Of the same class as Herrick, less buoyant or vigorous in natural power, and much less fortunate in his destiny, was RICHARD LOVELACE (1618-1658). This cavalier poet was well descended, being the son of Sir William Lovelace, knight. He was educated at Oxford, and afterwards presented at court. Anthony Wood describes him at the age of sixteen, ‘as the most amiable and beautiful person that eye ever beheld; a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment, which made him then, but especially after, when he retired to the great city, much admired and adored by the female sex.' Thus personally distinguished, and a royalist in principle, Lovelace was chosen by the county of Kent to deliver a petition to the House of Commons, praying that the king might be restored to his rights, and the government settled. The Long Parliament was then in the ascendant, and Lovelace was thrown into prison for his boldness. He was liberated on heavy bail, but spent his fortune in fruitless efforts to succour the royal cause. He afterwards served in the French army, and was wounded at Dunkirk. Returning in 1648, he was again imprisoned. To beguile the time of his confinement, he collected his poems, and published them in 1649, under the title of Lucasta: Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c. &c. The general title was given them on account of the lady of his love,' Miss Lucy Sacheverell, whom he usually called Lux Casta. This was an unfortunate attachment; for the lady, hearing that Lovelace died of his wounds at Dunkirk, married another person. From this time the course of the poet was downward. The ascendant party did, indeed, release his person, when the death of the king had left them the less to fear from their opponents; but Lovelace was now penniless, and the reputation of a broken cavalier was no passport to better circumstances. It appears that, oppressed with want and melancholy, the gallant Lovelace fell into a consumption. Wood relates that he became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity, went in ragged clothes, and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places,' in one of which, situated in a miserable alley near Shoe Lane, he died in 1658. What a contrast to the gay and splendid scenes of his youth! Aubrey confirms the statement of Wood as to the reverse of fortune; but recent inquiries have rather tended to throw discredit on those pictures of the extreme misery of the poet. Destitute, however, he no doubt was, 'fallen from his high estate;' though not perhaps so low as to die an example of abject poverty and misery. The poetry of Lovelace, like his life, was very unequal. There is a spirit and nobleness in some of his verses and sentiments, that charms the reader, as much as his gallant bearing and fine person captivated the fair. In general, however, they are affected, obscure, and harsh. His taste was perverted by the fashion of the day-the affected wit, ridiculous gallantry, and boasted licen tiousness of the cavaliers. That Lovelace knew how to appreciate true taste and nature, may be seen from his lines on Lely's portrait of Charles I :— See, what an humble bravery doth shine, So sacred a contempt that others show The mind, the music breathing from her face. The noble poet vindicates the expression on the broad ground of its truth and appositeness. He does not seem to have been aware (as was pointed out by Sir Egerton Brydges) that Lovelace first employed the same illustration, in a song of Orpheus, lamenting the death of his wife : Oh, could you view the melody Song. Why should you swear I am forsworn, And 'twas last night I swore to thee Have I not lov'd thee much and long, By others may be found; Like skilful mineralists that sound The Rose. Sweet, serene, sky-like flower, From thy long cloudy bed Shoot forth thy damask head. Vermilion ball that's given From lip to lip in heaven; Love's couch's coverlid; Haste, haste, to make her bed. See rosy is her bower, Her floor is all thy flower; Her bed a rosy nest, By a bed of roses prest. Song. Amarantha, sweet and fair, Oh, braid no more that shining hair! Let it fly, as unconfin'd, As its calm ravisher, the wind; Who hath left his darling, th' east, Do not, then, wind up that light But shake your head, and scatter day! To Lucasta, on going to the Wars. Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, True, a new mistress now I chase, And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such, As you, too, shall adore ; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Lov'd I not honour more. To Althea, from Prison. When love with unconfined wings When flowing cups run swiftly round When, linnet-like confined, I Th' enlarged winds, that curl the flood, Stone walls do not a prison make, THOMAS RANDOLPH. THOMAS RANDOLPH (1605-1634) published a collection of miscellaneous poems, in addition to five dramatic pieces. He was born at Newnham, near Daventry, in Northamptonshire, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was early distinguished for his talents, which procured him the friendship of Ben Jonson, and the other wits of the day. Ben enrolled him among his adopted sons; When age hath made me what I am not now, To a Lady admiring herself in a Looking-glass. The thing that men most dote upon. It is to be regretted (for the sake of Davenant, as well as of the world) that the great dramatist did not live to guide the taste and foster the genius of his youthful admirer, whose life presented some strange adventures. About the year 1628, Davenant began to write for the stage, and in 1638, on the death of Ben Jonson, he was appointed laureate. He was afterwards manager of Drury Lane, but, entering into the commotions and intrigues of the civil war, he was apprehended and confined in the Tower. He arterwards escaped to France. When the queen sent over to the Earl of Newcastle a quantity of military stores, Davenant resolved to return to England, and Edinburgh Review, vol. 47. Smooth as the face of waters first appear'd, Dares praise, with such full art, what make you here? That leaves, her cheapest wealth, scarce reach at green; Misled a while from her much injured sphere; Song. The lark now leaves his watery nest, And to implore your light, he sings, Who look for day before his mistress wakes: Awake, awake, break through your veils of lawn! Then draw your curtains and begin the dawn. [Description of the Virgin Birtha.] To Astragon, heaven for succession gave One only pledge, and Birtha was her name, Whose mother slept where flowers grew on her grave, And she succeeded her in face and fame. Her beauty princes durst not hope to use, Unless, like poets, for their morning theme; And her mind's beauty they would rather choose, Which did the light in beauty's lanthorn seem. She ne'er saw courts, yet courts could have undone With untaught looks, and an unpractised heart; Her nets, the most prepar'd could never shun, For nature spread them in the scorn of art. She never had in busy cities been, She fashions him she loved of angels' kind; And therefore perch on earthly things below; Affection turns to faith; and then love's fire 'And you, my alter'd mother, grown above With love's vain diligence of heart she dreams And trusts unanchor'd hopes in fleeting streams. She thinks of Eden-life; and no rough wind In their pacific sea shall wrinkles make; That still her lowliness shall keep him kind, Her ears keep him asleep, her voice awake. She thinks, if ever anger in him sway, (The youthful warrior's most excus'd disease), Such chance her tears shall calm, as showers allay The accidental rage of winds and seas. JOHN CLEVELAND. JOHN CLEVELAND (1613-1658) was equally conspicuous for political loyalty and poetical conceit, and he carried both to the utmost verge. Cleveland's father was rector of a parish in Leicestershire. After completing his studies at Cambridge, the poet officiated as a college tutor, but joined the royal Ne'er warm'd with hopes, nor ere allay'd with fears; army when the civil war broke out. He was the But here her father's precepts gave her skill, In autumn, berries; and in summer, flowers. And droop like flowers when evening shuts her eyes. * Beneath a myrtle covert she does spend, In maid's weak wishes, her whole stock of thought; Fond maids! who love with mind's fine stuff would mend, Which nature purposely of bodies wrought. loudest and most strenuous poet of the cause, and distinguished himself by a fierce satire on the Scots in 1647. Two lines of this truculent party tirade present a conceit at which our countrymen may now smile Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom; Not forced him wander, but confined him home. In 1655, the poet was seized at Norwich, and put in prison, being a person of great abilities, and so able to do the greater disservice.' Cleveland petitioned the Protector, stating that he was induced to believe that, next to his adherence to the royal party, the cause of his confinement was the narrowness of his estate; for none stood committed whose estate could bail them. 'I am the only prisoner,' he says, who have no acres to be my hostage;' and he ingeniously argues that poverty, if it is a fault, is its own punishment. Cromwell released the poor poet, who died three years afterwards in London. Independently of his strong and biting satires, which were the cause of his popularity while living, and which Butler partly imitated in Hudibras, Cleveland wrote some love verses containing morsels of genuine poetry, amidst a mass of affected metaphors and fancies. He carried gallantry to an extent bordering on the ludicrous, making all nature-sun and shade-do homage to his mistress. On Phillis, Walking before Sunrise. To chirp their matins ; and the fan The waken'd earth in odours rise These miracles had cramp'd the sun, The trembling leaves through which he play'd, Lest her full orb his sight should dim, But what new-fashioned palsy's this, JAMES SHIRLEY. Upon his Mistress Sad. Melancholy, hence, and get Echo and Narcissus. [From Narcissus.] Fair Echo, rise! sick-thoughted nymph, awake, Their wings, and sing to the bright sun's uprise: If not the birds, who 'bout the coverts fly, If not the sun, whose new embroidery Makes rich the leaves that in thy arbours are, Favonius waits to play with thy loose hair, JAMES SHIRLEY, distinguished for his talents as a dramatist, published, in 1646, a volume of mis- And help thy flight; see how the drooping grass Courts thy soft tread, thou child of sound and air; cellaneous poems, which, without exhibiting any strongly-marked features or commanding intellect, Attempt, and overtake him; though he be are elegant and fanciful. His muse was not de-Coy to all other nymphs, he'll stoop to thee. based by the licentiousness of the age. The finest production of Shirley, Death's Final Conquest, occurs in one of his dramas. This piece is said to have been greatly admired by Charles II. thoughts are elevated, and the expression highly poetical. The If thy face move not, let thy eyes express Some rhetoric of thy tears to make him stay; |