The Age of Pope Part 10

'The true rustic style,' Charles Lamb writes, 'I think is to be found in Shenstone,' and he calls his _Schoolmistress_ the 'prettiest of poems.'

William Shenstone was born in 1714 at the Leasowes in Hales-Owen, a spot upon which he afterwards expended his skill as a landscape gardener. In 1732 he went up to Pembroke College, Oxford, and remained there for some years without taking a degree. Those years appear to have been devoted to poetry. In 1737 Shenstone published a small volume anonymously. This was followed by the _Judgment of Hercules_ (1741), and by the _Schoolmistress_ (1742). In 1745 he undertook the management of his estate, and began, to quote Dr. Johnson's quaint description, 'to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers and copied by designers.'

On this estate, with its lakes and cascades, its urns and poetical inscriptions, its hanging woods, and 'wild s.h.a.ggy precipice,' Shenstone appears to have spent all his fortune. He led the life of a dilettante, and died unmarried at the age of fifty. His elegies and songs are dead, and whatever vitality remains in his verse will be found in the _Pastoral Ballad_ and the _Schoolmistress_.

The ballad written in anapaestic verse has an Arcadian grace, against which even Johnson's robust intellect was not proof. For the following lines he says, 'if any mind denies its sympathy it has no acquaintance with love or nature':

'When forced the fair nymph to forego, What anguish I felt in my heart!

Yet I thought--but it might not be so-- 'Twas with pain that she saw me depart.

She gazed as I slowly withdrew, My path I could hardly discern; So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.

The _Schoolmistress_, written in imitation of Spenser, has the merits of simplicity and homely humour. The village dame is a life-like character, and the urchins whom she is supposed to teach, and does sometimes teach by chastis.e.m.e.nt, are cunningly portrayed.

From the verses _Written at an Inn in Henley_ three stanzas may be quoted. The last will be already known to readers familiar with their Boswell:

'I fly from pomp, I fly from plate, I fly from falsehood's specious grin!

Freedom I love, and form I hate, And choose my lodgings at an inn.

'Here, waiter! take my sordid ore, Which lacqueys else might hope to win; It buys what courts have not in store, It buys me freedom at an inn!

'Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn.'

Unhappily this final verse, which Johnson is said to have repeated 'with great emotion,' has lost its application. The modern traveller, instead of being warmly welcomed at an inn, loses his ident.i.ty and becomes a number.

[Sidenote: Mark Akenside (1721-1770).]

Akenside, who was born at Newcastle, 1721, received his education in Edinburgh, where he was sent to prepare for the ministry among the Dissenters. He, however, changed his mind, became a medical student, and finally, though much disliked for his manners, gained reputation as a physician in London. He is stated to have been excessively stiff and formal, and a frigid stiffness marks the _Pleasures of Imagination_ (1744), a remarkable work considering the writer's age, since it is without the faults of youth. The poem is founded on Addison's _Essays_ on the subject in the _Spectator_, and the poet also owes a considerable debt to Shaftesbury. Akenside's blank verse has the merits of dignity and strength. But the work is as cold as the author's manners were said to be, and in spite of what may be called poetical power, as distinct from a high order of inspiration, the poem leaves the reader unmoved.

Pope, who saw it in MS., said that Akenside was 'no everyday writer,'

which is a just criticism. The _Pleasures of Imagination_ has the merits of careful workmanship and of some originality, but the interest which it at one time excited is not likely to be revived. In 1757 Akenside re-wrote the poem, and I believe that no critic, with the exception of Hazlitt, regards the second attempt as an improvement on the first. His skill in the use of cla.s.sical imagery is seen to advantage in the _Hymn to the Naiads_ (1746), and he deserves praise, too, for his inscriptions, which are distinguished for conciseness and vigour of style. The poet, it may be added, wrote a great number of odes that lack all, or nearly all, the qualities which should distinguish lyrical poetry. Not a spark of the divine fire warms or illuminates these reputable verses, but the author states that his chief aim was to be correct, and in that he has succeeded.

[Sidenote: David Mallet (1700-1765).]

David Mallet, a friend or acquaintance of Thomson, was contemptible as a man and comparatively insignificant as a poet. He did a large amount of dirty work, and appears to have made a good income by it. The base character of the man was known to Bolingbroke, of whose basest purpose he made him the instrument (see c. vii.). Mallet's ballad of _William and Margaret_ (1724) is known to many readers, and so is the inferior ballad _Edwin and Emma_, which was written many years afterwards. In 1728 he published _The Excursion_, a poem not sufficiently significant to prevent Wordsworth from selecting the same t.i.tle. In Mallet's poem on _Verbal Criticism_ (1733), Johnson states that he paid court to Pope, and was rewarded by a travelling tutorship gained through the poet's influence. In 1731 his tragedy, _Eurydice_, was acted at Drury Lane. He joined Thomson, as we have said elsewhere, in the composition of the masque of _Alfred_, and 'almost wholly changed' the piece after Thomson's death. _Amyntor and Theodora_, a long poem in blank verse, appeared in 1747; _Britannia_, a masque, in 1753, and _Elvira_, a tragedy, in 1763. Mallet, who was without qualifications for the task, wrote a life of Lord Bacon. He is said to have obtained a pension for inflaming the mind of the public against Admiral Byng, and thereby hastening his execution.

In Anderson's edition of the poets, Mallet's biography is related with more fulness than by Dr. Johnson, and, after frankly recording acts which fully justify Macaulay's statement that Mallet's character was infamous, the writer adds, 'his integrity in business and in life is unimpeached.'

SCOTTISH SONG-WRITERS.

When the poets of England were writing satires, moral essays, and elaborate didactic treatises, the poets of Scotland were singing, in bird-like notes, songs of humour and of love. It is remarkable that the Scotch, the shrewdest, hardest, and most business-like people in these islands, should be so richly endowed with a gift shared and enjoyed by rich and poor alike. The most exquisite of English lyrics fall, where culture is wanting, on regardless ears; the songs of Ramsay and of Burns, of Lady Anne Lindsay and Jane Elliot, of Hogg and Lady Nairne, of Tannahill and Macneil, are household words in Scotland to gentle and simple. A few of the choicest songs of Scotland are due to ladies of rank, but the larger number have sprung from 'the huts where poor men lie.' Ramsay was a barber and wig-maker; Burns, as all the world knows, followed the plough; Tannahill was a weaver; Hogg a shepherd; and Robert Nicoll the son of a small farmer, 'ruined out of house and hold.'

[Sidenote: Allan Ramsay (1686-1758).]

Allan Ramsay was, born at Leadhills, in Lanarkshire, in 1686, and was therefore Pope's senior by two years. He has been called 'the restorer of Scottish poetry,' and by his compilation of _The Evergreen_ (1724), and of _The Tea-Table Miscellany_, published in the same year, he gathered up the wealth of song scattered through the country. _The Miscellany_ extended to four volumes, and before the poet's death had reached twelve editions. An undying interest belongs to both anthologies. _The Evergreen_ was the first poetry Walter Scott perused, and in a marginal note on his copy of _The Tea-Table Miscellany_ he writes: 'This book belonged to my grandfather, Robert Scott, and out of it I was taught _Hardiknute_ by heart before I could read the ballad myself. It was the first poem I ever learnt, the last I shall ever forget.' The ballad Scott loved so well, I may say in pa.s.sing, was written as a whole or in part by Lady Wardlaw (1677-1727),[35] and belongs therefore either to our period or to the later years of the seventeenth century.

In 1725 Ramsay published _The Gentle Shepherd_, a pastoral that puts to shame the numerous semi-cla.s.sical and mythological poems which appeared under that name in England. It is essentially a rural poem, in which the action and language harmonize with what we know, or think we know, of country manners and life. There is neither striking invention in the plot nor much individuality in the characters, but there is poetical harmony throughout, many pretty rustic scenes, and sufficient interest to carry the reader pleasantly over the ground. _The Gentle Shepherd_ is the work of a poet, and gives a higher impression of Ramsay's power than his songs alone would warrant. His lyrical pieces, though not wholly without the lilt and charm such verse exacts, are perhaps mainly of service in showing the immeasurable superiority of Burns. Ramsay was a successful poet, and not too much of a poet to be also a successful man of business. He exchanged wig-making for bookselling, kept a shop in the High Street of Edinburgh, and finally retired to a villa which he had built for himself on the Castle Hill. A good-humoured, care-defying man, he enjoyed life in an easy way, and was not disposed to repine when his road lay down the hill. In an epistle to a friend he writes:

'And now in years and sense grown auld, In ease I like my limbs to fauld, Debts I abhor, and plan to be From shackling trade and dangers free; That I may, loosed frae care and strife, With calmness view the edge of life; And when a full ripe age shall crave, Slide easily into my grave.'

Among the Scottish song-writers of the period may be mentioned Robert Crawford (1695?-1732), whose love verses, written in a conventional strain, are not without music; Lord Binning (1696-1732), the author of a pretty song called _Ungrateful Nanny_; and William Hamilton of Bangour (1704-1754), who wrote the well-known _Braes of Yarrow_. The most charming of Scottish lyrics belong, however, to a later period of the century than the age of Pope.

The student who reads the minor poets who figured, in some cases with much applause, during the years of Pope's ascendency, will be struck by the almost total absence from their works of creative power. These rhymers wrote for the age, and ill.u.s.trate it, but they did not write for all time, and a small volume would suffice to hold all their verse which is of permanent value. Too often they imagined that by the composition of flowing couplets they proved their t.i.tle to rank with inspired poets.

They confounded the art of verse-making with the divine art of poetry, and were not aware that the substance of their work is prose. Now and then the digger in this mine will discover a small nugget of gold, but for the most part the interest called forth by the poets mentioned in the present chapter, is more historical than poetical, and the reader in pa.s.sing to the great prose writers of the age will be conscious of gain rather than of loss.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Cowper's line,

'Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,'

is not an improvement upon Garth's. Tempests, it has been justly said, do not beat.

[32] The _Spectator_, No. 335.

[33] Elwin and Courthope's _Pope_, vol. vii., p. 62.

[34] Edward Young tried his skill on the same theme in a poetical epistle to Tickell, but his lines are leaden and his praise absurd.

Addison's glory was so great, he says, as a statesman and a patriot, that

'It borders on disgrace To say he sung the best of human race.'

[35] To Lady Wardlaw Dr. Robert Chambers attributed twenty-five ballads, and among them several of the finest we possess, which are regarded as ancient by every other authority. If the a.s.sumption were proved, this lady would hold a distinguished and unique position among the poets of the Pope period, but there is absolutely no ground for the theory so zealously advocated by Chambers.

PART II.

THE PROSE WRITERS

CHAPTER IV.

JOSEPH ADDISON--SIR RICHARD STEELE.

As essayists, the writings of Addison and of Steele are familiar to all readers of eighteenth-century literature. Their work in other departments may be neglected without much loss; but the student who disregards the _Tatler_, the _Spectator_, the _Guardian_, and some of the essay-volumes which follow in their wake, will be blind to one of the most significant literary features of the period.

The alliance between Addison and Steele was so intimate, that to judge of one apart from the other, would be fair to neither. It may be well, therefore, after giving the leading facts in the lives of the two friends, to bring them together again while considering the work they accomplished in their literary partnership. One point, I think, will come out clearly in this examination, namely, that while Steele might, under very inferior conditions, have produced the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ without Addison, it is highly improbable that Addison, as an essayist, would have existed without Steele.

[Sidenote: Joseph Addison (1672-1719).]

Addison lives on the reputation of his prose works, but he thought that he was a poet, and was regarded as a poet by his contemporaries. It was by verse that he won his earliest reputation, and it was on his Pegasus that he rose to be Secretary of State. He was born on May 1st, 1672, at Milston, in Wiltshire, a parish of which his father was the rector, and was educated at the Charterhouse, where he contracted his memorable friendship with Steele. Thence, in 1687, at the boyish age of fifteen, he went up to Queen's College, Oxford, and in a few months, thanks to his Latin verses, gained a scholarship at Magdalen, of which college ten years later he became a fellow.