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There are no modern writers, perhaps, who have succeeded better in love-verses than the English; and it is indeed just, that the fairest ladies should inspire the best poets. Never was there a more copious fancy or greater reach of wit than what appears in Dr. Donne; nothing can be more gallant or genteel than the poems of Mr. Waller; nothing more gay or sprightly than those of sir John Suckling; and nothing fuller of variety and learning than Mr. Cowley's. However, it may be observed, that among all these, that softness, tenderness, and violence of passion, which the ancients thought most proper for love-verses, is wanting: and at the same time that we must allow Dr. Donne to have been a very great wit; Mr. Waller a very gallant writer; sir John Suckling a very gay one; and Mr. Cowley a great genius; yet methinks I can hardly fancy any one of them to have been a very great lover. And it grieves me, that the ancients, who could never have handsomer women than we have, should nevertheless be so much more in love than we are. But it is probable the great reason of this may be the cruelty of our ladies; for a man must be imprudent indeed to let his passion take very deep root, when he has no reason to expect any sort of return to it. And if it be so, there ought to be a petition made to the fair, that they would be pleased sometimes to abate a little of their rigour for the propagation of good verse. I do not mean, that they should confer their favours upon none but men of wit, that would be too great a confinement indeed: but that they would admit them upon the same foot with other people; and if they please now and then to make the experiment, I fancy they will find entertainment enough from the very variety of it.

There are three sorts of poems that are proper for love: pastorals, elegies, and lyric verses; under which last, I comprehend all songs, odes, sonnets, madrigals, and stanzas. Of all these, pastoral is the lowest, and, upon that account, perhaps most proper for love; since it is the nature of that passion to render the soul soft and humble. These three sorts of poems ought to differ, not only in their numbers, but in the designs, and in every thought of them. Though we have no difference between the verses of pastoral and elegy in the modern languages, yet the numbers of the first ought to be looser and not so sonorous as the other; the thoughts more simple, more easy, and more humble. The design ought to be the representing the life of a shepherd, not only by talking of sheep and fields, but by showing us the truth, sincerity, and innocence, that accompanies that sort of life for though I know our masters, Theocritus and Virgil, have not always conformed in this point of innocence; Theocritus, in his Daphnis, having made his love too wanton, and Virgil, in his Alexis, placed his passion upon a boy; yet (if we may be allowed to censure those whom we must always reverence) I take both those things to be faults in their poems, and should have been better pleased with the Alexis, if it had been made to a woman; and with the Daphnis, if he had made his shepherds more modest. When I give humility and modesty as the character of pastoral, it is not, however, but that a shepherd may be allowed to boast of his pipe, his songs, his flocks, and to show a contempt of his rival, as we see both Theocritus and Virgil do. But this must be still in such a manner, as if the occasion offered itself, and was not sought, and proceeded rather from the violence of the shepherd's passion, than any natural pride or malice in him. There ought to be the same difference observed between pastorals and elegies, as between the life of the country and the court. In the first, love ought be represented as among shepherds, in the other as among gentlemen. They ought to be smooth, clear, tender, and passionate. The thoughts may be bold, more gay, and more elevated, than in pastoral. The passions they represent, either more gallant or more violent, and less innocent than the others. The subjects of them, prayers, praises, expostulations, quarrels, reconcilements, threatenings, jealousies, and in fine, all the natural effects of love.

Lyrics may be allowed to handle all the same subjects with elegy, but to do it however in a different manner. An elegy ought to be so entirely one thing, and every verse ought so to depend upon the other, that they should not be able to subsist alone; or, to make use of the words of a great modern critic', there must be

...................... a just coherence made

Between each thought, and the whole model laid

So right, that every step may higher rise,

Like goodly mountains, till they reach the skies.

Lyrics, on the other hand, though they ought to make one body as well as the other, yet may consist of parts that are entire of themselves. It being a rule in modern languages, that every stanza

1 Lord Mulgrave.

ought to make up a complete sense without running into the other. Frequent sentences, which are accounted faults in elegies, are beauties here. Besides this, Malherbe, and the French poets after him, have made it a rule in the stanzas of six lines, to make a pause at the third; and in those of ten lines, at the third and the seventh. And it must be confessed, that this exactness renders them much more musical and harmonious; though they have not always been so religious in observing the latter rule as the former.

But I am engaged in a very vain, or a very foolish design: those who are critics, it would be a presumption in me to pretend I could instruct; and to instruct those who are not, at the same time I write myself, is (if I may be allowed to apply another man's simile) like selling arms to an enemy in time of war: though there ought, perhaps, to be more indulgence shown to things of love and gallantry than any others, because they are generally written when people are young, and intended for ladies who are not supposed to be very old; and all young people, especially of the fair sex, are more taken with the liveliness of fancy, than the correctness of judgment. It may be also observed, that to write of love well, a man must be really in love; and to correct his writings well, he must be out of love again. I am well enough satisfied I may be in circumstances of writing of love, but I am almost in despair of ever being in circumstances of correcting it. This I hope may be a reason for the fair and the young to pass over some of the faults; and as for the grave and wise, all the favour I shall beg of them is, that they would not read them. Things of this nature are calculated only for the former. If love-verses work upon the ladies, a man will not trouble himself with what the critics say of them: and if they do not, all the commendations the critics can give him will make but very little amends. All I shall say for these trifles is, that I pretend not to vie with any man whatsoever. I doubt not but there are several now living who are able to write better on all subjects than I am upon any one: but I will take the boldness to say, that there is no one man among them all who shall be readier to acknowledge his own faults, or to do justice to the merits of other people.

POEMS

OF

WILLIAM WALSH.

TO HIS BOOK.

Go, little Book, and to the world impart
The faithful image of an amorous heart.
Those who love's dear deluding pains have known,
May in my fatal stories read their own.
Those who have liv'd from all its torments free,
May find the thing they never felt, by me:
Perhaps, advis'd, avoid the gilded bait,
And, warn'd by my example, shun my fate;
While with calm joy, safe landed on the coast,
I view the waves on which I once was tost.
Love is a medley of endearments, jars,
Suspicions, quarrels, reconcilements, wars;
Then peace again. Oh! would it not be best
To chase the fatal poison from our breast?
But, since so few can live from passion free,
Happy the man, and only happy he,
Who with such lucky stars begins his love,
That his cool judgment does his choice approve.
Ill-grounded passions quickly wear away;
What 's built upon esteem can ne'er decay.

The lawyer, to reward his tedious care,
Roars on the bench, that babbled at the bar:
While I take pains to meet a fate more hard,
And reap no fruit, no favour, no reward.

EPIGRAM.

WRITTEN IN A LADY'S TABLE-BOOK.

WITH what strange raptures would my soul be blest,
Were but her book an emblem of her breast!
As I from that all former marks efface,
And, uncontrol'd, put new ones in their place;
So might I chase all others from her heart,
And my own image in the stead impart.
But, ah! how short the bliss would prove, if he
Who seiz'd it next, might do the same by me!

ELEGY.

THE UNREWARDED LOVER.

LET the dull merchant curse his angry fate,
And from the winds and waves his fortune wait:
Let the loud lawyer break his brains, and be
A slave to wrangling coxcombs, for a fee:
Let the rough soldier fight his prince's foes,
And for a livelihood his life expose:

I wage no war, I plead no cause, but Love's;
I fear no storms but what Celinda moves.
And what grave censor can my choice despise ?
But here, fair charmer, here the difference lies:
The merchant, after all his hazards past,
Enjoys the fruit of his long toils at last;
The soldier high in his king's favour stands,
Aud, after having long obey'd, commands;

ELEGY,

THE POWER OF VERSE.

TO HIS MISTRESS.

WHILE those bright eyes subdue where'er you will,
And, as you please, can either save or kill;
What youth so bold the conquest to design?
What wealth so great to purchase hearts like thine?
None but the Muse that privilege can claim,
And what you give in love, return in fame.
Riches and titles with your life must end;
Nay, cannot ev'n in life your fame defend:
Verse can give fame, can fading beauties save,
And after death redeem them from the grave:
Embalm'd in verse, through distant times they come,
Preserv'd, like bees, within an amber tomb.
Poets (like monarchs on an eastern throne,
Restrain'd by nothing but their will alone)
Here can cry up, and there as boldly blame,
And, as they please, give infamy or fame.

In vain the Tyrian queen' resigns her life,
For the bright glory of a spotless wife,
If lying bards may false amours rehearse,
And blast her name with arbitrary verse;
While one, who all the absence of her lord
Had her wide courts with pressing lovers stor'd,
Yet, by a poet grac'd, in deathless rhymes,
Stands a chaste pattern to succeeding times.
With pity then the Muses' friends survey,
Nor think your favours there are thrown away;
Wisely like seed on fruitful soil they 're thrown,
To bring large crops of glory and renown:
For as the Sun, that in the marshes breeds
Nothing but nauseous and unwholesome weeds,
With the same rays, on rich and pregnant earth,
To pleasant flowers and useful fruits gives birth:
So favours cast on fools get only shame,
On poets shed, produce eternal fame,
Their generous breasts warm with a genial fire,
And more than all the Muses can inspire.

JEALOUSY.

WHO could more happy, who more blest could
live,
[move?
Than they whom kind, whom amorous passions
What crowns, what empires, greater joys could
give,

Than the soft chains, the slavery of Love?
Were not the bliss too often crost

By that unhappy, vile distrust, [ous malady, That gnawing doubt, that anxious fear, that dangerThat terrible tormenting rage, that madness, Jealousy.

In vain Celinda boasts she has been true,

In vain she swears she keeps untouch'd her Dire Jealousy does all my pains renew, [charms; And represents her in my rival's arms: His sighs I hear, his looks I view, I see her damn'd advances too;

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Ye gods! she weeps; behold that falling shower?
See how her eyes are quite dissolv'd in tears!
Can she in vain that precious torrent pour?

Oh, no, it bears away my doubts and fears:
'Twas pity sure that made it flow:
For the same pity, stop it now;

For every charming, heavenly drop, that from those eyes does part,

Is paid with streams of blood, that gush from my o'erflowing heart.

Yes, I will love; I will believe you true,

And raise my passions up as high as e'er;
Nay, I'll believe you false, yet love you too,
Let the least sign of penitence appear.
I'll frame excuses for your fault,

Think you surpris'd, or meanly caught; Nay in the fury, in the height of that abhorr'd embrace,

Believe you thought, believe at least you wish'd, me in the place.

Oh, let me lie whole ages in those arms, And on that bosom lull asleep my cares: Forgive those foolish fears of fancy'd harms, That stab my soul, while they but move thy And think, unless I lov'd thee still, [tears; I had not treated thee so ill; [certain signs For these rude pangs of jealousy are much more Of love, than all the tender words an amorous fancy coins.

Torment me with this horrid rage no more; Oh smile, and grant one reconciling kiss! Ye gods, she's kind! I'm ecstasy all o'er! My soul's too narrow to contain the bliss. Thou pleasing torture of my breast, Sure thou wert fram'd to plague my rest, Since both the ill and good you do, alike my peace destroy;

That kills me with excess of grief, this with excess of joy.

CURE OF JEALOUSY.

WHAT tortures can there be in Hell,
Compar'd to what fond lovers feel,
When, doating on some fair one's charms,
They think she yields them to their rival's arms?

As lions, though they once were tame,
Yet if sharp wounds their rage inflame,
Lift up their stormy voices, roar,
And tear the keepers they obey'd before :

So fares the lover when his breast
By jealous phrenzy is possest;
Forswears the nymph for whom he burns,
Yet straight to her whom he forswears returns.

But when the fair resolves his doubt,
The love comes in, the fear goes out;
The cloud of Jealousy 's dispell'd,
And the bright sun of Innocence reveal'd.

With what strange raptures is he blest!
Raptures too great to be exprest,
Though hard the torment 's to endure,
Who would not have the sickness for the cure?

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