Sir Walter Scott alludes to Spensers powers of description: All this, and more, might Spenser say | Yet waste in vain his magic lay.... Scott had not appeared before the public since publishing the Lady of the Lake in 1810 and the much less successful Vision of Don Roderick in 1811; the high expectations for Rokeby were not met, and Scotts reputation as a poet began its precipitous slide. Anti-Jacobin Review: We have bad epithets, bad rhyme, false concords, &c. in abundance, and most of them arising from haste and carelessness. The poet can, we are convinced, if he pleases, remedy these defects, and remove the reproach attendant on them; he has been reproved ere now; we again admonish him, and will venture to hope, that when he produces another poem, we shall have as much to admire, with a great deal less to blame. We shall not be, nor have we ever been, fastidious critics; where many beauties appear, we can very well pardon a few blemishes; but where so great a number as are visible in this poem occur, we should, by disregarding them, forget our duty to ourselves, to the poet, and, above all, to our readers 44 (April 1813) 390. Monthly Recorder [New York]: Rokeby is the last born offspring of this prolific genius; and we had a right to expect that experience and discrimination, acquired by continued and successful efforts, would have increased the power and efficacy of each succeeding exertion — but in this instance we were disappointed; we have found but little in Rokeby which might not have come from an author of far inferior pretensions; we meet with much that would have disgraced an ordinary writer of verses 1 (April 1813) 48-49. Leigh Hunt: Of Mr. Walter Scotts poetry the estimate is sufficiently easy, and will now perhaps, after the surfeit he has given us of it, be pretty generally acknowledged. It is little more than a leap back into the dress and diction of rude but gorgeous times, when show concealed a great want of substance, and a little thinking was conveyed in a great many words Thus it is not invidious to call the late demand for it a fashion as the revival of any other artificial mode, and just as likely to go out again note to Feast of the Poets (1814) 65. John Gibson Lockhart: I well remember, being in those days a young student at Oxford, how the booksellers shops there were beleaguered for the earliest copies, and how he that had been so fortunate as to secure one was followed to his chambers by a tribe of friends, all as eager to hear it read as ever horse-jockeys were to see the conclusion of a match at Newmarket; and indeed not a few of those enthusiastic academics had bets depending on the issue of the struggle, which they considered the elder favorite as making, to keep his own ground against the fiery rivalry of Childe Harold in Life of Scott (1837-38; 1902) 2:307. Allan Cunningham: The story of Rokeby is not so well told as that of the The Lady of the Lake; it has not such stirring trumpet-tongued chapters as Marmion, nor has it so much tranquil grace as may be found in the Lay of the Last Minstrel; neither are his English Buccaneers so captivating as his Highland Chiefs; yet, it is a noble poem, abounding with spirit and originality; I am disposed to think the characters of Bertram Risinghame, and the Knave-Minstrel, are superior to any other which the poet had yet drawn: they more than approach the heroes of the Waverley Novels. On the day of publication, I met the Editor of a London Journal with the volume under his arm, and inquired how he liked it; he gave his shoulders a shrug, and said, So, so! — a better kind of ballad-style! — a better kind of ballad-style! The Athenaeum (6 October1832) 645. Herbert E. Cory: The Spenserian allusions, with which the Ariosto of the North, ever haunted by visions of The Faerie Queene, strewed richly his poems, may be illustrated by a passage from Marmion which conjures up scenes with the delight of a child rocking himself into ecstasy by a fire-place and recalling his store of fairytales. Not she, the championess of old, | In Spenser s magic tale enrolld, | She, for the charmed spear renownd, | Which forced each knight to kiss the ground.... Thus, too, The Vision of Don Roderick closes with Spensers favorite figurative method of saying adieu. But all too long, through seas unknown and dark, | (With Spensers parable I close my tale,) | By shoal and rocks hath steerd my venturous bark, | And landward now I drive before the gale. Scott was always a hearty, delighted boy and this lovable trait is no better illustrated than in his Spenser-worship Critics of Edmund Spenser (1911) 175-76. Rokeby: Canto I. I. The Moon is in her summer glow, But hoarse and high the breezes blow, And, racking oer her face, the cloud Varies the tincture of her shroud; On Barnards towers, and Teess stream, She changes as a guilty dream, When Conscience, with remorse and fear, Goads sleeping Fancys wild career. Her light seems now the blush of shame, Seems now fierce angers darker flame, Shifting that shade, to come and go, Like apprehensions hurried glow; Then sorrows livery dims the air, And dies in darkness, like despair. Such varied hues the warder sees Reflected from the woodland Tees. Then from old Baliols tower looks forth, Sees the clouds mustering in the north, Hears, upon turret-roof and wall, By fits the plashing rain-drop fall, Lists to the breezes boding sound, And wraps his shaggy mantle round. Of different mood, a deeper sigh Awoke when Rokebys turrets high Were northward in the dawning seen To rear them oer the thicket green. O then, though Spensers self had strayd Beside him through the lovely glade, Lending his rich luxuriant glow Of fancy, all its charm to show, Pointing the stream rejoicing free, As captive set at liberty, Flashing her sparkling waves abroad, And clamouring joyful on her road; Pointing where, up the sunny banks, The trees retire in scatterd ranks, Save where, advanced before the rest, On knoll or hillock rears his crest, Lonely and huge, the giant Oak, As champions, when their band is broke, Stand forth to guard the rearward post, The bulwark of the scatterd host: All this, and more, might Spenser say Yet waste in vain his magic lay, While Wilfrid eyed the distant tower Whose lattice lights Matildas bower. [Canto II, stanza 6; Robertson (1904) 325] TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:16:00 +0000
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