Ply. Why then, dear friend, I thus erect this arm

And will be strong to thee, as thou to me."

262." Our life consists of air, our state of wind,

All things we leave behind us, which we find, Saving our faults.”

These are marvellous plays for their atrocious horrors; one wonders that a scholar should have produced, and Oxford encouraged them. But the author was not wanting in parts of a certain kind.

66

HERRICK.1

PHILLIPS says of Herrick that he was not particularly influenced by any nymph, or goddess, except his maid Pru. That which is chiefly pleasant in these poems, is now and then a pretty flowery and pastoral gale of fancy; a vernal prospect of some hill, cave, rock, or fountain; which, but for the interruption of other trivial passages, might have made up none of the worst poetic landscapes."

Of all our poets this man appears to have had the coarsest mind. Without being intentionally obscene, he is thoroughly filthy, and has not the slightest sense of decency.

"In Herrick the southern spirit becomes again the spirit of the antique. In the very constitution of his imagination he was a Greek -yet he sang in no falsetto key-his thoughts were instinct with the true classical spirit; and it was, as it were, by a process of translation that he recast them in English words. It is to this circumstance that we are to attribute his occasional license. His poetry hardly lay in the same plane with the conventional part of our Protestant morality: but his genius never stagnates near the marsh. In his poetry

we

Recognize that Idyl scene

Where all mild creatures without awe, Amid field flowers and pastures green Fulfil their being's gentle law."

R. M. MILNES. Edinb. Rev. Oct. 1849, p. 414.-J. W. W.

In an old writer, and especially one of that age, I never saw so large a proportion of what may truly be called either trash or ordure.

The reprint of 1825 (250 copies) has❘ in the title-page a wreath with the motto perennis et fragrans. A stinking cabbageleaf would have been the more appropriate emblem. This is a mere reprint, which has faithfully followed all the gross blunders of the original.

P. 8." When laurel spirts in the fire,
and when the hearth

Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth."

60. Farewell to sack-because his head cannot bear it.

62. False teeth used in his time. 70. Some unkind usage from Williams, then Bishop of Lincoln.

93. May-day customs.

97. Endymion Porter, his friend and chief preserver."

109. Welcome to sack.
Frequent allusions to strawberries

cream.

Metre, 116, 137, 241, 247, 278.

136. Love of music.

139. Harvest-home.

150. To Anthea.

Hatred of Devonshire, 154, 201. 156-8. Slovenly rhymes.

d

165. The codpiece served for a pocket. 177. Christmas-" The full twelve holydays."

179. "A man prepared against all ills to

But from thy warm love-hatching gates,
each may

Take friendly morsels, and there stay
To sun his thin-clad members, if he likes,
For thou no porter keep'st who strikes."

233. Even his fairy poems are filthy. Never was any man's mind more thoroughly unclean.

243. "Thou sent'st to me a true-love
knot; but I

Return'd a ring of jimmals,2 to imply
Thy love had one knot, mine a triple tye."
260. Imitation of Ben Johnson-whom
he often imitates.

280. To his Tomb-maker. Certainly his verses are not in accord with the character which he gives himself here.

Vol. 2.

10. To a primrose.

13. "If so be a toad be laid In a sheep-skin newly flaid, And that tied to man. "Twill sever Him and his affections ever."

15. Metre, 158, 211.

23. The Night piece.

30. A bride's household duties announced

to her. Importance of spinning in domestic economy.

58. The bracelet.

60. His return to London. 66. His Grange.

90. Prue's epitaph.

92." Wash your hands, or else the fire
Will not tend to your desire;
Unwasht hands, ye maidens, know
Dead the fire, though ye blow."

122. Charms.

123-4. Candlemass ceremonies. 169. The tears to Thamesis. 171. Twelfth Night.

185. A girl's boarding-school at Pulness. The mistress he calls the reverend rectress

2 See NARES' Gloss. in v. who quotes this passage.-J. W. W.

213. His Litany.

216. The Thanksgiving.

271." The Jews their beds and offices of

ease

Placed north and south, for these clear purposes,

That man's uncomely froth might not molest God's ways and walks, which lie still east

and west."

Herrick has noticed more old customs and vulgar superstitions than any other of our poets, and this is almost the only value of his verses. I question whether any other poet ever thought it worth while to preserve so many mere scraps, and of such very trash.

He seems to have been a man of coarse and jovial temper, who was probably kept by his profession from any scandalous sins, and may have shown some restraint in his life, though there is so very little in his language.

There is not any other of our old poets who so little deserves the reputation which he has obtained.

Herrick is the coarsest writer of his age. Perhaps Habington may deserve to be called the purest.'

Possibly, Southey has been somewhat severe on the verses of Herrick,-and it is one of the very few instances in which (on such a point) I might be inclined to differ with my lamented father-in-law. At all events, like Augustine, Herrick was ready to confess his errors, as ready, perhaps, as Beza or Buchanon, or Donne, whose early verse every well informed reader may call to mind. Certainly from my early years, the coarseness of Herrick grated upon the tympanum, but I cannot forget

HIS PRAYER FOR ABSOLUTION.
"For those my unbaptized rhymes,
Writ in my wild unhallow'd times;
For every sentence, clause, or word,
That's not inlaid with thee, my Lord,
Forgive me, God, and blot each line
Out of my book that is not thine.
But if, 'mongst all, thou find'st here one
Worthy thy benediction,

That one of all the rest shall be
The glory of my work and me."

Vol. ii. p. 202.

SIR WILLIAM DENNY. "PELECANICIDIUM, or the Christian Adviser against self-murder, together with a Guide, and the Pilgrim's Pass to the Land of the Living." 1653.

In the Proœme he says, "Mine ears do tingle to hear so many sad relations, as ever since March last, concerning several persons of divers rank and quality inhabiting within and about so eminent a city, as late-famed London, that have made away and murdered themselves."

"The Author chose rather the quickness of verse, than more prolix prose (with God's blessing first implored) to disenchant the possessed; following divinely-inspired David's example to quiet Saul with the melody of his harp."

In their infancy I taught my children the following

"GRACE FOR A CHILD.
"Here a little child I stand,
Heaving up my either hand:
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to thee,
For a benizon to fall

On our meat, and on us all. Amen."
Ibid. p. 237.

In some sense, certainly, his Noble Numbers are a Palinodia, and there we find him at his own Confessional. As for example, with the Cross and the Book of Books before him :"Thy Crosse, my Christ, fixt 'fore mine eyes sho'd be,

Not to adore that, but to worship thee. So, here the remnant of my days I'd spend, Reading THY Bible, and My Book; so end." Ibid. 249. p. He had learnt, it would seem, with a penitent and contrite heart to look only to

GOD'S BLESSING.

"In vain our labours are, whatsoe're they be, Unless God gives the Benedicite!"-J. W. W.

35. In the Manuduction to the Second Book, he supposes-" thy desperate intentions are diverted, thy fury allayed, and that a more sober temper hath reduced thee to better inclinations by his former verse.” 36. "Taking their Q from his." Metre, 36, 104, 140, 286, 292, 293. 45. "In hill or hyrne?"

70. "Have a care of solitude, if thy thoughts be not good enough to keep thee company."

73." The diamond casements of the sight."

"That innamorata did not doubt but continual suit would mollify his mistress' heart, who presented her the figure of his mind, made in the form of an eye, dropping tears upon a heart, with

BEAUMONT And Fletcher.

1633. "ON Twelfth Night the Queen feasted the King at Somerset House, and presented him with a Play, newly studied, long since printed, the Faithful Shepherdess," which the King's Players acted in the Robes she and her Ladies acted their Pastoral in the last year."- STRAFFORD Letters, vol. 1, p. 177. GARRArd.

Dryden's praise of Beaumont and Fletcher's "Essay of Dramatic Poesy," lxxiv. Plays, vol. 1.

Addison took his Vellum from a characFletcher, vol. 1, p. 294, N.), and a scene in ter in the "Scornful Lady," (Beaumont and

the "School for Scandal" has its seminal hint in the same play.