The cheerful mood in which the crew anticipate what was to prove, for most of them, their last voyage is described with tragic skill: Inflamed by hope, their throbbing hearts elate Ideal pleasures vainly antedate, Before whose vivid intellectual ray Distress recedes, and danger melts away. Already British coasts appear to rise; The chalky cliffs salute their longing eyes; And mutual feelings mutual bliss bestow : Such shadowy happiness their thoughts employ; The descriptions of the changes of Nature during the voyage have all the vividness inspired by things actually experienced and strongly felt :- Or, Or, Deep midnight now involves the livid skies, With parting meteors crossed, portentous shone. On the larboard quarter they descry But, see, in confluence borne before the blast, As he approaches the climax of the tragedy, the poet seems to shudder at the clearness of his recollection : O yet confirm my heart, ye Powers above! Since I, all trembling in extreme distress, And the catastrophe itself, when the ship has struck, is painted with extraordinary power : In vain the cords and axes were prepared, She loosens, spreads, and parts in ruin o'er the tide.2 The defects of The Shipwreck are first the conventional style of its versification. It is plain that the poet had modelled this on Pope's translation of the Iliad, a practice which, as the extracts I have given show, tends to "make poetry" (or at least metre)" a mere mechanic art." Another fault is, that he sometimes fails to realise the fact that his poem is narrative, and not didactic. Misled by his admiration for the digressions in compositions like The Seasons, he tries to introduce similar passages, and in the third Canto, while the vessel is rushing to her doom, pauses to make 2 Canto iii. 633-652. I Canto iii. 612. an excursion to "the adjacent nations of Greece, renowned in antiquity," where he dwells upon the virtues of Socrates, Plato, and Aristides. Finally he falls into the error of using many technical terms, and though this is occasioned by the intensity of his actual experience, it mars the effect of his striking descriptions by compelling the reader to refer constantly to foot-notes. Thus Roused from his trance, he mounts with eyes aghast, A giant surge down rushes from on high, As when Britannia's empire to maintain, 1 Canto ii. 447-466. CHAPTER VIII DECLINE OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SATIRE CHARLES CHURCHILL; THE ROLLIAD; PETER PINDAR THE forty years between the fall of Walpole and the rise of the younger Pitt are, perhaps, the most confused and perplexing in the political history of England. In no other period of the same length were there so many changes of Government, so much inconsistency in the profession of party principles, such strange alliances between leading statesmen. "Those persons, said Lord North in the House of Commons, defending himself for his alliance with Fox, "who reprobate the present Coalition forget that it is almost impossible to find in this assembly any individuals now acting together who have not differed materially on great and important points." 1 And this appearance of disorder is the more remarkable because the time is distinguished for the greatness of its achievements and the genius of the men that belonged to it. The supremacy of England at sea If she had to submit to the loss of her American colonies, her power was vastly increased in the West and the East by the conquest of Canada and the founding of her Indian Empire. It was the Golden Age of parliamentary oratory; no modern assembly has matched for lofty eloquence the Houses of Commons that listened to the speeches of the two Pitts, Burke, Fox, and Sheridan. English painting then pro was firmly established. 1 Historical and Posthumous Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall (1884), vol. iii. p. 40. duced its greatest masterpieces from the hands of Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney. Wit and social refinement were illustrated by the conversation of Johnson and Burke, and by the letter-writing of Horace Walpole, Gray, and Cowper. It is at first sight difficult to understand how so much brilliancy in the general life of the nation should have coexisted with so much factiousness, corruption, and cynicism in the sphere of its Government. Looking below the surface, however, we see that the inconsistency may in great part be accounted for by the fact that the age was one of transition. The problem of Constitutional Liberty that had arisen out of the conflict between the Crown and the Parliament in the seventeenth century had received a practical solution; the questions of democratic government raised by the French Revolution as yet existed only in the germ. No continuous traditional principle any longer separated the historic parties. On the other hand, the difficulties of governing a free and growing empire occasioned frequent mistakes on the part of statesmen; and, accordingly, the conflicts of factious ambition were proportionately bitter. The struggle for the control of affairs lay between the Crown, of which the prerogative had been left nominally unimpaired at the Revolution of 1688, and the associated groups of aristocratic families-Wentworths, Cavendishes, Russells, and others-under whose conduct the Revolution had been practically effected. The key of the position was the extent of influence which either side could bring to bear on the House of Commons through the votes of the representatives of the small boroughs; and to secure these all the arts of parliamentary corruption were practised with unscrupulous skill. But beyond Crown and Parliament were the irregular and incalculable forces of unrepresented Public Opinion, and the balance in the conflict between the two Constitutional Powers was often rudely disturbed by the oratory of the demagogue and the violence of the mob. The age of the Bill of Rights, of the Act of Settlement, and of the Septennial Act was followed by the age of the party fight for the control of the India VOL. V Q |