But here was youth, genius, aspiring hope, growing reputation, cut off like a flower in its summer pride, O like "the lily on its stalk green," which makes us Francis Beaumont. repine at fortune, and almost at nature, that seem to set so little store by their greatest favourites. The life of poets is, or ought to be (judging of it from the light it lends to ours), a golden dream, full of brightness and sweetness, lapt in Elysium; and it gives one a reluctant pang to see the splendid vision, by which they are attended in their path of glory, fade like a vapour, and their sacred heads laid low in ashes, before the sand of common mortals has run out. Fletcher, too, was prematurely cut off by the plague.'* [Letter to Ben Jonson.] The sun (which doth the greatest comfort bring Lie where he will, and make him write worse yet; It is a potion sent us down to drink, Makes us not laugh when we make legs to knights. 'Tis this that keeps our minds fit for our states, A medicine to obey our magistrates : And gravest men will with his main house-jest *Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth, &c., p. 227. Scarce please you; we want subtilty to do With the best gamesters: what things have we seen As if that every one from whence they came And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life: then when there had been thrown Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past; wit that might warrant be Till that were cancelled; and when that was gone, We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Right witty; though but downright fools were wise. When I remember this, * I needs must cry; I see my days of ballading grow nigh; I can already riddle, and can sing Catches, sell bargains, and I fear shall bring Myself to speak the hardest words I find That takes no medicines, but thought of thee Over as oft as any with one wind, Makes me remember all these things to be The wit of our young men, fellows that show No part of good, yet utter all they know, Who, like trees of the garden, have growing souls. Only strong Destiny, which all controls, I hope hath left a better fate in store For me, thy friend, than to live ever poor. Banish'd unto this home: Fate once again Bring me to thee, who canst make smooth and plain The way of knowledge for me; and then I, Who have no good but in thy company, Protest it will my greatest comfort be, To acknowledge all I have to flow from thee, Ben; when these scenes are perfect, we'll taste wine; I'll drink thy muse's health, thou shalt quaff mine. On the Tombs in Westminster. Mortality, behold and fear, Here they lie, had realms and lands, Who now want strength to stir their hands; With the richest, royal'st seed, Since the first man died for sin : Here the bones of birth have cried, Unless for war, in charity From lawless fire remain'd as free As now from heat her ashes be: Keep well this pawn, thou marble chest ; THOMAS CAREW. THOMAS CAREW (1589-1639) was the precursor and representative of a numerous class of poetscourtiers of a gay and gallant school, who to personal accomplishments, rank, and education, united a taste and talent for the conventional poetry then most popular and cultivated. Their influence may be seen even in Cowley and Dryden: Carew and Waller were perhaps the best of the class: Rochester was undoubtedly the most debased. Their visions of fame were in general bounded by the circle of the court and the nobility. To live in future generations, or to sound the depths of the human heart, seems not to have entered into their contemplations. A loyal panegyric was the epic strain of their ambition; a rosy cheek or coral lip' formed their ordinary theme. The court applauded; the lady was flattered or appeased by the compliment; and the poet was praised for his wit and gallantry; while all the time the heart had as little to do with the poetical homage thus tendered and accepted, as with the cold abstractions and rare poesies' on wax or ivory. A foul taint of immorality and irreligion often lurked under the flowery surface, and insidiously made itself known and felt. Carew sometimes went beyond this strain of heartless frivolity, and is graceful in sentiment as well as style-piling up stones of lustre from the brook;' but he was capable of far higher things; and in him, as in Suckling and Sedley, we see only glimpses of a genius which might have been ripened into permanent and beneficial excellence. Carew was descended from an ancient Gloucestershire family. He was educated at Oxford, then travelled abroad, and on his return, obtained the notice and patronage of Charles I. He was appointed gentleman of the privy chamber, and sewer in ordinary to the king. His after life was that of a courtierwitty, affable, and accomplished-without reflection; and in a strain of loose revelry which, according to Clarendon, the poet deeply repented in his latter days. He died,' says the state historian, 'with the greatest remorse for that license, and with the greatest manifestation of Christianity, that his best friends could desire.' The poems of Carew are short and occasional. His longest is a masque, written by command of the king, entitled Calum Britannicum. It is partly in prose; and the lyrical pieces were set to music by Dr Henry Lawes, the poetical musician of that age.* The short amatory pieces and songs of Carew were exceedingly popular, and are now the only productions of his which are read. They are often indelicate, but rich in expression. Thirty or forty years later, he would have fallen into the frigid style of the court poets after the Restoration; but at the time he wrote, the passionate and imaginative vein of the Elizabethan period was not wholly exhausted. The 'genial and warm tints' of the elder muse still coloured the landscape, and were reflected back in some measure by Carew. He abounded, however, *Of the peculiar composition called the masque, an account is given in the sequel. in tasteless conceits, even on grave elegiac subjects. In his epitaph on the daughter of Sir Thomas Wentworth, he says And here the precious dust is laid, Song. Ask me no more where Jove bestows, Ask me no more whither do stray Ask me no more whither doth haste The Compliment. I do not love thee for that fair I do not love thee for those flowers I do not love thee for those soft I do not love thee, oh! my fairest, Song. Would you know what's soft! I dare A Pastoral Dialogue. Shepherd, Nymph, Chorus. Shep. This mossy bank they press'd. Nymph. That aged oak Did canopy the happy pair All night from the damp air. Cho. Here let us sit and sing the words they spoke, Shep. See, love, the blushes of the morn appear, I' th' cowslip's bell, and rose's ear: Nymph. Those streaks of doubtful light usher not day, The yellow planets, and the gray Shep. If thine eyes gild my paths, they may forbear Shep. Those drops will make their beams more clear, Love's flames will shine in ev'ry tear. Cho. They kiss'd and wept ; and from their lips and eyes, In a mix'd dew of briny sweet, Their joys and sorrows meet; But she cries out. Nymph. Shepherd, arise, Cho. The winged hours fly fast, whilst we embrace; Nymph. Then let us pinion time, and chase Shep. Hark! Nymph. Ay, me, stay! Shep. For ever. We must be gone. Shep. My nest of spice. Cho. Neither could say farewell, but through their eyes Song. Mediocrity in Love Rejected. Give me more love, or more disdain ; The temperate affords me none; Give me a storm; if it be love, Disdain, that torrent will devour Persuasions to Love. Think not, 'cause men flatt'ring say, Most fleeting when it is most dear; And yellow spread where red once shin'd; Disdain Returned. He that loves a rosy cheek, But a smooth and steadfast mind, No tears, Celia, now shall win My resolv'd heart to return; I have search'd thy soul within, [Approach of Spring.] Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost But the warm sun thaws the benumb'd earth, PHINEAS AND GILES FLETCHER. These brother poets were sons of Dr Giles Fletcher, and cousins of Fletcher the dramatist; both were clergymen, whose lives afforded but little variety of incident. Phineas was born in 1584, educated at Eton and Cambridge, and became rector of Hilgay, in Norfolk, where he died in 1650. Giles was younger than his brother, but the date of his birth has not been ascertained. He was rector of Alderton, in Suffolk, where he died, it is supposed, some years before his brother. deserving of much praise; they were endowed with minds eminently poetical, and not inferior in imagination to any of their contemporaries. But an injudicious taste, and an excessive fondness for a style which the public was rapidly abandoning, that of allegorical personification, prevented their powers from being effectively displayed.' Mr Campbell remarks, They were both the disciples of Spenser, and, with his diction gently modernised, retained much of his melody and luxuriant expression. Giles, inferior as he is to Spenser and Milton, might be figured, in his happiest moments, as a link of connexion in our poetry between these congenial spirits, for he reminds us of both, and evidently gave hints to the latter in a poem on the same subject with Paradise Regained. These hints are indeed very plain and obvious. The appearance of Satan as an aged sire slowly footing' in the silent wilderness, the temptation of our Saviour in the 'goodly garden,' and in the Bower of Vain Delight, are outlines which Milton adopted and filled up in his second epic, with a classic grace and force of style unknown to the Fletchers. To the latter, however, belong the merit of original invention, copiousness of fancy, melodious numbers, and language at times rich, ornate, and highly poetical. If Spenser had not previously written his Bower of Bliss, Giles Fletcher's Bower of Vain Delight would have been unequalled in the poetry of that day; but probably, like his master Spenser, he copied from Tasso. Happiness of the Shepherd's Life. [From the Purple Island.] The works of PHINEAS FLETCHER consist of the Purple Island, or the Isle of Man, Piscatory Eclogues, and miscellaneous poems. The Purple Island was published in 1633, but written much earlier, as appears from some allusions in it to the Earl of Essex. The name of the poem conjures up images of poetical and romantic beauty, such as we may suppose a youthful admirer and follower of Spenser to have drawn. A perusal of the work, however, dispels this illusion. The Purple Island of Fletcher is no sunny spot amid the melancholy main,' but is an elaborate and anatomical description of the body and mind of man. He begins with the veins, arteries, bones, and muscles of the human frame, picturing them as hills, dales, streams, and rivers, and describing with great minuteness their different meanderings, elevations, and appearances. It is admitted that the poet was well skilled in anatomy, and the first part of his work is a sort of lecture fitted for the dissecting room. Having in five cantos exhausted his physical phenomena, Fletcher proceeds No Syrian worms he knows, that with their thread to describe the complex nature and operations of the Draw out their silken lives: nor silken pride: mind. Intellect is the prince of the Isle of Man, and His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need, he is furnished with eight counsellors, Fancy, Me-Not in that proud Sidonian tincture dyed: mory, the Common Sense, and five external senses. The Human Fortress, thus garrisoned, is assailed by the Vices, and a fierce contest ensues for the possession of the human soul. At length an angel interposes, and insures victory to the Virtues, the angel being King James I., on whom the poet condescended to heap this fulsome adulation. From this sketch of Fletcher's poem, it will be apparent that its worth must rest, not upon plot, but upon isolated passages and particular descriptions. Some of his stanzas have all the easy flow and mellifluous sweetness of Spenser's Faery Queen; but others are marred by affectation and quaintness, and by the tediousness inseparable from long-protracted allegory. His fancy was luxuriant, and, if better disciplined by taste and judgment, might have rivalled the softer scenes of Spenser. Thrice, oh thrice happy, shepherd's life and state! GILES FLETCHER published only one poetical production of any length-a sacred poem, entitled Christ's Victory and Triumph. It appeared at Cambridge in 1610, and met with such indifferent success, that a second edition was not called for till twenty years afterwards. There is a massive grandeur and earnestness about 'Christ's Victory' which strikes the imagination. The materials of the poem are better fused together, and more harmoniously linked in connexion, than those of the Purple Island. 'Both of these brothers,' says Mr Hallam, are No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright; Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease: His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps, [Decay of Human Greatness.] Fond man, that looks on earth for happiness, There screeching satyrs fill the people's empty stedes.1 shared. Hardly the place of such antiquity, Or note of these great monarchies we find : And empty name in writ is left behind : But when this second life and glory fades, That monstrous beast, which, nurs'd in Tiber's fen, And that black vulture,2 which with deathful wing Choice nymph! the crown of chaste Diana's train, Upon her brows lies his bent ebon bow, * A bed of lilies flow'r upon her cheek, To deck his beauteous head in snowy 'tire ; As when a taper shines in glassy frame, [The Rainbow.] [From the Temptation and Victory of Christ. By Giles Fletcher.] High in the airy element there hung Where each new day proclaims chance, change, and But it the earth would water with his rain, death, And life itself 's as flit as is the air we breathe. [Description of Parthenia, or Chastity.] And underneath was writ 'Such is chaste single state.' But when she list lay down her armour bright, 1 Places. That ebb'd and flow'd as wind and season would; |