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more than seven years after), he seems to have spent an active and busy, yet easy and careless sort of life,-now playing, loving, and writing,-now raising a troop of soldiers, to fight for the king, "all handsome young proper men, whom he clad in white doubletts and scarlet breeches," -now plotting and intriguing with the cavaliers to rescue Strafford from the hands of the covenanters,-failing,-being impeached of high treason, in conjunction with his friend and brother-poet, Davenant, for attempting to effect the escape of the earl of Strafford, and flying to France for safety, where he died in 1641, a bachelor,' at the age of either 28 or 32, according as the different accounts of his birth may be

correct.

Suckling's verses are easy and debonnair, often ill-formed in their structure, and still more frequently slovenly in their dress. They every where betray an artificial sensibility,-the great fault of poets of his day. These faults are almost redeemed by his constant sprightliness and good humour, and now and then by a touch of profounder thought than we are prepared to meet with in such a writer. His letters are good specimens of the epistolary style: often elegant, sometimes stiffly antithetical, always witty.'

George Sandys.

BORN A. D. 1577.-died A. D. 1643.

GEORGE SANDYS, the seventh and youngest son of Edwin, archbishop of York, was born at the archiepiscopal palace of Bishop-thorpe, in 1577. In 1588 he matriculated at St Mary's hall, Oxford; but he does not appear to have taken a degree at the university. In 1610, he visited the continent of Europe, and thence proceeded to the East, taking an extensive tour through Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Returning to Europe, he resided some time in Rome, and afterwards in Venice, at both which places he appears to have employed himself chiefly in literary researches, and in giving the last polish to his classical acquirements which were highly respectable. In 1615, he presented the public with the result of his observations made during his travels in the East. His work was well received, and has continued a favourite in its department of literature ever since. There have been eight or ten editions of it published, and subsequent travellers have borne unanimous testimony to the accuracy and veracity of the author. Most of the plates, however, with which it was subsequently enriched, were copied from the Devotissimo Viaggio di Zuallardo,' Roma, 1587, 4to. In 1632, Sandys appeared as a poet. His translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, published in that year, was very favourably received, though Dryden objects to it as too close and literal. Four years afterwards he published a Paraphrase on the Psalms of David,' which, Wood tells us, afforded much solace to Charles I. when a prisoner in Carisbrook castle. In 1640, he produced a poetical

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See Retrospective Review, vols. viii. ix.

The edition of this work was published in 1640, with the Psalms set to music by

one of the musical brothers, Lawes.

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version of a posthumous drama by Grotius, entitled Christus patiens,' he also wrote a metrical paraphrase of the Song of Solomon,' and a few other religious pieces. Langbaine says of Sandys, as a poetical translator, that "he will be allowed an excellent artist in it by learned judges;" and adds somewhat quaintly, " he comes so near the sense of his author that nothing is lost; no spirits evaporate in the decanting of it into English; and if there be any sediment, it is left behind." An opinion, for which we have the higher authority of Pope, who, in his notes to the Iliad, declares that English poetry owes much of its present beauty to the model furnished by Sandys in his translations. Sandys appears to have been a man of singular integrity and much simplicity of manners. He spent the greater part of his latter years with his brother-in-law Sir Francis Wenman of Caswell, Oxfordshire, probably choosing that situation on account of its proximity to his beloved friend Lucius, Lord Viscount Falkland, who addressed some elegant poems to him, which are preserved in Nichols' Select Collection.' He died at the house of his nephew Sir Francis Wyat of Bexley in Kent, in 1643. He was interred in the chancel of the parish church of Bexley without any inscription; but in the parish-register is this entry: "Georgius Sandys, poetarum Anglorum sui sæculi facile princeps, sepultus fuit Martii 7. stilo Anglice, ann. Dom. 1643."

William Cartwright.

BORN A. D. 1615?-DIED A. D. 1643.

THIS poet and divine of the 17th century has had many biographers, all of whom differ in respect to the precise time of his birth. Lloyd affirms that he was born in 1615, and was the son of Thomas Cartwright, of Burford in Oxfordshire; others suppose him to have been the son of a Mr William Cartwright,—that he was born at Northway in Gloucestershire, in 1611,—and that his father, after dissipating a large fortune, became an inn-keeper at Cirencester, at the free school of which town his son was educated. However this may be, it is certain that he was a king's scholar at Westminster, and was thence chosen student of Christ's college, Oxford, in the year 1631, where he took orders, and became-to use the language of Anthony Wood—“ a most florid and seraphic preacher" in the university; he was also appointed proctor, and metaphysical lecturer, and was a poet and divine, all before the age of thirty. In 1642, he was made succentor to the church of Salisbury, and one of the council of war, or delegacy, at Oxford, for providing for the troops sent by the king to protect the colleges. For this last service he was imprisoned by the parliamentary forces, but was soon released. Lloyd asserts that he studied sixteen hours a day, relieving his severer pursuits by the cultivation of poetry. He became in his day an object of universal admiration. His praises employed the most learned pens; Fell, bishop of Oxford, said that he was "all that man could arrive at ;" and Ben Jonson exclaimed, "My son Cartwright writes all like a man !" Notwithstanding all this com

Gent. Mag. vol. lii. p. 368.

mendation, his collected works form only a little thick octavo volume, containing four plays and some miscellaneous poems, prefaced by fifty-six copies of commendatory verses from his friends and fellow-collegians. These pieces, though not without merit, will certainly not sustain the contemporary eulogium appended to them. It must be remembered, however, that they were written while Cartwright's various excellencies were yet green in the memory of his contemporaries. Cartwright was also the author of some Greek and Latin poems, and a Passion sermon. His career was suddenly closed in 1643, by a malignant fever, which the war had introduced into Oxford. King Charles, who was at Oxford when Cartwright died, wore black on the day of his funeral, and the regret for him was general.'

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Robert Burton.

BORN A. d. 1576.—died a. d. 1639.

WE must distinguish betwixt this name as belonging to the author of one of the most curious and celebrated works in the English language, the Anatomy of Melancholy,' and as employed by a bookseller in the 17th century on the title-page of a numerous set of popular volumes. The honest bibliopole who modestly conjectured that his own name was less likely to attract the public attention than the one he adopted on his title-pages, was one Nathaniel Crouch, or Nat Crouch as he is familiarly designated in the Bodleian catalogue; and he continued writing, or rather compiling and abridging his Twelve-penny books' for upwards of fifty years. His title-pages were a little swelling,' but they took well, and his books were long in high request among the chapmen and travelling booksellers."

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The true Robert Burton was the younger brother of William Burton, the author of the well-known History of Leicestershire,' and was born at Lindley in Leicestershire, his father's estate, on the 8th of February 1576. His early education was conducted at Sutton-Colfield; and in 1593 he was admitted of Brazen-nose college. He took the degree of B.D. in 1614; and in 1616 was presented to the vicarage of St Thomas in Oxford. He held also the rectory of Segrave in his native county. His death took place on the 25th of January 1639-40. His monument in Christ church bears the following inscription from his own pen: Paucis notus, paucioribus ignotus, hic jacet Democritus junior, cui vitam dedit et mortem Melancholia.

Burton appears to have been a man of very peculiar humours, but an accomplished and diligent scholar. His reading was immense, and his memory enabled him to keep ready for use almost every thing he had ever read. His Anatomy of Melancholy' is a singularly compiled treatise on a singular subject. It is much pleasanter reading, however, than its title promises; its author was, in fact, except during those seasons when his morbid mind asserted its supremacy, a very companionable and facetious fellow, and his language is free from the vitiated

Biog. Brit.-Retrospective Review, vol. x.
Gough's Topography.-Dunton's Life.

mannerism of many of his contemporaries. It was highly popular when it first appeared, but had fallen into neglect when some incidental notices of it by a no less distinguished critic than Dr Johnson again brought it into fashion. Dr Ferrier of Manchester, in his Illustrations of Sterne,' has ingeniously traced the obligations of that sentimental writer to the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy.'

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William and Henry Lawes.

FLOR. A. D. 1640.

ENGLISH music is under deep obligations to these two early composers. They were the sons of Thomas Lawes, a vicar-choral in Salisbury church, and both the disciples of Coperario. Henry died in 1662; William, in 1645.

It was the honour and happiness of Henry Lawes to be on terms of intimate friendship both with Waller and with Milton. The former gave him his songs to set to music; the latter wrote his exquisite masque of Comus' at his solicitation, it is said, and married Lawes' music to his own immortal verse. Both poets seem to have been fully satisfied with their colleague's part of the performance. Waller celebrates

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the musical skill of Henry Lawes in one of his poems; and Milton has not disdained to address one of his sonnets to Harry of tuneful and well-measured song.' Fenton, in one of his notes on Waller, says, that the best poets of the age were ambitious of having their songs set by this artist, whose style was better fitted for song-music than that of any of his contemporaries. Henry Lawes composed tunes to George Sandys' Paraphrases on the Psalms,' published in 1638. The music to Comus was unfortunately never printed, and nothing remains of it to tell in what manner the artist found fitting musical expression and harmony for the delicious and varied numbers of that unmatched poem.

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William Lawes was in high favour with Charles I. His chief compositions were fantasies for viols, and songs and symphonies for masques. His anthem for four voices in Dr Boyce's second volume, is reckoned his masterpiece; but Burney and Hawkins agree in regarding his compositions as irregular and not always correct in harmony. William Lawes appears to have composed a good deal in conjunction with his brother Henry,

Richard Crashaw.

DIED A. D. 1650.

RICHARD CRASHAW united in himself the learning of an accom plished scholar and the imaginative fervour of a pious poet; admired and warmly eulogised by Cowley, his writings were a fountain from the waters of which Pope and Roscommon did not disdain to draw. Still his poems are but little known, nor can it be said that the neglect into which they have fallen is altogether unmerited; though scattered with flowers of exquisite beauty, which Pope thought worth transplant

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ing, the inappropriate expressions, figures, and similes which abound, and the occasional vulgar and ludicrous familiarity of language, are so offensive to the reader as nearly to destroy the pleasure derived from his beauties. He is said to have been born in London, and to have been a foundation boy in the Charter-house school, under a very excellent master of the name of Brooks. The Oxford antiquary states that he was the son of an eminent divine, and that he became a student of Pembroke-hall, and a fellow of Peter-house, in Cambridge, where, in 1637, he was distinguished for his poetical talents. In 1644, when the parliamentary army expelled those members of the university who refused to take the covenant, Crashaw, unable to contemplate with resignation or indifference the ruin of the church establishment, went over to France, where his sufferings, by their effect on his peculiarly constructed mind, prepared him to embrace Romanism. Those who have attributed the conversion of Crashaw to motives of interest, must have been utterly unacquainted with the extreme tenderness and enthusiasm of his character. So far from being impelled by worldly motives, he seems rather to have been converted by his passionate admiration of that fair canonized enthusiast, St Teresa of Spain. Her pious compositions appear to have been his favourite study; and the reader who peruses the following address to her, whatever he may think concerning the tender bigotry of the poet, will hardly suspect that his piety was not perfectly sincere.

"O thou undaunted daughter of desires,

By all thy dower of lights and fires;

By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;

By all thy lives and deaths of love;

By thy large draughts of intellectual day,

And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;

By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire;

By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;

By the full kingdom of that final kiss,

That seal'd thy parting soul, and made thee His;

By all the heavens thou hast in Him;

Fair sister of the seraphim;

By all of Him we have in thee,

Leave nothing of myself in me;

Let me so read thy life that I
Unto all life of mine may die."

But were this supposition incorrect, the arts of the controversialists of that religion, together with the ardent and tender disposition of the man, render it highly unreasonable to impute his conversion to any other motives than sincere conviction. He was indeed formed to sympathise in all the rapturous and seraphic ardours which have distinguished the devotees of the Roman communion, especially those of the female sex, and these lines to St Teresa breathe a spirit of pious enthusiasm which could only be inspired by kindred feelings. That he was no immediate gainer in point of interest by the change appears by the distressed circumstances in which he was found, in 1646, by his warm admirer, and probably academical friend, Cowley. By his brother-poet he was recommended to the notice of the fugitive queen of Charles the First, Henrietta Maria, who, not having the power to do much for him herself, gave him introductory letters to her friends

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