The Harbours of England - Ruskin John

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is very interesting to note how repugnant every oceanic idea appears to be to the whole nature of our principal English mediæval poet, Chaucer. Read first the Man of Lawe's Tale, in which the Lady Constance is continually floated up and down the Mediterranean, and the German Ocean, in a ship by herself; carried from Syria all the way to Northumberland, and there wrecked upon the coast; thence yet again driven up and down among the waves for five years, she and her child; and yet, all this while, Chaucer does not let fall a single word descriptive of the sea, or express any emotion whatever about it, or about the ship. He simply tells us the lady sailed here and was wrecked there; but neither he nor his audience appear to be capable of receiving any sensation, but one of simple aversion, from waves, ships, or sands. Compare with his absolutely apathetic recital, the description by a modern poet of the sailing of a vessel, charged with the fate of another Constance:

      "It curled not Tweed alone, that breeze—

      For far upon Northumbrian seas

      It freshly blew, and strong;

      Where from high Whitby's cloistered pile,

      Bound to St. Cuthbert's holy isle,

      It bore a bark along.

      Upon the gale she stooped her side,

      And bounded o'er the swelling tide

      As she were dancing home.

      The merry seamen laughed to see

      Their gallant ship so lustily

      Furrow the green sea foam."

      Now just as Scott enjoys this sea breeze, so does Chaucer the soft air of the woods; the moment the older poet lands, he is himself again, his poverty of language in speaking of the ship is not because he despises description, but because he has nothing to describe. Hear him upon the ground in Spring:

      "These woodes else recoveren greene,

      That drie in winter ben to sene,

      And the erth waxeth proud withall,

      For sweet dewes that on it fall,

      And the poore estate forget,

      In which that winter had it set:

      And then becomes the ground so proude,

      That it wol have a newe shroude,

      And maketh so queint his robe and faire,

      That it had hewes an hundred paire,

      Of grasse and floures, of Inde and Pers,

      And many hewes full divers:

      That is the robe I mean ywis

      Through which the ground to praisen is."

      In like manner, wherever throughout his poems we find Chaucer enthusiastic, it is on a sunny day in the "good green-wood," but the slightest approach to the sea-shore makes him shiver; and his antipathy finds at last positive expression, and becomes the principal foundation of the Frankeleine's Tale, in which a lady, waiting for her husband's return in a castle by the sea, behaves and expresses herself as follows:—

      "Another time wold she sit and thinke,

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      1

      To ornament the covers of these parts, Turner designed a vignette, which was printed upon the center of the front wrapper of each. As The Ports of England is an exceptionally scarce book, and as the vignette can be obtained in no other form, a facsimile of it is here given.

1

To ornament the covers of these parts, Turner designed a vignette, which was printed upon the center of the front wrapper of each. As The Ports of England is an exceptionally scarce book, and as the vignette can be obtained in no other form, a facsimile of it is here given. The original drawing was presented by Mr. Ruskin to the Fitz-William Museum, at Cambridge, where it may now be seen.

2

By this time (1877) the plates had become considerably worn, and were accordingly "retouched" by Mr. Chas. A. Tomkins. But such retouching proved worse than useless. The delicacy of the finer work had entirely vanished, and the plates remained but a ghost of their former selves, such as no one would recognize as doing justice to Turner. The fifth is unquestionably the least satisfactory of the five original editions containing Lupton's engravings.

3

Mr. E. Gambart (who is still living) states that, to the best of his recollection, he paid Mr. Ruskin 150 guineas for his work. Probably this was the price originally agreed upon, the two Turner drawings being ultimately accepted as a more welcome and appropriate form of remuneration.

4

See post, p. 19.

5

See Præterita. She died March 30th, 1871.

6

The accompanying illustration is a facsimile of the portion of the proof-sheet described above—slightly reduced to fit the smaller page.

7

See post, p. 3.

8

Portsmouth, Sheerness, Scarborough, and Whitby.

9

Prologue to Peter Bell.

10

In Memoriam, ci.

11

I am not quite sure of this, not having studied with any care the forms of mediæval shipping; but in all the MSS. I have examined the sails of the shipping represented are square.

12

It is not a little strange that in all the innumerable paintings of Venice, old and modern, no notice whatever had been taken of these sails, though they are exactly the most striking features of the marine scenery around the city, until Turner fastened upon them, painting one important picture, "The Sun of Venice," entirely in their illustration.

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