subject, and by men of far greater attainments, and far higher powers. To improve, indeed, either upon the versification or the diction of our great writers was impossible; it was impossible to exceed them in the knowledge or in the practice of their art, but it was easy to avoid the more obvious faults of inferior authors: and in this way he succeeded, just so far as not to be included in Which shade and shelter from the hill derives, The four lines printed in Italics have been praised [The Reformation-Monks and Puritans.] The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease; nor consigned to oblivion with the "persons of qua. lity" who contributed their vapid effusions to the miscellanies of those days. His proper place is among those of his contemporaries and successors who called themselves wits, and have since been entitled poets by the courtesy of England.'* Denham, nevertheless, deserves a place in English literature, Here should my wonder dwell, and here my praise, though not that high one which has heretofore been But my fix'd thoughts my wandering eye betrays. assigned to him. The traveller who crosses the Viewing a neighbouring hill, whose top of late Alps or Pyrenees finds pleasure in the contrast af- A chapel crown'd, till in the common fate forded by level plains and calm streams, and so Den- Th' adjoining abbey fell. May no such storm ham's correctness pleases, after the wild imaginations Fall on our times, where ruin must reform ! and irregular harmony of the greater masters of the Tell me, my muse, what monstrous dire offence, lyre who preceded him. In reading him, we feel that What crime could any Christian king incense we are descending into a different scene-the ro-To such a rage? Was't luxury or lust! mance is over, and we must be content with smoothness, regularity, and order. [The Thames and Windsor Forest.] [From Cooper's Hill."] My eye, descending from the hill, surveys Though with those streams he no remembrance hold, The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil, * But his proud head the airy mountain hides *Southey's Cowper, vol. ii. p. 130. Was he so temperate, so chaste, so just? more ; But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor, Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name, In empty, airy contemplation dwell; Denham had just and enlightened notions of the duty of a translator. It is not his business alone, he says, 'to translate language into language, but poesy into poesy; and poesy is so subtle a spirit, that, in pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the translation, there will remain no thing but a caput mortuum; there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words.' Hence, in his poetical address to Sir Richard Fanshawe, on his translation of Pastor Fido,' our poet says That servile path thou nobly dost decline 322 They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame, The two last lines are very happily conceived and expressed. Denham wrote a tragedy, the Sophy, which is but a tame commonplace plot of Turkish jealousy, treachery, and murder. Occasionally, there is a vigorous thought or line, as when the envious king asks Haly Have not I performed actions As great, and with as great a moderation ? The other replies Ay, sir, but that's forgotten; Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year. This sentiment was too truly felt by many of the cavaliers in the days of Charles II. We subjoin part of Denham's elegy on the death of Cowley, in which it will be seen that the poet forgot that Shakspeare was buried on the banks of his native Avon, not in Westminster Abbey, and that both he and Fletcher died long ere time had blasted their bays.' On Mr Abraham Cowley. His Death and Burial amongst the Ancient Poets. Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. Old Chaucer, like the morning star, That pluck'd the fairest sweetest flower That in the Muses' garden grew, And amongst wither'd laurels threw. None knows which bears the happiest share; His modest fancy kept in awe. Song to Morpheus. [From the Sophy,' Act v.] Morpheus, the humble god, that dwells In cottages and smoky cells, Hates gilded roofs and beds of down; Come, I say, thou powerful god, Dipt in the Lethean lake, O'er his wakeful temples shake, Lest he should sleep and never wake. Nature, alas! why art thou so Obliged to thy greatest foe? Sleep, that is thy best repast, Yet of death it bears a taste, And both are the same thing at last. WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE. WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE (1619-1689) describes himself in the title-page to his works as of Shaftesbury, in the county of Dorset.' The poet practised as a physician at Shaftesbury; but he appears to have wielded the sword as well as the lancet, for he was present among the royalists at the battle of Newbury. His circumstances must have been far from flourishing, as, like Vaughan, he complains keenly of the poverty of poets, and states that he was debarred from the society of the wits of his day. The works of Chamberlayne consist of two poems-Love's Victory, a tragi-comedy published in 1658; and Pharonnida, a Heroic Poem, published in 1659. The scene of the first is laid in Sicily, and that of Pharonnida' is also partly in Sicily, but chiefly in Greece. With no court connexion, no light or witty copies of verses to float him into popularity, relying solely on his two long and comparatively unattractive works-to appreciate which, through all the windings of romantic love, plots, escapes, and adventures, more time is required than the author's busy age could afford-we need hardly wonder that Chamberlayne was an unsuccessful poet. His works were almost totally forgotten, till, in our own day, an author no less remarkable for the beauty of his original compositions than for his literary research and sound criticism, Mr Campbell, in his Specimens of the Poets,' in 1819, by quoting largely from 'Pharonnida,' and pointing out the rich breadth and variety of its scenes,' and the power and pathos of its characters and situations, drew attention to the passion, imagery, purity of sentiment, and tenderness of description, which lay, like metals in the mine,' in the neglected volume of Chamberlayne. We cannot, however, suppose that the works of this poet can ever be popular; his beauties are marred by infelicity of execution: though not deficient in the genius of a poet, he had little of the skill of the artist. The heroic couplet then wandered at will, sometimes into a wilderness of sweets,' but at other times into tediousness, mannerism, and absurdity. The sense was not compressed by the form of the verse, or by any correct rules of metrical harmony. Chamberlayne also laboured under the disadvantage of his story being long and intricate, and his style such-from the prolonged tenderness and pathos of his scenes-as could not be appreciated except on a careful and attentive perusal. Denham was patent to all-short, sententious, and perspicuous. The dissatisfaction of the poet with his obscure and neglected situation, depressed by poverty, breaks out in the following passage descriptive of a rich simpleton:- How purblind is the world, that such a monster, The following description of a dream is finely executed, and seems to have suggested, or at least bears a close resemblance to, the splendid opening lines of Dryden's Religio Laici :'— A strong prophetic dream, The heart o' th' microcosm, about which is hurl'd Born high, that robs me of my liberty? 324 ness and polish of modern verse, and hence a high, perhaps too high, rank has been claimed for him as one of the first refiners and improvers of poetical diction. One cause of Waller's refinement was doubtless his early and familiar intercourse with the court and nobility, and the light conversational nature of most of his productions. He wrote for the world of fashion and of taste-consigning The noon of manhood to a myrtle shade. And he wrote in the same strain till he was upwards of fourscore! His life has more romance than his poetry. Waller was born at Coleshill, in Hertfordshire, and in his infancy was left heir to an estate of £3000 per annum. His mother was a sister of the celebrated John Hampden, but was a royalist in feeling, and used to lecture Cromwell for his share in the death of Charles I. Her son, the poet, was either a roundhead or a royalist, as the time served. He entered parliament and wrote his first poem when he was eighteen. At twenty-five, he married a rich heiress of London, who died the same year, and the poet immediately became a suitor of Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester. To this proud and peerless fair one Waller dedicated the better portion of his poetry, and the groves of Penshurst echoed to the praises of his Sacharissa. Lady Dorothea, however, was inexorable, and bestowed her hand on the Earl of Sunderland. It is said that, meeting her long afterwards, when she was far advanced in years, the lady asked him when he would again write such verses upon her. When you are as young, madam, and as handsome, as you were then,' replied the ungallant poet. The incident affords a key to Waller's Icharacter. He was easy, witty, and accomplished, but cold and selfish; destitute alike of high principle and deep feeling. As a member of parliament, Waller distinguished himself on the popular side, and was chosen to conduct the prosecution against Judge Crawley for his opinion in favour of levying ship-money. His speech, on delivering the impeachment, was printed, and 20,000 copies of it sold in one day. Shortly afterwards, however, Waller joined in a plot to surprise the city militia, and let in the king's forces, for which he was tried and sentenced to one year's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of £10,000. His conduct on this occasion was mean and abject. At the expiration of his imprisonment, the poet went abroad, and resided, amidst much splendour and hospitality, in France. He returned during the protectorate, and when Cromwell died, Waller celebrated the event in one of his most vigorous and impressive poems. The image of the commonwealth, though reared by no common hands, soon fell to pieces under Richard Cromwell, and Waller was ready with a congratulatory address to Charles II. The royal offering was considered inferior to the panegyric on Cromwell, and the king himself (who admitted the poet to terms of courtly intimacy) is said to have told him of the disparity. 'Poets, sire,' replied the witty, self-possessed Waller, 'succeed better in fiction than in truth.' In the first parliament summoned by Charles, Waller sat for the town of Hastings, and he served for different places in all the parliaments of that reign. Bishop Burnet says he was the delight of the house of commons. At the accession of James II. in 1685, the venerable poet, then eighty years of age, was elected representative for a borough in Cornwall. The mad career of James in seeking to subvert the national church and constitution was foreseen by this wary and sagacious observer: 'he will be left,' said he, like a whale upon the strand.' Feeling his long-protracted life drawing to a close, Waller purchased a small property at Coleshill, saying, 'he would be glad to die like the stag, where he was roused.' The wish was not fulfilled; he died at Beaconsfield on the 21st of October 1687, and in the churchyard of that place (where also rest the ashes of Edmund Burke) a monument has been erected to his memory. The first collection of Waller's poems was made by himself, and published in the year 1664. It went through numerous editions in his lifetime; and in 1690 a second collection was made of such pieces as he had produced in his latter years. In a poetical dedication to Lady Harley, prefixed to this edition, and written by Elijah Fenton, Waller is styled the Maker and model of melodious verse. This eulogium seems to embody the opinion of Waller's contemporaries, and it was afterwards confirmed by Dryden and Pope, who had not sufficiently studied the excellent models of versification furnished by the old poets, and their rich poetical diction. The smoothness of his versification, his good sense, and uniform elegance, rendered him popular with critics as with the multitude; while his prominence as a public man, for so many years, would increase curiosity as to his works. Waller is now seldom read. The playfulness of his fancy, and the absence of any striking defects, are but poor substitutes for genuine feeling and the language of nature. His poems are chiefly short and incidental, but he wrote a poem on Divine Love, in six cantos. Cowley had written his 'Davideis,' and recommended sacred subjects as adapted for poetry; but neither he nor Waller succeeded in this new and higher walk of Waller's Tomb. the muse. Such an employment of their talents was graceful and becoming in advanced life, but their fame must ever rest on their light, airy, and occasional poems, dictated by that gallantry, adulation, and play of fancy, which characterised the cavalier poets. On Love. Anger, in hasty words or blows, Should some brave Turk, that walks among So the tall stag, upon the brink *On a Girdle. That which her slender waist confin'd On the Marriage of the Dwarfs. To him, for whom Heav'n seem'd to frame Thrice happy is that humble pair, As if the world held none but them. Does to his Galatea seem. Ah! Chloris, that kind Nature thus A Panegyric to the Lord Protector. 326 |