The Poetical Works of James Montgomery, collected by himself

Front matter

THE POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES MONTGOMERY. London : Spottiswoodes and Shaw, New street-Square. LONDON JONG-MAN, BRCfWH GREEN _ LONG i.Vi a in ;rooM «r, ifiTS F©ETir€AJL WdDJHSB ■fttlfflliff IN Oil Y © IL TU M 1, , Yd: suspend v\y griefs j. w/tile , ..-■' ut- -i'. .roue b_jrn_ a. rcsy \\di-.'in_r.',u_h. Ike wanderer osjfwijtnetfai _ .0 S _ O x% s LONGMAN, BROWN. GKKKN • '"' ' *S P_TER_OSTE_ I- THE POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES MONTGOMERY. COLLECTED BY HIMSELF. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1851. OCCASIONAL NOTICE. Two large editions of these Collected Poems (in 3 vols. 1836, and in 4 vols. handsomely embellished, 1841) having been favourably received by the Public, the Author is encouraged to offer the present, in a more condensed form, with -the hope that compositions, which at intervals through more than a quarter of a century had previously obtained considerable attention, may yet secure some measure of similar indulgence for a few years longer.

Further introduction here would be irrelevant, as the notes and explanations attached to the principal subjects will make the special treatment of these sufficiently intelligible, if not otherwise interesting. J.M. The Mount, near Sheffield, March 25. 1850. On the appearance of a new edition of these collected works, at so late a period of his long and desultory course, the Author feels himself justified in giving more publicity than would formerly have been expedient to some of those peculiar circumstances, which, having go verned his choice of subjects, and influenced his manner of handling them in his earlier compositions, have continued more or less to determine the character and tone of the whole. in prose), when he frankly lays before his readers such information concerning himself as shall enable those, who will take the necessary pains, to better understand, and more correctly to appreciate, the merits or defects of productions which have incurred more censure and won more favour than can often fall to the lot of an obscure and solitary adventurer in verse.

Passing over in this place the vicissitudes of his previous life till, at the age of twenty years, he became a resident in the town of Sheffield, he will offer, as the least exceptionable mode of communicating the proposed intelligence, por tions of two statements which have been locally circulated, when he retired from the invidious station which he had maintained, for more than thirty years, through good report and through evil report, as proprietor and conduc tor of the Iris, a weekly journal sufficiently notorious in its day. The first of these docu ments contains an exposition of the motives and principles on which he had acted, — and acted at his peril even to the last, — throughout his editorial career ; presented in full confidence to those who, at the time and upon the spot, were the most competent judges of the writer's veracity.

Preface

. troversy. The two parties in Sheffield, as else where, arrayed themselves on the contrary extremes; some being for every thing that was old, the rest for every thing that was new. There was no moderation on either side : each had a little of the truth, while the main body of it lay between ; yet it was not for this that they were contending (like the Greeks and Trojans for the body of Patroclus), but for those few dissevered limbs which they already possessed. toward God and toward men," — a duty which he sound harder and harder to fulfil, just in proportion as he became more and more im pressed with the responsibility which he owed to both for what he sent forth into the world on all manner of subjects, and among all classes of the community. " Sheffield, September 27. 1825. " A man can seldom speak of himself, in public, without appearing vain or ridiculous.

Yet there are occasions when, at any peril, it is right for him to do so. After having con ducted the Iris for one-and-thirty years and upwards, I ought not to lay down my pen with out a few words at parting. " It was at ' the height of this great argu ment,' that I was led into the thickest of the conflict, though, happily for myself, under no obligation to take an active share in it. With all the enthusiasm of youth, — for I had not then arrived at years of discretion, — I entered into the feelings of those who avowed them selves the friends of freedom, justice, and hu manity. Those with whom I was immediately connected verily were such ; and had all the reformers of that era been generous, upright, and disinterested, like the noble-minded pro prietor of the Sheffield Register (as this paper was then called), the cause which they espoused would never have been disgraced, and might have prevailed even at that time, since there could have been nothing to fear and all to hope from patriotic measures, supported by patriotic men.

Though with every pulse of my heart beating in favour of the popular doctrines, my retired and religious education had laid re straints upon my conscience, which (I may fearlessly say so) long kept me back from per sonally engaging in the civil war of words raging in the neighbourhood, beyond an occasional rhyme, paragraph, or essay, in the newspaper, written rather for the purpose of showing my literary than my political qualifications. Ignorant of myself, and inexperienced in the world as a child of seven years old, having actually not lived so long among its every-day inhabitants, even when I became editor of the Iris, I, nevertheless, was preserved from joining myself to any of the political societies till they were broken up in 1794, when I confess I did associate with the remnant of one of them for " I came to this town in the spring of 1792, a stranger and friendless, without any intention or prospect of making a long residence in it, much less of advancing myself, either by industry or talents, to a situation that should give me the opportunity of doing much evil or much good, as I might act with indiscretion or tem perance.

The whole nation, at that time, was disturbed from its propriety by the example and influence of revolutionised France ; nor was there a district in the kingdom more agi tated by the passions and prejudices of the day than this. The people of Sheffield, in whatever contempt they may have been held by super cilious censors, ignorant of their character, were then, as they are now, and as I hope they ever will be, a reading and a thinking people. Ac cording to the knowledge which they had, therefore, they judged for themselves on the questions of reform in parliament, liberty of speech and of the press, the rights of man, and other egregious paradoxes, concerning which the wisest and best men have always been divided, and were never more so than at the period above mentioned, when the decision, either way, was not to be merely speculative but practical, and to affect permanently the condition of all classes of persons in the realm, from the monarch to the pauper, — so deep, comprehensive, and prospective was the view taken by every body, on the issue of the cona purpose which I shall never be ashamed to avow, — to support the families of several of the accused leaders, who were detained pri soners in London, under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and who were finally discharged without having been brought to trial.

I simply state the fact ; any explanation of my motives would be irrelevant here : they satisfied me then, and they satisfy me now. Since that time I have had no correspondence with any political party whatever. "It was on the 4th of July, 1794, that the first Iris, in succession to the Sheffield Register, was published. Then, and for twelve months ensuing, I was in partnership with an esteemed coadjutor, by whose liberality and confidence I was enabled the next year to continue the paper alone. This was done under disadvan tages and difficulties, of the extent of which I was little aware ; I persevered, however, through a series of sufferings, desertions, crosses, and calamities without a name, against which I had nothing to oppose but the shield of patient endurance, for neither sword nor spear was found in my hand.

I had many foes, but I did not overcome them in battle ; I outlived their enmity; and so mercifully did the Pro vidence of God over-rule their wrath, that, when they had repeatedly triumphed over me, the very hands which had smitten me down were stretched out to raise me up, and by the arms that had fought against me I was sup ported for years in a path of moderate pros perity. At the commencement of my career, ' twice in the course of twelve months I was sentenced to fine and imprisonment for im puted offences.' I choose to quote these words from the preface to the first volume in which I appeared as an author. I can now add, that all the persons who were actively concerned in the prosecutions against me in 1794 and 1795 are dead, and, without exception, they died in peace with me. I believe I am quite correct in saying that from each of them distinctly, in the sequel, I received tokens of good-will, and from several of them substantial proofs of kindness.

I mention not this as a plea in extenu ation of offences for which I bore the penalty of the law; I rest my justification, in these cases, now on the same grounds, and no other, on which I rested my justification then. I mention the circumstance to the honour of the deceased, and as an evidence that, amidst all the violence of that distracted time, a better spirit was not extinct, but finally prevailed, and by its healing influence did indeed comfort those who had been conscientious sufferers. Such at least was my experience, and gratitude to " From the first moment when I became the director of a public journal, I took my own ground ; I have stood upon it through many years of changes, and I rest by it this day, as having afforded me a shelter through the far greater portion of my life, and yet offering me a grave when I shall no longer have a part in any thing done under the sun.

And this was my ground, — a plain determination, come wind or sun, come fire or water, to do what was right. I lay stress upon the purpose, not on the performance, for that was the pole-star to which my compass was pointed, though with considerable variation of the needle; for, through characteristic weakness, perversity of understanding, or self-sufficiency, I have often erred, failed, and been overcome by temptation on the wearisome pilgrimage through which I have toiled: — now struggling through 'the Slough of Despondency;' then fighting with evil spirits, in 'the Valley of Humiliation;' more than once escaping martyrdom from 'Vanity Fair;' and once at least (I will not say when) a prisoner in ' Doubting Castle,' under the discipline of Giant Despair. Now, though I am not writing this address in one of the shepherds' tents on the ' Delectable Moun tains,' yet, like Bunyan's Christian, I can look back on the past, with all its anxieties, trials, and conflicts, thankful that it is the past.

Of the future I have little foresight, and I desire none with respect to this life, being content that ' shadows, clouds, and darkness dwell upon it,' if I yet may hope that ' at evening time there will be light.' But I must return to days gone by. X GENERAL

PREFACE.

. "No man who did not live amidst the delirium of those evil days, and that strife of evil tongues, can well imagine the bitterness of animosity which infatuated the zealous partisans. I was peculiarly unfortunate in being the heir, I may say, to the treasured wrath that was ready to burst upon the head of my predecessor, at my very outset in the world of politics; for example, — before I had committed any offence whatever, — I found myself visited with a punishment directly in tended for another, in the withdrawal of all the county-advertisements from the Iris, merely because it took the vacated place of the Sheffield Register. It was years before those advertisements were allowed to me. Nay, such was the reign of terror at home, that persons, well disposed to serve me in the way of business, have brought their orders to the office, with express injunctions that no im print should appear at the foot of their bills, &c, lest they should give offence, and come to harm for having employed an obnoxious press.

God and man required this testimony from me, when the motives from which it is given can not be suspected. " On two other occasions I was in danger of legal vengeance. In the first case, I had been merely the printer and publisher of a tract, for a person of wealth and character, who, I admit, may possibly have been ignorant of the misery of fear and suspense in which he in volved me, for, till a prosecution should be actually commenced, I had determined never to apply to him, and I never did. [Nor did he ever allude to the circumstance in later in tercourse with me.] That gentleman, if living, now resides far from Sheffield, and will not be betrayed by this intimation concerning a fact which I state as a warning to inexperienced publishers. The article itself was a specu lative argument respecting war, and, like all other charges which have been brought against me, referred to the iniquity of shedding man's blood.

The next case of threatened, but abortive, prosecution assumed a more formi dable aspect, the subject being a paragraph of my own, which appeared in the Ir is in the autumn of 1805, containing some strictures on the campaign in Germany, in which the renowned General Mack certainly saved an immense effusion of human blood, by sur rendering himself and his army alive into the hands of Buonaparte. I never knew how this blow missed me, for it was aimed with a cor diality that meant no repetition of the stroke. I had made up my mind to meet it ' as the anvil meets the hammer,' — to avow the sen timents, and stand or fall by them, without any other defence than the simple plea of 'Not guilty.' The death of Lord Nelson probably saved me ; for in the next Iris, having to announce that lamentable event, I did it in such a strain of patriotism (in the best sense of thret word) that my former week's disloyalty was thereafter overlooked.

I have sometimes thought that I was indebted for my escape to the firmness and good sense of a gentleman in authority, who declined to countenance the conspiracy against me. "It is true, that, amidst all these tribula tions, I had many ardent and active friends, by whose help I was carried through my legal adversities with small pecuniary loss, and with all the consolations which kind offices could afford. One instance of rare magnani mity I must mention. The late Doctor Browne stood by me through every perplexity. He was then at the head of the town, and having the command of all the public business he never failed to throw as much of it into my hands as circumstances would warrant. What rivals solicited, and enemies would have intercepted, he resolutely and gratuitously bestowed upon me, though I never asked a boon of him, nor in any way compromised my own independ ence to insure his patronage.

Even when I was under prosecution, and in prison, at the instance of those with whom he was politically connected, he never changed countenance towards me, nor omitted an opportunity of serving me. The resolutions and addresses of loyal meetings he has repeatedly brought away with him to my office, jocularly telling me what battles he had been fighting in my behalf to win them. The manliness with which these favours were conferred, gave them a grace and a value beyond what I could estimate at the time, and, probably, secured for me a measure of personal respect in the town, which, otherwise, I might not have so easily obtained. It was in the crisis of my affairs, and during the heedlessness of youth respecting ulterior consequences, that he thus deli cately and dexterously aided me, both against my adversaries and myself.

Meanwhile I did not shrink from expressing my own opinions in the very newspapers which he made the vehicle of his when at variance with mine ; nor did I perceive that I lost his esteem by such conduct. On one occasion, indeed (not political), we had a misunderstanding respect ing a point which he very earnestly urged, but which I would not yield, because I was confidently right, according to my most de liberate judgment. This disagreement occurred during a personal interview at his house ; but I had scarcely reached home, when I received from him a conciliatory message, which did equal credit to his candour and his conde scension. This tribute I gladly pay to the memory of the greatest public character that has done honour or service to Sheffield ; and I should prove myself unworthy of his former regards, if I did not thus record the name of Doctor Browne as one of my earliest, longest, and best benefactors. 'the Jacobins' (as the contending factions were reciprocally styled in those days).

I have found as little grace in the sight of the milder representatives of these two classes in later times ; yet, if either have cause to complain, it is, that I have occasionally taken part with the other, and sometimes dissented from both, — a presumptive proof of my impartiality. Whatever charges of indecision may be brought against me by those who will see only one side of every thing, while I am often puzzled by seeing so many as hardly to be able to make out the shape of the object, — it cannot be denied, that, on the most important questions which have exercised the understandings or the sympathies of the people of England, I have never flinched from declaring my own sentiments, at the sacrifice both of popularity and interest. I refrain from particulars. " If I have not done all the good which I might, and which I ought to have done, I have rejected many opportunities of doing mischief; — a negative kind of virtue, which sometimes costs no small self-denial in the editor of a public journal to practise.

While I quit a painful responsibility in laying down my office, I am sensible that I resign the possession of great power and influence in the neigh bourhood. These I cannot have exercised through so many years without having made the character of my townspeople something different from what it would have been, had I never come among them. Whether they are better or worse for my existence here, they themselves are the best judges. This I can affirm, that I have perseveringly ' sought the peace of the city' wherein I was led as an exile to dwell ; and never neglected an occasion (so far as I can remember) to promote the social, moral, and intellectual improvement of its inhabitants. Nor in retirement can I forget, that the same duty I still owe to them. Either through the channel of this paper, or by personal exertions for the public welfare, I shall be happy to avail myself of any favourable opportunity to show my gratitude for all the hospitality, patience, kindness, and friend- " At the close of 1 805 ended the romance of my life.

The last twenty years have brought their cares and their trials with them, but these have been of the ordinary kind, — not always the better to bear on that account. On a review of them I can affirm, that I have en deavoured, according to my knowledge and ability, to serve my townspeople and my country with as little regard to the fear or savour of party-men as personal infirmity would admit. From the beginning I have been no favourite with such characters. By ' the Aris tocrats' I was persecuted, and abandoned by GENERAL

PREFACE.

. about my bosom, the heavier and harder the blast beat upon me ; nay, when I was prostrate in the dust, without power to rise, or a friend strong enough to raise me, 1 still clung to my pride, or, rather, my pride clung to me, like the venomed robe of Hercules, not to be torn away but at the expense of life itself. How ever haughtily I may have carried myself in later trials and conflicts, the warmth and sun shine of this evening, within these walls, compel me, irresistibly, because willingly, to cast off every encumbrance, to lay my pride at your feet, and stand before you modestly, yet up right, in the garment of humility. But the humility which I now assume is as remote as possible from baseness and servility ; nay, it is allied to whatever is noble and excellent in social feeling, — it is the offspring of gratitude; gratitude for the favour shown to me this day, by friends, fellow-townsmen, and neighbours.

The deaf and dumb boy being required to define ' gratitude,' wrote down upon his slate, ' it, is the remembrance of the heart : ' — may my heart never lose its memory ! ***** " With politics I do not mean to trouble you here ; I have already made my last speech and confession on those topics, as Editor of the Iris. Respecting that farewell address, I know not that I have any thing to add, to explain, or to retract. I give credit to every gentleman present for as much honesty in the choice of his opinions, and as much independence in the assertion of them, as I have always claimed for myself; I only ask, what, indeed, the presence of so many reputable persons of dissimilar persuasions, at this social board, assures me that I have, — I only ask that I may be judged by others as I myself desire to judge them.

I may be allowed to observe, that if there be a day in the three hundred and sixty-five that compose the year, — and surely out of three hundred and sixty-five there must be one at least, — on which the civil war of parties should be suspended, and a truce, nay a jubilee, of all true patriots held; it is the fourth of No vember (the speaker's birthday), on which are ship, which I have hitherto experienced from the people of Sheffield." After circulating the foregoing address at the close of his editorial course, the Author of these volumes had no thought of further in truding his personal affairs upon the public, either at home or abroad ; but, in November of the same year (1825), an entertainment having been given him by his townspeople and neighbours, of every shade of political and religious distinction, avowedly as a token of respect and esteem for him, both in his public and his private character, he was necessarily called upon to make some acknowledgment for the honour and kindness thus bestowed upon him.

From the printed report of the sentiments which he uttered on that occasion, the following passages referred more distinctly than would have been becoming in the news paper farewell to his literary aspirations, dis appointments, and successes". The preamble and close, bearing principally upon the speaker's conduct in certain local concerns with which he had been long and actively connected, would be irrelevant here. Lord Viscount Milton (now the Earl Fitzwilliam) being in the chair, their guest gave the following ac count to his Lordship and the company of his former labours and sufferings : — " I do not know that I ever stood in a more difficult situation than that in which I find myself at this moment. I have often en countered opposition ; and, if I have seldom triumphed, I have never been so vanquished by hostility, but that I have in the end risen above it.

Against friendship, however, I cannot hold out ; the force of kindness is too much for me ; I yield, and cast myself on your indulgence, confident that this will not fail me, though both thoughts and language may, in attempting to address you under my present embarrassment. ***** " Since I came to this town I have stood through many a fierce and bitter storm, and I wrapt the mantle of pride tighter and tighter commemorated, not the event only, but the principles, of the Revolution of 1688. From these principles we all profess to derive our peculiarities ; — before we take one step, then, towards dissension, we are all standing on common ground, and, to be consistent, we must be concordant to-day. to struggle alone amidst the crowd that com pose the world, without any of those inspiring motives left to cheer me, under the delusive influence of which I had flung myself amidst scenes, and into society, for which I was wholly unfit by feeling, taste, habit, or bodily con stitution.

Thus, I came hither, with all my hopes blighted like the leaves and blossoms of a premature spring, when the woods are spun over with insects' webs, or crawling with cater pillars. There was yet life, but it was perverse unnatural life, in my mind ; and the renown which I found to be unattainable, at that time, by legitimate poetry, I resolved to secure by such means as made many of my contempo raries notorious. I wrote verse in the doggerel strain of Peter Pindar, and prose sometimes in imitation of Fielding and Smollett, and occa sionally in the strange sty le of the German plays and romances then in vogue. Effort after effort failed. A Providence of disappointment shut every door in my face by which I at tempted to force my way to a dishonourable fame. I was thus happily saved from appear ing as the author of works which, at this hour, I should have been ashamed to acknowledge before you.

Disheartened at length with ill success, I gave myself up to indolence and apathy, and lost seven years of that part of my youth which ought to have been the most active and profitable, in alternate listlessness and despondency, using no further exertion in my office affairs than was necessary to keep up my credit under heavy pecuniary obligations, and gradually though slowly to liquidate them. " But the terms of the requisition for this meeting warrant, if they do not make it in cumbent on me, that I should allude to a character in which I have won more honour, and hardly suffered less severely, than I have done in politics. In the issue of circumstances too minute and perplexing to bear exposure here, the following was my situation when I came, a stranger, to Sheffield. I had fondly, foolishly, sacrificed all my friends, connections, and prospects in life, and thrown myself head long into the world, with the sole view of acquiring poetic laurels.

The early, ardent breathing of my soul from boyhood had been, ' What shall I do to be for ever known ? ' (Cowlet.) and to gain ' golden opinions from all sorts of men' by the power of my imagined genius, was the cherished hope and determined purpose of my mind. In the retirement of Fulneck, among the Moravian Brethren, by whom I had been educated, I was nearly as ignorant of the world and its every-day concerns, as those gold fishes swimming about in the glass globe on the pedestal before us are of what we are doing around them ; and when I took the rash step of running into the vortex, I was nearly as little prepared for the business of general life, as they would be to take a part in our proceedings, were they to leap out of their element upon this table. The experience of something more than two years (at the time to which I now refer) had awakened me to the unpoetical realities around me, and I was lest " During this dreary interval, I had but one friend and counsellor at home, Mr. Ebenezer Rhodes*, and another at Manchester, Mr. Joseph Aston, with whom I frequently cor responded.

To these two I confided my schemes, entrerpises, and miscarriages ; and they, so far as they could, consoled me with continued to cultivate the talent by which he was advantageously known in his youth. He departed this life in December, 1839. * The author of Peak SVenery, a beautiful descriptive work, embellished with admirable engravings from sketches by Sir Francis Chantret. Mr. Rhodes might have been a poet of no mean order, had he GENERAL

PREFACE.

. into his family, — for his illustrious sister, Mrs. Barbahld, and his accomplished daughter, Miss Lucy Aikin (who has since proved herself worthy of her lineage by her own admirable writings), as well as two of the Doctor's sons, each eminently gifted, — I eagerly avail myself of the present happy opportunity of confessing obligations, — these, all utterly unknown to me, except by their respective works, introduced my little volume into the literary circles of the metropolis, and secured for it, within a few weeks, a reading, which advertisements and reviews might not have obtained in twelve months. This poem and its accompaniments were rapidly rising in reputation, when a critical blast came over my second spring from so deadly a quarter {The Edinburgh Review), that I thought my immortality once more, and for the last time, slain.