[783] Heinsius, iv. 150. Bouterwek, ix. 381. Retrospective Review, vol. x.
German hymns. 15. The Germans, constitutionally a devout people, were never so much so as in this first age of protestantism. And this, in combination with their musical temperament, displayed itself in the peculiar line of hymns. No other nation has so much of this poetry. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of religious songs was reckoned at 33,000, and that of their authors at 500. Those of Luther have been more known than the rest; they are hard and rude, but impressive and deep. But this poetry, essentially restrained in its flight, could not develop the creative powers of genius.[784]
[784] Bouterwek. Heinsius.
Theuerdanks of Pfintzing. 16. Among the few poems of this age none has been so celebrated as the Theuerdanks of Melchior Pfintzing, secretary to the emperor Maximilian; a poem at one time attributed to the master, whose praises it records, instead of the servant. This singular work, published originally in 1517, with more ornament of printing and delineation than was usual, is an allegory, with scarce any spirit of invention or language; wherein the knight Theuerdanks, and his adventures in seeking the marriage of the princess Ehrreich, represent the memorable union of Maximilian with the heiress of Burgundy. A small number of German poets are commemorated by Bouterwek and Heinsius, superior no doubt in ability to Pfintzing, but so obscure in our eyes, and so little extolled by their countrymen, that we need only refer to their pages.
English poetry. Lyndsay. 17. In the earlier part of this period of thirty years, we can find very little English poetry. Sir David Lyndsay, an accomplished gentleman and scholar of Scotland, excels his contemporary Skelton in such qualities, if not in fertility of genius. Though inferior to Dunbar in vividness of imagination and in elegance of language, he shows a more reflecting and philosophical mind; and certainly his satire upon James V. and his court is more poignant than the other’s panegyric upon the Thistle. But in the ordinary style of his versification he seems not to rise much above the prosaic and tedious rhymers of the fifteenth century. His descriptions are as circumstantial without selection as theirs; and his language, partaking of a ruder dialect, is still more removed from our own. The poems of Lyndsay were printed in 1540, and are among the very first-fruits of the Scottish press; but one of these, the Complaint of the Papingo, had appeared in London two years before. Lyndsay’s poetry is said to have contributed to the Reformation in Scotland; in which, however, he is but like many poets of his own and preceding times. The clergy were an inexhaustible theme of bitter reproof.
Wyatt and Surrey. 18. “In the latter end of king Henry VIII.’s reign,” says Puttenham in his Art of Poesie, “sprung up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder, and Henry, Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, who, having travailed into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and stile of the Italian poesie, as novices newly crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie, from that it had bene before, and for that cause may justly be sayd the first reformers of our English meeter and stile. In the same time or not long after was the Lord Nicolas Vaux, a man of much facilitie in vulgar makings.”[785] The poems of Sir John Wyatt, who died in 1544, and of the Earl of Surrey, executed in 1547, were published in 1557, with a few by other hands, in a scarce little book called Tottel’s Miscellanies. They were, however, in all probability known before; and it seems necessary to mention them in this period, as they mark an important epoch in English literature.
[785] Puttenham, book i. ch. 31.
19. Wyatt and Surrey, for we may best name them in the order of time, rather than of civil or poetical rank, have had recently the good fortune to be recommended by an editor of extensive acquaintance with literature, and of still superior taste. It will be a gratification to read the following comparison of the two poets, which I extract the more willingly that it is found in a publication somewhat bulky and expensive for the mass of readers.
Dr. Nott’s character of them. 20. “They were men whose minds may be said to have been cast in the same mould; for they differ only in those minuter shades of character which always must exist in human nature; shades of difference so infinitely varied, that there never were and never will be two persons in all respects alike. In their love of virtue and their instinctive hatred and contempt of vice, in their freedom from personal jealousy, in their thirst after knowledge and intellectual improvement, in nice observation of nature, promptitude to action, intrepidity and fondness for romantic enterprise, in magnificence and liberality, in generous support of others and high-spirited neglect of themselves, in constancy in friendship, and tender susceptibility of affections of a still warmer nature, and in everything connected with sentiment and principle, they were one and the same; but when those qualities branch out into particulars, they will be found in some respects to differ.
21. “Wyatt had a deeper and more accurate penetration into the characters of men than Surrey had; hence arises the difference in their satires. Surrey, in his satire against the citizens of London, deals only in reproach; Wyatt, in his, abounds with irony, and those nice touches of ridicule which make us ashamed of our faults, and therefore often silently effect amendment.[786] Surrey’s observation of nature was minute; but he directed it towards the works of nature in general, and the movements of the passions, rather than to the foibles and characters of men; hence it is that he excels in the description of rural objects, and is always tender and pathetic. In Wyatt’s Complaint we hear a strain of manly grief which commands attention, and we listen to it with respect for the sake of him that suffers. Surrey’s distress is painted in such natural terms, that we make it our own, and recognise in his sorrows emotions which we are conscious of having felt ourselves.