vour of a lover. He had an extravagant admiration of the mystic writings of St Theresa, founder of the Carmelites, which seems to have had a bad effect on his own taste, naturally prone, from his enthusiastic temperament, to carry any favourite object, feeling, or passion, to excess. In these flights into the third heavens, with all his garlands and singing robes about him,' Crashaw luxuriates among An hundred thousand loves and graces, Of the dear Spouse of Spirits with them will bring; That dull mortality must not know a name. Such seem to have been his daily contemplations, the heavenly manna on which his young spirit fed with delight. This mystical style of thought and fancy naturally led to exaggeration and to conceits. The latter pervaded all the poetry of the time, and Crashaw could hardly escape the infection, even if there had not been in his peculiar case strong predisposing causes. But, amidst all his abstractions, metaphors, and apostrophes, Crashaw is seldom tedious. His imagination was copious and various. He had, as Coleridge has remarked, a 'power and opulence of invention,' and his versification is sometimes highly musical. With more taste and judgment (which riper years might have produced), Crashaw would have outstripped most of his contemporaries, even Cowley. No poet of his day is so rich in 'barbaric pearl and gold,' the genuine ore of poetry. It is deeply to be regretted that his life had not been longer, more calm and fortunate-realising his own exquisite lines A happy soul, that all the way To heaven, hath a summer's day. Amidst his visions of angels ascending and descending, Crashaw had little time or relish for earthly love. He has, however, left a copy of verses entitled, Wishes to a Supposed Mistress, in which are some fine thoughts. He desires his fair one to pos sess Sydneian showers Of sweet discourse, whose powers Can crown old winter's head with flowers. Open suns, shady bowers; 'Bove all, nothing within that lowers. Can make day's forehead bright, Or give down to the wings of night. We are tempted also to quote two similes, the first reminding us of a passage in Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying, and the second of one of Shakspeare's best sonnets: I've seen, indeed, the hopeful bud His tender top not fully spread; His swelling glories, Auster spied him; All his leaves so fresh and sweet, To blot the newly-blossom'd light. The felicity and copiousness of Crashaw's language are, however, best seen from his translations; and we subjoin, entire, his version of Music's Duel, from the Latin of Strada. It is seldom that so sweet and luxurious a strain of pure description and sentiment greets us in our poetical pilgrimage: Music's Duel. Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams Of closer strains, and e'er the war begin, She gives them back: her supple breast thrills out Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys And roll themselves over her lubric throat His honey-dropping tops, plough'd by her breath In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire, Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird; Shame now and anger mix'd a double stain And with a Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke The lute's light genius now does proudly rise, The sweet-lipp'd sisters musically frighted, higher; From this to that, from that to this he flies, Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads, Feels music's pulse in all her arteries; His fingers struggle with the vocal threads, Following those little rills, he sinks into Those parts of sweetness which with nectar drop, A sea of Helicon; his hand does go Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup: The humorous strings expound his learned touch By various glosses; now they seem to grutch, And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle In shrill-tongued accents, striving to be single; At length (after so long, so loud a strife His fingers' fairest revolution, In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall) This done, he lists what she would say to this; Temperance, or the Cheap Physician. Go, now, and with some daring drug That which makes us have no need A well-cloth'd soul that's not oppress'd Nor chok'd with what she should be dress'd; A soul sheath'd in a crystal shrine, Through which all her bright features shine; As when a piece of wanton lawn, A thin aërial veil, is drawn O'er beauty's face, seeming to hide, More sweetly shows the blushing bride; A soul, whose intellectual beams No mists do mask, no lazy steams→→→ A happy soul, that all the way A man whose tuned humours be A seat of rarest harmony? Wouldst see blithe looks, fresh cheeks, beguile Warm thoughts, free spirits flattering In sum, wouldst see a man that can Fall with soft wings, stuck with soft flowers; This rare one, reader, wouldst thou see? Hymn to the Name of Jesus. I sing the Name which none can say, The heirs elect of love; whose names belong All ye wise souls, who in the wealthy breast Of this unbounded Name build your warm nest. Awake, my glory! soul (if such thou be, And that fair word at all refer to thee), Awake and sing, And be all wing! Bring hither thy whole self; and let me see What of thy parent heaven yet speaks in thee. O thou art poor Of noble powers, I see, And full of nothing else but empty me; Go, soul, out of thyself, and seek for more; Great Nature for the key of her huge chest Of nimble art, and traverse round All-sovereign name, To warn each several kind And shape of sweetness-be they such As sigh with supple wind Or answer artful touch That they convene and come away The attending world, to wait thy rise, And then, not knowing what to do, And kill the death of this delay. To catch the daybreak of thy dawn! And know what sweets are suck'd from out it. It is the hive Body of blessings! spirit of souls extracted! Cloud of condensed sweets! and break upon us Oh, fill our senses, and take from us All force of so profane a fallacy, To think aught sweet but that which smells of thee. Hourly there meets An universal synod of all sweets; For ever shall presume To pass for odoriferous, But such alone whose sacred pedigree Can prove itself some kin, sweet name! to thee. Sweet name! in thy each syllable A thousand blest Arabias dwell; A thousand hills of frankincense; The soul that tastes thee takes from thence. Of comforts, which thou hast in keeping! To awake them, And to take them Home, and lodge them in his heart. Oh, that it were as it was wont to be, When thy old friends, on fire all full of thee, To wait at the love-crowned doors of that illustrious Fought against frowns with smiles; gave glorious chase To persecutions; and against the face Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave On their bold breasts about the world they bore thee, In centre of their inmost souls they wore thee, Where racks and torments striv'd in vain to reach thee. Little, alas! thought they Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends, Their fury but made way For thee, and serv'd them in thy glorious ends. What did their weapons, but with wider pores Enlarge thy flaming-breasted lovers, More freely to transpire That impatient fire The heart that hides thee hardly covers ? Of thy so oft-repeated rising. Each wound of theirs was thy new morning, With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning : Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds. For sure there is no knee That knows not thee; Or if there be such sons of shame, When stubborn rocks shall bow, And hills hang down their heav'n-saluting heads Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night, And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread They that by love's mild dictate now Will not adore thee, Shall then, with just confusion, bow SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE. SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE, knight, brother of Thomas Lord Fanshawe, was born in 1607. He joined the royalists, and was secretary at war to Prince Rupert. After the Restoration, he was appointed ambassador to Spain and Portugal, in which character he died at Madrid in 1666. Fanshawe translated the Lusiad of Camoens, and the Pastor Fido of Guarini. With the latter production, published in 1648, he gave to the world some miscellaneous poems, from which the following are selected : A Rose. Thou blushing rose, within whose virgin leaves If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives, Know, then, the thing that swells thee is thy bane; Some clown's coarse lungs will poison thy sweet flower, A Rich Fool. Thee, senseless stock, because thou'rt richly gilt, The blinded people without cause admire, And superstition impiously hath built Altars to that which should have been the fire. Where shall my tongue consent to worship thee, Since all's not gold that glisters and is fair; Carving but makes an image of a tree : But gods of images are made by prayer. Sabean incense in a fragrant cloud For more than man. But let them take thee down, SONG.-The Saint's Encouragement. Fight on, brave soldiers, for the cause; Their threat'nings are as senseless, as "Tis you must perfect this great work, You must bring back the king again By robbing churches, plundering men, Down with the orthodoxal train, All loyal subjects slay; When these are gone, we shall be blest, When Charles we've bankrupt made like us, Of crown and power bereft him, And all his loyal subjects slain, And none but rebels left him. When we've beggar'd all the land, And sent our trunks away, We'll make him then a glorious prince, 'Tis to preserve his majesty, That we against him fight, Nor are we ever beaten back, Because our cause is right: If any make a scruple on't, Our declarations say, Who fight for us, fight for the king At Keynton, Branford, Plymouth, York, What victories we saints obtain'd, The clean contrary way. Not known to one of twenty; Their lawful sovereign; and all these By prisonments and plunder, Give all of us our due. He sees we stand for peace and truth, The public faith shall save our souls, But when our faith and works fall down, Our acts will bear us up to heaven, SONG.-The Royalist. [Written in 1646.] Come, pass about the bowl to me; A health to our distressed king! When storms do fall, and shall not we? When we are ships and sack 's the sea. Pox on this grief, hang wealth, let's sing, Shall kill ourselves for fear of death? We'll live by the air which songs doth bring, Our sighing does but waste our breath: Then let us not be discontent, Nor drink a glass the less of wine; Though we are beggar'd, so's the king; Our heads shall turn as round as theirs, Clean down the wind, like cavaliers. Fill this unnatural quart with sack, Nature all vacuums doth decline, Ourselves will be a zodiac, And every month shall be a sign. Methinks the travels of the glass Are circular like Plato's year, Where everything is as it was; Let's tipple round; and so 'tis here. LADY ELIZABETH CAREW. LADY ELIZABETH CAREW is believed to be the author of the tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry, 1613. Though wanting in dramatic interest and spirit, there is a vein of fine sentiment and feeling in this forgotten drama. The following chorus, in Act the Fourth, possesses a generous and noble simplicity : [Revenge of Injuries.] The fairest action of our human life If we a worthy enemy do find, To yield to worth it must be nobly done; In base revenge there is no honour won. We say our hearts are great, and cannot yield; A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn. To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong. But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have, Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind; Do we his body from our fury save, And let our hate prevail against our mind? What can 'gainst him a greater vengeance be, Than make his foe more worthy far than he ? Had Mariam scorn'd to leave a due unpaid, She would to Herod then have paid her love, And not have been by sullen passion sway'd. To fix her thoughts all injury above Is virtuous pride. Had Mariam thus been proud, Long famous life to her had been allow'd. SCOTTISH POETS. ALEXANDER SCOT. While Sidney, Spenser, Marlow, and other poets, were illustrating the reign of Elizabeth, the muses were not wholly neglected in Scotland. There was, however, so little intercourse between the two nations, that the works of the English bards seem to have been comparatively unknown in the north, and to have had no Scottish imitators. The country was then in a rude and barbarous state, tyrannised over by the nobles, and torn by feuds and dissensions. In England, the Reformation had proceeded from the throne, and was accomplished with little violence or disorder. In Scotland, it uprooted the whole form of society, and was marked by fierce contentions and lawless turbulence. The absorbing influence of this ecclesiastical struggle was unfavourable to the cultivation of poetry. It shed a gloomy spirit over the nation, and almost proscribed the study of romantic literature. The drama, which in England was the nurse of so many fine thoughts, so much stirring passion, and beautiful imagery, was shunned as a leprosy, fatal to religion and morality. The very songs in Scotland partook of this religious chathat ALEXANDER Scor, in his New Year Gift to the racter; and so widely was the polemical spirit diffused, Queen, in 1562, says— That limmer lads and little lasses, lo, Will argue baith with bishop, priest, and friar. Scot wrote several short satires, and some miscellaneous poems, the prevailing amatory character of which has caused him to be called the Scottish Anacreon, though there are many points wanting to complete his resemblance to the Teian bard. As specimens of his talents, the two following pieces are presented : Rondel of Love. Lo what it is to luve, Learn ye that list to pruve, By me, I say, that no ways may, The grund of greif remuve. But still decay, both nicht and day; Lo what it is to luve ! Luve is ane fervent fire, Kendillit without desire, Short plesour, lang displesour; Repentance is the hire; Ane pure tressour, without messour; Luve is ane fervent fire. |