidney's
reputation was won upon crimson fields, as well as upon poetic
mountains. He wooed Bellona, as well as the Muses; and his last great
act, when dying at Zutphen, is of itself enough to justify the high
admiration of his countrymen.[7]
[Footnote 7: Vid. article "_Poetry_," in No. LXXXIII of Edin. Review,
April 1825.]
V. Edmond Spenser--Dryden's "father," and Southey's "dear master"--the
poet who "threw a rainbow across the heaven of poetry," was born in
London. He found, at the age of eighteen or thereabout, that a cousin
whom he loved would not receive his suit, and went into Cumberland,
where, to pour out his sorrow, he wrote the most mournful portions of
the "Shepherd's Calendar." He was for some time Secretary in
Ireland,[8] under Lord Grey de Wilton, where his Fairy Queen was
conceived and partly written; and died A.D. 1598, aged forty-five
years.
[Footnote 8: If I mistake not, Edmund Burke spent a portion of his
boyhood within sight of the garden where Spenser composed much of his
Fairy Queen. What better spot could there be for the education of
genius? This life, among scenes constantly exciting associations of
the most poetical and refined nature, may have assisted in giving
Burke's mind the poetic coloring for which it was so remarkable.]
Spenser and the other "fathers" of the English schools of poetry
should rather be called "masters of ceremonies," for they certainly
did not _beget_ their different orders of composition. Italy was the
cradle of these orders, not England. I will however adopt the first
and common title, and call Spenser father of the English allegorical
and pastoral poetry. And on these I will say a few words before I
proceed to his more striking excellencies.
The ancients were particularly fond of allegory. A field as vast as
could be desired was here opened for their poets. The whole heathen
mythology was a splendid allegory. Virgil's Ænead may be called an
allegory. As Eneas conducted the remnant of his countrymen from the
Trojan ruins to a new settlement in Italy, so Augustus, from the ruins
of the aristocracy, modelled a completely new government. I have not
leisure to pursue the parallel. Homer has in the Odyssey many
allegorical fables; as for instance those of Circe and Calypso. In
imitation of these, Virgil introduced his Dido. Going farther on we
find the love of allegory increasing in Italy. Ariosto's Alcina and
the Armida of Tasso are "copies from the copy" of Virgil; and coming
on English ground we find Spenser stealing from Tasso. As for the
kinds of poetry in which allegory should be used--In an epic, persons
of the "imaginary life," such as Virgil's
"_Strife_ that shakes
Her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes,"
and Spenser's "gnawing JEALOUSY sitting alone and biting his bitter
lips"--should by no means enter into the action of the poem. Virgil
knew this and made them nothing more than "_gate posts to his entrance
into Hades_."[9] The introduction of allegorical personages into the
drama is unpardonable. Even in ages when men were laid open by
superstition to the insinuating beauty of allegory; when the ignorant
imagined every rock to be the pent-house of some spirit; when the
timid walked abroad in fear and trembling, and when in consequence of
this feeling allegorical paintings even of a wild sort seemed natural
and agreeable to truth, its introduction into the drama met with but
little applause. Æschylus has often been criticised severely for his
frequent errors of this sort; one of which is his introduction of
STRENGTH, as a character who assists Vulcan in binding Prometheus to
his rock.
[Footnote 9: All lavish embellishment--such as Tasso's description of
the bower of bliss, in his "Jerusalem," which the reader will find
transplanted into the second book of Spenser's Fairy Queen--should
likewise be excluded from the epic. This species of poem--the grandest
of _all_ species--should be superior to such embellishment.]
Though excluded from epic and dramatic poetry, it may be used with
great aptness in poems of a descriptive nature. We thus find that
pastoral poetry often admits of an allegorical vein. Spenser knew
this, and has given us a happy instance in that eclogue of his
Shepherd's Calendar, in which he represents the union of the rivers
Briqoq and Mulla. He has still happier instances in _Æcloga tertia_
and in _Æcloga quinta_.
Spenser likewise acted as master of ceremonies to pastoral poetry in
its introduction to English literature. The great father of this order
was Theocritus. His follower was Virgil, who combined very skilfully
the _merum rus_ of the Idyllia with his own courtly grace. Tasso in
his Aminta imitated Virgil, and was in turn imitated by a host of
contemporary and subsequent poets among his countrymen. Without
copying Tasso in this as in other things, Spenser became the head of
English pastoral poetry, and has never yet been excelled.
Mr. Pope's remarks in the preface to his pastorals are evidently
correct. "The simplest states of life and feeling best suit this style
of poetry." Spenser's early pastorals, written
"amongst the cooly shade
Of the green alders by the Mulla's shore,"
are minute and beautiful pictures of the country and of country life.
Indeed, one of his poems may be likened to a country scene. Here are
musical brooks; there old woods cloaked in ornamental foliage; here a
succession of bold thoughts shaped into a chain of tall hills; there
the low vale of quiet unobtrusive beauty--all this, too, mellowed by
the gawsy twilight of love. Such are Spenser's early pictures, but
after mingling with the world, and losing his primitive simplicity of
temper, the elegance and refinement which gave such a charm to the
"Fairy Queen," spoiled his rural poetry. It was no longer a picture of
nature: his plant was a hot house one: his fruit had the _hortus
siccus_ flavor: his nightingales were caged, and sang from an embayed
window. This difference may be seen by comparing "Colin come home
again" with its predecessors.
But the Fairy Queen is his wonderful work. The elegant and sometimes
magnificent beauty of that lay, where the "great bard"
"In sage and solemn tunes hath sung
Of tourneys and of trophies hung,
Of forests and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear"--
has elevated his name to the high place which it fills with such
brilliancy. Every poetic palate will relish "the grapes of hidden
meaning so abundant under the vine-leaves of his exquisite allegory."
On the whole, as for Spenser as a _natural_ poet, all unite in
pronouncing him imaginative, bold, and even witty: as an artist, or
_educated_ poet, skilful, elegant, and full. His language is, for the
most part, rich and expressive; his verse (remarkably various in
arrangement) could scarcely be more melodious and pleasing. I will
close this portion of my remarks with a quotation, the source of which
I forget, but which I find pencilled upon the margin of my Chaucer.
"Spenser and Chaucer, instead of being forced into death by their
antiquated language, will, by their use of it, perpetuate its
remembrance. The ancient English is their servant. They are not and
never will be its victims."
VI. These are biographical times. A moiety of centuries ago, not even
a Shakspeare could find a biographer willing to follow the windings of
his career. We know nothing more of him _certainly_ than that he
remained on the Avon with his wife Anne Hatheway--his senior by eight
years--and three children, the last two of which were twins--until
ambition led him to London. That there his plays were written; and his
evenings spent with Ned Alleyne, Ben Jonson, Marlow and others, in
drinking canary wine, and in "tilting in the lists of literary
controversie." We have little knowledge of their pleasant
discussions--
"words--
Spoke in the mermaid"--
but in such a company, wit and humor must have been gods of the
entertainment. We are told that in table debate, "Jonson was like a
great Spanish gallion, and Shakspeare an English man of war. Master
Jonson was built far higher in learning; solid but slow in his
performances. Shakspeare lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could
turn with all tides, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness
of his wit and invention." We can easily fancy the plethoric Ben
writhing and chafing under the quickness of his adversary's attacks.
Within the last twenty years Shakspeare has become popular with the
German critics--the best perhaps of the age. The critical mania has
been imparted to the English, and I have observed lately in the
English Magazines several articles pretty much in the German tone. One
writer, for example, is engaged in building up a "life" of the poet
from rather strange _materiel_--his sonnets. This idea was started by
Schlegel, I believe--and is certainly a happy one: for all authors
have sorrows, and at times must seek relief by giving them utterance.
Indeed the works of an author's leisure moments are usually all of one
piece--all of the same tone--all harping upon the one black thread in
his fortune. Shakspeare asks in one of his sonnets--
"Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed
That every word doth almost tell my name
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument."
This brooding and inward looking is a common habit.[10] Chatterton,
Kirk White, and Dermody, have dissected their very hearts. Byron lives
in his vagrant "Childe," and bating some most disgusting affectation
in his Corsair--Lara--Giaour. Shelley groans with his
Prometheus--breathes in his Laon--and draws his own image with the
life of his Helen.[11] This may have been the case with Shakspeare.
Giving free scope to his heart's inmost workings, he has given
posterity, in his sonnets, a record of feeling so expressed as to
render it easy to build upon it a fabric of fact--a true and accurate
'life.'
[Footnote 10: Bulwer says in the Disowned, that his _effort_ is, at
all times to "avoid a self-picture in his writings." The very fact
that an _effort_ must be made, proves the existence of this yearning
egotism. In writings never intended for the world's eye there is no
drawback to the inclination, and it is followed. Shakspeare's sonnets
were not "writ for the world."]
[Footnote 11: This self-identity is not so visible in the tragedies of
Byron and Shelley, for the simple reason, perhaps, that these are more
the works of art--more the creatures of the brain than heart--abound
more in skill than feeling.]
His sonnets, as they now stand, are hardly intelligible, but when
placed in proper order, tell one unbroken story. We learn, _inter
alia_ that Shakspeare had a _male_ friend whom he loved most dearly:
that this friend "broke a two-fold truth"--and the question is, in
what manner. Searching farther we gain the clew, and find that the
poet had imbodied his vision of poetic loveliness--his _Iris en
air_--in one, whom in the midst of his dream of purity and beauty
unearthly, he found "as black as hell and as dark as night." That
friend wins her to his arms, and this is where he is "led to riot" and
to break a "two-fold truth." The poet finally discovers her wretched
nature and asks--
"Why should my heart think that a several plot
Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?"
Then pauses in the midst of the deeply affecting portraiture of
self-feeling, to whisper the exquisite self-excuse: "How could
Love's eye be true
That is so vexed with watching and with tears."
Perhaps self-portraiture might be even detected in his plays. Goethe's
comprehension of the incomprehensible Hamlet, (viz. That with a great
and philosophic mind he was too shrinking and sensitive for the
execution of his high resolves--in a word, that like a porcelain jar
attempting to enfold the roots of an oak, until shattered in the
attempt, his shrinking nature tottered under the pressure of a purpose
too mighty,) may have been a picture of Shakspeare's self: violent
ambition acting upon the poet's fine nature, as other passions did
upon that of Hamlet.
I have occupied so much space with that part of Shakspeare's history
little known, that it has given me an excuse for shunning the beaten
track altogether. I will however quote Dryden's eulogy, as it is short
and famous for its pith.[12]
"He was the man who of all modern and perhaps all ancient poets, had
the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were
still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily:
when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.
Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater
commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles
of books to read nature; he looked inwards and found her there. I
cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury
to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat,
insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clinches, his serious
swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great
occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject
for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of
poets,
'Quantum lenta solent inter viberna cupressi.'"
[Footnote 12: Dryden lauds the "commixture of comedy and tragedy," of
which Shakspeare has been so often guilty. This always seemed to me
unhappy. The "tragi-comic feeling" is at best an April day matter--a
fit of the hystericks--neither downright weeping, nor hearty laughter.
Or, yielding that sorrow is deeply impressed on the mind by the
melancholy pictures of the one portion, will a sudden transition to
merriment wipe it away? Dryden says, "why should we imagine the soul
of man more heavy than his senses? Does not the eye pass from an
unpleasant object to a pleasant in a very moment?" Receiving this
sophistry as genuine wisdom, it follows of course, that all actual
grief is transient. I would it were so. There would _then_ be no need
for the fountain of Lethe or the poppies of Ennor. One does not forget
the fall of the sod when his _eye_ turns from the newly covered grave
to the glitter and glare of life.
The mixture certainly is unhappy. Perhaps, as Coleridge has surmised,
it was the fruit of a proud carelesness. The poet, in the hour of
composition, feels that he has just written successfully. He is elated
and runs riot for awhile heedless, or, it may be, scarcely conscious
of what he writes. On this principle we may account for a prodigious
deal of extravagance, otherwise unaccountable.]
VII. Of Ben Jonson I will hardly say much. His "learning and
heavy-headedness" would scarcely render him the 'rare Ben' that he
once was, in this age of _learned professors_ and _profound scholars._
His learning gave him an undue admiration of Aristotle, and in his
plays he has followed the Grecian model too closely. Unity of time and
place is particularly inculcated in the rules of the Grecian schools;
and in France this had long been strictly observed. It was made matter
of minute inquiry in tragedy, whether such and such transactions could
be gone through while a talkative hero ranted so many verses. Or, in
comedy, whether an unfortunate shepherdess could go through the _Juno
Lucina fer opem_ ceremony, while a lewd city clerk stood by, and made
so many studied surmises--_sotto voce_. Unless unity of time and place
was observed in a drama, these 'line and rule Greekling Franks' damned
it. The consequence was that one plot--one method--Aristotle's [Greek:
go êythos]--was worked upon by successive dramatists, too timid to
'blanch the beaten track,' until it was threadbare. These fetters
which Shakspeare snapped, Jonson hugged.
Old Ben, as he was called, was once young, but the history of his
youth is rather cloudy. It seems probable, however, that the accounts
delivered us by his contemporaries, are true, notwithstanding Mr.
Gifford's sweeping denial. Following them, we learn, that Ben's
step-father was a bricklayer; that Ben himself "served at the trade,"
until he left it from weariness, and joined a company of strolling
players: that he enlisted and went with the English army into
Flanders, where he "killed his man, and bore off the spoils." His
prime and after life were spent in literary pursuits.
Old Ben was a quarrelsome, peevish companion; his body that of a
bloated giant; his face filthy, with a scorbutic affection, or, as
Decker quaintly says, "a face par-boiled, punched full of eyelet
holes, like the cover of a warming pan." His literary quarrels with
Decker, Marston, and other "men of London," eventuated in a surly
retreat on the part of Jonson. He was driven from comedy to Tragedy,
and we find him closing one of his poetic defences with the consoling
reflection, that
"There's something come into my thought,
That must and shall be sung, high and aloof,
Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof."
But the poet "died of sack," and lies in Westminster with a plain slab
above him, on which are these words:
"O RARE BEN JONSON!"
VIII. I pass with reluctance over the contemporaries of Spenser and
Shakspeare; contemporaries who aided in gaining for the Elizabethan
age the title of "_Augustan_."[13] I will not, however, leave this
ground, without quoting a few verses, imitated from the Italian of
Petrarch, by Elizabeth herself. The lines begin a little poem,
composed by the queen, "upon Mount Zeur's departure."[14] They are not
wanting in music:
"I grieve, yet dare not shew my discontent;
I love, and yet am forst to seem to hate;
I doe, yet dare not say I ever meant;
I seeme starke mute, but inwardly do prate;
I am, and not; I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself my other self I turned."
[Footnote 13: It was for wit that the reign of Augustus was
celebrated. The age preceding, was that of strength. The Elizabethan
age combined these.]
[Footnote 14: Ashmol. muss. MSS. p. 142.]
Passing on, we find "the melancholy Cowley." Cowley has ever been a
favorite with lovers; for love maddens men, and madness will always
find pleasant aliment in the metaphysical and metaphorical love verses
of this unnatural poet. The following is a loose paraphrase of one of
Anacreon's wine songs; so loose that we may as well style it original,
and adduce it as a specimen not only of Cowley's strange conceits, but
also of all the poetry in England, or rather at the court of the King,
during the reign of Charles II.[15] The sample is a happy one.
[Footnote 15: Cowley died in 1667, too early to have thoroughly
imbibed the peculiarities of the "poets of the restoration," if he had
remained in England before. But this was not the case; he was
secretary to the Earl of St. Albans, in Paris, during the
Protectorature, and there acquired these peculiarities.]
"DRINKING.
The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck from the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair;
The sea itself, (which one would think,
Should have but little need of drink,)
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So filled that they o'erflow the cup.
The busy sun, (and one would guess
By his drunken, fiery face no less,)
Drinks up the sea; and when he's done,
The moon and stars drink up the sun:
They drink and dance by their own light;
They drink and revel all the night.
Nothing in nature's sober found,
But an eternal health goes round;
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high;
Fill all the glasses there; for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?"
The question in the last line, is easily answered. If in no other way,
by the ridiculous death of Polycrates' minion, the immortal Anacreon,
who lost his mortality through the agency of an ingrate grape stone.
IX. To praise such men as Shakspeare and Milton, is like praising
Hercules. However, I am not one of those who think it idle to cry out
"O deare moon, O choyce stars!" when we look upon these in their
loveliness. And, leaving this question of the utility or inutility of
panegyric, to be discussed elsewhere, I will continue _pari passu_
upon the same track which I have hitherto pursued.--Of,
"A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as chaos; as the bloom
Of blowing Eden, fair; as heaven, sublime,"
Milton was fully equal to the vast labor, at his daring in undertaking
which, his friend old Andrew Marvel so marvelled. Like Amphion, he
sung of the wonders of creation; of Gods and immortal essences. His
Satan is a magnificent creation; a personification of all gloom and
all grandeur. Vast strength, angelic fashioning, revenge that nothing
can soothe, endurance that never shrinks, the intellect of heaven and
the pride of earth, ambition immeasurably high, and a courage which
quails not even before God, go to constitute a creation essentially
_ideal_. Satan is not like Macbeth or Lear, real in himself, literally
true, and only lifted into poetry by circumstance: but he is
altogether moulded in a dream of the imagination. Heaven, and earth,
and hell, are explored for gifts to make him eminent and peerless. He
is compounded of all; and at last stands up before us, with the starry
grandeur of darkness upon his forehead, but having the passions of
clay within his heart, and his home and foundation in the depths
below. It is thus gleaning, as it were, from every element, and
compounding them all in one grand design, which constitutes the poetry
of the character. Perhaps Ariel and Caliban are as purely ideal, as
the hero of Milton, and approach as nearly to him as any other
fiction; but the latter is incontestably a grander formation, and a
mightier agent, and moves through the perplexities of his career, with
a power that defies competition. And these are his comrades of
Pandemonium: Moloch, who changed the pleasant valley of Hinnom into
black Gehenna; Belial, the "manna tongued," than whom "a fairer person
lost not heaven;" Azaziel, Chemos, Peor, and the wonderful Astarte;
"_To whose bright image, nightly by the moon,
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs._"
Rimmon, too--he so dreaded by the "men of Abbana and Pharphar;" and
the wily Mammon,
"_The least erected spirit that fell
From heaven....
... admiring more,
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
Then aught divine or holy else enjoyed;
A vision beatific._"
These, all these, are splendid creations of the human intellect; and
how rich and poetic is his account of Mulsiber, who "dropt from the
zenith like _a falling star_." Of this description it has been
written, that "music and poetry run clasped together down a stream of
divine verse." But it is most in his Satan, that Milton's way becomes
the "_terribile via_" of Michael Angelo, which no one before or since
has been able to tread.
Comparisons have been instituted between Milton and Dantè; but however
excellent the Florentine may be, he had not the grasp, nor the soaring
power of the English poet. The images of Dantè, pass by like the
phantasms on a wall, clear indeed, and picturesque; but although true,
in a great measure to fact, wanting in reality. They have complexion
and shape, but not flesh or blood. Milton's earthly creatures have the
flush of living beauty upon them, and shew the changes of human
infirmity. They inhale the odors of the garden of Paradise, and wander
at will over lawns and flowers: they listen to God; they talk to
angels; they love, and are tempted, and fall! and with all this there
is a living principle about them, and (although Milton's faculty was
by no means generally dramatic,) they are brought before the reader,
and made, not the shadows of what once existed, but present probable
truths. His fiercer creations possess the grandeur of dreams, but they
have vitality within them also, and in character and substance are as
solid as the rock.[16]
[Footnote 16: Vide art. "_Poetry_," No. 82, Edin. Rev. April, 1825.
This article is another proof how difficult a matter it is to write of
poetry, without becoming poetical.]
His "Il Pensoroso," L'Allegro, and many of his sonnets, are enriched
by an antique vein. "Barbaric pearl and gold," crusted with age,
mingle with the airy and twinkling gems of his fancy. His spirit was,
at times, idle, dreaming, and voluptuous. He sometimes seems as though
he had slumbered through summer evenings in caves or forests, by
solitary streams, or by the murmuring ocean.
Dr. Blair's parallel between Homer and Milton, throws more light upon
the true character of Milton's mind, so far as sublimity is concerned,
than anything I have seen. "Homer's (sublimity) is generally
accompanied with fire and impetuosity; Milton's possesses more of a
calm and amazing grandeur. Homer warms and hurries us along; Milton
fixes us in a state of astonishment and elevation. Homer's sublimity
appears most in the description of actions; Milton's in that of
wonderful and stupendous objects." I would further apply a remark
which I have seen in the "table talk" of Coleridge, the poet, upon the
sublimity of Schiller, and that of Shakspeare. "Both are sublime, but
Homer's is the _material_ sublime."
These remarks are confined to his sublimity; but beauty, tender
beauty, was on the catalogue of his excellencies. I heard a lady once
liken Milton's mind to a sea shell. The wildest and most terrible
blasts, the gentlest and most honeyed breathings issue from the same
secret depths.
Milton has many singularities. One which, Addison I believe, praises,
is a habit of repeating in the answer the words of the question. Take
for example, these lines in Comus:
"Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err: there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night."[17]
[Footnote 17: The reader will remember a beautiful instance of this in
"Alroy," a work brimful of genius.]
He was also a pedant; but pedantry should only call forth censure,
when coupled with weakness. He used inversion to excess; about the
propriety of which no two critics agree. And any other faults than
these excusable ones, it would be difficult to discover.
In his Sampson Agonistes, he manifested great solidity and power: in
his Lycidas, the most exquisitely pathetic elegance; in his Comus, a
fine wandering philosophy. All these qualities were united in his
Paradise Lost, and (in not so great a degree, however,) in the
"Paradise Regained."
As a man, John Milton has been accused of time-serving. The truth of
this charge is rather problematical. Milton was no more a time-server,
so far at least as I am able to discover, than _any_ timid old man
living in his troubled age, would have been, from fear. Terror led him
into acts assuredly mean; but that terror should be his excuse; it
overruled a natural soundness and rectitude of heart. However,
meanness it was, and the reason that he has had his fame injured, is a
simple one. A beautiful thing, when at all tainted, is more disgusting
than if a greater taint were upon one less beautiful.
"Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."
X. Butler,[18] the comic satirist, was well drugged with the burlesque
sentiments and humorous conceits so prevalent in the reign of Charles
the second.
[Footnote 18: I will quote here a paragraph upon the "effect (of the
restoration) on national literature and national feeling." "The
restoration of Charles the second was fatal to poetry. That prince
brought with him a long train of wits; and large bands of exiled
courtiers flocked round him, who knew the points of a ruff, and were
connoisseurs in silk stockings and Flanders lace; but of English
literature they were utterly ignorant. Adversity had taught them
nothing, except hatred for their countrymen at home, and contempt for
their taste in all things. French fashions, French literature, French
morals, prevailed; and the wholesome examples of conjugal love and
social integrity, were fast melting away and disappearing before the
dazzling influence of a vicious court. The time of the English exiles
had been employed in patching their broken fortunes and rendering
themselves agreeable to their French patrons. Had they been reduced
simply to banishment, and left to ponder on the past, it is possible
that they might have taken a lesson from misfortune, which would have
strengthened the relaxed state of their moral constitution, and
awakened them to the high gratification derivable from the works of
intellect alone. But they had no example, and little motive. Their
King was utterly without any character, and the French did not require
any sterling accomplishments to admit them to the full benefits of
their society. They were, however, compelled to turn their wit to
present account, and so they contented themselves with paying court to
their hosts, with emulating their gallantry, with play, and other such
ordinary palliatives, as offer themselves most readily to the unhappy.
If our exiles ever thought seriously, it was how they might circumvent
old Noll and his Roundheads, not how they might endure
philosophically, or qualify themselves for prosperity again. Under all
circumstances, it was scarcely possible to avoid adopting the tone and
manners of the people with whom they lived. They _did_ adopt them, and
the literature of the age of Charles the second, may be considered as
one consequence of the exile of the Stuarts."]
Hudibras is well known as a rough satire, but few, even of those
familiar with that poem, I presume, ever thought of giving Butler
credit for the refinement of thought and style so frequently entwined
about masses of obscurity and ridiculous vulgarity. These silver
threads are often visible to the searching eye, and lead the student
to believe, that had the satirist not fallen into the vein, since his
day called Hudibrastic, he would have taken fair place among the
followers of Wyat.
Butler was, in his intercourse with the world, dull and unmoved,
wholly wanting in the rich humor for which his writings are so famous.
King Charles could scarcely be persuaded, that a man, to all
appearances, so stupid, could be the author of so much written wit.
XI. Waller is the next of those who produced any, the least
improvement in English literature; and he, indeed, rather should be
called a versifier than a poet; for there is assuredly none of the
divine afflatus about him. He wrote _prose_ in metre, and metre too of
great polish. He has been celebrated for the music of his numbers,
and, as usual, accused of borrowing from the well-head of all
melodious versification--the Italian schools. Tasso, translated by old
Fairfax, was his model.
XII. And now John Dryden starts up in my path, at first a Polyphemus
blinded by ill taste, and although a giant, never aiming his blows
aright--afterward a clear sighted and skilful Longinus. His taste
became pure with age, and before his death, he had become an admirable
critic.[19] In translation, satire and lyric poetry, he was unrivalled
until the coming of Pope. Indeed in the last, he has never been
rivalled. Satire is, perhaps, the only species of poetry into which
logic may be happily introduced. In every other, it straightens and
curbs the genius. If this be true, the Anglo-latins before the time of
Surrey, made a great mistake in their choice of subjects. The heavy
and operose reasoning with which their metrical folios on the trinity
&c. abound, would have been of assistance in satire. Dryden's logical
talent rendered his great political satire "Absolom and Achitophel,"
the best perhaps of his works. His McFlecnoe was thought inimitable,
until Pope made it the model of his Dunciad, and drew a picture better
than the original.
[Footnote 19: Of twenty-seven plays written by Dryden, nineteen were
in rhyme. These nineteen were his earliest works--and the very fact
that they are in rhyme, proves a want of taste. The remaining eight
were written later when his taste had ripened.]
In one night, Dryden began and completed the greatest ode in the
English language. The ode to St. Cecilia stands an unrivalled example
of lyric excellence. The ode by Pope with the same title, that by
Addison sung on the same day, fall far short of it, as do Cowley's
famous paraphrases from Pindar. Indeed, Campbell's Last Man is the
only lyric poem in the language at all akin in merit to that of
Dryden.
Pindar full of the spirit of his age, committed no extravagance in the
opinion of those who heard him at the Olympic games. But being
regarded as the father of lyric poetry, his wildness was imitated in
after ages, when that spirit was departed. This led to a great many
extravagant absurdities in Italy and in England. Poets made Pindar
their master and forgot Horace. The odes of the fifteenth century are
scarcely intelligible; and how those who preach simplicity, and
complain that Shelly's obscurity renders his poetry a sealed book,
can, as I have sometimes heard them do--applaud Cowley for the beauty
of his Pindarics is rather wonderful. In this unnatural state the ode
fell into Dryden's hands, and he new-modelled it with strange
felicity.
As a translator, Dryden shunned the latitude of those who, like
Cowley, paraphrased instead of translating, and at the same time
avoided the opposite evil. His translations are sufficiently accurate
to convey the original author's meaning, and sufficiently polished to
please an ear not too fastidious. He has fallen into error by carrying
out what he calls his principle of adaptation too far. It was his
opinion that "translation should be adapted to the present." For
example, that the sailors of Virgil should speak the sea phrases of
modern times, in order to make the description seem natural to the
modern reader. This principle he carried on shore too, and many
laughable instances of its application are to be found in his version
of the Æneid. He translates--
"Læva tibi tellus, et longo læva petantur
Æquora circuitu: dextrum fuge et littas"--
"Tack to the larboard and stand off to sea
Veer starboard sea and land."
A direction which Scott suspects would have been unintelligible not
only to Palinurus, but to the best pilot in the British navy.
He often too gives precedence in the arrangement of his verse to the
name that should be deferred, as in this line,
"The angels, _God_, the virgin and the saints, &c."
which as Mr. Ezekiel Sanford wittily enough observes reminds one of
the clown, who in giving an account of his hunt, begins with--"the dog
and I, and dad." In describing the appeal of the vagabond Trojans, he
falls into an odd blunder. We find
"Diamond buckles sparkling in their shoes."
A new version this, of _Pulchra Sicyona!_ However, this is _descending
into the cobbler's criticism on the painting of Apelles_. Cibber in
his parallel between Dryden and Pope yields to the first greater
genius, to the latter more elegance--and the remark seems a just one.
But I must leave this ground, haunted as it is with the genius of
"glorious John Dryden."
Dryden was hard and haughty in appearance. He had a deep thick brow--a
wide forehead, rather full at the temples. His mouth was spoiled by
wrinkles which gave him a too determined and stern appearance. He died
leaving two sons by Lady Elizabeth Howard, both of whom manifested
talent, and became scholars and gentlemen of reputation.
XIII. The poets between Dryden and Pope, did little toward the
advancement of English poetry. Although many of these were men of no
mean capability, and met with merited honor in their day, their
excellencies are not great enough to entitle them to a prominent place
in a paper whose limits enforce _selection_. It is perhaps better for
them that they are not admitted, as my applause even might, like paint
on the brush of a bad artist, injure rather than assist. Let them pass
then:--the odd and witty Prior; the melodious and animated Lansdown;
the pointed Congreve; the elaborate and particular Addison; the
penetrating Rowe; the easy and sweet Parnell--one and every one.
Alexander Pope, of a family at whose head was the Earl of Downe, lived
fifty-five years, during the greater part of which time he was a
distinguished contributor to his country's literature in pastoral,
lyric and didactic poetry--and most of all in satire and translation.
In noticing Cibber's parallel, I have already touched upon Pope's
peculiar excellence--elegance.
It was said by Warburton in the early part of that strange career
which ended in a steady friendship for Pope, that "Dryden borrowed
from the ancients through want of leisure; Pope from _want of
genius_," and on this latter, the enemies of the abused poet have
harped severely. One prominent argument which they adduce is the
seeming difficulty with which he wrote! "His polish," say they, "is
but the labored polish of a common hand. There are none of the sudden
and strong outbreaks of great genius. He piles his thoughts with the
labor of an ant building its hill." They shew his manuscript, lined
and interlined, corrected and re-corrected, until no eye can detect
the real reading, and forget that Isocrates was engaged nine years on
one short panegyric. It would strike me that Pope's numerous
corrections evinced fertility of mind. That the constant aim toward
excellence, was but the yearning of great genius after perfection.
This yearning did not display itself in Dryden, to whom belonged even
greater genius, for the simple reason that he had no leisure for it.
_He_ was Old Jacob Tonson's hack, and depended on his writings for
subsistence, while Pope was the receiver of annuities which rendered
him wholly independent. As a didactic writer, Pope stands conspicuous
among the philosophic poets, not only of England, but of the world.
Neither Virgil nor Lucretius can in this, boast superiority. And
Akenside, Armstrong, and even Boileau, fall far beneath. I have
remarked, that logic suited no order of poetry, except the satirical:
I do not contradict myself here. Lucretius pleases us with his bold
and original conceptions, no matter how faulty they are, Virgil, by
the poetic elegance which he throws upon his disjointed philosophy.
And Pope is the more pleasing for his want of method. Virgil's mode of
reasoning is the most orderly and best arranged of the three, and
consequently his didactic poems resemble more the Anglo-Latin
treatises of the twelfth and following centuries, than those of the
others do. In brief, sprightly carelesness of restraint, and _want of
method_, render Pope's "Essay on Criticism," and the "De rerum natura"
of Lucretius more agreeable to the reader than the best of Virgil's
Georgics. In satire, Pope was superior to Dryden, chiefly I presume,
in consequence of the latter's want of leisure to perfect the
reasoning which enters so importantly into that species of
composition. As a translator, he was unhappy in his choice of authors.
Virgil would have suited his style of genius far better than Homer.
His anglicized Greek lines wear too much frippery of dress. A happy
mean yet remains to be filled, between the extreme polish of Pope's
Homer, and the naked abruptness of both Chapman and Cowper. There was
a degree of hypocrisy in Pope's mode of publishing his letters which
should be censured. (Vide Quarrels of Authors.)
Pope perfected the music and elegance of the English verse. Drawn out
of chaos by old Chaucer; softened by Spenser; twisted into pliancy by
Surrey; subtilized by Cowley; smoothed by Waller; strongly and
beautifully modelled by Dryden;--it still wanted the finishing touch,
and this, Pope gave. But he was more than an accomplished linguist. A
skilful satirist, a touching eulogist, a philosophic tutor, and in
fine, in spite of bodily infirmities, a good and amiable man,[20] his
life was like the passage of a health-infusing river through the sands
of the earth. Useful to all within reach of its influence; when the
stream curdled in its bed, the loss was deeply felt. And although the
poet's works remain among us, it is only as the cedar and palm remain
upon the banks of the once living stream. "So good a man was he, his
presence doubled their beauty."[21]