A History of Elizabethan Literature Part 19

"Better than Best," "Better than better than Best," "Best of All," and the "Real Best." Such language is a little delusive, and when I read the epithets of praise which are sometimes lavished, not by the same persons, on Breton and Watson, I ask myself what we are to say of Spenser and Shakespere.

Davies has no doubt also suffered from the fact that he had a contemporary of the same name and surname, who was not only of higher rank, but of considerably greater powers. Sir John Davies was a Wilts.h.i.+re man of good family: his mother, Mary Bennet of Pyt-house, being still represented by the Benett-Stanfords of Dorsets.h.i.+re and Brighton. Born about 1569, he was a member of the University of Oxford, and a Templar; but appears to have been anything but a docile youth, so that both at Oxford and the Temple he came to blows with the authorities. He seems, however, to have gone back to Oxford, and to have resided there till close of middle life; some if not most of his poems dating thence. He entered Parliament in 1601, and after figuring in the Opposition during Elizabeth's last years, was taken into favour, like others in similar circ.u.mstances, by James. Immediately after the latter's accession Davies became a law officer for Ireland, and did good and not unperilous service there. He was mainly resident in Ireland for some thirteen years, producing during the time a valuable "Discovery of the Causes of the Irish Discontent." For the last ten years of his life he seems to have practised as serjeant-at-law in England, frequently serving as judge or commissioner of a.s.size, and he died in 1626. His poetical work consists chiefly of three things, all written before 1600. These are _Nosce Teipsum_, or the immortality of the soul, in quatrains, and as light as the unsuitableness of the subject to verse will allow; a singularly clever collection of acrostics called _Astraea_, all making the name of Elizabetha Regina; and the _Orchestra_, or poem on dancing, which has made his fame.

Founded as it is on a mere conceit--the reduction of all natural phenomena to a grave and regulated motion which the author calls dancing--it is one of the very best poems of the school of Spenser, and in harmony of metre (the seven-lined stanza) and grace of ill.u.s.tration is sometimes not too far behind Spenser himself. An extract from it may be fitly followed by one of the acrostics of _Astraea_:--

"As the victorious twins of Leda and Jove, (That taught the Spartans dancing on the sands Of swift Eurotas) dance in heaven above, Knit and united with eternal bands; Among the stars, their double image stands, Where both are carried with an equal pace, Together jumping in their turning race.

"This is the net, wherein the sun's bright eye, Venus and Mars entangled did behold; For in this dance, their arms they so imply, As each doth seem the other to enfold.

What if lewd wits another tale have told Of jealous Vulcan, and of iron chains!

Yet this true sense that forged lie contains.

"These various forms of dancing Love did frame, And besides these, a hundred millions more; And as he did invent, he taught the same: With goodly gesture, and with comely show, Now keeping state, now humbly honouring low.

And ever for the persons and the place He taught most fit, and best according grace."

"Each day of thine, sweet month of May, Love makes a solemn Holy Day.

I will perform like duty; Since thou resemblest every way Astraea, Queen of Beauty.

Both you, fresh beauties do partake, Either's aspect, doth summer make.

Thoughts of young Love awaking, Hearts you both do cause to ache; And yet be pleased with aching.

Right dear art thou, and so is She, Even like attractive sympathy Gains unto both, like dearness.

I ween this made antiquity Name thee, sweet May of majesty, As being both like in clearness."

The chief direct followers of Spenser were, however, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, and William Browne. The two first were, as has been said, the cousins of John Fletcher the dramatist, and the sons of Dr. Giles Fletcher, the author of _Licia_. The exact dates and circ.u.mstances of their lives are little known. Both were probably born between 1580 and 1590. Giles, though the younger (?), died vicar of Alderton in Suffolk in 1623: Phineas, the elder (?), who was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge (Giles was a member of Trinity College in the same university), also took orders, and was for nearly thirty years inc.u.mbent of Hilgay-in-the-Fens, dying in 1650.

Giles's extant work is a poem in four cantos or parts, generally ent.i.tled _Christ's Victory and Triumph_. He chose a curious and rather infelicitous variation on the Spenserian stanza _ababbccc_, keeping the Alexandrine but missing the seventh line, with a lyrical interlude here and there. The whole treatment is highly allegorical, and the lusciousness of Spenser is imitated and overdone. Nevertheless the versification and imagery are often very beautiful, as samples of the two kinds will show:--

"The garden like a lady fair was cut That lay as if she slumber'd in delight, And to the open skies her eyes did shut; The azure fields of Heav'n were 'sembled right In a large round, set with the flow'rs of light: The flow'rs-de-luce, and the round sparks of dew, That hung upon their azure leaves did shew Like twinkling stars, that sparkle in the evening blue.

"Upon a hilly bank her head she cast, On which the bower of Vain-delight was built, White and red roses for her face were placed, And for her tresses marigolds were spilt: Them broadly she displayed like flaming gilt, Till in the ocean the glad day were drowned: Then up again her yellow locks she wound, And with green fillets in their pretty cauls them bound.

"What should I here depaint her lily hand, Her veins of violets, her ermine breast, Which there in orient colours living stand: Or how her gown with living leaves is drest, Or how her watchman, armed with boughy crest, A wall of prim hid in his bushes bears Shaking at every wind their leafy spears While she supinely sleeps, nor to be waked fears."

"See, see the flowers that below, Now as fresh as morning blow, And of all the virgin rose, That as bright Aurora shows: How they all unleaved die, Losing their virginity; Like unto a summer shade, But now born and now they fade.

Everything doth pa.s.s away, There is danger in delay.

Come, come gather then the rose, Gather it, or it you lose.

All the sand of Tagus' sh.o.r.e Into my bosom casts his ore: All the valleys' swimming corn To my house is yearly borne: Every grape of every vine Is gladly bruis'd to make me wine, While ten thousand kings, as proud, To carry up my train have bow'd, And a world of ladies send me In my chambers to attend me.

All the stars in Heaven that s.h.i.+ne, And ten thousand more, are mine: Only bend thy knee to me, Thy wooing shall thy winning be."

_The Purple Island_, Phineas Fletcher's chief work, is an allegorical poem of the human body, written in a stanza different only from that of _Christ's Victory_ in being of seven lines only, the quintet of Giles being cut down to a regular elegiac quatrain. This is still far below the Spenserian stanza, and the colour is inferior to that of Giles. Phineas follows Spenser's manner, or rather his mannerisms, very closely indeed, and in detached pa.s.sages not unsuccessfully, as here, where the transition from Spenser to Milton is marked:--

"The early morn lets out the peeping day, And strew'd his path with golden marigolds: The Moon grows wan, and stars fly all away.

Whom Lucifer locks up in wonted folds Till light is quench'd, and Heaven in seas hath flung The headlong day: to th' hill the shepherds throng And Thirsil now began to end his task and song:

"'Who now, alas! shall teach my humble vein, That never yet durst peep from covert glade, But softly learnt for fear to sigh and plain And vent her griefs to silent myrtle's shade?

Who now shall teach to change my oaten quill For trumpet 'larms, or humble verses fill With graceful majesty, and lofty rising skill?

"'Ah, thou dread Spirit! shed thy holy fire, Thy holy flame, into my frozen heart; Teach thou my creeping measures to aspire And swell in bigger notes, and higher art: Teach my low Muse thy fierce alarms to ring, And raise my soft strain to high thundering, Tune thou my lofty song; thy battles must I sing.

"'Such as thou wert within the sacred breast Of that thrice famous poet, shepherd, king; And taught'st his heart to frame his cantos best Of all that e'er thy glorious works did sing; Or as, those holy fishers once among, Thou flamedst bright with sparkling parted tongues; And brought'st down Heaven to Earth in those all-conquering songs.'"

But where both fail is first in the adjustment of the harmony of the individual stanza as a verse paragraph, and secondly in the management of their fable. Spenser has everywhere a certain romance-interest both of story and character which carries off in its steady current, where carrying off is needed, both his allegorising and his long descriptions. The Fletchers, unable to impart this interest, or unconscious of the necessity of imparting it, lose themselves in shallow overflowings like a stream that overruns its bank. But Giles was a master of gorgeous colouring in phrase and rhythm, while in _The Purple Island_ there are detached pa.s.sages not quite unworthy of Spenser, when he is not at his very best--that is to say, worthy of almost any English poet. Phineas, moreover, has, to leave _Britain's Ida_ alone, a not inconsiderable amount of other work. His Piscatory Eclogues show the influence of _The Shepherd's Calendar_ as closely as, perhaps more happily than, _The Purple Island_ shows the influence of _The Faerie Queene_, and in his miscellanies there is much musical verse. It is, however, very noticeable that even in these occasional poems his vehicle is usually either the actual stanza of the _Island_, or something equally elaborate, unsuited though such stanzas often are to the purpose. These two poets indeed, though in poetical capacity they surpa.s.sed all but one or two veterans of their own generation, seem to have been wholly subdued and carried away by the mighty flood of their master's poetical production. It is probable that, had he not written, they would not have written at all; yet it is possible that, had he not written, they would have produced something much more original and valuable. It ought to be mentioned that the influence of both upon Milton, directly and as handing on the tradition of Spenser, was evidently very great. The strong Cambridge flavour (not very perceptible in Spenser himself, but of which Milton is, at any rate in his early poems, full) comes out in them, and from _Christ's Victory_ at any rate the poet of _Lycidas_, the _Ode on the Nativity_, and _Paradise Regained_, apparently "took up," as the phrase of his own day went, not a few commodities.

The same rich borrower owed something to William Browne, who, in his turn, like the Fletchers, but with a much less extensive indebtedness, levied on Spenser. Browne, however, was free from the _genius loci_, being a Devons.h.i.+re man born and of Exeter College, Oxford, by education. He was born, they say, in 1591, published the first part of _Britannia's Pastorals_ in 1613, made many literary and some n.o.ble acquaintances, is thought to have lived for some time at Oxford as a tutor, and either in Surrey or in his native county for the rest of his life, which is (not certainly) said to have ended about 1643. Browne was evidently a man of very wide literary sympathy, which saved him from falling into the mere groove of the Fletchers. He was a personal friend and an enthusiastic devotee of Jonson, Drayton, Chapman. He was a student of Chaucer and Occleve. He was the dear friend and a.s.sociate of a poet more gifted but more unequal than himself, George Wither. All this various literary cultivation had the advantage of keeping him from being a mere mocking-bird, though it did not quite provide him with any prevailing or wholly original pipe of his own. _Britannia's Pastorals_ (the third book of which remained in MS. for more than two centuries) is a narrative but extremely desultory poem, in fluent and somewhat loose couplets, diversified with lyrics full of local colour, and extremely pleasant to read, though hopelessly difficult to a.n.a.lyse in any short s.p.a.ce, or indeed in any s.p.a.ce at all. Browne seems to have meandered on exactly as the fancy took him; and his ardent love for the country, his really artistic though somewhat unchastened gift of poetical description and presentment enabled him to go on just as he pleased, after a fas.h.i.+on, of which here are two specimens in different measures:--

"'May first (Quoth Marin) swains give lambs to thee; And may thy flood have seignory Of all floods else; and to thy fame Meet greater springs, yet keep thy name.

May never newt, nor the toad Within thy banks make their abode!

Taking thy journey from the sea May'st thou ne'er happen in thy way On nitre or on brimstone mine, To spoil thy taste! This spring of thine, Let it of nothing taste but earth, And salt conceived in their birth.

Be ever fres.h.!.+ Let no man dare To spoil thy fish, make lock or wear, But on thy margent still let dwell Those flowers which have the sweetest smell.

And let the dust upon thy strand Become like Tagus' golden sand.

Let as much good betide to thee As thou hast favour shew'd to me.'"

"Here left the bird the cherry, and anon Forsook her bosom, and for more is gone, Making such speedy flights into the thick That she admir'd he went and came so quick.

Then, lest his many cherries should distaste, Some other fruit he brings than he brought last.

Sometime of strawberries a little stem Oft changing colours as he gather'd them, Some green, some white, some red, on them infus'd, These lov'd, these fear'd, they blush'd to be so us'd.

The peascod green, oft with no little toil He'd seek for in the fattest, fertil'st soil And rend it from the stalk to bring it to her, And in her bosom for acceptance woo her.

No berry in the grove or forest grew That fit for nourishment the kind bird knew, Nor any powerful herb in open field To serve her brood the teeming earth did yield, But with his utmost industry he sought it, And to the cave for chaste Marina brought it."

_The Shepherd's Pipe_, besides reproducing Occleve, is in parts reminiscent of Chaucer, in parts of Spenser, but always characterised by the free and unshackled movement which is Browne's great charm; and the same characteristics appear in the few minor poems attributed to him. Browne has been compared to Keats, who read and loved him, and there are certainly not a few points of resemblance. Of Keats's higher or more restrained excellences, such as appear in the finest pa.s.sages of _St. Agnes' Eve_, and _Hyperion_, in the _Ode to a Grecian Urn_, and such minor pieces as _In a Drear-Nighted December_, Browne had nothing. But he, like Keats, had that kind of love of Nature which is really the love of a lover; and he had, like Keats, a wonderful gift of expression of his love.[57] Nor is he ever prosaic, a praise which certainly cannot be accorded to some men of far greater repute, and perhaps of occasionally higher gifts both in his own time and others. The rarest notes of Apollo he has not, but he is never driven, as the poet and friend of his, to whom we next come, was often driven, to the words of Mercury. This special gift was not very common at the time; and though that time produced better poets than Browne, it is worth noting in him. He may never reach the highest poetry, but he is always a poet.

[57] Something of the same love, but unluckily much less of the same gift, occurs in the poems of a friend of Browne's once hardly known except by some fair verses on Shakespere ("Renowned Spenser," etc.), but made fully accessible by Mr. R. Warwick Bond in 1893. This was William Ba.s.se, a retainer of the Wenman family near Thame, the author, probably or certainly, of a quaint defence of retainers.h.i.+p, _Sword and Buckler_ (1602), and of other poems--_Pastoral Elegies_, _Urania_, _Polyhymnia_, etc.--together with an exceedingly odd piece, _The Metamorphosis of the Walnut-Tree of Boarstall_, which is not quite like anything else of the time. Ba.s.se, who seems also to have spelt his name "Bas," and perhaps lived and wrote through the first forty or fifty years of the seventeenth century, is but a moderate poet. Still he is not contemptible, and deserves to rank as a member of the Spenserian family on the pastoral side; while the _Walnut-Tree_, though it may owe something to _The Oak and the Brere_, has a quaintness which is not in Spenser, and not perhaps exactly anywhere else.

The comparative impotence of even the best criticism to force writers on public attention has never been better ill.u.s.trated than in the case of George Wither himself. The greater part of a century has pa.s.sed since Charles Lamb's glowing eulogy of him was written, and the terms of that eulogy have never been contested by competent authority. Yet there is no complete collection of his work in existence, and there is no complete collection even of the poems, saving a privately printed one which is inaccessible except in large libraries, and to a few subscribers. His sacred poems, which are not his best, were indeed reprinted in the Library of Old Authors; and one song of his, the famous "Shall I Wasting in Despair," is universally known. But the long and exquisite poem of _Philarete_ was not generally known (if it is generally known now, which may be doubted) till Mr. Arber reprinted it in the fourth volume of his _English Garner_. Nor can _Fidelia_ and _The Shepherd's Hunting_, things scarcely inferior, be said to be familiar to the general reader. For this neglect there is but one excuse, and that an insufficient one, considering the immense quant.i.ty of very indifferent contemporary work which has had the honour of modern publication. What the excuse is we shall say presently. Wither was born at Brentworth, in the Alresford district of Hamps.h.i.+re (a district afterwards delightfully described by him), on 11th June 1588. His family was respectable; and though not the eldest son, he had at one time some landed property. He was for two years at Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he speaks with much affection, but was removed before taking his degree. After a distasteful experience of farm work, owing to reverses of fortune in his family he came to London, entered at Lincoln's Inn, and for some years haunted the town and the court. In 1613 he published his _Abuses Stript and Whipt_, one of the general and rather artificial satires not unfas.h.i.+onable at the time. For this, although the book has no direct personal reference that can be discovered, he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea; and there wrote the charming poem of _The Shepherd's Hunting_, 1615, and probably also _Fidelia_, an address from a faithful nymph to an inconstant swain, which, though inferior to _The Shepherd's Hunting_ and to _Philarete_ in the highest poetical worth, is a signal example of Wither's copious and brightly-coloured style. Three years later came the curious personal poem of the _Motto_, and in 1622 _Philarete_ itself, which was followed in the very next year by the _Hymns and Songs of the Church_. Although Wither lived until 2d May 1667, and was constantly active with his pen, his _Hallelujah_, 1641, another book of sacred verse, is the only production of his that has received or that deserves much praise. The last thirty years of his long life were eventful and unfortunate. After being a somewhat fervent Royalist, he suddenly changed his creed at the outbreak of the great rebellion, sold his estate to raise men for the Parliament, and was active in its cause with pen as well as with sword. Naturally he got into trouble at the Restoration (as he had previously done with Cromwell), and was imprisoned again, though after a time he was released. At an earlier period he had been in difficulties with the Stationers' Company on the subject of a royal patent which he had received from James, and which was afterwards (though still fruitlessly) confirmed by Charles, for his _Hymns_. Indeed, Wither, though a man of very high character, seems to have had all his life what men of high character not unfrequently have, a certain facility for getting into what is vulgarly called hot-water.

The defect in his work, which has been referred to above, and which is somewhat pa.s.sed over in the criticisms of Lamb and others, is its amazing inequality. This is the more remarkable in that evidence exists of not infrequent retouching on his part with the rather unusual result of improvement--a fact which would seem to show that he possessed some critical faculty. Such possession, however, seems on the other hand to be quite incompatible with the production of the hopeless doggerel which he not infrequently signs. The felicity of language and the command of rhythmical effect which he constantly displays, are extraordinary, as for instance in the grand opening of his first Canticle:--

"Come kiss me with those lips of thine, For better are thy loves than wine; And as the poured ointments be Such is the savour of thy name, And for the sweetness of the same The virgins are in love with thee."

Compare the following almost unbelievable rubbish--

"As we with water wash away Uncleanness from our flesh, And sometimes often in a day Ourselves are fain to wash."

Even in his earlier and purely secular work there is something, though less of this inequality, and its cause is not at all dubious. No poet, certainly no poet of merit, seems to have written with such absolute spontaneity and want of premeditation as Wither. The metre which was his favourite, and which he used with most success--the trochaic dimeter catalectic of seven syllables--lends itself almost as readily as the octosyllable to this frequently fatal fluency; but in Wither's hands, at least in his youth and early manhood, it is wonderfully successful, as here:--

"And sometimes, I do admire All men burn not with desire.

Nay, I muse her servants are not Pleading love: but O they dare not: And I, therefore, wonder why They do not grow sick and die.

Sure they would do so, but that, By the ordinance of Fate, There is some concealed thing So each gazer limiting, He can see no more of merit Than beseems his worth and spirit.

For, in her, a grace there s.h.i.+nes That o'erdaring thoughts confines, Making worthless men despair To be loved of one so fair.

Yea the Destinies agree Some good judgments blind should be: And not gain the power of knowing Those rare beauties, in her growing.

Reason doth as much imply, For, if every judging eye Which beholdeth her should there Find what excellences are; All, o'ercome by those perfections Would be captive to affections.

So (in happiness unblest) She for lovers should not rest."

Nor had he at times a less original and happy command of the rhymed decasyllabic couplet, which he sometimes handles after a fas.h.i.+on which makes one almost think of Dryden, and sometimes after a fas.h.i.+on (as in the lovely description of Alresford Pool at the opening of _Philarete_) which makes one think of more modern poets still. Besides this metrical proficiency and gift, Wither at this time (he thought fit to apologise for it later) had a very happy knack of blending the warm amatory enthusiasm of his time with sentiments of virtue and decency. There is in him absolutely nothing loose or obscene, and yet he is entirely free from the milk-and-water propriety which sometimes irritates the reader in such books as Habington's _Castara_. Wither is never mawkish, though he is never loose, and the swing of his verse at its best is only equalled by the rush of thought and feeling which animates it. As it is perhaps necessary to justify this high opinion, we may as well give the "Alresford Pool" above noted. It is like Browne, but it is better than anything Browne ever did; being like Browne, it is not unlike Keats; it is also singularly like Mr.

William Morris.

"For pleasant was that Pool; and near it, then, Was neither rotten marsh nor boggy fen.