SANDYS.-HALL.

The churlish-throated hounds then holding him at bay,
And as their cruel fangs on his harsh skin they lay,
With his sharp-pointed head he dealeth deadly wounds.
The hunter coming in to help his wearied hounds,
He desp'rately assails; until, oppress'd by force,
He now the mourner is to his own dying corse.

39

*GEORGE SANDYS (1577-1643), was the author of the first literary production of the American colonies. This was in 1622 when he was Treasurer of Virginia. He was one of those eminent men and scholars, who emigrated to America, or resided in it for a period, whose education, was completed at the English universities. Mention will soon be made of other names among them, in the proper places. These, in all respects, were equal to the distinguished men and writers of the parent country, in the same professsion, or department of intellectual exertion, and may be noticed promiscuously with the latter. The work of Sandys referred to, was a Translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, into English verse. He was the author of several other reputable works. Both Dryden, and Pope appear to have considered him an admirable poet. He travelled extensively, and finally died in his native land.*

JOSEPH HALL (1574-1656), bishop of Norwich, was the first who wrote satire in English verse with any degree of elegance or success. His satires refer to general objects, and present some just pictures of the more remarkable anomalies in human character: they are also written in a style of greater polish and volubility than most of the compositions of this age. Richard Corbet, a preceding bishop of Norwich, but a contemporary of Hall, wrote some facetious poetry. Thomas Carew, a gay and courtly writer, flourished in the time of Charles I., whom he served in the office of sewer: his poetry is chiefly amorous, and rather more full of conceits than that of his contemporaries. The best lyrical pieces of ROBERT HERRICK, as selected from the heaps of trash which form the bulk of his works, display a redundancy of fancy, and a refinement of feeling which make it somewhat surprising that he is so little known as a poet. He was a country clergyman, and seems to have had a peculiar pleasure in rural life. Some of his poems breathe the tender passion in its

* AM. ED.

softest accents; others moralize in a strain of pleasing melancholy, upon natural objects; others again consist of mirthful measures, tripping along like a fairy dance. In the following little poem, there is a moral pathos of the most touching kind:

SIR JOHN SUCKLING (1613-1641), a zealous partizan of Charles I. at the commencement of the civil war, is distinguished by a happy fancy and an elegant mode of versification, with a descriptive power considerably beyond his contemporaries. His Ballad upon a Wedding, in which he makes one rustic describe to another a city bridal-party, is a masterpiece of gay poetical painting. Richard Lovelace was another of those lively court poets;-conceited, yet elegant and tender,-as, for instance, in his doubly gallant little epigram

TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS.

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, shall adore;

SUCKLING.-DAVENANT.-BROWNE.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Lov'd I not honour more.

-DONNE. 41

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT (1605-1668), considered as a writer of miscellaneous verses, comes under the same description. Few snatches of composition, either in the preceding or the subsequent age, can match his complimentary lines on Queen Henrietta Maria, consort of Charles I.

Fair as the unshaded light, or as day

In its first birth, when all the year was May;
Sweet as the altar's smoke, or as the new
Unfolded bud, swell'd by the early dew;
Smooth as the face of waters first appear'd
Ere tides began to strive or winds were heard;
Kind as the willing saints, and calmer far
Than in their sleeps forgiven hermits are.

WILLIAM BROWNE (1590-1645), author of Britannia's Pastorals, wrote with simplicity and feeling above most of his fellows, yet is now almost forgotten. Phineas Fletcher was also eminent in his own time as a pastoral poet. Giles Fletcher and Richard Crashaw chiefly employed themselves in sacred poetry, which was first cultivated in this age with success. Among the writers of miscellaneous poetry must be classed Benjamin Jonson, more celebrated as a dramatist: besides a few serious poems, he wrote a vast number of a humorous and epigrammatic character, which, however, are of little value. One of the most popular productions of the period was the short descriptive poem by Sir John Denham, entitled Cooper's Hill: it was published in 1643, and still holds its place in selections of our best poetry.

JOHN DONNE, dean of St. Paul's (1573-1631), stands at the head of a class known in English literary history by the appellation of the Metaphysical Poets, and which comprised Cowley, and a few others who remain to be noticed in a subsequent chapter. Donne and his followers possessed many of the highest requisites of poetry, but they were misled by learning and false taste into such extravagances, both of idea and of language, as rendered all their better qualities nearly useless. They sometimes use natural language, and natural imagery and passion; but it is only by chance. Their works more generally present a chain of overstrained conceits

and quibbles. The versification of Donne is rugged, but sometimes displays a passionate energy that almost redeems his besetting vices of thought.

Scarcely any one of the poets of this age experienced so absolute an oblivion during the eighteenth century as FRANCIS QUARLES (1592-1644), or has regained so much of his original reputation. Quarles, who was secretary to Archbishop Usher, and afterwards chronologer to the city of London, wrote much in both prose and verse; but his principal work was his Emblems, a set of quaint pictorial designs, referring to moral and religious ideas, and each elucidated by a few appropriate verses. His Enchiridion, a series of moral and political observations, is also worthy of notice. His verses were more popular in their own time, than those of the gayest court poets, being recommended by a peculiar harshness and gloom, accordant with the feelings of a large portion of the people. These were the very peculiarities which, added to their quaintness and obscure language, rendered them the contempt of the succeeding period. In the time of Pope, the poetry of Quarles was ranked with the meanest trash that then appeared. Latterly, however, these productions have been acknowledged to contain original imagery, striking sentiment, fertility of expression, and happy combinations; and the Emblems, at least, have been reprinted, and assigned a respectable place in the libraries of both the devout, and those who read from motives of taste.

During the period embraced by the reign of Elizabeth, poetry was cultivated in Scotland by a few individuals, who, if not so celebrated as Dunbar and Lindsay, were at least worthy followers of the same school. The chief of these were ALEXANDER SCOT, SIR RICHARD MAITLAND, and CAPTAIN ALEXAnder MontGOMERY. Their poems are chiefly short pieces of a moral, satirical, or descriptive kind; in which the versification is very correct, and the language in general very happy, though the style of the ideas seems a century behind that of the English poetry of the same age. The very limited social intercourse which existed at this period between the two nations, seems to have prevented the poets of Scotland from catching the improved airs of the English muse.

JAMES VI.-BUCHANAN.-DRUMMOND.

43

One of the poets of this age, and by no means the worst, was the King, JAMES VI., who, in 1584, when only eighteen years of age, published a volume of the rules of poetry, along with illustrative specimens; and in 1591, produced another series of his exercises in this art. It was in the Latin tongue, however, that the highest Scottish genius of this age was pleased to express his thoughts: we allude to GEORGE BUCHANAN (1506-1582), a man of singularly vigorous and versatile powers. Buchanan wrote various moral, satirical, dramatic, and sentimental poems; a history of Scotland; and a translation of the Psalms; employing in these compositions a style of Latinity, which is acknowledged to have rivalled the best Roman poets and historians.

The union of the crowns of England and Scotland under James I., produced a marked effect upon literature in the latter country. An acquaintance with the writings of the Elizabethan poets guided the style, if it did not prompt the genius of WILLIAM DRUMMOND Of Hawthornden (1585-1649), who, at his pleasant and retired seat near Edinburgh, wrote serious and sentimental poetry, of no small celebrity both in his own and in later times. Drummond was by birth and circumstances a gentleman, and, it would appear, of a melancholy, though amiable and affectionate temperament. He was known personally and by correspondence to most of the English contemporary poets, one of whom, Ben Jonson, made a pedestrian pilgrimage into Scotland, in order to see him. The poetical works of Drummond consist of amatory sonnets and madrigals, chiefly expressive of a hopeless passion which possessed his own bosom ; some sacred poems; a few complimentary odes and addresses to the two kings, James I. and Charles I., on their respective visits to Edinburgh; and a variety of epigrammatic and humorous pieces. In many of these compositions there are passages of great delicacy and tenderness; but, as with the minor poets of this age in general, it is difficult to find any entire piece which is not degraded by some share of insipidity, or by forced and cold conceits, or by that coarseness which, after all, seems to have been the prevailing tone of mind in even the most enlightened portions of society at the begin