system, then tolerated in all English schools. He was presently in
hot water, and the name "Mad Shelley," which the boys gave him,
followed him through life. He had been in the university (Oxford)
hardly two years when his head was turned by some book of shallow
philosophy, and he printed a rattle-brained tract called "The
Necessity of Atheism." This got him into such trouble with the Dons
that he was expelled for insubordination.
[Sidenote: THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND]
Forthwith Shelley published more tracts of a more rebellious kind.
His sister Helen put them into the hands of her girl friend,
Harriet Westbrook, who showed her belief in revolutionary theories
by running away from school and parental discipline and coming to
Shelley for "protection." These two social rebels, both in the
green-apple stage (their combined age was thirty-five), were
presently married; not that either of them believed in marriage,
but because they were compelled by "Anarch Custom."
After some two years of a wandering, will-o'-the-wisp life, Shelley
and his wife were estranged and separated. The young poet then met
a certain William Godwin, known at that time as a novelist and
evolutionary philosopher, and showed his appreciation of Godwin's
radical teaching by running away with his daughter Mary, aged
seventeen. The first wife, tired of liberalism, drowned herself,
and Shelley was plunged into remorse at the tragedy. The right to
care for his children was denied him, as an improper person, and he
was practically driven out of England by force of that public
opinion which he had so frequently outraged or defied.
[Illustration: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY]
Life is a good teacher, though stern in its reckoning, and in Italy
life taught Shelley that the rights and beliefs of other men were
no less sacred than his own. He was a strange combination of hot
head and kind heart, the one filled with wild social theories, the
other with compassion for humanity. He was immensely generous with
his friends, and tender to the point of tears at the thought of
suffering men,--not real men, such as he met in the streets (even
the beggars in Italy are cheerful), but idealized men, with
mysterious sorrows, whom he met in the clouds. While in England his
weak head had its foolish way, and his early poems, such as
_Queen Mab_, are violent declamations. In Italy his heart had
its day, and his later poems, such as _Adonais_ and
_Prometheus Unbound_, are rhapsodies ennobled by Shelley's
love of beauty and by his unquenchable hope that a bright day of
justice must soon dawn upon the world. He was drowned (1822) while
sailing his boat off the Italian coast, before he had reached the
age of thirty years.
THE POETRY OF SHELLEY. In the longer poems of Shelley there are two
prominent elements, and two others less conspicuous but more important. The
first element is revolt. The poet was violently opposed to the existing
order of society, and lost no opportunity to express his hatred of Tyranny,
which was Shelley's name for what sober men called law and order. Feeding
his spirit of revolution were numerous anarchistic theories, called the new
philosophy, which had this curious quality: that they hotly denied the old
faith, law, morality, as other men formulated such matters, and fervently
believed any quack who appeared with a new nostrum warranted to cure all
social disorders.
The second obvious element in Shelley's poetry is his love of beauty, not
the common beauty of nature or humanity which Wordsworth celebrated, but a
strange "supernal" beauty with no "earthly" quality or reality. His best
lines leave a vague impression of something beautiful and lovely, but we
know not what it is.
Less conspicuous in Shelley's poems are the sense of personal loss or grief
which pervades them, and the exquisite melody of certain words which he
used for their emotional effect rather than to convey any definite meaning.
Like Byron he sang chiefly of his own feelings, his rage or despair, his
sorrow or loneliness. He reflected his idea of the origin and motive of
lyric poesy in the lines:
Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song,--
an idea which Poe adopted in its entirety, and which Heine expressed in a
sentimental lyric, telling how from his great grief he made his little
songs:
Aus meinen groszen Schmerzen
Mach' ich die kleinen Lieder.
Hardly another English poet uses words so musically as Shelley (witness
"The Cloud" and "The Skylark"), and here again his idea of verbal melody
was carried to an extreme by Poe, in whose poetry words are used not so
much to express ideas as to awaken vague emotions.
[Sidenote: ALASTOR]
All the above-named qualities appear in _Alastor_ (the Spirit of
Solitude), which is less interesting as a poem than as a study of Shelley.
In this poem we may skip the revolt, which is of no consequence, and follow
the poet in his search for a supernally lovely maiden who shall satisfy his
love for ideal beauty. To find her he goes, not among human habitations,
but to gloomy forests, dizzy cliffs, raging torrents, tempest-blown
seashore,--to every place where a maiden in her senses would not be. Such
places, terrible or picturesque, are but symbols of the poet's soul in its
suffering and loneliness. He does not find his maiden (and herein we read
the poet's first confession that he has failed in life, that the world is
too strong for him); but he sees the setting moon, and somehow that pale
comforter brings him peace with death.
[Sidenote: PROMETHEUS]
In _Prometheus Unbound_ Shelley uses the old myth of the Titan who
rebelled against the tyranny of the gods, and who was punished by being
chained to a rock. [Footnote: The original tragedy of _Prometheus
Bound_ was written by Æschylus, a famous old Greek dramatist. The same
poet wrote also _Prometheus Unbound_, but the latter drama has been
lost. Shelley borrowed the idea of his poem from this lost drama.] In this
poem Prometheus (man) is represented as being tortured by Jove (law or
custom) until he is released by Demogorgon (progress or necessity);
whereupon he marries Asia (love or goodness), and stars and moon break out
into a happy song of redemption.
Obviously there is no reality or human interest in such a fantasy. The only
pleasurable parts of the poem are its detached passages of great melody or
beauty; and the chief value of the work is as a modern example of Titan
literature. Many poets have at various times represented mankind in the
person of a Titan, that is, a man written large, colossal in his courage or
power or suffering: Æschylus in _Prometheus_, Marlowe in
_Tamburlaine_, Milton in Lucifer, of _Paradise Lost_, Goethe in
_Faust_, Byron in _Manfred_, Shelley in _Prometheus
Unbound_. The Greek Titan is resigned, uncomplaining, knowing himself to
be a victim of Fate, which may not be opposed; Marlowe's Titan is bombastic
and violent; Milton's is ambitious, proud, revengeful; Goethe's is cultured
and philosophical; Byron's is gloomy, rebellious, theatrical. So all these
poets portray each his own bent of mind, and something also of the temper
of the age, in the character of his Titan. The significance of Shelley's
poem is in this: that his Titan is patient and hopeful, trusting in the
spirit of Love to redeem mankind from all evil. Herein Shelley is far
removed from the caviling temper of his fellow rebel Byron. He celebrates a
golden age not of the past but of the future, when the dream of justice
inspired by the French Revolution shall have become a glorious reality.
[Sidenote: HIS BEST POEMS]
These longer poems of Shelley are read by the few; they are too vague, with
too little meaning or message, for ordinary readers who like to understand
as well as to enjoy poetry. To such readers the only interesting works of
Shelley are a few shorter poems: "The Cloud," "To a Skylark," "Ode to the
West Wind," "Indian Serenade," "A Lament," "When the Lamp is Lighted" and
some parts of _Adonais_ (a beautiful elegy in memory of Keats), such
as the passage beginning, "Go thou to Rome." For splendor of imagination
and for melody of expression these poems have few peers and no superiors in
English literature. To read them is to discover that Shelley was at times
so sensitive, so responsive to every harmony of nature, that he seemed like
the poet of Alastor,
A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
The breath of Heaven did wander.
The breath of heaven is constant, but lutes and strings are variable
matters of human arrangement. When Shelley's lute was tuned to nature it
brought forth aerial melody; when he strained its strings to voice some
social rebellion or anarchistic theory it produced wild discord.
* * * * *
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness, but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing.
The above lines, from _Endymion_, reflect the ideal of the young
singer whom we rank with the best poets of the nineteenth century. Unlike
other romanticists of that day, he seems to have lived for poetry alone and
to have loved it for its own sake, as we love the first spring flowers. His
work was shamefully treated by reviewers; it was neglected by the public;
but still he wrote, trying to make each line perfect, in the spirit of
those medieval workmen who put their hearts into a carving that would rest
on some lofty spire far above the eyes of men. To reverence beauty wherever
he found it, and then in gratitude to produce a new work of beauty which
should live forever,--that was Keats's only aim. It is the more wonderful
in view of his humble origin, his painful experience, his tragic end.
LIFE. Only twenty-five years of life, which included seven years of
uncongenial tasks, and three of writing, and three of wandering in
search of health,--that sums up the story of Keats. He was born in
London; he was the son of a hostler; his home was over the stable;
his playground was the dirty street. The family prospered, moved to
a better locality, and the children were sent to a good school.
Then the parents died, and at fifteen Keats was bound out to a
surgeon and apothecary. For four years he worked as an apprentice,
and for three years more in a hospital; then, for his heart was
never in the work, he laid aside his surgeon's kit, resolving never
to touch it again.
[Sidenote: TWO POETIC IDEALS]
Since childhood he had been a reader, a dreamer, but not till a
volume of Spenser's _Faery Queen_ was put into his hands did
he turn with intense eagerness to poetry. The influence of that
volume is seen in the somewhat monotonous sweetness of his early
work. Next he explored the classics (he had read Virgil in the
original, but he knew no Greek), and the joy he found in Chapman's
translation of Homer is reflected in a noble sonnet. From that time
on he was influenced by two ideals which he found in Greek and
medieval literature, the one with its emphasis on form, the other
with its rich and varied coloring.
[Illustration: JOHN KEATS]
During the next three years Keats published three small volumes,
his entire life's work. These were brutally criticized by literary
magazines; they met with ridicule at the hands of Byron, with
indifference on the part of Scott and Wordsworth. The pathetic
legend that the poet's life was shortened by this abuse is still
repeated, but there is little truth in it. Keats held manfully to
his course, having more weighty things than criticism to think
about. He was conscious that his time was short; he was in love
with his Fannie Brawne, but separated from her by illness and
poverty; and, like the American poet Lanier, he faced death across
the table as he wrote. To throw off the consumption which had
fastened upon him he tried to live in the open, making walking
trips in the Lake Region; but he met with rough fare and returned
from each trip weaker than before. He turned at last to Italy,
dreading the voyage and what lay beyond. Night fell as the ship put
to sea; the evening star shone clear through the storm clouds, and
Keats sent his farewell to life and love and poetry in the sonnet
beginning:
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art.
He died soon after his arrival in Rome, in 1821. Shelley, who had
hailed Keats as a genius, and who had sent a generous invitation to
come and share his home, commemorated the poet's death and the
world's loss in _Adonais_, which ranks with Milton's
_Lycidas_, Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ and Emerson's
_Threnody_ among the great elegiac poems of our literature.
THE WORK OF KEATS. The first small volume of Keats (_Poems_, 1817)
seems now like an experiment. The part of that experiment which we cherish
above all others is the sonnet "On Chapman's Homer," which should be read
entire for its note of joy and for its fine expression of the influence of
classic poetry. The second volume, _Endymion_, may be regarded as a
promise. There is little reality in the rambling poem which gives title to
the volume (the story of a shepherd beloved of a moon-goddess), but the
bold imagery of the work, its Spenserian melody, its passages of rare
beauty,--all these speak of a true poet who has not yet quite found himself
or his subject. A third volume, _Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes
and Other Poems_ (1820), is in every sense a fulfillment, for it
contains a large proportion of excellent poetry, fresh, vital, melodious,
which improves with years, and which carries on its face the stamp of
permanency.
[Sidenote: HIS BEST POEMS]
The contents of this little volume may be arranged, not very accurately, in
three classes, In the first are certain poems that by their perfection of
form show the Greek or classic spirit. Best known of these poems are the
fragment "Hyperion," with its Milton-like nobility of style, and "Lamia,"
which is the story of an enchantress whom love transforms into a beautiful
woman, but who quickly vanishes because of her lover's too great
curiosity,--a parable, perhaps, of the futility of science and philosophy,
as Keats regarded them.
Of the poems of the second class, which reflect old medieval legends, "The
Pot of Basil," "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "La Belle Dame sans Merci" are
praised by poets and critics alike. "St. Agnes," which reflects a vague
longing rather than a story, is the best known; but "La Belle Dame" may
appeal to some readers as the most moving of Keats's poems. The essence of
all old metrical romances is preserved in a few lines, which have an added
personal interest from the fact that they may reveal something of the
poet's sad love story.
In the third class are a few sonnets and miscellaneous poems, all permeated
by the sense of beauty, showing in every line the genius of Keats and his
exquisite workmanship. The sonnets "On the Sea," "When I have Fears," "On
the Grasshopper and Cricket" and "To Sleep"; the fragment beginning "In a
drear-nighted December"; the marvelous odes "On a Grecian Urn," "To a
Nightingale" and "To Autumn," in which he combines the simplicity of the
old classics with the romance and magic of medieval writers,--there are no
works in English of a similar kind that make stronger appeal to our ideal
of poetry and of verbal melody. Into the three stanzas of "Autumn," for
example, Keats has compressed the vague feelings of beauty, of melancholy,
of immortal aspiration, which come to sensitive souls in the "season of
mists and mellow fruitfulness." It may be compared, or rather contrasted,
with another poem on the same subject which voices the despair in the heart
of the French poet Verlaine, who hears "the sobbing of the violins of
autumn":
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone.
KEATS: AN ESSAY OF CRITICISM. Beyond recommending a few of his poems for
their beauty, there is really so little to be said of Keats that critics
are at their wit's end to express their appreciation. So we read of Keats's
"pure aestheticism," his "copious perfection," his "idyllic visualization,"
his "haunting poignancy of feeling," his "subtle felicities of diction,"
his "tone color," and more to the same effect. Such criticisms are
doubtless well meant, but they are harder to follow than Keats's
"Endymion"; and that is no short or easy road of poesy. Perhaps by trying
more familiar ways we may better understand Keats, why he appeals so
strongly to poets, and why he is so seldom read by other people.
[Sidenote: THE SENSE OF BEAUTY]
The first characteristic of the man was his love for every beautiful thing
he saw or heard. Sometimes the object which fascinated him was the
widespread sea or a solitary star; sometimes it was the work of man, the
product of his heart and brain attuned, such as a passage from Homer, a
legend of the Middle Ages, a vase of pure lines amid the rubbish of a
museum, like a bird call or the scent of violets in a city street. Whatever
the object that aroused his sense of beauty, he turned aside to stay with
it a while, as on the byways of Europe you will sometimes see a man lay
down his burden and bare his head before a shrine that beckons him to pray.
With this reverence for beauty Keats had other and rarer qualities: the
power to express what he felt, the imagination which gave him beautiful
figures, and the taste which enabled him to choose the finest words, the
most melodious phrases, wherewith to reflect his thought or mood or
emotion.
Such was the power of Keats, to be simple and reverent in the presence of
beauty, and to give his feeling poetic or imaginative expression. In
respect of such power he probably had no peer in English literature. His
limitations were twofold: he looked too exclusively on the physical side of
beauty, and he lived too far removed from the common, wholesome life of
men.
[Sidenote: SENSE AND SOUL]
To illustrate our criticism: that man whom we saw by the wayside shrine
acknowledged the presence of some spiritual beauty and truth, the beauty of
holiness, the ineffable loveliness of God. So the man who trains a child,
or gives thanks for a friend, or remembers his mother, is always at heart a
lover of beauty,--the moral beauty of character, of comradeship, of
self-sacrifice. But the poetry of Keats deals largely with outward matters,
with form, color, melody, odors, with what is called "sensuous" beauty
because it delights our human senses. Such beauty is good, but it is not
supreme. Moreover, the artist who would appeal widely to men must by
sympathy understand their whole life, their mirth as well as their sorrow,
their days of labor, their hours of play, their moments of worship. But
Keats, living apart with his ideal of beauty, like a hermit in his cell,
was able to understand and to voice only one of the profound interests of
humanity. For this reason, and because of the deep note of sadness which
sounds through all his work like the monotone of the sea, his exquisite
poems have never had any general appreciation. Like Spenser, who was his
first master, he is a poet's poet.
* * * * *
MINOR POETS OF ROMANTICISM
In the early nineteenth century the Literary Annuals appeared, took root
and flourished mightily in England and America. These annuals (such a
vigorous crop should have been called hardy annuals) were collections of
contemporary prose or verse that appeared once a year under such
sentimental names as "Friendship's Offering," "The Token" and "The
Garland." That they were sold in large numbers on both sides of the
Atlantic speaks of the growing popular interest in literature. Moreover,
they served an excellent purpose at a time when books and libraries were
less accessible than they are now. They satisfied the need of ordinary
readers for poetry and romance; they often made known to the world a
talented author, who found in public approval that sweet encouragement
which critics denied him; they made it unlikely that henceforth "some mute,
inglorious Milton" should remain either mute or inglorious; and they not
only preserved the best work of minor poets but, what is much better, they
gave it a wide reading.
Thanks to such collections, from which every newspaper filled its Poet's
Corner, good poems which else might have hid their little light under a
bushel--Campbell's "Hohenlinden," Mrs. Hemans' "Landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers," Hunt's "Abou ben Adhem," Hood's "The Song of the Shirt," and many
others--are now as widely known as are the best works of Wordsworth or
Byron.
[Illustration: LEIGH HUNT]
We can name only a few poets of the age, leaving the reader to form
acquaintance with their songs in an anthology. Especially worthy of
remembrance are: Thomas Campbell, who greatly influenced the American poets
Halleck and Drake; Thomas Moore, whose _Irish Melodies_ have an
attractive singing quality; James Hogg (The Ettrick Shepherd); John Keble,
author of _The Christian Year_; Thomas Hood; Felicia Hemans; and Leigh
Hunt, whose encouragement of Keats is as memorable as his "Abou ben Adhem"
or "The Glove and the Lions." There are other poets of equal rank with
those we have ventured to name, and their melodious quality is such that a
modern critic has spoken of them, in terms commonly applied to the
Elizabethans, as "a nest of singing birds"; which would be an excellent
figure if we could forget the fact that birds in a nest never sing. Their
work is perhaps less imaginative (and certainly less fantastic) than that
of Elizabethan singers, but it comes nearer to present life and reality.
One of the least known of these minor poets, Thomas Beddoes, was gifted in
a way to remind us of the strange genius of Blake. He wrote not much, his
life being too broken and disappointed; but running through his scanty
verse is a thread of the pure gold of poetry. In a single stanza of his
"Dream Pedlary" he has reflected the spirit of the whole romantic movement:
If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell,
Some a light sigh
That shakes from Life's fresh crown
Only a rose leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?
* * * * *
THE WORK OF WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832)
To read Scott is to read Scotland. Of no other modern author can it so
freely be said that he gave to literature a whole country, its scenery, its
people, its history and traditions, its ideals of faith and courage and
loyalty.
That is a large achievement, but that is not all. It was Scott, more than
any other author, who brought poetry and romance home to ordinary readers;
and with romance came pleasure, wholesome and refreshing as a drink from a
living spring. When he began to write, the novel was in a sad
state,--sentimental, sensational, fantastic, devoted to what Charles Lamb
described as wildly improbable events and to characters that belong neither
to this world nor to any other conceivable one. When his work was done, the
novel had been raised to its present position as the most powerful literary
influence that bears upon the human mind. Among novelists, therefore, Scott
deserves his title of "the first of the modern race of giants."
LIFE. To his family, descendants of the old Borderers, Scott owed
that intensely patriotic quality which glows in all his work. He is
said to have borne strong resemblance to his grandfather, "Old
Bardie Scott," an unbending clansman who vowed never to cut his
beard till a Stuart prince came back to the throne. The clansmen
were now citizens of the Empire, but their loyalty to hereditary
chiefs is reflected in Scott's reverence for everything pertaining
to rank or royalty.
[Sidenote: FIRST IMPRESSIONS]
He was born (1771) in Edinburgh, but his early associations were
all of the open country. Some illness had left him lame of foot,
and with the hope of a cure he was sent to relatives at Sandy
Knowe. There in the heart of the Border he spent his days on the
hills with the shepherds, listening to Scottish legends. At bedtime
his grandmother told him tales of the clans; and when he could read
for himself he learned by heart Percy's _Reliques of Ancient
Poetry_. So the scenes which he loved because of their wild
beauty became sacred because of their historical association. Even
in that early day his heart had framed the sentiment which found
expression in his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_:
Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said:
This is my own, my native land?
[Sidenote: WORK AND PLAY]
At school, and at college at Edinburgh, the boy's heart was never
in his books, unless perchance they contained something of the
tradition of Scotland. After college he worked in his father's law
office, became an advocate, and for twenty years followed the law.
His vacations were spent "making raids," as he said, into the
Highlands, adding to his enormous store of old tales and ballads. A
companion on one of these trips gives us a picture of the man:
"Eh me, sic an endless fund o' humour and drollery as he
had wi' him! Never ten yards but we were either laughing or
roaring and singing. Whenever we stopped, how brawlie he
suited himsel' to everybody! He aye did as the lave did;
never made himsel' the great man, or took ony airs in the
company."
This boyish delight in roaming, in new scenes, in new people met
frankly under the open sky, is characteristic of Scott's poems and
novels, which never move freely until they are out of doors. The
vigor of these works may be partially accounted for by the fact
that Scott was a hard worker and a hearty player,--a capital
combination.
[Sidenote: HIS POEMS]
He was past thirty when he began to write. [Footnote: This refers
to original composition. In 1796 Scott published some translations
of German romantic ballads, and in 1802 his _Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border_. The latter was a collection of old ballads, to
some of which Scott gave a more modern form.] By that time he had
been appointed Clerk of Sessions, and also Sheriff of Selkirkshire
(he took that hangman's job, and kept it even after he had won
fame, just for the money there was in it); and these offices,
together with his wife's dowry, provided a comfortable income. When
his first poem, _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (1805), met
with immense success he gladly gave up the law, and wrote
_Marmion_ (1808) and _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810). These
increased his good fortune; but his later poems were of inferior
quality, and met with a cool reception. Meanwhile Byron had
appeared to dazzle the reading public. Scott recognized the greater
poetic genius of the author of _Childe Harold_, and sought
another field where he was safe from all rivals.
[Illustration: WALTER SCOTT]
[Sidenote: FIRST ROMANCES]
Rummaging in a cabinet one day after some fishing tackle, he found
a manuscript long neglected and forgotten. Instead of going fishing
Scott read his manuscript, was fascinated by it, and presently
began to write in headlong fashion. In three weeks he added
sixty-five chapters to his old romance, and published it as
_Waverley_ (1814) without signing his name. Then he went away
on another "raid" to the Highlands. When he returned, at the end of
the summer, he learned that his book had made a tremendous
sensation, and that Fame, hat in hand, had been waiting at his door
for some weeks.
In the next ten years Scott won his name of "the Wizard of the
North," for it seemed that only magic could produce stories of such
quality in such numbers: _Guy Mannering_, _Rob Roy_,
_Old Mortality_, _Redgauntlet_, _Heart of
Midlothian_, portraying the deathless romance of Scotland; and
_Ivanhoe_, _Kenilworth_, _The Talisman_ and other
novels which changed dull history to a drama of fascinating
characters. Not only England but the Continent hailed this
magnificent work with delight. Money and fame poured in upon the
author. Fortune appeared for once "with both hands full." Then the
crash came.
To understand the calamity one must remember that Scott regarded
literature not as an art but as a profitable business; that he
aimed to be not a great writer but a lord of high degree. He had
been made a baronet, and was childishly proud of the title; his
work and his vast earnings were devoted to the dream of a feudal
house which should endure through the centuries and look back to
Sir Walter as its noble founder. While living modestly on his
income at Ashestiel he had used the earnings of his poems to buy a
rough farm at Clarty Hole, on the Tweed, and had changed its
unromantic name to Abbotsford. More land was rapidly added and
"improved" to make a lordly estate; then came the building of a
castle, where Scott entertained lavishly, as lavishly as any laird
or chieftain of the olden time, offering to all visitors "the
honors of Scotland."
[Illustration: ABBOTSFORD]
Enormous sums were spent on this bubble, and still more money was
needed. To increase his income Scott went into secret partnership
with his publishers, indulged in speculative ventures, ran the firm
upon the shoals, drew large sums in advance of his earnings.
Suddenly came a business panic; the publishing firm failed
miserably, and at fifty five Scott, having too much honest pride to
take advantage of the bankruptcy laws, found himself facing a debt
of more than a hundred thousand pounds.
[Sidenote: HIS LAST YEARS]
His last years were spent in an heroic struggle to retrieve his
lost fortunes. He wrote more novels, but without much zest or
inspiration; he undertook other works, such as the voluminous
_Life of Napoleon_, for which he was hardly fitted, but which
brought him money in large measure. In four years he had repaid the
greater part of his debt, but mind and body were breaking under the
strain. When the end came, in 1832, he had literally worked himself
to death. The murmur of the Tweed over its shallows, music that he
had loved since childhood, was the last earthly sound of which he
was conscious. The house of Abbotsford, for which he had planned
and toiled, went into strange hands, and the noble family which he
had hoped to found died out within a few years. Only his work
remains, and that endures the wear of time and the tooth of
criticism.
THE POEMS OF SCOTT. Three good poems of Scott are _Marmion_, _The
Lay of the Last Minstrel_ and _The Lady of the Lake_; three others,
not so good, are _Rokeby_, _Vision of Don Roderick_ and _Lord
of the Isles_. Among these _The Lady of the Lake_ is such a
favorite that, if one were to question the tourists who annually visit the
Trossachs, a surprisingly large number of them would probably confess that
they were led not so much by love of natural beauty as by desire to visit
"Fair Ellen's Isle" and other scenes which Scott has immortalized in verse.
We may as well admit frankly that even the best of these poems is not
first-class; that it shows careless workmanship, and is lacking in the
finer elements of beauty and imagination. But Scott did not aim to create a
work of beauty; his purpose was to tell a good story, and in that he
succeeded. His _Lady of the Lake_, for example, has at least two
virtues: it holds the reader's attention; and it fulfills the first law of
poetry, which is to give pleasure.
[Sidenote: QUALITY OF THE POEMS]
Another charm of the poems, for young readers especially, is that they are
simple, vigorous, easily understood. Their rapid action and flying verse
show hardly a trace of conscious effort. Reading them is like sweeping
downstream with a good current, no labor required save for steering, and
attention free for what awaits us around the next bend. When the bend is
passed, Scott has always something new and interesting: charming scenery,
heroic adventure, picturesque incidents (such as the flight of the Fiery
Cross to summon the clans), interesting fragments of folklore, and
occasionally a ballad like "Lochinvar," or a song like "Bonnie Dundee,"
which stays with us as a happy memory long after the poem is forgotten.
A secondary reason for the success of these poems was that they satisfied a
fashion, very popular in Scott's day, which we have not yet outgrown. That
fashion was to attribute chivalrous virtues to outlaws and other merry men,
who in their own day and generation were imprisoned or hanged, and who
deserved their fate. Robin Hood's gang, for example, or the Raiders of the
Border, were in fact a tough lot of thieves and cutthroats; but when they
appeared in romantic literature they must of course appeal to ladies; so
Scott made them fine, dashing, manly fellows, sacrificing to the fashion of
the hour the truth of history and humanity. As Andrew Lang says:
"In their own days the Border Riders were regarded as public
nuisances by statesmen, who attempted to educate them by means of
the gibbet. But now they were the delight of fine ladies,
contending who should be most extravagant in encomium. A blessing
on such fine ladies, who know what is good when they see it!"
[Footnote: Quoted in Nicoll and Seccombe, _A History of English
Literature_, Vol. Ill, p. 957.]
SCOTT'S NOVELS. To appreciate the value of Scott's work one should read
some of the novels that were fashionable in his day,--silly, sentimental
novels, portraying the "sensibilities" of imaginary ladies. [Footnote: In
America, Cooper's first romance, _Precaution_ (1820), was of this
artificial type. After Scott's outdoor romances appeared, Cooper discovered
his talent, and wrote _The Spy_ and the Leather-Stocking tales. Maria
Edgeworth and Jane Austen began to improve or naturalize the English novel
before Scott attempted it.] That Scott was influenced by this inane fashion
appears plainly in some of his characters, his fine ladies especially, who
pose and sentimentalize till we are mortally weary of them; but this
influence passed when he discovered his real power, which was to portray
men and women in vigorous action. _Waverley_, _Rob Roy_,
_Ivanhoe_, _Redgauntlet_,--such stories of brave adventure were
like the winds of the North, bringing to novel-readers the tang of the sea
and the earth and the heather. They braced their readers for life, made
them feel their kinship with nature and humanity. Incidentally, they
announced that two new types of fiction, the outdoor romance and the
historical novel, had appeared with power to influence the work of Cooper,
Thackeray, Dickens and a host of minor novelists.
[Illustration: THE GREAT WINDOW (MELROSE ABBEY)]
[Sidenote: GROUPS OF STORIES]
The most convenient way of dealing with Scott's works is to arrange
them in three groups. In the first are the novels of Scotland:
_Waverley_, dealing with the loyalty of the clans to the
Pretender; _Old Mortality_, with the faith and struggles of
the Covenanters; _Redgauntlet_, with the plots of the
Jacobites; _The Abbot_ and _The Monastery_, with the
traditions concerning Mary Queen of Scots; _Guy Mannering, The
Antiquary_ and _The Heart of Midlothian_, with private life
and humble Scottish characters.
In the second group are the novels which reveal the romance of
English history: _Ivanhoe_, dealing with Saxon and Norman in
the stormy days when Richard Lionheart returned to his kingdom;
_Kenilworth_, with the intrigues of Elizabeth's Court; _The
Fortunes of Nigel_, with London life in the days of Charles
First; _Woodstock_, with Cromwell's iron age; _Peveril of
the Peak_, with the conflict between Puritan and Cavalier during
the Restoration period.
In the third group are the novels which take us to foreign lands:
_Quentin Durward_, showing us the French court as dominated by
the cunning of Louis Eleventh, and _The Talisman_, dealing
with the Third Crusade.
In the above list we have named not all but only the best of
Scott's novels. They differ superficially, in scenes or incidents;
they are all alike in motive, which is to tell a tale of adventure
that shall be true to human nature, no matter what liberties it may
take with the facts of history.
[Sidenote: QUALITY OF THE NOVELS]
In all these novels the faults are almost as numerous as the virtues; but
while the faults appear small, having little influence on the final result,
the virtues are big, manly, wholesome,--such virtues as only the greatest
writers of fiction possess. Probably all Scott's faults spring from one
fundamental weakness: he never had a high ideal of his own art. He wrote to
make money, and was inclined to regard his day's labor as "so much
scribbling." Hence his style is frequently slovenly, lacking vigor and
concentration; his characters talk too much, apparently to fill space; he
caters to the romantic fashion (and at the same time indulges his Tory
prejudice) by enlarging on the somewhat imaginary virtues of knights,
nobles, feudal or royal institutions, and so presents a one-sided view of
history.
On the other hand, Scott strove to be true to the great movements of
history, and to the moral forces which, in the end, prevail in all human
activity. His sympathies were broad; he mingled in comradeship with all
classes of society, saw the best in each; and from his observation and
sympathy came an enormous number of characters, high or low, good or bad,
grave or ridiculous, but nearly all natural and human, because drawn from
life and experience.
[Sidenote: SCENE AND INCIDENT]
Another of Scott's literary virtues is his love of wild nature, which led
him to depict many grand or gloomy scenes, partly for their own sake, but
largely because they formed a fitting background for human action. Thus,
_The Talisman_ opens with a pen picture of a solitary Crusader moving
across a sun-scorched desert towards a distant island of green. Every line
in that description points to action, to the rush of a horseman from the
oasis, to the fierce trial of arms before the enemies speak truce and drink
together from the same spring. Many another of Scott's descriptions of wild
nature is followed by some gallant adventure, which we enjoy the more
because we imagine that adventures ought to occur (though they seldom do)
amid romantic surroundings.
[Illustration: SCOTT'S TOMB IN DRYBURGH ABBEY]
WHAT TO READ. At least one novel in each group should be read; but if it be
asked, Which one? the answer is as much a matter of taste as of judgment.
Of the novels dealing with Scottish life, _Waverley_, which was
Scott's first attempt, is still an excellent measure of his story-telling
genius; but there is more adventurous interest in _Old Mortality_ or
_Rob Roy_; and in _The Heart of Midlothian_ (regarded by many as
the finest of Scott's works) one feels closer to nature and human nature,
and especially to the heart of Scotland. _Ivanhoe_ is perhaps the best
of the romances of English history; and of stories dealing with adventure
in strange lands, _The Talisman_ will probably appeal strongest to
young readers, and _Quentin Durward_ to their elders. To these may be
added _The Antiquary_, which is a good story, and which has an element
of personal interest in that it gives us glimpses of Scott himself,
surrounded by old armor, old legends, old costumes,--mute testimonies to
the dreams and deeds of yesterday's men and women.
Such novels should be read once for the story, as Scott intended; and then,
if one should grow weary of modern-problem novels, they may be read again
for their wholesome, bracing atmosphere, for their tenderness and wisdom,
for their wide horizons, for their joy of climbing to heights where we look
out upon a glorious Present, and a yet more glorious Past that is not dead
but living.
* * * * *
OTHER FICTION WRITERS
Of the work of Walter Scott we have already spoken. When such a genius
appears, dominating his age, we think of him as a great inventor, and so he
was; but like most other inventors his trail had been blazed, his way
prepared by others who had gone before him. His first romance,
_Waverley_, shows the influence of earlier historical romances, such
as Jane Porter's _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ and _Scottish Chiefs_; in
his later work he acknowledged his indebtedness to Maria Edgeworth, whose
_Castle Rackrent_ had aroused enthusiasm at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. In brief, the romantic movement greatly encouraged
fiction writing, and Scott did excellently what many others were doing
well.
Two things are noticeable as we review the fiction of this period: the
first, that nearly all the successful writers were women; [Footnote: The
list includes: Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Porter, Maria Edgeworth,
Susan Ferrier, Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan), Mary Brunton, Hannah More,
Mary Russell Mitford,--all of whom were famous in their day, and each of
whom produced at least one "best seller"] the second, that of these writers
only one, the most neglected by her own generation, holds a secure place in
the hearts of present-day readers. If it be asked why Jane Austen's works
endure while others are forgotten, the answer is that almost any trained
writer can produce a modern romance, but it takes a genius to write a
novel. [Footnote: The difference between the modern romance and the novel
is evident in the works of Scott and Miss Austen. Scott takes an unusual
subject, he calls up kings, nobles, chieftains, clansmen, robber barons,--a
host of picturesque characters; he uses his imagination freely, and makes a
story for the story's sake. Miss Austen takes an ordinary country village,
observes its people as through a microscope, and portrays them to the life.
She is not interested in making a thrilling story, but in showing us men
and women as they are; and our interest is held by the verity of her
portrayal. (For a different distinction between romance and novel, see "THE
EARLY ENGLISH NOVEL" above, Chapter VI.)]
[Illustration: MRS. HANNAH MORE]
JANE AUSTEN. The rare genius of Miss Austen (1775-1817) was as a forest
flower during her lifetime. While Fanny Burney, Jane Porter and Maria
Edgeworth were widely acclaimed, this little woman remained almost unknown,
following no school of fiction, writing for her own pleasure, and
destroying whatever did not satisfy her own sense of fitness. If she had
any theory of fiction, it was simply this: to use no incident but such as
had occurred before her eyes, to describe no scene that was not familiar,
and to portray only such characters as she knew intimately, their speech,
dress, manner, and the motives that governed their action. If unconsciously
she followed any rule of expression, it was that of Cowper, who said that
to touch and retouch is the secret of almost all good writing. To her
theory and rule she added personal charm, intelligence, wit, genius of a
high order. Neglected by her own generation, she has now an ever-widening
circle of readers, and is ranked by critics among the five or six greatest
writers of English fiction.
[Sidenote: HER LIFE]
Jane Austen's life was short and extremely placid. She was born
(1775) in a little Hampshire village; she spent her entire life in
one country parish or another, varying the scene by an occasional
summer at the watering-place of Bath, which was not very exciting.
Her father was an easy-going clergyman who read Pope, avoided
politics, and left preaching to his curate. She was one of a large
family of children, who were brought up to regard elegance of
manner as a cardinal virtue, and vulgarity of any kind as the
epitome of the seven deadly sins. Her two brothers entered the
navy; hence the flutter in her books whenever a naval officer comes
on a furlough to his native village. She spent her life in homely,
pleasant duties, and did her writing while the chatter of family
life went on around her. Her only characters were visitors who came
to the rectory, or who gathered around the tea-table in a
neighbor's house. They were absolutely unconscious of the keen
scrutiny to which they were subjected; no one whispered to them, "A
chiel's amang ye, takin' notes"; and so they had no suspicion that
they were being transferred into books.
The first three of Miss Austen's novels were written at Steventon,
among her innocent subjects, but her precious manuscripts went
begging in vain for a publisher. [Footnote: _Northanger
Abbey_, _Pride and Prejudice_ and _Sense and
Sensibility_ were written between 1796 and 1799, when Jane
Austen had just passed her twenty-first year. Her first novel was
bought by a publisher who neglected to print it. The second could
not be sold till after the third was published, in 1811.] The last
three, reflecting as in a glass the manners of another parish, were
written at Chawton, near Winchester. Then the good work suddenly
began to flag. The same disease that, a little later, was to call
halt to Keats's poetry of beauty now made an end of Miss Austen's
portrayal of everyday life. When she died (1817) she was only
forty-two years old, and her heart was still that of a young girl.
A stained-glass window in beautiful old Winchester Cathedral speaks
eloquently of her life and work.
[Sidenote: NOVELS AND CHARACTERS]
If we must recommend one of Miss Austen's novels, perhaps _Pride and
Prejudice_ is the most typical; but there is very little to justify this
choice when the alternative is _Northanger Abbey_, or _Emma_, or
_Sense and Sensibility_, or _Persuasion_, or _Mansfield
Park_. All are good; the most definite stricture that one can safely
make is that _Mansfield Park_ is not so good as the others. Four of
the novels are confined to country parishes; but in _Northanger Abbey_
and _Persuasion_ the horizon is broadened to include a watering place,
whither genteel folk went "to take the air."
The characters of all these novels are: first, the members of five or six
families, with their relatives, who try to escape individual boredom by
gregariousness; and second, more of the same kind assembled at a local fair
or sociable. Here you meet a dull country squire or two, a feeble-minded
baronet, a curate laboriously upholding the burden of his dignity, a doctor
trying to hide his emptiness of mind by looking occupied, an uncomfortable
male person in tow of his wife, maiden aunts, fond mammas with their
awkward daughters, chatterboxes, poor relations, spoiled children,--a
characteristic gathering. All these, except the spoiled children, talk with
perfect propriety about the weather. If in the course of a long day
anything witty is said, it is an accident, a phenomenon; conversation
halts, and everybody looks at the speaker as if he must have had "a rush of
brains to the head."
[Sidenote: HER SMALL FIELD]
Such is Jane Austen's little field, an eddy of life revolving endlessly
around small parish interests. Her subjects are not even the whole parish,
but only "the quality," whom the favored ones may meet at Mrs. B's
afternoon at home. They read proper novels, knit wristlets, discuss fevers
and their remedies, raise their eyebrows at gossip, connive at matrimony,
and take tea. The workers of the world enter not here; neither do men of
ideas, nor social rebels, nor the wicked, nor the happily unworthy poor;
and the parish is blessed in having no reformers.
In this barren field, hopeless to romancers like Scott, there never was
such another explorer as Jane Austen. Her demure observation is marvelously
keen; sometimes it is mischievous, or even a bit malicious, but always
sparkling with wit or running over with good humor. Almost alone in that
romantic age she had no story to tell, and needed none. She had never met
any heroes or heroines. Plots, adventures, villains, persecuted innocence,
skeletons in closets,--all the ordinary machinery of fiction seemed to her
absurd and unnecessary. She was content to portray the life that she knew
best, and found it so interesting that, a century later, we share her
enthusiasm. And that is the genius of Miss Austen, to interest us not by a
romantic story but by the truth of her observation and by the fidelity of
her portrayal of human nature, especially of feminine nature.
[Sidenote: INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH FICTION]
There is one more thing to note in connection with Miss Austen's work;
namely, her wholesome influence on the English novel. In _Northanger
Abbey_ and in _Sense and Sensibility_ she satirizes the popular
romances of the period, with their Byronic heroes, melodramatic horrors and
perpetual harping on some pale heroine's sensibilities. Her satire is
perhaps the best that has been written on the subject, so delicate, so
flashing, so keen, that a critic compares it to the exploit of Saladin (in
_The Talisman_) who could not with his sword hack through an iron
mace, as Richard did, but who accomplished the more difficult feat of
slicing a gossamer veil as it floated in the air.
Such satire was not lost; yet it was Miss Austen's example rather than her
precept which put to shame the sentimental romances of her day, and which
influenced subsequent English fiction in the direction of truth and
naturalness. Young people still prefer romance and adventure as portrayed
by Scott and his followers, and that is as it should be; but an
increasingly large number of mature readers (especially those who are
interested in human nature) find a greater charm in the novel of characters
and manners, as exemplified by Jane Austen.
* * * * *
THE CRITICS AND ESSAYISTS
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century (or from Shakespeare to
Wordsworth) England was preparing a great literature; and then appeared
writers whose business or pleasure it was to appreciate that literature, to
point out its virtues or its defects, to explain by what principle this or
that work was permanent, and to share their enjoyment of good prose and
poetry with others,--in a word, the critics.
In the list of such writers, who give us literature at second hand, the
names of Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt, Walter Savage Landor, Charles Lamb
and Thomas De Quincey are written large. The two last-named are selected
for special study, not because of their superior critical ability (for
Hazlitt was probably a better critic than either), but because of a few
essays in which these men left us an appreciation of life, as they saw it
for themselves at first hand.
CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834). There is a little book called _Essays of
Elia_ which stands out from all other prose works of the age. If we
examine this book to discover the source of its charm, we find it pervaded
by a winsome "human" quality which makes us want to know the man who wrote
it. In this respect Charles Lamb differs from certain of his
contemporaries. Wordsworth was too solitary, Coleridge and De Quincey too
unbalanced, Shelley too visionary and Keats too aloof to awaken a feeling
of personal allegiance; but the essays of Lamb reveal two qualities which,
like fine gold, are current among readers of all ages. These are sympathy
and humor. By the one we enter understandingly into life, while the other
keeps us from taking life too tragically.
[Illustration: CHARLES LAMB.
From the engraving by S. Aslent Edwards]
[Sidenote: HIS LIFE]
Lamb was born (1775) in the midst of London, and never felt at home
anywhere else. London is a world in itself, and of all its corners
there were only three that Lamb found comfortable. The first was
the modest little home where he lived with his gifted sister Mary,
reading with her through the long evenings, or tenderly caring for
her during a period of insanity; the second was the commercial
house where he toiled as a clerk; the third was the busy street
which lay between home and work,--a street forever ebbing and
flowing with a great tide of human life that affected Lamb
profoundly, mysteriously, as Wordsworth was affected by the hills
or the sea.
The boy's education began at Christ's Hospital, where he met
Coleridge and entered with him into a lifelong friendship. At
fifteen he left school to help support his family; and for the next
thirty-three years he was a clerk, first in the South Sea House,
then in the East India Company. Rather late in life he began to
write, his prime object being to earn a little extra money, which
he sadly needed. Then the Company, influenced partly by his
faithful service and partly by his growing reputation, retired him
on a pension. Most eagerly, like a boy out of school, he welcomed
his release, intending to do great things with his pen; but
curiously enough he wrote less, and less excellently, than before.
His decline began with his hour of liberty. For a time, in order
that his invalid sister might have quiet, he lived outside the
city, at Islington and Enfield; but he missed the work, the street,
the crowd, and especially did he miss his old habits. He had no
feeling for nature, nor for any art except that which he found in
old books. "I hate the country," he wrote; and the cause of his
dislike was that, not knowing what to do with himself, he grew
weary of a day that was "all day long."
[Illustration: EAST INDIA HOUSE, LONDON
Where Charles Lamb worked for many years. From an engraving by
M. Tombleson, after a drawing made by Thomas H Shepherd in 1829]
The earlier works of Lamb (some poems, a romance and a drama) are of little
interest except to critics. The first book that brought him any
considerable recognition was the _Tales from Shakespeare_. This was a
summary of the stories used by Shakespeare in his plays, and was largely
the work of Mary Lamb, who had a talent for writing children's books. The
charm of the _Tales_ lies in the fact that the Lambs were so familiar
with old literature that they reproduced the stories in a style which might
have done credit to a writer in the days of Elizabeth. The book is still
widely read, and is as good as any other if one wants that kind of book.
But the chief thing in _Macbeth_ or _The Tempest_ is the poetry,
not the tale or the plot; and even if one wants only the story, why not get
it from Shakespeare himself? Another and better book by Lamb of the same
general kind is _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with
Shakespeare_. In this book he saves us a deal of unprofitable reading by
gathering together the best of the Elizabethan dramas, to which he adds
some admirable notes of criticism or interpretation.
[Illustration: MARY LAMB
After the portrait by F. S. Cary]
[Sidenote: ESSAYS OF ELIA]
Most memorable of Lamb's works are the essays which he contributed for many
years to the London magazines, and which he collected under the titles
_Essays of Elia_ (1823) and _Last Essays of Elia_ (1830).
[Footnote: The name "Elia" (pronounced ee'-li-ä) was a pseudonym, taken
from an old Italian clerk (Ellia) in the South Sea House. When "Elia"
appears in the _Essays_ he is Charles Lamb himself; "Cousin Bridget"
is sister Mary, and "John Elia" is a brother. The last-named was a selfish
kind of person, who seems to have lived for himself, letting Charles take
all the care of the family.] To the question, Which of these essays should
be read? the answer given must depend largely upon personal taste. They are
all good; they all contain both a reflection and a criticism of life, as
Lamb viewed it by light of his personal experience. A good way to read the
essays, therefore, is to consider them as somewhat autobiographical, and to
use them for making acquaintance with the author at various periods of his
life.
For example, "My Relations" and "Mackery End" acquaint us with Lamb's
family and descent; "Old Benchers of the Inner Temple" with his early
surroundings; "Witches and Other Night-fears" with his sensitive childhood;
"Recollections of Christ's Hospital" and "Christ's Hospital Five-and-thirty
Years Ago" with his school days and comradeship with Coleridge; "The South
Sea House" with his daily work; "Old China" with his home life; "The
Superannuated Man" with his feelings when he was retired on a pension; and
finally, "Character of the Late Elia," in which Lamb whimsically writes his
own obituary.
If these call for too much reading at first, then one may select three or
four typical essays: "Dream Children," notable for its exquisite pathos;
"Dissertation on Roast Pig," famous for its peculiar humor; and "Praise of
Chimney Sweepers," of which it is enough to say that it is just like
Charles Lamb. To these one other should be added, "Imperfect Sympathies,"
or "A Chapter on Ears," or "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist," in order to
appreciate how pleasantly Lamb could write on small matters of no
consequence. Still another good way of reading (which need not be
emphasized, since everybody favors it) is to open the _Essays_ here or
there till we find something that interests us,--a method which allows
every reader the explorer's joy of discovery.
To read such essays is to understand the spell they have cast on successive
generations of readers. They are, first of all, very personal; they begin,
as a rule, with some pleasant trifle that interests the author; then,
almost before we are aware, they broaden into an essay of life itself, an
essay illuminated by the steady light of Lamb's sympathy or by the flashes
of his whimsical humor. Next, we note in the _Essays_ their air of
literary culture, which is due to Lamb's wide reading, and to the excellent
taste with which he selected his old authors,--Sidney, Brown, Burton,
Fuller, Walton and Jeremy Taylor. Often it was the quaintness of these
authors, their conceits or oddities, that charmed him. These oddities
reappear in his own style to such an extent that even when he speaks a
large truth, as he often does, he is apt to give the impression of being a
little harebrained. Yet if you examine his queer idea or his merry jest,
you may find that it contains more cardinal virtue than many a sober moral
treatise.
[Illustration: THE LAMB BUILDING, INNER TEMPLE, LONDON]
On the whole _Elia_ is the quintessence of modern essay-writing from
Addison to Stevenson. There are probably no better works of the same kind
in our literature. Some critics aver that there are none others so good.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859). It used to be said in a college classroom
that what De Quincey wrote was seldom important and always doubtful, but
that we ought to read him for his style; which means, as you might say,
that caviar is a stomach-upsetting food, but we ought to eat a little of it
because it comes in a pretty box.
To this criticism, which reflects a prevalent opinion, we may take some
exceptions. For example, what De Quincey has to say of Style, though it
were written in style-defying German, is of value to everyone who would
teach that impossible subject. What he says or implies in "Levana" (the
goddess who performed "the earliest office of ennobling kindness" for a
newborn child, lifting him from the ground, where he was first laid, and
presenting his forehead to the stars of heaven) has potency to awaken two
of the great faculties of humanity, the power to think and the power to
imagine. Again, many people are fascinated by dreams, those mysterious
fantasies which carry us away on swift wings to meet strange experiences;
and what De Quincey has to say of dreams, though doubtful as a dream
itself, has never been rivaled. To a few mature minds, therefore, De
Quincey is interesting entirely apart from his dazzling style and
inimitable rhetoric.
[Illustration: THOMAS DE QUINCEY From an engraving by C. H. Jeens]
To do justice to De Quincey's erratic, storm-tossed life; to record
his precocious youth, his marvelous achievements in school or
college, his wanderings amid lonely mountains or more lonely city
streets, his drug habits with their gorgeous dreams and terrible
depressions, his timidity, his courtesy, his soul-solitude, his
uncanny genius,--all that is impossible in a brief summary. Let it
suffice, then, to record: that he resembled his friend Coleridge,
both in his character and in his vast learning; that he studied in
profound seclusion for twenty years; then for forty years more,
during which time his brain was more or less beclouded by opium, he
poured out a flood of magazine articles, which he collected later
in fourteen chaotic volumes. These deal with an astonishing variety
of subjects, and cover almost every phase of mental activity from
portraying a nightmare to building a philosophical system. If he
had any dominating interest in his strange life, it was the study
of literature.
[Sidenote: TYPICAL WORKS]
The historian can but name a few characteristic works of De Quincey,
without recommending any of them to readers. To those interested in De
Quincey's personality his _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_ will
be illuminating. This book astonished Londoners in 1821, and may well
astonish a Bushman in the year 2000. It records his wandering life, and the
alternate transport or suffering which resulted from his drug habits. This
may be followed by his _Suspiria de Profundis_ (Sighs from the
Depths), which describes, as well as such a thing could be done, the
phantoms born of opium dreams. There are too many of the latter, and the
reader may well be satisfied with the wonderful "Dream Fugue" in _The
English Mail Coach_.
[Illustration: DOVE COTTAGE, GRASMERE
Here both Wordsworth and De Quincey resided]
As an illustration of De Quincey's review of history, one should try
_Joan of Arc_ or _The Revolt of the Tartars_, which are not
historical studies but romantic dreams inspired by reading history. In the
critical field, "The Knocking at the Gate in _Macbeth_," "Wordsworth's
Poetry" and the "Essay on Style" are immensely suggestive. As an example of
ingenious humor "Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" is often
recommended; but it has this serious fault, that it is not humorous. For a
concrete example of De Quincey's matter and manner there is nothing better
than "Levana or Our Ladies of Sorrow" (from the _Suspiria_), with its
_mater lachrymarum_ Our Lady of Tears, _mater suspiriorum_ Our
Lady of Sighs, and that strange phantom, forbidding and terrible, _mater
tenebrarum_ Our Lady of Darkness.
[Sidenote: DE QUINCEY'S STYLE]
The style of all these works is indescribable. One may exhaust the whole
list of adjectives--chanting, rhythmic, cadenced, harmonious,
impassioned--that have been applied to it, and yet leave much to say.
Therefore we note only these prosaic elements: that the style reflects De
Quincey's powers of logical analysis and of brilliant imagination; that it
is pervaded by a tremendous mental excitement, though one does not know
what the stir is all about; and that the impression produced by this
nervous, impassioned style is usually spoiled by digressions, by
hairsplitting, and by something elusive, intangible, to which we can give
no name, but which blurs the author's vision as a drifting fog obscures a
familiar landscape.
Notwithstanding such strictures, De Quincey's style is still, as when it
first appeared, a thing to marvel at, revealing as it does the grace, the
harmony, the wide range and the minute precision of our English speech.
* * * * *
SUMMARY. The early nineteenth century is notable for the rapid
progress of democracy in English government, and for the triumph of
romanticism in English literature. The most influential factor of
the age was the French Revolution, with its watchwords of Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity. English writers felt the stir of the times,
and were inspired by the dream of a new human society ruled by
justice and love. In their writing they revolted from the formal
standards of the age of Pope, followed their own genius rather than
set rules, and wrote with feeling and imagination of the two great
subjects of nature and humanity. Such was the contrast in politics
and literature with the preceding century that the whole period is
sometimes called the age of revolution.
Our study of the literature of the period includes: (1) The poets
Wordsworth and Coleridge, who did not so much originate as give
direction to the romantic revival. (2) Byron and Shelley, often
called revolutionary poets. (3) The poet Keats, whose works are
famous for their sense of beauty and for their almost perfect
workmanship. (4) A review of the minor poets of romanticism,
Campbell, Moore, Hood, Beddoes, Hunt, and Felicia Hemans. (5) The
life and works of Walter Scott, romantic poet and novelist. (6) A
glance at the fiction writers of the period, and a study of the
works of Jane Austen. (7) The critics and essayists, of whom we
selected these two as the most typical: Charles Lamb, famous for
his _Essays of Elia_; and De Quincey, notable for his
brilliant style, his analysis of dreams, and his endeavor to make a
science of literary criticism.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. For general reference such anthologies as
Manly's English Poetry and English Prose are useful. The works of
major authors are available in various school editions, prepared
especially for class use. A few of these handy editions are named
below; others are listed in the General Bibliography.
Best poems of Wordsworth and of Coleridge in Athenæum Press Series.
Briefer selections from Wordsworth in Golden Treasury, Cassell's
National Library, Maynard's English Classics. Coleridge's Ancient
Mariner in Standard English Classics, Pocket Classics. Selections
from Coleridge and Campbell in one volume of Riverside Literature.
Scott's Lady of the Lake and Ivanhoe in Standard English Classics;
Marmion and The Talisman in Pocket Classics; Lay of the Last
Minstrel and Quentin Durward in Lake English Classics; the same and
other works of Scott in various other school editions.
Selected poems of Byron in Standard English Classics, English
Readings. Best poems of Shelley in Athenæum Press; briefer
selections in Belles Lettres, Golden Treasury, English Classics.
Selections from Keats in Athenæum Press, Muses Library, Riverside
Literature.
Lamb's Essays of Elia in Lake English Classics; selected essays in
Standard English Classics, Temple Classics, Camelot Series. Tales
from Shakespeare in Ginn and Company's Classics for Children.
Selections from De Quincey, a representative collection, in
Athenæum Press; English Mail Coach and Joan of Arc in Standard
English Classics, English Readings; Confessions of an Opium Eater
in Temple Classics, Everyman's Library; Revolt of the Tartars in
Lake Classics, Silver Classics.
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in Pocket Classics; the same and
other novels in Everyman's Library.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Extended works in English history and literature are
listed in the General Bibliography. The following works are
valuable in a study of the early nineteenth century and the
romantic movement.
_HISTORY_. Morris, Age of Queen Anne and the Early
Hanoverians; McCarthy, The Epoch of Reform (Epochs of Modern
History Series); Cheyne, Industrial and Social History of England;
Hassall, Making of the British Empire; Trevelyan, Early Life of
Charles James Fox.
_LITERATURE_. Saintsbury, History of Nineteenth Century
Literature, Beers, English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century;
Symons, The Romantic Movement in English Poetry; Dowden, French
Revolution and English Literature; Hancock, French Revolution and
The English Poets; Masson, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Other
Essays; De Quincey, Literary Reminiscences.
_Wordsworth_. Life, by Myers (English Men of Letters Series),
by Raleigh. Herford, The Age of Wordsworth; Rannie, Wordsworth and
his Circle; Sneath, Wordsworth, Poet of Nature and Poet of Man.
Essays, by Lowell, in Among My Books; by M. Arnold, in Essays in
Criticism; by Pater, in Appreciations; by L. Stephen, in Hours in a
Library; by Hutton, in Literary Essays; by Bagehot, in Literary
Studies.
_Coleridge_. Life, by Traill (E. M. of L.), by Hall Caine
(Great Writers Series). Brandl, Coleridge and the English Romantic
Movement. Essays, by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by Shairp,
in Studies in Poetry and Philosophy; by Forster, in Great Teachers;
by Dowden, in New Studies.
_Scott_. Life, by Hutton (E. M. of L.), by Lockhart (5 vols.),
by Yonge (Great Writers), by Saintsbury, by Hudson, by Andrew Lang.
Jack, Essay on the Novel as Illustrated by Scott and Miss Austen.
Essays, by Stevenson, in Memories and Portraits; by Swinburne, in
Studies in Prose and Poetry; by Hazlitt, in The Spirit of the Age;
by Saintsbury, in Essays in English Literature.
_Byron_. Life, by Noel (Great Writers), by Nicol (E. M. of
L.). Hunt, Lord Byron and his Contemporaries. Essays by Macaulay,
M. Arnold, Hazlitt, Swinburne.
_Shelley_. Life, by Symonds (E. M. of L.), by Shairp, by
Dowden, by W. M. Rossetti. Salt, A Shelley Primer. Essays by
Dowden, Woodberry, M. Arnold, Bagehot, Forster, Hutton, L. Stephen.
_Keats_. Life, by Colvin (E. M. of L.), by Rossetti, by
Hancock. H. C. Shelley, Keats and his Circle; Masson, Wordsworth
and Other Essays. Essays by De Quincey, Lowell, M. Arnold,
Swinburne.
_Charles Lamb_. Life, by Ainger (E. M. of L.), by Lucas.
Fitzgerald, Charles Lamb; Talfourd, Memoirs of Charles Lamb. Essays
by Woodberry, Pater, De Quincey.
_De Quincey_. Life, by Masson (E. M. of L.), by Page. Hogg, De
Quincey and his Friends; Findlay, Personal Recollections of De
Quincey. Essays by Saintsbury, Masson, L. Stephen.
_Jane Austen_. Life, by Malden, by Goldwin Smith, by Adams.
Austen-Leigh, Memoir of Jane Austen; Mitton, Jane Austen and her
Times; Hill, Jane Austen, her Home and her Friends; Jack, Essay on
the Novel as Illustrated by Scott and Miss Austen. Essay by
Howells, in Heroines of Fiction.
CHAPTER VIII
THE VICTORIAN AGE (1837-1901)
The current sweeps the Old World,
The current sweeps the New;
The wind will blow, the dawn will glow,
Ere thou hast sailed them through.
Kingsley, "A Myth"
HISTORICAL OUTLINE. Amid the many changes which make the reign of
Victoria the most progressive in English history, one may discover
three tendencies which have profoundly affected our present life
and literature. The first is political and democratic: it may be
said to have begun with the Reform Bill of 1832; it is still in
progress, and its evident end is to deliver the government of
England into the hands of the common people. In earlier ages we
witnessed a government which laid stress on royalty and class
privilege, the spirit of which was clarioned by Shakespeare in the
lines:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
In the Victorian or modern age the divine right of kings is as
obsolete as a suit of armor; the privileges of royalty and nobility
are either curbed or abolished, and ordinary men by their
representatives in the House of Commons are the real rulers of
England.
With a change in government comes a corresponding change in
literature. In former ages literature was almost as exclusive as
politics; it was largely in the hands of the few; it was supported
by princely patrons; it reflected the taste of the upper classes.
Now the masses of men begin to be educated, begin to think for
themselves, and a host of periodicals appear in answer to their
demand for reading matter. Poets, novelists, essayists,
historians,--all serious writers feel the inspiration of a great
audience, and their works have a thousand readers where formerly
they had but one. In a word, English government, society and
literature have all become more democratic. This is the most
significant feature of modern history.
[Sidenote: THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT]
The second tendency may be summed up in the word "scientific." At
the basis of this tendency is man's desire to know the truth, if
possible the whole truth of life; and it sets no limits to the
exploring spirit, whether in the heavens above or the earth beneath
or the waters under the earth. From star-dust in infinite space
(which we hope to measure) to fossils on the bed of an ocean which
is no longer unfathomed, nothing is too great or too small to
attract man, to fascinate him, to influence his thought, his life,
his literature. Darwin's _Origin of Species_ (1859), which
laid the foundation for a general theory of evolution, is one of
the most famous books of the age, and of the world. Associated with
Darwin were Wallace, Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall and many others, whose
essays are, in their own way, quite as significant as the poems of
Tennyson or the novels of Dickens.
It would be quite as erroneous to allege that modern science began
with these men as to assume that it began with the Chinese or with
Roger Bacon; the most that can be said truthfully is, that the
scientific spirit which they reflected began to dominate our
thought, to influence even our poetry and fiction, even as the
voyages of Drake and Magellan furnished a mighty and mysterious
background for the play of human life on the Elizabethan stage. The
Elizabethans looked upon an enlarging visible world, and the wonder
of it is reflected in their prose and poetry; the Victorians
overran that world almost from pole to pole, then turned their
attention to an unexplored world of invisible forces, and their
best literature thrills again with the grandeur of the universe in
which men live.
[Sidenote: IMPERIALISM]
A third tendency of the Victorian age in England is expressed by
the word "imperialism." In earlier ages the work of planting
English colonies had been well done; in the Victorian age the
scattered colonies increased mightily in wealth and power, and were
closely federated into a world-wide Empire of people speaking the
same noble speech, following the same high ideals of justice and
liberty.
The literature of the period reflects the wide horizons of the
Empire. Among historical writers, Parkman the American was one of
the first and best to reflect the imperial spirit. In such works as
_A Half-Century of Conflict_ and _Montcalm and Wolfe_ he
portrayed the conflict not of one nation against another but rather
of two antagonistic types of civilization: the military and feudal
system of France against the democratic institutions of the
Anglo-Saxons. Among the explorers, Mungo Park had anticipated the
Victorians in his _Travels in the Interior of Africa_ (1799),
a wonderful book which set England to dreaming great dreams; but
not until the heroic Livingstone's _Missionary Travels and
Research in South Africa, The Zambesi and its Tributaries_ and
_Last Journals_ [Footnote: In connection with Livingstone's
works, Stanley's _How I Found Livingstone_ (1872) should also
be read. Livingstone died in Africa in 1873, and his
_Journals_ were edited by another hand. For a summary of his
work and its continuation see _Livingstone and the Exploration of
Central Africa_ (London, 1897).] appeared was the veil lifted
from the Dark Continent. Beside such works should be placed
numerous stirring journals of exploration in Canada, in India, in
Australia, in tropical or frozen seas,--wherever in the round world
the colonizing genius of England saw opportunity to extend the
boundaries and institutions of the Empire. Macaulay's _Warren
Hastings_, Edwin Arnold's _Indian Idylls_, Kipling's
_Soldiers Three_,--a few such works must be read if we are to
appreciate the imperial spirit of modern English history and
literature.
* * * * *
I. POETS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE
ALFRED TENNYSON (1809-1892)
Though the Victorian age is notable for the quality and variety of its
prose works, its dominant figure for years was the poet Tennyson. He alone,
of all that brilliant group of Victorian writers, seemed to speak not for
himself but for his age and nation; and the nation, grown weary of Byronic
rebellion, and finding its joy or sorrow expressed with almost faultless
taste by one whose life was noble, gave to Tennyson a whole-souled
allegiance such as few poets have ever won. In 1850 he was made Laureate to
succeed Wordsworth, receiving, as he said,
This laurel, greener from the brow
Of him that uttered nothing base;
and from that time on he steadily adhered to his purpose, which was to know
his people and to be their spokesman. Of all the poets who have been called
to the Laureateship, he is probably the only one of whom it can truthfully
be said that he understood his high office and was worthy of it.
LIFE. When we attempt a biography of a person we assume
unconsciously that he was a public man; but that is precisely what
Tennyson refused to be. He lived a retired life of thoughtfulness,
of communion with nature, of friendships too sacred for the world's
gaze, a life blameless in conduct, unswerving in its loyalty to
noble ideals. From boyhood to old age he wrote poetry, and in that
poetry alone, not in biography or letters or essays of criticism,
do we ever touch the real man.
[Illustration: TENNYSON'S BIRTHPLACE, SOMERSBY RECTORY,
LINCOLNSHIRE]
Tennyson was the son of a cultured clergyman, and was born in the
rectory of Somersby, Lincolnshire, in 1809, the same year that saw
the birth of Lincoln and Darwin. Like Milton he devoted himself to
poetry at an early age; in his resolve he was strengthened by his
mother; and from it he never departed. The influences of his early
life, the quiet beauty of the English landscape, the surge and
mystery of the surrounding sea, the emphasis on domestic virtues,
the pride and love of an Englishman for his country and his
country's history,--these are everywhere reflected in the poet's
work.
His education was largely a matter of reading under his father's
direction. He had a short experience of the grammar school at
Louth, which he hated forever after. He entered Cambridge, and
formed a circle of rare friends ("apostles" they called themselves)
who afterwards became famous; but he left college without taking a
degree, probably because he was too poor to continue his course.
Not till 1850 did he earn enough by his work to establish a home of
his own. Then he leased a house at Farringford, Isle of Wight,
which we have ever since associated with Tennyson's name. But his
real place is the Heart of England.
[Sidenote: A POET AND HIS CRITICS]
His first book (a boyish piece of work, undertaken with his brother
Charles) appeared under the title _Poems by Two Brothers_
(1827). In 1830, and again in 1832, he published a small volume
containing such poems as "The Palace of Art," "The Lotos-Eaters,"
"The Lady of Shalott" and "The Miller's Daughter"; but the critics
of the age, overlooking the poet's youth and its promise, treated
the volumes unmercifully. Tennyson, always sensitive to criticism,
was sensible enough to see that the critics had ground for their
opinions, if not for their harshness; and for ten long years, while
he labored to perfect his art, his name did not again appear in
print.
There was another reason for his silence. In 1833 his dearest
friend, Arthur Hallam, died suddenly in Vienna, and it was years
before Tennyson began to recover from the blow. His first
expression of grief is seen in the lyric beginning, "Break, break,
break," which contains the memorable stanza:
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Then he began that series of elegies for his friend which appeared,
seventeen years later, as _In Memoriam_.
[Sidenote: HE WINS AND HOLDS HIS PLACE]
Influenced by his friends, Tennyson broke his long silence with a
volume containing "Morte d'Arthur," "Locksley Hall," "Sir Galahad,"
"Lady Clare" and a few more poems which have never lost their power
over readers; but it must have commanded attention had it contained
only "Ulysses," that magnificent appeal to manhood, reflecting the
indomitable spirit of all those restless explorers who dared
unknown lands or seas to make wide the foundations of imperial
England. It was a wonderful volume, and almost its first effect was
to raise the hidden Tennyson to the foremost place in English
letters.
Whatever he wrote thereafter was sure of a wide reading. Critics,
workingmen, scientists, reformers, theologians,--all recognized the
power of the poet to give melodious expression to their thought or
feeling. Yet he remained averse to everything that savored of
popularity, devoting himself as in earlier days to poetry alone. As
a critic writes, "Tennyson never forgot that the poet's work was to
convince the world of love and beauty; that he was born to do that
work, and do it worthily."
There are two poems which are especially significant in view of
this steadfast purpose. The first is "Merlin and the Gleam," which
reflects Tennyson's lifelong devotion to his art; the other is
"Crossing the Bar," which was his farewell and hail to life when
the end came in 1892.
WORKS OF TENNYSON. There is a wide variety in Tennyson's work: legend,
romance, battle song, nature, classic and medieval heroes, problems of
society, questions of science, the answer of faith,--almost everything that
could interest an alert Victorian mind found some expression in his poetry.
It ranges in subject from a thrush song to a religious philosophy, in form
from the simplest love lyric to the labored historical drama.
[Sidenote: TYPICAL SHORT POEMS]
Of the shorter poems of Tennyson there are a few which should be known to
every student: first, because they are typical of the man who stands for
modern English poetry; and second, because one is constantly meeting
references to these poems in books or magazines or even newspapers. Among
such representative poems are: "The Lotos-Eaters," a dream picture
characterized by a beauty and verbal melody that recall Spenser's work;
"Locksley Hall" and "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," the one a romance
throbbing with youth and hope, the other representing the same hero grown
old, despondent and a little carping, but still holding fast to his ideals;
"Sir Galahad," a medieval romance of purity; "Ulysses," an epitome of
exploration in all ages; "The Revenge," a stirring war song; "Rizpah," a
dramatic portrayal of a mother's grief for a wayward son; "Romney's
Remorse," a character study of Tennyson's later years; and a few shorter
poems, such as "The Higher Pantheism," "Flower in the Crannied Wall,"
"Wages" and "The Making of Man," which reflect the poet's mood before the
problems of science and of faith.
[Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON]
To these should be added a few typical patriotic pieces, which show
Tennyson speaking as Poet Laureate for his country: "Ode on the Death of
Wellington," "Charge of the Light Brigade," "Defense of Lucknow," "Hands
all Round," and the imperial appeal of "Britons, Hold Your Own" or, as it
is tamely called, "Opening of the Indian and Colonial Exposition." The
beginner may also be reminded of certain famous little melodies, such as
the "Bugle Song," "Sweet and Low," "Tears," "The Brook," "Far, Far, Away"
and "Crossing the Bar," which are among the most perfect that England has
produced. And, as showing Tennyson's extraordinary power of youthful
feeling, at least one lyric of his old age should be read, such as "The
Throstle" (a song that will appeal especially to all bird lovers),
beginning:
"Summer is coming, summer is coming,
I know it, I know it, I know it;
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again"--
Yes, my wild little poet!
Here Tennyson is so merged in his subject as to produce the impression that
the lyric must have been written not by an aged poet but by the bird
himself. Reading the poem one seems to hear the brown thrasher on a twig of
the wild-apple tree, pouring his heart out over the thicket which his mate
has just chosen for a nesting place.
[Sidenote: IDYLLS OF THE KING]
Of the longer works of Tennyson the most notable is the _Idylls of the
King_, a series of twelve poems retelling part of the story of Arthur
and his knights. Tennyson seems to have worked at this poem in haphazard
fashion, writing the end first, then a fragment here or there, at intervals
during half a century. Finally he welded his material into its present
form, making it a kind of allegory of human life, in which man's animal
nature fights with his spiritual aspirations. As Tennyson wrote, in his
"Finale" to Queen Victoria:
Accept this old, imperfect tale,
New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul.
The beginner will do well to forget the allegory and read the poem for its
sustained beauty of expression and for its reflection of the modern ideal
of honor. For, though Malory and Tennyson tell the same story, there is
this significant difference between the _Morte d' Arthur_ and the
_Idylls of the King_: one is thoroughly medieval, and the other almost
as thoroughly modern. Malory in simple prose makes his story the expression
of chivalry in the Middle Ages; his heroes are true to their own time and
place. Tennyson in melodious blank verse changes his material freely so as
to make it a reflection of a nineteenth-century gentleman disguised in a
suit of armor and some old knightly raiment.
One may add that some readers cleave to Tennyson, while others greatly
prefer Malory. There is little or no comparison between the two, and
selections from both should be read, if only to understand how this old
romance of Arthur has appealed to writers of different times. In making a
selection from the _Idylls_ (the length of the poem is rather
forbidding) it is well to begin with the twelfth book, "The Passing of
Arthur," which was first to be written, and which reflects the noble spirit
of the entire work.
In _The Princess: a Medley_ the poet attempts the difficult task of
combining an old romantic story with a modern social problem; and he does
not succeed very well in harmonizing his incongruous materials.
[Sidenote: THE PRINCESS]
The story is, briefly, of a princess who in youth is betrothed to a
prince. When she reaches what is called the age of discretion
(doubtless because that age is so frequently marked by
indiscretions) she rebels against the idea of marriage, and founds
a college, herself the principal, devoted to the higher education
of women. The prince, a gallant blade, and a few of his followers
disguise themselves as girls and enter the school. When an unruly
masculine tongue betrays him he is cast out with maledictions on
his head. His father comes with an army, and makes war against the
father of the princess. The prince joins blithely in the fight, is
sore wounded, and is carried to the woman's college as to a
hospital. The princess nurses him, listens to his love tale, and
the story ends in the good old-fashioned way.
There are many beautiful passages in _The Princess_, and had Tennyson
been content to tell the romantic story his work would have had some
pleasant suggestion of Shakespeare's _As You Like It_; but the social
problem spoils the work, as a moralizing intruder spoils a bit of innocent
fun. Tennyson is either too serious or not serious enough; he does not know
the answer to his own problem, and is not quite sincere in dealing with it
or in coming to his lame and impotent conclusion. Few readers now attempt
the three thousand lines of _The Princess_, but content themselves
with a few lyrics, such as "Ask Me No More," "O Swallow Flying South,"
"Tears," "Bugle Song" and "Sweet and Low," which are familiar songs in many
households that remember not whence they came. [Footnote: The above
criticism of _The Princess_ applies, in some measure, to Tennyson's
_Maud: a Monodrama_, a story of passionate love and loss and sorrow.
Tennyson wrote also several dramatic works, such as _Harold_,
_Becket_ and _Queen Mary_, in which he attempted to fill some of
the gaps in Shakespeare's list of chronicle plays.]
[Sidenote: ENGLISH IDYLS]
More consistent than _The Princess_ is a group of poems reflecting the
life and ideals of simple people, to which Tennyson gave the general name
of _English Idyls_. The longest and in some respects the best of these
is "Enoch Arden," a romance which was once very popular, but which is now
in danger of being shelved because the modern reader prefers his romance in
prose form. Certain of the famous poems which we have already named are
classed among these English idyls; but more typical of Tennyson's purpose
in writing them are "Dora," "The Gardener's Daughter" and "Aylmer's Field,"
in which he turns from ancient heroes to sing the romance of present-day
life.
[Illustration: SUMMERHOUSE AT FARRINGFORD
Here Tennyson wrote "Enoch Arden"]
Among mature readers, who have met the sorrows of life or pondered its
problems, the most admired of Tennyson's work is _In Memoriam_ (1850),
an elegy inspired by the death of Arthur Hallam. As a memorial poem it
invites comparison with others, with Milton's "Lycidas," or Shelley's
"Adonais," or Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." Without going deeply
into the comparison we may note this difference: that Tennyson's work is
more personal and sympathetic than any of the others. Milton had only a
slight acquaintance with his human subject (Edward King) and wrote his poem
as a memorial for the college rather than for the man; Shelley had never
met Keats, whose early death he commemorates; Gray voiced an impersonal
melancholy in the presence of the unknown dead; but Tennyson had lost his
dearest friend, and wrote to solace his own grief and to keep alive a
beautiful memory. Then, as he wrote, came the thought of other men and
women mourning their dead; his view broadened with his sympathy, and he
wrote other lyrics in the same strain to reflect the doubt or fear of
humanity and its deathless faith even in the shadow of death.
It is this combination of personal and universal elements which makes _In
Memoriam_ remarkable. The only other elegy to which we may liken it is
Emerson's "Threnody," written after the death of his little boy. But where
Tennyson offers an elaborate wreath and a polished monument, Emerson is
content with a rugged block of granite and a spray of nature's evergreen.
[Sidenote: PLAN OF THE POEM]
_In Memoriam_ occupied Tennyson at intervals for many years,
and though he attempted to give it unity before its publication in
1850, it is still rather fragmentary. Moreover, it is too long; for
the poet never lived who could write a hundred and thirty-one
lyrics upon the same subject, in the same manner, without growing
monotonous.
There are three more or less distinct parts of the work, [Footnote:
Tennyson divided _In Memoriam_ into nine sections. Various
attempts have recently been made to organize the poem and to make a
philosophy of it, but these are ingenious rather than convincing.]
corresponding to three successive Christmas seasons. The first part
(extending to poem 30) is concerned with grief and doubt; the
second (to poem 78) exhibits a calm, serious questioning of the
problem of faith; the third introduces a great hope amid tender
memories or regrets, and ends (poem 106) with that splendid outlook
on a new year and a new life, "Ring Out Wild Bells." This was
followed by a few more lyrics of mounting faith, inspired by the
thought that divine love rules the world and that our human love is
immortal and cannot die. The work ends, rather incongruously, with
a marriage hymn for Tennyson's sister.
The spirit of _In Memoriam_ is well reflected in the "Proem"
or introductory hymn, "Strong Son of God, Immortal Love"; its
message is epitomized in the last three lines:
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves.
THE QUALITY OF TENNYSON. The charm of Tennyson is twofold. As the voice of
the Victorian Age, reflecting its thought or feeling or culture, its
intellectual quest, its moral endeavor, its passion for social justice, he
represents to us the spirit of modern poetry; that is, poetry which comes
close to our own life, to the aims, hopes, endeavors of the men and women
of to-day. With this modern quality Tennyson has the secret of all old
poetry, which is to be eternally young. He looked out upon a world from
which the first wonder of creation had not vanished, where the sunrise was
still "a glorious birth," and where love, truth, beauty, all inspiring
realities, were still waiting with divine patience to reveal themselves to
human eyes.
There are other charms in Tennyson: his romantic spirit, his love of
nature, his sense of verbal melody, his almost perfect workmanship; but
these the reader must find and appreciate for himself. The sum of our
criticism is that Tennyson is a poet to have handy on the table for the
pleasure of an idle hour. He is also (and this is a better test) an
excellent poet to put in your pocket when you go on a journey. So shall you
be sure of traveling in good company.
* * * * *
ROBERT BROWNING (1812-1889)
In their lifelong devotion to a single purpose the two chief poets of the
Victorian Age are much alike; in most other respects they are men of
contrasts. Tennyson looked like a poet, Browning like a business man.
Tennyson was a solitary singer, never in better company than when alone;
Browning was a city man, who must have the excitement of society.
Tennyson's field was the nation, its traditions, heroes, problems, ideals;
but Browning seldom went beyond the individual man, and his purpose was to
play Columbus to some obscure human soul. Tennyson was at times rather
narrowly British; Browning was a cosmopolitan who dealt broadly with
humanity. Tennyson was the poet of youth, and will always be read by the
young in heart; Browning was the philosopher, the psychologist, the poet of
mature years and of a few cultivated readers.
LIFE. Browning portrays so many different human types as to make us
marvel, but we may partly understand his wide range of
character-studies by remembering he was an Englishman with some
Celtic and German ancestors, and with a trace of Creole
(Spanish-Negro) blood. He was born and grew up at Camberwell, a
suburb of London, and the early home of Ruskin. His father was a
Bank-of-England clerk, a prosperous man and fond of books, who
encouraged his boy to read and to let education follow the lead of
fancy. Before Browning was twenty years old, father and son had a
serious talk which ended in a kind of bargain: the boy was to live
a life of culture, and the father was to take care of all financial
matters,--an arrangement which suited them both very well.
[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING]
Since boyhood Browning had been writing romantic verses, influenced
first by Byron, then by Shelley, then by Keats. His first published
works, _Pauline_ and _Paracelsus_, were what he called
soul-studies, the one of a visionary, "a star-treader" (its hero
was Shelley), the other of a medieval astrologer somewhat like
Faust. These two works, if one had the patience of a puzzle-worker
to read them, would be found typical of all the longer poems that
Browning produced in his sixty years of writing.
These early works were not read, were not even criticized; and it
was not till 1846 that Browning became famous, not because of his
books but because he eloped with Elizabeth Barrett, who was then
the most popular poet in England. [Footnote: The fame of Miss
Barrett in mid century was above that of Tennyson or Browning. She
had been for a long time an invalid. Her father, a tyrannical kind
of person, insisted on her keeping her room, and expected her to
die properly there. He had no personal objection to Browning, but
flouted the idea of his famous daughter marrying with anybody.] The
two went to Florence, discovered that they were "made for each
other," and in mutual helpfulness did their best work. They lived
at "Casa Guidi," a house made famous by the fact that Browning's
_Men and Women_ and Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from the
Portuguese_ were written there.
[Illustration: MRS. BROWNING'S TOMB IN THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY AT
FLORENCE]
[Sidenote: THE BROWNING CULT]
This happy period of work was broken by Mrs. Browning's death in
1861. Browning returned to England with his son, and to forget his
loss he labored with unusual care on _The Ring and the Book_
(1868), his bulkiest work. The rest of his life was spent largely
in London and in Venice. Fame came to him tardily, and with some
unfortunate results. He became known as a poet to be likened unto
Shakespeare, but more analytical, calling for a superior
intelligence on the part of his readers, and presently a multitude
of Browning clubs sprang up in England and America. Delighted with
his popularity among the elect, Browning seems to have cultivated
his talent for obscurity, or it may be that his natural
eccentricity of style increased with age, as did Wordsworth's
prosiness. Whatever the cause, his work grew steadily worse until a
succession of grammar defying volumes threatened to separate all
but a few devotees from their love of Browning. He died in Venice
in 1889. On the day of his death appeared in London his last book,
_Asolando_. The "Epilogue" to that volume is a splendid finale
to a robust life.
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake
Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" is a beautiful swan song; but
Browning's last poem is a bugle call, and it sounds not "taps" but
the "reveille."
BROWNING'S DRAMATIC QUALITY. Nearly all the works of Browning are dramatic
in spirit, and are commonly dramatic also in form. Sometimes he writes a
drama for the stage, such as _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, _Colombe's
Birthday_ and _In a Balcony_,--dramas without much action, but
packed with thought in a way that would have delighted the Schoolmen. More
often his work takes the form of a dramatic monologue, such as "My Last
Duchess" and "The Bishop Orders his Tomb," in which one person speaks and,
like Peter, his speech bewrayeth him; for he reveals very plainly the kind
of man he is. Occasionally Browning tries to sing like another poet, but
even here his dramatic instinct is strong. He takes some crisis, some
unexpected meeting or parting of the ways of life, and proceeds to show the
hero's character by the way he faces the situation, or talks about it. So
when he attempts even a love song, such as "The Last Ride Together," or a
ballad, such as "The Pied Piper," he regards his subject from an unusual
viewpoint and produces what he calls a dramatic lyric.
[Sidenote: ACTION VS. THOUGHT]
There are at least two ways in which Browning's work differs from that of
other dramatists. When a trained playwright produces a drama his rule is,
"Action, more action, and still more action." Moreover, he stands aside in
order to permit his characters to reveal their quality by their own speech
or action. For example, Shakespeare's plays are filled with movement, and
he never tells you what he thinks of Portia or Rosalind or Macbeth, or what
ought to become of them. He does not need to tell. But Browning often halts
his story to inform you how this or that situation should be met, or what
must come out of it. His theory is that it is not action but thought which
determines human character; for a man may be doing what appears to be a
brave or generous deed, yet be craven or selfish at heart; or he may be
engaged in some apparently sinful proceeding in obedience to a motive that
we would acclaim as noble if the whole truth were known "It is the soul and
its thoughts that make the man," says Browning, "little else is worthy of
study." So he calls most of his works soul studies. If we label them now
dramas, or dramatic monologues, or dramatic lyrics (the three
classifications of his works), we are to remember that Browning is the one
dramatist who deals with thoughts or motives rather than with action.
[Illustration: THE PALAZZO REZZONICO BROWNING'S HOME IN VENICE]
WHAT TO READ. One should begin with the simplest of Browning's works, and
preferably with those in which he shows some regard for verbal melody. As
romantic love is his favorite theme, it is perhaps well to begin with a few
of the love lyrics "My Star," "By the Fireside," "Evelyn Hope," and
especially "The Last Ride Together". To these may be added some of the
songs that brighten the obscurity of his longer pieces, such as "I Send my
Heart," "Oh Love--No Love" and "There's a Woman Like a Dewdrop". Next in
order are the ballads, "The Pied Piper," "Hervé Riel" and "How they Brought
the Good News"; and then a few miscellaneous short poems, such as "Home
Thoughts from Abroad," "Prospice," "The Boy and the Angel" and "Up at a
Villa--Down in the City."
[Sidenote: DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES]
The above poems are named not because they are particularly fine examples
of their kind, but by way of introduction to a poet who is rather hard to
read. When these are known, and are found not so obscure as we feared, then
will be the time to attempt some of Browning's dramatic monologues. Of
these there is a large variety, portraying many different types of
character, but we shall name only a few. "Andrea del Sarto" is a study of
the great Italian painter, "the perfect painter," whose love for a pretty
but shallow woman was as a millstone about his neck. "My Last Duchess" is a
powerfully drawn outline of a vain and selfish nobleman. "Abt Vogler" is a
study of the soul of a musician. "Rabbi ben Ezra," one of the most typical
of Browning's works, is the word of an old man who faces death, as he had
faced life, with magnificent courage. "An Epistle" relates the strange
experience of Karshish, an Arab physician, as recorded in a letter to his
master Abib. Karshish meets Lazarus (him who was raised from the dead) and,
regarding him as a patient, describes his symptoms,--such symptoms as a man
might have who must live on earth after having looked on heaven. The
physician's half-scoffing words show how his habitual skepticism is shaken
by a glimpse of the unseen world. He concludes, but his doubt is stronger
than his conclusion, that Lazarus must be a madman:
"And thou must love me who have died for thee."
The madman saith He said so: it is strange!
[Sidenote: SAUL]
Another poem belonging to the same group (published under the general title
of _Men and Women_) is "Saul," which finely illustrates the method
that makes Browning different from other poets. He would select some
familiar event, the brief record of which is preserved in history, and say,
"Here we see merely the deed, the outward act or circumstance of life: now
let us get acquainted with these men or women by showing that they thought
and felt precisely as we do under similar conditions." In "Saul" he
reproduces the scene recorded in the sixteenth chapter of the first Book of
Samuel, where the king is "troubled by an evil spirit" and the young David
comes to play the harp before him. Saul is represented as the
disillusioned, the despairing man who has lost all interest in life, and
David as the embodiment of youthful enthusiasm. The poem is a remarkable
portrayal of the ancient scene and characters; but it is something greater
than that; it is a splendid song of the fullness and joy of a brave,
forward-looking life inspired by noble ideals. It is also one of the best
answers ever given to the question, Is life worth living? The length of the
poem, however, and its many difficult or digressive passages are apt to
repel the beginner unless he have the advantage of an abridged version.
[Sidenote: PIPPA PASSES]
Of the longer works of Browning, only _Pippa Passes_ can be
recommended with any confidence that it will give pleasure to the reader.
Other works, such as _The Ring and the Book_, [Footnote: _The Ring
and the Book_ is remarkable for other things than its inordinate length.
In it Browning tells how he found an old book containing the record of a
murder trial in Rome,--a horrible story of a certain Count Guido, who in a
jealous rage killed his beautiful young wife. That is the only story
element of the poem, and it is told, with many irritating digressions, at
the beginning. The rest of the work is devoted to "soul studies," the
subjects being nine different characters who rehearse the same story, each
for his own justification. Thus, Guido gives his view of the matter, and
Pompilia the wife gives hers. "Half Rome," siding with Guido, is
personified to tell one tale, and then "The Other Half" has its say. Final
judgment rests with the Pope, an impressive figure, who upholds the
decision of the civil judges. Altogether it is a remarkable piece of work;
but it would have been more remarkable, better in every way, if fifteen
thousand of its twenty thousand lines had been left in the inkpot.] are
doubtless more famous; but reading them is like solving a puzzle: a few
enjoy the matter, and therefore count it pleasure, but to the majority it
is a task to be undertaken as mental discipline.
_Pippa_ is the story of a working girl, a silk weaver of
Asolo, who has a precious holiday and goes forth to enjoy it,
wishing she could share her happiness with others, especially with
the great people of her town. But the great live in another world,
she thinks, a world far removed from that of the poor little
working girl; so she puts the wish out of her head, and goes on her
way singing:
The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world!
It happens that her songs come, in succession, to the ears of the
four greatest people in Asolo at moments when they are facing a
terrible crisis, when a straw may turn them one way or the other,
to do evil or to do good. In each case the song and the pure heart
of the singer turn the scale in the right direction; but Pippa
knows nothing of her influence. She enjoys her holiday and goes to
bed still happy, still singing, quite ignorant of the wonder she
has accomplished.
[Illustration: PIAZZA OF SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
Where Browning bought the book in which he found the story of
"The Ring and the Book"]
A mere story-teller would have brought Pippa and the rescued ones together,
making an affecting scene with rewards, in the romantic manner; but
Browning is content to depict a bit of ordinary human life, which is daily
filled with deeds worthy to be written in a book of gold, but of which only
the Recording Angel takes any notice.
A CRITICISM OF BROWNING. Comparatively few people appreciate the force, the
daring, the vitality of Browning, and those who know him best are least
inclined to formulate a favorable criticism. They know too well the faults
of their hero, his whims, crotchets, digressions, garrulity; his disjointed
ideas, like rich plums in a poor pudding; his ejaculatory style, as of a
man of second thoughts; his wing-bound fancy, which hops around his subject
like a grasshopper instead of soaring steadily over it like an eagle. Many
of his lines are rather gritty:
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?
and half his blank verse is neither prose nor poetry:
What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,--here's a church!
Instead of criticism, therefore, his admirers offer this word of advice:
Try to like Browning; in other words, try to understand him. He is not
"easy"; he is not to be read for relaxation after dinner, but in the
morning and in a straight-backed chair, with eyes clear and intellect at
attention. If you so read him, you must soon discover that he has something
of courage and cheer which no other poet can give you in such full measure.
If you read nothing else, try at least "Rabbi ben Ezra," and after the
reading reflect that the optimism of this poem colors everything that the
author wrote. For Browning differs from all other poets in this: that they
have their moods of doubt or despondency, but he has no weary days or
melancholy hours. They sing at times in the twilight, but Browning is the
herald of the sunrise. Always and everywhere he represents "the will to
live," to live bravely, confidently here; then forward still with cheerful
hearts to immortality:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half: trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
* * * * *
OTHER VICTORIAN POETS
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1806-1861). Among the lesser poets of the age
the most famous was Elizabeth Barrett, who eloped in romantic fashion with
Browning in 1846. Her early volumes, written while she was an invalid, seem
now a little feverish, but a few of her poems of childhood, such as
"Hector" and "Little Ellie," have still their admirers. Later she became
interested in social problems, and reflected the passion of the age for
reform in such poems as "The Cry of the Children," a protest against child
labor which once vied in interest with Hood's famous "Song of the Shirt."
Also she wrote _Aurora Leigh_, a popular novel in verse, having for
its subject a hero who was a social reformer. Then Miss Barrett married
Robert Browning after a rather emotional and sentimental courtship, as
reflected in certain extravagant pages of the Browning _Letters_.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING]
[Sidenote: SONNETS]
In her new-found happiness she produced her most enduring work, the
_Sonnets from the Portuguese_ (1850). This is a collection of love
songs, so personal and intimate that the author thought perhaps to disguise
them by calling them "From the Portuguese." In reality their source was no
further distant than her own heart, and their hero was seen across the
breakfast table every morning. They reflect Mrs. Browning's love for her
husband, and those who read them should read also Browning's answer in "One
Word More." Some of the sonnets ("I Thought How Once" and "How Do I Love
Thee," for example) are very fine, and deserve their high place among love
poems; but others, being too intimate, raise a question of taste in showing
one's heart throbs to the public. Some readers may question whether many of
the _Sonnets_ and most of the _Letters_ had not better been left
exclusively to those for whom they were intended.
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888). The work of this poet (a son of Dr. Arnold of
Rugby, made famous by _Tom Brown's Schooldays_) is in strong contrast
to that of the Brownings, to the robust optimism of the one and to the
emotionalism of the other. He was a man of two distinct moods: in his
poetry he reflected the doubt or despair of those whose faith had been
shaken by the alleged discoveries of science; in prose he became almost
light-hearted as he bantered middle-class Englishmen for their old-fogy
prejudices, or tried to awaken them to the joys of culture. In both moods
he was coldly intellectual, appealing to the head rather than to the heart
of his readers; and it is still a question whether his poetry or his
criticism will be longest remembered.
[Sidenote: THE POET OF OXFORD]
Arnold is called the poet of Oxford, as Holmes is of Harvard, and those who
know the beautiful old college town will best appreciate certain verses in
which he reflects the quiet loveliness of a scene that has impressed so
many students, century after century. To general readers one may safely
recommend Arnold's elegies written in memory of the poet Clough, such as
"Thyrsis" and "The Scholar Gypsy"; certain poems reflecting the religious
doubts of the age, such as "Dover Beach," "Morality" and "The Future"; the
love lyrics entitled "Switzerland"; and a few miscellaneous poems, such as
"Resignation," "The Forsaken Merman," "The Last Word," and "Geist's Grave."
To these some critics would add the long narrative poem "Sohrab and
Rustum," which is one of the models set before students of "college
English." The reasons for the choice are not quite obvious; for the story,
which is taken from the Persian _Shah Namah_, or Book of Kings, is
rather coldly told, and the blank verse is far from melodious.
In reading these poems of Arnold his own motives should be borne in mind.
He tried to write on classic lines, repressing the emotions, holding to a
severe, unimpassioned style; and he proceeded on the assumption that poetry
is "a criticism of life." It is not quite clear what he meant by his
definition, but he was certainly on the wrong trail. Poetry is the natural
language of man in moments of strong or deep feeling; it is the expression
of life, of life at high tide or low tide; when it turns to criticism it
loses its chief charm, as a flower loses its beauty and fragrance in the
hands of a botanist. Some poets, however (Lucretius among the ancients,
Pope among the moderns, for example), have taken a different view of the
matter.
[Illustration: MATTHEW ARNOLD]
[Sidenote: THE LITERARY CRITIC]
Arnold's chief prose works were written, curiously enough, after he was
appointed professor of poetry at Oxford. There he proceeded, in a sincere
but somewhat toplofty way to enlighten the British public on the subject of
culture. For years he was a kind of dictator of literary taste, and he is
still known as a master of criticism; but to examine his prose is to
discover that it is notable for its even style and occasional good
expressions, such as "sweetness and light," rather than for its
illuminating ideas.
For example, in _Literature and Dogma_ and other books in which Arnold
attempted to solve the problems of the age, he was apt to make large
theories from a small knowledge of his subject. So in his _Study of
Celtic Literature_ (an interesting book, by the way) he wrote with
surprising confidence for one who had no first-hand acquaintance with his
material, and led his readers pleasantly astray in the flowery fields of
Celtic poetry. Moreover, he had one favorite method of criticism, which was
to take the bad lines of one poet and compare them with the good lines of
another,--a method which would make Shakespeare a sorry figure if he
happened to be on the wrong side of the comparison.
[Sidenote: WHAT TO READ]
In brief, Arnold is always a stimulating and at times a provoking critic;
he stirs our thought, disturbs our pet prejudices, challenges our
opposition; but he is not a very reliable guide in any field. What one
should read of his prose depends largely on one's personal taste. The essay
_On Translating Homer_ is perhaps his most famous work, but few
readers are really interested in the question of hexameters. _Culture and
Anarchy_ is his best plea for a combination of the moral and
intellectual or, as he calls them, the Hebrew and Greek elements in our
human education. Among the best of the shorter works are "Emerson" in
_Discourses in America_, and "Wordsworth," "Byron" and "The Study of
Poetry" in _Essays in Criticism_.
THE PRE-RAPHAELITES. In the middle of the nineteenth century, or in 1848 to
be specific, a number of English poets and painters banded themselves
together as a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. [Footnote: The name was used
earlier by some German artists, who worked together in Rome with the
purpose of restoring art to the medieval simplicity and purity which, as
was alleged, it possessed before the time of the Italian painter Raphael.
The most famous artists of the English brotherhood were John Everett
Millais and William Holman Hunt.] They aimed to make all art more simple,
sincere, religious, and to restore "the sense of wonder, reverence and awe"
which, they believed, had been lost since medieval times. Their sincerity
was unquestioned; their influence, though small, was almost wholly good;
but unfortunately they were, as Morris said, like men born out of due
season. They lived too much apart from their own age and from the great
stream of common life out of which superior art proceeds. For there was
never a great book or a great picture that was not in the best sense
representative, that did not draw its greatness from the common ideals of
the age in which it was produced.
[Illustration: THE MANOR HOUSE OF WILLIAM MORRIS]
[Sidenote: ROSSETTI]
The first poet among the Pre-Raphaelites was Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1828-1882), the son of an exiled Italian writer. Like others of the group
he was both painter and poet, and seemed to be always trying to put into
his verse the rich coloring which belonged on canvas. Perhaps the most
romantic episode of his life was, that upon the death of his wife (the
beautiful model, Lizzie Siddal, who appears in Millais' picture "Ophelia")
he buried his poetry with her. After some years his friends persuaded him
that his poems belonged to the living, and he exhumed and published them
(_Poems_, 1870). His most notable volume, _Ballads and Sonnets_,
appeared eleven years later. The ballads are nearly all weird, uncanny, but
with something in them of the witchery of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner."
The sonnets under the general title of "The House of Life" are devoted to
the poet's lost love, and rank with Mrs. Browning's _From the
Portuguese_.
[Illustration: WILLIAM MORRIS
From a photograph by Walker and Cockerell]
William Morris (1834-1896) has been called by his admirers the most Homeric
of English poets. The phrase was probably applied to him because of his
_Sigurd the Volsung_, in which he uses the material of an old
Icelandic saga. There is a captivating vigor and swing in this poem, but it
lacks the poetic imagination of an earlier work, _The Defence of
Guenevere,_ in which Morris retells in a new way some of the fading
medieval romances. His best-known work in poetry [Footnote: Some readers
will be more interested in Morris's prose romances, _The House of the
Wolfings_, _The Roots of the Mountains_ and _The Story of the
Glittering Plain_] is _The Earthly Paradise_, a collection of
twenty-four stories strung together on a plan somewhat resembling that of
the _Canterbury Tales_. A band of mariners are cast away on an island
inhabited by a superior race of men, and to while away the time the seamen
and their hosts exchange stories. Some of these are from classic sources,
others from Norse legends or hero tales. The stories are gracefully told,
in very good verse; but in reading them one has the impression that
something essential is lacking, some touch, it may be, of present life and
reality. For the island is but another Cloudland, and the characters are
shadowy creatures having souls but no bodies; or else, as some may find,
having the appearance of bodies and no souls whatever. Indeed, in reading
the greater part of Pre-Raphaelite literature, one is reminded of Morris's
estimate of himself, in the Prelude to _The Earthly Paradise_:
Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate
To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.