Fifth Series,
Volume XLIII.

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No. 2037.- July 7, 1883.

From Beginning,

Vol. CLVIII.

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30

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CONTENTS.

I. THE POETRY OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, Fortnightly Review,

II. THE LITTLE WORLD: A STORY OF JAPAN, Blackwood's Magazine,

IIL. THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE “ CAMPAGNA

ROMANA,"

Nineteenth Century,

IV. THE WIZARD's Son. Part X.,

Macmillan's Magazine, .

V. Fox-HUNTING,

Nineteenth Century,

VI. THE OLD VIRGINIAN GENTLEMAN,

Macmillan's Magazine, .

VIL. SOME FASHION-GLEANINGS, FROM 1744 TO

1768,

Leisure Hour,

VIII. PARISH FOOLS,

Chambers' Journal,

IX. ORGANIZED CHARITY IN SWITZERLAND, Spectator,

X. FISH IN THE TALMUD,

Jewish World,

XI. THE PRINCES, .

Spectator,

XII, A VISIT TO THE NORE,

Field,

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66

From The Fortnightly Review. Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven THE POETRY OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.*

heel CLOUGH's first important poem was de. And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.

From the glad sound would not be absent long; scribed as a

Long.Vacation Pastoral,” and it is in a pastoral poem, called “Thyr. My sturdy Yorkshire sense of reality was sis," — and a very beautiful pastoral poem, very much revolted, when I was a lad, by one which may be read by the side of this conventional imagery. What," I Milton's "Lycidas” without losing by the used to say to myself, “ can the man mean comparison, that Matthew Arnold has by talking of himself and Mr. Edward commemorated the death of the contem- King as having fed their flock upon the porary and friend of whom I am to speak self-same hill, and piped on oaten Autes to-night. Yet I think no one would be till the rough satyrs danced, and fauns disposed to term Clough's poetry, poetry with cloven heel from the glad sound exactly of the pastoral order, in spite of would not be absent long? It was all the pastoral elements which it undoubt. rubbish, of course. Milton and Mr. Ed. edly contains. For what is pastoral ward King were together at Cambridge, poetry?

I remember the time hen my and both thought of going into the Church, favorite aversion - I may almost say, the which has been compared in parable to object of my severest moral indignation feeding sheep; but they never did feed

- was what I understood to be pastoral even metaphorical flocks together, and poetry. When, on August 10th, 1637, certainly never had satyrs, and fauns Mr. Edward King was shipwrecked in a with cloven heel, dancing to their music. crazy vessel bound from Chester for Dub. Why can't even poets say what they want lin, all the crew and passengers being to say a little more directly, and without lost, nineteen Latin, thirteen English, and those conventional equivalents for things three Greek poems were written upon his which are a great deal more interesting death by his Cambridge friends, of which to the imagination when adequately con. one became

very

famous Milton's “ Lyoceived, than they are when conceived uncidas.” You remember the general drift der the disguise of these fanciful and not of this pastoral, which was at the time very impressive metaphors? Why call much praised for being “a pastoral,” on Mr. Edward King Lycidas at all? Why the ground that “both Mr. King and set up the fiction that he belonged to Milton had been designed for Holy Orders ancient Greece, and lived in the circle of and the pastoral care, which,” as the mythological ideas, most of which were, phrase went, "gave a peculiar propriety as Mr. Pecksniff once remarked, • Pagan, to several passages in it.” Such a pas. I regret to say’?” I do not quote these sage, I suppose, is this exquisitely grace. grumblings of mine against the convenful and musical one:

tions of poetic speech for their wisdom.

I am well aware now that it is one test of For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and the power of a great poet to have a certain

pleasure in the apt use of a conventional Together both, ere the high lawns appeared field of fancy, all good verse, indeed, being Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, itself the product of a rare faculty for the We drove afield, and both together heard apt use of conventional rhythm and ar. What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, tistic – which is, in one sense, artificial Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of

- rhyme. It would, indeed, be as absurd night

to say that to burst into operatic airs is a Oft till the star that rose at evening, bright, Toward Heaven's descent had sloped his west

natural mode of expression for the de

spairing lover or the assassin, as to say ering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,

that the most natural mode of expressing Temper'd to the oaten flute;

the ecstasy of wrath, even of an unhinged

mind, is to inveigh in such verses as Lecture recently delivered at the Philosophical these, which King Lear launches against Hall, Leeds.

6

rill;

Blow, winds! and crack your cheeks ! rage ! supreme idealizing of shepherds and of blow!...

sheep, and of all the details of pastoral You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, life. He has even written one short pas. Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, toral of extreme beauty, describing the Singe my white head !

feelings with which a Swiss herdswoman, We all know that wrath and misery at whose lover is seeking his fortune far their highest point do not, in fact, take away from her, drives home her little herd orderly imaginative shape in this way. through a sudden Alpine storm to their True poetry, in my belief, comes nearer shelter in the byres; and muses, as she reality than any other effort of human presses her three cows onwards through energy; but it always has, always must the driving rain, whether her lover will have, a conventional element in it - an have strength to be faithful to her in the element foreign to the natural products of foreign scenes which he is visiting, nay, the bare emotions of men - and this, whether she herself will have strength to though it is actually by virtue of the use be faithful to him, if the time drags on, of that conventional element that it pierces and no further confirmation of his love deeper to the core of existence than any for her be received: one who abjures all convention will ever succeed in piercing. Listen to any wom. The skies have sunk, and hid the upper snow, an who has lost all that is dearest to her (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La

Palien) in life, and she will certainly not say

The rainy clouds are filing fast below, unless she is insincere and affected

And wet will be the path, and wet shall we. what Cleopatra says on the death of Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. Antony And there is nothing left remarkable

Ah dear, and where is he a year agone, Beneath the visiting moon.

Who stepped beside and cheered us on and on? All the imaginative expressions of feeling in foreign land or on a foreign sea.

My sweetheart wanders far away from me, in true poetry are far more perfect, far Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. more elaborate than any one not a charlatan would or could use, under the imme. The lightning zigzags shoot across the sky, diate influence of that emotion. None (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La the less, the expressions which are here, Palie) within the conventional license always

And through the vale the rains go sweeping permitted to a poet, put into Cleopatra's Ah me, and when in shelter shall we be ? mouth, are the most memorable and mag. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. nificent expressions of the sense of loss which the English tongue contains. I Cold, dreary cold, the stormy winds feel they referred, then, to my old sentiment of O'er foreign lands and foreign seas that stray. wrath against pastoral poetry, not to jus- (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La tify it, – though I do think that in many

Palie.) schools of poetry the conventional has And doth he e'er, I wonder, bring to mind almost edged out the real, and left us with The pleasant huts and herds he left behind ? no spiritual meaning engraven on the The feeding kine, and doth he think of me,

And doth he sometimes in his slumbering see background of lackadaisical assumption, My sweetheart wandering wheresoe'er it be?

- but to indicate what it is, in my opinion, Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. that was alone wanting to Clough, to make him one of the greatest of our poets - 1 The thunder bellows far from snow to snow, mean a certain pliancy to the more con- (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La ventional methods of expressing poetic

Palie,) feeling. Clough had many of the ele. And loud and louder roars the flood below, ments even of a pastoral poet in him; Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.

Heigh-ho! but soon in shelter shall we be : especially that love of the earth, and the homely things of the earth in their utmost Or shall he find before his term be sped, simplicity, which has led, no doubt, to the Some comelier maid that he shall wish to wed?

by;

no

(Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La blown, the pipes, and the shepherds, and Palie.)

the silly sheep, used to describe the For weary is work, and weary day by day rhymings of Oxford students or tutors, To have your comfort miles on miles away. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. undergraduates whom Clough was

the teachers of the university, and the Or may it be that I shall find my mate, longer content to teach ; while “the life And he returning see himself too late? of men unblest,” “the storms that rage For work we must, and what we see, we see, outside our happy ground,” had reference, And God he knows, and what must be, must | I suppose, to the questions agitated at the be,

time Clough left the university concernWhen sweethearts wander far away from me. Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie. the Articles of the Church, and Mr. Car.

ing the true conditions of subscription to The sky behind is brightening up anew, lyle's turbulent exhortations to all the (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La world to abjure cant, and to live strictly Palie,)

up or down to the truth that was in him. The rain is ending, and our journey, too;

Carlyle,” says Clough, “led us out into Heigh-ho! aha! for here at home are we:

the wilderness, and left us there." And I, In, Rose, and in, Provence and La Palie.

for my part, do not at all doubt that it was Now, that is a true pastoral, full of pas- in great measure Mr. Carlyle's stern ex. toral feeling and simplicity, but it has not hortations to all men to clear their lives of that background of artificial convention all misleading professions, which induced which we find in “ Lycidas ” or indeed in Clough to throw up his Oxford fellowmuch more modern pastorals. There is ship, and which, to use Mr. Arnold's metno artificial use in it of the metaphors of aphor, made his piping take “a troubled the pastoral life such as Matthew Arnold, sound.” However, this is all by the way. for instance, in commemorating Clough I took the passage from Maithew Arhimself, has freely used. He calls Clough nold's tribute to Clough, only to contrast “ Thyrsis,” just as Milton called Edward it with his own poetry, which never adopts King “Lycidas,” and reproaches him thus the conventional metaphors of the pasfor his dissatisfaction with Oxford life toral school of poetry, or conforms to its and labor:

limits, — except, indeed, those limits of

rhythm and rhyme which all verse of any Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here !

dignity must observe, - and allows itself But once I knew each field, each flower, each none of those freedoms with the uses of stick,

conventional association of which Milton And with the country-folk acquaintance made and Arnold so freely avail themselves. By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. Here, too, our shepherd pipes we first assayed.

In one word, Clough was almost too Ah me, this many a year

grimly in earnest, even at the very mo. My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday ! ment he was writing poetry, for the fanci. Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy ful play of that sheet-lightning of the heart

fancy which

when not indulged too far Into the world and wave of man depart ! - adds so much to the charm of the poet. But Thyrsis of his own will went away. His mind was always fixed on the real It irk'd him to be here, he could not rest.

world. The greatest poet puts the trouble He loved each simple joy, the country fields, of the world far from him, in the very He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,

moment of imagining and delineating it For that a shadow lower'd on the fields,

with his utmost force. It is the imaginaHere, with the shephe:ds and the silly sheep.

tive force with which he projects it, so as Some life of men unblest He knew, which made him droop and filled his to make it vividly visible to himself, that head.

really keeps the weight of it off his heart. He went, his piping took a troubled sound When Shakespeare makes Macbeth say: Of storms that rage outside our happy ground. He could not wait their passing, - he is dead. Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no

more ! Here we have the pastoral imagery full. | Macbeth does murder sleep.”