the amicable side of human beings united in society, and to shape ideals accordingly. The poetry of patriotic sentiment has most frequently taken the form of rousing to arms in case of attack from without. This is a species of oratory, using the form of verse for readier access to men's feelings. Poetry is also employed by every nation to extol itself and decry other nations. Such compositions can scarcely be said to illustrate the art of embodying our tender sentiments. There are some examples of a purer treatment of patriotic regards, where love is more conspicuous than either selfesteem or hatred. The principles of effect are the same as reign in all the species of tender feeling. They are delineations of the objects in such a way as to inspire the patriotic interest, and the further delineation of the feelings themselves as entertained by individuals or by masses. Scott's splendid outburst Breathes there a man with soul so dead has almost the first place in this kind of poetry. The Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand! Still as I view each well-known scene, Think what is now, and what hath been, Seems as, to me, of all bereft, Sole friends thy woods and streams were left; Even in extremity of ill. By Yarrow's streams still let me stray, Though none should guide my feeble way; Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, POETRY OF PATRIOTISM. 187 Scott's handling is in favourable contrast to Burke's attempt to make the British constitution an object of tender regards.* The best government hardly admits of being viewed in this light; and the historic governments of Scotland were far from the best. Notwithstanding the beauty of the expression, Coleridge's lines can barely escape the charge of maudlin; which is the necessary consequence of attempting a strain of feeling too high for our sympathies. O Divine And beauteous island, thou hast been my sole Cowper, in the TASK, Book II., adopts a far juster strain of patriotic commendation. The following lines give the tone of the whole passage : England, with all thy faults I love thee still, My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, He loves his country better than all others, though some may be fairer or more fruitful; and the very sincerity of his love makes him regret and reprove the vices and follies that appear among many of his countrymen. This utterance of combined love and faithfulness lends new force to the poetry. Macaulay has realized a vivid picture of Roman patriotism in his Lays. In the rousing address of Icilius, historic allusions are graphically accumulated, and the objects of domestic feeling finely grouped thus : Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to life The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister and of wife, The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul endures, The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours. Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast with pride. Burns's patriotic effusions assume both warlike and tender shapes. Like Cowper, he tempers his exultant emotions with virtuous wishes: * "In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars." O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent; Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. Somewhat similar is the impression produced by Tenny son's Love thou thy land, with love far-brought. There is the same balancing of aims and feelings, but not much tenderness; advice being the chief design of the poem. The poetry of personal devotion to monarchs, dynasties and great leaders, takes on more of the character of individual attachments. The flame is kept up by ideal pictures of excellence, by the stimulus of the cause represented, and by the collective sympathy of multitudes. As a typical example of this class of literature, we may cite the Jacobite Songs of Scotland. In the majority of these, there mingles also the pathos of a lost cause. COMPASSION.-BENEVOLENCE.-CHIVALRY. This is a true case of Tender Regard, although enlarged in its workings, so as to include strangers as well as those in our own circle. The occasion of the feeling is some form of weakness, inferiority, need, distress or calamity. The most important aspect of the Tender feeling in such cases is its prompting to active measures of relief or assistance. There is a luxury of Pity that goes no further, and is made a matter of reproach under the name of Sentimentality. The poet cultivates both aspects. We must distinguish this case from the utterance of sorrow, without reference to help or relief, which makes a case apart (PATHOS). The awakening of simple Pity supposes a picture of need. The additional requisites are, (1) that the common sympathies of mankind should be appealed to, and (2) that the object of pity should be made to appear interesting, either from merit or from some attractive quality. MILTON'S SONNET ON THE PIEDMONTESE. 189 Compassion for distress is not unfrequently combined with admiration of philanthropic self-sacrifice. This is exemplified in Cowper's eulogiums on Whitfield (Leuconomus) and Howard. The admiration predominates over the compassionate interest in the subjects laboured for. Milton's Sonnet On the late Massacre in Piedmont' takes the form of prayer for the punishment of the oppressors; but compassion is excited by touching references to the sufferings inflicted: Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold. The vivid picture here presented at once awakens our pity. The language is exquisitely fitted to its purpose; as in the fine harmony of the Alpine mountains cold'. The Protestant sympathies of Milton's readers would be further moved by what is suggested in Thy saints'. The picture is thus expanded: Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, Forget not; in thy book record their groans Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks; their moans To heaven. Our interest is thus awakened by the thought of their pure faith, maintained against Rome so long; while compassion is deepened by the picture of their cruel sufferings, rendered vivid by the individualizing touch of rolling mother and infant down the rocks; their moans are not only echoed among the hills, but made to ascend to heaven. The chivalry of the middle ages is avowedly based on delivering the oppressed; although the interest is largely made up of erotic feeling and the punishment of oppressors. Spenser, in the Fuërie Queene, exemplifies all the three. He provides everywhere highly-wrought combinations of interesting distress, which his champions have to rescue and relieve. The feeling of compassion for the less privileged members of the human family is appealed to in Pope's picture of the North American Indian's religious ideas : Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind His soul, proud science never taught to stray Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; His faithful dog shall bear him company. All the circumstances are effective for their purpose: the simple ideas of the savage, the narrowness of his view, the simplicity of his desires, his wish for the company of his dog-a combination of humility and affection that greatly enhances our pity. The effect is further assisted by the penury and privation of his present life, reflected in the heaven that he sketches for himself; there being also a satirical innuendo mingled with the humble aspiration. The passage as nearly realizes the tender emotion in its purity as Pope's manner will allow. The language is constantly running to embodiments of strength, when he wishes to be pathetic. He cannot sufficiently confine himself to the vocabulary and the combinations suitable to feeling. No poet supplies ampler feasts of pure pity than Chaucer. He often succeeds in painting distress in a way to arouse the emotion to its grateful point, and no further. The Lower Animals are proper subjects of compassionate interest, in poetry, as well as in actual life. Burns's address To a Mouse' is in every way illustrative. The interest of the little is wrought up by help of the copious diminutives of the Scottish dialect. The poem opens on this keynote:Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie. It frequently recurs to the thought. Another effective appeal is made to our pity,-the wrecking of a fellowcreature's constructive toils: Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Or again That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble |