Lectures on the English Poets Part 3

The first outline given of the character is inimitable:

"Nought fer fro thilke paleis honourable, Wher as this markis shope his marriage, Ther stood a thorpe, of sighte delitable, In which that poure folk of that village Hadden hir bestes and her herbergage, And of hir labour toke hir sustenance, After that the erthe yave hem habundance.

Among this poure folk ther dwelt a man, Which that was holden pourest of hem all: But highe G.o.d sometime senden can His grace unto a litel oxes stall: Janicola men of that thorpe him call.

A doughter had he, faire ynough to sight, And Grisildis this yonge maiden hight.

But for to speke of vertuous beautee, Than was she on the fairest under Sonne: Ful pourely yfostred up was she: No likerous l.u.s.t was in hire herte yronne; Ful ofter of the well than of the tonne She dranke, and for she wolde vertue plese, She knew wel labour, but non idel ese.

But though this mayden tendre were of age, Yet in the brest of hire virginitee Ther was enclosed sad and ripe corage: And in gret reverence and charitee Hire olde poure fader fostred she: A few sheep spinning on the feld she kept, She wolde not ben idel til she slept.

And whan she homward came she wolde bring Wortes and other herbes times oft, The which she shred and sethe for hire living, And made hire bed ful hard, and nothing soft: And ay she kept hire fadres lif on loft With every obeisance and diligence, That child may don to fadres reverence,

Upon Grisilde, this poure creature, Ful often sithe this markis sette his sye, [sic]

As he on hunting rode paraventure: And whan it fell that he might hire espie, He not with wanton loking of folie His eyen cast on hire, but in sad wise Upon hire chere he wold him oft avise,

Commending in his herte hire womanhede, And eke hire vertue, pa.s.sing any wight Of so yong age, as wel in chere as dede.

For though the people have no gret insight In vertue, he considered ful right Hire bountee, and disposed that he wold Wedde hire only, if ever he wedden shold.

Grisilde of this (G.o.d wot) ful innocent, That for hire shapen was all this array, To fetchen water at a welle is went, And cometh home as sone as ever she may.

For wel she had herd say, that thilke day The markis shulde wedde, and, if she might, She wolde fayn han seen som of that sight.

She thought, "I wol with other maidens stond, That ben my felawes, in our dore, and see The markisesse, and therto wol I fond To don at home, as sone as it may be, The labour which longeth unto me, And than I may at leiser hire behold, If she this way unto the castel hold."

And she wolde over the threswold gon, The markis came and gan hire for to call, And she set doun her water-pot anon Beside the threswold in an oxes stall, And doun upon hire knees she gan to fall.

And with sad countenance kneleth still, Till she had herd what was the lordes will."

The story of the little child slain in Jewry, (which is told by the Prioress, and worthy to be told by her who was "all conscience and tender heart,") is not less touching than that of Griselda. It is simple and heroic to the last degree. The poetry of Chaucer has a religious sanct.i.ty about it, connected with the manners and superst.i.tions of the age. It has all the spirit of martyrdom.

It has also all the extravagance and the utmost licentiousness of comic humour, equally arising out of the manners of the time. In this too Chaucer resembled Boccaccio that he excelled in both styles, and could pa.s.s at will "from grave to gay, from lively to severe"; but he never confounded the two styles together (except from that involuntary and unconscious mixture of the pathetic and humorous, which is almost always to be found in nature,) and was exclusively taken up with what he set about, whether it was jest or earnest. The Wife of Bath's Prologue (which Pope has very admirably modernised) is, perhaps, unequalled as a comic story. The c.o.c.k and the Fox is also excellent for lively strokes of character and satire. January and May is not so good as some of the others. Chaucer's versification, considering the time at which he wrote, and that versification is a thing in a great degree mechanical, is not one of his least merits. It has considerable strength and harmony, and its apparent deficiency in the latter respect arises chiefly from the alterations which have since taken place in the p.r.o.nunciation or mode of accenting the words of the language. The best general rule for reading him is to p.r.o.nounce the final _e_, as in reading Italian.

It was observed in the last Lecture that painting describes what the object is in itself, poetry what it implies or suggests. Chaucer's poetry is not, in general, the best confirmation of the truth of this distinction, for his poetry is more picturesque and historical than almost any other. But there is one instance in point which I cannot help giving in this place. It is the story of the three thieves who go in search of Death to kill him, and who meeting with him, are entangled in their fate by his words, without knowing him. In the printed catalogue to Mr. West's (in some respects very admirable) picture of Death on the Pale Horse, it is observed, that "In poetry the same effect is produced by a few abrupt and rapid gleams of description, touching, as it were with fire, the features and edges of a general ma.s.s of awful obscurity; but in painting, such indistinctness would be a defect, and imply that the artist wanted the power to pourtray the conceptions of his fancy.

Mr. West was of opinion that to delineate a physical form, which in its moral impression would approximate to that of the visionary Death of Milton, it was necessary to endow it, if possible, with the appearance of super-human strength and energy. He has therefore exerted the utmost force and perspicuity of his pencil on the central figure."--One might suppose from this, that the way to represent a shadow was to make it as substantial as possible. Oh, no! Painting has its prerogatives, (and high ones they are) but they lie in representing the visible, not the invisible. The moral attributes of Death are powers and effects of an infinitely wide and general description, which no individual or physical form can possibly represent, but by a courtesy of speech, or by a distant a.n.a.logy. The moral impression of Death is essentially visionary; its reality is in the mind's eye. Words are here the only _things_; and things, physical forms, the mere mockeries of the understanding. The less definite, the less bodily the conception, the more vast, unformed, and unsubstantial, the nearer does it approach to some resemblance of that omnipresent, lasting, universal, irresistible principle, which every where, and at some time or other, exerts its power over all things. Death is a mighty abstraction, like Night, or s.p.a.ce, or Time. He is an ugly customer, who will not be invited to supper, or to sit for his picture. He is with us and about us, but we do not see him. He stalks on before us, and we do not mind him: he follows us close behind, and we do not turn to look back at him. We do not see him making faces at us in our life-time, nor perceive him afterwards sitting in mock-majesty, a twin-skeleton, beside us, tickling our bare ribs, and staring into our hollow eye-b.a.l.l.s! Chaucer knew this. He makes three riotous companions go in search of Death to kill him, they meet with an old man whom they reproach with his age, and ask why he does not die, to which he answers thus:

"Ne Deth, alas! ne will not han my lif.

Thus walke I like a restless caitiff, And on the ground, which is my modres gate, I knocke with my staf, erlich and late, And say to hire, "Leve mother, let me in.

Lo, how I vanish, flesh and blood and skin, Alas! when shall my bones ben at reste?

Mother, with you wolde I changen my cheste, That in my chambre longe time hath be, Ye, for an heren cloute to wrap in me."

But yet to me she will not don that grace, For which ful pale and welked is my face."

They then ask the old man where they shall find out Death to kill him, and he sends them on an errand which ends in the death of all three. We hear no more of him, but it is Death that they have encountered!

The interval between Chaucer and Spenser is long and dreary. There is nothing to fill up the chasm but the names of Occleve, "ancient Gower,"

Lydgate, Wyatt, Surry, and Sackville. Spenser flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was sent with Sir John Davies into Ireland, of which he has left behind him some tender recollections in his description of the bog of Allan, and a record in an ably written paper, containing observations on the state of that country and the means of improving it, which remain in full force to the present day. Spenser died at an obscure inn in London, it is supposed in distressed circ.u.mstances. The treatment he received from Burleigh is well known.

Spenser, as well as Chaucer, was engaged in active life; but the genius of his poetry was not active: it is inspired by the love of ease, and relaxation from all the cares and business of life. Of all the poets, he is the most poetical. Though much later than Chaucer, his obligations to preceding writers were less. He has in some measure borrowed the plan of his poem (as a number of distinct narratives) from Ariosto; but he has engrafted upon it an exuberance of fancy, and an endless voluptuousness of sentiment, which are not to be found in the Italian writer. Farther, Spenser is even more of an inventor in the subject-matter. There is an originality, richness, and variety in his allegorical personages and fictions, which almost vies with the splendor of the ancient mythology.

If Ariosto transports us into the regions of romance, Spenser's poetry is all fairy-land. In Ariosto, we walk upon the ground, in a company, gay, fantastic, and adventurous enough. In Spenser, we wander in another world, among ideal beings. The poet takes and lays us in the lap of a lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hills and fairer valleys. He paints nature, not as we find it, but as we expected to find it; and fulfils the delightful promise of our youth. He waves his wand of enchantment--and at once embodies airy beings, and throws a delicious veil over all actual objects. The two worlds of reality and of fiction are poised on the wings of his imagination. His ideas, indeed, seem more distinct than his perceptions. He is the painter of abstractions, and describes them with dazzling minuteness. In the Mask of Cupid he makes the G.o.d of Love "clap on high his coloured winges _twain_": and it is said of Gluttony, in the Procession of the Pa.s.sions,

"In green vine leaves he was right fitly clad."

At times he becomes picturesque from his intense love of beauty; as where he compares Prince Arthur's crest to the appearance of the almond tree:

"Upon the top of all his lofty crest, A bunch of hairs discolour'd diversely With sprinkled pearl and gold full richly drest Did shake and seem'd to daunce for jollity; Like to an almond tree ymounted high On top of green Selenis all alone, With blossoms brave bedecked daintily; Her tender locks do tremble every one At every little breath that under heav'n is blown."

The love of beauty, however, and not of truth, is the moving principle of his mind; and he is guided in his fantastic delineations by no rule but the impulse of an inexhaustible imagination. He luxuriates equally in scenes of Eastern magnificence; or the still solitude of a hermit's cell--in the extremes of sensuality or refinement.

In reading the Faery Queen, you see a little withered old man by a wood-side opening a wicket, a giant, and a dwarf lagging far behind, a damsel in a boat upon an enchanted lake, wood-nymphs, and satyrs, and all of a sudden you are transported into a lofty palace, with tapers burning, amidst knights and ladies, with dance and revelry, and song, "and mask, and antique pageantry." What can be more solitary, more shut up in itself, than his description of the house of Sleep, to which Archimago sends for a dream:

"And more to lull him in his slumber soft A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down, And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, Mix'd with a murmuring wind, much like the sound Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swound.

No other noise, nor people's troublous cries.

That still are wont t' annoy the walled town Might there be heard; but careless Quiet lies Wrapt in eternal silence, far from enemies."

It is as if "the honey-heavy dew of slumber" had settled on his pen in writing these lines. How different in the subject (and yet how like in beauty) is the following description of the Bower of Bliss:

"Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound Of all that mote delight a dainty ear; Such as at once might not on living ground, Save in this Paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard it was for wight which did it hear, To tell what manner musicke that mote be; For all that pleasing is to living eare Was there consorted in one harmonee: Birds, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.

The joyous birdes shrouded in chearefull shade Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet: The angelical soft trembling voices made To th' instruments divine respondence meet.

The silver sounding instruments did meet With the base murmur of the water's fall; The water's fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all."

The remainder of the pa.s.sage has all that voluptuous pathos, and languid brilliancy of fancy, in which this writer excelled:

"The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay; Ah! see, whoso fayre thing dost thou fain to see, In springing flower the image of thy day!

Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly she Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty, That fairer seems the less ye see her may!

Lo! see soon after, how more bold and free Her bared bosom she doth broad display; Lo! see soon after, how she fades and falls away!

So pa.s.seth in the pa.s.sing of a day Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower; Ne more doth flourish after first decay, That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower Of many a lady and many a paramour!

Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age that will her pride deflower; Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time, Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime. [2]

He ceased; and then gan all the quire of birds Their divers notes to attune unto his lay, As in approvance of his pleasing wordes.

The constant pair heard all that he did say, Yet swerved not, but kept their forward way Through many covert groves and thickets close, In which they creeping did at last display [3]

That wanton lady with her lover loose, Whose sleepy head she in her lap did soft dispose.

Upon a bed of roses she was laid As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin; And was arrayed or rather disarrayed, All in a veil of silk and silver thin, That hid no whit her alabaster skin, But rather shewed more white, if more might be: More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee.

Her snowy breast was bare to greedy spoil Of hungry eyes which n' ote therewith be fill'd, And yet through languor of her late sweet toil Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill'd, That like pure Orient perles adown it trill'd; And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight Moisten'd their fiery beams, with which she thrill'd Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light, Which sparkling on the silent waves does seem more bright."

___ [2] Taken from Ta.s.so.

[3] This word is an instance of those unwarrantable freedoms which Spenser sometimes took with language.

___

The finest things in Spenser are, the character of Una, in the first book; the House of Pride; the Cave of Mammon, and the Cave of Despair; the account of Memory, of whom it is said, among other things,

"The wars he well remember'd of King Nine, Of old a.s.saracus and Inachus divine";

the description of Belphoebe; the story of Florimel and the Witch's son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout's vision, in the last book. But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at it as a child looks at a painted dragon, and think it will strangle them in its shining folds. This is very idle.

If they do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them. Without minding it at all, the whole is as plain as a pike-staff. It might as well be pretended that we cannot see Poussin's pictures for the allegory, as that the allegory prevents us from understanding Spenser. For instance, when Britomart, seated amidst the young warriors, lets fall her hair and discovers her s.e.x, is it necessary to know the part she plays in the allegory, to understand the beauty of the following stanza?

"And eke that stranger knight amongst the rest Was for like need enforc'd to disarray.

Tho when as vailed was her lofty crest, Her golden locks that were in trammels gay Upbounden, did themselves adown display, And raught unto her heels like sunny beams That in a cloud their light did long time stay; Their vapour faded, shew their golden gleams, And through the persant air shoot forth their azure streams."

Or is there any mystery in what is said of Belphoebe, that her hair was sprinkled with flowers and blossoms which had been entangled in it as she fled through the woods? Or is it necessary to have a more distinct idea of Proteus, than that which is given of him in his boat, with the frighted Florimel at his feet, while