CHAPTER VII. THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH, BYRON, 1785-1835. 101. SUMMARY OF THE PERIOD.-102. THE POETS: COWPER.-103. CRABBE.— 104. DARWIN.-105. THE DELLA-CRUSCANS.-106. BURNS.-107. ROGERS, BOWLES. 108. WORDSWORTH.-109. SOUTHEY.-110. COLERIDGE. 111. LAMB.-112. CAMPBELL. 113. HOGG, BLOOMFIELD. 114. MOORE.-115. BYRON.-116. SHELLEY.-117. KEATS.-118. LEIGH HUNT, LANDOR. -119. OTHER POETS.-120. THE NOVELISTS: MRS. RADCLIFFE.-121. LEWIS, GODWIN. -122. MISS EDGEWORTH, MISS AUSTEN.-123. SCOTT.-124. OTHER NOVELISTS. -125. THE PHILOSOPHERS.-126. THE HISTORIANS.-127. THE THEOLOGIANS. -128. HAZLITT, COBBETT.-129. THE QUARTERLIES.'-130. THE DRAMATIC WRITERS. · 101. Summary of the Period. Within a short space of time from the date at which the foregoing chapter concluded, the destruction of the Bastille announced the upheaval of that great democratic volcano, whereof the premonitory rumblings and hoarse underground agitations had long been threatening on the Continent. That a social disturbance so widespread in its extent, however apparently confined and local in its issue, should be without its effect upon the minds and opinions of surrounding nations, is not to be expected; and it is accordingly to the increased mental activity brought about by the first French Revolution, and the simultaneous appearance in Germany of the transcendental philosophy, that we must look for two powerful influences over forthcoming English literature. Yet to attribute the magnificent second-growth of English Poets belonging to the end of the eighteenth century and the first thirty years of the nineteenth, entirely to these two causes, as some have done, would be probably to unduly ignore other influences, not less potent, if more obscure. Thus much may be conceded-that the marked manifestation of poetical genius in the one case was deeply affected by the surging aspirations and enthusiasms set free by the great social outbreak in the other; and to this extent, if only to this extent, there is a connection between them. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that new impulses had long been discernible in English poetry, against which the prestige of the old leaders had been powerless. Pope, and Johnson after him, had not been able wholly to detain the new thoughts in the orthodox channels, even when opposed by dissenters not more formidable than Thomson and Percy; and Pope and Johnson were now dead. If, among the later school of the next age, there were those who, like Byron, clung to their precepts, they deviated from them in their practice, like the rest of their contemporaries. The departure from the old traditions traceable in Gray and Collins, in Goldsmith and Beattie, was continued during the last years of the eighteenth century by Cowper and Burns. Following the recluse of Olney and the Ayrshire ploughman, come with the new century, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey,Scott and Campbell,—Moore, Byron, Shelley, Keats, to say nothing of a crowd of minor poets,-who carried to further perfection the later tendencies of the century preceding, in simplicity of narrative, reverence for human Passion and Character in every sphere, and impassioned love of Nature.' The quotation may be still further extended, so apt is its conciseness: Whilst maintaining, on the whole, the advances in art made since the Restoration, they renewed the half-forgotten melody and depth of tone which marked the best Elizabethan writers,' and, lastly, to what was thus inherited they added a richness in language and a variety in metre, a force and fire in narrative, a tenderness and bloom in feeling, an insight into the finer passages of the Soul, and the inner meanings of the landscape, a larger and wiser Humanity,-hitherto hardly attained, and perhaps unattainable even by predecessors of not inferior individual genius.'* In prose, too, a distinct revival is to be traced from the beginning of this period, although it was not until 1814 that the supreme taleteller of the nineteenth century-the 'Wizard of the North'turned from his poetical successes to earn new laurels in romance. But before Scott came Mrs. Radcliffe's supernatural fictions and Godwin's social studies, Miss Edgeworth's and Miss Austen's novels of manners,—and with him and after him the throng of Galts and Hooks, of Marryats and Jameses, of Carletons and Wilsons. This is the age, besides, of Hallam and the elder Mill in History,—of Chalmers and Hall in Theology, - of Cobbett, of Bentham,-of Jeffrey, Brougham, Sydney Smith, and the cluster of writers whose *The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics. Ed. by F. T. Palgrave, 1861, 320`; v. also Descriptive Poetry in England from Anne to Victoria, Fort. Rev., June, 1866. brilliant abilities found their utterance in the newly-established critical organs, the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews. 102. The Poets: Cowper.-Fifteen years only of the long life of William Cowper (1731-1800) belong to this period (1785-1835). But his first important volume of poems (if, for the moment, we set aside the earlier Olney Hymns) did not appear, and then but inconspicuously, until 1782, two years before Johnson's death, and it is to the last decade and a half of the eighteenth century that his literary influence and his masterpiece especially belong. For this reason, and also from the fact that he saliently marks the progress of the school which found its completest expression in the verse of Wordsworth, we place him in the forefront of the present chapter. Cowper was born at Great Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire, of good family. His mother, upon whose portrait he wrote, in later years, some of his most beautiful lines, died when he was six years of age. A timid and sickly boy, he was sent early to a provincial school, and afterwards to Westminster. The tyrannical treatment to which he was subjected at the first of these places served further to aggravate his morbid sensibility. At Westminster he had for schoolfellows Churchill (see p. 124, s. 83), Lloyd, Cumberland (see p. 152, s. 100), and Colman (see p. 152, s. 100). The usher of his form was the gifted Vincent Bourne. In 1748 he left Westminster, entered the Middle Temple, and, in 1752, went into residence. He had already begun to be afflicted by appalling fits of depression, and already, as may be gathered from his Epistle to Robert Lloyd, Esq., had turned to verse for relief from the fierce banditti (Sworn foes to every-thing that's witty), Make cruel inroads in my brain.' In 1756 his father died. The poet's means were small; and when, in 1763, it became in the power of a relative to offer him the appointment of Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords, an easy competence appeared within his reach. But, at this time, his diseased fancies had increased to so great an extent, that, under nervous anticipation of the preliminary examination, he became insane, and was placed under control at St. Albans. Upon his recovery he went to live at Huntingdon. Here, after some time, he made the acquaintance of the Rev. Morley Unwin, into whose house he was received in 1765. At Mr. Unwin's death, in 1767, Cowper still continued to reside with the widow at Olney (to which place she then removed) and afterwards at Weston, and this long companionship, which, at one period, bade fair to ripen into a closer tie, was only broken by her death in 1796, four years before the poet's own. In 1773 the terrible visitation of insanity, which, in his case, took the form of religious despondency, again overtook him. From this he can never be said to have wholly recovered, although at certain periods his malady assumed less painful features. 'In God's mysterious providence,' says a recent writer, who has some claim to speak authoritatively, 'for twenty-seven long years, with scarcely one cheering beam of hope, he regarded himself as doomed by an inscrutable decree of heaven to lasting perdition.' * No man, however, found kinder comforters, or more devoted friendship. The Unwins, mother and son, his cousin Lady Hesketh, Lady Austen, the Rev. William Bull of Newport Pagnell, and the celebrated John Newton of Olney, vied with each other in endeavouring to alleviate his mental distresses, Apart from his one delusion his understanding remained unclouded. His garden and his numerous pets-notably the three hares, of which he has left an account in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1784,-served partially to divert his thoughts. But it was in correspondence (his letters are some of the best in the language), and in literary occupation generally that he found the most complete relief. As early as 1771 Newton had engaged him in the composition of the well-known Olney Hymns, not published, however, until 1779. In 1780 Mrs. Unwin invited him to write a moral satire upon a given theme, and he accordingly produced, in rapid succession, the poems entitled the Progress of Error, Truth, Table-Talk, and Expostulation. At the desire of the publisher, Hope, Charity, Conversation and Retirement were afterwards composed and added to increase the volume, which appeared in 1782. If we except the approbation of Franklin, no great success attended it,-indeed the didactic titles were not calculated to attract the ordinary reader. In the following year, he began, at Lady Austen's suggestion, a poem upon the subject of The Sofa. Fit surculus arbor, says his motto. This, growing under his pen, gradually branched into the series of six books entitled generally The Task, which, with an Epistle to Joseph Hill, the poem entitled Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools, and The Diverting History of John Gilpin (a ballad which had appeared some time before in the Public Advertiser), was published *Rev. Josiah Bull, M.A. (grandson of the poet's friend, the Rev. William Bull of Newport Pagnell), in the Sunday at Home for June 1866, where will be found four articles on the Early years of the Poet Cowper at Olney, in 1785. The second effort met with a better reception than its forerunner; and, public curiosity once awakened, caused readers to revert to the earlier volume. Cowper's only other important work was a blank-verse translation of the Iliad and Odyssey, 1791. It has the reputation of greater fidelity to the original than that of Pope; but is heavy and laboured in style. He also translated the Latin and Italian poems of Milton, his master and model, some of the Latin poems of Vincent Bourne (1697-1747), and a selection of the poems of the French mystic, and friend of Fénelon, Madame de la Motte Guyon (1648-1717). But no original production of any length followed his second volume. His friends attempted to allure him by such themes as the Four Ages of Man's Life, and that 'mid-sea that moans with memories '-The Mediterranean, but without success. One poem, Yardley Oak, a subject which seemed to offer the requisite attraction to his muse, was indeed commenced, but it remains a fragment. To Cowper's admiration for Milton we owe the masterly measure of The Task, and also the chief defect of his Homer, which is rendered Miltonicé. How thoroughly the style of Paradise Lost had saturated his own may be gathered from the following description of the Russian Ice Palace : 'Silently as a dream the fabric rose; No sound of hammer or of saw was there. Were soon conjoined, nor other cement asked Gleamed through the clear transparency, that seemed For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths (What seemed at least commodious seat) were there, The Task, from which the foregoing extract is taken, is nevertheless Cowper's greatest work, and its appearance marks an epoch in modern English literature. It came at a time when the public taste |