coleridge.
the so-called romantic movement in the english literature of the early nineteenth century, was, first, the result of a tendency to expansion in every conceivable direction. there was delight in the freedom of the open air and of nature: in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most men who were not fox hunters were devoted to "the stuffy business of living in houses," and passed the greater part of the day in coffee houses and taverns, drinking wine, tea, chocolate, and ceaselessly conversing. the fat georgian faces of hume and gibbon, the early corpulence and early gout are indications of the life led, when they could afford it, by men of letters. "the return to nature," in poetry implied a reaction against these habits.
politically, there was, in connexion with the french revolution, expansion in the direction of universal brotherhood. "be my brother or i will cut your throat" (sois mon frère, ou je te tue) was the motto of extreme philanthropists.
it's comin' yet for a' that
that man to man the world o'er
shall brithers be for a' that,
wrote burns while the guillotine was in the making, and the thunder was approaching of the revolutionary and napoleonic wars.
these emotions of hope for the near future entered, no less than the love and study of nature, into the romantic literature, and the minds of the poets also expanded in theological and[pg 498] mystical speculation, half german, half in the style of greek platonic philosophy.
the sentiment of human unity also turned to the past; history was revivified; mediaeval art was appreciated; chivalry was an ideal—and a very excellent ideal, were human nature capable—of carrying it into practice. verse was emancipated, all that goldsmith protested against,—sonnets, blank verse, happy negligence, "anapests"—flourished, and the characteristics of the new age were variously illustrated by men all born within some five years of each other, in the north or the south, william wordsworth (1770), walter scott (1771), samuel taylor coleridge (1772), robert southey (1774), and charles lamb (1775), to whom we may add walter landor (1775).
of these the most inspiring influence was probably that of the man who produced the least in bulk of great literature, coleridge. he was, as it were, the socrates of the time, the talker. coleridge was born at the vicarage of ottery st. mary, in the devonshire which herrick and keats so much disliked, on 21 october, 1772. his father, the rev. john coleridge, was vicar and master of the grammar school, and for goodness, learning, and ignorance of the world was compared by his son to fielding's parson adams. coleridge describes himself as a dreamy child, useless at games, "timorous, and a tell-tale," "despising most boys of my own age". "you can't think how ignorant these boys are!" said scott, when asked, as a child, why he was not playing with his little neighbours. like r. l. stevenson, coleridge suffered from night fears and visions of fever, born of "the arabian nights". he "had seen too many ghosts to believe in them". after the death of his father, who appreciated him, coleridge went to christ's hospital in london (1782), and lamb has described his life, and his early home-sickness at that painfully spartan academy. though he revived
by internal light,
the trees, the meadows, and his native stream,
while a schoolboy coleridge's spirits were high; he made friends enough, charles lamb being the first; read widely; dipped, like[pg 499] other curious boys, into the dreams of the post-christian neoplatonists,—iamblichus, the great authority on spiritualism, and plotinus, so good in parts—and adored, at 17, the twenty sonnets of the rev. mr. bowles (1762-1850), afterwards the opponent of byron in the question "was pope a poet?" bowles, at all events, handed the torch of non-popeian poetry to coleridge, who won scholarships and exhibitions that maintained him at jesus college, cambridge (1791). here he met wordsworth of st. john's, already a printed poet, at a meeting of an essay society. but coleridge had not written his essay!
he now fled from cambridge "to be a dragoon," which did not suit his genius. he returned to cambridge: visited oxford in 1794, met southey of balliol, and with him made a plan to migrate with kindred souls to the states, and found a pantisocratic society, wherein all should be brothers and equals. coleridge was as fit to be a farming colonist as mr. micawber, and, being just off with one love, he presently engaged himself to another, miss sara fricker, a sister of southey's bride. coleridge at this time wrote a good deal of verse and described his own hand as "graspless"; his genius as "sloth-jaundiced all," while, elsewhere, he spoke of his "fat vacuity of face," an eighteenth century face, with full lax lips, redeemed by dark intelligent eyes. coleridge was
like some bold seer in a trance
seeing all his own mischance.
he left cambridge without a degree, married on the prospects of his poetry; started a weekly serial, "the watchman," and (1796) published "poems". some of them were written at school; many of them are full of gray's allegorical figures, one, "religious musings" in blank verse, is on the nativity and the evils of society, others are imitative of bowles, an "ode to a young jackass," is reminiscent of sterne's donkey. perhaps some stanzas named "lewti, or the circassian love-chaunt" alone suggest the essential qualities of coleridge.
in 1796-1797, coleridge took a cottage at stowey: "the light shall stream to a far distance from the taper in my cottage[pg 500] window". he was busy with an unfinished poem on jeanne d'arc, in blank verse (fragments appear in "the destiny of nations"). he represented her as seeing her saints first when of the age of 20, to which she never attained: her eyebrows were "wildly haired". the voices, in coleridge, spoke to jeanne about the pacific ocean, the protoplast, leviathan, and kindred matters, not much in her way. jeanne has suffered as much at the hands of poets as from her french judges. lamb induced coleridge to abandon these absurdities.
in midsummer, 1797, coleridge met wordsworth and his "exquisite sister," dorothy, who paid a visit to stowey, and settled near him. a play, "osorio," was not accepted for the stage: the two poets formed various projects of collaboration, one resulted in "the ancient mariner" (march, 1798) the quintessence of romance. in 1798 coleridge met and carried captive hazlitt, who later broke his bonds with a glee and fury unworthy of him. by this time, according to hazlitt, coleridge had made experiments in opium, of which the bondage was never broken.
in 1798 the famous volume, "lyrical ballads," by coleridge and wordsworth, challenged the world with wordsworth's "idiot boy" and "tintern abbey," examples of the opposite poles of his genius; with "the ancient mariner," among other things. in 1798-1799 coleridge was studying in germany, absorbing philosophies: in 1800 he removed with his family to greta hall near keswick, or to windermere, while the wordsworths were at grasmere; hence the name of the lake poets.
coleridge was now working at the second part of the never-to-be-finished "christabel," begun at stowey. sir john stoddart read or repeated some stanzas of "christabel" to scott, who followed the metres of coleridge in "the lay of the last minstrel" (1805). coleridge (who did not publish "christabel," and the extraordinary fragment composed in sleep "kubla khan," with "the pains of sleep," till 1816) was not unjustifiably annoyed by the anticipation, of his metre, which was not new, but was first used by coleridge in romantic poetry. scott seems to have been quite unconscious of sin.
despite the large number of coleridge's poems, it is generally[pg 501] confessed that only "the ancient mariner," "christabel," "kubla khan," "love,"
all thoughts, all passions, all delights,
"youth and age" (1822-1832), "time, real and imaginary," with "dejection" (an ode, 1802), and parts of "france" (an ode, 1798) represent that in the poet which was absolutely his, and his alone. the vision, supernaturally clear, the music, the glow, the strange beauty, are present in these poems, things inimitable and unequalled. coleridge was always a "teacher" and had been a unitarian preacher: his early poems are constantly didactic, but, in his poems which live, there is no "lesson" (unless we regard "the ancient mariner" as a tract for the prevention of cruelty to animals). the great poems appear to have been given to him in flashes of vision, as "kubla khan" certainly was given in sleep, and broken by the arrival of "a person from porlock" on business. it is fairly apparent that "christabel" had its germ in a brief vision of the meeting of the innocent heroine with a being beautiful and horrible,
i guess,'twas frightful there to see
a lady so richly clad as she—
beautiful exceedingly.
we may even conjecture at the close of the vision, a thing so grotesque as well as terrible, that the poem could never find a conclusion.
it is not clear that coleridge's poems had much effect on those of younger contemporaries. without coleridge, shelley would have written as he did write; if anything by keats is influenced by coleridge it is "la belle dame sans merci". to scott, coleridge gave only the idea of the metre of "christabel". in close intimacy coleridge and wordsworth stimulated each other. in other respects coleridge's critical and philosophical ideas welled from him in lectures, orally delivered; his shakespearean criticism was of the highest merit in spiritual appreciation. in "the friend," an unsuccessful and unexhilarating periodical; in his "biographia literaria" (1817-1818) which is not so biographical or so literary as it is reflective, and critical of hartley's[pg 502] philosophy and wordsworth's poems, he is too discursive to be easily read; and the systematic works on philosophy about which he dreamed and talked were never produced.
his life, after his visit to italy and malta in 1804-1806, was desultory; his friendship with the wordsworths was interrupted; lamb, always true to him, could describe him as "a damaged archangel"; hazlitt, furious with coleridge's later conservatism, insulted his "christabel" in the "edinburgh review": and declared that the praises given to it by scott and byron were inspired by desire of praise from coleridge. from 1816 to his death in 1834 coleridge lived quietly and more happily with mr. gillman at hampstead, much visited by people who hoped to be instructed as well as charmed by his conversation, or rather by his monologues.
in 1820 keats met him and walked two miles with him. "he broached a thousand things—nightingales, poetry—on poetical sensation—metaphysics, different genera and species of dreams—a dream accompanied by a sense of touch, a dream related—first and second consciousness—the difference explained between will and volition—so say metaphysicians from a want of smoking" (that is detecting) "the second consciousness—monsters—the kraken—mermaids, southey believed in them—southey's belief too much diluted—a ghost story!"
"the second consciousness" may be the "subconsciousness" or "subliminal self" of modern psychologists. "he is a kind good soul," says the sardonic carlyle, "full of religion and affection, and poetry and animal magnetism." scott met "this extraordinary man" at dinner. coleridge (after dinner) lectured on the samothracian mysteries as the origin of all fairy tales; and on the "iliad" as a miscellany contributed to by many authors during a century. "zounds, i never was so bethumped with words."
walter scott.
sir walter scott, descended from the harden branch of the great clan that had kept the marches through centuries of english wars, was born in edinburgh on 15 august, 1771. neither from his[pg 503] father (the father of allan fairford, in "redgauntlet") nor from his mother, of another border clan, the rutherfords, can he be supposed to have drawn his genius, though mrs. scott appreciated literature. in early childhood a mysterious malady inflicted on him a life-long lameness, in contrast with his great physical strength, and his preference for the profession of arms. his early childhood was passed in the heart of the borders, at smailholme tower, overlooking tweed, teviot, and the scenes of a hundred battles. the old ballads were his earliest reading, and tales of prince charles's war, told by veterans of the forty-five, his great delight. at school he flashed from end to end of the form, rising by his general information, and falling by his indifference to grammar. he was an omnivorous reader, forgetting nothing, a teller of tales, a roamer on foot through the country-side, and he left the high school of edinburgh, quite greekless, for the university,—where he learned no greek. but of latin, including mediaeval latin, he had enough for his purposes (his quotations show indifference to quantity and metre); and french, italian, and german he acquired for the purpose of reading their poetry and romances. his native appreciation of verse astonished people in his childhood; love of the past was his dominant passion; and in nature the historical memories of places were even more to him than natural beauty.
after the customary training in his father's office, he was called to the scottish bar, enjoying little practice, but making friends in every rank, and enduring a disappointment in love, by which his heart, though fairly mended by his marriage in 1797, to a miss charpentier, was broken but not embittered.
his earliest published verses were translations from german ballads, including the famous "lenore" of bürger, and he published a translation of the "g?tz von berlichingen" of goethe. these essays attracted little attention: more was paid to such imitations of the old ballads as "glenfinlas," and "cadzow," and "the eve of st. john," abounding in poetic spirit, though not archaic in diction.
he obtained a long-deferred reversion of a place as clerk in the parliament house, and the sheriffship of selkirkshire (the forest of ettrick) where in summer he resided, first at ashestiel[pg 504] on tweed, the centre of the beauties and legends of the border. in yearly raids into almost roadless liddesdale, he learned to know the dandie dinmonts, and collected the traditions, and the ballads of "the border minstrelsy," of which the first edition, with copious historical and antiquarian notes, was published in 1802.
the famous false alarm of invasion of 1803, described in "the antiquary," sent him on a ride of a hundred miles, to dalkeith, the house of his chief, the duke of buccleuch, and the trysting-place of the borderers. a command of the duchess suggested a ballad on a tradition of a goblin page; parts of coleridge's unpublished "christabel," which he had heard recited, gave the model of the irregular octosyllabic verse, and in 1805 the result, "the lay of the last minstrel," made scott by far the most popular of poets. "the lay" was the most spontaneous, and in many ways the best, of his romances in verse. "marmion" (1808) more studied, more tragical, and fortunate in the magnificent canto on the battle of flodden: and "the lady of the lake" (1810), with its blending of highland and lowland characters and scenes in the reign of james v. (about 1535) only confirmed his popularity and success. "rokeby" (1812) was, despite its excellent songs, and a highly byronic outlaw preceding byron, less favourably received; and "the lord of the isles" (1815), on the adventures of bruce, a subject long meditated, was not saved by its battle of bannockburn, a fight only inferior to the flodden of "marmion". byron, with his modern romance and his living celebrity, had defeated the historical muse; and scott did not put forth his strength in "harold the dauntless" and "the bridal of triermain".
he was the best judge of his own poetry, written "for young people of spirit," he said, though he did not allow his own young people to read it; a deprivation which they took very unconcernedly. it is not to scott's poetry, except in some of his lyrics, that we look for deep reflection on human destinies, or for delicate subtlety of phrase,
all the charm of all the muses
often flowering in a lonely word.
his reflections he kept to himself; he told his story in his galloping[pg 505] "light horseman" style of verse; he made the dead past live again; he repeopled with their dreams the roofless towers of the borders, the highland caves and bothies, the deserted palaces and castles, whose last native king was then dying, a priest, in rome. his verses, read aloud to wellington's men in spain, inspirited them in the charge, as they awoke among all men what had long been slumbering, the love of poetry. scott, like yama, the first of men who died, "opened a pathway unto many": inclined men to give an ear to verse. he set byron the model for his popular versified tales of oriental adventure; and he was unceasing in recommending the poetry, so unlike his own, of wordsworth, and in applauding byron with unfeigned generosity; while his devotion to the old english drama displays itself in quotations in his prose, and in imitations, improvised chapter-headings, in his novels. from his first translations of ballads, to the snatches sung by madge wildfire, the song of "proud maisie," and the ringing lyric of "bonnie dundee," he first awoke and then kept vigilant the spirit of ancient popular minstrelsy.
in short his poetry was such as came to a man of his genius, during his "grand gallops among the hills, while he was thinking of 'marmion'". his laxities in form are, indeed, less glaring than those of byron, but, from the first, were conspicuous to himself and to his critics. his appeal to names of hill and loch and sea-strait, rivers and burns and towers and glens, makes half of his charm in the ears of those to whom the places are dear and familiar. he was "the latest minstrel," the homer, the creative and unifying successor of many nameless men who left great verse unto a little clan. above all he was a narrator, at story-teller, a creator of characters, a humorist, and his essential genius, his dramatic gift, his knowledge of the past and the present, found its true vehicle in the prose of his novels.
scott's career falls naturally into two parts: first from the "minstrelsy" (1802) to "the lord of the isles" (1815), and next from "waverley" (1814) to the authors death in 1832. but in the earlier years were sown the seeds of disaster; scott had, before 1813, been entangled in financial troubles, owing to his[pg 506] association with the printing and publishing affairs of his old friends, james and john ballantyne. despite his common sense, scott was sanguine and unpractical as a publisher; his enterprises were dominated by preferences, personal or antiquarian; his hospitality and his tastes were expensive, and his associates were not the men to control and direct him; or even to keep the commercial books of the concern. in fact shipwreck, once at least, seemed inevitable, before scott struck a vein of fairy gold in prose romance.
before speaking of scott as a novelist it should be said that he was the most copious, various, and readable of the critics and general writers of his time. his great edition of dryden, now reinforced by the notes of mr. saintsbury, still holds its ground, in despite of the contempt of leigh hunt; and his "life of swift" is still the most valuable, for the judgment of so sane and generous a mind on the mystery of swift's character and career. scott's many essays, collected from periodicals, mainly from "the quarterly review," which he practically founded, are treasures of information and anecdote. his criticism for example in the "lives of the novelists" errs most in the direction of generosity. his "tales of a grandfather," written for his little grandson, john lockhart, who died in childhood, combines delightful versions of historic legends of early times with the most impartial treatment of such difficult and disputable periods as the reformation and the age of the covenant. scott had strong sentimental leanings towards mary stuart, the cavaliers, and the jacobites, but, in writing history for the young, he deliberately corrected his bias. a life of mary stuart he refused to write, because his reason was at variance with his feelings. his "napoleon" was a piece of task-work, executed with cruel rapidity, and, of course, he had not access to many sources of information now open. of course, too, like any man who had lived through the napoleonic wars, he was a partisan, in his case of his country's party. but he did not carry political partisanship into literature; he had no part (despite ignorant assertions) in the attacks on "the cockney school"; he tried to tempt charles lamb to visit him at abbotsford; and he seized an opportunity of applauding mrs. shelley's "frankenstein" because he believed it to be by shelley.
[pg 507]
william wordsworth.
the contrast between the friends, coleridge and wordsworth, was that which poets observe between the south and the north. the child of the soft enervating air of devonshire, coleridge, according to his own early diagnosis already quoted, had every other gift, mental and moral, but lacked energy and resolution, his hand was "graspless". wordsworth, on the contrary (born at cockermouth, 7 april, 1770) was a child of the north and of the border, and a grandchild of dorothy, born crackanthorp, a member of a family which, in the old border laws, is named among the watchers of the fords, against the scottish raiders. to a genius as great if not as diversified as coleridge's, wordsworth united an iron will to be a poet and, as he said, "a teacher,". with the keenest love of universal nature from the mountains and the storms to "the meanest flower that blows," he combined that sense of unity with nature, and with "something still more deeply interfused," which coleridge speaks of in a poem (1795) composed before he and wordsworth became intimate. says coleridge
o the one life within us and abroad,
which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
a light in sound, a soundlike power in light,
rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere.
coleridge adds that when he lies at midday on the side of a hill, his fancies traverse his brain
as wild and various as the random gales
that swell and flutter on this subject lute,
namely an ?olian harp placed in the open window.
wordsworth, to the same emotions as of a conscious ?olian harp vibrating to the universe, added an invincible resolve to extract the moral out of every vibration, and to register it in verse. in this task he knew no slackness, he was daily observing, daily composing, consequently the mass of his poetry is very great, and very unequally inspired, since "it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill" of the poet, while wordsworth was busy at all moments.
after a boyhood happily passed, when he was out of school, in[pg 508] angling, skating, boating, and setting springes for woodcock, wordsworth went to st. john's college, cambridge, in 1787, taking his bachelor's degree in 1791. he was an orphan; his father, a solicitor, had been far from prosperous, and it was perhaps to the generosity of his uncle that he owed the advantage of being allowed to "mew his mighty youth" in what the world calls idleness. he had the same intense consciousness of and reverence for his own genius as milton and tennyson possessed: he would be a poet and nothing but a poet, for the position of stamp distributor which he later enjoyed was a sinecure. concerning all his poetic childhood and boyhood, and residence in france (from the end of 1791 to the opening of 1793),
bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.
but to be young was very heaven,
down to his "wantoning in wild poesy" with coleridge (1797), he has told his tale in "the prelude" (1799-1805).
this extremely long poem in blank verse was regarded by wordsworth as "subsidiary to the preparation" for "the construction of a literary work that should live". after thus "investigating the origin and progress of his own powers as far as he was acquainted with them," wordsworth intended to produce "a philosophical poem... having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement". this poem, also in blank verse, was to be called "the recluse"; whereof only a few hundred lines exist, but "the excursion" was designed for the second part. "the recluse," wordsworth says, was to be a kind of gothic cathedral: "the prelude" is the "antechapel"; and the lyrics, sonnets, and other poems not so large as the antechapel "may be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in these edifices". these oratories are the most favourite portions of wordsworth's cathedral; and all his poems, long or short, except the tragedy "the borderers," "have for their principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement," but listening with a keen ear to hints and murmurs of the world.
[pg 509]
from enthusiasm for the french revolution, wordsworth, like burns, "when haughty gaul invasion threats," turned gradually to patriotism, as the french armies of emancipation conquered switzerland, invaded spain, and menaced england. now, like glenbucket at the battle of sheriffmuir (1715) he prayed "for one hour of dundee!" this unprincipled change of sides caused wordsworth's poems to be insulted by hazlitt, and in "the edinburgh review". he was constant, indeed, to his sympathy with poverty and toil, detested the factory system, and loved his mountains and lakes not only for the beauty of the clouds, mists, and gleams of sunlight, but because
labour here preserves
his rosy face, a servant only here
of the fireside or of the open field,
a freeman therefore sound and unimpaired
—("the recluse").
but wordsworth had not a noble scorn of "militarism"; he sang of nelson, and "the happy warrior," as well as of "the lesser celandine," and was attached to the anglican establishment; these things were not forgiven to the poetic renegade by whig critics, or to coleridge, or to southey, while scott, it was admitted, had never turned his coat.
wordsworth was singularly fortunate in the ideal affection of his sister dorothy,—whose eye for natural beauty was as keen as his own,—and in his wife, to whom he attributed two lines in "the daffodils"—
they flash upon that inward eye
which is the bliss of solitude.
of his friendship with coleridge, and of their volume "lyrical ballads," we have spoken. they contain examples of his theory, first given in the preface of the second edition of "lyrical ballads," that "the poet ought to imitate and, as far as is possible, adopt the very language of men... i have taken as much pains to avoid what is usually called poetical diction as others ordinarily take to produce it". but wordsworth could not, of course, keep up[pg 510] to his own standard. asked "what has become of the wild swans?" no mortal could reply
the dalesmen may have aimed the deadly tube
—("the recluse").
thus, in "lyrical ballads," in "the idiot boy," wordsworth wrote (and "i never wrote anything with so much glee"):—
and he must post without delay
across the bridge and through the dale,
and by the church, and o'er the down,
to bring a doctor from the town,
or she will die, old susan gale.
dr. johnson had anticipated this theory of non-poetic diction in poetry:—
as with my hat upon my head,
i walk'd along the strand,
i there did meet another man
with his hat in his hand.
wordsworth stood courageously—all the more stiffly because he was laughed at—by his theory. in practice he made the poor woman of "the affliction of margaret" talk of "the incommunicable sleep" of the dead, here the not ordinary word has a meaning not ordinary.
"the lyrical ballads" contained poetry so remote from "the idiot boy" as the lines on tintern abbey; with
a sense sublime
of something far more deeply interfused,
whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
and the round ocean and the living air,
and the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
a motion and a spirit, that impels
all thinking things, all objects of all thought,
and rolls through all things.
mens agitat molem: it is the philosophy of virgil. the consciousness of this unity with nature and of both with that which is divine had been with wordsworth from his childhood, as he records in "the prelude" and elsewhere, and this aspect of[pg 511] his thought even affected byron, in the last part of "childe harold".
wordsworth's life was uneventful. he made tours, very fruitful in poetry, to scotland (1813, 1814, 1831, 1833); they are dated by "yarrow unvisited," "yarrow visited," "yarrow revisited". the tour of 1831 gave occasion to the noble and tender sonnet "a trouble not of clouds, or weeping rain," on the departure of the dying scott for italy. with this (1831) in our memories we cannot say that save for the ode "composed on an evening of extraordinary splendour and beauty," "all wordsworth's good work was done in the decade between 1798 and 1808". his poems of the year 1807 are, no doubt, the least lacking in uniform success. among them is the ode "on intimations of immortality". but "the white doe of rylstone," published in 1815, and proclaimed by "the edinburgh review" to be the very worst poem that ever appeared in quarto, was written in 1807: written in such stress of the spirit that the poet was not punctual to the dinner bell, as he informs us. the poem was an excursion into scott's metres, and one of scott's historic periods, but its intention was purely spiritual, and very unpopular.
the "laodamia" (1814), the meeting of the heroine with the spirit of her lord, the first man slain at troy, has been highly praised by an excellent judge (mr. f. w. myers). but when the appearance says "thy transports moderate!" we are in touch with the poetic diction of the eighteenth century and far from the inspiration of the greek "thrice i sprang toward the shadow of my mother dead; thrice she flitted from my hands as a shadow or even as a dream". it is, in fact, true that after 1808, with forty-two years of life and poetry before him, wordsworth often failed.
hail, orient conqueror of gloomy night
is an address to the sun which any follower of pope might have written ("ode for the morning of the general thanksgiving 1816").
many of wordsworth's most inspired passages are to be found in the long, lofty, and rather bleak antechapel and nave of "the prelude" and "the excursion". but lovers of poetry are most apt to kneel in his chapels and oratories; and to read, with unceasing[pg 512] delight and gratitude "in the sweet shire of cardigan," "i heard a thousand blended notes," "there was a boy, ye knew him well, ye cliffs"; "she dwelt among the untrodden ways," "lucy gray," "beggars," "sweet highland girl," "to the cuckoo," "the ode to duty," "the happy warrior," and the multitude of sonnets of the highest and most varied excellence, in which his genius, like the follet of molière, rides his pen and his power comes to its own.
science or stupidity may some day try to compile the statistics of "inspiration" in poetry. inspiration cannot easily be defined, but may be described as represented, in a poet's work, by the passages in which, according to the common consent of readers, he reaches a level immeasurably higher than that of versified matter in general, and of his own efforts in particular.
in any such calculation the proportion of wordsworth's inspired verse—of verse of the very highest and most singular merit—is far above the proportion in coleridge. few readers who may amuse themselves by trying to "place" modern english poets after milton will give wordsworth anything lower than the second, while very many will give him the foremost rank. but the amount of his uninspired verse—of verse immeasurably below his best—is enormous, and this, with some other circumstances, accounts for the opposition, the refusal to accept him or take him seriously, which he had to encounter in his long life (7 april, 1770-23 april, 1850).
another obstacle, to be plain, was the infinite number of occasions in which the little, pronoun "i" occurs in his poetry. great, beneficent, and unique as was the genius of william wordsworth when he conceived "the prelude" as only the beginning of what he wanted to say about himself, and about the universe as mirrored in his own intelligence, it became only too manifest that he was, in an unexampled degree, destitute of humour. amusing anecdotes are told, by lockhart, of conversations between wordsworth and scott in which wordsworth's poetry was the sole theme, by no means to sir walter's discontent. on no contemporary but burns and coleridge did he bestow his approval: it may be doubted if he had spent half an hour with[pg 513] byron's, shelley's, and keats's verse. to be sure this self-absorption is a malady most incident to poets!
in later life (1820-1837) wordsworth visited the continent, even reaching italy. in 1839 he received a noble welcome and an honorary degree from oxford; in 1843, on southey's death, he accepted the laureateship, which, before southey's appointment, scott had refused; and on 23 april, 1850, he passed away, leaving to tennyson the laurels. he wished to teach us wisdom; he did something better, he gave us happiness.
robert southey.
the name of robert southey (born at bristol, 12 august, 1774) was always connected with the names of the lake school of poets, coleridge and wordsworth, though his theory and practice in poetry were quite distinct from those of the authors of "lyrical ballads". southey was educated at westminster, where his troubles began in his editorship of a little paper, "the flagellant," which was opposed to flogging. on entering balliol college, oxford (1792), he declared himself a rebel, wearing his hair long, as becomes men of genius, while women of genius commonly wear their hair short. he also despised his dons, and, nearly twenty years later, on meeting shelley, then aged 19, he found in shelley the counterpart of his undergraduate self. shelley, however, did not, when at oxford, contemplate taking holy orders. southey soon abandoned the idea, and, meeting coleridge at oxford in june, 1794, devised with him the scheme of a "pantisocratic" community in america.
with coleridge, southey wrote "the fall of robespierre," and, by himself, an epic in blank verse on jeanne d'arc. of this boyish effort—ambitious, and, in history, ill-informed—he had a high opinion, writing, in 1800, "my joan of arc has revived the epic mania... but it is not every one who can shoot with the bow of ulysses, and the gentlemen who think they can bend the bow because i made the string twang will find themselves disappointed". southey was always twanging the string of epic poetry. even at school he had contemplated a series of epics, to be written at the fate of one a year; on the mythological legends of the world. in[pg 514] 1795 he married miss edith fricker, a sister of the wife of coleridge, and visited portugal, acquiring, then and on a later visit, an unusual knowledge of the languages and literatures of the peninsula.
after an attempt to study law, he went to live at westbury, near bristol, began "madoc," an epic in blank verse on a legendary welsh prince who discovered america, and fought the aztecs, and he also began "kehama," an epic on hindoo mythology, and "thalaba, the destroyer," an epic based on the mythology of islam; while "madoc" deals largely with the sanguinary religion of anahuac.
in "madoc," which was not completed till after southey settled at keswick, near wordsworth, but not too near, he had chosen for a theme perhaps the most romantic adventure in human history. he assigns to his fabulous welsh prince the part actually taken by cortes, the cymri defeated the aztecs as did the spaniards.
southey's blank verse is somewhat miltonic, though he was no such "inventor of harmonies" as milton, while in descriptions of adventure among unknown peoples, and fighting with aztec weapons, he reminds the reader of some of the romances of mr. rider haggard. books xiv.-xv. ("the stone of sacrifice" and "the battle") cannot but delight any boy who reads them, they are full of spirit and abundantly picturesque; while the notes are as rich as scott's in the charm of strange lore, and delightful passages from forgotten books. thus from the jesuit missionary, lafitau (for southey fully appreciated the virtues of jesuit missionaries), he culls a red indian legend, one of the world-wide variants of the tale of orpheus and eurydice. sir walter scott, in 1807, wrote to southey "i have read 'madoc' three times since my first cursory perusal, and each time with an increasing admiration. but a poem whose merits are of that high tone does not immediately take with the public at large."
in fact "thalaba," written in a strange unrhymed measure, devised by dr. sayres, deals with topics of no earthly interest, the feud of thalaba and the demons of domdaniel. southey himself said that "thalaba" was like highly seasoned turtle soup, while[pg 515] wordsworth's poems were like asparagus and artichokes, wholesome, and edible with the aid of melted butter. but the world did not care for "thalaba," nor for the monstrosities of hindoo mythology in the eccentric measures of "kehama". landor, whose "gebir" southey heartily admired, offered to pay for the printing of as many epics as southey chose to write; he cast a longing eye on zoroaster; but southey had a wife and family, "a sacrifice was made," "kehama" was his last epic, unless we reckon "roderick" as an epic poem. southey was not destitute of poetic genius; passages in his epics, and among his lyrics, "my days among the dead are past," and "the holly tree," attest his gift, but the epic has seldom indeed been written with success, and never anywhere in such measures as those of "kehama" and "thalaba".
it was necessary for southey to turn his hand to prose, and he supported his family and bought his books by reviewing and political writing, first in "the annual register," then in "the quarterly review," though it was against the grain that he wrote in a political serial. he was a friend of his country as against bonaparte; he was a friend of order, while he was clear-sighted about the oppression and abuses which sheltered themselves under the shield of order; and he was a religious man. like scott he was anxious that the "quarterly" reviewers "should keep their swords clean as well as sharp," but the political blades of both the "quarterly" and the "edinburgh" were dirty and poisoned, and were wont to slash about in literary criticism. southey was the common butt of abuse from liberal reviewers, and was supposed by shelley and byron to have attacked them in criticisms to which he was a perfect stranger: though of "the new morality" of both poets he expressed his opinion privately, and publicly struck back at byron for his brilliant assault on southey's english hexameters concerning the admission of george iii. to heaven. southey must have been deserted by the sense of humour when he wrote that astonishing piece of verse in the capacity of poet laureate. this little piece of preferment southey obtained in 1813. sir walter, to whom it was offered, despite the "rapacity" of which macaulay accused him, had declined the laurels, and,[pg 516] believing that the post was much better paid than it is, had suggested the appointment of southey. the little salary, under a hundred pounds, enabled southey to provide for his family by insuring his life. in answering scott's letter—"i am not such an ass as not to know that you are my better in poetry"; southey said "there has been no race; we have both got to the top of the hill by different paths".
there is something very winning in southey's noble simplicity of nature. neither he nor scott had won to the top of parnassus hill, and scott was well aware of it. but southey to the last, in spite of public neglect, believed in his own success as a supreme poet; yet abandoned his epics for the homely task of winning a poor competence for his family by reviewing, and by doing job-work for the publishers. as his prose was of the first quality he was able to earn ￡300 by his masterpiece, the immortal "life of nelson". as an article for the "quarterly" it brought a hundred, another hundred when enlarged, a third when published in "the family library". his "life of john wesley" was only second to his "nelson" in merit. his "history of brazil" could not expect a due reward; his general writings, though full of pleasant erudition and fanciful humour, were not popular; towards the end of his life the revenues which he derived from a score of books amounted only to ￡26. he mentions the fact without bitterness, without complaint. his long and noble life of industry ended in 1843; for some time he had sat in the library which he had made without the power to read his books.
shelley.
percy bysshe shelley (born 4 august, 1792, at field place, horsham, the seat of his father, sir timothy shelley, bart.) seems to have incarnated the spirit of the revolution. he had no brothers to check his tastes and impulses; he ruled his sisters, was lonely at a private school, but at eton, where he already defied tyrants,—boys and masters,—he seems to have become popular, despite his eccentricities. like many other boys he made chemical smells and explosions in place of mastering his greek grammar. he read godwin, in whom he invested his great natural powers of[pg 517] belief to the neglect of more orthodox securities, and he combined godwinism with the romantic mechanism of mrs. radcliffe's novels in two schoolboy romances, "zastrozzi," the more amusing of the pair, and "st. irvyne". he is said to have received some money for "zastrozzi"; if he did the case was unparalleled in his later experience. when at university college, oxford, he published "poems by victor and cazire" (his sister elizabeth) and a little incoherent volume, "posthumous fragments of margaret nicholson," a maniac who aimed at murdering george iii.
he had no intimate friend except his future biographer, thomas hogg, a sceptic, but a tory; and his studies were desultory, self-directed, and much concerned with efforts to retain or ruin some remnants of belief. his little thesis on "the necessity of atheism," and his distribution of the paper, were perhaps as much inspired by his humourless love of practical jokes and aversion to the authorities as by conviction. his expulsion, which hogg insisted on sharing, was the rash reply of dons who were tired of being baited; and shelley, now a martyr, rejoiced in proclaiming the ideas for which he and hogg had suffered.
on ill terms with his father, he married miss harriet westbrook, a very young girl, more from a sense of duty and honour than from love; and in various rural places he lived, wrote, read godwin, corresponded with him, preached his ideas in ireland, and idealized and quarrelled with various friends of both sexes, till he met mary godwin, the very young daughter of the philosopher.
shelley had grown passing weary of his wife, who now declined to live with him as a sister while mary took her natural place; he retired with mary and her stepsister, jane clairmont, calling herself claire, to switzerland, and returned to england—because the stove in his room smoked badly.
reconciled to hogg (whom he had accused, truly or falsely, of trying to put his own ideas of free love into practice with mrs. shelley), he wrote "queen mab" (1813), (in which his natural genius shines unmistakably,) and "alastor" (1816), the story of a lonely spirit fleeing from itself through scenes of grandeur and desolation; homeless, like shelley, and like him unsatisfied. his own wanderings were restless rather than remote; to geneva,[pg 518] where claire clairmont carried out his ideas with the aid of the reluctant byron; back to great marlow; and thence, after marrying mary godwin, on the suicide of his injured wife, to various parts of italy, claire being still his camp-follower.
he had become the friend and benefactor of leigh hunt; godwin's demands for money followed him like harpies; he was deprived of his children by his first marriage; his long romance in spenserian stanzas, "laon and cythna," though expurgated and rechristened "the revolt of islam" (1818), attracted little but unfriendly attention, despite its many and extraordinary beauties and radiant visions of storm and rainbow, clouds and winds and fire. with unwonted humour shelley said that you might as well ask for a leg of mutton in a gin shop as apply to him for studies in human nature. madness, said medwin, a man who was much in his company, hung over shelley like the sword of damocles.
in his earlier years he was like an ?olian harp on which all the winds of the spirit played, making strange music and strange discords. he was even too fluent, keats told him; as jonson said of shakespeare, sufflaminandus erat. ideas of beauty springing up in his mind, he followed them, followed the cloud, the shower, the meteor, the evanescent loveliness, was borne up by the "wild west wind, the breath of autumn's being," leaving his narrative of human fortunes. he was a born visionary and mystic, beholding things unapparent; believing in experiences that never were actual. yet withal, when control was needed, he could control himself wonderfully, as was especially notable in his difficult and dangerous relations with the wild claire clairmont and byron.
in his poetic art, this growing power of control is especially manifest in his drama, "the cenci" (1819), and his swan-song, the matchless "adonais" (1821), the lament for keats. but "the cenci," a drama on a theme which was made to the hand of ford or webster,—the story of a soul more devilish in limitless cruelty and desire of evil than the soul of volpone; of a maiden martyr more cruelly entreated than jeanne d'arc,—was not possible on the modern stage.
[pg 519]
the polemics of "prometheus unbound" against the world as it is, and in favour of suffering and oppressed humanity, lost themselves, the contradictions vanished unreconciled in the music of the immortal lyrics. the escape from a world in which "as god made it ye canna hae everything as ye wad like it," to reach an undisturbed haven of love and loneliness, "to live for climate and the affections" inspires "the witch of atlas" (1820) and "epipsychidion" (1821). shelley's soul was always seeking its predestined and ideal mate, with whom "the wilderness were paradise enow," and then these ideal friends or mistresses, in a moment, became horrors to him,—and mary remained; mary and "a song in the ears of men yet to be born".
in his many immortal lyrics the poetry of shelley is most accessible to all; in them he is not baffled and foiled by the world as it is. what his powers might have become, for they were maturing rapidly, cannot be guessed. by a death in strange harmony with his genius, portended by omens, and predicted in his own words, he "was borne darkly fearfully afar," being drowned in a brief sudden tempest in the gulf of spezzia (19 july, 1822). the fire received what the water returned to earth, and his ashes sleep beside those of keats in "a place so beautiful that it makes one in love with death".
byron.
george gordon byron (born 1788) who succeeded in boyhood to the title of lord byron, was the son of a wild father, john byron, and of a mother as much wilder as the blood of the gordons of gight, in aberdeenshire, could make her. of all "the gay gordons" her family carried to the most extreme point the least estimable and more ferocious qualities of their glorious fighting clan. it is impossible to judge by a common measure the child of john byron and catherine gordon. byron was a man of all-conquering personal beauty, and great strength, marred by a painful and disfiguring blemish of lameness; and possessed by rather than possessing an intellectual fire that burned lawlessly where it listed.
at harrow, byron was, as always, inordinately conscious of his[pg 520] title; he was passionately affectionate, sullen, capricious, and, despite his lameness, played for the school against eton.[1] when at harrow, byron, who from the age of 8 was often in love, lost his heart to a girl older than himself, miss mary chaworth, who married mr. musters in 1805. on this affection, among others, he never ceased to brood and write verses: now protesting that he had been "jilted," and now denying the charge.
at cambridge, byron was most noted for insubordination, and contempt of the dons. his earliest volume of verse, "hours of idleness" (1807-1808, first privately printed in various forms), which showed, some promise, in places, was attacked in the "edinburgh review"; the trifle was noticed because the author had a title, and jeffrey, in the words of thackeray's bargee, "liked wopping a lord". this lord countered heavily, in "english bards and scotch reviewers" (1809).
for a satirist of 21 this is a fine exhibition of hard hitting in every direction. on looking through a number of his works later, byron pronounced his satire to be the best of them. byron's feud extended to the whole of his mother's country, and he did not spare scott, who merely remarked to a friend that the satirist was "a young whelp". sir walter was not the man to be dragged into a quarrel of words, and, in his own phrase, would rather meet an opponent "where the muircock was bailie".
between 1809 and 1811 byron voyaged about the borders of the grecian sea, doing and suffering what adventures and misfortunes nobody precisely knows. in 1812 appeared the two first cantos of his "childe harold," in spenserian verse, and byron, in his own phrase, "awoke one day to find himself famous". here was a poetical satirical picture of spain and the levant, here was living romance with a living young lord for the hero; a peer of a reckless and defiant character; as beautiful as a fallen angel. this was more thrilling than lays of the moss-troopers and scottish kingly adventurers of the remote past, and scott frankly owned that he "was bet" by the brilliant young rival with[pg 521] whom he was, henceforth, on the best of terms. sir walter produced but one more romance in rhyme, while byron was the most enthusiastic admirer of sir walter's novels. indeed it is to scott's descriptions, with their serene tolerance, sympathy, and charity, that we must look for the best portrait of byron, at his best. of byron at his worst we have enough in some of his own letters, in a very few of shelley's, and in the "revelations" published in an evil hour by leigh hunt.
while a "lion," as the term was then used, in society, a conqueror of hearts, a dandy, and a student of the noble art of self-defence under "gentleman jackson," byron wrote and published his oriental tales in imitation of scott's measures. the history of these poems (1813-1816) is certainly a veiled revelation of byron's life during these strange years. in 1818, two years after their separation, his wife wrote to another lady that "egotism is the vital principle of his imagination, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject with which his own character and interests are not identified"; but that he veiled "his poetical disclosures" by "introducing fictitious incidents, and changes of scene and time".
"the giaour" (1813) grew, in successive editions (5 june-27 november), from 800 to more than 1300 lines, and the additions contained, like "the bride of abydos", cryptic references to byron's own loves and attendant remorses during that period. to these affairs many dark references occur in his letters and journal, from august, 1813, to march, or later, in 1814. byron always rushed into print at the earliest moment, in the new editions of "the giaour," "the bride of abydos" (written in a week of passion, november, 1814), "the corsair," "lara" (1814), and the separate lyrics published with each of these. it is not very difficult, but it is neither pleasant nor profitable, to disentangle history from fiction in these "poetical disclosures". the "siege of corinth," and "parisina" were written in byron's year of married life. the famous passage in "the giaour"—
he who hath bent him o'er the dead.
is compared, by byron's latest editor, with a passage in mrs.[pg 522] radcliffe's "mysteries of udolpho," and mrs. radcliffe appears to have been a common source of byron's inspiration. between "he who hath bent" and the poet's return to "he" and to the structure of the sentence, twenty lines interfere; so hurried is the composition. the magnificent rhetoric of "clime of the unforgotten brave," the waking chant of greek freedom, was an addition to the second edition.
none of these poems of 1813-1816 can perhaps now be read with the enthusiasm which greeted their first appearance. of "the corsair" 10,000 copies were sold on the first day of publication. the extreme rapidity of the composition, "the fatal facility of the octosyllabic verse," as byron says, adding that scott alone "had triumphed over it," and something theatrical in the giaours and turks, zuleikas and leilas, no longer command intense interest. byron himself saw the objections to the facile measures in narrative poetry; in blank verse he feared to find "a rough and barren rock," and in "the corsair" he tried "the good old and now neglected heroic couplet". he always maintained that the age of the heroic couplet was the great age of english poetry, that pope was its chief, and that the new "romantic" movement was a blunder. he was conscious that his strength lay in satire but his passionate nature, and the fashion set by scott, combined to lead him into romantic narrative verse.
early in 1815 byron married miss milbanke, an heiress, at least in expectations, though his motive was not mercenary. he was instantly pursued by creditors; his temper and behaviour became insufferable; and, as soon as possible after the birth of a daughter, his wife returned to her own people, and early in 1816 left him for ever. her whole conduct, and the conduct of all concerned, is difficult to explain on any theory, and byron, under a heavy cloud, left england for switzerland and the society, for a few months, of shelley, mary godwin, and claire clairmont. the party were pursued by curiosity, and scandalous rumour was as active on the continent as at home.
the play of "manfred," in which the mysterious hero, in his moods of romantic remorse about nobody knows what, courts[pg 523] peril among alpine peaks, tempests, and glaciers, was supposed to represent the passions and the pursuits of the noble poet.
goethe was much interested in "manfred"; his own "faust," partly translated to byron by shelley or monk lewis, was certainly one of the elements in the making of the poem.
byron fed the public curiosity about himself and his wife and sister by various pieces of verse, including the admired "dream," in which he displayed his moods repentant, or angry, but always annoying to the persons at whom he wrote. the third canto of "childe harold," written in switzerland, was full of personal "disclosures," and contained the familiar stanzas on the duchess of richmond's ball on the eve of quatre bras. there are curious—traces of wordsworthian influence, received through shelley, in this canto. byron proceeded to venice, where he lived an unwholesome life for several years; finishing "childe harold" after a trip to rome: in this part he introduced descriptions of many works of ancient art, and expressed his contempt for its critics. his ecstasies over the venus de medici were in accordance with the taste of a period that knew not the greek art of the age of pheidias, till the "elgin marbles," reft (to byron's natural and laudable indignation), from the parthenon, had been studied. the dying gladiator was the motive of one of the most admired passages of the fourth canto of "childe harold".
the spirited "mazeppa"; the lively "beppo" (the verse fashioned on an italian model), the dramas of "marino faliero," "the two foscari," "cain" (dedicated to scott), "heaven and earth" (much admired by goethe), and the beginnings of "don juan," with, later, the continuation of "don juan," and "the island" and several minor things, proved the astonishing energy of byron, while living at venice, ravenna, genoa, and elsewhere. "the vision of judgment," an attack on southey through his poem on the death of george iii., and "don juan," show the high-water mark of his powers as a satirist. always ready at freedom's call, byron went to inspire and direct the greek war of national independence, and, after struggling to reconcile the feuds and jealousies of the patriots, died of fever, malaria, and the results of the climate, at missolonghi, on 19 april, 1824.
[pg 524]
the question as to whether byron was a great poet, or merely a man of extraordinary mental energy, wit and rhetorical force, expressing himself in verse, must be decided by the taste of the reader. no discoverable rule seems to guide the verdicts of critics. the resonance of byron's name, due in great part to his title, his beauty, his mystery, his love affairs, to "the pageant of his bleeding heart," and to his fiery attacks on convention, still echoes on the continent. byron's reputation abroad (especially among those who have not read much of him, and of shakespeare have read little or nothing), is perhaps the highest that is accorded of any english poet. at home, if he "bet" scott, it was rather in popularity than in performance. while wordsworth, keats, shelley, and coleridge were neglected (though wordsworth from the first had a small but constantly growing flock of devotees), byron, by "don juan," and by the romance of his death, recovered a vogue that had been waning, till a new generation arose; and the contemporaries of tennyson's undergraduate time declared, like thackeray, that byron "was never sincere".
it is impossible to conjecture what the reaction to the poetry of byron will be in each reader's case. he was revolutionary; matthew arnold was not; but it is the placid arnold who hails byron as "the greatest force" in the english literature of the nineteenth century; and it is the revolutionary swinburne whose copious vocabulary is over-tasked in the effort to find epithets of disdain and disgust. the intellectual energy of byron is like a meteoric force of nature, that is undeniable, whether we admire his poetry, or think it but rhetoric carried to an unexampled pitch in verse. it is for future generations and not for the ordinary critic to pronounce a verdict on so much humour, wit, and capricious genius. there is at this hour no complete and critical life of the poet: many letters and other documents remain unpublished. but if ever a biography, critical and complete, is produced, the discredit thrown on english hypocrisy because of english treatment of the poet will probably be seen to be based on ignorance and sentiment. byron was, undeniably, dowered with "the scorn of scorn": it was his humour to mock at what was best in his own impulses and in the nature of man; and it is[pg 525] probable that his excellences were sincere while his mockery was an affectation; the result of inherited qualities, and of the amari aliquid always mixed with the cup whereof he had to drink. he was, unquestionably, in so far sincere, that his poetry was the reflection of his character, which never overcame the noble tolerance of scott, though, at last, it repelled and disgusted the not intolerant shelley. his poetry has now to meet the rivalry of contemporaries little heeded in his day,—shelley, keats, and wordsworth,—and of such successors as tennyson; as careful as byron was disdainful of form; so that new generations are not apt to begin with enthusiasm for the author of "childe harold".
keats.
john keats, born in london (1795), was the son of a livery-stable keeper. his education was not neglected, though he had no greek, and in boyhood he could appreciate the magic of virgil (which does not usually charm boys), and made some progress with a translation. in physique he was powerful, and no mean boxer, despite the inherent weakness of his constitution. he became acquainted with hazlitt, and leigh hunt, who introduced him to some of the old english poets; spenser he found out for himself, like cowley, and revelled in "the faery queen," like a young horse turned loose in a pasture. another friend of keats was the witty john hamilton reynolds, whose parody of wordsworth's "peter bell" was published before the original. shelley and keats were acquainted but were never intimate, shelley advising keats not to publish "his first blights," and keats admonishing shelley to write less rapidly and copiously and to "load every rift with ore". in no long time keats discovered in leigh hunt certain unendearing qualities which never appear to have been noticed by shelley; for of hunt, which is strange, shelley's good opinion never altered.
keats, at first, by imitation, or through inexperience, rivalled the peay-greeny verdurousness of hunt's urban rusticities,—which was unfortunate; and, as an intimate of hunt, he was included by the noisy and brutal literary tories of the press in their assaults on the literary radicals of "the cockney school".
[pg 526]
to appreciate keats, and to understand the manly and resolute character which was falsely supposed to be effeminate, it is necessary to read his delightful correspondence. his first small volume of verse (1817) contains but occasional promise of his greatness; one suffices, the sonnet on first reading chapman's homer.
in "endymion" (1818) he attempted a long narrative, holding that readers might like to wander here and there on mount latmos with him, even if they did not pursue the tale from cover to cover. shelley declared that keats seemed to have tried to make himself unreadable, and, indeed, if we read for the story's sake alone, we are more unfortunate than if we take up "clarissa harlowe" with the same purpose. on the other hand the frequent passages of beauty proclaim the author a poet, who has not yet arrived at his later perfection.
keats was violently attacked as a cockney and as an apothecary's boy, in "blackwood's magazine," and in "the quarterly review". these libels are as base as the assault on coleridge in the "edinburgh review," though not nearly so abominable as what byron wrote about keats in private letters now published. the scots who attacked keats might have repented had they read his enthusiastically sympathetic appreciations of burns, in the letters written during his tour north of the border.
it was not criticism but the consumption which killed his brother tom, increased in feverishness by a love affair, that slew john keats, in rome (13 february, 1821), a year after the publication of his third volume, "lamia," which in brief compass contained verse that placed him in the first rank of the poets of england. his character had rapidly advanced in noble seriousness, high ambition, and sympathy with mankind. his best sonnets, as "on reading chapman's homer," are on a level with the greatest by milton and by wordsworth. his "odes to the nightingale," to "autumn," "on a grecian urn," and others have the classic beauty of greek art of the periclean age, with all the magic of romance, the mysterious charm of words that evoke visions of ineffable beauty. romance herself inspires "la belle dame sans merci". keats had divined and made his own all[pg 527] that is best in the greek which he could not read, and in the early mediaeval french lyrics which in his day were unpublished.
in "the pot of basil" he exalts beyond itself the genius of boccaccio, of a time when the classical revival was dawning in italy, and in "lamia" tells a story that had fascinated burton in his "anatomy of melancholy". the fragment of "hyperion," again, recalls greek art as no other modern has succeeded in reviving its majestic simplicity, while the measure of "in a drear-nighted december" preludes to the music of swinburne's "garden of proserpine".
in all that is best of keats we look, as in his own poem, through
magic casements opening on the foam
of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn.
english non-dramatic poetry contains no greater example of pure inexplicable inspiration than the genius of keats: while his character, some ebullitions of poetic youth, and of torturing ill-health apart, excites the strongest affection and admiration.
walter savage landor.
contemporary with all of these great poets, and with tennyson and browning, and the youth of william morris, the two rossettis and swinburne, was walter savage landor (1775-1864), who thus, like nestor, reigned through three generations. he was coeval with, but was not influenced by "the romantic movement," but followed his own path. he was a very copious writer both in prose and verse; he did not aim at and did not win popularity.
landor is said to have prophesied that he would "dine late," but in good company,—that recognition when it came to him, would come from the best judges. the essay on landor, by swinburne, places his plays, such as "count julian," and his poem in blank verse ("gebir") on "topless towers," of panegyric. to smaller, other eyes, those of the ordinary reader, "gebir" (1798) seems well described as "concentrated and majestic," just as mr. wopsle's hamlet was "concrete and massive". but "gebir" is not, as a narrative, interesting or plausible; its blank verse is rather[pg 528] frigid, as a rule, and the poem is best remembered for the two lines on the shell held to the ear.
and it remembers its august abode,
and murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
the blank verse is somewhat in the manner of milton, with far less life and variety. the wrestling match between gebir's brother, the piping shepherd, and the lovely lady unknown who lands from a boat and challenges the swain, indicated landor's colossal lack of humour, which, to be sure, is no small part of a noble and haughty poetic nature. if the play, "count julian" be academic, if it have found even fewer admirers than "gebir," mr. swinburne as an admirer was himself a host. the huge body of short verses, in which every reader will find many delightful things, is crowned by "rose aylmer," which would be a pearl of great price even in the treasure-house of the greek anthology. his lyric verse is always graceful, and occasionally moving.
landor left trinity college, oxford, under the wrath of his dons. he had only fired a fowling piece out of his windows, at the shuttered windows of a room occupied by a noisy wine-party, and no harm was done. many persons may remember similar excesses at oxford which caused no expulsions, but landor (the boythorn of "bleak house") was extremely explosive, and his dons, like shelley's, took the first fair opportunity to send him down for a term. he "came to oxford and his friends no more". in england his life was more or less turbulent and perturbed: most of his literary work was done in italy, and the greater part of his abundant prose is written in the form of imaginary conversations. in one ("southey and landor") he says, "from my earliest days i have avoided society as much as i could decorously, for i received more pleasure in the cultivation and improvement of my own thoughts than in walking up and down among the thoughts of others". if landor had remembered lord foppington's similar explanation of his own avoidance of books, and preference for "the sprouts of his own wit," landor might have been less frank! in this conversation landor and southey compare milton and homer, and it is to be hoped that southey had[pg 529] no sympathy with the purblind criticisms which are put into his lips. landor ends "a rib of shakespeare would have made a milton; the same portion of milton, all poets born ever since". it is certainly in his "conversations," and in the long series of imaginary letters entitled "pericles and aspasia," that the late diners with landor are most likely to find desirable things—lofty thoughts, impassioned language, and deep meditation. the conversations, naturally, differ in merit; that between bothwell and mary stuart, after her abduction, is not in anything likely to have been their manner, and has no tragic touch (though no scene could be richer in the elements of tragedy), while in the talk of jeanne d'arc and agnes sorel two persons were brought together who were not likely to meet, especially at the moment when "many of our wisest and most authoritative churchmen," says agnes, "believe you in their conscience to act under the instigation of satan". when agnes addresses the maid as "sweet enthusiast," we are far away from the style of 1430! in the dialogues of even remote historic personages, more than half the mind of landor is with his own day and its problems and politics; while he was perhaps the last englishman who lived with the roman genius so much that a good deal of his prose and verse is written in latin. he even wrote a version of "gebir" in the language of virgil. he was the friend of, or was admired by, many of the best minds of his long stay on earth, southey, de quincey, browning, and swinburne. in two sentences sir sidney colvin has put forward the character of much of landor's work: "he drones. it is a classical, and from the point of view of style an exemplary form of droning, but it is droning still."
[1] by a strange coincidence the printed score of the match (the manuscript was burned in a fire at lord's) docks byron of half his runs, and apparently confers them on mr. shakespeare! byron was a change-bowler.
