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 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, Thou knew'st this harmless beast, when he On each green thing; then slept-well fed- 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, 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, Birds sing, beasts feed, fish leap, and the Earth stands fast ; Vast circling azure, giddy clouds, days, nights. When Seasons change, then lay before thine eyes Thou canst not miss His praise; each tree, herb, flower 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 The wandering streams that shine between the hills, The dying gales that pant upon the trees, 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 ; Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes, When darken'd groves their softest shadows wear, 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 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 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, 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, 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. |