Love-whisp’ring woods and lute-resounding waves.
Of the poets contemporary with Pope only brief mention need be made from our present point of view. The poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea contain few instances and those of the ordinary type, a remark which is equally applicable to the poems of Parnell and John Phillips. John Gay (1685-1732), however, though he has many formations found in previous writers, has also some apparently original compound epithets which have a certain charm: “health-breathing breezes” (“A Devonshire Hill,” 10), “dew-besprinkled lawn” (“Fables,” 50), and “the lark high-poised in the air” (“Sweet William’s Farewell,” 13). More noteworthy is John Dyer; “Grongar Hill” has no very striking examples, but his blank verse poems have one or two not devoid of imaginative value: “soft-whispering waters” (“Ruins of Rome”) and “plaintive-echoing ruins” (ibid.); he has been able to dispense with the “classical” descriptive terms for hills and mountains (“shaggy,” “horrid,” “terrible,” etc.), and his new epithets reflect something at least of that changing attitude towards natural scenery, of which he was a foremost pioneer: “slow-climbing wilds” (“Fleece,” I), “cloud-dividing hill” (ibid.), and his irregular “snow-nodding crags” (ibid., IV).
Neglecting for the moment the more famous of the blank verse poems, we may notice Robert Blair’s “Grave” (published 1743), with a few examples, which mainly allow him to indulge in “classical” periphrases, such as the “sight-invigorating tube” for “a telescope.” David Mallet, who imitated his greater countryman James Thomson, has one or two noteworthy instances: “pines high-plumed” (“Amyntor,” II), “sweetly-pensive silence” (“Fragment”), “spring’s flower-embroidered mantle” (“Excursion,” I)—suggested, no doubt, by Milton’s “violet-embroidered”—“the morn sun-tinctured” (ibid.), compound epithets which betray the influence of the “Seasons.” Of the other minor blank verse poems their only aspect noteworthy from our present point of view is their comparative freedom from compounds of any description. John Armstrong’s “Art of Preserving Health” (1744) has only a few commonplace examples, and the same may be said of the earlier “The Chase” (1735) by William Somerville, though he finds a new epithet in his expression “the strand sea-lav’d” (Bk. III, 431). James Grainger’s “The Sugar Cane” (1764) shows a similar poverty, but the “green-stol’d Naiad, of the tinkling rill” (Canto I), “soft-stealing dews” (Canto III), “wild-careering clouds” (Canto II), and “cane-crowned vale” (Canto IV) are not without merit. These blank verse poems, avowedly modelled on Milton, might have been expected to attempt the “grandeur” of their original by high-sounding compounds; but it was rather by means of latinized words and constructions that the Miltonic imitators sought to emulate the grand style; and moreover, as Coleridge pointed out, Milton’s great epics are almost free from compound epithets, it being in the early poems that “a superfluity” is to be found.[171]
Before turning to the more famous blank verse poems of the first half of the eighteenth century it will be convenient at this point to notice one or two poets whose work represents, on its formal side at least, a continuation or development of the school of Pope. The first of these is Richard Savage, whose only poem of any real merit, “The Wanderer” (apart perhaps from “The Bastard”), appeared in 1729. He has only one or two new compounds of noun and part-participle, such as “the robe snow-wrought” (“The Wanderer,” I, 55), his favourite combination being that of an adjective or adverb with a participle, where, amidst numerous examples of obvious formations, he occasionally strikes out something new: “eyes dim-gleaming” (Canto I), “soft-creeping murmurs” (Canto V), etc. Of his other types the only other noteworthy compound is the “past-participle” epithet in his phrase “the amber-hued cascade” (Canto III), though a refreshing simplicity of expression is found in such lines as
The bull-finch whistles soft his flute-like note.
The poetical work of Dr. Johnson contains scarcely any instances of compounds, and none either newly invented or applied. “London” and “The Vanity of Human Wishes” have each not more than two or three instances, and even the four poems, in which he successively treats of the seasons, are almost destitute of compound epithets, “snow-topped cot” (“Winter”) being almost the only example.
There are many more instances of compound formations in the works of Oliver Goldsmith, most of which, like “nut-brown draughts” (“Deserted Village,” II), “sea-borne gales” (“Traveller,” 121), “grass-grown footway” (“Deserted Village,” 127), had either been long in the language, or had been used by earlier eighteenth century poets. There are, however, instances which testify to a desire to add to the descriptive power of the vocabulary; in “The Traveller” we find mention of “the hollow-sounding bittern” (l. 44), “the rocky-crested summits” (l. 85), “the yellow-blossomed vale” (l. 293), and the “willow-tufted bank” (l. 294). For the rest, Goldsmith’s original compounds are, like so many of this type, mere efforts at verbal condensation, as “shelter-seeking peasant” (“Traveller,” 162), “joy-pronouncing eye” (ibid., 10), etc.
Of the more famous blank verse poems of the eighteenth century the first and most important was “The Seasons” of James Thomson, which appeared in their original form between 1726 and 1730. The originality of style, for which Johnson praised him,[172] is perhaps to be seen especially in his use of compound formations; probably no other poet has ever used them so freely.
As a general rule, Thomson’s compounds fall into the well-defined groups already mentioned. He has a number of noun plus noun formations (Type I), where the first element has usually a purely adjectival value; “patriot-council” (“Autumn,” 98), “harvest-treasures” (ibid., 1217), as well as a few which allow him to indulge in grandiose periphrasis, as in the “monarch-swain” (“Summer,” 495) for a shepherd with his “sceptre-crook” (ibid., 497). These are all commonplace formations, but much more originality is found in his compound epithets. He frequently uses the noun plus present participle combinations (Type III), “secret-winding, flower-enwoven bowers” (“Spring,” 1058) or “forest-rustling mountains” (“Winter,” 151), etc. Moreover, the majority of his compounds are original, though now and then he has taken a “classical” compound and given it a somewhat curious application, as in “cloud-compelling cliffs” (“Autumn,” 801). A few of this class are difficult to justify logically, striking examples being “world-rejoicing state” (“Summer,” 116) for “the state of one in whom the world rejoices,” and “life-sufficing trees” (ibid., 836) for “trees that give sustenance.”
Thomson has also numerous instances of the juxtaposition of nouns and past-participles (Type IV): “love-enlivened cheeks” (“Spring,” 1080), “leaf-strewn walks” (“Autumn,” 955), “frost-concocted glebe” (“Winter,” 706); others of this type are somewhat obscure in meaning, as “mind-illumined face” (“Spring,” 1042), and especially “art imagination-flushed” (“Autumn,” 140), where economy of expression is perhaps carried to its very limit.