Germany at the time of Gellert, it is by no means new, nor yet of recent existence in our language. Spite of the licentiousness with which Spencer occasionally compels the orthography of his words into a subservience to his rhymes, 5 the whole "Faery Queen" is an almost continued instance of this beauty. Waller's song "Go, lovely Rose," is doubtless familiar to most of my readers; but if I had happened to have had by me the Poems of COTTON, more but far less deservedly celebrated as the author of the" Virgil travestied," Io I should have indulged myself, and I think have gratified many, who are not acquainted with his serious works, by selecting some admirable specimens of this style. There are not a few poems in that volume, replete with every excellence of thought, image, and passion, which we expect or 15 desire in the poetry of the milder muse; and yet so worded, that the reader sees no one reason either in the selection or the order of the words, why he might not have said the very same in an appropriate conversation, and cannot conceive how indeed he could have expressed such thoughts other20 wise, without loss or injury to his meaning. But in truth our language is, and from the first dawn of poetry ever has been, particularly rich in compositions distinguished by this excellence. The final e, which is now mute, in Chaucer's age was either sounded or dropt indif25 ferently. We ourselves still use either beloved or belov'd according as the rhyme, or measure, or the purpose of more or less solemnity may require. Let the reader then only adopt the pronunciation of the poet and of the court, at which he lived, both with respect to the final e and to the 30 accentuation of the last syllable; I would then venture to ask, what even in the colloquial language of elegant and unaffected women, (who are the peculiar mistresses of "pure English and undefiled,") what could we hear more natural. or seemingly more unstudied, than the following stanzas 35 from Chaucer's "Troilus and Creseide"? "And after this forth to the gate he wente, And here I dwel, out-cast from allè joie, And shal, til I maie sene her efte in Troie. "And of himselfe imaginid he ofte To ben defaitid, pale and waxen lesse Than he was wonte, and that men saidin softe, What may it be? who can the sothè gesse, That he had of himselfe suche fantasie. That every wight, that past him by the wey, For which him likid in his songis shewe This song when he thus songin had, ful soon He fell agen into his sighis olde : 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 30 35 And all his sorrowe to the moone he tolde, And every night, as was his wonte to done, 40 And said I wis, whan thou art hornid newe, Another exquisite master of this species of style, where the scholar and the poet supplies the material, but the perfect 5 well-bred gentleman the expressions and the arrangement, is George Herbert. As from the nature of the subject, and the too frequent quaintness of the thoughts, his "Temple : or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations" are comparatively but little known, I shall extract two poems. The first 10 is a Sonnet, equally admirable for the weight, number, and expression of the thoughts, and for the simple dignity of the language. (Unless indeed a fastidious taste should object to the latter half of the sixth line.) The second is a poem of greater length, which I have chosen not only for 15 the present purpose, but likewise as a striking example and illustration of an assertion hazarded in a former page of these sketches: namely, that the characteristic fault of our elder poets is the reverse of that, which distinguishes too many of our more recent versifiers; the one conveying the 20 most fantastic thoughts in the most correct and natural language; the other in the most fantastic language conveying the most trivial thoughts. The latter is a riddle of words; the former an enigma of thoughts. The one reminds me of an odd passage in Drayton's IDEAS: 25 30 "SONNET IX. As other men, so I myself do muse, The other recalls a still odder passage in the "SYNAGOGUE: or The Shadow of the Temple," a connected series of poems in imitation of Herbert's "TEMPLE," and, in some editions, annexed to it. "O how my mind Not a thought, That I can find, But's ravell'd All to nought! Short ends of threds, And narrow shreds Knots, snarled ruffs, Are my torn meditation's ragged clothing, Which, wound and woven, shape a sute for nothing: One while I think, and then I am in pain To think how to unthink that thought again!" Immediately after these burlesque passages I cannot proceed to the extracts promised, without changing the ludicrous tone of feeling by the interposition of the three following stanzas of Herbert's. VIRTUE. "Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; For thou must dye. Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must dye. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A nest, where sweets compacted lie: My musick shews, ye have your closes, THE BOSOM SIN: A SONNET BY GEORGE HERBERT. "Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round, Parents first season us; then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws; they send us bound 5 ΤΟ 15 20 25 30 35 Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, LOVE UNKNOWN. "Dear friend, sit down, the tale is long and sad : To him I brought a dish of fruit one day, (I sigh to say) A stream of blood, which issued from the side And have good cause there it was dipt and dyed, (I sigh to tell) |