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VICTORIAN LITERATURE
SIXTY YEARS OF BOOKS
AND BOOKMEN
_Births have brought us richness and variety,
And other births will bring us richness and variety;
I do not call one greater and one smaller;
That which fills its period and place is equal to any_.
_Walt Whitman_
VICTORIAN
LITERATURE
SIXTY YEARS
OF BOOKS AND
BOOKMEN
BY
CLEMENT SHORTER
LONDON: JAMES BOWDEN
10 HENRIETTA STREET
COVENT GARDEN W.C. 1897
INTRODUCTORY
Asked by a kindly publisher to add one more to the Jubilee volumes which
commemorate the sixtieth year of the Queen's reign, I am pleased at the
opportunity thus afforded me of gathering up a few impressions of
pleasant reading hours. "Every age," says Emerson, "must write its own
books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of
an older period will not fit this." It is true, of course, and as a
result the popular favourite of to-day is well-nigh forgotten to-morrow.
In reading the critical journals of thirty years ago it is made quite
clear that they contain few judgments which would be sustained by a
consensus of critical opinion to-day. Whether time will deal as hardly
with the critical judgments of to-day we may not live to see. I have no
ambition to put this book to a personal test. So far as it has any worth
at all it is meant to be bibliographical and not critical. It aspires to
furnish the young student, in handy form, with as large a number of
facts about books as can be concentrated in so small a volume. That this
has been done under the guise of a consecutive narrative, and not in
the form of a dictionary, is merely for the convenience of the writer.
I have endeavoured to say as little as possible about living poets and
novelists. With the historians and critics the matter is of less
importance. To say that Mr Samuel Rawson Gardiner has written a useful
history, or that Professor David Masson's "Life of Milton" is a valuable
contribution to biographical literature, will excite no antagonism. But
to attempt to assign Mr W. B. Yeats a place among the poets, or "Mark
Rutherford" a position among the prose writers of the day, is to
trespass upon ground which it is wiser to leave to the critics who write
in the literary journals from week to week. It was not possible to
ignore all living writers. I have ignored as many as I dared.
It was my intention at first to devote a chapter to Sixty Years of
American Literature. But for that task an Englishman who has paid but
one short visit to the United States has no qualification. He can write
of American literature only as seen through English eyes. That is to see
much of it, it is true. Few Americans realise the enormous influence
which the literature of their own land has had upon this country.
Probably the most read poet in England during the sixty years has been
Longfellow. Probably the most read novel has been "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
Among people who claim to be distinctly literary Hawthorne has been all
but the favourite novelist, Washington Irving not the least popular of
essayists, and Emerson the most invigorating moral influence. In my
youth "The Wide, Wide World" and "Queechy" were in everybody's hands; as
the stories of Bret Harte, William Dean Howells, Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
Frank Stockton, Henry James, and Mary Wilkins are to-day. Apart from
Dickens, nearly all our laughter has come from Mark Twain and Artemus
Ward.
In history, we in England have read Prescott and Motley; in poetry we
have read Walt Whitman, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier,
and, above all, James Russell Lowell, who endeared himself to us alike
as a poet, a critic, and in his own person when he represented the
United States at the Court of St James's. Lastly I recall the delight
with which as a boy I read the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," and
the joy with which as a man I visited the author, Dr Oliver Wendell
Holmes, in his pleasant study in Beacon Street, Boston. These and many
other writers have made America and the Americans very dear to
Englishmen, and this in spite of much wild and foolish talk in the
journals of the two countries.
I have to thank Mr William Mackenzie, the well-known publisher of
Glasgow, for kindly letting me draw upon some articles which I wrote
for his "National Cyclopaedia" ten years ago, and upon the literary
section, which he and his editor, Mr John Brabner, permitted me to
contribute at that time to a book entitled "The Victorian Empire." I
have also to thank my friends, Dr Robertson Nicoll and Mr L. F. Austin,
for kindly reading my proof-sheets, Mr Edward Clodd for valuable
suggestions, and Mr Sydney Webb, a friend of old student days, for
reading the chapter which treats briefly of sociology and economics.
A compilation of this kind can scarcely hope to escape the defects of
most such enterprises--errors both of date and of fact. I shall be glad
to receive corrections for the next edition.
CLEMENT K. SHORTER.
_September 27, 1897._
CHAPTER I
The Poets
When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, most of the great poets
who had been inspired by the French Revolutionary epoch were dead. Keats
had died in Rome in 1821, Shelley was drowned in the Gulf of Spezzia in
1822, Byron died at Missolonghi in 1824, Scott at Abbotsford in 1832,
and Coleridge at Highgate in 1834. Southey was Poet Laureate, although
Wordsworth held a paramount place, recognised on all hands as the
greatest poet of the day.
The gulf which separates the =Southey (1774-1843)= of the laureateship
from the Southey who presents himself to our judgment to-day is almost
impossible to bridge over. Southey, as the average bookman thinks of him
now, is the author of a "Life of Nelson" and of one or two lyrics and
ballads.[1] The "Life of Nelson" is constantly republished for an age
keenly bent on Nelson worship, but for the exacting it has been
superseded by at least two biographies from living authors.[2] That
Southey should live mainly by a book which was merely a publisher's
commission, and not by the works which he and his contemporaries deemed
immortal, is one of the ironies of literature. Southey's "Cowper" is a
much better biography than his "Nelson," but in Cowper the world has
almost ceased to be interested. It does not now read "Table Talk" and
"The Task" any more than it reads "Thalaba" and "Madoc," although every
cultivated household of sixty years ago could talk freely of these
poems. There will probably be a revival of interest in Cowper. It is
safe to assume that there will never be a revival of interest in
Southey, and that his very lengthy poems are doomed to oblivion.
And yet it is interesting to note where Southey's contemporaries placed
him. Shelley thought "Thalaba" magnificent, and its influence was marked
in "Queen Mab." Coleridge spoke of its "pastoral charm." Landor found
"Madoc" superb. Scott said that he had read it three or four times with
ever-increasing admiration. It kept Charles James Fox out of bed till
the small hours! But inexorable time has declared that these poems have
no permanent place in literature. Time, however, has left us a kindly
memory of Southey the man. Sara Coleridge's assertion that he was "on
the whole the best man she had ever known," tallies with the judgment of
many others of his contemporaries--who did not come into collision with
his relentless prejudices.
Relentless prejudice was equally a characteristic of Southey's greater
successor as Poet Laureate. =William Wordsworth (1770-1850)= had written
all the poems by which he will live when the Queen came to the throne,
but further recognition awaited the author of "Lyrical Ballads" and
"Laodamia" in the thirteen years of his life that were yet to come. It
was in 1839 that Keble, as Professor of Poetry at Oxford, welcomed
Wordsworth when he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. with the
eulogy that he had "shed a celestial light upon the affections, the
occupations and the piety of the poor." In 1842 he obtained an annuity
from the Civil List, and in the following year he succeeded Southey as
laureate. The mere fact, however, that Wordsworth wrote nothing of
importance in the present reign does not permit of his dismissal as a
pre-Victorian author. His real influence, splendid and serene, was made
upon the age which is passing away.
He found us when the age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round;
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.
During the period in which Wordsworth's poems were coming from the press
he was scoffed at alike by Byron and by the authors of "Rejected
Addresses," and they appealed to a sympathetic audience. Coleridge had,
indeed, praised him generously enough, but the author of "The Ode to
Duty" knew nothing of the enthusiastic partisanship which was to be his
lot in the later years of his life, and for more than a quarter of a
century after his death. I have before me two books which will serve to
indicate the high-water-mark of Wordsworth's popularity. One is a volume
of selections from his poems, which was edited by Mr Matthew Arnold,[3]
the other, a volume of Transactions of the Wordsworth Society, which was
privately issued to the members. In his little volume of "Selections" Mr
Arnold, then recognised on all hands as our most important living
critic, insisted upon Wordsworth's pre-eminence in poetry, placing him
indeed on a level with Shakspere and Milton, and assigning to Byron and
Shelley a secondary rank.
Mr Arnold, as events proved, only echoed a pervading sentiment. The
Wordsworth Society was founded, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Dean of St Paul's, the Lord Chief Justice of England, the then American
Minister--Mr Lowell--and a number of distinguished literary men, among
its members. The Transactions of that Society give evidence that among
the thoughtful men and women of the last decade Wordsworth was by far
the strongest influence, that he was not merely a literary tradition,
but that he was a vital force in the minds and hearts of nearly all the
most interesting people of the period. Students of to-day, however, will
be well content to read Wordsworth only in Matthew Arnold's
"Selections." Here they will find him as a sonneteer proclaiming liberty
with scarcely less zeal and power than Milton. They will find him as the
sympathetic friend of the poor and of the oppressed. To be dead to the
charm of Matthew Arnold's "Selections from Wordsworth" is to care
nothing for poetry. To appreciate with any measure of enthusiasm the
twelve volumes of Wordsworth's collected writings is equally to have
one's sense of true poetry deadened and destroyed. We have no time now
for "The Excursion" and "The Prelude." We have less for Wordsworth's
"Ecclesiastical Sonnets" and "The Borderers." For his copious prose
moralizings one has no toleration whatever.
It is not easy to judge whether =Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)= will ever
cease to retain the very wide hold upon the public which was his for at
least thirty years prior to his death, and which is his to-day. The
poems of Tennyson might be read by succeeding generations of Englishmen
if only for their exquisite purity of style. Music he has also in
abundance. In "Harold," "Queen Mary," and his other plays there is no
great gift of characterisation, and these assuredly will go the way of
Southey's more ambitious poems. But in "Maud" Tennyson caught the social
aspiration of his time with singular insight. The world, he pleaded--and
England in particular--was given over to money-getting. The capitalist
was more tyrannical than the old, expiring slave-owner. Even peace was a
mere word. There was a worse tyranny than that which left men for dead
on the battle-field. There was the tyranny which ground them to dust for
a bare pittance in mill and factory. Tennyson never wrote with greater
force or with more perfect dramatic and lyric art, and his poem is as
striking and effective to-day as at the time of its publication in 1855.
Lord Tennyson--for the Poet Laureate accepted a peerage in 1890--won the
hearts of a wider audience by "In Memoriam," and of a still larger one
by "The Idylls of the King." "In Memoriam," a lengthy elegy on his
college friend, Arthur Hallam, touched the great religious public of
England. The poem reflected a certain transcendentalism of view which
was fast becoming fashionable.
"There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds"
was, in fact, more and more the prevailing tone among all phases of
Protestantism where a few years earlier the exact opposite had been
insisted upon.
One of the most agreeable pictures which our literary period affords is
offered by the friendship between Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. The
two men were not seldom compared; each had his partisans, and each his
enthusiastic disciples. Neither from a social nor from a literary point
of view would they seem to have had much in common. Browning was a
regular diner-out, he appeared systematically at every picture-gallery,
and at every public entertainment, and in all these things he was keenly
interested: he loved society. Lord Tennyson, on the other hand, lived a
retired life in one or other of his country houses. He was morbidly
sensitive to the attentions of the crowd, and amusing stories are told
of his desire to avoid the "vulgar" gaze. Considered as literary men,
the contrast between these poets was greater. Tennyson's language was
dainty, simple, full of grace; his characters monotonous, lacking in
vigour. Browning wrote with rugged force, and sometimes with an
obscurity which left the reader bewildered. But his gift of
characterisation was superb, and his men and women for individuality are
comparable only to those of Shakspere. The hearts of all of us go out to
Tennyson when we think of the music of his verses, of his gifts of
natural description, his fine and captivating imagination; but our
hearts and our intellects go out to Browning, as to one who has
enshrined our best thoughts, who has touched all our deepest emotions.
It is true that half of Browning's sixteen volumes are flatly
incomprehensible to the majority of us; but the other half are equal in
bulk to the whole of Lord Tennyson's writings, and quite free from any
suspicion of obscurity. The "Ring and the Book" is not obscure. It is an
exciting story, dramatically told. So also are the poems called "Men and
Women," and the "Dramatic Idyls." "Luria," "In a Balcony," "A Blot in
the 'Scutcheon," are as readable as railway novels. And yet Browning
had, and has, none of the popularity of Tennyson. The one writer sold by
thousands, and his financial reward was probably unprecedented in
poetry; the other had but a small audience, an audience which never
approached to one-third of his rival's. Notwithstanding all this, it is
pleasing to note that the two poets loyally esteemed one another, as
the dedication of some of their books conspicuously proves.
To write thus early of =Robert Browning (1812-1889)= is to anticipate in
the literary record. "Pauline," the poet's first poem, was published, it
is true, in 1833; and that and successive poems were accepted by good
critics as the work of a true poet. Nevertheless, Browning had to fight
his way as no poet of equal merit has ever had to do, and it was very
late indeed in the Victorian epoch that he became more than the poet of
a limited circle. One there was, certainly, who appreciated his work
from the first with no common fervour, for the world has long been
familiar with the statement that a reference by Elizabeth Barrett in
"Lady Geraldine's Courtship" first brought the two poets together in
1845--
"From Browning some 'Pomegranate'
Which, if cut deep down the middle,
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured,
Of a veined humanity."
They were married a year later. As exemplifying the condescension of
their earlier contemporaries it is interesting to note Wordsworth's
observation on the event--and Wordsworth had no humour--"So, Robert
Browning and Elizabeth Barrett have gone off together! Well, I hope they
may understand each other--nobody else could!" Lord Granville, who was
staying in Florence when a son was born to the poets there in 1849, was
still more amusing although equally uncritical. "Now there are not two
incomprehensibles but three incomprehensibles," he said.
It cannot be charged against =Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)=
that she was in the least incomprehensible. Her "Cry of the Children,"
"Cowper's Grave," and "Aurora Leigh," have the note of extreme
simplicity. Nor is obscurity a characteristic of "Sonnets from the
Portuguese," which were not translations, but so named to disguise a
wife's devotion to her husband. "Aurora Leigh" she styled a "novel in
verse," and it was in fact a very readable romance, marked by that zest
for social reform which characterised the period.[4] "The most mature of
my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and
Art have entered," she wrote of it.
After the marriage the pair lived principally at Florence. In their
Florentine home--Casa Guidi--"Aurora Leigh," and "Casa Guidi Windows"
were written, and here Mrs Browning died in June 1861. One may still see
the house upon which the Florentine municipality has inscribed a tablet
in gratitude for the "golden ring" of poetry with which the
enthusiastic woman poet had attempted to unite England and Italy.
Another great Florentine by adoption, =Walter Savage Landor
(1775-1864)=, came to live near the Brownings. His rugged nature must
have been not a little soothed by the gentle little woman with "a soul
of fire enclosed in a shell of pearl." Landor was educated at Rugby, at
Ashbourne, and at Trinity College, Oxford. From Rugby he was removed to
avoid expulsion, and at Oxford he was rusticated. All this was the
outcome of an excitable temperament, which led in later life to domestic
complications, and to exile from his family in Florence. It found no
reflection in his many beautiful works. As a poet, however, Landor holds
no considerable rank, although here placed among them. "Gebir" was
published in 1798 and "Count Julian" in 1812. Both these lengthy poems
have received the rapturous praise of authoritative critics, De Quincey
even declaring that Count Julian was a creation worthy to rank beside
the Prometheus of AEschylus and Milton's Satan. Southey insisted indeed
that Landor had written verses "of which he would rather have been the
author than of any produced in our time." But Landor's poems, although
obtainable in his collected works, and published in selections, command
no audience to-day. With his prose the case is otherwise. There is
little in the six volumes of "Imaginary Conversations," or in the two
volumes of "Longer Prose Works," that does not merit attention alike for
style and matter. "Give me," he says in one of his prefaces, "ten
accomplished men for readers and I am content." Landor has all
accomplished men for readers now. And all are at one with the critic who
said that, "excepting Shakspere, no other writer has furnished us with
so many delicate aphorisms of human nature." Mr Swinburne's expression
of veneration is well known.
"I came as one whose thoughts half linger,
Half run before;
The youngest to the oldest singer
That England bore.
I found him whom I shall not find
Till all grief end;
In holiest age our mightiest mind,
Father and friend."
The connecting link between Landor and his young admirer is sufficiently
apparent. In genuine accomplishment, the imaginative literature of our
era has produced no one comparable to Landor, save only =Algernon
Charles Swinburne (1837- )=. Mr Swinburne has written well in several
languages other than his own. In his own he has written tragedies of
wider purpose than those of Tennyson, of equal insight with those of
Browning. He has written noble sonnets, lyrics of exquisite melody, and
one poem, "Ave atque Vale," which takes rank among the imperishable
elegies of our literature. He has abundant spontaneity and a marvellous
gift of rhythm. Added to all this, he is a critic of almost unequalled
learning and distinction. He was the first to give adequate recognition
to the poetic genius of Matthew Arnold and Emily Bronte. He knows
Elizabethan literature with remarkable thoroughness, and he knows the
literature of many ages and many lands better than most of the
professors. His appreciation of Charles Lamb endears him to English
readers, and his eulogies of Victor Hugo command the respect of
Frenchmen. A great poet and a great prose writer, Mr Swinburne is
perhaps the most distinguished literary figure of our day. Only when in
the distant years his country has lost him, will a great folly be
generally recognised. Why, it will be asked, did we not spontaneously
call for him--arch democrat and arch rebel though he may have been--as
the only possible successor to Lord Tennyson as Poet Laureate?
It has been said that Mr Swinburne was the first to recognise the great
poetical gifts of =Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)=. Writing in the
Fortnightly Review in 1867,[5] he remarked that the fame of Mr Matthew
Arnold had for some years been almost exclusively the fame of a prose
writer. "Those students," he continued, "could hardly find hearing, who
with all esteem and enjoyment of his essays ... retained the opinion
that, if justly judged, he must be judged by his verse and not by his
prose." The view that Arnold excelled as a prose writer continued to
hold sway for many years after Mr Swinburne wrote, and it was current up
to the date of Arnold's death. "Literature and Dogma" and "God and the
Bible," the former of which first appeared in 1873, excited an
extraordinary amount of attention, and helped largely to modify the
religious beliefs of many men and women now rapidly approaching middle
age. The son of a famous clergyman, Dr Thomas Arnold of Rugby, Matthew
Arnold was a product of that Broad Church movement which Dr Arnold had
helped largely to inspire. A fellow-pupil of Dr Stanley, Dean of
Westminster, Arnold went further than the Dean in his opposition to
supernaturalism in religion, though he stopped short of the fiery
antagonism which another eminent Anglican churchman, Bishop Colenso,
displayed towards the miraculous stories of the Old Testament. But far
more than Stanley or Colenso did he influence the Protestant
Christianity of his day. This, however, scarcely enters into the
discussion of Matthew Arnold the poet. More akin to that side of
Arnold's life is his literary criticism. For many years he held in this
field a well nigh undisputed throne. For a time he was Professor of
Poetry at Oxford. But his influence came mainly through a volume called
"Essays in Criticism" (1865), of which it is not too much to say that
the paper entitled "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time," gave
a new impulse to all students of books. Here and elsewhere Arnold
emphasised the opinion that not only a fine artistic instinct but a vast
amount of knowledge, admitting of comparisons, is necessary as the
equipment of a critic. Criticism he defined as "a disinterested
endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in
the world." Matthew Arnold had other claims as a prose writer. His
appeal for the study of Celtic literature initiated and encouraged a
revival of learning in Wales and in Ireland; and his books and essays on
Education--for his main income for many years was derived from his
salary as an Inspector of Schools--did much to further the cause which
his brother-in-law, Mr W. E. Forster, began with the great Education Act
of 1870.
But it is as a poet, as Mr Swinburne foretold, that Matthew Arnold lives
in literature. It is strange to some of us to note how largely the bulk
of his prose work has dropped out of the memory of the younger
generation. The diligent collector possesses some forty-five volumes of
Mr Arnold's writings; but although there has been a cheap reprint of
many of these, it is only by his collected poems that he is widely known
to-day. Mr Swinburne, in the essay to which I have referred, tells of
the joy with which, as a schoolboy, he came upon a copy of "Empedocles
on Etna." He must then have been about fifteen years of age, as
"Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems by A" was published in 1852. It
contained "Tristram and Iseult," "Stanzas in Memory of the Author of
'Obermann,'" and many now accepted favourites. "The Strayed Reveller" by
"A" was a still earlier volume of anonymous verse (1849); and, in 1853,
"Poems" by Matthew Arnold made the poet known by name to a small circle.
A substantial recognition as a poet did not however fall to Matthew
Arnold while he lived. His career is, indeed, a striking example of the
fact that our views of contemporary literature require to be revised
every decade. Ten years ago everyone was discussing Matthew Arnold's
views concerning Isaiah and St Paul, and the Nonconformists, whom he
chaffed good-humouredly, have reconstructed many of their beliefs
through a study of his works. People were excited by his views on
education and by his views on literature, but not by his poetry. To-day
his poetry is all of him that remains, and its charm is likely to
soothe the more strenuous minds among us for at least another
generation, and perhaps for all time.
In "Thyrsis," a striking elegy on =Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)=,
Arnold struck a note which has only Milton's "Lycidas" and Shelley's
"Adonais" to call forth comparisons. Clough was not a Keats, but he was
a more considerable personage than Milton's friend, and indeed he has
been persistently underrated by many men of letters. Not indeed by all.
"We have a foreboding," said Mr Lowell, "that Clough will be thought a
hundred years hence, to have been the truest expression in verse of the
moral and intellectual tendencies of the period in which he lived."
Clough was the son of a cotton merchant of Liverpool, and he was a pupil
of Dr Arnold at Rugby. He gained a Balliol scholarship, and went into
residence in 1837. The coming years brought doubts and distractions,
religious and political, and Clough parted from Oxford. His most famous
poem, "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich," was published in 1848. In 1852
he sailed to Boston in the same ship that carried Thackeray and Lowell.
Emerson, who had met him in England, welcomed him there. Travelling
through Europe for his health, he died of paralysis in Florence in
1861.[6]
The catalogue of great English poets of the period is completed with the
names of Rossetti and Morris. Perhaps there is no more romantic figure
in modern literature than =Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)=, although
he has suffered cruelly from the biographer. His father, Gabriele, was
an Italian exile, a critic of Dante, a teacher of Italian in London. His
mother was a sister of the notorious Polidori, whose charlatanry is
remembered wherever an interest in Lord Byron prevails.
The younger Rossetti had relatives--a brother, William Michael, who has
written verses, criticisms, and a ponderous biography of Gabriel; and a
sister, =Maria Francesca Rossetti (1827-1876)=, whose "Shadow of Dante"
makes good reading for admirers of the great Florentine, and, indeed,
may be recommended to every English student of Dante. Another sister,
=Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)=, wrote many books. She will
live by her "Goblin Market" (1862), and by numerous short poems. Books
of the type of "Called to be Saints" and "The Face of the Deep: A
Commentary on the Revelation," have also won her much affection and
admiration from religious sympathisers. She was not responsible for
"Maude" and "New Poems," inadequate works which her brother thought fit
to publish after her death. They are practically worthless.
Dante Rossetti was a considerable painter as well as a poet. His name is
written large in that pre-Raphaelite movement which gave him for
associates Mr Holman Hunt and Sir John Millais. The movement, which had
Mr John Ruskin for its literary champion, when reduced to simple
statement, meant a harking back to early mediaeval art. Sir John Millais
and Mr Holman Hunt speedily abandoned this position, and Rossetti
himself was never a pre-Raphaelite in any real sense. The
pre-Raphaelites issued in 1850 a journal under the editorship of
Rossetti's brother, and to the _Germ_, as it was called, Rossetti
contributed his poem, "The Blessed Damozel," and a story, "Hand and
Soul." To the _Germ_ also, Thomas Woolner (1825-1892), the sculptor,
contributed the poems of "My Beautiful Lady."
One epoch in the life of Rossetti was his introduction to Mr Ruskin, and
another was his first acquaintance with William Morris. Ruskin bought
his pictures with characteristic generosity, and further assisted
Rossetti to publish "The Early Italian Poets" (1861), afterwards
reprinted as "Dante and his Circle" (1874). William Morris introduced
Rossetti to his Oxford friends, including Mr Swinburne, and to the
_Oxford and Cambridge Magazine_, in which many of his finest poems were
published. After his wife's death, from an overdose of laudanum in 1862,
Rossetti moved to Queen's House, Cheyne Walk, where for a time he had
for associates in payment of rent Mr Swinburne and Mr George Meredith,
though the latter never actually lived in the house. From that time to
his death he published many important poems--ballads of singular power
like "The White Ship," "The King's Tragedy," and "Sister Helen," and the
many splendid sonnets of "The House of Life." The two volumes of
Rossetti's collected works must always command readers. Rossetti died at
Birchington-on-Sea, and a simple tomb in the churchyard marks his grave.
The name of =William Morris (1834-1896)= closes the list of Victorian
poets of the first rank. Morris was as versatile as Rossetti. He touched
many branches of Art with remarkable success. Now he was designing
wall-papers, and became a successful manufacturer in this branch of
commerce: now he was indefatigable in printing notable books in English
literature from a type which he had himself selected. The wall-paper has
given a new direction to the decoration of English houses, and the
Kelmscott Press has added many beautiful books to our libraries, and
given an impetus to a revival of taste in printing. This was but a part
of Morris's life. Although a rich man, he was a vigorous lecturer on
behalf of Socialism, and wrote many books, such as, for example: "The
Dream of John Ball" (1888), and "News from Nowhere" (1891), in support
of his ideals. From the appearance of his "Defence of Guenevere" (1858),
and "Life and Death of Jason" (1867), he was always publishing, and his
translations from Homer, Virgil, and Scandinavian literature make a
small library by themselves. But a practical handbook to Victorian
literature needs but to mention one of his books. "The Earthly Paradise"
(1868-70), will live as long as a love of good story-telling remains to
us. The tales are told by twenty-four travellers who desire to find the
earthly paradise, and the book opens as do the Canterbury Tales with a
Prologue. The lyrical introduction is one of the most quotable things in
our later literature:--
"Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.
"Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate
To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
"Folk say, a wizard to a Northern King
At Christmastide such wondrous things did show
That through one window men beheld the Spring,
And through another saw the Summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines arow,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day."
William Morris has not seldom been confused with a writer with whom he
had nothing in common but the name. =Sir Lewis Morris (1833- )=, a
Welsh squire, and candidate for Parliament, has stood for convention as
decisively as William Morris has stood against it. His "Songs of Two
Worlds" (1871-5), and "Epic of Hades" (1876), brought him a considerable
popularity, which "A Vision of Saints," and later books have not been
able to maintain. Another literary knight of our time who has secured a
large share of public attention through his verse is =Sir Edwin Arnold
(1832- )=, whose "Light of Asia" interpreted to many the story of
Buddha's career. A poem upon Christ and Christianity "The Light of the
World," owed the fact of its smaller success to the greater familiarity
of the public with its main incidents. Sir Edwin Arnold has won other
laurels as a traveller and as a journalist.
Some of the best poetry of the era has been produced by writers whose
principal achievements are in the realm of prose. The Brontes, Charles
Kingsley, George Meredith, and George Eliot--to name but a few--all
wrote verse which must ultimately have secured attention had they not
made great reputations as novelists.
Assuredly, the three most successful poems in Victorian literature, of
that portion of it which is already passing into oblivion, are
"Proverbial Philosophy," "Festus," and "Philip Van Artevelde." The
"Proverbial Philosophy" of =Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810-1889)=
created an excitement in literary and non-literary circles, which it is
difficult for the present generation to comprehend. It is true that when
it was first published, in 1838, it was greeted by the _Athenaeum_ as "a
book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric
as the author's." In spite of this, it sold in thousands and hundreds of
thousands; it went through over nine hundred editions in England, and
five hundred thousand copies at least were sold in America. It was
translated into French, German, and many other tongues; its author was a
popular hero, although of his later books, including "Ballads for the
Times," "Raleigh, his Life and Death," and "Cithara," the very names are
by this time forgotten. Of "Proverbial Philosophy" itself there are few
enough copies in demand to-day, and it is difficult for us to place
ourselves in the position of those who felt its charm. What to the early
Victorian Era was counted for wisdom, and piety, and even for beauty,
counts to the present age for mere commonplace verbiage. Tupper's name
has taken a place in our language as the contemptuous synonym for a
poetaster. "Festus," on the other hand, although not read to-day, has
always commanded respectful attention. Its author, =Philip James Bailey
(1816- )=, wrote "Festus" in its first form, at the age of twenty, and
it was published in 1839. The book was enlarged again and again, till it
reached to three times its original length. It may be that this
enlargement has had something to do with its fate. "Festus" was
frequently compared to the best work of Goethe and of Mr Browning. Even
a more pronounced recognition accrued to the dramatic poems of =Sir
Henry Taylor (1800-1886)=, and more particularly to "Philip Van
Artevelde" (1834), which was described by the _Quarterly Review_ as "the
noblest effort in the true old taste of our English historical drama,
that has been made for more than a century," and which attracted the
keenest attention of all Sir Henry Taylor's contemporaries. His
entertaining "Autobiography" has told us that Taylor, who was an
important official at the Colonial Office, knew all the famous men of
his time.
Women have occupied no small share in the literary history of the past
sixty years, although it is in fiction that their most enduring
triumphs have been secured. The most popular women poets, next in order
to Mrs Browning, have been Eliza Cook and Jean Ingelow. =Eliza Cook
(1818-1889)= wrote for the most part the kind of verses which would now
be rejected by the editor of the Poet's Corner of a provincial
newspaper. She would be little more than a vague memory, were it not for
"The Old Arm-Chair"; but she has other claims to consideration. In the
forties and the fifties _Eliza Cook's Journal_ was one of the most
prominent publications of the day, and it did much for the cause of
literature and philanthropy. =Jean Ingelow (1820-1897)= survived, as
did Eliza Cook, to see her verse well-nigh forgotten, and yet it is
stated that two hundred thousand copies of her poems have been sold in
America alone. Miss Ingelow, who was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, and
died in London, will live in anthologies by her ballad, "High Tide on
the Coast of Lincolnshire," by a song in "Supper at the Mill," and by
sundry short poems.
A certain brighter and more humorous kind of verse had its beginnings
with Thomas Hood and the author of "The Ingoldsby Legends." =Thomas
Hood (1798-1845)= has endeared himself to the whole reading world by
his "Song of the Shirt" (1844); and his "Dream of Eugene Aram" (1829) is
not less familiar. But in addition to this he had an abundance of wit
and drollery side by side with pathos and tenderness, which will always
make a splendid tradition and a great inspiration. Hood was a
journalist. His prototype, =Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845)=, was an
Anglican clergyman. His pseudonym of Thomas Ingoldsby calls up memories
of some of the quaintest and drollest verse ever written. "The Ingoldsby
Legends" were first contributed to _Bentley's Miscellany_, and
afterwards collected in volumes. "The Jackdaw of Rheims" is the most
popular. Barham's once successful novel, "My Cousin Nicholas," is now
all but forgotten.
The most famous successors of Hood and Barham have been Calverley and Mr
Austin Dobson. =Charles Stuart Calverley (1831-1884)= wrote "Fly
Leaves" and "Verses and Translations." Mr Dobson has published, in
addition to many valuable prose works, the exquisite "Vignettes in
Rhyme" and "Proverbs in Porcelain," which, with Mr Andrew Lang's
"Ballades in Blue China," form a dainty contribution to the lighter
literature of the epoch.
A determination to say as little as possible concerning writers still
young in years, though already famous, will make, it may be, my summary
of Victorian poetry seem inadequate to many. Mr Traill, a discerning
critic, has specified some hundred or more "minor poets" who flourish
to-day! But it cannot be doubted that the minor poet of our era, with
his excellent technique, his deep feeling, and his high-minded
impulsiveness, is separated by an immense gulf from the minor poet of an
earlier period. The Pyes and the Hayleys, who were famous in an age when
criticism was less of an art, had little enough of the real poetical
faculty. That faculty can scarcely be denied to the hundred or more of
living bards who now claim the suffrages of the poetry-loving reader. It
cannot be denied also to many men who have passed away during the
present era--to Alexander Smith and Sydney Dobell in one period, and to
Coventry Patmore and James Thomson in another. =Alexander Smith
(1830-1867)= was an industrious essayist as well as a poet. Tennyson
and Mrs Browning concurred in their esteem of Smith as a poet "whose
works show fancy, and not imagination"; and this might with truth be
said of too many of the minor bards, and, indeed, constitutes the
dividing line. Sydney Yendys, under which pseudonym =Sydney Dobell
(1824-1874)= co-operated with Smith in "Sonnets on the War" (1855), was
a poet of similar temperament.
=Coventry Patmore (1823-1896)= is known to the many through his "Angel
in the House," a poem upon domestic bliss which breathed a note not
always sincere, but to which Mr Ruskin assured a certain popularity
through effective quotation in his "Sesame and Lilies." A certain
ecstatic band of admirers attached more importance to Patmore's "Unknown
Eros." These admirers spoilt him by adulation. He probably looked
forward with the same keen assurance to the verdict of posterity as did
Southey; and posterity it is all but certain will be as ruthless in the
one case as in the other.
Patmore's life was one of luxury and independence. Quite the reverse was
the fate of =James Thomson (1834-1882)=, whose great poem, "The City
of Dreadful Night," was published in Mr Charles Bradlaugh's _National
Reformer_ in 1874, and not republished as a book until 1880. Thomson had
a melancholy career which ended in drink and disaster. He died in
University Hospital, London. His "City of Dreadful Night" is peculiarly
a reflection of the age that is passing. It secured even during the
poet's life the commendation of George Eliot, of George Meredith, and of
other critics; and it may yet command a large audience, who breathe the
note of pessimism which was always characteristic of the writer:--
"The sense that every struggle brings defeat
Because Fate holds no prize to crown success,
That all the oracles are dumb or cheat
Because they have no secret to express;
That none can pierce the vast black veil uncertain
Because there is no light beyond the curtain;
That all is vanity and nothingness."
A poet whom one names with peculiar reverence is =Thomas Aubrey de Vere
(1814- )=, the son of Sir Aubrey de Vere, who was also a poet. Aubrey
de Vere, the younger, knew and loved Wordsworth, to whom in 1842 he
dedicated "The Waldenses: A Lyrical Tale," and yet retains, sixty years
later, the most sympathetic interest in modern literary effort. Mr de
Vere is an Irishman, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He has
written many volumes of poetry and prose, his dramatic poems "Alexander
the Great" and "St Thomas of Canterbury" having, no doubt, been largely
inspired by the successes of his friend and relative, Sir Henry Taylor,
and by his father's brilliant drama, "Mary Tudor." One of his most
recent books was a volume of critical essays containing a notable study
of Wordsworth.
Irishmen have been fairly conspicuous in the poetry of the epoch, and
the term "Celtic Renaissance" has begun to be used hopefully by lovers
of Ireland who desire that country to have a literature as distinctly
Irish as Scotland has a literature definitely Scottish. =Thomas Moore
(1779-1852)= was the pioneer of this movement. He had, it is true, done
all his work before the Queen came to the throne, although he lived yet
another fifteen years. His "Irish Melodies" began to appear in 1807,
"Lalla Rookh" was published in 1817, and the "Life of Byron" in 1830.
Moore was as much an inspiration to modern Ireland as Burns to modern
Scotland, and the one country holds the name of its poet as
reverentially in memory as does the other. Moore, however, lacked the
note of passionate sincerity which pertained to Burns; although we may
fairly ask what would have been the career of Burns had he been thrown
early into the literary and social life of London--the London of Byron's
time.
The influence of Moore was strong in =Thomas Davis (1814-1845)= whose
"National and Historical Ballads, Songs and Poems" caused so great a
ferment in the heart of Young Ireland. Many other Irish writers deserve
to be named, such as James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849), Sir Samuel
Ferguson (1810-1886), Lady Dufferin (1807-1867) and John Banim
(1798-1842), who wrote, in conjunction with his brother Michael, some
twenty-four volumes of Irish stories and verses. =Samuel Lover (1797-1868)=
is best known in England by his romance "Rory O'More" and
his ever popular "Handy Andy," but in Ireland he is remembered as a
writer of lyrics and ballads of heart-stirring character.
An Irishman by descent, although not by birth, was =Edward FitzGerald
(1809-1883)=, who was born in Suffolk and lived all his life in the
neighbourhood of Woodbridge in that county. FitzGerald's "Letters and
Literary Remains" fill three substantial volumes, but he lives for us by
his translation or rather paraphrase of the "Rubayat of Omar Khayyam of
Naishapur," which first appeared in 1859. It is generally agreed that
FitzGerald, a nineteenth century pagan, always reverently questioning
the mystery of existence, superadded his own personal thoughts and
feelings to the verses of the old Persian singer. In doing this he
touched deeply a certain aspect of the second half of the nineteenth
century and founded a cult. FitzGerald's verses, however, have been
ardently admired by many who are far from accepting their pessimist view
of life.
=Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849)= wrote and published his admirable
sonnets before 1837. He was a son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772-1834), whose literary remains were edited by Henry Nelson
Coleridge, a nephew and son-in-law. H. N. Coleridge married the great
poet's only daughter, =Sara Coleridge (1803-1852)=, who wrote one
poem, "Phantasmion," and whose letters throw much light on an important
chapter of literary history.
=Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874)=, better known as "Barry Cornwall,"
was at school with Lord Byron at Harrow. His "Dramatic Scenes,"
"Marcian Colonna," and "Mirandola" were much talked of in their day.
Procter was admired as a poet by Byron, Moore, and other famous
contemporaries, but no one reads him now. A happier fate has befallen
his daughter, =Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-1864)=, whose "Legends and
Lyrics" are still widely popular.
Winthrop Mackworth Praed, who wrote much admirable humorous and
satirical verse, is not a Victorian author, although his present
popularity makes that rather hard to realise. He died in 1839. =Richard
Hengist Horne (1803-1884)=, on the other hand, although he lived into
our time, is now remembered only by his friendship with Mrs Browning and
by the humorous freak of publishing his epic "Orion" at a farthing. He
was the author of a miracle play entitled "Judas Iscariot," a tragedy
entitled "The Death of Marlowe," and many other works.
Another writer of well-nigh forgotten tragedies was =Thomas Lovell
Beddoes (1803-1849)=, who wrote "The Bride's Tragedy" and "Death's
Jest Book." A like extinction, it is to be feared, has befallen Ebenezer
Jones and Ebenezer Elliott--the former of whom belonged to that
spasmodic school of poets of which Alexander Smith and Philip James
Bailey were supposed to be the leaders. =Ebenezer Jones (1820-1860)=
wrote "Studies in Sensation and Event," to which in 1879 his brother,
Sumner Jones, attached an interesting biography. There is very genuine
poetry in the volume, but it is not likely to be republished. =Ebenezer
Elliott (1781-1849)= had a very different fate. He enjoyed for many
years the suffrages of the multitude. His "Corn Law Rhymes" played a
considerable part in the political agitation of the period. James
Montgomery called him "the poet of the poor." Another writer with a fine
democratic impulse was =Gerald Massey (1828- )=, who was associated
with the Chartist movement, and wrote "Poems and Charms" and "Voices of
Freedom and Lyrics of Love." Another Chartist was =Thomas Cooper
(1805-1892)=, who wrote "The Purgatory of Suicides" and many other poems
and an entertaining autobiography. Cooper was an active political
agitator, and was imprisoned for two years in Stafford gaol for
sedition.
A poet who holds a great place in the minds of many is =William Barnes
(1820-1886)=, who kept a school for a time in Mr Thomas Hardy's town of
Dorchester. He afterwards became a clergyman and rector of
Winterbourne-Came. He was a philologist as well as a poet, and published
many works on language. His interest for us here is in his "Poems of
Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect" (1844). Another poet-clergyman of
great learning was =Robert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875)= whose work
reflects Devonshire and Cornwall as Barnes' reflects Dorsetshire. He
wrote the "Song of the Western Men" which he deceived Macaulay into
believing to be an old Cornish ballad, and the great historian
introduced it into his "History of England" as an example of the
excitement caused by the arrest of the seven bishops.[7] Its stirring
refrain:--
"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die?
Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why"
will always keep Hawker in remembrance. He was vicar of Morwenstow and
wrote several volumes of poems and some prose, including "Footprints of
Former Men in Far Cornwall."
Two poets, father and son, made the name of Marston honoured in their
days. John Westland Marston (1819-1890) was born at Boston,
Lincolnshire. He wrote two dramas, "Strathmore" and "Marie de Meranie,"
which had much success some years ago. Another work, "A Hard Struggle,"
obtained the enthusiastic praise of Dickens. Dr Garnett claims for
Marston that he was long the chief upholder of the poetical drama on the
English stage. =Philip Bourke Marston (1850-1887)=, a son of Westland
Marston, should not have failed of literary success, as he had for
godfather Philip James Bailey, the author of "Festus," and for godmother
Miss Mulock, author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." He, however, became
blind at three years of age. He published three volumes of verse, "Song
Tide and Other Poems" (1871), "All in All" (1875) and "Wind Voices"
(1883). They were never popular, although his poetry gained him the
esteem of many eminent men, Rossetti and Mr Swinburne among others. Mrs
Chandler Moulton, an American lady who wrote "Swallow Flights," gave us
a memoir of Philip Bourke Marston. In this she was assisted by Mr
William Sharp, who was also one of Rossetti's biographers. Mrs Moulton
did a like good office to the memory of =Arthur O'Shaughnessy
(1844-1881)=, a poet of considerable distinction in his day.
O'Shaughnessy married the younger Marston's sister. His "Epic of Women &
Other Poems," published in 1870, was a volume of very great promise. He
wrote other verses, which never attained to quite the same measure of
success.
It only remains for me to name =Alfred Austin (1835- )= the Poet
Laureate. After Lord Tennyson's death in 1892 the office remained vacant
for four years. The two poets who might have been considered to have
had some claim, William Morris and Mr Swinburne, were supposed to be
impossible on account of democratic sympathies, although it is doubtful
if either would have accepted the office. Almost every living poet,
however small the bulk of his achievement, and however inconsiderable
his years, was nominated--by the press--in turn. Finally, in 1896, by a
pleasant irony of circumstances, the laureateship was given to a
journalist,--for Mr Austin had been a leader-writer on the staff of the
_Standard_ newspaper for many years. He has written "The Golden Age, a
Satire" (1871), "Savonarola" (1881), "English Lyrics" (1891), and many
prose works. His "English Lyrics" contained an appreciative introduction
by William Watson, the author of "Wordsworth's Grave," "Lachrymae
Musarum," and other poems which have been received with abundant
cordiality by the press and public. Another living poet who has been
well and justly praised is =Rudyard Kipling (1864- )=. He made his
earliest fame as a writer of short stories of Indian military life.
"Soldiers Three" and "Wee Willie Winkie" have entirely captivated the
imagination of Mr Kipling's contemporaries. It is as a poet, however,
that he will perhaps longest retain his hold upon them. His
"Barrack-Room Ballads" (1892) are finely touched with that martial
spirit which so strongly appeals to the heart of our nation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As, for example, _The Battle of Blenheim_, _The Inchcape Rock_ and
_The Cataract of Lodore_.
[2] "The Nelson Memorial," by J. K. Laughton, 1896. "The Life of Nelson.
The embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain," by Captain A. T.
Mahan, 1897.
[3] "Select Poems of Wordsworth," by Matthew Arnold. "Golden Treasury
Series."
[4] Charles Kingsley's "Two Years Ago" appeared the same year--in 1857.
[5] Reprinted in 1875 in "Essays and Studies."
[6] See "Poems and Prose Remains" by Arthur Hugh Clough, with a
Selection from his Letters, and a Memoir, edited by his wife. 2 vols.,
1888.
[7] All over the country the peasants chanted a ballad of which the
burden is still remembered. MACAULAY, History, Vol. II., p. 371.