CHAPTER XVII. COURT AND AGE OF ELIZABETH. DRAYTON, DANIEL, DRUMMOND, ET C. THE Voluminous Drayton* has left a collection of sonnets under the fantastic title of his IDEAS. Ideas they may be, but they have neither poetry, nor passion, nor even elegance-a circumstance not very surprising, if it be true that he composed them merely to show his ingenuity in a style which was then the prevailing fashion of his time. Drayton was never married, and little is known of his private life. He loved a lady of Coventry, to whom he promises an immortality he has not been able to con fer. How many paltry, foolish, painted things That now in coaches trouble every street, E'er they be well wrapp'd in their winding-shcct; When nothing else remaineth of these days, Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise; Virgins and matrons reading these my rhimes, There are fine nervous lines in this Sonnet: we long to hail the exalted beauty who is announced by such a flourish of trumpets, and are proportionably disappointed to find that she has neither "a local habitation nor a name." Drayton's little song, I pr'ythee, love! love me no more Take back the heart you gave me! stands unique, in point of style, among the rest of his works, and is very genuine and passionate. Daniel, who was munificently patronised by the Lord Mountjoy, mentioned in the preceding sketch, was one of the most graceful sonnetteers of that time; and he has touches of tenderness as well as fancy; for he was in earnest, and the object of his attachment was real, though disguised under the name of Delia. She resided on the banks of the river Avon, and was unmoved by the poet's strains. Rank with her outweighed love and genius. Daniel says of his sonnets The lines Though the error of my youth in them appear, Restore thy tresses to the golden ore, are luxuriantly elegant, and quite Italian in the flow and imagery. Her modesty is prettily set forth in another Sonnet A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour, Sacred on earth, designed a Saint above! .After a long series of sonnets, elaborately plaintive, he interrupts himself with a little touch of truth and nature, which is quite refreshing: I must not grieve my love! whose eyes should read Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither. If the lady could have been won by poetical flattery, she must have yielded. At length, unable to bear her obduracy, and condemned to see another preferred before * Died in 1619. him, Daniel resolved to travel; and he wrote, on this occasion, the most feeling of all his Sonnets. And whither, poor forsaken! wilt thou go? Daniel remained abroad several years, and returning, cured of his attachment, he married Giustina Florio, of a family of Waldenses, who had fled from the frightful persecutions carried on in the Italian Alps against that miserable people. With her, he appears to have been sufficiently happy to forget the pain of his former repulse, and enjoy, without one regretful pang, the fame it had given him as a poet. Drummond, of Hawthornden,* is yet more celebrated, and with reason. He has elegance, and sweetness, and tenderness; but not the pathos or the passion we might have expected from the circumstances of his attachment, which was as real and deep, as it was mournful in its issue. He loved a beautiful girl of the noble family of Cunningham, who is the Lesbia of his poetry. After a fervent courtship, he succeeded in securing her affections: but she died, "in the fresh April of her years," and when their marriage-day had been fixed. Drummond has left us a most charming picture of his mistress; of her modesty, her retiring sweetness, her accomplishments, and her tenderness for him. O sacred blush, empurpling cheeks, pure skies With crimson wings, which spread thee like the morn; O tongue in which most luscious nectar lies, That trembling stood before her words were born; Which did enslave my ears, ensnare my soul; Wise image of her mind,-mind that contains A power, all power of senses to controul; . The quaint iteration of the same word through this Sonnet has not an ill effect. The lady was in a more * Died 1649. relenting mood when he wrote the Sonnet on her lips, "those fruits of Paradise," I die, dear life! unless to me be given As many kisses as the Spring hath flowers, Or stars there be in all-embracing heaven; Ye shall have leave to take them back again! He mentions a handkerchief, which, in the days of their first tenderness, she had embroidered for him, unknowing that it was destined to be steeped in tears for her loss!In fact, the grief of Drummond on this deprivation was so overwhelming, that he sunk at first into a total despondency and inactivity, from which he was with difficulty roused. He left the scene of his happiness, and his regrets Are these the flowery banks? is this the mead Whose tender rind, cut forth in curious flowers He travelled for eight years, seeking, in change of place and scene, some solace for his wounded peace. There was a kind of constancy even in Drummond's inconstancy; for meeting many years afterwards with an amiable girl, who bore the most striking resemblance to his lost mistress, he loved her for that very resemblance, and married her. Her name was Margaret Logan. I am not aware that there are any verses addressed to her. Drummond has been called the Scottish Petrarch: he tells us himself, that "he was the first in this Isle who did celebrate a dead mistress,”—and his resemblance to Petrarch, in elegance and sentiment, has often been observed: he resembles him, it is true-but it is as a professed and palpable imitator resembles the object of his imitation. On glancing back at the age of Elizabeth,-so adorned by masculine talents, in arts, in letters, and in arms,—we are at first surprised to find so few distinguished women. It seems remarkable that a golden epoch in our literature, to which she gave her name, "the Elizabethan age,”—a court in which a female ruled,-a period fruitful in great poets, should have produced only one or two women who are interesting from their poetical celebrity. Of these, Alice Spenser, Countess of Derby, and Mary Sydney, Countess of Pembroke, (the sister of Philip Sydney) are the most remarkable; the first has enjoyed the double distinction of being celebrated by Spenser in her youth, and by Milton in her age,-almost too much honour for one woman, though she had been a muse, and a grace, and a cardinal virtue, moulded in one. Lady Pembroke has been celebrated by Spenser and by Ben Johnson, and was, in every respect, a most accomplished woman. To these might be added other names, which might have shone aloft like stars, and "shed some influence on this lower world:" if the age had not produced two women, so elevated in station, and so every way illustrious by accidental or personal qualities, that each, in her respective sphere, extinguished all the lesser orbs around her. It would have been difficult for any female to seize on the attention, or claim either an historical or poetical interest, in the age of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stuart. In her own court, Elizabeth was not satisfied to preside. She could as ill endure a competitor in celebrity or charms, as in power. She arrogated to herself all the incense around her and, in point of adulation, she was like the daughter of the horse-leech, whose cry was, "give! give!" Her insatiate vanity would have been ludicrous, if it had not produced such atrocious consequences. This was the predominant weakness of her character, which neutralized her talents, and was pampered, till in its excess it became a madness and a vice. This precipitated the fate of her lovely rival, Mary, Queen of Scots. This elevated the profligate Leicester* to the pinnacle of favour, and kept him there, sullied as he was by every baseness, and every crime; this hurried Essex to the block; banished Southampton; and sent Raleigh and Elizabeth Throckmorton to the Tower. Did one of her attendants, more beautiful * Leicester's influence over Elizabeth appeared so unaccountable, that it was ascribed to magic, and to her evil stars. |