Smith, Thomas (of Derby), 290, 292, 310,_The treatment of nature in English poetry between Pope and Wordsworth

Smollett, Tobias, 205, 207, 210, 213–14, 289, 342, 350.

Somerville, William, 21, 30, 32, 41, 42, 112–13, 146, 147.

“Song to David” (Smart), 151.

Southcote, Philip, 261.

Southey, Robert, 128, 199.

“Spectator, The,” 82, 252.

Spenser, Edmund, xvii, 83, 121, 136, 142, 264.

Stephen, Leslie, xx.

Sterne, Laurence, 210, 213, 343.

Streater, Robert, 285.

Stubbs, George, 288, 311.

“Studies in Poetry and Philosophy” (Shairp), xx.

Swaine, Francis, 325.

Swift, Jonathan, 35, 92.

Switzer, Stephen, 254, 260.

Sybrecht, John, 284.

Symonds, J. A., xx, 24, 29.

“Symphones, Les” (Laprade), xxi.

Taine, H. A., 56.

“Task, The” (Cowper), 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 266,

361.

“Tatler, The,” 251.

Taverner, William, 289–90.

Temple, Sir William, 249–50, 265.

Tennyson, Alfred, 66, 180.

Theocritus, 51, 55.

“Theology in the English Poets” (Brooke), xx.

“Theory of the Earth” (Burnet), 9, 22.

Thompson, William, 112, 129–30.

Thomson, James, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, 32, 45, 46, 58, 59, 61,

64, 73, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83–101, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113,

119, 121, 130, 140, 141, 142, 143, 167, 172, 174, 175, 190,

193, 196, 210, 272, 320, 322;

in General Summary _passim_.

“Thomson, James: La vie et ses œuvres” (Morel), 101.

Thornbury, Walter, 315.

Tickell, Thomas, 12, 21, 29, 42, 52, 116.

“Tom Jones” (Fielding), 118, 205–6.

Tours. _See_ under Boswell, Brand, Bray, Brown, Bushe,

Cradock, Gilpin, Gray, Hamilton, Hassell, Houseman, Hutchinson,

Johnson, Macky, Martin, Pennant, Pennecuik, Robertson,

Rudworth, Shaw, Walker, West, Young (Arthur).

“Trees, Thirty-two Species of” (Alex. Cozens), 311.

“Tristram Shandy” (Sterne), 210.

Turner, J. M. W., vi, 304, 318, 320, 327, 328, 343.

“Types of Scenery and Their Influence on Literature” (Geikie), xx.

Unwin, Rev. William, 185, 186.

Van de Velde, the Elder, 284, 286.

Van de Velde, the Younger, 284, 286, 287, 288, 325.

Vandiest, Adrien, 285.

Vandyck, Sir Anthony, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279.

Van Dyke, John, 282.

Van Wyck, Jan, 285.

“Vathek” (Beckford), 215.

Veitch, John, xviii, 11, 18, 55, 81.

Vernet, C. J., 284.

Verzagen, Henry, 284.

“Vicar of Wakefield” (Goldsmith), 212.

“Village, The” (Crabbe), 181, 182.

Virgil, 263.

Vivares, François, 291, 310.

“Voyage en Italie” (Taine), 56.

Wales, 236, 239, 244, 293, 295, 300, 301, 311, 312, 315, 316, 320,

323, 349.

Walker, Mr., 244.

Waller, Edmund, 1, 7, 10, 15, 20, 21, 27, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37, 39,

43, 48, 327.

Walpole, Horace, 212, 250, 254, 255, 256, 259, 260, 262, 265, 274,

275, 277, 278, 284, 306, 310, 322.

Warton, Joseph, 81, 111, 112, 134, 139–43, 146, 147, 199, 200;

in General Summary _passim_.

Warton, Thomas, 112, 143–45, 344, 346, 351.

Watson, Caroline, 280.

Watts, Isaac, 7, 20, 21, 30, 36, 50.

Watts, W., 300.

Webber, John, 322.

West, Mr., 227, 241, 324.

Whately, Thomas, 265.

Whitehead, William, 112, 145–46, 332, 356.

Whitman, Alfred, 280.

“Wilson, Etchings after Richard” (Hastings), 302.

Wilson, Richard, 287, 296–304, 309, 310, 311, 314, 315, 316, 328,

342.

For books on Wilson _see_ under authors: Beaumont, Fletcher,

Ruskin, Wright.

“Wilson, Studies and Designs by,” 302.

“Wilson, Thirty-seven Sketches and Designs by,” 302.

Winchilsea, Lady, vi, 23, 59, 61–64, 83, 117, 249, 271;

in General Summary _passim_.

Wissing, William, 276.

Wolcot, John, 314.

Woollett, William, 301, 302.

Wootten, John, 288, 325.

Wordsworth, William, v, xvii, xviii, xix, xx, 6, 7, 19, 23, 27, 33,

37, 38, 45, 50, 58, 61, 63, 64, 68, 72, 80, 81, 93, 97, 101,

105, 118, 121, 124, 125, 126, 134, 136, 139, 143, 148, 151,

165, 169, 172, 177, 180, 190, 191, 193, 239, 244, 301, 320;

in General Summary _passim_.

Wright, Richard, 313.

Yalden, John, 11, 20, 31, 42.

Young, Arthur, 228–30, 232, 241, 344, 348, 355.

Young, Edward, 5, 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 30, 31, 89, 112, 119–21, 147,

359, 361, 363.

“Zeitschrift für Litteraturgeschichte,” xvii.

“Zeluco” (Moore), 216.

Zucarelli, A., 297.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Humboldt was the first to attack Schiller’s view. He said that

after a full reading of Greek and Roman authors he found himself

unable to accept Schiller’s statement without many reservations. Later

Biese spoke of Schiller’s essay as “jener bahnbrechende Aufsatz,” but

showed that the statement of the case was inadequate because it was

based on the poetry of a single period and thus failed to take account

of many phases of Nature presented in the poetry after the brief

“reflexionslose naive homerische Zeit.”

[2] Biese has two earlier important books: “Die Entwickelung des

Naturgefühls bei den Griechen” (1882) and “Die Entwickelung des

Naturgefühls bei den Römern” (1884). In “Zeitschrift für vergleichende

Litteraturgeschichte,” Neue Folge, Siebenter Band (1894), p. 311, is

a valuable annotated summary of recent (since 1882) German studies on

“das antike und das deutsche Naturgefühl.”

[3] (_a_) They express childlike delight in the open-air world.

(_b_) They use Nature as the background or setting for human

action or emotion. (_c_) They see Nature through historic

coloring. (_d_) They make Nature sympathize with their own

feelings. (_e_) They dwell upon the inhuman or infinite side of

Nature. (_f_) They give description for its own sake. (_g_)

They interpret Nature by imaginative sympathy. (_h_) They use

Nature as a symbol of spirit.

[4] For additions to this bibliography see “The Journal of Germanic

Philology,” II, 239 (1898), in which is an article by Mr. Camillo von

Klenze giving a comprehensive résumé of books and articles dealing with

the Nature-sense. To these books should be added “Types of Scenery

and Their Influence on Literature,” the Romanes lecture at Oxford,

1898, by Sir Archibald Geikie, a delightful, sketchy study of Cowper,

Thomson, Burns, Macpherson, Scott, and Wordsworth in relation to

their environment; “The Treatment of Nature in the Works of Nicholas

Lenau” (The University of Chicago Press, 1902), by Mr. von Klenze,

an admirably full and discriminating study of the attitude toward

Nature as shown by one of the most important German contemporaries

of Tennyson and Browning; “The Treatment of Nature in German

Literature from Günther to the Appearance of Goethe’s ‘Werther,’” a

careful presentation of the development of the love of Nature in the

half-century before 1774 (Max Batt, The University of Chicago Press,

1902); “The Feeling for Nature in Old English Poetry,” by Elizabeth

Deering Hanscom (“Journal of English and Germanic Philology,” V, 439).

[5] Gosse, “From Shakespeare to Pope.”

[6] Pope, “Letters,” I, 73.

[7] Pope, “A Farewell to London.”

[8] Hazlitt, “On Londoners and Country People.”

[9] Boswell, “Life of Dr. Johnson,” III, 178 and note.

[10] Pope, “Letters,” IV, 449.

[11] _Ibid._, III, 346.

[12] _Ibid._, I, 67.

[13] Pope, “Works,” III, 226.

[14] Dryden, “Works,” II, 74.

[15] Etherege, “The Man of Mode,” Act III, sc. 1; Act V, sc. 3.

[16] Shadwell, “Epsom Wells,” Act II, sc. 1.

[17] Montagu, “Letters and Works,” I, 72.

[18] _Ibid._, II, 505.

[19] Shenstone, “A Ballad.”

[20] Lyttleton, “Soliloquy of a Beauty in the Country.”

[21] Young, “On Women.”

[22] Aaron Hill, “Dialogue between Damon and Philemon.”

[23] Isaac Hawkins Browne, “From Celia to Chloe.”

[24] Pope, “Letters,” IV, 476; cf. “From Soame Jenyns in the Country to

the Lord Lovelace in Town.”

[25] _Ibid._, IV, 253.

[26] _Ibid._, II, 113.

[27] _Ibid._, II, 133.

[28] Gay, “Fables,” First Series, No. 33.

[29] Gay, “Araminta.”

[30] Watts, “To David Polhill.” Cf. Shenstone, “The Progress of Taste,”

iv, 172; Lyttleton, “To Mr. Poyntz.”

[31] Cowley, “The Country Mouse.”

[32] Denham, “On Mr. Abraham Cowley’s Death,” l. 79.

[33] James Howell, “Epistolae Ho Elianae,” Book I, sec. 1, Letters 23,

43.

[34] John Evelyn, “Diary” (1641–1706), pp. 36, 185–89.

[35] Addison, “Geneva and the Lake,” “Remarks on Italy.”

[36] Evelyn, “Diary,” p. 126; Addison, “Remarks on Italy.”

[37] Thomas Burnet, “Theory of the Earth,” chapter on “Mountains.”

[38] Pennecuik, “Description of Tweeddale,” p. 45.

[39] Thomas Amory, “Life of John Buncle,” I, 291; II, 97.

[40] Dr. Johnson, “Works,” IX, 35. Cf. also Dr. Johnson’s remark

to Boswell, “He said, he would not wish not to be disgusted in the

Highlands; for that would be to lose the power of distinguishing,

and a man might then lie down in the middle of them. He wished only

to conceal his disgust.” See also his answer to the question, “How

do you like the Highlands?” “The question seemed to irritate him,

for he answered, ‘How, Sir, can you ask me what obliges me to speak

unfavorably of a country where I have been hospitably entertained?

Who _can_ like the Highlands? I like the inhabitants very

well.’”--Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” V, 317, 377.

[41] Hutchinson, “Excursion to the Lakes,” pp. 11, 17.

[42] Waller, “To My Lord Admiral.”

[43] Waller, “Story of Phoebus and Daphne.”

[44] Marvell, “Upon the Hill and Grove at Billbarrow.”

[45] Milton, “A Paraphrase on Psalm CXIV.”

[46] Veitch calls attention to the fact that Shakspere showed little

if any delight in mountains, and that Milton went over Switzerland

without bringing back an image of the Alps which he thought fit to

preserve.--“Nature in Scottish Poetry,” I, 107.

[47] Dryden, “The Indian Emperor.”

[48] Blackmore, “The Creation,” iii, 409.

[49] John Philips, “Cyder,” i, 106.

[50] Yalden, “To Sir Humphrey Mackworth.”

[51] Prior, “Solomon,” i, 52.

[52] Pope, “The Temple of Fame.”

[53] Pope, “On St. Cecilia’s Day.”

[54] Pope, “Windsor Forest,” l. 210.

[55] Tickell, “Oxford,” l. 441.

[56] Parnell, “To Mr. Pope,” l. 83.

[57] Dr. Akenside, “Pleasures of the Imagination,” ii, 274 (first

version).

[58] This indifference to mountains or dislike of them was not a new

thing. For further illustrations see Perry, “English Literature of the

Eighteenth Century,” pp. 144–48. Humboldt, “Kosmos,” Book II, p. 16,

says: “Von dem ewigen Schnee der Alpen, wenn sie sich am Abend oder am

frühen Morgen röthen, von der Schönheit des blauen Gletscher-Eises,

von der grossartigen Natur der schweizerischen Landschaft ist keine

Schilderung aus dem Alterthum auf uns gekommen: und doch gingen

ununterbrochen Staatsmänner, Heerführer, und in ihrem Gefolge

Litteraten durch Helvetien nach Gallien. Alle diese Reisenden wissen

nur über die unfahrbaren scheusslichen Wege zu klagen; das Romantische

der Naturscenen beschäftigte sie nie.... Silius Italicus ... beschreibt

die Alpengegend als eine schrecken-erregende vegetationslose Einöde,

während er mit Liebe alle Felsen-schluchten Italiens und die buschigen

Ufer des Liris (Garigliano) besingt.”

An interesting early exception to this general statement is Petrarch’s

description of his ascent of Mt. Ventoux. In a letter dated April

26, 1335 (Petrarca, “Lettere Famigliari,” I, 481), he tells how this

mountain ever before his eyes, had been from childhood a temptation

to him, and how he was finally stimulated to make the ascent by an

account of the wide view gained by Philip of Macedon from one of the

highest mountains in Thessaly. The most significant passage in this

letter is that in which are strangely mingled Petrarch’s pleasure in

the magnificent prospect and his ascetic fear of a consequent undue

subordination of the soul of man.

“At last I turned to the occasion of my expedition. The sinking sun

and lengthening shadows admonished me that the hour of departure was

at hand, and, as if started from sleep, I turned around and looked

to the west. The Pyrenees--the eye could not reach so far, but I saw

the mountains of Lyonnais distinctly, and the sea by Marseilles; the

Rhone, too, was there before me. Observing these closely, now thinking

on the things of earth, and again, as if I had done with the body,

lifting my mind on high, it occurred to me to take out the copy of St.

Augustine’s Confessions that I always kept with me; a little volume

but of unlimited value and charm. And I call God to witness that the

first words on which I cast mine eyes were these: ‘Men go to wonder

at the heights of mountains, the ocean floods, rivers’ long courses,

ocean’s immensity, the revolutions of the stars--and of themselves they

have no care!’ My brother asked me what was the matter. I bade him

not disturb me. I closed the book, angry with myself for not ceasing

to admire things of earth, instead of remembering that the human soul

is beyond comparison the subject for admiration. Once and again, as I

descended, I gazed back, and the lofty summit of the mountain seemed

to me scarcely a cubit high compared with the sublime dignity of man.”

Translated and commented on by McLaughlin, “The Mediaeval Feeling for

Nature.” See also Biese, “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls,” p. 151:

“Und somit eröffnet uns dieser Brief, mit seiner Mischung reinen,

modernen Naturgenusses und dogmatisch-asketischer Rückbesinnung, einen

Blick in ein zwie-spältiges Herz eines an der Wende zweier Zeiten

stehenden Menschen; es reagiert gleichsam der mittelalterliche Geist

wider die aufkeimende moderne Empfindung.”

Another significant utterance comes in 1541 in a letter by Gessner

quoted by Biese, p. 328. It shows a recognition of the greatness and

majesty of the Alps, and has something of the modern feeling: “So lange

mir Gott Leben schenken wird, habe ich beschlossen, jährlich einige

Berge oder doch einen zu besteigen, teils um die Gebirgsflora kennen zu

lernen, teils um den Körper zu kräftigen und den Geist zu erfrischen.

Welchen Genuss gewährt es nicht die ungeheuren Bergmassen zu betrachten

und das Haupt in die Wolken zu erheben! Wie stimmt es zur Andacht, wenn

man umringt ist von den Schneedomen, die der grosse Weltbaumeister

an dem einen langen Schöpfungstage geschaffen hat! Wie leer is doch

das Leben, wie niedrig das Streben derer, die auf dem Erdboden umher

kriechen, nur um zu erwerben und spiessbürgerlich zu geniessen!

Ihnen bleibt das irdische Paradies verschlossen.“ Biese thinks that

Rousseau’s “Nouvelle Héloise” (1761) “die Augen über die Herrlichkeiten

der neuentdeckten Alpenwelt öffnete.” It is interesting to note in this

connection that the beginning of enthusiastic interest in the mountains

of the English Lake District found expression somewhat earlier in

Dalton’s poem (1755), Amory’s novel (1756), and Brown’s “Letter” and

“Rhapsody” (before 1766 and probably before 1760). The earliest of

the Ossian poems belong in 1760. Goethe’s “Briefe aus der Schweiz vom

Jahre 1779” are according to Biese the first full and enthusiastic

recognition by a German poet of the romantic charms of the Alps (“Die

Entwickelung,” etc., p. 393).

[59] Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., pp. 353–55; Lecky, “History of

England,” VI, 180–83.

[60] Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., pp. 324, 328.

[61] Waller, “A Panegyric to My Lord Protector,” st. 11; “Instructions

to a Painter,” l. 228; “On the Danger His Majesty Escaped,” ll. 5, 63,

156.

[62] Dryden under “Similitudes,” p. 31, and “Diction,” p. 43.

[63] Young, “The Merchant,” strain 2, st. 15; strain 3, st. 9; strain

8, sts. 13–17.

[64] For a Tempest take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster and Boreas and cast them

together in one verse; add to these rain and lightning, _quantum

sufficit_: mix your clouds and billows well together till they foam,

and thicken your description here and there with a quicksand. Brew your

tempest well in your head before you set it a blowing. “The Art of

Sinking in Poetry.”

[65] See “Monthly Review,” XXVII, 197, where Falconer’s descriptions

are said to be equal to “anything in the _Aeneid_.”

[66] Falconer, “The Shipwreck,” canto ii, ll. 157, 268, 346.

[67] _Ibid._, ll. 148–66.

[68] These descriptions rouse Dr. Clarke to a climax of admiration.

“Homer has been admired by some for reducing a catalogue of ships

into tolerably flowing verse; but who, except a poetical sailor, the

nursling of Apollo, educated by Neptune, would ever have thought of

versifying his own sea-language? What other poet would even have dreamt

of _reef-tackles_, _haliards_, _clue-garnets_, _buntlines_, _lashings_,

_laniards_, and fifty other terms equally obnoxious to the soft

sing-song of modern poetasters.”--“Monthly Review,” XXVII.

[69] Biese notes the same fact with regard to German poetry (“Die

Entwickelung,” p. 320).

[70] Cf. Veitch, “Feeling for Nature,” I, 117.

[71] Lyttleton, “An Epistle to Mr. Pope.”

[72] Pope, “Letters,” I, 178.

[73] For illustrative passages, see Montagu, “Letters and Works,”

II, 464; Congreve, “Tears of Amaryllis,” l. 50; Broome, “Daphnis and

Lycidas,” l. 47; Shenstone, “Upon a Visit in Winter;” Pitt, “Hymn to

Apollo;” Hughes, “Myra;” Savage, “Wanderer,” i, 42, 52; John Scott,

“Elegy on Winter;” Akenside, “On the Winter Solstice.”

[74] For a similar dislike of winter in mediaeval poetry see

McLaughlin, “Studies in Mediaeval Life and Literature,” p. 20. He

quotes as typical the following from a Latin student song: “The

cold icy harshness of winter, its fierceness, and dull, miserable

inactivity.”

[75] Blackmore, “Creation,” ii, 393. Cf. Wordsworth’s

The chasm of sky above my head

Is heaven’s profoundest azure ... an abyss

In which the everlasting stars abide.--“Excursion,” iii, 94–98.

Cf. also Dryden’s “The abyss of heaven, the court of stars” (“Works,”

IV, 76).

[76] For illustrative passages, see Waller, “Of the Lady;” Cowley,

“Davideis,” ii, 440; “Hymn to Light,” and “Shortness of Life,” st. 11;

Young, “Ocean,” st. 23; Broome, “Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes;” Yalden,

“Hymn to Morning;” John Philips, “Cyder,” ii, 293; Tickell, “Prospect

of Peace;” Gay, “The Espousal;” Rowe, “The Queen’s Success;” Watts,

“Disappointment;” Pitt, “Verses,” etc., etc.

[77] For descriptions of this sort, see Hughes, “Court of Neptune;”

Prior, “Solomon,” iii, 557; Broome, “Poem on Death,” l. 151; Gay,

“Rural Sports,” ii, 323; Gay, “Wine,” l. 141; Beattie, “The Minstrel,”

i, 17; etc., etc.

[78] Cf. Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., p. 307.

[79] The following are illustrative phrases: “Silver Cynthia lights the

world,” Garth, “Claremont,” l. 284; “Pale Cynthia mounts the vaulted

sky,” Shenstone, “Elegy VI;” “Cynthia came, riding on her silver car,”

Beattie, “The Minstrel,” ii, 12; “Cynthia’s silver white,” Hughes, “The

Picture;” “Cynthia, fair regent of the night,” Gay, “Trivia,” iii,

3; “Cynthia’s silver ray,” Addison, “Imitation of Milton;” “Cynthia,

great Queen of Night,” Garth, “Dispensary,” v, 282; “Pale Cynthia’s

melancholy light,” Falconer, “Shipwreck,” i, 311.

[80] The following are illustrative phrases: “Rich spangles,” Waller,

“Of the Queen;” “Spangled nights,” Cowley, “Davideis,” i, 94; “Spangled

sphere,” Cowley, “The Extasy;” “Burning spangles of sidereal gold,”

Broome, “Paraphrase of Eccl.;” “Freezing spangles,” Tickell, “On the

Prospect of Peace;” “The sky spangled with a thousand eyes,” Gay,

“Fables,” i, 11; “Spangled pole,” Pitt, “On the Death of Mr. Stanhope;”

“Heaven’s gilded troops,” Cowley, “Davideis,” i, 183; “Stars that gild

the gloomy night,” Parnell, “Hymn to Contentment;” “Twinkling stars who

gild the skies,” Watts, “Sun, Moon,” etc.; “Shooting star that gilds

the night,” Somerville, “Hobbinol,” iii, 261; “Stars that gild the

northern skies,” Pitt, “Congress of Cambray;” “Meteor that gilds the

night,” Somerville, “Field Sports,” i, 139; “Globes of light in fields

of azure shine,” Watts, “God’s Dominion;” “Orbs of gold in fields of

azure lie,” Parnell, “Queen Anne’s Peace,” l. 38; “Yon blue tract

enriched with orbs of light,” Parnell, “David,” l. 358.

[81] Some of Young’s phrases are “rolling spheres,” “tuneful spheres,”

“revolving spheres,” “unnumbered lustres,” “sparks of night,” “lucid

orbs,” “radiant choir,” “etherial fires,” “mathematic glories,” “aerial

racers,” “midnight counselors,” “nocturnal suns,” “etherial armies,”

“radiant lamps,” “splendours,” “ambient orbs,” “nocturnal sparks,”

“night’s radiant scale,” etc.

[82] Burnet, “Theory of the Earth,” chapter on “Stars.” Cf. Prior,

“Solomon,” i, 502–11.

[83] Wordsworth, “Peter Bell.”

[84] Ruskin (“Modern Painters,” III, 248) comments on Dante’s “intense

detestation of all mist, rack of cloud or dimness of rain.” McLaughlin

says of clouds, moonlight, etc.: “Let any reader of mediaeval poetry

recall how imperceptible a part they play in it, even as plain facts of

description. A line in one of the Latin songs expresses the feeling:

their thought of clouds is how delightful not to see them. Moonlight,

too, is seldom dwelt on as poetical; the most romantic touch that

comes to my mind with it, is in Chrestien de Troyes where it shines

over the reconciliation of estranged lovers. Just as we find little

notice of sunrise, sunset, clouds, and moon, we find little feeling

for the stars. They are mentioned occasionally in a facile way, though

scarcely ever with manifest sentiment.”--“Studies in Mediaeval Life and

Literature,” p. 21. Mr. Symonds says of the same period: “The earth

is felt chiefly through the delightfulness of healthy sensations. The

stars and clouds, and tempests of the heavens, the ever-recurring

miracle of sunrise, the solemn pageant of sunsetting are almost as

though they were not in this literature.”--J. A. Symonds, “Essays

Speculative and Suggestive,” p. 300.

[85] In commenting on mediaeval out-door poetry Vernon Lee says

(“Euphorion,” p. 120): “Spring, spring, endless spring--for three long

centuries throughout the world a dreary green monotony of spring....

Moreover this mediaeval spring is the spring neither of the shepherd,

nor of the farmer, nor of any man to whom spring brings work and

anxiety and hope of gain; it is a mere vague spring of gentlefolk, or

at all events of well-to-do burgesses, taking their pleasure on the

lawns of castle parts.”

[86] Garth, “Dispensary,” iv, 309.

[87] Addison, “Rosamond,” Act I, sc. 1. Cf. a longer description in the

same poem beginning, “O the soft, delicious view” (Act II, sc. 3).

[88] Broome, “On the Seat of War in Flanders.”

[89] Shenstone, “The Progress of Taste,” iii, 7.

[90] Lyttleton, “Eclogue IV.”

[91] Congreve, “The Birth of the Muse.”

[92] Parnell, “Health: An Eclogue.”

[93] Prior, “Solomon,” iii, 158.

[94] Pope, “Winter.”

[95] Marriott, “Rinaldo and Armida.”

[96] Sheridan, “New Simile for the Ladies.” (Dr. Johnson, “Life of

Swift.”)

[97] For an interesting study of the rose in literature from Ausonius

to Waller see Symonds, “Essays,” “The Pathos of the Rose in Poetry,” p.

368.

[98] Gay, “Fables,” i, 45.

[99] Dryden, “Works,” XI, 13; Waller, “To the Queen;” Savage, “To

Bessy.”

[100] Tickell, “To Mr. Addison.”

[101] Cowley, “The Shortness of Life.”

[102] Somerville, “Field Sports.”

[103] Wycherley, “To Mr. Pope.”

[104] Dyer, “The Fleece.”

[105] Dryden, “Works,” IV, 202; IX, 162.

[106] _Ibid._, I, 214; V, 365; Congreve, “On His Taking of Namur;”

st. 2.

[107] See as illustrative of the bee similitudes: Waller, “Battle of

the Summer Islands,” canto iii, l. 24; Cowley, “The Inconstant,” st.

6; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” i, 768; Dryden, “Works,” IX, 145, 172;

II, 463; Hughes, “The Triumph of Peace,” l. 118; Prior, “Alma,” iii,

171; Pope, “Dunciad,” iv, 79; Pope, “Temple of Fame;” Gay, “Trivia,”

ii, 555; Congreve, “Ovid’s Art of Love Imitated,” l. 200; A. Philips,

“To James Craggs,” l. 151; Stepney, “To the Earl of Carlisle,” l. 26;

Buckingham, “Essay on Poetry,” l. 255; Young, “Night Thoughts,” ii,

462; vi, 516; Akenside, “Odes,” i, I, st. 2; Dyer, “Fleece,” ii, 496;

iii, 413; iv, 317; Somerville, “To Allan Ramsay,” l. 24; Watts, “Divine

Songs,” xx, etc.

[108] See as illustrative: Cowley, “Davideis,” iv, 728; “Isaiah, ch.

34,” st. 2; “Plagues of Egypt,” st. 9; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” i, 302;

Dryden, “Works,” III, 354, 422; Prior, “The Turtle and the Sparrow,” l.

206; King, “Art of Love,” l. 1700; Pope, “Essay on Criticism,” ii, 109;

“Temple of Fame,” l. 430; Young, “Night Thoughts,” v, 336; “The Last

Day,” ii, 183; Blair, “The Grave,” l. 469, etc.

[109] See as illustrative: Waller, “On Repairing St. Paul’s,” l. 25;

Cowley, “Davideis,” ii, 58; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” v, 215; Yalden,

“To His Perjured Mistress,” l. 11; Parnell, “The Hermit,” l. 41; Young,

“Satire IV,” l. 1; Dyer, “The Fleece,” ii, 648; Halifax, “On the Death

of Charles II,” l. 77.

[110] See as illustrative Dryden’s use of the sun in “Works,” IV, 276;

II, 148, 185, 215, 454, etc.

[111] See as illustrative: Waller, “To Amoret;” Addison, “An Account

of the Greatest English Poets;” Spratt, “On the Death of the Lord

Protector;” Dryden, “Works,” XI, 132; Cowley, “Clad All in White.”

[112] As illustrative of Dryden’s use of similitudes drawn from water

note the following: Revenge and rage are sudden floods; joys are

torrents that overflow all banks; contending passions are tides that

flow against currents; fame is a swelling current; anger is a dammed

up stream that gets new force by opposition; a ruined life, destroyed

fortunes, are shipwrecks; love is like springtides, full and high, or

like a flood that bursts through all dams, or like a stream that cannot

return to its fountain, or like tides that do turn; the disappointed

lover dies like an unfed stream; the mind of a capricious tyrant is

like a vast sea open to every wind that blows; the army of the enemy

comes like the wind broke loose upon the main; an obdurate foe is as

deaf to supplication as seas and wind to sinking mariners; an open mind

is a crystal brook; grief undermines the soul as banks are sapped away

by streams; the voice of a mob is like winds that roar in pursuit of

flying waves; unspeakable anger is like water choking up the narrow

vent of the vessel from which it is poured; and so on through a long

list.

[113] Prior, “Carmen Seculare,” st. 22.

[114] _Ibid._, st. 4.

[115] Pope, “Dunciad,” ii, 182.

[116] Cowley, “Davideis,” ii, 20.

[117] Halifax, “On the Death of Charles II,” l. 125.

[118] Armstrong, “Benevolence,” l. 152.

[119] Hughes, “Greenwich Park.”

[120] Roscommon, “Essay on Translated Verse,” l. 316.

[121] Somerville, “An Epistle to Allan Ramsay,” l. 5.

[122] Thomson. “To De La Cour.”

[123] Denham, “Cooper’s Hill.” The lines are,

O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull:

Strong without rage, without o’erflowing full!

Pope’s lines (“Dunciad,” iii, 169), beginning,

Flow, Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, Beer,

Tho’ stale, not ripe; tho’ thin, yet never clear,

* * * * *

Heady, not strong; o’erflowing, tho’ not full,

are a parody rather than an imitation. The same cannot be said of the

line (“Temple of Fame,” l. 374),

So soft, though high, so loud, and yet so clear.

Prior has these lines (“Carmen Seculare,” st. 22),

But her own king she likens to the Thames,

With gentle course devolving fruitful streams;

Serene yet strong, majestic yet sedate,

Swift without violence, without terror great.

Fr. Knapp addresses the sea on the Irish coast in the following lines

(“To Mr. Pope”):

Let me ne’er flow like thee! nor make thy stream

My sad example, or my wretched theme.

Mallet has the lines (cf. “Verbal Criticism,” l. 228):

Great without swelling, without meanness plain;

Serious, not silly; sportive, but not vain;

On trifles slight, on things of use profound,

In quoting sober, and in judging sound.

In Dyer we have a fainter echo (“The Country Walk,” l. 69):

Methinks her lays I hear,

So smooth! so sweet! so deep! so clear!

[124] Parnell, “David,” l. 49.

[125] Stanhope, “Progress of Dullness.”

[126] Addison, “An Account of the Greatest English Poets.”

[127] Dryden, “Works,” XI, 7.

[128] Marvell, “An Epitaph upon ----.”

[129] Cf. Cowley, “Davideis,” iii, 553, and Pope, “Spring,” l. 81.

[130] Dryden, “Works,” XI, 131; III, 390; II, 451.

[131] Butler, “Satire to a Bad Poet.”

[132] Ambrose Philips, “Epistle to a Friend.”

[133] Congreve, “The Mourning Muse of Alexis,” l. 89; cf. also Fenton,

“Florelia.”

[134] Congreve, “The Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas,” l. 143.

[135] Watts, “A Funeral Poem on Thomas Gunston,” ll. 252, 308. Compare

the indifference of Nature to the death of Lucy whose body is

Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course

With rocks, and stones and trees.--Wordsworth, “Lucy.”

[136] Cowley, “Constantia and Philetus,” sts. 5, 10.

[137] Shenstone, “Roxana.” For an interesting variation of this theme

see Cowley, “The Spring.”

[138] Hughes, “Cupid’s Review,” l. 17.

[139] Marvell, “Upon Appleton House,” l. 661.

[140] Waller, “At Penshurst.”

[141] Marvell, “Upon Appleton House,” l. 689.

[142] Wordsworth, “Lucy.”

[143] Waller, “At Penshurst.”

[144] Virgil, “Eclogues,” iv, 28; Dryden, “Pastoral,” iv, l. 33.

[145] Virgil, “Georgics,” iv, 306; Dryden, “Georgics,” iv, 433.

[146] Virgil, “Georgics,” iii, 156; Dryden, “Georgics,” iii, 250.

[147] Dryden, “Works,” XII, 5; XI, 221.

[148] Percy, “Reliques,” II, 190.

[149] Somerville, “To Anne Coventry,” l. 25.

[150] Cowley, “The Shortness of Life,” st. 11; “The Muse;” “Davideis,”

ii, 29; “The Plagues of Egypt,” st. 17.

[151] Blackmore, “Creation,” vi, 170; v, 101; Yalden, “The Insect.”

[152] Somerville, “Field Sports,” l. 161.

[153] Pitt, “Earl Stanhope;” “Ps. 144.”

[154] Tickell, “Kensington Garden;” Somerville, “Rural Games,” i, 94.

[155] Dyer, “Grongar Hill,” l. 65.

[156] Dryden, “Works,” VI, 228.

[157] Cowley, “Ode 2.”

[158] Many of these words occur in the translations by Dryden but

in none of the instances quoted is there any justification in the

Latin phrase for the adjective “watery.” For instance, “watery way” =

_spumantibus undis_; “watery reign” = _altum_; “watery deep”

= _pelago_, and so on through the list.

[159] Milton, “Paradise Lost,” iv, 239; vii, 302.

[160] Blair, “The Grave.”

[161] Falconer, “The Shipwreck,” i, 359.

[162] Gay, “Rural Sports,” i, 226.

[163] Dyer, “Ruins of Rome,” l. 86.

[164] Armstrong, “Art of Preserving Health,” ii, 7.

[165] Addison, “To the King,” l. 115.

[166] Thomson, “Autumn,” l. 626; cf. also “Summer,” l. 1574; “Autumn,”

l. 628.

[167] Pitt, “Ode to John Pitt,” st. 5; Mallet, “Amyntor and Theodora,”

i, 153; Shenstone, “To a Lady;” “Rural Elegance,” st. 17.

[168] See Thomson, “Spring,” ll. 215, 767; “Summer,” l. 1547.

[169] Parnell, “Hymn to Contentment.”

[170] Wordsworth, “Three Years She Grew.”

[171] Dryden, “Works,” II, 360; IX, 104.

[172] Fenton, “Florelio,” l. 43.

[173] Gray, “Progress of Poetry.”

[174] Thomson, “Autumn,” l. 843.

[175] Garth, “Dispensary,” ii, 3, 14; iv, 260.

[176] Virgil, “Georgics,” i, 329, “quo maxuma motu Terra tremit;”

Dryden, “Georgics,” i, 430, “the mountains nod and earth’s entrails

tremble.” Virgil, “Eclogue 6,” “rigidas motare cacumina quercus;”

Dryden, “Pastoral 6,” “nodding forests to the numbers danced;” cf.

Pope, “Messiah,” “nodding forests on the mountain dance,” and Milton,

“Comus,” l. 38, “nodding horror of the wood.”

[177] Virgil, “Georgics,” iii, 243; “Aeneid,” iv, 525.

[178] Milton, “Paradise Lost,” vii, 434.

[179] Pope, “Windsor Forest,” l. 118; cf. note in Courthope edition.

[180] Shenstone, “Virtuoso.”

[181] Parnell, “Anacreontic.”

[182] Waller, “On a Brede of Divers Colors.”

[183] Hugo Blümner, “Die Farbenbezeichnungen bei den römischen

Dichtern,” pp. 184–98. Blümner shows that πορφύρεος was used by the

Greeks with widely varying meanings, and adds, “Ganz ähnlich ist der

Gebrauch, den die römischen Dichter von _purpureus_ machen nur

zweilfellos in viel weniger ursprünglicher Weise.” He says further that

the Latin poetical use of “purpureus” did not follow the speech of

daily life.

[184] This constant use of Latin and Greek names for English peasants

was frequently satirized. Dryden makes Limberham say to Brainsick, “But

why, of all names, would you choose a Phyllis? There have been so many

Phyllises in song I thought there was not another to be had for love or

money.”--“Works,” VI, 62. Cf. Watts, “Meditation in a Grove”:

No Phyllis shall infect the air

With her unhallow’d name.

[185] Compare Ridley’s characteristic commendation of Christopher

Pitt’s poems,

In every line, in every word you speak

I read the Roman and confess the Greek,

and Pitt’s precept in Vida’s “Art of Poetry,” i, 102,

Explore the ancients with a watchful eye,

Lay all their charms and elegancies by,

Then to their use the precious spoils apply.

[186] Pope, “Discourse on Pastoral Poetry.”

[187] Dryden, “Works,” XV, 231.

[188] Compare especially Gay’s “Monday,” Pope’s “Spring,” and Virgil’s

“Third Eclogue.” Also Gay’s “Thursday,” and Virgil’s “Eighth Eclogue.”

[189] Addison, “Letter from Italy” (1701).

[190] Tickell, “Oxford” (1707).

[191] Pope, “January and May,” l. 454.

[192] Pope, “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,” l. 149.

[193] William Thomson, “To the Author of Leonidas.”

[194] Pope, “Essay on Criticism,” i, 350.

[195] Gray, “Ode.”

[196] In this connection see the following passages from Ruskin,

Humboldt, and Veitch on Nature in the poetry of the ancients:

“Thus, as far as I recollect, without a single exception, every Homeric

landscape, intended to be beautiful, is composed of a fountain, a

meadow, and a shady grove. This ideal is very interestingly marked,

as intended for a perfect one, in the fifth book of the Odyssey; when

Mercury himself stops for a moment, though on a message, to look on a

landscape ‘which even an immortal might be gladdened to behold.’...

Now the notable things in this description are, first, the evident

subservience of the whole landscape to human comfort, to the foot, the

taste, or the smell; and, secondly, that throughout the passage there

is not a single figurative word expressive of the things being in any

wise other than plain grass, fruit, or flower.... If we glance through

the references to pleasant landscape which occur in other parts of the

Odyssey, we shall always be struck by this quiet subjection of their

every feature to human service, and by the excessive similarity in the

scenes. Perhaps the spot intended, after this, to be most perfect,

may be the garden of Alcinous, where the principal ideas are, still

more definitely, order, symmetry, and fruitfulness.”--Ruskin, “Modern

Painters,” chapter on “Classical Landscape.”

“Homer looks on nature as it affects man--its power of sustaining life,

its subserviency to our physical wants. Hence the side of nature which

is lovingly regarded by him is not mountain, or rock, or wild sea--all

fruitless and barren--but flat soft meadow-land, diversified, it may

be, with tree and fountain, filled with waving grass--good pasture-land

for nourishing the useful ox, or cow, or sheep.... In Theocritus ... we

do not go beyond the softer side ... the accessories of the shepherd’s

life faithfully noted.... The aspect of nature which Virgil loved was

the soft and pastoral side of Italian scenery. In so far as he has

depicted free nature, it is seen almost wholly from the human side, and

in its relation to man’s works, life and action.”--Veitch, “The Feeling

for Nature in Scottish Poetry,” I, 88–91.

“Es is oftmals ausgesprochen worden, dass die Freude an der Natur, wenn

auch dem Alterthume nicht fremd, doch in ihm als Ausdruck des Gefühls

sparsamer und minder lebhaft gewesen sei denn in der neueren Zeit....

In dem hellenischen Alterthum ... das eigentlich Naturbeschreibende

zeigt sich dann nur als ein Beiwerk, weil in der griechischen

Kunstbildung sich alles gleichsam im Kreise der Menschheit bewegt.

“Beschreibung der Natur in ihrer gestaltenreichen Mannigfaltigkeit

Naturdichtung als ein abgesonderter Zweig der Litteratur, war den

Griechen völlig fremd. Auch die Landschaft erscheint bei ihnen nur

als Hintergrund eines Gemäldes, vor dem menschliche Gestalten sich

bewegen. Leidenschaften in Thaten ausbrechend fesselten fast allein

den Sinn. Ein bewegtes öffentliches Volksleben zog ab von der dumpfen,

schwärmerischen Versenkung in das stille Treiben der Natur; ja den

physischen Erscheinungen wurde immer eine Beziehung auf die Menschheit

beigelegt, sei es in den Verhältnissen der äusseren Gestaltung oder der

inneren anregenden Thatkraft. Fast nur solche Beziehungen machten die

Naturbetrachung würdig, unter der sinnigen Form des Gleichnisses, als

abgesonderte kleine Gemälde voll objectiver Lebendigkeit in das Gebiet

der Dichtung gezogen zu werden.”--“Kosmos,” II, 5, 6.

[197] In this connection compare the following significant passage

from Taine: “Rien ne m’a plus intéressé dans les villas romaines

que leurs anciens maîtres. Les naturalistes le savent, on comprend

trés-bien l’animal d’aprés la coquille. L’endroit où j’ai commencé

à le comprendre est la villa Albani.... Cette villa est un débris,

comme le squellette fossile d’une vie qui a duré deux siècles, et dont

le principal plaisir consistait dans la conversation, dans la belle

représentation, dans les habitudes de salon, et d’antichambre. L’homme

ne s’intéressait pas aux objets inanimés, il ne leur reconnaissait pas

une âme et une beauté propre; ils ne servaient que de fond au tableau,

fond vague et d’importance moins qu’accessoire. Toute l’attention était

occupée par le tableau lui-meme, c’est-à-dire par l’intrigue et le

drame humain. Pour reporter quelque partie de cette attention sur les

arbres, les eaux, le paysage, il fallait les humaniser, leur ôter, leur

forme et leur disposition naturelle, leur air ‘sauvage,’ l’apparence du

désordre et du désert, leur donner autant que possible l’aspect d’un

salon, d’un galerie à colonnades, d’une grande cour de palais.”--Taine,

“Voyage en Italie,” I, 231, 232 (Paris, Librairie Hatchette et Cie,

1893).

[198] Cowley, “Of Agriculture.”

[199] “Cyder,” i, 248.

[200] Shairp, “The Poetic Interpretation of Nature,” p. 199.

[201] “Cyder,” i, 563.

[202] “Cyder,” ii, 65.

[203] “Pastorals,” i, 6; iii, 1, 6; iii, 41–44; iii, 69–74; i, 10; iv,

154; v, 8; i, 27; ii, 59; ii, 125–28; iii, 65–68; iv, 153–60.

[204] Rowe, “An Epistle to Flavia;” Pope, “An Impromptu to Lady

Winchilsea.”

[205] Wordsworth, “Essay, Supplementary to the Preface.”

[206] The estimate of Lady Winchilsea here given was based on the 1713

edition of her poems. In 1903, through the kindness of Mr. Edmund

Gosse and of the Earl of Winchilsea, I was enabled to bring out a

complete edition of her works. In the Introduction to those poems I

have endeavored to indicate Lady Winchilsea’s literary qualities and

affiliations, and to give some idea of her life and personality. So

far as her attitude toward Nature is concerned nothing is to be found

in the scope of her voluminous verse that is of higher significance

than the poems published by Ward. The new fact that does emerge from

a fuller knowledge of her writings is the very interesting relation

between her poetry of Nature and the events of her life. For an

analysis of this relation I must refer to pp. cxxxiii-cxxxiv of the

Introduction to my edition of her poems (“The Poems of Anne, Countess

of Winchilsea,” The University of Chicago Press, 1903).

[207] “Miscellany Poems on Several Occasions,” Written by a Lady, 1713.

[208] In the references to the nightingale by Chaucer, Milton, Cowper,

Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, and Mrs. Browning, the only

approaches to description of the appearance of the bird are Matthew

Arnold’s “tawny-throated,” Keats’ “full-throated,” and Coleridge’s

“bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full.”

[209] Cf. Milton’s, “sweetest, saddest plight;” or “most musical, most

melancholy;” and Shelley’s, “melodious pain;” and Keats’ “plaintive

anthem;” and Matthew Arnold’s, “Wild, unquenched, deep-sunken,

old-world pain.” Coleridge speaks once of “pity-pleading strains,” but

in another poem contends for the “merry nightingale,” and refuses to

hear anything but “love and joyance” in the song.

[210] Cf. Matthew Arnold’s

“How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves;”

and Chaucer’s “lusty nightingale” whose voice made a “loud rioting;”

and Shelley’s “storm of sound;” and Wordsworth’s “tumultuous harmony;”

and Keats’ “pouring forth thy soul abroad in such an ecstasy;” and

Coleridge’s

The merry nightingale

That crowds and hurries and precipitates

With fast thick warble his delicious notes.

[211] Cf. Arnold’s “Eternal passion!” Milton’s “amorous power;”

Shelley’s “voluptuous nightingale;” Coleridge’s “wanton song;” and all

of Mrs. Browning’s “Bianca among the Nightingales.”

[212] Cf. Gosse, “Gossip in a Library,” p. 123; “Eighteenth Century,”

p. 35.

[213] Gay, “Rural Sports,” i, 35.

[214] _Ibid._, i, 99.

[215] Gay’s “Chair.”

[216] See “Coquette Mother and Daughter” for a second reference to the

fragrant bean-flower before Thomson.

[217] Compare Tennyson’s “wrinkled sea” in “The Eagle.”

[218] As illustrative of this point compare, Virgil, Eclogue viii, 27,

28, and Gay, Pastoral III, 59–62; Virgil, Eclogue i, 59–63, and Gay,

Pastoral III, 67–72; Virgil, Eclogue v, 36–39, and Gay, Pastoral V,

83–87; Virgil, Eclogue v, 76–78, and Gay, Pastoral V, 153–58; Virgil,

Eclogue iv, 1–3, and Gay, Pastoral VI, 1–3; Virgil, Eclogue vi, and

Gay, Pastoral VI; Virgil, Eclogue viii, and Gay, Pastoral IV.

[219] Pastoral I.

[220] “Night Piece on Death;” “The Hermit.”

[221] “Health.”

[222] “The Flies.”

[223] “The Hermit.”

[224] “Anacreontic.”

[225] “Anacreontic.”

[226] “Health.”

[227] Parnell, “Poetical Works,” p. 77.

[228] Pattison died in 1727, and he was in college during the four

preceding years. The records of his life are scanty, but he probably

wrote this poem before 1723, when he left the region of his dear Ituna,

that being the stream on whose banks he was accustomed to murmur out

his verses.

[229] See Ramsay, “Poems,” I, xxvii.

[230] Cf. “Richy and Sandy,” l. 8; “Robert, Richy, and Sandy,” ll.

31–34; “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 1, 89; i, 1, 148; ii, 2, 17–40; ii, 3,

27–47; v, 1, 19–43.

[231] Cf. “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 2, 190–93, 207; i, 2, 200–204; ii, 1,

76–86; ii, 2, Prologue; ii, 1, Prologue; iii, 3, 111–16; v, 2, Prologue.

[232] Cf. “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 1, 205; i, 2, 1–4.

[233] Cf. “Richy and Sandy,” ll. 49, 50; “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 1, 43,

44, 67–70, 156; i, 2, 131–37; song viii.

[234] “Gentle Shepherd,” i, 2, 138–47; ii, 4, 43–66; iv, 2, 148–58.

[235] In the copious notes to the 1815 edition of Pennecuik’s

“Tweeddale” is a full account of the country about New-Hall,

accompanied by quotations from Ramsay’s poem, to show the accuracy of

his descriptions.

[236] “Answer to the Foregoing” (to Somerville).

In the poems addressed to Allan Ramsay on the publication of his

works in 1721 we find significant critical approval based on Ramsay’s

avoidance of tame Nature, and his turning from the authority of the

schools. The simile of a garden recurs in a poem by “C. T.” He planted

trees in equal rows and arranged flowers in a parterre, but found his

labor in vain. The narrow scene became daily more distasteful to him,

and finally he went back to the fields where “Nature wantoned in her

prime.” Here he found space, variety, surprise, and was content. Ja.

Arbuckle praises Ramsay for roaming over hill and dale and leaving

“carpet-ground” to “tender-footed beasts,” and for choosing to subsist

on his native stock while other poets pilfered fame by picking the

locks of their predecessors.--“Poems of Allan Ramsay,” I, 4–7.

[237] “The Gentle Shepherd,” ii, 4, 62.

[238] _Ibid._, 50.

[239] “The Gentle Shepherd,” ii, 4, 10.

[240] “To Mr. William Starrat,” l. 46.

[241] “The Gentle Shepherd,” iii, 3, 41.

[242] _Ibid._, i, 1, 137.

[243] _Ibid._, Prologue, i, 2.

[244] _Ibid._, Prologue, ii, 3.

[245] _Ibid._, iii, 3, 43.

[246] “The Gentle Shepherd,” i, 2, 7.

[247] “An Ode to the Ph--,” 1721, st. 1.

[248] “Answer to the Foregoing.”

[249] “Prospect of Plenty.”

[250] (_a_) Dr. Armstrong’s “Winter” in “Imitations of Shakespeare,”

written in 1725, though not published till 1770.

(_b_) Riccaltoun’s “A Winter’s Day,” written before 1725,

published in Savage’s “Miscellany” in 1726, and in “Gentleman’s

Magazine,” 1740.

(_c_) Thomson’s “Winter,” written in fragments before 1725, but

fused into one poem at Mallet’s suggestion in 1726.

[251] “The Art of Preserving Health,” i, 64–96.

[252] _Ibid._, i, 97–102; iii, 39–52.

[253] _Ibid._, iii, 71–96.

[254] Pope, “Works,” VI, 36, 37.

[255] Wordsworth, “Essay Supplementary to the Preface,” 1815.

[256] Pope, “Works,” I, 322; Denham, “Cooper’s Hill;” Marvell, “Upon

the Hill and Grove at Billbarrow,” and “Upon Appleton House.”

[257] Veitch in “Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry,” II, 52,

credits Thomson with being the first poet to mention purple heather,

but this mention by Pope is more than twenty years earlier.

[258] Pope, “Works,” I, 346, n. 3; but compare “Autumn,” l. 74.

[259] _Ibid._, I, 269, n. 1.

[260] _Ibid._, I, 283, n. 3; 296, n. 9.

[261] _Ibid._, I, 293; cf. Warton, “Essay on Pope,” I, 6.

[262] (_a_) Description of moonshine walk. (This letter, perhaps

a sincere expression when first written (1713), was a favorite of

Pope’s. When he published his “Letters” he made an amusing blunder

by transferring this passage to a letter dated February 10, 1715, at

which time the park where he was supposed to have watched the moonshine

and reflected on mortality, was under water from the great flood of

February 9; see “Letters,” I, 367.)

(_b_) “Pleasure in Birds,” etc., I, 338.

(_c_) “Twickenham in Spring,” IV, 72, 74.

(_d_) “Autumn,” IV, 89.

[263] “Spectator,” June 21, 1712 (No. 411).

[264] _Ibid._, June 23, 1712 (No. 412); June 25, 1712 (No. 414).

[265] _Ibid._, June 23, 1712 (No. 412).

[266] _Ibid._, May 31 (No. 393).

[267] _Ibid._, October 30, 1712 (No. 523).

[268] _Ibid._, October 30, 1712 (No. 523); cf. “Guardian,” Nos.

22, 23, 28, 30, 32, 40.

[269] See further discussion under “Gardening.”

[270] “Liberty,” Part 3, ll. 514–26.

[271] _Ibid._, Part 4, ll. 348–62.

[272] “The Castle of Indolence,” canto ii, st. 3.

[273] “Spring,” ll. 529–55.

[274] “Summer,” ll. 140–59. Suggested probably by Mallet. See Letter,

August 2, 1726: “Your hint of the sapphire, emerald, ruby, strikes my

imagination with a pleasing taste, and shall not be neglected.”

[275] “Spring,” ll. 574–613.

[276] “Summer,” ll. 1116–68.

[277] “Spring,” ll. 614–30.

[278] _Ibid._, ll. 636–60.

[279] _Ibid._, ll. 690–701.

[280] “Winter,” ll. 245–56.

[281] “Spring,” ll. 21–25; “Winter,” ll. 144–47.

[282] “Spring,” ll. 770–85.

[283] “Summer,” ll. 371–422.

[284] “Spring,” ll. 808–20; “Summer,” ll. 506–15.

[285] “Spring,” ll. 362–71; “Summer,” ll. 489–93.

[286] “Spring,” ll. 336–73.

[287] “Autumn,” ll. 360–457; “Winter,” ll. 788–93.

[288] “Spring,” ll. 702–28.

[289] “Autumn,” ll. 1172–1207.

[290] “Spring,” ll. 394–442.

[291] _Ibid._, ll. 189, 388.

[292] “Winter,” ll. 1–14.

[293] “Summer,” ll. 1103–68.

[294] “Autumn,” ll. 311–48.

[295] “Winter,” ll. 72–201.

[296] See as illustrative, “Winter,” ll. 127, 738–41.

[297] “Summer,” l. 1704.

[298] “Autumn,” ll. 1088–1102.

[299] See as illustrative, “Spring,” ll. 30–31, 139–41, 145–51,

398–444; “Winter,” ll. 54–57, 77–80, 195–96, 202–3, etc.

[300] “Autumn,” ll. 710–31; cf. Wordsworth, “Prelude,” viii, 265.

[301] “Autumn,” ll. 151–52; “Summer,” ll. 47–66.

[302] “Spring,” ll. 189–202.

[303] “Summer,” ll. 1647–59.

[304] _Ibid._, ll. 1682–98.

[305] “Spring,” ll. 34–43.

[306] _Ibid._, ll. 44–47.

[307] “Autumn,” ll. 153–69.

[308] “Summer,” ll. 352–70.

[309] _Ibid._, ll. 371–442.

[310] “Spring,” ll. 589–608.

[311] “Spring,” ll. 494–509.

[312] “Spring,” ll. 107–13, 950–62; “Summer,” ll. 1406–41.

[313] W. D. McClintock, unpublished notes.

[314] “Summer,” ll. 819–29; “Autumn,” ll. 781–804; cf. Shairp, “Poetic

Interpretation of Nature,” p. 191, for the geographical use of Nature

in Milton.

[315] “Summer,” ll. 1161–68.

[316] Cf. Wordsworth, “To Joanna,” ll. 54–65.

[317] “Winter,” ll. 714–16; “Spring,” ll. 849–52.

[318] “Autumn,” ll. 773–76.

[319] “Winter,” ll. 116–17.

[320] In 1720 there appeared in the “Edinburgh Miscellany,” a poem

entitled, “On a Country Life by a Student in the University.” The poem

is interesting as being Thomson’s first poetical treatment of the theme

which he was afterward to adopt. The verse is in somewhat stiff and

formal heroic couplets, and the poem is marked by classicisms. But

there are lines and phrases suggestive of Thomson’s later work and the

plan and general tone are, as Sir Harris Nicholas has pointed out,

strongly suggestive of “The Seasons.” The young poet’s love of country

life is quite clearly genuine.

[321] Cf. also remarks in Preface to second, third, and fourth editions

of “Winter”: “I know no subject more elevating, more amusing; more

ready to awake the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection,

and the moral sentiment, than the works of Nature. Where can we meet

with such variety, such beauty, such magnificence? All that enlarges

and transports the soul? What more inspiring than a calm, wide survey

of them?”

[322] “Spring,” ll. 868–74.

[323] “Autumn,” ll. 670–72. Cf. Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned,” st. 6.

[324] “Summer,” ll. 1380–82.

[325] “Autumn,” l. 1309.

[326] Compare Pope’s rhetorical statement of the same speculative

conception.

[327] Since the publication of this study of Thomson I have read with

much interest Leon Morel’s “James Thomson: Sa vie et ses œuvres,” 1895.

Chaps. iii and iv of Part II deal fully with Thomson’s attitude toward

external Nature and with his technical excellences as a descriptive

poet.

[328] Dyer uses almost as many words ending in “y” as Ambrose Philips.

“Stenchy,” “towery,” “framy,” “sleeky,” “thready,” “cropsy,” “spiry,”

are illustrative.

[329] “The Fleece,” i, 193.

[330] In “Observations on the River Wye,” by William Gilpin, pp. 103–8,

Dyer’s “Grongar Hill” is, however, criticized for not accurately

representing distance. The grove must be distant if it can be

rightfully called purple, but the castle beyond it “is touched with all

the strength of a foreground; you see the very ivy creeping upon the

walls.”

[331] “The Fleece,” i, 577.

[332] _Ibid._, ii, 55.

[333] _Ibid._, 310.

[334] _Ibid._, 518.

[335] _Ibid._, 241.

[336] “The Fleece,” i, 555.

[337] _Ibid._, 59.

[338] _Ibid._, 41.

[339] “The Country Walk,” ll. 86–99; 33–40.

[340] He calls the sun “Phoebus” and “Apollo;” he occasionally uses

such words as “swain,” “bloomy,” “sylvan,” “verdant,” “flowery;” and he

speaks of “the wanton zephyr;” and he refers to a grove as the “haunt

of Phyllis.”

[341] “The Country Walk,” ll. 58–63.

[342] Cf. “Grongar Hill,” l. 137.

[343] Cf. “The Country Walk,” l. 120.

[344] Thomson to Mallet, September, 1726.

[345] Thomson’s letters to Mallet in 1726.

[346] Letter to Mallet, July 10, 1725.

[347] _Ibid._, August 2, 1726.

[348] Letters to Mallet, June 13 and July 10, 1726.

[349] Cf. “The Wanderer,” v, 237, 238 (roads); v, 253–68 (fields

and bushes); v, 230–35 (sunset); v, 363–74 (the rainbow); iv, 59–63

(morning); iii, 15–27 (moonrise); v, 8, 15–20 (foliage and flowers); v,

203–10 (bean fields); i, 195–98 (winter landscape); iv, 85–96 (sunrise).

[350] In 1730 appeared a parody entitled “The Thresher’s Miscellany” by

“Arthur Duck.”

[351] “The Chace,” ii, 79–82.

[352] “To the Right Honorable Lady Anne Coventry.”

[353] An excellent example is “Nancy of the Vale” which takes as its

model,

Nerine Galatea! thymo mihi dulcior Hyblae!

Candidior cygnis! hedera formosior alba,

but compares Nancy to the “wild-duck’s tender young,” to the water-lily

on Avon’s side, her eyes to the azure plume of the halcyon, etc.

[354] “Rural Elegance,” st. 20.

[355] _Ibid._, st. 19.

[356] “Rural Elegance,” sts. 4, 5, 6, 8.

[357] _Ibid._, st. 16.

[358] “The Spleen,” ll. 646–87.

[359] _Ibid._, l. 681.

[360] “The Epistle of the Thistle.”

[361] “Contemplation.”

[362] See Hervey, “Meditations,” ii, 239; Fielding, “Tom Jones,” VII,

chap. i.

[363] “To Thomson on Sophonisba.”

[364] “Night Thoughts,” v, 126–30.

[365] _Ibid._, 176.

[366] _Ibid._, 171.

[367] See “Night Thoughts,” vi, where there is an interesting statement

of the theory afterward expounded in Coleridge’s “Ode to Dejection.”

Compare Young’s,

Objects are but th’ occasion; ours th’ exploit;

Ours is the cloth, the pencil, and the paint,

Which nature’s admirable picture draws (“Night,” vi, 431),

with Coleridge’s,

O Lady! we receive but what we give

And in our life alone does nature live;

Ours is her wedding garment; ours her shroud.

In the same passage by Young is the line concerning the power of our

senses that

Half create the wondrous world they see,

from which Wordsworth took a line in “Tintern Abbey.” In Satire I, 249

there are some lines that sound absurdly like certain stanzas in “Peter

Bell”:

On every thorn delightful wisdom grows;

In every rill a sweet instruction flows.

But some, untaught, o’erhear the whispering rill,

In spite of sacred leisure, blockheads still.

The lines

In distant wilds, by human eyes unseen,

She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet green;

Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace

And waste their music on the savage race (Satire V, 229),

come between the similar passages by Gay and Gray.

Cf. also the simile of the eagle and the serpent (“Vanquished Love,”

Book II, 226), with Shelley’s “Revolt of Islam,” i, sts. 8–10.

[368] “Ode to Fear,” “Ode to Simplicity,” “An Epistle to Sir Thomas

Hanmer,” “Ode to Pity.”

[369] “Ode to Fear,” “On the Poetical Character,” “Popular

Superstitions,” st. 11, “An Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer.”

[370] Mason, “Memoirs of Gray,” p. 261.

[371] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book IV, 26 (1770).

[372] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book IV, 38–51 (1770); cf. “Hymn to

the Naiads,” ll. 243–49; cf. Wordsworth, “Prelude,” Book I, 402, and

many other passages concerning the silent power of Nature over him in

his youth.

[373] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book I, 136–40 (1757).

[374] _Ibid._, 120 (1744).

[375] _Ibid._, 150 (1757).

[376] _Ibid._, 153–60 (1757).

[377] _Ibid._, 168–75 (1757); cf. Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey,” ll.

41–49.

[378] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 591–6O5 (1744). This

“sacred order” of the universe is one of the points on which Wordsworth

dwells, and he refers frequently to the tranquilizing, steadying effect

which the contemplation of this order and harmony will have on the mind

of man. See “Excursion,” Book IV, 1198–1219, 1254–65.

[379] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 615–33 (1744).

[380] “Odes,” Book I, Ode 14, st. 4–6; cf. Wordsworth’s statement that

Nature reveals herself to the heart that “watches and receives.”

[381] “Odes,” Book I, Ode 5, st. 8.

[382] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book I, 670–75 (1757).

[383] “Pleasures of Imagination,” Book III, 484 (1757).

[384] _Ibid._, I, 576–89 (1757).

[385] _Ibid._, 432–37 (1757). Akenside’s presentation of this

doctrine has led Gosse to call him a “sort of frozen Keats,” but

Akenside’s pleasure in Nature was philosophical rather than sensuous.

His scientific delight in the analyzed rainbow (“Pleasures of

Imagination,” Book II, 103–20 [1744]) would have filled Keats with

horror.

[386] “Sickness,” v, 5.

[387] “Hymn to May,” st. 20.

[388] “Sickness,” v, 17.

[389] Phelps, “The Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement.”

[390] Wordsworth, “A Poet’s Epitaph,” st. 10.

[391] “On the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude.”

[392] “Couplet about Birds.”

[393] “All-beauteous Nature! by thy boundless charms,” “the vast,

various Landscape,” “sight-refreshing green,” “the thousand-colored

tulip,” are typical Thomsonian phrases.

“Liquid lapse of murm’ring waters”

--“Enthusiast,” l. 93, “Paradise Lost,” viii, 263;

“Mountain shagg’d with horrid shapes”

--“Enthusiast,” l. 75; “Comus,” l. 429;

“When young-eyed spring profusely throws

From her green lap the pink and rose.”

--“Ode to Fancy,” l. 106; “Song on May Morning;”

“Then lay me by some haunted stream,

Rapt in some wild poetic dream.”

--“Ode to Fancy,” l. 41; “L’Allegro,” l. 129;

are some of the characteristic instances of the echoes from Milton.

[394] “The Enthusiast.”

[395] _Ibid._

[396] “Ode to Fancy.”

[397] “The Enthusiast.”

[398] “The Enthusiast.” Cf. Thomson, “Liberty,” ii, 1–26, for a similar

eulogy of a past golden age, but without Warton’s modern application.

[399] “An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.”

[400] Note such lines as

Haste thee nymph, and hand in hand,

With thee lead a buxom band;

Bring fantastic-footed joy, etc.,

But ever against restless heat, etc.,

Let not my due feet fail to climb, etc.--“Approach of Summer.”

[401] See under “Travels.”

[402] “Hope.”

[403] “Vision of Fancy,” Elegy 3.

[404] _Ibid._

[405] “Fable IV.”

[406] “The Bee Flower.”

[407] “To the Rev. Lamb.”

[408] “Fable IV.”

[409] “Autumnal Elegy.”

[410] “Fable X.”

[411] “Inscription on the Door of a Study.”

[412] “The Immensity of the Supreme Being.”

[413] _Ibid._, l. 56. Cf. also the similar lines in “Hymn to

the Supreme Being,” st. 16. It was apparently a favorite image. See

Browning’s reference to it in his poem on Smart.

[414] “Almada Hill,” l. 330.

[415] “The Sorceress,” st. 4.

[416] “Elegy,” st. 4.

[417] “Syr Martyn,” ii, 31.

[418] “Pollio,” st. 3.

[419] “Eskdale Braes,” st. 1.

[420] See Bailey Saunders, “Life and Letters of James Macpherson,” p.

14.

[421] “Carric-Thura.”

[422] “Carthon.”

[423] Dr. Blair has a significant comment on the truth in the poems

of Ossian. “The introduction of foreign images betrays a poet copying

not from nature, but from other writers. Hence so many lions and

tigers, and eagles and serpents which we meet with in the similes of

modern poets; as if these animals had acquired some right to a place

in poetical comparisons for ever, because employed by ancient authors.

They employed them with propriety, as objects generally known in their

country; but they are absurdly used for illustration by us, who know

them only at second-hand, or by description.”

[424] Blair’s “Critical Dissertation,” in Tauchnitz ed. of the “Ossian

Poems.”

[425] See “Child of Elle,” “Edom o’ Gordon,” “Hardyknute,” and others.

[426] “Robin and Makyne.”

[427] “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet.”

[428] “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.”

[429] “Adam Bell.”

[430] “Barbara Allan’s Cruelty.”

[431] “The Marriage of Sir Gawaine.”

[432] “Gil Morice.”

[433] “King Edward IV and Tanner of Tamworth.”

[434] “The King and the Miller of Mansfield.”

[435] “Adam Bell.”

[436] “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne.”

[437] For the forest in mediaeval poetry see Vernon Lee, “Euphorion,”

p. 122.

[438] “Hardyknute.”

[439] “Young Waters.”

[440] “Young Waters.”

[441] “The Heir of Linne.”

[442] Schiller, “Ueber die Naive und Sentimentale Dichtung.”

[443] The poem is quoted entire by Gosse in his “Eighteenth Century

Literature.”

[444] In this poem about 16 per cent. of the lines have something to do

with Nature. In Wordsworth’s “Descriptive Sketches” over 50 per cent.

of the lines treat of Nature.

[445] “The Minstrel,” Preface.

[446] Wordsworth, “The Excursion,” i, 108–300.

[447] _Ibid._, iv, 466–600.

[448] Wordsworth, “The Prelude,” “Advertisement.”

[449] “The Minstrel,” i, 52.

[450] _Ibid._, 10.

[451] _Ibid._, 9. Of this stanza Gray said in a letter to Beattie,

March, 1771: “But this, of all others, is my favorite stanza. It is

true poetry; it is inspiration; only (to show it is mortal) there is

one blemish; the word garniture suggesting an idea of dress, and, what

is worse, of French dress.” Beattie said he had often wished “to alter

this same word, but had not been able to hit upon a better.”--Dyce,

“Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxvii.

Gray’s praise of Beattie was faint compared to Beattie’s admiration of

Gray. In 1765 he declared that he had “long and passionately admired”

Gray’s writings. He thought Gray’s poems finer than those of his

contemporaries in any nation. He thought his taste most exact, his

judgment most sound, and his learning most extensive. See Dyce, “Memoir

of Beattie,” pp. xvi, xviii.

[452] Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxvi.

[453] Cowper, Letter to Rev. William Unwin, April, 1784.

[454] Dyce, “Memoir of Beattie,” p. xxxv.

[455] His chief poems are, “Four Moral Eclogues” (1778); “Four Elegies”

(published 1760 but written earlier); “Amwell, A Descriptive Poem”

(published 1776 but written 1768); and “Odes and Amoebaean Eclogues”

(1782). His “Epistle on the Garden” and “Essay on Painting” will be

spoken of later.

It is interesting to note the spirit of apology with which Scott’s

friends and admirers comment on his choice of subjects. In such poetry

there is little opportunity for genius, for, says Mr. Hoole, “A hill, a

vale, a forest, a rivulet, a cataract, can be described only by general

terms; the hill must swell, the vale sink, the rivulet murmur, and the

cataract foam.” Mr. Hoole recognizes the “slight estimation” in which

descriptive poetry is commonly held, but thinks there are devices to

render it attractive and calls attention to the skill with which Mr.

Scott has made his poems “interesting by the introduction of historical

incidents, apt illusions, and moral reflections.”

[456] At this line Mr. Hoole’s admiration broke down. He could only

regret that Mr. Scott’s desire for novelty had led him to admit such

circumstances as no versification can make poetical.

[457] See “Advertisement” to “Poetical Sketches.”

[458] Introduction to “Songs of Innocence.”

[459] “Night.”

[460] “Contemplation.”

[461] “Book of Thel.”

[462] “Inebriety.”

[463] “The Village.”

[464] “The Choice.”

[465] “The Borough” especially Letters I and IX.

[466] “Tales of the Hall,” Book IV.

[467] In a letter to Newton, November 16, 1791, he wrote: “I would

that I could see some of the mountains which you have seen; especially

because Dr. Johnson has pronounced that no man is qualified to be a

poet who has never seen a mountain. But mountains I shall never see,

unless, perhaps, in a dream, or unless there are such in heaven.”

[468] See “Task,” i, 764; iv, 254–58. The best lines on the moon are in

“Task,” iv, 3,

the wintry flood, in which the moon

Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright.

[469] “Task,” i, 520; vi, 495.

[470] “Truth,” l. 238.

[471] “Task,” iv, 322.

[472] Illustrative similitudes are those drawn from the thunderstorm

“Truth,” l. 238), deer (“Task,” iii, 108), peacocks and pheasants

(“Truth,” l. 58), elm and vine (“Retirement,” l. 129), moles (“Task,”

i, 276), etc.

[473] In a letter to Rev. William Unwin, October, 1784, Cowper wrote,

“My descriptions are all from nature; not one of them second-handed.”

[474] Letter to Lady Herbert, October 12, 1785.

[475] “Task,” v, 58.

[476] _Ibid._, 27.

[477] _Ibid._, 41.

[478] _Ibid._, i, 161.

[479] _Ibid._, 358.

[480] _Ibid._, vi, 147.

[481] _Ibid._, i, 304.

[482] “Task,” i, 195.

[483] _Ibid._, 185.

[484] _Ibid._, 159.

[485] _Ibid._, 346.

[486] “Task,” vi, 310.

[487] _Ibid._, v, 22.

[488] _Ibid._, vi, 77.

[489] _Ibid._, i, 109, 142.

[490] _Ibid._, iv, 700.

[491] _Ibid._, 695.

[492] See “Hope,” ll. 39–60; “Task,” iii, 721; iv, 780; iii, 301; and

other passages. In the passage from “Hope” compare the line:

She spreads the morning over Eastern hills,

and Wordsworth’s

A boy I loved the sun

... for this cause that I had seen him lay

His beauty on the morning hills.--“Prelude,” ii, 183.

[493] See “Retirement,” ll. 481, 563; “Task,” iii, 314, 306.

[494] “Task,” i, 749.

[495] “Task,” vi, 109; cf. ll. 84–117 of Wordsworth’s “The Tables

Turned”:

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife,

* * * * *

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth

Our minds and hearts to bless.

* * * * *

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things.

Smith, Thomas (of Derby), 290, 292, 310, 325.