WILLIAM SHENSTONE WRITTEN IN AN INN AT HENLEY P. 311. These lines in praise of the comfort and freedom from care to be found in an old English inn have been much praised and the last stanza often quoted. Dr. Johnson was especially fond of them. THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS Pp. 312 f. Thomson's imitation of Spenser, in his Castle of Indolence, has, as he intended, the effect of remoteness and dreaminess. Shenstone mixes realism and pseudo-archaisms to secure a playful picturesqueness which perhaps justifies his method, though his ignorance of archaic English may cause distress to the student of language. Shenstone had seen such a school-mistress and such a school as he describes. He spent his life in the country and is mainly notable for his romantic taste in gardening and his sacrifice of his fortune to his hobby. II. 136-139. The Coronation Chair of Great Britain, which contains the ancient "stone of destiny" brought from Scone, in Scotland, where it formed part of the seat in which the kings of Scotland were crowned. P. 313. ll. 156-158. A hornbook was a card on which were printed the letters of the alphabet, a few simple syllables and words, the nine digits, and the Lord's prayer; this was covered with a thin transparent sheet of horn and set in a frame with a handle. Later the term was used loosely for a primer of any sort. 11. 165-167. In his Faerie Queene Spenser often expresses his sorrow and pity for the characters of his poem when they are in distress or danger; cf. I, iii, 1-18 (p. 114). THOMAS GRAY Pp. 313 ff. Gray is the best type of the eighteenth century scholar-poet, important for his influence in the Romantic Movement, though in his own poetry less interesting than some poets of less authority. His work is always artistic, often artificial, never spontaneous, and it abounds in abstractions and personifications of abstractions (cf. ll. 61-70 in the Ode on . . . Eton College, p. 314). It shows, however, a wide range of interests, of subjects, and of metres; and he was a He was one of the first pioneer in many fields. poets in his time to write sympathetically of the life of the poor villager; he experimented in the classical form of the ode, with the regular strophe, antistrophe, and epode; he translated from the Norse at a time when Norse literature was unknown in England; he enjoyed romantic scenery at a time when it was unfashionable to do so; he was interested to write of the misfortunes of the Welsh nation in The Bard and he gave practical aid to the Welsh poet, Llewellyn Jones. ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COL LEGE As a child Gray was sent to school at Eton College, and he seems always to have retained his interest in that place and the beautiful country about it. This poem, written when he was twentysix, reviews the sports and probable future destinies of the boys who play there as he played when a child. In the churchyard at Stoke Pogis, only a few miles from Eton, is shown an ancient yewtree beneath which tradition says he wrote his famous Elegy, and his own grave there bears the epitaph with which the Elegy closes. The Ode shows the fondness for personified abstractions, for apostrophes to inanimate objects, for "elegance" of diction, and for moralization, characteristic of the so-called Age of Classicism. The Elegy still retains the fondness for abstractions, but shows in other respects distinct tendencies toward saner ideals of style. Both poems exhibit that taste for melancholy which was a marked feature of the early productions of Romanticism. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH YARD Pp. 314 ff. This poem has always been popular because of the combination of universality and democracy in its theme; but because by the neatness of its form it has lent itself to over-quotation, it has lost much of its freshness for us. None the less, it is sincere and touched with real feeling. P. 315. 1. 57. Some village-Hampden. Some one who will stand up for the rights of his neighbors against the injustice of a local landowner, as John Hampden stood up for the rights of his countrymen against the unjust taxation of King Charles I. THE PROGRESS OF POETRY A Pindaric Ode Pp. 316 ff. Cf. note, p. 735 above, on Cowley's treatment of the Pindaric Ode. Gray had too exacting a sense of scholarship not to adopt the genuine classical form. The present poem consists of three strophes and antistrophes, each containing twelve lines, and of three epodes, each containing seventeen lines. The parts are balanced in rhythm and in the various rhyme schemes. I. Strophe: invocation to music. a Antistrophe: the power of music (the lyre, which was invented by stretching strings across tortoise shell) to soothe all cares and passions, and to subdue the god of war, and even the eagle of Jove, the ruler of storms. P. 317. Epode: the voice and the dance are obedient to music, together with all the Loves and Graces who dance before Venus to its strains. II. Strophe: the ills to which mankind is subject and the question whether music can lessen them. Antistrophe: the power of music from the Pole (the Eskimos) to the Equator (Chili). Epode: the passing of music from Greece to Rome and from Rome to England. III. Strophe: Shakespeare as the poet of Nature who can play upon the human heart. P. 318. Antistrophe: Milton as the poet of the supernatural, and Dryden as a lesser poet but still great in the management of the heroic couplet (ll. 103-106). Epode: Dryden as a lyric poet (ll. 107-111); Gray's own ambitions. Though he cannot equal Pindar, he has cultivated verse since childhood, and he will mount higher than "the Great " (who are not poets), simply because of his calling as poet. THE FATAL SISTERS Pp. 318 f. In his simplicity and directness Gray has caught something of the Norse spirit; and the form he has chosen, with its short lines broken up by alternating rhyme, bears out the general effect. The chief importance of this poem and of several of Gray's later compositions is that in them were introduced to English readers new and fruitful sources of poetic themes. The Descent of Odin, The Triumphs of Owen, and The Bard all testify to the range of Gray's studies and the catholicity and unconventionality of his taste. This poem is supposed to be addressed to her sisters by one of the Valkyries or Battle Maidens of Norse mythology. They are, as their name indicates, "choosers of the slain" (see ll. 33-34) and they hasten with joy to the battle. The battle was fought in the eleventh century between Sigurd, earl of the Orkneys, and Brian, King of Dublin. WILLIAM COLLINS Pp. 319 ff. Collins wrote little, but his verse is simple, natural, and of exquisite poetic quality. His work is in general free from the affectations and conventionalities of his time. His Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands especially shows his ability to break away from the conventional in the choice of poetical material. ODE WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746 The occasion was the loss of a large number of English soldiers in the autumn of 1745 and January 1746, in the War of the Austrian Succession. ODE TO EVENING This is a notable example of an unrhymed stanzaic poem. The influence of Milton's minor poems is apparent in such lines as 11, 12 and 31, yet the picture itself is freshly imagined and original. THE PASSIONS Pp. 320 f. Like Dryden's Alexander's Feast (pp. 224 ff.), this is an ambitious attempt to suit the verse and style to the sentiments, varying them according to each passion described. It concludes with a tribute to the power of music in inspiring emotions. The poem is not entirely free from the conventional diction and rhetorical figures of the time. THOMAS WARTON P. 322. Thomas Warton owes his position in the history of English poetry, not to the fact that he was poet laureate, but to his having contributed, both by his own verse and by his History of English Poetry, to the triumph of Romanticism. His History of English Poetry, which is still a standard treatise, brought to the attention of the reading public the rich but forgotten fields of English poetry from the twelfth to the close of the sixteenth century, the influence of which became dominant in the Romantic revival. His best poetry also expresses two of the principal characteristics of Romanticism-love of antiquity and love of nature. He is further notable as having helped to revive the sonnet as a form of English verse. SONNET IV In Salisbury Plain stand many gigantic stones set in two concentric circles surrounding two ellipses and a central altar, which have aroused much speculation as to their origin and purpose. Scholars now believe that they are in fact - as they were long ago reported to be ruins of a temple of the Druids, remnants of that ancient system of religion held by the Celts in all parts of Europe in prehistoric times. 1. 5. Hengist and his brother Horsa were the traditional leaders of the first bands of Saxons that came from Germany to Britain and, with the aid of later reinforcements, conquered Vortigern, King of Britain. 1. II. Brutus was, in the legendary history of Britain, a descendant of Æneas and the colonizer of the island Britain, which took its name from him. OLIVER GOLDSMITH Pp. 322 ff. Whatever may be the truth about Goldsmith's character, and he seems to have been misrepresented by Boswell and misunderstood by most of his biographers, his writings are usually full of sensible and independent thought as well as of grace and charm. His kindliness and his humor are all-pervasive, and the quality of his work, considering the amount he wrote and the conditions under which he worked, is amazing. LETTERS FROM A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD In 1721, Montesquieu made a sensation and started a literary fashion with his Persian Letters (Lettres Persanes), in which he criticised French society with much wit and effectiveness. Goldsmith in 1760 contributed to the Public Ledger, a daily paper, a series of letters purporting to be written by a Chinese to inform his friends of the manners and customs of the English. Two years later they were gathered into a book and published under the title given above. This device for criticism has been revived with success more than once in our own time. THE DESERTED VILLAGE Pp. 324 ff. Although Goldsmith was theoretically attached to the views held by the classicists, and although his first poem, The Traveller, is of the same general type as the philosophical disquisitions which so many of his predecessors published in verse, when he came to write about his own recollections and sensations his work is so simple and unaffected and his emotion so genuine that he achieves a permanent interest. The Deserted Village is of course a highly ideal ized picture, based probably upon memories of his childhood in Ireland and of the village Lissoy, where his brother lived; but it has a convincing naturalness, unforced humor and pathos, and it is as successful in the sketches of character as in the pictures of idyllic village scenes. Here and there we see the influence of his romantic contemporaries (cf. especially ll. 344 and 418), and here and there we have traces of traditional conventionality (cf. swain, l. 2, unwieldy wealth, 1. 66, mantling bliss, 1. 248, shouting Folly, 1. 270, fair tribes, 1. 338, and especially ll. 97–112). ll. 137-192. Cf. Chaucer's sketch of the faithful parson, Prologue, ll. 477-528 (pp. 64-65). 11. 275-280. Cf. Thomson's Autumn, ll. 350–359 (p. 298). RETALIATION Pp. 329 ff. In February, 1774, two months before Goldsmith's death, he and some of his circle - Dr. Barnard, dean of Derry (1. 23), Edmund Burke (1. 29), Townshend, later Lord Sydney (1. 34), Cumberland, a dramatist (1. 61), Garrick, the great actor-manager (1. 93), Sir Joshua Reynolds (1. 137), and others were having dinner at the St. James Coffee-house when some one proposed that they write mock epitaphs for one another. Although the accounts differ in detail, it appears that several members of the company continued the contest after the eyening was over, and Goldsmith finally provided the epitaphs he had written with a humorous introduction. His poem was passed about in manuscript but was not published until after his death. It was the last thing he wrote. P. 331. l. 137. Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds was greatly beloved by the Johnson group, to which Goldsmith belonged. His pictures are gentle rather than "striking," persuasive rather than "resistless," and noble rather than "grand" (1. 139). He is not to be compared with Raphael or Correggio. But Goldsmith was no critic of art. 1. 146. trumpet. Reynolds was deaf. EDMUND BURKE SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS Pp. 331 ff. The passage quoted is from a speech against government support of graft in the East India Company. The circumstances under which it was delivered were these: The company incor porated in 1600 for trading purposes in India had gradually acquired greater powers until in the eighteenth century it could make war and peace independently of the British government. In 1749 it began a series of conquests, but with these came a degree of mismanagement that led to the passing of several bills in Parliament and, in 1784, to the establishment of a parliamentary board of control. For some years it had been known that officers and members of the company had been making fortunes by helping the Nabob of Arcot to plunder his neighbors, receiving from him in return, not merely money to an extent impossible to estimate, but also the promise to pay several million pounds acknowledged as debt on his part to various individuals. Parliament demanded an investigation, and this was undertaken by the Directors of the East India Company and certain conclusions were reached. The Ministry, however, introduced another bill providing that the supposed debts of the Nabob to members of the Company should be raised out of the province governed by the Company and paid, practically without investigation. Fox challenged this bill, February 28, 1785, and there was a debate, in which Burke's was the last speech. The bill was lost by a large majority. WILLIAM COWPER Pp. 336 ff. Cowper's Task is a narrative poem in six books, of which the only interest lies in the digressions from the subject. Having been challenged by a friend, Lady Austen, to write a poem in blank verse on the subject of a sofa, Cowper set out upon his "task," and developed the work as a sort of poetical commonplace book into which he put his various experiences, impressions, emotions, and ideas. He touches the Romantic Movement in several ways: in his realistic descriptions of nature and of humble life (cf. the woodman and his dog, V, 41-57), in his democratic ideals (cf. his attitude toward slavery, II, 1-47), and in the unaffected simplicity of his style. ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE P. 338. August 29, 1788, while the flagship Royal George was being refitted at Spithead, through the shifting of the weight of the guns (of which she carried 108), she suddenly keeled over, and about eight hundred of the thousand sailors aboard were drowned. Admiral Kempenfelt himself was among the lost. JAMES MACPHERSON Pp. 340 f. Whatever may have been the real basis for Macpherson's so-called translation of the Poems of Ossian, the work exercised a great, and, indeed, almost immeasurable, influence upon English and other literatures. The question as to Macpherson's responsibility for the poems will probably never be entirely resolved. Celtic poems bearing some resemblance to his translations undoubtedly existed in considerable number, but it seems certain that his work was in no case merely that of a translator. The Battle of Loda relates an adventure of Fingal, father of the poet Ossian, who, according to Macpherson, composed the Gaelic original. Fingal, king of Morven in Scotland, was shipwrecked on the coast of Norway and his men fought a skirmish with the people of that country in which his friend, Duth-maruno, was killed. During the night, while the two hosts were encamped face to face, and Fingal himself was still mourning at the grave of his friend, Starno, the king of Norway, told his son Swaran a story of his youth. He said that when the chief, Corman-trunar, came to the hall of his father Annir, his sister, Foina-bragal, fled with him. Annir and Starno pursued, but Corman-trunar prevailed in battle. Then Starno went in disguise to the lovers, and said that Annir was slain and that Starno had sent him to make a truce until Annir was buried. Being kindly received, he waited until the lovers were asleep and then killed them both, to the great rejoicing of his father. Starno then asks Swaran thus to steal upon Fingal and kill him. As Swaran indignantly refuses the treachery, Starno himself undertakes the task, is overcome and made captive, but is released when Fingal sees that his foe is Starno, the father of Agandecca, whom he had loved and lost in his youth. JAMES BOSWELL Pp. 341 ff. Boswell was a good observer and perhaps the best note-taker the world has ever known. Some persons have thought his accomplishment in the Life of Dr. Johnson one of so mechanical a nature as to deserve little credit; but none of his many imitators has approached him in effectiveness, and it is now admitted that although he was a faithful reporter and transcriber, he used no little artistic skill in the selection and organization of the events and conversations he reported, and in the management of the vast company of figures among which the Doctor Boswell had strong prejudices and he was obviously unjust to Goldsmith, of whom he was jealous; but his faithfulness to his task of displaying Johnson exactly as he was, is such that he moves. does not suppress even the occasional manifesta- age. P. 346 a. For three years Voltaire lived with Frederick the Great as his friend and literary adviser, but they quarrelled and parted. Robert Levitt, a friend and dependent of Dr. Johnson's, was originally a waiter. He had picked up some knowledge of medicine and practised among the poor. P. 348 a. Great kings have always been social; cf. what Bacon says on pp. 156 f. JUNIUS THOMAS CHATTERTON Pp. 353 ff. Thomas Chatterton wrote under his own name some poems of great promise for a boy (he was only eighteen when he died), but his most important and interesting poems he pretended not to have written but to have discovered. Most of them, he said, were composed by a monk named Rowley in the second half of the fifteenth century, and had been found by himself among old papers in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol. In the present state of knowledge of the English language it is easy for any scholar to see that these poems could not possibly have been written in the fifteenth century. They are full of false archaisms and eighteenth century contractions, and other forms not in early use. Some persons suspected them when they were first produced; but to the majority even of the scholars of that day any imitation of old manuscripts, old writing, and old spelling was good evidence of age, and it seemed absolutely impossible that so young a boy-he was only twelve or thirteen when he began to produce these poems could have composed the poems and fabricated the manuscripts. When the imposture was discovered, the critics, making no allowance for its having been the work of a mere child, were filled with high moral indignation, and the poor boy was allowed to starve, until, being able to endure his neglect no longer, he took poison and died. It has been thought strange that the poems written in this "fake" old English are better than those in the English of his own day; but the explanation seems easy psychologically. The imagination of the boy was specially excited both by the idea of the imposture he was carrying on and by the odd forms of words which he used. He felt himself transported to the times and scenes he was trying to reproduce and wrote with the picturesqueness and vigor which belong to such excited states of mind. Professor Skeat, in his edition of Chatterton, changed the old spelling of the poems to modern spelling, on the ground that the boy really thought in eighteenth century English and ought to be so represented. This sounds logical, but really is not. He may have thought thus, but we may be sure that he felt and imagined in these pseudo-archaic forms which made the antique world live again for him. Chatterton's method of old spelling is so simple also that it will give hardly any trouble. His first principle is to double letters as often as possible; his second is not to be too regular even in doing this; his third, to use any genuine old spellings that he happens to remember. Pp. 351 ff. The Letters of Junius produced in their day a very great sensation, and their fame has been heightened by the mystery surrounding their authorship. Many of the prominent men of the time were accused of writing them, and not a few either shyly admitted or boldly claimed the credit and the infamy. The reason why the real author did not appear and establish his claims was, as De Quincey long ago pointed out, that he could not assert his right to the literary fame without at the same time convicting himself of having made improper use of his official position under the government to obtain the information which made his attacks so effective. Historians of English literature have long accustomed us to believe that these letters depended for their success solely upon their literary style, their bitterness of invective, and their sardonic irony; but, although they are remarkable as literature, the special feature which aroused the fears of the government was the fact that no state secret seemed safe from the author and that he might at any moment reveal matters which it was imRecent researches portant to keep unknown. have made it practically certain that Junius was Sir Philip Francis, who was a clerk in the war office during the period of the publication of the letters. The Duke of Grafton was leader of the Whig party and prime minister in 1769. Junius sums up the political situation on p. 352. Lord Bute had been the favorite of George III and exerted enormous influence over him as Prince of Wales an influence that persisted long after he was out of office. |