6

Sometimes his proud green waves in order set,
One after other flow into the shore,

[The Dignity of Man.)
Which when they have with many kisses wet,
They ebb away in order as before ;

Oh! what is man, great Maker of mankind ! And to make known his courtly love the more,

That thou to him so great respect dost bcar ;
He oft doth lay aside his three-fork'd mace,

That thou adorn'st hiin with so bright a mind,
And with his arms the timorous earth embrace. Mak'st him a king, and even an angel's peer!
in fifteen days. It was published in 1596. The How great, how plentiful, how rich a dow's
The poem on Dancing is said to have been written Oh! what a lively life, what heav'nly pow'r,

What spreading virtue, what a sparkling fire,
Nosce Teipsiem, or Poem on the Immortality of the

Dost thou within this dying flesh inspire ! Soul, bears the date (as appears from the dedication to the Queen) of 1602. The fame of these works Thou leav'st thy print in other works of thine, introduced Sir John Davies to James I., who made But thy whole image thou in man hast writ; him successively solicitor-general and attorney-ge. There cannot be a creature more divine, neral for Ireland. He was also a judge of assize, Except, like thee, it should be infinite : and was knighted by the king in 1607. The first But it exceeds man's thought, to think how high Reports of Law Cases, published in Ireland, were God hath rais'd man, since God a man became ; made by this able and accomplished man, and his The angels do admire this mystery, preface to the volume is considered the best that And are astonish'd when they view the same : was ever prefixed to a law-book.'

Nor hath he given these blessings for a ay,

Nor made them on the body's life depend ; [Reasons for the Soul's Immortality.]

The soul, though made in time, survives for aye ;

And though it hath beginning, sees no end.
Again, how can she but immortal be,
When, with the motions of both will and wit,

JOHN DONNE.
She still aspireth to eternity,
And nerer rests till she attain to it !

JOHN DONNE was born in London in 1573, of a

Catholic family; through his mother he was reAll moring things to other things do move

lated to Sir Thomas More and Heywood the epiOf the same kind, which shows their nature such ;

grammatist.

He was educated partly at Oxford So earth falls down, and fire doth mount above, and partly at Cambridge, and was designed for the Till both their proper elements do touch.

law, but relinquished the study in his nineteenth And as the moisture which the thirsty earth

year. About this period of his life, having carefully Sucks from the sca to fill her empty veins,

considered the controversies between the Catholics From out her womb at last doth take a birth,

and Protestants, he became convinced that the latter And runs a lymph along the grassy plains,

were right, and became a member of the established

church. The great abilities and amiable character Long doth she stay, as loath to leave the land, of Donne were early distinguished. The Earl of From whose soft side she first did issue make ; Essex, the Lord Chancellor Egerton, and Sir Robert She tastes all places, turns to every hand,

Drury, successively befriended and employed him; Her flowery banks unwilling to forsake.

and a saying of the second of these eminent persons

respecting him is recorded by his biographers--that Yet nature so her streams doth lead and carry

he was fitter to serve a king than a subject. He As that her course doth make no final stay,

fell, nevertheless, into trouble, in consequence of Till she herself unto the sea doth marry,

secretly marrying the daughter of Sir George Moore, Within whose wat'ry bosom first she lay.

lord lieutenant of the Tower. This step kept him for E'en so the soul, which, in this earthly mould, several years in poverty, and by the death of his The spirit of God doth secretly infuse,

wife, a few days after giving birth to her twelfth Because at first she doth the earth behold,

child, he was plunged into the greatest grief. At And only this material world she views.

the age of forty-two, Donne became a clergyman,

and soon attaining distinction as a preacher, he was At first her mother earth she holdeth dear,

preferred by James I. to the deanery of St Paul's; And doth ein brace the world and worldly things ; in which benefice he continued till his death in 1631, She flies close by the ground, and hovers here, when he was buried honourably in Westminster And mounts not up with her celestial wings : Abbey. Yet under heaven she cannot light on aught

The works of Donne consist of satires, elegies, That with her heavenly nature doth agree ;

religious poems, complimentary verses, and epiShe cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,

grams: they were first collected into one volume She cannot in this world contented be.

by Tonson in 1719. His reputation as a poet, great

in his own day, low during the latter part of the For who did ever yet, in honour, wealth,

seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth cenOr pleasure of the sense, contentment find ?

turies, has latterly in some degree revived. In its Who ever ceased to wish, when he had health, days of abasement, critics spoke of his harsh and Or, having wisdom, was not vex'd in mind ?

rugged versification, and his leaving nature for conThen, as a bee which among weeds doth fall,

ceit: Dryden even hints at the necessity of transWhich seem sweet flow'rs, with lustre fresh and gay,

lating him into numbers and English. It seems She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,

to be now acknowledged that, amidst much rubbish, But, pleased with none, doth rise and soar away.

there is much real poetry, and that of a high order,

in Donne. He is described by a recent critic as So, when the soul finds here no true content,

imbued to saturation with the learning of his age,' And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, endowed with a most active and piercing intellect She doth return from whence she first was sent, -an imagination, if not grasping and cornprehenAnd flies to him that first her wings did niake. sive, most subtle and far-darting-a fancy, rich,

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vivid, and picturesque—a mode of expression terse, it is a mere conceit. Perhaps we should not be far simple, and condensed—and a wit admirable, as well from the truth, if we were to represent this style as for its caustic severity, as for its playful quickness the natural symptoms of the decline of the brilliant —and as only wanting sufficient sensibility and taste school of Sackville, Spenser, and Shakspeare. All to preserve him from the vices of style which seem the recognised modes, subjects, and phrases of poetry,

introduced by them and their contemporaries, were now in some degree exhausted, and it was necessary to seek for something new. This was found, not in a new vein of equally rich ore, but in a continuation of the workings through adjoining veins of spurious metal.

It is at the same time to be borne in mind, that the quality above described did not characterise the whole of the writings of Donne and his followers. These men are often direct, natural, and truly poetical—in spite, as it were, of themselves. Donne, it may be here stated, is usually considered as the first writer of that kind of satire which Pope and Churchill carried to such perfection. But his satires, to use the words of a writer already quoted, are rough and rugged as the unhewn stones that have just been blasted from the quarry.

The specimens which follow are designed only to exemplify the merits of Donne, not his defects :

Address to Bishop Valentine, on the day of the marriage

of the Elector Palatine to the Princess Elizabeth.
Hail Bishop Valentine ! whose day this is,
All the air is thy diocese,
And all the chirping choristers
And other birds are thy parishioners :
Thou marryest, every year,
The lyric lark and the grave whispering dove ;
The sparrow that neglects his life for love,

The household bird with his red stomacher ;
Monumental Effigy of Dr Donne.

Thou mak'st the blackbird speed as soon, to have beset him. Donne is usually considered as This day more cheerfully than ever shine;

As doth the goldfinch or the halcyon ; the first of a series of poets of the seventeenth cen; This day which might infame thyself

, old Valentine ! tury, who, under the name of the Metaphysical Poets, fill a conspicuous place in English literary nistory. The directness of thought, the naturalness of description, the rich abundance of genuine poeti

Valediction-Forbidding Mourning. cal feeling and imagery, which distinguish the poets As virtuous men pass mildly away, of Elizabeth's reign, now begin to give way to cold And whisper to their souls to go; and forced conceits, mere vain workings of the in- Whilst some of their sad friends do say, tellect, a kind of poetry as unlike the former as The breath goes now—and some say, no; punning is unlike genuine wit. To give an idea of these conceits-Donne writes a poem on a familiar

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests more; popular subject, a broken heart. Here he does not advert to the miseries or distractions which are pre

'Twere profanation of our joys sumed to be the causes of broken hearts, but starts

To tell the laity our love. off into a play of conceit upon the phrase. He Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears, entered a room, he says, where his mistress was Men reckon what it did, and meant; present, and

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent. - love, alas ! At one first blow did shiver it [his heart] as glass.

Dull, sublunary lover's love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Then, forcing on his mind to discover by what means

Absence, because it doth remove the idea of a heart broken to pieces, like glass, can

Those things which alimented it. be turned to account in making out something that But we're by love so much refined, will gingle on the reader's imagination, he proceeds That ourselves know not what it is;1 thus :

Inter-assured of the mind,

Careless eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite,

Our two souls, therefore (which are one)
Therefore I think my breast hath all

Though I must go, endure not yet Those pieces still, though they do not unite :

A breach, but an expansion, And now, as broken glasses show

Like gold to airy thinness beat. A hundred lesser faces, so

If they be two, they are two so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,

As stiff twin compasses are two ; But after one such love can love no more.

Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show There is here, certainly, analogy, but then it is

To move, but doth, if th' other do. an analogy which altogether fails to please or move :

I That is, absenco.

And though it in the centre sit,

Stranger than seven antiquaries' studies Yet wben the other far doth roam,

Than Afric monsters—Guiana's rarities, It leans, and hearkens after it,

Stranger than strangers. One who for a Dane And grows erect as that comes home.

In the Danes' massacre had sure been slain, Such wilt thou be to me, who must

If he had lived then ; and without help dies Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;

When next the 'prentices 'gainst strangers rise. Thy firmness makes my circles just,

One whom the watch at noon scarce lets go by ; And makes me end where I begun.

One to whom th' examining justice sure would cry,

'Sir, by your priesthood, tell me what you are ?' The Will.

His clothes were strange, though coarse—and black,

though bare; Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been Great Love, some legacies : I here bequeath

Velvet, but 'twas now (so much ground was seen) Mise eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;

Become tuff-taffety; and our children shall If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;

See it plain rash awhile, then not at all. My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears;

The thing hath travell’d, and saith, speaks all tongues; To women, or the sea, my tears ;

And only knoweth what to all states belongs.
Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore,

Made of the accents and best phrase of these,
By making me serve her who had twenty more,
That I should give to none but such as had too much Art can deceive, or hunger force my taste ;

He speaks one language. If strange meats displease, before.

But pedants' motley tongue, soldiers' bombast, My constancy I to the planets give ;

Mountebanks' drug-tongue, nor the terms of law, My truth to them who at the court do live;

Are strong enough preparatives to draw Mine ingenuity and openness

Me to bear this. Yet I must be content To Jesuits ; to Buffoons my pensiveness ;

With his tongue, in his tongue called compliment. My silence to any who abroad have been ; My money to a Capuchin.

He names me, and comes to me. I whisper, God ! Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me

How have I sinn'd, that thy wrath's furious rod, To love there, where no love received can be,

(This fellow) chooseth me? He saith, 'Sir, Only to give to such as have no good capacity. I love your judgment—whom do you prefer My faith I give to Roman Catholics ;

For the best linguist ?' And I sillily All my good works unto the schismatics

Said, that I thought, Calepine's Dictionary. Of Amsterdam; my best civility

Nay, but of men, most sweet sir ?—Beza then, And courtship to an university;

Some Jesuits, and two reverend men My modesty I give to soldiers bare ;

Of our two academies, I named. Here

He stopt me, and said— Nay, your apostles wars My patience let gamesters share; Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me

Pretty good linguists, and so Panurge was, Love her that holds my love disparity,

Yet a poor gentleman. All these may pass

By travel.' Then, as if he would have sold Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

His tongue, he prais'd it, and such wonders told, I give my reputation to those

That I was fain to say— If you had liv'd, Sir,
Which were my friends; mine industry to foes; Time enough to have been interpreter
To sehoolmen i bequeath my doubtfulness;

To Babel's bricklayers, sure the tower had stood.' My sickness to physicians, or excess ;

He adds, ' If of court-life you knew the good, To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ/

You would leave loneness. I said, “Not alone And to my company my wit :

My loneness is, but Spartans' fashion, Thou, Love, by making me adore

To teach by painting drunkards doth not last Her who begot this love in me before,

Now; Aretine's pictures have made few chaste ; Taught'st me to make as though I gave, when I do but No more can prince's courts (though there be few restore.

Better pictures of vice) teach me virtue.' To him for whom the passing bell next tolls

He, like a high-stretch'd lutestring, squenk'd, 'O, Sir, I give my physic books; my written rolls

'Tis sweet to talk of kings !''At Westminster, Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;

(Said I) the man that keeps the Abbey-tombs, My brazen medals, unto them which live

And, for his price, doth, with whoever comes, In want of bread; to them which pass among

Of all our Harrys and our Edwards talk, All foreigners, my English tongue :

From king to king, and all their kin can walk. Thou, Love, by making me love one

Your ears shall hear nought but kings—your eyes meet Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

Kings only—the way to it is King street ?' For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

He smack'd and cry'd – He's base, mechanic, conrre,

So are all your Englishmen in their discourse. Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo

Are not your Frenchmen neat! Mine ?-as you seo, The world by dying, because love dies too.

I have but one, Sir-look, he follows me. Then all your beauties will be no more worth

Certes, they are neatly cloth’d. I of this mind am, Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth,

Your only wearing is your grogoram.' And all your graces no more use shall have

Not so, Sir. I have more.' Under this pitch Than a sun-dial in a grave.

He would not fly. I chaf'd him. But as itch Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me

Scratch'd into smart-and as blunt iron ground Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

Into an edge hurts worse—80 I (fool !) found To inrent and practise this one way to annihilate all Crossing hurt me. To fit my sullenness three.

He to another key his style doth dress,

And asks, What news ? I tell him of new plays; [A Character from Donne's Satires.]

He takes my hands, and as a still which stays - Towards me did run A semibreve 'twixt each drop, he (niggardly, A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun As loath to enrich me so) tells

many a lie E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ark came; More than ten Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stoweg A thing which would have posed Adam to name. Of trivial household trash he knows. He knows

When the queen frown'd or smild, and he knows what So nothing in his maw! yet seemeth by his belt, A subtle statesman may gather from that.

That his gaunt gut no too much stuffing felt. He knows who loves whom; and who by poison Seest thou how sidel it hangs beneath his hip? Hastes to an office's reversion.

Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.
He knows who hath sold his land, and now doth beg Yet for all that, how stiffty struts he by,
A licence, old iron, boots, shoes, and egg-

All trapped in the new-found bravery.
Shells to transport. Shortly boys shall not play The nuns of new-won Calais his bonnet lent,
At spancounter, or blow point, but shall pay

In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.
Toll to some courtier. And (wiser than all us) What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain,
He knows what lady is not painted.

His grandame could have lent with lesser pain í
Though he perhaps ne'er pass'd the English shore,

Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.
JOSEPH HALL

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head, JOSEPH Hall, born at Bristow Park, in Leicester- One lock amazon-like dishevelled, shire, in 1574, and who rose through various church As if he meant to wear a native cord, preferments to be bishop of Norwich, is more dis- If chance his fates should him that bane afford. tinguished as a prose writer than as a poet : he is, All British bare upon the bristled skin, however, allowed to have been the first to write Close notched is his beard, both lip and chin; satirical verse with any degree of elegance. His His linen collar labyrinthian set, satires, which were published under the title of Whose thousand double turnings never met: Virgidemiarum, in 1597-9, refer to general objects, His sleeves half bid with elbow pinionings, and present some just pictures of the more remark. As if he meant to fly with linen wings. able anomalies in human character: they are also But when I look, and cast mine cyes below, written in a style of greater polish and volubility What monster meets mine eyes in human show! than most of the compositions of this age. Bishop So slender waist with such an abbot's loin, Hall, of whom a more particular notice is given Did never sober nature sure conjoin. elsewhere, died in 1656, at the age of eighty-two. Lik'st a strawn scarecrow in the new-sown field,

Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield, [Selections from Hall's Satires.]

Or, if that semblance suit not every deal,

Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel.
A gentle squire would gladly entertain
Into his house some trencher-chapelain :
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.

BEN JONSON.
First that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young master lieth o'er his head.

In 1616, BEN JONson collected the plays he had Second, that he do, on no default,

then written, and published them in one volume, Ever presume to sit above the salt.

folio, adding, at the same time, a book of epiThird, that he never change his trencher twice. grams, and a number of poems, which he entitled Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;

The Forest, and The Underwood. The whole were Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.

comprised in one folio volume, which Jonson digni. Last, that he never his young master beat,

fied with the title of his Works, a circumstance But he must ask his mother to define,

which exposed him to the ridicule of some of his How many jerks he would his breech should line. contemporaries.* It is only with the minor poetry All these observed, he could contented be,

of Jonson that we have to deal at present, as the To give five marks and winter livery.

dramatic productions of this stern old master of the Seest thou how gaily my young master goes, *

manly school of English comedy will be afterwards

described. There is much delicacy of fancy, fine Vaunting himself upon his rising toes ;

feeling, and sentiment, in some of Jonson's lyrical And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side;

and descriptive effusions. He grafted a classic grace And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide ?

and musical expression on parts of his masques and "Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?

interludes, which could hardly have been expected In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humphrey.

from his massive and ponderous hand. In some of Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer,

his songs he equals Carew and Herrick in pictuKeeps he for every straggling cavalier; An open house, haunted with great resort;

resque images, and in portraying the fascinations of

love. A taste for nature is strongly displayed in his Long service mixt with musical disport.t

fine lines on Penshurst, that ancient seat of the Many fair younker with a feather'd crest,

Sidneys. It has been justly remarked by one of Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest,

his critics, that Jonson's dramas do not lead us to To fare so freely with so little cost,

value highly enough his admirable taste and feeling Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host. Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say

in poetry; and when we consider how many other

intellectual excellences distinguished him-wit, obHe touch'd no meat of all this live-long day. For sure methought, yet that was but a guess,

servation, judgment, memory, learning—we must His eyes seem'd sunk for very hollowness,

acknowledge that the inscription on his tomb,“ ! But could he have (as I did it mistake)

rare Ben Jonson !" is not more pithy thau it is

true.' So little in his purse, so much upon his back!

* This is the portrait of a poor gallant of the days of Elizabeth.

1 Long, or low. In St Paul's Cathedral, then an open public place, there was a

* An epigram addressed to him on the subject is as follows: tomb erroneously supposed to be that of Humphrey, Duke of

Pray tell us, Ben, where does the mystery lurk, Gloucester, which was the resort of gentlemen upon town in

What others call a play you call a work? that day, who had occasion to look out for a dinner. When

On behalf of Jonson an answer was returned, which seems to unsuccessful in getting an invitation, they were said to dine glance at the labour which Jonson bestowed on all his producwith Duke Humphrey.

tions† An allusion to the church servioe to be heard near Duke The author's friend thus for the author ways Humphrey's tomb.

Ben's plays are works, while others' works are playa

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