66 Ramsey, who married Giles Fletcher's widow, informed Fuller that the poet was born in London. The date of this event was 1588, or a year or two earlier. Giles Fletcher was educated at Westminster and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was chosen fellow. The following scanty record of his short life is transcribed from Fuller, who says that he was one equally beloved of the Muses and the Graces, having a sanctified wit, witness his worthy Poem intituled 'Christ's Victory,' made by him being but bachelour of arts, discovering the piety of a saint, and divinity of a doctor. He afterwards applied himself to school-divinity (cross to the grain of his genius as some conceive), and attained to good skill therein. When he preached at Saint Maries, his prayer before his sermon usually consisted of one entire allegory, not driven but led on, most proper in all particulars. He was at last (by exchange of his living*) settled in Suffolk, which hath the best and worst aire in England, best about Bury, and worst on the sea-side, where (at Alderton) Master Fletcher was beneficed. His clownish and low-parted parishioners (having nothing but their shoos high about them) valued not their pastour according to his worth, which disposed him to melancholy, and hastened his dissolution. I behold the life of this learned poet, like those half-verses in Virgil's Eneids, broken off in the middle, seeing he might have doubled his days according to the ordinary course of nature; whose death happened about the year 1623." No record of Giles Fletcher is preserved, either in the church or the parish of Alderton. *The accuracy of this parenthetical assertion of Fuller has been called in question by Mr. Willmott, in his "Lives of Sacred Poets," on the ground of the improbability that Fletcher should exchange into a neighbourhood whose ungenial air and inhabitants hastened his end. To which objection it may be objected that Fletcher could not know before experience the unkindness to himself either of the air or the people. Perhaps the case is simply an illustration of the very common practice of too sanguine and precipitate adoption of some step which cannot be approved by calculation or subsequent events. In 1610 Fletcher published at Cambridge his great poem entitled, "Christ's Victory and Triumph,” which, although never enjoying popular appreciation commensurate with its deserts, affords instances of bold and graphic personification, and abounds in passages of majesty and sublimity. It consists of four cantos, the subjects of which are respectively, (1) Christ's Victory in Heaven, (2) Christ's Triumph on Earth, (3) Christ's Triumph over Death, and (4) Christ's Triumph after Death. The second of the quotations which follow is the final passage of the fourth canto; and it will be seen how, in accordance with the quaint spirit of the age, this poem closes its sustained splendour in the haze of a pun, or a play upon a verbal ambiguity. THE NATIVITY. Who can forget-never to be forgot The time that all the world in slumber lies, That with his word the world before did make; That with one hand the vaults of heaven could shake. See how small room my infant Lord doth take, Whom all the world is not enough to hold! Who of his years, or of his age hath told? Never such age so young, never a child so old. And yet but newly was He infanted, And yet already He was sought to die; Yet scarcely born, already banished; The tyrant's sword with blood is all defiled, Cries, O thou cruel king, and, O my sweetest child! Egypt his nurse became, where Nilus springs, And now for drouth the fields were all undone, So fast the Cynthian mountains poured their snow, The angels caroled loud their song of peace; A star came dancing up the Orient, That springs for joy over the strawy tent, Where gold, to make their Prince a crown, they all present. Young John, glad child! before he could be born, Old Anna, though with age all spent and worn, And Simeon fast his dying notes doth ply. With that the mighty thunder dropt away For pardon and for pity, it had known, That should have been for sacred vengeance thrown : There too the armies angelique devowed Their former rage, and all to mercy bowed: Their broken weapons at her feet they gladly strowed. 66 Bring, bring, ye graces, all your silver flaskets, Painted with every choicest flower that grows, That I may soon unflower your fragrant baskets, To strow the fields with odours where He goes; Let whatsoe'er He treads on be a rose." So down she let her eyelids fall, to shine Upon the rivers of bright Palestine, Whose woods drop honey, and her rivers skip with wine. BLISS AND GLORY OF THE RANSOMED. Here let my Lord hang up his conquering lance, Behold his saints, 'midst of their hot alarm, Through windy thoughts that would their sails misguide, Here may the band that now in triumph shines, Full, yet without satiety, of that Which whets and quiets greedy appetite, Where never sun did rise, nor ever sat; But one eternal day and endless light The more they do behold, the more they would behold. Their sight drinks lovely fires in at their eyes, That on God's sweating altar burning lies; Their hungry ears feed on their heavenly noise, Their understanding naked truth, their wills That nothing here is wanting but the want of ills. No sorrow now hangs clouding on their brow, sgrace, No unchaste sleep their precious time deflowers, No loss, no grief, no change, wait on their wingéd hours. But now their naked bodies scorn the cold, And from their eyes joy looks and laughs at pain; The infant wonders how he came so old, And old man how he came so young again; For things that pass are past, and in this field Three rivers here, of milk, and wine, and honey flow. About the holy city rolls a flood Of molten crystal like a sea of glass, On which weak stream a strong foundation stood; That all things else, besides itself, did pass, Her streets instead of stones, the stars did pave, And little pearls for dust it seemed to have, On which soft streaming manna, like pure snow,.did wave. In midst of this city celestial, Where the eternal temple should have rose, End and beginning of each thing that grows; That nowhere is contained, and yet is everywhere. |