went in ragged clothes, and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places,' in one of which, situated in a miserable alley near Shoe Lane, he died in 1658. What a contrast to the gay and splendid scenes of his youth! Aubrey confirms the statement of Wood as to the reverse of fortune; but recent inquiries have rather tended to throw discredit on those pictures of the extreme misery of the poet. Destitute, however, he no doubt was, 'fallen from his high estate,' though not perhaps so low as to die an example of abject poverty and misery. The poetry of Lovelace, like his life, was very unequal. There is a spirit and nobleness in some of his verses and sentiments that charm the reader, as much as his gallant bearing and fine person captivated the fair. In general, however, they are affected, obscure, and harsh. His taste was perverted by the fashion of the day-the affected wit, ridiculous gallantry, and boasted licentiousness of the cavaliers. That Lovelace knew how to appreciate true taste and nature, may be seen from his lines on Lely's portrait of Charles I.:

See, what an humble bravery doth shine,

And grief triumphant breaking through each line,
How it commands the face! So sweet a scorn
Never did happy misery adorn!

So sacred a contempt that others shew

To this-o' the height of all the wheel-below;
That mightiest monarchs by this shaded book
May copy out their proudest, richest look.

Lord Byron hás been censured for a line in his
Bride of Abydos, in which he says of his heroine :

The mind, the music breathing from her face. The noble poet vindicates the expression on the broad ground of its truth and appositeness. He does not seem to have been aware-as was pointed out by Sir Egerton Brydges-that Lovelace first employed the same illustration, in a song of Orpheus, lamenting the death of his wife:

Oh, could you view the melody

Of every grace,

And music of her face,

You'd drop a tear;

Seeing more harmony In her bright eye Than now you hear.

Song.

Why should you swear I am forsworn,
Since thine I vowed to be?
Lady, it is already morn,

And 'twas last night I swore to thee
That fond impossibility.

Have I not loved thee much and long,
A tedious twelve hours' space?

I must all other beauties wrong,
And rob thee of a new embrace,
Could I still dote upon thy face.

Not but all joy in thy brown hair
By others may be found;
But I must search the black and fair,
Like skilful mineralists that sound
For treasure in unploughed-up ground.
Then, if when I have loved my round,
Thou prov'st the pleasant she;
With spoils of meaner beauties crowned,
I laden will return to thee,
Even sated with variety.

The Rose.

Sweet, serene, sky-like flower,
Haste to adorn her bower:
From thy long cloudy bed
Shoot forth thy damask head.
Vermilion ball that's given
From lip to lip in heaven;
Love's couch's coverlid;
Haste, haste to make her bed.

See! rosy is her bower,
Her floor is all thy flower;
Her bed a rosy nest,
By a bed of roses prest.

Song.

Amarantha, sweet and fair,

Oh, braid no more that shining hair!
Let it fly, as unconfined,

As its calm ravisher, the wind;
Who hath left his darling, th' east,
To wanton o'er that spicy nest.
Every tress must be confest,
But neatly tangled, at the best;
Like a clue of golden thread
Most excellently ravelled.
Do not, then, wind up that light
In ribands, and o'ercloud in night,
Like the sun's in early ray;

But shake your head, and scatter day!

To Lucasta, on going to the Wars.
Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore ;

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.

To Althea, from prison.
When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at my grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my king;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds, innocent and quiet, take
That for an hermitage :
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free;
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

JOHN CLEVELAND.

JOHN CLEVELAND (1613-1658) was equally conspicuous for political loyalty and poetical conceit. His father was rector of a parish in Leicestershire. After completing his studies at Cambridge, the poet joined the royal army when the civil war broke out. He was the loudest and most strenuous poet of the cause, and distinguished himself by a fierce satire on the Scots in 1647. Two lines of this truculent party tirade present a conceit at which our countrymen may now smile :

Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom;

Not forced him wander, but confined him home. In 1655, the poet was seized at Norwich, and put in prison. He petitioned the Protector, stating that he was induced to believe that, next to his adherence to the royal party, the cause of his confinement was the narrowness of his estate; for none stood committed whose estate could bail them. 'I am the only prisoner,' he says, 'who have no acres to be my hostage;' and he ingeniously argues that poverty, if it is a fault, is its own punishment. Cromwell released the poor poet, who died three years afterwards in London. Independently of his strong and biting satires, which were the cause of his popularity while living, Cleveland wrote some love-verses containing genuine poetry, amidst a mass of affected metaphors and fancies. He carried gallantry to an extent bordering on the ludicrous, making all nature-sun and shade-do homage to his mis

tress.

On Phillis, Walking before Sunrise.
The sluggish Morn as yet undressed,
My Phillis brake from out her rest,
As if she'd made a match to run
With Venus, usher to the sun.
The trees-like yeomen of her guard,
Serving more for pomp than ward,
Ranked on each side with loyal duty—
Wave branches to inclose her beauty.
The plants, whose luxury was lopped,
Or age with crutches underpropped,
Whose wooden carcasses are grown
To be but coffins of their own,
Revive, and at her general dole,
Each receives his ancient soul.
The winged choristers began

To chirp their matins; and the fan
Of whistling winds, like organs played
Unto their voluntaries, made

The wakened earth in odours rise

To be her morning sacrifice :
The flowers, called out of their beds,
Start and raise up their drowsy heads;
And he that for their colour seeks,
May find it vaulting in her cheeks,
Where roses mix; no civil war
Between her York and Lancaster.

The marigold, whose courtier's face
Echoes the sun, and doth unlace
Her at his rise, at his full stop
Packs and shuts up her gaudy shop,
Mistakes her cue, and doth display:
Thus Phillis antedates the day.

These miracles had cramped the sun, Who, thinking that his kingdom's won, Powders with light his frizzled locks,

To see what saint his lustre mocks.

The trembling leaves through which he played,
Dappling the walk with light and shade-
Like lattice-windows-give the spy
Room but to peep with half an eye,
Lest her full orb his sight should dim,
And bid us all good-night in him:
Till she would spend a gentle ray,
To force us a new-fashioned day.

But what new-fashioned palsy 's this,
Which makes the boughs divest their bliss?
And that they might her footsteps straw,
Drop their leaves with shivering awe;
Phillis perceives, and-lest her stay
Should wed October unto May,

And as her beauty caused a spring,
Devotion might an autumn bring-
Withdrew her beams, yet made no night,
But left the sun her curate light.

In an Elegy on the Archbishop of Canterbury (Laud), Cleveland has some good lines.

How could success such villainies applaud?
The State in Strafford fell, the Church in Laud.
The twins of public rage adjudged to die
For treasons they should act by prophecy.
The facts were done before the laws were made,
The trump turned up after the game was played.
Be dull, great spirits, and forbear to climb,
For worth is sin, and eminence a crime.
No churchman can be innocent and high;
'Tis height makes Grantham steeple stand awry.

JOHN CHALKHILL.

Clearchus, was published by Izaak Walton in 1683, A pastoral romance, entitled Thealma and with a title-page stating it to have been written long since by JOHN CHALKHILL, Esq. an acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser.' Walton tells us of the author, 'that he was in his time a man generally known, and as well beloved; for he was humble and obliging in his behaviour; a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent ; and, indeed, his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous.' Thealma and Clearchus was reprinted by Mr Singer, who expressed an opinion that, as Walton had been silent upon the life of Chalkhill, he might be altogether a fictitious personage, and the poem be actually the composition of Walton himself. A critic in the Retrospective Review,* after investigating the circumstances, and comparing the Thealma with the acknowledged productions of Walton, comes to the same conclusion. Sir John Hawkins, the editor of Walton, seeks to overturn the hypothesis of Singer, by the following statement: Unfortunately, John Chalkhill's tomb of black marble is still to be seen on the walls of Winchester Cathedral, by which it appears he died in May 1679, at the age of eighty. Walton's preface speaks of him as dead in May 1678; but

Retrospective Review, vol. iv. page 230. The article appears to have been written by Sir Egerton Brydges, who contributed largely to that work.

as the book was not published till 1683, when Walton was ninety years old, it is probably an error of memory.' The tomb in Winchester cannot be that of the author of Thealma, unless Walton committed a further error in styling Chalkhill an 'acquaintant and friend' of Spenser. Spenser died in 1599, the very year in which John Chalkhill, interred in Winchester Cathedral, must have been born. We should be happy to think that the Thealma was the composition of Walton, thus adding another laurel to his venerable brow; but the internal evidence seems to us to be wholly against such a supposition. The poetry is of a cast far too high for the muse of Izaak, which dwelt only by the side of trouting streams and among quiet meadows. The nom de plume of Chalkhill must also have been an old one with Walton, if he wrote Thealma; for, thirty years before its publication, he had inserted in his Complete Angler two songs, signed 'Jo. Chalkhill.' The disguise is altogether very unlike Izaak Walton, then ninety years of age, and remarkable for his unassuming worth, probity, and piety. We have no doubt, therefore, that Thealma is a genuine poem of the days of Charles or James I. The scene of this pastoral is laid in Arcadia, and the author, like the ancient poets, describes the Golden Age and all its charms, which were succeeded by an Age of Iron, on the introduction of ambition, avarice, and tyranny. The plot is complicated and obscure, and the characters are deficient in individuality. It must be read, like the Faery Queen, for its romantic descriptions, and its occasional felicity of language. The versification is that of the heroic couplet, varied, like Milton's Lycidas, by breaks and pauses in the middle of the line.

The Witch's Cave.

Her cell was hewn out of the marble rock,
By more than human art; she need not knock;
The door stood always open, large and wide,
Grown o'er with woolly moss on either side,
And interwove with ivy's flattering twines,
Through which the carbuncle and diamond shines,
Not set by Art, but there by Nature sown
At the world's birth, so star-like bright they shone.
They served instead of tapers, to give light
To the dark entry, where perpetual Night,
Friend to black deeds, and sire of Ignorance,
Shuts out all knowledge, lest her eye by chance
Might bring to light her follies: in they went.
The ground was strewed with flowers, whose sweet scent,
Mixed with the choice perfumes from India brought,
Intoxicates his brain, and quickly caught

His credulous sense; the walls were gilt, and set
With precious stones, and all the roof was fret
With a gold vine, whose straggling branches spread
All o'er the arch; the swelling grapes were red;
This, Art had made of rubies, clustered so,

To the quick'st eye they more than seemed to grow ;
About the walls lascivious pictures hung,
Such as were of loose Ovid sometimes sung.
On either side a crew of dwarfish elves
Held waxen tapers, taller than themselves:
Yet so well shaped unto their little stature,
So angel-like in face, so sweet in feature;
Their rich attire so differing; yet so well
Becoming her that wore it, none could tell

Orandra to her charms was stepped aside,
Leaving her guest half won and wanton-eyed.
He had forgot his herb: cunning delight
Had so bewitched his ears, and bleared his sight,
And captivated all his senses so,

That he was not himself: nor did he know
What place he was in, or how he came there,
But greedily he feeds his eye and ear
With what would ruin him. . . .
Next unto his view

She represents a banquet, ushered in
By such a shape as she was sure would win
His appetite to taste; so like she was
To his Clarinda, both in shape and face;
So voiced, so habited, of the same gait
And comely gesture; on her brow in state
Sat such a princely majesty as he

Had noted in Clarinda; save that she
Had a more wanton eye, that here and there
Rolled up and down, not settling anywhere.
Down on the ground she falls his hand to kiss,
And with her tears bedews it; cold as ice
He felt her lips, that yet inflamed him so,
That he was all on fire the truth to know,
Whether she was the same she did appear,
Or whether some fantastic form it were,
Fashioned in his imagination

By his still working thoughts; so fixed upon
His loved Clarinda, that his fancy strove,
Even with her shadow, to express his love.

The Priestess of Diana.

Within a little silent grove hard by,
Upon a small ascent he might espy
A stately chapel, richly gilt without,
Beset with shady sycamores about :
And ever and anon he might well hear
A sound of music steal in at his ear
As the wind gave it being: so sweet an air
Would strike a syren mute...

A hundred virgins there he might espy
Prostrate before a marble deity,
Which, by its portraiture, appeared to be
The image of Diana: on their knee
They tendered their devotions; with sweet airs,
Offering the incense of their praise and prayers.
Their garments all alike; beneath their paps,
Buckled together with a silver claps,
And cross their snowy silken robes, they wore
An azure scarf, with stars embroidered o'er.
Their hair in curious tresses was knit up,
Crowned with a silver crescent on the top.
A silver bow their left hand held; their right,
For their defence, held a sharp-headed flight,
Drawn from their 'broidered quiver, neatly tied
In silken cords, and fastened to their side.
Under their vestments, something short before,
White buskins, laced with ribanding, they wore.
It was a catching sight for a young eye,
That love had fired before: he might espy
One, whom the rest had sphere-like circled round,
Whose head was with a golden chaplet crowned.
He could not see her face, only his ear
Was blest with the sweet words that came from her.

Or which of them desire would soon'st affect.

After a low salute, they all 'gan sing,

And circle in the stranger in a ring.

and deplored his early death. This poet was the son of an innkeeper at Cirencester, who had squandered away a patrimonial estate. In 1638, after

completing his education at Oxford, Cartwright entered into holy orders. He was a zealous royalist, and was imprisoned by the parliamentary forces when they arrived in Oxford in 1642. In 1643, he was chosen junior proctor of the university, and was also reader in metaphysics. At this time, the poet is said to have studied sixteen hours a day! Towards the close of the same year, Cartwright caught a malignant fever, called the camp-disease, then prevalent at Oxford, and died December 23, 1643. The king, who was then at Oxford, went into mourning for Cartwright's death; and when his works were published in 1651, no less than fifty copies of encomiastic verses were prefixed to them by the wits and scholars of the time. It is difficult to conceive, from the perusal of Cartwright's poems, why he should have obtained such extraordinary applause and reputation. His pieces are mostly short, occasional productions, addresses to ladies and noblemen, or to his brother-poets Fletcher and Jonson, or slight amatory effusions not distinguished for elegance or fancy. His youthful virtues, his learning, loyalty, and admiration of genius, seem to have mainly contributed to his popularity, and his premature death would renew and deepen the impression of his worth and talents. Cartwright must have cultivated poetry in his youth: he was only twenty-six when Ben Jonson died, and the compliment quoted above seems to prove that he had then been busy with his pen. He mourned the loss of his poetical father in one of his best effusions, in which he thus eulogises Jonson's dramatic powers:

But thou still puts true passion on; dost write
With the same courage that tried captains fight;
Giv'st the right blush and colour unto things;
Low without creeping, high without loss of wings;
Smooth yet not weak, and, by a thorough care,
Big without swelling, without painting, fair.

THOMAS RANDOLPH (1605-1634) published a collection of miscellaneous poems, in addition to five dramatic pieces. He was born at Newnham, near Daventry, in Northamptonshire, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was early distinguished for his talents, which procured him the friendship of Ben Jonson and the other wits of the day. Ben enrolled him among his adopted sons; but Randolph fell into intemperate habits, and the fine promise of his genius was destroyed by his death at the age of twenty-nine. A monument was erected to his memory by Sir Christopher Hatton. We subjoin short extracts -the first two from Cartwright's poems, the remainder by Randolph.

To a Lady Veiled.

So Love appeared, when, breaking out his way
From the dark chaos, he first shed the day;
Newly awaked out of the bud, so shews
The half-seen, half-hid glory of the rose,
As you do through your veils; and I may swear,
Viewing you so, that beauty doth bide there.
So Truth lay under fables, that the eye
Might reverence the mystery, not descry;
Light being so proportioned, that no more
Was seen, but what might cause men to adore:
Thus is your dress so ordered, so contrived,
As 'tis but only poetry revived.

Such doubtful light had sacred groves, where rods
And twigs at last did shoot up into gods;

Where, then, a shade darkeneth the beauteous face,
May I not pay a reverence to the place?
So, under water, glimmering stars appear,
As those-but nearer stars-your eyes do here;
So deities darkened sit, that we may find
A better way to see them in our mind.
No bold Ixion, then, be here allowed,
Where Juno dares herself be in the cloud.
Methinks the first age comes again, and we
See a retrieval of simplicity.

Thus looks the country virgin, whose brown hue
Hoods her, and makes her shew even veiled as you.
Blest mean, that checks our hope, and spurs our fear,
Whiles all doth not lie hid, nor all appear!

O fear ye no assaults from bolder men ;
When they assail, be this your armour then.
A silken helmet may defend those parts
Where softer kisses are the only darts!

A Valediction.

Bid me not go where neither suns nor showers
Do make or cherish flowers;
Where discontented things in sadness lie,
And Nature grieves as I ;
When I am parted from those eyes
From which my better day doth rise,

Though some propitious power
Should plant me in a bower,
Where, amongst happy lovers, I might see
How showers and sunbeams bring
One everlasting spring;

Nor would those fall, nor these shine forth to me.
Nature herself to him is lost,

Who loseth her he honours most.

Then, fairest, to my parting view display
Your graces all in one full day;

Whose blessed shapes I'll snatch and keep, till when
I do return and view again :

So by this art, fancy shall fortune cross,
And lovers live by thinking on their loss.

To My Picture.

When age hath made me what I am not now,
And every wrinkle tells me where the plough
Of Time hath furrowed; when an ice shall flow
Through every vein, and all my head be snow;
When Death displays his coldness in my cheek,
And I myself in my own picture seek,
Not finding what I am, but what I was;
In doubt which to believe, this or my glass;
Yet though I alter, this remains the same
As it was drawn, retains the primitive frame,
And first complexion; here will still be seen
Blood on the cheek, and down upon the chin:
Here the smooth brow will stay, the lively eye,
The ruddy lip, and hair of youthful dye.
Behold what frailty we in man may see,
Whose shadow is less given to change than he !*

A sparkling eye, no gem so fair,
Whose lustre dims the Cyprian star;
A glorious cheek, divinely sweet,
Wherein both roses kindly meet;
A cherry lip that would entice
Even gods to kiss at any price;
You think no beauty is so rare
That with your shadow might compare;
That your reflection is alone
The thing that men most dote upon.
Madam, alas! your glass doth lie,
And you are much deceived; for I
A beauty know of richer grace-
Sweet, be not angry-'tis your face.
Hence, then, O learn more mild to be,
And leave to lay your blame on me :
If me your real substance move,
When you so much your shadow love,
Wise nature would not let your eye
Look on her own bright majesty ;
Which, had you once but gazed upon,
You could, except yourself, love none :
What, then, you cannot love, let me ;
That face I can, you cannot see.

'Now you have what to love,' you'll say, 'What then is left for me, I pray?' My face, sweet heart, if it please thee; That which you can, I cannot see : So either love shall gain his due, Yours, sweet, in me, and mine in you.

RICHARD CRASHAW.

RICHARD CRASHAW, a religious poet, whose devotional strains and 'lyric raptures' evince the highest genius, was the son of a preacher at the Temple Church, London. The date of his birth is not known; but in 1632 he was elected a scholar of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He was afterwards at Peterhouse, and obtained a Fellowship in 1637. He lived for the greater part of several years in St Mary's Church, near Peterhouse, engaged chiefly in religious offices and writing devotional poetry; and as the preface to his works informs us, 'like a primitive saint, offering more prayers by night than others usually offer in the day.' He is said to have been an eloquent and powerful preacher. Being ejected from his fellowship for non-compliance with the rules of the parliamentary army, he removed to France, and became a proselyte to the Roman Catholic faith. Through the friendship of Cowley, Crashaw obtained the notice of Henrietta Maria, then at Paris, and was recommended by her majesty to the dignitaries of the church in Italy. He became secretary to one of the cardinals, and a canon of the church of Loretto. In this situation, Crashaw died about the year 1650. Cowley honoured his memory with

The meed of a melodious tear.

The poet was an accomplished scholar, and his translations from the Latin and Italian possess great freedom, force, and beauty. He translated part of the Sospetto d'Herode from the Italian of Marino; and passages of Crashaw's version are not unworthy of Milton, who had evidently seen the work. He thus describes the abode of Satan:

Below the bottom of the great abyss,
There, where one centre reconciles all things,
The world's profound heart pants; there placed is
Mischief's old master; close about him clings
A curled knot of embracing snakes, that kiss
His correspondent cheeks: these loathsome strings

Hold the perverse prince in eternal ties
Fast bound, since first he forfeited the skies. . . .

Fain would he have forgot what fatal strings
Eternally bind each rebellious limb;

He shook himself, and spread his spacious wings,
Which like two bosomed sails, embrace the dim
Air with a dismal shade, but all in vain ;
Of sturdy adamant is his strong chain.

While thus Heaven's highest counsels, by the low
Footsteps of their effects, he traced too well,
He tossed his troubled eyes-embers that glow
Now with new rage, and wax too hot for hell;
With his foul claws he fenced his furrowed brow,
And gave a ghastly shriek, whose horrid yell
Ran trembling through the hollow vault of night.

While at Cambridge, Crashaw published, in 1634, a volume of Latin poems and epigrams, in one of which occurs the well-known conceit relative to the sacred miracle of water being turned into wine :

Lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit.

['The modest water saw its God and blushed.']

In 1646 appeared his English poems, Steps to the Temple, The Delights of the Muses, and Carmen Deo Nostro. The greater part of the volume consists of religious poetry, in which Crashaw occasionally addresses the Saviour, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalen, with all the passionate earnestness and fervour of a lover. He had an extravagant admiration of the mystic writings of St Theresa, founder of the Carmelites, which seems to have had a bad effect on his own taste, naturally prone to carry any favourite object, feeling, or passion to excess. In these flights into the third heavens, with all his garlands and singing robes about him,' Crashaw luxuriates among

An hundred thousand loves and graces,
And many a mystic thing

Which the divine embraces

Of the dear Spouse of Spirits with them will bring; For which it is no shame

That dull mortality must not know a name.

Such seem to have been his daily contemplations, the heavenly manna on which his young spirit fed with delight. This mystical style of thought and fancy naturally led to exaggeration and to conceits. The latter pervaded all the poetry of the time, and Crashaw could hardly escape the infection, even if there had not been in his peculiar case strong predisposing causes. But, amidst all his abstractions, metaphors, and apostrophes, Crashaw is seldom tedious. His imagination was copious and varied. He had, as Coleridge has remarked, a 'power and opulence of invention,' and his versification is sometimes highly musical. With more taste and judgment-which riper years might have produced-Crashaw would have outstripped most of his contemporaries, even Cowley. No poet of his day is so rich in 'barbaric pearl and gold,' the genuine ore of poetry. It is deeply to be regretted that his life had not been longer, more calm and fortunate-realising his own exquisite lines:

A happy soul, that all the way To heaven hath a summer's day.