BOOK VIII. History of English Poetry, from the Twelfth Century to the middle of the Fifteenth. VIII. CHAP. I. THE ENGLISH POETS WHO PRECEDED GOWER. BOOK THE history of English poetry, from its first appearance in the twelfth century, to the middle of the fifteenth, begins with Layamon, and ends with Lydgate. This period embraces nearly four centuries; the principal writers who flourished in it, were— Layamon, Robert of Gloucester, Brunne, Hampole, Gower, Chaucer, John the Chaplain, Occleve, and the Monk of Bury. The literary cultivation that preceded and accompanied them, assisted to produce their merit; their minds were portions of the stream of intellectual improvement, which, from the Norman Conquest, never ceased to flow thro England: they were individual examples of the great national progress, expressing its nature, implying its sources, and hastening and facilitating its future march. Poetry always exhibits the most perfect state of the language of the day, and is the most efficacious instrument of extending and refining it; of enriching it with new graces, fixing it with increased accuracy, and diversifying and animating it with meanings, feelings, spirit, flexibility, and imagery, unknown to it before. Being every where composed in some form I. POETS WHO of a metrical position of words, which every phrase CHAP. will not suit, it compels a selection of language from its makers; and their minds, thus accustomed, even ENGLISH in its humblest examples, to chuse expressions more fit than others, become necessarily more critical and GOWER. discriminating as to the application and meaning of their language, and gradually in their taste. Hence the valuable poems of all nations are superior in diction and expression to their prose; superior in energy, force, precision, and pathos, as well as in those figures, turns, and graces, which poetry claims as its peculiar. property and rightful inheritance. Our ancient vernacular poetry decidedly excelled its contemporary prose. Poetry, whenever it soars above mere verbal versification, is the effusion of the sensibilities, or of the sportive imagination of mankind, or of that inborn love for the superior, the beautiful and the grand which distinguishes human nature, expressed in this selected phrase. Whether religion, love or war, in-dolence or intellect, was its first parent, it originated, on every supposition, from the excited feelings of mankind, kindling the fancy, and rousing or elevating congenial energies. Its finest compositions in every age are those which have been the produce of actual sensibility; and their genuine effect is to excite in the reader consentaneous emotions. No artificial versifications of the memory or reasoning thought, alone, can so affect us. Reasoning excites us to reason and to judge. But feeling only awakens feeling, and produces the poetry which attracts the sympathy, gratifies the cultivated taste, and never loses its magical interestingness. The most esteemed species of genuine poetry is therefore the language of the heart, BOOK addressed to the heart; and, from the universal likeVIII. ness of human nature, is every where intelligible and HISTORYOF every where delightful. ENGLISH All mankind feel, or are created to feel; but all do not equally cultivate their sensibilties. Nor can these emotions be operating with equal force at all times in the same individual. The mind cannot be perpetually excited without destruction. Its agitations must be far less frequent than its repose; or the unknown connexion between the intellectual principle and the bodily organization will be destroyed. Human life is also, happily for its comfort, not always so disturbed as to kindle the passions or affect the sympathies, in all its incidents. Its usual course is monotony; or individual apathy or quiet; or activity without interest or impression. The mind loves tranquillity as well as emotion, and more generally subsides into it. In this state it seeks to please and be pleased, without perturbation; to be lulled, not agitated; to be soothed and amused, without labor or pain; to contemplate or create the beautiful, the agreeable, and the gay, instead of being elevated by the sublime, startled by the horrible, roused by the dangerous, or distressed by the pathetic. It possesses one charming faculty, which suits and gratifies this favorite indolence, the delightsome FANCY; that fairy maker of ideal beings and ideal scenery, which can select all that is good and pleasing in this world, and combine the interesting fragments into prospects, characters, incidents, and converse, far more beauteous and impressive than daily humanity presents to us. Magical artist! whom no labor can weary; no failure discourage: ever borrowing the pencil of hope, to paint even the brief future of this world, radiant with splendors which nature never imparts; and flattering with every co- CHAP. veted felicity which experience cannot realize.1 I. POETS WHO PRECEDED From this part of the intellect, poetry obtained new ENGLISH subjects, new sentiments, and a boundless region for its activity and creations. Perhaps in this quality, its GOWER. leading excellencies, its wonderful nature, principally appear. If it merely repeated what the mind has actually heard and seen, it would be but like the painter, who, viewing the dying malefactor, depicted faithfully his writhing limbs and distorted countenance; or who, sitting placidly in more agreeable scenery, represents in colors the exact peach he handles, or the bunch of grapes and vine-leaves that he sees hanging before him. While poetry merely versified history or biography, as in the rimed chronicler, or the lives of the saints, it was only metrical phrase. It was not till, abandoning the real world, it deviated into the fictitious; it was not till it invented characters and incidents; not till it sang of imaginary Arthurs, Rolandoes and Charlemagnes; not till it connected natural feelings with supposed situations; not till it fancied as well as felt; that its unlimited genius and distinguishing nature appeared; and from that hour it has never lost its hold on the human affections, and never been without either admirers or offspring. Hence, poetry had little to do with Wace or Gaimar; with Robert of Gloucester, or Piers Langtoft, in their elaborate histories. But it began to exist in Wace's Chevalier au Lion, in Beneoit's Trojan poem, in the Troubadour poetry, and in Marie's lays. Sir Philip Sidney says beautifully, Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry, as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers; nor whatsoever els may make the too much loved earth, more lovely.' Her world is brazen. The poets only deliver a golden.' Defence of Poesie, p. 543. BOOK VIII. ENGLISH POETRY. But in addition to the feeling and the fancy, the intellect possesses also its ordinary power of miscel HISTORYOF laneous thought; and poetry, besides interesting mankind with its superior subjects and produce, became also connected with this, the most usual occupation of the mind. The poet, accustomed to clothe his emotions and imaginations with metrical language, could not, from the mere laws of habit and inclination, avoid giving his other associations the same form of expression; and the world, delighted with poetry of the higher species, has always welcomed its diction in every other combination. Hence the poetical style has been, in every age, associated with the REASON as well as with the sensibility and the fancy. Indeed we may expect to find it oftener united with the common level and subjects of thought, because the ordinary combinations of the mind most frequently recur, and require less genius to express. Thus in every nation which has successfully pursued this delightful art, there is the poetry of sensibility, the poetry of fancy, and the poetry of the cultivated mind in all its other exercitations. In the first ages of literature, we rarely meet with either alone. Sometimes, as in Wace's Estories, Brunne's Chronicle, and Piers Plouhman's Visions, we have the last kind, unmingled, unenlivened with either of the former: sometimes, as in Marie's lays, the imaginative appears and sometimes, as in Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate, the same individual exhibits all. Their long poems present to us an artless miscellany of feeling, imagination, and reasoning mind; the latter indeed far more abundant than the others, and which was fully as precious, often perhaps more so, to its author. From this confused and indiscriminated mixture, all |