writing master in town who has transcribed all the Old Testament in a full-bottomed periwig; and if the fashion should introduce the thick kind of wigs which were in vogue some few years ago, he promises to add two or three supernumerary locks that should contain all the Apocrypha. He designed this wig originally for King William, having disposed the two Books of Kings in the two forks of the fore-top; but that glorious monarch dying before the wig was finished, there is a space left in it for the face of any one that has a mind to purchase it.1 Not less effective is his illustration of the maxim, "No thought is beautiful which is not just; and no thought can be just which is not founded in truth, or at least in that which passes for such." This principle he applies to the ridiculous use of Greek mythology for the purposes of modern compliment, and proceeds as follows: In order to put a stop to this absurd practice I shall publish the following edict by virtue of that spectatorial authority with which I stand invested : Whereas the time of a general peace is, in all appearance, drawing near, being informed that there are several ingenious persons who intend to show their talents on so happy an occasion; and being willing, as much as in me lies, to prevent that effusion of nonsense which we have good cause to apprehend; I do hereby strictly require every person who shall write on this subject to remember that he is a Christian, and not to sacrifice his catechism to his poetry. In order to it I do expect of him, in the first place, to make his own poem, without depending on Phoebus for any part of it, or calling out for aid upon any one of the Muses by name. I do likewise positively forbid the sending of Mercury with any particular message or despatch relating to the peace, and shall by no means suffer Minerva to take upon her the shape of any plenipotentiary concerned in this great work. I do further declare, that I shall not allow the Destinies to have had a hand in the several thousands who have been slain in the late war, being of opinion that all such deaths may be very well accounted for by the Christian system of powder and ball. I do therefore strictly forbid the Fates to cut the thread of man's life upon any pretence whatsoever, unless it be for the sake of the rhyme. And whereas I have good reason to fear that Neptune will have a great deal of business on his hands, in several poems which we may 1 Spectator, No. 58. now suppose are on the anvil, I do also prohibit his appearance, unless it be done in metaphor, simile, or very short allusion: and that even here he be not permitted to enter but with great caution and circumspection. I desire that the same rule may be extended to the whole fraternity of heathen gods, it being my design to condemn every poem to the flames in which Jupiter thunders, or exercises any other act of authority which does not belong to him; in short I expect that no pagan agent shall be introduced, or any fact related, which a man cannot give credit to with a good conscience. Provided always that nothing herein contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to several of the female poets in this nation, who shall be still left in possession of their gods and goddesses, in the same manner as if this paper had never been written.1 How completely antagonistic the spirit here manifested is to the spirit of the late Classical Renaissance, as it exhibits itself in the work of the Italian decadence, and even, to some extent, in the Art Poétique of Boileau, may be gathered from what I have said on the subject in the first chapter of this volume. And yet, if the true spirit of the Renaissance be identical with the spirit of civic freedom, no more genuinely classical application of critical principles can be found than in this humorous decree. The writer who had done more than any other to establish these new standards of manners and taste, having attained to some of the highest offices in the State, died, in the fulness of manhood, on the 17th of June 1719, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The occasion was commemorated in an Elegy by his friend Tickell, written with a classic elegance, in itself the highest tribute to the success that had attended the efforts of Addison in his work of social refinement : Can I forget the dismal night that gave How silent did his old companions tread By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead, Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings! 1 Spectator, No. 523. L What awe did the slow, solemn knell inspire, CHAPTER V THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILIAR STYLE IN ENGLISH POETRY GEORGE GRANVILLE, LORD LANSDOWN: WILLIAM WALSH: JOHN POMFRET: MATTHEW PRIOR: JONATHAN SWIFT: JOHN Gay Still IN considering the Reformation of English Manners and Taste after the Revolution of 1688, I said that, viewing the matter historically, it was a mistake to ascribe the character of poetical principles in England after the Restoration mainly to the influence of French models.1 more is this the case in determining the causes that led to the development of the "Illustrious Vulgar Tongue" of our country. Yet it is always well to keep in view French example, not only because the many and striking resemblances in the course of each literature are due to the operation of the same European forces, but also because their equally remarkable diversities of character may be to some extent explained by differences of social condition. In both countries the aim of the poets and critics who formed poetical diction was--as it had also been in Italy -to build up the idiom on a colloquial basis refined by literary practice. In both there was delay in arriving at a fixed standard of propriety, in consequence of an internal conflict of spiritual forces. In both a settlement of the standard began to be reached at about the same stage of civil development; in France, that is to say, at the time when, after the suppression of the Fronde, Louis XIV. 1 Page 82. absorbed all the functions of Government; in England, when the struggle between Crown and Parliament was ended by the settlement of 1688. But in the resulting character of each language there is striking dissimilarity, which is readily traceable to the predominant influence exercised on French society by the Crown and by Female Genius. As the kings of France had mounted to Absolutism by the support of the bourgeoisie, so they naturally encouraged a course of refinement proceeding from the old French poems, in which there was a large infusion of the popular spirit. But they also fully appreciated the great results which had been effected, in the improvement of manners, by the female leaders of the Hôtel Rambouillet, the social descendants of the Presidents of the Cours d'Amour; hence the polite French of the seventeenth century represents a mixture of the delicacy of Voiture, on the one side, and of the logical robustness of La Fontaine, Molière, and Boileau, on the other; these contrary qualities being reconciled with each other by the supreme authority of the Court. No controlling influences of this kind operated in the formation of English taste, though it is easy to see that in English society the same elemental principles were at work. For a brief moment after the Restoration the great Royalist reaction placed the Crown in an almost absolute position; and in an earlier chapter of this History I have endeavoured to trace the effects on taste of the riotous and clumsy caricature of French manners in the Court of Charles II.1 But these effects were not permanent, and, at the downfall of the Feudal Monarchy, there was nothing in the constitution of English society answering to the influence on language of the Hôtel Rambouillet or the later salons of the Précieuses. On the whole, three forms of poetical diction had asserted themselves in England as just modes for determining the character of the Illustrious Vulgar Tongue. The first was Spenser's principle of archaic revival which, in the form of Allegory, commended itself to such conserva 1 Vol. iii. chap. xv. pp. 455-457. |