Read Ebook: A History of English Poetry: an Unpublished Continuation by Warton Thomas Baine Rodney M Editor

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 114 lines and 19220 words, and 3 pages

Editor: Rodney M. Baine

The Augustan Reprint Society

THOMAS WARTON

Edited, with an Introduction, by Rodney M. Baine

Publication Number 39

Los Angeles William Andrews Clark Memorial Library University of California 1953

GENERAL EDITORS

ASSISTANT EDITOR

ADVISORY EDITORS

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

INTRODUCTION

Joseph Warton appears, however, to have touched up the present continuation, for a few expansions seem to be in his script rather than in his brother's. It is difficult to be positive in the discrimination of hands here, as Thomas Warton's hand in this manuscript is quite irregular. Pens of varying thicknesses were used; black ink was used for the text and red ink for footnotes, and one note was pencilled. Moreover, certain passages appear to have been written during periods of marked infirmity or haste and are legible only with difficulty if at all. In any case, those additions which were presumably made by Joseph Warton merely expand the original version; they do not alter or modify any of Thomas Warton's statements.

In the text of the present edition the expansions which appear to be in Joseph Warton's hand are placed within parentheses, which were not used for punctuation in the text of the manuscript itself. Because of the difficulties of reproduction, all small capitals have been translated into lover case italics.

This continuation, discovered by the editor among the Warton papers in the Moberly Library at Winchester College, is here published with the kind permission of the Right Honorable Harold T. Baker and Sir George Henry Gates, retired and present Wardens of Winchester College, and of the Fellows of the College. The editor is indebted also to the Reverend Mr. J. d'E. Firth, Assistant Master and Chaplain; and Mr. C. E. R. Claribut and Mr. J. M. G. Blakiston, past and present Assistant Fellows' Librarians. The Richmond Area University Center contributed a generous grant-in-aid.

Rodney M. Baine

The University of Richmond

Richmond, Virginia

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY: AN UNPUBLISHED CONTINUATION

I close my prolix review of these pieces by remarking, that as our old plays have been assembled and exhibited to the public in one uniform view, so a collection of our old satires and epigrams would be a curious and useful publication. Even the dull and inelegant productions, of a remote period which have real Life for their theme, become valuable and important by preserving authentic pictures of antient popular manners: by delineating the gradations of vice and folly, they furnish new speculation to the moral historian, and at least contribute to the illustration of writers of greater consequence.

No species of verse appears to have been more eagerly and universally cultivated by the Italian poets, from the fourteenth century to the present times. Even the gravest of their epic and tragic writers have occasionally sported In these lighter bays. But perhaps the most elegant Italian sonnets are yet to be found in Dante. Petrarch's sonnets are too learned and refined. Of Dante's compositions in this style I cannot give a better idea, than in Mr. Hayley's happy translation of Dante's beautiful sonnet to his friend Guido Calvacanti , written in his youth, and probably before the year 1300.

So that no changes of the shifting sky No stormy terrors of the watery waste, Might bar our course, but heighten still our taste Of sprightly joy, and of our social tie:

Then, that my Lucy, Lucy fair and free, With those soft nymphs on whom your souls are bent, The kind magician might to us convey,

To talk of love throughout the livelong day: And that each fair might be as well content As I in truth believe our hearts would be.

But I do not think they are either very sweet, or much tinctured with the Italian manner. The following is one of the best; which I the rather chuse to recite, as it exemplifies his mode of compliment, and contains the writer's opinion of Spenser's use of obsolete words.

Let others sing of knights & Paladines, In aged accents, and untimely words, Paint shadowes in imaginarie lines, Which well the reach of their high wit records;

But I must sing of thee, and those faire eyes Autentique shall my verse in time to come, When yet th' vnborne shall say "Loe, where she lyes, Whose beauty made Him speak that els was dombe."

These are the arkes, the trophies I erect, That fortifie thy name against old age, And these thy sacred vertues must protect Against the Darke, & Times consuming rage. Though th' errour of my youth they shall discouer, Suffise, they shew I liu'd, and was thy louer.

But, to say nothing more, whatever wisdom there may be in allowing that love was the errour of his youth, there was no great gallantry in telling this melancholy truth to the lady.

Daniel is a multifarious writer, and will be mentioned again. I shall add nothing more of him here than the following anecdote. When he was a young student at Magdalen-Hall in Oxford, about the year 1580, notwithstanding the disproportion of his years, and his professed aversion to the severer acadamical studies, the Dean and Canons of Christchurch, by a public capitular act now remaining, gave Daniel a general invitation to their table at dinner, merely on account of the liveliness of his conversation.

Her yellow locks exceed the beaten gold, Her sparkling eyes in heau'n a place deserue; Her forehead high and faire, of comelie mould, Her wordes are musical, of syluer sound, &c. Her eye-browe hangs like Iris in the skies, Her eagle's nose is straite, of stately frame; On either cheeke a rose and lillie lyes; Her breathe is sweet perfvme, or holie flame: Her lippes more red than any coral-stone, &c. Her breast transparent is, like cristal rock, Her fingers long, fit for Apollo's lute, Her slipper such, as Momus dare not mock, Her virtues are so great, as make me mute, &c.

But the following is in a more intelligible and easy strain, and has lent some of its graces to the storehouse of modern compliment. The thought on which the whole turns is, I believe, original, for I do not recollect it in the Italian poets.

Ye tradeful Merchants, that with weary toyle, Doe seek most precious things, to make your gaine, And both the Indias of their treasure spoile; What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine? For lo, my Love doth in herselfe containe All this worlds riches that may farre be found: If saphyres, loe, her eyes be saphyres plaine; If rubies, loe, her lips be rubies sound; If pearles, her teeth be pearles both pure & round; If iuorie, her forehead iuorie were ; If gold, her locks are finest gold on ground; If siluer, her faire hands are siluer sheene: But that which fairest is, but few behold, Her mind adornd with vertues manifold.

How like a winter has my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness every where! And yet this time, remov'd, was summer's time; The teeming autumn big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, &c. For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And thou away, the very birds are mute: Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a chear, That leaues look pale, dreading the winter's near.

In the next, he pursues the same argument in the same strain.

From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim, Has put a sprite of youth in euery thing; That heauy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, Nor praise the deep vermilion of the rose: They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after thee, thou pattern of all those! Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow, I with these did play.

More flowres I noted, yet I none could see, But sweet or colour it had stolne from thee.

Some talk of Ganymede th' Idalian boy, And some of faire Adonis make their boast; Some talke of him whom louely Leda lost And some of Echo's loue that was so coy, &c.

Afterwards, falling in love with a lady, he closes these sonnets with a palinode.

NOTES TO THE TEXT

Warton's notes, which in the manuscript are designated by letters or symbols, have been numbered. Brackets enclose all the editor's corrections, expansions, and comments. The parentheses are Warton's.

See supr. iii. .

In quarto.

I have discovered, says Mr Steevens, in a Letter to me, that Watson's Sonnets, which were printed without date, were entered on the books of the Stationer's Company, in 1581: under the Title of, "Watsons Passions, manifesting the true frenzy of Love". The Entry is to Gabriel Cawood, who afterwards published them. Ad Lectorem Hexasticon is prefixed "Green's Tullie's Love", & subscribed "Tho. Watson. Oxon."--

There is Sonnet by Spenser, never printed with his works, prefixed to Gabriel Harveys "Foure Letters, &c. Lond. 1592." I have much pleasure in drawing this little piece from obscurity, not only as it bears the name of Spenser, but as it is at the same time a natural unaffected effusion of friendship ... .

Sonn. xliii.

Sonn. xv.

In 16mo. With vignettes. Never entered in the Register of the Stationers.

See supr. vol. iii. .

It begins thus.

Nights were short, and daies were long, Blossoms on the hauthorns hong; Philomel, night-musickes kinge, Tolde the comming of the springe, &c.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet