I have permitted myself to dwell a little on these characteristics of Cleveland, although the great movement which we are considering swept by him. It swept still more impetuously past another man, who, being born a generation later, attempted to move the body of English poetry when it had gained a still greater impetus in the classical direction. Of Dr Robert Wild, author of the Iter Boreale, extremely little is known. He was a Nonconformist divine, and a free lance in politics, ready to attack either side on a slight provocation. Although in the nature of his talent he closely resembled Cleveland, they were at the extreme ends of opposite camps, and Wild's chief occupation was the defence of the Presbyterians, as it was Cleveland's chief delight to attack them. ejaculations" of Alexander Radcliffe, a very clever but most disreputable literary soldier of the Restoration. One of his songs, in The Ramble, 1682, runs thus:— "Away with these fellows' contriving, They've spoilt all our pleasant design, This sounds like a far away premonition of Praed. Indeed, it seems to have been a couplet of Cleveland's: "Had Cain been Scot God would have changed his doom, Not forc'd him wander, but confin'd him home'," which aroused the indignation that brought forth Wild's most successful verses, the Iter Boreale. During the anarchical protectorate of Richard Cromwell, Wild was certainly the most popular living English poet. His verse, full of local and momentary allusions, was inspired by the rage and doubt that occupied men's minds, and when at last he celebrated the winter journey of General Monk in 1659 in a long poem, which was really a manifesto against Lambert and the Cabal, his popularity among the party now in the ascendant was overwhelming. The Iter Boreale is a deliberate attempt, as I read it, to foist Monk2 upon the English nation as a successor to Oliver Cromwell, perhaps as a to Charles I., with a happy side successor 1 From The Rebel Scot. The influence of this and other satires of Cleveland upon the style of Dryden deserves close attention. "Lord! what a godly thing is want of shirts!" is an example of pure pre-Drydenic Dryden. But Marvel was Cleveland's most direct pupil in satire. 2 "MONK! the great Monk! that syllable outshines Plantagenet's bright name, or Constantine's.” Iter Boreale, ii. 21, 22. suggestion that if this is not welcome to the public, "We have another Charles to fetch from Spain." Wild, in this boisterous and vigorous poem, shows himself the immediate harbinger of the Restoration. The pieces by which during ten years past he had won the favour of the public have, some of them, a more genuine poetical merit. His writing is mostly in heroic couplets, of the kind Cleveland had used, less straggling and licentious in form than the old verse, but full of abbreviations and rude transpositions of accent'. He was not ignorant of the great changes which were being introduced into English prosody, nor did he wholly reject them. He does not, so far as I remember, mention any poets of the romantic school; but he speaks of Denham, Cowley, and Davenant in terms of surly respect, and acknowledges their poetic supremacy, even while he satirizes them, while for Waller,— 1 These peculiarities are easily exemplified. For instance: "Yet, yet he liv'd, stout heart, he liv'd to be Wars, blazing stars, torches, which Heaven nev'r burns Wild On the Death of Mr Calamy. "great poet and true prophet too "—he reserves an enthusiasm which is not common to his nature. By far the most pleasing of Wild's pieces, however, is a lyrical record of his early failure in life, his education at Cambridge serving only, in the absence of patronage and preferment, to accentuate the miseries of enforced idleness and poverty. It is a curious picture of life under the Commonwealth, and it is written in a romantic and singular measure', with great earnestness of feeling; among the literature of the age I know nothing that quite resembles it : "In a melancholy study, Methought my Muse grew muddy; And costly breeding, I felt, but could find no pelf; Into learnèd rags I've rent my plush and satin, And now am fit to beg In Hebrew, Greek and Latin; Instead of Aristotle, Would I had got a patten. Alas! poor scholar! whither wilt thou go? 1 Imitated twenty years afterwards by Cleland in his ingenious lyric Hallo my fancy. Cambridge, now I must leave thee, And follow fate, College hopes do deceive me; I oft expected To have been elected, But desert is reprobate. Masters of colleges Have no common graces, And they that have fellowships Have but commonplaces, And those that scholars are Must have handsome faces: Alas! poor scholar! whither wilt thou go? I have bow'd, I have bended, And all in hope One day to be befriended: I have preached, I have printed To please our English Pope; I worship't towards the East, But the Sun doth now forsake me; I find that I am falling, The Northern winds do shake me: Would I had been upright For bowing now will break me; Alas! poor scholar! whither wilt thou go? |