One cares less to understand the poem than to feel the exaltation that comes from its vague images and bewildering music.

From Coleridge's example we learn that poetry cannot be made by deliberate "art." Coleridge knew just as Critical Theory much about

vs. Divine Fire

the "art"

when he wrote an uninspired poem as when he wrote a great one. But no knowledge, or application, or ingenuity could compel the "divine fire." When inspiration does come to a poet, then all his previous practice and planning will aid him. But until the wind of inspiration comes, his effort is in vain. The eighteenth-century poet could write when he chose. He could write out his ideas in prose and patiently translate them into clever heroic couplets. There was no waiting upon winds of inspiration! It was a matter of diligence and ingenuity. But poetry, as we speak of it to-day, is a mystery. A poet knows only that the call and the vision come. No poet has ever written a great line without surprised wonder.

COLERIDGE

Coleridge, besides being a poet, was a critic and philosopher. He and Wordsworth were among the first English

men to realize the importance of German philosophy and criticism. He contributed a good deal to As Critic criticism. Like Johnson, his influence cannot

be measured by what he actually wrote. He was a wonderful talker and his ideas had great influence upon younger authors who came to listen. To what he learned from German critics, he added ideas of his own. His notions about Shakspere and about the drama in general were in advance of his day. It is impossible to study any annotated edition of Shakspere without coming across ideas that Coleridge suggested or inspired.

Associated with Wordsworth and Coleridge is Robert Southey (1774-1843). He was, in his lifetime, the most successful of the three. He died famous.

Southey

Yet few poets have slipped so entirely out of public interest. Of the three he was the least novel and the least spiritual. He was consequently the easiest to appreciate. He needed money and this led him to adapt his ability to the public taste. Like Wordsworth, he abandoned his early radicalism for more conservative views. He held for many years the office of Poet Laureate, the only poet of eminence, except Wordsworth, from Dryden's time to Tennyson's to hold that position.

Poems

Southey's most striking poems are his Thalaba and Kehama, extravagant oriental tales in irregular verse, typical, therefore, of the new order. They con- Narrative tain passages of great beauty. The stories, too, are interesting. In fact a high-school reader who loves poetry and has kept a mind open to fairy tales, may get great pleasure from reading them. They lack the finer qualities. There are no sunbursts of genius, only pleasantly diffused sunlight. Many of Southey's shorter poems

are well known, and should be, the ballad of Inchcape Rock, for example, and the Battle of Blenheim.

His Prose

Southey's prose is written with an eighteenth-century simplicity. He is, says Saintsbury, "the Addison of the early nineteenth century," a sympathetic, widely-read gentleman who gently helped nineteenth-century taste to advance to new standards. He was prominent in the Quarterly Review; his Life of Nelson and his miscellaneous writings, including the Doctor, a refreshing hodge-podge of interesting material, contain a great deal worth reading. In brief Southey was an unusual man and a clever and industrious writer.

QUESTIONS OF REVIEW

What principles of eighteenth-century criticism did the new age of Wordsworth and Coleridge deny?

In what respects is the Ancient Mariner typical of the new spirit?

In what respects is Wordsworth's Lucy Gray typical of the same? In what qualities is Wordsworth great? What significance did he find in the beauty of nature?

How do Coleridge and Wordsworth differ in their choice of subjects and in their method of presenting them. (See page 370.)

What did Coleridge contribute to criticism and philosophy? How do you account for Coleridge's producing so few great poems ?

For what is Southey, though less important than his associates, to be admired?

Show that this group of writers stands by right at the beginning of a new period.

CHAPTER II

SIR WALTER SCOTT AND JANE AUSTEN

A NEW kind of art repels the public. They need to be led gradually toward the new by halfway work. That is why Southey won, at first, more Scott's favor than Wordsworth or Coleridge, and it Popularity is partly for the same reason that Walter Scott (17711832) took such hold upon public interest. Yet Scott owes his success only partly to this. As a poet, it is true, he could not equal Wordsworth or Coleridge. But as a writer of tales, a creator of character, and, above all, as the inventor of historical fiction, he holds a place as important as either. Scott won the public by

SIR WALTER SCOTT

One of his most pleasing por- Wordsworth

traits.

and Coleridge, by his own study of Percy's Reliques and of such ballad poetry as he had found himself in Scotland, he turned to the writing of metrical romance; and in 1802, only a few years after the Lyrical Ballads, he brought out his first work, The Lay of the Last Minstrel.

This was a new kind of poem. The medieval metrical romance had been unreal, without humor or sense

of character. Scott, a born maker of stories, was able to combine something of the poetic atmosphere of Coleridge's Christabel with a story that made the reader feel that it had really happened. His metrical romances were little novels told in verse. And he followed the Lay of the Last Minstrel with Marmion and The Lady of the Lake, tales even better told.

Wordsworth and Coleridge rise to greater poetical heights than Scott. Yet these heights appeal to a smaller public. Most men like to be led

His Limita

tions

into poetry by a story; and even a story, if told with so much poetry as Coleridge puts into the telling, perplexes them. Scott never let his story suffer for the sake of the poetry.

It is possible for the highest genius, like that of Homer, to tell a story in the supremest poetry and yet develop all the interest. He can at once hold our attention with what happens, and, at the same time, lift us to poetic heights. He does not have to insert poetical passages. His story in itself is poetry. Shakspere can do the same thing in drama. But this is possible only to the greatest poets. With lesser poets, either the story is "slow" and obscure and needs to be "explained" with notes, or the poetry is sacrificed. Since this is so, we must credit Scott with making a singularly effective combination of poetry and fiction.

There is poetry in his tales, and no lack of imagination. To a public brought up to classicism, these tales came as a revelation. Even a reader of to-day His Power cannot fail to see their power. Who can forget the combat between Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu in the Lady of the Lake, or the battle-scene in Marmion!