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triumph which is not the less glorious because hidden from
the profane eyes of the multitude. But in this view even the
metaphysical verse of Cowley is but evidence of the
simplicity and single-heartedness of the man. And he was in
this but a type of his school for we may as well designate in
this way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound
up in the volume before us, and throughout all of whom there
runs a very perceptible general character. They used little art
in composition. Their writings sprang immediately from the
soul and partook intensely of that soul's nature. Nor is it
difficult to perceive the tendency of this abandon to elevate
immeasurably all the energies of mind but, again, so to
mingle the greatest possible fire, force, delicacy, and all good
things, with the lowest possible bathos, baldness, and
imbecility, as to render it not a matter of doubt that the
average results of mind in such a school will be found inferior
to those results in one (ceteris paribus) more artificial.
We can not bring ourselves to believe that the selections of
the Book of Gems are such as will impart to a poetical
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reader the clearest possible idea of the beauty of the school
but if the intention had been merely to show the school's
character, the attempt might have been considered successful
in the highest degree. There are long passages now before us
of the most despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond
that of their antiquity.. The criticisms of the editor do not
particularly please us. His enthusiasm is too general and too
vivid not to be false. His opinion, for example, of Sir Henry
Wotton's Verses on the Queen of Bohemia" that there are
few finer things in our language, is untenable and absurd.
In such lines we can perceive not one of those higher
attributes of Poesy which belong to her in all circumstances
and throughout all time. Here every thing is art, nakedly, or
but awkwardly concealed. No prepossession for the mere
antique (and in this case we can imagine no other
prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred
name of poetry, a series, such as this, of elaborate and
threadbare compliments, stitched, apparently, together,
without fancy, without plausibility, and without even an
attempt at adaptation.
In common with all the world, we have been much
delighted with The Shepherd's Hunting by Withers a poem
partaking, in a remarkable degree, of the peculiarities of Il
Penseroso. Speaking of Poesy the author says:
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least boughs rustleling,
By a daisy whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
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Or a shady bush or tree,
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.
By her help I also now
Make this churlish place allow
Something that may sweeten gladness
In the very gall of sadness
The dull loneness, the black shade,
That these hanging vaults have made
The strange music of the waves
Beating on these hollow caves,
This black den which rocks emboss,
Overgrown with eldest moss,
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight,
This my chamber of neglect
Walled about with disrespect;
From all these and this dull air
A fit object for despair,
She hath taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight."
But these lines, however good, do not bear with them
much of the general character of the English antique.
Something more of this will be found in Corbet's Farewell to
the Fairies! We copy a portion of Marvell's Maiden lamenting
for her Fawn, which we prefer not only as a specimen of the
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elder poets, but in itself as a beautiful poem, abounding in
pathos, exquisitely delicate imagination and truthfulness to
anything of its species:
It is a wondrous thing how fleet
'Twas on those little silver feet,
With what a pretty skipping grace
It oft would challenge me the race,
And when't had left me far away
'Twould stay, and run again, and stay;
For it was nimbler much than hinds,
And trod as if on the four winds.
I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown,
And lilies, that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness;
And all the spring-time of the year
It only loved to be there.
Among the beds of lilies I
Have sought it oft where it should lie,
Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it, although before mine eyes.
For in the flaxen lilies shade
It like a bank of lilies laid;
Upon the roses it would feed
Until its lips even seemed to bleed,
And then to me twould boldly trip,
And print those roses on my lip,
But all its chief delight was still
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