The adjective splendid means:
a) having or showing splendour, i.e., resplendent, magnificent, brilliant;
b) worthy of high praise, i.e., glorious, illustrious, grand;
c) excellent.
This adjective has been used, in an oxymoronic way, to qualify nouns having an opposite or different connotation. For example, splendid qualifies the noun misery in the following from Cavalry Officers, published in Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register (London, England) of Saturday 16th August 1806 [Vol. 10, No. 7, page 249]:
Mr. Cobbett,—I have the honor, or rather the misfortune to be a field officer of cavalry, at which rank, I have arrived after 20 years service, (3 of which have been on foreign stations,) and an expense of 4000l. in the purchase of my commissions; being the whole of my patrimony as a younger brother. I say, the misfortune, because, in all probability, had my father possessed the foresight to check my inclination for the army, and put me apprentice to a tinker or a taylor, I might with the help of 4000l. as a capital, have been now in the receipt of a pretty income, and have worn my own clothes, instead of starving, in splendid misery, at the expense of my taylor.
The adjective splendid has been specifically used to qualify the noun isolation in reference to the political and commercial uniqueness or isolation of the United Kingdom (which is occasionally and incorrectly referred to as England). The earliest occurrence of this specific use that I have found is from The Daily Telegraph (London, England) of 3rd January 1860—cf., below, quotation 7.
—Cf. also the phrase storm on Channel—Continent isolated.
However, the earliest occurrences of the phrase splendid isolation that I have found show that it has been used since an earlier time, more generally, in reference to being cut off from one’s kind or from the rest of the world—cf. also the phrase ivory tower. These early occurrences are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From Chapter II of The Spanish Main. A Story of the Bucaniers, by the U.S. editor, publisher and author Charles Jacobs Peterson (1818-1887), published in the Ladies’ National Magazine (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) of October 1843 [Vol. 4, No. 4, page 120, column 1]:
“I will give up this profession, which, at times, with all its glory, I abhor, and seek for renown under the banners of old Spain. I know not my country, and may just as well take Castile for my adopted one as not. I am an adventurer of fortune and must win my livelihood by my sword: and will not love and Julia, even if I fill a subordinate capacity, be better than this splendid isolation from the sympathies of my kind?”
2-: From Gaston de Foix. A Romance of the Sixteenth Century (London: John Mortimer, 1844), by the British novelist and historical writer George Payne Rainsford James (1799-1860) [Vol. 3, page 55]:
“Men of aspiring minds, who thirst for power, what do they gain even if they succeed beyond their hopes? Where are their friends? You have already told me that the great have none. Where is their peace of mind?—harassed by constant fears; too often haunted by remorse. Hatred and jealousy follow all their steps; for the successful climber stands alone. Some cold, proud spirits, it is true, can bear this splendid isolation; but the greater number fall, broken-hearted, from the dizzy height to which this madness leads them.”
3-: From the Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta, Georgia, USA) of Saturday 16th October 1847 [Vol. 2, No. 97, page 2, column 4]:
As we are one of those that believe that there are few old bachelors from choice, we are always more disposed to look upon their condition as calling for compassion, than provoking to ridicule. Their lonely fate has in every age elicited poetic sympathies, and inspired the most glowing pens. Even the splendors of wealth and fame shed but a chilling light upon their isolated path. Napoleon once remarked to his courtiers, after the withdrawal of Josephine and her ladies from his palace, just prior to his second nuptials, “It must be confessed, gentlemen, that society without ladies, is like a garden without roses.” Byron has sketched the most splendid isolation to which “single blessedness” could attain, in terms so graphic, as to make it a most unenticing condition.
4-: From Papers on Poetry. Paper Third, by Silas H. Wright, published in The Ladies’ Repository: A Monthly Periodical, devoted to Literature and Religion (Cincinnati, Ohio, USA) of November 1854 [Vol. 14, No. 11, page 501, column 1]:
The discordant spirit which seems to have been sown broadcast in the earlier formation of society has been neutralized by the diffusion of knowledge and a Christian disposition of reparation and forgiveness. Appeals to brute force are made only in cases of urgent necessity […]. Mind, and not material, now governs. […] We have the fullest advantages of what is, perhaps, among the most powerful auxiliaries in forming a poetic susceptibility—solitude—which imparts a freedom from care, and a splendid isolation from those distracting and confusing elements which so harassed and belabored the unfortunate poet of “old days.”
5-: From The Palace of the Sun. Persia and the Persians, published in The London Journal: And Weekly Record of Literature, Science, and Art (London, England) of Saturday 22nd March 1856 [Vol. 23, No. 578, page 8, column 3]:
Such is Despotism all the world over—a mass of splendid isolation, towering over poverty, and crushing to the earth all upon whom the glitter of its false magnificence unluckily falls.
6-: From The De Forest Prize Oration: Constitutions of Government, as founded upon the abstract principles of philosophy, and as developed by the realities of history, or as formed under both influences, by Chauncey Seymour Kellogg, of Bridgewater, New York, published in The Yale Literary Magazine: Conducted by the Students of Yale College (New Haven, Connecticut, USA) of August 1858 [Vol. 23, No. 9, page 342]:
A constitution which a nation develops within itself must of necessity become peculiarly national. It adapts itself to the particular habits and genius of the people, so as to become a mirror of the national character. It does not look beyond the limits of the state or seek to meet the exigencies of other societies. It does not express itself in generalities which apply to all, but fastens itself to its own state by numberless fibres which interweave and cross in every direction. It can, therefore, furnish no model for successful imitation—it stands apart in sublime and splendid isolation, creating aspirations, but crowning no hope. With all its magnificent panoply, constitutional liberty could never go forth from England to the conquest of the world.
7-: From The Daily Telegraph (London, England) of Tuesday 3rd January 1860 [No. 1,409, page 4, column 2]:
We have to restore England to that magnificent position which she held when the Ministers of Elizabeth first made her great and united, and when Cromwell gave her the supremacy of the seas. So long as this splendid isolation lasted there was never a whisper of attack; all hopes of subduing our island were sunk and shattered with the Spanish Armada; every chance of maritime competition with us was destroyed by the victories of Blake. Even Nelson had nothing more than the remnants of the Continental fleets to sink, so completely had our squadrons established their ascendancy throughout the world.
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