THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH.* THE authors of the two handbooks
already published in this series had one advantage denied to Professor Herford. Dryden was indisputably the chief literary figure of the age covered by Dr. Garnett, and Pope had no rival to dispute his pre-eminence among the Queen Anne men. It is not so certain that in public estimation Wordsworth stands above all his fellows during the thirty-two years between 1798 and 1830 included in this volume.
In the history of English literature they are years of supreme importance, and we must go back to the days of Shakespeare to find a period so fruitful. This little space of time sufficed to yield the golden harvests of Wordsworth and Coleridge, of Shelley and Keats, of Byron and Scott, of Jane Austen and Charles Lamb, to say nothing of a score of famous authors who live, and will probably continue to live, in the literature of their country. To deal concisely, and yet in a measure adequately, with men like these is a difficult task, but it is one which Dr. Herford has undertaken with an ample share of knowledge. He gathers his illustrations from all quarters, and writes with the ease of an author who has mastered his materials.
A volume designed for literary students which attempts to estimate the place in literature of more than a hundred prose- writers and poets must inevitably contain comments open to discussion and dissent, but it is not without hearty appre- oiation of the author's comprehensive knowledge of his subject that we venture to question in a few instances his discretion and judgment. In the preface he writes :— "Romanticism is the organising conception of the present volume. The introduction attempts to give a short view of the
• The Age of Wordsworth. By C. H. Herford, Litt.D. "Handbooks of English Literature," edited by Profersor lilies. London: George Beg and Bons.
various phases of the Romantic movement in Europe. To any reader who finds it abstruse, I would plead in answer that no account of Romanticism and all that it involves can possibly be elementary."
And he adds that in successive chapters- " The evolution of Romantic or quasi-Romantic impulses is followed through the several spheres of literature, from the rudimentary hints of them discernible in scientific or political speculation to their assured dominance in criticism and the novel, and their all but exclusive sway in poetry."
No doubt in a history of literature the abstruse criticism for which the Professor pleads might be justly demanded, but Romanticism in its relation to the "Age of Wordsworth" might surely be explained in a simpler and less elaborate way. The broader features of the subject can be readily apprehended by students, and these would have sufficed to suggest the line of thought pursued throughout the volume.
Professor Herford justly observes that a literary movement "so vast and manifold as Romanticism could not possess any quite definite and precise characteristic of style common to all its phases," and after alluding to the famous distinction of Romantic and Classic so dear to the Schlegels and Tieek,
he adds that— "The permanent value of the distinction in literary history may be expressed by saying that style is Romantic in proportion as it presents its object not simply and directly, but through a glamour of imagery and emotion which, according to the quality of the poet, obscures or reveals The 'romantic' poet sees all things in the light of their larger relations, transcends distinc- tions, expresses by figure and metaphor ; or again, mingles a lyric personality in the tale he tells, or the picture he paints, breaking its outlines with passion, or embroidering them with fancy ! "
The definition is sufficiently exact, but inasmuch as all great poets possess in a measure this "glamour of imagery and emotion," and express themselves by figure and metaphor, it follows that only poets of an inferior order can be wholly destitute of this poetical fervour. In no poet is it more intense than in Wordsworth, and if in lyrical expression he is surpassed by Coleridge and Shelley, if at times, as Scott said, he creeps on all fours, and does not know that he is creeping, Wordsworth, when his singing - robes are on, reaches a height of imaginative thought beyond the range of those poets. It is fitting therefore, since a poet is to take precedence, that Wordsworth's name should stand foremost in this volume. Yet to a vast number of readers the thirty-two years surveyed by Dr. Herford are pre-eminently the age of Scott. Sir Walter knew and con- fessed his inferiority to Wordsworth as a poet, but as a man of letters he holds a more prominent position not only for the splendour and versatility of his genius as an imaginative writer, but for the amazing influence he has exercised both at home and abroad. Wordsworth is to be taken to the heart in our most thoughtful and receptive hours, he is not for all moods or for all men; Scott, who speaks to all classes, satisfies the hours of recreation and invigorates as much as he delights. The author, considering the brief space at his command, takes a fair and discriminative estimate of this "wondrous potentate." Very just are the remarks that
James is "Scott's masterpiece in historical portraiture," and that Rebecca, "a noble and fascinating creation," is "beside Jeanie Deans as one of Schiller's women to one of Shake- speare's," and when the Professor observes that Scott illustrates "no ideas and tackles no problems," we may add that the suggested defect is a merit for which all his readers should be thankful. We think, however, that
he does not do justice to the poetical imagination which inspires Scott's finest work, and we entirely dissent from the statement that he was "the last and greatest of the race of realists and hamourists who created the English novel,'. that he crowds his canvas with details, leaving nothing to the reader's imagination, and that " he is no more of a mystic than Fielding." To our thinking, the imagination of a great poet is as prominent in Scott as his realism and his humour. These two qualities be had in common with Fielding, but such characters as Madge Wildfire, Elspeth in The Antiquary, the old women who lay out the corpse in The Bride of Lammer- moor, and such scenes as are depicted in Wandering Willie's tale and in The Abbot, when Mary's passionate remorse engulfs her like a stormy sea,—these and many similar repre- sentations or persons in the Waverley novels are poetical creations that have their source in Romanticism, and are alien to the genius of Fielding. Yet Dr. Herford will have it that Mrs. Radcliffe, who invented mysteries to explain them away, was more modern than Scott, who "wholly lacked" the sense of mystery !
Writing of Keble, the author says that in him "we touch the furthest confines of the school of Scott." For Sir Walter's genius this poet had, indeed, the highest admiration; but despite what may not inaptly be called Keble's decorative style, he owes, perhaps, more to Wordsworth, who taught him how to look at Nature, while Southey also, as Dean Stanley observed, "kindled his flame and coloured his diction." The Professor thinks that among the greater poets of his time Byron alone learnt from Scott, and he adds with equal truth that, like Shelley and Keats, he had drunk of Wordsworth also, and "became half-Wordsworthian among the mountains." Of Byron the Professor's judgment is likely to be the final one, —namely, that the quality of his imagination is rhetorical, and that with boundless resources of invention, rhetoric, passion, wit, fancy, he is not in the highest sense a creator. There is little in the pages about Shelley, whose "pictures are third-period Turners," which calls for comment; but the criticism that Keats's "command of the springs of beauty was certainly wider than Wordsworth's " is far from justified by the assertion that "he is a glorious 'denizen' of the Hellenic world which Wordsworth, save for one noble song, committed to the dead past, and of the media3val world in which he was absolutely strange."
Professor Herford's volume is so fall of suggestiveness that the reviewer is tempted to linger over its pages, now with a shrug of dissent and now with a note of admiration. We must be content, however, to observe in conclusion that the modest title of " Handbook " is very far from doing justice to the value of The Age of Wordsworth. As a guide to students, and as a companion for all intelligent readers, the volume should be widely welcome.
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