But the warm sun thaws the benumb'd earth, PHINEAS AND GILES FLETCHER. These brother poets were sons of Dr Giles Fletcher, and cousins of Fletcher the dramatist; both were clergymen, whose lives afforded but little variety of incident. Phineas was born in 1584, educated at Eton and Cambridge, and became rector of Hilgay, in Norfolk, where he died in 1650. Giles was younger than his brother, but the date of his birth has not been ascertained. He was rector of Alderton, in Suffolk, where he died, it is supposed, some years before his brother. deserving of much praise; they were endowed with minds eminently poetical, and not inferior in imagination to any of their contemporaries. But an injudicious taste, and an excessive fondness for a style which the public was rapidly abandoning, that of allegorical personification, prevented their powers from being effectively displayed.' Mr Campbell remarks, They were both the disciples of Spenser, and, with his diction gently modernised, retained much of his melody and luxuriant expression. Giles, inferior as he is to Spenser and Milton, might be figured, in his happiest moments, as a link of connexion in our poetry between these congenial spirits, for he reminds us of both, and evidently gave hints to the latter in a poem on the same subject with Paradise Regained. These hints are indeed very plain and obvious. The appearance of Satan as an aged sire slowly footing' in the silent wilderness, the temptation of our Saviour in the 'goodly garden,' and in the Bower of Vain Delight, are outlines which Milton adopted and filled up in his second epic, with a classic grace and force of style unknown to the Fletchers. To the latter, however, belong the merit of original invention, copiousness of fancy, melodious numbers, and language at times rich, ornate, and highly poetical. If Spenser had not previously written his Bower of Bliss, Giles Fletcher's Bower of Vain Delight would have been unequalled in the poetry of that day; but probably, like his master Spenser, he copied from Tasso. Happiness of the Shepherd's Life. [From the Purple Island.] The works of PHINEAS FLETCHER consist of the Purple Island, or the Isle of Man, Piscatory Eclogues, and miscellaneous poems. The Purple Island was published in 1633, but written much earlier, as appears from some allusions in it to the Earl of Essex. The name of the poem conjures up images of poetical and romantic beauty, such as we may suppose a youthful admirer and follower of Spenser to have drawn. A perusal of the work, however, dispels this illusion. The Purple Island of Fletcher is no sunny spot amid the melancholy main,' but is an elaborate and anatomical description of the body and mind of man. He begins with the veins, arteries, bones, and muscles of the human frame, picturing them as hills, dales, streams, and rivers, and describing with great minuteness their different meanderings, elevations, and appearances. It is admitted that the poet was well skilled in anatomy, and the first part of his work is a sort of lecture fitted for the dissecting room. Having in five cantos exhausted his physical phenomena, Fletcher proceeds No Syrian worms he knows, that with their thread to describe the complex nature and operations of the Draw out their silken lives: nor silken pride: mind. Intellect is the prince of the Isle of Man, and His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need, he is furnished with eight counsellors, Fancy, Me-Not in that proud Sidonian tincture dyed: mory, the Common Sense, and five external senses. The Human Fortress, thus garrisoned, is assailed by the Vices, and a fierce contest ensues for the possession of the human soul. At length an angel interposes, and insures victory to the Virtues, the angel being King James I., on whom the poet condescended to heap this fulsome adulation. From this sketch of Fletcher's poem, it will be apparent that its worth must rest, not upon plot, but upon isolated passages and particular descriptions. Some of his stanzas have all the easy flow and mellifluous sweetness of Spenser's Faery Queen; but others are marred by affectation and quaintness, and by the tediousness inseparable from long-protracted allegory. His fancy was luxuriant, and, if better disciplined by taste and judgment, might have rivalled the softer scenes of Spenser. Thrice, oh thrice happy, shepherd's life and state! GILES FLETCHER published only one poetical production of any length-a sacred poem, entitled Christ's Victory and Triumph. It appeared at Cambridge in 1610, and met with such indifferent success, that a second edition was not called for till twenty years afterwards. There is a massive grandeur and earnestness about Christ's Victory' which strikes the imagination. The materials of the poem are better fused together, and more harmoniously linked in connexion, than those of the Purple Island. Both of these brothers,' says Mr Hallam, are No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright; His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps, [Decay of Human Greatness.] Fond man, that looks on earth for happiness, There screeching satyrs fill the people's empty stedes. shared. Hardly the place of such antiquity, Or note of these great monarchies we find : And empty name in writ is left behind : But when this second life and glory fades, And sinks at length in time's obscurer shades, A second fall succeeds, and double death invades. That monstrous beast, which, nurs'd in Tiber's fen, And that black vulture,2 which with deathful wing Choice nymph! the crown of chaste Diana's train, Upon her brows lies his bent ebon bow, And ready shafts; deadly those weapons show; A bed of lilies flow'r upon her cheek, And in the midst was set a circling rose; To deck his beauteous head in snowy 'tire; As when a taper shines in glassy frame, · [The Rainbow.] [From the Temptation and Victory of Christ. By Giles Fletcher.] High in the airy element there hung Where each new day proclaims chance, change, and But it the earth would water with his rain, death, And life itself 's as flit as is the air we breathe. [Description of Parthenia, or Chastity.] With her, her sister went, a warlike maid, Parthenia, all in steel and gilded arms; In needle's stead, a mighty spear she sway'd, With which in bloody fields and fierce alarms, The boldest champion she down would bear, And like a thunderbolt wide passage tear, Flinging all to the earth with her enchanted spear. Her goodly armour seem'd a garden green, Where thousand spotless lilies freshly blew ; And on her shield the lone bird might be seen, Th' Arabian bird, shining in colours new ; Itself unto itself was only mate; Ever the same, but new in newer date : And underneath was writ 'Such is chaste single state. Thus hid in arms she seem'd a goodly knight, And fit for any warlike exercise: But when she list lay down her armour bright, And back resume her peaceful maiden's guise; The fairest maid she was, that ever yet Prison'd her locks within a golden net, Or let them waving hang, with roses fair beset. That ebb'd and flow'd as wind and season would; [The Sorceress of Vain Delight.] The garden like a lady fair was cut, On which the bower of Vain Delight was built. And with green fillets in their pretty cauls them bound. What should I here depaint her lily hand, Over the hedge depends the graping elm, The roof thick clouds did paint, from which three boys, And all about, embayed in soft sleep, A herd of charmed beasts aground were spread, Once men they liv'd, but now the men were dead, Through this false Eden, to his leman's bower, High over all, Panglorie's blazing throne, A silver wand the sorceress did sway, Such watery orbicles young boys do blow 'Love is the blossom where there blows He burns the fishes in the seas; Not all the skill his wounds can stench,1 Not all the sea his fire can quench; Love did make the bloody spear Once a leafy coat to wear, While in his leaves there shrouded lay Sweet birds, for love, that sing and play: And of all love's joyful flame I the bud and blossom am. Only bend thy knee to me, Thy wooing shall thy winning be. 'See, see, the flowers that below Is gladly bruis'd to make me wine; 1 Staunch. Thus sought the dire enchantress in his mind And all her optic glasses shattered. So with her sire to hell she took her flight (The starting air flew from the damned sprite), thrown into prison. He published various treatises, satires, and poems, during this period, though he was treated with great rigour. He was released, under bond for good behaviour, in 1663, and survived nearly four years afterwards, dying in London on the 2d of May 1667. Wither's fame as a poet is derived chiefly from his Where deeply both aggriev'd plunged themselves in early productions, written before he had imbibed the night. But to their Lord, now musing in his thought, A heavenly volley of light angels flew, And from his father him a banquet brought sectarian gloom of the Puritans, or become embroiled in the struggles of the civil war. A collection of his poems was published by himself in 1622, with the title, Mistress of Philarete; his Shepherds' Hunting, being certain Eclogues written during the time of the author's imprisonment in the Marshalsea, appeared in 1633. His Collection of Emblems, ancient and modern, Quickened with Me All thought to pass, and each was past all thought trical Illustrations, made their appearance in 1635. divine. The birds' sweet notes, to sonnet out their joys, And to the birds the winds attune their noise; That the whole valley rung with victory. GEORGE WITHER. GEORGE WITHER (1588-1667) was a voluminous author, in the midst of disasters and sufferings that would have damped the spirit of any but the most adventurous and untiring enthusiast. Some of his happiest strains were composed in prison: his limbs were incarcerated within stone walls and iron bars, but his fancy was among the hills and plains, with shepherds hunting, or loitering with Poesy, by rustling boughs and murmuring springs. There is a freshness and natural vivacity in the poetry of Wither, that render his early works a 'perpetual feast.' We cannot say that it is a feast where no crude surfeit reigns,' for he is often harsh, obscure, and affected; but he has an endless diversity of style and subjects, and true poetical feeling and expression. Wither was a native of Hampshire, and received his education at Magdalen College, Oxford. He first appeared as an author in the year 1613, when he published a satire, entitled Abuses Stript and Whipt. For this he was thrown into the Marshalsea, where he composed his fine poem, The Shepherds' Hunting. When the abuses satirised by the poet had accumulated and brought on the civil war, Wither took the popular side, and sold his paternal estate to raise a troop of horse for the parliament. He rose to the rank of a major, and in 1642 was made governor of Farnham Castle, afterwards held by Denham. Wither was accused of deserting his appointment, and the castle was ceded the same year to Sir William Waller. During the struggles of that period, the poet was made prisoner by the royalists, and stood in danger of capital punishment, when Denham interfered for his brother bard, alleging, that as long as Wither lived, he (Denham) would not be considered the worst poet in England. The joke was a good one, if it saved Wither's life; but George was not frightened from the perilous contentions of the times. He was afterwards one of Cromwell's majors general, and kept watch and ward over the royalists of Surrey. From the sequestrated estates of these gentlemen, Wither obtained a considerable fortune; but the Restoration came, and he was stript of all his possessions. He remonstrated loudly and angrily; his remonstrances were voted libels, and the unlucky poet was again His satirical and controversial works were numerous, but are now forgotten. Some authors of our own day (Mr Southey in particular) have helped to popularise Wither, by frequent quotation and eulogy; but Mr Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Poets, was the first to point out that playful fancy, pure taste, and artless delicacy of sentiment, which distinguish the poetry of his early youth.' His poem on Christmas affords a lively picture of the manners of the times. His Address to Poetry, the sole yet cheering companion of his prison solitude, is worthy of the theme, and superior to most of the effusions of that period. The pleasure with which he recounts the various charms and the 'divine skill' of his Muse, that had derived nourishment and delight from the 'meanest objects' of external nature-a daisy, a bush, or a tree; and which, when these picturesque and beloved scenes of the country were denied him, could gladden even the vaults and shades of a prison, is one of the richest offerings that has yet been made to the pure and hallowed shrine of poesy. The superiority of intellectual pursuits over the gratifications of sense, and all the malice of fortune, has never been more touchingly or finely illustrated. [The Companionship of the Muse.] [From the Shepherds' Hunting.] With Detraction's breath and thee: As that sun doth oft exhale For, if I could match thy rhyme, And though for her sake I'm crost, That more makes than mends my grief: (Whence she would be driven, too, She could more infuse in me, Than all Nature's beauties can In some other wiser man. By her help I also now Some things that may sweeten gladness, The dull loneness, the black shade, She hath taught me by her might Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, That to nought but earth are born, Let my life no longer be Than I am in love with thee, Though our wise ones call thee madness, If I love not thy madd'st fits And though some, too seeming holy, Do account thy raptures folly, Thou dost teach me to contemn What make knaves and fools of them. Sonnet upon a Stolen Kiss. Now gentle sleep hath closed up those eyes Oh! she may wake, and therewith angry grow! The Stedfast Shepherd. Hence away, thou Syren, leave me, Pish! unclasp these wanton arms; Sugar'd words can ne'er deceive me, (Though thou prove a thousand charms). Fie, fie, forbear; No common snare Can ever my affection chain: And poor deceits, Are all bestowed on me in vain. Thy beauty's ray To some more-soon enamour'd swain: Those common wiles, Of sighs and smiles, Are all bestowed on me in vain. I have elsewhere vow'd a duty; Where gaudy clothes And feigned oaths may love obtain: Whose look swears no, Which on every breast are worn ; |