The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer Part 32

Whether, fair shade! with social spirits, tell (Whose properties thou once described so well), Familiar now thou hearest them relate The rites and methods of their happy state: 110 Or if, with forms more fleet, thou roams abroad, And views the great magnificence of G.o.d, Points out the courses of the orbs on high, And counts the silver wonders of the sky!

Or if, with glowing seraphim, thou greets Heaven's King, and shoutest through the golden streets, That crowds of white-robed choristers display, Marching in triumph through the pearly way?

Now art thou raised beyond this world of cares, This weary wilderness, this vale of tears; 120 Forgetting all thy toils and labours past, No gloom of sorrow stains thy peaceful breast.

Now, 'midst seraphic splendours shalt thou dwell, And be what only these pure forms can tell.

How cloudless now, and cheerful is thy day!

What joys, what raptures, in thy bosom play!

How bright the sunshine, and how pure the air!

There's no difficulty of breathing there.

With willing steps a pilgrim at thy shrine, To dew it with my tears the task be mine; 130 In lonely dirge, to murmur o'er thy urn And with new-gather'd flowers thy turf adorn: Nor shall thy image from my bosom part; No force shall rip thee from this bleeding heart.

Oft shall I think o'er all I've left in thee, Nor shall oblivion blot thy memory; But grateful love its energy express (The father gone) now to the fatherless.

END OF BLAIR'S POEMS.

POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM FALCONER.

THE LIFE AND POETRY OF

WILLIAM FALCONER.

It may seem singular how the life of a sailor--a life so full of vicissitude and enterprise, of hair's-breadth escapes, of contact with wild men and wild usages, and of intercourse with a form of nature so vast, so fluctuating, so mysterious, and so terribly sublime as the ocean, which, in its calm and silence, forms an emblem of all that is peaceful and profound, and, in its tempestuous rage, of all that is unreconciled and anarchical in the mind of man, now comparable to a

"Cradled child in dreamless slumber bound!"

and now to a mad sister of the earth, screaming and foaming in fierce and aimless antagonism to her brother--should have reared so few poets.

This may arise either from the uncultivated and careless character of sailors as a cla.s.s, or from the influence of habit in deadening the effect of the grandest objects. It is the same with other modes of life equally romantic. What more so than that of a shepherd among the Grampian Mountains, constantly living between the everlasting hills and the silent sun and stars, surrounded by streams, cataracts, deep dun moorlands, and the wild-eyed and wild-winged creatures which dwell in them alone, their life hid in Nature, and their cries of rude praise going up continually to Nature's G.o.d? And yet the Highlands of Scotland have not hitherto produced one great rural poet, except Macpherson, who did belong to the peasantry. And so of the seafaring cla.s.s; only, so far as we remember, have expressed, the one in verse, and the other in prose, the 'poetry' of their calling,--namely, Cooper and Falconer, both of whose descriptions of sea storms and scenery have been equalled, if not surpa.s.sed, however, by such landsmen as Byron and Scott. A poetic mind, which comes in contact with strange and wonderful events or scenery only at intervals, often carries away a much more vivid idea of their striking features than those who reside constantly in their midst.

It must be a very rough rope, to borrow an image from the theme, which does not feel softer after long handling. It is the short and sudden impression, made in the twinkling of an eye, which is at once the most lively and the most lasting. When, however, enthusiasm continues, as in some favoured cases, unabated by familiarity, and is united to thorough technical knowledge, then the professional man may be nearly as successful as the amateur, or if there be any deficiency in freshness of feeling, it is made up for by accuracy of knowledge. It was so in the case of James Hogg, the poet of the shepherd life of Southern Scotland, and in William Falconer, the poet of British shipwreck. We shall afterwards show how his knowledge of his profession partly helped and partly hindered him in his poem.

William Falconer was born in Edinburgh in the year 1736. He was the son of a poor barber in the Netherbow, who had two other children, both deaf and dumb, who ended their days in a poor-house. He early, through frequent visits to Leith, came in contact with that tremendous element which he was to sing so powerfully, and in which he was to sink at last--which was to give him at once his glory and his grave. While a mere boy, he went, by his own account, reluctantly on board a Leith merchant ship, and was afterwards in the Royal Navy. Of his early education or habits very little is known. He had all his scholarship from one Webster. We figure him (after the similitude of a dear lost sailor boy, a relative of our own) as a stripling, with curling hair, ruddy cheek, form prematurely developed into round robustness, frank, free, and manly bearing, returning ever and anon from his ocean wanderings, and bearing to his friends some rare bird or sh.e.l.l of the tropics as a memorial of his labours and his love. Before he was eighteen years of age, Providence supplied him with the materials whence he was to pile up the monument of his future fame. He became second mate in the ship 'Britannia', a vessel trading in the Levant. This vessel was shipwrecked off Cape Colonna, exactly in the manner described in the poem, which is just a coloured photograph of the adventures, difficulties, dangers, and disastrous result of the voyage. In 1751 we find him living in Edinburgh, and publishing his first poem. This was an elegy on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. It was followed by other pieces, which appeared in the 'Gentleman's Magazine', and which will be found in this volume. Some have claimed for him the authorship of the favourite sea song, "Cease, Rude Boreas," but this seems uncertain.

Falconer is supposed to have continued in the merchant service (one of his biographers maintains that he was for some time in the 'Ramilies', a man-of-war, which suffered shipwreck in the Channel) till 1762, when he published his "Shipwreck." This poem was dedicated to the Duke of York, who had newly become Rear-Admiral of the Blue on board the 'Princess Amelia', attached to the fleet under Sir Edward Hawke. The Duke was not a Solomon, but he had sense enough to perceive, that the sailor who could produce such a poem was no ordinary man, and generous enough to offer him promotion, if he should leave the merchant service for the Royal Navy. Falconer, accordingly, was promoted to be a midshipman on board the 'Royal George' (Sir Edward Hawke's ship); the same, we believe, which afterwards went down in such a disastrous manner, and furnished a subject for one of Cowper's boldest little poems. "The Shipwreck" was highly commended by the 'Monthly Review',--then the leading literary organ,--and became widely popular.

While in the 'Royal George', Falconer contrived to find time for his poetical studies. Retiring sometimes from his messmates, into a small s.p.a.ce between the cable-trees and the ship's side, he wrote his Ode on "the Duke of York's Second Departure from England, as Rear-Admiral."

This poem was severely criticised in the 'Critical Review'. It has certainly much pomp, and thundering sound of language and versification, but wants the genuine Pindaric inspiration.

At the peace of 1763 the 'Royal George' was paid off, and Falconer became purser of the 'Glory', frigate of 32 guns. About this time he married a young lady named Hicks, daughter of a surgeon in Sheerness-yard--a lady more distinguished by her mental than her physical qualities. The poet dubbed her in his verses, "Miranda." It is hinted that he had some difficulty in procuring her consent to marry him, and was forced to lay regular siege to her in rhyme. At length she capitulated, and the marriage was eminently happy. She survived her husband many years; lived at Bath, and enjoyed a comfortable livelihood on the proceeds of her husband's "Marine Dictionary."

When the 'Glory' was laid up at Chatham, Commissioner Hanway, brother of the once celebrated Jonas Hanway (whom Dr Johnson so justly chastised for his diatribe against Tea), showed much interest in the pursuits and person of our poet. He even ordered the captain's cabin to be fitted up with every comfort, that Falconer might pursue his studies without expense, and with all convenience. Here he brought his "Marine Dictionary" to a conclusion--a work which had occupied him for years, and which supplied a desideratum in the literature of the profession.

The design had been suggested by one Scott, and approved of by Sir Edward Hawke; and the book, when it appeared in 1769, was greatly commended by Dr Hamel, the Frenchman, who had gained note himself, by producing some works on naval architecture. From the 'Glory' Falconer received an appointment in the 'Swift-sure'. In 1764 he issued a new edition of "The Shipwreck," carefully corrected, and with considerable additions. The next year he issued a political poem, in which, like a true tar of the 'Royal George', he took the King's side, and emitted much dull and drivelling bile against Lord Chatham, Wilkes, and Churchill. The satire proved that, though at home on the ocean, he was utterly "at sea" in land-politics.

Falconer had now left his cabin study with its many pleasant accommodations, and become a scribbler of all work in a London garret.

Here his existence ran on for a while in an obscure and probably miserable current. It is said that Murray, the bookseller, the father of 'the' John Murray, of Albemarle Street, wished to take the poet into partnership,--upon terms of great advantage,--but that Falconer, for reasons which are not known, declined the offer. "My Murray," as Byron calls him, was destined instead to have his name connected with a grander and ghastlier shipwreck than it lay in the brain of the projected partner of his firm to conceive, or in his genius to execute--that, namely, described in the ever-detestable, yet ever-memorable, second canto of "Don Juan."

In 1769, a third edition of his poem was called for, and he was employed in making improvements and additions when he was again summoned to sea.

In his hurry of departure, he is said to have committed these to the care of the notorious David Mallett, the son of a Crieff innkeeper, the friend of Thomson, the biographer of Bacon, and, as Johnson called him, the "beggarly Scotchman, who drew the trigger of Bolingbroke's blunderbuss of infidelity," who seems to have paid no manner of attention to his trust, as mistakes in the nautical terms and a frequent inferiority in execution manifest.

Falconer had undoubtedly thought the sea a hard and sickening profession; but latterly found that writing for the booksellers was a slavery still more abject and unendurable. He resolved once more to embark upon the "melancholy main." Often as he had hugged its horrors, laid his hand on its mane, and narrowly escaped its devouring jaws, he was drawn in again as by the fatal suction of a whirlpool into its power. Perhaps he had imbibed a pa.s.sion for the sea. At all events, he accepted the office of purser to the Aurora frigate, which was going out to India, and on the 30th of September 1769, he left England for ever.

The Aurora was never heard of more! Some vague rumours, indeed, prevailed of a contradictory character--that she had been burned--that she had foundered in the Mozambique Channel--that she had been cast away on a reef of rocks near Macao--that five persons had been saved from her wreck, but nothing certain transpired, except that she was lost; and this fine singer of the sea along with her. Unfortunate Aurora! dawn soon overcast! Unfortunate poet, so speedily removed!

"It was that fatal and perfidious bark, Built i' the eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, That laid so low that sacred head of thine."

The drowning of one poet of far loftier genius in the Bay of Spezia, latterly proved that the offering up of Falconer's life had not fully appeased the wrath of old Neptune, and that bards may still entertain, in the lines of Wordsworth,

"Of the old sea some reverential fear."

Burns heard of and deplored the loss of the Poet of the Shipwreck. In one of his letters to Mrs Dunlop, he mentions the fact, and adds the beautiful words, "He was one of those daring, adventurous spirits which Scotland beyond any other country is remarkable for producing. Little does the fond mother think, as she hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the poor fellow may hereafter wander, and what may be his fate. I remember a stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which speaks feelingly to the heart--

'Little did my mother think, That day she cradled me, What land I was to travel on, Or what death I should die.'"

Falconer is represented as a bluff, blunt, but cheerful sailor--fond of amusing his shipmates with acrostics on the names of their mistresses--with little learning except in seamanship, and what he had picked up in his travels. His smaller pieces scarcely deserve criticsm.

His whole reputation now reposes on the one pillar of his one poem, "The Shipwreck."

This poem was greatly overrated when it first appeared. It was by some critics preferred to Virgil's "aeneid," and compared to the "Odyssey." It is now, we think, as unjustly depreciated. That there is a good deal of swollen commonplace in the diction and sentiments, must be admitted.

Falconer arose in a bad age in respect of poetry. The terseness of Pope was gone, and in his imitators only his tinkle remained. His exquisite sense and trembling finish had vanished, and only his conventional diction--the ghost of his greatness--was to be found in the poets of the time. It was extremely natural that a half-taught mind like Falconer's should be captivated by what was the mode of the day. Indeed, Burns himself was only saved from the same error by continuing to write in Scotch; many of his English verses and his letters are marred by more or less of the disgusting and vicious affectation of style which then prevailed; and in parts of Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope," we find the last modified specimen of the evil. Hence, in Falconer the obsolete mythological allusions--the names with cla.s.sical terminations--the perpetual apostrophes--the set and stilted speeches he puts into the mouths of heroes--the bombast, verbiage, and sounding sameness of much of his verse. Nor do we greatly admire the story which he introduces with the poem, nor the discrimination of his characters, nor, what may be called strictly, the pathos of the piece. Indeed, considering the size of the poem, there is so much that is vapid and common, that the counter-balancing excellences must be great ere they could have floated it so long. To use an expression suitable to the theme, the vessel which has sailed so far, notwithstanding its numerous leaks, must be of a strong and st.u.r.dy build.

And this is the main merit of "The Shipwreck." It has in most of its descriptive pa.s.sages a certain rugged strength and truth, which prove at once the perspicacity and the poetic vision of the author, who, while he sees all the minute details of his subject, sees also the glory of imagination shining around them. A ship appears before his view, with its every spar and yard, clear and distinct as if seen in meridian sunshine, and yet with a radiance of poetry around it all, as if he were looking at it by moonlight, or in the magical light of a dream. Take the following lines, for instance:--

"Up-torn reluctant from its oozy cave, The ponderous anchor rises o'er the wave.

High on the slipp'ry masts the yards ascend, And far abroad the canvas wings extend.

Along the gla.s.sy plain the vessel glides, While azure radiance trembles on her sides."

We grant, indeed, that sometimes his technical lore rises up, as it were, and drowns the poetry. What imaginative quality, for example, have we in the following verses?

"The mainsail, by the squall so lately rent, In streaming pendants flying, is unbent; With brails refixed, another soon prepared, Ascending spreads along beneath the yard; To each yard-arm the head-rope they extend, And soon their ear-rings and their robans bend.

That task perform'd, they first the braces slack, Then to the chess-tree drag the unwilling tack; And, while the lee clue-garnet's lower'd away, Taught aft the sheet they tally, and belay."

This is mere log-book; and such pa.s.sages are common in the poem. But frequently he bathes the web of the shrouds and ship-rigging in rich ideal gold. Take the following:--

"With equal sheets restrain'd, the bellying sail Spreads a broad concave to the sweeping gale; While o'er the foam the ship impetuous flies, The helm the attentive timoneer applies: As in pursuit along the aerial way, With ardent eye the falcon marks his prey, Each motion watches of the doubtful chase, Obliquely wheeling through the fluid s.p.a.ce; So, govern'd by the steersman's GLOWING hands, The regent helm her motion still commands."

Falconer may in some points be likened to Crabbe. Like him, he excels in minute and patient painting. Like him he is capable at times of extracting the imaginative element from the barest and simplest details.

And, like him, he sometimes sets before us, mere dry inventories or invoices, instead of such poetical catalogues as Homer gives of ships, and Milton of devils. It is remarkable that Falconer never shines at all except when he is describing ships or sea scenery.