CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library PR1178.L3H861895 The laureates of England, from Ben Jonso 3 1924 013 289 990 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013289990 IN SPRING, SHE GATHERED BLOSSOMS FOR THE STILL.' —Page 29. The Laureates of England ffcom ^en ^onson to Bifced tCennsson WITH SELECTIONS FROM THEIR WORKS AND AN INTRODUCTION DEALING WITH THE ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ENGLISH LAUREATESHIP Kenyon West VIGNETTE EDITION. WITH NUMEROUS NEW ILLUSTRA TIONS Frederick C. Gordon ■^ "S^ flew ]9ocIt and Xondon FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copsrfgbt, 1895, bg jfcebecicl! B. Stolies Compans. 3 These brief sketches of the POETS LAUREATE OF ENGLAND are dedicated, by permission, to EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. CONTENTS. Prefatory Note. Intkodoction, . Hen Jonson, Selections from Jonson : ToCelia On Truth Happiness Lines from " The Sad Shepherd, Life and Deaths . ^ The Pleasure of Heaven, Fantasy, . . ' . . A Vision of Beauty, Truth, . . . Epitaph on My First Daughter, Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H., . Epitaph on Master Philip Gray, Epitaph on Margaret Ratcliffe, Song Fame Ode to Himself Chivalry, .... Song, Translation of Cowley's Epigram on Francis Drake, Nature, . ... Echo's Ijament of Narcissus, To the Memory of My Beloved Master, William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us Hymn to Diana, The True Growth, Chans' Triumph, Song, A Fragment, . On the Portrait of 1623, Lines from '* Catiline," Jealousy, Begging Epistle to of the Exchequer, Stray Thoughts from Jonson, Sir William Davenant, Selections from Davenant : To the Queen, Song, ..... Prayer and Praise, On a Soldier Going to the Wars, Weep no More for What is Past, Shakespeare — the Chancellor PAGE Cursed Jealousy, . . . .26 On the Captivity of the Countess of Anglesey, . , , .26 Ballad, 27 Platonic Lovers, . \ . . 27 Stray Selections from Davenant, . 28 Conscience, 28 Character and Love of Birtha, . ag John Dkyden Selections from Dkyden : Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687, . Alexander's Fe:ist : or, the Power of Music, an Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia's Day, November, 1697, .... Selection from Eleonora," . Veni Creator Spirltus, Selection, .... Limit of Fate, The Old Age of the Temperate, Human Life, . The Infant, .... Beauty and Youth, Selection, .... Reason and Religion, A Simile, .... Men, The Unity of the Catholic Church, From " Rival Ladies," . ** Ah, How Sweety" Under Mr. Milton's Picture before his Paradise Lost, Song Tradition, Selections from ** Absalom and Achitophel," . . . . Shadwell, Stray Lines from Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, . . . . Selections from Shadwell ; 20 Ode on the Anniversary of the King*s Birth Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 24 From " The Innocent Impostors," 24 On Dryden's Heroic Tragedies, 25 Satirical Lines on Dryden, 25 On Ben Jonson 26 On Ben Jonson, 31 35 36 40 41 42 42 42 43 43 43 44 44 44 45 45 46 46 46 47 47 47 49 49 56 57 58 59 59 60 60 Contcntd* PAGE Nahum Tate, ... .61 Selections from Tate : Charles II 66 On the Death of Queen Mary II., . 66 Chorus from " The Ode for the Year 1705," 66 The Tea Table, .... 67 On the '* Spectator," - . -67 From " The Loyal General,'* . 68 Song, " Damon's Melancholy," . 68 Eclogue of Virgil, . . . .68 The Tear 69 .The Upright Man, . . . 69 The Birth of Christ, ... 69 Hymn, 70 Psalm XLII, 71 From '' Psalm XCV," . . . 71 From " Psalm C," . . . ■ 71 From *' Psalm CIV," ... 72 Selections from Psalms, . . • 72 Selection from " An Essay for Pro- moling Psalmody," . . .73 Nicholas Rowe, . . . -74 Selections from Rowe : Ode for the New Year, 1717, . . 77 Colin's Complaint, . . .78 Song, 79 Ulysses, 80 To Mrs. A. D., While Singing, . 80 On Mr. Bayes' Dramatic Pieces, Si Selection, 8i Stray Selections from " The Fair Penitent," 81 Stray Selections from " Lady Jane Grey," 82 Penitence and Death of Jane Shore 82 Lawrence Eusden, . . . .85 Selections from Eusden : A Poem on the Happy Succession and Coronation of His Present Majesty, King George 11., . . 89 George II., . . ... go The Courtier. A Fable, . . go To Mr. gr On The Spectator's Critique on Milton, Q2 To the Reverend Dr. Bentley, . 92 Medea, Act IV. Last Chorus, . 94 CoLLEY Cibber, . . . -95 Selections from Cibber : An Ode to His Majesty for the New Year, 1730-31, . . -99 Gibber's Ironical Lines on Himself 100 The Blind Boy, . . . . loi From " She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not," loi From " Woman's Wit," . . . loi From "Love's Last Shift,'* , . loi From " The Rival Fools," . . 102 From *' Csesar in Egypt," . . 102 From " Richard III.," . . . 102 From " King John," . . 103 From " King John," . . . 103 William Whitehead, . . 107 Selections from Whitehead ; The Laureate, . . . .111 From " A Charge to the Poets," . iii Ode for the New Year, 1761, . . iii Ode for His Majesty's Birthday, June 4, 1765, rhe Je Ne Scai Quoi, _ . • • 1^3 The Double Conquest, , . . 113 On the Birthday of a Young Lady Four Years Old, . . . .114 The Enthusiast, . . . 114 Lines to Garrick, , . . . n6 On One of his Lampooners, . . 117 Selections from " The Roman Father," 117 Selections from " Lines to the Hon- ourable Charles Townsend," . ii8 To Lady Nuneham, on the Death of Her Sister, the Honourable Catharine Venables V^non, June, MDCCLXXV, . . 118 Variety, iig Thomas Warton, .... 123 Selections fkom Warton : On His Majesty's Birthday, June 4. 17^7 127 Selection from " Ode on His Maj- esty's Birthday, June 4, 1788," . 128 Selections from ** The Pleasures of Melancholy," . . 129 Oxford, 131 Selections from " The Hamlet," - 133 Retirement, . ... 134 To Sleep, .... 134 From " Euripides," " . . . 135 Selection from '* The First of April," 13s Sleep, . .... 136 Monody, ... . . 136 Selections from the Sonnets : I. On Revisiting the River Lodon, 137 II. Written at Winslade, Hamp- shire, 137 III. Written in a Blank Leaf of Dug- dale's " Monasticon," . . 138 IV. Written at Stonehenge, . . 138 V. Written after Seeing Wilton House 139 VI. On Summer, .... 139 Henry James Pye, Selections trom Pve : Ode for the New Year, 1791, . 140 Contents. PAGE Selection from " The Ode for the Kind's Birthday, 1792," . . 146 Selection from '* The Ode for the New Year, 1797," . . . 146 Birthday Ode for the Year 1800, 147 Selection from " Naucratia, or Naval Dominion," . . 147 Shooting, . . . 148 From " Alfred," . . .148 Robert Southey, . . , .151 Selections from Southey ; Selection from "Carmen Trium- phale," 157 Selections from " Ode written dur^ ing the Negociations with Buona- parte, in January, 1814," . . 157 Selections from *' Funeral Song,*' . 159 Selections from " Ode Written Dur- ing the War with America," 1814, 162 The Spanish Armada, . . . 163 Remembrance, .... 164 Roderick in Battle, . . . x66 The Curse, .' . . . i 167 The Swerga, ..... 167 From " Kehama." .... 169 From " Kehama," .... 169 From " Thalaba,'* . ^ . 170 From '*Madoc," .... 170 The Source of the Ganges, . 170 The Sea, 171 Impulse, 171 Freedom of the Will, . . . 171 The Ebb-Tide, . . . .171 The Dead Friend, .... 172 Inscription, 173 From " The Rose,*' , . . 174 The Traveller's Return, , . . 174 The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them, . , . 175 From " The DeviPs Walk," . .175 'I'he Battle of Blenheim, , . 176 The Well of St. Keyne, . . 177 The Cataract of Lodore, . . 179 The Inchcape Rock, . . . 183 Stanzas Written in my Library, . 184 Epitaph 184 To Mary Wolstonecraft, , , 185 Selections /ro-m. the Sonnets: I. " Fair is the Rising Morn," . 183 II. *' How Darkly o'er Yon Far-off Mountain." . • . .186 III. " O Thou Sweet Lark ! " . . 186 IV. " Thou Lingerest, Spring," . 186 V. " As Thus I Stand," . . .187 Sonnet to the Evening Rainbow, . X87 William Wordsworth, . . .188 Selections from Wordsworth : The Poet Laureate, . . . 193 The Poet, ..... 193 Self "Portraiture : ' I. From "Poet's Epitaph," . . 194 II. *' How Pure His Spirit," , . 195 in. ^* For I Would Walk Alone," . 195 IV. " There Was a Boy," . . 195 V. Personal' Talk, ■ . . . 196 Poevis Relating to Wordsworth'' s Mis- sion^ the Growth of His Mind^ the Subjects 0/ His Verse: I. "Fair Seed-time Had my Soul," i9"7 II. " For the Man, Who in this , Spirit," .... 199 III. " Ye Presences of Nature," . aoo IV. " On M^n, on Nature," . . 201 V. " Here Might I Pause," . . 203 VI. " The Hemisphere of Magic Fiction," .... 203 VII. "Thus From a Very Early Age," .... 204 VIII. First Perception of Words- worth's Mission, . . 204 IX. *' What Want We ? " . . 204 X. " (I Have) Sate Among the Woods, .... 205 XI. " CO Would Speak," . . 206 XII. "I Felt What Independent Solaces." .... 206 Xril. "Call Ye These Appearances," 207 XIV. " Were I Grossly Destitute," . 207 XV, " What we Have Loved," , . 308 The Lucy Poems : I. " Strange Fits of Passion," • . 208 II. " She Dwelt Among the Un- trodden Ways," . . . 209 III. " I Travelled Among Unknown Men," 209 IV. " Three Years She Grew," . 210 V. " A Slumber," . . . .211 Some Poems Relating to Mrs. Words' •worth : I. *' A Farewell," . , . .211 II. " She was a Phantom of De- light," 213 III. " Thereafter Came One," . . 214 IV. " By Her Exulting Outside Look of Youth," . . , , 214 V. " O Dearer Far," . . .214 Some Poems Relating to Dorothy Wordsworth : I. Choice of theJHome at Gras- mere 215 IT. " Mine Eyes Did Ne'er," . 215 III, " Child of My Parents," , . 216 IV. From " The Sparrow's Nest," 216 V. ■* I was Blest, . . . 217 VI. "Such, Thraldom," . . 217 VII. To my Sister, .... 217 VIII. To a Butterfly. . . 218 IX. To a Butterfly, . . . 219 X. Nutting, . • . . * , 2ig via Contents. PAGE Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, , . 221 Ode on Intimations of Immortality, 224 Composed upon an Evening of Extraordinary Splendour and Beauty, 230 From *' The Excursion^'' : T. Description of Mist Opening in the Hilis, . . . . 232 II The Soul's Perception, . . 233 in. Power of the Soul, . . . 234 Stray Lines from "The Excursion,^' 235 Character of the Happy Warrior, z'^ Ode to Duty 238 Elegiac Stanzas, .... 240 Lines Composed at Grasmere, . 241 Selections from The Sonnets : I. *' Scorn Not the Sonnet," . 242 II, *' Great Men Have Been Among Us," . . . 243 TIL " It Is Not to be Thought of." .... 243 IV. Composed by the Sea-side, Near Calais, August, 1S02, . ... 243 V. September, 1802, . . 244 VI. Written in London, Sep- tember, 1802, . . . 244 VTI. London, 1802, , . . 245 VIII. " England ! The Time is Come," . . . . 24s IX. Thoiightof aBriton.onthe Subjugation of Switzer- land. ..... 245 X. To Touissant L'Ouverture, 246 XI. To fJ. R. Haydon, - . 246 XII. " The World is too Much with Us," . . . 247 XIII. Composed upon Westmin- ster Bridge, . . . 247 XIV. " It is a Beauteous Even- ing," , . . .247 XV. "The Shepherd Looking ■ Eastward," . . - 248 XVI. To the Supreme Being, . . 248 XVII. "Most Sweet It Is," . 249 XVIIl. ^' Where Lies the Land," . 249 XIX. " Her Only Pilot," . . 249 XX. To Sleep, .... 250 XXI. " I Watch, and Long Have Watched," . . . 250 XXII. Mn-ability, . . .251 XXIII. Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, , 251 XXTV. The Same, . . .251 XXV. The Same, . . 252 XXVI. After-thought, . . .252 XXVII. The Trossachs, . . .253 XXVIII. Highland Hut, . . .253 XXIX. On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Ab- botsford for JJ^aples, . 254 Written in March. . . _ . Lines Written in Early Spring, From " Ode to Lycoris," . Yew-Trees Airey Force Valley, The Echo, .... The Nightingale and the Dove, To the Cuckoo, To a Skylark To the Skylark, The Green Linnet, To the Daisy, .... " So Fair, So Sweet," . To the Small Celandine, To the Same Flower, Daffodils PAGE - 254 . 255 . Z55 • 256 • 257 258 . 258 . 259 , 260 . 260 . 261 . 2^2 . 264 . 265 266 ■ 267 Some Ballads^ Narratives and Pas- torals : I. Songat the Feast of Brougham Castle 268 II. Hart-Leap Well, . . .272 III. Power of Music, . . . 277 IV. Resolution and Independence, 278 V. The Reverie pf Poor Susan, . 281 VI. We are Seven, . . 282 VII. Anecdote for Fathers, . . 284 Vni. Lucy Gray ; or. Solitude, . 286 IX. The Two April Mornirgs, . 287 X. The Fountain, . . .289 XI. The Affliction of Margaret, . 291 XII. Michael, .... 293 L:iodamia, ..... 304 From. ^^ Memorials of Scotland^': , 1. Stepping Westward, . , 308 TI. To a Highland Girl, . . 309 III. The Solitary Reaper, . , 311 IV. Glen-Almain ; or. the Narrow Clen . . . - . , 3I2 V. At the Grave of Burns, 1803, 313 VI. Thoughts, . . . 3T5 Vir. Yarrow Unvisited, . . . 317 VIIl. Yarrow Visited, . . . 31S IX, Yarrow Revisited, . . . 321 Memories of Departed Friends, . 324 Memories of Cambridge, . 325 To Hartley Coleridge, . . . 325 Evening Voluntaries: T. *' Calm Is the Fragrant Air,'" . 326 11, On a High Part of the Coast of " Cumberland 327 III. " Not in the Lucid Intervals, . 328 Devotional Incitements, . . 328 Inscriptions : I. " Hope<5, What Are They ? " . 330 TI. " Hast Thou Seen," . . .331 III, " Troubled Long/' . , . 332 IV. "Not Seldom," .... 332 Contents. Stray Selections: 1. To a Child 333 11. " My Heart Leaps Up," . 333 III. To a Young Lady, . .333 IV. From *' The Tables Turned," 334 V, From '" Expostulation and Reply," . . . .334 VI. To Lady Fleming, . . .335 VU. Songior the Spinning Wheel, 335 Vlll. A Night Piece, . . .336 IX. The Moon, .... 33^ X. The Echo 337 Stray Lines from DifEerent Poems, 337 Stray Beauties from •* The Pre- lude," 344 Selection from " The Ode on Prince Albert," . . . . - 348 349 Alfred Tennvson, Selections fkom Tknnvson : To the Queen, . . . -35* The Poet, . . ^52 Poland, 353 From ** The Two Voices,' ' . 354 The Miller's Danghiei, . . .354 The Palace of Art, . . 360 The Lotos-Eaters, . , .36** From " Lines to J. S.." . 370 From "Love Thou Thy Land," . 370 Love and Duty, . 370 Ulysses, . . ... 372 Locksley Hall, . . 374 St. Agnes' Eve, , . . . 381 Sir Launcelot and Queen Guine- vere, ... . . 382 The Eagle, .... 383 ** Come Not When I Am Dead," . 384 ** Move Eastward," . . 384 *' Break, Break, Break," . . 384 Selection from *' The Princess," . 385 Songs from the '* Princess^': \. " As Through the Land," . 387 IL "Sweet and Low," . . .383 IIL " The Splendour Falls," . 388 IV. •'Tears, Idle Tears," . 389 V, " O Swallow, Swallow." . 389 VI. " Thy Voice is Heard," . 390 VII. "Home they Brought Her Warrior," .... 390 VIIL " Ask Me no More," . . 391 Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 391 The Higher Pantheism, . . 398 ** Flower in the Crannied Wall," . 399 Selections from " In Memoriam ".- " Strong Son of God," . . . 399 I. "I Held it Truth,'' . 400 IV. "To Sleep I Give my Powers," 400 V. " I Sometimes Hold it Half a Sin," 401 VL " One Writes," . . 401 VII. •■ Dark House," . 402 Vlll. "A Happy Lover,'' 403 IX. '■ Fair Ship," . .403 X. '* 1 Hear the Noise," . 404 XL "Calm is the Morn," . 405 XIX. "The Danube." . . 405 XXIV. "And Was the Day," . 406 XXXIV. "My Own Dim Lite," . 406 XL. "Could We Forget." . 40? vA, " Do We Indeed Desire," . 408 LIV. " Oh Yet We Trust," . 408 LV. " The Wish," . . .409 LXII. " Tho' it an Eye." . . 409 LXIV. " Dost Thou Look Back,' 410 XCIV. " How. Pure at Heart," 410 XCVI. "You Say," . . .4" CVUl. "IWillNotShutMefrom My Kind," .411 CXIIl. "'Tis Held that Sorrow, . 412 CXIV. "Who Loves not Knowl- edge," . . . 412 CXV. " Now Fades," . . 413 CXVI. "Is It, then. Regret," . 414 CXXIV. "That Which We Dare In- voke," .... 414 CXXXl. "O Living Will," . .415 Stray Lines from "^In Memoriam," 415 Selections front " Maud"* : " We arc Puppets," . . . 417 " A Voice by the Cedar Tree," . 417 " Whom but Maud Should I Meet," 4i5 " Birds in the High Hall-garden," 419 " Go not, Happy Day," . , 419 " T Have Led Her Home." . . 420 I. "Come into the Garden, Maud," 420 Selections frow, ''''Idylls of the King''': T. Dedication, .... 423 II. Songs from "Gareth and Lyn- ette." 424 III. Selection from " Enid and Geraint," .... 425 IV. Stray Lines from " Enid and Geraint," .... 426 V. Song from ** Merlin and Vivien," .... 427 VI. Song _ from " Lancelot and Elaine," . . . 427 VII. Stray Lines from " Lancelot and Elaine," . . . 428 VIIL Songs from "The Last Tourna- ment," .... 428 IX. Song from "Guinevere," . 428 X. The Farewell of Arthur, , . 429 To Alfred Tennyson, . . 433 Rizpah, 433 Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice, .... . 437 De Profundis, .... 438 Songs from " The Ancient Sage." 439 Contents. PAGE Selections /rmn " Lockstey Hall. Sixty Years After " ; " Late, My Grandson,'" . . . 441 ^' On This Day," .... 443 Duet from *' Becket," . . . 447 Marjory's Song from '* Becket." . 448 Rosamund's Song from " Becket," 448 Songs from *' The Promise 0/ May " -■ a'. ' The Tower Lay Still,' " O Happy Lark," 448 449 The Progress of Spring, Merlin and the Gleam, . Parnassus, Far — Far — Away, . Beautiful City, The Roses on the Terrace, To One who Ran Down the lish, . • . The Snowdrop, The Throstle, The Oak, In Memoriam Crossing the Bar, - Ward, PAGE • 449 • 452 ■ 455 . 456 • 457 • 457 Eng- • 457 • 457 . 458 . 458 . 459 . 459 PREFATORY NOTE. These biographical sketches and critical estimates of the laureates (especially in the case of Southey, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, whose genius has evoked a whole literature of analytic criticism) are necessarily fragmentary and brief, designed merely to stimulate detailed study. Such study would be fruitful of much delight as Vv^ell as include a survey of many momentous historical and literary events, and furnish glimpses of a large number of famous men whose lives touched directly or remotely those of the poets laureate. As the field is so wide, the task of making these selections from the fourteen laureates has been difficult, not only because the works of several of them are buried in out-of-the-way and forgotten places, but because in many cases the flowers of poetry have had to be plucked from a mass of coarse or noxious weeds. For this valuable aid in our work we are indebted to Miss Josie Russell, who, in the selections, has shown taste and critical judgment as well as industry. She has not attempted to give the strictly official poems of these poets laureate, but to, as far as possible, furnish examples of their lyrical genius. In cases where their official poems are repre- sentative of their genius'they are of course included. A com- plete collection of these official odes of the laureates would be of unique value and interest, though it would exclude the work of the greatest poet among them all. After Wordsworth's acceptance of the laurel he wrote nothing official except a fine ode on the installation of Prince Albert as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. The Introduction dealing with the origin and significance of the Laureateship appeared originally in The Century Magazine ; and is here reproduced by kind permission of the publisliers. Statistics are not always entertaining reading, but they are essential for accuracy, and nowhere more essential than in the discussion of this subject of the Laureateship of England ; as so much has been written upon it which is misleading. Many journalists, in wishing to present to the public the outlines of a " timely subject," read hurriedly a few " authorities," not wait- ing to investigate whether these be reliable ; they do not weigh xii iprefatotB "Mote. evidence, nor stop to verify dates and facts, and the result is deplorable. General misapprehension of the true significance of the office of the Laureateship ; conflicting records as to dates ; claims in regard to Chaucer, Spenser, and others which cannot be sus- tained ; critical judgments of the individual laureates which dis- tort the whole aspect of their official work ; the repeated quo- tation of a spurious sonnet by Wordsworth, which, by its absurdity and atrocious lack of taste, not only reveals its inauthenticity, but, hke all parody, tends to affect the influence of the genuine and magnificent products of his genius : — these are a few instances where the journalist misleads the general reader. No detailed study of this subject can be made without refer- ence to books wliich are inaccessible outside of the large libraries — many of the most essential are to be found only in the British Museum. Though they not seldom conflict with one another, the biographical dictionaries are of course very helpful ; those in French and German especially so, the foreign estimate of our men of genius being often very valuable. It is to be much regretted that the excellent book by Austin and Ralph is out of print and almost impossible to be obtained. Walter Hamilton's book discusses the laureates quite fully, although it lacks orderly arrangement and is somewhat coloured by personal prejudice. Nor has it the pohsh of style or the dignity of treat- ment of Austin and Ralph. It lays so much stress upon the burlesques and the lampoons which the laureates inspired from their contemporaries, tliat the finer outlines of true criticism are sometimes blurred. Thus the author is not always just to Southey, and he is wholly blind to the peculiar significance and value of Wordsworth's work. Two articles in The Atlantic Monthly oi 1858 under the name of Daphnaides are stimulating and suggestive. The greater part of that which has appeared in the maga- zines and newspapers since the death of Tennyson is, however, inaccurate and wholly unsuited to the dignity of the subject. New York, 1895. INTRODUCTION. ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ENGLISH LAUREATESHIP. I.- Were our judgment of the poets laureate of England to be based upon the current opinion of them and their work in literature, we should be inclined to consider that it was their great misfortune not only to be poets laureate, but that fate imposed upon them any compulsion to be poets at all. Since the death of Tennyson more attention has been paid to the past history and to the probable future of the English Laureateship than ever before. The explanations of the origin of this impor- tant office which have been given have, however, been conflict- ing, and much confusion has been thrown into the discussion. But upon one point the majority of those who have written about the poets laureate agree, and that is in sounding a note of disparagement in regard both to the office and those who have held it ; if they praise at all, the praise is of such a nature as to be in itself a condemnation. History has undoubtedly given these critics i. certain basis for the severity of their remarks. The solitary office in England, to be held professedly by no one but a poet, had often been given to sycophants, time servers, and favourites of corrupt courts, who had little poetical genius to recommend them.- As late as 1816 one of Robert Southey's friends advised him to rest satisfied with the safe obscurity of his predecessors. " A poet laureate," he said, " is -naturally a ridiculous personage ; the laurel which the monarch gives has nothing in common with that bestowed by the Muses, and the warrant is of no authority in the court of Apollo." But Southey felt, and rightly too, that, though the muse of men Hke Tate or Eusden was indeed commonplace, that of some of the other laureates had proved herself of lofty lineage ; his own muse, he said, being a digni- fied and high-born dame who gua/ded his laurels in the grove on the mountain-side where dwelt his winged horse. ITnttoOuctfon. xv and all monarchical measures. That this misapprehension of the Laureateship is very common is proved by the numerous newspaper remarks upon the subject. A recent writer, in expressing the usual cant about these laureates being such sorry poets, says, " Think of Southey being laureate while Byron was alive ! " We might retort, " Think of Byron, the poet of revo- lution, writing a ' Vision of Judgment,' in which an infamous king was canonised ; or of Byron being in a position where odes like Southey's on the negotiations with Bonaparte, or the visits of the king to Ireland and Scotland, were expected ! " Shelley and Byron were undoubtedly greater poets than Southey ; but to have seen them made court poets would have been one of the strangest things that could ever occur in the history of English poetry ! in. It is true that from the era of Ben Jonson to that of Southey, few of these poets laureate sought to penetrate far into the meaning of human life ; they were neither impressed by its mystery, nor did they sound the depths of its joy and its pain. They did not " utter wisdom from the central deep," nor possess that which Bodenstedt describes as the philosophy which, " Auf stolzen^Schwinge Sucht wie ein Adler zum Lichte zu drin^en, Forscht nach dem Urgrund von alien Dlngen." Their work, therefore, lacks power and loftiness as well as depth, and it is withput. moral strength and dignity. The cause of this, .is nqt far to seek. When Elizabeth was well established upon the throne of England, and in the full enjoyment of her power,, a new spirit became evident in litera- ture, which caused her re,ign to be considered the most glorious in English history. ^This outburst of the national mind was ardent and eager, original and creative. This eagle-like spirit of genius reached the height of its flight in the years between 1603 and 1626, in the reign of Elizabeth's successor. In the reign of Charles I., hbwever, a marked change began to mani- fest itself — the glory had begun to wane. Ben Jonson, the first poet to be honoured by the office of the Laureateship as it now is understood, did his best work amid the influences which made the Elizabethan age so great. It was because of his eminent services to literature that in l6i6 — some authorities say 1619 — James I. granted to Ben Jon- XVI irntroOuctfon. son letters patent making him poet laureate. Charles I. had been king five years when he reconsidered this appointment of his father. He issued new letters patent to Ben jonson, which for the first time made the Laureateship a permanent institution. But after this the glory of the " Elizabethan Age " not only began to wane, but the Laureateship came to be considered not only a reward for literary services, but a gift dependent largely upon court patronage. From the death of Jonson in 1637 to the death of Henry James Pye in 18 13, when Southey succeeded him, one hundred and seventy-six years passed. In that period the Stuarts lost the throne of England. During the Commonwealth the laure- ate. Sir Willam Davenant, was deposed. When the Restoration came English poetry received a blow from which it took over a hundred years to recover. The creative age of Shakespeare was past and gone. The influence of French taste and of French codes of morality, of foreign standards of art, was felt every- where. Literature became artificial and concerned itself with externals, and there was a moral blight upon the drama. The Augustan age of Anne, which gave us Pope and Swift and all that brilliant circle, though it was rich in prose, pro- duced no great inspired natural poet. Inspiration, natural- ness, and a high poetic ideal seem to have vanished until Covvper and Burns appeared. It is therefore not surprising that during these hundred and seventyjsix years, when there were ten poets laureate, there should be among the number no supremely great poet. Among the ten, Dryden stands first, and next to him, Warton. But Dryden, with all his facile skill, his command of the resources of language, and his brilliant wit, produced no poem which was the outcome of an exalted mood. His work lacked dignity and moral strength, and was wholly without those finer influences which tend to inspire and elevate humanity. Warton, noble poet as he was, stood halfway between the school that was going out and the school that was coming in. Cowper and Burns appeared only a few years before Warton died, and Wordsworth published nothing till after Warton's death. Warton scarcely felt the force of the tide which was bearing English poetry on to new regions of thought. He was grent compared to the men who immediately preceded him, but he belonged to an artificial school, and his art felt the influence of its limitations. For twenty-three years Henry James Pye wore the wreath of laurel. During that time English poetry was being brought back to nature by the inspired work of Wordsworth and his great contemporaries, but the new revelation which had come to them, the new spirit which was animating English poetry. ITntcoOucMon. xvii touched tlie laureate so lightly that he might just as well have been living in the age of Anne as in that of George III. And so, from the death of Jonson to the accession of Southey, none of these laureates could be called poets of the highest order. They were not only the creatures of their age, but their ])osition as court poets called for no grand heroic effort in verse. The monarchs, whom it was their duty 'to extol and flatter, had few qualities to inspire genuine entlvusiasm. Charles 1., whose soul, Ben Jonson said, lived in an alley; Charles II., false and corrupt at heart ; James II., who tried so hard to sub- vert the liberties of the nation ; William III., who cared noth- ing for English poetry or poets ; Anne, under the rule of her favourites, with little regard for the brilliant wiiters who made her reign illustrious. Then came the Georges. Is it any wonder that when the poor laureates were obliged to celebrate the birthdays of these ignoble sovereigns by odes and lyrics, that the divine afflatus failed? In other fields of literature these laureates sometimes did valuable work, especially in the domain of the drama, but as far as their strictly official poems, which their position made compulsory, are concerned, they cannot be said to deserve high praise. IV. In many accounts of the Laureateship, there is not sufficient distinction maintained between those poets whose claim to the title was shadowy and intangible, and those who had authentic right to the honour. Some authorities, in speaking of Chaucer, or Skelton, or Spenser as laureates, often neglect to explain just how they came to be so called. All history is founded on tradition ; mists and clouds veil the far past, and it is only by inference and reasoning from analogy that definite knowledge is gained. Much confusion prevails, and probably will ever prevail, in regard to the origins of various customs and institutions. Many of them have ** Broadened slowly down From precedent to precedent.*' The idea of the Laureateship appears to have assumed form gradually; but this much is certain, that, as it now exists, it began with Ben Jonson. It was not until 1630 that it became a definite and permanent institution. It was then that Charles I. ratified the appointment which had been conferred upon Jonson by James I. The annual pension which had been given before vyas ingreased to one hundred pounds, and a butt of \\\n^ xviii ITntroDuctton. from the king's cellars. When this great poet and dramatist was thus formally recognised as an officer of the royal household, he undoubtedly occupied the first place in the world of letters. Before Ben Jonson's time, however, there were court poets who sang the praises of their sovereigns, who celebrated in heroic verse the victories which exalted the nation, and who were rewarded fortheir services with pensions and emoluments. It had been from very early times the custom in Italy, Ger- many, and even Spain, to crown certain poets who were con- sidered pre-eminent. The custom probably originated in the mythologic period. If some writers wish to call Apollo the first laureate they may do so ; though he might possibly wish to be in better company than among the laureates of the Augustan age of England. Better to place him among those of the Augustan age of Rome, for Vergil and Horace were both crowned with the laurel wreath. ' It had been the custom among the ancient Greeks to crown their poets with a wreath symbolical of both appreciation and reward. The Romans imitated the Greeks of course in this as in so many other things. The universities of the Middle Ages must in their turn have derived their custom of laureation from the well-known crowning of Petrarch by the Roman senate. Many universities on the Continent blended with the poetic distinction a reference to theology quite characteristic of the age. Thus in the early times there were many poets laureate. They were not, however, necessarily court poets. Warton asserts that the universities conferred the honour as a degree upon those graduates who excelled in rhetoric and Latin versification. A wreath of laurel was placed upon their heads, and, if they were, at the same time, licensed to be teachers of boys, they were publicly presented with a rod and ferrule. , -Warton describes several interesting instances of these de- grees in versification being conferred at Oxford. One student received the laurel on condition that he compose a Latin com- edy and one hundred Latin verses in praise of the university. We see in this perhaps the beginning of the custom of linking to the honour of laureation certain conditions which made it somewhat like a mercantile transaction. Caxton, in a work printed in 1490, mentions " Mayster John Skelton, late created poete laureate in the university of Oxen- ford." Skelton had been crowned with the laurel probably in 1489, and four years after he was permitted to wear the same badge also at Cambridge. This is the cause of Skelton's sign- ing himself " Poeta Skelton Laureatus." There seems to be considerable uncertainty in regard to the origin of the term poet laureate as applied to a member of the royal household of England. ITntroDuction. xix The custom must gradually have arisen for English mon- archs to choose from among these laureates of the university one who would be present at court, and would on stated oc- casions sing the praises of his country and his king. Many times this poet was called simply king's versifier, and there are a few instances on record of this king's versifier being chosen when he had never received from Oxford any laureate degree ; though, as a rule, the appointinent was conferred because the recipient had already received the laurel crown for skill in Latin versification. It was customary also for the court poets to write in Latin, as the English language was regarded with universal contempt. Warton is of the opinion that the royal laureate did not begin to write in English till the Reformation had begun to diminish the veneration for Latin. An institution, somewhat like the Laureateship, calculated to encourage literature and develop the national language, is traced to the early reign of Henry III. — when a yearly salary of one hundred shillings was given to Henry d'Avranches, and he has therefore been called the pioneer laureate ; but this is a mere tradition. " Morbid credulity can go no farther back than to the Father of English Poetry." Chaucer, by his close relationship to John of Gaunt, to whose influence he owed some oflficial appointments, has often been styled poet laureate to Edward IV., but there is no evidence whatever that he had any right to the title. He was simply a great poet who was often at court, and who received certain rewards for definite political, not poetical, services. After Richard II. met Gower rowing on the Thames, and asked him straightway to book some new thing, Gower called himself the king's laureate ; but Skelton, while praising both Gower and Chaucer, said " they wanted nothing but the Law- rell." We hear of John Kay, a court poet who lived over fifty years later than Gower, addressing himself to Edward IV. as " hys humble poet laureate." But the title was wholly self- given. Henry VII. is said to have granted to Andrew Bernard, poet laureate, a small salary till he should obtain some employ- ment which would insure him the same sum; but there is nothing very permanent in this. The court jester Scogan called himself laureate, but his claim cannot be sustained. Skelton aspired to be court poet as well as the laureate of Oxford. By his keen and pungent satire he must have been a power in helping on the Reformation. He was connected by the whole scope of his literary purpose with the reign of Henry VIIL.and in that reign the idea of religious liberty became manifest with irresistible power. The portrait of a great poet — the immortal Spenser — has XX Untro&uctlon. been placed recently in a periodical beside that of Chaucer, and both are called poets laureate of the past ; but there is no evi- dence whatever to justify the statement. Edmund Spenser was pensioned by Queen Elizabeth, but there are even doubts whether this pension was paid more than once. When Southey was appointed laureate he wished to magnify his office, and he thereupon wrote some poetry about it, and by poetic license spoke of that Wreath which in Eliza's golden days My master, dear, divinest Spenser wore ; but in plain prose Southey .admitted that none of the poets of whom he sang had, with tiie exception of Ben Jonson, any right to the title of laureate. It was given to them, he says, not as holding the office, but as a mark of honour to which they were entitled. Among these volunteer laureates whom Southey thus praised were Samuel Daniel and Michael Drayton. Daniel held important posts at court, and was much beloved there ; but when the courtiers of James I. began to concern themselves with the production of the masques which were becoming so popular, it was considered that Ben Jonson was the poet best fitted to be responsible for their management. Daniel there- fore retired from the court. Drayton's portrait has come down to us, his brow encircled by the wreath of laurel. This is owing to the poet's secret wish, and was also the tribute of his friends. Drayton's sonnets rank high in the language, but though he may have deserved the laurel it was never his by royal appointment. We find in every case that, prior to the era of Ben Jonson, the claims of any poet to the title of laureate cannot be sustained, unless that poet had received the honour from the University of Oxford. BEN JONSOX. THE LAUREATES. BEN JONSON. FIRST POET LAUREATE WITH LETTERS PATENT. Born in London in i^^3 Made court poet to James I. in 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death. ^ This appointment coniirmed in 1630, and the Laureateship made permanent. Died in 1637. (Reigns of James X. and Charles I.) Though the fame of Ben Jonson has been affected by certain misrepresentations of Ills character, both literary and personal, notably by the betrayal of trust of which Dnimniond of Hawthornden was guilty, the words which have been applied to Dryden can much more appropriately be applied to him : *' He wrestles with and conquers time." By his strong creative genius and his healthful vigour, he was an honour not only to the office he held, but to English literature. The fact that he was the first laureate has added little to his fame. His name has lived because he was a man of colossal mental stature, who by his powerful personality made a deep impression upon his age, and because as a great dramatist and as a lyric poet his work forms a part of ** Those melodious bursts which fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still." Many poets have acknowledged their indebtedness to him. Milton himself so admired him that some of his poems are directly modelled upon his. Shadwell openly took him as his master in the dramatic art. In Keats' best work we find traces of the stately majesty and the perfect workmanship of some of Jonson 's lines. Even Tennyson has felt the influence of this great and original thinker. Ben Jonson's work, however, will be found to be full of 2 aseii 30116011. defects. It is unequal. Some of it is imitative of tlie classics, and much of it is heavy and gloomy. But in his lighter moods his touch is exquisite, his lyrical genius enchanting. His elegies are perhaps as fine as any in"the language ; and his wide and profound learning give to his dramatic productions a classical elegance often lacking in those of his contemporaries. Austin and Ralph very justly call attention to the fact that Ben Jon- son is no exception to the rule that clear and strong utterance is one of the chief characteristics of genius, and that great poets have been good prose writers. " The destruction of his prose manuscripts is to be much regretted ; what are left show erudite criticism and severity of judgment. Notes on books and on life written in a concise and pregnant style remind us of Bacon's Essays." Ben Jonson's life was one of desperate struggle and of many sorrows as well as glorious success. He was of noble family, his grandfather having been a man of rank and fortune in the service of Henry VIII. His father, however, suffered persecution in the reign of Bloody Mary, and it was only at her death that he was liberated from prison. He took orders soon after the accession of Elizabeth, but death came to him just a month before the birth of his famous son. Little is known of Ben's childhood, except that he was brave and courageous at school, a good student, a good fighter, a good hater, as well as an ardent lover. How well he loved his teacher at Westminster school where his boyhood was passed is shown by the famous dedication of his works to the great Camden. The youth of the poet was full of vicissitude. Disdaining bricklaying, a trade thrust upon him probably by- his step- father, he entered Cambridge at the age of sixteen. But he soon found his means totally inadequate to his remaining at the university, and so he volunteered into the army. He per- formed many heroic deeds in the Low Countries; once engag- ing in single combat, when he slew his opponent, seized his arms, and carried them away in full view of both armies. This achievement at the age of eighteen was no ignoble one. But the trade of arms as well as that of the artisan failed to satisfy the restless temperament of Ben Jonson. He returned to England and found an outlet for his intellectual energy as well as a means of support, upon the stage. He appeared first in a small playhouse called the Green Curtain. At the outset of his career, however, a misfortune overwhelmed him which coloured all his future life. A quarrel with a fellow-actor resulted in a duel, in which Ben Jonson killed his opponent. Overcome with rgmorse for the deed, and himself wounded painfully, he was thrown into prison and, as he says, brought near to the asen Jonson. 3 gallows. The prisons of that time were sorry places ; Jonson suffered acutely both in body and in spirit. It is hinted by some of his biographers that during this period of suffering no solace was offered him from tlie clergymen of his own church. Popish priests, however, sought him out and under their influ- ence the forlorn youth forsook the faith for which his father had undergone such cruel persecution. Years after, Jonson returned to the church his father had loved so well. Both apostasy and reconversion were undoubtedly sincere, and whatever sins and errors stained the life-record of this head- strong, impetuous thinker, he never gave up his faith in God. Though Jonson has won his fame principally as a dramatist, he wrote many beautiful religious poems, which reveal a thought- ful, sincere, and devoted spirit. Released at length from prison, Jonson reassumed the profes- sion of the stage, and at the age of twenty, witli no settlisd income, he showed his impulsive disposition by plunging into matrimony. The woman he married had domestic tastes and was brave and courageous in enduring the privations of their early Hfe together. A hard time they had of it too. At first Jonson was very poor and quite unknown ; then, as his genius found recognition and he was rewarded with court honours, he, who was always careless in the use of money, became recklessly extravagant. The poor wife could never have had either a very happy or serene life. That for five years she livetl apart from her husl)and is not surprising. Yet Jonson's heart was tender and affectionate and he was a loving father. Jonson was never a good actor, and at first his principal occupation was recasting old plays. But by the writing of his drama, " Every Man in his Humour," he placed himself among the great dramatists of his time. He showed that he had found his true life-worlc, and from the commencement of the new century he had a succession of triumphs. Jonson's great strength was comedy, but he wrote two tragedies which were full of power and dignity. His comedies show versatility, breadth of treatment, and overflowing wit. His wide knowledge of life led him to analyse many base and contemptiljle passions, and yet he sought to elevate his readers, and his efforts to instruct as well as to elevate led him often to be accused of pedantry. Jonson's high rank in the world of letters rests not only upon his dramas, but upon those masques which were so p.bpu]ai" among the courtiers of James I. In his plays he' does n(Si show the creative strength or the imaginative insight' of Shakes- peare. His personages have not the living, vital forcfe-rior the finer and more subtle distinctions of character.' To use his own phrase, he often delineated humours rather than' pfel^s'Ons; 4 3Ben Sonson. This analysis of minute eccentricities and of striking^ whims and propensities makes Ben Jonson's personages often too abstract — types rather than individuals. Tlie accentuation of one dominant passion is impressive and original, but it is not natural. In many plays Jonson satirised the vices and affecta- tions of the time. He wished honestly enough to reform his age, and unlike Dryden he pandered to no prevailing taste; he spoke out his convictions fearlessly — careless whether he won worldly advancement or general scorn. His language of invec- tive is sharp, nervous, and forcible — in all his work there is a mighty egotism as well as a mighty and manly strength. The man's individuality is all pervasive. It is in his lovely masques that the true poetic genius of Ben Jonson is most apparent. Seldom tender or pathetic in his plays, he is both in the masques, and they have, also, a lyrical charm most entrancing. Jonson's days were spent in laborious study, winning distinc- tion for his great learning, and his nights were usually spent in the indulgence of his convivial habits at the Mermaid Club. This club, made up of the most famous wits and poets, was of course frequented by Shakespeare, Selden, Raleigh, Beaumont, Fletcher, and the rest. Many a good time must these friends have had together. Keats, whose genius was in such thorough sympathy with these old Elizabethans, wrote : " Souls of poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern. Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern ? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison ? O generous food ! Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse from horn and can." Ben Jonson's ardent, tempestuous nature exposed him to many rude shocks of fate : he had many bitter quarrels with his fellow-dramatists, but he many times showed fine qualities of magnanimity and justice, and he was often forgiving. About the time of Shakespeare's death Jonson brought out a complete edition of his own plays, and James I. honoured him by confeiring upon him a pension and the office of poet to his court. Soon after this he travelled both in Scotland and on the Continent, meeting many notable people and winning every- where both friends and enemies. At the death of the king in 1625, Jonson began to suffer a decline in court favour. His :fi3en 30116011. 5 extravagance had been so great that in spite of his pension and the many costly gifts from friends at court, he was always in want, and his drinking habits brought with them their inevitable punishment— disease and suffering. Charles I. had been five years on the throne before he paid much attention to his father's favourite poet. But when Jonson appealed to him" for help, he quickly responded with a large gift. Then, desirous of paying some tribute to literature, and to confer distinction upon his own reign, he made the Laureate- ship permanent — an office founded upon letteis patent, with an. annual salary of a hundred pounds; and in deference to Jonson's well-known tastes, he added to this salary a butt of Canary wine. The laureate was so fond of this particular wine that his boon companions often called him the canary bird. Suckling, in his famous burlesque, " The Session of the Poets," where he represents the foremost wits of the day as having a contest for the laurel, says : " The first that broke silence was good old Ben, Prepared with Canary wine. And he told them plainly he deserved the bays." This preparation with Canary wine, not to mention stronger potations, had altered Jonson's personal appearance greatly. Thin and pale in youth, he soon became stout, his face flushed and unattractive. A lady of the court described him once to someone who had likened him to the poet Horace : " That same Horace of yours has a most ungodly face, by my fan ! It looks for all the world like a russet apple when 'tis bruised." And, though we must take with a liberal dose of salt all that Drummond said of his guest, Drummond said that drink was the element in which Ben Jonson lived. Jonson's last days were sad and lonely. His wife and all his children had long since died ; palsy had attacked him ; he was poor -and weak, and in great suffering. And yet all his finest poetic qualities united in the production of his pastoral play, " The Sad Shepherd, or The "Tale of Robin Hood." We can trace echoes of this exquisite poem in many of the lyrics of our own time. JBut death came to Ben Jonson before he could finish this beautiful swan song. In the Poet's Corner of the great Abbey he was laid, and to the kind act of a stranger we owe that unique and wonderful epitaph : " O rare Ben Jonson ! " SELECTIONS FROM JONSON. TO CELIA. (^From " The Forest.") Drink to me only with thine eyes. And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss within the cup. And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul dotli rise, Doth ask a drink divine: But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee. As giving it a hope, that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon did'st only breathe, And send'st it back to me : Since when it grows, and smells, I swear. Not of itself, but thee. ON TRUTH. Truth is the trial of itself. And needs no other touch. And purer than the purest gold Refine it ne'er so much.. It is the life and light of love, The sun that ever shineth, And spirit of that special grace. That faith and love defineth. It is the warrant of the word. That yields a scent so sweet. As gives a power to faith to tread All falsehood under feet. 3Ben Jonson. HAPPINESS. True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends. But in their wortli and choice. LINES. (From " The Sad Shepherd.") Here she was wont to go ! and here ! and here ! Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow ; The world may find the spring in following her. For other print her airy steps ne'er left. Her treading would not bend a blade of grass. Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk ! But like the soft west wind she shot along. And where she. went the flowers took thickest root, As she had sowed them with her odorous foot. LIFE AND DEATH. The ports of death are sins ; of life, good deeds ; Through which our merit leads us to our meeds. How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray. And hath it in his powers to make his way. This world death's region is, the other, life's ; And here, it should be one of our first strifes So to front death as men might judge us past it ; For good men see but death; the wicked taste it. THE PLEASURE OF HEAVEN. There all the happy souls that ever were. Shall meet with gladness in one theatre; And each shall know there one another's face. By beatific virtue of the place. There shall the brother with the sister walk, And sons and daughters with their parents talk ; But all of God ; they still shall have to say. But make him all in all their theme that day ; That happy day that never shall see night ! Where he will be all beauty to the sight; Wine or delicious fruits unto the taste ; A music in the ears will ever last ; 318en Jonson. Unto the scent, a spiceiy or halm ; And to the touch, a flower, like soft as palm. He will all glory, all perfection be, God in the Union and the Trinity ! That holy, great, and glorious mystery. Will there revealed be in majesty. By light and comfort of spiritual grace ; The vision of our Saviqur, face to face. In his humanity ! to hear him preach The price of our redemption, and to teach. Through his inherent righteousness in death,- The safety of our souls and forfeit breath ! FANTASY. {From " I'he Vision of Delight.") Break, Fantasy, from thy cave of cloud, And spread thy purple wings. Now all thy figures are allowed. And various shapes of things ; Create of airy forms a stream, It must have blood, and naught of phlegm ; And though it be a waking dream, Yet let it like an odour rise To all the senses here, And fall like sleep upon their eyes, Or music in their ear. A VISION OF BEAUTY. It was a beauty that I saw, — So pure, so perfect, as the frame Of all the universe were lame To that one figure, could I draw. Or give least line of it a law : A skein of silk without a knot ! A fair march made without a halt ! A curious form without a fault ! A printed book without a blot ! All beauty! — and without a spot. ' BREAK, FANTASY, FROM THE CAVE OF CLOUD, AND SPREAD THY PURPLE WINGS." — Page 8. asen Jonson. TRUTH. {From " Hymencei, or the Solemnities of Masques and Barriers at the Marriage of the Earl of Essex, 1606.") Upon her head she wears a crown of stars. Through which her Orient hair waves to her waist, By which believing mortals hold her fast. And in those golden cords are carried even, Till with her breath she blows them up to heaven. She wears a robe enchased with eagles' eyes. To signify her sight in mysteries : Upon each shoulder sits a milk-white dove. And at her feet do coilly serpents move : Her spacious arms do reach from east to west. And you may see her heart shine tiirough her breast. Her right hand holds a sun with burning rays. Her left a curious bunch of golden keys. With which heaven's gates she locketh and displays. A crystal mirror hangeth at her breast, By which men's consciences are searched and diest. On her coach-wheels Hypocrisy lies racked ; And squint-eyed Slander with Vaingloiy backed. Her bright eyes burn to dust, in which shines Fate : An angel ushers her triumphant gait, Whilst with her fingers fans of stars she twists, And with them beats back Error, clad in mists. Eternal Unity behind her shines. That fire and water, earth and air combines. Her voice is like a trumpet loud and shrill. Which bids all sounds in earth and heaven be still. EPITAPH ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER. Here lies, to each her parents ruth, Mary, the daughter of our youth ; Yet, all Heaven's gifts being Heaven's due, It makes the father less to rue. At six months' end, she parted hence With safety of her innocence ; Whose soul Heaven's Queen — whose name she bears- In comfort of her mother's tears, Hath placed among her virgin train : Where, while that severed doth remain. This grave partakes the fleshly birth. Which cover lightly, gentle earth. lo 3!Sen Jonson. EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH L. H. WOULDST thou hear what man can say In a little ? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die: Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live. If at all she had a fault. Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth ; The other, let it sleep in death. Fitter, where it died to tell, Than that it lived at all. Farewell ! EPITAPH ON MASTER PHILIP GRAY. (From " Underwoods") Reader, stay ; And if I had no more to say But " Here doth lie, till the last day, All that is left of Philip Gray," It might thy patience richly pay : For if such men as he could die. What surety o' life have thou and I ? EPITAPH ON MARGARET RATCLIFFE. Marble, weep ! for thou dost cover A dead beauty underneath thee, Rich as nature could bequeath thee : Grant, then, no rude hands remove her ! All the gazers on the skies Read not in fair heaven's story Expresser truth or truer glory Than tliey might in her bright eyes. Rare as wonder was her wit, And, like nectar, overflowing; Till Time, strong by her bestowing, Conquered hath both life and it : asen Jonson. Life whose grief was out of fashion In tliese times. Few so have rued Fate in another. To conclude, — For wit, feature, and true passion. Earth ! thou hast not such another. SONG. • How near to good is what is fair, Which we no sooner see. But with the lines and outward air Our senses taken be. We wish to see it still, and prove What ways we may deserve ; We court, we praise, we more than love, We are not grieved to serve. FAME. Her house is all of echo made, Where never dies the sound ; And as her brows the clouds invade, Her feet do strike the ground. ODE TO HIMSELF. Where dost thou careless lie Buried in ease and sloth ? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die ; And this security. It is the common moth That eats on wits and arts, and so destroys them both. Are all the Aonian springs Drietl up .i* Lies Thespia waste ? Doth Clarius' harp want strings, That not a nymph now sings ? Or droop they as disgraced. To see their seats and bowers by chattering pies defaced ? If hence thy silence be. As 'tis too just a cause, — Let this thought quicken thee ; Minds that are great and free Should not on fortune pause ; 'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own npplause. 12 3Ben JoneoK. CHIVALRY. The house of Chivalry decayed. Or rather ruined seems, her buildings laid Flat with the Earth, that were the pride of Time; Those ol)elislavenant. 29 Chokes in the seed what Law, till ripe, ne'er sees ; What Law would punish, Conscience can prevent ; And so the world from many mischiefs frees ; Known by her cures, as Law by punishment. CHARACTER AND LOVE OF BIRTHA. (Extracts from ' ' Gondibert, ") To Astragon, Heaven for succession gave One only pledge, and Birtha was her name ; Whose mother slept, where fJowers grew on her grave, And she succeeded her in face and name. She never had in busy cities been, Ne'er warm'd with hopes, nor e'er allay'd 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 till'd the hours ; In Spring, she gathered blossoms for the still ; In Autumn, berries ; and in Summer, flowers. Whilst her great mistress. Nature, thus she tends, The busy household waits no less on her : By secret law, each to her beauty bends ; Though all her lowly mind to that prefer. The just historians Birtha thus express. And tell how, by her sire's example taught, She served the wounded duke in life's distress, And his fled spirits back by cordials brought ; Black melancholy mists, that fed despair, Through wounds' long rage, with sprinkled vervain clear'd ; Strew'd leaves of willow to refresh the air, And with rich fumes his sullen senses cheer'd. He that had served great Love with reverend heart, In these old wounds worse wounds from him endures; For Love makes Bh'tha shift with Death his dart, And she kills faster than her father cures. 30 Sir 'mnilHam 2)avcnant. Her heedless innocence as little knew The wounds she gave, as those from Love she took ; And Love lifts high each secret shaft he drew ; Which at their stars he first in triumph shook. Love he had lik'd but never lodg'd before ; But finds him now a bold unquiet guest ; Who climbs to windows wlien we shut the door; And, enter'd, never lets the master rest. Soon her opinion of his hurtless heart Affection turns to faith ; and then love's fire To heaven, though bashfully, she does impart; And to her mother in the heavenly choir. If I do love (said she), that love, O Heaven ! Your own disciple, Nature, bred in me ; Why should I hide the passion you have given, Or blush to show effects which you decree ? This said, her soul into her breast retires ; With Love's vain diligence of heart she dreams Herself into possession of desires, And trusts unanchor'd Hope in fleeting streams : She thinks of Eden-life ; and no rough wind In their pacific sea shall wrinkles make ; That still her lowliness shall keep him kind. Her cares keep him asleep, her voice awake. She thinks if ever anger in him sway (The youthful warrior's most excused disease). Such chance her tears shall calm, as showers allay The accidental rage of winds and seas. Thus to herself in day-dreams Birtha talks : The duke (whose wounds of war are healthful grown), To cure Love's wounds, seeks Birtha where she walks : Whose wandering soul seeks him to cure her own. JOHN DRYDEN. JOHN DRYDEN. Bom in Aldwinckle, Northamptonshire, in 1631. Made laureate in 1670, two years after the death of Davenant. Deposed at the Revolution, Died in 1700. CReigns of Charles II. and James 11.^ " Poetry, to be just to itself, ought always to precede aiul be the herald of improvement," wrote Longfellow years ago in the pages of the North American Review. How little Dryden's work was the herald of improvement every earnest student of literature feels keenly. All his influence seemed to hasten the downward course of poetry in England. Dryden was neither true to himself nor to his genius. His splendid endowments fitted him to be a dictator to mankind, and he was himself governed by the worst tendencies of his age. A superb reasoner ; a critic of learning and ability, possessing powers of satire which have never been surpassed ; master of a prose style which was sinewy, flexible, and eloquent, and of a poetical versification remarkable for its clearness, its grace, its com- mand of variations in metre — yet to Dryden there was not " That sublimer inspiration given That glows in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page — The pomp and prodigality of Heaven," The record of Dryden's life proves that it was clearly his own choice that he missed the highest. The poetical achievement and moral dignity of his great contemporary, Milton, show that a man may, if he choose, emancipate himself from the influences of his age, and stem the tide of its evil. But in Dryden, from first to last, we see a lack of earnestness, of honesty of purpose, of " belief in and devotion to something nobler and more abiding than the present moment and its petulant need." Without such devotion a man's work cannot be called truly great. And yet, with all Dryden's fatal defects of soul, his intellectual services cannot be ignored : — he has been justly called both the glory and the shame of our literature. Dryden's grandfather was a baronet ; his father a younger son of an ancient and honourable family, whose traditions were all Puritan. Little is known of his childhood, except that he was sturdy and precocious. Sent to Westminster school, he 32 Jobn 2>rBden. often felt the "classic rod" of Dr. Busby, but the boy's tem- perament was such that neither piinisliments nor abuse had much power to affect his serene self-confidence. He was very susceptible to praise, and in this we see llie root of his subse- quent literary methods. Dryden did not win many honours at Cambridge, whither he went at the age of nineteen, but he took his degree; and then, as his income was very small, he went to live in London as secretary to a kinsman. Here- his career began. All his interests were with the Puritan party, and on the death of Crom- well he wrote an elegy strong in praise of republicanism. But Dryden was bent on personal advancement, and for the true welfare of England he had little regard ; at heart he was a time-server and a political and religious turncoat. At the Restoration his hopes from the Puritan parly were frustrated, and among the flatterers who sang the glories of the old order of things, he stood pre-eminent. In " Astrea Redux," and other poems about Charles H., Dryden's tributes to the king's virtues and god-like qualities might almost rank as satire, if that were possible. In the beginning of Dryden's career he married a woman of rank and beauty, but little happiness came to him. Lady Elizabeth Howard was quick-tempered, and he was not domestic in his tastes, and much friction was, therefore, the inevitable result. A man who, to his wife's wish that she were a book that she might have more of his company, could reply : " Be an almanac then, my dear, that I may change you once a year," could not be called a model husband. Attracted to the stage in the same way as Davenant had been, Dryden brought out his first play in 1662, but it fell flat. Successful with his third, and wishing to win the favour of a king who advocated the use of rhyme, Dryden soon began those rhyming dramas which have been so justly condemned. Pepys, though he censured the rhyme as breaking the sense, said that he and his wife returned home after the performance of one of these plays before the king, mightily contented. Dryden's plays were artificial ; showed no insight into character ; no pathos or tenderness, and, worst of all, they were disfigured by those obscenities which make them utterly unfit to be read. Pepys pronounced many of them "very smutty." During the year of the fire and the plague, when the theatres were closed, Dryden wrote that work which has won him dis- tinction as a critic, " The Essay of Dramatic Poesy." In this he defended the use of rhyme, but profiting by the parodies of the Duke of Buckingham, Diyden soon changed his opinion of rhyme, and we find that whenever be employed blank verse h? gained in both depth and range. 5obn 2)rB&en. 33 Dryden's " Essay on the Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy," in which he paid tributes to the Shakespearean drama, show him with all his ethical limitations to have possessed an intel- lectual breadth and accessibility to ideas very essential in a critic. In these essays, and his numerous dedications and pref- aces, we see Dryden's decided power as a writer of prose. In 1670, two years after the deatii of Davenant, Dryden was made laureate. The appointment of Historiographer added another hundred pounds to his income. But the court favour, which had first been obtained by being false to hereditary tra- ditions, could only be kept by obedience to the same methods. When James II. came to the throne, Dryden, probably to please him, became a Roman Catholic. But the poet who with such eloquence had upheld the Church of England in " Religio Laici," and the Church of Rome in " The Hind and Panther," could not, with any dignity, recant in the short space of three years and swear allegiance to the Protestant William. Therefore, at the Revolution, which deprived James of his crown, poor Dryden was left out in the cold. The people had little patience with the Romanist laureate. Lord Dorset, the Lord Chancellor, was compelled to yield to the popular voice, and Dryden was deposed. In 1678 a change in Dryden's literary methods manifested itself, which resulted in works of greater scope and individuality. After this we have his great satires, his best plays, his odes, and his translations and Fables. It would be impossible to speak of these in detail. In tlie splendid satire " Absalom and Achitophel " Dryden first showed the hand of the master. He has immortalised his literary rivals as well as political foes. In " MacFlecknoe " Dryden's satire became still more caustic and pointed, but many of his hits degenerate into caricature, and prove that satire is one of the falsest of guides. From Shad- well himself Dryden might have learned a lesson of steadfast- ness and political constancy which would have done him good. It must have been hard for Dryden to have had the Laureateship taken from him and given to the very man whom he had treated so unjustly. Dryden lived eleven years after the loss of the laurel, and some of his best work was done under the pressure of poveity, notably that magnificent " Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," called also " Alexander's Feast," which was the finest burst of his lyrical genius. Dryden laboured hard at his translations and Fables, and his rewards were fame and money, but even during the last of his life we find his poetry, with all its intellectual subtlety, its felicity of style, its charm and its power, disfigured by that disregard of moral purity and dignity which was a feature of the poet's own character and of the age in which he lived. 34 Jobn ©risOen. When Jeremy Collier attacked the stage, of course his vigor- ous criticism touched the literaiy lion of the day whose influence was so widespread and powerful. Diyden felt the criticism to be just, and with singular openness of mind confessed so publicly. Two years after the publication of Collier's great work, Dryden died of an inflammation of the foot, and was buried witli great pomp in the grand old Abbey. It is almost certain that, had he lived, we should have had poetry from his hand purer and greater than any which he had written before. William Whitehead, one of the laureates of the' latter end of the eighteenth century, thus feelingly painted the situation of Dryden in his last days : •' The hapless Dryden of a shameless age ! Ill-fated bard ! where'er thy name appears The weeping verse a sad momento bears ; Ah ! what availed the enormous blaze between Thy dawn of glory and thy closing scene ? " Leslie Stephen but recently wrote of Dryden : " He is a master within his own sphere of thought. But there is some^ thing depressing about his atmosphere. . . He ought to be on our shelves, but he will rarely be found in our hearts." SELECTIONS FROM DRYDEN. SONG FOR SAINT CECILIA'S DAY, 1687. From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony This universal frame began : When Nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay. And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high Arise, ye more than dead ! Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony This universal frame Ijegan : From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man. What passion cannot Music raise and quell ? When Jubal struck the chorded shell His listening brethren stood around. And, wondering, on their faces fell To worship that celestial sound. Less than a God they thought there could not dwell Within the hollow of that shell That spoke so sweetly and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? The trumpet's loud clangour Excites us to arms, With shrill notes of anger And mortal alarms, The double double double beat Of the thundering drum Cries " Hark ! the foes come ; Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat ! " 36 5obii Drg&en. The soft complaining- flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hapless lovers, Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation. Depth of pains, and height of passion For the fair disdainful dame. But oh ! what act can teach, Wliat human voice can reach The sacred organ's praise ? Notes inspiring holy love. Notes that wing their heavenly ways To mend the choirs above. Orpheus could lead the savage race, And trees uprooted left their place Sequacious of the lyre : But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher: When to her organ vocal breath was given. An angel heard, and straight appear'd — Mistaking earth for heaven. GRAND CHORUS. As from the power of sacred lays The spheres began to move. And sung the great Creator's praise To all the blest above : So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour. The trumpet shall be heard on high. The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky. ALEXANDER'S FEAST : OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC, AN ODE IN HONOUR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY, NOVEMBER, 1697. 'TWAS at the royal feast for Persia won By Philip's warlike son : Aloft in awful state The godlike hero sate On his imperial throne : His valiant peers were placed around ; Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound : THE TREMBLING NOTES ASCEND THE SKY. —Pa