But

of his contemporaries. By this we do not at all mean to claim for him such quality or quantity of genius as belongs to these "greatest;" nor indeed would we even put him on a level with Henry Vaughan the Silurist, or Richard Crashaw. we do mean that his fame is as true and catholic, and covetable and imperishable, as that of any. We could as soon conceive of the skylark's singing dying out of our love, or the daisy of the "grene grasse" ceasing to be "a thing of beauty," as of the verse-Temple built fully two centuries and a half ago being now suffered to go to ruin or to take stain. Myriads treasure in their heart of hearts the poems of George Herbert who know little and do not care to know more of the mighty sons of song. GROSART, ALEX. B., 1873, George Herbert, Leisure Hour, vol. 22, p. 325.

Herbert is the psalmist dear to all who love religious poetry with exquisite refinement of thought. So much piety was never married to so much wit. Herbert identifies himself with Jewish genius, as Michael Angelo did when carving or painting prophets and patriarchs, not merely old men in robes and beards, but with the sanctity and the character of the Pentateuch and the prophecy conspicuous in them. His wit and his piety are genuine, and are sure to make a lifelong friend of a good reader.-EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, 1875, Parnassus, Preface, p. vi.

It is to another literature that we must look for much that is peculiar to George Herbert; and this will not only account for many of his faults, but will explain by what side of his character this scholar and gentleman was attracted to country life, and could find contentment in the talk and ways of villagers. The writings to which we allude are those of the moralists of the silver age or later, pagans of the decline, or, at best, but demi-Christians, whose works seem to us so trite and dull, but on which our forefathers, unspoiled by excitement, and not yet exigent in literary style, ruminated with a quiet delight such as we seldom feel. It is from the writings of these authors in many cases that they formed the proverbs which they esteemed as the highest axioms of practical wisdom, and which George Herbert has treasured so fondly in his "Jacula Prudentum." WEBSTER, WENTWORTH, 1882, The Academy, vol. 22, p. 22.

own

It may be confessed without shame and without innuendo that Herbert has been on the whole a greater favourite with readers than with critics, and the reason is obvious. He is not prodigal of the finest strokes of poetry. To take only his contemporaries, and undoubtedly pupils, his gentle moralising and devotion are tame and cold beside the burning glow of Crashaw, commonplace and popular beside the intellectual subtlety and, now and then, the inspired touch of Vaughan. But he never drops into the flatness and the extravagance of both these writers, and his beauties, assuredly not mean in themselves, and very constantly present, are both in kind and in arrangement admirably suited to the average comprehension. He is quaint and conceited; but his quaintnesses and conceits are never beyond the reach of any tolerably intelligent understanding. He is devout, but his devotion does not transgress into the more fantastic regions of piety. He is a mystic, but of the more exoteric school of mysticism. Thus he is among sacred poets very much (though relatively he occupies a higher place) what the late Mr. Longfellow was among profane poets. He expresses common needs, common thoughts, the everyday emotions of the Christian, just sublimated sufficiently to make them attractive. The fashion and his own taste gave him a pleasing quaintness, which his good sense kept from being ever obscure or offensive or extravagant. -SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1887, History of Elizabethan Literature, p. 372.

Herbert's imagery shows much overelaboration, after the manner of Donne, who had been a close friend of his mother, and of his own youth: but his verses are free from the dulness of most of Vaughan's poems and the extravagance of many of Crashaw's. He is the poet of a meditative and sober piety that is catholic alike in the wideness of its appeal and in its love of symbol and imagery.- MASTERMAN, J. HOWARD B., 1897, The Age of Milton, p. 108.

Vaughan's intellectual debt to Herbert revolves itself into somewhat less than nothing; for in following him with zeal to the Missionary College of the Muses, he lost rather than gained, and he is altogether delightful and persuasive only where he is altogether himself. Nevertheless, a certain spirit of conformity and

filial piety towards Herbert has betrayed Vaughan into frequent and flagrant imitations.-GUINEY, LOUISE IMOGEN, 1894, Henry Vaughan, A Little English Gallery, p. 95.

Herbert has an extraordinary tenderness, and it is his singular privilege to have been able to clothe the common aspirations, fears, and needs of the religious mind in language more truly poetical than any other Englishman. He is often extravagant, but rarely dull or flat; his greatest fault lay in an excessive pseudopsychological ingenuity, which was a

snare to all these lyrists, and in a tasteless delight in metrical innovations, often as ugly as they were unprecedented. He sank to writing in the shape of wings and pillars and altars. On this side, in spite of the beauty of their isolated songs and passages, the general decadence of the age was apparent in the lyrical writers. There was no principle of poetic style recognised, and when the spasm of creative passion was over, the dullest mechanism seemed good enough to be adopted. GOSSE, EDMUND, 1897, Short History of Modern English Literature, p. 147.

A grave man in his conversation, and unblamable in his life. Indeed, it is charged on him that non amavit gentem nostram, "he loved not our nation;" forsaking the birds of his own feather to fly with others, and generally favouring the laity above the clergy, in all cases brought before him. But this he endeavoured to excuse to a private friend, by protesting he was himself so severe to the clergy on purpose to rescue them from the severity of others, and to prevent the punishment of them from lay judges, to their greater shame. I also read in a nameless author, that towards his death he was not only discontented himself, but his house was the rendezvous of all malcontents in church and state; making midnight of noonday, by constant keeping of candles light in his chamber and study; as also such visitants as repaired unto him, called themselves Nicodemites, because of their secret addresses. But a credible person, and one of his nearest relations, knew nothing thereof; which, with me, much shaketh the probability of the report. And thus we leave the archbishop, and the rest of his praises, to be reported by the poor people of Guildford, in Surrey, where

he founded and endowed a fair almshouse in the town of his nativity.-FULLER, THOMAS, 1655, The Church History of Britain, vol. III, bk. xi, par. 53-5, p. 350.

Archbishop Abbot was borne in the howse of old Flemish building, timber and brick, now an alehouse, the signe "Three Mariners," by the river's side by the bridge on the north side of the street in St. Nicholas parish on the right hand as you goe out of the towne northwards. Old Nightingale was his servant, and weepes when he talkes of him. Every one that knew, loved him. He was sometimes cholerique. He was borne the first howse over the bridge on the right hand in St. Nicholas parish (Guildford). was the sonne of a sherman. His mother, with child of him, longed for a jack, and dream't that if shee could eate a jack, her son should be a great man. The next morning, goeing to the river, which runs by the howse (which is by the bridge) with her payle to take up some water, a good jack came into her payle. Which shee eat up, all, her selfe. This is gener❜lly received for a trueth.-AUBREY, JOHN, 1669-96, Brief Lives, ed. Clark, vol. 1, p. 24.

He

He was also a learned man, and had his erudition all of the old stamp. The things that he hath written . . . shew him to be a man of parts, learning, vigilancy, and unwearied study, tho' overwhelmed with business.-WOOD, ANTHONY, 1691-1721, Athena Oxonienses, vol. 1, f. 584.

His character was of a negative, not to say neutral, cast. He was neither deficient in piety, morality, talents, or learning, but he exercised them only with a decency so cold and sober that it had an air even of selfishness. He was an example calculated for a village, not for a kingdom. In the spiritual concerns of his great office he was obstinate without zeal, and in the temporal haughty without dignity. His understanding, though strong, was of an order too coarse and mechanical to be applied to the niceties of state

affairs, and an ungracious temper, together with a rough unbending honesty, rendered him almost a stranger to the Court. It is natural to ask how such a man could have arisen to the highest station within the reach of a subject?Simply by good fortune.-LODGE, EDMUND, 1821-34, Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain, vol. III.

A sincere but narrow-minded Calvinist, he was equally opposed to Catholics and to heretics. He was charitable,

and far less obsequious to the kingly will than most of his compeers. His closing years were clouded by an accident, the shooting of a gamekeeper (1621); and during the last six he was almost superseded by Laud.-PATRICK AND GROOME, eds., 1897, Chambers's Biographical Dictionary, p. 5.

An earnest traueller in this arte, and in whose name I have seene very excellent workes, among which surely, the most exquisite vaine of a witty poeticall heade is shewed in the sweete sobs of "Sheepheardes and Nymphes:" a worke well worthy to be viewed, and to bee esteemed as very rare Poetrie.-WEBBE, WILLIAM, 1586, A Discourse of English Poetrie.

Of the versions of honest Anthony, one of the most indefatigable translators of romance in the reign of Elizabeth, not much can be said either in point of style or fidelity. Labouring for those who possessed an eager and indiscriminating appetite for the marvellous, he was not greatly solictitous about the preservation of the manners and costume of his original, but rather strove to accommodate his authors to the taste of the majority of his readers. To enumerate the various romances which he attempted to naturalise, would be tedious and unprofitable.DRAKE, NATHAN, 1817, Shakspeare and His Times, vol. 1, p. 54.

There is nothing in Munday's compositions above the tamest mediocrity, and he is worth mentioning only as a specimen of the literary journeyman of the time.-MINTO, WILLIAM, 1874-85, Characteristics of English Poets, p. 253.

Munday was in his versatility an epitome of his age. Ready to turn his hand to any occupation, he was a man of letters little more than a compiler, destitute of originality or style; yet, apart from such names as Shakespeare and Marlowe, there are few Elizabethan writers who occupied a greater share of public attention, or contributed more largely to popular information and amusement.-SECCOMBE, THOMAS, 1894, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXXIX, p. 294.

An obscure and fertile literary hack, reeling out volume after volume of ordinary verse and yet more ordinary prose, yet reaching once or twice a rare level, which shall preserve his name from oblivion.-SCHELLING, FELIX E., 1895, A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics, p. xxix.

HERO AND LEANDER

1598

Chapman was a true and excellent poet, in some respects Marlowe's superior, but altogether different from him in lines of thought and modes of expression, and labouring besides under the immense disadvantage of singing as it were in falsetto, by endeavouring to work in the style and spirit of another man's performance.-CUNNINGHAM, LT. COL. FRANCIS, 1870, ed. The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Introduction, p. xvii.

In Chapman's continuation, as in everything that Chapman wrote, there are fine passages in abundance; but the reader is wearied by tedious digressions, dull moralising, and violent conceits. There are couplets in the "Tale of Teras" (Fifth Sestiad) that for purity of colour and perfection of form are hardly excelled by anything in the first two sestiads; such passages, however, are few.-BULLEN, A. H., 1884, ed. The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Introduction, vol. 1, p. lii.

Marlowe died before he had completed the poem; it was finished by George Chapman, and no stronger proof of the greatness of Marlowe's genius can be furnished than the contrast between the work of the two men. Chapman did not write without inspiration; but whereas Marlowe's style. . . is all flame, his successor's, even in his most brilliant moments, is half smoke. COURTHOPE, W. J., 1897, A History of English Poetry, vol. II, p. 327.

TRANSLATION OF HOMER

1598-1616

I must confess that, to mine own ear, those continual cadences of couplets used in long continued poems are very tiresome and unpleasing, by reason that still methinks they run on with a sound of one nature, and a kind of certainty which stuffs the delight rather than entertains it. But yet, notwithstanding, I must not of my own daintiness condemn this kind of writing, which peradventure to another may seem most delightful; and many worthy compositions we see to have passed with commendation in that kind. Besides methinks sometimes to beguile the ear with a running out and passing over the rhyme, as no bound to stay us in the line where the violence of the matter will break through, is rather graceful than

otherwise. Wherein I find my HomerLucan, as if he gloried to seem to have no bounds albeit he were confined within his measures, to be in my conceit most happy; for so thereby they who care not for verse or rhyme may pass it over without taking any notice thereof, and please themselves with a well-measured prose.-DANIEL, SAMUEL, 1603, A Defence of Rhyme.

Then in the strain beyond an Oaten Quill
The learned shepherd of fair Hitching Hill
Sung the heroic deeds of Greece and Troy,
In lines so worthy life, that I employ
My Reed in vain to overtake his fame.
All praiseful tongues do wait upon that

name.

-BROWNE, WILLIAM, 1613, Britannia's Pastorals, bk. ii, song ii.

If all the vulgar tongues that speak this day Were ask'd of thy discoveries; they must

say,

To the Greek coast thine only knew the way Such passage hast thou found, such returns made,

As now of all men, it is call'd thy trade,
And who make thither else, rob or invade

JONSON, BEN, 1618, To my worthy and honoured friend, Master George Chap

man.

Brave language are Chapman's Iliads. BOLTON, EDMUND, 1624, Hypercritica. He hath been highly celebrated among men for his brave language in his translation of Homer's Iliads, those I mean which are translated into Tessaradecasyllabons, or lines of fourteen syllables.—WOOD, ANTHONY, 1691-1721, Athena Oxonienses, vol. II, f. 378.

That which is to be allowed him, and which very much contributed to cover his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation, which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ before he arrived at years of discretion. POPE, ALEXANDER, 1715-20, The Iliad of Homer, Pref

ace.

He has by no means represented the dignity or the simplicity of Homer. He is sometimes paraphrastic and redundant, but more frequently retrenches or impoverishes what he could not feel and express. In the meantime, he labours with the inconvenience of an aukward, inharmonious, and unheroic measure, imposed by custom, but disgustful to modern ears. Yet he is not always without strength or