Modern Parnassus; or, The New Art of Poetry/Part 4

by Anonymous

PART IV.

 

 

THE CONTRAST.

 

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. . . . . . gratior it dies
Et soles melius nitent.
Hor. Car. lib. iv. ode 15. 

 

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ARGUMENT.

Ancient Toil and modern Facility in Composition—Difficulty of qualifying for ancient Poetry—Happiness of the modern Novitiate—Seclusion of the Poet professed—Choice of Subjects—Of Thoughts—Of Words—Praise of Simplicity.

HOW pleasing from some sea-washt rock's tall brow,
To watch the lab'ring vessel toss below!
'Tis not the crew's distress, which gives the charm,
But danger seen, ourselves secure from harm.
Thus, with a grateful joy and pitying smile,
We view the ancient Minstrel's endless toil.
While, free from care, we pour th' unlabour'd song,
Despise the Critic, and delight the throng.

 Of old the Poet's ills with youth began,
The boy bewail'd the woes, which vex'd the man.
The dread of Censor's frown, the fruitless toil,
The sickly hue, the waste of midnight oil,
The posture chang'd, the forehead prest in vain;
All spoke the mis'ry of the ancient strain.
The thought was natural, but then 'twas low—
Give him a pen, his slave had written so^[1].
This was sublime, but then 'twas out of place,
Lines from their station oft are grand or base^[2].
The thought selected, after hours of pain,
In choice of words far greater pangs remain.
This suits the meaning, but confounds the rhyme^[3],
That matches both, but does not fall in time.
But grant the words run smooth, the sense be clear,
At once to feed the mind and sooth the ear;
Some graceful touch invades the luckless strain,
Unhinges all, and brings the toil again^[4].

 These needless tortures are to us unknown,
Slight is our labour, speedy our renown.
We have explor'd the royal road to fame,
Which ancient times misdeem'd an idle name.
Our Bard elect, a heedless happy boy,
Consumes his nights in sleep, his days in joy.
No irksome musings, oft revis'd with care^[5],
Exhaust his spirits or his looks impair.
His healthful cheeks their ruddy freshness keep,
As village hind's, who guards the mountain sheep.
His spirits riot with as warm a glow
As his, who tracks the game in morning snow;
Nor Aristotle's rule, nor Virgil's theme,
Curtails his play, or breaks, his midnight dream.
Their very names perchance to him unknown,
Their maxims ne'er prescrib'd, nor models shown.
Self taught on native genius to rely,
He leaves the aid, which other times supply^[6].
With gay delight, he sweeps the easy lyre,
While parents urge him, and their friends admire.

 At length, when time has thrown the manly vest
O'er the full stature of the Bard profest;
A louder prelude, struck with fearless hand,
Proclaims, who charms his friends can charm the land.
If not condemn'd by Want's imperious call,
To the loath'd counter, or the toilsome stall;
Stretch'd at his ease, some lake's green verge along,
He pours to rocks and waves his careless song.
Or loves at noon on some warm slope to lie,
And "tranquil muse upon tranquillity^[7]."
Far from the din of towns and cant of schools,
He dwells with Nature and he laughs at rules.
He asks no sage's lamp, but her bright beam,
To warm his genius and illume his theme,

 And when the Muse's frenzy rolls his eye,
Above, below, around, in earth and sky;
When Nature, true to Fancy's strong controul,
Spreads all her stores before his raptur'd soul,
'Mid the dark horror of the mountain storm,
The tossing flood, the cliff's gigantic form;
Or, if serener visions sooth his breast,
Vales and green woods in all their glories drest,
Love's tender vow and Beauty's soft disdain,
Seclusion's rest and Friendship's parting pain;
Amid this rich profusion, which the theme,
Cull'd from the rest, inspires his wondrous dream?
Oh censure not his choice, if, free from pride,
He takes the small and lays the vast aside,
Nature is Nature still, wherever seen,
In an owl's hooting^[8], or an ass's mien^[9].
From ev'ry theme alike, or grand or low,
As leaves on trees, unnumber'd thoughts will grow,
But lest these stores the wav'ring choice confuse,
An easy maxim guides th' obsequious Muse.
When wild'ring fancies crowd upon the brain,
Secure the leader of the airy train^[10].
Doubting impedes the freedom of the lay,
Augments the labour, throws the time away;
Looks like the abject toil of slavish art,
Shows more the thoughtful head than feeling heart.
What care the public for such needless pains?
They love alike our rough or finish'd strains^[11].
If all have equal praise, 'tis surely best,
To seize first thoughts; let pedants take the rest.
By easy boldness, Nature's works are known,
Her vot'ry's wonders should be like her own.
As from each subject thoughts unnumber'd grow,
So, thoughts provided, words of course will flow.
Toil his abhorrence, ornament his scorn,
No high wrought speech our Minstrel's thoughts adorn.
Rebels, he cries, to nature, fools of art,
Skill'd to pervert the taste, not move the heart,
Whoe'er ye are, that venture to defile
The pure conceit with misnam'd charms of style.
Those base utensils of the rhyming trade,
But mar the beauty they pretend to aid.
Oh sweet Simplicity! of rustic mien,
Whose household phrase is heard on village green^[12];
Where hinds and cottage maids, at setting sun,
In talk and gambol join, their labour done;
Be thou the Poet's muse! thy aid I crave,
From Art's false glare thy suppliant's numbers save.
So may all Bards abjure the fabled nine,
And duteous bend before thy unhewn shrine.
Had Maro felt thy pow'r, his labour'd strain
Would flow in thoughts more common, phrase more plain.
Dido in homelier speech would mourn her fate,
And homelier numbers Troy's last woes relate.

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1. Non satis est puris versum perscribere verbis,
   Quem si dissolvas, quivis stomachetur eodem
   Quo personatus pacto pater.
   Hor. lib, i, sat. iv, 54.
   
   
2. Sed nunc non erat his locus.
   Ep. ad. Piso.
   
   
3. M. Boileau was a remarkable instance of this perplexity.
   Mais moi qu' un vain caprice, une bizarre humeur
   Pour mes péchés, je crois, it devenir rimeur,
   Dans ce rude métier, où mon esprit se tue,
   En vain pour la trouver je travaille et je sue;
   Souvent j'ai beau rêver du matin jusqu' au soir;
   Quand je veux dire blanc, la quinteuse dit noir.
   Si je veux d'un galant dépeindre la figure,
   Ma plume pour rimer trouve l'Abbé de Pure:
   Si je veux exprimer un auteur sans défaut,
   La raison dit Virgile, et la rime Quinault.
   Sat. ii, 12.
   
   
4. Sæpe stylum vertas, iterum quæ digna legi sint Scripturus.
5. Happy deliverance from such servitude as the following lines bespeak.
   Ah quoties aliquis frustra consueta retentat
   Munera, nec cernit cœlum se tendere contra,
   Adversosque Deos, atque implacabile numen!
   Vid. Poet. ii, 420. 
   
   
6. The case and happiness, which our youthful bard experiences, in the disregard of all obsolete maxims, entirely gives the lie to the portentous denunciation of Vida.
   Infelix autem (quidam nam sæpè reperti)
   Viribus ipse suis temerè qui fisus et arte,
   Externæ quasi opis nihil indigus, abnegat audax
   Fida sequi veterum vestigia.
   Poet. iii, 245. 
   
   
7. And thus, my love, as on the midway slope
   Of yonder hill, I stretch my limbs at noon,
   Whilst through my half-clos'd eyelids I behold
   The sunbeams dance like diamonds on the main,
   And tranquil muse upon tranquillity,
   Pull many a thought, uncall'd and undetain'd,
   And many idle flitting phantasies,
   Traverse my indolent and passive brain.
   Coleridge's Poems, p. 130, third edit. 
   
   
8. The owls have hardly sung their last,
   While our four travellers homeward wend;
   The owls have hooted all night long,
   And with the owls began my song,
   And with the owls must end.
   ⁠Wordsworth's Lyr. Bal. fourth edit.
   ⁠vol. i, p. 128
   
   
9. Poor little foal, of an oppressed race!
   I love the languid patience of thy face,
   And oft, with gentle hand, I give thee bread,
   And clap thy ragged coat, and pat thy head.
   But what thy dulled spirits bath dismay'd,
   That never thou dost sport along the glade?
   •⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•
   Innocent foal! thou poor, despis'd forlorn,
   I hail thee brother, spite of the fool's scorn.
   ⁠Poems by S. T. Coleridge—Piece entitled, "To
   ⁠a young Ass, its Mother being tethered near it."
   
   
10. By this means you avoid the fatigue prescribed by the old writers.
    Quinetiam augustis si non urgebere rebus
    Cum fandi tibi mille viae, tibi mille figurae
    Occurrunt, tum mille yias, tum mille figuras
    Nunc hanc, nunc aliam ingredere et mutare memento.
    Vid. Poet. iii, 32.
    
    
11. The "Idiot Boy" of Mr. Wordsworth has had more admirers than the more elaborate composition, entitled "Animal Tranquillity and Decay;" in which the author, in spite of his system, has fallen into the style of what the malcontents would term the old genuine orthodox poetry.
    ⁠The little hedgerow birds,
    That peck along the road, regard him not.
    He travels on, and in his face, his step,
    His gait, is one expression; every limb,
    His look and bending figure, all bespeak
    A man, who does not move with pain, but moves
    With thought. He is insensibly subdu'd
    To settled quiet; he is one by whom
    All effort seems forgotten; one, to whom
    Long patience hath such mild composure giv'n,
    That patience now doth seem a thing of which
    He hath no need.
    Lyr. Ball. vol. i, page 7. 
    
    
12. Mr. Wordsworth's theory leads him to choose low and rustic life, as the subject of his verse. He states several reasons for adopting the language of that condition, He contends, in his preface to Lyrical Ballads, that "such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation."
    ⁠This is language, which might be employed with sincerity both by the advocates of the ancient and the modern school; but the meaning, which they would severally attach to it, would be far different. Mr Wordsworth's meaning is obvious, from his illustration of the doctrine in the Lyrical Ballads, which exhibit the character and language of Betty Foy, Johnny, &e. &c.
    ⁠In pursuance of this plan of poesy, it would be easy, in a future edition of Milton's Poems, to expunge the Arcadian names, by which he attempted to elevate the thought, and soften the style; and to substitute, in their place, the Christian and sirnames, which are used in common life.
    THE OLD WAY.
    Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
    From betwixt two aged oaks,
    Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
    Are at their sav'ry dinner set,
    Of herbs and other country messes,
    Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses;
    And then, in haste, her bow'r she leaves,
    With Thestylis to bind the sheaves.
    IMPROVED VERSION.
    Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
    From betwixt two aged oaks,
    Where Harry Gill and Johnny met,
    Are at their sav'ry dinner set,
    Of herbs and other country messes,
    Which the neat-handed Betty dresses;
    And then, in haste, her bow'r she leaves,
    With honest Giles to bind the sheaves.
    
    
    This improvement of style seems to have been adopted by some cotemporaries of M. Boileau, who speaks of the circumstance with his usual prejudice against innovation.
    Au contraire, cet autre, abject dans son langage,
    Fait parler ses Bergers, comme on parle au village.
    Ses vers plats et grossiers, dépouillés d'agrément,
    Toujours baisent la terre, et rampent tristement.
    On dirait que Ronsard sur ses pipeaux rustiques
    Vient encor fredonner sea Idylles gothiques,
    Et changer, sans respect de l'oreille et du son,
    Lycidas en Pierrot, et Phyllis en Thoinon.
    L'Art. Poet. chan. ii. 
    
    
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