The Romantic Quest 9780231897112

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T H E ROMANTIC

QUEST

THE ROMANTIC QUEST BY

HOXIE NEALE FAIRCHILD

NEW RUSSELL

TORK

& RUSSELL · INC 1965

Copyright COLUMBIA

17 J I

L'NIVEISITY

P»ESS

REISSUED, I 9 6 5 , BY RUSSELL U RUSSELL, I N C . BY A R R A N G E M E N T W I T H C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS L. C. C A T A L O C CARD N O :

PUNTED

IN

THE

UNITED

65-18804

STATES

OP

AUERICA

TO T H E M E M O R Y OF

MY D A U G H T E R

PREFACE The Romantic Quest is a book f o r students of some intellectual maturity, who, having already a bowing acquaintance with the writers of the age of Wordsworth, desire an interpretative analysis and synthesis of the chief tendencies of that period. If the reader possesses adequate preliminary knowledge, he may equally well be a college upper classman, a candidate f o r a graduate degree, or a private student beyond academic walls. Although most of my facts will be familiar to the specialist, the interpretation of those facts is not without elements of originality; and I have some hope that experts who open this book to estimate its suitability f o r .their students will pause to read at least portions of it f o r themselves. T h e y may feel, indeed, that the book is sometimes too subjective and opinionated f o r purposes of instruction. But in the present divided state of opinion, a personal interpretation of the subject is inevitable. T h e student must form his own views by comparing them with the views of others. H e r e , then, is only one of several interpretations with which he should become familiar. Both in form and content, this book closely follows a course which I gave in the Columbia University Summer Session of 1929 to a class of graduate students most of whom had recently entered upon candidacy f o r the master's degree. T h e expansion of my lecture notes into written chapters naturally made many changes either necessary or desirable. But even in revising I have tried to preserve the

viii

PREFACE

quality of direct address to the reader, f o r I wished him to feel that he was not so much reading a book as taking a lecture course in the romantic period. I might have done m o r e to balance the p r o p o r t i o n s of the original hasty sketch and render it m o r e nearly complete. Such revision, however, would have drawn me t o w a r d a full-dress history of the English romantic movement, an undertaking f o r which I do not yet feel p r e p a r e d . I t seemed best to present these lectures as w h a t they were originally intended to be, and then to return to my studies. T h e Summer Session course included reading assignments and bibliographical suggestions. T h e f o r m e r have here been omitted entirely, and the latter have been preserved only when they f o r m e d p a r t of the actual text of a lecture. T o a d d to the already a b u n d a n t bibliographical aids to the study of this period would be a w a s t e f u l duplication of labor. In p r e p a r i n g some of the original lectures on the naturalistic aspect of romanticism, I f o u n d it convenient to d r a w upon material contained in my dissertation, The Noble Savage: A Study in Romantic Naturalism; and at various points in the course I read to the class passages f r o m that book. W i t h the generous permission of the publishers, the Columbia University Press, some of those passages have been incorporated in the text of the present volume. Η . N . F. B a r n a r d College Columbia University

C O N T E N T S I II

NATURE

Ι

B U R K E A N D GODWIN -

16

III

JACOBINS AND ANTI-JACOBINS

IV

T H E PANTISOCRATIC P H A S E .

V

THE

ROMANTIC

VII

EXTERNAL

IX X XI XII

.

.

.

.

.

34

.

50

PRELUDE

VI

VIII

. .

70

ANTI-INTELLECTUALIS.M NATURE

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

123

D E S C E N D E N T A L I S M AND T R A N S C E N D E N T A L I S M SAVAGE, PEASANT, THE

AND C H I L D

.

.

.

YOUNGER

166

PERCEIVES IT D I E A W A Y .

GENERATION

D E F I N I T I O N OF R O M A N T I C I S M

.

XIII

A

XIV

THE

M E D I E V A L I S M OF SCOTT

X V

THE

M E D I E V A L I S M OF W O R D S W O R T H

XVI

THE

.

.

.

XVII XVIII X I X X X X X I

.

.

.

.

237

.

.

.

.

257

.

302

AND

XXII XXIII

270 .

.

.

TRANSCENDENTALISM

320

COLERIDGE AND T R A N S C E N D E N T A L I S M .

.

WORDSWORTH AND TRANSCENDENTALISM

.

BYRON

AND T R A N S C E N D E N T A L I S M

S H E L L E Y AND T R A N S C E N D E N T A L I S M JOHN

189 218

COLERIDGE M E D I E V A L I S M OF K E A T S

141 149

R E L I G I O N OF N A T U R E

A T LENGTH THE M A N THE

.

103

.

.

332 351

.

.

362

.

.

373

KEATS

402

CONCLUSION

426

INDEX

435

I NATURE Since the purpose of this course is to show how t h e romantic spirit manifests itself in the main tendencies of the age of W o r d s w o r t h , we might logically begin with a definition of romanticism. I t will be better, however, to proceed inductively r a t h e r t h a n deductively until we reach a point beyond which we cannot advance without defining. I a d o p t this m e t h o d not only because it seems educationally desirable but because my conception of romanticism is one which if declared at the outset m i g h t confuse or a n t a g o n i z e . I p r e f e r to introduce it to you gradually a n d by implication until you are p r e p a r e d f o r an explicit s t a t e m e n t of it. Obviously we need some hypothetical description of romanticism to hold in our minds as we set out, but at present almost any of the definitions which have been given you in the past will serve if it is not t o o n a r r o w and fussy. W e can probably all agree, f o r example, t h a t romanticism is c h a r a t e r i z e d by the p r e d m o m i nance of emotion and imagination, and t h a t it is partly a reaction against a view of life which produced a l i t e r a t u r e comparatively deficient in those qualities. W h a t e v e r romanticism m a y be, it is p r o b a b l y too late to p r o t e s t against the habit of r e f e r r i n g t o the age of W o r d s w o r t h as the romantic period. Resigning ourselves to this practice, indeed, we may say t h a t if romanticism is anything at all it is some element which p e r v a d e s and animates the chief intellectual tendencies of t h a t period. T h e

2

NATURE

age is full of the most perplexing currents a n d cross currents, but three streams of tendency a r e especially full and strong. T h e s e are naturalism, medievalism, and transcendentalism. T o the first, which I am now about to discuss, almost half of the course will be devoted. T h e naturalistic aspect of the romantic movement is in itself a complex and extensive subject. Any one of several p a r t s of this field might furnish a s t a r t i n g point, but it seems best to begin with the relation of the French Revolution to naturalistic thought in E n g l a n d . A t the outset we are c o n f r o n t e d by the fact that, at the time of the Revolution, naturalism, political liberalism, social idealism, and humanitarianism were the exclusive property neither of romanticism nor of forces hostile to romanticism. In English courses, you have probably been told t h a t these isms were w a t c h w o r d s of the romantic movement. On the whole, t h a t is true. In history courses, you have probably been told that the French Revolution represents the invasion of the sphere of practical politics by the spirit of eighteenth century rationalism. On the whole, t h a t is true. A n d you have probably been told or have read or i n f e r r e d f o r yourselves t h a t rationalism and romanticism are hostile to each other. O n the whole, that also is true. But if political liberalism is an important aspect both of rationalism and of romanticism, and if rationalism and romanticism are essentially opposed, our craving to simplify the past receives a r a t h e r serious check. It is almost unwise to try too h a r d to clarify this m a t t e r . T h e late eighteenth century itself was confused about it, so that in being confused we a r e at least f a i t h f u l to the facts of intellectual history. B o t h in France and England, the period of the French Revolution was a mix-

NATURE

3

ture of rationalistic and romantic tendencies. O f t e n they are mixed in a single writer — witness Rousseau. N o w " n a t u r e " in one sense was a shibboleth of rationalism, while " n a t u r e " in a n o t h e r sense was a shibboleth of romanticism. H e n c e just as rationalism and romanticism are perplexingly mingled, so the two senses of " n a t u r e " are perplexingly mingled. Rousseau again would provide plenty of examples. But it is m a k i n g m a t t e r s excessively simple to say that " n a t u r e " had two meanings. P r o f e s s o r Lovejoy, whose acute feeling f o r distinctions we shall elsewhere have occasion to admire, has discovered many different shades of m e a n i n g f o r this term in the eighteenth century. T h a t , a f t e r all, is h a r d l y surprising, f o r " n a t u r e " has always been primarily a loose kind of synonym f o r "things in general as I suppose them to b e " ; and since every man lives in a universe of his own, every man might be f o u n d to have his own private conception of n a t u r e if only he could express himself with sufficient clarity. T h e s e individual conceptions of nature, however, subject themselves fairly well to classification. One cannot play the g a m e of intellectual historiography without generalizing and simplifying. If we generalize and simplify h a r d enough, we m a y say t h a t the ruling philosophy f r o m about the middle of the seventeenth century to about the middle of the eighteenth was rationalistic. I t believed in a simple, orderly, workmanlike universe based upon general principles like the axioms of Euclid. H u m a n reason could u n d e r s t a n d those principles and could by m o r e or less geometrical m e t h o d s evolve f r o m them all the specific facts that a sensible m a n should desire to know. Paley was to compare this universe to a watch. W h e n the

NATURE

4

a v e r a g e man o f the age o f P o p e t a l k e d about " n a t u r e , " he g e n e r a l l y m e a n t this w a t c h — t h e n e a t , c o m m o n sense, readily c o m p r e h e n s i b l e principles t h a t m a d e the universe tick. W h e n P o p e says, L e a r n hence for ancient rules a just esteem; T o copy N a t u r e is to copy them,

he has in mind this r a t i o n a l i s t i c c o n c e p t i o n o f n a t u r e . H e means t h a t t h e ancients h a v e d i s c o v e r e d a body o f critical axioms so exact and useful t h a t t h e y f o r m p a r t o f

the

m e c h a n i s m o f the universal w a t c h . Y o u m a y feel t h a t this d e s c r i p t i o n o f the " n a t u r e " o f the age o f P o p e does not t a k e sufficient account o f the development o f e x p e r i m e n t a l science. B u t as a m a t t e r of f a c t e x p e r i m e n t a l science, except as r e g a r d s its i m m e d i a t e p r a c t i c a l applications, was t h e h a n d m a i d o f r a t i o n a l i s t i c philosophy and deductive logic until at least the middle o f the e i g h t e e n t h century. T h e r e a r e , o f course, s t r i k i n g exceptions t o this s t a t e m e n t , but I must confine

myself

to the b r o a d outlines. O n t h e w h o l e , s e v e n t e e n t h century philosophy was like m e d i e v a l s c h o l a s t i c i s m in its h a b i t o f reasoning f r o m Euclidean

the g e n e r a l

mathematics

to the

where

particular.

scholasticism

It

used

had

used

A r i s t o t e l i a n syllogisms, but it was still essentially deductive. I t s m e t h o d was e s t a b l i s h e d , n o t by the e x p e r i m e n t a l minded B a c o n , but by the m a t h e m a t i c a l - m i n d e d D e s c a r t e s , who

appealed

to

intuitively

apprehended

geometrical

a x i o m s r a t h e r than to the t e s t i m o n y o f the senses.

The

s e v e n t e e n t h century, to be sure, m a d e t r e m e n d o u s s t r i d e s in physics and c h e m i s t r y . B u t w h e n men a t t e m p t e d

to

f o r m u l a t e e x p e r i m e n t a l l y o b s e r v e d f a c t s into l a w s ; t h e C a r t e s i a n influence long h a d t h e upper h a n d . T h e

only

NATURE

5

way of establishing a scientific law was to show that it illustrated some proposition of the universal a priori deductive system. Even the experimenters of the Royal Society followed Descartes rather than Bacon. Their prime aim was to relate the processes of nature to the established laws of mathematics. The discoveries of Newton, to be sure, tended to make scientific speculation physico-mathematical rather than merely mathematical. But although Newton himself was a genuine scientist who emphasized the necessity of experimental verification, he inherited the geometrical philosophy of Descartes. H e found a way of describing mechanics in terms of mathematics, and he applied that method to the universe. H e seemed therefore to have reconciled experiment and geometry, the inductive and the deductive, the Baconian and the Cartesian, the genuinely naturalistic and the rationalistic. T o him the world was a great machine every operation of which could be deduced from the basic mathematical laws of that machine. In several respects, of course, Newton had been anticipated by Thomas Hobbes, but the influence of Hobbes' philosophy had been limited because of its cynicism and scepticism. Newton, on the other hand, might almost be called the father of our modern "no conflict between religion and science" attitude. T h e Newtonian physico-mathematical conception of nature is the dominant philosophy of the 1 6 9 0 - 1 7 3 0 period. It coincides almost exactly, you will observe, with the dominance of literary pseudoclassicism. But while Newton's results were eagerly seized upon, the deductive and geometrical aspect of his philosophy was more acceptable to his age than the inductive and experimental aspect.

6

NATURE

E v e n a f t e r a century of scientific research, the old idea t h a t speculation was m o r e dignified a n d noble t h a n direct o b s e r v a t i o n of n a t u r e was deeply r o o t e d in the minds of men. E x p e r i m e n t was desirable f o r purposes of verification, but N e w t o n ' s discoveries h a d l e f t little to be verified. T h a t little would soon be disposed o f , the universe would be completely u n d e r s t o o d , a n d men of intellect could dispense with the v u l g a r necessity of h a n d l i n g pulleys a n d test tubes. A n y h i t h e r t o u n o b s e r v e d fact which m i g h t a p p e a r could at once be r e l a t e d t o one of the established physico-mathematical laws. T h i s philosophy applied no less to man t h a n to mechanics. N a t u r e w a s a universal system, and m a n was completely included in it. But to the spiritual, m o r a l , esthetic, and institutional life of m a n — fields in which experimentation w a s e i t h e r impossible or h a d not been developed — the inductive aspect of N e w t o n ' s t h o u g h t was largely inapplicable, and w h a t remained was an essentially C a r t e s i a n deductive rationalism expressing itself to some extent in the j a r g o n of science. Religion, ethics, g o v e r n m e n t , law, a r t — all were included in the rationalistic conception of n a t u r e , and ' l a w s of n a t u r e " were f a b r i c a t e d to j u s t i f y the p r e v a l e n t ideas on those subjects. T h e s e laws w e r e to be a p p r e h e n d e d by the reason, which was itself a p a r t of n a t u r e . As J o h n H e r m a n Randall, J r . , says in The Making of the Modern Mind: N a t u r e was through and through rational; hence w h a t was natural was easily identified with w h a t was rational, and conversely, whatever, particularly in human society, seemed to an intelligent man reasonable, was regarded as natural, as somehow rooted in the very nature of things. So N a t u r e and the N a t u r a l easily became the ideal of man and of human society, and were interpreted as Reason and the Reasonable.

NATURE

7

T h i s standard had h a r d l y reached its full development before it began to decay. T h e term " d e c a y " is used with intent. T h e r e undoubtedly w a s a certain amount of conscious rebellion against official rationalism, but on the whole we have to deal with a g r a d u a l , mainly unconscious, breaking down of old tendencies and an equally g r a d u a l and unconscious formation of new ones. T h e unraveling of this transitional medley is the m a j o r problem of eighteenth century scholarship, and it is f a r f r o m being solved. Even if we had six y e a r s at our disposal instead of six weeks, we should still be baffled by it. W e may, however, observe several developments which contributed to the breakdown of rationalism. One is the g r a d u a l growth of an inductive and scientific spirit which by about the middle of the eighteenth century had given genuine observation and experiment a prestige equal to that of mathematical physics. T h i s movement was initiated at the end of the seventeenth century by J o h n Locke, the f a t h e r of English empiricism. Locke a n a l y z e d Descartes' geometrical axioms into the thin air of which they were composed, and showed that the only valid basis of knowledge is observation of the facts of experience. But despite the wide popularity won by certain aspects of Locke's philosophy, eighteenth century thought as a whole never adopts a thoroughgoing empiricism. T h e natural sciences become more and more scientific, but the social sciences, with theology and philosophy, a r e much slower to abandon geometrical deduction. T h i s cleavage between a deductive conception of man and an inductive conception of the rest of nature is perhaps the chief curse of modern thought. W e must not suppose, of course, that the attempts now being made to bridge this g a p are novel except in details. In the eighteenth century, genuine scientific

8

NATURE

m e t h o d does increasingly invade the citadel of a priori assumptions a b o u t m a n and his relation t o the universe. T h i s extension of experiment and of t h e experimental a t t i t u d e contributed g r e a t l y to the advance of knowledge, a n d f r e e d the h u m a n mind f r o m many b o n d s of t r a d i t i o n . Frequently, however, it p r o d u c e d a s o p h o m o r i c cocksureness, a glib assumption of certitude in fields where no certitude existed. A quite opposite result of the influence of scientific m e t h o d is the discrediting of the validity of intellect as a means of a r r i v i n g a t t r u t h . Locke, as I have said, g r o u n d e d his philosophy upon observation of the facts of experience. But when, as a psychologist, he a t t e m p t e d critically to study t h e interaction of t h e mind and the external world, he f o u n d himself c o n f r o n t e d by an insoluble mystery. If the f a c t s of experience consist merely of internal impressions of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste, w h a t p r o o f h a v e we t h a t the e l a b o r a t e subjective creations of the mind are anything but a figment of imagi n a t i o n ? T h i s exposure of the dubiety of reason in the interests of reason w a s carried by H u m e to the v e r g e of an almost nihilistic scepticism. S a n t a y a n a says of L o c k e a n d his f o l l o w e r s : T h e principle of their reasoning, where they chose to apply it, w a s always this, that ideas whose materials could 311 be accounted for in consciousness and referred to sense or to the operations of mind were thereby exhausted and deprived of further validity. O n l y the unaccountable, or rather the uncriticized, could be true. Consequently the advance of philosophy meant, in this school, the retreat of reason; for as one notion after another was clarified and reduced to its elements, it was ipso facto deprived of its function. It became impossible to be at once quite serious and quite

NATURE

9

intelligent; for to use reason was to indulge in subjective fiction, while conscientiously to abstain from using it was to sink back upon inarticulate and brutish instinct. In Hume this sophistication was frankly avowed. Philosophy discredited itself; but a man of parts, who loved intellectual games even better than backgammon, might take a hand with the wits and historians of his day, until the clock struck twelve and the party was over.

Except perhaps as regards Hume, Santayana rather overemphasizes the sophisticatedly malicious element in this self-destructive psychology. On the whole, eighteenth century psychology involved itself in the epistemological dilemma with sincerity and sobriety. Starting out in the rationalistic faith that the truth about mind could be discovered by the mind, it seemed at last to discover a truth about mind which discredited the same rationalistic faith which had motivated its quest. T h u s in the long run this application of scientific method gave encouragement to those who desired to believe in the truth of the unaccountable and the uncriticized. T h e experimental attitude, then, caused a cleavage not only between the natural and the social sciences, but also between the external world and the inner visions of humanity. Borrowing Santayana's words, I have just spoken of those who desired to believe in the truth of the unaccountable and the uncriticized. This desire, never absent f r o m the heart of man, contributed to the decay of the official eighteenth century philosophy. T h e rationalistic universe was unable to satisfy man's craving f o r wonder and glamor. It was too cold, systematic, and mechanical. I t either gave no answers to the deep mysteries of the heart, o r gave answers which deprived those mysteries of their beauty. T h e development of empirical science, though it

ΙΟ

NATURE

exposed t h e futility of deductive r a t i o n a l i s m , gave even less s u p p o r t to m a n ' s impulse to d r e a m the w o r l d of his desires. A n d the scepticism g e n e r a t e d by science, until it was t u r n e d upside down and c o n v e r t e d into transcendental f a i t h , was even m o r e soul-cramping t h a n the assumptions of C a r t e s i a n rationalism. D e s c a r t e s h a d at least d r e a m e d of an angel w h o came to his bedside a n d assured him t h a t he was p e r f e c t l y right. A n d so in m a n y minds the "nat u r e " of the eighteenth century, while it retained its old claims to be a universal system, slowly became less like a watch t h a n like a tree. I t t h r u s t r o o t s into the soil, but l i f t e d its h e a d into the skies. It w a s a t once vast a n d intimate. It h a d room f o r love, beauty, and religion, f o r all the w a r m stirrings of emotion. I t w a s f r e e , plastic, and expansive, r a t h e r t h a n d e t e r m i n e d , final, and restrictive. Rationalism had never been able t o destroy a conception of n a t u r e which the Renaissance h a d d r a w n f r o m the ancients, especially f r o m the Stoics, a n d h a d passed on to the seventeenth century. T h i s is the " n a t u r e " of the G o l d e n A g e tradition, a primitivistic a n d sentimental view of n a t u r e as a p r i m e v a l s t a n d a r d of goodness and simplicity f r o m which m a n has been s u n d e r e d by the corruptions of civilization. T h i s is w h a t M o n t a i g n e means by " n a t u r e " when he writes in his essay Of the Cannibals: " T h e r e is no reason, a r t should gain t h e point of h o n o r of our g r e a t and puissant m o t h e r N a t u r e . . . . All o u r end e a v o u r or wit cannot so much as reach to represent the nest of the least birdlet, its contexture, b e a u t y , profit and use, no n o r the web of a seely s p i d e r . " T h e primitivistic a n d sentimental conception of n a t u r e n e v e r d i s a p p e a r s even in the age of rationalism and pseudo-classicism. M e n never cease to speak of n a t u r e in connection with w o r d s

NATURE

like "simple," " f r e e , " "innocent," "uncorrupted," "spontaneous," "instinctive." And although on the whole this sort of nature is relegated to polite literature, it is by no means absent f r o m serious philosophical works. Even so hard-headed a person as Locke regards his social contract as necessitated by the corruption which has followed man's departure f r o m that state of nature, the Golden Age. If Pope can use the rationalistic conception of nature in the passage just quoted f r o m the Essay on Criticism, he can sometimes use the primitivistic and sentimental conception of nature even in his avowedly philosophical poem, the Essay on Man. In Epistle I I I , f o r example, he writes: Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when pressed, Stays till w e call, and then not often near; But honest instinct comes a volunteer, Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit; W h i l e still too w i d e or short is human W i t ; Sure by quick N a t u r e happiness to gain, W h i c h heavier Reason labours at in vain. T h i s too serves always, Reason never l o n g ; O n e must go right, the other may go wrong. See then the acting and comparing powers O n e in their nature, which are t w o in ours ; And Reason raise o'er Instinct as you can, In this 'tis G o d directs, in that 'tis man.

T h e fact that Rousseau would subscribe to every w o r d in these lines should warn us not to make sweeping generalizations. T h e view of nature as "things as they exist prior to or a p a r t f r o m human control" was adjusted in various ways t o that satisfaction with common sense and material pro-

12

NATURE

gress which c h a r a c t e r i z e d the earlier p a r t of t h e eighteenth century. S o m e t i m e s n a t u r e w a s r e g a r d e d as a wild and " G o t h i c " m a s s of m a t t e r to be curbed and r e g u l a t e d by m a n ' s r e a s o n . S o m e t i m e s it was m o r e tenderly, t h o u g h still s o m e w h a t superciliously, r e g a r d e d as if it were a moving but disorderly E l i z a b e t h a n play suitable f o r gentle and a d m i r i n g revision by judicious wits. But sometimes it was r e g a r d e d as a s t a t e of p r i m e v a l g o o d n e s s which cont r a s t e d very s h a r p l y with the regime of R o b e r t W a l p o l e ; and this feeling g r e w in seriousness as the eighteenth century lost confidence in t h e ideals on which its civilization h a d been based. In short, when the rationalistic conception of n a t u r e gradually decayed with the philosophy which had f o s t e r e d it, the primitivistic a n d sentimental conception of n a t u r e grew s t r o n g e r a n d s t r o n g e r , until it became, with certain changes a n d additions, an i m p o r t a n t aspect of the romantic movement. Since the romantic conception of n a t u r e will keep us busy f o r the next m o n t h , this preliminary sketch will not g r a p p l e with its details. A n idea of its general spirit has a l r e a d y been given you. O n e m o r e point, h o w e v e r , calls f o r a t t e n t i o n . In the passage which I have just read f r o m the Essay on Man, Pope opposes reason and instinct to t h e a d v a n t a g e of the latter. T h i s a t t i t u d e becomes increasingly p r e v a l e n t as the eighteen century p h a s e of the r o m a n t i c movement g a t h e r s h e a d w a y . A m o r e subtle a n d interesting development, however, is an a l t e r a t i o n within reason itself — not so much an open s t r i f e between reason and instinct as the g r a d u a l t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of the f o r m e r into s o m e t h i n g like the l a t t e r . N a t u r e and reason are so inextricably bound t o g e t h e r in eighteenth century t h o u g h t t h a t one changes

NATURE

13

as the o t h e r changes. T h e geometrical a n d deductive character of the official rationalism glorified reason, but glorified it in such a way as to relegate it f r o m t h e t o p of life to the b o t t o m of life. If n a t u r e is a universal system, the reason which is its essence must be a universal possession of m a n k i n d . T h i s t r a n s f o r m a t i o n w a s a i d e d by the tendency, so commonly associated with l i t e r a r y classicism, to deal with highest common d e n o m i n a t o r s of t h o u g h t and feeling. T h e universe of rationalism was ruled by a few b r o a d , simple principles like the axioms of g e o m e t r y . N o w one requirement of an axiom is t h a t a n y b o d y can u n d e r s t a n d it; and if anybody can u n d e r s t a n d the principles which r e g u l a t e the universe, t h e n r e a s o n is the possession of the child, the peasant, a n d the s a v a g e no less than of the p h i l o s o p h e r . Reason, in o t h e r w o r d s , becomes common sense. T h e n with the g r o w t h of primitivism a n d anti-intellectualism d u r i n g the eighteenth century, the links between logic and common sense become w e a k e r a n d weaker, until at last common sense is o f t e n indistinguishable f r o m mystical intuition. T h e developments which I h a v e been s u m m a r i z i n g a r e a n y t h i n g but r e g u l a r or systematic. A t t h e o u t b r e a k of the F r e n c h Revolution, we find various stages and combinations of t h e m mingled in the t h o u g h t of v a r i o u s w r i t e r s . In his m o n o g r a p h on T h e l w a l l , C h a r l e s C e s t r e a t t e m p t s to distinguish t h r e e main currents of r e v o l u t i o n a r y philosophy in F r a n c e . T h e r e was M o n t e s q u i e u , with his n o t very radical and very " E n g l i s h " a priori science of government. T h e r e was Rousseau, with his identification of the n a t u r a l and civil rights of m a n . A n d finally t h e r e w e r e the Encyclopedists — D i d e r o t , d ' A l e m b e r t , H e l v e t i u s a n d H o l b a c h — with their doctrine of mechanical utilitarian-

Μ

NATURE

ism. A l t h o u g h t h i s classification is n o d o u b t a l l o w a b l e , it is m u c h n e a t e r t h a n t h e t a n g l e d skein of t e n d e n c i e s w h i c h it a t t e m p t s t o u n r a v e l . O n e can u n d e r s t a n d t h a t the o l d r e g i m e m i g h t be o p p o s e d because it w a s n o t r e a s o n a ble e n o u g h , o r b e c a u s e it w a s t o o r e a s o n a b l e . B u t t h e b a l a n c e of t h e f o r e g o i n g s e n t e n c e t u m b l e s into a c h a o s in w h i c h r a t i o n a l i s m a n d r o m a n t i c i s m seem i n e x t r i c a b l y confused when one remembers that " r e a s o n " may mean g e o m e t r i c a l d e d u c t i o n , scientific m e t h o d , cool c o m m o n sense, w a r m c o m m o n sense, t h e p r o m p t i n g s of sensibility, m y s t i c a l i n t u i t i o n , o r a n y b l e n d of t h e s e c o n c e p t i o n s . P h i l o s o p h y , a t t h e h e i g h t of h e r p r i d e in intellect, is a b o u t to t o p p l e o v e r i n t o e m o t i o n a l i s m . T h e r e is n o g e n u i n e cont r a s t b e t w e e n t w o t h i n g s t h e f o r m e r of which is in p r o c e s s of b e c o m i n g t h e l a t t e r . S i m i l a r l y , a n y g e n e r a l i z a t i o n s which we m a y feel disp o s e d t o m a k e a b o u t t h e p r e v a l e n c e in t h e r e v o l u t i o n a r y p e r i o d of t h e o r i e s c o n c e r n i n g " n a t u r e , " " n a t u r a l r i g h t s , " " n a t u r a l m a n , " a n d so f o r t h , need t o be c o n t r o l l e d by t h e f a c t t h a t t h e t e r m " n a t u r e " b e a r s n o one set of implicat i o n s f o r t h e a g e . " O u r call t o l i b e r t y is o r d a i n e d by n a t u r e ! " cries t h e A b b e F a u c h e t in a typical a d d r e s s . B u t w h a t d o e s h e m e a n by " n a t u r e " ? T h e n e a t m a t h e m a t i c a l s y s t e m f o r m e d in t h e b r a i n s of t h e philosophes, or the life of instinct a s p r e a c h e d by t h o s e w h o t h o u g h t t h e y u n d e r s t o o d R o u s s e a u ? I t w o u l d n o t be m e r e l y f r i v o l o u s t o c o n j e c t u r e t h a t while F a u c h e t m a y h a v e m e a n t e i t h e r k i n d of n a t u r e , h e v e r y likely m e a n t b o t h a t t h e s a m e t i m e . I n t h i s p e r i o d t h e " w i l d v i r t u o u s s p o n t a n e i t y " idea is n e v e r w h o l l y a b s e n t f r o m t h e m e n t a l c o n t e n t of t h e r a t i o n a l i s t w h o s p e a k s of " n a t u r e , " a n d t h e " u n i v e r s a l s y s t e m " i d e a is n e v e r w h o l l y a b s e n t f r o m t h e m e n t a l c o n t e n t of t h e r o m a n t i c i s t w h o uses t h a t t e r m .

NATURE

i5

W h a t has been said today proves merely that the subject is exceedingly complex. One errs equally in regarding the French Revolution as essentially romantic, and in regarding rationalism and romanticism as two clearly antipodal tendencies of the age. A genuinely rationalistic mind might oppose the Revolution because of its underlying emotionalism; a genuinely romantic mind might oppose it because of its parade of rationalism; the typical confused mind of the period would either support or oppose it f o r a mixture of both reasons. Perhaps all this will be clearer as we approach it f r o m other angles. A t present I cannot suppose that it is clear at all. F o r a brief and elementary but thoroughly sound survey of seventeenth and eighteenth century thought see B o o k I I I of The Making of the Modern Mind, by J o h n H e r man Randall, J r . Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century is the classical treatment of the subject. T h e relations between French and English philosophy are so important that Daniel M o r n e t ' s French Thought in the Eighteenth Century should also be recommended. A n adequate translation by L . M . L e v i n has recently ( 1 9 2 9 ) been published.

II BURKE AND

GODWIN

Abandoning the generalizations of the preceding lecture, let us take the solid fact that the Bastille fell on J u l y 1 4 , 1 7 8 9 , and observe some of the ripples made by this stone in the waters of English literature. First, however, we must remind ourselves that the collapse of the North government in 1 7 8 2 made possible the rise of two groups, both of which offered a liberal p r o g r a m : the Reformed Whigs, under Charles J a m e s F o x ; and the N e w Tories, under William Pitt the younger. T h e victory of the N e w T o r i e s in the 1 7 8 4 elections brought in Pitt as Prime Minister. U n d e r him, much progress was achieved along liberal lines. N o r did all this come to a sudden stop in 1789. T h e first response of the majority of Englishmen to the outbreak of the Revolution was one of approval and sympathy. F o u r years before, even the mild, rabbit-loving recluse William C o w p e r had written of the Bastille in these w o r d s : T h e n shame to manhood, and opprobrious more T o France than all her losses and defeats, O l d or of later date, by sea or land, H e r house of bondage, worse than that of old W h i c h G o d aveng'd on Pharaoh — the Bastile! Y e horrid tow'rs, th' abode of broken hearts; Y e dungeons and ye cages of despair, T h a t monarchs have supplied from age to age W i t h music such as suits their sov'reign ears —

BURKE AND

GODWIN

17

T h e sighs and groans of miserable men! T h e r e ' s not an English heart that would not leap T o hear that ye were fall'n at last; to know T h a t ev'n our enemies, so oft employ'd In forging chains for us, themselves were free.

(The Task, V, 379 ff.) T h e images of the French Revolution which first arise in our minds are associated with the Reign of T e r r o r — heads plopping into baskets or reeking on the ends of pikes. W e must remember, however, that Louis was not beheaded until J a n u a r y 2 1 , 1 7 9 3 , and that the actual Reign of T e r r o r , under the so-called Committee of Public Safety, did not begin until the following summer, four years a f t e r the fall of the Bastille. A t first the revolutionary leaders wished merely to change the practically absolute monarchy into a limited monarchy with a constitutional form of government. England, who had herself fought to obtain such a government, could hardly object to that aim. H e r attitude toward the Revolution did not become panicky or hostile until 1 7 9 2 , when the National Convention declared France a Republic. F r o m the first, however, Edmund Burke had felt that the Revolution constituted a menace to England. H e found a good many who agreed with him, and as the radical proletarian side of the revolt grew stronger his influence became very great. H i s chief antirevolutionary work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, should be read by everyone who wishes to understand the thought of the period. T o us the book is especially interesting because it combines three elements which were glanced at in the last lecture: empiricism, rationalism, and romanticism.

BURKE A N D

ι8

GODWIN

B u r k e ' s empiricism is t h a t of a practical politician. F o r a student on this side of the Atlantic, it m a y be difficult to u n d e r s t a n d why Burke, w h o enjoyed a r e p u t a t i o n as a political liberal and h a d d e f e n d e d the colonies in the days of the A m e r i c a n Revolution, should so bitterly oppose the uprising in France. But the A m e r i c a n colonists, when Burke came to their defense, were Englishmen, d e m a n d ing in a d o g g e d English way certain i m m e m o r i a l E n g l i s h rights. T h e French, on the c o n t r a r y , w e r e not talking a b o u t the t r a d i t i o n a l rights of F r e n c h m e n : they were talking about the Rights of M a n . L a r g e l y u n d e r t h e influence of abstract philosophy, they w e r e m a n u f a c t u r i n g a social creed out of whole cloth. A s a m a n experienced in the machinery of s t a t e c r a f t , B u r k e insists t h a t governments cannot be constructed upon a basis of a priori reasoning. T h e y a r e the outcome of g r a d u a l g r o w t h . T h e rightness or wrongness of a p r o p o s e d political m e a s u r e is a question of expediency. I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the subject as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances ( w h i c h w i t h some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect.

K n o w i n g t h a t the constitution of E n g l a n d has g r o w n like an oak, Burke distrusts the sort of constitution t h a t is suddenly assembled like a F o r d car. H e h a t e s the m e d d l i n g of philosophers. " T h e p r e t e n d e d rights of these theorists a r e all extremes; and in p r o p o r t i o n as t h e y are metaphysically true, they are m o r a l l y and politically f a l s e . " F o r in government t h e r e is no such thing as an

BURKE A N D

GODWIN

19

invariable and absolute right to a n y t h i n g : " T h e m o m e n t you a b a t e a n y t h i n g f r o m t h e full r i g h t s of men, each t o g o v e r n h i m s e l f , a n d suffer any artificial p o s i t i v e l i m i t a t i o n upon those rights, f r o m that moment the whole organizat i o n of g o v e r n m e n t b e c o m e s a c o n s i d e r a t i o n of c o n v e n >)

lence. T h e s t r a i n of d e d u c t i v e r a t i o n a l i s m in B u r k e is less e v i d e n t t h a n his e m p i r i c i s m . O n e c a t c h e s a h i n t of it f r o m t h e w o r d s , " M e n h a v e n o r i g h t t o w h a t is n o t r e a s o n a b l e , a n d t o w h a t is n o t f o r t h e i r b e n e f i t . " B u r k e w o u l d say t h a t his c o n c e p t i o n s of t h e r e a s o n a b l e a n d t h e beneficial w e r e d e r i v e d f r o m t h e r e c o r d e d e x p e r i e n c e of m a n k i n d , b u t t h e y a r e d e r i v e d t o an a l m o s t equal e x t e n t f r o m a n u m b e r of a s s u m p t i o n s w h i c h t h e m s e l v e s g o b a c k t o t h e b a s i c a x i o m t h a t t h e B r i t i s h g o v e r n m e n t is an a p p r o x i m a t e l y p e r f e c t r e f l e c t i o n of t h e will of G o d . F o r all his e m p h a s i s o n t h e p r a c t i c a l , B u r k e o f t e n r e s o r t s t o a priori r e a s o n i n g . Burke's appeals both to experience and to general p r i n c i p l e s find a n essentially r o m a n t i c source in his a l m o s t m y s t i c a l love of t r a d i t i o n . T o h i m , n a t u r e is n o t a w a t c h like m e c h a n i s m : it is t h e b e a u t i f u l a n d a u t h o r i t a t i v e p a s t majestically u n f o l d i n g into the present. English liberties, h e says, a r e an i n h e r i t a n c e f r o m t h e p a s t . W e h a v e a t t a i n e d t h e m , n o t by r e a s o n i n g , like t h e F r e n c h , b u t by t r u s t i n g o u r i n s t i n c t s a n d l e t t i n g o u r necessarily a r t i f i c i a l i n s t i t u t i o n s c o n f o r m as closely as possible t o t h e p r o c e s s e s of n a t u r e . W e are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his o w n private stock of reason; because w e suspect that this stock in each man is small. . . . M a n y of our men of speculation, instead of exploding ancient prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. . . . W e have not lost the

BURKE AND

20

GODWIN

generosity and dignity of thinking of the fourteenth century; nor as yet have we subtilized ourselves into savages. W e are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers. W e know that tve have made no discoveries; and we know that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood before we were born. T h i s r a t h e r disturbing e l e v a t i o n o f t r a d i t i o n a l

preju-

dices into sublime " n a t u r a l " virtues is a c c o m p a n i e d by a strain o f sentiment, if n o t o f s e n t i m e n t a l i t y . B u r k e h a t e s the

revolutionary

philosophy

not

merely

impractical,

but because it is cold,

impersonal.

He

is s h o c k e d

to

raw,

because unlovely,

see F r a n c e ,

the

e n e m y " o f Sir Philip Sidney, b r e a k i n g a w a y

it

is

and

"sweet

from

her

g r a c e f u l a n d m a j e s t i c p a s t , r e v o l t e d by t h e rudeness with which L o u i s h a s been h a l e d f r o m V e r s a i l l e s t o P a r i s by the noisy m o b . T o him, the v e r y c o r e o f the g r e a t t r a d i tion in g o v e r n m e n t is the l o y a l t y o f the people, e x p r e s s e d t h r o u g h p e r s o n s o f quality,

to a sovereign. T a k e

that

a w a y , and all else c r u m b l e s . " O Richard ! Ο mon roi! L'univers

t'abandonne!"

H e sees M a r i e A n t o i n e t t e a s the focus o f t h o s e chivalric sentiments which the r e v o l u t i o n a r y p h i l o s o p h y h a s cast aside: It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. . . . Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation

BURKE A N D

GODWIN

21

of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. — But the age of chivalry is gone. T h a t of sophisters, oeconomists and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. T h e unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprize, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a w o u n d , which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

T h i s is the quality in the Reflections which enabled the r e f o r m e r J o h n T h e l w a l l to r e f e r mockingly to " B u r k e ' s sentimental romance of A n t o i n e t t a , the falling s t a r of chivalry, or royalty in the suds." A detailed examination of Burke's political philosophy c a n n o t here be a t t e m p t e d . F o r o u r purposes his chief i m p o r t a n c e lies in showing t h a t sympathy with the Revolution is not a sure touchstone of romanticism. T h e r e can be a conservative romanticism just as easily as t h e r e can be a rationalistic radicalism. Burke is not alone in this. W a l t e r Scott is a conservative romanticist. W o r d s w o r t h , C o l e r i d g e , a n d Southey g r a d u a l l y turn conservative, and t h e i r l a t e r political ideas a r e largely based upon those of B u r k e . T h a t love of the past which underlies the romantic revival of interest in medieval l i t e r a t u r e a p p e a r s also in political theory. W i l l i a m Lisle Bowles, the m i n o r poet whose sonnets e x e r t e d so p o w e r f u l an influence over W o r d s w o r t h , Coler i d g e , Southey, L a m b , and others, will provide an example

22

BURKE AND

GODWIN

of the rather numerous appearances of Burke's attitude in poetry. H e is almost paraphrasing the Reflections when, in To the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, he writes: N o , B u r k e ! thy h e a r t , by j u s t e r feelings led, M o u r n s f o r the spirit of high H o n o u r

fled;

M o u r n s t h a t philosophy, abstract and cold, W i t h e r i n g should smite life's fancy-flowered m o u l d ; A n d m a n y a smiling s y m p a t h y d e p a r t , T h a t graced t h e sternness of t h e m a n l y h e a r t .

Of course the French invasion of Switzerland gives Bowles a good opportunity to show the consequences of the revolutionary philosophy. In The Sorrows of Switzerland he bids the French gaze upon the fruits of their adherence to what he supposes to be the doctrines of Rousseau. Then he imagines the spirit of that great Swiss as brooding remorsefully over the havoc he has brought upon his native land: A n d ye w h o , all e n l i g h t e n e d , all sublime, P a n t in i n d i g n a n t t h r a l d o m till t h e t i m e W h e n m a n , b u r s t i n g his fetters, p r o u d and free, T h e wildest savage of the w i l d s shall b e ; A r t f u l instructors of o u r feeble kind, I l l u m i n e d leaders of t h e lost and blind, Behold the destined glories of y o u r r e i g n ! M e t h o u g h t , Rousseau, thy t r o u b l e d spirit p a s s e d ; H i s ravaged c o u n t r y his dim eves survey. A r e these the fruits, he said, or seemed to say, O f those high energies of r a p t u r e d

thought,

T h a t proud philosophy my precepts t a u g h t ?

Burke's ideas, however, would obviously be detestable to the reformers of his day. H i s almost cynical insistence

BURKE AND G O D W I N

23

on expediency aroused the wrath of the warmly sentimental; his romantic loyalty to tradition aroused the wrath of the coldly rationalistic. He was answered in Parliament by Fox and Sheridan. Scores of attacks in the form of books and pamphlets were written by English sympathizers with the Revolution: William Godwin, M a r y Wollstonecraft, John Thelwall, Home Tooke, Capell Lofft, Tom Paine, James Mackintosh, Richard Price, Joseph Priestley, and many others. As the Jacobin party came to the fore in France, the term "Jacobin" was more and more frequently applied to those Englishmen who approved of the Revolution. W e ourselves may find the term convenient if we remember that there were many different shades of English pro-revolutionary opinion. John Thelwall is so fully representative of the contemporary state of mind that Charles Cestre's study of him is a good introduction to the whole period. A few years later, he was to become the friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge. His principal work, The Peripatetic, helped to provide the plan for Wordsworth's Excursion. Thelwall attacked Burke's Reflections and his other antirevolutionary writings such as the Letter to a Noble Lord in several addresses which were also printed as pamphlets. The Rights of Nature is typical. Burke has said that the "natural representative" of the people is the person of leisure, education, and means. At this Thelwall breaks out: Ο insulted and degraded Nature! Ο awful aggregate of existence ! How is thy venerable name blasphemed by these pious, canting, juggling politicians! By what right does this base renegade doom to political annihilation nine-tenths of the adult inhabitants of a nation ?

BURKE AND

24

GODWIN

T h e l w a l l h a s his o w n conception of n a t u r e : M r . Burke's nature and mine are widely different. W i t h him everything is natural that has the hoar of ancient prejudice upon i t ; and novelty is the test of crime. In my humble estimate, nothing is natural, but w h a t is fit and true, and can endure the test of reason. J o s e p h P r i e s t l e y , a n o t h e r of B u r k e ' s a s s a i l a n t s , is now best k n o w n a s the d i s c o v e r e r of o x y g e n ; but besides being an eminent chemist, he w a s a U n i t a r i a n minister, a theol o g i a n , a p h i l o s o p h e r , a n d an e d u c a t o r . H i s Letters Right

Honourable

Edmund

Burke

to

the

( 1 7 9 1 ) contain a pas-

s a g e which will s e r v e to s h o w the enthusiasm with which r e f o r m e r s g r e e t e d the a d v e n t of the R e v o l u t i o n : I cannot conclude these Letters, without congratulating . . . the French nation, and the w o r l d ; I mean the liberal, the rational, and the virtuous part of the world, on the great revolution that has taken place in France, as well as on that which some time ago took place in America. . . . These great events . . . mark a totally new era in the history of mankind. It is . . . a change from darkness to light, from superstition to sound knowledge, and from a most debasing servitude to a state of the most exalted freedom. It is a liberating of all the powers of man. . . . So that, in comparison with what has been, now only can we expect to see what men really are, and what they can do. P r i e s t l e y ' s confidence in the f u t u r e p r o g r e s s of l i b e r a t e d m a n k i n d p r o v i d e s a l o g i c a l t r a n s i t i o n to the g r e a t apostle o f p e r f e c t i b i l i t y , W i l l i a m G o d w i n . E v e r y student of the p e r i o d s h o u l d be well acquainted w i t h his w o r k . H e had a p r o f o u n d influence on the L a k e

p o e t s , and later on

Shelley, w h o o f course became his son-in-law. I t should be a d d e d that his influence, t h o u g h s t r o n g , is t r a n s i t o r y . One sure sign t h a t a r o m a n t i c w r i t e r is g r o w i n g up is his r e p u d i a t i o n of G o d w i n .

BURKE A N D G O D W I N

25

M y inclusion of Godwin among those who wrote hostile rejoinders to Burke was not strictly accurate, f o r although his chief work, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, is an assault upon everything that Burke holds dear, it did not appear until 1 7 9 3 , three years a f t e r the publication of the Reflections, and is only indirectly related to the turmoil aroused by that work. Godwin, in fact, generally held himself aloof from contemporary clamor. H i s ardor f o r reform was abstract and theoretical. T h e ministry, although by 1 7 9 3 it had begun to persecute the English Jacobins, let Godwin alone; f o r Pitt did not believe that a long, difficult book priced at three guineas could be dangerous. Nevertheless, Political Justice was widely read. Godwin is the chief English representative of the revolutionary thought of the French encyclopedist school. H e stands f o r the cool rationalism of Helvetius rather than f o r the emotional fervor of Rousseau. T o Rousseau's Social Contract, however, his political theories are much indebted. T h e habit of contrasting Rousseau's influence upon the romantic poets with that of Godwin may lead us into difficulties unless we pause here to make certain reservations. Rousseau was very different from Voltaire, but he was not by any means the antithesis of Voltaire. With all his sentimentality and primitivism and anti-intellectualism, he had plenty of the eighteenth century scientific spirit, and plenty of the eighteenth century fondness f o r geometrical system-building. Everything said about Rousseau requires to be qualified. F o r our present purposes, however, a crude simplification must suffice. H e was a mixture of rationalism and romanticism. In the second half of the eighteenth century, when Rousseau's influence began to be

26

BURKE AND GODWIN

felt in England, the tendencies which we think of as constituting the early symptoms of romanticism had already made great progress — the heart as opposed to the head, preference of country to town, sensibility, sentimental primitivism, humanitarianism, interest in medieval literature, and so on. In fact early English romanticism, as we may learn from Joseph Texte's Jean-Jacques Rousseau et le cosmopolitisme litteraire, had exerted a considerable influence upon Rousseau himself. England, in short, was prepared to accept Rousseau's romantic aspect rather than his rationalistic aspect. On the English side of the Channel he was thought of chiefly in connection with sensibility, virtuous eroticism, highly emotionalized and unorthodox religion, "natural" education, and the backto-the-woods philosophy. I have been leading up to the statement that Godwin's Political Justice was by no means antithetical to the doctrines of the real Rousseau, but that it was opposed to those doctrines as they had been selected and refracted by the English thought of the period. If you considered yourself a Rousseauist, you talked about nature and the heart; if you were a Godwinian, you talked about reason and the perfectibility of the species. The divergence between Political Justice and the current English conception of Rousseau shows that the contemporary radicalism, like the contemporary conservatism, can be either rationalistic or romantic. Godwin declares his belief in "the desirableness of a government in the utmost degree simple." T o all intents and purposes, he is an anarchist. Anarchy, however, is not f o r him an immediate prospect. H e merely looks forward to a time when man will become so reasonable, and hence so virtuous, that he will require no political control. But

BURKE A N D

GODWIN

27

Godwin has none of the primitivism which the y o u n g Rousseau h a d expressed in his clever, i m m a t u r e , consciously paradoxical, discourses On the Moral Effect of the Sciences and Arts a n d On the Origins of Inequality among Men. I n his m a t u r e r works, £mile a n d The Social Contract, Rousseau has little of this p r i m i t i v i s m ; but E n g l a n d never got o v e r thinking of him as the m a n w h o wanted everyone to go back t o the s t a t e of n a t u r e a n d live like a savage. G o d w i n , on the c o n t r a r y , believes in a high t h o u g h simple s t a t e of civilization, with plenty of l e a r n i n g and culture. H e a t t a c k s the p r e v a l e n t "back to n a t u r e " gush which h a d become associated with R o u s s e a u : Innocence is not virtue. Virtue demands the active employment of an ardent mind in the promotion of the general good. . . . Individuals of exquisite feeling . . . have recurred in imagination to the forests of N o r w a y , or the bleak and uncomfortable H i g h l a n d s of Scotland in search of a purer race of mankind. T h i s imagination has been the offspring of disappointment, not the dictate of reason and philosophy.

H e insists t h a t the injunction, " f o l l o w n a t u r e , " is meaningless. M a n cannot help f o l l o w i n g n a t u r e : h o w e v e r he acts, he must act by n a t u r e ' s laws. Glancing at Burke, he declares t h a t t h o s e w h o use this maxim generally m a k e it an excuse f o r p e r p e t u a t i n g ancient prejudices. T h i s w r i t e r is opposed to the Rousseauistic reliance on instinct, intuition, a n d feeling, as guides to t r u t h . H e h a t e s all sorts of w a r m , p r i m a r y impulses; cold, h a r d r e a s o n is his ideal. " T h e perfection of the h u m a n c h a r a c t e r consists in a p p r o a c h i n g as n e a r l y as possible to the p e r f e c t l y volunt a r y state. W e o u g h t to be, upon all occasions, p r e p a r e d to r e n d e r a reason f o r our actions." W h e n h u m a n feeling conflicts with logic, G o d w i n sides with logic. " I t is of n o

28

BURKE A N D G O D W I N

consequence," he writes, " t h a t I am t h e p a r e n t of a child, when it h a s once been d e t e r m i n e d t h a t t h e child will live with g r e a t e r benefit u n d e r the superintendence of a strange r . " T h e Socratic identification of reason and virtue is essential in G o d w i n ' s t h e o r y . T o be g o o d is to be wise; vice is simply ignorance. M o r e o v e r , " r e a s o n depends f o r its clearness and s t r e n g t h u p o n t h e cultivation of knowledge." H i s a t t i t u d e on this point is w o r t h noting, f o r we shall find t h a t several w r i t e r s of the p e r i o d a r e inclined to say t h a t knowledge too o f t e n stifles m a n ' s n a t u r a l ability to reason. Rousseau's first discourse, in fact, m a k e s much of this idea. G o d w i n ' s name is always associated with the doctrine known as "perfectibility." T h e doctrine of perfectibility was r a t h e r common in t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y ; but it was held on various grounds, a n d it does not m e a n the same thing every time it a p p e a r s . In o t h e r w o r d s , there were various ways in which m a n could p e r f e c t himself. In his two early discourses, Rousseau said t h a t m a n had deterio r a t e d because civilization h a d cut him off f r o m the state of n a t u r e , and hence f r o m his n a t u r a l h e r i t a g e of equality, reason, and benevolence. H e n c e R o u s s e a u was then generally identified, and 'is still o f t e n identified, with d e t e r i o r a t i o n i s m — just the o p p o s i t e of p e r f e c t i b i l i t a r i a n ism. T h e s e two attitudes run t h r o u g h o u t o u r period. W h e n a romanticist is discouraged, he is a d e t e r i o r a t i o n ist; when he has had a g o o d dinner, he is a perfectibilitarian. In his l a t e r works, Rousseau w o r k e d out his own theory of perfectibility. T h e goal was t o be a p p r o x i m a t e d , not by r e t u r n i n g to the f o r e s t — a solution which he had never p r o p o s e d but which h a d been a t t r i b u t e d to him by

BURKE AND

29

GODWIN

m a n y r e a d e r s — but by instituting a system of education (Em'tle) and a f o r m of g o v e r n m e n t (Social Contract) which would m a k e it possible f o r us to regain and then to build upon o u r n a t u r a l inheritance. But this h a r m o n i z i n g of d e t e r i o r a t i o n i s m and perfectibilitarianism was n o t und e r s t o o d by many E n g l i s h m e n . W o r d s w o r t h has some g r a s p of it, and Shelley, in his m a t u r e work, possesses it completely. In her n o t e s to Prometheus Unbound, Mrs. Shelley says t h a t P r o m e t h e u s "used knowledge as a weapon to d e f e a t evil, by l e a d i n g m a n k i n d beyond the s t a t e wherein they are sinless t h r o u g h ignorance to t h a t s t a t e in which they are v i r t u o u s t h r o u g h w i s d o m . " T h i s noble r e m a r k could equally well be applied to the final aims of Rousseau. G o d w i n , on the c o n t r a r y , casts no b a c k w a r d glances at " t h e state wherein men a r e sinless t h r o u g h i g n o r a n c e . " F o r him, a state of ignorance is t a n t a m o u n t to a s t a t e of sin. H i s t h e o r y of perfectibility is based upon the following chain of p r o p o s i t i o n s : Reason depends f o r its clearness and s t r e n g t h upon t h e cultivation of k n o w l e d g e . T h e e x t e n t of our progress in t h e c u l t i v a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e is u n l i m i t e d . H e n c e it follows, t h a t h u m a n

inven-

tions, and t h e modes of social existence, are susceptible of

per-

petual improvement.

T h i s illustrates the e x t r e m e shallowness which o f t e n characterizes late e i g h t e e n t h century rationalism. T h e whole s t r u c t u r e collapses as soon as we test it by experience. R e a s o n does not d e p e n d f o r its clearness and s t r e n g t h u p o n the cultivation of k n o w l e d g e : t h e r e a r e t o o m a n y l e a r n e d fools in the w o r l d to enable us to believe t h a t . A s e v e r y weary t e a c h e r knows, the extent of o u r p r o g r e s s in t h e cultivation of k n o w l e d g e is not unlimited. H e n c e so

3°

BURKE AND GODWIN

f a r as this particular syllogism is concerned it certainly does not follow that human inventions and so on are susceptible of perpetual improvement. Minds like Godwin's are but playing an elaborate game. T h e citation just given, however, should warn us not to ascribe to Godwin the notion t h a t absolute perfection will ever be attained. H e simply believes that the race will go on improving indefinitely once it learns to live in the light of reason. " P e r p e t u a l unprovability" would be a more accurate t e r m f o r his theory than perfectibility, but the latter has become too firmly fixed in usage to justify a change. Godwin's name is associated not only with perfectibility but with what we now call "mechanical determinism." In the eighteenth century it was called the "doctrine of necessity." According to this theory, the universe is a machine in which we are helpless cogs. A t any given time, it is impossible f o r us to act otherwise than as we are acting. T h e doctrine of necessity appealed so strongly to the reason of several of the young romanticists, and yet was so repugnant to their emotions, t h a t they had difficulty in digesting it. Transcendentalism, as we shall see later, provided the solvent. Perfectibilitarianism and necessitarianism are not inconsistent if we assume that through the operation of necessity man is automatically becoming more and more reasonable and is t h e r e f o r e continually improving. But in order to achieve this mechanistic optimism we must deprive reason of that voluntary character which Godwin frequently insists upon as essential. This tangle in his thought is never quite unraveled. T h e extreme complexity of the intellectual currrents of this period is shown by the fact that even Godwin's

BURKE AND

GODWIN

31

rationalism is less throughgoing than it appears to be. Although he clings to it f o r polemic purposes, it is probable that his private conception of reason had, even by 1 7 9 3 , become somewhat romanticized. Soon a f t e r the publication of Political Justice, at any rate, we find him saying in a letter to J o h n T h e l w a l l : T o quote authorities is a vulgar business; every soulless hypocrite can do that. T o quote authorities is a cold business, it excites no responsive sentiments and produces no heart-felt conviction. . . . Appeal to that eternal l a w which the heart of every man of common-sense recognizes immediately.

Rousseau might well have written this; in fact, he very nearly did. It seems to imply a conception of reason different from that found in Political Justice, where Godwin says that "reason depends f o r its clearness and strength upon the cultivation of knowledge." H e r e reason is not the product of learning or of logic, but a warm glow of intuitive insight. T h a t is what I meant by saying in the last lecture that in the revolutionary period philosophy, at the height of her pride in cold reason, is about to topple over into the warmest emotionalism. It is interesting to see that common sense has become a natural faculty of the heart by which eternal law can be recognized. In later years, when writing on philosophy or political economy, Godwin continues to repeat his old f o r m u l a s ; but in his imaginative writings he is much more hospitable to what we usually regard as romantic tendencies. A s one would expect, his best-known novel, Caleb Williams ( 1 7 9 4 ) , reflects the philosophy of Political Justice. In the later novel St. Leon ( 1 7 9 9 ) , however, he begins to waver, and in Fleetwood ( 1 8 0 5 ) he writes as if he had become a thoroughgoing anti-intellectualist and a worshipper of

32

BURKE AND GODWIN

nature in its most romantic sense. T h e subtitle o i Fleetwood, "the new M a n of Feeling," is significant. Perhaps Godwin, hard pressed by his creditors, is merely trying to meet the changing demands of the literary market; but Hazlitt, who had a passion f o r intellectual honesty, gives him credit f o r complete sincerity. M o r e probably we may see in Godwin a conflict, not uncharacteristic of the period, between head and heart. T h e later Godwin even possesses a sort of religion, which, he declares, was derived from Coleridge. T h a t poet begins as an admirer of Godwin's system, though always with reservations. Soon, however, he rejects the system and expresses dislike of Godwin's character. But in 1800 he becomes fairly intimate with Godwin and forms a better opinion of him as a man, though not as a philosopher. It is during this intercourse that the formerly atheistic Godwin acquires what he terms "my theism, if such I may be permitted to call it, . . . a reverent and soothing contemplation of all that is grand or mysterious in the system of the universe." In 1 8 2 0 he writes to a friend: T h e religious man, I apprehend, is, as T o m W a r t o n phrases it in the title of one of his poems, " a n enthusiastic or a lover of nature." I am an admirer of nature. I should pine to death if I did not live in the midst of so majestic a structure as I behold on every side. I am never weary of admiring and reverencing it. A l l that I see, the earth, the sea, the rivers, . . . and, most of all, man, fills me with love and astonishment. M y soul is f u l l to bursting with the mystery of all this, and I love it f o r its mysteriousness. . . . T h i s is what I call religion.

W e are later to see more of this sort of religion. Plainly, the author of Political Justice traveled a long

BURKE AND GODWIN

33

and winding road before he wrote that letter. W h e n in reading works about the romantic period you come upon the statement that W o r d s w o r t h , Coleridge, and Southey threw off the influence o f Godwin and turned to nature, you should remember that these poets were abandoning a position which Godwin himself was abandoning at about the same time. H e represents a fixed point no more than any other man o f this fluid age.

III JACOBINS A N D ANTI-JACOBINS T o d a y I shall deal briefly with a f e w examples of English Jacobinism and of opposition to English Jacobinism. L e t me remind you that here and elsewhere I a m merely sketching the general outline of topics which you must investigate f o r yourselves. One of the numerous answers to Burke was A Vindication of the Rights of Men ( 1 7 9 0 ) , by M a r y Wollstonecraft, the noble woman who became G o d w i n ' s consort and later his w i f e . H e r ideas as expressed in this book are similar to Godwin's, but have a stronger emotional and Rousseauistic strain. T w o years later she published A Vindication of the Rights of JVoman, which gives her fame as the earliest important E n g l i s h feminist. H e r thesis is that woman is naturally the equal of man, and can regain that equality through education. H e r Historiof the cal and Moral View of the Origin and Progress French Revolution, which appeared in 1 7 9 4 when the T e r r o r was in full swing, blames the h o r r o r s of the Revolution upon the fact that human nature, though naturally good, had become corrupted under the old regime, and could not p u r i f y itself f a s t enough to take advantage of its new opportunities. But she is still a true perfectibilitarian, and has high hopes f o r the future. T h e fiction of the 1 7 9 0 ' s o f t e n reflects the revolutionary turmoil. T h e r e are a g o o d many pro-revolutionary novels, and a still l a r g e r number of antirevolutionary

JACOBINS

A N D

ANTI-JACOBINS

35

ones. F o r a fuller account of this subject I must refer you to Allene Gregory's The French Revolution and the English Novel. Godwin's Caleb Williams ( 1 7 9 4 ) is a mystery story, and a rather good one, but it manages to bring in a great deal of r e f o r m propaganda. Its original title, indeed, was Things As They Are. T h e book implies an answer to Burke in that Falkland's character is ruined by his adherence to the ideals of the age of chivalry. T h e fact that this rich murderer can turn the law against Caleb Williams, a poor man of humble birth, provides good chances f o r a criticism of society. Particularly interesting is the attack on prison conditions. Of course the great reformer John H o w a r d had published his State of the Prisons in 1 7 7 7 , and exposures of the horrors of English jails go back at least as f a r as Geffray Mynshul's Essayes and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, 1 6 1 8, but in Godwin the theme is related to a broader and more definitely radical social indignation. " T h a n k G o d , " exclaims the E n g l i s h m a n , " w e have no B a s t i l l e ! " U n t h i n k i n g w r e t c h ! Is that a country of liberty, w h e r e thousands languish in dungeons and f e t t e r s ? G o , go, ignorant fool, and visit the scenes of our prisons! W i t n e s s their unwholesomeness, filth,

their

the t y r a n n y of their governors, the misery of their inmates!

A f t e r that, s h o w me the man shameless enough to triumph, and say, E n g l a n d has no B a s t i l l e ! . . .

I have felt the iron of slavery

g r a t i n g upon my soul. I looked round upon m y w a l l s and f o r w a r d upon the p r e m a t u r e death I had too much reason to expect and I said, " T h i s is society. T h i s is the object, the distribution of justice, w h i c h is the end of h u m a n reason. F o r this sages have toiled, and midnight oil has been w a s t e d . T h i s ! "

In connection with this attack on prisons, we might note

36

JACOBINS A N D ANTI-JACOBINS

that Godwin's Fleetwood ( 1 8 0 5 ) contains a protest against child labor. A f t e r escaping from prison, Williams falls in with a band of thieves. They are portrayed rather sympathetically, and one is given to understand that the criminal is merely the victim of society. This idea is to become extremely common. Indeed, the modern theory that no individual is ever to blame f o r anything seems to find its immediate source in the sentimentalized necessitarianism of the revolutionary period. When, by the way, we find in English romantic literature a virtuous, moody, melancholy, philosophical brigand, he usually represents the influence of Karl Moor, the hero of Schiller's early play, Die Räuber. H a v e you noticed the more or less fixed types assumed by the interesting young men of various literary periods? In the romantic period proper we have the greatly blighted Byronic hero. H e gives place to the earnest young Victorian of the John Sterling or Arthur Hallam type. H e gives place to the young esthete. H e gives place to the "flaming youth." He gives place either to the bright young debunker or to the futilitarian — it is too early to tell which. N o w the 1790's had their own type of interesting youth — the Young Jacobin. T h e fact is of some importance because for a short period Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey approach this norm rather closely. Moreover, although Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and Shelley appear somewhat later, they represent the type as young men because of their attempt to preserve or revive the Jacobin attitude. T h e Young Jacobin is himself the outgrowth of a mideighteenth century type, the Man of Feeling. T h e M a n of

JACOBINS A N D ANTI-JACOBINS

37

Feeling has the sensibility of Sterne, but in a particularly virtuous, serious, and purposive form. The type really appears earlier than Mackenzie's famous novel of 1 7 7 1 . Disregarding its occurrences in sentimental comedy, we see something like it in Henry Brooke's The Fool of Quality ( 1 7 6 6 ) . A t the age of twelve, Brooke's hero always takes the side of the geese in the game of " f o x and geese." When a lady asks f o r an explanation, he replies, "Because, madam, I always wish that simplicity should get the better of fraud and cunning." As he grows to young manhood, he becomes more and more benevolent and sententious. A f t e r listening to his modest explanation of how he has spent fifty thousand pounds in hospitals and prisons, one of the less virtuous characters exclaims: " L e t me go, let me go from this place! This boy will absolutely kill me if I stay any longer. H e overpowers, he suffocates me with the weight of his sentiments !" When the French Revolution broke out, the M a n of Feeling was transformed into the Young Jacobin by finding an outlet for his overpowering sentiments. His vague philanthropy became more sharply focused by contemporary events, and his sensibility took on a thin veneer of Godwinian rationalism. T h e Young Jacobin had advanced literary tastes — felt that Pope was coldly artificial, and admired the sonnets of Bowles hardly less than the syllogisms of Political Justice. In his own writing he cultivated a melancholy either gently pensive or more violently Gothic. On every page he displayed his sensibility and love of scenery. Through his most fervent outbursts, however, ran a strain of solemn didacticism. H e was a reformer, a propagandist, whose poems and novels, to say nothing of his pamphlets, were Tendenzstücke. In the

38

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same breath he could be frigidly romantic and torridly rationalistic. H e yearned f o r a system of society unhindered by priests and kings. Hence the Revolution appeared to him as a great upheaval of nature from beneath the smothering burdens imposed upon it by organized society. H e often advocated, though he seldom even vaguely plotted for, an English Revolution. Among other peculiarities of the Young Jacobin may be mentioned religious radicalism. T o him, formal religious organizations were agencies of oppression. His own beliefs were earnest but uncertain. Emotional deism, nature worship, and Unitarianism attracted him strongly. H e was seldom an out-and-out atheist: he had too much heart f o r that. If to literary, political, and religious heterodoxy we add opposition to the convention of marriage and a warm interest in prison reform, the anti-slavery movement, and perhaps in vegetarianism, we shall have a fairly accurate cross section of the average Young Jacobin mind. F o r one of many possible glimpses of the Young Jacobin in the literature of the period, we may turn to Thomas Holcroft's Anna St. Ives ( 1 7 9 2 ) . Frank Henley, the hero, is the son of a baronet's gardener, but he does not therefore hesitate to fall in love with his master's daughter. " P s h a w ! What is a baronet? A w a y with such insolent, such ridiculous distinctions." T h a t remark typifies his character. H e is very severe with the nobility, sneers at laws, and disbelieves in private property. Frank's life is one series of remarkable deeds. H e rescues Anna from a highwayman, then rescues the highwayman from jail and reforms him (a particularly characteristic touch). H e is constantly relieving the poor or saving the lives of his enemies. N o r can he understand why his nobility

JACOBINS

A N D

ANTI-JACOBINS

39

should be admired. H e simply has a system, and follows it consistently. T h a t system is w h a t distinguishes him f r o m a mere F o o l of Q u a l i t y o r M a n of Feeling. H e is benevolent " b y the b o o k , " and his sensibility is but the s o f t fruit of severely rational principles. F o r t u n a t e l y A n n a St. I v e s shares the opinions of her lover. T h i s p a i r h a v e acquired the complete Godwinian doctrine of perfectibility a y e a r b e f o r e the appearance of Political Justice. G o d w i n , indeed, derived much f r o m H o l c r o f t , w h o was his close f r i e n d at this time. But the love of F r a n k and A n n a , if the term can be applied to their calm mutual esteem, is t h w a r t e d by C o k e C l i f t o n , a lively young aristocrat w h o m the baronet r e g a r d s as a m o r e suitable claimant f o r his daughter's hand. C l i f t o n is represented as a clever youth whose natural goodness has been spoiled by selfishness and frivolity. In e v e r y respect he is F r a n k ' s opposite, and he amusingly expresses his opinion of his r i v a l : I scarcely k n o w w h a t to make of h i m ; except that he seems to h a v e quite conceit enough

of himself. E v e r y other sentence is a

contradiction of w h a t the last speaker advanced. T h i s is the first time he ever ventured to cross his father's threshold, and yet he talks as f a m i l i a r l y of kingdoms,

governments,

nations,

manners,

and other high sounding phrases, as if he had been secretary of state to K i n g M i n o s . . . . H e is the G r e a t M o g u l of politicians! A n d as f o r letters, science, and talents, he holds them all by patent right.

C l i f t o n later comes to understand that F r a n k ' s selfconfidence arises not f r o m conceit, but f r o m philosophy. T h e k n o w l e d g e to which he lays claim has nothing to do with w o r l d l y experience: it is acquired simply by follow-

JACOBINS AND ANTI-JACOBINS

ing the dictates of natural reason — that reason which provides the common denominator of all mankind. He is one of your levellers! M a r r y ! His superior! Who is he? On what proud eminence can he be found? . . . Dispute his prerogative who dare! He derives from Adam; what time the world was all "hail fellow well met!" The savage, the wild man of the woods, is his true liberty boy; and the ourang-outang, his first cousin. A lord is a merry Andrew, a duke a jack-pudding, and a king a tom-fool; his name is man!

Clifton's vivacity suggests that Holcroft does not wholly admire the prig whom he has selected for a hero. Some of his own feeling must enter into Clifton's remark that there is nothing "so nauseous as an overdose of wisdom ; mixed up, according to the modern practice, with a quantum sufficit of virtue, and a large double handful of the good of the whole." But Frank Henley, despite even his creator's limited enthusiasm f o r him, rises from pinnacle to pinnacle of virtue until at last he wins Anna, while Clifton becomes more and more a thwarted Richardsonian villain. So f a r we have regarded the Young Jacobin from a somewhat quizzical angle. Let us now forget his absurdities in order to remind ourselves that he is often a figure no less noble than absurd. These were days when the young men beheld visions. Though we may smile at them, we must not sneer unless we are prepared to sneer at every sort of generous, idealistic ardor. The loftier, less doctrinaire side of revolutionary feeling is beautifully expressed by Wordsworth in lines 1 0 5 - 1 4 1 of Book X I of The Prelude — the passage which was separately published in The Friend, 1809, under the title French Revo-

JACOBINS AND ANTI-JACOBINS lutioη ment:

as It Appeared

to Enthusiasts

at Its

41 Commence-

Ο pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, us who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven! Ο times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance! When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights When most intent on making of herself A prime enchantress — to assist the work, Which then was going forward in her name! Not favored spots alone, but the whole Earth, T h e beauty wore of promise — that which sets (As at some moments might not be unfelt Among the bowers of Paradise itself) The budding rose above the rose full blown. W h a t temper at the prospect did not wake T o happiness unthought of? T h e inert Were roused, and lively natures rapt away! They who had fed their childhood upon dreams, The play-fellows of fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength Their ministers, — who in lordly wise had stirred Among the grandest objects of the sense, And dealt with whatsoever they found there As if they had within some lurking right T o wield it; — they, too, who of gentle mood Had watched all gentle motions, and to these Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild, And in the region of their peaceful selves; — Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty

42

JACOBINS

A N D

ANTI-JACOBINS

D i d both find, helpers to their hearts desire, A n d stuff at hand, plastic as they could w i s h ; W e r e called upon to exercise their skill, Not

in U t o p i a , · — s u b t e r r a n e a n

fields,—

O r some secreted island, H e a v e n k n o w s w h e r e ! B u t in the very w o r l d , w h i c h is the w o r l d O f all of us, — the place w h e r e , in the end, W e find our happiness, or not at a l l !

T h a t passage may serve to balance Coke Clifton's jibes at F r a n k Henley. It also illustrates that element in revolutionary thought which best deserves to be called romantic. A s has already been suggested, a great deal of the reforming spirit of the age must be associated with eighteenth century rationalism. Romanticism enters when the Y o u n g Jacobin, like Wordsworth in these lines, feels that the actual lives of men have at last identified themselves with an ideal world of beauty and goodness called Nature, that a lovely romance has come true, that Utopia lies all around us, and that the chasm between the waking and the dreaming states has been bridged. T h e English Jacobins of course had plenty of enemies. In 1 7 9 7 and 1 7 9 8 a spirited attack was made upon them by a conservative journal, The Anti-Jacobin. William Gifford, its chief, is remembered as an editor of Jonson, Massinger, and Ford, as a translator of Juvenal, and as a heavy-handed satirist who had earlier done the world a good service by crushing the absurd Delia Cruscan coterie. H i s work f o r The Anti-Jacobin, however, is less important than that of his three associates: George Ellis, George Canning, and J o h n H o o k h a m Frere. Ellis, a man of forty-four, had already made a reputation as a writer of political satire. In the i 7 8 o ' s he had been a member of

JACOBINS AND ANTI-JACOBINS

43

the E s t o Perpetua Club, which through the Rolliad and other satires took delight in lampooning Pitt's ministry. N o w the Revolution had brought him over to Pitt's side. W e may note in passing that he was associated with W a l t e r Scott in his medieval studies. Canning and F r e r e were recent university graduates — Canning of O x f o r d and F r e r e of Cambridge, but they had been schoolmates at Eton. Canning, of course, was to become a famous English statesman whose connection with the formulation of the M o n r o e Doctrine is familiar to everyone. Frere is known as one of the greatest masters of parody and light verse in English literature. Like most good parodists he was also an accomplished translator, and his translations f r o m Aristophanes are admirable. Under the pseudonym Whistlecraft, moreover, he wrote The Monks and the Giants ( 1 8 1 7 ) , a mock romance in the Italian manner and in the difficult ottava rima stanza, which encouraged Byron to use the same f o r m and style in Don Juan. T h e s e writers contributed to The Anti-Jacobin a series af brilliant satires and burlesques which have outlived the prose portions of that journal. T h e parody of Southey's Sapphics in The Friend of Humanity and the KnifeGrinder is perhaps the most generally known. Amusing also are these rippling revolutionary dactyls, another thrust at Southey: Come, little drummer-boy, lay down your knapsack here: I am the soldiers's friend — here are some books for you ; Nice clever books by T o m Paine the philanthropist. Here's half-a-crown for you, here are some handbills too; Run to the barracks and give all the soldiers some; T e l l them the sailors are all in a mutiny.

JACOBINS AND ANTI-JACOBINS

It is almost worth the labor of reading Erasmus Darwin's Loves of the Plants in order to be able to appreciate The Loves of the Triangles, in which Euclid is treated with a fantastically Linnasan eroticism and Darwin's liberal opinions, as well as his botany, are burlesqued. The Rovers parodies Schiller's Die Räuber in particular, with side glances at Goethe's Stella. The Young Jacobins were admirers of German romantic drama. The Progress of Man is a parody on R. P. Knight's The Progress of Civil Society, but the authors kill two birds with one stone by pretending that it has been written by a M r . Higgins, who seems to represent William Godwin. Using the old journalistic trick of the mock correspondent, they have him submit to The Anti-Jacobin a description of his great work, with copious extracts. It is interesting to see that the ideas of Higgins combine the philosophy of Political Justice with the current English interpretation of the philosophy of Rousseau. The mixture does not hit off Godwin very accurately, but it is quite true to the medley of tendencies which enter into revolutionary thought in general. " W h a t you call the new principles," Higgins is made to say, "are, in fact, nothing less than new. They are the principles of primeval nature, the system of original and unadulterated man." His aim is "to restore this first and pure simplicity; to rescue and recover the interesting nakedness of human nature, by ridding her of the cumbrous establishments which the folly, pride, and self-interest of the worst part of our species have heaped upon her." This is not only excellent as parody, but is a useful reminder of the connection between sentimental primitivism and revolutionary rationalism. Higgins continues:

JACOBINS AND ANTI-JACOBINS

45

O u r first principle is, then, the reverse of the trite and dull maxim of Pope — "Whatever is, is right." W e contend that, "Whatever is, is w r o n g ; " : that institutions, civil and religious, that social order (as it is called in your cant) and regular government and law, and I know not what other fantastic inventions, are but . . . so many badges of his degradation from the primal purity and excellence of his nature. S o much f o r Rousseauistic d e t e r i o r a t i o n i s m ; G o d w i n i a n perfectibilitarianism:

now

for

O u r second principle is "the eternal and absolute perfectibility of man." W e contend that if, as is demonstrable, we have risen from a level with the cabbages of the field to our present comparatively intelligent and dignified state by the mere exertion of our own energies, we should, if these energies were not repressed and subdued by the operations of prejudice and folly, by kingcraft and priestcraft, and the other evils incident to what is called Civilized Society, continue to exert and expand ourselves in a proportion infinitely greater than anything of which we have any notion . . . but which would in time raise man from his present biped state to a rank more worthy of his endowments and aspirations; to a rank in which he would be, as it were, all mind; would enjoy unclouded perspicacity, and perpetual vitality; feed on oxygen; and never die but by his own consent. B y all m e a n s read the specimens o f the w o r k in w h i c h t h e s e ambitious h o p e s are e m b o d i e d ; t h e y rank h i g h a m o n g the d e l i g h t s o f our h u m o r o u s literature. T h e p o e t r y of The Anti-Jacobin w a s n o t confined t o p a r o d y . The New Morality, a direct satire w r i t t e n chiefly by Canning, is essentially a rendering in v e r s e of the ideas o f Burke. T h e p o e m lumps t o g e t h e r as J a c o b i n s the foll o w i n g rather m i x e d collection: C o l e r i d g e , S o u t h e y , L l o y d , L a m b , Priestley, T h e l w a l l , Paine, W i l l i a m s , G o d win, and H o l c r o f t . Charles L a m b a n d T o m P a i n e l o o k

46

JACOBINS AND

ANTI-JACOBINS

e s p e c i a l l y q u e e r in t h e s a m e l i s t ; b u t a l t h o u g h L a m b c o u l d n e v e r be called a Jacobin, he w a s a friend of

Godwin,

a n d , at t h i s t i m e , v e r y liberal in h i s s e n t i m e n t s . T h e n u m b e r o f The Anti-Jacobin,

first

b y t h e w a y , c o n t a i n e d a car-

t o o n by G i l r a y r e p r e s e n t i n g R o u s s e a u as a n a k e d s a v a g e s u r r o u n d e d by v a r i o u s E n g l i s h a d m i r e r s , i n c l u d i n g C o l e ridge

and

Southey

with

asses'

heads.

Charles

Lloyd,

C o l e r i d g e ' s f r i e n d , a p p e a r s a s a t o a d , a n d L a m b as a frog. Perhaps Morality

the

most

powerful

p a s s a g e in

The

New

t h r u s t s at t h e J a c o b i n f u s i o n o f s e n s i b i l i t y w i t h

revolutionary

enthusiasm:

Next comes a gentler virtue. Ah, beware Lest the rough verse her shrinking softness scare. Visit her not too roughly; the w a r m sigh Breathes on her lips; the tear-drop gems her eye. Sweet Sensibility, who dwells enshrined In the fine foldings of the feeling mind ; W i t h delicate Mimosa's sense endued, W h o shrinks, instinctive, f r o m a hand too r u d e ; O r , like the anagallia, prescient flower, Shuts her soft petals at the approaching shower. Sweet child of sickly F a n c y ! — her of yore F r o m her loved France Rousseau to exile bore; And, while 'midst lakes and mountains wild he ran, Full of himself, and shunned the haunts of man, T a u g h t her o'er each lone vale and Alpine steep T o lisp the story of his wrongs, and weep; T a u g h t her to cherish still in either eye Of tender tears a plentiful supply, A n d pour them in the brooks t h a t babbled by. M a r k her fair votaries, prodigal of grief,

JACOBINS AND ANTI-JACOBINS

47

W i t h cureless pangs, and woes that mock relief, Droop in soft sorrow o'er a foolish

flower;

O ' e r a dead jackass pour the pearly shower; B u t hear, unmoved, of Loire's ensanguined flood Choked up with slain ; — of L y o n s drenched in blood; O f savage cruelties that scare the mind, T h e rage of madness with hell's lusts combined — O f hearts torn reeking from the bleeding breast, — T h e y hear — and hope, that all is for the best.

Unfortunately, opposition to the Jacobins was not restricted to literary expression. T h e government and various groups of unofficial hundred-per-centers actively persecuted the English reformers. Severe acts against sedition and sympathetic correspondence with France were promulgated. Innocent idealists were imprisoned or sent to Botany B a y f o r long terms; legal and orderly meetings were dispersed with violence; books were burned and newspapers censored or suppressed. It was all very like the anti-Bolshevist activities of Attorney-General Palmer just a f t e r the W o r l d W a r . T h e ministry, the upper classes and the mob were conservative; the lower middle class and the young intellectuals sided with the Revolution. A famous instance of intolerance is the Birmingham Riots. In July, 1 7 9 1 , the Constitutional Society of Birmingham held a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. A riot ensued in which the violence of the mob was directed chiefly against the persons and homes of the dissenters, who were numerous in Birmingham and whose sympathies were generally liberal. J o s e p h Priestley was not active in connection with the dinner, but

48

JACOBINS A N D

ANTI-JACOBINS

since he was a noted r e f o r m e r his house was sacked and his chapel burned. Priestley left Birmingham and lived in London and its suburbs until 1 7 9 4 . H e then emigrated to Northumberland, Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Susquehanna — an action which encouraged the pantisocratic dream of Coleridge and Southey. In Number I I I of his Sonnets on Eminent Characters ( 1 7 9 4 ) , Coleridge represents Nature as lifting her "matron veil" in the Pennsylvanian wilderness " t o smile with fondness on her gazing son," D r . Priestley. M e r e l y to show how differently the same event could be regarded by two thoughtful men of the same period, let me quote f r o m Cobbett's Observations on the Emigration of Dr. Joseph Priestley: D e a r bought experience has at last taught him, that an U t o p i a never existed a n y w h e r e but in a delirious brain. H e thought, like too m a n y others, to find a T e r r e s t r i a l P a r a d i s e . . . but a l a s ; he is now

convinced,

I

believe,

that

those

who

cultivate

the

fertile

L e s o w e s of W a r w i c k s h i r e . . . have little reason to envy him his rocks and his s w a m p s , the music of his bull f r o g s and the stings of his

musquitoes.

T h e antirevolutionary hysteria reached its height in 1 7 9 4 , the year of the T e r r o r . In that year T h o m a s H a r d y , H o m e T o o k e , J o h n Thelwall, T h o m a s H o l c r o f t and eight less important reformers were indicted f o r high treason on flimsy and fabricated evidence. Pitt vaguely charged the London Corresponding Society, of which the honest shoemaker H a r d y was founder and secretary, with being at the bottom of a terrible plot. Whether the government was sincerely alarmed or merely wished by f a i r means or foul to arouse feeling against the radicals is a doubtful question. A t all events the case involved more than the lives of the accused: it is said that

JACOBINS AND ANTI-JACOBINS

49

a large number of signed warrants f o r other reformers were held ready in case a conviction should be obtained. But the good English jury, its sense of fairness outraged, acquitted H a r d y , Tooke, and Thelwall, and the remaining defendants were released without trial. H o l c r o f t was somewhat chagrined at being deprived of the opportunity to deliver a fiery speech which he had prepared. A f t e r this, active persecution of liberals abated, although Coleridge tells in Biographia Literaria that he and Wordsworth were shadowed by a government agent in 1 7 9 7 . T h e agent reported that they kept talking about a certain "spy nosey." T h e pun on Spinoza was not impossible in an age when " P a m e l a " could be pronounced "Pameely." T h e dying down of anti-liberal activity does not imply that liberalism flourished. By the end of the century, practically no pro-revolutionary sentiment was left to persecute. Even in 1 7 9 7 and 1 7 9 8 , The Anti-Jacobin was beating a dead snake. T h e war with France and the rise of Napoleon caused a conservative reaction which affected all but a few minds, and which lasted until the collapse of Napoleon in 1 8 1 4 . Then a new wave of liberalism began to gain force and swept on to the R e f o r m Bill of 1 8 3 2 . W e are now ready to ask how all this revolutionary ferment is related to the work of the L a k e Poets. Wordsworth is chronologically the earliest of the group, but it will be more convenient to begin with Southey and Coleridge.

IV T H E PANTISOCRATIC PHASE Since Southey w a s born in 1 7 7 4 , he was only a lad of fifteen when the B a s t i l l e f e l l ; a n d we have no record of his immediate response to the outbreak of the Revolution. Y e a r s later, h o w e v e r , he w r o t e to C a r o l i n e B o w l e s of those stirring d a y s : " A visionary w o r l d seemed to open upon those w h o w e r e just entering it. Old things seemed passing a w a y , and nothing was d r e a m t of but the regeneration of the human r a c e . " E v i d e n t l y his feelings h a d been much like those of W o r d s w o r t h . B u t when we see Southey in 1 7 9 3 as a student at Balliol C o l l e g e , O x f o r d , we see a young man w h o is a l r e a d y r a t h e r discouraged about the Revolution. W o r d s w o r t h will p r o v i d e another instance of the same reaction. T h e R e i g n of T e r r o r has begun, and E n g l a n d has declared w a r against F r a n c e . T h e ardent young men, shocked by these circumstances, a r e becoming disillusioned. Y o u n g Southey w e a r s his own hair, and f o r this and less superficial reasons is considered a radical. But he is a tired radical, w r i t i n g self-consciously melancholy letters to f r i e n d s like G r o s v e n o r B e d f o r d . " O , " he cries, " f o r emancipation f r o m these useless f o r m s , this useless life, these haunts of intolerance, vice, and f o l l y ! " H e r e he is r a t h e r accurately describing the O x f o r d of his day, but he w o u l d not object to h a v i n g his w o r d s applied to the w o r l d in general. H e d r e a m s of founding an ideal city, or of m i g r a t i n g to A m e r i c a : " I should be pleased to reside in a country w h e r e man w a s considered as m o r e valuable

T H E PANTISOCRATIC PHASE

51

than money; and where I could till the earth, and provide by honest industry the meat which my wife would dress with pleasing care." But he knows that this is an idle dream: " T h e r e is no place for virtue. Seneca was a visionary philosopher; even in the deserts of Arabia, the strongest will be the happiest, and the same rule holds good in Europe and Abyssinia." In this gloomy state of mind, he looks to Rousseau as his guiding star. But Southey had the faculty of being able to observe his own character and bend it in the way in which he wanted it to grow. Even while he is mournfully pouring out his sensibility, he is cultivating a more controlled and stoical view of life. In 1799, when William T a y l o r of Norwich accuses him of having too much sensibility, he replies: "Once indeed I had a mimosa sensibility, but it has long ago been rooted out. Five years ago I counteracted Rousseau by dieting upon Godwin and Epictetus." In 1794, then, Southey is a Young Jacobin who has been disillusioned into a state of pseudo-Rousseauistic deteriorationism, and who is trying to keep a stiff upper lip by reading Epictetus and Godwin. It was in the Spring of 1794 that Samuel T a y l o r Coleridge came from Cambridge to Oxford to see his old schoolmate, Robert Allen, and met Southey in the course of the visit. Coleridge was a dreamy, learned, poetic youth of twenty-two, two years older than Southey and much more precocious. H e was already widely read, not only in pure literature, but in strange, out-of-the-way aspects of philosophy and theology. H o w early these studies had begun we learn from Lamb's essay, Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago. Coleridge had certainly been much inflamed by the

THE

PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

Revolution. Allusions to events which took place in November, 1 7 9 2 , indicate that the present text of his Destruction of the Bastile is a revision of earlier work, but the following stanza breathes the vaguely confident enthusiasm which the outbreak of the Revolution aroused in so many idealistic young Englishmen: Heard'st thou yon universal cry, A n d dost thou linger still on Gallia's shore? G o , T y r a n n y ! beneath some barbarous sky T h y terrors lost and ruined power deplore! W h a t tho' through many a groaning age W a s felt thy keen suspicious rage, Y e t Freedom roused by fierce Disdain H a s wildly broke thy triple chain, A n d like the storm which Earth's deep entrails hide, A t length has burst its w a y and spread its ruins wide.

Y e t although Coleridge wrote in this vein when poetically stimulated by an exciting event, he was not at any time a complete Jacobin. H e was never at any time much like anybody else in the world. H e was strongly influenced by both Rousseau and Godwin, but he never swallowed either of them whole. In 1 7 9 4 , however, his strange individuality had by no means assumed its final form. During their first meetings, he and Southey must have felt that they had much in common. Both were disillusioned lovers of f r e e d o m ; both thought Bowles' sonnets the last word in poetry; both were Unitarians and admirers of Priestley; both, with some reservations on Coleridge's part, were disciples of Godwin. Together, then, they evolved the plan of pantisocracy — " a scheme," as old Joseph Cottle says, "perfectly harmless in itself, but obnoxious to insuperable objections." With a group of

T H E PANTISOCRATIC PHASE

53

friends, they were to emigrate to America and found a little communistic society on the banks of the Susquehanna. In this they illustrate to some extent Oscar Wilde's paradox that life imitates art. For Frank Henley, the hero of Holcroft's Anna St Ives, in a moment of discouragement writes to a friend: " I have studied to divine in what land or among what people, whether savage or such as we call polished, the energies of mind might be most productive of good. . . . I think of sailing for America, where I may aid the struggles of liberty . . . and at the same time form a society of savages, who seem in consequence of their very ignorance to be less liable to repel truth than those whose information is more multifarious." This recoil of the perfectibilitarian has the same psychological basis as the pantisocracy of Coleridge and Southey. Robert Bage's Man As He Is Not, or Hermsprong is of the same general school as Holcroft's novel. Not having been published until 1796, it provides no evidence for Oscar Wilde, but we may notice that its hero also thinks of migrating to America. " I have," says Hermsprong, "sixty acres of uncleared land upon the Potowmac. . . . I have imagined a society of friends within a two mile ring; and I have imagined a mode of making it happy." Again and again we shall have occasion to note the close relation between the literature of this period and the actual circumstances of the authors' lives. Often it is impossible to say which parodies the other. Whether Coleridge or Southey first proposed the plan is not certain. Southey, as we know, was already dreaming of peace and freedom in America. One may conjecture that he told Coleridge of his dreams and that Coleridge

THE PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

said " W h y n o t ? " and immediately began to speculate. Coleridge, who always regarded reality as coincident with the scope of his imagination, was to be a lover of impossibilities all his life. I t was certainly Coleridge who elabo r a t e d the theoretical side of the scheme, and his own statement of the plan in the eleventh issue of The Friend should t h e r e f o r e be quoted : W h a t I dared not expect from constitutions of governments and whole nations I hoped from religion and a small company of chosen individuals, and formed a plan, as harmless as it was extravagant, of trying the experiment of human perfectibility on the banks of the Susquehannah; where our little society, in its second generation, was to have combined the innocence of the Patriarchal Age with the knowledge and general refinements of European culture; and where I dreamed that in the sober evening of my life I should behold the cottages of independence in the undivided dale of industry.

T h e tradition that Coleridge selected the Susquehanna merely because of its mellifluous name should be discarded. Joseph Priestley, whom the pantisocrats greatly admired, was just settling on the banks of that river, and there was a vague hope of getting him to join them. T h e same region was being made the scene of another social experiment, f o r a group of moderate-liberal Frenchmen, all of them wealthy and some of them nobles, had there set up a little community. T h e noblemen had abandoned their titles, and all was to be peace and equality. T h e influence of an early American " r e a l t o r " should also be recognized. Coleridge writes to Southey f r o m London: Every night I meet a most intelligent young man, who has spent the last five years of his life in America, and is lately come from

THE

PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

55

there as an agent to sell land. . . . H e says that 2 0 0 0 pounds will d o ; that he doubts not that w e can contract for our passage under 4 0 0 pounds; that w e shall buy the land a great deal cheaper when w e arrive at America than w e could do in E n g l a n d ; " o r w h y , " he adds, " a m I sent over h e r e ? " T h a t twelve men may easily

clear

4 0 0 acres in four or five months, and that, for 6 0 0 doltars, a thousand acres may be cleared, and houses built on them.

He

recommends the Susquehanna, from its excessive beauty, and its security from hostile Indians. E v e r y possible assistance will be given us: we may get credit for the land for ten years or more, as w e settle upon it. T h a t literary characters make money

there, etc.,

etc. H e never saw a bison in his life, but has heard of them; they are quite backward. T h e musquitoes are not so bad as our gnats; and after you have been there a little while, they don't trouble you much.

William H a l l e r ' s Early Life of Robert Southey will give you the facts about the movement: how Coleridge and Southey corresponded and argued over the scheme with a gradually growing sense of its futility; how the idea of emigrating to America simmered down to a vague notion of buying a f a r m in W a l e s ; and how the whole plan collapsed in November, 1 7 9 5 , with a quarrel between the two leaders which was made up a f t e r Southey's return f r o m Lisbon. F a r f r o m having enough money to finance a transatlantic settlement, the pantisocrats had barely enough to live on in England. Poor Southey remained in Bristol, whence they intended to sail, trying to work out the practical details of the project; while Coleridge roamed about, prated of the "book of pantisocracy" — one of his many never-to-be-written opuses — and in his l o f t y philosophical way reproached Southey f o r suggesting that any difficulties existed. A s we have seen·, the pantisocrats expected the real

56

THE PANTISOCRATIC PHASE

fruits of their experiment to appear in the second generation of settlers rather than in themselves. In order that there should be a second generation, Coleridge, Southey, and their friend Robert Lovell, with that rather coldblooded idealism characteristic of the age, married three Fricker sisters of Bristol. These ladies very sensibly began to worry about the details of life in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Southey passed on their doubts and fears to Coleridge, who, alarmed at last, responded in a set of "queries" which are very typical of his curious nature. In order to understand them we need also to remember that marriage to the Fricker sisters entailed the entrance into the experiment of a number of relations both young and old. Coleridge writes: Q u a e r e : should not all w h o mean to become members of our community be incessantly meliorating their temper and elevating their understanding? Q u . : whether a very respectable quantity of acquired knowledge . . . be not a prerequisite to the improvement of the head and heart ? Q u . : whether our W o m e n have not been taught by us habitually to contemplate the littleness of individual comforts and a passion for the novelty of the scheme rather than a generous enthusiasm of benevolence? . . . T h e s e questions are meant merely as motives to you, Southey, to the strengthening the minds of the W o m e n , and stimulating them to literary acquirements. But, Southey, there are children going with us. . . . These children, — the little Frickers, for instance, and your brothers, — are they not already deeply tinged with the prejudices and errors of society? . . . H o w are we to prevent them f r o m infecting the minds of our children? By reforming their judgments? At so early an age, can they have felt the ill consequence of their errors in a manner sufficiently vivid to make their reformation practicable? . . . I have told you, Southey, that I will accompany you on an imperfect system. But must our system be thus necessarily imperfect? I

THE

PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

57

ask the question that I may know whether or not I should write the Book of Pantisocracy.

W e shall not be w r o n g in i n f e r r i n g f r o m this that behind the ideals of pantisocracy lay a s o m e w h a t disillusioned v i e w of human nature. In a n o t h e r letter to Southey, f o r instance, C o l e r i d g e w r i t e s : " W h e r e v e r men can be vicious, some will be. T h e l e a d i n g idea of Pantisocracy is to m a k e men necessarily virtuous by r e m o v i n g all incentives to evil." T h i s should put us on our g u a r d against the r a t h e r common practice of r e f e r r i n g to pantisocracy as purely Rousseauistic. T h e s e young men thought of themselves p r i m a r i l y as G o d w i n i a n s . T h e Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft contain a letter written to H o l c r o f t on December 1 1 , 1 7 9 4 , by the pantisocrat R o b e r t L o v e l l , describing the plan and asking him to consult G o d w i n about it and to give the g r o u p their advice. T h e o r e t i c a l l y at least, e m i g r a t i o n to the banks of the Susquehanna w a s not a return to R o u s s e a u ' s state of nature, w h e r e the native goodness of man could flourish unchecked by civilization. It w a s r a t h e r the application of G o d w i n ' s idea of perfectibility t h r o u g h reason to a selected g r o u p of people in an environment that had the negative a d v a n t a g e of shutting out opportunities f o r evil. T h e events of the Revolution h a d shown the pantisocrats that man as a whole w a s not yet r e a d y to become virtuous through w i s d o m . B u t " a small c o m p a n y of chosen indiv i d u a l s " might succeed where w h o l e nations h a d f a i l e d . Y e t although the abstract theory of pantisocracy is chiefly G o d w i n i a n , the feelings of C o l e r i d g e and Southey at this time a r e tinged with the a t m o s p h e r e of the backto-nature cult. Doubtless they felt that the benign influence of the Pennsylvanian f o r e s t w o u l d assist their efforts to

5

8

THE

PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

reason themselves into a state of perfection. H o w strong this influence might be can be seen in Thomas Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming. T h e pantisocrats were certainly influenced by such books as Bartram's Travels and Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer. T o all young lovers of liberty, America was then a land of promise, and in their minds the romantic love of scenery was blended with the romantic love of freedom as they thought of the American wilderness. " T h e r e , " sings J a m e s Montgomery of Sheffield in The Wanderer of Switzerland, T h e r e , in glens and caverns rude, Silent since the world began, D w e l l s the virgin Solitude, Unbetrayed by faithless man; W h e r e a tyrant never trod, W h e r e a slave was never known, But where N a t u r e worships God, In the wilderness, alone.

Hence although pantisocracy is on the whole Godwinian, it mingles Godwin and Rousseau, rationalism and emotionalism, deteriorationism and perfectibilitarianism, in a way thoroughly representative of the thought of the period. L e t us now consider some of the poems which Southey and Coleridge were writing between 1 7 9 3 , when they got into the state of mind which underlies pantisocracy, and 1 7 9 5 , when the plan was abandoned. T h e lesser poet may be dealt with first. A t this time Southey was at work on his epic, Joan of Arc. She appears ^ 1 7 9 6 as a kind of M a r y Wollstonecraft, or, as Coleridge said in his conservative later days,

T H E PANTISOCRATIC PHASE

59

" a Tom Paine in petticoats." This first version of the poem is much less significant f o r us than the second version, published in 1798, which will be dealt with in another connection. IVat Tyler, in which Southey uses the historic uprising as modern reform propaganda, was written in 1794. " A good critic," says Saintsbury, "might take it for a deliberate and very happy parody of the cruder and more innocent utterances of sentimental republicanism." Among other poems of 1794, the Botany Bay Eclogues deserve mention. These are little sketches and stories of the lives of the victims of an unjust society. It was bold of Southey to give this twist to the old respectable eclogue tradition. In Elinor, the first of the series, we see the exile calling out in gratitude to the trackless woods, silent save for "the kangaroo's sad note" : Welcome, wilderness, Nature's domain! for here, as yet unknown T h e comforts and the crimes of polished life, Nature benignly gives to all enough, Denies to all a superfluity.

Perhaps the feeling here expressed colored Southey's dreams of pantisocracy, so that he sometimes pictured himself on the banks of the Susquehanna crying "Welcome !" to the wilderness. In 1794, also, Southey collaborated with Coleridge in a revolutionary drama, The Fall of Robespierre. (Robert Lovell was to be a third collaborator, but dropped out.) Robespierre, not having received the coat of whitewash which some modern historians have given him, was loathed as a bloodthirsty monster by English lovers of freedom. When he was guillotined in July, 1794, the hopes of English idealists, as we may see from Book X

6o

THE

PANTISOCRATIC

o f W o r d s w o r t h ' s Prelude,

PHASE

once m o r e rose high. B u t o f

course w h a t then h a p p e n e d in F r a n c e w a s not a r e n e w a l o f the G o l d e n A g e but a return to c o n s e r v a t i v e b o u r g e o i s c o n t r o l , w i t h one last p r o l e t a r i a n uprising in

October,

1 7 9 5 , w h i c h a y o u n g C o r s i c a n a r t i l l e r y officer h e l p e d to put d o w n . W h a t w a s C o l e r i d g e w r i t i n g in t h e y e a r s of the pantisocratic v i s i o n ? In 1 7 9 4 he p u b l i s h e d in the Morning icle a g r o u p o f Sonnets r e f o r m e r s like G o d w i n

on Eminent and

Characters,

Priestley

(I

Chronpraising

have

already

q u o t e d the s o n n e t on P r i e s t l e y ) a n d c o n d e m n i n g conserv a t i v e s like B u r k e and P i t t . H i s v i e w s on B u r k e and P i t t r e p r e s e n t t h e f e e l i n g s o f m o s t r o m a n t i c liberals.

Burke

w a s a genius, he h a d d e f e n d e d the A m e r i c a n s , he h a d w r i t t e n a t r e a t i s e On the Sublime

and Beautiful,

and he

c o u l d q u o t e M i l t o n at m e e t i n g s o f the R o y a l A c a d e m y . H a z l i t t w a s n o t alone in b e i n g t o r n b e t w e e n a d o r a t i o n of B u r k e ' s style and d e t e s t a t i o n o f his politics. H e n c e it is not s u r p r i s i n g t h a t C o l e r i d g e m a k e s the personified spirit o f F r e e d o m r e b u k e B u r k e in the w o r d s : G r e a t son of G e n i u s ! sweet to me thy name, E r e in an evil hour w i t h altered voice T h o u badst Oppression's hireling c r e w rejoice, B l a s t i n g w i t h w i z a r d spell my laurell'd fame.

B u t the p r a c t i c a l p o l i t i c i a n P i t t , w i t h his cold, cautious, m o n e y - l o v i n g h e a r t , is assailed in a w a y equally typical o f the r o m a n t i c i s t s as a dark S c o w l e r . . . W h o w i t h proud w o r d s of dear-loved freedom came — M o r e blasting than the m i l d e w f r o m the s o u t h ! A n d kissed his c o u n t r y w i t h Iscariot mouth.

T H E PANTISOCRATIC PHASE

61

T o 1 7 9 4 also belong several poetic f o o t n o t e s to Coleridge's unwritten B o o k of Pantisocracy. T h e y a r e f u l l of a sentimentality that shows how thin w a s the l a y e r of Godwinian rationalism which h a d t e m p o r a r i l y been spread o v e r the emotions of this g r o u p . T h e s e lines f r o m Pantisocracy are a f a i r sample : N o more m y visionary soul shall d w e l l O n j o y s that w e r e ; no more endure to w e i g h T h e shame and anguish of the evil d a y , W i s e l y f o r g e t f u l ! O ' e r the ocean s w e l l , Sublime of hope, I seek the c o t t a g ' d dell, W h e r e V i r t u e calm w i t h careless steps m a y stray, A n d dancing to the midnight T h e wizard

roundelay,

Passions w e a v e an holy spell.

But of course the most f a m o u s of these pantisocratic lays is To a Young Ass : Innocent foal, thou poor despised f o r l o r n ! I hail thee Brother

— spite of the fool's scorn ;

A n d fain w o u l d take thee w i t h me, in the D e l l Of

Peace and mild E q u a l i t y to d w e l l .

It is not necessary to r e g a r d these lines as wholly serious. T h a t C o l e r i d g e was quite capable of poking fun at himself is pleasantly shown in his Sonnets Attempted in the Manner of Contemporary JVriters. A f t e r the scheme of pantisocracy collapses, w h a t ensues in the minds of Southey and C o l e r i d g e ? B r i e f l y , their veneer of rationalism and their belief in G o d w i n i a n perfectibility d i s a p p e a r almost c o m p l e t e l y ; and they become much more f r a n k l y emotional and " r o m a n t i c " in the ordinary loose meaning of that term. T h e most essential f a c t in their development, h o w e v e r , is a return to nature

62

T H E

PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

in the W o r d s w o r t h i a n sense — that is, a return to the peace and quiet of rustic life and to the j o y s that the beauty of external nature can give. T h i s f a l l i n g back upon natural simplicity is not, as under the pantisocratic theory, an initial step t o w a r d perfectibility through reason. It is at first merely a retreat to " t h e c o t " in o r d e r to heal a sick and disappointed soul. L a t e r , l a r g e l y thanks to W o r d s w o r t h ' s influence, nature offers them not only r e f u g e , but positive guidance and inspiration. Out of the negation of retreat g r a d u a l l y comes the happy affirmation of the poet who responds to the impulses f r o m the vernal wood. T h i s development in Southey and C o l e r i d g e takes place between 1 7 9 5 and 1 7 9 7 . T h e i r state of mind will be clearer a f t e r we have considered W o r d s w o r t h . Southey's return to nature can best be studied in his Hymn to the Penates, in the series of blank verse Inscriptions, and in the second ( 1 7 9 8 ) version of Joan of Arc. But we must pass on to two poems by Coleridge, the Ode to the Departing Year and France: an Ode. T h e i r importance justifies a rather full analysis. Ode to the Departing Year was composed December 24, 2 5 , and 26, 1 7 9 6 , and published on the last day of that year. C o l e r i d g e says in his A r g u m e n t , T h e ode commences w i t h an address to the D i v i n e

Providence

that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, h o w ever calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. T h e second S t r o p h e calls on men to suspend their private j o y s and sorrows, and devote them for a w h i l e to the cause of general. T h e

first

E p o d e speaks of the E m p r e s s of

died of an apoplexy on the 1 7 t h of N o v e m b e r , concluded

a subsidiary

France. T h e

first

human

treaty

with

nature in

Russia,

who

1 7 9 6 ; having just

the kings combined

and second antistrophe describe

against

the Image of

T H E PANTISOCRATIC PHASE

63

the Departing Y e a r , as in a vision. T h e second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the d o w n f a l l of this country. I t is t h e s e c o n d E p o d e

which more particularly

con-

cerns us. F r o m the h o r r o r s of w a r the p o e t t u r n s to the b e a u t y of f r e e B r i t a i n : Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile, Ο A l b i o n ! Ο my mother Isle! T h y valleys, fair as Eden's bowers, Glitter green with sunny showers; T h e grassy upland's gentle swells Echo to the bleat of

flocks;

( T h o s e grassy hills, those glittering dells Proudly ramparted with rocks) And Ocean mid his uproar wild Speaks safety to his Island-child! Hence for many a fearless age Has social Quiet loved thy shore; N o r ever proud invader's rage O r sacked thy towers, or stained thy fields with gore. T h e n , to quote C o l e r i d g e ' s note, " t h e poet, f r o m

having

c o n s i d e r e d the peculiar a d v a n t a g e s which this country has e n j o y e d , p a s s e s in r a p i d t r a n s i t i o n t o t h e u s e s w h i c h

we

h a v e m a d e o f t h o s e a d v a n t a g e s . " L i k e a l l h i s f e l l o w libe r a l s , C o l e r i d g e is i n d i g n a n t a t E n g l a n d f o r m a k i n g against

war

France:

Abandoned of H e a v e n ! mad A v a r i c e thy guide, A t cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride — M i d thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast stood, A n d joined the wild yelling of Famine and B l o o d ! B u t C o l e r i d g e no l o n g e r feels any impulse to right those w r o n g s o r even to t r y the e x p e r i m e n t of p r o g r e s s on a limited

scale

in s o m e

special

environment.

He

merely

64

THE PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

w a n t s t o g e t a w a y f r o m t h e vileness o f t h e w o r l d , e a r n his living a s b e s t h e c a n , a n d c u l t i v a t e a p a s t o r a l m o o d

of

"meek self-content": A w a y , my soul, a w a y ! In vain, in vain the birds of warning sing — And hark! I hear the famished brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! A w a y , my soul, a w a y ! I, unpartaking of the evil thing, W i t h daily prayer and daily toil Soliciting for food my scanty soil, Have wailed my country with a loud lament. N o w I recentre my immortal mind In the deep Sabbath of meek self-content; Cleansed from the vaporous passions that bedim God's image, sister of the seraphim. France:

an Ode

w a s w r i t t e n in F e b r u a r y ,

1798,

and

p u b l i s h e d in A p r i l o f

that year.

Its original title,

The

Recantation:

is m o r e a p p r o p r i a t e t h a n t h e

final

an Ode,

o n e , f o r h e r e C o l e r i d g e is r e c a n t i n g a l l his f a i t h in t h e R e v o l u t i o n . Since t h e c o m p o s i t i o n o f Ode ing Year,

to the

Depart-

France had invaded Switzerland. N o w

Switzer-

l a n d o c c u p i e d a f a v o r e d p l a c e in t h e h e a r t o f e v e r y y o u n g romanticist. H e r scenery, the simple virtues of h e r mountaineers,

her

traditional

love

of

freedom,

would

have

m a d e h e r t h e i d e a l r o m a n t i c l a n d e v e n w i t h o u t t h e influence o f R o u s s e a u . W e m a y i m a g i n e , t h e n , h o w C o l e r i d g e a n d his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s f e l t w h e n t h i s i d e a l r o m a n t i c l a n d w a s o p p r e s s e d by F r a n c e , t h e s u p p o s e d c h a m p i o n o f t h e rights of

m a n . I t is t h i s c i r c u m s t a n c e w h i c h

Coleridge's

motivates

"recantation."

T h e p o e m is d i v i d e d i n t o s e c t i o n s e a c h o f w h i c h r e p r e -

T H E

PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

65

sents a phase of Coleridge's changing attitude toward the Revolution. These phases, on the whole, represent the experience of his contemporaries as well as his own. You should compare them with those more fully described in Wordsworth's Prelude. M y analysis of Coleridge's ode will follow the Argument. Stanza I : " A n invocation to those objects in Nature the contemplation of which had inspired the Poet with a devotional love of liberty." Y e W o o d s ! that listen to the night-birds singing, M i d w a y the smooth and perilous slope reclined, S a v e w h e n y o u r o w n imperious branches s w i n g i n g , H a v e made a solemn music of the w i n d ! W h e r e , like a man beloved of

God,

T h r o u g h glooms, w h i c h never w o o d m a n trod, H o w o f t , pursuing fancies holy, M y moonlight w a y o'er

flowering

weeds I wound,

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, B y each rude shape and w i l d unconquerable sound ! Ο ye loud W a v e s ! and Ο ye Forests h i g h ! A n d Ο ye C l o u d s that f a r above me soared ! T h o u rising S u n ! thou blue rejoicing S k y ! Y e a , every thing that is and w i l l be f r e e ! B e a r witness f o r me, wheresoe'er ye be, W i t h w h a t deep w o r s h i p I have still adored T h e spirit of divinest

Liberty.

Before the Revolution, then, the untrammeled beauty and majesty of nature had prepared Coleridge to be a lover of liberty. T h a t , we shall find, is exactly Wordsworth's thought, and probably Coleridge's expression of it reflects the influence of the other poet. Wordsworth and Coleridge had met in September, 1 7 9 5 , and by 1 7 9 7

66

T H E

PANTISOCRATIC

PHASE

they were close friends. E a c h had much to give the other. T h o u g h f r o m the first neither was lacking in appreciation of external nature or in intellectual force, on the whole W o r d s w o r t h opened Coleridge's eyes to what nature could do f o r man; while Coleridge, with his metaphysical mind, stimulated W o r d s w o r t h to make a kind of philosophy out of his feeling f o r nature. A t this point, therefore, the autobiographic value of France is perhaps less than that of To a Young Lady, fVith a Poem on the French Revolution. In these lines, written in 1 7 9 4 , Coleridge pictures himself as having been, before the Revolution, not a particularly ardent worshipper of scenery, but a young M a n of Feeling, fond of walking among "echoing cloisters pale . . . amid the pensive twilight gloom" and shedding the tear of sensibility. But to return to the Ode. Stanza I I : " T h e exultation of the Poet at the commencement of the French Revolution, and his unqualified abhorrence of the alliance against the republic." W h e n France in wrath her giant-limbs uprearcd, A n d with that oath, which smote air, earth, and sea, Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free, Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared! W i t h w h a t a joy my lofty gratulation U n a w e d I sang, amid a slavish band: A n d when to whelm the disenchanted nation, Like fiends embattled by a w i z a r d ' s wand, T h e Monarchs marched in evil day, A n d Britain joined the dire a r r a y ; T h o u g h dear her shores and circling ocean, T h o u g h many friendships, many youthful loves H a d swoln the patriot emotion A n d flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves; Y e t still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat

T H E PANTISOCRATIC PHASE

67

T o all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, A n d shame too long delayed and vain retreat! F o r ne'er, Ο L i b e r t y ! with partial aim I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy

flame;

B u t blessed the paeans of delivered France, A n d hung my head and wept at Britain's name. S t a n z a I I I : " T h e b l a s p h e m i e s and h o r r o r s d u r i n g the d o m i n a t i o n of the T e r r o r i s t s r e g a r d e d b y the P o e t as a transient s t o r m , and as the n a t u r a l consequences of f o r m e r d e s p o t i s m a n d o f the f o u l superstition o f P o p e r y . R e a s o n , indeed, b e g a n to s u g g e s t m a n y a p p r e h e n s i o n s ; y e t still the poet s t r u g g l e d to retain the h o p e t h a t F r a n c e w o u l d m a k e conquests by no o t h e r m e a n s than by p r e s e n t i n g to the o b s e r v a t i o n of E u r o p e a nation m o r e h a p p y and b e t t e r instructed than u n d e r o t h e r f o r m s of g o v e r n m e n t . " " A n d w h a t , " said I, "though Blasphemy's loud scream W i t h that sweet music of deliverence strove! T h o u g h all the fierce and drunken passions w o v e A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's d r e a m ! Y e storms, that round the dawning East assembled, T h e Sun was rising, though ye hid his l i g h t ! " S t a n z a I V : " S w i t z e r l a n d , a n d the p o e t ' s

recantation."

F o r g i v e me, F r e e d o m ! Ο forgive those dreams! I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament, F r o m bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent — I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams! Heroes, that f o r your peaceful country perished, A n d ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows W i t h bleeding w o u n d s ; forgive me that I cherished One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes! S t a n z a V : " A n a d d r e s s to L i b e r t y , in w h i c h the P o e t expresses his c o n v i c t i o n t h a t those f e e l i n g s a n d t h a t g r a n d

68

T H E P A N T I S O C R A T I C PHASE

ideal of F r e e d o m which the mind attains by the contemplation of its individual nature, a n d of the sublime surrounding objects, do not belong to men, as a society, n o r can possibly be either gratified o r realized, u n d e r any f o r m of human g o v e r n m e n t ; but belong to the individual man, so f a r as he is pure, and inflamed with the love and a d o r a t i o n of G o d in N a t u r e . " T h e Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game They burst their manacles and wear the name Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain! Ο Liberty! with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee) Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions, And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, T h e guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves! And there I felt thee! — on that sea-cliff's verge, Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above, Had made one murmur with the distant surge! Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare, And shot my being through earth, sea, and air, Possessing all things with intensest love, Ο Liberty! my spirit felt thee there. Coleridge, then, finally comes to the conclusion that society cannot attain f r e e d o m t h r o u g h violent rebellion o r even t h r o u g h peaceful r e f o r m . L i b e r t y is something which the individual finds in his own noblest s e l f ; and he finds t h a t noblest self t h r o u g h a d o r i n g God's noblest self

T H E PANTISOCRATIC PHASE

69

— that is, G o d ' s beautiful mountains and f o r e s t s and streams. N o w that Southey and C o l e r i d g e are s a f e in the bosom of nature a f t e r the s t o r m and stress of the Revolution, w e may turn to W o r d s w o r t h in o r d e r to see how he responded to the same stimuli.

ν T H E PRELUDE Since The Prelude covers Wordsworth's imaginative and intellectual development from early childhood to 1 7 9 8 , by which time his characteristic view of nature had assumed definite form, it will provide the backbone of this lecture. F o r facts about the composition of the poem and its relation to the uncompleted magnum opus on "man, nature, and society," The Recluse, see De Selincourt's Variorum Edition. B e f o r e we begin to analyze The Prelude we should remind ourselves of a fact which some students of Wordsworth forget — that memory tends to rearrange the past in such a way as to make it account for the present. We are here dealing, not with primary biographical sources, but with a highly imaginative man's account of those influences which he supposes to have made him the poet that he is. T h e poem is part of the abundant literature of romantic self-revelation, and inevitably has a large subjective element. Book I deals with Childhood and Schooltime. Describing his boyhood in the L a k e Country, Wordsworth relates that from his earliest days his senses were gradually attuned to the beauty of nature. T h e most intense and memorable of his early impressions, however, seem to have been those of solemn fear. T a k e for example the poaching incident, lines 3 1 7 ff., or better still the great "stolen boat" passage, lines 3 5 7 ff. Wordsworth is trying

THE

PRELUDE

71

t o s h o w t h a t beauty enters our souls t h r o u g h f e a r e v e n b e f o r e it appeals to us directly. B u t nature soon b e g a n t o impress t h e b o y n o t m e r e l y by scaring him, but by g i v i n g h i m s e n s u o u s j o y . Such m o m e n t s are represented by the s k a t i n g s c e n e : Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, T o cut across the reflex of a star T h a t fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, W h e n we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still T h e rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me — even as if the earth had rolled W i t h visible motion her diurnal round! L o o k i n g back on these impressions, W o r d s w o r t h f e e l s that they must have been f o r s o m e p u r p o s e : Ye Presences of Nature in the sky And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills! And Souls of lonely places! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed Such ministry, when ye through many a year Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, Impressed upon all forms the characters Of danger or desire; and thus did make T h e surface of the universal earth W i t h triumph and delight, with hope and fear, W o r k like a sea?

72

THE

PRELUDE

The poet seems to remember that as early as the age of ten he felt not merely the boyish thrill which he has been describing, but a deeper and more spiritual delight. Even then I f e l t G l e a m s like the flashing of a shield; — the earth A n d common face of N a t u r e spake to me Rememberable things.

Without his knowing it, these influences sank into his mind to make him what at last he became — a great poet. H e r e and elsewhere, as I have suggested, some allowance needs to be made for the "autobiographical fallacy." Not Wordsworth, but his sister, tells us that in these days the future poet used to kill all the white butterflies he could catch, "because they were Frenchmen." The white cockade of the Bourbons is no doubt the associative link. T h i s little fact sheds light on To a Butterfly : O h ! pleasant, pleasant, w e r e the days, T h e time, when in our childish plays, M y sister Emmeline and I T o g e t h e r chased the b u t t e r f l y ! A v e r y hunter did I rush U p o n the prey ; — w i t h leaps and springs I f o l l o w e d on f r o m brake to bush ; But she, G o d love h e r ! feared to brush T h e dust f r o m off its wings.

T h a t butterfly was a Frenchman. Book II, Schooltime {continued), deals in a more intimate and informal way with Wordsworth's happy life at Hawkshead Grammar School. In an interesting passage he recalls his love of the sun :

THE

PRELUDE

73

N o t as I since have loved him, as a pledge And surety of our earthly life, a light W h i c h we behold and feel we are alive ; N o r for his bounty to so many worlds — But for this cause, that I had seen him lay His beauty on the morning hills, had seen T h e western mountain touch his setting orb, In many a thoughtless hour, when, f r o m excess Of happiness, my blood appeared to flow For its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy. T h e pleasure he derived f r o m nature at this time, then, was

purely

esthetic,

without

any

element

of

philoso-

p h y . B u t as W o r d s w o r t h w r i t e s o f h i s p a s t his m a t u r e d s e n s e o f the p h i l o s o p h i c a l s i g n i f i c a n c e o f t h e s e j o y s is v e r y keen. H e

n o w f e e l s t h a t s o m e t h i n g in h i m ,

something

m o r e than merely sensuous, must have reached out t o w a r d t h e b e a u t y t h a t h e b e h e l d . T h e f o l l o w i n g p a s s a g e illust r a t e s t h i s b e l i e f in a w a y t h a t c a s t s l i g h t u p o n t h e mortality

Ode:

Blest the Babe, Nursed in his M o t h e r ' s arms, w h o sinks to sleep Rocked on his M o t h e r ' s b r e a s t ; w h o with his soul Drinks in the feeling of his M o t h e r ' s eye! For him, in one dear Presence, there exists A virtue which irradiates and exalts Objects through widest intercourse of sense. N o outcast he, bewildered and depressed; Along his infant veins are interfused T h e gravitation and the filial bond Of nature that connect him with the w o r l d . Is there a flower, to which he points with hand T o o weak to gather it, already love D r a w n from love's purest earthly f o u n t for him

Im-

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THE

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Hath beautified that flower; already shades Of pity cast from inward tenderness D o fall around him upon aught that bears Unsightly marks of violence or harm. Emphatically such a Being lives, Frail creature as he is, helpless as frail, An inmate of this active universe; For feeling has to him imparted power T h a t through the growing faculties of sense Doth like an agent of the one great Mind Create, creator and receiver both, Working but in alliance with the works Which it beholds. — Such, verily, is the first Poetic spirit of our human life, By uniform control of after years, In most, abated or suppressed; in some, Through every change of growth and of decay, Pre-eminent till death.

T h e s e lines a r e of g r e a t importance as showing h o w a h a p p y childhood holds the germ of the p o e t r y of an adult w h o has been f a i t h f u l to the insight of childhood. T h e m o t h e r ' s love f o r her babe, says W o r d s w o r t h , disposes the child t o feel love in n a t u r e , so t h a t even his earliest sense experiences a r e subconsciously associated in his mind w i t h an element of affectionate goodness in the external w o r l d . T h e child's own instinctive love f o r his m o t h e r , conversely, disposes him to t a k e an a t t i t u d e of filial love t o w a r d the b e a u t i f u l w o r l d in which he lives. T h i s is the " n a t u r a l p i e t y " of My Heart Leaps Up. A n d it is " t h e first poetic spirit of our h u m a n l i f e " because, like p o e t r y , it is p a r t l y a passive response to sense impressions a n d p a r t l y a creative t r e a t m e n t of those impressions in t e r m s of i n w a r d feeling. T h i s n a t u r a l interplay of the objective

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75

and the s u b j e c t i v e is the p r i v i l e g e of c h i l d h o o d . T h e w o r l d suppresses it in m o s t adults, but a f e w men, called poets, are able to p r e s e r v e it. W o r d s w o r t h b e l i e v e s f o r a time t h a t he has done so. B o o k I I I , Residence

at Cambridge.

In

1 7 8 7 , at the

a g e of s e v e n t e e n , W o r d s w o r t h entered St. J o h n ' s C o l l e g e , C a m b r i d g e . H e r o o m e d o v e r the noisy c o l l e g e kitchens, but his w i n d o w l o o k e d out upon the c h a p e l o f

Trinity,

w h e r e s t o o d the statue of N e w t o n , T h e m a r b l e index of a mind for ever V o y a g i n g through strange seas of T h o u g h t ,

alone.

H e did n o t t r y v e r y h a r d f o r scholastic eminence, feeling t h a t he h a d a special destiny w i t h w h i c h

Cambridge

h a d little to do. H i s l o v e o f n a t u r e b e g a n to t a k e

on

greater depth and maturity: T o every natural form, rock, fruit or

flower,

E v e n the loose stones that cover the h i g h - w a y , I gave a moral l i f e : I saw them feel, O r linked them to some f e e l i n g : the great mass L a y bedded in a quickening soul, and all T h a t I beheld respired w i t h i n w a r d meaning.

T h i s a d v a n c e t o w a r d the final state o f his poetic mind, h o w e v e r , w a s s o o n checked and s m o t h e r e d by the f r i v o l i ties of c o l l e g e l i f e . Easily I passed F r o m the remembrances of better things, A n d slipped into the ordinary

works

O f careless youth, unburthened, u n a l a r m e d . Caverns

there w e r e w i t h i n my mind w h i c h sun

C o u l d never penetrate, yet there did not W a n t store of l e a f y arbours

w h e r e the light

M i g h t enter in at w i l l . Companionships,

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THE

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Friendships, acquaintances, were welcome all. W e sauntered, played, or rioted; we talked Unprofitable talk at morning hours; Drifted about along the streets and walks, Read lazily in trivial books, went forth T o gallop through the country in blind zeal Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast Of C a m sailed boisterously, and let the stars Come forth, perhaps without one quiet thought.

T h e universities of this time were, as Southey was later to express it, "haunts of intolerance, vice, and f o l l y . " In Fleetwood ( 1 8 0 5 ) , Godwin makes his hero undergo at O x f o r d experiences similar to those which Wordsworth reports, except that the fictional character is much more deplorably affected by his environment. Y o u n g Fleetwood is brought up in the mountains of W a l e s as a child of nature — free, innocent, instinctively benevolent. But Oxford has a corrupting influence on the youth. " O h divinity that presidest over the constellations, the meteors, and the ocean, how was your pupil fallen! H o w the awestruck and ardent worshipper changed into the shameless roarer of a licentious c a t c h ! " Fleetwood goes to Switzerland from the university, as Wordsworth is to do a little later. We may note that H u g h T r e v o r , in H o l c r o f t ' s novel of that name, also finds O x f o r d a place where the natural virtues are sophisticated. T h e r e is no reason to suppose that Wordsworth was guilty of any serious misconduct during his college days. De Quincey reports that f o r a time he was something of a dandy, and Wordsworth himself tells us that he once got slightly tipsy in J o h n Milton's room in Christ's College. A friend of Wordsworth occupied that historic chamber, and one night a

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77

g r o u p of students g a t h e r e d there and paid s o m e w h a t inapp r o p r i a t e tribute to " t h e l a d y of C h r i s t ' s " by drinking too much. T h a t incident is described in lines 2 8 6 ff. We ever

cannot suppose, h o w e v e r , t h a t W o r d s w o r t h very

active

as

a

shameless

roarer

of

was

licentious

catches. H e simply w a s t e d his time and g o t off the track of his true d e v e l o p m e n t . H e is not g r e a t l y to be blamed f o r that. W e m a y see f r o m this g r e a t p a s s a g e that he expected to find something which the university w a s not able to g i v e h i m : T o i l and pains In this recess, by t h o u g h t f u l F a n c y built, Should spread f r o m h e a r t to h e a r t ; and stately groves, M a j e s t i c edifices, should not w a n t A corresponding dignity w i t h i n . T h e c o n g r e g a t i n g t e m p e r t h a t pervades O u r unripe years, not wasted, should be t a u g h t T o minister t o w o r k s of high a t t e m p t — W o r k which the enthusiast w o u l d p e r f o r m w i t h love. Y o u t h should be awed, religiously possessed W i t h a conviction of the power t h a t waits O n knowledge, w h e n sincerely sought and prized F o r its own sake, on glory and on praise If b u t by labour w o n , and fit to e n d u r e T h e passing d a y ; should learn to put aside H e r t r a p p i n g s here, should strip t h e m off abashed B e f o r e antiquity and stedfast t r u t h A n d s t r o n g book-mindedness; and over all A healthy sound simplicity should reign, A seemly plainness, n a m e it w h a t you will, Republican or pious. M i s s i n g that spirit at C a m b r i d g e , as we miss it at H a r v a r d and W i l l i a m s and M i n n e s o t a and C o l u m b i a , W o r d s -

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THE

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worth hardly took full advantage of such benefits as the academic environment actually provided. Book V, Summer Vacation. In the Summer of 1788 he returned to Hawkshead for the long vacation. Even across the years, the zestful, almost gay, spirit of this book imparts to us his pleasure at getting back to the old scenes. But the intimacy of his contact with nature was interfered with by the frivolous, superficial, Cambridge attitude which clung to him: Y e t in spite O f pleasure won, and knowledge not withheld, T h e r e was an inner falling off — I loved, Loved deeply all that had been loved before, M o r e deeply even than e v e r : but a swarm O f heady schemes jostling each other, gawds, A n d feast and dance, and public revelry, A n d sports and games (too grateful in themselves, Y e t in themselves less grateful, I believe, T h a n as they were a badge glossy and fresh O f manliness and freedom) all conspired T o lure my mind from firm habitual quest O f feeding pleasures, to depress the zeal A n d damp those yearnings which had once been mine.

Book V, Books, is a sort of interlude dealing with the influence of literature on the poet's mind. He testifies that books have been second only to nature in forming his ideas. Lines 230 ff. advocate liberty in reading, and praise his mother f o r letting him browse at will. Wordsworth's education at Hawkshead Grammar School had been along lines of Rousseauistic freedom, though William Taylor could hardly have been aware of that fact. Wordsworth follows Rousseau in believing that education should be the

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79

development, not the repression, of natural instinct. Legouis and De Selincourt, however, are probably right when they say that on this point W o r d s w o r t h is more consistent than Rousseau, fimile's tutor is something of a Foxy Grandpa, always spying on the child, presenting this stimulus and withholding that. T h e boy is to suppose himself free, but in reality he is about as f r e e as a laboratory guinea pig. W o r d s w o r t h — at the time when he wrote this passage — will have none of these mistrustful restrictions and arbitrarily manufactured situations. W e may infer that Wordsworth thinks his mother a better educator than £mile's ideal tutor. H e insists that literary instruction must not be forced or formalized, and must not be allowed to usurp the place of nature in education. H e does not, however, share Rousseau's disapproval of imaginative literature as mental f o o d f o r the young child. Tales of wonder and magic keep the boy's mind f r o m growing dry and stiff, and help him to see the marvelous in nature. Conversely, the education of nature is the best preparation f o r the maturer love of books, since a lad reared as Wordsworth has been reared finds in literature the nature which he already knows, now illumined by genius. Book V I , Cambridge and the Alps. When W o r d s w o r t h returned to Cambridge in the autumn of 1 7 8 8 the original excitement of college life had subsided and, by being less imitative of his environment, he derived more benefit f r o m it. H e lived more to himself, read eagerly, though not often in the books which his professors required, and responded to the quiet beauty of the university and its setting. T h e impressions of his childhood, too, returned to him in meditations which led him to hope that he might

8o

T H E PRELUDE

achieve greatness in literature. Nevertheless, he looks back on these pleasant days as a period of drifting. When the "long vacation" of 1790 arrived, he took a walking-tour through France and the Swiss Alps with Robert Jones, a Welsh college friend. As we may see from the passage describing the Simplon Pass, lines 617 ff., he sometimes keenly felt the glories of the scenery. But such moods of almost mystical elevation are at this time rather rare. Wordsworth's imagination worked best in an atmosphere of peace and quiet — "emotion recollected in tranquility." His travels were too superficially and immediately exciting to afford the best material for his mind to work on. With twelve short weeks at their disposal, these young men hiked very rapidly, hurrying on to a new scene of beauty before they had had time to digest the previous one. Contemporary events in France, moreover, tended to obscure the deeper messages of the mountains. The Revolution had broken out, but the excesses of the Terror were still far away. In fact, during the summer of 1790 all France was celebrating a kind of love feast in which the sentimentally idealistic side of the movement was uppermost. Louis himself had taken the oath of allegiance to the new government, and everyone was everyone else's brother. In his French Revolution, Carlyle has painted a remarkable picture of these idyllic days. This carnival of universal brotherhood would be delightful to any young man of sensibility, and Wordsworth liked it extremely. But the carnival impressed him more than the meaning of the carnival. Everything conspired to make him feel gay and careless. His enjoyment of external nature kept him from sensing the true seriousness of the political situation, and the present temper of the French

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81

kept him f r o m opening the depths of his heart to the beauty through which he passed. Book V I I , Residence in London. At the end of this vacation W o r d s w o r t h returned to Cambridge. H e took his B.A. in January, 1791, and went to London. T h e city pleased and excited him. T h e poet of nature gives us in this book some charming glimpses of what a great city can mean to a youth. A n d he never forgot that a city can be beautiful — witness the sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge. But looking back upon these days he feels that the excitement of city life distracted him f r o m his true self. Even then he half unconsciously recognized that the p r o f o u n d wells of his character were being covered up. H i s thoughts kept turning to his boyhood in the L a k e Country. Perhaps some recollection of his own homesickness later entered into The Reverie of Poor Susan (1797) : A t the corner of W o o d Street, when daylight appears, H a n g s a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years: Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard In the silence of morning the song of the bird. ' T i s a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees; Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide, And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside. She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade, T h e mist and the river, the hill and the shade: T h e stream w i l l not flow, and the hill w i l l not rise, A n d the colours have all passed away from her eyes!

T h e memories of the Lake Country which come to W o r d s w o r t h in London make up Book V I I I , Retrospect.

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T H E PRELUDE

T h e subtitle, Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man, indicates the significance of this part of the poem. W o r d s w o r t h begins by describing a rural f a i r held in the shadow of M o u n t Helvellyn. T h e "dalesmen" lead a life very different f r o m that of the dwellers in the city: Immense Is the recess, the circumambient world Magnificent, by which they are embraced: They move about upon the soft green turf: How little they, they and their doings, seem, And all that they can further or obstruct! Through utter weakness pitiably dear, As tender infants are: and yet how great! For all things serve them: them the morning light Loves, as it glistens on the silent rocks; And them the silent rocks, which now from high Look down upon them; the reposing clouds ; The wild brooks prattling from invisible haunts; And old Helvellyn, conscious of the stir Which animates this day their calm abode. With deep devotion, Nature, did I feel In that enormous City's turbulent world Of men and things, what benefit I owed T o thee, and those domains of rural peace, Where to the sense of beauty first my heart W a s opened. A f t e r giving an account of the peasants' virtues, which arise f r o m their closeness to nature, W o r d s w o r t h tells of the g r o w t h of his feeling f o r these simple folk. A s a boy, he had seen the dalesman against the background of his majestic surroundings. Hence in W o r d s w o r t h ' s youthful imagination the peasant took on something of the majesty of the hills.

THE

PRELUDE

83

A rambling school-boy, thus I felt his presence in his own domain, As of a lord and master, or a power, O r genius, under N a t u r e , under G o d , Presiding; and severest solitude H a d more commanding looks when he was there. W h e n up the lonely brooks on rainy days Angling I went, or trod the trackless hills By mists bewildered, suddenly mine eyes H a v e glanced upon him distant a f e w steps, In size a giant, stalking through thick fog, His sheep like Greenland bears; or, as he stepped Beyond the boundary line of some hill-shadow, His form hath flashed upon me, glorified By the deep radiance of the setting s u n : O r him have I descried in distant sky, A solitary object and sublime, Above all height! like an aerial cross Stationed alone upon a spiry rock Of the Chartreuse, for worship. T h u s was man Ennobled outwardly before my sight, And thus my heart was early introduced T o an unconscious love and reverence Of human n a t u r e ; hence the h u m a n f o r m T o me became an index of delight, Of grace and honour, power and worthiness.

If this ideal view of man was an illusion, says Wordsworth, it was at least a beneficent one. H e scorns the literal-minded rationalist who would wish to deprive him of it, and thanks God that the good in man was magnified by his boyish imagination before he became aware of the evil: Call ye these appearances — W h i c h I beheld of shepherds in my youth,

84

THE

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This sanctity of Nature given to man — A shadow, a delusion, ye who pore On the dead letter, miss the spirit of things, But blessed be the God Of Nature and of M a n that this was so; T h a t men before my inexperienced eyes Did first present themselves thus purified, Removed, and to a distance that was fit; And so we all of us in some degree Are led to knowledge, wheresoever led, And howsoever; were it otherwise, And we found evil fast as we found good In our first years, or think that it is found, How could the innocent heart bear up and live! But doubly fortunate my lot; not here Alone, that something of a better life Perhaps was round me than it is the privilege Of most to move in, but that first I looked At Man through objects that were great or fair; First communed with him by their help. It is, then, by making us look at humanity in relation to objects which are great or fair that love of nature leads to love of man. Books I X and X , Residence in France, and Book X I , France, are best considered as a unit. A t the end of 1 7 9 1 Wordsworth went to France, and stayed there through 1 7 9 2 . During this sojourn occurred an event not mentioned in the Prelude·, he formed an irregular alliance with a French girl named Annette Vallon, and had by her a daughter — the "dear child" of It is a beauteous evening. T h e occurrence is not particularly astounding — Wordsworth was not born poet laureate of England. Dur-

THE

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85

ing this period, too, he may well have h a d conscientiously radical ideas on the subject of m a r r i a g e , as did a good many other young men. T h o u g h the importance of this affair should not be overstressed, it doubtless a d d e d a special element to the general disturbance of the time. It is reflected in the narrative poem Vaudracour and Julia, and in several dramatic lyrics in which a deserted mother laments her f a t e to her c h i l d — f o r example, the Complaint of a Forsaken Indian IVoman. It would also be extremely interesting should the mysterious Lucy be Annette Vallon, t r a n s f e r r e d to the L a k e Country and there imaginatively killed off for purposes of emotional relief. In this part of The Prelude, W o r d s w o r t h tells us that when he came to France he was not greatly moved by the Revolution. F o r a person so familiar with the democracy of nature, the rights of man seemed too obvious to become excited about. T h e following lines will recall the first stage of Coleridge's feelings t o w a r d the Revolution: Add unto this, subservience from the first T o presences of God's mysterious power Made manifest in Nature's sovereignty, And fellowship with venerable books, T o sanction the proud workings of the soul, And mountain liberty. It could not be But that one tutored thus should look with awe Upon the faculties of man, receive Gladly the highest promises, and hail. As best, the government of equal rights And individual worth. And hence, Ο Friend! If at the first great outbreak I rejoiced Less than might well befit my youth, the cause In part lay here, that unto me the events Seemed nothing out of nature's certain course, A gift that was come rather late than soon.

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THE

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It all seemed a part of the general return to nature: Y o u t h maintains, In all conditions of society, Communion more direct and intimate W i t h Nature, — hence, ofttimes, with reason too — T h a n age, or manhood, even. T o N a t u r e , then, P o w e r had reverted: habit, custom, l a w , H a d left an interregnum's open space F o r her to move about in, uncontrolled.

But the poet soon formed a friendship with a French army officer, Michel Beaupuy. This high-souled patriot made Wordsworth appreciate the causes of the Revolution, the loftiness of its aims, and the obstacles in its path, and filled him with such enthusiasm that he determined to cast in his lot with the Girondins, the moderate republican party opposed to the Jacobins. T o what extent he actually engaged in French politics has been a disputed point, as has the exact reason for his return to England in December, 1792, or January, 1 7 9 3 . Harper favors the idea that his activity in the Girondist party made it unsafe for him to remain in France. But in lines 222 ff. of Book X Wordsworth seems to say that if " a chain of harsh necessity" had not dragged him back to England at this time he would have joined the ill-fated Girondins and might have perished with their leaders — a hypothetical escape f o r which, in the final text of the poem, he thanks Providence. And the corresponding passage of the 18051806 text explains what the "chain" was: In this frame of mind, Reluctantly to E n g l a n d I returned, Compelled by nothing less than absolute w a n t O f funds for my support, else, well assured

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87

T h a t I both was and must be of small worth, N o better than an alien in the Land, I doubtless should have made a common cause W i t h some who perished, haply perished too, A poor mistaken and bewildered offering.

The semi-autobiographical Vaudracour and Julia contains a passage which may easily be interpreted to mean that he hoped to obtain in England money wherewith to support Annette Vallon. There may be some other explanation, but I know of no evidence for it. This, by the way, will suggest the usefulness of De Selincourt's Variorum Edition of The Prelude, which has received less attention than it deserves. The possibility that Wordsworth returned to France and Annette for a short time in 1793 is strengthened by important letters communicated to the London Times Literary Supplement of M a y 1 and June 12, 1930, by Professors J . M . Harper and J . R. MacGillivray. In 1 7 9 3 , Wordsworth was greatly shocked when England declared war against France. It seemed as if his beloved country were fighting against all his ideals. The hostility of England and the other members of the Coalition made France desperate, and strengthened the violent Jacobin party. The consequent Reign of Terror appalled Wordsworth, but he continued to hope for the best; and when Robespierre was himself beheaded in July, 1794, he thought that the Golden A g e had at last returned. Though separately published under the title French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts At Its Commencement, those beautiful lines beginning " O pleasant exercise of hope and j o y ! " really represent Wordsworth's feelings in the summer of 1 7 9 4 after the death of Robes-

88

T H E

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pierre. H e discovered his mistake in the autumn of the same y e a r when F r a n c e f o r s o o k revolutionary idealism a l o n g with terroristic excesses, and began to w a g e aggressive w a r in Spain, I t a l y , G e r m a n y , and H o l l a n d . A n equally crushing disillusionment came when E n g l a n d , as w e know, tried to s t a m p out liberal thought on her side of the C h a n n e l . In the final version W o r d s w o r t h has toned down the p a s s a g e dealing with this subject; let us take the h a r s h e r lines of the 1 8 0 5 - 1 8 0 6 version : O u r Shepherds (this say m e r e l y ) at that time T h i r s t e d to make the g u a r d i a n C r o o k of

Law

A tool of M u r d e r ; they w h o ruled the State, T h o u g h w i t h such a w f u l proof before their eyes T h a t he w h o w o u l d s o w death, reaps death, or worse, A n d can reap nothing better, child-like longed T o imitate, not w i s e enough to avoid, G i a n t s in their impiety alone, B u t , in their w e a p o n s and their w a r f a r e base A s v e r m i n w o r k i n g out of reach, they leagued T h e i r strength perfidiously, to undermine Justice, and m a k e an end of L i b e r t y .

A l l this hastened an interesting development in the mind of the poet. B o t h F r a n c e and E n g l a n d had disappointed his hopes, and he was troubled about Annette V a l l o n . Since his feelings w e r e bruised and irritated, he tried not to feel at all, but to cultivate pure, abstract reason. T h i s , remember, w a s the very time when Southey was trying to counteract the influence of Rousseau by dieting upon E p i c t e t u s and G o d w i n . A t C a m b r i d g e , where mathematics has long occupied an honored place, W o r d s w o r t h had responded to the imaginative appeal of geometry :

THE

89

PRELUDE

M i g h t y is the charm Of those abstractions to a mind beset W i t h images, and haunted by herself, A n d specially delightful unto me W a s that clear synthesis built up a l o f t So g r a c e f u l l y ; even then when it appeared N o more than a mere plaything, or a toy T o sense embodied: not the thing it is In verity, an independent world, Created out of pure intelligence. ( V I , 158 A s E d n a St. Vincent

Millay

ff.)

e x p r e s s e s it, " E u c l i d

alone

has l o o k e d on b e a u t y b a r e . " W o r d s w o r t h n o w w i s h e d to w i t h d r a w into a p h i l o s o p h y of cool g e o m e t r i c a l f o r g e t t i n g all the lessons o f

nature.

Such

a

reason,

philosophy

w a s w a i t i n g f o r h i m , as f o r m a n y of his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s , in G o d w i n ' s Political

Justice:

T h i s was the time, when, all things tending fast T o depravation, speculative schemes — T h a t promised to abstract the hopes of M a n O u t of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth F o r ever in a purer element — Found ready welcome. T e m p t i n g region that F o r Z e a l to enter and refresh herself, W h e r e passions had the privilege to work, A n d never hear the sound of their own names. But, speaking more in charity, the dream Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least W i t h that which makes our Reason's naked self T h e object of its fervour. W h a t delight! H o w glorious! in self-knowledge and self-rule, T o look through all the frailties of the w o r l d , A n d , with a resolute mastery shaking off

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Infirmities of nature, time, and place, Build social upon personal Liberty, W h i c h , to the blind restraints of general laws Superior, magisterially adopts One guide, the light of circumstances, flashed Upon an independent intellect.

Authorities are unable to agree as to the dates of Wordsworth's "Godwinian period." The concluding books of The Prelude shift backward and forward in a baffling manner. Besides, since even Godwin himself is not a perfect Godwinian, we can hardly expect to find particular months or years during which Wordsworth's mind is enclosed in a trim little box to which a definite label can be affixed. Without troubling you with minute details, I shall offer the following summary of the matter. It agrees, I find, with the views of De Selincourt. So f a r as necessitarianism is concerned, the influence of Godwin begins to operate upon Wordsworth in 1 7 9 3 . It tends to make his thought somewhat colder and more mechanical, it begins to draw him away from nature, and it combines with the English declaration of war against France and with the Terror to diminish his revolutionary enthusiasm. But the death of Robespierre arouses his hopes, and we may suppose that Godwin's grip is relaxed f o r a time. The aggressions of the French armies in the autumn of 1794, however, discourage Wordsworth once more, and he more or less definitely espouses Godwin's rationalism and his purely abstract, theoretical, and individualistic radicalism. This phase is of very short duration. Godwin's influence begins to waver by the middle of 1 7 9 5 , and is definitely at an end before the close of 1796. This applies almost exactly to Coleridge and Southey, who, quite inde-

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pendently of Wordsworth, were going through the same experience at the same time. T h e collapse of Godwinism causes a doubt and distress which in later days Wordsworth seems inclined to associate with the Godwinian period itself. But in 1 7 9 7 , through the help of his sister and of Coleridge, Wordsworth is himself again, and the Lyrical Ballads are in preparation. When Wordsworth was actually living through his Godwinian period, he seems not to have been particularly unhappy. It was a time of unrest, but rather interesting and exciting. T h e best means of observing his actual feelings during this phase of his development is not so much The Prelude as his letters, especially those written to his friend James Matthews. H e r e he figures as a fairly typical young Godwinian — "even to extravagance a necessitarian," Coleridge was to say of him — and does not seem at all anguished over that fact. In a letter written to Matthews in June, 1794, he says: I disapprove of monarchical and aristocratical governments, however modified.

Hereditary distinctions, and privileged orders of

every species, I think must necessarily counteract the progress of human improvement: hence it follows that I am not amongst the admirers of the British Constitution.

T h a t has the true Frank Henley ring. H e says that he does not want a revolution in England, but feels that one is imminent. T h e only way to avert it is to preach the advantages of "gradual and constant r e f o r m . " But if he must choose between revolution and no reform at all, he will choose revolution. In the same year, he proposes to Matthews that they found a reform magazine, to be called The Philanthropist :

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H e r e at the v e r y threshold I solemnly affirm that in no w r i t i n g s of mine w i l l I ever admit of any sentiment w h i c h can h a v e the least tendency to induce my readers to suppose that the doctrines w h i c h are n o w enforced by banishment, imprisonment, etc., etc., are other than pregnant w i t h every species of misery. Y o u

know

perhaps already that I a m of that odious class of men called democrats, and of that class I shall ever continue.

T h a t rash prophecy was not to be fulfilled. T h e Philanthropist scheme fell through, as did an attempt to secure a post on the staff of a liberal newspaper. In 1 7 9 5 he planned a volume of political satires and worked on it f o r a short time, but this venture also proved fruitless. Earlier, in 1 7 9 3 , he had written his Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff. T h i s was never printed in Wordsworth's lifetime, and there is no evidence that it was ever sent to the person addressed. Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, had been a strong W h i g when Whiggism was fashionable, but he recanted all his liberal opinions in J a n u a r y , 1 7 9 3 , when he published a sermon on " T h e wisdom and goodness of G o d in having made both rich and poor." T h a t theme alone would give him ample opportunity to be unctuously conservative, but he added an appendix attacking the Revolution along Burkian lines. Wordsworth's letter, written soon a f t e r the publication of Watson's sermon, is really an attack on Burke through Watson. It contains the usual pro-revolutionary ideas, expressed in Wordsworth's excellent prose. N o t being able to foresee " J u s t f o r a handful of silver he left us," W o r d s w o r t h charges Watson with apostasy. A s f o r the poetry of this period, you probably know that in 1 7 9 3 Wordsworth published two longish poems, An Evening IValk and Descriptive Sketches. T h e s e were

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brought out by Joseph Johnson, a close friend of Godwin and the publisher f o r the radical group. T h e y have little real connection, however, with Wordsworth's feelings at this time. An Evening IValk was written between 1 7 8 7 and 1 7 8 9 , before the outbreak of the Revolution. It is an immature but mildly pleasing poem in heroic couplets, and, except f o r hints of Wordsworth's future ability to write with his eye on the subject, completely in the tradition of the early romantic descriptive poetry of the eighteenth century. T h e time of day encourages a little superficial melancholy, and there is a touch of sentimental humanitarianism in the description of a beggar-woman. Descriptive Sketches, also in heroic couplets, was written in 1 7 9 1 and 1 7 9 2 , but it arises directly from the walking tour of the summer of 1 7 9 0 . Although more mature than An Evening Walk, it is still the familiar eighteenth century mixture of description and reflection. Wordsworth praises the simple Swiss peasants, says the proper things about William Tell, and ends with a rather perfunctory-sounding complimentary address to revolutionary France. T h e most important poem actually composed during the Godwinian period is the strong, gloomy, Guilt and Sorrow. It was begun as early as 1 7 9 1 , but the first d r a f t was not finished until 1 7 9 4 and the whole poem was rewritten in the following year. Its theme is the misery caused by war, and the helplessness of the poor in an unjustly organized society. T h e poetic drama, The Borderers, written in 1 7 9 5 and 1 7 9 6 , occupies an ambiguous position in Wordsworth scholarship. Some students regard it as an exposition of Godwinism, and some as an exposure of that philosophy.

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Probably it represents that transitional stage to which I have already r e f e r r e d : Wordsworth quite evidently distrusts his old master's guidance, but he has not yet found a decisive refutation of his syllogisms. H e can only show, in a spirit which combines despairing acquiescence with flashes of indignant protest against the chain of necessity which binds him, the fearful consequences of individual reason that has lost its sense of moral responsibility to mankind. The villain Oswald, who corrupts and deceives Marmaduke, seems intended to be the complete Godwinian. In him Godwin's individualism, which, like that of the nineteenth century utilitarians, is intended to serve altruistic ends, has been perverted by the cruelty of man into a monstrous selfishness. He behaves like Edmund in King Lear, and has much the same cold, cynical, materialistic, intellectualistic, Machiavellian attitude toward life. His name, incidentally, is that of one of the lesser villains of Shakespeare's tragedy. I see no force in Garrod's assertion that Oswald and Marmaduke fail because they are imperfect Godwinians and hence do not trust their intellects enough. Their villainous plans, to be sure, fail partly for that reason; unconquerable nature creeps in to betray them. But from the viewpoint of the author the real tragedy, the failure of their lives as human beings, is that they did not sufficiently listen to the demands of feelings which, to their cold Godwinian minds, seemed irrational. Read The Borderers and form your own opinion of it. Perhaps you will be aided in doing so if we glance for a moment at Book III of The Excursion, where the character called Solitary tells his life story up to the time when, a disillusioned recluse, he appears in the poem.

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Solitary is based partly upon Joseph Fawcett, a brilliant young Unitarian minister some of whose radical sermons Wordsworth heard in his Godwinian days. H e is also, however, to some extent a picture of what Wordsworth thinks he himself had been while under the influence of Political Justice. Solitary relates that he was happily married to a lovely girl who bore him two children. Relinquishing a successful career as a dissenting preacher, he retired to a Devonshire cottage and there lived quietly and innocently f o r seven years. But the children fell ill and died; the mother succumbed to melancholia and died also. T h i s shock inhibited Solitary's emotional faculties, but left his intellectual faculties in a state of dangerous freedom and activity. ( M a y we conjecture that this part of the story, though its actual events bear no resemblance to Wordsworth's relations with Annette Vallon, provides the psychological equivalent of that episode in the poet's l i f e ? ) Then the Revolution broke out, and Solitary's pent-up emotions were released in a burst of enthusiasm. H e returned to the city, wrote revolutionary poetry, and took up his old work of preaching. Then, in response to the events which are now familiar to us, Solitary goes through the same process of disillusionment as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey. H e becomes a Godwinian rationalist, and reliance upon reason makes him cold, hard, and cynical. A t last, profoundly unhappy, he makes a desperate effort of idealism. Though he indulges in no pantisocratic scheme, he goes to America, hoping to find in the Indian that favorite eighteenth century abstraction, natural man:

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Let us, then, I said, Leave this unknit Republic to the scourge O f her own passions; and to regions haste, W h o s e shades have never felt the encroaching axe, O r soil endured a transfer in the mart O f dire rapacity. T h e r e , M a n abides, Primeval Nature's child. . . . So, westward, toward the unviolated woods, I bent my way; and roaming far and wide, Failed not to greet the merry Mocking-bird; And, while the melancholy Muccawis ( T h e sportive bird's companion in the grove) Repeated o'er and o'er his plaintive cry, I sympathised at leisure with the sound; But that pure archetype of human greatness, I found him not. T h e r e , in his stead, appeared A creature, squalid, vengeful, and impure; Remorseless, and submissive to no law But superstitious fear, and abject sloth.

Thus thwarted, he returns to England and goes to the L a k e Country. But he has cut himself off f r o m nature; his heart is dry and cold. And so he is found reading Candide among the mountains and waterfalls. T h o u g h I do not wish to press the parallel too closely, it seems to me that when Wordsworth was finishing The Borderers at Racedown in 1 7 9 6 , he was in a mental state not unlike that of Solitary. H e had made a physical return to nature, but the complete spiritual return to nature still lay a short distance in the future. H e could no longer call himself a Godwinian, but he could not confidently call himself anything else. Figuratively speaking, The Borderers is the work of a man who reads Candide

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in the hills of Dorset, but who can find no pleasure in doing so. But we must return to Book X I of The Prelude. W o r d s w o r t h tells us that throughout the bad Godwinian days his sister D o r o t h y prevented him f r o m believing that all the inspirations of his boyhood h a d been sentimental delusions. She represented the almost forgotten voice of nature, and kept reminding him of his destiny as a poet. She was the Beatrice through whose ministry he escaped f r o m the selva selvaggia of rationalism. W o r d s worth's poems contain many loving tributes to his sister. To a Butterfly, with its delicate suggestion of her gentleness, has already been quoted; and we shall later find in Tintern Abbey an important passage concerning her. But perhaps these lines f r o m The Sparrow's Nest are most successful in showing her influence on her b r o t h e r : T h e Blessing of my later years W a s with me when a boy: She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares, and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears; And love, and thought, and joy.

Books X I I and X I I I have as their subject Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored. In W o r d s w o r t h ' s boyhood, love of nature had led to love of man. Cold Godwinian individualism had destroyed this feeling of b r o t h e r h o o d with the physical and the human world. But through his sister's help and Raisley Calvert's legacy, he throws off Godwinism and at last regains contact with nature. W o r d s w o r t h ' s experiences have given him a new

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thoughtfulness. H e returns to nature with weighty questions in his mind. W h y does not mankind as a whole attain the virtue and happiness which are sometimes attained by individuals? W h a t one is, W h y may not millions be? W h a t bars are thrown By Nature in the way of such a hope?

It is no longer possible for him to say, with Godwin, that the millions will reach the level of the one when they become as rational as the one. Oswald in The Borderers is the embodiment of logic, and the embodiment of villainy. Wordsworth now begins to believe, with Rousseau, that purely rational intelligence divorced from the intuitions of the heart is misleading and destructive. No bars are thrown by nature in the way of human hopes. The bars consist of "what man has made of man." The human heart, as Rousseau taught, contains a seed of pure goodness, and if we live in the light of nature that seed will bear fruit. It is in shutting ourselves off from the influences of nature that we go astray and fail to fulfill our destiny. Not long after his establishment at Racedown, then, Wordsworth is turning from Godwin to Rousseau. T o say that he became a disciple of Rousseau, however, would be misleading. Probably the resemblances between the two writers are caused quite as much by common dependence upon prevalent eighteenth century ideas as by the direct influence of one upon the other. And Wordsworth differs from the great continental romanticist in several respects, of which four deserve to be pointed out as essential. H i s general philosophy is based more firmly upon eighteenth century psychology; he makes a closer con-

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nection between nature as an ideal abstraction and nature as scenery; he leans more t o w a r d transcendentalism; and he has a stronger desire f o r discipline and control. N e v e r theless, if, despite our earlier reservations on this point, we allow G o d w i n and Rousseau to stand f o r t w o rather markedly different tendencies in the thought of the period, W o r d s w o r t h ' s movement f r o m the f o r m e r to the latter between 1 7 9 6 and 1798 is quite evident. W o r d s w o r t h believes that the L a k e C o u n t r y shepherds are on the whole the happiest and best of men. A l t h o u g h by no means perfect, they are the least corrupted people he knows, and their virtues show w h a t nature intended man to be. H e n c e he dedicates himself to the task of studying these simple f o l k , and of writing about them and the environment that has made them w h a t they a r e : O f these, said I, shall be my song; of these, If future years mature me for the task, W i l l I record the praises, making verse Deal boldly with substantial things; in truth A n d sanctity of passion, speak of these, T h a t justice may be done, obeisance paid W h e r e it is due: thus haply shall I teach, Inspire, through unadulterated ears Pour rapture, tenderness, and hope, — my theme N o other than the very heart of man, A s found among the best of those w h o live, N o t unexalted by religious faith, N o r uninformed by books, good books, though few, In Nature's presence: thence may I select Sorrow, that is not sorrow, but delight; A n d miserable love, that is not pain T o hear of, for the glory that redounds T h e r e f r o m to human kind, and w h a t w e are.

THE

ΙΟΟ

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T h i s promise is fulfilled in the Lyrical

Ballads,

in

Michael,

a n d in other p o e m s . W i t h the exception of Michael,

how-

ever, most of W o r d s w o r t h ' s really g r e a t poems deal w i t h himself in relation to n a t u r e r a t h e r than with the dalesm a n in relation to nature. B o o k X I V of The

Prelude,

Conclusion,

looks back to

s u r v e y the r o a d that W o r d s w o r t h ' s spirit has t r a v e r s e d . T h e following passage provides a good summary. I give it as it stands in the

1805-1806

text because the

final

version contains an element of Christian o r t h o d o x y which w a s not characteristic of W o r d s w o r t h at the time when his philosophy of nature took f o r m . I never, in the quest of right and wrong, D i d t a m p e r w i t h myself f r o m private aims; N o r w a s in any of my hopes the dupe O f selfish passions; nor did w i l f u l l y Yield ever to mean cares and low pursuits; B u t r a t h e r did w i t h jealousy shrink back F r o m every combination t h a t might aid T h e tendency, too potent in itself, O f habit to enslave the mind, I mean O p p r e s s it by the laws of vulgar sense, A n d s u b s t i t u t e a universe of death, T h e falsest of all w o r l d s , in place of that W h i c h is divine and t r u e . T o fear and love, T o love as first and chief, for there fear ends, Be this ascribed; to early intercourse, In presence of sublime and lovely forms, W i t h the adverse principles of pain and joy, Evil as one is rashly named by those W h o k n o w not w h a t they say. By love, for here D o w e begin and end, all g r a n d e u r comes, A l l t r u t h and beauty, f r o m pervading love;

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T h a t gone, we are as dust. Behold the fields In balmy spring-time, f u l l of rising

flowers

A n d happy creatures; see that pair, the L a m b A n d the Lamb's M o t h e r , and their tender ways Shall touch thee to the h e a r t ; in some green bower Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there T h e One who is thy choice of all the w o r l d ; T h e r e linger, lulled and lost, and rapt a w a y , B e happy to thy fill; thou call'st this love A n d so it is, but there is higher love T h a n this, a love that comes into the heart W i t h awe and a diffusive sentiment; T h y love is human merely; this proceeds M o r e from the brooding Soul, and is divine. T h i s love more intellectual cannot be Without Imagination, which, in truth, Is but another name f o r absolute strength A n d clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And reason in her most exalted mood. T h a t faculty hath been the moving soul O f our long labour: w e have traced the stream F r o m darkness, and the very place of birth In its blind cavern, whence is faintly heard T h e sound of w a t e r s ; followed it to light A n d open day, accompanied its course A m o n g the ways of N a t u r e , a f t e r w a r d s Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed, T h e n given it greeting as it rose once more W i t h strength, reflecting in its solemn breast T h e works of man and face of human life, A n d lastly, from its progress have w e d r a w n T h e feeling of life endless, the great thought B y which we live, Infinity and G o d . ( D e Selincourt, pp. 4 8 0 - 4 8 2 )

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Wordsworth has given us a poet's account of the growth of a poet's mind. It is now our task to analyze what he has told us. W h a t are the component elements of the "philosophy of n a t u r e " which has become associated with his name? Whence does it come, and whither does it go? T o what extent is it shared by his contemporaries? Such questions as these will engage us for the next few days.

VI ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

The Wordsworthian philosophy of nature, unscientific as it may seem, is grounded in the psychology of the eighteenth century. Wordsworth owes much to the theory of sensationalism. This theory finds its source in Locke, who had tried to show that all mental growth results from the action of sense impressions upon the blank surface of the child's mind. Locke's necessarily complete environmentalism, highly influential throughout the eighteenth century, supports the belief of men like Godwin in perfectibility. Create the right environment for man, and there is no limit to his development. T h e same idea is implicit in pantisocracy. In 1749, David Hartley's Observations on Man had elaborated Locke's theory by tracing the "laws of association," which seek to explain how sense impressions combine into larger and more highly organized units. The Prelude is full of sensationalism and associationism. It traces all mental development back to primary sense impressions, which have been bound together and made to grow in fullness and intensity by the laws of association. The same theory explains this famous passage from Expostulation and Reply : T h e eye — it cannot choose but see; W e cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will.

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N o r less I d e e m t h a t t h e r e a r e P o w e r s W h i c h of t h e m s e l v e s o u r m i n d s i m p r e s s ; T h a t w e c a n f e e d this m i n d of o u r s I n a w i s e passiveness.

If the mind of a human being is the sum of the sensory stimuli which have reached it, one need only catch him young enough and place him amidst the goodness and majesty of nature in o r d e r to have him develop like Lucy in Three Years She Grew. F o r the sake of the experiment, let us suppose that these familiar lines are spoken, not by Nature, but by a personification of the term, "sense impressions" : M y s e l f w i l l t o m y d a r l i n g be Both l a w and i m p u l s e : and w i t h me T h e G i r l , in rock a n d p l a i n , I n e a r t h a n d h e a v e n , in g l a d e a n d b o w e r , Shall feel an overseeing p o w e r T o kindle or restrain. S h e s h a l l be s p o r t i v e as t h e f a w n T h a t w i l d w i t h glee across t h e l a w n O r up the mountain

springs;

A n d h e r s s h a l l be t h e b r e a t h i n g b a l m , A n d h e r s t h e silence and t h e c a l m O f m u t e insensate t h i n g s . The

floating

c l o u d s t h e i r s t a t e s h a l l lend

T o h e r ; f o r her the w i l l o w

bend;

N o r s h a l l she f a i l t o see E v e n in the m o t i o n s of t h e S t o r m G r a c e t h a t shall mould the M a i d e n ' s f o r m By silent sympathy. T h e s t a r s of m i d n i g h t s h a l l be d e a r T o h e r ; a n d she s h a l l lean h e r e a r

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105

In many a secret place W h e r e rivulets dance their w a y w a r d round, A n d beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face. A n d vital feelings of delight Shall rear her form to stately height, H e r virgin bosom s w e l l ; Such thoughts to L u c y I w i l l give W h i l e she and I together live Here in this happy dell.

T h a t lovely poem is no less indebted to the teachings of Locke and Hartley than the lines from Tintern Abbey. These beauteous forms, T h r o u g h a long absence, have not been to me A s is a landscape to a blind man's eye: B u t oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; A n d passing even into my purer mind, W i t h tranquil restoration.

In interpreting such passages it is important to remember that Wordsworth means what he is saying. Here he uses the word "sensations" as a scientific term, f o r he thinks it a literal fact that these sensations pass from the blood to the feelings, and from the feelings to the mind. It was Professor Arthur Beatty, in William Wordsworth: His Doctrine and Art in Their Historical Relations, who first showed the full extent of Wordsworth's debt to eighteenth century psychology. But like so many students of sources and influences, Professor Beatty overemphasizes the similarities between the poet and his

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ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

scientific sources, and underestimates the differences, which are a f t e r all more important than the similarities. Over this scientific skeleton Wordsworth throws a garment of strong religious feeling. In his philosophy, the sense impressions which come to the child are not cold, mechanical stimuli. T h e y a r e almost spirits; certainly they are emanations of the one great Spirit that "rolls through all things." Pure eighteenth century sensationalism is entirely passive. Closely associated with the theory of necessity, it implies that we are the helpless totals of our experience. T o Wordsworth, on the other hand, the influence of nature depends upon us as well as upon nature. True, if our minds are attuned to nature, "wise passiveness" is often the most desirable attitude; but unless we go to her prepared to find what she has to give us, we shall not find it. Remember the effect of American scenery upon the wild young man in Ruth: W h a t e v e r in those climes he found Irregular in sight or sound Did to his mind impart A kindred impulse, seemed allied T o his own powers, and justified T h e workings of his heart.

There is love for us in nature, but unless we have love for her in us the process is not complete. Satisfying contact with God in nature demands an exercise of the creative or poetic imagination: " F r o m thyself it comes. . . . Thou must give." Thus in T'xntern Abbey Wordsworth says : Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods,

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107

And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear, — both what they half create, And what perceive.

Right seeing, then, is a creative as well as a passively receptive process, recalling Blake's advice that we should see through, not with, the eye. T h i s of course is the philosophical attitude known as transcendentalism. It gives a wholly new color to the determined and mechanistic sensationalism which W o r d s w o r t h inherited f r o m the eighteenth century. Whether W o r d s w o r t h was ever able to work out a really satisfactory adjustment between his transcendentalism and his desire to believe in the controlling power of external nature is a question which must be discussed later. Underlying all the specific differences between this eighteenth century heritage and the use which Wordsworth made of it is the fact that W o r d s w o r t h ' s view of nature is essentially non-rationalistic. W e may recall that the most popular, though by no means the only conception of nature in the age of Pope, included a rationalistic view of the universe as a neat and comprehensible mechanism based upon broad, general principles like those of geometry. I t included a pseudoclassic conception of literature giving allegiance to rules derived f r o m Aristotle and his interpreters. It included the idea that truth and common sense are more or less identical, and excluded mysticism and genuine religious f e r v o r . Being rationalistic, it generally implied a great deal of reliance upon logic and analytical intellect, and very little reliance upon instinct, emotion, and intuition. It should have become apparent that the romantic con-

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R O M A N T I C ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

ception of n a t u r e is in most respects the reverse of the rationalistic and pseudoclassic conception of nature. T h i s reversal, however, occurred very slowly and irregularly, and the r o o t s of the change run f a r back into the eighteenth century. N o r must we exaggerate the duration and force of the dominance of rationalism and pseudoclassicism. T h e normally romantic quality of English t h o u g h t and hence of English literature was f o r a time i n t e r f e r e d with, but it was never s t a m p e d out. It is wholesome to r e m e m b e r that, to the French critics of his own day, P o p e was an extremely romantic person. Some of his early poems, such as Eloisa to Abelard, have plenty of romantic feeling. H i s close f r i e n d T h o m a s Parnell is always mentioned in discussions of early romanticism because of his Night-Piece on Death. T o w a r d s J a m e s T h o m s o n , fount a i n h e a d of romantic n a t u r e poetry, the g r e a t A u g u s t a n was well disposed, and he even a d d e d a few touches to The Seasons. Facts like these should preserve us f r o m thinking in water-tight c o m p a r t m e n t s . As I stated at the outset of this course, the rationalistic a n d pseudoclassical conception of n a t u r e never by any means obliterated a more primitivistic, A r c a d i a n , sentimental, religious, and romantic conception of nature, bearing implications of innocence, f r e e d o m , spontaneity, and the validity of unt u t o r e d feeling as a guide to t r u t h . F r o m the very beginning of the eighteenth century, m o r e o v e r , this conception of n a t u r e was related in a vague way to the blessings of rustic life and the beauties of scenery. All one can say, then, is t h a t at the close of the seventeenth and the opening of the eighteenth century E n g l a n d came n e a r e r than at any o t h e r time to being dominated by s t a n d a r d s which were alien to her native ways of thinking and writing.

ROMANTIC ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

109

But these s t a n d a r d s w e r e never a l l - p o w e r f u l , and they had hardly taken definite f o r m when they began to slough down into the transitional mid-eighteenth century flux f r o m which a r o s e w h a t we call the romantic movement. W e have a l r e a d y seen that the political and social ferment of the r e v o l u t i o n a r y period cannot as a whole be classified as romantic. It is o f t e n based upon a rationalism which is repugnant to the romantic spirit, and is o f t e n attacked by conservatives w h o use romantic arguments. But when the t e m p e r of r e f o r m is tinged with a utopianism which d r a w s encouragement f r o m illusions about the state of nature, o r when it stresses the n a t u r a l goodness of common humanity, the influence of the romantic conception of nature is m a n i f e s t . W e are now turning to aspects of romantic naturalism which are less confusingly mingled with non-romantic features. It is difficult to decide which element to take up next. W h e n w e try to get one olive out of the bottle, all the other olives come tumbling out with it. L e t us begin, however, with the romantic opposition to rationalism, logic, analytical intellect, and scientific method. One cannot say that the romanticist is an enemy of reason unless one is a v e r y hot antiromanticist and has a very restricted conception of reason. T h e g r e a t romanticists w e r e men of the highest intelligence; they loved, praised, and practised reason of a special kind which has been extremely influential e v e r since. A t its w o r s t , eighteenth century reason implies finespun, impractical, deductive syllogizing. A t its next w o r s t , it implies unillumined common sense. A t its best, it implies a genuinely scientific method of thought, sceptical in spirit, and concerned m o r e with analysis than with synthesis. B u t on the w h o l e

no

ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

eighteenth century reason, at least in intention, is cool, exact, and logical. T h a t is the ideal standard or norm to which it aspires. Romantic reason, on the other hand, is w a r m , fervent, shot through with emotion. It emphasizes the value of instinct, intuition, and imagination in thinking. It aspires to f r e e man f r o m enslavement to mere observation and inference, and gives him a kind of creative dominance o v e r his own senses and the messages which they bring him. N o w the romanticists, in order to support their conception o f reason and in order to win f r e e d o m to apply it, kept up a persistent sniping at the cool, logical, analytical, eighteenth century kind of reason — " t h a t false secondary p o w e r by which w e multiply distinctions," as W o r d s w o r t h called it. In W o r d s w o r t h , indeed, this anti-intellectualism is v e r y strong, and it is closely associated with his philosophy o f nature. In The Poet's Epitaph ( 1 7 9 9 ) , for example, he addresses various small-souled persons w h o are imagined as approaching his g r a v e : Physician art thou? — one, all eyes, Philosopher! — a fingering slave, O n e that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave? A moralist perchance appears; L e d , Heaven knows h o w ! to this poor sod: A n d he has neither eyes nor ears; Himself his world, and his own G o d ; O n e to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling N o r form, nor feeling, great or small ; A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, A n intellectual All-in-all!

ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

III

Remembering that W o r d s w o r t h had h a d personal experience of this frigid intellectualism, we may h a z a r d the guess that, with the zeal of a convert, he is kicking his old master, William Godwin. Everyone knows the lines in The Tables Turned: One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Misshapes the beauteous forms of things: — W e murder to dissect.

T h a t suspicion of analysis, of dissection, is typical of the tendency under discussion. Logic is chiefly analytic. Romantic thought is chiefly synthetic. It wants large inspiring wholes, and it is very impatient of any factual obstacle that may lie in the way of obtaining them. T h u s in The Excursion the W a n d e r e r , in exhorting Solitary, tells him to Enquire of ancient Wisdom; go, demand Of mighty Nature, if 'twas ever meant T h a t we should pry far off yet be unraised; T h a t we should pore, and dwindle as w e pore, Viewing all objects unremittingly In disconnection dead and spiritless; And still dividing and dividing still, Break down all grandeur. ( I V , 957 ff.)

T h e same feeling passes into several poems of W o r d s worth's later years, when he finds himself living in

ii2

ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

a chilled age, most pitiably shut out F r o m that which is and actuates, by forms, Abstractions, and by lifeless fact to fact M i n u t e l y linked with diligence uninspired, Unrectified, unguided, unsustained By godlike insight. (Musings Near Aquapendente, 1837) The

anti-intellectualism

which

we have

observed

in

W o r d s w o r t h runs f a r back i n t o t h e e i g h t e e n t h century. O n e t h i n k s i m m e d i a t e l y o f R o u s s e a u , f o r it w a s p a r t o f his a t t a c k u p o n t h e E n l i g h t e n m e n t . In his Discourse Moral

Effect

of the Sciences

and Arts,

on the

he r e g a r d s t h e evils

o f t h e a g e as t h e result o f o u r d e s e r t i n g " t h a t h a p p y s t a t e of

ignorance

in w h i c h

the w i s d o m

of

providence

has

placed us": Let men learn for once that nature would have preserved them from science, as a mother snatches a dangerous weapon from the hands of her child. Let them know that all the secrets she hides are so many evils f r o m which she protects them, and that the very difficulty they find in acquiring knowledge is not the least of her bounty towards them. M e n are perverse; but they would have been far worse, if they had had the misfortune to be born learned. . . . Virtue! sublime science of simple minds, are such industry and preparation needed if we are to know you? Are not your principles graven on every heart? Need we do more, to learn your laws, than examine ourselves, and listen to the voice of conscience, when the passions are silent ? Here

is t h a t

idea

of

reason

as

the

highest

common

d e n o m i n a t o r o f h u m a n h e a r t s w h i c h , as w e h a v e seen, is itself t h e i n c o n g r u o u s o f f s p r i n g of Such

disciples

of

Rousseau

as

rationalism. Bernardin

P i e r r e carry o n t h i s cult o f t h e b l e s s i n g s o f

de

Saint-

ignorance

a f t e r R o u s s e a u h i m s e l f h a s f o r s a k e n or g r e a t l y m o d i f i e d

ROMANTIC ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

113

his paradoxes. In a prose tale, Le Cafe du Surate, SaintPierre employs two characters to show the evil consequences of thinking. One is a Persian savant " w h o had written all his life on theology, and who no longer believed in G o d . " T h e other is a Confucian who had tried to understand the cause of the sun's radiance, and who of course went blind and thereupon denied the existence of the sun. In Paul and Virginia, the hero embraces and kisses a tree which Virginia had planted, exclaiming, " O h , she who planted this tree made the inhabitants of this forest a more useful and lovely present than if she had given them a library 1" H e r e is "one impulse f r o m a vernal wood," not to speak of Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

It is a very old story. But although Rousseau had a considerable influence upon W o r d s w o r t h and other English romanticists in this matter, anti-intellectualism is too generally pervasive in English literature f r o m about the middle of the eighteenth century to justify us in ascribing the whole tradition to Rousseau. T h a t writer himself probably owed much of his anti-intellectualism to English sources. Analytical intellect is severely handled by several of the eighteenth century writers whom we associate with the early stirrings of the romantic movement. T h e prevalent shrinking away f r o m the vices of the town t o w a r d rural innocence has as a corollary the notion that some causal relation exists between virtue and ignorance on the one hand, and between vice and learning on the other. H e a r t and head are persistently opposed. In Night Thoughts, f o r example, E d w a r d Young addresses a scholarly sceptic:

H4

ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

W o u l d you be still more learned than the l e a r n ' d ? Learn well to know how much need not be known, And what that knowledge, which impairs your sense. O u r needful knowledge, like our needful food, Unhedg'd, lies open in life's common field: And bids all welcome to the vital feast. You scorn what lies before you in the page Of nature, and experience, moral t r u t h ; Of indispensible, eternal t r u t h ; Fruit on which mortals, feeding, turn to gods: And dive in science for distinguisht names, Dishonest fomentation of your pride; Sinking in virtue as you rise in fame. Your learning, like the lunar beam, affords Light, but not h e a t ; it leaves you undevout, Frozen at heart, while speculation shines. A g r e a t deal m o r e heat, even a t the expense of light, is Y o u n g ' s ideal. W i l l i a m Collins, in his ode, The Manners, displays ideas on education such as Rousseau w o u l d h a v e a p p r o v e d . H e s p e a k s of book-science as the b r i d e o f doubt, and c o m m e n d s instead a d i r e c t and l o v i n g c o n t e m p l a t i o n o f nature: Ο thou who lov'st that ampler range W h e r e life's wide prospects round thee change, And with her mingling sons allied, T h r o w ' s t the prattling page aside, T o me, in converse sweet, impart T o read in man the native heart ; T o learn, where science sure is found, From nature as she lives around. A s t r o n g anti-intellectualism helps to b u t t r e s s the evangelical piety of W i l l i a m C o w p e r . T h e f o l l o w i n g passage

ROMANTIC ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

115

f r o m Book I I I o f The Task is an irritating example of that uneasy jocularity which a certain type of obscurantist regards as the m o s t crushing attitude to a d o p t t o w a r d science: Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by which we learn That he who made it, and revealed its date T o Moses, was mistaken in its age. Some, more acute, and more industrious still, Contrive creation; travel nature up T o the sharp peak of her sublimest height, And tell us whence the stars; why some are fix'd, And planetary some; what gave them first Rotation, from what fountain flowed their light. Great contest follows, and much learned dust Involves the combatants; each claiming truth, And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp, In playing tricks with nature, giving laws T o distant worlds, and trifling in their own. T h i s is almost unworthy of a m o d e r n fundamentalist. It is hardly necessary to say that Blake's w h o l e philosophy is based upon the m o s t intense hostility to the analytical spirit. F o r him, logic is the very soul o f evil, the mocking Spectre that rose over Albion, Saying: "I am God, Ο Sons of M e n ! I am your Rational Power! Am I not Bacon and Newton and Locke, who teach Humility to Man, W h o teach Doubt and Experiment? and my two wings, Voltaire, Rousseau ? Where is that Friend of Sinners, that Rebel against my Laws,

116

ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

W h o teaches Belief to the Nations and an unknown Eternal L i f e ? Come hither into the desert and turn these stones to bread! Vain, foolish M a n ! wilt thou believe without Experiment, And build a W o r l d of Phantasy upon my great Abyss, A W o r l d of Shapes in craving lust and devouring appetite?

(Jerusalem,

f. 54, 15-24)

H i s mission in l i f e is to banish this Spectre f r o m the human m i n d : T h e Negation is the Spectre, the Reasoning P o w e r in M a n : T h i s is a false Body, an Incrustation over my Immortal Spirit, a Selfhood which must be put off and annihilated alway. T o cleanse the Face of my Spirit by self-examination, T o bathe in the waters of L i f e , to wash off the N o t Human, I come in Self-annihilation and the grandeur of Inspiration; T o cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour, T o cast off the rotten rags of M e m o r y by Inspiration, T o cast off Bacon, Locke, and N e w t o n from Albion's covering, T o take off his filthy garments and clothe him with Imagination.

(Milton, ff. 42 and 43) B l a k e is so e x t r e m e in all his ideas that it is perhaps u n f a i r to call him to the witness-stand. But e x a g g e r a t i o n , if we m a k e due allowance f o r its distorting effect, at least has the virtue of m a k i n g us see the thing e x a g g e r a t e d . Sometimes one f e e l s that B l a k e says w h a t other romanticists mean to say. In m a n y of W o r d s w o r t h ' s c o n t e m p o r a r i e s a p p e a r s the same anti-intellectualism — less as a result of

Words-

w o r t h ' s influence than as a common h e r i t a g e f r o m the eighteenth century. It helps to support the transcendentalism of

Coleridge.

His

letter of

O c t o b e r 9,

1797,

to

T h o m a s P o o l e is full of the romantic longing f o r synthesis :

ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

117

F r o m my early reading of fairy tales and genii, etc., etc., my mind has been habituated to the Vast,

and I never regarded my

senses

as in any w a y the criteria of my belief. I regulated all m y creeds by my conceptions, not by my sight,

even at that age.

Should

children be permitted to read romances, and relations of

giants

and magicians and genii ? I k n o w all that has been said against i t ; but I have f o r m e d m y faith in the affirmative.

I k n o w no other

w a y of g i v i n g the mind a love of the G r e a t and the W h o l e .

Those

w h o have been led to the same truths step by step, through the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to w a n t a sense w h i c h I possess. T h e y contemplate n o t h i n g but parts, and all parts are necessarily little. A n d the universe to them is but a mass of little

things.

It is true, that the mind may become credulous and

prone to superstition by the f o r m e r m e t h o d ; but are not the experimentalists credulous even to madness in believing any absurdity, rather than the grandest truths, if they have not the testimony of their o w n senses in their f a v o r ? been rationally

I have k n o w n some w h o

educated, as it is styled.

have

T h e y w e r e marked by a

microscopic acuteness, but w h e n they looked at great things, all became a blank and they s a w nothing, and denied

(very

illogi-

c a l l y ) that a n y t h i n g could be seen, and u n i f o r m l y put the negation of a p o w e r for the possession of a power, and called the w a n t of imagination, j u d g m e n t ,

and the never being moved to

rapture,

philosophy.

Shelley seems to feel that rationalism is among the traditions which oppress man and keep him f r o m asserting the love in his heart. It is associated with age, impotence, and h a t e ; while his own emotional, Platonic, and transcendental kind of reason is associated with youth, love, and hope. T h u s in The Revolt of Islam he says of the revolutionary gospel preached by C y t h n a : N e w lore w a s this — old age, w i t h its g r a y hair, A n d w r i n k l e d legends of u n w o r t h y things,

118

ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

And icy sneers, is nought: it cannot dare T o burst the chain which life for ever flings O n the entangled soul's aspiring wings, So it is cold and cruel, and is made T h e careless slave of that dark power which brings Evil, like blight, on man, who, still betrayed, Laughs o'er the grave in which his living hopes are laid. A n d if the spirit of analysis is the enemy of Shelley's gospel of love, it is equally the enemy of Keats's gospel of beauty. W e m a y recall his comment upon Apollonius' betrayal of L a m i a : Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: W e know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine — Unweave a rainbow, as it erstwhile made T h e tender-personed Lamia melt into a shade. Opposition to peeping and botanizing is very prevalent a m o n g minor romantic writers. T h u s Charles L l o y d sings that in the humble cottage Peace affords a purer joy T h a n Luxury could e'er dispense; There courtly vices ne'er annoy T h e ignorance of innocence. There, if the systematic school No sophist laws for me enact T o chain the free-born mind to rule — T h e native feelings teach to act. (Address

to a

Cottage)

ROMANTIC

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

The association of antirationalism with the back-to-nature theme is characteristic. If Lloyd celebrates "the ignorance of innocence," John Clare celebrates The Happiness of Ignorance : E r e I had k n o w n the w o r l d , a n d u n d e r s t o o d H o w m a n y follies W i s d o m n a m e s its o w n , D i s t i n g u i s h i n g t h i n g s evil f r o m t h i n g s good, T h e dread of sin and d e a t h — ere I had k n o w n K n o w l e d g e the r o o t of evil — had I been L e f t in some l o n e place w h e r e the w o r l d

is w i l d ,

A n d t r a c e of t r o u b l i n g m a n w a s n e v e r seen, B r o u g h t up bv N a t u r e as h e r f a v o u r i t e child, A s born f o r n o u g h t but j o y w h e r e a l l rejoice, E m p a r a d i s e d in i g n o r a n c e of sin, Where

N a t u r e tries w i t h n e v e r - c h i d i n g

voice,

L i k e t e n d e r nurse, n o u g h t b u t o u r smiles to w i n — T h e f u t u r e , dreamless, b e a u t i f u l w o u l d b e ; T h e present, f o r e t a s t e of e t e r n i t y .

There is plainly a difference between the shrinking retreatism of Lloyd or Clare and the boldly mystical affirmations of Blake. But the difference is such as might be expected to exist between two stages of a single process. First, withdrawing from "knowledge of good and evil," one finds the merely negative "happiness of ignorance." But this happiness leads in turn to a superrational kind of knowledge which the earlier retreat has made possible — a knowledge which is not the root of evil, but the root of beneficent illusion. This is perhaps the psychological relation between two attitudes which are found side by side in romantic literature. I do not mean that the process occurs systematically in the history of the romantic movement. W e a k l i n g s like Lloyd and Clare hardly

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ROMANTIC ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

rise above the level of retreat; Blake rises f r o m that level very rapidly, and seldom if ever relapses to it. M o s t romantic writers stand somewhere between these extremes, mingling in their work both negative and positive anti-intellectualism. It may be said that some of the examples which have been presented are wholesome protests against abstract, bookish theorizing in f a v o r of direct observation of nature or against pedantic fact-grubbing in f a v o r of constructive thought, and that they are therefore not hostile to the spirit of genuine science. Of course I am not attempting to impose an identity of attitude upon all the authors quoted. T h e y differed greatly in their likes and dislikes: Collins' The Manners is not Blake's Jerusalem. I wish merely to suggest that these protests, and many others that might be cited, arise f r o m a basically antiintellectualistic attitude. E v e n this statement needs to be qualified. W e must try to understand how it is that such romanticists as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley have a strong and intelligent interest in science but are nevertheless antiscientific. T h o u g h eighteenth century thought as a whole may be called rationalistic in the broader sense of that term, there is a cleavage between abstract, theoretical, rationalism and the empirical or scientific rationalism which gradually gained strength during the century. T h e latter is at bottom more hostile to romanticism than the former, but there is a circumstance which sometimes obscures that fact. Orthodox rationalism of the older type tended to neglect the concrete. Scientific empiricism, on the contrary, paid close attention to the concrete, and so of course did romanticism. Consequently, during the

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121

eighteenth and early nineteenth century t h e r e was a m o s t complex a n d delicate interplay between the spirit of scientific investigation and the spirit of r o m a n t i c i s m . T h e i r very different motives f o r cultivating the real did n o t always p r e v e n t t h e m f r o m p u t t i n g o u t feelers t o w a r d each o t h e r . T h r o u g h o u t its course, r o m a n t i c i s m has indulged in a series of u n h a p p y love affairs with science. Its devotion to the real impels the a t t e m p t to u n i t e ; its desire t o find within the real s o m e t h i n g " m o r e " t h a n real causes the subsequent disillusionment a n d divorce. H e n c e the decay of a b s t r a c t geometic r a t i o n a l i s m , so f a r as its indifference to the concrete is concerned, is a t t e n d e d by an uneasy a n d i n t e r m i t t e n t rapprochemcnt between empiricism and romanticism. Both at least say, " L o o k at n a t u r e with y o u r own eyes," and to say this is to have much in common. But their ways of looking, a n d the results which they h o p e to derive f r o m looking, a r e essentially so different t h a t they soon begin to q u a r r e l . T h e extent of the rapprochement and the bitterness of the q u a r r e l d e p e n d upon t h e t e m p e r a m e n t of the individual w r i t e r . Yet thougl. W o r d s w o r t h bases his philosophy of n a t u r e u p o n Locke's psychology, while Blake r e g a r d s L o c k e as first cousin t o the devil, they are both in the long run a n t a g o nistic to the scientific view of life. T h e r e m a r k s which I have just m a d e , a n d the evidence which I p r e s e n t e d earlier in this lecture, m a y receive a d d i t i o n a l s u p p o r t as we pass on t o r e l a t e d topics. M e a n while, please r e f r a i n f r o m setting d o w n in your n o t e b o o k s t h a t the romanticists were not thinkers. T h e y w e r e o f t e n very acute and p o w e r f u l thinkers, and with all t h e i r suspicion of learning they were o f t e n m o r e l e a r n e d t h a n m a n y a d e v o t e d logic chopper. T h e y h a d a grievance,

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ROMANTIC ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

h o w e v e r , a g a i n s t a kind of r e a s o n w h i c h w a s hostile to t h e i r conception of n a t u r e and w h i c h t h r e a t e n e d t o r o b t h e m of the illusion they d e s i r e d . A g a i n s t t h a t r e a s o n they r e a s o n e d w i t h all t h e i r m i g h t . T h e y d o g g e d l y r e s i s t e d the invasion

by

analytical

thought

of

realms

which

they

d e s i r e d t o p r e s e r v e f o r the f r e e p l a y of the i m a g i n a t i o n . N o t content w i t h d e f e n s i v e tactics, t h e y s o m e t i m e s cond u c t e d b o l d r a i d s into the r e a l m s of l o g i c a n d science, s e e k i n g to r e c a p t u r e t e r r i t o r y which h a d been lost d u r i n g the s e v e n t e e n t h a n d eighteenth centuries. W e shall o b s e r v e the

results

of

transcendental

their

campaign

aspect of

when

romanticism.

we At

consider

the

present

it is

e n o u g h to k n o w t h a t r o m a n t i c n a t u r a l i s m u s u a l l y implies a hostile a t t i t u d e t o w a r d analytic r e a s o n .

VII EXTERNAL NATURE T h e love of external n a t u r e — birds, flowers, trees, streams, mountains, scenery in general — is obviously an i m p o r t a n t element in romantic n a t u r a l i s m . T o W o r d s w o r t h and m a n y of his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s all of the visible universe which r e m a i n e d untouched, or only slightly touched, by the h a n d of man, symbolized the f u n d a m e n t a l beauty and g o o d n e s s of n a t u r e . F o r them, indeed, "nat u r e " and " s c e n e r y " w e r e almost synonymous, as they o f t e n are f o r us. T h i s t r e n d of romanticism runs much f u r t h e r back into the eighteenth century than time will p e r m i t us t o follow. T h e story is told in a number of works, notably in M y r a Reynolds' The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between Pope and IV ordsivorth. T h e f a m i l i a r s t a t e m e n t t h a t the A u g u s t a n age cared nothing f o r e x t e r n a l n a t u r e is t r u e only in a very general and c o m p a r a t i v e sense. It certainly was an urban age, and not inclined to go into ecstasies about s p a r r o w s — or, f o r t h a t m a t t e r , a b o u t a n y t h i n g else. But it would be h a r d to n a m e a time when actual h a t r e d of the country was universal. Some expressions of dislike f o r r u r a l scenes which students h a v e d r a w n f r o m the literature of this period a r e m e r e l y reactions against the p a s t o r a l f a d . In IVindsor Forest, P o p e himself is t r y i n g to write n a t u r e poetry. H e is h a n d i c a p p e d by the glossy, artificial diction of his time, a n d by the pseudoclassic notion t h a t he should paint a g e n e r a l i z e d scenery piece instead of looking di-

E X T E R N A L

124

N A T U R E

rectly at real objects with his own eyes. But parts of the poem — the description of the pheasant, f o r example — are highly successful even when measured by the standards which we have inherited f r o m Wordsworth. L a d y Winchilsea, Ambrose Philips, Parnell, Thomson, Dyer, Somerville, T h o m a s and Joseph W a r t o n , Shenstone, Goldsmith, Collins, G r a y , and other eighteenth century poets, show a gradual movement of imagination f r o m the park to the mountain, an increasingly genuine interest in natural scenes, an increasing tendency to relate them to subjective emotion, and an increasing ability to represent nature in images derived from the qualities of the object itself rather than from some abstract standard of verbal propriety. In the 1 7 8 0 ' s the movement culminates in Cowper, Blake, and Burns. Wordsworth is the direct heir of all this eighteenth century nature poetry. H e knows it thoroughly, and is strongly influenced by it. A s f o r W o r d s w o r t h ' s contemporaries, to name those who loved external nature would merely be to call the roll of the romanticists. Think of H a z l i t t ' s On Going a Journey ( f o r the tendency is hardly less marked in prose than in p o e t r y ) , Byron's Childe Harold, Shelley's Skylark, Keats's Nightingale. T h e only notable dissenter is Charles L a m b , who had a peculiar city-of-London romanticism, made up of old streets, old houses, old books, and old memories. In answer to Wordsworth's invitation to Cumberland he writes: Separate f r o m the pleasure of y o u r c o m p a n y , I d o n ' t much care if I never see a mountain in my life.

I h a v e passed all m y days in

L o n d o n , until I h a v e formed as m a n y ments, nature.

as any

of

you

mountaineers

and intense local

can

have

done

attach-

with

dead

EXTERNAL N A T U R E

125

W h e n at last he does visit the Lakes, he confesses, " I have satisfied myself t h a t there is such a thing as that which tourists call romantic, which I very much suspected b e f o r e . " Yet " a f t e r all, Fleet Street a n d the S t r a n d are better places to live in f o r good t h a n amidst S k i d d a w . " But L a m b , as I have said, is an exception. T h e romantic revival of enthusiasm f o r external n a t u r e had very i m p o r t a n t results. It not only widened and f r e s h e n e d the stock of literary themes, but contributed to the renascence of lyric poetry. T h a t renascence also originated in the movement t o w a r d a simplicity of which folk song and ballad were attractive models. Since these kinds of poetry were rich in n a t u r a l imagery, there was a union at this point between literary primitivism and the love of external n a t u r e . But I am speaking not so much of the p u r e song-poem as of those m o r e e l a b o r a t e and serious lyrics in which the singing element, a p a r t f r o m the music of the verse, becomes w h a t Brunetiere calls the chant interieur. T h i s sort of poetry d e m a n d s an interweaving of extreme objectivity with extreme subjectivity: t h a t is, it demands either the expression or suggestion of vivid images d r a w n f r o m the direct perception of external objects, a n d it d e m a n d s either the expression or suggestion of a bond between those objects and the deepest emotions of the poet as a unique individual. Such a lyric, then, uses external n a t u r e to clarify and give body to inward feeling, and uses i n w a r d feeling to give significance to external things. N o w let us turn to the a v e r a g e poet of the A u g u s t a n age, r e m e m b e r i n g t h a t no such person ever existed. Although he was by no means incapable of enjoying n a t u r a l

126

EXTERNAL N A T U R E

things and scenes, his enjoyment seldom s t i r r e d him deeply. H e would g r a n t that b o t h he a n d the nightingale were " p a r t s of one t r e m e n d o u s w h o l e " ; but since he was infinitely f u r t h e r advanced in the neatly g r a d u a t e d scale of being, the idea of any close spiritual communion between himself and the bird would have seemed nonsensical. T h e nightingale, if he dealt with it in a poem, must be r e g a r d e d as an example of a general type. T h e details of physical surroundings, habit, shape, color, sound, which distinguished this particular nightingale f r o m o t h e r nightingales were no business of his. H e should even beware of distinguishing the type-nightingale too sharply f r o m o t h e r species of bird. I t might be s a f e r to speak merely of " t h e f e a t h e r e d songster of the g r o v e . " Since he was a classicist, his m a t e r i a l was not the incommensurable factor, but the highest common d e n o m i n a t o r . If a discreet p a r t i c u l a r i z a t i o n seemed desirable, there were certain p r o p e r things to say about nightingales. T h e mythological b a c k g r o u n d should at least be hinted at, and the bird should be called Philomela. T h i s generalized bird should sing in a generalized grove, and its m o o d should be one of tenderly m o u r n f u l enjoyment of unrequited love. Its passion, however, must be held within the bounds of good sense. T h e subject d e m a n d e d a quiet elegance of manner, and the verse should be mellifluously smooth. It would be best to keep " W a l l e r ' s sweetness" in m i n d ; " D e n h a m ' s s t r e n g t h " would be out of place. T h e r e were also certain things which should not be said on such a subject. Any a t t e m p t at sublimity would be incongruous, but at the o t h e r extreme, " l o w " w o r d s must be avoided. O u r cont e m p o r a r y , T . S. Eliot, in his Sweeney Among the Night-

EXTERNAL

NATURE

127

ingales, mentions the "liquid d r o p p i n g s " which stained the s h r o u d of A g a m e m n o n . Such a p h r a s e in a serious poem would m a k e an A u g u s t a n a p o p l e c t i c ; associated with so l o f t y a p e r s o n a g e as A g a m e m n o n , it w o u l d kill the critic. W i t h his dying b r e a t h he w o u l d r e m a r k t h a t the entire basis of the p o e m is defective, f o r no person n a m e d Sweeney should ever be f o u n d a m o n g nightingales. L a d y M a r y W o r t l e y M o n t a g u knew h o w to h a n d l e these m a t t e r s . In one of her l e t t e r s w r i t t e n t o P o p e f r o m C o n s t a n t i n o p l e she quotes a T u r k i s h love song beginning, in literal t r a n s l a t i o n , " T h e n i g h t i n g a l e n o w w a n d e r s in the vines. H e r passion is t o seek r o s e s . " T h i s she improves i n t o : N o w Philomel renews the tender strain, Indulging all the night her pleasing pain.

E v e n supposing t h a t the song of the n i g h t i n g a l e did arouse the d e e p e r feelings of o u r a v e r a g e A u g u s t a n poet, those feelings would p r o b a b l y not a p p e a r in his poem. T h e fine shades of emotion which d i f f e r e n t i a t e d his response f r o m all o t h e r responses to a similar situation w e r e no m o r e fitting as poetic m a t e r i a l t h a n the objective b i r d ' s peculiarities — those " s t r e a k s of the t u l i p " which, as J o h n s o n ' s I m l a c says, a r e n o t the p r o p e r concern of the p o e t . T h e d e s i d e r a t u m w a s a n o r m a l intellectual response given a n e a t little t u r n of ingenuity a n d colored by a m o d e r a t e a m o u n t of such e m o t i o n as any m a n of sense m i g h t feel — " w h a t o f t w a s t h o u g h t , b u t n e ' e r so well e x p r e s s e d . " H e n c e o u r p o e t would p r o b a b l y not write an entire p o e m a b o u t a n i g h t i n g a l e : t h e r e would not be sufficient m a t e r i a l . T h e b i r d would be w o r t h a couplet o r two — p e r h a p s a d e c o r a t i v e simile — in some

EXTERNAL

128

NATURE

longer sequence of versified ideas. If by chance the poet should decide to use the bird as the basis of an entire poem, the resultant three or four octosyllabic quatrains might be entitled To Arabella, on Hearing a Nightingale·, and the theme would be that while Arabella sings much better than Philomela, she is unfortunately less susceptible to the tender passion. T h e poet might go on to say that the nightingale's inferiority in song was owing to the sincerity of his love, and that this was also true of Arabella's most obedient humble servant. O r the twist might be satirical: would that certain poets — we know who — resembled the nightingale in the modest selfeffacement of its devotion to song! Or the bird might provide the text of a sensible little discourse on any idea that it might suggest. But in all these cases the bird would be merely the occasion f o r saying sentimental or witty or improving things. T h e stimulus would glance off the surface of the poet's heart and bury itself in a mass of stock phrases, stock thoughts, and stock emotions. T h e standards which governed the poetry of the Augustan age, then, gave small scope f o r the writing of serious lyric poetry, since they were hostile to concreteness in treatment of the subject, hostile to subjectivity in treatment of personal emotion, and hostile to the needful interweaving of objective and subjective. In his Essay Supplementary to the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth declares: It is remarkable that, excepting the Nocturnal Winchilsea, and a passage or two in the Windsor

Reverie

of Lady

Forest

of Pope,

the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the Paradise

Lost

[ 1 6 6 7 ] and the Seasons

[ 1 7 2 6 - 1 7 3 0 ] does not

contain a single new image of external nature; and hardly pre-

EXTERNAL

NATURE

129

sents a familiar one from which it can be inferred that the eye of the poet had been steadily fixed upon his object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination.

T h i s , t h o u g h an e x a g g e r a t i o n , is an e x a g g e r a t i o n of the t r u t h . But even within t h e p e r i o d m e n t i o n e d by W o r d s w o r t h the exceptions are m o r e n u m e r o u s t h a n he indicates, and they increase geometrically as the eighteenth century goes on. W o r d s w o r t h feels t h a t falsely " p o e t i c " diction and lack of steady observation of n a t u r e go h a n d in hand. Some of the w o r s t eighteenth century diction, however, occurs w h e n poets a r e beginning t o look at n a t u r e with t h e i r own eyes but h a v e not yet ceased to d r a w their p h r a s e s f r o m the stock of p r o f e s s i o n a l lingo — as when T h o m s o n says, But let not on your hook the tortured worm, Convulsive, twist in agonizing folds.

But this is a disease of t r a n s i t i o n . O n the whole we cannot d o u b t t h a t if the poet opens his senses to life his diction will be true t o his impressions. A l t h o u g h lack of time p r e v e n t s us f r o m t r a c i n g these developments, we can observe t h e i r final outcome by reading r o m a n t i c n a t u r e p o e t r y . Obviously a g r e a t change has taken place. L o v e of external n a t u r e has s h a r p e n e d the p o e t ' s vision, d e e p e n e d his capacity to feel, a n d impelled him t o sing as few h a v e sung since the s e v e n t e e n t h century. P o e t r y once m o r e is "simple, sensuous, a n d passionate." T h e r e is a n e g a t i v e side to all this, but so much in my t r e a t m e n t of r o m a n t i c i s m is negative t h a t h e r e I am e a g e r to e m p h a s i z e the very real benefits which this t r e n d of romanticism has c o n f e r r e d upon p o e t r y . A n d t h r o u g h p o e t r y it h a s benefitted h u m a n life, f o r it has

i30

EXTERNAL

NATURE

a d d e d to m a n ' s h a p p i n e s s by r e l a t i n g his e m o t i o n s to the m o s t b e a u t i f u l a n d e n d u r i n g e l e m e n t s in his e n v i r o n m e n t . A s students of l i t e r a t u r e , w e s h o u l d l e a r n to r e c o g n i z e each p o e t ' s special m a n n e r of d e a l i n g w i t h n a t u r e . should know Byron's

eloquent, e f f e c t i v e , but

We

somewhat

r h e t o r i c a l w a y of p a i n t i n g a b i g p i c t u r e in b r o a d s t r o k e s . We

should

know

Shelley's

light,

bright,

ethereal

at-

m o s p h e r e , his u n e a r t h l y i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of e a r t h , his f o n d ness f o r p r o j e c t i n g h i m s e l f into n a t u r e a n d s h a r i n g the l i f e of the w e s t w i n d , the s k y l a r k , a n d the cloud. A n d w e s h o u l d k n o w the l u x u r i o u s richness of K e a t s , a richness t h a t in his m a t u r e w o r k n e v e r b l u r s the f r e s h v i v i d n e s s of his i m a g e r y . K e a t s is a l m o s t p u r e l y e s t h e t i c in his f e e l i n g f o r external nature.

T o h i m she is a g r e a t r e p o s i t o r y of those

sights a n d sounds a n d smells w h i c h c o n s t i t u t e the t r u t h t h a t is b e a u t y . H e r a i d to m a n ' s s p i r i t is g r e a t , but it is e x e r t e d t h r o u g h n o b l y sensuous d e l i g h t . h a r d l y be s a i d of the L a k i s t s .

T h e s a m e can

T h e i r sensuous l o v e

of

n a t u r e , s t r o n g as it is, is h e a v i l y m i n g l e d w i t h ethical a n d instrumental

considerations.

As

they

gaze

upon

the

beauties of n a t u r e , esthetic j o y b e c o m e s m o r a l a n d spiritual medicine.

This

f a c t n e e d not be i l l u s t r a t e d

from

W o r d s w o r t h , f o r it is implicit a n d explicit t h r o u g h o u t his work.

T h e s a m e f e e l i n g is v e r y s t r o n g in C o l e r i d g e .

In

a l e t t e r of A p r i l , 1 7 9 8 , he d e c l a r e s : I love fields and w o o d s and mountains w i t h an almost visionary fondness.

A n d because I have f o u n d benevolence and

quietness

g r o w i n g within me as that fondness increased, t h e r e f o r e I should wish to be the means of i m p l a n t i n g it in others.

S e v e r a l of C o l e r i d g e ' s p o e m s b e t w e e n 1 7 9 7 a n d a t t e m p t to c a r r y out this w i s h .

1799

T h u s the p a s s a g e f r o m

EXTERNAL Osorio

p r i n t e d in Lyrical

NATURE

Ballads

W i t h other ministrations thou, Ο

a s The

131 Dungeon

reads:

Nature!

H e a l e s t thy w a n d e r i n g and distempered child ; T h o u pourest on him thy soft influences, T h v s u n n y hues, f a i r f o r m s , and b r e a t h i n g sweets, T h y melodies of woods, and winds, and w a t e r s , T i l l he relent, a n d can no more e n d u r e T o be a j a r r i n g and a dissonant thing, A m i d this g e n e r a l d a n c e and m i n s t r e l s y ; B u t , b u r s t i n g into tears, w i n s back his way, H i s a n g r y spirit healed and h a r m o n i z e d Bv t h e b e n i g n a n t touch of love and beauty. A n d the m e s s a g e of

This

Lime-Tree

Boner

My

Prison

is t h a t H e n c e f o r t h I shall k n o w T h a t N a t u r e ne'er deserts the wise and p u r e ; N o plot so n a r r o w , be b u t N a t u r e there, N o w a s t e so v a c a n t , b u t may well employ E a c h f a c u l t y of sense, a n d keep the h e a r t A w a k e to L o v e and B e a u t y ! Coleridge's

w o r k shows that nature, which begins

by

i n s p i r i n g his l o v e o f l i b e r t y , l a t e r c o m e s to be a s t i m u l u s to p a t r i o t i s m a n d thus indirectly helps to induce his l a t e r conservatism. we

I n Fears

in Solitude

( 1 7 9 8 ) , for example,

find: B u t , Ο dear B r i t a i n ! Ο my M o t h e r I s l e ! H o w shouldst t h o u prove a u g h t else b u t d e a r and holy T o me, w h o f r o m thy lakes and mountain-hills, T h y clouds, t h y quiet dales, thy rocks and seas, H a v e d r u n k in all mv intellectual life, A l l sweet sensations, all e n n o b l i n g t h o u g h t s , A l l a d o r a t i o n s of t h e G o d in n a t u r e ,

132

EXTERNAL

NATURE

There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul Unborrowed from my country!

A similarly patriotic attitude toward English scenes was aroused in W o r d s w o r t h by his trip to Germany. But the results of this transition f r o m love of nature to love of English nature are not fully apparent in the period of most devout nature worship, just before the turn of the century. N a t u r e is then primarily a healing and inspiring force r a t h e r than an incitement to one-hundred-per-cent patriotism. T h e minor poets who cluster about W o r d s w o r t h and Coleridge share the feeling of their masters. Charles Lloyd writes: Methinks he acts the purposes of life And fills the measures of his destiny W i t h best approved wisdom, who retires T o some majestic solitude; his mind Raised by those visions of eternal love, T h e rock, the vale, the forest, and the lake, T h e sky, the sea, and everlasting hills.

Passages of the same tenor in other writers are almost innumerable. T h e later group of romantic poets, of which Byron, Shelley, and Keats are the chief members, depart rather far f r o m the W o r d s w o r t h i a n philosophy of nature, and are much less inclined to discover sermons in stones. Each makes his own adjustment between his love of nature and his personal view of life. At Keats we have already glanced. Shelley imposes on external nature his vision of an ideal world of which the essence is the love of freedom and the freedom of love. T h e west wind is a great

EXTERNAL radical

propagandist,

NATURE

scattering,

one

133 might

say,

not

m e r e l y l e a v e s but l e a f l e t s " t o quicken a n e w b i r t h . " A n d all t h r o u g h n a t u r e as seen by S h e l l e y runs the spirit o f l o v e , a h i g h l y i d e a l i z e d sexuality, o f t e n P l a t o n i c in t h o u g h t a n d e x p r e s s i o n , but w i t h m u c h t o o l a r g e a fleshly cation.

e l e m e n t t o be l a b e l e d as P l a t o n i c w i t h o u t qualifiH i s o w n r a p i d l y s h i f t i n g l o v e s f o r this, t h a t , a n d

the o t h e r w o m a n are a reflection o f t h e w a y in w h i c h his "nature" behaves.

It is Love's

Philosophy

that

T h e fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the Ocean, T h e winds of Heaven mix for ever W i t h a sweet emotion ; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle. W h y not I with thine? T h i s is the spirit w h i c h in s p r i n g t i m e a n i m a t e s t h e g a r d e n of The

Sensitive

Plant·.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair, Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. T h e n the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them all, W h o gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, T i l l they die of their own dear loveliness; And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, W h o m youth makes so fair and passion so pale T h a t the light of its tremulous bells is seen T h r o u g h their pavilions of tender green;

EXTERNAL

134

NATURE

A n d t h e rose like a n y m p h t o t h e b a t h

addressed,

W h i c h unveiled t h e d e p t h of her g l o w i n g breast, T i l l , fold a f t e r f o l d , to t h e f a i n t i n g air T h e soul of her b e a u t y a n d love lay b a r e : F o r each one w a s i n t e r p e n e t r a t e d W i t h t h e light and the o d o u r its n e i g h b o u r shed, L i k e y o u n g lovers w h o m y o u t h a n d love m a k e d e a r W r a p p e d and filled by t h e i r m u t u a l a t m o s p h e r e . A c o m p a r i s o n b e t w e e n this p o e m and F r a s m u s Loves

of the

Plants

early nineteenth century did to the

eighteenth.

O n e m o r e e x a m p l e o f this, t o me, e x t r e m e l y point.

Darwin's

will help you to understand w h a t the

I n A c t I V o f Prometheus

Unbound,

interesting

when

Prome-

theus' abstract l o v e o f m a n a n d his specific l o v e of

Asia

combine to cause the o v e r t h r o w of Jupiter, the hate

that

h a s r u l e d t h e w o r l d , t h e n t h e l o v e in t h e p h y s i c a l

universe

is l i b e r a t e d , a n d a t l a s t t h e m o o n c a n s i n g h e r l o v e to the earth.

T h e m o o n cries:

T h e s n o w upon my lifeless m o u n t a i n s Is loosened into living f o u n t a i n s , M y solid oceans flow, and sing, and s h i n e : A spirit f r o m my h e a r t b u r s t s f o r t h , It clothes w i t h unexpected

birth

M y cold bare b o s o m : O h ! it m u s t be t h i n e O n mine, on mine ! G a z i n g on thee I feel, I k n o w G r e e n stalks b u r s t f o r t h , and b r i g h t flowers g r o w , A n d living shapes upon my bosom m o v e : M u s i c is in the sea and air, W i n g e d clouds soar here a n d there, D a r k w i t h t h e rain n e w buds a r e d r e a m i n g o f : ' T i s love, all l o v e !

song

EXTERNAL

NATURE

135

Byron's attitude toward nature is equally distinctive. In the spring of 1 8 1 6 , when the circumstances of his life have turned him into the proud and stricken creature which he has earlier taken a sentimental pleasure in pretending to be, he seeks refuge in nature, going up the Rhine, spending the summer in Switzerland, and then coming down into Italy. These travels form the basis of Cantos I I I and I V of Childe Harold. A t the beginning of Canto I I I the hero "wanders forth again," Proud though in desolation; which could find A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. W h e r e rose the mountains, there to him were friends; W h e r e rolled the ocean, thereon was his home; W h e r e a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, H e had the passion and the power to roam; T h e desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, W e r e unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome O f his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake F o r Nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake.

(Childe

Harold,

III, 22, 2 3 )

This retreat to nature is not unlike the earlier and more negative stage of the process displayed by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Sometimes, too, Byron reminds us strongly of the more affirmative stage of the Wordsworthian nature philosophy: A r e not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part O f me and of my soul, as I of them ? Is not the love of these deep in my heart W i t h a pure passion ?

(Childe

Harold,

III, 7 5 )

136

EXTERNAL

NATURE

A m a j o r difference between the two poets, however, prevents our regarding Byron as anything like a disciple of Wordsworth. In W o r d s w o r t h ' s most characteristic poems, nature is given a voice that speaks to all humanity. Only a few maladjusted souls are unfitted to receive her message. M o r e o v e r , as we know, love of nature leads to love of man. But Byron prizes nature f o r her glorious inhumanity. She, with him her son, stands apart in majestic scorn of the human herd. Is it not better, then, to be alone, A n d love E a r t h only for its earthly sake? B y the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, O r the pure bosom of its nursing lake, Is it not better thus our lives to wear, T h a n join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear? I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around m e ; and to me H i g h mountains are a feeling, but the hum O f human cities torture: I can see Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, A n d with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain O f ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.

(Childe Harold, III, 51, 52) Much in Byron's relations with nature recalls the bad young man in Ruth whose irregularity is encouraged by the irregularities of nature. M o t h e r N a t u r e and her son Byron share the same proud, moody, turbulent emotion. F o r W o r d s w o r t h , nature is "the guide of all his moral being;" f o r Byron, she is the mirror of his melancholy.

EXTERNAL

NATURE

137

A n d so at the end of C a n t o I V Childe H a r o l d turns to the ocean as that aspect of nature least controlled by m a n : Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll! T e n thousand fleets sweep over thee in v a i n ; M a n marks the earth with ruin — his control Stops with the shore; — upon the watery plain T h e wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, W h e n , for a moment, like a drop of rain, H e sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, W i t h o u t a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

In English literature, Byron's m o o d is not very common. It is more frequently found in continental literature, f o r it is associated with the melancholy state of mind known in G e r m a n y as Weltschmerz and in France T h a t it sometimes crops up in E n g l i s h as mal du Steele. literature, however, is shown by G o d w i n ' s Fleetwood ( 1 8 0 5 ) . I have already told how the hero of this novel is corrupted at the university. H e later goes to P a r i s and becomes extremely dissipated. T h e n he discovers that his mistress is inconstant, and of course heads straight f o r the Swiss A l p s . I loathed existence and the sight of day.

I fled from Paris and

sought the craggy and inhospitable A l p s ; the most f r i g h t f u l scenes alone had power to please, and produced in me a kind of malicious and desperate sentiment of satisfaction.

T h a n k s to the influence of the scenery, h o w e v e r , Fleetw o o d ' s feelings become s o f t e n e d and elevated. H e has a remarkable moment of reverie when he sees the chapel dedicated to W i l l i a m T e l l . T h e passage is valuable as running through the g a m u t of romanticism f r o m the primitivistic to the mystical levels:

EXTERNAL

138

NATURE

I t h o u g h t of W i l l i a m T e l l ; I t h o u g h t of t h e simple m a n n e r s w h i c h still p r e v a i l in t h e p r i m i t i v e c a n t o n s ; I f e l t as if I w e r e in the w i l d e s t a n d most l u x u r i a n t of the u n i n h a b i t e d islands of t h e S o u t h Sea.

I w a s lost in visions of paradise, of h a b i t a t i o n s and

b o w e r s a m o n g t h e celestial orbs, of t h e p u r e r e w a r d s and e n j o y m e n t s of a h a p p i e r s t a t e . S o F l e e t w o o d , h e a l e d by t h e m o u n t a i n s , e n d s by l o v i n g m a n a n d n a t u r e a n d e v e r y t h i n g else. and desperate that of

sentiment

Godwin's hero,

Byron's

of

satisfaction"

pass

on to the

"malicious

does not,

like

Wordsworthian

l e v e l . I n f a c t it p a s s e s o n t o t h e c y n i c i s m o f Don

Juan,

w h e r e h e m a k e s m e r c i l e s s a n d d e l i g h t f u l f u n o f t h e cult of nature.

I h o p e I a m r i g h t in t h i n k i n g t h a t t h e f o l l o w -

ing w i c k e d lines will be a relief to y o u : Y o u n g J u a n w a n d e r e d by t h e glassy brooks T h i n k i n g u n u t t e r a b l e t h i n g s ; he t h r e w H i m s e l f at l e n g t h w i t h i n t h e leafy nooks W h e r e t h e w i l d b r a n c h of the cork forest g r e w ; T h e r e poets find m a t e r i a l f o r their books, A n d every n o w a n d t h e n w e read t h e m t h r o u g h , So t h a t their plan and prosody are eligible, U n l e s s , like AVordsworth, they prove unintelligible. H e ( J u a n , and not W o r d s w o r t h ) so pursued H i s s e l f - c o m m u n i o n w i t h his o w n high soul, U n t i l his m i g h t y h e a r t , in its great m o o d , H a d m i t i g a t e d p a r t , t h o u g h not t h e w h o l e O f its disease; he did t h e best he could W i t h t h i n g s n o t very s u b j e c t to control, A n d t u r n e d , w i t h o u t perceiving his condition, L i k e C o l e r i d g e , into a metaphysician. H e t h o u g h t a b o u t himself, and the w h o l e e a r t h , O f m a n t h e w o n d e r f u l , and of the stars,

E X T E R N A L

N A T U R E

>39

A n d h o w the deuce they ever could h a v e b i r t h ; A n d then he thought of earthquakes, and of w a r s , H o w m a n y miles the moon m i g h t have in girth, O f air-balloons, and of the m a n y bars T o perfect k n o w l e d g e of the boundless skies;

—

A n d then he thought of D o n n a J u l i a ' s eyes. In thoughts like these true w i s d o m m a y discern L o n g i n g s sublime, and aspirations high, W h i c h some are born w i t h , but the most part learn T o plague themselves w i t h a l , they k n o w not w h y : ' T w a s strange that one so y o u n g should thus concern H i s brain about the action of the s k y ; If you

think ' t w a s philosophy that this did,

I can't help thinking puberty assisted.

(Dort Juan,

I, 9 0 - 9 3 )

T h a t one of t h e g r e a t r o m a n t i c p o e t s s h o u l d t h u s m o c k w h a t we h a v e come t o r e g a r d as a m a j o r r o m a n t i c tendency raises a p u z z l i n g question w h i c h w e a r e n o t yet r e a d y t o a n s w e r except by s a y i n g t h a t a p e n d u l u m w h i c h swings f a r to t h e r i g h t will s w i n g f a r t o t h e l e f t . B u t t h e r e is a n o t h e r question w h i c h m u s t be c o n s i d e r e d a t once. A l t h o u g h I h a v e entitled this l e c t u r e " E x t e r n a l N a t u r e , " m u c h of w h a t I h a v e said h a s been m o r e c o n c e r n e d w i t h subjective a t t i t u d e s t o w a r d t h e e x t e r n a l t h a n w i t h t h e e x t e r n a l itself, w i t h w h a t t h e r o m a n t i c i s t s p u t i n t o n a t u r e t h a n w i t h w h a t they actually s a w t h e r e . N o o n e will d e n y t h a t t h e m a i n t h e m e of Tintern Abbey is t h e d e e p s p i r i t u a l joy which t h e l o v i n g c o n t e m p l a t i o n of n a t u r e can give t o m a n . Y e t t h e s t a t e described in t h e m o s t f a m o u s lines of t h e p o e m is o n e which rises a b o v e e n j o y m e n t , h o w e v e r spiritual, of t h e f r u i t s of direct p e r c e p t i o n . F o r a m o m e n t

140

EXTERNAL

NATURE

the objective "dwelling" is forgotten, and there is a more o r less mystical contact between the soul of W o r d s w o r t h and the Spirit t h a t "rolls through all things." W e get another hint of mystical aspiration earlier in the poem when W o r d s w o r t h speaks of that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened: — that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, — Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, w e are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul; W h i l e with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, W e see into the life of things.

A r e we to say, then, that the goal of this loving attention to natural objects is the disappearance of those objects in a flash of mystical immediacy? Are we here confronted with an inconsistency which runs through the fabric of romanticism? W i t h o u t much hope of being able to answer this question, I shall begin to deal with it in the next lecture.

VIII DESCENDENTALISM AND TRANSCENDENTALISM In your own reading it must often have struck you that although romanticism loves to burrow deeply into the soil of the actual, it also loves to soar above the actual into the intangible and mysterious. It has a realistic side, and it has a transcendental side. Transcendentalism may be defined as belief in the dominance of the intuitive and spiritual elements of mentality over sense experience. A t present, however, I am thinking of transcendentalism less as a definite philosophical position than as the general upward-looking and supersensuous spirit which accompanies the downward-looking and realistic element in romanticism. T h e concluding section of the course will be devoted to transcendentalism in the more technical sense, but I cannot explain the romantic conception of nature without touching upon its transcendental element. T h e seeming divergence between the realistic and transcendental sides of romanticism has led some scholars to protest that no single explanation of the term can cover them both. In a valuable paper "On the Discrimination of Romanticisms" (Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. X X X I X , pp. 2 2 9 - 2 5 3 ) , Professor A . O. Lovejoy urges us to speak, not of romanticism, but of romanticisms. Y e t without attempting to bring under a single head everything to which this perplexing tag has at one time or another been affixed, I would point out that there is much in common

142 DESCENDENTALISM, T R A N S C E N D E N T A L I S M between w h a t m i g h t be called " n a t u r a l i s t i c " and " s u p e r n a t u r a l i s t i c " r o m a n t i c i s m . W h e r e would P r o f e s s o r L o v e j o y u n d e r t a k e t o divide t h a t s t r e a m of associations which passes t h r o u g h F l e e t w o o d ' s m i n d as he stands b e f o r e T e l l ' s c h a p e l ? T h e i n t e r p r e t e r of romanticism, to be sure, is in a sad p r e d i c a m e n t . If he r e g a r d s it as a unity, he is h a u n t e d by a sense of its p l u r a l i t y ; if he r e g a r d s it as a plurality, he is h a u n t e d by a sense of its unity. T h o u g h fully r e a l i z i n g this d i l e m m a , I wish to say s o m e t h i n g in s u p p o r t of a u n i t a r i a n view of r o m a n t i c i s m so f a r as its naturalistic aspect is concerned. In Sartor Resartus, C a r l y l e says of t h a t very romantic figure, P r o f e s s o r D i o g e n e s T e u f e l s d r ö c k h , t h a t his chara c t e r h a s b o t h a descendental a n d a t r a n s c e n d e n t a l elem e n t . H e is intensely e a r t h l y , a n d intensely spiritual. H e enjoys t a k i n g us into the b a r n y a r d a n d m a k i n g us look at real t h i n g s ; but, like M a r t i n L u t h e r , he wishes us to r e m e m b e r t h a t t h e e g g which we l i f t f r o m the s t r a w is a miracle. H i s p h i l o s o p h y of clothes includes the descend e n t a l idea t h a t it w o u l d be a m u s i n g to see a n a k e d H o u s e of L o r d s , b u t it also includes t h e t r a n s c e n d e n t a l idea t h a t all m a t t e r is merely a g a r m e n t f o r the spiritual reality of the universe. T h e c h a r a c t e r of T e u f e l s d r ö c k h , which of course is the c h a r a c t e r of Carlyle, does n o t fall a p a r t . H e does n o t oscillate between b u r r o w i n g down into the soil of the actual a n d s o a r i n g up into the intangible and m y s t e r i o u s : he b u r r o w s into the soil of the actual f o r the sake of s o m e t h i n g intangible a n d mysterious in its depths. Sometimes, t o be sure, one element is e m p h a s i z e d at the expense of the o t h e r ; but the elements are not inconsistent. T h e y a r e t w o aspects of one view of life — a view which m i g h t be expressed by saying t h a t the real is w o n d e r f u l a n d t h a t the w o n d e r f u l is real.

DESCENDENTALISM,

T R A N S C E N D E N T A L I S M

143

T h i s formula perhaps approaches the core of romanticism. N o v a l i s , one of C a r l y l e ' s deep T e u t o n s , writes: T h e w o r l d must be romanticized.

If w e do this, w e shall dis-

cover in it the meaning it had f r o m the beginning.

T h e l o w e r self

becomes, through this process, identified w i t h its higher self. . . . B y g i v i n g the common a nobler meaning, the o r d i n a r y a mysterious aspect, the k n o w n the dignity of the u n k n o w n , the finite the appearance of the infinite — I romanticize.

Although E n g l a n d never went f a r t o w a r d f o r m u l a t i n g an explicit philosophy of romanticism, this fusion of the descendental and the transcendental is apparent in a g r e a t deal of E n g l i s h romantic literature. A t a particular time or in a particular personality either the descendental or the transcendental aspect may predominate, but not to the total exclusion of the other. T h e romanticist so persistently tries to find in trees the thrill of the unknown, and so persistently tries to give the unknown the tangibility of trees, that when we study this period it seems not only easier but more f r u i t f u l to let descendentalism and transcendentalism run together in our minds than severely to keep them separate. In the historiography of ideas, a distinction which was not apparent to the writers under consideration m a y be misleading in direct proportion to its neatness and clarity. Coleridge's account in Biographia Literaria of the plan underlying Lyrical Ballads is very much to the point: It w a s agreed that m y endeavors should be directed to persons and characters s u p e r n a t u r a l ,

or at least r o m a n t i c ;

yet so as to

transfer f r o m our i n w a r d n a t u r e a h u m a n interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure

f o r those s h a d o w s

that w i l l i n g suspension of disbelief stitutes poetic faith.

of

imagination

f o r the moment, w h i c h

con-

M r . W o r d s w o r t h , on the other hand, w a s to

propose to himself as his object, to g i v e the c h a r m of novelty to

144 D E S C E N D E N T A L I S M ,

TRANSCENDENTALISM

things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention to the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness of the world before us.

H e r e in a single volume of poetry we have the two different but harmonious elements of the romantic program. W e r e we to sum up that program in a single phrase, we could hardly find a better than the one which Carlyle uses to describe Teufelsdröckh's philosophy, "natural supernaturalism" — though "supernatural naturalism" would serve equally well. T h e history of the romantic fusion of descendentalism and transcendentalism is difficult to trace. One may say, however, that the most characteristic thought of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries gave little satisfaction either to man's interest in the natural or to his yearning f o r the supernatural. In order to connect this topic with what was said in the preceding lecture about the average Augustan poet and his nightingale, an illustration will be drawn from eighteenth century esthetics. A s an expression of pseudoclassic ideals, Isaac Hawkins Browne's On Design and Beauty is f a r more philosophical than Pope's Essay on Criticism. I cannot date the poem, but Browne was born in 1 7 0 5 and it was a work of his youth. T h e author declares that the simplicity desirable in art must not become so abstract as to melt into vastness: Y e t here, unless due boundaries be placed, O f t will the Simple spread into the V a s t ; Vast, where the symmetry of parts akin Lies too remote, and is but dimly seen. In Nature's wondrous frame if aught appear Vast, or misshapen, or irregular,

DESCENDENTALISM, TRANSCENDENTALISM

145

' T i s that the mighty structure was designed A whole proportioned to the all-seeing M i n d . But art is bounded by perception still, A n d aims not to oppress the mind, but fill.

In a v o i d i n g the Scylla of the vast, h o w e v e r , the artist must steer clear of the C h a r y b d i s of the minutely circumstantial : N o r less their fault, who shunning this extreme G r o w circumstantial, and but crowd the scheme. Beauty, when best discerned, is most complete, But all is Gothic which is intricate.

B r o w n e ' s ideas may be extended f r o m the plastic art to the poetry, and f r o m the p o e t r y to the general thought, of his age. T h a t thought w a s sufficiently detached f r o m reality to be abstract, and yet not sufficiently detached f r o m reality to provide the illusion of living in a thrillingly mysterious universe. It t h w a r t e d both the desire to roam the infinite and the desire to look upon and touch real objects. H e n c e in the g r a d u a l reaction against this kind of thought, there would be a tendency f o r the two neglected planes, the natural and the supernatural, to combine in an alliance against the rationalistic enemy. In romanticism, the t w o extremes which B r o w n e is anxious to a v o i d — vastness and the intricacy of Gothic detail — are combined and o f t e n reconciled. T h e alliance between the descendental and the transcendental does not come all at once, and the proportions of the t w o elements are f a r f r o m even — either in chronological divisions of the movement, or in individual authors, or throughout particular works. On the whole, the early manifestations of the romantic spirit in the

146 DESCENDENTALISM, TRANSCENDENTALISM age of P o p e and t h r o u g h o u t the a g e of J o h n s o n are descendental. T h e p r i m a r y impulse is t o w a r d the simple and the real — a movement of feeling f r o m the corrupted city to the innocent c o u n t r y ; f r o m h a r d pavements to g r a s s y p a t h s ; f r o m the disillusionments of w o r l d l y ambition to the simple satisfactions of rustic contentment; f r o m the complex and over-sophisticated present to the naive and spontaneous p a s t ; f r o m the bewilderment of learning to the sure guidance of untutored instinct. But all this, while no doubt chiefly descendental, is full of hints which point f o r w a r d to the other trend of romanticism. T h e sentimentality of this early phase of the movement, its desire f o r thrills and mystery and g l a m o u r and illusion, its opposition of feeling to thinking — these have transcendental implications; they predict the transcendental attitude, and actively p r e p a r e f o r it. E a r l y romanticism, in which descendentalism dominates o v e r an obscure but never wholly negligible transcendentalism, g r a d u a l l y gives place to a stage in which descendentalism and transcendentalism are m o r e evenly balanced. J a m e s T h o m s o n m a y perhaps stand f o r the first stage, and the W o r d s w o r t h of 1 7 9 8 - 1 8 0 5 f o r the second. T h e equilibrium of the second stage is difficult to maintain. Descendentalism tips the scales t o w a r d realism in literary technique and t o w a r d the scientific attitude in p h i l o s o p h y ; transcendentalism tips the scales t o w a r d impressionism in l i t e r a r y technique and t o w a r d mysticism in philosophy. W o r d s w o r t h at his g r e a t e s t is r e m a r k a b l y successful in keeping the balance, but even in his best period one sometimes feels the unsteadiness which raises the question that w e asked concerning Tintern Abbey. H e loves external and tangible nature too genuinely to

DESCENDENTALISM, T R A N S C E N D E N T A L I S M 147 be a mystic, but when a n y t h i n g pulls him t o w a r d the extreme of realism he makes a c o m p e n s a t o r y m o v e t o w a r d the opposite extreme of mysticism. B u t I have begun to touch upon m a t t e r s which I p r e f e r to reserve f o r later discussion. A t present it is enough to say that the second stage is of short duration. It gives place to one in which the balance s h i f t s the o t h e r w a y , so that transcendentalism dominates o v e r descendentalism. T h e attempt to find the v a s t within the circumstantial becomes less and less s a t i s f a c t o r y ; g o i n g up in the air, a f t e r all, gives more inspiring results than d e l v i n g into the earth. Y e t the true romanticist carries his love of earth up into the air with him, and his mistiest transcendentalism is tinged with descendentalism. Shelley will stand as an example of this third stage. W e may suspect that this little g r a p h is too neat to be true. B u t it is pretty, and p e r h a p s it has a limited kind of validity. T h u s much, at all events, by w a y of a theoretical attempt to keep romanticism f r o m f a l l i n g a p a r t into romanticisms at this point. In a less abstract w a y , the s a v a g e , the peasant, and the child do something to j u s t i f y a unitarian conception of romantic naturalism. T h e romanticists a s p i r e d to something " h i g h e r " than analytical reason, and yet they w e r e g r e a t l y interested in beings w h o h a v e not yet attained even the merely analytical stage. I n the light of w h a t has been said about the fusion of descendentalism and transcendentalism, this f a c t is not difficult to understand. T h e naive and primitive souls a d m i r e d by the romanticist a r e above logic precisely because they a r e below it. In being close to nature they are close to the supernatural, and p a r t a k e of that "sense sublime of something f a r m o r e

i+8 DESCENDENTALISM, T R A N S C E N D E N T A L I S M deeply i n t e r f u s e d " which can n e v e r be a t t a i n e d t h r o u g h " t h a t f a l s e secondary p o w e r by which we multiply distinctions." I n fact, this mingling of the subrational with the supposedly s u p e r r a t i o n a l is a cardinal t r a i t of r o m a n ticism. W h e t h e r t h e r e is such a t h i n g as the s u p e r r a t i o n a l , and w h e t h e r any conscious a t t e m p t to rise above logic is not inevitably to fall below it, no m a t t e r h o w gracefully the collapse is sublimated by mystical terminology, are questions t o be asked, but h a r d l y to be answered. In any case the romanticists believed in the s u p e r r a t i o n a l a n d in their efforts to describe it t o m a n k i n d o f t e n drew t h e i r examples f r o m the s u b r a t i o n a l . O u r next step, t h e r e f o r e , will be to examine these t h r e e very p o p u l a r figures of r o m a n t i c l i t e r a t u r e . F o r a f u l l e r discussion of them, especially of the first, I must r e f e r you to my own Noble Savage. Practically all of my material, indeed, will be d r a w n f r o m t h a t b o o k ; but even a t the expense of some repetition I wish to r e l a t e the savage, the p e a s a n t , and the child to the view of romanticism which I am trying to develop in this course.

IX SAVAGE, PEASANT, A N D CHILD It would be uncritical to exaggerate the importance of the noble savage. H e is more popular in the earlier than in the later manifestations of romanticism, and more popular with minor writers than with the really great men. Of these, none are at any time willing to adore him unreservedly, though several show admiration f o r one or more aspects of his character. But the noble savage is interesting in that he does, at various times and in the hands of various writers, provide a vehicle f o r many romantic ideas. H e can illustrate what a blessing it is to be ignorant of bewildering books; to what a low level man has d e t e r i o r a t e d ; to w h a t a high level, since his native equipment is so promising, man may develop; the benign influence of scenery; the natural goodness of man and the badness of the civilization which, despite his natural goodness, he has somehow managed to create; the stupidity of building cities when the woods are so much b e t t e r ; the stupidity of making money when contentment depends upon not having any; the superiority of feeling to thinking; the possibility of finding God in n a t u r e ; the benefits and pleasures of f r e e and unsophisticated love; the fact that natural man is a natural poet — and other things of the same general kind. Although the virtues of the noble savage are more or less the same wherever he is found, those virtues are differently displayed by different races. T h e American

i50

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

AND

CHILD

Indian is the aristocrat o f the group. H i s scorn of civilization, lively sense o f gratitude, natural mysticism, dignity, oratorical ability, hospitality, and courage are all very impressive. H i s bloodthirstiness provides agreeable thrills, and it can always be explained in terms of resistance to European oppression or by glances at the vices of " m o r e refined nations." W e might think him too stolid for romantic tastes, but he is supposed to be a true M a n of Feeling beneath his stoical exterior. T h e South Sea Islander is a slighter, less imposing, more amiable figure. T a h i t i and other such islands provide a number of female noble savages. In fact, from the abundant eighteenth century voyage-literature down to present-day books like O ' B r i e n ' s Mystic Isles of the South Seas, the noble Polynesian tradition has been suffused with a hankering f o r a freer and more spontaneous kind o f love than our own corrupt civilization provides. F o r a perfect example see Byron's last poem, The Island — an ideÄl motion picture story o f mutiny, marooning and the love o f a Scotch sailor and a native woman on a Pacific isle. T h e ever-watchful Anti-Jacobin had earlier satirized the South Seas fad by making M r . Higgins dilate upon the joys o f pastoral life in T a h i t i , "where the office of shepherd is a perfect sinecure, there being no sheep on the island," and by inserting this amusing passage in the burlesque Progress of Man: T h e r e laughs the sky, there Zephyr's frolic train, A n d light-winged loves, and blameless pleasures T h e r e , when t w o souls congenial ties unite, N o hireling Bonzes chant the mystic r i t e : F r e e every thought, each action unconfined, A n d light those fetters which no rivets bind.

reign:

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

AND

CHILD

151

Each shepherd clasped, with undisguised delight, H i s yielding fair one — in the captain's sight; Each yielding fair, as chance or fancy led, Preferred new lovers to her sylvan bed. Learn hence, each nymph, whose free aspiring mind Europe's cold laws, and colder customs bind — O ! learn, w h a t N a t u r e ' s genial laws decree — W h a t Otaheite is, let Britain be!

T h e A f r i c a n N e g r o joins the noble savage club rather late, and is never so prominent a member as the Indian or the South Sea Islander. Probably owing to the influence of A p h r a Behn's Oroonoko, whose hero was an A f r i c a n king before his enslavement, the N e g r o is sometimes depicted as a fallen monarch of nature. William Roscoe's The fVrongs of Africa will provide an example. The IVest Indies, a long poem written by J a m e s Montgomery of Sheffield to celebrate the abolition of the slave trade in 1 8 0 7 , undertakes to prove that the N e g r o is quite as noble a noble savage as the Indian. But a more typical treatment of the N e g r o is William Blake's The Little Black Boy, which I have shown to be the best of a number of poems in which the N e g r o speaks f o r himself, pleading f o r sympathy and understanding, not as a noble savage, but as a human being. In short, the literary N e g r o of the period is more closely associated with humanitarianism than with primitivism. Some authors regard in the light of the noble savage tradition other more or less primitive peoples who happen to be known to them. W a l t e r Scott's Highlanders have a touch of the noble savage. H e once compares R o b R o y to an A r a b chief, and at another time to an American Indian. T h e natives of Albania who figure so importantly in

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

A N D

CHILD

C a n t o I I of Childe Harold a r e noble savages of a r a t h e r fierce a n d lawless kind, as m i g h t be expected of the children of Byronic n a t u r e . W h e t h e r the L a k e C o u n t r y s h e p h e r d a d m i r e d by W o r d s w o r t h can be spoken of as a noble savage even in a loose a n d figurative sense is d o u b t f u l . W o r d s w o r t h was never a lover of actual wildness in men o r institutions. In fact, he h a s been claimed as an enemy of the savage on the basis of the Excursion p a s s a g e describing Solitary's vain a t t e m p t to find n a t u r a l m a n in the A m e r i c a n f o r e s t . W e must n o t f o r g e t , however, t h a t Solitary's speech is dramatic. H i s ideas a r e by no m e a n s those which W o r d s w o r t h wishes to e n f o r c e , f o r he exists to be lectured into a m o r e w h o l e s o m e view of life. A n d few seem to have noticed t h a t a t t h e very end of the W a n d e r e r ' s long e x h o r t a t i o n in a n s w e r to Solitary occur the lines: H e r e closed the S a g e that eloquent harangue, P o u r e d f o r t h w i t h f e r v o u r in continuous stream, S u c h as, remote, 'mid savage wilderness, A n Indian C h i e f discharges f r o m his breast I n t o the hearing of assembled tribes, I n open circle seated round, and hushed A s the unbreathing air, w h e n not a leaf Stirs in the m i g h t y woods. (IV, 1275

ff·)

A l t h o u g h I h a v e f o u n d a n u m b e r of W o r d s w o r t h passages which suggest a m o r e o r less a p p r o v i n g interest in the I n d i a n , the fact remains t h a t this poet was never really enthusiastic a b o u t savages. Nevertheless, it is tempting t o c o m p a r e the noble s a v a g e a n d the noble peasant. M i c h a e l a t least reminds one of the dignified and stoical old sachem of t r a d i t i o n . In W o r d s w o r t h , too, the I n d i a n can r e s p o n d to n a t u r e much as the p e a s a n t d o e s :

SAVAGE, PEASANT, A N D C H I L D

153

Think, how the everlasting streams and woods, Stretched and still stretching far and wide, exalt T h e roving Indian, on his desert sands. (Prelude,

V I I , 745 ff.)

One m a y at least say that the noble s a v a g e a n d the noble p e a s a n t a r e s i m i l a r l y m o t i v a t e d . B o t h reflect a r e v u l s i o n against

"what

man

has m a d e

the g o s p e l of nature w o r s h i p ,

of

man."

Both

preach

innocent simplicity,

and

anti-intellectualism. T h e y a r e r e l a t e d a l s o in that W o r d s w o r t h ' s conception of the s h e p h e r d is influenced by R o u s seau's conception of n a t u r a l m a n , w h i c h

in turn

owes

s o m e t h i n g to the noble s a v a g e t r a d i t i o n . W o r d s w o r t h ' s c o n t e m p o r a r i e s o f t e n s p e a k of

indige-

nous rustics in the s a m e t e r m s t h a t they a p p l y to the s a v a g e . Y o u will r e m e m b e r that P o p e h a d w r i t t e n in the Essay

on

Man:

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind. His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way ; Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven. A n d so H e n r y K i r k e W h i t e , a y o u n g c o n t e m p o r a r y

of

W o r d s w o r t h w h o died in 1 8 0 6 , w r i t e s : L o ! the unlettered hind who never knew T o raise his mind excursive, to the heights Of abstract contemplation. T h e simple peasant, he g o e s on, has a d e e p religious sense because his g r a t i t u d e has been a r o u s e d by the g e n e r o s i t y of n a t u r e . Since the s o p h i s t i c a t e d p h i l o s o p h e r does not experience this m o o d ,

154

SAVAGE, P E A S A N T , A N D C H I L D What is the pomp of learning? The parade Of letters and of tongues? E'en as the mists That pass away and perish.

B o t h t h e p o o r I n d i a n a n d t h e p o o r p e a s a n t , t h e n , m a y be u s e d to e x e m p l i f y t h e benefits of t h e " n a t u r a l " religion w h i c h will be t a k e n u p in t h e next l e c t u r e . M y p o i n t is n o t t h a t t h e i d e a l i z e d p e a s a n t is a n o u t g r o w t h of t h e n o b l e s a v a g e , b u t t h a t t h e t w o figures a r e h a r m o n i o u s l y r e l a t e d in r o m a n t i c t h o u g h t . O f course t h e i d e a l i z e d p e a s a n t h a s a n i n d e p e n d e n t line of d e v e l o p m e n t which r e a c h e s b a c k e v e n f u r t h e r t h a n t h e a n c e s t r y of t h e noble s a v a g e . A t t h e o p e n i n g of t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y t h e p a s t o r a l w a s still a h i g h l y s o p h i s t i c a t e d , artificial, a n d t r a d i t i o n a l t y p e , t r e a t i n g in a v e n e e r e d a n d a f f e c t e d w a y t h e e l e g a n t l o v e s a n d e l e g a n t p o e t i c t a l e n t s of completely u n r e a l s h e p h e r d s a n d s h e p h e r d e s s e s . I t w a s simply a special v a r i e t y of p s e u d o c l a s s i c p o e t r y , w i t h definite rules of its o w n . N o o n e t h o u g h t t h a t it implied w r i t i n g a b o u t r e a l rustics in a r e a l c o u n t r y s e t t i n g . B u t as t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y g o e s on, t h e c o n v e n t i o n a l p a s t o r a l gives place m o r e a n d m o r e t o seriously s y m p a t h e t i c p o r t r a y a l s of E n g l i s h c o u n t r y f o l k . O f c o u r s e t h e p e a s a n t is i d e a l i z e d as well as r e a l i z e d : t h e d e v e l o p m e n t s h o w s t h e usual d e s c e n d e n t a l - t r a n s c e n d e n t a l m i x t u r e . T h e simple s h e p h e r d is m a d e t h e vehicle f o r t h e increasingly p o p u l a r n o t i o n s a b o u t t h e w i c k e d n e s s of cities a n d t h e d e s i r a b i l i t y of innocent c o n t e n t m e n t in the lap of n a t u r e . A s a m a t t e r of f a c t t h e s e i d e a s w e r e c o m m o n p l a c e s of t h e old convent i o n a l p a s t o r a l , b u t w h e n t h e y a r e r a t h e r solemnly a p p l i e d to a c t u a l E n g l i s h p e a s a n t s i n s t e a d of to " t h e g a y C o r i n of t h e g r o v e s " t h e y begin t o m e a n s o m e t h i n g —

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

AND

N o t in Utopia, subterranean

CHILD

155

fields,

O r some secreted island, heaven knows w h e r e ! But in the very world.

T h e clash between early romantic pastoral sentiment and the industrial revolution is particularly emphatic in Goldsmith's Deserted Village. T h i s poem represents perhaps the highest point in f a v o r a b l e depiction of rustic character up to W o r d s w o r t h himself, though we must not forget "the rude f o r e f a t h e r s of the hamlet" in G r a y ' s Elegy. T h e tendency to view country life through rosecolored glasses had gone so f a r by the 1 7 8 0 ' s that G e o r g e Crabbe, one of the few genuinely realistic minds in E n g lish literature, tried to deflate it in The Village (1783). Thinking of his own unhappy boyhood in the desolate fen country of N o r f o l k , he gives a gloomy picture of the ugliness, ignorance, and toilsome poverty of the rustic's existence. I paint the cot, A s truth will paint it, and as bards will not.

Glancing at Goldsmith's " S w e e t Auburn, loveliest village of the plain," he declares that Since vice the world subdued and waters drowned, Auburn and Eden can no more be found.

But the tide of nature worship swept over his head and on to Wordsworth, who, we see, had plenty of traditional background f o r his idealization of the L a k e Country dalesman. Y o u will find in romantic writers, especially in those of Wordsworth's generation, a strong sympathy f o r all sorts of simple rural folk, and you will often justly infer that these lowly ones are lofty because of their very lowliness — because they are close to that light of nature f r o m

156

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

A N D

CHILD

which the learned and sophisticated have turned a w a y . But we must pass on to the child as seen by the romantic imagination. T o W o r d s w o r t h , childhood is a sublime and sacred thing. Despite his attempts to congratulate himself upon the philosophical insight of maturity, he constantly yearns back to the w a r m , f r e s h perceptions of boyhood, and associates that w a r m t h and freshness with the heaven f r o m which, " t r a i l i n g clouds of g l o r y , " the child has newly come. P r o b a b l y his greatest tribute to the child is the eighth stanza of the Immortality Ode, beginning: T h o u , w h o s e exterior semblance doth belie Thy

soul's

immensity;

T h o u best philosopher, w h o yet dost keep T h y heritage, thou eye a m o n g the blind, T h a t , deaf and silent, read'st the eternal mind M i g h t y prophet!

—

Seer b l e s t !

M a n y of W o r d s w o r t h ' s contacts with nature are valued not so much in themselves as because they bring back more intense and delightful childhood experiences of the same sort. T h e butterfly and the s p a r r o w ' s nest remind him of early days with his sister. A n apt instance of this retrospective response to natural stimuli is To the Cuckoo (the one beginning " O blithe n e w c o m e r " ) : T h o u g h babbling only to the vale, O f sunshine and of

flowers,

T h o u bringest unto me a tale O f visionary hours. T h r i c e w e l c o m e , d a r l i n g of the S p r i n g ! E v e n yet thou art to me N o bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a m y s t e r y ;

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

AND

CHILD

157

T h e same whom in my schoolboy days I listened to; that C r y W h i c h made me look a thousand w a y s In bush, and tree, and sky.

A n d I can listen to thee y e t ; Can lie upon the plain A n d listen, till I do beget T h a t golden time again.

I n his most characteristic period, W o r d s w o r t h dwells much upon the intuitive w i s d o m which children derive f r o m n a t u r e . Several of the Lyrical Ballads deal w i t h this t h e m e . Anecdote for Fathers is a very f u n n y p o e m , a n d it is h a r d not to smile at p a r t s of JVe Are Seven; b u t in the latter, one cannot fail t o be impressed by the vain h a m m e r i n g of the literal-minded a d u l t ' s sense of f a c t against the child's intuitive sense of t r u t h . F o r the b a c k g r o u n d of this topic I r e f e r you t o a dissertation by the late P r o f e s s o r A . C. B a b e n r o t h : English Childhood. IVordsworth's Treatment of Childhood in the Light of English Poetry from Prior to Crabbe. P r o f e s s o r B a b e n r o t h w a s able to show t h a t this element, like o t h e r elements of W o r d s w o r t h ' s p h i l o s o p h y of n a t u r e , has deep r o o t s in the p a s t . D u r i n g t h e eighte e n t h century t h e r e was a g r a d u a l g r o w t h of s y m p a t h y f o r childhood, a g r a d u a l f u s i o n of this s y m p a t h y w i t h the cult of nature, and a g r a d u a l l y m o u n t i n g belief t h a t the child's innocence a n d intuitiveness a r e precious as showing w h a t a rich h e r i t a g e we b r i n g into the w o r l d , a n d h o w sinfully we squander it. But all this I must pass by in o r d e r to c o n c e n t r a t e u p o n

158

SAVAGE, PEASANT, A N D

CHILD

a single v a r i e t y of the romantic child — one which m i g h t be called the child of n a t u r e , o r t h e Lucy type, in w h o m r o m a n t i c interest in childhood unites with the romantic love of external n a t u r e . T h e child of n a t u r e — sometimes a boy, but m o r e o f t e n a girl — g r o w s up in some rustic o r sylvan region m o r e o r less u n c o r r u p t e d by civilization. F r o m a spirit of goodness i m m a n e n t in the scenery she d r a w s beauty, innocence, an instinctive m o r a l sense, and o f t e n an intuitive insight into the h e a r t of things. In the w o r k of W o r d s w o r t h , Lucy herself is by no m e a n s the only example. W e need only glance at R u t h , who Had built a bower upon the green As if she from her birth had been An infant of the woods.

W h e n n a t u r e says of Lucy t h a t a lovelier flower On earth was never sown,

she is using a conventional m e t a p h o r in a m o r e t h a n conventional sense. T h e flower, quietly a b s o r b i n g sunlight a n d m o i s t u r e a n d t r a n s f o r m i n g t h e m into f r a g r a n c e and beauty, is just w h a t a child should be. Lucies a r e o f t e n associated with flowers in the r o m a n t i c mind. T h u s Southey c o m p a r e s E m m a , a Somersetshire lass, to a plant whose leaf And bud and blossom all are beautiful.

Southey, in fact, is very f o n d of Lucies. In A Tale of Paraguay he h a s a p a i r of them, b r o t h e r and s i s t e r :

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

A N D

CHILD

159

T h e boy in sun and shower Rejoicing in his strength to youthhead g r e w ; A n d M o o m a , that beloved girl, a d o w e r O f gentleness f r o m bounteous nature d r e w , W i t h all that should the heart of w o m a n k i n d imbue.

Here the influence of Wordsworth's Three Years She Grew is unmistakable. In the work of other writers of the age these flowermaidens are almost as numerous as those in Parsifal, though their character is quite different. Of Haidee, the pirate's wild and beautiful daughter in Don Juan, Byron says that "like a lovely tree, she grew to womanhood." M a r y M i t f o r d ' s father, J o h n M i t f o r d , dedicated a group of poems to a dead girl who bore the initials Α . Β. I have never attempted to identify her, but she was certainly reared as a Lucy, and she is explicitly called a "child of nature," T h e mildest and the maidenliest creature born, S o gentle, and so gracious — in serene A n d tender hope, the opening blossom g r e w .

T h e influence of scenery upon these children of nature is especially clear in the heroine of Thomas Campbell's Gertrude of fVyom'ing: It seemed as if those scenes sweet influence had O n G e r t r u d e ' s soul, and kindness like their o w n Inspired those eyes affectionate and g l a d , T h a t seemed to love w h a t e ' e r they looked upon.

And though this strain of romantic thought is not prominent in Shelley, one recognizes its presence in the Revolt of Islam, where the mysterious woman who interprets

i6o

SAVAGE, PEASANT, A N D

CHILD

the vision of the first canto represents herself as having been a child of nature: W o e could not be mine own, since f a r f r o m men I dwelt, a free and happy orphan child, By the sea-shore, in a deep mountain-glen; A n d near the waves, and through the forests wild, I roamed, to storm and darkness reconciled: For I was calm while tempest shook the sky: But when the breathless heavens in beauty smiled, I wept, sweet tears, yet too tumultuously For peace, and clasped my hands aloft in ecstasy.

T h e Lucy ideal enters not only into the poems but into the lives of several romantic writers. T h e influence of nature upon little Hartley Coleridge begins in the cradle. In The Nightingale his father writes: A n d I deem it wise T o make him N a t u r e ' s playmate. H e knows well T h e evening-star; and once, when he awoke In most distressful mood (some inward pain H a d made up that strange thing, an infant's dream) I hurried with him to our orchard-plot, And he beheld the moon, and hushed at once, Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, W h i l e his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears, Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam!

In one of her letters, Dorothy W o r d s w o r t h describes her brother's daughter Dora as a free, wild creature. She reports that Coleridge jokingly says of the child, "The wild-cat of the wilderness was not so wild as she" — a garbling of the lines in Wordsworth's own Ruth, "The panther in the wilderness W a s not so fair as he." Dorothy Wordsworth herself is plainly a child of nature,

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

A N D

CHILD

161

and is so r e g a r d e d by h e r b r o t h e r a n d by C o l e r i d g e . She was always a little t o o close t o n a t u r e t o be a r o m a n t i c naturalist. She felt it very intensely, but — or, p e r h a p s , and t h e r e f o r e — was seldom able t o discourse solemnly about it. H e r closest a p p r o a c h to p h i l o s o p h i z i n g lies in such beautiful simple s t a t e m e n t s as " G r a s m e r e calls the h e a r t h o m e to quiet." A n d w h a t we generally find in h e r j o u r n a l s is a direct response to the loveliness of lovely things — o f t e n surprisingly in the m a n n e r of a m o d e r n imagist poet. D e Quincey c o m p a r e s D o r o t h y ' s life t o t h a t of R u t h in the earlier p a r t of h e r b r o t h e r ' s p o e m . She was, he adds, like a gipsy. " H e r time fleeted a w a y like some golden age, or like the life of p r i m e v a l m a n . " F r o m Tintern Abbey we learn t h a t she p r e s e r v e d W o r d s w o r t h ' s own y o u t h f u l feeling f o r n a t u r e . A s he g r e w older, she must have seemed to him almost savage, a l m o s t p a g a n , in the immediacy of her response to the beauty of the visible world. In his h e a r t he would p r o b a b l y envy h e r a little f o r her f r e s h sensuousness, but his explanation would be t h a t which accounts f o r the seeming indifference of the child in the sonnet beginning It is a beauteous evening: D e a r c h i l d ! dear g i r l ! that walkest w i t h me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn

thought,

T h y nature is not therefore less d i v i n e : T h o u liest in A b r a h a m ' s bosom all the y e a r ; A n d worshipp'st at the T e m p l e ' s inner shrine, G o d being w i t h thee w h e n w e k n o w it not.

M u c h the same explanation, by the way, accounts f o r the influence of n a t u r e upon the p e a s a n t M i c h a e l : A n d grossly that man errs, w h o should suppose T h a t the green valleys, and the streams and rocks, W e r e things indifferent to the Shepherd's thoughts.

I62

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

A N D

CHILD

T h o s e fields, those hills — w h a t could they less ? had laid S t r o n g hold on his affections, w e r e to him A pleasurable feeling of blind love, T h e pleasure w h i c h there is in life itself.

T h e s e simple h e a r t s , then, enjoy the privilege of an unconscious c o m m u n i o n w i t h the s u p e r n a t u r a l in the natural. The Prelude a n d France: an Ode, respectively, show t h a t W o r d s w o r t h a n d C o l e r i d g e t h o u g h t of themselves as h a v i n g been children of n a t u r e . W e have already glanced a t the similarity in this respect between the actual W o r d s w o r t h a n d the fictional Fleetwood, G o d w i n ' s hero. T h e p a r a l l e l is really very close. Godwin makes Fleetwood declare: My

earliest days w e r e spent a m o n g mountains and

precipices,

amidst the roaring of the ocean and the dashing of w a t e r f a l l s . constant

familiarity

with

these objects

gave

a wildness

to

A my

ideas, and an uncommon seriousness to my temper.

H e adds t h a t he h a d been " a wild roe a m o n g the mountains of W a l e s , " while W o r d s w o r t h speaks in Tintern Abbey of the days w h e n like a roe I

bounded

o'er

the

mountains.

F l e e t w o o d says, " I n M e r i o n e t h s h i r e I h a d been a solitary s a v a g e , " and W o r d s w o r t h says t h a t his own boyhood was as if I had been born On

Indian plains, and f r o m my mother's hut

H a d run abroad in wantonness, to sport, A naked savage, in the thunder shower.

(.Prelude I, 297 ff) Byron also t h o u g h t t h a t he h a d been a child of nature.

SAVAGE,

PEASANT,

AND

CHILD

163

See I would I were a careless child, a n d IVhen I roved a young Highlander, in which he longs f o r the days when he w a s Untutored by science, a stranger to fear, A n d rude as the rocks where my infancy grew.

T h e s e lines were w r i t t e n when he was a student a t Cambridge, t o w a r d s which he felt very much as did W o r d s w o r t h , Coleridge, Southey, Shelley, G o d w i n ' s F l e e t w o o d , a n d H o l c r o f t ' s H u g h T r e v o r in t h e i r college days. O n e cause of the melancholy of t h e Byronic hero is the fact t h a t b e n e a t h all his sin and cynicism he is a t h w a r t e d male Lucy. His early dreams of good outstripped the truth, A n d troubled manhood followed baffled youth.

E a r l i e r in this lecture we n o t e d several points of contact between the savage and the p e a s a n t . It may be a d d e d t h a t a good many children of n a t u r e a r e also the children either of savages or of rustic folk. I n a late poem, Presentiments, W o r d s w o r t h addresses the spirit of p r o p h e t i c intuition: T h e naked Indian of the wild, A n d haply too the cradled child, A r e pupils of your school.

A n o t h e r associative link is f o u n d in Felicia H e m a n s ' poem, I Dream of All Things Free. She d r e a m s of a ship, a stag, an eagle, mountain brooks, and, in the last s t a n z a , O f a happy forest child, W i t h the nymphs and fauns at play; O f an Indian midst the wild, W i t h the stars to guide his w a y :

i64

SAVAGE, PEASANT, A N D

CHILD

M y heart in chains is bleeding, And I dream of all things free!

Lucy, in short, is h a r m o n i o u s l y r e l a t e d to the o t h e r p o p u l a r figures of illusioned primitivism. I t is quite evident, m o r e o v e r , t h a t she cannot be dismissed as a m e r e literary f a d . If we wish to u n d e r s t a n d h e r we cannot do b e t t e r t h a n look back to the e i g h t e e n t h century a n d consider h o w L o r d Chesterfield desired to r e a r Philip Stanh o p e — a n a t u r a l child, to be sure, but h a r d l y a child of n a t u r e . T h e c o n t r a s t will suggest t h a t a reaction was needed, t h o u g h like most reactions it went to e x t r e m e lengths. T h e savage, the peasant, a n d the child were i n t r o d u c e d primarily as examples of the fusion of descendentalism a n d transcendentalism in r o m a n t i c n a t u r e . T h e y seem to imply a desire to descend f r o m sophistication a n d intellectualism t o w a r d s the primitive simplicity of sense experience. O n the o t h e r hand, they seem to imply a desire to rise above the t r a m m e l s of the m a n - m a d e w o r l d into a p u r e r r e a l m of spiritual intuition. But these desires a r e united in t h a t the " s o m e t h i n g h i g h e r " is best reached by lying close to the h e a r t of n a t u r e in the wigwam, the s h e e p f o l d , or the cradle — so close t h a t the h a p p y savage o r d a l e s m a n or child feels the divine impulse which sets the h e a r t of n a t u r e t h r o b b i n g with love and beauty. A n d so these figures, which we m i g h t expect to be almost entirely descendental in their significance, a r e strongly tinged with t r a n s c e n d e n t a l i s m . W e a r e a b o u t to see, conversely, t h a t the religion of n a t u r e , which we might expect to be almost entirely t r a n s c e n d e n t a l , includes a large descendental element. I shall not, however, continue to l a b o r a point which will be a p p a r e n t to you now if

SAVAGE, PEASANT, AND CHILD

165

it is e v e r to be apparent at all. Y o u will perhaps agree that the cult of the naive and primitive is not so completely f o r e i g n to the high f e r v o r of Tintern Abbey as to d e m a n d a pluralistic view of romantic naturalism. Beneath all the diversity lies a u n i f y i n g n e t w o r k of roots too stubbornly interlaced to be hacked a p a r t .

χ T H E RELIGION OF N A T U R E T o w a r d the close of the seventeenth century, rationalistic philosophy exerted a p o w e r f u l influence upon theology. It was desirable t h a t religion should become a p a r t of the systematic a n d reasonable universe in which men supposed themselves to be living. A t this time, t h e r e f o r e , a g r o u p of theologians a t t e m p t e d to show t h a t religion is a f t e r all just a m a t t e r of common sense. T h e outcome of this well-meant endeavor to p r o v i d e a rational basis f o r f a i t h was t h a t by the beginning of the eighteenth century religion h a d lost most of the p o e t r y a n d f e r v o r which constitute its value. I t would be m o r e accurate to say t h a t this e n d e a v o r was itself largely a s y m p t o m of the temp o r a r y decay of the religious spirit, f o r the theologians would have h a d little effect if people h a d not been prep a r e d to receive their message. T h e m o v e m e n t known as deism is the extreme but logical consequence of the a t t e m p t to achieve a reasonable kind of religion by believing in G o d w i t h o u t believing in s u p e r n a t u r a l revelation. T o the deist, G o d does not reveal himself t h r o u g h scripture, t h r o u g h the t r a d i t i o n s of the church, or even t h r o u g h personal religious experience. H e reveals himself solely t h r o u g h his creation — a universe operating according to n a t u r a l laws with which, once having enunciated them, he is sensible enough not to interfere. T h i s G o d is neither a stern lawgiver nor a loving f a t h e r , but a colorless abstraction i n f e r r e d to satisfy

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the d e m a n d s of logic. H a v i n g been i n f e r r e d , he is releg a t e d as f a r as p o s s i b l e to the b a c k g r o u n d , a n d is s e l d o m invoked except when

rhetorical elevation

is

demanded.

D e i s m is s u p p o s e d to e m b o d y the u n i v e r s a l m o r a l principles of c o m m o n sense. It is not C h r i s t i a n i t y o r J u d a i s m o r M o h a m m e d a n i s m , but " t h e r e l i g i o n of n a t u r e . " T h i s is a f a i r s t a t e m e n t of t h e g e n e r a l t h e o r y of d e i s m . In practice, h o w e v e r , deistic t h o u g h t s h a d e d all the w a y f r o m a vaguely optimistic " b r o a d m i n d e d n e s s , " o f t e n astonishingly like t h a t of p r e s e n t - d a y m o d e r n i s m , to a b i t t e r l y destruct i v e scepticism w h i c h is not e a s y t o d i s t i n g u i s h f r o m flat atheism. Meanwhile Christian orthodoxy, having made a tamer compromise with rationalism, j o g g e d contentedly

along

a w i d e , level r o a d . T h e a v e r a g e A n g l i c a n d i v i n e s i m p l y w e n t t h r o u g h the f o r m s of w o r s h i p a n d p u l l e d w i r e s to g e t a f a t t e r l i v i n g . H i s chief a v e r s i o n w a s w h a t he t e r m e d " e n t h u s i a s m " — belief t h a t one h a s h a d a p r i v a t e

and

special r e v e l a t i o n of G o d ' s g o o d n e s s . A p e r s o n a l r e l i g i o u s i l l u m i n a t i o n w a s the w o r s t p o s s i b l e f o r m . C h u r c h m e n of a h i g h e r t y p e m i g h t e n g a g e in t h e o l o g i c a l e x p o s i t i o n o r c o n t r o v e r s y , but t h e y u s u a l l y d i d so in a

cold-blooded,

h a i r s p l i t t i n g , technical spirit. M a n y of the best m i n d s in t h e c h u r c h , t o o , w e r e in p r i v a t e h a r d l y less s c e p t i c a l t h a n the a v o w e d deists a g a i n s t w h o m t h e y f u l m i n a t e d . R e l i g i o n w a s all v e r y w e l l f o r the c o m m o n p e o p l e , but p e r s o n s of quality knew better. Y o u m a y r e m e m b e r A d d i s o n ' s

Spec-

tator p a p e r , N u m b e r 5 0 , g i v i n g s e l e c t i o n s f r o m an I n d i a n c h i e f ' s p r i v a t e j o u r n a l of his v i s i t to L o n d o n . H e a d m i r e s S t . P a u l ' s , but c a n n o t i m a g i n e w h a t it is f o r : It is probable that when this great work w a s begun . . . there was some religion among this people; for they give it the name of

168

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a temple, a n d h a v e a t r a d i t i o n t h a t it w a s designed f o r men to pay their devotion

in.

And

indeed

there are several

reasons

which

m a k e us t h i n k t h a t the n a t i v e s of this c o u n t r y had f o r m e r l y a m o n g t h e m some sort of w o r s h i p ; f o r they set a p a r t e v e r y seventh day as sacred : but upon m y going into one of these h o l y houses on t h a t d a y , I could n o t o b s e r v e any circumstance of devotion

in

their

behavior.

T h e i n e v i t a b l e r e a c t i o n a g a i n s t this s h a m r e l i g i o n f o l l o w s t w o c h a n n e l s : an a t t a c k in the n a m e of g e n u i n e l y critical r a t i o n a l i s m upon m o r e or less the w h o l e s t r u c t u r e of C h r i s t i a n f a i t h ; a n d an a t t a c k in the n a m e of t r u e religion upon the i n t e l l e c t u a l i s m which h a d d e p r i v e d C h r i s t i a n i t y of its e m o t i o n a l a n d i m a g i n a t i v e elements. T h e two m o v e m e n t s m a y seem to be inconsistent, but we h a v e here the s a m e k i n d of n e c e s s a r y confusion a s beset us in connection w i t h the n a t u r a l i s m of the F r e n c h Revolution. W e a r e no m o r e c o n f u s e d about the m a t t e r than the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y w a s . R e l i g i o n h a d f a l l e n into such a s t a t e that it could be a s s a i l e d e i t h e r because it w a s not r e a s o n a b l e e n o u g h or bccause it w a s too r e a s o n a b l e . T h e f o r m e r current of reaction concerns us little. T h e sceptically r a t i o n a l i s t i c a t t a c k upon r e l i g i o n is l a r g e l y a continuation of the d e s t r u c t i v e side of deism. A t the o u t b r e a k of the F r e n c h R e v o l u t i o n it j o i n s h a n d s with political r a d i c a l i s m , a n d hence, as n o t a b l y in the case of T o m P a i n e , is r e p r e s e n t e d by s e v e r a l of the E n g l i s h J a c o b i n s . T h r o u g h G o d w i n , but even m o r e t h r o u g h the F r e n c h sceptic V o l n e y , it influences the y o u n g Shelley, w h o w a s e x p e l l e d f r o m O x f o r d for his p a m p h l e t on The Necessity of Atheism. In a thin but s t e a d y s t r e a m of " f r e e t h o u g h t " it comes d o w n t h r o u g h V i c t o r i a n E n g l a n d , until t o d a y we find it r e p r e s e n t e d at its w o r s t by the " v i l l a g e

T H E R E L I G I O N OF N A T U R E

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atheist" type, and at its best by men like B e r t r a n d Russell. It is rather the second current of reaction, the attempt to restore f e r v o r , mystery, and poetry to religion, which pertains to romanticism. A n honest attempt to trace this reaction forces the admission that in this as in other respects scholars have often exaggerated the spiritual deadness of the eighteenth century in order to achieve a neat contrast between the eighteenth and the nineteenth. Genuine religious emotion no more completely perished in the eighteenth century than genuine love f o r external nature. T h e various dissenting sects never quite lost the f e r v o r of their ancestors, the Puritans. A thin but steady trickle of mysticism, moreover, ran f r o m the seventeenth century into the eighteenth. T h e r e were those who read J a c o b Boehme, and those who read E m m a n u e l Swedenborg. P r o f e s s o r Saurat, in Blake and Modern Thought, shows that Blake's strange mythology used many f r a g ments of a tradition of occultism which survived throughout the century. A n d though the center of the Church of E n g l a n d was smug and stuffy, the L o w Church wing was never wholly without evangelical ardor, and the H i g h Church wing never wholly without ritualistic poetry. In the 1 7 2 0 ' s and ' 3 0 ' s we have the famous divine William L a w , who moved f r o m an earnestly evangelical to an earnestly mystical viewpoint. Some of his ideas were carried into non-theological literature by H e n r y Brooke, author of The Fool of Quality, and by the minor poet J o h n Byrom, author of Universal Beauty. W e have the great Methodist movement, the essence of which was just that "enthusiasm," that sense of personal salvation through personal relationship with Christ, which was so distasteful to the orthodox. William Cowper, though

i7o

T H E RELIGION OF N A T U R E

never technically a Methodist, was greatly influenced by Wesleyan thought. Bishop Joseph Butler's famous Analogy ( 1 7 3 6 ) has a transcendental aspect which later inspired Newman. It is interesting to remember Newman's assertion, that, f a r from having been a Catholic spy in the Anglican camp, he had drawn from eighteenth century works of Protestant theology all the essential doctrines which finally made him leave the Church of England. T h e importance of all this should not be exaggerated. It would still be true to say that even at the beginning of the nineteenth century organized religion on the whole was cold and sleepy. England had to wait almost until the middle of the nineteenth century f o r the full results of the earlier ferment. Nevertheless, the stirrings of a religious revival are perfectly apparent in the eighteenth century; and Wordsworth's religion of nature, while it has a large element of originality, also has a historical background. Of the transcendental element in Wordsworth's religion of nature more will be said in a subsequent lecture. H e plainly desires to rise above the rational plane into a realm where religious emotion will not be chilled by the sneer of logic. T o this aim his anti-intellectualism, of which the eighteenth century origins were recently glanced at, is subservient. T h e descendental element in Wordsworth's religion is of course an extreme development of the eighteenth century renascence of interest in external nature. In trying to understand the combination of these two elements you will recall my earlier explanation of how romantic thought fuses descendentalism and transcendentalism. I shall try, however, to account more specifically for this fusion as it occurs in Wordsworth's creed.

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L o n g b e f o r e t h e p s a l m i s t s a n g " I w i l l l i f t u p m i n e eyes unto

the hills,"

external

nature

and

religious

emotion

w e r e i n t e r w o v e n in m e n ' s h e a r t s . T h e a n t h r o p o l o g i s t w h o s e e k s t o e x p l a i n t h i s a s s o c i a t i o n w i l l find a

bewildering

w e a l t h o f m a t e r i a l . H e can point to the animism which a s s u m e s t h e e x i s t e n c e o f a s p i r i t in e v e r y n a t u r a l o b j e c t , a n d w h i c h q u i t e l i t e r a l l y " s e e s G o d in c l o u d s , o r

hears

h i m in t h e w i n d " ; t o s y m p a t h e t i c m a g i c a s r e p r e s e n t e d b y springtide festivities and rain-making ceremonies, remote a n c e s t o r s o f S h e l l e y ' s The wise

holy

localities —

Cloud·,

"high

to sacrificial o r other-

places

of

Israel,"

druidic

g r o v e s , s i n - a b s o l v i n g r i v e r s , o r a c u l a r c a v e s . M o r e o r less sublimated reminiscences of these primitive and b e a u t i f u l t h i n g s exist in all o f us. T h e y e x i s t e d s t r o n g l y in W o r d s w o r t h . T h e boy w h o saw the mountain striding to punish him f o r a stolen b o a t ride never quite g r e w up — he c e a s e d t o be a g r e a t p o e t . W h e n a t t h e e n d o f

until Nutting

h e s a y s t h a t " t h e r e is a s p i r i t in t h e w o o d s , " h e m e a n s s o m e t h i n g a t l e a s t a s m u c h like a p a g a n t r e e s p i r i t as like the spirit t h a t " r o l l s t h r o u g h all t h i n g s " in Tintern

Abbey.

P r o f e s s o r D e Selincourt writes: It is interesting to notice that when Wordsworth began to write The Prelude he still delighted to conceive of Nature not merely as the expression of one divine spirit, but as in its several parts animated by individual spirits who had, like human beings, an independent life and power of action. T h i s was obviously his firm belief in the primitive paganism of his boyhood, and long after he had given up definite belief in it he cherished it as more than mere poetic fancy. F o r D e S e l i n c o u r t ' s e v i d e n c e on this p o i n t , a s w e l l a s t h e c i t a t i o n i t s e l f , see p a g e 5 0 6 o f his e d i t i o n o f The

Prelude.

But the a n t h r o p o l o g i s t w h o m w e invited to p r o b e the

T H E RELIGION OF N A T U R E nexus between n a t u r e a n d religious feeling must consider o t h e r g r o u p s of facts. Ethics h a v e a l w a y s been closely r e l a t e d to religion, a n d p o p u l a r ethics constantly a p p e a l to the testimony of e x t e r n a l n a t u r e . T h e r e must h a v e been sermons in stones f r o m almost the earliest days of man. Sacred l i t e r a t u r e f r e q u e n t l y c o m m a n d s us t o consider the lilies of the field, or, f o r a quite different p u r p o s e , to go t o the a n t ; a n d we p e r h a p s t r a n s f e r t o the lily a n d the ant s o m e t h i n g of the reverence which we feel f o r the source of these directions. If o u r a n t h r o p o l o g i s t has the b r e a d t h of view which his subject d e m a n d s s o m e w h a t m o r e o f t e n t h a n it receives, he will also recognize the indissoluble kinship between esthetic a n d religious feeling. Beauty a n d holiness; the beauty of holiness; the holiness of beauty — w h a t e v e r p h r a s e is used, this age-old psychological b o n d c a n n o t be broken. T h e hills t o which the psalmist l i f t e d up his eyes were p e r h a p s the a b o d e of magic. T h e y w e r e certainly the a b o d e of beauty, a n d help was t o come f r o m their loveliness as well as f r o m the L o r d . It is not at all surprising, then, t h a t W o r d s w o r t h ' s desire f o r an e m o t i o n a l and non-theological s o r t of religion should h a v e f o u n d expression t h r o u g h his unusually s t r o n g sense of n a t u r a l beauty. T h e fusion is all the easier to u n d e r s t a n d when we r e m e m b e r t h a t the age of Pope h a d been c o m p a r a t i v e l y neglectful of b o t h elements of W o r d s w o r t h ' s religion, and t h a t t h r o u g h o u t t h e second half of the e i g h t e e n t h century a reaction against t h a t neglect h a d been leading up to the climactic o u t b u r s t of descendental-transcendental n a t u r e w o r s h i p which a p p e a r s in Tintern Abbey. But no aspect of romanticism can be explained solely in

T H E RELIGION OF N A T U R E

173

terms of reaction f r o m the age of P o p e . Ideas do collide and bounce a p a r t , but they also flow into each o t h e r and undergo subtle evolutionary changes. In the historiography of ideas, a simple " b o u n c i n g " explanation o f t e n means t h a t our knowledge is n o t g r e a t enough to provide a more complex but m o r e accurate " f l o w i n g " explanation. W h a t I have been saying a b o u t the religion of W o r d s w o r t h is t r u e enough as f a r as it goes, but its simplicity needs to be ruffled by the s t a t e m e n t t h a t W o r d s w o r t h ' s creed is historically related to the m o r e optimistic and affirmative kind of eighteenth century deism. T h e relation is similar to t h a t which exists between his naturalism viewed as a psychology and the associationism of Locke. In both cases certain ideas a r e accepted as a w o r k i n g basis and then transfigured by being r e g a r d e d in a light quite different f r o m t h a t in which they were originally conceived. T h e link between deism and W o r d s w o r t h is suggested by the phrase, "religion of n a t u r e . " Deism called itself a religion of nature, and the same term may surely be applied to W o r d s w o r t h ' s creed. Any religion of n a t u r e infers the C r e a t o r f r o m his creation. T h a t is equally true of the deist and of W o r d s w o r t h . T h e difference lies in the viewpoint f r o m which the creation is r e g a r d e d . Speaking very broadly, the deistic conception of n a t u r e was the physico-mathematical one characteristic of official eighteenth century rationalism. I t r e g a r d e d the concrete objects of the physical universe chiefly as convenient illust r a t i o n s of general laws. T h e divine was not immanent in these objects. G o d m a d e them, devised the laws which govern them, and then l e f t them severely alone. T h e creation t h e r e f o r e a r o u s e d only the sort of awe which a

T H E RELIGION OF N A T U R E m a t h e m a t i c i a n m i g h t feel when c o n f r o n t e d by an extremely n e a t t h e o r e m . T h i s t h e o r e m could h a v e been w o r k e d out only by a s u p e r - m a t h e m a t i c i a n , a n d t h e r e was no objection to calling him G o d ; but, except in theological c o n t r o v e r s y , the g a m e of r e a s o n could be played without him. T h e C r e a t o r , in s h o r t , was kept out of his creation. N o w , r e m e m b e r i n g my first lecture, consider w h a t h a p p e n s as the eighteenth century goes on. T h e rationalistic conception of n a t u r e m e r g e s with a n d becomes largely s u b o r d i n a t e t o t h e primitivistic and sentimental conception of n a t u r e . T h e primitivistic a n d sentimental conception of n a t u r e m e r g e s with a n d expresses itself t h r o u g h the g r o w i n g e n t h u s i a s m f o r r u r a l scenes and simple folk. T e r m s like " r e a s o n " a n d " c o m m o n sense" begin to acquire t r a n s c e n d e n t a l connotations. A l o n g with all this, the subm e r g e d desire f o r e m o t i o n a l a n d imaginative religion comes t o the s u r f a c e . T h e creation, which now consists not of geometrical axioms but of m o u n t a i n s and trees and birds, cries out f o r its C r e a t o r . A n d the C r e a t o r returns. H e does not, in the special d e v e l o p m e n t which we are tracing, come back as a personal ruler or f a t h e r of mankind. Such conceptions a r e t o o closely associated with the intellectualist theology a n d the oppressive conservatism which h a v e become r e p u g n a n t to the young romantic n a t u r a l i s t s . It is still necessary t h a t religion should be a religion of nature, t h a t the C r e a t o r should be conceived only in t e r m s of his creation. A n d so G o d returns to n a t u r e as an a b s t r a c t and i m p e r s o n a l but loving and intim a t e s o m e t h i n g t h a t b r e a t h e s in every flower of the b e a u t i f u l w o r l d . Deism, w a r m e d and romanticized, has t u r n e d into W o r d s w o r t h ' s p a n t h e i s m . T h e remote superm a t h e m a t i c i a n h a s become

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A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, W h o s e d w e l l i n g is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man. A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. (Tintern

Abbey)

N o t merely lack of time, but lack of k n o w l e d g e , f o r b i d s my giving a completely specific account of h o w this t r a n s f o r m a t i o n t o o k place. T h a t it did t a k e place seems evident enough, but the details of the process a r e b u r i e d m o r e deeply in e i g h t e e n t h century t h o u g h t t h a n I h a v e yet been able to delve. Of course we m a y t u r n t o t h e always u s e f u l Rousseau, w h o quite possibly influenced W o r d s w o r t h in this m a t t e r . R o u s s e a u ' s religion was a highly emotionalized variety of deism, a n d he was a g r e a t i n t e r p r e t e r of the beauties of n a t u r e . In his Confession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar the t w o elements a r e combined, f o r t h e Credo is delivered at sunrise on a m o u n t a i n - t o p . M o s t students will agree, h o w e v e r , t h a t in W o r d s w o r t h ' s representative w o r k s religious e m o t i o n a n d t h e love of e x t e r n a l n a t u r e are even m o r e inextricably b l e n d e d t h a n t h e y a r e in Rousseau. In f a c t no one either b e f o r e , c o n t e m p o r a r y with, or a f t e r W o r d s w o r t h f u s e s quite so closely as he the G o d of t h e emotionally a n d antitheologically religious p e r s o n and the n a t u r e of the lover of s t r e a m s a n d mountains. H e r e we m a y recall t h a t " s p y n o s e y " w h o m t h e g o v e r n m e n t agent h e a r d W o r d s w o r t h a n d C o l e r i d g e discussing

176

T H E RELIGION OF NATURE

in 1 7 9 7 . T h o u g h S p i n o z a ' s total philosophy w o u l d h a v e been repugnant to W o r d s w o r t h , certain f e a t u r e s of it, as r e f r a c t e d and passed on to him by C o l e r i d g e , m a y h a v e helped him to bring G o d into a close relationship with nature. T o a man who w a s trying to spiritualize eighteenth century science, S p i n o z a ' s religious devotion to natural law w o u l d be inspiring. T h e philosopher's insistence upon unity might be interpreted in such a w a y as to encourage the romantic fusion of the descendental and the transcendental. S p i n o z a ' s identification of G o d and the universe, h o w e v e r , is less W o r d s w o r t h i a n than it app e a r s to be at first glance. In the philosophy of Spinoza G o d is by no means identified with natura naturata — nature in its passive aspect, the m a t e r i a l things, or " m o d e s , " which present themselves to our senses. G o d is identified with natura naturans — nature in its active and shaping aspect, the creative processes which make up the underlying reality, o r " s u b s t a n c e , " of the universe. Hence W o r d s w o r t h , in o r d e r to extract real nourishment f r o m S p i n o z a , w o u l d need to assume a closer relationship between natura naturata and natura naturans than is possible under the philosopher's system. One solution might be to say — as S p i n o z a never said — that comprehension of spiritual and active nature descends to us through material and passive n a t u r e ; and this indeed closely approaches W o r d s w o r t h ' s own position. W e m a y guess that C o l e r i d g e ' s interpretation of S p i n o z a ' s philosophy would heighten its transcendental implications and neglect its rationalistic implications. But h a v i n g no certain evidence on this point we can only recognize the rather strong possibility that W o r d s w o r t h indirectly drew something f r o m Spinoza. In a p a p e r entitled " W o r d s -

T H E RELIGION OF N A T U R E w o r t h a n d P h i l o s o p h y " ( P u b l i c a t i o n s of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. X L I V , pp. 1 1 1 6 ff.)» Ν- P · S t a l l k n e c h t s u g g e s t s t h a t S p i n o z a m a y h a v e influenced W o r d s w o r t h in o t h e r r e s p e c t s t h a n t h o s e just m e n t i o n e d . I t seems to m e t h a t M r . S t a l l k n e c h t o v e r e m p h a s i z e s t h e mysticism of b o t h S p i n o z a a n d W o r d s worth, but the a r g u m e n t deserves your attention. In c o n s i d e r i n g t h e religion of W o r d s w o r t h , we s h o u l d r e c o g n i z e a distinction b e t w e e n a m a n ' s b e l i e f s a n d t h e expression of t h o s e b e l i e f s in t h e excited l a n g u a g e of p o e t r y . I n cold b l o o d , W o r d s w o r t h w o u l d n e v e r h a v e e q u a t e d scenery a n d n a t u r e , o r n a t u r e a n d G o d . B u t to m a n y r o m a n t i c i s t s , of w h o m W o r d s w o r t h is t h e g r e a t example, scenery p r o v i d e d t h e best evidence of w h a t t h e universe f u n d a m e n t a l l y is a n d o u g h t t o be. F l o w e r s a n d b i r d s , g r a s s y fields, s t r e a m s , m o u n t a i n s , w e r e f e l t to possess t h e u n t r a m m e l l e d b e a u t y , simplicity, s p o n t a n e i t y a n d unreflective g o o d n e s s which find an echo in t h e h e a r t of m a n w h e n e v e r he casts off t h e p e r v e r t i n g influences of civilization. T h e n a t u r e w h o t a k e s L u c y u n t o h e r s e l f is m o r e , f a r m o r e , t h a n t h e " s u n a n d s h o w e r " in w h i c h t h e child g r e w , but it is through t h e sun a n d s h o w e r t h a t n a t u r e ' s e d u c a t i v e f o r c e can best be e x e r t e d . T h u s wild a n d semi-wild scenery b e c a m e a b o d y of s y m b o l s r e p r e s e n t i n g t h e r o m a n t i c ideal of n a t u r e . A n d since t h e s y m b o l o f t e n l o o m s as l a r g e as w h a t it s y m b o l i z e s , " n a t u r e " w a s o f t e n t a k e n as s y n o n y m o u s w i t h " s c e n e r y " ; a l t h o u g h j u s t as g r e a t a b s t r a c t i o n s l o o m u p b e h i n d s a c r e d i m a g e s , so behind n a t u r a l objects hovered the universal spirit which g a v e t h o s e o b j e c t s t h e i r v a l u e . W i t h W o r d s w o r t h , love of e x t e r n a l n a t u r e s o m e t i m e s causes t h e symbol t o a b s o r b t h e t h i n g s y m b o l i z e d , so t h a t t r e e s a n d m o u n t a i n s seem