Nature in Scottish Poetry, Professor Veitch starts with a historical
disquisition on the growth of the sentiment in humanity. The primitive
state he regards as being simply a sort of 'open-air feeling.' The chief
sources of pleasure are the warmth of the sunshine, the cool of the
breeze and the general fresh aspect of the earth and sky, connecting
itself with a consciousness of life and sensuous enjoyment; while
darkness, storm and cold are regarded as repulsive. This is followed by
the pastoral stage in which we find the love of green meadows and of
shady trees and of all things that make life pleasant and comfortable.
This, again, by the stage of agriculture, the era of the war with earth,
when men take pleasure in the cornfield and in the garden, but hate
everything that is opposed to tillage, such as woodland and rock, or that
cannot be subdued to utility, such as mountain and sea. Finally we come
to the pure nature-feeling, the free delight in the mere contemplation of
the external world, the joy in sense-impressions irrespective of all
questions of Nature's utility and beneficence. But here the growth does
not stop. The Greek, desiring to make Nature one with humanity, peopled
the grove and hillside with beautiful and fantastic forms, saw the god
hiding in the thicket, and the naiad drifting with the stream. The
modern Wordsworthian, desiring to make man one with Nature, finds in
external things 'the symbols of our inner life, the workings of a spirit
akin to our own.' There is much that is suggestive in these early
chapters of Professor Veitch's book, but we cannot agree with him in the
view he takes of the primitive attitude towards Nature. The 'open-air
feeling,' of which he talks, seems to us comparatively modern. The
earliest Nature-myths tell us, not of man's 'sensuous enjoyment' of
Nature, but of the terror that Nature inspires. Nor are darkness and
storm regarded by the primitive man as 'simply repulsive'; they are to
him divine and supernatural things, full of wonder and full of awe. Some
reference, also, should have been made to the influence of towns on the
development of the nature-feeling, for, paradox though it may seem, it is
none the less true that it is largely to the creation of cities that we
owe the love of the country.
Professor Veitch is on a safer ground when he comes to deal with the
growth and manifestations of this feeling as displayed in Scotch poetry.
The early singers, as he points out, had all the mediaeval love of
gardens, all the artistic delight in the bright colours of flowers and
the pleasant song of birds, but they felt no sympathy for the wild
solitary moorland, with its purple heather, its grey rocks and its waving
bracken. Montgomerie was the first to wander out on the banks and braes
and to listen to the music of the burns, and it was reserved for Drummond
of Hawthornden to sing of flood and forest and to notice the beauty of
the mists on the hillside and the snow on the mountain tops. Then came
Allan Ramsay with his honest homely pastorals; Thomson, who writes about
Nature like an eloquent auctioneer, and yet was a keen observer, with a
fresh eye and an open heart; Beattie, who approached the problems that
Wordsworth afterwards solved; the great Celtic epic of Ossian, such an
important factor in the romantic movement of Germany and France;
Fergusson, to whom Burns is so much indebted; Burns himself, Leyden, Sir
Walter Scott, James Hogg and (longo intervallo) Christopher North and the
late Professor Shairp. On nearly all these poets Professor Veitch writes
with fine judgment and delicate feeling, and even his admiration for
Burns has nothing absolutely aggressive about it. He shows, however, a
certain lack of the true sense of literary proportion in the amount of
space he devotes to the two last writers on our list. Christopher North
was undoubtedly an interesting personality to the Edinburgh of his day,
but he has not left behind him anything of real permanent value. There
was too much noise in his criticism, too little music in his poetry. As
for Professor Shairp, looked on as a critic he was a tragic example of
the unfortunate influence of Wordsworth, for he was always confusing
ethical with aesthetical questions, and never had the slightest idea how
to approach such poets as Shelley and Rossetti whom it was his mission to
interpret to young Oxford in his later years; {189} while, considered as
a poet, he deserves hardly more than a passing reference. Professor
Veitch gravely tells us that one of the descriptions of Kilmahoe is 'not
surpassed in the language for real presence, felicity of epithet, and
purity of reproduction,' and statements of this kind serve to remind us
of the fact that a criticism which is based on patriotism is always
provincial in its result. But it is only fair to add that it is very
rarely that Professor Veitch is so extravagant and so grotesque. His
judgment and taste are, as a rule, excellent, and his book is, on the
whole, a very fascinating and delightful contribution to the history of
literature.
The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry. By John Veitch, Professor of
Logic and Rhetoric in the University of Glasgow. (Blackwood and Son.)
LITERARY AND OTHER NOTES--I
(Woman's World, November 1887.)
The Princess Christian's translation of the Memoirs of Wilhelmine,
Margravine of Baireuth, is a most fascinating and delightful book. The
Margravine and her brother, Frederick the Great, were, as the Princess
herself points out in an admirably written introduction, 'among the first
of those questioning minds that strove after spiritual freedom' in the
last century. 'They had studied,' says the Princess, 'the English
philosophers, Newton, Locke, and Shaftesbury, and were roused to
enthusiasm by the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau. Their whole lives
bore the impress of the influence of French thought on the burning
questions of the day. In the eighteenth century began that great
struggle of philosophy against tyranny and worn-out abuses which
culminated in the French Revolution. The noblest minds were engaged in
the struggle, and, like most reformers, they pushed their conclusions to
extremes, and too often lost sight of the need of a due proportion in
things. The Margravine's influence on the intellectual development of
her country is untold. She formed at Baireuth a centre of culture and
learning which had before been undreamt of in Germany.'
The historical value of these Memoirs is, of course, well known. Carlyle
speaks of them as being 'by far the best authority' on the early life of
Frederick the Great. But considered merely as the autobiography of a
clever and charming woman, they are no less interesting, and even those
who care nothing for eighteenth-century politics, and look upon history
itself as an unattractive form of fiction, cannot fail to be fascinated
by the Margravine's wit, vivacity and humour, by her keen powers of
observation, and by her brilliant and assertive egotism. Not that her
life was by any means a happy one. Her father, to quote the Princess
Christian, 'ruled his family with the same harsh despotism with which he
ruled his country, taking pleasure in making his power felt by all in the
most galling manner,' and the Margravine and her brother 'had much to
suffer, not only from his ungovernable temper, but also from the real
privations to which they were subjected.' Indeed, the picture the
Margravine gives of the King is quite extraordinary. 'He despised all
learning,' she writes, 'and wished me to occupy myself with nothing but
needlework and household duties or details. Had he found me writing or
reading, he would probably have whipped me.' He 'considered music a
capital offence, and maintained that every one should devote himself to
one object: men to the military service, and women to their household
duties. Science and the arts he counted among the "seven deadly sins."'
Sometimes he took to religion, 'and then,' says the Margravine, 'we lived
like Trappists, to the great grief of my brother and myself. Every
afternoon the King preached a sermon, to which we had to listen as
attentively as if it proceeded from an Apostle. My brother and I were
often seized with such an intense sense of the ridiculous that we burst
out laughing, upon which an apostolic curse was poured out on our heads,
which we had to accept with a show of humility and penitence.' Economy
and soldiers were his only topics of conversation; his chief social
amusement was to make his guests intoxicated; and as for his temper, the
accounts the Margravine gives of it would be almost incredible if they
were not amply corroborated from other sources. Suetonius has written of
the strange madness that comes on kings, but even in his melodramatic
chronicles there is hardly anything that rivals what the Margravine has
to tell us. Here is one of her pictures of family life at a Royal Court
in the last century, and it is not by any means the worst scene she
describes:
On one occasion, when his temper was more than usually bad, he told
the Queen that he had received letters from Anspach, in which the
Margrave announced his arrival at Berlin for the beginning of May. He
was coming there for the purpose of marrying my sister, and one of his
ministers would arrive previously with the betrothal ring. My father
asked my sister whether she were pleased at this prospect, and how she
would arrange her household. Now my sister had always made a point of
telling him whatever came into her head, even the greatest
home-truths, and he had never taken her outspokenness amiss. On this
occasion, therefore, relying on former experience, she answered him as
follows: 'When I have a house of my own, I shall take care to have a
well-appointed dinner-table, better than yours is, and if I have
children of my own, I shall not plague them as you do yours, and force
them to eat things they thoroughly dislike!'
'What is amiss with my dinner-table?' the King enquired, getting very
red in the face.
'You ask what is the matter with it,' my sister replied; 'there is not
enough on it for us to eat, and what there is is cabbage and carrots,
which we detest.' Her first answer had already angered my father, but
now he gave vent to his fury. But instead of punishing my sister he
poured it all on my mother, my brother, and myself. To begin with he
threw his plate at my brother's head, who would have been struck had
he not got out of the way; a second one he threw at me, which I also
happily escaped; then torrents of abuse followed these first signs of
hostility. He reproached the Queen with having brought up her
children so badly. 'You will curse your mother,' he said to my
brother, 'for having made you such a good-for-nothing creature.' . . .
As my brother and I passed near him to leave the room, he hit out at
us with his crutch. Happily we escaped the blow; for it would
certainly have struck us down, and we at last escaped without harm.
Yet, as the Princess Christian remarks, 'despite the almost cruel
treatment Wilhelmine received from her father, it is noticeable that
throughout her memoirs she speaks of him with the greatest affection. She
makes constant reference to his "good heart"'; and says that his faults
'were more those of temper than of nature.' Nor could all the misery and
wretchedness of her home life dull the brightness of her intellect. What
would have made others morbid, made her satirical. Instead of weeping
over her own personal tragedies, she laughs at the general comedy of
life. Here, for instance, is her description of Peter the Great and his
wife, who arrived at Berlin in 1718:
The Czarina was small, broad, and brown-looking, without the slightest
dignity or appearance. You had only to look at her to detect her low
origin. She might have passed for a German actress, she had decked
herself out in such a manner. Her dress had been bought second-hand,
and was trimmed with some dirty looking silver embroidery; the bodice
was trimmed with precious stones, arranged in such a manner as to
represent the double eagle. She wore a dozen orders; and round the
bottom of her dress hung quantities of relics and pictures of saints,
which rattled when she walked, and reminded one of a smartly harnessed
mule. The orders too made a great noise, knocking against each other.
The Czar, on the other hand, was tall and well grown, with a handsome
face, but his expression was coarse, and impressed one with fear. He
wore a simple sailor's dress. His wife, who spoke German very badly,
called her court jester to her aid, and spoke Russian with her. This
poor creature was a Princess Gallizin, who had been obliged to
undertake this sorry office to save her life, as she had been mixed up
in a conspiracy against the Czar, and had twice been flogged with the
knout!
* * * * * *
The following day [the Czar] visited all the sights of Berlin, amongst
others the very curious collection of coins and antiques. Amongst
these last named was a statue, representing a heathen god. It was
anything but attractive, but was the most valuable in the collection.
The Czar admired it very much, and insisted on the Czarina kissing it.
On her refusing, he said to her in bad German that she should lose her
head if she did not at once obey him. Being terrified at the Czar's
anger she immediately complied with his orders without the least
hesitation. The Czar asked the King to give him this and other
statues, a request which he could not refuse. The same thing happened
about a cupboard, inlaid with amber. It was the only one of its kind,
and had cost King Frederick I. an enormous sum, and the consternation
was general on its having to be sent to Petersburg.
This barbarous Court happily left after two days. The Queen rushed at
once to Monbijou, which she found in a state resembling that of the
fall of Jerusalem. I never saw such a sight. Everything was
destroyed, so that the Queen was obliged to rebuild the whole house.
Nor are the Margravine's descriptions of her reception as a bride in the
principality of Baireuth less amusing. Hof was the first town she came
to, and a deputation of nobles was waiting there to welcome her. This is
her account of them:
Their faces would have frightened little children, and, to add to
their beauty, they had arranged their hair to resemble the wigs that
were then in fashion. Their dresses clearly denoted the antiquity of
their families, as they were composed of heirlooms, and were cut
accordingly, so that most of them did not fit. In spite of their
costumes being the 'Court Dresses,' the gold and silver trimmings were
so black that you had a difficulty in making out of what they were
made. The manners of these nobles suited their faces and their
clothes. They might have passed for peasants. I could scarcely
restrain my laughter when I first beheld these strange figures. I
spoke to each in turn, but none of them understood what I said, and
their replies sounded to me like Hebrew, because the dialect of the
Empire is quite different from that spoken in Brandenburg.
The clergy also presented themselves. These were totally different
creatures. Round their necks they wore great ruffs, which resembled
washing baskets. They spoke very slowly, so that I might be able to
understand them better. They said the most foolish things, and it was
only with much difficulty that I was able to prevent myself from
laughing. At last I got rid of all these people, and we sat down to
dinner. I tried my best to converse with those at table, but it was
useless. At last I touched on agricultural topics, and then they
began to thaw. I was at once informed of all their different
farmsteads and herds of cattle. An almost interesting discussion took
place as to whether the oxen in the upper part of the country were
fatter than those in the lowlands.
* * * * *
I was told that as the next day was Sunday, I must spend it at Hof,
and listen to a sermon. Never before had I heard such a sermon! The
clergyman began by giving us an account of all the marriages that had
taken place from Adam's time to that of Noah. We were spared no
detail, so that the gentlemen all laughed and the poor ladies blushed.
The dinner went off as on the previous day. In the afternoon all the
ladies came to pay me their respects. Gracious heavens! What ladies,
too! They were all as ugly as the gentlemen, and their head-dresses
were so curious that swallows might have built their nests in them.
As for Baireuth itself, and its petty Court, the picture she gives of it
is exceedingly curious. Her father-in-law, the reigning Margrave, was a
narrow-minded mediocrity, whose conversation 'resembled that of a sermon
read aloud for the purpose of sending the listener to sleep,' and he had
only two topics, Telemachus, and Amelot de la Houssaye's Roman History.
The Ministers, from Baron von Stein, who always said 'yes' to everything,
to Baron von Voit, who always said 'no,' were not by any means an
intellectual set of men. 'Their chief amusement,' says the Margravine,
'was drinking from morning till night,' and horses and cattle were all
they talked about. The palace itself was shabby, decayed and dirty. 'I
was like a lamb among wolves,' cries the poor Margravine; 'I was settled
in a strange country, at a Court which more resembled a peasant's farm,
surrounded by coarse, bad, dangerous, and tiresome people.'
Yet her esprit never deserted her. She is always clever, witty, and
entertaining. Her stories about the endless squabbles over precedence
are extremely amusing. The society of her day cared very little for good
manners, knew, indeed, very little about them, but all questions of
etiquette were of vital importance, and the Margravine herself, though
she saw the shallowness of the whole system, was far too proud not to
assert her rights when circumstances demanded it, as the description she
gives of her visit to the Empress of Germany shows very clearly. When
this meeting was first proposed, the Margravine declined positively to
entertain the idea. 'There was no precedent,' she writes, 'of a King's
daughter and the Empress having met, and I did not know to what rights I
ought to lay claim.' Finally, however, she is induced to consent, but
she lays down three conditions for her reception:
I desired first of all that the Empress's Court should receive me at
the foot of the stairs, secondly, that she should meet me at the door
of her bedroom, and, thirdly, that she should offer me an armchair to
sit on.
* * * * *
They disputed all day over the conditions I had made. The two first
were granted me, but all that could be obtained with respect to the
third was, that the Empress would use quite a small armchair, whilst
she gave me a chair.
Next day I saw this Royal personage. I own that had I been in her
place I would have made all the rules of etiquette and ceremony the
excuse for not being obliged to appear. The Empress was small and
stout, round as a ball, very ugly, and without dignity or manner. Her
mind corresponded to her body. She was terribly bigoted, and spent
her whole day praying. The old and ugly are generally the Almighty's
portion. She received me trembling all over, and was so upset that
she could not say a word.
After some silence I began the conversation in French. She answered
me in her Austrian dialect that she could not speak in that language,
and begged I would speak in German. The conversation did not last
long, for the Austrian and low Saxon tongues are so different from
each other that to those acquainted with only one the other is
unintelligible. This is what happened to us. A third person would
have laughed at our misunderstandings, for we caught only a word here
and there, and had to guess the rest. The poor Empress was such a
slave to etiquette that she would have thought it high treason had she
spoken to me in a foreign language, though she understood French quite
well.
Many other extracts might be given from this delightful book, but from
the few that have been selected some idea can be formed of the vivacity
and picturesqueness of the Margravine's style. As for her character, it
is very well summed up by the Princess Christian, who, while admitting
that she often appears almost heartless and inconsiderate, yet claims
that, 'taken as a whole, she stands out in marked prominence among the
most gifted women of the eighteenth century, not only by her mental
powers, but by her goodness of heart, her self-sacrificing devotion, and
true friendship.' An interesting sequel to her Memoirs would be her
correspondence with Voltaire, and it is to be hoped that we may shortly
see a translation of these letters from the same accomplished pen to
which we owe the present volume. {198}
* * * * *
Women's Voices is an anthology of the most characteristic poems by
English, Scotch and Irish women, selected and arranged by Mrs. William
Sharp. 'The idea of making this anthology,' says Mrs. Sharp, in her
preface, 'arose primarily from the conviction that our women-poets had
never been collectively represented with anything like adequate justice;
that the works of many are not so widely known as they deserve to be; and
that at least some fine fugitive poetry could be thus rescued from
oblivion'; and Mrs. Sharp proceeds to claim that the 'selections will
further emphasise the value of women's work in poetry for those who are
already well acquainted with English Literature, and that they will
convince many it is as possible to form an anthology of "pure poetry"
from the writings of women as from those of men.' It is somewhat
difficult to define what 'pure poetry' really is, but the collection is
certainly extremely interesting, extending, as it does, over nearly three
centuries of our literature. It opens with Revenge, a poem by the
'learned, virtuous, and truly noble Ladie,' Elizabeth Carew, who
published a Tragedie of Marian, the faire Queene of Iewry, in 1613, from
which Revenge is taken. Then come some very pretty verses by Margaret,
Duchess of Newcastle, who produced a volume of poems in 1653. They are
supposed to be sung by a sea-goddess, and their fantastic charm and the
graceful wilfulness of their fancy are well worthy of note, as these
first stanzas show:
My cabinets are oyster-shells,
In which I keep my Orient pearls;
And modest coral I do wear,
Which blushes when it touches air.
On silvery waves I sit and sing,
And then the fish lie listening:
Then resting on a rocky stone
I comb my hair with fishes' bone;
The whilst Apollo with his beams
Doth dry my hair from soaking streams,
His light doth glaze the water's face,
And make the sea my looking-glass.
Then follow Friendship's Mystery, by 'The Matchless Orinda,' Mrs.
Katherine Philips; A Song, by Mrs. Aphra Behn, 'the first English woman
who adopted literature as a profession'; and the Countess of Winchelsea's
Nocturnal Reverie. Wordsworth once said that, with the exception of this
poem and Pope's Windsor Forest, 'the poetry of the period intervening
between Paradise Lost and The Seasons does not contain a single new image
of external nature,' and though the statement is hardly accurate, as it
leaves Gay entirely out of account, it must be admitted that the simple
naturalism of Lady Winchelsea's description is extremely remarkable.
Passing on through Mrs. Sharp's collection, we come across poems by Lady
Grisell Baillie; by Jean Adams, a poor 'sewing-maid in a Scotch manse,'
who died in the Greenock Workhouse; by Isobel Pagan, 'an Ayrshire lucky,
who kept an alehouse, and sold whiskey without a license,' 'and sang her
own songs as a means of subsistence'; by Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson's
friend; by Mrs. Hunter, the wife of the great anatomist; by the worthy
Mrs. Barbauld; and by the excellent Mrs. Hannah More. Here is Miss Anna
Seward, 'called by her admirers "the Swan of Lichfield,"' who was so
angry with Dr. Darwin for plagiarising some of her verses; Lady Anne
Barnard, whose Auld Robin Gray was described by Sir Walter Scott as
'worth all the dialogues Corydon and Phyllis have together spoken from
the days of Theocritus downwards'; Jean Glover, a Scottish weaver's
daughter, who 'married a strolling player and became the best singer and
actor of his troop'; Joanna Baillie, whose tedious dramas thrilled our
grandfathers; Mrs. Tighe, whose Psyche was very much admired by Keats in
his youthful days; Frances Kemble, Mrs. Siddons's niece; poor L. E. L.,
whom Disraeli described as 'the personification of Brompton, pink satin
dress, white satin shoes, red cheeks, snub nose, and her hair a la
Sappho'; the two beautiful sisters, Lady Dufferin and Mrs. Norton; Emily
Bronte, whose poems are instinct with tragic power and quite terrible in
their bitter intensity of passion, the fierce fire of feeling seeming
almost to consume the raiment of form; Eliza Cook, a kindly, vulgar
writer; George Eliot, whose poetry is too abstract, and lacks all
rhythmical life; Mrs. Carlyle, who wrote much better poetry than her
husband, though this is hardly high praise; and Mrs. Browning, the first
really great poetess in our literature. Nor are contemporary writers
forgotten. Christina Rossetti, some of whose poems are quite priceless
in their beauty; Mrs. Augusta Webster, Mrs. Hamilton King, Miss Mary
Robinson, Mrs. Craik; Jean Ingelow, whose sonnet on An Ancient Chess King
is like an exquisitely carved gem; Mrs. Pfeiffer; Miss May Probyn, a
poetess with the true lyrical impulse of song, whose work is as delicate
as it is delightful; Mrs. Nesbit, a very pure and perfect artist; Miss
Rosa Mulholland, Miss Katharine Tynan, Lady Charlotte Elliot, and many
other well-known writers, are duly and adequately represented. On the
whole, Mrs. Sharp's collection is very pleasant reading indeed, and the
extracts given from the works of living poetesses are extremely
remarkable, not merely for their absolute artistic excellence, but also
for the light they throw upon the spirit of modern culture.