--and because in _Julian and Maddalo_ he has represented Byron as saying
that men
... learn in suffering what they teach in song
--are we to conclude that sadness and suffering are the only things in
life, the only things in it deserving of the poet's music? No one will
ever be a poet of much consequence who has not suffered, for, as Goethe
finely says, he who never ate his bread in sorrow, knows not the Heavenly
Powers. But, if our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest
thought, they are not necessarily our strongest or our greatest songs; and
if we accept the assertion that men learn in suffering what they teach in
song, do not let us forget the "learning" spoken of in the line. The poet,
no doubt, has to learn by suffering, but having learnt, he has then, in my
opinion, to help others not to be miserable, but to be happy.
I cannot here allude to well-known poets of other ages and other nations,
avowedly great and permanent benefactors of mankind, all of whom alike
were completely free from this malady of universal discontent. But let me
at least take a cursory survey of our native poets; for, after all, to us
English men and English women, what English poets have felt and said
concerns us most and interests us most deeply. Let us see what is their
attitude to external nature, to man, woman, life, society, and the general
dispensation of existence.
You know how our modern pessimists cannot see a tree, a flower, or a
mountain, but straightway they drop into what I may call a falling
sickness, and all the beauty of the woods, fields, and sky merely suggests
to them a picturesque background for their own superior sighs and sorrows.
How differently Chaucer looks upon the panorama of this fair earth of
ours! He is a great student, as men in the early days of the Renaissance
were, and he tells us that he hath such delight in reading books, and has
in his heart for them such reverence, that there is no game which can tear
him away from them. But, when the month of May comes, and the birds sing,
and the flowers begin to shoot, then, he adds, "Farewell my book and my
devotion!" He wanders forth and beholds the eye of the daisy; and this
blissful sight, as he calls it, softeneth all his sorrow. Elsewhere he
describes how he cannot lie in bed for the glad beams of the sun that pour
in through the window. He rushes out, and is delighted with everything.
The welkin is fair, the air blue and light, it is neither too hot nor too
cold, and not a cloud is anywhere to be seen. This disposition of content
with and joy in external Nature, Chaucer displays equally when he consorts
with his kind. It is very noticeable, though I am not aware if it has been
pointed out before, how he portrays all the various pilgrims and
personages in the famous _Prologue to the Canterbury Tales_ as of cheerful
and generally jovial spirits. There is not a melancholy person, not a
pessimist, in the whole company. He describes himself as talking and
having fellowship with every one of them, and we may therefore conclude he
also was pretty cheerful and genial himself. Even of his "perfect gentle
knight," whom he evidently intended to describe as the pink of chivalry,
he says:
And though that he was worthy, he was wise.
And there never was, and never will be, wisdom without cheerfulness. As
for the young Squire, the lover and lusty bachelor, that accompanied the
Knight, Chaucer says of him, in a couplet that has always struck me as
possessing a peculiar charm:
Singing he was or fluting all the day,
He was as merry as the month of May.
He says of him, though he could sit a horse well, he could also write
songs; and we can easily surmise what the songs were like. Chaucer's Nun
or Prioress is delineated by him as full pleasant and amiable of port, and
as even taking trouble to feign the cheerful air of a lady of the Court.
When the Monk rides abroad, men could hear his bridle jingling in a
whistling wind as clear and loud as the chapel bell. Do not the words stir
one's blood to cheerfulness, and sound like a very carillon of joy? Of the
Friar it is recorded that certainly he had a merry note, and well could he
sing and play upon the harp, and that while he sang and played, his eyes
twinkled in his head, like stars in the frosty night. The business of the
Clerk of Oxenford was by his speech to sow abroad moral virtue; but
Chaucer adds, "And gladly would he learn--" mark that word "gladly" "--and
gladly teach." The Franklin, a country gentleman, he declares, was wont to
live in delight, for he was Epicurus' own son. The Shipman draws many a
draught of wine from Bordeaux; well can the wife of Bath laugh and jest;
the Miller is a regular joker and buffoon; a better fellow you cannot
find, he avers, than the Sumpnor; and the Pardoner, for very jollity, goes
bareheaded, singing full merrily and loud. As for the Landlord of the
"Tabard," he is described as making great cheer, being a right merry man.
He declares there is no comfort nor mirth in riding to Canterbury, even on
pilgrimage, as dumb as a stone, and that they may smite off his head if he
does not succeed in making them merry; and it all ends by Chaucer
declaring that every wight was blithe and glad. Indeed, these are such a
cheery, such a jovial set, that the only sorrow we can feel in connection
with them is regret that we, too, were not of that delightful company.
I wonder if it has occurred to you, while reading these brief and cursory
extracts from Chaucer, to say to yourselves, "How English it all is!" If
not, may I say it for you? I am free to confess that I am one of those who
think--and I hope there are some in this room who share my opinion--that
the epithet English is an epithet to be proud of, an adjective of praise,
a mark of commendation, and connotes, as the logician would say,
everything that is manly, brave, wholesome, and sane. These latter-day
melancholy moping minstrels are not English at all, they are feeble copies
of foreign originals. Between them and Chaucer there is absolute
alienation. About them there is nothing jolly or jovial, and there is not
one good fellow among them.
Let us turn to the next great name according to chronological order in
English Poetry; let us glance, if but rapidly, at the pages of Spenser.
You could not well have two poets of more different dispositions than
Chaucer and Spenser. One seems to hear Chaucer's own bridle jingling in a
whistling wind, to see his own eyes twinkling in his head like stars in
the frosty night, and one thinks of him, too, as singing or fluting all
the day long and being as merry as the month of May. In the gaze, on the
brow, and in the pages of Spenser, there abides a lofty dignity, as of a
high-born stately gentleman, deferential to all, but familiar with none.
Indeed he resembles his own Gentle Knight in the opening lines of the
_Fairy Queen_, the description of whom I have always thought is none other
than the portraiture of himself. If ever a poet had high seriousness it is
Spenser. He never condescends to indulge in the broad jests dear to
Chaucer, frequent in Shakespeare, common in Byron. Yet between him and
Chaucer, between him and every great poet, there is this similarity, that
he looks on life with a cheerful mind. It is a grave cheerfulness, but
cheerfulness all the same; and, in truth, cheerful gravity, and high
seriousness are one and the same thing.
Full jolly Knight he seemed, and fair did sit,
As one for Knightly jousts and fierce encounters fit!
he says in the very first stanza of his noble poem. "Jolly," no doubt,
does not mean quite the same thing with Spenser as it does with Chaucer.
There is the difference in signification, we may say, that there is, in
character, between the Landlord of the "Tabard" and the Gentle Knight. But
never does the latter lapse into melancholy, much less into Pessimism. He
is too active, on too great adventure bound, and too impressed with its
solemn importance, for that. Spenser himself significantly expresses the
fear that his Gentle Knight
Of his cheer did seem too solemn sad,
as though he wished to let us know that even solemn sadness is a fault.
But he soon enables us to discern that appearance is misleading, and
reflects in reality only a noble, lofty, and serene temper, and that
desire to win the worship and favour of the Fairy Queen, which he tells
us, "of all earthly things, the Knight most did crave." As soon as Spenser
has described the lovely lady that rode the Knight beside, he says:
And forth they pass, with _pleasure_ forward led.