No More Learning

X.
CH. IV.
6


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82
The Drama and the Stage
Nor did his borrowings from Shakespeare measure his indebted-
ness to English drama. William Duncombe's adaptation of
Brutus (1734), which begins the long list of English stage
versions of Voltaire, brought upon the French dramatist the
charge of plagiarism from Lee's restoration tragedy, Brutus.
Voltaire's influence upon English drama is, accordingly, not
that of an uncompromising continental classicist. In the main,
he supported the cause of classical drama ; but it is wholly
misleading to ignore the strength of the counter influences of
English drama upon him. Criticism, likewise, has frequently
exaggerated the influence of Voltaire's dramas on the English
stage. Of the various versions of Voltaire that appeared during
the second quarter of the eighteenth century, which include, besides
those already mentioned, Hill's Alzira (1736) and Merope (1749), the
most successful was the same writer's Zara. Yet its continuous run
of fourteen nights was an exceptional success.
The early recog-
nition of Voltaire's large indebtedness to Shakespeare helps to
explain why he failed to supplant the native genius from whom
he borrowed. Performances of Shakespearean drama far out-
numbered those of English versions of Voltaire's plays. The
succession of critical editions of Shakespeare, beginning with that
of Rowe (1709) ? , increased Shakespeare's influence with readers.
David Garrick powerfully advanced his popularity with playgoers.
The tide of patriotic feeling rose in increasing resentment against
Voltaire's strictures on English drama. Even Aaron Hill, the
zealous adapter of Voltaire, in the preface to Merope, asserts that
80 much over-active sensibility to his own country's claims, with so unfeeling
a stupidity in judging the pretensions of his neighbors might absolve all
indignation short of gross indecency towards one who has not scrupled. . . to
represent the English as incapable of tragedy; nay, even of painting or of
music.
The plain speech of Voltaire's English sympathisers became violent
invective, when Foote, in 1747, denounced him as 'that insolent
French panegyrist who first denies Shakespeare almost every
dramatic excellence, and then, in his next play, pilfers from him
almost every capital scene,' and pictured him in his dual role of
critic and dramatist as the carping, superficial critic and the low,
paltry thief? . ' Such bursts represent the extreme of patriotic ire
rather than the mean of ordinary criticism; yet there is abundant
evidence that the mid-eighteenth century stage which acclaimed
>
>
1 Cf. ante, vol. v, pp. 267 ff.
Cf. Lounsbury, u. 8. pp. 148—9.


## p. 83 (#109) #############################################

Fielding and Burlesque
83
Garrick's Shakespearean productions was in little danger of blind
allegiance to a continental authority.
Even before the deference at first accorded to Voltaire had
perceptibly abated, classical drama did not hold the English
stage unchallenged. Lillo's bold innovations threatened its pres-
tige, and pantomime its popularity. The vein of dramatic
burlesque struck by Gay in What-dye-Call-it and The Beggar's
Opera was developed by Fielding and Carey. In Tom Thumb;
A Tragedy (1730), afterwards called The Tragedy of Tragedies ;
or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great (1731),
Fielding (of whose comedies something has been said in an earlier
chapter)? ridiculed the absurdities of contemporary drama, and,
in his later mock critical and explanatory notes, satirised the
theories of Corneille and such tragedies as Cato, Busiris and
Fenton's popular Mariamne (1723). The coarser burlesque
of Fielding's Covent Garden Tragedy (1733) is directed, in part,
against Philips's Distrest Mother. The spirit of Tom Thumb is
maintained in Henry Carey's Chrononhotonthologos, the Most
Tragical Tragedy that ever was Tragediz'd by any Company
of Tragedians (1734), and, less effectively, in his burlesque
opera, The Dragon 'of Wantley (1734), which displays, in the
words of its dedication, the beauty of nonsense, so prevailing
in Italian opera' While Fielding and Carey thus out-Heroded
Herod, they, too, were on the side of sanity in English drama.
Tom Thumb is the ironic expression of that revolt against con-
ventional English tragedy which Fielding phrased seriously in
his prologue to Lillo's Fatal Curiosity :
No fustian Hero rages here to-night;
No armies fall, fix a tyrant's right.
To the negative effect of burlesque, Fielding added a positive
influence against the accepted dramatic conventions by devoting
a large share of his energies to the composition of short dramatic
pieces. Though some of his plays accept the five-act formula,
most of them do not exceed three acts. The production of brief
dramatic pieces by Samuel Foote and other followers of Fielding
is intimately connected with the eighteenth century fashion of
appending to regular drama an after-piece, usually farce or
pantomime. The ultimate effects of this practice may be illus-
trated by the fact that Sheridan's Critic was produced, originally,
as an after-piece to Hamlet.
1 Cf. ante, chap. 11, pp. 21–2.
* Cf. ante, vol. ix, chap. VI, p. 190.
7
6
6--2


## p. 84 (#110) #############################################

84
The Drama and the Stage
In still another way, Fielding shook the conventions of formal
drama. Improving on Gay’s ‘local hits’ at politicians of the day,
Fielding carried personal allusion and innuendo to daring extremes.
Pasquin (1736) is 'a dramatick Satire on the Times,' and The
Historical Register for 1736 (acted 1737) overruns with political,
theatrical and social satire. Fielding's bold political references
were largely responsible for the licensing act of 1737, which
limited the metropolitan theatres to two, and brought plays,
prologues and epilogues under direct legal supervision. Though
Sir John Barnard, in March 1735, had interested himself, in the
House of Commons, in the question of restricting the theatres,
and, though the immediate stimulus to the licensing act is usually
held to have been an abusive piece, called The Golden Rump,
there is little reason to doubt that Walpole recognised in Fielding
his most dangerous foe. The licensing act restricted Fielding's
lawless freedom; already, however, he had set in motion forces
which the censorship of the stage might in part check, but
could not wholly control. Essentially the playwright of his own
day, Fielding influenced drama in the direction of themes of
contemporary life. Even Lillo, who set his face against a
social restriction of the sphere of tragedy, passively conceded
the historic background in giving, nominally, at least, an
Elizabethan setting to George Barnwell, in assigning Fatal
Curiosity to the reign of James I and in choosing Arden of
Feversham as the theme of 'an historical tragedy. Fielding's
actual dramatic works resembled cartoons rather than finished
works of comic art. Yet, his burlesque of conventional drama,
his development of short dramatic pieces that challenged the
authority of the five-act formula and his attention to the subjects
and personages of contemporary life, powerfully combined towards
enlarging the freedom and advancing the naturalness of dramatic
expression.
The transfer of Fielding's literary activity from drama to
novel suggests another potent factor in the decline of the drama.
To the forces of Italian opera, pantomime, burlesque, ballad-
opera, farce and spectacle, whose constant inroads had grievously
thinned the ranks of regular drama, was now added a more
dangerous, if more subtle, rival off the boards. Robinson Crusoe
(1719—20) and Gulliver's Travels (1726—7) had already fired the
fancy of English readers. With Richardson's Pamela (1740), the
English novel began its great period of literary dominance! It
1 Cf. ante, chap. I.


## p. 85 (#111) #############################################

Garrick
85
is not an accidental coincidence that the middle of the eighteenth
century is marked by poverty in dramatic composition as well as
by the strenuous advance of the novel. Nevertheless, two powerful
forces helped to sustain the vitality of the theatre. Provided with
a strong repertory of stock plays, the genius of actors was able to
triumph even over the mediocrity of contemporary drama. It
was the age of the player, not of the playwright. The period of
which we speak is the era of Garrick.
The record of David Garrick belongs, primarily, to theatrical
annals. Yet his own dramatic work, his Shakespearean revivals
and the influence of his natural method of acting, which indirectly
affected the artificiality of the drama itself, while directly opposing
the old school of acting, entitle him to a place in English dramatic
history. His mythological skit Lethe (1740) gained a place on
the boards in the year before its author's histrionic triumph as
Richard III. Reynolds's picture showing Garrick torn between
the rival muses of tragedy and comedy suggests his range and
versatility both as actor and as manager. He produced on the
stage more than a score of Shakespeare's dramas, and himself
appeared in the great majority of them. He was the dominant
factor in confirming Shakespeare's popularity with audiences in the
middle of the eighteenth century. Yet his service consisted rather
in accelerating the popular current than in setting it in motion.
Rich's noteworthy Shakespearean revivals, in 1738, which included
many long unacted plays, Macklin's famous triumph as Shylock
and the Drury lane productions of Shakespearean comedies, in
1740—1, are but instances of increasing interest in Shakespearean
performances before Garrick's advent. Furthermore, though
Garrick's influence, in the main, was salutary, his versions of
Shakespeare were, at times, unfaithful both to the original text
and to its spirit. Early in 1756, he produced, within a month,
alterations of three Shakespearean dramas, excising most of the
first three acts of The Winter's Tale, despite the protestation of
the prologue,
'Tis my chief Wish, my Joy, my only Plan,
To lose no Drop of that immortal Man!
Theophilus Cibber indignantly demanded, “Were Shakespeare's
ghost to rise, would he not frown indignation on this pilfering
pedlar in poetry-who thus shamefully mangles, mutilates, and
emasculates his plays? ? ' Though sweeping generalisations as to
Garrick's fidelity to his original are thus disproved by actual facts,
i Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, vol, wv, p. 452.


## p. 86 (#112) #############################################

86
The Drama and the Stage
his services to Shakespearean drama must not be rated beneath
their real value. It was in his hand to set the fashion, and he set
it beyond dispute. His own masterly acting of Shakespearean
characters far outweighs the infelicities, and occasional outrages,
of his acting texts.
The popularity of Shakespeare during the Garrick era did not,
however, lead to general adoption of Elizabethan models by play-
wrights of the period. Adaptations like Garrick’s Gamesters
(1757), altered from Shirley's Gamester, seem somewhat accidental.
Otway, Southerne and Rowe were greater favourites on the stage
than any Elizabethan writer of tragedy save Shakespeare. In
The Earl of Essex (1753), Henry Jones worked over again the
theme of one of John Banks's quasi-heroic English dramas; but
tragedies such as Johnson's Irene (1749) follow stricter classical
models. The classical cause, indeed, may be said to have received
a new impetus of some importance in William Whitehead's success-
ful version of Horace in The Roman Father (1750). The wave of
influence from Philips's Distrest Mother, which had led to more
than a dozen translations of plays by Thomas and Pierre Corneille
and Racine within a dozen years, seems to have subsided with
William Hatchett's Rival Father (1730). Whitehead's success
revived the interest that had lain dormant for a score of years.
The Roman Father remained a stock play throughout the rest of
the century, and, doubtless, was the chief stimulus to some eight
or ten other translations from French classical drama during
that period. In Creusa, Queen of Athens (1754), Whitehead
continued to work the vein of classical tragedy; but The School
for Lovers (1762) is an excursion into the realm of comedy. The
latter is not without some comic energy, but Sir John Dorilant,
'a Man of nice Honour,' and Carlia, who justifies the complaint
that she talks at times like a sentimental lady in a comedy,' have
a ‘nicety of sentiments' which brings them dangerously close to
the pitfalls of sentimental drama.
Despite vigorous attacks upon his critical authority, Voltaire
maintained, during the third quarter of the eighteenth century,
some hold on the English stage. Of English versions of his plays
the most successful was Arthur Murphy's Orphan of China (1759).
Orestes (1768), Almida and Zobeide (1771) and Semiramis (1776)
adapt other tragedies of Voltaire, while some of his comedies had
an English rendering, as in Murphy's No One's Enemy but his
Own (1764) and Colman’s English Merchant (1767)? Merope
Founded, respectively, on L'Indiscret and L'Écossaise.


## p. 87 (#113) #############################################

87
6
6
Home. Hoadly. Foote
was, occasionally, revived at Drury lane and seems to have inspired
Hoole's Cyrus (1768). Yet, even the most successful of these
pieces could not outrun several tragedies by English playwrights
of the period or rival in popularity Shakespearean plays. Vol-
taire's influence still counted strongly in maintaining the belief
that Shakespeare was not a great dramatic artist; but it could
not successfully challenge his actual triumph on the boards.
In contrast to many conventional dramas of the period, Home's
Douglas (first acted at Edinburgh in 1756, and in London in 1757)
strikes a distinct romantic note. In the desert of Scottish drama,
Douglas was an oasis, and, to some patriotic enthusiasts, its author
seemed a Scottish Shakespeare. The philosopher Hume ascribed to
his friend Home the true theatric genius of Shakespeare and Otway,
refined from the unhappy barbarism of the one and licentiousness
of the other. ' Even Gray, in August 1757, wrote to Walpole:
"The author seems to me to have retrieved the true language
of the stage, which has been lost for these 100 years. ' Age has
withered Douglas, and custom staled the declamation of Young
Norval. Yet the plot of Home's drama, based on an old Scots
ballad, its native background, and its atmosphere of brooding
melancholy, invest it with something of the romantic atmosphere
of his friend Collins. A succession of later tragedies showed that
Home was unable to repeat his first theatrical success; but
Sheridan's palpable hits in The Critic are incidental proof of the
continued stage popularity of Douglas.
The general poverty of original English drama in the middle of
the eighteenth century is apparent in comedy as well as in tragedy. Scanis.
.
Job Hoadly's popular comedy The Suspicious Husband (1747), ': inicio
which gave to Garrick a most successful part in Ranger, has some-
thing of the comic power of earlier drama. But, for the most
part, sentimental drama had so constrained formal comedy,
that laughter sought free outlet in the larger licence of farce,
burlesque and spectacle. Among multifarious theatrical enter-
tainments, attention must be directed to the efforts of Samuel
Foote. Early appearances as an actor showed that his forte
lay in comic mimicry. In April 1747, he established himself
at the Little theatre in the Haymarket, evading the licensing
act by announcing 'a Concert of Musick,' or 'an Auction of
Pictures,' or inviting his friends to drink a 'dish of Chocolate'
or a dish of Tea' with him. Thus, for two seasons, Foote found
pretexts for mimicry and caricature of Garrick, Mrs Woffington
and other familiar figures of the day. Though he found little
6
6


## p. 88 (#114) #############################################

88
The Drama and the Stage
trouble in evading the law, he was fortified with a patent in 1766.
The grant, though covering only performances during the summer
season and limited to his own lifetime, in reality created a third
patent theatre.
Foote's career as playwright coincides almost exactly with
Garrick's managership at Drury lane (1747-76).
He was a
direct descendant of Fielding, fully developing personal satire
through the medium of brief dramatic sketches. Of about a score
of printed dramatic pieces, none exceeds three acts. With Foote,
as with Fielding, most of the zest of his 'local hits' is now lost.
Taylor the quack oculist, the extortioner Mrs Grieve, chaplain
Jackson and many other once familiar personages whom he boldly
caricatured are now shadowy or forgotten figures. Foote's
characters often have animation and theatrical effectiveness ; but
they are not developed in action. Though his pieces are usually
printed as comedies, they mainly belong to the realm of farce.
Like his own art as an actor, they tend to substitute mimicry for
original delineation of character.
The zest of Foote's farces, without their personal bitterness,
is seen in various contemporary after-pieces. Garrick produced
-
a number of lively farces, such as The Lying Valet (1741), Miss in
her Teens (1747), The Irish Widow (1772) and Bon Ton (1775).
James Townley's High Life below Stairs (1759) proved a welcome
variety to those who, like George Selwyn, were tired of 'low life
above stairs,' and it long maintained its popularity.
Of the playwrights of the Garrick era, Arthur Murphy may
serve as a type of prolific industry. His dramatic efforts include
farces, like The Upholsterer (1758), in the general vein of Fielding's
political satire; adaptations from Voltaire; comedies, often, like
All in the Wrong (1761) and The School for Guardians, based on
Molière ; and tragedies such as Zenobia (1768) and The Grecian
Daughter (1772). Without enough originality to channel out his
own way, he drifted easily with the tide, appropriating whatever
came within easy reach. His comedy has the usual didactic note,
schooling wives in the way to keep their husbands”, and husbands
in the lesson that constancy should not be shamefaced. His tragedy
preserves the conventional cast, and The Grecian Daughter owes
its place in theatrical traditions largely to Mrs Siddons. Yet,
1 The satire against Whitefield and his methodist followers in The Minor (1760)
and that against the suitors of Elizabeth Linley before her romantic marriage to
Richard Brinsley Sheridan in The Maid of Bath (1771), have a personal interest.
2 The Way to keep him (1760).


## p. 89 (#115) #############################################

George Colman the elder
89
Murphy had the cleverness required for fashioning successful
acting plays, and to some ingenuity added much industry.
Another popular Irish playwright of the day was Isaac Bicker-
staff. His facile pen turned most successfully to opera libretti.
With much of Murphy's ability in adaptation and sense of theatrical
effectiveness, he blended materials from such divergent sources as
Charles Johnson, Wycherley and Marivaux into his successful comic
opera, Love in a Village (1762), and found in Richardson's
Pamela the basis for his popular Maid of the Mill (1765). In
1768, he scored two popular hits at Drury lane by his ‘musical
entertainment,' Padlock, and by his version of Cibber's Non-Juror,
and produced successfully at Covent garden (1768) Lionel and
Clarissa (published anonymously in 1748)'. To many of his
operatic works, Charles Dibdin, later a prolific playwright, supplied
much of the music.
A more important dramatist than either Murphy or Bicker-
staff was George Colman the elder, who, amidst prevalent
sentimentality, maintained something of the earlier and more
genuine comic spirit. Polly Honeycombe (1760), his first dramatic
venture, produced anonymously in deference to his uncle's dislike
of his dramatic aspirations, became a popular after-piece. In its
satirical thrusts at the sentimental school, it anticipates Sheridan's
Rivals. The opening scene between Polly and her nurse suggests
Lydia Languish's discussion with Lucy of the sentimental novels of
the circulating library, and enforces the satirical hits of Colman's
prologue at the sentimental novel. Polly and Lydia Languish are
alike familiar with 'ladders of ropes' and other accessories of
sentimental elopements. A decade and a half before Sheridan,
Colman turned the laugh against The goddess of the woful
countenance-The Sentimental Muse. '
It is not surprising that Colman, who made the sentimental
novel a target for satire, turned to Fielding's Tom Jones for the
ground-work of a genuine comedy. The Jealous Wife (1761) is
conspicuous as an early example of successful dramatisation of
a popular novel. Tom Jones, Sophia, Lady Bellaston, Lord Fellmar,
squire Western and Blifil become respectively Charles Oakly,
Harriot, Lady Freelove, Lord Trinket, Russet and Beagle. Yet,
Colman is more than a copyist. He introduces new characters
in Mr and Mrs Oakly, and effectively transfers to Beagle squire
Western's sporting instincts. Furthermore, in welding his material
1 It was reprinted in 1786, with the alternative title of the School for Fathers,
and, with this title only, in 1797.
73j* $


## p. 90 (#116) #############################################

90
The Drama and the Stage
into effective drama, he 'took some hints from The Spectator, a
suggestion from The Adelphi of Terrence l' and advice from
Garrick. The dramatic structure shows skill in developing action
through effective stage-situations, while Harriot's flight to Oakly's
house, which arouses the suspicions of the jealous wife, firmly links
,
the two plots. The solution is kept somewhat in suspense ; but,
finally, with a belated touch of Petruchio's manner in taming his
shrew, Oakly breaks his wife's spirit.
Though the tide of sentimental drama was yet to reach its
height in Hugh Kelly and Cumberland, The Jealous Wife has
some foreshadowings of Sheridan's comic masterpieces. It inherits
something of the spirit, without the gross immorality, of restoration
comedy. The restoration contempt for the country and the
exaltation of good manners at the expense of good morals reappear
in Lady Freelove and Lord Trinket, as they do in Lady Teazle and
her scandal school. Lord Trinket’s French phrases have the familiar
Gallic affectation ; Lady Freelove, in action as in name, recalls a
;
stock restoration character; and Sir Harry Beagle's rough-and-
ready love-making somewhat resembles that of sailor Ben in
Congreve's Love for Love, with the lingo of the stable replacing
that of the sea? . Charles Oakly, with his easy morals, is an
earlier instance of a type more familiar in Charles Surface.
Captain O'Cutter, with his readiness for a duel without inquiry as
to its cause, suggests the Irish ancestry of Sir Lucius O'Trigger.
Though without Sheridan's brilliant wit and masterly dramatic
skill, Colman fashioned the rough materials of drama into
really popular comedy.
During the next two years, he produced successfully two
after-pieces, The Musical Lady and The Deuce is in Him, and
a revision of Philaster. With the collaboration of Garrick, he
rose again to genuine comedy in The Clandestine Marriage (1766).
Taking a hint from one of Hogarth’s plates in his Marriage-à-la-
Mode, and animating, at least, some characters said to have been
drawn from Townley's False Concord, Colman and Garrick pro-
duced a highly effective comedy. Lord Ogleby, a late connection
of the Fopling Flutters and Foppingtons of restoration comedy, is
a distinct character creation. In the illiterate Mrs Heidelberg,
some have sought the original of Mrs Malaprop, but there is a
decided difference between her blunders in pronunciation and
1 Advertisement to The Jealous Wife.
? Compare The Jealous Wife, act iv, scene 2, with Love for Love, act III,
scene 3.


## p. 91 (#117) #############################################

Chief Dramatic Features of the Period
91
Mrs Malaprop’s ‘select words so ingeniously misapplied, without
being mispronounced. '
After The Clandestine Marriage, Colman's theatrical record
continues for more than a score of years,
but without
any notable
contribution to original drama. During the seven years of his
management of Covent garden theatre (1767—74), he produced
various minor pieces of his own composition, ranging from comedy
to operetta. The credit attaching to his Shakespearean revivals
is lessened by his retention of a happy ending for King Lear, and
the honour of having produced The Good-Natur'd Man and She
Stoops to Conquer is clouded by the obstacles which he allowed
to obstruct Goldsmith's path'. Yet, as a member of the Literary
club, as a successful dramatist and manager, translator of Terence's
comedies, editor of the dramatic works of Beaumont and Fletcher
and writer of prologues and epilogues-among them the epilogue
to The School for Scandal—the elder Colman was a noteworthy
figure in the theatrical and literary world of the latter half of
the century.
The success of occasional comedies like The Jealous Wife and
The Clandestine Marriage did not, for the time being, seriously
check the popularity of sentimental drama. Six days before
Goldsmith's Good-Natur'd Man finally achieved its belated pro-
duction at Covent garden, Garrick triumphantly produced at
Drury lane Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy (1768).
It was the clash
between sentimental comedy and an upstart rival, and for the
moment victory rested with the established favourite. In contrast
with the moderate favour accorded to Goldsmith's piece, False
Delicacy won a theatrical triumph. Three thousand copies of it
sold in a day, it was translated into several languages and was
acted with applause at Lisbon and Paris. False Delicacy is full
of the wise saws and modern instances of sentimental comedy.
One of its phrases, indeed, may be taken, not merely as Kelly's
own motto, but as the creed of sentimental drama—The stage
should be a school of morality. ' Two characters, Mrs Harley and
Cecil, afford some comic relief to the usual didactic banalities of
the dialogue. Yet the 'elevated minds of the chief personages
.
'
continue to deal in 'delicate absurdities' and to emit moral
platitudes until the final fall of the curtain.
Kelly's next comedy, A Word to the Wise (1770), despite its
sentimental appeal, was refused a fair hearing by his political
opponents and was driven off the stage. Clementina (1771), a dull
1 Cf. chap. IX, post.


## p. 92 (#118) #############################################

92
The Drama and the Stage
.
tragedy, was followed by a happier return to comedy, A School
for Wives (1773), which achieved five editions within two years,
and had various stage revivals during the next forty years. The
failure of a later comedy, The Man of Reason, marked the close
of Kelly's theatrical efforts. With Kelly, as with Richard Cumber-
land, dramatic probability is sacrificed on the altar of sentiment.
The development of English drama during the period reviewed
in the present chapter is too varied and complex to admit of
being summarised in a narrow formula. Yet, despite the diversity
of counter currents, the stream of sentimental drama runs strong
from Steele to Hugh Kelly and Richard Cumberland. Pantomime,
ballad-opera, burlesque and farce often oppose its progress. The
current of tragedy frequently flows from classical or Elizabethan
sources. The breath of the restoration spirit still, at times, ripples
the placid waters of formal comedy. Yet, moralised tragedy and
moralised comedy contribute alike to the stream of sentimental
drama. Even Lillo and Moore, who sturdily stemmed the tide
of conventional tragedy, were submerged in the waves of senti-
ment, and The Jealous Wife and The Clandestine Marriage
did not prevent the course of sentimental comedy from run-
ning smooth in Kelly's False Delicacy and Cumberland's West
Indian. Nevertheless, the undercurrent of reaction was gathering
strength. To the satirical attacks of burlesque upon sentimental
drama, Fielding had added his description in Tom Jones' of that
'very grave and solemn entertainment, without any low wit,
or humour, or jests,' in which there was not "anything which
could provoke a laugh. ' Goldsmith, who dared to challenge the
authority of the epithet 'low' with which critics were wont to
stigmatise comedy which was not 'genteel,' and who learned the
power of that 'single monosyllable' from the excision of his own
bailiffs' scene in The Good-Natur'd Man, was not to be daunted
in his attack upon this species of bastard tragedy' called senti-
mental drama. In his Essay on the Theatre; or, A Comparison
between Laughing and Sentimental Comedys, he put the pertinent
query : ‘Which deserves the preference,—the weeping sentimental
comedy so much in fashion at present, or the laughing, and even
low comedy, which seems to have been last exhibited by Vanbrugh
and Cibber? ' The answer was given in the comedies of Goldsmith
and of Sheridan,
1 Description of the puppet-show, The Provoked Husband, bk xii, chap. v.
? The Present State of Polite Learning, ed. 1759, p. 154.
3 The Westminster Magazine, December 1772.


## p. 93 (#119) #############################################

CHAPTER V
THOMSON AND NATURAL DESCRIPTION IN POETRY
>
In a general estimate of the poetry of the earlier half of the
eighteenth century, Thomson's work, from the exceptional character
of its subject, may, perhaps, be apt to receive undue prominence.
It called attention to a field of verse which his contemporaries,
absorbed in the study of man, in ethical reflection and moral satire,
had ceased to cultivate; it looked back with admiration to models
which were almost forgotten, and, through its influence on the
poetry of Collins and Gray, it lent impulse to the progress which
was to culminate in the romantic movement. On the other hand,
Thomson was not the champion of an opposition or the apostle of
a new order, contending against prejudices and destroying barriers.
In essential qualities of thought, he was at one with the taste of
bis day; and, if his talent was most happily exercised in the obser-
vation and delineation of nature, his point of view was the very
antithesis of that emotional treatment of the subject which marked
the ultimate revolt against the limitations of eighteenth century
convention.
James Thomson was born at Ednam in Roxburghshire, where
his father was parish minister, in September 1700. In the following
year, his father obtained the cure of Southdean, at the head of the
Jed valley, and here Thomson spent his boyhood. For some time,
he went to school in the abbey church of Jedburgh, and, in 1715,
he entered Edinburgh university, intending, as it seems, to become
a presbyterian minister. His early surroundings could hardly fail
to disclose to him the natural charms of a district which, seventy
years later, kindled the romantic imagination of Scott; and they
duly received Thomson's tribute when he wrote
The Tweed (pure Parent-stream,
Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed,
With, silvan Jed, thy tributary brook).
In these early experiments, which show little promise, he was
· The Seasons, Autumn, 11. 913—15.


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94 Thomson and Natural Description in Poetry
2
his verse.
encouraged by a neighbour, Robert Riccaltoun, the author of a
poem called Winter. At Edinburgh, Thomson's talents developed,
and, after coming to London in 1725, he had his own Winter
ready for publication in March 1726. About this time, he gave
up all intention of a clerical career, and devoted himself to poetry,
earning a stipend as tutor in various noble families. His friend
David Mallet was tutor in the household of the duke of Montrose;
and it was, probably, through him that Thomson obtained intro-
ductions which brought him into the society of possible patrons of
He spared no pains to make himself agreeable to the
kindly disposed Aaron Hill; and the prose dedications of the first
three Seasons, which were fortunately cancelled in later editions
in favour of lines inserted in the poem, are remarkable examples
of the effusiveness of bad taste. Winter soon reached a second
edition. Sir Spencer Compton, to whom it was inscribed, showed a
tardy gratitude for the compliment; but George Bubb Dodington,
the patron of Summer (1727), proved a more useful friend.
Thomson visited Dodington's seat Eastbury park, near Blandford ;
and the acquaintance thus formed probably led to his friendship
with George Lyttelton and to his adhesion to the political party
which supported the prince of Wales. Britannia (1729) eulogised
the prince and condemned Walpole's policy. In the printed
copies, this monologue is said to have been written in 1727. In
that year, Thomson dedicated his Poem sacred to the Memory of
Sir Isaac Newton to Walpole himself. The sincerity of the
patriotism which was laboriously expressed in Liberty cannot be
doubted; but the patronage of Walpole, had it rewarded Thomson's
advances, might have curbed his enthusiasm for an aggressive
policy.
Meanwhile, Spring, inscribed to Frances countess of Hertford,
appeared in 1728. Autumn, dedicated to Arthur Onslow, speaker
of the House of Commons, completed the collected edition, under
the title of The Seasons, in 1730. Thomson began his career as a
dramatist with Sophonisba (1729). Of his plays, more will be said
later: they have a special historical interest, in that, for the most
part, their choice of subject and outspoken treatment were directed
against the court party on behalf of the prince. In 1730, he went
abroad as travelling tutor to a son of Sir Charles Talbot, solicitor-
general and, afterwards, lord chancellor. He complained that the
muse did not cross the channel with him, and his ambitious poem
Liberty (1734–6), in which there are some touches due to his
foreign tour, confirms the accuracy of his judgment. Thrown out


## p. 95 (#121) #############################################

Thomson's Life and Literary Work
95
of employment by the death of his pupil in 1733, he received from
Talbot the sinecure secretaryship of briefs in chancery. He could
afford, on the failure of Liberty, to cancel generously his bargain with
the publisher, and, in 1736, to retire to a small house at Richmond,
where he was able to enjoy the society of Pope and other friends.
In these circumstances, he made a thorough revision of The Seasons,
the fruits of which are seen in the transformed text of 1744. A
copy of the 1738 edition in the British museum proves that he
sought and took the advice of a friend whose poetical skill was
considerable ; but whether this helper, as has been assumed, was
Pope or another, is a question upon which experts in handwriting
differ. The new text, while omitting a certain amount which may
be regretted, bears testimony to a judicious pruning of florid
diction; and passages hitherto enervated by excess of colour
gained in vigour what they lost in diffuseness. The poem, however, ,
was lengthened by the insertion of new matter, much of which
increased its general value. One personal feature of these additions
is the introduction of references to Amanda, the subject, also, of
the graceful lyric 'Unless with my Amanda blest. ' Too much may
be made of attachments expressed in verse; but there is no
doubt of Thomson's genuine affection for Elizabeth Young, a
sister-in-law of his friend Robertson, and this fact may be set
against one side of the charge of sensuality imputed to him by
Johnson, probably on the untrustworthy information of Savage.
The Castle of Indolence, published in May 1748, after a long period
of elaborate revision, may stand as the personal confession of a poet
whose industry was not proof against his love of ease and luxury.
Thomson's later days were not without reverses of fortune. The
story of his arrest for debt and delivery from the spunging-house by
Quin the actor may be a legend; but he lost his sinecure after
Talbot's death in 1737, through negligence (so it is said) in applying
for its renewal. Through the instrumentality of Lyttelton, who
was one of the lords of the treasury, he obtained the surveyorship-
general of the Leeward islands, a sinecure well suited to a poet
who had often surveyed the phenomena of nature from the pole
to the tropics in his easy chair. A pension from the prince of
Wales, who had received the dedication of Liberty and about 1737
heard from Thomson that his affairs were “in a more poetical
posture than formerly,' was stopped when Lyttelton fell into dis-
grace with the prince. This was not long before Thomson's death.
One evening in the summer of 1748, after a journey by boat from
Hammersmith to Richmond, he was attacked by a chill. A short


## p. 96 (#122) #############################################

96
Thomson and Natural Description in Poetry
recovery was followed by a relapse, and he died on 27 August. His
tragedy Coriolanus was produced during the next year: the story
of the emotion shown by Quin in the delivery of the prologue is a
testimony to the affection which Thomson inspired in his friends.
The body of Thomson's poetry, excluding the dramas, is not
large, and, historically, The Seasons is his most important poem.
Its form of The Seasons was suggested by the example of Vergil's
Georgics: Thomson expressly reminds his readers of the similarity
of his themes to those of Vergil', of whom he imitated more than
one famous passage? In this respect, he had a conspicuous fore-
runner in John Philips, author of Cyder, and it is impossible to
overlook the debt which Thomson owed to the older writer.
Philips was an imitator of Milton's poetic manner, and it may
have been through Philips's poetry that Thomson first felt that
Miltonic influence which moulded his style and the characteristic
shape of his phrases. Johnson, it is true, denied the influence of
Milton upon Thomson :
As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of
thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no
more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior
are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own
growth, without transcription, without imitation 3.
This criticism can be justified only to a limited extent. Thomson's
characteristic modes of thought were too much those of his age
to bear a very close resemblance to those of Milton. His choice of
blank verse, while sanctioned by Milton's authority, was, on the
other hand, natural to a poet whose language was too voluble and
ornate to be easily confined within the couplet. Its regular flow
and even beat imply a strictly limited command of those musical
resources of which Milton was master. Thomson's prosody is
adequate to the contents of his verse; but it would be difficult to
cite a passage of The Seasons in which the sound becomes a direct
echo of the sense. Yet, if we allow these differences and admit a
limitation of thought and a florid expansiveness of language which
afford a strong contrast to Milton's pregnancy of thought and
phrase, there cannot be any question as to the attraction which
Milton exercised upon the method of natural description and
upon the diction of The Seasons.
In the second of these relations, the likeness is at once evident.
Such passages as the contrast in Winter between the studious
a
1
E. g. Summer, 11. 1151 seq.
Spring, 11. 55–8: cf. 11. 446, 447.
3 Johnson, Life of Thomson.


## p. 97 (#123) #############################################

Thomson's Interest in Nature
97
retirement of the scholar and the diversions of the village and the
town are reminiscent in phrase, as in subject, of L'Allegro and
N Penseroso? The love of inversion which provoked Thomson's
boldest experiments in style, the constant and frequently adverbial
use of epithets derived from Latin sources, are Miltonic character-
istics. That rich literary imagery in which Milton excelled
quickened Thomson to bring into contrast with the more homely
scenes of his poem the unfamiliar scenery of the tropics, and to
enrich his verse with the ornament of carefully chosen proper
names. Lines such as these,
All that from the tract
Of woody mountains stretch'd throʻ gorgeous Ind
Fall on Cormandel's coast, or Malabar;
From Menam's orient stream, that nightly shines
With insect-lamps, to where Aurora sheds
On Indus' smiling banks the rosy shower,
are one instance out of many in which Thomson echoed harmonies
which Milton had awakened. To reproduce the full charm, the
magic melody of the original, was impossible for a poet who had no
great reserve of imagination on which to draw; but the imitation
is obvious and its effect is, to some extent, a success.
The poetry of Thomson's day had ceased to hold direct com-
munion with nature. Occasional contact, however, could not be
avoided. Dyer's Grongar Hill (1727) showed a spontaneous atti-
tude to nature which was too exceptional to capture the public
taste at once : the age preferred the conventional and generalised
descriptions in which poets not preoccupied with nature were
accustomed to indulge_descriptions on which the example of
Milton, who regarded nature through the medium of literary re-
miniscence, had a far-reaching effect. It is Thomson’s peculiarity
that the description of natural phenomena, in an age which over-
looked their artistic value, was his chief concern. His observation
was keen and intelligent. His eye, in the phrase of Wordsworth,
was 'steadily fixed upon his object'; his feelings 'urged him to
work upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination? ' The spec-
tacles of books enlarged his range of vision ; but his commerce
2
with the more familiar aspects of nature was direct and unim-
peded. This process marks a point of departure from the fashion
set by the commanding genius of Milton, and a return to earlier
methods. But, for the expression of his genuine, though limited
a
1 Winter, ll. 424 seq.
2 Wordsworth, Essay, supplementary to the preface to Lyrical Ballads.
E. L. X. CH, V.
7


## p. 98 (#124) #############################################

98 Thomson and Natural Description in Poetry
of his age.
imagination, he was bound by the necessities of a diction which
had become formal and stereotyped. What he saw with his own
eyes, he conventionalised in terms which were the common property
No one, however, since Milton had given so much
attention to the varied aspects of nature, and, consequently, Thom-
son's description of the stock elements of conventional scenery, of
hill and dale, and wood and lawn,
And verdant field, and darkening heath between,
And villages embosom’d soft in trees,
And spiry towns by surging columns mark'd
Of houshold smoak,
was governed by an accuracy of observation and depth of enjoy-
ment which, while perpetuating the Miltonic tradition in poetry,
distinguished Thomson from poets who, without observation and
feeling for nature, had passively accepted the superficial qualities
of that tradition.
At the same time, Thomson's obedience to the conventional
diction of poetry was in no sense reluctant. The broad view of the
general aspects of nature which such a diction reveals was essential
to his habit of mind. His observation, if accurate, shared the
tendency inherent in the art of the later seventeenth century to
group details in broad masses of colour and striking contrasts
of light and shadow. The pictorial medium through which he
approached scenery is indicated by a stanza in The Castle of
Indolence:
Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls,
Bade the gay bloom of vernal landskips rise,
Or autumn's varied shades embrown the walls:
Now the black tempest strikes the astonish'd eyes;
Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies;
The trembling sun now plays o'er ocean blue,
And now rude mountains frown amid the skies;
Whate'er Lorrain light-touch'd with softening hue,
Or savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew 2.
Of such pictures, Thomson was the receptive recorder. His in-
telligence was not of that vigorous and active type which searches
in nature for a life instinct with emotions akin and responsive to
his owl. Nature, to him, is a succession of phenomena of varied
form and colour which compose a series of landscapes, as they
affect the senses with their charm. Beneath the changes of the
sky, he notes with delight the changes of colour of the earth. Over
the country-side in spring,
1 Spring, 11. 947-51.
9 The Castle of Indolence, canto 1, st. 38.


## p. 99 (#125) #############################################

Nature Pictures in The Seasons
99
6
One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms,
rise the clouds, big with rain, 'a dusky wreath. . . scarce staining
ether,' gathering quickly until the massed vapour 'sits on th'
horizon round a settled gloom? ' At evening, the clouds lift; the
sunset casts its light on mountains and rivers, and tinges the mist
which rises from the soaked plain with yellow, while every blade
of grass sparkles with raindrops, and the rainbow is refracted from
the eastern sky: In summer, when night gathers over the hot
day, the glow-worm twinkles in the hedges, and the evening star
rises in the calm sky, as black vesper's pageants dissolvet. In
autumn, truthful observation notes the gathering mists through
which the sun ‘sheds, weak and blunt, his wide-refracted ray5,' the
shower of meteors in the night-time, the heavy dews of morning”,
and the ‘peculiar blue' of the midday sky. If, in winter, the rich
colours, congenial to Thomson's fancy, of 'Autumn beaming o'er
the yellow woods”, give place to more livid hues, yet there remain
the red sunset which precedes the frosty night, the 'blue film
breathed by the icy wind over pool and stream, the 'crystal pave-
ment' of the arrested water-course, the glitter of the stars, the
pallor of the dawn which reveals the 'dumb cascade' of icicles
hanging from the eaves and the arabesque of frostwork woven
over window-pane and frozen soil, the cold gleam of the icebound
brook and the 'plumy wave' of white snow on the forest trees 10.
Nor is sight the only sense which is alive to the charm of
the progress of the year in earth and sky. In the spring garden,
the violet, polyanthus, hyacinth and tulip, 'the yellow wall-flower,
stain'd with iron brown,' combine their bright colour with the
scent of the stock and jonquil, while sight and touch alike combine
in the note of
auriculas, enrich'd
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves 11.
Sensitive to perfume, Thomson invites Amanda to walk
Where the breeze blows from yon extended field
Of blossom'd beans 12,
or wanders in the spring morning from the fragrant garden into
country lanes, among sweet-briar hedges, or 'tastes the smell
of dairy' as he walks past a farm 13. The fisherman, when the
Spring, ll. 110, 111.
2 lbid. ll. 147-51.
3 Ibid. ll. 186 seq.
* Summer, 11. 1683 seq. O Autumn, 11. 623 seq.
6 Ibid. Il. 1019 seq.
7 Ibid. ll. 1081 seq.
8 Ibid. 1. 1130.
9 Ibid. 1. 969.
10 Winter, 11. 714 seq.
11 Spring, ll. 516 seq.
13 Ibid. 11, 499, 500.
13 Ibid. ll. 101 seq.
6
1
7-2


## p. 100 (#126) ############################################

100 Thomson and Natural Description in Poetry
noonday sun scatters the light clouds borne across the sky before
the west wind, may retire with a book to the shady bank where
sight is attracted by the purple violet, and the air is scented by
the 'balmy essence' of the lily of the valley, or beneath the shade
of a mountain ash where the sounding culver' builds its nest in
the cliff? . Few of Thomson's pictures are without their accom-
paniment of sound. The silence of the winter morning is broken
by the foot-fall of the shepherd on the hard crust of frozen snow? .
The song of birds in spring, which forms the subject of one of the
most attractive passages in The Seasons", intensifies, as it ceases,
the stillness of autumn, when the only sound is that of the distant
gun or of the woodman's axe in the 'sadden'd grove'' Such sounds
are used chiefly to give emphasis to quiet and solitude. His
happiest effects in this direction are summed up in a stanza of The
Castle of Indolence beginning
Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills,
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale5.
In all the scenes to which this stanza makes reference, the part
of man is incidental. The poet roams with 'eye excursive' for the
sake of the varied pleasure to be derived from his wanderings.
He has his own stock of readily awakened sentiment, susceptible
to the gloom and terror of storm, or to the coming of the Power
of Philosophic Melancholy' in autumn®; but there is no subjective
sense of revolt in his own breast to make his spirit at one with the
warring elements, no natural melancholy which colours Nature
with its own hue and translates her death into personal terms.
Similarly, man is introduced only so far as he forms a telling
feature in the landscape, just as the human element in Salvator
Rosa's pictures is subordinated to a position which gives scale to
nodding rocks and adds terror to frowning forests. The village
haymaking and sheepwashing in Summer are mild attempts at
genre pictures; the rural smell’of the harvest, the 'dusky wave'
of mown hay on the meadow, the ‘russet hay-cock' of the one, the
'pebbled shore’and 'flashing wave' of the washing-pool in the other,
meant more to Thomson than the perfunctory rustics who form part
of the scene?