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like this, which has been already quoted.

With that exception I know of nothing similar in literature till we reach Wordsworth.

When Vaughan describes his Bible, he first dwells upon the paper, how it grew as grass; he speculates who wore it as linen when it had been woven; how the tree forming the cover had once flourished

As if it never should be dead

and even the leather sheepskin binding has its life to this most imaginative poet

Thou knew'st this paper when it was
Mere seed, and after that but grass;

Before 'twas drest or spun, and when

Made linen, who did wear it then :

What were their lives, their thoughts and deeds,

Whether good corn, or fruitless weeds.

Thou knew'st this tree, when a green shade

Cover'd it, since a cover made,

And where it flourish'd, grew, and spread,
As if it never should be dead.

Thou knew'st this harmless beast, when he
Did live and feed by Thy decree

On each green thing; then slept-well fed-
Clothed with this skin, which now lies spread
A covering o'er this aged book.

From these lesser points, vivified by Vaughan's intensity of feeling and of insight, I pass to his wider world-landscape, wherein, however, it is probable that the Old Testament rather than the scenery of Wales was what most influenced him-O, he cries, that man

would hear

The world read to him :

All things here show him heaven; waters that fall,
Chide, and fly up; mists and corruptest foam

Quit their first beds and mount; trees, herbs, flowers, all Strive upwards still, and point him the way home.

Or again-

To heighten thy devotions, and keep low

All mutinous thoughts, what business e'er thou hast,
Observe God in His works; here fountains flow,

Birds sing, beasts feed, fish leap, and the Earth stands fast;
Above are restless motions, running lights,

Vast circling azure, giddy clouds, days, nights.

When Seasons change, then lay before thine eyes
His wondrous method; mark the various scenes
In heaven; hail, thunder, rain-bows, snow, and ice,
Calms, tempests, light, and darkness, by His means;

Thou canst not miss His praise; each tree, herb, flower
Are shadows of His wisdom, and His power.

Vaughan's special gifts in poetry, unique in his age, would anyhow have deserved a full notice. But he has been dwelt on here, because this unconscious prophet of our later subtler landscape, as I have said, is hardly more known now than in his own day. Habent sua fata libelli. Yet the hope (perhaps idle) may be expressed, that some of my readers may turn to a writer of so much originality, power, and feeling.1

1 Mr. Lyte, to whom we owe the beautiful Abide with me, issued (1847) an elegant edition of Vaughan's main religious poems, the book named Silex Scintillans, lately corrected and republished by Messrs. Bell.

I have here taken some phrases from a fuller account of Vaughan, which I published in the Welsh Review, Y Cymmrodor, vol. xi, part ii, 1892.

CHAPTER XIII

LANDSCAPE POETRY TO THE CLOSE OF THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

??

It

We now reach that well-known period, covering about seventy
years after the Restoration, when a style of poetry, admirably
clear, yet in regard to Nature and often to Man, superficial or
restricted, supplanted earlier truth and simplicity, and the
true landscape wellnigh vanished from English verse. Upon
the several causes of this change or decline it will be here
enough to touch slightly. They will be partly found in the
English politics of the day, which brought French writers, in
their exactness of style, lucidity, and common sense forward—
partly in the degeneracy to which the Elizabethan style had
fallen. The French Renaissance, in fact, had now its moment
with us; for the time the Italian impulse was exhausted.
was a critical age; and, as such, essentially antagonistic to an
imaginative—an age, broadly speaking, of light without warmth.
Poetry now mainly addressed the wealthy, the well-born, and
cultivated classes. Man and his works were the chief subject
of Dryden's powerful Muse, and although he looked back to
Chaucer, his tales were so modernised by Dryden that the old
poet becomes almost unrecognisable. The wonderful genius
of Pope, who saw what his readers required, narrowing
Dryden's range, largely took for the object of his strenuous
labour court life and the artificialities of society. Country
life as such was to him intolerable dullness; and thus, in an
exquisitely finished and humorous letter of condolence to a
young lady compelled to quit London, her only pleasure is

described as fancying herself in Town and dreamily seeing courtiers and coronations go by; whilst in his passionate Eloisa the picturesque and sublime scenery of her convent is spoken of with hatred and horror. Here, however, are a few lines which the tragic heat of the story has sublimed to powerful descriptive poetry—

The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclined
Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind;

The wandering streams that shine between the hills,
The grots that echo to the tinkling rills,

The dying gales that pant upon the trees,
The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze;
No more these scenes my meditation aid,
Or lull to rest the visionary maid.

Yet some return to Nature, some reaction, soon began. Indeed, I think it may be fairly supposed that, despite the popularity of Dryden and Pope in political and courtly circles, the love of the country, and of verse describing it, could not have so died out from English hearts as has been commonly supposed. In fact, the court atmosphere and influence over the nation at large was certainly far less than critics, swayed unconsciously by political partisanship, have represented.

Lady Winchelsea's Reverie, published 1713, has a crowd of fresh, delicate images from the landscape. It is a calm night

scene

When in some river, overhung with green,

The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshen'd grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite;

Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet chequers still with red the dusky brakes ;.

When darken'd groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear.

And the moral is summed up in the "sedate content" felt by the soul, when undisturbed by fierce sunlight—

But silent musings urge the mind to seek

Something too high for syllables to speak.

These lines so resemble the style of Wordsworth's own two earliest landscape poems that his choice of them for special praise is not surprising. Lady Winchelsea has also a charming little piece, which in its closeness to detail and its pretty ingenuities of thought, may recall-may have been influenced by-Henry Vaughan's poetry—

Fair Tree! for thy delightful shade
'Tis just that some return be made;
Sure some return is due from me

To thy cool shadows, and to thee.

To future ages mayst thou stand

Untouch'd by the rash workman's hand,
Till that large stock of sap is spent

Which gives thy summer's ornament.

In this last graceful allusion to the leaves we have again an image due to advancing botanical science.

Thomas Tickell, in his Elegy upon Addison's Death (1719), shows genuine feeling and melody in the lines describing Holland House and park

Thou Hill, whose brow the antique structures grace,

Rear'd by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,

Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
O'er my dim eye-balls glance the sudden tears!
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noon-tide shadow, and thy evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore;
Thy walks and airy propects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allay'd,
Thy evening breezes, and thy noon-day shade.

True feeling here has supplied a picture of a tender beauty extremely rare in the poetry of this period; but elsewhere Tickell describes Kensington Garden under the form of an absurd and unreadable allegory.

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