companions, and raised private men to be fel- | admiration, or attachment. But that sort of lows with kings. Without force or opposition, reason which banishes the affections is incapit subdued the fierceness of pride and power; able of filling their place. These public affecit obliged sovereigns to submit to the soft tions, combined with manners, are required collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority sometimes as supplements, sometimes as corto submit to elegance, and gave a dominating rectives, always as aids to law. The precept vanquisher of laws to be subdued by manners. given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, But now all is to be changed. All the pleas- for the construction of poems, is equally true ing illusions, which made power gentle and as to states:-Non satis est pulchra esse obedience liberal, which harmonized the dif- poemata, dulcia sunto.8 There ought to be a ferent shades of life and which, by a bland system of manners in every nation, which a assimilation, incorporated into politics the sen- well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. timents which beautify and soften private To make us love our country, our country ought society, are to be dissolved by this new con- to be lovely. quering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion. On this scheme of things, a king is but a man, a queen is but a woman; a woman is but an animal, and an animal not of the highest order. All homage paid to the sex in general as such, and without distinct views, is to be regarded as romance and folly. Regicide, and parricide, and sacrilege, are but fictions of superstition, corrupting jurisprudence by destroying its simplicity. The murder of a king, or a queen, or a bishop, or a father, are only common homicide; and if the people are by any chance, or in any way, gainers by it, a sort of homicide much the most pardonable, and into which we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny. On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported only by their own terrors, and by the concern which each individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private interests. In the groves of their academy,* at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing is left which engages the affections on the part of the commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expression, in persons; so as to create in us love, veneration, The Athenian philosophers conducted their instruction walking in the groves of the Academe. See Newman, Site of a University, in the present volume. WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800) FROM OLNEY HYMNS XXXV. LIGHT SHINING OUT OF DARKNESS GOD moves in a mysterious way 2 Deep in unfathomable mines He treasures up his bright designs, 3 Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, 4 Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; 6 Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain: And he will make it plain. 8 "It is not enough that poems be beautiful, they must have sweetness." Horace Ars Poetica, 99. The same that oft in childhood solaced me; The meek intelligence of those dear eyes O welcome guest, though unexpected here!. 20 My mother! when I learned that thou wast Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, 60 The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed All this, and more endearing still than all, 70 Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the When, playing with thy vesture's tissued The violet, the pink, and jessamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin (And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile), Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? And, turning from my nursery window, drew 30 Could those few pleasant days again appear, 80 40 Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; I would not trust my heart-the dear delight Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast (The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed) Shoots into port at some well-havened isle, 90 There sits quiescent on the floods that show 50Where tempests never beat nor billows roar," And day by day some current's thwarting force Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. And, while the wings of Fancy still are free TO MRS. UNWIN * MARY! I want a lyre with other strings, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new mine. THE CASTAWAY † 1 Obscurest night involved the sky, The Atlantic billows roared, When such a destined wretch as I, Washed headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home forever left. 2 No braver chief could Albion boast Nor ever ship left Albion's coast He loved them both, but both in vain, Nor him beheld, nor her again. The friend and constant companion of Cowper for thirty-four years. It . The last poem that Cowper wrote; founded on an incident in Admiral Anson's Voyages. portrays imaginatively his own melancholy condition. To give the melancholy theme "Describe the Borough."-Though our idle Then back to sea, with strong majestic sweep tribe May love description, can we so describe, That you shall fairly streets and buildings trace, And all that gives distinction to a place? This cannot be; yet, moved by your request, A part I paint-let fancy form the rest. Cities and towns, the various haunts of men, Require the pencil; they defy the pen. Could he, who sang so well the Grecian fleet, So well have sung of alley, lane, or street? 10 Can measured lines these various buildings show, The Town-Hall Turning, or the Prospect Row? Can I the seats of wealth and want explore, And lengthen out my lays from door to door? Then, let thy fancy aid me.-I repair From this tall mansion of our last-year's mayor, Till we the outskirts of the Borough reach, And these half-buried buildings next the beach; Where hang at open doors the net and cork, While squalid sea-dames mend the meshy work; Till comes the hour, when, fishing through the tide, 21 The weary husband throws his freight asideA living mass, which now demands the wife, The alternate labours of their humble life. 1 Homer, Iliad II. *This poem was inscribed to the Duke of Rutland, to whom Crabbe had been chaplain, and takes the form of Letters from a resi dent of a sea-port (Crabbe was a native of Aldeburgh, Suffolk) to the owner of an inland country-seat. The date of the poem is 1810. Crabbe's reputation, however, was established by The Village in 1783, and his place is with those later 18th century poets who clung to the 18th century forms, though reacting against the artificiality and frigid conventionalism that had so long reigned. In homeliness of themes and naked realism of treatment, the poet of The Village and 40 It rolls, in ebb yet terrible and deep; Here sampire-banks and salt-wort bound the flood; There stakes and sea-weeds, withering on the mud; And, higher up, a ridge of all things base, Which some strong tide has rolled upon the place. Thy gentle river boasts its pigmy boat, Urged on by pains, half grounded, half afloat; While at her stern an angler takes his stand, And marks the fish he purposes to land, From that clear space, where, in the cheerful ray Of the warm sun, the scaly people play. 50 He shall again .be seen when evening comes, And social parties crowd their favourite rooms; Where on the table pipes and papers lie, The steaming bowl or foaming tankard by. 'Tis then, with all these comforts spread around, They hear the painful dredger's welcome sound; 69 The Borough stands quite alone. See Eng. Its various wares, for country-use, bring down; Lit., p. 226. |