The characteristic motive of English poetry is love of nature, especially of nature as seen in the English rural landscape. From The Cuckoo Song of our language in its beginnings to the perfect loveliness of Tennyson's best verse, this note is ever sounding. It is persistent even amid the triumph of the drama. Take away from Shakespeare all his bits of natural description, all his casual allusions to the life and aspects of the country, and what a loss were there! The reign of the iambic couplet confined, but could not suppress, this native music; Pope notwithstanding, there came the Ode to Evening and that Elegy which, unsurpassed for beauty of thought and nobility of utterance in all the treasury of our lyrics, remains perhaps the most essentially English poem ever written.
英国诗歌典型的主题就是对于自然的热爱,尤其是对英国乡村的自然景色的热爱。从语言形成初期的《布谷鸟之歌》到丁尼生的完美诗篇中最富魅力之处,始终回响着这一主旋律。即使是在戏剧的辉煌时期,它也依然保持着自己的稳固地位。如果将莎士比亚的戏剧中所有描写大自然的文字和偶尔提及的乡村生活和景物全部删除的话,那将是多么大的损失啊!抑扬格偶句的主导地位限制了这种本土韵律的发展,但却没能将其扼杀。尽管有蒲柏”,但也出现了《黄昏颂》和《墓园挽歌》这样的作品。在英国抒情诗的宝库中,还没有哪首诗能具有如此美好的思想和如此高贵的表达;这两首诗或许是有史以来最能从本质上体现英国诗歌特征的作品。
This attribute of our national mind availed even to give rise to an English school of painting. It came late; that it ever came at all is remarkable enough. A people apparently less apt for that kind of achievement never existed. So profound is the English joy in meadow and stream and hill that, unsatisfied at last with vocal expression, it took up the brush, the pencil, the etching tool, and created a new form of art. The National Callery represents only in a very imperfect way the richness and variety of our landscape work. Were it possible to collect and suitably to display the very best of such work in every vehicle, I know not which would be the stronger emotion in an English heart, pride or rapture.
我们的这种民族心理特征,甚至促成了一个英国画派的形成。它虽然迟迟才肯出现,但终归是出现了,而且取得了非凡的成就。从没有一个民族,像英国人这样明显地不适合于取得这种成就。英国人对草地、溪流和山丘的喜爱程度如此之深，以致他们最终不再满足于仅以声音来表达自己的感情,而是拿起了画笔、铅笔和蚀刻工具,创造出了一种新的艺术形式。英国国家美术馆的收藏,仅以一种极为不完整的方式代表了我们那主题丰富、形式多样的风景画作品。如果有可能搜集到每一种风格的风景画中最杰出的作品，并予以适当展出,我不知道哪一种情绪会在英国人的心中占上风一一自豪抑或是狂喜。
One obvious reason for the long neglect of Turner lies in the fact that his genius does not seem to be truly English. Turner's landscape, even when it presents familiar scenes, does not show them in the familiar light. Neither the artist nor the intelligent layman is satisfied. He gives us glorious visions; we admit the glory --- but we miss something which we deem essential. I doubt whether Turner tasted rural England; I doubt whether the spirit of English poetry was in him; I doubt whether the essential significance of the common things which we call beautiful was revealed to his soul. Such doubt does not affect his greatness as a poet in colour and in form, but I suspect that it has always been the cause why England could not love him. If any man whom I knew to be a man of brains confessed to me that he preferred Birket Foster, I should smile --- but I should understand.
透纳“长期以来被忽视的一个明显原因在于这样一个事实:他的天才似乎并不是真正地英国式的。透纳的风景画,即使描绘的是我们所熟悉的风景但却不是以我们所熟悉的角度来表现的。无论是艺术家,还是有才智的外行，都会对此感到不满。他向我们展示了光辉灿烂的景象——我们承认,的确光辉灿烂;但我们却没有看到一些我们认为必要的东西。我怀疑透纳是否体验过英国的乡村生活,怀疑他的心中是否怀有英国诗歌的精神,也怀疑那些我们赋予其美丽之名的普通事物的基本意义,是否曾向他的灵魂展露。这些怀疑不会影响他作为一位色彩与形式上的诗人的伟大;但我猜想,这可能就是英国人一直无法喜爱他的原因。如果我所认识的任何一个有思想的人承认他喜欢伯基特・福斯特，我会莞尔一笑一一但我会理解。
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