. was the sense of his own skill and mastery. The "best natured" satisfaction of all is, he says, the husbandman's delight in "looking round about him and seeing nothing but the effects and improvements of his own art." The supremacy of the interest in man is further explanatory of the facts already sufficiently commented upon that the most abundant use of Nature was in similitudes for human qualities and passions, that these similitudes were drawn from a surprisingly small number of natural phenomena, and that the Nature side of the similitudes was often carelessly and ignorantly handled. The dominance of man is also back of the conception of Nature as stirred by man's joys and woes, and plunged into despair by his death. Nature is, at the utmost, but the comparatively unimportant background against which man acts his part, and there is seldom any effort to suit the background to the picture. There is likewise significance in the twofold fact that in the set poetic diction there are many words and phrases relating to Nature and comparatively few relating to man. Where there was a concentration of interest the vividness of the conception demanded new and original forms of speech, while the stock diction, villa Albani..... Cette villa est un débris, comme le squellette fossile d'une vie qui a duré deux siècles, et dont le principal plaisir consistait dans la conversation, dans la belle représentation, dans les habitudes de salon, et d'antichambre. L'homme ne s'intéressait pas aux objets inanimés, il ne leur reconnaissait pas une âme et une beauté propre; ils ne servaient que de fond au tableau, fond vague et d'importance moins qu'accessoire. Toute l'attention était occupée par le tableau lui-meme, c'est-à-dire par l'intrigue et le drame humain. Pour reporter quelque partie de cette attention sur les arbres, les eaux, le paysage, il fallait les humaniser, leur ôter, leur forme et leur disposition naturelle, leur air 'sauvage,' l'apparence du désordre et du désert, leur donner autant que possible l'aspect d'un salon, d'un galerie à colonnades, d'une grande cour de palais."-Taine, "Voyage en Italie," 1, 231, 232 (Paris, Librairie Hatchette et Cie, 1893). 1 Cowley, “Of Agriculture.” like cant in religious expression, showed the absence of genuine feeling. It is in Pope's "Pastorals" not in "The Dunciad" that we find stock words, convencional phrases, and hereditary similes. In summary we may note that the characteristic attitude toward Nature in the classical period is marked by: a) Prevailing dislike or neglect of the grand or the terrible in Nature as mountains, the ocean, storms, and winter. b) A similar dislike or neglect of the mysterious or the remote, as the various phenomena of the sky. c) A certain apparent friendliness toward the gentle, pleasant, serviceable forms of Nature as in rural cultivated England, in spring and summer, in good weather, in various forms of horticulture. d) An especial pleasure in Nature ordered and made symmetrical by art, as in formal gardens and parks. e) Descriptions of a highly generalized sort with almost no touches of local color. Full but conventional and superficial use of Nature in similitudes for human passions and actions. g) Narrow, uninterested, and hence frequently inaccurate observation of natural facts. h) Cold and lifeless imitation of the forms and details without the spirit of Latin models. 1) A vocabulary restricted and imitative in character. 1) An underlying conception of Nature as entirely apart from man, and to be reckoned with merely as his servant or his foe. 1 CHAPTER II INDICATIONS OF A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE IN THE POETRY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY In this chapter the method of work is quite unlike that in the preceding study. The typical and the dominant are not regarded. Attention is rather converged upon the significant exception. We are led into nooks and corners and byways. The most famous author is not necessarily the one on whom emphasis is placed. In searching for legitimate proof of a tendency we may safely turn to the work of men of unoriginal genius and moderate power. A study of this sort would certainly give a distorted view if it were for a moment thought to represent the period as a whole. But if it is held in mind that the attitude toward Nature was in general through the eighteenth century marked by indifference and artificiality, we may throw as high lights as we please on the exceptions. // This study will serve its purpose if, in its following-out of the complexities and inconsistencies that make a transition period interesting, it shall succeed in showing that, along with the classical feeling toward Nature, there was also a real and vital love for the out-door world, and that this new attitude toward Nature is marked by first-hand observation, by artistic sensitiveness to beauty, by personal enthusiasm for Nature, by a recognition of the effect of Nature on man, and, occasionally, by an imaginative conception of Nature somewhat in the Wordsworthian sense. The new attitude toward Nature, of which Thomson is the first adequate exponent, finds occasional and not ineffective expression during the two decades before the publication of "Winter" in 1726. In the works of John Philips (1676 1709), Ambrose Philips (1675-1749), Lady Winchilsea (1661-1720), John Gay (1685-1732), Thomas Parnell (1679– 1718), William Pattison (1706-1727), Allan Ramsay (16861758), Kobert Riccaltoun (1691-1769), and Dr. Armstrong (1709-1779), we become more or less definitely aware of a new outlook on the external world. Dr. Johnson praised John Philips' poem "Cyder " because it had the "peculiar merit" of being "grounded in truth." On the whole this poem is of the didactic classical order, but here and there among the minutely accurate horticultural precepts we come upon indications that the poet was not insensible to the charms of Nature in other than its utilitarian aspects. His delight in color may be seen from his specific descriptions of apples. The pippin is "burnish'd o'er with gold;" the red-streak "with gold irradiate and vermilion shines." "Plumbs" are "sky-dyed." He notes the "Ore, Azure, Gules," and the blending of colors in the rainbow. He observes the contrast between fields yellow with grain, and green pasture land. And he sees the colored edges of clouds when the sun breaks through. There is also apparent a sensitiveness to odors. He speaks of cowslip-posies "faintly sweet," of odorous herbs, of the fragrance of apples on a dewy autumn morning, and of "the perfuming flowery bean." Mr. Shairp credits Thomson with being the first poet to mention the fragrance of the bean fields,' but Philips is at least twenty years ahead of Thomson in noting this fact. We see further indication of Philips' enjoyment of Nature in a few lines, Nor are the hills unamiable, whose tops "Cyder," i, 248. • Shairp, "The Poetic Interpretation of Nature," p. 199. "Cyder," i, 563. which were perhaps the earliest expression in the eighteenth century of that pleasure in high hills and wide prospects that was so marked a characteristic of later poetry. Philips' explanation of the satisfaction he found in an early morning walk, namely, that the mind perplexed with irksome thought is calmed by the influence of Nature,' seems like a prophecy of the thought afterward dominant concerning man's indebtedness to Nature. In Ambrose Philips' "Pastorals" we find a mingling of first-hand observation and classical imitation. His references to the ancients, his amoebean contests, the supposed effect of the death of Albino on the external world, the emphasis on dangers from heat and the nightly wolf, the frequent use of cumulative comparisons,' and, in general, the form of his "Pastorals," show how closely he was held by conventional ideas. Furthermore, his facile use of Nature is always determined by his attitude toward some pastoral nymph or swain. He rejoices to paint an idyllic background for some Rosalind. He heaps up images from Nature to express the amorous praises of some Colinet. He has no conception of a relation between man and Nature more intimate than the highly artificial one of his "Pastorals." What is of importance in his poetry is the fact that in the midst of his imitations and conventionalities are many true and charming observations drawn entirely from English country life and not found in earlier eighteenth-century poetry. His work is, to be sure, rendered weak and childish by two unpleasant mannerisms in diction: his use of adjectives ending in "y," as "bloomy," "dampy," "bluey," "steepy," "purply," and so on, and his use of diminutives such as "kidlings," "lambkins," : "Cyder," li, 65. • "Pastorals," i, 6; iii, 1, 6; iii, 41–44; iii, 69–74; I, 10; iv, 154; ▼, 8; 1, 27; li, 59; ii, 125-28; iii, 65–68; iv, 153–60. |