Philip James Bailey

Philip James Bailey in his study, 1904. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Philip James Bailey
Born	April 22 1816(1816-Template:MONTHNUMBER-22) Nottingham, England
Died	June 6 1902(1902-Template:MONTHNUMBER-06) (aged 86) Nottingham, England
Nationality	English
Occupation	poet
Notable works	Festus

Philip James Bailey (22 April 1816 - 6 September 1902) was an English poet, best known as the author of Festus.

Life

Overview

Bailey, the son of a journalist, was born at Nottingham, and educated there and at Glasgow. His life was a singularly uneventful one. He lived at Nottingham, Jersey, Ilfracombe, London, and again at Nottingham, where he died He travelled a good deal on the Continent. He was by profession a barrister, but never practised, and devoted his whole energies to poetry. His debutt poem, Festus, 1839, was published anonymously, and had great success, but has fallen into unmerited, but perhaps temporary, neglect. Among its greatest admirers was Tennyson. Bailey's subsequent poems, The Angel World (1850), The Mystic (1855), The Age (1858), and The Universal Hymn (1867), were failures, and the author adopted the unfortunate expedient of endeavouring to buoy them up by incorporating large extracts in the later editions of Festus, with the effect only of sinking the latter, which ultimately extended to over 40,000 lines.

Youth

Bailey was the only son of Thomas Bailey of Nottingham, by his 1st wife, Mary (Taylor). He was born on at Nottingham, in a house, now demolished, on the Middle Pavement facing the town hall. He showed an early interest in his father's poetical tastes, which his father stimulated by taking him to see Byron's lying-in-state at the Old Blackamoor's Head in Nottingham High Street, and by encouraging him to learn by heart the whole of Childe Harold. Educated in Nottingham, he was tutored in classics by Benjamin Carpenter, a Unitarian minister.

In his 16th year he matriculated at Glasgow University with a view to the presbyterian ministry; but quickly renouncing this ambition, he began in 1833 to study law in a solicitor's office in London. On 26 April 1834 he was entered a member of Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar on 7 May 1840, but never practised.

Literary career

Meanwhile his interest in legal studies had been interrupted by the reading of Goethe's Faust. The German poem took possession of his whole mind and energy, but it failed to satisfy his moral ideals, especially in its treatment of the problem of evil. He felt under compulsion to produce his own version of the legend, and retired for that purpose in 1836 to the seclusion of his father's house at Old Basford, near Nottingham, where in 3 years' time the original version of his poem 'Festus' was written. It was printed in Manchester by W.H. Jones, and published without the author's name in London by William Pickering in 1839.

On the whole the reception of 'Festus' was enthusiastic. If the Athenæum pf 21 December 1839 pronounced the idea of the poem to be "a mere plagiarism from the Faust of Goethe, with all its impiety and scarcely any of its poetry," Bulwer Lytton, James Montgomery, Ebenezer Elliott, John Westland Marston, Richard Henry Horne, and Mary Howitt joined with other leading reviews in a chorus of praise. Tennyson wrote to Edward FitzGerald in 1846 that he had just bought the poem, and advised his friend: "order it and read: you will most likely find it a great bore, but there are really very grand things in Festus." The Pre-Raphaelites discussed the work with' much admiration, although Patmore complained that Bailey was 'painting on clouds' (Pre-Raphaelite Diaries, edited by W.M. Rossetti, 229, 262, 265).

In the 2nd edition of 1845 Bailey made large additions, and processes of addition and recasting went on in later editions until, in the 11th or jubilee edition of 1889, the work reached more than 40,000 lines. In that volume was incorporated the greater part of 3 volumes of poetry, which Bailey had meanwhile published separately. These were The Angel World, and other poems (1850), which attracted the attention of the Pre-Raphaelites, and was eagerly noted by W.M. Rossetti for review in The Germ; The Mystic, and other poems (1855); and The Universal Hymn (1867).

Although the popularity of Festus fluctuated, it was alive at the end of the 19th century. The Festus Birthday Book appeared in 1882, and the Beauties of Festus in 1884. A Festus Treasury was edited by Albert Broadbent in 1901. In the United States 30 unauthorized editions of Festus appeared before 1889.

Last years

Bailey was a man of strikingly handsome appearance, and gentle and amiable character. He married twice. His first marriage was unhappy, and he was compelled to divorce his wife, by whom he had a son and daughter. His 2nd wife was Anne Sophia, daughter of Alderman George Carey of Nottingham, whom he married in 1863. She devotedly watched over his later years, but died before him in 1896.

In 1864 he settled in Jersey, whence he paid frequent visits to the continent. He witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius in 1872, impairing his health by exposure to heat. In 1876 he returned to England, settling first at Lee near Ilfracombe, and in 1885 at Blackheath. Finally he retired to a house in the Rope walk of his native Nottingham, where he died after an attack of influenza on 6 September 1902. He was buried in Nottingham cemetery.

Writing

Festus

Festus is, for the daring of its theme and the imaginative power and moral altitude which it displays, one of the most notable of the century; as the work of a poet little past boyhood it is a prodigy of intellectual precocity. Along with its great qualities it has many faults in execution, and its final place in literature remains to be determined.

Bailey's poetic power was never so fresh and concentrated as in the 1st edition of Festus. His later additions turned the poem into a theological and metaphysical treatise, for which some critics claimed high philosophical merits, but beneath which the poetry was smothered. In 1876 W.M. Rossetti spoke of Festus as "but little read," but by way of remonstrance Theodore Watts-Dunton claimed that the poem contained "lovely oases of poetry," among 'wide tracts of ratiocinative writing' (Athenæum, 1 April 1876). Bailey prefixed to the jubilee edition an elaborate account of the aims of the poem in its final form and of the general principles of its arrangement. He was often regarded as the father of the "spasmodic" school of poetry, and satirized as such along with Alexander Smith and Sydney Dobell by W.E. Aytoun in Firmilian (1854); but in his last year he denied the imputation in a long letter in which he restated, with a self-satisfied seriousness, the intention of his work. He there claimed Browning as well as Tennyson among his admirers (see Robertson Nicoll & T.J. Wise, Lit. Anecdotes Nineteenth Century, ii. 413-8).

Other writing

Bailey wrote a play on the subject of Aurungzebe, which Talfourd admired. Talfourd introduced the author to Macready, but the play was not produced and was finally destroyed by Bailey in a fit of despondency.

Besides the volumes afterwards incorporated in Festus, he published in 1858 The Age, a colloquial satire; in 1861 a prose essay, The International Policy of the Great Powers; in 1878 Nottingham Castle: An ode; and in 1883 (undated, published at Ilfracombe) Causa Britannica: A poem in Latin hexameters with English paraphrase.

Critical introduction

In Bailey we have a striking instance of the man whose reputation is made suddenly by a single work, which obtains an amazing popularity, and which is presently almost forgotten except as a name. His Festus: A poem, containing 55 episodes or successive scenes,— some 35,000 lines,— was begun in his twentieth year. 3 years later it was in the hands of the English reading public.

Like Goethe’s Faust in pursuing the course of a human soul through influences emanating from the Supreme Good and the Supreme Evil; in having Heaven and the World as its scene; in its inclusion of God and the Devil, the Archangels and Angels, the Powers of Perdition, and withal many earthly types in its action,— it is by no means a mere imitation of the great German. Its plan is wider. It incorporates even more impressive spiritual material than Faust offers. Not only is its mortal hero, Festus, conducted through an amazing pilgrimage, spiritual and redeemed by divine Love, but we have in the poem a conception of close association with Christianity, profound ethical suggestions, a flood of theology and philosophy, metaphysics and science, picturing Good and Evil, love and hate, peace and war, the past, the present, and the future, earth, heaven, and hell, heights and depths, dominions, principalities, and powers, God and man, the whole of being and of not-being,— all in an effort to unmask the last and greatest secrets of Infinity.

And more than all this, Festus strives to portray the sufficiency of Divine Love and of the Divine Atonement to dissipate, even to annihilate, Evil. For even Lucifer and the hosts of darkness are restored to purity and to peace among the Sons of God, the Children of Light! The Love of God is set forth as limitless. We have before us the birth of matter at the Almighty’s fiat; and we close the work with the salvation and ecstasy — described as decreed from the Beginning — of whatever creature hath been given a spiritual existence, and made a spiritual subject and agency. There is in the doctrine of Festus no such thing as the “Son of Perdition” who shall be an ultimate castaway.

Few English poems have attracted more general notice from all intelligent classes of readers than did Festus on its advent. Orthodoxy was not a little aghast at its theologic suggestions. Criticism of it as a literary production was hampered not a little by religious sensitiveness. The London Literary Gazette said of it: "It is an extraordinary production, out-Heroding Kant in some of its philosophy, and out-Goetheing Goethe in the introduction of the Three Persons of the Trinity as interlocutors in its wild plot. Most objectionable as it is on this account, it yet contains so many exquisite passages of genuine poetry, that our admiration of the author’s genius overpowers the feeling of mortification at its being misapplied, and meddling with such dangerous topics." The advance of liberal ideas within the churches has diminished such criticism, but the work is still a stumbling-block to the less speculative of sectaries.

The poem is far too long, and its scope too vast for even a genius of much higher and riper gifts than Bailey’s. It is turgid, untechnical in verse, wordy, and involved. Had Bailey written at 50 instead of at 20, it might have shown a necessary balance and felicity of style. But, with all these shortcomings, it is not to be relegated to the library of things not worth the time to know, to the list of bulky poetic failures.

Its author blossomed and fruited marvelously early; so early and with such unlooked-for fruit that the unthinking world, which initially received him with exaggerated honor, presently assailed him with undue dispraise. Festus is not mere solemn and verbose commonplace. Here and there it has passages of great force and even of high beauty. The author’s whole heart and brain were poured into it, and neither was a common one. With all its ill-based daring and manifest crudities, it was such a tour de force for a lad of 20 as the world seldom sees. Its sluggish current bears along remarkable knowledge, great reflection, and the imagination of a fertile as well as a precocious brain.

Critical reputation

Bailey’s death, which took place at Nottingham on September 6th, 1902, reawakened to some extent the interest taken in his work, and Festus was the subject of a careful article by Edmund Gosse in the Fortnightly Review of the following November. The next year saw a new edition of the poem, but the liberal ideas at which orthodoxy stood aghast in mid-19th century attracted little attention in the early 20th. The length of the poem also make against its chances of perusal in a busier age, in spite of the fine things it undoubtedly contains.

Recognition

In 1856 Bailey received a Civil List pension of £100 in recognition of his literary work.

In 1901 Glasgow University conferred upon him an honorary LL.D. degree in his absence.

A bronze bust of Bailey executed by Albert Toft in 1901 is in the Nottingham Art Gallery. A marble bust by John Alexander MacBride, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1848, is in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. A plaster cast of it, dated 1846, is in the Nottingham Art Gallery.

Publications

Poetry

• Festus. nottingham, UK: R. Allen, 1839; London: W. Pickering, 1839.
  • (1st American edition). Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey, 1845.
  • (1903 edition). London: George Routledge, 1903.
  • The Beauties of "Festus". Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey, 1848.
  • A Festus Treasury: Being passages from the poem "Festus". Manchester, UK: Albert Broadbent, 1901.
• The Angel World, and other poems. London: W. Pickering, 1850; Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1850.
• The Mystic and other poems. London: Chapman & Hall, 1855; Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1856.
• The Age: a colloquial satire. London: Chapman and Hall, 1858; Boston: Ticknor, 1858.
• Universal Hymn. London: Bell & Daldy, 1867.*Nottingham Castle: An ode. Nottingham, UK: T. Forman, 1878.

Non-fiction

• The International Policy of the Great Powers. London: Saunders & Otley, 1861.

Etc.

• The Festus Birthday Book. London: Longmans Green, 1882.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

•  Bayne, Ronald (1912). "Bailey, Philip James". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement​. 1. London: Smith, Elder. pp. 78-79.  Wikisource, Web, Nov. 26, 2017.

External links

Poems

• Bailey in the Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse" "Knowledge," from The Mystic. from Festus
• from Festus in A Victorian Anthology
• Philip James Bailey at PoemHunter (75 poems)

Books

• Philip James Bailey at Amazon.com

About

• Philip James Bailey in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Philip James Bailey at BiographyBase
• Bailey, Philip James in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Dictionary of National Biography, 2nd supplement​ (edited by Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1912. Original article is at: Bailey, Philip James