ladies who have from time to time held sway over his affecThe piece is full of liveliness and go: tions. Margarita first possessed, If I remember well, my breast, Margarita first of all; But when awhile the wanton maid Martha soon did it resign Beauteous Catherine gave place Till Mary then, and gentle Anne, Alternately they swayed; And sometimes Mary was the fair, And sometimes Anne the crown did wear, And sometimes both I obeyed. At last-after another Mary, and a Rebecca, and a Judith, and a Susanna, and an Isabella, and a Susan, and a Bess, and half-a-dozen others have been named-the poet comes to his present emperess:' Heleonora, first o' the name, O si sic omnes! This and two or three other lyrics, equally familiar, are really all of Cowley's poetical performances * A living poet has done very much the same thing in one of his productions. See Mr. Austin Dobson's Pot-Pourri' (Vignettes in Rhyme). which can now be read with pleasure-that is to say, without effort and without boredom. We have a very different caterer in Robert HerrickHerrick, the Anacreon of England-who, with all his quaintness, is but rarely obscure, and is very often as clear and limpid as the most cherished of the moderns. His wit and humour are chiefly in the form of epigrams, though occasionally he ventures on a longer flight. Take, for example, these lines, in description of one of those mean hosts on whom the older epigrammatists delighted to pour the vitriol of their scorn. It is called 'The Invitation :' To sup with thee thou didst me home invite, And richer wine wouldst give to me, thy guest, Of maiden's-blush commixed with jessamine. A ragg'd soused neat's-foot with sick vinegar, At which amazed, and pondering on the food- Herrick's epigrams are chiefly in the direction of personal characterisation. Here, for example, is his quatrain on a hunting parson : * Born 1591, died 1674. The Noble Numbers appeared in 1647, the Hesperides in 1648. Old Parson Beans hunts six days of the week, That on the seventh he can nor preach nor pray. Here is his description of a stingy fellow, under the heading of The Gout in the Hand:' Urles had the gout, so that he could not stand; Then from his feet it shifted to his hand. When it was in his feet his charity was small, A hundred years after Herrick a portrait like this would have been expanded into a satire; nowadays it would be extended into a long-winded essay. Herrick was contented to produce his lines and leave them to be handed to posterity. CHAPTER IV. DRYDEN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. The first great English Satirist-John Dryden—' Absalom and Achitophel'-' Mackflecknoe'-Epigrams-Samuel Butler-Hudibras'-Lines on Holland-Andrew Marvell-Lines on Holland-John Phillips-The Splendid Shilling'-Edmund Waller-Epigrams-William Walsh -The Despairing Lover'-Epigram-Earl of Rochester -Epigrams-Earl of Dorset Lines Written at Sea' -Duke of Buckinghamshire-Epigrams-Sir Charles Sedley-Epigram. |