Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 57

O happy life, if that their good The husbandmen but understood!

Who all the day themselves do please, And younglings, with such sports as these; And, lying down, have nought to affright Sweet sleep, that makes more short the night.

SIR RICHARD FANSHAWE.

This gallant knight was son to Sir Henry Fanshawe, who was Remembrancer to the Irish Exchequer, and brother to Thomas Lord Fanshawe. He was born at Ware, in Hertfordshire, in 1607-8. He became a vehement Royalist, and acted for some time as Secretary to Prince Rupert, and was, in truth, a kindred spirit, worthy of recording the orders of that fiery spirit--the Murat of the Royal cause--to whom the dust of the _melee_ of battle was the very breath of life. After the Restoration, Fanshawe was appointed amba.s.sador to Spain and Portugal. He acted in this capacity at Madrid in 1666. He had issued translations of the 'Lusiad' of Camoens, and the 'Pastor Fido' of Guarini. Along with the latter, which appeared in 1648, he published some original poems of considerable merit. He holds altogether a respectable, if not a very high place among our early translators and minor poets.

THE SPRING, A SONNET.

FROM THE SPANISH.

Those whiter lilies which the early morn Seems to have newly woven of sleaved silk, To which, on banks of wealthy Tagus born, Gold was their cradle, liquid pearl their milk.

These blushing roses, with whose virgin leaves The wanton wind to sport himself presumes, Whilst from their rifled wardrobe he receives For his wings purple, for his breath perfumes.

Both those and these my Caelia's pretty foot Trod up; but if she should her face display, And fragrant breast, they'd dry again to the root, As with the blasting of the mid-day's ray; And this soft wind, which both perfumes and cools, Pa.s.s like the unregarded breath of fools.

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

The 'melancholy' and musical Cowley was born in London in the year 1618.

He was the posthumous son of a worthy grocer, who lived in Fleet Street, near the end of Chancery Lane, and who is supposed, from the omission of his name in the register of St Dunstan's parish, to have been a Dissenter. His mother was left poor, but had a strong desire for her son's education, and influence to get him admitted as a king's scholar into Westminster. His mind was almost preternaturally precocious, and received early a strong and peculiar stimulus. A copy of Spenser lay in the window of his mother's apartment, and in it he delighted to read, and became the devoted slave of poetry ever after. When only ten he wrote 'The Tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe,' and at twelve 'Constantia and Philetus.' Pope wrote a lampoon about the same age as Cowley these romantic narratives; and we have seen a pretty good copy of verses on Napoleon, written at the age of seven, by one of the most distinguished rising poets of our own day. When fifteen (Johnson calls it thirteen, but he and some other biographers were misled by the portrait of the poet being, by mistake, marked thirteen) Cowley published some of his early effusions, under the t.i.tle of 'Poetical Blossoms.' While at school he produced a comedy of a pastoral kind, ent.i.tled, 'Love's Riddle,' but it was not published till he went to Cambridge. To that university he proceeded in 1636, and two years after, there appeared the above-mentioned comedy, with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, one of the marvellous men of that age; and also 'Naufragium Joculare,' a comedy in Latin, inscribed to Dr Comber, master of the college. When the Prince of Wales afterwards visited Cambridge, the fertile Cowley got up the rough draft of another comedy, called 'The Guardian,' which was repeated to His Royal Highness by the scholars.

This was afterwards, to the poet's great annoyance, printed during his absence from the country. In 1643 he took his degree of A.M., and was, the same year, through the prevailing influence of the Parliament, ejected, with many others, from Cambridge. He took refuge in St John's College, Oxford, where he published a satire, ent.i.tled 'The Puritan and Papist,' and where, by his loyalty and genius, he gained the favour of such distinguished courtiers as Lord Falkland. During this agitated period he resided a good deal in the family of the Lord St Albans; and when Oxford fell into the hands of the Parliament he followed the Queen to Paris, and there acted as Secretary to the same n.o.ble lord. He remained abroad about ten years, and during that period made various journeys in the furtherance of the Royal cause, visiting Flanders, Holland, Jersey, Scotland, &c. His chief employment, however, was carrying on a correspondence in cipher between the King and the Queen.

Sprat says, 'he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand the greatest part of the letters that pa.s.sed between their Majesties, and managed a vast intelligence in other parts, which, for some years together, took up all his days and two or three nights every week.' This does not seem employment very suitable to a man of genius. He seems, however, to have found time for more congenial avocations; and, in 1647, he published his 'Mistress,' a work which seems to glow with amorous fire, although Barnes relates of the author that he was never in love but once, and then had not resolution to reveal his pa.s.sion. And yet he wrote 'The Chronicle,' from which we might infer that his heart was completely tinder, and that his series of love attachments had been an infinite one!

In 1556, being of no more use in Paris, Cowley was sent back to England, that 'under pretence of privacy and retirement he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation.' For some time he lay concealed in London, but was at length seized by mistake for another gentleman of the Royal party; and being thus discovered, he was continued in confinement, was several times examined, and ultimately succeeded, although with some difficulty, in obtaining his liberation, Dr Scarborough becoming his bail for a thousand pounds. In the same year he published a collection of his poems, with a querulous preface, in which he expresses a strong desire to 'retire to some of the American plantations, and to forsake the world for ever.' Meanwhile he gave himself out as a physician till the death of Cromwell, when he returned to France, resumed his former occupation, and remained till the Restoration. In 1657 he was created Doctor of Medicine at Oxford. Having studied botany to qualify himself for his physician's degree, he was induced to publish in Latin some books on plants, flowers, and trees.

The Restoration brought him less advantage than he had antic.i.p.ated.

Probably he expected too much, and had expressed his sanguine hopes in a song of triumph on the occasion. He had been promised, both by Charles I. and Charles II., the Mastership of the Savoy, (a forgotten sinecure office;) but lost it, says Wood, 'by certain persons, enemies to the Muses.' He brought on the stage at this time his old comedy of 'The Guardian,' under the t.i.tle of 'Cutter of Coleman Street;' but it was thought a satire on the debauchery of the King's party, and was received with coldness. Cowley, according to Dryden, 'received the news of his ill success not with so much firmness as might have been expected from so great a man.' There are few who, like Dr Johnson, have been able to declare, after the rejection of a play or poem, that they felt 'like the Monument.' Cowley not only entertained, but printed his dissatisfaction, in the form of a poem called 'The Complaint,' which, like all selfish complaints, attracted little sympathy or attention. In this he calls himself the 'melancholy Cowley,' an epithet which has stuck to his memory.

He had always, according to his own statement, loved retirement. When he was a young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays, and playing with his fellows, he was wont to steal from them, and walk into the fields alone with a book. This pa.s.sion had been overlaid, but not extinguished, during his public life; and now, swelled by disgust, it came back upon him in great strength. He seems, too, if we can believe Sprat, to have had an extraordinary attachment to Nature, as it 'was G.o.d's;' to the whole 'compa.s.s of the creation, and all the wonderful effects of the Divine wisdom.' At all events, he retired first to Barn Elms, and then to Chertsey in Surrey. He had obtained, through Lord St Albans and the Duke of Buckingham, the lease of some lands belonging to the Queen, which brought him in an income of 300 a year. Here, then, having, at the age of forty-two, reached the peaceful hermitage,' he set himself with all his might to enjoy it. He cultivated his fields, and renewed his botanical studies in his woods and garden. He wrote letters to his friends, which are said to have been admirable, and might have ranked with those of Gray and Cowper, but unfortunately they have not been preserved. He renewed his intimacy with the Greek and Latin poets, and he set himself to retouch the 'Davideis,' which he had begun in early youth, but which he never lived to finish, and to compose his beautiful prose essays. But he soon found that Chertsey, no more than Paris, was Paradise. He had no wife nor children. He had sweet solitude, but no one near him to whom to whisper 'how sweet this solitude is!' The peasants were boors. His tenants would pay him no rent, and the cattle of his neighbours devoured his meadows. He was troubled with rheums and colds. He met a severe fall when he first came to Chertsey, of which he says, half in jest and half in earnest--'What this signifies, or may come to in time, G.o.d knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging.' Robert Hall said of Bishop Watson that he seemed to have wedded political integrity in early life, and to have spent all the rest of his days in quarrelling with his wife. So Cowley wedded his long- sought-for bride, Solitude, and led a miserable life with her ever after. Fortunately for him, if not for the world, his career soon came to a close.

One hot day in summer, he stayed too long among his labourers in the meadows, and was seized with a cold, which, being neglected, carried him off on the 28th of July 1667. He was not forty-nine years old. He died at the Porch House, Chertsey, and his remains were buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and King Charles, who had neglected him during life, p.r.o.nounced his panegyric after death, declaring that 'Mr Cowley had not left behind him a better man in England.' It was in keeping with the character of Charles to make up for his deficiency in action, by his felicity of phrase.

If we may differ from such a high authority as 'Old Rowley,' we would venture to doubt whether Cowley was the best--certainly he was not the greatest--man then in England. Milton was alive, and the 'Paradise Lost'

appeared in the very year when the author of the 'Davideis' departed.

Cowley gives us the impression of having been an amiable and blameless, rather than a good or great man. At all events, there was nothing _active_ in his goodness, and his greatness could not be called magnanimity. He was a scholar and a poet misplaced during early life; and when he gained that retirement for which he sighed, he had, by his habits of life, lost his capacity of relishing it. 'He that would enjoy solitude,' it has been said, 'must either be a wild beast or a G.o.d;' and Cowley was neither. How different his grounds of dissatisfaction with the world from those of Milton! Cowley was wearied of ciphering, and his 'Cutter of Coleman Street' had been cut; that was nearly the whole matter of his complaint; while Milton had fallen from being the second man in England into poverty, blindness, contempt, danger, and the disappointment of the most glorious hopes which ever heaved the bosom of patriot or saint.

We find the want of greatness which marked the man characterising the poet. Infinite ingenuity, a charming flexibility and abundance of fancy, a perception of remote a.n.a.logies almost unrivalled, great command of versification and language, learning without bounds, and an occasional gracefulness and sparkling ease (as in 'The Chronicle') superior to even Herrick or Suckling, are qualities that must be conceded to Cowley. But the most of his writings are cold and glittering as the sun-smitten glacier. He is seldom warm, except when he is proclaiming his own merits, or bewailing his own misfortunes. Hence his 'Wish,' and even his 'Complaint,' are very pleasing and natural specimens of poetry. But his 'Pindaric Odes,' his 'Hymn to Light,' and most of his 'Davideis,' while displaying great power, shew at least equal perversion, and are more memorable for their faults than for their beauties. In the 'Davideis,'

he describes the attire of Gabriel in the spirit and language of a tailor; and there is no path so sacred or so lofty but he must sow it with conceits,--forced, false, and chilly. His 'Anacreontics,' on the other hand, are in general felicitous in style and aerial in motion. And in his Translations, although too free, he is uniformly graceful and spirited; and his vast command of language and imagery enables him often to improve his author--to gild the refined gold, to paint the lily, and to throw a new perfume on the violet, of the Grecian and Roman masters.

In prose, Cowley is uniformly excellent. The prefaces to his poems, especially his defence of sacred song in the prefix to the 'Davideis,'

his short autobiography, the fragments of his letters which remain, and his posthumous essays, are all distinguished by a rich simplicity of style and by a copiousness of matter which excite in equal measure delight and surprise. He had written, it appears, three books on the Civil War, to the time of the battle of Newbury, which he destroyed. It is a pity, perhaps, that he had not preserved and completed the work.

His intimacy with many of the leading characters and the secret springs of that remarkable period,--his clear and solid judgment, always so except when he was following the Daedalus Pindar upon waxen Icarian wings, or competing with Dr Donne in the number of conceits which he could stuff, like cloves, into his subject-matter,--and the bewitching ease and elegance of his prose style, would have combined to render it an important contribution to English history, and a worthy monument of its author's highly-accomplished and diversified powers.

THE CHRONICLE, A BALLAD.

1 Margarita first possess'd, If I remember well, my breast, Margarita first of all; But when a while the wanton maid With my restless heart had play'd, Martha took the flying ball.

2 Martha soon did it resign To the beauteous Catharine: Beauteous Catharine gave place (Though loth and angry she to part With the possession of my heart) To Eliza's conquering face.

3 Eliza till this hour might reign, Had she not evil counsels ta'en: Fundamental laws she broke And still new favourites she chose, Till up in arms my pa.s.sions rose, And cast away her yoke.

4 Mary then, and gentle Anne, Both to reign at once began; Alternately they sway'd, And sometimes Mary was the fair, And sometimes Anne the crown did wear, And sometimes both I obey'd.

5 Another Mary then arose, And did rigorous laws impose; A mighty tyrant she!

Long, alas! should I have been Under that iron-sceptred queen, Had not Rebecca set me free.

6 When fair Rebecca set me free, 'Twas then a golden time with me: But soon those pleasures fled; For the gracious princess died In her youth and beauty's pride, And Judith reign'd in her stead.

7 One month, three days, and half an hour, Judith held the sovereign power: Wondrous beautiful her face, But so weak and small her wit, That she to govern was unfit, And so Susanna took her place.

8 But when Isabella came, Arm'd with a resistless flame, And the artillery of her eye, Whilst she proudly march'd about, Greater conquests to find out, She beat out Susan by the bye.

9 But in her place I then obey'd Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy made, To whom ensued a vacancy.

Thousand worst pa.s.sions then possess'd The interregnum of my breast.

Bless me from such an anarchy!

10 Gentle Henrietta then, And a third Mary, next began: Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria; And then a pretty Thomasine, And then another Catharine, And then a long _et caetera_.

11 But should I now to you relate The strength and riches of their state, The powder, patches, and the pins, The ribands, jewels, and the rings, The lace, the paint, and warlike things, That make up all their magazines:

12 If I should tell the politic arts To take and keep men's hearts, The letters, emba.s.sies, and spies, The frowns, the smiles, and flatteries, The quarrels, tears, and perjuries, Numberless, nameless mysteries!

13 And all the little lime-twigs laid By Mach'avel the waiting-maid; I more voluminous should grow (Chiefly if I like them should tell All change of weathers that befell) Than Holinshed or Stow.

14 But I will briefer with them be, Since few of them were long with me.

An higher and a n.o.bler strain My present Emperess does claim, Heleonora! first o' the name, Whom G.o.d grant long to reign.

THE COMPLAINT.

In a deep vision's intellectual scene, Beneath a bower for sorrow made, The uncomfortable shade Of the black yew's unlucky green, Mixed with the mourning willow's careful gray, Where rev'rend Cam cuts out his famous way, The melancholy Cowley lay; And, lo! a Muse appeared to his closed sight (The Muses oft in lands of vision play,) Bodied, arrayed, and seen by an internal light: A golden harp with silver strings she bore, A wondrous hieroglyphic robe she wore, In which all colours and all figures were That Nature or that Fancy can create.

That Art can never imitate, And with loose pride it wantoned in the air, In such a dress, in such a well-clothed dream, She used of old near fair Ismenus' stream Pindar, her Theban favourite, to meet; A crown was on her head, and wings were on her feet.

She touched him with her harp and raised him from the ground; The shaken strings melodiously resound.

'Art thou returned at last,' said she, 'To this forsaken place and me?

Thou prodigal! who didst so loosely waste Of all thy youthful years the good estate; Art thou returned here, to repent too late?

And gather husks of learning up at last, Now the rich harvest-time of life is past, And winter marches on so fast?

But when I meant to adopt thee for my son, And did as learned a portion a.s.sign As ever any of the mighty nine Had to their dearest children done; When I resolved to exalt thy anointed name Among the spiritual lords of peaceful fame; Thou changeling! thou, bewitch'd with noise and show, Wouldst into courts and cities from me go; Wouldst see the world abroad, and have a share In all the follies and the tumults there; Thou wouldst, forsooth, be something in a state, And business thou wouldst find, and wouldst create: Business! the frivolous pretence Of human l.u.s.ts, to shake off innocence; Business! the grave impertinence; Business! the thing which I of all things hate; Business! the contradiction of thy fate.

'Go, renegado! cast up thy account, And see to what amount Thy foolish gains by quitting me: The sale of knowledge, fame, and liberty, The fruits of thy unlearned apostasy.