372. finger-speed, I hastened to him with my manuscript-that look of humorous despondency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its silent mock-piteous admission of failure struggling with the sense of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme-which broke up in a laugh and The Ancient Mariner was written instead. "Years afterward, however, the draft of the plan and proposed incidents, and the portion executed, obtained favor in the eyes of more than one person, whose judgment on a poetic work could not but have weighed with me, even though no parental partiality had been thrown into the same scale, as a make-weight: and I determined on commencing anew, and composing the whole in stanzas, and made some progress in realizing this intention, when adverse gales drove my bark off the 'Fortunate Isles' of the Muses: and then other and more momentous interests prompted a different voyage, to firmer anchorage and a securer port. I have in vain tried to recover the lines from the palimpsest tablet of my memory and I can only offer the introductory stanza, which had been committed to writing for the purpose of procuring a friend's judgment on the metre, as a specimen : Encinctured with a twine of leaves, The moon was bright, the air was free, On many a shrub and many a tree: And all put on a gentle hue, Like a picture rich and rare. It was a climate where, they say, The night is more belov'd than day. That beauteous boy to linger here? Has he no friend, no loving mother near? "I have here given the birth, parentage, and premature decease of The Wanderings of Cain, a Poem,-intreating, however, my readers, not to think so meanly of my judgment as to suppose that I either regard or offer it as any excuse for the publication of the fol lowing fragment (and may add, of one or two others in its neighborhood) in its primitive crudity. But I should find still greater difficulty in forgiving myself were I to record pro tædio publico a set of petty mishaps and annoyances which I myself wish to forget. I must be content therefore with assuring the friendly reader, that the less he attributes its appearance to the author's will, choice, or judgment, the nearer to the truth he will be."-Coleridge (1828). The Death of Abel is a drama by Soloman Gessner (1730-88), a Swiss poet and painter. BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA "It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both in conversation, and in print, 375. more frequently than I find it easy to ex- In Chapter 15 is discussed the symptoms of poetic power as elucidated in an analysis of Shakspere's Venus and Adonis and Lucrece; Chapter 16 considers the points of difference between the poets of the early 19th century and those of the 15th and 16th centuries. 378a. 49-51. See Her Eyes Are Wild (p. 229). The following stanzas are from The Idiot Boy: And Betty's husband's at the wood, And Betty from the lane has fetched And he is all in travelling trim,- 30 35 40 WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) p. 48 EDITIONS Poems, with Johnson, Goldsmith, and Gray, ed. And, while the pony moves his legs, 80 Montégut, Emile: Heures de Lecture d'un Critique (Paris, 1891). Perry, T. S.: "Gray, Collins, and Beattie," The Atlantic Monthly, Dec., 1880 (46:810). Shairp, J. C.: "Nature in Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper and Burns," On Poetic Interpretation of Nature (Edinburgh, Douglas, 1877; New York, Hurd, 1878; Boston, Houghton, 1885). Swinburne, A. C.: Miscellanies (London, Chatto, 1886, 1911; New York, Scribner). CRITICAL NOTES "Have you seen the works of two young authors, 95 a Mr. Warton and Mr. Collins, both writers of odes? It is odd enough, but each is the half of a tonsiderable man, and one the counterpart of the other. The first has but little invention, very poetical choice of expression, and a good ear; the second, a fine fancy, modelled upon the antique, a 100 bad ear, great variety of words and images, with no choice at all. They both deserve to last some years, but will not."-Gray, in Letter to Wharton, Dec. 27, 1746. "He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the water-falls of Elysian gardens. This was, however, the character rather of his inclination than his genius; the grandeur of wildness and the novelty of extravagance were always desired by him, but not always attained. Yet, as diligence is never wholly lost, if his efforts sometimes caused harshness and obscurity, they likewise produced in happier moments sublimity and splendor. This idea which he had formed of excellence led him to oriental fictions and allegorical imagery, and perhaps, while he was intent upon description, he did not sufficiently cultivate sentiment. His diction was often harsh, unskilfully labored, and injudiciously selected. He affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to write poetry. His lines commonly are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants. As men are often esteemed who cannot be loved, so the poetry of Collins may sometimes extort praise when it gives little pleasure."Samuel Johnson, in "Collins," The Lives of the English Poets (1779-81). trian Succession; at Prestonpans, Scotland (Sept. 21, 1745), and at Falkirk, Scotland (Jan. 17, 1746), in battles with the forces of Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender. In all of these battles, the English were defeated with enormous losses. ODE TO EVENING "The most perfect and original poem of Collins, as well as the most finely appreciative of nature, is his Ode to Evening. No doubt evening is personified in his address as 'maid composed,' and 'calm votaress,' but the personification is so delicately handled, and in so subdued a tone, that it does not jar on the feelings as such personifications too often do. There is about the whole ode a subdued twilight tone, a remoteness from men and human things, and a pensive evening musing, all the more expressive, because it does not shape itself into definite thoughts, but reposes in appropriate images."-Shairp, in On Poetic Interpretation of Nature (1877). 9-12. Cf. Macbeth, III, 2, 40-43: Ere the bat hath flown His cloistered flight, are to black Hecate's summons The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums Hath rung night's yawning peal. 108. tory. 51. "There are very few poets from whose wheat so little chaff has been winnowed as from that of 52. 95. Collins. His entire existing work does not extend to much more than fifteen hundred lines, at least two-thirds of which must live with the best poetry of the century. Collins has the touch of a sculptor; his verse is clearly-cut and direct; it is marble-pure, but also marble-cold. Each phrase is a wonder of felicitous workmanship, without emphasis, without sense of strain. His best strophes possess an extraodinary quiet melody, a soft harmonious smoothness as of some divine and aerial creature singing in artless, perfect numbers for its own delight."-Gosse, in A History of Eighteenth Century Literature (1888). 53. THE PASSIONS Sphere descended.-Heaven descended. Recording sister.-Clio, the Muse of his ON THE DEATH OF MR. THOMSON This poem is an elegy on James Thomson, the poet. See p. 18. AN ODE ON THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND This poem, which was left unfinished by Collins was not published until after his death. Soon after it appeared in its incomplete form, what purported to be a perfect copy of the ode as revised by Collins was published in London. The bracketed passages in the text are supplied from this version, which is the one usually adopted. "The whole Romantic School, in its germ, no doubt, but yet unmistakably foreshadowed, lies already in the Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands. He [Collins] was the first to bring back into poetry something of the antique fervor, and found again the long-lost secret of being classically elegant without being pedantically cold."-Lowell, in "Pope," My Study Windows (1871). 56. 192-205. Jerusalem Delivered, by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso (1544-95), was translated into English by Fairfax in 1600. The following stanzas (13:41-43, 46) explain the allusions in Collins's lines: He drew his sword at last and gaue the tree Enough enough the voice lamenting said, Tancred thou hast me hurt, thou didst me driue Out of the bodie of a noble maid, Who with me liu'd, whom late I kept on liue, I was Clorinda, now imprison'd heere, A murderer if thou cut one twist art thou. Works, 15 vols., ed., with a Life, by R. Southey (London, Baldwin, 1836-37). Poetical Works, 3 vols., ed., with a Memoir by T. Mitford, by J. Bruce (Aldine ed.: London, Bell, 1830-31, 1865; New York, Macmillan). Poetical Works, ed., with a Biographical Introduction, by W. Benham (Globe ed.: London, Macmillan, 1870). Poems, 2 vols., ed. by H. T. Griffith (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1874). Poems, ed. by H. S. Milford (Oxford Univ. Press, 1906). Selections from the Poetical Works, ed., with an Introduction, by J. O. Murray (Athenæum Press ed. Boston, Ginn, 1898). Unpublished and Uncollected Poems, ed. by T. Wright (Cameo Poets ed.: London, Collins, Letters, ed. by W. Benham (Golden Treasury ed.: Lucas (World's Classics ed.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1908, 1911). Wright, T.: The Life of Cowper (London, Unwin, 1902). CRITICISM Bagehot, W.: The National Review, July, 1855; Literary Studies, 3 vols., ed. by R. H. Hutton (London and New York, Longmans, 1878-79, 1895). Birrell, A.: Res Judicata (London, Stock, 1892; New York, Scribner). Brooke, S. A.: Theology in the English Poets (London, King, 1874; New York, Dutton, 1910). Cheever, G. B.: Lectures on the Life, Genius, and Insanity of Cowper (London, Nisbet, 1856). Dobson, Austin: Eighteenth Century Vignettes (London, Chatto, 1892; New York, Dodd). Dowden, E.: "Cowper and William Elizabethan Hayley," (London, Essays Modern and Dent, 1910; New York, Dutton). Hazlitt, W.: "On Thomson and Cowper," Lectures on the English Poets (London, 1818); Collected Works, ed. Waller and Glover (London, Dent, 1902-06; New York, McClure), 5, 85. Jeffrey, F.: "Hayley's Life of Cowper," The Edinburgh Review, April, 1803 (2:64). More, P. E.: "The Correspondence of William Cowper," Shelburne Essays, Third Series (New York and London, Putnam, 1906). Norman, H. J.: "Melancholy of Cowper," The Westminster Review, June, 1911 (175:638). North American Review, The, A review of "British Poetry at the Close of the Last Century, 4 vols.," Jan. 1836 (42:67). Sainte-Beuve, C. A.: Causeries du Lundi, Vol. 9 (Paris, 1854); English trans. by K. P. Wormeley, as Portraits of the Eighteenth Century (New York, Putnam, 1905), and by E. Lee, as Essays of Sainte-Beuve (Camelot Series ed.: London, Scott, 1892). Shairp, J. C.: "Nature in Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, and Burns," On Poetic Interpretation of Nature (Edinburgh, Douglas, 1877; New York, Hurd, 1878; Boston, Houghton, 1885). Shorter, C. K.: Immortal Memories (New York, Harper, 1907). Steele, F. W.: "Catholicism and English Literature in the Eighteenth Century," The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Oct., 1911 (36:634). Stephen, L.: "Cowper and Rousseau," Hours in a Library, 3 vols. (London, Smith, 1874-79; New York and London, Putnam, 1899); 4 vols.. (1907). Woodberry, G. E.: "Three Men of Piety," Makers of Literature (New York, Macmillan, 1901). CONCORDANCE Selected Letters, 2 vols. ed., with a Memoir, by J. G. Neve, J.: A Concordance to the Poetical Works Frazer (New York, Macmillan, 1912). of William Cowper (London, Low, 1887). BIBLIOGRAPHY Murray, J. O.: In Selections from the Poetical Works of William Cowper (Athenæum Press ed.; Boston, Ginn, 1898). CRITICAL NOTES "What a world are you daily conversant with, which I have not seen these twenty years, and shall never see again! The arts of dissipation (I suppose) are nowhere practiced with more refine ment or success than at the place of your present residence. By your account of it, it seems to be Just what it was when I visited it, a scene of idleness and luxury, music, dancing, cards, walking, riding, bathing, eating, drinking, coffee, tea, scandal, dressing, yawning, sleeping; the rooms perhaps more magnificent, because the proprietors are grown richer, but the manners and occupations of the company just the same. Though my life has long been like that of a recluse, I have not the temper of one, nor am I in the least an enemy to cheerfulness and good humor; but I cannot envy you your situation; I even feel my self constrained to prefer the silence of this nook, and the snug fireside in our own diminutive parlor, to all the splendor and gaiety of Brighton. "You ask me, how I feel on the occasion of my approaching publication. Perfectly at my ease. If I had not been pretty well assured beforehand that my tranquillity would be but little endangered by such a measure, I would never have engaged in it; for I cannot bear disturbance. I have had in view two principal objects; first, to amuse my self, and secondly, to compass that point in such a manner, that others might possibly be the better for my amusement. If I have succeeded, it will give me pleasure; but if I have failed, I shall not be mortified to the degree that might perhaps be expected. I remember an old adage (though not where it is to be found), 'bene vixit, qui bene latuit,' [he has lived well who has kept hidden (Ovid, Tristia, III, 4, 25)], and if I had recollected it at the right time, it should have been the motto to my book. By the way, it will make an excellent one for Retirement, if you can but tell me whom to quote for it. The critics cannot deprive me of the pleasure I have in reflecting, that so far as my leisure has been employed in writing for the public, it has been conscientiously employed, and with a view to their advantage. There is nothing agreeable, to be sure, in being chronicled for a dunce; but I believe there lives not a man upon earth who would be less affected by it than myself. With all this indifference to fame, which you know me too well to suppose me capable of affecting, I have taken the utmost pains to deserve it. This may appear a mystery or a paradox in practice, but it is true. I considered that the taste of the day is refined, and delicate to excess, and that to disgust the delicacy of taste, by a slovenly inattention to it, would be to forfeit at once all hope of being useful; and for this reason, though I have written more verse this last year than perhaps any man in Englard, I have finished, and polished, and touched, and retouched, with the utmost care. If after all I should be converted into waste paper, it may be my misfortune, but it will not be my fault. I shall bear it with the most perfect serenity."-Cowper, in Letter to the Rev. William Unwin, Oct. 6, 1781. 1247 my correspondence, on account of your delay to answer, may change sides now, and more properly last, and yet I believe I can say truly, that not a belongs to me. It is long since I received your post has gone by me since the receipt of it that has not reminded me of the debt I owe you, for in prose and verse, especially for the latter, beyour obliging and unreserved communications both cause I consider them as marks of your peculiar confidence. The truth is, I have been such a verse-maker, myself, and so busy in preparing a its appearance in the course of the winter, that I volume for the press, which I imagine will make hardly had leisure to listen to the calls of any other engagement. It is however finished, and gone to the printer's, and I have nothing now to do with it, but to correct the sheets as they are sent to me, and consign it over to the judgment of the public. time of day, when so many writers of the greatest It is a bold undertaking at this abilities have gone before, who seem to have anticipated every valuable subject, as well as all the graces of poetical embellishment, to step forth into the world in the character of a bard, especially when it is considered that luxury, idleness, and vice, have debauched the public taste, and that nothing hardly is welcome but childish fiction, or what has at least a tendency to excite a laugh. I thought, however, that I had stumbled upon some subjects, that had never before been poetically treated, and upon some others, to which I imagined it would not be difficult to give an air of novelty by the manner of treating them. My sole drift is to be useful; a point which however I knew I should in vain aim at, unless I could be likewise entertaining. I have therefore fixed these two strings upon my bow, and by the help of both have done my best to send my arrow to the mark. My readers will hardly have begun to laugh, before they will be called upon to correct that levity, and peruse me with a more serious air. As to the effect, I leave it alone in His hands, who can alone produce it: neither prose nor verse can reform the manners of a dissolute age, much less can they inspire a sense of religious obligation, unless assisted and made efficacious by the power who superintends the truth He has vouchsafed to impart."-Cowper, in Letter to Mrs. Cowper, his cousin, Oct. 19, 1781. "I did not write the line that has been tampered with, hastily, or without due attention to the construction of it; and what appeared to me its only merit is, in its present state, entirely annihilated. "I know that the ears of modern verse-writers are delicate to an excess, and their readers are troubled with the same squeamishness as themselves. So that if a line do not run as smooth as quicksilver they are offended. A critic of the present day serves a poem as a cook serves a dead turkey, when she fastens the legs of it to a post, and draws out all the sinews. For this we may thank Pope; but unless we could imitate him in the closeness and compactness of his expression, as well as in the smoothness of his numbers, we had better drop the imitation, which serves no "Your fear lest I should think you unworthy of other purpose than to emasculate and weaken all |