Lady. Shepherd, I take thy word,
And trust thy honest offer'd courtesy,
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds
With smoky rafters, than in tap'stry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was nam'd,
And yet is most pretended: in a place
Less warranted than this, or less secure,

I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.
Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial
To my proportion'd strength. Shepherd, lead on.

CHAPTER III.

THE Contemporaries of Milton and his successors lived, indeed, in evil times for literature. Sir William Davenant received from MERITOI UUURWOnWive ume pr tection, when Cromwell's party was in power; and was most nobly repaid by Davenant when Charles II. came to the throne. Davenant was the admirer of Shakspeare, and acquainted with the bard of Avon, though only eleven years of age when he died. Davenant was one of those men who to live was obliged to submit to public feeling and taste; and to cater for it against the best dictates of his own judgment. Davenant was a man of versatile talents, and served his country, or rather his party, in divers capacities, as dramatist, diplomatist, and military chieftain: for his military services he was knighted. There are many fine sentiments in his works, which will be long remembered. The taste of the times made him degrade his

.

genius, and give up to the hour what was meant for future generations.

To these succeeded Cowley: he was born in 1618. It was Spenser's works that made him a poet, or rather which developed his talents for poetry. Cowley was precocious as a poet, having made some respectable verses at the age of fifteen. He was noticed by the leading politicians of that day; and was employed as secretary of Lord St. Albans, who was his kind patron for many years of his life. Cowley was learned and tasteful. His measure is accurate, and his rhyme easy and sweet. He was the most mellifluous of all the tuneful throng. He had something of the restlessness of the poet about him, and sighed for retirement and the charms of literary ease. This is a common feeling; the sensitive mind, wounded by real or imaginary neglects and insults, longs for seclusion, and seems to dread the company of his fellow-beings; but deprive him of society for a few weeks, and he would make any sacrifices to get back to the world, bad as it is. Cowley wished to find quiet in the wilds of America ;-he might have found the greatest wilderness in a thronged city. In the thick forest man assimilates to every thing around him; in a city only to what he pleases. The longings of a poet are as capricious as the winds of April: his words are not be taken precisely as set down.

Dryden is a name far more familiar to us than any other of that age. He was born in 1631. He lived in a political and turbulent age, and naturally irritable, he partook of all the frailties of party spirit. He was a well educated man, having received his elementary information under that excellent, stern old pedagogue,

Master Busby, who believed most religiously in the virtues of a rod for lazy boys, and who brought up some of the finest scholars of his day.

Dryden was laureate and historiographer to Charles II, and pushed on his course with a variety of fortunes, with tolerable success, until the revolution of 1688, when his politics were out of fashion.

The satire of Dryden is often biting and powerful. He was most able, in general, when galled and injured. His muse was a party engine, and he seldom thought of quiet or literary fame, any farther than it could annoy his enemies. Still Dryden had a vigorous mind, and shot his arrows with a manly bow.

There are passages in the works of Dryden that will be quoted for ages, but as a whole it must be confessed that he is not now so much read, as he was by those who preceded us, and for good reasons. He wrought up events, political events, and party circumstances, into sarcastic wit and cutting irony, that sunk deeply then; but which circumstances and events are out of date now. So it must always happen to those who build their fame on local or transitory matters. It is the poet of nature alone who can survive the change of manners and the oblivion of passing occurrences. Juvenal is read, it is true, even now, and will long be a stock author, because his denunciations were against vices and the wicked, in general views, rather than against individuals who were soon forgotten. Avarice is a vice that is in nature, and will never be eradicated; but an avaricious man is soon forgotten. His heirs have no wish to have him in remembrance, and those whom he wronged cease to curse him when he is in his grave. Johnson has run a parallel between Dryden and Pope,

in which there can be no doubt that he has given the palm of genius to Dryden; but the critics of a later age have reversed the decision, or at least greatly modified it.

The finest specimen of Dryden's poetical talents is his ode on St. Cecilia's day. It is a most splendid composition. It is full of the inspiration of the muse, and shows a mastery over every measure of verse.

St. Cecilia's day was kept the 22d of November, and was celebrated from 1683 until 1744; and the odes on this anniversary called forth the talents of the first geniuses of all that period. It is not a little remarkable, that while this fair saint was considered as the inventress of sacred music, that most of the odes written for the occasion celebrated rather the ancient flute or lyre, than the instruments devoted to sacred music.

This lovely saint was not much known until the year 1599, when Pope Clement VIII, found the body of St. Cecilia with other relics in Rome, which had been slumbering for thirteen hundred years.

St. Cecilia was a noble Roman lady, who, in the early age of Christianity, suffered martyrdom. She was said to have excelled in divine music, and to have attracted an angel from heaven by the charms of her voice. The heavenly visitant attended her through her days of prosperity, and did not leave her when she was made to suffer. Some of the Italian painters, after the finding of her body, listened to all the legends then afloat in Rome about her, and it gave them another subject for their pencils. She is drawn with her attendant angel protecting and cheering her when in boiling cauldrons and suffocating baths; and sometimes he is seen plucking burning arrows from her vestal bosom,

that had been shot from the bows of the savage persecutor.

It is somewhat singular to observe that this ode, which ranks among the best ever sung on this or any other occasion, should celebrate the birth of demi-gods, the virtues of Bacchus, the force of pity, the power of love, and the fury of revenge, and not have one line on the religion St. Cecilia lived to practise, and died to glorify, and only a hasty intimation of her sacred power.

"At last divine Cecilia came, Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,

Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;

He raised a mortal to the skies,
She drew an angel down."

Pope's ode, which has been considered far inferior to Dryden's, is more religious, and if not so great in poetical power, is much superior in devotion, and more direct to the subject; but even he spends most of his powers on Orpheus and his lyre, but at last celebrates the divine vocalist and organist in true poesy.

"Music the fiercest grief can charm,

And Fate's severest rage disarm :

Music can scaten pain to ease,

And make despair and madness please: