some brightness into his life. Lady Austen, a widow, took a
house near Cowper and Mrs. Unwin, and became a third in their
friendship. It was she who told Cowper the story of John Gilpin.
The story tickled his fancy so that he woke in the night with
laughter over it. He decided to make a ballad of the story, and
the next day the ballad was finished. I think I need hardly give
you any quotation here. You all know that--
"John Gilpin was a citizen
Of credit and reknown,
A train-band captain eke was he
Of famous London town."
And you have heard his adventures on the anniversary of his
wedding day.
John Gilpin was first published in a magazine, and there it was
seen by an actor famous in his day, who took it for a recitation.
It at once became a success, and thousands of copies were sold.
It was Lady Austen, too, who urged Cowper to his greatest work,
The Task. She wanted him to try blank verse, but he objected
that he had nothing to write about. "You can write upon any
subject," replied Lady Austen, "write upon the sofa."
So Cowper accepted the task thus set for him, and began to write.
The first book of The Task is called The Sofa, and through all
the six books we follow the course of his simple country life.
It is the epic of simplicity, at once pathetic and playful. Its
tuneful, easy blank verse never rises to the grandeur of
Milton's, yet there are fine passages in it. Though Cowper lived
a retired and uneventful life, the great questions of his day
found an echo in his heart. Canada had been won and the American
States lost when he wrote--
"England, with all thy faults, I love thee still--
My Country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrained to love thee.
. . . . . .
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In every clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children; praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
Farewell those honours, and farewell with them
The hope of such hereafter! they have fallen
Each in his field of glory: one in arms,
And one in council--Wolfe upon the lap
Of smiling Victory that moment won,
And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame
They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still
Consulting England's happiness at home,
Secured it by an unforgiving frown,
If any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,
Put so much of his heart into his act,
That his example had a magnet's force,
And all were swift to follow where all loved."
These lines are from the second book of The Task called The
Timepiece. The third is called The Garden, the fourth The Winter
Evening. There we have the well-known picture of a quiet evening
by the cozy fireside. The post boy has come "with spattered
boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks." He has brought letters
and the newspaper--
"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in."
The poem ends with two books called The Winter Morning Walk and
The Winter Walk at Noon. Though not grand, The Task is worth
reading. It is, too, an easily read, and easily understood poem,
and through it all we feel the love of nature, the return to
romance and simplicity. In the last book we see Cowper's love of
animals. There he sings, "If not the virtues, yet the worth, of
brutes."
Cowper loved animals tenderly and understood them in a wonderful
manner. He tamed some hares and made them famous in his verse.
And when he felt madness coming upon him he often found relief in
his interest in these pets. One of his poems tells how Cowper
scolded his spaniel Beau for killing a little baby bird "not
because you were hungry," says the poet, "but out of
naughtiness." Here is Beau's reply--
"Sir, when I flew to seize the bird
In spite of your command,
A louder voice than yours I heard,
And harder to withstand.
"You cried 'Forbear!;--but in my breast
A mightier cried 'Proceed!'--
'Twas nature, sir, whose strong behest
Impelled me to the deed.
"Yet much as nature I respect,
I ventured once to break
(As you perhaps may recollect)
Her precept for your sake;
"And when your linnet on a day,
Passing his prison door,
Had fluttered all his strength away
And panting pressed the floor,
"Well knowing him a sacred thing
Not destined to my tooth,
I only kissed his ruffled wing
And licked the feathers smooth.
"Let my obedience then excuse
My disobedience now,
Nor some reproof yourself refuse
From your aggrieved Bow-wow;
"If killing birds be such a crime
(Which I can hardly see),
What think you, sir, of killing Time
With verse addressed to me?"
As Cowper's life went on, the terrible lapses into insanity
became more frequent, but his sweet and kindly temper won him
many friends, and he still wrote a great deal. And among the
many things he wrote, his letters to his friends were not the
least interesting. They are among the best letters in our
language.
Perhaps Cowper's greatest accomplishment, though not his greatest
work, was a translation of Homer. He had never considered Pope's
Homer good, and he wished to leave to the world a better.
Cowper's version was published in 1791, and he fondly believed
that it would take the place of Pope's. But although Cowper's
may be more correct, it is plain and dry, and while Pope's is
still read and remembered, Cowper's is forgotten.
Indeed, that Cowper is remembered at all is due more to his
shorter poems such as Boadicea and The Wreck of the Royal George,
and chiefly, perhaps, to John Gilpin, which in its own way is a
treasure that we would not be without. Other of his shorter
poems are full of a simple pathos and gentle humor. The last he
wrote was called The Castaway, and the verse with which it ends
describes not unfittingly the close of his own life. For his
mind sank ever deeper into the shadow of madness until he died in
April 1800--
"No voice divine the storm allayed,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatched from all effectual aid,
We perished, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he."
Cowper was never a power in our literature, but he was a
forerunner, "the forerunner of the great Restoration of our
literature."* And unlike most forerunners he was popular in his
own day. And although it is faint, like the scent of forgotten
rose leaves, his poetry still keeps a charm and sweetness for
those who will look for it.
*Macaulay.
Chapter LXXIV WORDSWORTH--THE POET OF NATURE
COWPER was as a straw blown along the path; he had no force in
himself, he showed the direction of the wind. Now we come to one
who was not only a far greater poet, but who was a force in our
literature. This man was William Wordsworth. He was the apostle
of simplicity, the prophet of nature. He sang of the simplest
things, of the common happenings of everyday life, and that too a
simple life.
His desire was to choose words only which were really used by men
in everyday talk, "and, at the same time, to throw over them a
certain colouring of the imagination."
He chose to sing of humble life because there men's thoughts and
feelings were more free from art and restraint, there they spoke
a plainer, more forceful language, there they were in touch with
all that was lasting and true in Nature. Here then, you will
say, is the poet for us, the poet who tells of simple things in
simple words, such as we can understand. And yet, perhaps,
strange as it may seem, there is no poet who makes less appeal to
young minds than does Wordsworth.
In reading poetry, though we may not always understand every word
of it, we want to feel the thrill and glamour of it. And when
Wordsworth remembers his own rules and keeps to them there is no
glamour, and his simplicity is apt to seem to us mere silliness.
When we are very young we cannot walk alone, and are glad of a
kindly helping hand to guide our footsteps. In learning to read,
as in learning to walk, it is at first well to trust to a guiding
hand. And in learning to read poetry it is at first well to use
selections chosen for us by those wiser than ourselves. Later,
when we can go alone, we take a man's whole work, and choose for
ourselves what we will most love in it. And it is only by making
use of this power of choice that we can really enjoy what is
best. But of all our great writers Wordsworth is perhaps the
last in the reading of whose works we willingly go alone. He is
perhaps the writer who gains most by being read in selections.
Indeed, for some of us there never comes a time when we care to
read his whole works.
For if we take his whole works, at times we plow through pages of
dry-as-dust argument where there is never a glimmer of that
beauty which makes poetry a joy, till we grow weary of it. Then
suddenly there springs to our eye a line of truest beauty which
sets our senses atingle with delight, and all our labor is more
than paid. And if our great poets were to be judged by single
lines or single stanzas we may safely say that Wordsworth would
be placed high among them. He is so placed, but it is rather by
the love of the few than by the voice of the many.
I am not trying to make you afraid of reading Wordsworth, I am
only warning you that you must not go to him expecting to gather
flowers. You must go expecting to and willing to dig for gold.
Yet although Wordsworth gives us broad deserts of prose in his
poetry, he himself knew the joy of words in lovely sequence.
He tells us that when he was ten years old, or less, already his
mind--
"With conscious pleasure opened to the charm
Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet
For their own sakes, a passion, and a power;
And phrases pleased me chosen for delight,
For pomp, or love."*
*Prelude, book v.
When Wordsworth first published his poems they were received with
scorn, and he was treated with neglect greater even than most
great poets have had to endure. But in time the tide turned and
people came at last to acknowledge that Wordsworth was not only a
poet, but a great one. He showed men a new way of poetry; he
proved to them that nightingale was as poetical a word as
Philomel, that it was possible to speak of the sun and the moon
as the sun and the moon, and not as Phoebus and Diana. Phoebus,
Diana, and Philomel are, with the thoughts they convey, beautiful
in their right places, but so are the sun, moon, and nightingale.
Wordsworth tried to make men see with new eyes the little
everyday things that they had looked upon week by week and year
by year until they had grown common. He tried to make them see
these things again with "the glory and the freshness of a
dream."*
*Ode, Intimations of Immortality.
Wordsworth fought the battle of the simple word, and phrase, and
thought, and won it. And the poets who came after him, and not
the poets only, but the prose writer too, whether they
acknowledged it or not, whether they knew it or now, entered as
by right into the possession of the kingdom which he had won for
them.
And now let me tell you a little of the life of this nature poet.
William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth in Cumberland in 1770.
He was the second son of John Wordsworth, a lawyer, and law agent
for the Earl of Lonsdale. William's mother died when he was
still a very small boy, and he remembered little about her. He
remembered dimly that one day as he was going to church, she
pinned some flowers into his coat. He remembered seeing her once
lying in an easy chair when she was ill, and that was nearly all.
Before Wordsworth lost his mother he had a happy out-door
childhood. He spent long days playing about in garden and
orchard, or on the banks of the Derwent, with his friends and
brothers and his sister Dorothy. In one of his long poems called
The Prelude, which is a history of his own young life, he tells
of these happy childish hours. In other of his poems he tells of
the love and comradeship that there was between himself and his
sister, though she was two years younger--
"Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:--with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her! feared to brush
The dust from off its wings."*
*To a Butterfly.
Together they spied out the sparrows' nests and watched the tiny
nestlings as they grew, the big rough boy learning much from his
tender-hearted, gentle sister. In after years he said--
"She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy."*
*The Sparrow's Nest.
When the mother died these happy days for brother and sister
together were done, for Willie went to school at Hawkshead with
his brothers, and Dorothy was sent to live with her grandfather
at Penrith.
But Wordsworth's school-time was happy too. Hawkshead was among
the beautiful lake and mountain scenery that he loved. He had a
great deal of freedom, and out of school hours could take long
rambles, day and night too. When moon and stars were shining he
would wander among the hills until the spirit of the place laid
hold of him, and he says--
"I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod."*
*Prelude, book i.
Wordsworth fished and bird-nested, climbing perilous crags and
slippery rocks to find rare eggs. In summer he and his
companions rowed upon the lake, in winter they skated.
"And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us--for me
A time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six,--I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
We hissed along the polished ice in games.
. . . . . .
We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven
Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours;
Nor saw a band in happiness and joy
Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod."*
*Prelude, book i.
Yet among all this noisy boyish fun and laughter, Wordsworth's
strange, keen love of nature took root and grew. At times he
says--
"Even then I felt
Gleams like the flashing of a shield:--the earth
And common face of nature spake to me
Rememberable things."*
*Prelude, book i.
He read, too, what he liked, spending many happy hours over
Gulliver's Travels, and the Tale of a Tub, Don Quixote, and the
Arabian Nights.
While Wordsworth was still at school his father died. His uncles
then took charge of him, and after he left school sent him to
Cambridge. Wordsworth did nothing great at college. He took his
degree without honors, and left Cambridge still undecided what
his career in life was to be. He did not feel himself good
enough for the Church. He did not care for law, but rather liked
the idea of being a soldier. That idea, however, he also gave
up, and for a time he drifted.
In those days one of the world's great dramas was being enacted.
The French Revolution had begun. With the great struggle the
poet's heart was stirred, his imagination fired. It seemed to
him that a new dawn of freedom and joy and peace was breaking on
the world, and "France lured him forth." He crossed the Channel,
and for two years he lived through all the storm and stress of
the Revolution. He might have ended his life in the fearful
Reign of Terror which was coming on, had not his friends in
England called him home. He left France full of pity, and
sorrow, and disappointment, for no reign of peace had come, and
the desire for Liberty had been swallowed up in the desire for
Empire.
In spite of his years of travel, in spite of the fact that it was
necessary for him to earn his living, Wordsworth was still
unsettled as to what his work in life was to be, when a friend
dying left him nine hundred pounds. With Wordworth's simple
tastes this sum was enough to live upon for several years, so he
asked his dearly loved sister Dorothy to make her home with him,
and together they settled down to a simple cottage life in
Dorsetshire. It was a happy thing for Wordsworth that he found
such a comrade in his sister. From first to last she was his
friend and helper, cheering and soothing him when need be--
"Her voice was like a hidden bird that sang,
The thought of her was like a flash of light,
Or an unseen companionship, a breath
Of fragrance independent of the wind."
Another poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whom William and Dorothy
Wordsworth now met, calls her "Wordsworth's exquisite sister."
"She is a woman indeed, in mind I mean, and in heart. . . . In
every motion her innocent soul out-beams so brightly that who saw
her would say 'Guilt was a thing impossible with her.'"
Chapter LXXV WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE--THE LAKE POETS
AFTER Coleridge and Wordsworth once met they soon became fast
friends, and in order to be near Coleridge the Wordsworths moved
to another house near Nether Stowey in Somersetshire.
Coleridge was two years or more younger than Wordsworth, having
been born in 1772. He was the thirteenth child of his father,
who was a clergyman. As a boy he was sensitive and lonely,
liking better to day-dream by himself than to play with his
fellows. While still a mere child he loved books. Before he was
five he had read the Arabian Nights, and he peopled his day
dreams with giants and genii, slaves and fair princesses. When
he was ten he went to school at Christ's Hospital, the Bluecoat
School. Here he met Charles Lamb, who also became a writer, and
whose Essays and Tales from Shakespeare I hope you will soon
read.
At school even his fellows saw how clever Coleridge was. He read
greedily and talked with any one who would listen and answer. In
his lonely wanderings about London on "leave days" he was
delighted if he could induce any stray passer-by to talk,
especially, he says, if he was dressed in black. No subject came
amiss to him, religion, philosophy, science, or poetry. From
school Coleridge went to Cambridge, but after a time, getting
into trouble and debt, he ran away and enlisted in a cavalry
regiment under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberback.
In a few months, however, he was discovered, and his brothers
bought him out. He then went back to Cambridge, but left again
at the end of the same year without taking a degree.
Meantime, while on a visit to Oxford, he had met Southey, another
poet who was at this time a student there.
Robert Southey was born in 1774, and was the son of a Bristol
Linen draper, but he was brought up chiefly by an aunt in Bath.
At fourteen he went to school at Westminster, and later to
Balliol College, Oxford. When Coleridge met him he was just
twenty, and Coleridge twenty-two. Like Wordsworth, they were
both fired with enthusiasm for the French Revolution, and they
soon became friends.
With some others of like mind they formed a little society, which
they called the Pantisocracy, from Greek words meaning all-equal-
rule. They decided that they should all marry and then emigrate
to the banks of the Susquehanna (chosen, it has been said,
because of its beautiful name), and there form a little Utopia.
Property was to be in common, each man laboring on the land two
hours a day in order to provide food for the company. But the
fine scheme came to nothing, for meanwhile none of the company
had enough money to pay for his passage to the banks of the
beautiful-sounding river. Coleridge and Southey, however,
carried out part of the program. They both married, their wives
being sisters.
Coleridge, about the same time as he married, published a volume
of poems. But as this did not bring him wealth he then tried
various other ways of making a living. He began a weekly paper
which ceased after a few numbers, he lectured on history, and
preached in various Unitarian chapels. Then after a time he
settled at Nether Stowey, where he was living when he met
Wordsworth.
The two poets, as has been said, at once became friends,
Coleridge having a deep and whole-hearted admiration for
Wordworth's genius. "I speak with heartfelt sincerity," he says,
"and I think unblinded judgment, when I tell you that I feel a
little man by his side."
The two friends had many walks and talks together, shaping their
ideas of what poetry should be. They at length decided to
publish a book together to be called Lyrical Ballads.
In this book there was published the poem which of all that
Coleridge write is the best known, The Ancient Mariner. It tells
how this old old sailor stops a guest who is going to a wedding,
and bids him hear a tale. The wedding guest does not wish to
stay, but the old man holds him with his skinny hand--
"He holds him with his glittering eye--
The Wedding Guest stood still,
And listens like three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will."
He hath his will, and tells how the ship sailed forth gayly, and
how it met after a time with storms, and cold, and fog, until at
last it was all beset with ice. Then when to the sailors all
hope seemed lost, an albatross came sailing through the fog.
With joy they hailed it, the only living thing in that wilderness
of ice. They fed it with delight--
"It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew:
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!"
Then on they gladly sailed, the albatross following, until one
day the Ancient Mariner, in a mad moment, shot the beautiful
bird. In punishment for this deed terrible disasters fell upon
that ship and its crew. Under a blazing sun, in a hot and slimy
sea filled with creeping, crawling things, they were becalmed--
"Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."
Then plague and death came, and every man died except the guilty
Mariner--
"Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea;
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
. . . . .
"I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gush'd,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust."
But one day as the Mariner watched the water snakes, the only
living things in all that dreadful waste, he blessed them
unaware, merely because they were alive. That self-same moment,
he found that he could pray, and the albatross, which his fellows
in their anger had hung about his neck, dropped from it, and fell
like lead into the sea. Then, relieved from his terrible agony
of soul, the Mariner slept, and when he woke he found that the
dreadful drought was over, and that it was raining. Oh, blessed
relief! But more terrors still he had to endure until at last
the ship drifted homeward--
"Oh, dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
"We drifted o'er the Harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray--
'O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.'"
The shop had indeed reached home, but in the harbor it suddenly
sank like lead. Only the Mariner was saved.
When once more he came to land, he told his tale to a holy hermit
and was shriven, but ever and anon afterward an agony comes upon
him and forces him to tell the tale again, even as he has just
done to the wedding guest. And thus he ends his story--
"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
Then he goes, leaving the wondering wedding guest alone.
"The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the Wedding Guest
Turned from the Bridegroom's door.
"He went, like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn."
Among the poems which Wordsworth wrote for the book of Lyrical
Ballads, was one which every one knows, We are Seven. In
another, called Lines written in Early Spring, he gives as it
were the text of all his nature poems, and his creed, for here he
tells us that he believes that all things in Nature, bird and
flower alike, feel.
"I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
"In her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it griev'd my heart to think
What man has made of man.
"Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
"The birds around me hopp'd and play'd,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion that they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
"The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
"If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?"
The book was not a success. People did not understand The
Ancient Mariner, and they laughed at Wordsworth's simple lyrics,
although the last poem in the book, Tintern Abbey, has since
become famous, and is acknowledged as one of the treasures of our
literature.
And now, as this new book was not a success, and as he did not
seem able to make enough money as a poet, Coleridge seriously
began to think of becoming a Unitarian preacher altogether. But,
the Wedgwoods, the famous potters, wealthy men with cultured
minds and kindly hearts, offered him one hundred and fifty pounds
a year if he would give himself up to poetry and philosophy.
After some hesitation, Coleridge consented, and that winter he
set off for a visit to Germany with the Wordsworths.
It was on their return from this visit that Wordsworth again
changed his home and went to live at Dove Cottage, near Grasmere,
in the Lake District, which as a boy he had known and loved. And
here, among the hills, he made his home for the rest of his life.
The days at Grasmere flowed along peacefully and almost without
an event. Wordsworth published a second volume of lyrical
ballads, and then went on writing and working steadily at his
long poem The Prelude, in which he told the story of his early
life.
Coleridge soon followed his friend, and settled at Greta Hall,
Keswick, and there was much coming and going between Dove Cottage
and Greta Hall. At Greta Hall there were two houses under one
roof, and soon Southey took the second house and came to live
beside his brother-in-law, Coleridge. And so these three poets,
having thus drifted together, came to be called the Lake Poets,
although Southey's poetry had little in common with that of
either Wordsworth or Coleridge.
It seemed hardly to break the peaceful flow of life at Dove
Cottage, when, in 1802, Wordsworth married his old playmate and
schoolfellow, Mary Hutchinson. They had known each other all
their lives, and marriage was a natural and lovely ending to
their friendship. Of her Wordsworth wrote--
"She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
to haunt, to startle, and waylay.
"I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright and good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
"And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light."
The years passed in quiet fashion, with friendly coming and
goings, with journeys here and there, now to Scotland, now to the
Continent.
Children were born, friends died, and once or twice the
Wordsworths changed their house until they finally settled at
Rydal Mount, and there the poet remained for the rest of his long
life. And all the time, for more than fifty years, Wordsworth
steadily wrote, but it is not too much to say that all his best
work was done in the twenty years between 1798 and 1818.
Besides The Prelude, of which we have already spoken,
Wordsworth's other long poems are The Excursion and The White Doe
of Rylstone. The White Doe is a story of the days of Queen
Elizabeth, of the days when England was still in the midst of
religious struggle. There was a rebellion in Yorkshire, in which
the old lord of Rylstone fought vainly if gallantly for the Old
Religion, and he and his sons died the death of rebels. Of all
the family only the gentle Emily remained "doomed to be the last
leaf on a blasted tree." About the country-side she wandered
alone accompanied only by a white doe. In time she, too, died,
then for many years the doe was seen alone. It was often to be
seen in the churchyard during service, and after service it would
go away with the rest of the congregation.
The Excursion, though a long poem, is only part of what
Wordsworth meant to write. He meant in three books to give his
opinions on Man, Nature, and Society, and the whole was to be
called The Recluse. To this great work The Prelude was to be the
introduction, hence its name. But Wordsworth never finished his
great design and The Excursion remains a fragment. Much of The
Excursion cannot be called poetry at all. Yet, as one of
Wordsworth's great admirers has said: "In deserts of preaching
we find delightful oases of poetry."* There is little action in
The Excursion, and much of it is merely dull descriptions and
conversations. So I would not advise you to read it for a long
time to come. But to try rather to understand some of
Wordworth's shorter poems, although at times their names may seem
less inviting.
*Morley.
One of the most beautiful of all his poems Wordsworth calls by
the cumbrous name of Intimations of Immorality from recollections
of Early Childhood. This is his way of saying that when we are
small we are nearer the wonder-world than when we grow up, and
that when we first open our eyes on this world they have not
quite forgotten the wonderful sights they saw in that eternity
whence we came, for the soul has no beginning, therefore no
ending. I will give you here one verse of this poem:--
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily further from the east
Must travel , still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
Wordsworth, for the times in which he lived, traveled a good
deal, and in his comings and goings he made many new friends and
met all the great literary men of his day. And by slow degrees
his poetry won its way, and the younger men looked up to him as
to a master. The great, too, came to see in him a power. Since
1813 Southey had been Laureate, and when in 1843 he died, the
honor was given to Wordsworth. He was now an old man of seventy-
three, and although he still wrote a few poems, he wrote nothing
as Laureate, except an ode in honor of the Prince Consort when he
became Chancellor of Cambridge University. Now, as he grew old,
one by one death bade his friends to leave him--
"Like clouds that rake the mountain summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
"Yet I whose lids from infant slumber
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers
'Who next will drop and disappear?'"*
*Upon the Death of James Hogg.
At length in 1850, at the age of eighty, he too closed his eyes,
and went "From sunshine to the sunless land."
"But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear--
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?"*
*Arnold.
BOOKS TO READ
Poems of Wordsworth, selected by C. L. Thomson. Selections, by
Matthew Arnold.
Chapter LXXVI COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY--SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
LONG before Wordsworth closed his eyes on this world, Coleridge,
in some ways a greater poet than his friend, had gone to his last
rest. Wordsworth had a happy, loving understanding of the little
things of real life. He had an "exquisite regard for common
things," but his words have seldom the glamour, the something
which we cannot put into words which makes us see beyond things
seen. This Coleridge had. It is not only his magic of words, it
is this trembling touch upon the unknown, the unearthly beauty
and sadness of which he makes us conscious in his poems that
marks him as great.
And yet all that Coleridge has left us which reaches the very
highest is very little. But as has been said, "No English poet
can be put above Coleridge when only quality and not quantity is
demanded."* Of The Ancient Mariner I have already told you,
although perhaps it is too full of fearsomeness for you to read
yet. Next to it stands Christabel, which is unfinished. It is
too full of mysterious glamour to translate into mere prose, so I
will not try to tell the story, but here are a few lines which
are very often quoted--
*Stainsbury.
"Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And Constancy lives in realms above;
And Life is thorny; and Youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted--ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliff's which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between;--
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once had been."
Coleridge's singing time was short. All his best poetry had been
written before he went to live at Keswick. There his health,
which had never been good, gave way. Unhappy in his home, and
racked with bodily pain, he at length began to use opium in order
to find relief. The habit to which he soon became a slave made
shipwreck of his life. He had always been unstable of purpose
and weak of will, never keeping to one course long. He had tried
journalism, he tried lecturing, he planned books which were never
written. His life was a record of beginnings. As each new plan
failed he yielded easily to the temptation of living on his
friends. He had always been restless in mind. He left his home,
and after wanderings now here now there, he at length found a
home in London with kind, understanding friends. Of him here we
have a pathetic picture drawn by another great man.* "The good
man--he was now getting old, towards sixty perhaps, and gave you
the idea of a life that had been full of sufferings; a life
heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of
manifold physical and other bewilderment. Brow and head were
round and of massive weight, but the face was flabby and
irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of
sorrow as of inspiration, confused pain looked mildly from them,
as in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure and air,
good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby and
irresolute, expressive of weakness under possibility of
strength . . . a heavy-laden, high-aspiring, and surely much
suffering man."
*Carlyle.
And yet to this broken-down giant men crowded eagerly to hear him
talk. Never, perhaps, since the great Sam had held his court had
such a talker been heard. And although there was no Boswell near
to make these conversations live again, the poet's nephew, Henry
Nelson Coleridge, gathered some of his sayings together into a
book which he called Table Talk. With his good friends Coleridge
spent all his remaining life from 1816 till 1834, when he died.
Meanwhile his children and his home were left to the care of
others. And when Coleridge threw off his home ties and duties it
was upon Southey that the burden chiefly fell. And Southey,
kindly and generous, loving his own children fondly, loved and
cared for his nephews and nieces too. We cannot regard Southey
as one of our great poets, but when we read his letters, we must
love him as a man. He wrote several long poems, the two best
known perhaps are The Curse of Kehama and Thalaba, the one a
Hindoo, the other a Mahometan story, but he is better remembered
by his short poems, such as The Battle of Blenheim and The
Inchcape Rock.
For forty years Southey lived at Greta Hall, and from his letters
we get the pleasantest picture of the home-loving, nonsense-
loving "comical papa" who had kept the heart of a boy, even when
his hair grew gray--
"A man he is by nature merry,
Somewhat Tom-foolish, and comical very;
Who has gone through the world, not mindful of self,
Upon easy terms, thank Heaven, with himself."
He loved his books and he loved the little curly-headed children
that gathered about him with pattering feet and chattering
tongues, and never wished to be absent from them. "Oh dear, oh
dear," he says, "there is such a comfort in one's old coat and
old shoes, one's armchair and own fireside, one's own writing-
desk and own library--with a little girl climbing up my neck, and
saying, 'Don't go to London, papa--you must stay with Edith'; and
a little boy, whom I have taught to speak the language of cats,
dogs, cuckoos, and jackasses, etc., before he can articulate a
word of his own; there is such a comfort in all these things, the
transportation to London for four or five weeks seems a heavier
punishment than any sins of mine deserve."
And so we see him spending long hours, long years, among his
books, hoping for lasting fame from his poems, and meantime
earning with his prose food for hungry little mouths, shoes for
nimble little feet, with just a trifle over for books, and still
more books. For Southey loved books, and his big library was
lined with them. There were thousands there, many in beautiful
bindings, glowing in soft coloring, gleaming with pale gold, for
he loved to clothe his treasures in fitting garments. When a new
box of books comes he rejoices. "I shall be happier," he says,
"than if his Majesty King George IV were to give orders that I
should be clothed in purple, and sleep upon gold, and have a
chain about my neck, and sit next him because of my wisdom and be
called his cousin."
We think of Southey first as a poet, but it is perhaps as a prose
writer that his fame will last longest, and above all as a
biographer, that is a writer of people's lives. During the busy
years at Greta Hall he wrote about a hundred books, several of
them biographies--among them a life of Nelson, which is one of
the best short lives ever written. Some day I hope you will read
it, both for the sake of Southey's clear, simple style, and for
the sake of the brave man of whom he writes. You might also, I
think, like his lives of Bunyan and Cowper, both of whom you have
heard of in this book.
Another book which Southey wrote is called The Doctor. This is a
whimsical, rambling jumble, which can hardly be called a story; a
mixture of quotations and original work, of nonsense and earnest.
And in the middle of it what do you think you come upon? Why our
old nursery friend, The Three Bears. Southey trusts that this
book will suit every one, "that the lamb may wade in it, though
the elephant may swim, and also that it will be found 'very
entertaining to the ladies.'" Indeed he flatters himself that it
will be found profitable for "old and young, for men and for
women, the married and the single, the idle and the studious, the
merry and the sad; and that it may sometimes inspire the
thoughtless with thought, and sometimes beguile the careful of
their cares." But if it is to be quite perfect it must have a
chapter for children--
"Prick up your ears then,
My good little women and men;
And ye who are neither so little nor no good, favete linguis,*
for here follows the story of the Three Bears." So there it is.
"One of them was a Little, Small, Wee Bear; and one was a Middle-
sized Bear, and the other was a Great, Huge Bear"--and from the
way it is told, I think we may be sure that Uncle Robert or
comical papa often told stories with a circle of eager, bright
faces round him. For he says--
*Be silent.
"And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King."
As the years went on Southey received other honors besides the
Laureateship. He was offered a baronetcy which he refused. He
wall "ell-ell-deed" by Oxford, as he quaintly puts it in his
letters to his children. And when he tells them about it he
says, "Little girls, you know it might be proper for me now to
wear a large wig, and to be called Doctor Southey and to become
very severe, and leave off being a comical papa . . . . However,
I shall not come home in my wig, neither shall I wear my robes at
home."
It is sad to think that this kindly heard had to bear the
buffetings of ill fortune. Two of his dearly loved children
died, then he was parted from his wife by worse than death, for
she became insane and remained so until she died. Eight years
later Robert Southey was laid beside her in the churchyard under
the shadow of Skiddaw. "I hope his life will not be forgotten,"
says Macaulay, "for it is sublime in its simplicity, its energy,
its honour, its affection. . . . His letter are worth piles of
epics, and are sure to last among us, as long as kind hearts like
to sympathise with goodness and purity and love and upright
life."
BOOKS TO READ
Southey: Poems, chosen by E. Dowden. Life of Nelson (Everyman's
Library).
Coleridge: Lyrical Poems, Chosen by A. T. Quiller-Couch.
YEAR 10
Chapter LXXVII SCOTT--THE AWAKENING OF ROMANCE
THE 15th of August 1771 was a lucky day for all the boys and
girls and grown-up people too of the English-speaking race, for
on that day Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh. Literature had
already begun to shake off its fetters of art. Romance had begun
to stir in her long sleep, for six years before sturdy baby
Walter was born, Bishop Percy had published a book called
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. In this book he had gathered
together many old ballads and songs, such as those of Robin Hood
and Patrick Spens. They had almost been forgotten, and yet they
are poems which stir the heart with their plaintive notes,
telling as they do--
"Of old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago;
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again!"*
*Wordsworth.
Bishop Percy, like a knight of old, laid his lance in rest and
tilted against the prickly briar hedge that had grown up around
the Sleeping Beauty, Romance. But he could not win through and
wake the princess. And although Burns and Wordsworth, Coleridge
and Southey, all knowing it or not, fought on his side, it was
left for another knight to break through the hedge and make us
free of the Enchanted Land. And that knight's name was Walter--
Sir Walter, too--for, like a true knight, he won his title in the
service of his lady.
Little Walter's father was a kindly Scots lawyer, but he came of
a good old Border family, "A hardy race who never shrunk from
war."* Among his forbears had been wild moss-troopers and
cattle-reivers, lairds of their own lands, as powerful as kings
in their own countryside. There were stories enough of their
bold and daring deeds to fill many books, so that we feel that
Walter had been born into a heritage of Romance.
*Leyden.
Walter was a strong, healthy child, but when he was about
eighteen months old he had an illness which left him lame in his
right leg. Everything was done that could be done to restore the
lost power, and although it was partly regained, Scott walked
with a limp to the end of his days. Meanwhile he had a by no
means unhappy childhood. He spent a great deal of time at the
farm belonging to his grandfather. Little Wat was a winsome
laddie, and the whole household loved him. On fine days he was
carried out and laid down among the crags and rocks, beside an
old shepherd who tended his sheep and little Walter too, telling
him strange tales the while--
"Of forayers, who, with headlong force,
Down from that strength had spurr'd their horse,
Their southern rapine to renew,
Far in the distant Cheviots blue,
And, home returning, fill'd the hall
With revel, wassel-rout, and brawl."*
*Marmion.
At other times Walter listened to the stories of his grandmother,
hearing all about the wild doings of his forbears, or the brave
deeds of Bruce and Wallace. He was taken to the seaside, to
Bath, and to London, and at length, grown into a sturdy little
boy, though still lame, he went back to his father's house in
Edinburgh. Here he says he soon felt the change from being a
single indulged brat, to becoming the member of a large family.
He now went to school, but did not show himself to be very
clever. He was not a dunce, but an "incorrigibly idle imp," and
in spite of his lameness he was better at games than at lessons.
In some ways, owing to his idleness, he was behind his fellows,
on the other hand he had read far more than they. And now he
read everything he could, in season and out of season. Pope's
Homer, Shakespeare, Ossian, and especially Spenser were among his
favorites. Then one happy day he came upon a volume of Percy's
Reliques. All one summer day he read and read, forgetting the
world, forgetting even to be hungry. After that he was for ever
entertaining his schoolfellows with scraps of tragic ballads, and
as soon as he could scrape enough money together, he bought a
copy of the book for himself.
So the years passed, Walter left school, went to Edinburgh
University, and began to study law. It was at this time, as a
boy of sixteen, that for the first and only time he met Robert
Burns, who had just come to Edinburgh, and was delighted at
receiving a kind word and look from the poet. He still found
time to read a great deal, to ride, and to take long, rambling
walks, for, in spite of his limp, he was a great walker and could
go twenty or thirty miles. Indeed he used to tramp the
countryside so far and so long that his father would say he
feared his son was born to be nothing better than a wandering
peddler.
After a time it was decided that Walter should be a barrister,
or, as it is called in Scotland, an advocate, and in 1792 he was
called to the Bar. His work as an advocate was at first not very
constant, and it left him plenty of time for long, rambling
excursions or raids, as he used to call them, in different parts
of Scotland and in the north of England. He traveled about,
listening to the ballads of the country folk, gathering tales,
storing his mind with memories of people and places. "He was
making himself a' the time," said a friend who went with him,
"but he didna ken maybe what he was about till years had passed.
At first he thought o' little, I daresay, but the queerness and
the fun."
It was in an expedition to the English Lakes with his brother and
a friend that Scott met his wife. One day while out riding he
saw a lady also riding. She had raven black hair and deep brown
eyes, which found a way at once to the poet's heart. In true
poet fashion he loved her. That night there was a ball, and
though Walter Scott could not dance, he went to the ball and met
his lady love. She was Charlotte Margaret Carpenter, the
daughter of a Frenchman who had taken refuge in England from the
fury of the Revolution. Walter was able to win his lady's heart,
and before the end of the year had married her and carried her
off to Scotland.
Two or three years after his marriage, Scott published a book of
Border Ballads. It was the outcome of his wanderings in the
Border country. In it Scott had gathered together many ballads
which he heard from the country folk, but he altered and bettered
them as he thought fit, and among them were new ballads by
himself and some of his friends.
The book was only a moderate success, but in it we may find the
germ of all Scott's later triumphs. For it was the spirit of
these ballads with which his mind was so full which made it
possible for him to write the Metrical Romances that made him
famous.
It is now many chapters since we spoke of Metrical Romances.
They were, you remember, the chief literature from the twelfth to
the fifteenth century, which time was also the time of the early
ballads. And now that people had begun again to see the beauty
of ballads, they were ready also to turn again to the simplicity
of Metrical Romances. These rime stories which Scott now began
to write, burst on our Island with the splendor of something new,
and yet it was simply the old-time spirit in which Scott had
steeped himself, which found a new birth--a Renascence. Scott
was a stalwart Border chieftain born out of time. But as another
writer says, instead of harrying cattle and cracking crowns, this
Border chief was appointed to be the song-singer and pleasant
tale-teller to Britain and to Europe. "It was the time for such
a new literature; and this Walter Scott was the man for it."*
*Carlyle.
"The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorn'd not such legends to prolong:
They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme."*
*Marmion.
The first of Scott's song stories was called The Lay of the Last
Minstrel. In it he pictures an old minstrel, the last of all his
race, wandering neglected and despised about the countryside.
But at Newark Castle, the seat of the Duchess of Buccleuch, he
receives kindly entertainment.
"When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride:
And he began to talk anon,
Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter, rest him, God!
A braver ne'er to battle rode;
And how full many a tale he knew,
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch;
And, would the noble Duchess deign
To listen to an old man's strain,
Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,
He though even yet, the sooth to speak,
That, if she loved the harp to hear,
He could make music to her ear."
This humble boon was granted. The minstrel was led to the room
of state where sat the noble-hearted Duchess with her ladies, and
there began his lay. You must read The Lay itself to learn about
William of Deloraine, the Goblin Page, the Lady Margaret, and
Lord Canstoun, and all the rest. The meter in which Scott wrote
was taken from Coleridge's Christabel. For, though it was not
yet published, it had long been in manuscript, and Scott had
heard part of it repeated by a friend.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel was a success. From henceforth
Scott was an author. But he had no need to write for money, as
money came to him in other ways. So none of the struggles of a
rising author fell to his lot. His career was simply a
triumphant march. And good-natured, courteous, happy-hearted
Scott took his triumphs joyously.
Other poems followed The Lay, the best being Marmion and The Lady
of the Lake. Scott's son-in-law says, "The Lay is, I should say,
generally considered as the most natural and original, Marmion as
the most powerful and splendid, The Lady of the Lake as the most
interesting, romantic, picturesque, and graceful of his great
poems." Fame and money poured in upon Scott, and not upon him
only, but upon Scotland. For the new poet had sung the beauties
of the rugged country so well that hundreds of English flocked to
see it for themselves. Scotland became the fashion, and has
remained so ever since.
In 1799 Scott had been appointed Sheriff-deputy of Selkirkshire,
and as this obliged him to live part of the year at least in the
district, he rented a house not far from Selkirk. But now that
he saw himself becoming wealthy, he bought an estate in his
beloved Border country and began to build the house of
Abbotsford. To this house he and his family removed in May 1812.
Here, amid the noise of carpenters and masons, with only one room
fit to sit in, and that shared by chattering children, he went on
with his work. To a friend he writes, "As for the house and the
poem, there are twelve masons hammering at the one, and one poor
noddle at the other--so they are both in progress."
It was at Abbotsford that Scott made his home for the rest of his
life. Here he put off the gown and wig of a barrister, and
played the part of a country gentleman. He rode about
accompanied by his children and his friends, and followed by his
dogs. He fished, and walked, and learned to know every one
around, high and low. He was beloved by all the countryside, for
he was kindly and courteous to all, and was "aye the gentleman."
He would sit and talk with a poor man in his cottage, listening
to his tales of long ago, with the same ease and friendliness as
he would entertain the great in his own beautiful house. And
that house was always thronged with visitors, invited and
uninvited, with friends who came out of love of the genial host,
with strangers who came out of curiosity to see the great
novelist. For great as Scott's fame as a poet, it was nothing to
the fame he earned as a story-teller.
The first story he published was called Waverley, or 'Tis Sixty
Years Since. He had begun to write this tale years before, but
had put it aside as some of his friends did not think well of it.
One day he came upon the manuscript by accident, thought himself
that the story was worth something, and resolved to publish it.
Finishing the writing in three weeks he published the novel
without putting his name upon the title-page. He did this, he
said, because he thought it was not quite dignified for a grave
advocate and Sheriff of the county to write novels. The book was
a wild success, everybody read it, everybody was eager to know
who the author was. Many people guessed that it was Scott, but,
for more than ten years, he would not own it. At public dinners
when the health of the author of Waverley was drunk, people would
look meaningly at Scott, but he would appear quite unconcerned,
and drink the health and cheer with the rest. To keep the
mystery up he even reviewed his own books. And so curiosity
grew. Who was this Great Unknown, this Wizard of the North?
Waverley is a story of the Jacobite times, of the rebellion of
'45. The hero, Edward Waverley, who is no such great hero
either, his author calling him indeed "a sneaking piece of
imbecility," gives his name to the book. He meets Bonnie Prince
Charlie, is present at the famous ball at Holyrood, fights at the
battle of Prestonpans, and marches with the rebel army into
England.
Thus we have the beginning of the historical novel. Scott takes
real people, and real incidents, and with them he interweaves the
story of the fortunes of make-believe people and make-believe
incidents. Scott does not always keep quite strictly to fact.
He is of the same mind as the old poet Davenant who thought it
folly to take away the liberty of a poet and fetter his feet in
the shackles of an historian. Why, he asked, should a poet not
make and mend a story and frame it more delightfully, merely
because austere historians have entered into a bond to truth. So
Scott takes liberties with history, but he always gives us the
spirit of the times of which he writes. Thus in one sense he is
true to history. And perhaps from Waverley we get the better
idea of the state of Scotland, at the time of the last Jacobite
rebellion, than from any number of histories. In the next
chapter Scott himself shall give you an account of the battle of
Prestonpans.
Chapter LXXVIII SCOTT--"THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH"
"THE army, moving by its right from off the ground on which they
had rested, soon entered the path through the morass, conducting
their march with astonishing silence and great rapidity. The
mist had not risen to the higher grounds, so that for some time
they had the advantage of starlight. But this was lost as the
stars faded before approaching day, and the head of the marching
column, continuing its descent, plunged as it were into the heavy
ocean of fog, which rolled its white waves over the whole plain,
and over the sea by which it was bounded. Some difficulties were
now to be encountered, inseparable from darkness, a narrow,
broken, and marshy path, and the necessity of preserving union in
the march. These, however, were less inconvenient to
Highlanders, from their habits of life, than they would have been
to any other troops, and they continued a steady and swift
movement.
. . . . . . . . . .
. .
"The clan of Fergus had now gained the firm plain, which had
lately borne a large crop of corn. But the harvest was gathered
in, and the expanse was unbroken by trees, bush, or interruption
of any kind. The rest of the army were following fast, when they
heard the drums of the enemy beat the general. Surprise,
however, had made no part of their plan, so they were not
disconcerted by this intimation that the foe was upon his guard
and prepared to receive them. It only hastened their
dispositions for the combat, which were very simple.
. . . . . . . . . .
. .
"'Down with your plaid, Waverley,' cried Fergus, throwing off his
own; 'we'll win silks for our tartans before the sun is above the
sea.'
"The clansmen on every side stripped their plaids, prepared their
arms, and there was an awful pause of about three minutes, during
which the men, pulling off their bonnets, raised their faces to
heaven, and uttered a short prayer; then pulled their bonnets
over their brows and began to move forward at first slowly.
Waverley felt his heart at that moment throb as it would have
burst his bosom. It was not fear, it was not ardour--it was a
compound of both, a new and deeply energetic impulse, that with
its first emotion chilled and astounded, then fevered and
maddened his mind. The sounds around him combined to exalt his
enthusiasm; the pipes played, and the clans rushed forward, each
in its own dark column. As they advanced they mended their pace,
and the muttering sounds of the men to each other began to swell
into a wild cry. At this moment, the sun, which was not risen
above the horizon, dispelled the mist. The vapours rose like a
curtain, and showed the two armies in the act of closing. The
line of the regulars was formed directly fronting the attack of
the Highlanders; it glittered with the appointments of a complete
army, and was flanked by cavalry and artillery. But the sight
impressed no terror on the assailants.
"'Forward, sons of Ivor,' cried their chief, 'or the Camerons
will draw the first blood!' They rushed on with a tremendous
yell.
"The rest is well known. The horses, who were commanded to
charge the advancing Highlanders in the flank, received an
irregular fire from their fusees as they ran on, and, seized
with a disgraceful panic, wavered, halted, disbanded, and
galloped from the field. The artillerymen, deserted by the
cavalry, fled after discharging their pieces, and the
Highlanders, who dropped their guns when fired, and drew their
broadswords, rushed with headlong fury against the infantry.
. . . . . . . . . .
. .
"The English infantry, trained in the wars in Flanders, stood
their ground with great courage. But their extended files were
pierced and broken in many places by the close masses of the
clans; and in the personal struggle which ensued, the nature of
the Highlanders' weapons, and their extraordinary fierceness and
activity, gave them a decided superiority over those who had been
accustomed to trust much to their array and discipline, and felt
that the one was broken and the other useless.
. . . . . . . . . .
. .
"Loud shouts now echoed over the whole field. The battle was
fought and won, and the whole baggage, artillery, and military
stores of the regular army remained a possession of the victors.
Never was a victory more complete."
Such is Scott's picture of the battle of Prestonpans. And
throughout the whole book we have wonderful pictures of Scottish
life as it then was--pictures of robbers' caves, and chieftains'
halls, of the chiefs themselves, and their followers, of
mountain, loch, and glen, all drawn with such a true and living
touch that we cannot forget them.
After Waverley other novels followed fast, each one adding to the
reputation of the unknown author, and now, from the name of the
first, we call them all the Waverley Novels.
Scott's was one of the most wonderful successes--perhaps the most
wonderful--that has ever been known in our literature. "As long
as Sir Walter Scott wrote poetry," said a friend, "there was
neither man nor woman ever thought of either reading or writing
anything but poetry. But the instant that he gave over writing
poetry, there was neither man nor woman ever read it more! All
turned to tales and novels."*
*James Hogg.
Everybody read The Novels, from the King to the shepherd.
Friends, money, and fame came tumbling in upon the author. He
had refused to be made Poet Laureate, and passed the honor on to
Southey, but he accepted a baronetcy. He added wing after wing
to his beautiful house, and acre after acre to his land, and
rejoiced in being laird of Abbotsford.
The speed with which Scott wrote was marvelous. His house was
always full of visitors, yet he always had time to entertain
them. He was never known to refuse to see a friend, gentle or
simple, and was courteous even to the bores who daily invaded his
home. He had unbounded energy. He rose early in the morning,
and before the rest of the family was astir had finished more
than half of his daily task of writing. Thus by twelve o'clock
he was free to entertain his guests.
If ever man was happy and successful, Scott seemed to be that
man. But suddenly all his fair prospects were darkened over.
Sir Walter was in some degree a partner in the business both of
his publisher and his printer. Now both publisher and printer
failed, and Scott found himself ruined with them. At fifty-five
he was not only a ruined man, but loaded with a terrible debt of
117,000 pounds.
It was a staggering blow, and most men would have been utterly
crushed by it. Not so Scott. He was proud, proud of his old
name and of his new-founded baronial hall. He was stout of heart
too. At fifty-five he began life again, determined with his pen
to wipe out the debt. Many were the hands stretched out to help
him; rich men offered their thousands, poor men their scanty
savings, but Scott refused help from both rich and poor. His own
hand must wipe out the debt, he said. Time was all he asked. So
with splendid courage and determination, the like of which has
perhaps never been known, he set to work.
But evil days had begun for Sir Walter. Scarcely four months
after the crash, his wife died, and so he lost a companion of
nearly thirty years. "I think my heart will break," he cries in
the first bitterness of sorrow. "Lonely, aged, deprived of my
family, an impoverished, an embarrassed man." But dogged courage
comes to him again. "Well, that is over, and if it cannot be
forgotten must be remembered with patience." So day after day he
bent to his work. Every morning saw his appointed task done.
Besides novels and articles he wrote a History of Napoleon, a
marvelous book, considering it was written in eighteen months.
Then Scott began the book which will be the first of all his
books to interest you, The Tales of a Grandfather. This is a
history of Scotland, and it was written for his grandson John
Hugh Lockhard, or Hugh Littlejohn as he is called in The Tales.
"I will make," said Scott, "if possible, a book that a child
shall understand, yet a man shall feel some temptation to peruse
should he chance to take it up."
Hugh Littlejohn was a delicate boy, indeed he had not long to
live, but many a happy day he spent, this summer (1827), riding
about the woods of Abbotsford with his kind grandfather,
listening to the tales he told. For Scott, too, the rides were a
joy, and helped to make him forget his troubles. When he had
told his tale in such a simple way that Littlejohn understood, he
returned home and wrote it down.
In the December of the same year the first part of The Tales was
published, and at once was a tremendous success, a success as
great almost as any of the novels. Hugh Littlejohn liked The
Tales too. "Dear Grandpapa," he writes, "I thank you for the
books. I like my own picture and the Scottish chief: I am going
to read them as fast as I can."
Two more volumes of Tales followed. Then there was no need to
write more for the dearly loved grandson, as a year or two later,
when he was only eleven, poor Littlejohn died. But already the
kind grandfather was near his end also, the tremendous effort
which he made to force himself to work beyond his strength could
not be kept up. His health broke down under it. Still he
struggled on, but at last, yielding to his friends' entreaties,
he went to Italy in search of health and strength. It gives us
some idea of the high place Sir Walter had won for himself in the
hearts of the people, when we learn that his health seemed a
national concern, and that a warship was sent to take him on his
journey. But the journey was of no avail. Among the great hills
and blue lakes of Italy Scott longed for the lesser hills and
grayer lochs of Scotland. So he turned homewards. And at home,
in his beloved Abbotsford, in the still splendor of an autumn
day, with the meadow-scented air he loved fanning his face, and
the sound of rippling Tweed in his ears, he closed his eyes for
ever. In the grass-grown ruin of Dryburgh Abbey, not far from
his home, he was laid to rest, while the whole countryside
mourned Sir Walter.
Before he died Scott had paid 70,000 pounds of his debt, an
enormous sum for one man to make by his pen in six years. He
died in the happy belief that all was paid, as indeed it all was.
For after the author's death, his books still brought in a great
deal of money, so that in fifteen years the debt was wiped out.
I have not told you any of Scott's stories here, because, unlike
many of the books we have spoken of, they are easily to be had.
And the time will soon come, if it has not come already, when you
can read Sir Walter's books, just as he wrote them. It is best,
I think, that you should read them so, for Sir Walter Scott is
perhaps the first of all our great writers nearly the whole of
whose books a child can read without help. You will find many
long descriptions in them, but do not let them frighten you. You
need not read them all the first time, and very likely you will
want to read them the second time.
But perhaps before you read his novels you will like to read his
Metrical Romances. For when we are children--big children
perhaps, but still children--is the time to read them. Long ago
in the twelfth century, when the people of England were simple
and unlearned, they loved Metrical Romances, and we when we are
simple and unlearned may love them too. Many of these old
romances, however, are hard to get, and they are written in a
language hard for many of us to understand. But Sir Walter
Scott, in the nineteenth century, has recreated for us all the
charm of those old tales. For this then, let us thank and
remember him.
"His legendary song could tell
Of ancient deeds, so long forgot;
Of feuds, whose memory was not;
Of forests, now laid waste and bare;
Of towers, which harbour now the hare;
Of manners, long since chang'd and gone;
Of chiefs, who under their grey stone
So long had slept, that fickle Fame
Had blotted from her rolls their name,
And twin'd round some new minion's head
The fading wreath for which they bled."*
*Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Chapter LXXIX BYRON--"CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE"
WHEN Sir Walter Scott ceased to write Metrical Romances, he said
it was because Byron had beaten him. But the metrical romances
of these two poets are widely different. With Sir Walter we are
up among the hills, out on the wide moorland. With him we tramp
the heather, and ford the rushing streams; his poems are full of
healthy, generous life. With Byron we seem rather to be in the
close air of a theater. His poems do not tell of a rough and
vigorous life, but of luxury and softness; of tyrants and slaves,
of beautiful houris and dreadful villains. And in the villains
we always seem to see Byron himself, who tries to impress us with
the fact that he is indeed a very "bold, bad man." In his poetry
there is something artificial, which takes us backward to the
time of Pope, rather than forward with the nature poets.
The boyhood of George Gordon Byron was a sad one. He came of an
ancient and noble family, but one which in its later generations
had become feeble almost to madness. His father, who was called
Mad Jack, was wild and worthless, his mother was a wealthy woman,
but weak and passionate, and in a short time after her marriage
her husband spent nearly all her money. Mrs. Byron then took her
little baby and went to live quietly in Aberdeen on what was left
of her fortune.
She was a weak and passionate woman, and sometimes she petted and
spoiled her little boy, sometimes she treated him cruelly,
calling him "a lame brat," than which nothing could hurt him
more, for poor little George was born lame, and all his life long
he felt sore and angry about it. To him too had been given the
passionate temper of both father and mother, and when he was
angry he would fall into "silent rages," bite pieces out of
saucers, or tear his pinafores to bits.
Meanwhile, while in Aberdeen Mrs. Byron struggled to live on 130
pounds a year, in Newstead Abbey, near Nottingham, there lived a
queer, half-mad, old grand-uncle, who had earned for himself the
name of "the wicked lord." He knew well enough that when he died
the little boy in Aberdeen, with the pretty face and lame foot,
would become Lord Byron. He might have taken some interest in his
nephew, and seen at least that he was sent to school, and given
an education to fit him for his future place in the world. But
that was not "the wicked lord's" way. He paid no attention to
the little boy in Aberdeen. Indeed, it is said that he hated
him, and that he cut down his trees and despoiled Newstead as
much as he could, in order to leave his heir as poor a heritage
as possible.
But when George was ten this old uncle died. Then mother and son
said good-by to Aberdeen, and at length traveled southwards to
take possession of their great house and broad lands. But the
heritage was not so great as at first sight would appear, for the
house was so ruinous that it was scarcely fit to live in, and the
wicked lord had sold some of the land. However, as the sale was
unlawful, after much trouble the land was recovered.
Byron had now to take his place among boys of his own class, and
when he was thirteen he was sent to school at Harrow. But he
hated school. He was shy as "a wild mountain colt" and somewhat
snobbish, and at first was most unpopular.
As he says himself, however, he "fought his way very fairly" and
he formed some friendships, passionately, as he did everything.
In spite of his lameness, he was good at sports, especially at
swimming. He was brave, and even if his snobbishness earned for
him the nickname of the "Old English Baron," his comrades admired
his spirit, and in the end, instead of being unpopular, he led--
often to mischief. "I was," he says, "always cricketing--
rebelling--fighting, rowing (from row, not boat-rowing, a
different practice), and in all manner of mischiefs." Yet, wild
though he was, of his headmaster he ever kept a kindly
remembrance. "Dr. Drury," he says, "whom I plagued sufficiently
too, was the best, the kindest friend I ever had."
Byron hated Harrow until his last year and a half there; then he
liked it. And when he knew he must leave and go to Cambridge, he
was so unhappy that he counted the days that remained, not with
joy at the thought of leaving, but with sorrow.
At Cambridge he felt himself lonely and miserable at first, as he
had at school. But there too he soon made friends. He found
plenty of time for games, he rode and shot, rejoiced in feats of
swimming and diving. He wrote poetry also, which he afterwards
published under the name of Hours of Idleness. It was a good
name for the book, for indeed he was so idle in his proper
studies, that the wonder is that he was able to take his degree.
It was in 1807, at the age of nineteen, that Lord Byron published
his Hours of Idleness, with a rather pompous preface. The poems
were not great, some of them indeed were nothing less than
mawkish, but perhaps they did not deserve the slashing review
which appeared in the Edinburgh Review. The Edinburgh Review was
a magazine given at this time to criticising authors very
severely, and Byron had to suffer no more than other and greater
poets. But he trembled with indignation, and his anger called
forth his first really good poem, called English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers. It is a satire after the style of Pope, and in it
Byron lashes not only his reviewers, but also other writers of
his day. His criticisms are, many of them, quite wrong, and in
after years when he came to know the men he now decried, he
regretted this poem, and declared it should never be printed
again. But it is still included in his works. Perhaps having
just read about Sir Walter Scott, it may amuse you to read what
Byron has to say of him.
"Thus Lays of Minstrels--may they be the last!--
On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast.
While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,
That dames may listen to the sound at nights;
. . . . . .
Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan,
The golden-crested haughty Marmion,
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight,
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace;
A mighty mixture of the great and base.
And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance,
On public taste to foist thy stale romance."
Then after a sneer at Scott for making money by his poems, Byron
concludes with this passage:--
"These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow;
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
Resign their hallowed bays to Walter Scott."
When people read this satire, they realized that a new poet had
appeared. But it was not until Byron published his first long
poem, called Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, that he became famous.
Then his success was sudden and amazing. "I woke up one morning
and found myself famous," he says. "His fame," says another poet
and friend who wrote his life,* "seemed to spring up like the
palace of a fairy tale, in a night." He was praised and lauded
by high and low. Every one was eager to known him, and for a
time he became the spoiled darling of society.
*Moore.
Childe Harold is a long poem of four cantos, but now only two
cantos were published. The third was added in 1816, the fourth
in 1818. It is written in the Spenserian stanza, with here and
there songs and ballads in other meters, and in the first few
verses there is even an affectation of Spenserian wording. But
the poet soon grew tired of that, and returned to his own
English. Childe is used in the ancient sense of knight, and the
poem tells of the wanderings of a gloomy, vicious, world-worn
man.
There is very little story in Childe Harold. The poem is more a
series of descriptions and a record of the thoughts that are
called forth by the places through which the traveler passes. It
is indeed a poetic diary. The pilgrim visits many famous spots,
among them the field of Waterloo, where but a few months before
the fate of Europe had been decided. To us the battle of
Waterloo is a long way off. To Byron it was still a deed of
yesterday. As he approaches the field he feels that he is on
sacred ground.
"Stop!--for thy tread is on an Empire's dust!
An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!
Is the spot marked with no colossal bust?
Nor column trophied for triumphal show?
None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so,
As the ground was before, thus let is be;--
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!
And is this all the world has gain'd by thee,
Thou first and last of field! kingmaking victory?"
Then in thought Byron goes over all that took place that fateful
day.
"There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it?--No; 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
But hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!
. . . . . .
"Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden parting, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!
"And there was mounting in hot haste; the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips--'The foe! they come! they
come!'"
And then thinking of the battle lost by the great conqueror of
Europe, the poet mourns for him--
"Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now
That thou are nothing, save the jest of Fame,
Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert
A god unto thyself; nor less the same
To thee astounded kingdoms all inert,
Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.
"Oh, more or less than man--in high or low,
Battling with nations, flying from the field;
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield;
An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,
However deeply in men's spirits skill'd,
Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war,
Nor learn that tempted Fate will eave the loftiest Star."
These are a few verses from one of the best known parts of Childe
Harold. There are many other verses equally well known. They
have become the possession of almost every schoolboy. Some of
them you will read in school books, and when you are grown up and
able to distinguish between what is vulgar and what is good and
beautiful in it, I hope you will read the whole poem.
For two years Byron was as popular as man might be. Then came a
change. From the time that he was a child he had always been in
love, first with one and then with another. His heart was
tinder, ever ready to take fire. Now he married. At first all
went well. One little baby girl was born. Then troubles came,
troubles which have never been explained, and for which we need
not seek an explanation now, and one day Lady Byron left her
husband never to return.
The world which had petted and spoiled the poet now turned from
the man. He was abused and decried; instead of being courted he
was shunned. So in anger and disgust, Byron left the country
where he found no sympathy. He never returned to it, the rest of
his life being spent as a wanderer upon the Continent.
It was to a great extent a misspent life, and yet, while Byron
wasted himself in unworthy ways, he wrote constantly and rapidly,
pouring out volumes of poetry at a speed equaled only by Scott.
He wrote tragedies, metrical romances, lyrics, and everything
that he wrote was read--not only at home, but on the Continent.
And one thing that we must remember Byron for is that he made
English literature Continental. "Before he came," says an
Italian patriot and writer,* "all that was known of English
literature was the French translation of Shakespeare. It is
since Byron that we Continentalists have learned to study
Shakespeare and other English writers. From him dates the
sympathy of all the true-hearted amongst us for this land of
liberty. He led the genius of Britain on a pilgrimage throughout
all Europe."
*Mazzini.
Much that Byron wrote was almost worthless. He has none of the
haunting sense of the beauty of words in perfect order that marks
the greatest poets. He has no passion for the correct use of
words, and often his song seems tuneless and sometimes vulgar.
For in Byron's undisciplined, turgid soul there is a strain of
coarseness and vulgarity which not seldom shows itself in his
poetry, spoiling some of his most beautiful lines. His poetry is
egotistical too, that is, it is full of himself. And again and
again it has been said that Byron was always his own hero. "He
never had more than a singe subject--himself. No man has ever
pushed egotism further than he."* In all his dark and gloomy
heroes we see Lord Byron, and it is not only himself which he
gives to the world's gaze, but his wrongs and his sorrows. Yet
in spite of all its faults, there is enough that is purely
beautiful in his work to give Byron rank as a poet. He has been
placed on a level with Wordsworth. One cultured writer whose
judgment on literature we listen to with respect has said:
"Wordsworth and Byron stand out by themselves. When the year
1900 is turned, and our nation comes to recount her poetic
glories of the century which has then just ended, the first names
with her will be these."** But there are many who will deny him
this high rank. "He can only claim to be acknowledged as a poet
of the third class," says another great poet,*** "who now and
then rises into the second, but speedily relapses into the lower
element where he was born." And yet another has said that his
poetry fills the great space through which our literature has
moved from the time of Johnson to the time of Wordsworth. "It
touches the Essay of Man**** at the one extremity, and The
Excursion at the other."***** So you see Byron's place in our
literature is hardly settled yet.
*Scherer.
**Arnold.
***Swinburne.
****By Pope.
*****Macaulay.
When Byron left England he fled from the contempt of his fellows.
His life on the Continent did little to lessen that contempt.
But before he died he redeemed his name from the scorner.
Long ago, you remember, at the time of the Renaissance, Greece
had been conquered by the Turks. Hundreds of years passed, and
Greece remained in a state of slavery. But by degrees new life
began to stir among the people, and in 1821 a war of independence
broke out. At first the other countries of Europe stood aloof,
but gradually their sympathies were drawn to the little nation
making so gallant a fight for freedom.
And this struggle woke all that was generous in the heart of
Byron, the worn man of the world. Like his own Childe Harold,
"With pleasure drugg'd he almost long'd for woe." So to Greece
he went, and the last nine months of his life were spent to such
good purpose that when he died the whole Greek nation mourned.
He had hoped to die sword in hand, but that was not to be. His
body was worn with reckless living, and could ill bear any
strain. One day, when out for a long ride, he became heated, and
then soaked by a shower of rain. Rheumatic fever followed, and
ten days later he lay dead. He was only thirty-six.
All Greece mourned for the loss of such a generous friend.
Cities vied with each other for the honor of his tomb. And when
his friends decided that his body should be carried home to
England, homage as to a prince was paid to it as it passed
through the streets on its last journey.
"The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.
"Awake! (not Greece--she is awake!)
Awake! my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!
"Tread those reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood! unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of Beauty be.
"If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here:--up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!
"Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground
And take thy rest."
These lines are from Byron's last poem, written on his thirty-
sixth birthday.
Chapter LXXX SHELLEY--THE POET OF LOVE
WHEN Byron wandered upon the Continent he met and made friends
with another poet, a greater than himself. This poet was called
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and of him I am going to tell you something
in this chapter.
On the 4th of August, 1792, Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at
Field Place, near the village of Warnham, in Sussex. His father,
"a well-meaning, ill-doing, wrong-headed man," was of a good
family, and heir to a baronetcy. His mother was a beautiful
woman.
Of the early childhood of Bysshe we know nothing, except that at
the age of six he was daily taught Latin by a clergyman.
When we next hear of him he is a big boy, the hero of the nursery
with four little sisters, and a wee, toddling, baby brother, to
all of whom he loved to play big brother. His sisters would
often sit on his knee and listen to the wonderful tales he told.
There were stories of the Great Tortoise which lived in a pond
near. True, the Great Tortoise was never seen, but that made it
all the more mysterious and wonderful, and any unusual noise was
put down to the Great Tortoise. There were other stories about
the Great Old Snake which lived in the garden. This really was
seen, and perhaps it was the same serpent which two hundred years
before had been known to lurk about the countryside. "He could
jut out his neck an ell," it was said, "and cast his venom about
four rods; a serpent of countenance very proud, at the sight or
hearing of men or cattle, raising his head seeming to listen and
look about with great arrogancy." But if it was this same
serpent it had lost its venom, and in the days when Bysshe and
his sisters played about the garden, they looked upon it as a
friend. One day, however, a gardener killed it by mistake, when
he was cutting the grass with a scythe. So there was an end of
the Great Old Snake. But the Tortoise and the Snake were not the
only wonderful things about Field Place. There was a big garret
which was never used, with beneath it a secret room, the only
entrance to which was through a plank in the garret floor. This,
according to the big brother, was the dwelling-place of an
alchemist "old and grey with a long beard." Here with his lamp
and magic books he wrought his wonders, and "Some day" the eager
children were promised a visit to him. Meanwhile Bysshe himself
played the alchemist, and with his sisters dressed up in strange
costumes to represent fiends or spirits he ran about with liquid
fire until this dangerous play was stopped. Then he made an
electric battery and amused himself by giving his sisters
"shocks" to the secret terror of at least one of them whose heart
would sink with fear when she saw her brother appear with a roll
of brown paper, a bit of wire, and a bottle. But one day she
could not hide her terror any longer, and after that the kind big
brother never worried her any more to have shocks.
Sometimes, too, their games took them further afield, and led by
Bysshe the children went on long rambles through woods and
meadows, climbing walls and scrambling through hedges, and coming
home tired and muddy. Bysshe was so happy with his sisters and
little brother that he decided to buy a little girl and bring her
up as his own. One day a little gypsy girl came to the back
door, and he though she would do very well. His father and
mother, however, thought otherwise, so the little girl was not
bought.
But the boy who was so lively with his sisters, at times was
quiet and thoughtful. Sometimes he would slip out of the house
on moonlight nights. His anxious parents would then send an old
servant after him, who would return to say that "Master Bysshe
only took a walk, and came back again." A very strange form of
amusement it must have seemed to his plain matter-of-fact father.
But now these careless happy days came to an end, or only
returned during holiday times, for when Bysshe was ten years old
he was sent to school.
Shelley went first to a private school, and after a year or two
to Eton, but at neither was he happy. And although he had been
so merry at home, at school he was looked upon as a strange
unsociable creature. He refused to fag for the bigger boys. He
never joined in the ordinary school games, and would wander about
by himself reading, or watching the clouds and the birds. He
read all kinds of books, liking best those which told of haunted
castles, robbers, giants, murderers, and other eerie subjects.
He liked chemistry too, and was more than once brought into
trouble by the daring experiments he made. Shelley was very
brave and never afraid of anything except what was base and low.
To the few who loved him he was gentle, but most of his
schoolfellows took delight in tormenting him. And when goaded
into wrath he showed that he could be fierce.
Shelley soon began to write, and while still at school, at the
age of sixteen, he published a novel for which he received 40
pounds. A little later he and one of his sisters published a
book of poems together.
From Eton Shelley went to Oxford. Here he remained for a few
months reading hard. "He was to be found, book in hand, at all
hours; reading in season and out of season; at table, in bed, and
especially during a walk." But he read more what pleased himself
than what pleased the college authorities. He wrote too, and
among the things he wrote was a little leaflet of a few pages
which seemed to the fellows of his college a dangerous attack
upon religion. They summoned Shelley to appear before them, and
as he refused to answer their questions he was expelled. Shelley
had given himself the name of Atheist. It is a very ugly name,
meaning one who denies the existence of God. Looking back now we
can see that it was too harsh and ugly a name for Shelley. The
paper for which he was expelled, even if it was wicked, was the
work of a rash, impetuous boy, not the reasoned wickedness of a
grown man. But the deed was done, and Shelley was thrown out
into the world, for his father, sorely vexed and troubled, not
knowing how to control his wild colt of a son, refused to allow
him to return home. So Shelley remained in London. Here he went
often to visit his sisters at school, and came to known one of
their school friends, Harriet Westbrook. She was a pretty, good-
tempered girl of sixteen with "hair like a poet's dream."*
Shelley thought that she too was oppressed and ill-used as he had
been. She loved him, he liked her, so they decided to get
married, and ran away to Scotland and were married in Edinburgh.
Shelley was nineteen and his little bride sixteen.
*Hogg.
This boy and girl marriage was a terrible mistake, and three
years later husband and wife separated.
I can tell you very little more of Shelley's life, some of it was
wrong, much of it was sad, as it could hardly fail to be
following on this wrong beginning. When you grow older you will
be able to read it with charity and understanding. Meantime keep
the picture of the kindly big brother, and imagine him growing
into a lovable and brave man, into a poet who wins our hearts
almost unawares by the beauty of his poetry, his poetry which has
been called "a beautiful dream of the future." Of some of it I
shall now tell you a little.
Very early Shelley began to publish poetry, but most of it was
not worthy of a truly great poet. His first really fine poem is
Alastor. It is written in blank verse, and represents a poet
seeking in vain for his ideal of what is truly lovely and
beautiful. Being unable to find that which he seeks, he dies.
The poem is full of beautiful description, but it is sad, and in
the picture of the poet we seem to see Shelley himself. Other
long poems followed, poems which are both terrible and beautiful,
but many years must pass before you try to read them. For
Shelley's poetry is more vague, his meaning more elusive, than
that of almost any other poet of whom we have spoken. It is
rather for Shelley's shorter poems, his lyrics, that I would try
to gain your love at present, for although he wrote The Cenci,
the best tragedy of his time, a tragedy which by its terror and
pain links him with Shakespeare, it is as a lyric poet that we
love Shelley. "Here," says another poet,* "Shelley forgets that
he is anything but a poet, forgets sometimes that he is anything
but a child. . . . He plays truant from earth, slips through the
wicket of fancy into heaven's meadow, and goes gathering stars."
And of all our poets, Shelley is the least earthly, the most
spiritual. But he loved the beautiful world, the sea and sky,
and when we have heard him sing of the clouds and the skylark, of
the wind and the waves of--
*Francis Thompson.
"The fresh Earth in new leaves drest,
And the starry night;
Autumn evening, and the morn
When the golden mists are born,"*
*Song.
when we have heard him sing of these, and have understood with
our heart, they have an added meaning for us. We love and
understand the song of the skylark better for having heard
Shelley sing of it.
"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
"Higher still and higher,
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The deep blue thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
"In the golden lightening
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are brightening,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
"The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight,
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
. . . . . . .
"All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
"What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
"Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
In sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
"Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul a secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower.
. . . . . . .
"Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine;
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
. . . . . . .
"We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
The sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
"Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
"Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
"Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world would listen then, as I am listening now!"
As we listen to the lark singing we look upward and see the light
summer clouds driving over the blue sky. They, too, have a song
which once the listening poet heard.
"I bring fresh showers for the thirsty flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shades for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast,
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While asleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits,
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean with gentle motion
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he love remains;
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
. . . . . . .
"I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl:
The volcanoes are dim, and the starts reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
In the million-coloured bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.
"I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky:
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain, when with never a stain,
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again."
That is one of Shelley's happiest poems. For most of his poems
have at least a tone of sadness, even the joyous song of the
skylark leaves us with a sigh on our lips, "our sincerest
laughter with some pain is fraught." But The Cloud is full only
of joy and movement, and of the laughter of innocent mischief.
It is as if we saw the boy Shelley again.
We find his sadness, too, in his Ode to the West Wind, but it
ends on a note of hope. Here are the last verses--
"Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
"Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
"Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth;
And by the incantation of this verse,
"Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
"The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
Shelley sang of Love as well as of the beauty of all things.
Here is a little poem, some lines of which are often quoted--
"One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it,
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And Pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.