Chapter VII: The Early Nineteenth Century (1)

Two voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!

Wordsworth, "Sonnet to Switzerland"

The many changes recorded in the political and literary history of nineteenth-century England may be grouped under two heads: the progress of democracy in government, and the triumph of romanticism in literature. By democracy we mean the assumption by common men of the responsibilities of government, with a consequent enlargement of human liberty. Romanticism, as we use the term here, means simply that literature, like politics, has become liberalized; that it is concerned with the common life of men, and that the delights of literature, like the powers of government, are no longer the possession of the few but of the many.

HISTORICAL OUTLINE. To study either democracy or romanticism, the
Whig party or the poetry of Wordsworth, is to discover how greatly
England was influenced by matters that appeared beyond her borders.
The famous Reform Bill (1832) which established manhood suffrage,
the emancipation of the slaves in all British colonies, the
hard-won freedom of the press, the plan of popular
education,--these and numberless other reforms of the age may be
regarded as part of a general movement, as the attempt to fulfill
in England a promise made to the world by two events which occurred
earlier and on foreign soil. These two events, which profoundly
influenced English politics and literature, were the Declaration of
Independence and the French Revolution.

[Sidenote: TWO REVOLUTIONS]

In the Declaration we read, "We hold these truths to be
self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Glorious words!
But they were not new; they were old and familiar when Jefferson
wrote them. The American Revolution, which led up to the
Declaration, is especially significant in this: that it began as a
struggle not for new privileges but for old rights. So the
constructive character of that Revolution, which ended with a
democracy and a noble constitution, was due largely to the fact
that brave men stood ready to defend the old freedom, the old
manhood, the old charters, "the good old cause" for which other
brave men had lived or died through a thousand years.

A little later, and influenced by the American triumph, came
another uprising of a different kind. In France the unalienable
rights of man had been forgotten during ages of tyranny and class
privilege; so the French Revolution, shouting its watchwords of
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, had no conception of that liberty
and equality which were as ancient as the hills. Leaders and
followers of the Revolution were clamoring for new privileges, new
rights, new morals, new creeds. They acclaimed an "Age of Reason"
as a modern and marvelous discovery; they dreamed not simply of a
new society, but of a new man. A multitude of clubs or parties,
some political, some literary or educational, some with a pretense
of philosophy, sprang up as if by magic, all believing that they
must soon enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but nearly all forgetful of
the fact that to enter the Kingdom one must accept the old
conditions, and pay the same old price. Partly because of this
strange conception of liberty, as a new thing to be established by
fiat, the terrible struggle in France ended in the ignoble military
despotism of Napoleon.

[Sidenote: EFFECT OF THE REVOLUTIONS]

These two revolutions, one establishing and the other clamoring for
the dignity of manhood, created a mighty stir throughout the
civilized world. Following the French Revolution, most European
nations were thrown into political ferment, and the object of all
their agitation, rebellion, upheaval, was to obtain a greater
measure of democracy by overturning every form of class or caste
government. Thrones seemed to be tottering, and in terror of their
houses Continental sovereigns entered into their Holy Alliance
(1815) with the unholy object of joining forces to crush democracy
wherever it appeared.

THE REVOLUTION AND LITERATURE. The young writers of liberty-loving England felt the stir, the _sursum_ of the age. Wordsworth, most sedate of men, saw in the French Revolution a glorious prophecy, and wrote with unwonted enthusiasm:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very Heaven.

Coleridge and Southey formed their grand scheme of a Pantisocracy, a government of perfect equality, on the banks of the Susquehanna. Scott (always a Tory, and therefore distrustful of change) reflected the democratic enthusiasm in a score of romances, the chief point of which was this: that almost every character was at heart a king, and spake right kingly fashion. Byron won his popularity largely because he was an uncompromising rebel, and appealed to young rebels who were proclaiming the necessity of a new human society. And Shelley, after himself rebelling at almost every social law of his day, wrote his _Prometheus Unbound_, which is a vague but beautiful vision of humanity redeemed in some magical way from all oppression and sorrow.

All these and other writers of the age give the impression, as we read them now, that they were gloriously expectant of a new day of liberty that was about to dawn on the world. Their romantic enthusiasm, so different from the cold formality of the age preceding, is a reflection, like a rosy sunset glow, of the stirring scenes of revolution through which the world had just passed.

* * * * *

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)

There is but one way to know Wordsworth, and that way leads to his nature poems. Though he lived in a revolutionary age, his life was singularly uneventful. His letters are terribly prosaic; and his _Excursion_, in which he attempted an autobiography, has so many dull lines that few have patience to read it. Though he asserted, finely, that there is but one great society on earth, "the noble living and the noble dead," he held no communion with the great minds of the past or of the present. He lived in his own solitary world, and his only real companion was nature. To know nature at first hand, and to reflect human thought or feeling in nature's pure presence,--this was his chief object. His field, therefore, is a small one, but in that field he is the greatest master that England has thus far produced.

LIFE. Wordsworth is as inseparably connected with the English Lake
District as Burns with the Lowlands or Scott with the Border. A
large part of the formative period of his life was spent out of
doors amid beautiful scenery, where he felt the abounding life of
nature streaming upon him in the sunshine, or booming in his ears
with the steady roar of the March winds. He felt also (what
sensitive spirits still feel) a living presence that met him in the
loneliest wood, or spoke to him in the flowers, or preceded him
over the wind-swept hills. He was one of those favored mortals who
are surest of the Unseen. From school he would hurry away to his
skating or bird-nesting or aimless roaming, and every new day
afield was to him "One of those heavenly days that cannot die."

[Sidenote: WORDSWORTH AND THE REVOLUTION]

From the Lake Region he went to Cambridge, but found little in
college life to attract or hold him. Then, stirred by the promise
of the Revolution, he went to France, where his help was eagerly
sought by rival parties; for in that day every traveler from
America or England, whether an astute Jefferson or a lamblike
Wordsworth, was supposed to be, by virtue of his country, a master
politician Wordsworth threw himself rather blindly into the
Revolution, joined the Girondists (the ruling faction in 1792) and
might have gone to the guillotine with the leaders of that party
had not his friends brought him home by the simple expedient of
cutting off his supply of money. Thus ended ingloriously the only
adventure that ever quickened his placid life.

For a time Wordsworth mourned over the failure of his plans, but
his grief turned to bitterness when the Revolution passed over into
the Reign of Terror and ended in the despotism of Napoleon. His
country was now at war with France, and he followed his country,
giving mild support to Burke and the Tory party. After a few
uncertain years, during which he debated his calling in life, he
resolved on two things: to be a poet, and to bring back to English
poetry the romantic spirit and the naturalness of expression which
had been displaced by the formal elegance of the age of Pope and
Johnson.

For that resolution we are indebted partly to Coleridge, who had
been attracted by some of Wordsworth's early poems, and who
encouraged him to write more. From the association of these two men
came the famous _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798), a book which marks
the beginning of a new era in English poetry.

To Wordsworth's sister Dorothy we are even more indebted. It was
she who soothed Wordsworth's disappointment, reminded him of the
world of nature in which alone he was at home, and quietly showed
him where his power lay. As he says, in _The Prelude_

She whispered still that brightness would return,
She, in the midst of all preserved me still
A poet, made me seek beneath that name,
And that alone, my office upon earth

[Sidenote: PERSONAL TRAITS]

The latter half of Wordsworth's life was passed in the Lake Region,
at Grasmere and Rydal Mount for the most part, the continuity being
broken by walking trips in Britain or on the Continent. A very
quiet, uneventful life it was, but it revealed two qualities which
are of interest to Wordsworth's readers. The first was his devotion
to his art; the second was his granite steadfastness. His work was
at first neglected, while the poems of Scott, Byron and Tennyson in
succession attained immense popularity. The critics were nearly all
against him; misunderstanding his best work and ridiculing the
rest. The ground of their opposition was, that his theory of the
utmost simplicity in poetry was wrong; their ridicule was made
easier by the fact that Wordsworth produced as much bad work as
good. Moreover, he took himself very seriously, had no humor, and,
as visitors like Emerson found to their disappointment, was
interested chiefly in himself and his own work. For was he not
engaged in the greatest of all projects, an immense poem (_The
Recluse_) which should reflect the universe in the life of one
man, and that man William Wordsworth? Such self-satisfaction
invited attack; even Lamb, the gentlest of critics, could hardly
refrain from poking fun at it:

"Wordsworth, the great poet, is coming to town; he is to
have apartments in the Mansion House. He says he does not
see much difficulty in writing like Shakespeare, if he had
a mind to try it. It is clear that nothing is wanting but
the mind."

[Sidenote: HIS TRIUMPH]

Slowly but surely Wordsworth won recognition, not simply in being
made Laureate, but in having his ideal of poetry vindicated. Poets
in England and America began to follow him; the critics were
silenced, if not convinced. While the popularity of Scott and Byron
waned, the readers of Wordsworth increased steadily, finding him a
poet not of the hour but of all time. "If a single man plant
himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide," says
Emerson, "the huge world will come around to him." If the reading
world has not yet come around to Wordsworth, that is perhaps not
the poet's fault.

WORDSWORTH: HIS THEME AND THEORY. The theory which Wordsworth and Coleridge formulated was simply this: that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful human feeling. Its only subjects are nature and human nature; its only object is to reflect the emotions awakened by our contemplation of the world or of humanity; its language must be as direct and simple as possible, such language as rises unbidden to the lips whenever the heart is touched. Though some of the world's best poets have taken a different view, Wordsworth maintained steadily that poetry must deal with common subjects in the plainest language; that it must not attempt to describe, in elegant phrases, what a poet is supposed to feel about art or some other subject selected for its poetic possibilities.

[Sidenote: NATURAL VS. FORMAL POETRY]

In the last contention Wordsworth was aiming at the formal school of poetry, and we may better understand him by a comparison. Read, for example, his exquisite "Early Spring" ("I heard a thousand blended notes"). Here in twenty-four lines are more naturalness, more real feeling finely expressed, than you can find in the poems of Dryden, Johnson and Addison combined. Or take the best part of "The Campaign," which made Addison's fortune, and which was acclaimed the finest thing ever written:

So when an angel by divine command
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
(Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past)
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

To know how artificial that famous simile is, read a few lines from Wordsworth's "On the Sea-Shore," which lingers in our mind like a strain of Handel's music:

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder--everlastingly.

If such comparisons interest the student, let him read Addison's "Letter to Lord Halifax," with its Apostrophe to Liberty, which was considered sublime in its day:

O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling Plenty leads thy wanton train;
Eased of her load, Subjection grows more light,
And Poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.

Place beside that the first four lines of Wordsworth's sonnet "To Switzerland" (quoted at the head of this chapter), or a stanza from his "Ode to Duty":

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

To follow such a comparison is to understand Wordsworth by sympathy; it is to understand also the difference between poetry and formal verse.

THE POEMS OF WORDSWORTH. As the reading of literature is the main thing, the only word of criticism which remains is to direct the beginner; and direction is especially necessary in dealing with Wordsworth, who wrote voluminously, and who lacked both the critical judgment and the sense of humor to tell him what parts of his work were inferior or ridiculous:

There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon!

To be sure; springs in the one, gas in the other; but if there were anything more poetic in horse or balloon, Wordsworth did not discover it. There is something also in a cuckoo clock, or even in

A household tub, one such as those
Which women use to wash their clothes.

Such banalities are to be found in the work of a poet who could produce the exquisite sonnet "On Westminster Bridge," the finely simple "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," the stirring "Ode to Duty," the tenderly reflective "Tintern Abbey," and the magnificent "Intimations of Immortality," which Emerson (who was not a very safe judge) called "the high water mark of poetry in the nineteenth century." These five poems may serve as the first measure of Wordsworth's genius.

[Sidenote: POEMS OF NATURE]

A few of Wordsworth's best nature poems are: "Early Spring," "Three Years She Grew," "The Fountain," "My Heart Leaps Up," "The Tables Turned," "To a Cuckoo," "To a Skylark" (the second poem, beginning, "Ethereal minstrel") and "Yarrow Revisited." The spirit of all his nature poems is reflected in "Tintern Abbey," which gives us two complementary views of nature, corresponding to Wordsworth's earlier and later experience. The first is that of the boy, roaming foot-loose over the face of nature, finding, as Coleridge said, "Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere." The second is that of the man who returns to the scenes of his boyhood, finds them as beautiful as ever, but pervaded now by a spiritual quality,--"something which defies analysis, undefined and ineffable, which must be felt and perceived by the soul."

It was this spiritual view of nature, as a reflection of the Divine, which profoundly influenced Bryant, Emerson and other American writers. The essence of Wordsworth's teaching, in his nature poems, appears in the last two lines of his "Skylark," a bird that soars the more gladly to heaven because he must soon return with joy to his own nest:

Type of the wise, who soar but never roam:
True to the kindred points of heaven and home.

[Sidenote: POEMS OF HUMBLE LIFE]

Of the poems more closely associated with human life, a few the best are: "Michael," "The Highland Reaper," "The Leech Gatherers," "Margaret" (in _The Excursion_), "Brougham Castle," "The Happy Warrior," "Peel Castle in a Storm," "Three Years She Grew," "She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways" and "She was a Phantom of Delight." In such poems we note two significant characteristics: that Wordsworth does not seek extraordinary characters, but is content to show the hidden beauty in the lives of plain men and women; and that his heroes and heroines dwell, as he said, where "labor still preserves his rosy face." They are natural men and women, and are therefore simple and strong; the quiet light in their faces is reflected from the face of the fields. In his emphasis on natural simplicity, virtue, beauty, Wordsworth has again been, as he desired, a teacher of multitudes. His moral teaching may be summed up in three lines from _The Excursion_:

The primal duties shine aloft like stars;
The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.

[Sidenote: THE SONNETS]

In the number and fine quality of his sonnets Wordsworth has no superior in English poetry. Simplicity, strength, deep thought, fine feeling, careful workmanship,--these qualities are present in measure more abundant than can be found elsewhere in the poet's work:

Bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells.

In these three lines from "On the Sonnet" (which should be read entire) is the explanation why Wordsworth, who was often diffuse, found joy in compressing his whole poem into fourteen lines. A few other sonnets which can be heartily recommended are: "Westminster Bridge," "The Seashore," "The World," "Venetian Republic," "To Sleep," "Toussaint L'Ouverture," "Afterthoughts," "To Milton" (sometimes called "London, 1802") and the farewell to Scott when he sailed in search of health, beginning, "A trouble not of clouds or weeping rain."

Not until one has learned to appreciate Wordsworth at his best will it be safe to attempt _The Prelude, or the Growth of a Poet's Mind_. Most people grow weary of this poem, which is too long; but a few read it with pleasure for its portrayal of Wordsworth's education at the hand of Nature, or for occasional good lines which lure us on like miners in search of gold. _The Prelude_, though written at thirty-five, was not published till after Wordsworth's death, and for this reason: he had planned an immense poem, dealing with Nature, Man and Society, which he called _The Recluse_, and which he likened to a Gothic cathedral. His _Prelude_ was the "ante-chapel" of this work; his miscellaneous odes, sonnets and narrative poems were to be as so many "cells and oratories"; other parts of the structure were _The Home at Grasmere_ and _The Excursion_, which he may have intended as transepts, or as chapels.

This great work was left unfinished, and one may say of it, as of Spenser's _Faery Queen_, that it is better so. Like other poets of venerable years Wordsworth wrote many verses that were better left in the inkpot; and it is a pity, in dealing with so beautiful and necessary a thing as poetry, that one should ever reach the point of saying, sadly but truthfully, "Enough is too much."

* * * * *

COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY

The story of these two men is a commentary on the uncertainties of literary fortune. Both won greater reward and reputation than fell to the lot of Wordsworth; but while the fame of the latter poet mounts steadily with the years, the former have become, as it were, footnotes to the great contemporary with whom they were associated, under the name of "Lake Poets," for half a glorious century.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834). The tragedy _Remorse_, which Coleridge wrote, is as nothing compared with the tragedy of his own life. He was a man of superb natural gifts, of vast literary culture, to whose genius the writers of that age--Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey, Shelley, Landor, Southey--nearly all bear witness. He might well have been a great poet, or critic, or philosopher, or teacher; but he lacked the will power to direct his gifts to any definite end. His irresolution became pitiful weakness when he began to indulge in the drug habit, which soon made a slave of him. Thereafter he impressed all who met him with a sense of loss and inexpressible sorrow.

[Sidenote: LIFE OF COLERIDGE]

Coleridge began to read at three years of age; at five he had gone
through the Bible and the Arabian Nights; at thirty he was perhaps
the most widely read man of his generation in the fields of
literature and philosophy. He was a student in a famous charity
school in London when he met Charles Lamb, who records his memories
of the boy and the place in his charming essay of "Christ's
Hospital." At college he was one of a band of enthusiasts inspired
by the French Revolution, and with Southey he formed a plan to
establish in America a world-reforming Pantisocracy, or communistic
settlement, where all should be brothers and equals, and where a
little manual work was to be tempered by much play, poetry and
culture. Europeans had queer ideas of America in those days. This
beautiful plan failed, because the reformers did not have money
enough to cross the ocean and stake out their Paradise.

The next important association of Coleridge was with Wordsworth and
his sister Dorothy, in Somerset, where the three friends planned
and published the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798. In this work
Wordsworth attempted to portray the charm of common things, and
Coleridge to give reality to a world of dreams and fantasies.
Witness the two most original poems in the book, "Tintern Abbey"
and "The Ancient Mariner."

During the latter part of his life Coleridge won fame by his
lectures on English poetry and German philosophy, and still greater
fame by his conversations,--brilliant, heaven-scaling monologues,
which brought together a company of young enthusiasts. And
presently these disciples of Coleridge were spreading abroad a new
idealistic philosophy, which crossed the ocean, was welcomed by
Emerson and a host of young writers or reformers, and appeared in
American literature as Transcendentalism.

[Sidenote: STORIES OF COLERIDGE]

Others who heard the conversations were impressed in a
somewhat different way. Keats met Coleridge on the road,
one day, and listened dumbfounded to an ecstatic discourse
on poetry, nightingales, the origin of sensation, dreams
(four kinds), consciousness, creeds, ghost stories,--"he
broached a thousand matters" while the poets were walking a
space of two miles.

Walter Scott, meeting Coleridge at a dinner, listened with
his head in a whirl to a monologue on fairies, the
classics, ancient mysteries, visions, ecstasies, the
psychology of poetry, the poetry of metaphysics. "Zounds!"
says Scott, "I was never so bethumped with words."

Charles Lamb, hurrying to his work, encountered Coleridge
and was drawn aside to a quiet garden. There the poet took
Lamb by a button of his coat, closed his eyes, and began to
discourse, his right hand waving to the rhythm of the
flowing words. No sooner was Coleridge well started than
Lamb slyly took out his penknife, cut off the button, and
escaped unobserved. Some hours later, as he passed the
garden on his return, Lamb heard a voice speaking most
musically; he turned aside in wonder, and there stood
Coleridge, his eyes closed, his left hand holding the
button, his right hand waving, "still talking like an
angel."

Such are the stories, true or apocryphal, of Coleridge's
conversations. Their bewildering quality appears, somewhat dimmed,
in his prose works, which have been finely compared with the flight
of an eagle on set wings, sweeping in wide circles, balancing,
soaring, mounting on the winds. But we must note this difference:
that the eagle keeps his keen eye on the distant earth, and always
knows just where he is; while Coleridge sees only the wonders of
Cloudland, and appears to be hopelessly lost.

[Sidenote: HIS PROSE AND POETRY]

The chief prose works of Coleridge are his _Biographia Literaria_ (a brilliant patchwork of poetry and metaphysics), _Aids to Reflection_, _Letters and Table Talk_ (the most readable of his works), and _Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare_. These all contain fine gold, but the treasure is for those doughty miners the critics rather than for readers who go to literature for recreation. Among the best of his miscellaneous poems (and Coleridge at his best has few superiors) are "Youth and Age," "Love Poems," "Hymn before Sunrise," "Ode to the Departing Year," and the pathetic "Ode to Dejection," which is a reflection of the poet's saddened but ever hopeful life.

Two other poems, highly recommended by most critics, are the fragments "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel"; but in dealing with these the reader may do well to form his own judgment. Both fragments contain beautiful lines, but as a whole they are wandering, disjointed, inconsequent,--mere sketches, they seem, of some weird dream of mystery or terror which Coleridge is trying in vain to remember.

[Sidenote: THE ANCIENT MARINER]

The most popular of Coleridge's works is his imperishable "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," a wildly improbable poem of icebound or tropic seas, of thirst-killed sailors, of a phantom ship sailed by a crew of ghosts,--all portrayed in the vivid, picturesque style of the old ballad. When the "Mariner" first appeared it was dismissed as a cock-and-bull story; yet somehow readers went back to it, again and again, as if fascinated. It was passed on to the next generation; and still we read it, and pass it on. For this grotesque tale differs from all others of its kind in that its lines have been quoted for over a hundred years as a reflection of some profound human experience. That is the genius of the work: it takes the most fantastic illusions and makes them appear as real as any sober journey recorded in a sailor's log book. [Footnote: In connection with the "Ancient Mariner" one should read the legends of "The Flying Dutchman" and "The Wandering Jew." Poe's story "A Manuscript Found in a Bottle" is based on these legends and on Coleridge's poem.]

At the present time our enjoyment of the "Mariner" is somewhat hampered by the critical commentaries which have fastened upon the poem, like barnacles on an old ship. It has been studied as a type of the romantic ballad, as a moral lesson, as a tract against cruelty to animals, as a model of college English. But that is no way to abuse a poet's fancy! To appreciate the "Mariner" as the author intended, one should carry it off to the hammock or orchard; there to have freedom of soul to enjoy a well-spun yarn, a gorgeous flight of imagination, a poem which illustrates Coleridge's definition of poetry as "the bloom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, thoughts, emotions, language." It broadens one's sympathy, as well as one's horizon, to accompany this ancient sailor through scenes of terror and desolation:

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea:
So lonely 't was, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

In the midst of such scenes come blessed memories of a real world, of the beauty of unappreciated things, such as the "sweet jargoning" of birds:

And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Whoever is not satisfied with that for its own sake, without moral or analysis, has missed the chief interest of all good poetry.

ROBERT SOUTHEY. In contrast with the irresolution of Coleridge is the steadfastness of Southey (1774-1843), a man of strong character, of enormous industry. For fifty years he worked steadily, day and half the night, turning out lyrics, ballads, epics, histories, biographies, translations, reviews,--an immense amount of stuff, filling endless volumes. Kind nature made up for Southey's small talent by giving him a great opinion of it, and he believed firmly that his work was as immortal as the _Iliad_.

With the exception of a few short poems, such as the "Battle of Blenheim," "Lodore," "The Inchcape Rock" and "Father William" (parodied in the nonsense of _Alice in Wonderland_), the mass of Southey's work is already forgotten. Deserving of mention, however, are his _Peninsular War_ and his _Life of Nelson_, both written in a straightforward style, portraying patriotism without the usual sham, and a first-class fighting man without brag or bluster. Curious readers may also be attracted by the epics of Southey (such as _Madoc_, the story of a Welsh prince who anticipated Columbus), which contain plenty of the marvelous adventures that give interest to the romances of Jules Verne and the yarns of Rider Haggard.

It as Southey's habit to work by the clock, turning out chapters as another man might dig potatoes. One day, as he plodded along, a fairy must have whispered in his car; for he suddenly produced a little story, a gem, a treasure of a story, and hid it away in a jungle of chapters in a book called _The Doctor_. Somebody soon discovered the treasure; indeed, one might as well try to conceal a lighted candle as to hide a good story; and now it is the most famous work to be found in Southey's hundred volumes of prose and verse. Few professors could give you any information concerning _The Doctor_, but almost any child will tell you all about "The Three Bears." The happy fate of this little nursery tale might indicate that the final judges of literature are not always or often the learned critics.

* * * * *

THE REVOLUTIONARY POETS

The above title is often applied to Byron and Shelley, and for two reasons, because they were themselves rebellious of heart, and because they voiced the rebellion of numerous other young enthusiasts who, disappointed by the failure of the French Revolution to bring in the promised age of happiness, were ready to cry out against the existing humdrum order of society. Both poets were sadly lacking in mental or moral balance, and finding no chance in England to wage heroic Warfare against political tyranny, as the French had done, they proceeded in rather head long fashion to an attack on well established customs in society, and especially did they strike out wildly against "the monster Public Opinion." Because the "monster" was stronger than they were, and more nearly right, their rebellion ended in tragedy.

LIFE OF BYRON. In the life of George Gordon, Lord Byron
(1788-1824), is so much that call for apology or silence that one
is glad to review his career in briefest outline.

Of his family, noble in name but in nothing else, the least said
the better. He was born in London, but spent his childhood in
Aberdeen, under the alternate care or negligence of his erratic
mother. At ten he fell heir to a title, to the family seat of
Newstead Abbey, and to estates yielding an income of some £1400 per
year,--a large income for a poet, but as nothing to a lord
accustomed to make ducks and drakes of his money. In school and
college his conduct was rather wild, and his taste fantastic For
example, he kept a bulldog and a bear in his rooms, and read
romances instead of books recommended by the faculty. He tells us
that he detested poetry; yet he wrote numerous poems which show
plainly that he not only read but copied some of the poets.
[Footnote: These poems (revised and published as _Hours of
Idleness_) were savagely criticized in the _Edinburgh
Review_. Byron answered with his satiric _English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers_, which ridiculed not only his Scottish critics
but also Wordsworth, Scott,--in fact, most of the English poets,
with the exception of Pope, whom he praised as the only poet
ancient or modern who was not a barbarian.]

[Sidenote: A LITERARY LION]

At twenty-one Byron entered the House of Lords, and almost
immediately thereafter set sail for Lisbon and the Levant. On his
return he published the first two cantos of _Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage_, which made him famous. Though he affected to
despise his triumph, he followed it up shrewdly by publishing
_The Giaour_, _The Corsair_ and _Lara_, in which the
same mysterious hero of his first work reappears, under different
disguises, amid romantic surroundings. The vigor of these poems
attracted many readers, and when it was whispered about that the
author was recounting his own adventures, Byron became the center
of literary interest. At home he was a social lion; abroad he was
acclaimed the greatest of British poets. But his life tended more
and more to shock the English sense of decency; and when his wife
(whom he had married for her money) abruptly left him, public
opinion made its power felt. Byron's popularity waned; his vanity
was wounded; he left his country, vowing never to return. Also he
railed against what he called British hypocrisy.

In Geneva he first met Shelley, admired him, was greatly helped by
him, and then grossly abused his hospitality. After a scandalous
career in Italy he went to help the Greeks in their fight for
independence, but died of fever before he reached the battle line.

THE POETRY OF BYRON. There is one little song of Byron which serves well as the measure of his poetic talent. It is found in _Don Juan_, and it begins as follows:

'T is sweet to hear
At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep;
'T is sweet to see the evening star appear;
'T is sweet to listen, as the night-winds creep
From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high
The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come;
'T is sweet to be awaken'd by the lark,
Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds,
The lisp of children, and their earliest words.

That is not great poetry, and may not be compared with a sonnet of Wordsworth; but it is good, honest sentiment expressed in such a melodious way that we like to read it, and feel better after the reading. In the next stanza, however, Byron grows commonplace and ends with:

Sweet is revenge, especially to women,
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen.

And that is bad sentiment and worse rime, without any resemblance to poetry. The remaining stanzas are mere drivel, unworthy of the poet's talent or of the reader's patience.

It is so with a large part of Byron's work; it often begins well, and usually has some vivid description of nature, or some gallant passage in swinging verse, which stirs us like martial music; then the poem falls to earth like a stone, and presently appears some wretched pun or jest or scurrility. Our present remedy lies in a book of selections, in which we can enjoy the poetry without being unpleasantly reminded of the author's besetting sins of flippancy and bad taste.

[Sidenote: MANFRED]

Of the longer poems of Byron, which took all Europe by storm, only three or four are memorable. _Manfred_ (1817) is a dramatic poem, in which the author's pride, his theatric posing, his talent for rhythmic expression, are all seen at their worst or best. The mysterious hero of the poem lives in a gloomy castle under the high Alps, but he is seldom found under roof. Instead he wanders amidst storms and glaciers, holding communion with powers of darkness, forever voicing his rebellion, his boundless pride, his bottomless remorse. Nobody knows what the rebellion and the remorse are all about. Some readers may tire of the shadowy hero's egoism, but few will fail to be impressed by the vigor of the verse, or by the splendid reflection of picturesque scenes. And here and there is a lyric that seems to set itself to music.

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains,
They crowned him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow

_Cain_ (1821) is another dramatic poem, reflecting the rebellion of another hero, or rather the same hero, who appears this time as the elder son of Adam. After murdering his brother, the hero takes guidance of Lucifer and explores hell; where, instead of repentance, he finds occasion to hate almost everything that is dear to God or man. The drama is a kind of gloomy parody of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, as _Manfred_ is a parody of Goethe's _Faust_. Both dramas are interesting, aside from their poetic passages, as examples of the so-called Titan literature, to which we shall presently refer in our study of Shelley's _Prometheus_.

[Sidenote: CHILDE HAROLD]

The most readable work of Byron is _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, a brilliant narrative poem, which reflects the impressions of another misanthropic hero in presence of the romantic scenery of the Continent. It was the publication of the first two cantos of this poem in 1812, that made Byron the leading figure in English poetry, and these cantos are still widely read as a kind of poetic guidebook. To many readers, however, the third and fourth cantos are more sincere and more pleasurable. The most memorable parts of _Childe Harold_ are the "Farewell" in the first canto, "Waterloo" in the third, and "Lake Leman," "Venice," "Rome," "The Coliseum", "The Dying Gladiator" and "The Ocean" in the fourth. When one has read these magnificent passages he has the best of which Byron was capable. We have called _Childe Harold_ the most readable of Byron's works, but those who like a story will probably be more interested in _Mazeppa_ and _The Prisoner of Chillon_.

[Sidenote: THE BYRONIC HERO]

One significant quality of these long poems is that they are intensely personal, voicing one man's remorse or rebellion, and perpetually repeating his "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" They are concerned with the same hero (who is Byron under various disguises) and they picture him as a proud, mysterious stranger, carelessly generous, fiendishly wicked, profoundly melancholy, irresistibly fascinating to women. Byron is credited with the invention of this hero, ever since called Byronic; but in truth the melodramatic outcast was a popular character in fiction long before Byron adopted him, gave him a new dress and called him Manfred or Don Juan. A score of romances (such as Mrs. Radcliffe's _The Italian_ in England, and Charles Brockden Brown's _Wieland_ in America) had used the same hero to add horror to a grotesque tale; Scott modified him somewhat, as the Templar in _Ivanhoe_, for example; and Byron made him more real by giving him the revolutionary spirit, by employing him to voice the rebellion against social customs which many young enthusiasts felt so strongly in the early part of the nineteenth century.

[Sidenote: TWO VIEWS OF BYRON]

The vigor of this stage hero, his rebellious spirit, his picturesque adventures, the gaudy tinsel (mistaken for gold) in which he was dressed,--all this made a tremendous impression in that romantic age. Goethe called Byron "the prince of modern poetry, the most talented and impressive figure which the literary world has ever produced"; and this unbalanced judgment was shared by other critics on the Continent, where Byron is still regarded as one of the greatest of English poets.

Swinburne, on the other hand, can hardly find words strong enough to express his contempt for the "blare and brassiness" of Byron; but that also is an exaggeration. Though Byron is no longer a popular hero, and though his work is more rhetorical than poetical, we may still gladly acknowledge the swinging rhythm, the martial dash and vigor of his best verse. Also, remembering the Revolution, we may understand the dazzling impression which he made upon the poets of his day. When the news came from Greece that his meteoric career was ended, the young Tennyson wept passionately and went out to carve on a stone, "Byron is dead," as if poetry had perished with him. Even the coldly critical Matthew Arnold was deeply moved to write:

When Byron's eyes were closed in death
We bowed our head, and held our breath.
He taught us little, but our soul
Had _felt_ him like the thunder roll.

LIFE OF SHELLEY. The career of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) is,
in comparison with that of Byron, as a will-o'-the-wisp to a
meteor. Byron was of the earth earthy; he fed upon coarse food,
shady adventures, scandal, the limelight; but Shelley

Seemed nourished upon starbeams, and the stuff
Of rainbows and the tempest and the foam.

He was a delicate child, shy, sensitive, elflike, who wandered
through the woods near his home, in Sussex, on the lookout for
sprites and hobgoblins. His reading was of the wildest kind; and
when he began the study of chemistry he was forever putting
together things that made horrible smells or explosions, in
expectation that the genii of the _Arabian Nights_ would rise
from the smoke of his test tube.

[Sidenote: A YOUNG REBEL]

At Eton the boy promptly rebelled against the brutal fagging
system, then tolerated in all English schools. He was presently in
hot water, and the name "Mad Shelley," which the boys gave him,
followed him through life. He had been in the university (Oxford)
hardly two years when his head was turned by some book of shallow
philosophy, and he printed a rattle-brained tract called "The
Necessity of Atheism." This got him into such trouble with the Dons
that he was expelled for insubordination.

[Sidenote: THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND]

Forthwith Shelley published more tracts of a more rebellious kind.
His sister Helen put them into the hands of her girl friend,
Harriet Westbrook, who showed her belief in revolutionary theories
by running away from school and parental discipline and coming to
Shelley for "protection." These two social rebels, both in the
green-apple stage (their combined age was thirty-five), were
presently married; not that either of them believed in marriage,
but because they were compelled by "Anarch Custom."

After some two years of a wandering, will-o'-the-wisp life, Shelley
and his wife were estranged and separated. The young poet then met
a certain William Godwin, known at that time as a novelist and
evolutionary philosopher, and showed his appreciation of Godwin's
radical teaching by running away with his daughter Mary, aged
seventeen. The first wife, tired of liberalism, drowned herself,
and Shelley was plunged into remorse at the tragedy. The right to
care for his children was denied him, as an improper person, and he
was practically driven out of England by force of that public
opinion which he had so frequently outraged or defied.

Life is a good teacher, though stern in its reckoning, and in Italy
life taught Shelley that the rights and beliefs of other men were
no less sacred than his own. He was a strange combination of hot
head and kind heart, the one filled with wild social theories, the
other with compassion for humanity. He was immensely generous with
his friends, and tender to the point of tears at the thought of
suffering men,--not real men, such as he met in the streets (even
the beggars in Italy are cheerful), but idealized men, with
mysterious sorrows, whom he met in the clouds. While in England his
weak head had its foolish way, and his early poems, such as
_Queen Mab_, are violent declamations. In Italy his heart had
its day, and his later poems, such as _Adonais_ and
_Prometheus Unbound_, are rhapsodies ennobled by Shelley's
love of beauty and by his unquenchable hope that a bright day of
justice must soon dawn upon the world. He was drowned (1822) while
sailing his boat off the Italian coast, before he had reached the
age of thirty years.

THE POETRY OF SHELLEY. In the longer poems of Shelley there are two prominent elements, and two others less conspicuous but more important. The first element is revolt. The poet was violently opposed to the existing order of society, and lost no opportunity to express his hatred of Tyranny, which was Shelley's name for what sober men called law and order. Feeding his spirit of revolution were numerous anarchistic theories, called the new philosophy, which had this curious quality: that they hotly denied the old faith, law, morality, as other men formulated such matters, and fervently believed any quack who appeared with a new nostrum warranted to cure all social disorders.

The second obvious element in Shelley's poetry is his love of beauty, not the common beauty of nature or humanity which Wordsworth celebrated, but a strange "supernal" beauty with no "earthly" quality or reality. His best lines leave a vague impression of something beautiful and lovely, but we know not what it is.

Less conspicuous in Shelley's poems are the sense of personal loss or grief which pervades them, and the exquisite melody of certain words which he used for their emotional effect rather than to convey any definite meaning. Like Byron he sang chiefly of his own feelings, his rage or despair, his sorrow or loneliness. He reflected his idea of the origin and motive of lyric poesy in the lines:

Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song,--

an idea which Poe adopted in its entirety, and which Heine expressed in a sentimental lyric, telling how from his great grief he made his little songs:

Aus meinen groszen Schmerzen
Mach' ich die kleinen Lieder.

Hardly another English poet uses words so musically as Shelley (witness "The Cloud" and "The Skylark"), and here again his idea of verbal melody was carried to an extreme by Poe, in whose poetry words are used not so much to express ideas as to awaken vague emotions.

[Sidenote: ALASTOR]

All the above-named qualities appear in _Alastor_ (the Spirit of Solitude), which is less interesting as a poem than as a study of Shelley. In this poem we may skip the revolt, which is of no consequence, and follow the poet in his search for a supernally lovely maiden who shall satisfy his love for ideal beauty. To find her he goes, not among human habitations, but to gloomy forests, dizzy cliffs, raging torrents, tempest-blown seashore,--to every place where a maiden in her senses would not be. Such places, terrible or picturesque, are but symbols of the poet's soul in its suffering and loneliness. He does not find his maiden (and herein we read the poet's first confession that he has failed in life, that the world is too strong for him); but he sees the setting moon, and somehow that pale comforter brings him peace with death.

[Sidenote: PROMETHEUS]

In _Prometheus Unbound_ Shelley uses the old myth of the Titan who rebelled against the tyranny of the gods, and who was punished by being chained to a rock. [Footnote: The original tragedy of _Prometheus Bound_ was written by Æschylus, a famous old Greek dramatist. The same poet wrote also _Prometheus Unbound_, but the latter drama has been lost. Shelley borrowed the idea of his poem from this lost drama.] In this poem Prometheus (man) is represented as being tortured by Jove (law or custom) until he is released by Demogorgon (progress or necessity); whereupon he marries Asia (love or goodness), and stars and moon break out into a happy song of redemption.

Obviously there is no reality or human interest in such a fantasy. The only pleasurable parts of the poem are its detached passages of great melody or beauty; and the chief value of the work is as a modern example of Titan literature. Many poets have at various times represented mankind in the person of a Titan, that is, a man written large, colossal in his courage or power or suffering: Æschylus in _Prometheus_, Marlowe in _Tamburlaine_, Milton in Lucifer, of _Paradise Lost_, Goethe in _Faust_, Byron in _Manfred_, Shelley in _Prometheus Unbound_. The Greek Titan is resigned, uncomplaining, knowing himself to be a victim of Fate, which may not be opposed; Marlowe's Titan is bombastic and violent; Milton's is ambitious, proud, revengeful; Goethe's is cultured and philosophical; Byron's is gloomy, rebellious, theatrical. So all these poets portray each his own bent of mind, and something also of the temper of the age, in the character of his Titan. The significance of Shelley's poem is in this: that his Titan is patient and hopeful, trusting in the spirit of Love to redeem mankind from all evil. Herein Shelley is far removed from the caviling temper of his fellow rebel Byron. He celebrates a golden age not of the past but of the future, when the dream of justice inspired by the French Revolution shall have become a glorious reality.

[Sidenote: HIS BEST POEMS]

These longer poems of Shelley are read by the few; they are too vague, with too little meaning or message, for ordinary readers who like to understand as well as to enjoy poetry. To such readers the only interesting works of Shelley are a few shorter poems: "The Cloud," "To a Skylark," "Ode to the West Wind," "Indian Serenade," "A Lament," "When the Lamp is Lighted" and some parts of _Adonais_ (a beautiful elegy in memory of Keats), such as the passage beginning, "Go thou to Rome." For splendor of imagination and for melody of expression these poems have few peers and no superiors in English literature. To read them is to discover that Shelley was at times so sensitive, so responsive to every harmony of nature, that he seemed like the poet of Alastor,

A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
The breath of Heaven did wander.

The breath of heaven is constant, but lutes and strings are variable matters of human arrangement. When Shelley's lute was tuned to nature it brought forth aerial melody; when he strained its strings to voice some social rebellion or anarchistic theory it produced wild discord.

* * * * *

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness, but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing.

The above lines, from _Endymion_, reflect the ideal of the young singer whom we rank with the best poets of the nineteenth century. Unlike other romanticists of that day, he seems to have lived for poetry alone and to have loved it for its own sake, as we love the first spring flowers. His work was shamefully treated by reviewers; it was neglected by the public; but still he wrote, trying to make each line perfect, in the spirit of those medieval workmen who put their hearts into a carving that would rest on some lofty spire far above the eyes of men. To reverence beauty wherever he found it, and then in gratitude to produce a new work of beauty which should live forever,--that was Keats's only aim. It is the more wonderful in view of his humble origin, his painful experience, his tragic end.

LIFE. Only twenty-five years of life, which included seven years of
uncongenial tasks, and three of writing, and three of wandering in
search of health,--that sums up the story of Keats. He was born in
London; he was the son of a hostler; his home was over the stable;
his playground was the dirty street. The family prospered, moved to
a better locality, and the children were sent to a good school.
Then the parents died, and at fifteen Keats was bound out to a
surgeon and apothecary. For four years he worked as an apprentice,
and for three years more in a hospital; then, for his heart was
never in the work, he laid aside his surgeon's kit, resolving never
to touch it again.

[Sidenote: TWO POETIC IDEALS]