From the Sacred Poems.

CXIV

CXV

From the Elegy On the Death of Mr. William Hervey. I have considerably shortened this poem; the original consists of nineteen stanzas; it has not, I venture to think, suffered from curtailment.

CXVI

The date of this Epitaph is 1666, but I cannot remember where I found it. The second couplet is to be found slightly altered in Sir H. Wotton's poems.

CXVIII

This passage is the one good thing in Garth's once famous mock-heroic poem, The Dispensary (1696); it is in the third canto. Cowper has borrowed and inserted the second line in his Lines on the Receipt of his Mother's Picture.

CXIX

These beautiful verses were written by Waller after he had completed his eightieth year, if not even later. They conclude his Divine Poems. I omit the six introductory

verses.

CXX

It is impossible to settle with certainty the authorship of this poem. It is printed in Bishop King's Poems, and is attributed to King by Headley, Hazlitt, Campbell, Johnstone, and Cattermole. But it has also been attributed to Francis Beaumont, though not on equally satisfactory evidence.

CXXI

This is the one poem in Herbert which is not marred by

his characteristic defects, affected quaintness, extravagance, prosaic baldness, and discordant rhythm.

CXXII

From the Religio Medici, Part ii. Sect. 12. "This," says Browne, "is the dormitive I take to bedward. I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection."

CXXIII

From her Poems and Fancies, 1653, p. 135. There are beautiful little fragments to be found in the wilderness of the Duchess's poetry and prose.

CXXIV

These are the last three stanzas of the concluding poem of Castara.

CXXV

From Carew's Calum Britannicum.

CXXVI

From Microcosmus, a moral masque, 1637. Of Thomas Nabbes nothing is certainly known beyond the facts that he was born in 1605, was matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1621, and contributed somewhat extensively to the drama during the reign of Charles I.

CXXVII

Epitaph on Eleanor Freeman, who died in 1650, aged 21, and was buried in Tewkesbury Church, Gloucestershire. It is printed in Headley's Specimens, vol. ii. p. 74.

BOOK III

(1700-1798)

CXXVIII

From Miscellany Poems by a Lady, 1713. Anne Kingsmill, born about 1660, married Heneage Finch, fourth Earl of Winchilsea, and died in August 1720. This poetess is chiefly known from Wordsworth's remark, that her Nocturnal Reverie is one of the few poems, in the interval intervening between the publication of Paradise Lost and the Seasons, which contain a new image of external nature. In a letter to Dyce, Wordsworth says, "There is one poetess to whose writings I am especially partial, the Countess of Winchilsea. I have perused her poems frequently, and should be happy to name such passages as I think most characteristic of her genius," and in a subsequent letter (see Wordsworth's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 228, 229) he names them. I have, however, ventured to select a poem not noted by Wordsworth, as the object of these selections is not so much to illustrate the genius of particular poets, as to give poems interesting

in themselves.

CXXIX

Poor Pattison's story is a very sad one. Born at Peasmarsh, near Rye, in 1706, he was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. But quitting Cambridge, before taking his degree, he became involved in many troubles and difficulties, being at one time on the point of starvation. He died in London, July 1727, in his twenty-first year. His

poems have much merit, and his Morning Contemplation, from which the extract is taken, is a very pleasing descriptive piece.

CXXX

This fine stanza is from Fenton's Ode to Lord Gower, which Pope, according to Johnson, pronounced to be the next Ode in the English language to Dryden's Cecilia. Modern criticism would not corroborate Pope's verdict. Fenton's Pindaric Odes have, at times, great dignity and eloquence, and some of his Tales, if they rival Prior's in indecency, rival them also in grace, terseness, and wit.

CXXXI

Of the author of this spirited Anacreontic, George Alexander Stevens, an account will be found in Baker's Biographia Dramatica. He wrote several plays, but made himself chiefly conspicuous by travelling about England and America, and delivering an extraordinary "medley of sense and nonsense, wit and ribaldry," which he called " a Lecture upon Heads." In 1761 he published a volume of Miscellanies entitled The Choice Spirits' Chaplet, to which he contributed several rollicking and most spirited ballads, among them The Marine Medley, and a song, "Once the Gods of the Greeks," which I have been almost tempted to add. He died in 1784. An edition of his poems, with a memoir of the author by W. H. Badham, appeared after his death.

CXXXII

Paraphrased from Fontenelle.

CXXXIII

Written by the famous Lord Peterborough to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk. The verses are

printed in Swift's Works, and in the Suffolk Papers, Introduction, vol. i. p. 46.

CXXXIV

From Dodsley's Collection, vol. vi. p. 326.

CXXXV

Robert

From Dodsley's Collection, vol. viii. p. 243. Craggs, Earl Nugent, was a conspicuous, but not eminent figure among politicians between 1741 and 1788. Some of his poems are printed in Dodsley's Collection, and in the New Foundling Hospital for Wit. The Ode which he wrote on his temporary conversion to Protestantism, though too highly praised by Walpole, is vigorous and eloquent.

CXXXVII

Aaron Hill (1685-1750) was an accomplished poet and dramatist, who had the distinction of being one of the very few gentlemen to be found among the Men of Letters of his time. This impressed Pope, who laid the scourge so lightly on him in the Dunciad, that the satire is scarcely to be distinguished from eulogy.

CXXXVIII

From a poem entitled An Hymn to the Morning. For an account of the authoress of this poem see note on cxlvi.

CXLI

The point of this trifle needs perhaps a little explanation. It is supposed to be Lord William Hamilton's retort to Lady Hertford, who had written to tell him that she had done all she could to show him that she was in love with him, imploring him to—

Prevent my warm blushes

Since how can I speak without pain ;