But in truth our language is, and from the first dawn of poetry ever has been, particularly rich in compositions distinguished by this excellence. The final e, which is now mute, in Chaucer's age was either sounded or dropt indifferently. We ourselves still use either "beloved" or "belov'd" according as the rhyme, or the Ode to Chlorinda: or the sportive Epistle, as that to Bradshaw quarrelling with him for epistolary neglect; or in the picturesque Anacreontic, a fine specimen of which is his Ode entitled Winter. This poem Mr. Wordsworth describes, in his Preface, as "an admirable composition;" and he quotes the latter part of it as "an instance still more happy of Fancy employed in the treatment of feeling than in the preceding passages, the Poem supplies of her management of forms." The poems of Cotton have the same moral stain as Herrick's, with not less fancy but a less Arcadian air,—more of the world that is about them. The spirit of poetry was indeed on the way downward from "great Eliza's golden time" till its reascent into the region of the pure and elevated-towards the end of the last century, and a declension may even be observed, I think, from Herrick to Cotton, who came into the world about thirty-nine years later. His poetry, indeed, has more of Charles II.'s time and less of the Elizabethan period in its manner and spirit than that of Waller, who was but twenty-five years his senior. Cotton writes like a man of this world, who has glimpses now and then of the other; not as if he lived utterly out of sight of it, like the dramatists characterized by C. Lamb. There are more detailed corporeal descriptions in his poetry than in any that I know, of not more than equal extent; descriptions of the youthful body more vividly real than is to be desired, and of the body in age, when it "demands the translucency of mind not to be worse than indifferent" so full of mortality, or, what it grièves us more to contemplate than ashes and the grave, the partial perishing of the natural man while he is yet alive, that they excite an indignant disgust on behalf of our common humanity. That Cotton was 66 an ardent royalist," appears in many of his poems, and with special vehemence in his denunciation of Waller for his Panegyric upon Cromwell, which exhibits, in its features, all the ugliness, with some of the energy, of anger. If, as is said, the admirer of Saccharissa leant to monarchy in his heart, his poetic genius had a heart of its own, and a far stronger one, which leant another way; for both his poems on Cromwell have vastly more heart in them than his poetical address to Charles at the Restoration. And this the King himself, among whose faults want of discernment was not to be reckoned, took care to point out, enjoying, no doubt, the versatile poet's double mortification as much as he would have done the best verses. Cotton should have given Waller a receipt for writing as finely about an hereditary monarch, as about a king of “noble nature's crowning""-a Hero. Some men are worse upon the whole than they appear in their writings: there is reason to hope that Cotton, though an imprudent, was a better man than might be inferred from the tone of much of his poetry, which measure, or the purpose of more or less solemnity may require. Let the reader then only adopt the pronunciation of the poet and of the court, at which he lived, both with respect to the final e and to the accentuation of the last syllable: I would then venture to ask, what even in the colloquial language of elegant and unaffected women, (who are the peculiar mistresses of " pure English and undefiled,") what could we hear more natural, or seemingly more unstudied, than the following stanzas from Chaucer's TROILUS AND CRESEIDE. And after this forth to the gate he wente, Fro hennis rode my blisse and my solas: To ben defaitid, pale and woxin lesse That he had of himselfe suche fantasie. Anothir time imaginin he would That every wight, that past him by the wey, probably exaggerates the features of his earthly mind as much as that of many others exalts the heavenly part of them. The persistent friendship of Isaac Walton is a great testimony in his favor, and it might be conjectured, from the internal evidence of his productions in verse, that of all the poets of his day he was the most agreeable companion, the least apt to fly above his company though never lagging behind in any conversation. A memoir of Cotton by Sir Harris Nicolas is prefixed to the beautifully illustrated edition of the Complete Angler of 1836. This edition was published by Mr. Pickering, and, as his friend the Editor declares, is very largely indebted to his taste and exertions and biographical knowledge for the value which the volumes possess. I believe that Mr. Pickering intends to bring out a select edition of the occasional poems of Cotton.-S. C.] Had of him routhe, and that thei saien should, And thus he drove a daie yet forth or twey, Another exquisite master of this species of style, where the scholar and the poet supplies the material, but the perfect wellbred gentleman the expressions and the arrangement, is George Herbert. As from the nature of the subject, and the too frequent quaintness of the thoughts, his TEMPLE; or SACRED POEMS AND PRIVATE EJACULATIONS are comparatively but little known, I shall extract two poems. The first is a sonnet, equally admirable for the weight, number, and expression of the thoughts, and for the simple dignity of the language. Unless, indeed, a fastidious taste should object to the latter half of the sixth line. The second is a poem of greater length, which I have chosen not only for the present purpose, but likewise as a striking example and illustration of an assertion hazarded in a former page of these sketches: namely, that the characteristic fault of our elder poets is the reverse of that, which distinguishes too many of our more recent versifiers; the one conveying the most fantastic thoughts in the most correct and natural language; the other in the most fantastic language conveying the most trivial thoughts. * [Boke V. The first lines of the first stanza stand thus in the original: And aftir this he to the yatis wente and the first of the last stanza thus: This songè when he thus songin had sone.-S. C.J The latter is a riddle of words; the former an enigma of thoughts. The one reminds me of an old passage in Drayton's IDEAS: As other men, so I myself do muse, I will resolve you: I am lunatic !* The other recalls a still odder passage in THE SYNAGOGUE: or THE SHADOW OF THE TEMPLE, a connected series of poems in imitation of Herbert's TEMPLE, and, in some editions, annexed to it. O how my mind Not a thought, That I can find, But's ravell'd All to naught! Short ends of threads, And narrow shreds Of lists, Knots, snarled ruffs, Loose broken tufts Are my torn meditations' ragged clothing, To think how to unthink that thought again. Immediately after these burlesque passages I can not proceed to the extracts promised, without changing the ludicrous tone of feeling by the interposition of the three following stanzas of Herbert's. VIRTUE. Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; *Sonnet IX. [The Synagogue, a collection of poems generally appended to the Temple, has been retained in Mr. Pickering's edition of 1835. "They were first printed," as the Preface mentions, A.D. 1640, and have been, with much probability, attributed to the Rev. Christopher Harvie, M.A. The poem quoted is at p. 274 of the edit.—S. C.] A SONNET BY GEORGE HERBERT. Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round! Parents first season us; then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws; they send us bound To rules of reason, holy messengers, Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, Bibles laid open, millions of surprises; Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, The sound of Glory ringing in our ears: Yet all these fences and their whole array LOVE UNKNOWN. Dear friend, sit down, the tale is long and sad: To him I brought a dish of fruit one day, And in the middle placed my heart. But he (I sigh to say) T* |