CHAPTER X

THE RETURN TO NATURE

TIME-CHART OF THE CHIEF AUTHORS

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

1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850

| ║[191]| | ║ | | | |║ Wordsworth |...║==================║...|........|........|........|║ (1770–1850) | | | | | | | | ║[191]| | ║ | | ║ | | Coleridge |...║================║.....|........|...║ | | (1772–1834) | | | | | | | | | | ║[192] | ║ | | | Byron |........|........|.║==========║ | | | (1788–1824) | | | | | | | | ║ | | ║ | ║ | | | Shelley | ║......|........|.║=========║ | | | (1792–1822) | | | | | | | | ║ | | ║[193] ║ | | | Keats | ║.....|........|...║======║ | | | (1795–1821) | | | | | | | | | ║[194]| ║[195]| | ║ | | Scott |........|..║========║=================║ | | (1771–1832) | | | ║ | | | | | ║[196] | ║ | | | | Austen |...║==================║ | | | | (1775–1817) | | | | | | | | | ║ | | | ║ | | Lamb |........|....║=========================║ | | (1775–1834) | | | | | | | | | | | ║[197] | | | De Quincey |........|........|........|.║========================+ (1785–1859) | | | | | | | | | ║ | | | ║ | | Hazlitt |........|...║========================║ | | (1778–1830) | | | | | | |

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1790–1830)

To an overwhelming extent the history of the time is the record of the effects of the French Revolution.

=1. The European War.= The close of the eighteenth century saw England and France engaged in open warfare (1793). Many causes contributed to set the war in motion, and many more kept it intractably in operation. Hostilities dragged on till 1815, in the end bringing about the extinction of the French Republic, the birth of which was greeted so joyfully by the English Liberals, the rise and destruction of the power of Napoleon, and the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty. These events had their effects in every corner of Europe, and in none more strongly than in England.

=2. The Reaction.= It has been well said: “At the beginning of every revolution men hope, for they think of all that mankind may gain in a new world; in its next phase they fear, for they think of what mankind may lose.” This was the case with the French Revolution. The elder writers of the period, with Wordsworth and Coleridge as conspicuous examples, hailed the new era with joy. Then, as the Revolution proceeded to unexpected developments, there came in turn disappointment, disillusion, dejection, and despair, and, notably in the case of Wordsworth, the rejection of youthful ideas and the soured adoption of the older reactionary faith. The younger writers, such as Leigh Hunt, Shelley, and Keats, still adhered to the Revolutionary doctrines, but the warmth of the early days had already passed away.

=3. Social Conditions.= The conclusion of the long war brought inevitable misery; low wages, unemployment, and heavy taxation gave rise to fiery resentment and fierce demands on the part of the people. Men like Shelley and Ebenezer Elliott called aloud for social justice; in gentler mood Mrs. Hemans and Tom Hood bewailed the social misery. We have the massacre of Peterloo and the wild rioting over the Reform Bill and the Corn Laws.

The Reform Bill (1832) was a grudging concession to the general discontent. To conservative minds, like those of Scott and the maturer Wordsworth, the Bill seemed to pronounce the dissolution of every social tie. But the Bill brought only disappointment to its friends. In the next chapter we shall see how the demand for social amelioration deepened and broadened, and colored the literature of the time.

The interest in social conditions became intensified toward the end of the nineteenth century, until it has grown to be one of the chief features of modern literature.

THE RETURN TO NATURE

In the last chapter we noted the beginnings and development of the new feeling for nature. This chapter sees the full effects of the movement, and the subsequent reaction that followed.

=1. Abundant Output.= Even the lavishness of the Elizabethans cannot excel that of this age. The development of new ideas brings fresh inspiration for poetry, and the poetical sky is bright with luminaries of the first magnitude. In prose we may note especially the fruitful yield of the novel, the rejuvenation of the essay, and the unprecedented activity of critical and miscellaneous writers. This is the most fertile period of our literature.

=2. Great Range of Subject.= The new and buoyant race of writers, especially the poets, lays the knowledge and experience of all ages under a heavy toll. The classical writers are explored anew, and are drawn upon by the genius of Keats and Shelley; the Middle Ages inspire the novels of Scott and the poems of Coleridge, Southey, and many more; modern times are analyzed and dissected in the work of the novelists, the satires of Byron, and the productions of the miscellaneous writers. This is indeed the return to nature, for all nature is scrutinized and summed up afresh.

=3. Treatment of Nature.= If for the moment we take the restricted meaning of the word, and understand by “nature” the common phenomena of earth, air, and sea, we find the poetical attitude to nature altering profoundly. In the work of Cowper, Crabbe, and Gray the treatment is principally the simple chronicle and sympathetic observation of natural features. In the new race of poets the observation becomes more matured and intimate. Notably in the case of Wordsworth, the feeling for nature rises to a passionate veneration that is love and religion too. To Wordsworth nature is not only a procession of seasons and seasonal fruition: it is the eye of all things, natural and supernatural, into which the observant soul can peer and behold the spirit that inhabits all things. Nature is thus amplified and glorified; it is to be sought, not only in the flowers and the fields, but also in

the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.

=4. Political and Periodical Writing.= The age did not produce a pamphleteer of the first class like Swift or Burke, but the turbulence of the period was clearly marked in the immense productivity of its political writers. The number of periodicals was greatly augmented, and we notice the first of the great daily journals that are still a strong element in literature and politics. _The Morning Chronicle_ (1769) and _The Morning Post_ (1772) were started by Henry Bate, _The Times_ (1785) by John Walter. Of a more irresponsible type were the Radical _Political Register_ (1802) of Cobbett and _The Examiner_ (1808) of Leigh Hunt. A race of powerful literary magazines sprang to life: _The Edinburgh Review_ (1802), _The Quarterly Review_ (1809), _The London Magazine_ (1817), _Blackwood’s Magazine_ (1817), and _The Westminster Review_ (1827). Such excellent publications reacted strongly upon authorship, and were responsible for much of the best work of Hazlitt, Lamb, Southey, and a host of other miscellaneous writers.

=5. The Influence of Germany.= The increasing bitterness of the long war with France almost extinguished the literary influence of the French language, which, as was indicated in the last chapter, had been affecting English literature deeply. In the place of French, the study of German literature and learning came rapidly into favor. The first poetical work of Scott is based on the German, and the effects of the new influence can be further observed in the works of Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and many more. In the course of time German increased its hold upon English, until by the middle of the nineteenth century it was perhaps the dominating foreign tongue.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770–1850)

=1. His Life.= Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, a town which is actually outside the Lake District, but well within hail of it. His father, who was a lawyer, died when William was thirteen years old. The elder Wordsworth left a modest sum of money, which was not available at the time of his death, so that William had to depend on the generosity of two uncles, who paid for his schooling at Hawkshead, near Lake Windermere. Subsequently Wordsworth went to Cambridge, entering St. John’s College in 1787. His work at the university was quite undistinguished, and having graduated in 1791 he left with no fixed career in view. After spending a few months in London he crossed over to France (1791), and stayed at Orléans and Blois for nearly a year. An enthusiasm for the Revolution was aroused in him; he himself has chronicled the mood in one of his happiest passages:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven.

He returned to Paris in 1792 just after the September massacres, and the sights and stories that greeted him there shook his faith in the dominant political doctrine. Even yet, however, he thought of becoming a Girondin, or moderate Republican, but his allowance from home was stopped, and he returned to England. With his sister Dorothy (henceforward his lifelong companion) he settled in a little cottage in Dorset; then, having met Coleridge, they moved to Alfoxden, a house in Somersetshire, in order to live near him. It was there that the two poets took the series of walks the fruit of which was to be the _Lyrical Ballads_.

After a visit to Germany in 1798 the Wordsworths settled in the Lake District, which was to be their home for the future. In turn they occupied Dove Cottage, at Town-End, Grasmere (1802), Allan Bank (1808), Grasmere Parsonage (1811), and lastly the well-known residence of Rydal Mount, which was Wordsworth’s home from 1813 till his death. Shortly after he had moved to Rydal Mount he received the sinecure of Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, and was put out of reach of poverty.

The remainder of his life was a model of domesticity. He was carefully tended by his wife and sister, who, with a zeal that was noteworthy, though it was injudicious, treasured every scrap of his poetry that they could lay their hands on. His great passion was for traveling. He explored most of the accessible parts of the Continent, and visited Scotland several times. On the last occasion (1831) he and his daughter renewed their acquaintance with Scott at Abbotsford, and saw the great novelist when he was fast crumbling into mental ruin. Wordsworth’s poetry, which at first had been received with derision or indifference, was now winning its way, and recognition was general. In 1839 Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L.; in 1842 the Crown awarded him a pension of £300 a year; and on the death of Southey in 1843 he became Poet Laureate.

Long before this time he had discarded his early ideals and become the upholder of conservatism. Perhaps he is not “the lost leader” whose recantation Browning bewails with rather theatrical woe; but he lived to deplore the Reform Bill and to oppose the causes to which his early genius had been dedicated. Throughout his life, however, he never wavered in his faith in himself and his immortality as a poet. He lived to see his own belief in his powers triumphantly justified. It is seldom indeed that such gigantic egoism is so amply and so justly repaid.

=2. His Poetry.= He records that his earliest verses were written at school, and that they were “a tame imitation of Pope’s versification.” This is an interesting admission of the still surviving domination of the earlier poet. At the university he composed some poetry, which appeared as _The Evening Walk_ (1793) and _Descriptive Sketches_ (1793). In style these poems have little originality, but they already show the Wordsworthian eye for nature. The firstfruits of his genius were seen in the _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798), a joint production by Coleridge and himself, which was published at Bristol.

Regarding the inception of this remarkable book both Wordsworth and Coleridge have left accounts, which vary to some extent, though not materially. Coleridge’s may be taken as the more plausible. He says in his _Biographia Literaria_:

It was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of the imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith. Mr Wordsworth was to give the charm of novelty to things of everyday life by awakening the mind’s attention to the loveliness and wonders of the world before us.

This volume is epoch-making, for it is the prelude to the Romantic movement proper. Wordsworth had the larger share in the book. Some of his poems in it, such as _The Thorn_ and _The Idiot Boy_, are condemned as being trivial and childish in style; a few, such as _Simon Lee_ and _Expostulation and Reply_, are more adequate in their expression; and the concluding piece, _Tintern Abbey_, is one of the triumphs of his genius.

During his visit to Germany in 1798–99 Wordsworth composed such typical poems as _Lucy Gray_, _Ruth_, and _Nutting_, which along with a large number of the same kind were issued in two volumes in 1807. This work, which comprises the flower of his poetry, was sharply assailed by the critics; but on the whole it amended the puerilities of the earlier volume, and set in motion the steady undercurrent of appreciation that was finally to overwhelm his detractors. While he was in Germany he planned _The Prelude_, which was not concluded till 1805, and remained unpublished during his lifetime. _The Prelude_, which dealt with his education and early ideals, was meant to be the introduction to an enormous blank-verse poem, chiefly on himself. The entire work was to be called _The Recluse_, and _The Excursion_ (1814) was the second and only other completed part of it. It is on the whole fortunate that the entire poem was never finished. _The Excursion_ is in itself a huge poem of nine books, and long stretches of it are dull and prosaic. It is inferior to _The Prelude_, which, though it is unequal in style, has some of the very best Wordsworthian blank verse; and it is only reasonable to imagine that further instalments of _The Recluse_ would mark an increasing decline in poetic merit.

After the publication of _The Excursion_ Wordsworth’s poetical power was clearly on the wane, but his productivity was unimpaired. His later volumes include _The White Doe of Rylstone_ (1815), _The Waggoner_ (1819), _Peter Bell_ (1819), _Yarrow Revisited_ (1835), and _The Borderers_ (1842), a drama. The progress of the works marks the decline in an increasing degree. There are flashes of the old spirit, such as we see in his lines upon the death of “the Ettrick Shepherd”; but the fire and stately intonation become rarer, and mere garrulity becomes more and more apparent.

=3. His Theory of Poetry.= In the preface to the second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_ Wordsworth set out his theory of poetry, and to this theory he continued to do lip-service, while in practice he constantly violated it. The Wordsworthian dogma can be divided into two portions, concerning (_a_) the subject and (_b_) the style of poetry.

(_a_) Regarding subject, Wordsworth declares his preference for “incidents and situations from common life”; to obtain such situations “humble and rustic life is generally chosen, because in that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil.” In this respect Wordsworth was staunch to his declared opinions, because the majority of his poems deal with humble and rustic. life, including his own.

(_b_) With regard to style, Wordsworth declares that the language of poetry ought to be “the language really used by men,” especially by rustics, because the latter “speak a plainer and more emphatic language.” A little reflection will show that this contention is at best only half true, and Wordsworth laid himself open to deadly criticism. It was this part of his theory, moreover, that he himself constantly violated. Coleridge, who was Wordsworth’s great friend, but who held his critical faith higher than personal predilection, had but to quote Wordsworth’s own poems to condemn him. No doubt Wordsworth in such pieces as _Lucy Gray_ and _We are Seven_ does use the language of ordinary men; but in his greatest poems he prefers a language of a certain stiff ornateness, fired and fused by the passion of his imaginative insight. As Coleridge pointed out, it is not likely that a rustic would say

The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion.

Yet this expression is typical of Wordsworth’s style at its best.

=4. Features of his Poetry.= (_a_) _Its Inequality and its Limitations._ All the critics of Wordsworth are at pains to point out the mass of inferior work that came from his pen. Matthew Arnold, one of the acutest of the poet’s admirers, closes the record of Wordsworth’s best work with the year 1808, even before the composition of _The Excursion_. This poem is long, meditative, and often prosaic, and these tendencies become more marked as the years pass. Before the year 1808 he had produced poems as intensely and artistically beautiful as any in the language. It was hard, however, for Wordsworth to appreciate his limitations, which were many and serious. He had little sense of humor, a scanty dramatic power, and only a meager narrative gift, but he strove to exploit all these qualities in his work. His one drama, _The Borderers_, was only a partial success, and his narrative poems, like _Ruth_ and _The White Doe of Rylstone_, are not among the best of his work.

(_b_) _Its Egoism._ In a person of lesser caliber such a degree of self-esteem as Wordsworth’s would have been ridiculous; in his case, with the undoubted genius that was in the man, it was something almost heroic. Domestic circumstances--the adoration of a couple of women and the cloistral seclusion of the life he led--confirmed him in the habit of taking himself too seriously. The best of his shorter poems deal with his own experiences; and his longest works, _The Prelude_ and _The Excursion_, describe his career, both inward and outward, with a fullness, closeness, and laborious anxiety that are unique in our literature.

(_c_) In spite of this self-obsession he is curiously deficient in the purely _lyrical_ gift. He cannot bare his bosom, as Burns does; he cannot leap into the ether like Shelley. Yet he excels, especially in the face of nature, in the expression of a reflective and analytic mood which is both personal and general. The following lyric illustrates this mood to perfection:

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

Sometimes he does touch on intimate emotions, but then he tends to be diffident and decorous, hinting at rather than proclaiming the passions that he feels. The series of _Lucy_ poems are typical of their kind:

She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise, And very few to love.

* * * * *

She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

Such a lyrical gift, reflective rather than passionate, finds a congenial mode of expression in the sonnet, the most complicated and expository of the lyrical forms. In his sonnets his lyrical mood burns clear and strong, and as a result they rank among the best in English poetry.

(_d_) _His Treatment of Nature._ His dealings with nature are his chief glory as a poet.

(1) His treatment is accurate and first-hand. As he explained, he wrote with his eye “steadily fixed on the object.” Even the slightest of his poems have evidence of close observation:

The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one.

The most polished of his poems have the same stamp, as can be seen in _Resolution and Independence_. “The image of the hare,” he says with reference to this poem, quoted below, “I then observed on the ridge of the Fell.”

There was a roaring in the wind all night; The rain came heavily and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright; The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors; The sky rejoices in the morning’s birth; The grass is bright with rain-drops;--on the moors The hare is running races in her mirth; And with her feet she from the plashy earth Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun, Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

(2) This personal dealing with Nature in all her moods produces a joy, a plenteousness of delight, that to most readers is Wordsworth’s most appealing charm. Before the beauty of nature he is never paltry; he is nearly always adequate; and that is perhaps the highest achievement that he ever desired. The extracts just quoted are outstanding examples of this aspect of his poetry.

(3) In his treatment of nature, however, he is not content merely to rejoice: he tries to see more deeply and to find the secret springs of this joy and thanksgiving. He says:

To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

He strives to capture and embody in words such deep-seated emotions, but, almost of necessity, from the very nature of the case, with little success. He gropes in the shadows, and comes away with empty hands. He cannot solve the riddle of

those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings.

Yet, with a remarkable fusion of sustained thought and of poetic imagination, he does convey the idea of “the Being that is in the clouds and air,” the soul that penetrates all things, the spirit, the mystical essence, the divine knowledge that, as far as he was concerned, lies behind all nature. Lastly, in one of the most exalted poetical efforts in any language, he puts into words the idea of the continuity of life that runs through all existence:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home. _Ode: Intimations of Immortality_

(_e_) In _style_ Wordsworth presents a remarkable contrast, for he ranges from the sublime (as in the extract last quoted) to the ridiculous:

In the sweet shire of Cardigan, Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall, An old Man dwells, a little man,-- ’Tis said he once was tall. Full five-and-thirty years he lived A running huntsman merry; And still the centre of his cheek Is red as a ripe cherry. _Simon Lee_

This verse illustrates the lower ranges of his style, when he is hag-ridden with his theories of poetic diction. The first two lines are mediocre; the second pair are absurd; and the rest of the verse is middling. This is simplicity overdone; yet it is always to be remembered that at his best Wordsworth can unite simplicity with sublimity, as he does in the lyrics we have already quoted. He has a kind of middle style; at its best it has grace and dignity, a heart-searching simplicity, and a certain magical enlightenment of phrase that is all his own. Not Shakespeare himself can better Wordsworth when the latter is in a mood that produces a poem like the following:

“She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn, Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm, Of mute insensate things.

“The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; Nor shall she fail to see Even in the motions of the Storm Grace that shall mould the Maiden’s form By silent sympathy.

“The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.” _The Education of Nature_

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772–1834)

=1. His Life.= Coleridge was born in Devonshire, and was the youngest of the thirteen children of the vicar of Ottery St. Mary. As a child he was unusually precocious: “I never thought as a child,” he says, “never had the language of a child.” When he was nine years old his father died, and then at the age of ten he obtained a place in Christ’s Hospital, where he astonished his schoolmates, one of whom was Charles Lamb, with his queer tastes in reading and speculation. He went to Cambridge (1791), where he was fired with the revolutionary doctrines. He abandoned the university and enlisted in the Light Dragoons, but a few months as a soldier ended his military career. In 1794 he returned to Cambridge, and later in the year became acquainted at Oxford with Southey, with whom he planned the founding of an ideal republic in America. With Southey he lived for a space at Bristol, and there he met Southey’s wife’s sister, whom he eventually married. At Bristol Coleridge lectured, wrote poetry, and issued a newspaper called _The Watchman_, all with the idea of converting humanity; yet in spite of it all humanity remained unperturbed in its original sin. At this time (1797) he met Wordsworth, and, as has already been noticed, planned their joint production of the _Lyrical Ballads_, which was published at Bristol.

After a brief spell as a Unitarian minister, Coleridge, who was now dependent on a small annuity from two rich friends, studied German philosophy on the Continent; returned to England (1799), and for a time lived in the Lake District; tried journalism and lecturing; and in general pursued a restless and unhappy existence. As a writer and lecturer he was already failing, and failing fast. His work languished, and his ability and energy were relaxed. The cause of this early decline lay in his habit of opium-taking, which was now apparently past mending. He parted from his wife and children, leaving them to the charity of his friends. Till 1816 he drifted about in London, a moral and physical wreck, his rare genius revealing itself only in fitful gleams. In 1816, after repeated efforts to rid himself of the foul fiend that would not let him be, he entered the house of a Mr. Gillman, in Highgate. This provided for him a kind of refined and sympathetic inebriates’ home. Here he gradually shook himself free from opium-taking, and he spent the last years of his life in an atmosphere of subdued content, visited by his friends, and conversing interminably in that manner of wandering but luminous intelligence that marked his later years. From the house in Highgate he issued a few books that, with all their faults, are among the best of their class.

=2. His Poetry.= The real blossoming of Coleridge’s poetical genius was brief indeed, but the fruit of it was rich and wonderful. With the exception of a very few pieces, the best of his poems were composed within two years, 1797–98.

His first book was _Poems on Various Subjects_ (1797), issued at Bristol. The miscellaneous poems that the volume contains have only a very moderate merit. Then, in collaboration with Wordsworth, he produced the _Lyrical Ballads_. This remarkable volume contains nineteen poems by Wordsworth and four by Coleridge; and of these four by far the most noteworthy is _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_.

Wordsworth has set on record the origin of the _Ancient Mariner_. He and Coleridge discussed the poem during their walks on the Quantock Hills. The main idea of the voyage, founded on a dream of his own, was Coleridge’s; Wordsworth suggested details, and they thought of working on it together. Very soon, however, Coleridge’s imagination was fired with the story, and his friend very sensibly left him to write it all. Hence we have that marvelous series of dissolving pictures, so curiously distinct and yet so strangely fused into one: the voyage through the polar ice; the death of the albatross; the amazing scenes during the calm and the storm; and the return home. In style, in swift stealthiness of narrative speed, and in its weird and compelling strength of imagination the poem is without a parallel.

In 1797 Coleridge also wrote _Christabel_ and _Kubla Khan_. Both of these poems remained unfinished, and lay unpublished till 1816. _Christabel_ is the tale of a kind of vampire which, by taking the shape of a lovely lady, wins the confidence of the heroine Christabel. The tale is barely begun when it collapses. Already Coleridge’s fatal indecision is declaring itself. The poem is long enough, however, to show us Coleridge’s superlative power as a poet. There are passages of wonderful beauty and of charming natural description, though they scarcely reach the heights of the _Ancient Mariner_. The meter, now known as the _Christabel_ meter, is a loose but exceedingly melodious form of the octosyllabic couplet. It became exceedingly popular, and its influence is still unimpaired. We give a brief extract to show the meter, and also to give a slight idea of the poet’s descriptive power:

There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

_Kubla Khan_ is the echo of a dream--the shadow of a shadow. Coleridge avers that he dreamt the lines, awoke in a fever of inspiration, threw the words on paper, but before the fit was over was distracted from the composition, so that the glory of the dream never returned and _Kubla Khan_ remained unfinished. The poem, beginning with a description of the stately pleasure-dome built by Kubla Khan in Xanadu, soon becomes a dreamlike series of dissolving views, grows wilder and wilder into a dervish-dance of the imagination, and collapses in mid-career.

In the same year Coleridge composed several other poems, including the fine _Frost at Midnight_, _Love_, and the _Ode to France_. In 1802 he wrote the great ode _Dejection_, in which he already bewails the suspension of his “shaping spirit of Imagination.” Save for a few fragments, such as the beautiful epitaph _The Knight’s Tomb_, the remainder of his poems are of poorer quality and slight in bulk. His play _Remorse_ was, on the recommendation of Byron, accepted by the management of the Drury Lane Theatre and produced in 1813. It succeeded on the stage, but as literature it is of little importance.

=3. Features of his Poetry.= Within its peculiar limits his poetical work, slight though it is, is of the highest.

(_a_) The most conspicuous feature of the poems is their intense _imaginative power_. Sometimes this riots into excess. It exploits the weird, the supernatural, and the obscure. Yet, such is the power of true imagination, it can produce what Coleridge calls “that willing suspension of disbelief,” and for the moment he can compel us to believe it all. He sees nature with a penetrating and revealing glance, drawing from it inspiration for the stuff of his poetry. He is

## particularly fine in his descriptions of the sky and the sea and the

wider and more remote aspects of things.

(_b_) No poet has ever excelled Coleridge in _witchery of language_. His is the song the sirens sang. The _Ancient Mariner_ has more than one passage like the following:

And now ’twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel’s song, That makes the heavens be mute. It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.

The epitaph we have mentioned is another fine example:

Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O’Kellyn? Where may the grave of that good man be? By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn, Under the twigs of a young birch tree. The oak that in summer was sweet to hear, And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year, And whistled and roared in the winter alone, Is gone,--and the birch in its stead is grown.-- The knight’s bones are dust, And his good sword rust:-- His soul is with the saints, I trust.

The reader of such passages can discover something of the secret of their charm by observing the dexterous handling of the meter, the vowel-music, and other technical features, but in the last analysis their beauty defies explanation: it is there that genius lies.

(_c_) Along with his explosive fervor Coleridge preserves a fine _simplicity of diction_. He appeals directly to the reader’s imagination by writing with great clearness. In this respect he often closely resembles Wordsworth. His meditative poem _Frost at Midnight_ strongly shows this resemblance:

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

=4. His Prose.= The same blight that afflicted Coleridge’s poetry lies upon his prose. It is scrappy, chaotic, and tentative. In bulk it is large and sprawling; in manner it is diffuse and involved; but in its happier moments it possesses a breadth, a depth, and a searching wisdom that are as rare as they are admirable.

Most of his prose was of journalistic origin. In theme it is chiefly philosophical or literary. In 1796 he started _The Watchman_, a periodical, ambitious in scope, which ran to ten numbers only. To this journal Coleridge contributed some typical essays, which, among much that is both obscure and formless, show considerable weight and acuteness of thought. He followed with much more miscellaneous prose, some of it being written for _The Morning Post_, to which he was for a time a contributor. In 1808 he began a series of lectures on poetry and allied subjects, but already the curse of opium was upon him, and the lectures were failures. While he resided in the Lake District he started _The Friend_ (1809), which was published at Penrith, but like _The Watchman_ it had a brief career. Then in 1817, when he had shaken himself free from opium, he published _Biographia Literaria_ and _Sibylline Leaves_.

_Biographia Literaria_ is his most valuable prose work. It pretends to record his literary upbringing, but as a consecutive narrative it is quite worthless. After sixteen chapters of philosophizing, almost entirely irrelevant, he discusses the poetical theory of his friend Wordsworth, and then in the last seven chapters of the book he gives a remarkable demonstration of his critical powers. He analyzes the Wordsworthian theory in masterly fashion, and, separating the good from the bad, upon the sounder elements bases a critical dogma of great and permanent value. These last chapters of the book, which are the most enduring exposition of the Romantic theory as it exists in English, place Coleridge in the first flight of critics.

In addition, he gave another series of lectures (1818), and wrote (1825) _Aids to Reflection_. But he seemed to be incapable of writing a work of any size. After his death his _Table Talk_ was published, giving fleeting glimpses of a brilliant and erratic mind.

We give a short extract from his prose. This shows not only his sincere and temperate admiration for the poems of Wordsworth, but also the nature of his prose style. As a style it is not wholly commendable. It is too involved, and clogged with qualifications and digressions; but, though he develops his ideas in a curious indirect fashion, he makes rapid progress.

Had Mr Wordsworth’s poems been the silly, the childish things, which they were for a long time described as being; had they been really distinguished from the compositions of other poets merely by meanness of language and inanity of thought; had they indeed contained nothing more than what is found in the parodies and pretended imitations of them; they must have sunk at once, a dead weight, into the slough of oblivion, and have dragged the preface along with them. But year after year increased the number of Mr Wordsworth’s admirers. They were found, too, not in the lower classes of the reading public, but chiefly among young men of strong sensibility and meditative minds; and their admiration (inflamed perhaps in some degree by opposition) was distinguished by its intensity, I might almost say, by its _religious_ fervour. These facts, and the intellectual energy of the author, which was more or less consciously felt, where it was outwardly and even boisterously denied, meeting with sentiments of aversion to his opinions, and of alarm at their consequences, produced an eddy of criticism, which would of itself have borne up the poems by the violence with which it whirled them round and round. With many parts of this preface, in the sense attributed to them, and which the words undoubtedly seem to authorise, I never concurred; but on the contrary objected to them as erroneous in principle, and as contradictory (in appearance at least) both to other parts of the same preface, and to the author’s own practice in the greater number of the poems themselves. Mr Wordsworth in his recent collection has, I find, degraded this prefatory disquisition to the end of his second volume, to be read or not at the reader’s choice. But he has not, as far as I can discover, announced any change in his poetic creed. _Biographia Literaria_

LORD BYRON (1788–1824)

=1. His Life.= George Gordon Byron, sixth Lord Byron, was as proud of his ancestry as he was of his poetry, and his ancestors were as extraordinary as was his poetry. They stretched back to the Norman Conquest, and included among them a notorious admiral, Byron’s grandfather. The poet’s father was a rake and a scoundrel. He married a Scottish heiress, Miss Gordon of Gight, whose money he was not long in squandering. Though the poet was born in London, his early years were passed in Aberdeen, his mother’s native place. At the age of ten he succeeded his grand-uncle in the title and in the possession of the ruinous Abbey of Newstead, and Scotland was left behind for ever. He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge, where he showed himself to be heir to the ancestral nature, dark and passionate, but relieved by humor and affection. All his life through Byron cultivated the somber and theatrical side of his disposition, which latterly became a byword; but there can be little doubt that his “Byronic” temperament was not entirely affected. His mother, a foolish, unbalanced woman, warped the boy’s temper still more by her frequent follies and frenzies. The recollection of the tortures he underwent in the fruitless effort to cure him of a malformity of his foot remained with him till his death.

Leaving the university (1807), he remained for a while at Newstead, where with a few congenial youths he plunged into orgies of puerile dissipation. In the fashion of the time, he gloried in the reputation he was acquiring for being a dare-devil, but he lived to pay for it. Wearying of loose delights, he traveled for a couple of years upon the Continent. He had previously taken his seat in the House of Lords, but made no mark in political affairs.

Then with a sudden bound he leaped into the limelight. His poem on his travels became all the rage. He found himself the darling of society, in which his youth, his title, his physical beauty, his wit, and his picturesque and romantic melancholy made him a marvel and a delight. He married a great heiress (1814), but after a year his wife left him, for reasons that were not publicly divulged. Regarding his conduct dark rumors grew apace; his popularity waned, and in the face of a storm of abuse he left England for good (1816). For the last eight years of his life he wandered about the Continent, visiting Italy, and there meeting Shelley. Finally the cause of Greek independence caught his fancy. He devoted his money, which was inconsiderable, and the weight of his name, which was gigantic, to the Greeks, who proved to be very ungrateful allies. He died of fever at Missolonghi, and his body was given a grand funeral in the England that had cast him out.

=2. His Poetry.= Byron’s first volume was a juvenile effort, _Hours of Idleness_ (1807), which was little more than the elegant trifling of a lord who condescends to be a minor poet. This frail production was roughly handled by _The Edinburgh Review_, and Byron, who never lacked spirit, retorted with some effect. He composed a satire in the style of Pope, calling it _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ (1809). The poem is immature, being often crudely expressed, and it throws abuse recklessly upon good writers and bad; but in the handling of the couplet it already shows some of the Byronic force and pungency. The poem is also of interest in that it lets us see how much he is influenced by the preceding age.

Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, The golden-crested haughty Marmion, Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, The gibbet or the field prepared to grace; A mighty mixture of the great and base. And think’st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance, Though Murray with his Miller may combine To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?

Then followed the two years of travel, which had their fruit in the first two cantos of _Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage_ (1812). The hero of the poem is a romantic youth, and is very clearly Byron himself. He is very grand and terrible, and sinister with the stain of a dark and awful past. He visits some of the popular beauty-spots of the Continent, which he describes in Spenserian stanzas of moderate skill and attractiveness. The poem is diffuse, but sometimes it can be terse and energetic; the style is halfheartedly old-fashioned, in deference to the stanza. Byron is to do much better things, but already he shows a real appreciation of nature, and considerable dexterity in the handling of his meter.

On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone, And winds are rude in Biscay’s sleepless bay. Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon, New shores descried make every bosom gay; And Cintra’s mountain greets them on their way, And Tagus dashing onward to the deep, His fabled golden tribute bent to pay; And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap. And steer ’twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap.

_Childe Harold_ brought its author a dower of fame, which in the next few years he was to squander to the uttermost. In the intervals of society functions he produced poetic tales in astonishing profusion: _The Giaour_ and _The Bride of Abydos_ in 1813, _The Corsair_ and _Lara_ in 1814, _The Siege of Corinth_ and _Parisina_ in 1815. These tales deal with the romantic scenes of the East; they almost uniformly reproduce the young Byronic hero of _Childe Harold_; and to a great extent they are mannered and stagy. Written in the couplet form, the verse is founded on that of the metrical tales of Scott, whom Byron was not long in supplanting in popular favor, although the masculine fervor of Scott’s poems is lacking from his work. In sentiment his lines are often sickly enough, yet they sometimes have a vehemence that might be mistaken for passion, and a tawdriness that imitates real beauty.

In 1816 Byron was hounded out of England, and his wanderings are chronicled in the third (1816) and fourth (1817) cantos of _Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage_. In meter and general scheme the poem is unaltered, but in spirit and style the new parts are very different from the first two cantos. The descriptions are firmer and terser, and are often graced with a fine simplicity; the old-fashioned mannerisms are entirely discarded; and the tone all through is deeper and more sincere. There is apparent an undercurrent of bitter pessimism that is only natural under the circumstances, though he dwells too lengthily upon his misfortunes. The following stanza is a fair specimen of this later and simpler style:

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died; The mountain village where his latter days Went down the vale of years, and ’tis their pride-- An honest pride--and let it be their praise, To offer to the passing stranger’s gaze His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain And venerably simple, such as raise A feeling more accordant with his strain Than if a pyramid formed his monumental fane.

During these years on the Continent he was not idle. Some of his longer poems are _The Prisoner of Chillon_ (1816) and _Mazeppa_ (1819), the last of his metrical tales. He also composed a large number of lyrics, most of them only mediocre in quality; and he added several great satirical poems, the most notable of which are _Beppo_ (1818), _The Vision of Judgment_ (1822), directed mainly against Southey, and, the longest of all, _Don Juan_.

In range, in vigor, and in effectiveness _Don Juan_ ranks as one of the greatest of satirical poems. It was issued in portions during the years 1819–24, just as Byron composed it. It is a kind of picaresque novel cast into verse. The hero, like that of the picaresque novel, has many wanderings and adventures, the narration of which might go on interminably. At the time of its publication it was denounced by a shocked world as vile and immoral, and to a great extent it deserves the censure. In it Byron expresses the wrath that consumes him, and all the human race comes under the lash. The strength and flexibility of the satire are beyond question, and are freely revealed in bitter mockery, in caustic comment, and in burning rage. The stanzas, written in _ottava rima_, are as keen and supple as a tempered steel blade. The style is a kind of sublimated, half-colloquial prose, showing a disdainful abrogation of the finer poetical trappings; but in places it rises into passages of rare and lovely tenderness. When affliction came upon him, in the words of Lear he had vowed a vow:

No, I’ll not weep; I have full cause of weeping, but this heart Will break into a hundred thousand flaws Or ere I’ll weep.

But sometimes the poet prevails over the satirist, and the mocking laughter is stifled with the sound of bitter weeping.

The first extract given below shows Byron in his bitter and cynical mood; the tone of the second and third is far removed from such asperity:

(1) Ovid’s a rake, as half his verses show him, Anacreon’s morals are a still worse sample, Catullus scarcely has a decent poem, I don’t think Sappho’s Ode a good example, Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample; But Virgil’s songs are pure, except that horrid one Beginning with “Formosum Pastor Corydon.”

Lucretius’ irreligion is too strong For early stomachs to prove wholesome food; I can’t help thinking Juvenal was wrong, Although no doubt his real intent was good, For speaking out so plainly in his song, So much indeed as to be downright rude; And then what proper person can be partial To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?

(2) Round her she made an atmosphere of life; The very air seemed lighter from her eyes, They were so soft and beautiful, and rife With all we can imagine of the skies, As pure as Psyche ere she grew a wife-- Too pure even for the purest human ties; Her overpowering presence made you feel It would not be idolatry to kneel.

Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged-- It is the country’s custom--but in vain; For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed, The glossy rebels mocked the jetty stain, And in her native beauty stood avenged: Her nails were touched with henna; but again The power of art was turned to nothing, for They could not look more rosy than before.

(3) Thus lived--thus died she; never more on her Shall sorrow light or shame. She was not made Through years or moons the inner weight to bear, Which colder hearts endure till they are laid By age in earth: her days and pleasures were Brief, but delightful--such as had not stayed Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well By the sea-shore whereon she loved to dwell.

That isle is now all desolate and bare, Its dwelling down, its tenants passed away; None but her own and father’s grave is there And nothing outward tells of human clay; Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair; No one is there to show, no tongue to say What was; no dirge except the hollow seas Mourns o’er the beauty of the Cyclades.

=3. His Drama.= Byron’s dramas are all blank-verse tragedies that were composed during the later stages of his career, when he was in Italy. The chief are _Manfred_ (1817), _Marino Faliero_ (1820), _The Two Foscari_ and _Cain_ (1821), and _The Deformed Transformed_ (1824). In nearly all we have a hero of the Byronic type. In _Cain_, for example, we have the outcast who defies the censure of the world; in _The Deformed Transformed_ there are thinly screened references to Byron’s own deformity. In this fashion he showed that he had little of the real dramatic faculty, for he could portray no character with any zeal unless it resembled himself. The blank verse has power and dignity, but it lacks the higher poetic inspiration.

=4. Features of his Poetry.= (_a_) For a man of his egotistical temper Byron’s _lyrical gift_ is disappointingly meager. He wrote many tuneful and readable lyrics, such as _She walks in Beauty_ and _To Thyrza_. His favorite theme draws on variations of the following mood:

Do thou, amid the fair white walls, If Cadiz still be free, At times, from out her latticed halls, Look o’er the dark blue sea;

Then think upon Calypso’s isles, Endeared by days gone by; To others give a thousand smiles, To me a single sigh.

In such lyrics he is merely sentimental, and the reader cannot avoid thinking that he is posturing before the world. When he attempts more elevated themes, as he does in _The Isles of Greece_, he is little better than a poetical tub-thumper. Of the genuine passionate lyric there is little trace in his poems.

(_b_) His _satirical power_ is gigantic. In the expression of his scorn, a kind of sublime and reckless arrogance, he has the touch of the master. Yet in spite of his genius he has several defects. In the first place, his motive is to a very large extent personal, and so his scorn becomes one-sided. It is, however, a sign of the essential bigness of his mind that he hardly ever becomes mean and spiteful. Secondly, he lacks the deep vision of the supreme satirist, like Cervantes, who behind the shadows of the crimes and follies of men can see the pity of it all. In the third place, he is often deliberately outrageous. When he found how easily and deeply he could shock a certain class of people he went out of his way to shock them, and succeeded only too well. No doubt this satisfied Byron’s injured feelings, but it is a rather cheap and juvenile proceeding, and detracts from the solid value of his work.

(_c_) He treats _nature_ in a rather lordly fashion, more as a humble helper in his poems than as a light and inspiration. In his later poems he agreeably modified this attitude; and his passion for the sea never paled.

(_d_) His _style_ has been sufficiently revealed in the extracts we have given. He could modulate it with great skill to the purpose in hand. Dignified in his dramas, melodious in his songs, vigorous in his narratives, and stinging in his satires, he is hardly ever dull, seldom obscure, and always the master of his medium.

(_e_) A word is necessary regarding the fluctuations of his _reputation_. In his earlier manhood he was reckoned among the great poets; he lived to hear himself denounced, and his poetry belittled. After his death Victorian morality held up hands in horror over his iniquity, and his real merits were steadily decried. Since those days his reputation has been climbing back to take a stable position high above the second-rate poets. In some European countries he still ranks second to none among English poets. He broke down the labored insularity of the English, and he gave to non-English readers a clear and forcible example of what the English language can accomplish.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792–1822)

=1. His Life.= Shelley was born in Sussex, the heir to a baronetcy and a great fortune. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, but from a very early age showed great eccentricity of character. He frequented graveyards, studied alchemy, and read books of dreadful import. While he was at the university he wrote several extraordinary pamphlets, one of which, _The Necessity of Atheism_, caused him to be expelled from Oxford. He had already developed extreme notions on religion, politics, and morality generally, a violence that was entirely theoretical, for by nature he was among the most unselfish and amiable of mankind. His opinions, as well as an early and unhappy marriage which he contracted, brought about a painful quarrel with his relatives. This was finally composed by the poet’s father, Sir Timothy Shelley, who settled an annuity upon his son. The poet immediately took to the life that suited him best, ardently devoting himself to his writing, and wandering where the spirit led him. In 1816 his first wife committed suicide; and Shelley, having married the daughter of William Godwin, settled in Italy, the land he loved the best. The intoxication of Rome’s blue sky and the delicious unrestraint of his Italian existence set his genius blossoming into the rarest beauty. In the full flower of it he was drowned, when he was only thirty years old, in a sudden squall that overtook his yacht in the Gulf of Spezzia. His body--a fit consummation--was burned on the beach where it was found, and his ashes were laid beside those of Keats in the Roman cemetery that he had nobly hymned. It is impossible to estimate the loss to literature that was caused by his early extinction. The crudeness of his earlier opinions was passing away, his vision was gaining immeasurably in clearness and intensity, and his singing-robes seemed to be developing almost into seraph’s wings. In his case the grave can indeed claim a victory.

=2. His Poetry.= His earliest effort of any note is _Queen Mab_ (1813). The poem is clearly immature; it is lengthy, and contains much of Shelley’s cruder atheism. It is written in the irregular unrhymed meter that was made popular by Southey. The beginning is worth quoting, for already it reveals a touch of the airy music that was to distinguish his later work:

How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One, pale as yonder waning moon With lips of lurid blue; The other, rosy as the morn When throned on ocean’s wave It blushes o’er the world: Yet both so passing wonderful!

_Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude_ (1816) followed. It is a kind of spiritual autobiography. The chief character is a wild youth who retires into the wilderness and stays there under highly romantic circumstances. The poem is too long and formless, and in places the expression becomes so wild as to be only a foamy gabble of words. It is written in blank verse that shows Shelley’s growing skill as a poet. After this came _Laon and Cynthia_ (1817), afterward called _The Revolt of Islam_. It has the fault of its immediate predecessor--lack of grip and coherence; but it is richer in descriptive passages, and has many outbursts of rapturous energy.

Then Shelley left for Italy. The first fruits of his new life were apparent in _Prometheus Unbound_ (1819). This wonderful production is a combination of the lyric and the drama. The story is that of Prometheus, who defied the gods and suffered for his presumption. There is a small proportion of narrative in blank verse, but the chief feature of the poem is the series of lyrics that both sustain and embellish the action. As a whole the poem has a sweep, a soar, and an unearthly vitality that sometimes staggers the imagination. It is peopled with spirits and demigods, and its scenes are cast in the inaccessible spaces of sky, mountain, and sea.

In _The Cenci_ (1819) Shelley started to write formal drama. In this play he seems deliberately to have set upon himself the restraints that he defied in _Prometheus Unbound_. The plot is not of the sky and the sea; it is a grim and sordid family affair; in style it is neither fervent nor ornate, but bleak and austere. Yet behind this reticence of manner there is a deep and smoldering intensity of passion and enormous adequacy of tragic purpose. Many of the poet’s admirers look upon it as his masterpiece; and there can be little doubt that, with the exception possibly of the _Venice Preserved_ of Otway, it is the most powerful tragedy since the days of Shakespeare. The last words of the play, when the heroine goes to her doom, are almost heart-breaking in their simplicity:

_Beatrice._ Give yourself no unnecessary pain, My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, mother, tie My girdle for me, and bind up this hair In any simple knot; ay, that does well. And yours I see is coming down. How often Have we done this for one another! Now We shall not do it any more. My lord, We are quite ready. Well, ’tis very well.

The poems of this period are extraordinary in their number and quality. Among the longer ones are _Julian and Maddalo_ (1818) and _The Masque of Anarchy_ (1819). The latter, inspired by the news of the massacre of Peterloo, expresses Shelley’s revolutionary political views, and is very severe on Lord Castlereagh. The beginning of the poem is startling enough:

I met Murder on the way, He had a mask like Castlereagh; Very smooth he looked, yet grim, Seven bloodhounds followed him.

In _The Witch of Atlas_ (1820) and _Epipsychidion_ (1821) Shelley rises further and further into the ether of poetical imagination, until he becomes almost impossible of comprehension. _Adonais_ (1821) is a lament for the death of Keats. In plan the poem is crazily constructed, but it glows with some of the most splendid of Shelley’s conceptions:

He has outsoared the shadow of our night. Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again. From the contagion of the world’s slow stain He is secure; and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey, in vain-- Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

He lives, he wakes--’tis Death is dead, not he; Mourn not for Adonais.--Thou, young Dawn, Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee The spirit thou lamentest is not gone! Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan! Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains; and, thou Air, Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown O’er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair!

With the longer poems went a brilliant cascade of shorter lyrical pieces. To name them is to mention some of the sweetest English lyrics. The constantly quoted _Skylark_ and _Cloud_ are among them; so are some exquisite songs, such as _Lines to an Indian Air_, _Music, when soft voices die_, _On a Faded Violet_, _To Night_, and the longer occasional pieces--for example, _Lines written among the Euganean Hills_, and the _Letter to Maria Gisborne_. Of his many beautiful odes, the most remarkable is _To the West Wind_. The stanzas have the elemental rush of the wind itself, and the conclusion, where Shelley sees a parallel to himself, is the most remarkable of all:

Make me thy lyre, ev’n as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

=3. His Prose.= Shelley began his literary career with two boyish romances, _Zastrozzi_ and _St. Irvyne_. These books were written when he was still at school, and are almost laughably bad in style and story. The only other prose work that is worth mention is his short essay _The Defence of Poetry_. The work is soundly written, and is a strong exposition of the Romantic point of view. His published letters show him to have been a man of considerable common sense, and not merely the crazy theorist of popular imagination. His prose style is somewhat heavy, but always clear and readable.

=4. Features of his Poetry.= (_a_) His _lyrical power_ is equal to the highest to be found in any language. It is now recognized to be one of the supreme gifts in literature, like the dramatic genius of Shakespeare. This gift is shown at its best when it expresses the highest emotional ecstasy, as in the lyrics of _Prometheus Unbound_. It is a sign of his great genius that, in spite of the passion that pervades his lyrics, he is seldom shrill and tuneless. He can also express a mood of blessed cheerfulness, a sane and delectable joy. To the Spirit of Delight he says:

I love Love, though he has wings, And like light can flee, But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee. Thou art love and life! O come, Make once more my heart thy home.

He can also express the keenest note of depression and despair, as in the lyric _O World! O Life! O Time!_

(_b_) In his _choice of subject_ he differs from such a poet as Burns, who is almost the only other poet who challenges him as master of the lyric. Shelley lacks the homely appeal of Burns; he loves to roam through space and infinity. In his own words he

Feeds upon the aerial kisses Of shapes that haunt thought’s wildernesses.

He rejoices in nature, but nature of a spiritual kind, which he peoples with phantoms and airy beings:

I love all that thou lovest, Spirit of Delight! The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, And the starry night; Autumn evening, and the morn When the golden mists are born.

I love snow, and all the forms Of the radiant frost: I love waves, and winds, and storms, Everything almost Which is nature’s, and may be Untainted by man’s misery.

(_c_) His _descriptive power_ at once strikes the imagination. The effect is instantaneous. His fancy played among wild and elemental things, but it gave them form and substance, as well as a radiant loveliness. His favorite device for this purpose is personification, of which the following is an excellent example:

For Winter came; the wind was his whip; One choppy finger was on his lip; He had torn the cataracts from the hills, And they clanked at his girdle like manacles. _The Sensitive Plant_

We add another extract to show his almost unearthly skill in visualizing the wilder aspects of nature. Note the extreme simplicity and ease of the style:

We paused among the pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude As serpents interlaced. _The Pine Forest_

(_d_) His _style_ is perfectly attuned to his purpose. Like all the finest lyrical styles, it is simple, flexible, and passionate. Sometimes, as in _The Cenci_, it rises to a commanding simplicity. The extracts already given sufficiently show this.

(_e_) Shelley’s _limitations_ are almost as plain as his great abilities. His continual rhapsodizings tend to become tedious and baffling; in his narrative he is diffuse and argumentative; he lacks humor; and his political poetry is often violent and unreasonable.

(_f_) _His Reputation._ During his lifetime Shelley’s opinions obscured his powers as a poet. Even to Scott, who with all his Tory prejudices was liberal enough in his views on literature, he was simply “that atheist Shelley.” After his death his reputation rose rapidly, and by the middle of the nineteenth century his position was assured. By the curious alternation that seems to affect popular taste, his fame since that time has paled a little; but no fluctuations in taste can ever remove him from his place among the great.

JOHN KEATS (1795–1821)

=1. His Life.= Keats was born in London, the son of the well-to-do keeper of a livery stable. He was educated at a private school at Enfield, and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to a surgeon. In 1814 he transferred his residence to London, and followed part of the regular course of instruction prescribed for medical students. Already, however, his poetical bent was becoming apparent. Surgery lost its slight attraction, and the career of a poet became a bright possibility when he made the acquaintance of Leigh Hunt (1815), the famous Radical journalist and poet, whose collisions with the Government had caused much commotion and his own imprisonment. Keats was soon intimate with the Radical brotherhood that surrounded Leigh Hunt, and thus he became known to Shelley and others. In 1817 he published his first volume of verse, but it attracted little notice, in spite of the championship of Hunt. By this time the family tendency to consumption became painfully manifest in him, and he spent his time in searching for places, including the Isle of Wight and the suburbs of London, where his affliction might be remedied. While he was staying in London he became acquainted with Fanny Brawne, and afterward was engaged to her for a time. His malady, however, became worse, and the mental and physical distress caused by his complaint, added to despair regarding the success of his love-affair, produced a frantic state of mind painfully reflected in his letters to the young lady. These letters were foolishly printed (1879), long after the poet’s death.

His second volume of verse, published in 1818, was brutally assailed by _The Quarterly Review_ and (to a lesser degree) by _Blackwood’s Magazine_. These Tory journals probably struck at him because of his friendship with the radical Leigh Hunt. Keats bore the attack with apparent serenity, and always protested that he minded it little; but there can be little doubt that it affected his health to some degree. In 1820 he was compelled to seek warmer skies, and died in Rome early in the next year, at the age of twenty-five.

=2. His Poetry.= When he was about seventeen years old Keats became acquainted with the works of Spenser, and this proved to be the turning-point in his life. The mannerisms of the Elizabethan immediately captivated him, and he resolved to imitate him. His earliest attempt at verse is his _Imitation of Spenser_ (1813), written when he was eighteen. This and some other short pieces were published together in his _Poems_ (1817), his first volume of verse. This book contains little of any outstanding merit. The different poems, which include the pieces _On Death_, _To Hope_, and _Sleep and Poetry_, follow the methods of Shenstone, Gray, and Byron. Of a different quality was his next volume, which bore the title of _Endymion_ (1818). Probably based partly on Drayton’s _Man in the Moon_ and Fletcher’s _Faithful Shepherdess_, this remarkable poem of _Endymion_ professes to tell the story of the lovely youth who was kissed by the moon-goddess on the summit of Mount Latmos. Keats develops this simple myth into an intricate and flowery tale of over four thousand lines. The work is clearly immature, and flawed with many weaknesses both of taste and of construction, but many of the passages are most beautiful, and the poem shows the tender budding of the Keatsian style--a rich and suggestive beauty obtained by a richly ornamented diction. The first line is often quoted, and it contains the theory that Keats followed in a subconscious fashion during most of his poetical career:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.

The crudeness of the work laid it temptingly open to attack, and, as we have noticed, the hostile reviews found it an easy prey.

Keats’s health was already failing, but the amount of poetry he wrote is marvelous both in magnitude and in quality. His third and last volume, published just before he left England, contains a collection of poems of the first rank, which were written approximately in the order that follows.

_Isabella, or The Pot of Basil_ (1818), is a version of a tale from Boccaccio, and deals with the murder of a lady’s lover by her two wicked brothers. The poem, which is written in _ottava rima_, marks a decided advance in Keats’s work. The slips of taste are fewer; the style is richer and deeper in tone; and the conclusion, though it is sentimentally treated, is not wanting in pathos.

_The Eve of St. Agnes_ (1818) has for a plot the merest incident dealing with the elopement of two lovers. The tale is so sumptuously adorned with the silks and jewels of poetical imagination that it is almost lost in the decoration. This is sometimes considered his masterpiece; it is certainly the most typical of his poems. The richness of fancy and pictorial effect mark the summit of the poet’s art. It is somewhat hectic and overloaded, but its faults are quite venial. We add one of its exquisite Spenserian stanzas:

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

_Hyperion_ (1818) is of a different type. For this poem Keats adopts blank verse, and for theme he goes to the primeval warfare between early deities, such as Saturn and Thea, and younger divinities, such as Apollo and Minerva. The poem remains unfinished, owing, it is stated, to the poet’s discouragement over the reception of _Endymion_. It is doubtful if Keats could ever have finished it. The scale of the story is so gigantic, and the style is pitched at such an altitude of sublimity that Keats appears to have been lacking in mere physical fitness to carry it to a conclusion. In the fragment that we have an observant reader can see that the poet’s grip is loosening, and his breath failing, before the effort ceases entirely. Keats, with his usual insight, appropriately writes the poem in a style of bleak and almost terrible simplicity. The opening lines are among the best:

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star, Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair; Forest on forest hung about his head Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer’s day Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more By reason of his fallen divinity Spreading a shade: the Naiad ’mid her reeds Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips.

Next was written _The Eve of St. Mark_ (1819), which also remains unfinished. The tale shows how far even Keats can improve upon himself. It is adorned with brilliant descriptive passages, and the strokes are more dashing than usual. The earlier languor and sentimentality are almost eliminated:

The bells had ceased, the prayers begun, And Bertha had not yet half done A curious volume, patched and torn, That all day long, from earliest morn, Had taken captive her two eyes, Among its golden broideries; Perplexed her with a thousand things, The stars of heaven, and angels’ wings, Martyrs in a fiery blaze, Azure saints and silver rays, Moses’ breastplate, and the seven Candlesticks John saw in heaven, The winged Lion of St Mark, And the Covenantal Ark, With its many mysteries, Cherubim and golden mice.

The story of _Lamia_ (1819) is taken from Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, and tells of a beautiful enchantress. It is the weakest of all the longer poems, and the lapses are more numerous. The language becomes mannered and overdone:

He answered, bending to her open eyes, Where he was mirrored small in paradise,-- “My silver planet, both of eve and morn! Why will you plead yourself so sad forlorn, While I am striving how to fill my heart With deeper crimson, and a double smart? How to entangle, trammel up and snare Your soul in mine, and labyrinth you there, Like the hid scent in an unbudded rose?”

In this passage we observe the strength of Keats running to seed. Phrases like “plead yourself” and “labyrinth you” go beyond the limits of poetical license; and the whole passage in conception resembles the conceits of the Caroline poets rather than the finer and stronger flights of imagination of which Keats was so thoroughly capable.

Together with the longer poems are many shorter pieces of supreme beauty. The great odes--_To a Nightingale_, _On a Grecian Urn_, _To Autumn_--were nearly all written in 1819. Among the other shorter poems _La Belle Dame sans Merci_, a kind of lyrical ballad, is considered to be one of the choicest in the language.

In 1819 Keats collaborated in a drama, _Otho the Great_, and began another, _King Stephen_, which he did not complete. Neither effort is of much consequence. _The Cap and Bells_, a longish fairy-tale which also is unfinished, is much below the level of his usual work.

=3. Features of his Poetry.= (_a_) His _style_ should be considered first, for Keats is above all a stylist. The typical Keatsian poetry is, one imagines, the ideal of what is popularly considered to be “poetry”: it is gorgeously attractive, with its melodic beauty and sensuous passion; soft and caressing, like velvet; and richly colored and odorous. At its very best the spell of it works like a divine enchantment; but at even a little less than the best it becomes unctuous, sickly, and stuffily uncomfortable. There can be little doubt that Keats’s physical malady shows itself in his writings. With all their genius, they are the work of an unhealthy brain. His heroes are languid and neurotic creatures, and his style is attuned to their swoons and faintings. A stanza from _Isabella_ will illustrate what has already been exemplified in the verse we have quoted from _The Eve of St. Agnes_:

So once more had he waked and anguished A dreary night of love and misery, If Isabel’s quick eye had not been wed To every symbol on his forehead high; She saw it waxing very pale and dead, And straight all flushed; so, lisped tenderly, “Lorenzo!”--here she ceased her timid quest, But in her tone and look he read the rest.

(_b_) His _descriptive and romantic quality_ is of the highest. He modeled his work upon that of Spenser, but before he had finished he almost bettered his model. In beauty and splendor he is nearly unrivaled. He ranges among classical and medieval subjects, and distills from them the essence of their beauty. For example, he knew no Greek, but he could reproduce the full charm of the Greek seaboard:

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea-shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e’er return. _Ode on a Grecian Urn_

(_c_) Keats’s _lyrical faculty_ is limited. When brooding over his woes he can utter a complaint on the true lyrical note. Hence we obtain such results as his wonderful last sonnet and _La Belle Dame sans Merci_, which is a lyric thinly disguised as a ballad. He was perhaps physically unable to experience the healthier joys of Burns, and so was incapable of expressing them.

(_d_) _His Influence._ A single glance at the table at the head of this chapter will show how piteously short was his poetical career; but, short as it was, his labor created a larger school than that of any of his contemporaries. His tradition was carried on by Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites, and to this day his influence is strong in English poetry.

OTHER POETS

=1. Robert Southey (1774–1843).= Southey was born at Bristol, educated at Westminster School and at Oxford, and settled down to lead the laborious life of a man of letters. He produced a great mass of work, much of which is of considerable merit, and he ranked as one of the leading writers of his age. Most of his work was written at Greta Hall, near Keswick, where he lived most of his life. He was made Poet Laureate in 1813. His reputation, especially as a poet, has not been maintained.

His poems, which are of great bulk, include _Joan of Arc_ (1798), _Thalaba the Destroyer_ (1801), _The Curse of Kehama_ (1810), and _Roderick the Goth_ (1814); they are pretentious in style and subject, but are now almost forgotten. Some shorter pieces, such as _The Holly-tree_, _The Battle of Blenheim_, and _The Inchcape Rock_, are still in favor, and deservedly so.

His numerous prose works include _The History of Brazil_ (1810–19) and _The Peninsular War_ (1822–33). The slightest of them all, _The Life of Nelson_ (1813), is the only one now freely read. It shows Southey’s easy yet scholarly style at its best.

=2. Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864).= Landor had a long life, for he was born five years after Wordsworth, and lived to see the full yield of the Victorian era. Of an ancient family, he was born in Warwickshire, and was educated at Rugby and Oxford. Later he was fired with republican ideas, abandoned his projected career in the British Army, and supported the revolutionaries in Spain. In temper he was impulsive to the point of mania; and his life is marked by a succession of violent quarrels with his friends and enemies. The middle years of his life were passed in Italy. He returned to England in 1838, and lived in Bath until 1858. In this year his pugnacity involved him in an

## action for damages, in which as defendant he cut a lamentable figure.

Poor and dishonored, he forsook England, and settled again in Florence, where he died.

His _Gebir_ (1798) is a kind of epic poem written in blank verse. It is “classical” in its stiff and formal style; but it has a stately beauty and much powerful natural description. _Count Julian_ (1812), a tragedy, has much the same qualities, good and bad, as _Gebir_. His shorter pieces, especially the eight-line lyric _Rose Aylmer_, have more ease and passion, and are gracefully expressed.

His bulkiest prose work is his _Imaginary Conversations_, which was published at intervals from 1824 to 1846. The volumes record imaginary dialogues between all kinds of people on a great variety of subjects. They have Landor’s chief defect, a stony lifelessness; but in style they are stately, strong, and scholarly, with frequent passages of noble description. All his life he continued to issue essays and pamphlets. A collection of them, called _Dry Sticks_ (1858), as has been noticed, brought upon his head the weight of the law. Landor professed to despise popularity; he was moody, crotchety, and often deliberately perverse. Posterity has repaid him by consigning him to an oblivion that only the devotion of a small but eminent band of admirers keeps from being absolute.

=3. Thomas Moore (1779–1852).= Moore was born in Dublin, took his degree at Trinity College, and studied law in the same city. He too was imbued with revolutionary notions, and attempted to apply them to Ireland, but with no success. He obtained a valuable appointment in the Bermudas, the duties of which were discharged by a deputy, who in this case proved faithless and caused Moore financial loss. Moore was a friend of Byron and a prominent literary figure of the time. Most of his life was passed as a successful man of letters.

His poems were highly successful during his lifetime, but after his death there was a reaction against them. His _Irish Melodies_ are set to the traditional musical airs of Ireland. They are graceful, and adapt themselves admirably to the tunes. Moore, however, lacked the depth and far-ranging strength of Burns, and so he failed to do for Ireland what the Ayrshire poet did for Scotland: he did not raise the national sentiment of Ireland into one of the precious things of literature. His _Lalla Rookh_ (1817) is an Oriental romance, written in the Scott-Byron manner then so popular. The poem had an immense success, which has now almost totally faded. It contains an abundance of florid description, but as poetry it is hardly second-rate. Moore’s political satires, such as _The Twopenny Postbag_ (1813), _The Fudge Family in Paris_ (1818), and _Fables for the Holy Alliance_ (1823), are keen and lively, and show his Irish wit at its very best.

His prose works include his _Life of Byron_ (1830), which has taken its place as the standard biography of that poet. It is an able and scholarly piece of work, and is written with much knowledge and sympathy.

=4. Thomas Campbell (1777–1844).= Campbell was born in Glasgow, of a poor but ancient family. After studying at Glasgow University he became tutor to a private family; but his _Pleasures of Hope_ (1799) brought him fame, and he adopted the career of a poet. He visited the Continent, and saw much of the turmoil that there reigned. Returning, he settled in London, where he was editor of _The New Monthly Magazine_ from 1820 to 1830.

His longer poems are quite numerous, and begin with the _Pleasures of Hope_, which consists of a series of descriptions of nature in heroic couplets, written in a style that suggests Goldsmith. Other longer poems include _Gertrude of Wyoming_ (1809), a longish tale of Pennsylvania, written in Spenserian stanzas, and _The Pilgrim of Glencoe_ (1842). Campbell, however, is chiefly remembered for his stirring songs, some of which were written during his early Continental tour and were published in newspapers. His most successful are _Ye Mariners of England_ and _The Battle of the Baltic_, which are spirited without containing the bluster and boasting that so often disfigure the patriotic song.

=5. Samuel Rogers (1763–1855).= Rogers was born in London, the son of a rich banker. He soon became a partner in his father’s firm, and for the rest of his life his financial success was assured. His chief interest lay in art and poetry, which he cultivated in an earnest fashion. He was a generous patron of the man of letters, and was acquainted with most of the literary people of the time. His breakfasts were famous.

His _Pleasures of Memory_ (1792) is a reversion to the typical eighteenth-century manner, and as such is interesting. He could compose polished verses, but he was little of the poet. Other works are _Columbus_ (1812), _Jacqueline_ (1814), a tale in the Byronic manner, and _Italy_ (1822).

Rogers was a careful and fastidious writer, but his excellence does not go much further. His name is a prominent one in the literary annals of the time, but his wealth rather than his merit accounts for this.

=6. Leigh Hunt (1784–1859)=, unlike Rogers, was not a wealthy amateur who could trifle for years with mediocre production; he was of the arena, taking and giving hard knocks in both political and literary scuffles. He was born in Middlesex, educated at Christ’s Hospital, and while still in his teens became a journalist, and remained a journalist all his life. His Radical journal _The Examiner_ (1808) was strongly critical of the Government, and Hunt’s aptitude for abuse landed him in prison for two years. His captivity, as he gleefully records, made a hero of him; and most of the literary men who prided themselves upon their Liberalism--among them being Wordsworth, Byron, Moore, Keats, and Shelley--sought his friendship. Hunt had a powerful influence on Keats, and published some of the latter’s shorter poems in _The Examiner_. He tried various other journalistic ventures, but none of them had the success of _The Examiner_; his attempted collaboration in journalism with Byron was a lamentable failure. He died, like Wordsworth and others, a respectable pensioner of the Government he had once so strongly condemned.

He much fancied himself as a poet, and popular taste confirmed him in his delusion. The best of his longer poems is _Rimini_ (1811), an Italian tale in verse. The poem is of interest because its flowing couplets were the model for Keats’s _Endymion_. Hunt’s shorter pieces--for example, _Abou Ben Adhem_--are often graceful, but their poetical value is not very high.

His prose includes an enormous amount of journalistic matter, which was occasionally collected and issued in book form. Such was his _Men, Women, and Books_ (1847). His _Autobiography_ (1850) contains much interesting biographical and literary gossip. He is an agreeable essayist, fluent and easygoing; his critical opinions are solid and sensible, though often half-informed. He wrote a novel, _Sir Ralph Esher_ (1832), and a very readable book on London called _The Town_ (1848). Hunt is not a genius, but he is a useful and amiable second-rate writer.

=7. James Hogg (1770–1835).= Hogg became known to the world as “the Ettrick Shepherd,” for he was born of a shepherd’s family in the valley of the Ettrick, in Selkirkshire. He was a man of much natural ability, and from his infancy was an eager listener to the songs and ballads of his district. He was introduced to Walter Scott (1802) while the latter was collecting the Border minstrelsy, and by Scott he was supported both as a literary man and as a farmer. Many of his admirers assisted him in the acquisition of a sheep-farm, but Hogg proved to be a poor farmer. He was known to most of the members of the Scottish literary circle, but his shiftless and unmanageable disposition alienated most of his friends. He died in his native district.

Hogg had little education and very little sense of discrimination, so that much of his poetry is very poor indeed. Sometimes, however, his native talent prevails, and he writes such poems as _Kilmeny_ and _When the Kye comes Hame_. The latter is a lyric resembling those of Burns in its humor and simple appeal. In _Kilmeny_ (in _The Queen’s Wake_) he achieves what is commonly held to be the true Celtic note: the eerie description of elves and the gloaming, and murmuring and musical echoes of things half seen and half understood. Some of his books are _The Forest Minstrel_ (1801), _The Queen’s Wake_ (1813), and _The Brownie of Bodsbeck_ (1818), the last being a prose tale.

=8. Ebenezer Elliott (1781–1849).= Elliott was born at Masborough, in Yorkshire, and worked as an iron-founder. The struggles of the poor, oppressed by the Corn Laws, were early borne in upon him, and his poetical gift was used in a fierce challenge to the existing system. Like Crabbe, he devoted himself to the cause of the poor; and it is a tribute to his merit as a poet that, in spite of his bristling assertiveness, he produced some work of real value. He became known as the “Corn Law Rhymer,” and he lived to see the abolition of the laws that he had always attacked.

His best book is _Corn Law Rhymes_ (1830), which includes the powerful and somber _Battle-song_. This poem is a kind of anthem for the poor, and breathes a spirit of fierce unrest.

=9. Felicia Hemans (1793–1835).= Mrs. Hemans’s maiden name was Browne, and she was born at Liverpool. Later she removed to Wales, where a large part of her life was spent. At the age of fifteen she began to write poetry, and persisted in the habit all her life. She married somewhat unhappily, but she lived to be a highly popular poetess, and produced a large amount of work. She died in Dublin.

Nobody can call Mrs. Hemans a great poetess, but her verses are facile and fairly melodious, and she can give simple themes a simple setting. One can respect the genuine quality of her emotions, and the zeal with which she expressed them. Some of her better lyrics--for example, _The Stately Homes of England_, _The Graves of a Household_, and _The Pilgrim Fathers_--are in their limited fashion well done.

=10. Thomas Hood (1799–1845).= Hood was a native of London, and became a partner in a book-selling firm. He took to a literary career, and contributed to many periodicals, including _The London Magazine_. For a time he edited _The New Monthly Magazine_, but he was much troubled by illness, and died prematurely.

Hood first gained notoriety with some humorous poems, published under the title of _Whims and Oddities_ (1826). To modern taste the humor is rather cheap, for it consists largely of verbal quibblings, such as the free use of the pun. It seemed to be acceptable to the public of the time, for the book had much success. Other volumes in the same vein were _The Comic Annual_, _Up the Rhine_ (1839), and _Whimsicalities_ (1843). Hood, in spite of his smartness, could not keep free of vulgarity, and his wit often jars. As a kind of tragic relief Hood sometimes produced poems of a tearful intensity, such as _The Death-bed_ and _The Bridge of Sighs_. One could believe that his grief was genuine if he did not dwell so much upon it. His _Song of the Shirt_, first published in _Punch_ in 1845, is rather a versified political pamphlet than a real poem, but it is powerful verse, and one can forgive much on account of the motive, which was to help the sweated sempstress. His _Dream of Eugene Aram_ (1829) was an attempt at the horrible, and was long a _bravura_ piece for aspiring elocutionists. It is a middling specimen of poetical rhetoric.

=11. John Clare (1793–1864)= was a true peasant poet, and in his day he had a great popularity. After his death his works fell into neglect, but recently (1920) a reissue of his poems, some of them new to the public, has recalled attention to the considerable value of much that he wrote. He was born near Peterborough, his father being a cripple and a pauper. At the age of thirteen he saved sufficient money to buy a copy of _The Seasons_, which fired his poetic ability. His _Collection of Original Trifles_ (1817) attracted notice, and his _Poems_ (1820) was much praised. The patronage of rich admirers put him above poverty, but a tendency to insanity developed, and, like Christopher Smart, he died in a madhouse.

Clare’s poems are seen at their best when they deal with simple rustic themes, and then they are quite charming. He rejoices in the ways of animals and insects. He is not a great poet, but there are many poets with flaunting credentials who have less claims to consideration than he.

=12. James Smith (1775–1837)= and =Horace Smith (1779–1849)=, two brothers, collaborated in the production of a work that was one of the “hits” of the period. This book was _Rejected Addresses_ (1812). When the Drury Lane Theatre was burned down and rebuilt the management offered a prize for the best poem to be recited on the opening night. The Smiths hit on the idea of making parodies of the notable poets of the time and pretending that they were the rejected poems of the writers mentioned. The result is the classical collection of parodies in English. Scott, Wordsworth, and other well-known authors are imitated, usually with much cleverness. The Wordsworth poem is recited by Nancy Lake, a girl of eight, who is drawn upon the stage in a perambulator:

My brother Jack was nine in May, And I was eight on New Year’s Day; So in Kate Williams’ shop Papa (he’s my papa and Jack’s) Bought me, last week, a doll of wax, And brother Jack a top.

WALTER SCOTT (1771–1832)

=1. His Life.= Scott was born in Edinburgh, of an ancient stock of Border freebooters. At the age of eighteen months he was crippled for life by a childish ailment; and though he grew up to be a man of great physical robustness he never lost his lameness. He was educated at the High School of Edinburgh and at the university; and there he developed that powerful memory which, though it rejected things of no interest to it, held in tenacious grasp a great store of miscellaneous knowledge. His father was a lawyer, and Scott himself was called to the Scottish Bar (1792). As a pleader he had little success, for he was much more interested in the lore and antiquities of the country. He was glad, therefore, to accept a small legal appointment as Sheriff of Selkirkshire (1799). Just before this, after an unsuccessful love-affair with a Perthshire lady, he had married the daughter of a French exile. In 1806 he obtained the valuable post of Clerk of Session, but for six years he received no salary, as the post was still held by an invalid nominally in charge.

In 1812, on receipt of his first salary as Clerk of Session, he removed from his pleasant home of Ashiestiel to Abbotsford, a small estate near Melrose. For the place he paid £4000, which he characteristically obtained half by borrowing and half on security of the poem _Rokeby_, still unwritten. During the next dozen years he played the laird at Abbotsford, keeping open house, sinking vast sums of money in enlarging his territory, and adorning the house in a manner that was frequently in the reverse of good taste. In 1826 came the crash. In 1801 he had assisted a Border printer, James Ballantyne, to establish a business at Edinburgh. In 1805 Scott became secretly a partner. As a printing firm the concern was a fair success; but in an evil moment, in 1809, Scott, with another brother, John Ballantyne, started a publishing business. The new firm was poorly managed from the beginning; in 1814 it was only the publication of _Waverley_ that kept it on its legs, but the enormous success of the later Waverley Novels gave it abounding prosperity--for the time. Then John Ballantyne, a reckless fellow, plunged heavily into further commitments, which entailed great loss; Scott in his easy fashion also drew heavily upon the firm’s funds; and in 1826 the whole erection tumbled into ruin. With great courage and sterling honesty Scott refused to take the course that the other principals accepted naturally, and compound with his creditors. Instead he attempted what turned out to be the impossible task of paying the debt and surviving it. His liabilities amounted to £117,000, and before he died he had cleared off £70,000. After his death the remainder was made good, chiefly from the proceeds of Lockhart’s _Life_, and his creditors were paid in full.

The gigantic efforts he made brought about his death. He had a slight paralytic seizure in 1830. It passed, but it left him with a clouded brain. He refused to desist from novel-writing, or even to slacken the pace. Other illness followed, his early lameness becoming more marked. After an ineffectual journey to Italy, he returned to Abbotsford, and died within sound of the river he loved so well.

=2. His Poetry.= Scott’s earliest poetical efforts were translations from the German. _Lenore_ (1799), the most considerable of them, is crude enough, but it has much of his later vigor and clatter. In 1802 appeared the first two volumes of _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_. In some respects the work is a compilation of old material; but Scott patched up the ancient pieces when it was necessary, and added some original poems of his own, which were done in the ancient manner. The best of his own contributions, such as _The Eve of St. John_, have a strong infusion of the ancient force and fire, as well as a grimly supernatural element.

In _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (1805) there is much more originality. The work is a poem of considerable length, professing to be the lay of an aged bard who seeks shelter in the castle of Newark. As a tale the poem is confused and difficult; as poetry it is mediocre; but the abounding vitality of the style, the fresh and intimate local knowledge, and the healthy love of nature made it a revelation to a public anxious to welcome the new Romantic methods. The poem was a great and instant success, and was quickly followed up with _Marmion_ (1808).

In popular estimation _Marmion_ is held to be Scott’s masterpiece. The story deals with Flodden Field, and is intricate in detail, as Scott labors to obtain a _dénouement_. For several cantos the tale is cumbered with the masses of antiquarian and topical matter with which Scott’s mind was fully charged. Once the narrative is within touch of Flodden it quickens considerably. The conclusion, dealing with the death of Marmion and the close of the battle, is one of the triumphs of martial verse:

But as they left the dark’ning heath, More desperate grew the strife of death. The English shafts in volleys hail’d, In headlong charge their horse assail’d; Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep To break the Scottish circle deep, That fought around their King. But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Though charging knights like whirlwinds go Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spear-men still made good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where his comrade stood, The instant that he fell. No thought was there of dastard flight; Link’d in the serried phalanx tight, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well; Till utter darkness closed her wing O’er their thin host and wounded King....

Next came _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810), a still greater success, but clumsy in plot and heavy with unpoetical matter. The poem made the fortune of the Trossachs. In _Rokeby_ (1813) the scene shifts to the North of England. As a whole this poem is inferior to its predecessors, but some of the lyrics have a seriousness and depth of tone that are quite uncommon in the spur-and-feather pageantry of Scott’s verse. _The Bridal of Triermain_ (1813) and _The Lord of the Isles_ (1814) mark a decline in quality.

In addition to the longer poems Scott composed many lyrics, and continued to write such till late in his career. Most of them are passable in a tuneful and picturesque fashion; and in a few, such as _Proud Maisie_ and _A Weary Lot is Thine_, he attains to something finer and deeper. A ballad from _Rokeby_ has an intensity that gives it a strongly lyrical cast. The conclusion is as follows:

“With burnish’d brand and musketoon So gallantly you come, I read you for a bold Dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum.” “I list no more the tuck of drum, No more the trumpet hear; But when the beetle sounds his hum, My comrades take the spear.

“And O! though Brignall banks be fair, And Greta woods be gay, Yet mickle must the maiden dare, Would reign my Queen of May!

“Maiden! a nameless life I lead, A nameless death I’ll die; The fiend whose lantern lights the mead Were better mate than I! And when I’m with my comrades met Beneath the green-wood bough, What once we were we all forget, Nor think what we are now.

“Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there, Would grace a summer queen.”

As a poet Scott’s reputation has depreciated and continues to depreciate. His faults, like his merits, are all on the surface: he lacks the finer poetical virtues, such as reflection, melody, and delicate sympathy; he (in poetry) is deficient in humor; he records crude physical action simply portrayed. Even the vigor that is often ascribed to him exists fitfully, for he loads his narrative with overabundant detail, often of a technical kind. When he does move freely he has the stamp, the rattle, and the swing of martial music. One must nevertheless do credit to the service he did to poetry by giving new zest to the Romantic methods that had already been adopted in poetry.

=3. His Prose.= About 1814 Scott largely gave up writing poetry, and save for a few short pieces wrote no more in verse. There are two chief reasons for his desertion of the poetical form. With his native shrewdness he saw that he had marketed as much verse as the public could absorb; and, secondly, as he confessed in the last year of his life, Byron had “bet” him by producing verse tales that were fast swallowing up the popularity of his own. In 1814 Scott returned to a fragment of a Jacobite prose romance that he had started and left unfinished in 1805. He left the opening chapters as they stood, and on to them tacked a rapid and brilliant narrative dealing with the Forty-five. This made the novel _Waverley_, which was issued anonymously in 1814. Owing chiefly to its ponderous and lifeless beginning, the book hung fire for a space; but the remarkable remainder was almost bound to make it a success. After _Waverley_ Scott went on from strength to strength: _Guy Mannering_ (1815), _The Antiquary_ (1816), _The Black Dwarf_ (1816), _Old Mortality_ (1816), _Rob Roy_ (1818), _The Heart of Midlothian_ (1818), _The Bride of Lammermoor_ (1819), and _The Legend of Montrose_ (1819). All these novels deal with scenes in Scotland, but not all with historical Scotland. They are not of equal merit, but even the weakest, _The Black Dwarf_, is astonishingly good. Scott now turned his gaze abroad, producing _Ivanhoe_ (1820), the scene of which is pitched in early England; then turned again to Scotland and suffered failure with _The Monastery_ (1820), though he triumphantly rehabilitated himself with _The Abbot_ (1820), a sequel to the last. Henceforth he ranged abroad or stayed at home as he fancied in _Kenilworth_ (1821), _The Pirate_ (1822), _The Fortunes of Nigel_ (1822), _Peveril of the Peak_ (1823), _Quentin Durward_ (1823), _St. Ronan’s Well_ (1824), _Redgauntlet_ (1824), _The Betrothed_ (1825), and _The Talisman_ (1825). By this time such enormous productivity was telling even on his gigantic powers. In the later books the narrative is often heavier, the humor more cumbrous, and the descriptions more labored.

Then came the financial deluge, and Scott began a losing battle against misfortune and disease. But even yet the odds were not too great for him; for in succession appeared _Woodstock_ (1826), _The Fair Maid of Perth_ (1828), _Count Robert of Paris_ (1831), and _Castle Dangerous_ (1831). The last works were dictated from the depths of mental and bodily anguish, and the furrows of mind and brow are all over them. Yet frequently the old spirit revives and the ancient glory is renewed.

It should never be forgotten that along with these literary] labors Scott was filling the office of Clerk of Session, was laboriously performing the duties of a Border laird, and was compiling a mass of miscellaneous prose. Among this last are his editions of Dryden (1808) and Swift (1814), heavy tasks in themselves; the _Lives of the Novelists_ (1820); the _Life of Napoleon_ (1827), a gigantic work that cost him more labor than ten novels; and the admirable _Tales of a Grandfather_ (1827–29). His miscellaneous articles, pamphlets, journals, and letters are a legion in themselves.

=4. Features of his Novels.= (_a_) _Rapidity of Production._ Scott’s great success as a novelist led to some positive evils, the greatest of which was a too great haste in the composition of his stories. His haphazard financial methods, which often led to his drawing upon future profits, also tended to overproduction. Haste is visible in the construction of his plots, which are frequently hurriedly improvised, developed carelessly, and finished anyhow. As for his style, it is spacious and ornate, but he has little ear for rhythm and melody, and his sentences are apt to be shapeless. The same haste is seen in the handling of his characters, which sometimes finish weakly after they have begun strongly. An outstanding case of this is Mike Lambourne in _Kenilworth_.

It is doubtful if Scott would have done any better if he had taken greater pains. He himself admitted, and to a certain extent gloried in, his slapdash methods. So he must stand the inevitable criticisms that arise when his methods are examined.

(_b_) His _contribution to the novel_ is very great indeed. To the historical novel he brought a knowledge that was not pedantically exact, but manageable, wide, and bountiful. To the sum of this knowledge he added a life-giving force, a vitalizing energy, an insight, and a genial dexterity that made the historical novel an entirely new species. Earlier historical novels, such as Clara Reeve’s _Old English Baron_ (1777) and Miss Porter’s _Scottish Chiefs_ (1810), had been lifeless productions; but in the hands of Scott the historical novel became of the first importance, so much so that for a generation after his time it was done almost to death. It should also be noted that he did much to develop the domestic novel, which had several representatives in the Waverley series, such as _Guy Mannering_ and _The Antiquary_. To this type of fiction he added freshness, as well as his broad and sane handling of character and incident.

(_c_) _His Shakespearian Qualities._ Scott has often been called the prose Shakespeare, and in several respects the comparison is fairly just. He resembles Shakespeare in the free manner in which he ranges high and low, right and left, in his search for material. On the other hand, in his character-drawing he lacks much of the Elizabethan’s deep penetration, though he has much of Shakespeare’s genial, tolerant humor, in which he strongly resembles also his great predecessor Fielding. It is probably in this large urbanity that the resemblance to Shakespeare is observed most strongly.

(_d_) _His Style._ The following extract will give some idea of Scott’s style at its best. It lacks suppleness, but it is powerful, solid, and sure. In his use of the Scottish vernacular he is exceedingly natural and vivacious. His characters who employ the Scottish dialect, such as Cuddie Headrigg or Jeanie Deans, owe much of their freshness and attraction to Scott’s happy use of their native speech:

Fergus, as the presiding judge was putting on the fatal cap of judgment, placed his own bonnet upon his head, regarded him with a steadfast and stern look, and replied in a firm voice: “I cannot let this numerous audience suppose that to such an appeal I have no answer to make. But what I have to say you would not bear to hear, for my defence would be your condemnation. Proceed, then, in the name of God, to do what is permitted to you. Yesterday and the day before you have condemned loyal and honourable blood to be poured forth like water. Spare not mine. Were that of all my ancestors in my veins, I would have perilled it in this quarrel.” He resumed his seat, and refused again to rise.

Evan Maccombich looked at him with great earnestness, and, rising up, seemed anxious to speak; but the confusion of the court and the perplexity arising from thinking in a language different from that in which he was to express himself, kept him silent. There was a murmur of compassion among the spectators, from the idea that the poor fellow intended to plead the influence of his superior as an excuse for his crime. The judge commanded silence, and encouraged Evan to proceed.

“I was only ganging to say, my lord,” said Evan, in what he meant to be an insinuating manner, “that if your excellent Honour and the honourable court would let Vich Ian Vohr go free just this once, and let him gae back to France, and no to trouble King George’s government again, ony six o’ the very best of his clan will be willing to be justified in his stead; and if you’ll just let me gae down to Glennaquoich, I’ll fetch them up to ye mysell, to head or hang, and you may begin wi’ me the very first man.” _Waverley_

JANE AUSTEN (1775–1817)

=1. Her Life.= Jane Austen was the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman. She was educated at home; her father was a man of good taste in the choice of reading material, and Jane’s education was conducted on sound lines. Her life was unexciting, being little more than a series of pilgrimages to different places of residence, including the fashionable resort of Bath (1801). On the death of the rector his wife and two daughters removed to the neighbourhood of Southampton, where the majority of Jane Austen’s novels were written. Her first published works were issued anonymously, and she died in middle age, before her merits had received anything like adequate recognition.

=2. Her Novels.= The chronology of Miss Austen’s novels is not easy to follow, for her earliest works were the last to be published. In what follows we shall take the books approximately in their order of composition, not of publication.

Her first novel was _Northanger Abbey_, which was finished in 1798, but not published till 1818, after her death. The book begins as a burlesque of the Radcliffe type of the terror novel, which was then all the rage. The heroine, after a visit to Bath, is invited to an abbey, where she imagines romantic possibilities, but is in the end ludicrously undeceived. The incidents in the novel are ingloriously commonplace, and the characters flatly average. Yet the treatment is deft and touched with the finest needle-point of satiric observation. The style is smooth and unobtrusive, but covers a delicate pricking of irony that is agreeable and masterly in its quiet way. Nothing quite like it had appeared before in the novel.

In _Pride and Prejudice_ (1797) the same methods are to be seen. We have the same middle-class people pursuing the common round. The heroine is a girl of spirit, but she has no extraordinary qualities; the pride and prejudice of rank and wealth are gently but pleasingly titillated, as if they are being subjected to an electric current of carefully selected intensity. In unobtrusive and dexterous art the book is considered to be her masterpiece.

_Sense and Sensibility_ (1798) was her third novel, and it followed the same general lines as its predecessors. Then came a long pause, for she could find no publisher to issue her work. The first to see print was the last mentioned, which appeared in 1811. Stimulated to further effort, in quick succession she wrote _Mansfield Park_ (1814), _Emma_ (1816), and _Persuasion_ (1818). The latter group are of the type of the others; if there is development it is seen in the still more inflexible avoidance of anything that is unusual or startling. The novels are all much the same, yet subtly and artistically different.

=3. Features of her Novels.= (_a_) _Her Plots._ Her plots are severely unromantic. Her first work, beginning as a burlesque of the horrible in fiction, finishes by being an excellent example of her ideal novel. As her art develops, even the slight casualties of common life--such an incident, for example, as the elopement that appears in _Pride and Prejudice_--become rarer; with the result that the later novels, such as _Emma_, are the pictures of everyday existence. Only the highest art can make such plots attractive, and Jane Austen’s does so.

(_b_) Her _characters_ are developed with minuteness and accuracy. They are ordinary people, but are convincingly alive. She is fond of introducing clergymen, all of whom strike the reader as being exactly like clergymen, though each has his own individual characteristics. She has many characters of the first class, like the servile Mr. Collins in _Pride and Prejudice_, the garrulous Miss Bates in _Emma_, and the selfish and vulgar John Thorpe in _Northanger Abbey_. Her characters are not types, but individuals. Her method of portrayal is based upon acute observation and a quiet but incisive irony. Her male characters have a certain softness of thew and temper, but her female characters are almost unexceptionable in perfection of finish.

(_c_) Her _place in the history of fiction_ is remarkable. Her qualities are of a kind that are slow to be recognized, for there is nothing loud or garish to catch the casual glance. The taste for this kind of fiction has to be acquired, but once it is acquired it remains strong. Jane Austen has won her way to a foremost place, and she will surely keep it.

We add a short extract to illustrate her clear and careful style, her skill in handling conversation, and the quiet irony of her method.

(_Catherine Morland, the heroine of the novel, is introduced to the society of Bath, where she cuts rather a lonely figure till she meets a young man called Tilney--“not quite handsome, but very near it.” The following is part of their conversation at a dance._)

After chatting some time on such matters as naturally arose from the objects around them, he suddenly addressed her with--“I have hitherto been very remiss, madam, in the proper attentions of a partner here; I have not yet asked you how long you have been in Bath; whether you were ever here before; whether you have been at the Upper Rooms, the theatre, and the concert; and how you like the place altogether. I have been very negligent--but are you now at leisure to satisfy me in these particulars? If you are I will begin directly.”

“You need not give yourself that trouble, sir.”

“No trouble, I assure you, madam.” Then forming his features into a set smile, and affectedly softening his voice, he added, with a simpering air, “Have you been long in Bath, madam?”

“About a week, sir,” replied Catherine, trying not to laugh.

“Really!” with affected astonishment.

“Why should you be surprised, sir?”

“Why, indeed!” said he, in his natural tone; “but some emotion must appear to be raised by your reply, and surprise is more easily assumed, and not less reasonable, than any other.--Now let us go on. Were you never here before, madam?”

“Never, sir.”

“Indeed! Have you yet honoured the Upper Rooms?”

“Yes, sir, I was there last Monday.”

“Have you been to the theatre?”

“Yes, sir, I was at the play on Tuesday.”

“To the concert?”

“Yes, sir, on Wednesday.”

“And are you altogether pleased with Bath?”

“Yes--I like it very well.”

“Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again.” _Northanger Abbey_

OTHER NOVELISTS

=1. Maria Edgeworth (1767–1849).= This novelist was born in County Longford, Ireland. Her life is largely the catalogue of her books, which are numerous, varied, and in quality very unequal. Her best novels deal with Irish life. They were warmly praised by Scott, who declared that they gave him ideas for his own stories. _Castle Rackrent_ (1800) is successful in its dealing with Irish characters; _Lenora_ (1806) shows a good deal of power; _Tales of Fashionable Life_ (1809) contains much of her best work, including _The Absentee_, which is commonly considered her masterpiece. Other works are _Patronage_ (1814), _Harrington_ (1817), and _Ormand_ (1817). Her type of fiction is lively and agreeable, except when she indulges in a shallow kind of moralizing. In her day her popularity ran a close second to Scott’s, but now only a slight flicker survives.

=2. John Galt (1779–1839)= was born in Ayrshire, and there he passed the early years of his life, afterward removing to Greenock. He studied for the Bar, but delicate health drove him abroad. After much traveling he settled in Scotland, and produced a large amount of literary work. He engaged unsuccessfully in business transactions, then took once more to writing novels and to journalism. He died at Greenock, where his career had commenced.

The best of his novels are _The Ayrshire Legatees_ (1820), in the form of a letter-series, containing much amusing Scottish narrative; _The Annals of the Parish_ (1821), his masterpiece, which is the record of a fictitious country minister, doing in prose very much what Crabbe had done in verse; _The Entail_ (1821); and _The Provost_ (1822). Galt had a vigorous style and abundant imagination, with a great deal of humor and sympathetic observation. He is too haphazard and uneven to be a great novelist, though he has value as a painter of Scottish manners.

=3. William Harrison Ainsworth (1805–82)= was an early imitator of Scott. He wrote a great number of novels, which cover many periods of English history. The first was _Sir John Chiverton_ (1825), but he scored his great success with the Dick Turpin romance _Rookwood_ (1834). A few of the many others were _Jack Sheppard_ (1839), an immense success, _The Tower of London_ (1840), _Old St. Paul’s_ (1841), _Windsor Castle_ (1843), _The Star Chamber_ (1854), _The Constable of the Tower_ (1861), and _Preston Fight_ (1875). Ainsworth possesses little of Scott’s genius, for his handling of history is crude and heavy, and consists of throwing in large, undigested lumps of history. He is feeble in his treatment of his characters, but when he is in the right vein he can give the reader a vigorous narrative and a fair quality of description.

=4. George P. R. James (1801–60)= was another follower of the method of Scott, and he was responsible for a hundred and eighty-nine volumes, chiefly novels. He was born in London; traveled abroad; settled down to novel-writing; on the strength of some serious historical work was appointed Historiographer Royal; entered the consular service; and died at Venice.

_Richelieu_ (1828), which bears a strong resemblance to _Quentin Durward_, was his earliest, and is by many considered to be his best, novel. Others include _Darnley_ (1830), _De l’Orme_ (1830), _The Gipsy_ (1835), and _Lady Montague’s Page_ (1858). As was almost inevitable with such mass-production, he makes his novels on a stock pattern. He is fond of florid pageantry, and can be rather ingeniously mysterious in his plots. He has little power in dealing with his characters, and no imaginative grasp of history. In style he is undistinguished, but fluent and clear.

=5. Charles Lever (1806–72).= Lever was born in Dublin, was educated at Trinity College and Göttingen, and became a physician. The success of his novels caused him to desert his profession, and in the course of time (1842) he became editor of _The Dublin University Magazine_, which had published his first stories. In his latter years he lived abroad, was appointed consul in Sardinia (1858), and after some other changes died when consul at Trieste.

_Harry Lorrequer_ (1839), his first novel, made a great hit. It is a novel of the picaresque type, dealing with the adventures of the hare-brained but lovable hero. _Charles O’Malley_ (1841) is of the same species, and others are _Jack Hinton_ (1842) and _Tom Burke of Ours_ (1844). The scenes of these novels are pitched in Ireland; there is little plot, what there is consisting of the scrapes of the heroes; the humor is rough-and-tumble, though agreeably lively; and the heroes, who are all much the same, are amiable fellows, with a propensity for falling into trouble and falling out of it. A later class of Lever’s novels was more of the historical cast, and includes _The O’Donovan_ (1845) and _The Knight of Gwynne_ (1847). Others dealt with the Continent, and include _The Dodd Family Abroad_ (1854) and _The Fortunes of Glencore_ (1857). These latter are more stable and serious, and as novels are better than the earlier groups.

=6. Frederick Marryat (1792–1848)= followed the Smollett tradition of writing sea-stories. He was born in London, entered the Navy at an early age (1806), and saw some fighting just before the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. He saw further service in different parts of the world, rose to be a captain, and spent much of his later life writing the novels that have given him his place in literature.

His earliest novel was _The Naval Officer_ (1829), a loose and disconnected narrative, which was followed by _The King’s Own_ (1830), a much more able piece of work. From this point he continued to produce fiction at a great rate. The best of his stories are _Jacob Faithful_ (1834), _Peter Simple_ (1834), _Japhet in Search of a Father_ (1836), _Mr. Midshipman Easy_ (1836), and _Masterman Ready_ (1841). All his best books deal with the sea, and have much of its breeziness. Marryat has a considerable gift for plain narrative, and his humor, though it is often coarse, is entertaining. His characters are of the stock types, but they are lively and suit his purpose, which is to produce a good yarn.

=7. Michael Scott (1789–1835)= was another novelist whose favorite theme was the sea. Scott was not a sailor like Marryat, but a merchant, first in Jamaica and then in his native city of Glasgow. His two tales, _Tom Cringle’s Log_ (1829) and _The Cruise of the Midge_ (1834), were published in _Blackwood’s Magazine_. They have attempts at fine writing which Marryat did not aspire to, and are none the better for it, for Scott seldom succeeds in being impressive. His actual nautical details lack the intimacy and freshness of Marryat’s. He was, however, a gifted story-teller, and his tales are rarely dull.

=8. Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81), Lord Beaconsfield=, was a Londoner of Jewish race, and after many struggles and failures rose to be leader of the Tory party in Parliament and Prime Minister. His political career does not concern us here.

He began his literary career as a novelist. _Vivian Grey_ (1826) soon set the fashionable world talking of its author. It dealt with fashionable society, it was brilliant and witty, and it had an easy arrogance that amused, incensed, and attracted at the same time. The general effect of cutting sarcasm was varied, but not improved, by passages of florid description and sentimental moralizing. His next effort was _The Voyage of Captain Popanilla_ (1829), a modern _Gulliver’s Travels_. The wit is very incisive, and the satire, though it lacks the solid weight of Swift’s, is sure and keen. Disraeli wrote a good number of other novels, the most notable of which were _Contarini Fleming_ (1831), _Henrietta Temple_ (1837), _Coningsby_ (1844), _Sybil_ (1845), and _Tancred_ (1847). These last books, written when experience of public affairs had added depth to his vision and edge to his satire, are polished and powerful novels dealing with the politics of his day. At times they are too brilliant, for the continual crackle of epigram dazzles and wearies, and his tawdry taste leads him to overload his ornamental passages. Disraeli also carried further the idea of _Captain Popanilla_ by writing _Alroy_ (1832), _Ixion in Heaven_ (1833), and _The Infernal Marriage_, which are half allegorical, half supernatural, but wholly satirical romances. In style the prose is inflated, but the later novels sometimes have flashes of real passion and insight.

=9. Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1805–73)= was the son of General Bulwer. On the death of his mother he succeeded to her estate and took the name of Lytton, later becoming Lord Lytton. He was at first educated privately, and then at Cambridge, where he won a prize for English verse. He had a long and successful career both as a literary man and as a politician. He entered Parliament, was created in turn a baronet and a peer, and for a time held Cabinet rank.

His earliest efforts in literature were rather feeble imitations of the Byronic manner. His first novel was _Falkland_ (1827), which was published anonymously, and then came _Pelham_ (1828). These are pictures of current society, and are immature in their affectation of wit and cynicism. They contain some clever things, but they lack the real merit of the early novels of Disraeli. Another of the same kind was _Devereux_ (1829). _Paul Clifford_ (1830) changed the scene to the haunts of vice and crime, but was not at all convincing. Lytton now took to writing historical novels, the best of which were _The Last Days of Pompeii_ (1834), _Rienzi_ (1835), and _Harold_ (1848). They are rather garish, but clever and attractive, and they had great popularity. He did not neglect the domestic novel, writing _The Caxtons_ (1849) and _My Novel_ (1853); and the terror and supernatural species were ably represented by _A Strange Story_ (1862) and _The Coming Race_ (1871). Lytton is never first-rate, but he is astonishingly versatile, and, considering the speed of his production, his books are of a high quality. His plays, such as _Richelieu_ (1839) and _Money_ (1840), had great success.

CHARLES LAMB (1775–1834)

=1. His Life.= Lamb was born in London, his father being a kind of factotum to a Bencher of the Middle Temple. The boy, who was a timid and retiring youth, was educated at Christ’s Hospital, where he was a fellow-pupil of Coleridge, whose early eccentricities he has touched upon with his usual felicity. He would have entered the Church, but an impediment in his speech made such a course impossible; instead he obtained a clerkship first in the South Sea House, then (1792) in the East India House, where the remainder of his working life was spent. There was a strain of madness in the family which did not leave him untouched, for in 1795–96 he was under restraint for a time. In the case of his sister, Mary Lamb, the curse was a deadly one. In September 1796 she murdered her mother in a sudden frenzy, and thereafter she had intermittent attacks of insanity. Lamb devoted his life to the welfare of his afflicted sister, who frequently appears in his essays under the name of Cousin Bridget. After more than thirty years’ service Lamb retired (1825) on a pension, and the last ten years of his life were passed in blessed release from his desk. He was a charming man, a delightful talker, and one of the least assuming of writers. His reputation, based upon his qualities of humor, pathos, and cheery goodwill, is unsurpassed in our literature.

=2. His Essays.= Lamb started his literary career as a poet, producing short pieces of moderate ability, including the well-known _The Old Familiar Faces_ and _To Hester_. He attempted a tragedy, _John Woodvil_ (1801), in the style of his favorite Elizabethan playwrights, but it had no success on the stage. His _Tales from Shakespeare_ (1807), written in collaboration with his sister, are skillfully done, and are agreeable to read. His critical work, narrow in scope, is remarkable for its delicate insight and good literary taste. All these writings, however, are of little importance compared with his essays.

The first of his essays appeared in _The London Magazine_ in 1820, when Lamb was forty-five years old. It was signed “Elia,” a name taken almost at random as that of an old foreigner who used to haunt the South Sea House. The series continued till October 1822, and was published as _The Essays of Elia_ (1823). A second series lasted from May 1824 to August 1825, and was published under the title of _The Last Essays of Elia_ (1833).

The essays are unequaled in English. In subject they are of the usual miscellaneous kind, ranging from chimneysweeps to old china. They are, however, touched with personal opinions and recollections so oddly obtruded that interest in the subject is nearly swamped by the reader’s delight in the author. No essayist is more egotistical than Lamb; but no egotist can be so artless and yet so artful, so tearful and yet so mirthful, so pedantic and yet so humane. It is this delicate clashing of humors, like the chiming of sweet bells, that affords the chief delight to Lamb’s readers.

It is almost impossible to do justice to his style. It is old-fashioned, bearing echoes and odors from older writers like Sir Thomas Browne and Fuller; it is full of long and curious words; and it is dashed with frequent exclamations and parentheses. The humor that runs through it all is not strong, but airy, almost elfish, in note; it vibrates faintly, but in application never lacks precision. His pathos is of much the same character; and sometimes, as in _Dream-Children_, it deepens into a quivering sigh of regret. He is so sensitive and so strong, so cheerful and yet so unalteringly doomed to sorrow.

The extract given below deals with the playhouse, which was one of his greatest passions. The reader can easily observe some of the above-mentioned features of his style.

In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them!--with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door--not that which is left--but between that and an inner door in shelter--O when shall I be such an expectant again!--with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruiteresses then was, “Chase some oranges, chase some num-parels, chase a bill of the play;”--chase _pro_ chuse. But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed--the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to _Troilus and Cressida_, in Rowe’s Shakespeare--the tent scene with Diomede--and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feeling of that evening.--The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling--a homely fancy--but I judged it to be sugar-candy--yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy!--The orchestra lights at length arose, those “fair Auroras!” Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again--and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up--I was not past six years old--and the play was _Artaxerxes_! _My First Play_

THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785–1859)

=1. His Life.= De Quincey was born at Manchester, where his father was a rich merchant. The elder De Quincey left considerable property, but De Quincey himself was improvident and unreliable in his financial affairs. He was educated first at Manchester Grammar School and then at Oxford. There he studied for a long time (1803–8), distinguishing himself by his ability in Greek. While he was an undergraduate (1804) he first became acquainted with opium, soaking his tobacco in the drug and then smoking it in order to alleviate the pains of neuralgia. His money was always easily spent, and his early struggles were a painful effort to make both ends meet. He earned a precarious livelihood by journalism, and lived for a long time (1809–30) in the Lake District, becoming intimate with the local literary celebrities. During this time his devotion to the drug was excessive, but he produced a large amount of work. Then, becoming loosely attached to the staff of _Blackwood’s Magazine_, he removed to Edinburgh. In this neighborhood he remained till the end of his long life, and was buried in the Scottish capital.

=2. His Works.= De Quincey is one of the authors whose work is to be rigorously sifted. He wrote a large amount of prose; most of it is hack-work, a fair proportion is of good quality, and a small amount is of the highest merit. He wrote no book of any great length, in this respect resembling another opium-eater, Coleridge.

The book that made his name was his _Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_ (1821), which appeared in _The London Magazine_. The work, which is chaotic in its general plan, is a series of visions that melt away in the manner of dreams. Much is tawdry and unreal, but the book contains passages of great power and beauty. The remainder of his work is a mass of miscellaneous production, the best of which is _The English Mail-coach_, _Suspiria de Profundis_, and _Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts_.

A great part of his work is dreary and diffuse, and vitiated by a humor that is extremely flat and ineffective. He displays a wide range of knowledge, though it is often flawed with inaccuracy. In style he is apt to stumble into vulgarity and tawdriness; but when inspiration descends upon him he gives to the English tongue a wonderful strength and sweetness. In these rare moments he plunges into an elaborate style and imagery, but never loses grip, sweeping along with sureness and ease. In rhythm and melody he is almost supreme; he can “blow through bronze” and “breathe through silver,” and be impressive in both.

The passage we now give is among his most impressive efforts. It has the unity and passion of the lyric, and its effect is both thrilling and profound. Observe the studied rhythm, often ejaculatory, the deep and solemn beauty, and the simplicity of diction. This is poetic prose at its best:

As a final specimen, I cite one of a different character, from 1820.

The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in dreams--a music of preparation and of awakening suspense; a music like the opening of the coronation anthem, and which, like _that_, gave the feeling of a vast march--of infinite cavalcades filing off--and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day--a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where--somehow, I knew not how--by some beings, I knew not whom--a battle, a strife, an agony was conducting--was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every movement), had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. “Deeper than ever plummet sounded,” I lay inactive.

Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some great interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms: hurryings to and fro: trepidations of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad: darkness, and lights: tempest, and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed,--and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and then--everlasting farewells! and with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when Sin uttered the abhorred name of Death, the sound was reverberated--everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated--everlasting farewells!

And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud--“I will sleep no more!” _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_

WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778–1830)

The period now under review is very rich in critical and miscellaneous work. Of the writers of literary criticism Hazlitt may be taken as representative.

=1. His Life.= Hazlitt was born in Shropshire, the son of a Unitarian minister. His first intention was to be a painter, but he abandoned the idea and took to letters as a profession. He was a friend of Coleridge, with whom he shared an ardent admiration for revolutionary principles. This enthusiasm, and others of a similar nature, Hazlitt was not slack in expressing; and this habit, added to a brawling acerbity of temper, made his life largely a series of quarrels and controversies.

=2. His Works.= His output was very large, and included many political works. Those that are of importance here are _The Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays_ (1817), _Lectures on the English Poets_ (1818), and _The Spirit of the Age_ (1825). His longest work was the _Life of Napoleon_ (1828) but it was of no great value.

Hazlitt’s criticism, though it is limited in scope to English literature, shows great ability, shrewd insight, and sanity in its enthusiasms. It is far more precise and equable than that of Coleridge, broader and more incisive than Lamb’s, and much more reasoned and scientific than De Quincey’s. It is often spoilt by his political views, but when they are allowed for it can be trusted to a great degree.

His style is admirable for his purpose. It is readable and clear, and when necessary it can rise into expressing the keen zest that Hazlitt felt for the good and the wholesome in English literature. The following extract is of interest as a comparison of Addison and Steele:

It may be said, that all this is to be found, in the same or a greater degree, in the _Spectator_. For myself, I do not think so; or, at least, there is in the last work a much greater proportion of commonplace matter. I have, on this account, always preferred the _Tatler_ to the _Spectator_. Whether it is owing to my having been earlier or better acquainted with the one than the other, my pleasure in reading these two admirable works is not at all in proportion to their comparative reputation. The _Tatler_ contains only half the number of volumes, and, I will venture to say, at least an equal quantity of sterling wit and sense. “The first sprightly runnings” are there--it has more of the original spirit, more of the freshness and stamp of nature. The indications of character and strokes of humour are more true and frequent; the reflections that suggest themselves arise more from the occasion, and are less spun out into regular dissertations. They are more like the remarks which occur in sensible conversation, and less like a lecture. Something is left to the understanding of the reader. Steele seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set down what he observed out of doors. Addison seems to have spent most of his time in his study, and to have spun out and wire-drawn the hints, which he borrowed from Steele, or took from nature, to the utmost. I am far from wishing to depreciate Addison’s talents, but I am anxious to do justice to Steele, who was, I think, upon the whole, a less artificial and more original writer. The humorous descriptions of Steele resemble loose sketches, or fragments of a comedy; those of Addison are rather comments, or ingenious paraphrases, on the genuine text. _The English Comic Writers_

OTHER WRITERS OF MISCELLANEOUS PROSE

=1. Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850)=, one of the founders of _The Edinburgh Review_, was born at Edinburgh, educated at the high school and university of his native city, and was called to the Scottish Bar. Though for many years an industrious writer for his journal, he maintained a considerable legal practice, and distinguished himself in politics as an ardent Whig and a supporter of the Reform Bill of 1832. When, after the passage of the Bill, his party came into office he was rewarded by being appointed Lord Advocate. This meant the abandonment of his position on the _Review_, though he always kept a paternal eye on its progress. He was finally appointed to the Bench, with the title of Lord Jeffrey.

_The Edinburgh Review_ was at first a joint production of a group of young and zealous Whigs, including Sydney Smith and Dr. John Brown. After the first number Jeffrey was in sole control, and he drew around him a band of distinguished contributors, including at one time Sir Walter Scott and Lockhart. The journal led the way among the larger reviews, and was noted for its briskness. It was not above prejudice, as was shown in its opposition to the Lake School, but it did much to raise the standard of criticism, and it succeeded in bringing much talent to light, including the early efforts of Macaulay.

=2. Sydney Smith (1771–1845)= was for a time a colleague of Jeffrey. He was born in Essex, and was the son of a clergyman. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and became a clergyman in his turn. After traveling on the Continent as a tutor, he settled for a time at Edinburgh, and assisted in the launching of _The Edinburgh Review_ (1802). He took a large share in the political squabbles of the time, and wrote much on behalf of the Whig party.

His works consist of many miscellaneous pieces, most of them of a political character. The most noteworthy of them is a collection called _The Letters of Peter Plymley_ (1807), which deals with Catholic Emancipation. A more general selection from his writings was published in 1855, and his _Wit and Wisdom_ in 1861. Nowadays it is somewhat difficult to account for his great influence, for he has left so little of real merit; but to his own contemporaries he was a very important person. He was admired and feared as a wit, and some of his best witticisms have been preserved. He was always a gentlemanly opponent, always easy but deadly in the shafts leveled against his political foes. He wrote the prose of an educated man, and is clear and forcible.

=3. John Wilson (1785–1854)=, who appears in literature as =Christopher North=, was born at Paisley, the son of a wealthy manufacturer. He was educated at Glasgow and Oxford, wrote poetry, and for a time settled in the Lake District. He lost most of his money, tried practice as a barrister, and then joined the staff of _Blackwood’s Magazine_. He was appointed in 1820 Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University.

His early poems, _The Isle of Palms_ (1812) and _The City of the Plague_ (1816), are passable verse of the romantic type. His novels--for example, _The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay_ (1823)--are sentimental pictures of Scottish life. His longest work, and the one that perpetuates his name, is his _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ (beginning in 1822), which had a long and popular run in _Blackwood’s_. This is an immensely long series of dialogues on many kinds of subjects. The characters are the members of a small club who meet regularly, consume great quantities of meat and drink, and frequently indulge in immoderate clowning. The talk is endless, and is often tedious in the extreme. At times Wilson rises into striking descriptive passages, more florid and less impressive than De Quincey’s, but beautiful in a sentimental fashion. His taste, however, cannot be trusted, and his humor is too often crude and boisterous.

=4. John G. Lockhart (1794–1854)= was born at Cambusnethan, educated at Glasgow and Oxford, and became a member of the Scottish Bar. He soon (1817) became a regular contributor to _Blackwood’s Magazine_, sharing in its strong Tory views and its still stronger expression of them. He rather gloried in these literary and political fisticuffs, which in one case led to actual bloodshed, though he did not participate in it. In 1820 he married Scott’s favorite daughter Sophia, and lived to be the biographer of his famous father-in-law. He was editor of _The Quarterly Review_ from 1826 till 1852.

Lockhart wrote four novels, the best of which are _Valerius_ (1821) and _Adam Blair_ (1822). They are painstaking endeavors, but they lack the fire of genius, and are now almost forgotten. His poetry is quite lively and attractive, especially his _Spanish Ballads_ (1821). _Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk_ (1819) is a collection of brilliant sketches of Edinburgh society. Lockhart’s fame, however, rests on _The Life of Scott_ (1837–38), which was first published in seven volumes. This book ranks as one of the great biographies in the language. Though it is full of intimate and loving detail, it possesses a fine sense of perspective and coherence; and while it is influenced by a natural

## partiality for its subject, the story is judiciously told. In this book

Lockhart casts aside his aggressiveness of manner. His descriptions, as, for example, that of the death of Scott, have a masterly touch.

=5. William Cobbett (1762–1835)= was born at Farnham, Surrey, and was the son of a farm-laborer. He enlisted in the Army, rose to be sergeant-major, emigrated to America, where he took to journalism, and returned to England, to become actively engaged in politics. In 1835 he was elected to Parliament, but was not a success as a public man. He was a man of violent opinions, boxed the political compass, and died an extreme Radical.

He was an assiduous journalist, beginning with _Peter Porcupine’s Journal_ (1801). His other paper was his _Political Register_, which he began in 1802 and carried on till 1835. His further literary work is contained in his _Rural Rides in England_. He writes with an unaffected simplicity that reminds the reader of Bunyan, and his descriptions of contemporary England are clear and forcible.

=6.= The =historians= belonging to this period are both numerous and important, but we can mention only a few.

(_a_) =Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868)= was educated at Eton and Oxford, and afterward wrote some plays, including the tragedy _Fazio_ (1817). His chief historical works are _The History of the Jews_ (1829) and _The History of Latin Christianity_ (1856). Milman is a solid and reliable historian, with a readable style.

(_b_) =George Grote (1794–1871)= was a London banker, and entered politics. His _History of Greece_ (1846–56) is based on German research, and is well informed and scholarly. The work, however, is sometimes considered to be too long and tedious in its detail.

(_c_) =Henry Hallam (1777–1859)= was a member of the Middle Temple, but he practiced very little. He wrote on both literary and historical subjects, and contributed to _The Edinburgh Review_. His historical works include _A Constitutional History of England_ (1827) and _An Introduction to the Literature of Europe_ (1838–39). Hallam acquired a great and deserved reputation for solid scholarship. Like Gibbon, he tried to attune his style to his subject, and wrote in a grave and impressive manner, but, lacking the genius of Gibbon, he succeeded only in making his style lifeless and frigid.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

The amount of actual development during this period was not so great as the immense output. Authors were content with the standard literary forms, and it was upon these as models that the development took place.

=1. Poetry.= (_a_) This was indeed the golden age of the _lyric_, which reflected the Romantic spirit of the time in liberal and varied measure. It comprised the exalted passion of Shelley, the meditative simplicity of Wordsworth, the sumptuous descriptions of Keats, and the golden notes of Coleridge. It is to be noted that in form the lyric employed the ancient externals of the stereotyped meters and rhymes. There was some attempt at rhymeless poems in the work of Southey and the early poems of Shelley, but this practice was never general.

(_b_) With _descriptive and narrative poems_ the age was richly endowed. One has only to recall Byron’s early work, Keats’s tales, Coleridge’s supernatural stories, and Scott’s martial and historical romances to perceive how rich was the harvest. Once more the poets work upon older methods. The Spenserian stanza is the favorite model, but the ballad is nearly as popular. These older types suffered some change, as was almost inevitable with such inspired minds at work upon them. The Spenserian manner was loosened and strengthened; it was given richer and more varied beauties in _The Eve of St. Agnes_, and a sharper and more personal note in the _Childe Harold_ of Byron. In the case of Wordsworth we observe the frequent use of blank verse for meditative purposes, as in _The Prelude_.

(_c_) _Satirical poems_ were numerous; and their tone was fierce, for the success of the French Revolution led to the expression of new hopes and desires. Outstanding examples were Byron’s _Don Juan_ and _The Vision of Judgment_ and Shelley’s _Masque of Anarchy_.

=2. Drama.= Drama was written as freely as ever, but rather as a form of literary exercise than as a serious attempt at creating a new dramatic standard. Tragedy almost monopolized the activities of the major poets. Of all the tragedies Shelley’s _Cenci_ came first in power and simplicity. Byron’s tragedies had little merit as dramas; and Wordsworth’s _Borderers_ and Coleridge’s _Remorse_ added little to the fame of their authors.

The comic spirit in drama was in abeyance. Shelley’s _Œdipus Tyrannus, or Swellfoot the Tyrant_, is almost the only instance of it worth mention, and this was a poor specimen of that writer’s creative power.

=3. Prose.= (_a_) _The Novel._ Of the different kinds of prose composition, the novel showed in this period the most marked development. This was largely due to the work of Scott and Jane Austen, who respectively established the historical and domestic types of novel.

With regard to the work of Scott, we can here only briefly summarize what has already been said. He raised the historical novel to the rank of one of the major kinds of literature; he brought to it knowledge, and through the divine gift of knowledge made it true to life; he fired historical characters with living energy; he set on foot the device of the unhistorical hero--that is, he made the chief character purely fictitious, and caused the historical persons to rotate about it; he established a style that suited many periods of history; and pervading all these advances was a great and genial personality that transformed what might have been mere lumber into an artistic product of truth and beauty.

Miss Austen’s achievement was of a different kind. She revealed the beauty and interest that underlie ordinary affairs; she displayed the infinite variety of common life, and so she opened an inexhaustible vein that her successors were assiduously to develop.

Most of the other novelists of the time were either imitators of Scott, like James and Ainsworth, or a combination of Scott and Miss Austen, like Bulwer-Lytton. Disraeli developed a rather different species in his brilliant society novels, which depended for their chief effects on satiric insight and caustic epigram. _Tancred_ is probably the best of this species.

(_b_) _Periodical Literature._ At the beginning of this chapter we noted the chief members of a great new community of literary journals. These periodicals were of a new type. Previous literary journals, like _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ (1731), had been feeble productions, the work of elegant amateurs or underpaid hack-writers. Such papers had little weight. The new journals were supreme in the literary world; they attracted the best talent; they inspired fear and respect; and in spite of many defects their literary product was worthy of their reputation.

(_c_) _The Essay._ Finding a fresh outlet in the new type of periodical, the essay acquired additional importance. The purely literary essay, exemplified in the works of Southey, Hazlitt, and Lockhart, increased in length and solidity. It now became a review--that is, a commentary on a book or books under immediate inspection, but in addition expounding the wider theories and opinions of the reviewer. This new species of essay was to be developed still further in the works of Carlyle and Macaulay.

The miscellaneous essay, represented in the works of Lamb, likewise, acquired an increased dignity. It was growing beyond the limits set by Addison and Johnson. It was more labored and aspiring, and contained many more mannerisms of the author. This kind also was to develop in the hands of the succeeding generation.

(_d_) Other prose works must receive scanty notice. The art of letter-writing still flourished, as can be seen in the works of Byron, Shelley, and Lamb. Lamb in particular has a charm that reminds the reader of that of Cowper. Byron’s letters, though egotistical enough, are breezy and humorous.

Biographical work is adequately represented in _The Life of Byron_, by Moore, and _The Life of Scott_, by Lockhart. These books in their general outlines follow the model of Boswell, though they do not possess the artless self-revelation of their great predecessor. There is an advance shown by their division into chapters and other convenient stages, a useful arrangement that Boswell did not adopt.

The amount of historical research was very great, and the historians ranged abroad and tilled many fields; but in their general methods there was little advance on the work of their predecessors.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE

=1. Poetry.= This period being instinct with the spirit of revolt, it may be taken for granted that in poetic style there is a great range of effort and experiment. The general tendency is toward simplicity of diction and away from the mannerisms of the eighteenth century. In the case of the major poets, the one who comes nearest in style to the eighteenth century is Byron; next to him, in spite of his theories of simplicity, comes Wordsworth, who has a curious inflation of style that is kept within bounds only by his intense imaginative power. The best work of Coleridge and Shelley is marked by the greatest simplicity; but, on the other hand, Keats is too fond of golden diction to resist the temptation to be ornate.

=2. Prose.= In this period we behold the dissolution of the more formal prose style of the previous century. With this process the journalists and miscellaneous prose-writers have much to do. In the place of the older type we see a general tendency toward a useful middle style, as in the books of Southey and Hazlitt. Outside this mass of middle prose we have a range from the greatest simplicity to the highest efforts of poetic prose. At one end of the scale we have the perfectly plain style of Cobbett. The passage we give (from the _Rural Rides_) could not be simpler, but it is energetic and expressive:

When I returned to England in 1800, after an absence from the country parts of it for sixteen years, the trees, the hedges, even the parks and woods, seemed so small! It made me laugh to hear little gutters, that I could jump over, called rivers. The Thames was but a ‘creek!’ But when in about a month after my arrival in London, I went to Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my surprise! Every thing was become so pitifully small! I had to cross in my postchaise the long and dreary heath of Bagshot. Then at the end of it, to mount a hill called Hungry Hill: and from that hill I knew that I should look down into the beautiful and fertile vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with a sort of fear, to see all the scenes of my childhood; for I had learned before the death of my father and mother.

From Cobbett we range through a large number of writers, like Lockhart and Miss Austen, who write in the usual middle style to the more labored manner of Scott, who in his descriptive passages adopts a kind of Johnsonese. When he writes in the Scots dialect he writes simply and clearly, but in his heavier moods we have a style like that which follows. Note the long and complicated sentences, and the labored diction.

The brow of the hill, on which the Royal Life-Guards were now drawn up, sloped downwards (on the side opposite to that which they had ascended) with a gentle declivity for more than a quarter of a mile, and presented ground which, though unequal in some places, was not altogether unfavourable for the manœuvres of cavalry, until near the bottom, when the slope terminated in a marshy level, traversed through its whole length by what seemed either a natural gully or a deep artificial drain, the sides of which were broken by springs, trenches filled with water, out of which peats and turf had been dug, and here and there by some straggling thickets of alders, which loved the moistness so well that they continued to live as bushes, although too much dwarfed by the sour soil and the stagnant bog-water to ascend into trees. Beyond this ditch or gully the ground arose into a second heathy swell, or rather hill, near to the foot of which, and as if with the object of defending the broken ground and ditch that covered their front, the body of insurgents appeared to be drawn up with the purpose of abiding battle. _Old Mortality_

From Scott the evolution of style can be traced through the mannered, half-humorous ornateness of Lamb to the florid poetic prose of Wilson and the dithyrambic periods of De Quincey. As a final specimen we give an extract from the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_. The style is fervidly exclamatory, but it lacks the depth of De Quincey’s at its best.

_Shepherd._ Oh that I had been a sailor! To hae circumnavigated the world! To hae pitched our tents, or built our bowers, on the shores o’ bays sae glittering wi’ league-long wreaths o’ shells, that the billows blushed crimson as they murmured! To hae seen our flags burning meteor-like, high up among the primeval woods, while birds, bright as bunting, sat trimming their plumage amang the cordage, sae tame in that island where ship had haply never touched before, nor ever might touch again, lying in a latitude by itself, and far out of the breath o’ the tradewinds! Or to hae landed with a’ the crew, marines and a’--except a guard on shipboard to keep aff the crowd o’ canoes--on some warlike isle, tossing wi’ the plumes on chieftain’s heads, and sound--sound--sounding wi’ gongs! What’s a man-o’-war’s barge, Mr Tickler, beautiful sight tho’ it be, to the hundred-oared canoe o’ some savage Island-king!

TABLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

+----+------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | | POETRY | DRAMA | PROSE | | | | | +-------------+---------------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+ |DATE| | | Satirical | | | | | | | | Lyric |Narrative-Descriptive| and | Comedy | Tragedy | Novel | Essay |Miscellaneous| | | | | Didactic | | | | | | +----+-------------+---------------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Wordsworth[198]| | | | | | | | | | |Southey | | | |J. Austen[199]| |Coleridge[200] |1800|Coleridge[198]|Landor | | | | | | | +----+-------------+---------------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+ | | | | | | |M. Edgeworth |Cobbett | | | | |Scott[201] | | | | |Jeffrey | | | |Moore | | | | | |S. Smith | | | |Campbell |Wordsworth | | | | | | | |1810| | | | | | | |Southey | +----+-------------+---------------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+ | | |Byron[202] |J. and H. | | | | | | | |Byron |Hogg | Smith | | | | | | | |Hogg |Shelley[203] | | | |Scott[204] | | | | | |Moore |Moore | |Byron[205] | |Lockhart | | | |Shelley |Keats[206] |Shelley | | | |Hazlitt |Coleridge[207] |1820|Keats | |Byron[208] | |Shelley[209] | | | | +----+-------------+---------------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+ | | | | | | |Galt |DeQuincey[210]|Wilson | | | | | | | | |Lamb[211] | | | | | | | | |Bulwer-Lytton| | | | | | | | | | | | | |1830| | | | | |Marryat | | | +----+-------------+---------------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+ | |Elliott | |Elliott | | |Disraeli | |Moore[212] | | | | | | | |Ainsworth | | | | | | | | | | | |Lockhart[213]| | | | | | | | | | | |1840| | |Hood | |Wordsworth[214]|Lever | | | +----+-------------+---------------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+

EXERCISES

1. Below are given two extracts on autumn, one written by Keats and one by Shelley. Compare them carefully with regard to selection of details, style, and meter. How far does each reflect the nature of its author?

(1) Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease; For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells. KEATS, _Ode to Autumn_

(2) The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the Year On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, Months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead cold Year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. SHELLEY, _Autumn: A Dirge_

2. From an examination of the following extracts, and from what has already been said regarding their respective authors, write a brief account of the style of the authors. How do the extracts compare as regards clearness, lucidity, and melody?

(1) During the first year that Mr Wordsworth and I were neighbours, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination. The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency. For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to be such, as will be found in every village and its vicinity, where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them, when they present themselves. COLERIDGE, _Biographia Literaria_

(2) I thought that it was a Sunday morning in May, that it was Easter Sunday, and as yet very early in the morning. I was standing, as it seemed to me, at the door of my own cottage. Right before me lay the very scene which could really be commanded from that situation, but exalted, as was usual, and solemnised by the power of dreams. There were the same mountains, and the same lovely valley at their feet; but the mountains were raised to more than alpine height, and there was interspace far larger between them of meadows and forest lawns; the hedges were rich with white roses; and no living creature was to be seen, excepting that in the green churchyard there were cattle tranquilly reposing upon the verdant graves, and particularly round about the grave of a child whom I had tenderly loved, just as I had really beheld them, a little before sunrise in the same summer, when that child died. DE QUINCEY, _The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_

(3) When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness their operation!--to see a chit no bigger than one’s-self enter, one knew not by what process, into what seemed the _fauces Averni_--to pursue him in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark stifling caverns, horrid shades!--to shudder with the idea that “now, surely, he must be lost for ever!”--to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered daylight--and then (O fulness of delight!) running out of doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag waved over a conquered citadel! I seem to remember having been told that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle certainly; not much unlike the old stage direction in _Macbeth_, where the “Apparition of a child crowned, with a tree in his hand, rises.” LAMB, _The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers_

(4) If a young reader should ask, after all, What is the best way of knowing bad poets from good, the best poets from the next best, and so on? the answer is, the only and two-fold way; first, the perusal of the best poets with the greatest attention; and second, the cultivation of that love of truth and beauty which made them what they are. Every true reader of poetry partakes of a more than ordinary portion of the poetic nature; and no one can be completely such, who does not love, or take an interest in everything that interests the poet, from the firmament to the daisy--from the highest heart of man, to the most pitiable of the low. It is a good practice to read with pen in hand, marking what is liked or doubted. It rivets the attention, realises the greatest amount of enjoyment, and facilitates reference. It enables the reader also, from time to time, to see what progress he makes with his own mind, and how it grows up to the stature of its exalter. LEIGH HUNT, _Letters_

3. Each of the following extracts from narrative poetry is an example of the Romantic style. How is the Romantic spirit revealed in each, and how far is each different from the others?

(1) The moving Moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide: Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside--

Her beams bemock’d the sultry main, Like April hoar-frost spread; But where the ship’s huge shadow lay, The charmed water burnt alway A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watch’d the water-snakes: They mov’d in tracks of shining white, And when they rear’d, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship I watch’d their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coil’d and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire. COLERIDGE, _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_

(2) And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep, In blanched linen, smooth, and lavendered, While he forth from the closet brought a heap Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd, With jellies soother than the creamy curd, And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon, Manna and dates, in argosy transferred From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one, From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon. KEATS, _The Eve of St. Agnes_

(3) Like adder darting from his coil, Like wolf that dashes through the toil, Like mountain-cat who guards her young, Full at Fitz-James’s throat he sprung; Received, but recked not of a wound, And locked his arms his foeman round. Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own! No maiden’s hand is round thee thrown! That desperate grasp thy frame might feel, Through bars of brass and triple steel! They tug, they strain; down, down they go, The Gael above, Fitz-James below! The Chieftain’s gripe his throat compressed, His knee was planted on his breast; His clotted locks he backward threw, Across his brow his hand he drew, From blood and mist to clear his sight, Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright! SCOTT, _The Lady of the Lake_

(4) While thus they spake, the angelic caravan, Arriving like a rush of mighty wind, Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde, Or Thames, or Tweed), and ’midst them an old man With an old soul, and both extremely blind, Halted before the gate, and in his shroud Seated their fellow traveller on a cloud.

But bringing up the rear of this bright host A Spirit of a different aspect waved His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved; His brow was like the deep when tempest-toss’d; Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved Eternal wrath on his immortal face, And _where_ he gazed a gloom pervaded space. BYRON, _The Vision of Judgment_

4. The two following extracts represent two styles used by Scott. How far is each appropriate to the characters, the period, and the occasion of each novel? Which seems the more natural? How does this compare with Shakespeare’s use of prose and blank verse in his plays?

(1) “Od, here’s another,” quoth Mrs Mailsetter. “A ship-letter--post-mark, Sunderland.” All rushed to seize it.--“Na, na, leddies,” said Mrs Mailsetter, interfering; “I hae had eneugh o’ that wark--ken ye that Mr Mailsetter got an unco rebuke frae the secretary at Edinburgh, for a complaint that was made about the letter of Aily Bisset’s that ye opened, Mrs Shortcake?”

“Me opened!” answered the spouse of the chief baker of Fairport; “ye ken yoursel’, madam, it just cam open o’ free will in my hand--what could I help it?--folk suld seal wi’ better wax.”

“Weel I wot that’s true, too,” said Mrs Mailsetter, who kept a shop of small wares, “and we have got some that I can honestly recommend, if ye ken onybody wanting it. But the short and the lang o’t is, that we’ll lose the place gin there’s ony mair complaints o’ the kind.”

“Hout, lass--the provost will take care o’ that.”

“Na, na--I’ll neither trust to provost nor bailie,” said the postmistress,--“but I wad ay be obliging and neighbourly, and I’m no again your looking at the outside of a letter neither.--See, the seal has an anchor on’t--he’s done’t wi’ ane o’ his buttons, I’m thinking.” _The Antiquary_

(2) “And these are all nobles of Araby?” said Richard, looking around on wild forms with their persons covered with haiks, their countenances swart with the sunbeams, their teeth as white as ivory, their black eyes glancing with fierce and preternatural lustre from under the shade of their turbans, and their dress being in general simple, even to meanness.

“They claim such rank,” said Saladin; “but, though numerous, they are within the conditions of the treaty, and bear no arms but the sabre--even the iron of their lances is left behind.”

“I fear,” muttered De Vaux in English, “they have left them where they can be soon found.--A most flourishing House of Peers, I confess, and would find Westminster Hall something too narrow for them.”

“Hush, De Vaux,” said Richard, “I command thee.--Noble Saladin,” he said, “suspicion and thou cannot exist on the same ground.--Seest thou,” pointing to the litters--“I too have brought some champions with me, though armed, perhaps, in breach of agreement, for bright eyes and fair features are weapons which cannot be left behind.” _The Talisman_

5. Compare Wordsworth’s view of nature with that of Byron, as revealed in the two following extracts. Which view seems to be the deeper and clearer? How far does each reflect the life and habits of the author?

(1) The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts Have followed,--for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. WORDSWORTH, _Tintern Abbey_

(2) And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers, they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror,’twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here. BYRON, _Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage_

6. The first extract below gives Shelley’s idea of the cause of Keats’s death. Compare it with the more cynical utterance of Byron, quoted next. How far does each extract reveal the author’s attitude toward life in general? How far is each statement true?

(1) Our Adonais has drunk poison--oh! What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Life’s early cup with such a draught of woe? The nameless worm would now itself disown: It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, But what was howling in one breast alone, Silent with expectation of the song, Whose master’s hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. _Adonais_

(2) John Keats, who was killed off with one critique, Just as he really promised something great, If not intelligible, without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been supposed to speak. Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate; ’Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should of itself be snuffed out by an article. _Don Juan_

7. Compare Scott and Coleridge as narrative poets.

8. How far does the supernatural enter into the work of Scott, Shelley, and Coleridge? Give a brief account of each.

9. Mention some of the chief literary critics of the period. What are the main features of their criticism?

10. Give an account of the contemporary drama, naming some of the chief plays and giving a criticism of their principal features.

11. What use do Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge make of natural features? How do their attitudes compare with that of Wordsworth?

12. Write a note on the chief satirists of the period both in prose and poetry.

13. Estimate the importance of Scott’s contribution to the novel.

14. Who are the chief lyrical poets of the period? Point out their respective excellences and defects.

15. “In the earliest years of the nineteenth century, all the influences which were most harmful to prose style were most rife. The best elements of the eighteenth-century prose were gone, and a new host were rushing into literature.” (Craik.) What were the influences that were at work? How far did they affect prose style? How far did the influence of journalism affect prose style?

16. “In point of genius the period is a period of poetry; in point of mere form the remarkable change in it concerns not poetry but prose.” (Saintsbury.) Discuss this statement. How far do the poets excel the prose-writers in merit? Did the prose-writers revolt more strongly against the earlier fashions?

17. “_The Excursion_ and _The Prelude_, his poems of greatest bulk, are by no means Wordsworth’s best work. His best work is in his shorter pieces.” (Matthew Arnold.) Discuss this statement.

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