These lines will remind you of a couplet, in which Pope with wonderful skill has improved and condensed the metaphor. MASON. Do you pass over Lord Brooke. GRAY. I instanced Sir John Davies as the author of our first philosophical poem, properly so called, though I doubt whether in dignity of sentiment and thoughtfulness of temper, he always equals the friend of Sidney. But the merits of Brooke are not poetical; his grave wisdom, his penetrating sagacity, his anatomy of the moral feelings, are too stern to be moulded into the delicacies of metre ; his versification, however, harmonizes with his thoughts; deep, sounding, and not unmusical. But you must read him for the truths he enunciates; and not for their embellishments. His account of Superstition accords with the history of all ages: Which natural disease of mortal wit Begets our magic and our star-divines, For what fear comprehends not, it inclines To make a god whose nature it believes, In another line, he speaks of fear looking into the heart" with dim eyes." Lord Brooke possessed the masculine common sense, and energy of intellect, which form the happiest features of Dryden's poetical character. When he speaks of— That manly discipline of doing well, I seem to hear the poet of Absalom and Achitophel. MASON. The reign of James the First would furnish a delightful chapter to our literary history. GRAY. Often Jonson was its great poetical ornament. while passing along Lincoln's-Inn Fields, has a vision of the poet, with a trowel in one hand and a Horace in the other, risen before me*. Let those critics who accuse his genius of heaviness, read one of his Masques. Many are acquainted with this species of composition only in the Comus of Milton; but some of the sweetest strains in the language, survive in the neglected verses of Decker and Chapman, whom Jonson regarded as his only rival. The melody of his versification is frequently * Ben Jonson, said Pope, was found reading Horace by the great Camden, and it was he who sent him to the University of Cambridge. delicious; his Muse glides along, like her who led "the Idalian brawls," As if the wind, not she did walk, Nor prest a flower, nor bow'd a stalk. Next to Milton, Jonson is the most learned of all our poets. He was ever recovering some precious relic from what Cowley called the drowned lands of antiquity. His Catiline is a wonderful specimen of classical acquirements. Every page is inlaid with fragments from the ancient authors. But his imitations are not servile or languid; he invaded authors, was the noble saying of Dryden, like a conqueror, and what would have been theft in another man, was victory in him. He gave a more healthy tone to our literature. Clarendon, who in his younger days, while studying for the bar, frequently met Jonson, has recorded the "severity of his nature and manners," and the reformation which he introduced not only upon the stage, but "into English poetry itself.” MASON. How delightful to have passed an evening with his friend, Lord Falkland, at his pleasant seat near Oxford, where he rejoiced to gather around him the most eminent men of the age. In that learned retreat, Chillingworth composed his celebrated work on Popery, and there too, frequently came the poet Sandys, from the residence of his sister at Caswell, near Witney, where he spent many of those quiet days which gilded the evening of his innocent life, according to his own touching narrative, Blest with a healthful age, a quiet mind full of gratitude to God, who had safely guided him during a long and perilous pilgrimage, and finally brought him back to that mother earth, on which his eyes had first opened, and on whose bosom he had always prayed to fall asleep. No contemporary name in English history has acquired an interest equal to Falkland's. He was the Sidney of his age, and will live for ever in the eloquent and affectionate eulogy of his friend Clarendon. His poetical merits were certainly small, though the verses prefixed to the Divine Poems of Sandys, contain some harmonious and spirited lines. But he was the lover, as well as the loved, of Poets. Ben Jonson, Waller, and Cowley, who formed an acquaintance with him at Oxford, awoke their lyres in his praise. And even the witty and licentious Muse of Sir John Suckling, mentioned his name with honour. His death crowned the romantic beauty of his life, and taught us to blend our . reverence of the patriot, with our admiration of the scholar. Falkland was one of those choice spirits whose festivities at the Mermaid, Herrick has celebrated with kindred enthusiasm. GRAY. We are unjust to Herrick if we view him only in the light of a mirthful lyrist. Sad and solemn thoughts are continually creeping over his fancy, and seem to have led him almost involuntarily to moralize his song. In his brightest landscape you see a tomb in the distance. He introduces the thought of death even into a love-song. You are the Queen, all flowers among, And die, you must fair maid, ere long, The lines to Primroses wet with morning dew, are inexpressibly sweet and tender,—so is the address to the Daffodils. Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; Has not attained his noon. Stay, stay, Until the setting day Has run But to the Even Song; And having prayed together, we Will go with you along. |