To crown our transitory days, are these: Goods well possessed, and not possessing thee; A faithful friend, equal in love, degree; A breast well tempered, diet without art, A spirit not contentious, rash, but daring; A body healthful, sound, and fit for labor; A house well ordered, and an equal neighbor; A prudent wife, and constant to the roof; Sober, but yet not sad, and fair enough; Sleep seasonable, moderate and secure ; Actions heroic, constant, blameless, pure; A life as long, as fair, and when expired, A glorious death, unfeared as undesired. Wilmott, the biographer of Quarles, speaks of passages in his earlier poems, as reading "like fragments from an uncorrected copy of Pope's Essay on Man;" with native strength and roughness, but destitute of the polish and harmony of the later poet. Of the poem above, last quoted, we would say even more than this. We think it equal to the second-rate passages of Pope, and superior to the imitations of his followers; better, for instance, than Hayley could have done. In his analysis of Quarles, Mr. Wilmott has meted out to him exact justice. He concludes his criticism with this language: "There was nothing effeminate in his manners or disposition; he was often ungraceful, but never weak. *** His eccentricity was the ruin of his genius; he offered up the most beautiful offspring of his imagination, without remorse, to this misshapen idol. * His pencil rather dashed' than drew,' and he wanted the taste and patience to finish his pictures. He was sublime and vulgar, at the impulse of the moment. Sometimes, however, images of great delicacy fell unconsciously from his pen. Quarles' prose is excellent; his Enchiridion is worthy of Epictetus." It may afford matter of no little surprise to those who are unacquainted with the revolutions in literary taste, (as astonishing, in a different way, as revolutions in States or the changes of manners,) to learn that the poet Montgomery is a popular author with the readers of religious verse, (now a large body,) while, at the same time, Richard Crashaw, infinitely the superior of Montgomery, is barely known by name, except to a few poet, too, writing, moreover, with force antiquarian critics. Crashaw, a religious and delicacy, ( a rare union,) on the noblest theme of the Sacred Muse, is unknown to the very persons who, of all others, should study his works with attention, and might be supposed to read them with rapture. Montgomery bears to Crashaw about the relation that Pollock may be said to sustain to Milton. For our own part, we think the parallel a pretty fair one. Yet hardly a schoolgirl in her teens but has read Montgomery's Grave; and scarcely a scholar of even considerable culture who is at all acquainted with the rich fancies of this Delight of the Muses." The neglect into which the works of Crashaw have fallen, we cannot help considering but too strong a proof of the vicious taste of the public, especially in matters of poetry. The occasional quaintness that disfigures his productions, in common with those of Donne, Herbert, Quarles, the Fletchers and Cowley, (all of whom wrote a much larger proportion of fine than of indifferent poetry,) furnishes an apparently sufficient objection to indolent students of the religious poetry of the seventeenth century. But the excuse is a superficial one. Crashaw's best poems are quite free from these defects, and out of the small body of poetry he has left, the following poems are admirable and complete of their kind: On a Prayer Book, Music's Duel, Epitaph on Mr. Ashton, Death's Lecture on a Young Gentleman, the translations from Lessius, from the Sospetto d' Herode of Marini, and of the Dies Ira. In point of fact, a larger proportion of really admirable poetry still remains of Crashaw, amidst all his conceits and crudities, than can be furnished out of any popular poet in England of the present day, except Wordsworth. There is nothing in Leigh Hunt or Barry Cornwall, equal in richness of fancy and profusion of images to the Music's Duel of Crashaw. Of this fine poet, Hunt has written an admiring and acute criticism. The "Dies Iræ" is a flight above every poet in England now living, always excepting the reigning monarch of Poesy, whom we associate with the idea of Milton. The Epitaph on Mr. Ashton is nearer Pope than Mr. Rogers could approach; and the Poem on a Prayer Book is much superior to anything in Keble's Christian Year. Of these different poems the translations are, we believe, best known to the few who know anything of Crashaw. They are allowed, in every instance, to be superior to the originals, and display a force of conception and brilliancy of coloringa copious flow of illustration-a peculiar delicacy of expression that constitute the individual traits of the poet himself. assent to Mr. Wilmott's enthusiastic criticism, we still think he has, in a desire to exalt Crashaw, spoken with too much disrespect of the fine old strain of mingled Dread and Piety. Here are a few verses of the original; the perpetual recurring, similar endings, give some color to the notion that the monks invented rhyme. To Dies Iræ, dies illa, Crucis expandens vexilla, Solvet sæculum in favilla! Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando Judex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discissurus! Tuba mirum spargens sonum Mors stupebit et natura, Liber scriptus proferetur, The translation of the first book of our ears the mere sound of these the Sospetto d' Herode, by Marini, the founder of that school of false taste in words brings up an awful picture; how impressive must they be when chanted Italy, whose writers abound in "concetti," is a masterly performance. Cra- by a full choir, in a rare old cathedral. shaw's version is placed by Mr. Wilmott, Of Crashaw's Hymn, we quote several Crashaw's biographer and a genial critic, above the power of Marini. It is sufficient praise to Crashaw that Milton has borrowed from his poem. The soliloquy of Satan, in Milton, is evidently modeled on Crashaw. The character of Satan is painted in a similar way. Crashaw has not, to be sure, the wonderful concise power of the Bard of Eden. His stanza is loose, free, and flowing, but he has sublime thoughts and imaginations. His invention is exceedingly vivid, and produces even a feeling of awe. Instead of mangling this fine poem by extracts, we refer those of our readers who love really fine poetry, to the poem itself in Cattermole's Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century. The "Dies Ira" is a version of the solemn monkish canticle, a noble version too. Mr. Wilmott declares that, "to style Crashaw's Hymn a translation at all is an untruth; unless a picture wrought into life by force of coloring and expression can be considered a copy of a feeble and inanimate outline." With a hearty stanzas: THE HYMN, "Dies Iræ, dies illa," &c. In meditation of the Day of Judgment. Hear'st thou, my soul, what serious things that fire! before whose face O that trump! whose blast shall run O when thy last frown shall proclaim * Indicator, xxxii. And all thy lost sheep found shall be, Oh, hear a suppliant heart all crushed My hope, my fear! my Judge, my Friend! The anecdote is related of Roscommon, that on his death-bed he repeated the last two lines, slightly altered, with great devotion almost in the very article of death. This elegant-minded_nobleman had borrowed largely from Crashaw in his own poem on the Day of Judgment. Music's Duel is the old story of the rival contest between the musician and the nightingale, the latter of whom is overcome by shame and vexation at her defeat, and dies. The narrative is highly artificial, and worked up with admirable skill, equaled to the fabled musician himself, wrapped up in intricacy of metaphor, and gurgling into curious eddies, and rushing into involved mazes of harmony. The Hymn on the Nativity is without the daring sublimity of Milton, but full of a charming" pastoral sweetness, sung as by the shepherds." HYMN ON THE NATIVITY. Gloomy night embraced the place Where the noble infant lay; To thee, meek Majesty! soft King Temperance, or the Cheap Physician, a version of Lessius, is a neat and spirited copy of verses, of the school of Pope and Churchill, in moral satire-a pithy lecture on sobriety and temperance. The Epitaph on Mr. Ashton is excellent. Pope professedly copied the first part of it in his epitaph on Mr. Fenton. Pope could not have improved it, for it is in his best style, terse, ingenious, pointed. 66 Warton somewhere remarks that Pope was in the habit of extracting pure gold from the dregs of Donne, Quarles, and Crashaw," as if their poetry were mere dregs. In point of truth, Pope's gold was their silver washed over-their genuine flights were above anything in the leader in the artificial school of Poetry. With ten times the judgment of these earlier bards, he had not the half of their original genius. Pope's criticism on Crashaw, in a long letter to Henry Cromwell, is very characteristic of his French taste, his illiberality and bigotry, and the prejudices of his age in matters of poetical criticism, at the same time full of keen remarks, and in the main, at times, tolerably just. The Lines on a Prayer Book was admired by Coleridge, as one of the noblest poems in our literature, and such we think every genuine reader of true The Babe looked up and showed his face- poetry will confess it to be. In spite of darkness it was day. We saw thee in thy balmy nest, The shepherds more than they their sheep. The best account of the life of Crashaw is to be found in Wilmott's Lives of the Sacred Poets. The chief facts are, the religious conversion of Crashaw from Protestantism to Popery, perhaps as much a matter of imagination in him as anything else, though Crashaw was a man of rare and unquestionable piety,* and his friendship with the chief men of the age, Selden the greatest scholar, and Cowley the finest poet of his time. The short life of Crashaw was spent in poverty and distress. His loyalty to his king brought him to this condition, but his pious zeal kept him pure. Hazlitt has spoken ignorantly of the "hectic manner" of Crashaw. We suspect he knew him only by report. Lamb * In the temple of God, under his wing, he led his life in St. Mary's Church, near St. Peter's College, under Tertullian's roof of Angels; there he made his nest more gladly than David's swallow, near the house of God, where, like a primitive saint he offered more prayers in the night than others usually offer in the day.-Preface to the Steps to the Temple, 1846. VOL. III.-NO. III. 17 ought to have a paper on him. He deserved it at least as well as Wither. Crashaw has tenderness, fancy, occasional sublimity, frequent eloquence, considerable selection in phrases, and a fine ear for harmony. Cowley, at all times his friend, and who out of his slender salary supported him at Paris, and introduced him to the Queen who assisted him to the extent of her power, has left an affecting memorial of his admiration of Crashaw, in a generous strain, which came from the heart of a fine poet and a true man. "Poet and Saint! To thee alone are given The bard and rarest union that can be THE IDEALIST. A SOCRATIC DIALOGUE. Socrates, conversing with Ischomachus, an Athenian, unfolds the Idealistic, or Transcendental Doctrine. Place. The garden of Ischomachus, near Athens. SOCRATES. I have heard, Ischomachus, of your felicity, in this rustic way of life, and if you are willing, I would learn from your own mouth, by what care and by what arts felicity may be attained. ISCHOMACUS. My happiness, excellent sir, is not from any art or care, but from the favor of a god, who has given me a good wife, a dutiful son, and fertile land. Soc. If these should be taken away, would life be any longer desirable ? ISCHOм. Why, imagine the chance of such a miserable fate? Soc. I am not one of those who easily * 1. TRANSCENDENTALISM.-A faith in the being of certain principles of an eternal nature, regarded by the Platonic Christians as attributes of God, and as composing the image of God in man. Those who hold this faith, believe that conversion is a partial restoration of this original image. Consult Cudworth, Leighton, and other English Platonists. This is the proper "Transcendental" doctrine; so called because these principles, (Justice, Mercy, &c.,) transcend or exceed the understanding, and are given, by Divine favor, as intuitions of "Reason" only. The transcendentalism of Kant (who may have taken the idea and the word from Cudworth) differs not essentially from that of the English divines, but rejects the belief of miracles and tradition, as evidences of truth, trusting wholly to the intuitions themselves. It denies in toto the authority of intellect, and trusts nothing to sense or imagination, for a knowledge of sight. 2. "Transcendentalism."-A confidence in the sufficiency of the affections, the passions, and the imagination, to lead men aright, independently of duty, instruction, or other ethical aid. This kind puts the life or "soul of the world," instead of God. It is sometimes called Pantheism, or Sensualism. It adopts a philanthropic, and usually a democratic phrase. For examples, see the modern French novelists, and the current superstitions of the age. 3. "Transcendentalism."-The use of an affected phraseology, borrowed from the Greeks and Germans. Metaphysical bombast. Pseudo poetry, in which a metaphysical or mystical language is used, instead of picturesque expression. Mysticism. The |