(304) MYNSTRELLES SONGE. From "Ella." ¶ 1. boddynge-budding. ¶ 2. mees= meadows. sprenged sprinkled. ¶ 4. nesh tender. ¶ 5. enlefed-leafed out. straughte -stretched. ¶6. whestlyng-whistling. dynnedin, noise. kynne welkin, sky. ¶9. ale-stake: a from the front of an ale-house as a sign. here, womankind. stake with a bush of ¶8. roddie ruddy. weltwigs at the top, projecting 16. the kynde = the species; (305) 19. blake bleak, bare. 20. guylteynge=gilding. 23. woddie-woody? ¶ 24. levynne-lightning. lemes gleams. ¶ 25. rudderuddy. ¶26. fructyle=fruitful. ¶27. peres pears. die-dye, color. 30. hartys-heart's. steynced-stained. 31. wrogle= wrought, made. neidher neither. kynde sex. ¶ 32. chafe=chafing, warm. ¶33 Dheere there. 35. botte-but. tere muscle. ¶ 39. ynutylle membere-useless member, i. e., Adam's rib. 42. kynde nature. ¶43. Albeytte=albeit. pheeres=mates. ¶44. salvage kynde== savage species, i. e., wild animals. slea-slay. ¶45. efte often. cheres-cheers. ¶ 46. Tochclod joined? dowered with? heie they. 47. swythyn-quickly. cursed. hie-highly. ¶48. bante (306) O, SYNGE UNTOE MIE ROUNDELAIE. From "Ælla." ¶3. ne moe=no more. hallie daie-holiday. 4. reynynge-running. 8. cryne hair (Latin "crinis," hair). ¶ 9. rode skin. 10. Rodde ruddy. ¶ 11. Cale cold. ¶ 15. Swole-sweet. ¶ 17. Defte hys taboure: i. e., he was skilful in playing on the tabor; the tabor was a stringed instrument somewhat like a guitar. codgelle stote=cudgel stout. ¶31. yanne than (cf. "ye" for "the"). (307) 38. Nee=not. hallie-holy. ¶39. celness-coldness. ¶ 43. dente-fasten. ¶ 44. gre- grow. 45. Ouphant-elfin. 53. nete-night. 57. reytes = water-flags. 158. yer your. Leathalle-deadly. (307) AN EXCELENTE BALADE OF CHARITIE. Subheading. "As wroten bie the gode prieste Thomas Rowleie, 1464." "Thomas Rowley, the author, was born at Norton Malreward, in Somersetshire, educated at the convent of St. Kenna, at Keynesham, and died at Westbury, in Gloucestershire."-Chatterton. ¶ 1. In Virgynè: in that part of the zodiac called the Virgin, which the sun enters in August. ¶2. mees-meads. ¶ 3. rodded=reddened. ¶ 4. mole=soft (Latin "mollis," soft). ¶5. peede=pied, variegated. chelandri=goldfinch. 17. defte neat. aumere-mantle. (308) 10. arist=arose. 13. Hiltring-hiding. allenes at once. Jetyve=festive. 15. holme: a kind of oak. ¶ 16. Seyncle Godwine's covent: "It would have been charitable if the author had not pointed at personal characters in this 'Ballad of Charity.' The abbot of St. Godwin's at the time of writing of this was Ralph de Bellomont, a great stickler for the Lancastrian family. Rowley was a Yorkist."-Chatterton. ¶ 17. moneynge=moaning. 18. viewe-appearance. ungentle-not like that of a gentleman, beggarly. weede-dress. 19. bretful-brimful. ¶ 20. almer receiver of alms, beggar. 22. glommèd gloomy, clouded, dejected. ¶ 23. forwynd-dry, sapless. ¶ 24. church-glebe-house=the grave ("glebe" -soil, ground). ashrewed accursed. ¶25. kiste- chest, coffin. dortoure-sleeping. ¶26. Cale-cold. gre=grow. ¶ 27. aminge among. 30. forswat-sunburnt. smethe-smoke. drenche-drink. 31. ghastness=ghastliness, terror. pall-appal. 33. flott-fly. ¶ 34. levynne lightning. ¶35. smothe-steam, vapors. lowings-flashings. ¶ 36. clymmynge=noisy. ¶37. Cheves moves. embollen swelled. ¶39. gallard=frighted. ¶40. swanges=swings 42. braste burst. attenes at once. stonen stony. (309) 45. chapournette: "A small round hat, not unlike the shapournette in heraldry, formerly worn by ecclesiastics and lawyers."-Chatterton. 46. pencle painted. ¶47. He aynewarde tolde his bederoll: "He told his beads backwards; a figurative expression to signify cursing."--Chatterton. 49. mist-poor. 50. cope-cloak. Lyncolne clothe: a green cloth, made particularly well in the town of Lincoln. 152. autremete: "A loose white robe worn by priests."-Chatterton. twynne-twine. 153. shoone-shoes. pykepeaked. loverds=lord's. ¶55. trammels: shackles used to make a horse amble. ¶ 56. horse-millanare: "In a public part of Bristol, full in sight of every passer-by, was a sadler's shop, over which was inscribed .... 'horse-milliner.' On the outside of one of the windows of the same operator stood. . . . a wooden horse dressed out with ribbons, to explain the nature of horse-millinery."-Stevens, writing of a visit in 1776. 57. droppynge=drooping. 63. yalle that. crouche-crucifix. 66. faitour-a vagabond. ¶69. shettynge-shooting. 72. reyneynge-running. ¶74. jape: "A short surplus worn by friars of an inferior class and secular priests."-Chatterton. ¶75. limitoure: a friar licensed to beg within a certain limited area. of order: i. e., as to his order. (310) 81. groate: a coin worth four pence. ¶ 82. mister-poor. halline joy. ¶83. eathe ease. 84. nete-naught. ¶85. unhailie-unhappy. ¶86. Scathe-scarce. ¶87. semecope: a short under-cloak. ¶89. aborde=went on. ¶90. gloure-glory. 91. millee -mighty. CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM "On our first opening these poems, the smooth style of the harmony, the easy march of the verse, the regular station of the caesura, the structure of the phrase, and the cast and complexion of the thoughts made us presently conclude that they were mock ruins. If such they are, their merit is of no high estimation, it being as easy for a person accustomed to versification, and acquainted with obsolete terms, to fabricate an old poem as to write a new one; but if, on the contrary, they are really productions of the fifteenth century, they are the most extraordinary literary curiosities that this or any recent period has produced, for they would show us that the graces of numbers and the refinements of poetical melody are of no modern date, but belonged to one of the first adventurers in English poesy."-The Monthly Review, April, 1777. "In these sentiments all readers of taste, even in these days, must agree with Master Lidgate when they peruse these truly classic poems, especially those capital performances, 'The Dethe of Syr Charles Bawdin,' . ..‘Ælla, a Tragycal Enterlude,' 'Goddwyn, a Tragedie,' and 'The Battle of Hastings,' all which, for pure poetry, simplicity, and solid sense, as well as harmony, may vie with the most elegant and harmonious of the moderns. And this last is certainly the most suspicious circumstance, as, with all their merit, all our other old bards, from Chaucer down to Donne, are in that particular so defective that many of their verses are mere prose and others hardly legible. Scarce one such line occurs in Rowley, scarce one but what Pope or Dryden, bating the old words, might have written and owned. In this same 'Battle' the picturesque variety in the deaths, descriptions, similes, etc., we cannot help observing, will not suffer by a comparison with the like imagery in the Greek or Roman epic, any more than 'Ella' and 'Goddwyn,' with their sublime choruses (especially the 'Fragment to Freedom'), will be degraded by being classed with the most perfect models of the ancient or modern drama. On the whole, if Rowley was the author of these .... poems (and what modern who had such a talent would have buried it in the rubbish of obsolete words?), poetry arrived at maturity near two centuries sooner than has been hitherto apprehended."-The Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1777. WILLIAM COWPER "My sole drift is to be useful; a point which, however, I knew I should in vain aim at unless I could be likewise entertaining. I have therefore fixed these two strings upon my bow, and by the help of both have done my best to send my arrow to the mark. My readers will hardly have begun to laugh before they will be called upon to correct that levity and peruse me with a more serious air. As to the effect, I leave it alone in His hands Who can alone produce it: neither prose nor verse can reform the manners of a dissolute age, much less can they inspire a sense of religious obligation, unless assisted and made efficacious by the Power Who superintends the truth He has vouchsafed to impart."-Letter to Mrs. Cowper, October 19, 1781, about his first volume of poems. "If I trifle [as in "John Gilpin"] and merely trifle, it is because I am reduced to it by necessity-a melancholy, that nothing else so effectu ally disperses, engages me sometimes in the arduous task of being merry by force. And, strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood perhaps had never been written at all."-Letter to Unwin, November 18, 1782. "I considered that the taste of the day is refined, and delicate to excess, and that to disgust the delicacy of taste by a slovenly inattention to it would be to forfeit at once all hope of being useful; and for this reason, though I have written more verse this last year than perhaps any man in England, I have finished, and polished, and touched and retouched, with the utmost care."-Letter to Unwin, October 6, 1781. "I know that the ears of modern verse-writers are delicate to an excess, and their readers are troubled with the same squeamishness as themselves; so that if a line do not run as smooth as quicksilver they are offended. A critic of the present day serves a poem as a cook serves a dead turkey when she fastens the legs of it to a post and draws out all the sinews. For this we may thank Pope; but unless we could imitate him in the closeness and compactness of his expression as well as in the smoothness of his numbers, we had better drop the imitation, which serves no other purpose than to emasculate and weaken all we write. Give me a manly, rough line, with a deal of meaning in it, rather than a whole poem full of musical periods that have nothing but their oily smoothness to recommend them!"'-Letter to Johnson, his publisher, undated. "My descriptions [in "The Task"] are all from nature: not one of them second-handed. My delineations of the heart are from my own experience: not one of them borrowed from books, or in the least degree conjectural. In my numbers, which I have varied as much as I could (for blank verse without variety of numbers is no better than bladder and string), I have imitated nobody, though sometimes perhaps there may be an apparent resemblance, because at the same time that I would not imitate I have not affectedly differed. . . . . Except the fifth book, which is rather of a political aspect, the whole has one tendency: to discountenance the modern enthusiasm after a London life, and to recommend rural ease and leisure, as friendly to the cause of piety and virtue."-Letter to Unwin, October 10, 1784. .... (310) THIS EVENING, DELIA, YOU AND I. "Delia" was the poet's cousin, Theodora Cowper; she returned his love, but her father forbade the marriage. (311) TABLE TALK. Lines 610-55. ¶ 20. Circe: an enchantress of Greek legend, who turned men into swine; see the Odyssey, x. 210 ff. (312) TRUTH. Lines 131-70. ¶9. lappet-head: "A head-dress made with lappets, or lace pendants."-The Century Dictionary. (313) 38. Brahmins: Hindu priests. (313) ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE. Subheading, "Written when the news arrived." While the "Royal George" was being refitted at Spithead, off the southern coast of England, August 29, 1782, the shifting of her guns made her suddenly heel over and sink; of the thousand sailors, marines, officers, and visitors aboard, about eight hundred, including Admiral Kempenfelt, were drowned. (314) THE TASK. (314) Rural Sights and Sounds. Book I. 154-209. (316) Human Opression. Book II. 1-47. ¶ 1. Cf. Jer. 9:2: "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people." ¶ 16. fritha narrow arm of the sea. ¶ 20. devotes gives over by a vow (Latin "devovere," to vow); here, gives over to destruction. (317) 40. Slaves cannot breathe in England: Lord Mansfield, in 1772, had given a decision to this effect. (317) The Model Preacher. Book II. 395-413. ¶ 15. rostrum-pulpit. (318) Cowper, the Religious Recluse. Book III. 108-33. ¶ 1. a stricken deer: Cowper's first attack of insanity, in which he tried three times to commit suicide, occurred in 1763-65; it necessitated permanent withdrawal from the profession of the law, on which he had entered, and a retired life in the country for the rest of his days. (318) The Arrival of the Post. Book IV. 1-41. (319) 25-27. These lines were evidently written before the news reached England that the treaty of peace between England and America had been signed in Paris, in September, 1783; "The Task" was begun in the summer of that year. ¶ 28-30. Clive and Hastings had recently been laying the foundation of England's empire in India, partly by acts which aroused the indignation of justice-loving Englishmen and brought Hastings to trial before the House of Lords in 1788. (319) Winter Scenes in the Country. Book V. 21-57. ¶2. bents-stiff, wiry grasses. (320) 26. lurcher: a hunting dog, a cross between a shepherd-dog and a greyhound. (320) The Bastile. Book V. 379-445. 4. 5. See Exod. 20:2. (321) 22-25. See Dan. 4:10-15. (322) 66. the Manichean God: Manicheism, an old Babylonish nature religion modified by Christian elements, taught that the Evil Principle was coeternal with the Good Principle and that it made man. (322) Set Not Thy Foot on Worms. Book VI. 560-80. (323) ON THE DEATH OF MRS. THROCKMORTON'S BULLFINCH. The Throckmortons, a cultivated family of Roman Catholics, were neighbors of Cowper at Olney, with whom he had much pleasant companionship. ¶7. Rhenus- the Rhine. (324) ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. "I have lately received from a female cousin of mine in Norfolk, . . a picture of my own mother. She died when 1 wanted two days of being six years old; yet I remember her perfectly, find the picture a strong likeness of her, and, because her memory has been ever precious to me, have written a poem on the receipt of it: a poem which, one excepted, I had more pleasure in writing than any that I ever wrote."-Letter to Mrs. King, March 12, 1790. (325) 14. lost so long: fifty-two years before. (326) 53. the pastoral house: the rectory, where Cowper was born, in the town of Great Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire. ¶67. humour-whims, caprice. (327) 97. The line is quoted incorrectly from Garth's "Dispensary" (1699), III. 226, "Where billows never break, nor tempests roar." ¶98. thy loved consort: Cowper's father died in 1756. ¶108. My boast is not: Cowper means that, although it is the fact, he does not boast of it; on his mother's side he was descended from several noble houses, and through them from Henry III. (327) THE CASTAWAY. The poem is based on an incident in Lord George Anson's Voyage round the World (1748), which Cowper had read years before. The poet's state of mind, due to his insane delusion that he had lost the favor of God forever, will be seen in the following extract from his letter to Newton, written on April 11, 1799, three weeks after writing the poem: "If it [a book Newton had sent him] afforded me any amusement, or suggested to me any reflections, they were only such as served to embitter, if possible, still more the present moment by a sad retrospect to those days when I thought myself secure of an eternity to be spent with the spirits of such men as He Whose life afforded the subject of it. But I was little aware of what I had to expect, and that a storm was at hand which in one terrible moment would darken, and in another still more terrible blot out, that prospect forever." (328) 19. had would have. CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM "He says what is incontrovertible, and what has already been said over and over, with much gravity, but says nothing new, sprightly, or entertaining, travelling on a plain, level, flat road, with great composure, almost through the whole long and tedious volume, which is little better than a dull sermon, in very indifferent verse, on Truth, the Progress of Error, Charity, and some other grave subjects."-The Critical Review, April, 1782. "He is a poet sui generis; for as his notes are peculiar to himself, he classes not with any known species of bards that have preceded him; his style of composition, as well as his modes of thinking, are entirely his own. The ideas with which his mind seems to have been either endowed by nature or to have been enriched by learning and reflection, as they lie in no regular order, so are they promiscuously brought forth as they accidently present themselves. Mr. Cowper's predominant turn of mind, though serious and devotional, is at the same time dryly humorous and sarcastic. Hence his very religion has a smile that is arch, and his sallies of humor an air that is religious; and yet, motley as is the mixture, it is so contrived as to be neither ridiculous nor disgusting. His versification is almost as singular as the materials upon which it is employed. Anxious only to give each image its due prominence and relief, he has wasted no unnecessary attention on grace or embellishment; his language. therefore, though neither strikingly harmonious nor elegant, is plain, forcible, and expressive."-The Monthly Review, October, 1782. "The relish for reading poetry had long since left me; but there is something so new in the manner, so easy and yet so correct in the language, so clear in the expression yet concise, and so just in the sentiments, that I have read the whole with great pleasure, and some of the pieces more than once. I beg you to accept my thankful acknowledgements, and to present my respects to the author."-Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to John Thornton, May 8, 1782. (Thornton, a friend of Cowper's friend William Unwin, had sent Franklin a copy of Cowper's first volume.) "Seldom have we seen the utile and the dulce so agreeably united. . . The poet of nature and humanity, and the minstrel of the groves, the rural strains of Mr. Cowper, in particular, emulate those of Thomson and Shenstone in the most glowing imagery of rural description, and the warmest sensibility of a good heart. . . . . The reader may observe that the blank verse of this writer has more harmony and variety than are usually found in modern performances, being founded apparently on the best models, on those of Milton and Philips. The sound, too, is often most strikingly an echo of the sense."-The Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1785, in a review of "The Task." "An eminent writer has said that all men, at one time or other of their lives, are poets. That unfortunate moment has accordingly been laid hold of; and many, who might have lived respected as good citizens and men of sense, proclaim themselves dunces for the sake of being ranked in the number of poets. While we are thus heavily taxed by dullness and vanity, we have a singular pleasure in announcing to the public the works of a poet of the first rank. From the former volume of Mr. Cowper's poems, in 1782, there was every reason to expect works of a higher nature, nor have the public been disappointed. Whatever pleasure results to the reader of taste from the effusions of fancy, the liveliest strokes of a fine imagination, whatever embellishment philosophy and sound sense can receive from elegant versification, from vigorous and well-adapted metaphor, is to be found in 'The Task.'. . . . The whole consists of reflections and strictures, serious, humorous, satirical, and moral, each subject introducing the next with seeming ease. Few topics of public notoriety have escaped his notice. His poetry, consequently, puts on various shapes, being descriptive, pathetic, familiar, and didactic, according to the present subject. With regard to the merit of the whole, it is that of uniform excellence, in the perusal of which the reader is led on imperceptibly and every subject begets an impatience for that which is to succeed.”—The English Review, April, 1786. "Mr. Cowper possesses strong powers of ridicule, and nature formed him for a satirist of the first order. He sees folly under every disguise, and knows how to raise a laugh at her expense, either by grave humor or more sportive raillery. He is alive to every feeling of compassion, and spares none that violate the laws of humanity. . . . . The great defect of the present poem is a want of unity of design. It is composed of reflections that seem independent of one another, and there is no particular subject either discussed or aimed at. . . . . An imagination like Mr. Cowper's is not to be controlled and confined within the bounds that criticism prescribes. We cannot, however, avoid remarking that his Muse sometimes passes too suddenly from grave and serious remonstrance to irony and ridicule. The heart that is harrowed and alarmed in one line is not prepared to smile in the next. . . . . But the defects |