CHAPTER I. THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN ENGLISH CLASSICAL POETRY. The poetry of the English classical period falls naturally into four subdivisions. Subdivisions of classical period 1. The period of inception may be reckoned as beginning with Waller's first couplets in 1621 and including the work of his followers, Denham, Davenant, and Cowley.' 2. The period of establishment includes the work between the Restoration and 1700. Dryden is the central figure. 3. The period of culmination is a brief period covering less than the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Pope is the central figure. 4. The period of decadence extends from about 1725 to the end of the century. Purpose and method in this study Any generalizations concerning the attitude of this classical period towards nature must be based on a large number of specific instances, but in collecting and using these specific instances certain cautions must be observed. Chief among these is the necessity of keeping in mind the point of view from which the study should be made. It is not the purpose to discover all that has been said about nature by the classical poets between 1623 and 1798. It is the purpose, rather, to eliminate exceptions, and to dwell on the general, obvious qualities, the typical features, of the classical poet's conception of nature. This principle determines the relative importance of the periods noted above. Illustrations drawn from a large number of poems in the second and third periods would serve as the basis for a general stateIllustrations from periods one and four would need to be 'Gosse: From Shakespeare to Pope. ment. I scrutinized, for they might be purely classical, or they might be survivals of the Elizabethan romantic age or prophecies of the modern romantic age. Cowley, for instance, belongs to the first classical period because he wrote in couplets, but his diction, his conceits, and in some respects his attitude towards nature are post Elizabethan rather than classical. Illustrations from his poems are of value, therefore, for the present purpose, only when they are in accord with the spirit afterwards found in the time of Dryden and Pope. So, too, Milton and Marvell, though coming chronologically within the first and second. periods, stand in the main quite aloof from any tendencies that can be called classical, and their poetry is referred to only when it seems to illustrate the dominant classical conception. Abundant and valuable illustration of the classical conception may be drawn from the fourth period, because tendencies are nowhere more clearly shown than in the inevitable exaggerations of a time of decadence, but the legitimacy of any illustration is determined by its likeness to the dominating traits of the preceding periods. While this study is confined in the main to the poets of the period, Journals, Letters, Travels, and Essays have been sparingly quoted where they serve as proof that the poetry fairly represents the spirit of the age in which it was written. - Pope called Wycherley an "obstinate lover of the town " and the phrase may well be taken to mark one characteristic of the orthodox classicists. Poems, Letters, Journals, Biographies, and Essays bear witness to the reluctance with which the men and women of this age bade farewell to the "dear, damned, distracting town."2 Charles Lamb's lifelong devotion to Fleet Street and the Strand, and the sentiment of the cockneys who, as Hazlitt said, preferred hanging in London to a natural death out of it,3 have their true prototypes in the classical age. "When a man is tired of Lon Attitude towards nature shown by general preference for city life don he is tired of life," is Dr. Johnson's dictum. 2 Pope: A Farewell to London, Works, Vol. IV, p. 481. 3 Hazlitt: On Londoners and Country People. Gibbon said that when he visited the country it was to see his friends and not the trees. Boswell's only justification of a hastily expressed lik ing for the country was that he had "appropriated the finest descriptions in the ancient Classicks to certain scenes there." But not even the classics could reconcile most people to a country life. It was dreary, monotonous, difficult. There was no society, no news. The days went yawningly by with no vivid interests, no stirring occurrences. "No person of sense," exclaimed Mr. Mallet's sister, "would live six miles out of London." To live in the country was to be buried. Lord Bathurst looked upon his sojourn in his country home as a "sound nap "3 preparatory to Parliament. "If you wish to know how I live, or rather lose a life in the country," wrote Pope, "Martial will inform you in one line: Prandeo, poto, cano, ludo, lego, caeno, quiesco.”4 Pope found pure air and regular hours a physical necessity, but he often rebelled at his banishment from town delights, as did his "fond virgin" when compelled to seek wholesome country air. 66 She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks, She went from Opera, Park, Assembly, Play, To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day; To part the time 'twixt reading and bohea, To muse, and spill her solitary tea, Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon, Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon."5 I Isabella in Dryden's The Wild Gallant speaks the general sentiinent: "He I marry must promise me to live at London. cannot abide to be in the country, like a wild beast in the wilderness : So, too, Harriet, in The Man of Mode, counted all beyond Hyde Park a desert, and said that her love of the town 996 'Boswell Life of Dr. Johnson, Vol. III, p. 178 and note. : was so intense as to make her hate the country even in pictures and hangings. In Epsom Wells the apostle of "a pretty innocent country life," is the boor Clodpate, but Lucia assures him that people really live nowhere but in London, for the "insipid dull being" of country folk cannot be called life. It was in much the same spirit that Lady Mary Pierrepont responded to Lord Montagu's proposition that they should live at Wharnecliffe. "Very few people," she said, "that have settled entirely in the country but have grown at length weary of one another.” Her preference for town life recurs in her poem, The Bride in the Country. "By the side of a half rotten wood Melantha sat silently down, Convinced that her scheme was not good, And vexed to be absent from Town. How simple was I to believe Or the flattering landscapes they give Of meadows and murmuring streams. Are the wretched result of my pains; The swains greater brutes than their flocks, When Shenstone's young squire went forth to London in search of a wife the desired lady declared that she "could breathe nowhere else but in town." Lyttleton's fair maiden finds country life "supinely calm, and dully innocent," and affirms that "The town, the Court, is Beauty's proper sphere." Young's Fulvia had a similar passion for the town. 6 "Green fields, and shady groves, and crystal springs, 3 Montagu: Letters and Works, Vol. I, p. 72. 4 Montagu: Letters and Works. Vol II, p. 505. And smoke, and dust, and noise, and crowds, delight, And to be pressed to death, transports her quite." * In Aaron Hill's poems we find a characteristic contest over the respective merits of city and country. Philemon exclaims, "Let rustic sports engage the lab'ring hind, And cultivated acres plough his mind ; Let him to unfrequented woods repair, Damon endeavors to defend "Th' unglorious preference of a country life" by calling in evidence Cowley's retirement to the shades, but Philemon triumphantly shows that Cowley's dislike of the town was a clear case of sour grapes. In the end Damon recognizes that it is weak and unmanly to prefer the country. Browne's` Celia explains to Chloe that country life may become endurable if one does not give herself up to "dull landscape" but learns to think of the country as "the town in miniature."3 Such expressions as these are typical. They indicate the general dislike for any life away from the city. And even those who loved the country, or thought they did, were far enough from caring for any but the tamest of its possible delights. Pope's list of country pleasures, though half humorous, is nevertheless suggestive. In contrast to Mrs. M-'s devotion to "play-houses, parks, assemblies, London," he depicts his own "rapture" in the presence of "gardens, rookeries, fish-ponds, arbours." When Bolingbroke "retired from the Court and glory to his country-seat and wife"s he bravely insisted that he liked the change. "Here," he wrote from Dawley, "I shoot strong and tenacious roots. I have caught hold of the earth and neither my enemies nor my friends will find it an easy matter to Aaron Hill: Dialogue between Damon and Philemon. 3 Isaac Hawkins Browne: From Celia to Chloe. Pope: Letters, Vol. IV, p. 476. Cf. From Soame Jenyns in the Country to the Lord Lovelace in Town. 5 Pope: Letters, Vol. IV, p. 253. |