POETS. The Bellman. Along the dark and silent night, To whose dismal bar, we there Scores of sins we've made here, many; By the clock 'tis almost one. Julia. Some asked me where the rubies grew, But with my finger pointed to Some asked how pearls did grow, and where; To part her lips, and shew me there One asked me where the roses grew, But forthwith bade my Julia shew Upon Julia's Recovery. Droop, droop no more, or hang the head, New strength and newer purple get O primroses, let this day be A resurrection unto ye; And to all flowers allied in blood, The Bag of the Bee About the sweet bag of a bee, Which Venus hearing, thither came, And for their boldness stript them; And taking thence from each his flame, With rods of myrtle whipt them. Which done, to still their wanton cries, When quiet grown she'd seen them, She kissed and wiped their dove-like eyes, And gave the bag between them. Upon a Child that Died. Here she lies, a pretty bud, Epitaph upon a Child. Virgins promised, when I died, A Thanksgiving for his House. A little house, whose humble roof Under the spars of which I lie Where Thou, my chamber for to ward, Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep Low is my porch, as is my fate, And yet the threshold of my door Like as my parlour, so my hall, A little buttery, and therein Which keeps my little loaf of bread Some brittle sticks of thorn or brier Close by whose living coal I sit, Lord, I confess, too, when I dine, And all those other bits that be The worts, the purslain, and the mess Which of Thy kindness Thou hast sent: Makes those, and my beloved beet, To be more sweet. 'Tis Thou that crown'st my glittering hearth With guiltless mirth; And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink, Lord, 'tis Thy plenty-dropping hand All this, and better, dost Thou send That I should render for my part But the acceptance-that must be, Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find And taste thou them as saltless there, Tell me the motes, dusts, sands, and spears To Corinna, to go a- Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn See how Aurora throws her fair When as a thousand virgins on this day, Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen Besides, the childhood of the day has kept, Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying; Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark Made green, and trimmed with trees; see how Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this, Made up of white thorn neatly interwove; And sin no more, as we have done, by staying, There's not a budding boy or girl, this day, Back, and with white thorn laden home. And some have wept, and wooed, and plighted troth, Many a jest told of the key's betraying This night, and locks picked; yet we're not a-Maying. Come, let us go, while we are in our prime, Lies drowned with us in endless night. SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT, whose life occupies an important space in the history of the stage, preceding and after the Restoration, wrote a heroic poem entitled Gondibert, and some copies of miscellaneous verses. Davenant, or D'Avenant-for so he wrote his name was born in February 1605-6, and was the son of a vintner at Oxford. There is a scandalous story, that he was the natural son of Shakspeare, who was in the habit of stopping at the Crown Tavern-kept by the elder Davenant-on his journeys between London and Stratford. This story was related to Pope by Betterton the player; but it seems to rest on no authority but idle tradition. Young Davenant is said to have admired Shakspeare above all other poets, and 'one of the first essays of his muse,' when a mere boy, was an Ode to Shakspeare, which was afterwards included in a volume entitled Madagascar and other Poems, 1638. It opens in the following strain : Beware, delighted poets, when you sing, It is to be regretted-for the sake of Davenant, as well as of the world—that the great dramatist did not live to guide the taste and foster the genius of his youthful admirer, whose life presented some strange adventures. He was entered at Lincoln College, but left without taking a degree; he then became page to the Duchess of Richmond, and afterwards was in the service of the poet, Lord Brooke. About the year 1628, Davenant began to write for the stage; and in 1637, on the death of Ben Jonson, he was appointed laureate. He was afterwards manager of Drury Lane, but entering into the commotions and intrigues of the civil war, he was apprehended and confined in the Tower. He afterwards escaped to France. When the queen sent over to the Earl of Newcastle a quantity of military stores, Davenant resolved to return to England, and he distinguished himself so much in the cause of the royalists, that he was knighted for his skill and bravery. On the decline of the king's affairs, he returned to France, and wrote part of his Gondibert. His next step was to sail for Virginia as a colonial projector; but the vessel was captured by one of the parliamentary ships-of-war, and Davenant was lodged in prison at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight. In 1650, he was removed to the Tower, preparatory to his being tried by the High Commission Court. His life was considered in danger, but he was released after two years' imprisonment. Milton is said to have interposed in his behalf; and as Davenant is reported to have interfered in favour of Milton when the royalists were again in the ascendant, after the Restoration, we would gladly believe the statement to be true. Such incidents give a peculiar grace and relief to the sternness and bitterness of party conflicts. 'At Talavera, the English and French troops for a moment suspended their conflict, to drink of a stream which flowed between them. The shells were passed across, from enemy to enemy, without apprehension or molestation. We, in the same manner, would rather assist political adversaries to drink of that fountain of intellectual pleasure, which should be the common refreshment of both parties, than disturb and pollute it with the havoc of unseasonable hostilities.' * Milton and Davenant must have felt in this manner when they waived their political differences in honour of genius and poesy. When the author of Gondibert obtained his enlargement, he set about establishing a theatre, and, to the surprise of all, succeeded in the attempt. After the Restoration, he again basked in royal favour, and having engaged the services of some highly accomplished actors, he continued to write and superintend the performance of plays till his death, April 7, 1668. The poem of Gondibert (1651), though regarded by Davenant's friends and admirers-Cowley and Waller being of the number-as a great and durable monument of genius, is now almost utterly forgotten. The plot is romantic, but defective in interest; and its extreme length-about six thousand lines-and the description of versification in which it is written-the long four-lined stanza, with alternate rhymes, copied by Dryden in his Annus Mirabilis-render the poem languid and tedious. The critics have been strangely at variance with each other as to its merits, but to general readers the poem may be said to be unknown. Davenant prefixed a long and elaborate preface to his poem, which is highly creditable to him for judgment, taste, and feeling, and may be * Macaulay's Essays. considered the precursor of Dryden's admirable critical introductions to his plays. His worship of Shakspeare continued unabated to the last, though he was mainly instrumental, by his masks and scenery, in driving the elder bard from the stage. Dryden, in his preface to the Tempest, states, that he did not set any value on what he had written in that play, but out of gratitude to the memory of Sir William Davenant, who,' he adds, 'did me the honour to join me with him in the alteration of it. It was originally Shakspeare's-a poet for whom he had particularly a high veneration, and whom he first taught me to admire.' To the Queen, Entertained at night by the Countess of Anglesey. Misled a while from her much injured sphere; Song. The lark now leaves his watery nest, And to implore your light, he sings: The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, Who look for day before his mistress wakes: Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn! Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn. Description of the Virgin Birtha.- From 'Gondibert? To Astragon, Heaven for succession gave One only pledge, and Birtha was her name; Whose mother slept where flowers grew on her grave, And she succeeded her in face and fame. Her beauty princes durst not hope to use, Unless, like poets, for their morning theme; And her mind's beauty they would rather choose, Which did the light in beauty's lanthorn seem. She ne'er saw courts, yet courts could have undone With untaught looks, and an unpractised heart; Her nets, the most prepared could never shun, For Nature spread them in the scorn of Art. She never had in busy cities been, Ne'er warmed with hopes, nor e'er allayed with fears; Not seeing punishment, could guess no sin; And sin not seeing, ne'er had use of tears. But here her father's precepts gave her skill, Which with incessant business filled the hours; In spring she gathered blossoms for the still; In autumn, berries; and in summer, flowers. 257 And as kind Nature, with calm diligence, Whilst her great mistress, Nature, thus she tends, Gracious and free she breaks upon them all With morning looks; and they, when she does rise, Devoutly at her dawn in homage fall, And droop like flowers when evening shuts her eyes. . . . In a fellowship. Cowley 'lisped in numbers.' What shall I do to be for ever known, Cowley, being a royalist, was ejected from Cambridge, and afterwards studied at Oxford. He In maid's weak wishes, her whole stock of thought; remained twelve years. He was sent on various went with the queen-mother to France, where he Beneath a myrtle covert she does spend, Fond maids! who love with mind's fine stuff would mend, Which Nature purposely of bodies wrought. She fashions him she loved of angels' kind; As eagles, then, when nearest heaven they fly, And therefore perch on earthly things below; That ever yet that fatal name did bear. Soon her opinion of his hurtless heart, 'If I do love,' said she, 'that love, O Heaven! 'And you, my altered mother, grown above Great Nature, which you read and reverenced here, Chide not such kindness as you once called love, When you as mortal as my father were.' This said, her soul into her breast retires! With love's vain diligence of heart she dreams Herself into possession of desires, And trusts unanchored hope in fleeting streams. ABRAHAM COWLEY. ABRAHAM COWLEY was perhaps the most popular English poet of his times. Waller stood next in public estimation. Dryden had as yet done nothing to stamp his name, and Milton's minor poems had not earned for him a national reputation the same year that witnessed the death of Cowley ushered the Paradise Lost into the world. Cowley was born in London in the year 1618, and was the posthumous son of a respectable stationer in Cheapside, who, dying in August 1618, left £140 each to his six children, and to the unborn infant, the poet. His mother had influence enough to procure admission for him as a king's scholar at Westminster; and in his eighteenth year he was elected of Trinity College, Cambridge, in which he afterwards obtained embassies, and deciphered the correspondence of Charles and his queen, which, for some years, took up all his days, and two or three nights every week. At last the Restoration came, with all its hopes and fears. England looked for happy days, and loyalty for its reward, but in both cases the cup of joy was dashed with disappointment. Cowley expected to be made master of the Savoy, or to receive some other appointment, but his claims were overlooked. In his youth, he had written an ode to Brutus, which was remembered to his disadvantage; and a dramatic production, the Cutter of Coleman Street, which Cowley brought out shortly after the Restoration, and in which the jollity and debauchery of the cavaliers are painted in strong colours, was misrepresented or misconstrued at court. It is certain that Cowley felt his disappointment keenly, and he resolved to retire into the country. He had only just passed his fortieth year, but the greater part of his time had been spent in incessant labour, amidst dangers and suspense. 'He always professed,' says Dr Sprat, his biographer, 'that he went out of the world as it was man's, into the same world as it was nature's and as it was God's. The whole compass of the creation, and all the wonderful effects of the divine wisdom, were the constant prospect of his senses and his thoughts. And, indeed, he entered with great advantage on the studies of nature, even as the first great men of antiquity did, who were generally both poets and philosophers.' He thus happily refers to his wish for retirement: Be prudent, and the shore in prospect keep! The wise example of the heavenly lark, Above the clouds let thy proud music sound; Thy humble nest build on the ground. Cowley obtained, through Lord St Albans, and the Duke of Buckingham, the lease of some lands belonging to the queen, worth about £300 per annum a decent provision for his retirement. The poet finally settled at Chertsey, on the banks of the Thames, where his house still remains. Here he cultivated his fields, his garden, and his plants; he wrote of solitude and obscurity, of the perils of greatness, and the happiness of liberty. He renewed his acquaintance with the beloved poets of antiquity, whom he rivalled occasionally Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet, in ease and elegance, and in commemorating the parts-Miscellanies; the Mistress, or Love Verses; charms of a country life; and he composed his fine Pindaric Odes; and the Davideis, a Heroical prose discourses, so full of gentle thoughts and well- Poem of the Troubles of David. The character digested knowledge, heightened by a delightful of his genius is well expressed by Pope : bonhomie and communicativeness worthy of Horace or Montaigne. The style of these discourses is pure, natural, and lively. Sprat mentions that Cowley excelled in letter-writing, and that he and Mr M. Clifford had a large collection of his letters, but they had decided that nothing of that kind should be published. This is much to be regretted. The private letters of a distinguished author are generally read with as much interest as his works, and Cowper and others owe much of their fame to such confidential disclosures of their habits, opinions, and daily life. Cowley was not happy in his retirement. Solitude, that had so long wooed him to her arms, was a phantom that vanished in his embrace. He had attained the long-wished object of his studious youth and busy manhood; the woods and fields at length inclosed the 'melancholy Cowley' in their shades. But happiness was still distant. He had quitted the monster London; he had gone out from Sodom, but had not found the little Zoar of his dreams. The place of his retreat was ill selected, and his health was affected by the change of situation. The people of the country, he found, were not a whit better or more innocent than those of the town. He could get no money from his tenants, and his meadows were eaten up every night by cattle put in by his neighbours. Johnson, who would have preferred Fleet Street to all the charms of Arcadia and the golden age, has published, with a sort of malicious satisfaction, a letter of Cowley's, dated from Chertsey, in which the poet makes a querulous and rueful complaint over the downfall of his rural prospects and enjoy ment. His retirement extended over a period of only seven years. One day, in the heat of summer, he had stayed too long amongst his labourers in the meadows, and was seized with a cold, which, being neglected, proved fatal in a fortnight. This is the account of his biographer Sprat, but Pope, in his conversations with Spence, Dr said of Cowley: His death was occasioned by a mean accident, whilst his great friend Dean Sprat was with him on a visit. They had been together to see a neighbour of Cowley's, who, according to the fashion of those times, made them too welcome. They did not set out for their walk home till it was too late, and had drunk so deep that they lay out in the fields all night. This gave Cowley the fever that carried him off. The parish still talk of the drunken dean.' Cowley died on the 28th of July 1667. His remains were taken by water to Westminster, and interred with great pomp in the abbey. "The king himself,' says Sprat, 'was pleased to bestow on him the best epitaph, when, upon the news of his death, his majesty declared that Mr Cowley had not left a better man behind him.' From the will of the poet, it appears that he made his brother his sole heir and executor, and left legacies to his relatives and friends amounting to £420, exclusive of his share in the Duke of York's theatre. The 'little Zoar' at Chertsey had not been saddened by any fear of poverty, and Cowley to the last retained his fellowship in Trinity College. Cowley's poetical works are divided into four But still I love the language of his heart. Cowper has also drawn a sketch of Cowley in his Task, in which he laments that his 'splendid wit' should have been entangled in the cobwebs of the schools. The manners of the court and the age inspired Cowley with a portion of gallantry, but he seems to have had no deep or permanent passion. He expresses his love in a style almost as fantastic as the euphuism of old Lyly or Sir Percie Shafton. Poets,' he says, 'are scarce thought freemen of their company, without paying some duties, and obliging themselves to be true to love; and it is evident that he himself composed his Mistress as a sort of taskwork. There is so much of this wit-writing in Cowley's poetry, that the reader is generally glad to escape from it into his prose, where he has good sense and right feeling, instead of cold though glittering conceits, forced analogies, and counterfeited passion. His anacreontic pieces are the happiest of his poems; in them he is easy, lively, and full of spirit. They are redolent of joy and youth, and of images of natural and poetic beauty, that touch the feelings as well as the fancy. His Pindaric Odes, though deformed by metaphysical conceits, though they do not roll the full flood of Pindar's unnavigable song, though we admit that even the art of Gray was higher, yet contain some noble lines and illustrations. The best pieces of his Miscellanies, next to the Anacreontics, are his lines on the death of his college-companion, Hervey, and his elegy on the religious poet Crashaw, which are tender and imaginative. The Davideis is tedious and unfinished, but we have extracted a specimen to shew how well Cowley could sometimes write in the heroic couplet. It is evident that Milton had read this neglected poem. On the Death of Mr Crashaw. Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given The two most sacred names of earth and heaven; Hast brought them nobly home, back to their holy How well, blest swan, did Fate contrive thy death, 259 |