"The naturalness and ease of Goldsmith's poetry," says Edward Dowden, "are those of an accomplished craftsman. His verse, which flows towards the close of the period with such a gentle yet steady advance, is not less elaborated than that of Pope; and Goldsmith conceived his verse more in paragraphs than in couplets. His artless words were, each one, delicately chosen; his simple constructions were studiously sought." And Sir Walter Scott said of him: "It would be difficult to point out one among the English poets less likely to be excelled in his own style. Possessing much of Pope's versification without the monotonous structure of his lines; rising sometimes to the swell and fulness of Dryden, without his inflections; delicate and masterly in his descriptions; graceful in one of the greatest graces of poetry, its transitions; alike successful in his sportive or grave, his playful or melancholy mood; he may long bid defiance to the numerous competitors whom the friendship or flattery of the present age is so hastily arraying against him."

Other Poems to be Read: The Traveller; the rest of The Deserted Village; Retaliation.

REFERENCES: Irving's Life of Goldsmith; Forster's Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith; Macaulay's Essay on Goldsmith; Thackeray's English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century; De Quincey's Eighteenth Century; Hazlitt's English Poets; Goldsmith (English Men of Letters), by William Black.



Thomas Gray.



THE BARD.

I. 1.

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait; Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,{1} They mock the air with idle state.{2} Helm, nor hauberk's{3} twisted mail, Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's{4} curse, from Cambria's tears!" Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay, As down the steep of Snowdon's{5} shaggy side He wound with toilsome march his long array. Stout Gloster{6} stood aghast in speechless trance: "To arms!" cried Mortimer,{7} and couched his quivering lance.

I. 2.

On a rock{8} whose haughty brow Frowns o'er cold Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood, (Loose his beard, and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air{9}) And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire, Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.{10} "Hark, how each giant-oak, and desert cave, Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath! O'er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave, Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe; Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, To high-born Hoel's{11} harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

I. 3.

"Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, That hushed the stormy main:{12} Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed: Mountains, ye mourn in vain Modred, whose magic song Made huge Plinlimmon{13} bow his cloud-topt head. On dreary Arvon's shore{14} they lie, Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale: Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail; The famished eagle{15} screams, and passes by. Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,{16} Ye died amidst your dying country's cries— No more I weep. They do not sleep. On yonder cliffs, a griesly band, I see them sit,{17} they linger yet, Avengers of their native land: With me in dreadful harmony they join, And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.

II. 1.

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof,{18} The winding sheet of Edward's race. Give ample room, and verge enough The characters of hell to trace. Mark the year, and mark the night, When Severn shall re-echo with affright The shrieks of death, thro' Berkley's roof that ring, Shrieks of an agonizing king!{19} She-wolf of France,{20} with unrelenting fangs, That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate, From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs The scourge of heaven.{21} What terrors round him wait! Amazement in his van, with Flight combined, And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.

II. 2.

"Mighty victor, mighty lord! Low on his funeral couch he lies!{22} No pitying heart, no eye, afford A tear to grace his obsequies. Is the sable warrior{23} fled? Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead. The swarm, that in thy noontide beam were born, Gone to salute the rising morn. Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,{24} While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

II. 3.

"Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare; Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Close by the regal chair Fell Thirst and Famine scowl{25} A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. Heard ye the din of battle{26} bray, Lance to lance, and horse to horse? Long years of havoc urge their destined course, And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way. Ye towers of Julius,{27} London's lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murder fed, Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame, And spare the meek usurper's{28} holy head. Above, below, the rose of snow, Twined with her blushing foe,{29} we spread: The bristled boar{30} in infant-gore Wallows beneath the thorny shade. Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

III. 1.

"Edward,{31} lo! to sudden fate (Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.) Half of thy heart{32} we consecrate. (The web is wove. The work is done.) Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn Leave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn: In yon bright track, that fires the western skies, They melt, they vanish from my eyes. But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll? Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!{33} Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul! No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail. All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue, hail!

III. 2.

"Girt with many a baron bold Sublime their starry fronts they rear; And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old In bearded majesty, appear. In the midst a form divine!{34} Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line; Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,{35} Attempered sweet to virgin-grace. What strings symphonious tremble in the air, What strains of vocal transport round her play. Hear from the grave, great Taliessin,{36} hear; They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings, Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colored wings.

III. 3.

"The verse adorn again Fierce War, and faithful Love,{37} And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest. In buskined measures{38} move Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. A voice, as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond,{39} impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs{40} the golden flood, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me; with joy I see The different doom our fates assign. Be thine despair, and sceptred care; To triumph, and to die, are mine." He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

NOTES.

This poem was published in 1757. "It is founded," says Gray, "on a tradition current in Wales that Edward I., when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the bards that fell into his hands to be put to death." The argument is as follows: "The army of Edward I., as they march through a deep valley, and approach Mount Snowdon, are suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summit of an inaccessible rock, who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the desolation and misery which he had brought on his country; foretells the misfortunes of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares that all his cruelty shall never extinguish the noble ardor of poetic genius in this island; and that men shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valor in immortal strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly censure tyranny and oppression. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that rolls at its feet."

The tradition upon which the poem is said to be founded, if it ever had any existence, is in great part mythical. Edward I. did indeed conquer Wales, but there is no evidence that he massacred or even persecuted the Welsh bards. A hundred years after his time their number and influence had not been diminished.

This poem is a good example of an English ode constructed strictly after Greek models. It will be observed that it is written, not in uniform stanzas, but in three uniform parts, each of which contains three stanzas. The first of these parts is called the Strophe, or Turn; the second, the Antistrophe, or Counter-turn; the third, the Epode, or After-song. The origin of these terms may be traced to the use of the ode as an important part of the entertainment presented in the ancient Greek theatre. The Strophe was sung while the chorus moved from one side of the orchestra to the other; the Antistrophe while the reversed movement was being made; and the Epodos after the singers had returned to their original position. The accurate perception of harmony and the relationship between the different parts of the choral ode, which enabled the Greeks to enter thoroughly into its enjoyment, is unknown among moderns. Hence, there have been but few attempts in the English language to construct odes strictly after the Greek model. Most of our odes are poems relating to themes of greater or less varying length, and divided into many irregular stanzas of varying lengths and metres. Such are Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," and Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality," all of which are odes in form and style, although differing from their Greek prototype and from one another. Of all English poets, none have worked so thoroughly on the ancient model as Gray, although to Congreve must be given the honor of being the first to attempt this species of English composition.

1. crimson wing. Explain the meaning of this line.

2. Compare this line with Shakespeare, "King John," Act v, sc. 1:

"Mocking the air with colors idly spread."

3. hauberk. From A.-S. heals, the neck, and beorgan, to protect. "The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the body, and adapted itself to every motion."—Gray.

4. Cambria. Wales. An ancient legend says it was so called from Camber, the son of Brute. This legendary king of Britain divided his dominions among his three sons: to Locrin he gave the southern part (England), which was called Loegria; to Albanact the northern (Scotland), Albania; and to Camber, the western (Wales), Cambria.

5. Snowdon. "Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call Cragium-eryri. It included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire as far east as the river Conway."—Gray. It was in the spring of 1283 that the army of Edward I. forced its way through the defiles of these mountains.

shaggy. See "Lycidas," 54:

"Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high."

6. Gloster. "Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford, son-in-law to King Edward."—Gray.

7. Mortimer. Edward, or Edmond, de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, one of King Edward's ablest leaders. It was by one of his knights that the Welsh prince Llewellyn was slain in December, 1282.

8. rock. One of the heights of Snowdon, probably Pen-maen-mawr, the extreme northern point of the range, a few miles from the mouth of the Conway River.

9. "The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings (both believed originals), one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans's collection at Paris."—Gray.

10. Explain the meaning of this line.

11. Hoel. A Welsh prince and famous bard, some of whose poems are still extant. Cadwallo and Urien, named below, were other celebrated bards. The name of Modred is not so well known; it is possible that Gray refers to "the famous Myrddin ab Morvyn, called Merlyn the Wild, a disciple of Taliessin—the form of the name being changed for the sake of euphony." It is not entirely clear whether the Llewellyn mentioned here was a bard, or the famous but unfortunate prince who lost his life in the war with King Edward. (See note 7, above.) Is it the lay sung in memory of mild Llewellyn? Or is it the lay which soft Llewellyn sang?

12. hushed the stormy main. Shakespeare says:

"The rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music." —Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii, sc. 1.

13. Plinlimmon. A group of lofty mountains in Wales. The name is probably a corruption of Pum-lumon, "the fire-beacons," so-called because there was a beacon on each of the five peaks composing the group.

14. Arvon's shore. Caernarvon, or Caer yu Arvon, means the camp in Arvon. The shore referred to is that of Caernarvon, on the mainland, opposite the island of Anglesey.

15. eagle. "Camden and others observe that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh, Craigian-eryri, or the crags of the eagles. At this day (I am told), the highest point of Snowdon is called 'the Eagle's Nest.'"—Gray.

16. Dear as the ruddy drops. Shakespeare has it:

"As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart." —Julius Csar, Act ii, sc. 1.

17. I see them sit. See Milton's "Lycidas," 52:

"On the steep Where your old bards, the Druids lie."

griesly. Grisly. From the A.-S. grisli, dreadful.

18. Weave the warp, etc. As the Fates were represented by the ancient Greeks as spinning the destinies of men, so the Norns in the Norse mythology are said to weave the destinies of the heroes who die in battle.

"Glittering lances are the loom, Where the dusky warp we strain,— Shafts for shuttles, dipt in gore, Shoot the trembling cords along; Swords that once a monarch bore, Keep the tissue close and strong." —The Fatal Sisters, translated by Gray, from the Norse.

19. "Edward the Second, cruelly butchered in Berkeley Castle."—Gray. The murder of the king occurred on the night of September 21, 1327. Berkeley Castle stands at the southeast end of the town of Berkeley, about one and one-half miles from the Severn River. It was built before the time of Henry II., and is still inhabited by a descendant of its founders.

20. She-wolf of France. Isabel of France, the wife of Edward II. Shakespeare applies this epithet to Margaret, the queen of Henry VI.:

"She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France." —3 Henry VI., Act i, sc. 4.

21. Edward III., the son of Queen Isabel, proved indeed to be a scourge to France.

22. "Death of that king (Edward III.), abandoned by his children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress."—Gray.

23. sable warrior. "Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father."—Gray.

24. The magnificence of the first years of Richard II.'s reign is figured in this and the following lines.

25. Thirst and Famine scowl. When Richard II. died in prison, his body was brought to St. Paul's, and "the face was left uncovered, to meet rumors that he had been assassinated by his keeper, Sir Piers Exon." But the older writers assert that he was starved to death.

26. din of battle. "Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster."—Gray.

bray. From Gr. bracho, to clash.

27. towers of Julius. "The oldest part of that structure (the Tower of London) is vulgarly attributed to Julius Csar."—Gray.

28. meek usurper. "Henry the Sixth, very near being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the crown."—Gray. The references in the preceding line are to Henry's "consort," Queen Margaret, and his father, Henry V.

29. The rose of snow, twined with her blushing foe. The reference is to the union of the houses of York and Lancaster after the War of the Roses.

30. bristled boar. Richard III., so called from his badge of a silver boar. So Shakespeare:

"In the sty of the most deadly boar." —Richard III., Act iv, sc. 5.

"The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar That spoiled your summer fields and fruitful vines, Swills your warm blood like wash." —Ibid. Act v, sc. 2.

31. The bard's vision of the future has come to an end, and he again addresses the king.

32. Half of thy heart. "Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord is well known."—Gray.

Tennyson, in the "Dream of Fair Women," speaks of Queen Eleanor as

"Her who knew that Love can vanquish Death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in spring."

33. The bard's visions are resumed, and he sees the glories which were ushered in with the advent of the Tudor line. Henry VII.'s paternal grandfather was Sir Owen Tewdwr of Pernnyuydd, in Anglesey, whose mother was of royal British blood. "Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over this island; which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor."—Gray.

34. a form divine. Elizabeth.

35. awe-commanding face. "Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialiuski, ambassador of Poland, says: 'And thus she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princlie cheekes.'"—Gray.

36. Taliessin was a famous Welsh bard who flourished in the sixth century. It is said that some of his works are still preserved by his countrymen.

37. See "Faerie Queene," 1:

"Fierce warres and faithful love shall moralize my song."

38. buskined measures. The tragic drama as represented by Shakespeare. So Milton speaks ("Il Penseroso," 102) of the "buskind stage." The buskin was the Greek cothurnus, a boot with high heels, designed to add stature and dignity to the tragic actor.

39. Fond. Foolish. This is the original meaning of the word, and is so used by the older poets.

40. he repairs. So Milton:

"Sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

THOMAS GRAY was born in Cornhill, London, December 26th, 1716. Through the help of his mother's brother, who was Assistant-Master at that famous school, he received his primary education at Eton, and in 1735 entered St. Peter's College, Cambridge. In 1738 he left the University without taking a degree, intending to study law at the Inner Temple. Soon afterwards, however, he accompanied Horace Walpole on a tour through France and Italy, and spent the greater part of two years in Paris, Rome, and Florence. Upon his return to England, finding himself possessed of a life-long competency, he resolved to give up the law and devote himself entirely to self-culture. He settled at Cambridge, and gave all his time to study and to the cultivation of his mind. The first of his poems to appear in print was the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," published in 1747. His "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" was not published until 1750, although it had been written and handed about in manuscript several years before. The post of Poet-Laureate was offered him in 1757, on the death of Colley Cibber; but he did not accept it. In 1768 he was appointed Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, but the state of his health was such that he was never permitted to lecture. He died, July 29th, 1771, at the age of fifty-four.

"He was certainly the most accomplished man of his time," says Hales, "and was something much more than accomplished. His learning was not only wide but deep; his taste, if perhaps too fastidious, was pure and thorough; his genius was of no mean degree or order; his affections were of the truest and sincerest. . . . His poems are works of refinement rather than of passion; but yet they are inspired with genuine sentiment. They are no doubt extremely artificial in form; the weight of their author's reading somewhat depresses their originality; he can with difficulty escape from his books to himself; but yet there is in him a genuine poetical spirit. His poetry, however elaborated, is sincere and truthful. If the exterior is what Horace might have called over-filed and polished, the thought is mostly of the simplest and naturalest."

Matthew Arnold says: "Gray's production was scanty, and scanty it could not but be. Even what he produced was not always pure in diction, true in evolution. Still, with whatever drawbacks, he is alone or almost alone in his age. Gray said himself that the style he aimed at was 'extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical.' Compared, not with the work of the great masters of the golden ages of poetry, but with the poetry of his own contemporaries in general, Gray may be said to have reached, in his style, the excellence at which he aimed."

Cowper writes, "I have been reading Gray's works, and think him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the character of sublime."

Lowell says: "Gray, if we may believe the commentators, has not an idea, scarcely an epithet, that he can call his own, and yet he is, in the best sense, one of the classics of English literature."

And Sir James Mackintosh says: "Of all English poets he was the most finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendor of which poetic style seemed to be capable. It may be added that he deserves the comparatively trifling praise of having been the most learned poet since Milton."

Other Poems to be Read: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard; On a Distant Prospect of Eton College; The Progress of Poesy; Ode on Spring.

REFERENCES: Johnson's Lives of English Poets; Gray (English Men of Letters), by Edmund Gosse; Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets; Roscoe's Essays.



Alexander Pope.



FROM THE "ESSAY ON CRITICISM."

Some to Conceit{1} alone their taste confine, And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit;{2} One glaring Chaos and wild heap of wit.{3} Poets, like painters, thus, unskill'd to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is nature to advantage dress'd; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;{4} Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind. As shades more sweetly recommend the light, So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit. For works may have more wit than does 'em good, As bodies perish through excess of blood. Others for Language all their care express, And value books, as women men,{5} for dress: Their praise is still,—the style is excellent; The sense, they humbly take upon content.{6} Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found: False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, In gaudy colors spreads on ev'ry place; The face of nature we no more survey, All glares alike, without distinction gay: But true expression, like th' unchanging sun, Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon; It gilds all objects, but it alters none. Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent, as more suitable; A vile conceit in pompous words express'd Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd: For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,{7} As sev'ral garbs with country, town, and court. Some by old words to fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; Such labor'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile, Unlucky, as Fungoso{8} in the play, These sparks{9} with awkward vanity display What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; And but so mimic ancient wits at best, As apes our grandsires, in their doublets drest. In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new or old: Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. But most by numbers judge a poet's song, And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong: In the bright muse, tho' thousand charms conspire, Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire; Who haunt Parnassus{10} but to please their ear, Not mend{11} their minds, as some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire;{12} While expletives their feeble aid do join; And ten low words oft creep in one dull line: While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes; Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze," In the next line, it "whispers through the trees":{13} If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep," The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep": Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song,{14} That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.{15} Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigor of a line, Where Denham's strength and Waller's{16} sweetness join. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense: Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers{17} flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar: When Ajax{18} strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labors, and the words move slow: Not so, when swift Camilla{19} scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. Hear how Timotheus'{20} vary'd lays surprise, And bid alternate passions fall and rise! While at each change, the son of Libyan Jove{21} Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow: Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, And the world's victor stood subdu'd by sound! The power of music all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now. Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such, Who still are pleas'd too little or too much. At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offence, That always shows great pride, or little sense: Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best, Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest. Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move; For fools admire, but men of sense approve: As things seem large which we through mists descry; Dulness is ever apt to magnify. Some foreign writers, some our own despise; The ancients only, or the moderns prize. Thus wit, like faith, by each man is apply'd To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside. Meanly they seek the blessing to confine, And force that sun but on a part to shine, Which not alone the southern wit sublimes, But ripens spirits in cold northern climes; Which from the first has shone on ages past, Enlights the present, and shall warm the last; Tho' each may feel increases and decays, And see now clearer and now darker days. Regard not, then, if wit be old or new, But blame the false, and value still the true. Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own, But catch the spreading notion of the Town; They reason and conclude by precedent, And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent. Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men. Of all this servile herd, the worst is he That in proud dulness joins with Quality.{22} A constant critic at the great man's board, To fetch and carry nonsense for my Lord. What woful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starv'd hackney sonneteer, or me? But let a Lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines! Before his sacred name flies ev'ry fault, And each exalted stanza teems with thought!

NOTES.

Pope's "Essay on Criticism" was published in 1711. It consists of 724 lines, and is written in heroic couplets—that style of poetic composition in which Pope excelled all others. It is full of sound critical precepts, put together with considerable art, and expressed in a manner which, at the time of its production, insured the popularity of the poem and the fame of its author. It was probably suggested by Boileau's "Art Potique," which was founded on Horace's "Ars Poetica," and it in turn on Aristotle's rules, very commonly known among the classical poets. "The Essay," says De Quincey, "is a collection of independent maxims tied together into a fasciculus by the printer, but having no natural order or logical dependence; generally so vague as to mean nothing. And, what is remarkable, many of the rules are violated by no man so often as by Pope, and by Pope nowhere so often as in this poem."

1. Conceit. Affected wit. "Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless but impairs what it would improve."—Pope.

2. fit. Proper. "Fit audience find, though few" (Milton, "Paradise Lost," V, 7).

3. wit. This is a favorite word with Pope, and is used by him to indicate a variety of ideas,—such as thought, knowledge, imagination, expression, the exercise of humor, etc. In this poem there are no fewer than twelve couplets rhyming to it.

4. "It requires very little reading of the French text-books to find the maxims which Pope has strung together in this poem, but he has dressed them so neatly, and turned them out with such sparkle and point, that these truisms have acquired a weight not their own, and they circulate as proverbs among us in virtue of their pithy form rather than their truth. They exemplify his own line, 'What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.' Pope told Spence that he had gone through all the best critics, specifying Quintilian, Rapin, and Le Bossu. But whatever trouble he took in collecting what to say, his main effort is expended upon how to say it."—Pattison.

5. as women men. "As women value men," or "as women by men are valued"—which?

6. humbly take upon content. Are satisfied to take in faith.

7. sort. Agree.

8. Fungoso. A character in Ben Jonson's comedy, "Every Man in his Humour."

9. sparks. Fops; vain, showy men.

10. Parnassus. A mountain in Hellas, the chief seat of Apollo and the Muses. Hence, figuratively, a resort of the poets.

11. mend. Improve, make better, amend.

"Mend your speech a little Lest it may mar your fortunes."

—Shakespeare, King Lear, Act i, sc. i.

12. "The gaping of the vowels in this line, the expletive do in the next, and the ten monosyllables in that which follows, give such a beauty to this passage as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet."—Addison.

13. Pope himself is not disinclined to make use of these rhymes. See "Essay on Man," 271.

"Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees."

14. Referring to the Spenserian stanza which is composed of nine lines, eight of which are iambic pentameters, and the ninth a hexameter or Alexandrine. The name Alexandrine is said to have been derived from an old French poem on Alexander the Great, written about the twelfth or thirteenth century, and composed entirely of hexameter verses. See note on the versification of the "Faerie Queene," page 234.

15. Observe the skill with which, both in this line and in several which precede and follow, the poet has made "the sound to seem an echo to the sense."

16. Waller had been regarded as the greatest poet of the seventeenth century (see page 205), and Denham, in the time of Pope, was more esteemed than Milton or Spenser. Dryden called Denham

"That limping old bard Whose fame on 'The Sophy' and 'Cooper's Hill' stands."

17. numbers. Poetical metre.

"As yet a child nor yet a fool to fame, I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." —Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.

18. Ajax. "The beautiful distich upon Ajax puts me in mind of a description in Homer's 'Odyssey,' which none of the critics have taken notice of. It is where Sisyphus is represented lifting his stone up the hill which is no sooner carried to the top of it, but it immediately tumbles to the bottom. This double motion of the stone is admirably described in the numbers of these verses; as in the four first it is heaved up by several spondees intermixed with proper breathing places, and at last trundles down in a continual line of dactyls."—Addison.

19. Camilla. The virgin queen of the Volsci. She aided Turnus against neas, and was famed for her fleetness of foot.

20. Timotheus. See notes on "Alexander's Feast," by Dryden.

21. son of Libyan Jove. Alexander. See note 5, page 166.

22. Quality. Persons of high rank.



ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

MDCCVIII.

I.

Descend, ye Nine!{1} descend and sing; The breathing instruments inspire, Wake into voice each silent string, And sweep the sounding lyre! In a sadly pleasing strain,{2} Let the warbling lute complain: Let the loud trumpet sound, Till the roofs all around The shrill echoes rebound; While in more lengthen'd notes and slow, The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow. Hark! the numbers soft and clear Gently steal upon the ear; Now louder, and yet louder rise, And fill with spreading sounds the skies: Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes, In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats, Till, by degrees, remote and small, The strains decay, And melt away, In a dying, dying fall.

II.

By music, minds an equal temper know,{3} Nor swell too high, nor sink too low. If in the breast tumultuous joys arise, Music her soft, assuasive{4} voice applies; Or, when the soul is press'd with cares, Exalts her in enlivening airs. Warriors she fires with animated sounds; Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds: Melancholy lifts her head, Morpheus rouses from his bed, Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes, Listening Envy drops her snakes; Intestine war no more our passions wage, And giddy factions hear away their rage.

III.

But when our country's cause provokes to arms, How martial music every bosom warms! So when the first bold vessel dared the seas, High on the stern the Thracian raised his strain,{5} While Argo saw her kindred trees Descend from Pelion to the main. Transported demi-gods{6} stood round, And men grew heroes at the sound, Inflamed with glory's charms; Each chief his sevenfold shield display'd, And half unsheathed the shining blade: And seas, and rocks, and skies rebound, To arms! to arms! to arms!

IV.

But when, through all the infernal bounds{7} Which flaming Phlegethon surrounds, Love, strong as death,{8} the poet led To the pale nations of the dead, What sounds were heard, What scenes appear'd, O'er all the dreary coast! Dreadful gleams, Dismal screams, Fires that glow, Shrieks of woe, Sullen moans, Hollow groans, And cries of tortured ghosts! But, hark! he strikes the golden lyre; And see! the tortured ghosts respire, See, shady forms{9} advance! Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,{10} Ixion rests upon his wheel, And the pale spectres dance; The Furies sink upon their iron beds, And snakes uncurl'd hang listening round their heads.

V.

By the streams that ever flow, By the fragrant winds that blow O'er the Elysian flowers; By those happy souls who dwell In yellow meads of asphodel, Or amaranthine bowers; By the heroes' armed shades, Glittering through the gloomy glades, By the youths that died for love, Wandering in the myrtle grove, Restore, restore Eurydice to life: Oh take the husband, or return the wife!

He sung, and hell{11} consented To hear the poet's prayer; Stern Proserpine relented, And gave him back the fair. Thus song could prevail O'er death and o'er hell, A conquest how hard and how glorious! Though fate had fast bound her With Styx nine times round her, Yet music and love were victorious.{12}

VI.

But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes: Again she falls, again she dies, she dies! How wilt thou now the fatal sisters move? No crime was thine, if 'tis no crime to love. Now under hanging mountains, Beside the falls of fountains, Or where Hebrus wanders, Rolling in meanders, All alone, Unheard, unknown, He makes his moan; And calls her ghost, For ever, ever, ever lost! Now with furies surrounded,{13} Despairing, confounded, He trembles, he glows, Amidst Rhodope's{14} snows: See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies; Hark! Hmus resounds with the Bacchanals' cries— Ah see, he dies! Yet even in death Eurydice he sung, Eurydice still trembled on his tongue, Eurydice the woods, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks, and hollow mountains rung.

VII.

Music{15} the fiercest grief can charm, And fate's severest rage disarm; Music can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please: Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confined the sound. When the full organ joins the tuneful choir, The immortal powers incline their ear; Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire, While solemn airs improve the sacred fire; And angels lean from heaven to hear. Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell, To bright Cecilia greater power is given; His numbers raised a shade from hell, Hers lift the soul to heaven.{16}

NOTES.

This poem was written in 1708 at the suggestion of Sir Richard Steele; it was set to music by Maurice Greene, and in 1730 was performed at the public commemoration at Cambridge. Its model is Dryden's famous ode, "Alexander's Feast," of which Pope was a warm admirer (see page 159). Dr. Johnson says; "In his 'Ode on St. Cecilia's Day' Pope is generally confessed to have miscarried; yet he has miscarried only as compared with Dryden, for he has far outgone other competitors. Dryden's plan is better chosen; history will always take stronger hold of the passions than fable: the passions excited by Dryden are the pleasures and pains of real life; the scene of Pope is laid in imaginary existence; Pope is read with calm acquiescence, Dryden with turbulent delight; Pope hangs upon the ear, Dryden finds the passes of the mind. Both the odes want the essential constituent of metrical compositions, the stated recurrence of settled numbers. . . . If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will be found that the first stanza consists of sounds, well chosen, indeed, but only sounds. The second consists of hyperbolical commonplaces, easily to be found, and, perhaps, without much difficulty to be as well expressed. In the third, however, there are numbers, images, harmony, and vigor not unworthy the antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this—but every part cannot be the best. The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology; . . . we have all that can be performed by elegance of diction or sweetness of versification; but what can form avail without better matter? The last stanza again refers to commonplaces. The conclusion is too evidently modelled by that of Dryden; and it may be remarked that both end with the same fault—the comparison of each is literal on one side and metaphorical on the other. Poets do not always express their own thoughts. Pope, with all this labor in the praise of music, was ignorant of its principles and insensible of its effects."

St. Cecilia, the Christian Polyhymnia and patron saint of sacred music, is said to have suffered martyrdom about the year 230. In Chaucer's "Seconde Nonnes Tale"—which is an almost literal translation of the "Legenda Aurea," written in the thirteenth century—it is related that, on account of Cecilia's spotless purity, an angel came down from heaven to be her guardian. Her husband, Valerian, was also the recipient of angelic favors, for

"This angel had of roses and lilie Corones two, the which he bare in honde, And first to Cecile, as I understonde, He yaf that on, and after gan he take That other to Valerian hire make."

How and when Cecilia was first recognized as the patron saint of music does not appear. The legend only says, that

"While the organs maden melodie, To God alone thus in hire hert song she; 'O Lord, my soule and eke my body gie Unwemmed, lest that I confounded be.'"

There is also a tradition in the church that St. Cecilia was the inventor of the organ. Dryden calls her "inventress of the vocal frame" (see page 164). The origin of this musical instrument is not known, but the first organs used in Italy are said to have been brought thither from Greece. Some of the Roman churches are known to have had them in use in the seventh century, but they were not common until several hundred years later. The festival of St. Cecilia occurs on the 22d of November.

1. ye Nine. The nine Muses: (1) Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry; (2) Clio, the Muse of history; (3) Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry; (4) Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy; (5) Terpsichore, the Muse of choral dance and song; (6) Erato, the Muse of erotic poetry; (7) Polyhymnia, the Muse of the sublime hymn; (8) Urania, the Muse of astronomy; (9) Thalia, the Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry. The custom of invoking the Muses, at the beginning of poems, is derived from Homer:

"Of Peleus' son, Achilles, sing, O Muse." —Iliad, I, 1.

"Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious man Who, having overthrown the sacred town Of Ilium, wandered far," etc. —Odyssey, I, 1.

Milton invokes the

"heavenly Muse that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd," etc. —Paradise Lost, I, 1.

2. Observe how, in the sixteen lines following, the sound is made in some measure to be "an echo to the sense."

3. equal temper know. Evenness of disposition acquire. The music of Timotheus had an opposite effect on Alexander. See "Alexander's Feast."

4. assuasive. Moderating.

5. the Thracian raised his strain. Orpheus was a Thracian, the son of Oeagrus and the Muse Calliope. Apollo gave him a lyre, and the Muses instructed him in its use; and so sweet was the music which he drew from it that the wild beasts were enchanted and the trees and rocks moved from their places to follow the sound. When Jason and his followers, the Argonauts, were unable to launch their ship Argo, Orpheus played his lyre, and the vessel glided into the sea, while her "kindred trees descended" from the slopes of the mountain (Pelion) and followed her into "the main."

6. demi-gods. Half-gods; heroes. Among the Argonauts were Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, Peleus, Nestor, and others similarly renowned.

7. infernal bounds. Boundaries of hell. The wife of Orpheus was a nymph named Eurydice. She having died from the bite of a serpent, the sweet musician followed her into the infernal regions. He begged of Pluto that his wife might return with him to the earth, but his prayer was granted only upon condition that he should not look back upon her until both had safely passed the gates between Hades and the upper world. The poet tells the rest of the story.

Phlegethon. A river of hell in which flowed fire instead of water.

8. See Song of Solomon viii. 6: "Love is strong as death."

9. shady forms. Departed spirits were called "shades," because they were supposed to be perceptible sometimes to the sight but never to the touch. See "heroes' armed shades," below.

10. Sisyphus. See note 18, page 147.

Ixion. King of the Lapith. As a punishment for ingratitude to Zeus, his hands and feet were chained to a wheel which was always in motion.

Furies. See note 20, page 167.

11. hell. The powers of hell—or, as he explains below, Proserpine, the queen of the infernal regions. Styx. The principal river of hell, around which it flows seven—not nine—times.

12. See Milton's "L'Allegro," 135:

"Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, . . . That Orpheus' self may heave his head From golden slumber on a bed Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto to have quite set free His half-regain'd Eurydice."

13. Orpheus's grief for the loss of Eurydice caused him to treat with contempt the Thracian women among whom he dwelt, and they in revenge tore him to pieces, under the excitement of their Bacchanalian orgies. His head was given by the Hebrus to the sea, and finally carried to the island of Lesbos, where it was buried. See Milton's "Lycidas," 58:

"What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, The Muse herself for her enchanting son, Whom universal nature did lament, When by the rout that made the hideous roar, His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?"

See, also, "Paradise Lost," VII, 32:

"The barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears To rapture, till the savage clamor drown'd Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend Her son."

14. Rhodope. A range of mountains in Thrace, sacred to Bacchus. Hmus was another range extending from Rhodope, on the west, to the Black Sea, on the east.

15. Music. Compare what Pope says of music with:

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast." —Congreve, The Mourning Bride.

"O Music! sphere-descended maid, Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid!" —Collins, The Passions.

"Soft is the music that would charm forever." —Wordsworth, Sonnets.

16. Compare these lines with the four which end Dryden's "Alexander's Feast."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

ALEXANDER POPE was born in London in 1688. He had some instruction at home, and was afterwards sent, first to a Roman Catholic seminary near Winchester, then to another in London. "This," he said, "was all the teaching I ever had, and God knows it extended a very little way. When I had done with my priests, I took to reading by myself, for which I had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm, especially for poetry: and in a few years I had dipped into a very great number of the English, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets." He was small of stature and deformed, and his ill health made him peevish, irritable, and selfish. Yet his rare intellectual abilities and the deserved success of his earlier poetry secured for him the friendship of many of the most influential men of the time. Bolingbroke declared that he never knew a man more tenderly devoted to his friends; and Warburton said, "He is as good a companion as poet, and, what is more, appears to be a good man."

Pope's "Essay on Criticism" was published in 1711; the "Rape of the Lock" in 1714; his translation of Homer's "Iliad" in 1715-18, and of the "Odyssey" in 1726; the "Dunciad" in 1728; the "Essay on Man" in 1732. A revised and enlarged version of the "Dunciad" was published in 1742. The latter part of Pope's life was spent at his country-seat of Twickenham, which he enlarged and beautified from the proceeds of his translation of Homer. He died in 1744.

"Pope is our greatest master in didactic poetry," says Stopford Brooke, "not so much because of the worth of the thoughts as because of the masterly form in which they are put."

"In two directions," says Mark Pattison, "in that of condensing and pointing his meaning, and in that of drawing the utmost harmony of sound out of the couplet, Pope carried versification far beyond the point at which it was when he took it up. The matter which he worked up into his verse has a permanent value, and is indeed one of the most precious heirlooms which the eighteenth century has bequeathed us."

Other Poems to be Read: The Rape of the Lock; The Dying Christian to his Soul; The Universal Prayer; Pastorals; Windsor Forest.

REFERENCES: Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Stephen's Hours in a Library; De Quincey's Literature of the Eighteenth Century; Lowell's My Study Window; Pope (English Men of Letters), by Leslie Stephen.



The Seventeenth Century.

"The people of the seventeenth century were weary of liberty, weary of the unmitigated rage of the dramatists, cloyed with the roses and the spices and the kisses of the lyrists, tired of being carried over the universe and up and down the avenues of history at the freak of every irresponsible rhymester. Literature had been set open to all the breezes of heaven by the blustering and glittering Elizabethans, and in the hands of their less gifted successors it was fast declining into a mere Cave of the Winds. . . . We know the poets of the early Caroline period almost entirely by extracts, and their ardor, quaintness, and sudden flashes of inspiration give them a singular advantage in this form. The sustained elevation which had characterized Shakespeare and Spenser, and even in some degree several of the chief of their contemporaries, had passed away, but still the poets were most brilliant, most delectable in their purple patches. . . . As the last waves of the Renaissance died away, a deathly calm settled down upon the pools of thought. Man returned from the particular to the general, from romantic examples to those disquisitions on the norm which were thought to display a classical taste. The seer disappeared, and the artificer took his place. For a whole century the singer that only sang because he must, and as the linnets do, was entirely absent from English literature. He came back at the close of the eighteenth century, with Burns in Scotland, and with Blake in England."—EDMUND GOSSE.

"At the same time, amid the classical coldness which then dried up English literature, and the social excess which then corrupted English morals . . . appeared a mighty and superb mind (Milton), prepared by logic and enthusiasm for eloquence and the epic style; the heir of a poetical age, the precursor of an austere age, holding his place between the epoch of unselfish dreaming and the epoch of practical action."—TAINE.

Poets of the Seventeenth Century.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637). See biographical note, page 213.

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649). Short poems; "Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals"; "Floures of Sion."

William Browne (1588-1643). "Britannia's Pastorals"; "The Shepherd's Pipe"; "The Inner Temple Masque."

George Wither (1588-1667). Short poems; "Collection of Emblems"; "Nature of Man"; "The Shepheard's Hunting"; "Fidelia."

Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650). "The Locustes"; "The Purple Island."

Giles Fletcher (1588-1623). "Christ's Victory and Triumph."

Thomas Carew (1589-1639). Short poems; "Clum Britannicum."

Francis Quarles (1592-1644). "Divine Poems"; "Emblems, Divine and Moral."

Robert Herrick (1594-1674). See biographical note, page 202.

Sir John Suckling (1608-1642). Love poems.

Richard Lovelace (1618-1658). Short poems; "Lucasta: Odes, Sonnets, Songs," etc.

Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648). Odes and short poems.

George Herbert (1592-1634). "The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations"; short poems.

George Sandys (1577-1643). "Christ's Passion."

Richard Crashaw (1615-1650). "Steps to the Altar."

Henry Vaughan (1621-1695). "Silex Scintillans"; "The Mount of Olives."

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667). "Poetical Blossomes"; "The Mistress."

Edmund Waller (1605-1687). See biographical note, page 205.

Sir John Denham (1615-1668). "Cooper's Hill."

Sir William Davenant (1605-1668). "Gondibert"; "Madagascar and Other Poems."

John Milton (1608-1674). See biographical note, page 195.

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). Lyric and satiric poems.

Samuel Butler (1612-1680). "Hudibras."

Thomas Otway (1651-1685). "The Poet's Complaint of his Muse"; "Windsor Castle."

John Dryden (1631-1700). See biographical note, page 175.



John Dryden.



ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC:

AN ODE IN HONOR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

'Twas at the royal feast,{1} for Persia won By Philip's warlike son: Aloft in awful state The godlike hero sate On his imperial throne: His valiant peers were placed around; Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:{2} (So should desert in arms be crowned.) The lovely Thais,{3} by his side, Sate like a blooming Eastern bride In flower of youth and beauty's pride. Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair.

Chorus.

Happy, happy, happy pair! None but the brave, None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the fair.

Timotheus,{4} placed on high Amid the tuneful quire, With flying fingers touched the lyre: The trembling notes ascend the sky, And heavenly joys inspire. The song began from Jove,{5} Who left his blissful seats above, (Such is the power of mighty love.) A dragon's fiery form belied the god: Sublime on radiant spires he rode. The listening crowd admire the lofty sound, A present deity,{6} they shout around; A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound: With ravish'd ears The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod,{7} And seems to shake the spheres.

Chorus.

With ravish'd ears The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then, the sweet musician sung, Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young: The jolly god in triumph comes; Sound the trumpets; beat the drums; Flush'd with a purple grace, He shows his honest face: Now give the hautboys{8} breath; he comes! he comes! Bacchus, ever fair and young, Drinking joys did first ordain; Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure; Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure; Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Chorus.

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure; Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure; Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain; Fought all his battles o'er again; And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.{9} The master saw the madness rise; His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes; And, while he Heaven and Earth defied, Changed his hand, and check'd his pride. He chose a mournful muse, Soft pity to infuse: He sung Darius{10} great and good, By too severe a fate, Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, Fallen from his high estate, And welt'ring in his blood; Deserted at his utmost need, By those his former bounty fed: On the bare earth expos'd he lies,{11} With not a friend to close his eyes.{12} With downcast looks the joyless victor sate, Revolving in his alter'd soul The various turns of chance below; And, now and then, a sigh he stole,{13} And tears began to flow.

Chorus.

Revolving in his alter'd soul The various turns of chance below; And, now and then, a sigh he stole, And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smil'd to see That love was in the next degree: 'Twas but a kindred sound to move, For pity melts the mind to love.{14} Softly sweet, in Lydian{15} measures, Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures. War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Honor, but an empty bubble;{16} Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying; If the world be worth thy winning, Think, oh think it worth enjoying! Lovely Thais sits beside thee, Take the good the gods provide thee. The many{17} rend the air with loud applause; So Love was crown'd, but Music won the cause. The prince, unable to conceal his pain, Gaz'd on the fair Who caus'd his care, And sigh'd and look'd,{18} sigh'd and look'd, Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again; At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd, The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.

Chorus.

The prince, unable to conceal his pain, Gaz'd on the fair Who caus'd his care, And sigh'd and look'd, sigh'd and look'd, Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again; At length, with love and wine at once oppress'd, The vanquish'd victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again; A louder yet, and yet a louder strain. Break his bands of sleep{19} asunder, And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder. Hark, hark, the horrid sound Has raised up his head! As awaked from the dead, And amaz'd he stares around. Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries, See the Furies{20} arise: See the snakes that they rear, How they hiss in their hair, And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand! Those are Grecian ghosts,{21} that in battle were slain, And unburied remain Inglorious on the plain: Give the vengeance due To the valiant crew.{22} Behold how they toss their torches on high, How they point to the Persian abodes, And glittering temples of their hostile gods! The princes applaud with a furious joy; And the king seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way,{23} To light him to his prey, And like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Chorus.

And the king seiz'd a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way, To light him to his prey, And like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Thus, long ago, Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow, While organs{24} yet were mute; Timotheus to his breathing flute, And sounding lyre, Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. At last divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame;{25} The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, Enlarged the former narrow bounds, And added length to solemn sounds, With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize, Or both divide the crown: He rais'd a mortal to the skies; She drew an angel down.{26}

Grand Chorus.

At last divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame; The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, Enlarged the former narrow bounds, And added length to solemn sounds, With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize, Or both divide the crown: He rais'd a mortal to the skies She drew an angel down.

NOTES.

This song was written in 1697. Lord Bolingbroke relates that, calling upon the poet one morning, Dryden said to him: "I have been up all night; my musical friends made me promise to write them an ode for their Feast of St. Cecilia, and I was so struck with the subject which occurred to me that I could not leave it till I had completed it: here it is, finished at one sitting."

The poem was first set to music by one Jeremiah Clarke, a steward of the Musical Society, whose members had solicited Dryden to write it. In 1736 it was rearranged by the great composer Handel, and again presented at a public performance.

M. Taine says, "His 'Alexander's Feast' is an admirable trumpet-blast, in which metre and sound impress upon the nerves the emotions of the mind, a master-piece of rapture and of art, which Victor Hugo alone has come up to."

"As a piece of poetical mechanism to be set to music, or recited in alternate strophe and anti-strophe," says Hazlitt, "nothing can be better."

"This ode is Dryden's greatest and best work."—Macaulay.

1. royal feast. About the year B.C. 331, Alexander the Great, having overthrown the Persian Empire, held a great feast at Persepolis in celebration of his victories. At the close of the revelries, instigated, it is said, by Thais, his Athenian mistress, he set fire with his own hand to the great palace of Persepolis; and a general massacre of the inhabitants ensued. The ruins of the city and palace are still to be seen in a beautiful valley watered by the river Araxes—now called Bendemir—not far from the border of the Carmanian Desert.

2. with roses and with myrtles. At the banquets of the Greeks it was the custom of the guests to wear garlands of roses and myrtles.

3. Thais. "Her name is best known from the story of her having stimulated the Conqueror, during a great festival at Persepolis, to set fire to the palace of the Persian kings; but this anecdote, immortalized as it has been by Dryden's famous ode, appears to rest on the sole authority of Cleitarchus, one of the least trustworthy of the historians of Alexander, and is in all probability a mere fable." After the death of Alexander, Thais became the wife of Ptolemy Lagus.

4. Timotheus. A famous flute-player from Thebes. Another and more celebrated Timotheus, "the poet of the later Athenian dithyramb," was a native of Miletus and died about the time of Alexander's birth.

5. Alexander claimed to be the son of Jupiter Ammon; and when he visited the temple of that god, in the Libyan Desert, he was received by the priests and honored as such. See Plutarch's Life of Alexander.

6. present deity. See Psalm xlvi. 1.

7. affects to nod. See Homer's "Iliad." I, 528-530: "Jove spake, and nodded his dark brow, and the ambrosial locks waved from his immortal head; and he made great Olympus quake."

8. hautboys. Oboes. French hautbois. Wind instruments resembling the clarionet.

Bacchus. Compare Shakespeare:

"Come, thou monarch of the vine, Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne." —Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii, sc. 7.

9. thrice he slew the slain. How could he slay the slain?

10. Darius. At the time of this feast at Persepolis, Darius, the vanquished king of Persia, was still living, although a fugitive. In the following year Alexander pursued him into the Parthian Desert, where he was murdered by the satrap of Bactria. By order of Alexander, the body of the unfortunate king was sent to Persepolis, to be buried in the tombs of the kings.

11. expos'd he lies. Dryden seems to have written this under the impression that Darius had been killed before the time of the great feast at Persepolis.

12. close his eyes. Compare this with the lines from Pope ("Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady"):

"By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed; By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed."

13. a sigh he stole. Sighed silently. His sighs when the result of pity were not very distinctly uttered. Compare Shakespeare:

"And then the lover, Sighing like a furnace." —As You Like It, Act ii, sc. 7.

And then read, in the next stanza, how Alexander sighed when moved by love.

14. pity melts the mind to love. Compare:

"Pity swells the tide of love." —Young's Night Thoughts, III, 106.

"Pity's akin to love." —Southern's Oroonoko, II, 1.

15. Lydian measures. The people of Lydia were noted for the effeminacy of their manners. And Lydian music was peculiarly soft and voluptuous.

"And ever against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs." —Milton's L'Allegro, 135.

"And all the while sweet Musicke did divide Her looser notes with Lydian harmony." —Spenser's Faerie Queene, III, 1.

Observe the change in metre in the ten lines beginning "Softly sweet." What does the word sweet modify?

16. Honor, but an empty bubble. So Shakespeare:

"Honor is a mere scutcheon." —1 Henry IV., Act v, sc. 1.

17. The many. The multitude.

18. sigh'd and look'd. He no longer steals a sigh, as he did when pitying Darius. See note 13, above.

19. Break his bands of sleep. The music now is very different from the Lydian measures which "soothed his soul to pleasures." "Suidas," says Dr. Warton, "mentions the Orthian style in music, in which Timotheus is said to have played to Alexander; and one Antigenidas inflamed this prince still more by striking into what were called Harmatian measures. Quintus Curtius gives a minute description of the burning of the palace at Persepolis, when Alexander was accompanied by Thais. But it does not appear in the accurate Arrian that Thais had any share in this transaction. Arrian, but more so Aristobulus, endeavored to exculpate Alexander from the charge of frequent ebriety; but Menander plainly mentions the drunkenness of Alexander as proverbial."

20. Furies. The Eumenides, or avengers of evil. They are variously represented by the poets. schylus describes them as having black bodies, hair composed of twining snakes, and eyes dripping with blood.

21. Grecian ghosts. The spirits of the Greek warriors in Alexander's army who had been slain by the Persians.

22. crew. This word was formerly used to designate any associated multitude or assemblage of persons. It is now restricted to a ship's company, except when occasionally used in a bad sense. From A.-S. cread or cruth, a crowd.

23. Thais led the way, etc. See note 19, above. Neither Thais nor Helen actually fired any city. What the poet means to say is that, as Helen was the cause of the destruction of Troy, so Thais instigated the burning of Persepolis.

24. organs. The word organ originally denoted but a single pipe, and hence the older English writers, when referring to the complete instrument, generally used the word in the plural number. "Father Schmidt and other famous organ-builders flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The organ in Temple Church, London, was built by Schmidt in Charles II.'s time."

25. vocal frame. The organ—the grand instrument of church music—so perfect that it may literally be said to speak. See introductory note to Pope's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," page 153.

26. St. Cecilia, according to the story in the "Golden Legend," was under the immediate protection of an angel. But it was not her sweet playing, but her spotless purity, that brought the angel to earth, not to listen, but to be "a heavenly guard."

Compare these last four lines with those at the close of Pope's Ode.

Dr. Warton says of "Alexander's Feast": "If Dryden had never written anything but this ode, his name would have been immortal, as would that of Gray, if he had never written anything but his 'Bard.' It is difficult to find new terms to express our admiration of the variety, richness, and melody of its numbers; the force, beauty, and distinctness of its images; the succession of so many different passions and feelings; and the matchless perspicuity of its diction. No particle of it can be wished away, but the epigrammatic turn of the four concluding lines."

Hallam says: "This ode has a few lines mingled with a far greater number ill conceived and ill expressed; the whole composition has that spirit which Dryden hardly ever wanted, but it is too faulty for high praise. It used to pass for the best work of Dryden and the best ode in the language. But few lines are highly poetical, and some sink to the level of a common drinking song. It has the defects as well as the merits of that poetry which is written for musical accompaniment."



THE FIRE OF LONDON.

[FROM "ANNUS MIRABILIS."]

Such was the rise of this prodigious fire,{1} Which, in mean buildings first obscurely bred, From thence did soon to open streets aspire, And straight to palaces and temples spread.

The diligence of trades, and noiseful gain, And luxury, more late, asleep were laid; All was the Night's, and in her silent reign No sound the rest of Nature did invade.

In this deep quiet, from what source unknown,{2} Those seeds of fire their fatal birth disclose; And first few scattering sparks about were blown, Big with the flames that to our ruin rose.

Then in some close-pent room it crept along, And, smouldering as it went, in silence fed; Till the infant monster, with devouring strong, Walk'd boldly upright with exalted head.

Now, like some rich or mighty murderer, Too great for prison which he breaks with gold, Who fresher for new mischiefs does appear, And dares the world to tax him with the old,

So scapes the insulting fire his narrow jail, And makes small outlets into open air; There the fierce winds his tender force assail, And beat him downward to his first repair.

The winds, like crafty courtesans, withheld His flames from burning but to blow them more: And, every fresh attempt, he is repell'd With faint denials, weaker than before.

And now, no longer letted{3} of his prey, He leaps up at it with enraged desire, O'erlooks the neighbors with a wide survey, And nods at every house his threatening fire.

The ghosts of traitors from the Bridge{4} descend, With bold fanatic spectres to rejoice; About the fire into a dance they bend, And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice.

Our guardian angel saw them where they sate, Above the palace of our slumbering King; He sighed, abandoning his charge to Fate, And drooping oft look'd back upon the wing.

At length the crackling noise and dreadful blaze Call'd up some waking lover to the sight; And long it was ere he the rest could raise, Whose heavy eyelids yet were full of night.

The next to danger, hot pursued by fate, Half-clothed, half-naked, hastily retire; And frighted mothers strike their breasts too late For helpless infants left amidst the fire.

Their cries soon waken all the dwellers near; Now murmuring noises rise in every street; The more remote run stumbling with their fear, And in the dark men justle as they meet.

So weary bees in little cells repose; But if night-robbers lift the well-stored hive, An humming through their waxen city grows, And out upon each other's wings they drive.{5}

Now streets grow throng'd and busy as by day; Some run for buckets to the hallow'd quire; Some cut the pipes, and some the engines play, And some more bold mount ladders to the fire.

In vain; for from the east a Belgian wind His hostile breath through the dry rafters sent; The flames impell'd soon left their foes behind, And forward with a wanton fury went.

A key{6} of fire ran all along the shore, And lighten'd all the river with a blaze; The waken'd tides began again to roar, And wondering fish in shining waters gaze.

Old Father Thames rais'd up his reverend head, But fear'd the fate of Simois{7} would return; Deep in his ooze he sought his sedgy bed, And shrank his waters back into his urn.

The fire meantime walks in a broader gross;{8} To either hand his wings he opens wide; He wades the streets, and straight he reaches cross, And plays his longing flames on the other side.

At first they warm, then scorch, and then they take; Now with long necks from side to side they feed; At length, grown strong, their mother-fire forsake, And a new colony of flames succeed.

To every nobler portion of the town The curling billows roll their restless tide; In parties now they straggle up and down, As armies unopposed for prey divide.

One mighty squadron, with a sidewind sped, Through narrow lanes his cumber'd fire does haste, By powerful charms of gold and silver led The Lombard bankers and the Change to waste.

Another backward to the Tower would go, And slowly eats his way against the wind; But the main body of the marching foe Against the imperial palace is design'd.

Now day appears; and with the day the King, Whose early care had robb'd him of his rest; Far off the cracks of falling houses ring, And shrieks of subjects pierce his tender breast.

Near as he draws, thick harbingers of smoke With gloomy pillars cover all the place; Whose little intervals of night are broke By sparks that drive against his sacred face.

More than his guards his sorrows made him known, And pious tears which down his cheeks did shower; The wretched in his grief forgot their own; So much the pity of a king has power.

He wept the flames of what he lov'd so well, And what so well had merited his love; For never prince in grace did more excel, Or royal city more in duty strove.

NOTES.

This selection from Dryden's long and very tedious poem, "Annus Mirabilis, the year of Wonders, 1666," is given here as a specimen of that kind of mechanical versification so popular in the latter half of the seventeenth century. "That part of my poem which describes the Fire," says Dryden, "I owe first to the piety and fatherly affection of our monarch to his suffering subjects; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, and magnanimity of the city; both of which were so conspicuous that I have wanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. And I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us." This opinion, however, was certainly not long maintained by the poet, for he never afterward practised that form of versification which he has here praised.

1. this prodigious fire. A half sheet published immediately after the Great Fire contains this account of the catastrophe which Dryden describes in his verses:

"On Sunday, the second of September, this present year 1666, about one o'clock in the morning, there happened a sad and deplorable fire in Pudding-lane near New Fish-street; which, falling out in a part of the city so close built with wooden houses . . . in a short time became too big to be mastered by any engines or working near it. . . . It continued all Monday and Tuesday with such impetuosity, that it consumed houses and churches all the way to St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street; at which time, by the favour of God, the wind slackened; and that night, by the vigilancy, industry, and indefatigable pains of his Majesty and his Royal Highness, calling upon all people, and encouraging them by their personal assistances, a stop was put to the fire in Fleet-street, etc. But on Wednesday night it suddenly broke out afresh in the Inner Temple. His Royal Highness in person fortunately watching there that night, by his care, diligence, great labour, and seasonable commands for the blowing up, with gunpowder, some of the said buildings, it was most happily before day extinguished."

2. source unknown. "It was ascribed by the rage of the people either to the Republicans or the Catholics, especially the latter. An inscription on the monument, intended to perpetuate this groundless suspicion, was erased by James II., but restored at the Revolution."—Warton.

3. letted. Hindered. This use of the word let is now obsolete, except in the phrase, "Without let or hindrance." It was frequently employed by the older writers.

"What lets but one may enter?"—Shakespeare.

4. the Bridge. The heads of traitors were displayed on London Bridge. "How inferior is this passage," says Dr. Dodd, "to Milton's animated description of the wild ceremonies of Moloch, which Dryden, however, seems to have here had in mind." See "Ode on the Nativity," stanza xxiii.

5. The simile in this stanza was doubtless intended to be very effective.

6. key. Quay. A bank, or ledge.

7. Simois. See Homer's "Iliad," Bk. XXI.

8. gross. Bulk.



REASON AND RELIGION.

[FROM "RELIGIO LAICI."]

Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers, Is Reason to the soul: and as on high, Those rolling fires discover but the sky, Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way, But guide us upward to a better day. And as those nightly tapers disappear, When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere; So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight; So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light. Some few whose light shone brighter, have been led From cause to cause, to nature's secret head; And found that one first principle must be, But what, or who, that Universal HE; Whether some soul incompassing this ball, Unmade, unmov'd, yet making, moving all, Or various atoms' interfering dance Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance, Or this great All was from eternity— Not even the Stagirite himself could see, And Epicurus guess'd as well as he; As blindly groped they for a future state, As rashly judged of providence and fate. In this wild maze their vain endeavors end: How can the less the greater comprehend? Or finite Reason reach Infinity? For what could fathom God were more than He.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

JOHN DRYDEN was born on the 9th of August, 1631, at Aldwincle All Saints, near Oundle in Northamptonshire. He was educated at Westminster School, under the famous Dr. Busby, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. At the age of twenty-six he went up to London with the intention of devoting himself to literature and politics. During the brief remaining years of the Commonwealth (1657-1660) he was nominally a friend to the Puritan party; and one of the first poems written by him was a series of "Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell." At the Restoration he at once espoused the cause of the Royalists; and his recent panegyric on the Protector did not prevent him from writing a poem, "Astra Redux," in honor of the return of Charles the Second. In 1663 he married the Lady Elizabeth Howard, a daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, a Royalist nobleman. For several years he devoted himself chiefly to the writing of plays,—comedies, tragedies, and tragi-comedies. The comedies he wrote in prose; the earliest tragedies in blank verse, followed by several in rhyme, and, after these, others in blank verse. In 1670 he was appointed Poet-Laureate. In 1681, when nearly fifty years old, by the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel," he suddenly became famous as a satirical poet. He soon afterwards wrote "The Medal," another satire, directed against the Earl of Shaftesbury, and "Mac Flecknoe," aimed at Shadwell, the chief poet of the Opposition. At about the same time he produced "Religio Laici," a didactic poem explaining his religious opinions and defending the Church of England against dissenters, atheists, and Catholics. Not long after the accession of James II., Dryden, true to his policy of being always on the side of the ruling party, became a Catholic, and wrote "The Hind and the Panther," in which he eulogized many things that, in the former poem, he had ridiculed. His political career ended with the overthrow of James II., in 1688; but his literary activity continued unabated. The last years of his life were occupied in translating the works of Persius and Juvenal and the neid of Virgil. In 1697 he wrote "Alexander's Feast"; and his "modernizations" of some of Chaucer's poems appeared in 1700, the year of his death.

"If there is grandeur in the pomp of kings and the march of hosts," says A. W. Ward, "in the 'trumpet's loud clangor' and in tapestries and carpetings of velvet and gold, Dryden is to be ranked with the grandest of English poets. The irresistible impetus of an invective which never falls short or flat, and the savor of a satire which never seems dull or stale, give him an undisputed place among the most glorious of English wits."

"His descriptive power was of the highest," says Hales. "Our literature has in it no more vigorous portrait-gallery than that he has bequeathed it. His power of expression is beyond praise. There is always a singular fitness in his language: he uses always the right word. He is one of our greatest masters of metre: metre was, in fact, no restraint to him, but rather it seems to have given him freedom. It has been observed that he argues better in verse than in prose; verse was the natural costume of his thoughts."

Professor Masson says: "Not only is Dryden the largest figure in one era of our literature: he is a very considerable figure also in our literature as a whole. Of all that he wrote, however, there is but a comparatively small portion that has won for itself a permanent place in our literature."

Other Poems to be Read: Absalom and Achitophel; Mac Flecknoe; Religio Laici; Threnodia Augustalis.

REFERENCES: Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Hazlitt's English Poets; Lowell's Among My Books; Macaulay's Essay on John Dryden; Taine's English Literature; Masson's Three Devils and Other Essays; Thackeray's English Humorists.



John Milton.



ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

I.

This is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heav'ns eternal King, Of wedded Maid and Virgin mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring: For so the holy Sages once did sing: That he our deadly forfeit should release,{1} And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

The glorious form, that light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont{2} at Heav'ns high council-table To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside; and, here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.{3}

III.

Say, heav'nly muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the Infant God? Hast thou no vers, no hymn, or solemn strein To welcome him to this his new abode Now while the Heav'n by the suns team untrod Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV.

See how from far upon the eastern rode The star-led Wisards{4} haste with odours sweet; O run, prevent{5} them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet, And join thy voice unto the angel quire,{6} From out his secret altar toucht with hallow'd fire.



THE HYMN.

I.

It was the winter wilde While the Heav'n-born childe All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in aw of him Had doff't her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun her lusty paramour.{7}

II.

Onely with speeches fair She woo's the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinfull blame, The saintly veil of maiden{8} white to throw: Confounded that her Makers eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

III.

But he, her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyed Peace, She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphear,{9} His ready harbinger,{10} With turtle{11} wing the amorous clouds dividing, And, waving wide her mirtle wand, She strikes a universall peace{12} through sea and land.

IV.

No war, or battails sound, Was heard the world around; The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot{13} stood Unstain'd with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sate still with awfull eye,{14} As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.