Parson Poets

________________________________________________
Title:     Parson Poets
Author: William Davenport Adams [More Titles by Adams]

The publication of a memoir of Archbishop Trench has sufficed to recall prominently to the public mind the virtues, endowments, and achievements of one of the most notable of latter-day divines. Richard Chenevix Trench was one of the most versatile of writers. He discoursed with equal knowledge and effect on Biblical and philological topics, and his prose work will always be respectfully regarded by the students alike of divinity and of language. But though, on these subjects, his pronouncements may in time grow stale or require correction, he will ever hold an honourable place in English literature as one of the most thoughtful and vigorous of those parson poets of whom this country has always had so large and valuable a supply.

There is, indeed, a natural connection between parsons and poetry. It is precisely in the ranks of the clerical body in all civilized countries that one would look for successful cultivators of the art of verse. For what is, above all things, necessary for such cultivation? In the first place, polite learning; in the second, sufficient leisure. It is in the atmosphere of culture that good verse, as apart from high poetry, takes its rise. There are probably few educated men who have not at one time or another essayed to pen a stanza. The busy city clergyman may nowadays have no time for such elegant diversions, but at all periods the lettered country parson has been inclined to occupy some of his spare moments in wooing the Muse of Song. There are other things than learning and leisure which impel him to the task. There is the nature of his profession, with the experience it brings him and the reflections it induces. The most unliterary pastor cannot but be a meditative man. The literary pastor cannot but be disposed to turn his meditations into verse, often finding in that 'mechanic exercise' the means of 'numbing pain.'

Other things being equal, the modern cleric would take serious subjects for his verse, and it is characteristic of the whole race of parson poets that the first poetic effort in English literature should be the Scriptural paraphrases supplied by Caedmon, monk of Whitby. But it was not in the sphere of Bible history that the immediate successors of Caedmon, monks (or friars) like himself, sought to disport themselves most largely. Our early clerical versifiers set themselves rather to give rhythmical renderings to the romances and chronicles of their time. They were the secular as well as sacred teachers of the day; and so we find the names of Wace, Layamon, Robert of Gloucester, Robert of Brunne, Archdeacon Barbour, Andrew of Wyntoun, and John Lydgate, all associated with the recital of the deeds of ancient or modern heroes. Not that the claims of religion or morality were forgotten: they were remembered by Richard Rolle in his 'Prick of Conscience,' and indirectly recognised by Barclay in his 'Ship of Fools.' The interests of the poor were served by Langland in his 'Piers the Plowman,' and poetry, pure and simple, had its devotees in the persons of the Bishop of Dunkeld and the Franciscan friar who produced respectively 'The Palace of Honour' and 'The Golden Terge.'

When we come down to more recent times, we find even greater variety than this in the writings of the parson poets. But the serious element prevails. There have been clerical wits and humorists, but they have been, of necessity, in the minority. A large proportion of the verse composed by clergymen has been, as one would naturally expect, of a distinctly didactic, not to say depressing, tendency. One thinks at once of the 'Temple' of George Herbert, the 'Epigrammata Sacra' of Richard Crashaw, the 'Night Thoughts' of Young, the 'Grave' of Blair, the 'Sabbath' of Grahame, the 'Course of Time' of Pollok, the 'Christian Year' of Keble; the hymns of Wesley, Alford, and Stanley; the 'Dream of Gerontius' of Newman, and a dozen others, differing very much indeed in all the qualities of poetry, but alike in the earnestness of their intention. Even Herrick, 'jocund' though his muse was, left behind him some 'Noble Numbers.' And though clerical satire, as furnished by men like John Bramston, Charles Churchill, Samuel Bishop, John Wolcot, and Francis Mahoney, has frequently been flippant both in form and phrase, it has at other times--and especially in the works of Bishop Hall, of Norwich--been very vivid and uncompromising. Hall, indeed, was the Juvenal of his century, filled with the spirit of righteous indignation.

From Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, downwards, the clerical singers who have not been markedly professional in their outcome have exhibited an agreeable freedom from monotony. In Donne himself we see the sad perfection of the metaphysic method, mitigated, however, by a few lapses into the lucid and the simple. Pomfret gave us in 'The Choice' the typical poem of the country parson, sounding the praises of rural scenes and lettered ease. In Parnell we have a sample of the pleasing versifier, touching nothing which he does not adorn, but making no very particular impression. Bishop Percy is less celebrated for the ballads which he wrote than for those which he collected. Logan is remembered only by his verses on 'The Cuckoo.' To the reverend brothers Warton we owe respectively 'The Pleasure of Melancholy' and some lines 'To Fancy'; while of Thomas Blacklock, alas! the most remarkable feature was his blindness. One would like to have forgotten Robert Montgomery, of Satanic fame, but Macaulay will not let us do so. Blanco White lives on the strength of one good sonnet, Lisle Bowles on that of many good ones; and there is no need nowadays to distinguish the work of Crabbe, of Moultrie, of John Sterling, and of Charles Kingsley, much as they differed from each other. One of the latest additions to this choir of voices is Mr. Stopford Brooke, and there are other living lyrists, belonging to one or other of the Churches, who might be named if there were no fear of making invidious selection.

There is a certain department of verse-writing in which a cultivated class like the clergy would of necessity make its mark--that of rhythmical translation. In a body whose members are all more or less scholarly, there will always be some, of special scholarship, who will endeavour to put works of classic or foreign literature into an English mould. Thus we have had Francis Fawkes, with his versions from the Greek; Christopher Pitt, with his translation of the 'AEneid'; H. F. Carey, with his Dante in blank verse; and more others than need be specified. These clergymen followed the excellent instincts of their cloth. But what are we to say of those otherwise estimable parsons who have from time to time attempted, and occasionally with success, to win fame as the authors of poetical drama? The connection between the cassock and the buskin has, to this extent, always been fairly intimate--from the time when Bishop Bale wrote mystery plays, to the recent years in which Sheridan Knowles, after having been a dramatist and an actor, closed his days as a preacher. Shirley, Mason, Home, Milman, Croly, Maturin, White--these are names well known in the history of the theatre, and they are all names of clerical association. Such has been the fascination of the 'boards' even for those whose home has been the pulpit and the cloister.

[The end]
William Davenport Adams's essay: Parson Poets

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN