; i, UC-NRLF B M DflD 33T Mari^ hot^tto Lilly THE GEORGIG : I- • ft ^efpcria Supplementary Series: STUDIES IN" ENGLISH PHILOLOGY Edited by James W. Bright =^==^ Number 6 ==^= THE GEORGIC A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE VERGILIAN TYPE OF DIDACTIC POETRY BY MARIE LORETTO LILLY, Ph. D., Sometime Fellow of the Johns Hopkins University baltimore The Johns Hopkins Press 1919 IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF SISTER MARY MELETIA 401723 P/V ifzi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Intkoduction 1 CHAPTER II The Creation of the Geoegic Type 9 1. Vergil's Georgics, their relation to the Worhs and Days of Hesiod 9 2. Subject matter of the Georgics 13 CHAPTER III The Relation of the Geokgic to the Pastoral. ... 19 1. Distinction between the Georgic and the Pastoral 19 2. The Pastoral, a literary type of frequent occur- rence, made famous by great poets ; the Georgic, a literary type coincidentally neglected 26 3. Variations in the development of the Georgic com- pared with variations in the development of the Eclogue 37 4. Variations 'of the Georgic classified 47 CHAPTER IV Didactic Poems on General Agriculture 51 1. Early Italian Poems on Agriculture 51 2. Early English non-Vergilian Georgics 52 3. Sixteenth^Century Italian Poems on Agriculture 59 4. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Poems on Agriculture 68 V vi Table of Contents CHAPTER V Didactic Poems ojt Gardens 75 1. From Columella to*William Mason 75 2. William Mason's "The English Garden" and Delille's " Jardins " 84 3. Lonis de Fontanes' " Maison Rustique." Its rela- tion to Delille's '' Jardins " and the fashion of the English landscape garden 90 4. Cowper's georgic on the " Garden " ; William Knight's didactic poem, " The Landscape " 94 CHAPTER VI Didactic Poems on Field Sports 101 I. Of Hunting 102 1. Gratius, Oppian, and Nemesianus 102 2. Medieval Poems on the Chase 110 3. Sixteenth-jCentury Didactics on the Chase 116 4. Eighteenth-Century Didactics on the Chase 124 II. Of Fishing. The Halieutic 135 1. Oppian of Cilicia 135 2. John Dennys' " Secrets of Angling " 142 3. Later Seventeenth-Century Didactic Poems on Angling 151 4. Eighteenth-Century Didactic Poems on Fishing. . 153 5. Nineteenth^Century Didactic Poems on Angling. . 165 CHAPTER VII Conclusion 170 PREFACE This contribution to the study of the Vergilian type 'of didac- tic poetry was begun at the Johns Hopkins University at the suggestion of Professor James W. Bright; the first chapters were written and published, in part fulfillment of the require- ments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The subject that I have undertaken is a large one, leading into many almost untouched fields. The little that I have accomplished is hardly more than an introduction to the subject. I have regretted to leave unstudied so many developments of the georgic, particularly in Italian literature ; however, altho I have worked badly, I have hoped that I might awaken in others, who can work well, an interest in this curious and long-neglected type of poetry. I wish to make grateful acknowledgment to Mr. Hyder E. Rollins, who very kindly read for me at Harvard rare editions of John Lawrence's Paradise Regained, or The Art of Garden- ing, and Charles Clifford's The British Angler, interesting poems that would otherwise have been inaccessible to me; and to Professor Wilfrid P. Mustard, whose untiring aid has been invaluable to me, not only in the use of Greek and Latin mate- rials, but at every other point connected with my work. Finally, I wish to thank Professor Bright, to whom I owe chiefly what little may be of worth in this study. My faults in workmanship, particularly in the last chapters written amidst many difficulties and interruptions, I regret, mainly, because they indicate so great a departure from the ideals of scholarship that I have acquired under his guidance and inspiration. Dominican College, San Rafael, California. March 26, 1919. VH THE GEORGIC CHAPTER I Introduction In 1697, Addison in his '' Essay on the Georgics " ^ complains of the neglect of these poems and of their confusion with the pastoral. '" There has been abundance of criticism spent on Virgil's Pastorals and Aeneids," he writes, '" but the Georgics are a subject which none of the critics have sufficiently taken into their consideration, most of them passing it over in silence, or casting it under the same head with Pastoral — a division by no means proper, unless we suppose the style of a Husbandman ought to be imitated in a Georgic, as that of a shepherd is in Pastoral. But though the scene of both these Poems lies in the same place; the speakers in them are of a quite different char- acter, since the precepts of husbandry are not to be delivered with the simplicity of a Plowman, but with the address of a Poet. jSTo rules therefore that relate to Pastoral, can any way affect the Georgics, since they fall under that class of Poetry, which consists in giving plain and direct instructions to the reader; whether they be Moral duties, as those of Theognis and Pythagoras; or Philosophical Speculations, as those of Ara- tus and Lucretius; or Rules of practice, as those of Ilesiod and Virgil." One can hardly agree with Addison that the critics have ne- glected Vergil's Georgics; and there is evidence that from their first appearance the didactics that rival the De Rerum Natura were not denied due honor. The long list of translations, and the various editions of the Georgics annotated in many lan- ' This essay was contributed anonymously as an introduction to Dryden's translation of the Georgics. It was written as early as 1693. See Hurd's note, The Works of Addison, ed. Bohn, London, 1862, p. 154. 1 2 The Georgic giiages bear witness to the devoted labor spent on Vergil's agri- cultural treatises. Various recent publications,^ moreover, testify to the living interest in the poems that have been pro- nounced the most finished product of antiquity. But, so far as I am able to discover, of the georgic as a type, closely related to the pastoral, although essentially different from it, nothing- definite or detailed has been written in English since Addison's complaint in 1697. As for French critics, they seem also to have neglected the subject of the georgic as a type. Collections of Italian georgics have been edited ^ and there is some Italian criticism on the georgic poetry of Italy,"* but unfortunately neither these collections of " Italian Georgics," nor the critical essays have so far been accessible to me: of the latter I know only what is conveyed by the titles. One cannot say that, like the georgic, the pastoral has been neglected. With finer understanding of the subject than that which is manifest in the age of Addison, the critics have con- tinued to discuss the imitations of Vergil and of Theocritus. Symonds,^ with justice, refers to " the whole hackneyed ques- tion of Bucolic poetry." Certainly no student can remain igno- rant of the pastoral as a type, of its origin, of its characteristics, of its developments as a literary genre, of the recurring periods of favor and disfavor through which it has passed. But if, incidentally, the critics touch upon the difference in type be- tween the Eclogues and the Georgics of Vergil, it is usually to " Meta Glass, The Fusion of Stylistic Elements in Vergil's Georgics, N, Y., Columbia Univ., 1913; T. F. Royd, The Beasts, Birds, and Bees of Ver- gil: a nativralist's handbook to the Georgics, with a preface by W. Warde Fowler, Oxford, B. H. Blackwell, 1914; T. C. Williams, The Georgics atid Eclogues of Vergil, with an introd. by G. H. Palmer, Harvard Univ. Press, 1915; Les G^orgiques, Texte Latin, par Paul Lejay, Paris, 1015. '/ Poemi Georgici, Francesco Bonsignori, Lucca, 1785; Giovanni Silves- tri, Milano, 1826. ^Felippo Re, Delia poesia georgica degli Italian!, Bologna, 1809; L. Gi- rardelli, Dei poemi georgici nostrali, Goriza, 1900; D. Merlini's Saggio di ricerche sulla satira contro il villano, Torino, Loscher, 1894, probably treats of poems that fall under the head of mock-georgics. '^ J. A. Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets, London, 1902, Vol. ii, p. 245. Introduciion 3 notice the superiority of workmanship in the latter, or to con- trast the general character of the two series of poems. Sellar,® for example, observes that Vergil was marked among his con- temporaries as the poet of Nature and rural life. The Eclogues, he observes, are of a light type; the general Roman spirit de- manded of its highest literature that it should have either some direct practical use or contribute in some way to the sense of national greatness. Glover '^ discusses the difference in spirit between the Eclogues and the Georgics: " the great note " of the Eclogues, youthful happiness, the life of the Shepherd, an easy life, touched sometimes by youthful grief that is never incon- solable ; in the Georgics, " the grim realization that life involves a great deal more work than Menalcas and the rest had thought, hard work all the year round, vigilance never to be remitted, and labor which it is ruin to relax." In general, however, the commentators seem to take it for granted that the reader will perceive of necessity the essential difference between the two types. Yet one continually finds that, in sjjite of Addison's emphatic protest, students confuse the georgic with the pastoral. Of the few writings that I have been able to discover on the imitations of the Georgics there is almost nothing that is of any value as a study of the type. In Conington's edition of Vergil,^ there is a section on the " Later Didactic Poets of Rome," an essay that is valuable in the history of the georgic, and that gives a general idea of the manner in which the Vergilian model was imitated from the earliest period. A piece of work en- titled Virgilio nella storia della Poesia Didascalica Latina, by D. Renzi,^ promises valuable information ; but I have been unable to consult it. Dunlop ^^ has some comments on a few of the * W. Y. Sellar, The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age, Virgil, Oxford, 1908, pp. 174 ff. ' T. R. Glover, Studies in Vergil, London, Methuen and Co., 1904, pp. 30fiF. « J. Conington, The Works of Vergil, London, 1872, Vol. i, p. 389. •Avella, 1907. " J. Dunlop, History of Roman Lit. during the Augustwn Age. London, 1828. Vol. m, pp. 138 ff. 4 The Georgic imitations of the Georgics, but his remarks are even more gen- eral respecting the type than those of Conington. For example, he observes that " The Rusticus of Politian ' in Virgilii Georgi- con enarratione pronunciata' is an abridgement of the subject of that poem and several passages are nearly copied from it.'' After having briefly considered several other imitations, he comments on the great debt of Thomson to Vergil and points out passages in the Seasons, imitated, or almost translated, from the Georgics. Ginguene ^^ has a valuable chapter on the Italian didactics of the sixteenth century. He sketches briefly the contents of most of the Italian georgics of the period, but altho he com- ments generally on the fact that these poems follow Vergil as a model, he says nothing of their particular adaptations of the features peculiar to the georgic type. Incidentally, he shows that other writers, who have considered imitations of the Geor- gics, have done so carelessly. An enthusiastic admirer of Luigi Alamanni's Coltivazioive, Ginguene protests against the French neglect of this important poem, a work written and first pub- lished in France. In particular he reproaches Jacques Delille, Saint-Lambert, and a certain de Rosset. Delille is scored, be- cause, in the introduction to his translation of the Georgics, he announces that he cannot refrain from speaking of the poems for Avhich Vergil has furnished the idea and the model, after which announcement, he considers Vaniere's Praedium Rusti- cwn, Rapin's Jardins, Thomson's Seasans, and Saint-Lambert's Saisons, without mentioning Luigi Alamanni. Saint-Lambert is reproached, because, in his discours prelimine perfected in the Georgics. The first important variation of the type is found in Gratius' adaptation of certain georgic features to the subject of the chase, the huntsman instead of the farmer being advised con- ^ Cp. Kerlin, op. cit., p. 66. °° For the venatory variation cp. Petri Lotichii Secimdi Solitariensis, Poemata quae exstant omnia, Drcsdae, MDCCLXXIII. Eel. i and ii. For examples of the other variations, cp. The Piscatory Eclogues of Jacopo Sannazaro, Ed. W. P. Mustard, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1914. Introd. pp. 21, 3.3, 42, 43, 48. *" See Kerlin, op. cit., pp. 59 ff. The Relation of the Georgic to the Pastoral 41 cerning the implements and methods of his art. Corresponding to the venatory eclogue there occurs the " cynegetic," which may be styled a venatory georgic. Annibale Cruceio's Alcon,^^ usually attributed to Fracastoro, is an imitation of Calpurnius' Mycon that illustrates the crossing of the types of the venatory georgic and the venatory eclogue. Alcon, an old huntsman, in- structs a younger companion concerning the care of hunting dogs. The work is of especial interest in that it shows how closely the pastoral may be related to the georgic in a variation of both types. From the pursuit of creatures on the land to the pursuit of creatures on the deep, there is but a step. Vergil, (Georg. i, 139-142), declares that at the end of the Golden Age men had begun to hunt and fish : turn laqueis captare feras et fallere visco inventum, et magnos canibus circumdare saltus ; atque alius latum funda iam verberat amnem alta pctens, pelagoque alius trahit umida lina. Oppian of Cilicia was probably familiar with the lines. At any rate, he wrote the Halieutica, a poem on deep-sea fishing that shows familiarity with Vergilian conventions. Later poets treat similar themes, showing more or less indebtedness to Ver- gil, rather than to Oppian. Corresponding to the piscatory variation of the pastoral there occurs the piscatory variation of the georgic. Hazlitt ^^ calls The Compleat Angler " the best pastoral in our language," but The Compleat Angler may be said to be georgic as well as pastoral. John Whitney's Dialogue between Piscator and Corydon is an eclogue of mixed character, in which a fisherman and a shepherd discuss their respective pleasures and profits, are entertained by pastoral songs celebrat- ing country joys and virtues, and encourage each other with georgic reflections and moralizations. **N. E. Lemaire, Poetae Latini Minores, Vol. i, p. 171. For a comment on the authorship of the poem see E. Carrara, " La Poesia Pastorale," Storia del generi Letterari Italiani, Milan, p. 408. °* Op. cit. See above, p. 19. 42 The Georgic In the sixteenth century, Bernardino Baldi, inspired by the characteristic georgic desire to tread untrodden ways, ^vrote La Nautica, in which he uses the georgic conventions and the Ver- gilian plan in a versified treatise on sea-faring/^ and thus pro- duced a nautical georgic corresponding to the nautical or naval eclogue. Thomas Kirchmayer, like the medieval writers of eclogues, adapted georgic themes to Christian teachings. In his Agricultm'a Sacra, man, the spiritual husbandman, is instructed in the care of the estate of his soul.^* Fracastoro, who has fre- quently been compared to Vergil, used Vergil's framework in a poem entitled Syphilis, sive de Morho Gallico. Tansillo, inter- ested also in physical welfare, undertook to sermonize in verse on the method of rearing high-born infants. ^^ In the seventeenth century, Rapin, in his Horfi. (Bk. i, 11) suggests that some one write a medicinal georgic. Conington ^® observes that before the time of Nemesianus, Serenus Sammon- icus had written 1115 hexameters entitled De Medicina Prae- cepta, but adds that this work " is not properly a didactic poem, but merely a medical treatise in metre." In the sixteenth cen- tury, Paola del Rosso wrote a didactic entitled La Fisica; but Ginguene describes it as an abridgement of Aristotle's book on physics, severely written, without digressions or ornaments. ISTo one seems to have fully carried out Rapin's suggestion. Collier®^ describes briefly a work written entirely in verse by Edmund Gayton, The Art of Longevity or a Diaeteticall Insti- tution. The work is in thirty-three chapters, treating of the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of every kind of food ; as it was "printed by the Author," in 1659, four years after the appearance of Rapin's Horti, it may be that Gayton was en- *'B. Baldi, La Nautica con Introduzione e note di Gaetano Bonifacio, Citta di Castello, 1915. **Cp. C. H. Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, 1886, pp. 121 ff. •"^L. Tansillo, " La Balia," L'Egloga e i Poemetti, con introduzione e note di Francesco Flamini, Napoli, 1893. "> Op. cit., p. 400. " Op. cit.. Vol. I, pp. .309-310. The Relation of the Georgic to the Pastornl 43 couraged in his task bv the suggestion of the French writer. In the eighteenth century, from the point of view of a physician and of a poet, John Armstrong wrote a treatise in blank verse on The Art of Preserving Health, a variation of the georgic that might have satisfied Rapin, had the English poet discoursed more on the use of medicines. Akenside, whose interest centered primarily in the workings of the mind, used the model furnished by Horace in the Epis- tles and by Vergil in the Georgies, to write a didactic entitled The Pleasures of the Imagination. Tn his preface, Akenside states that he has followed Horace and Vergil as models ; in his poem, he illustrates the use of many of the favorite georgic con- ventions. In the third book of the first edition of his poems, he imitates allegorically Vergil's instructions on soils. Writing of the wonder of God's gifts to man, Akenside discourses on Taste, telling how the early seeds of love and admiration are sown by the Creator in the minds of man, and how constant culture is necessary to rear these seeds to bloom ; and as Vergil sang of differences in the character of soils, so Akenside sings of differ- ences in the character of the human mind. Gay's Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, published 1716, and Soame Jenyns' Art of Dancing, published 1727, are interesting examples of the burlesque variation of the georgic. Both poems are mock heroics in which georgic conven- tions are adapted to situations in city life. The eighteenth cen- tury produced the town georgic as it produced the toA\Ti eclogue. Writers of the latter are said to have had a model in Theocritus, Idyll XV. ^^ The very name " town georgic '" is in itself striking proof of the extent to which the Vergilian type of didactic poetry may wander from the scene of field-work. Falconer's Shipwreck, published 1762, is another example of the varying use of the georgic conventions, the poem being an epic with georgic features, such as technical instructions of a nautical character, moralizations, geographical excursions, ref- *' Cp. Kerlin, op. cit., p. 59. 44 The Georgic erences to famous men, the contrast of rural innocence with city arts. But by far the most important eighteenth century develop- ment of the type is that originated by James Thomson in the Seasons. Thomson omits the most difficult feature of the Geor- gics, the versifying of practical precepts, but he makes use of the georgic motives and of almost all the georgic conventions. Vergil proposes to teach the husbandman agricultural arts. He describes the occupations of the farmer thru the year, refer- ring incidentally to the seasons as they are related to the farm- er's occupations. Thomson proposes to give an account of the course of the seasons, referring incidentally to the farmer's occu- pations as they relate to the seasons. Vergil introduces descrip- tions of nature, chiefly as background for the husbandman at work. Thomson introduces the farmer and his work chiefly to give life to his descriptions of nature. Instead of using the formal Vergilian statement of the subject, Thomson begins each of his poems with an apostrophe to the Season he is about to de- scribe; his mythological references are rare, and he can hardly be said to introduce pointed proverbial sayings. But if he re- frains from the use of proverbial sayings, he makes up by the length of his moralizations and of his philosophical reflections. He never attempts to convey practical advice directly, altho in Spring (137 ff.), after his description of the manner of destroy- ing orchard pests, he uses Vergil's personal tone in exhorting the swains to patience. All the other features familiar in the georgics he uses as freely as he uses Vergil's phrasing. In Spring, (142 ff. ) and in Autumn (43 ff.) he introduces the cen- tral motive of the Georgics, the glorification of labor, but he does not use the motive as a central thought. Thruout the Seasons he sings the praise of simple country life; in Autumn, almost in Vergil's own words, he paints the existence of the hus- bandman, happy beyond the dreams of the great. Vergil suggests ; Thomson delights to expand. Vergil touches upon various philosophical beliefs; Thomson expounds eigh- teenth century philosophical ideas line upon line. In Vergil, The lielation of the Georgic to the Pastoral 45 every word seems necessary to the perfection of the whole; Samuel Johnson is said to have pleased an unsuspecting audi- ence by reading a passage from Thomson in which he omitted every other line. iSTevertheless, partly because of what he owes to Vergil, partly because much that he has to say is refreshing to jaded eighteenth century readers, chiefly because in spite of his faults he is a true poet, Thomson oifered a variation of the georgic that found a welcome not only among the learned, but also among readers who had never construed a Latin line. The influence of Thomson is seen in English poems planned to imi- tate closely the Vergilian model ; but alongside of these didactics there are found in English, French, and Italian, imitations of the Vergilian model as Thomson adapted it to his use.^'** Pascoli, in the Primi Poemetti, like Thomson in the Seasons, makes no pretence of giving his reader direct practical advice. But unlike Thomson, Pascoli introduces no learned allusions, no panegyrics, no geographical excursions, no narrative episodes, no sorrowful contrast between the past and the present. It is the Vergilian spirit, rather than the Vergilian motives, that one finds in Pascoli. Reading the Poemetti, one thinks inevitably of Millet ; only, too often. Millet fills one with a sense of sadness. The atmosphere of the Poemetti, unlike that in so much of Pas- coli, is of deep unreasoning content. The Poemetti are a series of little pictures, idylls in which are depicted the homely reali- ties of the Italian contadini's daily life. To his listening help- mate the husbandman repeats proverbial wisdom, Sai clie, per il grano, presto & talora, tardi 6 sempre male. . . . chi con I'acqua semina, raccoglie poi col paniere; e cuoce fare in vano pifl che non fare. '"Among the most interesting of the English poems influenced hy the Thomsonian variation of the georgic type are Goldsmith's Deserted Village, Cowper's Task, and William Bloomfield's The Farmer's Boy. Delille's Homme des Champs shows the influence of Goldsmith even more markedly than that of Thomson. N. G. L^nard's Le Village Detruit, is a weak copy of the Deserted Village. Mazzoni, op. cit., p. 79, mentions a nineteenth 46 The Georgic " Some miTte star " looks down upon liim as he plows ; and the young daughters of the honse rising at dawn, perform accus- tomed tasks. Brown-haired Viola milks the cow ; golden-haired Rosa, like Vergil's housewife, sings to the sound of the weaving comb and at the command of the " cara pia madre " helps to prepare the simple meal. And when the Angelus rings, mother and daughters carry bread and wine to the fields w^here the sowers stand, like Millet's peasants, repeating the familiar prayer. With the loving minuteness of Vergil, Pascoli describes the contadini's daily tasks. Like Vergil he charms the homeliest details into verse, and more perhaps than any other poet since Vergil, he writes with intimate understanding of the husband- man's life. With exquisite simplicity, more perhaps even than Vergil, he reveals the poetry of the peasants' religion, the nobility of simple tasks wrought with contentment, hallowed by the sacred beauty of family love. In Francis Jammes' Georgiques clireUennss, there is still another development of the georgic type in which practical pre- cepts are omitted. However, a number of the conventional Ver- gilian features are illustrated, such for example, as the refer- ences to foreign lands, their ]iroducts and customs ; descriptions of rural festivities and of rural sports ; the marking of the sea- sons by the constellations ; references to famous men ; a lament over the desertion of the soil; and- the use of narrative episodes. Les Georgiques cliretiennes treat of agricultural labors, such as harvesting, and sowing, the culture of the vine; but the poet does not offer direct instructions as to the methods of farming. Like Pascoli's Poemetti, these georgics are idylls of the farmer's life ; like the Poemetti, they present a series of scenes in the life of one family."^" eTammes makes an occasional mythological reference, but like Pascoli, he introduces no pagan religion. Tn the Poemetti, one hears the sound of the church boll, the sing- ccntuiy Hlayioni by Giuseppe Barbicri, and comiiu'iits upon tlic European vogue of the Thomsonian nature poetry. '* In this respect, both series of poems are like Bloomfield'a Farmer's Boy. The Relation of the Georgic to the Pastoral 47 ing of religious songs, the prayer of the Angehis ; in the pages of Jammes, " harvesting angels " guard the land no longer pro- tected by the deities of ancient Rome. The French poet invokes his angel (chant iii, 48 ff.), not the Muse; he dedicates his third song to the " Mere de Dieu " ; and he describes church feasts such as Christmas, Rogation Days, and All Souls'. lie sighs over the desertion of the soil, as Yergil and so many other poets have sighed, but the present-day evils that he most deeply laments are those brought about by the irreligion of France. In spite of certain general resemblances to Pascoli's Poemetti, Les Georgiques chreiiennes are very different from the Italian poems. In plan they are much nearer to the Vergilian type ; in spirit far less near to Vergil. As a development of the georgic t_\'pe they are of especial interest ; as poems, they offer much that is worth while, but they fail to grip the heart with the deep and abiding beauty of the Poemetti of Pascoli. 4. Variations of the Georgic classified. A didactic poem of the Vergilian type may illustrate only the use of the plan and general treatment of the Georgics, or it may illustrate only the spirit and the motives of the Georgics, and in plan be quite different from Vergil's didactics. A poem may be a georgic, Vergilian only with respect to subject matter; it may be Vergilian in form and in subject have nothing in com- mon with the true georgic. The Vergilian conventions may be used to convey instructions about any practical art, they may be used to impart precepts about a science or a fine art ; they may be adapted to Christian themes and allegorical teachings ; they may be used for satire and burlesque, or in the telling of a tale. Georgic themes may be the subjects discoursed upon by the speakers in an eclogue ; thus the types cross. And finally, a poem that is georgic in motive or subject matter comes under the broad definition of the term pastoral. The chief variations in the development of the georgic type fall into two general classes, which may Ix* sulvdivided as follows : 48 The Georgic I. Poems marked primarily by the use of rules of practice. a. The georgic in the narrowest sense of the word, a compo- sition in which the poet treats of rules of practice concerning the science of general husbandry, or of any special branch of husbandry such as gardening, bee-keeping or the culture of silkworms. 1. The non-Yergilian georgic, written like Hesiod's Works and Days, with no regard for definite plan or artistic structure ; for example, Thomas Tusser's Five Hundred Pointes of Good Hushandrie, John Gardener's Feate of Gardening. 2. The Vergilian georgic, in which the poet follows a defi- nite plan and makes more or less use of conventions peculiar to the Vergilian type; for example, Alammani's CoUivazione (of general husbandry), Rapin's Hortomm, lihri IV, Christopher Smart's Hop Garden, Ruccelai's Api, Vida's Bombyces. b. The cynegetic, the halieutic, or the ixeutic "^^ (nearest in type to the true georgic), a composition in which the poet treats of rules of practice not concerning field-work but field-sports, such as hunting with hounds (the cynegetic), deep sea-fishing or angling (the halieutic), and of hawking or the snaring of birds (the ixeutic). These efforts may be non- Vergilian in form (Dame Juliana Berner's Treatise on Venerie), or they may be written in imitation of the Georgics (William Somer- ville's Chase). The Oppian poems are among the most inter- esting examples of the cynegetic and the halieutic ; Claude Gauchet's " Le Moyen de Prendre les Alouettes au miroer " '^- illustrates a sixteenth-century variation of the ixeutic. "^^ c. A composition in which the poet treats of rules of prac- tice concerning any outdoor occupation, as in the nautical georgic, a poem on the art of sea-faring; for example, Ber- nardino Baldi's Nautica, Joseph Esmenard's Navigation. " The poems of this class will be treated in detail in a subsequent chapter. " See Le Plaisir des Champs, Paris. Edition of 1604. The Relation of the Georgic to the Pastoral 49 d. A composition in which the poet gives direct advice con- cerning any practical art. The effort may be a non-Vergilian bit of rhyme, perhaps on some prosaic matter of the housewife's province, such as John Gay's Receipt for Stewinel diviii fonte, che con tanto onore Sol conobbe, e gustO Mantova, ed Ascre. Colt., m, 15-19: Voi mi potete sol menar al porto, Francesco invitto, per questa onda sacra Che per lo addietro ancor non elbbe incarco D'altro legno Toscano; e primo ardisco Pur col vostro favor dar vele ai venti. '^ Op. cit., p. 264. " Cp. the first lines of II Diluvio Roma/no: lo volea gia cantar, gran re de' Franchi, L'arte, I'opre, gringcgiii e le stagioni, Che fan verdi le piagge, i frutti ombrosi, Colmi i prati e' pastor d'erbe e di' gregge, E ricco il cacciator d'augelli e fere. Didactic Poems on General Agriculture 61 the Florentine tongue.-^ The first four books treat of agricul- tural labors of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the fifth is of gardens, the sixth of lucky and unlucky days. Alamanni makes use of many sources,"*' but his debt to Vergil is by far the gi'eatest. To quote Hauvette, " En dehors des nombreuses idees, images, expressions, ou I'on reconnait, un peu partout, I'echo des Georgiques, a certains moments Alamanni a traduit plutot que paraphrase le poeme de Virgile." The main features of the georgic are all present, except that Alamanni has no long episodes like the story of Aristaeus. But the poem is very far from the perfection of the Vergilian model. Only so enthusi- astic a critic as Ginguene can fail to admit that the plan of La Coltivazione is not good. The first four books, of the Seasons, Hauvette remarks, are reasonable, if not artistic. Bk. V necessarily repeats observations about the seasons. Bk. VI entirely lacks originality, being merely a translation of Vergil. Ginguene comments upon it as a long fragment, to which, after having written it, the author is unable to assign a place. It has no prologue, no epilogue, no episodes. It begins abruptly with the choice of days; and ends abruptly with presages to be drawn from changes of weather, from the song, the flight, and the different habits of birds. La Coltivazione is not, like the Georgics, preeminently a poem of Italy. Alamanni's inspiration ^'^ is French, not Italian. The dedication is to Francis I, and the poet eulogizes not his native land, but France. The country described, declares Hauvette, is that at the foot of the Alps, not at the foot of the Appenines. The fields of France inspired the Tuscan poet. When he speaks of Tuscan scenes and usages it is as of something remembered far away. His agricultural precepts are general, as his title indicates. He is thinking, it seems, of instructions concerning agriculture in all countries and at all *» Hauvette states that the publication of La Colt, in 1546 is inrportant in the history of Italian blank verse. The meter is in general monotonous, but it led the way for others. "•Cf. Ginguene, op. cit. p. 12; Hauvette, op. cit. p. 273. " Cf. Hauvette, op. cit. p. 269. 62 The Georgic times. But so much for criticism. Hauvette observes that one of the merits most willingly ascribed to the poem is its faithful representation of what was then the culture in Tuscany. No one can bring against Alamanni the accusation that La CoUivazione was not written primarily to instruct. On the contrary, the poet seems afraid that he will amuse. In his poem he expresses fear that farm laborers will give themselves up to laziness under the pretext of enjoying holidays. He prides himself on the avoidance of long digressions, intimating that Vergil sinned in this respect.^^ But Alamanni does not entirely avoid digressions, some of which are over-long and some of which are not well placed. The Golden Age, for example, is discussed in the middle of Bk. ii, in an episode of more than one hundred and fifty lines. It is abruptly introduced, and ends by proposing Francis I as an example of a wise and happy life. The description of the Golden Age is H'oratian rather than Vergilian, altho Vergil is imitated in part. Alamanni brings out the point that necessity begot invention ; but he does not touch on Vergil's belief that it was for man's benefit that Father Jove instituted cares. He emphasizes the truth that it is man's destiny to suffer, and that he must submit. Yet, altho the Tuscan poet reflects upon the bitterness of human life and the quick coming of weary old age and death,^^ he dwells philo- sophically on the truth that thru reproduction Nature secures to her creatures immortality; and unlike Tusser, he looks with envious idealization on the peasant state, deciding that it is possible to show future generations that his age so " neghittoso e vil , non dorme in tutto." ^^ "Cf. Hauvette, op. cit. pp. 280 ff.; Colt., in, 20-25: Non mi vedrete andar con larghi giri Traviando sovente a mio diporto, Per lidi ameni, ove piil frondi, e fiori Si ritrovan talor che frutti ascosi; Ma per dritto sentier mostrando aperto I tempi, e'l buon oprar del pio cultore. »• Colt., I, 330 ff. " Colt., I, 599 ff. Didactic Poems on General Agriculture 03 The opinion has been ventured that Alamanni's precepts have been of benefit to peasants ; ^^ Hauvette thinks that this is not likely. The success of the poem in the sixteenth century he believes due largely to its classic form. The reading public was not especially interested in agriculture, but resigned itself to the subject only because Alanianni followed in the footsteps of Hesiod and Vergil.^^ The true vogue of Lob Coltivazione begins in the eighteenth century. From 1716 to 1781 the poem was printed twenty times, and the Italians venerated Alamanni as a glorious ances- tor, altho France, unaccountably, and in Ginguene's opinion, inexcusably, neglected him. In general, Italian critics praise the poem highly. Ginguene's praise is extravagant ; but he avows sadly, '' La Coltivazione est un des poemes les plus vantes qui existent dans la langue Italienne, mais ce n'est pas un de ceux qu'on lit le plus ; I'aus- terite de sujet en est sans doute la cause," ^^ The French critic seems to recognize no other cause; but his judgment is not more surprising than that of the Italian poet, Parini,^^ who pro- nounces La Coltivazione one of the books that it is a reproach not to have read. Read after Ginguene, Hauvette's discussion of La Coltiva- zione is refreshing ; but more than this, it is the most illuminat- ing work that I have seen on the subject, valuable as literary history, and as criticism. Hauvette is certainly uninfluenced by older writers on the Tuscan poet ; he considers with equal fairness the defects and the merits of the poem: and Hauvette is probably the critic best fitted to speak of Alamanni and of his work. Historically considered. La Coltivazione is of interest; any- one with a predilection for georgic poetry might read parts of " M. E. Percopo, Gesch. der ital. Lit., p. 347. See Hauvette, op. cit. p. 280. " From 1546 to 1549 there were four editions of La Colt., after which it was not reprinted until 1590. Cp. Hauvette, op. cit. p. 300. "Op. cit. p. 11. *^Principii delle belle lettere (Opere, Milan, 1804). Vol. vi, p. 205. See Hauvette, op. cit. p. 301. 64 The Georgic it with pleasure, but it is very hard to understand how it can excite rapturous praise. A modern critic of unprejudiced mind can hardly fail to pronounce it overlong, badly planned, and as a whole, very tedious. Altho many sixteenth-century Italians wrote georgics, no one of the age seems to have imitated Alamanni by writing a serious and lengthy verse treatise on Agriculture.^^ In 1560 Luigi Tansillo wrote II Fodere^^ a didactic which reads like the introductory chapters of a general treatise on rustic affairs. Tansillo, however, does not take his subject over seriously. The poem is divided into three brief " capitoli," ^'^ which he himself describes as " rime basse e versi giocosi." ^^ Capitolo i treats of the choice of location, capitolo ii mainly of the diversities of lands, and of how to know good soils, capitolo iii^ of the building of the house. The poet, familiarly conversing with a friend ^^ who has recently expressed a desire to buy a farm, attempts to teach in a few words what he himself has learned in years. He repeats many familiar maxims and imitates other favorite georgic con- ventions.^^ He emphasizes the value of toil, but the theme is treated less seriously than in the poems of Vergil and Alamanni. One would hardly characterize II Podere as a " glorification of labor." The praise of country life in contrast to city evils, and the precepts concerning soils are the most Vergilian features of the poem. The poet's friend is advised to buy what costs least and ^"Thos. Kirchmayer's AgricuUura Sacra (Basil, 1550), translated by Barnaby Googe as The Boke of Spiritual Husbandry, is an equally serious attempt of an allegorical nature. See above, p. 42. ^ L'Egloga e i Poemetti, con introd. e note di Francesco Flamini, Napoli, 1893. The poem was printed for the first time at Turin, 1769. " In all, 1158 verses of smoothly-flowing terza rima. ^ Cp. Letter to Antonio Scarampi, Flamini, op. cit., p. xcix. '* Signor Giovan Battista Venere. See dedication to the poem. Flamini, op. cit. p. 195. *° The poem lacks the stock opening, the address to the Muse, the address to a patron, the panegyric, the marking of time by the constellations, the discussion of weather signs, and the long narrative episode. Didactic Poems on General Agriculture 65 pleases most; to consider what will be best for physical well- being and for peace of mind ; and finally to choose a mountain- ous region because of the view. Tansillo makes no pretense of delivering precepts for the benefit of an uneducated peasantry. Like Alamanni, he makes a strong point of evils due to bad neighbors,^^ and like Alamanni, he has a digression arising from this theme. But Alamanni has a long and serious episode on emigrations ancient and modern. Tansillo gaily tells ^sop's fable of the tortoise who asked the privilege of carrying her house on her back, in order to be a:ble to avoid at will distasteful neighbors. The theme of present-day corruptions appears in the poet's denunciation of the ravages made by the " galeoti " along the Neapolitan coasts, while Naples sleeps! The poet professes himself a man of peace, but he considers it his coun- try's duty to make war against such outrages.^^ Discoursing on the differences of soils, he pauses to give a brief account of the Golden Age,^^ and the evil times that fol- lowed, due, according to his version, to the theft of the heavenly fire and the plucking of the forbidden apple. He adorns his moralizations on the effects of thrift and indus- try by telling -^sop's fable of the dying man who requested his sons to dig for buried treasure in their vineyard,'*'* and by nar- rating Pliny's story of the husbandman tried for sorcery because of the great produce of his small farm.'*^ A discussion on roadways leads to a digression on the subject of woman,* ^ lines not paralleled, so far as I have discovered, in any other georgic. ** Colt., TV, 354 S. ; Pod., i, 357 ff. Op. also Praedium Rusticum, i, p. 7 flf. * Pod., n, 121-147. A reference to foreign countries occurs in this same passage. ''Pod., n, 163-188. ** Pod., n, 190 ff. *^Pod., II, 201 ff. Ren6 Rapin, Eorti, iv, 124 ff., tells the same story, making the hero a " farmer of the Marsic race," who shows his well-ipolished implements and produces his stout wife and daughter as accomplices in hifl magic arts. Delille, L'Homme de Champs, n, 90 ff., repeats the story, but cites his source, Plinii Hist. Nat., 1. xviii, sect, viii, C. Furius Cresinus, a liberated slave, the accused. *• Pod., in, 28 ff. Tansillo shows himself very generous-minded towards 5 66 The Georgic Considering his friend's spiritual needs, the poet advises him to have a " magion di santo " ^"^ nearby. Thus his soul will have more advantages than if he were in the city. The city has more pastimes, but it has also more evils. Blessed is he who realizes his happiness among cultivated hills and valleys and fields. Happy he who knows the causes of things, and can tread underfoot all fears of fate and death.'*® But happier he who having seen the world betakes himself to the country, and gives himself to God. " Would that I," cries the poet, " might betake myself to the plains at the foot of a mountain, and there amid the joys of family life put into practice the arts taught in writing by Cato, Vergil, Pliny, Columella,*^ and the others." An idyll of the innocent joys of country life follows, with a companion picture, politely satirical, of the luxury, the hollow- ness, and the vices of city life. The unexpected close of the poem, writes Flamini, is worthy of note. It is particularly worthy of note as the conclusion of a georgic. After a number of varied precepts concerning the building of the house and its situation among gardens and woods, Tansillo affects to discover that his friend is in love. Encouraging him, the poet cries : Ed io vi dico: Fratel mio, seguite, Seguite Amor Che sembra un' alma, dove Amor non stanze, Casa di notte senza foco o face ! "" following his advice with a digression on the theory of love, after which he remarks: " While I believed that we were going the weaker sex. It is both interesting and edifying to know that a sixteenth- century Italian thought it worth while to remind noble gentlemen that they are not savage consorts, that women are not beasts of the stable, that their pleasure must be considered, and that if you take them to the country you must provide ways by which they may occasionally have something more interesting to look at than trees and hedges. « Pod., Ill, 46 ff. *» Fod., ra, 46-87. Cp. Georg., ii, 475-495. *" " Columella," says Flamini, " is the source among the ancients most freely plundered by Tansillo." O'p. cit., Introd., p. c. " Pod., Ill, 334-339. Didactic Poems on General Agriculture 67 to a countrj place, our feet were leading us to the forest of Love. Here let the way be ended," Qual il poder si compri, io v'ho gia mostro A consiglio d'antichi e di moderni, Perch6 sia buono e degno d'esser vostro. Se gli affanni domestic! o gli esterni Non m'impediscon, forse, un dl di questi, I>ir6 come si tratte e si governi.*^ The poem ends with the regret that few indeed come to honor Flora, Pomona, Ceres, and Leneus : Ma non possan mai ipunto abbandonarlo; E quanto scrisse il Mantovan, I'Ascreo, II Greco e'l Moro, e chi 'n sul Tebro nacque, Di buon vi venga, e fuggane di reo; E piaccia sempre a voi pifi che non piacque, El al produrre ed al servar de' frutti, Propizie egli abbia le stagioni e I'acque L'aure e le stelle e gli elementi tutti. II Podere has been praised as among the most brilliant writ- ings of Tansillo's time. Certainly it is one of the few really charming imitations of the Georgics, an interesting illustration of the possibilities of the type. The poet is inspired by no high call to instruct a nation, and he makes no claim to tread heights untrodden before. He has no episodes descriptive of nature; and he does not vn-ite as if from experience of the joys of coun- try life, — rather as if he has read much of them and dreamed more. Flamini says of II Podere that it is a free and judicious imitation; it is an imitation made alive by a gracious person- ality, and the sure touch of the artist who writes sometimes lightly, sometimes earnestly, but always simply and naturally, because his heart is in what he has to say. II Podere is a slight work. Naturally it will not bear com- parison with Vergil's Georgics, and had Tansillo attempted a serious agricultural treatise he would probably have failed. But •^ Pod., ni, 364. Tansillo never fulfilled his promise, but in 1566 he wrote of the rearing of infants in La Balia (printed 1767), Tusser, in the Five Hundred Pointes, H 92, treats the same subject under the heading, " The Good Motherlie Nurserie." 68 The Georgic he was wise enough to realize the scope of his powers, and in his third capitolo he succeeded in achieving a poem that even the stem critic Carducci praises.^^ 4. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Poems on Agriculture From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century tTie poets seem to have wisely avoided the theme of general agriculture. In the eighteenth century proof of this wisdom may be had in the dreary efforts of de Rosset, Vaniere, and Dodsley. Pierre Larousse ^^ gives a brief account of de Rosset's nine hooks on Agriculture^ which may be summed up as follows: The poem treats successively fields, vines, woods, meadows, poultry yards, plants, kitchen gardens, pleasure gardens, pools, and fish ponds. The writer uses some bizarre digressions con- cerning the vine, beginning with a description of the deluge, and ending with an account of carnival. The verses are, in general, lacking in color and relief, but there are some agreeable details and some successful passages. Wordsworth ^^ is said to have borrowed from de Rosset, but so far as I know, L' Agriculture is otherwise a poem of no espe- cial influence. Jacques Vaniere's Praedium Rusticum is an even more thoro- going agricultural treatise than that of de Rosset, since it con- sists of no less than sixteen books, in all, nearly ten thousand lines of Latin verse on almost every subject connected with country life, from the buying and keeping up of a country estate, to details concerning the chase. Vaniere began by publishing several short Latin poems, georgic in character. Encouraged by their success, he used ■ That II Podere was not printed during the poet's lifetime was probably due to his own desire. Flamini, op. cit. p. 104, cites five editions that appeared between the first imprint of 1768 and 1810. The didactics of Tansillo seem to have shared the vogue of La CoUwaeione in the eighteenth century. ** Op. cit., cp. above, p. 5. " See fimile Legouis, The Early Life of William WordsitxyrHh, tr. by J. W. Matthews, London, J. M. Dent and Co., 1897, p. 143, notes 1 ajid 2. Didactic Poems an General Agriculture 69 them as part of the Praedium RuMicum which was published at Toulouse in 1730. The entire poem was translated into French by Bertrand d'Halouvry in 1756, after the author's death. According to Pierre Larousse ^^ " de Faveu des meilleurs cri- tiques, il s'est approche de Virgile autant qu'il est permis aux poetes latins modernes de le faire." Perhaps these words may serve as a warning to modern poets not to attempt to write Latin verse. Yet the Praedium Ru^ticum is a poem not without merit and interest, to anyone who has the patience to read it. Writers on the georgic such as Delille, de Rosset, and Saint Lambert ^^ consider it in their discussions ; and certainly it is of value as an illustration of the curious hold that the georgic type had on the eighteenth-century mind, and of the fashion in which the same conventions and the same themes recur over and over again in georgic poetry. ^'^ Dodsley's Agriculture ^^ appeared in 1754, three cantos, written in blank verse. The first canto is mainly introductory, dealing with general advantages of the farmer's life ; but various farm implements are recommended, and technically described. The second canto treats of soils and trees, the third of harvest. In the preface Dodsley states his limitations, admitting that he has little learning ;^^ but his poem shows that he is well acquainted with the Vergilian didactics and that he has great reverence for his model. Altho he does not imitate the unity of plan in the Georgics, he carefully follows the georgic con- ventions. The poem is addressed to the Prince of Wales ; Pure Intelli- " Op. cit. vol. XV, p. 764. "See above, p. 5. " In the Paris edition of 1746, marginal notes aid the reader in a study of the author's use of georgic features. This volume is of especial value because of the delightful woodcuts that adorn each book. " Robt. Anderson : Brit. Poets, vol. xi. Dodsley had planned to write in three books (r, Agriculture; ii, Commerce; in. Arts) a poem entitled Public Virtue. He completed only the first book. "This fact is noteworthy, for all the other imitators of the Oeorgica, unless Falconer be classed among them, are men familiar with the classics from youth. 70 The Georgic gence, " Genius of Britain," is invoked. The Muse figures prominently. She disdains, be it noted, idle themes, and the farmer is bidden to attend her and thus become frugal and blest ; so shall Industry give him peace, while the Great, diseased by luxury and sloth, envy him. A narrative episode tells the romantic tale of a milkmaid, Patty, whose conventional charms, " ivory teeth," " lips of living coral," and " breath sweeter than the morning gale," win the love of Thyrsis, who, altho he is her social superior, marries her and lives with her in a state of Golden Age happiness. Dodsley's imitation of Vergil's " O fortunatos nimium " ^° is, perhaps, the more pleasing for the poet's lack of Latin. He knows the meaning of the simple life, and has learned to value truly " the gracious nothing of a great man's nod." The pas- sage ends with the religious note that " rural joys invite to sacred thought and meditation on God." ^^ Being an eighteenth-century poet, and an imitator of Vergil, Dodsley burns to explore the secret ways of sweet Philosophy, but he particularly desires to know the causes of f ruitfulness in the vegetable world, and because of this desire he ventures upon an allegory in which he attempts to explain the theory of vege- tation. The second canto has many echoes of Vergil ; and Thomson's influence can be seen. The poet's dreams of an ideal estate are eighteenth-century dreams in accord with the new English fash- ions of landscape gardening, and are based on an intimate and loving knowledge of Shenstone's Leasowes and Lyttleton's Hagley. The canto closes with a passage on the lessons of Epicurus, emphasizing the belief that the end of life is happiness, and virtue the means to that end. The whole passage is a rhapsody on the blessings of retired rural life.^^ *" Agricult., I, 299 flF. Cp. Oeorg. ii. " Cp. the conclusion of Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination, Bk. iii, original version. " Cp. the conclusion of Georg. n. Didactic Poems on General Agriculture 71 In the third canto, harvesting, the products of England's soil, and the care of cattle are discussed. In the section on harvest- ing the poet dwells on the ills that constantly threaten life, treating the subject with an eighteenth-century note, in a prayer to Heaven to protect the farmer from the carelessness of the huntsman. ^^ Dodsley makes also an outcry against the oppres- sions of the rich, but he very justly dwells upon the fact that some wise and good masters still exist. In a visit to the happy Patty of Canto i, precepts are deliv- ered concerning cheesemaking and the care of horses, the latter topic calling forth a protest against the unnecessary cruelty of drivers of draught horses.^^ The poem closes with an address to the Prince of Wales, in georgic spirit urging him to embrace the arts of peace rather than the arts of war. Dodsley's poem is not a long and detailed treatise on agricul- ture like the works of de Rosset and Vaniere, but it has been less considered than even those ill-fated efforts. It can hardly be called good poetry, altho it has some pleasing passages. It is interesting partly because it illustrates eighteenth-century habits of thought, chiefly because Dodsley wrote it. That one of the most successful of London booksellers, associated with the most brilliant men of his time, thought it worth while to write a georgic, is significant of the literary indulgence, if not of the literary taste, of the period. That the complete design of the poet was not carried out indicates that there were limits to the endurance even of the eighteenth century. That Dodsley real- ized the imperfections of his poem, and that he received some encouragment regarding it, may be seen from the words of Horace Walpole,^^ " I am sorry you think it any trouble for me to peruse your poem again. I always read it with pleasure." Erasmus Darwin might be expected to have written a georgic, but he did not. The nearest approach that he made to following ■^ Cp. Shenstone, Rural Elegance, st. 2; Gay, Rural Sports, 281 ff. ; Somer- ville, The Chase, i, 51 flF. " Cp. Gay, Trivia, n, 231 ff. ''Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Mrs. Paget Toyn'bee, Oxford, 1903, vol. ni, p. 195. 72 The Georgic this literary fashion is found in his Phytologia, or the Phi- losophy of Agriculture and Gardening, a prose work published at London and at Dublin in 1800,^^ in which, at intervals, he breaks into verse. Discussing the effect of winds, Darwin quotes the old proverb, The wind from north-east Destroys man and beast: The wind from south-west Is always the best." He translates into rimed couplets Vergil's lines on grafting;®* and he concludes a section on the art of producing flower-buds with a verse quotation from the Botanic Garden.^^ In conclud- ing his observations on fruits, he prefaces a poetic outburst on the "Art of Pruning Wall Trees" with the remark, "The following lines are inserted to amuse the reader, and to imprin t some of the foregoing doctrine on his memory." "^^ To show what Darwin might have done in the way of a georgic, I quot*^ a specimen of this outburst on the " Art of Pruning Wall Trees " : Behead new-grafted trees in spring, Ere the first cuckoo tries to sing; But leave four swelling buds to grow With wide-diverging arms below; and another still more characteristic specimen from The Art vf Pruning Melons and Cucumbers: When melon, cucumber and gourd. Their two first rougher leaves afi'ord Ere yet these second leaves advance Arm'd with fine knife or scissors good Bisect or clip the central bud: Whence many a lateral branch instead Shall rise like hydra's fabled head. When the fair belles in gaudy rows Salute their vegetable Ijeaux; *" My citations are from the London edition. •' Sect. XIII, p. 306. '"Sect, xv, p. 301. •*Sect. XV, p. 412. Cp. The Botanic Garden, vol. I, canto 4, 1. 465. " Sect. XV, p. 429. Didactic Poems on General Agriculture 73 And, as they lose their virgin bloom, Shew, ere it swells, the pregnant womb; Lop, as each crowded branch extends, The barren flowers and leafy ends. He concludes a section on leaves and wood with a poetic address to Swilcar Oak/^ which he thinks " may amuse the weary- reader." And his final outburst is really a brief georgic on the cultivation of Brocoli, translated in part from the elegant Latin poem of Edward Tighe, Esq.'^^ This remarkable production begins as follows : There are of learned taste, who still prefer Cos-lettuce, tarragon, and cucumber; There are, who still with equal praises yoke Young ipeas, asparagus, and artichoke ; Beaux there are still with lamib and spinach nurs'd. And clowns eat beans and bacon, till they burst. This boon I ask of Fate, where'er I dine, O, be the Proteus form of cabbage mine! — Cale, colewort, cauliflower, or soft and clear If Brocoli delight thy nicer ear. Give, rural Muse ! the culture and the name In verse immortal to the rolls of Fame. Directions follow for sowing cabbage seed, hoeing the young plants, etc., the time for each successive labor being marked by the zodiacal sign; and the effort concludes with the following address to the writer whose " elegant Latin verses are in part translated " : Oft in each month, poetic Tighe, be thine To dish green Brocoli with savory chine; Oft down thy tuneful throat be thine to cram The snow-white cauliflower with fowl and ham! — • Nor envy thou, with such rich viands blest. The pye of Perigord, or Swallow's nest. In 1809, James Grahame published at Edinburgh a quarto volume of three hundred and forty pages in blank verse, entitled " Sect. x\an, p. 528. " Sect, xrx, p. 560. I have not been able Ito identify Edward Tighe. He might be the Edward Tighe, M. P. for Wicklow, 1790, named in Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic Hist, of the Landed Gentry of Ireland. 74 The Georgic British Georgics. An interesting criticism of the poem is given in the Edinburgh Review J ^ An idea of the style of this lengthy effort may be had from a number of extracts quoted, mostly descriptive passages, and those in which " the author's tender- ness and kindness of heart ... is very conspicuous." The comment on the title, " British Georgics," is of particular inter- est : " The ' Georgics ' may be, as Mr. Grahame assures us, the proper appellation for all treatises of husbandry in verse, the ' Scottish Farmer's Kalendar ' would have been a little more descriptive of the plan and substance of the work before us. The scenery Scotch, the poem divided into twelve parts or sections arranged in order, and under the names of the twelve months of the year, with full directions for all farm work in each month respectively." The writer in the Review expresses the opinion that the poem will not remove the general objections to didactic poetry. He is convinced that no practical farmer will be willing to become instructed thru the medium of blank verse, and lovers of poetry, he believes, will become discouraged by the precepts that would interest the farmer if written in a less ambitious form. The conclusion of the critic with regard to the poem is very generous not only to Mr. Grahame, but to all writers and to all readers of georgics. " They who do read on, however," he declares, " will be rewarded, we think, by many pleasing and beautiful passages; and even those, whose natures are too ungentle to admire this kind of poetry, must love the characters from which it proceeds, and which it has so strong a tendency to form." The British Georgics seem to have been the last serious attempt at a didactic dealing with general agricultural pre- cepts.*^^ If any other poems of this nature were written, even their names have become lost to the public ; and Grahame's work, far from " removing the general objections to didactic poetry," has, itself, almost completely passed into oblivion. "1810, vol. x\^, p. 213 ff. '* Altho Francis Jammes' poem Les Q6orgiques chrctiennes treats of agri- cultural labors, it cannot be said to d-eal with precepts concerning agricul- ture. See above, pp. 46-47. Didactic Poems on Gardens 75 CHAPTER V Didactic Poems on Gardens 1. From Columella to William Mason Vergil, regretting that he is debarred by scanty space ^ from lingering on the theme of " Gardens," leaves it to others who will come after him.^ Columella - was the first to undertake the task. He begins his Carmen de Cultu Hortorum: Hortorum quoque te cultus, Silvine, docebo, Atque ea, quae quondam spatiis exclusus iniquis, Cum caneret laetas segetes et munera Bacchi, Et te, magna Pales, nee non eaelestia mella, Vergilius nobis post se memoranda reliquit. This introduction is followed by precepts on gardening ; such matters as soils, sites and irrigation being treated in detail. Vergil is imitated in the use of mythological allusions, in the marking of time by the constellations, and in references to the products of foreign countries ; but in the later writer's work there is nothing of Vergil's imagination, Vergil's delicacy of perception, Vergil's brotherhood with all things that live and grow. Columella was no doubt moved by a pious motive, but it would, perhaps, have been as wise had he written the tenth book of the De Re Rustica in prose. In the centuries immediately after Columella, other writers may have been moved to avail themselves of Vergil's legacy; but they either found themselves unequal to the task of the didactic on gardens, or the public failed in appreciation of their efforts. In medieval monasteries, however, delight in nature found expression in verse. Agriculture flourished under the care of skilled monks, and gardening was a recreation as well ' Georg., iv, 147-148. * Columella lived in the Ist c. A. D. See above, p. 28. The tenth book of his treatise on agriculture is written in hexameters. Rei Rustioae Liber Decimiis. Vpsalae, 1902. 76 The Georgic as a labor. " The idyll of the cloister garden so often treated became famous in the much-read Hortulus of Wahlafried," ^ a brief poem belonging to the ninth century, in which the writer tells in detail how he works with his own hands in his garden, and describes his herbs and flowers, lingering upon their uses and their loveliness. The poem shows classical influence; the flrst lines and the conclusion, with its address to Grimald, sug- gest the character of the georgic ; but Wahlaf rid evidently made no effort to follow the Vergilian plan, and he makes no allusion to Vergil's bequest of the theme of gardens. The Hortulus can hardly be said to have any plan. The first part tells of the poet's work in his garden ; the remainder is divided into sections treat- ing of different herbs and flowers, one variety following the other quite indiscriminately. First one reads of lilies and pop- pies, then of plants useful as medicines and in the kitchen. The lines on radishes are followed by a description of the rose. Yet there are in the poem graceful and poetic touches, and at least it can be said that Wahlafrid writes with more imagination of the rose than of the radish. From the ninth to the fifteenth century there is a blank in the history of the didactic on gardens. Then Palladius was trans- lated into English verse, and " Mayster Ion Gardener " ^ wrote his curious verses on the theme with which, one might judge from his name, he was most familiar. There is nothing more than his name by which to judge, for, so far, he has not been identified. The poem was apparently written somewhere be- tween 1440 and 1450. The title heading of the manuscript, " The Feate of Gardening," is added in a later hand. The dialect of the poem points to Kent, which was famous for gar- dens and orchards. The Middle English Palladius has a number of interesting * A. Biese, op. dt., ip. 61. Walafrid, or Wahlafrid Strabo, abbot of Reichenau, d. 849. The Hortulus has been published in a number of Latin collections. See Migne, Pair. Lat. Paris, 1852, vol. 114, pp. 1119-1130. * " On a Fifteenth Century Treatise on Gardening. By Mayster Ion Gardener." With remarks communicated by the Hon. Alicia M. Tyssen Amherst. Archaeologia, 1894, pp. 157 S. Didactic Poems on Gardens 77 pages on gardening ; but John Gardener's verses are more inter- esting because the '' Feate of Gardening " is not only the earliest English poem on this subject, but, so far as I know, the earliest English georgic on any subject. The poem, itself, is rude dog- gerel, of value in the history of English gardens, as in the history of the didactic on English gardens. John Gardener's instruc- tions are very sensible and reasonable, very free, Mrs. Amherst remarks, from superstitions regarding astrology, and from extravagant fancies in grafting and growing plants. Equally free is the poet from rhetorical ambitions. In such direct fashion does the Feate of Gardening begin : Ho so wyl a gardener be Here he may both hyre & se Every time of the 3ere and of the mone lAiid how the crafte shaii be done Yn what maner he shaH delve & sette Bothe yn drowthe and yn wette How he shaii hys sedys sowe Of euery moneth he most knowe Bothe of wortys and of leke Ownyns and of garleke Percely clarey and eke sage And all other herbage. The following lines on parsley illustrate John Gardener's method of imparting precepts and show the pleasant quality of his rude verse : Percell kynde ys for to be To be sow yn ]>e monthe of mars so mote y the He wul grow long and thykke And ever as he growyth ]>u schalt hym kytte pu may hym kytte by resoun pryes yn one seson In the matter of superstitions, John Gardener's reasonable- ness contrasts strongly with the Middle English Palladius, of which the pages are adorned with curious suggestions. There is advised, for example, as a remedy against hail, the planting of white vines around the garden, or the setting up of an owl with outstretched wings. Thus writes the translator : 78 The Georgic Gird eke thi garth aboute in vynes white; Or, sprad the wynges oute, sette up an oule. Whi laugh ye so? this craft is not so lite. Or take thi spades, rake, knyff, and shovelle And evry tole in beres grees defoule. Eke sum have stamped oile with grees of beres To greece her vyne knyflf for dyveres deres. But that a man must doo full prively. That never a warkman wite, and this is goode For frost, and myst, and wormes sekirly. But as I trust in X that shedde his bloode For us, who tristeth this Y hold him wode. Myn author eke, (whoo list in him travaille!) Seith this prophaned thyng may nought availe." John Gardener's treatise was certainly -uninfluenced by the beliefs of Palladius; nor does he show acquaintance with literary models of any kind. He wrote, evidently, from practi- cal experience, perhaps, like the translator of the Palladius, at some special request or command. His verses mark the rude beginnings that culminate in such " elegant " attempts as those of Mr. Mason's English Garden, as Paganino Bonafede's ® beginnings culminate in such works as La CoUivazione and II Canapajo. In the sixteenth century, I know of only one poem on the subject of the cultivation of gardens, Giuseppe Milio Voltolina's Delia Coltura degli Orti, published at Brescia in the year 1574."^ Tiraboschi mentions an essay by Cardinal Querini in which this work is highly praised; and he remarks also that had Pere Rapin known of Voltolina's poem he would not have boasted of having been the first to write of gardens. In the Five hundred Pointes of Good Husbandry Thomas Tusser has some stanzas on gardening, in which he gives general rules for the recognition of good soil, and tells the reader when and how to " sow and set." ® 'Palladius, op. cit., p. 31. 'See above, p. 29. ' Tiraboschi, op. cit., T. vil, p. 2137. • 46-48 ff. In " Marches Abstract," 38, Tusser gives long lists of various seeds, herbs, and flowering plants, naming their uses and the time to sow and set them. Didactic Poems on Gardens 79 The fifth book of Alamanni's Coltivazione is of gardens " come si coltivano in ogni stagione," but the Tuscan poet does not mention the fact that he is developing the theme that Vergil regretted to leave unsung. The book begins with an invitation to Priapus, followed by an extravagant eulogy of King Francis and a tribute to the gardens of Fontainebleau. The poet treats digging and manuring, and the varieties of flowers, moralizing on the power of industry and art to accomplish all things and digressing at great length on the differences in animals, men, and races. He sings of flowers; roses, lilies and hyacinths; and of the tree of the Hesperides, the golden fruit of the tropics ; of hum- ble but equally useful plants, artichokes, cucumbers, gourds, onions, etc. ; but he makes little more appeal to the imagination when he writes of roses and hyacinths than when he talks of cucumbers and gourds. However, his practical advice is worth considering; his pious selections seem none the less devout, his account of the small annoyances of gardening none the less depressing, because they are what one expects to find in a mediocre georgic. Altho Columella is one of Alamanni's sources,^ the tenth book of the De Re Rustica is neither used nor referred to by the Florentine poet. However, in his book on gardens, Ala- manni does not claim, as does Rene Rapin, to explore With bold attempt a way untrod before. Rapin's Horti,^^ one of the very few georgics to be found in the seventeenth century, is in four books : " Of Gardens," " Of Trees," " Of Waters," and " Of Orchards," all systematically planned and written according to the Vergilian model, all imitating carefully the Vergilian motives. In the preface Rapin defends his methods, particularly his digressions, and his selection of only the more general fruits. His digressions, he says, are warranted by the practice of the • Cf. Ginguen^, op. cit., p. 12 ; Hauvette, op. cit., p. 273. " Paris, 1665. 80 The Georgic. Greek poets, his use of selection by the example of Vergil. The end of didactic poetry, declares Rapin, is to instruct, and this is the chief end of poetry in general. The moral, however, does not shoot " point blank," but hits the mark none the less effec- tively. The great art of poetry is that of pleasing, whence it persuades, and herein it excels even philosophy, whose sole aim is to inform the understanding. Eapin lives up to his principle of not shooting the moral point blank, for he digresses continually, telling a story about almost every flower he names. An interesting episode arises from an account of the uses of flowers; the story of a happy swain, who raised flowers for the curing of ills. Rapin here suggests the writing of a medicinal georgic, but leaves the task to someone else.^^ Rapin's poem is particularly interesting for its precepts con- cerning formal gardening. Box hedges, straight gravel walks, and the esplanade, delight the poet's eye. He would have shud- dered at the thought of the " studied negligence " of the English garden. Hallam ^^ writes of Rapin : " For skill in varying and adorn- ing his subject, for truly Vergilian spirit in expression, for the exclusion of feeble, prosaic or awkward lines, he may perhaps be equal to any poet, to Sannazarius himself. HHs cadences are generally very gratifying to the ear, and in this respect he is much above Vida. But his subject or his genius has prevented him from rising very high ; he is the poet of gardens, and what gardens are to nature, that is he to mightier poets." Yet while the difficulties of Rapin's theme can easily be granted, remem- bering Vergil, one hardly hesitates to say that it is Rapin's genius, not his subject, that prevents him from rising very high. Rapin's Horti was translated into French and English, and like other georgics, seems to have been most widely read in the " See above, p. 42. " Introd. to the Lit. of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and nth c. In 3 vols., Boston, 1854; vol. m, p. 491. Didactic Poems on Gardens 81 eighteenth centurv.^^ lu 1728, Bernard Lintot, the publisher of James Gardiner's translation, observes that books of garden- ing were in great vogue, and gentlemen were curious about looking into them. He does not share Hallam's doubts regarding Rapin's genius and his subject, for he writes: " I will be bold to say that there is nothing in the whole Art of Gardening which is not to be found in Rapin, and that adorned ,with all the embellishments and Advantages that the greatest genius of his age could possibly give to so pleasant a subject in poetical dress." " Compare," adds Lintot, " the judicious Mr. Evelyn's opinion of it." The '' judicious Mr. Evelyn " ends his Sylva or Dis- course of Forest Trees, with the following encomium : " I con- clude this book and whole discourse, of that incomparable Poem of Rapinus, as epitomizing all we have said. I cannot there- fore but wonder that excellent Piece, so elegant, pleasant, and instructive, should be no more inquired after." Lintot con- tinues: " It would be superfluous after this one encomium of Mr. Evelyn's, considering his character for veracity. Judgment in Poetry, and Skill in Gardening, to add any more in praise of the Original." Lintot adds that he has been enjoined to silence concerning the translator, but he cannot forbear to raise his voice in praise, and after Rapin's preface he prints several poems in Latin and in English, encomiums of Mr. Gardiner's excellent translation. Mr. Gardiner's translation is done in eighteenth-century couplets, in eighteenth-century style. His poem might very easily pass for an early eighteenth-century production, but it does not abound in the circumlocutions so prevalent in the georgics of the period, and Rapin's formal gardens are in strik- ing contrast to the landscapes of Knight and Mason and Delille. " The second French translation in prose, printed with the Latin text, is by MM. Vyron and Cabiot, a new ed., Paris, 1802. It was suggested by a reading of Delille's Jardins. An English translation appeared in London, 1673, Cambridge, 1706 (the year of the publication of Philip's Cyder), and in London, 1728, the latter Jas. Gardiner's " Englished Version," ed. 3. In the same year appeared also John Lawrence's Paradise Regained: or the Art of Gardening. 6 82 The Georgic Mrs. Cecil ^"^ notes in her bibliography a Carmen de Cultu Hortorum by Richard Richardson, published in London in 1669, but I know nothing further of either the writer or the poem. The first original eighteenth-century didactic on gardens written in English is, as far as I have been able to learn, the rare and curious work of John Lawrence, Paraddse Regained: or the Art of Gardening y^ To one uninterested in the georgic, this work, whose title promises so much, is a '' dreary poem, so-called, of fifty-nine pages." A plague, it seems, is raging in town, so that the poet leaves, And now retir'd to Streams and Sylvan glades, With other fine Poetical Parades, To stations near, where Cowley tuned his Lyre, To Hills, exalted more by Denham's Fire, In Muse's Seats affect the Muses style. And Fancy feels a Heat more Juvenile. I Often, amus'd with Feats in Gardening, Delightful Exercise, I work and Sing. These feats are then described, after which it appears that " at one view " there may be seen the Myrtle, Citron and other tropical trees. Then food plants are described, the author exclaiming. Assist me, therefore, Goddess, to express Such things as these if harsh, with easiness. Such things as " these " being cabbages, asparagus, artichoke, beans, etc.^^ A passage on medicinal herbs follows, possibly inspired by Rapin. "Op. ciL, p. 344. See above, p. 53. " For ray knowledge of the contents of the rare and valuable edition of 1728, I am indebted to my friend Mr. Hyder E. Rollins, who kindly read it for me at Harvard. " One wonders whether it was from his knowledge of the georgic, or from his ignorance of it, that Dr. Johnson made his caustic comment on the theme of Grainger's didactic: '"What could he make of a sugar cane? One might as will write. The Parsley-bed, a Poem, or The Cabbage-garden, a Poem." Cf. Life by Boswell, ed. Hill, vol. ii, p. 520. Didactic Poems on Gardens 83 Herbs Physical of divers qualities, I plant and in good order Methodize, In short whatever Malady you name That Death portends, or tortures human Frame, Whether Catarrhs, with constant flux of Rheum, Or hectic Heats, that inwardly consume. If Dropsy Waters to th' Abdomen flow, Or Stone the Back, or Gout torments the Toe, Or if by chance, the Veins with Poison swell. Here grow those Herbs, that all these griefs repel. The author describes the mutual confidences established be- tween himself and the Bees, gives an account of the birds that visit his garden, and thus prefaces his conclusion: And having now described in some degree Perhaps with too great Partiality, A rural settlement that pleases me; To make some Recompense, if I ofl^end, Would tack this useful Moral to the End. A moral which takes up five pages. Could anything be more characteristic of the spirit of the eighteenth century ? A bad poet offers to make " Recompense " for his bad poetry by '' tacking a useful moral to the end." Vaniere has among his sixteen georgics one on the kitchen garden,^" five hundred and ninety-four lines, given chiefly to precepts on the subject. Others may sing of gardens redolent with beautiful flowers. He will devote himself to the humbler but more useful products of the Kitchen Garden, once meditated by the divine Maro. He refers to Rapin, who bore away the " first honors of the garden," but he does not mention Alamanni nor Columella. He has a few lines on lilies and roses, which flowers have also their " sober uses," but in the main he fulfills his promise. With the exception of a Cain and Abel story without the tragic ending, and a mythological episode, he devotes himself almost w^holly to the culture of vegetables dear to the French. " Op. cit., IX. Olus. 84 The Georgic 2. William Mason's " The English Garden " and Delille's "Jardins " William Mason's poem, The English Garden, "^^ marks the beginning of a new epoch in the history of didactics on garden- ing. Mason has nothing to say of cabbages and parsley beds. Like Rapin, he writes for the rich, but he scorns precepts such as Eapin's ; for the main object of his poem is to overthrow the rule of the formal garden, to encourage the newly awakened taste for romantic landscape effects. And in his teaching, he introduces another note, new to the didactic; a combination of the principles of painting with poetry, the address to great painters, and the invocation to Painting. ^^ All the familiar features of the georgic are present in The English Garden, except the use of proverbial sayings, the description of country pastimes, and the description of weather signs. Mason has also passages in praise of the advantages of simple country life,"^ but the spirit of the poem is not the spirit of Vergil, for Mason glorifies not the power of labor, but the power of taste combined with wealth, and his one picture of cottage life ^^ is marked by the well-bred Englishman's patron- izing attitude towards the simple rustic; it has the sensible gentleman's point of view, entirely lacking Vergil's deep and understanding sympathy with the Italian peasantry. The poet declares that he does not court popular applause, but writes to soothe his gi'ief for his wife ; ^^ however, he admits ""The English Garden. A Poem in four books. To which are added a commentary and notes, by W. Burgh. The Works of Wm. Mason. In four volumes, London, 1811, Vol. i, p. 202 ff. The first book was written in 1772, the last in 1782. Mason is best known as the friend and biographer of the poet Gray. At Gray'is suggestion he undertook to write The English Ga/rden. Book iv begins with an elegiac address to Gray. "Op. Courthope, Hist, of Eng. Poetry, Macmillan & Co., London, 1910. vol. VI, p. 29. '" The Eng. Qwrden, 459 ff., ii, 132-136. '^ The Eng. Qa/rden, n, 406 ff. ^The Eng. Garden, i, 31 ff. Twentieth century readers may think that Mason was wise not to have counted on popular applause, but Chalmers in his biographical introduction to The English Garden, Eng. Poets, vol. viii, Didactic Poems on Gardens 85 that he cannot plead the ruggedness, nor the unpopularity of his subject, for he writes : With such a theme I sing Secure of candid audience." In describing fences, however, he makes the characteristic georgic complaint of the difficulty of his task,^'* and in neo- classic fashion attempts to elevate his lowly subject by absurd circumlocutions.^^ Exulting in the proud theme of forests, he suddenly cries: My weak tongue feels Its ineflfectual powers, and seeks in vain That force of ancient phrase which, speaking, paints, And is the thing it sings. Ah, Virgil, why By thee neglected was this loveliest theme. remarks that " altho the usual objections to didactic poetry are undoubt- edly against this specimen, yet The English Garden was read with avidity and approbation." , " The Eng. Garden, ii, 34-35. »* The Eng. Garden, ii, 250-259. "Cp. H. A. Beers: A Hist, of Eng. Romam,ticism in the Eighteenth Century, N. Y., H. Holt & Co., pp. 123 ff. Professor Beers, who has no patience with didactic poets, writes: "The influence of Thomson's inflated diction is here seen at its worst. The whole poem is an object lesson on the absurdity of didactic poetry. Especially harrowing are the author's struggles to be poetic while describing the various kinds of fences designed to keep sheep out of his inclosures. Ingrateful sure, When such the theme, becomes the poet's task, Yet must he try by modulation meet Of varied cadence and selected phrase. Exact yet free, without inflation bold, To dignify that theme. Accordingly he dignifies his theme by speaking of a net as the ' sportsman's hempen toils,' of a gun as the ' fell tube ^^ Whose iron entrails hide the sulphurous blast, >> V"^©^^ Satanic engine.' ^ v' An ice-house becomes a conundrum, yJ*^^^'^ a structure rude, where Winter pounds In conic pit his congelations hoar. That Summer may his tepid beverage cool With the chill luxurv. 86 The Gsorgic Left to the grating voice of modern reed? Why not array it in the splendid robe Of thy rich diction, and consign the charge To Fame, thy hand-maid, whose immortal plume Had born its praise beyond the bounds of Time." A lament due not to modesty alone. As a treatise on the management of landscape effect, The English Garden is in general sensible; the poet shows the artist's appreciation for color and distance, and he is alive to the influence of fragrance, as well as of color. As a poem it illustrates many of the worst faults of the age. Yet Nathan Drake -'^ pronounces it the most finished and interesting speci- men that the English possess in the mode 'of the georgic,-*^ and Courthope, altho he gTants Mason's pedantry and want of humor, makes the following comment : '' Warton's praise of The English Garden as a composition in which ' didactic poetry is brought to perfection by the happy combination of judicious precepts with the most elegant ornaments of language and imagery ' is not undeserved." -^ Courthope, unlike Professor Beers, is sometimes generous and always just: the poem is not entirely devoid of poetic beauty, but its main interest is that it begins a new fashion in the georgic, and that, more perhaps than any other georgic, it represents the conflicting ideas of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The poet invokes Simplicity, declaring that his song " belongs to her " ; and he belies his words on almost every page. Simplicity, he an- nounces, is his guiding deity ; but it is the " Muse " who teaches how to make paths and to form fences, then '' mounts to sing of forests." " Nature " and " Liberty," beloved eighteenth- century words, recur repeatedly ; but Nature must be wedded to Art, and Liberty must be restrained. Mason unites the roman- *• The Eng. Garden, iii, 76-85. '''Literary Hours, London, 1820, Vol. ii, pp. 113 ff. "Drake is almost as exaggerated in his praise of the English Garden as Ginguen^ in praise of La Colt. However, an acquaintance with Dr. Drake's sentimental tale of Ma/ria Arnold would prepare one for the critic's enthu- siastic view. " Op. cit., VI, p. 20. Didactic Poems on Gardens 87 tie yearning for solitude and dim-lighted glades with the classic hatred of superstition, the romantic love of monastic ruins with the classic scorn of inmates of monasteries. His most romantic passages illustrate the neo-classic delight in moral- izing; and his final episode represents chiefly the worst strain of romanticism, the " graveyard school's tendency to revel in the luxury of grief." ^^ The introduction to this episode, Precepts tire, and this fastidious age Rejects the strain didactic, try we then In livelier narrative the truths to veil We dare not dictate, reveals the poet's weakness, and is, perhaps, the most ungrateful romai-k ever made ahout the eighteenth century, for surely if any age ever suttered in patience '' the strain didactic " that age is the eighteenth century. Mason resigns the *' Dorian reed " to youthful bards ; he is hopeless of general praise, '' well repaid if they of classic ear " accept his song, and may turn the art he sings to soothing use in the ill-omened hour When Rapine rides In titled triumph, when Corruption waves Her banner broadly in the face of day. He ends with a prayer that the '' long-lost train of virtues may ** Concerning this episode, Mason writes to Walpole, Jan. 21, 1781, The Correspondence of Horace Walpole and the Rev. W. Mason, ed. by the Rev. T. Mitford, London, 1851, Vol. ii, pp. 135 ff.: •' I have much greater hopes of your applause on my fourth book of the English Garden, which is now almost finished . . . ; the subject you know is that of Ornamental Buildings, Menageries, Conservatories, etc., and with this I have contrived to interweave a pathetic story throughout, so that the whole book will be (if you can have any idea from the term) an Episodico-didactico-politico- farrago, unlike everything ever was written or will be written. The improvers will like it for its taste, the ladies for its tenderness; opposition for its Americality ; yet of this last it has no more than was absolutely necessary for the fable, and that so gently touched, that even Bishops will be forced to applaud it for its humanity, I had almost said Christianity. I wish it was possible to have it published on the Fast morning on this very account."' 88 The Georgic return to save Albion's throne, her altars, and her laureate bowers." Younger English bards, Cowper, and William Knight, were to take up the Dorian reed with more or less success, but in the meantime, Delille published his poem Les Jardins,^^ which was inspired by the prevailing taste for the newly-imported fashion of the English Garden. In the preface to the revised edition of 1801, Delille observes that his poem has a great inconvenience, that of being a didactic, a species necessarily a little cold, especially to a nation that, as has often been remarked, can scarcely endure anything but verses composed for the theatres. He refers to Vergil's sketch of gardens, and to Rapin's work, but he does not mention Columella nor Alamanni's book on Gardens. Of Rapin he writes : " Ce que le poete romain regrettoit de ne pouvoir f aire le poete Rapin I'a execute. II a ecrit dans la langiie et quel- quefois dans le style de Virgile, un poeme en quatre chants, sur les jardins, qui eut un grand succes dans un temps oil on lisoit encore les vers latins modemes. Son ouvrage n'est pas sans elegance; mais on y desiroit plus de precision, et des episodes plus heureux." He criticises the too great regularity of Rapin's plan, and writes of the formal gardens described by the older poet, " Par-tout elle regi'ette la beaute un pen desordonnee, et la piquante irregularite de la I^ature. . . . Ses jardins sont ceux de I'architecte ; les autres sont ceux du philosophe, du peintre et du poete." Delille disclaims any debt to Mason, stating that Les Jardins was composed long before he read The English Garden. He makes a defense of the " genre didactique," and of Les Jardins, justifying himself against those who accuse him of having written solely for the rich ; and he claims finally that twenty editions of the poem, besides nuincronrf translations, answer the severest critics. "Nouvelle ed. Considerablomcnt Auomt'iit<^e, Paris, 1801. Besides writ- ing JjCs Jardins, Delille translated VergiTs Ocorgics, and wrote L'llomme des Champs, ou Les Gcorgiques Fraiii'aises. See alwve, p. 45. Didactic Poems on Gardens 89 Delille's poem, like The English Garden, is a georgic charac- teristic of the eighteenth century.^^ Like The English Garden it is a treatise ou the best methods of securing landscape effects, and like Mason, Delille decries the old formal methods ; but the French poet makes a point of warning against extravagance, and counsels the avoidance of excess. -Mason has an interesting passage on the history of English gardens in which he quotes a description of the Garden of Eden, and names Milton as " great N^ature's herald,'' who yet vainly proclaimed her primeval honors.^^ Delille writes : Aimez done des jardins la beauts naturelle, Dieu lui-meme aux mortels en traca le modMe, and gives an account of Milton's description of the Garden of Eden.3^ Mason ends his second book with the episode of the Sidonian Sage ^^ who gives up the peace of his retired garden to accept the burden of royalty. Delille ends Chant iv with the same story, introducing another character, the Sage's son. Like Mason, Delille associates the principles of painting with the principles of poetry, and advises the imitation of great landscape painters. Like Mason, he has the romantic love of ruins, but he does not make ^lason's mistake of commending the building of ruins, for he is strongly opposed to anything in the nature of pretense. As in Mason, familiar eighteenth- century phrases occur repeatedly, " imitate l^ature," " study variety," " encourage liberty " ; and the poet expresses the early " Delille omits the constellation device, and the discussion of weather signs. " The Eng. Garden, i, 386 ff. ** Les Jardins, i, 715 ff. Thomson is frequently called the father of English landscape gardening. Delille observes in a note that manj' Eng- lish claim that Milton's description of Paradise, and some passages of Spenser, gave rise to the fashion of landscape gardens ; hut that the genre originated with the Chinese. He prefers, however, the authority of Milton, as more poetic. " Abdalonimus. The fact on which this episode is founded is recorded by Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, Justin and Q. Curtius. See Mason, op. cit., n. XVI, p. 402. 90 The Georgic romantic ideas of the importance of the individual, the love of the wild and solitary, the luxury of grief. Much of Delille's advice is sensible. His style is clear and brilliant, but, altho the gardens of which he sings are designed primarily to appeal to the imagination, his poem makes no imaginative appeal. It can, however, be read with interest, because it mirrors popular fashions, and popular ideas; hence its vogue in the poet's day. 3. Louts de Fontanes' "liaison Rusiique." Its relation to Delille's " Jardins" and the fashion of the English landscape garden. Louis de Fontanes' ^^ georgic. La Maison Rustique, may be regarded in Sainte-Beuve's phrase, as '' un sous-amendement respectueux du poeme des Jardins.'''' In 1788 de Fontanes published Le Verger, with a preface in which he states that Delille, citing Vergil as an example to follow, neglects useful gardens, altho the garden of Vergil is ' un potager.' ^"^ " Je n'ai sans doute reuipli le plan de Virgile,'' continues de Fontanes, '' mais j'ai cherche de le suivre. Au lieu des pares de Watheley et de le Xotre, j'ai voulu tracer simplement, Le jardin du berger, du po^te, et du sage." An interesting criticism of Delille follows: '' Ces observations ne tendent point a diminuer I'admiration qu'on doit au grand et rare talent de M. I'abbe Delille. Le defaut principal est bien couvert par la foule de beautes ]X)etiques qu'il a semees dans son ouvrage; les vers frangais n'ont jamais eu plus d'c'clat, plus d'harmonie et de variete dans le rhythme. En un mot, puisque le style fait le poete, M. I'Abbe Delille Test au plus haut degre.' ' De Fontanes stands declared against the English garden, and against what he considers false attempts to imitate Nature. He *• (Euvres. Pr^e^d^s d'une lettre de M. de Chateaubriand. Avec une notice biograiphique par M. Roger, et une autre par M. Sainte-Beuve. Paris, 1859. La Maison Rusiique, Vol. i, pp. 187 fF. " Cp. the opening lines of VaniiTe's Olus. Didactic Poems on Gardens 91 undertakes liis task well prepared by the study of many treat- ises on gardens, among them those of Chambers, Whateley, Morel and Hirschfeld. The last-named, he remarks in the preface to the '' Verger," pretends that France has no inter- esting views; because of this absurd pretense the beauties of French vistas are emphasized. La Maison Rustique is merely '' I'ancien Verger refondu." It is written in three books, " Le Potager," " Le Verger " *^ and " Le Pare." De Fontanes makes use of all the georgic devices except proverbial sayings. He advises even the study of favorable and unfavorable days, the learning of the regular signs of the heavens, and the marking of time by the constella- tions. The horrors of war are dwelt upon, but de Fontanes being optimistic, finds that good comes even from war, and while he remarks on the truth that all things must die, he does not linger on the dreary thought of the quick passing of the best in human life, but emphasizes the idea that all things are reborn and that life contiiijies immortal thru one's descendants : ^^ Ces fr^les nourrissons entre des mains habiles Croissent pour remplacer leurs ancetres debiles. Tout meurt, mais tout renalt; et ce tronc pr#cieux Que jadis a plante la main de vos aieux; Et que plus d'une fois en bravant leur defense, Dans ses jeux indiscrets outrage a votre enfance, Ce tronc, que ses bienfaits ont longtemps embelli, Par ses dons 6puise, comme nous a vieilli; II tombe, et cMe enfin son empire i1 I'arbuste. Tel, sous le poids des ans penchant sa tete auguste, Un vieillard vcrtueux regrette moins le jour S'il laisse apr&s sa mort un fils de son amour, Son fils reproduira ses mcBurs et son image.'"' The last book ends with an interesting tribute to " La Muse georgique," in whose defense the poet tells the story of the contest in which Ilesiod is given the palm over Homer. ™ Pontano's De Horlis Hcsperidum and John Philips' Cyder might be discussed in connection with " Le Verger," but since Philips' work treats of the culture of the apple and Pontano's of the culture of the citron, they do not belong in the history of the didactic on gardens. ™Cp. La Colt., I, 340 ff. Kee above, p. 62. ** La Maison Rust., Chant li. 92 The Gsorgic In " Le Potager," de Fontanes makes no reference to the efforts of Columella, Alamanni, Vaniere, and John Lawrence. His purpose, apparently, is to rebuke the pride of the Muse of poets like Mason and Delille, for after having sung the charm of the kitchen garden, ornamented without expense, cultivated from seeds, herbs, and roots brought from neighboring gardens, he exclaims, Longtemps I'orgueil du vers a craint de les nommer, Aujourd'hui je les chante et je veux les semer. He dignifies the theme of humble garden plants with consider- able skill, making a pleasant picture of the bees among the th;}Tne : L'ail s'annonce de loin; pardonne, aimable Horace, Thesitilis aux bras nus, sans craindre ta menace, Exprime en le broyant de piquantes saveurs, Pui raniment le gout et la soif des buveurs, Et le thym qu'en leur vol les abeilles moissonnent Le cresson qui des eaux recherche les courants, Et I'ache et le carfeuil aux esprits odorants. The poet follows his precepts for the sowing of vegetable seeds by a defense of his theme. The potager is less brilliant in effect than the parterre, but it lasts longer. Zephyr loves it ; Flora cultivates it : the opening chalices drink the morning dews. The cabbage, whose name causes the Muse to blush, forgets this scorn, and enriches the winter with its tribute always green.^^ Finally, philosophizing, the poet observes that altho humble products may be despised, they have nevertheless changed the course of destiny. Souvent un v^g^tal trouv^ dans les deserts, Un arbuste, un seul fruit, peut changer I'univers. Triptolemus, sowing grain, brought alxuit civilization ; the Gauls were called to the banks of the Tiber by the vino, and so on, with various illustrations to prove his jioint. "The potato is not named, but is referred to as a vegetable more useful than the cabbage, a product to which much homage is duo. since often it makes up for the denial of Ceres. Didactic Poems on Gardens 93 The potager's possible beauties are not neglected. The poet aims to bring out the point that in the kitchen garden everything is of use for pleasure, for nourishment, or for health. The proud ^' Mondor," contemptuous of " le potager," rich by '' gains honteux," desires the tranquility of country life. He will " make " an English park, with newly-placed ruins, every- thing showy, expensive, bizarre. Mondor wastes his substance, gets into debt, the bailiff comes, and ruin follows.**^ Sensible afterdwellers sow lettuces on the unhappy site. In " Le Verger," de Fontanes pays a tribute to Delille's verse, altho he condemns his teachings, vain lectures on " simple negligence," simplicity which is only ^' un luxe de plus." The gifts of the cherry tree, the briar, etc., declares de Fontanes, are worth more than all useless ornaments of the pompous catalpa, the varnish trees of China transplanted to France at great cost. And in '' Le Pare," the poet makes a final plea for the restoration of the formal garden, and the condemned labyrinth. De Fontanes does not neglect the solidity of his agricultural precepts. His " Orchard," in this respect, might bear com- parison with Philips' Cyder^^ The French poet's mind is of a moralizing and scientific trend, and in certain passages he shows a kinship to Erasmus Darwin. The especial interest of his poem is its relation to other garden georgics, and to the eighteenth-century quarrel over regularity and form, opposed to the wild variety of Nature, one of the familiar phases in the early quarrels between classicists and romanticists. Socially, de Fontanes is not revolutionary in his ideas, altho he makes so strong a protest for simplicity as opposed to the bizarre and the extravagant. He has the aristocrat's contempt for the showy splendors of the new-rich ; but inequality, he declares, cannot be banished from the freest state. If fortune ^ Cp- tlie stories told of similar visitors said to have haunted Shenstone's Leasowes as a result of that poet's rash expenditure. *'The lines on cider and wines, the account of the Scarecrow, suggest the influence of Philips. 94: The Georgic or the favor of Kings has been granted yon, surround your retreat with greater splendor: humble, lowly gardens for the lowly, majestic parks for the great. 4. Coiuper's georgic on the "Garden"; William Knight's didactic poem, " The Landscape." The third book of Cowper's Task- is a georgic on '' the Garden," emphasizing the advantages of rural happiness and innocence, in contrast to the corruptions of city life. Two- thirds of the poem consist of moralizations, and satirical reflec- tions on the vanities of man; a particular outcry being made against the debaucheries and the luxury of the metropolis. Many eighteenth-century motives culminate in Cowper, but they are motives colored always by the poet's personality or by his religious belief. The power of Philosophy and of Science is exalted, but with Cowper Philosophy and Science must be accompanied by divine illumination and faith in prayer. A protest is made against the cruelty of the chase, but the poet is comforting himself by the thought that at least his tame hare is safe. In his garden Xature appears " in her cultivated trim.'' It is a garden in which a country gentleman sows and prunes and frames industriously. One hears the old note of triumph, pride in a new theme. To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd, an art That toiling ages have but just matured, And at this moment unassayed in song. The *' prickly and green-coated gourd" is the cucinnbiM.^^ Cowper himself tells the reader so, and gives detailed instruc- tions for the growing of this delicacy in the hot-bed, and a feeling account of the "ten thousand dangers" that "lie iii wait to thwart the process," Heat and cold, and wind, and steam, Moisture and drought, mice, worms and swarming flies. ** The Task, iir, 446 ff. Didactic Poems on Gardens 95 But, '* it were loug-, too long," to tell them all. The learn'd and wise Sarcastic would exclaim, and judge the song Cold as its theme, and like its theme, the fruit Of too much labor, worthless when produced." Xot having Mason's scorn of foreign plants, Cowper gives an account of the gTeen-house, and of the exotic blooms that flourish there while the wind whistles outside; and he has some precepts on the proper arrangement of flowers, practical to some extent, but of no help to a novice at gardening. The rest of the poem is a discourse against the foolish and wicked luxuries of the day. In satirizing the follies of the new fashion of landscape gardening, the poet makes an attack on the landscape methods of the famous Brown; methods that require a fortune for the following. The joy of the " enrap- tiu'ed owner " of the new English garden is pictured ending in bankruptcy. But^the estate, unlike that of de Fontane's proud Mondor, is not to be sown with lettuces. The owner • Drained to the last poor item of his wealth . . . sighs, departs, and leaves the accomplished plan Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the Heaven He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy/" The methods of Brown are attacked at much gTeater length in a didactic entitled The Landscape, written in 1794 by Wil- liam Payne Knight.'*'^ Knight, however, appears to have been concerned not with the ruin of the owner of the estate, but with the ruin of the estate. The author's advertisement to the second edition of his poem suggests that he has passed thru troubled times since its first appearance.'*^ With some warmth against his assailants he " The Task, Bk. in. 562. •■ The Task, ni, 784 fT. "In 3 bks. 2nd ed. London, 1795. **For a venomous spurt against Knight see Horace Walpolc's letters to Mason, March 22, 1796, op. cit.. Vol. ii, p. 369. 96 The Georgic defends liimself, stating that he is concerned merely to ascertain and to extend good taste. " As to what has been asserted of his preferring the opposite extremes of a Siberian desert and a Dutchman's garden to the grounds of Blenheim and Stowe and Burleigh," he decJares, " it is a misrepresentation so monstrous as to need no reply." One insinuation, however, cannot pass unnoticed. Mr. Mason's English Garden is said to have been pillaged to decorate the Landscape, without any acknowledg- ment having been made for the flowers stolen ; " but the author of the latter has not read the former, nor did he at the time of writing recollect its existence, tho he now remembers to have heard it spoken of some years before with that commendation which is due to every product of the chaste and classical Mr. Mason ; but the candid reader must not think that he makes this confession thru any affected or fastidious refinement ; on the contrary, he considers it as an instance of culpable negli- gence, showing that he has devoted himself to the ancients to the exclusion of the moderns." He scornfully comments on a sort of doggerel ode, " The Sketch from the Landscape," written in ridicule of his poem. He notices this doggerel only to assure the author that his apprehensions of giving any serious offense in such a perform- ance are wholly groundless, and he scornfully quotes a specimen of his adversary's wit, after which he remarks naively that he thinks it may be allowable, without incurring the imputation of arrogance or vanity, to add a specimen in a very different style of a friend's paneg}'ric, which, as it contains not only an approbation, but a very happy illustration of the system of improvements here recommended, may be considered a part of the present work, the whole of which, he modestly adds, the reader will probably wish, had been executed by the same masterly hand.^® Mr. Knight's poem, read as a poem, is very dull. In the *"The panegyric, by Edward Winnington is duly flattering, sounding enthusiastically the favorite eighteenth century notes. Liberty and Nature, " kindred powers." Didactic Poems on Gardens 97 history of the georgic it is of some interest. It is clearly an imitation of Vergil, altho neither in spirit nor in form is it tnih' georgic. Altho the poet claims to have neglected the moderns for the ancients, his verse shows the influence of Pope and Thomson. The Landscape is written in closed couplets that treat rather of aesthetic than of practical ideas. The poet bids you follow Xature and avoid deformity. A passionate outburst protests against the Pedant jargon that defines Beauty's unbounded forms to given lines, and against the man '' who dares not judge without consulting rules." Like Mason and Delille, Knight alludes to famous painters as guides in the treatment of landscape, and, like Mason, pays tribute to the power of Art. Mason advises the use of every means by which to break the eifect of straight lines, and he advises the cultivation of the natural curve; Knight objects to the over use of the " pointed line," but still more to The path that moves by even serpentine, and he attacks Brown, who First taught the walk in even spires to move, And from their haunts the secret Dryads drove. Thinking of Vergil's lines, rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes, flumina amem silvasque inglorius." the poet cries. Hence, proud ambition's vain delusive joys! Hence, worldly wisdom's solemn empty toys! Let others seek the senate's loud applause, And glorious, triumph in their country's cause! Let others, bravely prodigal of breath Go grasp at honor in the jaws of death: Their toils may everlasting glories crown, '^Georg. ii, 485-6. 7 98 The Georgic And Heaven record their virtues with its own! Let me, retired from business, toil and strife, Close amidst books and solitude my life.^^ Curious lilies, imitating Vergil's words, Vergil's idea of vain ambitions and delusive joys,"- yet omitting the heart of Vergil's teaching, since the poet will flee not only from ambition but also from toil. A passage follows depicting the poet's romantic delight in nature; shaded caverns, thickening glooms, sunset and the nightingale's song. He hits at the pastoral poet's strains, Where lovesick shepherds, sillier than their sheep, In lovesick numbers, full as silly, weep; inveighs against a monkish life, and concludes his first book with a passage on the value of reason. The second book gives advice for the securing of landscape effects of light and shade. He warns against formal traces of art, the affectation of Chinese customs, and the imitation of ruins. He laments the passing of old days, When art to Nature true. No tricks of dress, or whims of fashion knew, when good taste was found among the lowest, as among the highest. He moralizes in phrases reminiscent of Lucretius on the vain pomp of wealth, but is thankful for the consoling powers of art to raise man in his o^vn estimation, and concludes with a georgic passage on the little annoyances of life, and all the little ills that rise From idleness, whicli its own langfuor flies. The third book treats of the proper sites for trees and flowers. The poet rails against " the shrubberies' insipid green " and other barbarisms of modern taste ; contrasts British woods with foreign growths, and enumerates Britain's blessings."'''^ " The Landscape, Bk. i, ;J09 fT. " Oeorg. II, 495 ff. "The following highly poetical lines show a few of the ills from which the Briton is free: Didactic Poems on Gardens 99 The theme of foreign contrast is developed with generous recognition of the fact that altho Britain is so far superior to other countries, each has some good, since Xo state or clime's so bad but that the mind Formed to enjoy content, content will find. ^loralizing on how few have power to enjoy the blessings of freedom, the poet draws a picture of revolutionary France, s\Tnpathizing with the sufferings of the king and queen. But, like de Fontanes, he concludes optimistically with a hope that from these horrors future times may see Just order spring and genuine liberty. May hence ambition's wasteful folly cease, And cultivate the happy arts of peace. The conflict between the ideas of the classicists and the early romanticists can be seen in Knight, as in Mason, and The Land- scape is of value because it is so essentially a part of its age. The history of garden didactics is in some respects the most interesting chapter in a study of the georgic, particularly of the eighteenth-century georgic. The intercrossing of ideas, the play of criticism, the presentation of popular fashions, make these poems an important group when studied in relation to one another. But from Columella to Knight, '"^^ not one poet in the group has fulfilled the promise of his subject. The garden is an alluring theme. English poets from Chaucer onward, have loved to dwell upon it, and even before Chaucer the writer of the Phoenix broke away from the Anglo-Saxon traditions of No poisonous reptiles o'er his pillow creep, Nor buzzing insects interrupt his sleep. Secure at noon he snores beneath the brake. — The Landscape, iir, 265-267. "Mrs. Cecil, in her bibliography, op. cit., p. 370, cites a poem called The Plants, by Wm. Tighe, Cantos 3 and 4: The Vine and the Palm, London, 1811. Cantos 1 and 2 were published earlier and not reprinted. Whether or not, this work i? a didactic on the garden, I can not say. 100 The Georgic battle and gloom to sing of a land of perpetual fruit and flowers. Bacon is more delightfully human in his Essay on Gardens than in anything he ever wrote, and some of the loveliest lines in English poetry are of gardens and of flowers. But in all the georgics on Gardens, there is not a passage that appeals irre- sistibly to the imagination or that lingers hauntingly in the memory. The way of the didactic poet is hard, but it is not impossible. The reading of every Vergilian imitation on gar- dens only serves to deepen the regret that Vergil neglected this " loveliest of themes." Didactic Poems on Field Sjjorts 101 CHAPTER VI Didactic Poems on Field Sports Suggesting profitable occupations for the husbandman in winter weather, Vergil writes, turn gruibus pedicas et retia poneie cervis, auritosque sequi lepores : turn figere dammas stuppea torquentem Balearis verbera fundae, cum nix alta iacet. glaciem cum flumina trudiint; * he imagines the joyous clamour of the hunters, and the hounds, and the echoing groves, vocat ingenti clamore Citliaeron Taygetique canes domitrixque Epidaurus equorum et vox adsensu nemorum ingeminata remugit; ^ and remembering the practical value of the dog, he advises the husbandman, nee tibi cura canum fuerit postrema, sed una veloces Spartae catulos acremque Molossum pasce sero pingui. numquam custodibus illis nocturnum stabulis furem incursusque luporum aut inpacatos a tergo horrebis Hiberos. saepe etiam cursu timidos agitabis onagros, et oanibus leporem, canibus venabere dammas; saepe volutabris pulsos silvestribus apros latratu turbabis agens montesque per altos ingentem clamore premes ad retia cervum.' It has been remarked that among the developments of the pastoral there is found a " venatorv " variety of the eclogue in which hunters speak instead of shepherds.^ In the Georgics Vergil himself has left in embryo the didactic on Rural Sports. The context of the first passage cited, remarks Page,^ shows that the poet had in mind the needs of the winter larder; and ' Georg. i, 307-310. ' Qeorg. iii, 404-414. * Georg. iii, 43-45. * See above, p. 40. ^ Op. cit., p. 221. 102 The Georgic Sallust classes hunting and Hsbing among servile agTicultural employments.^ In Thomson's Seasons, and in other imitations of the Georgics, accounts of hunting are given as illustrations of country pastimes ; and in general, poetical treatises on hunt- ing and on fishing represent these occupations as the diversions of the wealthy, not as a means of gaining a livelihood, or of filling the larder. In these treatises, however, the plan of the Georgics is almost always followed to a certain extent ; and if the teaching of the necessity of constant labor is not enforced in the didactic poem on field sports, at least the praises of country life are not neglected. Poems on field sports may be divided into two large general classes : I. Of Hunting, represented by the cynegetics ^ and the ixeu- tics ^ of the ancients, which treat, at least in part, of hunting with dogs, and of snaring birds. II. Of Fishing, the halieutic " of the ancients. The cynegetic, the ixeutic, and the halieutic are all illus- trated in the works ascribed to Oppian of Cilieia; and in two of these poems, the Cynegetica and the HaUeuUca, there are found comparisons of the three modes of the chase, the terres- trial, the aerial, and the marine. I. Of Hunting 1. Gratius, Oppian, and Nemesianus Gratius Faliscus,^^ Vergil's contemporary, is, as far as I know, the first poet who attempted to develop the Mantuan's suggestions for a treatise on the Chase. Of his Carmen Ycnnt'i- ' See W. Drummond's essay on " The Life and Writings of Oppian," pp. 19-20. The Transactions of the Royal Irish Arademi/, vol. Xiil. ' Kvvr]yeTiK6s, pertaining to the chase ; kijuv, dojj;, vy^rrii, leader. "t'^ij, bird lime, i^evrris, a fowler, hird-catcher. * dXt£i;Ti)c6s, a tisher. " Cp. above, p. 40. Diddclic Poems on Field Sports 103 cu)ii " only live hundred and thirty-six intelligible lines have been preserved. ^- Ovid names Gratins with Vergil, Tityrus antiquas et erat qui pasceret herbas; Aptaqiie venanti Gratius arma daret; " but in the common judgment of able critics, the latter poet is very far removed in genius and in style from his great con- temporary. Like Vergil, Gratius begins his poem by formally announcing the subject, and continues immediately with the stock invoca- tion, addressing Diana, goddess of hunting. The first one hundred and fifty lines of the poem treat chiefly of the various modes of the chase ; but the subject is relieved by brief digres- sions, as, for example, an account of the dangers of the woods before the arts of hunting were discovered. Very appropriately, the poet introduces an allusion to the grief of Venus over the wounded Adonis; in an account of the best flax (linum) to be used in making twine for nets, the poet introduces references to the products of foreign lands ; in a discussion on hunting with nets, he eulogizes the old Arcadius, supposed to have invented this mode of capturing animals. A passage on the wood best for spears suggests the following lines from the second Georgic (447-448), at myrtus validis hastilibus et bona bello cornus; Itiiraeos taxi torquentur in arcue. In the manner of Vergil on cattle, Gratius treats of dogs. Various lands are mentioned famed for breeds of dogs ; dogs best adapted for the chase are discussed in detail, their appear- ance, their diseases and the cures of their diseases. A digi-ession is introduced on the evils of luxury, one of the few passages " Ed. hy R. Stern, Halle, Saxony, 1832. " In an eleventh e. Vienna M.S., fraj^ments of five lines follow 1. 536, but they are not enough to complete the poem. See Teuffel, Hist, of Rom. Lit., tr. by W. Wagner. London, 1873, Vol. i, p. 487. « £a; Ponto, IV. 16, 33-34. 104 ■ The Georgic in which, according to Teiiffel's ^^ judgment, the author rises somewhat higher than his usual dry and heavy style. Gratius describes the effect of luxury on both man and beast, enforcing his morals, in georgic fashion, by allusions to famous historical examples of the degeneracy and downfall resulting from luxury. Greece, says the poet, madly followed foreign guilt : At qualis nostris, quam simplex mensa Camillis! Qui tibi cultus erat post tot, Serrane, triumphos? Ergo 1111 ex liabitu virtutisque indole priscse Imposuere orbi Komam caput: actaque ab illis Ad coelum virtus summosque tetendit lionores." The passage suggests a continuation of the second Georgic, lines 532-535. In another digression, lines 430-466, Gratius describes a lake of living oil, where marvellous cures are wrought on diseased cattle, and the topic of the diseases of dogs is again discussed. Then, in the Vergilian spirit, the poet dwells upon the necessity of asking aid from Olympus, and describes Diana's festival.^^ Various breeds of horses are discussed, and lands are named famous for the noblest steeds. The lines, quantum Italiae, sic dii voluere, parentes Praestant, et terras omni praecepimus usu; Nostraque non segnis illustrat prata iuventus. may have been meant to lead to a panegyric on Italy. But here the manuscript really ends, the few remaining fragmentary lines being hardly legible. The reader who wishes further versified information on the arts of the chase must satisfy himself in the pages of later poets. Tn the second century, A. D., Oppian of Cilicia flourished. Controversies have been waged concerning his authorship of the Cynegetica so frequently ascribed to him ; ^' but an article in " Op. cit., p. 487. "Carmen Venaticum, 11. 321-325. "Cp. Oeorq. t, 338-350, of Ceres' festival — the Ambarvalia. " For an interesting discussion on this question see in the section on "Polite Literature" in the Trnnsaetions of the Kofinl Irish Academy, vol. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 105 the Encyclopcedia Britannica states that Oppiaii of Apamea (or Pella) in Syria, is the author of the Cynegetica. The poem, adds the writer, is dedicated to the Emperor Caracalla, so that it must have been written after 211. The author evidently knew the Halieutica, and perhaps intended to write his poem as a supplement to the earlier work ; but in style and poetical merit it is far inferior to the production of the first Oppian, and less correct in versification. Translations of the Greek Cynegetica may be had in Latin, French, Italian, and English,^^ all, except the Latin, products of the eighteenth century. Only four books of the poem have survived. There were originally five, says Dr. Drummond,^^ from whose analysis I give the following summary: The poet begins the first book with a complimentary address to Antoninus, and eulogizes the emperor's mother, Julia Dtonina. He declares himself invited by Calliope and Diana to undertake the subject of the chase.^*^ He hears the goddess' voice exhorting him to arise and accompany her through a region of song where ^' no poet ever trod before." She does not wish to hear of Baccbus, nor of war, but desires him to sing of dogs and horses, the stratagems and profits of the chase, the loves, the antipathies, and the births of wild beasts. With true georgic pride, the poet xiii, •' An Essay on the Life and Writinojs of Oppian," by Wm. Drummond, pp. 27 ff. The German editor of Oppian, Schneider, thinks that the Cyne- (jetics and the IlaUeutics were written by difl'erent authors. Belin de Belu or Ballu, who edited the Cyneqetics, 1786, and made a translation of tliem, tried, but not very convincingly, to defend Oppian's authorship of both. Some critics think Oppian a general name for any writer on Marine sub- jects, and support their claim by etymology. '^Didot, A. F., Poetae Bucolici et Didactid. Paris, 1862; Belin de Ballu, 1786; Anton Maria Salvini, 1728: John Mawer, 1736. "The First Bk. of Oppian-s Cynegetics tr. into Eng. verse with a dissertation and Oppian's life prefixed." Dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole. The latest edition of the Cynegetica seems to be that of Pierre Boudreaux. Oppien d'Apam^e: La Chasse, Paris, 1908. ""Analysis of the Cynegetica of Oppian." Transactions of the Royal Irish Acad., vol. xiii. Section on " Polite Literature," pp. 47 11". =» In the pastoral manner Oppian here introduces dialogue between him- self and the goddess. 106 The Georgic plumes himself upon the originality of his subject, either ignor- ant or forgetful of the fact that Gratius Faliscus trod at least the beginnings of these paths two hundred years before. After his declaration of originality, the poet supplicates aid of the all-powerful ruler, and begins his theme. He names three modes of the chase, the aerial, the terrestrial, and the marine, declaring the terrestrial the more dangerous.^^ The poet enumerates the personal qualifications of the hunter, and gives an account of his armor. A passage follows on the varying seasons best adapted to hunting; then there are some lines on the arms and apparatus of the chase. After this, the reader is given some practical information about horses, their breeding, and their color, and the ideal horse is described, as in Vergil. To adorn the theme, mythological references are introduced, and the poet digresses to tell the story of a king whose horses were all destroyed by plague. The conclusion treats of the difference in breeds of dogs, with particular respect to their training for the chase. The second book begins with an account of the origin of hunt- ing. A eulogy 'on hunting follows : Such strenuous chiefs of okl, the race pursued, Whom numbers followed, by its love subdued; For who but once the glorious sport has tried, In chains unbroken is forever tied. How sweet the hunter's sleep on vernal flowers! How cool his rest in Summer's sunless bowers! How joyed, 'mid rocks, the short repast he shares, Or plucks the fruit mellifluous Autumn bears! His thirst in streamlets from the cave he cools. Or batlics his wearied limbs in standing pools. And in the woods the Shepherds' offering liails. Their loaded baskets and their flowing pails, an idyllic passage in the spirit of Vergil's eulogy of country life. An account, reminiscent of Vergil, is given of the jealousies and battles of bulls ; then bulls characteristic of different coun- ^ Oppian of Cilicia declares in tlie llalinitiai that sea fishing is more dangerous and more didicult tliaii hunting on land. Didactic Poema on Field Sporfs 107 tries are described. Some verses follow that treat of various animals; and the poet tells of the animosities and affections existinti: between animals. A rather amnsinc: passajje describes the subns, a creature with two horns on his broad, red forehead. When he swims through the sea, the fishes delight to accompany him. He devours them, but their devotion continues uncooled. The foregoing passage leads to an address to " improbus Amor '' : O Love, dread power, invincible, divine, What wondrous art, what matchless might is thine! The firm-set earth beneath thy arrows reels. And fixed is ocean when their power he feels. When high from earth thou speedst thy heavenward flight, Olympus trembles. E'en in realms of night, Tormented shades, in anguish as they groan, With shivering horror thy dread presence own. And though the sweets of Lethe's stream they prove, Ne'er drink oblivion to the power of love. In strength resistless spreads thy awful sway. Beyond where ever shot the solar ray. In vain with thine his arms would Phoebus wield, E'en Jove's winged lightnings to thy terrors yield. Such, dreadful god, thy shafts of keen desire, Heart-woimding, cureless, dipt in plague of fire, To lawless loves they savage beasts impel. And against Nature drive them to rebel. After this apostrophe, the poet proceeds to describe the Oryx, the Elephant (which is called a horned beast), and the Rhin- oceros. " As to the smaller animals, his muse cannot condescend to sing of them." ^" However, she does condescend to sing of the dormouse and of its winter sleep, and to name several others, among them the blind mole, the story of whose origin is narrated. In the third book, the poet announces that having sung of the horn-bearing graminivorous tribe, he will now sing of carni- vorous animals. He seeks to enliven his instructions by various tales of the lion, the lynx, and so forth. The muse is then " Cp. Soniervillc. "Of lesser ills the Muse declines to sing. Nor stoops so low." — The Chase. 108 The Georgic invoked to sing of animals of a mixed nature, and the book con- cludes with an account of the camelopard, the ostrich, and the hare. In the fourth book, Oppian writes more in the manner of the georgic. He proposes to sing of the arts empLojed by hunters against their prey. These arts, he declares, are so numerous that no mortal can name them; they are known to the gods alone. He will sing of those which he has learned by experience or by hearsay. He then gives an account of the arms with which ]*^ature has supplied wild beasts, and of their use of these arms. The common modes of hunting are discussed, and advice is given to the hunter. Various methods of trapping wild beasts are described, customs peculiar, for example, to the Ethiopians and to the dwellers on the banks of the Tigris. After an account of the metamorphosis of the Bacchantes into panthers, the book closes with a passage on the difficulties in the pursuit of the fox. Even in reading the analysis of the poem the influence of Vergil can be seen. But the poem lacks the symmetrical plan of the Georglcs, and like the Oppian of the Halieuticn, the Oppian of the Cynegetica seems more interested in natural history than in rules of practice concerning the arts of hunting. He was evidently influenced by his namesake, although he does not equal the earlier poet's skill in verse. ]Sro one has ever claimed that the Cynegetica of Oppian is a gTeat poem; but read as an illustration of the developments in the georgic type it may be pronounced an interesting and valuable work. The next didactic on hunting of which I have any knowledge is the unfinished Cynegetica of Nemesianns.-^ A. J. Valpy ^* =MM. Stern, 1832. Little seems known of Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus, except that he lived at the end of the third century A. D., in the reign of the Emperor Carus and his sons. Tiraboschi, op. cit., T. ii, 441 fr., notes that two lost poems, Ilalieutica and Naulica, have been ascril)ed to him. TeulVel, op. cit., vol. 2, p. .'508, says that two fragments of a poem on the trapping of birds, and some well-done hexameters of the Pontica of an unknown author, have been attributed to Nemesianus. -*'rhe Classical Journal, xxxi, p. 253 ("On the Poems of Calphurnius aiid Nemesian ") . Didactic Poems on Field Sports 109 describes this fragment as " a mere dry recital of particulars unenlivened by the intervention of episode or moral sentiment, clothed indeed in lanjiuage sufficiently elaborate, but far inferior in vigor and pix'tical expression to the fragment of Gratius on the same subject, which it otherwise resembles." The poem is valuable, however, the writer adds, for such information as it contains on the subject of which it treats. The generous-minded Ging-uene observes that Xemesianus conserved something of the genius and good ta^te of the hons siecles. It is certainly only fair to say that considering the poet's choice of subject his poem might be worse. Like Gratius, Xemesianus begins by announcing his theme, " the labors and the joyous arts of hunting." Like Oppian of Apaniea he evidently remembers the opening passage of the third Georgic. Perhaps his remembrance is partly due to Oppian of Apamea. Other subjects, he announces, have been sung by greater poets ; he has been inspired to sing the open fields, to go forth amid green grass, to tread upon moss yet untouched. He enumerates a long list of subjects now grown commonplace; and he promises to the sons of Cams a poem upon their deeds. -^ Xot until line 102 does he begin to dis- course on his theme, which he introduces by the following passage, due evidently to familiarity with Vergil's Georgics: Due age, Diva, tuum frondosa per avia vatem; Te sequimur : tu pande domus et lustra ferarum. Hue igitur mecum, quisquis percussus amore Venandi, damnas lites avidosque tumultus Civilesque fugis strepitus bellique fragores, Nee praedas avidus sectaris gurgite ponti.^ Dogs are then treated ; their training, their needs, the coun- tries from which they come, their great sagacity, etc. Then in the same manner the poet writes of horses, and of the varied implements of hunting. Here the poem abruptly ends. It was printed for the first time in 1534; ^"^ but it had received due "Cp. Georg. m, 10-48. "LI. 97-102. " At Venice, in a volume containing also the didactic of Gratius on the Chase, Ovid's Halieutica, and a short poem on the chase by Cardinal Adrian, cp. Stern, op. cit., p. ix. 110 The Georgic honor long before the sixteenth century, for in the time of Archbishop Hincmar of Eheims it was used as a text-book in the schools.^^ 2. Medieval Poems on the Chase Drummond -^ suggests that in the time of Oppian, field sports as a subject for poetry may have been in as gi-eat favor as fieldwork in the time of Vergil. However, except the poem of Nemesianus, nothing in the way of a didactic on the chase seems to have survived from the time of Oppian of Apamea until the thirteenth century. In the Middle Ages, the stream of pastoral productions was " reduced to the merest trickle." ^^ From the third to the thirteenth century, the stream of georgic production seems to have entirely disappeared. The few pro- ducts of the later Middle Ages are mainly didactics on the chase, poems so obscure that in general, as far as the reading world is concerned, they are quite unknown. Yet the history of these poems is far from uninteresting, for they illustrate a striking phase of medieval life. In the thirteenth century, I have found no didactics in Eng- lish or Italian, celebrating the arts of hunting. Bnt in France the theme of the chase was not neglected. At this time, love of the chase was a general passion among the higher classes of the French ; feudal barons and princes of the Church were equally skilled in the arts of hunting.^^ Aubertin ^^ names as the first metrical product on the subject, a didactic written before 1230 by a Provencal ti-oubadour, the canon Deudes de Prades,^^ " Cp. Teuffel, op. cii., p. !>. '^Op. cit., p. 20. *" Cp. Greg, op. cit., p. 18. See above, p. 27. " Cp. Jullien, op. cit., p. 100. ^ Op. cit., T. II, p. 64. ''Deudes or Daude de Prades died before 1230. lie wrote another didactic poem on the four cardinal sins. A. Jeanroy, in the Grande Encycl.. Vol. XXVII, p. 531, states that E. Monaci, Stndi di filologia romanza, xii, gives the complete text of the Auzels Cassadors. For further literature on the subject see Koch, lieitriige znr Textcritik der Avzels Cassadors, Miinster, 1897. Didactic Poems on Field Spoiis 111 Dels Auzels Cassadors, thirty-six hundred octosyllabics in honor of birds of the chase. To the same period belongs an anony- mous Chace dmi Cerf, which .Tullien ^^ pronounces the first French didactic on the art of venery. Aubertin ^'' remarks of this poem that it is written in octosyllabics, and that it is long and full of technical details. Jnllien ^^ supplies the added information that the author must have been a man of profound learning as well as a skilled hunter. '' Son style," adds the historian, *' atteste la connaissance la plus parfaite des poetes latins, et les amateurs de la chasse a course, ' ce deduit qui les autres passe,' ne sauraient encore dedaigner aujourd'hui les preceptes qu'il a pris soin de formuler." ^" In the fourteenth century there appear to have been neither English nor Italian didactics on the chase.^^ French poets, however, seem to have been Ix^lder than the English and the Italians, probably because love of the chase was no less a passion in France in the fourteenth than in the thirteenth century. King John set the fashion for his followers, and it was at the king's command that the royal chaplain, Gace, or Gaces de la Eigne ^^ wrote his cynegetic, Les Deduits de la Chasse, or Le Roman des Deduits.^^ a paraphrase of an older Livre du Boy ^[odus et de la Reine Ratio. The writer uses the dramatic method of the eclogue to expound the arts of hunting w'ith dogs and with birds. The two arts are represented by Amour-des- diiens and Amour-d'Oiseaux, who expound by turns in order ^ Op. cit., p. 102. " Op. cit., p. 6."). ^ Op. cit., p. 102. '■ Aubertin, op. cit., p. 6."), names still a third poem on the chase, that is found in the thirteenth century, an unedited work called Dit le la Cace dou Cerf, or le Cerf Amoureux. It is an allegory described by the critic as obscure and heavy. The lover is the hunter, the lady the stag. The poem probably bears .somewhat the same relation to the didactic on field sport that Tansillo's Tendemmiatore bears to didactics on field work. *' Carducci edited Cacce in Rima dei Se.s written in the poet's youth, hut it Ava.s not puhlislied until two years before his death, having been revised by him at his leisure. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 123 are placed at the end. A long, characteristic digression is that by which, in the second book, the poet accounts for the origin of the famous bunting dogs of Charsun in Istria. Their origin is traced to the Argonautic expedition. In the course of their "wanderings, the Argonauts are said to have arrived in these countries. Medea, touched by the hospitality of the people, uses her magic arts to confer upon the waters of Istria properties that give marvellous virtue to dogs that drink from the rivers flowing from the source of the Timavus. Incidentally, there is introduced in the story a priest wbo predicts the glory of Venice, and the prosperity of Istria under the house of Austria, a not unskillful treatment of a favorite georgic convention. Simplicity of heart and Christian piety are enumerated among the virtues of a good hunter, who should never fail to hear mass, and who should be especially mindful of the Virgin Mary. The hunter who invokes her aid may be sure of success, and he needs have nothing to fear from winds or storms, nor from magicians nor sorcerers. If the hunter neglects to pray, if he becomes a libertine and impious, he risks punishment such as befell one Theron, a youth beautiful and pious, famed for his skill at the chase. Travelling abroad he became corrupted, and returning home scandalized the comrades whom he had once edified. Taking part in a boar hunt he was cruelly killed by the boar, an evident punishment, to wbich the poet applies tbe lesson of Vergil, Imparate giustitia, o genti humane, E non spregiar le Delta Sovrane." In the fourth book, the poet forgets his Christian precepts ; and exh'orting noble youths to all the ardour that tbe chase demands, he tells them that they need not fear that dust, sunburn, or fatigue will make them less attractive to the fair ; for Hippolytus set afire Phaedra, Adonis Venus, Cephalus Aurora and so forth. Poetic illustrations^ remarks Guinguene, but somewhat far from the Ave Maria and the Mass. Following this the poet discourses further of various modes " Cp. Discite iustitiam moniti et non temnere divos (Aen. 6, 620). 124 The Georgic of the chase, and of various sorts of weapons ; then he expresses a wish that it were possible fo? young hunters to encounter in the woods the hind of Arthur with its rubv horns (it seems unnecessary to remember that hinds do not possess horns), its iron feet and its hair golden as the fleece of Phryxus and Helle. This leads to the tale of an adventure of King Arthur who followed this enchanted hind. It appears, says Guinguene, that in a didactic poem, Valvasone desires to rival Bojardo and Ariosto. The episode may seem far-fetched continues the French critic, but it is brilliant in itself " revetu de riches couleurs, et mele de legons de sagesse dont le poete assure que le roi Arthur fit sion profit, et dont chacun roi ou sujet, pent faire aussi le sien." The fifth book of La Caccia treats of birds of prey used in the hunt. The subject is treated in the usual manner; varieties of birds are named, and directions are given for breeding them and caring for them. The book ends with a fable from Ovid's Meta- morplioses, the story of Nisus and Scylla. The style of the poem, says Guinguene, is in general poetic and animated, the rime and the octave well used. The reading may fatigue, but it will not bore the reader. Valvasone shows a taste less pure than that of the Aiii, La Coltivazione and La Naidica, but after them this didactic on the chase deserves a distinguished place. 4. Eighteenth-Century Didactics on the Cha&e. John Gay, who fathered English comic opera, and delighted the world with the charming freshness of The Shepherd's Week, tried his skill, also, at the georgic. In this type, as in the Beggar's Opera, he w^as a pioneer ; for he appears to have led the English poets who wrote didactic verses on rural sports other than fishing. Dame Juliana Berner's rimes on Venerie '"* hardly count, even if one charitably reckons her among the poets. Gay's poem. Rural Sports, A Georgic,"''^ was published in "See above, pp. 114flf. " The Poems of John Oay, The Musea Library, N. Y., E. P. Dutton & Co. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 125 1713. It is in two cantos written in rimed couplets. To a certain extent, the framework of the Georgics is followed, and Vergil is certainly imitated ; but Gay does not seem to have in mind earlier writers on the chase. His poem lacks the stock opening of the georgic ; it begins with an address to those who have known the sweets of rural life, and the poet continues in tnie georgic spirit, by informing the reader that he himself has been immured in the town, the home of faction, scandal, and other kindred evils peculiar to the eighteenth-century town. He will now chose a calm retreat. Where fields and shades, and the refreshing clime Inspire the sylvan song and prompt my rhyme. My Muse shall rove through flowTy meads and plains, And deck with rural sports her native strains, And the same road ambitiously pursue, Frequented by the Mantuan swain and you, " you " meaning Mr, Pope, to whom the poem is dedicated. At dawn, the poet takes his way to watch the farmer's early care " in the revolving labors of the year." "^^ He describes very pleasantly the farmers' work in the morning in early spring, tells the reader how at noon, when bright Phoebus gains the height of Heaven, he betakes himself to the forest, where he can enjoy the sweets of evening. Vergil appears to satisfy the poet quite as well as Xature, if one can judge by the lines. Here I peruse the Mantuan's Georgic strains, And learn the labours of Italian swains; In ev'ry page I see new landscapes rise, And all Hesperia opens to my eyes. I wander o'er the various rural toil, And know the nature of each diflferent soil : Tliis waving field is gilded o'er with corn That spreading trees with blushing fruit adorn: Here I survey the purple vintage grow. Climb round the poles, and rise in graceful row: Now I behold the steed curvet and boimd, '•Cp. Geoffi. II, 401-402. redit agricolis labor actus in orbem atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus. 126 The Georgic And paw with restless hoof the smoking ground ; The dewlap'd bull now chase along the plain, While burning love ferments in ev'ry vein. The careful insect "midst his work I view, Now from the flowers exliaust the fragrant dew; With golden treasures load his little thighs. And steer his distant journey through the skies; Some against hostile drones the hive defend; Others with sweets the waxen cells distend: Each in the toil his destined office bears. And in the little bulk a mighty soul appears. At evening the poet strays to " i^eptune's bounds '' to take farewell of parting day, lingering over a delightful description of the sunset. ISTight loppresses him with the sense of his limita- tions ; but in the next passage, he cheers himself with the thought of the joyous sports afforded by the revolving seasons. Finally the reader arrives at the long deferred account of " rural sports." Spring, declares the poet, is the time to fish, and, thereupon, he begins to instruct his reader how to catch the " finny brood," giving a description of the modes of trout fishing and salmon fishing, the latter a very unpleasant picture. The " scaly prey " are to be saved from the hostile jaws of the ravening otter that they may be delivered over to the mercy of man ; and the concluding passage loftily declares. Around the steel no tortured worm shall twine, No blood of living insects stain my line; Let me, less cruel, cast the feather'd hook With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, Silent along the mazy margin stray. And with the fur-wrouglit fly delude the prey. The second canto begins by calling upon the '^ sporting Muse " to draw the flowing rein, lest the reader tire of the " watery song." The hunter is then admonished to refrain from the chase until the golden corn has been reaped, lest tlie ]il(nvman's labor be rendered vain. However, if in the meantime the Ixisom glow for sylvan sport, there may be permitted the chase of the hare. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 127 Carried away by enthusiasm for his subject, the poet cries of the pursuing hound, She turn*, lie winds, and soon regains the way, Then tears with gory mouth the screaming prey; and, as if quite unconscious of the cruel ugliness of the picture he has just painted, continues, What various sport does rural life afford! What unbought dainties heap the wholesome board! An interesting commentary, not so much on Gay's lack of feel- ing, as on the laws of nature, and of life. Being wise enough to doubt his skill, the poet leaves the fox hunt and the pursuit of the stag for worthier hands. In an episode praising the joys of country life he imitates Vergil's " O fortunatos nimium," '^" and contrasts the health and happiness of the rural maid with the courtly dame tormented by the spleen amidst the luxuries and disease-breeding idleness of city life. Gay's rural maid, like Dodsley's Patty, ''^^ seems even more blessed than the heroine of the pastoral, for she lives in a Golden Age of unclouded happiness, from the days of youth and love, thru the joys of maternity and cheerful toil, Till age the latest thread of life unwinds. Then while the poet is yet convinced that his picture is true, he exclaims, Ye happy fields, unknown to noise and strife, The kind rewarders of industriotis life; Farewell, amusing thoughts and peaceful hours. So ends the mediocre poem that might be called an introduc- tory chapter in the history of the eighteenth-century cynegetic. Thomas Tickell, in his versified Fragiivenis on Hunting,"'^ claims to be the first to sing of this subject in British verse. He was probably in ignorance of Dame Juliana Berner's Venerie; " Georg. ii, 458. " See above, p. 70. " Chalmer's Eng. Poets, vol. xi. 128 The Georgic his poem was certainly written before Somerville's Chase, whicli was piiblislied in 1735; and as far as Gray is concerned Tickell is justified in his claim, for Gay does not treat technically of h\mting. He does, it is true, give precepts concerning the fisher- man's art, but he contents himself with merely describing certain moments of the chase. Tickell makes no mention, so far as I know, of any indebted- ness to Gratius or Oppian lor l^emesianus, and there is no evi- dence that he was acquainted with the French and Italian poems on the chase. He imitates Vergil closely, and various passages of the Fragment are clearly echoes of the Georgics. The beginning is a statement of the subject, the stock opening of the Vergilian didactic ; it is followed by the poet's declaration that he is the first to treat his theme in British verse. Dogs are next discussed in the fashion of the earlier writers of cyne- getics, as cattle are sung in the Georgics. The ideal dog is described, as is the ideal bull in the third Georgic, and Vergil is again imitated in a spring passage.^*^ The Golden Age, says the poet is a time when the lion and the lamb lay down together, but " lour daring mother broke the sole command, then wrath came down." Referring to Nimrod, the first hunter, Tickell exclaims, Ah! had he there restrained his tyrant hand! Let me ye powers an humbler wreath demand. No pomps I ask, which crowns and sceptres yield, Nor dangerous laurels in the dusty field; Fast by the forest and the limpid spring, Give me the warfare of the woods to sing, To breed my whelps and healthful press the game, A mean, inglorious, but a guiltless name. One more patent imitation of Vergil's prayer to the Muses to grant him, ' inglorious, the love of woods, and fields and streams.' The Fragment ends with a reference to great Maro, and to the third and fourth Georgics. «» Cp. Georfj. ii, 325 AT. ; Oeorg. ni, 242 ff. Didactic Poems on Field Spoiis 129 Tickell's work is of no importance as a poem, nor as a georgic, but it is interesting as the beginning of tbe first effort at an English cynegetic wf the formal Vergilian type of didactic poetry. William Somerville's Chase,^^" written in 1735, is, like Gay's Rural Sports, professedly a georgic. In his interesting preface, Somerville writes, " I have intermixed the preceptive parts with so many descriptions and digressions in the Georgic manner, that I hope they will not be tedious." - .*■ The Chase is, so far as I know, the 'only complete poem on the subject in English. In his preface Somerville mentions Oppian and Gratius and ISTemesianus. He remarks that one might have expected to see the subject treated in full in the third Oeorgic of Yergil ; and he quotes Vergil's lines on dogs and on the hunt. After some further observations ion the chase he remarks, " The gentlemen who are fond of a jingle at the close of every verse, and think no poem truly musical but what is in rime, will here fijid themselves disappointed. If they be pleased to read over the short preface before the Paradise Lost, and in Mr. Smith's poem in memory of his friend Mr. John Philips . . . they may be of another opinion. For my own part, I shall not be ashamed to follow the example of Milton, Thomson, and all our best tragic writers . . . But I have done Hark, away, Cast far behind the lingering cares of life, Cithaeron calls aloud, and in full cry Thy hounds, Taygetus ; Epidaurus trains For us the generous steed ; the hunter shouts, And cheering cries assenting woods return. {Oeorg. m, 42-45.) The Chase is in four books, very well planned, and if one be interested in the subject, it is easy to understand how the poem passed thru nine successive editions gotten up with all the attrac- tions that the publishers of the time could offer. And even altho the reader is not interested in the subject, if he is just, he must *"• R. Anderson, The Wks. of the British Poets, vol. 8, 445-544. 9 130 The Georgic still admit with Dr. Johnson that " to this poem praise can not be totally denied." The Chase, as Somerville states in his preface, follows the conventions of the georgic. Since the poet does not treat of hunting as a rural occupation necessary for the preservation of peace and life, hut as an amusement of the country gentleman, he may be said to use the pastime motive of the Georgics as his subject; Vergil's central theme, the glorification of labor, is left untouched. But all the other important features of the georgic are illustrated in the poem, from the stock opening to the long narrative episode at the close. Somerville imitates the ancients in his treatment of his theme; but he knows his subject, for he was a mighty hunter in his day, and he recalls realistically the scenes in which he once bore a joyous part. He dwells on the precepts of his art quite as lovingly as does Vergil. He regards the chase as a noble art, and he teaches the necessity of following it according to rule and order, with a certain gentlemanly restraint very different from that of our rude forefathers. Throughout, Somerville shows a gi-eat delight in the outdoor world, particularly the world of early morning; and altho his descriptions lof nature are often very conventional, he frequently shows that he does not see " thru the spectacles of books." His weather signs are clearly drawn from a knowledge of English climate, not from the mere reading of Vergil's ' certain signs.' Somerville thinks that his theme needs no apology, but he believes that there are themes below the dignity of the Muse, for after telling of the care and training of hounds he writes, Of lesser ills the Muse declines to sing, Nor stoops so low; of these each groom can tell The proper remedy. A piece of poetical commonsense highly to be recommended. Tlie critics cannot say of Somerville as they say of Thomson, that ho overlooks the cruelty of nature ; for the cruel laws of life furnish the motive whereby the poet justifies the hunt. He does not seem to have ideals even about the Golden Age, for in speak- Didactic Poems oji Field Sports 131 ing of the beasts that should be preserved and of those that should be destroyed, he writes, Slioiild not man's care Improve his growinji: stocks, their kinds might fail, Man might once more on roots and acorns feed, And through the desert range shivering forlorn, Quite destitute of every solace dear And every smiling gaiety of life. The picture seems to owe something to Thomson's description of the savage state of man before the coming of ludustry,^^ and is the nearest approach that Somerville makes to Vergil's theme of the reward of toil. Somerville has no sympathy with the sentimentalists who think that it is cruel to kill animals; he thinks it cruel not to kill when it is necessary to do so. But he holds with the eighteenth-century philosophy that war is guilt, and seems to feel that in the chase man can satisfy with innocence the passions that would otherwise lead to the oppression of the human race. In the concluding lines of the second book he cries, Ye proud oppressors, whose vain hearts exult In vrantonness of power, 'gainst the brute race. Fierce robbers like yourselves, a guiltless war Wage uncontrolled: here quench your thirst of blood; But learn from Aurengzebe to spare mankind. Yet, that he has some sympstthy with the brute race may be seen from the conclusion of the fourth book in which he ad- dresses a eulogy on mercy (perhaps a little inconsistent in a poem on the chase) to the prince who saves the brave stag from the hungry pack. Somerville feels that Grod's gifts to man are good. He believes in the immortality of the soul,^^ and reverences deeply the Supreme Power. In his delight in remembering the joys of exercise and health, he reveals his personality, strong and vigor- ous even in old age. But for all his individuality he does not "Autumn, 57 fT. *^ See the opening lines of Book rv. 132 The Georgic scorn to color his pages with sentiments taken directly from the classics. His address to " the happy ranger of the fields," be- ginning, happy, if ye knew your happy state is only another imitation of Vergil's " O fortunatos nimium," ^^ and the concluding prayer, as Myra Reynolds points out in her Nature in English Poetry, ^^^ is closely modelled after the con- cluding lines of Thomson's Autumn, in which Thomson imitates Vergil's prayer to the Muses. Somerville's Chase has been read, not only with interest, but with enthusiasm by lovers of the noble art. Prose writers on rural sports frequently pay Somerville the compliment of quoting his spirited lines. ^* Yet when the reader, indifferent to the subject of the chase, has been just enough to agree with Dr. Johnson that " to this poem praise can not be totally denied," pardon may be granted for the honest statement that Somerville's effort is to be praised more for truth than for poetry. I am not acquainted with any other English poet of the eighteenth century who imitated Somerville in writing of the chase. Vaniere treats the subject in the Praedium Busticum, writing of different modes of pursuing different animals, from the hare to the wolf, the lion, and the tiger; and in 1775, an Italian poet named Antonio Tirabosco ^^ published a poem entitled L'TJccellagione, but I know nothing more than the name of the work. Mazzoni ^^* names three nineteenth-century Italian poems on the chase, written by Lorenzo Tornieri, who translated Vergil's Oeorgics. The subjects of the poems are La caccia delle allodole col paretaio. La caccia delle quaglie. La caccia della lepre. In " Georg. ii, 458. ^^ Treatment of Nature in Eng. Poetry from Pope to Wordsworth, Uni- versity of Chicago, 2d ed. "* See, for example, Daniels, op. cit. *" See Concari, op. cit. "" Op. cit., p. 78. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 133 bow far thej are georgic in character, valuable in content, I am unable to say, In the Eduiburgh Review, 1808-09,^^ there is a very interest- ing critique of an anonymous nineteenth-century English poem on Fowling. The writer in the Review is, evidently, a fair and generous person, who does not believe that didactic poetry jus- tifies itself; but who declares, nevertheless, '' Though poetical talents are misapplied ... to subjects of no powerful or reason- able interest, yet those talents may still be displayed upon such subjects. Accurate and lively description will always be de- lightful, and no subject can be fairly denominated unpoetical which holds out an opportunity to expatiate on the beauties of nature." Comparing the poem with that of Somerville, the reviewer concludes that the subject of Fowling is more romantic, that of the Chase more picturesque. Enough of the anonymous poem is quoted to give some idea of its merit, and to show that to a certain extent, at least, it is georgic in character, since it contains moral reflections, and the familiar invective against the shooting of grouse, partridges, pheasants, woodcock, snipe and ducks. In the first book, the poet has the lonely heaths for city life. In the five books of the poem are treated successively his background, in the last the equally wild loveliness of marsh and stream. The scenery in the latter, says the reviewer, is " most engaging." He adds that the passages he cites are not offered as specimens of exquisite or powerful poetry ; but he finds in the whole poem the merit of truth and simplicity. The review seems due chiefly to the generous disposition of the writer, who is sure that there may be readers to whom the poem may afford more pleasure than it has done to himself. He concludes with the remark that the author of this poem (one hundred and fifty pages on the subject of fowling) might do something better than make poems on field sports. After the first decade of the nineteenth century no other English poet appears to have had the courage to expend his ** Pp. 09 ff., " Fowling, a Poem in Five Books descriptive of Grouse, Par- tridge, Pheasant, Woodcock, Duck, Snipe Shooting.'' 12mo., pp. 150. 134 The Georgic labor or his talent on a didactic on field sports ; but as late as 1844, there was published in Paris a volume by Theophile Deyeux entitled La Chassamanie. To the student of the didactic poem on field sports this book is as interesting as it is curious, and even the casual reader might find it worth inspection. The author follows no definite plan; his arrangesment of his sub- ject matter suggests somewhat Claude Gauchet's Plaisir des Champs.^'^ There is, however, no division according to the seasons, nor are there eclogues georgic in character such as are found in Gauchet. The resemblance lies in the number of poems of varying meter and length on such subjects as the hunting of the hare, the snaring of the lark with mirrors, and so forth. The chief digression consists of a number of reflections inserted as the contents of the hunter's notebook. Deyeux appears to have been little influenced by earlier writers on the subject of the chase, nor does he seem to have Vergil in mind. He writes evidently from experience and from love of his subject, so that his verses, altho lacking poetic heights of imagination, have a certain pleasant simplicity and individu- ality. To the general reader, much more interesting than his detailed accounts of the pursuit of wild animals is the digres- sion on the hunter's meditations, and his defense of the hunter's character. The hunter, remarks the poet, is accused of being gross and cruel; greatly is he misunderstood. The very life that he lives in the pure air of woods and fields develops in him admirable modes of thought, and in the days when it rains, perhaps for a week at a time, he is given to fruitful meditations, (yonsult his notebook and see. The "Chassomane's " reflec- tions are prefaced by the following remark : Tout homme doit de front mener deux existences, L'une est toute physique, et simultan^ement L'autre est toute morale et dicte les d^penses Dont le compte est sold6 par le temperament.** Then occur a series of meditations on Pride, Modesty, Anger, " See above, pp. 117 ff. "See " Le Garnet du Chassomane," La Chassomanie, pp. 115 ff. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 135 Deception, Love, Hate, and so forth. Particularly interesting are Deyeux' verses on " La Chasse et la Guerre." They sound an opinion quite at variance with the familiar anti-war senti- ments of the poets of the eighteentli century, the sentiments characteristic of almost all georgic poetry. The following lines are sufficient to illustrate the poet's point of view : On trompe la soci4t6, Depuis qu'un rh^eur ent§t6 S'en est venu, d'une voix salnte Proclamer dans la France ^einte, Qui sentit fremir son drapeau, Que la guerre #tait un fl^au. Mais cette erreur, elle est profonde, La guerre est I'essence du monde, Elle est la volenti de Dieu, Qui partout allume le feu.*' How many other would-be poets may have followed in the footsteps of Deyeux I do not know. In Les georgiques cJire- tiennes,^^ Francis Jammes has some passages descriptive of field sports, but Deyeux' Chassomanie is the latest complete work on the subject of the hunt with which I am acquainted. In these days when one can read of little else than human warfare, it would be a brave writer who would attempt to find an audience for poetic efforts on such a theme. II. Of Fishing. The Halieutic. 1. Oppian of Cilicia. In the Georgics, Vergil alludes to the fisherman's art,^ which he mentions among the results of the passing of the Golden Age. Father Jove saw fit to make men's wits keener by the hardships of life. Hence mortals learned to fish in rivers and to drag their dripping nets thru the sea. The subject of the didactic poem on fishing may thus be said to have been proposed. Theocritus set the fashion of the piscatory eclogue in Idyll ^^ La Chassomanie, p. 196. * See above, pp. 46-47^ ^Georg. i, 141-142. See above, p. 41. 136 The Georgic XXI. But not until the time of Sannazaro do any notable poets seem to have availed themselves of this model. The earliest extant poems on fishing, the fragmentary Halieutica ascribed to Ovid, and the Halieutica of Oppian appear to have been sug- gested by Vergil, not by Theocritus, since they are didactic rather than idyllic in character. Defending the piscatory poets against their assailants, Mr. Jones remarks in the " Account of the Life and "Writings of Oppian " prefixed to the English translation of the Greek poet's Halieutics, " If the Waters contain in them nothing but what is uncomfortable and dreadful, 'tis very strange that Ovid, who naturally loved what was soft and agreeable, should have made any attempt in this kind." Waiving the question of the discom- fort and dread of the waters, the critics are still divided regard- ing Ovid's authorship of the fragmentary Halieutica, which those who ascribe it to him suppose to have been written during his banishment on the shores of the Euxine.^ Whether or not Ovid wrote this fragment ^ the critics seem agreed that it was certainly written in the time of Ovid. In this poem is found for the first time the comparison between hunting, fowling, and fishing. The poet prefers his own occupation because of its freedom from the dangers that attend the chase.'* He begins to describe his art, then advises his disciple not to put far out to sea, but to pursue the sport on shore. A description of the proper tackle, upon which so much depends, is promised, and =» See Walton and Cotton, The Complete Angler. With a bibliographical Pref. by the American Editor. N. Y., John Wiley, 1852, pp. xv flf. Among the lost works of antiquity on the subject the " American Editor " mentions the following: Csecilius' or Cecilius' De He Piscatoria, an epic poem; Pan- cratius the Arcadian's Alieiitica; Numenius of Heraclse's AUeiiticos, an elegiac poem; Posidonius of Corinth's AUeutica, an epic poem; Seleucus of Emesa's Aspalieutica, an epic; Alexander the .Etolian's Aliens, an epic poem. ' There is usually prefixed to this work another brief fragment, entitled Pontica, supposed by some to be the remains of Nemesian's work on fishing. After Ovid's fragment is sometimes printed another of so little worth that the vexed question of its authorship is hardly worth considering. *Cp. the views of Nemesianus and of Oppian of Cilicia. See above, p. 106. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 137 there is a brief description of the varied play of fish after they are hooked, which draws from the American editor of Walton and Cotton ^ the exclamation, " There is such a spirit in these passages that we lament again and again the absence of those which are lost to us." The most valuable work of antiquity on the subject of fishing is the Ilalieutica of Oppian of Cilicia,^ a poem that has met with extravagant praise as well as with the coldest neglect. The Halieutica was dedicated by Oppian to the Emperor Severus and his son Caracalla. Thus the poet follows the Ver- gilian tradition. And if report may be believed, the public reading of Oppian's poem was not less appreciated than the reading of Vergil's poems before Augustus. Oppian is said to ^ave written the Halieutica during his life on the island of Melita, whither his father Agesilaus had been exiled by Severus. The Roman Emperors, according to the account of Dr. Drum- mond,'^ were interested in fishing, and Oppian in writing his poem on this subject hoped to secure the emperor's favor and a pardon for his father. Dr. Drummond hazards the remark, " If Georgics were a favorite topic in the days of Vergil, field sports may not have been less so in the days of Oppian." Whether because of the popularity of the subject or for some other equally interesting reason the Halieutics are said to have been read aloud in the temple of Apollo. Severus and his family were * Op. cit. " For the identity of Oppian, see above, p. 104. There have been many editions and translations of the Halieutica. Among them may be mentioned the Florence edition of 1515, the Aldine, 1517, with the translation of L. Lippius, first published 1447; Schneider's edition, 1776, which includes the Latin prose translation of Turnebus. Among French translations are those of Plorent Chretien, Paris, 1575; Belin de Ballu (in prose), Strasburg, 1787; E. J. Bourquin, 1877. The only English translation that I know is the valuable version of Diaper and Jones, Tlalientics, of the Nature of Fishes and Fishing of the Ancients. In five books. Translated from the Greek. With an account of Oppian's Life and Writings and a Catalogue of his Fishes. Oxford, 1722. Books I and II transhited by Mr. Diaper, Books III, IV and V by John Jones, M. A. ' " The Life and Writings of Oppian." See above, p. 104, n. 17. 138 The Georgic present ; Oppian secured their favor by his eulogistic passages, and the Emperor oflfered him any reward that he might ask. Pleased by the filial piety of the poet, the Emperor not only granted pardon to Agesilaus, but gave Oppian besides a status for each of his " golden " verses. In the English translation the poem is divided into two parts. The first and second books " translated by Mr. Diaper," treat of the " E'ature of Fishes " ; the third, fourth, and fifth books, " translated by John Jones, M. A.," treat of the '^ Fish- ing of the ancients." The georgic model is followed in the opening passages, in which the poet announces his subject and addresses the prince in the following lines : I sing the Natives of the boundless Main And tell what Kinds the wat'ry Depths contain. Tliou, Mighty Prince, whom farthest Shores obey, Favor the Bard, and hear the humble Lay; While the Muse shows the liquid Worlds below. Where throng'd with busie Shoals the Waters flow; Their diff'ring Forms and Ways of Life relates; And sings their constant Loves, and constant Hates; What various Arts the finny Herds beguile. And each cold Secret of the Fisher's Toil. Intrepid Souls ! who pleasing Rest despise. To whirl in Eddies, and on Floods to rise; Who scorn the safety of the calmer Shore, Drive thro' the working Foam, and ply the lab'ring Oar, The Deeps they fathom, search the doubtful Way, And thro' obscuring Depths pursue the Prey. The three modes of the chase are described,^ but Oppian finds the pursuit of sea creatures more fraught wdth dangers than the pursuit of creatures of the land and of the air. The Fishers labor not on certain ground But in a leaky boat are tost around; they face the fury of the winds and waves, they meet — . . . Vast Whales, and monstrous nameless Kinds, The slender-Avoven Net, vimineous Wccl, « See above, p. 136. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 139 The taper Angle, Line and barbed Steel, Are all the Tools his constant Toil employs; On Arms like these the Fishing Swain relies. But Fishers live altho exposed to Harms, They have their Pleasures, and the Sea its Charms. After a passage on the Royal fishing equipment, the poet in conventional georgic fashion addresses Neptune and all the ocean deities, and then, like so many of his brother singers, comments upon the difficulty of his task. Like most georgic poets, Oppian decries war. The following lines suggest Vergil, but they read even more like the pacifist sentiments of the eighteenth century: Fondly we blame the Rage of Warring Fish, Who urg'd by Hunger must supply the Wish; When cruel Men, to whom their ready Food Kind Earth affords, yet thirst for human Blood. Peace grieved by Man, to brighter Regions fled, And angry Mars contending Nations led. Ambitious Youths with Thirst of Glory fir'd The proud Deformity of Scars admir'd. Power uncontroll'd maintained the wrongful Cause, Nor fear'd the weaker Force of silent Laws.* The poet then paints a picture of the horrors of misgovern- ment, ending with a prayer that the gods may prolong the halcyon days of the Emperor Severus, Give Rust to Arms, and Leisure to the Song Preserve the Immortal Sire and aid the Godlike Son. The third book, like the third Georgic, opens with a statement of the subject, How captive Shoals reward the Fisher's Toils, What Force subdues, or specious Fraud beguiles, Attend great Prince, to thee the Seaborn Muse A Theme not foreign, tho' imsung, pursues. An address to the Prince follows, then very much as Vergil and the cynegetic poets sum up the qualities of the ideal stallion °Cp. Georg. i, oOo ff. ; Somerville, The Chase. See above, p. 131. 140 The Georgic and the ideal dog, Oppian draws a portrait of the toiler who lives by pursuing the creatures of the deep : First be the Fisher's Limbs compact and sound, With solid Flesh and well-braced Sinews bound. Let due Proportion ev'ry Part commend, Nor Leanness shrink too much, nor Fat distend. Judicious art with long Experience joyn'd Inform the ready dictates of his Mind. Let Resolution all his Passions sway. Nor Pleasures charm his Mind, nor Fears dismay. From short Repose let early Vigour rise. Well let his Patience and his Health sustain Jove's piercing Storms, and Sirius' sultry reign. Let him with constant Love the Sea pursue. With eager Joy the pleasing Toil renew. So Thetis shall reward her faithful Swain, And all his Labours please the God of Gain.'" Directions are given as to the season and weathers in which to fish, and the poet emphasizes the necessity of observing the winds. Vergil's " certain signs " have their place in the halieutic as well as in the georgic and in the cynegetic. Four sorts of fishers are described, those who use Hooks, JSTets, Weels, and Tridents. The poet warns against the arts by which the Fishes cheat the Fishers, and continues with various practical directions. In the fourth book, Oppian, " inspired," sings the loves of the fishes. In the fifth book he sings mainly of the '' cetaceous kinds," concluding with what might be described as a watery prayer that the sea yield tribute to the " Roman Lord " and the " world be kept secure for Ca?sar's reign." Oppian digresses from his theme frequently, telling many fables, and moralizing at length on such subjects as Svmpathy, Love, Jealousy, Human Industry, the Nature of Man, the folly ^^ Halieutics, iii, 45 ff. Didactic Poem>s on Field Sports 141 of trying to resist the Divine Powers and so forth. ^^ Mr. Jones ^^ is deeply moved by the '' unaffected " piety and good nature found in the pages of the Ilalieutica. This poem, he writes of Oppian, '' had we no other history of his Life, would represent him to us under the amiable character of a young gentleman of the liveliest wit, sweetened with the most engaging virtue, and ennobled by Religion. In all his Digressions and Reflexions, he recommends Virtue with so agreeable an air, and discountenances Vice after so moving a Manner, as shows him to have been the best good Man, but far from having the Worst natur'd Muse. . . . His Moral Reflexions are very fine and judicious . . . His Religious Sentiments, considering he was a Heathen, are very conspicuous in his account of Divine Provi- jdence and the Divine Powers." Diaper and Jones' translation of the Halieutica is particularly valuable, not only as the sole English rendering of the poem, but as an eighteenth-century version of Oppian. The translation reads very much like an original eighteenth century product adorned, like almost all other products of the time, by flowers from the gardens of the ancients. Knowing the Halieutica only thru the English of Diaper and Jones, one finds it a little hard to understand how the grammarian Tzetzes, who paraphrased the poem, called Oppian an " ocean of graces." ^^ All poetry loses by translation; Greek poetry can certainly not be judged by imperfect specimens of the eighteenth century couplet, since it suffers enough from the best; and yet, remembering Pope's Homer, translated even as Nick Bottom was " translated," one reads with amazement in Mr. Jones' ^^ Preface that the elder Scaliger calls Oppian " a divine and incomparable poet, one skilled in all Parts of Philosophy, the most perfect writer among the Greeks, and the only person that ever came up to Vergil." Standards of taste change, but the praise of divine beauty en- " Cp. Deyeux, " Garnet du Chassomane." See above, p. 134. " Op. cit, p. 7. " Cp. the Bibl. pref . to Walton and Cotton, op. cit., p. xx. " Op. cit. 142 The Georgic dures. Hence one feels that there is some slight lack of under- standing on the part of Mr. Jones when he writes, " Indeed, I know not how it happens, but there is scarce any of the ancients that deserves more or meets with less regard." 2. John Dennys' " Secrets of Angling " From the time of Oppian of Cicilia until the beginning of the seventeenth century, I am acquainted with no didactic poem of importance on the fisherman's art. I know of only two w^orks in which the subject is treated to any extent from the technical point of view. One is the Latin Be Vetula or De Vitula written in the thirteenth or fourteenth century by Richard de Four- nival.^^ A record of the different modes of fishing with worm, fly, torch and spear, night lines and so forth is said to be found in this poem.^® Piers of Fulham's Vayne conseytes of folysche love undyr colour of fysching and fowling, ascribed to the year 1420,^'^ is, as the title indicates, allegorical in character. There is nothing of the georgic in it except some interesting informa- tion concerning the arts of fishing and fowling. The following lines may give an idea of the poet's manner : But in rennyng ryvers that bee commone There will I fisshe and take my fortune Wyth nettys and with angle hookys, And large weris and spenteris in narrow brookys. The year 1613 begins an epoch in the history of the halieutic. There was published at this time in London, the first poetical treatise on the gentle craft, John Dennys' Secrets of Angling,^^ a poem that has been occasionally imitated, but never equalled. " See above, p. 29. " See Manly, op. cit., p. 563. " See above, p. 29. "Little is known of the life of John Dennys. He lived in the neighbor- hood of Pucklehurst, Gloucestershire, and was buried at Pucklehurst, 1609. That he was the author of the Secrets was not discovered until 1811. In the first chapter of the Complete Angler, Izaak Walton quotes five stanzas from the Secrets. At first Walton ascribed the stanzas to Jo. Da. Later Jo. Da. was altered to Jo. Davors. Otht-s had ascribed the lines to Donne or Davies. These verses are said to liave been attributed to at least six Didactic Poems on Field Sports 143 John Dennys may have read Oppian of Cilicia, or he may not. He was certainly acquainted with the classics, but his verses give no conclusive evidence that he knew the Ilalieutics of the ancients. Altho he claims no debt to Vergil, his poem is undoubtedly modeled to some extent on the Georgics; but this belated sixteenth century imitation has none of the faults so conspicuous in the eighteenth century Vergilian imitations. Dennys evidently drew his inspiration in part from the Man- tuan ; but it is an inspiration that breathes in the English poet's verse, not a distorted mask of the Latin singer, l)ut an English creation living and lovely. The introductory note of Roger Jackson, the publisher, to the edition of 1613, is worth reading, for it is marked by truths and is otherwise pertinent to the subject. Jackson states that the author intended to print the Secrets in his life, but was prevented by death. The publisher adds of the poem, "' I find it not only savouring of Art and Honesty, two things now strangers unto many authors, but also both pleasant and profit- able ; and being loth to see a thing of such value lie hidden in obscurity, whilst matters of no moment pester the stalls of every stationer, I therefore make bold to publish it for the benefit and delight of all, trusting that I shall neither disparage the author nor dislike them. " I need not, I think, apologize for either the use of the subject or for that it is reduced into the nature of a poem ; for as touching the last, in that it is in verse, some count it by so much the more delightful ; and I hold it every way as fit a subject for poetry as Husbandry. And touching the first, if Hunting and Hawking have been thought worthy delights and arts to be instructed in, I make no doubt but that this art of Angling is much more worthy practice and approbation ; for it poets of the name of Davies, due no doubt to the fact that J. D.'s poem •wais prefaced by certain commendatorj^ verses signed Jo. Daves. The Se- crets of Angling was reprinted in Arber's English Garner, vol. I, 1877. More valuable editions are those of T. Westwood, London, W. Satchell and Co., 1883, and that of Piscator, Biblioteca Curiosa. Privately Printed, Edinburgh, 1885. For other editions see Westwood's Introduction, p. 6. 144 The Georgic is a sport every way as pleasant, less chargeable, more profitable, and nothing so much subject to choler and impatience as those are. You shall find it more briefly, pleasantly, and exactly per- formed than any of this kind heretofore." The Secrets of Angling may be described as a piscatory poem of the georgic type, written in three books, in eight-line stanzas of heroic measure, the first six verses riming alternately, the last two making a couplet. Dennys has no eulogies of the great, he has no address to a patron, no reference to famous historical characters, no device of foreign contrast, no panegj^ric to Great Britain. In other respects, however, he skilfully follows the Vergilian conventions; and altho he does not sing the praises of Great Britain, the Muses seem to have granted to him as truly as to Vergil the love of his native fields and rivers. The first book has the conventional georgic opening ; but after stating his subject, the author adds a characteristic explanation of the nature of his work : Of Angling, and the Art thereof I sing, What kind of tools it doth behove to have; And with what pleasing bait a man may bring The fish to bite within the wat'ry wave. A work of thanks to svich as in a thing Of harmless pleasure, have regard to save Their dearest souls from sin; and may intend Of precious time, some part therein to spend. A charming and appropriate invocation to the water nymphs follows ; after Avhich there is an even more charming address to the brook " Sweet Boyd." More " profitable," but still pleasant, are the poet's instruc- tions concerning his art. Vergil gives detailed precepts regard- ing the implements of the farmer's toil. Dennys discourses of the implements of angling ; when to provide them, how to select and care for them. He even gives practical advice as to the garments of the Angler. But however homely his subject matter, his verse is rarely prosaic, and charming comparisons and pleasant episodes are skillfully interwoven with his precepts. The " Answer to the Objection," tho meant as a defense of the Didactic Poems on Field Sports 145 fisherman's art, is really a rhapsody in praise of country life, written with the enthusiasm of a lover of nature, and the reflexion of a religious philosopher. Some youthful gallant, admits the poet, will cry, perhaps, that it is a silly pastime to endure the toils and troubles of fishing, rather than to walk the streets in '' nice array," to dance and sport and gamble in the toAvn. Very wise and very gentle is the " Reply," I mean not here men's errours to reprove, Nor do en%'y their seeming happy state; But rather marvel why they do not love An honest sport that is without debate; Since their abused pastimes often move Their minds to anger and to mortal hate; And as in bad delights their time they spend, So oft it brings them to no better end. Quite as convincing in its own lesser fashion as Vergil's contrast between the joys and virtues of the country, the vices and vanities of the city, is Dennys' contrast between the w^hole- some and happy recreation of the fisherman and the miserable existence of the society trifler. Were it not for the phrasing of John Dennys, simple and forcible (in spite of occasional padding), one might fancy himself listening to some moralizing poet of the eighteenth century. The following lines are one of the most interesting of the many variations of Vergil's Prayer to the Muses : ^^ O let me rather on the pleasant brink Of Tyne and Trent possess some dwelling-place; Where I may see my quill and cork down sink With eager bite of barbel, bleek or dace: And on the world and the Creator think, While they proud Thais' painted sheet embrace; Let them that list these pastimes then pursue And on their pleasing fancies feed their fill; So I the fields and meadows green may view. And by the rivers fresh may walk at will, Among the daisies and the violets blue. Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil, "Cp. Georg. ii, 483-4. 10 146 The Georgic Purple narcissus like the morning rays, Pale ganderglass and azure culverkeys. I count it better pleasure to behold The goodly compass of the lofty sky; The hills and mountains raised from the plains, The rivers making way through Nature's chain, ^ With headlong course into the sea profound. The surging sea beneath the valleys low, The valleys sweet, and lakes that lovely flow. The lofty woods, the forests wide and long, Adorned with leaves and branches fresh and green; In whose cool bowers the birds with chanting joy Do welcome with their quire the Summer's Queen: The meadows fair where Flora's gifts among, Are intermixed the verdant grass between ; The silver-scaled fish that softly swim Within the brooks and crystal watry brim. The final stanza of the "' Reply " has a rapturous note of religious joy in the things of the outward world. Almost a mystic, it seems, was John Dennys. All these and many more of His creation That made the heavens, the Angler oft doth see; And takes therein no little delectation . To think how strange and wonderful they be; Framing thereof an inward contemplation To set his thoughts from other fancies free, And while he looks on these with joyful eye. His mind is rapt above the starry sky. In a pleasant episode the poet recounts the origin of the Art of Angling, an innocent variation of the Deucalion myth. When the new race of men sprang from stones after the Deluge there was no food for them, so Deucalion invented the art of angling and taught it to his people. Here the poet naively works in the theme of the Golden Age, which, he states, was a time when it was easy to angle, for the fish had not then been frightened of wicked men. After having traced the varied stages of his art the poet announces that his weary Muse must rest, and " breathe or pause Didactic Poems on Field Sports 147 a little at the least," a coucliisiou suggesting the last two lines of the second Georgic. The opening of the second book of the Secrets recalls the beginning of the second Georgic. Before I taught what kind of tools were fit For him to have, that would an Angler be; And how he should with practice and with wit Provide himself thereof in best degree: Xoic doth remain to show how to the bit The fishes may be brought that erst were free ; And with what pleasing baits enticed they are, To swallow down the hidden hook un'ware. The poet declares that he will not meddle with the great whale that hid the man of God inside him for three whole days, nor with the Ork that would have devoured Andromeda. He enum- erates other great fish of which he will not sing, then proceeds to name the various sorts for which one can angle, making his list with a grace and skill not unworthy of his Master. In writing of the gudgeon he makes an observation that proves his understanding of the first principles of the art of teaching: This fish the fittest for a learner is That in this Art delights to take some pain; For as high-flying hawks that often miss The swifter fowls, are eased with a train; So to a young beginner yieldeth this, Such ready sport as makes him prove again; And leads him on with hope and glad desire, To greater skill and cunning to aspire. Musing on the capture of the Dace, he shows characteristic georgic realization of the dangers that lurk always in attendance on the joys of life, world's deceit! how are we thralled by thee. Thou dost thy gall in sweetest pleasures hide ! ^Vlien most we think in happiest state to be. Then do we soonest into danger slide. Behold the fish that even now was free. Unto the deadly hook how is he tied ! So vain delights allure us to the snare. Wherein un'wares we fast entangled are. 148 The Georgic Writing of the Sewant and the Flounder, with poetic incon- sistency the poet who has but just sung the Golden Age as a time when jfish were easily caught now pauses to reflect upon the cruel inequality of life in watery ways : Unequal fate! that some are born to be Fearful and mild, and for the rest a prey; And others are ordained to live more free, Without control or danger anyway. The poet then describes various kinds of baits for various fishes, with directions as to the manner of bestowing hook and bait in the different seasons. The concluding fancy is not inap- propriate : But Phoebus now beyond the western Ind, Beginneth to descend and draweth low; And well the weather serves, and gentle wind, Down with the tide and pleasant stream to row, Unto some place where we may rest us in. Until we shall another time begin.'"' The third book treats of " the chief and fittest seasons " for angling, but before the poet gives his instructions in detail he decides that — It shall behove To show what gifts and qualities of mind Belong to him that doth the pastime love. Handsome rods, hooks of divers sorts, well-twisted lines, the finest tools avail nothing if the fisherman lacks certain necessary gifts of mind. Twelve virtues he must have : Faith and Hope and " Love and liking to the game," Patience to bear mishaps, and Humility to stoop or kneel, Strength, and Courage, and Liberality to feed the fishes often, to draw them near like the ancient hospitality that " sometime dwelt in Albion's fertile land," whence it is now banished, along with kindred virtues usually banished in the degenerate times that appear to have begotten georgic poetry. The Angler must have, also, Knowl- edge to make the fish bite when they are dull and slow, he must *• Cp. the concluding stanza of the Faerie Queen, Bk. i. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 149 have Placability of Mind, he must have Thanks to that God who doth send both fish and fowl, And still reserves enough in secret store To please the rich and to relieve the poor. The eleventh qualification of the good Angler is Fasting long from all superfluous fare, the twelfth and last. Memory, not to forget to take all things needful for the craft. Dennys' lines suggest Oppian's portrait of the ideal fisher,^^ but the English poet's angler is certainly not a copy of the Greek who gains his precarious living from the seas. Both must have strength and courage, but beyond this the resemblance does not go. The Angler must choose weather that is neither too hot nor too cold. He must not fish at fleece-washing time, nor at flood ; Nor when the leaves hegin to fall apace, While Nature doth her former work deface, Unclothing bush or tree of summer's green."'' The best hours of the day are from sunrise to nine o'clock. So lovely is the poet's dawn that the reader feels the stir of longing to arise and go with the gentle Master Angler through the pleasant fields, amidst sweet pastures, meadows fresh and sound, Wlien fair Aurora rising early shows Her blushing face among the Eastern hills, And dyes the heavenly vault with purple rows That far abroad the world with brightness fills; The meadows green or hoar with silver dews That on the earth the sable night distils, And chanting birds with merry notes bewray The near approaching of the cheerful day. Each fish's favorite haunt is described for the benefi.t of the Angler, who must learn to know such lurking places. Then advice is given concerning all the hours when the Angler may ^ See above, p. 140. "Cp. Georg. ii, 403. Ac iam olim aeraa posuit cum vinea frondes frigidus et silvis Aquilo decussit honorem. 150 The Georgic and may not fish ; and lest he may forget his tools a short lesson is given to assist the memory. And now, sings the poet, we are arrived at the last In wished harbour, where we wear to rest, And make an end of this our journey past: Here then in quiet road I think it best We strike our sails and steadfast anchor cast, For now the sun low setteth in the West, And ye boatswains! a merry carol sing To him that safely did us hither bring.** Considering Roger Jackson's statement that the author intended to publish the Secrets before his death, "Westwood ^^ observes : " Perhaps he was withheld by some f aintness of heart and some wisdom of reticence. The epoch was a trying one for the minor muse. The elder bards were dying out, but the national air still vibrated to their divine singing. It was hardly strange that a poet unknown to fame hesitated to bring forth his simple song of bleek and bream." Yet it is the simplicity of the song that makes its chai"m — simplicity alike of diction and of spirit. The childlike joy in outdoor things, the early morning quality of the poem, reflect something of the life and glow of the earlier Elizabethans. John Dennys makes the didactic poets of the eighteenth century seem world-weary and gentimental. Thomson, who loved to lie abed till noon, writes feelingly of the beauties of the dawn, but John Dennys, at least in the angling season, lived among the meadows and streams of which he sings, and he rejoiced in the outdoor world from sun- ^^ These lines echo very closely the concluding stanza of the first book of the Faerie Queen, Now strike your sailes, yee jolly Mariners, For we be come unto a quiet rode, Where we must land some of our passengers, And light this weary vessell of her lode; Here she a while may make her safe abode. Till she repaired have her tackles spent. And wants supplide; and then .againe abroad On the long voiage whereto she is bent : Well may she speede, and fairly finish her intent! '^Op. cit., p. 1. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 151 rise to sunset. His raoralizings arc quaint and pleasant^ and sometimes wise, suited to one wlio loved the gentle craft. His poem is not a glorification of toil, but it calls alluringly to the joys of country life. There is in it a spirit that Vergil himself could not but have loved. William Lauson ^^ remarks of the Secrets of Angling, " The Author by verse hath expressed much Learning, and by his Answer to the Objection shows himself to have been Virtuous. The subject itself is honest and pleasant ; and sometimes profit- able. Use it and give God all glory. Amen." A comment written with judgment that one appreciates all the more after having read the Secrets in contrast w^ith the dreary dullness of the great body of georgic poetry. The Secrets of Angling is not a great poem, but it should hold an honoured place for sweetness of verse, for its beauty of description and for the lessons that the poet so gently and happily teaches. That this slight work has any importance in the history of English literature one can hardly say. Certainly, in the history of fishing literature no writer has graced his subject with lovelier lines. John Denny s must always hold an unrivaled place in the angler's library. Many readers have felt his poem's charm ; lovers of poetry as well as lovers of the gentle craft owe a debt of gratitude for its rescue from oblivion. 3. Later Seventeenth-Century Didactic Poems on Angling From John Dennys' Secrets to Barker's Delight is, undoubt- edly, a descent. However, I do not know of any writer after Dennys who treated the theme of angling in didactic verse, until in 1657 Thomas Barker produced a small volume which bears the full title. Barker's Delight, or the Art of Angling. This is a w^ork " Wherein are discovered many rare secrets very neces- sary to be known by all that delight in that Recreation, both for catching the Fish, and dressing thereof," a quaintly written " Comments on the " Secrets of Angling," Arber's English Qarner, West- minster, Arcliibald Constable & Co., 1903, p. 237. 152 The Georgic book of prose instructions interspersed with bits of verse. Evidently Thomas Barker was not less skilled as a cook than as an angler. He appears less gifted as a poet. However, his verses have the merit of simplicity, and his instructions are generally to the point. I quote a specimen to show the author's manner : . . . Your lines may be strong, but must not be longer than your rod. The rod light and taper, thy tackle fine. Thy lead two inches upon the line; Bigger or lesse, according to the stream, Angle in the dark, when others dream. Or in a cloudy day with a lively worm. The Bradlin is best; but give him a turn Before thou do land a large well grown trout, And if with a fly thou wilt have a bout Overload not with links, that the fly may fall First on the stream for that's all in all. The line shorter than the rod, with a natural fly; But the chief point of all is the cookery. Following a section of prose instructions on frying trouts, he is inspired to rime on the subject of the making of restorative broth of trouts, ending with the naive piece of biographical information : for forty years I In Ambassadors' kitchens learned my cookery. The French and Italian no better can doe. Observe well my rules and you'll say so too. The following lines suggest Mother Goose : Close to the bottom in the midst of the water, I fished for a Salmon and there I caught her. The final effusion treats of baits, then closes with the following : But when of all sorts thou hast thy wish. Follow Barker's advice to cook the fish; Think then of the gatehouse for near it lives he, Who kindly will teach thee to make the flye; And if thou live by a river side. Believe thou thy friend who often hath tried And brought store of fish as sheep to the pen, But friend let me tell thee once agen. Didactic Poems on Fi-eld Sports 153 His art to keep thee both warm and dry Deserveth thy love perpetually, He names three men to thee, like a good friend, Make use of them all, and so I end. In the last decade of the seventeenth century there are found two new efforts in verse on the subject of fishing; in 1692, a Latin poem entitled Piscatio, by the Reverend S. Ford, D. D, ; in 1697, The Innocent Epicure: or the Art of Angling, believed to have been written by IN'ahuni Tate. The former was inscribed to Archbishop Sheldon and first appeared in the first volume of the Musae AngUcanae. According to Manly,^^ it has been translated and variously adapted. The chief features of the Innocent Epicure, says Manly, are its antithetical sentences and smooth periods. John Whitney praises the author of this poem as an abler artist than himself, but if one must judge from the following couplet quoted by Manly, the writer certainly anticipates the worst products of the eighteenth century: Go on my Muse, next let thy niunbers speak. The mighty Nimrod of the streams, the Pike. The product must, however, have made some appeal to readers of the eighteenth century, for a second edition appeared in 1713, a third as the Art of Angling, in 1741. 4. Eighteenth-Century Didactic Poems on Fishing John Whitney's The Geriteel Recreation, or the Pleasures of Angling, A Poem, with a Dialogue hetween Piscator and Cory- don was published in 1700,-''' shortly after the appearance of the Innocent Epicure. It is " a little treatise," which, says the writer in his preface, he composed " for his own pleasure." He knows that there be many abler artists, especially that ingenious ** Op. cit. " An extremely rare book, originally printed for the author, of wTiom nothing is known except that he was the son of Captain Whitney, who com- manded one of the ships that accompanied Sir Walter Raleigh on his voyage to Guinea. One hundred copies were printed of the first edition, one hundred copies reprinted in 1820 for J. Burn, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. 154 The Georgic author of the Innocent Epicure. But he has taken nothing from him nor from others who " have wrote of the Art of Angling." He thinks his own experience best to display his own thoughts, which he has done in a kind of rambling way. His thoughts sometimes run on the Muse as well as on the Fishes, for which reason he uses verse, most of which was composed by the river- side in such seasons the Fish did not yield the pleasure he expected. The poem is divided into four irregular parts, written in irregular and halting verse, the first an Introduction — a reflec- tion on the happiness of the " Man blest with a moderate state " secured to him by " Law's strong Adamantine chains." So blest, He gently can survey his Meads, and be Spectator of his own felicity; Those curious meads, New pleasure breeds, A purling Brook just by, Where the Inhabitants Of all the watery Elements, Strive Nature to outvie. Those various Beauties which the Medows breed, The watery fry in spangled glory far exceed. While carking cares that do the mind oppress. By Men unwary of their Happiness, Clog'd with the burden of Domestic cares, May here dispel those lingering fears. And learn new Joys, observing of the fry. The second part consists of twenty-nine lines in which the poet sings of the true content begotten by the angler who cannot be enticed from his delight by bags of gold. The third Part tells in sixty-seven lines of the taking of the Pike. It opens with the following couplet : Now with the Tyrant of the Silver stream, I first, kind Maro, will begin my Angling Theme. The thought of the " voracious Appetite " of the " Tyrant " enkindles the poet's fervour to fresh delight. Thus he sings : When fair Aurora leaves her dark cavern And Sol's uprising first I can discern, Shaking the moisture from his dew'y locks Didactic Poems on Field Sports 155 To set a Lustre on a Thousand Lady Smocks Enameling the Medow fair and bright, But just reliev'd from the terrours of the night, I march along . . . After which pleasant description the poet proceeds to instruct his reader in such practical details of the art as poles, baits, the haunts and habits of different fishes. The fourth Part consists of fifty-one pages that treat of angling in general. Thinking perhaps of Vergil's device of describing foreign lands, the poet mentions various localities which are for diverse reasons to be frequented or shunned by the angler. With some of these places he has had pleasant or curious experiences. Recalling a creature peculiar to Eton Bridge, the author describes him in the following remarkable fashion : Roach-like scales, of burning gold, That shine like mettle from Pactolus rolled, Nameless he is, till some more fruitful pen Describes his wondrous make, like Adam when Baptizing Creatures with Immortal Names. The glory of great Medway and more silver Thames. In an apostrophe to his friend Streatfield, the poet introduces a georgic feature; georgic is, also, the appeal with which he introduces his account of the Trout, Muse, sing now the Trout, with all his Arts, His haunts, his motion, and his sudden starts, When e'er a curious fly drops in the stream; Make him thy choice, and choose from him thy theam. Discoursing of the fishes' -^sculapius, the author digresses on the subject of physicians. He then justifies his craft, reflect- ing that Angling was sent by Heaven in order that by destroying those that would prey upon them, man may give to some of the fishes longer life. The " patient Muse" is requested to raise her fancy once again and sing of eels. As almost nothing seems to exhaust her patience the reader is regaled with this choice subject ; in the discussion of which the poet gives an account of eel fishing at night that introduces the georgic reflexion, 156 The Georgic A rustic with a flambeau in his hand Goes like a Page of Honor through the Strand When Madam she's retiring from the Play to Ck)urt, Cloy'd with vain repetitions of an Idle Sport, Vain is that pleasure yields us no delight, But dulls our over-clouded appetite.^ Perhaps no more sincere tribute has been paid to Vergil than the following: Now see, sweet Maro, of the Pearch, I sing, And dedicate to thee, who art the Muses King, My solemn Theme; Assist me then. Recorder of the Acts of God and Men, Lest that my trembling Pen in vain essay Ignis Fatuus like, lost in uncertain way. Had I thy genius, then my quill should raise Immortal glory to thy name with praise, While thou, blest Hero, to the Gods conjoyned. And, by eternal love, to Man combin'd. Shows us the Paths of Virtue how to tread. And magnify the Glory of the Dead. For thou alone Hast further gone In thine Immortal lays Than all the scribbling Poets in our last declining days. The author emphasizes the forgotten proverb that No Angler ought to swear. The least of oaths the Fishes soon will scare, And imprecations too make them the bait forbear. Giving an account of his luck at sport, Whitnej modestly and piously remarks : Angler, had you been there you'd far'd as well as I, For Heaven's bounty Heaven be prais'd eternally. Writing of the voracious Chub, he pauses to moralize thus on vain Pride: Excess is hurtful. Who covet all, but little can enjoy; **'Cp. John Dennys on the life of the "Youthful Gallant," Arber's Eng. Gamer, p. 201. Didactic Poems cm Field Sports 157 And much, to some's esteemed the meanest toy, Alexander conquered all, yet sighing wept. Saladinc's victories ended in a shirt. A curious episode relating to the Bleak, sounds like an inno- cent parody on Aristaeus and his bees. Beelzebub resenting the depopulation of his Kingdom, complains to his wife. Neptune is interviewed, and is about to starve the fishes, when a Bleak appears and brings about an amicable settlement. The writer incidentally indulges in some amiable satire on the Lady Birds and the Charters broke for a Female smile. The poet then sings the joys and profit afforded by Angling, ending with the safe reflexion, Labour in vain, the Ingenious do not prize. Pleasure that profit brings becomes the wise. The Dialogue between Piscator and Cori/don,^^ which may be described as a supplement to the Genteel Recreation, is an eclogue with georgic reflections and moralizations. Corydon, a herdsman, and Piscator, an angler, discuss their respective pleasures and profits. Corydon asks Piscator to declare the pleasure,* that he reaps, and prevails on him to spend a day by the riverside. Phillis, Chloris, and Hobb, rustic neighbors, appear and sing songs celebrating country joys and country virtues. After Piscator's departure, Corydon recites the praises of angling, ending — Though I'm no Angler, Anglers still I'll love. For Angler's Patience comes from Mighty Jove. In 1729 Moses Browne's Piscatory Eclogues appeared. How far they are didactic in character I cannot say, for I have been unable to see them. They were reissued with other works in 1739 under the title of Poems on various Subjects, separately in 1773 as Angling Sports, in Nine Piscatory Eclogues.^^ Manly ^*^ mentions another halieutic belonging to the first half of the eighteenth century, a product that appeared in 1740, "Whitney, op. cit., pp. 59 flF. ""> D. N. B., vol. vn. " Op. cit. 158 The Georgic entitled the British Aivgler, written by an author named Williamson, whom I have been unable to identify. If one judges by the specimen that Manly cites from the British Angler it must be pronounced a most unhappy effort. The citation is from a discussion on silk and hair lines: iChoose well your Hair, and know the vig'rous Horse, Not only reigns in Beauty, but in Force; Reject the Hair of Beasts, e'en newly dead, Where all the springs of 'Nature are deoay'd. Perhaps because of lack of interest in the subject, perhaps because of discouragement due to such efforts as those of Browne and Williamson, English poets seem not to have attempted treatises on the gentle craft for two decades after the appear- ance of the British Angler. Still the theme of fishing does not disappear altogether from English verse; in 1750 the Reverend John Buncombe translated the greater part of Vaniere's treatise on fish-ponds, the fifteenth book of the Praedium Rusticuni.^^ The translation may be read in the supplement to Daniel's Rural Sports.^^ These verses, Vaniere remarks in a note, were written in the poet's earlier years. In the fashion of Pere Rapin, whom Vaniere thought it praiseworthy to imitate, many fables ^^ are interwoven with the more serious subject matter. The verse is further adorned with constant moralizations, but the poet is not so far lost in morals and fables as to neglect to instruct his readers in the proper methods concerning the making and the management of fishponds and the art of ensnaring the fish. ^ See above, p. C8. '' Op. cit., pp. 35 ff. '^ In the edition of 1746, Book xv of the Praedium Rusticum has a de- lightful illustration. A river is represented flowing between a turreted castle and a luige rock from which the nymph Truita (afterwards metamor- phosed into the trout), is leaping madly, pursued by her cruel admirer Lucius (afterward the pike). 'Below the rock an unmoved individual is casting a net into the water, and under a tree on the other side of the stream, are three fat, exulting cherubs, one in the act of landing a large fish. The cherubs suggest the first canto of M. Jammes' Q^orgiques chrcti- ennes in which the poet fancies angels lun-vesting in the fields and hovering about the farmer's family at their liousehold talk. See above, p. 47. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 159 Discussing the sites for pouds, Vaniere writes with the heart of Vergil's teaching well in mind, Camporum qui plana colit, licet aggere multo Vix bene eontineat graviorum pondus aquarum Nil desperet; opum vis et labor omnia vincunt '* The following quotation from Buncombe's translation illus- trates very happily the poet's didactic manner. Now o'er the neighb'ring Streams extend your Nets And throw your lines well furnished with deceits, Join scarlet Colours, which exposed to view Fish thro' the water greedily pursue; And as a skillful Fowler, Birds employs, Which by their well-known Voice and treacherous noise, Allure their Fellows and invite to sihaie Their fate entangled in the viscuous Snare; So Fish when taken, other Fisb allure; Who, seeing them, grow daimtless and secure ; But not thro' studied Malice they ibetray, But by our Art deceive the finny prey, (Man only with premeditated m,ind Betrays his Brethren and, ensnares Mankind. In 1758 the didactic Muse again raised her head vigorously, if one may not say triumphantly. Thomas Scott of Ipswich published a poem entitled The Art of Angling; Eight Dialogues in Verse.^^ The author acknowledges the fountain of his inspiration in his motto: Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes, Flumina amem, sylvasque, inglorius.^ In his note to the Reader, the Bookseller comments on the writer's sagacity in choosing a subject pleasing to the ruling taste of the age : ^"^ *'Cp. Georg. i, 145, labor omnia vicit. '^ Reprinted in Ruddiman's Collection of Scarce, Curious and Valuable Pieces," Edinburgh, 1773. * Georg. n, 485. " At this time and during the first quarter of the nineteenth century the interest in fishing literature seems to 'have almost equalled the vogue of gardening literature in the early years of the eighteenth century. Thomas Pike Lathy seems to have been more eager than wise in the manner in which 160 ■ The Georgic The dialogues are furnislied with notes signed with the names Zoilus, Aristarchiis, Farnaby the Younger, Moses Browne and so forth. Zoilus comments thus on the title : " How artfully has this author screened himself from our attacks, by giving to his compositions the titles of dialogues! O that he had called them eclogues ! I should then have been furnished with a fair occasion to display my reading and my critical skill, by showing that neither his characters nor his sentiments nor his expression agree with the simplicity so essential to that species of Poems." The first dialog-ue is '' A Defense of Angling." ^^ The sc^ne is the meadows ; the season the coming in of Spring. Candidus and Severus speak. Candidus asks if virtue will frown upon them if they fish and stay in these ''springing meads." Severus replies, Virtue, my friend, on no enjoyment smiles Which idle hours debase, or vice defiles. The wise to life's momentous work attend; And think and act still pointing to their end. Candidus urges that pastimes are necessary, and compares them to parentheses in verse, but remarks that, as in verse, parentheses too long disturb the song. So pastimes which ingross too large a space Disturb life's system and its work deface. Severus argues for sports that arouse, not waste, the spirits. Candidus observes that some prefer the chase, and digresses to describe a hare hunt, but decides that each must amuse himself according to his taste, ending, I no man's joys arraign. Me, lonely vales and winding currents please, And arts of fishing entertain my ease. he tried to satisfy the public demand. In 1819 he carried out one of the most amazing of literary frauds, transferring bodily the Eight Dialogues into ten cantos entitled The Anglers Avith notes, etc., by Piscator (T. R. Lathy, esq.). After a number of copies were printed on royal paper, and one on vclliun at a cost of ten pounds, the fraud was discovered and pointed out by Scott's nephew, who was in possession of the original manuscript. See D. N. B., Vol. xxxn, p. 171. ** Cp. John Dennys' " Answer to the Objection." Didactic Poems on Field Sports 161 Sevenis objects to the '* mire and the sordid toils of jfishing." Candidus explains that he has nothing to do with mire, " the decent angle's '' his. Severus objects to the gout-bringing exhala- tions of the marsh. Candidus answers that he has sense enough to be warned of the approach of evening in time to get home before the "brown horrour woods and streams invades." Severus remarks that he doesn't call angling exercise. Candidus urges that the skilled Angler changes the scene, wanders from mead to mead, " still casting as he moves." He returns home blessedly tired, and spends his evening in the classic page, Or fancy, flowing with recruited vein, Pours out her pleasures in his rhyming strain. Let not my friend despise, with cynic mood Our pastime, honored by the wise and good; By blameless Nowell, Wotton's cheerful age, Colton's clear wit and Walton's rural page. With rapture these beheld the people'd flood. The chequer'd meadow and the waving wood; Here found in solitude emollient rest From rugged cares and tumults of the breast: Here virtues learn'd (ill learned by formal rules) Unknown to courts, unknoAvn to wrangling schools. Patience and Peace, and gentleness of mind, Contempt of wealth and love of human kind. Severus is converted, but declares that if he ever wields the fisher's reed, its bark shall bear the maxim, All pastimes that engross too large a space Disturb life's system and its work deface. Whereat Zoilus remarks, " O the shocking pride of this Author ! He hath first the presumption to dignify a dry saying of his own with the title of a maxim or a moral axiom, and next, the assurance to hint to the sellers of fishing tackle that he would have them get this same law engraven on the outside of every fishing rod in their shops." The second Dialogue, between Tyro and Piscator, treats of some general rules of the sport. The opening is a description of delaying spring and a moralization on deceived hopes. The Anglers, it appears, speak feelingly, since they have been so 11 162 The Georgic deceived that it is necessary to give up their sport. Tyro, how- ever, begs instructions from Piscator before they part. Piscator begins with the following Preface: Walton could teach; his meek, enchanting vein The Shepherd's mingles with the Fisher's strain; Nature and genius animate his lines, And our whole science in his precepts shines. Howe'er, to fill this little void of time, And titilate your ear with jingling rhyme, Receive in brief epitome the rules Anglers revere, the doctrine of their schools. The rules follow. The verses. Your line, or by the spinning worm supplied Or by the high-born courser's hairy pride. are almost equal to Armstrong's description of an icehouse, or Mason's of the net, " the Sportsman's hempen toils." ^^ After some precepts concerning baits the author discusses ill- omen'd seasons, and weather signs.'**' Tyro asks one more favor, " The Angler's Song," and Piscator obligingly complies with his request, singing the praises of the Angler's life, far from the clamor and the sorrow that end the pleasure of the drunkard's bowl, and unshadowed by the dangers that threaten the hunter's life. The fisher can enjoy the outdoor world, and he can reflect " how time is gliding," but he refuses to mourn while the present is glad. He concludes with the courageous sentiment. Yea, when autumn's russet mantle Saddens the decaying year, I will fish and I will chant, till Feeble age shall change my cheer. The third Dialogue, between Garrulus and Lepidus, on " Angling for Trout," is pastoral rather than georgic. Musaeus envying Severus' luck, decides to sit and sing to the naiads. His ruse succeeds ; the trout bite. The fourth Dialogue, on " Perch," is varied by a short narra- »See above, p. 85. ""Cp. Oeorg. i, 351 ff. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 163 tive episode ; then Lepi Jus being asked to cheer tiie dullness bj the " farmer's song," breaks into a satirical ditty on the severity of the game laws, and the damage done to farm lands by the hunt.^^ Garrulus gets a fisli, but his comments are interrupted by Lepidus, who tells a fish tale that Zoilus comments on in the notes as a " romantic affair, the whole of which he looks upon as a ' Swinging lie.' " Lepidus muses on the varied characters of fish.'*- Shock, the dog, blunders into the water after a water rat, and Lepidus recalls the story of a Dutch attendant who fell into the water. Zoilus comments severely on the relations of a preacher and laughter. Further moralizations follow on cheating. The fifth Dialogue, on the " Carp," begins w^ith a conversa- tion on the innocent pleasure and beauty of a country walk The next lines illustrate the georgic note of complaint against the evils of the time, and show again that poets of the georgic strain wrote insecure of audience even in the eighteenth century : Who sings of virtue in these iron times. Sings to the wind, for ears endure the rhymes, But fame and wealth reward the glorious toil, Scrawl but a novel or write notes on Hoyle.** Lepidus makes an answer that illustrates the georgic feature of references to famous men, and shows the writer's common sense, if not his poetical ability — Lash not the times alone, withal complain Of bards unequal to the lofty strain The heavenly fire once warmed in Addison. A preceptual note is introduced in Lucius' advice to Verus, to turn from the sun, lest his shadow frighten the carp. The carp having been caught, Verus urges rest and conversation. Lucius suggests Greenland as the scene, thus introducing the familiar *^ Cp. Somerville, Gay and Shenstone. See above, p. 126. * A georgic touch. Cp. Vergil on vines. Georg. u, 91-109. ** Zoilus comments that the author speaks feelingly, as if from personal experience of rejected mss. or unsold copies. 164 The Georgic device of contrast witli foreign country. Verus describes whale fishing. Lucius then bursts into a panegyric on Britain, which Verus thinks overdone at the present moment, as he regrets the loss of Minorca, and sighs for a race of honest men not to be corrupted by bribes and party sentiment. Lucius notes the mounting of the sun and philosophizes on the quick passing of life, the small pittance of time worth while, the necessity of spending that time well. The sixth Dialogue, between Axylus and Musaeus, is mainly in praise of the value of the gentle exercise of Angling, in which the sportsman breaks no laws. Commenting on the fishes' enemy, the otter, a hunt is described, and the poet moralizes on the necessity of hunting human tyrants, otters that prey upon their fellow men. Dialogue eighth, between Axylus and Musseus, treats of trawl- ing for Pike. The manner of catching a Pike is described, also the manner in which Serena prepares it with " the churn's golden lumps of clodded oil." Axylus asks information concerning the origin of fishing. Musseus responds: Walton, our great forefather and our pride, The curious search with happy labour try'd; He found our ward in wild Arabia nurst. And patient Job great fisherman the first. But brains of scholars are inventive things; Read Monmouth's Geoffrey, read Buchanan's Kings. Yet if the Muse's wreath bestows renown Is not our name immortalized by Browne. Thinking of Vergil, Chiron observes : Nature, my friends, whose certain signs ordain The time to scatter and to reap the grain. Governs our ant. Advice follows concerning the time to fish, the seasons being marked by the constellations. The three anglers continue to fish and converse by turns. They discuss the instincts of fish, and the question of whether or not the fishes hear. ]\rus£eus digi'csses to tell the story of a carp Didactic Poems on Field Sports 165 that came at the call of a Monk of St. Bernard on the banks of the Scheldt, and rings in a satirical passage on luxury and super- stition. Musaeus remarks, Good. cheer will mount me to Apollo's steep. An observation that causes Zoilus to comment on Musaeus' in- sufferable arrogance and to name among those who have climbed Parnassus, Flatman, Tom D'Urfy, Taylor the Water Poet, and a few others needless to mention. The eighth Dialogue, on " Fishing for Pike with Lay Hooks," is particularly notable for its descriptions of nature. These optimistic sportsmen have praises even for winter. The Anglers congratulate themselves on the superior qualities of their joys, and finally they " descend from Pegasus and retire to share their frugal viand." The Art of Angling might be described as reading neither unpleasant nor unprofitable. The notes, presumably the author's, are amusingly facetious. The verse, in general, flows smoothly. The writer appears not to regard very seriously either his theme or his own poetic powers, so the whole poem is leavened by a vein of humorous common sense. The work is interesting as a specimen of the eclogue used for didactic pur- poses. It can hardly be called a masterpiece even of fishing literature, but it is a work that every reader who loves the gentle craft would gladly have on the shelves of his library. 5. Nineteenth-Century Didactic Poems on Angling In the early years of the nineteenth century John Dennys was still read; and in his native land, the tribute of English verse was still being spent on the theme first honored by him with such a tribute. But thru a curious bit of irony, Charles Clifford, who read the Secrets and wrote the Angler, a Didactic Poem,** has in the opinion of later critics immortalized himself, ** London, 1804. For my knowledge of this rare book, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Hyder E. Rollins, who read it for me at Harvard. 166 The Georgic not by his own production^ but by tbe expression of his contempt for the Secrets^^ The 1804 edition of The Angler leaves the reader under the impression that the writer may have left his work uncompleted. The volume contains four hundred and ninety lines of blank verse headed Book I, and followed by the information " End of Book I." In the " Advertisement " prefixed to the poem, the author voices the sentiment of John Basse in The Angler s So7ig: ^^ I care not, I, t^ fish in seas — Eresh rivers most my mind do please. Clifford, however, expresses himself in the manner of the eighteenth century. His words are worth quoting, chiefly because they prove that he was acquainted with Oppian's Halieutica, but that he disdains to sing the song of the Cilician. Thus the English author writes : " The plan of Oppian confines him to sing of fishing on the mciin seas, as they are styled, or rather to the enumeration of various species of Eish which sojourn there, their habits, their amours, and modes of preying, both true and fabulous. The following work leaves these subjects wholly untouched. ... In the meantime the author • confines himself entirely to the pursuits of the true and legiti- mate Angler, who with taper rod and dancing hook, gaudily fashioned like a giddy fly, exerts all his dexterity in beguiling the nobler inmates of the stream, the trout and salmon." Altho he scorned the plan of Oppian, Clifford evidently avails himself to some extent of the model of the Georgics. His poem begins with the stock opening, a statement of the subject, after which he offers a defense of Angling from the Imputation of Cruelty. To poetize his subject, he alternates his practical instructions with digressions. He introduces the subject of foreign lands in an account of the scenery and people of Green- land. This theme may have been suggested to him by Thomas ** See the " Advertisement " to Clifford's Angler, p. iv. *'Old English Sovgs, Macmillan & Co., New York, 1894, p. 30. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 167 Scott's account of whale fishing; ^'^ but Clifford develops the theme very differently^ dwelling, like Ilesiod and Vergil and Thomson, on the distinctive features of the northern winter, altho he seems not to have borrowed anything more than the subject from the older poets. iSTo actual hatred of human warfare appears to be expressed in The Angler, but one might imply that the author finds the struggle with the " finny tribe '' more to his liking than an encounter on the field of battle, for his Muse sings — Of contests keen, not bloodless — victories Not without ambush, or manoeuvred skill. The warfare 'gainst the finny tribe she sings; When with the mellow morn the accoutred angler Hies to the limpid brook or broader flood, To wage the contest with the heedless trout Or floundering salmon. Clifford refers occasionally to well-known writers, to famous heroes and to mythological stories; and he digresses frequently to describe natural objects. In the conclusion of his description of Greenland he points out the love of each individual for his native land, developing with some skill the generous sentiment Mr. Knight expresses in The Landscape : No state or clime's so bad but that the mind Formed to enjoy content, content will find.** Mr. Clifford's lines, which have a decided Thomsonian ring, are as follows : Oh, bounteous Nature, falsely oft accused Of partial kindness! — Midst the dreary waste An airy palace gay thou rear'st in lieu Of sculptured domes; — for summer suns thou giv'st A midnight radiance; and tho bleak the clime And desolate the shore, yet o'er the wilds Roams a free tenant, imannoyed by care. And prizing more his rocks and fishy shores Than slavish Indians prize the spicy grove, The golden streamlet, flower-empurpled field And all the riches of their gem-fraught soil. *' See above, p. 103. * See above, p. 99. 168 The Georgic Considered as a halieutic The Angler is a poem not without merit. The author shows a real love of N'ature, and his descrip- tive lines are occasionally rich in color effect. But Clifford's verses can bear no comparison with the Secrets of Angling. The later poem lacks entirely the flowing sweetness of John Dennys' stanzas. There is nothing in it of the almost childlike delight of the earlier poet in the outdoor world. One does not find in Clifford the naively pleasant quality that makes delightful John Whitney's imperfect verse, nor is there in The Angler the amusingly sententious manner that marks the Dialogues of John Scott. Critics have expressed some wonder that John Dennys was willing to devote so much poetic talent to the theme of Angling. If one may judge from his verse and from the history of the publication of the Secrets, John Dennys would have been utterly surprised at this wonder ; but the reader gathers from Clifford's Advertisement as well as from his verse that he felt that it was condescension on his part to give his production to the angling world. How many other writers after Clifford may have experi- mented with the svibject of fishing, in didactic verse, I cannot say. The most notorious effort to satisfy the public's interest in the theme of Angling was the fraud of Thomas Pike Lathy,^^ whose bold theft of Thomas Scott's work is an interesting illus- tration of the truth of the remark, " !No class of books is so eagerly bought up as those relating to fish and fishing — none sooner go out of print." ^^ Lathy's stolen verses were printed in 1819. After that I know of no attempt at a didactic on the fisher's art except a lengthy poem on " Trolling," published in 1839, in W. Watt's Remarks on Shooting in Verse. Manly,^^ to whom I am indebted for my slight knowledge of this composition, remarks of the author that " he seems to be one of that class of writers who have an idea that anything which rhymes is poetry, and *» See above, p. 159, n. 37. " See " The Angler's Library," op. cif., p. 155. ^'Op. cit., p. 668. Didactic Poems on Field Sports 169 though his description of the tackle aud the way of using it in this branch of angling is correct enough, the poem is hardly worth reading." The story of the halieutic can not be said to work up to a climax; but it makes a very pleasant and a very interesting chapter in a study of the developments of georgic poetry. One curious feature in the history of the halieutic is its apparently rare occurrence in French and Italian literature. Tiraboschi ^^ mentions a Halieutica written by Nicolo Par- tenio Giannettasio in 1689, but I know nothing whatever of the character of the work. Vaniere wrote of Fishing in his Stagna; ^^ whether in his poem on Agriculture de Rosset treats of the fisherman's art while discussing the subject of fish- ponds ^* I cannot say. In English poetry the halieutic is a much more frequent type than the cynegetic. Certainly an unprejudiced reader finds much more pleasure in the pages of the halieutic than in the pages of the cynegetic poets. The pursuit of angling by no means makes of its followers great writers, but it is a pursuit whose wholesome character is generally reflected in the pages of those who have devoted themselves to celebrating the fisher- man's art. If there is plenty of doggerel to be found in the compositions on angling, there is also much really charming verse. The joys of early morning, the spirit of meditation begotten by sky and wood and water are not things to be scorned. The poets of the gentle craft have made little pretense to preach the doctrine of constant labor, but they have proved the whole- someuess of their recreation, which needs no abler defense than John Dennys' " Reply to the Objection." The objection to the wasted energy in a study of the didactic poem on the fisherman's art needs no better defense than a reading of John Dennys' Secrets of Angling. Op. cit. "See above, p. 158. ' See above, p. 68. 170 The Georgic CHAPTER VII. Conclusion. In this study I have attempted first to define the georgic as a literary type, and to show that as a type it is clearly distinct from the pastoral, altho closely related to it ; secondly, to sketch in outline the general history of the georgic, to give some idea of the variations in the development of the type, and to classify these variations; thirdly, to treat in detail as fully as possible English georgics on general ag"riculture, on gardening, and on field sports, and to discuss, also, to some extent French and Italian didactic poems on these themes. In studying the indi- vidual developments of the georgic type, I have tried to consider them in relation to the other compositions included in the same group, to show in how far they are Vergilian in spirit and in form, and in how far they are of value as reflections of the literary influences or of the temper of the time. The georgic as a genre cannot be disregarded. It persists clear-cut, unmistakable in its leading features, thru all its phases, from the serious didactic treatment purely of field work, such as Alamanni's Coltivazione, to the burlesque imitation with its background of city streets exemplified in Gay's Trivia. In general, except for the rural setting and the occasional appearance of the shepherd on the scene, the georgic holds clearly apart from the pastoral. Occasionally the types cross. For example, Bloomfield's Farmers Boy (p. 45, n. 69) has been said to be the most truly Theocritean piece in the English language, but it is a poem that has the realistic qualities of the georgic, and that illustrates the georgic features of digressions arising from the theme, altho it does not deal with rules of practice, nor with the science of agriculture. John Whitney's Dialogue between Piscator and Corydon is a pastoral of mixed Conclusion 171 character, exemplifying certain conventions of the georgic (p. 157). The story of the georgic begins about the eighth century B. C. with the Works and Days of Hesiod, and ends in the twentieth century A. D. with the Georgiques chretiennes of Francis Jammes (p. 46), A long story, but so far as I have been able to discover, there are breaks in it of centuries at a time. From Vergil, who imitated the subject matter of Hesiod's Works and Days, and created the literary type of the georgic, to Gioviano Pontano, who wrote the Garden of the Ilesperides, or the Culture of the Citron just before 1500, there can hardly be averaged a georgic a century, and of these not one is both georgic in subject matter and Vergilian in plan. However, the georgic, like the pastoral, altho in lesser degree, has had its periods of vogue due to the circumstances or to the temper of the time. But these periods of favor lie far apart. Until the sixteenth century I have found no new develop- ments in the georgic type except Columellas' hexameters on gardens (p. 75), the poems on field sports represented by the Cynegetica and the Halieuiica, the poems of Gratius and !N^eme- sianus and Oppian, and the didactic works on Falconry and on the chase of the stag found in mediseval France (pp. 110 ff.). That the subject of fishing was one of interest in the days of Oppian of Cilicia may be judged from the fact that the Halieu- tica was publicly recited at Rome in the presence of the Emperor Severus and his family. The mediseval didactics on the chase were probably due to the interest of the great baronial lords in that subject. In the sixteenth century, in Italy, several new developments occur in the history of the georgic. Pontano's Garden of the Hesperides was written before 1500. After that, not only are there new poems on agriculture and on the chase, but there are Vergilian didactics on bees, on silkworms, on navigation, even on the rearing of children (p. 31). And in Germany, Thomas Kirchmayer's Agricultura Sacra represents a curious adapta- tion of georgic conventions to a religious theme, like the similar 172 The Georgic adaptations of pastoral conventions found in the fourth or fifth century (p. 38). These sixteenth-century productions are due chiefly to the fact that at this period in Europe, particularly in Italy, any imitation of the classics was regarded as worthy of praise. In the seventeenth century the georgic almost disappears; a few angling poems (p. 32), Pere Rapin's Horti and another Latin poem on gardens seem the sole representatives of the type. In the eighteenth century not only were Vergil's didactics read, translated and imitated, but everything else in the nature of a georgic was brought out of the past, translated, imitated, or reimprinted. John Phillips' Cyder and Thomson's Seasons appear to have given the impulse to the fashion (p. 35). Thru their interest in Thomson, the French, usually averse to didactic poetry of any kind, begin to see the world of nature with new eyes, and finally experiment with georgic verse on various themes. Possibly thru English influence, Italian interest in a type of poetry created on English soil is once more revived. In England, in France, and in Italy almost every development of the genre occurs, from general agricultural treatises to the serio- comic burlesque with a background of city streets. So the georgic type of poetry appears to have passed in a circular fashion from Italy to England, and back again from England to Italy, travelling along with the eighteenth-century love of nature and English gardens and all other things romantic.^ A study of the georgic often seems to lead thru endless wastes of dreary reading. The genre of the Yergilian didactic is an outworn fashion. Francis Jammes, it is true, was bold enough to entitle a book of poems Les Georgiques clireUenncs, but he follows Vergil's conventions only in part. Modern readers regard the eighteenth-century popularity of the georgic as an added proof that there was little poetry in the neo-classic age; ^ The history of the eighteenth century peorgic is curiously analogous to the story of the word romantic, which was first used in England, then introduced from England into France and Italy and Germany where it acquired a new and important meaning with which it was brought back again to England. Conclusion 173 as a curious phenomenon of literary taste that can be explained only by the assumption that the period was one curiously lacking both in a sense of artistic fitness and in a sense of humor. The georgic as a poetic type appealed strongly to the Augustan age. Shenstone was only voicing the general senti- ment when he wrote in his Prefatory Essay on Elegy that " Poetry without moralizing is but the blossom of a fruit tree." Tn the early years of the century a new school was growing up side by side with Pope and his followers, a group of poets with a more or less developed love of the woods and fields, men who were tired of the town and the literature of polite conversation, ready to revolt against them, and almost ready to revolt against talk of reason and morals and intelligence. The habit of moral- izing was deep rooted in the British temperament, and the fashion of imitating the classics had become second nature. Vergil's Georgics offered all the qualities that appealed to eigh- teenth-century lovers of nature ; it was a classic, a literary model perfected by a great artist. Each of Vergil's Georgics is a mas- terpiece. What one man can do why not another? But the way of the georgic is perilous. The Mantuan's name became a light leading thru deserts. Huchon does not exaggerate when he classes Vergil " mal compris," as among the most pernicious influences of the eighteenth century.^ A great poet can take the substance from the milk and water of a lesser writer and make it virile. Much more easily a lesser poet can attempt to imitate a great poet and produce something worse than milk and water. Especially easy is it for an English poet to fail when he takes a Latin poem for his model. The English and the Latin tongues are essentially different. An English poem lives only when it is English. Vergil's diction becomes inflated bombast when unskilled writers try to use it. Milton succeeded in imitating Latin construction and expression only because he was, like Vergil, a genius, and a master of harmonies. John Phillips 'Ren6 Huchon, Un poite r^aliste anglais: George Crabbe, noffiSSB. Paris, 1906, p. 149. But the French critic carries his point fur when he classes Crabbe's Library as "a degenerate son of the Oeorgics." The Library is a didactic, but it is not of the georgic type. 174 The Georgic attempting to imitate Vergil and Milton wrote an interesting poem that is generally neglected. Phillips' poem is interesting partly because the poet writes with accurate knowledge of his subject, partly because he saves himself to a certain extent by a sense of himior. He made a strong appeal to a classic-loving age. Thomson, who was a born poet, altho not a great genius, succumbed to the appeal. Vergil and Phillips helped to inspire some of the worst lines that the Scotch poet wrote. Studied line for line in Otto Zeppel's variorum edition of the Seasons,^ the effect of the Vergilian influence can he seen in all its disas- trous power. When Thomson confines himself to the use of simple Anglo-Saxon words he frequently writes lines of haunt- ing melody, and he himself confesses that he owes what is best in his poetry to his early love for Spenser. But in an age when it was considered praiseworthy to imitate not only the form, but also the expression of the classics, Thomson was encouraged to continue on an evil way. And the influence of Thomson, almost as powerful on the continent as in England, lasted for more than a hundred years. Had the Scotch poet refrained from writing with " the page of Vergil literally open before him," there might be another chapter in the history of English litera- ture. But speculations are idle. The fact remains that for all its. difficulties the georgic persisted, and that if among the develop- ments of the type there are many failures, there are also a few poems of enduring charm, such as Tansillo's Podere, John Denys' Secrets of Angling, many passages of Thomson's Seasons and the Primi Poeinetti of Griovanni Pascoli. The type may in general have failed to justify itself artistically, but it is of importance in literary history. It has been said that in Hesiod's Works and Dlays there is the reverse of Homer's picture of ancient Greek social life. Vergil's Georgics are regarded as the most artistically perfect work of Latin antiquity. Reading them one cannot fail to learn much of Vergil's Italy. Alamanni'a CoUivazione is of great importance in the literary development ' Palaestra, lxvi. Conclusion 175 of the Florentine tongue and in the history of Italian blank verse. Eighteeuth-centiirv georgics on gardening illustrate the germ of one of the most prominent ideas in the famous quarrel between classicists and romanticists, and it must be remembered that the Abbe Delille (p. 34; pp. 88 ff.), who spent so much time and enthusiasm in the translation and in the imitation of Vergil's Georgics, was regarded by the foremost literary critics of France as among the greatest writers of his day, a poet so beloved that at his death all France mourned. ^ Xo study of the eighteenth century, particularly in England, can be complete without a knowledge of the georgic. Thru it the student gets at the heart of eighteenth-century tastes and ideas, and in this respect the type is hardly less important than the eighteenth-century novel. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century the fashion of the georgic began to decline. Inevitably it was a fashion that could not continue; even in the eighteenth century one hears poets such as Mason and Cowper doubtful of popular applause when their subject is didactic (pp. 87, 95). Miss Lowell says that it must be confessed that Francis Jammes' Georgiques chreiiennes are " a little tedious," and Jammes does not attempt the most difficult features of the georgic. However, his book is a work crowned by the French Academy, and since its publica- tion in 1912 it has passed thru five editions. There is in it a little of the charm of Goldsmith's Deserted Village, with some- thing of Vergil's understanding of the Italian rustic ; and prob- ably the religious character of the book has helped to insure its success. Like Vergil, Jammes laments the desertion of the fields ; in raising his voice against the evil? of the religious proscriptions in France, he adds a new variety to the present day ills that writers of georgics have been rehearsing since Hesiod's time. The Georgiqiies chretiennes are an interesting illustration of the revival of outworn conventions after a long period of neglect, a proof that the old themes live eternally, and that altho the world today represents new developments, it is still the same as the world of yesterday. ■^TTV -• r IFOENIA LIT