FOREWORD

In the following pages I have attempted to trace the course of English Lyric in the Age of Reason. The days when influences" and tendencies were supreme in literary criticism are now gone, and it is well. A much-needed protest has been raised against this

"chatter about 'schools,' 'influences,' 'revivals,' 'revolts,' 'tendencies,' 'reactions.' "'1

But dislike of one extravagance should not lead us into another and opposite one. Personality, temperament, the individual must always be the most important factor in any writer's work. Nevertheless, that personality is inevitably moulded by the writer's mental and material environment. The works of his predecessors may affect him, but above all, save in exceptional circumstances, he will be affected by the "spirit" of his own age. The "spirit of the age is a very elusive ghost, often indeed a much misunderstood one; but that there is, over and above the individual, a general influence which almost invariably leaves its impress upon the works of contemporary writers is proved by the fact that we can at sight distinguish an Elizabethan lyric from a modern one. Nor is the chief difference due to a changed language. The fundamental change is intellectual, a difference of attitude, of thought. Change of thought is in general reflected in literature, and produces a roughly parallel "evolution" in poetry and prose.

In reading the poetry of the eighteenth century, I cannot avoid the conclusion that the worship of a 1 Studies in Literature, by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, M.A. Cambridge, 1920, p. 85.

narrow conception of Reason in the Augustan Age led to a wide-spread attempt at stoicism, to the suppression of emotion. This in turn led to a lack of high lyric utterance. Again and again the poets sing the ideal of Indifference. They could not help feeling emotion as men in all ages have felt it. But they could and did refuse to express it in passionate

verse.

John Pomfret, in a poem entitled Reason, expressed in the first year of the century the conception which was so greatly to influence the literature of the day : The passions still predominant will rule,

Ungovern'd, rude, not bred in Reason's school;
Our understanding they with darkness fill,
Cause strong corruptions, and pervert the will;
On these the soul, as on some flowing tide,
Must sit, and on the raging billows ride,
Hurried away; for how can be withstood
The impetuous torrent of the boiling blood?
Begone, false hopes, for all our learning's vain ;
Can we be free, where these the rule maintain ?
These are the tools of knowledge which we use;
The spirits, heated, will strange things produce;
Tell me, whoe'er the passions could control,
Or from the body disengage the soul;

Till this is done, our best pursuits are vain

To conquer truth, and unmix'd knowledge gain.

Gradually came a realisation of the fact that this Augustan ideal of Indifference was unattainable in actual life, and therefore unworthy of expression in art. They saw at last that "The Peace of the Augustans was that peace which springs from the heart's solitude, a peace of desolation. Then came a period of disillusion followed by a search for new ideals in life and art. Gradually, by way of Ballad Revival, Mediævalism, Nature,-despite one attempt at reaction,-Romance returned to the vacant throne.

Such, it seems to the present writer, was the course of eighteenth-century lyric. That the actors in the scene were fully conscious of the true nature of the impulses which swayed them, I do not for a moment imagine.

Individuality and environment, these in action and reaction give us the poetry of the age. But lest I be misunderstood in the following pages, I would here affirm that the most important reason for the dearth of lyric in the eighteenth century is to be found in the lack of lyric power in the poets themselves. As Gray wrote:

But not to one in this benighted age,

Is that diviner inspiration giv'n,

That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page,
The pomp and prodigality of Heav'n.

It is with pleasure that I here express my obligations to all who have assisted me with criticism or advice. In particular I am indebted to Professor Thomas Seccombe, who has most generously, on all occasions, given me the benefit of his intimate knowledge of the eighteenth century, and so frequently infused a genial warmth into labours grown tedious and cold, and to Dr. A. J. Carlyle for many helpful suggestions.

To express my thanks to Professor W. P. Ker and Professor R. W. Chambers, who kindly read and criticised the completed MS., is a pleasant duty.

Nor must I fail to record my appreciation of the assistance given me by my friend, E. J. O'Brien, Esq., of Forest Hill, Oxford, at whose suggestion I first determined to seek a wider audience than that afforded by a small and patient circle of friends.

UNIVERSITY College,

GOWER STREET.
April 23rd, 1922.

O.D.