ii.
thomas chatterton.
the name of thomas chatterton, the youngest and most short-lived of english poets, is curiously connected with that of horace walpole. born, at bristol, on 20 november, 1752, under the shadow of the beautiful old church of st. mary redcliffe, chatterton from infancy became, as it were, possessed by the charm of the edifice and of the middle ages. members of chatterton's family had for more than a century been associated with the church as sextons; probably they had never given a thought to its beauty and historical associations, but these haunted their descendant, and the story of his childhood reads like a fantasy by nathaniel hawthorne. among the clergy and people of bristol the spirit of the eighteenth century, indeed the natural, usual contempt for things old, beautiful, and not understood, was complacently active. the chests which contained the archives of the church had been broken into by the vestry, and quantities of old parchment documents, some of them illuminated, had been thrown about. chatterton's father (died 1752), a schoolmaster, had taken as much of the stuff as he chose, and manuscripts in the house of the boy's mother were used for domestic purposes. the little boy, till the age of 6, had been curiously lethargic (and far from truthful); the sight of the illuminated parchments awakened his intellect; he stored all that he could find in a den of his own, and became a voracious reader. in 1760 he was sent to colston's hospital, a school resembling christ's hospital in london. he was soon, at the age[pg 435] of 10, a versifier, his muse was first the sacred, then the satiric; but already, by the age of 11, he had made for himself, as some children do, a society of "invisible playmates," notably "t. rowlie, a secular priest," of the age of henry vi and edward iv, and already he was writing, in a kind of old english made up out of glossaries, poems which he passed off as rowlie's, found by himself in the derelict archives of the church.
in short, chatterton might have seemed to be a victim of "split personality," and to be now rowlie, and a number of other secondary selves, now the actual chatterton, apprentice to an attorney. his conduct was almost as abnormal as his genius was precocious, and his passion for fame or notoriety was not quite sane. but, in fact, he knew very well what he was about, and, in december, 1768, attempted to dispose of "rowley's ancient poems," including "the tragedy of aella," to dodsley, the publisher. the success of percy's ballads from the old folio (1765) may have suggested his scheme to the boy, but dodsley was not tempted. horace walpole had published the first edition of "the castle of otranto" at the end of 1764. he used the conventional device (already familiar to the greek romancers in the third century a.d.) of pretending to have found the tale in an ancient manuscript. chatterton had proclaimed his discoveries in manuscripts in the summer of 1764, when he was 12 years old; in horace walpole he recognized, in 1769, a kindred spirit, and offered to show walpole not only poems by rowlie, but a history of english painters by the same learned divine. walpole replied very courteously and gratefully, but "i have not the happiness of understanding the saxon language". in a reply chatterton explained his circumstances; his youth and position; and gray had assured walpole that the manuscripts sent were forgeries. walpole therefore advised chatterton to adhere to his profession, adding that experts were not convinced of the genuineness of the papers. he took no notice of several letters from chatterton, and, after receiving a curt and angry note (24 july, 1769), sent back the manuscripts without further comment, and thought no more of the matter till he heard from goldsmith, at a dinner of the royal academy, that chatterton had committed suicide in[pg 436] london. after an attempt to support himself by hackwork, political and other, the poor boy, whose pride could not stoop to soliciting charity, had poisoned himself on the night of 24 august, 1770. six weeks earlier he had been buying and sending presents of porcelain, fans, and snuff, to his mother and sister; twelve days before his death he had written that he intended to go abroad as a surgeon's mate.
even when he wrote in ordinary english, chatterton showed rare precocity. when he wrote in "rowleian," in an invented dialect as remote from real english of any day as the language of the planet mars, evolved by mlle. hélène smith, is remote from french, chatterton often produced lyrics of great charm as in "the tragedy of aella," and he invented a curious form of the spenserian stanza. his touches in descriptions of nature are sometimes charming. but he never quite escapes, as is natural, from the conventions of the eighteenth century; and his best inspiration is derived from percy's "reliques". what he might have been and might have done, in happier circumstances, it is impossible to conjecture. genius he had, with more than the wonted abnormality of genius.
william cowper.
the overlapping of styles in poetry and of tastes in poetry is pleasantly illustrated in the case of cowper. he was born in 1731, scott was born in 1771, and in miss austen's "sense and sensibility" we find the sensible marianne dashwood hesitating between the rival charms of cowper and scott; byron, it appears, had not yet reached her fair hands. cowper is a bridge between thomson and wordsworth. he was averse to the popeian couplet; in his translation of homer he preferred a blank verse which, at best, is not rapid. in writing of nature he "had his eye on the object". his exit from the triumphant common sense of the eighteenth century was by way of spiritual religion, the evangelical revival promoted by wesley, whitefield, and their followers. they made appeal to the souls, not to the passions, of the populace; and cowper's own sympathy with their bodies, with their[pg 437] poverty, like his love of retirement, and of newspapers, makes him akin to wordsworth.
born of the powerful whig family of cowper, the poet was the son of the rector of great berkhampstead; his mother, whom he lost when he was 6 years of age, yet ever remembered daily with intense affection, was of the name and lineage of donne. he was cruelly bullied in childhood at a preparatory school. the innate savagery of boys of fifteen sometimes wreaks itself on a single small child, and we might think that his sufferings had their share in depressing the spirits of cowper, did he not tell us that, at his public school, westminster, he was eminent in cricket, which horace walpole and gray despised at eton. his master, "vinny" bourne, a latin poet, was dear to him; he made many clever and lively friends, and, despite his attack on public schools in "tirocinium" (1784), he seems to have been reasonably happy at westminster, though he learned no more in one way than to write "lady's greek without the accents
"tirocinium" is a vigorous satire in pope's metre. but cowper, despite the vices and brutalities of school life, confesses his affection for the old place. the clergy at large come under cowper's birch,
the parson knows enough who knows a duke!
behold your bishop i well he plays his part,
christian in name and infidel in heart.
in denouncing emulation for prizes, cowper hit a blot that seems to have vanished, for anything like ungenerous emulation of this kind appears to be a lost vice. no boy studies
less for improvement than to tickle spite.
macaulay's victims, warren hastings and elijah impey, were at school with cowper. he went to no university, but was articled to a solicitor; and idly "giggled and made giggle" with his cousins, theodora and harriet. he was in love with theodora, but was disappointed, harriet (lady hesketh) was one of his best friends. at the age of 32 (1763) hypochondria or hysteria shattered' his life; in a private asylum he was suddenly converted, and recovered, and religion was henceforth, now his joy and happiness,[pg 438] now, when the black cloud came over him, the cause of his despair. at huntingdon, and later, at the uninviting village of olney, he lived retired, the friend of mrs. unwin ("my mary") and of a clerical ex-slave-trader, the rev. john newton. with newton, cowper wrote hymns, the ladies encouraged him to occupy himself with moral poems, "table talk," "truth," "the progress of error," "retirement," "charity," "hope," all in the metre of pope; and all more or less satirical. kings, in "table talk," are the first to suffer: one of the speakers in the dialogue is rather revolutionary. indeed the mild tea-drinking cowper, with his denunciations of "the great," the clergy, and the unthinking squires, preludes to the french revolution, which he took very calmly. after politics comes talk of poetry: and the well-known lines on pope occur; he
made poetry a mere mechanic art,
and every warbler has his tune by heart.
of poets in his own age cowper prefers the reckless satirist, churchill; of gray and collins nothing is said. in "the progress of error" the much-enduring nimrod is attacked, in company with the well-graced popular preacher; and novelists are assailed as "flesh-flies of the land," while men who study art in italy come home worse dunces than they went, and finally the deist and atheist are publicly birched.
it is not for his satires that cowper is remembered: they were suggested to him, in the interests of religion and morals, by mrs. unwin, while lady austen, a lively person of quality, appointed to cowper "the task," or rather gave him the subject of "the sofa," out of which grew "the task". the poet ambles, in an essay in blank verse, as much at his ease and as fond of digressions as montaigne, from the days when man squatted on the ground, to his invention of a three-legged stool, the addition of a fourth leg, cushions, arm-chairs, the settee, finally the sofa. the sofa pleases the gouty; never may the poet have gout; he has done nothing to deserve it; in boyhood he
has fed on scarlet and strong haws,
the bramble, black as jet, and sloes austere.
[pg 439]
this introduces a rural digression.
here ouse, slow winding through a level plain
of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
conducts the eye along his sinuous course,
delighted.
we think of
a river winding slow
by cattle, on an endless plain;
the ragged rims of thunder brooding low
with shadow streaks of rain.
how different are the methods of the two painters in words! the poet, finding geologists in the course of his wanderings, pities them, truth disclaiming them. like wordsworth he praises "retirement," welcomes the newspaper, and welcomes tea. in the charming lines, "the retired cat," temporarily shut up in a drawer lined "with linen of the softest kind," he seems to smile at his own cosy retirement; the teacups, the happy listening ladies. he is full of human kindness, of love for children, cats, and his own tame hares; he sets out to gather flowers, he says, and comes home laden with moral fruits, and religious reflections, and with his sketch book full of landscapes like gainsborough's, and studies of cattle like morland's. "the task" won for the poet countless friends who never saw his face; and, though we have become attuned to blank verse of many beautiful modulations which he never dreamed of (though now and then they were attained by thomson), "the task" may still be read with sympathy and pleasure.
many of cowper's shorter poems, grave or gay, are in all memories: "the wreck of the royal george," as spirited and sad as a ballad; the ringing notes of "boadicea"; the idyllic sweetness of
the poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
and the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;
the lines, "addressed to a young lady," brief and beautiful as the most tender epigrams of "the greek anthology," from which cowper's translating hand gathered a little garland. of these "the swallow," "attic maid with honey fed," are worthy of the[pg 440] original, as is "the grass-hopper". cowper shone in occasional verses on trifling matters such as "the dog and the water-lily"; and pretty kindly compliments, such as "gratitude" (to his cousin, lady hesketh), and things tender and touched with the sense of tears in mortal things, as in the "epitaph on a hare," and the "to mary" (of 1793). his "john gilpin" is an unusual frolic.
the translations, in blank verse, of the "iliad" and "odyssey" could not displace those of pope, who, in cowper's opinion, had done all that could be done in rhyme. blank verse, especially that of cowper, cannot convey, as pope does, the sense of the speed of the great epic; nor was cowper's scholarship exempt from curious errors. he was overworked; mrs. unwin fell into the condition described in "to mary," his terrible melancholy returned, but his last original verses, "the cast-away" (1798), are penned by no "maniac's hand," nor can a poet have written them without pleasure in his own genius. cowper died in 1800.
his letters are reckoned among the best in our language, and their delightful wit and gaiety fortunately assure us that there was much happiness in a life so blameless.
literature in scotland (1550-1790).
before approaching the great northern contemporary of cowper, robert burns, it is necessary to cast a backward glance at his predecessors in scottish letters. we left them in the reign of james v, when sir david lyndsay was the reigning poet of the court and of the people. it is not easy to fit some remarks on scottish literature after sir david lyndsay into a chronological sequence parallel with the development of literature in england. the scottish writers under james vi and i produced no effect on their english contemporaries: the king's "reulis and cautelis" in poetical criticism, and his "basilikon doron," a treatise on king-craft, with his "counterblast to tobacco," and his "demonology" are the work of a clever general writer, but now only interest the curious. alexander scott and alexander montgomery continued to practise in scots, the style of dunbar,[pg 441] though scott shone most in love lyrics, often musical, while montgomery survives in an allegory of the old sort, "the cherry and the slae"; and an old-fashioned "flyting". sir robert ayton (1570-1638) lived in london with the wits of the time, and, like the earl of stirling (died in 1640) and william drummond of hawthornden, deserted for english the scots vernacular. the most distinguished of these poets william drummond of hawthornden (1585-1649) entertained ben jonson at his beautiful house, and has left brief notes of ben's rather crabbed criticisms of his great contemporaries. in the previous year, when james, "with a salmonlike instinct" (1617) revisited his native country, drummond celebrated the event in "forth feasting," a panegyric in fairly regular rhymed heroic couplets. some of his sonnets have charm and are not forgotten; but the times darkened, and drummond (who showed common sense and public spirit when charles i unjustly persecuted lord balmerino (1633), advising the king to read george buchanan's book on the royal power in scotland), was unlikely to find an audience for his learned verse during the subsequent troubles. his "cypress grove," a meditation in prose on death, is poetic in phrasing and cadences, while the periods are not over-long and over burdened. but the brief years in which scottish wits might have learned many lessons from the great contemporary literature of england soon went by; and scottish writers for nearly a century were confined to wranglings over theology and sermons, and to bitter tracts and pamphlets, valuable to the historical but not to the literary student.
the great marquis of montrose is credited with one charming cavalier lyric, "my dear and only love, i pray," and with verses sincere but rugged and full of conceits on his own death and his king's, but he "tuned his elegies to trumpet sounds". the favourite measure of burns was kept alive by sempill of beltrees, in his vernacular elegy over a piper,
on bagpipes now no body blaws
sen habbie's dead.
the translation of rabelais (1653) by the learned, militant, and eccentric sir thomas urquhart of cromarty (1611?-1660) is an imperishable monument of the author's amazing wealth of strange[pg 442] vocabularies, and vigour of appropriate style. the task of making rabelais talk in english seemed little fit for a scottish cavalier who fought at worcester, but urquhart, aided by rabelais, won a kind of immortality by his success. his translation is final and decisive; in which it stands alone. of the preachers and controversialists, bitter or humorous, there is no space to speak, but the saintly character and gentle eloquence of archbishop leighton (1611-1684) live in his commentary on the first epistle of st. peter and his other expository writings. the historical works of gilbert burnet (1643-1715), bishop of salisbury, are english, except in their occasional scotticisms, as much of his life was spent in england. he had seen much of the inner wheels and springs of politics, was fond of talking of himself and of his part in great affairs, and, like leighton, represents the scottish divine, politician, and author, who has been anglicized out of the presbyterian precision and acerbity, and is as english as he can make himself.
his very conceit, and his almost incredible want of tact, make this "scotch dog," as swift loves to call him, a most entertaining gossip. his "history of my own times" was judiciously kept from publication till after his death. burnet cannot be relied on as a safe authority either in what he insinuates most basely, against william iii, or states, without an atom of corroboration, against james ii. in the latter case, however, macaulay has accepted and given circulation to burnet's narrative.
by far the greatest man of letters of the restoration, north of tweed, is "that noble wit of scotland," in dryden's phrase, sir george mackenzie of rosehaugh (1636?-1691). beginning with a "heroic romance," "aretina," influenced by sidney's "arcadia" (1660), and the french school of heroic romances, and with verses, in which he did not shine, mackenzie, in the "religio stoici" (1663) shows that he, like r. l. stevenson, has been "the sedulous ape" of sir thomas browne. he has many admirably harmonious sentences, a very lively wit, and a becomingly pensive air of disenchantment. "the scuffle of drunken men in the dark," the bloodshed and bitterness of the wars of the covenant, have saddened him, and left him an enthusiast for montrose,
at once his country's glory and her shame.
[pg 443]
but political and professional ambitions carried mackenzie away from pure literature into dark and tortuous paths. his work on the criminal law of scotland has considerable literary as well as great legal merit; his observations on the persecution of witches are of great interest; and the worst of his "memoirs of the affairs of scotland" is the fragmentary condition of the manuscript. mackenzie was the cause of the foundation of the advocates' library in edinburgh: after the revolution of 1688 he retired to oxford, where he was hospitably welcomed.
the rev. robert wodrow (1679-1734) a country clergyman, would gladly have taken all knowledge for his province; his was a most inquiring mind, and perhaps no man so assiduous in his parochial duties ever left behind him so huge a mass of unpublished manuscript. his great work is "the history of the sufferings of the church of scotland from the restoration to the revolution". he was, of course, a partisan, but an honest partisan; he consulted all accessible documents, and often printed them at full length; he occasionally makes errors in the direction of his bias, but never makes them consciously. he neglects not one of the humblest of the sufferers, and, as he did not belong to the extreme left of the covenanting party, he was savagely criticized by its members. he is a most serviceable writer, and his "analecta, or materials for a history of remarkable providences" (published long after his death), is a delightful collection of ghost-stories, and tales of witches. the evidence for the ghosts is extremely frail. wodrow was in frequent correspondence with an american divine, as simple, learned, and credulous as himself, the rev. cotton mather. wodrow, after 1714, saw the beginnings of "latitudinarianism," or "moderatism," in the kirk: young ministers began to study the "characteristics" of that polite philosopher, the third earl of shaftesbury (1671-1713); to doubt whether virtuous heathens and catholics must inevitably be excluded from salvation; to wander from the calvinism of john knox; to aim at rhetorical airs and graces; and to regard the chief end of religion as the promotion of virtue. these moderates despised "enthusiasm," and while the fiercer presbyterian leaders separated themselves from the kirk, the abler moderates[pg 444] attempted, sometimes with much success, to distinguish themselves in secular studies, and took part in secular amusements, being patrons of the stage.
to understand the new georgian revival of polite letters among the clergy and laity of scotland, we should study the writings and life of professor francis hutcheson of glasgow university (1694-1746) a follower of shaftesbury, and a writer on ?sthetics and on moral philosophy. but for a true, lively, and humorous picture of ministers who loved society, the stage, and the company of the wits, in london and in edinburgh, we should read the autobiography, posthumously published, of the rev. dr. alexander carlyle, minister of inveresk (1722-1805). in youth he had revelled and drunk deep with the wicked lord lovat, and that stern presbyterian, dear to wodrow, lord grange, well remembered for his energy in packing off his termagant wife to seclusion on the isle of st. kilda. carlyle had seen the rout of sir john cope at prestonpans; he had amazed garrick, at his villa on the thames, by the accuracy of his driving at golf; he had championed his brother minister, john home, when home offended the kirk by writing the once famous play of "douglas"; and he lived to be the acquaintance of sir walter scott. carlyle, called "jupiter carlyle" from his noble presence, knew every one worth knowing in scotland; and if we think him a kind of good-humoured pagan, he is nevertheless reported to have been an excellent parish minister. "for human pleasure" in the reading, the memoirs of this most unspiritual of divines are the best thing that the literary revival in scotland has bequeathed to us. very few scottish writers had paid attention to the graces of composition, except in the period of the tenure by james i of the english crown, and in the cases of sir george mackenzie and archbishop leighton during the restoration. but the papers of addison and steele, "the tatler" and "the spectator," went everywhere, were eagerly read in scotland, and provoked imitation in the matter of style. literary clubs met in edinburgh taverns: and men corresponded with berkeley on philosophical subjects, as mackenzie had corresponded on literature with john evelyn. in addition to the literary clubs a centre of interest in poetry and prose was the shop[pg 445] of allan ramsay (1686-1758) who passed from the trade of a wigmaker to that of a bookseller. in 1724 he published "the evergreen," a collection of old scots verses from the manuscript made by george bannatyne (1545-1608) during a visitation of the plague (1568).[1] ramsay's "tea-table miscellany" (1724-1727) was a medley of old scots and new songs and lyrics: the new made by ramsay and his disciples to be sung to the old scots tunes. the old verses were the basis of the new, which are a mixture of the simple ancient matter with that of the eighteenth century. hamilton of gilbertfield, who, by modernizing blind harry's "wallace," produced a book very inspiring to burns, was a contemporary of ramsay: they wrote to each other "epistles" in verse, in the manner continued by burns. ramsay's "gentle shepherd" (1725) contains matter more true to scottish shepherd life than is common in pastoral poetry: and ramsay's elegies, in burns's favourite metre, on such personages as maggy johnstoun, an ale-wife, were models for fergusson and burns. allan was no friend of the more rigid presbyterian party, and once, at least, in the pretty song of "the blackbird," he showed the colours of the jacobite. another poet, hamilton of bangour (1704-1754) was actually out with prince charles in 1745; his slim volume of 1744, "poems on several occasions," contains little that dwells in the memory except the beautiful and melancholy song of yarrow,
busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride.
in this little renaissance, whose poets always had their eyes on the romantic past, lady wardlaw (1677-1727) produced what was taken for an old ballad, "hardyknute," the first, scott said, that he ever learned, the last that he would ever forget. but it needed "a poetic child" to find so much merit in "hardyknute". ladies like lady grizel baillie (1665-1746) with "were na my heart licht i wad dee," and miss jean elliot of minto, with "the flowers of the forest," a lament for flodden, were surpassed in the number, and equalled in the merit of their songs by lady[pg 446] nairne (an oliphant of gask, and a hereditary jacobite) (1766-1845). she was the best of the known and named poets of the cause which has had so many singers; and her strains were continued by the last of these lady minstrels and musicians, lady john scott, a spottiswoode (1810-1900). the new day was dawning in scotland, thus early in the eighteenth century, and the birds were singing prelusive to burns, scott, and hogg. indeed, lady nairne's "will ye no come back again?" and "the auld house," and "wi' a hundred pipers and a,'" and "the land o' the leal," are far better remembered than the poems of robert fergusson (1750-1774) who died so young, the harmless, hapless villon of st. andrews and edinburgh, and, in certain poems, the model of burns.
these poets were not more determined to be scots (though ramsay and fergusson also wrote in english) than the wits who attempted prose were set on speaking english with the english accent, and on avoiding scotticisms. the select society (1754) was a debating society whose members were taught to speak english by an irishman, the father of the famous author of "the school for scandal". the results were matter of admiration. they produced an "edinburgh review" which survived into two numbers: it had intended to appear every six months, but expired, though edinburgh was full of literati, including the rev. hugh blair, a once celebrated preacher, and hume's friend, the rev. john home (1722-1808) whose tragedy, "douglas," "gave the clergy cause for speculation". hume declared that home possessed "the true theatric genius of shakespeare and otway, refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one, and licentiousness of the other". posterity has not confirmed hume's verdict, but home is the one "mellow glory" of the scottish stage.
the rev. adam ferguson (1723-1816), as chaplain of the black watch, went in at fontenoy with the claymore. "remember your commission, sir," shouted his colonel. "d— my commission, sir!" shouted the chaplain. his "history of margaret, otherwise called sister peg" (1760), is a humorous and valuable sketch of the antipathy between england and scotland in 1760-1770. these men, and many others,—lord kames,[pg 447] lord monboddo, lord hailes, a serviceable critical historian, beattie, the poet of "the minstrel," and the satirist of the dead churchill,—kept alive the interest in all forms of literature. the great men of the time, to be treated in a later chapter, alas! fall under the censure of charles lamb, that their "books are no books," but charles's sympathy with scotland was confessedly imperfect.
out of this medley of new and old, of the vernacular scots with the affected english of edinburgh, out of the ancient ballads and old frolicsome rural ditties, arose the style of burns.
robert burns.
the place of burns in poetry may be called unique. his genius was the incarnation, as it were, of his country people's through many centuries, generations, from the one musical stanza on the death of alexander iii (1285) to the simplest song that the milkmaids crooned at their work. in literary poetry, as we have seen, the part played by scotland had been partly derivative. the greatest poets, those of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, were professed followers of chaucer: drummond of hawthornden was a lyrist and sonneteer under italian and elizabethan influences. of barbour and blind harry, burns had little but the burning patriotism: his real predecessors were the many named or nameless popular song-makers, and makers of lays of rural merriment; and the music of the scottish tunes to which their words were wedded. of the popular ballads, romantic or historical, he professed no high esteem: no "white plumes were dancing in his eye," chivalry was not his subject: his matter was rural life and nature; and he had the true scottish love of the rivers and burns of his country. in the furnace of his genius all the ancient poetic material, all the folk-song (but not "the fairy way of writing") was recast and refashioned in forms singularly varied, vivid, and real: while, to pursue the metaphor, the furnace was fanned by all the winds of his age—now of democracy; now of loyalty to "a man undone," and a dying dynasty; now of patriotic resistance to "haughty gaul," and her threats of invasion.
in the fire of his nature and of his passions burns resembled byron, but his humour was kindlier, his ear more tuneful, and his[pg 448] gift of creating character was infinitely more varied. he had the eye of molière or of fielding for a hypocrite; and combined the delusion that the covenanters were the friends of freedom, with a scornful contempt of the discipline and doctrines of the successors of the covenanters. in affairs of the heart he exhibits the usual pastoral morality, that of the shepherds and goatherds of theocritus, with little of the sicilian grace and charm.
the life of burns is so familiarly known that the briefest survey must suffice. born on 25 january, 1759, in a clay bigging in the parish of alloway, in ayrshire, he was the son of a small labouring farmer of the class whence so many of the martyrs and stout fighting men of the covenant sprang. his father, a "grave liver" and devout, like them, managed to obtain for burns, and out of every book which came in his way burns picked-up for himself, a fair literary education. he owed much, especially many opportunities of reading, to a young tutor, mr. murdoch. he never was such a bookish man as hogg, neglected as hogg's education was in youth, but he acquired a knowledge of french, and studied molière. the hardships of a poor farmer, in a cold soil, under a heartless "factor," the severest struggles for existence were known to burns, but he also had his fill of dancing and "daffing," and the consequent "kirk discipline". on this aspect of his life and adventures what is best to say has been said by keats, in a letter written from burns's country.
entanglements of love affairs, and despair of success in life, caused burns to contemplate emigration to the west indies, but first he published at kilmarnock (july, 1786), a collection of his songs and verses which instantly made him famous. invited to edinburgh, he passed a winter there in learned, noble, and festive society, carrying the celebrated duchess of gordon "off her feet," as she said, but winning far more admirers and boon companions than serviceable friends.
the earl of glencairn, whom burns immortalized in sincere and glowing verse, died young; the age of harley and bolingbroke, of pensions and places for poets, was long dead. burns met scott, then a boy of 15; scott later said that he was unworthy to tie burns's shoes, but had the men been of equal age, better work[pg 449] would have been found for burns than the perilous and bitterly uncongenial task of the exciseman (1789).
not successful as a farmer at ellisland (his capital was no more than the scanty profits of his poems), burns settled in the pretty little town of dumfries. here his wit and genius made him the guest of the town and country, of lairds and tourists, and tradesmen. a constitution naturally robust, though injured by early privation, broke down; he had not the energy to continue in the vein of "tam o' shanter"; but poured out his songs, original, or re-creations of old popular ditties, till his death on 21 july, 1796.
burns was singular as a poet, in one point: he needed, as it were, to have a key-note struck for him, and he prolonged and glorified the note which had inspired him. far from concealing the fact, he acknowledged, with perfect candour and generosity, his debt to robert fergusson. this poet, born in edinburgh (1750), and educated at the university of st. andrews, died, after an interval of madness, in 1774. he, like burns, had been too welcome a guest of more seasoned convivialists for the sake of his wit. his verses in english are commonplace, but his lyrics, in burns's favourite measure, on the rude pleasures of edinburgh tavern life, his "leith races," "the farmer's ingle," "ode to the gowdspink," and other pieces, gave burns the needed key-note for "the cottar's saturday night," "the holy fair" (the sacramental meeting in the open air, a relic of covenanting days), and, perhaps, for the poems on "the mouse," and "the mountain daisy". burns has so entirely eclipsed fergusson that he is scarcely remembered, even in scotland.
"poor mailie's elegy" had a much older predecessor; and, generally, burns's songs start from an old tune, to which, through the ages, new verses had been set in new generations. there was a jacobite "auld lang syne," there was a jacobite "for a' that," there was a very improper "green grows the rashes, o'" and so on, endlessly. but burns, in many cases, transfigured his original. that he shone more in scots than in english is admitted—but the best verses in his "jolly beggars" are in english, and there is only one word spelled in the scots fashion in
[pg 450]
had we never lov'd sae kindly,
had we never lov'd sae blindly,
never met or never parted—
we had ne'er been broken hearted.
the same song contains the conventional lines—
deep in heart-wrung tears i'll pledge thee,
warring sighs and groans i'll wage thee.
the vigour and variety, the humour, the pity, the scorn, and the sentiment of burns were all entirely new when he wrote, and his variety enabled him to please the most widely different tastes. critics who were horrified by "the jolly beggars," and "the holy fair," and the reckless song to anna found consolation in "the cottar's saturday night," and the lament for "highland mary"
thou ling'ring star with lessening ray,
in english. poems in the manner of these two last are sometimes spoken of as "sentimental," but the sentiment was as real a mood, while it lasted, as the scorn, or the revelry.
of burns it may be said that, beloved as he has been, not always for his best qualities, by the uncritical, he has been no less admired by the greatest poets of the age that followed his own, keats, scott, and wordsworth. no poet ever was more truly national; none had more of the genius of the popular past, and the aspirations of the popular future; none was more essentially and spontaneously lyrical; none was more at home with mature, with human society (with the life of the animal world, too, as in "the twa dogs"), and, in the humorous tale, none has excelled "tam o'shanter". no poet wears better in the changes of circumstance and taste. his letters, though of capital biographical interest, are sometimes of a comic complexion; "the style of the bird of paradise" prevails, now and then, in his english prose. but his english verse, as scott found to be the way with his countrymen when they had, in passionate moments, "gotten to their english," is sometimes the natural vehicle of high reflection or of sincere grief.
[pg 451]
charles churchill.
satire is the least worthy kind of poetry; for it is almost never sincere. the writer is always in a fatiguing state of virtuous indignation about matters for which he really cares very little, except when his virulence is brewed out of personal spite. satire, in fact, is only tolerable when combined with the smiling humour of horace, the occasional majesty of juvenal, the grace, wit, and finish of pope, or the airy contempt and sonorous lines of dryden. charles churchill had little of the qualities of these poets, yet was, no doubt, the most popular writer of satire in the rhymed heroic couplet between pope and byron. he was born in 1731, the son of the rector at rainham; was at westminster school a contemporary of cowper and warren hastings; did not study at either university, though he was admitted to trinity, cambridge; married at 18, and married unwisely; took orders, and returned to lay costume and pursuits, and in 1761, looking about for a theme of satire that promised notoriety, had the happy thought of attacking the actors and actresses of the day in "the rosciad". "the profession" is sensitive; the actors were not silent about their wrongs; there was plenty of hubbub, and the satire was remunerative. any man who stoops to taunt actors, and even actresses, by personal attacks in rhyme, can make himself notorious. perhaps the best-known rhymes of churchill are
on my life
that davies hath a very pretty wife.
there were replies and hostile reviews, and churchill, in "the apology," assailed garrick as "the vain tyrant" with
his puny green-room wits and venal bards.
garrick is said not to have dared to contemn things contemptible, and to have propitiated churchill. as ally of jack wilkes, he "took the wilkes and liberty" to assail scotland in "the prophecy of famine".
waft me, some muse, to tweed's inspiring stream
. . . . . . . . . .
where, slowly winding the dull waters creep
and seem themselves to own the power of sleep.
[pg 452]
in fact, "the glittering and resolute streams of tweed," as the old cromwellian angler, richard franck, styles them, are only dull and sleepy in the "dubs" where england provides their flat southern bank.
in 1763 churchill assailed hogarth in an epistle, and hogarth replied in kind with a truly english caricature. he wrote several other satires and a hudibrastic skit, in four books, on dr. johnson's incursion into psychical research, in the matter of the famous cock lane ghost. churchill died at boulogne, in november, 1764, and is buried at dover. in private life he displayed some kindly and honourable qualities, and byron, before leaving england for ever, in 1816, consecrated a poem to his grave. to the discredit of scotland, dr. beattie lampooned churchill—after he was dead!
george crabbe.
born more than twenty years after cowper, but making his first noticeable entry into literature at the same time as he, crabbe belongs in curious ways to different schools and different ages. in verse he follows the tradition of pope and goldsmith; writing, in his best-known works, in the rhymed ten syllables, and much influenced by goldsmith's "deserted village," and by reaction against the smiling conventional "pastorals", but perhaps crabbe's genius, stern and almost grim, was unfortunate in finding no other vendible vehicle of his thought than verse, for his natural bent was to the modern "realistic" novel on the squalor, sufferings and sins of the neglected rural poor. he had a genius like that of several modern novelists, for painting all that in nature or human nature is dark, lowering, and sullen; he is unsparingly devoted to actual study from the life; and yet he has a peculiar humour of his own. his later works were "tales," short stories in the measure of pope, but destitute of brilliance, and extremely prolix, so that, though these narratives in verse were apparently more popular than the contemporary novels of miss austen, the rapid rise and universal popularity of the prose novel began to deprive crabbe of readers even in his own later years. crabbe, who had been praised by dr. johnson, lived to enjoy the generous applause of scott, byron, miss austen, and, what was more rare, the approval of wordsworth.[pg 453] but as, in the beginning of his career, he censured the newspaper as the supplanter of poetry, so, before his death in 1832, he found that the world preferred novels in prose to short tales of modern life in verse. he profited by the brief period of the bloom of poetry, but his biographer, canon ainger, observes that "crabbe is practically unknown to the readers of the present day". the gaiety and grace which in cowper alternate with gloom, and make many of his poems so generally familiar, were not elements in the genius of crabbe.
he was born at aldeburgh, on the coast of suffolk, on christmas eve, 1754, the son of a man who had been a schoolmaster, but later obtained a small post in the customs. in crabbe's day aldeburgh was not, as now, a watering-place, but through the inroads of the sea, was become a squalid smuggling village with a desolate background of poor and ill-cultivated land: as described in "the village". crabbe was from childhood a great devourer of books, and at the second of his two country schools acquired latin enough for his later purposes. he was apprenticed to a surgeon, fell early in love, at 18 won a prize for a magazine poem, "hope," made songs to his mistress's eyebrow, printed (1775) a moral poem ("inebriety"), at ipswich practised medicine in a humble way, and in april, 1780, went to london with his surgical instruments and three pounds in his pocket. he wrote poems which were declined by publishers; though there was an opening for a poet—
when verse her wintry prospect weeps,
when pope is gone, and mighty milton sleeps,
when gray in lofty lines has ceased to soar,
and gentle goldsmith charms the town no more.
(lines of 1780.) but the opening was occupied by cowper, and crabbe was as destitute as chatterton, when a letter written by him to burke excited the sympathy of that generous heart in 1781. burke offered encouragement and hospitality, thurlow gave money; crabbe was introduced to fox, reynolds and dr. johnson, took orders, was made curate of his native village, liked it not, and became chaplain of the duke of rutland at belvoir. later he held a variety of livings, and, for a poet so satirical about[pg 454] clerical neglect of the poor, was, inconsistently, a pluralist and an absentee, till his bishop made him mend his ways.
his first poem of any note, "the library" (1781-2) has no great merit: we see that the novel, to crabbe's mind, was represented by the old heroic romance,
bloody deeds
black suits of armour, masks, and foaming steeds.
in "the village" (1783) crabbe showed his true self in realistic descriptions of wretchedness. he first tells the pastoral muse that her day is over:—
i paint the cot,
as truth will paint it, and as bards will not.
there follows a perfect masterpiece of landscape in his manner, "the thin harvest with its withered ears" beyond the "burning sands"; the blighted rye, the thistles, poppies, blue bugloss, slimy mallow, the tares, the charlock. the peasants are "a wild amphibious race" of smugglers and fishers; the farm-labourers
hoard up aches and agues for their age,
and
mend the broken hedge with icy thorn.
in the poorhouse, amidst unspeakable filth, the dying are neglected by the doctor and the sporting curate, and the dead are buried without rites. there is not a gleam of hope or sunshine, except in the accidental mention of "the flying ball, the bat, the wicket". the poet ends with applause of the heroic death in action of lord robert manners, and with consolatory remarks to the duke of rutland.
the poem was successful and was admired by scott, then a lad of 18: a few lines had been contributed by dr. johnson.
deserting the topics in which he was strongest, crabbe (1785) published "the newspaper"; the papers are
a daily swarm that banish every muse,
for these unread the noblest volumes lie,
for these unsoiled in sheets the muses die....
for daily bread the dirty trade they ply,
coin their fresh tales and live upon the lie.
"the puffing poet" is also censured.
[pg 455]
crabbe continued to write, but not till 1807 did he publish "the parish register," which returns to the theme of "the village". he was now doing duty at his parish, muston, and, not unnaturally, found that, in various forms, the people had become nonconformists. he now took a much more cheerful view of "the cot," and found its book-shelf well occupied by the bible, bunyan, and old english fairy tales; while the garden was rich in salads, carnations, hyacinths, and tulips. but crabbe turns with more zest
to this infected row we term our street,
he enumerates the smells, and describes the horrible results of overcrowded dwellings; and catalogues the disguises, the weapons, and the implements of the poacher. there follows the sad story of "the miller's daughter"; and another girl who thus addresses her clerical rebuker,
alas! your reverence, wanton thoughts, i grant,
were once my motive, now the thoughts of want.
this is a fair example of crabbe's favourite punning antitheses, like
loose in his gaiters, looser in his gait.
in "the parish register" crabbe reduces the story of a life to the brevity of an anecdote, and in the dearth of novels his book was very popular. a better book of a similar scope and aim, in prose, galt's "annals of the parish," was being written, but, taking time by the forelock, crabbe, in 1810, produced "the borough," descriptions of a large country town, including tales in verse of more considerable length. but, in 1804-1805, he had written a poem which is strange in his work, "sir eustace grey," a tale told by a madman, a record of the dreams of madness, closely resembling de quincey's account of the visions begotten by opium, and, in essence, not unlike coleridge's "pains of sleep". the metre is that of the french ballade, and of the oldest scottish ditty on the death of alexander iii. thus
they hung me on a bough so small,
the rook could build her nest no higher,
they fixed me on the trembling ball
[pg 456]that crowns the steeple's quivering spire;
they set me where the seas retire,
but drown with their returning tide;
and made me flee the mountain's fire
when rolling from its burning side.
this adventure into romance has imaginative merits, and a speed of movement elsewhere unexampled in the work of crabbe. the hymn with which poor sir eustace consoles himself might have been written by cowper when first converted and "from cells of madness unconfined":—
pilgrim, burdened with thy sin,
come the way to zion's gate;
there, till mercy let thee in,
knock and weep, and watch and wait.
knock! he knows the sinner's cry:
weep! he loves the mourner's tears:
watch! for saving grace is nigh:
wait! till heavenly light appears.
crabbe thought it necessary to apologize for the "enthusiasm" of the hymn, and to point out that sir eustace, had he been sane, would not have been converted by "a methodistic call". "the world of dreams," in the same stanza, might take its place in "sir eustace grey," so similar are the processions of terrible fantastic visions. these things are very strange among the vigorous but heavy-footed marches of crabbe's habitual style.
to return to "the borough," crabbe paints its very aspect with his dutch precision; and, incidentally, strikes at his rivals, the enthusiasts of various sects, who were much more popular preachers than himself.
their, earth is crazy and their heaven is base,
he says of the followers of swedenborg. as for the jews,
they will not study and they dare not fight,
he exclaims; making an exception for mendoza and other famed semitic bruisers. the poem is of some value to the social historian, and the tales of the country coquette, and the horrible and haunted peter grimes, have a gloomy vigour, and somewhat resemble, in poetry, the moral pictures of hogarth.
[pg 457]
crabbe's later works were collections of tales in verse, and with all their merits their versification condemns them to general neglect. his "lady barbara, or the ghost" is not so successful in rendering the well-known story of "the beresford ghost" as is scott's early ballad "the eve of st john". to read with attention novels of everyday life narrated in the metre of pope, without the skill of pope, requires a vigorous effort.
in his tales (as when a sturdy orthodox farmer expels the demon of scepticism from his son by a sound trouncing) crabbe is often somewhat remote from our sympathetic modern tolerance of honest doubt. his method of narration is obsolete. in "the patron," the patronized youth of humble birth, who has loved the squire's daughter, is neglected,
and in the bed of death the youth reposed.
the nymph of his adoration is thus corrected by her mother:—
"emma," the lady cried, "my words attend,
your syren-smiles have killed your humble friend;
the hopes you raised can now delude no more,
nor charms, that once inspired, can now restore."
people did not speak in that style in miss austen's day; or in any other day.
crabbe died in the same year as sir walter scott, who, like byron, wordsworth, and tennyson, appreciated that in him which was rare, excellent, and original.
[1] the bannatyne club, for the printing and preservation of old manuscripts, a kind of scottish roxburghe club, was founded by sir walter scott in memory of the old lover of poetry.
