A very discreet man was Addison, and the only failure he made of

discretion was when he married the Dowager Countess of Warwick,

went to live in her elegant Holland House, and lived unhappily ever

afterwards. The last is a mere formal expression. Addison had not

depth enough to be really unhappy. From the cold comfort of the

Dowager's palace he would slip off to his club or to Will's Coffee

house. There, with a pipe and a bottle, he would loosen his

eloquent tongue and proceed to "make discreetly merry with a few

old friends."

[Illustration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE OXFORD]

His characteristic quality appears in the literary work which

followed his Latin verses. He began with a flattering "Address to

Dryden," which pleased the old poet and brought Addison to the

attention of literary celebrities. His next effort was "The Peace

of Ryswick," which flattered King William's statesmen and brought

the author a chance to serve the Whig party. Also it brought a

pension, with a suggestion that Addison should travel abroad and

learn French and diplomacy, which he did, to his great content, for

the space of three years.

The death of the king brought Addison back to England. His pension

stopped, and for a time he lived poorly "in a garret," as one may

read in Thackeray's _Henry Esmond_. Then came news of an

English victory on the Continent (Marlborough's victory at

Blenheim), and the Whigs wanted to make political capital out of

the event. Addison was hunted up and engaged to write a poem. He

responded with "The Campaign," which made him famous. Patriots and

politicians ascribed to the poem undying glory, and their judgment

was accepted by fashionable folk of London. To read it now is to

meet a formal, uninspired production, containing a few stock

quotations and, incidentally, a sad commentary on the union of

Whiggery and poetry.

[Sidenote: HIS PATH OF ROSES]

From that moment Addison's success was assured. He was given

various offices of increasing importance; he entered Parliament; he

wrote a classic tragedy, _Cato_, which took London by storm

(his friend Steele had carefully "packed the house" for the first

performance); his essays in _The Spectator_ were discussed in

every fashionable club or drawing-room; he married a rich countess;

he was appointed Secretary of State. The path of politics, which

others find so narrow and slippery, was for Addison a broad road

through pleasant gardens. Meanwhile Swift, who could not follow the

Addisonian way of kindness and courtesy, was eating bitter bread

and railing at humanity.

After a brief experience as Secretary of State, finding that he

could not make the speeches expected of him, Addison retired on a

pension. His unwavering allegiance to good form in all matters

appears even in his last remark, "See how a Christian can die."

That was in 1719. He had sought the easiest, pleasantest way

through life, and had found it. Thackeray, who was in sympathy with

such a career, summed it up in a glowing panegyric:

"A life prosperous and beautiful, a calm death; an immense

fame and affection afterwards for his happy and spotless

name."

WORKS OF ADDISON. Addison's great reputation was won chiefly by his poetry;

but with the exception of a few hymns, simple and devout, his poetical

works no longer appeal to us. He was not a poet but a verse-maker. His

classic tragedy _Cato_, for example (which met with such amazing

success in London that it was taken over to the Continent, where it was

acclaimed "a masterpiece of regularity and elegance"), has some good

passages, but one who reads the context is apt to find the elegant lines

running together somewhat drowsily. Nor need that reflect on our taste or

intelligence. Even the cultured Greeks, as if in anticipation of classic

poems, built two adjoining temples, one dedicated to the Muses and the

other to Sleep.

[Sidenote: THE ESSAYS]

The _Essays_ of Addison give us the full measure of his literary

talent. In his verse, as in his political works, he seems to be speaking to

strangers; he is on guard over his dignity as a poet, as Secretary of

State, as husband of a countess; but in his _Essays_ we meet the man

at his ease, fluent, witty, light-hearted but not frivolous,--just as he

talked to his friends in Will's Coffeehouse. The conversational quality of

these _Essays_ has influenced all subsequent works of the same

type,--a type hard to define, but which leaves the impression of pleasant

talk about a subject, as distinct from any learned discussion.

The _Essays_ cover a wide range: fashions, dress, manners, character

sketches, letters of travel, ghost stories, satires on common vices,

week-end sermons on moral subjects. They are never profound, but they are

always pleasant, and their graceful style made such a lasting impression

that, half a century later, Dr. Johnson summed up a general judgment when

he said:

"Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not

coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and

nights to the volumes of Addison."

ADDISON AND STEELE. Of these two associates Richard Steele (1672-1729) had

the more original mind, and his writings reveal a warm, human sympathy that

is lacking in the work of his more famous contemporary. But while Addison

cultivated his one talent of writing, Steele was like Defoe in that he

always had some new project in his head, and some old debt urging him to

put the project into immediate execution. He was in turn poet, political

pamphleteer, soldier, dramatist, member of Parliament, publisher, manager

of a theater, following each occupation eagerly for a brief season, then

abandoning it cheerfully for another,--much like a boy picking blueberries

in a good place, who moves on and on to find a better bush, eats his

berries on the way, and comes home at last with an empty pail.

[Illustration: SIR RICHARD STEELE

From the engraving by Freeman after original by J. Richardson]

[Sidenote: THE TATLER AND THE SPECTATOR]

While holding the political office of "gazetteer" (one who had a monopoly

of official news) the idea came to Steele of publishing a literary

magazine. The inventive Defoe had already issued _The Review_ (1704),

but that had a political origin. With the first number of _The Tatler_

(1709) the modern magazine made its bow to the public. This little sheet,

published thrice a week and sold at a penny a copy, contained more or less

politics, to be sure, but the fact that it reflected the gossip of

coffeehouses made it instantly popular. After less than two years of

triumph Steele lost his official position, and _The Tatler_ was

discontinued. The idea remained, however, and a few months later appeared

_The Spectator_ (1711), a daily magazine which eschewed politics and

devoted itself to essays, reviews, letters, criticisms,--in short, to

"polite" literature. Addison, who had been a contributor to _The

Tatler_ entered heartily into the new venture, which had a brief but

glorious career. He became known as "Mr. Spectator," and the famous

Spectator Essays are still commonly attributed to him, though in truth

Steele furnished a large part of them. [Footnote: Of the _Tatler_

essays Addison contributed 42, Steele about 180, and some 36 were the work

of the two authors in collaboration. Of the _Spectator_ essays Addison

furnished 274, Steele 236, and about 45 were the work of other writers. In

some of the best essays ("Sir Roger de Coverley," for example) the two men

worked together. Steele is supposed to have furnished the original ideas,

the humor and overflowing kindness of such essays, while the work of

polishing and perfecting the style fell to the more skillful Addison.]

[Sidenote: ADDISONIAN STYLE]

Because of their cultivated prose style, Steele and Addison were long

regarded as models, and we are still influenced by them in the direction of

clearness and grace of expression. How wide their influence extended may be

seen in American literature. Hardly had _The Spectator_ appeared when

it crossed the Atlantic and began to dominate our English style on both

sides of the ocean. Franklin, in Boston, studied it by night in order to

imitate it in the essay which he slipped under the printing-house door next

morning; and Boyd, in Virginia, reflects its influence in his charming

Journal of exploration. Half a century later, the Hartford Wits were

writing clever sketches that seemed like the work of a new "Spectator";

another half century, and Irving, the greatest master of English prose in

his day, was still writing in the Addisonian manner, and regretting as he

wrote that the leisurely style showed signs, in a bustling age, "of

becoming a little old-fashioned."

* * * * *

DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE

Since Caxton established the king's English as a literary language our

prose style has often followed the changing fashion of London. Thus, Lyly

made it fantastic, Dryden simplified it, Addison gave it grace; and each

leader set a fashion which was followed by a host of young writers. Hardly

had the Addisonian style crossed the Atlantic, to be the model for American

writers for a century, when London acclaimed a new prose fashion--a

ponderous, grandiloquent fashion, characterized by mouth-filling words,

antithetical sentences, rounded periods, sonorous commonplaces--which was

eagerly adopted by orators and historians especially. The man who did more

than any other to set this new oratorical fashion in motion was the same

Dr. Samuel Johnson who advised young writers to study Addison as a model.

And that was only one of his amusing inconsistencies.

Johnson was a man of power, who won a commanding place in English letters

by his hard work and his downright sincerity. He won his name of "the great

lexicographer" by his _Dictionary_, which we no longer consult, but

which we remember as the first attempt at a complete English lexicon. If

one asks what else he wrote, with the idea of going to the library and

getting a book for pleasure, the answer must be that Johnson's voluminous

works are now as dead as his dictionary. One student of literature may be

interested in such a melancholy poem as "The Vanity of Human Wishes";

another will be entertained by the anecdotes or blunt criticisms of the

_Lives of the Poets_; a third may be uplifted by the _Rambler

Essays_, which are well called "majestically moral productions"; but we

shall content ourselves here by recording Johnson's own refreshing

criticism of certain ancient authors, that "it is idle to criticize what

nobody reads." Perhaps the best thing he wrote was a minor work, which he

did not know would ever be published. This was his manly Letter to Lord

Chesterfield, a nobleman who had treated Johnson with discourtesy when the

poor author was making a heroic struggle, but who offered his patronage

when the Dictionary was announced as an epoch-making work. In his noble

refusal of all extraneous help Johnson unconsciously voiced Literature's

declaration of independence: that henceforth a book must stand or fall on

its own merits, and that the day of the literary patron was gone forever.

[Illustration: DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

From the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds]

LIFE. The story of Johnson's life (1709-1784) has been so well told

that one is loath to attempt a summary of it. We note, therefore, a

few plain facts: that he was the son of a poor bookseller; that

despite poverty and disease he obtained his classic education; that

at twenty-six he came to London, and, after an experience with

patrons, rebelled against them; that he did every kind of hackwork

to earn his bread honestly, living in the very cellar of Grub

Street, where he was often cold and more often hungry; that after

nearly thirty years of labor his services to literature were

rewarded by a pension, which he shared with the poor; that he then

formed the Literary Club (including Reynolds, Pitt, Gibbon,

Goldsmith, Burke, and almost every other prominent man in London)

and indulged nightly in his famous "conversations," which were

either monologues or knockdown arguments; and that in his old age

he was regarded as the king of letters, the oracle of literary

taste in England.

[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON'S HOUSE (BOLT COURT, FLEET ST.)

From the print by Charles J. Smith]

Such is the bare outline of Johnson's career. To his character, his

rough exterior and his kind heart, his vast learning and his Tory

prejudices, his piety, his melancholy, his virtues, his frailty,

his "mass of genuine manhood," only a volume could do justice.

Happily that volume is at hand. It is Boswell's _Life of

Johnson_, a famous book that deserves its fame.

BOSWELL'S JOHNSON. Boswell was an inquisitive barrister who came from

Edinburgh to London and thrust himself into the company of great men. To

Johnson, then at the summit of his fame, "Bozzy" was devotion itself,

following his master about by day or night, refusing to be rebuffed,

jotting down notes of what he saw and heard. After Johnson's death he

gathered these notes together and, after seven years of labor, produced his

incomparable _Life of Johnson_ (1791).

The greatness of Boswell's work may be traced to two causes. First, he had

a great subject. The story of any human life is interesting, if truthfully

told, and Johnson's heroic life of labor and pain and reward was passed in

a capital city, among famous men, at a time which witnessed the rapid

expansion of a mighty empire. Second, Boswell was as faithful as a man

could be to his subject, for whom he had such admiration that even the

dictator's frailties seemed more impressive than the virtues of ordinary

humanity. So Boswell concealed nothing, and felt no necessity to distribute

either praise or blame. He portrayed a man just as that man was, recorded

the word just as the word was spoken; and facing the man we may see his

enraptured audience,--at a distance, indeed, but marvelously clear, as when

we look through the larger end of a field glass at a landscape dominated by

a mountain. One who reads this matchless biography will know Johnson better

than he knows his own neighbor; he will gain, moreover, a better

understanding of humanity, to reflect which clearly and truthfully is the

prime object of all good literature.

[Illustration: James Boswell]

EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797). This brilliant Irishman came up to London as a

young man of twenty-one. Within a few years--such was his character, his

education, his genius--he had won a reputation among old statesmen as a

political philosopher. Then he entered Parliament, where for twenty years

the House listened with growing amazement to his rhythmic periods, and he

was acclaimed the most eloquent of orators.

Among Burke's numerous works those on America, India and France are

deservedly the most famous. Of his orations on American subjects a student

of literature or history may profitably read "On Taxation" (1774) and "On

Conciliation" (1775), in which Burke presents the Whig argument in favor of

a liberal colonial policy. The Tory view of the same question was bluntly

presented by Johnson in his essay "Taxation No Tyranny"; while like a

reverberation from America, powerful enough to carry across the Atlantic,

came Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," which was a ringing plea for colonial

independence.

[Illustration: EDMUND BURKE

From the print by John Jones, after Romney]

Of Burke's works pertaining to India "The Nabob of Arcot's Debts" (1785)

and the "Impeachment of Warren Hastings" (1786) are interesting to those who

can enjoy a long flight of sustained eloquence. Here again Burke presents

the liberal, the humane view of what was then largely a political question;

but in his _Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790) he goes over

to the Tories, thunders against the revolutionists or their English

sympathizers, and exalts the undying glories of the British constitution.

The _Reflections_ is the most brilliant of all Burke's works, and is

admired for its superb rhetorical style.

[Sidenote: BURKE'S METHOD]

To examine any of these works is to discover the author's characteristic

method: first, his framework or argument is carefully constructed so as to

appeal to reason; then this framework is buried out of sight and memory by

a mass of description, digression, emotional appeal, allusions,

illustrative matter from the author's wide reading or from his prolific

imagination. Note this passage from the _French Revolution_:

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of

France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never

lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more

delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and

cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in,

glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and

joy. Oh, what a revolution! And what a heart must I have to

contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little

did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of

distant, enthusiastic, respectful love, that she should ever be

obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in

that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such

disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation

of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords

must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that

threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That

of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the

glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall

we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud

submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the

heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an

exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of

nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is

gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of

honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage

whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched,

and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its

grossness."

That is finely expressed, but it has no bearing on the political matter in

question; namely, whether the sympathy of England should be extended to the

French revolutionists in their struggle for liberty. This irrelevancy of

Burke suggests our first criticism: that he is always eloquent, and usually

right; but he is seldom convincing, and his eloquence is a hindrance rather

than a help to his main purpose. So we are not surprised to hear that his

eloquent speech on Conciliation emptied the benches; or that after his

supreme effort in the impeachment of Hastings--an effort so tremendously

dramatic that spectators sobbed, screamed, were carried out in fits--the

object of all this invective was acquitted by his judges. Reading the works

now, they seem to us praiseworthy not for their sustained eloquence, which

is wearisome, but for the brilliancy of certain detached passages which

catch the eye like sparkling raindrops after a drenching shower. It was the

splendor of such passages, their vivid imagery and harmonious rhythm, which

led Matthew Arnold to assert that Burke was the greatest master of prose

style in our literature. Anybody can make such an assertion; nobody can

prove or disprove it.

THE HISTORIANS. Perhaps it was the rapid expansion of the empire in the

latter, part of the eighteenth century which aroused such interest in

historical subjects that works of history were then more eagerly welcomed

than poetry or fiction. Gibbon says in his _Memoirs_ that in his day

"history was the most popular species of composition." It was also the best

rewarded; for while Johnson, the most renowned author of his time, wrote a

romance (_Rasselas_) hoping to sell it for enough to pay for his

mother's funeral, Robertson easily disposed of his _History of the

Emperor Charles V_ for £4500; and there were others who were even better

paid for popular histories, the very titles of which are now forgotten.

[Sidenote: GIBBON]

Of all the historical works of the age, and their name was legion, only one

survives with something of its original vitality, standing the double test

of time and scholarship. This is _The Decline and Fall of the Roman

Empire_ (1776), a work which remained famous for a century, and which

still has its admiring readers. It was written by Edward Gibbon

(1737-1794), who belonged to the Literary Club that gathered about Johnson,

and who cultivated his style, he tells us, first by adopting the dictator's

rounded periods, and then practicing them "till they moved to flutes and

hautboys."

The scope of Gibbon's work is enormous. It begins with the Emperor Trajan

(A.D. 98) and carries us through the convulsions of a dying civilization,

the descent of the Barbarians on Rome, the spread of Christianity, the

Crusades, the rise of Mohammedanism,--through all the confused history of

thirteen centuries, ending with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks,

in 1453. The mind that could grasp such vast and chaotic materials, arrange

them in orderly sequence and resent them as in a gorgeous panorama, moves

us to wonder. To be sure, there are many things to criticize in Gibbon's

masterpiece,--the author's love of mere pageants; his materialism; his

inability to understand religious movements, or even religious motives; his

lifeless figures, which move as if by mechanical springs,--but one who

reads the _Decline and Fall_ may be too much impressed by the

evidences of scholarship, of vast labor, of genius even, to linger over

faults. It is a "monumental" work, most interesting to those who admire

monuments; and its style is the perfection of that oratorical, Johnsonese

style which was popular in England in 1776, and which, half a century

later, found its best American mouthpiece in Daniel Webster. The influence

of Gibbon may still be seen in the orators and historians who, lacking the

charm of simplicity, clothe even their platitudes in high-sounding phrases.

[Illustration: EDWARD GIBBON

From an enamel by H Bone, R.A.; after Sir Joshua Reynolds]

* * * * *

THE REVIVAL OF ROMANTIC POETRY

Every age has had its romantic poets--that is, poets who sing the dreams

and ideals of life, and whose songs seem to be written naturally,

spontaneously, as from a full heart [Footnote: For specific examples of

formal and romantic poetry see the comparison between Addison and

Wordsworth below, under "Natural vs Formal Poetry", Chapter VII]--but in

the eighteenth century they were completely overshadowed by formal

versifiers who made poetry by rule. At that time the imaginative verse

which had delighted an earlier age was regarded much as we now regard an

old beaver hat; Shakespeare and Milton were neglected, Spenser was but a

name, Chaucer was clean forgotten. If a poet aspired to fame, he imitated

the couplets of Dryden or Pope, who, as Cowper said,

Made poetry a mere mechanic art,

And every warbler has his tune by heart.

[Illustration: THOMAS GRAY

from a portrait by Benjamin Wilson, in the possession of John Murray]

Among those who made vigorous protest against the precise and dreary

formalism of the age were Collins and Gray, whose names are commonly

associated in poetry, as are the names of Addison and Steele in prose. They

had the same tastes, the same gentle melancholy, the same freedom from the

bondage of literary fashion. Of the two, William Collins (1721-1759) was

perhaps the more gifted poet. His exquisite "Ode to Evening" is without a

rival in its own field, and his brief elegy beginning, "How sleep the

brave," is a worthy commemoration of a soldier's death and a nation's

gratitude. It has, says Andrew Lang, the magic of an elder day and of all

time.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771) is more widely known than his fellow poet, largely

because of one fortunate poem which "returned to men's bosoms" as if sure

of its place and welcome. This is the "Elegy Written in a Country

Churchyard" (1750), which has been translated into all civilized tongues,

and which is known, loved, quoted wherever English is spoken.

[Illustration: STOKE POGES CHURCHYARD, SHOWING PART OF THE CHURCH AND

GRAY'S TOMB]

[Sidenote: GRAY'S ELEGY]

To criticize this favorite of a million readers seems almost ruthless, as

if one were pulling a flower to pieces for the sake of giving it a

botanical name. A pleasanter task is to explain, if one can, the immense

popularity of the "Elegy." The theme is of profound interest to every man

who reveres the last resting place of his parents, to the nation which

cherishes every monument of its founders, and even to primitive peoples,

like the Indians, who refuse to leave the place where their fathers are

buried, and who make the grave a symbol of patriotism. With this great

theme our poet is in perfect sympathy. His attitude is simple and reverent;

he treads softly, as if on holy ground. The natural setting or atmosphere

of his poem, the peace of evening falling on the old churchyard at Stoke

Poges, the curfew bell, the cessation of daily toil, the hush which falls

upon the twilight landscape like a summons to prayer,--all this is exactly

as it should be. Finally, Gray's craftsmanship, his choice of words, his

simple figures, his careful fitting of every line to its place and context,

is as near perfection as human skill could make it.

Other poems of Gray, which make his little book precious, are the four

odes: "To Spring," "On a Distant Prospect of Eton College," "The Progress

of Poesy" and "The Bard," the last named being a description of the

dramatic end of an old Welsh minstrel, who chants a wild prophecy as he

goes to his death. These romantic odes, together with certain translations

which Gray made from Norse mythology, mark the end of "classic" domination

in English poetry.

* * * * *

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774)

Most versatile of eighteenth-century writers was "poor Noll," a most

improvident kind of man in all worldly ways, but so skillful with his pen

that Johnson wrote a sincere epitaph to the effect that Goldsmith attempted

every form of literature, and adorned everything which he attempted. The

form of his verse suggests the formal school, and his polished couplets

rival those of Pope; but there the resemblance ceases. In his tenderness

and humor, in his homely subjects and the warm human sympathy with which he

describes them, Goldsmith belongs to the new romantic school of poetry.

LIFE. The life of Goldsmith has inspired many pens; but the

subject, far from being exhausted, is still awaiting the right

biographer. The poet's youthful escapades in the Irish country, his

classical education at Trinity College, Dublin, and his vagabond

studies among gypsies and peddlers, his childish attempts at

various professions, his wanderings over Europe, his shifts and

makeshifts to earn a living in London, his tilts with Johnson at

the Literary Club, his love of gorgeous raiment, his indiscriminate

charity, his poverty, his simplicity, his success in the art of

writing and his total failure in the art of living,--such

kaleidoscopic elements make a brief biography impossible. The

character of the man appears in a single incident.

Landing one day on the Continent with a flute, a spare shirt and a

guinea as his sole outward possessions, the guinea went for a feast

and a game of cards at the nearest inn, and the shirt to the first

beggar that asked for it. There remained only the flute, and with

that Goldsmith fared forth confidently, like the gleeman of old

with his harp, delighted at seeing the world, utterly forgetful of

the fact that he had crossed the Channel in search of a medical

education.

That aimless, happy-go-lucky journey was typical of Goldsmith's

whole life of forty-odd years. Those who knew him loved but

despaired of him. When he passed away (1774) Johnson summed up the

feeling of the English literary world in the sentence, "He was a

very great man, let not his frailties be remembered."

[Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH

After the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds]

GOLDSMITH'S PROSE AND VERSE. Among the forgotten works of Goldsmith we note

with interest several that he wrote for children: a fanciful _History of

England_, an entertaining but most unreliable _Animated Nature_,

and probably also the tale of "Little Goody Twoshoes." These were written

(as were all his other works) to satisfy the demands of his landlady, or to

pay an old debt, or to buy a new cloak,--a plum-colored velvet cloak,

wherewith to appear at the opera or to dazzle the Literary Club. From among

his works we select four, as illustrative of Goldsmith's versatility.

_The Citizen of the World_, a series of letters from an alleged

Chinese visitor, invites comparison with the essays of Addison or Steele.

All three writers are satirical, all have a high moral purpose, all are

masters of a graceful style, but where the "Spectator" touches the surface

of life, Goldsmith often goes deeper and probes the very spirit of the

eighteenth century. Here is a paragraph from the first letter, in which the

alleged visitor, who has heard much of the wealth and culture of London,

sets down his first impressions:

"From these circumstances in their buildings, and from the dismal

looks of the inhabitants, I am induced to conclude that the nation

is actually poor, and that, like the Persians, they make a splendid

figure everywhere but at home. The proverb of Xixofou is, that a

man's riches may be seen in his eyes if we judge of the English by

this rule, there is not a poorer nation under the sun."

[Illustration: THE "CHESHIRE CHEESE," LONDON, SHOWING DR. JOHNSON'S FAVORITE

SEAT The tavern, which still stands, was the favorite haunt of both Johnson

and Goldsmith]

[Sidenote: THE DESERTED VILLAGE]

_The Deserted Village_ (1770) is the best remembered of Goldsmith's

poems, or perhaps one should say "verses" in deference to critics like

Matthew Arnold who classify the work with Pope's _Essay on Man_, as a

rimed dissertation rather than a true poem.

To compare the two works just mentioned is to discover how far Goldsmith is

from his formal model. In Pope's "Essay" we find common sense, moral maxims

and some alleged philosophy, but no emotion, no romance, no men or women.

The "Village," on the other hand, is romantic even in desolation; it

awakens our interest, our sympathy; and it gives us two characters, the

Parson and the Schoolmaster, who live in our memories with the best of

Chaucer's creations. Moreover, it makes the commonplace life of man ideal

and beautiful, and so appeals to readers of widely different tastes or

nationalities. Of the many ambitious poems written in the eighteenth

century, the two most widely read (aside from the songs of Burns) are

Goldsmith's "Village," which portrays the life of simple country people,

and Gray's "Elegy," which laments their death.

[Illustration: CANONBURY TOWER (LONDON)

Goldsmith lived here when he wrote the "Vicar of Wakefield"]

[Sidenote: VICAR OF WAKEFIELD]

Goldsmith's one novel, _The Vicar of Wakefield_ (1766), has been well

called "the Prince Charming" of our early works of fiction. This work has a

threefold distinction: its style alone is enough to make it pleasant

reading; as a story it retains much of its original charm, after a century

and a half of proving; by its moral purity it offered the best kind of

rebuke to the vulgar tendency of the early English novel, and influenced

subsequent fiction in the direction of cleanness and decency.

The story is that of a certain vicar, or clergyman, Dr. Primrose and his

family, who pass through heavy trials and misfortunes. These might crush or

embitter an ordinary man, but they only serve to make the Vicar's love for

his children, his trust in God, his tenderness for humanity, shine out more

clearly, like star's after a tempest. Mingled with these affecting trials

are many droll situations which probably reflect something of the author's

personal escapades; for Goldsmith was the son of a clergyman, and brought

himself and his father into his tale. As a novel, that is, a reflection of

human life in the form of a story, it contains many weaknesses; but despite

its faults of moralizing and sentimentality, the impression which the story

leaves is one of "sweetness and light." Swinburne says that, of all novels

he had seen rise and fall in three generations, _The Vicar of

Wakefield_ alone had retained the same high level in the opinion of its

readers.

[Sidenote: SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER]

Another notable work is Goldsmith's comedy _She Stoops to Conquer_. The

date of that comedy (1773) recalls the fact that, though it has been played

for nearly a century and a half, during which a thousand popular plays have

been forgotten, it is still a prime favorite on the amateur stage. Perhaps

the only other comedies of which the same can be said with approximate

truth are _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School for Scandal_ (1777)

of Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

The plot of _She Stoops to Conquer_ is said to have been suggested by

one of Goldsmith's queer adventures. He arrived one day at a village,

riding a borrowed nag, and with the air of a lordly traveler asked a

stranger to direct him "to the best house in the place." The stranger

misunderstood, or else was a rare wag, for he showed the way to the abode

of a wealthy gentleman. There Goldsmith made himself at home, ordered the

servants about, invited his host to share a bottle of wine,--in short, made

a great fool of himself. Evidently the host was also a wag, for he let the

joke run on till the victim was ready to ride away. [Footnote: There is

some doubt as to the source of Goldsmith's plot. It may have been suggested

by an earlier French comedy by Marivaux.]

From some such crazy escapade Goldsmith made his comedy of manners, a

lively, rollicking comedy of topsy-turvy scenes, all hinging upon the

incident of mistaking a private house for a public inn. We have called

_She Stoops to Conquer_ a comedy of eighteenth-century manners, but

our continued interest in its absurdities would seem to indicate that it is

a comedy of human nature in all ages.

* * * * *

ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796)

Burns is everywhere acclaimed the poet of Scotland, and for two good

reasons: because he reflects better than any other the emotions of the

Scottish people, and because his book is a summary of the best verse of his

native land. Practically all his songs, such as "Bonnie Boon" and "Auld

Lang Syne," are late echoes of much older verses; his more ambitious poems

borrow their ideas, their satire or sentiment, their form even, from

Ferguson, Allan Ramsay and other poets, all of whom aimed (as Scott aimed

in "Lochinvar") to preserve the work of unnamed minstrels whose lines had

been repeated in Highlands or Lowlands for two centuries. Burns may be

regarded, therefore, as a treasury of all that is best in Scottish song.

His genius was to take this old material, dear to the heart of the native,

and give it final expression.

[Illustration: ROBERT BURNS

After Alexander Nasmyth]

LIFE. The life of Burns is one to discourage a biographer who does

not relish the alternative of either concealing the facts or

apologizing for his subject. We shall record here only a few

personal matters which may help us to understand Burns's poetry.

Perhaps the most potent influence in his life was that which came

from his labor in the field. He was born in a clay biggin, or

cottage, in the parish of Alloway, near the little town of Ayr.

Auld Ayr, wham neer a town surpasses

For honest men and bonnie lasses.

His father was a poor crofter, a hard working, God fearing man of

the Covenanter type, who labored unceasingly to earn a living from

the soil of a rented farm. The children went barefoot in all

seasons, almost from the time they could walk they were expected to

labor and at thirteen Bobbie was doing a man's work at the plow or

the reaping. The toil was severe, the reward, at best, was to

escape dire poverty or disgraceful debt, but there was yet a

nobility in the life which is finely reflected in "The Cotter's

Saturday Night," a poem which ranks with Whittier's "Snow Bound"

among the best that labor has ever inspired.

[Illustration: "ELLISLAND"

The hundred acre farm near Dumfries where Burns worked as a farmer.

The happiest days of his life were spent here, 1787-1791]

[Sidenote: THE ELEMENT OF NATURE]

As a farmer's boy Burns worked in the open, in close contact with

nature, and the result is evident in all his verse. Sunshine or

storm, bird song or winter wind, the flowers, the stars, the dew of

the morning,--open Burns where you will, and you are face to face

with these elemental realities. Sometimes his reflection of nature

is exquisitely tender, as in "To a Mouse" or "To a Mountain Daisy";

but for the most part he regards nature not sentimentally, like

Gray, or religiously, like Wordsworth and Bryant, but in a breezy,

companionable way which suggests the song of "Under the Greenwood

Tree" in _As You Like It_.

[Sidenote: HIS EDUCATION]

Another influence in Burns's life came from his elementary

education. There were no ancient classics studied in the school

which he attended,--fortunately, perhaps, for his best work is free

from the outworn classical allusions which decorate the bulk of

eighteenth-century verse. In the evening he listened to tales from

Scottish history, which stirred him deeply and made him live in a

present world rather than in the misty region of Greek mythology.

One result of this education was the downright honesty of Burns's

poems. Here is no echo from a vanished world of gods and goddesses,

but the voice of a man, living, working, feeling joy or sorrow in

the presence of everyday nature and humanity.

For another formative influence Burns was indebted to Betty

Davidson, a relative and an inmate of the household, who carried

such a stock of old wives' tales as would scare any child into fits

on a dark night. Hear Burns speak of her:

"She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country

of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,

brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies,

elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantrips,

giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This

cultivated the latent seeds of poetry, but had so strong an

effect upon my imagination that to this hour, in my

nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in

suspicious places."

Reflections of these grotesque superstitions appear in such poems

as the "Address to the Deil" and "Tam o' Shanter." The latter is

commonly named as one of the few original works of Burns, but it is

probably a retelling of some old witch-tale of Betty Davidson.

[Sidenote: EVIL ELEMENTS]

The evil influence in Burns's life may be only suggested. It leads

first to the tavern, to roistering and dissipation, to

entanglements in vulgar love affairs; then swiftly to the loss of a

splendid poetic gift, to hopeless debts, to degrading poverty, to

an untimely death. Burns had his chance, if ever poet had it, after

the publication of his first book (the famous Kilmarnock edition of

1786) when he was called in triumph to Edinburgh. There he sold

another edition of his poems for a sum that seemed fabulous to a

poor crofter; whereupon he bought a farm and married his Jean

Armour. He was acclaimed throughout the length and breadth of his

native land, his poems were read by the wise and by the ignorant,

he was the poet of Scotland, and the nation, proud of its gifted

son, stood ready to honor and follow him. But the old habits were

too strong, and Burns took the downhill road. To this element of

dissipation we owe his occasional bitterness, railing and

coarseness, which make an expurgated edition of his poems essential

to one who would enjoy the reading.

[Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF TARBOLTON, NEAR WHICH BURNS LIVED

WHEN ABOUT NINETEEN YEARS OLD]

There is another element, often emphasized for its alleged

influence on Burns's poetry. During his lifetime the political

world was shaken by the American and French revolutions, democracy

was in the air, and the watchwords "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"

inspired many a song besides the _Marseillaise_ and many a

document besides the Declaration of Independence. That Burns was

aware of this political commotion is true, but he was not much

influenced by it. He was at home only in his own Scottish field,

and even there his interests were limited,--not to be compared with

those of Walter Scott, for example. When the Bastille was stormed,

and the world stood aghast, Burns was too much engrossed in

personal matters to be greatly moved by distant affairs in France.

Not to the Revolution, therefore, but to his Scottish blood do we

owe the thrilling "Scots Wha Hae," one of the world's best battle

songs, not to the new spirit of democracy abroad but to the old

Covenanter spirit at home do we owe "A Man's a Man for a' That"

with its assertion of elemental manhood.

THE SONGS OF BURNS. From such an analysis of Burns's life one may forecast

his subject and his method. Living intensely in a small field, he must

discover that there are just two poetic subjects of abiding interest. These

are Nature and Humanity, and of these Burns must write from first-hand

knowledge, simply, straightforwardly, and with sincerity. Moreover, as

Burns lives in an intense way, reading himself rather than books, he must

discover that the ordinary man is more swayed by strong feeling than by

logical reasons. He will write, therefore, of the common emotions that lie

between the extremes of laughter and tears, and his appeal will be to the

heart rather than to the head of his reader.

[Illustration: AULD ALLOWAY KIRK

Made famous by the poem of "Tam o'Shanter"]

This emotional power of Burns, his masterful touch upon human heartstrings,

is the first of his poetic qualities; and he has others which fairly force

themselves upon the attention. For example, many of his lyrics ("Auld Lang

Syne," "Banks o' Doon," "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," "O Wert Thou in the

Cauld Blast") have been repeatedly set to music; and the reason is that

they were written to music, that in such poems Burns was refashioning some

old material to the tune of a Scottish song. There is a singing quality in

his poetry which not only makes it pleasant reading but which is apt to set

the words tripping to melody. For a specific example take this stanza from

"Of a' the Airts," a lyric which one can hardly read without making a tune

to match it:

I see her in the dewy flow'rs,

I see her sweet and fair;

I hear her in the tunefu' birds,

I hear her charm the air:

There's not a bonie flow'r that springs

By fountain, shaw or green,

There's not a bonie bird that sings,

But minds me o' my Jean.

Sympathy is another marked characteristic of Burns, a wide, all-embracing

sympathy that knows no limit save for hypocrites, at whom he pointed his

keenest satire. His feeling for nature is reflected in "To a Mouse" and "To

a Daisy"; his comradeship with noble men appears in "The Cotter's Saturday

Night," with riotous and bibulous men in "The Jolly Beggars," with

smugglers and their ilk in "The Deil's Awa' with the Exciseman," [Footnote:

Burns was himself an exciseman; that is, a collector of taxes on alcoholic

liquors. He wrote this song while watching a smuggler's craft, and waiting

in the storm for officers to come and make an arrest.] with patriots in

"Bannockburn," with men who mourn in "To Mary in Heaven," and with all

lovers in a score of famous lyrics. Side by side with Burns's sympathy (for

Smiles live next door to Tears) appears his keen sense of humor, a humor

that is sometimes rollicking, as in "Contented wi' Little," and again too

broad for decency. For the most part, however, Burns contents himself with

dry, quiet sarcasm delivered with an air of great seriousness:

Ah, gentle dames, it gars me greet

To think how mony counsels sweet,

How mony lengthened sage advices

The husband frae the wife despises!

WHY BURNS IS READ. Such qualities, appearing on almost every page of

Burns's little book of poetry, show how widely he differs from the formal

school of Pope and Dryden. They labor to compose poetry, while Burns gives

the impression of singing, as naturally as a child sings from a full heart.

Again, most eighteenth-century poets wrote for the favored few, but Burns

wrote for all his neighbors. His first book was bought farmers, plowboys,

milkmaids,--by every Lowlander who could scrape together three shillings to

buy a treasure. Then scholars got hold of it, taking it from humble hands,

and Burns was called to Edinburgh to prepare a larger edition of his songs.

For a half century Scotland kept him to herself, [Footnote: Up to 1850

Burns was rarely mentioned in treatises on English literature. One reason

for his late recognition was that the Lowland vocabulary employed in most

of his poems was only half intelligible to the ordinary English reader]

then his work went wide in the world, to be read again by plain men and

women, by sailors on the sea, by soldiers round the campfire, by farmers,

mechanics, tradesmen, who in their new homes in Australia or America warmed

themselves at the divine fire which was kindled, long ago, in the little

clay biggin at Alloway.

[Illustration: BURNS'S MAUSOLEUM]

[Sidenote: THE GENIUS OF BURNS]

If one should ask, Why this world wide welcome to Burns, the while Pope

remains a mark for literary criticism? the answer is that Burns has a most

extraordinary power of touching the hearts of common men. He is one of the

most democratic of poets, he takes for his subject a simple experience--a

family gathering at eventide, a fair, a merrymaking, a joy, a grief, the

finding of a flower, the love of a lad for a lass--and with rare simplicity

reflects the emotion that such an experience awakens. Seen through the

poet's eyes, this simple emotion becomes radiant and lovely, a thing not of

earth but of heaven. That is the genius of Burns, to ennoble human feeling,

to reveal some hidden beauty in a commonplace experience. The luminous

world of fine thought and fine emotion which we associate with the name of

poetry he opened not to scholars alone but to all humble folk who toil and

endure. As a shoemaker critic once said, "Burns confirms my former

suspicion that the world was made for me as well as for Cæsar."

* * * * *

MINOR POETS OF ROMANTICISM

There were other poets who aided in the romantic revival, and among them

William Cowper (1731-1800) is one of the most notable. His most ambitious

works, such as _The Task_ and the translation of Homer into blank

verse, have fallen into neglect, and he is known to modern readers chiefly

by a few familiar hymns and by the ballad of "John Gilpin."

[Illustration: WILLIAM COWPER

From the rare engraving by W Blake (1802) After the painting by T

Lawrence, R A (1793)]

Less gifted but more popular than Cowper was James Macpherson (1736-1796),

who made a sensation that spread rapidly over Europe and America with his

_Fingal_ (1762) and other works of the same kind,--wildly heroic poems

which, he alleged, were translations from Celtic manuscripts written by an

ancient bard named Ossian. Another and better literary forgery appeared in

a series of ballads called _The Rowley Papers_, dealing with medieval

themes. These were written by "the marvelous boy" Thomas Chatterton

(1752-1770), who professed to have found the poems in a chest of old

manuscripts. The success of these forgeries, especially of the "Ossian"

poems, is an indication of the awakened interest in medieval poetry and

legend which characterized the whole romantic movement.

In this connection, Thomas Percy (1729-1811) did a notable work when he

published, after years of research, his _Reliques of Ancient English

Poetry_ (1765). This was a collection of old ballads, which profoundly

influenced Walter Scott, and which established a foundation for all later

works of balladry.

Another interesting figure in the romantic revival is William Blake

(1757-1827), a strange, mystic child, a veritable John o' Dreams, whom some

call madman because of his huge, chaotic, unintelligible poems, but whom

others regard as the supreme poetical genius of the eighteenth century. His

only readable works are the boyish _Poetical Sketches_ (1783) and two

later volumes called _Songs of Innocence_ and _Songs of

Experience_ (1794). Even these contain much to make us question Blake's

sanity; but they contain also a few lyrics that might have been written by

an elf rather than a man,--beautiful, elusive lyrics that haunt us like a

strain of gypsy music, a memory of childhood, a bird song in the night:

Can the eagle see what is in the pit,

Or wilt thou go ask the mole?

Can wisdom be put in a silver rod,

Or love in a golden bowl?

In the witchery of these lyrics eighteenth-century poetry appears

commonplace; but they attracted no attention, even "Holy Thursday," the

sweetest song of poor children ever written, passing unnoticed. That did

not trouble Blake, however, who cared nothing for rewards. He was a

childlike soul, well content

To see the world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower;

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

* * * * *

THE EARLY ENGLISH NOVEL

An important literary event of the eighteenth century was the appearance of

the modern novel. This invention, generally credited to the English,

differs radically from the old romance, which was known to all civilized

peoples. Walter Scott made the following distinction between the two types

of fiction: the romance is a story in which our interest centers in

marvelous incidents, brought to pass by extraordinary or superhuman

characters; the novel is a story which is more natural, more in harmony

with our experience of life. Such a definition, though faulty, is valuable

in that it points to the element of imagination as the distinguishing mark

between the romance and the true novel.

[Sidenote: THE ROMANCE]

Take, for example, the romances of Arthur or Sindbad or the Green Knight.

Here are heroes of more than human endurance, ladies of surpassing

loveliness, giants, dragons, enchanters, marvelous adventures in the land

of imagination. Such fanciful stories, valuable as a reflection of the

ideals of different races, reached their highest point in the Middle Ages,

when they were used to convey the ideals of chivalry and knightly duty.

They grew more fantastic as they ran to seed, till in the Elizabethan age

they had degenerated into picaresque stories (from _picaro_, "a

rogue") which recounted the adventures not of a noble knight but of some

scoundrel or outcast. They were finally laughed out of literature in

numerous burlesques, of which the most famous is _Don Quixote_ (1605).

In the humor of this story, in the hero's fighting windmills and meeting so

many adventures that he had no time to breathe, we have an excellent

criticism not of chivalry, as is sometimes alleged, but of extravagant

popular romances on the subject. [Footnote: _Don Quixote_ is commonly

named as a type of extravagant humor, but from another viewpoint it is a

sad book, intensely sad. For it recounts the experience of a man who had a

knightly heart and who believed the world to be governed by knightly

ideals, but who went forth to find a world filled with vulgarity and

villainy.]

[Sidenote: THE NOVEL]

Compare now these old romances with _Ivanhoe_ or _Robinson

Crusoe_ or _Lorna Doone_ or _A Tale of Two Cities_. In each of

the last-named novels one may find three elements: a story, a study, and an

exercise of the creative imagination. A modern work of fiction must still

have a good story, if anybody is to read it; must contain also a study or

observation of humanity, not of superhuman heroes but of men and women who

work or play or worship in close relationship to their fellows. Finally,

the story and the study must be fused by the imagination, which selects or

creates various scenes, characters, incidents, and which orders or arranges

its materials so as to make a harmonious work that appeals to our sense of

truth and beauty; in other words, a work of art.

Such is the real novel, a well-told story in tune with human experience,

holding true to life, exercising fancy but keeping it under control,

arousing thought as well as feeling, and appealing to our intellect as well

as to our imagination. [Footnote: This convenient division of prose fiction

into romances and novels is open to challenge. Some critics use the name

"novel" for any work of prose fiction. They divide novels into two classes,

stories (or short stories) and romances. The story relates simple or

detached incidents; the romance deals with life in complex relations,

dominated by strong emotions, especially by the emotion of love.

Other critics arrange prose fiction in the following classes: novels of

adventure (Robinson Crusoe, The Last of the Mohicans), historical novels

(Ivanhoe, The Spy), romantic novels (Lorna Doone, The Heart of Midlothian),

novels of manners (Cranford, Pride and Prejudice), novels of personality

(Silas Marner, The Scarlet Letter), novels of purpose (Oliver Twist, Uncle

Tom's Cabin).

Still another classification arranges fiction under two heads, romance and

realism. In the romance, which portrays unusual incidents or characters, we

see the ideal, the poetic side of humanity; in the realistic novel, dealing

with ordinary men and women, the prosaic element of life is emphasized.]

DEFOE (1661-1731). Among the forerunners of the modern novel is Daniel Foe,

author of _Robinson Crusoe_, who began to call himself "Defoe" after

he attained fame. He produced an amazing variety of wares: newspapers,

magazines, ghost stories, biographies, journals, memoirs, satires,

picaresque romances, essays on religion, reform, trade, projects,--in all

more than two hundred works. These were written in a picturesque style and

with such a wealth of detail that, though barefaced inventions for the most

part, they passed for veracious chronicles. One critic, thinking of the

vividly realistic _Journal of the Plague Year_ and _Memoirs of a

Cavalier_, says that "Defoe wrote history, but invented the facts";

another declares that "the one little art of which Defoe was past master

was the art of forging a story and imposing it on the world as truth." The

long list of his works ends with a _History of the Devil_, in 1726.

[Illustration: DANIEL DEFOE]

Foe's career was an extraordinary one. By nature and training he

seems to have preferred devious ways to straight, and to have

concealed his chief motive whether he appeared as reformer or

politician, tradesman or writer, police-spy or friend of outcasts.

His education, which he picked up from men and circumstance, was

more varied than any university could have given him. Perhaps the

chief factor in this practical education was his ability to turn

every experience to profitable account. As a journalist he invented

the modern magazine (his _Review_ appeared in 1704, five years

before Steele's _Tatler_); also he projected the interview,

the editorial, the "scoop," and other features which still figure

in our newspapers. As a hired pamphleteer, writing satires against

Whigs or Tories, he learned so many political secrets that when one

party fell he was the best possible man to be employed by the

other. While sitting in the stocks (in punishment for writing a

satirical pamphlet that set Tories and Churchmen by the ears) he

made such a hit with his doggerel verses against the authorities

that crowds came to the pillory to cheer him and to buy his poem.

While in durance vile, in the old Newgate Prison, he mingled freely

with all sorts of criminals (there were no separate cells in those

days), won their secrets, and used them to advantage in his

picaresque romances. He learned also so much of the shady side of

London life that no sooner was he released than he was employed as

a secret service agent, or spy, by the government which had jailed

him.

[Illustration: CUPOLA HOUSE Defoe's residence at Bury]

It is as difficult to find the real Foe amidst such devious trails

as to determine where a caribou is from the maze of footprints

which he leaves behind him. He seems to have been untiring in his

effort to secure better treatment of outcast folk, he speaks of

himself with apparent sincerity, as having received his message

from the Divine Spirit, but the impression which he made upon the

upper classes was reflected by Swift, who called him "a grave,

dogmatical rogue". For many years he was a popular hero, trusted

not only by the poor but by the criminal classes (ordinarily keen

judges of honesty in other men), until his secret connection with

the government became known. Then suspicion fell upon him, his

popularity was destroyed and he fled from London. The last few

years of his life were spent in hiding from real or imaginary

enemies.

[Sidenote: ROBINSON CRUSOE]

Defoe was approaching his sixtieth year when he wrote _Robinson

Crusoe_ (1719), a story which has been read through out the civilized

world, and which, after two centuries of life, is still young and vigorous.

The first charm of the book is in its moving adventures, which are

surprising enough to carry us through the moralizing passages. These also

have their value; for who ever read them without asking, What would I have

done or thought or felt under such circumstances? The work of society is

now so comfortably divided that one seldom dreams of being his own

mechanic, farmer, hunter, herdsman, cook and tailor, as Crusoe was.

Thinking of his experience we are brought face to face with our dependence

on others, with our debt to the countless, unnamed men whose labor made

civilization possible. We understand also the pioneers, who in the far,

lonely places of the earth have won a home and country from the wilderness.

When the adventures are duly appreciated we discover another charm of

_Robinson Crusoe_, namely, its intense reality. Defoe had that

experience of many projects, and that vivid imagination, which enabled him

to put himself in the place of his hero, [Footnote: The basis of

_Robinson Crusoe_ was the experience of an English sailor, Alexander

Selkirk, or Selcraig, who was marooned on the lonely island of Juan

Fernandez, off the coast of Chile. There he lived in solitude for the space

of five years before he was rescued. When Selkirk returned to England

(1709) an account of his adventures appeared in the public press.] to

anticipate his needs, his feelings, his labors and triumph. That Crusoe was

heroic none will deny; yet his heroism was of a different kind from that

which we meet in the old romances. Here was no knight "without fear and

without reproach," but a plain man with his strength and weakness. He

despaired like other men; but instead of giving way to despair he drew up a

list of his blessings and afflictions, "like debtor and creditor," found a

reasonable balance in his favor, and straightway conquered himself,--which

is the first task of all real heroes. Again, he had horrible fears; he beat

his breast, cried out as one in mortal terror; then "I thought that would

do little good, so I began to make a raft." So he overcame his fears, as he

overcame the difficulties of the place, by setting himself to do alone what

a whole race of men had done before him. _Robinson Crusoe_ is

therefore history as well as fiction; its subject is not Alexander Selkirk

but Homo Sapiens; its lesson is the everlasting triumph of will and work.

RICHARDSON. One morning in 1740 the readers of London found a new work for

sale in the bookshops. It was made up of alleged letters from a girl to her

parents, a sentimental girl who opened her heart freely, explaining its

hopes, fears, griefs, temptations, and especially its moral sensibilities.

Such a work of fiction was unique at that time. Delighted readers waited

for another and yet another volume of the same story, till more than a year

had passed and _Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded_ reached its happy ending.

[Sidenote: THE FIRST NOVEL]

The book made a sensation in England; it was speedily translated, and

repeated its triumph on the other side of the Channel. Comparatively few

people could read it now without being bored, but it is famous in the

history of literature as the first English novel; that is, a story of a

human life under stress of emotion, told by one who understood the tastes

of his own age, and who strove to keep his work true to human nature in all

ages.

The author of _Pamela_, Samuel Richardson (1689--1761), was a very

proper person, well satisfied with himself, who conducted a modest business

as printer and bookseller. For years he had practiced writing, and had

often been employed by sentimental young women who came to him for model

love letters. Hence the extraordinary knowledge of feminine feelings which

Richardson displayed; hence also the epistolary form in which his novels

were written. His aim in all his work was to teach morality and correct

deportment. His strength was in his power to analyze and portray emotions.

His weakness lay in his vanity, which led him to shun masculine society and

to foregather at tea tables with women who flattered him.

Led by the success of _Pamela_, which portrayed the feelings of a

servant girl, the author began another series of letters which ended in the

eight-volume novel _Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady_ (1748).

The story appeared in installments, which were awaited with feverish

impatience till the agony drew to an end, and the heroine died amid the

sobs of ten thousand readers. Yet the story had power, and the central

figure of Clarissa was impressive in its pathos and tragedy. The novel

would still be readable if it were stripped of the stilted conversations

and sentimental gush in which Richardson delighted; but that would leave

precious little of the story.

FIELDING. In vigorous contrast with the prim and priggish Richardson is

Henry Fielding (1707-1754), a big, jovial, reckless man, full of animal

spirits, who was ready to mitigate any man's troubles or forget his own by

means of a punch bowl or a venison potpie. He was noble born, but seems to

have been thrown on the world to shift for himself. After an excellent

education he studied law, and was for some years a police magistrate, in

which position he increased his large knowledge of the seamy side of life.

He had a pen for vigorous writing, and after squandering two modest

fortunes (his own and his wife's) he proceeded to earn his living by

writing buffooneries for the stage. Then appeared Richardson's _Pamela,

or Virtue Rewarded_, and in ridiculing its sentimental heroine Fielding

found his vocation as a novelist.

[Sidenote: BURLESQUE OF RICHARDSON]

He began _Joseph Andrews_ (1742) as a joke, by taking for his hero an

alleged brother of Pamela, who was also virtuous but whose reward was to be

kicked out of doors. Then the story took to the open road, among the inns

and highways of an age when traveling in rural England was almost as

adventurous as campaigning in Flanders. In the joy of his story Fielding

soon forgot his burlesque of Richardson, and attempted what he called a

realistic novel; that is, a story of real life. The morality and decorum

which Richardson exalted appeared to Fielding as hypocrisy; so he devoted

himself to a portrayal of men and manners as he found them.

Undoubtedly there were plenty of good men and manners at that time, but

Fielding had a vagabond taste that delighted in rough scenes, and of these

also eighteenth-century England could furnish an abundance. Hence his

_Joseph_ Andrews is a picture not of English society, as is often

alleged, but only of the least significant part of society. The same is

true of _Tom Jones_ (1749), which is the author's most vigorous work,

and of _Amelia_ (1751), in which, though he portrays one good woman,

he repeats many of the questionable incidents of his earlier works.

There is power in all these novels, the power of keen observation, of rough

humor, of downright sincerity; but unhappily the power often runs to waste

in long speeches to the reader, in descriptions of brutal or degrading

scenes, and in a wholly unnecessary coarseness of expression.

INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY NOVELS. The idea of the modern novel seems to have

been developed by several English authors, each of whom, like pioneers in a

new country, left his stamp on subsequent works in the same field.

Richardson's governing motive may be summed up in the word "sensibility,"

which means "delicacy of feeling," and which was a fashion, almost a

fetish, in eighteenth-century society. Because it was deemed essential to

display proper or decorous feeling on all occasions, Richardson's heroines

were always analyzing their emotions; they talked like a book of etiquette;

they indulged in tears, fainting, transports of joy, paroxysms of grief,

apparently striving to make themselves as unlike a real woman as possible.

It is astonishing how far and wide this fad of sensibility spread through

the literary world, and how many gushing heroines of English and American

fiction during the next seventy-five years were modeled on Pamela or

Clarissa.

In view of this artificial fashion, the influence of Fielding was like the

rush of crisp air into a hot house. His aim was realistic, that is, to

portray real people in their accustomed ways. Unfortunately his aim was

spoiled by the idea that to be realistic one must go to the gutter for

material. And then appeared Goldsmith, too much influenced by the fad of

sensibility, but aiming to depict human life as governed by high ideals,

and helping to cleanse the English novel from brutality and indecency.

[Sidenote: THREEFOLD INFLUENCE]

There were other early novelists, a host of them, but in Richardson,

Fielding and Goldsmith we have enough. Richardson emphasized the analysis

of human feeling or motive, and that of itself was excellent; but his

exaggerated sentimentality set a bad fashion which our novelists were

almost a century in overcoming. Fielding laid stress on realism, and that

his influence was effective is shown in the work of his disciple Thackeray,

who could be realistic without being coarse. And Goldsmith made all

subsequent novelists his debtors by exalting that purity of domestic life

to which every home worthy of the name forever strives or aspires.

If it be asked, What novels of the early type ought one to read? the answer

is simple. Unless you want to curdle your blood by a tale of mystery and

horror (in which case Mrs. Radcliffe's _Mysteries of Udolpho_ will

serve the purpose) there are only two that young readers will find

satisfactory: the realistic _Robinson Crusoe_ by Defoe, and the

romantic _Vicar of Wakefield_ by Goldsmith.

* * * * *

SUMMARY. What we call eighteenth-century literature appeared

between two great political upheavals, the English Revolution of

1688 and the French Revolution of 1789. Some of the chief

characteristics of that literature--such as the emphasis on form,

the union of poetry with politics, the prevalence of satire, the

interest in historical subjects--have been accounted for, in part

at least, in our summary of the history of the period.

The writings of the century are here arranged in three main

divisions: the reign of formalism (miscalled classicism), the

revival of romantic poetry, and the development of the modern

novel. Our study of the so-called classic period includes: (1) The

meaning of classicism in literature. (2) The life and works of

Pope, the leading poet of the age; of Swift, a master of satire; of

Addison and Steele, the graceful essayists who originated the

modern literary magazine. (3) The work of Dr. Johnson and his

school; in which we have included, for convenience, Edmund Burke,

most eloquent of English orators, and Gibbon the historian, famous

for his _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_.

Our review of the romantic writers of the age covers: (1) The work

of Collins and Gray, whose imaginative poems are in refreshing

contrast to the formalism of Pope and his school. (2) The life and

works of Goldsmith, poet, playwright, novelist; and of Burns, the

greatest of Scottish song writers. (3) A glance at other poets,

such as Cowper and Blake, who aided in the romantic revival. (4)

The renewed interest in ballads and legends, which showed itself in

Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, and in two

famous forgeries, the _Ossian_ poems of Macpherson and _The

Rowley Papers_ of the boy Chatterton.

Our study of the novel includes: (1) The meaning of the modern

novel, as distinct from the ancient romance. (2) A study of Defoe,

author of _Robinson Crusoe_, who was a forerunner of the

modern realistic novelist. (3) The works of Richardson and of

Fielding, contrasting types of eighteenth-century story-tellers.

(4) The influence of Richardson's sentimentality, of Fielding's

realism, and of Goldsmith's moral purity on subsequent English

fiction.

SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections are given in Manly,

English Poetry and English Prose, Century Readings, and other

miscellaneous collections. Important works of major writers are

published in inexpensive editions for school use, a few of which

are named below.

Pope's poems, selected, in Standard English Classics, Pocket

Classics, Riverside Literature, and other series. (See Texts, in

General Bibliography.)

Selections from Swift's works, in Athenæum Press, Holt's English

Readings, Clarendon Press. Gulliver's Travels, in Standard English

Classics, in Ginn and Company's Classics for Children, in

Carisbrooke Library, in Temple Classics.

Selections from Addison and Steele, in Athenæum Press, Golden

Treasury, Maynard's English Classics. Sir Roger de Coverley Papers,

in Standard English Classics, Riverside Literature, Academy

Classics.

Chesterfield's Letters to his son, selected, in Ginn and Company's

Classics for Children, and in Maynard's English Classics.

Boswell's Life of Johnson, in Clarendon Press, Temple Classics,

Everyman's Library.

Burke's Speeches, selected, in Standard English Classics, Pocket

Classics, English Readings.

Selections from Gray, in Athenæum Press, Canterbury Poets,

Riverside Literature.

Goldsmith's Deserted Village and Vicar of Wakefield, in Standard

English Classics, King's Classics; She Stoops to Conquer, in Pocket

Classics, Belles Lettres Series, Cassell's National Library.

Sheridan's The Rivals, in Athenæum Press, Camelot Series, Riverside

Literature, Everyman's Library.

Poems of Burns, selected, in Standard English Classics, Riverside

Literature, Silver Classics.

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, school edition by Ginn and Company; the

same in Everyman's Library, Pocket Classics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. For extensive manuals and texts see the General

Bibliography. The following works deal chiefly with the eighteenth

century.

_HISTORY_. Morris, Age of Queen Anne and the Early Hanoverians

(Epochs of Modern History Series); Sydney, England and the English

in the Eighteenth Century; Susan Hale, Men and Manners in the

Eighteenth Century; Ashton, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne;

Thackeray, The Four Georges.

_LITERATURE_. L. Stephen, English Literature in the Eighteenth

Century; Perry, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century;

Seccombe, The Age of Johnson; Dennis, The Age of Pope; Gosse,

History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Century; Whitwell,

Some Eighteenth-Century Men of Letters; Phelps, Beginnings of the

English Romantic Movement; Beers, English Romanticism in the

Eighteenth Century; Thackeray, English Humorists.

_Pope_. Life, by Courthope; by L. Stephen (English Men of

Letters Series). Essays, by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by L.

Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Lowell, in My Study Windows.

_Swift_. Life, by Forster; by L. Stephen (E. M. of L.).

Essays, by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by Dobson, in

Eighteenth Century Vignettes.

_Addison and Steele_. Life of Addison, by Courthope (E. M. of

L.). Life of Steele, by Dobson. Essays by Macaulay, by Thackeray,

by Dobson.

_Johnson_. Life, by Boswell (for personal details); by L.

Stephen (E. M. of L.). Hill, Dr. Johnson: his Friends and his

Critics. Essays by Macaulay, by Thackeray, by L. Stephen.

_Burke_. Life, by Morley (E. M. of L.), by Prior. Macknight,

Life and Times of Burke.

_Gibbon_. Life, by Morrison (E. M. of L.). Essays, by Birrell,

in Collected Essays; by L. Stephen, in Studies of a Biographer; by

Harrison, in Ruskin and Other Literary Estimates; by Sainte-Beuve,

in English Portraits.

_Gray_. Life, by Gosse. Essays by Lowell, M. Arnold, L.

Stephen, Dobson.

_Goldsmith_. Life, by Washington Irving, by Dobson (Great

Writers Series), by Black (E. M. of L.), by Forster. Essays, by

Macaulay; by Thackeray, in English Humorists; by Dobson, in

Miscellanies.

_Burns_. Life, by Shairp (E. M. of L.), by Blackie (Great

Writers). Carlyle's Essay on Burns, in Standard English Classics

and other school editions. Essays, by Stevenson, in Familiar

Studies of Men and Books; by Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English

Poets; by Henley, in Introduction to the Cambridge Edition of

Burns.

_The Novel. Raleigh, The English Novel; Cross, Development of the

English Novel; Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction; Symonds,

Introduction to the Study of English Fiction; Dawson, Makers of

English Fiction.

_Defoe_. Life, by Minto (E. M. of L.), by William Lee. Essay

by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library.

_Richardson_. Life, by Thomson, by Dobson. Essays, by L.

Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Dobson, in Eighteenth Century

Vignettes.

_Fielding_. Life, by Dobson (E. M. of L.). Lawrence, Life and

Times of Fielding. Essays by Lowell, L. Stephen, Dobson; Thackeray,

in English Humorists; G. B. Smith, in Poets and Novelists.

_FICTION_. Thackeray, Henry Esmond, and The Virginians; Scott,

Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian, Redgauntlet; Reade,

Peg Woffington.

CHAPTER VII

THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

Two voices are there; one is of the sea,

One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:

In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,

They were thy chosen music, Liberty!

Wordsworth, "Sonnet to Switzerland"

The many changes recorded in the political and literary history of

nineteenth-century England may be grouped under two heads: the progress of

democracy in government, and the triumph of romanticism in literature. By

democracy we mean the assumption by common men of the responsibilities of

government, with a consequent enlargement of human liberty. Romanticism, as

we use the term here, means simply that literature, like politics, has

become liberalized; that it is concerned with the common life of men, and

that the delights of literature, like the powers of government, are no

longer the possession of the few but of the many.

HISTORICAL OUTLINE. To study either democracy or romanticism, the

Whig party or the poetry of Wordsworth, is to discover how greatly

England was influenced by matters that appeared beyond her borders.

The famous Reform Bill (1832) which established manhood suffrage,

the emancipation of the slaves in all British colonies, the

hard-won freedom of the press, the plan of popular

education,--these and numberless other reforms of the age may be

regarded as part of a general movement, as the attempt to fulfill

in England a promise made to the world by two events which occurred

earlier and on foreign soil. These two events, which profoundly

influenced English politics and literature, were the Declaration of

Independence and the French Revolution.

[Sidenote: TWO REVOLUTIONS]

In the Declaration we read, "We hold these truths to be

self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed

by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these

are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Glorious words!

But they were not new; they were old and familiar when Jefferson

wrote them. The American Revolution, which led up to the

Declaration, is especially significant in this: that it began as a

struggle not for new privileges but for old rights. So the

constructive character of that Revolution, which ended with a

democracy and a noble constitution, was due largely to the fact

that brave men stood ready to defend the old freedom, the old

manhood, the old charters, "the good old cause" for which other

brave men had lived or died through a thousand years.

A little later, and influenced by the American triumph, came

another uprising of a different kind. In France the unalienable

rights of man had been forgotten during ages of tyranny and class

privilege; so the French Revolution, shouting its watchwords of

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, had no conception of that liberty

and equality which were as ancient as the hills. Leaders and

followers of the Revolution were clamoring for new privileges, new

rights, new morals, new creeds. They acclaimed an "Age of Reason"

as a modern and marvelous discovery; they dreamed not simply of a

new society, but of a new man. A multitude of clubs or parties,

some political, some literary or educational, some with a pretense

of philosophy, sprang up as if by magic, all believing that they

must soon enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but nearly all forgetful of

the fact that to enter the Kingdom one must accept the old

conditions, and pay the same old price. Partly because of this

strange conception of liberty, as a new thing to be established by

fiat, the terrible struggle in France ended in the ignoble military

despotism of Napoleon.

[Sidenote: EFFECT OF THE REVOLUTIONS]

These two revolutions, one establishing and the other clamoring for

the dignity of manhood, created a mighty stir throughout the

civilized world. Following the French Revolution, most European

nations were thrown into political ferment, and the object of all

their agitation, rebellion, upheaval, was to obtain a greater

measure of democracy by overturning every form of class or caste

government. Thrones seemed to be tottering, and in terror of their

houses Continental sovereigns entered into their Holy Alliance

(1815) with the unholy object of joining forces to crush democracy

wherever it appeared.

THE REVOLUTION AND LITERATURE. The young writers of liberty-loving England

felt the stir, the _sursum_ of the age. Wordsworth, most sedate of

men, saw in the French Revolution a glorious prophecy, and wrote with

unwonted enthusiasm:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very Heaven.

Coleridge and Southey formed their grand scheme of a Pantisocracy, a

government of perfect equality, on the banks of the Susquehanna. Scott

(always a Tory, and therefore distrustful of change) reflected the

democratic enthusiasm in a score of romances, the chief point of which was

this: that almost every character was at heart a king, and spake right

kingly fashion. Byron won his popularity largely because he was an

uncompromising rebel, and appealed to young rebels who were proclaiming the

necessity of a new human society. And Shelley, after himself rebelling at

almost every social law of his day, wrote his _Prometheus Unbound_,

which is a vague but beautiful vision of humanity redeemed in some magical

way from all oppression and sorrow.

All these and other writers of the age give the impression, as we read them

now, that they were gloriously expectant of a new day of liberty that was

about to dawn on the world. Their romantic enthusiasm, so different from

the cold formality of the age preceding, is a reflection, like a rosy

sunset glow, of the stirring scenes of revolution through which the world

had just passed.

* * * * *

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)

There is but one way to know Wordsworth, and that way leads to his nature

poems. Though he lived in a revolutionary age, his life was singularly

uneventful. His letters are terribly prosaic; and his _Excursion_, in

which he attempted an autobiography, has so many dull lines that few have

patience to read it. Though he asserted, finely, that there is but one

great society on earth, "the noble living and the noble dead," he held no

communion with the great minds of the past or of the present. He lived in

his own solitary world, and his only real companion was nature. To know

nature at first hand, and to reflect human thought or feeling in nature's

pure presence,--this was his chief object. His field, therefore, is a small

one, but in that field he is the greatest master that England has thus far

produced.

[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH]

LIFE. Wordsworth is as inseparably connected with the English Lake

District as Burns with the Lowlands or Scott with the Border. A

large part of the formative period of his life was spent out of

doors amid beautiful scenery, where he felt the abounding life of

nature streaming upon him in the sunshine, or booming in his ears

with the steady roar of the March winds. He felt also (what

sensitive spirits still feel) a living presence that met him in the

loneliest wood, or spoke to him in the flowers, or preceded him

over the wind-swept hills. He was one of those favored mortals who

are surest of the Unseen. From school he would hurry away to his

skating or bird-nesting or aimless roaming, and every new day

afield was to him "One of those heavenly days that cannot die."

[Sidenote: WORDSWORTH AND THE REVOLUTION]

From the Lake Region he went to Cambridge, but found little in

college life to attract or hold him. Then, stirred by the promise

of the Revolution, he went to France, where his help was eagerly

sought by rival parties; for in that day every traveler from

America or England, whether an astute Jefferson or a lamblike

Wordsworth, was supposed to be, by virtue of his country, a master

politician Wordsworth threw himself rather blindly into the

Revolution, joined the Girondists (the ruling faction in 1792) and

might have gone to the guillotine with the leaders of that party

had not his friends brought him home by the simple expedient of

cutting off his supply of money. Thus ended ingloriously the only

adventure that ever quickened his placid life.

For a time Wordsworth mourned over the failure of his plans, but

his grief turned to bitterness when the Revolution passed over into

the Reign of Terror and ended in the despotism of Napoleon. His

country was now at war with France, and he followed his country,

giving mild support to Burke and the Tory party. After a few

uncertain years, during which he debated his calling in life, he

resolved on two things: to be a poet, and to bring back to English

poetry the romantic spirit and the naturalness of expression which

had been displaced by the formal elegance of the age of Pope and

Johnson.

[Illustration: WORDSWORTH'S DESK IN HAWKSHEAD SCHOOL]

For that resolution we are indebted partly to Coleridge, who had

been attracted by some of Wordsworth's early poems, and who

encouraged him to write more. From the association of these two men

came the famous _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798), a book which marks

the beginning of a new era in English poetry.

To Wordsworth's sister Dorothy we are even more indebted. It was

she who soothed Wordsworth's disappointment, reminded him of the

world of nature in which alone he was at home, and quietly showed

him where his power lay. As he says, in _The Prelude_

She whispered still that brightness would return,

She, in the midst of all preserved me still

A poet, made me seek beneath that name,

And that alone, my office upon earth

[Sidenote: PERSONAL TRAITS]

The latter half of Wordsworth's life was passed in the Lake Region,

at Grasmere and Rydal Mount for the most part, the continuity being

broken by walking trips in Britain or on the Continent. A very

quiet, uneventful life it was, but it revealed two qualities which

are of interest to Wordsworth's readers. The first was his devotion

to his art; the second was his granite steadfastness. His work was

at first neglected, while the poems of Scott, Byron and Tennyson in

succession attained immense popularity. The critics were nearly all

against him; misunderstanding his best work and ridiculing the

rest. The ground of their opposition was, that his theory of the

utmost simplicity in poetry was wrong; their ridicule was made

easier by the fact that Wordsworth produced as much bad work as

good. Moreover, he took himself very seriously, had no humor, and,

as visitors like Emerson found to their disappointment, was

interested chiefly in himself and his own work. For was he not

engaged in the greatest of all projects, an immense poem (_The

Recluse_) which should reflect the universe in the life of one

man, and that man William Wordsworth? Such self-satisfaction

invited attack; even Lamb, the gentlest of critics, could hardly

refrain from poking fun at it:

"Wordsworth, the great poet, is coming to town; he is to

have apartments in the Mansion House. He says he does not

see much difficulty in writing like Shakespeare, if he had

a mind to try it. It is clear that nothing is wanting but

the mind."

[Sidenote: HIS TRIUMPH]

Slowly but surely Wordsworth won recognition, not simply in being

made Laureate, but in having his ideal of poetry vindicated. Poets

in England and America began to follow him; the critics were

silenced, if not convinced. While the popularity of Scott and Byron

waned, the readers of Wordsworth increased steadily, finding him a

poet not of the hour but of all time. "If a single man plant

himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide," says

Emerson, "the huge world will come around to him." If the reading

world has not yet come around to Wordsworth, that is perhaps not

the poet's fault.

WORDSWORTH: HIS THEME AND THEORY. The theory which Wordsworth and Coleridge

formulated was simply this: that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of

powerful human feeling. Its only subjects are nature and human nature; its

only object is to reflect the emotions awakened by our contemplation of the

world or of humanity; its language must be as direct and simple as

possible, such language as rises unbidden to the lips whenever the heart is

touched. Though some of the world's best poets have taken a different view,

Wordsworth maintained steadily that poetry must deal with common subjects

in the plainest language; that it must not attempt to describe, in elegant

phrases, what a poet is supposed to feel about art or some other subject

selected for its poetic possibilities.

[Sidenote: NATURAL VS. FORMAL POETRY]

In the last contention Wordsworth was aiming at the formal school of

poetry, and we may better understand him by a comparison. Read, for

example, his exquisite "Early Spring" ("I heard a thousand blended notes").

Here in twenty-four lines are more naturalness, more real feeling finely

expressed, than you can find in the poems of Dryden, Johnson and Addison

combined. Or take the best part of "The Campaign," which made Addison's

fortune, and which was acclaimed the finest thing ever written:

So when an angel by divine command

With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,

(Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past)

Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;

And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,

Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

To know how artificial that famous simile is, read a few lines from

Wordsworth's "On the Sea-Shore," which lingers in our mind like a strain of

Handel's music:

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,

The holy time is quiet as a Nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun

Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:

Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder--everlastingly.

If such comparisons interest the student, let him read Addison's "Letter to

Lord Halifax," with its Apostrophe to Liberty, which was considered sublime

in its day:

O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright,

Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!

Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,

And smiling Plenty leads thy wanton train;

Eased of her load, Subjection grows more light,

And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;

Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,

Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.

Place beside that the first four lines of Wordsworth's sonnet "To

Switzerland" (quoted at the head of this chapter), or a stanza from his

"Ode to Duty":

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear

The Godhead's most benignant grace;

Nor know we anything so fair

As is the smile upon thy face:

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,

And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,

And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

To follow such a comparison is to understand Wordsworth by sympathy; it is

to understand also the difference between poetry and formal verse.

THE POEMS OF WORDSWORTH. As the reading of literature is the main thing,

the only word of criticism which remains is to direct the beginner; and

direction is especially necessary in dealing with Wordsworth, who wrote

voluminously, and who lacked both the critical judgment and the sense of

humor to tell him what parts of his work were inferior or ridiculous:

There's something in a flying horse,

There's something in a huge balloon!

To be sure; springs in the one, gas in the other; but if there were

anything more poetic in horse or balloon, Wordsworth did not discover it.

There is something also in a cuckoo clock, or even in

A household tub, one such as those

Which women use to wash their clothes.

Such banalities are to be found in the work of a poet who could produce the

exquisite sonnet "On Westminster Bridge," the finely simple "I Wandered

Lonely as a Cloud," the stirring "Ode to Duty," the tenderly reflective

"Tintern Abbey," and the magnificent "Intimations of Immortality," which

Emerson (who was not a very safe judge) called "the high water mark of

poetry in the nineteenth century." These five poems may serve as the first

measure of Wordsworth's genius.

[Sidenote: POEMS OF NATURE]

A few of Wordsworth's best nature poems are: "Early Spring," "Three Years

She Grew," "The Fountain," "My Heart Leaps Up," "The Tables Turned," "To a

Cuckoo," "To a Skylark" (the second poem, beginning, "Ethereal minstrel")

and "Yarrow Revisited." The spirit of all his nature poems is reflected in

"Tintern Abbey," which gives us two complementary views of nature,

corresponding to Wordsworth's earlier and later experience. The first is

that of the boy, roaming foot-loose over the face of nature, finding, as

Coleridge said, "Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere." The second

is that of the man who returns to the scenes of his boyhood, finds them as

beautiful as ever, but pervaded now by a spiritual quality,--"something

which defies analysis, undefined and ineffable, which must be felt and

perceived by the soul."

It was this spiritual view of nature, as a reflection of the Divine, which

profoundly influenced Bryant, Emerson and other American writers. The

essence of Wordsworth's teaching, in his nature poems, appears in the last

two lines of his "Skylark," a bird that soars the more gladly to heaven

because he must soon return with joy to his own nest:

Type of the wise, who soar but never roam:

True to the kindred points of heaven and home.

[Sidenote: POEMS OF HUMBLE LIFE]

Of the poems more closely associated with human life, a few the best are:

"Michael," "The Highland Reaper," "The Leech Gatherers," "Margaret" (in

_The Excursion_), "Brougham Castle," "The Happy Warrior," "Peel Castle

in a Storm," "Three Years She Grew," "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways"

and "She was a Phantom of Delight." In such poems we note two significant

characteristics: that Wordsworth does not seek extraordinary characters,

but is content to show the hidden beauty in the lives of plain men and

women; and that his heroes and heroines dwell, as he said, where "labor

still preserves his rosy face." They are natural men and women, and are

therefore simple and strong; the quiet light in their faces is reflected

from the face of the fields. In his emphasis on natural simplicity, virtue,

beauty, Wordsworth has again been, as he desired, a teacher of multitudes.

His moral teaching may be summed up in three lines from _The

Excursion_:

The primal duties shine aloft like stars;

The charities that soothe and heal and bless

Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.

[Sidenote: THE SONNETS]

In the number and fine quality of his sonnets Wordsworth has no superior in

English poetry. Simplicity, strength, deep thought, fine feeling, careful

workmanship,--these qualities are present in measure more abundant than can

be found elsewhere in the poet's work:

Bees that soar for bloom,

High as the highest peak of Furness-fells,

Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells.

In these three lines from "On the Sonnet" (which should be read entire) is

the explanation why Wordsworth, who was often diffuse, found joy in

compressing his whole poem into fourteen lines. A few other sonnets which

can be heartily recommended are: "Westminster Bridge," "The Seashore," "The

World," "Venetian Republic," "To Sleep," "Toussaint L'Ouverture,"

"Afterthoughts," "To Milton" (sometimes called "London, 1802") and the

farewell to Scott when he sailed in search of health, beginning, "A trouble

not of clouds or weeping rain."

Not until one has learned to appreciate Wordsworth at his best will it be

safe to attempt _The Prelude, or the Growth of a Poet's Mind_. Most

people grow weary of this poem, which is too long; but a few read it with

pleasure for its portrayal of Wordsworth's education at the hand of Nature,

or for occasional good lines which lure us on like miners in search of

gold. _The Prelude_, though written at thirty-five, was not published

till after Wordsworth's death, and for this reason: he had planned an

immense poem, dealing with Nature, Man and Society, which he called _The

Recluse_, and which he likened to a Gothic cathedral. His _Prelude_

was the "ante-chapel" of this work; his miscellaneous odes, sonnets and

narrative poems were to be as so many "cells and oratories"; other parts of

the structure were _The Home at Grasmere_ and _The Excursion_,

which he may have intended as transepts, or as chapels.

[Illustration: ST. OSWALD'S CHURCH, GRASMERE

Wordsworth's body was buried in the churchyard See _The Excursion_, Book V]

This great work was left unfinished, and one may say of it, as of Spenser's

_Faery Queen_, that it is better so. Like other poets of venerable

years Wordsworth wrote many verses that were better left in the inkpot; and

it is a pity, in dealing with so beautiful and necessary a thing as poetry,

that one should ever reach the point of saying, sadly but truthfully,

"Enough is too much."

* * * * *

COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY

The story of these two men is a commentary on the uncertainties of literary

fortune. Both won greater reward and reputation than fell to the lot of

Wordsworth; but while the fame of the latter poet mounts steadily with the

years, the former have become, as it were, footnotes to the great

contemporary with whom they were associated, under the name of "Lake

Poets," for half a glorious century.

[Illustration: SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE]

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834). The tragedy _Remorse_, which

Coleridge wrote, is as nothing compared with the tragedy of his own life.

He was a man of superb natural gifts, of vast literary culture, to whose

genius the writers of that age--Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey,

Shelley, Landor, Southey--nearly all bear witness. He might well have been

a great poet, or critic, or philosopher, or teacher; but he lacked the will

power to direct his gifts to any definite end. His irresolution became

pitiful weakness when he began to indulge in the drug habit, which soon

made a slave of him. Thereafter he impressed all who met him with a sense

of loss and inexpressible sorrow.

[Sidenote: LIFE OF COLERIDGE]

Coleridge began to read at three years of age; at five he had gone

through the Bible and the Arabian Nights; at thirty he was perhaps

the most widely read man of his generation in the fields of

literature and philosophy. He was a student in a famous charity

school in London when he met Charles Lamb, who records his memories

of the boy and the place in his charming essay of "Christ's

Hospital." At college he was one of a band of enthusiasts inspired

by the French Revolution, and with Southey he formed a plan to

establish in America a world-reforming Pantisocracy, or communistic

settlement, where all should be brothers and equals, and where a

little manual work was to be tempered by much play, poetry and

culture. Europeans had queer ideas of America in those days. This

beautiful plan failed, because the reformers did not have money

enough to cross the ocean and stake out their Paradise.

[Illustration: THE COLERIDGE COTTAGE, NETHER STOWEY, IN

SOMERSETSHIRE]

The next important association of Coleridge was with Wordsworth and

his sister Dorothy, in Somerset, where the three friends planned

and published the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798. In this work

Wordsworth attempted to portray the charm of common things, and

Coleridge to give reality to a world of dreams and fantasies.

Witness the two most original poems in the book, "Tintern Abbey"

and "The Ancient Mariner."

During the latter part of his life Coleridge won fame by his

lectures on English poetry and German philosophy, and still greater

fame by his conversations,--brilliant, heaven-scaling monologues,

which brought together a company of young enthusiasts. And

presently these disciples of Coleridge were spreading abroad a new

idealistic philosophy, which crossed the ocean, was welcomed by

Emerson and a host of young writers or reformers, and appeared in

American literature as Transcendentalism.

[Sidenote: STORIES OF COLERIDGE]

Others who heard the conversations were impressed in a

somewhat different way. Keats met Coleridge on the road,

one day, and listened dumbfounded to an ecstatic discourse

on poetry, nightingales, the origin of sensation, dreams

(four kinds), consciousness, creeds, ghost stories,--"he

broached a thousand matters" while the poets were walking a

space of two miles.

Walter Scott, meeting Coleridge at a dinner, listened with

his head in a whirl to a monologue on fairies, the

classics, ancient mysteries, visions, ecstasies, the

psychology of poetry, the poetry of metaphysics. "Zounds!"

says Scott, "I was never so bethumped with words."

Charles Lamb, hurrying to his work, encountered Coleridge

and was drawn aside to a quiet garden. There the poet took

Lamb by a button of his coat, closed his eyes, and began to

discourse, his right hand waving to the rhythm of the

flowing words. No sooner was Coleridge well started than

Lamb slyly took out his penknife, cut off the button, and

escaped unobserved. Some hours later, as he passed the

garden on his return, Lamb heard a voice speaking most

musically; he turned aside in wonder, and there stood

Coleridge, his eyes closed, his left hand holding the

button, his right hand waving, "still talking like an

angel."

Such are the stories, true or apocryphal, of Coleridge's

conversations. Their bewildering quality appears, somewhat dimmed,

in his prose works, which have been finely compared with the flight

of an eagle on set wings, sweeping in wide circles, balancing,

soaring, mounting on the winds. But we must note this difference:

that the eagle keeps his keen eye on the distant earth, and always

knows just where he is; while Coleridge sees only the wonders of

Cloudland, and appears to be hopelessly lost.

[Sidenote: HIS PROSE AND POETRY]

The chief prose works of Coleridge are his _Biographia Literaria_ (a

brilliant patchwork of poetry and metaphysics), _Aids to Reflection_,

_Letters and Table Talk_ (the most readable of his works), and

_Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare_. These all contain fine gold, but

the treasure is for those doughty miners the critics rather than for

readers who go to literature for recreation. Among the best of his

miscellaneous poems (and Coleridge at his best has few superiors) are

"Youth and Age," "Love Poems," "Hymn before Sunrise," "Ode to the Departing

Year," and the pathetic "Ode to Dejection," which is a reflection of the

poet's saddened but ever hopeful life.

Two other poems, highly recommended by most critics, are the fragments

"Kubla Khan" and "Christabel"; but in dealing with these the reader may do

well to form his own judgment. Both fragments contain beautiful lines, but

as a whole they are wandering, disjointed, inconsequent,--mere sketches,

they seem, of some weird dream of mystery or terror which Coleridge is

trying in vain to remember.

[Sidenote: THE ANCIENT MARINER]

The most popular of Coleridge's works is his imperishable "Rime of the

Ancient Mariner," a wildly improbable poem of icebound or tropic seas, of

thirst-killed sailors, of a phantom ship sailed by a crew of ghosts,--all

portrayed in the vivid, picturesque style of the old ballad. When the

"Mariner" first appeared it was dismissed as a cock-and-bull story; yet

somehow readers went back to it, again and again, as if fascinated. It was

passed on to the next generation; and still we read it, and pass it on. For

this grotesque tale differs from all others of its kind in that its lines

have been quoted for over a hundred years as a reflection of some profound

human experience. That is the genius of the work: it takes the most

fantastic illusions and makes them appear as real as any sober journey

recorded in a sailor's log book. [Footnote: In connection with the "Ancient

Mariner" one should read the legends of "The Flying Dutchman" and "The

Wandering Jew." Poe's story "A Manuscript Found in a Bottle" is based on

these legends and on Coleridge's poem.]

At the present time our enjoyment of the "Mariner" is somewhat hampered by

the critical commentaries which have fastened upon the poem, like barnacles

on an old ship. It has been studied as a type of the romantic ballad, as a

moral lesson, as a tract against cruelty to animals, as a model of college

English. But that is no way to abuse a poet's fancy! To appreciate the

"Mariner" as the author intended, one should carry it off to the hammock or

orchard; there to have freedom of soul to enjoy a well-spun yarn, a

gorgeous flight of imagination, a poem which illustrates Coleridge's

definition of poetry as "the bloom and the fragrance of all human

knowledge, thoughts, emotions, language." It broadens one's sympathy, as

well as one's horizon, to accompany this ancient sailor through scenes of

terror and desolation:

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide, wide sea:

So lonely 't was, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.

In the midst of such scenes come blessed memories of a real world, of the

beauty of unappreciated things, such as the "sweet jargoning" of birds:

And now 'twas like all instruments,

Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on

A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night

Singeth a quiet tune.

Whoever is not satisfied with that for its own sake, without moral or

analysis, has missed the chief interest of all good poetry.

ROBERT SOUTHEY. In contrast with the irresolution of Coleridge is the

steadfastness of Southey (1774-1843), a man of strong character, of

enormous industry. For fifty years he worked steadily, day and half the

night, turning out lyrics, ballads, epics, histories, biographies,

translations, reviews,--an immense amount of stuff, filling endless

volumes. Kind nature made up for Southey's small talent by giving him a

great opinion of it, and he believed firmly that his work was as immortal

as the _Iliad_.

[Illustration: ROBERT SOUTHEY]

With the exception of a few short poems, such as the "Battle of Blenheim,"

"Lodore," "The Inchcape Rock" and "Father William" (parodied in the

nonsense of _Alice in Wonderland_), the mass of Southey's work is

already forgotten. Deserving of mention, however, are his _Peninsular

War_ and his _Life of Nelson_, both written in a straightforward

style, portraying patriotism without the usual sham, and a first-class

fighting man without brag or bluster. Curious readers may also be attracted

by the epics of Southey (such as _Madoc_, the story of a Welsh prince

who anticipated Columbus), which contain plenty of the marvelous adventures

that give interest to the romances of Jules Verne and the yarns of Rider

Haggard.

It as Southey's habit to work by the clock, turning out chapters as another

man might dig potatoes. One day, as he plodded along, a fairy must have

whispered in his car; for he suddenly produced a little story, a gem, a

treasure of a story, and hid it away in a jungle of chapters in a book

called _The Doctor_. Somebody soon discovered the treasure; indeed,

one might as well try to conceal a lighted candle as to hide a good story;

and now it is the most famous work to be found in Southey's hundred volumes

of prose and verse. Few professors could give you any information

concerning _The Doctor_, but almost any child will tell you all about

"The Three Bears." The happy fate of this little nursery tale might

indicate that the final judges of literature are not always or often the

learned critics.

* * * * *

THE REVOLUTIONARY POETS

The above title is often applied to Byron and Shelley, and for two reasons,

because they were themselves rebellious of heart, and because they voiced

the rebellion of numerous other young enthusiasts who, disappointed by the

failure of the French Revolution to bring in the promised age of happiness,

were ready to cry out against the existing humdrum order of society. Both

poets were sadly lacking in mental or moral balance, and finding no chance

in England to wage heroic Warfare against political tyranny, as the French

had done, they proceeded in rather head long fashion to an attack on well

established customs in society, and especially did they strike out wildly

against "the monster Public Opinion." Because the "monster" was stronger

than they were, and more nearly right, their rebellion ended in tragedy.

[Illustration: GRETA HALL (IN THE LAKE REGION)

Where Southey lived, 1803-1839]

LIFE OF BYRON. In the life of George Gordon, Lord Byron

(1788-1824), is so much that call for apology or silence that one

is glad to review his career in briefest outline.

Of his family, noble in name but in nothing else, the least said

the better. He was born in London, but spent his childhood in

Aberdeen, under the alternate care or negligence of his erratic

mother. At ten he fell heir to a title, to the family seat of

Newstead Abbey, and to estates yielding an income of some £1400 per

year,--a large income for a poet, but as nothing to a lord

accustomed to make ducks and drakes of his money. In school and

college his conduct was rather wild, and his taste fantastic For

example, he kept a bulldog and a bear in his rooms, and read

romances instead of books recommended by the faculty. He tells us

that he detested poetry; yet he wrote numerous poems which show

plainly that he not only read but copied some of the poets.

[Footnote: These poems (revised and published as _Hours of

Idleness_) were savagely criticized in the _Edinburgh

Review_. Byron answered with his satiric _English Bards and

Scotch Reviewers_, which ridiculed not only his Scottish critics

but also Wordsworth, Scott,--in fact, most of the English poets,

with the exception of Pope, whom he praised as the only poet

ancient or modern who was not a barbarian.]

[Sidenote: A LITERARY LION]

At twenty-one Byron entered the House of Lords, and almost

immediately thereafter set sail for Lisbon and the Levant. On his

return he published the first two cantos of _Childe Harold's

Pilgrimage_, which made him famous. Though he affected to

despise his triumph, he followed it up shrewdly by publishing

_The Giaour_, _The Corsair_ and _Lara_, in which the

same mysterious hero of his first work reappears, under different

disguises, amid romantic surroundings. The vigor of these poems

attracted many readers, and when it was whispered about that the

author was recounting his own adventures, Byron became the center

of literary interest. At home he was a social lion; abroad he was

acclaimed the greatest of British poets. But his life tended more

and more to shock the English sense of decency; and when his wife

(whom he had married for her money) abruptly left him, public

opinion made its power felt. Byron's popularity waned; his vanity

was wounded; he left his country, vowing never to return. Also he

railed against what he called British hypocrisy.

[Illustration: LORD BYRON After the portrait by T. Phillips]

In Geneva he first met Shelley, admired him, was greatly helped by

him, and then grossly abused his hospitality. After a scandalous

career in Italy he went to help the Greeks in their fight for

independence, but died of fever before he reached the battle line.

THE POETRY OF BYRON. There is one little song of Byron which serves well as

the measure of his poetic talent. It is found in _Don Juan_, and it

begins as follows:

'T is sweet to hear

At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep

The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,

By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep;

'T is sweet to see the evening star appear;

'T is sweet to listen, as the night-winds creep

From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high

The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark

Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;

'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come;

'T is sweet to be awaken'd by the lark,

Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum

Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,

The lisp of children, and their earliest words.

That is not great poetry, and may not be compared with a sonnet of

Wordsworth; but it is good, honest sentiment expressed in such a melodious

way that we like to read it, and feel better after the reading. In the next

stanza, however, Byron grows commonplace and ends with:

Sweet is revenge, especially to women,

Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.

And that is bad sentiment and worse rime, without any resemblance to

poetry. The remaining stanzas are mere drivel, unworthy of the poet's

talent or of the reader's patience.

It is so with a large part of Byron's work; it often begins well, and

usually has some vivid description of nature, or some gallant passage in

swinging verse, which stirs us like martial music; then the poem falls to

earth like a stone, and presently appears some wretched pun or jest or

scurrility. Our present remedy lies in a book of selections, in which we

can enjoy the poetry without being unpleasantly reminded of the author's

besetting sins of flippancy and bad taste.

[Sidenote: MANFRED]

Of the longer poems of Byron, which took all Europe by storm, only three or

four are memorable. _Manfred_ (1817) is a dramatic poem, in which the

author's pride, his theatric posing, his talent for rhythmic expression,

are all seen at their worst or best. The mysterious hero of the poem lives

in a gloomy castle under the high Alps, but he is seldom found under roof.

Instead he wanders amidst storms and glaciers, holding communion with

powers of darkness, forever voicing his rebellion, his boundless pride, his

bottomless remorse. Nobody knows what the rebellion and the remorse are all

about. Some readers may tire of the shadowy hero's egoism, but few will

fail to be impressed by the vigor of the verse, or by the splendid

reflection of picturesque scenes. And here and there is a lyric that seems

to set itself to music.

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains,

They crowned him long ago

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,

With a diadem of snow

[Illustration: NEWSTEAD ABBEY AND BYRON OAK]

_Cain_ (1821) is another dramatic poem, reflecting the rebellion of

another hero, or rather the same hero, who appears this time as the elder

son of Adam. After murdering his brother, the hero takes guidance of

Lucifer and explores hell; where, instead of repentance, he finds occasion

to hate almost everything that is dear to God or man. The drama is a kind

of gloomy parody of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, as _Manfred_ is a

parody of Goethe's _Faust_. Both dramas are interesting, aside from

their poetic passages, as examples of the so-called Titan literature, to

which we shall presently refer in our study of Shelley's _Prometheus_.

[Sidenote: CHILDE HAROLD]

The most readable work of Byron is _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, a

brilliant narrative poem, which reflects the impressions of another

misanthropic hero in presence of the romantic scenery of the Continent. It

was the publication of the first two cantos of this poem in 1812, that made

Byron the leading figure in English poetry, and these cantos are still

widely read as a kind of poetic guidebook. To many readers, however, the

third and fourth cantos are more sincere and more pleasurable. The most

memorable parts of _Childe Harold_ are the "Farewell" in the first

canto, "Waterloo" in the third, and "Lake Leman," "Venice," "Rome," "The

Coliseum", "The Dying Gladiator" and "The Ocean" in the fourth. When one

has read these magnificent passages he has the best of which Byron was

capable. We have called _Childe Harold_ the most readable of Byron's

works, but those who like a story will probably be more interested in

_Mazeppa_ and _The Prisoner of Chillon_.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF CHILLON]

[Sidenote: THE BYRONIC HERO]

One significant quality of these long poems is that they are intensely

personal, voicing one man's remorse or rebellion, and perpetually repeating

his "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" They are concerned with the same

hero (who is Byron under various disguises) and they picture him as a

proud, mysterious stranger, carelessly generous, fiendishly wicked,

profoundly melancholy, irresistibly fascinating to women. Byron is credited

with the invention of this hero, ever since called Byronic; but in truth

the melodramatic outcast was a popular character in fiction long before

Byron adopted him, gave him a new dress and called him Manfred or Don Juan.

A score of romances (such as Mrs. Radcliffe's _The Italian_ in

England, and Charles Brockden Brown's _Wieland_ in America) had used

the same hero to add horror to a grotesque tale; Scott modified him

somewhat, as the Templar in _Ivanhoe_, for example; and Byron made him

more real by giving him the revolutionary spirit, by employing him to voice

the rebellion against social customs which many young enthusiasts felt so

strongly in the early part of the nineteenth century.

[Sidenote: TWO VIEWS OF BYRON]

The vigor of this stage hero, his rebellious spirit, his picturesque

adventures, the gaudy tinsel (mistaken for gold) in which he was

dressed,--all this made a tremendous impression in that romantic age.

Goethe called Byron "the prince of modern poetry, the most talented and

impressive figure which the literary world has ever produced"; and this

unbalanced judgment was shared by other critics on the Continent, where

Byron is still regarded as one of the greatest of English poets.

Swinburne, on the other hand, can hardly find words strong enough to

express his contempt for the "blare and brassiness" of Byron; but that also

is an exaggeration. Though Byron is no longer a popular hero, and though

his work is more rhetorical than poetical, we may still gladly acknowledge

the swinging rhythm, the martial dash and vigor of his best verse. Also,

remembering the Revolution, we may understand the dazzling impression which

he made upon the poets of his day. When the news came from Greece that his

meteoric career was ended, the young Tennyson wept passionately and went

out to carve on a stone, "Byron is dead," as if poetry had perished with

him. Even the coldly critical Matthew Arnold was deeply moved to write:

When Byron's eyes were closed in death

We bowed our head, and held our breath.

He taught us little, but our soul

Had _felt_ him like the thunder roll.

LIFE OF SHELLEY. The career of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) is,

in comparison with that of Byron, as a will-o'-the-wisp to a

meteor. Byron was of the earth earthy; he fed upon coarse food,

shady adventures, scandal, the limelight; but Shelley

Seemed nourished upon starbeams, and the stuff

Of rainbows and the tempest and the foam.

He was a delicate child, shy, sensitive, elflike, who wandered

through the woods near his home, in Sussex, on the lookout for

sprites and hobgoblins. His reading was of the wildest kind; and

when he began the study of chemistry he was forever putting

together things that made horrible smells or explosions, in

expectation that the genii of the _Arabian Nights_ would rise

from the smoke of his test tube.

[Sidenote: A YOUNG REBEL]