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[248] BEFORE we enter upon the just merits of these poets, it may be proper to observe that Shenstone and Gray, (surely not the least deserving of them!) have of late met with great injustice from some critics, who have taken upon them to say, that their poetical character has been imposed upon the public without any just pretensions; that they are poets of the middle rank, with more show than substance, tinsel than gold; that their diction is finically splendid; their thoughts absurd, puerile, or common; neither marked with invention, sublimity, nor nature; and that at best their lines are sometimes tolerable, or only pretty.
At the head of these grumblers stand, of respectable memory, Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith. This last, was in other respects, so amiable a man, that it is matter of surprise to hear that he was inflamed with a most fiery jealousy and envy of most, if not all the wits and poets of his time. And indeed, the prefaces to his own poems tend to show, that this aspersion on his character was too well founded.
As for Dr. Johnson, I have observed his injustice not only in respect of these poets, but many others. See Remarks on his Lives of the English Poets.
As the credit of our English lyric poetry appears to me to stand or fall upon this argument, it will, I presume, be looked upon as a matter of some importance to vindicate the character of the above poets, and establish it on the proper foundation, in opposition to those who are for humbling them with the dust, or twining them to the bent of your [249] minor poets, such as Blackmore, Quarles, or Pomfret; or even Hopkins and Sternhold. Such is the contemptuous inveteracy of certain critics.
So far am I of a different opinion, in regard to Shenstone and Gray, that I imagine no two poets in the English language are possessed of higher lyrical genius, joined to classic elegance and purity of style; that they are even among the chief ornaments of the present age, and that the English language is much indebted to them for the great beauty of their composition, as well as the true spirit of their poetry.
Both of them approach to the manner of the ancients; Gray to that of Pindar and Horace; Shenstone to that of Propertius and Tibullus.
Gray's jealousy of Shenstone was rather unworthy of him, as was Addison's of Pope; and for the same reason, for the merit of each was so conspicuous, though in different ways, as to supersede all rivalship.
Gray excels in lyric enthusiasm, Pindaric harmonies, moralities, and in natural and sublime description.
Shenstone's elegiac tenderness and simplicity can never be too much admired. The rural scenes he describes, intermixed with the social and benevolent affections, and all the sweet innocencies and pleasures of a country-life, naturally touch the heart, and delight and inspire it with the like virtues and affections. They show him at once to have been an amiable and good man, as well as a tender and elegant poet.
If, therefore, his poems do not elevate so much as Gray's, they at least touch the heart more tenderly in general.
They are addressed more particularly to the lover, the virtuoso, the man of feeling and of taste, and the patriot.
His walks and gardens at the Leasows seem to have been a transcript of his mind and taste for rural amusements, as Dr. Young's garden was of his religious and solemn disposition; where, in an alcove, he had this motto: Invisibilia non decipuint, alluding to the disappointing nature of all sublunary things.
[250] On the other hand, Gray, with a temper more reserved and severe than Shenstone's, and a genius undoubtedly more elevated, was impelled to leave the garden and the grove, the flowery mead with the purling stream, to chuse a loftier theme. And though, with the most penetrating eye, he observes the tract and follows the footsteps of the Greek and Roman artists, he seems, moreover, particularly struck with the wild and prophetic spirit of the ancient minstrels and bards.
Hence he is continually transporting us back to the ages of the Gothic mythology, heroism, and minstrelsy; and he soars, with the most sublime flights, in those airy regions, that are so well suited to the serious, though wild turn of his genius. This is his character in the two Pindaric Odes, and in his Norwegian imitations.
Like Virgil and Horace, he is peculiarly happy in his expression: his versification, too, like theirs, is various, free and remarkably musical; his language figurative and glowing, yet chaste and delicate: In a word, to speak in the painter's style, he possesses the sublimity of Raphael joined to the grace of Corregio.
The chastity and purity of his style are, moreover, set off by a certain antique mariner resembling the Doric, and which is well suited to his temper and the pathos of his subjects. In this antique manner he is well imitated by his pupil Warton.
Both Joseph and Thomas Warton have great powers of description; but the latter approaches nearest to the correct and judicious manner of Gray, His two master-pieces, as I think, are his Grave of King Arthur, and the Crusades, written in short lines, which seem his favourites. And what is singular in him, he has introduced, in these poems, the use of long and short syllables, by turns, at the end of the lines; which, no doubt, agreeably varies his verse, and prevents the cloying repetition of similar sounds.
Yet Shenstone was of a different opinion on this head, for he lays it down as a rule in harmonious composition, that [251] the last syllable of a line should invariably be full and long; and accordingly it prevails remarkably in his verse, and gives it a distinguishing length and fullness of sound, which it must be owned is more particularly requisite in elegy than any other species of poetry.
William and John Langhorne, deserve, likewise, our notice here, in the list of lyric poets; the latter particularly on account of his Ode to Hope, and his description of the four Seasons, where he pays all due compliments to Thomson, and other Scotch bards, and among these Ogilvie, who was his acquaintance.
Both brothers excel in smoothness and elegance of verse, and sometimes in good description; but as they have composed but little, and that too in short pieces, they have not acquired any great reputation.
William is more distinguished for his prose, his Effusions of Friendship and Fancy, his Letters of Theodosius and Constantia, and St. Evremond, and Waller; which last I have read, and think them very characteristic of the lives and philosophy of these two learned and ingenious modern disciples of Epicurus.
The Origin of The Veil, a Poem, is likewise his; which is both elegant and entertaining, and expressive of ancient manners.
Nor must we omit mentioning Collins, eminent both for genius and correctness of style. A remarkable terseness of language, with a peculiar wildness of fancy, sweetness, and variety of numbers, joined to images and allusions of the most lively and descriptive sort, all distinguish him as a lyric poet of the first rank. He has, however, his faults:
In his Oriental Eclogues, he is exceedingly clear, pleasing and characteristic. In his Odes, though in general poetical and striking, he is now and then affectedly obscure. Labouring for uncommon thought and uncommon expression, he becomes too metaphysical, too allegorical, and even sometimes wholly unintelligible. At least, this is his character in a few Odes, where affecting uncommon sublimity, he over[252]shoots the mark, and loses himself in the wildest tracts of raving and extravagance.
Eccentric in his genius and temper, and more swayed by passion and fancy than by sober judgment, this unhappy man plunged himself early in dissipation and distress, which at last was followed by a deep melancholy, that terminated in his death. His two best Odes are that on the Passions, and the Ode to Evening.
As for Akenside, his Odes alone mark him a distinguished poet; their subject being sometimes descriptive, sometimes moral and patriotic, and breathing, on all occasions, a spirit of liberty characteristic of the poet and the freeborn man.
He seems to have drunk deeply of Græcian literature, and to have formed both his religion and philosophy upon the principles of Plato. His Ode on leaving Holland, and that on Lyric poetry, are among the best of his pieces in the lyric style.
As to his much celebrated poem on the Pleasures of Imagination, it may be observed, that though it is admirably descriptive in many places, and beautifully illustrative of the philosophy which it teaches in regard to the powers of taste, and the reflect senses in general; yet that, as a poem, its plan is somewhat incorrect and defective, and the meaning and main design often buried and loft under a multiplicity of words, and a consonance of agreeable sounds, either of no significancy at all, or only expressive of ideas often repeated before, though in different words.
Jerningham's Poems are somewhat of a cast with those mentioned above. His Nunnery and Netely-Abby are sweetly descriptive pieces of the elegiac and lyric kind, that merit, in my opinion, some attention, among the other productions of this sort in the present age; and I have the longer insisted upon this kind of writers, as no species of poetry is more worthy of notice, and, in no age whatever, was lyric poetry cultivated to more advantage.
[253] Yet, whether from its figurative and metaphorical style; its variable harmonies; its sudden and abrupt transitions; with the high flights of enthusiasm which it adopts; it is to be lamented that those very qualities for which it is peculiarly distinguished, and which are indeed its principal beauties, are bars in the way of its being generally relished, and disgust the majority of readers.
Among the ancient Greeks, Celts, and other northern nations, this was very far from being the case. No poetry was more cultivated or admired than the lyric, and its effects were wonderful indeed upon those nations; since it roused them to action in defence of their country and liberties, and inspired them with an inthusiasm which nothing could resist.
But how few among the moderns are actuated in this manner? The strains of a Gray, an Akenside, a Warton, or Mason, are heard without emotion; they are either not understood, or but coldly received by a thoughtless and dissipated, though otherwise, a polished and elegant age. They are indeed relished by one or two of a million! But what is that to the whole?
[Fußnote, S. 248]
† The author was first led to write this and the following Essay, by a conversation he had with Dr. Beattie several years ago.
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Robert Alves: Sketches of a History of Literature [...].
Edinburgh: Printed by Alex. Chapman and Co. 1794, S. 248-253.
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