A dreadful thunder-clap at last he heard, On the green banks, which that fair stream inbound, And through the grove one channel passage found; And so exchang'd their moisture and their shade. SIR JOHN HARRINGTON. The first translator of Ariosto into English was SIR JOHN HARRINGTON, a courtier of the reign of Elizabeth, and also god-son of the queen. He was the son of John Harrington, Esq., the poet already noticed. Sir John wrote a collection of epigrams, and a Brief View of the Church, in which he reprobates the marriage of bishops. He is supposed to have died about the year 1612. The translation from Ariosto is poor and prosaic, but some of his epigrams are pointed. Of Treason. Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason? For if it prosper none dare call it treason. Of Fortune. Fortune, men say, doth give too much to many, But yet she never gave enough to any. Against Writers that carp at other Men's Books. The readers and the hearers like my books, But yet some writers cannot them digest; But what care I for when I make a feast I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks. Of a Precise Tailor. A tailor, thought a man of upright dealing- He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly; This done (I scant can tell the rest for laughter) A to the service of the Earl of Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth, but had the sagacity to foresee the fate of that nobleman, and to elude its consequences by withdrawing in time from the kingdom. Having afterwards gained the friendship of King James, by communicating the secret of a conspiracy formed against him, while yet only king of Scotland, he was employed by that monarch, when he ascended the English throne, as ambassador to Venice. versatile and lively mind qualified Sir Henry in an eminent degree for this situation, of the duties of which we have his own idea in the well-known punning expression, in which he defines an ambassador to be an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.' He ultimately took orders, to qualify himself to be provost of Eton, in which situation he died in 1639, in the seventy-second year of his age. His writings were published in 1651, under the title of Reliquiae Wottoniana; and a memoir of his very curious life has been published by Izaak Walton. To his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia. That warble forth dame Nature's lays, By your weak accents! what's your praise You violets that first appear, By your pure purple mantles known, In form and beauty of her mind; A Farewell to the Vanities of the World. And torture free-born minds; embroider'd trains * * Welcome, pure thoughts, welcome, ye silent groves, How deepest wounds are given by praise; SHAKSPEARE. SHAKSPEARE, as a writer of miscellaneous poetry, claims now to be noticed, and, with the exception of the Faery Queen, there are no poems of the reign of Elizabeth equal to those productions to which the great dramatist affixed his name. In 1593, when the poet was in his twenty-ninth year, appeared his Venus and Adonis, and in the following year his Rape of Lucrece, both dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. I know not,' says the modest poet, in his first dedication, how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen; only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear [till] so barren a land.' The allusion to idle hours' seems to point to the author's profession of an actor, in which capacity he had probably attracted the attention of the Earl of Southampton; but it is not so easy to understand how the Venus and Adonis was the first heir of his invention,' unless we believe that it had been written in early life, or that his dramatic labours had then been confined to the adaptation of old plays, not the writing of new ones, for the stage. There is a tradition, that the Earl of Southampton on one occasion presented Shakspeare with L.1000, to complete a purchase which he wished to make. The gift was munificent, but the sum has probably been exaggerated. The Venus and Adonis is a glowing and essentially dramatic version of the well-known mythological story, full of fine descriptive passages, but objectionable on the score of licentiousness. Warton has shown that it gave offence, at the time of its publication, on account of the excessive warmth of its colouring. The Rape of Lucrece is less animated, and is perhaps an inferior poem, though, from the boldness of its figurative expressions, and its tone of dignified pathos and reflection, it is more like the hasty sketch of a great poet. The sonnets of Shakspeare were first printed in 1609, by Thomas Thorpe, a bookseller and publisher of the day, who prefixed to the volume the following enigmatical dedication:- To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr W. H., all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet, wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth, T. T.' The sonnets are 154 in number. They are, with the exception of twenty-eight, addressed to some male object, whom the poet addresses in a style of affection, love, and idolatry, remarkable, even in the reign of Elizabeth, for its extravagant and enthusiastic character. Though printed continuously, it is obvious that the sonnets were written at different times, with long intervals between the dates of composition; and we know that, previous to 1598, Shakspeare had tried this species of composition, for Meres in that year alludes to his sugared sonnets among his private friends.' We almost wish, with Mr Hallam, that Shakspeare had not written these sonnets, beautiful as many of them are in language and imagery. They represent him in a character foreign to that in which we love to regard him, as modest, virtuous, self-confiding, and independent. His excessive and elaborate praise of youthful beauty in a man seems derogatory to his genius, and savours of adulation; and when we find him excuse this friend for robbing him of his mistress-a married female-and subjecting his noble spirit to all the pangs of jealousy, of guilty love, and blind misplaced attachment, it is painful and difficult to believe that all this weakness and folly can be associated with the name of Shakspeare, and still more, that he should record it in verse which he believed would descend to future ages Not marble, not the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. Some of the sonnets may be written in a feigned character, and merely dramatic in expression; but in others, the poet alludes to his profession of an actor, and all bear the impress of strong passion and deep sincerity. A feeling of premature age seems to have crept on Shakspeare That time of year thou may'st in me behold Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. He laments his errors with deep and penitential sorrow, summoning up things past to the sessions of sweet silent thought,' and exhibiting the depths of a spirit solitary in the very vastness of its sympathies.' The W. H.' alluded to by Thorpe, the publisher, has been recently conjectured to be William Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke, who (as appears from the dedication of the first folio of 1623) was one of Shakspeare's patrons. This conjecture has received the assent of Mr Hallam and others; and the author of an ingenious work on the sonnets, Mr C. Armitage Brown, has supported it with much plausibility. Herbert was in his | eighteenth year, when Meres first notices the sonnets in 1598; he was learned, of literary taste, and gallant character, but of licentious life. The sonnets convey the idea, that the person to whom they were addressed was of high rank, as well as personal beauty and accomplishments. We know of only one objection to this theory-the improbability that the publisher would address William Herbert, then Earl of Pembroke, and a Knight of the Garter, as Mr W. H.' Herbert succeeded his father in the earldom in 1601, while the sonnets, as published by Thorpe, bear the date, as already stated, of 1609. The composition of these mysterious productions evinces Shakspeare's great facility in versification of a difficult order, and they display more intense feeling and passion than either of his classical poems. They have the conceits and quaint turns of expression, then common, particularly in the sonnet; but they rise to far higher flights of genuine poetry than will be found in any other poet of the day, and they contain many traces of his philosophical and reflective spirit. [The Horse of Adonis.] Look, when a painter would surpass the life, 1 To bid the wind a base: i. e. to challenge the wind to contend with him in speed: base--prison-base, or prison-bars, was a rustic game, consisting chiefly in running. For through his mane and tail the high wind sings, Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings. [Venus's Prophecy after the Death of Adonis.] Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy, Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend; It shall be waited on with jealousy, Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end, Ne'er settled equally, but high or low : That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe. It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud, Bud and be blasted in a breathing while, The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile. The strongest body shall it make most weak, Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak. It shall be sparing, and too full of riot, The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet, Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures; pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures; It shall be raging mad, and silly mild, Make the young old, the old become a child. It shall suspect, where is no cause of fear; It shall not fear, where it should most mistrust; It shall be merciful, and too severe, And most deceiving when it seems most just: Perverse it shall be, when it seems most toward, Put fear to valour, courage to the coward. It shall be cause of war, and dire events, And set dissension 'twixt the son and sire: Subject and servile to all discontents, As dry combustious matter is to fire. Sith in his prime, death doth my love destroy, They that love best, their love shall not enjoy. [Selections from Shakspeare's Sonnets.] Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink When to the sessions of sweet silent thought For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; Let me not to the marriage of true minds That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. When summer's breath their masked buds discloses ; Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made; When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth. No longer mourn for me when I am dead, From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell! Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; And do not drop in for an after-loss; Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow, From you have I been absent in the spring, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: 1 Vinegar. Within his bending sickle's compass come; I never writ, nor no man ever loved. [Selections from Shakspeare's Songs.] [From As you like it."] Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind, As man's ingratitude! Thy tooth is not so keen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh, ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly, This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Though thou the waters warp, [At the end of 'Love's Labour Lost."] And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And milk comes frozen home in pail; Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, And Marion's nose looks red and raw; Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, 107 And be you blithe and bonny; Sing no more ditties, sing no more Since summer first was leavy. [In 'Cymbeline.'] Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages: To thee the reed is as the oak. The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor th' all-dreaded thunder stone; Fear not slander, censure rash, Thou hast finished joy and moan. No exorciser harm thee ! SIR JOHN DAVIES (1570-1626), an English barrister, at one time Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, was the author of a long philosophical poem, On the Soul of Man and the Immortality thereof, supposed to have been written in 1598, and one of the earliest poems of that kind in our language. Davies is a profound thinker and close reasoner : in the happier parts of his poem,' says Campbell, 'we come to logical truths so well illustrated by ingenious similes, that we know not whether to call the thoughts more poetically or philosophically just. The judgment and fancy are reconciled, and the imagery of the poem seems to start more vividly from the surrounding shades of abstraction.' The versification of the poem (long quatrains) was afterwards copied by Davenant and Dryden. Mr Southey has remarked that Sir John Davies and Sir William Davenant, avoiding equally the opposite faults of too artificial and too careless a style, wrote in numbers which, for precision, and clearness, and felicity, and strength, have never been surpassed.' The compact structure of Davies's verse is indeed remarkable for his times. In another production, entitled Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing, in a Dialogue between Penelope and One of her Wooers, he is much more fanciful. He there represents Penelope as declining to dance with Antinous, and the latter as proceeding to lecture her upon the antiquity of that elegant exercise, the merits of which he describes in verses partaking, as has been justly remarked, of the flexibility and grace of the subject. The following is one of the most imaginative passages: [The Dancing of the Air.] And now behold your tender nurse, the air, Now in, now out, in time and measure true; And thou, sweet Music, dancing's only life, The soft mind's paradise, the sick mind's leech, With thine own tongue thou trees and stones can teach, That when the air doth dance her finest measure, Lastly, where keep the Winds their revelry, Where she herself is turn'd a hundred ways, Afterwards, the poet alludes to the tidal influence of the moon, and the passage is highly poetical in ex pression: For lo, the sea that fleets about the land, And like a girdle clips her solid waist, Music and measure both doth understand: For his great crystal eye is always cast Up to the moon, and on her fixed fast: And as she danceth in her pallid spheres So danceth he about the centre here. |