With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes,

BY THE

REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN.

VOL. I.

EDINBURGH: JAMES NICHOL, 9 NORTH BANK STREET. LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN: W. ROBERTSON. M.DCCC.LV.[Pg ii]

EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PAUL'S WORK.

[Pg iii]

CONTENTS.

SONNETS AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

The Memoir and Critical Dissertation being unavoidably delayed, will be prefixed to Vol. II.[Pg 1]

PREFACE.

A Ninth Edition of the following Poems having been called for by the public, the author is induced to say a few words, particularly concerning those which, under the name of Sonnets, describe his personal feelings.

They can be considered in no other light than as exhibiting occasional reflections which naturally arose in his mind, chiefly during various excursions, undertaken to relieve, at the time, depression of spirits. They were, therefore, in general, suggested by the scenes before them; and wherever such scenes appeared to harmonise with his disposition at the moment, the sentiments were involuntarily prompted.

Numberless poetical trifles of the same kind have occurred to him, when perhaps, in his solitary rambles, he has been "chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy;" but they have been forgotten as he left the places which gave rise to them; and the greater part of those originally committed to the press were written down, for the first time, from memory.

This is nothing to the public; but it may serve in some measure to obviate the common remark on melancholy poetry, that it has been very often gravely composed, when possibly the heart of the writer had very little share in the distress he chose to describe.

But there is a great difference between natural and fabricated feelings, even in poetry. To which of these two characters the poems before the reader belong, the author leaves those who have felt sensations of sorrow to judge.

They who know him, know the occasions of them to have been real; to the public he might only mention the sudden death of a deserving young woman, with whom,

[1] The early editions of these Sonnets, 1791, were dedicated to the Reverend Newton Ogle, D.D., Dean of Winchester.[Pg 2]

INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1837.

To account for the variations which may be remarked in this last edition of my Sonnets, from that which was first published fifty years ago, it may be proper to state, that to the best of my recollection, they now appear nearly as they were originally composed in my solitary hours; when, in youth a wanderer among distant scenes, I sought forgetfulness of the first disappointment in early affections.

Delicacy even now, though the grave has long closed over the beloved object, would forbid entering on a detail of the peculiar circumstances in early life, and the anguish which occasioned these poetical meditations. In fact, I never thought of writing them down at the time, and many had escaped my recollection;[2] but three years after my return to England, on my way to the banks of Cherwell, where

passing through Bath, I wrote down all I could recollect of these effusions, most elaborately mending the versification from the natural flow of music in which they occurred to me, and having thus corrected and written them out, took them myself to the late Mr Cruttwell, with the name of "Fourteen Sonnets, written chiefly on Picturesque Spots during a Journey."

I had three times knocked at this amiable printer's door, whose kind smile I still recollect; and at last, with much hesitation, ventured to unfold my message; it was to inquire whether he would give any thing for "Fourteen Sonnets," to be published with or without the name.[3] He at once declined the purchase, and informed me he doubted very much whether the publication would repay the expense of printing, which would come to about five pounds. It was at last determined one hundred copies, in quarto, should be published[Pg 3] as a kind of "forlorn hope;" and these "Fourteen Sonnets" I left to their fate and thought no more of getting rich by poetry! In fact, I owed the most I ever owed at Oxford, at this time, namely, seventy pounds;[4] and knowing my father's large family and trying circumstances, and those of my poor mother, I shrunk from asking more money when I left home, and went back with a heavy heart to Oxford, under the conscious weight, that my poetic scheme failing, I had no means of paying Parsons, the mercer's, bill! This was the origin of the publication.

As this plain account is so connected with whatever may be my name in criticism and poetry, it is hoped it will be pardoned.

All thoughts of succeeding as a poet were now abandoned; but, half a year afterwards, I received a letter from the printer informing me that the hundred copies were all sold, adding, that if I had published five hundred copies, he had no doubt they would have been sold also.

This, in my then situation, my father now dead, and my mother a widow with seven children, and with a materially reduced income (from the loss of the rectories of Uphill and Brean in Somerset), was gratifying indeed; all my golden dreams of poetical success were renewed;—the number of the sonnets first published was increased, and five hundred copies, by the congratulating printer, with whose family I have lived in kindest amity from that hour, were recommended to issue from the press of the editor of the Bath Chronicle.

But this was not all, the five hundred copies were sold to great advantage, for it was against my will that five hundred copies should be printed, till the printer told me he would take the risk on himself, on the usual terms, at that time, of bookseller and author.

Soon afterwards, it was agreed that seven hundred and fifty copies should be printed, in a smaller and elegant size. I had received Coleridge's warm testimony; but soon after this third edition came out, my friend, Mr Cruttwell, the printer, wrote a letter saying that two young gentlemen, strangers, one a particularly handsome and pleasing youth, lately from Westminster School, and both literary and intelligent, spoke in high commendation of my volume, and if I recollect right, expressed a desire to have some poems printed in the same type and form. Who these young men were I knew not at the time, but the communication of the circumstance was to me most gratifying; and how much more gratifying, when, from one of them, after he himself had achieved the fame of one of the most virtuous and eloquent of the writers in his generation, I received a first visit at my parsonage in Wiltshire upwards of forty years afterwards! It was Robert Southey. We parted in my garden last year, when stealing time and sorrow had marked

his still manly, but most interesting countenance.[5]—Therefore,[Pg 4]

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, WHO HAS EXHIBITED IN HIS PROSE WORKS, AS IN HIS LIFE, THE PURITY AND VIRTUES OF ADDISON AND LOCKE, AND IN HIS POETRY THE IMAGINATION AND SOUL OF SPENSER, THESE POEMS, WITH EVERY AFFECTIONATE PRAYER, ARE INSCRIBED BY HIS SINCERE FRIEND, WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

[2] I confined myself to fourteen lines, because fourteen lines seemed best adapted to unity of sentiment. I thought nothing about the strict Italian model; the verses naturally flowed in unpremeditated harmony, as my ear directed, but the slightest inspection will prove they were far from being mere elegiac couplets. The subjects were chiefly from river scenery, and the reader will recollect what Sir Humphrey Davy has said on this subject so beautifully; it will be recollected, also, that they were published ten years before those of Mr Wordsworth on the river Duddon, Yarrow, et cet. There have been many claimants, among modern poets, for the laurel of the sonnet, but, in picturesque description, sentiment, and harmony, I know none superior to those of my friend the Rev. Charles Hoyle, on scenery in Scotland, the mountains of Ben Nevis, Loch Lomond, et cet.

[3] To account for the present variations, some remained as originally with their natural pauses, others for the press I thought it best to correct into verse less broken, and now, after fifty years, they are recorrected, and restored, I believe, more nearly to the original shape in which they were first meditated.

[4] I hoped by my Sonnets to pay this vast debt.

[5] His companion, Mr Lovel, died in youth.[Pg 5]

[Pg 6]

SONNETS, ETC.

[Pg 7]

SONNETS, ETC.

AT TYNEMOUTH PRIORY,[6]

AFTER A TEMPESTUOUS VOYAGE.

[6] The remains of this monastery are situated on a lofty point, on the north side of the entrance into the river Tyne, about a mile and a half below North Shields. The rock on which the monastery stood rendered it visible at sea a long way off, in every direction, whence it presented itself as if exhorting the seamen in danger to make their vows, and promise masses and presents to the Virgin Mary and St Oswin for their deliverance.[Pg 8]

BAMBOROUGH CASTLE.[7]

[7] This ancient castle, with its extensive domains, heretofore the property of the family of Forster, whose heiress married Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, is appropriated by the will of that pious prelate to many benevolent purposes; particularly to that of administering instant relief to such shipwrecked mariners as may happen to be cast upon this dangerous coast; for whose preservation and that of their vessels every possible assistance is contrived, and is at all times ready. The estate is in the hands of trustees appointed under the Bishop's will.

THE RIVER WAINSBECK.[8]

[8] The Wainsbeck is a sequestered river in Northumberland, having on its banks "Our Lady's Chapel," three-quarters of a mile west of Bothal. It has been commemorated by Akenside.

THE TWEED VISITED.

[9] Alluding to the simple and affecting pastoral strains for which Scotland has been so long celebrated. I need not mention Lochaber, the Braes of Bellendine, Tweedside, et cet.

ON LEAVING A VILLAGE IN SCOTLAND.

[10] There is a wildness almost fantastic in the view of the river from Stirling Castle, the course of which is seen for many miles, making a thousand turnings.

EVENING.

TO THE RIVER ITCHIN.[11]

[11] The Itchin is a river running from Winchester to Southampton, the banks of which have been the scene of many a holiday sport. The lines were composed on an evening in a journey from Oxford to Southampton, the first time I had seen the Itchin since I left school.

ON RESIGNING A SCHOLARSHIP OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD,

AND RETIRING TO A COUNTRY CURACY.

DOVER CLIFFS.

ON LANDING AT OSTEND.

THE BELLS, OSTEND.[12]

[12] Written on landing at Ostend, and hearing, very early in the morning, the carillons.

THE RHINE.

INFLUENCE OF TIME ON GRIEF.

THE CONVENT.

THE RIVER CHERWELL.

ON ENTERING SWITZERLAND.

DISTANT VIEW OF ENGLAND FROM THE SEA.

HOPE.

TO A FRIEND.

ABSENCE.

BEREAVEMENT.

OXFORD REVISITED.

IN MEMORIAM.

ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. WILLIAM BENWELL, M.A.[13]

[13] An accomplished young friend of the author—a poet and a scholar, formerly fellow of Trinity College, Oxford—who died of a typhus fever, caught in administering the sacrament to one of his parishioners. Mr Benwell had only been married eleven weeks when he died.

AT MALVERN.

NETLEY ABBEY.

ASSOCIATIONS.

MUSIC.

APPROACH OF SUMMER.

AT OXFORD, 1786.

AT DOVER, 1786.

RETROSPECTION.

ON ACCIDENTALLY MEETING A LADY NOW NO MORE.

WRITTEN MANY YEARS AFTER THE FOREGOING SONNETS.

ON HEARING "THE MESSIAH"

PERFORMED IN GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL, SEPT. 18, 1835.

WOODSPRING ABBEY, 1836.[14]

[14] Three mailed men, in Canterbury Cathedral, rushed on the Archbishop of Canterbury, and murdered him before the altar. Conscience-stricken, they fled and built Woodspring Abbey, in the remote corner of Somersetshire, near Western Super Mare, where the land looks on the Atlantic sea. There are three unknown graves on the Flat Holms.

LACOCK NUNNERY.

JUNE 24, 1837.

[15] "Eternam Requiem dona."

ON A BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPE.

ART AND NATURE.

THE BRIDGE BETWEEN CLIFTON AND LEIGH WOODS.

PICTURE OF AN OLD MAN.

PICTURE OF A YOUNG LADY.

HOUR-GLASS AND BIBLE.

MILTON.

ON THE BUSTS OF MILTON, IN YOUTH AND AGE, AT STOURHEAD.

IN YOUTH.

IN AGE.

TO SIR WALTER SCOTT.

ON ACCIDENTLY MEETING AND PARTING WITH SIR WALTER SCOTT, WHOM I HAD NOT SEEN FOR MANY YEARS, IN THE STREETS OF LONDON, MAY 1828.

ELEGY WRITTEN AT THE HOTWELLS, BRISTOL,

JULY, 1789.

INSCRIBED TO THE REV. W. HOWLEY.[16]

[16] Afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.

[17] Bristol.

[19] The Rev. Thomas Russell, Fellow of New College, Oxford, author of some beautiful sonnets, died at the Hotwells 1788, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. His poems were first published by Mr Howley, with whom we wooed the Muses together on the banks of Itchen. Headley was a pupil of Dr Parr.

[20] Winchester College.

[21] The Rev. Dr Howley, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.[Pg 36]

MONODY ON HENRY HEADLEY.

[22] Alluding to the Beauties of Ancient Poetry, published by Mr Headley, a short time before his death. He was also the author of some pleasing original poetry.

[23] Trinity College, Oxford. Among my contemporaries were several young men of literary taste and talent, Headley, Kett, Benwell, Dallaway, Richards, and Dornford; Thomas Warton was one of the Senior Fellows.

ON MR HOWARD'S ACCOUNT OF LAZARETTOS.

THE GRAVE OF HOWARD.

[24] The town of Cherson, on the Black Sea, where Howard the philanthropist died, is entirely supplied with fuel by reeds, of which there is an inexhaustible forest in the shallows of the Nieper.—Craven's Travels.

SHAKSPEARE.

[25] Lear.

[26] Jaques: As You Like It.

[27] Midsummer Night's Dream.

[28] Ferdinand: see The Tempest.

[29] See Macbeth.

[30] Ophelia: Hamlet.[Pg 49]

ABBA THULE'S LAMENT FOR HIS SON PRINCE LE BOO.

[31] I find on referring to the narrative of Captain Wilson's voyage to the Pelew Islands, that the knots were tied at the time of Prince Le Boo's departure, and that one was untied every moon by the disconsolate father.

The evening before the "Oroolong" sailed, the King asked Captain Wilson how long it might be before his return to Pelew; and being told that it would probably be about thirty moons, or might chance to extend to six more, Abba Thule drew from his basket a piece of line, and after making thirty knots on it, a little distance from each other, left a long space, and then adding six others, carefully put it by.

SOUTHAMPTON WATER.

[32] Isle of Wight.

[33] Kelshot Castle.

THE PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETY.[34]

INSCRIBED TO THE DUKE OF LEEDS.

[34] The Philanthropic Society was instituted in September 1788, for the prevention of crimes, by seeking out and training up to virtue and industry the children of the most abject and criminal among the vagrant and profligate poor; by these means more effectually to alleviate human misery, and to oppose the progress of vice.

[35] The promoters of the charity.

THE DYING SLAVE.

SONG OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN.

[36] The Indians believe some of their high mountains to be inhabited by supernatural beings.

[37] The alligator.

[38] The bush-bee lives on shrubs and low trees.

MONODY, WRITTEN AT MATLOCK.

[39] I have ventured in this place to make Hope a boy.

[40] Matlock High Tor.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE.

[41] These lines were written before the murder of the late King of France, and many of the events of horror which have since taken place in that miserable country.

[42] Milton.

ON LEAVING A PLACE OF RESIDENCE.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

WRITTEN DURING SICKNESS AT BATH.

[43] The fall of the river, heard from the Parade.

[44] The Æolian harp.[Pg 77]

ON LEAVING WINCHESTER SCHOOL.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1782.

[45] St Croix.

[46] The Cathedral.

HOPE, AN ALLEGORICAL SKETCH.

[47] Written at the time of Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt.

[48] That of a village curate.[Pg 88]

THE BATTLE OF THE NILE.[49]

[49] This poem, "Coombe Ellen," "St Michael's Mount," et cet., down to the Monody on Dr Warton, originally dedicated to the Countess of Mansfield, are dated from Donhead, 1802.

A GARDEN-SEAT AT HOME.

[50] Wardour Castle.[Pg 95]

IN HORTO REV. J. STILL,

APUD KNOYLE, VILLAM AMŒNISSIMAM.

GREENWICH HOSPITAL.

A RUSTIC SEAT NEAR THE SEA.

WARDOUR CASTLE.

[51] French emigrants, chiefly supported by the bounty of Lord Arundel.

POLE-VELLUM, CORNWALL.

A PICTURESQUE COTTAGE AND GROUNDS BELONGING TO J. LEMON, ESQ.

ON A BEAUTIFUL SPRING,

FORMING A COLD BATH, AT COOMBE, NEAR DONHEAD, BELONGING TO MY BROTHER, CHAS. BOWLES, ESQ.

[52] French priests, who have a residence near.

A CENOTAPH,

TO THE MEMORY OF LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ISAAC, WHO DIED AT CAPE ST NICHOLA MOLE, 1797.

[53] The 1st of June 1794, when Colonel Isaac greatly distinguished himself as commander of the military on board Lord Howe's ship.[Pg 100]

TRANSLATION OF A LATIN POEM

BY THE REV. NEWTON OGLE, DEAN OF MANCHESTER.

ST MICHAEL'S MOUNT.

INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD SOMERS.

[54] A mine called the Wherry-Mine, beneath the surface of the sea near Penzance.

[55] Three or four sheep were seen rambling among the precipices, and picking here and there a blade of grass; but in general the rock is naked, and extremely steep and craggy.

[56] Tradition reports that the rock was anciently connected by a large tract of land with the Isles of Scilly, and that the whole space between was inundated by an incursion of the sea.

[57] It is only at high tide the rock is entirely surrounded by the sea; at low water it is accessible by land.

[58] One of the supposed followers of Brutus, to whom Cornwall was allotted. The rather by him liked, says Milton, for that the hugest giants in rocks and caves were said to lurk there; which kind of monsters to deal with was his old exercise.

[59] At the bottom of this mountain, as they were digging for tin, they found spear-heads, axes, et cet.—Camden.

[60] A convent built on the top of the rock, where the apparition of St Michael was said to have appeared.

[61] A speaking-trumpet lying on the ground.

[62] This and the foregoing reflections were suggested by seeing instruments of music, books, et cet., in an apartment, elegantly but appropriately fitted up.

[63] On the highest turret of the castle is a place called St Michael's Chair.

[64] Alluding to the cruelties committed in France.

ON AN UNFORTUNATE AND BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.

WRITTEN DECEMBER 1783.

HYMN TO WODEN.

[65] Valkyriæ, or choosers of the slain. See Gray's "Fatal Sisters," et cet.[Pg 115]

COOMBE-ELLEN.[66]

[66] Coombe-Ellen (in Welsh, Cwm Elan) is situated among the most romantic mountains of Radnorshire, about five miles from Rhayd'r. This poem is inscribed to Thomas Grove, Esq. of Fern, Wiltshire, at whose summer residence, in Radnorshire, it was written.

[67] Nant-Vola.

[68] The Silures, comprehending Radnorshire, Herefordshire, Brecknockshire, Monmouthshire, and Glamorganshire, were the bravest of the Britons; Caractacus, the greatest and most renowned leader Britain had ever produced, was their king.

[69] Dole-Vinoc rock.

SUMMER EVENING AT HOME.

WINTER EVENING AT HOME.

THE SPIRIT OF NAVIGATION.[70]

[70] Inscribed to the Rev. Dr Vincent Hind, Master of Westminster School.

[71] Artificial harbours.

[72] Ezekiel xxvii. 25, "The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee, and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas."

[73] Astarte, or the Moon, the goddess of the Sidonians, called the Queen of Heaven. "The women knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven" (Jer. vii. 18).

[74] Waterspouts are more frequent near the capes of Latikea, Grecgo, and Carmel, than in any other parts of the Mediterranean Sea.—Shaw's Travels.

[75] The coast of Egypt is not discovered till its trees are seen.[Pg 134]

WATER-PARTY ON BEAULIEU RIVER, IN THE NEW FOREST.

[76] Cutter belonging to Nathaniel Ogle, Esq.

[77] Mrs Sheridan.

[78] Mrs Wilmot, well known for her great talents in drawing, et cet.

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF DR WARTON.

[79] Catherine Hill.

[80] St Cross Hospital.

[81] Homer.

[82] See the last book.

[83] Theocritus.

[84] Μεγαλη μοιρα—Soph.

[85] Philoctetes, see Sophocles. Youthful impressions on first reading it.

[86] See Warton's "Ode to Fancy."

[87] Alluding to some pathetic lines in Warton's "Ode to Fancy."

[88] See Warton's "Ode on West's Translation of Pindar."

EPITAPH ON H. WALMSLEY, ESQ.,

IN ALVERSTOKE CHURCH, HANTS.

AGE.

ON A LANDSCAPE BY RUBENS.