Poetic diction: A study of eighteenth century verseQuayle, Thomas
History
Poetic diction: A study of eighteenth century verse
Quayle, Thomas
English language -- Diction; English poetry -- 18th century -- History and criticism
[137] E.g. Robert Lloyd, 1733-1764, in his “Progress of Envy” (Anderson,
Vol. V), defines _wimpled_ as “hung down”; “The Squire of Dames,” by
Moses Mendez (1700-1738) has many old words (“benty,” etc.), which are
often open to the suspicion of being manufactured archaisms.
[138] _Vide_ his letter to Graves, June, 1742.—“Works,” Vol. III, p. 63
(1769).
[139] “Poems on Several Occasions,” by William Thompson, M.A., etc.,
Oxford, 1757, pp. 1-13.
[140] _Ibid._, pp. 58-68.
[141] “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper,” by Dr.
Samuel Johnson, 21 Vols. (London, 1810), Vol. XV, p. 32.
[142] Thompson has taken this wrong meaning direct with the word itself
from Spenser, “Shepherds Kalendar,” April, l. 26, where _glen_ is glossed
by E.K. as “a country hamlet or borough.”
[143] Cp. Joseph Warton’s “Essay on Pope,” Vol. I, p. 366 (4th edition,
1782). Wordsworth, too, as we know, called it a “fine poem” and praised
it for its harmonious verse and pure diction, but we may imagine that
he was praising it for its own sake without regard to its merits as a
Spenserian imitation (_vide_ Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 949).
[144] There are at least forty stanzas in the First Canto, without a
single archaic form, and an equal proportion in Canto Two: Cf. Morel,
_op. cit._, pp. 629-630.
[145] “The letter _y_,” he naïvely says in his “Glossary,” “is frequently
placed at the beginning of a word by Spenser, to lengthen it a syllable,
and _en_ at the end of a word, for the same reason.”
[146] Thompson seems to have been the first to use the word _bicker_ as
applied to running water, an application which was later to receive the
sanction of Scott and Tennyson (N.E.D.).
[147] Among the last examples was Beattie’s “Minstrel” (1771-74), which
occasioned some of Gray’s dicta on the use of archaic and obsolete words.
[148] Spenserian “forgeries” had also made their appearance as early as
in 1713, when Samuel Croxall had attempted to pass off two Cantos as the
original work of “England’s Arch-Poet, Spenser” (2nd edition, London,
1714). In 1747, John Upton made a similar attempt, though probably in
neither case were the discoveries intended to be taken seriously.
[149] See Phelps, _op. cit._, Chap. VIII, and Grace R. Trenery, “Ballad
Collections of the Eighteenth Century,” “Modern Language Review,” July,
1915, pp. 283 foll.
[150] _Vide_ “Preface to A Collection of Old Ballads,” 3 vols. (1723-52),
and cf. Benjamin Wakefield’s “Warbling Muses” (1749), Preface.
[151] Yet thirty years later the collections of Joseph Ritson, the last
and best of the eighteenth century editors, failed to win acceptance.
His strictly accurate versions of the old songs and ballads were
contemptuously dismissed by the “Gentleman’s Magazine” (August, 1790) as
“the compilation of a peevish antiquary.”
[152] “Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript,” edited Furnivall and Hales, 4
vols. (1867-68).
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