These were the theatre of Romance; and the
emotions awakened by scenes like these played an enormous part in the
Revival. It was thus that poets were educated to find that exaltation in
the terrors of mountainous regions which Gray expressed when he said:
"Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with
religion and poetry."
The weaker side of modern Romance, the play-acting and pretence that has
always accompanied it, may be seen in the gardening mania. It was not
enough to be a country gentleman; the position must be improved by the
added elegances of a hermit's cell and an Egyptian pyramid. It is like
children's play; the day is long, the affairs of our elders are tedious,
we are tired of a life in which there is no danger and no hunger; let us
pretend that we are monks, or ancient Romans. The mature imagination
interprets the facts; this kind of imagination escapes from the facts
into a world of make-believe, where the tyranny and cause and effect is
no longer felt. It is not a hard word to call it childish; the
imagination of these early Romantics had a child's weakness and a child's
delightful confidence and zest.
The same play activity expressed itself in literature, where an orgy of
imitation ushered in the real movement. The antiquarian beginnings of
Romantic poetry may be well illustrated by the life and works of Thomas
Warton. He passed his life as a resident Fellow of Trinity College,
Oxford, and devoted his leisure, which was considerable, to the study of
English poetry and Gothic architecture.
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