Project Gutenberg's Six Centuries of English Poetry, by James Baldwin This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Six Centuries of English Poetry Tennyson to Chaucer Author: James Baldwin Release Date: October 11, 2009 [EBook #30235] Language: EN Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX CENTURIES OF ENGLISH POETRY *** Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Lisa Reigel, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Notes: Some typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected. A complete list as well as other notes follows the text.
Click on the page number to see an image of the page.
[1]
Select English Classics
[2]
[3]
This is the first volume of a series of Select English Classics which the publishers have in course of preparation. The series will include an extensive variety of selections chosen from the different departments of English literature, and arranged and annotated for the use of classes in schools. It will embrace, among other things, representative specimens from all the best English writers, whether of poetry or of prose; selections from English dramatic literature, especially of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; choice extracts from the writings of the great essayists; selections from famous English allegories; a volume of elegies and elegiacal poetry; studies of English prose fiction, with illustrative specimens, etc. Each volume will contain copious notes, critical, explanatory, and biographical, besides the necessary vocabularies, glossaries, and indexes; and the series when complete will present a varied and comprehensive view of all that is best in English literature. For supplementary reading, as well as for systematic class instruction, the books will possess many peculiarly valuable as well as novel features; while their attractive appearance, combined with the sterling quality of their contents, will commend them for general reading and make them desirable acquisitions for every library.
[4]
There is but one study more interesting than the history of literature, and that is the study of literature itself. That the former should often be mistaken for the latter is scarcely to be wondered at when we consider the intimate and almost indivisible relationship existing between them. Yet, in truth, they are as capable of separate consideration as are music and the history of music.
Any careful investigation of the history of English poetry would naturally begin at a point of time some six or seven hundred years earlier than that of Chaucer. From such investigation we should learn that even as early as the ninth century—perhaps, indeed, the eighth—there were in England some composers of verse in the Anglo-Saxon tongue; that the songs of these poets were chiefly of religion or of war, and that being written in a language very different from our modern English they can scarcely be considered as belonging properly to our literature; that among them, however, is a noble poem, "Beowulf," the oldest epic of any modern people, which was probably sung or recited by pagan minstrels long before it was written down in permanent form; that, after the conquest of England by the Normans, the early language of the The Transition Period.English people underwent a long and tedious process of transition,—a blending, in a certain sense, with the Latinized and more polished tongue of their conquerors,—and that the result was the language which we now call English and are proud to claim as our own; that it was about three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, namely, in 1362, that this new tongue was officially recognized and authorized to be used in the courts at law throughout the land; and that about the same time Geoffrey Chaucer composed and wrote his first poems. We should learn, moreover, that, during the transition period mentioned above, there were many attempts at writing poetry, resulting in the production of tedious metrical romances (chiefly translated from the French) and interminable rhyming chronicles, pleasing, of course, to the people of that time, but wholly devoid of poetic [5]excellence and unspeakably dull to modern readers; that these poems, so called, were little better than rhymed doggerels, written in couplets of eight-syllabled lines and having for their subjects the miraculous deeds of saints and heroes and the occurrence of supernatural or impossible phenomena; that the composers of these metrical romances and chronicles, although giving free rein to the imagination, were utterly destitute of poetic fancy and hence produced no true poetry; that, nevertheless, some writer was now and then inspired by a flash of real poetic fire, producing a few lines of remarkable freshness and beauty,—little lyrics shining forth like gems in the great mass of verbiage and rubbish and foretelling the glorious possibilities which were to be realized in the future.
Continuing this most interesting study, we should learn that just at the time that Chaucer was beginning the composition of his immortal works, there appeared an allegorical poem of considerable length, so earnest in tone, so richly imaginative, so full of picturesque descriptions, that it seemed rather a fulfilment than a prophecy; that this poem—called "The Vision of William concerning Piers Ploughman," and written by an obscure monk whose name was probably William Langland—was the greatest poem and the most popular that had ever been written in England, and yet that it failed in many ways of being true English poetry: its metre was irregular, and its rhythm was imperfect; its verses instead of rhyming were constructed in accordance with certain rules of alliteration; its subjects, while interesting, no doubt, to those for whom it was written, were not such as bring into play the highest powers of the imagination or incite the poetic fancy to its noblest flights. Then we should learn that while the ink from good Langland's pen was yet scarcely dry after his third revision of "Piers Ploughman," Geoffrey Chaucer came forward with his sweet imaginings bodied in immortal verse, his tuneful numbers, his "well of English undefiled,"—and English poetry, which now for more than five centuries has been the chief glory of our literature, had its true beginning.
Pursuing the study on lines which would now be more distinctly marked, we should observe that Chaucer's best poetry, as well as that of the poets who followed him in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was distinguished by its truthfulness to nature, by its expression in hearty and harmonious words of the finer emotions of the soul, and by the freedom and elasticity of its versification. We should learn that in the seventeenth century this style of poetry—sometimes called the romantic—was succeeded by another and very different [6]fashion in poetic composition, introduced into England in imitation of continental and classical models: that this new style of versification—ignoring nature and making everything subservient to art—was purely artificial, characterized by "an oratorical pomp, a classical correctness, a theatrical dressing, abundance of moralizing"; and that, with Waller for its sponsor and Dryden and Pope for its high priests, it remained for a century and a half the favorite of the literary world, the model of poetic diction, the standard of poetic taste. We should learn that, towards the end of the eighteenth century, certain writers began to perceive that although attention to artistic rules in composition may be necessary to the best poetry, yet natural feeling, a cultivated imagination, and a fancy unrestrained by merely arbitrary limitations are even more indispensable; that these writers, rebelling against the established order of things, taught that there are elements of true poetry in the popular ballads of earlier times, that even the wearisome metrical romances of the Middle Ages are rich in suggestiveness and in materials for a nobler poetry, and that, instead of going to the classics and to society for subjects and models, the poet may find them in nature, in the life which is about him, and in a thousand sources never before suspected. Finally, we should learn that, at the very time when great revolutions in politics and philosophy were being inaugurated, a new spirit thus began to manifest itself in our literature,—a spirit of revolt against artificial restrictions and traditional methods,—which produced a glorious revival in English poetic composition and ushered in a third great school of poetry, distinguished for its breadth and freedom, as that which it superseded had been known for its elegance and precision.[6:1]
A study of the development of English poetry such as we have outlined above would involve a knowledge of the history of the English people and of the various circumstances and events which from time to time influenced our language and literature. It would also embrace many other topics, biographical, philological, rhetorical, and speculative, which have only a secondary relationship to the central idea of poetry. In fact, it would be a study not of poetry, but about poetry,—of the circumstances which suggested it, of the men who produced it, and of the origin of the word-forms and methods of versification which distinguish it. Such a study, altogether interesting and eminently profitable though it be, should not be undertaken by any student until he has acquired an extensive [7]personal acquaintance with poetry itself. We may enjoy the beautiful creations of Tennyson, of Shelley, of Burns, even of Chaucer, without knowing one word of the history of poetry, without so much as knowing the names of the writers or the circumstances under which they wrote. But, on the other hand, to him who knows nothing of the masterpieces of our literature, save at second hand, the history of English letters must of necessity be dull, uninteresting, and often unintelligible. While to him who has prepared himself for its study by fitting himself for an appreciation of these noble creations and becoming thoroughly imbued with their spirit, what a field of delightful study does it offer!
The object of the present compilation is to aid in this preparatory work,—that is, to offer a plan for promoting the study of poetry before the broader but less important study about poetry is undertaken. To this end we present for the student's consideration a few representative poems written at different times and by men of widely different tastes and talents during the six centuries which may be said to have elapsed since the formation of the modern English tongue. Our chief aim is to lead to such a study of these selections as shall help the reader to perceive and appreciate their true poetic qualities and enter into full sympathy with the thoughts and feelings which their writers intended to express. Methods of Study. The first object to be sought in the study of these poems is the perception of those characteristic excellences which have made them universally admired and placed them among the classics of our language. To accomplish this object rationally and successfully, it is best to begin with those productions which are nearest to us in point of time and which are more in harmony with our own thoughts, and therefore easiest to understand and enjoy. An attempt to pursue these studies in chronological order, beginning with the works of Chaucer and the older poets, would oblige the student to encounter at the outset so many purely mechanical difficulties that he would fail to discern the spiritual qualities of truth, beauty, and goodness, which are the very essence of all genuine poetry. He would very naturally acquire a distaste for poetry long before he was able to understand it, and while he might attain to some considerable knowledge of the history of poetical literature, that literature itself would remain to him practically a sealed book. Hence, in the study of this subject, as in that of other branches, the true method is to present first that which is the least difficult, to "proceed from the known to the unknown," to begin with that which is near at hand and from [8]it to proceed to the consideration of things more remote. Not only are the most of Tennyson's poems easily understood, but their beauty is readily apparent even to the most superficial readers. By the time we have read and extracted all the sweets from three or four of these, we shall be prepared to go a step farther and undertake the study of Wordsworth's immortal productions,—productions but little more difficult and but little less poetic. Thus, step by step, we may review the six centuries of English poetry which lie behind, and when at last we reach the time of Chaucer we shall be able to take hold of his works with understanding and with the zest which is begotten of true sympathy and appreciation. After the book has been thus completed, it may be well to run through it again, reversing the order of the lessons and this time considering the subjects in strict chronological order. Our first study of the book will have introduced us to English poetry, our second study of it will have given us some insight into the history of its development.
It is well to remember, while pursuing this course, that a taste for poetry is not acquired or fostered by an analysis of grammatical forms or by any study of words merely as such. To analyze a puzzling sentence or to trace the derivation of an interesting word to its roots sometimes helps one to understand a difficult expression or to perceive in it a meaning hitherto unsuspected; but to make the study of any selection consist largely of exercises of this kind is to substitute grammar or philology for literature. So, also, should it be borne in mind that while it is often interesting and sometimes necessary to become acquainted with certain details relative to the life of an author—the date of his birth, the character of his education, the influences which shaped his life and his work—yet such knowledge belongs to biography and is in no sense literature. The study of authors should never be substituted for the study of their works, and is usually profitable only so far as it helps the student to understand the peculiarities which distinguish those works and which are the result of certain personal characteristics. And yet it is no uncommon thing to find students acquainted with the minutest particulars in the lives of the great writers, while of the masterpieces of thought and expression, which are the glory of our literature, they betray a deplorable ignorance. Nor is this the case with pupils at school alone. "For once that we take down a Milton, and read a book of that 'voice,' as Wordsworth says, 'whose sound is like the sea,' we take up fifty times a magazine with something about Milton, or about Milton's grandmother, or a book stuffed with curious facts [9]about the houses in which he lived, and the juvenile ailments of his first wife."[9:1]
In the study of the selections contained in this volume, the following method is recommended:—
1. The piece should be thoroughly committed to memory.
2. It should be recited or read by each member of the class in such manner as to bring out, if possible, his understanding of the meaning of every passage.
3. Study the poem as a whole, and let each pupil point out the beauties of thought or expression which distinguish it as a poetical composition.
4. Now study each stanza, or each independent thought, in its order, and endeavor to understand each word or expression just as the poet intended that it should be understood. The Notes appended to most of the selections are intended rather to suggest the line of study in this regard than to serve as exhaustive aids. The pupil should, so far as possible, investigate for himself and make his own discoveries. Questions concerning the derivation of words and the syntax of sentences are to be discussed only so far as they will aid in the understanding of some passage or of the piece as a whole.
5. Learn some of the most important facts connected with the author's life. What were the conditions under which he wrote this piece? What was the character of his education and of the other influences which shaped his life and distinguished his works? Learn what some of the leading critics have said concerning his works as a poet.
6. Finally, read the poem again, as a whole, and discuss its qualities as a work of literary art, and again point out its distinctive beauties and characteristic excellences.
The extracts given at the beginning of each Century will serve to keep in mind the leading peculiarities which distinguished the poetry of each period; and the lists of poets and their works will be found valuable for purposes of reference. Before beginning the study of the selections both teacher and pupils should read this Introduction carefully.
[9:1] Frederic Harrison: On the Choice of Books.
[10]
PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS. | ||
PAGE | ||
Introduction | 5 | |
The Nineteenth Century | 15 | |
The Eighteenth Century | 95 | |
The Seventeenth Century | 157 | |
The Sixteenth Century | 215 | |
The Fifteenth Century | 267 | |
The Fourteenth Century | 285 | |
Index | 303 | |
POEMS. | ||
By Alfred Tennyson:— | ||
The Lady of Shalott | 17 | |
The Brook | 25 | |
By William Wordsworth:— | ||
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood | 37 | |
The Two April Mornings | 49 | |
The Solitary Reaper | 51 | |
By S. T. Coleridge:— | ||
Christabel. Part I | 55 | |
By Percy Bysshe Shelley:— | ||
To a Skylark | 67 | |
Hymn of Pan | 71 | |
From Epipsychidion | 74 | |
[11]By John Keats:— | ||
Ode to a Nightingale | 83 | |
From The Eve of St. Agnes | 87 | |
By Robert Burns:— | ||
The Cotter's Saturday Night | 97 | |
To a Mountain Daisy | 107 | |
For a' that and a' that | 109 | |
By William Cowper:— | ||
Boadicea | 113 | |
On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture | 115 | |
Epitaph on a Hare | 120 | |
By Oliver Goldsmith:— | ||
The Village Parson | 124 | |
The Village Schoolmaster | 125 | |
By Thomas Gray:— | ||
The Bard | 129 | |
By Alexander Pope:— | ||
From the Essay on Criticism | 141 | |
Ode on St. Cecilia's Day | 147 | |
By John Dryden:— | ||
Alexander's Feast | 159 | |
The Fire of London | 169 | |
Reason and Religion | 174 | |
By John Milton:— | ||
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity | 177 | |
Wordsworth's Sonnet to Milton | 196 | |
By Robert Herrick:— | ||
To Phillis | 197 | |
The Mad Maid's Song | 199 | |
A Thanksgiving to God | 200 | |
By Edmund Waller:— | ||
Song: Go, lovely Rose | 203 | |
Of English Verse | 204 | |
On a Girdle | 205 | |
By Ben Jonson:— | ||
An Ode to Himself | 207 | |
To Cynthia | 209 | |
To the Memory of William Shakespeare | 210 | |
Herrick's Ode for Ben Jonson | 214 | |
[12]By William Shakespeare:— | ||
Venus's Advice to Adonis on Hunting | 217 | |
A Morning Song for Imogen | 219 | |
Sigh no more, Ladies | 220 | |
Sunshine and Cloud (Sonnet xxxiii.) | 220 | |
The World's Way (Sonnet lxvi.) | 221 | |
By Edmund Spenser:— | ||
The Cave of Mammon | 223 | |
Prothalamion; or, a Spousall Verse | 235 | |
By Thomas Wyatt:— | ||
A Love Song | 247 | |
The Courtier's Life | 248 | |
By the Earl of Surrey:— | ||
From Virgil's Æneid | 249 | |
Sonnet: Geraldine | 250 | |
On the Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt | 251 | |
Ballads:— | ||
Waly, waly | 253 | |
Sir Patrick Spens | 255 | |
The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington | 259 | |
Robin Hood and the Widow's three Sons | 261 | |
By John Skelton:— | ||
To Maystress Margaret Hussey | 269 | |
Cardinal Wolsey | 270 | |
By John Lydgate:— | ||
A Visit to London | 273 | |
The Golden Age | 275 | |
By Robert Henryson:— | ||
The Garmond of Fair Ladies | 277 | |
By William Dunbar:— | ||
A May Morning | 279 | |
By Gawain Douglas:— | ||
In Praise of Honour | 281 | |
By Geoffrey Chaucer:— | ||
From the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales | 287 |
[13]
[14]
[15]
"Now appeared the English romantic school, a sect of 'dissenters in poetry,' who spoke out aloud, kept themselves close together, and repelled settled minds by the audacity and novelty of their theories. They had violently broken with tradition, and leaped over all classical culture, to take their models from the Renaissance and the middle-age. They sought, in the old national ballads and ancient poetry of foreign lands, the fresh and primitive accent which had been wanting in classical literature, and whose presence seemed to them to be a sign of truth and beauty. They proposed to adapt to poetry the ordinary language of conversation, such as is spoken in the middle and lower classes, and to replace studied phrases and a lofty vocabulary by natural tones and plebeian words. In place of the classic mould, they tried stanzas, sonnets, ballads, blank verse, with the roughness and subdivisions of the primitive poets. . . . Some had culled gigantic legends, piled up dreams, ransacked the East, Greece, Arabia, the Middle Ages, and overloaded the human imagination with hues and fancies from every clime. Others had buried themselves in metaphysics and moral philosophy, had mused indefatigably on the condition of man, and spent their lives on the sublime and the monotonous. Others, making a medley of crime and heroism, had conducted, through darkness and flashes of lightning, a train of contorted and terrible figures, desperate with remorse, relieved by their grandeur. Men wanted to rest after so many efforts and so much success. On the going out of the imaginative, sentimental, and Satanic school, Tennyson appeared exquisite. All the forms and ideas which had pleased them were found in him, but purified, modulated, set in a splendid style. He completed an age."—Taine.
[16]
William Wordsworth (1770-1850). See biographical note, page 52.
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"; "The Lady of the Lake"; "Marmion"; "The Lord of the Isles"; short poems.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). See biographical note, page 65.
Robert Southey (1774-1843). "Thalaba"; "Roderick, the last of the Goths"; "Joan of Arc"; "Madoc"; "The Curse of Kehama"; numerous short poems.
Charles Lamb (1775-1834). Chiefly short poems.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864). "Gebir"; and other poems.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844). "Gertrude of Wyoming"; "The Pleasures of Hope"; short poems.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852). "Irish Melodies"; "Lalla Rookh"; "Rhymes on the Road"; "The Loves of the Angels," etc.
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). "Francesca Rimini"; "A Legend of Florence"; "Stories in Verse," etc.
Bryan Waller Procter ("Barry Cornwall") (1787-1874). "A Sicilian Story"; "English Songs," etc.
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel) (1788-1824). "Childe Harold"; "The Giaour"; "Bride of Abydos"; "The Corsair"; "Lara"; "Hebrew Melodies"; "Siege of Corinth"; "Parisina"; "Manfred"; "Don Juan," etc.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). See biographical note, page 81.
John Keats (1795-1821). See biographical note, page 93.
Thomas Hood (1799-1845). Numerous short poems, chiefly humorous.
Lord Macaulay (1800-1859). "Lays of Ancient Rome."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-1861). "Prometheus Bound"; "Casa Guidi Windows"; "Sonnets from the Portuguese"; "Aurora Leigh"; "Poems before Congress"; "Last Poems."
Alfred Tennyson (Lord Tennyson) (1809- ). See biographical note, page 35.
Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) (1809-1885). "Historical Poems"; "Poetry for the People"; "Poems of Many Years."
Robert Browning (1812-1889). "Christmas Eve and Easter Day"; "Men and Women"; "The Ring and the Book"; "Balaustion's Adventure"; "Fifine at the Fair"; "Aristophanes' Apology," etc.
William Edmondstoune Aytoun (1813-1865). "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers"; "Ballads of Scotland," etc.
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861). "The Bothie"; "Ambarvalia," etc.
Charles Kingsley (1819-1875). "Andromeda"; many short poems.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1889). "The Strayed Reveller and other Poems"; "Balder."
Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-1864). "Legends and Lyrics"; "A Chaplet of Verses."
Robert Bulwer-Lytton ("Owen Meredith") (1831-1892). "Lucile"; "Marah," etc.
[17]
This poem was written in 1832. Considered as a picture, or as a series of pictures, its beauty is unsurpassed. The story which is here so briefly told is founded upon a touching legend connected with the romance of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Tennyson afterwards (in 1859) expanded it into the Idyll called "Elaine," wherein he followed more closely the original narrative as related by Sir Thomas Malory.
Sir Lancelot was the strongest and bravest of the Knights of the Round Table, and for him Elaine, "the fair maid of Astolat," conceived a hopeless passion. "Her love was platonic and pure as that of a child, but it was masterful in its strength." Having learned that Lancelot was pledged to celibacy, she pined away and died. But before her death she called her brother, and having dictated a letter which he was to write, she spake thus:
"'While my body is whole, let this letter be put into my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter until I be cold, and let me be put in a fair bed with all my richest clothes that I have about me, and so let my bed and all my rich clothes be laid with me in a chariot to the next place whereas the Thames is, and there let me be put in a barge, and but one man with me, such as ye trust to steer me thither, and that my barge be covered with black samite over and over.' . . . So when she was dead, the corpse and the bed and all was led the next way unto the Thames, and there all were put in a barge on the Thames, and so the man steered the barge to Westminster, and there he rowed a great while to and fro, or any man espied."[23:A] At length the King and his Knights, coming down to the waterside, and seeing the boat and the lily maid of Astolat, they uplifted the hapless body of Elaine, and bore it to the hall.
And so the maid was buried, "not as one unknown, nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, and mass and rolling music, like a queen. And the story of her dolorous voyage was blazoned on her tomb in letters gold and azure."
1. wold. An open tract of hilly country, where but few trees are left. This word is more frequently used, however, to designate a forest or thick wood.
2. Camelot. It is supposed that this Camelot was Winchester. It was the seat of King Arthur's court, and visitors are still shown the remains of what appear to have been certain kinds of intrenchments, which the inhabitants call "King Arthur's Palace." Sir Thomas Malory says: "Sir Ballin's sword was put into marble stone, standing it upright as a great millstone, and it swam down the stream to the city of Camelot, that is, in English, Wincheste." There was another Camelot, also King Arthur's capital, on the river Camel, in Cornwall, to which Shakespeare makes reference in King Lear, II, ii. Tennyson, in "Gareth and Lynette," describes the appearance of the city when approached in the early morning:
3. dusk. Produce a ruffled surface. A very rare use of this word. The river referred to is probably the Thames.
4. trailed. Lat. traho, to draw; Dutch treilen, to tow. What picture is presented to the imagination in the first five lines of this stanza? How do the barges differ in appearance and movement from the shallop mentioned two lines below?
5. web. Anything woven. stay. Stop.
6. pad. An easy-going saddle-horse; a palfrey. Describe the picture which is presented in this stanza.
7. Explain the meaning of the Lady's exclamation.
[25] 8. red-cross knight. A Knight wearing a red cross. One of King Arthur's Knights. The red-cross Knight in Spenser's Faerie Queene symbolizes holiness.
9. Galaxy. The milky-way. Gr. gala, galaktos, milk.
10. baldric. A belt thrown over the shoulder. From Lat. balteus.
11. bearded meteor. A shooting-star emitting rays of light in the direction in which it moves. The beard of a comet is the light which it throws out in front of it, in distinction from the tail or rays behind.
12. He flashed. His image was thrown upon and reflected from.
13. "Tirra lirra." French tire lire. Probably intended to imitate the note of the lark.
[23:A] Malory's King Arthur, Part III.
[24:A] Tennyson's Elaine.
This little lyric forms a part of "an idyl" of the same title, published in 1855. The poet introduces it in the following manner:
In reading this poem, observe how strikingly the sound is made to correspond to the sense.
1. coot. A wild water-fowl, resembling the duck.
2. hern. Heron.
3. bicker. To move unsteadily.
4. thorps. Small villages. A. S. thorpe. From Ger. trupp, a troop.
5. foreland. A promontory.
6. hazel covers. Hazel thickets.
7. gloom. Glimmer, shine obscurely.
8. shingly. Gravelly.
[28]
[31]
[32]
"Thence for nine whole days was I borne by ruinous winds over the teeming deep; but on the tenth day we set foot on the land of the lotus-eaters, who eat a flowery food. So we stepped ashore and drew water, and straightway my company took their mid-day meal by the swift ships. Now when we had tasted meat and drink, I sent forth certain of my company to go and make search of what manner of men they were who here live upon the earth by bread, and I chose out two of my fellows, and sent a third with them as herald. Then straightway they went and mixed with the men of the lotus-eaters, and so it was that the lotus-eaters devised not death for our fellows, but gave them of the lotus to taste. Now whosoever of them did eat the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no more wish to bring tidings nor to come back, but there he chose to abide with the lotus-eating men, ever feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of his homeward way. Therefore I led them back to the ships weeping, and sore against their will, and dragged them beneath the benches, and bound them in the hollow barques. But I commanded the rest of my well-loved company to make speed and go on board the swift ships, lest haply any should eat of the lotus and be forgetful of returning."—Homer's Odyssey, ix, 80.
"In this poem, 'The Lotos-Eaters,' the artistic ideal of the young poet (it was written in 1830) found its most finished expression and its culminating point. Here he seems to have attained a consciousness that beyond the ideal which he had adopted there is another, larger, grander, and more satisfying. Nowhere else, perhaps, in the range of poetry, is the trance of a listless life so harmoniously married to appropriate melodies and appropriate accompaniments."—North British Review.
[35]
Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, in 1809. His early education was received at home from his father, who was rector of Somersby and vicar of Bennington and Grimsby. He was afterwards sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, at the age of twenty, he received the chancellor's medal for a poem in blank verse, entitled "Timbuctoo." In 1830 he published a small volume of "Poems chiefly Lyrical." A revised edition of this volume, published in 1833, contained "The Lady of Shalott," "The Lotos-Eaters," and others of his best-known short poems. In 1850, upon the death of Wordsworth, he was appointed poet-laureate. In the same year he was married to Emily, daughter of Henry Sellwood, Esq., and niece of Sir John Franklin. Since 1851, Tennyson has resided for the greater part of the time at Farringford, Freshwater, Isle of Wight. In December, 1883, he was made Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater.
"Mr. Tennyson," says R. H. Hutton, "was an artist even before he was a poet; in other words, the eye for beauty, grace, and harmony of effect was even more emphatically one of his original gifts than the voice for poetic utterance itself. This, probably, it is which makes his very earliest pieces appear so full of effort, and sometimes even so full of affectation. They were elaborate attempts to embody what he saw, before the natural voice of the poet had come to him. I think it possible to trace not only a pre-poetic period in his art, but to date the period at which the soul was 'infused' into his poetry, and the brilliant external figures became the dwelling-places of germinating poetic thoughts creating their own music. Curiously enough, the first poem where there is any trace of those musings of the Round Table to which he has directed so much of his maturest genius, is also a confession that the poet was sick of the magic mirror of fancy and its picture-shadows, and was turning away from them to the poetry of human life. Whenever Mr. Tennyson's pictorial fancy has had it in any degree in its power to run away with the guiding and controlling mind, the richness and the workmanship have to some extent overgrown the spiritual principle of his poems. It is obvious, for instance, that even in relation to natural scenery, what his poetical faculty delights in most are rich, luxuriant [36]landscapes, in which either nature or man has accumulated a lavish variety of effects. It is in the scenery of the mill, the garden, the chase, the down, the rich pastures, the harvest-field, the palace pleasure-grounds, the Lord of Burleigh's fair domains, the luxuriant sylvan beauty, bearing testimony to the careful hand of man, 'the summer crisp with shining woods,' that Mr. Tennyson most delights. If he strays to rarer scenes, it is almost in search of richer and more luxuriant loveliness, like the tropical splendors of 'Enoch Arden' and the enervating skies which cheated the Lotos-Eaters of their longing for home."
"Mr. Tennyson," says a writer in the North British Review, "deserves an especial study, not only as a poet, but as a leader and a landmark of popular thought and feeling. As a poet, he belongs to the highest category of English writers; for poetry is the strongest and most vigorous branch of English literature. In this literature his works are evidently destined to secure a permanent place; for they express in language refined and artistic, but not unfamiliar, a large segment of the popular thought of the period over which they range. He has, moreover, a clearly marked if not strongly individualized style, which has served as a model for imitators, and as a starting-point for poets who have sought to improve upon it."
Principal Poems of Tennyson: Charge of the Light Brigade, written in 1854; Dora, 1842; The Dying Swan, 1830; Enoch Arden, 1864; Idylls of the King, 1859-1873,—to be read in the following order: The Coming of Arthur; Gareth and Lynette; Geraint and Enid; Merlin and Vivien; Lancelot and Elaine; The Holy Grail; Pelleas and Ettarre; The Last Tournament; Guinevere; The Passing of Arthur;—In Memoriam, 1850 (131 parts); Locksley Hall, 1842; Locksley Hall Sixty Years Afterwards, 1886; Maud, 1855 (3 parts); The Princess, 1847 (7 parts); Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 1852.
Dramatic Pieces: Queen Mary, 1875; Harold, 1876; The Cup, 1881; The Falcon, 1882; Becket, 1884; The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian, 1892.
References: Stedman's Victorian Poets; Van Dyke's The Poetry of Tennyson; Taine's History of English Literature, vol. IV; Kingsley's Miscellanies; Elsdale's Studies in the Idylls; Buchanan's Master Spirits; Tainsh's Studies in Tennyson; Hutton's Essays; Chapman's Companion to In Memoriam; Walters's In Tennyson Land.
[37]
"This was composed," says Wordsworth, "during my residence at Town-End, Grasmere (1803-1806). Two years at least passed between the writing of the first four stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself, but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have said elsewhere:
"But it was not so much from the source of animal vivacity that my difficulty came, as from a sense of the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated in something of the same way to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to reality. At that time I was afraid of mere processes. [45]In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines, Obstinate questionings, etc. To that dream-like vividness and splendor which invests objects of sight in childhood every one, I believe, if he could look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the poem regarded it as a presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against a conclusion which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in Revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favor. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations, and among all persons acquainted with classic literature is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the 'Immortality of the Soul,' I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet."
Lord Houghton says of this poem: "If I am asked what is the greatest poem in the English language, I never for a moment hesitate to say, Wordsworth's 'Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.'"
Principal Shairp says: "'The Ode on Immortality' marks the highest limit which the tide of poetic inspiration has reached in England within this century, or indeed since the days of Milton."
The idea of the pre-existence of the soul had already been treated by Henry Vaughan in "Silex Scintillans" (1655).
Shelley, in "A Lament," hints at the same thought:
1. The child is father, etc. These lines are from a short poem by Wordsworth, entitled "My Heart leaps up":
Compare with Milton's lines in 'Paradise Regained,' Bk. IV:
2. apparelled. From Fr. pareil, Lat. parilis. Other English words as pair, compare, etc., are similarly derived. To apparel is strictly to pair, to suit, to put like to like.
3. tabor. From Old Fr. tabour, Fr. tambour. Compare Eng. tambourine. Originally from the root tap, Gr. tup, to strike lightly. An ancient musical instrument,—a small one-ended drum having a handle projecting from the frame, by which it was held in the left hand, while it was beaten with a stick held in the right hand.
4. the cataracts. The poet has probably in mind the "ghills" or falls of his own lake country. The metaphor which he uses is a bold one.
5. the echoes. Compare with a similar line by Shelley:
—Adonais, 127.
6. the fields of sleep. "The yet reposeful, slumbering country side."—Hales. "The fields that were dark during the hours of sleep."—Knight.
7. jollity. Merriment. From Lat. jovialis. See Milton's 'L'Allegro,' 26:
[47] 8. May. May, with the poets, is the month of gayety. The older poetry especially is full of May raptures. Chaucer says:
9. coronal. A crown of flowers, a chaplet. As at the Roman banquets. On such occasions it was usual for the host to give chaplets to his guests. Festoons of flowers were also sometimes hung over their necks and breasts. The chaplet, or coronal, was regarded as a cheerful ornament and symbol of festivity.
10. the babe leaps up. That is for joy. See the poem, "My heart leaps up," on page 46.
11. there's a tree. Compare this thought with that contained in the following lines:
—Browning's May and Death.
12. pansy. The flower of thought. From Fr. pensée, thought; penser, to think. "It probably derived its name, thought or fancy, from its fanciful appearance."—Nares. Another derivation of the word is from panacea, meaning all-heal, a name given by the Greeks to a plant which was popularly supposed to cure diseases and dispel sorrow. The notion that the pansy is a cure for grief is shown in its common English name, heart's-ease.
13. Our birth is but a sleep. The idea of pre-existence was a favorite one of the ancient philosophers. The doctrine of metempsychosis, a form of the same idea, was held by the ancient Egyptians and is still maintained by the Buddhists. Tennyson says:
14. Behold the child. Pope gives a similar picture:
[48] When Wordsworth wrote of
he probably had in mind Hartley Coleridge, who was then a child of that age. See his poem "To Hartley Coleridge, Six Years Old."
15. humorous stage. See Shakespeare's lines beginning "All the world's a stage," "As You like It," Act ii, sc. 7. The word humorous has here a special sense, such as is used by Ben Jonson in his "Every Man in his Humor."
16. best philosopher . . . mighty prophet! seer blest! Stopford Brooke says: "These expressions taken separately have scarcely any recognizable meaning. By taking them all together, we feel rather than see that Wordsworth intended to say that the child, having lately come from a perfect existence, in which he saw truth directly, and was at home with God, retains, unknown to us, that vision;—and, because he does, is the best philosopher, since he sees at once that which we through philosophy are endeavoring to reach; is the mighty prophet, because in his actions and speech he tells unconsciously the truths he sees, but the sight of which we have lost; is more closely haunted by God, more near to the immortal life, more purely and brightly free because he half shares in the pre-existent life and glory out of which he has come."—Theology in the English Poets.
17. Fallings from us, vanishings. "Fits of utter dreaminess and abstraction, when nothing material seems solid, but everything mere mist and shadow."—Hales.
18. Blank misgivings. Compare Tennyson, "Two Voices":
19. The clouds that gather. Compare these lines with the following from Wordsworth's "Excursion":
[44:A] The first stanza of We are Seven, said to have been written by Coleridge.
[49]
This poem was written in 1799, and published the following year.
1. Matthew. This old schoolmaster is described elsewhere by Wordsworth as being "made up of several, both of his class and men of other occupations."
2. wilding. A twig from a wild apple tree.
William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, a town in Cumberland, England, April 7, 1770. He went to school at Hawkshead, Lancashire, whence in his seventeenth year he was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge. In January, 1791, he took his degree at the University, but without having distinguished himself in any way. The next fifteen or sixteen months were spent in France, just then in the first wild hopes of the Revolution. "In the aspirations and hopes of the revolutionists he was an ardent sharer; he thought that the world's great age was beginning anew; [53]and with all his soul he hailed so splendid an era. The ultimate degradation of that great movement by wild lawlessness, and then by most selfish ambition, alienated his sympathy for it." Towards the close of 1792 he returned to England, and passed the subsequent time among his friends in London and elsewhere till he settled with his sister at Racedown, Dorsetshire, in 1796. In the following year they removed to Alfoxden. It was during this period that he made the acquaintance of Coleridge. Wordsworth had already published (1793) two little volumes of poetry, entitled Descriptive Sketches and The Evening Walk; but they showed little promise of the triumphs which were to crown his later life. In 1798 the first volume of the Lyrical Ballads was published at Bristol, which purported to be the joint work of himself and Mr. Coleridge, but to which the latter contributed only "The Ancient Mariner" and two or three shorter poems. After some months spent in Germany, Wordsworth and his sister established themselves at Grasmere, in the lake country. In 1800 he published the second volume of the Lyrical Ballads, and in 1802 he married Mary Hutchinson. From 1799 to 1814 he was mainly busy with his great philosophical poem, to be called "The Recluse," "containing views of Man, Nature, and Society," of which "The Prelude" was to be the introduction and "The Excursion" the Second and main Part. He designed that his minor pieces should be so arranged in connection with this work as to "give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in Gothic churches." This plan, however, was never carried out, as of the First and Third Parts only one book was written, and it has never been published. From 1814 until his death Wordsworth lived serenely and quietly at Rydal Mount, making occasional excursions into Scotland and Wales, and a tour upon the continent. In 1843, upon the death of Southey, he was appointed Poet-Laureate. His life was a long one, of steady work and much happiness. He died April 23, 1850.
The distinguishing feature of Wordsworth's poetry is well set forth in his own words:
—Hart-Leap Well, Part II.
[54] "Every great poet," he said, "is a teacher; I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing."
And he avowed that the purpose of his poetry was "to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous."
"Wordsworth," says John Campbell Shairp, "was the first who, both in theory and practice, shook off the trammels of the so-called poetic diction which had tyrannized over English poetry for more than a century. This diction of course exactly represented the half-courtly, half-classical mode of thinking and feeling. As Wordsworth rebelled against this conventionality of spirit, so against the outward expression of it. The whole of the stock phrases and used-up metaphors he discarded, and returned to living language of natural feeling, as it is used by men, instead of the dead form of it which had got stereotyped in books. And just as in his subjects he had taken in from the waste much virgin soil, so in his diction he appropriated for poetic use a large amount of words, idioms, metaphors, till then by the poets disallowed. His shorter poems, both the earlier and the later, are, for the most part, very models of natural, powerful, and yet sensitive English; the language being, like a garment, woven out of, and transparent with, the thought."
Other Poems to be Read: We are Seven; The Pet Lamb; To a Highland Girl; Laodamia; Matthew; The Fountain; The Wishing Gate; To the Small Celandine; "Three Years She Grew"; "She was a Phantom of Delight"; At the Grave of Burns.
References: Shairp's Studies in Poetry and Philosophy; Hazlitt's English Poets; De Quincey's Miscellaneous Works; Literature and Life, by E. P. Whipple; Wordsworth (English Men of Letters), by Goldwin Smith; Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields; Among My Books, Second Series, by J. R. Lowell; Matthew Arnold's Introduction to the Poems of William Wordsworth.
[55]
The first part of the unfinished poem, "Christabel," was written in 1797, the second part which, however, left the story apparently as incomplete as before, in 1808. The two parts were first published in 1816. The poem is a picture of white innocence, purity, and truth, pursued and persecuted by the powers of evil. Its incompleteness seems to enhance its interest. "Completion could scarcely have failed to lessen its reality, for the reader could not have endured, neither could the poet's own theory have endured, the sacrifice of Christabel, the triumph of evil over good; and had she triumphed, there is a vulgar well-being in victory which has nothing to do with such a strain."
"Such is the unfinished and unfinishable tale of Christabel—a poem which, despite its broken notes and over-brevity, has raised its author to the highest rank of poets, and which in itself is at once one of the sweetest, loftiest, most spiritual utterances that has ever been framed in English words. We know of no existing poem in any language to which we can compare it. It stands by itself exquisite, celestial, ethereal,—a song of the spheres,—yet full of such pathos and tenderness and sorrowful beauty as only humanity can give."—Blackwood's Magazine, 1871.
[65] It is worthy of note that "Christabel" was the immediate inspiration of Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel." "It is to Mr. Coleridge," says Sir Walter, "that I am bound to make the acknowledgment due from the pupil to his master." "But certainly," says Hales, "Scott himself never succeeded in surrounding any one of his works with so fine an atmosphere of glamour and romance."
The language and metrical arrangement of this poem are not only peculiar but are in full accord with the weird and fantastic conception of the piece as a whole. The versification is based upon a principle not commonly practised—that of counting the number of accentuated words in a line instead of the number of syllables. Though the latter varies from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents never exceed four. The result is an irregular, but strangely beautiful harmony of a kind that can hardly be attained through the ordinary methods of versification.
This poem is to be studied for its exquisite beauty, for the true poetic qualities which it possesses and which distinguish it from mere verse. Hence, no explanatory notes are given with reference to any particular passage, nor is it desirable that it should be analyzed with a view to grammatical or philological study. It should be read and reread until the student is thoroughly in accord with the poetic spirit which breathes in and vivifies the entire production. "It was indolence, no doubt, that left the tale half told—indolence and misery—and a poetic instinct higher than all the better impulses of industry and virtuous gain. The subject by its very nature was incomplete; it had to be left a lovely, weird suggestion—a vision for every eye that could see."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery Saint Mary, October 21, 1772. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and at Jesus College, Cambridge. At the age of twenty-two he left the University without having taken a degree. He was an intimate friend of Charles Lamb and Southey, and with the latter formed a wild scheme for the founding of a "Pantisocratic State" in America, which, however, was soon abandoned. His first book of poetry was published in 1794. In 1796 he and Charles Lamb published a volume of poems together. He soon afterwards became acquainted with Wordsworth, and in 1798 the two brought out their famous volume of Lyrical Ballads, containing some of Wordsworth's best [66]pieces and Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." "Christabel," after lying in manuscript for several years, was published in 1816, three editions being issued within twelve months. Coleridge's chief poems were published in 1817 in a collection entitled Sibylline Leaves, so called, he says, "in allusion to the fragmentary and wildly scattered state in which they had long been suffered to remain." At about the same time he was received into the house of Mr. Gillman, a surgeon residing at Highgate, in order to be cured if possible of his excessive use of opium. Here he produced his more important prose works, Aids to Reflection, and On the Constitution of Church and State; and here he died, July 25, 1834.
Coleridge was forever planning and designing,—beginning a work and leaving its completion until to-morrow—which never came. He devoted his attention only sparingly to poetry—and that chiefly during his youth. Later in life he was occupied with political, social, and religious questions. "He was a living Hamlet, full of the most splendid thoughts and the noblest purposes, but a most incompetent doer." "His mind," wrote Southey, "is a perpetual St. Vitus's dance—eternal activity without action."
"Of Coleridge's best verses," says Swinburne, "I venture to affirm that the world has nothing like them, and can never have; that they are of the highest kind, and of their own. They are jewels of the diamond's price, flowers of the rose's rank, but unlike any rose or diamond known."
"His best work is but little," says Stopford Brooke, "but of its kind it is perfect and unique. . . . All that he did excellently might be bound up in twenty pages, but it should be bound in pure gold."
Other Poems to be Read: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni; Ode to France; Genevieve.
References: Swinburne's Studies and Essays; Shairp's Studies in Poetry; Carlyle's Reminiscences; Coleridge's Biographia Literaria; De Quincey's Essays; Coleridge (English Men of Letters), by H. D. Traill; Hazlitt's English Poets; Hunt's Imagination and Fancy; Chorley's Authors of England; Walter Pater's Apprecia.
[67]
This is perhaps the most perfect lyric of its kind in the English language. Every verse is worthy of careful study, and it should be read and reread until its exquisite melody is felt and the subtle thoughts which it [71]embodies fully understood. Yet there is little in the poem which requires annotation—the lark's song itself admits of no explanation.
"For sweetness the 'Ode to a Skylark' is inferior only to Coleridge, in rapturous passion to no man. It is like the bird it sings,—enthusiastic, enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone,—small, but filling the heavens."—Leigh Hunt.
"Has any one, since Shakespeare and Spenser, lighted on such tender and such grand ecstasies?"—Taine.
The skylark is very generally distributed over the northern portions of the Old World, but is not found in America. Its song in the morning may often be heard when the bird is so high as to be entirely out of sight, and although not finely modulated is remarkably cheerful and prolonged. A person who is accustomed to the song can tell by its variations whether it be ascending, stationary, or descending.
1. profuse. Accent here on the first syllable. From Lat. profundo, to pour forth.
2. Explain the figures of rhetoric employed in this line. The meaning of blue; of wingest.
3. sunken sun. The sun is not yet above the horizon, but the bird has risen so high that it is visible to him, and he "floats and runs" in its golden light.
4. What is the meaning of rains? of rain in the next stanza?
5. wrought. Influenced. A.-S. worhte, wyrcan, to work.
6. sprite. Spirit. In the first stanza he calls the lark a spirit and says it never was a bird; here he calls it "bird or sprite."
7. Chorus hymeneal. See note on "Prothalamion," page 241.
8. Compare this thought with the ideas contained in Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality."
pine. From A.-S. pinan, to pain. Our word pain is derived from the same root.
[73]
Pan, as described in the Homeric hymns, is "lord of all the hills and dales": sometimes he ranges along the tops of the mountains; sometimes pursues the game in the valleys, roams through the woods, or floats along the streams; or drives his sheep into a cave, and there plays on his reeds music not to be excelled by that of the sweetest singing birds; and
Keats, in "Endymion," thus apostrophizes Pan:
1. Tmolus. It was Tmolus who acted as umpire in the musical contest between Pan and Apollo. This contest is directly referred to throughout this poem.
2. Peneus. The chief river of Thessaly. It flows through the Vale of Tempe, and between the mountains Ossa and Pelion, emptying finally into the Ægean Sea. (See map of ancient Greece.)
3. Sileni. A name applied to the older satyrs. They were fond of wine and of every kind of sensual pleasure, and hence represented the luxuriant powers of nature, and were connected with the worship of Bacchus.
Sylvans. Deities of the fields and forests.
Fauns. Gods of the shepherds, flocks, and fields. A faun was usually represented as half man and half goat.
[74] 4. Apollo. One of the chief divinities of the Greeks; the god of music and song, of prophecy, of the flocks and herds, of the founding of towns, and of the sun. He was the son of Zeus and Leto, and was born on the island of Delos. His favorite oracle was at Delphi.
5. dædal. Labyrinthine, wonderful. From Dædalus, a famous Athenian architect, who designed the labyrinth at Crete in which the Minotaur was kept.
6. Giant wars. The wars of the Titans,—the contest in which Zeus overcame and deposed his father, Chronos, and made himself supreme ruler of the universe. The Titans, who were opposed to him, were overcome, and hurled into the lowest depths of Tartarus.
Mænalus. A mountain in Arcadia, celebrated as the favorite haunt of Pan.
7. maiden. Syrinx, a nymph of Arcadia, devoted to the service of Artemis. "As she was returning one day from the chase, Pan saw and loved her; but when he would address her, she fled. The god pursued. She reached the river Ladon, and, unable to cross it, implored the aid of her sister nymphs; and when Pan thought to grasp the object of his pursuit, he found his arms filled with reeds. At that moment the wind began to agitate the reeds and produced a low musical sound. The god took the hint, cut seven of the twigs, and formed from them his syrinx, or pastoral pipe." See Ovid's Metamorphoses.
"A clever but disreputable professor at Pisa one day related to Shelley the sad story of a beautiful and noble lady, the Contessina Emilia Viviani, who had been confined by her father in a dismal convent of the suburbs, [79]to await her marriage with a distasteful husband." Shelley, fired as ever by a tale of tyranny, was eager to visit the fair captive. The professor accompanied him and Medwin to the convent parlor, where they found her more lovely than even the most glowing descriptions had led them to expect. Nor was she only beautiful. Shelley soon discovered that she had "cultivated her mind beyond what I have ever met with in Italian women"; and a rhapsody composed by her upon the subject of Uranian Love—"Il Vero Amore"—justifies the belief that she possessed an intellect of more than ordinary elevation. He took Mrs. Shelley to see her; and both did all they could to make her convent prison less irksome by frequent visits, by letters, by presents of flowers and books. It was not long before Shelley's sympathy for this unfortunate lady took the form of love, which, however spiritual and Platonic, was not the less passionate. The result was the composition of "Epipsychidion," the most unintelligible of all his poems to those who have not assimilated the spirit of Plato's Symposium and Dante's Vita Nuova.—J. A. Symonds.
W. M. Rossetti characterizes this poem as "a pure outpouring of poetry; a brimming and bubbling fountain of freshness and music, magical with its own spray rainbows."
A year after its composition, Shelley wrote: "The 'Epipsychidion' I cannot look at. If you are curious, however, to hear what I am and have been, it will tell you something thereof. It is an idealized history of my life and feelings."
Epipsychidion. From Gr. epi, upon, and psyche, the soul. This poem is addressed "to the noble and unfortunate Lady Emilia Viviani, now imprisoned in the Convent of St. Anne, Pisa," and was written in 1821.
1. halcyons. Kingfishers. Halcyone was the daughter of Æolus and wife of Ceyx. When her husband died she was changed into a bird,—the kingfisher,—and, floating over the sea, she still calls for the lost Ceyx in tones full of plaining and tears. And "whensoever she makes her nest, a law of nature brings round what is called Halcyon's weather—days distinguishable among all others for their serenity."
2. Ionian. Greek. See the expression "Under the roof of blue Ionian weather," below. Explain its meaning.
3. for. Since, because.
elysian. Heavenly. Pertaining to Elysium, the islands of the blest, the Elysian fields.
4. age of gold. Compare Milton, "Hymn on the Nativity" (see note 36, page 192. See, also, poem by John Lydgate, page 275).
5. peopled with sweet airs. Filled with sweet music.
[80] 6. antenatal dream. See Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality" (also, note 13, page 47).
7. Lucifer. Venus when seen in the morning, rising before the sun is called Lucifer, the light-bearer. From Lat. lux, light, and fero, to bear (see note 18, page 189). The same star when seen in the evening, following the sun, is called Hesperus.
8. blue oceans of young air. Explain.
9. paramour. See Milton's "Ode on the Nativity," stanza i.
Milton makes the sun the paramour of the earth; Shelley, the earth the paramour of the sky.
[81]
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place, near Horsham in Sussex, August 4, 1792. He was educated at Eton and at Oxford. While a student at the latter place, he wrote a pamphlet, entitled The Necessity of Atheism, which caused his expulsion from college. This occurred in 1811, and in the same year he married Harriet Westbrook, from whom, three years later, he separated. In 1816 he married Mary Godwin. In 1818 he left England for Italy, where he remained until his death by drowning in the gulf of Spezia, July 8, 1822. His first considerable poem, "Queen Mab," was published in 1813; "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude," in 1816; "The Revolt of Islam," in 1818; and "Epipsychidion" and "Adonais" in 1821. His two dramas, the "Cenci" and "Prometheus Unbound," were issued, the former in 1819, the latter in 1821.
"Shelley's early rupture with the English world," says Hales, "lost him all the advantages which a fuller experience of it and a longer intercourse with it might have given. That world was no less estranged from him than he from it. It misunderstood and misinterpreted him throughout his career. It covered him with its opprobrium. Assuredly, he was not the man that world painted. It by no means follows that because Shelley did not repeat the ordinary creeds, and even mocked at them, that he believed nothing. Shelley was never in his soul an atheist: it was simply impossible with his nature that he should be; what he did deny and defy was a deity whose worship seemed, as he saw the world, consistent with the reign of selfishness and bigotry."
Lord Macaulay says: "We doubt whether any modern poet has possessed in an equal degree some of the highest qualities of the great ancient masters. The words bard and inspiration, which seem so cold and affected when applied to other modern writers, have a perfect propriety when applied to him. He was not an author, but a bard. His poetry seems not to have been an art, but an inspiration. Had he lived to the full age of man, he might not improbably, have given to the world some great work of the very highest rank in design and execution."
Leigh Hunt says: "Assuredly, had he lived, he would have been the greatest dramatic writer since the days of Elizabeth. In general, if Coleridge is the sweetest of our poets, Shelley is at once the most [82]ethereal and most gorgeous—the one who has clothed his thoughts in draperies of the most evanescent and most magnificent words and imagery. His poetry is as full of mountains, seas, and skies, of light, and darkness, and the seasons, and all the elements of our being, as if Nature herself had written it, with the Creation and its hopes newly cast around her, not, it must be confessed, without too indiscriminate a mixture of great and small, and a want of sufficient shade—a certain chaotic brilliancy, 'dark with excess of light.'"
Another English poet says: "Shelley outsang all poets on record but some two or three throughout all time; his depths and heights of inner and outer music are as divine as nature's, and not sooner exhaustible. He was alone the perfect singing-god; his thoughts, words, deeds, all sang together."
"The poet who creates a new ideal, and fills men's hearts with the flame of a divine desire, is a practical force in the stream of human development—and this Shelley has done. So much of his poetry is full of the tender melancholy of the moonlight he loved, that the world is still half blind to his highest bardic character, as the poet of a spiritual dawn, the eager spirit who flies forward—
Even his moonlight seems to reflect the beams of some unrisen sun; and his sunlight has all the ethereal exhilaration of that of the first hours of a glorious day."—John Todhunter.
Other Poems to be Read: Adonais; The Sensitive Plant; The Cloud; Mount Blanc; To Wordsworth; The Euganean Hills; Liberty; Alastor; Prometheus Unbound.
References: De Quincey's Essays; Jeaffreson's The Real Shelley; Shelley (English Men of Letters), by J. A. Symonds; Leigh Hunt's Imagination and Fancy; Rossetti's Memoir of Shelley; Dowden's Life of P. B. Shelley; Moore's Life of Lord Byron; Middleton's Shelley and his Writings; Medwin's Life of Shelley; Trelawney's Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron; Todhunter's Shelley: A Study.
[83]
[84]
"This poem," says Leigh Hunt, "was written in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it; never was the voice of death sweeter."
1. Lethe-wards. That is, towards Lethe. Lethe was one of the rivers of Hell. Its name means "forgetfulness." Milton describes it thus:
—Paradise Lost, ii, 583.
2. Dryad. A wood-nymph. From Gr. drus, an oak tree. The life of the Dryad was supposed to be bound up with that of her tree.
"The quickening power of the soul, like Martha, is 'busy about many things,' or, like a Dryad, living in a tree."—Sir John Davis.
3. Provençal song. Song of the troubadours, a school of lyric poets that flourished in Provence, in the south of France, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. A love song.
4. Hippocrene. The "Fountain of the Horse" (Fons Caballinus). A fountain on Mount Helicon, Bœotia, sacred to the Muses. It was said to have been produced by the horse Pegasus striking the ground with his feet. Its waters were supposed to be a source of poetical inspiration.
Longfellow, in "The Goblet of Life," says:
[87] 5. Bacchus and his pards. Bacchus was frequently represented as riding on the back of a leopard, a tiger, or a lion, or in a chariot drawn by panthers.
pards. Spotted beasts.
See Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," third stanza, page 160.
6. Compare with Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act ii, sc. i:
7. darkling. In the dark. The word is very rarely used.
8. requiem. A dirge, or funeral song. "So called from the first word in the Catholic mass for the dead, Requiem æternum dona iis Domine (Give eternal rest to them, O Lord)."—Brand.
become a sod. Compare with Ecclesiastes, xii, 7: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was."
9. alien corn. See Ruth, ii. Why alien corn? Longfellow, in his poem on "Flowers," says:
[93]
"The Eve of St. Agnes" is one of the finest of Keats's shorter poems. Leigh Hunt describes it as "the most complete specimen of his genius; exquisitely loving; young, but full-grown poetry of the rarest description; graceful as the beardless Apollo; glowing and gorgeous with the colors of romance." The stanzas here quoted, while comprising the main portion of the story, are not quite half of the entire poem.
Madeline, the beautiful daughter of a rude and rich old baron, is secretly betrothed to Porphyro, a young man whom her father has sworn to slay. On the eve of St. Agnes a great feast is in progress in the baron's castle. Porphyro, at the risk of his life, "comes across the moors, with heart on fire for Madeline." With the aid of the old nurse, Angela, he gains admission into the castle and is concealed in a closet, where he conceives the plan for their elopement. In the meanwhile, Madeline, having danced with her father's guests, retires to her room, her mind full of the thought of Porphyro, and intent upon testing the truth of the belief, then current, that on this evening, maidens might, if they performed certain ceremonies and forms, be vouchsafed a sight of their future husbands.
St. Agnes was a young virgin of Palermo, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of thirteen, in the Diocletian persecution, about a.d. 304. Her feast was celebrated on the 21st of January.
With reference to the versification of this poem, see what is said of the Spenserian stanza, page 232. There are many imitations of Spenser in these verses.
The student is desired to discover for himself the peculiarities of thought, of feeling, of expression, which give interest and beauty to this production. The following are a few of the words and expressions whose meaning he should study: "Gules"; "taint"; "vespers"; "poppied"; "Swart Paynims"; "Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness"; "Morphean amulet"; "affray"; "azure-lidded sleep"; "argosy"; "missal"; "tinct"; "Fez"; "Samarcand"; "Lebanon"; "eremite"; "witless"; "alarum"; "entoiled in woofed phantasies"; "La belle dame sans mercy"; "heart-shaped and vermeil dyed"; "Of haggard seeming"; "arras."
John Keats was born October 29, 1795, in Moorfields, London. He was sent to school at Enfield, where he gained the rudiments of a classical education; but, his father having died when John was a [94]mere child, he was apprenticed at an early age to a surgeon in Edmonton. When seventeen years old a copy of Spenser's "Faerie Queene" fell into his hands, and the perusal of that great poem was the beginning, for him, of a new life. He felt the poetic instinct within him, and resolved that he too would be a poet. In 1817 he published a small volume of poems, which attracted but little attention; and in 1818 his more ambitious effort, "Endymion," was presented to the world. The latter poem was unkindly received by the great reviews. The author was advised to "go back to his gallipots," and told that "a starved apothecary was better than a starved poet." A story was long current that these severe criticisms induced Keats's early death, but this is entirely improbable. He continued writing, although consumption, a hereditary disease in his family, had already begun its work upon him. He published "The Eve of St. Agnes" in 1820, and had made some progress with a noble poem, entitled "Hyperion," which Lord Byron declared to be "actually inspired by the Titans, and as sublime as Æschylus." In September of that year he sailed for Italy, but the hope of prolonging life by a change of climate proved to be vain. On the 27th of February, 1821, he died at Rome.
"We can hardly be wrong in believing," says Masson, "that had Keats lived to the ordinary age of man, he would have been one of the greatest of all our poets. As it is, I believe we shall all be disposed to place him very near indeed to our very best."
"That which was deepest in his mind," says Stopford Brooke, "was the love of loveliness for its own sake, the sense of its rightful and pre-eminent power; and, in the singleness of worship which he gave to Beauty, Keats is especially the artist, and the true father of the latest modern school of poetry."
Other Poems to be Read: Endymion; Ode on a Grecian Urn; Lamia; Hyperion; To Autumn; Hymn to Apollo; Isabella.
References: Keats (English Men of Letters), by Sidney Colvin; Keats, by W. M. Rossetti; Matthew Arnold's Essay on Keats, in Ward's English Poets; Shairp's Studies in Poetry.
[95]
"The influence of the poetry of the past lasted; new elements were added to poetry, and new forms of it took shape. The study of the Greek and Latin classics revived, and with it a more artistic poetry. Not only correct form, for which Pope sought, but beautiful form was sought after. Men like Thomas Gray and William Collins strove to pour into their work that simplicity of beauty which the Greek poets and Italians like Petrarca had reached as the last result of genius restrained by art. . . . Two things had been learned. First, that artistic rules were necessary, and, secondly, that natural feeling was necessary in order that poetry should have a style fitted to express nobly the emotions and thoughts of man. The way was therefore now made ready for a style in which the Art should itself be Nature, and it sprang at once into being in the work of the poets of this time. The style of Gray is polished to the finest point, and yet it is instinct with natural feeling. Goldsmith is natural even to simplicity, and yet his verse is even more accurate than Pope's. Cowper's style, in such poems as the 'Lines to my Mother's Picture,' arises out of the simplest pathos, and yet it is as pure in expression as Greek poetry."—Stopford Brooke.
"At last there started up an unfortunate Scotch peasant (Burns), rebelling against the world, and in love, with the yearnings, lusts, greatness, and irrationality of modern genius. Now and then behind his plough, he lighted on genuine verses, verses such as Heine and Alfred de Musset have written in our own days. In those few words, combined after a new fashion, there was a revolution."—Taine.
[96]
Alexander Pope (1688-1744). See biographical note, page 155.
Thomas Parnell (1679-1718). "The Hermit"; short poems.
Edward Young (1684-1765), "Night Thoughts"; "The Last Day"; "Resignation."
Allan Ramsay (1686-1758). "The Gentle Shepherd": "Scots Songs"; "Fables and Tales."
John Gay (1688-1732). "The Beggar's Opera"; "The Shepherd's Week"; "Trivia"; "Rural Sports"; fables, and other short poems.
Matthew Green (1696-1737). "The Grotto"; "The Spleen."
John Dyer (1698-1758). "Grongar Hill"; "The Fleece."
Robert Blair (1699-1746). "The Grave."
James Thomson (1700-1748). "The Seasons"; "The Castle of Indolence."
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), "The Vanity of Human Wishes"; "London."
Richard Glover (1712-1785). "Leonidas"; "Admiral Hosier's Ghost"; "The Athenaid."
William Shenstone (1714-1763). "The Schoolmistress"; "Pastoral Ballads."
Thomas Gray (1716-1771). See biographical note, page 139.
William Collins (1721-1759). Odes and other short poems.
Mark Akenside (1721-1770). "The Pleasures of the Imagination."
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). See biographical note, page 128.
Thomas Warton (1728-1790). "The Pleasures of Melancholy"; "The Triumph of Isis"; short poems.
William Cowper (1731-1800). See biographical note, page 122.
Charles Churchill (1731-1764). "The Prophecy of Famine"; "The Rosciad."
James Beattie (1735-1803). "The Minstrel."
Robert Fergusson (1750-1774). Short Scottish poems.
Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770). "Poems of Thomas Rowlie"; short poems.
George Crabbe (1754-1832). "Tales of the Hall"; "The Village"; "The Parish Register"; "Tales in Verse."
William Blake (1757-1827). "Songs of Innocence"; "Songs of Experience"; "Poetical Sketches."
Robert Burns (1759-1796). See biographical note, page 111.
[97]
This poem, composed in 1785, is written partly in the Scottish dialect, partly in English. The livelier passages are in the poet's vernacular; the loftier or more solemn parts in the language of books. This distinction [104]was doubtless made because Burns disliked to treat his higher themes in a merely colloquial manner, fearing to belittle them by so doing. The household described was probably that of the poet's own father; it was at least a typical Scotch peasant's household, with which no one was more familiar. Gilbert Burns, in a letter to Dr. Currie, says: "Although the 'Cotter' in the Saturday Night, is an exact copy of my father in his manners, his family devotions, and exhortations, yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us ever went 'At service out amang the neibors roun'.' Instead of our depositing our 'sair-won penny-fee' with our parents, my father labored hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home."
The influence of Gray and Goldsmith is very apparent in more than one passage in this poem.
"Robert had frequently remarked to me," said his brother, "that there was something particularly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us worship God,' used by a decent, sober head of a family introducing family worship. To this sentiment of the author, the world is indebted for 'The Cotter's Saturday Night.' The hint of the plan and title of the poem is taken from Ferguson's 'Farmer's Ingle.'"
1. Cotter. "One who inhabits a cot, or cottage, dependent on a farm."—Jamieson.
2. R. Aiken. A friend with whom Burns had been brought into contact during the Old and New Light Controversy.
3. See Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," eighth stanza.
4. lays. Songs; probably from the same root as the German lied. The word was originally applied to a form of elegiac French poetry, much imitated by the English.
5. train. A favorite word with the poets at this time. Goldsmith uses it no fewer than six times in the "Deserted Village." The original meaning is something drawn along; from Lat. traho, to draw.
6. sugh. Also spelled sough. Whistling sound, murmur. Derived from the same root as sigh, for which word it is used by Burns in his lines, "On the Battle of Sherriffmuir":
7. Compare with Gray's "Elegy," line 3:
8. Toil was perhaps pronounced tile, thus properly rhyming with beguile. Johnson, in "London," says:
[105] 9. bairns. From A.-S. bearns, children.
10. ca'. Drive, follow. Probably not from the same root as our common word call. Kingsley uses it in this sense in the line:
11. neibor. Neighboring. Milton, in "Comus," uses the expressions: "Some neighbor woodman," "some neighbor villager"; and Shakespeare says: "A neighbor thicket" ("Love's Labour Lost"), and "neighbor room" ("Hamlet").
12. deposit. Pronounced here dep´o-zit.
13. penny-fee. Fee, wages, from A.-S. feoh, cattle. "Cattle," says Bosworth, "was the first kind of property; and, by bartering, this word came to signify money in general." So, too, the word penny is from A.-S. penig, Icelandic peningr, cattle. The word penny, as in this country the word dollar, is used indefinitely for money.
14. Observe that in quoting the words of the Cotter the poet partially drops the Ayrshire dialect and uses a purer English.
15. ben. Within. The inner part of the house; from O. E. binnan, within. Its opposite is but, the outside of the house.
16. kye. Cattle, from O.-E. cu, or kie. Kine is derived from the same root, and probably cow.
17. hawkie. This word, says Hales, "denotes, properly, a cow with a white face. So, in Northumberland, bawsand was used of an animal with a white spot on its forehead, and crummie of a cow with crooked horns."
18. sin' lint was i' the bell. Since flax was in bloom. That is, the cheese was a year old last flax-blossoming time.
19. ha'-Bible. The hall Bible—the Bible kept in the best room.
20. bonnet. This word in Scotch denotes a man's head-covering. In early English it was used in the same sense.
21. beets. Feeds,—that is, gives fuel to the flame.
—Burns's Epistle to Davie, a brother poet.
The word is probably from A.-S. betan, to better, to mend; from which, also, we have the words beat, to excel, better, best, etc.
22. Burns refers the reader to Pope's "Windsor Forest" for this quotation. He probably had in mind the line in the "Essay on Man":
[106] 23. sacerdotal stole. A long, narrow scarf with fringed ends, and richly embroidered, worn by the clergy upon special occasions. Sacerdotal, from Lat. sacerdos, a priest. Stole, from Lat. stola, a long dress worn by Roman women over their tunic and fastened with a girdle.
24. Pope's "Essay on Man," Epistle iv, line 247.
25. William Wallace (1270-1305), the Scotch national hero was, like Burns, a native of Ayrshire.
VOCABULARY. | |
aft, often. | ingle, fire. |
amaist, almost. | jauk, trifle. |
amang, among. | kebbuck, cheese. |
ance, once. | kens, understands. |
auld, old. | lathefu', shy. |
belyve, by and by. | lave, the rest. |
blate, bashful. | lyart, gray. |
blinkin, gleaming. | miry, muddy, dusty. |
blythe, happy. | moil, labor. |
braw, brave, fine. | nae, no. |
cannie, easy. | parritch, porridge. |
carking, fretting. | pleugh, plough. |
certes, certain. | rin, run. |
chows, chews. | sair-won, hard-earned. |
claes, clothes. | sowpe, milk. |
convoy, accompany. | spiers, inquires. |
cracks, talks. | stacher, stagger. |
craws, crows. | strappin', strapping, stout. |
drapping, dropping. | tentie, attentively. |
eydent, diligent. | towmond, twelvemonth. |
fell, tasty. | uncos, unknown things, new. |
flichterin, fluttering. | wales, chooses. |
frae, from. | wee bit, little. |
gang, go. | weel, well. |
gars, makes. | wee things, little folks. |
guid, good. | weel-hained, well-kept. |
hae, have. | wiles, knowledge. |
haffets, temples. | wily, knowing. |
hafflins, half. | youngling, youthful. |
halesome, wholesome. | younkers, youngsters, children. |
hallan, partition wall. | 'yont, on the other side of. |
hameward, homeward. |
[107]
[109]
VOCABULARY. | |
bield, protection. | maun, must. |
blythe, happy. | spreckled, speckled. |
bonnie, pretty. | stibble, stubble. |
card, compass. | stoure, dust. |
glinted, passed quickly. | weet, wetness. |
histie, barren. | wrenched, deprived. |
1. Is there anything in honest poverty to cause one to hang his head, etc.?
2. Explain lines 7 and 8 fully.
3. gowd, gold.
4. birkie, fellow.
5. coof, fool.
6. aboon his might, above his power.
7. maunna fa', may not get.
8. gree, palm, supremacy.
"Burns was not only the poet of love, but also of the new excitement about man. Himself poor, he sang the poor. Neither poverty nor low birth made a man the worse—the man was 'a man for a' that.'"—Stopford Brooke.
[111]
Robert Burns was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1759. His childhood and youth were spent in poverty on his father's farm, where he learned to plough, reap, mow, and thresh in the barn, but where opportunities for education were such only as Scottish peasants know. In 1784 his father died, and he attempted to manage a farm of his own at Mossgiel. The experiment proving to be a failure, he resolved to leave Scotland, and secured an appointment to a clerkship in Jamaica. Just before the time set for his departure, he learned of the success of a volume of his poems which had just been published at Kilmarnock; and, instead of departing for the West Indies, he made a visit to Edinburgh. He was welcomed by the best society, and received at once into the literary circles of the Scottish capital. "His name and fame flashed like sunshine over the land: the shepherd on the hill, the maiden at her wheel, learned his songs by heart, and the first scholars of Scotland courted his acquaintance." A second edition of his poems was published in 1787, and with the proceeds—about $2500—he took a farm at Ellisland, in Nithsdale. But his habits were such that he made sad failure a second time in the experiment of farming; and, after two years of mismanagement, to eke out his scanty income he accepted an appointment as exciseman. In 1791, "unfortunately both for his health and for his reputation," he removed to Dumfries, where, five years later, he died.
"While the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves, this little Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye; for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing current, into the light of day; and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines."—Carlyle.
"Burns is not the poet's poet, which Shelley no doubt meant to be, or the philosopher's poet, which Wordsworth, in spite of himself, is. He is the poet of homely human nature, not half so homely or prosaic as it seems. His genius, in a manner all its own, associates itself with the fortunes, experiences, memorable moments, of human [112]beings whose humanity is their sole patrimony; to whom 'liberty and whatever, like liberty, has the power
is their portion in life; for whom the great epochs and never-to-be-forgotten phases of existence are those which are occasioned by emotions inseparable from the consciousness of existence. For the great majority of his readers, and therefore for the mass of human beings, the sympathy which exists between him and them is sympathy relative to their strongest and deepest feelings, and this is sympathy out of which personal affection naturally springs, and in the strength of which it cannot but grow strong."—John Service.
"Burns was not like Shakespeare in the range of his genius, but there is something of the same magnanimity, directness, and unaffected character about him. With but little of Shakespeare's imagination or inventive power, he had the same life of mind; within the narrow circle of personal feeling or domestic incidents, the pulse of his poetry flows as healthily and vigorously. He had an eye to see, a heart to feel,—no more. His pictures of good fellowship, of social life, of quaint humor, are equal to anything; they come up to nature, and they cannot go beyond it."—Hazlitt.
—Fitz-Greene Halleck.
Other Poems to be Read: Bannockburn; Auld Lang Syne; Tam O' Shanter; To a Mouse; The Jolly Beggars; Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon; Highland Mary; Address to the Deil; To Mary in Heaven.
References: Carlyle's Essay on Robert Burns; Burns (English Men of Letters), by J. C. Shairp; Hazlitt's English Poets.
[113]
Boadicea was queen of the Iceni, a powerful and warlike tribe of Britons, about the middle of the first century. Upon the death of her husband, Prasutagus, her kingdom was seized by the Romans, and she [115]herself, for some real or imaginary offence, was publicly scourged. During the absence of the Roman governor from that part of England, Boadicea raised an immense army, burned the city of London, and put 70,000 Romans to the sword. She afterwards, with 230,000 troops, met the Roman army, under Suetonius, in the field, and although the Romans could muster only 10,000 soldiers, the British army was defeated, and the queen, in despair, ended her own life by taking poison.
In this poem, Cowper represents the queen as, soon after her shameful treatment by the Romans, seeking counsel from one of the native priests. The Druid prophesies the destruction of Rome and the future greatness of Britain.
1. Sounds, not arms. Does the poet allude to the cultivation of oratory and poetry among the Romans and the neglect of military affairs?
2. Arm'd with thunder, clad with wings. What do these expressions mean? To what do they refer?
3. Explain the prophecy included in this stanza.
4. hurled them. Hurled what?
5. This stanza, evidently a part of the imprecation which Boadicea "hurled" at her enemies, ought to be enclosed with quotation marks, but in most versions of the poem it appears without them.
This, one of the most exquisite poems in the language, was written by Cowper in "the last glimmering of the evening light," before his mind was wholly overwhelmed by the final attack of insanity. "Every line is instinct with a profound and chastened feeling, to which it would be difficult to find a parallel. There is not a phrase, not a word, which jars upon the most susceptible ear, not a tinge of exaggeration, not a touch that is excessive. The fact that he who gave forth these supreme utterances of filial love was old himself when he did it, brings into the relationship a strange, tender equality which is marvellously touching."
1. steep. Imbue. From Ger. stippen. From the same root as dip, with the letter s prefixed.
2. Elysian reverie. Heavenly meditation. See note on Elysium, page 79.
3. when I learnt. Cowper was only six years old when his mother died.
4. concern. Distress, anxiety.
5. Nearly fifty years after his mother's death, Cowper wrote: "I can truly say that not a week passes (perhaps I might with equal veracity say a day) in which I do not think of her; such was the impression her tenderness made upon me, though the opportunity she had for showing it was so short."
[120] 6. plum. Perhaps the gravest fault in this poem is the frequent intermixture, as in these two lines, of trivial thoughts and circumstances with those of a more noble character.
7. Explain the metaphor which the poet attempts to carry through these three lines. Brakes = breaks, interruptions. What is the meaning of humor?
8. as a gallant bark. Observe the beauty of the simile in these twelve lines, also of the simile which follows.
9. Probably misquoted from "The Dispensary," by Samuel Garth (1670-1719):
10. this mimic show. Explain the meaning of this expression.
[122]
William Cowper was born at Great Berkhamstead, November 26, 1731. His father was the rector of the parish, and his mother was Ann Donne of the family of the famous John Donne. Cowper was educated at a private school and afterwards at Westminster. It was intended that he should follow the profession of law, and, after the completion of his studies at Westminster, he entered the Middle Temple and was articled to a solicitor. At the age of twenty-two, through the influence of his uncle, Major Cowper, he was appointed to two clerkships in the House of Lords. The excitement brought on by this occurrence, together with an unhappy love affair, induced an attack of insanity, from which he suffered for more than a year. In 1773 he suffered from a second attack of insanity, which continued for sixteen months. It was not until 1780, when in his fiftieth year, that he began really to write poetry. His first volume was published in 1782, and comprised, besides several shorter pieces, the three poems, "Conversation," "Retirement," and "Table Talk." His second volume appeared in 1785, and contained "The Task," "Tirocinium," and the ballad of "John Gilpin," which had already become famous through the recitations of one Henderson, an actor. Cowper's translation of Homer was completed and published in 1791. From that time until his death in 1800 he suffered from hopeless dejection, regarding himself as an object of divine wrath, a condemned and forsaken outcast.
Cowper was not a great poet; but he was the first to abandon the mechanical versification and conventional phrases of the artificial poets, to find inspiration and guidance in nature. It may be said that he lacked creative power; but he possessed a quickness of thought, a depth of feeling, and a certain manliness and sincerity, which lifted him above the level of the ordinary versifiers of his time.
Other Poems to be Read: The Castaway; John Gilpin; The Task; The Loss of the Royal George.
References: Southey's Life of William Cowper; Cowper (English Men of Letters), by Goldwin Smith; Hazlitt's English Poets; Macaulay's Essay on Moore's Life of Byron; Life of Cowper, in the "Globe Edition" of his works.
[123]
1. The village preacher.—"This picture of the village pastor," says Irving, "which was taken in part from the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother Henry; for the natures of the father and son seem to have been identical. . . . To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expiatory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which he had not been able to practise."
2. passing rich. Exceedingly rich. The word is a common one among the poets. "Is she not passing fair?" (Shakespeare, "Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act iv, sc. 4); "How passing sweet is solitude" (Cowper, "Retirement").
[127] 3. forty pounds. In his dedication of "The Traveller," Goldsmith refers to his brother Henry as "a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year."
4. broken soldier. See "The Soldier's Dream," Campbell.
5. The simile included in these four lines, says Lord Lytton, is translated almost literally from a poem by the Abbé de Chaulieu, who died in 1720. "Every one must own," adds he, "that, in copying, Goldsmith wonderfully improved the original."
6. The village master.—The portrait here drawn of the village schoolmaster is from Goldsmith's own teacher, Thomas Byrne, with whom he was placed when six years old. "Byrne had been educated for a pedagogue," says Irving, "but had enlisted in the army, served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time, and risen to the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the return of peace, having no longer exercise for the sword, he resumed the ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy.
"There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne, not given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of his vagabond wanderings in foreign lands, and had brought with him from the wars a world of campaigning stories of which he was generally the hero, and which he would deal forth to his wondering scholars when he ought to have been teaching them their lessons. These travellers' tales had a powerful effect upon the vivid imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened an unconquerable passion for wandering and seeking adventure.
"Byrne was, moreover, of a romantic vein, and exceedingly superstitious. He was deeply versed in the fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as great a proficient in fairy lore."
noisy mansion. The old-time school-room was a noisy place, the pupils studying their lessons aloud, and but little care being taken to secure quietness at any time.
7. boding. Foreboding; seeing that which is about to happen. From A.-S. bodian, to announce, to foretell.
8. village. Villagers.
9. terms and tides. Times and seasons. presage. Foreknow. From Lat. pre, before, and sagio, to perceive.
10. gauge. Measure liquids. The humor in this and in some other expressions in these verses is too apparent to require comment.
[128]
Oliver Goldsmith was born at Pallas, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November, 1728. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine at Edinburgh and at Leyden. After travelling on foot through portions of Western Europe, he made his way to London, where he was in turn assistant to a chemist, usher in a school at Peckham, and literary hack for one of the leading monthly publications. He afterwards contributed many articles, both in prose and poetry, to the leading periodicals of the time. He wrote "The Traveller" in 1764, and "The Deserted Village" and The Vicar of Wakefield in 1770. He died in his chambers in Brick Court, London, April 4, 1774. For a full account of his life, read Macaulay's Essay on Oliver Goldsmith.
"The naturalness and ease of Goldsmith's poetry," says Edward Dowden, "are those of an accomplished craftsman. His verse, which flows towards the close of the period with such a gentle yet steady advance, is not less elaborated than that of Pope; and Goldsmith conceived his verse more in paragraphs than in couplets. His artless words were, each one, delicately chosen; his simple constructions were studiously sought." And Sir Walter Scott said of him: "It would be difficult to point out one among the English poets less likely to be excelled in his own style. Possessing much of Pope's versification without the monotonous structure of his lines; rising sometimes to the swell and fulness of Dryden, without his inflections; delicate and masterly in his descriptions; graceful in one of the greatest graces of poetry, its transitions; alike successful in his sportive or grave, his playful or melancholy mood; he may long bid defiance to the numerous competitors whom the friendship or flattery of the present age is so hastily arraying against him."
Other Poems to be Read: The Traveller; the rest of The Deserted Village; Retaliation.
References: Irving's Life of Goldsmith; Forster's Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith; Macaulay's Essay on Goldsmith; Thackeray's English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century; De Quincey's Eighteenth Century; Hazlitt's English Poets; Goldsmith (English Men of Letters), by William Black.
[129]
[131]
[132]
This poem was published in 1757. "It is founded," says Gray, "on a tradition current in Wales that Edward I., when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death." The argument is as follows: "The army of Edward I., as they march through a deep valley, and approach Mount Snowdon, are suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summit of an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the desolation and misery which he had brought on his country; foretells the misfortunes of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares that all his cruelty shall never extinguish the noble ardor of poetic genius in this island; and that men shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valor in immortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly censure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that rolls at its feet."
The tradition upon which the poem is said to be founded, if it ever had any existence, is in great part mythical. Edward I. did indeed conquer Wales, but there is no evidence that he massacred or even persecuted the Welsh bards. A hundred years after his time their number and influence had not been diminished.
This poem is a good example of an English ode constructed strictly after Greek models. It will be observed that it is written, not in uniform [135]stanzas, but in three uniform parts, each of which contains three stanzas. The first of these parts is called the Strophe, or Turn; the second, the Antistrophe, or Counter-turn; the third, the Epode, or After-song. The origin of these terms may be traced to the use of the ode as an important part of the entertainment presented in the ancient Greek theatre. The Strophe was sung while the chorus moved from one side of the orchestra to the other; the Antistrophe while the reversed movement was being made; and the Epodos after the singers had returned to their original position. The accurate perception of harmony and the relationship between the different parts of the choral ode, which enabled the Greeks to enter thoroughly into its enjoyment, is unknown among moderns. Hence, there have been but few attempts in the English language to construct odes strictly after the Greek model. Most of our odes are poems relating to themes of greater or less varying length, and divided into many irregular stanzas of varying lengths and metres. Such are Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," and Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," all of which are odes in form and style, although differing from their Greek prototype and from one another. Of all English poets, none have worked so thoroughly on the ancient model as Gray, although to Congreve must be given the honor of being the first to attempt this species of English composition.
1. crimson wing. Explain the meaning of this line.
2. Compare this line with Shakespeare, "King John," Act v, sc. 1:
3. hauberk. From A.-S. heals, the neck, and beorgan, to protect. "The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion."—Gray.
4. Cambria. Wales. An ancient legend says it was so called from Camber, the son of Brute. This legendary king of Britain divided his dominions among his three sons: to Locrin he gave the southern part (England), which was called Loegria; to Albanact the northern (Scotland), Albania; and to Camber, the western (Wales), Cambria.
5. Snowdon. "Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Cragium-eryri. It included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire as far east as the river Conway."—Gray. It was in the spring of 1283 that the army of Edward I. forced its way through the defiles of these mountains.
shaggy. See "Lycidas," 54:
[136] 6. Gloster. "Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford, son-in-law to King Edward."—Gray.
7. Mortimer. Edward, or Edmond, de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, one of King Edward's ablest leaders. It was by one of his knights that the Welsh prince Llewellyn was slain in December, 1282.
8. rock. One of the heights of Snowdon, probably Pen-maen-mawr, the extreme northern point of the range, a few miles from the mouth of the Conway River.
9. "The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings (both believed originals), one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans's collection at Paris."—Gray.
10. Explain the meaning of this line.
11. Hoel. A Welsh prince and famous bard, some of whose poems are still extant. Cadwallo and Urien, named below, were other celebrated bards. The name of Modred is not so well known; it is possible that Gray refers to "the famous Myrddin ab Morvyn, called Merlyn the Wild, a disciple of Taliessin—the form of the name being changed for the sake of euphony." It is not entirely clear whether the Llewellyn mentioned here was a bard, or the famous but unfortunate prince who lost his life in the war with King Edward. (See note 7, above.) Is it the lay sung in memory of mild Llewellyn? Or is it the lay which soft Llewellyn sang?
12. hushed the stormy main. Shakespeare says:
—Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii, sc. 1.
13. Plinlimmon. A group of lofty mountains in Wales. The name is probably a corruption of Pum-lumon, "the fire-beacons," so-called because there was a beacon on each of the five peaks composing the group.
14. Arvon's shore. Caernarvon, or Caer yu Arvon, means the camp in Arvon. The shore referred to is that of Caernarvon, on the mainland, opposite the island of Anglesey.
15. eagle. "Camden and others observe that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh, Craigian-eryri, or the crags of the eagles. At this day (I am told), the highest point of Snowdon is called 'the Eagle's Nest.'"—Gray.
16. Dear as the ruddy drops. Shakespeare has it:
—Julius Cæsar, Act ii, sc. 1.
[137] 17. I see them sit. See Milton's "Lycidas," 52:
griesly. Grisly. From the A.-S. grisli, dreadful.
18. Weave the warp, etc. As the Fates were represented by the ancient Greeks as spinning the destinies of men, so the Norns in the Norse mythology are said to weave the destinies of the heroes who die in battle.
—The Fatal Sisters, translated by Gray, from the Norse.
19. "Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkeley Castle."—Gray. The murder of the king occurred on the night of September 21, 1327. Berkeley Castle stands at the southeast end of the town of Berkeley, about one and one-half miles from the Severn River. It was built before the time of Henry II., and is still inhabited by a descendant of its founders.
20. She-wolf of France. Isabel of France, the wife of Edward II. Shakespeare applies this epithet to Margaret, the queen of Henry VI.:
—3 Henry VI., Act i, sc. 4.
21. Edward III., the son of Queen Isabel, proved indeed to be a scourge to France.
22. "Death of that king (Edward III.), abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress."—Gray.
23. sable warrior. "Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father."—Gray.
24. The magnificence of the first years of Richard II.'s reign is figured in this and the following lines.
25. Thirst and Famine scowl. When Richard II. died in prison, his body was brought to St. Paul's, and "the face was left uncovered, to meet rumors that he had been assassinated by his keeper, Sir Piers Exon." But the older writers assert that he was starved to death.
26. din of battle. "Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster."—Gray.
bray. From Gr. bracho, to clash.
27. towers of Julius. "The oldest part of that structure (the Tower of London) is vulgarly attributed to Julius Cæsar."—Gray.
[138] 28. meek usurper. "Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown."—Gray. The references in the preceding line are to Henry's "consort," Queen Margaret, and his father, Henry V.
29. The rose of snow, twined with her blushing foe. The reference is to the union of the houses of York and Lancaster after the War of the Roses.
30. bristled boar. Richard III., so called from his badge of a silver boar. So Shakespeare:
—Richard III., Act iv, sc. 5.
—Ibid. Act v, sc. 2.
31. The bard's vision of the future has come to an end, and he again addresses the king.
32. Half of thy heart. "Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord is well known."—Gray.
Tennyson, in the "Dream of Fair Women," speaks of Queen Eleanor as
33. The bard's visions are resumed, and he sees the glories which were ushered in with the advent of the Tudor line. Henry VII.'s paternal grandfather was Sir Owen Tewdwr of Pernnyuydd, in Anglesey, whose mother was of royal British blood. "Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island; which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor."—Gray.
34. a form divine. Elizabeth.
35. awe-commanding face. "Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialiuski, ambassador of Poland, says: 'And thus she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princlie cheekes.'"—Gray.
36. Taliessin was a famous Welsh bard who flourished in the sixth century. It is said that some of his works are still preserved by his countrymen.
[139] 37. See "Faerie Queene," 1:
38. buskined measures. The tragic drama as represented by Shakespeare. So Milton speaks ("Il Penseroso," 102) of the "buskind stage." The buskin was the Greek cothurnus, a boot with high heels, designed to add stature and dignity to the tragic actor.
39. Fond. Foolish. This is the original meaning of the word, and is so used by the older poets.
40. he repairs. So Milton:
Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London, December 26th, 1716. Through the help of his mother's brother, who was Assistant-Master at that famous school, he received his primary education at Eton, and in 1735 entered St. Peter's College, Cambridge. In 1738 he left the University without taking a degree, intending to study law at the Inner Temple. Soon afterwards, however, he accompanied Horace Walpole on a tour through France and Italy, and spent the greater part of two years in Paris, Rome, and Florence. Upon his return to England, finding himself possessed of a life-long competency, he resolved to give up the law and devote himself entirely to self-culture. He settled at Cambridge, and gave all his time to study and to the cultivation of his mind. The first of his poems to appear in print was the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," published in 1747. His "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" was not published until 1750, although it had been written and handed about in manuscript several years before. The post of Poet-Laureate was offered him in 1757, on the death of Colley Cibber; but he did not accept it. In 1768 he was appointed Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, but the state of his health was such that he was never permitted to lecture. He died, July 29th, 1771, at the age of fifty-four.
"He was certainly the most accomplished man of his time," says Hales, "and was something much more than accomplished. His learning was not only wide but deep; his taste, if perhaps too [140]fastidious, was pure and thorough; his genius was of no mean degree or order; his affections were of the truest and sincerest. . . . His poems are works of refinement rather than of passion; but yet they are inspired with genuine sentiment. They are no doubt extremely artificial in form; the weight of their author's reading somewhat depresses their originality; he can with difficulty escape from his books to himself; but yet there is in him a genuine poetical spirit. His poetry, however elaborated, is sincere and truthful. If the exterior is what Horace might have called over-filed and polished, the thought is mostly of the simplest and naturalest."
Matthew Arnold says: "Gray's production was scanty, and scanty it could not but be. Even what he produced was not always pure in diction, true in evolution. Still, with whatever drawbacks, he is alone or almost alone in his age. Gray said himself that the style he aimed at was 'extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical.' Compared, not with the work of the great masters of the golden ages of poetry, but with the poetry of his own contemporaries in general, Gray may be said to have reached, in his style, the excellence at which he aimed."
Cowper writes, "I have been reading Gray's works, and think him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the character of sublime."
Lowell says: "Gray, if we may believe the commentators, has not an idea, scarcely an epithet, that he can call his own, and yet he is, in the best sense, one of the classics of English literature."
And Sir James Mackintosh says: "Of all English poets he was the most finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendor of which poetic style seemed to be capable. It may be added that he deserves the comparatively trifling praise of having been the most learned poet since Milton."
Other Poems to be Read: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard; On a Distant Prospect of Eton College; The Progress of Poesy; Ode on Spring.
References: Johnson's Lives of English Poets; Gray (English Men of Letters), by Edmund Gosse; Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets; Roscoe's Essays.
[141]
Pope's "Essay on Criticism" was published in 1711. It consists of 724 lines, and is written in heroic couplets—that style of poetic composition in which Pope excelled all others. It is full of sound critical precepts, put together with considerable art, and expressed in a manner which, at the time of its production, insured the popularity of the poem and the fame of its author. It was probably suggested by Boileau's "Art Poétique," which was founded on Horace's "Ars Poetica," and it in turn on Aristotle's rules, very commonly known among the classical poets. "The Essay," says De Quincey, "is a collection of independent maxims tied together into a fasciculus by the printer, but having no natural order or logical dependence; generally so vague as to mean nothing. And, what is remarkable, many of the rules are violated by no man so often as by Pope, and by Pope nowhere so often as in this poem."
1. Conceit. Affected wit. "Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless but impairs what it would improve."—Pope.
2. fit. Proper. "Fit audience find, though few" (Milton, "Paradise Lost," V, 7).
3. wit. This is a favorite word with Pope, and is used by him to indicate a variety of ideas,—such as thought, knowledge, imagination, [146]expression, the exercise of humor, etc. In this poem there are no fewer than twelve couplets rhyming to it.
4. "It requires very little reading of the French text-books to find the maxims which Pope has strung together in this poem, but he has dressed them so neatly, and turned them out with such sparkle and point, that these truisms have acquired a weight not their own, and they circulate as proverbs among us in virtue of their pithy form rather than their truth. They exemplify his own line, 'What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.' Pope told Spence that he had gone through all the best critics, specifying Quintilian, Rapin, and Le Bossu. But whatever trouble he took in collecting what to say, his main effort is expended upon how to say it."—Pattison.
5. as women men. "As women value men," or "as women by men are valued"—which?
6. humbly take upon content. Are satisfied to take in faith.
7. sort. Agree.
8. Fungoso. A character in Ben Jonson's comedy, "Every Man in his Humour."
9. sparks. Fops; vain, showy men.
10. Parnassus. A mountain in Hellas, the chief seat of Apollo and the Muses. Hence, figuratively, a resort of the poets.
11. mend. Improve, make better, amend.
—Shakespeare, King Lear, Act i, sc. i.
12. "The gaping of the vowels in this line, the expletive do in the next, and the ten monosyllables in that which follows, give such a beauty to this passage as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet."—Addison.
13. Pope himself is not disinclined to make use of these rhymes. See "Essay on Man," 271.
14. Referring to the Spenserian stanza which is composed of nine lines, eight of which are iambic pentameters, and the ninth a hexameter or Alexandrine. The name Alexandrine is said to have been derived from an old French poem on Alexander the Great, written about the twelfth or thirteenth century, and composed entirely of hexameter verses. See note on the versification of the "Faerie Queene," page 232.
15. Observe the skill with which, both in this line and in several which precede and follow, the poet has made "the sound to seem an echo to the sense."
[147] 16. Waller had been regarded as the greatest poet of the seventeenth century (see page 205), and Denham, in the time of Pope, was more esteemed than Milton or Spenser. Dryden called Denham
17. numbers. Poetical metre.
—Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.
18. Ajax. "The beautiful distich upon Ajax puts me in mind of a description in Homer's 'Odyssey,' which none of the critics have taken notice of. It is where Sisyphus is represented lifting his stone up the hill which is no sooner carried to the top of it, but it immediately tumbles to the bottom. This double motion of the stone is admirably described in the numbers of these verses; as in the four first it is heaved up by several spondees intermixed with proper breathing places, and at last trundles down in a continual line of dactyls."—Addison.
19. Camilla. The virgin queen of the Volsci. She aided Turnus against Æneas, and was famed for her fleetness of foot.
20. Timotheus. See notes on "Alexander's Feast," by Dryden.
21. son of Libyan Jove. Alexander. See note 5, page 166.
22. Quality. Persons of high rank.
[150]
This poem was written in 1708 at the suggestion of Sir Richard Steele; it was set to music by Maurice Greene, and in 1730 was performed at the public commemoration at Cambridge. Its model is Dryden's famous ode, "Alexander's Feast," of which Pope was a warm admirer (see page 159). Dr. Johnson says; "In his 'Ode on St. Cecilia's Day' Pope is generally confessed to have miscarried; yet he has miscarried only as compared with Dryden, for he has far outgone other competitors. Dryden's plan is better chosen; history will always take stronger hold of the passions than fable: the passions excited by Dryden are the pleasures and pains of real life; the scene of Pope is laid in imaginary existence; Pope is read with calm acquiescence, Dryden with turbulent delight; Pope hangs upon the ear, Dryden finds the passes of the mind. Both the odes want the essential constituent of metrical compositions, the stated recurrence of settled numbers. . . . If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will be found that the first stanza consists of sounds, well chosen, indeed, but only sounds. The second consists of hyperbolical commonplaces, easily to be found, and, perhaps, without much difficulty to be as well expressed. In the third, however, there are numbers, images, harmony, and vigor not unworthy the antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this—but every part cannot be the best. The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology; . . . we have all that can be performed by elegance of diction or sweetness of versification; but what can form avail without better matter? The last stanza again refers to commonplaces. The conclusion is too evidently modelled by that of Dryden; and it may be remarked that both end with the same fault—the comparison of each is literal on one side and metaphorical on the other. Poets do not always express their own thoughts. Pope, with all this labor in the praise of music, was ignorant of its principles and insensible of its effects."
St. Cecilia, the Christian Polyhymnia and patron saint of sacred music, is said to have suffered martyrdom about the year 230. In Chaucer's [153]"Seconde Nonnes Tale"—which is an almost literal translation of the "Legenda Aurea," written in the thirteenth century—it is related that, on account of Cecilia's spotless purity, an angel came down from heaven to be her guardian. Her husband, Valerian, was also the recipient of angelic favors, for
How and when Cecilia was first recognized as the patron saint of music does not appear. The legend only says, that
There is also a tradition in the church that St. Cecilia was the inventor of the organ. Dryden calls her "inventress of the vocal frame" (see page 164). The origin of this musical instrument is not known, but the first organs used in Italy are said to have been brought thither from Greece. Some of the Roman churches are known to have had them in use in the seventh century, but they were not common until several hundred years later. The festival of St. Cecilia occurs on the 22d of November.
1. ye Nine. The nine Muses: (1) Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry; (2) Clio, the Muse of history; (3) Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry; (4) Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy; (5) Terpsichore, the Muse of choral dance and song; (6) Erato, the Muse of erotic poetry; (7) Polyhymnia, the Muse of the sublime hymn; (8) Urania, the Muse of astronomy; (9) Thalia, the Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry. The custom of invoking the Muses, at the beginning of poems, is derived from Homer:
—Iliad, I, 1.
—Odyssey, I, 1.
Milton invokes the
—Paradise Lost, I, 1.
[154] 2. Observe how, in the sixteen lines following, the sound is made in some measure to be "an echo to the sense."
3. equal temper know. Evenness of disposition acquire. The music of Timotheus had an opposite effect on Alexander. See "Alexander's Feast."
4. assuasive. Moderating.
5. the Thracian raised his strain. Orpheus was a Thracian, the son of Œagrus and the Muse Calliope. Apollo gave him a lyre, and the Muses instructed him in its use; and so sweet was the music which he drew from it that the wild beasts were enchanted and the trees and rocks moved from their places to follow the sound. When Jason and his followers, the Argonauts, were unable to launch their ship Argo, Orpheus played his lyre, and the vessel glided into the sea, while her "kindred trees descended" from the slopes of the mountain (Pelion) and followed her into "the main."
6. demi-gods. Half-gods; heroes. Among the Argonauts were Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, Peleus, Nestor, and others similarly renowned.
7. infernal bounds. Boundaries of hell. The wife of Orpheus was a nymph named Eurydice. She having died from the bite of a serpent, the sweet musician followed her into the infernal regions. He begged of Pluto that his wife might return with him to the earth, but his prayer was granted only upon condition that he should not look back upon her until both had safely passed the gates between Hades and the upper world. The poet tells the rest of the story.
Phlegethon. A river of hell in which flowed fire instead of water.
8. See Song of Solomon viii. 6: "Love is strong as death."
9. shady forms. Departed spirits were called "shades," because they were supposed to be perceptible sometimes to the sight but never to the touch. See "heroes' armed shades," below.
10. Sisyphus. See note 18, page 147.
Ixion. King of the Lapithæ. As a punishment for ingratitude to Zeus, his hands and feet were chained to a wheel which was always in motion.
Furies. See note 20, page 167.
11. hell. The powers of hell—or, as he explains below, Proserpine, the queen of the infernal regions. Styx. The principal river of hell, around which it flows seven—not nine—times.
12. See Milton's "L'Allegro," 135:
13. Orpheus's grief for the loss of Eurydice caused him to treat with contempt the Thracian women among whom he dwelt, and they in revenge tore him to pieces, under the excitement of their Bacchanalian orgies. His head was given by the Hebrus to the sea, and finally carried to the island of Lesbos, where it was buried. See Milton's "Lycidas," 58:
See, also, "Paradise Lost," VII, 32:
14. Rhodope. A range of mountains in Thrace, sacred to Bacchus. Hæmus was another range extending from Rhodope, on the west, to the Black Sea, on the east.
15. Music. Compare what Pope says of music with:
—Congreve, The Mourning Bride.
—Collins, The Passions.
—Wordsworth, Sonnets.
16. Compare these lines with the four which end Dryden's "Alexander's Feast."
Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. He had some instruction at home, and was afterwards sent, first to a Roman Catholic seminary near Winchester, then to another in London. [156]"This," he said, "was all the teaching I ever had, and God knows it extended a very little way. When I had done with my priests, I took to reading by myself, for which I had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry: and in a few years I had dipped into a very great number of the English, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets." He was small of stature and deformed, and his ill health made him peevish, irritable, and selfish. Yet his rare intellectual abilities and the deserved success of his earlier poetry secured for him the friendship of many of the most influential men of the time. Bolingbroke declared that he never knew a man more tenderly devoted to his friends; and Warburton said, "He is as good a companion as poet, and, what is more, appears to be a good man."
Pope's "Essay on Criticism" was published in 1711; the "Rape of the Lock" in 1714; his translation of Homer's "Iliad" in 1715-18, and of the "Odyssey" in 1726; the "Dunciad" in 1728; the "Essay on Man" in 1732. A revised and enlarged version of the "Dunciad" was published in 1742. The latter part of Pope's life was spent at his country-seat of Twickenham, which he enlarged and beautified from the proceeds of his translation of Homer. He died in 1744.
"Pope is our greatest master in didactic poetry," says Stopford Brooke, "not so much because of the worth of the thoughts as because of the masterly form in which they are put."
"In two directions," says Mark Pattison, "in that of condensing and pointing his meaning, and in that of drawing the utmost harmony of sound out of the couplet, Pope carried versification far beyond the point at which it was when he took it up. The matter which he worked up into his verse has a permanent value, and is indeed one of the most precious heirlooms which the eighteenth century has bequeathed us."
Other Poems to be Read: The Rape of the Lock; The Dying Christian to his Soul; The Universal Prayer; Pastorals; Windsor Forest.
References: Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Stephen's Hours in a Library; De Quincey's Literature of the Eighteenth Century; Lowell's My Study Window; Pope (English Men of Letters), by Leslie Stephen.
[157]
"The people of the seventeenth century were weary of liberty, weary of the unmitigated rage of the dramatists, cloyed with the roses and the spices and the kisses of the lyrists, tired of being carried over the universe and up and down the avenues of history at the freak of every irresponsible rhymester. Literature had been set open to all the breezes of heaven by the blustering and glittering Elizabethans, and in the hands of their less gifted successors it was fast declining into a mere Cave of the Winds. . . . We know the poets of the early Caroline period almost entirely by extracts, and their ardor, quaintness, and sudden flashes of inspiration give them a singular advantage in this form. The sustained elevation which had characterized Shakespeare and Spenser, and even in some degree several of the chief of their contemporaries, had passed away, but still the poets were most brilliant, most delectable in their purple patches. . . . As the last waves of the Renaissance died away, a deathly calm settled down upon the pools of thought. Man returned from the particular to the general, from romantic examples to those disquisitions on the norm which were thought to display a classical taste. The seer disappeared, and the artificer took his place. For a whole century the singer that only sang because he must, and as the linnets do, was entirely absent from English literature. He came back at the close of the eighteenth century, with Burns in Scotland, and with Blake in England."—Edmund Gosse.
"At the same time, amid the classical coldness which then dried up English literature, and the social excess which then corrupted English morals . . . appeared a mighty and superb mind (Milton), prepared by logic and enthusiasm for eloquence and the epic style; the heir of a poetical age, the precursor of an austere age, holding his place between the epoch of unselfish dreaming and the epoch of practical action."—Taine.
[158]
Ben Jonson (1573-1637). See biographical note, page 213.
William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649). Short poems; "Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals"; "Floures of Sion."
William Browne (1588-1643). "Britannia's Pastorals"; "The Shepherd's Pipe"; "The Inner Temple Masque."
George Wither (1588-1667). Short poems; "Collection of Emblems"; "Nature of Man"; "The Shepheard's Hunting"; "Fidelia."
Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650). "The Locustes"; "The Purple Island."
Giles Fletcher (1588-1623). "Christ's Victory and Triumph."
Thomas Carew (1589-1639). Short poems; "Cælum Britannicum."
Francis Quarles (1592-1644). "Divine Poems"; "Emblems, Divine and Moral."
Robert Herrick (1594-1674). See biographical note, page 202.
Sir John Suckling (1608-1642). Love poems.
Richard Lovelace (1618-1658). Short poems; "Lucasta: Odes, Sonnets, Songs," etc.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648). Odes and short poems.
George Herbert (1592-1634). "The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations"; short poems.
George Sandys (1577-1643). "Christ's Passion."
Richard Crashaw (1615-1650). "Steps to the Altar."
Henry Vaughan (1621-1695). "Silex Scintillans"; "The Mount of Olives."
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667). "Poetical Blossomes"; "The Mistress."
Edmund Waller (1605-1687). See biographical note, page 205.
Sir John Denham (1615-1668). "Cooper's Hill."
Sir William Davenant (1605-1668). "Gondibert"; "Madagascar and Other Poems."
John Milton (1608-1674). See biographical note, page 195.
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). Lyric and satiric poems.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680). "Hudibras."
Thomas Otway (1651-1685). "The Poet's Complaint of his Muse"; "Windsor Castle."
John Dryden (1631-1700). See biographical note, page 175.
[159]
This song was written in 1697. Lord Bolingbroke relates that, calling upon the poet one morning, Dryden said to him: "I have been up all night; my musical friends made me promise to write them an ode for their Feast of St. Cecilia, and I was so struck with the subject which occurred to me that I could not leave it till I had completed it: here it is, finished at one sitting."
The poem was first set to music by one Jeremiah Clarke, a steward of the Musical Society, whose members had solicited Dryden to write it. In 1736 it was rearranged by the great composer Handel, and again presented at a public performance.
M. Taine says, "His 'Alexander's Feast' is an admirable trumpet-blast, in which metre and sound impress upon the nerves the emotions of the mind, a master-piece of rapture and of art, which Victor Hugo alone has come up to."
"As a piece of poetical mechanism to be set to music, or recited in alternate strophe and anti-strophe," says Hazlitt, "nothing can be better."
"This ode is Dryden's greatest and best work."—Macaulay.
1. royal feast. About the year b.c. 331, Alexander the Great, having overthrown the Persian Empire, held a great feast at Persepolis in celebration of his victories. At the close of the revelries, instigated, it is said, by Thais, his Athenian mistress, he set fire with his own hand to the great palace of Persepolis; and a general massacre of the inhabitants ensued. [166]The ruins of the city and palace are still to be seen in a beautiful valley watered by the river Araxes—now called Bendemir—not far from the border of the Carmanian Desert.
2. with roses and with myrtles. At the banquets of the Greeks it was the custom of the guests to wear garlands of roses and myrtles.
3. Thais. "Her name is best known from the story of her having stimulated the Conqueror, during a great festival at Persepolis, to set fire to the palace of the Persian kings; but this anecdote, immortalized as it has been by Dryden's famous ode, appears to rest on the sole authority of Cleitarchus, one of the least trustworthy of the historians of Alexander, and is in all probability a mere fable." After the death of Alexander, Thais became the wife of Ptolemy Lagus.
4. Timotheus. A famous flute-player from Thebes. Another and more celebrated Timotheus, "the poet of the later Athenian dithyramb," was a native of Miletus and died about the time of Alexander's birth.
5. Alexander claimed to be the son of Jupiter Ammon; and when he visited the temple of that god, in the Libyan Desert, he was received by the priests and honored as such. See Plutarch's Life of Alexander.
6. present deity. See Psalm xlvi. 1.
7. affects to nod. See Homer's "Iliad." I, 528-530: "Jove spake, and nodded his dark brow, and the ambrosial locks waved from his immortal head; and he made great Olympus quake."
8. hautboys. Oboes. French hautbois. Wind instruments resembling the clarionet.
Bacchus. Compare Shakespeare:
—Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii, sc. 7.
9. thrice he slew the slain. How could he slay the slain?
10. Darius. At the time of this feast at Persepolis, Darius, the vanquished king of Persia, was still living, although a fugitive. In the following year Alexander pursued him into the Parthian Desert, where he was murdered by the satrap of Bactria. By order of Alexander, the body of the unfortunate king was sent to Persepolis, to be buried in the tombs of the kings.
11. expos'd he lies. Dryden seems to have written this under the impression that Darius had been killed before the time of the great feast at Persepolis.
12. close his eyes. Compare this with the lines from Pope ("Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady"):
[167] 13. a sigh he stole. Sighed silently. His sighs when the result of pity were not very distinctly uttered. Compare Shakespeare:
—As You Like It, Act ii, sc. 7.
And then read, in the next stanza, how Alexander sighed when moved by love.
14. pity melts the mind to love. Compare:
—Young's Night Thoughts, III, 106.
—Southern's Oroonoko, II, 1.
15. Lydian measures. The people of Lydia were noted for the effeminacy of their manners. And Lydian music was peculiarly soft and voluptuous.
—Milton's L'Allegro, 135.
—Spenser's Faerie Queene, III, 1.
Observe the change in metre in the ten lines beginning "Softly sweet." What does the word sweet modify?
16. Honor, but an empty bubble. So Shakespeare:
—1 Henry IV., Act v, sc. 1.
17. The many. The multitude.
18. sigh'd and look'd. He no longer steals a sigh, as he did when pitying Darius. See note 13, above.
19. Break his bands of sleep. The music now is very different from the Lydian measures which "soothed his soul to pleasures." "Suidas," says Dr. Warton, "mentions the Orthian style in music, in which Timotheus is said to have played to Alexander; and one Antigenidas inflamed this prince still more by striking into what were called Harmatian measures. Quintus Curtius gives a minute description of the burning of the palace at Persepolis, when Alexander was accompanied by Thais. But it does not appear in the accurate Arrian that Thais had any share in this transaction. Arrian, but more so Aristobulus, endeavored to exculpate Alexander from the charge of frequent ebriety; but Menander plainly mentions the drunkenness of Alexander as proverbial."
20. Furies. The Eumenides, or avengers of evil. They are variously represented by the poets. Æschylus describes them as having black bodies, hair composed of twining snakes, and eyes dripping with blood.
[168] 21. Grecian ghosts. The spirits of the Greek warriors in Alexander's army who had been slain by the Persians.
22. crew. This word was formerly used to designate any associated multitude or assemblage of persons. It is now restricted to a ship's company, except when occasionally used in a bad sense. From A.-S. cread or cruth, a crowd.
23. Thais led the way, etc. See note 19, above. Neither Thais nor Helen actually fired any city. What the poet means to say is that, as Helen was the cause of the destruction of Troy, so Thais instigated the burning of Persepolis.
24. organs. The word organ originally denoted but a single pipe, and hence the older English writers, when referring to the complete instrument, generally used the word in the plural number. "Father Schmidt and other famous organ-builders flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The organ in Temple Church, London, was built by Schmidt in Charles II.'s time."
25. vocal frame. The organ—the grand instrument of church music—so perfect that it may literally be said to speak. See introductory note to Pope's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," page 153.
26. St. Cecilia, according to the story in the "Golden Legend," was under the immediate protection of an angel. But it was not her sweet playing, but her spotless purity, that brought the angel to earth, not to listen, but to be "a heavenly guard."
Compare these last four lines with those at the close of Pope's Ode.
Dr. Warton says of "Alexander's Feast": "If Dryden had never written anything but this ode, his name would have been immortal, as would that of Gray, if he had never written anything but his 'Bard.' It is difficult to find new terms to express our admiration of the variety, richness, and melody of its numbers; the force, beauty, and distinctness of its images; the succession of so many different passions and feelings; and the matchless perspicuity of its diction. No particle of it can be wished away, but the epigrammatic turn of the four concluding lines."
Hallam says: "This ode has a few lines mingled with a far greater number ill conceived and ill expressed; the whole composition has that spirit which Dryden hardly ever wanted, but it is too faulty for high praise. It used to pass for the best work of Dryden and the best ode in the language. But few lines are highly poetical, and some sink to the level of a common drinking song. It has the defects as well as the merits of that poetry which is written for musical accompaniment."
[169]
[173]
This selection from Dryden's long and very tedious poem, "Annus Mirabilis, the year of Wonders, 1666," is given here as a specimen of that kind of mechanical versification so popular in the latter half of the seventeenth century. "That part of my poem which describes the Fire," says Dryden, "I owe first to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both of which were so conspicuous that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. And I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us." This opinion, however, was certainly not long maintained by the poet, for he never afterward practised that form of versification which he has here praised.
1. this prodigious fire. A half sheet published immediately after the Great Fire contains this account of the catastrophe which Dryden describes in his verses:
"On Sunday, the second of September, this present year 1666, about one o'clock in the morning, there happened a sad and deplorable fire in Pudding-lane near New Fish-street; which, falling out in a part of the city so close built with wooden houses . . . in a short time became too big to be mastered by any engines or working near it. . . . It continued all Monday and Tuesday with such impetuosity, that it consumed houses and churches all the way to St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street; at which time, by the favour of God, the wind slackened; and that night, by the vigilancy, industry, and indefatigable pains of his Majesty and his Royal Highness, calling upon all people, and encouraging them by their personal assistances, a stop was put to the fire in Fleet-street, etc. But on Wednesday night it suddenly broke out afresh in the Inner Temple. His Royal Highness in person fortunately watching there that night, by his care, diligence, great labour, and seasonable commands for the blowing up, with gunpowder, some of the said buildings, it was most happily before day extinguished."
2. source unknown. "It was ascribed by the rage of the people either to the Republicans or the Catholics, especially the latter. An inscription on the monument, intended to perpetuate this groundless suspicion, was erased by James II., but restored at the Revolution."—Warton.
3. letted. Hindered. This use of the word let is now obsolete, except [174]in the phrase, "Without let or hindrance." It was frequently employed by the older writers.
4. the Bridge. The heads of traitors were displayed on London Bridge. "How inferior is this passage," says Dr. Dodd, "to Milton's animated description of the wild ceremonies of Moloch, which Dryden, however, seems to have here had in mind." See "Ode on the Nativity," stanza xxiii.
5. The simile in this stanza was doubtless intended to be very effective.
6. key. Quay. A bank, or ledge.
7. Simois. See Homer's "Iliad," Bk. XXI.
8. gross. Bulk.
John Dryden was born on the 9th of August, 1631, at Aldwincle All Saints, near Oundle in Northamptonshire. He was educated at Westminster School, under the famous Dr. Busby, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. At the age of twenty-six he went up to London with the intention of devoting himself to literature and politics. During the brief remaining years of the Commonwealth (1657-1660) he was nominally a friend to the Puritan party; and one of the first poems written by him was a series of "Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell." At the Restoration he at once espoused the cause of the Royalists; and his recent panegyric on the Protector did not prevent him from writing a poem, "Astræa Redux," in honor of the return of Charles the Second. In 1663 he married the Lady Elizabeth Howard, a daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, a Royalist nobleman. For several years he devoted himself chiefly to the writing of plays,—comedies, tragedies, and tragi-comedies. The comedies he wrote in prose; the earliest tragedies in blank verse, followed by several in rhyme, and, after these, others in blank verse. In 1670 he was appointed Poet-Laureate. In 1681, when nearly fifty years old, by the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel," he suddenly became famous as a satirical poet. He soon afterwards wrote "The Medal," another satire, directed against the Earl of Shaftesbury, and "Mac Flecknoe," aimed at Shadwell, the [176]chief poet of the Opposition. At about the same time he produced "Religio Laici," a didactic poem explaining his religious opinions and defending the Church of England against dissenters, atheists, and Catholics. Not long after the accession of James II., Dryden, true to his policy of being always on the side of the ruling party, became a Catholic, and wrote "The Hind and the Panther," in which he eulogized many things that, in the former poem, he had ridiculed. His political career ended with the overthrow of James II., in 1688; but his literary activity continued unabated. The last years of his life were occupied in translating the works of Persius and Juvenal and the Æneid of Virgil. In 1697 he wrote "Alexander's Feast"; and his "modernizations" of some of Chaucer's poems appeared in 1700, the year of his death.
"If there is grandeur in the pomp of kings and the march of hosts," says A. W. Ward, "in the 'trumpet's loud clangor' and in tapestries and carpetings of velvet and gold, Dryden is to be ranked with the grandest of English poets. The irresistible impetus of an invective which never falls short or flat, and the savor of a satire which never seems dull or stale, give him an undisputed place among the most glorious of English wits."
"His descriptive power was of the highest," says Hales. "Our literature has in it no more vigorous portrait-gallery than that he has bequeathed it. His power of expression is beyond praise. There is always a singular fitness in his language: he uses always the right word. He is one of our greatest masters of metre: metre was, in fact, no restraint to him, but rather it seems to have given him freedom. It has been observed that he argues better in verse than in prose; verse was the natural costume of his thoughts."
Professor Masson says: "Not only is Dryden the largest figure in one era of our literature: he is a very considerable figure also in our literature as a whole. Of all that he wrote, however, there is but a comparatively small portion that has won for itself a permanent place in our literature."
Other Poems to be Read: Absalom and Achitophel; Mac Flecknoe; Religio Laici; Threnodia Augustalis.
References: Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Hazlitt's English Poets; Lowell's Among My Books; Macaulay's Essay on John Dryden; Taine's English Literature; Masson's Three Devils and Other Essays; Thackeray's English Humorists.
[177]
[180]
[181]
[182]
[183]
[184]
[185]
[186]
[187]
This poem was begun by Milton on Christmas day, 1629. He had then just completed his twenty-first year, and was still an undergraduate at Christ's College, Cambridge. From certain fragments and other evidence, it is believed that he contemplated writing a series of poems on great Christian events in a similar way. This is the first poem of importance which he wrote. Hallam speaks of it as perhaps the finest lyric of its kind in the English language. "A grandeur, a simplicity, a breadth of manner, an imagination at once elevated and restrained by the subject, reign throughout it. If Pindar is a model of lyric poetry, it would be hard to name any other ode so truly Pindaric; but more has naturally been derived from the Scriptures."
1. our deadly forfeit should release. Should remit the penalty of death pronounced against us. Shakespeare has a similar use of the word "forfeit."
—Measure for Measure, Act v, sc. 1.
2. wont. The past tense of the A.-S. verb wunian, to persist, to continue, to be accustomed. Now used only in connection with some form of the auxiliary verb be.
3. Explain the meaning of each word in this line, and of the whole line. The next two stanzas comprise an invocation to the Muse of Poetry. See note 1, page 153.
[188] 4. Wisards. Wizards. Wise men. The word was originally used in this sense, and not with the depreciatory meaning of "magician," as at present. Spenser says:
meaning by "antique wizards" ancient philosophers.
5. prevent. Go before; the original meaning of the word, from Lat. præ, before, and venio, to go or come.
"I prevented the dawning of the morning."—Psalm cxix. 147.
"I will have nothing to hinder me in the morning, for I will prevent the sun rising."—Izaak Walton, Compleat Angler.
6. angel quire. "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God."—Luke ii, 13.
7. paramour. See note 9, page 80.
8. maiden. Pure, innocent, unpolluted. Compare
—Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act iv, sc. 2.
9. turning sphear. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy taught that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that all the heavenly bodies revolved about it, being fixed in a complicated framework, or series of hollow crystalline spheres moving one within the other. The "turning sphear" is here this entire system of revolving spheres. See note 34, below.
10. harbinger. One who provides a resting-place for a superior person. It was the duty of the king's harbinger, when the court removed from one place to another, to provide lodgings for the king's retinue. Derived from harbor, harborage. The word "harbor" is from A.-S. here, army, and beorg, a refuge. Others derive the word from har, a message, and bringer—hence, one who brings a message, a herald.
Parkes's Topography of Hampstead, 1818, contains the following:
"The office of harbinger still exists in the Royal Household, the nominal duty of the officer being to ride one stage onward before the king on his progress, to provide lodging and provision for the court."
The last knight-harbinger was Sir Henry Rycroft (appointed in 1816, died October, 1846, aged eighty). The office became extinct at his death.
11. turtle. Commonly turtle-dove. For history of the word as now applied to the tortoise, see Worcester's Dictionary.
12. universall peace. About the time of the birth of Christ there [189]was peace throughout the Roman Empire, and the temple of Janus was shut.
13. hooked chariot. The war-chariot armed with scythes, a Celtic invention adopted by the Romans.
14. awfull eye. We would say, "awe-filled eyes."
sovran. Old French souverain. Some derive it from Lat. supra, above, and regno, to reign.
15. whist. Hushed. This word, now used as a sort of interjection commanding silence, seems to have had in earlier English more of a verbal meaning, as Spenser in "The Faerie Queene," VII, vii, 59:
It also meant to keep silent, as in Surrey's "Virgil":
A game of cards in which the players are supposed to keep silent is called whist.
birds of calm. Halcyons. See note 1, page 78.
16. influence. From Lat. in, into, and fluo, to flow. This word, until a comparatively modern date, was always used with respect to the supposed mysterious rays or aspects flowing from the stars to the earth, and thus having a strange power over the fortunes of men. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?"—Job xxviii. 31.
—Paradise Lost, VIII, 512.
17. For. Notwithstanding.
18. Lucifer. The morning star. The idea of Lucifer appearing to warn the stars of the approach of the sun is a happy figure. See note 7, page 80.
19. axle-tree. Axis. Tree in O. E. is used to signify beam. We still have single-tree, double-tree, whiffle-tree, etc. Compare "Comus," 95:
20. lawn. Used in its original sense of a pasture, or open, grassy space. Formerly laund. Similarly we have lane, an open passage between houses or fields.
21. Or ere. Or is here used in its old sense, meaning before, from A.-S. ær. Ere = e'er, ever. Compare Ecclesiastes xii. 6: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed." Also "King Lear," Act ii, sc. 4:
[190] 22. Pan. See note, page 72. The application of the name Pan to Christ is evidently derived from Spenser. See "Shepheards Calendar," July:
In the Glosse to the Calendar for May it is said that "Great Pan is Christ, the very God of all shepheards, which calleth himselfe the great and good shepheard. The name is most rightly (methinks) applied to him; for Pan signifieth all, or omnipotent, which is only the Lord Iesus. And by that name (as I remember) he is called of Eusebius in his fifth booke, De Preparat. Evange."
23. silly. From A.-S. saelig, blessed, happy. Spenser uses the word in the sense of innocent, as in "Faerie Queene," III, viii, 27:
Chaucer, in the "Reves Tale," uses it in the more modern sense of simple, or foolish:
But in the "Legend of Good Women" it has another meaning:
The meaning of this word has completely changed.
24. strook. Caused to sound as on a stringed instrument. Compare Dryden in "Alexander's Feast":
25. noise. A company of musicians under a leader. Used in this sense by both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.
26. close. Cadence. See Dryden, "Fables":
27. hollow round. The sphere in which the moon has its motion. See notes 9 and 34.
Cynthia. The moon. In the ancient mythology applied to Artemis, from Mount Cynthus in the island of Delos, her birthplace.
28. its. In all his poetry, Milton uses this word only three times. The other examples are in "Paradise Lost," I, 254, and IV, 814. This possessive form of the pronoun it was never used until the time of Shakespeare, who employs it five times in "A Winter's Tale," and once in "Measure for Measure"; it does not occur anywhere in the authorized version of the Bible.
[191] 29. Why are the Cherubim "helmed," while the Seraphim are "sworded"? Addison says, "Some of the rabbins tell us that the cherubims are a set of angels who know most, and the seraphims a set of angels who love most." Observe that the plural of cherub or of seraph may be formed in three ways: viz. cherubs, cherubim, cherubims; seraphs, seraphim, seraphims.
30. unexpressive. Inexpressible. See Shakespeare, "As You Like It":
Also Milton, "Lycidas," 176:
31. the sons of Morning sung. See Job xxxviii. 4-7, the oldest reference to the "music of the spheres." See note 34, below.
32. hinges. Literally, a hinge is anything for hanging something upon. From A.-S. hangian.
33. weltring. Rolling, wallowing. See "Lycidas," 13.
34. Ring out. An allusion to the music of the spheres. See note 27, above. The theory of Pythagoras was that the distances between the heavenly bodies were determined by the laws of musical concord. "These orbs in their motion could not but produce a certain sound or note, depending upon their distances and velocities; and as these were regulated by harmonic laws, they necessarily formed as a whole a complete musical scale." "In the whorl of the distaff of necessity there are eight concentric whorls. These whorls represent respectively the sun and moon, the five planets, and the fixed stars. On each whorl sits a siren singing. Their eight tones make one exquisite harmony." Milton added a ninth whorl,—"that swift nocturnal and diurnal rhomb,"—and then spoke of the "ninefold harmony," as just below. This was a favorite idea with the poets.
—Tennyson, Ode to Memory.
—Shakespeare, Pericles, Act v, sc. 1.
—Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act v, sc. 1.
—Pope, Essay on Man, I.
—Butler's Hudibras, II, i, 617.
See, also, Montaigne, Essays, I, xxii; Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, II, 9; Plato's Republic, VI; Dryden's "Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew," etc.
35. consort. Accompaniment. This word, so written until Milton's time, has now given place to concert, whenever used as here.
36. age of Gold. The fabled primeval age of universal happiness.
37. mould. Matter, substance. The word is used in the old Romances to denote the earth itself. Milton elsewhere says:
38. her. Observe what has already been said (note 28, above) about the pronoun its. Hell, in the Anglo-Saxon language, is feminine. But, just above, observe the expression it self. See, in the last line of stanza xv, the pronoun her with heaven as its antecedent. Heofon, in the Anglo-Saxon, is also feminine.
39. This stanza is a fine example of word-painting. What idea is conveyed to your mind by the expressions, "orb'd in a rainbow," "like glories wearing," "thron'd in celestiall sheen," "the tissued clouds down stearing," etc.? What kind of glories will Mercy wear? Where will she sit? How will she be enthroned? What are radiant feet? Why are Mercy's feet radiant? Does she steer the tissued clouds "with radiant feet," or does she steer herself down the tissued clouds? Why will the opening of Heaven's high palace wall be "as at some festivall"?
40. bitter cross. Compare Shakespeare, "1 Henry IV," Act i, sc. 1, 27:
41. ychain'd. The y is a corruption of the prefix ge, anciently used in connection with the past participle, and still retained in many German words. Often used by Chaucer and Spenser, as in yblessed, yburied, ybrent, yfonden, ygeten, yclad, yfraught, etc.
42. trump. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."—1 Thessalonians iv. 16.
[193] wakefull. Awakening.
43. rang. See Exodus xix.
44. session. Assize. Both words were originally from the same root, Lat. sedeo, sessum.
spread. Prepare, make ready. A similar use of the word survives in the idiom "to spread the table."
45. Dragon. See Revelation xii. 9.
46. Swindges. Swings about violently. This is the only case in which Milton uses this word. It is used several times by Shakespeare in the sense of to whip, to scourge.
47. oracles are dumm. Keightly says: "This was a frequent assertion of the Fathers, who ascribed to the coming of Christ what was the effect of time. They regarded the ancient oracles as having been the inspiration of the devil."
Spenser, quoting the story which Plutarch relates in "his Booke of the ceasing of miracles," says, "For at that time, as hee sayth, all Oracles surceased, and enchaunted spirites that were woont to delude the people thenceforth held their peace."—Glosse to Shepheards Calendar, May.
48. Delphos. The mediæval form of the word Delphi. The temple where was the chief oracle of Apollo was at Delphi, built at the foot of a precipitous cliff two thousand feet high. This oracle was suppressed by the Emperor Theodosius.
49. weeping. Compare Matthew ii. 19, and Jeremiah xxxi. 15.
Spenser, in the same Glosse, quoted from above, says, "About the same time that our Lorde suffered his most bitter passion for the redemption of man, certaine persons sailing from Italie to Cyprus and passing by certaine iles called Paxæ, heard a voice calling aloud Thamus, Thamus, (now Thamus was the name of an Egyptian which was pylote of the ship), who, giving ear to the crie, was bidden, when he came to Palodes to tell that great Pan was dead: which hee doubting to doe, yet for that when hee came to Palodes, there suddenly was such a calme of winde that the ship stoode still in the sea unmooved, he was forced to crie aloude that Pan was dead: wherewithall there was heard such piteous outcries, and dreadfull shriking as hath not beene the like."
50. parting. Departing. Frequently used in Old English.
Genius. Spirit. See "Lycidas," 182:
51. consecrated earth—holy hearth. Referring to the places specially haunted by the Lars and Lemures. The Lemures were the spirits of the dead, and were said to wander about at night, frightening the living. The Lares were the household gods, sometimes referred to as the spirits [194]of good men. The former frequented the graveyards; the latter, the hearths.
52. Flamins. Priests.
53. forgoes. Goes from, gives up, abandons.
54. Peor and Baälim. Compare the proper names which occur in this and the following stanzas with those in "Paradise Lost," I, 316-352.
Peor. The name of a mountain of Palestine is here used as one of the titles of Baal, who was worshipped there.
Baälim. Plural of Baal, meaning that god in his various modifications.
Ashtaroth. The Syrian goddess Astarte. But her worship was identified rather with the planet Venus than with the moon.
Hammon. A Libyan deity, represented as a ram or as a man with ram's horns.
55. twise batter'd god. Dagon. See 1 Samuel v.
56. mourn. In Phœnicia, in the ancient city of Byblos, a festival of two days was held every year in honor of Adonis, or Thammuz, as the Phœnicians called him. The first day was observed as a day of mourning for the death of the god; the second, as a day of rejoicing because of his return to the earth. The principal participants were young women. The prophet Ezekiel alludes to this subject: "Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."—Ezekiel viii. 14.
Milton, in "Paradise Lost," says:
57. Compare with "Paradise Lost," I, 392-405. In Sandys's Travels, published in 1615, and a popular book in Milton's time, the following description is given of the sacrifices made to Moloch: "Therein the Hebrews sacrificed their children to Moloch, an idol of brass, having the head of a calf, the rest of a kingly figure, with arms extended to receive the miserable sacrifice seared to death with his burning embracements. For the idol was hollow within and filled with fire."
58. grisly. Frightful, hideous. Probably from A.-S. agrisan, to dread.
59. brutish. Shaped like a brute; animal.
Isis. The Egyptian earth-goddess, afterwards worshipped as the goddess of the moon.
Orus. The Egyptian god of the sun.
[195] the dog Anubis. Juvenal says, "Whole towns worship the dog."—Sat., XV, 8.
60. unshowr'd. A reference to the general, though erroneous, idea that it does not rain in Egypt.
Osiris, or Apis, one of the chief gods of the Egyptians, was represented by a bull.
sacred chest = worshipt ark, below.
61. eyn. The old plural form of eyes. This form of the plural survives in oxen, children, brethren, kine, swine.
Typhon. A monster among the gods, variously described by the poets. He was a terror to all the other deities.
62. in bed. The sun has not yet risen.
63. youngest teemed. Referring to the Star of Bethlehem.
64. Compare Milton's "Sonnet on his Blindness":
John Milton was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London, in the year 1608, eight years before the death of Shakespeare. From his boyhood he showed the possession of more than ordinary powers of mind. He was educated first under private tutors, and at St. Paul's School, and finally at Christ's College, Cambridge, where in 1632 he received the degree of "Master of Arts." His first considerable work was the "Hymn on the Morning of the Nativity," written in 1629. Within the next seven years he wrote the most noteworthy of his shorter poems: the masque, "Comus"; the pastoral piece entitled "Arcades"; the beautiful descriptive poems, "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso"; and the elegy, "Lycidas." In 1639 he made a tour upon the Continent, visited the famous seats of learning in France and Italy, and made the acquaintance of many of the great poets and scholars of his time. Upon hearing, however, that civil war was about to break out in England, he hastened home, resolved to devote himself to what he regarded as his country's best interests. Poetry was abandoned for politics, and for the next twenty years he wrote little except prose—political tracts and controversial essays. When Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Milton was appointed Latin Secretary of State, a position [196]which he continued to hold until towards the downfall of the Commonwealth. But after the Restoration he quietly withdrew into retirement, resolved to devote the remainder of his life to the writing of the great poem which he had been contemplating for many years. Through unceasing study he had lost his sight; the friends of his youth had deserted him; the fortune which he had received from his father was gone. And so it was in darkness, and disappointment, and poverty, that in 1667 he gave to the world the great English epic, "Paradise Lost." It was in that same year that Dryden published his "Annus Mirabilis." Milton shortly afterward wrote "Paradise Regained"; and, in 1671, he produced "Samson Agonistes," a tragedy modelled after the masterpieces of the Greek drama. On the 8th of November, 1674, at the age of sixty-six years, his strangely eventful life came to a close.
Other Poems to be Read: L'Allegro; Il Penseroso; Comus; Lycidas; selections from Paradise Lost.
References: Masson's Life and Times of John Milton; Milton (Classical Writers), by Stopford Brooke; Milton (English Men of Letters), by Mark Pattison; Macaulay's Essay on Milton; De Quincey, Milton vs. Southey and Landor; Coleridge's Literary Remains; Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Hazlitt's English Poets.
[197]
[199]
[202]
Robert Herrick was born in Cheapside, London, August 20, 1591. He was educated at Cambridge, and in 1629, having taken orders, was presented to the vicarage of Dean Prior in Devonshire. From this living he was ejected by the Long Parliament in 1648, and, going up to London, he united himself with some of his former associates and entered upon a career not altogether creditable to his profession of parson. At the restoration of Charles II. he was returned to his vicarage, where he remained until his death in 1674. His best poems are included in the collection entitled "Hesperides, or Works Humane and Divine," published in 1648, and dedicated to "the most illustrious and most hopeful Prince Charles." The "Argument" prefixed to this collection very prettily describes the character of the pieces which it contains:
"Herrick's best things," says Robert Buchanan, "are his poems in praise of the country life, and his worst things are his epigrams. His gladsome, mercurial temper had a great deal to do with the composition of his best lyrics; for the parson of Dean Prior was no philosopher, and his lightest, airiest verses are the best. His was a happy, careless nature, throwing off verses out of the fulness of a joyous heart, rioting in a pleasant, sunny element."
[203]
[204]
Edmund Waller, whose poetry is noticeable because he was the first English versifier to adopt the French fashion of writing in couplets, was born in Warwickshire in 1605. He was elected to Parliament at the age of seventeen, and was a member of that body [206]during the greater part of his life. At the beginning of the difficulties between the king and the Parliament, he gained some notoriety by his opposition to the former, but when the Civil War broke out he attached himself to the Royalist cause. In 1643, being convicted of complicity in a plot against Parliament, he was fined £10,000 and imprisoned for twelve months. After his release he went to France; but in 1653 he returned to England and became reconciled to the new government, writing, soon afterward, "A Panegyric to my Lord Protector, of the present Greatness and joint Interest of his Highness and this Nation." At the Restoration he eagerly declared allegiance to Charles II., and wrote a congratulatory ode on that monarch's return. He became a court favorite, noted for his wit, was made provost of Eton, and returned to his old place in Parliament. He died October 21, 1687. The first edition of his poems was published in 1645, and from that time to the close of the seventeenth century he was quite generally regarded as the greatest of English poets. At the present time there are few writers so little considered as he.
Waller may be regarded as the founder of the classical school of English poetry, in which Dryden and Pope excelled, and which remained in the ascendency for more than a century after his death. "The excellence and dignity of rhyme," says Dryden, "were never fully known till Mr. Waller taught it; he first made writing easily an art, first showed us to conclude the sense, most commonly, in distichs, which in the verse of those before him runs on for so many lines together, that the reader is out of breath to overtake it."
And Dr. Johnson says: "He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who were living when his poetry commenced. But he was rather smooth than strong: of the 'full resounding line' which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He seems neither to have had a mind much elevated by nature, nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily supply."
[207]
This poem is found in the collection of miscellaneous pieces, by Ben Jonson, entitled "Underwoods." The poet reproaches himself for his own indolence.
1. Aonian springs. The fountain Aganippe, situated in Aonia, was much frequented by the Muses, who were therefore sometimes called "Aonides." They were also called Thespiades, because Mount Helicon, one of their favored resorts, was in the vicinity of Thespia, and was itself named "Thespia rupes."
2. Clarius. The name applied to the celebrated oracle of Apollo at Clarus, on the Ionian coast.
3. pies. Magpies, "who make sound without sense."
4. hence. For this reason.
[209] 5. virtue . . . her own applause. Compare:
6. Japhet's line. The line of Iapetus, the father of Prometheus, who stole fire from the chariot of the sun.
7. issue of Jove's brain. Athene, or Minerva.
8. "Safe from the slanderer and the fool."
[210]
This poem was prefixed to the first folio edition of Shakespeare, 1623, and is also printed in Ben Jonson's "Underwoods."
1. The meaning of these two lines would seem to be: "To show that I am not envious, Shakespeare, of thy name, I thus write fully of thy works and fame."
2. seeliest. Silliest, simplest. From A.-S. saelig, foolish. See note 23, page 190.
3. In allusion to W. Basse's elegy on Shakespeare, beginning:
4. Lyly, Kyd, Marlowe. Contemporaries of Shakespeare. See Biographical Dictionary.
[213] 5. Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. The founders of the Greek tragical drama.
6. Pacuvius, Accius. Celebrated Roman tragic poets.
him of Cordova. Seneca, the great rhetorician, was born at Cordova, in Spain, b.c. 61.
7. socks were on. The socks indicated comedy, and the buskins tragedy. Compare Milton's "L'Allegro," 131:
Also, "Il Penseroso," 97. See note on buskin, page 139.
8. Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus. Ancient writers of comedy.
9. that he. That man.
10. Swan of Avon. So Cowper calls Virgil "the Mantuan swan."
11. hemisphere. The celestial hemisphere.
Ben Jonson was born in Westminster, in 1573. His early life was full of hard and varied experiences. He was educated at Westminster School, and entered St. John's College, Cambridge. Being obliged to leave his university course unfinished, he worked for a time with his step-father as a brick-layer. At the age of eighteen he enlisted as a volunteer in the Low Countries; but in 1596 he settled in London, as a playwright. His first comedy, "Every Man in his Humour," did not meet with immediate success. It was remodelled, at Shakespeare's suggestion, and when afterwards presented was received with marked favor. His first tragedy, "Sejanus," was acted in 1603. His masques, of which there are thirty-six, were written during the reign of James I. His miscellaneous works, embracing a variety of odes, elegies, epigrams, and other lyrics and epistles, are included in two collections, the first of which, called The Forest, was published in 1616, and the second posthumously, in 1641. He died in London, August 6, 1637.
One of the last and most beautiful of Jonson's dramas is the unfinished pastoral comedy, "The Sad Shepherd." It was written while in the sick-chamber, with a keen sense and remembrance of [214]the disappointments which had followed him through life; and to these he touchingly refers in the prologue:
Robert Herrick wrote of him thus:
[215]
"In fifty-two years, without counting the drama, two hundred and thirty-three poets are enumerated, of whom forty have genius or talent. . . . What is this condition which gives rise to so universal a taste for poetry? What is it breathes life into their books? How happens it, that amongst the least, in spite of pedantrie, awkwardnesses, we meet with brilliant pictures and genuine love-cries? How happens it, that when this generation was exhausted, true poetry ended in England, as true painting in Italy and Flanders? It was because an epoch of the mind came and passed away,—that, namely, of instinctive and creative conception. These men had new senses, and no theories in their heads. . . . They are happy in contemplating beautiful things, and wish only that they should be the most beautiful possible. They do not excite themselves to express moral or philosophical ideas. They wish to enjoy through the imagination, through the eyes, like those Italian nobles, who, at the same time, were so captivated by fine colors and forms, that they covered with paintings not only their rooms and their churches, but the lids of their chests and the saddles of their horses. . . . Think what poetry was likely to spring from them, how superior to common events, how free from literal imitation, how smitten with ideal beauty, how capable of creating a world beyond our sad world."—Taine.
[216]
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542). See biographical note, page 252.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547). See biographical note, page 252.
George Gascoigne (1536-1577). "The Steel Glass"; "The Tragedy of Iocaste."
Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst (1536-1608). "The Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates"; "The Tragedy of Gorboduc."
Edmund Spenser (1552-1598). See biographical note, page 245.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586). "Astrophel and Stella"; sonnets and short poems.
Thomas Watson (1557-1592). "The Hecatompathia or Passionate Century of Love"; "Melibœus"; "The Tears of Fancie."
John Lyly (1554-1606). Lyrical poems; "Alexander and Campaspe"; "Love's Metamorphosis."
Robert Greene (1560-1592). Dramas and lyrical poems.
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593). Dramas and lyrical poems.
Thomas Lodge (1556-1625). Dramas and lyrical poems.
William Warner (1550-1609). "Albion's England"; "Pan, his Syrinx or Pipe."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616). See note, page 221.
Samuel Daniel (1562-1619). "History of the Civil Wars between the two Houses of York and Lancaster."
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618). Short poems.
George Chapman (1559-1634). Translations of "Homer's Iliad" and "Homer's Odyssey."
Michael Drayton (1563-1631). "Polyolbion"; "The Barons' Wars"; "The Battle of Agincourt."
Joseph Hall (1574-1656). "Virgidemiarum"; satires.
Sir John Davies ( -1626). "Nosce Teipsum."
John Donne (1573-1631). Short poems.
[217]
[220]
William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon in April, 1564, and died there April 23, 1616. His fame rests chiefly upon his dramatic compositions. His two narrative poems, "Venus [222]and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece," were published in 1593 and 1594, before any of his plays had been printed. They may be regarded as companion pieces, written in the same style and distinguished by similar characteristics.
"A couple of ice-houses," says Dowden, "these two poems of Shakespeare have been called by Hazlitt; 'they are,' he says, 'as hard, as glittering, as cold.' Cold indeed they will seem to any one who listens to hear in them the natural cry of human passion. But the paradox is true, that for a young poet of Elizabeth's age to be natural, direct, simple, would have been indeed unnatural. He was most happy when most fantastical; he spun a shining web to catch conceits inevitably as a spider casts his thread; the quick-building wit was itself warm while erecting its ice-houses." Coleridge says of the "Venus and Adonis" that its most obvious excellence "is the perfect sweetness of the versification; its adaptation to the subject; and the power displayed in varying the march of the words without passing into a loftier and more majestic rhythm than was demanded by the thoughts, or permitted by the propriety of preserving a sense of melody predominant."
Shakespeare's "Sonnets" were published in 1609. Concerning the origin, purpose, and interpretation of these poems, many widely different theories have been proposed, "Some have looked on them as one poem." says Fleay; "some as several poems—of groups of sonnets; some as containing a separate poem in each sonnet. They have been supposed to be written in Shakespeare's own person, or in the character of another, or of several others; to be autobiographical or heterobiographical or allegorical; to have been addressed to Lord Southampton, to Sir William Herbert, to his own wife, to Lady Rich, to his child, to himself, to his Muse." The safest and wisest course seems to be, first to regard each of the one hundred and fifty-four sonnets as a poem complete in itself, and after studying whatever it may contain of art, or beauty, or truth, then to discover, if possible, its relationship to those which precede or follow it in the series.
Of the other poems written by Shakespeare, mention should be made of "The Passionate Pilgrim" (1559), "The Phoenix and the Turtle" (1601), "A Lover's Complaint," published in the same volume with the "Sonnets," and the few exquisite little songs scattered through his plays.
[223]
This is a selection from Spenser's great poem, "The Faerie Queene," being a part of the seventh canto of book second. "The Faerie Queene" was published in 1590, and comprises six books of twelve cantos each. The first book is the Legend of the Red Cross Knight, or Holiness; the second, of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; the third, of Britomartis, or Chastity; the fourth, of Cambel and Triamond, or Friendship; the fifth, of Artegall, or Justice; the sixth, of Sir Calidore, or Courtesy. It was Spenser's design that the complete work should contain twelve books, but of the remaining part only a fragment of one book, the "Legend of Constance," is in existence.
The versification of the "Faerie Queene" is based upon the ottava rima, made so popular in Italian poetry by Tasso and Ariosto. Instead of eight lines to a stanza, however, there are nine. The first eight lines are iambic pentameters, and the ninth a hexameter, the stanza thus closing with a lingering cadence which adds greatly to the melody of the verse. This is the "Spenserian stanza," a form of versification very popular with many of our later poets.
"If you love poetry well enough to enjoy it for its own sake," says Leigh Hunt, "let no evil reports of his allegory deter you from an [233]acquaintance with Spenser, for great will be your loss. His allegory itself is but one part allegory and nine parts beauty and enjoyment; sometimes an excess of flesh and blood. His wholesale poetical belief, mixing up all creeds and mythologies, but with less violence, resembles that of Dante and Boccaccio. His versification is almost perpetual honey."
1. delve. Dell. From A.-S. delfan, delve, to dig. Each canto of the "Faerie Queene" is introduced by a four-line doggerel like this, containing the argument, or a brief summary of the narrative,—in imitation, probably, of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso."
2. hore. Sordid, miserly. Probably from A.-S. harian, to become mouldy or musty. The word hoard may be traced to a similar root.
3. stedfast starre. The pole-star. See "Faerie Queene," I, ii, 1:
4. yblent. Blinded.
5. dreriment. Darkness.
6. firmes. Fixes, makes firm.
7. yode. Went. The past participle of the old verb yede, from A.-S. gangead, to go, to proceed.
8. reedes. Considers. From A.-S. ræd, counsel, advice; O. E. rede.
9. salvage. Savage, wild. Fr. sauvage. From Lat. silva, forest. See "Faerie Queene," IV, v, 19:
wight. Person. From A.-S. wiht.
—Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 2105.
griesly. Dreadful. From A.-S. grislic; agrisan, to dread. Grisly.
10. bedight. Covered. From dight, to dress, to deck. A.-S. dihtan.
11. fire-spitting. "Spett seems anciently to have more simply signified disperse, without the low idea which we at present affix to it."—Warton.
12. entayle. Sculpture, carving. Compare intaglio.
[234] 13. antickes. Odd, or fantastic, forms. From Lat, antiquus, ancient.
14. of Mulcibers devouring element. By fire. Mulciber is a surname of Vulcan, "which seems to have been given him as an euphemism, that he might not consume the habitations and property of men, but kindly aid them in their pursuits."
15. withouten moniment. Without superscription.
16. swinck. Labor, drudge. A.-S. swincan, to toil.
17. sew. Follow. From Fr. suivre.
deigne. From Fr. daigner, to consider worthy. Opposed to disdain.
18. Me ill besits. It ill becomes me.
derdoing. Dare-doing; doing daring deeds.
19. worldly mucke. "Filthy lucre."
20. spright. Spirit.
21. weet. Understand. From A.-S. witan, to know.
22. fond. Foolish.
23. empeach. Hinder. Fr. empêcher.
24. accloyes. Chokes or clogs up. Observe how the poet carries out his metaphor of the "well-head," "the purest streames," "his braunching armes," and "the gentle wave."
25. unreproved truth. Sincerity.
26. great Grandmother. Mother Earth.
27. lett be. Leave off; make an end of.
28. wage. Pledge. Observe the relationship between this word and both wager and wages.
29. Me list. I wish. Compare methinks, meseems. From A.-S. lystan, to choose.
wote. Understood. See note 21 above.
30. Perdy. An old oath used to give emphasis to an assertion. From Fr. par dieu.
31. wonne. Habitation. From A.-S. wunian, to dwell.
32. rayne. Reign. The word is frequently used in the older poets for realm, or region.
33. next to Death is Sleepe.
—Shelley, Queen Mab, I.
34. whilome. At some time.
[233:1] Wildness without art.
[235]
In honour of the double marriage of the two honorable and vertuous ladies, the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Katherine Somerset, daughters to the right honorable the Earle of Worcester, and espoused to the two worthie gentlemen, M. Henry Gilford and M. William Peter, Esquyers.
This poem was written and published towards the end of the year 1595. The word prothalamium is from Gr. pro, for, and thalamos, a bride-chamber, and would more properly be applied to a marriage-song than to "a spousall verse." Spenser had already written—earlier in the same year—the "Epithalamium" in honor of his own marriage. The singing of a hymeneal song in connection with the wedding festivities was a very ancient custom among the Greeks. Homer alludes to it in the "Iliad," XVIII, 493:
See, also, Spenser's "Faerie Queene," I, xii, 38.
1. Titans. The word is used for Helios, the son of the Titans, Hyperion and Thea. Observe that the apostrophe, as the sign of the possessive case, is never used by Spenser.
glyster. Glisten, shine. From A.-S. glisnian, glow, or shine with a soft light.
—Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act ii, sc. vii.
—Gray, On a Favourite Cat, etc.
fayre. Fairly. An old form of the adverb, sanctioned by very old usage, but not current in Spenser's time.
2. princes court. Spenser had had experience of the many bitter disappointments which befall him who seeks the favor of royalty. In "Mother Hubbard's Tale" he complains in this wise:
3. silver streaming Themmes. Sir John Denham's apostrophe to the Thames is well known:
—Cooper's Hill, 189.
And Pope praises the stream in still more extravagant terms:
—Windsor Forest, 227.
See, also, Spenser's "Faerie Queene," IV, xi.
4. rutty. Rooty.
5. Against. For, or in preparation for; to provide for. Compare Genesis xliii. 25: "And they made ready the present against Joseph came at noon." And Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream," Act iii, sc. ii:
6. Flood. This word was often used, as here, to denote simply a river. Pope addresses the river Thames:
7. all loose untyde. Steevens says: "Brides formerly walked to church with their hair hanging loose behind."
8. entrayled. Twisted, interlaced.
9. flasket. A long, shallow basket. Not used here as the diminutive of flask. Hales says it is the name given by the fishermen of Cornwall to the vessel in which the fish are transferred from the seine to the "tuck-net."
10. cropt. Gathered, Dutch krappen, to cut off.
feateously. Neatly, skilfully. Compare Chaucer:
—Canterbury Tales, 124.
—Ibid., 3205.
[243] 11. on hye. In haste. Probably the same as hie, haste.
12. pallid. Pale.
13. primrose trew. Compare Milton's "Lycidas," 142:
And Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale," Act iv, sc. iii;
14. store. Abundance.
vermeil. Vermilion. Commonly used as a noun.
15. posies. "Posy originally meant verses presented with a nosegay or a bunch of flowers, and hence the term came to be applied to the flowers themselves."
16. With that. At the same time.
Swannes. "Paulus Jovius, who died in 1552, describing the Thames, says: 'This river abounds in swans, swimming in flocks; the sight of whom and their noise are vastly agreeable to the fleets that meet them in their course.'"—Knight's Cyclopedia of London.
17. lee. Water, or river. See "Faerie Queene," V, ii, 19:
Also, Ibid., IV, ii, 16:
The word is of Celtic origin, and is very common as a river-name in England, Ireland, France, and other parts of Western Europe.
18. nor nothing near. In early English two negatives did not destroy each other, as now, but made the negation more emphatic.
19. Eftsoones. Soon after. From A.-S. eft, after, and sona, soon.
20. Somers-heat. The two ladies celebrated in this poem, it will be remembered, were Lady Elizabeth and Lady Katherine Somerset.
21. The Peneus river, the most important stream in Thessaly, forces its way through the Vale of Tempe, between Mounts Ossa and Olympus, into the sea.
22. loves couplement. Marriage.
23. heart-quelling Sonne. Cupid.
24. assoile. Free from, put off.
—Faerie Queene, III, i, 58.
[244] 25. bord. "Bed" and "board" are two associated terms, very frequently so used, which imply the performance of the two acts necessary for the maintenance of life—sleeping and eating. See Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors," Act v, sc. i:
Also, "As You Like It," Act v, sc. iv:
26. redoubled. Repeated.
undersong. Refrain, burden.
27. neighbour. See note 10, on Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night."
28. shend. Outshine, shame, disgrace. From A.-S. scendan.
29. my most kyndly nurse. Although born in London, the poet was "descended from the ancient and honourable family of Spencer, of Althorpe in Northamptonshire."
30. "When the order of the Knights Templar was suppressed in Edward the Second's reign, their London estate on the bank of the Thames was given over to the Knights of St. John; by these it was leased to the students of the Common Law, who, not finding a home at Cambridge or Oxford, were at that time in want of a habitation."—Hales.
31. stately place. This stood in the gardens where the Outer Temple should have been. In 1580 it was occupied by the Earl of Leicester, and here Spenser was for a time entertained, as he asserts in the following line. The great lord whom he mentions was Leicester.
32. "The want of whom I feel too well in my present friendless condition."
33. fits not well. It is not proper.
34. nobler peer. The Earl of Essex.
35. Macaulay says of Lord Essex's expedition against Spain, in 1596, that it was "the most brilliant military exploit that was achieved on the Continent by English arms during the long interval which elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and that of Blenheim."
36. Hercules two Pillors. The rocky capes on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar. It was said that Hercules erected them to mark the western limit of his wanderings.
37. Hesper. Hesperus was the evening star, also sometimes regarded as the morning star, and hence called by Homer the bringer of light. See note on Lucifer, page 80 and page 189.
38. Twins of Iove. Castor and Pollux. Two heroic brothers who as [245]a reward of their devotion to each other were placed among the stars in the constellation Gemini.
39. bauldricke. Belt, girdle, or sash. The "bauldricke of the heavens" is the zodiac.
40. Which. In early English this pronoun was very commonly used instead of who when referring to persons.
Edmund Spenser was born in London about the year 1552. He was educated at Merchant Taylor's school, and in 1569 went to Cambridge University, where he entered Pembroke Hall as a sizar. In the same year his first poetical performances—translations from Petrarch and Du Bellay—were published in a miscellaneous collection without the name of the author. At the University he was zealously devoted to the study of Latin and Greek literature, and there he made the acquaintance of several students who afterwards became men of note. In 1579 he visited Sir Philip Sidney at Penshurst, with whom he afterwards spent some time in London at the house of Sidney's uncle, the Earl of Leicester. In 1580 was published, but without his name, his first considerable poem, "The Shepheards Calendar"; and in the autumn of the same year he went to Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the new Lord Lieutenant. With the exception of a few brief visits made to England, the remainder of his life was spent partly in Dublin and partly at Kilcolman Castle on a grant of forfeited land in the county of Cork. Between 1580 and 1589 he wrote the first three books of "The Faerie Queene," and in 1590 they were published in London, through the influence of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had recently visited the poet in Ireland. In the summer of 1594 he married a lady named Elizabeth, probably the daughter of some English settler in Ireland; and in the following year he carried to London and published the second three books of "The Faerie Queene." At about the same time were published his "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," and his "Amoretti Sonnets," and an "Epithalamium" relating to his courtship and marriage. Returning to Ireland, he resumed his labor upon the half-completed "Faerie Queene," but it was rudely [246]interrupted by the breaking out of an insurrection among the Irish. In 1598 Spenser's house was sacked and burned by the rebels, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he and his family escaped with their lives. Indeed, it is stated, on the authority of Ben Jonson, that one little child perished in the flames. Spenser returned to London in poverty and great distress, and on the 16th of January, 1599, he died in King Street, Westminster. He was buried in the Abbey.
Spenser has been very appropriately named "the poets' poet." "For," says Leigh Hunt, "he has had more idolatry and imitation from his brethren than all the rest put together. The old undramatic poets, Drayton, Browne, Drummond, and Giles and Phineas Fletcher, were as full of him as the dramatic were of Shakespeare. Milton studied and used him, calling him 'sage and serious Spenser'; and adding that he 'dared be known to think him a better teacher than Scotus and Aquinas.' Cowley said he became a poet by reading him. Dryden claimed him for a master. Pope said he read him with as much pleasure when he was old as when he was young. Collins and Gray loved him. Thomson, Shenstone, and a host of inferior writers expressly imitated him. Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Keats made use of his stanza. Coleridge eulogized him."
Hazlitt says, "Of all the poets, Spenser is the most poetical." And Taine declares that no modern is more like Homer than he.
With reference to the peculiar forms of language—comparatively obsolete even when "The Faerie Queene" was composed—which are so marked a characteristic of Spenser's poetry, Hales says: "The subject he chose for his great work drew him into the midst of the old times of chivalry, and the literature that belonged to them. With such a subject the older forms of the language seemed to consort better. To him, too, perhaps, as to Virgil, the older words and word-forms seemed to give elevation and dignity. Moreover, an older dialect was probably to some extent his vernacular, as he had probably passed his youth in Lancashire. Lastly, the only great poet who had preceded him, his great model, the Tityrus of whom he 'his songs did lere,' was Chaucer. To him Chaucer's language may have seemed the one language of English poetry."
References: Warton's History of English Poetry; Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets; Craik's Spenser and his Poetry; Morley's English Writers.
[247]
[249]
This short extract is given as a sample of the first blank verse written in the English language. The spelling has been modernized.
Wyatt and Surrey are usually named together as the most illustrious poets of the earlier part of the sixteenth century. J. Churton Collins calls them, not inaptly, "the Dioscuri of the Dawn." "They inaugurated," he says, "that important period in our literature known as the Era of Italian Influence, or that of the Company of Courtly Makers—the period which immediately preceded and ushered in the age of Spenser and Shakespeare." It is to them that we are indebted for the sonnet: they were indeed the founders of our lyrical poetry. Jonson, Herrick, Waller, Cowley, and Suckling found inspiration in their ditties. Surrey's translation of the second and fourth books of Virgil's "Æneid" (1552) is the earliest specimen of blank verse in our language.
Thomas Wyatt was born at Allington Castle in 1503, and in his youth was a prominent and very popular member of the court of Henry VIII. He was knighted in 1536, and in 1537 became high sheriff of Kent. In April of the same year he was sent as ambassador to Spain, and in 1539-40 was with the court of Charles V. in the Low Countries. Returning to England he lived for the next two years in retirement, and died at Sherborne in 1542.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was born about 1517, and, like his friend Wyatt, passed his youth at the court of Henry VIII. He served in France in 1540, and again in 1544-46. After taking Boulogne, he became its governor; but, on account of defeat soon afterwards at St. Etienne, he was recalled to England by Henry VIII. His comments upon this action of the king caused his arrest and imprisonment in the Tower. A charge of high treason was preferred against him for having quartered the royal arms with his own, and he was beheaded on Tower Hill, January 21, 1547.
[253]
"This is a very ancient song," says Bishop Percy, "but we can only give it from a modern copy." It is often printed as part of a ballad relating to the history of Lord James Douglas and of the Laird of Blackwood. The lament is that of a beautiful lady whose fortunes were connected with those of Lord Douglas.
1. waly. An interjection denoting grief.
2. brae. Hillside.
3. burn-side. Brook-side.
4. syne. Then.
5. lichtlie. Slight, undervalue.
6. busk. Dress.
7. Arthur's Seat. A hill near Edinburgh, at the foot of which is St. Anthony's well.
[255]
[This ballad is a confused echo of the Scotch expedition which should have brought the Maid of Norway to Scotland about 1285.]
This ballad in its original form is a very old one, and was probably at first a metrical story of the Scotch expedition which was sent to bring the Maid of Norway to Scotland (about the year 1285). In its sixteenth-century [259]form it shows many changes and additions, some of which are not in harmony with the original tale. The cork-heel'd shoon, for example, were unknown until some hundreds of years later than the occurrence of the events here narrated.
skeely, skilful. | gane, suffice. |
skipper, captain. | half-fou, a quart, dry measure. |
braid, open, not private. | alake, alack. |
goud, gold. | lift, sky. (Still used in Scotland.) |
fee (see note 13, page 105). | shoon, shoes. |
Among the earliest and most popular of English ballads are those relating to Robin Hood. This noted, half-mythical outlaw was the impersonation of popular rights as they were understood by Englishmen of the lower orders in the days of the Plantagenets. Hence the memory of him and his reputed deeds was preserved in the songs of the people. "It is he," says an old historian, "whom the common people love so dearly to celebrate in games and comedies, and whose history, sung by fiddlers, interests them more than any other." Even so late as the reign of Edward VI., "Robyn Hoode's Daye" was very generally observed in the country parishes as a day of feasting and amusement.
The ballads were originally the production of wandering minstrels or gleemen, a class of men very popular in the Middle Ages, who followed the profession of poetry and music. These rude poets were held in the highest esteem and veneration by the people among whom they lived; they were received and welcomed wherever they went, and even kings delighted [266]to honor them. In short, their art was supposed, by the Anglo-Saxons, to be of divine origin, having been invented by Odin, the great All-Father, and perfected by Bragi, the musician of the gods. As, however, civilization advanced and Christianity became established, this admiration for the minstrel and his art became modified in a degree. He was no longer regarded as a poet, but only as a singer, a sweet musician. Poetry was cultivated by men of leisure and refinement; but lyrical ballads remained the peculiar inheritance of the minstrel. For a long time after the Norman conquest, minstrels continued to gain their livelihood by singing in the houses of the great, and at festive occasions, which were never considered complete unless graced by the presence of these honored descendants of Bragi; nor did they cease to compose and sing their inimitable pieces until near the close of Elizabeth's reign. The greater number of the ballads now in existence were probably produced during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and the best of them originated in the "North Country," or the border region between England and Scotland. They were not at first reduced to writing, but were handed down from one generation to another merely by oral tradition. As regards their metre and versification, the ballads were commonly composed of iambic hexameters or heptameters rhyming in couplets. These couplets are readily broken into stanzas of four lines, in which form they are usually printed.
The first collection of English ballads ever published was probably that of John Dryden, in 1684. The collection was included in a volume entitled Miscellany Poems. In 1723 a work called A Collection of Old Ballads was published anonymously. In 1724 Allan Ramsay issued The Evergreen, "being a collection of Scots Poems wrote by the Ingenious before 1600." This work included many popular songs and ballads. It was reprinted in 1875.
We owe the preservation of a large number of the most interesting and beautiful ballads to Bishop Percy, who, in 1765, published the first really valuable collection of such works in his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Previous to that time most of these songs had existed only in manuscript, or, if printed at all, in the cheapest style of typography, on sheets designed for circulation among the poor. Bishop Percy's work first called the attention of scholars to the value and beauty of these neglected and half-forgotten relics, and did much to bring about that revolution in literature which took place in the latter part of the last century. And it is to these old ballads, thus rescued from oblivion, that we owe very many of the noblest literary productions of the present century. We know that they were the immediate inspiration of Sir Walter Scott, and that they exerted a wonderful influence in modifying and directing the taste and style of many other distinguished writers.
[267]
"When we pass from Chaucer's age, we have to overleap nearly a hundred and eighty years before we alight upon a period presenting anything like an adequate show of literary continuation. A few smaller names are all that can be cited as poetical representatives of this sterile interval in the literary history of England: whatever of Chaucer's genius still lingered in the island seeming to have travelled northward and taken refuge in a series of Scotch poets, excelling any of their English contemporaries. We are driven to suppose that there was something in the social circumstances of England during the long period in question which prevented such talent as there was from assuming the particular form of literature. Fully to make out what this 'something' was may baffle us; but, when we remember that this was the period of the Civil Wars of the Roses, we have reason to believe that the dearth of pure literature may have been owing, in part, to the engrossing nature of the practical questions which then disturbed English society. . . . Accordingly, though printing was introduced during this period, and thus Englishmen had greater temptations to write, what they did write was almost exclusively plain grave prose, intended for practical or polemical occasions, and making no figure in a historical retrospect."—David Masson.
"Must we quote all these good people who have nothing to say? . . . dozens of translators, importing the poverties of French poetry, rhyming chroniclers, most commonplace of men; spinners and spinsters of didactic poems who pile up verses on the training of falcons, on heraldry, on chemistry, . . . invent the same dream over again for the hundredth time, and get themselves taught universal history by the goddess Sapience. . . . It is the scholastic phase of poetry."—Taine.
[268]
John Lydgate (1370-1440). See biographical note, page 283.
Thomas Occleve (1365-1450). "De Regimine Principum"; short poems.
Robert Henryson (1425-1480). See biographical note, page 283.
William Dunbar (1450-1513). See biographical note, page 283.
Gawain Douglas (1474-1522). See biographical note, page 284.
Stephen Hawes ( -1530), "The Pastime of Pleasure"; "Graunde Amour and la Belle Pucel."
John Skelton (1460-1529). See biographical note, page 272.
[269]
1. chambre of stars. The Star Chamber, a court of civil and criminal jurisdiction for the punishment of offences for which the law made no provision. It was so called because the ceiling of the room in which it was held was decorated with gilt stars.
2. alleluya. In allusion to the pomp with which Wolsey celebrated divine service.
3. Philargyria. Love of money; covetousness.
4. Simonia. Simony; buying and selling church livings.
5. Castamergia. Gluttony. Greek kastrimargia. A not uncommon word among the monks of the Middle Ages, one of whose prayers was, "From the spirit of castrimargia, O Lord, deliver us!"
6. ipocras. Hippocras, or spiced wine, a drink formerly very popular in England. It was made by mixing Canary and Lisbon wines, in equal parts, with various kinds of sweet spices, and allowing the whole to stand for a few days, after which the wine was poured off and sweetened with sugar.
7. postel. Apostle—here ironically applied to Wolsey.
[272]
John Skelton was born about the year 1460. In his earlier life he was the friend of Caxton, the first English printer, and of Percy, Earl of Northumberland. He was poet-laureate under Henry VII., and tutor of the young prince (afterwards Henry VIII.), and was described by Erasmus as litterarum Anglicarum lumen et decus. Later in life he was promoted to the rectory of Diss in Norfolk, but was severely censured by his bishop for his buffooneries in the pulpit and his satirical ballads against the mendicants. He finally became a hanger-on about the court of Henry VIII.; and, daring to write a rhyming libel on Cardinal Wolsey, was driven to take refuge in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey. There he was kindly entertained and protected by Abbot Islip until his death in 1529. Some of his poems were printed in 1512, and others in 1568.
Taine calls Skelton "a virulent pamphleteer, who jumbles together French, English, Latin phrases, with slang and fashionable words, invented words, intermingled with short rhymes. Style, metre, rhyme, language, art of every kind, at an end; beneath the vain parade of official style there is only a heap of rubbish. Yet, as he says,
As to the coarseness which characterizes his verses, it cannot be explained by saying that it is a reflection of the manners of the times in which he lived. For, as Warton says, Skelton "would have been a writer without decorum at any period." Yet, notwithstanding his faults, he is deserving of our notice, if for nothing else, on account of the complete originality of his style—a style unknown and unattempted by any former writer. His bold departure from the accepted rules of versification showed to those who followed him some of the possibilities in English poetical composition, and helped to open the way to the great outburst of song which followed.
[273]
—From "London Lickpenny."
GLOSSARY. | |
anone, at once. | hyed, hurried. |
assay, try. | lyst, wish. |
bede, offer. | mede, reward, wages. |
Chepe, the market. Cheapside, still a | pescodes, pease. |
famous street in London. | ryse, bough or twig. |
dyght, disposed. | ryshes, rushes. |
gere, apparel. | spede, proceed, do. |
greete, cry out. | yede, went. |
"The Falls of Princes," from which this is an extract, was printed in folio in 1558. Its complete title is, "The Tragedies gathered by Jhon Bochas of all such Princes as fell from theyr Estates throughe the Mutability of Fortune since the creation of Adam until his time; wherin may be seen what vices bring menne to destruccion, wyth notable warninges howe the like may be avoyded. Translated into English by John Lidgate, Monke of Burye."
[277]
GLOSSARY. | |
esperance, hope. | patelet, ruffet. |
fassoun, manners. | quhyt, white. |
garmond, garment, costume. | rewth, pity. |
governance, discretion. | sark, shirt, chemise. |
hals-ribbane, neck-ribbon. | scho, she. |
hoiss, hose. | schone, shoes. |
hud, hood. | seill, knowledge. |
kirtill, skirt. | set, suited. |
lasit, fastened. | sickernes, security. |
lesum, lawful. | suld, should. |
lufe, love. | tepat, tippet. |
mailyheis, eyelet-holes. | tholl, withstand. |
pansing, thought. | weit, rain. |
[279]
This is a selection from the long allegorical poem, "The Thistle and the Rose." The thistle represents Scotland, of which country that plant is the national emblem. The fleur-de-lis, or lily, represents France; and the rose, England. The poem was written in celebration of the marriage of James IV. of Scotland to the Princess Margaret of England, and the friendly relations thus established for a time between those two countries.
[281]
GLOSSARY. | |
denty, favor. | muddir, mother. |
effeiris, affairs. | orient, eastern. |
ene, eyes. | quhen, when. |
fallow, betroth. | quhois, whose. |
forgit, made, created. | quhyll, while. |
gife, if. | rois, rose. |
halsit, hailed. | sic, such. |
houris, morning orisons. | speiris, spears. |
laif, rest. | splene, heart. |
lemys, rays. | thrissil, thistle. |
lukit, looked. | udir, other. |
mansuetude, gentleness. | weid, garments. |
morrow, morning. | weiris, wars. |
—From "The Palice of Honour."
GLOSSARY. | |
afoir, before. | guerdoun, reward. |
auance, advance. | ilk, any. |
ay, ever, always. | mekill, much, mickle. |
but, without. | peir, peer. |
conding, condign, worthy. | poureall, the poor. |
crynis, diminishes. | puissance, power. |
deid, death. | quhilk, who, which. |
degest, grave. | quhome, without whom. |
dicht, relieve. | reid, advice. |
docht, avails. | rois, king. |
feid, hatred. | sanct, saint. |
fois, time. | site, shame. |
glaiding, happiness. | till, to. |
gloir, glory. | tite, quickly. |
grant, giving. | tynis, loses. |
gre, degree. | wicht, person, wight. |
[283]
John Lydgate was born at the village of Lydgate, near Newmarket, about 1370. He was a Benedictine monk attached to the monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, and is remembered as the author of three poems, which, in their time, attracted much attention. These are "The Storie of Thebes," written in ten-syllable rhyming couplets, and founded upon the "Teseide" of Boccaccio; the "Troye Book," finished about 1420, and relating the story of the Trojan war as recounted by Guido di Colonna in his Latin prose history of Troy; and "The Falls of Princes," founded on a French version of Boccaccio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium." In 1433, Lydgate wrote a wearisome but somewhat amusing poem, "Pur le Roy," describing a visit to London, and the pageants, processions, and other rejoicings, on the occasion of the entrance of Henry VI. into the city after his coronation. The date of the poet's death is not exactly known, but it was probably not later than 1440.
Robert Henryson, "an accomplished man and a good and genuine poet," was born about the year 1425, and died near the close of the century. He was for a time a schoolmaster and notary public at Dunfermline, in Scotland, and was connected, in some capacity, with the University of Glasgow. He was probably, like Lydgate, a Benedictine monk. His principal works are "The Testament of Cresseid," a sequel to Chaucer's "Troilus and Cresseide," and a collection of thirteen fables. He wrote also many shorter poems, of which the ballad of "Robin and Makyne" (published in Percy's Reliques) is the best known.
William Dunbar was born in East Lothian, Scotland, about the year 1450. He was educated at the University of St. Andrews, and in early life travelled somewhat extensively as a novitiate of the order of St. Francis. He visited England in 1501, upon the occasion of the marriage of James IV. of Scotland to the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. One of his best poems, "The Thistle and the Rose," was written in commemoration of that event. He accompanied the queen to Aberdeen in 1511, and for some time, both before and after, was in attendance and favor at the Scotch court. Nothing is known of his death, but it has been conjectured [284]that he fell in the battle of Flodden, in 1513. Besides the poem just mentioned, he wrote "The Golden Targe," "The Dance of the Deadly Sins," and many shorter poems, most of which are allegories. The "Thistle and the Rose" has been pronounced "the happiest political allegory in our language. Heraldry has never been more skilfully handled, nor compliments more gracefully paid, nor fidelity more persuasively preached to a monarch than in this poem."
Gawain Douglas was a son of the famous Earl of Angus, and was born in Brechin, Scotland, about 1474. He was educated partly at the University of St. Andrews, and partly in Paris. His first considerable poem, "The Palice of Honour," was published in 1501, and dedicated to King James IV. It is an allegory, such as was at that time the staple of poetical composition, and contains but little that is particularly original. Another allegory, printed after his death, is entitled "King Hart," and has for its subject the heart of man. His greatest work is his translation of Virgil's "Æneid" into Scottish verse. In 1509, Douglas was appointed provost of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and after the battle of Flodden he was made abbot of Aberbrothwick. In 1515 he was consecrated Bishop of Dunkeld, but was unable to gain possession of the cathedral except by force. Becoming involved in the feud between the rival families of Angus and Hamilton, he was obliged to escape into England in 1521, where towards the end of the same year he died.
[285]
"In the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on this [the romance] poetry, taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, metre from this poetry; for even of that stanza which the Italians used, and which Chaucer derived immediately from the Italians, the basis and suggestion was probably given in France. . . . If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of Chaucer's poetry over the [earlier] romance-poetry, why it is that in passing from this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world, we shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his poetry and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is given by his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human life. . . . We have only to call to mind the Prologue to 'The Canterbury Tales.' The right comment upon it is Dryden's: 'It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.' And again: 'He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.' It is by a large, free, sound representation of things, that poetry, this high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and Chaucer's poetry has truth of substance. If we think of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of movement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible, and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his gold 'dew-drops of speech.' . . . Chaucer is the father of our splendid English poetry, he is our 'well of English undefiled,' because by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his movement, he makes an epoch and founds a tradition. In Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of the liquid diction, the fluid movement, of Chaucer; at one time it is his liquid diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and at another it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible."—Matthew Arnold.
[286]
Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400). See biographical note, page 301.
William Langland (1332- ). "The Vision of William concerning Piers the Ploughman."
John Gower (1330-1408). "Confessio Amantis."
[287]
GLOSSARY. | |
ageyn, against. | kouthe, known. |
arive, disembarkment. | leede, cauldron. |
aventure, chance. | leste, pleasure. |
ay, always. | levere, rather. |
bar, bore. | lipsede, lisped. |
bawdrick, baldric. | luste, pleased. |
ben, to be. | maistrye, mastery. |
bit, biddeth. | maner, kind. |
byfel, it happened. | mede, meadow. |
bysmotered, smutted. | mete, meals, eating. |
carf, carved. | motteleye, mixed colors. |
cheere, manner. | nightertale, night-time. |
chevysaunce, loans, bargains. | noon, not one, not at all. |
chivachye, military expedition. | not-heed, shorn-head. |
clapsed, clasped. | pace, pass. |
cleped, called. | peyned, took pains. |
clerk, a scholar. | pitous, full of pity. |
corage, heart. | pocok, peacock. |
[297]courtepy, cloak. | poraille, poor folks. |
cowde, knew. | pricasour, hard rider. |
crulle, curled. | priketh, incites, spurs. |
cure, care. | prys, reputation, worth. |
delyver, active. | purfiled, embroidered. |
devyse, speak of. | purtreye, paint. |
digne, worthy. | raughte, reached. |
don, do. | reccheles, reckless. |
eek, also. | reysed, ridden. |
embrowded, embroidered. | rote, a musical instrument. |
encres, increase. | sawtreye, psaltery. |
everychon, every one, all. | schene, bright. |
farsed, stuffed. | scoleye, attend school. |
ferne, distant, foreign. | seeke, sick. |
ferre, farther. | semely, becomingly. |
ferthing, small portion. | sikerly, surely. |
fetysly, neatly, well. | somdel, somewhat. |
fithel, fiddle. | sondry, different kinds. |
Flaundrische, Flemish. | sothly, truly. |
flotynge, fluting, playing. | souple, pliant. |
flour-de-lys, fleur-de-lis. | sovereyn, excellent. |
forster, forester. | sowning, boasting. |
for-pyned, much wasted. | steepe, bright. |
frere, friar. | [298]streit, strict. |
gawded, having gawds. | swich, such. |
gepoun, short cassock. | swynke, toil. |
goost, ghost. | thilke, this. |
grys, fur. | tretys, slender. |
gynglen, jingling. | venerye, hunting. |
habergeoun, hawberk. | viage, journey. |
halwes, shrines (holies). | wastel breed, cake bread. |
heethe, heath, meadow. | wenden, go. |
hem, them. | werre, war. |
here, their. | wight, person. |
heute, borrow. | wiste, knew. |
holpen, helped. | wood, mad, foolish. |
holte, wood. | wympel, wimple. |
i-falle, fallen. | yaf, gave. |
ilke, same. | yeddynges, gleemen's songs. |
i-ronne, ran. | yemanly, yeoman-like. |
juste, joust. | yerde, stick. |
1. in the Ram. In the constellation Aries. "There is a difference, in astronomy, between the sign Aries and the constellation Aries. In April the sun is theoretically in the sign Taurus, but visibly in the constellation Aries."—Morris.
2. i-ronne. Run. The prefix i- or y- is equivalent to the A.-S. or German ge, and usually denotes the past participle.
3. seeken. The infinitive in early English ended in n, usually in en.
4. martir. Thomas à Becket, who was slain at Canterbury in 1170. He was canonized by Pope Alexander III. as St. Thomas of Canterbury.
5. seeke. Sick, ill. At the present time the English restrict the use of the word "sick" to nausea, and regard it in its original and broader signification as an "Americanism."
6. Tabard. A tabard is "a jaquet or slevelesse coat worne in times past by noblemen in the warres, but now only by heraults. It is the signe of an inne in Southwarke by London, within the which was the lodging of the Abbot of Hyde by Winchester. This is the hostelrie where Chaucer and the other pilgrims mett together and accorded about the manner of their journey to Canterbury."—Speght.
7. stables. Standing-places (Lat. sto, to stand); meaning here the public rooms of the inn.
8. Or. Before, ere (A.-S. aer, ere). Compare Psalm xc. 2.
9. condicioun. A word of four syllables, accented on the last.
10. chyvalrye. The profession of a knight.
11. hethënesse. Heathen countries. From heath, the open country. "The word heathen acquired its meaning from the fact that, at the introduction of Christianity into Germany, the wild dwellers on the heaths longest resisted the truth."—Trench.
[299] 12. Alisaundre. Alexandria was taken in 1365 by Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, but was very soon abandoned.
13. he hadde the bord bygonne. "He had been placed at the head of the table, the usual compliment to extraordinary merit."—Tyrwhitt.
14. Pruce. Prussia. "When our military men wanted employment it was usual for them to go and serve in Pruce, or Prussia, with the Knights of the Teutonic order, who were in a state of constant warfare with their heathen neighbours in Lettow (Lithuania) and Ruse (Russia)."—Tyrwhitt.
15. Gernade. Grenada, probably at the siege of Algezir, in that country, in 1344. Belmarie was probably a Moorish town in Africa, as also was Tramassene, mentioned below. Lieys was in Armenia. Both it and Satalie (Attalia) were conquered by Pierre de Lusignan in 1367.
16. Greetë see. That part of the Mediterranean which washes the coast of Palestine.
17. lord of Palatye. A Christian knight who kept possession of his lands by paying tribute to the Turks.
18. no maner wight. No sort of person. In early English the preposition was often omitted after manner. Observe the double negatives in these two lines.
19. bacheler. "A soldier not old or rich enough to lead his relations into battle with a banner. The original sense of the word is little, small, young, from Welsh bach."—Webster.
20. floytynge. Fluting. So, in Chaucer's "House of Fame," he says:
21. he. That is, the knight. The word yeman, or yeoman, is an abbreviation of yeongeman. As used by Chaucer, it means a servant of a rank above that of groom, but below that of squire. The present use of the word to signify a small landholder is of more modern origin.
22. pocok arwës. Arrows tipped with peacock feathers.
23. bracer. A kind of close sleeve laced upon the arm. "A bracer serveth for two causes, one to save his arme from the strype of the stringe, and his doublet from wearing; and the other is, that the stringe glidinge sharplye and quicklye off the bracer, maye make the sharper shoote."—Roger Ascham's Toxophilus, page 129.
24. Cristofre. An image of St. Christopher, which was thought to protect its wearer from hidden danger.
25. seynt Loy. St. Eloy, or Eligius.
26. of gret disport. Fond of gayety.
27. men. This word as here used is an indefinite pronoun equivalent to one, or any one.
[300] 28. "Love conquers all things."
29. chapeleyne. Probably assistant.
30. a fair for the maistryë. A fair one for the chief place.
31. "He would not give a pulled hen for that text"; that is, "he cared not a straw for it." Pulled = pylled = pilled = plucked.
32. waterles. Out of water.
33. what. Why, wherefore.
34. wood. Mad. Scotch wud, wild.
35. no cost wolde he spare. For this pleasure he spared no expense.
36. "That shone like the fire under a cauldron."
37. lymytour. One who was licensed to beg within a limited territory.
38. ordres foure. The Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, and the Augustine Friars.
39. post. Pillar, support. Compare with the modern expression, "A pillar of the church."
40. frankeleyns. Country gentlemen; wealthy landholders.
41. licentiat. He had license from the pope to grant absolution in all cases. A curate's powers did not extend so far.
42. "Where he knew he would have."
44. sellers of vitaille. Givers of food, or a livelihood. The original meaning of the word sell was to give. From A.-S. syllan, to give.
45. "In the beginning." The first words of St. John's Gospel in the Vulgate.
46. purchas. Income from begging.
47. lovë-dayës. Days appointed for the amicable settlement of differences, without recourse to law.
48. "He wished the sea were guarded." Middelburgh, a port in the Netherlands. Orëwelle, a port in Essex.
49. scheeldës. French crowns marked with a shield. Shillings.
50. Oxenford. Not the "ford of the ox," but the "ford of the river." Ox, from Celtic esk, ouse, water.
51. The word right used, as here, in the sense of very is now considered a vulgarism. "A Southerner would say, 'It rains right hard.'"—Bartlett.
52. sawtryë. Psaltery, a Greek instrument of music.
53. sownynge. Sounding; that is, in consonance with. Sentence = sense. So, also, construe forme and reverence, above, as meaning propriety and modesty.
[301]
"'How few there are who can read Chaucer so as to understand him perfectly,' says Dryden, apologizing for 'translating' him. In our day, with the wider spread of historical study, with the numerous helps to Old English that the care of scholars has produced for us, with the purification that Chaucer's text has undergone, this saying of Dryden's ought not to be true. It ought to be not only possible, but easy, for an educated reader to learn the few essentials of Chaucerian grammar, and for an ear at all trained to poetry to tune itself to the unfamiliar harmonies. For those who make the attempt the reward is certain. They will gain the knowledge, not only of the great poet and creative genius, but of the master who uses our language with a power, a freedom, a variety, a rhythmic beauty, that, in five centuries, not ten of his successors have been found able to rival."—T. H. Ward.
The peculiarities of diction and grammar which distinguish Chaucer's poetry seem to make its reading and comprehension difficult and often discourage the student at the outset. A very little study, however, will show that the difficulties in the way are not nearly so great as they at first appear, and, after a little patient practice in reading, they will disappear entirely. By observing the following rules you will soon acquire the ability to read with a fluency which will be highly pleasing to you:
1. Final e should be pronounced as a separate syllable whenever the metre demands it.
2. In all words of French origin, such as viságe, coráge, maniér, the final syllable is accented.
The greatest difficulty in reading Chaucer arises from the antiquated manner in which the words are spelled; but if the reader will change an occasional y to i, and drop a final e or a final n, here and there, the words which seemed at first so strange will appear more familiar to the eye and the understanding.
Geoffrey Chaucer, "the morning-star of English poetry," was born in London in 1328,—according to some authorities, in 1340. He was the son of a vintner, and at an early age became acquainted with many persons of distinction. He was a page in the household of Prince Lionel, and afterwards valet and squire to Edward III. In 1372 he was sent abroad as a royal envoy, and on his return he [302]was made Controller of the Customs In London. In the meantime he had married Philippa Rouet, one of the queen's maids of honor, a sister to the wife of John of Gaunt. Being thus closely related to one of the most powerful members of the royal family, he was often employed in important and honorable commissions connected with the government. In 1386 he was member of Parliament for Kent, and in 1389 was appointed Clerk of the King's Works, at Windsor. He died in 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey,—"the first of the long line of poets whose ashes make that edifice illustrious." His poetical history has been divided by Mr. Furnivall into four periods: (1) up to 1371, during which he wrote the "A B C" the "Compleynte to Pité," the "Boke of the Duchesse," and the "Compleynte of Mars"; (2) from 1372 to 1381, which saw the production of "Troylus and Criseyde," "Anelida," and the "Former Age"; (3) from 1381 to 1389, during which his best works appeared, the "Parlament of Foules," the "House of Fame," the "Legende of Goode Women," and some of the "Canterbury Tales"; (4) from 1389 to the close of his life, in which period the remainder of the "Canterbury Tales" and some short poems were written.
M. Taine says, "Chaucer is like a jeweller with his hands full; pearls and glass beads, sparkling diamonds and common agates, black jet and ruby roses, all that history and imagination had been able to gather and fashion during three centuries in the East, in France, in Wales, in Provence, in Italy, all that had rolled his way, clashed together, broken or polished by the stream of centuries, and by the grand jumble of human memory, he holds in his hand, arranges it, composes therefrom a long sparkling ornament, with twenty pendants, a thousand facets, which by its splendor, variety, contrasts, may attract and satisfy the eyes of those most greedy for amusement and novelty."
Other Poems to be Read: The Knight's Tale; The Clerk's Tale; The Man of Law's Tale; The Legende of Goode Women; The Parlament of Foules; The House of Fame; Chaucer's A B C.
References: Lowell's My Study Windows; Marsh's Origin and History of the English Language; Charles Cowden Clarke's The Riches of Chaucer; Morley's English Writers, vol. v; Carpenter's English of the XIV Century; Taine's English Literature; Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer; Hazlitt's English Poets.
[303]
Ellipses match the original.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the orginal.
Page 14 is blank in the original.
The following corrections have been made to the text:
Page 79: Dante's Vita Nuova.[original has extraneous quotation mark]
Page 81: full age of man, he might not[original has extraneous comma] improbably
Page 124: Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,[original has superscripted 1 at the end of the line]
Page 146: Shakespeare, King Lear, Act i[original has ii] sc. i.
Page 146: versification of the "Faerie Queene," page 232[original has 234]
Page 303: chyvalrye[original has chyvalyre], 298.
End of Project Gutenberg's Six Centuries of English Poetry, by James Baldwin *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX CENTURIES OF ENGLISH POETRY *** ***** This file should be named 30235-h.htm or 30235-h.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/2/3/30235/ Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Lisa Reigel, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. *** START: FULL LICENSE *** THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at https://gutenberg.org/license). Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. 1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. 1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. 1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United States. 1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: 1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed: This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. 1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg-tm License. 1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. 1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided that - You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work. - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. 1.F. 1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem. 1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. 1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. 1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life. Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official page at https://pglaf.org For additional contact information: Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive and Director gbnewby@pglaf.org Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS. The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit https://pglaf.org While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate. International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: https://www.gutenberg.org This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.