the cavaliers; a spot where Lovelace and Montrose might each have fought and each have sung, defending it to the last loaf of bread and the last charge of powder, and yielding only to the irresistible force of Cromwell's cannonade.

Much interest is imparted to the lays of these cavalier poets, when we consider the circumstances under which they were written. They were no carpet knights, pouring forth effusions of chivalrous loyalty in the security of a Court, or to amuse the leisure of a mild and temporary captivity; but for that very loyalty which they boasted so loudly, Montrose lay under sentence of death, and Richard Lovelace was pining in the crowded and loathsome prison called the Gatehouse at Westminster. Perhaps the fate of the great Marquis was the happier of the two. He fell with the fame and consolations of a martyr, as his master had fallen before him; whilst his brother poet was indeed released by the ascendant party after the death of the King, when the royalists were so scattered and broken as to be no longer formidable; but when at last set free he was penniless; the lady of his love (Lucy Sacheverel), hearing that he had died of his wounds at Dunkirk, was married to another person; and oppressed with want and misery he 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 some alley near Shoe Lane, he died in 1658. What a reverse for one whose gallant bearing and splendid person seem to have corresponded so entirely with the noble and chival

rous spirit of his poetry! Faults and virtues, Richard Lovelace as a man and as a writer, may be taken as an impersonation of the cavalier of the civil wars, with much to charm the reader, and still more to captivate the fair.

TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON.

When love, with unconfinèd 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 confinèd, 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,

The enlarged winds that curl the flood

Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not 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.

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 choose,
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,
Loved I not honour more.

ON LELY'S PORTRAIT OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

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.

An elegant and accurate critic, Sir Egerton Brydges, has pointed out a singular coincidence between an illustration employed by Lovelace and a line for which Lord Byron has been, as it seems to me, unjustly censured in the "Bride of Abydos." The noble poet says of his heroine

"The mind, the music breathing from her face;"

and he vindicated the expression on the obvious

ground of its clearness and truth. Lovelace, in a Song of Orpheus, lamenting the death of his wife, uses the same words in nearly the same sense. Lord Byron had probably never seen the poem, or, if he had, the illustration had perhaps remained in his mind to be unconsciously reproduced by that strange process of amalgamation which so often combines memory with invention. These are the lines sung by Orpheus, who works out the idea too far

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.

The poem of "Loyalty confined" is supposed to have been written by Sir Roger L'Estrange, while imprisoned on account of his adherence to Charles the First. On a first reading, these terse and vigorous stanzas seem too much like a paraphrase of Lovelace's fine address "To Althea from Prison;" but there is so much that is original, both in thought and expression, that we cannot but admit that the apparent imitation is the result of similarity of sentiment in a similar situation. These imprisoned cavaliers think and feel alike, and must needs speak the same language :

Beat on, proud billows. Boreas, blow;

Swell-curled waves, high as Jove's roof;

Your incivility doth show

That innocence is tempest-proof;

Though truly heroes frown, my thoughts are calm;
Then strike affliction, for my wounds are balm.

That which the world miscalls a jail,

A private closet is to me;

Whilst a good conscience is my bail,
And innocence my liberty;
Locks, bars, and solitude together met
Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret.

I, whilst I wish'd to be retir'd,

Into this private room was turn'd, As if their wisdoms had conspired The Salamander should be burn'd;

Or like those sophists, that would drown a fish, Even constrain'd to suffer what I wish.

The cynic loves his poverty,

The pelican her wilderness,

And 'tis the Indian's pride to be

Stoics we see

Naked on frozen Caucasus:
Contentment cannot smart.
Make torments easy to their apathy.

These manacles upon my arm

I, as my mistress' favours, wear;
And for to keep my ankles warm

I have some iron shackles there;
These walls are but my garrison; this cell,
Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel.

I'm in the cabinet lock'd up

Like some high-priced marguerite;
Or, like the Great Mogul or Pope,
Am cloister'd up from public sight.
Retiredness is a piece of majesty,

And thus, proud Sultan, I'm as great as thee.

Here sin, for want of food, must starve
Where tempting objects are not seen ;
And these strong walls do only serve
To keep vice out, and keep me in ;
Malice of late's grown charitable, sure;
I'm not committed, but am kept secure.
VOL. II.