Chapter II · INDICATIONS OF A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE IN THE POETRY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (continued 2)

and this address to the passions that tyrannize over him,

are new evidences of the spirit that animated Lady Winchilsea, Dyer, and Parnell.

Hamilton’s most important poem is “The Braes of Yarrow.” In this ballad there is a remarkable blending of external Nature with the tragedy of love and death. The use of the phrase, “the Braes of Yarrow,” in the refrain adds a curiously subtle touch to the pathos of the poem. Tradition had so closely associated the sloping hills and the winding stream of Yarrow with stories of unhappy love in far-off days that the name was in itself enough to strike the keynote of pathos in Hamilton’s ballad. The tone or color that human experience had once given to the scenery was carried on by that scenery so that it became the appropriate background for a new tale of grief. The one descriptive stanza,

and a single line in the maiden’s lament,

are an appropriate setting for the happy love of the bonny bride and her comely swain. But Nature is also compelled, as it were, to share in the grief, and is implicated in the crime. On Yarrow’s rueful flood floats the body of the slain knight; her doleful hills echo the cries of sorrow. And the desolate bride prays that rain and dew may forever forsake the fields where her lover was so basely slain. The descriptive element in Hamilton’s ballad is of further interest as having suggested some of the details in Wordsworth’s “Yarrow Unvisited.”

“The Deity,” a poem by Samuel Boyse, and much praised in its own day,[362] is of importance here merely because of its Thomsonian imitations, and because of its conception of God in Nature. This conception is, in the main, the typical classical one, as in “Omnipotence,” where the central idea is,

In “Providence,” however, the modified classical conception is apparent, the ever-working power of God being dwelt upon. All Nature is represented as being each moment derived from the Creator.

are characteristic lines.

That Boyse was an admirer of Thomson we know from the lines addressed to him,

In reading Boyse it is difficult to point out exact echoes from Thomson, but the impression remains that certain passages, especially in “Glory,” are, in spite of their couplets, but weak paraphrases of some portions of Thomson’s work, noticeably “The Hymn.”

Young’s literary career lasted from 1713 to 1762. His “Ocean” and “Sea Pieces” and the only book of the “Night Thoughts” (1742–45), in which there is much use of external Nature, have already been briefly characterized. They need little further discussion here. The preface to “Ocean” is more worthy of note than the poem itself. In this preface Young deprecates slavish following of the models of antiquity, declaring that “originals only have true life.” Due deference to the great standards of antiquity requires that “the motives and fundamental method of their working” should be imitated rather than the works themselves. He then defends his choice of the ocean as a subject, saying that it is, like the subjects chosen by the ancients, both national and great, and adds the significant phrase, “and (what is strange) hitherto unsung.” “The crude ore of romanticism” which Mr. Gosse finds in Young, has to do with his despairing attitude toward life and death, not with his attitude toward external Nature. His love of darkness, which seems at first thought akin to the sentimental melancholy of the romantic poetry, is really an unemotional choice of a fit background for his visions of gloom. His strongest lines on night represent not its beauty, nor its melancholy, but its divinity, or, rather, its theological import. The following are typical:

At night the sense of sacred quiet is “the felt presence of the deity.”[366] In occasional passages Young has more or less definite previsions of scattered ideas in later poetry,[367] but these are incidental, and of merely curious interest. Taken in the bulk, his work is so slightly and coldly concerned with the outer world as to offer no real contribution to the new feeling for Nature.

Collins possesses many of the qualities and the defects of the romantic spirit. He made plans almost as comprehensive and visionary as those of Coleridge. His indolence, his wavering, irresolute disposition, his morbid sensitiveness, the intensity of his emotions, his love of liberty, his passion for “high romance and Gothic diableries,” together with his new sense of the mystery of Nature, set him quite apart from the men who were his friends, from Dr. Johnson, Armstrong, Aaron Hill, from Garrick, Quin, and Foote, even from Thomson. His interests were not those of his day, for his admiration turned to Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, rather than to Virgil and Horace.[368] In English poetry he gave his allegiance to Spenser, Milton, and Shakspere, rather than to Dryden and Pope.[369] He was devoted to music. He was also deeply interested in the remote history of his own country, and in the legendary lore and superstitions of any land. Dr. Johnson says of him: “He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of Elysian gardens.”

Collins was a town-bred poet and could have known little of the country at first hand. We might therefore expect all his imagery to be of the conventional sort in the “Eclogues” written in his early school days. But such is not the case. In the later poems the use of Nature, slight as it is, is marked by unusual originality and imaginative power. There is everywhere present a sense of delight in the wilder, freer, in the more remote and mysterious, aspects of Nature. He makes Fear sit

and listen to

His gifted wizard seers

Note also the description of the “wide, wild storm,” in the “Ode to Liberty,” and especially the skilful mingling of landscape details and superstitious terrors in the “Ode on Popular Superstitions.” The “bewitch’d, low, marshy, willow brake,” “the spot where hums the sedgy reed,” the “dim hill that seems up-rising near,” “Uist’s dark forest,” “the watery strath or quaggy moss,” “the damp, dark fen,” are slight touches, but they serve perfectly to suggest the fit home of the kelpie, the will-o’-the-wisp, the mischievous fairy folk, and the phantom train of gliding ghosts. But Collins’ most appreciative use of Nature is in the “Ode to Evening (1746).” That poem was doubtless the result of personal experience, for it notes facts, such as the rising of the beetle in the path at twilight, that were not yet stock poetical property. The lines,

could hardly have been written by one unfamiliar with the slow disappearance of a landscape as night comes on. More remarkable are the simplicity and directness of touch by which the few details are made to stand for complete pictures. The cloudy sunset, the silence of evening, the calm lake amid the upland fallows, the fading view, the windy day in autumn, are all excellent examples of the stimulative as opposed to the delineative description. But the final impression made on the mind is powerful mainly because in some way that escapes analysis the very mood and spirit of evening, its calm, its tender melancholy, breathe through the unpretending lines. We seldom find in the eighteenth century, personifications so high and spiritual, description so essentially poetical, or workmanship so perfect in its simplicity.

Dr. Akenside’s “The Pleasures of the Imagination,” though not published till 1744, was begun in 1738 when the author was but seventeen, and completed when he was twenty-one. In 1757 it was remodeled and many additions were made. In its first form the poem was essentially a product of the author’s precocious, brilliant youth. Yet it has little of the fire and passion of youth. It is a smooth, correct, rather frigid exposition of certain philosophical principles. The whole poem seems like an illustration of Akenside’s belief that poetry is true eloquence in meter.[370] It is not marked by any especially rich or faithful portrayal of Nature, nor is there much description. In point of fact, such descriptions as occur are often marred by eighteenth-century periphrases such as calling honey “ambrosial spoils;” the sun, “the radiant ruler of the year;” flowers, “the purple honors of the spring;” water, “a delicious draught of cool refreshment;” and frogs, “the grave, unwieldly inmates of the neighboring pond.” There is also frequent use of stock words and of worn-out similitudes. But in spite of its coldness, this poem is an important contribution to the development of the poetry of Nature because of its new conception of the relation between man and Nature.

When the poet endeavors to explore the “secret paths of early genius,” he imagines inspiration as coming to the lonely youth from some “wild river’s brink at eve,” or from “solemn groves at noon,”[371] and there is one passage that lays a Wordsworthian emphasis on the effect of Nature on the soul of a child:

But the great scene of Nature does not appear the same to all. It is only to the finer spirits that the true meaning of the outer world is revealed.[373] These nobler souls are all “naked and alive”[374] to the influences of Nature to which they respond as Memnon’s image to the touch of the morning.[375] Form, color, sound, motion, detain the enlivened sense, and soon the soul perceives the deep concord between these attributes of matter and the mind of man.[376] The passions are lulled to a divine repose. The intellect itself suspends its graver cares. Love and joy alone possess the soul

For the happy man whom neither sordid wealth nor the gaudy spoils of honor can seduce to leave the sweets of Nature,

If men feel themselves cramped by custom, by sordid policies, let them appeal

All these call us to beneficent activity.

But even the susceptible soul must come to Nature in an open, receptive mood. The sacred rites of the Naiads are sought in vain by the “eyes of care.” No vision is granted to the preoccupied guest.[380] There is also an independent life in Nature, or at least a spirit that is no reflection of man’s moods, but with qualities of its own whereby man is influenced.

The power of Nature over man is constant and varied. She is endowed with such enchantment, made up of forms so exquisitely fair, breathed through with such ethereal sweetness, that she can at will “raise or depress the impassioned soul.”[383] Her dark woods rouse him to solemn awe. Her gay landscapes with blue skies and silver clouds give an impression of winning mirth. There is in the rising sun something kindred to man’s spirit. At evening the “breath divine of nameless joy,” that steals through the heart, is but another message from the spirit of love that rules the world. All the forms of the external world are but visible expressions of such thoughts of God as the mind of man is fitted to receive. The soundness of this interpretation of Nature is not here in question. We are merely concerned with the fact that in the middle of the century we find a statement of poetical creed which, so far as the thought is concerned, might come from “The Excursion” or “The Prelude.” Akenside is one of the first of the poets of the age to insist on the beauty of all Nature,[384] and to show an abiding sense of the spiritual elements that give significance to the external forms of Nature. He was also the first one to emphasize the platonic doctrine of the identity of truth and beauty,

A minor poet, John Gilbert Cooper, must be mentioned because of one poem, “The Power of Harmony” (1745). In execution it is heavy and involved. It is a clumsy attempt to work out a theory of beauty. The preface is more interesting than the poem. In this preface he says: “It is the design of the poem to show that constant attention to what is perfect and beautiful in Nature will, by degrees, harmonize the soul to a responsive regularity and sympathetic order.” In the poem he ascribes to “each natural scene a moral power,” and traces even the song of birds and the frisking of cattle to the effect

He believes also that all parts of Nature are beautiful. Shagged rocks, barren heaths, precipices, sable woods, headlong rivers, all are examples of the principle of harmony and so of beauty.

Somewhat earlier in the period is another minor poet who would be today practically unknown had not Southey preserved his work. This is Joseph Relph, the son of a Cumberland statesman. He was born in Shergham, where he spent most of his unhappy life. His “Cumbrian Pastorals” were, Southey says, transcripts from real life. They are among the very earliest attempts to represent the Cumberland dialect, and they are a close record of Cumberland superstitions and games and customs. The poems show an original study of the scenery about Shergham, as in the following lines:

Blair’s one important poem is “The Grave” (1743). Its aim is a moral one, and it makes but slight use of the outer world. There is, however, one interesting realistic description of a row of ragged elms

These elms, the cheerless unsocial yew, the wan moon, the howling wind, the screech owl, the moss-grown stones skirted with nettles, are descriptive details that serve very well to add the desired “supernumerary horror” to the scene. “The Grave” is one of the earliest poems to give to melancholy reflections on man’s mortality the Nature setting that was later recognized as the conventionally appropriate one.

William Thompson is best known by his “Epithalamium” (1736), “Sickness” (1745) and especially his “Hymn to May,” written “not long after.” His poems were published in a volume in 1757. His “Milkmaid” is a stilted, artificial pastoral filled in with homely details. Colin begs politely and on his knees that Lucy will smile upon him;

Lucy, of course, sighed and blushed a sweet consent. This pastoral, together with his admiration of Pope’s Alexis, who was so

would hardly lead one to suspect much satisfactory study of Nature in Thompson’s poetry. But there is apparent in the “Hymn” and even in “Sickness,” through all the florid, exuberant diction and obscure forms of expression, a genuine delight in the beauty and freshness of the outer world. He was a great admirer of Thomson, who as

and his poems show Thomson’s influence in expression and general conception. Such phrases as the “boundless majesty of day,” the “sun’s refulgent throne,” the “vernant showery bow profusive,” clouds of “ten thousand inconsistent shapes,” are suggestive. Here is a typical Thomsonian passage:

Or take this one:

There are many other suggestions of Thomson in these “tender and florid” descriptions of “the beauties, the pleasures, and the loves” of spring. William Thompson is of importance in this study merely because he is one more poet who loved Nature, who wrote of her with enthusiasm, and who imitated Thomson. His chief use of Nature is in similitudes and in frequent enthusiastic summaries of the charms of Nature.

Moses Mendes published in 1751 four poems named in imitation of Thomson, “Spring,” “Summer,” “Autumn,” and “Winter.” There is some first-hand observation in such lines as,

or,

but more often the observations are of the conventional imitative sort, as in this couplet:

which is hardly true of an English scene. On the whole the passages in which Mendes treats of Nature, while rather fanciful and decorative, are not indicative of any real knowledge of Nature.

Jago’s most important poems are “Edge Hill” (1767), “The Swallow” (1748), “The Blackbirds” (1753), and “The Goldfinches.” The last two are love stories of the birds named, each love story being disastrously ended by the cruelty of man in taking innocent life. “The Swallow” is an allegory of life and death. “Edge Hill” is notable for its pleasure in wide views which are minutely traced, and, alas, made “generally interesting by reflections, historical, philosophical, and moral.” The new note is struck by the exceptional frequency and evident appreciation with which the poet notes the mountains in the different views. Of “Dafset’s ridgy mountain,” he says,

To the west

In 1750 appeared Francis Coventry’s “Pens-hurst,” a poem in rhymed octosyllabics, notable chiefly for its many imitations of Milton. Another poem written by Coventry to the Honorable Wilmot Vaughan indicates that the two friends had found some pleasure in mountain climbing:

In the “World,” April 12, 1753, Coventry also had an article entitled “Strictures on the absurd Novelties introduced in Gardening,” which was a plea for simplicity and naturalness.

William Mason, who is a poet known chiefly because he had insight enough to appreciate Gray, may, in this study, be lightly passed over. His dramas “Elfrida” (1752), and “Caractacus” (1759) were written on the model of the ancient Greek tragedy. They have little to do with external Nature, although in order to introduce “touches of pastoral description” such as had especially delighted him in “Comus” and “As You Like It” he had laid the scene of “Elfrida” in “an old romantic forest.” “Caractacus” is a Druid play the action of which takes place on or near “majestic Snowden,” but there is only a single passage in which the wild scenery is made effective in the poem, and that is the ode beginning,

Later on the ode allies itself with romantic work by its use of the supernatural but it makes slight use of Nature. Mason’s chief significance in this study is in what he had to say about gardens. In “To a Water Nymph” (1747), there is a protest against the elaborate Gothic fountains then fashionable, and also against shell work and mineral grottoes. His long work, “The English Garden,” will be spoken of later.

The greatest name in this period is that of Thomas Gray. His prose will be taken up under “Travels.” His poetry falls into three periods.[389] The first or classical period, in spite of an occasional good line, such as

is entirely conventional in its use of Nature, the prevailing tone being exemplified in such phrases as “the attic warbler,” “the purple year,” and “Venus’ train.” But in the two poems of 1742–50, we find close and appreciative study of the country about Windsor and Stoke Pogis. In the ode on “Eton College” the wistful pleasure with which the poet recalls his childhood is intensified by his memory of the beloved hills and fields, the silver-winding stream, and the pleasant paths inseparably associated with the care-free days of his youth. In the “Elegy” the use of Nature is highly artistic. The purpose of the poem is a human one—the sympathetic representation of the honorable labor, the innocent joys, the tender and wholesome affections of the poor, the general tone being that of a pensive melancholy induced by the thought of death. Nature is used in due subordination to the theme, and with exquisite fitness. Every detail of the opening twilight picture contributes its own touch to prepare the mind for the succeeding reflections on death. The sounds, the tinkling of the distant folds, the droning of the beetle, the complaining of the owl, are such as emphasize silence, which is itself an accompaniment and an emblem of death. The ivy-mantled tower, the rugged elms, the black yews, have been immemorially associated with death. There is also a subtle analogy in the withdrawal of light, the life of Nature. So, too, each detail in the first picture of morning, has its human purpose. The stirring sounds are interesting and of pathetic import because they once waked an answering throb of life in the hearts of men who now hear them no more. The enumeration of homely country tasks has its chief value in the suggested delight of the workman in his occupation and the resultant emphasis by contrast on the pathos of death.

In the last six stanzas of the poem we find the true romantic conception of the relation between man and Nature. The poet is represented as a shy, solitary being in communion with Nature, and drawing his inspiration from her. In the morning he hurries to some hillside that he may watch the sunrise; at noon he stretches himself at full length under some beech-tree by the side of a brook, and pores over the waters as they babble by; or he wanders through the woods, murmuring to himself his wayward fancies. This poet is certainly far enough removed from the typical town-bred poet of the classical régime. He is rather of the same race as Warton’s Enthusiast, and he at least suggests Wordsworth’s Poet who murmurs by the running brooks a music sweeter than their own.[390] In these stanzas Nature is not only the appropriate dramatic background. It is taken up into the mental action and becomes at least in part the occasion of the poet’s moods, and it is entirely through the relation of the poet to Nature that these moods are revealed to the reader.

Nature is thus throughout the poem made strictly subservient to the human theme, but the intrinsic beauty of the brief descriptions, quite apart from the context, cannot pass unnoticed. Separate lines have the power of suggesting whole pictures. For example in

the ringing blow of the ax, the crash of the falling tree, smite upon the ear. The stanza beginning

suggests several themes for the landscape artist. There is also a wide, peaceful landscape effect in

And the line

brings up all the details of a humble farmyard. These and other descriptions in the “Elegy” are distinctively English in spirit and detail. They are the result of first-hand knowledge, they are drawn with a firm hand, and they are used with an instinctive recognition of artistic fitness.

A new range of sympathies, however, appears in the poems of Gray’s third or purely romantic period. Here he writes of northern mythologies and superstitions or gives transcripts of Norse tales, and the pictures interwoven with the human elements are of a wild and savage character. In “The Bard,” mountain, precipice, and torrent form a setting without which the fiery denunciation of the poet would lose half its force. The storm and the whirlwind sweep through these poems. Rough and frowning steeps, foaming floods, warring winds, the heights of Snowdon and huge Plinlimmon, darkness, cold, make up the terrible but dramatically appropriate environment for the fierce, imprecatory elegy which the bard utters over his lost companions, for the fatal and dreadful song of the gigantic sisters weaving “the loom of Hell.”

In one or two other poems there is effective use of Nature. The joy of a convalescent able at last to go out of doors was not an uncommon subject through this period, but there is no better expression of it than in “A Fragment” by Gray. The feeling, and in passages, the phraseology, are almost Wordsworthian.

is an illustrative stanza. There are also some exquisite lines on birds, as,

and,

Though undated these lines in their spirit and workmanship ally themselves at once with the period of the “Elegy” rather than with the later work. They also accurately represent Gray’s dominant attitude toward Nature, his knowledge of sweet, homely things, and the delicate perfection of his literary touch.

The Rev. R. Potter’s chief poem is “A Farewell Hymn to the Country, Attempted in the Manner of Spenser’s Epithalamion” (1749). The poem shows much sympathetic knowledge of some parts of Nature, especially of birds and trees. He speaks of the quail that “runnes piping o’er the land,” of the “mavis-haunted grove,” and of the nightingale that delights “the stillness of the night.” He declares that his entire orchard, plums, pears, grapes, permains, and all, is at the service of these, his “fellow-poets.” At evening

He does not often refer to specific trees, but he gives little suggestive pictures as of “the uncertain shaded grove,” or

or of delightful resting places roofed with “inwoven branches.” The stream for which he cared most was “the gentle Tave” in Norfolk. He mentions many flowers, but in no new or finely descriptive manner. His sensitiveness to perfumes we may see in such lines as,

or in such phrases as “this flowre-perfumed aire.” The poem is rich in color, as in the descriptions of sunrise, and of various kinds of fruit.

Though it would be difficult to quote specific lines to prove the statement, it is nevertheless true that the whole poem conveys in a quite unusual degree a sense of warm, abiding affection for the simple scenes of the country. “Smit with the peaceful joys of lowly life,” he gives thanks for “the unmoved quiet of his silver daies,” and thinks with dread of “the cares and pains in mad cities.” His use of Nature is almost entirely in a running assemblage of sweet sights and sounds to justify his preference for country life.

Another of the minor poets of this period is Dr. John Dalton. In 1755 he wrote a “Descriptive Poem,” inscribed to “Two Ladies, the Daughters of Lord Lonsdale.” It is long, rambling, tedious, but it is of historical importance as being probably the first poetical tribute to the beauty of Westmoreland and Cumberland.

He speaks of the streams that

and says that

Of Keswick and Skiddaw he writes,

There are several passages in the poem indicative of Dr. Dalton’s unusually close study of streams, especially those near Lowther Castle, and in the picturesque valley of Borrowdale. With evident delight he traces the stream from its mountain source, over tuneful falls, under broad spreading boughs, along silent meadows, to the wide lake. There is also a fine passage descriptive of a patriarchal oak near Lowther. It is the first sustained description of a specific tree with anything like the modern feeling. It is represented as standing in a “sunny plain alone.” Its reverend age, its majesty, are especially dwelt upon. The poem shows some excellent first-hand observation. Dr. Dalton is ahead of Wordsworth in noticing the “azure roofs” of the lowly cottages. And he should have the credit of discovering the beauty of the vale of Derwentwater, and the majesty of giant Skiddaw, fourteen years before Gray made his famous tour, and nearly half a century before the Lake poets set up their monopoly.

The most important work of this period was doubtless that of the Warton brothers. Their father was also a poet, and he struck the romantic note in his hatred of city life and his longing for solitude in the country. Joseph Warton had a long literary career during which he edited books, wrote poems, and contributed articles to periodicals. Those of his poems that were of especial note in the history of Romanticism were written early in life, between 1740 and 1753. “The Enthusiast” (1740), “Odes on Various Subjects” (1746), and “Ode on Mr. West’s Translation of Pindar” (1744) are the chief ones to be studied. In these poems there are many summaries of such objects in Nature as give pleasure, but there is little actual description. In details and phraseology there are frequent echoes from Milton and Thomson.[393]

In general, though unoriginal in expression, the poems are marked by an unmistakably genuine love of Nature, and of Nature untouched by man. The poet dislikes Versailles whose fountains cast

Even Kent—

cannot design like Nature. No gardens however artfully adorned can charm like “unfrequented meads and pathless wilds.” The poet finds peculiar pleasure in all the wild, solitary, mournful aspects of Nature. He loves “hollow winds” and “ever-beating waves,” and hoary mountains where

He wishes for

He escapes from the hated city’s “tradeful hum” and seeks for solitude at “the deep dead of night” under the pale light of the moon. He is alive to all the mysterious, romantic suggestions of Nature. He is charmed by the little dancing fays that sip night-dews and “laugh and love” in the dales. In storms he hears demons and goblins shrieking through the dark air. He is also deeply conscious of the effect of Nature on man. He finds himself even oppressed by the boundless charms of “brooks, hill, meadow, dale,” and it is his belief that all Nature conspires

Nature can give happiness beyond that of luxury or gratified ambition. These poems mark a new phase in the feeling toward Nature, because, with little description, with no theory to propound, no moral to teach, no human interest to exemplify, the poet with a rapt fervor and intensity cries out for solitary communion with Nature as a necessity of his own being. Warton is also, I think, the first of the romantic poets to advocate a return to Nature in the sense in which Rousseau used the phrase:

Joseph Warton’s exceptionally strong love of Nature is emphasized by the testimony of Bowles who traces his own love of Nature to companionship with Dr. Warton, and by the testimony of his brother Thomas in a poem, “An Ode Sent to a Friend.” In this poem Thomas Warton tells of his brother’s delight in walks at morning and evening through unfrequented grassy lanes, or in the deep forest, or up steep hills “to view the length of landscape ever new.”

A part of the service which Warton rendered to the poetry of Nature rests in the fact that he led the attention from Pope to poets who had treated of Nature with imaginative power. He had only scorn for

“the courtly silken lay,” “the polished lyrics,” of his own day. But it is in his prose that we find the best evidence of his break with the classicists. In the dedication prefixed to the “Essay on Pope” (1756) he divided English poets into four classes, putting in the first class only Spenser, Shakspere, and Milton. Of Pope he said, “I revere the memory of Pope; I respect and honor his abilities, but I do not think him at the head of his profession.” He then proceeded to show the difference “betwixt a man of wit, a man of sense, and a true poet.” In the first and second sections of the “Essay” he minutely discusses Pope’s descriptive poetry showing that his idea of pastoral poetry as representing some golden age was but “an empty notion,” and commenting severely on his mixture of British and Grecian ideas. He condemns “Windsor Forest” because its images are “equally applicable to any place whatsoever.” In contrast with Pope he puts Thomson, of whose “Seasons” he gives a most discriminating eulogy. It is too long to quote entire, but a part of it must be given if only to show its remarkably modern tone.

Thomson was blessed with a strong and copious fancy; he hath enriched poetry with a variety of new and original images, which he painted from nature itself, and from his own actual observations; his descriptions have, therefore, a distinctness and truth, which are utterly wanting to those of poets who have only copied from each other, and have never looked abroad on the objects themselves. Thomson was accustomed to wander away into the country for days, and for weeks, attentive to “each rural sight, each rural sound,” while many a poet, who has dwelt for years in the Strand, has attempted to describe fields and rivers, and generally succeeded accordingly. Hence that nauseous repetition of the same circumstances; hence that disgusting impropriety of introducing what may be called a set of hereditary images, without proper regard to the age, or climate, or occasion in which they were formerly used.... And if our poets would accustom themselves to contemplate fully every object, before they attempted to describe it, they would not fail of giving their readers more new and complete images than they generally do.[399]

Wordsworth himself was hardly more emphatic in his scorn of vague descriptions and hereditary images, and in his plea for simple truth to Nature. The passages already quoted are sufficient to show how self-conscious and theoretical was Warton’s romanticism. He was not, however, so far as the study of Nature alone is concerned, the first self-conscious worker in the new field. Ramsay and Shenstone had already, apologetically to be sure, but none the less distinctly, entered their protest against the conventional imitations of their day. But Warton uttered no apology. His theory was fully established in his own mind. He came down on the classicists with hammer and tongs, and enunciated in 1756 at least two of the cardinal doctrines of the poets of Nature who wrote forty years later.

Thomas Warton’s poems seem at first reading to be but a patchwork of phrases from Milton.[400] “The Pleasures of Melancholy” (1745) was written when he was but seventeen. The theme of this poem is a defense of solitude against various social pleasures, and it has the customary note of delight in darkness, tombs, pale shrines, “fav’rite midnight haunts,” “pale December’s foggy glooms,” and “the pitying moon.” “The First of April,” “Ode on the Approach of Summer,” and “Morning, an Ode,” are of more importance so far as the love of Nature is concerned. The lines on the opening spring show close observation.

The rooks swarm with clamorous call and

The fisher “bursting through the crackling sedge”

He notes also the kite that sails above the crowded roof of the dove-cote, the plumy crest of thistles, the russet tints and gleams of light in the tops of trees at sunset, the faint, varying shades of green when the new foliage appears on the trees, and the blue tint of the unchanging pine standing in their midst. Warton’s pleasure in wide views is indicated in several passages where he speaks of climbing a hill for the sake of the broad prospect of field and stream. He had also an appreciation of wild Nature, as we see from the descriptions in “The Grave of King Arthur.” Warton’s work is of interest because of the many attractive details scattered through his poems, but there is little unity of effect. The general impression is that he saw Nature first through Milton’s eyes, and that when he afterward made many charming discoveries for himself he tried to express them in the “Il Penseroso” manner.

His chief influence was through his “Observations on the Faerie Queen” and in his “History of Poetry,” but except as attention was thus directed to older writers, these works had no effect on the poetry of Nature.

In Joseph Warton’s “Enthusiast” (1740) the love of solitary communion with Nature was supreme. About fourteen years later appeared William Whitehead’s “Enthusiast,” which is of interest here because it shows so well the typical eighteenth-century view in contrast to the pure romanticism of Warton. In Whitehead’s “Enthusiast” the poet yields instinctively to the new spirit, but is suddenly recalled to himself, is rendered sane by the wise admonitions of Reason. It is a bright day in May. The poet, entranced by the beauty about him, walks forth,

Then Reason whispers “monitory strains,” and teaches the Enthusiast that “light, and shade, and warmth, and air,” that the “philosophic calmness,” the visionary sense of “universal love,” which come to man from Nature, must sink into insignificance before the exalted joys of Virtue, and reminds the poet that “man was made for man.” The intrinsic value of this poem is slight, but it is noteworthy because we see the two tendencies contending for mastery. Whitehead was no poet. He simply reflected in a turbid fashion what more original men were saying. His tolerably full statement of the romantic attitude toward Nature, with his subsequent assertion of the triumphant good sense of classicism is, therefore, valuable testimony to the twofold spirit of the age.

In general we may say that we find during this period, rural didactic poetry treating of English subjects in the manner of John Philips in “Cyder,” as in Somerville and Smart. There is good local color in some descriptive poems as in Shenstone, Gray, Dr. Dalton, and Relph. There is throughout the period first-hand observation, but it is not so abundant, nor is the openness of the poet’s mind to sensuous impression so apparent as in some preceding work. There is, however, delicate and poetic handling of material as in the poems of Gray and Collins and Greene. There is a self-conscious endeavor to break away from ancient models, as in Ramsay’s “Preface” and Shenstone’s “Preface,” and from existing poetic domination as in Warton’s protest against Pope. Truth to Nature, independence of observation, as necessary poetic qualities, are for the first time openly and theoretically insisted on in Warton’s “Essay.” There is scorn of the utilitarian view of Nature, as in Shenstone. The debt of man to Nature is dwelt upon with new emphasis by Young, Shenstone, and especially Akenside. The sense of a divine spirit in Nature is clearly expressed by Akenside, and less clearly by Young. The purely romantic love of Nature in connection with sentimental melancholy is fully exemplified in Joseph Warton. There is strong personal enthusiasm for Nature in Shenstone, Akenside, and Joseph Warton. There is love of animals in Shenstone and Jago. There is notable representation of country people in Relph and Gray and Somerville.

THE PERIOD FROM 1756 TO 1798

From the “Essay on Pope” to the “Lyrical Ballads” is a long period but any subdivision would be purely arbitrary. It is chiefly characterized by the development and emphasis of influences already manifestly operant. The most valuable work is that of James Macpherson (1736–96), James Beattie (1735–1803), Robert Burns (1759–96), William Cowper (1731–1800), William Blake (1757–1827), and George Crabbe (1754–1832). Oliver Goldsmith (1728–74) is of less importance. John Brown (1715–66), John Langhorne (1735–79), Christopher Smart (1722–71), John Logan (1748–88), and William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850), though minor poets, are significant in their poetry of Nature. Of less note are William Julius Mickle (1735–88), James Grainger (1724–66), Michael Bruce (1746–67), James Graeme (1749–72), John Scott (1730–83), and Richard Cumberland (1732–1811).

John Brown, otherwise unimportant, is interesting because of his early appreciation of the scenery of the English lakes. He wrote a description of Keswick[401] in a letter to Lyttleton, and his undated “Fragment of a Rhapsody Written at the Lakes of Westmoreland” is probably the outcome of the same visit. The “Fragment” is short and may be quoted entire as well because of its beauty, as because of its subject and early date:

For a curious coincidence compare Wordsworth’s lines written thirty years later:

John Langhorne was born at Kirby-Stephen in Westmoreland. His best poems were published in 1766, though his “Fables of Flora” did not appear till 1771. Langhorne had an enthusiastic personal love for Nature. He dwelt with rapture on stream and flower and field and sky.[402] His wish was,

Or again,

His preference for Nature untouched by art is seen in the charming little “Fable”[405] showing the superiority of the wild rose to the more splendid cultivated rose. And in another “Fable” he says,

That he had a tender feeling toward animals is shown by his poems on birds and by his protest against the cruelty of confining birds in cages. The most striking characteristic of Langhorne’s poems is his direct expression of the excellence of the gift that Nature’s hand bestows. A part of his excellent gift is the inspiration to poetry. The young shepherd was inspired with “poetic charms” as he wandered through the wild scenes

In his own experience

were born of “spring’s green hours,” and the murmuring shore spoke to him “divine words,”[407] while in earlier days “each lay that falter’d from his tongue” had been “from Eden’s murmurs caught.”[408] In an ode to the “Genius of Westmoreland,” he says that she kindled the “sacred fire” in his heart, that she gave him “thoughts too high to be exprest.” Again he speaks of an hour in his youth when

Statements still more remarkable as foreshadowing later doctrines are found in such lines as,

Or these lines,

Langhorne’s perception of the power of Nature over man, and his passionate sense of personal indebtedness to Nature are the keynotes of his work. In a narrow way and with feeble speech he shows a mental and spiritual experience of the same type as that which Wordsworth records of his own youth. His motive in writing, “an unaffected wish to promote the love of Nature and the interests of humanity,” is likewise Wordsworthian.

In Christopher Smart’s one great poem, the “Song to David” (1763), the use of Nature is of so strange a character that it refuses classification under the customary categories. The chief thought of the poem in the parts where Nature is used has to do with the creative energy of God, the song of praise that is eternally his from all existence, and the exceeding sweetness, strength, beauty, and glory of the Spirit of God in man. These themes are not new with Smart in this poem. In his prize poems ten years before he had taken the attributes of God as his subject, and the general line of thought, and the method of proof by the rapid accumulation of illustrative images drawn from Nature are practically the same as in the “Song to David.” Here and there are instances of the same noble conceptions and striking phrases, as in this picture of a tree:

Or this description of the Leviathan that,

It is, however, only in the “Song” that the early themes are treated with sustained energy of thought and splendor of imagery. In this poem each thought is abundantly illustrated from Nature. The details are brought together from every clime and season. They are poured forth with impetuous ardor. The excited imagination of the poet does not hesitate and choose. The universe is laid under contribution. There is a prodigal heaping-up of the treasures of Nature, an almost barbaric splendor of images. Does the poet wish to say that all Nature praises God? The earth passes before him as in a vision. The great song of adoration swells upon his ear from every form of harmonious activity. Seasons change, almonds glow, tendrils climb, fruit trees blossom, birds build their nests, bell-flowers nod, the spotted ounce and her cubs play, harvests ripen, wild carnations blow, the pheasant shows his glossy neck, the squirrel hoards nuts, the map of Nature is crowded with scenes of beauty, the crocus “burnishes alive” upon the snow-clad earth, the bullfinch sings his flute note, the redbreast balances on the hazel spray, silver fish glide through rivers, cataracts fall, fruits are luscious, gums give out incense, all to “heap up the measure, load the scales” with praise to the Lord who is great and glad. In this rapid summary there is a pomp, an energy, an activity that is indescribable. A later stanza on strength is almost terrifying in its powerful imagery.

Except Blake’s “Tiger” I recall no poem marked by the same tenseness and abrupt energy.

Many of the details in Smart’s poems were drawn from his reading, especially from the Hebrew Scriptures. They could not have come from observation for they have little to do with the “old, oft catalogued repository of things in sky and wave and land.” The images are fresh, original, daring. They startle the mind out of passivity.

Another point to be noted is the peculiar combination of facts. Bears, sleek tigers, ponies, and kids, are the beasts assembled to illustrate God’s creative activity, and so in other combinations. Objects the least likely to suggest each other are brought together. In the same way facts from Nature and from human nature are strangely mingled. Among beauteous things are reckoned a fleet before a gale, a host in glittering armor, a wild garden, a moonlight night, and a virgin before her spouse.

Amidst the prettinesses, decencies, timidities, of the eighteenth-century poetry of Nature, this poem by Smart sounds out like a trumpet. The marshaled facts move forward like a cohort of soldiers with a splendid tread that shakes the earth. The whole effect is Hebraic, apocalyptic.

Mickle’s chief poems are “Syr Martyn” (1767) “Pollio” (1762) and some shorter pieces. In “Pollio” Mickle makes frequent references to his own love of Nature. The country he knew best was that about Roslin Castle where he was brought up, but he was not unfamiliar with other parts of southeast Scotland as is shown by his references to the Forth, the Annan, the Wauchope, the Ewes, to the dales of Tiviot, and to various country seats. His interest in Nature was varied in character. In “Almada Hill” (1781) and “May Day” there are frequent appreciative lines on mountains, as:

There are briefer references in such phrases as, “the hills of Cheviot,” “the thyme-clad mountain,” “the mountains gray,” “Old Snowden,” “Snowden’s hoary side,” “the curving mountain’s craggy brow,” which serve at least to show that Mickle was not unconscious of the scenery about him. One or two lines indicate the effect of the sea on his mind. As he stood on Almada Hill and looked out over old Ocean,

it was

that held his impatient imagination. Even so brief a passage serves to illustrate the awakened curiosity, the new sense of pleasure in the infinite and the unknown, that characterized the romantic impulse. Another modern note in Mickle is his interest in moonlight and stars. There are several picturesque descriptive lines, as,

In spite of the classical note in such a phrase as “silver empress” these lines show not only genuine pleasure in the loveliness of night, but also first-hand knowledge of its phenomena. Closeness of observation is further indicated in the lines on birds, as in the description of the “sootie black-bird,” that chants his shrill vespers from the topmost spray of some tall tree, or of the eagle that sails through the sky with “wide-spread wings unmov’d” till suddenly he “sheer descends” on the brow of Snowdon.

In his representation of flowers Mickle notes the “daisie-whitened plain,” and “the white and yellow flowers that love the dank,” but he was especially attracted by flowers growing among rocks or upon cliffs. One close observation is of the twinkling lines of gossamer that on summer mornings hang from spray to spray.

Mickle’s poems show a genuine love of Nature. He abounds in reminiscences of his happy youth

His chief use of Nature is in the passages where he gives these early associations, and in the many similitudes in his “Elegies.” He always sees Nature in a pathetic or joyous union with past experiences in his own life or in that of others.

Grainger’s chief poem, “The Sugar Cane,” appeared in 1764. The theme and outline are presented in the first four lines:

Grainger recognizes as his poetical masters, Maro, the “pastoral Dyer” (“The Fleece”), “Pomona’s bard” (“Cyder”), Smart (“The Hop Garden”), and Somerville (“The Chace”). “The Sugar Cane” is a purely didactic poem and is no real contribution to the new feeling toward Nature. The first part of the “Ode to Solitude,” a long ode beginning,

is another example of the sentimental view of Nature, with frequent and obvious imitations of Milton; but the last half of the poem declares that only the old and feeble should seek the solitude of the country, that shades are no medicine for a troubled mind, and, in general, that the proper business of mankind is man.

Chronologically Macpherson’s “Poems of Ossian” belong in the five years before the publication of Percy’s “Reliques” (1765), and they are a part of the same general stream of influence, the revival of folklore. These poems are epic in character, their aim being the celebration of the exploits of Celtic heroes. They are of importance in this study because the adventures of Fingal, Ossian, Oscar, and Gaul are throughout closely associated with natural scenery of a wild and romantic sort.[420] Mist-covered mountains, storm-swept skies, rough streams, desolate shores, dim moonlight nights, are the most frequent scenic details, and they are so wrought into the story that the human tragedy and the scene where it was enacted cannot be thought of apart. The three ways in which Nature is used in these poems, as dramatic background, in similitudes, and in apostrophes, will serve to illustrate both the prominence given to Nature and the close union between human emotions and the varying phenomena of the external world. A fine example of a bright description to usher in a sudden contrasting portent of disaster is in the opening lines of “Temora”:

The blue waves of Erin roll in light. The mountains are covered with day. Trees shake their dusky heads in the breeze. Gray torrents pour their noisy streams. Two green hills, with aged oaks, surround a narrow plain. The blue course of a stream is there.

The song that was “lovely, but sad, and left silence in Carric-Thura,” has an autumn picture as its fit setting:

Autumn is dark on the mountains; gray mist rests on the hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. A tree stands alone on the hill and marks the slumbering Connal. The leaves whirl round with the wind and strew the graves of the dead.[421]

The description of the desolation of Balclutha is the prelude to the song of mourning for the unhappy Moina.[422] The use of Nature in apostrophes is characteristic of the Ossian poems. Of these the most famous is the address to the sun.[422] There are frequent apostrophes to winds, streams, and tempests, to stars, and especially to the moon. Two good examples are the poet’s address to the evening star in “The Songs of Selma,” and to the moon in “Dar Thula.” Of these the second may be quoted as fairly typical:

Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O Moon! they brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence.... But thou thyself shalt fail one night, and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads.... Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, O wind! that the daughter of night may look forth; that the shaggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its white waves in light.

It will be observed that in almost every apostrophe there is beautiful external description together with an underlying analogy to the thought of the poem. In the passages quoted above, the triumphant brightness of the moon in her blue path, and the suggestion of the coming night when she shall fail in heaven, are but types of the beauty of Dar Thula and of the day when, though the winds of spring shall be abroad, though the flowers shall shake their heads on the green hills, and the woods shall wave their growing leaves, the white-bosomed maiden shall not again move in the steps of her loveliness.

Dr. Blair in his full study of the similitudes of Ossian admits that they are too “thick-sown,” and that they are drawn from a narrow range of objects. But he claims, on the other hand, that the similes have the exceptional vividness that comes from first-hand observation,[423] and that they show an imaginative perception of subtle analogies.[424] Dr. Blair’s recognition of beauty and congruity was so quickened by his partisanship of Ossian that his conclusions usually need to be scrutinized in the cold light of facts. The subtlety of the analogies certainly often escapes the ordinary reader, but no one can fail to observe the pathetic beauty of the little pictures into which the similitudes are often elaborated. Music, for instance, is compared to “the rising breeze, that whirls at first the thistle’s beard, then flies dark-shadowy over the grass.” Again a song is “like the voice of a summer breeze, when it lifts the head of flowers and curls the lakes and streams.” The heroes contended “like gales of spring, as they fly along the hill, and bend by turns the feebly-whistling grass.” The warriors are “bright as the sunshine before a storm; when the west wind collects the clouds, and Morven echoes over all her oaks.” In these and many similar comparisons we see how the beauty of the suggested natural picture led the poet into a use of details not necessary for his illustrations. The importance of the poetry of Ossian in the evolution of the poetry of Nature rests on its early date, its close interweaving of human emotions and natural scenes, and its abundant and appreciative use of wild, free Nature.

Percy’s “Reliques” appeared in 1765. The publication of these ballads was of great importance to the cause of the romantic revival in general. The ballads were, however, of somewhat less significance in their influence on the new feeling toward Nature. A ballad would never interrupt the story for a description, and there would, of course, never be any hint of a philosophy of Nature. But throughout the ballads there are casual touches of description showing a genuine love for some forms of Nature, especially the forest, green hills, and moors. “Upon the wide moors,” “on moors so broad,” “over the fields so brown,” “over the lea,” “over the downs,” are characteristic phrases. The castles are usually on a hill and command a wide view.[425] The love of the hills is indicated by such little pictures as

or,

But it is the forest that most often appears.

gives the fresh, open-air setting of most of these tales of love and heroism;

are typical forest pictures.[437] But the gude green wood is not always fresh and blooming, as we see from occasional lines such as

Trees are not often mentioned individually except the oak and the willow, the latter always representing sorrow.

There is occasional use of Nature in simple comparisons, as, “White as evir the snaw lay on the dike,” “drye as a clot of claye,” “light of foot as stag that runs in forest wild,” his “een like gray gosehawk’s stair’d wyld.”

There are also some homely pictures of everyday country life, as in “Take Thy Old Cloak about Thee,” “Plain Truth and Blind Ignorance” (Somersetshire dialect), “The Ew-Bughts Marion,” and “The Auld Good Man.”

The use of Nature in the “Ballads,” slight and limited as it is, gives an impression of vivid reality. It is what Schiller would call the simple as opposed to the sentimental love of Nature, the first being characteristic of early races who are Nature, and the last of the moderns who seek Nature.[442] On eighteenth-century readers who, as a class, knew little about the external world outside their parks and gardens, the effect of the descriptive touches in the “Ballads” would be to lead them into lovely regions where Nature was as spontaneous and free as the knights and fair ladies themselves.

Michael Bruce imitated Milton’s “Lycidas” in an elegy called “Daphnis” and imitated Gray in some “Runic Odes,” which were lauded as “truly Runic and truly Grayan.” In these poems the use of Nature is slight and conventional. His “Lochleven” (1766) is more significant. In this poem he celebrates

of his native land. He finds all Nature full of joy.

Clouds arrested in their swift course by lofty mountains, lakes that hold a mirror to the sky, songsters twittering o’er their young, waters glowing beneath western clouds, hoary-headed Grampius clad in snow, are counted among his pleasures. He prefers life in the country, for there

He loved especially the Gairney, a stream that flows into Loch Leven, because, as a lad, he lay on its banks and composed poetry. He speaks with evident knowledge of other streams, the gulfy Po, “slow and silent among its waving reeds,” and the rapid Queech rushing impetuous over broken steeps. It is natural that Bruce should know, as he did, especially water birds. The “wild-shrieking gull,” “patient heron,” “dull bittern,” the “clamorous mew,” and the “slow-wing’d crane” moving heavily along the shore, were doubtless birds that he had often seen. Bruce’s pleasure in wide views is shown by this poem, “Lochleven,” for it is a description of the prospect spread out before him as he stands on “Mount Lomond.” Bruce’s “Elegy” was written when he felt himself dying of consumption. It represents his delight in all forms of Nature’s life and his deep melancholy at bidding farewell to the spring-time world.

By a process of selection we find in Bruce’s poems his real love for the outer world. This is not, however, the impression made by his poems as a whole. His knowledge of Nature was limited, and his expression was often rigid and formal. He died young, before he had really attained the mastery of his own thought, and his importance lies not so much in actual accomplishment as in scattered suggestions of his tendencies and possibilities.

Bruce’s most intimate friend was John Logan, who, in 1770, published an edition of Bruce’s poems and included some “wrote by other authors.” In 1781, when he published his own works, he laid claim to a number of the poems that had appeared in the edition of Bruce’s poems in 1770. Among these the most important was “The Cuckoo,”[443] a poem well worth the sharp controversy waged over it by the respective friends of the two authors. There is nothing else in this period that rings so fresh and clear as this little ode. One stanza may be quoted to illustrate its beauty, its simplicity, and naturalness. This stanza is also of peculiar interest because it so definitely foreshadows Wordsworth’s “To the Cuckoo.”

Logan’s other poems, though he has nothing equal to the cuckoo song in spontaneity and exquisite simplicity, are yet of real value. His “Braes of Yarrow” is an effective presentation of the ancient, sorrow-laden Yarrow motif. As is fitting in a ballad, the touches of description are of the briefest sort, but the forest, the bonny braes, and the sounding stream are felt through all the plaintive story. “Ossian’s Hymn to the Sun” is a poetical paraphrase of the famous apostrophe in “Balclutha.” It has some fine lines, but is inferior in strength to the original. The “Ode Written in Spring” is a laudation of a certain fair Maria in the true classical fashion, but the new note is struck in the first five stanzas descriptive of spring.

are lines showing fresh observation and easy, natural expression. Another passage characterizes autumn as “the Sabbath of the year.” Limited in compass as is Logan’s good work it is of value because marked by exceptional purity and sweetness.

Most of James Graeme’s poems were written before he was twenty. His tastes are thus referred to by his friend, Dr. Robert Anderson:

A passion for romantic fiction and fabulous history, appeared in him very early in life.... Of the Gothic, Celtic and Oriental mythology he was a warm admirer; and frequently attempted imitations of the wild and flowery fictions of the northern and eastern nations.... Like other votaries of the Muses, he was passionately fond of rural scenery, and delighted in walking alone in the fields.

His chief poems of Nature are some descriptive elegies. Occasionally there is a fairly good line, as

or

showing at least a hint of first-hand observation. But on the whole the poems are a composite of phrases belonging to the typical poetry of sentimental melancholy. His characteristic attitude toward Nature is shown by his constant preference for chilly midnight when howlets scream and ravens croak, and when he, with pensive care, tunes the voice of woe and sheds “teary torrents” over grass-green graves. One poem, on “Curling,” is, however, quite different in tone, for it is a crudely realistic and technical description of the game and the peasants who engage in it. The tastes of Graeme and his attempts are of more significance than his actual work, which is of little value.

The bent of Goldsmith’s mind was toward the study of man in social relations. His use of Nature is accessory and limited. In “The Traveller” (1764) the real interest is in manners and customs.[444] When the pilgrim is in the Alps with a wide prospect before him, it is the thought of man’s grand heritage that impresses him. In the account of Switzerland there is only a vague general description of the country, but a full, sympathetic description of the peasant. So, too, in Italy, France, Holland, and even in England. In the few descriptions that do occur there are occasional lines indicative of first-hand observation, as in this picturesque couplet on the scenery in Holland:

We also find effective combinations of geographical names that give a certain charm of remoteness and melody; and there is a sense of space and movement conveyed by the rapidly presented and wide landscapes.

In “The Deserted Village” (1770) the central thought is still man, and the purpose didactic, but there is effective though not abundant use of Nature. Even here, however, it is only Nature inseparably associated with man. Nine-tenths of the poem has to do directly with human nature. The other tenth merely gives charming pictures of the country close about a village. Scattered lines are of perfect workmanship, as that one descriptive of the straggling fence,

and

In the picture of desolation the details are selected with delicacy and precision. Each touch helps the general impression. The value of such work becomes more apparent when put into contrast with the description of torrid climes. In Goldsmith and in Thomson what was seen at first hand had the grace and power of truth, but scenes in remote lands, known only through the distorting spectacles of books, were credited with an odd mixture of incongruous details. Except for one use of mountains in a simile there is no indication that Goldsmith knew any but tame scenery.

In general we may say that Goldsmith showed a direct, simple-hearted pleasure in the open-air world, that he was a sympathetic observer of the more obvious facts of Nature, and that he had a bright, easy way of recording those facts. The simplicity of his work is combined with a quick perception of artistic form. But he has hardly a touch of what Matthew Arnold calls “natural magic,” and he is in no sense a revealer. He was on the surface of things. Of the higher ministry of Nature to man’s spiritual needs he knew nothing.

In his prose works Goldsmith has several vigorous attacks on falseness and affectation in poetry. In 1759 he characterized Italian poetry at its lowest ebb, as “no longer an imitation of what we see, but of what a visionary might wish. The zephyrs breathe a most exquisite perfume; the trees wear eternal verdure; fauns, dryads, and hamadryads stand ready to fan the sultry shepherdess ... who is so simple and innocent as often to have no meaning.” This attack on the falseness and affectation of Italian poetry might be quoted verbatim by a modern critic of the popular eighteenth-century pastorals. Goldsmith also praised Gay’s poems saying that “he has hit upon the true spirit of pastoral poetry.” Goldsmith has other keen critical remarks that point in the direction of the new spirit but they do not bear directly on the study of Nature. He is important chiefly because of his interest in man as man, his close and sympathetic delineation of the poor and ignorant.

In 1766 James Beattie had written 150 lines of “The Minstrel.” The poem was then laid aside for the “Essay on Truth” and not taken up again till 1770. The first book was published anonymously in 1771. The second book appeared with the author’s name in 1774. The poem consists of 122 Spenserian stanzas. Its design is “to trace the progress of a poetical genius ... till that period when he may be supposed capable of appearing in the world as a minstrel,”[445] and its theme is really the effect of mountain scenery on a poetically sensitive mind. The child, Edwin, is brought up in a remote village among the Scotch hills, and his genius is developed through the varied influence of wild natural scenery until he becomes “itinerant poet and musician.” As a lad his chief pleasure was to follow

He loved to climb craggy cliffs

He was

He listened

When storms came up in black array

He visited haunted streams by moonlight and let his imagination dwell on graves and ghosts. His soul was possessed by the “mystic transports” born of “melancholy and solitude.” He scanned all Nature with a “curious and romantic eye,” and his imagination was stirred by “old heroic ditties,” by

The second stage of Edwin’s education comes through his companionship with a wise hermit, who, like Wordsworth’s Solitary, had “sought for glory in the paths of guile,” but finally, dissatisfied with success and stung with remorse, had hidden himself in a deep retired abode in the mountains, there to commune with Nature. From a lofty eminence Edwin chanced to look down one day upon this savage dell, shut in by mountains and rocks piled on rocks, and he saw the “one cultivated spot” with its garden of roses and herbs, and he heard the voice of the hermit soliloquizing on the vanity of human life. In subsequent interviews the hermit discoursed learnedly on history, art, and sciences.

The intrinsic value of this poem is not great. It is important because of the conception which it embodies. Edwin finds in Nature adequate instruction and inspiration; the hermit, adequate consolation. His words are,

Now the power of wild scenery over the plastic mind is exactly Wordsworth’s idea in his account of the Wanderer’s youth,[446] and the power of Nature to minister to a mind diseased is one of the leading thoughts in his account of the Solitary,[447] while the thought of tracing a child’s experiences with Nature until under her tutelage he becomes a poet is the fundamental idea of the “Prelude.”[448] It is certainly of more than merely curious interest thus to find in the rather vague, ineffective stanzas of the earlier poet general conceptions which afterward appear as the ruling ideas of the poet confessedly greatest in his treatment of Nature.

The character of Edwin was autobiographic and shows Beattie’s personal love of Nature. In a letter to the Dowager Lady Forbes, October, 1772, he wrote:

I find you are willing to suppose that, in Edwin, I have given only a picture of myself as I was in my younger days. I confess the supposition is not groundless. I have made him take pleasure in the scenes in which I took pleasure, and entertain sentiments similar to those of which, even in my early youth, I had repeated experience. The scenery of a mountainous country, the ocean, the sky, thoughtfulness and retirement, and sometimes melancholy objects and ideas, had charms in my eyes, even when I was a school boy; and at a time when I was so far from being able to express, that I did not understand my own feelings, or perceive the tendency of my own pursuits and amusements.

Beattie never lost this keen delight in Nature. When he was schoolmaster at Fordoun, at the foot of the Grampian Hills, his greatest pleasure was found in the neighboring mountains and wooded glens. His biographer also says that he would frequently “pass the whole night among the fields, gazing on the sky, and observing the various aspects it assumed till the return of day.” Beattie’s poems bear conclusive evidence of his love of Nature in all her forms. Mountains, and the sea, wild scenes of various sorts, storms, torrents, night, clouds, the sky, streams, meadows, groves, summer and winter, wide views, are regarded with genuine delight. But there are certain curious limitations. There are almost no specific flowers, birds, or trees mentioned in all this abundant study of the external world. This use of the general instead of the specific is one element of an effect too often perceived, an indefiniteness of outline, a vague blurring of edges, the result of which is not mysterious suggestiveness but simply dimness and confusion. There is also an unexpected feebleness of vocabulary and lack of direct observation. The old word “murmur,” for instance, is applied with wearisome insistence to springs, rills, water, the ocean, pines, woods, groves, and gales. So the interest in wild Nature, when analyzed, shows a rather monotonous and undiscriminating succession of cliffs and precipices. But it would be unfair to press these limitations too far. There are many true observations happily presented, as in the following lines which are selected as illustrative:

He finds pleasure in old oak trees that

In winter he watches

Lines such as these show knowledge both fresh and close, and the expression is marked by picturesque effectiveness.

But Beattie’s real contribution to the study of Nature lies, as has been indicated, in his own personal enthusiasm, and his steadfast belief in the effect of Nature on man. In one stanza he even set forth the doctrine, held to be sufficiently startling forty years later in Wordsworth’s day, that country rustics from their familiarity with Nature, gain a nicer sense of moral purity than is known among the poor of a city.[449] Upon all men he urged the study of Nature as a moral duty.

The message of Nature is one not to be ignored.

Though less popular than the “Essay on Truth,” Beattie’s “Minstrel” met with almost immediate favor. Lyttleton said to Mrs. Montagu who sent him the first book in 1771:

I read your “Minstrel” last night, with as much rapture as poetry, in her noblest, sweetest charms, ever raised in my soul. It seemed to me that my once most beloved minstrel, Thomson, was come down from heaven, refined by the converse of purer spirits than those he lived with here, to let me hear him sing again the beauties of virtue.[452]

And Cowper wrote in 1784: “Though I cannot afford to deal largely in so expensive a commodity as books, I must afford to purchase at least the poetical works of Beattie.”[453] Mr. Dyce says that the success of “The Minstrel” (Book First) “was complete. The voice of every critic was loud in its praise; and before the second book appeared, four editions of the first had been dispersed throughout the kingdom.”[454]

“The Minstrel” is of importance in the historical development of the poetry of Nature because of the ideas it emphasizes, and because its immediate popularity is an indication of the change in taste since the beginning of the century.

Most of John Scott’s poems were on rural subjects,[455] and he is of especial interest because of his abundant and close observation of natural facts. Mr. Hoole says of him, “He was certainly no servile copyist of the thoughts of others; for living in the country, and being a close and accurate observer, he painted what he saw;” and again, “He cultivated the knowledge of natural history and botany, which enabled him to preserve the truth of Nature with many discriminating touches, perhaps not excelled by any descriptive poet since the days of Thomson.” It was Scott’s avowed purpose to enrich poetry by the use of many natural facts not before observed. In the introduction to the “Amoebaean Eclogues” he said, “Much of the rural imagery which our country affords, has already been introduced in poetry, but many obvious and pleasing appearances seem to have totally escaped notice. To describe these is the business of the following Eclogues.” After this explicit announcement, two gentle youths, in responsive verse, call attention to over two hundred rapidly stated natural facts. A fact to a line is about the average, as in these lines:

The second of these “Eclogues” has to do with the care of farms and is as minute as Cowper’s treatise on the cucumber. There is nowhere in these poems any poetical fusion of facts. They read rather like the notebooks of a professional observer. Yet it is certainly significant to find at this date so persistent and systematic a search for natural facts, and that not in the service of science but of poetry. In “Amwell” Scott calls on the Muse of Thomson, Dyer, and Shenstone for his inspiration. The poem is a description of the prospect from a certain “airy height” near Amwell. A single illustration will show the minute observation and catalogue style in this commemoration of “lonely sylvan scenes.”

There is a pleasant homely grace in these lines about the cottage, worth more than all the historical episodes “introduced to secure interest.” In the “Elegies” and “Odes” there is no use of Nature different from that observed in the other poems, unless, indeed, mention should be made of Scott’s belief that Nature gives her fairest smiles to those “who know a Saviour’s love.” One further characteristic is to be found in a large number of the poems, and that is enjoyment of a wide view. He describes views as seen from “Musla’s cornclad heights,” from “Grove Hill,” the cliff at Bath, from “Chadwell’s cliffs,” from “Widbury’s prospect-yielding hill,” from “Upton’s elm-divided plains,” from “Clifton’s rock,” from Amwell, and other spots. The poems read as if he had spent many days climbing hills and prospecting for views.

Richard Cumberland wrote in 1776 several “Odes,” something in the style of Gray’s “Bard,” in honor of the artist Romney. In the “Dedication to Romney” he spoke with enthusiasm of the Lake Region.

In truth a more pleasing tour than these lakes hold out to men of leisure and curiosity cannot be devised. We penetrate the Glaziers, traverse the Rhone and the Rhine, whilst our domestic lakes of Ulls-water, Keswick, and Windermere, exhibit scenes in so sublime a stile, with such beautiful colourings of rock, wood, and water, backed with so tremendous a disposition of mountains, that if they do not fairly take the lead of all the views of Europe, yet they are indisputably such as no English traveller should leave behind him.

One of the poems, the “Ode to the Sun,” has Helvellyn, Skiddaw, the Derwent, Lodore, “Keswick’s sweet fantastic vale,” “stately Windermere,” “Savage Wyburn,” and “delicious Grasmere’s calm retreat” as its important scenic elements. He considers

as but “the spruce impertinence of art.” From them comes no rapture such as that excited by the “gigantic shapes” of mountains. The Thames is but a tame stream compared with “old majestic Derwent” forcing his independent course. In contrast to the grandeur and splendor of Nature man seems but “weak, contemptible, and vain, the tenant of a day.” Imperial Ulls-water is not only declared to be superior in charm to Loch Lomond or Killarney, but it can maintain its own even against “ought that learned Poussin drew” or anything painted by “dashing Rosa.” Eighteenth-century praise of scenery could go no farther.

William Blake’s “Poetical Sketches,” published in 1783, were written between 1769 and 1777.[457] The “Songs of Innocence” appeared in 1788–9; “Book of Thel,” 1789; “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” 1790; and “Songs of Experience” in 1794. In the first volume Nature was the leading subject; in the next human interests were in the ascendent, and Nature was used only in fresh, ballad-like touches. In the later work Nature is slightly used and for the most part in the form of mystical symbolism.

It was Blake’s theory that man is “imprisoned in his five senses,” and he counted it his mission to reveal to closed eyes the spiritual as the only real fact of existence. In his early work this theory, as yet unexaggerated in application, led to a treatment of Nature, not untrue to facts, but characterized especially by qualities of simplicity and vision such as are not found again before Wordsworth. In these years of his youth Blake was essentially the poet of childhood and spring in all their sweet, potent, indefinable charm.

gives the keynote to these songs of delight. The joy of Nature is everywhere insisted on. The sun makes the sky happy; the vales rejoice; spring cannot hide its joy when buds and blossoms come; the happy blossoms look on merry birds; groves are happy and green woods rejoice; dimpling streams, the air, green hills, meadows, and birds laugh with delight. Here is one exquisite example:

He contrasts the clamor and destruction of city streets with the true joy in Nature. In the silent woods, delights blossom around, numberless beauties blow. The green grass springs in joy, and the nimble air kisses the leaves. The brook stretches its arms along the silent meadow, its silver inhabitants sport and play. The youthful sun joys like a hunter roused to the chase.[460] In “Fragments” and “Couplets,” excerpts from his MS book, occurs this fine, though casual statement of the opposition between town and country:

Blake cared much for sleep as the time when man was most free from the tyranny of the senses. Many of his characters are represented as asleep, and the conception is transferred to many lovely scenes in Nature. He pictures summer as sleeping beneath oaks; flowers shut their eyes in sleep; the west wind sleeps on the lake; and dawn sleeps in heaven. With this is associated an evident pleasure in the silence of Nature, apparently the pathetic complement of its joys. There is a silent sleep over the deep of heaven; the evening star speaks silence to the lake. At night the moon is silent, and the earth, and the sea.

Occasional passages show the character of Blake’s own love of Nature, as,