THE
SHIPWRECK
BY
WILLIAM FALCONER
EMBELLISHED WITH ENGRAVINGS
FROM THE DESIGNS OF
RICHᴰ. WESTALL R.A.
[Illustration: R. Westall R.A. del. Chaˢ. Heath fc.
_And,“Oh protect my Wife and Child!” he cries_—_Canto III._]
LONDON;
PRINTED FOR JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY.
1819.
THE
SHIPWRECK;
BY
WILLIAM FALCONER.
quæque ipse miserrima vidi,
Et quorum pars magna fui.—VIRG. ÆN. Lib. II.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR JOHN SHARPE,
PICCADILLY,
BY C. WHITTINGHAM, CHISWICK.
M DCCC XV III.
CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS.
The SHIPWRECK is one of those happy productions in which talent is seen
in so exquisite adaptation to the nature of the subject, that it is
difficult to determine whether the author is the most indebted to his
subject, or the subject to the author. No one who had not passed through
the circumstances which Falconer describes, could have painted them as
he has done; and of the comparatively few who have had the opportunity
of drinking in the fearful inspiration of such scenes, and survived to
tell of them, Falconer is the first who appears to have possessed the
genius requisite to retain and embody the impression, with the vigour of
imagination and the fidelity of memory. It was not more necessary that
he should be a poet, than that he should be a seaman. He was eminently
both; and the Poem is as perfect in every technical excellence, as it is
in respect to the simplicity of its plan, the classical elegance of its
composition, and the pathos of its narrative. It is altogether a unique
production.
Falconer originally designed the Poem, (as appears from an advertisement
prefixed to the second edition, published in 1764,) for the entertainment
of “the gentlemen of the sea;” but he complains that they had not formed
one tenth of the purchasers. He printed that edition in a cheaper form,
expressly with a view to render it more acceptable to the inferior
officers. Falconer was thoroughly the seaman; he was warmly attached to
the profession, and prided himself more on his nautical science than on
his literary talents. The author of the SHIPWRECK compiled a “Universal
Dictionary of the Marine,” a work which cost him years of extraordinary
application. The SHIPWRECK is said to comprise within itself the
rudiments of navigation, so as even to claim to be considered as a
grammar of the nautical science. The correctness of the rules and maxims
laid down in the Poem, for the conduct of a ship under circumstances of
perilous emergency, render it extremely valuable to the seaman. The notes
originally affixed to the Poem, in explanation of the technical terms,
the frequent introduction and euphonous arrangement of which, form so
striking a peculiarity of the composition, were thought necessary by the
Author, on account of there being, at that time, no modern dictionaries
to which he could refer the reader, without forfeiting, by his implied
commendation of them, his claim to the professional character he had
assumed,—a claim of which he professes himself to be much more tenacious,
than of his reputation as a poet.
Fresh-water critics venture out of their element in entering upon a
minute examination of such a poem as this. The care with which it
appears to have been elaborated, has, however, left little for the
invidious notice of criticism. In a few instances, the hand of correction
has been injudiciously applied in the editions of the Poem subsequent to
its first appearance; it is conjectured, that some of the alterations
in the third edition, which are of this nature, are to be attributed to
his having left the final revision to his friend Mallet, who, although
a poet, was not a seaman. If the style of the Poem is faulty in any
respect, it is in that of the too ambitious phraseology, by which it
seems to have been Falconer’s effort to sustain the epic dignity of the
narrative. Into this fault the models of the day were adapted to seduce
any young writer, and the versification he adopted, presents a constant
temptation to artificial and inverted forms of expression. Thus, for
instance, to weigh anchor, is paraphrased in the following line:—
“Or win the anchor from its dark abode.”
The frequency of the classical allusions, by which also the Poet probably
intended to render his work more _secundum artem_ poetical, is justified
by their local propriety. As suggested by the surrounding scenery,
they seem perfectly natural, and they are introduced, generally, with
considerable skill and effect. The most pleasing parts of the Poem,
however, are those in which the narration is characterized by all
the simplicity of the seaman, rather than by the embellishments of a
half-learned taste.
Short and simple are the annals of poor ARION’S history. He was born at
Edinburgh, about the year 1730. His father was a poor but industrious
barber, who had to maintain a large family, under the distressing
circumstance of all his children, with the single exception of William,
being either deaf or dumb. Reading English, writing, and a little
arithmetic, comprised the whole of Falconer’s education, although he
afterwards acquired some knowledge of the French, Spanish, and Italian
languages, and, it is added, even of the German. When very young, he
entered on board a merchant vessel at Leith, in which he served an
apprenticeship. He was afterwards servant to Campbell, the author
of Lexiphanes, when purser of a ship, who is stated to have taken
considerable pains in improving the mind of the young seaman, and to
have subsequently felt a pride in boasting of his scholar. At what
time the calamitous event occurred, which furnished the subject of the
SHIPWRECK, has not been ascertained: he was then, it appears, employed
in the Levant trade. He continued in the merchant service till 1762. In
that year, the SHIPWRECK made its first appearance, in quarto, dedicated
to his Royal Highness Edward, Duke of York, who had hoisted his flag as
rear-admiral of the blue, on board the Princess Amelia, of eighty guns,
attached to the fleet under Sir Edward Hawke. The Poem immediately took
with the public, and Falconer, having, as it is said, at the Duke’s
recommendation, quitted the merchant service for the royal navy, was
soon after rated a midshipman on board the Royal George.
At the peace of 1763, the Royal George was paid off, and Falconer, in the
course of the same year, was appointed purser of the Glory frigate. Soon
after this, he married a young lady of the name of Hicks, who survived
him. From the Glory, he was, in 1767, appointed to the Swiftsure.
In 1764, he published a new edition of his Poem, in octavo, corrected and
enlarged, and, in the following year, a political satire on Lord Chatham,
Wilkes, and Churchill, of which it is enough to say, that had Falconer
never written any thing but satire, his name would long since have been
forgotten. His Universal Dictionary of the Marine, was published in 1769,
at which period he was resident in the metropolis, supporting himself
chiefly by his literary exertions. Among other resources, he is said to
have received a pittance from writing in the Critical Review, under his
countryman Mallet. He had received, the preceding year, proposals from
his friend Mr. Murray, to enter into company with him as a bookseller,
on his taking Mr. Sandby’s business in Fleet-street; it does not appear
from what cause he was led to decline the offer. While he was preparing
to publish a third edition of the SHIPWRECK, he obtained the highly
advantageous appointment of purser to the Aurora frigate, Captain Lee,
which was ordered to carry out Mr. Vansittart and the other Commissioners
to India, with the promise of being made their private secretary. The
catastrophe is well known. The Aurora frigate sailed on the 30th of
September, 1769, left the Cape on the 27th of December, and was heard
of no more. It is the most probable opinion, that she foundered in the
Mozambique channel, the dangers of which, the captain, in spite, as it
is said, of remonstrances, was rash enough, although a stranger to its
navigation, to encounter.
In 1773, a black was examined before the East India Directors, who
affirmed that he was one of five persons who had been saved from the
wreck of the Aurora, and that she had been cast away on a reef of rocks
off Mocoa.
To these particulars, for which the public are chiefly indebted to the
assiduous researches of the Rev. James Stanier Clarke, it may be added,
on the same authority, that Falconer was, in his person, about five
feet seven inches in height, of a thin light make, hard featured, and
weather-beaten, of blunt and aukward manners, but cheerful, kind, and
generous. He was, however, inclined to be satirical, and delighted in
controversy: strange characteristics of a man who was a thorough seaman
and a poet!
THE
SHIPWRECK.
INTRODUCTION.
[Illustration:
’Tis mine, retired beneath this cavern hoar
That stands all lonely on the sea beat shore,
Far other themes of deep distress to sing
Than ever trembled from the vocal string;
DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL, R.A. ENGRAVED BY EDWARD PORTBURY. PUBLISHED BY
JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY, OCT. 1, 1819.]
INTRODUCTION.
While jarring interests wake the world to arms,
And fright the peaceful vale with dire alarms,
While Albion bids th’ avenging thunder roll
Along her vassal deep from pole to pole;
Sick of the scene, where war with ruthless hand
Spreads desolation o’er the bleeding land;
Sick of the tumult, where the trumpet’s breath
Bids ruin smile, and drowns the groan of death;
’Tis mine, retired beneath this cavern hoar,
That stands all lonely on the sea-beat shore,
Far other themes of deep distress to sing
Than ever trembled from the vocal string;
A scene from dumb Oblivion to restore,
To Fame unknown, and new to epic lore:
Where hostile elements conflicting rise,
And lawless surges swell against the skies,
Till Hope expires, and Peril and Dismay
Wave their black ensigns on the watery way.
Immortal train! who guide the maze of song,
To whom all science, arts, and arms belong,
Who bid the trumpet of eternal Fame
Exalt the warrior’s and the poet’s name,
Or in lamenting elegies express
The varied pang of exquisite distress;
If e’er with trembling hope I fondly strayed
In life’s fair morn beneath your hallowed shade,
To hear the sweetly mournful lute complain,
And melt the heart with ecstasy of pain,
Or listen to the enchanting voice of love,
While all Elysium warbled through the grove;
Oh! by the hollow blast that moans around,
That sweeps the wild harp with a plaintive sound;
By the long surge that foams through yonder cave,
Whose vaults remurmur to the roaring wave;
With living colours give my verse to glow,
The sad memorial of a Tale of Woe!
The fate, in lively sorrow, to deplore
Of wanderers shipwrecked on a leeward shore.
Alas! neglected by the sacred Nine,
Their suppliant feels no genial ray divine
Ah! will they leave Pieria’s happy shore,
To plough the tide where wintery tempests roar?
Or shall a youth approach their hallowed fane,
Stranger to Phœbus, and the tuneful train?
Far from the Muses’ academic grove,
’Twas his the vast and trackless deep to rove;
Alternate change of climates has he known,
And felt the fierce extremes of either zone;
Where polar skies congeal th’ eternal snow,
Or equinoctial suns for ever glow,
Smote by the freezing, or the scorching blast,
‘A ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,’
From regions where Peruvian billows roar,
To the bleak coasts of savage Labrador;
From where Damascus, pride of Asian plains,
Stoops her proud neck beneath tyrannic chains,
To where the Isthmus, laved by adverse tides,
Atlantic and Pacific seas divides:
But while he measured o’er the painful race
In fortune’s wild illimitable chace,
Adversity, companion of his way,
Still o’er the victim hung with iron sway,
Bade new distresses every instant grow,
Marking each change of place with change of woe;
In regions where th’ Almighty’s chastening hand
With livid pestilence afflicts the land,
Or where pale famine blasts the hopeful year,
Parent of want and misery severe;
Or where, all-dreadful in th’ embattled line,
The hostile ships in flaming combat join,
Where the torn vessel, wind and waves assail,
Till o’er her crew distress and death prevail.—
Such joyless toils, in early youth endured,
Th’ expanding dawn of mental day obscured,
Each genial passion of the soul oppressed,
And quenched the ardour kindling in his breast:
Then censure not severe the native song,
Though jarring sounds the measured verse prolong,
Though terms uncouth offend the softer ear,
Yet truth, and human anguish deign to hear:
No laurel wreaths these lays attempt to claim,
Nor sculptur’d brass to tell the poet’s name.
And lo! the power that wakes th’ eventful song,
Hastes hither from Lethean banks along;
She sweeps the gloom, and, rushing on the sight,
Spreads o’er the kindling scene propitious light;
In her right hand an ample roll appears,
Fraught with long annals of preceding years,
With every wise and noble art of man
Since first the circling hours their course began;
Her left a silver wand on high displayed
Whose magic touch dispels oblivion’s shade:
Pensive her look; on radiant wings that glow
Like Juno’s birds, or Iris’ flaming bow,
She sails; and swifter than the course of light
Directs her rapid intellectual flight:
The fugitive ideas she restores,
And calls the wandering thought from Lethe’s shores;
To things long past a second date she gives,
And hoary Time from her fresh youth receives;
Congenial sister of immortal Fame,
She shares her power, and Memory is her name.
O first-born daughter of primeval Time!
By whom transmitted down in every clime
The deeds of ages long elapsed are known,
And blazoned glories spread from zone to zone;
Whose magic breath dispels the mental night,
And o’er th’ obscured idea pours the light;
Say, on what seas, for thou alone canst tell,
What dire mishap a fated ship befel,
Assailed by tempests, girt with hostile shores
Arise! approach! unlock thy treasured stores!
Full on my soul the dreadful scene display,
And give its latent horrors to the day.
FIRST CANTO:
THE SCENE OF WHICH LIES NEAR THE CITY OF CANDIA.
TIME,—ABOUT FOUR DAYS AND AN HALF.
ARGUMENT.
I. Retrospect of the Voyage—Arrival at Candia—State of that
Island—Season of the Year described.—II. Character of the
Master and his Officers, Albert, Rodmond, and Arion—Palemon,
Son to the Owner of the Ship—Attachment of Palemon to Anna,
the Daughter of Albert.—III. Noon—Palemon’s History.—IV.
Sunset—Midnight—Arion’s Dream—Unmoor by Moonlight—Morning—Sun’s
Azimuth taken—Beautiful Appearance of the Ship, as seen by the
Natives from the Shore.
THE
SHIPWRECK
CANTO I.
[Illustration:
O bliss supreme: where Virtue’s self can melt
With joys, that guilty Pleasure never felt;
Formed to refine the thought with chaste desire,
And kindle sweet Affection’s purest fire.
DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL, R.A. ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM FINDEN. PUBLISHED BY
JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY, OCT. 1, 1819.]