Table Of ContentNORWEGIAN STUDIES IN ENGLISH
The
Happy Man
No. 7
Editorial Board:
Professor Kristian Smidt, Oslo
Professor Trygve Heltveit, Oslo
Professor Bertil Sundby, Bergen Studies in the Metamorphoses
Professor Georg Roppen, Bergen
Professor Eva Sivertsen, Trondheim of a Classical Ideal
Professor lngvald Raknem, Trondheim
by
MAREN-SOFIE R0STVIG
VOLUME II
1700-1760
2nd edition
UNIVERSITETSFORLAGET
Oslo
HUMANITIES PRESS
New York
CONTENTS
Preface 9
I Introduction 13
II The Happy Gardener 29
III Sober Advice 48
IV Rational Ecstasy 87
V Crowned with Content 141
VI The Smiling God 163
VII The Friend of Mankind 189
VIII Summing Up 239
Notes 249
Index 267
PREFACE
This second volume on the classical theme of the Happy Man
is concerned with the first sixty years or so of the eighteenth
century when the output of beatus ille-poetry reached a truly
impressive climax. While the quality of the eighteenth-century
beatus ille-lyric undoubtedly falls far below the standard set by
the preceding century - the great exception, of course, being
Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard -
Horace's epistles and satires and Virgil's Georgics provided con
genial genres exploited to the full by poets like Pope and James
Thomson.
When the seventeenth century achieved its inevitable tran
sition into the eighteenth, the themes and concepts associated
with the figure of the beatus vir had become so thoroughly
assimilated as to constitute a myth in the sense defined by
E. M. W. Tillyard in his Clark Lectures 1959-60,1 The all
pervasiveness of the tradition is seen from the fact that it was
accepted by writers irrespective of religious or political affilia
tions, and that it affected prose as well as verse.' Although I have
excluded works of fiction from consideration, it is obvious that
major themes in the works of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding,
and Oliver Goldsmith can he properly analysed only when related
to the tradition outlined in these volumes. Thus Goldsmith's
The Vicar of Wakefield still awaits an explication that pays
proper attention to the beatus ille-sentiments so often expressed
especially in the first half of the novel.
The beatus ille-tradition follows the curve of neoclassicism
itself, as we see from the fact that its popularity declined mark-
\
\
PREFACE 11
10 THE HAPPY MAN
at one with his generation in dismissing Stoic doctrines as too
edly after the year 1770.2 This study, therefore, lends strong
rigid and severe, and the soft Epicureanism attributed to Horace
support to the view that one ought to consider the literature
by John Dryden was equally repugnant. Pope's treatment of
of the first half of the eighteenth century in relation to that of
beatus ille-passages suggests that he favoured a golden mean be
the seventeenth, and that the truly decisive change in the history
tween these extremes, and in so doing he seems to me to have
of English literature occurred after the mid-century. An absurdly
come closer to the spirit of Horace than any other poet. An
anachronistic generic inconsistency is achieved by connecting
other issue of considerable interest is Pope's development of the
poems like Dyer's Grongar Hill (1726) with the Romantic period
Horatian technique of dramatising his argument through the
rather than with the seventeenth century. The relative triteness
juxtaposition of sharply contrasted character sketches.
of the opening passage of Wordsworth's Lines Written above
Once a tradition has been firmly established, abuse is inevi
Tintern Abbey (1798) ought to warn us against any such assump
table. John Pomfret's The Choice (1700) is the first in a long
tion; the true voice of the Romantic poet is heard only when
series of poems transforming Horace's sober advice into a mere
he escapes from the conventions of the loco-descriptive tradition
day-dream of a leisured existence in comfortable circumstances.
that had been so popular for more than a century and a half.
Many of these poems were virtual begging letters addressed to a
· The eighteenth century was to provide new emphases to a
patron. This version recommended itself to shop-keepers, foot
tradition that already had undergone several phases in its history.
men, and a thresher like Stephen Duck who obtained the pat
As the first volume has shown, the poets of the early seventeenth
ronage of Queen Caroline. The beatus ille-tradition, therefore,
. century favoured a largely Stoic interpretation, while those of
can he said to have ended both with a bang and a whimper
the Restoration favoured a rural retirement marked by Epicurean
- Pope providing the sound and the fury, Stephen Duck the
sentiments. We have also seen that at the mid-century a Christian
whimper.
trend with Neoplatonic or Hermetic connotations introduced a
strong emphasis on the landscape of retirement as a divine hi-
I regret that my rev1s10n, although considerable, is not as
. eroglyph; only few traces of this attitude can be discovered in
extensive as I could have wished. Today time for research is a
the early years of the next century, when the Neoplatonic view
commodity in short supply among university teachers. My chief
· of Nature was superseded by a rationalistic physico-theological
effort has been to reduce the number of examples in order to
approach. Poets writing under the impact of this physico-theo
focus more sharply on the various trends, and I have also paid
logical appreciation of Nature presented the happiness of the
more attention to the poetry of Pope. This second volume was
rural dweller as dependent more on the Virgilian quest for the
originally published in 1958 and written during 1954 and 1955,
causes of things ( rerum cognoscere C(lll,Sas)t han upon the parva
when there was every reason to feel hesitant about an attempt
rura and nil admirari of Horace. Such poets would consider the
to transform the notorious 'wasp' of Twickenham into a moral
intellectual survey of the landscape as the prime duty and interest
ising 'hermit'. Today the situation is totally different. The general
of the would-be beatus vir, and for this reason the line dividing
acclaim recently accorded a book like Maynard Mack's The Gar
beatus ille-poetry proper from descriptive nature poetry will he
den and the City (1970) shows that my argument has been fully
found to grow perceptibly vaguer as the century advances.
accepted, and that it may he desirable again to make available
The second major emphasis of the new century is found in
this survey of the sources drawn upon by Mr. Mack as by others
Pope's Horatian imitations, and under this heading I would
who have realised its usefulness. Although somewhat abbreviated,
include also his epistles to Burlington and Bathurst. Pope was
12 THE HAPPY MAN
this volume still presents the fullest documentation of an im
portant eighteenth-century tradition. It is deplorable that it has
been out of print for so many years, and I am grateful to the
Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities for
the grant that made possible the publication of this second
revised edition.
M.-S.R.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
During the seventeenth century the classical theme of the hap
piness of rural retirement had been closely associated with a
Royalist and Anglican bias, hut by the time of Queen Anne
this was no longer so. Indeed, the pious sectarians of the early
eighteenth century could he just as loud in their praise of a
peaceful existence in the country-side as their Tory opponents.
Among the causes contributing to this change special importance
must he attached to that exodus from London which was one of
the consequences of increasing financial prosperity; when an
adequate fortune had been amassed the well-to-do merchant or
tradesman would seriously consider abandoning the city for the
country-side. At the same time the sectarians were beginning to
feel that literature need not he the tool of the devil. The hedon
istic versions of the retirement-motifs so popular during the Res
toration were, of course, totally abhorrent to them, hut consider
able interest was taken in more prudent versions emphasising clean
living and moderate pleasures tempered by piety. In John Pom
fret's The Choice (1700) middle-class readers encountered a more
acceptable version of the beatus ille-tradition, and this type of
poem, therefore, came to enjoy widespread popularity.
In the Horae Lyricae (1706) of Isaac Watts the revolution was
carried right into the heart of that part of the nation which so
far had persistently refused to find consolation in mere earthly
circumstances. In the pages of this volume the Puritan pilgrim
can he seen to court rest and tranquillity in a manner which
would have shocked John Bunyan thoroughly - for how can a
true wayfaring Christian find happiness in the world of fallen
man? While the Nonconformists thus were adopting more world
ly attitudes, the polite world was beginning to exchange the Epi
cureanism and downright immorality of the preceding generation
INTRODUCTION 17
16 THE HAPPY MAN
much in common with Cowley's 'Of Avarice' and 'The shortness
for more responsible attitudes. As a consequence, the gap be of Life and uncertainty of Riches'; another example is afforded
tween Whig and Tory, Anglican and Nonconformist, grew con by one of Addison's earliest Spectator e88ays {No. 15) which
siderably less. Mrs. Rowe, for example, pious though she was, declares that 'True Happiness is of a retired Nature, and an Enemy
could look to Pope for inspiration as well as Isaac Watts. If it is to Pomp and Noise'; 'It loves Shade and ·S olitude, and naturally
'°
true, as one scholar has put it, that Addison and Steele 'were haunts Groves and Fountains, Fields and Meadows.' This sounds
riding the crest of a wave of bourgeois morality' ,1 one under- very much like Cowley and the classical sources which he ex
() stands why serious versions of beatus ille-themes came to enjoy ploited, hut as we read on we realise that the new century speaks ~,
increased popularity at this time. The shift can he traced hack with a new voice. Addison turns his attention to the vanity of
to before the turn of the century; one observes, for example, women in an attempt to induce more rational arid sensible atti
the rapid growth of the Religious Societies after 1680 and of tudes, .a nd it is to achieve this end that he exploits beams ille
the Societies for the Refonnation of Manners after 1688. And terminology to point the contrast between the virtuous Aurelia
as Earl Miner has observed, Seneca was frequently published and those unhappy females who are 'smitten with everything
during the last four decades of the seventeenth century ,2 so that that is showy and superficial.' Though a woman of great quality,
the change in favour of more Stoic views can he remarked in Aurelia 'delights in the privacy of a country life, and passes away
the Restoration period itself. Thus Roger L'Estrange complained a great part of her time in her own walks and gardens'. Addison's
in the preface to Seneca's Morals (1688) that the English had Spectator No. 549 owes much to Cowley's discourse on 'The dan•
·~ 'fallen into an Age of vain Philosophy' so that 'betwixt the Hypo ger of Procrastination', an e88ay referred to by Addison in an•
crite, and the Atheist, the very Foundations of Religion, and other Spectator essay, No. 123. Like Cowley, Addison attacks the
good Manners are shaken, and the Two Tables of the DecalogJJ,e human habit of postponing, until it is too late, that retirement
dash'd to pieces.' Although strongly opposed to the Epicurean from too much company which is required for the achievement
definition of happiness as a state of self-contained bliss - a view of mental serenity. Since , this is the theme of Horace's second
held by John Norris, the Neoplatonic minister of Bemerton as epode, Addison logically enough recounts Horace's · story of the
by Rochester, the rake - the moral reformers did not spurn miser Alpheus who knows wherein happiness consists, hut is
the beatus ille-creed, hut re-defined it instead and then employed unable to act in accordance with his insight. This leads on to
it as part of their campaign for moral reform. an anecdote involving Sir Andrew Freeport, the merchant;
The domestication of this creed can he observed in the pages like Alpheus, Sir Andrew finally reached ·t he point when he
of popular periodicals like The Spectator, where Cowley's Essays decided · to leave the world of commerce and devote himself to
' and Discourses (1668) provided the inspiration for many of the a more rational course ' of life, hut, unlike the Roman miser,
, moral lessons imparted. Although Abraham Cowley's metaphysi he executes his design by purchasing a rural estate and retiring
cal poems were out of fashion, his essays retained and even to it. The moral sensibility of the eighteenth century is clearly
increased their general popularity.a By 1693 the folio edition of revealed in Addison's observation that Sir Andrew's retirement
Cowley's works had reached eight editions, and further editions is neither solitary nor self-centred; rather it turns him into some
appeared in 1700, 1707-08, 1710-11, and 1721. The new treat thing of a public benefactor by virtue of the care which he takes
ment given to Cowley's version of the classical themes can he to . improve his land along with his mind.
seen from Addison's discourse on riches in The Spectator No. 464; Several · of. Richard Steele's Spectator eSBays reveal a similar
this essay refers directly to Cowley in the text, which has
2
18 THE HAPPY MAN INTRODUCTION 19
transmuted influence from the 'English Maro', to use Stephen and Tories, it becomes less so on considering the Whig hoof pro
Switzer's term for Abraham Cowley. No. 610 repeats the moral truding underneath the hem of the classical garment. The Whig
lesson of Cowley's •Of Obscurity' and retells the story of Gyges beatus vir is a determined Jover of freedom, prompted by the
and Aglaus contained in Cowley's •Of Agriculture'. Gyges was the desire to do good, and his stance is explicitly anti-Epicurean.
rich monarch who asked the oracle to name the happiest man The highest pleasure is mora~ aetion, and peace of mind is ac
in his king,dom, and his surprise is great on learning that it is quired primarily through the exercise of virtue. Richard Lucas's
not he, hut 'an obscure country man, who employed all his time Enquiry After Happiness (1685) provides a splendid early ex
in cultivating a garden, and a few acres of land about his house.' ample of the compromise effected between a classical philosophy
The same beatus ille-philosophy informs Steele's Spectator essay of happiness and ideals so far associated with Puritanism:
U4
No. describing the unhappy existence of a rich man domi
nated by his vanity. 'If you go to his house you see great plenty, The l!:njoyment of a private Life or Philosophical Recess, ought
hut served in a manner that shows it is all unnatural, and that to consist in Peace and Order, in Harmony and Exaltation, in
the master's mind is not at home .. .' This character sketch was a holy Calm and Serenity, in which, as in a clear day, from the
top of some advantageous height, we Enjoy an enlarged and
to receive its most famous expression in Pope's portrait of Ti
delightful Prospect; ... the Enjoyment of the retired, is to
mon's villa in his Epistle to Burlington, a portrait whose impact
consist in the pleasant Reflections they make on their Escape
to a large extent depends on the reader's ability to recognise out of a tempestuous World, in the Commerce and Entercourse
the classical tradition which it invokes, albeit in negative terms. they maintain with that above; in a calm and leisurely Survey
Steele - like Pope later on - is less concerned with the philosophic of all the various and wondrous Works of God, the Works of
Grace and Nature; and lastly, in a very intimate and familiar
issue of the unmoved mind than with the social and moral prob
A"quaintance with themselves, and the daily and habitual prac
lem posited by the abuse of riches. Unlike Cowley Steele does
tice of pleasing and perfect Virtues.4
not stress the ambitious man's slavery to his own unmanageable
desires so much as his lack of prudence and good sense, and in
Lucas's advocacy of retirement must have exerted considerable
this he is typical of the Whig reformers. John Tutchin, the dis
influence in view of his great popularity as a preacher and a
senting Whig pamphleteer, had turned to Cowley's moral essays writer. His Enquiry after Happiness was one of the truly popu
as early as 1685 in 'A Discourse of Life', and among the contem
lar religious works of the early eighteenth century; by 1764 it
poraries of Addison and Steel.e the editors of The Lay Monastery
had reached ten editions, and it is interesting that this was one
(1713-14), Sir Richard Blackmore and John Hughes, deserve
of the hooks which Susanna Wesley recommended to her son
attention. As the title suggests, the club has been abandoned in
John.
f av~ur of a Horatian retirement graced by good company and
The rationalism of the new century is the second important
') ·rational discourse. Since 1713 and 1714 are the last years of the
factor responsible for transforming the beatus ille-philosophy
period of Tory predominance, these Whig reformers may have
into a typically eighteenth-century version. Thus one finds a
been led by their exclusion from public affairs to court the rationalistic defence of retirement in Steele's Guardian essay
virtues of retirement just as the defeated Royalists had done
No. 130, and again in the letter •Of thee True Use of Retirement
during the reign of Cromwell.
and Study. To the Right Honorahle Lord Bathurst' written by
If it seems surprising that Whig protagonists should borrow
the Tory politician Henry St. John, Viscount Bolinghroke,5 Bo
a terminology and an argument so far associated with Royalists
linghroke begins by deploring the sway of purely local customs
l
20 THE HAPPY MAN ~ IN'rRODUC';l'ION 21
and· beliefs ('every one thinks the system, as he speaks the Ian• William W ollaston - men renowned for their ac'1,ievements ~
gu~ge, of his country') ; only a small handful think according to natural philosophy and natural religion . Whether or not one
'pure mibiassed teason'' and since this . is so, •is it not a thing considers this as a breach of decorum would depend on one's
desirable by every thinking man, to have the opportunity ... "Se ' definition of retirement; Duck may .he said to 'agree' with the
cum esse et secum vivere" ,' so that we ca:n iive at least some years man of science and religion if he is seen to represent the reign
'to ourselves, ahd for ourselves, in a· state of freedom, un:der the of reason in the state of nature, and they in their tum rea
di
law~ reas~n'? The last few lines referring to Pope '"h~ve often son rightly applied in the exploration of nature itself, including
be~n quoted, but not always with full understanding of the tradi man. The installation of Duck with his five busts provoked a
tion they invoke: 'He says I made a philosopher of him: I am spate of poor and indifferent verse as one sees, for exa:mple,
sure he has contributed very much, and I thank him for it, to from the pages of The Lpndon Magazine for 1733 and 1734.6 Rea
the making an hermit of me.' son is the key word in many of these versified effusions, and
The rationalistic argument so strongly underlined by Steele reason combines with piety in the works of all the five worthies.'1
and Bolingbroke was bound to appeai to an age whi~h rejected The impact of Newtonian science upon the poetry of the early
the local and· temporary in favour of the universal and the gene eiglueenth century has been amply documented by Marjorie H.
ral The rej'ection of inner vision in favour of the ,c onsensus gen Nicolson (Newton Demands the Muse, 1946) and other scholars
tium is· too well known to require further comment, and _!10s uf whose works appeared during the 1940s and 1950s.B_Much. of the
fice it to underline the point ' that a philosophy which promised early eighteenth-century enthusiasm for the order and beauty o{
t~ rescue man from his ()Wn delusions and transform him 'into a the Creation was inspired by the scientific achievement of men
rational being rejoicing in the exercise of all the ..v irtues, was like John Ray .(The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Creation,
hound to attract. And Steele as well as Bolingbroke - the Whig 1691) and Sir Isaac Newton, and the crest of the wave of this
and the Tory, the Protestant and the Deist - presented the enthusiasm was reached in the second quarter of the century in
beatlis vir as such a person. the years following Newton's death in 1727. One result ~f this e
It is remarkable how many writers in this period tended to Newtonian enthusiasm was the almost complete transformation
c, refer to science in the same breath that they spoke of virtue. of the classical beatus vir into a scientist fully equipped with
Thus the purpose of The '£ay Monastery, as expressed by one telescope and. microscope. The idea of personal happiness was
of its members, ·S ir Eustace Locker, was to enable men to reach intellectualised to a ludicrous extent i,n poems where the happi
'the greatest Heights of Science and Virtue'. Perhaps the best ness of the dead is seen to consist in their scientific exploits.
illustration of the way in which scientific pursuits were asso In an irregular qde publishe~ in 1718 \Y.H inchliffe portrays life
ciated with rural retirement is found in the curious episode of after death !18o ne continuous college course in Newtonian physics;
Queen Caroline's Hermitage in the royal gardens at Richmond. 'pure Philosophy regales/ Their rais'd, enlarg'd, enliglite~'d
The Queen underlined ' the rural aesociatiohs of the hermitage Souls', whi,le the angels explain 'Profoundest Problems' and
by appointing as its caretaker Stephen Duck, the thresher-poet 'chase all Doubt fr()m their illumin'd Sight.' 9 According to
--' ·a labourer whose naive verses had caught the fancy of the Joseph Trapp, .D. D., the chief advantage , of b~ing dead is that
Queen. · While Duck · undoubtedly expressed · the 'genius' of the one may out-distani:e Newton. In Trapp's po~m, ThougMs Upon
pla~e, this could scarcely he said of the five busts of Robert The Four .Last Things (1734), the dead enjoy c.omplete a.chieve
Boyle, Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke, Dr; Samuel Clarke, and ment of the ~ish once expressed by Virgil in his second Georgi,:,
22 THE HAPPY MAN INTRODUCTION 23
to know the causes of things; each can range through the uni of unlimited curiosity regarding the laws of the universe. To
verse at will: Milton inner vision, or intuitive reason, was of paramount im
portance, just as he let his affable archangel Raphael issue a stem
See how harh'd Comets shake their fiery Hair, warning against excessive curiosity concerning the res creatae
How Planets, hung on Nothing, spin in Air:
(Paradise Lost, VIII, 66-178); in Milton's prelapsarian perfect
Of plain Effects the latent Causes views;
universe, the proper study of mankind is God. The pervasive in
How Hail is moulded, and how rise the Dews.lo
fluence of Locke during the first half of the eighteenth century
This enthusiasm for posthumous studies of the universe may he~ is illustrated by Bolinghroke, who is said persistently to have un•
considered as a continuation, mutatis mutandis, of the Neopla derrated the action of the mind in the process of obtaining know
tonic traditton of the preceding century. Henry More would have ledge.12 Instead he considered Nature as an active power which
sympathised with these sentiments, although no douht sorely impresses its lessons on the mind of man. It is easily seen that
puzzled hy the new terminology gracing the poetic expression this attitude would strengthen the tendency observed in the pre
of the desire for complete knowledge. vious century, to find a secret connection between the beatus vir
What Henry More hy no means would have stomached, how• and the landscape which surrounds him; it would strengthen it,
ever, was the strong emphasis on sense perception engendered hy but at the same time so modify it as to strip it completely of all
Newton as well as John Locke. Locke found no reason to helieve spiritual implications. The rational contemplator of this period
that the soul thinks 'hefore the senses have furnished it with ideas did not ascend from the creatures to the Creator, but was content
to think on' (Essay on. the Human Understanding, ·II, i, 20) and to remain in what he considered his proper sphere. He admired
if this is so, the contemplation of external scenes would assume the Creator for his skill, but it was utterly beyond him to love
great importance, Y.!S~O.n.b. eing the most intellectual of the five God in the manner of an Augustine or a John Milton.
senses. The fact that descriptive poetry hecame so popular during Of Queen Caroline's five worthies two were theologians -
the second quarter of the century suggests that there is a close Dr. Samuel Clarke and William W ollaston. Clarke was strongly
connection hetween this literary develc,pment and the psychology influenced by Newton, just as Newton in his tum adjusted many
of Locke, especially since this is the period of the greatest popu of his ideas to accord with those of Clarke. Clarke's Boyle lectures
larity of Locke as well as Newton.11 Thomas Burnet, author of delivered in 1704 and 1705 proved so popular that he acquired
The Theory of the Earth (1684-1689), engaged in a controversy the reputation of being the first of English metaphysicians after
with ·Locke against the sensationalist asp!!ct of this philosophy, the death of Locke in 1704. His interest in physico-theology pro
hut ·he was sufficiently influenced hy it himself to assume that voked charges of preaching a disguised deism, but he was suffi
the unclouded vision of the dead must be attributed, not to in- ciently conservative with regard to revealed religion to earn the
, ·tuitive reason in the manner of Henry More, but to their having censure of the deists. W ollaston was one of Clarke's followers,
acquired vastly improved senses. Even after death knowledge had and he was probably selected hy the Queen to adorn her her
to come through sense perception, just as the quest for truth was mitage because of the great popularity ·o f his hook The Religion.
largely concerned with the modus operandi of the created uni of Nature Delineated. Privately printed in 1722, it was first pre
verse. Nothing could better illustrate the strong contrast between sented to the public in 1724 and subsequently went through a
the age of Henry More and John Milton and that of Pope, than large number o( editi9ns in a short time.
this insistence on sense perception and this complete approval The fusion between science and theology . often referred to as
