No . 134
The Trusty Servant
Thunder in 1 st Chamber – the young Robert Lowth
The Editor , Lucia Quinault , shows how a famous piece of 18th-century OW juvenilia reveals that the child is father to the Bishop .
This year marks the three hundredth anniversary of the arrival in College of Robert Lowth ( 1710 – 1787 ) the famous grammarian , Bishop of London , Oxford Professor of Poetry and author of a detailed and scholarly Life of William of Wykeham .
I should like to look at a less weighty work , however , though one which enjoyed great popular success in his time : ‘ On a Thunder Storm by Night . Written at Winchester College , at the age of fourteen .’
That industrious OW , Reverend Peter Hall ( Coll , 1816-22 ), to whose indefatigable school spirit we owe many of the Wykehamical items in the Fellows ’ Library , collected for publication the Sermons and Other Remains of Robert Lowth ( 1834 ), prefaced by a brief but , for him , quite censorious memoir – the sound of the 19 th -century Anglican church judging its 18 th -century self , perhaps :
‘ Lowth was by no means a spiritual divine . Of the fundamental doctrine of Christian faith , - the glory of God manifested in the salvation of his people by the blood of Christ , - we hear but too little , even in his best and latest sermons .’
This much-anthologised poem is clearly , however , an exception :
‘ He was educated on the foundation of Winchester College , and there exhibited the first specimen of his poetical talent in his exquisite stanzas , written as he lay in bed during a thunder-storm ; of which it will not be too much to say , that none of his subsequent writings exhibit a more fervent spirit of devotion .’
So what does the poem reveal of the young Collegeman and his view of religion ? He opens ‘ Locked in the arms of balmy sleep ’, as silent ‘ as the folded sheep ’, but the second stanza shows his rude awakening :
Sudden tremendous thunders roll , Quick lightnings round me glare ;
The solemn scene alarms my soul , And wakes the mind to prayer .
He asks , conventionally enough , that ‘ each friendly head ,/ And all my soul holds dear ’ be saved from death by thunderbolt , but the poem also reveals an interesting internal debate as to whether the storm comes from God , or not , and if so , what God ’ s purpose might be in employing this ‘ awful tempest ’. If it comes from you , God , he says , we must ‘ Welcome the bolt , where ’ er it fall ,/ Beneath the passing sun ’, because ‘ Thy sov ’ reign will determines all ,/ And let that will be done !’
However , his next stanza imagines the ‘ bolt ’ exercising its ‘ wild domain ,/ Self-authorised to kill ’, at which point he begs God to fling himself into action and divert the threat from falling on sinners , unprepared for death , and instead ‘ strike where smiling virtue rests ,/ Unconscious of the storm .’
But with whom does the young Lowth identify ? His early years – surely not in College ! – have already shown him ‘ where riot foul / Pours forth the drunken jest ’, though his initial description of his own sleep as
‘ balmy ’ suggests that his is not a ‘ guiltenvenom ’ d soul ’ which ‘ starts from its troubled rest .’
It turns out that his pious intent , in fact – or rather , the practical suggestion he offers to his Maker – is to ensure , through carefully targeted strikes , that when ‘ the awful judgment-day ’ comes , everyone is equally happy to meet their fate :
Well pleased , oh Lord ! Each eye shall see Those final thunders hurl ’ d , And mark with joy , for love of thee , The flash that melts the world .
Thus at fourteen we can see in this vivid final image both the future scholar of Old Testament poetry , and the ‘ dedicated and efficient administrator ’ described by Scott Mandelbrote in the ODNB article on Lowth , who in ‘ his concern for the godly administration of the church ’ feels that a little helpful advice is always welcome , even to the boss :
Quick interpose , all-gracious Lord , In this tremendous night ,
Arise , and be alike ador ’ d For mercy , and for might .
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