2. Mitford quotes Pope, Dunciad, i. 163: "Then he : 'Great tamer of all human art.'" 3. Torturing hour. Cf. Milton, P. L. ii. 90: "The vassals of his anger, when the scourge Inexorable, and the torturing hour, 5. Adamantine chains. Wakefield quotes Eschylus, Prom. Vinct. vi. : Αδαμαντίνων δεσμῶν ἐν ἀῤῥήκτοις πέδαις. Cf. Milton, P. L. i. 48 : “ In adamantine chains and penal fire;" and Pope, Messiah, 47: "In adamantine chains shall Death be bound." 6. Purple tyrants. Cf. Pope, Two Choruses to Tragedy of Brutus: "Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand." Wakefield cites Horace, Od. i. 35, 12: Purpurei metuunt tyranni." 66 8. With pangs unfelt before. Cf. Milton, P. L. ii. 703: "Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before." For unpitied and alone the MS. has "and Misery not thine own." 9-12. Cf. Bacon, Essays, v. (ed. 1625): "Certainly, Vertue is like pretious Odours, most fragrant when they are incensed [that is, burned], or crushed:* For Prosperity doth best discover Vice ;† But Adversity doth best discover Vertue." Cf. also Thomson: "If Misfortune comes, she brings along To consecrate distress, and make ambition E'en wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune." 16. Cf. Virgil, Æn. i. 630: “Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco." 18. Folly's idle brood. Cf. the opening lines of Il Penseroso: "Hence, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly, without father bred!" 20. Mitford quotes Oldham, Ode: "And know I have not yet the leisure to be good." 21. The summer friend. Cf. Geo. Herbert, Temple: "like summer friends, flies of estates and sunshine;" Quarles, Sion's Elegies, xix. : “Ah, summer friendship with the summer ends;" Massinger, Maid of Honour : "O summer friendship." See also Shakespeare, T. of A. iii. 6: "2d Lord. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship. Timon [aside]. Nor more willingly leaves winter · such summer-birds are men;" and T. and C. iii. 3: So in his Apophthegms, 253, Bacon says: "Mr. Bettenham said; that virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that give not their sweet smell till they be broken or crushed." + Ct. Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, ii. 1: “It is the bright day that brings forth the adder." "For men, like butterflies, Shew not their mealy wings but to the summer." Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind Horace, Od. i. 35, 25: 25. In sable garb. Wisdom's hue." "At vulgus infidum et meretrix retro Ferre jugum pariter dolosi." Cf. Milton, Il Pens. 16: “O'erlaid with black, staid 28. With leaden eye. Evidently suggested by Milton's description of Melancholy, Il Pens. 43: "Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes; Forget thyself to marble, till With a sad leaden downward cast Thou fix them on the earth as fast." Mitford cites Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, song 7: "So leaden eyes;" Dryden, Cymon and Iphigenia, 57: "And stupid eyes that ever lov'd the ground;" Shakespeare, Pericles, i. 2: "The sad companion, dulleyed Melancholy ;" and L. Z. L. iv. 3: "In leaden contemplation." Cf. also The Bard, 69, 70. 31. To herself severe. Cf. Carew: "To servants kind, to friendship dear, and Dryden: "Forgiving others, to himself severe ;" and Waller: "The Muses' friend, unto himself severe." Mitford quotes several other similar passages. 32. The sadly pleasing tear. Rogers cites Dryden's "sadly pleasing thought" (Virgil's Æn. x.); and Mitford compares Thomson's "lenient, not unpleasing tear." 35. Gorgon terrors. Cf. Milton, P. L. ii. 611: “Medusa with Gorgonian terror." 36-40. Cf. Ode on Eton College, 55-70 and 81-90. 46-49. Cf. Shakespeare, As You Like It, ii. 1 : and Mallet: "these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am. Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;" "Who hath not known ill-fortune, never knew Guizot, in his Cromwell, says: "The effect of supreme and irrevocable misfortune is to elevate those souls which it does not deprive of all virtue ;" and Sir Philip Sidney remarks: "A noble heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest estate." "Now rolling down the steep amain, Headlong, impetuous, see it pour; The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar." The Progress of Poesy, 10. APPENDIX TO NOTES. on 66 JUST as this book is going to press we have received The Quarterly Review (London) for January, 1876, which contains an interesting paper Wordsworth and Gray." After quoting Wordsworth's remark that 'Gray was at the head of those poets who, by their reasonings, have attempted to widen the space of separation between prose and metrical composition, and was, more than any other man, curiously elaborate in the construction of his own poetic diction," the reviewer remarks: "The indictment, then, brought by Wordsworth against Gray is twofold. Gray, it seems, had in the first place a false conception of the nature of poetry; and, secondly, a false standard of poetical diction. To begin with the first count, Gray, we are told, sought to widen the space of separation betwixt prose and metrical composition. What this charge amounts to we shall see hereafter. Meantime, did Wordsworth think that between prose and poetry there was any line of demarcation at all? In the Preface [to the "Lyrical Ballads"] from which we have quoted we read : "There neither is nor can be any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. We are fond of tracing the resemblance between Poetry and Painting, and accordingly we call them sisters; but where shall we find bonds of connection sufficiently strong to typify the connection betwixt prose and metrical composition ?' "Now this question admits of a very definite answer. Take the Iliad of Homer and a proposition of Euclid. Is it conceivable that the latter could have been expressed at all in metre, or the former expressed half so well in prose? If not, what is the reason? Is it not plain that the poem contains a predominant element of imagination and feeling which is absolutely excluded from the proposition? And in the same way it may be shown that whenever a man expresses himself properly in metre, the subject-matter of his composition belongs to imagination or feeling; whenever he writes in prose his subject belongs to or (if the prose be fiction) intimately resembles matter of fact. We may decide then with certainty that the sphere of poetry lies in Imagination, and that the larger the amount of just liberty the Imagination enjoys, the better will be the poetry it produces. But then a further question arises, and this is the key of the whole position, How far does this liberty extend ? Is Imagination absolute, supreme, and uncontrolled in its own sphere, or is it under the guidance and government of reason? That its dominion is not universal is obvious, but of its influence we are all conscious, and there is no exaggeration in the eloquent words of Pascal : "This mighty power, the perpetual antagonist of reason, which delights to show its ascendency by bringing her under its control and dominion, has created a second nature in man. It has its joys and its sorrows; its health, its sickness; its wealth, its poverty; it compels reason, in spite of herself, to believe, to doubt, to deny; it suspends the exercise of the senses, and imparts to them again an artificial acuteness; it has its follies and its wisdom; and the most perverse thing of all is that it fills its votaries with a complacency more full and complete even than that which reason can supply.' "If such be the force of Imagination in active life, how absolute must be its dominion in poetry! And absolute it is, if we are to believe Wordsworth, who defines poetry to be the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion.' This definition coincides well with modern notions on the nature of the art. But how different is the view if we turn from theory to practice! It would surely be a serious mistake to describe the noblest poems, like the 'Eneid' or 'Paradise Lost,' as the product of mere spontaneous emotion. And even in lyric verse, to which it may be said Wordsworth is specially alluding, we find the greatest poets, like Pindar and Simonides, composing their odes for set occasions like the public games, in honour of persons with whom they were but little acquainted, and (most significant fact of all) in the expectation of receiving liberal rewards. We need not say that such considerations detract nothing from the genius of these great poets; but they prove very conclusively that poetry is not what Wordsworth's definition asserts, and what in these days it is too often assumed to be, the mere gush of unconscious inspiration. The definition of Wordsworth may perhaps suit short lyrics, such as he was himself in the habit of composing, but it would be fatal to the claims of poetry to rank among the higher arts, for it would exclude that quality which, in poetry as in all art, is truly sovereign, Invention. The poet, no less than the mechanical inventor, excels by the exercise of reason, by his knowledge of the required effect, his power of adapting means to ends, and his skill in availing himself of circumstances. Consider for a moment the external difficulties which restrict the poet's liberty, and require the most vigorous efforts of reason to subdue them. To begin with, in order to secure the happy result promised by Horace, 'Cui lecta potenter erit res Nec facundia deseret hunc nec lucidus ordo,' he has to take the exact measure of his own powers. How many a poet has failed for want of judgment by trespassing on a subject and style for which his genius is unfitted! Again, he is confronted by the most obvious difficulties of language and metre, which limit his freedom to a degree unknown to the prose-writer. And beyond this, if he wishes to be readand a poem without readers is no more than a musical instrument without a musician-he has to consider the character of his audience. He must have all the instinct of an orator, all the intuitive knowledge of the world, as well as all the practical resource, which are required to gain command over the hearts of men, and to subdue, by the charms of eloquence, their passions, their prejudices, and their judgment. To achieve |