Summary of Book Third It is more difficult to characterize the English Poetry of the Eighteenth century than that of any other. For it was an age not only of spontaneous transition, but of bold experiment: it includes not only such absolute contrasts as distinguish the Rape of the Lock' from the 'Parish Register,' but such vast contemporaneous differences as lie between Pope and Collins, Burns and Cowper. Yet we may clearly trace three leading moods or tendencies:-the aspects of courtly or educated life represented by Pope and carried to exhaustion by his followers; the poetry of Nature and of Man, viewed through a cultivated, and at the same time an impassioned frame of mind by Collins and Gray :-lastly, the study of vivid and simple narrative, including natural description, begun by Gay and Thomson, pursued by Burns and others in the north, and established in England by Goldsmith, Percy, Crabbe, and Cowper. Great varieties in style accompanied these diversities in aim: poets could not always distinguish the manner suitable for subjects so far apart and the union of conventional and of common language, exhibited most conspicuously by Burns, has given a tone to the poetry of that century which is better explained by reference to its historical origin than by naming it artificial. There is, again, a nobleness of thought, a courageous aim at high and, in a strict sense manly, excellence in many of the writers :-nor can that period be justly termed tame and wanting in originality, which produced poems such as Pope's Satires, Gray's Odes and Elegy, the ballads of Gay and Carey, the songs of Burns and Cowper. In truth Poetry at this, as at all times, was a more or less unconscious mirror of the genius of the age: and the many complex causes which made the Eighteenth century the turning-time in modern European civilization are also more or less reflected in its verse. An intelligent reader will find the influence of Newton as markedly in the poems of Pope, as of Elizabeth in the plays of Shakespeare. On this great subject, however, these indications must here be sufficient. PAGE NO. 134 153 We have no poet more marked by rapture, by the ecstasy which Plato held the note of genuine inspiration, than Collins. Yet but twice or thrice do his lyrics reach that simplicity, that sinceram sermonis Attici gratiam to which this ode testifies his enthusiastic devotion. His style, as his friend Dr. Johnson truly remarks, was obscure; his diction often harsh and unskilfully laboured; he struggles nobly against the narrow, artificial manner of his age, but his too scanty years did not allow him to reach perfect mastery. PAGE NO. St. 3 Hybla: near Syracuse. Her whose . .. woe: the nightingale, for which Sophocles seems to have entertained a peculiar fondness'; Collins here refers to the famous chorus in the Oedipus at Colonus. St. 4 Cephisus: the stream encircling Athens on the north and west, passing Colonus. St. 6 stay'd to sing: stayed her song when Imperial tyranny was established at Rome. St. 7 refers to the Italian amourist poetry of the Renaissance: In Collins' day, Dante was almost unknown in England. St. 8 meeting soul: which moves sympathetically towards Simplicity as she comes to inspire the poet. St. 9 Of these: Taste and Genius. The Bard. In 1757, when this splendid ode was completed, so very little had been printed, whether in Wales or in England, in regard to Welsh poetry, that it is hard to discover whence Gray drew his Cymric allusions. The fabled massacre of the Bards (shown to be wholly groundless in Stephens' Literature of the Kymry) appears first in the family history of Sir John Wynn of Gwydir (cir. 1600), not published till 1773; but the story seems to have passed in MS. to Carte's History, whence it may have been taken by Gray. The references to high-born Hoel and soft Llewellyn; to Cadwallo and Urien; may, similarly, have been derived from the 'Specimens' of early Welsh poetry, by the Rev. E. Evans :-as, although not published till 1764, the MS., we learn from a letter to Dr. Wharton, was in Gray's hands by July 1760, and may have reached him by 1757. It is, however, doubtful whether Gray (of whose acquaintance with Welsh we have no evidence) must not have been also aided by some Welsh scholar. He is one of the poets least likely to scatter epithets at random: 'soft' or gentle is the epithet emphatically and specially given to Llewelyn in contemporary Welsh poetry, and is hence here used with particular propriety. Yet, without such assistance as we have suggested, Gray could hardly have selected the epithet, although applied to the King (p. 141-3) among a crowd of others, in Llygad Gwr's Ode, printed by Evans.-After lamenting his comrades (st. 2, 3) the Bard prophesies the fate of Edward II, and the conquests of Edward III (4): his death and that of the Black Prince (5): of Richard II, with the wars of York and Lancaster, the murder of Henry VI (the meek usurper), and of Edward V and his brother (6). He turns to the glory and prosperity following the accession of the Tudors (7), through Elizabeth's reign (8): and concludes with a vision of the poetry of Shakespeare and Milton. 140 159 1. 13 Glo'ster: Gilbert de Clare, son-in-law to Edward. Mortimer, one of the Lords Marchers of Wales. PAGE NO. 141 159 High-born Hoel, soft Llewellyn (1. 15); the Dissertatio de Bardis of Evans names the first as son to the King Owain Gwynedd: Llewelyn, last King of North Wales, was murdered 1282. L. 16 Cadwallo: Cadwallon (died 631) and Urien Rheged (early kings of Gwynedd and Cumbria respectively) are mentioned by Evans (p. 78) as bards none of whose poetry is extant. L. 20 Modred: Evans supplies no data for this name, which Gray (it has been supposed) uses for Merlin (Myrddin Wyllt), held prophet as well as poet.-The Italicized lines mark where the Bard's song is joined by that of his predecessors departed. L. 22 Arvon: the shores of Carnarvonshire opposite Anglesey. Whether intentionally or through ignorance of the real dates, Gray here seems to represent the Bard as speaking of these poets, all of earlier days, Llewelyn excepted, as his own contemporaries at the close of the thirteenth cen 142 143 144 161 tury. Gray, whose penetrating and powerful genius ren- 1. 5 She-wolf: Isabel of France, adulterous Queen of 1. 2 bristled boar: the badge of Richard III. L. 7 The Highlanders called the battle of Culloden, 145 162 lilting, singing blithely: loaning, broad lane: bughts, pens scorning, rallying: dowie, dreary: daffin' and gabbin', joking and chatting: leglin, milkpail: shearing, reaping: bandsters, sheaf-binders: lyart, grizzled : runkled, wrinkled fleeching, coaxing: gloaming, twilight bogle, ghost: dool, sorrow. 147 164 The Editor has found no authoritative text of this poem, to his mind superior to any other of its class in melody and pathos. Part is probably not later than the seventeenth century: in other stanzas a more modern hand, much resembling Scott's, is traceable. Logan's poem (163) exhibits a knowledge rather of the old legend than of the old verses.Hecht, promised; the obsolete hight: mavis, thrush: PAGE NO. ilka, every lav'rock, lark: haughs, valley-meadows: twined, parted from: marrow, mate: syne, then. 148 165 The Royal George, of 108 guns, whilst undergoing a partial careening at Spithead, was overset about 10 A.M. Aug. 29, 1782. The total loss was believed to be nearly 1000 souls.-This little poem might be called one of our trial-pieces, in regard to taste. The reader who feels the vigour of description and the force of pathos underlying Cowper's bare and truly Greek simplicity of phrase, may assure himself se valde profecisse in poetry. 151 167 A little masterpiece in a very difficult style: Catullus himself could hardly have bettered it. In grace, tenderness, simplicity, and humour, it is worthy of the Ancients and even more so, from the completeness and unity of the picture presented. 155 172 Perhaps no writer who has given such strong proofs of the poetic nature has left less satisfactory poetry than Thomson. Yet this song, with 'Rule Britannia' and a few others, must make us regret that he did not more seriously apply himself to lyrical writing. 156 174 With what insight and tenderness, yet in how few words, has this painter-poet here himself told Love's Secret! 157 177 1. 1 Aeolian lyre: the Greeks ascribed the origin of their Lyrical Poetry to the Colonies of Aeolis in Asia Minor. 158 159 I 160 163 178 164 179 165 181 166 182 168 184 175 188 Thracia's hills (1. 9) supposed a favourite resort of Mars. Feather'd king (1. 13) the Eagle of Jupiter, admirably described by Pindar in a passage here imitated by Gray. Idalia (1. 19) in Cyprus, where Cytherea (Venus) was especially worshipped. 1.6 Hyperion: the Sun. St. 6-8 allude to the Poets 1. 27 Theban Eagle: Pindar. From that wild rhapsody of mingled grandeur, ten- sleekit, sleek: bickering brattle, flittering flight: laith, stoure, dust-storm; braw, smart. 176 189 scaith, hurt: tent, guard: steer, molest. PAGE NO. 177 191 178 192 drumlie, muddy: birk, birch. greet, cry: daurna, dare not.-There can hardly exist a poem more truly tragic in the highest sense than this: nor, perhaps, Sappho excepted, has any Poetess equalled it. 180 193 fou, merry with drink: coost, carried: unco skeigh, very proud: gart, forced: abeigh, aside: Ailsa craig, a rock in the Firth of Clyde grat his een bleert, cried till his eyes were bleared: lowpin, leaping: linn, waterfall: sair, sore smoor'd, smothered: crouse and canty, blithe and gay. 181 194 Burns justly named this one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots or any other language.' One stanza, interpolated by Beattie, is here omitted:-it contains two good lines, but is out of harmony with the original poem. Bigonet, little cap: probably altered from béguinette: thraw, twist: caller, fresh. 182 195 Burns himself, despite two attempts, failed to improve this little absolute masterpiece of music, tenderness, and simplicity: this Romance of a life' in eight lines.-Eerie: strictly, scared: uneasy. 183 196 184 197 198 185 199 188 200 191 203 airts, quarters: row, roll: shaw, small wood in a hol- jo, sweetheart: brent, smooth: pow, head. Written in 1773, towards the beginning of Cowper's The Editor would venture to class in the very first rank this Sonnet, which, with 204, records Cowper's gratitude to the Lady whose affectionate care for many years gave what sweetness he could enjoy to a life radically wretched. Petrarch's sonnets have a more ethereal grace and a more perfect finish; Shakespeare's more passion; Milton's stand supreme in stateliness; Wordsworth's in depth and delicacy. But Cowper's unites with an exquisiteness in the turn of thought which the ancients would have called Irony, an intensity of pathetic tenderness peculiar to his loving and ingenuous nature.-There is much mannerism, much that is unimportant or of now exhausted interest in his poems: but where he is great, it is with that elementary greatness which rests on the most universal human feelings. Cowper is our highest master in simple pathos. 193 205 Cowper's last original poem, founded upon a story told in Anson's Voyages.' It was written March 1799; he died in next year's April. 195 206 Very little except his name appears recoverable with |