Thus, done the tales, to bed they creep, By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep. And the busy hum of men; Where throngs of knights and barons bold, In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit, or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend. There let Hymen oft appear, In saffron robe, with taper clear; Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs,1 Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes with many a winding bout 120 130 But hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To set her beauty's praise above The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended. Yet thou art higher far descended : Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore, To solitary Saturn bore; His daughter she, in Saturn's reign, Such mixture was not held a stain; 30 40 That Orpheus' self may heave his head From golden slumber on a bed Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains as would have won the ear Thou fix them on the earth as fast. And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, And hears the Muses in a ring These delights if thou canst give, Aye round about Jove's altar sing. Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 1 Soft Lydian airs. In this section each poem closes with a setting of each mood to music, before the two closing lines of conditional acceptance of Mirth and Melancholy. Each is welcome only if it be such as the poem has defined. 2 Gaudy shapes. The word "gaudy" as used in this line is not from the Latin "gaudium." I derive it from the Cymric "gau," false, and its derivative "geuawd," falsifying deception. There are traces of this word from such a root in modern Scottish use of "gaudy" for tricky or mischievous; in the use of the word "gaud" by Chaucer as a trick, in "Troilus and Cressida," and by the Pardoner who says of his trade in relics "By this gaud have I wonnen yere by yere An hundred mark since I was Pardonere;" and in the definition of "gaud" in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," about A.D. 1440, " gaud or jape, nuga." Milton's "gaudy shapes" are, therefore, delusive shapes. Or let my lamp at midnight hour What worlds or what vast regions hold But, O sad virgin, that thy power Not trickt and frounc't, as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt, But kerchief'd in a comely cloud, While rocking winds are piping loud; Or usher'd with a shower still When the gust hath blown his fill, Where the rude axe, with heavéd stroke, While the bee with honied thigh, 130 1:9 100 Sent by some spirit to mortals good, Or th' unseen Genius of the wood. But let my due feet never fail In service high, and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstacies, And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age These pleasures Melancholy give, And I with thee will choose to live. 160 170 Great bards beside. The chief reference is to Spenser, whose aerie Queene" caused Milton in his greatest prose work, “Areoritica, or the Defence of the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing," to cribe him as "the sage and serions Spenser, whom I dare be own to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas." Richard Corbet, who became Bishop of Oxford in 1629, and of Norwich in 1632, died in 1635. Some of the verses which had obtained him high social The Attic boy. Cephalus, whose story closes the seventh book of Ovid's "Metamorphoses." 5 Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" have been carefully edited, with many notes, by Mr J. W. Hales, M.A.. in a volume entitled "Longer English Poems, with Notes Philological and Explanatory, and an Introduction on the Teaching of English" (Mac repute as wit and poet, were printed in 1648. He was the son of a famous gardener. This-which is left in the old spelling-is the kindly Bishop's ELEGY UPON THE DEATH OF HIS OWN FATHER. Vincent Corbet, farther knowne By Poynters name then by his owne, All that two familyes could lend. And if to know more arts then any Could multiply one into many, Both of qualityes and men. Yeares he liv'd well nigh fourscore, But count his vertues he liv'd more; And number him by doeing good, He liv'd their age beyond the flood. Should wee undertake his story Truth would seeme fain'd and plainesse glory : Beside this tablet were to small, Add to the pillers and the wall. And legier lay for every sheire 10 20 30 The pattern of a brilliant cavalier poet of the time of Charles I. was Richard Lovelace, eldest son of Sir William Lovelace, of Woolwich. He was born in 1618, educated at Charterhouse School, and Gloucester Hall, Oxford. When only of two years' standing, and eighteen years old, the king visiting Oxford is said to have made him M. A. for his beauty, at the request of a great lady. He went to court, went to the wars, came into possession of his estate, Lovelace Place, in the parish of Bethersden, at Canterbury, and was in April, 1642, committed to the Gatehouse Prison for carrying up the Kentish Petition to the House of Commons. In the prison he wrote his song 1 Noe; the free meetings at his boord millan & Co.). Both teachers and students of English will find this book pleasantly useful. Mr. Hales, who was with Mr. Furnivall joint editor of the MS. Folio from which Percy drew his "Reliques," who has also edited most thoroughly Milton's "Areopagitica," and who has done and is doing much more good work for the diffusion of a sound knowledge of English literature, edits in this volume of "Longer English Poems," Spenser's "Prothalamion," four pieces from Milton, two from Dryden, Pope's "Rape of the Lock," Johnson's "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes," Collins's "Ode to the Passions," Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" and two other pieces of his, Goldsmith's "Traveller" and "Deserted Village," Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night" and "Twa Dogs," two poems by Cowper, Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," and specimens from other modern poets. In all his work Mr. Hales joins taste with scholarship, and this book of his might be used with advantage in many schools. 1 Legier, agent, ambassador. Lovelace, released on heavy bail, spent his fortune in the service of the king and aid of poorer friends. In 1648 he was imprisoned again, this time in Peter House, in Aldersgate Street, and there arranged for the press his poems, published in 1649, as “ Lucasta : Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c." The Lucasta (Lux casta, pure light) of his verse was Lucy Sacheverell, whom he loved, but who married another suitor, after hearing false reports that Lovelace had been killed at Dunkirk. Under Cromwell Lovelace was set free, but lived in extreme poverty, and died in an alley in Shoe Lane. This is his : TO LUCASTA. 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. One of the heartiest attackers of the Puritans in his verse was John Cleveland, who joined the royal army in the Civil Wars, and was made judge-advocate to the troops in Newark. He escaped when the town surrendered, and was not taken till 1655, when Cromwell assented to his plea, that he had been what his conscience made him, an honest opponent, and released him. Cleveland died in 1659. This is one of his pieces : THE PURITAN. With face and fashion to be known For one of sure election, With eyes all white and many a groan, See a new teacher of the town, O the town, O the town's new teacher! With grounds strong laid of mere illusion: See a new teacher of the town, O the town, O the town's new teacher! 1 Ursin's catechism. Zacharias Ursinus, born at Breslau in 1534, was a famous Protestant theologian, the close friend of Melancthon, after whose death he was persecuted by the theologians of the Confession of Augsburg, and left Breslau for Zurich. It was he who first wrote over the door of his study lines since used in the same way by others: "Amice, quisquis huc venis, aut agito paucis, aut abi, aut laborantem adjuva;" which means, "Friend who come hither, be brief, or go, or help me in my work." Ursinus died, aged forty-nine, in 1583. Another active Lutheran theologian of the same name was John Henry Ursinus, who died in 1667, director of the churches of Ratisbon; and he had a son, George Henry, who shone in philology. Ursin's, or the Palatine Catechism, arose from the wish of the Elector to establish uniformity in the Churches of the Palatinate. Since some followed Luther, some Brentius, some explanations of their own, he asked the theologians to provide him with a fuller and clearer catechism. That of Zacharias Ursin was accordingly adopted. 'Tis you must perfect this great work, And all malignants slay, You must bring back the king again The clean contrary way. 'Tis for religion that you fight, And for the kingdom's good, By robbing churches, plund'ring men, And shedding guiltless blood. Down with the orthodoxal train, All loyal subjects slay; When these are gone, we shall be blest The clean contrary way. When Charles we've bankrupt made like us, Of crown and power bereft him; And all his loyal subjects slain, And none but rebels left him. We'll make him then a glorious prince, 'Tis to preserve His Majesty That we against him fight, Nor are we ever beaten back, Because our cause is right; If any make a scruple on 't, Our declarations say, Who fight for us fight for the king, At Kineton, Brentford, Plymouth, York, What victories we saints obtain'd, The like ne'er seen before! How often we Prince Rupert kill'd, And bravely won the day, The wicked cavaliers did run, The clean contrary way. The true religion we maintain, The kingdom's peace, and plenty; The privilege of Parliament Not known to one of twenty; And teach men to obey 70 With new-wrought caps, against the canon, The ancient fundamental laws; O the town, O the town's new teacher! But the writer of such songs, whose rhymes were most in request in their own day by loyal vocalists, was the lively lawyer, Alexander Brome, born in 1620, and author also of a comedy, and of translations from Lucretius and Horace. He lived until six years after the Restoration. These are three of his songs: THE SAINT'S ENCOURAGEMENT. Fight on, brave soldiers, for the cause, Fear not the cavaliers; Their threat'nings are as senseless as Our jealousies and fears. |