English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Part 36

OLD Ma.n.u.sCRIPTS.--If he could be believed, he found a variety of material in this old collection. To a credulous and weak acquaintance, Mr. Burgum, he went, beaming with joy, to present the pedigree and illuminated arms of the de Bergham family--tracing the honest mechanic's descent to a n.o.ble house which crossed the Channel with William the Conqueror. The delighted Burgum gave him a crown, and Chatterton, pocketing the money, lampooned his credulity thus:

G.o.ds! what would Burgum give to get a name, And s.n.a.t.c.h his blundering dialect from shame?

What would he give to hand his memory down To time's remotest boundary? a crown!

Would you ask more, his swelling face looks blue-- Futurity he rates at two pound two!

In September, 1768, the inauguration or opening of the new bridge across the Avon took place; and, taking advantage of the temporary interest it excited, Chatterton, then sixteen, produced in the _Bristol Journal_ a full description of the opening of the old bridge two hundred years before, which he said he found among the old papers: "A description of the Fryers first pa.s.sing over the old bridge, taken from an ancient ma.n.u.script," with details of the procession, and the Latin sermon preached on the occasion by Ralph de Blundeville; ending with the dinner, the sports, and the illumination on Kynwulph Hill.

This paper, which attracted general interest, was traced to Chatterton, and when he was asked to show the original, it was soon manifest that there was none, but that the whole was a creation of his fancy. The question arises,--How did the statements made by Chatterton compare with the known facts of local history?

There was in the olden time in Bristol a great merchant named William Canynge, who was remembered for his philanthropy; he had altered and improved the church of St. Mary, and had built the muniment-room: the reputed poems, some of which were said to have been written by himself, and others by the monk Rowlie, Chatterton declared he had found in the coffers. Thomas Rowlie, "the G.o.de preeste," appears as a holy and learned man, poet, artist, and architect. Canynge and Rowlie were strong friends, and the latter was supposed to have addressed many of the poems to the former, who was his good patron.

The princ.i.p.al of the Rowlie poems is the _Bristowe_ (Bristol) _Tragedy_, or _Death of Sir Charles Bawdin_. This Bawdin, or Baldwin, a real character, had been attainted by Edward IV. of high treason, and brought to the block. The poem is in the finest style of the old English ballad, and is wonderfully dramatic. King Edward sends to inform Bawdin of his fate:

Then with a jug of nappy ale His knights did on him waite; "Go tell the traitor that to daie He leaves this mortal state."

Sir Charles receives the tidings with bold defiance. Good Master Canynge goes to the king to ask the prisoner's life as a boon.

"My n.o.ble liege," good Canynge saide, "Leave justice to our G.o.d; And lay the iron rule aside, Be thine the olyve rodde."

The king is inexorable, and Sir Charles dies amid tears and loud weeping around the scaffold.

Among the other Rowlie poems are the _Tragical Interlude of Ella_, "plaied before Master Canynge, and also before Johan Howard, Duke of Norfolk;"

_G.o.dwin_, a short drama; a long poem on _The Battle of Hastings_, and _The Romaunt of the Knight_, modernized from the original of John de Bergham.

THE VERDICT.--These poems at once became famous, and the critics began to investigate the question of their authenticity. From this investigation Chatterton did not shrink. He sent some of them with letters to Horace Walpole, and, as Walpole did not immediately answer, he wrote to him quite impertinently. Then they were submitted to Mason and Gray. The opinion of those who examined them was almost unanimous that they were forgeries: he could produce no originals; the language is in many cases not that of the period, and the spelling and idioms are evidently fact.i.tious. A few there were who seemed to have committed themselves, at first, to their authenticity; but Walpole, the Wartons, Dr. Johnson, Gibbon the historian, Sheridan, and most other literary men, were clear as to their forgery. The forged ma.n.u.scripts which he had the hardihood afterwards to present, were totally unlike those of Edward the Fourth's time; he was entirely at fault in his heraldry; words were used out of their meaning; and, in his poem on _The Battle of Hastings_, he had introduced the modern discoveries concerning Stone Henge. He uses the possessive case _yttes_, which did not come into use until long after the Rowlie period. Add to these that Chatterton's reputation for veracity was bad.

The truth was, that he had found some curious sc.r.a.ps, which had set his fancy to work, and the example of Macpherson had led to the cheat he was practising upon the public. To some friends he confessed the deception, denying it again, violently, soon after; and he had been seen smoking parchment to make it look old. The lad was crazy.

HIS SUICIDE.--Keeping up appearances, he went to London, and tried to get work. At one time he was in high spirits, sending presents to his mother and sisters, and promising them better days; at another, he was in want, in the lowest depression, no hope in the world. He only asks for work; he is entirely unconcerned for whom he writes or what party he eulogizes; he wants money and a name, and when these seem unattainable, he takes refuge from "the whips and scorns of time," the burning fever of pride, the gnawings of hunger, in suicide. He goes to his little garret room,--refusing, as he goes, a dinner from his landlady, although he is gaunt with famine,--mixes a large dose of a.r.s.enic in water, and--"jumps the life to come." He was just seventeen years and nine months old! When his room was forced open, it was found that he had torn up most of his papers, and had left nothing to throw light upon his deception.

The verdict of literary criticism is that of the medical art--he was insane; and to what extent this mania acted as a monomania, that is, how far he was himself deceived, the world can never know. One thing, at least; it redeems all his faults. Precocious beyond any other known instance of precocity; intensely haughty; bold in falsehood; working best when the moon was at the full, he stands in English literature as the most singular of its curiosities. His will is an awful jest; his declaration of his religious opinions a tissue of contradictions and absurdities: he bequeathes to a clergyman his humility; to Mr. Burgum his prosody and grammar, with half his modesty--the other half to any young lady that needs it; his abstinence--a fearful legacy--to the aldermen of Bristol at their annual feast! to a friend, a mourning ring--"provided he pays for it himself"--with the motto, "Alas, poor Chatterton!" Fittest ending to his biography--"Alas, poor Chatterton!"

And yet it is evident that the crazy Bristol boy and the astute Scotchman were alike the creatures of the age and the peculiar circ.u.mstances in which they lived. No other age of English history could have produced them. In an earlier period, they would have found no curiosity in the people to warrant their attempts; and in a later time, the increase in antiquarian studies would have made these efforts too easy of detection.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

POETRY OF THE TRANSITION SCHOOL.

The Transition Period. James Thomson. The Seasons. The Castle of Indolence. Mark Akenside. Pleasures of the Imagination. Thomas Gray.

The Elegy. The Bard. William Cowper. The Task. Translation of Homer.

Other Writers.

THE TRANSITION PERIOD.

The poetical standards of Dryden and Pope, as poetic examples and arbiters, exercised tyrannical sway to the middle of the eighteenth century, and continued to be felt, with relaxing influence, however, to a much later period. Poetry became impatient of too close a captivity to technical rules in rhythm and in subjects, and began once again to seek its inspiration from the worlds of nature and of feeling. While seeking this change, it pa.s.sed through what has been properly called the period of transition,--a period the writers of which are distinctly marked as belonging neither to the artificial cla.s.sicism of Pope, nor to the simple naturalism of Wordsworth and the Lake school; partaking, indeed, in some degree of the former, and preparing the way for the latter.

The excited condition of public feeling during the earlier period, incident to the accession of the house of Hanover and the last struggles of the Jacobites, had given a political character to every author, and a political significance to almost every literary work. At the close of this abnormal condition of things, the poets of the transition school began their labors; untrammelled by the court and the town, they invoked the muse in green fields and by babbling brooks; from materialistic philosophy in verse they appealed through the senses to the hearts of men; and appreciation and popularity rewarded and encouraged them.

JAMES THOMSON.--The first distinguished writer of this school was Thomson, the son of a Scottish minister. He was born on the 11th of September, 1700, at Ednam in Roxburghshire. While a boy at school in Jedburgh, he displayed poetical talent: at the University of Edinburgh he completed his scholastic course, and studied divinity; which, however, he did not pursue as a profession. Being left, by his father's death, without means, he resolved to go to the great metropolis to try his fortunes. He arrived in London in sorry plight, without money, and with ragged shoes; but through the a.s.sistance of some persons of station, he procured occupation as tutor to a lord's son, and thus earned a livelihood until the publication of his first poem in 1726. That poem was _Winter_, the first of the series called _The Seasons_: it was received with unusual favor. The first edition was speedily exhausted, and with the publication of the second, his position as a poet was a.s.sured. In 1727 he produced the second poem of the series, _Summer_, and, with it, a proposal for issuing the _Four Seasons_, with a _Hymn_ on their succession. In 1728 his _Spring_ appeared, and in the next year an unsuccessful tragedy called _Sophonisba_, which owed its immediate failure to the laughter occasioned by the line,

O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O!

This was parodied by some wag in these words:

O Jemmie Thomson, Jemmie Thomson O!

and the ridicule was so potent that the play was ruined.

The last of the seasons, _Autumn_, and the _Hymn_, were first printed in a complete edition of _The Seasons_, in 1730. It was at once conceded that he had gratified the cravings of the day, In producing a real and beautiful English pastoral. The reputation which he thus gained caused him to be selected as the mentor and companion of the son of Sir Charles Talbot in a tour through France and Italy in 1730 and 1731.

In 1734 he published the first part of a poem called _Liberty_, the conclusion of which appeared in 1736. It is designed to trace the progress of Liberty through Italy, Greece, and Rome, down to her excellent establishment in Great Britain, and was dedicated to Frederick, Prince of Wales.

His tragedies _Agamemnon_ and _Edward and Eleanora_ are in the then prevailing taste. They were issued in 1738-39. The latter is of political significance, in that Edward was like Frederick the Prince of Wales--heir apparent to the crown; and some of the pa.s.sages are designed to strengthen the prince in the favor of the people.

The personal life of Thomson is not of much interest. From his first residence in London, he supported, with his slender means, a brother, who died young of consumption, and aided two maiden sisters, who kept a small milliner-shop in Edinburgh. This is greatly to his praise, as he was at one time so poor that he was arrested for debt and committed to prison. As his reputation increased, his fortunes were ameliorated. In 1745 his play _Tancred and Sigismunda_ was performed. It was founded upon a story universally popular,--the same which appears in the episode of _The Fatal Marriage_ in Gil Bias, and in one of the stories of Boccaccio. He enjoyed for a short time a pension from the Prince of Wales, of which, however, he was deprived without apparent cause; but he received the office of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands, the duties of which he could perform by deputy; after that he lived a lazy life at his cottage near Richmond, which, if otherwise reprehensible, at least gave him the power to write his most beautiful poem, _The Castle of Indolence_. It appeared in 1748, and was universally admired; it has a rhetorical harmony similar and quite equal to that of the _Lotos Eaters_ of Tennyson. The poet, who had become quite plethoric, was heated by a walk from London, and, from a check of perspiration, was thrown into a high fever, a relapse of which caused his death on the 27th of August, 1748. His friend Lord Lyttleton wrote the prologue to his play of _Coriola.n.u.s_, which was acted after the poet's death, in which he says:

"--His chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre None but the n.o.blest missions to inspire, Not one immoral, one corrupted thought, _One line which, dying, he could wish to blot_."

The praise accorded him in this much-quoted line is justly his due: it is greater praise that he was opening a new pathway in English Literature, and supplying better food than the preceding age had given. His _Seasons_ supplied a want of the age: it was a series of beautiful pastorals. The descriptions of nature will always be read and quoted with pleasure; the little episodes, if they affect the unity, relieve the monotony of the subject, and, like figures introduced by the painter into his landscape, take away the sense of loneliness, and give us a standard at once of judgment, of measurement, and of sympathetic enjoyment; they display, too, at once the workings of his own mind in his production, and the manners and sentiments of the age in which he wrote. It was fitting that he who had portrayed for us such beautiful gardens of English nature, should people them instead of leaving them solitary.

THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.--This is an allegory, written after the manner of Spenser, and in the Spenserian stanza. He also employs archaic words, as Spenser did, to give it greater resemblance to Spenser's poem. The allegorical characters are well described, and the sumptuous adornings and lazy luxuries of the castle are set forth _con amore_. The spell that enchants the castle is broken by the stalwart knight _Industry_; but the glamour of the poem remains, and makes the reader in love with _Indolence_.

MARK AKENSIDE.--Thomson had restored or reproduced the pastoral from Nature's self; Akenside followed in his steps. Thomson had invested blank verse with a new power and beauty; Akenside produced it quite as excellent. But Thomson was the original, and Akenside the copy. The one is natural, the other artificial.

Akenside was the son of a butcher, and was born at New Castle, in 1721.

Educated at the University of Edinburgh, he studied medicine, and received, at different periods, lucrative and honorable professional appointments. His great work, and the only one to which we need refer, is his _Pleasures of the Imagination_. Whether his view of the imagination is always correct or not, his sentiments are always elevated; his language high sounding but frequently redundant, and his versification correct and pleasing. His descriptions of nature are cold but correct; his standard of humanity is high but mortal. Grand and sonorous, he constructs his periods with the manner of a declaimer; his ascriptions and apostrophes are like those of a high-priest. The t.i.tle of his poem, if nothing more, suggested _The Pleasures-of Hope_ to Campbell, and _The Pleasures of Memory_ to Rogers. As a man, Akenside was overbearing and dictatorial; as a hospital surgeon, harsh in his treatment of poor patients. His hymn to the Naiads has been considered the most thoroughly and correctly cla.s.sical of anything in English. He died on the 23rd of June, 1770.

THOMAS GRAY.--Among those who form a link between the school of Pope and that of the modern poets, Gray occupies a distinguished place, both from the excellence of his writings, and from the fact that, while he unconsciously conduced to the modern, he instinctively resisted its progress. He was in taste and intention an extreme cla.s.sicist. Thomas Gray was born in London on the 26th December, 1716. His father was a money scrivener, and, to his family at least, a bad man; his mother, forced to support herself, kept a linen-draper shop; and to her the poet owed his entire education. He was entered at Eton College, and afterwards at Cambridge, and found in early life such friendships as were of great importance to him later in his career. Among his college friends were Horace Walpole, West, the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and William Mason, who afterwards wrote the poet's life. After completing his college course, he travelled on the continent with Walpole; but, on account of incompatibility of temper, they quarrelled and parted, and Gray returned home. Although Walpole took the blame upon himself, it would appear that Gray was a somewhat captious person, whose serious tastes interfered with the gayer pleasures of his friend. On his return, Gray went to Cambridge, where he led the life of a retired student, devoting himself to the ancient authors, to poetry, botany, architecture, and heraldry. He was fastidious as to his own productions, which were very few, and which he kept by him, pruning, altering, and polishing, for a long time before he would let them see the light. His lines ent.i.tled _A Distant Prospect of Eton College_ appeared in 1742, and were received with great applause.

It was at this time that he also began his _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_; which, however, did not appear until seven or eight years later, and which has made him immortal. The grandeur of its language, the elevation of its sentiments, and the sympathy of its pathos, commend it to all cla.s.ses and all hearts; and of its kind of composition it stands alone in English literature.

The ode on the progress of poetry appeared in 1755. Like the _Elegy_, his poem of _The Bard_ was for several years on the literary easel, and he was accidentally led to finish it by hearing a blind harper performing on a Welsh harp.

On the death of Cibber, Gray was offered the laureate's crown, which he declined, to avoid its conspicuousness and the envy of his brother poets.

In 1762, he applied for the professorship of modern history at Cambridge, but failed to obtain the position. He was more fortunate in 1768, when it again became vacant; but he held it as a sinecure, doing none of its duties. He died in 1770, on the 3d of July, of gout in the stomach. His habits were those of a recluse; and whether we agree or not, with Adam Smith, in saying that nothing is wanting to render him perhaps the first poet in the English language, but to have written a little more, it is astonishing that so great and permanent a reputation should have been founded on so very little as he wrote. Gray has been properly called the finest lyric poet in the language; and his lyric power strikes us as intuitive and original; yet he himself, adhering strongly to the artificial school, declared, if there was any excellence in his own numbers, he had learned it wholly from Dryden. His archaeological tastes are further shown by his enthusiastic study of heraldry, and by his surrounding himself with old armor and other curious relics of the past.

Mr. Mitford, in a curious dissection of the _Elegy_, has found numerous errors of rhetoric, and even of grammar.