NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. OTHER DRAMATISTS. ANTHONY MUNDAY (1553-1633) was said by Meres to be the "best plotter" among the comic poets. Fourteen plays were written either partly or wholly by him. The first of importance was Valentine and Orson, published in 1598. Drayton and others assisted him in Sir John Old castle, which was referred by some to Shakespeare, In 1601 he published Robert Earl of Huntingdon's Downfall, and Robert Earl of Huntingdon's Death, in the last of which he was assisted by Chettle. His writings extended over the period 1580-1621. He died August 10, 1633, and is styled on his monument in St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, "citizen and draper of London." HENRY CHETTLE was a most industrious writer of plays. Thirty-eight are said to bear an impress from his hand. With Haughton and Dekker he produced Patient Grissil in 1603. According to Mr. Collier he wrote for the stage before 1592. only of his plays have been preserved. He wrote too largely to produce works of more than passing interest. Three GEORGE COOKE, produced Green's Tu quoque in 1599, and was the author of fifty epigrams. THOMAS NABBES, wrote in the reign of Charles I. A third-rate poet, but original. None of his dramatic pieces are extant, the chief of which were Microcosmus, Spring's Glory, Bride. Charles the First, a tragedy, and Swetnam, a comedy, are proved not to be his. Nabbes was secretary to some noble or prelate near Worcester. He also wrote a continuation of Knolles's History of the Turks. THOMAS RANDOLPH (1605-1634), born near Daventry. A scholar and poet of some worth, but whose pieces have sunk into an obscurity ill deserved. He studied at Cambridge,, and through too great excess shortened his life, and died at the early age of twenty-nine. His chief plays were The Muses' Looking-glass, and The Jealous Lovers. NATHANIEL FIELD, in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. wrote A Woman's a Weathercock, 1612; Amends for Ladies 1618. JOHN DAY, wrote between 1602 and 1654. Studied at Caius College, Cambridge, was associated with Rowley, Dekker, Chettle, and Marlowe, and is said to have been the subject of the satirical lines on the flight of Day. The chief works were Bristol Tragedy, 1602, Law Tricks, 1608, and the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, 1659. HENRY GLAPTHORNE lived in the reign of Charles I. Winstanley calls him "one of the chiefest dramatic poets of that age." There is much ease and elegance in his verse, but little force and passion. His plays numbered nine, five of which are preserved.. Albertus Wallenstein, 1634, The Hollander, 1640, &c. CHAPTER IX. THE SO-CALLED METAPHYSICAL POETS. A.D. 1600-1700. § 1. Characteristics of the so-called metaphysical poets. § 2. WITHER and QUARLES. § 3. HERBERT and CRASHAW. § 4. HERRICK, SUCKLING, and LOVELACE. § 5. BROWNE and HABINGTON. § 6. WALLER. § 7. DAVENANT and DENHAM. § 8. COWLEY. § 1. THE seventeenth century is one of the most momentous in English history. A large portion of it is occupied by an immense fermentation, political and religious, through which were worked out many of those institutions to which the country owes its grandeur and its happiness. The Civil War, the Commonwealth, the Protectorate, and the Restoration, fill up the space extending from 1630 to 1660, while its termination was signalised by another revolution which, though peaceful and bloodless, was destined to exert a perhaps even more beneficial influence on the future fortunes of the country. In its literary aspect this agitated epoch, though not marked by that marvellous outburst of creative power which dazzles us in the reigns of Elizabeth and her successor, yet has left deep traces on the turn of thought and expression of the English people; and confining ourselves to the department of poetry, and excluding the solitary example in Milton of a poet of the first class, who will form the subject of a separate study, we may say that this period introduced a class of excellent writers in whom the intellect and the fancy play a greater part than sentiment or passion. Ingenuity predominates over feeling; and while Milton owed much to many of these poets, whom I have ventured, in accordance with Johnson, to style the metaphysical class, nevertheless we must allow that they had much to do with generating the so-called correct and artificial manner which distinguishes the classical writers of the age of William, Anne, and the first George. I propose to pass in rapid review, and generally according to chronological order, the most striking names of this department, extending from about 1600 to 1700. § 2. GEORGE WITHER (1588-1667) and FRANCIS QUARLES (15921644) are a pair of poets whose writings have a considerable degree of resemblance in manner and subject, and whose lives were similar in misfortune. Wither took an active part in the Civil War, attained command under the administration of Cromwell, and had to undergo severe persecution and long imprisonment. His most important work is a collection of poems, of a partially pastoral character, entitled the Shepherds' Hunting, in which the reader will find frequent rural descriptions of exquisite fancifulness and beauty, together with a sweet and pure tone of moral reflection. The vice of Wither, as it was generally of the literature of his age, was a passion for ingenious turns and unexpected conceits, which bear the same relation to really beautiful thoughts that plays upon words do to true wit. He is also often singularly deficient in taste, and frequently deforms graceful images by the juxtaposition of what is merely quaint, and is sometimes even ignoble. Many of his detached lyrics are extremely beautiful, and the verse is generally flowing and melodious; but in reading his best passages we are always nervously apprehensive of coming at any moment upon something which will jar upon our sympathy. He wrote, among many other works, a curious series of Emblems, in which his puritanical enthusiasm revels in a system of moral and theological analogies at least as farfetched as poetical. Quarles, though a Royalist as ardent as Wither was a devoted Republican, exhibits many points of intellectual resemblance to Wither; to whom, however, he was far inferior in poetical sentiment. One of his most popular works is a collection of Divine Emblems, in which moral and religious precepts are inculcated in short poems of a most quaint character, and illustrated by engravings filled with what may be called allegory run mad. For example, the text, "Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" is accompanied by a cut representing a diminutive human figure, typifying the soul, peeping through the ribs of a skeleton as from behind the bars of a dungeon. This taste for extravagant yet prosaic allegory was borrowed from the laborious ingenuity of the Dutch and Flemish moralists and divines; and Otto Van Veen, the teacher of Rubens, is answerable for some of the most extravagant pictorial absurdities of this nature. Quarles, however, in spite of his quaintness, is not destitute of the feeling of a true poet; and many of his pieces breathe an intense spirit of religious fervour. In spite of their antagonism in politics, Quarles and Wither bear a strong resemblance: the one may be designated as the most roundhead of the Cavaliers, the other as the most cavalier of the Roundheads. § 3. If Quarles and Wither represent ingenuity carried to extravagance, GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633) and RICHARD CRASHAW (circa 1620-1650) exhibit the highest exaltation of religious sentiment; and are both worthy of admiration, not only as Christian poets, but as good men and pious priests. George Herbert was born in 1593, and at first rendered himself remarkable by the graces and accomplishments of the courtly scholar; but afterwards entering the Church, exhibited, as parish priest of Bemerton in Wiltshire, all the virtues which can adorn the country parson-a character he has beautifully described in a prose treatise under that title. He died in 1632, and was known among his contemporaries as "holy George Herbert." He was certainly one of the most perfect characters which the Anglican Church has nourished in her bosom. His poems, principally religious, are generally short lyrics, combining pious aspiration with frequent and beautiful pictures of nature. He decorates the altar with the sweetest and most fragrant flowers of fancy and of wit. Herbert's poems are not devoid of that strange and perverted ingenuity with which I have reproached Quarles and Wither; but the tender unction which reigns throughout his lyrics serves as a kind of antidote to the poison of perpetual conceits. In his most successful efforts he has almost attained the perfection of devotional poetry, a calm and yet ardent glow, a well-governed fervour which seems peculiarly to belong to the Church of which he was a minister, equally removed from the pompous and childish enthusiasm of Catholic devotion and the gloomy mysticism of Calvinistic piety. His best collection of sacred lyrics is entitled the Temple, or Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. Crashaw's short life was glowing throughout with religious enthusiasm. The date of his birth is not exactly known, but probably was about 1620, and he died, a canon of the Cathedral of Loretto, in 1650. He was brought up in the Anglican Church, and received a learned education at Oxford; but during the Puritan troubles he embraced the Romish faith, and carried to the ancient Church a singularly sensitive mind, very extensive erudition, and a gentle but intense devotional mysticism. He had been employed in negotiation by Charles I., and seems to have possessed among his contemporaries a high reputation for ability. The mystical tendency of his mind was increased by his misfortunes and by his change of religion, and in his later works we find the fervour of his pietism reaching a pitch little short of extravagance. He is said to have been an ardent admirer of the ecstatic writings of St. Theresa; and that union of the sensuous fervour of human affection with the wildest flights of theological rapture which we see in the writings of the great Catholic mystics, is faithfully reproduced in Crashaw. That he possessed an exquisite fancy, great melody of verse, and that power over the reader which nothing can replace, and which springs from deep earnestness, no one can deny. The reader will never regret the time he may have employed in making some acquaintance with Crashaw's poetry, among the most favourable specimens of which I may cite the Steps to the Temple, and the beautiful description entitled Music's Duel, borrowed from the celebrated Contention between a Nightingale and a Musician, composed by Famianus Strada, of which there is a most exquisite imitation in Ford's play of the Lover's Melancholy. § 4. Love, romantic loyalty, and airy elegance find their best re presentatives in three charming poets whose works may be examined under one general head. These are ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674), SIR JOHN SUCKLING (1609-1641), and SIR RICHARD LOVELACE (1618-1658). The first of these writers, after beginning his career among the brilliant but somewhat debauched literary society of the town and the theatre, took orders, and, like Herbert, passed the latter portion of his life in the obscurity of a country parish. Unlike Herbert, however, he continued to exhibit in some of his writings, after this change of life, the same graceful but voluptuous spirit which distinguished his early works; and, unlike the holy pastor of Bemerton, he seems never to have ceased repining at the fate which obliged him to exchange the gay conversation of poets and wits for the unsympathising companionship of the rural "salvages" among whom he was condemned to live. His poems are all lyric, generally songs, upon love and wine; but some are upon sacred subjects. In Herrick we find the most unaccountable mixture of sensual coarseness with exquisite refinement. Like the Faun of the ancient sculpture, his Muse unites the bestial and the divine. In fancy, in genius, in power over the melody of verse, he is never deficient; and it is easy to see that in his union of tenderness with richness of imagination he had been inspired by the lovely pastoral and lyric movements of Fletcher and of Heywood. Suckling and Lovelace are the types of the Cavalier poet both underwent persecution, and were reduced to poverty. Lovelace was long and often imprisoned for his adherence to the loyal doctrines of his party, and is said to have died in abject distress. Both were men of elegant if not profound scholarship, and both exemplify the spirit of loyalty to their king, and gallantry to the ladies. Many of Suckling's love songs are equal, if not superior, to the most beautiful examples of that mixture of gay badinage and tender if not very deep-felt devotion which characterises French courtly and erotic poetry in the seventeenth century; and his thoughts are expressed with that cameo-like neatness and refinement of expression which is the great merit of the minor French literature from Marot to Béranger. But his most exquisite production is his Ballad upon a Wedding, in which, assuming the character of a rustic, he describes the marriage of a fashionable couple, Lord Broghill and Lady Margaret Howard. In this inimitable gem, if we exclude one or two allusions of a somewhat too warm complexion, the reader will find the perfection of grace and elegance, rendered only the more piquant by the well-assumed naïveté of the style. Lovelace is more serious and earnest than Suckling: his lyrics breathe rather devoted loyalty than the half-passionate, halfjesting love-fancy of his rival. Some of his most charming lyrics were written in prison; and the beautiful lines to Althea, composed wher the author was closely confined in the Gate-house at West |