Arthur, was decidedly popular, passing in two years. through three editions. No doubt the comparative popularity which Blackmore attained is one among many signs of the decadence of poetical taste which had set in soon after the middle of the seventeenth century. His style is almost always heavy and careless. Sometimes he becomes insufferably tedious and prosaic1 to an extent which more than justified the keenest banter of his opponents. Nevertheless the wits did not do him justice. They had no wish to be fair to him. He had inveighed with all his might, not only against the immoralities of the stage, but against the general profanity and levity on serious or sacred subjects which so frequently disgraced the literature of his time. And, consequently, he made many enemies among a race of men than whom none were more skilled in barbing and polishing the epigrams which sufficed for years to come to preserve his name to ridicule. Meanwhile, his works were not unvalued by a different class of readers. The poems. which proceeded from his pen supplied, with all their faults, a deficiency which could not be satisfied. by the sharp-witted writers who held them up to scorn. From its earliest infancy poetry has ever been the favourite channel through which the diviner faculty in man endeavours to find utterance. All the best poetry in the world, and that which has most touched the heart of men, has been either suffused with a certain mystical and spiritual element, or, at all events, 1 What gleam of poetic feeling could be anticipated in a writer who could drone as follows! (The passage comes from his Paraphrase of Job, chap. xiii.) Since you are pleaséd oft to enumerate God's wise and mighty works in this debate, I the same method have observed, to show That I his wonders know, no less than you. I do not your prolix discourses want, To prove those truths divine, I freely grant. Sir R. Blackmore's Paraphrases, etc., ed. 1716, p. 56. Some of his paraphrases, however, as that of the 103d Psalm, are by no means wanting in spirit. has appealed to the deeper strings of our moral nature. It is untrue to the best sources of its inspiration if it is content for long together merely to sport, as it were, upon the surface of things; still more so if it becomes flippant, unspiritual, immoral. During the period that followed upon the Restoration, this had been notoriously the prevailing character of English verse. And therefore among the more sober-minded of the educated community there were numbers who were heartily ready to greet, with an applause much more than proportionate to its intrinsic worth, a more healthy strain. They had begun to awaken to the surpassing merits of the Paradise Lost; and, though the interval which separated a Milton from a Sir Richard Blackmore was wide beyond all comparison, they were all the better able to appreciate a more serious and reflective style of verse than they had of late been used to. They could welcome a very pedestrian muse in which they discerned sincerity and graver thought, in preference to one clad in the conventional garments and flaunting colours which had been fashionable. This may serve partly to explain the toleration that was extended to Blackmore's dulness. His writings were also in harmony with the general tone of thought which was being gradually formed in reference to the graver subjects of human contemplation. Poetry, far superior to his in spiritual power and in imaginative ability, would have fallen flat upon the ears of a prosaic generation which preferred to discuss its relations to the infinite from an altogether argumentative and 'common sense' point of view. Moreover, it was an age very devoid of poetical originality. Some affected to follow the French style; some made Pindar their model; some Virgil and the epic poets; others imitated Horace. As for Blackmore, he set himself in his Creation to emulate Lucretius1 in the character of a Christian philosopher. He wished, he 1 Preface to his poem on Creation. said, to make argument agreeable, and to adorn it with the harmony of numbers; but where his object was mainly to instruct and reason, the ornaments of poetic eloquence were not to be expected. I think the following verses from the closing part of his paraphrase of the 103d Psalm may be excepted from the general condemnation of heaviness : And all ye spirits of celestial race, : Who, free from stain, and with pure ardour warm, Extol your God, and let your songs of praise And, mingling rapture with the seraphs, sing Few names connected with the poetical literature of England in the eighteenth century are more familiar than that of Thomas Parnell (1679-1717). His story of The Hermit is as well known as anything in the English language. Nor is its popularity in any way undeserved. Hume, in his Essay on Simplicity and Refinement, said, in reference to this poem, that it is sufficient to run over Cowley once, but Parnell, after the fifteenth reading, is as fresh as at the first.'3 poetry in general has always given pleasure by the melody of its diction, and its polished but unaffected gracefulness.* Parnell was a clergyman, a man of 1 Preface to his poem on Creation. 2 Sir R. Blackmore's Paraphrases, 1716, p. 268. 3 Quoted in Mitford's Life and Works of Parnell, p. 54. His 4 Campbell was a great admirer of Parnell. He praised the 'correct equable sweetness the select choice of his expression, the clearness and keeping of his imagery, and the pensive dignity of his moral feeling : (Essay on English Poets, quoted by Cunningham in Johnson's Lives, ii. 93). The compass,' he elsewhere says, 'is not extensive, but its tone is peculiarly delightful:' T. Campbell, Specimens of English Poetry, iv. 62. warm, impulsive temperament; too fond, it was said, of social indulgences; but generous, benevolent, and a most delightful companion. He retained to the last the affectionate attachment of Pope, whose friendships were generally capricious and somewhat dangerous; and his intimate acquaintance was much valued by other eminent men of literature, such as Addison and Steele, Swift and Arbuthnot. His works, which were all written between 1706 and his death in 1717, include a fair proportion of sacred poems. These-putting out of the question his uninteresting studies of Scripture characters-share in the sweet simplicity which gives the charm to his best verses on other subjects. They bear the stamp of his general character; deficient in depth and fulness, but susceptible and ardent. His versification, smooth and easy as it is, is often injured by the too ready admission of seven-syllable lines among those of eight. The following are a few verses from his Way to Happiness: For He forsook His own abode To meet thee more than half the road. To comfort those that grieve for ill, Matthew Prior (1664-1721) paraphrased St. Paul's description of charity in smooth antithetical verses quite in the approved style of the period when he wrote, good in their way, but bearing to the original much the same relation as Pope's Homer to Homer himself. For example: Not soon provoked, she easily forgives, And much she suffers as she much believes : 1 Parnell's Poems; Anderson's British Poets, vol. vii. p. 59. Soft peace she brings wherever she arrives; His Solomon on the Vanity of the World, a poem in blank verse in three books, although the most studied and elaborate of all his productions, is very unreadable. His ode on the words, 'I Am that I Am,' written when he was quite a young man, is chiefly notable for the falsetto of its exaggerated intellectual humility— Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down Only reserve the sacred one : words which would have come consistently from the mouth of one of the earlier race of Particular Baptists, but were very absurd and unreal as spoken by Prior. There is, however, real force and earnestness in his Considerations on the 88th Psalm : Heavy, O Lord, on me Thy judgments lie. Downward I hasten to my destined place ; Behold the prodigal ! to Thee I come, 1 Parnell's Poems, 389. |