Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

tion by the events consequent on the French Revolution. Perhaps it is impossible to name one of our classical bards so thoroughly free from every tinge of foreign style or sentiment. The days of German imitation, indeed, had not yet arrived, but our poetry had hardly worked itself free from French fashions, and Latin pomposity had but recently accomplished a majestic march in the measures of Johnson. Moreover, there was a sort of conventional diction afloat, which, if not easy at first sight to assign to a foreign parentage, was scarcely less of an exotic, compared to the plain-spoken English which Cowper brought into competition with it.

Another characteristic we observe in this poet, distinguishing him from the Calvinistic rhymesters who preceded him, is his strong moralizing vein. Morality had been kept so completely subordinate to the doctrines and experiences of faith by the party to which he belonged, that, from the days of Watts to those of Cowper, scarcely any mention of practical virtues is to be found in the verse that emanated from that source.

But it was to men's daily tasks and daily responsibilities that Cowper addressed himself; and his example, followed, as it was, by many writers of various degrees of merit, contributed to give to the evangelical school of this century its practical, domestic style of manners and feeling. It influenced, indeed, the character of our religious poetry more permanently than we may be generally aware of, and still survives the varieties of taste which that branch of composition has subsequently experienced.

The later times of the continental war were coincident with a spirit of romance and martial enterprise in our land, of which, as secular poets, Scott, Byron, and Campbell, were apt representatives. The hymns of Heber and Milman exhibit not a little of the colouring imparted even to religious poetry by the spirit-stirring influences of the day. There is something of almost chivalrous ardour in such strains as "From Green

And,

Son of God goes forth to war.” in the collection published by these writers, we, for the first time, witness an attempt to make the Church of England poetical by bringing her weekly services into connexion with the subjects of verse. We have alluded to James Montgomery. He, too, deserves notice as a writer of devotional lyrics, full of beauty, both of feeling and expression. He was a member of the Moravian Society; and his hymns, though more finished and graceful than those of the Wesleys, are, like them, chiefly concerned with the work of religion on the soul. It is by them, more than by his longer poems, that his merit is most generally recognised.

The

But the next important era in our religious poetry after the date of Cowper, was that of Wordsworth. "Lake School," so called, of which he was the principal leader-contemplative and philosophical in character-did not obtain a fair hearing till after the war and its immediate effects had subsided. Wordsworth was not a sacred poet, as the phrase is generally understood. Nevertheless, he has done much to mould our sacred poetry; more, probably, than any other poet within the range of our literature, save Spenser, Milton, and Cowper. The influence of Spenser belongs to a state of things long passed away, and we have nothing to say of him in this place; but it may be not uninstructive to bring some points of Wordsworth's genius into comparison with that of the other two: mentioned together, not for a moment as comparing them in merit, but because they both represent certain phases of thought, significant for our present purpose.

Milton, Cowper, and Wordsworth, each dealt with the appearances of nature, and with man's relations to the spiritual world. How did they severally approach those topics? Milton wrote of religion on its God-ward side. His imagination soared to the courts of heaven with the characteristic daring of the Puritanism of his age. He ventured to interpret the Almighty's counsels for

led him to delight in those descriptions of her beauties which, for grandeur of diction, scarce any poet in any age or country has come near; but he contemplated the material universe entirely as God's handmaid and tributary. Its morning skies, its nightly splendours, were all parts of the triumphant chant that was for ever arising from His works below as from His angels above.

Cowper wrote of religion on its human side of religion as applied to the every-day thoughts and habits of life. He loved to regard nature as a message to man's heart from his ever-present Father, and a means of devout communion with Him. In Milton's view, nature was rather a display of God's transcendent majesty; in that of Cowper, it was the voice of His paternal love.

With both these poets, the idea of God as revealed in the Bible gave the key-note to their meditations. Herein lies the difference between their standingpoint and that of Wordsworth. The latter aims rather at a philosophic appreciation of nature's influence over the heart, apart from system or creed. He looks upon her in the light of a teacher, to guide man to self-knowledge and selfdiscipline, without the à priori assumption of a Revelation, by which the sentiment both of Milton and of Cowper is determined. Perhaps we may say that the elevation of nature to the rank of an independent teacher was a gradual process; that, while Milton looked upon her as the Almighty's work of power and exceeding beauty, and nothing more, Cowper had already begun to listen to her with something of the spirit of a disciple, before Wordsworth advanced her authoritative claims to be studied and obeyed. But something also was derived from the ideas which the study of German had begun to infuse into our poetical literature :

"Erkennest dann der Sterne Lauf; Und wenn Natur dich unterweist, Dann geht die Seelenkraft dir auf, Wie spricht ein Geist zum andern

[blocks in formation]

A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things," &c.

It is evident, we repeat, that Wordsworth is not a sacred poet in the sense which any doctrinal zealots would accept. The religion he preaches is that, to use his own expression, of "a dreamer in the woods." True, it is very earnest and sublime, thoroughly pervaded by a sense of the moral government of God, and in harmony with revealed Faith. Still, revealed Faith is not the postulate on which it rests. We are not speaking of the ecclesiastical sonnets, in which he sentimentalizes on the worship and history of the Church of England, nor of other occasional pieces, but of that part of his poetry which is really original and characteristic of his genius, and which, as such, has imparted a new stock of ideas to the world. It follows, consistently enough, that, with the Evangelical party, Wordsworth has never been a favourite. But it is a fact that we see the evidence of his training in almost all other religious poets of the present day; not only in those of more liberal or fanciful views, but in those whose high Ecclesiasticism one would think was little enough in accordance with the very unsystematic faith of the Excursion and the Ode on Immortality. It so happened that Wordsworth had outlived his detractors, and become a popular poet, just about the time that the Oxford High-Church views were forming. In the alliance that took

thought, Keble led the way; and, if we ask what was the ground of the mutual attraction between such apparently opposite modes of thought, we shall perhaps detect it,

First, in the calm placid tone of feeling, the avoidance of all passionate emotion or expression, which, while in Wordsworth it was to some extent a reaction from the fire and tempest of Scott and Byron, was likewise aimed at by the Anglican religionists as a reaction from the excitement and fervour of the Evangelicals.

Secondly, in the encouragement given to the taste for symbolism by Wordsworth's reverential feeling for the material universe in all its parts. Wordsworth himself was not a symbolist, but he was in some sense a mystic. It was the informing Spirit of Nature that heworshipped almost. To contemplate that spirit as typical of a revealed and ecclesiastically organized system, was altogether foreign to his turn of thought; but the combination was easily made by those whose favourite dream it was to find the visible Church and its adjuncts shadowed everywhere.

Here, then, we have found our way to the historical position which Keble, as a sacred poet, occupies amongst us. Coming when modern Puritanism had reached its culminating point, and when, together with the rise of a new set of theological ideas, a new first-rate poet stood ready for imitation and adaptation, he inaugurated a fresh school of religious verse. Numerous have been his imitators; and, as is generally the case, they have exaggerated his peculiar characteristics into more or less of a conventional cant. But he was himself early imbued with the teaching of an older school. His religious sentiment was grounded rather on the biblical associations of the long dominant Puritanism, than on the mediaval associations of the Anglican Revival, which he himself contributed to bring about; and in these respects he stands in advantageous comparison with the writers eferred to. Though frequently obscure and fanciful, Keble is not affected. His

pathos is deep and tender; his love and observation genuine, if a little overstrained in sentiment and expression. He manifests an experimental sense of human griefs and necessities, which, with all who have known sorrow, must ever accredit his title to be an expounder of the everlasting text, Vanitas vanitatum ! All these qualities have made him a lasting favourite, and not with sharers in his own opinions only. In fact, we have a curious evidence, how little the formalism of his ecclesiastical views struck the world at first as a prominent characteristic of his verse, in a criticism of Professor Wilson's, which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, three years after the publication of the "Christian Year." The critic here speaks of the new bard much as he would have spoken of one of the pious elders of the Scottish Kirk, whom his fancy loved to idealize, supposing such elder to have possessed the faculty of verse. The inspiration was in his eyes much the same. The Bible, the Sabbath, the peasant's cottage, and the braes, are the principal features in his description of the sources of Keble's poetry and of its influence. And so no doubt with most of the world, it was as sentiment, not as system, that much of the phraseology of the Oxford school was at first regarded. But then came the "Tracts for the Times," and made its real purpose clear; and then, as in prose, so also in verse, a stereotyped set of notions and expressions soon came into vogue, limiting and hampering on every side that free communion with the heart and with nature which can alone ensure genuine power. Keble, not himself an original poet, though the originator of a new tendency of poetry, became the subject of imitation. Patristic allegorizing and mediæval hymnody were more and more resorted to as sources of inspiration, and much mawkish or dogmatic verse has been the result. The versifiers of this school indeed, have been mostly men of considerable attainment, and of more classical taste than the Methodists, of whatever [Blackwood, xxvii. 838.

denomination, ever affected. But, whereever a poet writes to uphold a party and a system, rather than to interpret nature and the human heart, cant of one kind or another will be the inevitable result. With all the pious feeling and graceful versification, for example, of the author of the "Cathedral," there is cant in the superstitious reverence he expresses for architectural forms and symbols, as much, perhaps, though of a very opposite kind, as in the daring familiarities with Divine things and persons which are to be met with in Dissenting and Low-Church hymnody. The "Lyra Apostolica," published in 1836, in which Keble himself wrote, was a much more

formal exposition of opinion than the "Christian Year." Some of Keble's coadjutors in this work, in fact before long overstepped the extremest limits of the Via Media. But the fashion of this world passes away, in devotional poetry as in other things. Though Keble's first work retains its hold over the public mind, the Ultra-Tractarian school of verse is now very much at a discount. The hymns of the German Gesangbuch, on the other hand, have of late been numerously and repeatedly translated. The "Lyra Germanica" has many more readers at the present day than the "Lyra Apostolica."

BEGGARS.

BY CHARLES ALLSTON COLLINS.

"La mendicité est défendue dans le Département du Pas de Calais."

This is one of the very first announcements which one reads on disembarking from the Dover packet. It is affixed to the celebrated gate of Calais, which Hogarth has immortalized, and a similar notice is to be found at the entrance to every one of the numerous departments of France. And, though there are just at this moment a great many beggars in Paris, it is yet certain that, as a rule, one is little annoyed by beggars as long as one remains in the French dominions.

It is not so here. In this free and happy country, the beggar thrives and prospers, persecutes, intimidates, and sometimes even, as will presently appear, makes a comfortable independence out of the credulity of the public. The days must surely be at hand when these things will be better looked after than they are at present; and, when these devouring tribes are no longer known among us, it will be interesting to have a record of their existence, as of any other obsolete

propose to draw up for the benefit of posterity.

It is a dreadful thing to be begged of. It is a dreadful thing to see Keziah Kadge waiting for one a few yards ahead by the side of the pavement. She has just been exhausting her eloquence upon a Greek gentleman, by whose side she has been ambling along all round the crescent, looking back straight into his eyes as she runs a little in front of him, which is the professional method, and a very effective one, too. She has abandoned the Greek, who is inexorable, and there she waits. for you. You cannot escape her without absolutely turning back, and even then I hardly think you would get rid of her; for Keziah's time is her own, she is very accommodating, and may as well be going your way as any other. Is there any one who has not quailed when he has seen the beggar-woman thus waiting for him, or, still worse, crossing over the street higher up, ready to attack him as soon as he gets within fire? Her mode of address is monotonous and unvarying. "Do, good gen

side, for she is a hard feeder and short of breath, and it is common for the victim to "force the pace" a little, in order to get rid of her.

"Do, good gentleman, have compassion on a poor girl-had nothing to eat all day, and mother at home with the fever." This, by the bye, is a very good stroke, for if the persecuted pedestrian happens to be of a nervous nature, he will think it cheap to be rid of the danger of infection at the price of all the copper, or rather bronze, which he happens to have about him. This is followed, if the victim is still obdurate, by a volley of benedictions, expressions of a hope that he may never want "it;" which, considering that he has got "it," and probably means to keep "it," seem almost superfluous. Then follow awful appeals to the Supreme Being to corroborate the truth of her statement; and as this, if you are well initiated in the art of begging, at once decides you not to give, it is commonly succeeded by some muttered curses, "not loud, but deep," to which she gives vent as she stands, having at last given you up, and watches your retreating figure with hateful and malignant eyes.

Those curses are of about as much importance as the blessings which immediately preceded them; but how does a man feel during the enacting of such a scene as that described above? He feels annoyed and uncomfortable. If things have that day been going well with him, if he has just been receiving a sum of money, if he is going home or elsewhere to a good dinner, and to the enjoyment of all sorts of comfort, he will feel a kind of weak and illogical conviction that he ought to impart a penny share in his prosperity to Keziah Kadge. If he does this, he knows, and, perhaps, acknowledges to himself, that he is acting like a fool, but still he goes to his dinner or other enjoyments with Keziah's full sanction and permission, which he otherwise felt to be withheld. Are beggars skilled physiognomists? Does Keziah Kadge know the man who has done a good stroke of business by his countenance? It is far from improbable. Has

the reader ever observed that there are some days on which he is more solicited for alms than on others-the same, perhaps, chosen by children to ask what o'clock it is in the public streets, or to request him to pull, on their behalf, "the top bell-handle on the left-hand door-post?"

The class of mendicants of which Keziah Kadge is a specimen, is an especially bad one. She is a strong, young, able-bodied woman, and yet an habitual and professional beggar. It is doubtful, however, whether she is quite the worst specimen of all. She is what may be called the clamorous beggar; is she as bad as the silent beggar?

With the silent beggar we have all been long familiar, though it is only now, as we shall shortly see, that he has reached the culminating point of full development. The silent beggar is ordinarily a thin and sickly-looking individual. He dresses generally in seedy black, showing, however, an aggravatingly white shirt-front, which, in its spotless cleanliness, is part of his stockin-trade, for he is "poor, but scrupulously clean." It is not unfrequently the case that nature will decorate the nose of the silent beggar with a fine vermilion tinge, which sets off the pallor of the other parts of his countenance to great advantage, and is-pray observe-in nowise the result of drinking. The scene chosen by the silent beggar for his mute appeal is generally one of our leading and most bustling thoroughfares, the Tottenham-courtroad or that of Edgeware; and here, selecting a situation where there is a good flaring gas-light blazing full upon himfor night, and especially Saturday night, is his great time-he takes up his position. It is not, however, his practice to stand upon the pavement; he is far too humble for that. He stands in the road, just at the edge of the kerbstone, and, to complete the unobtrusive character of his appearance, holds himself in a slightly stooping position, with his head bent down, and never removing his gaze from the pavement, except on rare occasions, to glance around him in

« ElőzőTovább »