it may have occurred to the reader that the words which ben jonson quoted about shakespeare, sufflaminandus erat—he flowed so freely that he needed stopping—indicate the great fault of elizabethan and jacobean literature. the authors did not know where to stop. the age was luxuriantly rich in genius; and was over-wealthy in new ideas, gained from greece, rome, france, spain, and italy; from the clash of religions, the discoveries in the new world, and the re-discoveries of the treasures of the old world. what the english poets did not re-discover was the greek lucidity, brevity, condensation, and orderliness. even in plays of shakespeare these graces are lacking: even shakespeare's construction is not his strong point. the intellectual wealth of the poets tempted them to prolixity; the abundance of their ideas provoked them to that fashion of "conceits," of comparisons between the things most remote in heaven, earth, and the world of fancy. there was a taste which reappears now and then in literature, from early icelandic poetry to browning and george meredith, for wilful abruptness, harshness, and obscurity. but industrious prolixity is not the fault of donne, whom we now approach: his error lay in harshness, obscurity, and a measureless indulgence in conceit. through these the light which is in him is darkened. meanwhile rank over-abundance, the inability to stop, renders daniel and drayton and phineas fletcher burdensome, while giles fletcher crowds with conceits and points of wit a poem on the most sacred theme. these poets are not now commonly read, except in selections of their best things, and such selections give no idea of their pervading faults. when we extend our knowledge of the authors, and mark the formless character of the[pg 284] age in poetry, the sudden appearance of milton indicates as great a miracle of genius as the existence of chaucer, spenser, and shakespeare in the throng of their contemporaries.
john donne was born in london, in 1573. his father was an eminent ironmonger, of a catholic family; his mother's kin, the heywoods, had suffered much from protestant persecution. one of them was the writer of interludes which amused the melancholy of mary tudor. john entered hart hall, oxford, later magdalen hall, in 1584, he also studied at cambridge, and entered lincoln's inn in 1592. a portrait of him in 1591 shows a young man holding the hilt of a very large rapier, and wearing a large earring shaped as a cross. he has a look of audacity, perhaps of sensuality, with a tinge of melancholy. he seems at this time to have studied the controversy between catholics and protestants, and in his "epistle" (rhymed heroic couplets) we perceive that he was of no fervent piety, but rather a doubter. his satires appear to have been written about 1593. they are obscure, and the versification is bad, apparently of set purpose. often the reader is puzzled to guess how a line is meant to be scanned, the natural rules of accent are set at defiance, as ben jonson remarked. probably donne aimed at imitating persius, the obscure young roman satirist. the satires can scarcely be read except by curious students tracing the evolution of donne's thought and style.
in 1596 he sailed with essex to the victory over spain at cadiz. before starting he wrote one of his poetical "elegies" to a lady with whom he had an intrigue. in 1597 he went on "the islands voyage" with essex, to capture plate ships. he experienced a tempest, was driven back to falmouth, wrote "the storm," and later, in the tropics "the calm". the men are roasted by the sun and bathe, then
from the sea into the ship we turn,
like parboiled wretches, on the coals to burn.
the poems are rude in versification and exaggeration, but most vivid are their pictures of nature and the sea. returning in the autumn of 1597, donne is supposed to have travelled in italy and spain, if it be not more probable that he visited these countries in[pg 285] 1592-1596. if ben jonson rightly said that donne wrote "all his best pieces of verse" before he was 25, they must have been finished by 1598. they were not printed till 1633, but circulated in manuscript.
probably most of the pieces in his "elegies" and "songs and sonnets" were composed in his tempestuous youth. the amorous conceits in "the flea" are equally rich in ingenious fancies and in bad taste. "woman's constancy" and many other poems have the same moral burden as
't was last night i swore to thee
that fond impossibility,—
to be constant. the sun is chidden for too early rising—
go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,—
but leave lovers undisturbed. in "the indifferent" he brags that he can love all sorts and conditions of women, like lord byron and other amorists. he finds in himself "something like a heart," but rather rumpled. of a later period, when he met his future wife, may be a charming song,
just such disparity
as is 'twixt air and angel's purity'
'twixt women's love and men's will ever be.
but the elegies address ladies of whose nature purity is no part, and it may be admitted that the confessions do not win admiration for donne's taste and temper, not to mention his morals, when he wrote them. "the curse" on a woman, or a man who loves his mistress, far outdoes the epodes of horace in cold ferocity. "the bait" contains remarks on the cruelty of angling which must have vexed izaak walton to the heart. "love's deity," opening with the charmed lines
i long to talk with some old lover's ghost,
who died before the god of love was born,
thence descends into crabbed and difficult conceits. two songs, "the funeral" and "the relic," are on a bracelet of his mistress's hair: whoever exhumes the poet's body will find
a bracelet of bright hair about the bone.
[pg 286]
these verses of donne's disturbed and adventurous youth, poems ingenious, conceited, passionate, mystical, or cynical, have not the music as of birds' songs which rings in the lyrists of that age: nor have the epithalamia the charm of spenser's. donne in youth was not at ease with himself: he speculates too curiously. he may try to play the sensualist, but there is a dark backward in his genius; there are chords not in tune with mirth and pleasure. he is as unique as browning, as little like other poets. if his elegies contain, as has been supposed, the story of a love affair, it was of a nature to make him uneasy.
in 1597 donne became secretary of the lord keeper, sir thomas egerton, and met his niece, anne more, daughter of sir george more, lieutenant of the tower. he married her secretly at the end of 1601, and therefore was imprisoned in the fleet jail, in february, 1602, thanks to the lady's angry father, who soon after forgave the young lovers.
by 1601 he had begun "the progress of the soul," or "metempsychosis," the adventures of a soul "placed in most shapes,"[1] for example, in that fabulous and mortuary weed, a mandrake, in the roe of a fish, in a sparrow, and so forth, all to little purpose. he was unemployed, eager for employment, given to writing long letters, and laments for deaths in verse, and he assisted in a controversy with the catholics.
now come such more or less theological works as "pseudo-martyr," "ignatius his conclave," and "biathanatos": the first (1610) is addressed to the king, who finally induced donne to take holy orders. "divine" poems he also wrote, but he was not anxious to be a professional divine. donne's conceits were daring to the border of profanity. a visit to paris with his patron, sir robert drury, while mrs. donne was about to become a mother, was marked by a telepathic experience—donne saw his wife, then in england, with a dead baby in her arms. walton says that the day of the vision was that of the child's birth and death, but the dates do not bear out the statement. walton's remark that drury sent an express messenger to england, to inquire about mrs. donne, is certainly untrue.
[pg 287]
in honour of a daughter of drury who died young, donne had written two extraordinary poems: "the first anniversary" of the decease was published in 1611, "the second anniversary" was written in 1612. there seemed reason to fear that donne would celebrate miss drury, whom he had never seen, once a year, while his life endured. the poem as a whole is "an anatomy, of the world, wherein, by occasion of the death of mistress elizabeth drury, the frailty and decay of this whole world is represented". donne indulges in an exaggeration of hyperbole equalled only by the ancient irish bards who sang the feats of cuchulainn. for example, when elizabeth joined the saints
this world in that great earthquake languished,
for in a common bath of tears it bled,
an allusion to seneca bleeding to death in a bath full of hot water. this manner of hyperbole flourished after donne's time, infecting crashaw and others,
for there's a kind of world remaining still,
as donne admits. poetry on the deplorable brevity of life and the instability of things may be excellent, and that instability is the theme of donne, but mistress drury is harped upon too much, and donne was taking this paragon on trust:—
she whose rich eyes and breast
gilt the west indies and perfumed the east.
it is impossible to understand how a poet, now of the mature age of thirty-nine, could write in this fashion if he had any humour.
"the second anniversary" dwelt on the incommodities of the soul in this life, and her exaltation in the next. donne says that the world still has a semblance of life, as when the eyes and tongue of a decapitated man twinkle and roll, while
he grasps his hands and he pulls up his feet.
so struggles this dead world,
without elizabeth, whom donne never saw! there are good lines such as
her pure and eloquent blood
spoke in her cheeks,
[pg 288]
and the satiric remarks on
a spongy slack divine,
who
drinks and sucks in th' instructions of great men.
in return for these poems drury housed and took care of donne and his large family. the poet now became the adviser of the earl of somerset in the hideous suit of nullity, and, when things went against somerset, who had done nothing for him, donne proposed to publish his poems in "a few copies". "i apprehend some incongruities in the resolution," and indeed, as donne at this moment intended to take holy orders, which he did in january, 1615, he was wise in breaking his resolution. he now obtained some clerical appointments, but in august, 1617, lost his wife. there is little doubt that his grief changed him from a worldly man into a man of heartfelt piety, the man whom izaak walton knew and adored.
his "holy sonnets," written at this time, have some noble almost miltonic passages, mingled with lines that cannot be made to scan, and with hyperbolical conceits. thus, though
thou my thirst hast fed,
a holy thirsty dropsy melts me yet.
he requests the american explorers to lend him "new seas," so that he may drown his world in tears of penitence. he makes "yet" rhyme to "spirit.". the excuse made for such things is that donne thought elizabethan poetry too dulcet.
he is a poet by flashes, which are very brilliant with strange coloured fires. he is not really so obscure as he is reckoned: he can be understood, though ben jonson, who "esteemed him the first poet in the world in some things," added that "donne from not being understood would perish".
donne died on march 31, 1631. his poetry, styled by dr. johnson "metaphysical," exercised an influence not wholly favourable on his successors; happily it did not affect lovelace and herrick.
[pg 289]
minor lyrists.
in the elizabethan age it might almost be said that every man was his own poet. the name of poet became a term of contempt, as we learn from ben jonson and other sources. of the best lyrists we have spoken in treating of the dramatists, of sidney, raleigh, and the chief sonneteers. another sonneteer is thomas watson, an oxford man, and allied to spenser's circle (15571592). his "hecatompathia" (1582) and "tears of fancy" (posthumously published) are sonnets, either informal or formal in structure; the "hecatompathia" mainly consists of translations from modern languages. watson had learning and some skill, but not much natural music in his soul.
henry constable, a yorkshire man and a catholic, may have been born about 1562 or earlier, judging by his degree taken at cambridge in 1580. he passed much of his life abroad, and, on his return, part of it an the tower, in the last years of elizabeth. his sonnets ("diana," 1592-1594) are pleasing, more tunable than many sonnets of his own and the succeeding age. others have been exhumed from manuscript; some are devotional.
willoughby's "avisa" (the sonnet sequences usually bore girls' names) would be forgotten but for the magic initials "w. s." and allusions to w.'s love affairs. he may have been william shakespeare; or he may have been walter smith, or william smith, author of another such book as "avisa," "chloris" (1596). with him may pair off lynch, with "diella," and griffin with "fidessa," love-sonneteers.
richard barnfield (1574-1627), an oxford man, was fertile in 1594-1598, publishing "the affectionate shepherd" (1594), "cynthia" (1595), "the encomion of lady pecunia" (1598). the shepherd is much too affectionate for christian and northern tastes, in the style of virgil's second eclogue,
that horrid one
beginning with formosum pastor corydon,
as byron describes it. in "cynthia" he enthusiastically admires spenser. if he wrote the sonnet "if music and sweet poetry agree," which appears in poems published with "lady pecunia,"[pg 290] and the charming "as it fell upon a day" (often ascribed to shakespeare), in the miscellany "england's helicon," barnfield was among the true lyrists of his time. "lady pecunia" is a satire on what wealth can do, and "the complaint of poetry for the death of liberality," a satire on what it does not usually care to do. he made experiments in english hexameters: after the age of 24 he ceased to write or ceased to publish.
thomas campion (died in 1620) was, fortunately, a more persevering poet. though his name was hardly known to modern readers till of recent years, because his lyrics were mainly published with music of his own composition, he was one of the most exquisite and delightful singers in the whole of english literature. born in london, he went in 1581 to peterhouse, cambridge, left in 1585, and entered gray's inn in 1586. five of his poems appear in a miscellany of 1591: his latin poems are of 1595. in 1601 appeared his first "booke of ayres," the music by himself and his friend philip rosseter. in 1602 he put forth "observations on the art of english poesie," written, strange as it appears, in favour of verses in quantitative metres, without rhyme. he had taken the degree of doctor of medicine: he also wrote (1613) three masques, one was for the wedding of the princess elizabeth, "the queen of hearts," another was for the shameful nuptials of the earl of somerset and frances howard, stained as they were with vice, vulgarity, and murder. campion's later "bookes of ayres" are of 1612 and 1617. he died in march, 1619-1620.
some of campion's lyrics may have been suggested by and adapted to his own music, in other cases he composed the music for his own words. he employs a great number of metres, all tunable: with him music and sweet poesy agree. to think of these songs, as thackeray said of some of scott's novels, is to wish to run to the bookshelves, take them down and read them. nothing can be more charming than the verses on "the fairy queen, proserpina," and "give beauty all her right,"
silly boy,'tis full moon yet,
thy night as day shines clearly,
now let her change i and spare not!
[pg 291]since she proves strange, i care not!
kind are her answers,
but her performance keeps no day,
breaks time, as dancers
from their own music when they stray.
drayton.
michael drayton (born at hartshill in warwickshire, 1563, died 1631) is a poet of nearly the same character and calibre as daniel (of whom later), with the same beginnings as a sonneteer, the same prolixity in versifying history, and the same steady laborious cast of mind. from the age of 10, as he tells us, he was bent on being a poet, and like greater poets, burns, for example, he was usually inspired by some model, which, unlike burns, he did not transfigure and excel. his earliest work, "the harmony of the church" (1591), contains rhymed paraphrases of biblical songs and prayers. drayton, like milton, addresses the heavenly muse, singing "not of toys on mount ida, but of triumphs on mount sion". thus from exodus xv., the triumph over egypt,
the lord jehovah is a man of war,
pharaoh, his chariots, and his mighty host,
were by his hand in the wild waters lost,
his captains drownèd in red sea so far.
in 1593 appears his "shepherd's garland". spenser had made shepherds fashionable; and eclogues were the mode. in one, "beta," queen elizabeth was praised; in another, sir philip sidney was lamented. the work, with improvements, was republished in 1606. the ballad of dowsabel was a pleasant and fortunate addition. anne goodere, later lady rainsford, a daughter of drayton's patron, sir henry goodere, is the person named idea, in the sonnets collected under that title. if the one famous and immortal sonnet,
since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,
be really by drayton, he here showed mastery; and the addresses to idea may not be mainly fanciful. another sonnet on rivers, drayton's favourite theme in the "polyolbion," identifies idea's[pg 292] home—so far she was certainly a real person. but there are critics who deny to him,
since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part.
it has even been attributed to shakespeare, because of its excellence.
following daniel's "complaint of rosamond," drayton versified the stories of piers gaveston, matilda, daughter of lord robert fitzwater, robert duke of normandy, and "the great cromwell" (thomas). like daniel, he gave little sack to a monstrous deal of bread, in a close following of prose chronicles. "mortimeriados" (1596) is another legend, in rhyme royal, of the wars of the barons against the second and third edwards, later recast as "the barons' wars," in an eight-lined stanza. "the english heroical epistles" were a following of the letters of ovid's heroines; there are twelve lovers and ladies, each writes a letter and receives a reply. rosamond, jane shore, and geraldine are, naturally, among the ladies. drayton employs the rhymed decasyllabic couplet, and adds learned notes, comparing, for example, the maze of rosamond to the cnossian labyrinth of the minotaur in crete. the verses are curiously modern in some places.
the poet now did work for henslowe and the stage. like daniel he wrote a panegyric of the new king, james vi and i, in 1603: it brought him no advancement, and in the next year he made "the owle" the mouthpiece of a satire, opening with the outworn dream-formula which had so long haunted verse.
in 1606 he attempted odes: the best known is on "the virginian voyage": virginia is a paradise, doubtless the laurel is indigenous, and drayton foresees a virginian poet (possibly edgar poe, in a way a virginian). by the famous patriotic "ballad of agincourt," drayton holds his most secure title to popularity.
he had long been working at his "polyolbion," in which the rivers of england, and the great events which occurred in their valleys, are celebrated. the first thirteen books were published in 1612-1613. drayton's best muse is the patriotic. he was[pg 293] not encouraged by the reception of the book (reprinted with twelve new songs in 1622), and unhappily he stopped at the cumberland eden, and did not, like richard franck in prose, celebrate the scottish rivers from the debatable land to the naver. drayton's ambling alexandrine couplets are, at least, interesting to the angler, for he has a minute knowledge of even such burns as the "roaring yarty" (mark the yar, as in cretan and greek jardanus, yarrow, and the australian yarra-yarra) and the troutful mimram, which he calls the mimer. had drayton spoken more particularly of the streams, and been less copious in endeavours "the battle in to bring," battles celtic, or of the many civil wars, his poem would have more attractions. history, copious and minute, is a stumbling-block to poetry in drayton, and as to history, the public, he says, "take a great pride to be ignorant thereof": "the idle humorous world must hear of nothing that savours of antiquity".
perhaps the idle world was more kind to the playful poem "nimphidia" (1627) where titania, to the wrath of oberon, wooes a new bottom, pigwiggen. the tripping measure is that of chaucer's "sir thopas": the fairy queen's equipage is thus described,
her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
which for the colours did excell,
the fair queen mab becoming well,
so lively was the limning:
the seat the soft wool of the bee,
the cover, gallantly to see,
the wing of a py'd butterflee,
i trow, was ample trimming.
the venerable and undefeated singer returned to pastoral, "the quest of cynthia," and (1630) gave "the muses' elizium," full of pretty innocent ditties, while "noah's flood" is naturally in a more solemn strain, as are "moses, his birth and miracles," and "david and goliath". these prolix paraphrases do not greatly improve on the heroic prose of genesis and samuel.
drayton died in 1631, and was buried in westminster abbey, but not in the poets' corner.
[pg 294]
daniel.
samuel daniel is one more of the poets whose names linger on in histories of literature because they were contemporaries of shakespeare and spenser and may more or less have "taken eliza and our james". a privately printed edition of 150 copies of daniel's works (edited by dr. grosart) keeps his laurels green in such abundance as his intrinsic literary merits deserve. he seems to have been born near taunton about 1562-63: his father is described as a music-master; he was at oxford for three years or thereabouts. he published a translation of a tract by paulus jovius, "of rare inventions both military and amorous called imprese," in 1585. he was patronized by "sidney's sister, pembroke's mother," and resided at wilton, where she received much literary society and he may have enjoyed excellent trout-fishing in the nadder and the wily. in 1591 he "commenced poet" with twenty-seven of the stereotyped love sonnets (not in the regular petrarchian form) which appeared unsigned in nashe's edition of "astrophel". in 1592-1594, three editions, emended, were published; the collection is entitled "delia".
so sounds my muse according as she strikes
on my heart-strings attuned unto her fame.
probably delia did not strike her samuel's heart-strings with much skill and vigour.
what though my muse no honour got thereby,
each bird sings to herself, and so will i.
with "delia" appeared a long and very tedious "complaint of rosamond" (who sleeps in godstow near oxford). the piece is in stanzas of seven lines, and is as woeful as "the mirror for magistrates". the abbey built by "the credulous devout and apt-believing ignorant" was already ruined by the great pillage, and the melancholy place by the grey waters is rosamond's only monument. her ghost left daniel "to prosecute the tenor of my woes": there is abundance of moral but very little of music in rosamond's "complaint".
[pg 295]
daniel visited italy about 1592, and in 1594 published "cleopatra," a tragedy in imitation of seneca, with a chorus.
the chorus commences thus
now every mouth can tell
what close was muttered:
how that she did not well,
to take the course she did!
the prologue and the chorus are the first act. naturally in senecan drama cleopatra does not commit suicide on the stage. a messenger narrates the moving incident in two hundred and fifty rhyming verses.
in 1595 appeared the first four books of daniel's "civil wars"; a fifth book came out in 1599. in 1600 the poet became tutor to lady ann clifford, but he longed to return to his muse, and did so in 1602. his "civil wars" were now a seven years' war, and he achieved book vi. in 1603 he addressed a panegyric to james vi and i, the new king: he obtained a court post in connexion with the queen's masques, and held his place and salary till 1618; wrote a history of england, and died at beckington, somerset, in 1619. he had written masques, and a "defence of rhyme" against the friends of unrhymed verse in classical metres. his "civil wars" are a chronicle in rhyme—he spares neither himself nor the infrequent reader. daniel opens by stating that had england devoted herself solely to fighting abroad, she might have annexed europe to the alps, the rhine, and the pyrenees. but this is an error: in 1429 the tide of english conquest recoiled from the standard of the maid, and even before the civil wars at home england had failed to hold the loire.
the poem traces civil war from richard ii onwards to edward iv, and, as aristotle rightly said, an epic poem cannot be written in that way. daniel was an excellent man; a most industrious author, and we may say of him in the words of his own epistle to lord henry howard,
vertue, though luckless, yet shall 'scape contempt,
and though it hath not hap, it shall have fame.
[pg 296]
daniel had little of the exuberant fantasy of his time; he is "well-languaged daniel," and easily intelligible. but even his most frequently quoted sonnet,
care-charmer sleep, son of the sable night,
is far from being one of the best of poetic hymns to sleep, and his best gnomic poem,
he that of such a height hath built his mind,
is far too long.
davies.
sir john davies, of tisbury in wilts, was born about 1569, we may suppose, if he went to queen's, oxford, in 1585. as a young templar he is said to have been a brawler, and to have been expelled from the society for his vivacities in 1598. in 1599 davies published his "nosce teipsum" ("know thyself"), on the nature and properties of the soul and on its immortality. the psychology may be old fashioned, but the versification is not. only the best poets of the age could write the four-lined decasyllabic verses, with alternate rhymes, with the fluency and harmony of davies. he has an answer to all objections,
but still this crew with questions me pursues,
"if souls deceased," say they, "still living be,
why do they not return, to bring us news
of that strange world where they such wonders see?"
"why do not the esquimaux visit us and tell us about the north pole?" davies replies, not quite convincingly. henry more or glanvill would have answered that souls do return, and made the question one of evidence.
davies's "the orchestra," on dancing, is extremely graceful, melodious and ingenious; the stanzas describing queen elizabeth dancing "high and disposedly" are unfortunately lost. even his acrostics on "elizabetha regina" are charming, and wonderfully varied in ornament and compliment—as vers de société none of that age are more admirable.
davies returned to the temple, rose in his profession, sat in[pg 297] the house of commons, was admired by james vi for his poetry, was knighted, and in 1606 became attorney-general in ireland. in 1612 he published a valuable book on the irish question, which should be read with that of spenser.
he died after his return to england, parliament, and the defence of the cause of an irish parliament for ireland, in 1626.
giles and phineas fletcher.
drayton and daniel were not influenced by their great forerunner spenser, as were the two clerical brothers and poets, phineas (born 1582?) and giles fletcher (born 1588). they were the sons of giles fletcher, author of "lida," one of the many collections of sonnets published in 1593. he was a scholar, a man of business, and a diplomatist. "christ's victory and triumph" (1610), the chief poem of the younger giles is in stanzas one line shorter than the spenserian; it begins by observing that
the infinite far greater grew
by growing less,
so that "'twere greatest were it none at all," as in the case of the other poet whose wound was "so great because it was so small".
thus does an unhappy point of wit, a "conceit," disturb the reader at the opening of a poem on the same solemn theme as milton's "paradise regained". the poet admits us to the councils of eternity, and thus sets forth the topic of his sacred song; the stanza is a fair example of his manner:—
ye sacred writings, in whose antique leaves
the memories of heav'n entreasur'd lie,
say what might be the cause that mercy heaves
the dust of sin above th' industrious sky,
and lets it not to dust and ashes fly?
could justice be of sin so overwooed,
or so great ill be cause of so great good,
that, bloody man to save, man's saviour shed his blood
the phrase
that mercy heaves
the dust of sin above th' industrious sky,
[pg 298]
is typical of late elizabethan mannerism. "heaves" is used to rhyme to "leaves"; "the dust of sin" is apparently the redeemed soul, why the sky is "industrious," except as a kind of pun on the preceding "dust," is not apparent; we are to wonder why the dust of sin is not allowed "to fly to dust and ashes,"—in short a solemn and sacred poem can hardly be written in a style more unhappily out of keeping. when the fate of fallen man is trembling in the balance, mercy "smooths the wrinkles of the fathers brow," and justice, observing this with displeasure (it is like a homeric quarrel of athene and aphrodite!), throws herself between mercy and the father, like "a vapour from a moory slough," and begins a virulent invective against
that wretch, beast, caitiff, monster-man,
who, in egypt, is disgracing himself by animal worship, while in greece,
neptune spews out the lady aphrodite.
your songs exceed your matter—
says giles to other poets,—
this of mine
the matter which it sings, shall make divine.
alas! the poem, though it has fine occasional passages, some music, and much energy, is written in a style of conceits, and of ingenious antitheses, which are wholly out of accord with "the matter". we cannot but see that the poet, in regard to taste, is wholly lost, is too much a child of his time, so rich in everything but perception of form and limit, so fantastically over-adorned in verse as in vesture.
giles wrote of phineas as
the kentish lad, that lately taught
his oaten reed the trumpet's silver sound.
phineas did this in his vast allegorical poem, "the purple island" (1633) (the human body). his stanzas are of seven lines, the first four rhyming alternately, the last three have all the same rhyme. both poets imitate spenser with a difference in stanza, and a notable difference in genius; both have musical passages,[pg 299] and both anticipate milton in their choice of sacred subjects. quarles saluted phineas as "the spenser of this age". phineas is the more musical, but also by far the more lengthy of these kentish swains. his "piscatory eclogues" follow spenser's pastorals. they are of a moral tendency and would not have interested izaak walton. the fisher (in salt water there are no anglers), is born "to sweat, to freeze, to watch, to fast, to toil". phineas attacks the indolent clergy, as milton did.
they are
a crew of idle grooms,
idle and bold that never saw the seas.
it is probable that milton, as a cambridge man, and a man with views like those of phineas, was well acquainted with the poems of both the fletchers, which are in fact the sunken stepping-stone from spenser to milton.
the puritanism of phineas's long poem, "the locusts or apollyonists" (1627) preludes to the civil war. the poet will tell
of priests, o no! mass-priests, priests cannibal,
and
thou purple whore, mounted on scarlet beast,
namely the church of rome. satan says,
meantime i burn, i broil, i burst with spite,
as the puritans in fact, between fear of popery and hatred of laud and his measures, were actually broiling and bursting. satan, however, is vexed by the triumphs of protestantism in england. his fiends form jesuits out of matter, "foul hearts, sear'd consciences, feet swift to blood,"—and all this when jesuit missionaries were dying under unspeakable tortures at the hands of the iroquois. while catholics were being hanged in england, and dreaded a massacre in scotland, phineas ends loyally,
thrice happy who that whore shall doubly pay,
this, royal charles, this be thy happy meed,—
unhappy charles who found in the catholics his most loyal subjects! it is easy but erroneous to confuse the "piscatory dialogues" of phineas with his drama, "sicelides, a piscatory," acted at king's college, cambridge (published, 1631). the[pg 300] dialogue is partly in rhymed heroic couplets of much fluency and partly in prose; the play is of a happier date (1614) than "the apollyonists," and is written "in a merry pin". phineas wrote many other things, including a pretty bashful epithalamium.
corbet.
richard corbet (1582-1635) born at ewell in surrey, and educated at westminster and christ church, oxford, was a merry clergyman, who laughed at but did not abuse puritans; was liked at court, and successively held the sees of oxford and norwich. in aubrey's gossip there are well-known tales about the bishop's gaieties, and his rhymes on a tour to paris and on another in the north were reckoned choicely facetious. his best poem has lost nothing in the course of time,
farewell rewards and fairies,
good house-wives now may say,
for now foul sluts in dairies
do fare as well as they.
there is also a pretty piece to his son vincent, on attaining his third birthday. corbet's humorous pieces have much more vigour than refinement: his verses were not intended for publication, and did not appear till ten years after his death.
sir john beaumont.
sir john beaumont was the elder brother of francis beaumont, the celebrated partner of fletcher in the drama. he was born (1582) at grace dieu in leicestershire, was of broadgates hall (now pembroke college) in oxford (1596), lived chiefly at his country place, was created a baronet in 1626, and died in 1628. a sacred poem of his, "the crown of thorns," in eight books, is lost: his "bosworth field" with other pieces was brought out by his eldest son, in 1629, and dedicated to charles i. ben jonson, in prefatory verses, wrote
this book will live, it hath a genius
above his reader,
few readers are below the level of the poem, which ben calls
the bound and frontier of our poesy.
[pg 301]
"bosworth field" is written in rhyming decasyllabic couplets, which come near to the measure as later used for heroic and satiric poetry, though the lines sometimes carry on the sense in the style disused by pope. the story of the death of richard iii, disdaining to fly, is spirited, though it cannot rival the old ballad on the same subject. in translations from the "satires of horace," beaumont comes nearer to the model of dryden and pope. "an ode of the blessed trinity" is perhaps the most pleasing of the sacred poems. beaumont could have taught much to the royal prentice in verse, james i, whom he salutes as his master,
your judicious rules have been my guide.
he translated the "tenth satire of juvenal," and wrote many verses to friends, and elegies.
william browne, born about 1590-91, of a devonshire family, went to exeter college, oxford, and to the inns of court. in 1613 he published the first part of his "britannia's pastorals," with commendatory verses, including some, more cautious than usual, by ben jonson. the pastorals have the usual defects of the obsolete kind of composition and of browne's own age of conceits. they are extremely prolix, very artificial, rich in classical allusions, and occasionally in puns. the rhymed decasyllabic couplets carry on the sense, as was usual before waller and pope.
"the shepherd's pipe" is a collection of eclogues and dialogues between long-winded shepherds, in a variety of metres. the popular tale of the father's bequests, the ring, cloth, and brooch of magical qualities, is told in stanzas of seven lines. the swains occasionally conduct themselves very like "our liberal shepherds"; at other times their songs of nature and the birds are pretty and pleasing. a pastoral elegy for mr. thomas elwood is an elegy and pastoral, in these respects alone it resembles "lycidas". in "the inner temple masque," taken from the odyssey about ulysses and circe, the sirens' song and circe's charm are pretty, but not on the highest level of the contemporary lyrics.
about 1624 browne is said to have been the tutor at oxford[pg 302] of the hon. robert dormer, afterwards earl of caernarvon, who fell, on the royalist side, at newbury in 1643: the date of browne's own death is unknown.
his poems seem never to have been popular. in the vast realm of spenser can be found all the merits of browne on a far higher level; and browne's defects, for he even drops into the allegoric style which dominated the latter middle ages and seemed immortal, are exceedingly abundant in all the pastoral verse between spenser and milton.
george wither (1588-1667) was one of the poets who "wrote too much and lived too long". only his song, "shall i wasting in despair," can be said to live, despite his pleasant fluency and love of country contentments in "philarete" (1622), "fidelia," and "the shepherd's hunting" (1615). he was among the favourites of charles lamb, who discovered the neglected poet, the laughing-stock of the wits of the restoration. he is also highly praised by swinburne in a most interesting essay, "charles lamb and george wither". wither is sometimes good, always copious.
[1] was donne copying a poem by empedocles?
