Donne was much admired, and by nobody more than by Ben Jonson. Of Ben's own songs, the famous one, beginning

"Drink to me only with thine eyes,"

is too well known to need repetition. The first great name of Donne's school was Crashaw-the pious wit who wrote of the holiest subjects in epigrams. But here are two very sweet little stanzas of song by him :

in his "In Memoriam."

Crashaw was a gentle, saintly spirit. He abandoned the Protestant for the Catholic Church, without losing the veneration of his friends, and died at Loretto. Cowley wrote a beautiful poem on his death, and was, indeed, himself one of the same school.

Your Donnes and Crashaws, however, are too weighty

writers to swim. They loaded their works with learning, wit, fancy, cumbrously. Their great reputations have gone down as the "Royal George" did, and only a few adventurers dive occasionally to bring something up from the wreck. We must look at more genial men; at Herrick, Waller, Suckling; the song-writers of the Civil War days. These were more men of the world; men of "wit and pleaMost of the song-writers in that century were Cavaliers; vivacious gentlemen, who, when the King's cause grew desperate, fell with redoubled energy on the bottle. Alexander Brome proceeded, instanter, to call on that old friend for inspiration and consolation, whenever the Royal party suffered a reverse.

sure."

Waller ranks, by general consent, among the earliest improvers of the music of our versification, and there is one song of his so charming, that it appears in almost every collection of merit, from Campbell's "Beauties" downwards.*

"Go, lovely Rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

"Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That hadst thou sprung,

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have un-commended died.

"Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;

*The latest collection of English Songs is that published in the National Illustrated Library, which is very generally accessible, on account of its cheapness.

Herrick has signalised himself by the finest "Anacreontic" in our language. I mean the one beginning,

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may:

Old Time is still a-flying,

And the same flower that blooms to day,
To-morrow will be dying."

Here is a pretty love conceit.

"TO ELECTRA.

"I dare not ask a kiss,
I dare not beg a smile,

Lest having that or this,

I might grow proud the while

"No, no! the utmost share

Of my desire shall be,

Only to kiss that air

That lately kissed thee!"

The most remarkable instances of the wonderful adroitness of his fancy are found in his little poem on Fairies. His fancy was redundant; he speaks of a "coy girl," who

he says

"Strings my tears as pearl."

Herrick's "Hesperides" came out in 1648. There is a freshness about his strains which carries one back to the Shakspearean days. In his views of scenery, in his dalliance with flowers and love thoughts, his truthful poetry alternates between the dashing wit of " Mermaid" talk and the bright freshness of the country.

I scarcely know whether the following lines can be said to constitute " a song." I extract them from that part of the "Hesperides" which is devoted to religious subjects. The original edition of 1648, with its quaint type and spelling, and its dedication to Prince Charles (Herrick was a Royalist), is before me.

I

"THE ROSE.

"Before Man's fall, the Rose was born,
(St. Ambrose says) without the thorn;
But for man's fault then was the thorn
Without the fragrant rose-bud-born,
But ne'er the rose without the thorn."

pass by the songs, which we all know, of the great intellect of the century; the song which calls "Echo" from the haunts of the "love-lorn nightingale," &c.; the song which summons "Sabrina fair" from the "glassy, cool, translucent wave," wherein she shall be seen for ever. No one needs now to be told of them.

Dryden has not left us a good song in all his family of volumes. His songs are of the Sham-Pastoral School. Here is a very characteristic one by Sir John Suckling, the convivial, sincere, and stanch royalist, who raised a troop of horse for the King at his own expense. It represents very well the tone of his school-easy, flippant-not ungentlemanly, but not very exalted.

"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prythee, why so pale?

Will, when looking well can't move her,

Looking ill prevail?

Prythee, why so pale ?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Prythee, why so mute!

Will, when speaking well can't win her,

Saying nothing do't?

Prythee, why so mute ?

Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move,

This cannot take her;

If, of herself, she will not love,

Nothing can make her;

The devil take her !"

While Suckling and Dryden wrote, translations from the classics had been going on. Most gentlemen of literary tastes tried their hands at turning out versions of Anacreon, Horace, or Catullus. "Coelia" and "Chloris" are the prevailing names of the period. And there is always visible the tendency to make wit take the place of heart, which corrupts all writing, and that of songs particularly.

This tendency advanced. In Congreve, the song became a mere epigram. Parnell hammered away at "Cœlia" and "Anacreontics." The songs of Anne's time were not inspired melodies, like the old Shakspearean ones; nor deep fantastic love-rhymes, like Donne's and Cowley's; nor gay pagan flights of Epicureanism, like the songs of the Cavalier days. They were wretched pieces of rhymed artificial sentiment. Gay's are witty enough, and his "Blackeyed Susan" has nature in it, as Gay himself had, but is an