CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Sirth Period. FROM 1727 TO 1780. mmmmmm POETS. HE fifty-three 3 years between 1727 and 1780, comprehending the reign of George II., and a portion of that of George III, produced more men of letters, as well as more men of science, than any epoch of similar extent in the literary history of England. It was also a time during which greater progress was made in diffusing literature among the people at large, than had been made, perhaps, throughout all the ages that went before it. Yet while letters, and the cultivators of letters, were thus abundant, it must be allowed that, if we keep out of view the rise of the species of fiction called the novel (including the delineation of character, and not merely incidents), the age was not by any means marked by such striking features of originality or vigour as some of the preceding eras. For about a third of this period Pope lived, and his name continued to be the greatest in English poetry. The most distinguished of his contemporaries, however, adopted styles of their own, or at least departed widely from that of their illustrious master. Thomson (who survived Pope only four years) made no attempt to enter the school of polished satire and pungent wit. His enthusiastic descriptions of nature, and his warm poetical feeling, seemed to revive the spirit of the elder muse, and to assert the dignity of genuine inspiration. Young in his best performances -his startling denunciations of death and judgment, his solemn appeals, his piety, and his epigram-was equally an original. Gray and Collins aimed at the dazzling imagery and magnificence of lyrical poetry -the direct antipodes of Pope. Akenside descanted on the operations of the mind, and the associated charms of taste and genius, in a strain of melodious and original blank verse. Goldsmith blended mora lity and philosophy with a beautiful simplicity of expression and numbers, pathetic imagery, and natural description. Beattie portrayed the romantic hopes and aspirations of youthful genius in a style formed from imitation of Spenser and Thomson. And the best of the secondary poets, as Shenstone, Dyer, and Mason, had each a distinct and independent poetical character. Johnson alone, of all the eminent authors of this period, seems to have directly copied the style of Pope and Dryden. The publication of Percy's Reliques, and Warton's History of Poetry, may be here adverted to, as directing public attention to the early writers, and to the powerful effects which could be produced by simple narrative and natural emotion in verse. It is true that few or none of the poets we have named had much immediate influence on literature: Gray was ridiculed, and Collins was neglected, because both public taste and criticism had been vitiated and reduced to a low ebb. The spirit of true poetry, however, was not broken, the seed was sown, and in the next generation, Cowper completed what Thomson had begun. The conventional style was destined to fall, leaving only that taste for correct language and versification which was established by the example of Pope, and found to be quite compatible with the utmost freedom and originality of conception and expression. In describing the poets of this period, it will not be necessary to include all the names that have descended to us dignified with this title. But we shall omit none whose literary history is important, singular, or instructive. RICHARD SAVAGE. RICHARD SAVAGE is better known for his misfortunes, as related by Johnson, than for any peculiar R: Savage novelty or merit in his poetry. The latter rarely rises above the level of tame mediocrity; the former were a romance of real life, stranger than fiction. Savage was born in London in 1698, the issue of an adulterous connexion between the Countess of Mac 43 clesfield and Lord Rivers. The lady openly avowed but stopping at Bristol, was treated with great kindher profligacy, in order to obtain a divorce from her ness by the opulent merchants and other inhabitants, husband, with whom she lived on unhappy terms, whom he afterwards libelled in a sarcastic poem. and the illegitimate child was born after their sepa- In Swansea he resided about a year; but on revisitration. He was placed under the charge of a poor ing Bristol, he was arrested for a small debt, and woman, and brought up as her son. The boy, how-being unable to find bail, was thrown into prison. ever, obtained a superior education through the care His folly, extravagance, and pride, though it was and generosity of his maternal grandmother, Lady pride that licks the dust,' had left him almost withMason, who placed him at a grammar-school in St out a friend. He made no vigorous effort to extriAlbans. Whilst he was there Lord Rivers died, cate or maintain himself. Pope continued his and in his last illness, it is said the countess had the allowance; but being provoked by some part of his inhumanity and falsehood to state that Savage was conduct, he wrote to him, stating that he was dedead, by which he was deprived of a provision in- termined to keep out of his suspicion by not being tended for him by his father. Such unnatural and officious any longer, or obtruding into any of his unprincipled conduct almost exceeds belief. The boy concerns.' Savage felt the force of this rebuke from was now withdrawn from school, and placed appren- the steadiest and most illustrious of his friends. He tice to a shoemaker; but an accident soon revealed was soon afterwards taken ill, and his condition not his birth and the cause of its concealment. His enabling him to procure medical assistance, he was nurse and supposed mother died, and among her found dead in his bed on the morning of the 1st of effects Savage found some letters which disclosed August 1743. The keeper of the prison, who had the circumstances of his paternity. The discovery treated him with great kindness, buried the unformust have seemed like the opening of a new world tunate poet at his own expense. to his hopes and ambition. He was already distinguished for quickness and proficiency, and for a sanguine enthusiastic temperament. A bright prospect had dawned on him; he was allied to rank and opulence; and though his birth was accompanied by humiliating circumstances, it was not probable that he felt these deeply, in the immediate view of emancipation from the low station and ignoble employment to which he had been harshly condemned. We know also that Savage was agitated by those tenderer feelings which link the child to the parent, and which must have burst upon him with peculiar force after so unexpected and wonderful a discovery. The mother of the youth, however, was an exception to ordinary humanity-an anomaly in the history of the female heart. She had determined to disown him, and repulsed every effort at acknowledgment and recognition Alone from strangers every comfort flowed. His remarkable history became known, and friends sprang up to shield the hapless youth from poverty. Unfortunately, the vices and frailties of his own character began soon to be displayed. Savage was not destitute of a love of virtue and principles of piety, but his habits were low and sensual. His temper was irritable and capricicus; and whatever money he received, was instantly spent in the obscure haunts of dissipation. In a tavern brawl he had the misfortune to kill a Mr James Sinclair, for which he was tried and condemned to death. His relentless mother, it is said, endeavoured to intercept the royal mercy; but Savage was pardoned by Queen Caroline, and set at liberty. He published various poetical pieces as a means of support; and having addressed a birth-day ode to the queen, calling himself the Volunteer Laureate' (to the annoyance, it is said, of Colley Cibber, the legitimate inheritor of the laurel), her majesty sent him £50, and continued the same sum to him every year. His threats and menaces induced Lord Tyrconnel, a friend of his mother, to take him into his family, where he lived on equal terms, and was allowed a sum of £200 per aunum. This, as Johnson remarks, was the golden period' of Savage's life. As might have been foreseen, however, the habits of the poet differed very widely from those of the peer; they soon quarrelled, and the former was again set adrift on the world. The death of the queen also stopped his pension; but his friends made up an annuity for him of equal amount, to which Pope generously contributed £20. || Savage agreed to withdraw to the country to avoid the temptations of London. He selected Swansea, Savage was the author of two plays, and a volume of miscellaneous poems. Of the latter, the principal piece is The Wanderer, written with greater care than most of his other productions, as it was the offspring of that happy period of his life when he lived with Lord Tyrconnel. Amidst much puerile and tawdry description, The Wanderer' contains some impressive passages. The versification is easy and correct. The Bastard is, however, a superior poem, and bears the impress of true and energetic feeling. One couplet is worthy of Pope. Of the bastard he says, He lives to build, not boast a generous race: The concluding passage, in which he mourns over For mischief never meant, must ever smart? O fate of late repentance! always vain: Mother, miscalled, farewell-of soul severe, All I was wretched by to you I owed; Who most shall give applause where all admire. [From The Wanderer.] Yon mansion, made by beaming tapers gay, Thy thoughts, first ranked, were sure designed the great; Passions plebeians are, store Fast lessens, when gay hours return no more; Folly exhibits thus unmanly sport, There sits the sapient bard in museful mood, ROBERT BLAIR. Mr Southey has incautiously ventured a statement in his Life of Cowper,' that Blair's Grave is the only poem he could call to mind which has been composed in imitation of the Night Thoughts.' 'The Grave' was written prior to the publication of the Night Thoughts,' and has no other resemblance to the work of Young, than that it is of a serious devout cast, and is in blank verse. The author was an accomplished and exemplary Scottish clergyman, who enjoyed some private fortune, independent of his profession, and was thus enabled to live in a superior style, and cultivate the acquaintance of the neighbouring gentry. As a poet of pleasing and elegant manners, a botanist and florist, as well as a man of scientific and general knowledge, his society was much courted, and he enjoyed the correspondence of Dr Isaac Watts and Dr Doddridge. Blair was born in Edinburgh in 1699, his father being minister of the Old Church there. In 1731 he was appointed to the living of Athelstaneford, a parish in East Lothian. Previous to his ordination, he had written The Grave,' and submitted the manuscript to Watts and Doddridge. It was published in 1743. Blair died at the age of forty-seven, in February 1746. By his marriage with a daughter of Mr Law, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh (to whose memory he dedicated a poem), he left a numerous family; and his fourth son, a distinguished lawyer, rose to be Lord President of the Court of Session. 'The Grave' is a complete and powerful poem, of limited design, but masterly execution. The subject precluded much originality of conception, but, at the same time, is recommended by its awful importance and its universal application. The style seems to be formed upon that of the old sacred and puritanical poets, elevated by the author's admiration of Milton and Shakspeare. There is a Scottish presbyterian character about the whole, relieved by occasional flashes and outbreaks of true genius. These coruscations sometimes subside into low and vulgar ideas, as towards the close of the following noble passage: Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war? From kings of all the then discovered globe; The death of the strong man is forcibly depicted Strength, too! thou surly and less gentle boast See, how he tugs for life, and lays about him, In our extracts from Congreve, we have quoted a passage, much admired by Johnson, descriptive of the awe and fear inspired by a cathedral scene at midnight, where all is hushed and still as death.' Blair has ventured on a similar description, and has imparted to it a terrible and gloomy power See yonder hallowed fane! the pious work And tattered coats of arms, send back the sound, Invidious Grave! how dost thou rend in sunder Sweet murmuring, methought the shrill - tongued thrush Mended his song of love; the sooty blackbird Of dress! Oh! then the longest summer's day Some of his images are characterised by a Shakspearian force and picturesque fancy of suicides he says : The common damned shun their society, Drop off like leaves in autumn; yet launch out The divisions of churchmen are for ever closed- Man, sick of bliss, tried evil; and, as a result- Stalked off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost, Like those of angels, short and far between. The latter simile has been appropriated by Mr Campbell, in his Pleasures of Hope,' with one slight verbal alteration, which can scarcely be called an improvement What though my winged hours of bliss have been, Like angel visits, few and far between. The original comparison seems to belong to an obscure religious poet, Norris of Bemerton, who, prior to Blair, wrote a poem, The Parting,' which contains the following verse: How fading are the joys we dote upon; But those who soonest take their flight, Like angels' visits short and bright; Mortality's too weak to bear them long. to be inferior to the earlier portions of the poem; The conclusion of The Grave' has been pronounced yet the following passage has a dignity, pathos, and devotional rapture, equal to the higher flights of Young: Thrice welcome, Death! |