Victorian Literature — Chapter I: The Poets. Part 2.

The catalogue of great English poets of the period is completed with the names of Rossetti and Morris.

Perhaps there is no more romantic figure in modern literature than =Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)=, although he has suffered cruelly from the biographer.

His father, Gabriele, was an Italian exile, a critic of Dante, a teacher of Italian in London.

His mother was a sister of the notorious Polidori, whose charlatanry is remembered wherever an interest in Lord Byron prevails.

The younger Rossetti had relatives--a brother, William Michael, who has written verses, criticisms, and a ponderous biography of Gabriel; and a sister, =Maria Francesca Rossetti (1827-1876)=, whose "Shadow of Dante" makes good reading for admirers of the great Florentine, and, indeed, may be recommended to every English student of Dante.

Another sister, =Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)=, wrote many books.

She will live by her "Goblin Market" (1862), and by numerous short poems.

Books of the type of "Called to be Saints" and "The Face of the Deep: A Commentary on the Revelation," have also won her much affection and admiration from religious sympathisers.

She was not responsible for "Maude" and "New Poems," inadequate works which her brother thought fit to publish after her death.

They are practically worthless.

Dante Rossetti was a considerable painter as well as a poet.

His name is written large in that pre-Raphaelite movement which gave him for associates Mr Holman Hunt and Sir John Millais.

The movement, which had Mr John Ruskin for its literary champion, when reduced to simple statement, meant a harking back to early mediæval art.

Sir John Millais and Mr Holman Hunt speedily abandoned this position, and Rossetti himself was never a pre-Raphaelite in any real sense.

The pre-Raphaelites issued in 1850 a journal under the editorship of Rossetti's brother, and to the _Germ_, as it was called, Rossetti contributed his poem, "The Blessed Damozel," and a story, "Hand and Soul."

To the _Germ_ also, Thomas Woolner (1825-1892), the sculptor, contributed the poems of "My Beautiful Lady."

One epoch in the life of Rossetti was his introduction to Mr Ruskin, and another was his first acquaintance with William Morris.

Ruskin bought his pictures with characteristic generosity, and further assisted Rossetti to publish "The Early Italian Poets" (1861), afterwards reprinted as "Dante and his Circle" (1874).

William Morris introduced Rossetti to his Oxford friends, including Mr Swinburne, and to the _Oxford and Cambridge Magazine_, in which many of his finest poems were published.

After his wife's death, from an overdose of laudanum in 1862, Rossetti moved to Queen's House, Cheyne Walk, where for a time he had for associates in payment of rent Mr Swinburne and Mr George Meredith, though the latter never actually lived in the house.

From that time to his death he published many important poems--ballads of singular power like "The White Ship," "The King's Tragedy," and "Sister Helen," and the many splendid sonnets of "The House of Life."

The two volumes of Rossetti's collected works must always command readers.

Rossetti died at Birchington-on-Sea, and a simple tomb in the churchyard marks his grave.

The name of =William Morris (1834-1896)= closes the list of Victorian poets of the first rank.

Morris was as versatile as Rossetti.

He touched many branches of Art with remarkable success.

Now he was designing wall-papers, and became a successful manufacturer in this branch of commerce: now he was indefatigable in printing notable books in English literature from a type which he had himself selected.

The wall-paper has given a new direction to the decoration of English houses, and the Kelmscott Press has added many beautiful books to our libraries, and given an impetus to a revival of taste in printing.

This was but a part of Morris's life.

Although a rich man, he was a vigorous lecturer on behalf of Socialism, and wrote many books, such as, for example: "The Dream of John Ball" (1888), and "News from Nowhere" (1891), in support of his ideals.

From the appearance of his "Defence of Guenevere" (1858), and "Life and Death of Jason" (1867), he was always publishing, and his translations from Homer, Virgil, and Scandinavian literature make a small library by themselves.

But a practical handbook to Victorian literature needs but to mention one of his books.

"The Earthly Paradise" (1868-70), will live as long as a love of good story-telling remains to us.

The tales are told by twenty-four travellers who desire to find the earthly paradise, and the book opens as do the Canterbury Tales with a Prologue.

The lyrical introduction is one of the most quotable things in our later literature:-- "Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears, Or make quick-coming death a little thing, Or bring again the pleasure of past years, Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, Or hope again for aught that I can say, The idle singer of an empty day.

"Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?

Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day.

"Folk say, a wizard to a Northern King At Christmastide such wondrous things did show That through one window men beheld the Spring, And through another saw the Summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines arow, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day."

William Morris has not seldom been confused with a writer with whom he had nothing in common but the name.

=Sir Lewis Morris (1833- )=, a Welsh squire, and candidate for Parliament, has stood for convention as decisively as William Morris has stood against it.

His "Songs of Two Worlds" (1871-5), and "Epic of Hades" (1876), brought him a considerable popularity, which "A Vision of Saints," and later books have not been able to maintain.

Another literary knight of our time who has secured a large share of public attention through his verse is =Sir Edwin Arnold (1832- )=, whose "Light of Asia" interpreted to many the story of Buddha's career.

A poem upon Christ and Christianity "The Light of the World," owed the fact of its smaller success to the greater familiarity of the public with its main incidents.

Sir Edwin Arnold has won other laurels as a traveller and as a journalist.

Some of the best poetry of the era has been produced by writers whose principal achievements are in the realm of prose.

The Brontës, Charles Kingsley, George Meredith, and George Eliot--to name but a few--all wrote verse which must ultimately have secured attention had they not made great reputations as novelists.

Assuredly, the three most successful poems in Victorian literature, of that portion of it which is already passing into oblivion, are "Proverbial Philosophy," "Festus," and "Philip Van Artevelde."

The "Proverbial Philosophy" of =Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810-1889)= created an excitement in literary and non-literary circles, which it is difficult for the present generation to comprehend.

It is true that when it was first published, in 1838, it was greeted by the _Athenaeum_ as "a book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's." In spite of this, it sold in thousands and hundreds of thousands; it went through over nine hundred editions in England, and five hundred thousand copies at least were sold in America.

It was translated into French, German, and many other tongues; its author was a popular hero, although of his later books, including "Ballads for the Times," "Raleigh, his Life and Death," and "Cithara," the very names are by this time forgotten.

Of "Proverbial Philosophy" itself there are few enough copies in demand to-day, and it is difficult for us to place ourselves in the position of those who felt its charm.

What to the early Victorian Era was counted for wisdom, and piety, and even for beauty, counts to the present age for mere commonplace verbiage.

Tupper's name has taken a place in our language as the contemptuous synonym for a poetaster.

"Festus," on the other hand, although not read to-day, has always commanded respectful attention.

Its author, =Philip James Bailey (1816- )=, wrote "Festus" in its first form, at the age of twenty, and it was published in 1839. The book was enlarged again and again, till it reached to three times its original length.

It may be that this enlargement has had something to do with its fate.

"Festus" was frequently compared to the best work of Goethe and of Mr Browning.

Even a more pronounced recognition accrued to the dramatic poems of =Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886)=, and more particularly to "Philip Van Artevelde" (1834), which was described by the _Quarterly Review_ as "the noblest effort in the true old taste of our English historical drama, that has been made for more than a century," and which attracted the keenest attention of all Sir Henry Taylor's contemporaries.

His entertaining "Autobiography" has told us that Taylor, who was an important official at the Colonial Office, knew all the famous men of his time.

Women have occupied no small share in the literary history of the past sixty years, although it is in fiction that their most enduring triumphs have been secured.

The most popular women poets, next in order to Mrs Browning, have been Eliza Cook and Jean Ingelow.

=Eliza Cook (1818-1889)= wrote for the most part the kind of verses which would now be rejected by the editor of the Poet's Corner of a provincial newspaper.

She would be little more than a vague memory, were it not for "The Old Arm-Chair"; but she has other claims to consideration.

In the forties and the fifties _Eliza Cook's Journal_ was one of the most prominent publications of the day, and it did much for the cause of literature and philanthropy.

=Jean Ingelow (1820-1897)= survived, as did Eliza Cook, to see her verse well-nigh forgotten, and yet it is stated that two hundred thousand copies of her poems have been sold in America alone.

Miss Ingelow, who was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, and died in London, will live in anthologies by her ballad, "High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire," by a song in "Supper at the Mill," and by sundry short poems.

A certain brighter and more humorous kind of verse had its beginnings with Thomas Hood and the author of "The Ingoldsby Legends."

=Thomas Hood (1798-1845)= has endeared himself to the whole reading world by his "Song of the Shirt" (1844); and his "Dream of Eugene Aram" (1829) is not less familiar.

But in addition to this he had an abundance of wit and drollery side by side with pathos and tenderness, which will always make a splendid tradition and a great inspiration.

Hood was a journalist.

His prototype, =Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845)=, was an Anglican clergyman.

His pseudonym of Thomas Ingoldsby calls up memories of some of the quaintest and drollest verse ever written.

"The Ingoldsby Legends" were first contributed to _Bentley's Miscellany_, and afterwards collected in volumes.

"The Jackdaw of Rheims" is the most popular.

Barham's once successful novel, "My Cousin Nicholas," is now all but forgotten.

The most famous successors of Hood and Barham have been Calverley and Mr Austin Dobson.

=Charles Stuart Calverley (1831-1884)= wrote "Fly Leaves" and "Verses and Translations."

Mr Dobson has published, in addition to many valuable prose works, the exquisite "Vignettes in Rhyme" and "Proverbs in Porcelain," which, with Mr Andrew Lang's "Ballades in Blue China," form a dainty contribution to the lighter literature of the epoch.

A determination to say as little as possible concerning writers still young in years, though already famous, will make, it may be, my summary of Victorian poetry seem inadequate to many.

Mr Traill, a discerning critic, has specified some hundred or more "minor poets" who flourish to-day!

But it cannot be doubted that the minor poet of our era, with his excellent technique, his deep feeling, and his high-minded impulsiveness, is separated by an immense gulf from the minor poet of an earlier period.

The Pyes and the Hayleys, who were famous in an age when criticism was less of an art, had little enough of the real poetical faculty.

That faculty can scarcely be denied to the hundred or more of living bards who now claim the suffrages of the poetry-loving reader.

It cannot be denied also to many men who have passed away during the present era--to Alexander Smith and Sydney Dobell in one period, and to Coventry Patmore and James Thomson in another.

=Alexander Smith (1830-1867)= was an industrious essayist as well as a poet.

Tennyson and Mrs Browning concurred in their esteem of Smith as a poet "whose works show fancy, and not imagination"; and this might with truth be said of too many of the minor bards, and, indeed, constitutes the dividing line.

Sydney Yendys, under which pseudonym =Sydney Dobell (1824-1874)= co-operated with Smith in "Sonnets on the War" (1855), was a poet of similar temperament.

=Coventry Patmore (1823-1896)= is known to the many through his "Angel in the House," a poem upon domestic bliss which breathed a note not always sincere, but to which Mr Ruskin assured a certain popularity through effective quotation in his "Sesame and Lilies."

A certain ecstatic band of admirers attached more importance to Patmore's "Unknown Eros."

These admirers spoilt him by adulation.

He probably looked forward with the same keen assurance to the verdict of posterity as did Southey; and posterity it is all but certain will be as ruthless in the one case as in the other.

Patmore's life was one of luxury and independence.

Quite the reverse was the fate of =James Thomson (1834-1882)=, whose great poem, "The City of Dreadful Night," was published in Mr Charles Bradlaugh's _National Reformer_ in 1874, and not republished as a book until 1880. Thomson had a melancholy career which ended in drink and disaster.

He died in University Hospital, London.

His "City of Dreadful Night" is peculiarly a reflection of the age that is passing.

It secured even during the poet's life the commendation of George Eliot, of George Meredith, and of other critics; and it may yet command a large audience, who breathe the note of pessimism which was always characteristic of the writer:-- "The sense that every struggle brings defeat Because Fate holds no prize to crown success, That all the oracles are dumb or cheat Because they have no secret to express;

That none can pierce the vast black veil uncertain Because there is no light beyond the curtain;

That all is vanity and nothingness."

A poet whom one names with peculiar reverence is =Thomas Aubrey de Vere (1814- )=, the son of Sir Aubrey de Vere, who was also a poet.

Aubrey de Vere, the younger, knew and loved Wordsworth, to whom in 1842 he dedicated "The Waldenses: A Lyrical Tale," and yet retains, sixty years later, the most sympathetic interest in modern literary effort.

Mr de Vere is an Irishman, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin.

He has written many volumes of poetry and prose, his dramatic poems "Alexander the Great" and "St Thomas of Canterbury" having, no doubt, been largely inspired by the successes of his friend and relative, Sir Henry Taylor, and by his father's brilliant drama, "Mary Tudor."

One of his most recent books was a volume of critical essays containing a notable study of Wordsworth.

Irishmen have been fairly conspicuous in the poetry of the epoch, and the term "Celtic Renaissance" has begun to be used hopefully by lovers of Ireland who desire that country to have a literature as distinctly Irish as Scotland has a literature definitely Scottish.

=Thomas Moore (1779-1852)= was the pioneer of this movement.

He had, it is true, done all his work before the Queen came to the throne, although he lived yet another fifteen years.

His "Irish Melodies" began to appear in 1807, "Lalla Rookh" was published in 1817, and the "Life of Byron" in 1830. Moore was as much an inspiration to modern Ireland as Burns to modern Scotland, and the one country holds the name of its poet as reverentially in memory as does the other.

Moore, however, lacked the note of passionate sincerity which pertained to Burns; although we may fairly ask what would have been the career of Burns had he been thrown early into the literary and social life of London--the London of Byron's time.

The influence of Moore was strong in =Thomas Davis (1814-1845)= whose "National and Historical Ballads, Songs and Poems" caused so great a ferment in the heart of Young Ireland.

Many other Irish writers deserve to be named, such as James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849), Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-1886), Lady Dufferin (1807-1867) and John Banim (1798-1842), who wrote, in conjunction with his brother Michael, some twenty-four volumes of Irish stories and verses.

=Samuel Lover (1797-1868)= is best known in England by his romance "Rory O'More" and his ever popular "Handy Andy," but in Ireland he is remembered as a writer of lyrics and ballads of heart-stirring character.

An Irishman by descent, although not by birth, was =Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883)=, who was born in Suffolk and lived all his life in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge in that county.

FitzGerald's "Letters and Literary Remains" fill three substantial volumes, but he lives for us by his translation or rather paraphrase of the "Rubáyát of Omar Khayyám of Naishápur," which first appeared in 1859. It is generally agreed that FitzGerald, a nineteenth century pagan, always reverently questioning the mystery of existence, superadded his own personal thoughts and feelings to the verses of the old Persian singer.

In doing this he touched deeply a certain aspect of the second half of the nineteenth century and founded a cult.

FitzGerald's verses, however, have been ardently admired by many who are far from accepting their pessimist view of life.

=Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849)= wrote and published his admirable sonnets before 1837. He was a son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), whose literary remains were edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge, a nephew and son-in-law.

H.

N.

Coleridge married the great poet's only daughter, =Sara Coleridge (1803-1852)=, who wrote one poem, "Phantasmion," and whose letters throw much light on an important chapter of literary history.

=Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874)=, better known as "Barry Cornwall," was at school with Lord Byron at Harrow.

His "Dramatic Scenes," "Marcian Colonna," and "Mirandola" were much talked of in their day.

Procter was admired as a poet by Byron, Moore, and other famous contemporaries, but no one reads him now.

A happier fate has befallen his daughter, =Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-1864)=, whose "Legends and Lyrics" are still widely popular.

Winthrop Mackworth Praed, who wrote much admirable humorous and satirical verse, is not a Victorian author, although his present popularity makes that rather hard to realise.

He died in 1839. =Richard Hengist Horne (1803-1884)=, on the other hand, although he lived into our time, is now remembered only by his friendship with Mrs Browning and by the humorous freak of publishing his epic "Orion" at a farthing.

He was the author of a miracle play entitled "Judas Iscariot," a tragedy entitled "The Death of Marlowe," and many other works.

Another writer of well-nigh forgotten tragedies was =Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849)=, who wrote "The Bride's Tragedy" and "Death's Jest Book."

A like extinction, it is to be feared, has befallen Ebenezer Jones and Ebenezer Elliott--the former of whom belonged to that spasmodic school of poets of which Alexander Smith and Philip James Bailey were supposed to be the leaders.

=Ebenezer Jones (1820-1860)= wrote "Studies in Sensation and Event," to which in 1879 his brother, Sumner Jones, attached an interesting biography.

There is very genuine poetry in the volume, but it is not likely to be republished.

=Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849)= had a very different fate.

He enjoyed for many years the suffrages of the multitude.

His "Corn Law Rhymes" played a considerable part in the political agitation of the period.

James Montgomery called him "the poet of the poor."

Another writer with a fine democratic impulse was =Gerald Massey (1828- )=, who was associated with the Chartist movement, and wrote "Poems and Charms" and "Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love."

Another Chartist was =Thomas Cooper (1805-1892)=, who wrote "The Purgatory of Suicides" and many other poems and an entertaining autobiography.

Cooper was an active political agitator, and was imprisoned for two years in Stafford gaol for sedition.

A poet who holds a great place in the minds of many is =William Barnes (1820-1886)=, who kept a school for a time in Mr Thomas Hardy's town of Dorchester.

He afterwards became a clergyman and rector of Winterbourne-Came.

He was a philologist as well as a poet, and published many works on language.

His interest for us here is in his "Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect" (1844).

Another poet-clergyman of great learning was =Robert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875)= whose work reflects Devonshire and Cornwall as Barnes' reflects Dorsetshire.

He wrote the "Song of the Western Men" which he deceived Macaulay into believing to be an old Cornish ballad, and the great historian introduced it into his "History of England" as an example of the excitement caused by the arrest of the seven bishops.

[7] Its stirring refrain:-- "And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die?

Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why" will always keep Hawker in remembrance.

He was vicar of Morwenstow and wrote several volumes of poems and some prose, including "Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall."

Two poets, father and son, made the name of Marston honoured in their days.

John Westland Marston (1819-1890) was born at Boston, Lincolnshire.

He wrote two dramas, "Strathmore" and "Marie de Méranie," which had much success some years ago.

Another work, "A Hard Struggle," obtained the enthusiastic praise of Dickens.

Dr Garnett claims for Marston that he was long the chief upholder of the poetical drama on the English stage.

=Philip Bourke Marston (1850-1887)=, a son of Westland Marston, should not have failed of literary success, as he had for godfather Philip James Bailey, the author of "Festus," and for godmother Miss Mulock, author of "John Halifax, Gentleman."

He, however, became blind at three years of age.

He published three volumes of verse, "Song Tide and Other Poems" (1871), "All in All" (1875) and "Wind Voices" (1883).

They were never popular, although his poetry gained him the esteem of many eminent men, Rossetti and Mr Swinburne among others.

Mrs Chandler Moulton, an American lady who wrote "Swallow Flights," gave us a memoir of Philip Bourke Marston.

In this she was assisted by Mr William Sharp, who was also one of Rossetti's biographers.

Mrs Moulton did a like good office to the memory of =Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844-1881)=, a poet of considerable distinction in his day.

O'Shaughnessy married the younger Marston's sister.

His "Epic of Women & Other Poems," published in 1870, was a volume of very great promise.

He wrote other verses, which never attained to quite the same measure of success.

It only remains for me to name =Alfred Austin (1835- )= the Poet Laureate.

After Lord Tennyson's death in 1892 the office remained vacant for four years.

The two poets who might have been considered to have had some claim, William Morris and Mr Swinburne, were supposed to be impossible on account of democratic sympathies, although it is doubtful if either would have accepted the office.

Almost every living poet, however small the bulk of his achievement, and however inconsiderable his years, was nominated--by the press--in turn.

Finally, in 1896, by a pleasant irony of circumstances, the laureateship was given to a journalist,--for Mr Austin had been a leader-writer on the staff of the _Standard_ newspaper for many years.

He has written "The Golden Age, a Satire" (1871), "Savonarola" (1881), "English Lyrics" (1891), and many prose works.

His "English Lyrics" contained an appreciative introduction by William Watson, the author of "Wordsworth's Grave," "Lachrymæ Musarum," and other poems which have been received with abundant cordiality by the press and public.

Another living poet who has been well and justly praised is =Rudyard Kipling (1864- )=.

He made his earliest fame as a writer of short stories of Indian military life.

"Soldiers Three" and "Wee Willie Winkie" have entirely captivated the imagination of Mr Kipling's contemporaries.

It is as a poet, however, that he will perhaps longest retain his hold upon them.

His "Barrack-Room Ballads" (1892) are finely touched with that martial spirit which so strongly appeals to the heart of our nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As, for example, _The Battle of Blenheim_, _The Inchcape Rock_ and _The Cataract of Lodore_.

[2] "The Nelson Memorial," by J. K.

Laughton, 1896. "The Life of Nelson.

The embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain," by Captain A. T.

Mahan, 1897. [3] "Select Poems of Wordsworth," by Matthew Arnold.

"Golden Treasury Series."

[4] Charles Kingsley's "Two Years Ago" appeared the same year--in 1857. [5] Reprinted in 1875 in "Essays and Studies."

[6] See "Poems and Prose Remains" by Arthur Hugh Clough, with a Selection from his Letters, and a Memoir, edited by his wife.

2 vols.

, 1888. [7] All over the country the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden is still remembered.

MACAULAY, History, Vol. II.

, p. 371. CHAPTER II