Charlotte Smith
(1749-1806)
Contents
The Poetry Collections
Elegiac Sonnets
The Emigrants
Conversations Introducing Poetry
Beachy Head and Other Poems
Miscellaneously Published Verses
The Poems
List of Poems in Chronological Order
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
Selected Novels
Emmeline
The Old Manor House
The Banished Man
Montalbert
The Biography
Charlotte Smith: A Memoir by Sir Walter Scott
The Delphi Classics Catalogue
© Delphi Classics 2014
Version 1
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Charlotte Smith
By Delphi Classics, 2014
COPYRIGHT
Charlotte Smith - Delphi Poets Series
First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Delphi Classics.
© Delphi Classics, 2014.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.
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The Poetry Collections
King Street, St James’s Square, London — Charlotte Smith was born here on 4th May 1749.
Early portrait of the poet from the 1827 frontispiece of ‘Elegiac Sonnets’
Elegiac Sonnets
Charlotte Turner Smith (1749–1806), who is now regarded by some as the first English Romantic poet, was born into a wealthy family and received a typical education for a woman during the late eighteenth century. However, her father’s reckless spending forced her to marry the violent and profligate Benjamin Smith. Their marriage was at once unhappy, though they were to have twelve children together. Ten weeks before her sixteenth birthday, Charlotte was married off to Benjamin, who was the heir to a West-Indian commercial venture, which he was to prove too inadequate to handle.
Due to her husband’s mounting debts, Charlotte had to join him in debtor’s prison, where she wrote her first book of poetry, Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Essays by Charlotte Smith of Bignor Park, in East Sussex, though its success allowed her to help pay for Benjamin’s release. The title demonstrates the poet’s confidence, as she would not hide behind anonymity, but instead proudly declared her name and the estate where she grew up. The volume was so popular that a second edition soon followed. Smith’s sonnets helped initiate a revival of the form and granted an aura of respectability to her later novels, especially as poetry was considered the highest art form at the time. Smith revised Elegiac Poems several times over the years, eventually creating a two-volume work. However, in spite of the warm critical praise the book received, it is unlikely the collection was remunerative and Smith was quick to learn that narrative prose, as shown by her ten novels that followed, would be a much more lucrative form of writing than verse.
Smith eventually left Benjamin and depended upon writing to support her children. Her ongoing struggle to provide for her family and her continual frustrated attempts to gain legal protection as a woman provided themes for her poetry and novels; she included portraits of herself and her family in her novels as well as details about her life in her prefaces. Her early novels are exercises in aesthetic development, particularly of the Gothic and sentimentality.
The second edition’s title page
CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH EDITIONS.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND VOLUME.
SONNET I. THE PARTIAL MUSE, HAS FROM MY EARLIEST HOURS
SONNET II. WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING.
SONNET III. TO A NIGHTINGALE.
SONNET IV. TO THE MOON.
SONNET V. TO THE SOUTH DOWNS.
SONNET VI. TO HOPE.
SONNET VII. ON THE DEPARTURE OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
SONNET VIII. TO SPRING.
SONNET IX. BLEST IS YON SHEPHERD, ON THE TURF RECLINED
SONNET X. TO MRS. G.
SONNET XI. TO SLEEP.
SONNET XII. WRITTEN ON THE SEA SHORE, OCT. 1784.
SONNET XIII. FROM PETRARCH.
SONNET XIV. FROM PETRARCH.
SONNET XV. FROM PETRARCH.
SONNET XVI. FROM PETRARCH.
SONNET XVII. FROM THE THIRTEENTH CANTATA OF METASTASIO.
SONNET XVIII. TO THE EARL OF EGREMONT.
SONNET XIX. TO MR. HAYLEY
SONNET XX. TO THE COUNTESS OF A ——
SONNET XXI. SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY WERTER.
SONNET XXII. BY THE SAME. TO SOLITUDE.
SONNET XXIII. BY THE SAME. TO THE NORTH STAR.
SONNET XXIV. BY THE SAME.
SONNET XXV. BY THE SAME. Just before his Death.
SONNET XXVI. TO THE RIVER ARUN.
SONNET XXVII. SIGHING I SEE YON LITTLE TROOP AT PLAY
SONNET XXVIII. TO FRIENDSHIP.
SONNET XXIX. TO MISS C —— .
SONNET XXX. TO THE RIVER ARUN.
SONNET XXXI. WRITTEN ON FARM WOOD, SOUTH DOWNS, MAY 1784.
SONNET XXXII. TO MELANCHOLY.
SONNET XXXIII. TO THE NAIAD OF THE ARUN.
SONNET XXXIV. TO A FRIEND.
SONNET XXXV. TO FORTITUDE.
SONNET XXXVI. SHOULD THE LONE WANDERER, FAINTING ON HIS WAY
SONNET XXXVII. SENT TO THE HON. MRS. O’NEILL, WITH PAINTED FLOWERS.
SONNET XXXVIII. FROM THE NOVEL OF EMMELINE.
SONNET XXXIX. TO NIGHT. FROM THE SAME.
SONNET XL. FROM THE SAME.
SONNET XLI. TO TRANQUILLITY.
SONNET XLII. COMPOSED DURING A WALK ON THE DOWNS, NOV. 1787.
SONNET XLIII. THE UNHAPPY EXILE, WHOM HIS FATES CONFINE
SONNET XLIV. WRITTEN IN THE CHURCH-YARD AT MIDDLETON, IN SUSSEX.
SONNET XLV. ON LEAVING A PART OF SUSSEX.
SONNET XLVI. WRITTEN AT PENHURST, IN AUTUMN 1788.
SONNET XLVII. TO FANCY.
SONNET XLVIII. TO MRS ––
SONNET XLIX. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA.
SONNET L. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA.
SONNET LI. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA.
SONNET LII. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA. THE PILGRIM.
SONNET LIII. FROM THE NOVEL OF CELESTINA. THE LAPLANDER.
SONNET LIV. THE SLEEPING WOODMAN.
SONNET LV. RETURN OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
SONNET LVI. THE CAPTIVE ESCAPED
SONNET LVII. TO DEPENDENCE.
SONNET LVIII. THE GLOW-WORM.
SONNET LIX. WRITTEN SEPT. 1791, DURING A REMARKABLE THUNDERSTORM.
SONNET LX. TO AN AMIABLE GIRL.
SONNET LXI.
SONNET LXII.
SONNET LXIII
. THE GOSSAMER.
SONNET LXIV. WRITTEN AT BRISTOL IN THE SUMMER OF 1794.
SONNET LXV. TO DR PARRY OF BATH.
SONNET LXVI. WRITTEN IN A TEMPESTUOUS NIGHT ON THE COAST OF SUSSEX.
SONNET LXVII. ON PASSING OVER A DREARY TRACT OF COUNTRY
SONNET LXVIII. WRITTEN AT EXMOUTH, MIDSUMMER, 1795.
SONNET LXIX. WRITTEN AT THE SAME PLACE, ON SEEING A SEAMAN RETURN WHO HAD BEEN IMPRISONED AT ROCHFORT.
SONNET LXX. ON BEING CAUTIONED AGAINST WALKING OVER A HEADLAND OVERLOOKING THE SEA, BECAUSE IT WAS FREQUENTED BY A LUNATIC.
SONNET LXXI. WRITTEN AT WEYMOUTH IN WINTER.
SONNET LXXII. TO THE MORNING STAR.
SONNET LXXIII. TO A QUERULOUS ACQUAINTANCE.
SONNET LXXIV. THE WINTER NIGHT.
SONNET LXXV.
SONNET LXXVI. TO A YOUNG MAN ENTERING THE WORLD.
SONNET LXXVII. TO THE INSECT OF THE GOSSAMER.
SONNET LXXVIII. SNOWDROPS.
SONNET LXXIX. TO THE GODDESS OF BOTANY.
SONNET LXXX. TO THE INVISIBLE MOON.
SONNET LXXXI. HE MAY BE ENVIED, WHO WITH TRANQUIL BREAST
SONNET LXXXII. TO THE SHADE OF BURNS.
SONNET LXXXIII. THE SEA VIEW.
SONNET LXXXIV. TO THE MUSE.
QUOTATIONS AND NOTES.
SONNETS ADDED TO LATER EDITIONS
SONNET: THE FAIREST FLOWERS ARE GONE! FOR TEMPESTS FELL
SONNET WRITTEN NEAR A PORT ON A DARK EVENING
SONNET WRITTEN IN OCTOBER
NEPENTHE
TO THE SUN
TO OBLIVION
REFLECTIONS ON SOME DRAWINGS OF PLANTS
SONNET WRITTEN AT BIGNOR PARK IN SUSSEX, IN AUGUST, 1799
ODE TO DESPAIR
ELEGY
SONG FROM THE FRENCH OF CARDINAL BERNIS
THE ORIGIN OF FLATTERY
THE PEASANT OF THE ALPS
SONG FROM THE FRENCH
SONG: DOES PITY GIVE, THO’ FATE DENIES
THIRTY-EIGHT ADDRESSED TO MRS. H —— Y
VERSES INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN PREFIXED TO THE NOVEL OF EMMELINE, BUT THEN SUPPRESSED
THE DEAD BEGGAR
THE FEMALE EXILE.
WRITTEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF A DISTRESSED PLAYER, DETAINED AT BRIGHTHELMSTONE FOR DEBT, NOVEMBER 1792
INSCRIPTION ON A STONE, IN THE CHURCH-YARD AT BOREHAM, IN ESSEX
A DESCRIPTIVE ODE, SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN UNDER THE RUINS OF RUFUS’S CASTLE
VERSES SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN THE NEW FOREST, IN EARLY SPRING
APOSTROPHE TO AN OLD TREE
THE FOREST BOY
VERSES, ON THE DEATH OF HENRIETTA O’NEILL, WRITTEN IN SEPTEMBER, 1794
APRIL
ODE TO DEATH
STANZAS: AH! THINK’ST THOU, LAURA, THEN, THAT WEALTH
TO THE WINDS
TO VESPER
LYDIA
PREFACE TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS.
THE little Poems which are here called Sonnets, have, I believe, no very just claim to that title: but they consist of fourteen lines, and appear to me no improper vehicle for a single sentiment. I am told, and I read it as the opinion of very good judges, that the legitimate Sonnet is ill calculated for our language. The specimens Mr Hayley has given, though they form a strong exception, prove no more, than that the difficulties of the attempt vanish before uncommon powers.
Some very melancholy moments have been beguiled by expressing in verse the sensations those moments brought. Some of my friends, with partial indiscretion, have multiplied the copies they procured of several of these attempts, till they found their way into the prints of the day in a mutilated state; which, concurring with other circumstances, determined me to put them into their present form. I can hope for readers only among the few, who, to sensibility of heart, join simplicity of taste.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH EDITIONS.
THE reception given by the public, as well as my particular friends, to the two first editions of these Poems, has induced me to add to the present such other Sonnets as I have written since, or have recovered from my acquaintance, to whom I had given them without thinking well enough of them at the time to preserve any copies myself. A few of those last written, I have attempted on the Italian model; with what success I know not; but I am persuaded that, to the generality of readers, those which are less regular will be more pleasing.
As a few notes were necessary, I have added them at the end. I have there quoted such lines as I have borrowed; and even where I am conscious the ideas were not my own, I have restored them to the original possessors.
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION.
IN printing a list of so many noble, literal, and respectable names, it would become me, perhaps, to make my acknowledgments to those friends, to whose exertions in my favour, rather than to any merit of my own, I owe the brilliant assemblage. With difficulty I repress what I feel on this subject; but in the conviction that such acknowledgments would be painful to them, I forbear publicly to speak of those particular obligations, the sense of which will ever be deeply impressed on my heart.
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.
When a sixth edition of these little Poems was lately called for, it was proposed to me to add such Sonnets, or other pieces, as I might have written since the publication of the fifth. Of these, however, I had only a few; and on showing them to a friend, of whose judgment I had a high opinion, he remarked that some of them, particularly “The Sleeping Woodman,” and “The Return of the Nightingale,” resembled in their subjects, and still more in the plaintive tone in which they are written, the greater part of those in the former editions, and that, perhaps, some of a more lively cast might be better liked by the public— “Toujours perdrix,” said my friend—” ‘Toujours perdrix,’ you know, ‘ne vaut rien .’ — I am far from supposing that your compositions can be neglected or disapproved, on whatever subject; but perhaps ‘toujours rossignols, toujours des chansons tristes,’ may not be so
well received as if you attempted, what you would certainly execute as successfully, a more cheerful style of composition.” “Alas!” replied I, ‘Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?’ Or can the effect cease, while the cause remains? You know that when in the Beech Woods of Hampshire, I first struck the chords of the melancholy lyre, its notes were never intended for the public ear! It was unaffected sorrows drew them forth: I wrote mournfully because I was unhappy, and I have unfortunately no reason yet, though nine years have since elapsed, to change my tone . The time is indeed arrived, when I have been promised by ‘the honourable men’ who, nine years ago, undertook to see that my family obtained the provision their grandfather designed for them, — that ‘all should be well, all should be settled. But still I am condemned to feel the ‘hope delayed that maketh the heart sick.’ Still to receive — not a repetition of promises indeed — but of scorn and insult, when I apply to those gentlemen, who, though they acknowledge that all impediments to a division of the estate they have undertaken to manage, are done away — will neither tell me when they will proceed to divide it, nor whether they will ever do so at all . You know the circumstances under which I have now so long been labouring; and you have done me the honour to say, that few women could so long have contended with them. With these, however as they are some of them of a domestic and painful nature, I will not trouble the public now ; but while they exist in all their force, that indulgent public must accept all I am able to achieve— ‘Toujours des chansons tristes!’”
Thus ended the short dialogue between my friend and me, and I repeat it as an apology for that apparent despondence, which, when it is observed for a long series of years, may look like affectation. I shall be sorry, if on some future occasion, I should feel myself compelled to detail its causes more at length; for, notwithstanding I am thus frequently appearing as an authoress, and have derived from thence many of the greatest advantages of my life, since it has procured me friends whose attachment is most invalu
able, I am well aware that for a woman —
“The post of honour is a private station.”
London, May 14th, 1792.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND VOLUME.
IT so rarely happens that a second attempt in any species of writing equals the first, in the public opinion, when the first has been remarkably successful; that I send this second volume of small Poems into the world with a considerable degree of diffidence and apprehension.
Whatever inferiority may be adjudged to it, I cannot plead want of time for its completion, if I should attempt any excuse at all; for I do not forget that more than three years have elapsed since I reluctantly yielded to the pressing instances of some of my friends; (Particularly those of Joseph Cooper Walker, Esq. of Dublin, by whose friendly and successful applications in Ireland I am particularly obliged.) and accepted their offers to promote a subscription to another volume of Poems — I say, accepted the offers of my friends, because, with a single exception, I never made any application myself.
Having once before had recourse to the indulgence of the public, in publishing a book by subscription, and knowing that it had been so often done by persons with whom it is honourable to be ranked, it was not pride that long withheld my consent from this manner of publication; and, certainly, the pecuniary inconveniences I had been exposed to for so many years, never pressed upon me more heavily than at the moment this proposal was urged by my friends; if then I declined it, it was because I even at that period doubted, whether from extreme depression of spirit, I should have the power of fulfilling, so as to satisfy myself, the engagement I must feel myself bound by, the moment I had accepted subscriptions.
Could any one of the misfortunes that so rapidly followed have been foreseen, nothing should have induced me to have consented to it; for what expectation could I entertain of resisting such calamities as the detention of their property has brought on my children? Of four sons, all seeking in other climates the competence denied them in this, two were, for that reason, driven from their prospects in the church to the army, where one of them was maimed during the first campaign he served in, and is now a lieutenant of invalids. The loveliest, the most beloved of my daughters, the darling of all her family, was torn from us for ever. The
Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith Page 1