The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Poets of the Eighteenth Century by Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

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Title: English Poets of the Eighteenth Century

Author: Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

Release Date: November 21, 2003 [EBook #10161]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH POETS ***

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ENGLISH POETS

OF THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

SELECTED AND EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

ERNEST BERNBAUM

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

1918

PREFACE

The text of this collection of poetry is authentic and not bowdlerized. The general reader will, I hope, be gratified to find that its pages display no pedantic or scholastic traits. His pleasure in the poetry itself will not be distracted by a marginal numbering of the lines; by index-figures and footnotes; or by antiquated peculiarities of spelling, capitalization, and elision. Except where literal conventions are essential to the poet's purpose,—as in The Castle of Indolence, The Schoolmistress, or Chatterton's poems,—I have followed modern usage. Dialect words are explained in the glossary; and the student who may wish to consult the context of any passage will find the necessary references in the unusually full table of contents. Whenever the title of a poem gives too vague a notion of its substance, or whenever its substance is miscellaneous, I have supplied [bracketed] captions for the extracts; except for these, there is nothing on the pages of the text besides the poets' own words.

Originality is not the proper characteristic of an anthologist, and in the choice of extracts I have rarely indulged my personal likings when they conflicted with time-honored preferences; yet this anthology,—the first published in a projected series of four or five volumes comprising the English poets from Elizabethan to Victorian times,—has certain minor features that may be deemed objectionably novel. Much the greater portion of the volume has of course, as usual, been given to those poems (by Pope, Thomson, Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, Crabbe, Cowper, and Burns) which have been loved or admired from their day to our own. But I have ventured to admit also a few which, though forgotten to-day, either were popular in the eighteenth century or possess marked historical significance. In other words, I present not solely what the twentieth century considers enduringly great in the poetry of the eighteenth, but also a little—proportionately very little—of what the eighteenth century itself (perhaps mistakenly) considered interesting. This secondary purpose accounts for my inclusion of passages from such neglected authors as Mandeville, Brooke, Day, and Darwin. The passages of this sort are too infrequent to annoy him who reads for aesthetic pleasure only; and to the student they will illustrate movements in the spirit of the age which would otherwise be unrepresented, and which, as the historical introduction points out, are an integral part of its thought and feeling. The inclusion of passages from "Ossian," though almost unprecedented, requires, I think, no defense against the literal-minded protest that they are written in "prose."

Students of poetical history will find it illuminating to read the passages in chronological order (irrespective of authorship); and in order to facilitate this method I have given in the table of contents the date of each poem.

E. B.

CONTENTS

JOHN POMFRET THE CHOICE (1700)

DANIEL DEFOE
  THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN (1701),
      ll. 119-132, 189-228, 312-321
  A HYMN TO THE PILLORY (1703),
      STANZAS 1, 3, 5-6, 28-30

JOSEPH ADDISON
  THE CAMPAIGN (1704),
      ll. 259-292
  DIVINE ODE (1712)

MATTHEW PRIOR TO A CHILD OF QUALITY (1704) TO A LADY (1704) THE DYING HADRIAN TO HIS SOUL (1704) A BETTER ANSWER (1718)

BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE
  THE GRUMBLING HIVE (1705, 1714),
      ll. 1-6, 26-52, 149-156, 171-186,
          198-239, 327-336, 377-408

ISAAC WATTS THE HAZARD OF LOVING THE CREATURES (1706) THE DAY OF JUDGMENT (1709) O GOD, OUR HELP IN AGES PAST (1719) A CRADLE HYMN (1719)

ALEXANDER POPE
  AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM (1711),
      ll. 1-18, 46-51, 68-91, 118-180,
          215-423, 560-577, 612-642
  THE RAPE OF THE LOCK (1714),
      CANTOS II AND III
  TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD, BOOK VI (1717),
      ll. 562-637
  AN ESSAY ON MAN (1733-34),
      EPISTLE I; 11, 1-18; IV, 93-204, 361-398
  MORAL ESSAYS, EPISTLE II (1735),
      ll. 1-16, 87-180, 199-210, 231-280
  EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT (1735),
  ll. 1-68, 115-214, 261-304, 334-367, 389-419
  FIRST EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE IMITATED (1737),
  ll. 23-138, 161-296, 338-347
  EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES (1738), DIALOGUE II, ll. 208-223
  THE DUNCIAD (1728-43), BOOK i, ll. 28-84, 107-134; iv. 627-656

LADY WINCHILSEA TO THE NIGHTINGALE (1713) A NOCTURNAL REVERIE (1713)

JOHN GAY
  RURAL SPORTS (1713), ll. 91-106
  THE SHEPHERD'S WEEK: THURSDAY; OR, THE SPELL (1714),
  ll. 5-14, 49-60, 83-136
  TRIVIA (1716), BOOK II, ll. 25-64
  SWEET WILLIAM'S FAREWELL TO BLACK-EYED SUSAN (1720)
  MY OWN EPITAPH (1720)

SAMUEL CROXALL
  THE VISION (1715), ll. 41-56

THOMAS TICKELL
  ON THE DEATH OF MR. ADDISON (1721), ll. 9-46, 67-82

THOMAS PARNELL
  A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH (1721), ll. 1-70
  A HYMN OF CONTENTMENT (1721)

ALLAN RAMSAY
  THE GENTLE SHEPHERD: PATIE AND ROGER (1721),
  ll. 1-52, 59-68, 135-202

AMBROSE PHILIPS TO MISS CHARLOTTE PULTENEY, IN HER MOTHER'S ARMS (1725)

JOHN DYER GRONGAR HILL (1726)

GEORGE BERKELEY
  VERSES ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND
    LEARNING IN AMERICA (WR. c. 1726; PUBL. 1752)

JAMES THOMSON
  THE SEASONS (1726-30)
    WINTER, ll. 223-358
    SUMMER, ll. 1630-1645
    SPRING, ll. 1-113, 846-876
    AUTUMN, ll. 950-1003
  A HYMN
  RULE, BRITANNIA (1740)
  THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE (1748), STANZAS 1-11, 20, 57-59

EDWARD YOUNG
  LOVE OF FAME: SATIRES V-VI (1727-28),
    SATIRE V, ll. 227-246, 469-484; VI, 393-462
  NIGHT-THOUGHTS (1742-45), NIGHT I, ll. 68-90;
    III, 325-342; IV, 201-233; VII, 253-323

ANONYMOUS THE HAPPY SAVAGE (1732)

SOAME JENYNS
  AN