NOTES

THOMAS GRAY

When Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard appeared in 1751, the Monthly Rev., IV, p. 309, gave it the following curious notice:-"The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity." The immediate success and popularity of the Elegy established Gray's poetical reputation; hence his Odes (1757) were received and criticized as the work of a poet of whom something entirely different was expected. The thin quarto volume containing The Progress of Poesy and The Bard (entitled merely Ode I and Ode II in that edition) was printed for Dodsley by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, and was published on August 8, 1757. Within a fortnight Gray wrote to Thomas Warton that the poems were not at all popular, the great objection being their obscurity; a week later he wrote to Hurd:" Even my friends tell me they [the Odes] do not succeed. . . in short, I have heard nobody but a player [Garrick] and a doctor of divinity [Warburton] that profess their esteem for them." For further comment, see Gray's Works, ed. Gosse, II, pp. 321-328.

Our review, which is reprinted from Monthly Rev., XVII (239243) (September, 1757), was written by Oliver Goldsmith, and is included in most of the collected editions of his works. Although it was practically wrung from Goldsmith while he was the unwilling thrall of Griffiths, it is a noteworthy piece of criticism for its time-certainly far superior to the general standard of the Monthly Review. While recognizing the scholarly merit of the poet's work, Goldsmith showed clearly why the Odes could not become popular. A more favorable notice of the volume appeared in the Critical Rev., IV, p. 167.

In reprinting this review, the long quotations from both odes have been omitted. This precedent is followed in all cases where the quotations are of inordinate length, or are offered merely as "specimens" without specific criticism. No useful end would be served in reprinting numerous pages of classic extracts that are

readily accessible to every student. All omissions are, of course, properly indicated.

I. Quinault. Philippe Quinault (1635-1688), a popular French dramatist and librettist.

2. Mark'd for her own. An allusion to the line in the Epitaph appended to the Elegy: "And Melancholy marked him for her own."

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

Goldsmith's Traveller (1764) was begun as early as 1755-before he had expressed what Professor Dowden calls his "qualified enthusiasm and "official admiration" for Gray's Odes. In criticizing Gray, he quoted Isocrates' advice-Study the people— and properly bore that precept in mind while he was shaping his own verses. The Odes and the Traveller are respectively characteristic utterances of their authors-of the academic recluse, and of the warm-hearted lover of humanity.

The review, quoted from the Critical Rev., XVIII (458-462) (December, 1764), is from the pen of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Apart from its distinguished authorship and the strong words of commendation in the final sentence, it possesses slight interest as literary criticism. It is, in fact, little more than a brief summary of the poem, enriched by a few well-chosen illustrative extracts. The fact that Johnson contributed nine or ten lines to the poem (see Boswell, ed. Hill, I, p. 441, n. I, and II, p. 6) may account partly for the character of the review. Johnson's quotations from the poem are not continuous and show several variations from authoritative texts.

WILLIAM COWPER

Cowper stands almost alone among English poets as an instance of late manifestation of poetic power. He was over fifty years of age when he offered his first volume of Poems (1782) to the public. This collection, which included Table-Talk and other didactic poems, appeared at the beginning of the most prosaic age in the history of modern English literature; yet the critics did not find it sufficiently striking in quality to differentiate it from the level of contemporary verse, or to forecast the success of The Task and John Gilpin's Ride three years later.

The notice in the Critical Rev., LIII (287-290), appeared in April, 1782. While the same poems are but slightly esteemed

to-day, it must be recognized that the attitude of the reviewer was severe for his time. The age had grown accustomed to large draughts of moralizing and didacticism in verse, and the quality of Cowper's contribution was assuredly above the average. The Monthly Rev., LXVII, p. 262, gave the Poems a much more favorable reception.

10. Non Dii, non homines, etc. Properly, non homines, non di, Horace, Ars Poetica, 1. 373.

10. Caraccioli. Jouissance de soi-même (ed. 1762), cap. xii. II. There needs no ghost, etc. See Hamlet, I, 5. 110.

ROBERT BURNS

The Kilmarnock edition (1786) of Burns' Poems was published during the most eventful period of the poet's life; the almost universally kind reception accorded to this volume was the one source of consolation amid many sorrows and distractions. Two reviews have been selected to illustrate both the Scottish and English attitude toward the newly discovered "ploughman-poet." The Edinburgh Magazine, IV (284-288), in October, 1786, gave Burns a welcome that was hearty and sincere; though we may smile to-day at the information that he has neither the "doric simplicity" of Ramsay, nor the "brilliant imagination" of Ferguson. Besides the poems mentioned in brackets, the magazine published further extracts from Burns in subsequent numbers. The Critical Review, LXIII (387-388), gave the volume a belated notice in May, 1787, exceeding even the Scotch magazine in its generous appreciation. With the generally accepted fact in mind that all of Burns' enduring work is in the Scottish dialect, and that his English poems are comparatively inferior, it is interesting to note the Critical Review's regret that the dialect must obscure the native beauties" and be often unintelligible to English readers. The same sentiment was expressed by the Monthly Review, LXXV, p. 439, in the critique reprinted (without its curious anglified version of The Cotter's Saturday Night) in Stevenson's Early Reviews.

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There is perhaps no other English poet whose fame was so suddenly and securely established as Burns'. At no time since the appearance of the Kilmarnock volume has the worth of his lyrical achievement been seriously questioned. The Reliques of Burns, edited by Dr. Cromek in 1808, were reviewed by Walter Scott in

the first number of the Quarterly Review, and by Jeffrey in the corresponding number of the Edinburgh. Both articles are valuable to the student of Burns, but their great length made their inclusion in the present volume impracticable.

14. Rusticus abnormis sapiens, etc. Horace, Sat. II, 1. 3. 15. A great lady . . . and celebrated professor. Evidently Mrs. Dunlop and Professor Dugald Stewart, who both took great interest in Burns after the appearance of the Kilmarnock volume.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The thin quartos containing An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches were published by Wordsworth in 1793. The former was practically a school-composition in verse, written between 1787 89 and dedicated to his sister; the latter was composed in France during 1791-92 and was revised shortly before publication. The dedication was addressed to the Rev. Robert Jones, fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, who was Wordsworth's companion during the pedestrian tour in the Alps. Though An Evening Walk was published first, the Monthly Review, XII, n.'s. (216 218), in October, 1793, noticed both in the same issue and naturally gave precedence to the longer poem. Specific allusions in the text necessitate the same order in the present reprint.

The impatience of the reviewer at the prospect of more descriptive poetry" was due to the fact that many such productions had recently been noticed by the Monthly, and that the volumes then under consideration evidently belonged to the broad stream of mediocre verse that had been flowing soberly along almost since the days of Thomson. These first attempts smacked so decidedly of the older manner that we cannot censure the critic for failing to foresee that Wordsworth was destined to glorify the "poetry of nature," and to rescue it from the rut of listless and soporific topographical description. Both poems, in the definitive text, are readable, and exhibit here and there a glimmer of the poet's future greatness; yet it must be borne in mind that Wordsworth was continually tinkering at his verse, to the subsequent despair of conscientious variorum editors, and that most of the absurdities and infelicities in his first editions disappeared under the correcting influence of his sarcastic critics and his own maturing taste.

A collation of the accepted text with the Monthly Review's quotations will repay the student; thus, the twelve opening lines quoted by the reviewer are represented by eight lines in Professor Knight's edition, and only four of these correspond to the original text. The reviewer confined his remarks to the first thirty lines of the poem and very properly neglected the rest. He followed, with moderate success, the method of quotation with interpolated sarcasm and badinage—a method that was afterwards effectively pursued by the early Edinburgh Reviewers and the Blackwood coterie. There are few examples of that style in the eighteenth century reviews, but some noteworthy specimens of a later period -e. g., the Edinburgh Review on Coleridge's Christabel and the Quarterly on Tennyson's Poems-are reprinted in this volume.

The review of An Evening Walk is simply an appended paragraph to the previous article. Wordsworth evidently appreciated the advice conveyed in the reviewer's final sentence and found many of the lines that called loudly for amendment." More favorable notices of both poems will be found in Critical Review, VIII, pp. 347 and 472.

Lyrical Ballads

The Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge were published anonymously early in September, 1798-a few days before the joint authors sailed for Germany. Coleridge's contributions were The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Foster-Mother's Tale, The Nightingale, and The Dungeon; the remaining nineteen poems were by Wordsworth. As the publication of this volume has been accepted by most critics as the first fruit of the new romantic spirit and the virtual beginning of modern English poetry, the reception accorded to the Lyrical Ballads becomes a matter of prime importance. It is well known that the effort was a failure at first and that the apparent triumph of romanticism did not occur until the publication of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805); but a contemporary blindness to the beauty of two of the finest poems in English literature cannot be permitted to figure in the critics' dispassionate investigation of causes and influences.

There were four interesting reviews of the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads, namely, (1) Critical Rev., XXIV, n. s. (197– 204), in October, 1798, which is reprinted here; (2) Analytical