1763 1764 1765 Percy's "Five Pieces of Runic Poetry" Hoole's "Version of Tasso" "The Poetical Calendar", ed. by Fawkes and Woty in 10 voll. (pendant to Dodsley). Evan Evan's "Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh" [Shenstone's "Essays on Men and Manners"] {Johnson's edition of Shakespeare and on the Ancient Drama Farmer's Essay on the learning of Shakespeare. 1767 1768 Capell's edition of Shakespeare. 1769 Hurd's "Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs" 1770 1771 "Northern Antiquities" (Percy's tranlation of Mallet's work) 1772 [Mickle's collection of fugitive poetry, in four vols. pub. by Pearch] 1772-94 Sir William Jones' translations from and essays on Oriental poetry. 1773 1774 Mason's "Life and Letters of Thomas Gray" 1774-81 Thomas Warton's "History of English Poetry" 1775 Le District) Mickle's "Version of Camoens' Lusiad" 1775-8 Tyrwhitt's edition of Chaucer 1776 1777 1778 1779 1781 Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" Thomas Evans' "Old Ballads... with some of Modern Date" [Vicesimus Knox's "Essays Moral and Literary”] [Johnson's "Lives of the Poets"] Pinkerton's "Scottish Tragic Ballads" Ritson's "Select Collection of English Songs" 1786 Hoole's "Version of Ariosto" Pinkerton's "Select Scottish Ballads" 1783-93 Ritson's "Northern Garlands" Sir Charles Wilkins' "Translations from Mahabharata" Gilpin's "Picturesque Beauty... Cumberland and Westmoreland" (3rd ed., 1792). Pinkerton's "Ancient Scottish Poems" Johnson's "Scot's Musical Museum" 1789 White's "Natural History of Selborne" 1790 1791 Ellis's "Specimens of Early English Poets" 1791-7 Mrs Radcliffe's three famous novels influence on Romantic literature, the Mediaevalists had had a greater following that the Scottish poets could claim; moreover, Hogg, Motherwell, and Leyden were as much influenced by mediaevalism as were Coleridge, Scott, and Keats. The pride of position among the Eighteenth-century Romantic groups belongs to "the Lyrical Writers", who produced much excellent verse, as for example that of Collins, Gray, Smart, and Blake,-possessed powerful confederates (Ramsay and Burns) in the Scottish camp, and potently influenced the Nineteenth-century Romantic poets, whose greatest glory resides in the lyrics of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, Shelley and Keats. Of course we must remenber that the lyric and the drama constitute England's best claim for poetic supremacy. Lyric poetry lies on the main line of the national development. CHAPTER 2 THE LYRICAL WRITERS. The Lyrical Writers not only began the Romantic movement of the Eighteenth Century but also, in the "Lyrical Ballads", crowned it and instituted the great poetry of the early Nineteenth Century. This was to be expected, since the drama and the lyric have ever been the glory of English poetry. Whenever our verse has been spontaneous, the lyric occupies a prominent place the most attractive Anglo-Saxon poetry consisted of lyrics; in the Middle Ages, the lyric, though slight in productiveness as compared with the romance, was significant, while the ballad a genre often closely connected, occasionally fused with the lyric-had great importance. But from the days of Wyatt and Surrey, lyrical poets have always been in the front rank; the Elizabethan lyric may pale beside the Elizabethan drama, but it is almost as eminent in its kind. When, during the years 1630-1660 the drama ran into rapid decline and then ceased through state interference, the lyric still at odd moments sang itself forth to those who cared to listen. From 1660 to 1710, most literature was of inferior merit and much of it artificial, the outstanding achievements being the Restoration Comedy and the rise into literary fame of the periodical. But in 1713 was published the "Miscellany Poems" of the Countess of Winchelsea: this volume, which attracted only moderate interest, signalised the beginning of a revived lyricism and a Romantic literature in general. Several of her poems revealed a profound love of Nature and stressed the personal element; naturalism and subjectivity became main lines of development in the new poetic movement. Four years later, Pope broke away from conventionalism in his "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady" and his "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard": here we find elegy and the ode, forms that were to play a notable part,-forms that may well be linked with the lyric proper under the general heading of lyrical verse. Ramsay wrote much that was lyrical; his original poems appeared from 1719 until some twenty years later. But the next independent lyrical poem was Glover's on Newton. The 'forties saw the lyric firmly established. Is 1743 Shenstone published his "Pastoral Ballad", containing many delightful lines; three yerrs afterwards, Joseph Warton brought out his "Odes", one of which-"The Enthusiast, or the Lover of Nature"-has been considered as marking the earliest complete rupture with the prevalent classicism, and at the close of the same year (1746) Collins issued his "Odes", which met with a poor reception but gradually won golden opinions when some of his pieces reappeared in Dodsley's "Collection of Poems"; the following year, several of Gray's pieces figured in Dodsley. In the next decade Gray published "Six Poems" (1753) and "Pindaric Odes" (1757), volumes that, confirming the success of the "Elegy", set him up as the leading poet of the day; midway between these two works came Grainger's "Ode to Solitude", a fine lyric and the author's sole noteworthy production. In the 'sixties appeared three important works, varying considerably among themselves; in 1763 Smart's "Song to David" resumed a strain begun long before by Crashaw, and repeated later in part by Blake at the close of the Eighteenth and in full by Francis Thompson at the end of the Nineteenth Century; in 1764 Shenstone's "Works", containing verse that had been scattered through various anthologies and periodicals and some unpublished matter; and in 1768 Gray's "Poems”, the main contribution to Romanticism lying in the adaptations from "Northern" mythology. Moreover, Shaw's "Monody" should be noted as a fine single poem, a poignant elegy. The next ten years, though they gave to the world Chatterton's "Rowley Poems" (to which, essentially manifestations of mediaevalism, we here refer thus cursorily), yet offered nothing else of preeminent merit in the purely lyrical manner; we must, however, note that in 1772 Sir William Jones published his "Poems from the Asiatick Languages", and in 1779 Thomas Warton issued a collected edition of his verse. But to make up for that rather tame period in pure lyricism, the following decade contained much of the work of the two greatest English lyrical poets of the century-Blake and Burns. In 1783 Blake's "Poetical Sketches" were published in an irregular manner and six years later came his "Songs of Innocence"; both volumes included many exquisite lyrics, spontaneous yet most artistic in expression, highly original without being bizarre; Blake sustained his verve in the "Songs of Experience", issued in 1794. Burns wrote lyrics of a very diffedent kind, but he belongs more properly to the group of Scottish writters; 1786, however, is a landmark in the history of English lyricism. In 1789 two minor poets brought out a small volume apiece Bowles in "Fourteen Sonnets", elegiacally lyrical, considerably influenced Wordsworth, Coleridge and Lamb; Thomas Russell, undeservedly much less known, likewise endowed quiet scenes with subjective charm, and he won the admiration of Wordsworth and Landor. Outside of the "Songs of Experience", the chief lyrical verse of the 'nineties was written by men that belong more especially to the next century. In 1796 Coleridge published his "Poems on Various Occasions", which held out a rich poetic promise, while from that date to 1798 Lamb put in print his early poems. The lyric, fully established during the last score years of the Eighteenth Century, became even more popular in the Nineteenth, and formed much of the best Romantic work of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Landor. And of these periods the authoress of the "Nocturnal Reverie" was the interesting initiator. Anne Finch, the daughter of a Hampshire baronet, was born in 1660. After some years at court, she and her husband (Heneage Finch) retreated in 1689 to Eastwell Park, where they dwelt, retired, for the rest of their lives. In 1712 Heneage Finch became fourth Earl of Winchelsea, and the next year the Countess issued the "Miscellany Poems", which represented the work of thirty years. "At Eastwell", writes Mr Edmund Gosse, "Lady Winchelsea studied the phenomena of nature more closely than any of her contemporaries; in the contemplation of the physical world she sought and found relief from a constitutional melancholia... In her park there was a hill, called Parnassus, to which she was particularly partial, and here she wrote many of her poems. She and her husbandthey called themselves "Daphnis" and "Ardelia"-lived in great |