CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

Sirth Period.

FROM 1727 TO 1780.

POETS

lity and philosophy with a beautiful simplicity of expression and numbers, pathetic imagery, and HE fifty-three natural description. Beattie portrayed the romanyears between tic hopes and aspirations of youthful genius in a 1727 and 1780, style formed from imitation of Spenser and Thomcomprehend- son. And the best of the secondary poets, as Shening the reign stone, Dyer, and Mason, had each a distinct and inof George II., dependent poetical character. Johnson alone, of all and a portion the eminent authors of this period, seems to have of that of directly copied the style of Pope and Dryden. The George III, publication of Percy's Reliques, and Warton's History produced more of Poetry, may be here adverted to, as directing public men of letters, attention to the early writers, and to the powerful as well as more effects which could be produced by simple narrative men of science, than any and natural emotion in verse. It is true that few epoch of similar extent in or none of the poets we have named had much imthe literary history of Eng- mediate influence on literature: Gray was ridiculed, land. It was also a time and Collins was neglected, because both public taste during which greater pro- and criticism had been vitiated and reduced to a gress was made in diffusing low ebb. The spirit of true poetry, however, was literature among the people not broken; the seed was sown, and in the next at large, than had been made, generation, Cowper completed what Thomson had perhaps, throughout all the begun. The conventional style was destined to fall, ages that went before it. Yet while letters, and leaving only that taste for correct language and verthe cultivators of letters, were thus abundant, it sification which was established by the example of must be allowed that, if we keep out of view the Pope, and found to be quite compatible with the rise of the species of fiction called the novel (includ- utmost freedom and originality of conception and ing the delineation of character, and not merely in- expression. cidents), the age was not by any means marked by such striking features of originality or vigour as some of the preceding eras.

For about a third of this period Pope lived, and his name continued to be the greatest in English poetry. The most distinguished of his contemporaries, however, adopted styles of their own, or at least departed widely from that of their illustrious master. Thomson (who survived Pope only four years) made no attempt to enter the school of polished satire and pungent wit. His enthusiastic descriptions of nature, and his warm poetical feeling, seemed to revive the spirit of the elder muse, and to assert the dignity of genuine inspiration. Young in his best performances -his startling denunciations of death and judgment, his solemn appeals, his piety, and his epigram-was equally an original. Gray and Collins aimed at the dazzling imagery and magnificence of lyrical poetry -the direct antipodes of Pope. Akenside descanted on the operations of the mind, and the associated charms of taste and genius, in a strain of melodious and original blank verse. Goldsmith blended mora

In describing the poets of this period, it will not be necessary to include all the names that have descended to us dignified with this title. But we shall omit none whose literary history is important, singular, or instructive.

but stopping at Bristol, was treated with great kindness by the opulent merchants and other inhabitants, whom he afterwards libelled in a sarcastic poem. In Swansea he resided about a year; but on revisiting Bristol, he was arrested for a small debt, and His folly, extravagance, and pride, though it was pride that licks the dust,' had left him almost without a friend. He made no vigorous effort to extricate or maintain himself. Pope continued his allowance; but being provoked by some part of his conduct, he wrote to him, stating that he was 'determined to keep out of his suspicion by not being officious any longer, or obtruding into any of his concerns.' Savage felt the force of this rebuke from the steadiest and most illustrious of his friends. He was soon afterwards taken ill, and his condition not enabling him to procure medical assistance, he was found dead in his bed on the morning of the 1st of August 1743. The keeper of the prison, who had treated him with great kindness, buried the unfortunate poet at his own expense.

clesfield and Lord Rivers. The lady openly avowed her profligacy, in order to obtain a divorce from her husband, with whom she lived on unhappy terms, and the illegitimate child was born after their separation. He was placed under the charge of a poor woman, and brought up as her son. The boy, how-being unable to find bail, was thrown into prison. ever, obtained a superior education through the care and generosity of his maternal grandmother, Lady Mason, who placed him at a grammar-school in St Albans. Whilst he was there Lord Rivers died, and in his last illness, it is said the countess had the inhumanity and falsehood to state that Savage was dead, by which he was deprived of a provision intended for him by his father. Such unnatural and unprincipled conduct almost exceeds belief. The boy was now withdrawn from school, and placed apprentice to a shoemaker; but an accident soon revealed his birth and the cause of its concealment. His nurse and supposed mother died, and among her effects Savage found some letters which disclosed the circumstances of his paternity. The discovery must have seemed like the opening of a new world to his hopes and ambition. He was already distinguished for quickness and proficiency, and for a sanguine enthusiastic temperament. A bright prospect had dawned on him; he was allied to rank and opulence; and though his birth was accompanied by humiliating circumstances, it was not probable that he felt these deeply, in the immediate view of emancipation from the low station and ignoble employment to which he had been harshly condemned. We know also that Savage was agitated by those tenderer feelings which link the child to the parent, and which must have burst upon him with peculiar force after so unexpected and wonderful a discovery. The mother of the youth, however, was an exception to ordinary humanity-an anomaly in the history of the female heart. She had determined to disown him, and repulsed every effort at acknowledgment and recognition

Alone from strangers every comfort flowed. His remarkable history became known, and friends sprang up to shield the hapless youth from poverty. Unfortunately, the vices and frailties of his own character began soon to be displayed. Savage was not destitute of a love of virtue and principles of piety, but his habits were low and sensual. His temper was irritable and capricious; and whatever money he received, was instantly spent in the obscure haunts of dissipation. In a tavern brawl he had the misfortune to kill a Mr James Sinclair, for which he was tried and condemned to death. His relentless mother, it is said, endeavoured to intercept the royal mercy; but Savage was pardoned by Queen Caroline, and set at liberty. He published various poetical pieces as a means of support; and having addressed a birth-day ode to the queen, calling himself the Volunteer Laureate' (to the annoyance, it is said, of Colley Cibber, the legitimate inheritor of the laurel), her majesty sent him £50, and continued the same sum to him every year. His threats and menaces induced Lord Tyrconnel, a friend of his mother, to take him into his family, where he lived on equal terms, and was allowed a sum of £200 per annum. This, as Johnson remarks, was the 'golden period' of Savage's life. As might have been foreseen, however, the habits of the poet differed very widely from those of the peer; they soon quarrelled, and the former was again set adrift on the world. The death of the queen also stopped his pension; but his friends made up an annuity for him of equal amount, to which Pope generously contributed £20. Savage agreed to withdraw to the country to avoid the temptations of London. He selected Swansea,

Savage was the author of two plays, and a volume of miscellaneous poems. Of the latter, the principal piece is The Wanderer, written with greater care than most of his other productions, as it was the offspring of that happy period of his life when he lived with Lord Tyrconnel. Amidst much puerile and tawdry description, The Wanderer' contains some impressive passages. The versification is easy and correct.

The Bastard is, however, a superior poem, and bears the impress of true and energetic feeling. One couplet is worthy of Pope. Of the bastard he says,

He lives to build, not boast a generous race:
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.

The concluding passage, in which he mourns over
the fatal act by which he deprived a fellow mortal
of life, and over his own distressing condition, pos-
sesses a genuine and manly pathos :--

For mischief never meant, must ever smart?
Is chance a guilt, that my disastrous heart,
Can self-defence be sin? Ah, plead no more!
What though no purposed malice stained thee o'er?
Had heaven befriended thy unhappy side,
Thou hadst not been provoked-or thou hadst died.
Far be the guilt of homeshed blood from all
On whom, unsought, embroiling dangers fall!
Still the pale dead revives, and lives to me,
To me! through Pity's eye condemned to see.
Remembrance veils his rage, but swells his fate;
Grieved I forgive, and am grown cool too late.
Young and unthoughtful then; who knows, one day,
What ripening virtues might have made their way!
He might have lived till folly died in shame,
Till kindling wisdom felt a thirst for fame.
He might perhaps his country's friend have proved;
Both happy, generous, candid, and beloved;
He might have saved some worth, now doomed to fall,
And I, perchance, in him, have murdered all.

O fate of late repentance! always vain :
Thy remedies but lull undying pain.
Where shall my hope find rest? No mother's care
Shielded my infant innocence with prayer:
No father's guardian hand my youth maintained,
Called forth my virtues, or from vice restrained;
Is it not thine to snatch some powerful arm,
First to advance, then screen from future harm?
Am I returned from death to live in pain?
Or would imperial pity save in vain?
Distrust it not. What blame can mercy find,
Which gives at once a life, and rears a mind?

Mother, miscalled, farewell-of soul severe,
This sad reflection yet may force one tear:

All I was wretched by to you I owed;
Alone from strangers every comfort flowed!

Lost to the life you gave, your son no mere,
And now adopted, who was doomed before,
New born, I may a nobler mother claim,
But dare not whisper her immortal name;
Supremely lovely, and serenely great,
Majestic mother of a kneeling state;
Queen of a people's heart, who ne'er before
Agreed-yet now with one consent adore!
One contest yet remains in this desire,
Who most shall give applause where all admire.

[From The Wanderer.]

Yon mansion, made by beaming tapers gay,
Drowns the dim night, and counterfeits the day;
From lumined windows glancing on the eye,
Around, athwart, the frisking shadows fly.
There midnight riot spreads illusive joys,
And fortune, health, and dearer time destroys.
Soon death's dark agent to luxuriant ease
Shall wake sharp warnings in some fierce disease.
O man! thy fabric 's like a well-formed state;
Thy thoughts, first ranked, were sure designed the
great;

Passions plebeians are, which faction raise;
Wine, like poured oil, excites the raging blaze;
Then giddy anarchy's rude triumphs rise:
Then sovereign Reason from her empire flies:
That ruler once deposed, wisdom and wit,
To noise and folly place and power submit ;
Like a frail bark thy weakened mind is tost,
Unsteered, unbalanced, till its wealth is lost.
The miser-spirit eyes the spendthrift heir,
And mourns, too late, effects of sordid care.
His treasures fly to cloy each fawning slave,
Yet grudge a stone to dignify his grave.
For this, low-thoughted craft his life employed;
For this, though wealthy, he no wealth enjoyed;
For this, he griped the poor, and alms denied,
Unfriended lived, and unlamented died.
Yet smile, grieved shade! when that unprosperous

store

Fast lessens, when gay hours return no more;
Smile at thy heir, beholding, in his fall,
Men once obliged, like him, ungrateful all!
Then thought-inspiring wo his heart shall mend,
And prove his only wise, unflattering friend.

Folly exhibits thus unmanly sport,

While plotting mischief keeps reserved her court.
Lo! from that mount, in blasting sulphur broke,
Stream flames voluminous, enwrapped with smoke!
In chariot-shape they whirl up yonder tower,
Lean on its brow, and like destruction lower!
From the black depth a fiery legion springs;
Each bold bad spectre claps her sounding wings:
And straight beneath a summoned, traitorous band,
On horror bent, in dark convention stand:
From each fiend's mouth a ruddy vapour flows,
Glides through the roof, and o'er the council glows:
The villains, close beneath the infection pent,
Feel, all possessed, their rising galls ferment;
And burn with faction, hate, and vengeful ire,
For rapine, blood, and devastation dire!
But justice marks their ways: she waves in air
The sword, high-threatening, like a comet's glare.
While here dark villany herself deceives,
There studious honesty our view relieves.
A feeble taper from yon lonesome room,

ROBERT BLAIR.

Mr Southey has incautiously ventured a statement in his Life of Cowper,' that Blair's Grave is the only poem he could call to mind which has been composed in imitation of the Night Thoughts.' 'The Grave' was written prior to the publication of the Night Thoughts,' and has no other resemblance to the work of Young, than that it is of a serious devout cast, and is in blank verse. The author was an accomplished and exemplary Scottish clergyman, who enjoyed some private fortune, independent of his profession, and was thus enabled to live in a superior style, and cultivate the acquaintance of the neighbouring gentry. As a poet of pleasing and elegant manners, a botanist and florist, as well as a man of scientific and general knowledge, his society was much courted, and he enjoyed the correspondence of Dr Isaac Watts and Dr Doddridge. Blair was born in Edinburgh in 1699, his father being minister of the Old Church there. In 1731 he was appointed to the living of Athelstaneford, a parish in East Lothian. Previous to his ordination, he had

written The Grave,' and submitted the manuscript to Watts and Doddridge. It was published in 1743. Blair died at the age of forty-seven, in February 1746. By his marriage with a daughter of Mr Law, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh (to whose memory he dedicated a poem), he left a numerous family; and his fourth son, a distinguished lawyer, rose to be Lord President of the Court of Session.

"The Grave' is a complete and powerful poem, of limited design, but masterly execution. The subject precluded much originality of conception, but, at the same time, is recommended by its awful importance and its universal application. The style seems to be formed upon that of the old sacred and puritanical poets, elevated by the author's admiration of Milton and Shakspeare. There is a Scottish presbyterian character about the whole, relieved by occasional flashes and outbreaks of true genius. These coruscations sometimes subside into low and vulgar ideas, as towards the close of the following noble passage:

Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war?
The Roman Cæsars and the Grecian chiefs,
The boast of story? Where the hot-brained youth,
Who the tiara at his pleasure tore

From kings of all the then discovered globe;
And cried, forsooth, because his arm was hampered,
And had not room enough to do its work?
Alas, how slim-dishonourably slim !
And crammed into a space we blush to name!
Proud royalty! How altered in thy looks!
How blank thy features, and how wan thy hue!
Son of the morning! whither art thou gone?
Where hast thou hid thy many-spangled head,
And the majestic menace of thine eyes
Felt from afar? Pliant and powerless now:
Like new-born infant wound up in his swathes,
Or victim tumbled flat upon his back,
That throbs beneath his sacrificer's knife;
Mute must thou bear the strife of little tongues,
And coward insults of the base-born crowd,
That grudge a privilege thou never hadst,
But only hoped for in the peaceful grave➡

Scattering thin rays, just glimmers through the Of being unmolested and alone!

gloom.

There sits the sapient bard in museful mood,
And glows impassioned for his country's good!
All the bright spirits of the just combined,
Inform, refine, and prompt his towering mind!

Arabia's gums and odoriferous drugs,
And honours by the heralds duly paid
In mode and form, e'en to a very scruple;
(Oh cruel irony!) these come too late,
And only mock whom they were meant to honour!