'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet All ev'rywhere, like man's, must be the soul, Such miracles are ceased; and now we see Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part; If there be nothing else between. Hail the poor Muse's richest manor-seat ! Ye country houses and retreat, Which all the happy gods so love, That for you oft they quit their bright and great Here Nature does a house for me erect, Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky, Nor be myself, too, mute. "Tis not when two like words make up one noise, Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just 'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage, And force some odd similitude. What is it then, which, like the Power Divine, In a true piece of wit all things must be, As in the ark, join'd without force or strife, (If we compare great things with small,) OF SOLITUDE. HAIL, old patrician trees, so great and good! And for their quiet nests and plenteous food [* This is Cowley's very fault: wit to an excess :- A silver stream shall roll his waters near, Ah! wretched, and too solitary he, Oh, Solitude! first state of humankind! As soon as two, alas! together join'd, Though God himself, through countless ages, thee Thee, sacred Solitude! alone, Before the branchy head of number's tree Thou (though men think thine an unactive part) Which else would know no settled pace, Making it move, well managed by thy art, With swiftness and with grace. Thou the faint beams of reason's scatter'd light Dost, like a burning glass, unite, Dost multiply the feeble heat, And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks I see I should at thee, too, foolish city! Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, DAVENANT'S personal history is sufficiently curious without attaching importance to the insinuation of Wood, so gravely taken up by Mr. Malone, that he was the son of Shakspeare. He was the son of a vintner at Oxford, at whose house the immortal poet is said to have frequently lodgedt. Having risen to notice by his tragedy of Albovine, he wrote masques for the court of Charles I. and was made governor of the king and queen's company of actors in Drury-lane. In the civil wars we find the theatric manager quickly transmuted into a lieutenant-general of Ordnance, knighted for his services at the siege of Gloucester, and afterwards negotiating between the king and his advisers at Paris. There he began his poem of Gondibert, which he laid aside for a time for the scheme of carrying a colony from France to Virginia; but his vessel, was seized by one of the parliament ships, he was thrown into prison, and owed his life to friendly interference, it is said to that of Milton, whose friendship he returned in kind. On being liberated, his ardent activity was shown in attempting to restore theatrical amusements in the very teeth of bigotry and puritanism, and he actually succeeded so far as to open a theatre in the Charter[ There is other testimony to what Malone took up too gravely besides Wood's insinuation-there is the Betterton belief preserved in Spence from Pope's relation.] house Yard. At the Restoration he received the patent of the Duke's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn, which he held till his death. Gondibert has divided the critics. It is undeniable, on the one hand, that he showed a high and independent conception of epic poetry, in wishing to emancipate it from the slavery of ancient authority, and to establish its interest in the dignity of human nature, without incredible and stale machinery. His subject was well chosen from modern romantic story, and he strove to give it the close and compact symmetry of the drama. Ingenious and witty images, and majestic sentiments, are thickly scattered over the poem. But Gondibert, who is so formally described, has certainly more of the cold and abstract air of an historical, than of a poetical portrait, and, unfortunately, the beauties of the poem are those of elegy and epigram, more than of heroic fiction. It wants the charm of free and forcible narration; the life-pulse of interest is incessantly stopt by solemn pauses of reflection, and the story works its way through an intricacy of superfluous fancies, some beautiful and others conceited, but all, as they are united, tending to divert the interest, like a multitude of weeds upon a stream, that entangle its course while they seem to adorn it. FROM "GONDIBERT," CANTO IV. The Father of Rhodalind offering her to Duke Gondibert, and the Duke's subsequent interview with Birtha, to whom he is attached. THE king (who never time nor power misspent In subject's bashfulness, whiling great deeds Like coward councils, who too late consent) Thus to his secret will aloud proceeds: If to thy fame, brave youth, I could add wings, For she is yours, as your adoption free; And in that gift my remnant life I give ; But 'tis to you, brave youth! who now are she; And she that heaven where secondly I live. And richer than that crown (which shall be thine When life's long progress I have gone with fame) Take all her love; which scarce forbears to shine And own thee, through her virgin-curtain, shame. Thus spake the king; and Rhodalind appear'd Through publish'd love,with so much bashfulness, As young kings show, when by surprise o'erheard, Moaning to fav'rite ears a deep distress. For love is a distress, and would be hid Like monarch's griefs, by which they bashful And in that shame beholders they forbid; [grow; Since those blush most, who most their blushes show. And Gondibert, with dying eyes, did grieve At her vail'd love (a wound he cannot heal), As great minds mourn, who cannot then relieve The virtuous, when through shame they want conceal. And now cold Birtha's rosy looks decay; Who in fear's frost had like her beauty died, But that attendant hope persuades her stay A while, to hear her duke; who thus replied. Victorious king! abroad your subjects are A king you are o'er subjects so, as wise And noble husbands seem o'er loyal wives; Who claim not, yet confess their liberties, And brag to strangers of their happy lives. To foes a winter storm; whilst your friends bow, Like summer trees, beneath your bounty's load; To me (next him whom your great self, with low And cheerful duty serves) a giving God. Since this is you, and Rhodalind (the light The stroke, and fire, and Oisel's juice endures; Since she so precious is, I shall appear All counterfeit, of art's disguises made; But falsely have dissembled an excess Like raging flame aspiring is my love ; move. Nor is this now through virtuous shame confess'd; When she will grace the bridal dignity, It will be soon to all young monarchs known; Who then by posting through the world will try Who first can at her feet present his crown. Then will Verona seem the inn of kings; And Rhodalind shall at her palace gate Smile, when great love these royal suitors brings; Who for that smile would as for empire wait. Amongst this ruling race she choice may take For warmth of valour, coolness of the mind, Eyes that in empire's drowsy calms can wake, In storms look out, in darkness dangers find; A prince who more enlarges power than lands, Whose greatness is not what his map contains; But thinks that his where he at full commands, Not where his coin does pass, but power remains. Who knows that power can never be too high When by the good possest, for 'tis in them The swelling Nile, from which though people fly, They prosper most by rising of the stream. Thus, princes, you should choose; and you will find, Even he, since men are wolves, must civilize (As light does tame some beasts of savage kind) Himself yet more, by dwelling in your eyes. Such was the duke's reply; which did produce Thoughts of a diverse shape through sev'ral ears: His jealous rivals mourn at his excuse; But Astragon it cures of all his fears. Birtha his praise of Rhodalind bewails; And now her hope a weak physician seems; The king (secure in offer'd empire) takes This forced excuse as troubled bashfulness, And a disguise which sudden passion makes, To hide more joy than prudence should express. And Rhodalind (who never loved before, Nor could suspect his love was giv'n away) Thought not the treasure of his breast so poor, But that it might his debts of honour pay. To hasten the rewards of his desert, The king does to Verona him command; And, kindness so imposed, not all his art Can now instruct his duty to withstand. Yet whilst the king does now his time dispose Who of their wounds are yet not perfect grown. And by this fair pretence, whilst on the king Lord Astragon through all the house attends, Young Orgo does the duke to Birtha bring, Who thus her sorrows to his bosom sends : Why should my storm your life's calm voyage vex? Destroying wholly virtue's race in one ; So by the first to my unlucky sex, All in a single ruin were undone. Make heav'nly Rhodalind your bride! whilst I, Let me her servant be: a dignity, Which if your pity in my fall procures, I still shall value the advancement high, Not as the crown is hers, but she is yours. Ere this high sorrow up to dying grew, The duke the casket open'd, and from thence (Form'd like a heart) a cheerful em'rald drew; Cheerful, as if the lively stone had sense. The thirtieth carract it had doubled twice; Nor yet of those which make the Ethiop proud; Nor taken from those rocks where Bactrians But from the Scythian, and without a cloud; [climb: Not sick at fire, nor languishing with time. Then thus he spake: "This, Birtha, from my Progenitors, was to the loyal she [male On whose kind heart they did in love prevail, The nuptial pledge, and this I give to thee: Seven centuries have pass'd, since it from bride To bride did first succeed; and though 'tis known From ancient lore, that gems much virtue hide, And that the em'rald is the bridal stone : Though much renown'd because it chastens loves, By making this to fade, and you lament." Had now an artful pencil Birtha drawn, (With grief all dark, then straight with joy all He must have fancied first, in early dawn, [light) A sudden break of beauty out of night. Or first he must have mark'd what paleness fear, Her joys (too vast to be contain❜d in speech) And as tow'rds heav'n all travel on their knees, If I forget the depth from whence I rise, But thus ascending from your humble maid Till time my duty cancel with my life. And fruitfully if heav'n e'er make me bring, Your image to the world, you then my pride No more shall blame, than you can tax the spring For boasting of those flowers she cannot hide. R Orgo I so receive as I am taught By duty to esteem whate'er you love; And hope the joy he in this jewel brought Will luckier than his former triumphs prove. For though but twice he has approach'd my sight, He twice made haste to drown me in my tears: But now I am above his planet's spite, And as for sin beg pardon for my fears." Thus spake she: and with fix'd continued sight, The duke did all her bashful beauties view; Then they with kisses seal'd their sacred plight, Like flowers, still sweeter as they thicker grew. Yet must these pleasures feel, though innocent, The sickness of extremes, and cannot last; For pow'r (love's shunn'd impediment) has sent To tell the duke, his monarch is in haste : And calls him to that triumph which he fears A means to serve him less in Rhodalind. She weeping to her closet window hies, Where she with tears doth Rhodalind survey; As dying men, who grieve that they have eyes, When they through curtains spy the rising day*. [* Sir William Davenant's Gondibert is not a good poem, if you take it on the whole; but there are a great many good things in it.-POPE to Spence.] SIR JOHN DENHAM. [Born, 1615. Died, 1668.] SIR JOHN DENHAM was born in Dublin, where his father was chief-baron of the Irish Exchequer. On his father's accession to the same office in the English Exchequer, our poet was brought to London, and there received the elements of his learning. At Oxford he was accounted a slow, dreaming young man, and chiefly noted for his attachment to cards and dice. The same propensity followed him to Lincoln's Inn, to such a degree, that his father threatened to disinherit him. To avert this, he wrote a penitentiary Essay on Gaming; but after the death of his father he returned to the vice that most easily beset him, and irrecoverably injured his patrimony. 1641, when his tragedy of The Sophy appeared, it was regarded as a burst of unpromised genius. In the better and bygone days of the drama, so In tame a production would not perhaps have been regarded as astonishing, even from a dreaming young man. He was soon after appointed highsheriff of Surrey, and made governor of Faruham Castle for the king: but being unskilled in military affairs, he resigned his command, and joined his majesty at Oxford, where he published his Cooper's Hill. In the civil wars he served the royal family, by conveying their correspondence; but was at length obliged to quit the kingdom, and was sent as ambassador, by Charles II, in his exile, to the king of Poland. At the Restoration he was made surveyor of the king's buildings, and knighted, with the order of the Bath; but his latter days were embittered by a second marriage, that led to a temporary derangement of mind. COOPER'S HILL †. SURE there are poets which did never dream So where the Muses and their train resort, A poet, thou Parnassus art to me. Crown'd with that sacred pile, so vast, so high, [* The earliest edition known was printed at London in 1642.] [ Denham has been frequently imitated in this kind of local poetry as Johnson calls it, and since Cooper's Hill appeared we have had Waller's St. James's Park; Pope's Windsor Forest; Garth's Claremont; Tickell's Kensing. ton Garden: Dyer's Grongar Hill; Jago's Edge-Hill: Scott's Amwell; Michael Bruce's Lochleven, and Kirke White's Clifton Grove. There are others, but these alone I merit notice. Beaumont's Bosworth Field, though prior in date to Cooper's Hill, is local more in its title than its treatment. Drayton's panoramic plan in his Poly-olbion would have included Cooper's Hill and indeed every corner of the island.] |