CHAPTER IX

THE AGE OF TRANSITION

TIME-CHART OF THE CHIEF AUTHORS

_The thick line shows the period of active literary work._

1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800

| | | | | | | | |

| |║[162] | ║ | | | | | |

Thomson |........|║==============║ | | | | | |

(1700–48) | | | | | | | | |

| ║ | | ║ | ║ | | | | |

Collins | ║......|........|.....║=========║ | | | | |

(1721–59) | | | | | | | | |

| | | ║ |║[163] ║| |║ | | |

Gray |........|........|...║============║|........|║ | | |

(1716–71) | | | |║ | | | | |

| |║ | | | | |║ | ║

Cowper | |║.......|........|........|........|........|║=================║

(1731–1800) | | | | | | | | |

| | | | ║ | | | ║[164]| ║ |

Burns | | | | ║.|........|........|...║=========║ |

(1759–96) | | | | | | | | |

| | |║[165] | ║ |║ | | | |

Richardson |........|........|║==========║.....|║ | | | |

(1689–1761) | | | | | | | | |

| | | ║ ║ |[166]║ | | | | |

Fielding |........|........|.║====║=======║ | | | | |

(1707–54) | | | ║ | | | | | |

| | ║ | | | | |║ ║ | |

Johnson |........|....║========================================║..║ | |

(1709–84) | | | | | | | | |

| ║ | | | ║ | | ║ | | |

Goldsmith | ║....|........|........|......║============║ | | |

(1728–74) | | | | | | | | |

| | ║ | | | | ║[167]| |║ ║ |

Gibbon | | ║....|........|........|........|...║==============║..║ |

(1737–94) | | | | | | | | |

| ║| | | ║ | | | | ║ |

Burke | ║|........|........|....║===================================║ |

(1729–97) | | | | | | | | |

THE TRANSITION IN POETRY

The following table is meant to convey a rough idea of the drift of

poetry toward Romanticism. In the table the lateral position of the

title of a work gives an approximate estimate of its approach to

the Romantic ideal. Such an estimate, especially in the case of the

transitional poems, cannot be determined absolutely, and need not be

taken as final. The table, nevertheless, reveals not only the steady

drift, but also the manner in which the different stages of development

overlap.

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

| DATE | CLASSICAL | TRANSITIONAL | ROMANTIC |

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

| | | | |

| | | | |

| 1730 | _The Dunciad_ | _The Seasons_ |

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

| | | | |

| | _Epistle to Arbuthnot_ | | |

| 1740 | _London_ | | |

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

| | | _Night Thoughts_ | |

| | | | |

| 1750 | _Vanity of Human Wishes_ | Collins’s _Odes_ | _The Castle of Indolence_ |

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

| | | Gray’s _Elegy_ | |

| | | | |

| 1760 | | | |

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

| | | | _Ossian_ |

| | | _The Traveller_ | |

| 1770 | | | Chatterton’s poems |

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

| | | _The Deserted Village_ |

| | | | |

| 1780 | | | |

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

| | | _The Village_ | |

| | | | _The Task_ Burns’s poems |

| 1790 | | | Blake’s poems |

+------+--------------------------+------------------+---------------------------+

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1740–1800)

The period covered by the present chapter is that of the middle and

later stages of the eighteenth century. During this time several

relevant historical movements call for notice.

=1. Decline of the Party Feud.= The contest between the Whigs and the

Tories still continues, but it is hardly of the previous bitterness.

The chief reason for this change is found in the weakness of the Tory

party, which by rash management and precipitate action made itself so

unpopular that for nearly thirty years--those in the middle of the

century--the Whigs had hardly any opposition. With the accession of

George III in 1760 the Tories swiftly climbed into power, and, with the

shadow of the French Revolution already looming up, party feeling soon

acquired additional ferocity.

=2. Commercial and Imperial Expansion.= Under the pacific management

of the great Whig minister Walpole, and owing to the successful wars

of his successors, the eighteenth century saw an immense growth in

the wealth and importance of the British Empire. On literature this

material welfare had its effect by endowing and stimulating research

and original work. The possession of India and America in itself was

an inspiration, and when the new territories brought new burdens, like

that of the American revolt, the clash of ideals led to fresh literary

effort, as can easily be seen in the work of Burke.

=3. The French Revolution.= Long before it burst, the storm of the

Revolution was, in the words of Burke, blackening the horizon. During

the century new ideas were germinating; new forces were gathering

strength; and the Revolution, when it did come in 1789, was only the

climax to a long and deeply diffused unrest. Revolutionary ideas

stirred literature to the very depths; the present chapter, and the

next as well, are a chronicle of their effects upon the literature of

England.

THE AGE OF TRANSITION

Like all other periods of transition, the one under review is disturbed

and confused. It is a matter of great difficulty to trace the different

tendencies, but with care the task may be accomplished with some

accuracy.

=1. The Double Tendency.= Two movements can be clearly observed in

the writing of the time, namely:

(_a_) The allegiance to the old order of classicism. In this movement

the chief and almost the only figure is that of Samuel Johnson. He is a

host in himself, however.

(_b_) The search after the new order of Romanticism. In their different

degrees, as can be seen from the second table at the beginning of this

chapter, many writers were engaged in the search. It began as early as

1730, with the publication of Thomson’s _Seasons_; and though it lapsed

for a time, it was to continue with gathering force during the latter

years of the century.

=2. The New Romanticism.= The general features of the Romantic movement

were:

(_a_) A return to nature--to the real nature of earth and air, and not

to the stuffy, bookish nature of the artificial pastoral.

(_b_) A fresh interest in man’s position in the world of nature. This

led to great activity in religious and political speculation, as will

be seen further on.

(_c_) An enlightened sympathy for the poor and oppressed. In English

literature during this time one has but to think of the work of Cowper,

Burns, and Crabbe, and even of the classically minded Gray, to perceive

the revolution that is taking place in the minds of men.

(_d_) A revolt against the conventional literary technique, such as

that of the heroic couplet. On the other hand, we have a desire for

strength, simplicity, and sincerity in the expression of the new

literary ideals.

(_e_) Fresh treatment of Romantic themes in such poems as _The Lay of

the Last Minstrel_, _The Ancient Mariner_, _La Belle Dame sans Merci_.

In the present chapter we shall perceive all the above features dimly

taking shape. In the next chapter they will be the dominating features

of the era.

=3. The New Learning.= The middle and later stages of the

eighteenth century show a minor Renaissance that touched nearly

all Europe. The increase in wealth and comfort coincided with a

general uplifting of the standard of the human intellect. In France

particularly it was well marked, and it took for its sign and seal the

labors of the Encyclopædists and the social amenities of the older

_salons_. Many of the leading English writers, including Gibbon,

Hume, and Sterne, visited Paris, which was the hub of European culture.

In England the new learning took several channels. In literature we

have the revival of the Romantic movement, leading to (_a_) research

into archaic literary forms, such as the ballad, and (_b_) new editions

of the older authors, such as Shakespeare and Chaucer. The publication

of Bishop Percy’s _Reliques_ (1765) which contained some of the oldest

and most beautiful specimens of ballad-literature, is a landmark in the

history of the Romantic movement. Even Pope and Johnson were moved to

edit Shakespeare, though they did it badly. The editions of Theobald

and Warburton were examples of scholarly and enlightened research.

=4. The New Philosophy.= The spirit of the new thinking, which received

its consummate expression in the works of Voltaire, was marked by keen

skepticism and the zest for eager inquiry. Scotland very early took

to it, the leading Scottish philosopher being Hume. It would seem,

perhaps, that this destructive spirit of disbelief would injure the

Romantic ideal, which delights in illusion. But finally the new spirit

actually assisted the Romantic ideal by demolishing and clearing away

heaps of the ancient mental lumber, and so leaving the ground clear for

new and fresher creations.

=5. The Growth of Historical Research.= History appears late in our

literature, for it presupposes a long apprenticeship of research

and meditation. The eighteenth century witnessed the swift rise of

historical literature to a place of great importance. Like so many

other things we have mentioned, it was fostered in France, and it

touched Scotland first. The historical school had a glorious leader in

Gibbon, who was nearly as much at home in the French language as he was

in English.

=6. The New Realism.= At first, as might be expected, the spirit of

inquiry led to the suppression of romance; but it drew within the

circle of literary endeavor all the ranks of mankind. Thus we have the

astonishing development of the novel, which at first concerned itself

with domestic incidents. Fielding and his kind dealt very faithfully

with human life, and often were squalidly immersed in masses of sordid

detail. In the widest sense of the word, however, the novelists were

Romanticists, for in sympathy and freshness of treatment they were

followers of the new ideal.

=7. The Decline of Political Writing.= With the partial decay of

the party spirit the activity in pamphleteering was over; poets and

satirists were no longer the favorites of Prime Ministers. Walpole,

the greatest of contemporary ministers, openly despised the literary

breed, for he did not need them. Hence writers had to depend on their

public, which was not entirely an evil. This caused the rise of the

man of letters, such as Johnson and Goldsmith, who wrote to satisfy a

public demand. Later in the century, when the political temperature

once again approached boiling-point, pamphlets began again to acquire

an importance, which rose to a climax in the works of Junius and Burke.

SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709–84)

=1. His Life.= Johnson has a faithful chronicler in Boswell, whose

_Life of Johnson_ makes us intimate with its subject to a degree rare

in literature. But even the prying zeal of Boswell could not extort

many facts regarding the great man’s early life. Johnson was born at

Lichfield, the son of a bookseller, whose pronounced Tory views he

inherited and steadfastly maintained. From his birth he was afflicted

with a malignant skin-disease (for which he was unsuccessfully

“touched” by Queen Anne) which all through his life affected his

sight and hearing, and caused many of the physical peculiarities that

astonished and amused the friends of his later years. After being

privately educated, he proceeded to Oxford, where he experienced the

miseries and indignities that are the lot of a poor scholar cursed

with a powerful and aspiring mind. Leaving the university, he tried

school-teaching, with no success; married a woman twenty years older

than himself; and then in 1737 went to London and threw himself into

the squalors and allurements of Grub Street.

In his _Essay on Johnson_ Macaulay has given an arresting description

of the miseries endured by the denizens of Grub Street; and in this

case even the natural exaggeration of Macaulay is not quite misplaced.

We know next to nothing regarding the life of Johnson during this early

period. It is certain that it was wretched enough to cause the sturdy

old fellow, in after years, to glance at this period of his life with

a shudder of loathing, and to quench the curiosity of Boswell with

ultra-Johnsonian vehemence. Very slowly he won his way out of the

gutter, fighting every step with bitter tenacity; for, as he puts it in

his poem of _London_, with all the outstanding emphasis of capitals,

SLOW RISES WORTH BY POVERTY OPPRESSED. From the obscure position of a

publisher’s hack he became a poet of some note by the publication of

_London_ (1738), which was noticed by Pope; his _Dictionary_ (1747–55)

advanced his fame; then somewhat incomprehensibly he appears in the

limelight as one of the literary dictators of London, surrounded by a

circle of brilliant men. In 1762 he received a pension from the State,

and the last twenty years of his life were passed in the manner most

acceptable to him: dawdling, visiting, conversing, yet _living_ with a

gigantic vitality that made his fellows wonder.

It is in these latter years that we find him imperishably figured

in the pages of Boswell. All his tricks of humor--his bearishness,

his gruff goodwill, his silent and secret benevolences; his physical

aberrations--his guzzlings, his grunts, his grimaces, his puffings and

wallowings; his puerile superstitions; his deep and beautiful piety;

his Tory prejudices, so often enormously vocal; his masterful and

unsleeping common sense; the devouring immensity of his conversational

powers: we find all these set out in _The Life of Doctor Johnson_.

=2. His Poetry.= He wrote little poetry, and none of it, though it

has much merit, can be called first-class. His first poem, _London_

(1738), written in the heroic couplet, is of great and somber power.

It depicts the vanities and the sins of city life viewed from the

depressing standpoint of an embittered and penurious poet. His only

other longish poem is _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749). The poem, in

imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, transfers to the activities

of mankind in general the gloomy convictions raised ten years earlier

by the spectacle of London. The meter is the same as in _London_, and

there is the same bleak pessimism, but the weight and power of the

emotion, the tremendous conviction and the stern immobility of the

author, give the work a great value. There are many individual lines of

solemn grandeur. The following passage shows all he has to offer to the

young aspirant to literary fame:

When first the college rolls receive his name,

The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame;

Resistless burns the fever of renown,

Caught from the strong contagion of the gown.

O’er Bodley’s dome his future labours spread,

And Bacon’s mansion trembles o’er his head.

Are these thy views? Proceed, illustrious youth,

And Virtue guard thee to the throne of Truth!

Yet, should thy soul indulge the generous heat

Till captive Science yields her last retreat;

Should Reason guide thee with her brightest ray,

And pour on misty Doubt resistless day;

Should no false kindness lure to loose delight,

Nor praise relax, nor difficulty fright;

Should tempting Novelty thy cell refrain,

And Sloth effuse her opiate fumes in vain;

Should Beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart,

Nor claim the triumph of a letter’d heart;

Should no disease thy torpid veins invade,

Nor Melancholy’s phantoms haunt thy shade;

Yet hope not life from grief or danger free,

Nor think the doom of man revers’d for thee:

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,

And pause awhile from letters, to be wise;

There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail,

Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

See nations, slowly wise, and meanly just,

To buried merit raise the tardy bust.

If dreams yet flatter, once again attend,

Hear Lydiat’s life and Galileo’s end.

=3. His Drama.= When he first came to London in 1737 he brought the

manuscript, in part, of _Irene_, a solemn and ponderous tragedy. In

1749, through the heroic exertions of his old pupil David Garrick, who

was then manager of Drury Lane Theatre, it was given a hearing, and had

a run of nine nights. Even Johnson’s best friends had to admit that

it was no success, and it then utterly disappeared, taking with it

Johnson’s sole claim to dramatic merit.

=4. His Prose.= Any claim that Johnson has to be called a first-rate

writer must be based on the merit of his prose; but even his prose

is small in bulk and strangely unsatisfying in kind. His earliest

effort was contributed to Cave’s _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and comprised

Parliamentary reporting, in which he fabricated the speeches of the

legislators, to the great benefit of the legislators. Various hack-work

followed; and then in 1747 he planned, and in eight years produced, his

_Dictionary_. He also wrote _The Rambler_ (1750–52) and _The Idler_

(1758–60), which were periodicals in the manner of _The Spectator_,

without the ease and variety of their original. To these he regularly

contributed essays, which were quite popular in their day, though to

modern notions they would be the reverse of acceptable. They treat

mainly of abstract subjects, and are expressed in an extremely cumbrous

style which soon came to be known as Johnsonese. This type of prose

style is marked by a Latinized vocabulary, long and balanced sentences,

and an abstract mode of expression. The passage given below illustrates

these mannerisms, as well as a kind of elephantine skittishness with

which Johnson was sometimes afflicted:

Another cause of the gaiety and sprightliness of the dwellers

in garrets is probably the increase of that vertiginous motion,

with which we are carried round by the diurnal revolution of

the earth. The power of agitation upon the spirits is well

known; every man has felt his heart lightened in a rapid

vehicle, or on a galloping horse; and nothing is plainer, than

that he who towers to the fifth story is whirled through more

space by every circumrotation than another that grovels upon

the ground-floor. The nations between the tropics are known to

be fiery, inconstant, inventive, and fanciful; because, living

at the utmost length of the earth’s diameter, they are carried

about with more swiftness than those whom nature has placed

nearer to the poles; and therefore, as it becomes a wise man

to struggle with the inconveniences of his country, whenever

celerity and acuteness are requisite, we must actuate our

languor by taking a few turns round the centre in a garret.

_The Rambler_

He wrote _Rasselas_ (1759) in order to pay for his mother’s funeral.

It was meant to be a philosophical novel, but it is really a number of

_Rambler_ essays, written in Johnsonese, and strung together with the

personality of an inquiring young prince called Rasselas. It is hardly

a novel at all; the tale carries little interest, the characters are

rudimentary, and there are many long, dull discussions. In the book,

however, there are abundant shrewd comments and much of Johnson’s

somber clarity of vision.

His later years were almost unproductive of literary work. Yet he kept

himself deeply interested in the events of the day. For instance,

he started a violent quarrel with Macpherson, whose _Ossian_ had

startled the literary world. We give a letter that Johnson wrote to the

Scotsman, which shows that he sometimes wrote as he spoke--crisply,

clearly, and scathingly:

MR JAMES MACPHERSON,

I have received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence

offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do

for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be

deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a

ruffian.

What would you have me retract? I thought your book an

imposture: I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I

have given my reasons to the public, which I here dare you to

refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are

not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals inclines me

to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall

prove. You may print this if you will.

SAM. JOHNSON

His _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_ (1774), a travel

book, shows the faculty of narrative, and contains passages of great

skill. His last work of any consequence was _The Lives of the Poets_

(1779–81), a series of prefaces to a collection of poetical works. They

are the best specimens of Johnson’s criticism, which is virile and

sagacious, though it is influenced by the emotions of the classical

school of Pope.

Thus when we come to estimate the value of his work we must arrive at

the conclusion that the towering eminence which he held among really

able men was due rather to the personality of the man than to the

outstanding genius of the writer. Moreover, it is important to observe

that he founded no school and left no literary following. He is the

last of the old generation.

JAMES THOMSON (1700–48)

Thomson can hardly be called a great poet, yet in the history of

literature he is unusual enough to be regarded (chronologically) as a

freak. As such he is important, and it is necessary to give him some

prominence.

=1. His Life.= Born near Kelso, close to some of the loveliest valleys

on the Scottish side of the Border, Thomson early came to London (1725)

to seek a patron and fame. His _Winter_ (1726), though its novelty

embarrassed the critics, brought him recognition and afterward praise;

he obtained the patronage of the great, and assiduously cultivated it;

traveled as a tutor to a noble family; obtained Government places and

emoluments; and passed a happy and prosperous life at his cottage near

Richmond.

=2. His Poetry.= His _Winter_ was afterward quadrupled in size by

including the other three seasons, and became _The Seasons_ (1730). It

is a blank-verse poem, and consists of a long series of descriptive

passages dealing with natural scenes, mainly those with which he was

familiar during his youth on the Scottish Border. There is a great

deal of padding, and the style is often marked by clumsy expressions;

yet on the whole the treatment is exhilarating, full of concentrated

observation and joy in the face of nature. Above all, it is real

nature, obtained from the living sky and air, and not from books; and,

coming when it did, the poem exerted a strong counter-influence against

the artificial school of poetry.

Thomson also wrote _Liberty_ (1736), a gigantic poem in blank verse,

intolerably dull. It had no success. As Johnson says, “The praises of

Liberty were condemned to harbour spiders, and to gather dust.”

In the last year of his life he published _The Castle of Indolence_,

which is even more remarkable than _The Seasons_. The poem is written

in Spenserian stanzas, and in the true Spenserian fashion it gives a

description of a lotus-land into which world-weary souls are invited

to withdraw. The work is imitative, and so cannot claim to be of the

highest class, but it is an imitation of the rarest merit. For languid

suggestiveness, in dulcet and harmonious versification, and for subtly

woven vowel-music it need not shirk comparison with the best of Spenser

himself. We give three verses of this remarkable poem. Coming at such a

period, and expressing as they do the essence of romantic idealism, the

verses are well worth quoting:

Full in the passage of the vale above,

A sable, silent, solemn forest stood,

Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move,

As Idlesse fancied in her dreaming mood;

And up the hills, on either side, a wood

Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro,

Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;

And where this valley winded out below,

The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.

A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;

And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,

For ever flushing round a summer sky:

There eke the soft delights, that witchingly

Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,

And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh;

But whate’er smacked of noyance or unrest,

Was far, far off expelled from this delicious nest.

Joined to the prattle of the purling rills,

Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,

And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills,

And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:

And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,

Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,

That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;

And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;

Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.

_The Castle of Indolence_

Thomson also wrote some dramas, including one bad tragedy, _Sophanisba_

(1729); and in collaboration with Mallet he produced the masque

_Alfred_ (1740), which happens to contain the song _Rule, Britannia_.

The song is usually said to be Thomson’s.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728–74)

As another typical example of the transition poet we take Goldsmith,

whose work was produced a full generation after that of Thomson.

=1. His Life.= Much of Goldsmith’s early life is obscure, and our

knowledge of it rests upon his own unsupported and hardly reliable

evidence. He was born at Pallas, a small village in County Longford,

in Ireland, and he was the son of the poor but admirable curate of

the village. His father, the village, and various local features are

duly registered, and unduly idealized, in the poem _The Deserted

Village_. In 1745 Goldsmith proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin;

graduated, after some misadventures; and then tried various careers

in turn--law, medicine, and playing the flute--at various places,

including Dublin, Edinburgh, Leyden, Venice, and Padua. At the

last-mentioned place he graduated, according to his own account, as

a doctor, and claimed title as such. In truth, a settled career was

beyond Goldsmith’s capacity. He had all the amiable vices of the stage

Irishman: he was shiftless and improvident, but generous and humane;

unstable and pitifully puerile in mind, but with bright, piercing

flashes of humor and insight. During his years of wandering he roved

over Europe, playing the flute for a living; then in 1756 he returned

to England, poor, unknown, but undaunted.

Then followed desperate attempts at making a living. In succession he

was chemist, printer’s reader, usher in a school, and finally (the last

refuge of the literary down-at-heels) publisher’s hack and a denizen

of Grub Street. In time, however, by their sheer merit, his writings

drew upon him the regard of famous persons, including Dr. Johnson and

Charles James Fox, the eminent politician. Once recognition came, it

came with a rush; money and praise poured in; but his feckless habits

kept him poor, and he drifted about in mean London lodgings till his

death in 1774. It was said that he brought his doom upon himself by

prescribing for his own ailment. He left debts for two thousand pounds.

During his latter years he was a member of Johnson’s famous club,

where his artless ways--his bickerings, witticisms, and infantile

vanity--were the cause of the mingled amusement, admiration, and

contempt of his fellow-members.

=2. His Poetry.= Though his poetical production is not large, it

is notable. His first poem, _The Traveller_ (1764), deals with

his wanderings through Europe. The poem, about four hundred lines

in length, is written in the heroic couplet, and is a series of

descriptions and criticisms of the places and peoples of which he

had experience. The descriptions, though often superficial and

half-informed, are fired with the genius of the man, and are arresting

and noteworthy. His critical comments, which require on his part clear

thinking and some knowledge of social and economic facts, are of hardly

any value. Similar drawbacks are seen in his only other poem of any

length, _The Deserted Village_ (1770). In this poem, as he deals with

the memories of his youth, the pathetic note is more freely expressed.

His natural descriptions have charm and genuine feeling; but his

remedies for the agricultural depression of Ireland are innocently

empty of the slightest practical value.

The peculiar humor and pathos of Goldsmith are hard to analyze. Both

emotions arise for simple situations, and are natural and free from

any deep guile, yet they have a certain agreeable tartness of flavor,

and show that Goldsmith was no fool in his observation of mankind.

Often the humor is so dashed with pathos that the combined effect is

attractive to a very high degree. The passage given below illustrates

his artless emotion naturally expressed:

In all my wanderings round this world of care,

In all my griefs--and God has given my share--

I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,

Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;

To husband out life’s taper at the close,

And keep the flame from wasting by repose:

I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,

Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,--

Around my fire an evening group to draw,

And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;

And as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue,

Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,

I still had hopes, my long vexations past,

Here to return--and die at home at last.

_The Deserted Village_

Goldsmith’s miscellaneous poems are important, for they include some

of his characteristic humorous and pathetic writing. The ballad called

_The Hermit_ is done in the sentimental fashion, the witty _Elegy on

the Death of a Mad Dog_ is suggestive of Swift without Swift’s savage

barb, and the fine lines beginning “When lovely woman stoops to folly”

are among the best he ever wrote.

=3. His Drama.= Goldsmith wrote two prose comedies, both of which

rank high among their class. The first, called _The Good-natured Man_

(1768), is not so good as the second, _She Stoops to Conquer_ (1773).

Each, but especially the latter, is endowed with an ingenious and

lively plot, a caste of excellent characters, and a vivacious and

delightful style. Based on the Restoration comedy, they lack the

Restoration grossness. The second play had an immense popularity, and

even yet it is sometimes staged.

=4. His Prose.= The prose is of astonishing range and volume. Among

his works of fiction we find _The Citizen of the World_ (1759), a

series of imaginary letters from a Chinaman, whose comments on English

society are both simple and shrewd. This series was contributed to _The

Public Ledger_, a popular magazine. He wrote many other essays in the

manner of Addison, almost as well done as those of Addison. His other

important work of fiction is his novel _The Vicar of Wakefield_ (1766),

which is in the first rank of the eighteenth-century novels. The plot

of the novel is simple, but fairly well handled, the characters are

human and attractive, and the book has all the Goldsmith qualities of

humor and pathos.

We give an example of his style. The passage is taken from one of his

essays, in which he sketches the character of a man who, while he

pretends to be hard-hearted, is in reality of a generous disposition.

The humor is typical; it is artless, but it is acute and pervading, and

shows us quite plainly that the writer was by no means the zany that

Boswell (who disliked Goldsmith) desired us to imagine in his _Life

of Johnson_.

He was proceeding in this strain, earnestly to dissuade me from

an imprudence of which I am seldom guilty, when an old man, who

still had about him the remnants of tattered finery, implored

our compassion. He assured us that he was no common beggar,

but forced into the shameful profession, to support a dying

wife, and five hungry children. Being prepossessed against such

falsehoods, his story had not the least influence upon me; but

it was quite otherwise with the man in black; I could see it

visibly operate upon his countenance, and effectually interrupt

his harangue. I could easily perceive that his heart burned to

relieve the five starving children, but he seemed ashamed to

discover his weakness to me. While he thus hesitated between

compassion and pride, I pretended to look another way, and he

seized the opportunity of giving the poor petitioner a piece of

silver, bidding him at the same time, in order that I should

hear, go work for his bread, and not tease passengers with such

impertinent falsehoods for the future.

_The Bee_

In addition, Goldsmith produced a great mass of hack-work, most of

which is worthless as historical and scientific fact, but all of

which is enlightened with the grace of his style and personality.

Some of these works are _An Inquiry into the Present State of

Polite Learning in Europe_ (1759), his first published book;

_The History of England_ (1762); and _The History of Earth and

Animated Nature_, a kind of text-book on natural history, which was

unfinished when he died.

=5. Summary.= Goldsmith’s work is so varied and important that it is

necessary to summarize briefly. The following are its main features:

(_a_) _Variety._ In his projected Latin epitaph on Goldsmith, Johnson

gives prominence to the statement that Goldsmith touched on nearly

every type of writing and adorned them all:

Qui nullum fere scribendi genus

Non tetigit,

Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.

(_b_) Its _high quality_ is also apparent. In matters of knowledge

Goldsmith was deficient, but in grace, charm, and amiable good-humor he

is in the first flight of our writers.

(_c_) As a _transitional poet_ he is worthy of careful observation.

In the mechanics of poetry--such as meter, rhyme, and rhetorical

devices--he follows the older tradition; but in his broad humanity of

outlook, in his sympathetic treatment of natural scenes, and in the

simplicity of his humor and pathos he is of the coming age.

OTHER TRANSITIONAL POETS

=1. Thomas Gray (1716–71).= Gray was born in London, the son of a

money-scrivener, a kind of lawyer, who was in affluent circumstances.

Gray, however, owed his education largely to the self-denial of his

mother; he was educated at Eton and Cambridge, at the latter of which

places he met Horace Walpole. With Walpole he toured Italy; then,

returning to the university, he took his degree, finally settling down

to a life that was little more than an elegant futility. He was offered

the Laureateship, but refused it (1757); he obtained a professorship

at Cambridge, but he never lectured. He wrote a little, traveled a

little; but he was a man of shrinking and fastidious tastes, unapt for

the rough shocks of the world, and, fortunately for himself, able to

withdraw beyond them.

His first poem was the _Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College_

(1747), which contained gloomy moralizings on the approaching fate

of those “little victims,” the schoolboys. Then, after years of

revision and excision, appeared the famous _Elegy written in a Country

Churchyard_ (1751). This poem was smooth and graceful; it contained

familiar sentiments turned into admirable, quotable phrases; and so,

while it was agreeably familiar, it was fresh enough to be attractive.

Its popularity has been maintained to the present day. His _Pindaric

Odes_ (1757) were unsuccessful, being criticized for their obscurity.

_The Bard_ and _The Progress of Poesy_, the two Pindaric Odes in the

book, certainly require some elucidation, especially to readers not

familiar with history and literature. At the first glance Gray’s

odes are seen to have all the odic splendor of diction; in fact, the

adornment is so thickly applied that it can almost stand alone, like

a robe stiff with gems and gold lace. Yet the poems have energy and

dignity. Johnson, who had a distaste for both the character and the

work of Gray, cavils at the work, saying that it has a strutting

dignity. “He is tall by walking on tiptoe. His art and his struggle are

too visible.”

The prose work of Gray is notable. It consists partly of letters

written during his travels, describing the scenes he visits. In them

he shows vigor of style, a sharp eye and a generous admiration for the

real beauties of nature. His descriptions, such as those of the Lake

District, are quite admirable, and well in advance of the general taste

of his age.

In spite of its slender bulk, Gray’s achievement both in prose and

verse is of great importance. He explored the origins of romance in

the early Norse and Celtic legends; his sympathies with the poor and

oppressed were genuine and emphatically expressed; and his treatment of

nature was a great improvement upon that of his predecessors.

Johnson’s final estimate of Gray is not unfair, and we can leave the

poet with it: “His mind had a large grasp; his curiosity was unlimited,

and his judgment cultivated; he was likely to love much where he loved

at all, but he was fastidious and hard to please.”

=2. William Collins (1721–59).= Collins was born at Chichester,

and was educated at Winchester and Oxford, but all his life he was

weighted with the curse of insanity, and for this reason he had to take

untimely leave of the university. He tried to follow a literary career

in London, but with scant success, being arrested for debt. He was

released by the generosity of his publishers, and a fortunate legacy

relieved him from the worst of his financial terrors. He lapsed into a

mild species of melancholia, finally dying in his native city at the

early age of thirty-eight.

The work of Collins is very small in bulk, and even of this scanty

stock a fair proportion shows only mediocre ability. His _Persian

Eclogues_ (1742) are in the conventional style of Pope, and though

they profess to deal with Persian scenes and characters, the Oriental

setting shows no special information or inspiration. The book that

gives him his place in literature is his _Odes_ (1747), a small octavo

volume of fifty-two pages. The work is a collection of odes to Pity,

Fear, Simplicity, Patriotism, and kindred abstract subjects. Some of

the odes are overweighted with the cumbrous creaking machinery of the

Pindaric; but the best of them, especially the _Ode to Evening_ (done

in unrhymed verse), are instinct with a sweet tenderness, a subdued and

shadowy pathos, and a magical enchantment of phrase. In the same book

two short elegies, one beginning “How sleep the brave” and the other on

James Thomson (“In yonder grave a Druid lies”), are as captivating,

with their misty lights and murmuring echoes of melancholy, as the

best of Keats. In the finest work of Collins, with his eager and

wistful searching, with what Johnson morosely called his “flights of

imagination that pass the bounds of nature,” we are ushered over the

threshold of romance.

=3. William Cowper (1731–1800).= Cowper was born at Great

Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, where his father was rector. He was

to have been a barrister, and was actually called to the Bar (1754),

but a great and morbid timidity of disposition, which increased till it

became religious and suicidal mania, hampered him cruelly through life.

Family influence obtained for him a good post on the clerical staff of

the House of Lords, but his extreme shyness made him quite unfit for

this semi-public appointment. The consequent disappointment disordered

his wits, and he attempted suicide, but was fortunately prevented. The

latter part of his life was spent chiefly at Olney, in Buckinghamshire,

where his good friends the Unwins treated him with great kindness and

good sense. His feeling of gratitude for their care, expressed or

implicit in many of his poems and letters, is one of the most touching

features in the literature of the time. This comparatively happy

state of affairs did not last till the end, for the years immediately

preceding his death were much clouded with extreme mental and bodily

affliction.

Cowper’s poems were produced late in life, but in bulk the work is

large. It is curiously mixed and attractive in its nature. His _Poems_

(1782) is his first attempt at authorship. The book contains little

that is noteworthy. The bulk of it is taken up with a collection of set

pieces in heroic couplets, quite in the usual manner, on such subjects

as _The Progress of Error, Truth, Hope, and Charity_. At the very end

of the volume a few miscellaneous short pieces are more encouraging

as novelties. One of them is the well-known poem containing the

reflections of Alexander Selkirk (“I am monarch of all I survey”). His

next work is _The Task_ (1785), a long poem in blank verse, dealing

with simple and familiar themes and containing many fine descriptions

of country scenes. In places the style is marked by the prevailing

artificial tricks, and as a whole the poem is seldom inspired with any

deep or passionate feeling; but his observation is acute and humane, it

includes the homeliest detail within its kindly scope, and he gives us

real nature, like Thomson in _The Seasons_. At the end of this volume

the ballad of _John Gilpin_ finds a place. It is an excellent example

of Cowper’s prim but sprightly humor, an extraordinary gift for a

man of his morbid temperament. Other short poems were added to later

editions of his first volume. These include the _Epitaph on a Hare_,

curiously and touchingly pathetic; lines _On the Receipt of my Mother’s

Picture_, which reveal only too painfully the suppressed convulsions of

grief and longing that were stirred within him by memories of the past;

and _The Castaway_, written in a lucid interval just before the end,

and sounding like the wail of a damned spirit. The poem gives a tragic

finality to his life. It describes the doom of a poor wretch swept

overboard in a storm, and concludes:

No poet wept him; but the page

Of narrative sincere,

That tells his name, his worth, his age,

Is wet with Anson’s tear;

And tears by bards or heroes shed

Alike immortalise the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,

Descanting on his fate,

To give the melancholy theme

A more enduring date:

But misery still delights to trace

Its semblance in another’s case.

No voice divine the storm allay’d,

No light propitious shone,

When, snatch’d from all effectual aid,

We perished, each alone:

But I beneath a rougher sea,

And whelm’d in deeper gulfs than he.

Cowper’s letters, private epistles addressed to various personal

friends, are among the most delightful of their kind. They show the man

at his best--almost jovial in a delicate fashion, keenly observant,

and with a genuine gift for narrative. The style is so clear that the

disposition of the writer shines through it with unruffled benignity.

Though Cowper comes late among the transition poets, he does not travel

very far on the road to novelty. His mind is over-timorous, and he

lacks robustness of temper. But in his feeling for nature, in the ease

and versatility of his poetical work, in his undoubted lyrical gift

(rarely expressed), his work marks an advance far beyond that of the

classicists.

=4. George Crabbe (1754–1832).= Crabbe comes very late among the

poets now under review, but in method he is largely of the eighteenth

century. He was born in Suffolk, at Aldeburgh, where his father had

been a schoolmaster and a collector of customs. He was apprenticed to

a surgeon, but later left his native town to seek fame as an author in

London (1780). He had little success at first, but gradually attracted

attention. He fixed on a settled career by taking holy orders, and

obtained the patronage of several influential men. Ultimately he

obtained the valuable living of Trowbridge (1814), where he died as

late as 1832, only a few months before Sir Walter Scott.

His chief poetical works are _The Library_ (1781), _The Village_

(1783), which made his name as a poet, _The Borough_ (1810), and

_Tales in Verse_ (1812). The poems in their succession show little

development, resembling each other closely both in subject and style.

They are collections of tales, told in heroic couplets with much

sympathy and a good deal of pathetic power, dealing with the lives

of simple countryfolk such as Crabbe encountered in his own parish.

There is a large amount of strong natural description, though it is

subsidiary to the human interest in the stories themselves. Crabbe

has often been criticized for being too gloomy and pessimistic; he is

pessimistic in the sense that he is stubbornly alive to the miseries

of the poor, and he is at a loss how to relieve them. His work was

warmly recognized by Wordsworth and other thinkers who had the welfare

of the poor at heart. Crabbe, however, cannot be classed as a great

poet; he lacks the supreme poetic gift of transforming even squalor and

affliction into things of splendor and appeal; but he is sympathetic,

sincere, and an acute observer of human nature.

=5. Mark Akenside (1721–70).= Akenside was born at Newcastle,

studied medicine at Edinburgh, and graduated at Leyden in 1744. He

started practice at Northampton, but did not succeed. Later he had

more success in London. In the capital he took to political writing,

in which he was moderately proficient, and he obtained a pension as

a reward. He was a well-known character, and is said to have been

caricatured by Smollett in _Peregrine Pickle_.

His best political poem is his _Epistle to Curio_ (1744), which

contains some brilliant invective against Pulteney. His best-known book

is _The Pleasures of the Imagination_ (1744), a long and rambling

blank-verse poem. The style is somewhat Miltonic in its energy and its

turn of phrase, but it is deficient in the Miltonic genius. The poem

has some loud but rather fine descriptive passages, especially those

dealing with his native Tyne, for the beauties of which he shows a

laudable enthusiasm.

=6. Christopher Smart (1722–71).= Smart was born in Kent, and was

educated at Cambridge, where he graduated. He was a man of unbalanced

mind, which, leading him into many extravagances, brought him finally

to a madhouse and a miserable death in a debtor’s prison.

The poem connected with his name is _The Song to David_ (1763), which

is said to have been partly written on the walls of the madhouse

in which he was confined. The poem, consisting of nearly a hundred

six-line stanzas, is a wild, rhapsodical effusion, full of extravagance

and incoherence, but in places containing bursts of tremendous poetic

power. The following stanzas, the last in the poem, give an idea of

these poetical bomb-shells:

Glorious the sun in mid career;

Glorious the assembled fires appear;

Glorious the comet’s train:

Glorious the trumpet and alarm;

Glorious the Almighty’s stretched-out arm;

Glorious the enraptured main:

Glorious the northern lights astream;

Glorious the song, when God’s the theme;

Glorious the thunder’s roar:

Glorious hosanna from the den;

Glorious the catholic amen;

Glorious the martyr’s gore:

Glorious--more glorious is the crown

Of Him that brought salvation down,

By meekness called thy Son;

Thou that stupendous truth believed,

And now the matchless deed’s achieved,

Determined, Dared, and Done.

=7. William Shenstone (1714–63).= Born at the Leasowes, in

Worcestershire, Shenstone was educated at Oxford. After leaving the

university he retired to his estate, which he beautified in the fashion

of the time. He was a man of an agreeable nature, but was shy and

retiring, and spent nearly all his life in the country.

His published works consist chiefly of odes, elegies, and what he

called _Levities, or Pieces of Humour_ (often dreary enough), and _The

Schoolmistress_ (1742). His poems are largely pastoral, but they are by

no means the artificial pastoral of Pope. He studies nature himself,

and does not derive his notions from books. In this matter he resembles

Cowper. _The Schoolmistress_, which by a notable advance is written in

the Spenserian stanza, deals in rather a sentimental fashion with the

teacher in his first school; it is sympathetic in treatment, and in

style is an interesting example of the transition.

=8. Charles Churchill (1731–64).= Churchill was educated at Westminster

School and at Cambridge, took orders (1756), and obtained a curacy.

When he was about twenty-seven years old he suddenly started on a wild

course of conduct, abandoned his curacy, took to politics and hack

journalism, and to drinking and debauchery. He died at Boulogne at the

age of thirty-three.

He lives in literature as a satirical poet, and the best of his work

is in _The Rosciad_ (1761), a bitter attack on the chief political and

social figures of the time. The poem, which is written in the Dryden

heroic couplet, was greeted as the work of a new Dryden, but it has

little of that poet’s superb elevation and contempt. It is vigorous and

acute, but it is too often cheap and nasty. It had much popularity,

but when the topical need for it was over it had no permanent value.

Churchill continued to satirize the age in a wild indiscriminate

fashion in poems called _Night_ (1761), _The Ghost_ (1763), and _The

Prophecy of Famine_ (1763).

=9. Robert Blair (1699–1746).= Blair was born at Edinburgh, and became

a clergyman in East Lothian. The poem that brought him his transitory

reputation was _The Grave_ (1743). It is a long blank-verse poem of

meditation on man’s mortality. It does not make cheerful reading, and

the sentiments are quite ordinary. It has, however, a certain strength

and dignity, and the versification shows skill and some degree of

freshness. The poem is reminiscent of Young’s _Night Thoughts_.

ROBERT BURNS (1759–96)

In this section we shall deal with those poets who wrote in the middle

and later years of the eighteenth century, and who abandoned the

classical tradition. In their generation they came too early to be

definitely included in the school of Wordsworth and Coleridge, but in

their work they are often as romantically inclined as any of their

great successors. We begin with Burns, one of the latest, and probably

the greatest, of Wordsworth’s poetical forbears. With the appearance of

Burns we can say that the day of Romanticism is come. There had been

false dawns and deceptive premonitions, but with him we have, in the

words of Swinburne,

A song too loud for the lark,

A light too strong for a star.

=1. His Life.= He was born in a small clay-built cottage, the

work of his father’s hands, in the district of Kyle, in Ayrshire. His

father, a small farmer, was a man of an unbending disposition, and

the boy had to toil with the rest of the family to wring subsistence

from the soil. He had not much formal education, and all his life he

tried spasmodically to improve it; but it was mainly the force of his

own natural ability that permitted him to absorb the moderate amount

of learning he did acquire. As he grew older he showed himself to be

the possessor of a powerful and lively mind, which was often afflicted

with spasms of acute mental depression. The audacity of his temper

soon brought him into extravagances of conduct which were visited by

the censure and punishment of the rigid Scottish Church. For Burns’s

own sake it is unfortunate that his memory has been pursued with an

infatuation of hero-worship that seeks to extenuate and even to deny

facts that are grave and indisputable. One can only say that his chief

weaknesses--drink and dissipation--were largely the faults of his time.

He was no worse than many other men of his age; but his poetic gifts

proclaimed and perhaps exaggerated his vices, of which he repented when

he was sober and unwisely boasted when he was otherwise.

His life was hard and bitter; his different attempts at farming and at

other occupations met with no success, and he determined to seek his

fortune in the West Indies (1786). In the nick of time he learned that

the small volume of verse that he had recently issued at Kilmarnock was

attracting much attention, and he was persuaded to remain in Scotland

and discover what fame had in store for him. The reputation of his

poems rose with prodigious rapidity, and within a year there was a

demand for an Edinburgh edition. He was in Edinburgh in 1787, where he

became a nine days’ wonder to the lion-hunting society of the capital

city. He then obtained a small post in the Excise, and, taking a farm

near Dumfries, married and essayed to lead a regular life. He found

this impossible, for fame brought added temptation. His farming was a

failure, and the income from his poems and from his post in the Excise

was insufficient to keep him decently. At the age of thirty-seven he

died at Dumfries, of premature old age.

=2. His Poetry.= His sole poetical work of any magnitude is his volume

of _Poems_ (1786), which he edited five times during his lifetime, with

numerous additions and corrections on each occasion. At different times

he contributed to _The Scots Musical Museum_ and to Thomson’s _Select

Scottish Melodies_. After the poet’s death his literary editor, Dr.

Currie, published (1800) a large number of additional pieces, along

with a considerable amount of correspondence.

We have thus one tale, _Tam o’ Shanter_, which was included in the

third edition of the poems, that of 1793; one longish descriptive

piece, _The Cotter’s Saturday Night_; more than two hundred songs,

ranging in quality from very good to middling; and a great number of

short epistles, epigrams, elegies, and other types of miscellaneous

verse.

=3. Features of his Poetry.= The poetry is of such a miscellaneous

character, and its composition was often so haphazard in the matter of

time, that it is almost impossible to give a detailed chronology of it.

We shall therefore take it in the mass, and attempt the difficult task

of giving an analysis of its various features.

(_a_) The best work of Burns was almost entirely _lyrical_ in motive.

He is one of the rare examples, like Shelley, of the born singer who

can give to human emotion a precious and imperishable utterance. He

was essentially the inspired egoist: what interested him was vivid and

quickening; what lay outside his knowledge and experience was without

life or flavor. He thought of reviving the Scottish drama, but, even

if he had entered on the project, it is doubtful if he would have

succeeded, for he lacked the faculty of putting himself completely in

another man’s place. His narrative gift, as it is revealed in _Tam o’

Shanter_, becomes fused with the heat of some lyrical emotion (in this

case that of drunken jollity), and then it shines with a clear flame.

But with the departure of the lyrical emotion the narrative impulse

ends as well.

(_b_) While keeping within the limits of the lyric he traverses

an _immense range_ of emotion and experience. The feelings he

describes are those of the Scottish peasant, but the genius of the poet

makes them germane to every member of the human race; he discovers

the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. Here we have the

“passion and apathy, and glory and shame” that are the inspiration of

the lyrical poet, and we have them in rich abundance.

(_c_) His _humor and pathos_ are as copious and varied as his

subject-matter. His wit can be rollicking to coarseness, as it is in

_The Jolly Beggars_; and there are no poems richer in bacchanalian

flavor than _Willie brewed a Peck o’ Maut_ and _Tam o’ Shanter_. He can

run to the other extreme of emotion, and be graceful and sentimental,

as in _Afton Water_ and _My Luve is like a Red, Red Rose_. We have

beautiful homely songs in _John Anderson, my Jo_ and _O’ a’ the Airts_;

and he can be bitter and scornful in such poems as _The Unco Guid_ and

_The Holy Fair_. His pathos ranges from the piercing cry of _Ae Fond

Kiss_, through the pensive pessimism of _Ye Banks and Braes_, to the

tempered melancholy of _My Heart’s in the Hielands_. The facility of

this precious lyrical gift became a positive weakness, for he wrote too

freely, and much of his songwriting is of mediocre quality.

We give brief extracts to illustrate these features of his poetry. The

first shows him in his mood of vinous elation; in the second he is

acutely depressed and almost maudlin; the third for pure loveliness is

almost unexcelled.

(1) O, Willie brewed a peck o’ maut,

And Rob and Allan cam’ to see;

Three blither hearts, that lee-lang night,

Ye wad na find in Christendie.

_Chorus_

We are na fou, we’re nae that fou,

But just a drappie in our ee;

The cock may craw, the day may daw,

And aye we’ll taste the barley bree.

Here are we met, three merry boys,

Three merry boys, I trow, are we;

And mony a night we’ve merry been,

And mony mae we hope to be.

It is the moon--I ken her horn,

That’s blinkin’ in the lift sae hie;

She shines sae bright to wyle us hame,

But, by my sooth, she’ll wait a wee!

(2) Thou ling’ring star, with less’ning ray,

That lov’st to greet the early morn,

Again thou usher’st in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.

O Mary! dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?

Seëst thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?

* * * * *

Still o’er these scenes my mem’ry wakes,

And fondly broods with miser care!

Time but th’ impression stronger makes,

As streams their channels deeper wear.

My Mary, dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?

Seëst thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?

_To Mary in Heaven_

(3) O, my luve is like a red, red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June;

O, my luve is like the melodie

That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonny lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only luve!

And fare thee well a while!

And I will come again, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

(_d_) The poet’s _political and religious views_ have been given

prominence by his admirers, but they scarcely deserve it. His politics,

as expressed in such poems as _A Man’s a Man for a’ That_, are merely

the natural utterances of a strong and sensitive mind deeply alive to

the degradation of his native people. His religious views, in so far as

they are colored by his unhappy personal experiences with the Scottish

Church, are of value solely as the inspiration of capital satirical

verse, but in _The Cotter’s Saturday Night_ Burns pays a spontaneous

and beautiful tribute to the piety of the Scottish peasant. The

following extract from _Holy Willie’s Prayer_ sufficiently reveals his

personal bias:

Lord, bless Thy chosen in this place,

For here Thou hast a chosen race:

But God confound their stubborn face,

And blast their name,

Wha bring Thy elders to disgrace,

And public shame.

Lord, mind Gaw’n Hamilton’s deserts,

He drinks, and swears, and plays at cartes,

Yet has sae mony takin’ arts,

Wi’ great and sma’,

Frae God’s ain priests the people’s hearts

He steals awa’.

But, Lord, remember me and mine,

Wi’ mercies temp’ral and divine,

That I for gear and grace may shine,

Excelled by nane,

And a’ the glory shall be Thine.

Amen, amen!

(_e_) His _style_ is noteworthy for the curious double tendency that is

typical of the transition. When he writes in the “correct” manner he

has all the petty vices of the early school. The opening lines of his

_Address to Edinburgh_ are:

Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!

All hail thy palaces and tow’rs,

Where once beneath a monarch’s feet

Sat Legislation’s sov’ran pow’rs!

Here we see a paltry classicism and a metrical scrupulousness

(leadingto the mutilation of words like “pow’rs”) that were far below

Burns’s notice. The latter vice will be seen even in such poems as _To

Mary in Heaven_, quoted above. But when he shakes himself free from

such trifling arts his style is full and strong, and as redolent of the

soil as his own mountain daisy.

(_f_) As the _national poet_ of Scotland his position is unique. He is

first, and the rest nowhere. His rod, like Aaron’s, has swallowed up

the rods of the other Scottish poets; so that in the popular fancy he

is the author of any striking Scottish song, such as _Annie Laurie_ or

_Auld Robin Gray_. His dominating position is due to three factors:

(1) He has a matchless gift of catching traditional airs and wedding

them to words of simple and searching beauty. It is almost impossible

to think of _Auld Lang Syne_ or _Scots wha hae_ or _Green grow the

Rashes, O!_ without their respective melodies being inevitably

associated with them. And these tunes were born in the blood of the

Scottish peasant.

(2) He rejoices in descriptions of Scottish scenery and customs. _The

Cotter’s Saturday Night_ is packed with such features, and all through

his work are glimpses of typical Scottish scenes. The opening stanzas

of _A Winter Night_ are often quoted to show his descriptive power:

When biting Boreas, fell and doure,

Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;

When Phœbus gives a short-liv’d glow’r,

Far south the lift,

Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,

Or whirling drift:

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,

Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,

While burns, wi’ snawy wreeths up-choked,

Wild-eddying swirl,

Or thro’ the mining outlet bocked,[168]

Down headlong hurl.

(3) Lastly, he came just at the time when the Scottish tongue, as a

separate literary medium, was fast vanishing. The Edinburgh society

that prided itself on being the equal of the literary society of London

was soon to pass away with the greatest of Edinburgh writers. Burns

captured the dialect of his fellows, and gave it permanence.

OTHER POETS OF THE NEW SCHOOL

=1. James Macpherson (1738–96).= This writer was born at Kingussie,

in the county of Inverness, and was educated for the Church. He never

became a regular minister, for at the age of twenty he was producing

bad poetry, and soon after he definitely adopted a literary career. He

traveled in the Highlands of Scotland and abroad, settled in London

(1764), and meddled in the politics of the time. Then he entered

Parliament, realized a handsome fortune, and died in his native parish.

After producing some worthless verse in the conventional fashion, in

1760 he issued something very different. It was called _Fragments of

Ancient Poetry translated from the Gaelic_. The work received a large

share of attention, and a subscription was raised to allow him to

travel in the Highlands to glean further specimens of native poetry.

The fruits of this were seen in _Fingal_ (1762) and _Temora_ (1763).

Macpherson declared that the books were his translations of the poems

of an ancient Celtic bard called Ossian. Immediately a violent dispute

broke out, many people (including Johnson) alleging that the books were

the original compositions of Macpherson himself. The truth is that he

gave substance to a large mass of misty Gaelic tradition, and cast the

stories into his peculiar prose style.

The controversy hardly matters to us here. What matters is that the

tales deal largely with the romantic adventures of a mythical hero

called Fingal. They include striking descriptions of wild nature,

and they are cast in a rhythmic and melodious prose that is meant to

reproduce the original Gaelic poetical measure. As an essay in the

Romantic method these works are of very high value. (See p. 349.)

=2. Thomas Chatterton (1752–70).= Chatterton was born at Bristol,

and was apprenticed to an attorney. At the age of eighteen he went to

London to seek his fortune as a poet. Almost at once he lapsed into

penury, and, being too proud to beg, poisoned himself with arsenic. He

was eighteen years old.

The brevity and pathos of Chatterton’s career have invested it with a

fame peculiar in our literature. He is held up as the martyr of genius,

sacrificed by the callousness of the public. His fate, however, was

largely due to his own vanity and recklessness, and his genius has

perhaps been overrated. In 1768, while still at Bristol, he issued

a collection of poems which seemed archaic in style and spelling.

These, he said, he had found in an ancient chest lodged in a church in

Bristol; and he further stated that most of them had been written by a

monk of the fifteenth century, by name Thomas Rowley. The collection

received the name of _The Rowley Poems_, and includes several ballads,

one of which is _The Battle of Hastings_, and some descriptive and

lyrical pieces, such as _Songs to Ælla_. A slight knowledge of Middle

English reveals that they are forgeries thinly disguised with antique

spelling and phraseology; but, especially after their author’s death,

they gained much currency, and had some influence on their time. There

is much rubbish in the poems, but in detached passages there is real

beauty, along with a marvelous precocity of thought.

=3. William Blake (1757–1827).= Blake was a Londoner, being born the

son of a City hosier. At the age of ten he was an artist; at the age of

twelve he was a poet; and thereafter his father apprenticed him to an

engraver. All his life Blake saw visions and dreamed dreams, hovering

on the brink of insanity; and his mental peculiarities are abundantly

revealed in the two arts that he made his own. His engravings and his

poems, conceived on wild and fantastic lines, kept him fully occupied

all his life, though they brought him neither money nor fame. But

his desires were easily satisfied, and he died poor and unknown, but

cheerful and serene, in the city of his birth.

His chief poetical works are _Poetical Sketches_ (1783), _Songs

of Innocence_ (1789), and _Songs of Experience_ (1794). They are

extraordinary compositions, full of unearthly visions, charming

simplicity, and baffling obscurity. His genius is undoubted, but it is

wayward and fitful, the sport of his unbalanced mind. His astonishing

lines on the tiger are well known, and are a good specimen of his

poetical gifts:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

* * * * *

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And, when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?

* * * * *

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water’d heaven with their tears,

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

=4. Robert Fergusson (1750–74).= Fergusson was born in Edinburgh, and

received his education at the university of that city, but soon fell

into loose and disreputable habits. He contributed much to the local

press, and acquired some reputation as a poet of the vernacular. His

irregular habits led to the madhouse, in which he died at the early age

of twenty-four.

Fergusson is chiefly notable as the forerunner of Burns, who was

generous in his praise of the earlier poet. His best poems are short

descriptive pieces dealing with Scottish life, such as _The King’s

Birthday_, _To the Tron Kirk_, and _The Farmer’s Ingle_. This last poem

perhaps suggested Burns’s _Cotter’s Saturday Night_. Fergusson gives

clear and accurate descriptions, and his use of the vernacular Scots

tongue is vigorous and natural, thus providing Burns with a model for

his best style. (See p. 346.)

SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689–1761)

=1. His Life.= Richardson was born in Derbyshire, the son of a

joiner, by whom he was apprenticed to a London printer. Richardson

was an industrious youth, and in the course of time rose high in the

pursuit of his occupation. He became a master-printer, produced the

journals of the House of Commons, and became printer to the King. He

was a man of retiring and almost effeminate habits, but was generous

and well liked.

=2. His Novels.= Richardson’s first attempts at writing fiction

began at the age of thirteen, when he was the confidant of three

illiterate young women, for whom he wrote love-letters. This practice

afterward stood him in good stead. He was over fifty years old before

he printed a novel of his own, called _Pamela_ (1740). The book,

which takes the form of a series of fictitious letters, deals with

the fortunes of Pamela, a poor and virtuous maid of low degree, who

marries and afterward reforms her wicked master. The work was instantly

successful, exhausting five editions during the first year of its

issue. The characters, especially the chief female character, slowly

but accurately fabricated during the gradual evolution of the simple

plot, were new to the readers of the time, and mark a great step

forward in the history of the English novel. Richardson’s next novel,

which was also constructed in the form of letters, was _Clarissa

Harlowe_ (1749). This treats of characters higher in the social

scale, with indifferent success, and the end is made tragical. The

heroine is a young lady of rank and fortune who is persecuted by a

villain called Lovelace, and who dies finally of a broken heart.

His third and last novel, also in letter-form, was _Sir Charles

Grandison_ (1753), dealing chiefly with persons still higher in

the social world. Richardson contemplated calling the book _A Good

Man_, for he intended the hero to be the perfection of the manly

virtues. But Sir Charles is too good, and succeeds only in being

tedious and unreal. The character of the social _milieu_ in which

the action is cast also weighs heavily upon Richardson, with the

result that this book, which he intended to be his masterpiece, is the

hollowest of the three.

=3. Features of his Novels.= Richardson’s works are largely the

reflection of the man himself, and, in spite of their faults and

limitations, are of immense importance in the development of the novel.

(_a_) Their most prominent feature is their _immense length_. In the

last two works this is most noticeable.

(_b_) In spite of the great length of the books, the _plots_ have

little complexity; the length is due to an enormous accumulation of

detail, both of character and incident, which is ingenious, but clogs

the course of the story. He is really an adept in the minute analysis

of motive and emotion, which gradually evolves a character that is

entire and convincing, and he fills in his sketch with a multitude of

tiny strokes.

(_c_) His novels convey the general impression of a certain kind

of bloodlessness--a literary anemia--that is due to several causes.

His themes are those of love-making; they are handled with a great

parade of morality, but have nevertheless a simpering prudishness that

conveys a stealthy suggestion of immorality. Then his good people are

laboriously virtuous; his villains are stuffily vile; he is devoid

of humor; the action is too frequently indoors; the sentiment is

protracted and sickly. After a spell of reading such work one is glad

to escape into the open air.

(_d_) Yet his merits are very real, and the cumbrous machinery

of the letter-series assists him. His character-drawing is among the

best of his time, and is still among the most remarkable in English;

he is specially happy in his treatment of feminine characters; his use

of dialogue shows an advance, though it might be even more frequently

employed. He gives a good start to the modern novel, though it is still

a long distance from maturity.

HENRY FIELDING (1707–54)

=1. His Life.= A cadet of an ancient family, Fielding was born in

Somersetshire, was educated at Eton, and studied law at Leyden. Lack

of funds stopped his legal studies for a time; he took to writing

plays for a living, but the plays were of little merit; then, having

married, he resumed his studies and was called to the Bar. After some

time in practice he was appointed (1749) Bow Street magistrate, a post

which brought him a small income (“of the dirtiest money on earth,”

as he said) and much hard work. His magisterial duties, however, had

their compensations, for they gave him a close view of many types of

human criminality which was of much use to him in his novels. Fielding

himself was no Puritan, and his own excesses helped to undermine his

constitution. In the hope that it would improve his health, he took a

voyage to Portugal (1754); but he died some months after landing, and

was buried at Lisbon.

=2. His Novels.= In 1742 appeared _Joseph Andrews_, which begins in

a loud guffaw of laughter--not unkind, but not very delicate--at the

namby-pamby Pamela of Richardson. In the story Joseph Andrews, the

hero, is a footman, and the brother of Pamela. Along with a poor and

simple curate called Abraham Adams he survives numerous ridiculous

adventures. In a short time Fielding forgets about the burlesque,

becomes interested in his own story, and we then see a novel of a

new and powerful kind. From the very beginning we get the Fielding

touch: the complete rejection of the letter-method; the bustle and

sweep of the tale; the broad and vivacious humor; the genial and

half-contemptuous insight into human nature; and the forcible and

pithy prose style. His next works were _A Journey from this World to

the Next_ (1743) and _Jonathan Wild the Great_ (1743). _Jonathan Wild_

is the biography of the famous thief and highwayman who was hanged at

Newgate. The story is one long ironical comment upon human action. In

it Fielding deliberately turns morality inside out, calling good by the

name of evil, and evil by the name of good. In the hands of a lesser

writer such a method would at length become teasing and troublesome;

but Fielding, through the intensity of his ironic insight, gives us new

and piercing glimpses of the ruffian’s mentality. We give an extract to

illustrate Fielding’s ironic power, which in several respects resembles

that of Swift:

In Wild everything was truly great, almost without alloy, as his

imperfections (for surely some small ones he had) were only such

as served to denominate him a human creature, of which kind none

ever arrived at consummate excellence. Indeed, while greatness

consists in power, pride, insolence, and doing mischief to

mankind--to speak out--while a great man and a great rogue are

synonymous terms, so long shall Wild stand unrivalled on the

pinnacle of GREATNESS. Nor must we omit here, as the

finishing of his character, what indeed ought to be remembered

on his tomb or his statue, the conformity above mentioned of his

death to his life; and that Jonathan Wild the Great, after all

his mighty exploits was, what so few GREAT men can

accomplish--hanged by the neck till he was dead.

_Jonathan Wild the Great_

His greatest novel, _Tom Jones_ (1749), completes and perfects his

achievement. In the book we have all his previous virtues (and some of

his weaknesses), with the addition of greater symmetry of plot, clearer

and steadier vision into human life and human frailty, and a broader

and more thickly peopled stage. His last novel, _Amelia_ (1751), had as

the original of the heroine Fielding’s first wife, and the character

of the erring husband Booth is based upon that of Fielding himself.

This novel, though possessing power and interest, lacks the spontaneity

of its great predecessor. The last work he produced was his _Voyage

to Lisbon_, a diary written during his last journey. It possesses a

painful interest, for it reveals a strong and patient mind, heavy with

bodily affliction, yet still lively in its perception of human affairs.

=3. Features of his Novels.= (_a_) Like Richardson, Fielding had a

genius for sounding the emotions of the human heart, but his methods

are different. Richardson pores over human weaknesses with puckered

brow and with many a sigh; Fielding looks, laughs, and passes on. He

does not seek to analyze or over-refine; and so his characters possess

a breadth, humanity, and attraction denied to Richardson’s. Even a

sneaking rogue like Blifil in _Tom Jones_ has a Shakespearian roundness

of contour that keeps him from being quite revolting.

(_b_) Fielding is breezy, bustling, and energetic in his _narrative_.

He shows us life on the highway, in the cottage, and among the streets

of London. Coleridge truly said that to take up Fielding after

Richardson is like emerging from the sick-room on to the open lawn.

(_c_) Fielding’s _humor_ is boisterous and broad to the point of

coarseness--a kind of over-fed jollity. But it is frank and open, with

none of the stealthy suggestiveness of Richardson. In dealing with this

aspect of Fielding’s work (an aspect frequently repulsive to the more

squeamish taste of the moderns) we must make allowance for the fashion

of his time, which united a frankness of incident with a curious

decorum of speech. He had also in him a freakishness of wit, the excess

of his grosser mood, which led to fantastic interludes and digressions

in his novels. For instance, in describing the numerous scuffles among

his characters, he frequently adopts an elaborate mock-heroic style

not quite in accordance with later taste. Fielding’s comic characters,

such as Partridge, the humble companion of Tom Jones, are numerous,

diversified, and exceedingly likeable and lively.

(_d_) A word must be given to his _style_. He breaks away from the

mannered, artificial style of the earlier novelists, and gives us the

good “hodden grey” of his own period. His style has a slight touch of

archaism in the use of words like “hath,” but otherwise it is fresh and

clear. His use of dialogue and conversation is of a similar nature.

We add an extract to illustrate Fielding’s easy style, his almost

haphazard cast of sentence, and his use of natural dialogue:

As soon as the play, which was _Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_,

began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence

till the entrance of the ghost; upon which he asked Jones:

“What man that was in the strange dress; something,” said he,

“like what I have seen in a picture. Sure it’s not armour, is

it?” Jones answered: “That is the ghost.” To which Partridge

replied, with a smile: “Persuade me to that, sir, if you can.

Though I can’t say I ever actually saw a ghost in my life, yet

I am certain I should know one if I saw him better than that

comes to. No, no, sir; ghosts don’t appear in such dresses as

that neither.” In this mistake, which caused much laughter in

the neighbourhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue till

the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave

that credit to Mr Garrick which he had denied to Jones, and

fell into so violent a trembling that his knees knocked against

each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether

he was afraid of the warrior upon the stage. “O la! sir,” said

he, “I perceive now it is what you told me. I am not afraid of

anything, for I know it is but a play; and if it was really a

ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so

much company; and yet if I was frightened, I am not the only

person.” “Why, who,” cries Jones; “dost thou take me to be such

a coward here besides thyself?” “Nay, you may call me coward if

you will; but if that little man there upon the stage is not

frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay;

go along with you! Ay, to be sure! Who’s fool, then? Will you?

Who ever saw such foolhardiness? Whatever happens, it is good

enough for you. Oh! here he is again! No further! No, you’ve

gone far enough already; further than I’d have gone for all the

king’s dominions!” Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried:

“Hush, hush, dear sir; don’t you hear him?” And during the

whole speech of the ghost, he sat with his eyes fixed partly on

the ghost, and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open; the

same passions, which succeeded each other in Hamlet, succeeding

likewise in him.

_Tom Jones_

OTHER NOVELISTS

=1. Tobias Smollett (1721–71).= Smollett was a Scotsman, being

born in Dumbartonshire. Though he came of a good family, from an early

age he had to work for a living. He was apprenticed to a surgeon, and,

becoming a surgeon’s mate on board a man-of-war, saw some fighting and

much of the world. He thus stored up abundant raw material for the

novels that were to follow. When he published _Roderick Random_

(1748) the book was so successful that he settled in London; and the

remainder of his life is mainly the chronicle of his works.

_Roderick Random_ is an example of the “picaresque” novel: the hero is

a roving dog, of little honesty and considerable roguery; he traverses

many lands, undergoing many tricks of fortune, both good and bad. The

story lacks symmetry, but it is nearly always lively, though frequently

coarse, and the minor characters, such as the seaman Tom Bowling, are

of considerable interest. His other novels are _Peregrine Pickle_

(1751), _Ferdinand_, _Count Fathom_ (1753), _Sir Launcelot Greaves_

(1762), and _The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_ (1771).

The later books follow the plan of the first with some fidelity. Most

of the characters are disreputable; the plots are as a rule formless

narratives of travel and adventure; and a coarse and brutal humor is

present all through. Smollett, however, brings variety into his novels

by the endless shifting of the scenes, which cover nearly all the

globe, by his wide knowledge and acute perception of local manners and

customs, and by his use of a plain and vigorous narrative style. His

characters, especially his female characters, are crudely managed, but

his naval men--comprising Commodore Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway, and

Boatswain Pipes--form quite a considerable gallery of figures. Smollett

is the first of our novelists to introduce the naval type.

=2. Laurence Sterne (1713–68).= Sterne was born at Clonmel, was

educated at Cambridge, took orders, and obtained a living in Yorkshire

(1740). His habits were decidedly unclerical, even though we judge them

by the easy standard of the time. He temporarily left his living for

London to publish _Tristram Shandy_ (1759). Then he toured abroad,

returned to England to write his second novel, and died in London while

visiting the city on business connected with the production of his book.