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University of Western Ontario 
 LIBRARY 
 
 LONDON - CANADA 
 
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 DATE DUE 
 
 
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 1882. 
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
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 i:kim; 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LECTURE 
 
 OF 
 
 yVlcGiLL College, 
 
 FOR THE SESSION 1881-2, 
 
 I)KI.I\ l-.UKI) i:v 
 
 CirAllLKS K. MOYSK, P»A. (Lond.) 
 
 MoiAON Piioi'i'.ssou <)!■ TiiK Hnc;i.isii liANiifAciii: and Lirr/iATrui:. and Lbtiuk.u on IFisroiiv. 
 
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 WiiNK.ss " I'Ki.NiiNf, iliirsi:, 33 ro 37 Sr. I')I)n.\\ iaiiki. Siuik 
 
 1882. 
 
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 BEING 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LECTURE 
 
 OF 
 
 McGiLL College, 
 
 FOR THE SESSION 1881-2, 
 
 DELIVKRED BY 
 
 CHARLES E. MOYSE, B A., (Lond.) 
 
 MoLSON Prokrssor op the English Language and Literature, and Lecturer on History. 
 
 -» .<»» » 
 
 Montreal : 
 "Witness" Printing House, 33 to 37 St. Bonaventure Street. 
 
 1882. 
 
14^579 
 
 \ 
 
SYNOPSIS. 
 
 \ 
 
 By way of Preface, various objections to the analysis of poeti- 
 cal emotion are considered — It is diilicult to distinguish between 
 the characteristics common to all poetry, and the peculiarities of 
 the individual poet — Contrast between the two leading theories 
 regarding the characteristics of p11 poetry — The poet is a maker of 
 images — The three kinds of images — Experience (under various 
 names) furnishes all images — These images are subject to the law 
 of Association of Ideas — This law explains parallelism of struc- 
 ture in different works — It explains, also, the trains of thought in 
 the individual — The nature of the poet, on the individual side, 
 illustrated by Wordsworth, Keats, and Scott. 
 
Blessings be with them — and eternal praise, 
 
 Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares— 
 
 The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs- 
 
 Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays. — IVonisroortli. 
 
 1'^ 
 
 ■J. 
 
 'A 
 I 
 
/•» 
 
 s 
 
 'i 
 
 POETRY, AS A FINE ART, 
 
 -• ^ m * »- 
 
 The oft-quoted lines of Horace, 
 
 Tractas et incedis per ignes 
 Sup)X)sitos cineri doloso, 
 
 emphatically warn the adventurer who essays the theme, " Poetry, 
 as a P'ine Art." It would be mere arrogance in him to imagine that 
 he might found a new doctrine ; it would savour of conceit if he 
 afiirmed that his thoughts on such a topic were always clear and 
 logical. Minds richly gifted with aiKilytical power have attempted 
 to lay bare the exact nature of poetry itself and of its artistic ex- 
 pression, but, although a large measure of truth has attended their 
 enquiries, the results are incomplete and, in some essential par- 
 ticulars, conflicting. If, then, men whom the world everywhere 
 honours have felt the instability of the ground they have tried to 
 explore, ordinary people will act wisely in following beaten tracks. 
 One often hears many objections urged against the study of 
 poetry on account of its unpractical character, as if every mental 
 effort, unless it brought direct mercenary gain to the educator or 
 to the man of business, were without any real value. But if this 
 mean, though not uncommon, aspect of the matter be disregarded, 
 and the noblest aim of life, the culture of the intellect, considered, 
 it must be owned that while many subjects are more conclusive 
 than poetry, viewed as one of the Fine Arts, few are more profit- 
 able, none more suggestive. Sometimes the argument takes an- 
 other form. It is maintained that the paths of investigation are 
 neither far.-reaching nor new ; still they reach far enough to display 
 a novel world of beauty to him who will tread them, and it is 
 often apparent that they are unseen by the captious or indolent ; 
 dimly seen by the hasty ; clearly seen, if clearness there can be, 
 only by the trustful and studious. The foregoing objections hard- 
 ly merit sober consideration, but the superficial and erroneous idea 
 that to dissect poetry and poets in a so-called chilly, unemotional 
 
■ » 
 
 way is to degrade them, asks for a longer word. Enquiry into the 
 nature of the truly great or truly beautiful does not diminish re- 
 spect but heightens it, and in course of time respect becomes de- 
 votion of which knowledge, not ignorance, is the mother. In the 
 New Testament comparison is made between the lilies of the field 
 and Solomon in all his glory, and the Psalmist on one occasion 
 breaks forth in*^o triumphant song, " I will praise Thee for I am 
 fearfully and wonderfully made." To whom does the contrast be- 
 tween the gorgeous king and the meek flower come home with 
 greater force ? To the ignorant hind who regards a lily as a lily 
 and nothing more, or to him whose eye has marked the won- 
 ders that lilies reveal ? Who feels the force of the truth that he 
 is fearfully and wonderfully made ? He that vapours platitude 
 about the human frame, or he that knows of the exquisite delicacy 
 and beauty of the nerve scales in the internal ear ? What men 
 neither see nor at all know they cannot venerate, except in worth- 
 less name which does not lead to act. A writer on Constitutional 
 History laments that Magna Charta is on everybody's lips but in 
 nobody's hands. The general sense of his remark is true in re- 
 gard to poetry and poets. That knowledge which begets rever- 
 ence, leading in its turn to a higher life, is not the outcome of fitful 
 dalliance with fragmentary thought. People in this critical age 
 must affect the critic if nothing else, and one often sees and 
 hears things that cost no trouble in the acquiring save an indiffer- 
 ent scamper through a review, perhaps indifferent also, or a desul- 
 tory perusal of literaiy odds and ends. It is not we who are kings 
 and poets who are vassals, craving an earnest audience of a few 
 minutes, only to be treated with apathy when they do gain it : they 
 are monarchs ; we, subjects, who may, if we please, never go to court 
 all our lives, never know anything royal, anything worthy of hom- 
 age, never catch any kingly speech as we wander self-satisfied 
 among our fellows, unless in some crisis it thunders past making 
 us turn and ask whence it cometh and whither it goeth. When 
 we say we love poetry and honour poets, we ought to mean that ours 
 is the reward of humble, undivided endeavour according to such 
 light as each possesses. 
 
 i\ 
 
 i 
 
 Sf 
 
/\ 
 
 
 I 
 
 ]\Iilton, in a brief play of emotion, one of the' few which lend 
 rhetorical dignity to a finished specimen of dialectic fine art, the 
 Areopagitica, might have been thinking of the broad aspect of the 
 (juestion before us when he writes : " And yet on the other hand, 
 unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good 
 book ; who kills a man kills a reasonable^ creature, God's Image ; 
 but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the 
 Imagi^ of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a 
 burden to the earth ; but a good book is the precious life-blood 
 of a master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a 
 life beyond life." His language, eloquent in its simplicity, seems 
 to refer to poetry in especial ; for poetry, of all things, repre- 
 sents the vital part of the poet. It lays bare the inmost work- 
 ings of the poet's mind and, by so doing, discloses the universal 
 attributes of the poet's nature. Wanton cavil might perhaps 
 deny that such attributes exist, but a little serious thought gives 
 tacit consent to the belief, nor does it seem much more dif- 
 ficult to grant this, — that combined with what is common, as if by 
 some subtle intellectual chemistry, lie the peculiarities of the 
 mental growth, maturity, and decay of the individual. If, therefore, 
 merely partial truth about the essentials of all poetry can be 
 learned, something of the apparent mystery which separates the 
 poet from his fellow men may be known ; or if, to use equivalent 
 words, some only of the distinctive depths of every poet's mind 
 can be fathomed, then may its work be partly explained. 
 
 From the treatment of generalities such as these, one would 
 naturally be led to talk about the characteristics marking the in- 
 dividual, and it might seem that in the discussion of this part of 
 the subject the claim of poetry to be regarded as one of the Fine 
 Arts should be vindicated. Undoubtedly ; but thus to limit the 
 domain of the poet, or artist, would be at variance with the general 
 tone of this lecture, which does not seek to draw a hard and fast 
 line between the universal and the particular. The poet's artistic 
 skill is often spoken of as if it were confined to the prettinesses or 
 the filagree-work of rhythm and rime. The vague language which 
 tells of inspiration, of genius, and is therewith satisfied, lends 
 
8 
 
 itself to such an idea, but it cribs and confines what appears 
 to be tiuth. Are not poets men of genius and inspired ? Of 
 course, when one is told what genius and inspiration are, or 
 are not. To utter words for words' sake is not acting altogether 
 righteously. Point out clearly the essentials of genius ; say, if you 
 will, that genius is the power of using the materials common to 
 all as but very few can use them and show hoiv they are used ; 
 or say that the genius of a poet is the faculty which avoids the 
 commonplace, the ridiculous, the unrefined, and thereupon indicate' 
 the rare, the sublime, the polished, and discuss their character, but 
 do not take refuge in unmeaning sound. No mind can entirely 
 explain any other ordinary mind, still less the mind of a poet, but 
 " inspiration and genius," half bid men fold their hands and ceast' 
 from attempting to solve a psychological problem, because psych- 
 ology can never yield a complete answer. Poets are men of a 
 larger mental growth than the multitude, but they suffer experiences 
 which fall to the lot of people generally. The best of them dis- 
 play an immense quantity of sober knowledge : the majority of 
 them do not rave at midnight, or speak in unknown tongues of un- 
 knowable things, or madly indulge in dangerous stimulants to 
 quicken their flagging pulses. They write with a calm conscious- 
 ness of strength — often patiently, carefully, even toilfully, and their 
 work rewards them by winning perpetual admiration. 
 
 Nothing has been said in the way of a definition of Fine Art, 
 nor need this preliminary matter detain us long. The poet works 
 with certain materials, and is therefore an artificer. The result of 
 his work is not the purely useful, which serves momentary conveni- 
 ence or brings direct practical advantage to those who avail them- 
 selves of it: the poet creates the ornamental, and appeals to our emo- 
 tions, as an artist. Lastly, he seeks to move the deepest and noblest 
 parts of our being ; his Art is one o{ the Arts, is a Fine Art, and ranks 
 with sculpture and painting. We are concerned to-day with its 
 nature and method. 
 
 One of the first systematic attempts to determine the nature 
 and define the scope of Poetry was made by Aristotle, whose 
 theory some still regard as essentially true. Lessing assumes it 
 
 
 J 
 
 MM 
 
to be trustworthy in his Laocoon, a work which, although frag- 
 mentary and limited by individual prejudice, is the most valuable 
 contribution of modern thought to the settlement of the legitimate 
 domain of the sculptor and the poet. Aristotle wishes to establish 
 that Poetry is a Mimetic or Imitative Art, and the outlines of his argu- 
 ment run in this wise : Poetry in general, seems t< ■ have derived its 
 origin from two causes, e<ic\i natural. The first cause is /w/A//w//, which 
 is instinctive in man. Man is distinguished from other animals in 
 being the most imitative of them all. Man naturally derives pleasure 
 from imitation, and the more exact the imitation the greater is 
 that pleasure. The second cause, likewise natural, is Harmony 
 and Rhythm. Harmony and Rhythm are the 77ieans by which in 
 the case of Poetry the imitation is presented to others ; just as in 
 Sculpture imitation is presented by means of figure, in Painting 
 by means of colour and form, in Music by means of melody and 
 rhythm, in Dancing by means of rhythm only. From statements 
 of this character, Aristotle proceeds to enquire into the objects of 
 poetic imitation. These, he says, are the actions of men. 
 
 Before bringing Aristotle's theory to the test, let me ask you 
 to listen to a modern thinker in low life. It is true he dismisses 
 the matter briefly, although he speaks with much assurance. He 
 does not pretend to argument or to exactitude. His ruling idea 
 is physical comfort ; his mental gifts he thinks superior to those 
 of his fellows, and if his powers of extempore versifying be 
 challenged, he can let loose a flood of rhyme ' ' for eight years together, 
 dinners, suppers and sleeping time excepted." These words be- 
 tray him — Touchstone, the wisest of Shakespeare's clowns, an 
 intensely self-conscious philosopher of the common-sense school, 
 in the disguise of motley : — 
 
 Touchstone— /6'/rt«««.^'- dinvn half pitifully, half contemptuously), Truly, I 
 
 would the gods had made thee poetical. 
 Audrey — (Looking up with rustic innocence and amaze), I do not know what 
 
 ' poetical ' is : is it honest in deed and word ? is it a true thing ? 
 Touch.— No, truly ; for the truest poetry is the most feigning ; and lovers are 
 
 given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said as lovers 
 
 they do feign. 
 AuD. — Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical ? 
 Touch. — I do, truly ; for thou swearest to me thou art honest : now, if thou wert 
 
 a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign. 
 
10 
 
 Touchstone and Aristotle represent extremes. Touchstone 
 stands at the negative pole of thought ; Aristotle at the positive. 
 Aristotle declares that poetry is based upon imitation and the more 
 exact the imitation the better the poetry ; Touchstone, that poetry 
 is based upon feigning, and the more pronounced the feigning the 
 truer the poet. Is either of these views complete and correct, or 
 is each only reliable in part ? 
 
 The more exact the imitation the greater the pleasure. Why, 
 then, do poets sometimes suggest so much and describe so little } 
 When they affect the emotions strongly, they often do so in a brief 
 way. If they desire to bring their ideal of beauty before the 
 reader, the greatest of them seem conscious of the limits of their 
 power and shrink from crossing into the domain of the minutely 
 exact. They know that types of perfection are never identical ; 
 that two men of the same nation, perchance of similar mental tone 
 and acquirements, are at variance concerning what they believe to 
 be most beautiful or admirable, and again, that in the case of 
 various nations the difference is even more strongly marked. 
 Consciously or unconsciously poets obey the law that extension is 
 narrowed as intension is deepened, although Lessing's reason 
 for this poetical moderation lays stress on rapidity of execution, 
 lest the mind be hopelessly confused by a mass of detail. It may 
 be argued that the same poet does not write for Teuton and Echiop 
 alike, yet he appeals to wide discrepancies of thought. Aphrodite, 
 with her hair " golden round her lucid throat and shoulder," has 
 one set of worshippers ; Cleopatra, " with swarthy cheeks and 
 bold black eyes," another. The poet, however, may, if he wishes, 
 neglect likes and dislikes. He has only to set men a-thinking ; 
 by suggestion he can cause special embodiments of beauty to 
 flash before minds which have very little in common. 
 
 Lessing selects Greek literature as rich in this peculiarity, but 
 our own readily answers to appeal. One of the most forcible 
 examples is to be found in Christopher Marlowe's Faustus. Faustus 
 gives both body and soui to Lucifer, in return for twenty-four 
 years of pleasure. A part of his delight is to have the famous 
 persons of antiquity brought before him. He asks to see Helen 
 
 f 
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 I 
 
=9 
 
 ■f. 
 
 [uchstcne 
 positive, 
 tlie more 
 [at poetry 
 [ning the 
 )rrect, or 
 
 Why, 
 
 little ? 
 
 a brief 
 Tore the 
 of their 
 ninutely 
 sntical ; 
 tal tone 
 ilieve to 
 case of 
 Tiarkeci 
 ision is 
 reason 
 Jcution, 
 It may 
 Ethiop 
 irodite, 
 r," has 
 :s and 
 vishes, 
 iking; 
 uty to 
 
 y, but 
 
 rcible 
 
 mstiis 
 
 -four 
 
 mous 
 
 lefen 
 
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 of Greece a second time, 
 well-known lines : — 
 
 She appears and Faustus utters the 
 
 Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships. 
 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? 
 
 That is all ! An effect, not a description ; and yet its suggestive 
 force is hard to match. Had Ivlarlowe made the eye of Faustus 
 play the painter, how would he have failed ! Nowhere does he 
 attempt to depict Helen accurately : she is " fairer than the even- 
 ing air," "brighter than flaming Jupiter;" the rest is untold. 
 Again, Milton describes, or rather does not describe, a very differ- 
 ent being — Death : — 
 
 The other Shape — 
 
 If shape it might be called that shape had none 
 
 Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; 
 
 Or substance might be called that shac'ovv seemed, 
 
 For each seemed either — black it stood as Night, 
 
 Fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell, 
 
 And shook a dreadful dart : what seemed his head 
 
 The likeness of a kingly crown had on. 
 
 Some poets, then, do not imitate carefully; and regarding those who 
 make the attempt, necessarily imperfect, Lessing ventures a very 
 suggestive remark, for which he has won much credit. The force 
 of description, he savs, lies where poetry shows its distinctive char- 
 acter as contrasted with sculpture. Sculpture represents still life ; 
 it chooses one moment of impulse — the moment best adapted to 
 the end in view. Poetry represents a number of acts in suc- 
 cessive moments, and motion is of its essence. When beauty passes 
 into motion — Lessing's definition of charm — the poet can be felt. 
 The mouth of Ariosto's Alcina, in Orlando Furioso, enraptures not 
 because it takes six lines to describe it, but because in the final 
 couplet we are told that there is formed that lovely smile which in 
 itself already opens a paradise upon earth. We may hesitate to 
 accept Aristotle's theory, then, although it may h?ve some truth 
 in it : let us bring into contrast the opinions of PVancis, Lord 
 Bacon, in the Advancement of Learning. 
 
 "The parts of human learning have reference to the three 
 parts of Man's understanding, which is the seat of learning : His- 
 tory to his Memory, Poesy to his Imagination and Philosophy to 
 his Reason." " Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words for 
 
 
12 
 
 the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, 
 
 and doth truly refer to the Imagination ; which, being not tied to 
 
 the laws of matter, may at pleasure Join that which nature hath severed, 
 
 and sever that which nature hath joined ; and so make unlawful matches 
 
 and divorces of things^ 
 
 In Shakespeare's rich language : — 
 
 The lunatic, the lover and the poet 
 Are of imagination all compact : 
 
 »♦#»** 
 
 The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling. 
 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 
 
 And as imagination bodies forth, 
 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 
 Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing ^ 
 
 A local habitation and a name. 
 
 Let us again take a specimen of English verse, and, with Bac- 
 on's theory fresh in the memory, see what it way be made to yield. 
 Wordsworth says of Lucy : — 
 
 A violet by a mossy stone 
 
 Half hidden from the eye ! 
 Fair as a star when only one 
 
 Is shining in the sky. 
 
 We note that Wordsworth selects just as Marlowe and Milton 
 
 did, for there is no attempt to describe, to imitate, to set forth 
 
 exactly by means of harmony and rhythm, the sum of Lucy's 
 
 physical excellence. A thousand things might have caused Lucy 
 
 to seem divine to the poet, but of the thousand, only three are 
 
 visible — at least to me — modesty and conspicuous beauty plus 
 
 purity : — 
 
 A violet by a mossy stone 
 
 Half hidden from the eye ! — {Modesty.) 
 Fair as a star when only one 
 
 Is shining in the sky. — (Beauty + Purity), 
 
 The words modesty, beauty, purity, do not occur, it is true, 
 but their poetical equivalents stand in the verse with quiet strength 
 — a violet and a star. The violet and the star are images — meta- 
 phors, as the grammarian would call them. It may be repeated, 
 then, that the poet does not imitate exactly ; he selects : it may 
 now be added that the objects of 'his selection are images; and 
 that such images as he selects are those he deems most strong or 
 most beautiful. The poet is a thinker in images : the historian, 
 
 f> 
 
13 
 
 
 the philosopher, the ordinary man are thinkers in propositions. 
 In Job XIV, 10, we read; "But man dieth and wasteth away." 
 No elocution can raise that into poetry. It is a terribly earnest 
 statement, and its force lies in its overwhelming truth. The idea, 
 or an idea akin to it, crosses the mind of the poet and the propo- 
 sition — universal and categorical in terms of logic — is converted 
 into a series of images : — 
 
 Fair daffodils, we weep to see 
 
 You haste away so soon ; 
 As yet the early rising sun 
 
 Has not attain'd his noon. 
 Stay, stay, 
 ^Jntil the hasting day 
 Has run 
 
 But to the even song ; 
 And, having pray'd together, we 
 
 Will go with you along. 
 
 We have short time to stay as you, 
 
 We have as short a spring ; 
 As quick a growth to meet decay, 
 
 As you or any thing. 
 We die 
 As your hours do, and dry 
 Away, 
 
 Like to the summer's rain ; 
 Or as the pearls of morning's dew. 
 
 Ne'er to be found again. — Robert Ilcrrkk. 
 
 The poet's images may be divided into two great classes ; those 
 which are existent and are not altered when poetically treated, but 
 are used in their entirety and separately : Secondly, those which 
 are existent only in part, and are modified and compounded to 
 suit the poet's aim. The first class may be subdivided into images 
 which are natural and apt — which do not provoke question or 
 smile ; and into images which are unnatural and inapt — images 
 which puzzle or suggest the ludicrous. The stanza from Words- 
 worth will exemplify the natural and true, used in entirety : — 
 
 A violet by a mossy stone 
 
 Half hidden from the eye ! 
 Fair as a star when only one 
 
 Is shining in the sky. 
 
 Any gatherer of way-side flowers will bear witness to the faith- 
 fulness of the first two lines : to the faithfulness of the second, any 
 man who has gazed at Hesperus, the leader of the midnight host, 
 
H 
 
 beaming clear and alone in the evening heaven. The translation 
 of modesty and heauty plus purity into image is so well done that 
 the goal of poetry, the heart, is reached without conscious 
 effort, and we exclaim •' That is poetry " — we hardly know why, 
 until we begin to cast about for a reason. 
 
 The next sub-class, the unnatural and inapt, or at least gro- 
 tesque, runs riot in a large portion of our literature, most of which 
 is unknown save to the curious. Writers termed Later Euphuists, 
 that is, Euphuists who lived after all that was noble in Euphuism 
 had died away, did their best, or rather their worst, to find ingen- 
 uities of thought — conceits, as they are technically called. And 
 these conceits connected objects or images that have no natural 
 link. Earlier Euphuism could boast of sterling thought, even if 
 '• conceited." Later Euphuism is scarcely anything else except ab- 
 surd pedantry. And yet we must believe that these men honestly 
 thought they were writing durable verse ; they had the faculty of 
 making others think so, for Dryden writes,—" I remember when I 
 was a boy, I thought inimitable Spenser a mean poet in compari- 
 son of Sylvester's Du Bartas, and was wrapt into an ecstasy when I 
 
 read these lines : — 
 
 ' Now, when the winter's keener breath began 
 To crystallize the Baltic Ocean, 
 To glaze the lakes, to bridle up the floods, 
 And periwig with snow the bald-pate woods.' 
 
 I am much deceived if this be not abominable fustian, that is, 
 thoughts and words ill-sorted, and without the least relation to 
 each other." The following are fair examples of Euphuistic 
 genius. A lady's heart is a powder magazine — a stubborn powder 
 magazine — her lover's a hand-grenado. The dealer in " conceit," 
 belabours his brains until he lias gathered up the fragments of an 
 explosion, and from them created a new heart, which the charitable 
 will hope may remain entire for ever. A traveller and his wife 
 suggest a pair of compasses. The traveller is the moving, the 
 wife the fixed foot. The Euphuistic puzzle is worked out in this 
 fashion by John Donne : — 
 
 Our two souls, therefore, which are one, 
 
 Though I must go, endure not yet 
 A breach, but an expansion, 
 
 Like gold to airy thinness beat. 
 
I 
 
 1 
 f 
 
 1 
 
 .r 
 
 If ihey be two, they are two so, 
 
 As stiff twin compasses are two ; 
 The soul, the tix'd foot, makes no show 
 
 To move, but doth if th' other do. 
 And, though it in the centre sit ; 
 
 Yet, when the other far doth roam, 
 It leans and barkens after it. 
 
 And grows erect as that comes home. 
 Such wilt thou be to me, who must 
 
 Like th' other foot obliquely run. 
 Thy firmness makes my circle just, 
 
 And makes me end where I begun. 
 
 Euphuistic poets were numerous ; but there were also Euphu- 
 istic fencers. Sir Thomas Urquhart speaks approvingly of the 
 Admirable Crichton, because, when fighting a duel with a gentle- 
 man who had previously killed three opponents, the famous Scot 
 wounded his adversary in three points, which, if joined, would be 
 found to lie at the angles of a perfect isosceles triangle. 
 
 The second class of images comprises those which are modified, 
 blended, or compounded to suit the poet's aim. The complex re- 
 sult never had any existence, save in thought. Such images 
 abound in the realm of the supernatural, where dwell a thousand 
 creations : — 
 
 All monstrous, all prodigious things, 
 Abominable, inutterable and worse 
 Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived, 
 Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimivras dire. 
 
 Here, says the critic, is the well-head of inspiration, that sacred 
 dower into the nature of which it were profane to inquire ; here 
 the mem divinior, the divine fire. Granted : it is almost divine for 
 very few mortals possess it, but it is not all a mystery. Addison 
 strikes a true note in his papers on the Imagination. (Spectators 
 41 1 -42 1 .) " We cannot indeed," he writes, " have a single image 
 in the Fancy that did not make its first entrance through the sight ; 
 but we have the power of retaining, altering and compounding 
 those images, which we have once received, into all the varieties of 
 picture and vision that are most agreeable to the Imagination." 
 If we raise these statements to the level of modern psychology, 
 and, instead of sight, read all the senses by which men gain ex- 
 perience, adding to them hereditary endowment, we shall gain a 
 further insight into the matter. Dissect or analyse a Gorgon, a 
 
i6 
 
 i 
 
 Hydra, a Chimaera dire, and in so far as they are concrete they can 
 be dissected or analysed, and it will be found that each part, each 
 element of the compound, is a fact or an image known to many. 
 The experiences of men and of poets have much in common. 
 Birth, growth, decay, death — opinions or notions about these are 
 very much alike in all cases. The success to which we aspire, the 
 mischances that cross our path are things of the multitude and the 
 trains of thought to which they give rise in different persons travel 
 in parallel lines for a long distance often, because they are gov- 
 erned by a universal law, the Association of Ideas. Now this law 
 governs not only the notions of poets but also their translation of 
 those notions into images. Let us view the question from the 
 notional side first, for this notional side will display what may be 
 called the artistic setting or moulding of poems as a whole. 
 
 Milton, Shelley and Tennyson, write on the death of friends, 
 Milton in Lycidas, Shelley in Adonais, Tennyson in In Memoriam, 
 The great outlines of each work are such as would pass through the 
 minds of ordinary men similarly'afflicted. All the mourners in- 
 troduce themselves ; all look back to the happy days of intimacy 
 before death ; all, when wild grief sways them in the early hours 
 of bereavement, view death as an end ; all think of the fame the 
 departed might have won, had they lived ; all rise to a belief in 
 Immortality ; all picture the beloved spirits in the world of bliss. 
 
 So with the imagery. Milton and Shelley make conventional 
 
 appeal to those who might have averted the blow, and it will be 
 
 noticed that each appeal is in harmony with particular fate. Edward 
 
 King was drowned ; John Keats died of consumption. Milton 
 
 writes : — 
 
 Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 
 Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas ? 
 
 and Shelley : — 
 
 Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 
 When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
 In darkness? where was lorn Urania 
 ' When Adonais died ? 
 
 Again, Milton tolls the poet's bell. Three times it rings out 
 
 solemn and clear at the beginning of his poem, 
 
 For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime. 
 Young Lycidas^ and hath not left his peer. 
 Who would not sing for Lycidas ? 
 
 m 
 
n 
 
 ley can 
 
 t, each 
 
 many. 
 
 )mmon. 
 
 ese are 
 
 ire, the 
 
 and the 
 
 s travel 
 
 •e gov- 
 
 his law 
 
 ition of 
 
 Dm the 
 
 may be 
 
 friends, 
 loriam, 
 Ligh the 
 ers in- 
 :itimacy 
 y hours 
 me the 
 elief in 
 )f bliss. 
 ;ntional 
 will be 
 tCdward 
 Milton 
 
 
 i 
 
 4 
 
 J 
 
 '^ 
 
 igs out 
 
 Shelley does the same with more subtlety and more frequently : — 
 
 I weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
 
 Oh, weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
 
 Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
 
 And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
 
 Tc) mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
 
 And teach them their own sorrow ; say : With me, 
 
 Died Adonais. — 
 
 The images of the poet are often coloured with the fashion of 
 the age, and this is the last point I can now notice of many to 
 which both Milton and Shelley bear witness. The two men 
 write in pastoral form ; before they become poets they don shep- 
 herd's garb and roam in an ideal Arcadia, which hundreds have 
 entered from meie conventionality. Dr. Samuel Johnson whose 
 wayward robustness blinded him to the finer lights and shades 
 both of poetry and of philosophy, blames Milton for speaking of 
 mourner and mourned as driving their flocks a-field. Milton 
 obeyed an artistic dictum already losing force in his day, and Shel- 
 ley was induced by natural bent and by imagery, in which even 
 his generation indulged, to picture himself as one of a band of 
 idyllic mourners, to bind his head with pansies and violets, and to 
 carry a spear tipped with cypress and garlanded with ivy. Ten- 
 nyson, for reasons we may not now discuss, shrinks from making 
 prominent Corydon and Thyrsis and their rustic belongings— herds, 
 sheep-hooks, posies, and oaten pipes. 
 
 But not only will the law of Association of Ideas, explain simil- 
 arity of notional framing in different poets ; it will also throw light 
 on the trains of thought, and consequently of imagery, in the com- 
 plete poems of the individual. If justification of the foregoing re- 
 mark be demanded, it will be found, time and again, in the Sonnet. 
 Here we are presented with matter, rich, varied and beautiful ; 
 moreover, the sonnet possesses one inestimable advantage, 
 brevity, — it can be kept before the mind as a whole, during an- 
 alysis. The objection that the sonnet is hyper- artificial carries 
 but little weight, for in the sonnet is embodied some of the finest 
 and strongest poetry in our language. The laws which sonnetteers 
 must obey, may be briefly phrased thus : firstly, the sonnet must 
 not exceed fourteen lines in length ; secondly, certain restrictions 
 
i8 
 
 1 
 
 
 5! 
 
 are to be observed in regard to measure and rime ; thirdly, the son- 
 net is to consist of two parts, the first of eight lines, the second 
 of six ; these must be blended in thought ; and lastly, if the worker 
 copies the purest model, he must avoid a final couplet. Now, if 
 we leave form and examine matter, we observe the art of the poet 
 and his exemplification of the law which governs ideas. In the 
 first eight lines he brings forward and expands a dominant image 
 or a series of images ; in the succeeding part he applies, often with 
 a deepening moral tone, such image or images to the idea or ideas 
 that gave them birth, and at the end swells out into poetic diapason. 
 It must not be supposed that every sonnet shows this arrange- 
 ment of feeling, but many, and among them the best, are regulated 
 by it. Longfellow has written a series of four sonnets on Dante's 
 Divine Comedy. The first serves as a general introduction ; the 
 other three preface the sections of the poem. We will briefly 
 analyse the first. Dominant idea — Dante's Divine Comedy and the 
 Inferno as its commencement ; dominant image, a cathedral, pre- 
 served in all the poems : sub-dominant image, a labourer, 
 (Longfellow himself). The first eight lines are occupied in the 
 adornment of these selected images with selected epithets and 
 environments ; the concluding six, with their application to the 
 idea in question, and blended with the application is the gradual 
 swell of the moral tone. 
 
 Oft have I seen at sonic cathedral door 
 (i) A labourer, pausing in the dust and heat, 
 (2) Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet 
 Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor 
 Kneel (3) to repeat his paternoster o'er ; 
 f'ar off the noises (4) of the world retreat ; 
 
 i The loud vociferations of the street 
 
 [_Become an undistinguishable roar. 
 
 (A 
 
 c 
 
 'E, 
 < 
 
 So, as I (i) enter here from day to day, 
 And leave (2) my burden at this minster gate, 
 Kneeling (3) in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, 
 The tumult of the (4) time disconsolate 
 To inarticulate murmurs dies away 
 _\Vhile the eternal ages ivatch and zvait. [Diapason.] 
 
 The law of Association of Ideas can be traced not only in 
 sonnets but also in nearly all good poetic work. Shelley and 
 ■Keats are a mine of image-wealth, and a small portion of their 
 
 i'i 
 
 ■I 
 
19 
 
 on- 
 '11(1 
 ker 
 
 if 
 oet 
 
 '^ 
 
 richest writing could be enlarged by true commentary to an almost 
 indefinite extent. Shelley's Ode to the West Wind — from the 
 creative point of view, the finest in our literature — is one grand 
 series of associated images. A man gifte-^ with artistic skill of an 
 inferior kind might take many a line thence as the dominant 
 image of a sonnet, and so, by elaboration, make a little volume. 
 Let me endeavour to find the main idea-path through Shelley's 
 Skylark. At eventide the bird begins to ascend ; it is like a cloud 
 of fire in the /)/ue deep ; then it flies westward to the go/dfn light- 
 ning of the sunken sun, then on through the pale purple even un- 
 til it is as a star in the daylight — invisible : three stanzas with 
 motion predominant. Since motion can no longer be dwelt on, 
 its consequence, invisibility, forms the main theme. The star in- 
 visible suggests the moon, invisible ; the invisible moon, a striking 
 effect of cloudy moonlight ; cloudy moonlight, the gorgeous colour- 
 effect of rainbow clouds — these effects being set to the key-note 
 of the poem, the bird's song. Then succeed four conspicuous 
 images, the remains of perhaps a score, with invisibility or deep 
 seclusion running through all : — 
 
 Like a poet hidden 
 In the light of thought. 
 
 Like a high born maiden 
 In a palace tower. 
 
 Like a glow-worm golden 
 In a dell of dew. 
 
 Like a rose embowered 
 In its own green leaves. 
 
 In the complete stanzas it will be found that these images of 
 seclusion are blended with sound, colour, odour ; sound, the key- 
 note, again becomes predominant ; the nature of the bird's song 
 is considered, its object, its influence. This element gets more 
 pronounced towards the close until the poem ends with the note 
 of its commencement : — 
 
 Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 
 
 Hird thou never wert, 
 That from heaven, or near it, 
 Pourest thy full heart 
 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 
 ♦ ♦ * « * 
 
 Better than all measures 
 Of delightful sound, 
 
20 
 
 Better than all treasures 
 That in books are found, 
 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 
 
 Teach me half the gladness 
 
 That thy brain must know, 
 Such harmonious madness 
 From my lips would flow. 
 The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 
 
 I cannot pass from this interesting corner of my subject with- 
 out referring to the light that the same image throws upon the 
 poet's consistency of mood, even when it appears in disconnected 
 poems. Wordsworth likens the maid who grew beside the springs 
 of Dove, to a star : — 
 
 Fair as a star, when only one 
 Is shining in the sky. 
 
 When writing elsewhere of a poet whose death he regards as a 
 national loss, and with whose moral nature he had profound symp- 
 athy, his mind crosses the old path. One line of the trumpet- 
 tongued sonnet to Milton reads : — 
 
 Thy soul was like a slar and dwelt apart. 
 
 This is neither accident nor wilful repetition. Similar experiences 
 give rise to similar trains of thought ; similar trains of thought, to 
 similar imagery. Wordsworth is rich in the verification of what 
 might be termed a law. Poets obey it in varying degree, and 
 Wordsworth, perhaps, more than others, owing to his subjective 
 attitude and method of composing verse. The second part of one 
 of his best known sonnets aptly concludes the present topic : — 
 
 Methinks their very names shine still and bright ; 
 Apart — like glow-worms on a summer night ; 
 Or lonely tapers when from far they fling 
 A guiding ray ; or seen — like stars on high, 
 Satellites burning in a lucid ring 
 Around meek Walton's heavenly memory. 
 
 So far we have briefly discussed selection of images, them- 
 selves linked in thought. The dependence of these upon exper- 
 ience has also been insisted on ; but there goes hand in hand with 
 experience, which may be regarded as in a great degree passive, 
 the active search for knowledge, in short, education. A young 
 author's first literary loves give form and impulse to his growing 
 
 ^ 
 
 \'<^ 
 
21 
 
 m 
 
 ideas ; their influence never loses its hold upon him, a fact of 
 which he is sometimes morbidly conscious. It was, doubtless, to 
 prevent an imputation of plagiarism that Cowper avoided reading 
 the classical English poets, (an occasional perusal of one suf- 
 ficed him during twenty years), and that Byron did not possess, 
 according to Leigh Hunt, either a Shakespeare or a Milton ; yet 
 Cowper imitated Churchill, Byron read widely, and adored Pope. 
 A glance at the works of great poets, or a knowledge of their lives, 
 shows that, in more than one instance, their greatness is in part 
 due to arduous study. 
 
 Natural propensity, experience, and education lead poets to 
 choose special departments of thought. We now approach the 
 individuality of which I have already spoken. Since Wordsworth, 
 Keats, and Scott can be brought into marked, as well as pleasing 
 contrast, it will be profitable to examine the imaginative bent of 
 
 each. 
 
 A violet by a mossy stone. 
 
 Half hidden from the eye ! 
 Fair as a star, when only one 
 
 Is shining in the sky. 
 
 One of the first things worthy of note in regard to the verse is 
 its quietness. These lines of Wordsworth refuse to lend them- 
 selves to imposing sound. They cannot be mouthed into anything 
 great or made to tickle the ear, as do classic rhythms quite fami- 
 liar to many of my hearers. The short poem on Lucy — only three 
 verses in all — may well serve as a model of simple workmanship, 
 a most loyal piece of English, put together with Saxon craft. And 
 this simplicity is the result of a deep conviction held by their 
 maker. The language of poetry he maintains to be that of common 
 men. Two causes prevent it from becoming vulgar or 
 mean — selection made with taste and feeling, to which is added 
 metre. One is sometimes told, in a very confident way. that 
 Wordsworth is at his strongest and best when he departs from his 
 rule. In the argument general issues are seldom kept clearly in 
 sight. Fairness demands that appeal be made to Wordsworth as 
 a whole, in order to compare him with other writers, or to vin- 
 dicate him by balancing his own work, part against part. What 
 
22 
 
 in him is beautifully florid, if anything of his can be called so, 
 may be outmatched by the beautifully simple. He may and does 
 maunder in childish simplicity, but, at the same time, he can and 
 does use the speech of children with unaffected majesty. 
 
 The next feature that these line? present is still more impor- 
 tant. The images are selected from Nature. Wordsworth gives his 
 reasons for following Nature in the Prelude, where lie the keys 
 which unlock the secrets of his philosophy. Man and man's 
 achievements pass away, but Nature abideth still ; that was a car- 
 dinal belief of our poet, and it is, in essence, true. Fashion and 
 fashionables die and are forgotten, together with those who pay 
 them homage in verse. Violets and stars have long existed and are 
 likely to remain long. People of many climes, of different habits of 
 thought, of diverse modes of life, can be aroused by emotion which 
 touches objects they all see. Wigs, powder, paint, patches, rapiers, 
 and the voluminous literature of the eighteenthcenturyarenot near to 
 our hearts now : they are viewed in distant perspective by those who 
 will put on the spectacles of learning to behold them. What of hu- 
 manity can be discovered there we yet honour, but we turn away 
 from an "understanding age," which condemned the soliloquies of 
 Shakespeare, as having less meaning and expression than " the 
 neighing of a horse," or the " growling of a mastiff," because 
 " correct " taste thus decreed. The practical geniality which the 
 sixteenth century manifested now and again, when it looked on 
 the face of Nature, the nineteenth caught in its own way, and used, 
 in the case of Wordsworth, with different aim. But to return to 
 the Prelude and its bearing on the point under discussion. To- 
 ward the close of Book XIII, the slow growing belief of the 
 poet in regard to the stability of Nature and its effect on the mind 
 is expressed in these lines : — 
 
 Also, about this time did I receive 
 Convictions still more strong than heretofore, 
 Not only that the inner frame is good, 
 And graciously composed, but that, no less, 
 Nature for all conditions wants not power 
 To consecrate, if we have eyes to see 
 The outside of her creatures, and to breathe 
 Grandeur upon the very humblest face 
 Of human life. I felt that the array 
 
 i 
 
23 
 
 0. 
 
 Of act and circumstance, and visible form, 
 
 Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind 
 
 What passion makes them ; that meanwhile the forms 
 
 Of Nature have a passion in themselves. 
 
 That intermingles with those works of man 
 
 To which she summons him ; although the works 
 
 Be mean, have nothing lofty of their own ; 
 
 And that the Genhis of the Poet hence 
 
 Afay boldly take his way among mankind 
 
 IVherever Nature leads ; that he hath stood 
 
 By A^itttre's side among the men of old. 
 
 And so shall stand Jor ever. 
 
 As I am talking about Wordsworth, there are two matters 
 I feel it in my heart to mention, although they do not bear with 
 their whole weight on the criticism of the verse about Lucy, 
 We are frequently reminded that Wordsworth is the poet of Na- 
 ture. The man who is content with this idea alone has scarcely 
 planted his foot on the first round of the Wordsworthian ladder. 
 Wordsworth's contemporaries wrote about Nature also, and 
 faithfully ; yet, in surveying the landscapes of Thomson or of Cow- 
 per, there is a kind of aloofness on our part, unfelt when reading 
 Wordsworth. Their colours are skilfully laid on, albeit cold in 
 tone, and there is a just idea of perspective : still the general 
 effect works its way to one pole of thought, and our critical 
 faculties to the other. Wordsworth's poetry, however, has a quiet, 
 subtle, penetrative force which refuses the criticism of minutiae. 
 His music is pitched in Nature's key, but it is blended with 
 melody deeper far : Nature leads up to man, especially to the best 
 part of him, his moral side, for there, hidden within accretions, fair 
 and foul, rest the seeds of progress. Nature is not, in the eyes of 
 Wordsworth, an elaborate picture gallery. A fox- glove, for exam- 
 ple, is not a poetical prize, every tinct and turn whereof is to be set before 
 a background chosen with care, that the stately stem and head may 
 be thrown forward into just relief. Its bells are made to fall on 
 the 'highway, and are brought into connection with humanity, 
 when they amuse the children of a vagrant mother. " A smooth 
 rock wet with constant springs " lies bathed in the rays of the 
 declining sun, and its brilliancy is as the lustre of a knight's 
 shield asvakening ideas of chivalry, or as an entrance into a fairy- 
 haunted cave. (Prelude, Book III.) Here again we have the 
 
24 
 
 passing from mental stillness to mental life, from the world of mere 
 sensation to the world of thought. Wordsworth did not uniformly 
 regard the English lake-country as full of beautiful yet lonely hill- 
 sides, over which light and shade played with varying effect ; to him 
 it was a region teeming with imaginative life. When, therefore, 
 Professor Masson, in a truly admirable essay on Theories of Poetry, 
 says that Wordsworth is in literature what the pre-Raphaelites are in 
 Art, his epigrammatic way of stating the case carries with it only the 
 partial truth of all epigram. Wordsworth was one of an increasing 
 throng, who respected *'pre-Dr)denism" (pre-Gallicism is a better 
 word), but from the realistic standpoint, pure and simple, he 
 was not more, often less, pronounced than his fellows. The 
 pre-Raphaelite or pre-Drydenite fox-glove occupies six lines ; the 
 Wordsworthian fox-glove, eight.; the pre-Raphaelite or pre-Dry- 
 denite rock, four ; the Wordsworthian rock, nine. Language 
 such as I have used may seem to sacrifice truth to effect, but the 
 test just indicated may be applied fearlessly to Wordsworth as a 
 whole. 
 
 In the second place, I should like to say a little about Words- 
 worth's philosophy. Wordsworth has suffered much from critics, 
 ever since the days of the Rejected Addresses, and of Lord 
 Jeffrey's famous verdict on the Excursion, " This will never do." 
 Numerous ephemeral reviews, written from a hostile standpoint, 
 and not seldom as flippant as they are superficial, may be allowed 
 to pass in silence, but when Mr. Matthew Arnold in an article pu- 
 blished some time ago in Macmillan's Magazine and subsequently 
 prefixed to a collection of Wordsworth's best pieces, declares that 
 their author's poetry is the reality, and his philosophy the illusion 
 some sort of reply will not be out of place even here. It is only fair to 
 ask what is meant by philosophy. If Mr. Matthew Arnold expects 
 to find in Wordsworth a nicely-squared philosophical system, perfect 
 down to the minutest detail, of course he will be disappointed. As 
 surely as a poet assumes the rigid metaphysician, so surely will his 
 emotional warmth vanish in the coldness of didactics. In fact 
 he renounces the most important characteristic of poetry, already al- 
 luded to at some length, .and has to depend on the graces of form 
 
 C^ 
 
 'I 
 
25 
 
 '... / 
 
 for lasting recognition. But although a poet is necessarily limited 
 in regard to scientific method, he can be philosophical, just as 
 every man is to some extent, when he allows himself to be guided 
 by principle, without avowing professed metaphysic. It would 
 have been vastly more to the point had the critic taken other 
 poems of our literature whose cast is ethically didactic, and by 
 comparison proved Wordsworth's illusory nature. Philosophy, in 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold's eyes, seems to have but one meaning — the 
 specific meaning of the schools, and appropriate when the elastici- 
 ty and humanizing tendency of Literature are weighed against the 
 rigidity and the not unfrequent inhumanity of over-wrought Dogma. 
 Yet Wordsworth if not painfully minute is logical, both in the Pre- 
 lude and the Excursion, confessedly a fragment. The Prelude 
 relates to the mental growth of the individual; the Excursion con- 
 siders the behaviour of the individual when brought face to face 
 with the problems of society. It is true that the society is emi- 
 nently quiet and retired, but it will be observed how deeply the 
 one event of Wordsworth's time— the French Revolution — moves 
 the villagers in the seclusion of their native hills. And as the 
 Prelude lies at the base of Wordsworthian thinking, allow me to 
 point out a few of its cardinal points,, which are sufficiently logical 
 to appeal to those who are not over-fond of syllogism. Words- 
 worth is impressed by the world of Nature which lies before the 
 gaze of all ; the impression deepens into love; the love becomes 
 absorbing and Nature is adored /^r her own sake ; intercourse with 
 men provokes the feeling that the love of Nature is not absolutely the 
 greatest love — it leads up to the love of man ; the two loves are 
 to be reciprocal, are to play the one into the other ; the love of 
 Nature is not to be mistrusted, for Nature in her moods of silence 
 and her scenes of awe, is stable, is a guide man '^ap -always follow ; 
 the majesty of Nature awakens in a mind accustomed to survey 
 tamer landscapes, a creative power — the man becomes a poet ; the 
 poet, like other men, may boldly take his way whithersoever 
 Nature leads, without doubt as to his future fame ; lastly, the poet 
 trained to observe Nature's myriad changes will not require any 
 abnormal mental excitement to quicken poetry. Fourteen 
 
26 
 
 books to prove such commonplace ! It is so common that we 
 forget its share of truth, and if any of my hearers will read the 
 Prelude for himself, he will there discover very many points which 
 time forbids me to mention. Instead of poetry being the reality 
 and philosophy the illusion, both are realities, and, in the crowning 
 works of genius, dramatic and other, they are, in so far as they can 
 be, mutual helps. In Memoriam is one of the finest and most 
 emotional poems in English — a pretty piece of mosaic, cast iii 
 philosophical figure, put together by a mind striving to express in 
 it philosophy not only abstract but also fully abreast with our age. 
 Take that element from it and then perhaps Mr. Matthew Arnold 
 will declare the purblind critique of M. Taine just. 
 
 Keats manifests individuality of another nature. His deepest 
 belief is, 
 
 ' Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' that is all 
 Ye know on earth and all ye need to know. 
 
 And so the thought and, in consequence, the imagery of Keats 
 refer for the most part to the artistically beautiful. Keats lived 
 away from the turmoil of his generation. Its revolutionary throes 
 he neither witnessed nor sympathized with, as a poet. Words- 
 worth put a stone of the Bdsiile into his pocket ; Coleridge and 
 Southey dreamed of ideal republics ; Campbell was so stricken down 
 at the news of Warsaw's fall as to be in jeopardy of his life — Polish 
 newspapers printed in large type, ** The gratitude of our nation is 
 due toThomas Campbell" — Poland herself sent a clod of earth from 
 Koscuisko's grave to be cast into Campbell's tomb as a tribute of 
 love ; Shelley threw political tracts from a window in Dublin that 
 Ireland might be bettered ; Byron joined the Italian Carbonari 
 and fell in the cause of Greek liberty. But the spirit of these men 
 never found an abiding place in the soul of Keats. He in- 
 dulges in no ethical moralizing, worthy of the name. Moreover, 
 Keats views antiquity not as an incentive to future endeavour or 
 as historically interesting. 
 
 Hence, pageant history ! hence, gilded cheat ! 
 Swart planet in the universe of deeds ! 
 Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds 
 Along the pebbled shore of memory ! 
 
27 
 
 Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be 
 Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified, 
 To goodly vessels ; many a sail of pride, 
 And golden-keel'd is left unlaunch'd and dry. 
 
 To Keats the value of the past is its love of the beautiful in 
 
 art. Light falls on a Grecian urn and reveals its " leaf-fringed 
 
 legend" with classic distinctness. Keats' eye dwells on that, and 
 
 bending forward with inquiring glance, he asks in words which 
 
 breathe Greek moderation, purity, and symmetry throughout. 
 
 What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape, 
 Of deities or mortals, or of both, 
 In Tempe or the dales of Arcady ? 
 
 What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? 
 What mad pursuit ? What struggle to escape ? 
 What pipes and timbrels ? What wild ecstacy ? 
 ****** 
 
 Who are these coming to the sacrifice ? 
 To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
 Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies. 
 And all her silken flanks in garlands drest ? 
 What little town by river or sea-shore, 
 Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel. 
 Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn ? 
 And, little town, thy streets for evermore 
 Will silent be ; and not a soul to tell 
 Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 
 
 Thirdly, Scott. Scott's imagery concerns mediaeval romance 
 and displays with great vividness two stable elements — motion and 
 colour. These are the quintessence of Scott as a maker of 
 poetical visions. The knights he describes act, as their creator 
 wrote, fearlessly, joyously, rapidly. They are not effigies, armour- 
 clad, now sitting awkwardly at the board, now riding uneasily to 
 the fight, but are real flesh and blood, playing their parts so well 
 that time glides back as we read and sets us in their midst. One 
 of the most striking instances in which Scott uses motion with 
 telling effect, is where he rings the doom-bell of the monk Eustace 
 and Constance de Beverley, both condemned to death by the Supe- 
 riors of Whitby Abbey. He is anxious to impress the knell on the 
 memory and, had he pleased, he might have drawn his picture with 
 Dantesque touch. He might have built up a mass of framework 
 which quivered again as the huge bell, with bulk and weight ac- 
 curately described, swung ponderously within. But the heart of 
 effect is reached at a thrust, swiftly and unerringly. Taking the 
 
28 
 
 line of sound Scott marks three points in it where something alive 
 is resting, and at each point causes motion. It will be noticed, 
 also, that as force is to be preserved, the most delicate ear is 
 placed last and the most distant movement is the most pronounced ; 
 thus, the laws of Natural Science are not violated as might a' first 
 
 be supposed. 
 
 To Warkworth cell the echoes roll'd 
 
 His beads the wakeful hermit told^ 
 
 The BamboroHgk peasant raised his head, 
 
 But slept ere half a prayer he said ; 
 
 So far was heard the mighty knell 
 
 The stag sprung up on Che^dot Fell, 
 
 vSpread his broad nostril to the wind, 
 
 Listed before, aside, behind, 
 
 Then couch'd him down beside the hind. 
 
 And quaked among the mountain fern. 
 
 To hear that sound so dull and stern. 
 
 The procession of Roderick Dhu's barges on Loch Katrine 
 shows the blending of motion and colour. The Briton's colour- 
 sense is of Celtic source, and the value of Mr. Matthew Arnold's 
 delightful lectures on Celtic Literature would be enhanced were 
 this important matter discussed in them. Many mixed scenes of 
 this nature have been painted by Scott, but we pass from such to 
 a landscape which depends for its force on colour alone. I refer 
 to the view of Edinburgh as seen from Blackford Hill. " Observe," 
 says Mr. Ruskin, "The only hints at form given throughout are in 
 the somewhat vague words, ' ridgy, massy, close and high,' the 
 whole being still more obscured by modern mystery in its most 
 tangible form of smoke. But the colours are all definite ; note the 
 rainbow band of them — glooniy or dusky red, sable (pure black), 
 amethyst (pure purple), green and gold — in a noble chord through- 
 out." 
 
 Still on the spot Lord Marmion stay'd, 
 For fairer scene he ne'er survey 'd, 
 When sated with the martial show 
 That peopled all the plain below, 
 The wandering eye could o'er it go, 
 And mark the distant city glow 
 
 With gloomy splendour red ; 
 For on the smoke-wreaths, huge and slow, 
 That round her sable turrets flow, 
 
 The morning beams were shed, 
 And tinged them with a lustre proud, 
 Like that which streaks a thunder-cloud. 
 
29 
 
 Such dusky grandeur clothed the height, 
 Where the huge Castle holds its state. 
 
 And all the steep slope down, 
 Whose ridgy hack heaves to the sky, 
 riled deep and massy, close and high. 
 
 Mine own romantic town ! 
 Ihit northward far, with purer hlaze, 
 On Ochil mountains fell the rays, 
 And as each heathy top they kissed, 
 It gleam'd a purple amethyst. 
 Yonder the shores of Fife you saw ; 
 Here I'reston-Hay and lierwick-Law ; 
 
 And broad between them roll'd 
 The gallant Frith the eye might note, 
 Whose islands on its bosom float, 
 
 Like emeralds chased in gold. 
 
 It is often said that poets write as naturally as birds sing. 
 Possibly birds sing because hereditary experience has brought 
 ease and perfection, manifested from the beginning of life, but all 
 poets depend on individual knowledge. Burns is one of these 
 spontaneous singers to whom reference is constantly made. And 
 yet what a store of lively, accurate, enduring knowledge about the 
 things both great and small of the Lowland country had Burns. 
 We are not satisfied with criticising paintings on the merit of 
 general eflfect, but examine lines of detail and decry any faults we 
 find. Something of value, something which separates poetasters 
 from poets, will be discerned if we treat " spontaneous" poetry in 
 the same manner. Poetry which discloses frequent weakness 
 when tested line by line announces some failing in its maker. 
 Let me close this paragraph, written to meet an objection to the 
 general tone of the lecture, by jotting down a brief analysis of 
 the first verse of a poem which appears to be, and is sometimes 
 spoken of as being, of markedly spontaneous birth : — 
 
 Wee, modest, crimson -tij^ped flower, 
 
 Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 
 
 For I maun crush amang the stoure 
 
 Thy slender stem : 
 To spare thee now is past my power, 
 
 Thou bonnie gem. 
 
 First line, two facts more or less botanical (wee, crimson-tip- 
 ped), and an epithet (modest), deduced from the first fact ; second 
 line, gentle swell of the emotional wave ; third line, the wave 
 rises higher, and is coupled with a fact derived from general ob- 
 
30 
 
 servation of Nature ; fourth line, another fact ; fifth line, the emo- 
 tional wave, the first wave of the poem assumes a crest ; sixth line, 
 a comprehensive image. 
 
 Lastly, poetry is a progressive art. Its method knows no 
 change, but its thoughts, and their imagery take different com- 
 plexions as time speeds. E pur si muove : this, says legend, was 
 Galileo's utterance about the physical world. Of the mental and 
 moral world these words are profoundly true : it moves, it moves. 
 Poets feel Ihat if they feel anything. They are not the first to feel 
 it, John Stuart Mill thinks, when writing Thoughts on Poetry and 
 its Varieties ; but, allowing the point to remain moot, there can 
 be no doubt as to their feeling it much more keenly than others. 
 Their gifts, their unselfishness and their enthusiasm swiftly raise 
 them above the aspiring throng. Rapidly they climb unto thrones 
 whereon the strong light of heaven beats, cheered often by the 
 knowledge that men love them, for the best of them have the word 
 humanity graven deep on their hearts ; cheered, too, by the know- 
 ledge that they will in the end receive such homage as kings crave 
 in vain. And we, if we would gaze upon them clearly and 
 steadfastly, with a love time cannot dim or make mere seeming, if 
 we would be unwaveringly loyal, must own in our very souls that 
 not our love merely, not our loyalty merely, but also our charity 
 to all people will be fashioned more nobly and more eflfectively by 
 humbly studying the untold beauties of Poetry, as a Fine Art. 
 
 fV 
 
^