models from the Continent rather than of other 'Literary Follies' which are given a place in D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature. In passing mood, one can enter into the lusus of even such artificial trifles, and mark the skill of the Artist and the devotional feeling which informs them, so that a toy grows in the hand into a portent. To have a measure of difference between the poet-writer of such things and the mere mechanic of words, let the Student turn to 1. The Altar and to 102. Paradise, and contrast them with a later imitator, and more, Samuel Speed, in his 'Prison Pietie' (1677), as follows: "THE ALTAR. A broken Altar, Lord, to Thee I raise, O, make it Thine: Make it to groan; That so the same May praise Thy name. Melt it, O Lord, I Thee desire, With flames from Thy celestial fire; That it may ever speak Thy praise alone, (p. 72.) 'THE PETITION. Stand by me, Lord, when dangers STARE; Thou that from bondage hast me BROUGHT, And my deliverance hast ROUGHT, O Lord, to evil make me CHILL, So shall I need to fear no ILL.' En passant two things must be admitted to old Speed, spite of his plagiarisms from HERBERT and Jeremy Taylor and others: (1) That he returns finely on HERBERT his wish to be 'a weed' in his 131. The Crosse : thus: 'To make my hopes my torture, and the fee Is in the midst of delicates to need, 'THE FLOWER. O that I were a lovely Flower Or that I were a weed, to fade But how can I a weed become If I am shadow'd with the Son ?1 Sun. (p. 150.) and (2) that he had a chord of 'sweet-singing' of his own; e.g. On Contentation (in Prison): "'Tis not the largeness of the cage doth bring Notes to the bird, instructing him to sing. Moreover, though a bird hath little eye, Yet he hath wings by which he soars on high; Can see far wider and abundance better Than many an ox, although his eye be greater.' (p. 30.) Again, in Nature's Delight : "Though their voices lower be, Streams too have their melody; 1 'Son and Sun.' The play upon the word son-sun, repeated in HERBERT (see Glossarial Index, s.v.), occurs in GILES FLETCHER (Ch. Vict, on Earth, st. 18; our edition): 'Ay me, quoth he, how many yeares have beene, Since these old eyes the Sunne of heav'n have seene! There was nothing irreverent in this kind of serious punning, nor in Night and day they warbling run, Never pause, but still sing on." (p. 74.) Passing from mere outward quaintness, I must dispute Dr. G. L. Craik's dictum in respect of it. He observes: 'HERBERT was an intimate friend of Donne, and no doubt a great admirer of his poetry; but his own has been to a great extent preserved from the imitation of Donne's peculiar style, into which it might in other circumstances have fallen, in all probability, by its having been composed with little effort or elaboration, and chiefly to relieve and amuse his own mind by the melodious expression of his favourite fancies and contemplations. His quaintness lies in his thoughts rather than in their expression, which is in general sufficiently simple and luminous.' This is surely hasty and superficial; for the intricacy and variety of metres in The Temple, as well as the careful and nice Various Readings and corrections of the Williams and Bodleian MSS., evidence 'elaboration' and daintiness and persistence of art of a very remarkable type; as are found 1 The following is the full title-page: 'Prison Pietie, or Meditations Divine and Moral. Digested into Poetical Heads, on Mixt and Various Subjects. Whereunto is added a Panegyrick to the right Reverend and most nobly descended Henry [King] Lord Bishop of London. By Samuel Speed, Prisoner in Ludgate, London. 1677, 12mo.' In this volume, on pp. 102, 103 (bis), 104, 108, 110, 131, 137, 141 (bis), 142, and 143, are Poems by Bp. Taylor, bodily, or with very slight verbal changes: of HERBERT there are appropriation-imitations on pp. 72, 73, 93, 96, 97, and elsewhere. In mitigation, be it remembered (1) that John Speed was his grandfather; (2) that in the Epistle To the Devout he says: 'Some Creditors, severe as well as covetous, forced me to a confinement in Ludgate; where, the better to employ my time, I have compiled and composed this Manual of Meditations, which consists of Psalms, Hymns, and Divine Poems.' The sorrow is, that there are no marks to show what are 'compiled' and what 'composed.' 2A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language from the Norman Conquest.' 2 vols. 8vo, 1866 (Griffin). A sound book substantially. also with Sir Philip Sidney, and as indeed must be with any genuine Workman with poetic words. There is a degree of truth, perhaps, as to the quaintness being in the thought rather than in expression, but only in degree; for thought and expression alike bear the insignia of quaint thoughtfulness, swift and flashing o' times, but laboured on with fine after-patience, even when the form is as a cathedral gargoyle. There is this also to be borne in mind, that while the Age's character influenced Donne and HERBERT, their own minds were by nature adapted to the style of their Age. The Age fed and nourished their peculiarities, but did not create them. Their peculiar inborn characters-as later in Thomas Fuller—were in harmony with those of the Age. Hence, where there was no field for these peculiarities HERBERT and Donne failed; as the former in his 'Psalms,' and the latter in his 'Lamentations of Jeremiah.' By the way, with reference here to a quotation onward, from 'Antiphon,' as to Shakespeare having' cast off his Age's faults,' there is surely need for qualification. His mind too was in character with that of his Age, in the matter both of subtlety of thought and expression, and it was his excess of these 1 See our Essays in editions of DONNE and SIDNEY. In reference to the Various Readings of the Williams мs. (as given in detail in Vol. I. pp. 219-231, and as utilised in Notes and Illustrations occasionally), I should have liked space for a critical examination of them; but this I am compelled to leave to each student-Reader on the strength of the ample materials furnished by us. See especially the opening stanzas of The Church Porch (Vol. I. p. 219, 220), where surely the new lines commencing 'it is a rodd, Whose twigs are pleasures,' &c. (to notice no others) are very memorable. They may bear comparison with even Shakespeare's Lear (v. 3): 'The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us.' The Various Readings and erasures of particles and epithets are very noticeable. and his genius that elevated what would in others have been faults into graces.1 Dr. George Macdonald (in 'Antiphon') saw deeper than Dr. Craik, and with characteristic insight puts the quaintness and nicety, as thus: '[GEORGE HERBERT] has an exquisite feeling of lyrical art. Not only does he keep to one idea in it, but he finishes the poem like a cameo. Here is an instance wherein he outdoes the elaboration of a Norman trouvère; for not merely does each line in each stanza end with the same sound as the corresponding line in every other stanza, but it ends with the very same word. I shall hardly care to defend this if my reader chooses to call it a whim; but I do say that a large degree of the peculiar musical effect of the poem-subservient to the thought, keeping it dimly chiming in the head until it breaks out clear and triumphant like a silver bell in the last is owing to this use of the same column of words at the line-ends of every stanza. Let him who doubts it read the poem aloud: "144. AARON. Holinesse on the head, Light and perfections on the breast, Profanenesse in my head, Defects and darknesse in my breast, 1 Mr. Edward Farr, in his 'Select Poetry, chiefly Sacred, of the Reign of King James the First' (Cambridge, 1847), gives the following notice of GEORGE HERBERT in relation to Psalm v. : ""The divine HERBEBT" published his principal poetical work, entitled "The Temple," in the reign of King Charles, but in Playford's Music Book there are seven Psalms attributed to him which appear to have been written in the period to which this volume refers' (p. xvi.). It will be noted that Mr. Farr forgets that 'The Temple' was posthumously published, and that his reference to 'Playford's Music Book,' with so many issued by those of the name, is blameably vague, |