NOTE.
Of the notes inserted in the first edition I have retained only those which appeared to me absolutely necessary in explanation of the text. Among the notes omitted, was one appended to Book I., which defended at some length, and by numerous examples, two alleged peculiarities of style or mannerism:—I content myself here with stating briefly—
1st.—That in this work (as in my later ones generally) I have adopted what appears to me to have been the practice of Gray (judging from the editions of his Poems revised by himself), in the use of the capital initial. I prefix it—
First, to every substantive that implies a personification; thus War, Fame, &c., may in one line take the small initial as mere nouns, and in another line the capital initial, to denote that they are intended as personifications. This rule is clear—all personifications may be said to represent proper names: love, with a small l, means but a passion or affection; with a large L, Love represents some mythological power that presides over the passion or affection, and is as much a proper name as Venus, Eros, Camdeo, &c.
Secondly, I prefix the capital in those rare instances in which an adjective is used as a noun; as the Unknown, the Obscure,[D] &c. The capital here but answers the use of all printed inventions, in simplifying to the reader the author's meaning. If it be printed "he passed through the obscure," the reader naturally looks for the noun that is to follow the adjective; if the capital initial be used, as "He passed through the Obscure," the eye conveys to the mind without an effort the author's intention to use the adjective as a substantive.
Thirdly, I prefix the capital initial where it serves to give an individual application to words that might otherwise convey only a general meaning; for instance—
"Or his who loves the madding Nymphs to lead
O'er the Fork'd Hill.
that is, the Forked Hill, par emphasis,—Parnassus.
The use of the capital in these instances seems to me warranted by common sense, and the best authorities in the minor niceties of our language.
With regard to the other point referred to in the omitted note, I would observe, that I have deliberately used the freest licence in the rapid change of tense from past to present, or vice versâ; as a privilege essential to all ease, spirit, force, and variety, in narrative poetry; and warranted by the uniform practice of Pope, Dryden, and Milton. I subjoin a few examples:—
"So prayed they, innocent, and to their thoughts
Firm peace recover'd soon and wonted calm;
On to their morning's rural work they haste,
Among sweet dews and flowers, where any row
Of fruit-trees over-woody reach'd too far
Their pamper'd boughs, and needed hands to check
Fruitless embraces; or they led the vine
To wed the elm."
Milton's Paradise Lost, Book v., from line 209 to 216.
Here the tense changes three times.
Again:—
"Straight knew him all the bands
Of angels under watch, and to his state
And to his message high in honour rise,
For on some message high they guess'd him bound."
Ibid., Book v., from line 288 to 291.
"Thus while he spoke, the virgin from the ground
Upstarted fresh; already closed the wound;
And unconcern'd for all she felt before,
Precipitates her flight along the shore:
The hell-hounds as ungorged with flesh and blood
Pursue their prey and seek their wonted food;
The fiend remounts his courser, mends his pace,
And all the vision vanish'd from the place."
Dryden's Theod. and Honor.
Pope—not without reason esteemed for verbal correctness and precision—far exceeds all in his lavish use of this privilege, as one or two quotations will amply suffice to show.
"She said, and to the steeds approaching near
Drew from his seat the martial charioteer;
The vigorous Power[E] the trembling car ascends,
Fierce for revenge, and Diomed attends:
The groaning axle bent beneath the load," &c.
Pope's Iliad, Book v.
"Pierced through the shoulder first Decopis fell,
Next Eunomus and Thoon sunk to Hell.
Chersidamas, beneath the navel thrust,
Falls prone to earth, and grasps the bloody dust;
Cherops, the son of Hipposus, was near;
Ulysses reach'd him with the fatal spear;
But to his aid his brother Socus flies,
Socus the brave, the generous, and the wise;
Near as he drew the warrior thus began," &c.
Ibid.
"Behind, unnumber'd multitudes attend
To flank the navy and the shores defend.
Full on the front the pressing Trojans bear,
And Hector first came towering to the war.
Phœbus himself the rushing battle led,
A veil of clouds involves his radiant head—
The Greeks expect the shock; the clamours rise
From different parts and mingle in the skies
Dire was the hiss of darts by heaven flung,
And arrows, leaping from the bowstring, sung:
These drink the life of generous warrior slain—
Those guiltless fall and thirst for blood in vain."
Pope's Odyssey.
In the last quotation, brief as it is, the tense changes six times.
I ask indulgence of the reader if I take this occasion to add a very short comment upon three objections to this poem which have been brought under my notice:—
1—that it contains too much learning; 2—that it abounds too much with classical allusions; 3—that it indulges in rare words or archaisms.
I wish I could plead guilty to the honourable charge that it contains too much learning. A distinguished critic has justly observed, that the greatest obstacle which the modern writer attempting an Epic would have to encounter, would be, in his utter impossibility to attain the requisite learning. For an Epic ought to embody the whole learning of the period in which it is composed; and in the present age that is beyond the aspiration of the most erudite scholar or the profoundest philosopher. Still, any attempt at an Heroic Poem must at least comprise all the knowledge which the nature of the subject will admit, and we cannot but observe that the greatest narrative poems are those in which the greatest amount of learning is contained. Beyond all comparison the most learned poems that exist, in reference to the age in which they are composed, are the "Iliad" and "Odyssey;" next to them, the "Paradise Lost;" next to that, the "Æneid," in which the chief charm of the six latter books is in that "exquisite erudition," which Müller so discriminately admires in Virgil; and after these, in point of learning, come perhaps the "Divine Comedy," and the "Fairy Queen." So that I have only to regret my deficiency of learning, rather than to apologize for the excess of it.
With regard to the classical allusions which I have permitted myself, I might shelter my practice under the mantles of our great masters in heroic song—Milton and Spenser; but in fact such admixture of the Classic with the Gothic muse is so essentially the characteristic of the minstrelsy of the middle ages, that without a liberal use of the same combination, I could not have preserved the colouring proper to my subject. And, indeed, I think the advice which one of the most elegant of modern critics has given to the painter, is equally applicable to the poet:—
"Non te igitur lateant antiqua numismata, gemmæ,
Quodque refert specie veterum post sæcula mentem;
Splendidior quippe ex illis assurgit imago
Magnaque se rerum facies aperit meditanti."[F]
Lastly, the moderate use of archaisms has always been deemed admissible in a narrative poem of some length, and rather perhaps an ornament than a defect, where the action of the poem is laid in remote antiquity. And I may add that not only the revival of old, but the invention of new words, if sparingly resorted to, is among the least contestable of poetic licences—a licence freely recognized by Horace, elaborately maintained by Dryden, and tacitly sanctioned, age after age, by the practice of every poet by whom our language has been enriched. I have certainly not abused either of these privileges, for while I have only adopted three new words of foreign derivation, I do not think there are a dozen words in the whole poem which can be considered archaisms: and in the three or four instances in which such words are not to be found in Milton, Shakspere, or Spenser, they are taken from the Saxon element of our language, and are still popularly used in the northern parts of the island, in which that Saxon element is more tenaciously preserved.
If these matters do not seem to the reader of much importance, in reference to a poem of this design and extent, I will own to him confidentially, that I incline to his opinion. But I have met with no objections to the general composition of this work, more serious than those to which the above remarks are intended to reply. Some objections to special lines or stanzas which appeared to me prompted by a juster criticism, or which occurred to myself in reperusal, I have carefully endeavoured in this edition to remove.
FOOTNOTES
[A] Rien n'est plus commun dans la poésie provençale que l'allégorie; seulement elle est un jeu-d'esprit an lieu d'être une action.... Une autre analogie me parait plus spoutanée qu'imitée—la poésie des troubadours qu'on suppose frivole, a souvent retracée des sentiments graves et touchants," &c.—Villemain, Tableau du Moyen Age.
[B] In the more historical view of the position of Arthur, I have, however, represented it such as it really appears to have been,—not as the sovereign of all Britain, and the conquering invader of Europe (according to the groundless fable of Geoffrey of Monmouth), but as the patriot Prince of South Wales, resisting successfully the invasion of his own native soil, and accomplishing the object of his career in preserving entire the nationality of his Welsh countrymen. In thus contracting his sphere of action to the bounds of rational truth, his dignity, both moral and poetic, is obviously enhanced. Represented as the champion of all Britain against the Saxons, his life would have been but a notorious and signal failure; but as the preserver of the Cymrian Nationality—of that part of the British population which took refuge in Wales, he has a claim to the epic glory of success.
It is for this latter reason that I have gone somewhat out of the strict letter of history, in the poetical licence by which the Mercians are represented as Arthur's principal enemies (though, properly speaking, the Mercian kingdom was not then founded): the alliance between the Mercian and the Welsh, which concludes the Poem—is at least not contrary to the spirit of History—since in very early periods such amicable bonds between the Welsh and the Mercians were contracted, and the Welsh, on the whole, were on better terms with those formidable borderers than with the other branches of the Saxon family.
[C] Southey has used it in the "Lay of the Laureate" and "The Poet's Pilgrimage,"—not his best-known and most considerable poems.
[D] So Pope, "Spencer himself affects the Obsolete."
[E] In the corrupt and thoughtless mode of printing now in vogue, Power is of course printed with a small p, and the sense of the clearest of all English poets instantly becomes obscure.
"The vigorous power the trembling car ascends."
It is not till one has read the line twice over that one perceives "the power" means "the God," which, when printed "the Power," is obvious at a glance.
[F] Du Fresnoy de Arte Graphicâ.