Page images
PDF
EPUB

ments, earth, fire, and water; three out of the four seasons, spring, summer, and winter; and, indeed, to all the natural divisions of time except one; as day, night, morning, evening, twilight, noon, midday, midnight, sunrise, sunset, some of which are among the most poetical terms we have. To the same language we are indebted for the names of light, heat, cold, frost, rain, snow, hail, sleet, thunder, lightning, as well as almost all those objects which form the component parts of the beautiful in external scenery, as sea and land, hill and dale, wood and stream, &c. It is from this language we derive the words which are expressive of the earliest and dearest connections, and the strongest and most powerful feelings of nature, and which are, consequently, invested with our oldest and most complicated associations.

It is this language which has given us names for father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter, child, home, kindred, friends. It is this which has furnished us with the greater part of those metonymies and other figurative expressions, by which we represent to the imagination, and that in a single word, the reciprocal duties and enjoyments of hospitality, friendship, or love; such are hearth, roof, fireside. The chief emotions, too, of which we are susceptible, are expressed in the same language, as love, hope, fear, sorrow, shame; and what is of more consequence to the orator and the poet, as well as in common life, the outward signs by which emotion is indicated, are almost all Anglo-Saxon; such are tear, smile, blush, to laugh, to weep, to sigh, to groan. Most of those objects about which the practical reason of man is employed in common life, receive their names from the Anglo-Saxon. It is the language, for the most part, of business; of the counting-house, the shop, the market, the street, the farm; and, however miserable the man who is fond of philosophy or abstract science might be, if he had no other vocabulary but this, we must recollect that language was made not for the few, but the many, and that portion of it which enables the bulk of a nation to express their wants and transact their affairs, must be considered of at least as much importance to general happiness as that which serves the purpose of philosophical science.

Nearly all our national proverbs, in which it is truly said so much of the practical wisdom of a nation resides, and which constitute the manual and vade mecum of "hobnailed" philosophy, are almost wholly Anglo-Saxon. A very large

proportion (and that always the strongest) of the language of invective, humor, satire, colloquial pleasantry, is AngloSaxon.

Almost all the terms and phrases by which we most energetically express anger, contempt, and indignation, are of Anglo-Saxon origin. The Latin contributes most largely to the language of polite life, as well as to that of polite literature. Again, it is often necessary to convey ideas, which, though not truly and properly offensive in themselves, would, if clothed in the rough Saxon, appear so to the sensitive modesty of a highly-refined state of society; dressed in Latin, these very same ideas shall seem decent enough. There is a large number of words, which, from the frequency with which they are used, and from their being so constantly in the mouths of the vulgar, would not be endured in polished society, though more privileged synonymes of Latin origin, or some classical circumlocution expressing exactly the same thing, shall pass unquestioned.

There may be nothing dishonest, nothing really vulgar about the old Saxon word, yet it would be thought as uncouth in a drawing-room as the ploughman to whose rude use it is abandoned. Thus the word "stench" is lavendered over into unpleasant effluvia, or an ill odor; "sweat," diluted into four times the number of syllables, becomes a very inoffensive thing in the shape of "perspiration." To "squint" is softened into obliquity of vision; to be "drunk” is vulgar, but if a man be simply intoxicated or inebriated, it is comparatively venial. Indeed, we may say of the classical names of vices, what Burke more questionably said of vices themselves, "that they lose half their deformity by losing all their grossness." In the same manner, we all know that it is very possible for a medical man to put to us questions, under the seemly disguise of scientific phraseology and polite circumlocution, which, if expressed in the bare and rude vernacular, would almost be as nauseous as his draughts and pills. Lastly, there are many thoughts which gain immensely by mere novelty and variety of expression. This the judicious poet, who knows that the connection between thoughts and words is as intimate as that between body and spirit, well understands. There are thoughts, in themselves trite and commonplace when expressed in the hackneyed terms of common life, which, if adorned by some graceful or felicitous novelty of expression, shall assume an unwonted air of dignity and elegance. What was trivial, becomes striking; and what was plebeian, noble.

PART V I.

MODERN BRITISH LITERATURE.

[Abridged from Montgomery's Lectures.]

CHAPTER I.

ENGLISH LITERATURE UNDER THE TUDORS AND THE FIRST STUARTS.

FROM the reign of Elizabeth to the protectorate of Cromwell, inclusively, there rose in phalanx, and continued in succession, minds of all orders and hands for all work, in poetry, philosophy, history, and theology, which have bequeathed to us such treasures of what may be called genuine English Literature, that whatever may be the changes of taste, the revolutions of style, and the fashions in popular reading, these will be the sterling standards.

The standard of our tongue having been fixed at an era when it was rich in native idioms, full of pristine vigor, and pliable almost as sound articulate can be to sense-and that standard having been fixed in poetry, the most permanent and perfect of all forms of literature, as well as in the version of the Scriptures, which are necessarily the most popular species of readingno very considerable changes can be effected.

Contemporary with Milton, though his junior, and belonging to a subsequent era of literature, of which he became the great luminary and master-spirit, was Dryden. His prose (not less admirable than his verse), in its structure and cadence, in compass of expression, and general freedom from cumbersome pomp, pedantic restraint, and vicious quaintness, which more or less characterized his predecessors, became the favorite model in that species of composition, which was happily followed and highly improved by Addison, Johnson, and other periodical writers of the last century. These, to whom must be added the triumvirate of British historians, Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, who

exemplified, in their very dissimilar styles, the triple contrast and harmony of simplicity, elegance, and splendor-these illustrious names in prose are so many pledges that the language in which they immortalized their thoughts is itself immortalized by being made the vehicle of these, and can never become barbarian like Chaucer's uncouth, rugged, incongruous medley of sounds, which are as remote from the strength, volubility, and precision of those employed by his polished successors, as the imperfect lispings of infancy before it has learned to pronounce half the alphabet, and imitates the letters which it cannot pronounce with those which it can, are to the clear, and round, and eloquent intonations of youth, when the voice and the ear are perfectly formed and attuned to each other.—(For a more full account of Dr. Johnson, we may refer you to chap. vii., sec. v.)

CHAPTER II.

FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD.

FROM the Restoration, in 1660, to the time when Cowper had risen into full fame in 1790, may be dated the second grand era of modern English Literature, reckoning from Elizabeth to the close of Cromwell's protectorate, already mentioned, as the first.

The early part of this period (the reigns of Charles II. and James II.) was distinguished for works of wit and profligacy; the drama, in particular, was pre-eminent for the genius that adorned and the abominations that disgraced its scenes. The middle portion of the same period, from the Revolution of 1688 to the close of the reign of George II., was rather the age of reason than of passion, of fine fancy than of adventurous imagination in the belles lettres generally. Pope, as the follower of Dryden in verse, excelled him as much in grace and harmony of numbers as he might be deemed to fall below him in raci

ness and pithy originality. It is to be remarked, also, that, while Pope gave the tone, character, and fashion to the verse of his day, as decidedly as Addison had given to the prose, yet, of all his imitators, not one has maintained the rank of even a second-rate author; the greatest names among his contemporaries, Thomson and Young, being those who differed most from him in manner, subject, and taste, especially in those of their works which promise to last as long as his own.

Between Pope and Cowper, we have the names of Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, and Churchill. Of these, the two former have nothing in common with Pope; but they produced too little, and were too great mannerists themselves to be the fathers, in either line, of a school of mannerists; it is only when mannerism is connected with genius of the proudest order or the most prolific species that it becomes extensively infectious among minor minds. As for Goldsmith and Churchill, whatever they appear to have owed to Pope, they are remembered and admired for what they possessed independent of him.

Nothing in the English language can be more perfect than the terseness, elegance, and condensation of Pope's sentiments, diction, and rhyme.

CHAPTER III.

ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE PRESENT AGE.

WITH the exceptions already named, there was not a poet between Pope and Cowper who had power to command popular applause in any enviable degree.

Cowper's first volume, partly from the grave character of the longer pieces, and the purposely rugged, rambling, slip-shod versification, was long neglected, till The Task, the noblest effort of his muse, composed under the inspiration of cheerfulness, hope, and love, unbosoming the whole soul of his affections, intelligence, and piety, at once made our countrymen feel that neither the genius of poesy had fled from

« PreviousContinue »