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SECTION VII.

THOMAS GRAY (1716–1771)

was professor of modern languages and history in the University of Cambridge. His most popular poem is his Elegy, written in a country church-yard, in 1750. The charm of his writings is to be traced to the naturally exquisite ear of the poet, having been trained to consummate skill in harmony, by long familiarity with the finest models in the most poetical of all languages, the Greek and Italian. In regard to the " Progress of Poetry," and "The Bard," it is said, that there is not an ode in the English language which is constructea like these two compositions; with such power, such majesty, and such sweetness; with such proportioned pauses and just cadences; with such regulated measures of the verse.

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Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possess'd;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
There's buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer, of vigor born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly the approach of morn.
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!

No sense have they of ills to come,

No care beyond to-day.

Yet see how, all around them, wait

The ministers of human fate,

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Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap.
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
Nor children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

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Full many a gem of purest ray serene

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The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

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Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows,
While, proudly riding o'er the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,

Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.
The Bard.

It would be idle to descant on the diction or imagery of verses like these. We will only advert to the prophetic intimation of the catastrophe in the last clause. Had the poet described the tempest itself with the

power of Virgil in the first book of his Æneid, it would have failed in this instance to produce the effect of sublime and ineffable horror, of which a glimpse appears in the background, while the gallant vessel is sailing with wind, and tide, and sunshine, on a sea of glory. All the sweeping fury of the whirlwind, awake and ravening over his evening prey," would have been less terrible than his "grim repose;" and the shrieks and struggles of drowning mariners less affect ing than the sight of

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"Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm," "regardless" of the inevitable doom on which they were already verging.

SECTION VIII.

JAMES BEATTIE (1736-1803),

a native of Scotland, was the last of those who can properly be placed in the first order of the poets of this time. In 1771, while professor of moral philosophy at Aberdeen, he published his celebrated poem, The Minstrel, which describes, in the stanza of Spenser, the progress of the imagination and feelings of a young and rustic poet. Beattie also wrote several philosophical and controversial works, which attracted considerable attention in their day. His poetry is characterized by a peculiar meditative pathos.

The contemplation of the works of Nature is recommended in the following stanzas:

IX.

Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,

All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven-

O how canet thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!

X.

These charms shall work thy soul's eternal health,
And love and gentleness, and joy impart;

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But these thou must renounce, if lust of wealth
E'er win its way to thy corrupted heart;
For, ah! it poisons like a scorpion's dart;
Prompting th' ungenerous wish, the selfish scheme,
The stern resolve, unmoved by pity's smart ;
The troublous day, and long distressful dream.

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SECTION IX.

THOMSON (1700-1748).

The Seasons.

He has been justly called the great painter of Nature's scenery and Nature's joys. His chief merit consisted in describing her, and the pleasure afforded by a contemplation of her infinite and glorious varieties. "Touched by his more than magic pencil, every thing around us lives, and breathes, and speaksspeaks forth its Creator's praise: the little hills rejoice on every side; the trees of the fields clap their hands, and all creation joins in one general song."

He excelled in delineating, not the strong and boisterous passions of the human heart, but its gentler emotions and more pleasing traits. Of himself he says:

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"I solitary court

The inspiring breeze, and meditate the book
Of Nature, ever open; aiming thence,

Warm from the heart, to pour the moral song."

The "Seasons" are the most read and generally admired of his works, yet not without its faults. The language is sometimes inflated-style sometimes monotonous, but from continued elevation. The digressions have been objected to as blemishes, but by others have been approved and admired as essential to the highest merit of the poem.

Some have pronounced his " Castle of Indolence" altogether superior to the "Seasons." It was designed as a satire upon his own indolent character, and an incentive to the young to put forth vigorous exertions.

Several tablets were erected to his memory, containing beautiful inscriptions. Beneath one of these

was written this beautiful passage from the season of Winter:

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"Father of Light and Life! Thou good Supreme!

O teach me what is good! teach me thyself;

Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,

From every low pursuit! and feed my soul

With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!"

His great work, "The Seasons," with a few pre cepts intermingled, presents, in beautiful series and harmonious connection, the phenomena of nature and the operations of man contemporary with these, through the four seasons; forming, in fact, a biographical memoir of the infancy, maturity, and old age of an English year. Thus beautifully has Montgomery described it.

A short characteristic specimen of Thomson was given in the chapter on Personification. Other specimens will be found in the following section:

Some characteristic traits of Thomson and Cowper are given by Hazlitt, as follows:

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'Thomson, the kind-hearted Thomson, was the most indolent of mortals, and of poets. His faults are, that he is often affected through carelessness, and pompous from unsuspecting simplicity of character. He seldom writes a good line but he makes up for it by a bad one. Cowper has surpassed him in the picturesque part of his art, in marking the peculiar features and curious details of objects; no one has yet come up to him in giving the sum total of their effects, their varying influences on the mind. He does not go into the minutia of a landscape, but describes the vivid impression which the whole makes upon his own imagination; and thus transfers the same unbroken, unimpaired impression to the imagination of his readers. He describes, not to the eye alone, but to the other senses, and to the whole man. He puts his heart into his subject, writes as he feels, and humanizes whatever he touches. He makes all his descriptions teem with life. His blank verse is not harsh, nor utterly untunable; but it is heavy and monotonous; it seems always laboring up hill.

"If Cowper had a more polished taste, Thomson had, beyond comparison, a more fertile genius, more impulsive force, a more entire forgetfulness of himself in his subject.

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