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Muh's Hiteratg (f^jpocfj Series 
 
 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
In Small Crown Zvo, Price \s. net per Volume, hound in Cloth. 
 Uniform in Size, Binding, and Price. 
 
 BLACK'S LITERARY EPOCH SERIES. 
 
 XIX. -Century Prose. By J. H. Fowler, M.A., Clifton 
 College. 
 
 XIX. -Century Poetry. By A. C. M'Donnell, M.A. 
 Armagh Royal School. 
 
 General Editor— L. W. Lyde, M.A. 
 Other Volmnes to follow. 
 
XIX.- CENTURY POETRY 
 
 (LITERARY EPOCH SERIES) 
 
 BY 
 
 A. C. M'DONNELL, M.A. 
 
 HEAD-MASTER OF ARMAGH ROYAL SCHOOL 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
 
 1897 
 
■Wi 
 
 
 /\,^7J^6S'-5 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The ' Literary Epoch Series ' is an attempt to 
 provide, in a form and at a price suitable for School 
 use, the elements of literary criticism ; and, while 
 not pretending to be a ^^;;i//^/^. history of the litera- 
 ture of any epoch, it may be found to answer the 
 demand of a large number of practical teachers for 
 a text-book which seeks only to reproduce the 
 essentially typical atmosphere of a literary epoch, 
 without any attempt to ' cram ' the names and 
 works of all the writers of that epoch. 
 
 The Series, as at present designed, will contain 
 six volumes of uniform size (about 128 pages) and 
 uniform price (is. net). Two volumes will be 
 devoted to each epoch, one of them dealing with the 
 prose and the other with the poetry ; and the three 
 epochs will be : — 
 
 1. From the Armada to the Restoration. 
 
 2. From the Restoration to the French Revolution. 
 
 3. From the French Revolution to the present time. 
 
VI XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Each Volume will be written by a practical 
 teacher, and will contain : — 
 
 1. A Summary of the most significant facts and 
 
 ideas of the epoch, especially in the spheres 
 of religion and politics. 
 
 2. A short Life of each author whose work is 
 
 represented. 
 
 3. A full Literary Criticism of each selection, as 
 
 essentially typical of the epoch. 
 
 In each case the criticism will have a definite 
 aim, and will proceed on a definite method. 
 
 The first question of the general criticism will be 
 — -the writer's ideal, and his particular aim in the 
 particular selection ; the second will be — how far, 
 with the means at his disposal, he succeeded or 
 failed ; and the third will be — how far that aim 
 accords with the universal principles of Literary Art. 
 
 The first question of the technical criticism will 
 be concerned with the Elements of Style — the actual 
 vocabulary, its arrangement in sentences and para- 
 graphs, and its adornment (with Figures of Speech, 
 etc.) ; the second will be concerned with the Qualities 
 of Style — intellectual and emotional ; and the third 
 with the kind of Composition. 
 
 L. W. Lyde. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Wordsworth 
 
 Goody Blake and Harry Gill 
 Laodamia 
 
 Scott ..... 
 The Lay of the Last Minstrel 
 
 Coleridge 
 
 Christabel 
 
 Byron . 
 
 Don Juan 
 
 Shelley 
 
 Ode to Liberty 
 
 Tennyson 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 12 
 20 
 25 
 32 
 42 
 
 56 
 63 
 
 73 
 
 96 
 107 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The literature, and especially the poetical literature, 
 of a nation is always a reflection of its political and 
 social life. Whenever in the history of literature we 
 meet with any remarkable outburst of activity, we 
 are sure to find that, side by side with the purely 
 literary causes which were engaged in stimulating 
 this activity, there were other forces at work, drawn 
 from the political life of the nation, or the everyday 
 life of the individual, which were no less far-reaching 
 in their effects. These causes will be found to have 
 combined to produce a condition of mind which was, 
 as it were, infectious, and which gave a universal 
 stimulus to the creative intellects, while rousing 
 universal sympathy in the receptive ones. 
 
 Georgian Era, i 798-1 830 
 
 Causes. — When we inquire what were the causes 
 responsible for the poetic revival which heralded the 
 opening of the nineteenth century, we find that, as 
 in other similar revivals, they were of two kinds — ■ 
 
 1 
 
2 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 the one literary, the other social and political. Which 
 of the two had the greater influence must yet remain 
 a doubtful question. The main point to recollect is 
 that the tendency of both lay in the same direction. 
 
 I. LITERARY CAUSES 
 
 (i) Reaction. — The forty years which preceded 
 the French Revolution are remarkable for their 
 barrenness in the production of any poetry which 
 deserves to be awarded a really high place in the 
 literary history of this country. Nor is the cause 
 far to seek. Pope died in 1744, and with him 
 departed from English poetry the peculiar merits of 
 the versification which he had introduced. He took 
 with him from the world the care, dexterity, and 
 conciseness, the polish and the wit, which so essen- 
 tially distinguish everything which he wrote. He 
 left to his successors and imitators nothing but his 
 coldness and artificiality, which in the hands of 
 inferior artists became mere dulness and monotony. 
 To quote once more the often-quoted lines. Pope 
 
 Made poetry a mere mechanic art, 
 
 And every warbler had his tune by heart. 
 
 And, though by the force of his own genius he had 
 extorted from the world more admiration for his 
 style and methods than perhaps they deserve, it was 
 not to be expected that, when he was gone, this 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 admiration should be extended to the style and 
 methods of the poetasters who slavishly copied him. 
 
 A natural reaction set in. Men became weary 
 of the languid effeminacy which, in the literary 
 jargon of the day, was called 'correctness,' but which 
 was in truth nothing but a servile submission to the 
 prevailing taste. Poets began to direct their attention 
 towards the ancient models, and to seek fresh in- 
 spiration in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, and 
 Shakespeare. The reaction, though its course was 
 gradual, was, in the case of some versifiers, rather 
 violent in its character. 
 
 The reformers, in their desire to avoid the 
 regularity and smoothness of diction that belonged 
 to the school of Pope, wrote in too rugged and too 
 harsh a style. In their anxiety to shun the coldness 
 and epigrammatic neatness of the past epoch, they 
 occasionally became bombastic and diffuse. But, in 
 spite of all this, the services they rendered to the 
 poetry of our own time were great, for the principles 
 which guided them were sound. They boldly resisted 
 the opposition of those who were still dominated by 
 the spirit of the Augustan age of Anne. They 
 continued to keep their eyes turned upon the first 
 great masters of their art, and to press on in their 
 search for newer and more human themes of action, 
 and for a freer, fresher, and more natural versification. 
 This, then, was the first literary cause of the 
 poetical revolution of the present century — reaction 
 
4 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 against the shallowness and artificiality of the so- 
 called Augustan writers. How strong that reaction 
 still is may be shown by the fact that ' heroic metre,' 
 as it was most inaptly called — the favourite metre 
 of Pope and his school — is now extinct, or at least 
 only survives in parodies and prize poems. 
 
 A useful and simple exercise for the young critic 
 would be as follows : — Let him select two poems 
 dealing with somewhat similar subjects, one from the 
 poetry of the age of Anne, and the other written 
 within the last hundred years, and let him compare 
 the treatment, style, and method of each. We might 
 suggest the study of Addison's Campaign side by 
 side with the sixth canto of Marmion, or The Temple 
 of Fame side by side with The Palace of Art. If, 
 when this is done, and the contrast duly marked, he 
 should read, as a commentary on Addison and Scott, 
 one of the ballads in Percy s Reliques, and, as a 
 commentary on Pope and Tennyson, something of 
 Cowper's heroic metre, his own ear and judgment 
 will enable him to trace the ' progress of poesy ' 
 during the last two hundred years. And in this 
 connection it must be noted that to none of the 
 forerunners of the nineteenth-century poets do we 
 owe more than to Percy and Cowper, Cowper had 
 the originality and courage to renounce, not merely 
 in distinct and emphatic preaching, but also in his 
 own practice, the conventional style and methods of 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 the day. He was the first who deliberately threw 
 off allegiance to Pope, and turned to Nature as his 
 guide, and to domesticity for his subjects. Bishop 
 Percy, by his edition of the Old British Ballads, 
 showed men where they might recover, from the 
 most truly national part of our literature, that spirit 
 which had been so long wanting to English poetry — 
 the spirit of noble action and true passion, of the 
 open air and the greenwood tree. 
 
 (2) German InJIuence. — While the tide of public 
 taste was slowly turning away from the ' correct ' 
 poets, another influence in the same direction began 
 to make itself felt. English literature has always been 
 remarkably susceptible to impressions received from 
 the literatures of other countries. It was fostered 
 under the wing of France. It drew largely, in the 
 Elizabethan era, from Italy, and again from France in 
 the reign of Anne. It now turned towards Germany. 
 
 About the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 Germany had undergone a change of literary 
 sentiment similar to that upon which England was 
 now entering. After a lengthened period of book- 
 learning, critical rules, and imitations of antiquity or 
 of foreign authors, she had begun to cultivate a 
 more specially national form of poetry. In 1772 a 
 Dichter-Bund, or Poets' Club, had been formed at 
 Gottingen, with the avowed object of reforming 
 German poetry by introducing a simple and un- 
 
6 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 affected style of writing, as a substitute for the 
 learned style which had hitherto been the fashion. 
 As a result, much idyllic and ballad poetry was 
 produced ; and this, which was largely read and 
 appreciated in England, played an important part in 
 forming the genius of some of our foremost English 
 writers, notably Coleridge and Scott. Indeed, Scott's 
 earliest publication was a version of the Leonore of 
 Burger, a prominent member of the Gottingen Dichter- 
 Bund. This German influence may be regarded 
 as the second of the purely literary causes to which 
 the poetical revival of the nineteenth century was due. 
 
 II. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CAUSES 
 
 (i) French Revolution. — By far the most im- 
 portant of the outside forces which at this time bore 
 upon English poetry was the French Revolution. 
 By it the great lesson ' All men are free ' was driven 
 into the hearts of Englishmen. Even before the 
 political effects of the Revolution had reached as far 
 as England, it had acted upon men's minds, much 
 as the Reformation had acted in former times, by 
 stimulating imagination and creating enthusiasm for 
 liberty and freedom of thought. Different poets 
 were affected by it in different ways. To the Lake 
 school it suggested revolt against false models, return 
 to Nature, and worship of Liberty in the abstract. 
 To Byron and Shelley it suggested a crusade against 
 all established power. 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 (2) Peninsular War. — During the long struggle 
 which ended at Waterloo, when Englishmen were 
 fighting, not indeed for liberty in the abstract, but 
 for the liberties of the whole of Europe ; when they 
 were experiencing the varied excitements of terror 
 and triumph, the intensity of their feelings was 
 faithfully reflected in their poetry. Not only in its 
 passionate earnestness and vivid imagination, but 
 also in its amount, we find signs of the impression 
 which the affairs of the outside world made upon the 
 poets of the day. The poet most directly affected 
 was Scott, who is the true representative of the 
 ' patriot ' school. Their watchword was not so much 
 ' All men are free ' as ' Let my country be free ! ' 
 
 Victorian Era — 1830 to the Present Day 
 
 The Victorian era is one of prose and material 
 progress rather than poetry. We find few names 
 worthy of being placed in the very front rank of 
 English poets. All the best poetry we have is 
 distinguished — firstly, by a share in the democratic 
 and scientific spirit of the age ; secondly, by a 
 decided advance in technical skill. 
 
 I. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL INFLUENCES 
 
 Democracy. — With the wearing out of the first 
 effects of the French Revolution, other influences 
 began to make themselves felt. When the fears 
 
8 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 England had entertained about her own existence 
 had disappeared with the overthrow of Napoleon, 
 she began at last to set her own house in order. 
 
 The Reform Bill of 1832 gave the middle classes 
 that fair share in the government of the country 
 which they had been long demanding. The same 
 impulse in the direction of liberty and justice pro- 
 duced the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery, which 
 was passed the following year. The spirit of de- 
 mocracy began to make its voice heard, — not the 
 rabid democracy of France, but a cautious tentative 
 policy of progress, ' broad-based upon the people's 
 will,' and free from violence and corruption. The 
 nation at large began to take a more lively interest 
 in political questions. 
 
 II. INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCES 
 
 (i) Science. — At the same time, the material 
 prosperity of the land began to be vastly increased. 
 By numerous discoveries and inventions — notably, 
 the invention of the locomotive steam-engine — con- 
 veniences and comforts hitherto unknown were intro- 
 duced. The age was an intensely practical one, and 
 all fresh speculation tended, directly or indirectly, 
 towards the promotion of the physical well-being of 
 mankind. The consequence of all this was that the 
 intellectual forces of the nation were spent in almost 
 every other form of energy except poetry. Poetry 
 of considerable merit, no doubt, was written, but the 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 literary spirit of the age turned to prose as being 
 the fitting vehicle for the discussion of the political and 
 scientific questions which monopolised men's thoughts. 
 The special form of fresh speculation which con- 
 cerned men's souls rather than their bodies circled 
 round the doctrine of evolution. The assertions of 
 naturalists and geologists about the origin of species 
 and the creation and age of the earth so entirely 
 traversed the established teachings of the Church, 
 that every man began to find a more serious interest 
 in scientific questions as bearing not merely on his 
 present, but also on his future state. The discussion 
 was keenly maintained, and every department of 
 science was pressed into the service of one side or 
 the other. The age became one of severe scientific 
 inquiry, and poets, like other men, were thoroughly 
 imbued with its spirit. Tennyson in particular has 
 gone deeply into the subject of evolution, and his 
 attitude towards religious questions seems to be one 
 of reverent agnosticism, joined, in his later years, to 
 something more than a 'faint trust ' in the larger hope. 
 
 (2) Education. — Higher education shared in the 
 advance of the age, and, with the spread of culture 
 and more extensive knowledge of foreign literatures, 
 came severer standards of criticism. It was not any 
 longer possible for a work, devoid of merit in itself, 
 to reach a fifth or sixth edition merely owing to 
 assiduous puffing. The example of The Edinbt^rgh 
 
10 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Review, which certainly hved up to its motto of 
 Judex damnatur duni nocens absolvitur, was followed 
 by all similar organs of criticism. It was no longer 
 sufficient for the heart to be inditing of a good 
 matter, unless the good matter was supported by a 
 good manner. The result was that in all depart- 
 ments of literature, and especially in poetry, a higher 
 ideal of form was .aimed at, and literary workmanship, 
 if nothing else, underwent vast improvement. The 
 epoch is, as Matthew Arnold observes, one of con- 
 centration rather than expansion. The material is 
 now, perhaps, being stored up, which may in future 
 years be used in another revival, of which the pro- 
 ducing causes have not yet appeared. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Such are the chief influences that have affected 
 English poetry in the present century. The century 
 itself can be, as we have shown, fitly divided into 
 two periods, — the first lasting up to the year 1830, 
 and the second bringing us down to the present day. 
 We cannot more suitably conclude this Introduction 
 than by quoting a few sentences of recent criticism, 
 which set forth most admirably the main points of 
 difference in thought which distinguish the earlier 
 from the later school. ' They (the early Romantic 
 poets) lacked vision for the world of man, save under 
 certain broad and simple aspects, — the patriot, the 
 peasant, the visionary, the child. They lacked vision 
 
INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 for the past, save at certain points, on which the 
 spirit of Liberty had laid a fiery finger. In prose 
 no doubt — the prose of Scott (of which his narrative 
 verse is a province), of Lamb, of Landor, and in 
 the splendid rhetorical verse of Byron, these limita- 
 tions were in great part transcended. But in poetry 
 they mark the character of the epoch. . . . But 
 what they lacked was already present, enriched with 
 almost all that they possessed, in Goethe ; all the 
 impulses and instincts of Romanticism in its widest 
 scope are assembled in the poetic cosmos of Faust. 
 And in the next generation English poetry also 
 fulfilled Faust's aspiration to take upon itself the 
 burden of humanity, most signally in the person of 
 Browning ; with more variety of tone, but also with 
 more of insular limitation in Tennyson.' 
 
WORDSWORTH 
 
 PART I.— HIS LIFE 
 
 William Wordsworth was born on yth April 1770 at 
 Cockermouth, in Cumberland. He was educated at 
 Hawkshead School, and in 1787 went up to St. John's 
 College, Cambridge, taking his degree three years later. 
 He spent a year in France during the most thrilling period 
 of the Revolution. On his return home he lived first in 
 Dorsetshire and afterwards in Somersetshire, where he 
 became intimate with Coleridge. The two friends published 
 together the first volume of Lyrical Ballads, but by far the 
 larger share in the work was Wordsworth's. In 1798 
 Coleridge joined Wordsworth and his sister in a tour 
 through Germany. On returning to England, the Words- 
 worths settled at Grasmere, and in 1800 there appeared 
 the second volume of Lyrical Ballads. In 1802 the poet 
 received a considerable addition to his fortune which 
 enabled him to marry, and henceforth devote himself 
 entirely to poetrj^ He attempted many forms of poetical 
 composition. His principal longer works are The Prelude 
 and The Excursion ; besides these, he wrote The White 
 Doe of Rylstone, Peter Bell, The Waggoner, Laodajnia, and 
 many lyrics and sonnets. He wrote occasionally in prose 
 on politics and criticism, and produced one dramatic piece. 
 The Borderers. In 1843 ^^^ was made Poet Laureate, and 
 seven years later he died at Rydal Mount, near Grasmere, 
 where he had been settled since 1813. He had just com- 
 pleted his eightieth year. 
 
WORDSWORTH 13 
 
 Both of Wordsworth's parents died when he was a boy, 
 and his genius owes httle to them, and a good deal to 
 the somewhat risky mode of education to which he \vas 
 subjected. When attending school in Lancashire, he used 
 to board in the house of one of the villagers, and out of 
 school hours he was absolutely his own master. His spare 
 time was spent, not in silent meditation, but in vigorous 
 outdoor exercise — skating, rowing, bird's-nesting. It was 
 at this period of his life that his passion for nature and 
 natural beauty was formed. He became familiar with all 
 the moods and aspects of the Lake Country hills and dales ; 
 and his manner of living in close intercourse with the 
 cottager class enabled him to understand and appreciate 
 their sterling qualities, so often afterwards embodied in his 
 verse. Among them he formed his ideas of 'Equality,' 
 which were so greatly emphasised in later years by the 
 French Revolution. He w'as, indeed, already in close 
 communion with INIan and Nature, his two chief poetical 
 themes. 
 
 His Cambridge career did little for him beyond enabling 
 him to become deeply read in English literature. At this 
 time he first attempted original composition in An Evening 
 Walk, which was published in 1793. The most remark- 
 able influence of his life began when in 1791 he paid a 
 visit to France, and became intimate with several of the 
 leading French patriots. He was then a republican, heart 
 and soul. All his sympathy and all his enthusiasm were 
 so entirely with the French people that he accepted the 
 excesses of the ' Terror ' as necessary evils of the time, and 
 was bitterly distressed when England declared war against 
 France. He afterwards made a complete change of front. 
 Love of liberty had aroused his devotion to France, ' rightly 
 struggling to be free.' The same love of liberty caused 
 him to repudiate her schemes of conquest and military 
 tyranny. He became, and to the end of his life remained, 
 an ardent patriot and supporter of England's established 
 constitution. His poems, and especially his sonnets, show 
 
14 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 most clearly the influence which, in one way and another, 
 the French Revolution exercised over him. 
 
 Much mental unhappiness followed the shattering of his 
 republican ideals. From this depression he was rescued 
 by the cheering presence of his sister Dorothy, who was 
 now living with him, and by his friendship with Coleridge, 
 whom he had first met in the autumn of 1795. The two 
 poets shared a feeling against the artificial mode of expres- 
 sion prevalent in the poetry of the day. To give utterance 
 to that feeling a plan was formed, whereby two sets of 
 poems should be written, the one on supernatural subjects, 
 the other on incidents of ordinary life. Coleridge was 
 assigned the former, and Wordsworth the latter. Both 
 sets alike were to be written in a style unadorned with the 
 meretricious poetic diction of the day. The result was 
 Lyrical Ballads, which appeared in 1798, and was received 
 with contempt and abuse, for the simplicity of the style 
 was entirely opposed to the prevailing taste. 
 
 His tour in Germany left but little impression on 
 Wordsworth's mind. On his return to England he married, 
 and the happiness 'of his home life, so far from inducing 
 lack of literary energy, seems to have strengthened his 
 poetic powers and inspired his genius. It was now that, 
 considering his period of preparation to be over, he seriously 
 began his poetical life ; and from this time outside events 
 had but little influence on his work. With advancing years 
 his Toryism became more pronounced ; the meannesses of 
 expression which occasionahy escape him become rarer ; 
 and he loses something of his early vigour. Otherwise 
 his opinions and the qualities of his style remain unchanged. 
 
 The main point in the character of Wordsworth which 
 bears upon his poetry is his steady determination of 
 purpose. This enabled him to continue true to the ideals 
 of poetry which he had set before him, in spite of nearly 
 thirty years of adverse criticism and neglect. He finally 
 triumphed, accomplishing the task of ' creating the taste 
 by which he was to be enjoyed.' 
 
WORDSWORTH 15 
 
 PART II.— GENERAL CRITICISM 
 
 ' Two Voices are there ' 
 
 Wordsworth had one main poetical purpose, but two 
 poetical manners. These manners are so entirely different 
 from one another that it becomes necessary to give two 
 extracts from his poems, if the reader is to be enabled to 
 understand his peculiar merits and demerits. 
 
 I. — The Poet's Aim 
 
 In our selections the poet's aim is to illustrate ' the 
 manner in which our feelings and ideas are associated in a 
 state of excitement ' — ' to follow the fluxes and refluxes of 
 the mind when agitated by the great and simple affections 
 of our nature.' 
 
 (a) In the first piece he tells a tale to illustrate the effect 
 which the imagination may have upon the physical frame. 
 He claims for all his poetry, as a distinction, the possession 
 of a worthy purpose, even though at the outset the purpose 
 was not plain to his own mind. However, in Goody Blake 
 and Harry Gill the aim is clear enough. He wishes ' to 
 draw attention to the truth that the power of human 
 imagination is sufficient to produce such changes, even in 
 our physical nature, as might almost appear miraculous.' 
 We may conceive that this theme would appeal with especial 
 force to Wordsworth, in whose being imagination played so 
 large a part. 
 
 (b) In the second selection Words^worth urges the virtue 
 of resignation, and reads a lesson against love that is too 
 unrestrained and unreasoning. This theme again would 
 appeal to a sensible hard-headed North-countryman, such 
 as Wordsworth was. His regard for law and duty would 
 naturally incline him to disapprove of ' rebellious passion ' 
 
i6 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 and 'ungovernable love,' and accordingly he makes the 
 gods mete out to Laodamia due punishment for being 
 'all too weak in reason, in self-government too slow.' 
 
 Such is the particular aim in each of these poems, 
 subject to the general purpose of giving immediate pleasure 
 to the poet's readers by exciting their sympathies with joy 
 or grief or other primary sensations of the mind. 
 
 II. — Was the Aim successful? 
 
 {a) Wordsworth vouches for the fact that the story in 
 Goody Blake and Harry Gill is true. We may accept his 
 statement ; but, from the manner in which the subject is 
 treated, the reader would hardly have formed this opinion 
 for himself. No doubt, the almost supernatural effect of 
 mind over body is a worthy subject for a poem ; but unless 
 the manner suits the matter, the result must be unsatis- 
 factory. If any poem needs a solemn and dignified treat- 
 ment, it is one which speaks of the miracles of nature. If 
 it is not impressive, it might as well never have been written. 
 Goody Blake and Harry Gill is written in the elaborately 
 simple and babyish style which shows Wordsworth at his 
 worst. The manner does not suit the subject of the poem, 
 consequently there can be no impressiveness, and the 
 purpose of the poem fails. The subject approaches so 
 nearly to the ridiculous that a very careful treatment would 
 be required to avoid bathos. Wordsworth could have 
 treated it adequately if his judgment had not been led 
 astray, as it so often was, by strained efforts towards simphcity 
 and directness. 
 
 {b) In Laodamia we have a specimen of Wordsworth at 
 his best. He takes a noble subject, thoroughly in agree- 
 ment with his own modes of thought, and treats it in a 
 noble manner. His object is to show the folly of passion 
 let loose, even when the passion is one of the most amiable 
 in human nature — that of wifely love. 
 
 The purpose is admirably attained. It is true that 
 
WORDSWORTH 17 
 
 Wordsworth was at first undecided as to the manner in 
 which his heroine was to be punished for her 'passion 
 driven to excess,' and that in the first form more 'weak 
 pity ' was admitted than was thoroughly consistent with the 
 purpose. The original form of lines 158 sqq. was as 
 follows : — 
 
 Ah, judge her gently who so deeply loved ! 
 Her, who, in reason's spite, yet without crime, 
 Was in a trance of passion thus removed ; 
 Delivered from the galling yoke of time 
 And these frail elements — to gather flowers 
 Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers. 
 
 But in the later shape the severe lesson is driven home, 
 and the poem remains a monument of Wordsworth's sterner 
 philosophic creed. 
 
 in. — Was the Aim in Accordance with the Funda- 
 mental Principles of his Art? 
 
 To enlighten the understandings and heighten the 
 affections of his readers by tracing for them the ebb and 
 flow of human emotions is the noblest of a poet's tasks. 
 And it is all the more to Wordsworth's credit that he 
 attempted to do this by poetry of a style which he knew 
 must be unpopular, but in the future of which he had the 
 justest confidence. ' I distinctly foresaw,' he says, ' what 
 you and my other friends would have to encounter in de- 
 fending me. But trouble not yourself about their (the 
 poems) present reception ; of what moment is that compared 
 with what, I trust, is their destiny ? — to console the afflicted ; 
 to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier ; 
 to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, 
 to think, to feel, and therefore to become more actively and 
 securely virtuous.' 
 
 Essay-Subject : — ' The Sublime and the Ridiculous.' 
 
XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 PART III.— TECHNICAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — Elements of Style 
 
 I. Vocabulary. — Wordsworth's vocabulary varies with his 
 manner. In his earher ' Lyrical Ballad ' manner there is a 
 remarkable absence of Latin-derived words. Thus in our 
 first selection the two opening stanzas contain hardly a 
 single word other than of Saxon origin. His more elaborate 
 style is full of not merely words of Latin origin, but English 
 words retaining their original Latin meaning. ■*■ It is natural 
 that such words should be numerous in Laodamia, the 
 idea of which was suggested by Virgil. Wordsworth's 
 vocabulary is marvellously copious. Even when he has 
 purged it carefully from all those stock poetical phrases 
 of the day, to which he applies the term 'poetic diction,' 
 there remains enough to amply express the most complex 
 feelings of his mind. 
 
 2. Sentence and Paragraph. — Wordsworth made direct 
 expression so much his object that one rarely meets a 
 compound sentence in his poetry. He manifests care in 
 carrying the idea contained in the end of one stanza on to 
 the beginning of the next. This gives a satisfactory com- 
 pleteness to the whole poem. 
 
 3. Adornment. — With direct expression for his chief 
 aim, Wordsworth has little deliberate adornment. All 
 metrical devices he shunned. Metaphor and simile we 
 find, often splendid, and always just and exact. But, on 
 the whole, adornment is not an element of Wordsworth's 
 style. 
 
 II. — Intellectual Qualities of Style 
 
 I. Clearness and Simplicity. — Except in a few isolated 
 cases, Wordsworth is always clear and always simple. In 
 his early manner these qualities are indulged in to excess, 
 and become — the one, mere minuteness of detail; the 
 
 ^ Line 59, redundant; 1. 65, conscious; 1. 169, spiry; 1. 172, subject. 
 
WORDSWORTH 19 
 
 Other, over-familiarity of diction. But in his more exalted 
 strain the simplicity is no longer babyish, but grandly and 
 severely dignified ; and the clearness is gained by concise 
 expression of sharp-cut thought. In a sense Laodamia is 
 quite as simple and clear as Goody Blake. The difference 
 which we notice is due to the fact that in Laodamia 
 Wordsworth, in spite of himself, was using ' poetic diction ' 
 — not the cut-and-dried phraseology which he rightly con- 
 demned, but the appropriate expression of high poetic 
 thought. In Goody Blake., on the other hand, he strives 
 to suit his language to the lowliness of the subject, but 
 only succeeds in making it childish. 
 
 III. — Emotional Qualities of Style 
 
 1. Strength. — Earnestness was Wordsworth's peculiar 
 strength, and by the possession of this quality of style he 
 always at least commands respect. It was the outcome of 
 his thorough belief in himself and his notion of a poet's 
 duty. When exercised upon a worthy subject, it is capable 
 at any moment of rising to sublimity — a quality which no 
 English poet, except Milton, can claim to possess. But, 
 again, when used in the description of some trivial incident 
 in common life, it heightens the impression that Words- 
 worth is trying io force a poetical effect. 
 
 2. Pathos. — Wordsworth possesses in a very high 
 degree the power of moving the heart by simple unaffected 
 narrative ; but his total lack of humour prevents him from 
 seeing clearly the line which separates the pathetic from 
 the commonplace. A good example of this is seen in 
 lines 89-112 of our first selection. 
 
 IV. — Kind of Poem 
 
 Both selections are, in form, short narrative poems, 
 though Laodamia contains more reflection than narration. 
 The short narrative was a favourite with Wordsworth. In 
 longer narrative his strength seems to flag, and his lapses 
 into bathos are more numerous. 
 
GOODY BLAKE AND HARRY GILL 
 
 A TRUE STORY 
 
 Oh ! what's the matter ? what's the matter ? 
 
 What is't that ails young Harry Gill ? 
 
 That evermore his teeth they chatter, 
 
 Chatter, chatter, chatter still ! 
 
 Of waistcoats Harry has no lack, 5 
 
 Good duffle grey, and flannel fine ; 
 
 He has a blanket on his back. 
 
 And coats enough to smother nine. 
 
 Li March, December, and in July, 
 
 'Tis all the same with Harry Gill ; 10 
 
 The neighbours tell, and tell you truly, 
 
 His teeth they chatter, chatter still. 
 
 At night, at morning, and at noon, 
 
 'Tis all the same with Harry Gill ; 
 
 Beneath the sun, beneath the moon, 15 
 
 His teeth they chatter, chatter still ! 
 
 Young Harry was a lusty drover, 
 
 And who so stout of limb as he ? 
 
 His cheeks were red as ruddy clover ; 
 
 His voice was like the voice of three. 20 
 
WORDSWORTH 21 
 
 Old Goody Blake was old and poor ; 
 111 fed she was, and thinly clad ; 
 And any man who passed her door 
 Might see how poor a hut she had. 
 
 All day she spun in her poor dwelling : 25 
 
 And then her three hours' work at night, 
 Alas ! 'twas hardly worth the telling. 
 It would not pay for candle-light. 
 Remote from sheltered village green 
 On a hill's northern side she dwelt, 30 
 
 Where from sea-blasts the hawthorns lean. 
 And hoary dews are slow to melt. 
 
 By the same fire to boil their pottage, 
 
 Two poor old dames, as I have known, 
 
 Will often live in one small cottage ; 35 
 
 But she, poor woman ! housed alone. 
 
 'Twas well enough when summer came, 
 
 The long, warm, lightsome summer-day. 
 
 Then at her door the canty Dame 
 
 Would sit, as any linnet, gay. 40 
 
 But when the ice our streams did fetter. 
 
 Oh then how her old bones would shake ! 
 
 You would have said, if you had met her, 
 
 'Twas a hard time for Goody Blake. 
 
 Her evenings then were dull and dead : 45 
 
 Sad case it was, as you may think. 
 
 For very cold to go to bed ; 
 
 And then for cold not sleep a wink. 
 
XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 O joy for her ! whene'er in winter 
 
 The winds at night had made a rout ; 50 
 
 And scattered many a lusty spHnter 
 
 And many a rotten bough about. 
 
 Yet never had she, well or sick, 
 
 As every man who knew her says, 
 
 A pile beforehand, turf or stick, 55 
 
 Enough to warm her for three days. 
 
 Now, when the frost was past enduring. 
 And made her poor old bones to ache, 
 Could anything be more alluring 
 Than an old hedge to Goody Blake ? 60 
 
 And, now and then, it must be said, 
 When her old bones were cold and chill, 
 She left her fire, or left her bed. 
 To seek the hedge of Harry Gill. 
 
 Now Harry he had long suspected 65 
 
 This trespass of old Goody Blake ; 
 
 And vowed that she should be detected — 
 
 That he on her would vengeance take. 
 
 And oft from his warm fire he'd go. 
 
 And to the fields his road would take, 70 
 
 And there, at night, in frost and snow. 
 
 He watched to seize old Goody Blake. 
 
 And once, behind a rick of barley, 
 
 Thus looking out did Harry stand : 
 
 The moon was full and shining clearly, 75 
 
 And crisp with frost the stubble land. 
 
WORDSWORTH 23 
 
 — He hears a noise — he's all awake — 
 
 Again ! — on tip-toe down the hill 
 
 He softly creeps — 'Tis Goody Blake ; 
 
 She's at the hedge of Harry Gill. 80 
 
 Right glad was he when he beheld her : 
 
 Stick after stick did Goody pull : 
 
 He stood behind a bush of elder, 
 
 Till she had filled her apron full. 
 
 When with her load she turned about, 85 
 
 The by-way back again to take. 
 
 He started forward with a shout, 
 
 And sprang upon poor Goody Blake. 
 
 And fiercely by the arm he took her. 
 
 And by the arm he held her fast, 90 
 
 And fiercely by the arm he shook her. 
 
 And cried, ' I've caught you, then, at last ! ' 
 
 Then Goody, who had nothing said, 
 
 Her bundle from her lap let fall ; 
 
 And kneeling on the sticks she prayed 95 
 
 To God that is the judge of all. 
 
 She prayed, her wither'd hand uprearing. 
 
 While Harry held her by the arm — 
 
 ' God ! who art never out of hearing. 
 
 Oh, may he never more be warm ! ' 100 
 
 The cold, cold moon above her head. 
 
 Thus on her knees did Goody pray ; 
 
 Young Harry heard what she had said : 
 
 And icy cold he turned away. 
 
24 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 He went complaining all the morrow 105 
 
 That he was cold and very chill : 
 
 His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow ; 
 
 Alas ! that day for Harry Gill ! 
 
 That day he wore a riding-coat, 
 
 But not a whit the warmer he : no 
 
 Another was on Thursday brought. 
 
 And ere the Sabbath he had three. 
 
 ^Twas all in vain, a useless matter — 
 
 And blankets were about him pinned ; 
 
 Yet still his jaws and teeth they clatter, 115 
 
 Like a loose casement in the wind. 
 
 And Harry's flesh it fell away ; 
 
 And all who see him say, 'tis plain 
 
 That, live as long as live he may, 
 
 He never will be warm again. 120 
 
 No word to any man he utters, 
 
 A-bed or up, to young or old ; 
 
 But ever to himself he mutters, 
 
 ' Poor Harry Gill is very cold.' 
 
 A-bed or up, by night or day; 125 
 
 His teeth they chatter, chatter still. 
 
 Now think, ye farmers all, I pray. 
 
 Of Goody Blake and Harry Gill ! 
 
WORDSWORTH 25 
 
 LAODAMIA 
 
 ' With sacrifice before the rising morn 
 Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired ; 
 And from the infernal gods, 'mid shades forlorn 
 Of night, my slaughtered lord have I required : 
 Celestial pity I again implore ; — 5 
 
 Restore him to my sight — great Jove, restore!' 
 
 So speaking, and by fervent love endowed 
 
 With faith, the suppliant heavenward lifts her hands ; 
 
 While, like the sun emerging from a cloud, 
 
 Her countenance brightens — and her eye expands ; 10 
 
 Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows ; 
 
 And she expects the issue in repose. 
 
 O terror ! what hath she perceived ? — O joy ! 
 What doth she look on ? — whom doth she behold ? 
 Her hero slain upon the beach of Troy ? 15 
 
 His vital presence — his corporeal mould ? 
 It is — if sense deceive her not — 'tis he ! 
 And a god leads him — winged Mercury ! 
 
 Mild Hermes spake — and touched her with his wand 
 That calms all fear : ' Such grace hath crowned thy 
 prayer, 20 
 
 Laodamia ! that at Jove's command 
 Thy husband walks the paths of upper air : 
 
26 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 He comes to tarry with thee three hours' space ; 
 Accept the gift, behold him face to face ! ' 
 
 Forth sprang the impassioned queen her lord to 
 clasp ! 25 
 
 Again that consummation she essayed ; 
 But unsubstantial form eludes her grasp 
 As often as that eager grasp was made. 
 The phantom parts — but parts to re-unite, 
 And re-assume his place before her sight. 30 
 
 ' Protesilaus, lo ! thy guide is gone ! 
 Confirm, I pray, the vision with thy voice : 
 This is our palace, — yonder is thy throne ; 
 Speak, and the floor thou tread'st on will rejoice. 
 Not to appal me have the gods bestowed 35 
 
 This precious boon, — and blest a sad abode.' 
 
 ' Great Jove, Laodamia ! doth not leave 
 
 His gifts imperfect : — spectre though I be, 
 
 I am not sent to scare thee or deceive ; 
 
 But in reward of thy fidelity. 40 
 
 And something also did my worth obtain ; 
 
 For fearless virtue bringeth boundless gain. 
 
 ' Thou know'st, the Delphic oracle foretold 
 
 That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand 
 
 Should die ; but me the threat could not withhold : 45 
 
 A generous cause a victim did demand ; 
 
 And forth I leapt upon the sandy plain ; 
 
 A self-devoted chief — by Hector slain.' 
 
WORDSWORTH 27 
 
 ' Supreme of heroes — bravest, noblest, best ! 
 
 Thy matchless courage I bewail no more, 50 
 
 Which then, when tens of thousands were deprest 
 
 By doubt, propelled thee to the fatal shore ; 
 
 Thou found'st — and I forgive thee — here thou art — 
 
 A nobler counsellor than my poor heart. 
 
 ' But thou, though capable of sternest deed, 55 
 
 Wert kind as resolute, and good as brave ; 
 
 And he, whose power restores thee, hath decreed 
 
 That thou should'st cheat the malice of the grave : 
 
 Redundant are thy locks, thy lips as fair 
 
 As when their breath enriched Thessalian air. 60 
 
 ' No spectre greets me, — no vain shadow this ; 
 Come, blooming hero, place thee by my side ! 
 Give, on this well-known couch, one nuptial kiss 
 To me, this day, a second time thy bride ! ' 
 Jove frowned in heaven : the conscious Parca^"^ threw 
 Upon those roseate lips a Stygian" hue. 66 
 
 ' This visage tells thee that my doom is past : 
 
 Know, virtue were not virtue if the joys 
 
 Of sense were able to return as fast 
 
 And surely as they vanish. Earth destroys 70 
 
 Those raptures duly — Erebus ^ disdains : 
 
 Calm pleasures there abide — majestic pains. 
 
 ' Be taught, O faithful consort, to control 
 Rebellious passion : for the gods approve 
 The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul ; 75 
 
 A fervent, not ungovernable love. 
 
28 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Thy transports moderate ; and meekly mourn 
 When I depart, for brief is my sojourn.' 
 
 ' Ah, wherefore ? did not Hercules by force 
 
 Wrest from the guardian monster ^ of the tomb So 
 
 Alcestis, a reanimated corse 
 
 Given back to dwell on earth in vernal bloom ? 
 
 Medea's spells dispersed the weight of years, 
 
 And yEson stood a youth 'mid youthful peers. 
 
 ' The gods to us are merciful — and they 85 
 
 Yet further may relent : for mightier far 
 Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway 
 Of magic potent over sun and star. 
 Is love, though oft to agony distrest. 
 And though his favourite seat be feeble woman's 
 breast. 90 
 
 ' But if thou goest I follow — ' ' Peace ! ' he said, — 
 She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered ; 
 The ghastly colour from his lips had fled ; 
 In his deportment, shape, and mien, appeared 
 Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, 95 
 
 Brought from a pensive, though a happy place. 
 
 He spake of love, such love as spirits feel 
 
 In worlds whose course is equable and pure ; 
 
 No fears to beat away — no strife to heal — 
 
 The past unsighed for, and the future sure ; 100 
 
 Spake of heroic arts in graver mood 
 
 Revived, with finer harmony pursued ; 
 
WORDSWORTH 29 
 
 Of all that is most beauteous — imaged there 
 
 In happier beauty ; more pellucid streams, 
 
 An ampler ether, a diviner air, 105 
 
 And fields invested with purpureal gleams ; 
 
 Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day 
 
 Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. 
 
 Yet there the soul shall enter which hath earned 
 
 That privilege by virtue. — ' 111,' said he, no 
 
 ' The end of man's existence I discerned. 
 
 Who from ignoble games and revelry 
 
 Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight. 
 
 While tears were thy best pastime, day and night ; 
 
 'And while my youthful peers before my eyes 115 
 (Each hero following his peculiar bent) 
 Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise 
 By martial sports, — or, seated in the tent, 
 Chieftains and kings in council were detained ; 
 What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained. 120 
 
 ' The wished-for wind was given : — I then revolved 
 
 The oracle, upon the silent sea ; 
 
 And, if no worthier led the way, resolved 
 
 That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be 
 
 The foremost prow in pressing to the strand, — 125 
 
 Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand. 
 
 ' Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang 
 
 When of thy loss I thought, beloved wife ! 
 
 On thee too fondly did my memory hang, 
 
 And on the joys we shared in mortal life, — 130 
 
30 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 The paths which we had trod — these fountains, 
 
 flowers ; 
 My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers. 
 
 ' But, should suspense permit the foe to cry, 
 
 " Behold, they tremble ! — haughty their array, 
 
 Yet of their number no one dares to die"? — ■ 135 
 
 In soul I swept the indignity away : 
 
 Old frailties then recurred : — but lofty thought. 
 
 In act embodied, my deliverance wrought. 
 
 ' And thou, though strong in love, art all too weak 
 
 In reason, in self-government too slow ; 140 
 
 I counsel thee by fortitude to seek 
 
 Our blest re-union in the shades below. 
 
 The invisible world with thee hath sympathised ; 
 
 Be thy affections raised and solemnised. 
 
 ' Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend 145 
 
 Towards a higher object. — Love was given. 
 Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end : 
 For this the passion to excess was driven — • 
 That self might be annulled : her bondage prove 
 The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.' 150 
 
 Aloud she shrieked ! For Hermes reappears ! 
 Round the dear shade she would have clung — 'tis 
 
 vain : 
 The hours are past — too brief had they been years ; 
 And him no mortal effort can detain : 
 Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day, 
 He through the portal takes his silent way, 156 
 
 And on the palace floor a lifeless corse she lay. 
 
WORDSWORTH 31 
 
 By no weak pity might the gods be moved ; 
 
 She who thus perished not without the crime 
 
 Of lovers that in reason's spite have loved, 160 
 
 Was doomed to wander in a grosser clime, 
 
 Apart from happy ghosts — that gather flowers 
 
 Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers. 
 
 — Yet tears to human suffering are due ; 
 
 And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown 165 
 
 Are mourned by man, and not by man alone, 
 
 As fondly he believes. — Upon the side 
 
 Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained) 
 
 A knot of spiry trees for ages grew 
 
 From out the tomb of him for whom she died ; 170 
 
 And ever, when such stature they had gained 
 
 That Ilium's walls were subject to their view. 
 
 The trees' tall summits withered at the sight ; 
 
 A constant interchange of growth and blight ! 
 
 NOTES 
 
 1. Parcse, three Fates — Clotho, who span, Lachesis, who 
 measured, and Atropos, who cut the 'fate.' 
 
 2. Stygian. Styx was a river of Hades. 
 
 3. Erebus, the pit of nether darkness, on the way to Hades. 
 
 4. Monster, Cerberus. The Fates granted to Admetus 
 dehverance from death, if his wife — Alcestis — would die for 
 him, which she did ; but Hercules brought her back from Hades. 
 
SCOTT 
 
 PART I.— HIS LIFE 
 
 Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on 15 th August 
 1 771. He was the son of a Writer to the Signet, and was 
 descended from the Scotts of Harden, who were of the 
 noble race of Buccleuch. His early boyhood was spent in 
 his grandfather's house near Kelso, in the heart of the 
 Border district. He was educated at the High School and 
 University of Edinburgh, and was called to the Scottish 
 Bar in 1792. He practised with fair success, but very 
 soon began to turn his attention seriously to literature. 
 He published several translations from the German, and 
 brought out his Mi?istrelsy of the Scottish Border, which 
 contained some original contributions. He was appointed 
 Sheriff of Selkirkshire in 1804, and took up his residence 
 at Ashestiel, on the banks of the Tweed. He there 
 produced The Lay of the Last ALinstrel in 1805, Mamn'on 
 in 1808, The Lady of the Lake in 18 10, The Vision of Don 
 Roderick in 181 1, The Bridal of Triermain and Rokeby in 
 1813. At Abbotsford were written The Lord of the Lsles 
 in 181 5, and LLarold the Dauntless in 181 7; but Scott's 
 first novel, Waverley, had appeared before their publication, 
 and from this time he ceased to write poetry. In 1820 he 
 was created a Baronet by George IV. The commercial 
 crisis of 1826, combined with bad management, proved 
 the ruin of the publishing firm of the Ballantynes, in which 
 
SCOTT 33 
 
 Scott was a partner. He made a noble effort to dear off 
 his share of the habiUties with his pen, and almost succeeded 
 in doing so, but died of overwork on 21st September 1832. 
 It will be noticed that, while Scott's life coincides with the 
 First, or Georgian, period of Nineteenth-Century Literature, 
 his poetical life, roughly speaking, began and ended with 
 the Peninsular War. 
 
 The fact that Scott could claim descent from a noble 
 and ancient clan had considerable influence on his poetry. 
 It inspired him with that regard for feudalism and chivalry 
 which we perceive everywhere through his writings. It 
 inclined him towards Toryism in politics, and consequently 
 kept him free from the more violent influences of the 
 French Revolution. It emphasised his historical and 
 antiquarian tastes, to which the story of his poems owes so 
 much. It also disposed him to make rather too much of 
 his character of 'gentleman,' as distinct from that of 
 'author'; and this may partly account for the occasional 
 carelessness and want of polish which mark much of his 
 poetry. 
 
 The accidental circumstances of weak health and slight 
 lameness sent him to spend his childhood in the picturesque 
 Border region. By this his natural taste for beautiful 
 scenery, stirring baUad, and quaint legend was fostered 
 and encouraged. He was also inspired with that whole- 
 some love of all athletic exercises, of vigorous action, of 
 horses and dogs, which breathes through every line of his 
 works. His devotion to the Border, formed in childhood, 
 never failed. When practising law in Edinburgh, his 
 vacations were passed in roaming through it ; his manhood 
 was spent there ; and it was there that an uneasy longing 
 drove him, when he felt that death was at hand. It is to 
 the influence of the Border that we owe aU that is most 
 characteristic in the poetry of Scott. 
 
 Scott's regular education at school and college affected 
 his poetical genius but little. He was by no means a 
 distinguished student at the University. He had no 
 
 3 
 
34 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 1 
 
 intimate acquaintance with Latin or Greek. Amongst 
 foreign literatures, he was only familiar with that of 
 Germany. In his early days at the law, he had studied 
 German with some attention, and his translations of German 
 ballads were sufficiently appreciated by M. G. Lewis to 
 induce that author to ask Scott for contributions to the 
 Tales of Wonder. At all times Scott had been an eager 
 devourer of ballads, legends, and mediaeval history, and he 
 began to follow the true bent of his genius when he 
 produced his Miiistrelsy of the Scottish Border. By this 
 work he gained considerable reputation as a poet and as 
 an antiquarian. But though the literature of the past was 
 his favourite study, he by no means neglected the poetry 
 of his contemporaries, and he himself acknowledges that 
 ^ho. form of his romantic poems was in part suggested by 
 the example of Coleridge. 
 
 Scott, as we have said, always took great interest in 
 athletics and sport of every kind. The study of war was 
 his delight, and during this part of his life at or near 
 Edinburgh, he acted as quartermaster of a volunteer corps 
 of cavalry. It is to this military instinct that we owe the 
 intense fervour of his battle scenes, to which ' Christopher 
 North ' of the Quarterly Review refers when he says : ' A 
 cut and thrust style without any flourish, Scott's style when 
 his blood was up, and the first words came like a vanguard 
 impatient for battle.' 
 
 When he went to live at Ashestiel as Sheriff of Selkirk- 
 shire, he was, to a great extent, cut off from Edinburgh 
 society. But he had abundant leisure, and his duties 
 brought him into contact with all sorts and conditions of 
 men. He was in the midst of his beloved Border, and 
 the stirring events of the day must have stimulated his 
 imagination, as they certainly fired his patriotism. Every 
 surrounding circumstance, in fact, helped to successfully 
 develop the vein which he now struck in The Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel. He had been asked by Lady Dalkeith to 
 write a ballad on the old legend of Gilpin Horner. He 
 
SCOTT 35 
 
 found the ballad growing under his hands into a metrical 
 romance, and its publication at once raised its author to a 
 place among the foremost poets of the day. He continued 
 to work the vein he had struck. His second romance, 
 Marmiofi, is undoubtedly his greatest ; and his third, The 
 Lady of the Lake, possesses very high merit. But after 
 this his strength seems to have flagged, and in all his other 
 poems a distinct falling off is visible. As the popularity of 
 his work began to decline, Byron's poetry became the 
 fashion. It is characteristic of the total absence of literary 
 jealousy, which marked Scott's nature, that he cheerfully 
 acquiesced in the popular verdict. He ceased to write 
 poetry, and devoted himself to that branch of literature 
 in which, during his own time, he admitted no rival. 
 
 Scott's religious views, which were liberal and tolerant 
 on the whole, are never thrust forward in his poetry ; but 
 we may trace there the general outline of his character, 
 from the enthusiasm for everything noble and chivalrous, 
 the hatred of everything mean or cowardly, and the wide 
 charity which prevents him making even his worst villains 
 wholly bad. His domestic life and social relations were 
 so entirely happy that his naturally healthy and hopeful 
 disposition entered without alloy into his poetry. There 
 is not a trace of either melancholy or deep philosophical 
 reflection. Scott's life after the year 1817 has no bearing 
 whatever on his poetry. 
 
 PART II.— GENERAL CRITICISM 
 
 It is comparatively easy to select from Scott's longer poems 
 a passage characteristic of his style. He had one poetical 
 manner, and one only, in narrative verse ; and the strength 
 of his narrative lies rather in the excellence of the episodes 
 than in the logical sequence and probability of the plot. 
 Hence little violence is required to remove any particular 
 passage from its context. 
 
36 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 I. — Aim in the Poem 
 
 Scott's aim in The Lay of the Last Minstrel^ as in all 
 his revivals of ancient metrical romances, was the same as 
 that of his forerunners in the art — the minstrels, bards, and 
 trouveres — to tell a tale of chivalry; and he himself 
 informs us that he wished to choose for the telling such 
 a tale as would lend itself to descriptions of scenery and 
 of ancient manners and customs. He felt that by this 
 means he could best bring out the stores of antiquarian 
 learning and the images of external nature with which his 
 mind was filled. The dignity of a regular poem did not, 
 as he thought, allow such patchwork treatment. Accord- 
 ingly, he adopted the plan and outward form of those old 
 romances, of which he found the models in the pages of 
 Percy's Reliques, and among the cottagers along the Border, 
 with whom he had been from boyhood a welcome guest. 
 He was thus enabled to vary his measure, and introduce 
 machinery from popular belief, ' which would have seemed 
 puerile in a poem which did not partake of the rudeness 
 of the old ballad or metrical romance.' Scott saw clearly 
 the facilities which such a treatment afforded, and he was 
 careful to avoid the principal faults of the old ballad- 
 mongers and romanticists — their prosaic detail and 
 monotony. By various devices, to be discussed later, 
 Scott minimises, if he does not altogether get rid of, these 
 blemishes. 
 
 II. — Was the Aim successful ? 
 
 The poet's object then was threefold: (i) To tell a 
 tale; (2) to work in description of manners; (3) to work 
 in descriptions of scenery. 
 
 I. The Story. — As regards the mere telling of a tale, 
 Scott has no equal in English literature. His power of 
 invention and expression was extraordinary. The interest 
 of the story is carried on in remarkably well -sustained 
 fashion, considering the length of the poem. Scott had 
 
SCOTT 37 
 
 no power of analysing character. His character- drawing 
 is done in a dashing scene-painting manner, with bold, 
 broad outhnes, but no subtle dehneation. This is ex- 
 tremely suitable to the style of poem and acts as a positive 
 help to the course of the narrative. In none of his 
 poems does the story move more vigorously onward than 
 in his first — The Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
 
 2. The ALanners. — With regard to description of 
 manners, Scott has succeeded beyond what one could 
 expect, but not completely. No modern can transport 
 himself so absolutely into the past as to give a perfect 
 description of the life of that past. Scott was as thoroughly 
 familiar with the details of feudal life as any man could 
 be who had gained his knowledge from books. But task 
 learning alone is insufficient for thoroughly life-like repre- 
 sentation of a past epoch. We often find that Scott is 
 unnaturally theatrical. Sometimes, from his desire to 
 introduce local colour, he becomes pedantic, though most 
 of his pedantry escapes into the notes. But his picturesque 
 grouping and vivid imagination do much to redeem these 
 faults. 
 
 3. The Scenery. — Scott's descriptions of scenery and 
 scenic effects are of two kinds. The one is natural and 
 unstudied, simply bringing before the reader's mind the 
 main features of beauty in sky, or stream, or moorland. 
 The other smells more of the lamp, and, though undeniably 
 impressive, displays some straining after _ effect. His best 
 descriptions are always those in which the scenery is closely 
 associated with some stirring historical event. 
 
 iii. how far does his object accord with the' 
 
 Fundamental Principles of his Art ? 
 
 Narrative is the basis of all the earliest and greatest 
 poetry in the world. It had fallen into disuse before 
 Scott's time in the history of English poetry. Not only 
 did he set an example for a new school of narrative poets, 
 
38 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 but he helped to turn the form of all other kinds of poetry 
 in the direction of narrative. The original purpose of 
 poetry was to tell a story in such fashion as to stir the 
 emotions of the heart. This was what was achieved by 
 Homer and Virgil, and what has also been achieved by 
 Scott. 
 
 PART III.— TECHNICAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — Elements of Style 
 
 I. Vocabulary. — Scott's vocabulary is copious, if not re- 
 markably choice. His command of language, ample for 
 the purposes for which it was employed, would probably 
 have failed in a poem of a more philosophical description. 
 But for poems of action it is unsurpassed. His want of 
 choiceness must be attributed partly to his dangerous 
 fluency, and partly to the enticing ease and flexibility of 
 his metre. In the main, his language is the prose language 
 of his day. But, in order to fit his vocabulary more closely 
 to his subject, he uses in The Lay many peculiar or obsolete 
 words, found in the old romances,^ and adopts the old 
 spelling in some of the most ordinary words. ^ He is not 
 afraid of using technical terms. ^ The same epithet is 
 found systematically repeated with the same noun, after 
 the fashion of the old ballad writers.^ Scott has a love 
 for introducing the names of persons and places into his 
 verse. Elsewhere than in The Lay we find whole stanzas 
 that are little more than lists of names. This peculiarity is 
 well brought out in the parody in Rejected Addresses.^ 
 
 ^ Canto i. stanza 22, wightest ; stanza 25, barbican, basnet, Peel; 
 stanza 29, bavded ; Canto ii. stanza 3, aventayle ; stanza 6, can ; stanza 
 19, amice. 
 
 ^ Canto i. stanza 20, Ladye ; Canto ii. stanza 14, Abbaye. 
 
 2 Canto i. stanza 31, lauds; Canto ii. stanza 9, keystone, fleur- 
 de-lys, quatre-feuille, corbels. 
 
 * Canto i. stanza 22, and Canto ii. stanza 16, good at need ; Canto 
 i. stanza 22, fair. ^ Canto i. stanzas 25 and 30. 
 
SCOTT 39 
 
 Generally speaking, when the course of the action is 
 most vigorous and stirring, Scott's vocabulary is fullest 
 and freshest. 
 
 2. Sentence, Paragraph, and Metre. — Scott understood 
 the art of carrying his reader along with him too well to 
 cast his verse in long or involved sentences. Hardly any 
 of his clauses extend beyond the couplet ; many of them 
 are contained in one line, and, except in conversations, the 
 line is never broken in the middle. The stanza with him 
 takes the place of blank verse paragraph, and but little 
 art is used in its arrangement. The number of lines in 
 each stanza is uncertain, and this method of construction 
 is convenient, and indeed necessary, for a poet who 
 constantly expresses changes of sense by sudden changes 
 of metre. The metre itself is founded on that of the old 
 ballad writers — Scotch, French, and English. But Scott 
 saw that, by following closely his original model, he ran 
 the risk of making the poem monotonous. He, therefore, 
 imitating Coleridge, gave to his verse the metrical irregu- 
 larity which is its chief charm. He varied the rimed 
 octosyllabic line by an occasional Adonic of six syllables. 
 He indulged freely in the license of substituting accentual 
 for metrical regularity in the single, line. 
 
 His other device for avoiding monotony consisted in 
 arranging the poem in a kind of outside framework, the 
 various cantos being joined together by a series of reflec- 
 tions, descriptions, or, as in the case of The Lay, by a 
 subordinate story. 
 
 Adornment. — There is little adornment in Scott's poetry, 
 except certain simple metrical devices. His language is 
 so straightforward and plain that the simile and metaphor 
 seem out of place, and they are rarely met with. When 
 we do find them, they are seldom very original or striking. 
 That in canto i. stanza 31, line 1 1 is not sufficiently obvious 
 to be picturesque; that in canto ii., stanza 9 weakens the 
 whole stanza. A kind of onomatopoeia is found at canto i. 
 stanza 24, and canto ii. stanza 6. 
 
40 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 II. — Intellectual Qualities of Style 
 
 1. Clearness. — Scott's 'light-horseman stanza,' as he 
 called it, sometimes hurries him into slightly confused 
 expression, but the thought is always distinct and clear. 
 He so rarely touched upon abstract questions, that there is 
 but little merit in this. It added greatly, however, to his 
 popularity. He has written few lines about the meaning 
 of which any doubt has arisen. Lines 5-10 of stanza 5, 
 canto ii., are quite ungrammatical and impossible to analyse, 
 but their meaning is as apparent as day. 
 
 2. Simplicity. — Scott's use of obsolete words, his 
 technicalities, his innumerable, historical, and topographical 
 allusions, his occasional diffuseness, debar him from any 
 claim to simplicity in its fullest sense. The mere fact that 
 his poems need notes and glossary shows this. Moreover, 
 he pays much attention to minute detail, and where there 
 is minute detail there can be no simplicity, though there 
 may be exactness. 
 
 III. — Emotional Qualities of Style 
 
 1. Strength. — The special form of the quahty of strength 
 in Scott's poetry is animation. The first 200 lines of our 
 selection give an excellent example of this. He occasionally 
 rises to splendour. But his splendid passages, as we have 
 before said, are apt to be marred by a somewhat theatrical 
 touch. The Blood-red Cross on the Wizard's grave is 
 distinctly stagey. But Scott's purely animated passages 
 can only be approached by parts of the Lays of Ancient 
 Rome. Animation may not be one of the highest or rarest 
 of the emotional qualities of style, but it is certainly the one 
 which can produce the most pleasure in the mind of the 
 reader. 
 
 2. Pathos. — It would be rash to say that the author of 
 The Heart of Midlothian had not supreme power of pathos, 
 but in his poetry it is rarely seen. His own nature was so 
 
 1 
 
SCOTT 41 
 
 buoyant and cheerful that he did not care to purify the 
 minds of his readers with pity. If he describes scenes of 
 misery, the misery is always joined to some circumstances 
 of excitement or horror which leave no room in the mind 
 for pleasing melancholy. 
 
 IV. — The Kind of Composition 
 
 The poem is of a kind peculiarly Scott's own. It is 
 founded, both in form and spirit, upon the old metrical 
 romances of all descriptions and all nations — the Rime of 
 Sir Thopas grafted on to Chevy Chace and Jamie Telfer. 
 It is distinguished by exactly those merits which Scott 
 himself assigns it in his preface. Being sung by one of the 
 last minstrels, it may be supposed, he says, to possess the 
 refinement of modern poetry with the simplicity and 
 naturalness of the original model. These are exactly what 
 it does possess. The ardent chivalric feeling that prevails 
 in the foolish productions, of which Sir Thopas is a specimen, 
 is retained. The desperate dulness is removed. The 
 vigour and freshness of Chevy Chace are retained ; the 
 ludicrous rime and the occasional bathos are removed. The 
 remarkable fact about this new style of poetry is that it 
 came into the world, as it were, by accident. If it had 
 not been for Lady Dalkeith's commission, before referred 
 to, Scott might have continued to write more translations 
 from the German and more contributions to Tales of Wonder. 
 But in what was at first meant to be a slight elaboration 
 upon a Border ballad, his real strength was given full play ; 
 and the result appeared, not merely in The Lay and 
 Marmion, but also in Ivanhoe and Quentin Durzvard. 
 
 Essay-Subjects : — (i) ' Scott's " gallant ruffians " ' ; (2) 
 ' The Romance of the Scottish Border.' 
 
THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 
 
 Canto I. 20 to H. 21 
 
 I. 20. The Ladye forgot her purpose high, 
 
 One moment, and no more ; 
 One moment gazed with a mother's eye. 
 
 As she paused at the arched door : 
 Then, from amid the armed train, 
 She called to her William of Deloraine. 
 
 21. A stark moss-trooping Scott was he, 
 As e'er couched Border lance by knee : 
 Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss, 
 Blindfold, he knew the paths to cross ; 
 By wily turns, by desperate bounds. 
 Had baffled Percy's best bloodhounds : 
 In Eske, or Liddel, fords were none. 
 But he would ride them, one by one ; 
 Alike to him was time or tide, 
 December's snow, or July's pride ; 
 Alike to him was tide or time. 
 Moonless midnight, or matin prime : 
 Steady of heart, and stout of hand, 
 
SCOTT 43 
 
 As ever drove prey from Cumberland ; 
 
 Five times outlawed had he been, 
 
 By England's king, and Scotland's queen. 
 
 22. ' Sir William of Deloraine, good at need, 
 Mount thee on the wightest steed ; 
 Spare not to spur, nor stint to ride. 
 Until thou come to fair Tweedside ; 
 And in Melrose's holy pile 
 
 Seek thou the Monk of St. Mary's aisle. 
 Greet the father well from me ; 
 
 Say that the fated hour is come. 
 And to-night he shall watch with thee. 
 To win the treasure of the tomb : 
 For this will be St. Michael's night. 
 And, though stars be dim, the moon is bright ; 
 And the Cross, of bloody red. 
 Will point to the grave of the mighty dead. 
 
 23. ' What he gives thee, see thou keep ; 
 Stay not thou for food or sleep : 
 
 Be it scroll, or be it book. 
 Into it, Knight, thou must not look ; 
 If thou readest, thou art lorn ! 
 Better hadst thou ne'er been born.' 
 
 24. ' O swiftly can speed my dapple-gray steed, 
 
 Which drinks of the Teviot clear ; 
 Ere break of day,' the Warrior 'gan say, 
 
 ' Again will I be here : 
 And safer by none may thy errand be done. 
 
 Than, noble dame, by me ; 
 
44 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Letter nor line know I never a one, 
 Were't my neck-verse ^ at Hairibee.' 
 
 25. Soon in his saddle sate he fast, 
 
 And soon the steep descent he passed. 
 Soon crossed the sounding barbican, 
 And soon the Teviot side he won. 
 Eastward the wooded path he rode, 
 Green hazels o'er his basnet nod ; 
 He passed the Peel of Goldiland, 
 And crossed old Borthwick's roaring strand ; 
 Dimly he viewed the Moat-hill's mound, 
 Where Druid shades still flitted round : 
 In Hawick twinkled many a light ; 
 Behind him soon they set in night ; 
 And soon he spurred his courser keen 
 Beneath the tower of Hazeldean. 
 
 26. The clattering hoofs the watchmen mark : 
 ' Stand, ho ! thou courier of the dark.' 
 
 ' For Branksome, ho ! ' the knight rejoined. 
 And left the friendly tower behind. 
 He turned him now from Teviotside, 
 
 And, guided by the tinkling rill. 
 Northward the dark ascent did ride. 
 And gained the moor at Horsliehill ; 
 Broad on the left before him lay. 
 For many a mile, the Roman way. 
 
 27. A moment now he slacked his speed, 
 A moment breathed his panting steed ; 
 Drew saddle-girth and corslet-band, 
 
 1 
 
SCOTT 45 
 
 And loosened in the sheath his brand. 
 On Minto-crags the moonbeams ghnt, 
 Where Barnhill hewed his bed of flint ; 
 Who flung his outlawed limbs to rest, 
 Where falcons hang their giddy nest, 
 Mid cliffs, from whence his eagle eye 
 For many a league his prey could spy ; 
 Cliffs, doubling, on their echoes borne. 
 The terrors of the robber's horn ; 
 Clifls, which, for many a later year. 
 The warbling Doric reed shall hear, 
 When some sad swain shall teach the grove. 
 Ambition is no cure for love ! 
 
 28. Unchallenged, thence passed Deloraine, 
 To ancient Riddel's fair domain. 
 
 Where Aill, from mountains freed, 
 Down from the lakes did raving come ; 
 Each wave was crested with tawny foam, 
 
 Like the mane of a chestnut steed. 
 In vain ! no torrent, deep or broad. 
 Might bar the bold moss-trooper's road. 
 
 29. At the first plunge the horse sunk low, 
 And the water broke o'er the saddlebow ; 
 Above the foaming tide, I ween, 
 Scarce half the charger's neck was seen ; 
 For he was barded from counter to tail. 
 And the rider was armed complete in mail 
 Never heavier man and horse 
 Stemmed a midnight torrent's force. 
 
 The warrior's very plume, I say, 
 
46 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Was daggled by the dashing spray ; 
 
 Yet, through good heart, and Our Ladye's grace. 
 
 At length he gained the landing-place. 
 
 30. Now Bowden Moor the marchman won, 
 
 And sternly shook his plumed head, 
 As glanced his eye o'er Halidon ; 
 
 For on his soul the slaughter red 
 Of that unhallowed morn arose. 
 When first the Scott and Carr were foes ; 
 When royal James beheld the fray, 
 Prize to the victor of the day ; 
 When Home and Douglas, in the van, 
 Bore down Buccleuch's retiring clan. 
 Till gallant Cessford's heart-blood dear 
 Reeked on dark Elliot's Border spear. 
 
 31. In bitter mood he spurred fast, 
 And soon the hated heath was past ; 
 And far beneath, in lustre wan. 
 
 Old Melros' rose, and fair Tweed ran 
 
 Like some tall rock with lichens gray. 
 
 Seemed, dimly huge, the dark Abbaye. 
 
 When Hawick he passed, had curfew rung, 
 
 Now midnight lauds were in Melrose sung. 
 
 The sound, upon the fitful gale, 
 
 In solemn wise did rise and fail, 
 
 Like that wild harp, whose magic tone 
 
 Is wakened by the winds alone. 
 
 But when Melrose he reached, 'twas silence all ; 
 
 He meetly stabled his steed in stall, 
 
 And sought the convent's lonely wall. 
 
SCOTT 47 
 
 II. I. If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, 
 Go visit it by the pale moonlight ; 
 For the gay beams of lightsome day 
 Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray. 
 When the broken arches are black in night, 
 And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; 
 When the cold light's uncertain shower 
 Streams on the ruined central tower ; 
 When buttress and buttress, alternately, 
 Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; 
 When silver edges the imagery. 
 And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die ; 
 When distant Tweed is heard to rave, 
 And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's 
 
 grave. 
 Then go — but go alone the while — 
 Then view St. David's ruined pile ; 
 And, home returning, soothly swear. 
 Was never scene so sad and fair ! 
 
 2. Short halt did Deloraine make there ; 
 Little recked he of the scene so fair : 
 With dagger's hilt on the wicket strong. 
 He struck full loud, and struck full long. 
 The porter hurried to the gate — 
 ' Who knocks so loud, and knocks so late ? ' 
 ' From Branksome I,' the warrior cried ; 
 And straight the wicket opened wide : 
 For Branksome's chiefs had in battle stood. 
 
XIX.- CENTURY POETRY 
 
 1 
 
 To fence the rights of fair Meh'ose ; 
 And lands and Hvings, many a rood, 
 
 Had gifted the shrine for their souls' repose. 
 
 3. Bold Deloraine his errand said ; 
 The porter bent his humble head ; 
 With torch in hand and feet unshod, 
 And noiseless step, the path he trod : 
 The arched cloister, far and wide. 
 Rang to the warrior's clanking stride ; 
 Till, stooping low his lofty crest. 
 
 He entered the cell of the ancient priest, 
 
 And lifted his barred aventayle. 
 
 To hail the Monk of St. Mary's aisle. 
 
 4. ' The Ladye of Branksome greets thee by me ; 
 
 Says, that the fated hour is come, 
 And that to-night I shall watch with thee. 
 
 To win the treasure- of the tomb.' 
 From sackcloth couch the monk arose, 
 
 With toil his stiffened limbs he reared ; 
 A hundred years had flung their snows 
 
 On his thin locks and floating beard. 
 
 5. And strangely on the Knight looked he. 
 
 And his blue eyes gleamed wild and wide ; 
 ' And, darest thou. Warrior ! seek to see 
 
 What heaven and hell alike would hide ? 
 My breast, in belt of iron pent. 
 
 With shirt of hair and scourge of thorn ; 
 For threescore years, in penance spent. 
 
 My knees those flinty stones have worn ; 
 
SCOTT 49 
 
 Yet all too little to atone 
 For knowing what should ne'er be known. 
 Wouldst thou thy every future year 
 
 In ceaseless prayer and penance drie, 
 Yet wait thy latter end with fear — 
 Then, daring Warrior, follow me ! ' 
 
 ' Penance, father, will I none ; 
 
 Prayer know I hardly one ; 
 
 For mass or prayer can I rarely tarry. 
 
 Save to patter an Ave Mary, 
 
 When I ride on a Border foray : 
 
 Other prayer can I none ; 
 
 So speed me my errand, and let me be gone.' — 
 
 Again on the Knight looked the Churchman 
 
 old, 
 And again he sighed heavily ; 
 For he had himself been a warrior bold, 
 
 And fought in Spain and Italy. 
 And he thought on the days that were long 
 
 since by, 
 When his limbs were strong, and his courage 
 
 was high : 
 Now, slow and faint, he led the way, 
 Where, cloistered round, the garden lay ; 
 The pillared arches were over their head, 
 And beneath their feet were the bones of the 
 
 dead. 
 
 Spreading herbs, and flowerets bright, 
 Glistened with the dew of night ; 
 4 
 
so XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Nor herb, nor floweret, glistened there, 
 But was carved in the cloister-arches as fair. 
 The Monk gazed long on the lovely moon, 
 
 Then into the night he looked forth ; 
 And red and bright the streamers light 
 Were dancing in the glowing north. 
 So had he seen, in fair Castile, 
 
 The youth in glittering squadrons start ; 
 Sudden the flying jennet wheel. 
 And hurl the unexpected dart. 
 He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright. 
 That spirits were riding the northern light. 
 
 9. By a steel-clenched postern door. 
 
 They entered now the chancel tall ; 
 The darkened roof rose high aloof 
 
 On pillars lofty and light and small : 
 The keystone, that locked each ribbed aisle. 
 Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-feuille ; 
 The corbels were carved grotesque and grim; 
 And the pillars, with clustered shafts so trim. 
 With base and with capital flourished around. 
 Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had 
 bound. 
 
 10. Full many a scutcheon and banner, riven, 
 Shook to the cold night wind of heaven. 
 
 Around the screened altar's pale ; 
 And there the dying lamps did burn, 
 Before thy low and lonely urn, 
 O gallant Chief of Otterburne ! 
 
 And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale ! 
 
SCOTT 51 
 
 O fading honours of the dead ! 
 O high ambition, lowly laid ! 
 
 1 1. The moon on the east oriel shone 
 
 Through slender shafts of shapely stone, 
 
 By foliaged tracery combined ; 
 Thou vvould'st have thought some fairy's hand 
 'Twixt poplars straight the ozier wand, 
 
 In many a freakish knot, had twined ; 
 Then framed a spell, when the work was done, 
 And changed the willow-wreaths to stone. 
 The silver light, so pale and faint, 
 Showed many a prophet, and many a saint. 
 
 Whose image on the glass was dyed ; 
 Full in the midst, his Cross of Red 
 Triumphant Michael brandished. 
 
 And trampled the Apostate's pride. 
 The moonbeam kissed the holy pane, 
 And threw on the pavement a bloody stain. 
 
 I 2. They sate them down on a marble stone, 
 (A Scottish monarch slept below) ; 
 Thus spoke the Monk, in solemn tone : — 
 
 ' I was not always a m.an of woe ; 
 For Paynim countries I have trod. 
 And fought beneath the Cross of God : 
 Now, strange to my eyes thine arms appear, 
 And their iron clang sounds strange to my ear. 
 
 13. 'In these fair climes it was my lot 
 To meet the wondrous Michael Scott, 
 A wizard, of such dreaded fame. 
 
52 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 1 
 
 That when, in Salanrianca's cave, 
 Him listed his magic wand to wave. 
 
 The bells would ring in Notre Dame ! 
 Some of his skill he taught to me ; 
 And, Warrior, I could say to thee 
 The words that cleft Eildon hills in three. 
 
 And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone : 
 But to speak them were a deadly sin ; 
 And for having but thought them my heart 
 within, 
 
 A treble penance must be done. 
 
 14. 'When Michael lay on his dying bed, 
 His conscience was awakened : 
 He bethought him of his sinful deed, 
 And he gave me a sign to come with speed : 
 I was in Spain when the morning rose. 
 But I stood by his bed ere evening close. 
 The words may not again be said. 
 That he spoke to me on death-bed laid ; 
 They would rend this Abbaye's massy nave, 
 And pile it in heaps above his grave. 
 
 15. 'I swore to bury his Mighty Book, 
 That never mortal might therein look ; 
 And never to tell where it was hid. 
 Save at his chief of Branksome's need : 
 And when that need was past and o'er. 
 Again the volume to restore. 
 I buried him on St. Michael's night. 
 When the bell tolled one, and the moon was 
 brig-ht ; 
 
SCOTT 53 
 
 And I dug his chamber among the dead, 
 When the floor of the chancel was stained red, 
 That his patron's cross might over him wave, 
 And scare the fiends from the Wizard's grave. 
 
 1 6. 'It was a night of woe and dread, 
 When Michael in the tomb I laid ! 
 Strange sounds along the chancel passed, 
 The banners waved without a blast ' — 
 
 Still spoke the monk, when the bell tolled one! — 
 
 I tell you, that a braver man 
 
 Than William of Deloraine, good at need, 
 
 Against a foe ne'er spurred a steed ; 
 
 Yet somewhat was he chilled with dread, 
 
 And his hair did bristle upon his head. 
 
 17. ' Lo, Warrior ! now, the Cross of Red 
 Points to the grave of the mighty dead ; 
 Within it burns a wondrous light, 
 
 To chase the spirits that love the night : 
 
 That lamp shall burn unquenchably, 
 
 Until the eternal doom shall be.' — 
 
 Slow moved the monk to the broad flag-stone, 
 
 Which the bloody Cross was traced upon : 
 
 He pointed to a secret nook ; 
 
 An iron bar the Warrior took ; 
 
 And the Monk made a sign with his withered 
 
 hand, 
 The grave's huge portal to expand. 
 
 I 8. With beating heart to the task he went ; 
 His sinewy frame o'er the gravestone bent ; 
 
54 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 With bar of iron heaved amain, 
 
 Till the toil-drops fell from his brows, like rain. 
 
 It was by dint of passing strength. 
 
 That he moved the massy stone at length. 
 
 I would you had been there, to see 
 
 How the light broke forth so gloriously. 
 
 Streamed upward to the chancel roof, 
 
 And through the galleries far aloof ! 
 
 No earthly flame blazed e'er so bright : 
 
 It shone like Heaven's own blessed light, 
 
 And, issuing from the tomb. 
 Showed the Monk's cowl, and visage pale. 
 Danced on the dark-brow'd Warrior's mail. 
 
 And kissed his waving plume. 
 
 1 9. Before their eyes the Wizard lay. 
 As if he had not been dead a day. 
 His hoary beard in silver rolled. 
 
 He seemed some seventy winters old ; 
 A palmer's amice wrapped him round. 
 With a wrought Spanish baldric bound, 
 
 Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea : 
 His left hand held his Book of Might ; 
 A silver cross was in his right ; 
 
 The lamp was placed beside his knee : 
 High and majestic was his look. 
 At which the fellest fiends had shook. 
 And all unruffled was his face : 
 They trusted his soul had gotten grace. 
 
 20. Often had William of Deloraine 
 Rode through the battle's bloody plain, 
 
 1 
 
SCOTT 55 
 
 And trampled down the warriors slain, 
 And neither known remorse nor awe ; 
 
 Yet now remorse and awe he owned ; 
 
 His breath came thick, his head swam round. 
 When this strange scene of death he saw. 
 
 Bewildered and unnerved he stood, 
 
 And the priest prayed fervently and loud : 
 
 With eyes averted prayed he ; 
 
 He might not endure the sight to see, 
 
 Of the man he had loved so brotherly. 
 
 2 1. And when the priest his death-prayer had 
 prayed, 
 Thus unto Deloraine he said : — - 
 ' Now, speed thee what thou hast to do, 
 Or, Warrior, we may dearly rue ; 
 For those, thou may'st not look upon, 
 Are gathering fast round the yawning stone ! ' 
 Then Deloraine, in terror, took 
 From the cold hand the Mighty Book, 
 With iron clasped, and with iron bound : 
 He thought, as he took it, the dead man frowned ; 
 But the glare of the sepulchral light. 
 Perchance had dazzled the Warrior's sight. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 I. Neck- verse at Hairibee. If a moss-trooper, when 
 brought out to execution at Hairibee, near CarHsle, claimed 
 ' benefit of his clergy ' he was required to prove his claim by 
 reading Psalm 51, verse r, from the Latin Psalter. On suc- 
 cessfully accomplishing this task his life was spared, but he 
 was banished from the kingdom. 
 
1 
 
 COLERIDGE 
 
 PART I.— HIS LIFE 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery St. Mary, 
 in Devonshire, 21st October 1772. He was educated at 
 Christ's Hospital and Jesus College, Cambridge. After 
 leaving Cambridge he became intimate with Southey, and 
 in 1795 niarried Sara Fricker, a sister of Southey's wife. 
 While living at Nether- Stowey, he met William and 
 Dorothy Wordsworth, his neighbours at Alfoxden. With 
 them he visited Germany, and afterwards settled near them 
 in the Lake district. He subsequently held a secretaryship 
 in Malta. In 18 10 domestic difficulties, increased by his 
 habit of taking opium, caused him to leave his family and 
 come up to London, where he wrote and lectured. In 
 1 8 16 he found a home in the house of Mr. Gillman, a 
 physician, where he died 25th July 1834. His principal 
 works are : ' The Ancient Mariner,' and other contributions 
 to Lyrical Ballads; Remorse: a Tragedy; Christabel ; 
 Biographia Literaria ; Literary Bcmains (edited by H. N. 
 Coleridge). 
 
 Coleridge's childhood was passed in the heart of the 
 woodland scenery of Devon. But the influence of his 
 father, a dreamer and a student, seems to have had more 
 effect upon him than that of external nature. Even at that 
 early period his precocious genius was directed towards 
 metaphysical speculation. During his school life, shut 
 inside the walls of Christ's Hospital, he had no opportunity 
 
COLERIDGE 57 
 
 of making himself familiar with the aspects of the outside 
 world, such as was given to his great contemporary Words- 
 worth. This increased his early devotion to metaphysics, 
 and his passion for natural beauty was aroused, as it were, 
 accidentally by the study of the Sonnets of Bowles. At 
 school he was the friend of Charles Lamb, who says of him 
 in ' Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago ' [Essays 
 of Elici) : 'Samuel Taylor Coleridge — ^ Logician, Meta- 
 physician, Bard ! — How have I seen the casual passer 
 through the Cloisters stand still entranced with admiration 
 (while he weighed the disproportion between the speech and 
 '&\Q. garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, in thy 
 deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus, or 
 Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at 
 such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek 
 or Pindar — while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed 
 to the accents of the inspired charity-boy I ' 
 
 The years spent at Cambridge form his period of 
 preparation for the poetical outburst which was to follow. 
 His mind was divided between metaphysics and poetry, and 
 his principal poem of this period. Religious Musings, 
 contains both these elements in a remarkable degree. He 
 was, as might be expected, an ardent republican, but his 
 republicanism, like that of Wordsworth, disappeared in his 
 later years. His recantation is to be found in those superb 
 odes, To the Departing Day and France. 
 
 The first joys of marpiage made him forget for a time 
 liis 'vain philosophy,' and we are now to notice the main 
 phenomenon of Coleridge's poetic life — 'not as with most 
 poets, the gradual development of a poetic gift, determined, 
 enriched, retarded, by the circumstances of the poet's life, 
 but the sudden blossoming, through one short season, of a 
 gift already perfect in its kind, which thereafter deteriorates 
 as suddenly with something like premature old age.' 
 During Coleridge's residence at Nether- Stowey, he com- 
 posed or sketched out nearly all those poems by which 
 he is best known. When that effort had run its course. 
 
S8 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 he relapsed into comparative silence. The influence of 
 Wordsworth was during this time supreme with him. 
 Wordsworth encouraged in him that love of nature and 
 that faith in her powers which was part of the poetical 
 creed of the Lake School. To this Coleridge added his 
 own inimitable grace and power of dealing with the 
 supernatural. 
 
 Coleridge's poetic career really closes with his departure 
 from Nether-Stowey. His habits of life were averse to any 
 sustained poetical effort ; and when he left the Lakes he 
 was cut off from all further intercourse with Wordsworth. 
 
 The fact that Coleridge has left hardly anything completed 
 testifies to that weakness of will which was his besetting sin. 
 His opium drams, and the readiness with which he accepted 
 pecuniary obligations, denote a man of little independence 
 of character. His personality was most charming, and his 
 conversational powers were very great. There are few men 
 who have thought or read more. It is only the limited 
 quantity of his poetical work which prevents him from 
 taking rank among the greatest of English poets. 
 
 PART II.— GENERAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — Aim in the Poem 
 
 It would be difficult to assign any definite aim beyond the 
 story-telling to an incomplete fragment like Christabel. 
 Possibly no definite aim existed in Coleridge's mind. He 
 did not take the same lofty view of the poet's duty as 
 Wordsworth did, who laid great stress on the ' worthy 
 purpose ' of his poetry. It was sufficient for Coleridge 
 that what he wrote should serve to soothe or delight him 
 — the writer. No doubt he meant in Christabel to 
 realise his conception of what a romantic ballad, depend- 
 ing on supernatural machinery, should be ; and such a 
 
COLERIDGE 59 
 
 plan must have been pleasing to him, both as a psychologist 
 and as a painter of external nature. 
 
 II. — Was the Aim successful? 
 
 There is something in Coleridge's supernaturalism un- 
 like anything else in English literature. The delicate 
 touches by which a ghostly significance is given to 
 apparently commonplace details belong peculiarly to 
 him. Nothing gruesome or horrifying is forced upon the 
 reader — 
 
 Yet over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
 
 A baron's daughter meets a damsel lost in the forest, and 
 affords her hospitality. The incident is ordinary enough ; 
 the treatment fills us with emotions of suspense and terror. 
 Contrast the prevailing methods of Tales of Wonder^ and 
 notice the different effects of the passage in our selection — 
 
 Off, wandering mother ! Peak and pine ! etc. — 
 
 and of those absurd lines in Alonzo the Brave and the Fair 
 Imagine — 
 
 The Lady is silent ; the stranger complies — 
 
 His visor he slowly unclosed. 
 O God ! What a sight met fair Imogine's eyes ! 
 What words can express her dismay and surprise 
 
 When a skeleton's head was exposed ! 
 
 All present then uttered a terrified shout, 
 
 All turned with disgust from the scene. 
 The worms they crawled in, and the worms they crawled out. 
 And sported his eyes and his temples about. 
 
 While the spectre addressed Imogine. 
 
 It is in his self-restraint, when dealing with the super- 
 natural, and his avoidance of what Macaulay characterises 
 as the 'fee-faw-fum of Tasso and Klopstock,' that Coleridge 
 earns his highest fame as an artist. 
 
6o XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 III. — Was the Aim in Accordance with the Funda- 
 mental Principles of his Art? 
 
 In giving Christahel to the world, Coleridge joined that 
 most valuable movement, the revival of the old ballad 
 poetry. As pointed out in the Introduction, this move- 
 ment originated with Bishop Percy, and proved of the 
 greatest service in turning public opinion against the 
 ' correct ' poets. Coleridge's chief merit in Christabel, 
 however, is found in his introduction into the old ballad 
 form of modern reflection and moral sentiment. In this 
 he differs not only from his predecessors, the old ballad 
 writers, but also from his immediate successor, Scott. 
 
 PART III.— TECHNICAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — Elements of Style 
 
 I. Vocahdary. — The vocabulary of Christahel is both 
 copious and choice. It is in the main made up of words 
 of Saxon origin, and archaic words and constructions are 
 introduced to suit the old ballad form.^ The chief 
 peculiarity lies in the abundance of epithet. Coleridge 
 was aware of his excess in this respect, and endeavoured 
 to rectify it ; but we have still many examples of it.^ It 
 is an essential peculiarity of the old ballad-mongers. 
 
 2. Sente72ce, Paragraph, and Metre. — Unlike his more 
 philosophical poems, Coleridge's narrative is plain and 
 straightforward, with few elaborate constructions. The 
 metre is, as the author says in his Preface, not, properly 
 
 1 Stanza 4, makes ; stanza 12, wis ; stanza 25, wiklered ; stanza 
 26, countree. 
 
 ^ Last line of stanza 6, and many others. 
 
COLERIDGE 6i 
 
 speaking, irregular. Though the number of syllables in 
 each line may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line 
 the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless, 
 this occasional variation in number of syllables is not 
 introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, 
 but in correspondence with some transition, in the nature 
 of the imagery or passion. 
 
 3. Adortunent. — There are strikingly few figures of 
 speech in Christabel. Metaphor and simile are practically 
 absent. An example of onomatopceia is found in stanza 
 7. But in the main the adornment lies in the epithets, 
 the profusion of which has been already noticed. 
 
 II. — Intellectual Qualities of Style 
 
 I. Clearness and Simplicity. — The charges of obscurity 
 brought against Coleridge's poetry in general cannot be sus- 
 tained against Christabel. In the whole of our selection there 
 is, we think, only one couplet (stanza 30, 11. 3, 4) which the 
 average reader may not understand. As regards simplicity^ 
 we have minuteness, but no diffuseness, and the entire 
 absence of allusions makes each individual sentence easy 
 of comprehension. As the poem is unfinished, we cannot 
 criticise the structure as a whole ; but what we have of it 
 gives the impression of a carefully worked out and com- 
 plete design. 
 
 III. — Emotional Qualities of Style 
 
 I. Strength. — Coleridge's chief quality of strength is 
 grace. He is the one poet of the early part of the 
 nineteenth century who shows throughout his work con- 
 sistent artistic care, such as we have become accustomed 
 to from poets of the present day. He never allows the 
 marks of his file to be seen, however, and his style is the 
 perfection of graceful ease. His odes are characterised by 
 force and splendour. When he approaches the super- 
 
62 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 natural, what strikes us is the marvellous lightness and 
 delicacy of his touch. 
 
 2. Pathos. — As before remarked, where the prevailing 
 note of a poem is horror and tragedy, pathos cannot be 
 admitted. That Coleridge can be pathetic, The Ancient 
 Mariner conclusively shows. 
 
 Essay - Subjects : — (i) 'Ballad Poetry'; (2) 'The 
 various ways in which R. L. Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard, 
 Rudyard Kipling, and Conan Doyle treat the sensational.' 
 
CHRISTABEL 
 Canto I 
 
 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, 
 
 And the owls have wakened the crowing cock ; 
 
 Tu — whit ! Tu — whoo ! 
 
 And hark again ! the crowing cock, 
 
 How drowsily it crew. 
 
 Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, 
 
 Hath a toothless mastiff bitch ; 
 
 From her kennel beneath the rock 
 
 She maketh answer to the clock, 
 
 Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour ; 
 
 Ever and aye, by shine and shower, 
 
 Sixteen short howls, not over loud ; 
 
 Some say, she sees my lady's shroud. 
 
 Is the night chilly and dark ? 
 The night is chilly, but not dark. 
 The thin gray cloud is spread on high. 
 It covers but not hides the sky. 
 The moon is behind, and at the full ; 
 And yet she looks both small and dull. 
 
64 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY ^| 
 
 The night is chill, the cloud is gray : ^a 
 
 'Tis a month before th^ month of May, f 
 
 And the Spring comes slowly up this way. 
 
 4. The lovely lady, Christabel, 
 
 Whom her father loves so well, 
 
 What makes her in the wood so late, 
 
 A furlong from the castle gate ? 
 
 She had dreams all yesternight 
 
 Of her own betrothed knight ; 
 
 And she in the midnight wood will pray 
 
 For the weal of her lover that's far away. 
 
 5. She stole along, she nothing spoke. 
 
 The sighs she heaved were soft and low, 
 
 And naught was green upon the oak 
 
 But moss and rarest mistletoe : 
 
 She kneels beneath the huge oak tree. 
 
 And in silence prayeth she. 
 
 6. The lady sprang up suddenly, 
 
 The lovely lady, Christabel ! 
 
 It moaned as near, as near can be. 
 
 But what it is, she cannot tell. — 
 
 On the other side it seems to be. 
 
 Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. 
 
 7. The night is chill ; the forest bare ; 
 
 Is it the wind that moaneth bleak ? 
 
 There is not wind enough in the air 
 
 To move away the ringlet curl 
 
 From the lovely lady's cheek — ■ 
 
COLERIDGE 65 
 
 There is not wind enough to twirl 
 
 The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 
 
 That dances as often as dance it can. 
 
 Hanging so light, and hanging so high. 
 
 On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 
 
 8. Hush, beating heart of Christabel ! 
 Jesu, Maria, shield her well ! 
 
 She folded her arms beneath her cloak, 
 And stole to the other side of the oak. 
 What sees she there ? 
 
 9. There she sees a damsel bright, 
 Drest in a silken robe of white, 
 
 That shadowy in the moonlight shone : 
 The neck that made that white robe wan, 
 Her stately neck, and arms were bare ; 
 Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were. 
 And wildly glittered here and there 
 The gems entangled in her hair. 
 I guess 'twas frightful there to see 
 A lady so richly clad as she — 
 Beautiful exceedingly ! 
 
 I o. Mary mother, save me now ! 
 
 (Said Christabel), And who art thou ? 
 
 I I. The lady strange made answer meet, 
 And her voice was faint and sweet : — 
 Have pity on my sore distress, 
 I scarce can speak for weariness : 
 5 
 
66 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear ! 
 Said Christabel, How earnest thou here ? 
 And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet, 
 Did thus pursue her answer meet : — 
 
 I 2. My sire is of a noble line, 
 And my name is Geraldine : 
 Five warriors seized me yestermorn. 
 Me, even me, a maid forlorn : 
 They choked my cries with force and fright, 
 And tied me on a palfrey white. 
 The palfrey was as fleet as wind, 
 And they rode furiously behind. 
 They spurred amain, their steeds were white : 
 And once we crossed the shade of night. 
 As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, 
 I have no thought what men they be ; 
 Nor do I know how long it is 
 (For I have lain entranced I wis) 
 Since one, the tallest of the five, 
 Took me from the palfrey's back, 
 A weary woman, scarce alive. 
 Some muttered words his comrades spoke : 
 He placed me underneath this oak ; 
 He swore they would return with haste ; 
 Whither they went I cannot tell — 
 I thought I heard, some minutes past, 
 Sounds as of a castle bell. 
 Stretch forth thy hand (thus ended she), 
 And help a wretched maid to flee. 
 
 I 3. Then Christabel stretched forth her hand, 
 And comforted fair Geraldine : 
 
COLERIDGE 67 
 
 O well, bright dame ! may you command 
 
 The service of Sir Leoline ; 
 
 And gladly our stout chivalry 
 
 Will he send forth, and friends withal 
 
 To guide and guard you safe and free 
 
 Home to your noble father's hall. 
 
 1 4. She rose : and forth with steps they passed 
 That strove to be, and were not, fast. 
 
 Her gracious stars the lady blest. 
 
 And thus spake on sweet Christabel : 
 
 All our household are at rest. 
 
 The hall is silent as the cell ; 
 
 Sir Leoline is weak in health. 
 
 And may not well awakened be, 
 
 But we will move as if in stealth. 
 
 And I beseech your courtesy. 
 
 This night, to share your couch with me. 
 
 15. They crossed the moat, and Christabel 
 Took the key that fitted well ; 
 
 A little door she opened straight. 
 
 All in the middle of the gate ; 
 
 The gate that was ironed within and without. 
 
 Where an army in battle array had marched out. 
 
 The lady sank, belike through pain, 
 
 And Christabel with might and main 
 
 Lifted her up, a weary weight, 
 
 Over the threshold of the gate : 
 
 Then the lady rose again, 
 
 And moved, as she were not in pain. 
 
XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 1 6. So free from danger, free from fear, 
 They crossed the court : right glad they were. 
 And Christabel devoutly cried 
 
 To the lady by her side. 
 
 Praise we the Virgin, all divine, 
 
 Who hath rescued thee from thy distress ! 
 
 Alas, alas ! said Geraldine, 
 
 I cannot speak for weariness. 
 
 So free from danger, free from fear, 
 
 They crossed the court : right glad they were. 
 
 17. Outside her kennel the mastiff old 
 Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold. 
 The mastiff old did not awake. 
 Yet she an angry moan did make ! 
 And what can ail the mastiff bitch ? 
 Never till now she uttered yell 
 Beneath the eye of Christabel. 
 Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch : 
 For what can ail the mastiff bitch ? 
 
 1 8. They passed the hall, that echoes still. 
 Pass as lightly as you will ! 
 
 The brands were flat, the brands were dying, 
 
 Amid their own white ashes lying ; 
 
 But when the lady passed, there came 
 
 A tongue of light, a fit of flame ; 
 
 And Christabel saw the lady's eye, 
 
 And nothing else saw she thereby, 
 
 Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, 
 
 Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. 
 
 O softly tread, said Christabel, 
 
 My father seldom sleepeth well. 
 
 ^ 
 
COLERIDGE 69 
 
 19. Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare. 
 And, jealous of the Hstening air. 
 They steal their way from stair to stair, 
 Now in glimmer, and now in gloom. 
 And now they pass the Baron's room, 
 As still as death, with stifled breath ! 
 And now have reached her chamber door ; 
 And now doth Geraldine press down 
 
 The rushes of the chamber floor. 
 
 20. The moon shines dim in the open air, 
 And not a moonbeam enters here. 
 But they without its light can see 
 The chamber carved so curiously. 
 Carved with figures strange and sweet. 
 All made out of the carver's brain, 
 For a lady's chamber meet : 
 
 The lamp with twofold silver chain 
 Is fastened to an angel's feet. 
 
 21. The silver lamp burns dead and dim ; 
 But Christabel the lamp will trim. 
 
 She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright, 
 And left it swinging to and fro. 
 While Geraldine, in wretched plight. 
 Sank down upon the floor below. 
 
 22. O weary lady, Geraldine, 
 
 I pray you, drink this cordial wine ! 
 It is a wine of virtuous powers ; 
 My mother made it of wild flowers. 
 
70 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 23. And will your mother pity me, 
 Who am a maiden most forlorn ? 
 Christabel answered — Woe is me ! 
 She died the hour that I was born. 
 
 I have heard the grey-haired friar tell, 
 How on her death-bed she did say, 
 That she should hear the castle-bell 
 Strike twelve upon my wedding-day. 
 
 mother dear ! that thou wert here ! 
 
 1 would, said Geraldine, she were ! 
 
 24. But soon with altered voice, said she— 
 
 ' Off, wandering mother ! Peak and pine 
 I have power to bid thee flee.' 
 Alas ! what ails poor Geraldine ? 
 Why stares she with unsettled eye ? 
 Can she the bodiless dead espy ? 
 And why with hollow voice cries she, 
 ' Off, woman, off! this hour is mine — 
 Though thou her guardian spirit be, 
 Off, woman, off! 'tis given to me.' 
 
 25. Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side. 
 And raised to heaven her eyes so blue — 
 Alas ! said she, this ghastly ride — 
 Dear lady ! it hath wildered you ! 
 
 The lady wiped her moist cold brow 
 And faintly said, ' 'Tis over now ! ' 
 
 26. Again the wild-flower wine she drank : 
 Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright, 
 And from the floor whereon she sank 
 The lofty lady stood upright : 
 
COLERIDGE 71 
 
 She was most beautiful to see, 
 Like a lady of a far countree. 
 
 27. And thus the lofty lady spake — 
 
 ' All they who live in the upper sky, 
 Do love you, holy Christabel ! 
 And you love them, and for their sake 
 And for the good which me befel 
 Even I in my degree will try, 
 Fair maiden, to requite you well. 
 But now unrobe yourself; for I 
 Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.' 
 
 28. Quoth Christabel, So let it be ! 
 And as the lady bade, did she. 
 Her gentle limbs did she undress. 
 And lay down in her loveliness. 
 
 29. But through her brain of weal and woe 
 So many thoughts moved to and fro. 
 That vain it were her lids to close ; 
 
 So half-way from the bed she rose. 
 And on her elbow did recline 
 To look at the lady Geraldine. 
 
 30. Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs ; 
 Ah ! what a stricken look was hers ! 
 Deep from within she seems half-way 
 To lift some weight with sick assay, 
 And eyes the maid and seeks delay ; 
 Then suddenly, as one defied. 
 
72 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Collects herself in scorn and pride, 
 And lay down by the Maiden's side !-^ 
 And in her arms the maid she took, 
 
 Ah well-a-day ! 
 And with low voice and doleful look 
 
 These words did say : 
 ' In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell. 
 Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel ! 
 Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow, 
 This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow ; 
 But vainly thou warrest, 
 
 For this is alone in 
 Thy power to declare, 
 
 That in the dim forest 
 Thou heard'st a low moaning, 
 And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair ; 
 And did'st bring her home with thee in love 
 
 and in charity. 
 To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.' 
 
 ^ 
 
BYRON 
 
 PART I.— HIS LIFE 
 
 George Gordon Noel Byron was bom on 22nd January 
 1788. His childhood was spent at Aberdeen and Dulwich, 
 and at the age of thirteen he was sent to Harrow. His 
 hohdays were passed with his mother at Nottingham. In 
 1805 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and two years 
 later he published a volume of poems entitled Hours of 
 Idleness. The book was severely handled in the Edinburgh 
 Review, and Byron replied by a cutting satire, English Bards 
 and Scotch Reviewers. In January 1 8 1 5 he left England, and 
 travelled in Europe, principally in Greece and Turkey. On 
 returning home in 1812, he brought out the first two cantos 
 of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage., which gained him immediate 
 poetic fame and social popularity. In 181 3 he published 
 The Giaour ^.r\d. The Bride of Abydos ; in 18 14 The Corsair 
 and Lara. The same year he married Miss Milbanke ; 
 but, for some unknown cause, she left his house early in 
 1 81 6, and refused to live with him. The public, knowing 
 nothing of the matter, espoused Lady Byron's cause so 
 warmly that Byron was forced to leave England, never to 
 return. The rest of his life was passed on the Continent, 
 at Geneva, Venice, Rome, Ravenna, Pisa, and in Greece. 
 During this time he finished Childe Harold, and also wrote 
 The Prisoner of Chillon, Beffo, Afanfred, Mazeppa, Marino 
 Ealiero, Sardanapalus, The Tiao Eoscari, Cain, The Vision 
 of Judgment, and Don Jii.a?i. 
 
74 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 In 1823 he joined the Greek insurgents at Missolonghi, 
 to aid them in their struggle against the Turks, but in a 
 few months he was struck down by fever, and died on 19th 
 April 1824 at the age of thirty-six. 
 
 Byron was most unfortunate in his birth and parentage. 
 His father was a roue, who deserted his wife shortly after 
 the poet was born ; and his mother was singularly unfitted 
 for the management of a sensitive child. She alternately 
 petted and abused him, and by her treatment gave every 
 encouragement to that disposition to revolt against authority 
 which distinguishes her son's intellectual life. 
 
 In his early days at Aberdeen and in the Scottish 
 Highlands, he formed that passion for mountain scenery 
 which his poetry often declares. At Harrow he learnt but 
 little except a love for outdoor sports and the poetry of 
 Pope. 
 
 The discipline of Harrow had not time to eradicate the 
 effects of his mother's foolish teaching, and at Cambridge 
 he was distinguished for his contempt for college rules 
 and his inclination to scepticism. Hours of Idleness, 
 published at this time, shows but few signs of genius. But 
 throughout his life a great wrong was always an incentive 
 to literary exertion. The first he had to suffer was at the 
 hands of Jeffrey, who attacked the maiden effort of his pen 
 with undue harshness. Byron took an ample revenge in 
 English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. The style of this 
 satire — an imitation of The Dunciad — is most unlike any- 
 thing he wrote in later years. 
 
 It was during his years of travel that he started upon his 
 poetical career. His imagination was fired by the life of 
 the East, and, while wandering there, he collected that vast 
 store of description and character which appears in his later 
 poetry. The regions he travelled through were then 
 comparatively unknown in England, and the novelty, as 
 well as the beauty of his descriptions, added much to the 
 popularity of his poetry. 
 
 The great crisis of his life was his wife's desertion, and 
 
BYRON 75 
 
 the ostracism to which he was in consequence subjected. 
 In his previous poems much of the melancholy, misanthropy, 
 and impiety had been assumed. Henceforth there was only 
 too much reality in his cynicism. 
 
 At Geneva he became intimate with Shelley. In the 
 third canto of Childe Harold, Shelley's influence may be 
 seen in the increased power of the descriptive verse, and 
 the larger appreciation of the beauties of external nature. 
 Manfred, written about this time, is tinged with memories 
 of Alpine soHtudes and scenery. 
 
 He now settled at Venice, and visited Rome. This 
 was followed by the production of the magnificent fourth 
 canto of Childe Harold. But it would seem as though life 
 in cities had turned his mind for a time away from dreary 
 egotism and reflection upon the past ; and Beppo, a light 
 and witty narrative with hardly any plot, foreshadows the 
 style which he afterwards adopted in The Visio?i of Judg- 
 ment and Don Juan. 
 
 Life at Ravenna, and sympathy with the Italian revolu- 
 tionary party, seem to have turned his mind towards political 
 drama, for at this time he wrote Marmo Faliero, The Two 
 Foscari, and Sardanapalus. But Do7i Juan, commenced 
 in 1818, and laid aside for a while, attracted most of his 
 poetical energy during the remainder of his life. 
 
 Byron's career as a poet, then, began with his first great 
 sorrow — his wife's desertion. Under the influence of 
 Shelley his hitherto wild and untrammelled genius became 
 steadied and matured. His truly characteristic work was 
 done when he had recovered from the first pains of exile, 
 while still retaining the feelings of bitterness and scorn which 
 it had aroused. 
 
76 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 PART II.— GENERAL CRITICISM 
 
 1 
 
 I. — The Poet's Aim 
 
 In Beppo Byron discovered that he possessed a hitherto 
 unsuspected power over comedy in poetry. He determined 
 to try his strength in a longer poem on the same hnes. 
 His object was to satirise the manners and society of the 
 various countries of Europe with which he was famihar, 
 and incidentally to break a lance against priests, Tories, 
 Lake poets, and English hypocrisy generally. The narrative 
 style, however, required more than mere satire to sustain 
 it, and Don Juan contains many of Byron's most beautiful 
 passages of description and reflection. Satire, however, is 
 the main object. The story as a story is unimportant, and 
 is allowed to dawdle along much as the poet feels inclined, 
 interrupted by innumerable digressions. 
 
 n. — Was the Aim successful? 
 
 The prevailing note of the satire in English Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers is bad temper ; that of The Vision of 
 Judgment is extravagant spite against individuals. The 
 satire of Don Juan is less narrow and less intense, and its 
 effect in consequence is far more damaging and blighting. 
 The blows are planted more scientifically, and there is not 
 so much beating the air. The effect of the sarcasm is 
 greatly heightened by the blending of grave and gay in 
 the same episode. 
 
 in. — Was this Aim in Accordance with Funda- 
 mental Principles of Art? 
 
 It may be taken for granted that Byron's satire was 
 written to satisfy and express his own feelings rather than 
 to work any permanent good to the world. He makes 
 
BYRON 77 
 
 mock of much that deserves mockery ; but he also, by 
 inference at least, exalts what is vicious. If the function 
 of satire be to cause amusement, and to rouse feelings of 
 admiration for the author, Byron's satire has succeeded ; 
 but Johnson's definition of satire — 'A moral poem (as 
 such, opposed to lampoon), wherein vice or folly is either 
 ridiculed or censured with irony ' — applies in part only, 
 and that the smaller part, to Don Juan. 
 
 PART III.— TECHNICAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — Elements of Style 
 
 I . Vocabulary. — Byron's vocabulary contains words of 
 every sort and description, from slang to the loftiest poetic 
 diction. The varied style of his poem demands this. 
 His Eastern descriptions require the constant use of 
 Eastern expressions. Elsewhere he is fond of introducing 
 foreign words to such an extent that some of his verses 
 read like macaronics.^ The proportion of Saxon words is 
 somewhat less than in ordinary conversational English, 
 but when Byron is most moving and serious he is also 
 most Saxon. His rimes occasionally compel him to take 
 liberties with his vocabulary, but these rimes are only 
 attempted in humorous passages.^ 
 
 2. Sentence, Paragraph, and Metre. — Byron's sentences 
 are long and involved, full of parentheses and of phrases 
 or clauses used in apposition to the main idea. This is 
 what we should expect in a poem which is merely a 
 'continuous poetic journal,' where the poet jots down his 
 thoughts as they arise. The stanza is so little a verse 
 paragraph that the full stop does not always end it. 
 
 1 Line 2 1 6, IIot7?rt«:^s, and the following line elsewhere — 
 
 O thou teterrima causa of all belli, 
 
 2 Line ii8. 
 
78 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Whenever a satirical or descriptive point is to be made, 
 however, it is placed in the last two lines of the stanza. 
 The lines overlap freely. The metre is the Italian eight- 
 lined stanza, and in the management of it Byron shows 
 considerable skill, especially in riming. It is true that his 
 rimes are often careless or incorrect, but much more often 
 they are excessively happy and ingenious. It may be 
 noticed that in serious passages the rime is monosyllabic ; 
 in satirical or humorous passages, disyllabic or trisyllabic. 
 
 3. Adorfwient. — Byron's workmanship was too careless 
 to admit of much elaborate figurative adornment. He 
 seems to feel a curious aversion to being too demonstratively 
 poetical. He sometimes finishes off a purple patch of 
 ornament with deliberate bathos, as though to assure the 
 reader that he need not be taken in earnest. Epigram he 
 delights in, and we have no greater master of it. In 
 addition to the few examples in our selection, we may 
 refer the student to the brilliant succession which occurs 
 in the opening of Canto ix. His similes and metaphors 
 are splendidly expressive. The following stanza, not in 
 our selection, well illustrates his abundant imagination in 
 figures of comparison, and also his assumed contempt for 
 them : — 
 
 And she bent o'er him, and he lay beneath 
 Hush'd as a babe upon its mother''s breast, 
 Droop'd as the willow when no winds can breathe, 
 LulFd like the depth of ocean when at rest. 
 Fair as the crowning rose of the whole wreath. 
 Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest ; 
 In short, he was a very pretty fellow. 
 Although his woes had turned him rather yellow. 
 
 II. — Intellectual Qualities of Style 
 
 I. Clearness. — To quote the poet himself from a passage 
 early in the next canto — 
 
 I don't pretend that I quite understand 
 
 My own meaning when I would be very fine. 
 
BYRON 79 
 
 But this self-depreciation is hardly just. There is little of 
 his verse, at least in Don Juan, that cannot be perfectly 
 understood at the first reading. Even in the rambling 
 passages, in which he often indulges, there is always a 
 careless energy which puts his idea clearly enough before 
 the reader. 
 
 2. Simplicity. — No one, on the other hand, is less 
 simple. He constantly digresses from the main subject. 
 He uses, as before noted, words and phrases taken from 
 many foreign languages \ but his want of simplicity is 
 chiefly owing to the allusions to history, politics, science, 
 or literature which he constantly makes, and which are 
 intelligible only to the initiated. It is not every one who 
 can immediately comprehend the full force of references to 
 the Scian and the Teian Muse, or the Pyrrhic dance and 
 Pyrrhic phalanx, or the spectre huntsman of Onesti's line. 
 
 HI. — Emotional Qualities of Style 
 
 T. Strength. — Byron's versatility embraces more than 
 one special quality of strength. Even our selection is 
 ■characterised by at least two different forms of strength. 
 The lyric is fervid, and the descriptions of evening scenes 
 2at graceful. Vivacity is the main characteristic of his satire. 
 He tells us that he has no plan in Don. Juan — 
 
 Unless it were to be a moment merry, 
 A novel word in my vocabulary. 
 
 But, again, we must doubt his assertion. The merriment 
 in the poem may be bitter, but nothing could be more 
 spontaneous or natural. 
 
 2. The Ludicrous. — To those who had been long 
 accustomed to look upon Byron as the poet to whom 
 despair, suicide, and revenge were congenial themes, Beppo 
 and Don Juan must have been a revelation. His early 
 satire displayed wit and humour of the bludgeon type. In 
 Don Juan he employs a sharp, rapier-like thrust, far more 
 
8o XTX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 effective for destroying his adversary. He possesses the 
 rare power — also possessed by Sydney Smith — of making 
 one word Hght up a whole sentence with humour. He 
 laid his rime under contribution, and his like endings are 
 often as ingenious and amusing as those of Hood or 
 Barham. 
 
 IV. — Kind of Poem 
 
 JDon Juan {?,, as Byron calls it, 'an exotic' It was 
 modelled on the style of Pulci, the author of Morgante 
 Maggiore, and of ' the ingenious Whistlecraft,' otherwise 
 John Hookham Frere, the author of The Monks and the 
 Giants. Their half-jocular way of treating stories of chivalry 
 and adventure was adopted by Byron as a relief to the 
 painful seriousness of most of the romantic narrative poets. 
 
 Essay-Subjects: — (i) 'We know no spectacle so 
 ridiculous as the British Public in one of its periodical fits 
 of morahty'; (2) 'How far in Europe has national 
 character been affected by climate and geographical 
 position ? ' 
 
DON JUAN 
 Latter Part of Canto III 
 
 The isles of Greece ! the isles of Greece ! 
 
 Where burning Sappho loved and sung, 
 Where grew the arts of war and peace, 
 
 Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung ! 
 Eternal summer gilds them yet. 
 But all, except their sun, is set. 
 
 The Scian and the Teian muse,^ 
 The hero's harp, the lover's lute. 
 
 Have found the fame your shores refuse ; 
 Their place of birth alone is mute 
 
 To sounds which echo further west 
 
 Than your sires' ' Islands of the Blest.' 
 
 The mountains look on Marathon — 
 And Marathon looks on the sea ; 
 
 And musing there an hour alone, 
 
 I dream'd that Greece might still be free 
 
 For standing on the Persians' grave, 
 
 I could not deem myself a slave. 
 
 ^ i.e. Homer and Anacreon. 
 6 
 
82 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 4. A king sate on the rocky brow 
 
 Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ; 
 And ships, by thousands, lay below, 
 
 And men in nations ; — all were his ! 
 He counted them at break of day — 
 And when the sun set where were they ? 
 
 5 . And where are they ? and where art thou. 
 
 My country ? On thy voiceless shore 
 The heroic lay is tuneless now — 
 
 The heroic bosom beats no more ! 
 And must thy lyre, so long divine. 
 Degenerate into hands like mine ? 
 
 6. 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame. 
 
 Though link'd among a fetter'd race, 
 To feel at least a patriot's shame, 
 
 Even as I sing, suffuse my face ; 
 For what is left the poet here ? 
 For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear. 
 
 7. Must we but weep o'er days more blest ? 
 
 Must we but blush ? — Our fathers bled. 
 Earth ! render back from out thy breast 
 
 A remnant of our Spartan dead ! 
 Of the three hundred grant but three, 
 To make a new Thermopylae ! 
 
 8. What, silent still ? and silent all ? 
 
 Ah ! no ; — the voices of the dead 
 Sound like a distant torrent's fall, 
 
 And answer, ' Let one living head, 
 But one, arise, — we come, we come ! ' 
 'Tis but the living who are dumb. 
 
BYRON 83 
 
 9. In vain — in vain : strike other chords ; 
 Fill high the cup with Samian wine ! 
 Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, 
 
 And shed the blood of Scio's vine ! 
 Hark ! rising to the ignoble call — 
 How answers each bold Bacchanal ! 
 
 I o. You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet ; 
 
 Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone ? 
 Of two such lessons, why forget 
 
 The nobler and the manlier one ? 
 You have the letters Cadmus gave — 
 Think you he meant them for a slave ? 
 
 1 1. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 
 
 We will not think of themes like these ! 
 It made Anacreon's song divine : 
 
 He served — but served Polycrates — 
 A tyrant ; but our masters then 
 Were still, at least, our countrymen. 
 
 I 2. The tyrant of the Chersonese 
 
 Was freedom's best and bravest friend ; 
 That tyrant was Miltiades ! 
 
 Oh ! that the present hour would lend 
 Another despot of the kind ! 
 Such chains as his were sure to bind. 
 
 I 3. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 
 On Suli's rock and Parga's shore, 
 Exists the remnant of a line 
 
 Such as the Doric mothers bore ; 
 And there, perhaps some seed is sown, 
 The Heracleidan blood might own. 
 
84 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 14. Trust not for freedom to the Franks — 
 
 They have a king who buys and sells : 
 In native swords, and native ranks, 
 
 The only hope of courage dwells ; 
 But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, 
 Would break your shield, however broad. 
 
 15. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 
 
 Our virgins dance beneath the shade — 
 I see their glorious black eyes shine ; 
 
 But, gazing on each glowing maid. 
 My own the burning tear-drop laves. 
 To think such breasts must suckle slaves. 
 
 16. Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, 
 
 Where nothing, save the waves and I, 
 May hear our mutual murmurs sweep : 
 
 There, swan-like, let me sing and die. 
 A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — 
 Dash down yon cup of Samian wine ! 
 
 1 7. Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung. 
 The modern Greek, in tolerable verse ; 
 
 If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young. 
 Yet in these times he might have done much 
 worse : 
 
 His strain display'd some feeling — right or wrong ; 
 And feeling, in a poet, is the source 
 
 Of others' feelings : but they are such liars, 
 
 And take all colours — like the hands of dyers. 
 
BYRON 85 
 
 1 8. We learn from Horace ' Homer sometimes sleeps' ; 
 We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes 
 
 wakes, — 
 To show with what complacency he creeps. 
 
 With his dear ' Waggo7ters ' around his lakes. 
 He wishes for a ' boat ' to sail the deeps — 
 
 Of ocean ? — No, of air ; and then he makes 
 Another outcry for ' a little boat,' 
 And drivels seas to set it well afloat. 
 
 19. If he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal plain. 
 And Pegasus runs restive in his ' Waggon,' 
 
 Could he not beg the loan of Charles's wain. 
 
 Or pray Medea for a single dragon ? 
 Or if too classic for his vulgar brain. 
 
 He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on. 
 And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, 
 Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon ? 
 
 20. 'Pedlars' and 'Boats' and 'Waggons'! O ye- 
 
 shades 
 
 Of Pope and Dryden, are we to come to this ? 
 That trash of such sort not alone evades 
 
 Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss 
 Floats scum-like uppermost ; and those Jack Cades 
 
 Of sense and song, above your graves may hiss — 
 The ' little boatman ' and his ' Peter Bell ' 
 Can sneer at him who drew ' Achitophel ' ! 
 
 21. T'our tale. — The feast was over, the slaves gone, 
 The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired ; 
 
 The Arab lore and poet's song were done. 
 And every sound of revelry expired ; 
 
86 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 The lady and her lover, left alone, 
 
 The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired ; — 
 Ave Maria ! o'er the earth and sea. 
 That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee ! 
 
 2 2. Ave Maria! blessed be the hour, , ' 
 
 The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft 
 
 Have felt that moment in its fullest power 
 Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, 
 
 While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, 
 Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft. 
 
 And not a breath crept through the rosy air, 
 
 And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer. 
 
 23. Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer ! 
 
 Ave Maria ! 'tis the hour of love ! 
 Ave Maria ! may our spirits dare 
 
 Look up to thine and to thy Son's above ! 
 Ave Maria ! oh that face so fair ! 
 
 Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove — 
 What though 'tis but a pictured image ? — strike — 
 That painting is no idol — 'tis too like. 
 
 24. Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, 
 In nameless print — that I have no devotion ; 
 
 But set those persons down with me to pray. 
 
 And you shall see who has the properest notion 
 
 Of getting into heaven the shortest way : 
 
 My altars are the mountains and the ocean. 
 
 Earth, air, stars, — all that springs from the great 
 Whole, 
 
 Who hath produced, and will receive the soul. 
 
BYRON 87 
 
 25. Sweet hour of twilight ! — in the solitude 
 Of the pine forest, and the silent shore 
 
 Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, 
 
 Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, 
 
 To where the last Csesarean fortress stood. 
 Evergreen forest ! which Boccacio's lore 
 
 And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, 
 
 How have I loved the twilight hour and thee ! 
 
 26. The shrill cicalas, people of the pine. 
 Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, 
 
 Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, 
 And vesper bells that rose the boughs along : 
 
 The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line. 
 
 His hell-dogs and their chase, and the fair throng. 
 
 Which learn'd from this example not to fly 
 
 From a true lover — shadow'd my mind's eye. 
 
 27. O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things, 
 Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, 
 
 To the young bird the parents' brooding wings. 
 The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer ; 
 
 Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, 
 Whate'er our household gods protect of dear. 
 
 Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest ; 
 
 Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast. 
 
 28. Soft hour ! which wakes the wish and melts the 
 
 heart 
 Of those who sail the seas, on the first day 
 When they from their sweet friends are torn apart. 
 Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way. 
 
88 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 As the far bell of vesper makes him start, 
 
 Seeming to weep the dying day's decay ; 
 Is this a fancy which our reason scorns ? 
 Ah ! surely nothing dies but something mourns ! 
 
 29. When Nero perish'd by the justest doom, 
 Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd, 
 
 Amidst the roar of liberated Rome, 
 
 Of nations freed, and the world overjoy 'd. 
 
 Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb : 
 Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void 
 
 Of feeling for some kindness done, when power 
 
 Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour. 
 
 30. But I'm digressing ; what on earth has Nero, 
 Or any such like sovereign buffoons, 
 
 To do with the transactions of my hero. 
 
 More than such madmen's fellow -man — the 
 moon's ? 
 
 Sure my invention must be down at zero. 
 And I grow one of many ' wooden spoons ' 
 
 Of verse (the name with which we Cantabs please 
 
 To dub the last of honours in degrees). 
 
 31. I feel this tediousness will never do — 
 
 ' Tis being too epic, and I must cut down 
 (In copying) this long Canto into two ; 
 
 They'll never find it out, unless I own 
 The fact, excepting some experienced few ; 
 
 And then as an improvement 'twill be shown : 
 I'll prove that such the opinion of the critic is, 
 From Aristotle passim. — See IIoLrjTiKT]^;. 
 
SHELLEY 
 
 PART I.— HIS LIFE 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley, the eldest son of Sir Timothy 
 Shelley, was born at Field Place, near Horsham, in Sussex, 
 4th August 1792. He was educated at Eton, where he was 
 bullied, and at Oxford, whence he was expelled in 1 8 ri for 
 the publication of an atheistical pamphlet. In the same year 
 he married Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of a coffee- 
 house keeper. In consequence, he was cast off by his 
 family, and lived for some time in poverty at different 
 places in England and Wales. In July 18 14, convinced 
 that his wife was unfaithful to him, he deserted her, 
 and the same month left England in company with Mary 
 Godwin. He visited Switzerland twice, and during his 
 second visit became acquainted with Byron. In 18 16 he 
 married Mary Godwin. In 181 7 he was deprived of the 
 custody of the children of his first marriage ; and, to keep 
 possession of the children of the second, he 'left England, 
 and passed the rest of his life at Venice, Naples, Rome, 
 and Pisa. On 8th July 1822 he was drowned in the 
 Gulf of Spezzia. 
 
 Even when a child, Shelley was remarkable for a 
 decided inchnation towards scepticism. This natural dis- 
 position in favour of revolt was strengthened by his school 
 life, where his sensibilities were shocked by the system of 
 'fagging,' which he endeavoured, single-handed, to put 
 
90 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 down. He went up to University College, Oxford, and 
 scorning to conceal his atheistic opinions, proclaimed them 
 in a pamphlet on The Necessity of Atheism. For this he 
 was expelled. His life up to this point had been an 
 admirable preparation for joining the school of all-round 
 unorthodoxy and revolt. 
 
 About this time he formed the acquaintance of William 
 Godwin, the author of Political Justice, and Godwin's 
 teaching is apparent in Shelley's first important poem, 
 Queen Mab, a declamation against capital and priestcraft. 
 By his marriage in 1 8 ii he conformed to the uses of 
 society, but in 1814 his views had become more advanced, 
 and he had no hesitation in casting off his wife when his 
 union with her had become irksome, and in entering upon 
 a ' union of souls.' 
 
 The companionship of Godwin's daughter, and the 
 Alpine scenery he visited in her company, had an in- 
 spiring effect on the composition of Alastor, a portrait of 
 himself, and a record of his hopes and longings. During 
 the winter of 181 5-16 he passed much of his time in the 
 company of Peacocke and T. J. Hogg, and from this 
 period dates the influence which the great Greek writers 
 exerted over him. Shelley's feelings of bitterness against 
 existing institutions were accentuated by Lord Eldon's 
 decree depriving him of his children, and his state of 
 mind is shown in Rosalind and Helen, a pleading against 
 marriage. He left England for good, and, like Byron, 
 found fresh inspiration in the land of his exile. 
 
 The four years that follow are the great years of 
 Shelley's life. Companionship with Byron at Venice had 
 little direct effect upon his work, although, by allusions in 
 his poetry and elsewhere, we gather the impression made 
 upon him by Byron, as a man. In 1819 the 'mere 
 atticism ' of his last winter in England bore splendid 
 fruit in Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci, Greek 
 tragedies in the full sense of the word. Then, as though 
 to relieve his mind, he poured forth in succession his 
 
SHELLEY 91 
 
 noblest lyrics : The Cloud, The Skylark, The West Wind, 
 The Sensitive Plant. The intense love of nature which 
 marks all these poems was quickened by the scenery of 
 Pisa, where the Shelleys had settled in 1820. 
 
 Just as events of a revolutionary tendency in England 
 in 181 7 and 18 19 had been followed by The Revolt of 
 Islam and The Afasque of Anarchy, so in 1821 the Greek 
 Revolution called forth the remarkable poem Hellas. The 
 death of Keats about the same time was lamented in 
 the exquisite Adonais. Both this poem and Epipsychidion 
 show how much more vigorous Shelley's style becomes 
 when he is speaking of, or pleading for, another. 
 
 In Shelley a girlish and fragile form concealed great 
 strength of will and intellect. He was a true child of the 
 Revolution. Liberty in some form or another was con- 
 stantly before his mind, all the more that he had himself, 
 as he thought, suffered at school, at college, and at home, 
 from the loss of it. He was one of those who had been 
 inspired with the idea that all restraint was tyranny, and 
 who thought that man should be allowed to shape his own 
 destiny by the workings of his own soul. These extreme 
 ideas, immatured by the experience which is brought by 
 advancing years, give to Shelley's poetry much of its 
 vagueness and dimness of outline. 
 
 PART IL— GENERAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — Aim in Poem 
 
 The year 1820 was remarkable in the history of Europe 
 for the attempts made by two nations to recover their 
 liberty : Greece revolted against the dominion of the Turks ; 
 Spain endeavoured to shake off the tyrannical yoke of 
 Ferdinand VI L This king had commenced a regular 
 system of persecution against those who held liberal 
 
92 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 opinions, and had brought back the monastic orders, the 
 inquisition, and the rack. The insurrection was at first 
 successful, and the Constitution of the Cortes of 1812 was 
 restored. The intervention of the French Government, 
 however, three years later, re-established the despotism. 
 Shelley's Ode was written during the progress of the insur- 
 rection. 
 
 The aim of celebrating Liberty is fully accomplished in 
 our Ode. Not so the subordinate object of stirring up a 
 revolutionary spirit in England. The nation was settling 
 down for a long and well-deserved rest, and her revolutions, 
 important though they were, were peaceful, and gradually 
 brought about, — not according to Shelley's suggestion in 1. 
 211. 
 
 The rapture and energy required in an Ode are, in our 
 selection, somewhat marred by the indistinctness which is 
 Shelley's chief poetical fault. See Technical Criticism, 11. 
 and IV. 
 
 PART III.— TECHNICAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — Elements of Style 
 
 I. Vocabulary. — The variety of the kinds of poetry 
 successfully attempted by Shelley shows the copiousness of 
 his vocabulary. He draws from all sources, and boldly 
 forges words to suit his meaning. No poet is less Saxon, 
 and his love for words of Latin and Greek origin is shown 
 in several passages of our selection.^ Compound words he 
 manufactures freely.^ He shares with Milton and Scott 
 
 1 Stanza ii. I. 3, dsedal ; iii. ]. 11, congregator ; iv. I. 2, dividu- 
 ous ; vii. ]. 10, capitolian; viii. 1. 2, piny; xv. 1. 12, sperm; 
 xvi. 1. 8, aweless. 
 
 2 Stanza v. 1. 7, thunder-zoned; vii. 1. 11, spirit-winged; ix. 11. 
 3, 4, 8, olive-cinctured, warrior-peopled, tower-crowned ; xix. 1. 4, 
 thunder-smoke. 
 
SHELLEY 93 
 
 a love for the names of places.^ His epithets are frequent, 
 and for the most part striking and weU apphed.- 
 
 2. Sentence^ Paragraph, and Metre. — The kind of 
 poetry (see p. 96) allows a somewhat disjointed style of 
 sentence. Accordingly, we find in this ode long collections 
 of clauses, apostrophes, and loose constructions. The 
 stanza is merely a formal division of the verse. In two 
 instances the clause is carried from one stanza into another. 
 The metre undergoes no changes, although this is customary 
 in compositions of the kind. 
 
 3. Adornment. — The poem is loaded with ornament of 
 every sort. The epithets have been already noticed. 
 Every stanza so bristles with figures of comparison and 
 personification that it is needless to specify instances. We 
 may, however, point out the exceeding beauty of the first 
 four lines of Stanza vi. Such is Shelley's melody in versifi- 
 cation that whole passages seem to be onomatopoeic, but 
 possibly the only deliberate example is in Stanza xix. lines 
 II, 12, and 15. 
 
 II. — Intellectual Qualities of Style 
 
 1. Clearness. — The want of this quality is Shelley's 
 weakness. His muse has been compared to a Pythoness 
 upon her tripod. His 'dreamy ecstasy, too high for 
 speech ' carries his verse along, often obscure, sometimes 
 unintelligible. See Stanza xix. 
 
 2. Simplicity. — There can be no simplicity where there 
 is much recondite allusion. Expressions such as are found 
 in vi. 8-11 ; vii. 13 and 14; and viii. 14, as well as, 
 generally speaking, the innumerable figures of comparison 
 and metaphor, make the style extremely abstruse. 
 
 III. — Emotional Qualities of Style 
 
 I. Strength. — Of all the various forms oi strength which 
 Shelley's poetry displays, the most noticeable is splendour. 
 1 Stanzas viii.-xiii. ' ^ Stanzas v. and xii. 
 
94 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 It is not a vivid splendour, but rather ' immense, unearthly, 
 and superhuman.' His descriptions especially, undeniably 
 of the greatest beauty, appeal strongly to the imagination, 
 and suggest the most gorgeous pictures. But on examina- 
 tion they are found, like a landscape viewed through 
 coloured glass, to be wanting in steadfastness and truth. 
 All this diffused splendour, while justifying the title of 
 ' poet's poet,' which has been applied to Shelley, shows his 
 want of self-control and his inability to subordinate what is 
 purely ornamental to the principal object in the poem. 
 These faults, or rather excesses, are exactly such as increased 
 age and experience would have tended to correct. And 
 we find in his latest works a great increase in simplicity 
 and self-restraint. 
 
 2. Pathos. — Our Ode is too much a poem of rebellion 
 to possess in any degree the quality of Pathos ; nor is this 
 in general characteristic of Shelley. But the reader has 
 only to study the Adonais, or read the last scenes — and 
 only the last — of The Cenci to appreciate what Shelley 
 could do in this direction. 
 
 IV. — Kind of Poem 
 
 The Ode was originally a lyrical piece adapted to be 
 sung. But in modern Uterature it became the medium for 
 expressing higher and more intense emotions than can be 
 conveyed by a mere song. Its language, therefore, should 
 be concise and energetic, and the varying emotions of the 
 mind should be shown by a corresponding variation of 
 metre. In the ode, the rapt state of inspiration that gives 
 it birth, ' leads the poet to conceive all nature as animated 
 and conscious, and, instead of speaking about persons and 
 objects, to address them as present' The rapture which 
 the ode requires, is by no means wanting in our selection, 
 but it can hardly be called concise. The course or history 
 of Liberty is set before us, and her aid is invoked on 
 behalf of Spain. It is interesting to note the various 
 
SHELLEY 95 
 
 aspects in which Liberty presents herself to the nineteenth- 
 century poets. To Scott Liberty meant the patriot's 
 freedom ; to Wordsworth and Coleridge, the freedom of 
 the mind. In Tennyson the notion of obedience to law 
 was so firmly implanted that he preferred the freedom, 
 whether of mind or body, that ' broadened slowly down 
 from precedent to precedent.' But to Byron and Shelley 
 Liberty meant emancipation from all restraint of law, which 
 they called tyranny. When Shelley praises Alfred, it is 
 rather as the man who freed Wessex from the Danes than 
 as the king who codified the Saxon laws. And the 
 various appeals made to Liberty in the Ode are made to 
 her rather as the Genius of the Revolution than as the 
 Spirit who guarded the fortunes of Englishmen. 
 
 Essay-Subjects : — 
 
 (i) 'O Liberty! how many crimes are committed in 
 thy name ! ' 
 
 (2) ' A land of settled government, 
 A land of just and old renown, 
 Where Freedom broadens slowly down 
 From precedent to precedent.' 
 
ODE TO LIBERTY 
 
 Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner torn but flying, 
 
 Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind. — -Byron. 
 
 1. A GLORIOUS people vibrated again 
 The lightning of the nations : Liberty, 
 
 From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, 
 
 Scattering contagious fire into the sky. 
 Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay. 
 And, in the rapid plumes of song. 
 Clothed itself, sublime and strong ; 
 As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among. 
 Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey ; 
 
 Till from its station in the heaven of fame 
 The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray - 
 Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
 Which paves the void was from behind it flung. 
 As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came 
 A voice out of the deep : I will record the same. 
 
 2. The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth : 
 The burning stars of the abyss were hurl'd 
 
 Into the depths of heaven. The daedal earth. 
 
 That island in the ocean of the world, 
 Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air : 
 
SHELLEY 97 
 
 But this divinest universe 
 Was yet a chaos and a curse, 
 For thou wert not : but power from worst producing 
 worse, 
 The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, 
 
 And of the birds, and of the watery forms. 
 And there was war among them, and despair 
 Within them, raging without truce or terms : 
 The bosom of their violated nurse 
 Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms 
 
 on worms. 
 And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of storms. 
 
 3. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 
 His generations under the pavilion 
 
 Of the Sun's throne : palace and pyramid. 
 
 Temple and prison, to many a swarming million, 
 Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. 
 This human living multitude 
 Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude. 
 For thou wert not ; but o'er the populous solitude, 
 Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, 
 
 Hung tyranny ; beneath, sate deified 
 The sister-pest, congregator of slaves ; 
 Into the shadow of her pinions wide. 
 Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood. 
 Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, 
 Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. 
 
 4. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, 
 And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves 
 
 ■7 
 
98 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles 
 
 Of favouring heaven : from their enchanted caves 
 
 Prophetic echoes flung dim melody. 
 On the unapprehensive wild 
 The vine, the corn, the olive mild, 
 
 Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled ; 
 And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, 
 Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain. 
 
 Like aught that is which wraps what is to be. 
 
 Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein 
 
 Of Parian stone ; and yet a speechless child, 
 Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain 
 Her lidless eyes for thee ; when o'er the ^Egean main 
 
 5. Athens arose : a city such as vision 
 
 Builds from the purple crags and silver towers 
 Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 
 
 Of kingliest masonry : the ocean floors 
 Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; 
 Its portals are inhabited 
 By thunder-zoned winds, each head 
 Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, 
 A divine work ! Athens diviner yet 
 
 Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will 
 Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set ; 
 For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill 
 Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead 
 In marble immortality, that hill 
 Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 
 
 6. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 
 Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay 
 
SHELLEY 99 
 
 Immovably unquiet, and for ever 
 
 It trembles, but it cannot pass away ! 
 The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 
 With an earth-awakening blast 
 Through the caverns of the past ; 
 Religion veils her eyes ; Oppression shrinks aghast: 
 A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, 
 Which soars where Expectation never flew. 
 Rending the veil of space and time asunder ! 
 One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; 
 One sun illumines heaven ; one spirit vast 
 With life and love makes chaos ever new. 
 As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 
 
 7. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest. 
 Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmasan Maenad, 
 
 She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest 
 
 From that Elysian food was yet unweaned ; 
 And many a deed of terrible uprightness 
 By thy sweet love was sanctified ; 
 And in thy smile, and by thy side. 
 Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. 
 
 But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness. 
 
 And gold profaned thy capitolian throne. 
 Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, 
 The senate of the tyrants : they sunk prone 
 Slaves of one tyrant. Palatinus sighed 
 Faint echoes of Ionian song ; that tone 
 Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 
 
 8. From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, 
 Or piny promontory of the Arctic main, 
 
100 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Or utmost islet inaccessible, 
 
 Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, 
 Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks. 
 And every Naiad's ice-cold urn. 
 To talk in echoes sad and stern. 
 Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn ? 
 For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks 
 
 Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep. 
 What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks 
 Were quickly dried ? for thou didst groan, not 
 weep. 
 When from its sea of death to kill and burn, 
 The Galilean serpent forth did creep. 
 And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. 
 
 9. A thousand years the Earth cried. Where art thou ? 
 
 And then the shadow of thy coming fell 
 On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow : 
 
 And many a warrior-peopled citadel, 
 Like rocks, which fire lifts out of the flat deep, 
 Arose in sacred Italy, 
 Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea 
 Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned 
 majesty : 
 That multitudinous anarchy did sweep. 
 
 And burst around their walls, like idle foam, 
 Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep. 
 
 Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb 
 Dissonant arms ; and Art which cannot die. 
 With divine want traced on our earthly home 
 Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. 
 
SHELLEY loi 
 
 I O. Thou huntress swifter than the Moon ! thou terror 
 
 Of the world's wolves ! thou bearer of the quiver, 
 Whose sun-like shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, 
 
 As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever 
 In the calm regions of the orient day ! 
 
 Luther caught thy wakening glance : 
 Like lightning from his leaden lance 
 Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance 
 In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay ; 
 
 And England's prophets hailed thee as their queen, 
 In songs whose music cannot pass away. 
 Though it must flow for ever : not unseen 
 Before the spirit-sighted countenance 
 
 Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene 
 Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. 
 
 1 1. The eager hours and unreluctant years 
 As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood. 
 Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears. 
 
 Darkening each other with their multitude, 
 And cried aloud, Liberty ! Indignation 
 Answered Pity from her cave ; 
 Death grew pale within the grave. 
 And Desolation howled to the destroyer. Save ! 
 When, like heaven's sun, girt by the exhalation 
 
 Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise. 
 Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation 
 
 Like shadows : as if day had cloven the skies 
 At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, 
 -Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, 
 Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. 
 
102 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 1 2. Thou heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee 
 
 then, 
 In ominous eclipse ? A thousand years, 
 Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, 
 
 Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears. 
 Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away; 
 How like Bacchanals of blood 
 Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood 
 Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred 
 brood ! 
 When one, like them, but mightier far than they. 
 
 The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, 
 Rose : armies mingled in obscure array. 
 
 Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred 
 bowers 
 Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, 
 Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours. 
 Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral 
 towers. 
 
 13. England yet sleeps: was she not called of old ? 
 Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder 
 
 Vesuvius wakens ^tna, and the cold 
 
 Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder : 
 O'er the lit waves every yEolian isle 
 From Pithecusa to Pelorus 
 Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus : 
 They cry, Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended 
 o'er us. 
 Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile 
 And they dissolve ; but Spain's were links of steel, 
 Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. 
 
SHELLEY 103 
 
 Twins of a single destiny ! appeal 
 To the eternal years enthroned before us, 
 In the dim West ; impress us from a seal, 
 All ye have thought and done ! Time cannot 
 dare conceal. 
 
 14. Tomb of Arminius ! render up thy dead. 
 
 Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff. 
 His soul may stream over the tyrant's head ! 
 
 Thy victory shall be his epitaph, 
 Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, 
 King-deluded Germany, 
 His dead spirit lives in thee. 
 Why do we fear or hope ? thou art already free ! 
 And thou, lost Paradise of this divine 
 
 And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! 
 Thou island of eternity ! thou shrine 
 
 Where desolation, clothed with loveliness, 
 Worships the thing thou wert ! O Italy, 
 Gather thy blood into thy heart ; repress 
 The beasts who make their dens thy sacred 
 palaces. 
 
 I 5. Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name 
 
 Of * * * * into the dust ; or write it there, 
 So that this blot upon the page of fame 
 
 Were as the serpent's path, which the light air 
 Erases, and the flat sands close behind ! 
 Ye the oracle have heard : 
 Lift the victory-flashing sword, 
 And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word. 
 
I04 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 
 
 Into a mass irrefragably firm, 
 The axes and the rods which awe mankind ; 
 
 The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm 
 Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred ; 
 Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, 
 To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. 
 
 1 6. Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would 
 
 kindle 
 Such lamps within the dome of this dim world. 
 That the pale name of Priest might shrink and 
 dwindle 
 Into the hell from which it first was hurled, 
 A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure. 
 
 Till human thoughts might kneel alone, 
 Each before the judgment-throne 
 Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown ! 
 Oh, that the words which make the thoughts obscure 
 From which they spring, as clouds of glimmer- 
 ing dew 
 From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture. 
 Were stript of their thin masks and various hue. 
 And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, 
 Till in the nakedness of false and true 
 They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due! 
 
 17. He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever 
 Can be between the cradle and the grave, 
 
 Crowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour! 
 
 If on his own high will a willing slave. 
 He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor. 
 
SHELLEY 105 
 
 What if earth can clothe and feed 
 Amplest millions at their need, 
 And power in thought be as the tree within the seed ? 
 Or what if art, an ardent intercessor, 
 
 Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, 
 
 Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, 
 
 And cries : Give me, thy child, dominion 
 
 Over all height and depth ? if Life can breed 
 
 New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan 
 
 Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one. 
 
 18. Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave 
 Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star 
 
 Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, 
 
 Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car 
 Self-moving like cloud charioted by flame ; 
 Comes she not, and come ye not, 
 Rulers of eternal thought, 
 To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned lot ? 
 Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame 
 Of what has been, the Hope of what will be ? 
 - O Liberty ! if such could be thy name 
 
 Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from 
 thee : 
 If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought 
 By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 
 Wept tears, and blood like tears ? The solemn 
 harmony 
 
 19. Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing 
 To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; 
 
io6 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Then as a wild swan, when sublimely winging 
 
 Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, 
 Sinks headlong through the aerial golden light 
 On the heavy sounding plain, 
 When the bolt has pierced its brain ; 
 As summer clouds dissolve unburthened of their rain ; 
 As a far taper fades with fading night ; 
 
 As a brief insect dies with dying day, 
 My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, 
 
 Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away 
 Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 
 As waves which lately paved his watery way 
 Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous 
 play. 
 
 NOTES 
 
 1. Camillus, the liberator of Rome from the Gauls. 
 
 2. Atilius, — Marcus Atilius Regulus, who suffered death 
 rather than advise his country to make peace with the 
 Carthaginians. 
 
 3. Galilean serpent, Christianity. 
 
 4. Arminilis, a German chieftain, liberator of the Teuton 
 tribes from Roman dominion. 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 PART I.— HIS LIFE 
 
 Alfred Tennyson was born on 6th August 1809, at 
 Somersby Rectory in Lincolnshire. He was the third son 
 of the rector of the parish, Rev. George Clayton Tennyson. 
 He received his early education at the village school, and 
 afterwards at the Grammar School at Louth. In 1828 he 
 went to Cambridge, and left in 183 1, in consequence of his 
 father's death, without taking a degree. He lived for some 
 years in, or about, London, and in 1842 his third volume 
 of poems, containing Morte d' Arthur, Ulysses, and Locksley 
 Hall, established his poetical fame. In 1845 ^^^ was 
 pensioned by Sir Robert Peel, and two years later published 
 The Princess. In 1850 three important events in his life 
 took place, the publication of In Memoriam, his marriage 
 to Emily Sellwood, and his appointment as Poet Laureate 
 in succession to Wordsworth. He spent the rest of his 
 retired and uneventful life at Twickenham, at Aldworth in 
 Surrey, or at Farringford in the Isle of Wight ; and there is 
 little else to record except productions of new poems or 
 dramas. In 1855 appeared Maud; between 1859 and 
 1872 The Idylls of the King. Most of his dramas were 
 written between 1875 ^^<^ 1884: — Queen Mary, Harold, 
 The Falcon, The Cup, Becket, and The Promise of May. 
 In 1884 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Tennyson 
 D'Eynecourt. His other important works are Teiresias, 
 
io8 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, Demeter, The Death of 
 CEnone, and a pastoral drama, The Foresters, Robin Hood, 
 and Maid Marian. He died of old age, after a short and 
 painless illness, on 6th October 1892, and was buried in 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Tennyson's surroundings in early life were of a kind to 
 encourage the poet in him. His father firmly believed that 
 his childish attempts at verse would develop into something 
 great. His school days gave ample opportunity for the 
 accurate study of nature for which his poetry is remarkable. 
 Lincolnshire scenery — the flats and ridges of the fen 
 country — are worked into all his early poetical attempts, 
 which are not mere imitations of other authors. His 
 precocious genius was shown by the share he took in Poems 
 by Two Brothers, published in 1826, the other author being 
 his brother Charles. 
 
 His, life at Cambridge added rather to his friendships 
 than to his attainments. Upon a receptive mind like his, 
 the effect of living among men such as Trench, Alford, 
 Milnes, Merivale, and Hallam, must have been great. He 
 carried off the Vice-Chancellor's medal for English verse 
 with a poem on Timbuctoo, and it is to be noted that he 
 used blank verse in this performance, although the custom 
 of the University demanded the heroic couplet. In 1830 
 appeared his first volume of poems; his second in 1832, 
 shortly after he had left Cambridge. They were praised by 
 Coleridge, and blamed by the Quarterly Revietv. Though 
 Tennyson had a morbid dislike to adverse criticism, he 
 never failed to profit by it when revising his work. 
 
 The shock caused by the death of his friend Harry 
 Hallam in 1833 silenced the poet's voice for many years. 
 This time he spent mostly in London, enjoying the friend- 
 ship of Carlyle, Rogers, Thackeray, and Landor. It was 
 his period of concentration and the most important epoch 
 of his life. He read, he thought, he smoked ' infinite 
 tobacco ' with Carlyle far into the night. The result was 
 seen in the 1842 volumes. In these, while the craftsman's 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 109 
 
 skill is undiminished, the thought is deeper and more 
 serious. 
 
 When Tennyson's mind and poetic style had been once 
 formed, outside influences made little impression upon him. 
 His writing was little coloured by contemporary events. 
 One notices in his work but faint traces of his everyday 
 life — only a few suggestions from the Surrey downs or the 
 waves of the Channel. But in his poetic hfe the advance 
 of years made his charity wider, his philosophy more 
 hopeful, his utterance more sincere. His artistic careful- 
 ness remained the same. 
 
 The following account of him is given by Carlyle : — 
 ' A truly interesting son of earth and son of heaven. A 
 great shock of rough dusty-dark hair, bright, laughing, 
 hazel eyes, massive aquiline face, most massive yet most 
 delicate, of sallow brown complexion, almost Indian looking; 
 clothes cynically loose, free and easy; smokes infinite 
 tobacco. One of the finest-looking men in the world. His 
 voice is musically metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing 
 wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation 
 free and plenteous. I do not meet in these later decades 
 such company over a pipe.' 
 
 PART 11.— GENERAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — The Poet's Aim 
 
 Tnjs Passing of Arthur might be selected from among the 
 Idylls of the Kmg as being especially suitable for the 
 technical criticism of Tennyson's style in this form of poetry. 
 It must be remembered, however, that, in searching for the 
 poet's ideal and aim, the Idylls are to be regarded as a 
 whole, in which The Passing of Arthur is merely an episode. 
 ' The general aim, therefore, of all the book is to fashion 
 a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle dis- 
 
no XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 cipline ; which for that I conceived should be most plausible 
 and pleasing, being coloured with an historical fiction, the 
 which the most part of men delight to read, rather for 
 variety of matter than for profit of the ensample ; I chose 
 the history of King Arthur, as most fit for the excellency 
 of his person, being made famous by many men's former 
 works, and also farthest from the dangers of envy and 
 suspicion of the present time. In which I have followed 
 all the antique poets historical ; first Homer, who in the 
 persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good 
 governor and a virtuous man, the one in his Ilias^ the other 
 in his Odysseis ; then Virgil whose like intention was to do 
 in the person of vEneas. ... By ensample of which 
 excellent poets I labour to portray in Arthur . . . the 
 image of a perfect knight.' 
 
 These words were written by Spenser to Sir Walter Raleigh, 
 ' expounding his whole intention ' in the Faery Queen. 
 They might, we think, have been adopted by Tennyson as 
 expounding his intention in the Idylls. We may take his 
 expression of ' faint Homeric echoes ' in the Moi-te d'' Arthur 
 as an anticipatory allusion to the Idylls., and a better 
 definition it would be hard to find. No poet of modern 
 times has had his mind more completely saturated with 
 Homer, or has better reproduced the very Homeric phrase, 
 than Tennyson. This makes it the more to be regretted 
 that the man who wrote CEnone and Ulysses should not 
 have given us an Odyssey to match Lord Derby's Iliad, in 
 place of Harold and Queen Mary. The plan, the largeness 
 and nobility of the thought, and often the very diction of 
 the Idylls, are distinctly Homeric. The design of portray- 
 ing a hero, perfect in the virtue of Magnificence as Spenser 
 called it — Great-heartedness, as we should call it — was 
 present to the minds of both Tennyson and the author of the 
 Odyssey. What Tennyson's idea of a perfect man was, he 
 has told us in some of the noblest lines, to be found in this 
 or any other literature. They occur in Arthur's farewell to 
 Guinevere. 
 
TENNYSON iii 
 
 Besides this idea of portraying a perfect man, there is 
 an allegory running through the whole poem. Tennyson 
 speaks of this allegory himself — 
 
 . . . This old imperfect tale, 
 New-old and shadowing Sense at war with Soul 
 Rather than that gray king whose name, a ghost. 
 Streams like a cloud man-shaped from mountain peak, 
 And clings to cairn and cromlech still. 
 
 The allegory of Sense at war with Soul is worked out 
 through the whole of the poem in the figure of the blame- 
 less king and his struggles against the savagery and rapine 
 of his age. He forms his order of the Table Round, ordains 
 for it rules of conduct, and for a time makes it a power in 
 the land. But his rules are too strict for the sensual nature 
 of mankind. No vows can he inviolate 
 
 Which flesh and blood perforce would violate. 
 
 One by one the knights fall from their high estate of faithful- 
 ness and chastity. Treachery completes what weakness has 
 begun, and soon the whole Round Table is dissolved, and 
 Arthur ' passes,' feeling that he has ' but stricken with the 
 sword in vain.' Such is the allegory. Soul is the 'one still 
 strong man in a blatant land,' spiritual and pure, with his 
 life's work mapped out for him, and successfully begun, but 
 opposed and finally defeated by Sense. Sense is the 
 animalism he encounters on every side, the backsliding of 
 his once faithful knights, who could endure but for a while, 
 being in their natures, of the earth, earthy. 
 
 The vows ! 
 Oh, ay ! the wholesome madness of an hour 
 They served their use, their time. 
 
 II. — Was his Aim successful or not? 
 
 We have now to see how far, with the means at his 
 disposal, the poet succeeded in carrying out his ideal. And, 
 in the first place, we may admire his judgment in the selec- 
 
112 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 tion of his hero and his period. Arthur and his knights, 
 although quite as mythical as Romulus and Remus, are so 
 familiar to us in legend and ballad that they claim a sort of 
 quasi-historical existence, which tends to keep up the living 
 interest of the narrative. At the same time, knowledge of 
 the history and manners of the age is so especially scanty 
 that the poet can afford himself a very wide range in the 
 treatment of all that bears upon history and manners, with- 
 out any fear of shocking our sensibilities. He is able to 
 use the traditional accounts of Arthur's life and adventures, 
 to arm him in the armour of Cceur-de-Lion's time, and to 
 import the chivalry and spear-breaking of the middle ages 
 among the Britons who withstood Hengist and Horsa, with- 
 out the appearance of incongruity. The supernatural 
 machinery also, which is found in these traditional accounts, 
 he makes use of with prudent caution and consummate 
 skill. In these respects he may be favourably compared 
 with Spenser. The danger always to be feared from the 
 introduction of the supernatural is that it may take away 
 the human interest of the story. A second danger is that 
 fairies, witches, and other magical creations have a habit of 
 occasionally ceasing to be awful and becoming merely absurd. 
 These dangers Tennyson entirely escapes. Magic never 
 unduly interferes with the course of his narrative. To his 
 supernatural characters may be applied a criticism on those 
 of Shakespeare — 'They are always constantes sibi ; we 
 know that such beings do not and cannot exist, but we 
 irresistibly feel in reading the scenes in which they appear 
 that if they did exist they could not exist other than he has 
 painted them.' 
 
 With this equipment Tennyson proceeds to the task 
 of showing us his notion of ideal manhood, and allegorising 
 Sense at war with Soul. In the first of these objects he 
 has succeeded as few poets before him have done. Arthur 
 stands as one of the most perfect characters presented to 
 us by fiction, and all the more admirably perfect as being 
 admirably human. 
 
TENNYSON 113 
 
 A mystery surrounds his birth and death, if so it may 
 be called, but there is nothing mystical about his actions. 
 He is a saint, but a saint of the Church Militant with a 
 task that must be performed. Galahad and Percival may 
 seek the Holy Grail, but he must crush the robber hordes 
 that are devastating his land. He has faith to the utmost, 
 but it is to be shown, not merely by wearing the white 
 flower of a blameless life, but by works. From Idyll to 
 Idyll his character is elaborated until it reaches its climax 
 in the Farewell to Guinevere. Rarely elsewhere do we 
 find the husband of an unfaithful wife regarded otherwise 
 than with pity and contempt. In Arthur's case this 
 situation emphasises the beauty and dignity of his character. 
 The fact that it does so, speaks for the poet's strength 
 and confidence in his own powers. 
 
 The shadowing of ' Sense at war with Soul ' is perhaps 
 too vaguely worked out to be regarded as a genuine 
 allegory. It has been said that a good allegory is one 
 which not merely amuses the fancy, but also possesses a 
 strong human interest. Both of these Tennyson's allegory 
 fails to do, for it is not sufficiently ingenious to amuse, nor 
 sufficiently part of the narrative to interest. Moreover, it 
 is unfinished, as necessarily it must be, unless we are 
 willing to consider that Tennyson, with his distinctly brave 
 and, on the whole, optimistic way of looking at things^ 
 thought that the intellectual and spiritual forces of the 
 world must in the end be conquered by man's lower 
 nature. This he certainly did not think, and he con- 
 sequently represents Arthur, though crushed and conquered 
 for the time, as not dying, but ' passing ' from the world, 
 at some future day. 
 
 To come again ; and then or now 
 Utterly smite the heathen underfoot. 
 Till these and all men own him for their Lord. 
 The allegory, therefore, as an allegory, is unsatisfactory 
 because incomplete, but we need not on that account 
 condemn it as inartistic. 
 
114 XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 III. — Was this Aim in Conformity with the 
 Fundamental Principles of Art? 
 
 1 
 
 From what has been written above, it will be seen that 
 we consider that the fundamental duty of the Poet, as 
 Teacher, has been fully performed in the Idylls. The 
 moral is not a disheartening one. The reader is shown a 
 lofty ideal of true manhood. He is shown the beauty of 
 virtue — not the negative virtue of the cloister, but the 
 practical virtue of the knight errant. He is shown the 
 inherent ugliness of vice, even when wearing its most 
 attractive form. And, above all, the whole poem, rightly 
 considered, is replete with encouragement for those who 
 may have become weary of the battle of life. They are 
 told in language which cannot be mistaken, that defeat 
 and disappointment are nothing ; that the only disgrace is 
 to yield, and that victory will come in the end, if only 
 they have gained the support of the three fair Queens 
 who stood by Arthur's throne, and helped him in his need. 
 
 Self Reverence, Self Knowledge, Self Control, 
 These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 
 
 Such is the lesson of the Idylls. 
 
 PART III.— TECHNICAL CRITICISM 
 
 I. — Elements of Style 
 
 I. Vocabulary. — Tennyson is before .all things a word- 
 painter ; yet he manages to get his effects by using com- 
 paratively few colours. In a certain sense his vocabulary 
 is a limited one. The variety of words which he employs 
 is not great. But in his hands some of the most 
 simple and ordinary words are given a slightly extended, 
 
TENNYSON 115 
 
 yet perfectly intelligible meaning,^ which produces the 
 same effect as a more copious vocabulary, and with a 
 finer artistic result. He shows a decided preference for 
 words of Saxon origin, rarely indulging in archaisms or 
 unusual expressions, and then only when the sense renders 
 their use peculiarly suitable.- 
 
 He is a master in the art of forming compound words, 
 and is fond of this device.^ He continually uses phrases 
 and constructions borrowed from Greek or Latin.'^ He 
 adopts an ordinary vocabulary in rapid narration. In 
 conversations or reflective passages he is most addicted to 
 Latinisms and Graecisms. In description, his vocabulary 
 is most copious ; and, in this connection, we may refer 
 the reader to the description of the island in Enoch 
 Arden. 
 
 2. Sentence, Paragraph, and Metre. — There is no 
 English poet who preserves the connection between form 
 
 N.B. — The following references are all to The Passing of Arthur. 
 
 1 Line 360. And the /w?^ glories of the winter moon. 
 
 367. A cry that shivei^d to the iingling ?,ia.xs.. 
 
 2 Line i 99. Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
 
 211. Yet I thy hest will all perform. 
 
 248. I charge thee ... as thou art lief a.\\A dear. 
 
 310. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur : 
 
 But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm . . . 
 And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
 Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
 2 Line 209, the aidless King ; 1. 225, Excalibur's hilt, twinkling 
 vi'iih. topaz-lights z.-a6. jacinth-7tiork ; 1. 358, {he sharp-sfnitten crag; 11. 
 427-430, the deep-meadow'' d island-valley of Avilion ; 1. 434, the /?///- 
 breasted swan. 
 
 * Line 51. me, my King (Elomeric w ^ot). 
 204. Take Excalibur 
 
 And fling him far into the middle mere. 
 (Latin construction oi medins). 
 268. Empty breath, and rumours of a do^ibt, 
 
 (Hendiadys.) 
 228. This way and that dividing the szvift mind. 
 323. Not tho' I live three lives of viortal men. 
 (Homeric expressions.) 
 
n6 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 and matter so closely as Tennyson. Accordingly, in his 
 blank verse narrative his sentences are rarely involved. 
 The clauses come in their logical order, and are never 
 placed out of that order except with the definite aim of 
 obtaining some special effect of climax or sound. He 
 iuiitates Milton in his use of the verse-paragraph, 'arrang- 
 ing the divisions of his sense in divisions of verse, which, 
 albeit identical, and not different in the verse integers, are 
 constructed with as much internal concerted variety as the 
 stanzas or strophes of a Pindaric Ode.' But Tennyson 
 makes a less frequent use of enjambement, or overlapping, 
 than Milton, and preferably ends the line and sentence 
 together. He avoids the danger of monotony, and obtains 
 the desired ' internal concerted variety ' by changes of 
 cadence and other musical devices. The metre he wields 
 with the utmost skill. His expressed opinion was that 
 rime in poetry was useful only as a help to memory \ and 
 he himself is at his best when emancipated from its 
 restrictions. Handled by him blank verse has at one time 
 all the sweetness of the lyric metres, and at another 'the 
 surge and thunder of the Odyssey.' 
 
 3. Adornment. — Except in the passages where he adopts 
 a studied simplicity, Tennyson's style is loaded with 
 ornament, and nothing but his almost faultless taste pre- 
 vents it from becoming overloaded. He can say a plain 
 thing plainly, but he much prefers to say it finely, as is 
 natural in a poet who feels that his strength lies rather in 
 language than in range of thought. Of these ornaments 
 his favourite is alliteration, and it must be confessed that 
 he 'affects the letter' to a degree which would be 
 dangerous for any poet with a less musical ear than his. 
 Closely allied to alliteration is onomatopoeia, and in the 
 use of this figure his art can be seen more clearly than in 
 any of his other devices. The passage — • 
 
 Shocks and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn. 
 Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
 Of battle-axes on shatter'd helms. 
 
TENNYSON 117 
 
 has only one counterpart, and that occurs in The 
 Princess — 
 
 Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil banged 
 ,With hammers. 
 
 A good example of sigmatism is found in 
 
 Save for some whisper of the seething seas 
 
 and perhaps the finest example of onomatopoeia in his 
 poems is the following : 
 
 Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
 
 And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
 
 The bare black cliff clang'd romid him, as he based 
 
 His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
 
 Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
 
 And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake. 
 
 And the long glories of the winter moon. 
 
 Equally unmistakable is the cry of the rooks in Maud's 
 high hall-garden, 
 
 Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, 
 They were crying and calling 
 
 and in The Brook Tennyson actually succeeds in show- 
 ing the feelings of the talkative old farmer's victim. 
 
 He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs ; 
 He praised his hens, his geese, his gimiea hens. 
 
 The song in The Brook is one of the most sustained 
 onomatopoeic productions in English literature. Tennyson, 
 in common with Milton, possesses a wonderful faculty of 
 suggesting a complete picture or train of thought by means 
 of one metaphorical expression,^ and he is acknowledged to 
 be the great master of simile. At one time it is the ela- 
 
 1 Line 95. A death-white mist slept over sand and sea. 
 
 350. Clothed wivh his breath, and looking, as he walked, 
 
 Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
 430. Bowery hollows crowtid with summer sea. 
 
ii8 XIX. -CENTURY POETRY 
 
 borate Homeric simile ; ^ at another the brief, but complete, 
 comparison.^ It is always appropriate, often splendid, and, 
 as a rule, derived from some aspect of external nature. 
 
 II. — Intellectual Qualities of Style 
 
 1. Clearness. — When we have said that the Idylls are 
 Homeric, we have said also that they possess the quality of 
 clearness. Occasionally we meet a phrase which requires 
 to be read a second time before we grasp its full meaning, 
 but such phrases are the exception. There is no confusion 
 in the thought, and where Tennyson's thought is clear, his 
 style corresponds to it. 21ie Passing of Arthur possesses 
 clearness of style to an unusual degree, and we may note 
 that the poem in its earliest form belongs to the ' classical ' 
 period — the period of Ulysses and CEnone, rather than to 
 that of Maud and In Menioriam, which cannot claim to 
 have any such quality of clearness. ' Tennyson, to use his 
 own phrase, " respected the limitations," wrought with no 
 material save such as he could fashion to perfection, 
 grasped and outlined his thought with the sharp precision 
 of one who speaks of familiar experiences, and was master 
 of all the keys of his instrument.' 
 
 2. Simplicity. — The remarks already made upon adorn- 
 ment show that Tennyson's style, though clear, was anything 
 but simple. Studied simplicity of style we may find, but 
 
 1 Line 304. The great brand ... 
 
 Shot like a streamer of tJie northern mom. 
 Seen wliere tlie ??ioving isles of winter slioc/i, 
 By nigtit, luitti noises of t tie Norttiern Sea. ■ 
 So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur. 
 
 2 Line 337. Looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
 
 As in a picture. 
 389. So litie a stiatte7'''d column lay the King. 
 And the following beautiful comparison in Aytmer''s Field : — 
 Where a passion yet unborn perhaps 
 Lay hidden, as ttie music of t tie moon 
 Sleeps ill ttie plain eggs of ttie nightingale. 
 
TENNYSON 119 
 
 the bent of his mind tended towards elaboration. And in 
 this lay, perhaps, his chief artistic weakness. 
 
 III. — Emotional Qualities of Style 
 
 1. Strength. — Tennyson's extraordinary versatility is 
 such that it is difficult to characterise his poetry, as 
 possessing one in especial of those emotional qualities of 
 style classed under the head of strength. One at least is 
 never absent, a splendid intensity and earnestness which 
 always commands the interest and respect of the reader, 
 while his admiration is compelled by the steady self-control 
 always visible, preventing the poet's earnestness from ever 
 approaching extravagance. 
 
 2. Pathos. — Tennyson so thoroughly understood the 
 meaning of the word ' melancholy ' that he but rarely 
 attempts to produce this feeling in others ; and when he 
 does, it is generally by the simplest means. The whole 
 episode of the passing of Arthur and of the breaking up of 
 the ' goodliest fellowship of noble knights whereof this world 
 holds record ' is pathetic in the extreme. But it is not the 
 pathetic side which is dwelt upon so much as the theme on 
 which Tennyson is never tired of preaching — that, come 
 what will, law must be obeyed, — that we must let what 
 will be, be, — and that God fulfils Himself in many ways. 
 
 IV. — Kind of Poetry 
 
 Much has been written as to whether the Idylls constitute 
 an epic or not. The chief argument against the claim is 
 that there is no single hero, and that the Idylls^ as their 
 name implies, are only a series of pictures. The pictures, 
 it is acknowledged, are perfect of their kind, but, massed 
 together, do not contain, that uniformity of interest which 
 an epic requires. 
 
 As regards the first objection, that Arthur's claim to the 
 place of hero is challenged by Lancelot, and shared by 
 
I20 " XIX.-CENTURY POETRY 
 
 Other characters, we reply that this reproach can be brought 
 against many of the world's greatest epic poems. Satan 
 and Adam divide the interest of Paradise Lost, Achilles 
 and Hector and many. another hero do the same in the 
 Iliad. In the Idylls the central figure of Arthur binds the 
 episodes together quite as completely as the wrath of 
 Achilles binds the episodes in the Iliad. Without Arthur, 
 the purpose and plan of the poem falls asunder. 
 
 No one can deny that the Idylls has the ' beginning and 
 the middle point ' that Aristotle deemed essential in an 
 epic. That we have not a complete ending is due, as already 
 pointed out, to the symbolism which Tennyson introduced. 
 But an ending there is, even though it is rather hinted at 
 than clearly set before us. 
 
 Johnson says that the epic is generally supposed to be 
 heroic, and to contain one great action achieved by a hero. 
 It must also be of a moral tendency. If this is so, the Idylls 
 must not be disqualified because Arthur gloriously failed 
 to achieve his one great action. For all agree that the 
 poem is heroic, and contains a high moral purpose. 
 
 Essay-Subjects: — (i) 'Chivalry in England'; (2) 
 ' Different treatments of the Arthurian Legends.' 
 
 N.B. — Tennyson's poems being still copyright, a selection 
 cannot be given. 
 
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LITERARY EPOCH SERIES 
 
 The " Literary Epoch Series " is an attempt to provide, in a 
 form and at a price suitable for School use, the elements of 
 literary criticism ; and, while not pretending to be a com- 
 plete history of the literature of any epoch, it may be 
 found to answer the demand of a large number of practical 
 teachers for a text-book which seeks only to reproduce the 
 essentially typical atmosphere of a literary epoch, without 
 any attempt to " cram " the names and works of all the 
 writers of that epoch. 
 
 The Series, as at present designed, will contain six 
 volumes of uniform size (about 128 pages) and uniform 
 price (Is. net). Two volumes will be devoted to each 
 epoch, one of them dealing with the prose and the other 
 with the poetry ; and the three epochs will be : — 
 
 1. — From the Armada to the Restoration. 
 
 2. — From the Restoration to the French Revolution. 
 
 3. — From the French Revolution to the present time. 
 
 Each Volume will be written by a practical teacher, and 
 will contain : — 
 
 1. — A. Summary of the most significant facts and ideas 
 of the epoch, especially in the spheres of religion 
 and politics. 
 
 2. — A short Life of each author whose work is repre- 
 sented. 
 
 3. — A full Literary Criticism of each selection, as 
 essentially typical of the epoch. 
 
In each case the criticism will have a definite aim, and 
 will proceed on a definite method. 
 
 The first question of the general criticism will be — the 
 writer's ideal, and his particular aim in the particular 
 selection ; the second will be — how far, with the means at 
 his disposal, he succeeded or failed ; and the third will be 
 — how far that aim accords with the universal principles 
 of Literary Art. 
 
 The first question of the technical criticism will be con- 
 cerned with the Elements of Style — the actual vocabulary, 
 its arrangement in sentences and paragraphs, and its 
 adornment (with Figures of Speech, etc.) ; the second will 
 be concerned with the Qualities of Style — intellectual and 
 emotional ; and the third with the kind of Composition. 
 
 L. W. LYDE. 
 
SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY 
 
 In this Series I have tried to embody the experience of a 
 teacher and of an examiner. For ten years I have been 
 teaching Geography constantly to classes of all sizes and 
 all ages, the average number of pupils coming to me in the 
 course of any one day being at present about 200 ; and 
 during the last two years I have examined more than 
 10,000 candidates in the subject. 
 
 This experience has led me to several conclusions, which 
 will, I believe, be confirmed by most practical teachers 
 who are interested in C4eography as a subject of real 
 educational value : — 
 
 1. That the maps which are so hivislily supplied in modern text- 
 
 books cannot generally be used directly with the text, as it is 
 impracticable to have the book open in more than one place 
 at a time ; but that their presence in the book has led to a 
 regrettable neglect of the Atlas. 
 
 2. That an excessive variety of type and other mechanical devices 
 
 for classification are apt to confuse the average pupil. 
 
 3. That most text -books contain much which Avould be better 
 
 learned from the Atlas, or which is only an unnecessary tax 
 on the memory. 
 
 Consequently, this Series contains no maps and little 
 variety of type ; and I have intentionally avoided mention- 
 ing, e.g. exact heights, distances or sizes, small industries, 
 and unimportant places. Wherever any definite com- 
 parisons are made, especially in Lesson 2, they are 
 intended only for reference, and not to be learnt; but, 
 of course, in teaching I do use exact standards — taken 
 from our own locality, and therefore not equally useful 
 
elsewhere — e.g. Greenock, Bute, and Ben Lomond. 
 Practically every one of us has seen them, and they are 
 exceedingly easy to grasp at a single glance, to inspect in a 
 single walk, and to apply both inside and outside Scotland. 
 For instance — 
 
 Greenock = about 64 tliousand people = 2 Perths = J Oldham. 
 Bute = about 64 square miles = ^ Hertfordshire = -g^ Scotland. 
 Ben Lomond = about 32 hundred feet = \ Carpathians = | Alps. 
 
 I hope, too, that the book has more than these negative 
 merits. I have had the privilege during the last five years 
 of lecturing on the Teaching of Geography to a large 
 number of practical teachers, including members of the 
 Teachers' Guild, of the National Schoolmasters' Holiday 
 Course, and the Teachers' Section of the Oxford Summer 
 Meeting. This book is written exactly on the lines of 
 these lectures, and has the immense advantage of embody- 
 ing the criticisms and suggestions of these professional 
 audiences. 
 
 The British Isles have been omitted from this volume, 
 as they are to be dealt with separately ; but, as there are 
 so many references to British towns, I have added a short 
 study of the thirty largest. 
 
 L. W. LYDE. 
 
SCHOOL SHAKESPEARE 
 
 This series is intended specially for School use. 
 
 The Introductions are largely devoted to the dramatic 
 and literary sides of the play. The Story, its Source and 
 Scene ; the Title, Date, and Production ; the Characters, 
 Composition, and Interpretation. 
 
 The Notes, which are comparatively few, are mainly 
 concerned with what is typically Elizabethan in Shake- 
 speare's language. All references are confined to the 
 individual play in each case. 
 
 Each volume contains an Examination Paper, which is 
 a guide to the proper study of the play. 
 
 Each play is edited by a practical teacher. 
 
 There is a Classified Index. 
 
 L. W. LYDE. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT CONTINUOUS 
 READERS 
 
 The idea of these "Continuous" Eeaders arose out of a 
 rough census which we took amongst all sorts and 
 conditions of boys. 
 
 In the course of inquiry, two facts were brought into 
 painful prominence. 
 
 One was that the " light " reading of fully 70 per cent 
 was supplied by weekly newspapers and magazines which 
 contain only short stories and a mass of absolutely 
 unconnected scraps and tit-bits of information. 
 
 For this we were prej^ared, though few things could be 
 more fatal to the memory, or more calculated to make 
 continuous mental effort either an intolerable burden or an 
 actual impossibility. 
 
 The second fact, for which we were not prepared, was 
 that not 15 per cent read Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 This Series consists, then, of his shorter novels con- 
 verted into " Continuous Eeaders " ; and the need for 
 variety of subject and style in a Reader has, we believe, 
 been met by the notes. 
 
 London : A. & C. BLACK, Soho Square. 
 
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