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,

And grief triumphant breaking through each line, How it commands the face! So sweet a scorn Never did happy misery adorn !

So sacred a contempt that others show

To this (o' the height of all the wheel) below;
That mightiest monarchs by this shaded book
May copy out their proudest, richest look.

Lord Byron has been censured for a line in his
Bride of Abydos, in which he says of his heroine-

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
Of every grace,
And music of her face,
You'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye
Than now you hear.

Song.

Why should you swear I am forsworn, Since thine I vow'd to be ?

Lady, it is already morn,

And 'twas last night I swore to thee That fond impossibility.

Have I not lov'd thee much and long,

A tedious twelve hours' space ?
I must all other beauties wrong,
And rob thee of a new embrace,
Could I still dote upon thy face.
Not but all joy in thy brown hair
By others may be found;

But I must search the black and fair,
Like skilful mineralists that sound
For treasure in unplough'd-up ground.

Then, if when I have lov'd my round,
Thou prov'st the pleasant she;
With spoils of meaner beauties crown'd,
I laden will return to thee,
Even sated with variety.

The Rose.

Sweet, serene, sky-like flower,
Haste to adorn her bower:
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,
To wanton o'er that spicy nest.
Every tress must be confest,
But neatly tangled, at the best;
Like a clue of golden thread
Most excellently ravelled.
Do not, then, wind up that light
In ribands, and o'ercloud in night,
Like the sun's in early ray;

But shake your head, and scatter day!

To Lucasta, on going to the Wars.

Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
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
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at my grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses crown'd,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty.

When, linnet-like confined, I
With shriller note shall sing
The mercy, sweetness, majesty,
And glories of my king;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Th' enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do net a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds, innocent and quiet, take
That for an hermitage:
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free;
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

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,
And every wrinkle tells me where the plough
Of Time hath furrow'd, when an ice shall flow
Through every vein, and all my head be snow;
When Death displays his coldness in my cheek,
And I, myself, in my own picture seek,
Not finding what I am, but what I was;
In doubt which to believe, this or my glass;
Yet though I alter, this remains the same
As it was drawn, retains the primitive frame,
And first complexion; here will still be seen,
Blood on the cheek, and down upon the chin:
Here the smooth brow will stay, the lively eye,
The ruddy lip, and hair of youthful dye.
Behold what frailty we in man may see,
Whose shadow is less given to change than he.

To a Lady admiring herself in a Looking-glass.

Fair lady, when you see the grace
Of beauty in your looking-glass;
A stately forehead, smooth and high,
And full of princely majesty;
A sparkling eye no geim so fair,
Whose lustre dims the Cyprian star;
A glorious cheek, divinely sweet,
Wherein both roses kindly meet;
A cherry lip that would entice
Even gods to kiss at any price;
You think no beauty is so rare
That with your shadow might compare;
That your reflection is alone
The thing that men most dote upon.
Madam, alas! your glass doth lie,
And you are much deceived; for I
A beauty know of richer grace,
(Sweet, be not angry) 'tis your face.
Hence, then, O learn more mild to be,
And leave to lay your blame on me:
If me your real substance move,
When you so much your shadow love,
Wise nature would not let your eye
Look on her own bright majesty;
Which, had you once but gazed upon,
You could, except yourself, love none :
What then you cannot love, let me,
That face I can, you cannot see.

10

he distinguished himself so much in the cause of the royalists, that he was knighted for his skill and bravery. On the decline of the king's affairs, he returned to France, and wrote part of his Gondibert. His next step was to sail for Virginia as a colonial projector; but the vessel was captured by one of the parliamentary ships of war, and Davenant was lodged in prison at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight. In 1650, he was removed to the Tower, preparatory to his being tried by the High Commission Court. His life was considered in danger, but he was released after two years' imprisonment. Milton is said to have interposed in his behalf; and as Davenant is reported to have interfered in favour of Milton when the royalists were again in the ascendant, after the Restoration, we would gladly believe the statement to be true. Such incidents give a peculiar grace and relief to the sternness and bitterness of party conflicts. At Talavera, the English and French troops for a moment suspended their conflict, to drink of a stream which flowed between them. The shells were passed across, from enemy to enemy, without apprehension or molestation. We, in the same manner, would rather assist political adversaries to drink of that fountain of intellectual pleasure, which should be the common refreshment of both parties, than disturb and pollute it with the havoc of unseasonable hostilities.'* Milton and Davenant must have felt in this manner, when they waived their political differences in honour of genius and poesy. When the author of Gondibert obtained his enlargement, he set about establishing a theatre, and, to the surprise of all, succeeded in the attempt. After the Restoration, he again basked in royal favour, and continued to write and superintend the performance of plays till his death, April 7, 1668.

The poem of Gondibert, though regarded by Davenant's friends and admirers (Cowley and Waller being of the number) as a great and durable monument of genius, is now almost utterly forgotten. The plot is romantic, but defective in interest; and its

neys between London and Stratford. This story was related to Pope by Betterton the player; but it seems to rest on no authority but idle tradition. Young Davenant must, however, have had a strong and precocious admiration of Shakspeare; for, when only ten years of age, he penned an ode, In Remembrance of Master William Shakspeare, which opens in the following strain :

Beware, delighted poets, when you sing,
To welcome nature in the early spring,
Your numerous feet not tread
The banks of Avon, for each flower
(As it ne'er knew a sun or shower)
Hangs there the pensive head.

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

languid and tedious. The critics have been strangely at variance with each other as to its merits, but to general readers the poem may be said to be unknown. Davenant prefixed a long and elaborate preface to his poem, which is highly creditable to him for judgment, taste, and feeling, and may be considered the precursor of Dryden's admirable critical introductions to his plays. His worship of Shakspeare continued unabated to the last, though he was mainly instrumental, by his masques and scenery, in driving the elder bard from the stage. Dryden, in his preface to the Tempest, states, that he did not set any value on what he had written in that play, but out of gratitude to the memory of Sir William Davenant, 'who,' he adds, 'did me the honour to join me with him in the alteration of it. It was originally Shakspeare's a poet for whom he had particularly a high veneration, and whom he first taught me to admire.'

To the Queen,

Entertained at night by the Countess of Anglesey.

Fair as unshaded light, or as the day
In its first birth, when all the year was May;
Sweet as the altar's smoke, or as the new
Unfolded bud, swell'd by the early dew;

Smooth as the face of waters first appear'd,
Ere tides began to strive or winds were heard;
Kind as the willing saints, and calmer far
Than in their sleeps forgiven hermits are.
You that are more than our discreeter fear
Dares praise, with such full art, what make you here?
Here, where the summer is so little seen,
That leaves, her cheapest wealth, scarce reach at green;
You come, as if the silver planet were
Misled a while from her much injured sphere;
And, t' ease the travels of her beams to-night,
In this small lanthorn would contract her light.

Song.

The lark now leaves his watery nest,
And climbing shakes his dewy wings;
He takes his window for the east,

And to implore your light, he sings,
Awake, awake, the moon will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

The merchant bows unto the seaman's star,
The ploughman from the sun his season takes;
But still the lover wonders what they are,

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.]
[From Gondibert.]

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,

Ne'er warm'd with hopes, nor ere allay'd with fears;
Not seeing punishment, could guess no sin;
And sin not seeing, ne'er had use of tears.

But here her father's precepts gave her skill,
Which with incessant business fill'd the hours;
In spring she gather'd blossoms for the still;
In autumn, berries; and in summer, flowers.

And as kind nature, with calm diligence,
Her own free virtue silently employs,
Whilst she unheard, does ripening growth dispense,
So were her virtues busy without noise.

Whilst her great mistress, Nature, thus she tends,
The busy household waits no less on her;
By secret law, each to her beauty bends,
Though all her lowly mind to that prefer.
Gracious and free she breaks upon them all

With morning looks; and they, when she does rise, Devoutly at her dawn in homage fall,

And droop like flowers when evening shuts her eyes.

She fashions him she loved of angels' kind;
Such as in holy story were employ'd
To the first fathers from the Eternal Mind,
And in short vision only are enjoy'd.
As eagles, then, when nearest heaven they fly,
Of wild impossibles soon weary grow;
Feeling their bodies find no rest so high,

And therefore perch on earthly things below;
So now she yields; him she an angel deem'd
Shall be a man, the name which virgins fear;
Yet the most harmless to a maid he seem'd,
That ever yet that fatal name did bear.

Soon her opinion of his hurtless heart,
Affection turns to faith; and then love's fire
To heaven, though bashfully, she does impart,
And to her mother in the heavenly quire.
'If I do love,' said she, 'that love, O Heaven!
Your own disciple, Nature, bred in me;
Why should I hide the passion you have given,
Or blush to show effects which you decree?
'And you, my alter'd mother, grown above
Great Nature, which you read and reverenc'd here,
Chide not such kindness as you once call'd love,
When you as mortal as my father were.'
This said, her soul into her breast retires ;
With love's vain diligence of heart she dreams
Herself into possession of desires,

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 army when the civil war broke out. He was the 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.
The sluggish morn as yet undress'd,
My Phillis brake from out her rest,
As if she'd made a match to run
With Venus, usher to the sun.
The trees (like yeomen of her guard
Serving more for pomp than ward,
Rank'd on each side with loyal duty),
Wave branches to enclose her beauty.
The plants, whose luxury was lopp'd,
Or age with crutches underpropp'd,
Whose wooden carcasses are grown
To be but coffins of their own,
Revive, and at her general dole,
Each receives his ancient soul.
The winged choristers began
To chirp their matins; and the fan
Of whistling winds, like organs play'd
Unto their voluntaries, made
The waken'd earth in odours rise
To be her morning sacrifice;

The flowers, call'd out of their beds,
Start and raise up their drowsy heads;
And he that for their colour seeks,
May find it vaulting in her cheeks,
Where roses mix; no civil war
Between her York and Lancaster.
The marigold, whose courtier's face
Echoes the sun, and doth unlace
Her at his rise, at his full stop
Packs and shuts up her gaudy shop,
Mistakes her cue, and doth display;
Thus Phillis antedates the day.

These miracles had cramp'd the sun,
Who, thinking that his kingdom's won,
Powders with light his frizzled locks,
To see what saint his lustre mocks.
The trembling leaves through which he play'd,
Dappling the walk with light and shade,
(Like lattice windows), give the spy
Room but to peep with half an eve,
Lest her full orb his sight should dim,
And bid us all good night in him:
Till she would spend a gentle ray,
To force us a new-fashion'd day.

But what new-fashioned palsy's this, Which makes the boughs divest their bliss? And that they might her footsteps straw, Drop their leaves with shivering awe; Phillis perceives, and (lest her stay Should wed October unto May, And as her beauty caus'd a spring, Devotion might an autumn bring), Withdrew her beams, yet made no night, But left the sun her curate light.

JAMES SHIRLEY.

JAMES SHIRLEY, distinguished for his talents as a dramatist, published, in 1646, a volume of miscellaneous poems, which, without exhibiting any strongly-marked features or commanding intellect, are elegant and fanciful. His muse was not debased 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. The thoughts are elevated, and the expression highly poetical.

Upon his Mistress Sad.

Melancholy, hence, and get
Some piece of earth to be thy seat,
Here the air and nimble fire
Would shoot up to meet desire:
Sullen humour leave her blood,
Mix not with the purer flood,
But let pleasures swelling here,
Make a spring-tide all the year.

Love a thousand sweets distilling,
And with pleasure bosoms filling,
Charm all eyes that none may find us,
Be above, before, behind us ;
And while we thy raptures taste,
Compel time itself to stay,
Or by forelock hold him fast,
Lest occasion slip away.

Echo and Narcissus.
[From Narcissus.]

Fair Echo, rise! sick-thoughted nymph, awake,
Leave thy green couch, and canopy of trees !
Long since the choristers of the wood did shake
Their wings, and sing to the bright sun's uprise:
Day hath wept o'er thy couch, and, progressed,
Blusheth to see fair Echo still in bed.

If not the birds, who 'bout the coverts fly,

And with their warbles charm the neighbouring air; If not the sun, whose new embroidery

Makes rich the leaves that in thy arbours are,
Can make thee rise; yct, love-sick nymph, away,
The young Narcissus is abroad to-day.

Pursue him, timorous maid: he moves apace;
Favonius waits to play with thy loose hair,
And help thy flight; see how the drooping grass
Courts thy soft tread, thou child of sound and air;
Attempt, and overtake him; though he be
Coy to all other nymphs, he'll stoop to thee.
If thy face move not, let thy eyes express

Some rhetoric of thy tears to make him stay;
He must be a rock that will not melt at these,
Dropping these native diamonds in his way;
Mistaken he may stoop at them, and this,
Who knows how soon? may help thee to a kiss.