which a rural life always promises, and, if well conducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded, and every motion agitated." The gentle Tranquilla informs us that she "had not passed the earlier part of life without the flattery of courtship and the joys of triumph; but had danced the round of gayety amidst the murmurs of envy and the gratulations of applause, had been attended from pleasure to pleasure by the great, the sprightly, and the vain, and had seen her regard solicited by the obsequiousness of gallantry, the gayety of wit, and the timidity of love." Surely Sir John Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats with a worse grace. The reader may well cry out, with honest Sir Hugh Evans, "I like not when a 'oman has a great peard: I spy a great peard under her muffler." 7. As we close Boswell's book, the club-room is before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live forever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke, and the tall, thin form of Langton; the courtly sneer of Beauclerk, and the beaming smile of Garrick; Gibbon tapping his snuffbox, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up-the gigantic body, the huge massy face seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the gray wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, sir?" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You don't see your way through the question, sir!" 8. What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man! To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity! To be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries! That kind of fame which is commonly the most transient is, in his case, the most durable. The reputation of those writings which he probably expected to be immortal is every day fading; while those peculiarities of manner and that careless table-talk, the memory of which, he probably thought, would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe. I. COWLEY AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. [INTRODUCTION.-The following extract is from Johnson's Lives of the Poets, from which already two selections have been made-the Characterization of Shakespeare, page 1, and the Parallel between Pope and Dryden, page 147. "Much of Johnson's criticism," says Leslie Stephen, "is pretty nearly obsolete; but the child of his old age-the Lives of the Poets-a book in which criticism and biography are combined, is an admirable performance in spite of serious defects. It is the work that best reflects his mind, and intelligent readers who have once made its acquaintance will be apt to turn it into a familiar companion."] 1. Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasures in the mind of man, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another. 2. Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the s choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seven NOTES. Line 1. Cowley. Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was the "Who now reads Cowley! If he pleases yet, The "epic" and " Pindaric " art is in allusion to Cowley's two representative works — the Davideis, an epic poem on the life and troubles of David; and Pindaric Odes, a collection replete with beauties and with blemishes. But still I love the language of his heart," 5. Wit, literary invention. LITERARY ANALYSIS.-1-4. Cowley... another. To what class, rhetorically, does the first sentence belong?-Point out two examples of antithesis in this sentence. 5-10. Wit... account. In paragraph 2 which sentence is complex, and which compound? teenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets, of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not improper to give some account. 3. The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavor; but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry* they only wrote verses;* and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables. 10 15 4. If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry an imitative art, these writers will, without great wrong, lose their right to the name of poets, for they cannot be said to have im- 20 itated anything: they neither copied nature from life, neither painted the forms of matter, nor represented the operations of intellect. 5. Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to 8, 9. the metaphysical poets. Besides Cowley, the two principal poets questioned, and perhaps the name, the fantastic school (equivalent to the Italian school of the concetti), would be more appropriate. school, and Crashaw (died about 18. the father of criticism: that is, Aris 1650), whose "power and opu- totle (B.C. 384-322), the famous Greek philosopher, who, in his Rhetoric and his Poetics, first laid down the canons of litera. ry criticism. LITERARY ANALYSIS.-11-17. The metaphysical... syllables. Point out an example of antithesis in this sentence. 13, 14. poetry . . . verses. What is the distinction between "poetry" and "verses?" (See Defs. 4, 10.)-Give the derivation of each of these words. 14, 15. stood the trial of the finger, etc. Explain this expression. 16. only. Improve the position of this word by placing it nearer the adverbial phrase which it modifies. 20, 21. they cannot be said to have imitated anything. What three particular statements are used to amplify and illustrate this general statement?-Note the felicitous use of three verbs nearly synonymous with "represented." 24-27. Those ... poetry. In this paragraph point out two pairs of verbs contrasted in meaning. be wits. Dryden confesses of himself and his contemporaries 25 that they fall below Donne in wit, but maintains that they surpass him in poetry. 6. If wit be well described by Pope as being "that which has been often thought, but was never before so well expressed," they certainly never attained, nor ever sought it; for they en- 30 deavored to be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language. 7. If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be 3 considered as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; if it be that which he that never found it wonders how he missed, to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natural ; 4o they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever found. 8. But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more vigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of dis- 45 cordia concors-a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus "True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." 28, 29. Pope... expressed. The exact words of Pope are in the following couplet from his Essay on 45, 46. discordia concors, literally a har Criticism: monious discord, or variance. LITERARY ANALYSIS.-28-32. If wit... diction. What kind of sentence is this, grammatically and rhetorically? 34. happiness of language. Give an equivalent expression. 35-40. If... risen. What kind of sentence is this grammatically and rhetorically. 40-43. Their thoughts. . . found. In this balanced sentence point out the corresponding or contrasting parts. defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learn- 50 ing instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. 9. From this account of their compositions, it will be readily inferred that they were not successful in representing or moving 55 the affections. As they were wholly employed in something unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds. They never inquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done, but wrote 60 rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as Epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of men and the vicissitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. 65 62, 63. Epicurean deities. According to the doctrine of the Greek nal bliss, that is to say, in absolute inactivity, in the quiet enjoyment of sublime wisdom and virtue." LITERARY ANALYSIS. - 48, 49. The most heterogeneous ideas, etc. A single illustration may serve to show the justice of Johnson's criticism on the strained conceits of the metaphysical poets. Donne has to describe a broken heart: he enters a room where his sweetheart is present "Love alas! At one first blow did shiver it [the heart] as glass." This image he then proceeds to amplify thus: "Yet nothing can to nothing fall, Nor any place be empty quite; Therefore I think my breast hath all Those pieces still, though they do not unite. And now, as broken glasses show A hundred faces, so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, But after one such love, can love no more." 57-59. that uniformity of sentiment, etc. Compare this periphrastic elabora. tion with the powerful simplicity of Shakespeare's thought "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." |