Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/101

 12 s. iv. APRIL, i9i8.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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of the second has in mind the earlier opinion, and modifies it a little :

" From Spenser's time to the middle of the last [seventeenth] century, English poetry did not advance ; but except in the drama it can scarcely be said to have been retrograde. The two Fletchers, Randolph, and May, if not Wither and Quarles, were men of uncommon genius, deservedly celebrated in their own times and strangely neglected at present." Crit. Rev., xxv. 41.

" From the time of Shakespeare to that of Milton, our taste was rather retrograde than progressive .... The minor kinds of poetry flourished ; from no writers can so beautiful an anthology be formed as from those of this age. Wither and Quarles deserve special mention, notwithstanding the frequent oddities of the one and the long fits of dullness of the other." ' Specimens,' xxiv-xxvi.

" The taste which Pope introduced was .calculated rather to make mediocrity tolerable than to produce excellence. We were sinking to the tame and tiresome regularity of French poetry ; the stream began to stagnate like a Dutch canal. Young, Thomson, and Akenside, rose to excellence ; but a sad rabble of versifiers appear in the collection at this period. The Wartons led us back to a better school." Crit. Rev., xxv. 42.

" The Anglo-Gallican school which Pope had perfected, died with him. The tune, indeed, which he set, every poetizer, whether man, woman, or child, has been singing ever since .... but not one writer since his days, who has acquired the slightest popularity, has been formed upon this school. Even in his own days the Reformation began. Thomson recalled the nation to the study of nature, which, since Milton, had been utterly neglected. Young's^ manner is unique. .. .Meantime the growing taste for Shakespeare gradually brought our old writers into notice. Warton aided in this good work." 4 Specimens,' xxxi-xxxii.

" Pope is at least the equal of Boileau." Crit. Rev., xxv. 50.

" Pope, though he imitated Boileau, is, in fact, as much superior to him as the English language is, in the opinion of an Englishman, superior to the French." ' Specimens," xxxi.

In the following passages it is not only the idea, but the almost identical phrasing, that is noteworthy :

" Our Milton indeed was living : spared by some caprice (for the best actions of Charles can be attributed to no better motive). .. .But his fame, says Winstanley, is gone out and stinks like the snuff of a caudle, because he was a most notorious traitor, and did belie the memory of that blessed martyr King Charles I." Crit. Rev., xxv. 41.

" Milton was excepted from the Act of Amnesty: and the mercy which induced the worst of a bad race to spare him, was so capricious, and appar- ently so motiveless, that it may almost be .considered as providential. His fame, says "Winstanley, is gone out," &c. ' Specimens,' xxvi-xxvii.

" The period between Milton and Pope may be called the dark age of English poetry." Crit. Rev., xxv. 41.

" The time which elapsed from the* days of Dryden to those of Pope, is the dark age of English poetry." ' Specimens,' xxix.

The reviewer gives unusually high praise to Sackville, crediting him with " a genius which seemed to promise that he would some day become the Dante of England." This accords closely with what Southey wrote a few years later in The Annual Review (vol. iii. pp. 493-9) in the course of an article on Irving' s ' Lives of the Scotish Poets.' * Finally, if more evidence is wanted, the reviewer's twice repeated reference to the desirability of a supplementary collec- tion has some bearing on his identification ; for the design which was ultimately realized in the collection from which we have been quoting had been in Southey' s mind ever since the beginning of 1796. See ' Life and Correspondence.'

' Rising Castle, with other Poems.' By George Goodwin. March, 1799. This is claimed by Southey in a letter to Taylor (Robberds, 'Memoir of William Taylor,' i. 263). This being an acknowledged article, Southey' s method is worth observing as offering a touchstone for his uncertain contributions. It begins with a gentle dissuasive to poets under nineteen, but admits the advantage of attracting the attention of " more impartial critics than would probably be foiind among the author's acquaintance ; and the young writer is taught what to avoid." The reviewer draws on his knowledge of Ovid and Musaeus and Sappho, and detects an imitation of his own poetry :

" He seems to have read the poems of a living writer with great attention and to have copied his manner sometimes too closely. "t

The conclusion is one of kindly, if somewhat superior admonition :

" We have derived pleasure from these poems, imperfect as they are ; and it is because we hope for more, that we have dwelt with some minute- ness upon the faults of these. In the meantime we counsel him to extend his reading and_ to correct the feebleness of the versification into which his present models may perhaps lead him,


 * This article does not appear in C. Southey's

_ist of his father's contributions to The Annual

Review, but it is claimed, along with half a dozen

others, by Southey in a letter to John May. See

Select Letters,' ed. Warter, i. 336.

t See the letter to Taylor, loc. cit. : " On reviewing his book, I was amused at cautioning him against imitating a living writer."