A History of English Literature

er ignes l

on, no very great accomplishment had been achieved. It was sufficiently evident that a poetic language and a general poetic spirit were being formed, such as had not existed in England since Chaucer's death; but no one had yet arisen who could justify the expectation based on such respectable tentatives. It seems from many minut

broke man), to The Shepherd's Calendar, that he went to his friends in the north after leaving Cambridge and spent a year or two there, falling in love with the heroine, poetically named Rosalind, of The Calendar, and no doubt writing that remarkable book. Then (probably very late in 1578) he went to London, was introduced by Harvey to Sidney and Leicester, and thus mixed at once in the best literary and political society. He was not long in putting forth his titles to its attention, for The Shepherd's Calendar was published in the winter of 1579, copiously edited by "E. K.," whom some absurdly suppose to be Spenser himself. The poet seems to have had also numerous works (the titles of which are known) ready or nearly ready for the press. But all were subsequently either changed in title, incorporated with other work, or lost. He had already begun The Fa?rie Queene, much to the pedant Harvey's disgust; and he dabbled in the fashionable absurdity of classical metres, like his inferiors. But he published nothing more immediately; and powerful as were his patrons, the only preferment which he obtained was in that Eldorado-Purgatory of Elizabethan ambition-Ireland. Lord Grey took him as private secretary when he was in 1580 appointed deputy, and shortly afterwards he received some civil posts in his new country, and a lease of abbey lands at Enniscorthy, which lease he soon gave up. But he stayed in Ireland, notwithstanding the fact that his immediate patron Grey soon left it. Except a few bare dates and doubtful allusions, little or nothing is heard of him between 1580 and 1590. On the eve of the latter year (the 1st of December 1589) the first three books of The Fa?rie Queene were entered at Stationers' Hall, and were published in the spring of the next year. He had been already established at Kilcolman in the county Cork on a grant of more than three thousand acres of land out of the forfeited Desmond estates. And henceforward his literary activity, at least in publication, became more considerable, and he seems to have been much backwards and forwards between England and Ireland. In 1590 appeared a volume of minor poems (The Ruins of Time, The Tears of the Muses, Virgil's G

herings-the first in English, but most wofully not the last by hundreds, of such overlayings of gold with copper. Yet with all these drawbacks The Shepherd's Calendar is delightful. Already we can see in it that double command, at once of the pictorial and the musical elements of poetry, in which no English poet is Spenser's superior, if any is his equal. Already the unmatched power of vigorous allegory, which he was to display later, shows in such pieces as The Oak and the Briar. In the less deliberately archaic divisions, such as "April" and "November," the command of metrical form, in which also the poet is almost peerless, discovers itself. Much the same may be said of the volume of Complaints, which, though published later than The Fa?rie Queene, represents beyond all question very much earlier work. Spenser is unquestionably, when he is not at once spurred and soothed by the play of his own imagination, as in The Queene, a melancholy poet, and the note of melancholy is as strong in these poems as in their joint title. It combines with his delight in emblematic allegory happily enough, in most of these pieces except Mother Hubbard's Tale. This is almost an open satire, and shows that if Spenser's genius had not found a less mongrel style to disport itself in, not merely would Donne, and Lodge, and Hall, and Marston have had to abandon their dispute for the post of first English satirist, but the attainment of really great sati

(each subdivided into twelve cantos, averaging fifty or sixty stanzas each) of Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy; while a fragment of two splendid "Cantos on Mutability" is supposed to have belonged to a seventh book (not necessarily seventh in order) on Constancy. Legend has it that the poem was actually completed; but this seems improbable, as the first three books were certainly ten years in hand, and the second three six more. The existing poem comprehending some four thousand stanzas, or between thirty and forty thousand lines, exhibits so many and s

f the poem. It is sometimes political, oftener religious, very often moral, and sometimes purely personal-the identifications in this latter case being sometimes clear, as that of Gloriana, Britomart, and Belph?be with Queen Elizabeth, sometimes probable, as that of Duessa with Queen Mary (not one of Spenser's most knightly actions), and of Prince Arthur with Leicester, and sometimes more or less problematical, as that of Artegall with Lord Grey, of Timias the Squire with Raleigh, and so forth. To those who are perplexed by these double meanings the best remark is Hazlitt's blunt one that "the allegory won't bite them." In other words, it is always perfectly possible to enjoy the poem without troubling oneself about the allegory at all, except in its broad ethical features, which are quite unmistakable. On the other hand, I am inclined to think that the presence of these under-meanings, with the interest which they give to a moderately instructed and intelligent per

arratives of very great length. But the most remarkable instance of harmony between metrical form and other characteristics, both of form and matter, in the metrist has yet to be mentioned. It has been said how well the stanza suits Spenser's pictorial faculty; it certainly suits his musical faculty as well. The slightly (very slightly, for he can be vigorous enough) languid turn of his grace, the voluptuous cadences of his rhythm, find in it the most perfect exponent possible. The verse of great poets, especially Homer's, has often been compared to the sea. Spenser's is more like a river, wide, and deep, and strong, but moderating its waves and conveying them all in a steady, soft, irresistible sweep forwards. To aid him, besides this extraordinary instrument of metre, he had forged for himself another in his language. A great deal has been written on this-comments, at least of the unfavourable kind, generally echoing Ben Jonson's complaint that Spenser "writ no language"; that his dialect is not the dialect of any actual place or time, that it is an artificial "poetic diction" made up of Chaucer, and of Northern dialect, and of classicisms, and of foreign words, and of miscellaneous

ecause the very last thing that can be said of Spenser is that he is a poet of mere words. Milton himself, the severe Milton, extolled his moral teaching; his philosophical idealism is evidently no mere poet's plaything or parrot-lesson, but thoroughly thought out and believed in. He is a determined, almost a savage partisan in politics and religion, a steady patriot, something of a statesman, very much indeed of a friend and a lover. And of all this there is ample evidence in his verse. Yet the alchemy of his poetry has passed through the potent alembics of verse and phrase all these rebellious things, and has distilled them into the inimitably fluent and velvet medium which seems to lull some readers to inattention by its very smoothness, and deceive others into a belief in its lack of matter by the very finish and brilliancy of its form. The show passages of the poem which are most generally known-the House of Pride, the Cave of Despair, the Entrance of Belph?be, the Treasury of Mammon, the Gardens of Acrasia, the Sojourn of Britomar

great work is looser, more excursive, less dramatic. As compared with Shelley he lacks not merely the modern touches which appeal to a particular age, but the lyrical ability in which Shelley has no equal among English poets. But in each case he redeems these defects with, as it seems to me, far more than counterbalancing merits. He is never prosaic as Milton, like his great successor Wordsworth, constantly is, and his very faults are the faults of a poet. He never (as Shelley does constantly) dissolves away into a flux of words which simply bids good-bye to sense or meaning, and wanders on at large, unguided, without an end, without an aim. But he has more than these merely negative merits. I have seen long accounts of Spenser in which the fact of his invention of the Spenserian stanza is passed over almost without a word of comment. Yet in the formal history of poetry (and the history of poetry must always be pre-eminently a history of form) there is simply no achievement so astonishing as this. That we do not know the inventors of the great s

Spenser's masterpiece may not have laid themselves open to quite so crushing a retort, they seldom fail to show a somewhat similar ignorance. For the lover of poetry, for the reader who understands and can receive the poetic charm, the revelation of beauty in metrical language, no English poem is the superior, or, range and variety being considered, the equal of The Fa?rie Queene. Take it up where you will, and provided only sufficient time (the reading of a dozen stanzas ought to suffice to any one who has the necessary gifts of appreciation) be given to allow the soft dreamy versicoloured atmosphere to rise round the reader, the languid and yet never monotonous music to gain his ear, the mood of mixed imagination and heroism, adventure and morality, to impress itself on his mind, and the result is certain. To the influence of no poet are the famous lines of Spenser's great nineteenth-century rival so applicable as to Spenser's own. The enchanted boat, angel-guided, floating on away, afar, without conscious purpose, but simply obeying the instinct of sweet poetry, is not an extravagant symbol for the mind of a reader of Spenser. If such readers want "Criticisms of Life" first of all, they must go elsewhere, though they will find them amply given, subject to the limitations of the poetical method. If they want story they may complain of slackness and deviations. If they want glorifications of science and such like things, they had better shut the book at once, and read no more on that day nor on any other. But if they want

cessary and even impertinent to give any extracts. Their works are, or ought to be, in all hands;

n it, and every kind (with the possible exception of the semi-poetical kind of satire) is well represented. There is, indeed, no second name that approaches Spenser's, either in respect of importance or in respect of uniform excellence of work. But in the most incomplete production of this time there is almost always that poetical spark which is often entirely wan

lished more than a dozen collections, chiefly or wholly of sonnets, and almost all bearing the name of a single person, in whose honour they were supposed to be composed. So singular is this coincidence, showing either an intense engouement in literary society, or a spontaneous determination of energy in individuals, that the list with dates is worth giving. It runs thus:-In 1593 came Barnes's Parthenophil and Parthenophe, Fletcher's Licia, and Lodge's Phillis. In 1594 followed Constable's Diana, Daniel's Delia,[24] the anonymous Zepheria, Drayton's Idea

ly in 1591; but the text of 1594 is the definitive o

rooke was not universally popular, and a very savage contemporary epitaph on him has been preserved. But he had been the patron of the youthful Davenant, and has left not a little curious literary work, which has only been recently collected, and little of which saw the light in his own lifetime. Of his two singular plays, Mustapha and Alaham (closet-dramas having something in common with the Senecan model), Mustapha was printed in 1609; but it would seem piratically. His chief prose work, the Life of Sidney, was not printed till 1652. His chief work in verse, the singular Poems of Monarchy (ethical and political treatises), did not appear till eighteen years later, as well as the allied Treatise on Religion. But poems or tracts on human learning, on wars, and other things, together with his tragedies as above, had appeared in 1633. This publication, a folio volume, also contained by far the most interesting part of his work, the so-called sonnet collection of C?lica-a medley, like many of those mentioned in this chapter, of lyrics and short poems of a

f a patronymic the same as his title) Samuel and Christopher Brooke, the

colours Myra dr

osies of her o

wn name in the

y wrought ere

n, in hope ti

ng back my turn

nday at the ch

with true love k

r about mine a

might know tha

ow an idle li

id for his loa

ear the ring h

ove she glorie

eyes her eyes

e her blush wh

flowers, blush, th

ighs till dead

drowsy Argus

y o'erwatchè

arnéd mode

, speaking, kind

a-cold while ot

hers in such fin

this that I

ter with her b

never write

ange when though

safely love as

nt a kiss: lin

ctness he would have been a great poet. As it is,

t, is of a milder strain. The inevitable tendency of criticism to gossip about poets instead of criticising poetry has usually mixed a great deal of personal matter with the accounts of Astrophel and Stella, the series of sonnets which is Sidney's greatest literary work, and which was first published some years after his death in an incorrect and probably pirated edition by Thomas Nash. There is no doubt that there was a real affection between Sidney (Astrophel) and Penelope Devereux (Stella), daughter of the Earl of Essex, afterwards Lady Rich, and that marriage proving unhappy, Lady Mountjoy. But the attempts which have been made to identify every hint and allusion in the series with some fact or date, though falling short of the unimaginable folly of scholastic labour-lost which has been expended on the sonnets of Shakespere, still must appear somewhat idle to those who know the usual

, might take some p

coup

s' leaves to see i

itful showers upon

den and spl

use, 'look in thy

may be looked fo

t towering soar of verse which

de her chief wo

why wrapt she be

e as obscure seems to me unreasonable. The equally famous phrase, "That sweet enemy France," which occurs a little further on is another, and whether borrowed from Giordano Bruno or not is perhaps the best example of the felicity of expression in which Sidney is surpassed by few Englishmen. Nor ought the extraordinary variety of the treatment to be missed. Often as Sidney girds at those who, like Watson, "dug their sonnets out of books," he can write in the learned literary manner wi

u, all song of

misty imagery, the stiff and wooden structure, of most of the v

om my Muse these

ast o'ercharged

! all song of

my song begi

s which marry sta

ys of Nature's c

! all song of

he heaven forg

s, where wit in f

t once both dec

! all song of

upid his crow

, whose steps all

om Fame worthy t

! all song of

er sceptre Ve

st, whose milk dot

h, that when it ch

! all song of

the tree of lif

nd, which withou

beauty with in

! all song of

all envy hop

ir, which looses

live then glad

! all song of

the flattere

ce, which soul fr

ours the bolts of

! all song of

not miracles

om my Muse these

ast o'ercharged

! all song of

y song begins

e songs-songs to music-which the age was to produce. All the scanty remnants of his other verse are instinct with the same qualities, especially the s

lls! let mourning

ove i

is dead

lague of d

ought wort

fair scor

ungratef

h a fema

that use

rd, del

s, weep! Do you

ove is

ed, peacoc

ng-sheet

False Seem

executo

ungratef

h a fema

that use

rd, del

ung, and trenta

ove i

his tomb

ess' mar

itaph co

were once

ungratef

h a fema

that use

rd, del

Rage hath th

is no

t dead, bu

unmatch

his coun

deserts

from so

such wit

can tem

rd, del

Translations from the Psalms express the same poetical faculty employed with less directness and force. To sum up, there is no Elizabethan poet, except the two named, who is more unmistakably imbued with poetical quality th

such an avowal of what he is too much disposed to advance as a charge without confession. Watson, of whom as usual scarcely anything is known personally, was a Londoner by birth, an Oxford man by education, a friend of most of the earlier literary school of the reign, such as Lyly, Peele, and Spenser, and a tolerably industrious writer both in Latin and English during his short life, which can hardly have begun before 1557, and was certainly closed by 1593. He stands in English poetry as the author of the Hecatompathia or Passionate Century of sonnets (1582), and the Tears of Fancy, consisting of sixty similar poems, p

en them by the way to know what Galaxia is or Pactolus, which perchance they have not read of often in our vulgar rhymes. Galaxia (to omit both

mis c?lo mani

abet, candore

orph.

endissimo candore inter flammas circulus elucens, quem

h hath golden sands under it, as T

nec Lydius aurifer

nt the virtue

her fame hath

tell how man

aven, which G

the moats in

ds whereon Pa

rts enforce m

st she shrouds

time will make

s she cure my

ife is doubl

d by sufferanc

ime she helps

ndertake to

h, as can di

Nilus breeds,

, his labour

and freeze 'twix

and yet confessedly representing no feeling at all. Yet the Hecatompathia is remarkable, both historically and intrinsically. It does not seem likely that at its publication the author can have had anything of

ust intombed h

gy, but it must be remembered that by their time Sidney's sonnets were known and Spenser had written much. The s

m (after Sidney) composed sets of rival poems, almost as definitely competitive as the sonnets of the later "Uranie et Job" and "Belle Matineuse" series in France. Nevertheless, there is in all of them-what as a rule is wanting in this kind of clique verse-the independent spirit, the original force which makes poetry. The Smiths and the Fletchers, the Griffins and the Lynches

east do not grudge their entry. As with most of these minor Elizabethan poets, Barnes is a very obscure person. A little later than Parthenophil he wrote A Divine Centurie of Spiritual Sonnets, having, like many of his contemporaries, an apparent desire poetically to make the best of both worlds. He also wrote a wild play in the most daring Elizabethan style, called The Devil's Charter, and a prose political Treatise of Offices. Barnes was a friend of Gabriel Harvey's, and as such met with some rough usage from Nash, Marston, and others. His poetical worth, though there are fine passages in The Devil's Charter and in the Divine Centurie, must rest on Parthenophil. This collection consists no

h father of

nd a wreath o

to beautify

softness, and whose

locks did

arland, whiles he

shadow with

ks, aye gilded w

he chief poetical work of that interesting person, except some of the madrigals and odd pieces of verse scattered about his prose tracts (for which see Chapter VI.) Phillis is especially remarkable for the grace and refinement with which the author elaborates the Sidneian model. Lodge, indeed, as it seems to me, was one of the not uncommon persons who can always do best with a model before them. He euphuised with better taste than Lyly, but in imitation of him; his tales in prose are more gr

ck do all the

aits as might

" exactly where they ought to be among the monosyllables of the rest. The madrigals "Love guards the roses of thy lips," "My Phillis hath th

my bosom

uck hi

wings he pl

th his

eyes he ma

idst my te

are his da

robs me o

nton! w

leep, then

etty fl

his pillow

velong

lute, he tun

plays, if

e every lo

he, my hear

wanton!

ith roses

hip yo

, when you w

our o

y eyes to k

ou fast it

our power no

t hereby

gain

beat the

many

epay me w

use

hou safely

y bower my

e eyes, I l

so thou

t, but p

n England's He

phil to him), son of the eighth Earl of Northumberland, and a retired person who seems to have passed the greater part of a long life in Oxford "drinking nothing but ale," produced a very short collection entitled C?lia, not very noteworthy, though it contains (probably in imitation of Barnes) one of the tricky things called echo-sonnets, which, with dialogue-sonnets and the like, have sometimes amused the leisure of poets. Much more remarkable is the singular anonymous collection called Zepheria. Its contents are called not sonnets but canzons, though most of them are orthodox quatorzains somewhat oddly rhymed and rhythmed. It is brief, extending only to forty pieces, and, like much of the poetry of the period, b

re, father o

ve, the Death

urse to true

ited, with thy l

uliar paren

dwife to a tr

ife, Nepenthe'

distilled, O

spirit of a g

r drawing Nat

fe, that Chao

eart from me, wi

es me cry, 'D

art, or take hi

d appeared partly in 1592, and as they stand in fullest collection were published in or before 1594. Afterwards he wrote, like others, "divine" sonnets (he was a Roman Catholic) and some miscellaneous poems, including a very pretty "Song of Venus and Adonis." He was a close friend of Sidney, many of whose sonnets wer

esence makes

her lips they b

aves, for env

hands in them

he leaves abro

n's and her po

of purple c

ood she made m

wers from her th

eath, their sweet

t which her ey

ound, and quic

with she watere

es, which she diss

the fashion of the day confined to the not wholly suitable subject of Love. In the splendid "Care-charmer Sleep," one of the t

Sleep, son of

th, in silent

uish, and rest

getting of my

ay be time en

of my ill-ad

s suffice to w

rment of the n

th' imag'ry of

the passions

ing sun appro

rief to aggra

eep, embracing

to feel the d

did much to establish the arrangement of three alternate rhymed quatrains and a couplet which, in Shakespere's hands, was to

rector of th

Sonnet XXVII., "The star of

ginning, "Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part," which I have found it most difficult to believe to be Drayton's, and which is Shakespere all over. That Drayton was the author of Idea as a whole is certain, not merely from the local allusions, but from the resemblance to the more suc

Thames, for ships

vern for her s

nt for fords an

to Albion's cl

ester vaunts

ders of her O

ve, whose banks

say her Medw

ends her Isis

ders boast of Tw

rts extol thei

a brags of the

t Ankor, let

dea only li

help, come, let

one. You get

yea, glad wit

cleanly I mys

r ever, cancel

meet at an

en in either

jot of forme

gasp of Love's

failing, Passion

kneeling by hi

e is closing

d'st, when all ha

fe thou might'st

nets to a series of six-line stanzas, varied occasionally by other forms, such as that of the follo

row mixed wi

pe, and hope

love, but a

was not lo

heart susta

t maids to

ts are not

e so ill

lost that is

s best that's

made for m

not to cause

I merit, le

ince that lo

n kind as s

een more stra

love not

hem hath we

th let them l

are of 'ha

mith's Chloris. Fidessa, though distinctly "young," is one of the most interesting of the clearly imitative class of these sonnets, and conta

ep! sweet ease in

iberty, and his

sèd heart! man's

Death, when Lif

is, and no

leep unto the

hat toils, and

af to hear; to

p! thou helpe

eep my soul i

sa that dot

ch; alas! thy

is! See, how

ht, he will no

ore elaborate in colouring but somewhat less fresh and genuine; while Chloris, whose author was

kes, even by a strong imitation of the same models. But in following those models and expressing those feelings, its members, even the humblest of them, have shown remarkable

It is my own opinion that the actual poetical worth of Richard Barnfield, to whom an exquisite poem in The Passionate Pilgrim, long ascribed to Shakespere, is now more justly assigned, has, owing to this assignment and to the singular character of his chief other poem, The Affectionate Shepherd, been considerably overrated. It is unfortunately as complete if not as common a mistake to suppose that any one who disdains his country's morality must be a good poet, as to set down any one who disdains it without further examination for a bad one. The simple fact, as it strikes a critic, is that "As it fell upon a day" is miles above anything else of Barnfield's, and is not like anything else of his, while it is very like things of Shakespere's. The best thing to be said for Barnfield is that he was an avowed and enthusiastic imitator and follower of Spenser. His poetical work (we might have included the short series of sonnets to Cynthia in the divi

appened: Death

t swilling Ba

ates upon the

ll of wine to

Death did lov

fall, and to t

th their quive

arrows-the one

f gold; Death's

yellow-Fortune

's quiver fell

upid by the

me time by ill

w out of Cup

carried by the

the amorous shaf

ed, Love took u

up Love's arrow

urse = "break,"

ion not to Oxford or Cambridge but to Douay, where he got into the hands of the Jesuits, and joined their order. He was sent on a mission to England; and (no doubt conscientiously) violating the law there, was after some years of hiding and suspicion betrayed, arrested, treated with great harshness in prison, and at last, as has been said, executed. No specific acts of treason were even charged against him; and he earnestly denied any d

er's night stood sh

sudden heat, which

earful eye to view

burning bright, di

essive heat, such flo

ld quench His flames whic

'but newly born, i

warm their hearts o

the furnace is, the

sighs the smoke, the a

ayeth on, and Merc

urnace wrought are

n fire I am, to wor

to a bath to wash

ed out of sight, and

èd unto mind that i

t are never, as Crashaw sometimes is, hysterical. On the whole, as was remarked in a former chapter, they belong rather to the pre-Spenserian class in diction and metre, though with something of the Italian touch. Occasional roughnesses in them may b

cumstances, in any quarter-century of any nation's history since the foundation of the world. In Campion especially the lyrical quality is extraordinary. He was long almost inaccessible, but Mr. Bullen's edition of 1889 has made knowledge of him easy. His birth-year is unknown, but he died in 1620. He was a Cambridge man, a member of the Inns of Court, and a physician in good practice. He has left us a masque; four Books of Airs (1601-17?), in which the gems given below, and many others, occur; and a sometimes rather unfairly characterised critical treatise, Observations on the Art of English Poesy, in which he argues against rhyme and for strict quantitative measures, but on quite different lines from those of the craze of Stanyhurst and Harvey. Some of his illustrations of his still rather unnatural fancy (especially "Rose-cheeked Laura," which is now tolerably familiar in anthologies) are charming, though never so charming as his rhymed "Airs." The poetry is,

fair, and t

as any

shepherd o

for a

d fair, and

as any

s fair for

no oth

is fair, my

bin the fl

love my

with Cup

change old

they change

hey that do ch

and fa

r and fa

an pipe, my

n many a p

lovely pr

merry ro

Cupid'

t do cha

el

ks time hath to

ft, O swiftnes

t time and age h

ain; youth wanet

youth, are flowe

ve, are roots,

w shall make a

ngs be turned

must now serve

yers, which are

m court to cot

sure of his u

saddest sits

swains this ca

earts that wish m

ouls that think

w this aged

sman now that w

el

d I change

nd love hat

ng to si

that that

his though

the per

l del

no othe

for pen

ng or

they wron

thy sweet

rich frui

ng can b

e of joy

uest ple

adore

hee what

thee wit

l befor

in B

thy though

thy hairs

thy frien

thy joys

e will y

e of je

rkness i

ures in

hat th' c

interpre

e will y

e of je

ery word

ry hidde

with gol

cannot b

will stil

e of je

n in B

me, my life

t in lang

no delay;

joyed, the

and take

being depr

sweetness

ttle worl

ds thy look

ure and e

, and make

me as heav

mp

int, follow wit

notes, fall at

in cloud of sor

her of my soul I p

orns my never

ing in her sight and

g still to her

rst, still she m

ve and music

er echo is and b

es pursue her s

they were breathed and

mp

ay, or a mon

s with a thousand

nce of a nig

es with as many

eauty, Youth, are

oating Love, are b

but toys! idle th

f an hour, in thei

point to the

to the world's

point of a po

in a silly poi

t we have, there

like streams through

me doth go! time

our states, both in

mp

at paid for

ers drank

now recal

a fool,

hat beat

to othe

alas, hat

! lero

that Da

false lo

pleasing

o her wo

rememb

the ot

alas! ha

! lero

s now can

makes me

ery am

for want

st a Worl

ly Heave

alas! hat

! lero

in A

rs, of few of whom is much known, contributed, not in all cases their mites by any means, but often very respectable sums, to the vast treasury of English poetry. There is Sir Edward Dyer, the friend of Raleigh and Sidney, who has been immortalised by the famous "My mind to me a kingdom is," and who wrote other pieces not much inferior. Ther

aw the grave w

emple where t

rn: and, passi

uried dust of

r Love and fai

y I saw the

ach the soul o

orth those grac

Queen attended

him down on

est stones were

ied ghosts the he

right did trembl

ccess of that c

here be that pr

while they ar

they meet a

meet they on

ese-the Wood, t

t that makes th

that strings th

retty knave,

boy-while thes

tree, hemp grows

meet, it makes

lter, and it ch

ess the

scallop-sh

f faith to

f joy, imm

le of s

glory, hope

ll take my

t be my bo

lm will the

oul, like q

owards the l

silver

g the necta

will

wl of

mine everl

ery mil

ill be a-

t will thir

he chose), and apparently a coxcomb (which is less pardon

her, shep

t do you

, shew to m

is Fon

t thou bo

and prim

et boy, wert

Conceit,

who was

th, in su

y meat and

, with gr

t thou the

d lovers

e wert tho

devoid o

ed thee th

h which lik

re is thy dw

e hearts

doth pleas

on beaut

hou think t

of my go

mpany di

rely, m

desire deli

s to li

ther tim

im unto

ire both li

and tim

nd Desire

no mate

loath, methi

h a one

ator has been able to tell us next to nothing, is almost miraculous when we remember that printing was still carried on under a rigid censorship by a select body of monopolists, and that out of London, and in rare cases the university towns, it was impossible for a minor poet to get into print at all unless he trusted to the contraband presses of the Continent. In dealing with this crowd of enthusiastic poetical students it is impossible to mention all, and invi

Soldi

nd, courageous youths

nd, abide the brunt

o and fro, that we mu

y place, and soldiers a

ood to do your Quee

ay, will make men

me, prepare your corsl

drum strike doleful

pets sound, which makes o

heard afar, and every

ut; bold courage bri

un: faint heart f

ights that spend the

ghts, your country's

dies' game, bring blemi

renown, with courage b

ise, when dastards sa

, we soon shall di

cry. Be packing mate

h: shame have that ma

stand, God will give

ed not doubt: in sign o

ong, good hap will

ell, for lusty lads

hun evil must dwell

the devil always do

h all your might, so shall

most praise, whose vice do[

n, a worthy crown

Heaven with Christ o

, would be better marked if lines 1 and 2 were divided into sixes and eights, lin

worse doggerel than his own, frankly confessing that he knew nothing about him, not so much as whether he was alive or dead. But his work, Howell's, and even part of Gifford's, is chiefly interesting as giving us in the very sharpest contrast the differences of the poetry before and after the melodious bursts of which Spenser, Sidney, and Watson were the first mouthpieces. Except an utter dunce (which Grove does not seem to have been by any means) no one who ha

ch were the already-mentioned Giles Fletcher; such Fitz-Geoffrey in a remarkable poem on Drake, and Gervase Markham in a not less noteworthy piece on the last fight of The Revenge; such numerous others, some of whom are hardly remembered, and perhaps hardly deserve to be. The other, and as a class the more interesting, though nothing actually produced by its practitioners may be quite equal to the best work of Drayton and Daniel, was the beginning of English satire. This beginning is interesting not merely because of the apparent coincidence of instinct which made four or five writers of great talent simultaneously hit on the style, so that it is to this day difficult to award exactly the palm of priority, but also because the result of their studies, in some peculiar and at first sight rather inexplicable ways, is some of the most characteristic, if very far from being some of the best, work of the whole poetical period with which we are now busied. In passing, moreover, from the group of miscellaneous poets to these two schools, if we lose not a little of the harmony and lyrical sweetness which characterise the best work of the Elizabethan singer proper, we gain greatly in bulk

e indelicate is, considering the manners of the time, quite ludicrous), and which may perhaps have been due to some technical informality. It is thought that he is the author of a translation of Plautus's Men?chmi; he certainly produced in 1585? a prose story, or rather collection of stories, entitled Syrinx, which, however, is scarcely worth reading. Albion's England is in no danger of incurring that sentence. In the most easily accessible edition, that of Chalmers's "Poets," it is spoilt by having the fourteeners divided into eights and sixes, and it should if possible be read in the original arrangement. Considering how few persons have written about it, an odd collection of critical slips might be made. Philips, Milton's nephew, in this case it may be hoped, not relying on his uncle, calls Warner a "good plain writer of moral rules and precepts": the fact being that though he sometimes moralises he is in the main a story-teller, and much more bent on narrative than on teaching. Meres calls him "a refiner of the English tongue," and attributes to him "rare ornaments and resplendent habiliments of the pen": the truth being that he is (as Philips so far correctly says) a singularly plain, straightforward, and homely writer. Others say that he wrote in "Alexandrines"-a blunder, and a serious one, which ha

miracle preserved

ons) did arrive to rig

d Stanley, and som

or better days, the

that Richmond was

d Cerberus, the cr

ons act at once

threats, entreats, an

rusteth, and he dr

in a trice, in him

nsented force, his

, finding his co-r

derly in all, had

mplices, their che

place (sweet friends)

d breath, or else unb

abled, and no t

ose works will act my

superlative ar

ndment as the Gerg

e biddeth so that

l honour him though

castrian, he, in Yo

h either ours, for n

long-lack'd weal, for

us! unto Whom I a

ous Richard set hi

even like himself, th

der Welshman with his

h rivals, and defe

antagenet, the crow

thoughts' (he touch'

metal: then beli

law than life, to

be his plea that cou

his words, and blow

hirsting blood, did

ters where he went, t

doubtful swords, the

another Senecan tragedy in verse. In prose he wrote the admirable Defence of Rhyme, which finally smashed the fancy for classical metres dear even to such a man as Campion. Hymen's Triumph, a masque of great beauty, was not printed till four years before his death. He also wrote a History of England as well as minor works. The poetical value of Daniel may almost be summed up in two words-sweetness and dignity. He is decidedly wanting in strength, and, despite Delia, can hardly be said to have had a spark of passion. Even in his own day it was doubted whether he had not overweighted himself with his choice of historical subjects, though the epithet of "well-languaged," given to him at the time, evinces a real comprehension of one of his best claims to attention. No writer of the period has such a command of pure English, unadulterated by xenomania and unweakened by purism, as Daniel. Whatever unfavourable things have been said of him from time to time have been chiefly based on the fact that his chaste and correct style lacks the fiery quaintness, the irregular and audacious attraction of his contemporaries. Nor was he less a master of versification than of vocabulary. His Defence of Rhyme shows that he possessed the theory: all his poetical works show that he was a master of the practice. He rarely attempted and probably woul

al poems proper may feel inclined to echo it. Of his sonnets one has been given. The splendid Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland is not surpassed

h a height hath

welling of his t

r nor hope can

èd powers; no

r malice pi

ace, or to dis

at hath he, fr

astes and weald

free an eye do

ower regions

storms of pass

od: where honour

afflictions

s stands upon

th; and only

nds, who do

the mightiest

on stately

e the fortune

ght: the ill-s

d the best fac

ompey lesser p

sees (as if

ower, whose caus

ce of right t'a

assions of u

n all colours

ds, and make hi

let deceit wor

ive base ways

guiding Provi

, and mocks th

'd with all th

reats, or with

proudly sits on

crying sins than

sad confusion,

esent for th

; that hath n

and knows the

eart (so near a

pity the pe

and distres

ke way unto

sorrows, and

n upon im

the course of

n not strange,

straught ambit

s'd; whilst as

d: whilst man

blood, and ris

itance of des

ting hopes: he

ore of peace,

o venture i

th this the passage

ber well, an

consent, Rosamond, which is instinct with a most remarkable pathos, nor are fine passages by any means to seek in the greater length and less poetical subject of The Civil Wars of York and Lancaster. The fault of this is that the too conscientious historian is constantly versifying what must be called mere expletive matter. This must always make any one who speaks with c

to have been a member of the University of Oxford, and appears to have been fairly provided with patrons, in the family of some one of whom he served as page, though he never received any great or permanent preferment.[29] On the other hand, he was not a successful dramatist (the only literary employment of the time that brought in much money), and friend as he was of nearly all the men of letters of the time, it is expressly stated in one of the few personal notices we have of him, that he could not "swagger in a tavern or domineer in a hothouse" [house of ill-fame]-that is to say, that the hail-fellow well-

sor Oliver Elton in Michael Drayton (London, 1905)

cied mistress which appeared later. In the first of these Drayton called himself "Rowland," or "Roland," a fact on which some rather rickety structures of guesswork have been built as to allusions to him in Spenser. His next work was Mortimeriados, afterwards refashioned and completed under the title of The Barons' Wars, and this was followed in 1597 by one of his best works, England's Heroical Epistles. The Owl, some Legends, and other poems succee

hundred and twenty-eight lines) show such uniform mixture of imagination and vigour. In the very highest and rarest graces of poetry he is, indeed, by common consent wanting, unless one of these graces in the uncommon kind of the war-song be allowed, a

the wind f

ltogether beyond praise. Drayton never, unless the enigmatical sonnet to Idea (see ante) be really his, rose to such concentration of matter and such elaborate yet unforced perfection of manner as here, yet his great qualities are perceptible all over his work. The enormous Polyolbion, written in a metre the least suitable to continuous verse of any i

ian hills enamoure

ly sought ambit

ke Brute) their hea

d themselves sole

Heaven as though t

disdain the bold

hill upon the

ith a crouch) to ve

a hill his prope

rom whence their

y appear'd so te

e forego a jot th

'd on him, to them

ce for glance, an

her hills which En

in saw himself

an part, respectle

isgrace expec

hat before (with m

oodly sight, him

clouds, like mourn

most hope attend

us nymphs, fair Te

belov'd, and two

but them, they h

tual joy might ei

ret breast conce

eir streams, for him

ming down, when p

er heart in his s

resolv'd, that d

d not yet all fro

'brave flood, tho' fo

s friend, or mine th

ine ear my just d

the command displayed in that masterpiece. In fact, if ever there was a poet who could write, and write, perhaps beautifully, certainly well, about any conceivable broomstick in almost any conceivable manner, that poet was Drayton. His historical poems, which are inferior in bulk only to the huge Polyolbion, contain a great deal of most admirable work. They consist of three divisions-The Barons' Wars in eight-lined stanzas, the Heroic Epistles (suggested, of course, by Ovid, though anything but Ovidian) in heroic couplets, The Miseries of Queen Margaret in the same stanza as The Barons' Wars, and Four Legends in stanzas of various form and range. That this mass of work should possess, or should, indeed, admit of the charms of poetry which distinguish The Fa?rie Queene would be impossible, even if Drayton had been Spenser, which he was

erable master of the earlier form of couplet), and the fact that a personal interest is infused in each, give them a great advantage; and, as always, passages of great merit are not infrequent. Finally, Drayton must have the praise (surely not quite irrelevant) of a most ardent and lofty spirit of patriotism. Never was there a better Englishman, and as his love of his country spirited him up to the brilliant effort of the Ballad of Agincourt, so it sustained him t

ntroversy about priority in literary styles has been stimulated, in the case

w me w

econd Englis

own verses of Walter Raleigh. It is written in blank verse, and is a rather rambling commentary on the text vanitas vanitatum, but it expressly calls itself a satire and answers sufficiently well to the description. More immediate and nearer examples were to be found in the Satires of Donne and Lodge. The first named were indeed, like the other poetical works of their marvellously gifted writer, not published till many years after; but universal tradition ascribes the whole of Donne's profane poems to his early youth, and one document exists which distinctly dates "John Donne, his Satires," as early as 1593. We shall therefore deal with them, as with the other closely connected work of their author, here and in this chapter. But there has to be mentioned first the feebler but chronologically more certain work of Thomas Lodge, A Fig for Momus, which fulfils both the requirements of known date and of composition in couplets. It appeared in 1595, two years before Hall, and is of the latest and weakest of Lodge's verse work. It was written or at least produced when he was just abandoning his literary and adventurous career and settling down as a

the capable imagination-Donne is surpassed by no poet of any language, and equalled by few. That he has obvious and great defects, that he is wholly and in all probability deliberately careless of formal smoothness, that he adopted the fancy of his time for quaint and recondite expression with an almost perverse vigour, and set the example of the topsy-turvified conceits which came to a climax in Crashaw and Cleveland, that he is almost impudently licentious in thought and imagery at times, that he alternates the highest poetry with the lowest doggerel, the noblest thought with the most trivial crotchet-all this is t

ruled as h

sal monarc

en, his successor in the same monarchy, while declining to allow him the praise of "the best poet" (that is, the most exact fol

rsities and at Lincoln's Inn, a traveller, a man of pleasure, a law-student, a soldier, and probably for a time a member of the Roman Church, he seems just

line us to assign them to youth, and though some of his epistles, and many of his miscellaneous poems, are penetrated with a quieter and more reflective spirit, the richness of fancy in them, as well as the amatory character of many, perhaps the majority, favour a similar attribution. All alike display Donne's peculiar poetical quality-the fiery imagination shining in dark places, the magical illumination of obscure and shadowy thoughts w

bright hair a

g interred ske

k with some ol

e the god of l

gery mixed with touches (only touches here) of the passion which had distinguished the author earlier (for the Anatomy is not an early work), and with religious and philosophical meditation, makes the strangest amalgam-shot through, however, as always, with the

for nothing

broke this

as a

uch too stron

ou wak'dst m

rok'st not, but

e, that thought

true, and fab

for since thou t

l my dream, let

ing or a t

nd not thy no

though

truth) an angel

saw thou sa

thoughts beyond

what I dreamt, the

ould wake me, a

, it could not

ink thee anyt

staying show

makes me do

rt not

ak where fears

spirit, pur

of fear, shame

torches which

ut out, so thou

kindle, goest

hope again, or

sty iron! so

orse name, if

as, when justi

s sold dear

es and duties,

h you sweat and

nds; so contr

ngelica, the s

the judge's

t to resist

appeal? power of

rst main head, an

y suck thee

halters. But

are complain, a

eam upwards whe

faint; and in t

should'st compla

s, o'er which wh

golden bridges,

ld was drowned

air body no s

might well be

she, whose ri

her beauties,

ch as they we

e body (if w

d to so high

treasure, ea

fric, and th

und, or what i

e made this l

r some one pa

ts, whose plent

twenty such w

hey known, who

ngels and ass

cities, and

, offices, a

everal man, t

giv'n her one

soul if we may

th' electru

s of that;

t; her pure and

eeks, and so di

almost say, h

ichly and large

slow-paced snai

rison earth, n

lst we bear our

and by every catholic student of English literature should be regarded with a respect only "this si

ne is not quite free from this fault, he is much freer than either of his contemporaries, Regnier or Hall. And the rough vigour of his sketches and single lines is admirable. Yet it is as rough as it is vigorous; and the breakneck versification and contorted phrase of his satires, softened a little in Hall, roughened again and to a much greater degree in Marston, and reaching, as far as phrase goes, a rare extreme in the Transformed Metamorphosis of Cyril Tourneur, have been the subject of a great deal of discussion. It is now agreed by all the best authorities that it would be a mistake to consider this roughness unintentional or merely clumsy, and that it sprung, at any rate in great degree, from an idea that the ancients intended the Satura to be written in somewhat unpolished verse, as well as from a following of the style of Persius, the m

nearly the foulest, if not quite the foulest writer of any English classic, gives himself the airs of the most sensitive puritan; Hall, with a little less of this contrast, sins considerably in the same way, and adds to his delinquencies a most petulant and idle attempt to satirise from the purely literary point of view writers who are a whole head and shoulders above himself. And these two, fo

altogether fortunately for the younger and greater man of letters, with John Milton. His Satires belong to his early Cambridge days, and to the last decade of the sixteenth century. They have on the whole been rather overpraised, though the variety of their matter and the abundance of reference to interesting social traits of the time to some extent redeem them. The worst point about them, as already noted, is the stale and commonplace impertinence with which their author, unlike the best breed of young poets and men of letters, attempts to satirise his literary betters; while they are to some extent at any r

ire would gla

some trencher

n that might in

d stand to go

e lie upon th

ng master liet

he do, on n

e to sit ab

never change hi

e use all comm

ls, and one hal

never his youn

ask his moth

he would his bre

erv'd he coul

marks and w

"-trisyllable

ssing s

el, entitled The Scourge of Villainy. In these works he called himself "W. Kinsayder," a pen-name for which various explanations have been given. It is characteristic and rather comical that, while both the earlier Satires and The Scourge denounce lewd verse most fullmouthedly, Pigmalion's Image is a poem in the Venus and Adonis style which is certainly not inferior to its fellows in luscious descriptions. It was, in fact, with the Satires and much similar work, formally condemned and burnt in 1599. Both in Hall and in Marston industrious commentators have striven hard to identify the personages of the satire with famous living writers, and there may be a chance that some at least of their identifications (as of Marston's Tubrio with Marlowe) are correct. But the exaggeration and insincerity, the deliberate "society-journalism" (to adopt a detestable phrase for a

rgons, wide-m

Proteans, dam

ad, is Rada

are unto Jove'

nusia spent he

strive on Heb

lo's quiver

e your darin

ain, yet his

vine Astrea

rn and wit

orld with str

its in that

elong unto M

bs! O cat

pomp to Tr

, who cele

heaven, there

odies with a

ht the depth o

ll, and vulture

ch deep phil

rtal

tiric touches of Marston's own plays, when he was not cr

n the same track. There is the same exaggeration, the same petulant ill-nature, the same obscurity of phrase and ungainliness of verse, and the same general insincerity. But the fine flower

lake a bridge

male shape a

, or views her b

reaving gloze

es a worldling

at doth seem th

ith Leucrocut

an entry to

flowers of t

Lark, and night'

e their pleas

to the bitt

m will scarce t

oy, and there in

eto adjoins a

air adorned t

im at sin-a

hadows hath his

ver shall his

n still feeds hi

nt hand him hal

ite certain, that Leucrocutanized refers to one of the Fauna of fancy,-a monster tha

removed from the clear philosophy and th